The morning of their departure dawned cold and clear, the kind of autumn day that felt like the world holding its breath. Daenerys stood in front of the mirror in the rooms she shared with Harry and her sister-wives at the rebuilt section of Hogwarts, adjusting the collar of her underlayer with fingers that only trembled slightly.
The armor was a masterwork. Basilisk hide—taken from the monster Harry had slain in second year, because waste not, want not—had been carefully treated and layered with spells until it was supple as silk but harder than steel. The goblin-smiths had woven threads of enchanted metal through it in patterns that would turn aside curses and blades alike. Form-fitting, lightweight, designed to be worn beneath formal robes without adding bulk.
And crimson. Deep, blood-red crimson with black accents, because Daenerys had been absolutely immovable on this point.
"House Targaryen colors," she'd informed them when the discussion had started. "Black and red. Fire and blood."
"Very dramatic," Daphne had observed.
"Thank you."
"That wasn't necessarily a compliment."
"I'm choosing to take it as one."
Now, studying herself in the mirror, Daenerys had to admit the effect was striking. The armor hugged her body like a second skin, the red making her pale hair seem even more silver by contrast, the black trim emphasizing the lines of the design. Over it, she would wear formal robes in the same colors—required for their "memorial service"—but underneath, she was dressed for war.
"You look like you're planning to conquer something," Tracey said from the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed. Her own armor was identical in cut but she'd chosen to accent hers with silver threading rather than black. "Which, I suppose, you are."
"We," Daenerys corrected. "We are planning to conquer something. Possibly. If necessary."
"Definitely," Susan said, emerging from the bathroom in her own armor. "Let's not kid ourselves. We're absolutely going to end up conquering something. That's just statistically likely at this point."
"We have a very specific skill set," Fleur agreed, stepping out of the changing area with her usual grace. Her armor fit like it had been painted on, which it essentially had been. The goblins had outdone themselves. "And that skill set seems to involve overthrowing established power structures."
"It's basically our brand now," Gabrielle added. At seventeen, she was the youngest of them, but she wore her armor with the confidence of someone who had bonded with a dragon and fought in a war. "Harry Potter and company: toppling governments since 1991."
"That's not our brand," Harry protested, walking in from the adjoining room where he'd been dressing with considerably less ceremony. His armor was black with red accents—the inverse of Daenerys's—and he looked every inch the warrior he'd been forced to become. "Our brand is... I don't know. Being heroic?"
"By toppling governments," Ron's voice called from the hallway.
"It's a very specific kind of heroism!" Harry called back.
"He has a point," Hermione said, appearing behind Tracey in the doorway. Her armor was the most understated of them all—she'd gone for functionality over flash—but the way she moved in it suggested she'd been practicing. "We do have a rather consistent pattern of dismantling corrupt institutions."
"The Ministry," Neville's voice joined from somewhere down the hall.
"Gringotts," That was definitely Lee Jordan.
"Hogwarts itself, technically," Luna added, her dreamy voice floating through. "When it was being run by Death Eaters."
"Are we listing all the institutions we've toppled?" George asked.
"Because we should make a proper list," Fred continued.
"With rankings," George finished.
"By difficulty or impact?" Hermione called back.
"Why not both?"
Daphne swept into the room like she owned it, which in fairness, she essentially did—her family had donated a considerable sum to the rebuilding. Her armor was a work of art, the red so dark it was almost black, with intricate knotwork along the seams that caught the light.
"If you're quite finished discussing your various acts of institutional destruction," she said archly, "perhaps we could focus on not dying in the next few hours?"
"Where's the fun in that?" Sirius asked, leaning around the doorframe. His armor—because of course he'd insisted on armor—was pure black with blood-red runes etched into the basilisk hide. He looked like a particularly dapper assassin. "Death defiance is our second-most consistent pattern."
"What's the first?" Katie Bell asked.
"Improbable victories through friendship and spite."
"That's surprisingly accurate," Angelina admitted.
The room—and it was rapidly becoming crowded as more people filtered in—devolved into the controlled chaos that seemed to follow their group everywhere. Amelia was adjusting Sirius's collar with the long-suffering patience of someone who loved an impulsive man. Bill was helping Charlie with the fastenings on his armor while Tonks's hair cycled through colors that matched various people's armor schemes. The twins were having an animated discussion about whether they should have added more pockets to their designs.
"You can never have too many pockets," Fred insisted.
"What if you need to carry something?" George agreed.
"Like what?" Hermione asked.
"Things!"
"Stuff!"
"Critical items!"
"Snacks," Fred admitted.
"Mostly snacks," George confirmed.
Ginny appeared in armor that was less form-fitting than the others—she'd specifically requested something she could move in without restriction—and immediately went to inspect everyone else's.
"We look like we're about to storm a castle," she observed.
"We might be," Daenerys said. "Depending on what we find on the other side."
"Your world has castles?" Alicia asked.
"Lots of castles. Practically nothing but castles, actually. And dragons. Well, there used to be dragons. There might not be anymore. It's been three hundred years since the last ones died."
"Until you show up with seven new ones," Lee said.
