Chapter 21
A Promise Given
Chapter Twenty-One
……
Harry adjusted his stance, feet planted, wand held steady as he faced the target dummy. Its blank, wooden face stared back, a silent witness to his training. The dim light flickered in the room, casting an eerie glow on the thick stone walls, where Amelia’s portrait watched him intently.
“Alright, Harry,” Amelia’s voice echoed from her frame, her painted eyes narrowing with a serious glint. “This next spell is unlike anything you've practiced. It’s raw, powerful, and if you’re not careful, it can turn on you in a heartbeat. You need to breathe, and move with focus.”
Harry nodded, drawing in a deep breath, every muscle taut with the weight of her words.
“This form of ancient, an offensive spell,” Amelia continued, her tone laced with caution. “When controlled, it’s a conduit of pure energy—a bolt of lightning channeled from your core, arching out toward your target. Its strike can cause great harm to your foes, even kill them. But if you lose focus, it could break loose, backfiring before it even reaches the target.”
Harry’s eyes lingered on the dummy, imagining the spell in full force, a flash of lightning arcing from his wand, a tangible streak of light and power slamming into his mark. He could almost feel the thrill of it, the energy ready to burst forth like a wild storm held at bay.
“Now, raise your wand slowly, keeping your aim steady,” Amelia’s voice guided him, pulling him back to the present. “This spell draws on Ancient Magic itself, and if you’re reckless, it will lash back with all that force.”
He lifted his wand as instructed, feeling the familiar tingle of magic rising up his arm. This time, the energy felt different—hotter, like a storm swirling beneath his skin, growing sharper, more electric as he focused it outward. He began to channel it forward, carefully guiding the flow toward the target, his movements precise, each flick and twist exactly as Amelia had shown him.
The first attempt fizzled out with a harmless pop of blue sparks, sending a light shiver through his arm. He inhaled, readjusted, and tried again. This time, a faint shimmer of energy began to coil at his wand’s tip, crackling faintly like distant thunder before dispersing into thin air.
“Good, Harry. But now—focus. Draw from your core, but keep it tethered to your mind. Control is everything.”
He took another breath, his grip tightening as he tried again, concentrating harder. This time, the air around him seemed to hum, his wand-tip glowing as magic thickened, sparking with raw energy. The charge felt powerful, wild—almost alive in his hand, the taste of lightning on his tongue as he poured every ounce of focus into holding it steady.
“I shouldn’t have put this on you”
“Its not your fault”.
Harry’s focus slipped. The spell twisted in his hand, and suddenly, it was no longer in his control. The energy, once a steady stream, exploded into a wild bolt, but instead of hitting the target, it whipped back, an uncontrolled arc of blinding light and searing force.
“Harry! Focus!”
He barely had a second to react before it lashed back toward him. A flash of white filled the room, and a bolt of pain tore through his arm as he was thrown backward, skidding across the cold stone floor, crashing into a conjured sofa. His head throbbed, and his hand, clutching his wand, felt seared and numb, pulsing with lingering heat.
Amelia’s voice broke through the haze, urgent and laced with worry. “Harry! Are you alright?”
His vision blurred, but he could just make out Amelia’s face across the room in her painting, her expression tense with worry as she leaned forward in the frame. The dummy stood untouched, mocking him in the silence that followed, while a thin wisp of smoke curled from the tip of his wand. He pulled himself up, as he did so his body practically screamed at him to stop as he limped back to his spot.
“What are you doing Harry?”
“I’m fine, I can go again” he replied.
“No you cannot, if you get hit again-”
“I won’t”
“This isn’t a game Harry! It can kill you!” Amelia scolded him, causing him to flinch slightly; he noted her eyes soften as he did so. “You seem distracted this evening, do you want to speak about it?” Harry wanted to say no, to just practice the damn spell and try to master it, but the idea of being hit like that again made him wary, he was not fine, not even close. He summoned a chair from the side of the room and fell into it.
