118 Nightmare

When Harry Potter stirred back to consciousness, he didn’t open his eyes right away. The world around him pressed down oppressively, not only on his body but also on his soul. The air itself felt wrong, not just cold, but hollow, as though all joy had been siphoned from existence and replaced with a choking stillness. Each breath scraped his throat like broken glass, offering no comfort, only a cruel reminder that he was still alive in a place that had long forgotten light.

There was no warmth, no life, no hope. Just a terrible stillness that settled in his bones like rot. Fear didn’t come as a rush but as a slow, creeping frost, numbing his limbs and thoughts until all that was left was dread—dread so deep and ancient it felt like the earth itself wept beneath it. Somewhere nearby, the wind moaned, but even that sounded like mourning.

Harry’s body itself was heavy. Too heavy. Paralysed not by spell or injury, but by the sheer weight of despair. The kind of despair that told him something had gone terribly, irreversibly wrong.

When Harry opened his eyes, the world didn’t come into focus. His body jolted gently with each step, and only then did he realise he was being dragged. Two figures flanked him, one on each side, clutching his arms in a grip that should have hurt, but he couldn’t feel anything at all. There was no pain. No tingling. No warmth. His limbs hung uselessly like dead weight in a body that felt foreign. Only his eyes moved, darting side to side in frantic bursts.

The figures holding him wore rough, weather-stained clothing that stirred a sick familiarity in him. They were dressed like Snatchers from the darkest days of Voldemort’s war. Greasy coats, patchwork boots, feral movements, but now their jackets bore Auror badges, not pinned with pride, but stitched like trophies. Badges torn from the dead and repurposed as cruel decorations.

They had no faces.

Where mouths, noses, and eyes should have been, there was only smooth, pale skin, as if humanity itself had been scrubbed away. Faceless husks of men wearing the honour of slaughtered protectors.

Harry tried to speak. To yell. To fight. But nothing responded. His chest didn’t even twitch, and the scream that formed in his mind had no vessel to carry it. He was completely paralysed, from his fingers to his toes. It felt like Acromantula venom.

And then he saw where they were. His heart might’ve stopped if he could feel it.

They passed beneath the twisted arches of gnarled trees, and Harry recognised the clearing instantly; it was the place he had once offered his life to Voldemort. Where he had stood, alone, beneath the moonlight and accepted death. But it wasn’t empty anymore. The trees were draped in thick, silken webs, stretched like morbid curtains across every trunk and limb. The air shimmered with threads. So many that it was impossible to take a step without brushing against the sticky death traps.

The Forbidden Forest had fallen. No, it had been devoured.

It seemed as if the Acromantulas had multiplied beyond imagining. Their bulbous shadows skittered along the canopy, hundreds—maybe thousands—of them crawling in and around them, weaving their dominion in the canopy and on the forest floor.

And cocooned in their webbing were bodies. Centaurs, their proud torsos slack and their eyes dulled in eternal terror. Unicorns, limp and bloodied, their silver manes dulled by dust. And humans—so many humans—wrapped like insects in translucent coffins. All faceless and all looking freshly caught. All looked forgotten.

A fresh wave of horror surged through him, crushing and cold. The weight of guilt settled like a boulder on his chest. His skin crawled, not from the webs brushing his cheeks, but from the sight of the unbearable, personal horror of knowing that this was the forest beyond Hogwarts. This was his world and the same world where he had once been the beacon of hope.

The snatchers dragged Harry through the forest’s edge, their boots crunching through dried bones and fallen leaves, until the trees thinned and the open grounds of Hogwarts spread out before him.

He would have gasped if he could. The sight that met his eyes was a nightmare made real.

Dementors circled lazily in the sky, their tattered forms gliding beneath the cold, pale moonlight. They moved in slow spirals, like vultures over a battlefield, casting waves of despair that rolled across the fields in a nauseating pulse.

Below them, the earth trembled as giants stomped across the grass, dragging crude clubs behind them. Their footfalls echoed like war drums, shaking the very foundation of the land. Some of them roared in boredom. Others squashed shattered stone statues like toys, leaving trails of broken history in their wake.

And then Harry saw Hogwarts.

The castle stood in the distance, silhouetted by flickering fires and choked in a pall of green mist. Its towers were cracked and broken, some crumbling like sandcastles at low tide. Entire sections of the wall had collapsed, and the familiar warm candlelight from its windows was long gone. What remained was cold, and still, and wrong.