"And approximately two dozen wizards who can throw magical fire," Luna added serenely.
"We're going to make quite an impression," Harry said dryly.
Daenerys moved to him automatically, the way she always did, drawn by some gravity she'd never quite understood. His hands found her waist and she leaned into him, breathing in the scent that was just *Harry*—soap and magic and that indefinable thing that made him *him*.
"Second thoughts?" he asked quietly, his voice pitched just for her even in the crowded room.
"About fifty thoughts per second," she admitted. "But none of them involve not doing this."
"Good." He pressed a kiss to her temple. "Because I think Hagrid might cry if we cancel now."
She laughed despite herself. Hagrid had been practically vibrating with nervous energy for the past three days, alternating between fierce pride that she was going home and obvious terror that something would go wrong.
"He packed us seventeen different kinds of biscuits," Daenerys said.
"Did he pack the rock cakes?"
"No, I hid those. I love him, but nobody needs rock cakes in an interdimensional invasion."
"They could be weapons."
"Everything's a weapon if you throw it hard enough."
"Now you sound like Professor Moody."
"The real one or the Death Eater pretending to be him?"
"Both, honestly."
Daphne cleared her throat, and the room gradually quieted. She had that effect—the ability to command attention through sheer force of aristocratic expectation.
"Right," she said crisply. "Let's go over this one more time, because I would prefer not to die due to something we forgot to discuss."
"So organized," Susan murmured fondly.
"Someone has to be," Daphne replied. "The memorial service is scheduled for ten o'clock. Sirius—"
"Threw an obscene amount of gold at the Ministry," Sirius confirmed. "They were very accommodating once I mentioned I wanted to endow a permanent memorial fund in honor of everyone who fell. Nothing makes bureaucrats more cooperative than money."
"The Veil chamber will be opened for us at ten," Amelia continued, picking up the thread seamlessly. "We'll have approximately one hour before they expect us to leave."
"Plenty of time to jump through a death portal," Ron said cheerfully.
"Please stop calling it that," Hermione said.
"What should I call it?"
"An interdimensional gateway."
"That sounds much less ominous."
"That's rather the point, Ronald."
"The wards are still up around the chamber," Bill said, his curse-breaker instincts showing. "But according to the schematics I... acquired—"
"Stole," Charlie coughed.
"*Acquired*," Bill continued serenely, "they're designed to keep things from coming *through* the Veil, not to stop things from going *into* it."
"Because that would be crazy," Neville said. "Who would jump into the Veil of Death?"
Every hand in the room went up.
"Right. Us. We would."
"The trunk is already shrunk and warded," Charlie said, patting his pocket. "The dragons are as comfortable as seven apex predators in a magical suitcase can be, which is to say they're grumpy but not actively trying to kill anything."
"Yet," George added.
"Yet," Charlie agreed.
"Luna and I have done as much research as possible," Hermione said, brandishing what appeared to be her twentieth notebook on the subject. "The Veil should theoretically respond to intent. If we're all thinking of the same place when we go through—"
"We should all end up there," Luna finished. "Probably."
"Probably?" Hannah repeated.
"Magic is more art than science," Luna said. "Especially ancient magic involving death and dimensional barriers. But the Veil responded to Sirius being pulled back. It recognized that he belonged on this side. So it stands to reason that it will recognize if we want to be on the other side."
"And if it doesn't?" Tonks asked.
"Then we'll be very dead," Luna said with her usual serenity. "But at least we'll be dead together."
"That's not as comforting as you seem to think it is," Ginny said.
"I thought it was rather nice."
"You would."
Daenerys found herself looking around the room at all of them—her family, cobbled together from war and choice and sheer stubborn refusal to be parted. They were dressed for battle beneath their formal robes, carrying weapons and magic and seven dragons in a trunk, about to commit what was probably treason in multiple jurisdictions.
And they were doing it for her.
"You don't have to do this," she said suddenly, her voice cutting through the planning. "Any of you. I know I've said it before, but I'm saying it again. This is my world, my past, my—"
"Dany," Harry said gently, turning her to face him fully. His green eyes were bright and fierce and absolutely certain. "We've had this argument. You lost."
"I don't remember losing."
"You lose every time you try to make this argument," Daphne said. "We're coming. All of us."
"We literally fought a war together," Susan added. "Did you think we'd stop at dimensional barriers?"
"That would be remarkably inconsistent of us," Fleur agreed.
"We're very consistent," Gabrielle said. "Consistently insane, but consistent."
"Besides," Neville said, grinning in a way that made him look like the boy who'd faced down Voldemort himself, "you think we're going to miss this? New world. New adventures. Possible dragon-related incidents. This is literally the most exciting thing we could possibly do."
"We could set ourselves on fire," Ron suggested.
"Second most exciting thing," Neville amended.
"We're a family," Hermione said simply, and something in her voice made everyone stop and listen. "We've chosen each other, over and over again. That doesn't stop just because you're going home, Dany. It means we're going with you."
Daenerys felt something hot and uncomfortable in her throat. Seven years in this world and she still wasn't entirely used to this—to people who stayed, who chose her, who looked at her and saw someone worth following into the unknown.
