Aurelian settled into his chair, taking in the weight of his new responsibility. He looked up at the girl in front of him and asked the question that had been on his mind.
"If I'm a FateBreaker and my decisions change the original scripts… can you still see what the future will be like?"
Death leaned back in her seat and began to absentmindedly fiddle with her ankh necklace.
"As you must already know, Aurelian, time isn't a straight line," she explained in a casual tone. "Even if you had never been born into this world, the future might have been slightly different in one way or another. There would be variations, of course. But…" Death smiled, raising both arms high toward the starry sky. "Fate will always, always try to correct itself. Like a river that encounters obstacles in its path—no matter which branch it veers off into—it will always find a way to reach its final destination."
She lowered her arms and looked at him intently once more, her gray eyes taking on an unfathomable gleam.
"That's why the fact that you're a FateBreaker is so incredibly unique. You don't just divert the river—you dry up the original channel and create a completely new one for it to flow through."
Aurelian clasped his hands on the table.
"And so far… how many destinies have I changed?"
Death sat up straight again, resting her chin in her hand.
"Phew, a whole lot," she said, downplaying it. "But if we're talking about the most important and radical ones, without a doubt they were your father's, your friend Cedric's, the Potter boy's, and of course, those of the two girls you like so much."
Aurelian nodded silently, watching the goth girl who kept smiling at him amusedly. It all made sense. Changing Voldemort's fate was completely understandable; thanks to his intervention, the worst Dark Lord in modern British history had basically become just like any other father—a man who cared about his family and now worked in the upper echelons of the magical government. And logically, without a mad Voldemort obsessed with prophecies, Harry Potter was simply unnecessary in the grand scheme of things; now he's just a normal boy without the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He looked the deity in the eyes.
"Were the changes for the better?"
She tilted her head, weighing the question.
"I suppose that depends on one's perspective. But generally speaking… yes, they were very good changes. Especially those involving Hestia and Flora Carrow. Their original endings were, well… quite unpleasant."
Feeling a pang of curiosity and concern, Aurelian opened his mouth to ask what their original fate had in store for them, but Death was quicker. She leaned over the table and silenced him by placing a pale, cold finger directly on his lips.
"Shh… Shh," she whispered with a tender smile. "Just know that, now that they're with you, those two girls are immensely happy—and that's all. That's the only thing that should matter to you."
Aurelian sighed and nodded slightly, conceding the point. When she removed her finger, he tried to ask another question about his current situation in the physical world, but Death interrupted him again with a wave of her hand.
"Oh, before you ask: you can keep the objects. I have no problem with that," she assured him cheerfully. "In fact, I'm actually quite happy that you have them. They suit you."
Aurelian froze for a second, astonished by how easily she could read his mind.
"You can never hide absolutely anything from Death," he whispered to himself, resigned.
"Exactly! Don't you dare forget it!"
The goth girl leaped over the small table and pounced on him. Aurelian didn't have time to react before Death's slender, cold arms wrapped around him in a tight embrace.
"Death sees and knows everything, Aurelian!" she whispered in his ear, brimming with pure amusement.
Before he could do anything, she quickly pulled away and patted him on the shoulder, adopting a slightly more serious tone.
"But you'd better get back to the world of the living. There are a lot of people out there who are very, very worried about you."
Aurelian narrowed his eyes.
"Worried? But we've only been talking here for a couple of hours—it can't be that bad."
Death burst out laughing.
"We've been talking for a few hours in limbo, yes. But the rules of time aren't the same here. For the rest of the world out there… three days have already passed since you disappeared at the Quidditch stadium."
Aurelian's eyes widened. Three days. The wizarding world, his father, and above all, Hestia and Flora must be on the verge of madness or burning down the entire country trying to find him.
Death raised a hand, and with a snap of her fingers, the fabric of the place fractured. A deep crack appeared, floating just behind Aurelian, revealing glimpses of the physical world.
He stood up in front of the portal. He spun on his heels, looked at her one last time, and gave her one of his rare smiles, bowing his head slightly in a sign of respect.
"Goodbye, Lady Death."
Death waved goodbye enthusiastically, but just before he stepped through, she couldn't resist throwing one last teasing remark his way.
"Goodbye, Aurelian! And hey… you should stop having a thing for goth girls—it's weird!"
Aurelian felt his face burning. He blushed fiercely all the way to his ears, and without saying a single word to defend his already shattered dignity, he quickly crossed the rift, disappearing into the darkness.
The portal closed behind him with a soft hiss, leaving the cosmic entity standing alone in the middle of that meadow.
Death lowered her hand, and her smile softened into an expression of intrigue and anticipation. She looked at the empty space where the young man had been standing.
"Until we meet again… FateBreaker" she murmured into the wind.
Then she looked down at her dark pants, her T-shirt, and the ankh necklace resting on her chest. She observed herself for a few seconds, took a small turn on the grass, and nodded, thoroughly pleased. From now on, she would definitely wear that appearance forever.
The Great Hall at Hogwarts, usually a place filled with warmth and laughter, now felt like an interrogation room. Three long days had already passed since the invasion and the magical confrontation on the Quidditch field.
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore stood near the teachers' table, looking noticeably exhausted. The castle had barely managed to return to normal; the debris had been cleared away, and everything was under control. Gellert Grindelwald, as was to be expected of someone of his caliber, had managed to escape at the last second. However, his incursion came at a price. Much of Grindelwald's elite forces had been captured or eliminated during the battle, though, much to the Ministry's frustration, Vinda Rosier and Percival Graves were not among the prisoners. Somehow, they had managed to vanish into the night.
