Chapter Text
The rooftop had gone still again.
Not calm. Not peaceful. Just still—like the world was holding its breath and hadn’t quite decided whether to let it out.
Harry stood just beyond the edge of the ward circle, arms limp at his sides, chest rising and falling in quiet staccato. The taste of the magic still lingered on his tongue: metallic, cold, and bitter like something ancient pulled up from the bottom of a well.
His skin prickled. Not from power, exactly. From being watched.
The shadows had retreated—but something hadn’t.
Across the circle, Thor stood as if nothing unusual had happened. As if that surge of energy, that terrifying openness, had been expected.
“You’ve taken your first true step,” he said calmly.
Harry didn’t answer. He rubbed his hands down his arms, grounding himself in the warmth of skin, the grain of stone beneath his feet. His limbs felt too long, too loose, like he wasn’t quite inside his own body.
“I don’t think I should go again today,” he said, quieter than he meant to.
“Why?” Thor’s voice was steady, nearly gentle.
Harry glanced up. “It felt... wrong. Like something shifted that shouldn’t have.”
“It did shift,” Thor replied, stepping closer to the edge of the circle. “You opened further than ever before. That is what progress feels like.”
Harry’s breath caught. “It didn’t feel like progress. It felt like—like something else was looking back.”
“Of course it was.”
Harry frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The Veil is not a one-way mirror,” Thor said. “You reached into it. It reached into you. That is the covenant of power.”
Harry looked away. He didn’t like the word covenant.
It wasn’t just the sound of it—though that felt sharp enough. It was the weight. The permanence. The way it wrapped around your spine and tightened, whispering: this isn’t a choice anymore. It never was.
A covenant wasn’t a deal. It wasn’t even a vow.
It was belonging, whether you wanted it or not.
And Harry had had enough of that in his life—people telling him where he fit, what he owed, what he was destined to become. A weapon. A sacrifice. A symbol.
His magic stirred beneath his skin—not violently, but with a quiet pressure. A ripple in deep water. Like it was listening, deciding.
Be careful who you trust.
The memory struck without warning—Hela’s voice, cool and solemn, echoing from the place behind the Veil. That strange, still place between dream and death.
Even the gods can lie when the end is near.
At the time, it had felt cryptic. Dramatic. Maybe even indulgent.
Now it felt like prophecy.
“The Veil doesn’t care for intent,” Thor continued, his voice low but steady. “Only truth. And you, Hàrekr, carry more truth than you know.”
Harry’s body reacted before his mind did.
His spine stiffened. His heart stuttered in his chest. It was like hearing a line from a language he shouldn’t understand, but somehow did.
“…What?”
Thor’s face didn’t change. Still serene. Still composed. Still watching.
“You heard me.”
The wind tugged faintly at the warded edges of the rooftop, but Harry barely noticed. The name—his name—rang like iron in his chest.
“What did you call me?”
“Hàrekr,” Thor said again. No hesitation. No apology. Simply reverence.
Harry stood frozen.
There was something about the way he said it. The way his voice dipped slightly, as if invoking a title instead of a name. The way it sounded—not alien, but old. Like it didn’t belong in this world at all.
And worse—Harry’s magic responded.
It didn’t recoil.
It stirred.
The shadows at his feet shifted ever so slightly, like they were leaning forward to listen. Like they remembered it too.
His throat went dry.
“That’s not my name,” he said, but it came out too soft.
Thor—no. The man pretending to be Thor—tilted his head, just a fraction.
“Not the one this world gave you,” he said. “But the one you wore before it knew your face.”
Harry took a step back.
The rooftop felt wrong now. Tilted. Unfamiliar. Like he’d stepped into a dream he wasn’t sure was his.
The runes under his feet pulsed faintly.
“Where did you hear that name?” he asked, voice tight.
“I didn’t hear it,” the being said, with quiet satisfaction. “I remembered it.”
Harry didn’t feel like he was being taught. He felt like he was being led.
Led toward something he couldn’t see.
“No,” Harry said, sharper now. “That’s not my name.”
“Not yet.”