"I don't deserve you," she managed.
"Probably not," Sirius agreed cheerfully. "But you're stuck with us anyway. That's how family works."
"Very stuck," Fred confirmed.
"Extremely stuck," George added.
"Permanently, irrevocably, annoyingly stuck," Lee finished.
Hagrid chose that moment to appear in the doorway, and he had to duck to fit through even with the magically expanded frame. He was wearing something that might have been formal robes if formal robes came in tent sizes, and his eyes were already suspiciously shiny.
"Yeh all look so grown up," he said, his voice rough. "Like proper warriors, yeh do."
"Hagrid," Daenerys said, crossing to him. She had to look up quite a ways to meet his eyes, but she'd been doing that since she was eleven and it felt like home. "Are you sure about this? You could stay here. Keep the school running. Take care of the creatures—"
"The creatures'll be fine," Hagrid said firmly. "Professor Grubbly-Plank is comin' back ter take over. An' as fer stayin'..." His massive hand came to rest on her shoulder with surprising gentleness. "Dany, yeh're my daughter in ever'thin' but blood. Been watchin' over yeh since I pulled yeh out o' the lake. Where yeh go, I go. No arguments."
"I wasn't going to argue."
"Good. 'Cause yeh'd lose."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"'Cause it's true."
The grandfather clock in the corner—salvaged from the wreckage and repaired—chimed nine-thirty. Half an hour until they had to leave for the Ministry.
"Right then," Harry said, straightening his shoulders in that way that meant he was about to do something either very brave or very stupid. Usually both. "Everyone ready?"
"Define ready," Hermione said.
"Not panicking," Harry clarified.
"Then no," several people said at once.
"But we're doing it anyway," Ginny added.
"Obviously."
They gathered their things—wands, the trunk with the dragons, various personal items that people had insisted on bringing. Hermione had packed books, naturally. Ron had packed snacks. The twins had packed what they called "emergency supplies" which definitely included illegal fireworks. Neville had brought seeds from various magical plants, just in case.
Daenerys had packed exactly three things: the clothes she'd been wearing when she arrived seven years ago, carefully preserved; a small stone from the Black Lake shore; and a photograph of all of them taken after the war, smiling despite everything, alive despite all the odds against it.
They assembled in the entrance hall, a small army in formal robes with battle-ready armor underneath. Professor McGonagall was there to see them off, looking stern and proud in equal measure.
"I won't pretend to understand what you're doing," she said, her Scottish accent sharp. "Or why. But I trust that you have your reasons, however mad they might be."
"Very mad reasons," Harry confirmed.
"The maddest," Ron agreed.
"But good reasons," Hermione added.
McGonagall's lips twitched in what might have been the ghost of a smile. "You've been good students. Most of you. Some of the time. I expect you to be good... whatever you'll be in this other world."
"Conquerors," Sirius said helpfully.
"Liberators," Amelia corrected.
"Concerned citizens with dragons," Luna offered.
"We'll work it out as we go," Harry said diplomatically.
McGonagall stepped forward and, in a gesture that surprised everyone, pulled Harry into a brief, fierce hug. "Don't die, Potter. Any of you. I've attended quite enough funerals."
"We'll do our best, Professor."
"See that you do."
She stepped back, producing a handkerchief to dab at her eyes. "Now go, before I remember I should be stopping you from doing something this phenomenally foolish."
They went.
---
The Ministry Atrium was exactly as pretentious as Daenerys remembered from the few times she'd been there—all golden gates and enormous fireplaces and that ridiculous fountain that had been destroyed and rebuilt three times in as many years. The new statue depicted a phoenix rising from flames, which was either symbolic or just very on-brand for the Ministry's love of heavy-handed metaphors.
"Subtle," Daphne murmured as they passed it.
"The Ministry doesn't do subtle," Amelia replied. "The Ministry does 'beat you over the head with the symbolism until you cry.'"
The security wizard at the entrance looked up from his desk, saw the assembled group, and immediately looked like he regretted all his life choices.
"Names and business," he said wearily.
"We're here for the memorial service," Sirius said, radiating aristocratic entitlement in a way that suggested he'd been practicing. "In the Department of Mysteries. I believe everything is arranged."
The wizard checked his ledger, checked it again, looked at the sheer number of them, and sighed. "You're all going?"
"It's a memorial," Harry said, projecting innocence. "For everyone who fell. We wanted to honor them together."
The security wizard looked at Harry—the Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Conquered, hero of the wizarding world—and clearly decided this was above his pay grade. "Fine. Wands for inspection."
They presented their wands with practiced ease, though Daenerys noticed several people had backup wands concealed in various creative locations. The security wizard waved his Probity Probe over them, which immediately started smoking and sparking.
"What the—" The wizard stared at the ruined device. "What are you carrying?"
"Emotions," Luna said serenely. "Very intense emotions about memorial services."
"And basilisk hide armor," Tracey added helpfully.
"And seven dragons in a trunk," Gabrielle continued.
"She's joking," Hermione said quickly as the security wizard went pale. "Obviously joking. Who would bring seven dragons to the Ministry?"