There was no magic in the air. No warmth of generations whispering through the stones. Harry could feel the death of Hogwarts from the edge of the Forbidden Forest itself.

Instead of the vibrant magic, he felt a crushing, suffocating pressure that hung over the castle like a shroud. Every brick, every turret, every blade of grass seemed heavy with hopelessness. The ground was dead beneath it.

And above the highest spire, painted across the sky in a glowing, avada kadavra green floated the Dark Mark.

It shimmered like toxic fire, casting the grounds in its sickly light. The skull sneered, fanged and hollow, while the serpent slithered through its jaws in endless motion, coiling and writhing as if feeding off the dread it inspired. The green wasn’t just a spell; it was a brand, burned into the heavens, proclaiming Voldemort’s reign had never ended.

Harry’s stomach twisted.

The ruined Hogwarts felt like it was the death of hope itself. The place that had once been a sanctuary, a home, a bastion of light in the dark, had been defiled. Twisted into a symbol of conquest. His eyes burned with grief, but no tears came. Even that simple mercy had been stolen from him.

And somehow, some part of him believed this was his fault.

The faceless Snatchers kept dragging him forward, but the weight of guilt pressed heavier than their grip. And as the darkened silhouette of Hogwarts loomed closer, Harry felt a single, unrelenting truth carve itself into his soul. That he had failed. If only he’d done more. If only he’d stayed behind. If only he hadn’t left this world undefended, had kept fighting, kept protecting.

Instead, he’d escaped. That dying was easy, and living in this world was harder.

And now, everything he loved had withered in his absence.

The Snatchers moved in silence, dragging Harry across the deadened grounds like a corpse on display. Not a word passed between them, only the shuffle of boots over cracked earth and the wet squelch of mud clinging to limp limbs.

They came to a halt before the main gates of Hogwarts Castle, if it could still be called that. Towering iron doors loomed above them, their once welcoming arches now twisted into cruel, angular shapes. Spiked metal and dark runes pulsed faintly with cursed energy, as if warning intruders that even death would be a kindness.

And guarding them… were the beasts. They weren’t just werewolves anymore. The figures that stood watch were massive, hunched things with elongated limbs and thick, matted fur. Their eyes glowed amber in the dark, like twin fires beneath a storm. Rows of jagged teeth jutted from snarling maws. Their claws scraped along the iron gates, itching for something—someone—to tear open.

The largest of them stepped forward, nostrils flaring. It moved like a predator caged too long. Its breath steamed in the cold air as it leaned in close to Harry, its fangs inches from his throat.

It sniffed once. Then it growled. A sound that vibrated in Harry’s chest like a death knell.

He couldn’t move. Not even to flinch. The paralysis held his body prisoner, but his mind screamed inside, every instinct bracing for the end.

“He is for the Lord,” said one of the Snatchers.

The lycan turned its head slowly, eyes narrowing. Its lip curled, revealing gums blackened with old blood. Then, with a sound like splitting bone and tearing muscle, it began to shift.

Its fur retracted in wet slithers. The monstrous limbs contorted, reshaped. The snout crumpled inward with sickening cracks, becoming a man’s face, but one far from human. The transformation was seamless and brutal, and when it was done, the creature stood before them in the naked shape of a man, his skin streaked with veins of dark magic, his grin still too wide, too sharp.

“Let them through,” the former werewolf said.

The other beasts stepped aside, still staring at Harry as if deciding whether they’d get to eat what was left once Voldemort was done.

The gates creaked open, shrieking like tortured souls, revealing the castle’s shadowed interior.

As the Snatchers resumed dragging Harry forward, one of them muttered beneath his breath, spitting into the dirt.

“Bloody Lycans.”

The lycans heard, but didn’t care. Or perhaps they did, and they were simply waiting. Waiting for the leash of Voldemort’s rule to snap so they could rip into the Snatchers next.

Even among the ranks of darkness, there was no unity. Only fear. Only ambition. Only predators, circling each other in the dark. And Harry was being dragged straight into their den.

Harry was dragged through the ruined corridors of Hogwarts, his limp body bumping against cracked stone and bloodstained flagstones. The castle groaned with every gust of wind, as if protesting the desecration of its once-sacred halls.

The massive doors of the Great Hall creaked open. The moment they crossed the threshold, a flash of sickly green light exploded in front of him.

Avada Kedavra.

A lifeless body crumpled to the ground, face twisted in fear, eyes glassy and wide. Harry’s breath caught in his throat, not from fear, but revulsion.

The Great Hall was gone. In its place stood something out of a nightmare.

