The wind clawed at Harry's skin with coldness and cruelty.
Buckbeak surged through the sky, and the rush of the flight roared in Harry's ears, a wild symphony of slicing air, wingbeats, and the distant colors of the world below. His legs clenched against Buckbeak's powerful frame, muscles tensing with each rise and fall of the wings. Every fiber of Harry's being trembled with vastness and wilderness, with something that stretched out beyond the horizon and swallowed the sky itself.
He laughed.
Moonlight spilled over his outstretched arms, pooling in the creases of his robes, casting silver fire along the fine lines of his fingers. Below, Hogwarts lay sprawled in a patchwork of stone and shadow, its towers rising like ancient sentinels, its windows winking with candlelight. The castle slept utterly unaware of the victory Hermione had helped Harry achieve.
He had won.
His heart pounded with the sheer, impossible truth of it. He had ripped Buckbeak from the jaws of execution, torn Sirius from the grave fate had dug for him. He had shattered the dementors' grip, defied the cold hands that had tried to close around his soul. He and Hermione had wielded the power of time and bent it to their will.
Now, he never had to go back to the Dursleys.
No more bars on the windows. No more whispered taunts curling through the air like poison. No more plates of cold food sliding to him with sneers and disdain. No more of Petunia's nails digging into his arm. No more of Vernon's purple-faced shouts. No more of Dudley's meaty hands shoving him against walls.
Sirius would take him away.
The wind screamed around Harry, mingling with the raw, wordless howl tearing from his throat. The past was dead, and the future—his future—stretched out before him with the enormity and infinity of the stars.
Harry would never have to step foot in that house again.
Buckbeak banked, descending in a sweeping arc that sent Harry's stomach lurching in the most wonderful way. His fingers curled into the creature's feathers as the world tilted. The ground rushed up to meet them—a courtyard bathed in silver, its cobblestones glistening like the scales of a sleeping dragon.
Buckbeak's talons struck stone.
Harry slid off, legs shaky, lungs burning with stolen air. The earth felt strange beneath his feet. Too still. Too solid after the weightlessness of flight. The night embraced him, thick with the scent of pine, damp leaves, and something deep, ancient—the magic of Hogwarts itself, humming through the air like a second heartbeat.
Sirius slid off Buckbeak and tangled his fingers into the hippogriff's mane.
"Do we leave right away?" Harry grinned. "My cloak is with me, so I don't really need anything from the dorm. I would like to pack and take the Map, but Ron will remember it if I don't. What do you think?"
Sirius dug his fingers into Buckbeak's feathers. His knuckled went white, and his shoulders trembled.
"Um…" Harry licked his lips, the thrill of victory slipping through his grasp like smoke. "I don't have to pack… We can go right away…"
Sirius made a sound. A low, hollow groan that barely registered as human. He pressed his face into Buckbeak's neck, his hands tightening, breath shuddering out of him in ragged bursts.
Harry frowned.
The wind whispered through the courtyard, carrying the scent of stone and soil, of rain waiting in the clouds. Hogwarts loomed behind them, ancient and unyielding, its walls whispering with ghosts of the past. The stone chilled Harry through his robes, the dampness clinging to his fingers like ghostly grasping hands. The fountain behind them trickled a thin, uneven stream, its whisper lost beneath the wind that slashed through the courtyard.
Sirius shook like a man staring into the abyss.
"They're going to hunt me." Sirius stepped away from Buckbeak, tangling his fingers into the greasy strands of his unkempt hair. "I forgot about that."
"Sirius?"
"I always do this…" The moonlight turned the hollows in Sirius' face into wells of endless depth. His ribs heaved with each breath, as if every inhale was a battle he wasn't sure he wanted to win. "I never… I never think these things through."
"Sirius…" Harry's stomach twisted. "What… What's wrong with you?"
The wind cackled in Harry's ears with shrillness and cruelty, carrying whispers from the darkened trees beyond the stone walls. The animal-shaped hedges loomed, their twisted limbs reaching, stretching. The leaves rustled with something close to laughter. The ground beneath him felt unsteady, as if the earth itself was shifting beneath his weight and rejecting his existence.
"I'm sorry." The words barely made it past Sirius' throat. Small. Frail. Struggling to fight through the jeering of the wind. "I am, Harry. I swear I am."
