There are moments when the world narrows to a single choice, and Daenerys Targaryen—eleven namedays old as of this morning, though no one had remembered to tell her so—found herself in such a moment on the docks of Pentos, where the air smelled of rotting fish and human misery.
The slavers were the sort of men who had long ago traded away whatever souls they might have possessed for the weight of coin. Their leader had a face like spoiled meat, and when he smiled, showing the brown stumps of his remaining teeth, Daenerys could see exactly what he saw when he looked at her: not a person, not even a child, but a commodity. Silver-gold hair, violet eyes, skin like cream—the features that marked her as blood of Old Valyria, the very things that should have meant something, meant nothing here except a higher price at auction.
"Come now, little silver bird," the meat-faced man crooned, his voice thick with false kindness. "We'll take you somewhere warm. Somewhere you'll have pretty dresses and never go hungry."
Daenerys knew what they meant by "somewhere warm." She had heard the stories whispered in the streets—the pleasure houses of Lys, where silver-haired girls were prized above all others, where children disappeared into rooms that smelled of incense and despair and emerged years later as hollow things, if they emerged at all.
She had spent five years learning to recognize monsters. The servants who had stolen from them after Ser Willem died had been monsters. The innkeepers who had turned them away had been monsters. Even Viserys, her own brother, had become something monstrous after he sold their mother's crown—that last beautiful thing—and she had learned to fear the moments when she might "wake the dragon" in him.
But these men were a different species of monster entirely. These were the men who looked at children and saw only gold.
Her feet, bare and bleeding from running over cobblestones, brought her to the edge of the harbor. Behind her, the slavers. Before her, dark water that promised oblivion.
There was no real choice at all.
She had never learned to swim. No one had taught her—no one had cared enough to teach her anything except how to survive, how to be invisible, how to endure. But she thought of those pleasure houses in Lys, of spending whatever years she had left as a thing to be used and discarded, and she thought: *Better the water. Better the darkness. Better to die as myself than live as their property.*
So Daenerys Targaryen, last daughter of House Targaryen, Princess of Dragonstone in name only and nothing in fact, jumped.
---
The cold was absolute. It swallowed her whole, and she understood with sudden clarity that the world was a cruel place that cared nothing for eleven-year-old girls, whether they had silver hair or not, whether they were princesses or paupers. The water filled her lungs, and she sank, and thought: *This is it, then. This is how the dragon dies.*
But then—and here is where the world became strange—hands grasped her. Huge hands, impossibly large, impossibly gentle, and she was rising up, up, breaking through the surface into air that tasted of something other than salt and despair.
"There now, there now," rumbled a voice that sounded like mountains talking. "I've got yeh. Yeh're safe. Blimey, what were yeh thinkin', jumpin' in like that?"
Daenerys thrashed in pure panic, water streaming from her mouth and nose. "No! Let me go! I won't—you can't—" Her small fists beat against a chest as solid as stone.
"Whoa, whoa, easy there!" The voice was alarmed now, concerned in a way that penetrated even through her terror. "I'm not gonna hurt yeh! What kind o' person d'yeh take me fer?"
The kind who wants to sell me, she thought, but didn't say. She forced her eyes open, forced herself to look at her captor.
He was the largest man she had ever seen—not tall in the way that made men frightening, but big in every direction, as though someone had taken a regular man and simply made him more. His face was almost entirely obscured by a wild mass of black hair and an equally wild black beard, but his eyes—small and beetle-black—were crinkled at the corners with what looked like genuine worry. He held her as carefully as one might hold something precious and breakable.
"Name's Hagrid," he said, his voice gentling. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper o' Keys an' Grounds at Hogwarts. An' I promise yeh, on my mother's memory—" and here something in his voice suggested that his mother's memory was indeed sacred to him "—I would never, *never* hurt a child. Now, what's a little thing like you doin' in the Black Lake in the middle o' term?"
"Black Lake?" Daenerys's voice was barely a whisper. She looked around and felt the bottom drop out of her world for the second time in as many minutes.
Pentos was gone.
