An: Well, here we are, the remake

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(Hogwarts, Fourth-Year Dormitory – Shortly Before the Hogwarts Express Arrives)

Harry's fourth year had gone about as well as a Hungarian Horntail in a china shop. Not only had Hogwarts turned against him—again—but Voldemort had returned, Cedric Diggory was dead, and somehow, the universe had decided all of this was Harry's fault.

Cedric. His… friend? Acquaintance? The guy he'd spoken to like, what, four times total? Everyone kept calling him "kind" and "a true Hufflepuff," which was probably true, but how was Harry supposed to know? Cedric had been… fine. Polite. The sort of person who'd hold doors open for first-years and remember House-Elves' names. And now he was gone, just…gone, because Voldemort wanted to make a point.

Harry slumped onto his dormitory bed, his wand clutched so tightly his knuckles burned. Outside, the distant whistle of the Hogwarts Express echoed across the grounds, a sound that usually meant warmth and laughter and treacle tart. Now it just felt like a taunt. He wished, not for the first time, that he could simply will his problems to vanish.

Ironically, they did.

But not in the way he'd hoped.

One moment, Harry Potter was glaring at the peeling Gryffindor-red paint on his bedpost, his mind a storm of guilt and dread. The next—

He was gone.

No flash of light. No crack of Apparition. No trace left behind except a half-eased crease in his bedsheets, as if even the air itself had forgotten to notice.

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(Hogwarts, Great Hall – Immediately After Umbridge's "Inspirational" Start-of-Term Speech)

The state of the wizarding world could be summarized thusly: if you possessed the intellect to add 1 + 1 (a depressingly small minority), you were having a very bad year. The Ministry hadn't just denied Voldemort's return—they'd scrubbed it from existence with the zeal of a Blast-Ended Skrewt on a paperwork spree. And Harry Potter? Vanished. No note, no trail, no heroic last stand. Just… poof.

Unsurprisingly, this left a select few students—namely Harry's two whole friends—less than receptive to Umbridge's saccharine speech about "Ministry-approved educational refreshment."

"Stupid toad," Ron snarled, stabbing his treacle tart with enough force to crack the plate. "Who does she think she is? 'Harmless revisionism'? That's just fancy talk for lying!"

Hermione sighed, though her own untouched pumpkin juice trembled in her grip. "I don't like it either, Ron, but what can we do? Dumbledore's name is mud, Harry's gone, and the Daily Prophet's painting us as delusional—"

"Yeah, well, maybe if Mr. Savior could've bothered to stick around—" Ron bit out, before flinching at Hermione's glare. "I know, I know! Bloke didn't exactly choose to disappear! But Merlin's pants, Hermione—d'you really think even hecould fix this mess now?"

Hermione opened her mouth, but her retort died as a sound like a thunderclap of warp-lightning split the air.

The hall erupted in chaos. Plates shattered. First-years screamed. And where the High Table had stood moments before, a man now loomed—tall, grim, and clad in armor that gleamed like a cathedral forged for war.

Though traces of the boy who lived lingered—the scar, the stubborn jut of his jaw—Harry Potter was, for all intents and purposes, gone. In his place stood a colossus. His ceramite armor, a tapestry of cobalt and gold, towered even over Hagrid's half-giant frame. Only his face remained exposed, chiseled into a regal sneer (though some might call it the expression of a man who'd just smelled a particularly offensive cheese). Perched on his pauldrons? A gilded, unmistakable… toilet seat?

He scanned the Great Hall with the gravitas of a man who'd conquered entire worlds, then boomed:
"WHERE AM I?"

Hermione, ever quick to announce herself, squeaked:
"H-Harry? Is that… you?"

The giant swiveled, his gaze locking onto her. For a moment, his eyes softened—then his face split into a grin wide enough to shame the Cheshire Cat.
"BY THE EMPEROR'S GRACE! I HAVE RETURNED TO THE ERA OF MY BIRTH! DOUBTLESS A TEST FROM OUR MOST GLORIOUS MASTER TO CLEANSE THIS HIVE OF XENOS FILTH!" He paused, stroking his chin thoughtfully."THOUGH AFTER OUTDANCING THOSE HARLEQUINS IN THE WEBWAY, THIS SHALL BE A MERE WARM-UP."

With a flourish, he raised his chainsword—a roaring, teeth-chattering monstrosity that screamed overcompensation—and leveled it at Umbridge.
"BEHOLD, A SPECIMEN OF THE CATACHANUS BUFO MORIBUNDUS! FEAR NOT, CHILDREN! FOR I, HARRY JAMES POTTER, HUMBLE SERVANT OF THE SECOND CHAPTER OF THE MOST GLORIOUS ULTRAMARINES, HAVE ARRIVED TO DELIVER…JUSTICE!"

Silence.

Not the awed kind. The kind that follows a fart in the Sistine Chapel.

Harry blinked.
"THE SECOND CHAPTER OF THE MOST GLORIOUS ULTRAMARINES!"he tried again, louder."LED BY NONE OTHER THAN THE MOST GLORIOUS CATO SIC—"

"IT IS I, CATO SICARIUS!"

Another flash. Another giant. This one wore near-identical armor, save for a helmet shaped like a winged, scowling eagle mid-sneeze. His voice, somehow, was worse: a nasal baritone that could curdle milk.
"I, CATO SICARIUS, HEEDED THE SUMMONS OF I, CATO SICARIUS, WHEN I, CATO SICARIUS, HEARD MY NAME, CATO SICARIUS, UTTERED BY THIS LOWLY NEOPHYTE WHO IS NOT I, CATO SICARIUS!"

Harry's eyes shone with fanboyish zeal.
"GREETINGS, MOST GLORIOUS CAPTAIN CATO SICARIUS! TOGETHER, WE SHALL PURGE THIS…CASTLE… OF ITS MOST UNWORTHY INHABITANTS!"

Umbridge, now puce, spluttered: "Now see here—!"

"SILENCE, ABHORRENT AMPHIBIAN!"roared Cato Sicarius, his voice like a choir of over-caffeinated angels."I, CATO SICARIUS, SHALL TEACH YOU THE MEANING OF COMPLIANCE!"

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Ron turned to Hermione with the slow, deliberate horror of a man witnessing Snape tap-dancing in a tutu.

"Y'know," he said, jerking his thumb at the spectacle of Harry and Cato Sicarius now enthusiastically debating the "tactical merits" of setting the Forbidden Forest on fire, "I think I liked it better when he was gone."

Hermione opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Then, with the resigned sigh of someone who'd given up all hope, she nodded.

Somewhere in the distance, Umbridge shrieked about "Their purging protocols not meeting ministry standards."

It was going to be a long year.

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Well, that is the first chapter, what do you think?

Better?

Worse?

Ducks?