“I found something out about a friend of mine today” he began. “Well shes more than the friend really, well recently anyway, I daresay I have taken quite the fancy” he chuckled, though the humour didn’t really reach his eyes. To her credit Amelia merely sat quietly and waited for him to go on. “Shes cursed, well all the women in her family are, were and will be and well I found out more about it”
“I am sorry about your …. Lady, Harry. May I ask what the curse is?” she replied softly.
“Her ancestor apparently didn’t return the affections of a wizard, because she was in love with another. He took it poorly, he cursed her, the intention was for her and her descendents to never feel love from another” he began, Amelia’s face twisted to a look of disgust and then horror. “Only it didn’t quite work out that way, instead the curse forces the witch’s magic to choose a person, they have no choice in the matter and it works almost like a compulsion, any romantic attachment they may have had or want to have with others turns into a repulsive feeling”.
“This is awful!”
“However if the person their magic chooses returns their affections then they can have a relationship like no other, they will be happier than those who choose. But if they are rejected? Then they are forced into a life without love and their magic would earn for someone forever” he finished.
“That kind of longing for a lifetime would drive anyone mad” Amelia whispered.
“I can imagine”
“Has … Has her magic chosen someone and she cannot return your affections?
“No .. Quite the opposite actually” Harry replied. “She told me yesterday that her curse has chosen me, and she was apologising and crying …. Its not her fault and I feel awful that she has to bare this curse and that of all people its me”
“From my perspective Harry she couldn’t have gotten any lucker” Amelia offered kindly “You at least fancy her, which is a foundation to build on, its better than someone she hates or some stranger who would do her harm?”
“I know your right, but … Just being friends with me has its risks, Voldemort and his followers will not stop until I am dead, and they are not above using those I care about to get to me!” he rose quickly and cried out in pain as he did so, slumping back into his chair as his arm burned in agony.
“Please … just rest for a moment Harry, we should send for Dumbledore”
“No-”
“It wasn’t a request” she spoke with a tone that would not be challenged. “You are concerned that she will be used against you, that is understandable”
“And … If I die, then she will be unable to be with someone else … well she could but it would cause her to be miserable” he replied, his uninjured arm coming up as he rested his palm on his forehead. “I wish I could help her” he whispered. Amelia shifted in her portrait adjusting her sitting position.
“I feel just being around her Harry, allowing your heart to guide you with her would go a long way to helping in the present” she said softly, her eyes warm.
“But-”
“If we live forever in the past or thinking about what maybe, then we will never truly live, Harry. I know your fear and the fact you worry about what your death will do to her over yourself tells me a great deal about the man you are” came her kind interruption. “Before I died, a friend of mine, Sebatisan who I told you about before. His sister was cursed, it caused her great pain and after her uncle died … and after the lengths Sebatisan went to try and help her … I felt partly responsible for it all so I wanted to help”.
Harry listened, not wanting to stop her despite some of the questions forming.
“Whilst I was researching cures I discovered I was sick. It was shortly after this I found out that my use of ancient magic was killing me. I spoke to the keepers, they told me about the draw backs of its use … though they never told me that whilst I was using it to stop Ranrok” she began, the last part of her sentence was resentful, and in truth Harry couldn’t blame her. “I had found the incantation I needed to reverse her curse and knowing my life was short I used the ancient magic one last time”
“Did it work?” he asked softly.
“It did” she smiled, though he could see the memory was raw for her. “It was three days later when I passed, surrounded by my friends one last time” Harry noted something wet on his own cheek and when he reached up to check he found it wet with his own tears, he looked at Amelia with a new level of respect, of a friend who gave her last bit of life to end her friends pain.
“She was lucky to have such a wonderful friend as you, Amelia” he replied gently. She merely nodded with a watery smile.
“Now you see why you need to be careful with this magic?” she gave a watery laugh, earning one back. He had a thought after a moment's silence.