The long house tables had been stripped away, replaced by a wide, open floor slick with filth and grime. The enchanted ceiling no longer mirrored the sky. Instead, a heavy cloud churned overhead—dense, unnatural, roiling with thunder and whispering winds. Occasionally, a bolt of silent lightning flashed, casting monstrous shadows across the walls.

Hooded figures lined the walls, Death Eaters, Snatchers, and worse. Some stood tall and proud. Others twitched. Salivated. A few whispered to themselves, eyes glazed, long gone into madness.

The banners of the four Hogwarts Houses were gone. In their place, a single banner hung behind the throne: a tattered serpent coiled around a skull, its eyes gleaming red, its jaws unhinged.

The scent of blood, rot, and damp stone clung to the air.

Harry’s eyes darted around the room, searching for something familiar, but all he found were cages, masks, chains, and ash. Even the stones beneath him felt colder than they should.

The Death Eaters, in their traditional garb, were spread throughout the hall like vultures awaiting a feast. They stood in small clusters, speaking in hushed, casual tones that belied the horror of their words.

A hulking figure in a blood-spattered robe chuckled as he recounted how a group of Muggleborn children had tried to flee through the Forbidden Forest, only to be hunted down and “used for training” by the younger werewolves. “Poor things didn’t last five minutes,” he said, as if describing a game.

Two snatchers leaned against a column, gambling with galleons stained red, trading stories about the most “creative” Cruciatus punishments they’d witnessed that week. One of them grinned and said, “I swear, you haven’t lived until you’ve watched someone try to claw their own eyes out just to make it stop.”

A witch in a shredded black veil whispered sweetly to a shadowy figure beside her. “He screamed so beautifully when I fed him to the Dementors. The sound of it… it lingers.” She laughed softly, like recalling a fond memory.

A pair of vampires stood apart, polished and elegant, sipping from goblets that definitely didn’t hold wine. One of them gestured toward Harry with disinterest. “He looks thinner than I expected,” she murmured. “I do hope the Dark Lord hasn’t ruined him for sport. I rather fancied having a taste.”

Harry’s stomach churned. The words blended together, a miasma of cruelty disguised as civility. There was no shame here. No fear. Only pride and a terrifying sense of normalcy. These people weren’t hiding what they were; they revelled in it. Laughed about it. Competed over it.

As he was dragged forward, some turned to glance at him. Not with awe, or curiosity but like cats eyeing a crippled mouse.

At the far end of the desecrated Great Hall, raised high on a dais where the teachers' table was, sat Voldemort. His throne was grotesque. It was made with bones polished to a morbid gleam, fused together by dark magic that pulsed faintly with sickly light. Some skulls still bore shattered remnants of expressions, mouths agape as if caught mid-scream.

Voldemort lounged with a disturbing sense of ease, his pale fingers curled under his chin, crimson eyes half-lidded in a look of disdainful boredom. His robes flowed like shadows over the bone throne, pooling at his feet where Nagini lay coiled and unmoving, her glistening body wrapped possessively around the base as if she too were guarding his dominion.

To Voldemort’s right stood Lucius Malfoy, almost unrecognisable. The once-proud aristocrat looked withered and broken, his silver hair unkempt, his elegant features sunken and hollowed. His eyes were vacant. A shadow of the man who once strutted with pride. In a world where his silver tongue was useless, he was nothing but Voldemort’s personal assistant.

On Voldemort’s left was Bellatrix Lestrange, wild and feverish. Her dark curls hung in tangled clumps, and her eyes gleamed with a fanatical intensity that hadn’t dulled with time, only sharpened into something more primal. She rocked slightly on her heels, one hand twitching toward her wand as if restraining herself from cackling aloud.

Just below the throne, crouched like a rabid dog barely held back by an imaginary leash, was Fenrir Greyback. His lips were curled in anticipation, blood still staining his claws and beard. His eyes locked on Harry with unblinking hunger, but he didn’t move—not yet. He was waiting for permission.

The corpse of the previous victim was being dragged away. No one looked twice. No one mourned.

In the vacant spot where that body had been, Harry was dumped. His paralysed form hit the cold stone hard, pain flaring across his ribs, but he couldn’t even groan.

The court went silent. All eyes turned to the throne.

But Voldemort did not rise.

He did not gloat.

He merely exhaled a long, theatrical sigh like a child bored with his toys. His gaze flicked lazily over Harry’s prone body.