Not just the slavers—though they were gone too, vanished as if they had never existed—but the entire city. The docks, the harbor, the distant spires of the free city, all of it had simply ceased to be. In their place was a landscape that belonged in a dream or a story: a vast lake, darker than any water she had ever seen, surrounded by mountains and forest. And rising above it all, impossible and magnificent, was a castle.
It wasn't like the Red Keep in the stories Viserys told, or even like the castle at Dragonstone. It was something older, stranger, as though someone had decided that a castle should look like magic itself had been given stone and mortar.
"Where..." She couldn't finish. Her teeth were chattering too hard, her body beginning to shake uncontrollably from cold and shock.
Hagrid made a sound of pure distress. "Oh, yeh poor thing. Yeh're froze through. Come on, then." He began wading toward shore, carrying her as though she weighed no more than a kitten. "We'll get yeh up ter the castle, get yeh warm an' dry. Professor Dumbledore'll know what ter do. He always does."
Daenerys wanted to protest, wanted to demand answers, wanted to understand how the world could change in a single instant. But exhaustion was crashing over her in waves, and cold was seeping into her bones, and Hagrid's arms felt impossibly safe. For five years she had not been safe, not once, not for a moment. And now this stranger—this impossible, gentle giant—was carrying her as though she mattered, as though she were worth saving.
"I jumped," she heard herself say, the words slurring together. "The slavers... they wanted to... I couldn't let them..."
"Slavers?" Hagrid's voice went hard in a way that suggested he knew exactly what sort of men she meant. "Over my dead body. An' I'm a lot harder ter kill than I look."
The world was tilting, or perhaps she was. Daenerys let her head rest against Hagrid's chest and heard the steady thunder of his heartbeat. She caught one last glimpse of the impossible castle, its windows glowing like warm eyes in the growing darkness, and thought: *Perhaps I did drown. Perhaps this is death, and death is kinder than I thought.*
Or perhaps—and this thought was stranger still—perhaps this was something else entirely. Perhaps the world was larger and more peculiar than even Viserys's stories had suggested. Perhaps there were places where eleven-year-old girls were not commodities to be bought and sold, where men with kind eyes existed, where castles could appear out of nowhere like gifts.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her, and for once, the darkness felt like mercy.
—
The war room—for that's what the old Transfiguration classroom had become in these past few weeks—smelled of dragon hide, parchment, and the particular exhaustion that came from fighting a war and winning it at too high a cost. Daenerys Targaryen stood by the window, watching the sun set over grounds that were still being rebuilt, stone by painstaking stone.
She was no longer the terrified child who had jumped into Pentos harbor seven years ago. That girl had drowned, in a way, and what had emerged from the Black Lake was something else entirely. A witch. A warrior. A woman who had fought in a war and survived it, though survival was perhaps too gentle a word for what they had all done.
Her hand found Harry's without looking. It always did, now. Had done since the Yule Ball in their fourth year, when he'd asked her with that peculiar mixture of terror and hope that had made her heart do something she'd thought it had forgotten how to do. And now—just weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, in a ceremony conducted by moonlight among the ruins—he was her husband. Hers, and Daphne's, and Tracey's, and Susan's, and Fleur's, and Gabrielle's.
The concept would have scandalized the world she'd been born into, though Viserys had often spoken of how Aegon the Conqueror had wed both his sisters. But this world—*her* world now—had its own customs, and in the aftermath of war, when death had taken so many, they had chosen to hold tight to those they loved rather than observe propriety.
"They're claiming Imperius again," Ron said, his voice carrying the particular flatness that meant he was furious and trying not to show it. "Malfoy's already hired three solicitors. Reckon he'll walk free by Samhain."
Daenerys felt Harry's hand tighten around hers. The Boy Who Lived. The Man Who Conquered. Her first friend in this world, who had looked at the strange girl with the silver hair and the haunted eyes and had simply accepted her, no questions asked beyond "Want to sit with us?"
"There has to be something we can do," Susan said from where she sat beside Daphne. Her voice carried the authority of someone who had grown up in the house of the Head of the DMLE, even if Amelia Bones—now Amelia Black—had stepped down after marrying Sirius. "Some way to prove they're lying."
