### **THE VEIL – DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES (RUINS)**
The archway stands like a tombstone in a graveyard of magic.
Harry descends the spiral staircase that shouldn't exist anymore—marble steps cracked like broken teeth, dust motes dancing in the dim light filtering through holes blasted in the ceiling decades ago. His boots echo. The sound bounces back wrong, distorted, as if the ruins can't quite remember how acoustics work.
The Department of Mysteries has become a department of nothing at all. The prophecy shelves are skeletal frameworks, their glass orbs long since shattered or melted. The stone benches have been reduced to abstract sculptures of their former selves. Even the ever-burning torches have guttered out, leaving only scorch marks as epitaphs.
But the Veil?
The Veil is *thriving*.
The tattered curtain undulates with obscene vitality, moving to music only it can hear. It's grown, Harry notices. When he was fifteen and stupid, it barely filled the archway. Now it spills over the sides like a wedding dress on a corpse, fabric—if it is fabric—pooling on the floor in shapes that hurt to look at directly.
"You're looking well," Harry tells it. "Very... billowy. Have you been working out?"
The Veil shivers. Might be laughter. Might be hunger.
Harry stops at the appropriate distance—three feet, the space between bravery and stupidity—and adjusts his coat. The collar sits wrong. It's been sitting wrong for thirty years, ever since he stopped caring whether his collar sat right. Now he fusses with it anyway because some habits survive the apocalypse.
Others don't.
Like hope. And haircuts. And the belief that wearing matching socks matters.
"Right," Harry says to the empty room. "Speech time. Do I need a speech? You've been waiting for me since I was seventeen. You've been very patient about the whole 'Master of Death refuses to die' situation. Points for that. Most creditors are pushier."
The Veil ripples.
"I know, I know. It's time. Past time, really." Harry spreads his hands, examining them in the dusty light. They're steady. They've been steady since the shaking stopped, somewhere around year twelve. After Teddy died. After the last of the magical creatures keeled over. After the plants gave up and the sky turned the color of old teeth. "There's nothing left to protect. No one left to save. The prophecy failed to mention what happens when the Chosen One outlives his world."
A breeze that isn't a breeze stirs the curtain.
"Spoiler alert," Harry continues conversationally. "He gets really boring at parties. Hypothetically. If there were parties. Or people to throw them." He touches his chest absently, fingers tracing the space where the Hallows have dissolved into his very essence. The Stone thrums beneath his sternum like a second heart. The Wand burns along his spine like a column of fire frozen in place. The Cloak...
The Cloak has been his shadow for so long he's forgotten what it's like to cast a normal one.
"I'm ready," Harry lies.
He's never been ready. Not for Voldemort. Not for the war. Not for watching the world burn in atomic fire because wizards and Muggles couldn't stop being clever long enough to be wise.
But he's *done*.
That's close enough.
Harry steps forward.
The Veil lunges for him like an eager dog.
---
### **STORYBROOKE – MAIN STREET**
The mob has excellent timing—arriving right as Regina Mills decides she's had enough of everyone's nonsense for seventeen lifetimes.
Dr. Whale leads the charge with the enthusiasm of a man who's just remembered he has a pitchfork and an opinion. Behind him, the citizens of Storybrooke wave various implements: torches (classic), a cricket bat (imported), several spatulas (Granny's Diner must be understaffed today), and what appears to be a decorative garden gnome being wielded like a mace.
"Twenty-eight years!" Whale bellows, face flushed with the particular red of righteous fury and poor cardiovascular health. "Twenty-eight years you *stole* from us!"
Regina, back pressed to the town hall's brick wall, raises one immaculate eyebrow. "Stole? Darling, I *curated* your existence. You should be thanking me. Half of you were unemployed peasants. I gave you dental insurance and a 401(k)."
"SHUT UP!" someone shouts from the back. Sounds like Leroy. It's always Leroy.
"Eloquent," Regina purrs. "Did you workshop that comeback, or was it spontaneous?"
The mob surges forward.