"Us," Ron said under his breath.
"Ronald!"
"What? He can't hear me."
The security wizard looked like he wanted to investigate further, but Sirius chose that moment to lean forward and smile in that particular way he had that suggested both wealth and the willingness to make someone's life very difficult.
"Is there a problem?" Sirius asked pleasantly. "Because I'd hate to have to mention to Minister Shacklebolt that we were delayed on our way to a memorial service that I've donated a considerable sum to make possible. I'm sure he'd be very understanding about any... complications."
The wizard swallowed. "No problem, Lord Black. You're all cleared. The Department of Mysteries is level nine."
"We know," several of them said simultaneously.
They crowded into one of the lifts—it was a tight squeeze even with magic—and began their descent. The lift rattled and groaned as it carried them deeper into the Ministry, past level after level of bureaucracy and bad decisions.
"Anyone else feel like we're descending into the underworld?" Katie asked.
"Literally or metaphorically?" Alicia replied.
"Both?"
"Then yes."
The lift chimed at each level. Level Five: Department of International Magical Cooperation. Level Six: Department of Magical Transportation. Level Seven: Department of Magical Games and Sports.
"We could stop and check the Quidditch scores," George suggested.
"Priorities, George," Fred said.
"Right, interdimensional invasion first, Quidditch later."
Level Eight: Atrium. Level Nine: Department of Mysteries.
The doors opened onto a corridor that seemed designed specifically to be unsettling. Black tiles, dim lighting, no windows, and that particular quality of silence that suggested secrets were being kept very deliberately.
An Unspeakable was waiting for them—robes and hood and that sense of studied mystery that the Department cultivated like a particularly pretentious garden.
"Lord Black," the Unspeakable said, voice magically distorted. "Your party is expected. Please follow me."
They followed in a group that was probably too large to be respectful but none of them were willing to be separated now. Down corridors that twisted in ways that didn't quite match the building's footprint. Past doors that hummed with contained magic. Through wards that made Daenerys's skin prickle.
And finally, to a plain black door that Daenerys remembered all too well from the night Sirius had nearly died.
The Unspeakable produced a key, spoke a word that made the air taste of copper and time, and the door swung open.
The Veil chamber was exactly as Daenerys remembered it from the stories—a vast stone amphitheater, concentric rings of steps descending toward a raised platform at the center. And on that platform, ancient and patient, stood the Veil itself.
It was just an archway. That's what always struck people first—how ordinary it looked. Plain stone, worn with age, with a tattered black curtain hanging within it that moved despite the absence of any wind.
But Daenerys could feel the power rolling off it in waves. This was old magic. Death magic. The kind of magic that predated wands and ministries and all the tidy little boxes wizards tried to put the world into.
And somewhere beyond that curtain, between one heartbeat and the next, was the world she'd come from.
"You have one hour," the Unspeakable said, and if they thought it was strange that all twenty-one of them were here, they didn't mention it. "I'll be outside if you need anything."
The door closed behind them with a sound like a coffin lid.
They stood in silence for a long moment, arranged in a semicircle around the amphitheater's edge, staring down at the Veil.
"Last chance to back out," Harry said quietly, though Daenerys could feel the tension in his hand where it gripped hers.
No one moved.
"Right then," Sirius said, his voice echoing oddly in the vast space. "Let's go commit interdimensional treason."
They descended the steps together, moving as one unit the way they'd learned to move in war. Down, down, down, until they stood on the platform itself, close enough to hear the Veil's whispers.
Daenerys had been warned about the whispers. How they sounded like voices of the dead, calling from beyond. How they could drive people mad if they listened too long.
But what she heard, standing there with her hand in Harry's and her family around her, wasn't madness.
It was wind. The kind of wind that swept across the Dothraki Sea in her childhood memories. The sound of waves against a harbor that might have been Pentos or might have been anywhere. And underneath it all, something that might have been dragons roaring.
Or it might have been nothing at all.
"Everyone thinking of Westeros?" Hermione asked, her voice tight with nerves.
A chorus of affirmatives.
"Everyone clear on the plan?" That was Amelia, always practical.
"Jump through the death portal," Fred said.
"Try not to die," George continued.
"Conquer anything that needs conquering," Lee added.
"Install Dany as queen of whatever needs queening," Ginny finished.
"That's not actually the plan," Hermione objected.
"It's close enough," Ron said.
Daenerys squeezed Harry's hand. He looked at her, green eyes bright in the dim light, and smiled that smile that had been her lifeline for seven years.
"Together?" he asked.
"Always," she replied.
And with that—no grand speeches, no dramatic countdowns, just twenty-one people who had chosen each other over and over again—they stepped forward as one and walked through the Veil.
The world went white and silent and impossibly cold.
And then it went somewhere else entirely.
—
The first thing Daenerys noticed was the *wrongness* of the air.
It hit her the moment they tumbled through the Veil—not fresh, not clean, but thick and heavy with something that made her lungs seize up immediately. Around her, she heard gasping, choking sounds as the others landed in various states of grace and dignity. Ron face-planted. The twins somehow landed on their feet. Luna appeared to have simply floated down like a leaf.
