Malfoy Manor – Drawing Room.
Night.Thunder rumbled beyond the tall, curtained windows. The ancient manor groaned in the wind, like a beast at rest. Candles flickered in their sconces, casting long, jagged shadows across the ornate walls—shadows that danced like devils come to dinner.
The drawing room was a theatre of decadence. The long mahogany table stretched like a sacrificial altar, heaped with food no one truly cared to eat—roasted pheasants, honey-glazed pork, blood-red grapes spilling from silver bowls. Goblets sloshed with wine as dark as arterial blood, though some suspected the Carrows had opted for the real thing.
Death Eaters laughed. Loud, victorious, and utterly without restraint.
Lucius Malfoy, draped in velvet and disdain, raised his goblet with a smirk as polished as his cane.
"To the Dark Lord," he said, his voice purring like a cat that had just eaten the canary—and the canary's entire bloodline. "May the Ministry remain his marionette… and Thicknesse his most obedient muppet."
Laughter burst across the room like fireworks.
"Here here!" Yaxley slurred, pounding his goblet against the table and spilling wine across the white linen. He didn't notice.
"Muppet," cackled Alecto Carrow. "That's what Muggles call those puppet things, isn't it? With the floppy arms?"
Lucius waved his fingers delicately. "I wouldn't know, dear. I've never willingly watched Muggle filth. Unlike some," he added, eyeing the Carrows' bloodstained sleeves with a wrinkle of his nose.
In the far corner, Bellatrix Lestrange shrieked with delight, spinning on one heel like a child in a cursed playground. Her eyes glittered, wild and too wide, hair a black halo of chaos.
"Oh, Lucius, you always make tyranny sound so romantic," she sang, slinking toward the table. "Thicknesse is a doll, yes, but I want to play with the real toy." She threw her head back and howled, arms raised in some mock-ritual of devotion. "Let's bring out the Mudbloods and make them dance, shall we?"
"My dear Bella," Lucius said with a measured sip of his wine, "must you always turn dinner into an execution? It's dreadfully hard to enjoy roast pheasant with someone screaming in the background."
"Oh, Lucius, darling," she cooed, skipping closer to the table, "you mistake me. Screaming is precisely what makes it palatable!"
Rodolphus guffawed like a dying bear. "She's not wrong!"
"Shocking," Lucius murmured, adjusting a golden cufflink. "You'd agree with a Crup if it bit your leg off."
The room roared with dark laughter again. Even Dolohov cracked a rare smirk.
It was depravity in its most elegant robes. But then—
A scream.
Not one of glee. Not a victim. No, this one was different. It was sharp. Wet. Final.
The laughter died.
Rodolphus turned slowly. His goblet slipped from his fingers and shattered on the marble.
"Bella?" he choked.
There she lay, mid-twirl, her body contorted at an unnatural angle. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly, eyes wide and glassy. An arrow—slim, black-fletched, and viciously barbed—protruded from her chest. Blood bloomed across her corset like a rose.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the storm outside.
Then—
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
Three more arrows sailed through the tall, open balcony doors with uncanny precision. One pierced Travers through the eye. Another struck Mulciber in the throat. The last embedded itself in the temple of a snatcher who hadn't even risen from his seat.
They fell like dominoes. Dead before they hit the floor.
"What in Merlin's hairy—" Yaxley began, but ducked too late as an arrow sliced his ear in half.
"Shields!" Dolohov barked. "Shields now!"
Wands were drawn in a frenzy. Chairs were overturned. Alecto screamed and crawled under the table. Amycus fired a curse blindly at the ceiling, blowing a hole in the chandelier, which crashed down between Lucius and Rodolphus in a rain of crystals and fire.
Lucius, still crouched behind a marble pillar, clutched his cane like it might ward off death itself. His face was pale, but his voice was pure aristocratic outrage.
"Who—dares—attack my manor? Do you have any idea how expensive that chandelier was?!"
Rodolphus snarled, fumbling toward Bellatrix's corpse. "Bella! Bella, hold on—stay with me—!"
"Rodolphus, don't be a halfwit," Lucius snapped. "She's got an arrow through her heart. Unless one of you knows a resurrection charm—"
But Rodolphus never made it. Another arrow buried itself in his throat, his final breath bubbling red across his lips.
"By the pits of Azkaban," Dolohov whispered, eyes darting around the flickering room. "They're not casting spells. There's no Disapparition. No sounds. Nothing."
