Chapter Text
"The so-called Veil is no mere chamber of death, as the British Ministry proclaims. It is a threshold, a seam where the Shadow Current bleeds into the world. No spell, not even the most elaborate warding, can silence the voices heard before it, for they are not ghosts, nor echoes, nor shades of our mortal plane. They are fragments of those who crossed too far: the punished, the ascended, the unmade. Wizards mistake it for a grave. It is no grave at all. It is a door into the Unknown."
— A translated excerpt from Mirefleur, Claude-Anatole. "On the Veil and Its Thresholds." The Forbidden Currents: A Treatise on Thresholds, edited by Archiviste Marguerite Duval, Bibliothèque Arcanum, 1634, pp. 112–138. Restricted in the Archives Interdites, Beauxbâtons Academy, sealed by order of the Ministère de la Magie, 1789.
In the moments before his death, Harry knew something was wrong. An alien feeling rattled in his bones, sharp and cold, like the marrow had shrunk away from itself. His heart lagged a beat behind, stubbornly, just as it briefly had at the breakfast before his very first Quidditch game—almost as if, somewhere deep in his subconscious, he already knew this wasn't going to end cleanly.
"It hurts, Harry." A groan echoed from beside him.
Neville, who had been impacted by a spell moments prior, was still on the ground, his arm bent at an awkward angle. Beads of blood were leaking out of his shirt sleeve, dribbling onto the ground, each drop a soft patter, gentle as the summer rain.
A twinge of guilt fluttered in Harry's chest as he looked from the boy to the rest of them—faces cut and bruised, clothes torn, some limping, some too shaken to speak—all dragged into danger because of him.
The feeling surged again, cold and jagged, roiling through him like shards of ice flung on a winter gale. He could almost hear it in the air, the way he could hear the buzz off the powerlines on Privet Drive at night: sharp, blazing, crackling just beyond the reach of his senses.
Dumbledore, who had arrived a few moments prior, sped down the steps past Neville and Harry.
For an older man, he was deceptively fast. Dumbledore was already at the foot of the steps before the nearest Death Eaters realized he was there. There were yells; one of the Death Eaters ran, scrambling like a monkey up the stone steps opposite them.
"I think not!" Dumbledore's voice cracked through the chamber, and a silver rope of light snapped out of his wand, catching the Death Eater mid-scramble.
It yanked him off his feet as if he'd been hooked by the neck, slamming him to the stone. He didn't get back up. Dumbledore flicked his wand again, and fire roared to life in a sudden jawed shape, snapping shut around him with a heat that singed the air and belched heat waves in every direction.
Only one duel still crackled across the chamber, the rest falling silent at Dumbledore's casual display of power.
Sparks spat and died on the stone. Across the dais, Sirius twisted aside from Bellatrix's curse and dipped in a mocking bow, laughter rolling out of him, wild and reckless.
A swirling combination of curses flashed across the room, illuminating Harry's face in a strobing light.
"Come on, you can do better than that!" Sirius chortled.
The cold in Harry's chest thickened, pressing down until every breath scraped thin.
You will be alone, hissed a voice in his head, ugly and familiar, like Uncle Vernon's drawl. Just watch.
Bellatrix snarled, and the strobing stopped. Her next curse was faster than the rest—it came green and serpentine, the same venomous shade Harry remembered from the Basilisk's glinting scales.
It struck Sirius square in the chest.
The laugh hadn't even faded from his face. His eyes widened—shocked, caught mid-breath—as if it were only a hard blow to the ribs. Maybe that was just Harry's hope, trying to bend the moment into something less final.
A half-remembered line of Hermione's surfaced: something muddled in Harry's brain about how the brain smoothed the edges of trauma, how it altered memory so people could survive what they saw.
Would his mind let him remember this at all?
Nonetheless, seeing the spell hit Sirius spurred Harry into action. He released Neville and found himself jumping down the steps again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore turned to the dais too.
It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall. His body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ragged veil hanging from the arch. Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the Veil, which fluttered for a moment and then fell back into place.
"No!" Harry roared, sprinting behind Bellatrix, who was giggling madly and running toward the Veil, as though she wanted to follow. "You killed Sirius—I'll kill you!"
Harry's wand shook; he didn't even specify a spell. A pulsing red light warmed the tip of the wood before blasting forward, roiling through the open air of the cavern before harmlessly dissipating against Bellatrix's hastily erected shield.
"You'll have to do better than that, little Harry!" Bellatrix's voice rang high and sharp, bouncing around the stone chamber like glass shattering. "I thought you wanted to avenge my dear cousin!"