"Bubblehead—*charm*—" Hermione gasped out between coughs, her wand already raised despite the fact that she was doubled over and wheezing.
Twenty-one wands moved almost in unison. "*Bullam caputis!*"
The effect was immediate. Clean air flooded into the magical bubbles that formed around each of their heads, and Daenerys sucked in a grateful breath. Then another. Then she opened her eyes properly and looked around.
And felt her heart stop.
"Oh," she said, very quietly. "Oh no."
"What?" Harry was beside her immediately, one hand steadying her elbow. "Dany, what's wrong? Where are we?"
She couldn't answer. Couldn't form the words. Because she knew *exactly* where they were, and it was impossible.
They stood in ruins.
Not the gentle, romantic kind of ruins that suggested ancient glory and the passage of time. These were *angry* ruins. Violent ruins. The kind of destruction that spoke of something so catastrophic that four hundred years later, the land itself still hadn't recovered.
Broken columns thrust up from the ground like accusing fingers, twisted and melted in ways that stone shouldn't be able to twist or melt. Buildings—or what had once been buildings—leaned at impossible angles, their stones fused together into grotesque shapes. The ground beneath their feet was black glass in some places, fractured stone in others, and in the distance, she could see what might have been roads, paved in that distinctive Valyrian style that she'd only ever seen in illustrations.
The sky was the color of old blood, choked with smoke or ash or something worse. No sun visible, just a diffuse red glow that suggested daylight filtered through catastrophe. And in the distance—
"Is that a volcano?" Neville asked, his voice muffled by the Bubblehead Charm but still audible. "Are those *multiple* volcanoes?"
"Fourteen," Daenerys whispered. "The Fourteen Flames."
"The what now?" Ron asked, helping Hermione to her feet.
But Daenerys was turning in a slow circle, taking in the impossible scope of the destruction. She'd heard the stories. Every child of Valyrian blood heard the stories. The Doom of Valyria. The cataclysm that had destroyed the greatest civilization the world had ever known in a single day. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and magic gone catastrophically wrong. They said the Smoking Sea still boiled. That demons walked the ruins. That the very stones were cursed.
They said no one who entered ever returned.
"We're in Valyria," she said, and her voice sounded hollow even to her own ears. "Old Valyria. The Freehold. Or what's left of it."
"Your old civilization?" Hermione asked, pulling out her wand and casting diagnostic spells immediately because of course she did. "The one that fell four hundred years ago?"
"Yes."
"The one you said was completely destroyed and uninhabitable?"
"Yes."
"The one that, if I'm remembering your stories correctly, is now a toxic wasteland that drives people mad and kills them horribly?"
"*Yes*, Hermione, thank you for the recap!"
"Just checking," Hermione said, but her voice was tight with worry. "Because according to my scans, the air isn't just toxic—it's magically toxic. Whatever happened here poisoned the land on a fundamental level. We'd all be dead right now without the charms."
"Lovely," Sirius said, looking around with the air of someone who had seen quite enough cursed locations to last a lifetime. "So we've jumped through the Veil of Death into an actual hellscape. This is par for the course at this point."
"Why are we here?" Harry asked, still holding Daenerys's elbow. "I thought we were aiming for Westeros. Or at least somewhere with people in it."
"We were," Daenerys said, trying to think through her shock. "The Veil responds to intent, that's what Luna said. We were all thinking of my world, of Westeros—"
"But you're Valyrian," Luna interrupted, her dreamy voice cutting through the confusion. "Your blood, your magic, your entire heritage. Perhaps the Veil sensed that. Brought you home to where your people came from, rather than where you've been living."
"That's a rather significant miscalculation," Daphne said dryly, though Daenerys could hear the edge of fear underneath the aristocratic calm.
"We can work with this," Amelia said, immediately falling into the practical problem-solving that had made her a legendary Head of the DMLE. "First priority: shelter. We can't maintain Bubblehead Charms indefinitely. Second: figure out where exactly in this mess we are. Third: get to somewhere less... actively hostile to human life."
"The trunk," Charlie said suddenly. "The dragons. Are they—"
He was already pulling the shrunken trunk from his pocket, carefully enlarging it. The moment it reached full size, sounds erupted from within—roaring, thumping, the distinct noise of seven very unhappy dragons expressing their opinions about interdimensional travel.
"They're alive," Charlie reported. "And furious. But alive."
"Small mercies," Bill muttered, pulling out what looked like a heavily modified Marauder's Map. "Right, let's see if this thing works across dimensions."
"You brought a map?" Tonks asked.
"I brought three maps and a compass that points to the thing you want most," Bill replied. "Never break into a cursed location without proper navigational aids. That's curse-breaking 101."
"What do you want most right now?" Fred asked.
"A way out of this nightmare," Bill said. "But apparently the compass is broken because it's just spinning."
"Or," George said slowly, "there is no way out."
"Not helping, George."
Daenerys forced herself to breathe, to think, to remember everything Viserys had told her about their homeland. It wasn't much—he'd been born after the Doom, had never seen Valyria in its glory—but he'd memorized every scrap of history, every legend, every story.