Another arrow hit the family crest above the fireplace.
Lucius flinched.
"THEY'RE INSIDE!" he roared. "I want every room searched, every passage sealed! Bring the manor to lockdown! KILL whoever's doing this!"
A low whistle echoed from outside.
Like a birdcall.
Then more arrows. Swift. Silent. Unrelenting.
The Death Eaters scrambled like rats in a maze, their black robes whipping through the gloom. Spells burst from wands in every direction—crimson, green, blue—lighting the manor like a battlefield.
But the arrows didn't stop.
There were no footsteps. No flash of a cloak. No laughter, no battle cry. Just death from the shadows.
The air grew thick with fear. The scent of blood mingled with wine. Even Alecto's blubbering fell quiet.
Lucius Malfoy, heir of ancient lineage, now trembling behind a pillar, whispered, "This… this isn't the Order. This is something else."
Dolohov nodded grimly. "It's a message."
Another whistle.
Another thwip.
The last arrow landed in the center of the dining table, embedded into the roasted pheasant.
Tied to its shaft was a single slip of parchment.
Lucius edged forward, wand raised, and read aloud in a voice that shook for the first time in years:
"We hunt monsters. You are the first."
And somewhere—far beyond the wards, beyond the manor walls, and beyond the fear in their hearts—the hunter vanished once more into the dark.
—
The Forests South of Ottery St. Catchpole. Moonlight filtered weakly through thick, roiling clouds, painting the forest in silvered shadows. The trees loomed like ancient sentinels, whispering secrets only the dead could hear. The air was thick with the scent of wet earth, pine sap, and terror.
Fenrir Greyback crashed through the underbrush with a wolfish grin splitting his face. Blood matted his beard. His eyes burned gold. And his laughter echoed like thunder.
"Ahahaha! Run, you little bastards! Run faster!" he bellowed, bounding forward on all fours like some unholy blend of beast and berserker. "I wanna feel you hope you get away!"
Behind him, his pack surged through the trees—six werewolves in various stages of transformation, howling, panting, snarling. Bare feet and clawed hands tore into moss and bark alike. They were less a strike team and more a warband on a leash—and that leash was held by Fenrir's absolute, savage will.
They were chasing a family—two adults, one teen, maybe a toddler wrapped in an Invisibility Cloak that smelled faintly of old magic and fresher piss. Not that it would save them. Fenrir had their scent. And once he had your scent, he owned you.
"Mudbloods," he growled to himself, sniffing the air. "The stink of desperation. I love it."
"Skegg!" he barked over his shoulder. "Go high. I want eyes in the trees. Marr—take the flank. Don't get cocky this time, or I'll wear your skull as a codpiece."
"Yeah, yeah," Marr muttered. "You say that every week, boss."
"That's 'cause you keep screwing up every week," Fenrir called back, baring his fangs in a grin.
He sniffed the air again—sharp, strong, laced with wand smoke and sweat. They were close.
Very close.
Then—
"THERE!" Skegg howled from above. "Flash of light! Ten o'clock!"
Fenrir didn't hesitate. He surged forward with a gleeful roar, claws outstretched—
THWIP.
A whisper. A silver flash.
Skegg dropped from the trees like a sack of meat, his body jerking violently. An arrow jutted from his spine, gleaming in the moonlight.
Fenrir skidded to a halt mid-stride.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
Skegg twitched once, then lay still. The only sound was the whisper of wind through leaves and the hiss of silver against flesh.
Then—
THWIP.
Marr screamed as an arrow pinned him clean through the chest to a tree trunk, his wand still raised, his face frozen in shock. Blood bubbled from his lips as he choked out, "...oh, bollocks—"
Fenrir whirled around, a deep snarl rolling from his chest. "AMBUSH! Shields up, now! Don't just stand there with your knobs out!"
The pack scrambled, casting hasty Protegos, some too late.
THWIP.
Turg went down next. Arrow through the throat. He gurgled, clutching at the shaft, eyes bulging. Then he collapsed in a twitching heap.
Three down.
Fenrir's face twisted into something halfway between fury and intrigue.
"Well now," he rumbled, licking blood from his lips. "Somebody out here's got balls."
He turned slowly, scanning the dark. Eyes glowing. Nostrils flaring.
Nothing.
No scent.
No heartbeat.
Just that silence.
The kind of silence that hunts back.
"Come on then," he growled. "Let's see what's got my boys pissing themselves."