A hand catches Whale's shoulder—firm, brooking no argument. Emma Swan materializes from the crowd like a leather-jacketed angel of exasperation. "Back. Off."
Whale spins. "Sheriff, you can't possibly—"
"I can, I am, and you're going to drop the pitchfork before someone loses an eye." Emma's hand rests on her hip near her gun. Her expression suggests she's mentally calculating how much paperwork an accidental stabbing would generate. "Nobody's killing anybody. That's the rule."
"She's a *monster*," Whale spits.
"Probably," Emma agrees. "Still not killing her."
David Nolan appears at Emma's right shoulder, all square-jawed heroism and determined eyes. "The sheriff's right. We're better than this."
Mary Margaret flanks Emma's left, her face set in that particular expression of kindergarten-teacher disappointment that's somehow more devastating than anger. "We don't get justice through violence."
Regina watches the Charming family form a protective wall in front of her and experiences an emotion she can't quite identify. Might be gratitude. Might be nausea. Definitely involves irony.
"How touching," she manages. "The savior saves the villain. There's a storybook twist."
Emma doesn't turn around. "Shut up, Regina."
"Shutting up."
The mob wavers, uncertain. They came prepared for evil queen confrontation, not moral complexity and paperwork threats.
Emma seizes the moment. "Regina's going to jail. She's staying there until I figure out what the actual legal procedure is for someone who cursed an entire dimension. Understood?"
It's not a question.
The mob, deprived of immediate violence, begins to disperse with the dissatisfied grumbling of people who wore their good lynching clothes for nothing.
Emma finally turns to Regina. "You okay?"
"Peachy," Regina says flatly. "Nothing says 'okay' like your adopted son's birth mother saving you from pitchfork-related death."
"Yeah, well." Emma shifts uncomfortably. "Henry would be upset if you died. So. Jail."
"Your compassion overwhelms me."
"I could give them the pitchforks back."
"Jail sounds lovely."
---
### **STORYBROOKE SHERIFF'S STATION – THIRTY MINUTES LATER**
The cell door slams with the finality of a coffin lid. Regina sits on the narrow cot, spine straight, hands folded, radiating the energy of a deposed queen at a particularly disappointing garden party.
Emma watches her through the bars. "Seriously. You okay?"
"I'm in jail."
"I noticed."
"I could redecorate. Perhaps some curtains. Do you allow curtains in maximum security?"
"This is the only security." Emma gestures at the station's single cell. "And you know you earned this."
Regina's jaw tightens. "I'm aware."
Silence falls, awkward and heavy. Emma pulls out her phone—seventeen texts from Henry, each more creative with emoji usage than the last. She's about to respond when the door opens.
Mr. Gold enters.
He moves with the measured grace of a spider approaching a particularly plump fly, cane tapping a rhythm that sounds almost musical. In his free hand, something glints—a circular talisman that seems to drink the light around it.
Every survival instinct Emma has developed over twenty-eight years of bail bonds and foster homes starts screaming.
"Gold." Her hand drops to her gun. "Visiting hours aren't until—"
"I'm not visiting, Sheriff." Gold's smile could cut glass. "I'm collecting a debt." His eyes fix on Regina. "Hello, Your Majesty. You're looking... trapped."
Regina goes very still in the way that predators do when they've suddenly become prey. "Rumplestiltskin."
"She remembers!" Gold sounds delighted. "I was worried the curse might've scrambled those lovely memories. But no—you recall *everything*. Every deal. Every betrayal." His smile sharpens. "Every cage."
Emma steps between them and the cell. "Whatever you're planning—"
"Nothing illegal, dear." Gold produces a dagger from his coat—curved, ancient, covered in script that makes Emma's eyes water if she looks too long. "I promised Belle I wouldn't kill Regina. And I am, as always, a man of my word."
He raises the talisman.
"Don't—" Regina starts.
The talisman flares crimson like a dying star. Gold murmurs something in a language that tastes like copper and old graves, and the light leaps from the medallion to Regina's chest. It brands her—there's no other word for it—sinking into her skin like a red-hot coal into snow.
