The boy who lived twice
December 12, 2005.
Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place groaned beneath its own history.
The ancient magic woven into its stones pulsed faintly through the floorboards, stirring like something sleeping fitfully beneath the house's bones. Every crack in the walls whispered a name lost to war. The house knew death. It had watched it pass through its halls again and again — sons, sisters, traitors, martyrs.
Now, it watched again.
In the library, Harry knelt on the cracked marble floor. The old chandelier above him had fallen long ago, its shards glinting like teeth in the firelight. Smoke clung to the wallpaper, curling at the edges like dead leaves. The thick curtains were scorched. The books on the shelves had long since ceased whispering. Some had burned. Others had bled. The air reeked of ash, old blood, and something deeper — something ancient and wrong.
The protective wards on the door were flickering, sputtering like a candle near death. They had minutes left, maybe less. But Harry kept kneeling. He was steady. Because this was the only thing left that mattered.
Draco stood near the threshold, wand drawn, his spine taut with tension. His pale blond hair was damp with sweat and streaked with ash, his robes scorched and torn. Blood had dried in a jagged trail down the side of his neck. There was a long rip across his sleeve, exposing bruised skin and burns not yet healed.
He looked like every other survivor Harry had seen in the final days — hollow-eyed, frayed at the edges, stitched together with sheer stubbornness. The last shreds of youth had been burned out of them both.
And yet, he was here. Helping Harry. Ready to die for him.
Draco Malfoy.
Even now, it struck Harry as ridiculous. Unbelievable. He remembered fists clenched in corridors, wands raised at each other over childish grudges and bigger-than-life pride. He remembered Malfoy's sneers, his father's shadow like a blade across his shoulders. He remembered the bathroom — Sectumsempra — and the stunned terror in Draco's eyes.
But this Draco — this man — was not the boy Harry had hated. War had sanded him down to something sharp and strange. He had been broken. And then, quietly, rebuilt — not into a hero, not into a coward — but into someone who chose to stand, again and again, when there was nothing left to win.
Harry still didn't understand it. But he trusted him now. With his life. With this.
Snape had vouched for him before he died—that final act of unexpected faith. "He's not like his father," Snape had said. "Not anymore."
And Snape had been right.
"I'm not going with you," Draco said, voice low and tight. His eyes flicked towards the door. "Not anymore."
Harry froze. "What?"
"They're here." Draco's jaw tightened. "Bellatrix. And at least six more. Rodolphus and Rabastan. Dolohov. Yaxley. Kang. Probably Selwyn, too. They're coming for the last of us."
Harry's breath caught in his throat. The wards. The screaming upstairs. The familiar, distant pounding of boots on stone.
"They'll break through soon," Draco said. "If they find you before the ritual finishes—"
"You said we'd go together." Harry's voice cracked. "We both promised."
"I know." Draco looked at him, pale and resolute. "But I'm not the one who can fix this."
He handed Harry a small glass vial — his blood, drawn moments ago, still warm, still pulsing with the ancestral magic of House Black.
"You need Black blood," he said. "Mine will do. You have everything else. Just finish the circle. Make it count."
Harry stared at it, his fingers trembling. The vial seemed to hum, resonating with the magic saturating the house.
"I'm not a Black," Harry murmured.
"You are now." Draco's voice softened. "It's not about your name. It's what you do with it."
Harry swallowed the lump in his throat. His hands closed around the vial.
Outside the circle, death was coming. He could feel it — like the pressure of water before it bursts a dam. His scar prickled faintly, more out of memory than magic. There was no Voldemort anymore. Just the carcass he had left behind, and the monsters who had crawled out of it.
Harry's mind began to spiral.
Dolohov had killed Ron.
Just like he'd killed Fabian and Gideon Prewett, just like the stories said — two against twenty. They'd fought to the end, bodies riddled with curses, wand arms torn, and still casting. Ron had gone down in the ruins of the Ministry, flames swallowing the floor beneath him. Burned. Broken. His last spell was a shield.
Hermione had died in the Department of Mysteries. Bellatrix's curse—a precise, elegant, utterly merciless strike—had pierced her heart before Harry even saw it coming. Her body fell beside the shattered bell jar, time slowing around her like a mockery. She had died trying to turn back the clock. And time had run out.
Neville had fallen defending St. Mungo's. Harry learned later that he had refused to leave his parents, who were still inside—silent, broken from years of torture. Bellatrix had made sure none of them walked out.
Theo Nott—dry-witted, clever Theo—had died two weeks ago in the rubble of Diagon Alley. A curse to the chest, bleeding out, smiling as he gripped Harry's hand. "Save her," he'd whispered. "Callista Bulstrode. Don't let my father get to her." Then he was gone.
Harry had wept for him. Quietly. For once, there was no time to grieve.
Fleur had been taken at Shell Cottage. Harry hadn't seen it—but he'd heard it, over the wireless, in half-whispered reports. Archibald Nott, veins full of special hatred for half-breeds like her, had dragged her like a prize. Rookwood had taken Bill's wand-hand and laughed while he died.