THWIP.
An arrow punched into his right shoulder. Fenrir roared, staggering back into a tree.
The wound sizzled. The pain was white-hot.
Silver-tipped.
"AHHHH-HAHAHAHA!" he laughed, wild and ragged. "Oh, you clever bastard. You brought silver to a dog fight. I like you."
The two remaining werewolves bolted.
"Cowards!" Fenrir howled. "You run, I'll eat you myself when this is over!"
THWIP. THWIP.
Both were dead before they hit the ground. One arrow to the back. The other between the eyes.
Fenrir panted, leaning against a tree, blood dripping from his arm and chest. The silver seared through his veins like acid.
But he wasn't done.
Not even close.
"WHOEVER YOU ARE!" he bellowed into the dark, voice cracking with rage and euphoria, "I'm gonna rip your ribs out and use 'em to pick your teeth! I'll FEED your spine to the crows!"
From the shadows came a voice. Calm. Cold. Confident.
"We're the reason monsters like you sleep with a nightlight."
Fenrir froze.
Then, he laughed again. Slower. Darker.
"Ohhh, good line. You practiced that in a mirror, didn't ya?"
He turned toward the voice—too late.
A hooded figure stepped from the trees behind him. Tall. Silent. Bow still raised.
THWIP.
An arrow slammed into Fenrir's thigh. He howled, staggering.
"You think this stops me? I've eaten Hit Wizards alive!"
"Big words for a dying dog," the hunter replied, stepping into the moonlight. Cloaked in black. Silver arrows gleamed in the quiver on his back.
Fenrir spat blood. "You're not gonna monologue me to death, mate."
"No," the man said. "That's what the arrows are for."
THWIP.
Another arrow—left shoulder. Fenrir dropped to one knee, gasping, clawing at the dirt.
"Y'know what I hate most about heroes?" Fenrir rasped. "You don't finish things. You leave things alive. You show mercy."
"Not tonight."
The last arrow.
THWIP.
Straight through the heart.
Fenrir Greyback collapsed to the forest floor, mouth open in a final, silent roar. Gold eyes wide in disbelief.
For the first time in his cursed life—
He didn't get the last word.
—
The Riddle House, Little Hangleton. The storm had passed, but the air remained charged—heavy with magic, death, and something else... something colder than the grave.
The long dining table had once been a throne of power, draped in shadows and lit by floating candelabras that whispered flame. It now stood—cracked, blackened—an altar to failure.
Eight chairs sat empty.
Lucius Malfoy. Bellatrix Lestrange. Rodolphus. Rabastan. Yaxley. Dolohov. The Carrow twins.
And now—Fenrir Greyback, torn apart in the Forest of Dean like a dog made of paper and meat. His entire pack, gone, reduced to whispers and scattered fur.
Dead.
Hunted.
Lord Voldemort stood at the head of the ruined table, one hand resting delicately on the hilt of Nagini's enclosure, the other curled around his wand like a conductor about to raise a symphony of screams. His eyes—red and slitted like a serpent's—burned brighter than the hearth. The fire, sensing danger, sputtered nervously.
Even Nagini was silent.
The remaining Death Eaters stood at a distance, pressed into shadows like guilty children at a funeral they may soon join. Scabior's face was ashen. Nott's lip bled where he bit it. Mulciber hadn't blinked in a full minute.
"Well," Voldemort said finally, his voice silk-draped steel, "this is cozy."
No one dared answer.
He strolled around the table, fingers trailing along the scorched wood as he passed the empty seats—each one a ghost.
"Lucius... ah, yes. Sliced open, throat to navel. Such a waste of silk robes and simpering cowardice."
He tapped the back of the next chair. "Bellatrix. She fought. She always did love a dramatic end."
Another chair. "Yaxley... hung upside-down from a treetop. Did you know the arrow went through his mouth? Like threading a pig on a spit."
Still silence.
"Oh, don't look so stiff, Scabior," Voldemort crooned, pausing beside the terrified man. "I'm simply taking inventory. It's called leadership. You may not recognize it. You've spent most of this war licking your own boots."
He smiled. Cold. Calculated.
Then, with a sudden crack, he split the long table in two with an invisible burst of force. The wood exploded in splinters, one piece flying past Nott's ear and burying itself in the wall.
Scabior flinched. Mulciber whimpered.