Regina *screams*.
Not the dramatic villain scream. The real kind. The terrified kind.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Emma lunges for the cell door, but Gold's already moving, driving the dagger into the floor with theatrical precision.
The impact sends shockwaves through reality itself.
The lights flicker and die. The temperature plummets—Emma's breath mists in the suddenly arctic air. Frost spreads across the windows in fractals that look almost intentional, almost like letters in a language nobody should read.
And something *tears*.
Not the fabric of space—that would be too simple. This is the fabric of *story*, of narrative cohesion, of the rules that govern how magic and reality intersect. It's the sound of someone crossing a line they shouldn't even be able to see.
A wraith materializes in the center of the room.
It's beautiful in the way that things are when they're absolutely wrong—all tattered fabric and hollow hunger, moving with the grace of silk and the intent of a guillotine. No eyes, but it *sees*. No mouth, but it *hungers*.
It reaches for Regina with fingers that trail frost and forgetting.
Regina scrambles backward on the cot, hand rising instinctively—but nothing happens, the magic won't come, it's still locked behind whatever the curse did, and she's *powerless*—
The wraith lunges.
The space behind it *cracks*.
Not dramatically. Not with fanfare. Just... breaks. Like reality was a window and someone threw a rock through it from the other side.
A figure stumbles through the gap, silhouetted against light that has no business existing in this dimension. He hits the station floor hard—one knee down, head bowed, coat pooling around him like spilled ink.
For three heartbeats, nobody moves.
Then the man looks up.
Emma's brain short-circuits.
He's *unfairly* attractive in the way that Tim Burton characters somehow are—all sharp angles and soulful eyes and cheekbones that could slice bread. Dark hair falls into his face in artful disarray. His coat hangs open, moving slightly despite the lack of breeze, and beneath it leather straps cross his chest in an X that's either tactical or aesthetic. Possibly both.
But it's his eyes that catch her.
Green. Impossibly green. The kind of green that forests wish they could be.
Also: *exhausted*. Like he's been awake for a century and is only standing through sheer bloody-mindedness.
He looks like someone stepped out of a Gothic painting, got lost for fifty years, and forgot to die.
"Oh," the man says in a voice like gravel and honey. British accent. Of course. "Of *course* there's a wraith. Why wouldn't there be a wraith? Did someone leave the 'summon dimensional horrors' tap running?"
The wraith shrieks and lunges for Regina again.
The man moves.
Emma doesn't see him cross the distance. One moment he's by the reality-wound, the next he's between Regina and the wraith, one hand raised with the casual authority of someone stopping a misbehaving puppy.
The wraith's hand passes through his palm.
And *stops*.
The creature convulses, keening like wind through a graveyard, trying to pull back. The man's fingers close around its wrist—if it has a wrist; the physics are unclear—and his eyes go flat and distant.
"No," he says gently. "You're tired. I can feel it. You don't want to do this."
The wraith *hesitates*.
"You've been hungry for so long," the man continues, voice soft as snowfall. "Consuming and consuming and never being full. That's not life. That's not even death. That's just... endless." He tilts his head. "What if you could stop?"
The wraith shudders.
"I'm offering," the man says. "Rest. Actual rest. No more hunger. No more hunting. Just... peace."
The wraith looks at Regina one last time—if it's looking, the metaphysics are complicated—then back at the man.
It dissolves.
Not violently. Not with drama. It simply... unweaves. Like someone cut the strings holding it together, and it decided not to fight. One moment: wraith. Next moment: nothing.
Not even memory.
The man lowers his hand slowly, examining his palm with mild curiosity. "Huh. That actually worked. Usually takes more convincing."
Silence.
Regina, still pressed against the cell wall, finds her voice first. "What... what are you?"
"Tired." The man looks at her, and his expression softens into something almost apologetic. "Also sorry. Should've asked first. Did you *want* the soul-eating monster? Some people have arrangements."