Sirius stepped away from Buckbeak and lowered his head.
The movement was slow, rhythmic—like the ominosity of the first crack of ice before a lake swallowed you whole. His hair spilled over his face like a curtain of coal and oil. His breath shuddered. His shoulders rose and fell in jerky, trembling motions. Shadows crawled over his face, slithering into the creases of his gaunt features, licking at the bruised skin beneath his eyes.
What's going on with him?
Why was he clenching his fingers against his temples, pressing as if he was trying to dig something out of his skull. Something rotting. Something buried. Why was he heaving as if Harry had failed and he had to go back to Azkaban?
Sirius exhaled. "I'm a terrible person."
Harry could tell the words weren't meant for him.
He could tell that the words didn't belong to this moment, to this night, to this world. They were echoes of another place, a place filled with stone walls that wept salt and cold, with whispers that slithered through iron bars and wrapped around the throat like a noose.
Azkaban.
Harry had never seen it, but he knew it lived in Sirius still. He saw it in the way Sirius' fingers twitched, in the way his breath snagged on invisible hooks, in the way he rocked like a man keeping time with his own destruction.
"Sirius, it's okay." Harry leaned forward extending his hands to Sirius. "I'm here. I'll help you deal with it."
"No, I…" Sirius rasped out words of hollowness and ash. "I can't… I… It's… I'm sorry."
The wind howled, and something inside Harry howled with it.
His mind churned with the possibility that… No, no he couldn't even think it. He wouldn't. He wouldn't entertain the idea that… No. No, he would ignore how the walls loomed. How they stretched higher and leaned in on him. How the air thickened and pressed against his ribs, turning each breath into a battle. How the sky—so wide, so open mere moments ago—now suffocated him, its endless expanse mocking him with cruelty and malice. How his world had shrunk to the space between himself and the broken man before him.
Don't say it.
The fountain gurgled, its water dark as ink. The moonlight kissed its surface, pale and fleeting, never lingering, never staying. Just like the future Harry had reached for. Just like the promise he had held between his fingers, only to feel it slip through like sand.
"I can't take you with me."
Sirius' words opened a chasm inside Harry's chest.
Harry dug his nails into the stone of the column next to him, but there was nothing to hold on to. Air lodged in his throat with thickness and stillness, as if the it had solidified inside him. His chest burned, ribs straining against the pressure, but no breath came. The wind screeched one last time and then fell silent, its absence a hollow vacuum pressing in on his ears.
Why?
The shadows curled at the edge of his vision, writhing and creeping like ink spilling across parchment. Somewhere, just beneath the surface of his skin, something was beating. A slow, heavy thrum, like war drums in the distance, like a countdown. His lips parted, but the words stuck to his tongue like ash.
"I…" Harry shook his head. "I don't understand."
"Harry… I'm a fugitive. The whole wizarding world is after me. Dementors are after me. There's a 'kiss on sight' order for me." Sirius looked up at Harry with the ghosts of past and future mistakes on his face. His fingers flexed, the moonlight reflecting against his wet eyes. "I cannot risk something happening to you. It's safer with your relatives."
Safer?
Harry's stomach twisted so hard it felt like something had reached inside and wrenched his insides into knots.
Safer?!
Was Sirius joking? Was this some kind of cruel prank? The Dursleys safer? A place where his name curled off their tongues like a curse? Where Dudley's fists left deep, throbbing bruises under his clothes? Where he had learned to make himself small, quiet, nothing? Where he had fought hunger with stolen scraps, lain awake at night as the house groaned around him, waiting for the next slam of a cupboard and the next searing remark?
He'd have preferred the dementor's kiss.
Maybe Sirius didn't know. Maybe if he just told him, just explained, it would all be fine.
"Don't worry about the Dursleys, pup."
What?
"I can see it's eating at you." Sirius smiled. "I'll have a talk with them, so they don't bother you."
Sirius knew. Sirius knew. And he was sending Harry back anyway.
The darkness deepened with thickness and liquidity, lapping at the edges of Harry's vision, swallowing the courtyard stone by stone. The moss beneath him dampened, coldness seeping into his bones. Hogwarts loomed around him, but it wasn't a sanctuary anymore. The towers, the halls, the hidden passageways… None of it mattered. He had to go back. He had to go back to them.
Why?