"I am losing my best people," Voldemort said, now pacing again, robes billowing like smoke. "Not to Aurors. Not to Dumbledore. Not even to that ridiculous Order of the Phoenix and their stubborn obsession with tea and moral superiority."
He stopped and turned, voice rising like thunder laced with venom.
"But to a man. With a bow. And arrows."
His lip curled in elegant disgust.
"Do you know how insulting that is? After centuries of wandlore, of alchemical perfection, of splitting my soul into horcruxes like I'm hosting a particularly cursed dinner party—this is how I'm challenged?"
He sneered.
"By Robin bloody Hood."
Mulciber swallowed loudly.
Scabior cleared his throat, cautiously: "My Lord, the—ah—the arrows… they're tipped with silver. Fenrir's death was—specific. Surgical. Perhaps it's a werewolf hunter. Or an assassin from across the—"
"A werewolf hunter?" Voldemort interrupted smoothly, his voice sharp as shattered glass. "Yes, Scabior, thank you. How astute. Do you think I hadn't noticed the silver arrowheads? Or the fact that they were laced with wolfsbane?"
He moved forward, wand raised lazily.
"I wasn'r born yesterday, Scabior. I know silver. I've used silver. I've watched it melt through flesh. You are not telling me anything useful."
Scabior took a step back. "We—we have some Goblin informants looking into foreign mercenaries. The killer could be a No-Maj specialist. Perhaps—"
"Silence."
Scabior flew through the air like a ragdoll and slammed into the opposite wall, crumpling with a grunt. Voldemort exhaled, slowly. A long, slow breath, like one trying to remember patience.
"This isn't a mercenary," he whispered. "It's not gold they want. Or blood. It's me."
He turned to the fire, his reflection flickering in the flames.
"They're not hunting my Death Eaters. They're hunting my history. My support. Every arrow is a message. Every corpse a warning."
Nagini hissed lowly, slithering closer, her scales shining in the firelight. She looked uneasy.
Then Voldemort said, too softly: "And where is Harry Potter?"
No one answered.
He turned, sharp as a blade.
"WHERE IS HE?!"
His voice shook the rafters. Plaster fell from the ceiling. The very shadows recoiled.
"Months. Months since the Department of Mysteries. Since that miserable old fool died. And not one whisper. No wand signature. No sightings. No prophecy fulfilled."
He stalked forward, eyes gleaming now—not with rage, but something worse: obsession.
"He vanished. Evaporated like steam. As if the world itself conspired to hide him."
A beat.
"And now, in his absence... my army falls. One by one. Picked off like insects. Arrows through hearts. Heads. Eyes."
His smile returned. Mad. Serene.
"And yet—I know."
The Death Eaters leaned in, almost against their will.
"I know it's him," Voldemort whispered. "It's Harry. Or it's because of Harry. Because the prophecy said—only he can kill me. Not the Ministry. Not Dumbledore's spawn. Not a werewolf hunter or some disgruntled Centaur."
He stepped back and spread his arms.
"So why does it feel like Death is already breathing down my neck?"
No one breathed.
Voldemort lowered his arms slowly and turned to them all.
"Find him. Or find whoever this hunter is. Or both. But bring me something. A trail. A name. A head."
Then he smiled.
"Because if you fail me... you'll wish it were arrows that found you."
Silence.
Absolute.
Except—
In the shadowed rafters above, two glowing green eyes watched. The hunter was already inside.
Bowstring drawn.
Arrowhead kissed with phoenix fire.
And tonight?
He wasn't aiming for a follower.
He was aiming for a monster.
For a king.
And kings fall hardest of all.
—
The silence before the slaughter was the kind only war could compose.
And then—
A whistle. A scream. A thud.
Mulciber didn't even get the courtesy of a last word. The arrow sank through his throat like it belonged there, pinning him to the oak-paneled wall. He gagged, clawed, died.
Nott, poor bastard, was still reaching for his wand when the second arrow punched through his sternum, dropped him like an afterthought.
Scabior managed half a syllable—"In—"—before a third arrow turned his eye into soup.
The Hunters had come.
They moved with a discipline born of grief and rage. Silent. Unerring. Poetic in the way hurricanes are poetic.
A tall man in black armor, a shadow with a quiver, walked calmly through the foyer. His hood obscured his face, but the bow in his hand spoke louder than any scream. Arrows loosed in measured cadence—one, two, three. Death followed each like punctuation.
Beside him, a streak of motion—a woman, lean and lethal, vaulted from the banister. Her arrows flew with mathematical precision, every shot aimed to maim or kill. She didn't miss. She never missed.