Emma unsticks her tongue from the roof of her mouth. "Who. The hell. Are you."
The man's gaze shifts to her, and she feels *seen*—not in a creepy way, but in an *aware* way. Like he's looking at all of her at once: bail bondsperson and sheriff and savior and scared woman who just got her parents back.
He blinks, and the pressure lifts.
"Harry," he says. "Potter. Sorry about the dramatic entrance. I was aiming for 'afterlife' and got 'angry wraith dimension' instead. Navigation's tricky when you're falling through conceptual space."
Mary Margaret appears in the doorway—when did she arrive?—with David right behind her. Both stare at the rapidly closing reality-wound, then at Harry, then at each other.
"Did he just..." David starts.
"Convince a wraith to stop existing through *therapy*?" Mary Margaret finishes. "I think so?"
"It was more like assisted suicide," Harry corrects. "But sure. Therapy works."
Gold's knuckles are white on his cane. His eyes have gone very sharp, very calculating. "What *are* you?"
Harry looks at him for a long moment. "I'm what happens when someone survives the end of their story and the universe doesn't know what to do with them." He gestures at the closing wound. "That was the Veil. Death's doorway. I went through looking for an ending. Got... this instead." He glances around the station. "Nice town. Very quaint. Do the wraith attacks happen often, or was this a special occasion?"
"Special occasion," Emma manages.
"Thank god. I'm not really in a wraith-fighting mood." Harry sways slightly.
Emma moves without thinking—muscle memory from too many drunk pickups—and catches him before he hits the floor. He's solid and *heavy*, like his bones are made of lead, and his coat smells like ash and old smoke and something else she can't identify.
Magic, maybe.
Or grief.
His eyes meet hers, too close, too green, too *aware*.
"You're Emma," he says, like he's confirming something. "The savior. True Love's daughter. Breaker of curses." A pause. "Also you have a son. Henry. He's ten. Likes fairy tales." Another pause. "That's good. Someone should get a happy ending."
"How do you know—"
His eyes roll back, and he goes limp.
Emma is left holding a stranger who weighs approximately eight hundred pounds and looks like a Tim Burton character had a baby with a war veteran.
David stares. "Emma..."
"I *know*."
Mary Margaret edges closer. "Is he breathing?"
Emma checks. "Unfortunately."
Gold taps his cane once, the sound sharp in the frozen air. His expression is unreadable. "That," he says slowly, "is going to be a problem."
"You think?" Emma adjusts her grip on Harry—how is someone this lean this *heavy*—and glares at Gold. "You summoned a wraith. A wraith opened a portal. The portal spat out *him*." She gestures at Harry's unconscious face. "This is *your* fault."
"Technically—"
"Do not finish that sentence."
Gold smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. "I'll see myself out."
He leaves, cane tapping an irregular rhythm that sounds almost like Morse code.
Emma looks at her parents. "So. Ideas?"
"Granny's?" David suggests. "We can't leave him in the station."
"He could be dangerous," Mary Margaret points out, but she's already moving to take some of Harry's weight. "Then again, he did save Regina."
Regina, still in the cell, still gripping the bars, makes a strangled sound. "I need a drink."
"You're in jail."
"*I need a drink.*"
Emma sighs. "David, help me. Mary Margaret, get the door. Regina—"
"Still in jail. Yes. I'm aware." Regina's voice is tight. "But when you figure out what he is, I want to know. Because that—" she points at Harry, "—that wasn't magic. That was something else."
Emma looks down at the man in her arms. His face is peaceful in unconsciousness, younger somehow. Like sleep is the only time he stops carrying whatever weight is crushing him.
"Yeah," she murmurs. "Something else."
They carry him out into the sunlight, which seems deeply inappropriate given the circumstances.
Above them, the sky is blue and cloudless and absolutely unconcerned with the fact that reality just cracked open and spat out a man who convinced death to take a coffee break.