His mouth went dry. The wind picked up, just faintly, catching at the hem of his shirt. His magic twitched beneath his skin, uncertain.
Something flickered in Thor’s eyes then. Not gold. Not even light.
Just for a heartbeat—black.
A shimmer like oil on water. Like looking too long into a mirror and seeing something move behind the glass.
Harry’s heart slammed once, hard against his ribs.
“I think we’re done,” he said. His voice was too calm. Too rehearsed.
He took another step back.
Not-Thor didn’t argue. Didn’t blink. He simply bowed his head slightly, as if indulging him.
“As you wish,” he said softly.
Harry turned. Too fast.
His shoulder brushed the edge of the rune circle—and the magic there recoiled, hissing against his skin like steam. Something in the air snapped.
He froze.
The air around them had shifted—again—but this time not just with pressure or wind. The wards shimmered, then flared brilliant white, sparking like struck flint. A sound—deep and metallic—rattled through the stone beneath his feet.
His magic surged in response—unbidden, unshaped. A pulse of shadow erupted from his chest like a second heartbeat.
And the illusion shattered.
Thor—not-Thor—staggered back as if struck. His form blurred, warped, and for a breathless moment Harry saw both shapes at once—the golden, noble figure of the god… and beneath it, something darker. Leaner. Too pale, too smooth, with eyes like wet obsidian and the mouth of a man who’d forgotten what mercy felt like.
Harry’s magic screamed at him. Every inch of him jolted as instinct took over.
“You weren’t supposed to see,” the false Thor said, voice lower now—a guttural blend of languages no longer rich or regal, like something being unmade. “You were supposed to serve.”
Harry stepped back, shadows curling around his ankles.
“Who the hell are you?”
The creature tilted its head. “You are ours, Hàrekr. Born of Veil and storm. Carved for the threshold. But you did not awaken in time.”
The name made Harry flinch, but it was the rest that made his stomach turn.
“In time for what?”
The smile he got in return was all teeth.
“For what the Nine Realms needed. You could have unmade their chains. Broken their order. Bent the stars.”
Harry’s fingers twitched, and his magic rose with them—an automatic defense. Not controlled or elegant. Just ready. Shadow licked at his skin, flickering like flame in a dying wind.
Across from him, the creature’s expression shifted—no longer smug, no longer triumphant. Something almost mournful settled over his sharp features. A kind of disappointment that felt rehearsed, like a line from a tragedy he’d recited before.
“But now,” he said, voice low and heavy with something that might have once been grief, “you’re too late.”
Harry’s breath hitched.
“The Convergence has begun,” the creature continued. “The Veil thins. The world will soon be darkness.”
The Convergence.
The word hit Harry like a punch to the ribs. He didn’t fully understand it—not yet—but the magic inside him did. It recoiled and surged at the same time, churning just beneath his skin. Like a tide changing directions. Like a warning bell in his bones.
The Veil itself seemed to respond—pressing closer, thinner, as if whatever lay beyond it was listening.
A flicker of memory rose—Hela, dark and calm and ancient, watching him from beneath the roots of the world.
You’re not ready yet, she had said.
But you will be.
And now the sky felt wrong. The runes on the rooftop hissed at the edges. Magic wasn’t just present—it was heavy. Pregnant with something vast. Something moving.
Harry’s breath came short.
He wanted to run.
He wanted to stay.
But more than anything, he wanted to stop whatever the hell this was from happening.
His hand clenched into a fist, and the shadows obeyed, curling up his arm in a defensive spiral.
“No it won’t,” he said, voice firm despite the tremble in his ribs. “I won’t let it.”
His eyes met the creature’s, steady and sharp.
“Not while I’m still standing.”
It’s expression twisted into something darker—mockery, rage, maybe even amusement. His teeth bared in something like a smile, but colder. Sharper.
“Then fall.”
And then he struck.
A blast of blue-white energy slammed through the air as he moved faster than a regular human could follow. Harry barely raised his hands in time—magic erupted outward in a wall of smoke and spectral light, catching the bolt and splintering it in a thunderclap that shook the rooftop. Shards of shattered magic cracked across the stone like broken glass.
