Nothing is mine.

I've almost almost finished writing this now. It's going to be weird when it's all done. But I've started thinking about what I want to write next and planning it out. Something a bit lighter, I reckon, this is heavy and bleak and as brutal to write as it is read, so I fancy something a little different! Maybe a pairing I've not done anything with yet, too.

Happy the Victor on Whose Brow...

Harry paced the tower wall, measuring his steps across the bare stone. Three paces took him past the amber mask sitting on the end of the simple mattress to the narrow window.

It's been two weeks.

He stared out through the last few ragged brown leaves clinging to the branches of the Black Forest at the thick dark clouds hanging on the horizon of a grim grey sky; the storm stirred, a quiet hungry whisper in the hollow beneath his heart.

I could check the runes again. Harry glanced up at the glimmering purple glyphs scrawled across the ceiling. But I've checked them a thousand times. This time there won't be any doubt whether it worked or not. If it activates, it will work for certain.

'Still waiting,' he whispered, watching the distant drizzle draw nearer across the winter forest. 'Still hoping.'

You deserve it.

The hazy band of rain crept closer, growing heavier, and the soft drumming of the downpour on the stone roof filled his ears. Harry closed his eyes and tapped his fingers against his thigh, caught between the rain's swift staccato pattering and the beat of his heart. Stray drops of spray splashed across his cheek as the wind swept the rain through the slim, slitted window, trickling down to drip from his jaw onto the shallow sill.

I wish it had worked. His fingers crept to his chest and the empty space hanging around his neck. If it had worked, I wouldn't have been able to ruin everything.

A loud crack tore through the soft sound of the rain and Harry twisted around, letting his wand slip into his hand.

'Mithras!' Bella bounced across the tower. 'Where did all the leaves go?'

'I got rid of them,' Harry said. 'Is it time?' The storm's murmur of yearning swelled. 'Is he finally done?'

She beamed and nodded, thrusting out a fistful of copper chain. 'Grindelwald said this is for you. You know the words.'

He tugged it from her fingers. 'I do.'

'Is it time?' Bella's bright violet eyes glowed like embers. 'Time to feel alive? Time to play?'

Harry snorted and picked the mask up from the end of his conjured mattress, placing it over his face. 'Yes. It's time. Go back to Nurmengard, Bella. I'll find you afterward.'

'Come to the roof!' She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. 'And see the snow with me!'

I hope it's time. If Grindelwald's completed his part of the bargain.

'For the greater good,' he murmured.

A flash of golden fire whirled through the tower and he found himself standing in Grindelwald's turret on the far side of the desk.

'Willkommen.' Grindelwald slid three leather-bound books with blue covers back onto one of the dark wooden shelves and turned to face him, his boot heel squeaking on the grey marble floor. 'I have done my part in our bargain.' He pointed one finger upward.

A small web of green runes hovered among the purple runes swirling in the tapering spire.

Harry studied them with a small frown. 'I'm not sure I quite understand,' he said. 'I see how you've connected it to the rest of the ritual I designed, and I understand what it does. All magic cast with intent mirroring what you describe is… framed as the same thing? Seen as the same thing? Even when it's cast by different people and for different enchantments.'

'I can only assure you that it does indeed work, for it is only a different way to describe magic I have used time and time again. You have seen it yourself.'

'You did swear an oath,' Harry said. 'You would, at the very least, have to believe for certain that it would work.'

And with magic like this, that's all that matters. Harry crushed a little worm of doubt as it gnawed through his heart. It's not like La Victoire Finale. I made sure of it.

A small sombre smile crooked the corner of Grindelwald's mouth. 'All our hearts are much the same, no matter their scars or what we claim. And that which issues from those hearts alone, cannot truly differ from what's held in our own.'

'I want to adjust a few things,' Harry said, rewriting a few runes across the subpatterns. 'I went over the design while I was waiting.'

'Over and over, I would imagine.'