"DOWN!" shouted Scabior, shoving Macnair out of the line of fire—
Too late.
Two arrows found them mid-movement. One pierced Scabior's thigh. The second found Macnair's throat. He collapsed, gargling curses that would never finish.
"PROTEGO!" Voldemort's voice cracked like thunder. The shield erupted around him in a dome of white-hot energy, glass exploding outward from every window of the manor. He stood in the center of it all, robes billowing, wand raised like the conductor of a funeral symphony.
And then—
Nagini.
The serpent moved like a guillotine unsheathed. Her hiss echoed through the shattered house as she lunged toward the archer in black.
He didn't blink.
He simply reached back and drew a single black arrow—runed, twisted, dripping with green sheen.
"Lights out, bitch," he muttered—and loosed.
The arrow hit home mid-air, sinking into Nagini's gaping maw.
There was a sound then—not just physical pain, but metaphysical agony. A wail from a soul unspooling.
Nagini convulsed. Thrashed.
Her coils seized once—twice—and then lay still.
The last Horcrux was gone.
Voldemort screamed.
It wasn't rage. It wasn't grief. It was terror—the kind of scream that comes from a man realizing his godhood had always been a lie.
"WHO DARES—" Another arrow slammed into the marble floor by his foot. He spun.
Nothing.
No one.
But above…
Creak.
From the rafters, a shape stepped forward, cloaked in crimson, bow drawn, one arrow nocked—glowing faintly.
The Red Hooded One.
Voldemort looked up. Snarled.
"You."
"Me," the voice replied, smooth and vicious. "Bit of a fixer-upper, this place. Very murder-chic. You redecorate, or was it always this drafty?"
The arrow flew.
It struck true—center mass.
Voldemort staggered, eyes wide. He looked down at his chest—red blooming across his robes like a dying flower. He dropped his wand. It rolled across the stone floor, pathetically mundane.
He collapsed to one knee.
His breath hitched.
"No… no—"
He reached inward, groping into the aether for his Horcruxes—
Nothing.
The ring. The diary. The locket. The cup. The diadem. The snake.
Gone. All of them.
"You… can't…"
Footsteps echoed as the black-armored man stepped closer, lowering his hood. His face, older but unmistakable, broke into a grin that showed too many teeth.
Sirius Black. Alive. And unamused.
"You should've stayed dead," Sirius said. "Would've saved everyone the trouble."
Another figure emerged from the smoke—hooded, bow slung across her back. She stepped forward with regal fury.
Hermione Granger. Brilliant. Terrifying. Impeccably composed.
"I calculated sixteen ways you might escape," she said coolly. "I just didn't think any of them accounted for how pathetically you'd go out."
Voldemort's eyes were glazing. Confused. Panicked.
"W-who… who are you—"
Thud.
Boots landed on the stone floor. A third figure stepped from the shadow above. Bow still in hand.
He knelt by the dying man who'd haunted his childhood and slowly removed his hood and mask.
And for the first time in over three years, Voldemort looked into the face of the boy who lived—
—and saw a man.
Harry Potter. Grown. Hardened. Eyes like frozen fire.
"No scar," Voldemort whispered, weakly. "But… I remember… you—"
"Course you do," Harry said. "I'm the main character. You? You're just the guy who thought Latin and a nose job made him immortal."
"You—" Voldemort tried to raise his hand.
Harry caught it gently, almost kindly… and pushed it back down.
"You made a mistake, Tom," Harry said, eyes locked onto crimson ones. "You made a lot of them, actually. But the big one?" He leaned in. "You thought love was weakness. Turns out… it's f***ing nuclear."
He stood up, looked to Sirius and Hermione, and nodded once.
Then looked back down at the man dying in his own delusions.
"I would've aimed for the heart," Harry said. "But then again—"
He smirked.
"—you never had one."
Tom Riddle exhaled. Once. Twice.
And was gone.
Just like that.
No phoenix song. No dramatic collapse. No last-ditch resurrection.
Just a man—rotting in his own failure.
The manor fell silent.
The Hunters didn't speak.
They faded into shadow, into myth, into the next chapter.
The war was over.
But Harry?
Harry turned, hood up, voice calm as a church bell.
"…We've still got unfinished business. Rookwood's in Brussels, right?"
Sirius cracked his neck. Hermione just sighed and checked her watch.