---
### **GRANNY'S BED AND BREAKFAST – GUEST ROOM 4 (FOUR HOURS LATER)**
Harry wakes the way he always wakes: all at once, completely aware, cataloging threats before his eyes open.
Threat assessment: nil. Location: unknown but safe. Status: lying down on something *soft*, which is deeply suspicious.
He opens his eyes.
The ceiling is wooden and vaulted, lit by afternoon sun through lace curtains that look handmade. The room smells like old wood and clean linen and something baking downstairs. Cinnamon, maybe. His coat is still on—someone tried to remove it, gave up, and tucked a blanket around him instead.
There are four people arranged around the room like they're waiting for him to either wake up or explode.
Emma Swan sits in a chair beside the bed, elbows on knees, watching him with the focused intensity of a cat deciding if something's food. She's striking—all sharp edges and blonde hair and leather jacket that's seen some things.
Behind her, her parents stand like matching bookends: David with his arms crossed, Mary Margaret holding a blanket like she's waiting for permission to be helpful.
Regina Mills is by the window, backlit by sun, arms wrapped around herself. She's changed clothes—dark slacks, wine-colored blouse—and looks like a Renaissance painting titled "Woman Contemplating Murder (Or Tea)."
She's also objectively gorgeous. So is Emma. Harry blames dimensional transit for noticing.
"You're staring," Emma says flatly.
"Sorry." Harry's voice comes out like sandpaper. He clears his throat, tries again. "How long?"
"Four hours. Want to explain what happened?"
"Which part?"
"All of it. Starting with the reality-breaking and ending with the wraith therapy."
Harry considers this. Sits up slowly—noting how everyone tenses like he might explode into bats—and swings his legs off the bed. His boots are still on. Good. The floor feels solid. Also good.
"I came through a portal," he says. "The wraith summoning opened it. Magic recognized magic. I'm... adjacent to death, so it pulled me through."
"Adjacent," Emma repeats.
"Near. Proximate. On friendly terms with." Harry waves a hand. "We have coffee sometimes. It's complicated."
"And you're from..." David prompts.
"Earth. England. Though by the end, geography was more of a suggestion." Harry smooths his coat absently—the fabric is scorched but intact, held together by magic and stubbornness. "Nuclear war. Very exciting. Took six hours for civilization to end, another fifty years for the radiation to finish the job." He pauses. "I was the last one left. Turns out being unkillable has downsides."
The silence is profound.
Mary Margaret breaks it. "You watched your entire world die."
"Yes."
"And you're..."
"Centuries old. Give or take. Lost count around year forty." Harry tilts his head. "Does this dimension have therapy? I feel like I should look into therapy."
Regina laughs—sharp and slightly unhinged. "Therapy. Yes. Because the man who talked a wraith out of existence definitely needs to talk about his *feelings*."
"Everyone needs to talk about their feelings," Mary Margaret says firmly.
"See?" Harry gestures at her. "She gets it."
Emma leans forward. "You said you were trying to die. That you went through the Veil looking for an ending."
"Correct."
"That's..."
"Depressing? Yeah. I'm aware." Harry meets her gaze. "I'm not suicidal, if that's what you're worried about. I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was trying to... move on. Let Death collect what it's owed. The afterlife thing. But the universe had other ideas."
"The universe has terrible ideas," Regina mutters.
"Doesn't it though?" Harry stands slowly, testing his balance. Solid. Good. "So now I'm here. In Storybrooke. Which feels like a fairy tale had a baby with a Norman Rockwell painting."
"Close enough," David admits.
Harry moves to the window, looking out at the town. It's aggressively quaint—colorful buildings, neat streets, people going about their lives like reality didn't just crack open and spit out a dimensional refugee. "It's strange," he murmurs. "Being somewhere with people again."
"Fifty years alone," Mary Margaret says softly. "I can't even imagine—"
"Then don't," Harry says gently. "Don't imagine it. Don't try to understand it. Just be grateful you can't." He glances at her. "Your life has enough trauma without borrowing mine."
Regina appears at his other side, studying him with sharp eyes. "The wraith. You didn't banish it. You convinced it to stop existing."