“Do you think that Daphne’s curse could be cured the same way?” he asked softly, feeling awful for doing it given what she had just shared.
“From what you’ve told me its an ancestral curse, those have to be ritualistic and bound to something with some of the victims blood. So it wouldn't be the same as the curse I cured” he began. “Youd need to find out who cast this, try and find out what they bound the curse too and then …”
“Then what?”
“You can’t just destroy a blood curse, you either need the caster to undo the curse, to end the line of those cursed or you need to bind it to anothers blood or perhaps their soul but that is much more complicated”
“But it is curable?” he asked. He noted a look of concern cross her face, a flicker of a memory perhaps.
“Yes but Harry you must understand even if you found the object the magic it would take to move the curse to another would take an extreme use of magic more that I can teach you to control” Amelia spoke trying to manage his expectations. “You’ll already need to use a vast amount to defeat Voldemort as it is, the only other way would be-” She paused.
“The only other way?”
“Would be to adsorb the power in the repository itself” she said quietly, her face truly conflicted now.
“Isn’t that what you wanted to stop Voldemorth doing?” he questioned.
“I’d stop anyone doing it if I could, it is corrupted magic Harry, the user would be powerful beyond compare … a power no one person should wield, I should’ve destroyed it long ago”
“Then why didn’t you?” he pressed.
“I was afraid of what would happen if I did, Isadora’s downfall was using magic to take pain away without thought of the cost, I didn’t want to make that same mistake”
“I might want to cure Daphne but I wont take in that power Amelia, you have my word” he spoke after a pause, he could try to justify how he could use the power for good, but a small part of him feared if he could resist the lure of owning that level of power.
“Amelia, I know I don't look like much but please if there is another way then surely I owe it to Daphne to find a way to do it? That way if the worst happens at least she would be able to move on, that and her family and any of her descendants ” he pleaded. He could tell the painted witch wanted to argue, but that would be hypocritical to do so.
“You need to include the headmaster in this Harry, I will only be able to help you so much here” she relented.
…
Daphne leaned against the headboard of her bed, the cool touch of the wood pressing against her spine as she absently traced the soft sheets beneath her fingers. Her thoughts were consumed by the events of the day, replaying over and over in her mind like a song she couldn't stop humming. Harry's presence, his touch, the warmth in his voice—everything about that moment felt so surreal. Even now, the memory sent a pulse of heat through her chest. She had always been cautious, distant even, when it came to matters of the heart. The curse had ensured that; it had always hung over her like a cloud, forcing her into silence when all she wanted was normality.
She closed her eyes, trying to capture the image of his expression as he had looked at her earlier. His gaze—steady and unwavering—had caught hers in a way that made her feel seen, truly seen, for the first time. Not as the girl with a curse, not as the daughter of a legacy she hadn’t chosen, but as someone who could be loved. It had been a dangerous thought, one she had tucked away for years. Even her magic, the very force that had shaped her fate, had never quite prepared her for this—the possibility that someone could care for her despite everything.
But had she placed too much on him? Harry had enough to carry already. She could see it in the way his shoulders tensed when the conversation turned serious, how his eyes sometimes seemed to cloud over with unspoken burdens. He had his own life to live, his own demons to face. She had expected awkwardness or pity when she told him the truth. After all, who would want to be tied to someone because of a curse? And yet, he hadn't flinched. He hadn’t recoiled from her admission. Instead, he had taken her hands, looked her in the eye, and made her feel as though it was something to be embraced, not feared.
His touch had lingered in a way that felt... tender. Genuine.
Daphne sighed, her breath catching slightly as she thought back to the way his words had made her heart race. He hadn’t simply sympathised with her—he had shared her burden, as though it was his to bear as well. She had never felt anything like it, and yet a lingering doubt gnawed at her. What if he was just trying to make her feel better? What if the kindness he showed was not born from affection but from obligation? The thought made her stomach twist. The curse was hers alone to bear, not his. She had to remind herself of that. No one should be forced to carry the weight of her fate.