'I don't want there to be any doubt. If the threshold is met, the ritual will activate. And if it activates, it can only do what we want it to do.' He lowered his wand. 'We won't be left waiting to see if it worked.'

'Most wise,' Grindelwald replied. 'How such a wretched hopeless state would eat at the soul I surely do not wish to know.'

Bitter humour tugged at the corner of Harry's mouth.

'And if it does not work.' Grindelwald's sharp blue eyes flicked to the tapestry of a floating city of red-bricked towers hanging near his small bed. 'Then we shall still have been fighting to ensure that my plan comes to fruition.'

Harry nodded. Fighting to make a better world. The quiet hunger of the storm's whisper stirred in his heart. To give everyone a chance to dream.

'The rest of Nurmengard is not warded but meine Walküren defend it most ably. I suggest we cast it here within this turret. Now.'

'Can anyone else enter here?'

'No.' Grindelwald indicated the line of small copper rings upon his desk. 'Not even meine Walküren any longer and there are no phoenixes who might wish to. Only myself.'

'Does anyone else know about this ritual?'

'Only Bellatrix.'

If nobody else can get in or out, only Grindelwald can tamper with it. Harry turned it over in his head. But his oath prevents him. And once it's cast, he cannot affect it regardless.

'Alright. I'll see to Bella's silence.' He raised his wand. 'Now...'

'Spare nothing,' Grindelwald murmured, pulling his long thin wand from within the inside pocket of his grey jacket. 'Gird yourself for great endeavour. But you are the master of this sort of magic, not I, so perhaps my words are unneeded.'

'I know the price of magic such as this.'

Grindelwald stared up at the runes. 'Let us hope that this wonder works, Mithras.'

'No,' Harry said. 'We'll find a way or make one. Hope is for everyone out there wishing for just the chance to dream, not for us.'

A faint sad smile flashed across Grindelwald's face as he pointed his wand aloft. 'Zum Wohle der Allgemeinheit.'

'For you, mon Rêve,' Harry whispered beneath his breath, dragging every drop of magic up and forcing it through his wand.

Purple light seared his eyes and his strength was ripped away, torn out as if some spectral clawed fist had ripped the guts from him.

Harry swayed, staggered, and slid to his knees on the cold grey marble; his wand slipped from numb fingers and rolled away into the clawed feet off the dark wood bookshelf. Grindelwald tottered and fell, crashing off the desk to the floor with a dull grunt.

'I forgot how awful this feels,' Harry muttered, drawing in a few long deep breaths to take the edge of the trembling ache in his bones.

Grindelwald slumped across the marble, his breath coming in wheezing shallow gasps. 'Who strives always to the utmost, for him, there is salvation.'

Harry dragged himself up on the bookshelf with a groan, stooping on stiff, shaking legs to retrieve his wand. 'Your part in the bargain is done.'

'Yours is soon to come.' Grindelwald rolled over onto his back, the silver buttons on his waistcoat flashed in the sun as his chest rose and fell. 'But I must rest. The words and thoughts conjured by a weary mind may do more harm than our enemies combined.'

'What first?'

'I have told Daphne and Astoria only that a bargain has been struck and you are now an ally. As meine Walküren are the right hand I send forth, now Mithras shall be my left fist. And, I trust, with the strength of purpose that you wield, by one road or another, we'll leave our world healed.'

'As long as we leave it a bit better than before,' Harry said, clawing up the last of his magic. 'It can't be perfect, but it can be perfect enough.' He dragged the world back past him, stumbling onto the snow-blanketed roof of Bella's turret.

'Mithras!' Bella perched on the very edge, poking at the icicles.

'Bella.' Harry flopped down beside her and stared out at the snow-veiled mountains and clear, crisp sky. 'The ritual is done.'

'We can play now?' She cocked her head, her dark curls falling over her shoulder. 'If it's done, then when we beat people it counts again!'

'Yes.' He took a deep breath. 'But only if they're fighting for the right reason. There's no point beating anyone who's not trying to make the world a better place, their deaths will still be for nothing.'

