Azkaban — July 16, 1997
They were close. Harry could feel it in the way the air itself had gone taut, like the prison was holding its breath.
He crouched on the stone slab the Ministry generously called a "bed"—a thing that had all the charm of a gravestone—and tilted his head toward the narrow window. The sky was bleeding orange into the horizon, the kind of sunset poets would write about if they weren't busy rotting in the cells below him. Nightfall meant visitors. Two groups. Two nightmares with matching terrible timing.
One side wanted to use him.
The other wanted to erase him.
Honestly, Harry wasn't sure which was supposed to be the good one anymore.
He slid back down against the wall, the rough stone biting into his shoulders. He'd long since lost count of the exact number of days he'd been here—thanks, Dementors, very thoughtful—but he estimated around ten months. Ten months since his sixth year imploded spectacularly. Ten months since he learned that apparently, prophecies came with fine print. And ten months since the entire wizarding world collectively unplugged its brain and yeeted him into prison.
He snorted softly. If irony could kill, he'd have murdered everyone from here to Hogsmeade.
Dumbledore had snapped his wand—for "safety," he'd said, though Harry suspected the old man's definition of safety translated to whatever makes my life easier. The Wizengamot trial had been a joke with a laugh track missing. Neville had died in an accident—Harry knew that, knew it—but facts had never stopped the Ministry from inventing a more convenient plotline. Fudge had declared him Voldemort's new protégé, which was hilarious on several levels, not least of which being that Voldemort had tried to kill Harry four separate times before puberty.
But the best betrayal award still went to Ron and Hermione.
That memory had been shoveled into his mind again and again by Dementors until every detail felt carved into his skull. The grass damp under his feet. The shouts. The way his housemates looked at him like he'd tracked filth in on his shoes. Ron's face twisted with vindictive triumph. Hermione's eyes—cold, sharp, and almost relieved—as she held up his photo album like a trophy.
Then the fire.
His entire life going up in smoke while the people who claimed to know him best cheered like they were watching fireworks. Even now Harry didn't grieve; he simmered. Rage was easier to carry than heartbreak.
And Merlin, did it fuel him.
Azkaban should have broken him. That's what it did to people. But his magic—apparently opposed to that idea—had begun to behave in new and completely ridiculous ways. At first it was small: the chill of Dementors felt more like an annoying draft than soul-eating despair. Then he'd started to sense magic flowing through the air like invisible rivers. Then bending it with thought alone.
Harry didn't know if this counted as the "power the Dark Lord knows not," but if so, Voldemort was in for a very unpleasant surprise. Frankly, so was Dumbledore.
He flexed his fingers, feeling the magic hum under his skin, a quiet, obedient beast waiting to be unleashed. The irony wasn't lost on him—Azkaban, the land where magic was supposed to shrivel and die, had turned out to be the only place quiet enough for him to hear what his magic had been screaming all along.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Harry slid immediately into the blank, slack expression he wore for the guards—the vacant stare of someone who'd lost every marble he ever owned. They found it comforting when prisoners looked broken. It made their jobs easier. Bless their tiny, bureaucratic hearts.
Someone was coming.
And soon, both of his enemies would arrive.
He wondered, almost lazily, who'd make it to him first.
And who'd regret it more.
Earlier that same day
#12 Grimmauld Place
Dumbledore looked at the assembled members of the Order, including the two most junior members, Ron and Hermione, who were there in spite of Ms. Weasley's protests. "My sources tell me that Voldemort intends to attack Azkaban tonight, to free the Deatheaters imprisoned there…"
"Potter!" Ron spat. "He's going to release that filthy traitor!"
"I understand that is his intention among other things." Dumbledore told the assembled group. "It will be one of our objectives tonight, along with fifty ministry Aurors, to stop them and capture as many Deatheaters as possible. Our main objective is going to be to prevent Voldemort from getting his hands on Potter."
"Even if we must kill him?" Moody wanted to know.
Dumbledore's mind wandered back for a moment to the first time he'd seen the wide-eyed innocent Harry Potter enter the Great Hall over six years ago. Then his mind just as quickly jumped to the scene of he and Fudge bursting into a third floor room to find Potter standing over the body of Neville Longbottom, wand in hand.