His breath hitched, something sharp catching in his chest. His arms trembled at his sides, a slow, spreading shake, his muscles locking tight.
Why?!
What was wrong with him? What had he done to deserve this? Was it because he was a freak, just like the Dursleys always said? Was it something about him, something inside him that made every adult in his life want him to suffer?
He had believed.
For the first time, he had believed that someone wanted him. That someone had meant it when they said they cared. That someone would finally take him away from Privet Drive. But Sirius was just like the rest of them, wasn't he? Dangling freedom in front of him only to rip it away.
"Harry…?"
He should've known.
He should've known that he would only get to see hope dangling in front of him before the cruelty and indifference of others snatched it away. That Sirius was pretending when he looked at Harry like he actually cared.
"Harry?"
He should've known that happiness was a mirage. That hope was a lie. That the only constant there was for Harry Potter was going back to that house to suffer. That all hopes and dreams he might have of childhood were mirages and illusions.
"Harry, please, talk to me…"
It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.
Harry's nails bit into his palms, deep crescent moons buried in his skin. His whole body felt stretched too tight, like a bowstring pulled past its limit, the thread of control fraying, snapping. The air swirled thick around him with humidity and asphyxia, pressing against his ribs, his throat, his skull.
He forced himself to look at Sirius. "Go."
Sirius' head jerked up. His lips parted, but no sound came.
"I mean it." Harry exhaled sharply, a shuddering breath that rattled against his ribs. "Go. Just… just leave."
Sirius flinched as if Harry had driven a fist straight through his chest. His fingers twitched, curling inward, trembling against his knees. "Harry, I—"
"No." Harry's world tilted. The night stretched out and pressed against him from all sides. "You don't get to do this."
"Harry—"
"You don't get to tell me I have a way out, that I never have to go back, that I finally—finally—get to have something good, and then take it away like it was nothing."
"I just—"
"You said I could live with you. You said I didn't have to go back. You let me believe it." Harry clenched his jaw. "And now you're just—what? Changing your mind? Sending me back to—to them?"
His breath came in sharp, uneven gasps, his chest rising too fast, too hard.
The weight pressing against him grew heavier, the night thick with the scent of wet stone and moss, of something rotting in the corners of the courtyard. The trees loomed beyond the walls, their twisted limbs clawing at the sky like skeletal hands. Sirius stared up at him, his lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. His eyes—haunted, dark—shimmered in the moonlight.
"I don't want to send you back." Sirius gulped. "I don't, I really don't, but—"
"Then don't." Harry tightened his fists. "Just don't."
Sirius closed his eyes.
His breath trembled as he exhaled. His shoulders sagged, and in that moment, he looked impossibly small, smaller than Harry had ever seen him. He looked like a man about to drown a sack of kittens, a man who knew the severity of what he was doing and who was going to do it anyway.
"I can't take you with me."
A roaring filled Harry's ears, drowning out everything—the wind, the rustling leaves, the distant hoot of an owl. He forced himself to nod, slow and stiff, as though his body might shatter from the effort.
"Fine." His voice was cold. Empty. Hollowed out. "Then go."
Sirius' breath hitched. His fingers flexed against his knee like he wanted to reach out, like he wanted to grab onto something—onto Harry, maybe—but no hand came. No words. No declaration that he had seen the error of his ways and changed his mind.
That he cared for Harry.
Sirius' shoulders curled inward, and for a long, stretching moment, he just sat there, staring at the stone beneath his feet. Then, slowly, he pushed himself up. The movement was sluggish, weighted, like his limbs were dragging chains. Buckbeak shifted beside the fountain, his talons scraping against stone, his massive wings rustling as Sirius stepped closer.
He didn't look at Harry. Not once.
A part of Harry wanted Sirius to hesitate. At least hesitate. Even if he was abandoning Harry to suffer, at least he could look back. But Sirius only placed a careful hand against Buckbeak's neck, his fingers tangling into feathers as if steadying himself.
Then, with one swift motion, he swung himself onto the hippogriff's back.
Buckbeak cawed, his cry splitting the night, and his massive wings unfurled, shadows spilling from them like ink bleeding across the moonlight.
Harry's throat clenched.
The first powerful flap sent dust and leaves whipping through the courtyard. The second lifted them off the ground, Sirius' thin frame swaying slightly before settling into place. His hands tightened around the feathers, his head tilting forward, his posture distant.
