Nothing is mine.

Happy Valentine's Day! Enjoy this incredibly romantic chapter xD

Mithras

Bellatrix skipped back and forth through the heaps of dead leaves, kicking them about the empty tower. 'Where are we? Where's this? Why are there so many leaves inside the tower where there are no trees?'

'The Black Forest,' Harry said. 'I transfigured some dead people into leaves, so…'

'Ohhh.' She shrugged and kicked one more heap of leaves across the floor in clumps of orange and brown. 'Okay, Cousin Harry!'

'Bellatrix...'

'Just Bella!'

'Why?' Harry asked. 'What's the difference? It's just a name.'

Bellatrix scowled. 'Because I'm Bella! That's what baby Cissy and Andi and the Dark Lord and Strange Boy and everyone always called me when we played together. That's me!'

'You can't call me Cousin Harry, then,' he said.

'Why?' She cocked her head, her dark curls tumbling over her shoulder. 'Why not?'

'Because Harry Potter is dead.'

Bella giggled. 'But not really dead. You had a trump card. You came back to keep playing!'

'I came back—' Harry swallowed the words.

I came back for Fleur. To see our sunset.

'What?' Bella chirped. 'Came back how? Came back why?'

'Because I found a girl beneath a summer sky,' he whispered. 'And I wanted to watch the sunset with her like we dreamt of doing.'

'Was it fun?' Bella's bright purple eyes stared up at him through stray dark curls. 'Did you beat her?'

'I burnt her,' Harry murmured, forcing the words through a thicket of razor sharp hot thorns. 'And now that's all gone. And that's everything Harry was. He was nothing and then there was her and now there's nothing left.'

Tom was nothing once too. And he loved a girl by the seaside. But she betrayed him in the bathroom and then there was just Voldemort.

'Not Harry.' Bella pouted. 'Then we'll do what we did for Tom!'

Harry blinked. 'Tom… Riddle?'

'Or Tom Gaunt.' She flapped her arms. 'He hated all his real names. He had a name for the game and he was the best player, so he made the rules!'

What a strange girl she is.

'Does Grindelwald make the rules now?'

'No.' She wrinkled her nose. 'He doesn't play at all. He's boooring. You beat the Dark Lord, you're the best player, and you're family, so we should play together.'

Why not? If she kills for it everyone she kills will feed it, and if she dies for it, she feeds it herself. Nothing else matters.

Harry sighed. 'If you help me with the plan, you can stay and play with me.'

Bella bounced on the balls of her feet. 'What's the plan?'

'We're going to get rid of the crucible,' he said. 'The conflict that makes our world steal so many dreams away. But we're not going to do it like Grindelwald wants to. We're not taking so many dreams away. We're going to grant wishes, not steal them.'

'A plan,' she babbled. 'Another plan. Like Voldemort. Like Grindelwald. So many plans. So many games!'

'Voldemort had a plan? Like Grindelwald's?'

Bella bobbed her head. 'To unite the powerful. First Britain and all the bits of Britain across the world and then all the magical world. To get rid of all the stupid boring muggles who just ruin everything!' She screwed her face up. 'There was a place. A secret place. We went there with him once, before Azkaban, for the Dark Mark. That's when he talked about there being a plan.'

Why would Voldemort take anyone somewhere he wanted to keep secret? Perhaps it was just less important than where he hid his horcruxes.

'Where is it?' Harry asked.

'It was by the sea!' She stomped her feet in the leaves, a huge frown on her face. 'And there were loads of yellow flowers in the grass.'

'Dandelions,' he murmured.

Like dandelion seeds sailing into the sea on a cold wind. The corner of Harry's mouth twitched beneath the amber mask. But that wouldn't be a less important place, that would be the most important place. Like the willow tree.

'If I take us to Britain, can you show me?' he asked. 'Can you take me there?'

Bella beamed. 'Yes.' She waved her hand. 'Let's go! We can go seeking!'

Harry took her hand. 'Hold on tight. There's more than one stop from here.'

She grabbed his hand in both of hers. 'We've got you!'

Harry spun the world back past him with a soft snap, stepping through the Normandy beach and the windswept dark stone tower top and out beside the overgrown tangle of irises and lilies and long grass around Petunia's pond. 'Well?'

The burnt wreckage of Privet Drive lurched right with a loud crack and Harry stumbled forward across short grass, scattering white dandelion seeds into a cool breeze.

The sea crashed against the cliffs below, a heaving, foaming mass of blue and grey.

'What are we looking for?' Bella asked. 'The secret place is near here, but it could be anywhere.'

Harry watched the dandelion seeds drift over the cliff and float out to sea. 'Not just anywhere.'

It was the most important thing, so he hid it in the most important place.

'Stay here.' He slipped his wand from his sleeve, thrusting his magic into the air and wrapping it around himself. 'I think I know where to look.'

Where all his wishes would disappear.

Harry lifted himself from the cliff and floated over the waves, watching the foaming crests ripple beneath his feet.

A knot of churning sea swirled amidst the lines of rolling waves.

There.

Harry lowered himself down toward it, floating through a faint shimmer. Faded runes ringed the fire-scarred, warped rock beneath his feet and a short serpentine stone plinth rose at the centre of the tiny island.