Harry was thrown back—skidding, tumbling—before he righted himself with a sharp twist of his magic. He came up on one knee, breath ragged.
The creature was already on him.
He struck with a blade of conjured light so thin it hummed through the air. Harry dodged, twisted, shadows blooming around him like wings. He threw a bolt of force—not shaped, just flung—and it sent the creature skidding backward, dark cape snapping behind him.
But he didn’t stop.
He grinned.
“Yes,” he hissed, slashing his blade through the ward-light. “There it is.”
He attacked again—faster, this time with two blades, conjured twin arcs of shimmering, sickly magic. Harry ducked the first, but the second caught his ribs and burned. He shouted, falling hard, shadows flaring in reflex to shield him.
“You were made for this,” the creature crowed, stepping through the haze. “To shatter the order. To unmake the sun!”
Harry surged upward—this time not defensive.
He struck.
A ring of force exploded from his core, sending the creature flying. Runes shattered under the pressure. The sky above them bent, clouds twisting unnaturally around the broken rooftop’s edge.
The creature rolled to his feet, slow and deliberate, black blood streaking down his side like oil spilled on ice. His form flickered slightly—whether from pain or power, Harry couldn’t tell—but the grin was still there.
Strained now.
Less sure of itself.
“You still don’t see it, do you?” the creature said, voice like smoke curling through broken stone. He began to circle again, one hand leaving a faint smear of blood on the rune-etched wall as he passed. “You are the gatekeeper. The one who walks both ways. Had you awakened in time, you could have torn the Nine Realms from their moorings. Made them anew.”
Harry circled too, slow and tense, his breath loud in his ears.
His left side throbbed where the blade had cut deep. Warm blood soaked into the hem of his hoodie. His grip on his own power slipped slightly with every movement, but he held on—tightening his jaw, flexing his fingers to keep the magic moving.
He couldn’t let it spiral. Not now.
His instincts were screaming. His magic buzzed with warning. And yet the creature’s words lingered in the air like poison.
Torn the Nine Realms from their moorings.
Made them anew.
There was a weight in that sentence that made Harry’s skin crawl. Not because it was unfamiliar.
Because part of it was.
Like an echo of a prophecy he was never supposed to hear.
Like a thread of fate trying to wind itself around his throat.
He wasn’t even sure what the Nine Realms were—not completely—but his body remembered what his mind didn’t. Somewhere deep in the marrow of him, something knew. And it recoiled.
“I don’t want your legacy,” Harry said through his teeth. “I’m not your hinge. I’m not your weapon.”
The creature chuckled, low and pitying. “You think you get to choose?”
Harry’s magic flared at that—too sharp, too fast, making the air pulse like a thunderhead before the strike.
He stopped circling. Met the creature’s eyes head-on.
“There is always a choice,” he spat, words echoing Dumbledore's.
His voice was tight. His ribs ached. His vision swam briefly as the wind picked up, carrying with it the tang of blood and ash.
But he stood his ground.
He wasn’t ready. He was scared. Terrified, really. Not if dying, but of failing. Of being unable to stop whatever was happening.
But he was Harry bloody Potter, and he’d been made into someone else’s saviour one too many times to let another monster write the ending for him.
His hands lifted—slow, deliberate. Magic clung to them like stormlight. He felt the Veil press inward and he welcomed it.
The creature struck again—a flurry of sharp movements, each one designed to unbalance. One blade sliced at Harry’s thigh, the other at his shoulder. Harry blocked both with shields of warped shadow, but each block cost. His magic was too wild, barely responding to intention.
They clashed in the center of the ward circle, magic sparking off stone.
Harry ducked low, spun, slammed his shoulder into the creature’s chest—then let the Veil open beneath his feet.
The ground dropped.
The creature staggered into it—only a few inches, only a moment—but it was enough.
Harry flung his arm forward, channeling everything into one strike. A column of force—dark and silver-veined—erupted from his palm and hit its target full in the chest.
The sound it made was awful, like something ancient cracking. The creature screamed—not rage, not even pain—just fury. Betrayal.