Yet there was something about today, about their interaction, that made her wonder if maybe... just maybe, he didn’t see her as a burden. Perhaps he truly wanted to be there, despite everything. She allowed herself to entertain the thought for a moment longer before her rational mind snapped back to reality. Could it really be that simple?
The memory of Harry’s sheepish grin as he had admitted to flirting with her made her smile involuntarily. "I was flirting today, alright?" His words had been so earnest, so sincere, that she almost forgot they had been spoken in jest. Had he really been flirting? Or was he simply trying to ease the tension between them? Her smile faltered as she considered the implications. What if he’s just being nice? But no... no, the way he had looked at her—his gaze softening in a way that felt too personal, too intimate to be mere politeness—suggested otherwise.
What would that mean for her? For them, what were they now? Daphne’s mind spun as she thought of the typical romance novels her friends devoured, how they always depicted a kiss after declarations of affection. Yet there had been no kiss. Was that because she had dropped a bombshell on him, as her Muggleborn friends might say? She had confessed something monumental—something that had likely turned his world upside down—and yet, Harry had only guided her back to Hogwarts, acting like the gentleman she had expected. Had he wanted more? Had he wanted to kiss her, or was he simply being polite, unsure of how to navigate the complexity of her situation?
Her face flushed at the thought. She had told him the curse had chosen him. But had she actually told him that she liked him? That, in spite of the curse, there was something that felt real there between them? The thought sent a wave of self-consciousness through her. She hadn’t—she had only confessed the way fate had bound them together. But that wasn’t the same thing, was it?
A small, frustrated laugh escaped her as she mentally facepalmed. Great, now he probably thinks it's all about the curse and not about me. She could almost feel the weight of that thought on her shoulders. She had always struggled with letting herself be vulnerable, and now, with Harry, she had bungled it, hadn’t she?
Yet despite all her doubts, the feeling of his touch, his words, lingered in her mind like a warm ember. He does care, Daphne closed her eyes, allowing herself to drift into the comfort of the memory. It had felt real, that connection. And despite her fears, despite the doubts that kept creeping in, she wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe in something beyond the curse. Maybe this was her chance to have something normal, something of her own.
Just tell him, Daphne, the hard part is over. The thought came to her like a quiet whisper, soothing her turbulent thoughts. She glanced at the clock, noting she still had about thirty minutes before bedtime. Enough time to plan how she would tell Harry the truth—, about her feelings for him, even if she couldn’t quite describe them herself.
Her fingers brushed absently over her arm, as though reassuring herself. And for the first time in years, she allowed herself to feel a flicker of hope. Her magic seemed to settle at the thought, almost as though it was pleased with her decision. Tomorrow, she would speak to him. Tomorrow, she would stop hiding behind the curse and tell him that she liked him—not because of fate, but because of who he was, and who she was when she was with him.
…
Albus stood at the top of his office, his eyes scanning the school grounds below, but his mind was far from the tranquil scene. Unbeknownst to Harry, Albus had been visiting the Room of Requirement to consult on Harry’s Horcrux. The painted witch, though a source of counsel, had no idea it was connected to Harry, and Albus was determined to keep it that way—for now. As much as he sensed no malice from the witch, he couldn’t risk her accidentally informing Harry. Not until they had a viable solution for removing the Horcrux without…
Killing him. The anxious whisper in the back of his mind persisted, taunting him with its inevitability.
Despite the research, despite the hours spent pouring over ancient texts and consulting magical experts, they were no closer to a solution. One suggestion from the Order had been to consult the goblins—an idea that had perplexed him. The goblins, who detested wizards, would sooner strike Harry down than help him. Albus recalled a remark Sirius had made during their time together. "Would you trust a banker to cure cancer?" Had it not been so serious, Albus might have chuckled at the analogy. Instead, his thoughts drifted back to the conversation he had with Amelia.