"The Freehold was vast," she said, pacing across the broken stone. "At its height, it stretched from the Rhoyne to the Jade Sea. Hundreds of cities, each one a center of magic and learning. But the capital—the heart of it all—that was always the city of Valyria itself, built around the Fourteen Flames."
"The volcanoes," Neville said.
"Yes. They used magic to control them, to draw power from the earth itself. Dragon lords ruled from great pyramids. Blood magic was commonplace. They could reshape flesh and stone with equal ease."
"And then something went wrong," Hermione said, still scanning the ruins with her wand.
"Catastrophically wrong," Daenerys agreed. "The Targaryens only survived because Daenys the Dreamer had a prophetic vision and convinced her father to leave for Dragonstone twelve years before the Doom. Most people think she was mad—until the day every volcano erupted at once, the ground split open, and the entire Freehold was destroyed in fire and ash and blood."
"Blood?" Susan repeated.
"The theories vary. Some say the slaves revolted and sabotaged the spells that controlled the Flames. Others say the dragon lords' magic grew too powerful, too unstable. And some..." Daenerys paused, looking at the twisted ruins around them. "Some say they delved too deeply into blood magic and woke something that should have stayed sleeping."
"Brilliant," Ron said. "So we're in a magically poisoned wasteland that may or may not contain angry demons, in a world we don't understand, with no clear way to get to the actual inhabited parts of said world."
"When you put it like that, it sounds bad," Ginny said.
"That's because it is bad!"
"Look on the bright side," Lee offered. "At least nothing's trying to kill us yet."
The ground beneath their feet chose that moment to rumble ominously.
"Lee!" several people shouted at once.
"Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to jinx it!"
Harry had his wand out, green eyes scanning the ruins with the kind of intensity that suggested he was prepared to fight whatever came next. "Defensive formation. Experienced fighters on the outside, everyone else in the middle. If something happens—"
"We know the drill," Neville said, moving to take position. They'd done this enough times during the war that it was almost automatic now. The fighters formed a protective ring while those with specialized skills—Hermione with her analytical magic, Luna with her unique perceptions, Bill with his curse-breaking expertise—stayed in the relative safety of the center.
The rumbling continued, growing louder. The broken stones around them began to shift, grinding against each other with sounds like screaming.
"Is it an earthquake?" Katie asked.
"In a volcanic wasteland, that would be almost refreshing," Bill said, staring at his spinning compass. "But no. The magic signature is wrong. This is something else."
The ash-choked sky above them darkened further, if that was possible. Daenerys felt something crawl across her skin—not pain, not quite, but a sensation of wrongness that made every magical instinct she had learned start screaming warnings.
"Whatever happened here," Luna said quietly, "it's still happening. The Doom isn't over. It's just... paused."
"Can magic do that?" Susan asked. "Can a spell or curse last four hundred years?"
"The Fidelius Charm can last indefinitely," Hermione said. "So can certain types of blood wards. And the Horcrux that was in Harry lasted decades. So theoretically—"
"Theoretically," Amelia interrupted, "we're standing in the middle of the magical equivalent of an unexploded bomb that's been ticking for four centuries."
"That's a terrible metaphor," Hermione said.
"But is it inaccurate?"
Hermione opened her mouth, closed it, and muttered, "No."
Daenerys forced herself to focus. Panic wouldn't help. Neither would dwelling on the impossibility of their situation. They'd faced worse odds before. They'd fought a war and won. They could handle this.
Probably.
"We need to move," she said. "Standing here makes us sitting targets. Bill, which direction looks least cursed?"
Bill consulted his maps, his compass, and what appeared to be a crystal that glowed different colors based on ambient magical contamination. "East," he finally said. "The readings are marginally less horrible to the east."
"Marginally?" Fleur repeated.
"We're in Old Valyria. I'm not promising pleasant. I'm promising survivable."
"East it is then," Harry decided. "Everyone stay close. Wands out. If you see anything even slightly suspicious—"
"Everything is suspicious," Tracey pointed out. "We're in a cursed ruin."
"Then if you see anything *more* suspicious than the baseline level of suspicious, say something."
They began to move, picking their way carefully across the broken landscape. The ground was treacherous—what looked like solid stone might be fused glass that could shatter under weight, or worse, thin crust over something liquid and superheated.
Hagrid, to his credit, moved with surprising delicacy for someone his size. "Reminds me a bit o' the time I went ter Romania ter see Charlie's dragons," he rumbled. "The volcanic fields there. 'Cept this is worse. Much worse."
"At least in Romania, the air doesn't actively try to kill you," Charlie said.
"How long can we maintain the Bubblehead Charms?" Angelina asked.
"Indefinitely with rotation," Hermione said. "We can take turns casting. Three or four of us maintaining charms while the others rest. The magic drain isn't terrible for each individual charm."
"What about the dragons?" Gabrielle asked, worry clear in her voice.
"The trunk is sealed and has its own atmosphere," Charlie assured her. "Newt Scamander doesn't do things halfway. They'll be fine for days, if not weeks."