“You could have been part of the Convergence,” he spat, collapsing to one knee, hand pressed against a spreading wound across his ribs. “And now you’ll watch it drown the world without you.”
He rose, weaving slightly, blood dripping onto the broken stones.
Harry lifted his hands again—ready.
But the creature wasn’t attacking.
He stabbed one of his blades into the floor, and magic ripped around them. A portal tore open—ugly and jagged, not a gateway so much as a wound. Through the shimmering crack, Harry could see familiar narrow streets, the silhouette of a London skyline just before dusk.
The creature turned toward it, breathing hard.
“You’ll follow,” he said, smiling through blood. “You have to. That’s the curse of being made for more.”
Harry didn’t answer.
He just moved.
The creature slipped through the portal—and just as it shut, Harry stepped into the Veil.
It opened for him like a muscle memory, like falling without fear. Light disappeared. Sound twisted. And then—
London.
The world snapped back into color and sound as Harry landed—sirens wailing, glass shattering, people screaming in every direction. Car alarms blared under the pulse of unnatural thunder, and overhead, the sky had gone wrong—fractured light flickering between realms, like the world itself was trying to split apart.
He barely had time to catch his breath before something slammed into him from the side.
He hit the pavement shoulder-first, rolled, and came up just in time to throw a wall of shadow between himself and the creature that he’d followed.
They clashed immediately.
No words. No taunts. Just magic and fury.
The creature's blade hissed through the air, catching the edge of Harry's sleeve, carving smoke into fabric. Harry twisted, ducked under the second strike, and slammed both hands into the ground.
The Veil surged upward in a ring of force, launching the creature into the side of a parked van. The vehicle folded around his body with a shriek of metal.
Civilians ran past—some too fast to register him, others screaming as they glanced over their shoulders.
“Run, lad!” someone shouted. “It’s coming down—!”
Harry turned toward the sky.
A massive ship was descending, dark and monstrous, its edges glowing with blood-red energy. Smaller explosions sparked across its hull as if someone—Thor, maybe—was already fighting.
But there wasn’t time to wonder.
The creature stirred again, dragging himself from the wreckage. His eyes glowed with fury now—wild, desperate. The magic on his skin had begun to crack, spreading like veins of molten glass.
“You don’t get to stop it,” he hissed, lifting his blade.
“I’m not stopping it,” Harry said. His voice came out low, cold. “I’m stopping you.”
He raised his hand, and the Veil answered.
Magic surged like a tidal wave—dark and silver-shot—hitting the creature full in the chest.
This time, he didn’t get up.
His body hit the concrete with a sickening finality, his blade dissolving into ash.
Harry stood over him, breath ragged, shadows still flickering along his shoulders. Around him, people kept running. A constable barked orders into a radio. A child cried out for their father.
Harry turned, stumbling down the hill.
The green was a war zone.
Reality flickered—cracks of other worlds slipping through like lightning: red sands, frozen cliffs, fire that burned in slow motion. The sky above was tearing, unraveling in threads of light and shadow. Screams echoed through the narrow streets behind him, fading into the distance where civilians had fled or vanished.
Harry moved across broken ground, shirt shredded, magic crawling beneath his skin like something alive. The distance to the Veil here was thin. He didn’t have to reach for it—it pulsed with every breath.
A crack of thunder split the air.
Ahead of him, on the far side of the battlefield, a column had half-fallen, leaving a jagged wedge of masonry half-embedded in the earth. Behind it, a woman and an older man crouched in cover—whispering urgently over some kind of device. The woman had long dark hair and looked too pale, too drained. The man wore a tweed coat and glasses, and held a metal wand—no, a remote control—like he wasn’t entirely sure it wouldn’t explode.
Harry didn’t know them.
But he felt their fear like static in the air.
Then he saw him.
Thor.
He stood just beyond the fallen pillar, hammer crackling with restrained lightning in one hand, eyes sweeping the storm. His presence was magnetic. Heavy. Like the Veil bent slightly around him. Like the world held its breath because he was in it.
Their eyes met and something clicked. Not familiarity. Not trust. Just recognition. Two forces that weren’t meant to collide, but had.
Thor’s brow furrowed.