"I do!" The words ripped out of him. Hatred surged, hotter and sharper than anything he'd ever felt—loss, injustice, helplessness all folded into one burning knot. He'd grown used to being alone, smothered by it for years at Privet Drive, until the Hogwarts letter cracked the door open. He'd let himself believe there might be a life beyond that emptiness. For a while, Sirius had been the promise of something more. Now he was just gone. And then she had torn it away.
The fury roared through his veins, burning away the chill that had clamped his chest. Heat surged in its place, flaring until every nerve felt wired and raw. Harry drove himself forward on it, his wand leveled straight at Bellatrix. "Crucio!"
Bellatrix screamed, flung back to the floor. But she didn't writhe, didn't twist in agony like Neville had under the same curse. She was already back on her feet, breathless, the laughter gone from her face.
"Never used an Unforgivable before, have you, boy?" Her voice was low now, stripped of its mocking tone. "Not a bad first attempt—but that'll never work for long. You have to want it, boy. You have to savor it, drink it in. Righteous anger fades too quickly. I'll show you how it's done."
"Harry, look out!" Dumbledore's shout rumbled behind him, distorted by echoes and the clash of spells.
Something smashed into his back. Cloth yanked tight at his shoulder. The floor vanished. For one dizzy heartbeat, the chamber, the shouts, the red and green sparks all folded in on themselves—and then rotting, gray fingers wrapped around his mouth, and the chill from before was back.
"Harry!" Dumbledore's wheeze faded as the world tipped sideways into silence.
The Veil had swallowed him.
Darkness closed around him, deeper than anything he had ever known, and Harry tumbled through it, weightless, spinning. The silence stretched, thick and endless, until even the rush of air in his ears seemed to vanish.
After a while, it felt less like falling and more like being unstitched, thread by thread.
That led to his second realization: the Veil wasn't empty. It breathed.
Cold gnawed at his skin, leeching through his clothes, creeping into his bones until his limbs felt brittle, hollow. A soundless gale felt like it was pulling him down, down, down into the depths of an abyss. The darkness was so absolute that he couldn't even see his own hand in front of his face.
The shadows shifted with intent, curling against him, watching.
Panic stabbed at him, sharp as a knife between the ribs. What if this was forever—adrift in a void, nameless, forgotten? No door, no exit, no light.
Earlier, even Hermione had admitted she knew nothing about the Veil, nothing about what lay beyond. The thought clawed at him: what if this was Purgatory, some endless half-place where you lingered until you rotted into nothing? That would be worse than Death. At least Death had an end.
The dark writhed like a living thing, brushing against him with a pressure that lingered too long, like fingers tapping the glass between them. He remembered the inhuman fingers he'd seen before falling into the Veil.
Was something else here?
A chill carved down his spine, cold fingers dragging across every nerve. The dark shifted.
Now he was sure; he wasn't alone.
Something moved in the dark, vast and close, its attention curling over him like smoke. The shadows writhed, coiling tighter, and the air thickened until it felt like teeth closing around his chest.
A smile bloomed in the dark. He couldn't see it, but he felt it—wide, endless, packed with fangs.
Stay, the presence whispered, though no sound reached his ears. Stay, little vessel. There is no door. No end. Only me.
Hopelessness flooded him, heavy as a shroud. The certainty settled in his bones: he would never escape, never see his friends again. This was death without release, a gaze that promised not an ending, but forever.
All because of an errant spell.
And then, as suddenly as it had closed around him, the dark tore away. Air slammed back into his lungs, and he hit hard stone, the shock rattling through his bones.
Mist swirled over his vision, thick and clinging. Shapes blurred. A voice cut through it, sharp, calling his name. The fog peeled back, and a figure broke through—running, bright hair catching the light. A pretty, familiar face swam into view.
Fleur Delacour?
"Fleur?" Harry croaked, feeling disoriented and confused. His voice came out raspy and quiet, "What are you doing here?"
"Harry! Oh, thank goodness you're okay!" Fleur exclaimed, pulling him into a tight embrace, her words dripping with her heavy French accent. "I've been so worried about you. I told you, trying to practice spell deflection in Salle de l'Aube was stupid, but no, you choose to be un imbécile—"
Harry blinked against the fog in his head, trying to pin the pieces together. The fall. The cold. The dark pressing like ice in his lungs. The being.
Was he dead? He should be dead.
Yet the stone floor pressed against his back, solid, and Fleur's breath warmed his cheek, like a spark of life in the middle of winter.
"Where am I? Where are we, and what is this?" His voice shook. Bellatrix's curse, Sirius's face, the Veil—images stabbed through him and left a shudder in their wake. "How are you here?"
Was this some kind of trick? As he looked around the room, the idea seemed rather far-fetched. Everything was far too detailed to be a trick.