As he reviewed the reports, Albus couldn't help but massage his temples. The accounts from the portraits and ghosts were growing increasingly bizarre. Several swore they had seen a huge, monstrous serpent slithering through the hallways and devouring whatever it encountered—something Albus immediately dismissed as mere hallucinations caused by panic and the smoke of battle.
But there were other reports he couldn't ignore. Dozens of testimonies claimed to have seen the Hogwarts house-elves savagely slaughtering the intruders with knives. If Minerva hadn't sat down across from him to confirm, with absolute seriousness and a shiver in her voice, that she herself had witnessed the carnage… Albus would never have believed it.
Dumbledore let out a sigh and turned his head.
A few meters away, seated in one of the chairs in the Great Hall, was the Minister of Magic, Tom Gaunt. Staring intently.
The fury radiating from Tom was so dense, so dark and palpable, that the air around him seemed to warp. Albus had never, not even in the darkest days of the First War, seen him act that way. It was as if the mask he always wore had vanished completely, revealing the ruthless Lord Voldemort who once dwelled within him.
And no wonder. Aurelian Gaunt had vanished. It was as if the earth had swallowed him whole. And Tom, with the rage of a father whose son had been snatched away, blamed Albus Dumbledore directly and solely for it.
The silence between the two leaders was deafening, until Tom finally stood up.
With slow, deliberate steps, the Minister approached until he was face to face with Dumbledore. Tom raised a hand and grabbed the headmaster's shoulder, gripping it with great force.
"If my son ever sets foot in this castle again… you will notify me immediately," Tom whispered, his voice trailing a hiss that promised death and destruction if he dared to disobey.
Without waiting for a reply, Tom released him abruptly. With his elegant black cloak billowing behind him, he left the Great Hall escorted by his Aurors, leaving Albus completely alone with the weight of his own guilt.
Dumbledore lowered his gaze and sighed again; this war would be the end of him.
Far below the Great Hall, deep within the Slytherin dungeons, the pain did not manifest as anger, but as suffocating despair.
In the private room of the seventh-year Slytherins, Hestia and Flora Carrow were lying on Aurelian's bed. Huddled together, they clung tightly to their fiancé's pillow, burying their faces in the fabric to breathe in the scent that still lingered there.
They had been weeping inconsolably for three full days. Their eyes were swollen and bloodshot, and their faces were streaked with dried tears.
From the darkness, atop a heavy oak table beside the bed, a pair of yellow eyes watched them in silence.
Nythoros, the King of Serpents, lay coiled, keeping watch over the room. The basilisk knew full well that his companion was not dead. He could still feel their bond pulsing deep within his being. But, as much as he wanted to ease the agony of the two young witches, he could not tell them a single thing; they did not speak Parseltongue and would not understand him. All the ancient beast could do was watch over them and protect them from harm until he returned.
Hestia let out a sob, clutching the pillow much tighter.
They were devastated, but more than anything, they were furious. They didn't know how to find him. That stupid, damned Dumbledore hadn't told them a single thing about how, when, or why their beloved Aurelian had disappeared. When the twins, nearly on the verge of madness, had cornered him in the infirmary demanding answers, the decrepit old man had simply looked at them with pity, given them his silly, enigmatic smile, and left them there, alone and without any information.
Not knowing the magical nature of his disappearance, their hands were tied. They couldn't use tracking spells, they couldn't cast blood magic—they couldn't do anything. How they hated that old man. They hated him with every fiber of their being. Because of him, they were doomed to remain trapped in that room, crying as they waited.
Flora lifted her face slightly from the pillow, wiping away her tears with the back of her trembling hand. She looked at her sister with unshakable faith.
"He… he's going to come back," Flora whispered, her voice broken by sobs. "He would never leave us, Hestia. He would never do that."
Hestia nodded frantically, pressing her forehead against her twin's and letting out another flood of tears.
"He will… he'll always come back for us. Always."
They continued crying, embraced in the dim light, drowning in their own pain, when suddenly… the air above the bed shifted.
A cosmic rift suddenly opened less than a meter above them.
The twins barely had time to look up when someone fell straight through the portal, landing awkwardly in the center of the mattress, right next to them.
Hestia and Flora froze. The air left their lungs.
Aurelian, settling himself on the sheets, looked up. He gazed at them with those hypnotic eyes they loved so much and gave them a gentle smile.
"I'm so sorry I disappeared for so long, my darlings, " he said, his warm voice breaking the silence in the room.
Time seemed to stand still.
With a cry that mingled pure disbelief and relief, Hestia and Flora threw themselves at him. They tackled him onto the mattress, clinging to his neck and chest so tightly they nearly choked him.
"AURELIAN!" they both sobbed, bursting into tears with renewed intensity.
They buried their faces in the chest of his tunic, soaking the fabric with their tears as they clung to him possessively.
"We thought… we thought something terrible had happened to you!" Hestia cried, trembling from head to toe.
"We thought we'd never see you again, you idiot!" Flora scolded him between choked sobs.
Aurelian relaxed his shoulders, closing his eyes with a peaceful smile. He wrapped both arms around them, pulling them even closer to his body, and began to tenderly stroke their tousled hair.
"Shh… it's over now. I'm here. Everything's fine now," he whispered to them, kissing each of their heads repeatedly to calm them. "I'm not going anywhere."
As the girls continued to sob against his chest, releasing all the tension that had built up over the last three days, Aurelian opened one eye and looked toward the nightstand.
Seeing the emerald serpent staring intently at him, Aurelian nodded slowly.
"Thank you for watching over them, Nythoros," he hissed gratefully in Parseltongue.
The millennia-old basilisk closed its eyes, coiling more comfortably on the wood and letting out a soft hiss.
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