"Let's give 'em hell," Harry said.
And vanished into the dark.
—
One Week Later. Nanda Parbat — The Temple of the Demon's Head
If time had a graveyard, Nanda Parbat was where its bones were buried.
The mountain air hung heavy with ancient incense, dusted with ash and iron. Wind howled between cracked statues of forgotten gods, and the stone steps of the temple rose like the spine of some slumbering titan. Between those steps, three figures trudged upward—cloaked, armed, and trailing a fourth who dangled in mid-air like a sack of regret.
Augustus Rookwood twitched inside a shimmering sling of rune-bound chains, face swollen and gagged, his eyes wild with the fear of knowing exactly where he was.
"I'm not saying this place gives me the creeps," Sirius Black said, stepping over a cracked skull that had definitely once been human. "But I'm pretty sure one of those gargoyles just whispered my name."
"It said 'You smell like whiskey and bad decisions'," Hermione muttered, adjusting the grip on her wand without missing a beat. "Which, let's be honest, is accurate."
Harry didn't laugh. He rarely did anymore. But he smirked—sharp and slow, like a knife sliding from its sheath.
They reached the upper terrace, where obsidian banners fluttered and torches burned with green flame. At the center, a dais loomed like an altar to war.
And at the top of the stone steps stood Ra's al Ghul.
Emerald robes. Black sash. Hands folded behind his back with all the patience of eternity. His face was carved from discipline—lines of age that hadn't yet dulled the lethal sharpness of his gaze.
"Behold," he said, voice low and velvet-smooth, "the traitor returns. Carried, appropriately, by those whose scars once felled a dark lord."
Rookwood made a muffled, wet whimper. Sirius grinned, popping his neck like a bar fighter about to start trouble.
"Don't worry, Augie," he said. "Ra's is a lot more polite than Voldemort. He'll only flay your soul after he's monologued about balance and destiny."
Hermione didn't look up from her notes. "He'll flay it with surgical precision, thank you very much. Let's not insult the man's efficiency."
Harry tilted his head, eyeing Ra's with theatrical admiration.
"No brooding walk through fire? No quote from The Art of War? Honestly, Ra's, I'm starting to think you don't love me anymore."
Ra's gave the faintest curve of his mouth. The closest thing he ever came to a smile.
"You mock ceremony, Al Naaji," he said, descending the steps with the elegance of a falling sword. "And yet you carry its mark."
He nodded toward Harry's forehead.
The infamous lightning bolt was gone, erased during his cleansing in the Lazarus Pit. In its place: a pale, silvery scar, like the ghost of a wound remembered only in nightmares.
"I gave you the Pit," Ra's said. "Not because I owed you. But because I believed in your crusade. The righteous fury of vengeance... untempered. That belief was not without cost."
"Ah," Sirius muttered. "Here it comes. The 'however'."
"Shut up," Hermione hissed. "Let him finish. He does this. It's his thing."
Ra's stopped before them, mere feet from where Rookwood bobbed and twitched.
"You may leave Rookwood as repayment," he said. "But to walk away with your alliances intact, to remain allies of the League, you must complete one final task."
Harry's smirk faded. The flint behind his eyes flared.
"Name it."
Ra's stepped aside, the flames casting shifting shadows across his robes.
"There is a man. He once trained under the League. He left. Stole secrets. Took lives. Now he plays sorcerer, styling himself Al Saahir—The Magician. He is not a wizard. He carries no wand. But he is dangerous, in ways even you cannot yet comprehend."
"Malcolm Merlyn," Hermione said softly. "Former League. Now a master manipulator with a fetish for arrows and melodrama."
Sirius gave a theatrical groan. "Oh, come on. An archer with a God complex? What is it with these guys? Do I need to start carrying exploding quivers just to fit in?"
"Please don't," Hermione said dryly. "You barely survived enchanted cutlery last week."
Harry rolled his neck, shoulders tense.
"Where?"
"Starling City," Ra's replied. "He hides among billionaires and politicians. Planning something. Bring him to me. Alive."
A pause. Then, almost casually, Harry smiled.
"Well, that's bloody convenient," he said. "I've got family in Starling."
Ra's raised a brow. "Indeed?"
"Moira Queen," Hermione supplied. "His mother's cousin. She found Harry at thirteen. Visited the Dursleys, saw what they were doing to him, and—well…"
"She kidnapped me," Harry said cheerfully. "Legally. Technically. Possibly."