At first, there was only detached curiosity, then as he recognised the person in front of him, something stirred inside him and he smiled. A true, almost childlike smile twisted his serpentine features as he rose slowly from the throne of skulls. A hush fell across the hall, as if the very walls leaned in to listen.

“Harry Potter,” he breathed, voice rich with venomous delight. “The Boy Who Lived... again and again.”

He descended the steps of his throne with deliberate grace, his tattered robes gliding across the stone. His presence was suffocating. He moved like a phantom, slow and smooth, savouring the moment like fine wine.

“You’ve finally come home,” Voldemort said, spreading his arms mockingly. “Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”

He turned back toward the throne and gave it a fond glance, brushing his fingers along a jagged bit of bone. “Ah, yes. The seat of power... forged from the remains of your precious little rebellion. Isn’t it beautiful?”

He gestured to the grotesque structure behind him.

“This one—” he tapped a skull with a crack down its centre “—I believe belonged to Hermione Granger. Brightest witch of her age. She made such delightful sounds when she begged.”

A few of the Death Eaters chuckled under their breath.

“And over here… I think that’s a Weasley. Or two. Hard to tell after they’ve rotted away. There were so many of them, anyone would lose track.” He sneered. “There’s something poetic, isn’t there? All your loyalty. All your hope. Reduced to building blocks for my throne.”

He crouched beside Harry now, studying his face like a collector admiring a long-lost relic.

“I dreamed of this, you know. Of seeing you broken before me. But I never imagined how good it would feel.”

Then, he tilted his head, voice softening into mock sympathy. “Was it hard, Potter? Watching them fall one by one? Did you cling to some desperate belief that you’d win again in the end?”

He stood back up slowly, towering over Harry.

Voldemort turned to Harry, the mirth still glinting in his crimson eyes. “Come,” he said with quiet command, “and see what I have done to the world that has put its faith in me.”

Before Harry could speak, Voldemort seized his arm. The air twisted around them with a thunderous crack, and they vanished. They reappeared in the middle of what used to be Diagon Alley.

Harry barely recognised it.

The cobbled street was still there, but that was the only thing left untouched. The colourful charm of the old shops had been stripped away and replaced with buildings choked in iron, barbed sigils, and flickering green flames. The street was darker, narrower, as if the very architecture had begun to decay under the weight of fear. Shadows moved behind cracked windows, some human, some not.

As soon as Voldemort appeared, every witch and wizard in sight dropped to their knees in unison. They didn’t look at him. They didn’t even breathe too loudly. Their lips pressed against the dirty stones beneath them in terrified reverence.

One child, too slow to kneel, was yanked violently back by his mother and shoved to the ground. The boy trembled silently, not daring to cry.

Harry’s jaw clenched as his eyes roamed over the alley. The stores once run by Muggleborns or half-bloods like Flourish and Blotts, Madam Malkin’s, and even the Leaky Cauldron were gone. Burned out. Replaced by twisted, gothic replacements that looked more at home in Knockturn Alley. The signs above them advertised poisons, blood spells, and exotic dark creatures. One storefront displayed wands pinned like trophies against a velvet black backdrop. The sign read: “Relics of the Purge.”

In the distance, a high-pitched scream pierced the air.

Harry shifted his eyes just in time to see a house-elf chained to a post outside what used to be Quality Quidditch Supplies. Its master—a sneering, richly-dressed wizard—was lazily casting the Cruciatus Curse while sipping tea. The elf convulsed in agony, its tiny frame writhing as passersby ignored the spectacle like it was background noise.

“Disobedient,” the wizard muttered, almost bored. “They need to be reminded.”

Harry looked away, sickened.

Voldemort watched him with a smug, sideways smile. “Ah, yes. The cruelty offends your delicate little heart, doesn’t it?” He gestured broadly at the street. “But look at them, Potter. See the order. See the hierarchy restored.”

All around them, there was a clear divide: robed pure-bloods strolled confidently in fine garments, heads high and chins raised. The rest, those of muddier blood, shuffled along the edges of the street in silence. Eyes down. Collars tight around their necks, some even branded.

“We use the Hogwarts Book of Admittance now,” Voldemort said, pausing before a grim little building that had replaced Ollivander’s wand shop. The sign hanging from its door simply read: Indenture. Inside, rows of children—frightened, malnourished—sat behind glass, each tagged with a name and blood status. “Every new Mudblood is collected the moment they’re detected. It’s efficient, really.”

Harry could barely breathe.

“You see slavery,” Voldemort said, almost cheerfully. “But I see use. Structure. Legacy.”

