The Unshaken Return.
The end of the school year arrived sooner than Harry expected. The halls of Hogwarts buzzed with excitement as students packed their trunks, chattering about their summer plans. But Harry? He packed in silence, his mind elsewhere.
Ravenclaw Tower was nearly empty now. Most of his housemates had already left for the farewell feast, though they wouldn’t have spoken to him even if they had stayed. The whispers had never truly stopped after the Parseltongue incident. The stares, the way people moved aside when he walked past—it had become routine.
None of it mattered.
What mattered was that he was going back.
Back to the church. Back to the quiet halls, the cold stone walls. Back to her.
He paused, fingers tightening around the edge of his trunk.
The first time he had ever felt the nun’s presence, it had nearly swallowed him whole. Her aura had been a void, crushing and unnatural, something so dark that even magic seemed to shrink away from it. He had been terrified then.
But now?
Now he felt nothing.
He wasn’t sure when it had happened. When the fear had dulled into indifference. When the darkness had stopped feeling foreign and simply was.
Maybe it had always been this way. Maybe he had just been too young to realize it.
Child wixen were supposed to have grey cores—neutral, undefined, waiting to settle when they reached magical maturity. Light or dark, their magic would eventually choose a path.
But his core had turned black at eleven.
Consumed by the Darkest of Magic for so long...
It hadn’t waited.
He exhaled slowly, shutting his trunk with a quiet click. It didn’t matter. It changed nothing. He was still himself. Still Harry.
His fingers brushed over the lightning bolt scar on his forehead before he turned away, stepping toward the door.
It was time to go home.