"Do we have days?" Alicia asked quietly.
No one answered that.
They walked through what had once been streets. Daenerys could tell from the layout, the way the broken stones suggested intentional design. Here had been buildings—she could see the remnants of doorways, of windows, of structures that had soared three or four stories before whatever happened had happened.
And everywhere, everywhere, there were signs of magic gone wrong.
A statue of what might have been a dragon or a person or something in between, frozen mid-transformation. A fountain where the water had turned to black glass while still flowing, creating a frozen cascade. Buildings where the stone had melted and reformed into shapes that hurt to look at, geometries that didn't quite make sense.
"Don't touch anything," Bill warned, his curse-breaker senses clearly going haywire. "The magical contamination is worse than I thought. Some of these objects are still active. Still... doing things."
"What kinds of things?" Ron asked nervously.
"Bad things. Flesh-melting things. Soul-eating things. 'I wish I'd never been born' kinds of things."
"You're very reassuring, you know that?"
"I'm a curse-breaker. Reassuring isn't in my job description. 'Keeping you alive through aggressive paranoia' is in my job description."
Daenerys found herself drawn to one building that was less damaged than the others. It rose above the rubble, a pyramid-style structure that she recognized from Viserys's descriptions. A dragon lord's palace, perhaps, or a temple to one of their many gods.
"That," she said, pointing. "We should try to get there. Height advantage, better view of the area, and if the walls have held this long, it's probably structurally sound."
"Structurally sound is a relative term in Hell," Sirius muttered, but he was already moving toward it.
They climbed over rubble and around obstacles that might have been anything from collapsed buildings to the remains of something that had once been alive. The closer they got to the pyramid, the more details Daenerys could make out.
The stones were black—proper Valyrian dragonstone, fused with magic and dragon fire until they were harder than steel. The carvings that decorated every surface were partially melted but still visible: dragons in flight, fire made solid, figures that were probably meant to be dragon lords or sorcerers or ancient heroes.
"There's writing," Hermione said excitedly, moving closer to the wall. "High Valyrian, I think, but a dialect I don't recognize—"
"Don't read it out loud," Bill and Amelia said simultaneously.
Hermione huffed. "I know better than to read random magical writing in a cursed location. I'm not a first-year."
"You're the same person who fangirled over Lockhart," Ron pointed out.
"I was twelve!"
"Still counts."
The entrance to the pyramid was a massive doorway, at least twenty feet tall, clearly designed for beings who were either much larger than human or just had a flair for the dramatic. The door itself was gone—blown outward, Daenerys noted, the hinges still attached to the frame but the actual door scattered in pieces across the street.
"Something left in a hurry," Neville observed, studying the blast pattern.
"Or something tried to get in," Tonks said darkly.
"You're both terrible at this reassurance thing too," Ginny said.
Inside was darkness. Even with the Lumos charms they cast, the light seemed to die just a few feet ahead, swallowed by shadows that felt unnatural.
"I hate this," Fred said.
"So much," George agreed.
"Like, actively, with the burning passion of a thousand suns, hate this."
"But we're going in anyway?"
"Obviously."
"Just wanted to confirm the plan."
Harry took point, because of course he did. The Boy Who Lived apparently translated to "the Boy Who Walks Into Obvious Danger First." Daenerys moved beside him, drawing her wand and channeling magic through it until the tip glowed bright enough to properly illuminate.
The interior of the pyramid was vast. Their lights revealed a grand entrance hall, the ceiling lost in shadows far above. More carvings covered every surface, and here, protected from the worst of whatever had happened outside, they were better preserved.
Daenerys's breath caught.
She'd seen illustrations, but this—this was *real*. Dragon lords in their full regalia, beautiful and terrible. Scenes of conquest and magic. Images of rituals she didn't recognize, couldn't quite understand, involving circles and flames and what looked like willing sacrifices.
"This is incredible," Hermione breathed, her academic instincts clearly warring with her survival instincts. "This is an intact primary source on Valyrian civilization. Do you know how rare this is? How much we could learn—"
"Later," Harry said gently but firmly. "When we're not in immediate danger of death by mysterious magical contamination, you can document everything. I promise."
"He's right," Daenerys said, though part of her wanted nothing more than to explore, to understand. This was her heritage, her history, the civilization her family had come from. "We need shelter and safety first. Then we can work on getting out of this mess."
They moved deeper into the pyramid, checking rooms as they went. Most were empty, cleaned out either before the Doom or in the chaos after. But some still held artifacts—swords of Valyrian steel, their edges still sharp after four centuries; jewelry that probably had more magic than sense worked into it; books, miraculously preserved, written in High Valyrian script that seemed to writhe under their lights.
"Don't touch the books," Bill warned immediately. "They're probably trapped. Grimoires always are."
"Even after four hundred years?" Susan asked.
"*Especially* after four hundred years. The magic gets angry about being abandoned."
They found what must have once been a central chamber, high in the pyramid where windows—actual intact windows—let in the blood-red light from outside. The room was large enough to hold all of them comfortably, with stone benches around the perimeter and what looked like a ritual circle carved into the floor.