Blood wards. Only those who have his blood can enter. He skimmed the runes and shrugged. But he took my blood for his rebirth, so I can get in just like I could enter that cave.

Harry stepped toward the plinth.

The stone snake uncoiled, sinking into the ground and revealing two small walls covered in tiny runes.

A ritual. Harry crouched and studied the patterns of glyphs. No, two rituals.

He ran his finger across the design on the first wall.

Emerald flames spread through the runes and they rose from the stone like fireflies, swarming above Harry into a whirling ball of interweaving stars and triangles. Small gaps hung between them.

'He never finished it.' He ran his eyes across the runes. 'But he got most of it, just not this bit about the Dark Mark.'

Oh, I see. Anyone who willingly takes the Dark Mark binds their soul to the purpose of this ritual. That's why he wanted everyone to take it, everything they did in its service contributed to the ritual. Or would, after it was cast.

'Even Voldemort knew he couldn't change the world alone,' Harry murmured, tracking the rune patterns over his head.

A triangle of seven-pointed stars caught his eye.

Killing children in the womb? Harry swallowed bile as he re-read the runes. Killing the children of anyone non-magical before they're born.

'Quelle horreur,' he whispered. 'But if your magic can find the muggles to kill their children, then it can find them to give them dreams instead.'

Harry scooped the ball of runes from the air and stared at them, burning them into his memory.

What else has Voldemort designed that I can make use of? He touched the stone wall again and the runes sank back onto it. Maybe this other ritual will have something.

Harry tapped his wand against the second wall.

Green glyphs soared up over his head, their subpatterns sweeping together into a ragged ball.

The Dark Mark again. And the sacrifice of all six horcruxes to anchor himself to the Dark Mark itself. Harry swept the runes away. That explains the specific number of horcruxes. Dumbledore was right, he did have plans for them beyond keeping them secret.

'Thank you, Voldemort,' he murmured. 'Your something great will be a part of mine.'

Just like you're a part of me, somewhere beneath the surface.

Harry closed his eyes and pictured the golden light breaking over the world, holding it there before the eye of his mind as he raised his wand.

The storm stirred, a murmur of yearning tugging his heart from the still calm at the eye of the storm toward its screaming winds. From the tip of the slim piece of ebony, a single spark of amber flame welled up. It drifted across the bare rock, settling upon the stone like a glowing ember.

No more wishing. You have to make dreams come true.

The island crumbled into a whirl of golden light, sucked into the desperate sharp molten need at the swirl of the storm. Bright motes of amber whistled around Harry as the rock dissolved beneath his feet.

He cut his heart free, letting it fall back into the eye of the storm with a small sad smile, and spun the world back past him, stepping out atop the cliff.

Above the waves, a swirling cloud of golden light faded away like distant stars slipping behind night clouds.

'Did you find it?' Bella asked, kicking swathes of dandelion seeds out toward the sea.

'I found it.' Harry slipped his wand back into his sleeve. 'It's going to be very useful. Voldemort had a clever way to find muggles. A derivation of soul magic.'

'Find them and get rid of them!' She scowled, shaking bits of dandelion off her foot. 'So they can't bury us all in their dull lifeless world of clay.'

'I don't want to get rid of them, Bella,' he murmured. 'If they knew all this existed, don't you think they would wish to be part of it? How many of them must dream of something more than privet hedges and concrete. I'm going to make those wishes come true.'

She stared up at him with wide, bright violet eyes. 'You're going to make them able to play?!'

'Every child every muggle has will be born with magic,' Harry said. 'Voldemort worked out how to target them. He was going to kill them all. Make all those children just disappear…'

All those dreams. A little shiver of revulsion swept down Harry's spine. Gone just like Katie. Nothing more than a smile behind cold glass.

'What if they're boring and don't want to be able to play?' Bella asked.

'Wishes aren't free. You have to bleed for them. The magical world bleeds for them to live without fear of us. We're going to have to bleed to give them the chance to dream. And they'll have to bleed to hold onto that chance.' A small sad smile crept across Harry's face. 'There is always a price. That's just how it is for now. But when the magic is done, there'll be no them and us, no conflict, no crucible and no Statute. No more secrets.'

Bella bounced on her feet. 'You're going to beat all the useless clay cattle people, Cousin Harry.' She clapped her hands over her mouth and giggled. 'But not Cousin Harry, like not Bellatrix, you need a new name for the game.'

'I don't care what you call me, it's just a name.'

'But you need a proper name,' she said. 'One that all the other players will know and fear because you're the best player.' Bella's brow furrowed. 'I know! I know! You can be the hero who comes to beat all the cattle people and brings back the magical world!'

A hero. I suppose heroes don't get to see their sunsets either.

'And who's that?'

'Mithras.' Bella's purple eyes burnt as bright as stars. 'They said his name was Mithras.'

Harry shrugged. 'Call me that if you want, it's just one more name, and maybe this one will cause less trouble than any of my others.'

AN: More such romance awaits for those who follow the linktree to Discord for early access, or, indeed, to all my other works, some of which actually contain romance that doesn't make all the hair stand up on the back of your neck!

linktr . ee / mjbradley