“It would help me a great deal, Albus, if you would tell me what exactly this curse is, and whether ancient magic might play its part,” Amelia’s voice was calm and patient.
Albus took a moment, standing still in the centre of the Room of Requirement. He had been searching for the right words for days. Finally, he relented, lowering himself into the high-backed armchair before her portrait.
“Very well,” he said with a heavy sigh, his gaze shifting to the floor. “It is not a curse, strictly speaking. What we’re dealing with is a dark magic called a Horcrux. It involves splitting a person’s soul and binding it to an object.”
Amelia raised an eyebrow, clearly intrigued. “I’m not familiar with that term. What makes it so… dark?”
“One must commit murder to split the soul and then bind it to another object,” Albus explained gravely. He watched closely for her reaction but saw no flinch. Amelia had lived through enough danger herself to recognize the depths of dark magic.
She smiled faintly. “I killed quite a few goblins and dark wizards in my time at Hogwarts, those who intended to kill me. Death doesn’t exactly faze me.”
“That certainly wasn’t mentioned in your Hogwarts record,” Albus remarked with a small smile.
Amelia shrugged nonchalantly. “I doubt a kill count would look good on my transcript. But this Horcrux—if it’s attached to an object, can it be destroyed?”
“Yes,” Albus nodded. “If the object is destroyed, the soul within is destroyed as well. But this case is… complicated.”
“I assumed as much,” Amelia murmured, her gaze steady.
“The Horcrux is attached to another person,” Albus said quietly, his voice thick with the weight of the truth.
Amelia’s expression softened as she processed the gravity of the situation, her voice slow and steady as if she had already anticipated the next part. “So destroying it would mean… killing the person.”
“Indeed,” Albus murmured, his shoulders sinking under the weight of the words.
She regarded him with a quiet understanding before speaking again, her voice tinged with regret. “I am struggling to think of a way ancient magic could help here, Headmaster.” The edge of hope that had lingered in Albus’ heart dimmed further at her words.
“Did Isadora not find a way to extract essences from people?” Albus asked, though even he could hear the doubt in his own voice.
“Emotions, yes—pain in particular,” she replied, her gaze softening. “But she never fully researched this kind of magic. The few cases we know of had side effects. And this... this wouldn’t work on a soul, Albus.” A flicker of sympathy passed over her face, seeing the defeated expression on his.
“You of all people know that magic cannot solve all ills,” she said gently. “I pray that you find a solution to this, but I don’t believe it will be found in ancient magic.”
The words struck Albus like a physical blow, a final, crushing verdict. His mind wandered back to the drawing board, but the ideas, the hope, they felt distant. His gaze flicked out the window, as if searching for an answer in the cold autumn sky.
A bitter thought crept into his mind. What if I didn't care about the boy? Would it be easier to make the decision to allow him to be lost? No. No, he could never do that. To ask a child, anyone, to give their life so easily… was too much. The weight of it threatened to crush him at even briefly thinking such a dark thought. And the truth of it is he did care, more than was likely healthy.
He envied Tom’s heart, cold and uncaring in moments like this. In that, evil had its advantage—no guilt, no hesitation, no moral tug-of-war. It was easy to make hard decisions when you didn’t care about the lives involved. Evil knew no boundaries, no emotional hesitation. It was simple in its cruelty, and that was why, in the harsh reality of the world, often, evil triumphed over good. The good-hearted had limits, burdens they couldn’t just cast aside.
Albus exhaled deeply, the thought hanging in the air as he shook his head. If we thought like him then what would life truly be? One devoid of love and hope?
He truly hoped he found something soon.
……
Enjoy, we are nearly caught back up to where the story was abandoned.
And Tpobaw - If you are reading this I am currently still have sobbing from what you wrote in your recent story!