"There isn't," Amelia said quietly. She stood beside her husband, her hand on his shoulder. Sirius looked older than he should, though prison and war did that to a man. "Veritaserum isn't admissible in court. Pensieve memories can be altered. Without concrete proof—"
"They'll go free," Neville finished. His voice was hard. The boy who had killed Nagini with Gryffindor's sword was not the same boy who had feared his grandmother's disapproval. "While our dead stay dead."
A heavy silence fell. Daenerys thought of Remus, of Andromeda, of Colin Creevey, of all the names that had been carved into the memorial stone in the Great Hall. The price of victory had been counted in lives, and now they were being told that some of those who had extracted that price would face no consequences.
It was Hagrid who broke the silence. He sat in the corner—the only chair large enough to hold him creaking under his weight—and looked at Daenerys with those small, kind eyes that had been the first thing she'd trusted in this world.
"Yeh've been quiet, Dany," he rumbled. He was the only one who still called her that, and she loved him for it. Seven years of living in his hut during the holidays, of helping him care for the creatures, of learning that kindness was not weakness—he had been more father to her than Viserys had ever been. "What're yeh thinkin'?"
Daenerys looked around the room at the faces she had come to know as well as her own. Bill Weasley, with his scars from Greyback and Nymphadora—Tonks, never Nymphadora—beside him, her hair a subdued pink in mourning for her parents. Charlie, who cared for their dragons at the sanctuary they'd established in the Forbidden Forest. Hermione and Luna, sitting together with that particular intensity that meant they were thinking something through. The twins, quieter now without their third. Ginny and Angelina and Alicia and Katie and Lee, all of them bearing the marks of war in different ways.
And her sister-wives. Daphne, cool and clever, who had been the first to propose the idea of a plural marriage and had navigated the legal complexities with Slytherin efficiency. Tracey, loyal and fierce, who had fought at her side through the Battle of Hogwarts. Susan, kind-hearted and brave, who had held the line when others had faltered. Fleur, proud and powerful, who had faced her dragon in the Tournament with the same grace she brought to everything. And Gabrielle, younger than the rest but no less determined, who had bonded with her Swedish Short-Snout with the kind of patience that belied her years.
"I'm thinking," Daenerys said slowly, "that perhaps it's time we stopped fighting their battles on their terms."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked. His green eyes—Merlin, she could drown in those eyes—met hers with that absolute trust that still, after all these years, made something in her chest tighten.
It was Luna who answered, her dreamy voice cutting through the tension like a knife through water. "She means we should leave."
Every head in the room turned to stare at the blonde witch. Luna smiled serenely and continued, "Hermione and I have been researching the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. The one Sirius would have fallen through, if not for Dany using a Summoning Charm to pull him before he crossed."
Sirius flinched. Daenerys saw Amelia's hand tighten on his shoulder.
"We don't think it's death," Hermione said, picking up where Luna left off. Her voice carried the excitement it always did when she'd discovered something. "At least, not in the traditional sense. The magical resonance is all wrong. It's more like... a doorway."
"A doorway to where?" Neville asked.
Luna's eyes found Daenerys's. "To other worlds. Other universes. The whispers that come through—they're not the voices of the dead. They're the voices of the living, in places adjacent to our own."
The room went very still.
"You think," Daenerys said slowly, her heart beginning to pound, "that it might lead to the world I came from."
"It's possible," Hermione said. She was leaning forward now, her bushy hair falling around her face. "The magic that brought you here had to come from somewhere. And if it could pull you from your world to ours, then perhaps the Veil could take you back."
"Take *us* back," Harry said quietly. His hand was still in Daenerys's, but now his other hand reached out, and Daphne took it, and Tracey took Daphne's hand, and Susan took hers, and the chain continued until all six of them were linked. "If Dany goes, we go."
"Harry—" Hermione started.
"No." His voice was gentle but absolutely firm. "We're not having this argument, Hermione. She's my wife. They're all my wives. Where they go, I go."