The room glowed with dawnlight—soft pinks and oranges spilling through stained glass that stretched from floor to ceiling. The panes showed a rising sun breaking over pale skies, and the colors bled across the marble in shifting pools. Winged horses swept across the walls in painted fields of wildflowers, caught mid-gallop, their manes streaming as if the mural itself breathed. White marble tiles gleamed underfoot, cut through with fine gold lines that caught the light like sunbeams.
He felt around in his pocket for his wand and held it up—it looked and even felt wrong. Harry's wand had been holly and phoenix feather, warm and restless in his palm. This one was dark and weighty, polished to a cold sheen. It balanced like a knife, like it was made to cut.
"This isn't funny, Harry," Fleur frowned, helping him to his feet. Her pretty blue eyes regarded him with an annoyed look. "Is this because of my prank last week? Humph. You should listen to Professor Bouchard: Quand on ne peut revenir en arrière, on ne doit se préoccuper que de la meilleure façon d'aller de l'avant."
"I don't…I don't understand," Harry pleaded, instinctively reaching upward to scratch the lower rim of his glasses—a nervous tic since he was a child. To his surprise, the sensation on his fingers was that of skin, "What? My glasses…"
"Harry…" Fleur's voice shook. The annoyance melted, sinking into a warm, unsure tone that was not unlike his own. She led him to one of the several plush cushions scattered around the room and sat with him. "Please stop. You know I do not like this kind of joke."
As Harry opened his mouth to speak, again, his eyes were drawn to a circular dais that stood in the center of the room, with an intricately carved podium at its center. "That's it! This is how I got here!" He pushed off the couch and walked to the center of the room, gesturing toward the dais. His wand sparked as he got close. "When I fell through the Veil, I must've—"
"You're scaring me," Fleur called from the couch, her eyebrows scrunched together. She strode across the room and placed a comforting hand on his back, her fingers brushing against the nape of his neck. "Harry, we've been studying for the Défense contre les forces du Mal exam. Are you feeling alright?"
"Wait, what?" Harry tried to stomach what Fleur said, "Fleur, I really don't understand—"
"Okay," Fleur said, swallowing. "Let us go to the nurse, hm?"
As far as Harry could tell, the infirmary was built to impress as much as to heal. High ceilings arched above him, every inch painted with scenes of witches and wizards laying hands on the wounded, halos of spell-light spilling from their fingers. Cabinets lined the walls, glass fronts crammed with jars of roots, vials of shimmering draughts, and neatly folded rolls of gauze.
To the left sat a reception desk, where a sharp-eyed matron scratched notes across a ledger and sent patients briskly to their wards. When Fleur guided him through the door, the woman had looked up and smiled at Harry so warmly and suddenly that, despite everything, he couldn't help but offer one back.
"Really?" Fleur bit her lip, worry dragging at her features in a way that looked wrong on her face. "You don't remember Madame Moreau?"
The waiting area was a comfortable space, furnished with plush armchairs and soft cushions. The room was illuminated by large windows that let in a soft, natural light, and potted plants were placed everywhere, some of them even glowing softly.
He and Fleur sat there while she filled out a form, occasionally shooting him worried glances that she thought he missed.
As Fleur continued to fill out the form, Harry took a deep breath and stood up, pacing back and forth in the waiting area. He couldn't shake off the feeling of disorientation and confusion.
Everything felt off.
Obviously, he knew that the Veil had something to do with all of this, but the question was, what did it do? Was he sent back in time? Was he transported somewhere in the future? What if he was really dead, and like those sci-fi shows Dudley used to watch on the telly, he'd been sent to some sort of Purgatory?
The Veil had certainly felt like that.
Suddenly, he caught sight of himself in a large mirror hanging on the wall. He stopped in his tracks, staring at his reflection. The Harry staring back wasn't the skinny, awkward boy he remembered. This Harry was cut through with definition—shoulders squared, arms corded with muscle. He looked like someone who trained every day, with the wiry strength of a runner.
His clothes were formal, elegant, alien. A fitted uniform of pale blue silk hugged close to his body, double-breasted and precise, with white lace trimming the lapels. The trousers tapered cleanly to his ankles, bound by a thin silver belt that gleamed like quicksilver. Even the shoes shone black and polished, so perfect he could almost see himself reflected again in the leather.
His hair was neatly combed and glistening with gel. He reached up to touch it, but before he could, Fleur appeared by his side, handing him a glass of water.
"Here, Harry," she said, her voice laced with concern. "You should drink some water. You're starting to worry me."
Harry took the glass and drank, still looking at his reflection in the mirror. He didn't understand what was happening to him. Why was he here? And why did he look so different?
"Madame Dufor will be with us in a moment," Fleur said, taking a seat next to him. "She's one of the best healers in all of France. If something is wrong, she'll know what to do."