"I gave it permission to rest." Harry touches the window glass—it's warm from the sun, solid, *real*. "Wraiths are sustained by hunger. Endless, aching hunger. I showed it the concept of satiation. Of ending. It chose to take it."
"That's not how wraiths work."
"It is if you're Death's favorite project." Harry smiles slightly. "I don't follow the normal rules. Death and I have an understanding. I don't die, and it doesn't get paperwork. Everyone wins."
Emma joins them at the window. "Gold looked scared of you."
"Did he?" Harry sounds genuinely surprised. "Huh. I thought he looked calculating. Like he was trying to figure out how to put me in a jar and weaponize me."
"That too."
"I get that a lot." Harry pauses. "Actually, I don't. Everyone's dead. But hypothetically, I would get that a lot."
"You're very casual about the apocalypse," Regina observes.
"Would you prefer I be dramatic?" Harry spreads his hands. "I could wail and rend my garments. But I've had fifty years to process, and honestly, I'm all cried out. Now I'm just..." He searches for the word. "Existing. Aggressively. Out of spite."
"That's the spirit," Emma says dryly.
Mary Margaret edges closer, still clutching her blanket like a security object. "You said you heard Emma's name. And Henry's. How?"
"Magic carries information. Voices, intentions, stories. Your family's narrative is *loud*." Harry looks at Emma. "True Love's daughter. The savior born to break the curse. That's a lot of weight."
"I'm handling it."
"I'm sure you are." Harry's tone is gentle. "But handling it and being okay with it are different things. I know. I've been the Chosen One. It's exhausting."
Emma's expression shutters. "You don't know me."
"No," Harry agrees. "But I know what it's like to be the one everyone expects to fix everything. And I know what it's like when you can't." He meets her eyes. "It's not your fault, by the way. Whatever you think you failed at. It's not your fault."
Emma looks away first.
David clears his throat. "You saved Regina's life. That counts for something."
"I stopped a wraith from eating someone's soul," Harry corrects. "That's just common decency. The bar for heroism is apparently very low here."
"You'd be surprised how low," Regina mutters.
Harry looks at her—really looks at her. "He tried to kill you. Gold. Rumplestiltskin. Whatever he's called. He marked you for death because he's clever enough to find loopholes but not wise enough to know he shouldn't."
Regina's jaw tightens. "He promised Belle he wouldn't kill me. This was his solution."
"He sounds delightful. Does he host dinner parties? I bet they're *fascinating*." Harry's voice is light, but his eyes are hard. "I've met men like him. Men who think being clever is the same as being right. They tend to burn the world down proving it."
"Speaking from experience?" Emma asks.
"Extensively." Harry turns back to the window. "My world ended because everyone was too clever. Too smart. Too convinced they were right." He traces a pattern on the glass—absent, unconscious. "Wizards and Muggles both. Everyone thought they could control the outcome. None of us could."
The silence is heavy.
Mary Margaret breaks it. "Muggles?"
"Non-magical people. Humans without magic." Harry glances at her. "Terrible term, honestly. But it stuck."
"Your world had magic?" Regina's interest sharpens. "Hidden from the non-magical population?"
"Whole secret society. Witches, wizards, magical creatures, the works." Harry's smile is bitter. "We had our own government, our own economy, our own wars. Spent centuries convinced we were better than the Muggles. Turns out nuclear weapons don't care about blood status."
"Jesus," Emma mutters.
"Wasn't there," Harry says. "I checked. Thoroughly."
David steps forward, military posture softening slightly. "Look, I don't know what you are or how you got here, but you saved Regina. That means something. We owe you."
"You don't owe me anything." Harry turns to face them fully. "I didn't save her for a debt. I saved her because I'm tired of watching people die when I can prevent it. That's... that's all."
Regina stares at him. "Why? You don't know me. Don't know what I've done. For all you know, I'm a monster who deserved it."
Harry meets her gaze. "Are you?"
"I—" Regina stops. Swallows. "I don't know."