'Okay!' Bella chipped an icicle free with a small piece of tile and watched it fall to shatter on the roof below. 'What now?'

'We fight for Grindelwald's Greater Good,' Harry replied. 'Everyone trying to stop him, they're fighting for the same thing we are, in their own way. His Greater Good is the same dream.' He reached out and caught her arm as she chiselled at another icicle. 'The ritual is a secret, Bella. Tell nobody. Don't even mention it unless it's just us.'

'A secret?' She giggled. 'We can keep a secret, can't we, Bell!' Bella tugged her hand free and smashed the icicle. 'And now we can play together, like family should! And we won't be sad! Even though itty bitty baby Cissy and Andi are gone and it's just us left alone with no sisters, we won't be sad, because we've got another fun game to play with you!'

A faint pang of sympathy tugged at Harry's heart. 'You come and play with me, Bella. For as long as you do, I won't let you be too lonely.'

Her bright purple eyes snapped up and a huge grin spread across her face. 'I'll be your weird sister! Like Andi said!'

'It's nice to have sisters,' Harry murmured. 'I've had five—' he frowned '—no, six. And now you. All that sadness now your sisters are gone, we're going to turn that into something bright and beautiful. Something our sisters would have loved to have seen and been a part of if they could.'

'Who?' Bella swung her feet off the roof, knocking a flurry of snow down toward the courtyard below. 'Did they lose like Cissy and Andi?'

'Yes. Hermione lost just like Narcissa. To me.'

'You beat Cissy!' She huffed. 'Did you at least beat stupid Lucius first?'

'Yes.' A wry smile flashed across Harry's face. 'She was just upset about Draco and in my way when I had to face Voldemort.'

'Ickle Draco shouldn't have tried to play with the best players!'

'And Gabby died because of me—' the humour faded, sinking away down into the cold numb beneath Harry's heart, fading like rose petals into the dark of the drain '—she gave all the time she had left so we could save our dream, but I ruined it.'

'Everyone loses in the end,' Bella sang. 'And? And?'

'And the Duforts,' he murmured. 'They're still out there, fighting for hope.'

And Katie. My Katie.

'The sisters that can't be separated,' Bella breathed, balling her fists. 'They were good! They have a trump card! Like I did! And like you do!'

'Not anymore.' Harry cupped his ebony wand in his hands. 'I'm just one now. Not one of two.'

'Oh.' Bella shrugged. 'That's okay. If we lose again, then we're dead too!'

'I would like to see my ritual work first,' he whispered. 'It will wash over the world and bring a bright warm world of golden summer. It will let them have their dreams without having to suffer so much for them first. I want to see it happen, just so I know that it wasn't all for nothing in the end.'

She patted him on the head. 'Don't be sad! You're the best player! You'll win all the games!'

Little flakes of snow drifted down around them, settling and melting on Harry's loose dark robes and Bella's black dress.

'And you, Bella?' he asked.

'We want to beat Silly Man.' She screwed her face up. 'He has a trump card, but he cheats, doesn't he, Bell! He uses it all the time and that's not fun for anyone!'

A faint chuckle slipped through Harry's lips. 'Well, I'm sure we can beat whoever that is, so long as they're fighting against Grindelwald.' He leant back into the cold snow and closed his eyes. 'I need to rest. If the Walküren come up to try and murder me, don't let them.'

And they can. Grindelwald's oath no longer binds him. The only reason not to kill me off is my own oath. Wry humour tugged Harry's mouth into a smile. And mine only binds me to his cause.

'I won't!' Bella sang. 'We can play with them together and beat them all and they'll all count for the game!' She shifted next to him in the snow. 'How long will it take to get enough to win?'

'I don't know,' Harry said. 'However many people it takes to change the world, I suppose.'

AN: Linktree! Best way to find Discord, early access, or how to support me and read all my original stuff.

linktr . ee / mjbradley