He Who Survived
Two years had passed since the war had ended.
The headlines from the wizarding world occasionally found their way to him through the odd owl. Hogwarts had been rebuilt, restored stone by stone. A new generation of students would walk those halls. Ron and Hermione had married, he hadn't gone to the wedding. He couldn't. The guilt weighed too heavy, a chain around his neck. The world celebrated peace while he struggled to remember how to breathe without drowning in ghosts.
The most consistent headline was always the same.
“Where Is The Man Who Conquered?”
They didn’t understand. He hadn’t conquered anything. He had survived. There was a difference.
A promotion at Vernon’s job had eventually moved the Dursley family across the Atlantic to America. Atlanta, Georgia, specifically. A strange, sun-drenched city with heavy air and oppressive heat. It was a far cry from the damp, grey streets of Surrey. The warmth soaked into Harry’s bones in a way that felt almost alien.
Still, in its odd way, life began to reshape itself.
The Dursleys, surprisingly, had softened towards him, if only slightly. Harry wasn’t crammed into a cupboard this time. He lived in the attic now, a semi-finished space with slanted ceilings and a window that looked out over the neighborhood. It was still cramped and hot during the summer, but it was his. A space untouched by war.
Vernon climbed the corporate ladder with his usual bluster. Petunia, perhaps seeking purpose in a new place, had returned to her work as a midwife, something she hadn’t done since before Dudley was born. Dudley himself had shocked them all by enrolling at Georgia Tech as a sports science major. Even more surprising, he and Harry got along now.
Not well enough to call each other best friends, but there was an understanding between them now. A quiet truce was forged on that summer night when Harry saved his life from a Dementor. The boy who once taunted him in hallways now shared study tips and made sure Harry remembered to eat.
Harry, in turn, had begun catching up on the muggle studies he'd missed while hidden away behind castle walls. Mathematics, history, literature, all the things Hermione had once tried to explain in between homework and battles. He could almost hear her voice sometimes when he read. She’d be proud of him, he thought. That made his chest ache.
Things were normal.
Not good, not perfect. But stable. And sometimes, that was enough.
The day everything shattered began like any other.
The sun had already begun its descent when Harry walked home from the library, his backpack heavy with borrowed textbooks and a takeaway coffee in hand. He paused on the sidewalk outside the house and looked up at the attic window. The lights were off. Everything seemed still.
But something felt wrong.
It was subtle at first, just a whisper in the air, a shift in the energy around him. Magic prickled beneath his skin like static. The smell hit him next, not the usual scents of dinner cooking or fresh laundry.
No. This was the stench of blood.
A coppery, rancid tang that coated the back of his throat.
Alarm flared in his chest as he dropped the coffee and sprinted toward the front door. It creaked open slowly, groaning on its hinges as he stepped inside.
The hallway was silent.
Too silent.
And then he saw it.
In the kitchen, sprawled on the floor in a pool of thick, glistening blood, was Vernon Dursley.
His torso was torn open, viscera scattered across the tile in grotesque strings of flesh and gore. His eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling, jaw slack.
And crouched beside him, chewing, was Petunia.
Harry froze.
Her skin was pale, mottled grey and yellow with patches where it hung in shreds. Her mouth was coated in blood, lips were pulled back in a snarl of rot-blackened teeth. A jagged bite mark marred her forearm, deep and ragged, and a kitchen knife jutted from her shoulder, the hilt slick with blood.
Her head snapped toward him.
Her eyes were no longer hers, milky, unfocused, devoid of thought. There was no recognition in them. No humanity. Just hunger.
Harry stumbled back a step, nausea rising in his throat. The scene was too familiar. Inferi. He’d seen the dead rise before. But this, this was worse.
Because it was her.
Because it was real.
Petunia let out a sound, a low, gurgling growl that vibrated in her chest. She rose slowly, movements jerky and uncoordinated, her head twitching at odd angles.
Then she lunged.
Harry turned and bolted up the stairs, two at a time, heart pounding like a war drum. He could hear her behind him, feet dragging, fingers clawing at the railing, guttural snarls growing louder.
He reached the attic, slammed the door shut, and threw the lock.
His wand. Where the hell was his wand?
There.
Under the bed.
He dove for it, grabbing it in trembling hands just as the door rattled behind him, her strength hammering against it like a battering ram.
He didn’t stop. He grabbed his emergency bag, a habit he'd never dropped since the war. It contained everything he needed to vanish at a moment’s notice: potions, healing herbs, extra clothes, gold, and a magically extended pouch filled with survival supplies. He slung it over his shoulder and reached for his Firebolt when the door exploded inward.
Petunia staggered through the splintered frame, half her face torn and dripping, a wet wheeze escaping her throat as she advanced.
Harry raised his wand.
“Reducto!”
The spell hit her dead center in the throat.
Her head snapped back with a sickening crunch, the top half of her skull obliterated. She crumpled to the floor, twitching once, then went still.
Harry stood there, shaking, breath coming in gasps. A single tear slid down his cheek.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered.
He stepped around her, heading for the stairs, only to stop cold at the sight below.
Vernon was moving.
His ruined body writhed weakly on the floor, broken limbs dragging across the blood-soaked tiles, fingers twitching. His intestines hung like garlands, but still, he moved. His mouth opened, jaw clicking and groaning.
Harry swallowed hard.
“Incendio,” he said, voice shaking.
Flames erupted across the kitchen, fire consuming what remained of his uncle’s crawling corpse.
Harry didn’t wait to see if it worked.
He burst out the front door, cast a Disillusionment Charm over himself, and mounted his broom.
He kicked off into the sky, heart pounding in his ears as he soared over the quiet streets.
Only one thought drove him now.
Dudley. He had to find Dudley.
And deep inside him, an old dread twisted into something sharper.
The war had ended.
But something worse was beginning.