"An' where Harry goes, I go," Ron said immediately. "Bloody hell, mate, you think I'm letting you have an adventure without me?"
"We all go," Neville said. His voice carried an authority that Daenerys had learned to recognize—the voice of the boy who had stood up to Voldemort himself. "Look at this place. Look at what we've built, what we've fought for. And they're going to let the Death Eaters walk free. They're going to smile and shake Malfoy's hand and pretend the war never happened."
"The Wizengamot is already talking about 'moving forward,'" Amelia said bitterly. "About 'healing' and 'unity.' Which apparently means letting murderers go free in the name of not causing trouble with the old families."
"So we leave," Ginny said. Her voice was hard. She'd lost her parents, and something in her had changed with that loss. "We take our dragons and our magic and we go somewhere we can actually make a difference."
"Dany's world," Charlie said thoughtfully. He was the expert on dragons among them, and his eyes had taken on a speculative gleam. "You've told us stories. About the political situation, about the wars and the throne. About your family."
Daenerys felt something cold settle in her stomach. "I don't know if any of them are still alive. It's been seven years here. I don't know how much time has passed there."
"Only one way to find out," Fred said.
"Could be dangerous," George added.
"Could be brilliant," they finished together, speaking in unison the way they'd always done.
Hagrid cleared his throat. Every eye turned to him. He looked at Daenerys, and she saw the pain in his face—the pain of a father contemplating letting his daughter go.
"Yeh saved my life," he said quietly. "During the battle. When that giant would've crushed me, yeh an' that Ironbelly o' yers swooped in an' saved me. I reckon I owe yeh."
"You don't owe me anything," Daenerys said fiercely. "Hagrid, you *saved* me. You pulled me out of the water and you gave me a home and you taught me what it meant to be cared for—"
"Which is why," Hagrid continued, his voice rough with emotion, "I'm comin' with yeh. If yeh'll have me."
"And us," Sirius said. Amelia nodded beside him. "Merlin knows I've spent enough time in this country. Might be nice to try somewhere new. Somewhere without a prison that has my name on a cell."
"The dragons will need tending," Charlie said. "I'm in."
"We're not letting you go without backup," Bill added, and Tonks nodded sharply beside him, her hair flashing through a rainbow of colors before settling on a determined red.
"Adventure in another world?" Lee Jordan grinned. "Count me in."
One by one, they spoke up. The twins, inseparable even in this. Alicia and Angelina and Katie, who had fought together and would stand together. Ginny, looking for purpose after loss. Luna, who had always seemed to exist slightly outside the normal world anyway. Hermione, who couldn't resist the lure of an entirely new civilization to study. Ron, who would follow Harry and Hermione to the ends of any earth.
Neville and Hannah, who had found each other in the aftermath of war and were ready to build something new together.
By the time they finished, the entire room had committed to leaving.
Daenerys looked around at them—her family, forged in fire and battle and love—and felt something shift in her chest. She had come to this world alone and terrified, a child fleeing slavers. She would return to her world as something else entirely: a witch, a warrior, and a woman with an army at her back.
"Then we need to plan," Harry said, and she heard the Boy Who Lived transform into the Man Who Would Conquer, not through fear but through loyalty and love. "Hermione, Luna—you're our experts on the Veil. What do we need to know?"
As they began to plan—to plot and scheme and prepare for a journey into the unknown—Daenerys found herself looking out the window again. Somewhere beyond the Veil, beyond the barrier between worlds, Westeros waited. Her brother might be dead, might have conquered, might have become the monster he'd always threatened to become. Her family's throne might be held by usurpers or destroyed entirely.
But she was no longer the frightened girl who had fled into the harbor. She was Daenerys Targaryen, last daughter of House Targaryen, wife of Harry Potter, sister to dragons both literal and metaphorical, and she was going home.
Not alone.
Never alone again.
"When do we leave?" she asked.
Harry's hand tightened around hers. His smile was the same one he'd given her seven years ago, when he'd asked a strange silver-haired girl if she wanted to sit with him on the Hogwarts Express.
"Together," he said. "We leave together."
And that, Daenerys thought, was the only answer that mattered.