"This will work," Amelia said, immediately moving into organizational mode. "Defensible position, multiple exits, good sight lines. We can set up watches, rest in shifts, and figure out our next move."
"Our next move is getting out of the Smoking Sea," Daphne said, pulling off her formal robes to reveal the crimson and black armor beneath. Around the room, others were doing the same, preparing for whatever came next. "The question is how."
"The dragons," Daenerys said slowly, the idea forming even as she spoke. "We have seven dragons. If we can get them into the air, they can carry us."
"Carry us where?" Tracey asked. "We don't know where we are relative to Westeros. We don't even know if this is the right dimension."
"It is," Luna said with absolute certainty. She was standing by one of the windows, her blonde hair seeming to glow in the weird light. "I can feel it. This is your world, Dany. Your magic recognizes it, even if your mind doesn't want to admit what happened here."
Daenerys joined her at the window, looking out over the ruins. In the distance, the Fourteen Flames burned, fourteen volcanoes arranged in a rough circle, smoke and ash pouring endlessly into the sky.
"My ancestors did this," she said quietly. "Valyrian dragon lords, so confident in their power that they thought they could control the very earth itself. And this is what happened when they pushed too far."
"You're not them," Harry said, moving to stand behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders. "Your magic isn't their magic."
"Isn't it?" She gestured at the ruins. "Blood magic. Dragon magic. That's what destroyed this place. And that's what runs in my veins."
"Magic is a tool," Hermione said firmly. She'd pulled out a notebook and was already taking notes, because apparently not even being trapped in a cursed wasteland could stop her research instincts. "It's not inherently good or evil. It's what you do with it that matters. And you—all of us—we've chosen to use our magic to help people. To fight darkness. That matters."
"Hermione's right," Neville said. "Remember Longbottom Manor? You could have used your dragon to destroy our enemies. Instead, you used it to evacuate the wounded. That's who you are."
Daenerys wanted to believe them. She really did. But standing here, in the ruins of her ancestors' greatest achievement and greatest failure, it was hard not to see herself as part of that same pattern.
"Right," Sirius said, breaking the heavy mood with forced cheerfulness. "Existential crises later. Practical planning now. Hagrid, how are we on supplies?"
Hagrid, who had been unusually quiet, began unpacking one of the expanded bags he'd brought. "Got enough food fer about a week if we're careful. Water fer three days—we can purify more if we find any. Potions fer injuries, illness, an' general calamity. An' seventeen types o' biscuits, because apparently Dany hid the rock cakes."
"Because I love you and want us all to live," Daenerys said.
"Rock cakes aren't that bad," Hagrid protested.
"Hagrid," twenty people said in unison, "they're terrible."
"Yeh're all just ungrateful, that's what yeh are."
The normality of the exchange—the sheer absurd familiarity of it—helped more than any reassurances could have. They were in Hell, yes. Trapped in a cursed wasteland, yes. But they were together, and they'd faced impossible odds before.
"We'll rest here tonight," Harry decided, falling naturally into the leadership role that the war had forced on him. "Set up a watch rotation. Tomorrow, we'll get the dragons out, see if we can scout from above, and figure out which direction gets us to civilization."
"And if we can't?" Katie asked.
"Then we do what we always do," Harry said. "We improvise. We adapt. We survive. And we find a way home."
"Home is Westeros," Ginny said. "We're in the wrong part of the right world."
"Then we'll get to the right part," Harry said simply. "No matter what it takes."
As night fell—or what passed for night in the ash-choked sky—they settled into their makeshift camp. Wards were raised. Watches were assigned. Food was distributed, though no one had much appetite.
Daenerys found herself back at the window, staring out at the burning mountains. Somewhere beyond them, beyond the Smoking Sea and the ruins and four hundred years of warning against ever returning here, Westeros waited.
Her brother might be there. Her family's throne. Her past and possibly her future.
But first, they had to survive the night in Old Valyria.
And as the darkness deepened and things began to move in the shadows outside, she had to wonder if that would be possible at all.
"Dany," Harry's voice was quiet, just for her. "What aren't you telling us?"
She didn't pretend not to understand. "The stories," she said. "About what lives in these ruins. They say the Doom twisted things. Changed them. That magic and heat and desperation created something new. Something wrong."
"What kind of something?"
She finally turned to look at him, this man she'd chosen and who had chosen her, green eyes steady and sure even in Hell.
"Stone men," she said quietly. "Victims of greyscale, driven mad by the disease. Demons. Things that were once human but aren't anymore. And worse things. Things that don't have names."
"How much worse?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "No one who's seen them has lived to tell about it."
Harry was quiet for a long moment. Then he smiled—that ridiculous, brave, stupid smile that had made her fall in love with him.
"Well," he said. "I guess we'll be the first then."
And despite everything—despite the ruins and the danger and the sheer impossibility of their situation—Daenerys found herself smiling back.
They'd fought Voldemort and won.
How much worse could Old Valyria possibly be?
She would, she reflected later, deeply regret asking that question.
Even if she only asked it in her head.
---
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