"Then I'm going to operate on the assumption that you're not." Harry tilts his head. "Besides, if everyone who made mistakes deserved death, I'd have died eighty years ago. Probably should have. But here we are."
"That's not—"
"Healthy? I know. I'm working on it." Harry looks at all four of them. "I'm not here to be anyone's hero. I don't do that anymore. But I won't let people be hurt if I can stop it. If that's acceptable."
Emma studies him for a long moment. "Acceptable. For now. But you're staying where we can find you."
"Wasn't planning on leaving." Harry glances around the room. "Is this mine, or was I just unconscious here temporarily?"
"It's yours," Mary Margaret says quickly. "Stay as long as you need. Granny—she runs this place—has plenty of space."
"Granny," Harry repeats. "Literally a grandmother, or is that a title?"
"Yes," all four say simultaneously.
Harry smiles despite himself. "Fairy tale logic. Right. I'll get used to it."
"Doubtful," Regina says.
"Probably." Harry moves back to the bed, sitting on the edge. "Fair warning: I'm going to be terrible at fitting in. I've been alone for fifty years. My social skills are... questionable."
"We noticed," Emma says dryly. "The way you were staring at Regina and me when you woke up? Pretty obvious."
Heat creeps up Harry's neck. "I wasn't staring. I was... observing."
"Uh-huh."
"You're both objectively attractive," Harry says defensively. "I noticed. That's the extent of my intentions. I haven't seen another living human in half a century. My calibration is off."
Regina's eyebrow arches. "Calibration."
"Yes. Calibration. Social calibration. Human interaction calibration." Harry runs a hand through his hair. "I'm making this worse, aren't I?"
"So much worse," Emma confirms.
"Excellent. Glad we cleared that up." Harry flops backward on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Can we pretend this conversation didn't happen?"
"Absolutely not," Regina says, and there's something almost playful in her tone.
David coughs. "Maybe we should let Harry settle in."
"Thank you," Harry says to the ceiling.
Mary Margaret touches his arm lightly—casual, human contact. "If you need anything, just ask."
Harry stares at her hand on his arm. When was the last time someone touched him? Really touched him, not through magic or memory?
He can't remember.
"Thank you," he says again, quieter.
The four of them move toward the door. Emma pauses in the doorway, looking back.
"Potter?"
Harry lifts his head. "Yes?"
"Welcome to Storybrooke. Try not to accidentally end reality while you're here."
Harry's mouth twitches. "I'll try. No promises. Reality and I have a complicated relationship."
"I noticed."
The door closes.
Harry lies alone in the room—not alone, there are people downstairs, people in the building, people *alive*—and feels something crack in his chest.
Not painfully.
Just... open.
For the first time in fifty years, Harry Potter lets himself believe that maybe, possibly, surviving wasn't the worst thing that could have happened.
Maybe it was just the beginning of something else.
Something almost like living.
---
### **STORYBROOKE – CITY LIMITS**
The town line is underwhelming.
Just a faded "Welcome to Storybrooke" sign, a stretch of cracked asphalt, and a border marked by absolutely nothing except the growing certainty among seven men that crossing it is a spectacularly bad idea.
Grumpy—Leroy in this world, but he's been Grumpy for three hundred years and some habits die hard—stands with his hands on his hips, glaring at the invisible boundary like it personally offended him.
"This is stupid," he announces.
"You said that already," Happy—now James—points out. "Twice."
"It bears repeating." Grumpy kicks a pebble across the line. The pebble rolls about three feet and stops. Nothing explodes. No lightning strikes. Reality remains disappointingly intact.
Doc adjusts his glasses nervously. "Maybe we should wait. Talk to Emma. Get... I don't know, permission?"
"Permission?" Grumpy rounds on him. "We've had our memories back for six hours and you want to ask the *sheriff* for permission to take a walk? What are we, children?"
"We're dwarves," Sneezy—Tom Clark—says miserably. "We mine diamonds and live communally. Maybe we *are* children in some cosmic sense—" He sneezes violently. "Sorry."