—
The dragons were not cooperating.
"Come on, Fury," Harry coaxed, holding out a haunch of venison toward the massive Hungarian Horntail that had nearly killed him in the Tournament. The dragon—black scales gleaming like obsidian in the torchlight—snorted a small gout of flame and turned her head away with what could only be described as disdain.
"She's sulking," Ron observed from a safe distance. "Your dragon is literally sulking at you, mate."
"She is not sulking," Harry said defensively. "She's being... discerning."
"She's being a spoiled princess is what she's being," Daphne called out, ducking as her Peruvian Vipertooth—Copper, rust-colored and mean as a hungover troll—took a swipe at her head. "Unlike mine, who's being a complete arse about this."
"Language, Daphne," Tracey said primly, even as her own Antipodean Opaleye nearly knocked her flat with one pearlescent wing. "There are impressionable young dragons present."
"Gabrielle's dragon is literally eating a shrub right now," George pointed out.
"A poisonous shrub," Fred added helpfully.
"He's building immunity," Gabrielle said, utterly unconcerned as her baby Swedish Short-Snout munched contentedly on what was definitely Devil's Snare. "Azur is very advanced for his age."
"Azur is going to give himself a stomach ache," Charlie said, though he was grinning. "But points for enthusiasm."
Daenerys had considerably more success with her Ukrainian Ironbelly. Silverwing—named for her metallic scales that caught the light like liquid mercury—had already descended into the trunk with regal dignity, as if this had been her idea all along.
"Show-off," Tracey muttered at Daenerys.
"I'm not showing off," Daenerys replied serenely. "I simply communicate with my dragon effectively."
"You bribed her with an entire cow yesterday," Harry said.
"Effective communication," Daenerys repeated, not missing a beat.
The trunk sat in the middle of the cleared space they'd made in the Forbidden Forest, looking entirely too ordinary for what it contained. Newt Scamander had delivered it himself three days ago, practically vibrating with excitement as he explained the various habitats he'd crammed into an impossible space.
"How did Newt even manage this?" Hermione asked, studying the trunk with the intensity she brought to every mystery. She was on her third notebook of observations. "The spatial manipulation alone should require a team of Unspeakables and six months of planning."
"Maybe he *is* a team of Unspeakables," Ron suggested. "Like, seven Newts in a trench coat."
"That's not how anything works," Hermione said.
"You're telling me you've never suspected?"
"I am telling you that your understanding of human physiology is deeply concerning."
"He's Newt Scamander," Luna said simply, as if this explained everything. Perhaps it did. "He's been bending space for creatures since before we were born. This is just... bigger."
"Everything about this plan is bigger than it should be," Neville said, watching as Susan's Romanian Longhorn—Goldhorn, magnificent with brass-colored scales—finally consented to investigate the trunk. "We're talking about breaking into the Ministry, stealing through the Veil of Death, and invading another dimension with seven dragons and questionable planning."
"The planning isn't questionable," Hermione objected.
"We literally decided to do this three days ago."
"Very decisive planning, then."
Fleur was having a whispered conversation in rapid French with her Welsh Green—Émeraude, green as spring leaves—that seemed to involve quite a lot of emotional appeals and promises.
"What's she saying?" Katie asked, fascinated.
"She's promising Émeraude that there will be sheep," Bill translated, trying not to laugh. "Many sheep. Unlimited sheep. A veritable paradise of sheep."
"Are there sheep where we're going?" Angelina asked Daenerys.
"Westeros has sheep," Daenerys confirmed.
"There you go then. Not a lie, technically."
"She's also implying that the sheep in this new world are particularly stupid and slow," Bill continued.
"Now that might be a lie," Sirius said. "Though to be fair, I've never met a particularly intelligent sheep."
"You've never met a sheep," Amelia pointed out.
"Exactly. They're clearly too stupid to introduce themselves."
Harry was making another attempt with Fury, who was now actively turning in circles to avoid looking at him.
"I saved your life," Harry told the dragon. "Multiple times. Remember the Tournament? Remember when those poachers tried to steal your eggs and I stopped them?"