Detached.
A final beat of wings, and Buckbeak soared into the sky, cutting through the moonlight like a blade through silk.
And Sirius was gone.
The night swallowed him whole.
Harry stood rooted to the stone, his pulse a slow, dragging thump against his ribs. The wind carried the last traces of feathers and dust, their ghostly remains swirling in the empty space Sirius had left behind.
That was it. It was over. He would go back.
The thought settled inside him like a stone thrown into a bottomless well, sinking deeper and deeper, past his lungs, past his heart, past the part of him that still felt like a child—small, hopeful, stupid.
The Dursleys' house loomed in his mind.
All grey walls and locked doors and the stale, suffocating air of a place that had never been home. The cupboard, the hunger, the too-loud silence of a world that refused to acknowledge his existence. The bars on the window. The whispers behind his back. The name Freak, spat at him like a curse, like something that didn't deserve to be spoken aloud.
He should've fought harder. Should've said something different. Should've—
"Doth thy spirit so easily wane?"
The voice wove through him.
It didn't reach his ears through wind or air. It bloomed. It unfurled like the slow spill of sunrise over an unseen horizon, with warmth and gold, steeped in immensity. Something that had existed before stone learned to hold the sky. It rang with the hush of ancient halls, the lilt of cathedral bells, the whisper of silk unfurling in a world that had never seen dust or ruin. It filled him through the marrow of his bones, the hollows of his ribs, the spaces between each slow, stilled breath.
It didn't echo. It didn't break the quiet. It was.
Harry's body turned rigid.
A tremor sparked at his fingertips, curled and uncurling, restless, like they weren't his to command. The courtyard stretched before him, unchanged yet somehow smaller, diminished beneath enormity and pressure, something didn't demand reverence yet received it all the same. The fountain murmured, the water catching the moonlight, shifting between silver and amber, liquid light spilling in ripples. The wind curled through the stone arches, heavy with pine, damp rock, the faint trace of something sweet—not sugar, not flowers, something purer.
A scent that should not have existed here, in this place.
The castle loomed beyond, its towers cutting the night sky, its windows glinting like distant stars—but the stars were too far, too cold, too small to belong to whatever stood unseen before him. Or within him. Or—
He swallowed. His throat caught.
He turned.
Shadows clung to the edges of the courtyard, pooling beneath the arches, stretching where the moonlight could not reach. But there—just beyond sight, just beyond knowing—something shimmered. Not light. Not color. A presence of agelessness and gold, pressing against the edges of his mind like sunlight bleeding through closed lids.
Not human. Not mortal.
A hush settled over his thoughts with the thickness of velvet and the heaviness of temple incense curling in the dim glow of candlelight. Brimming, like breath after drowning, like warmth after cold. It wound through his ribs, through his spine, sinking deeper, leaving no space for doubt, no space for anything but her.
"Wouldst thou forsake hope ere the sun may rise anew?"
That's a wrap for Chapter 1!
Anyone who's seen 'In the Wake of Mist and Ash' knows how much I love taking inspiration from other pieces of fiction without writing crossovers. I love a lot of stuff, and I love mixing the stuff I love naturally. That's why I avoid crossovers, they feel too artificial for me, and I tend to dislike the whole 'different worlds' thing. Exceptions like 'Wands, Guns, and Nightmares' notwithstanding, of course.
The reason I'm saying this is because this story is going to have A LOT of that. I have great plans for this story, and they involve a lot of inspiration from a lot of places.
What I can promise is that whatever inspiration I take will be reworked to be a natural part of the HP universe (like I did with the Morvail (originally inspired by the Sith order) in 'the Wake of Mist and Ash).
In fact, you'll be able to see one such rework in chapter 2, with the appearance of a beloved character from a series I love (kudos to anyone who recognizes her), who's visuals and power I have completely reworked.
Anyway, I hope all the ranting I'm doing is showing you how excited I am to write this story.
Let me know what you liked and disliked, I love and appreciate all constructive criticism, especially since I always keep editing and improving these chapters. I would love to hear all your thoughts!
Check me out on p. a. t. r.e.o.n.. c.o.m. /TheStorySpinner (don't forget to remove the spaces and dots) for early releases of new chapters and bonus content.
Chapter 2: What the Dead Remember is already available there.
See you in Chapter 2!