As Harry sat, his thoughts unraveling, a faint tingling spread across his chest—like a static shock under the skin. He glanced down. A small, circular emblem had been stitched into the fabric of his uniform: the crest of Beauxbâtons Academy.
What?
Before he could linger on it, a woman called his name—Madame Dufor, he guessed—and beckoned him forward. Fleur fell into step beside him as they followed the healer through the corridor.
The examination room they entered smelled faintly of herbs and polish. A long wooden table dominated the space, shelves crowded with neat rows of potions, salves, and instruments gleaming under the light. Anatomical charts lined the walls, diagrams of bone and muscle drawn in crisp ink.
Through the open doorway, Harry glimpsed more: private wards set in a row, each with a bed and glowing crystals that bathed the rooms in soft, steady light. Further down, past the curve of the hall, a small chapel waited, plain but deliberate, its single altar commanding silence.
At last, Madame Dufor steered him into one of the wards and gestured to the cot. Harry sat, stiff against the sheets, as her wand hummed faintly over his skin and she began her tests.
"Miss Delacour," Madame Dufor eventually said with a grimace, "I have regret, but I must inform you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your friend."
"What?" Fleur repeated incredulously. "How is this bad news? This is good news, no?"
"In this case, it is anything but good news. It means that Monsieur Potter is not confounded, nor is he suffering the effects of a potion, or any other detectable curse. He truly believes everything he's saying of his own accord," Madame Dufor continued walking around Harry, the tip of her wand glowing red. "How remarkable. Tell me: you truly do not remember me, Monsieur?"
"No," Harry replied. His voice, now that he'd calmed down a little, came out in a smooth, cultured baritone. "I'm sorry."
"Humph. And how did this accident happen, again?" Madame Dufor asked, poking and prodding Harry with her wand. His eye twitched. "Perhaps there's something I missed."
"We have the exam tomorrow, non? One part is spell deflection. Harry and I, we were practicing, and then—paf—my spell slipped and struck the wall behind him. We used the Salle room, so it bounced, and it caught him in the back." Fleur let out a sharp breath, repeating the story for what felt like the hundredth time. Her mouth tightened, eyes flashing with annoyance. "Since that moment, he acts the fool. Like un amnésique."
"What spell did you use?" Madame Dufor asked. "Please, be precise. It's very important."
"Viprion," Fleur intoned, her accent strengthening, "I highly doubt this has any bearing, madame. The spell creates little more than a small, fist-shaped manifestation of magical energy. It's used to deliver a playful, harmless punch, not cause…this."
"Be that as it may, Mademoiselle, Monsieur Potter is still suffering some effects, no?" Madame Dufor replied, a bit more sternly. "The spell may have impacted him in just the right spot, or there may have been some other backlash involved. We have no choice but to notify his parents. We cannot move further without them, as their son is currently incapable of consenting to further medical procedures. Please remain with him while I contact them."
Fleur looked like she wanted to cry. "Très bien."
"My…parents?" Harry spoke, not trusting his own voice. His heart clenched at the thought, "Did that woman just say…parents?"
[AN]
If you're reading this, and the date is [09/16/25] or later, the official rewrite of this story is underway. Thanks to all those who stayed followed, and favorited, and a special thanks to those of you in my Discord who continually voiced your support and desire for this story to be continued. The time had come to trim the docket of stories I was working on, and I decided to bring this one back and cut a few others away.
Originally, I'd been inspired by Sapper One, but this newer version of the story features a bit more direct influence from DarknessEnthroned and his latest story, Smile Back. The being smiling at him is a little reference to that.
Mainly, I really enjoyed the almost religious take he had on the 'old ways' and such, and I wanted to use that to directly mould some of the mythos of this story—at least, in terms of the 'ceremony' of it, if that makes sense. I enjoy his work, and as far as inspiration goes, most of my HP works can be traced back to reading A Cadmean Victory when I was younger. Though this won't be as depressing...LOL.
When I made this story, years ago, the only sticking point for me had been "what if our Harry fell into a mirror world that was completely different," but I had little much beyond that. Probably why I stopped writing it, if I'm being honest.
This go around, I've taken to creating an outline and revamping the whole focus of the story. The Veil, of course, is still our starting point, so this chapter hasn't changed much, but I've deleted the rest of them because everything will be different moving forward.
I do hope you'll stick around. There's going to be a brand-new, AU world, complicated magic system, deities, a gender-swapped (and good) Tom Riddle, and—well, don't want to give up too much of the game right away.
My final request, as per usual, will be to join the Discord. It's the only reason this is kicking, but, beyond that, it's just good in terms of being in sync with my schedule and stuff.
Just take the spaces out of this and paste it in your browser for all the links: Linktr . ee /maroooon
Best,
Maroon