"Moira's husband had just died," Hermione continued. "And so had her son, Oliver. She said saving Harry gave her a reason not to throw herself off a roof."
"Thea, her daughter," Harry added. "She's the little sister I never had. Well—one that didn't try to kill me, anyway."
"That you know of," Sirius coughed.
Ra's observed them with that unreadable stillness. Then, with a wave of his hand, dismissed the tension like smoke in the wind.
"Bring me Merlyn," he said. "And your debts will be forgiven. Perhaps... even your futures rewritten."
Hermione bowed with solemn grace. "It will be done."
Sirius gave a two-fingered salute. "You're lucky we have a thing for theatrics."
But Harry—Harry stepped closer. Just enough to remind everyone in the temple exactly who Al Naaji really was.
"You'll have your magician," he said, voice edged like broken glass. "But if he's half as slippery as you claim, I may need to break a few walls. Shatter some windows. Possibly annoy a few billionaires. You cool with that?"
Ra's al Ghul, the Demon's Head, the ageless tactician, smiled.
"I expect nothing less."
As they turned and vanished into the drifting white mist of the mountains, the ghost of fire in their wake, Augustus Rookwood floated behind them—still bound, still gagged, and slowly beginning to realize:
This… was the easy part.
—
Meanwhile... The North China Sea — Lian Yu
The island groaned beneath the wind like an ancient beast, restless and forgotten. Leaves rustled in protest. The surf crashed angrily against the rocks. Lian Yu had never been a place for the living—it was a graveyard disguised as land, a crucible wrapped in moss and pain.
And crouched atop its windswept cliffs was a man the island had tried—and failed—to kill.
Oliver Jonas Queen. Former billionaire. Professional screw-up. Currently sporting a beard that would make a lumberjack weep and a fashion sense best described as "post-apocalyptic swamp ninja."
The green hood was ragged, barely hanging on. The tunic he wore was stitched together from boat sails, animal hide, and whatever hadn't tried to kill him the day he found it. He looked like the lovechild of Robin Hood and a shipwreck. But even through the grime and scars, his eyes burned with focus. A storm, coiled and waiting.
He muttered under his breath, crouched beside the crude pyre.
"Okay. Let's try not to blow myself up this time."
Oliver jabbed the flint into the moss-stuffed kindling again. Sparks flew. The pyre smoked but didn't light.
"Oh come on—I've built IEDs out of coconut husks, but this is what stumps me?"
With a frustrated grunt, he snatched an arrow from the worn quiver on his back. The shaft was handmade, fletched with bird feathers and stubbornness. The obsidian tip had been honed to a razor's edge against volcanic stone.
He wrapped a scrap of pitch-soaked cloth around it, pulled out a tiny flint-and-steel striker from under his tunic, and struck once—twice—until the cloth flared.
Fire danced at the arrowhead. Oliver smiled grimly.
"Showtime."
He stood, bracing against the wind, and drew his bow—a weapon forged by his own hands from a shipwrecked rib and the sinew of a wolf he'd killed in his third year. It had saved his life more times than he could count. It was more than a weapon. It was a promise.
He pulled the arrow back. The wood creaked.
"Let's see if five years of hell was enough."
TWANG.
The arrow screamed through the sky and slammed into the pyre. The dried driftwood caught instantly, flames bursting to life in a ravenous plume. Smoke billowed skyward in thick, dark curls—an SOS written in fire and fury.
Oliver stepped back, squinting toward the horizon.
And there it was.
A fishing trawler. Tiny. Rusted. Definitely not Coast Guard. Probably smelled like fish and desperation. But it was real.
He raised one hand.
Paused.
Lowered it.
"…nah. Too dramatic."
Instead, he muttered to himself, "You see that, Queen? You lit a bonfire with an arrow. Who needs flares when you've got flair?"
The smoke climbed higher, black against the grey sky. His heart thudded once, twice. He should've felt hope. Instead, it was something colder. Sharper.
Resolution.
He turned, slowly scanning the place that had made him what he was—every broken bone, every betrayal, every lesson etched in blood.
"I'm coming home, Starling," he said softly. "And I swear to whatever's listening... if I see one more smug billionaire in a boardroom talking about legacy, I'm gonna put an arrow through his Rolex."
He slung the bow across his back, bones aching, muscles coiled. He was ready.
Because Oliver Queen was dead.
But The Hood?
The Hood had survived.
And now?
Now it was his turn to save his city.
---
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