CHAPTER ONE: DEAD MAN WALKING

The Killing Curse should have been the end. The ground rushing up as green light filled his vision, bringing with it the certainty of death. Then…

A gasp, raw and desperate, tore from Harry’s throat as he lurched upright, only to be wrenched back by cold metal. His wrists and ankles were bound.

Panic flared in his chest and he blinked hard, straining to focus, but the world remained a smudged blur of gray walls, harsh lighting, and hard angles. Shapes existed, but details eluded him.

He swallowed down the rising unease at his vulnerability. Losing his glasses had never felt like this before, not just an inconvenience, but an intentional handicap. Someone had taken them.

Someone wanted him off-balance.

Who? 

Harry shook his head, squinting into the blur. No, the better question was where was he?

He had expected… well, not nothingness, exactly: his parents, perhaps; Sirius’s bark of laughter; Dumbledore’s kind, knowing smile; or even the soft hoot of Hedwig as she landed gently on his shoulder.

He had expected peace.

Instead, he was greeted by smooth concrete walls and a heavy metal door, thick enough to muffle sound. A narrow slit sat at eye level, too small to see through, with or without his glasses. And the chair beneath him was bolted to the floor, the armrests fitted with restraints that held his wrists in an iron grip.

Harry swallowed hard.

This wasn’t Azkaban. The air was wrong, too dry, and lacking the soul-sucking cold of Dementors. It wasn't a Ministry holding cell either; if it were, he’d have wizards falling over themselves to shout questions through the door by now.

Some Muggle blacksite, then? Had the Death Eaters handed him over to sympathetic muggle authorities? That made even less sense; the Statute of Secrecy was in tatters, but Muggles wouldn't keep him in perfect silence like this. Nor would Voldemort have simply given him away.

No. This was something else.

He sagged in the seat, only to jerk upright. Where was his wand?

His breath hitched as he realized his holster was empty, and he twisted in the chair frantically, panic clawing up his throat. His fingers flexed, reaching for magic on instinct, but before he could summon even the faintest flicker, something caught his eye.

On the floor, just inches from his boots, snapped clean in two—with splintered wood shavings scattered around it—was his wand.

His stomach dropped.

For a moment, there was nothing—just the sound of his own breathing, ragged and uneven—and his world narrowed blurrily to the jagged, broken pieces at his feet. It narrowed further to the phoenix feather core, exposed and fraying at the edges.

Then his teeth bared in a soundless yet seething snarl.

Someone had broken his wand.

Harry yanked at the restraints, anger burning away the last remnants of shock, but they didn’t so much as rattle. There was no give, no weak points. The restraints were muggle-made, but unlike any he’d seen before: too smooth, too strong, and lined with something that made his skin prickle prickle the harder he strained.

Where the hell am I?

Suddenly, a click, and the hair on the back of his neck rose.

A hidden speaker crackled to life, somewhere above him.

"You are finally awake."

The voice was artificial, stripped of any human inflection. Cold and oddly mechanical, like the Muggle robots from Dudley’s old sci-fi films.

"State your abilities."

Harry stayed silent.

Interrogations had rules. He knew them well, and as such, he would do his best to give nothing away.

The speaker hissed static. 

"Non-compliance will be punished."

. . . . .

Three floors above, Thomas Calvert—known to his subordinates as Coil—folded his hands under his chin and split the timeline.

Timeline A:

The speaker remained active. Coil’s voice came out smooth and unhurried: “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

. . . . .

Timeline B:

The lights cut out, the temperature plummeted, and then came the sound: a low, droning hum vibrating through the walls, deep and bone-rattling.

Harry inhaled sharply, pulse spiking even further. The darkness was absolute, thick as ink, and pressed in from all sides. Within seconds, the cold had seeped into his bones, biting through the thin fabric of his robes. His breath came fast, misting in the frigid air.

Then the hum changed.

It crawled under his skin like insects, setting his nerves alight, and making his teeth ache. His muscles seized against the involuntary shudder, his heart hammering against his ribs. 

Sensory deprivation. 

There was no light, no warmth, and no escape. Just this. A tactic to shatter the mind.

Not bloody likely.

His fingers curled into fists, and magic coiled deep in his gut, coming out not as a spell, or words, but raw, instinctive power. It surged through him, burning hot, and crackling beneath his skin.

The cold recoiled.The vibrations stuttered. And for a single, breathless moment, the entire room lagged, like reality itself had hiccupped.

Then…

. . . . .

Coil exhaled sharply through his nose. On the monitors before him, the screens flickered with static as sensors failed, and the temperature controls reset. 

The boy hadn’t moved. He hadn’t spoken. And yet, the torture simulation had failed.

His power had never glitched like this before.

Interesting.

He collapsed the failed branch and refocused on Timeline A.

The speaker reactivated with a soft hum.

Coil’s voice was level, betraying nothing of his thoughts. “Let’s try again. What can you do?”

. . . . .

Harry exhaled slowly. His pulse had steadied, but his head still throbbed, his magic drained from the exertion. 

What was that?

Still, his voice was as steady as he could make it. "I don’t know what you want."

Silence. Then, a faint whisper slipped through the vent near the floor like a breath of wind.

"You’re an error."

Harry’s blood ran cold.

The voice was young, obviously belonging to a child. But beneath the fear and confusion in their tone, there was something unsettlingly mature. Something certain.

"In all the futures, you’re an error. I can't predict you."

The speaker crackled again, but Harry barely heard it as a chill swept through his spine.

The restraints, the cell, The unknown captors. None of it mattered.

A child was here.