“You’re not from here,” he said, voice rough and scratchy.
Harry stopped, shadows curling low around his boots. “Not exactly.”
“You followed one of them?”
Harry nodded, catching his breath. “I… I don't know what it was. He was—he said the Convergence was coming.”
“Did you kill him?”
Harry hesitated. “Yes.”
He wasn’t sure if the answer was complete. But it was true enough.
Thor looked him over—bloodied, half-burnt, foreign magic clinging to his shoulders like mist—and something in his gaze sharpened.
“What are you?”
Harry let out a breath, voice hoarse. “That's your first question in this situation?”
A distant explosion cut through the sky, rattling glass behind them. Dust fell from the arch above the green.
Behind the column, the woman gasped as another ripple of red light burst from the center of the field. The older man yanked her back as the ground cracked near their feet. Their faces flickered briefly into view before the dust obscured them again.
Harry turned toward the light.
The center of the Convergence boiled and shimmered—realities overlapping like bleeding ink. Trees, stars, stone—whole worlds brushing the edge of this one.
“What is this?” he asked. “What’s happening?”
Thor’s voice was steady. “The Convergence. The Nine Realms are aligning. When they do, the boundaries between them weaken. The Dark Elves want to use that moment to flood everything with darkness.”
Harry swallowed. “Can you stop it?”
Thor raised his hammer. Lightning danced across the stones around them.
“I intend to.”
Harry nodded, lifting his hand. The shadows at his wrist coiled upward like bracers, trembling with pressure and purpose.
“Then I’m with you.”
A long seam split down the ship’s underbelly with a hiss of pressure and light.
From it descended a platform—simple, dark, and utterly silent.
And on it stood a figure.
He looked untouched by the chaos he’d wrought. His pale skin glistened faintly in the gathering storm, robes moving as if underwater. His eyes, twin voids of restrained fury, scanned the battlefield as if he were already walking over its ashes.
Harry froze when he saw him.
That magic—the way the shadows pulled inward, the hum beneath his skin—it knew him. Or knew what he carried. The Aether, his mind supplied, shimmered faintly in his veins; an unnatural red glow pulsing beneath his skin like infected light.
Thor stepped forward, Mjölnir in hand, jaw tight.
“Malekith.”
But the Dark Elf didn’t look at him. His eyes had locked on Harry.
And he smiled.
“You brought him,” Malekith said softly. “How curious.”
Harry’s jaw clenched. Shadows coiled like smoke around his fingers.
“You know him?” Thor asked, warily.
“I know what he is,” Malekith replied. “And what he could be.”
He stepped off the platform, boots hitting the stone with unnatural silence. Magic coiled at his back like wings of void and flame. He approached not as a conqueror, but as someone drawn to something he still hoped to possess.
“You weren’t supposed to be late,” he said, gaze fixed on Harry. “You were supposed to awaken with the Aether. You were meant to walk beside me when the Realms fell. The gatekeeper and the flame.”
Harry didn’t move.
“Instead,” Malekith continued, voice soft and full of poison, “you bound yourself to the dying gods. The scattered realms. You chained yourself to small minds who would sooner fear you than understand you.”
Harry’s heart pounded like a war drum in his chest.
The words hit harder than he expected—not because they were true, but because they almost could have been. Because he had felt feared. Pushed to the edge of every world he touched. Too much magic. Too much power. Too many questions and not enough trust.
For a moment, the Veil inside him stirred—uncertain. Listening.
But then other voices rose beneath it.
Peter’s laugh in the Tower kitchen. Tony’s hand clumsily ruffling his hair. Mrs. Weasley’s cooking. Ned’s awkward, open-hearted kindness. Even Hela, pressing a strange apple into his hand with a sister’s quiet care.
They hadn't understood him.
But they had stayed.
“I’m not chained to anyone,” Harry said. His voice came low, steadier than he felt, but strong enough to ring through the cracking air. “Especially not you.”
Malekith tilted his head, like a curious predator. “Then why fight for them?”
Because I want to believe in something, Harry thought.
Because I’ve seen what happens when I don’t.