"Bless you," Bashful mutters.
"Thank you."
Dopey signs something elaborate. Happy translates: "He says the line might be magic. Bad magic. Curse magic."
"Everything's curse magic," Grumpy snaps. "The whole town is curse magic. We're *made* of curse magic at this point." He stares at the border. "But the curse is broken. So logically, we should be able to leave."
"Logically," Doc echoes, sounding deeply unconvinced.
Sleepy yawns. "Or we could go home. Have dinner. Deal with this tomorrow when we're less traumatized."
"No." Grumpy's jaw sets. "We spent twenty-eight years trapped here. I'm not spending one more minute without knowing if we're still trapped." He looks at his brothers. "Someone has to cross. Test it."
Seven pairs of eyes avoid his.
"Don't everyone volunteer at once," Grumpy says sarcastically.
"You volunteer," Happy suggests.
"I'm coordinating." Grumpy pulls a handful of straws from his pocket—where he got them, nobody asks. Grumpy always has supplies. It's deeply unsettling. "We draw. Short straw crosses. Fair and democratic."
"This is a terrible idea," Doc says, even as he reaches for a straw.
They draw.
Sneezy stares at his straw. It's approximately half the length of everyone else's.
"Oh no," he whispers.
"Oh *yes*," Grumpy says with grim satisfaction. "Congratulations. You're our brave pioneer."
"I don't want to be a pioneer! Pioneers die of dysentery!" Sneezy clutches his straw like it might grow. It doesn't. "Can't we draw again? Best two out of three?"
"That's not how probability works—" Doc starts.
"I don't *care* how probability works!" Sneezy's voice rises. "What if something happens? What if I—I don't know—explode?"
"You won't explode," Grumpy says.
"You don't know that!"
"If you explode, we'll avenge you."
"That's not *comforting*!"
Dopey signs something. Happy translates: "He says you're very brave and we'll write a song about you."
"I don't want a *song*!" Sneezy looks desperately at the others. "Please. Someone else. Anyone else."
Bashful steps forward hesitantly. "I could—"
"No," Grumpy says firmly. "We drew straws. We follow the rules. Otherwise, what are we? Animals?" He claps Sneezy on the shoulder. "You can do this. Just... walk across. Five steps. Then come back."
Sneezy approaches the line like it's a gallows. His feet drag. His breathing gets shorter—partially fear, partially the allergies he's had for three centuries.
"It's just a line," he tells himself. "Just a stupid line. Nothing's going to happen."
He puts one foot across.
Nothing happens.
"See?" Grumpy calls. "Totally fine! Keep going!"
Sneezy takes another step. Then another. He's fully across now, standing on the other side of the town border, and he's *fine*. He's—
His expression goes blank.
"Sneezy?" Doc's voice sharpens. "You okay?"
The man on the other side of the line blinks. Looks around. Looks at the seven men staring at him with growing horror.
"Uh," he says. "Hi? Do I... do I know you guys?"
Grumpy goes very still. "Sneezy."
"Who?" The man—Tom Clark, his name is Tom Clark, he works at the pharmacy—frowns. "Sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else. I'm Tom. Tom Clark?" He sneezes. "Excuse me. Allergies."
The dwarves stare.
"Bring him back," Happy whispers. "Grumpy, bring him back—"
Grumpy lunges forward, grabs Tom's arm, and *yanks* him back across the line.
Tom stumbles, trips, and lands on the Storybrooke side of the border. He blinks rapidly, expression shifting from confusion to recognition to absolute horror.
"Oh my god," Sneezy breathes. "Oh my god, I forgot. I forgot *everything*. I was—I was just Tom. I didn't remember any of you, I didn't remember the mines, I didn't remember—" He grabs Grumpy's shirt. "We can't leave. We *can't leave*. If we cross that line, we lose everything."
The seven dwarves stare at the invisible border.
"Well," Grumpy says finally. "That's just fantastic."
Nobody argues.
---
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