Fury huffed a breath of smoke directly in his face.
"I'll take that as a 'yes, I remember, I'm just being difficult.'"
"Have you tried asking nicely?" Ginny called out. She was sitting on a log, quite content to watch the chaos.
"I am asking nicely!"
"You're negotiating like a Gryffindor," Daphne said. "Which is to say, poorly. Watch and learn." She turned to Copper, her voice dropping into that cool, calculating tone. "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the way where I stop bringing you those Norwegian Ridgeback eggs you like so much."
Copper's head swiveled toward her immediately.
"Thought so. Now, into the trunk. We have a schedule."
"She's using economic sanctions on her dragon," George said, awed.
"That's the most Slytherin thing I've ever seen," Fred agreed.
"And it's working," Lee Jordan added as Copper grudgingly slunk toward the trunk.
"I could try threatening Fury," Harry said doubtfully.
"Please don't," Charlie said quickly. "Horntails hold grudges. Long grudges. Generational grudges."
"My dragon hates me," Harry said mournfully.
"Your dragon is just dramatic," Daenerys assured him, sliding an arm around his waist. "Like someone else I know."
"I am not dramatic."
"You literally told me yesterday that if the Ministry didn't approve our memorial service, you'd 'burn their bureaucracy to the ground with the righteous fire of justice.'"
"That was a metaphor."
"Was it though?" Ron asked. "Because you had that look."
"What look?"
"The 'I'm about to do something heroically stupid' look," Hermione supplied. "We're all quite familiar with it by now."
Susan emerged from the trunk, looking pleased. "Goldhorn's settled. He found the nice rocky cave section and claimed it immediately. Very territorial about it, actually."
"That's dragons for you," Charlie said. "Give them a cave and they're happy. Well, happy-ish. Contentedly murderous."
"Is that a dragon emotion?" Alicia asked.
"It's the primary dragon emotion," Charlie confirmed. "Followed by 'hungry,' 'sleepy,' and 'that's my cave.'"
Gabrielle's Azur had finished his poisonous snack and was now attempting to follow Silverwing into the trunk, bouncing along like an oversized puppy with scales and wings.
"At least someone's enthusiastic," Tonks said. Her hair was cycling through colors in response to the general chaos—pink to blue to green to purple. "Though I'm not sure enthusiasm is necessarily a good sign when it comes to potential dimensional travel through a death portal."
"When you put it that way, it sounds much worse," Hannah said.
"That's because it is much worse," Neville replied, squeezing her hand. "But we're doing it anyway."
"Because we're brave?"
"Because we're idiots. Very brave idiots."
Tracey finally managed to coax Moonshadow into the trunk by the simple expedient of climbing in first and calling her from below. "She thinks I need protecting," Tracey explained when she climbed back out. "So she follows me everywhere."
"That's actually quite sweet," Katie said.
"It's sweet until she tries to follow me into the shower," Tracey muttered. "Less sweet then. Considerably less sweet."
Émeraude had finally been convinced by Fleur's promises of sheep and was gracefully descending into the trunk, moving with the particular elegance that all of Fleur's actions seemed to possess.
"Even her dragon is prettier than everyone else's," Ron complained.
"Your dragon is a Horntail that's currently pretending Harry doesn't exist," Hermione pointed out. "You don't get to complain about other people's dragons."
"She's not my dragon. She's Harry's. Mine would be much more cooperative."
"You don't have a dragon, Ron."
"I could have a dragon. I'd be great with a dragon."
"You're afraid of spiders."
"Dragons aren't spiders! Dragons are majestic! Noble!"
"Currently sulking fire-breathing reptiles," Sirius supplied.
"Well, yes, but majestically."
While this discussion continued, Harry had apparently decided to try a new tactic with Fury. He sat down on the ground, cross-legged, and simply waited.
"What are you doing?" Daenerys asked.
"Reverse psychology," Harry said. "I'm not asking her to do anything. I'm just sitting here. Not caring whether she comes or not."
"That's not going to work," George said.
"Absolutely not," Fred agreed.