“Because they fight back,” he said aloud, and his magic surged in his chest—hot, cold, ancient. It flared from his skin in wisps of silver and shadow, like moonlight trying to become fire. “Because they don’t want the world to end.”
Malekith smiled.
It was not kind.
“You think this is an end?” he said, stepping forward now, slow and certain, his presence bending the air like heat above fire. “This is the beginning. You were born in the quiet between death and breath. You are what comes after.”
He raised a hand—not to strike, but to offer.
“You could shape it, Veilwalker. Collapse the Realms. Burn down the old order. Walk beside me as we build a world without fear.”
Harry’s legs locked in place.
Not from power. From fear.
Because for a single, awful second, he felt it. The pull of the Veil opening wide. The thrum of something ancient brushing against his spine. His magic rose without warning, too fast, too sharply—silvered shadows lashing briefly at the stones beneath his feet before curling back like startled animals.
It shouldn’t have done that.
He hadn’t meant to cast anything.
The pressure in the air changed. His magic bucked, like a current catching an unexpected undertow. It wasn’t just responding to him anymore—it was responding to something else. Something massive and close and deeply, horribly wrong.
The Aether.
He didn't know how he knew its name. Couldn’t see it yet—but it was close. It rang in his chest like a bell struck in another world. Like something whispered through the folds of the Veil and settled behind his eyes before he could question it.
It vibrated at the edges of reality, a deep, unnatural hum that made his skin prickle. Like heat radiating from a blade that hadn’t yet struck. And inside him, the Veil—usually quiet, steady, his anchor—had begun to twitch. Erratic. Electric. Like it didn’t know whether to rise in defense or surrender entirely.
Something in the air was reaching for him.
Not physically.
Magically. Cosmically.
Like the fabric of reality was loosening its grip, opening just enough to let something other brush against him. The Aether's pulse pressed at the edge of his senses—low and insistent, like a second heartbeat that didn’t belong to him. The Veil inside him, normally quiet and steady, fluttered like a curtain in a storm.
And realised, then, what Malekith was offering.
No prophecy. No burden.
Just purpose.
The end of questions. The end of hesitation. No more wondering where he belonged, or who might flinch when he walked into the room. No more searching for answers that people feared him for even asking.
Just power and a place to use it.
And for one awful moment—just a breath caught in the throat of the universe—it felt easy to say yes.
But then he remembered.
He remembered the boy he used to be. Small and angry and so very quiet, curled up in a cupboard full of dust and spiderwebs, clutching a broken toy soldier. Pretending not to hear the hate in the walls. Pretending not to need.
He remembered hiding his wand under his pillow at Hogwarts, just in case. Because some part of him never stopped preparing to run.
He remembered how many times people had asked him to be a weapon, a symbol, a saviour. How many times he had been looked at with awe or suspicion—but rarely with understanding.
And he remembered waking up in Grimmauld Place, years later, cold and bleeding and far too tired, with Regulus’ portrait watching him from the shadows like a silent echo of everything Harry might still become. A boy who’d gone too far down a path he couldn’t turn back from. A boy who had chosen too late.
Harry had chosen differently.
He was still choosing.
He remembered what that felt like, to choose love over power. Grief over apathy.
The terrifying, human risk of being soft and stubborn and alive in a world that wanted him carved into something simpler.
“No,” he said.
The word rang from his chest like thunder. Not a scream, not a curse—just a truth loud enough to hold.
Sharp and final.
Magic exploded around his feet again—bigger this time, shadows shooting out in jagged lines, flickering at the edges with something red. It wasn’t his usual magic. Not quite. Not clean.
The Veil was flaring.
The Aether was answering.
Harry swallowed the rising panic. Malekith’s expression didn’t twist with rage. Instead, it brightened.
“You’ve made yourself very interesting,” he said.
Then, suddenly, he launched forward—red-black energy lashing from his palms, striking the stones like meteors.
Harry darted sideways, shadows rising in reflex.
They came too fast. Too high. His barrier cracked the earth beneath it as it surged up—stronger than it should’ve been, louder. He almost stumbled from the force.
Thor moved opposite him, lightning arcing with each swing.
And the storm broke loose.