Harry Potter learned, that night, what it felt like to be watched by fate.
The Great Hall had been too loud, too bright, too certain of itself. Firelight danced along the goblet's ancient runes as though mocking him, as though daring the impossible to occur. Harry had sat stiff-backed at the Gryffindor table, fingers clenched around his goblet of pumpkin juice, telling himself, over and over, that this wasn't his year, that he was too young, then Dumbledore had said, "Harry Potter".
The words had fallen into the Hall like a dropped plate. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… inevitable.
For a heartbeat, the world had gone silent. Then it rushed back in, chairs scraping, voices rising, Ron's face draining of colour, Hermione half-rising as if pulled by invisible strings. Harry hadn't moved. He remembered that most clearly afterward: the strange calm that had settled over him, heavy as snowfall. As though something deep inside him had gone very still, listening.
The walk to the front felt unreal. He remembered Dumbledore's eyes, sharp, searching, old beyond reckoning. McGonagall's hand on his shoulder, firm and grounding. The way the Goblet's blue-white flames guttered as if disturbed by his presence.
He had not put his name in.
He had said it. Repeated it. Sworn it.
It had not mattered.
Gryffindor Tower was quiet when he finally returned. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that pressed against the ears. Ron had gone to bed without a word. Hermione had lingered, hovering helplessly, before retreating under the weight of her own questions. Harry had not stopped her.
He lay awake for hours, staring at the canopy of his bed, listening to the distant sigh of the castle settling into sleep. His scar throbbed faintly, not pain, exactly, but pressure. As though something were knocking from the inside.
He felt very young.
And very, very tired.
When sleep finally came, it did not come gently.
At first, Harry thought he was drowning.
His lungs burned with the wrongness of the air, thick and sharp, carrying scents that overwhelmed him, green and wet and alive. He sucked in a breath and choked, rolling onto his side, claws, claws?, scraping against damp soil.
The ground beneath him was warm. Soft with moss. It pulsed faintly, like a living thing.
Harry pushed himself up and froze.
His hands were wrong.
Longer. Blue. Striped with darker bands that caught the faint bioluminescent glow of the forest around him. He stared at them in mute horror, flexing fingers that moved with an unfamiliar grace, tendons sliding smoothly beneath skin that was not his own.
His heart thundered, not in his chest, but deeper, stronger, resonating through a body that felt both alien and right.
He scrambled to his feet, nearly losing balance as his center of gravity shifted. He was taller. Much taller. His vision was sharper, colours richer, the world unfolding in layers of depth he had never known existed. Every sound carried meaning, the rustle of leaves, the distant cry of something vast and unseen, the hum beneath it all, a low vibration that seemed to echo through the ground and into his bones.
"Hello?" he tried to say.
The word came out rough, shaped around a mouth that was not human. The sound startled him into silence.
Panic rose, swift and fierce. This was a dream. It had to be. A stress dream, like the ones he used to have in Privet Drive, except… this felt too solid. Too detailed. He could smell the damp earth, taste the metallic tang of the air. He could feel his heart pounding, the strength coiled in his limbs.
He took a step, and then another, moving instinctively through the undergrowth, ducking branches he had not consciously seen, feet finding purchase where there should have been none. His tail, tail balanced him without thought.
Time stretched.
Hours passed. Or minutes. He could not tell.
Eventually, the panic ebbed, replaced by a wary, exhausted curiosity. The forest did not feel hostile. It watched him, yes, but with the patient attention of something ancient and discerning, not cruel.
He was not alone.
They found him at dawn.
Tall figures emerged soundlessly from the foliage, bows drawn, eyes bright gold and unblinking. Blue skin, like his own. Long braids threaded with beads and feathers. Their faces were fierce, alien, undeniably alive.
Harry's instincts screamed at him to kneel, to lower his gaze, to show he was no threat. He did so without thinking, heart racing.
There was a pause.
Then one of them, a woman, he thought, with sharp cheekbones and eyes like cut amber—tilted her head. She spoke, her voice lilting and musical, words flowing in a language Harry did not know, and yet.
He understood.
Not the words. Not exactly. But the meaning slid into him like memory rather than knowledge.
You do not belong here, she said.
But Eywa has not turned you away.
The forest seemed to breathe.
Harry did not know her name yet. He did not know the name of the people who surrounded him, or the world he had fallen into, or the truth of what he had become.
All he knew was this:
For the first time since his name had risen from the Goblet of Fire, the watching presence inside him eased.
And somewhere far away, in a stone castle beneath a Scottish sky, a boy named Harry Potter slept on, unaware that only a single night was passing, even as an entire lifetime began to unfold beneath alien stars.