Fury stared at Harry for a long moment. Then, with what could only be described as a draconic sigh that sent small flames rippling across the grass, she walked over to him, lowered her massive head, and bumped him gently—well, gently for a dragon, which meant Harry nearly toppled over.
"Or it'll work immediately," George amended.
"Bloody hell," Fred said.
Harry grinned triumphantly as he stood, scratching Fury under her chin. "See? We understand each other. She just needed to make her point first."
"Your dragon is as dramatic as you are," Daphne observed. "You're perfect for each other."
"That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me."
"Don't get used to it."
With all seven dragons finally in the trunk—some more willingly than others—they could turn their attention to the actual plan. Those not actively checking on their dragons gathered in a loose circle while Hagrid emerged from his hut with tea, because apparently planning to invade another dimension through the Veil of Death required refreshments.
"Right then," Sirius said, accepting a cup roughly the size of a soup bowl. "While you lot were having couples therapy with your dragons, perhaps we should discuss how we're actually getting into the Department of Mysteries?"
"We've been thinking about that," Hermione started.
"Dangerous when she uses the plural," Ron whispered to Harry.
"I heard that, Ronald."
"You were meant to."
"The Ministry's security is tighter than ever," Amelia said, spreading out maps because of course she'd brought maps. Even retired, she was prepared for everything. "After the battle, they've tripled the Auror presence. New wards every week. Floo monitoring. The works."
"We could fight our way in," Neville suggested.
"We could also set ourselves on fire and jump off the Astronomy Tower," Bill said dryly. "Both plans have roughly the same success rate."
"The Astronomy Tower plan would be faster, though," Tonks added.
"And more dramatic," Ginny said. "Points for drama."
"Can we please focus?" Hermione said, though she was fighting a smile. "We need subtlety."
"Subtlety," George repeated thoughtfully.
"From us," Fred clarified.
"The people who flew a car into the Whomping Willow," Lee added.
"And broke into Gringotts on a dragon," Ginny continued.
"And defeated Voldemort with what was essentially friendship," Luna finished serenely.
"When you list it like that, we really are terrible at subtlety," Harry admitted.
"Polyjuice," Hermione said, determinedly steering the conversation back on track. "We've done it before."
"They're checking for that now," Amelia said. "Random verification charms at every checkpoint. You'd need to maintain the disguise and pass identity verification simultaneously."
"What about the old tunnels?" Ron asked. "The ones the Order used during the first war?"
"Collapsed or warded," Sirius said. "I checked. Kingsley's not taking any chances after we let Voldemort's people waltz in once already."
"Technically they didn't waltz," Luna said. "More of a menacing stride."
"Thank you for that clarification, Luna."
"You're welcome."
Daenerys had been quiet, listening to them debate, but now she spoke up. "What if we don't sneak in?"
The conversation stopped. Harry looked at her with that expression that meant he was listening with his whole attention, which still made her heart do complicated things.
"Go on," he said.
"The Ministry wants to forget the war happened," Daenerys continued. "They want everything to be normal. So we give them normal. We walk in the front door."
"They'll arrest us on sight," Hermione objected. "We're talking about breaking into the Department of Mysteries."
"Not if we're there on official business," Daphne said slowly, and Daenerys could see the moment the idea clicked. Her eyes gleamed with that particular Slytherin calculation. "My father still has his Wizengamot seat. He owes me several favors. He could request an official tour."
"A tour?" George said skeptically.
"Of the creepy death room?" Fred added.
"The Department of Mysteries is not a tourist attraction," Hermione said.
"Not with that attitude," Sirius muttered.
"Perhaps," Luna said, her dreamy voice cutting through the chaos. "We could say we're holding a memorial service."
The silence that followed was the kind that meant everyone was thinking the same thing: that's either brilliant or insane.
"That's brilliant," Hermione breathed. "That's absolutely brilliant. We say we want to hold a service. Sirius—"
"Who nearly died there," Sirius said dryly. "Thanks for reminding me."
"—can throw his gold there to make it happen. We can say it's for everyone who fell in the war," Hermione continued, already scribbling notes. "It's respectful. It's healing. It's exactly the kind of thing the Ministry would encourage right now because it makes them look good."