He stepped forward and turned to Harry. “They used to hope for you. But hope is a luxury of fools, and you were always just a boy pretending to be a symbol. Now look.”

He pointed again at the street.

“They kneel to me.”

After Diagon Alley, the world spun once again.

Harry felt the wrenching pull of Apparition, and when his feet slammed onto solid ground, the air was instantly colder. The light was gone. The sky above was grey, suffocated by storm clouds, and the roar of the sea crashed violently against jagged rocks below.

Azkaban.

The towering fortress loomed above him, black stone slick with mist, rising like a wound in the world. Dementors circled it lazily, drawn by the scent of misery, gliding like vultures above a battlefield.

Voldemort stood beside him, untouched by the chill. “A fitting place for a would-be hero,” he said with amusement. “Your precious godfather once rotted here. Now it’s your turn.” He led Harry through the gates himself. The sound of chains dragged somewhere deep within. The cries of the mad echoed faintly through the darkness.

Voldemort shoved open the door to a tiny cell, little more than a hole in the wall with a bench of cold stone and iron bars slick with rust. He waved his wand, and Harry was hurled inside, landing hard against the back wall.

“It seems you’ve developed a taste for not dying,” Voldemort sneered. “So be it. Spend that life keeping my pets well fed.”

He gestured, and two Dementors drifted closer, their breath rattling like the last gasp of dying lungs. The cold grew worse. Harry could feel his memories slipping—the warmth of hugs, the sound of laughter, even the faces of those he loved.

Voldemort laughed, a twisted, high-pitched cackle that rang through the corridor. “Enjoy eternity, Potter.”

With that, he turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving Harry alone… in the cold… with the monsters.

It was only after Voldemort vanished into the dark that Harry could finally breathe. The dementors drifted away to find another muse. And Harry staggered to his feet. The stone floor scraped against his palms. He was alone and helpless. Or so he thought.

A soft rustle in the shadows made him turn. A figure huddled in the far corner of the cell, motionless, cloaked in rags and filth. The flickering torchlight revealed a gaunt face, hollow-eyed and bruised, but unmistakable.

“Neville…” Harry’s voice cracked.

The figure stirred, sluggishly lifting his head. Recognition flashed, but not the kind Harry hoped for. Neville’s eyes widened with disgust, and he scrambled backwards with surprising strength.

“Stay away from me!” he shouted, voice hoarse but filled with venom. “Don’t touch me, traitor.”

The word pierced Harry deeper than any spell.

“Neville, it’s me—it’s Harry,” he said desperately, hands raised in surrender.

“I know who you are,” Neville hissed. “The Boy Who Lived. Lived while we died.”

Harry’s throat closed. “I didn’t abandon you—I sacrificed myself. I died so you all could win—”

“But you didn’t die, did you?” Neville’s voice cracked, brittle with pain. “You lived. You escaped. While we burned. While Hogwarts fell. While Ginny screamed your name until they tore her voice from her throat.”

Harry stumbled back, heart caving in on itself.

“I never meant—”

“You got what you always wanted,” Neville spat. “A life without the burden. While the rest of us were hunted like dogs.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, barely able to speak.

Neville’s laugh was broken, jagged. “Are you? I watched Seamus get executed in front of a crowd. I buried Luna myself, in a ditch behind Zonko’s. Ron… Ron held a curse so I could run. He didn’t make it.”

Tears spilt down Harry’s face as Neville’s voice softened into something worse than rage—disappointment.

“You were supposed to save us,” Neville murmured, slumping back against the wall, eyes dimming. “Instead, you just left.”

Silence choked the room. Harry fell to his knees. There were no Dementors in that moment, but the cold in his chest was unbearable.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered, his voice trembling, barely audible through the weight of his own shame.

Neville stared at him for a long, hollow moment. His eyes, once full of warmth and bravery, were now sunken, voided, blackened by grief, loss, and betrayal.

“Sorry won’t bring the dead back,” Neville said flatly.

And then he lunged.

Harry gasped as cold, shaking hands wrapped around his throat. There was no warning, no hesitation. Just fury, desperate and raw. Harry didn’t resist. He couldn’t. Whether it was the weight of guilt or the sheer exhaustion of existing, he simply let it happen.

He didn’t use his magic.

He didn’t cry out.

He just stared into Neville’s haunted eyes as his vision began to blur.

Spots danced across his sight.

The cell grew colder.

The edges of the world frayed like old parchment.

And then darkness.