"And while we're having our touching memorial," Bill said, "we slip through the Veil."
"All of us?" Tonks asked. "That's not exactly subtle."
"Since when have we ever been subtle?" Ron asked.
"Fair point."
"We could stage a distraction," Alicia suggested.
"What kind of distraction?" Katie asked.
"Well, the twins are here," Angelina pointed out.
"We could cause a distraction," George said modestly.
"Several distractions," Fred agreed.
"Simultaneous distractions."
"Cascading distractions."
"Please stop saying distraction," Hermione begged. "And no. No distractions. We do this quietly and respectfully and by the book right up until the moment we all jump through the Veil of Death together."
"When you say it like that, it sounds completely mad," Neville said.
"That's because it is completely mad," Hannah replied.
"But we're doing it anyway?" Neville asked.
"Obviously."
"How are we explaining the trunk full of dragons?" Charlie asked practically. "Because they're going to ask questions about luggage."
"Shrunken luggage isn't unusual," Daphne said. "And it's a memorial service. We could say it contains personal effects. Mementos. Things we want to leave at the Veil."
"Technically true," Tracey said. "The dragons are very personal."
"I'm very attached to mine," Susan agreed.
"This plan has more holes than Ron's dress robes," Amelia said, though she was smiling.
"Oi!" Ron protested.
"She's not wrong, mate," Harry said.
"You're supposed to be on my side!"
"I'm on the side of accurate observations."
"Right then," Sirius said, clapping his hands together. "So our plan is: walk into the Ministry, hold a fake memorial service, and then all of us—"
"Twenty-one of us," Hermione specified.
"Twenty-one of us, plus seven dragons—"
"In a trunk," Fred added.
"In a trunk," Sirius agreed, "—are going to jump through the Veil of Death into another dimension that may or may not be the one Daenerys came from, may or may not kill us all, and definitely will involve no way back if we're wrong."
"That about sums it up," Harry said cheerfully.
"I'm in," Sirius said immediately.
"You didn't even hesitate," Amelia said.
"Why would I? It's mental, it's dangerous, and it involves annoying the Ministry. That's literally my ideal weekend."
"It's Friday," Amelia pointed out.
"My ideal long weekend."
"When?" Neville asked, cutting through the banter. "When do we do this?"
Harry looked at Daenerys. The question was hers to answer.
She thought of Pentos, of slavers and squalor and a brother who had become a monster. She thought of jumping into dark water, certain she would die. She thought of seven years of magic and war and finding a family she'd never imagined possible. She thought of the world she'd left behind and the world she'd found and the impossible choice of trying to combine them.
"Three days," she said. "We do it in three days. That gives us time to prepare, and it's soon enough that the Ministry won't have time to get suspicious."
"Three days," Harry repeated, and somehow when he said it, it became a promise.
"Three days to plan a dimensional invasion," George said.
"That's faster than we planned the Gringotts break-in," Fred noted.
"We're getting more efficient at crimes," Lee said proudly.
"It's not a crime if we do it for a good reason," Ginny argued.
"That is absolutely not how the law works," Hermione said.
"Worked for Harry," Ron pointed out. "He broke into the Ministry, Gringotts, and Hogwarts in the same year and they gave him an Order of Merlin."
"That's different."
"How?"
"It just is!"
Around them, the Forbidden Forest whispered with wind and magic. The trunk sat innocuously on the forest floor, occasionally emitting small rumbling sounds as the dragons settled. Above them, stars wheeled in ancient patterns, the same stars that shone on both this world and the one Daenerys had fled from.
Somewhere beyond the Veil, Westeros waited. And in three days, Daenerys Targaryen would return—not as a frightened child, but as something far more dangerous.
A dragon who had learned to breathe magical fire.
And she wasn't coming alone.
"Right," Hagrid said, setting down his tea with a decisive thunk. "Who wants more biscuits before we all go commit interdimensional treason?"
Every hand went up.
Some things, Daenerys thought with affection, never changed.
---
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