Archibald Nott hunted down Hagrid and executed him just like he had done with his half-brother Grawp and Flitwick.
And still, the list went on.
Fred. Tonks. Andromeda. Colin. Dean. Luna.
Xenophilius, gone trying to trade forbidden books for Luna's safe passage. Luna, who had brought down the Carrows by herself, then been killed by Marcus Flint with a sickly green flash. Kingsley Shacklebolt, killed by Yaxley in the Wizengamot. Emmeline Vance, Hestia Jones, Elphias Doge.
Dobby.
Oh, Dobby. The little elf had died with Harry's name on his lips. No wand. No shield. Just a blade to the chest—and freedom clutched in his hands.
Harry gritted his teeth until his jaw ached.
And before all of that—his parents. James. Lily. The first ones. The first war. Marlene McKinnon, slaughtered with her family. Dorcas Meadowes, targeted and killed by Voldemort himself. Benjy Fenwick, who they never found all of. Caradoc Dearborn, missing. Regulus Black, whose locket now lay cold in Harry's hand—the boy who turned back, too late, and died in the dark.
They were all gone.
Unless this worked.
Harry bent forward, hands trembling, and placed Draco's blood vial at the center of the ritual circle. Around it: a phoenix feather—Fawkes's — stolen from the ruins of the Room of Requirement. A petal from Molly Weasley's garden. A shard of Sirius's mirror. A single strand of his own hair, still damp with sweat and grief. Regulus's locket, cool and silent, pressed to the floor.
"I'll find all of you," he whispered.
He took the blade. Pricked his thumb. Let blood drip onto the stones.
The runes flared.
"I'm not a Black," he murmured. "But I will be."
The ritual surged to life.
It didn't care about names. It cared about power. Grief. Memory. Blood. It asked for sacrifice. And Harry gave it everything.
The stones pulsed gold, then red, then searing white.
Upstairs—an explosion. Screaming. Bellatrix's voice, sharp as knives through silk. A curse ricocheted off the stairwell. Then Draco's voice—steady, furious—casting spell after spell, holding the line.
"Don't stop," he had told Harry. "No matter what happens. Don't stop."
Harry pressed both palms flat against the circle. The magic surged through him, wrapping around his ribs, his lungs, his skull. His body trembled. The air turned cold and hot and weightless all at once.
For Ron. For Hermione. For Neville and his parents. For the Weasleys. For Fleur. For Luna. For Dobby. For Sirius. For Remus. For Andromeda. For Tonks. For my mum and dad. For Regulus. For Theo. For all of them.
A crash. A scream.
A green flash through the door.
Draco, outlined in fire, wand raised, his expression calm—almost serene—as Bellatrix Lestrange laughed like the world was ending.
And then—
Harry whispered the final words.
The world cracked.
Split.
And turned inside out.
Hammersmith, Warwickshire, West Midlands.
July 31, 1953
The birthing room was cloaked in warm shadows and low candlelight, their flames suspended midair, flickering as if caught in a gentle storm. Outside the tall, mullioned windows, the West Midlands stretched wide under a soft dusk, the grass heavy with midsummer bloom. But within the old stone walls of Hammersmith, time seemed to hold its breath.
The carved oak bed was centuries old—its frame marked by the passage of generations who had been born, wed, or died beneath its canopy. Tonight, it bore Lycoris Black, widow of Hamza Shafiq, her dark hair plastered to her temples, her silk-shrouded form twisted in agony as the last waves of labor tore through her.
Even undone by pain, Lycoris was striking in the way of ancient, haunted paintings—eyes dark and fathomless, cheekbones sculpted in sorrow, lips parted in a soundless cry. She looked as though she'd been carved from dusk itself, half-woman, half-myth.
"He should be here," she gasped, her voice raw, cracked by grief and exhaustion.
"He is not," came the steady reply. "But his child is."
The voice belonged to Lord Arcturus Black, fifteen years her senior, and the current head of the family. He stood at her side like a monument in obsidian velvet, every button of silver fastened with precision. He was a man known for his unyielding sense of tradition, his formidable presence in the Wizengamot, and his cold clarity in all things—except Lycoris.
He loved her fiercely, if not tenderly. He had held her as a baby, schooled her in Latin and wandcraft, and encouraged their late father to approve of her betrothal when the time came. He had failed to keep Hamza alive, and he had not forgiven himself for it.
Now, he gripped her hand with surprising gentleness, and something unreadable flickered in his eyes.
"You must focus now," he said. "He would want that."
At the hearth, Melania Black moved quietly between a copper basin and a stack of folded linens laced with protective runes. She was dressed in garnet-toned robes that shimmered like embers, her face aglow with calm warmth. Unlike her husband, she did not cloak her care in sternness.
"She's strong," Melania said softly, brushing a cooling charm across Lycoris's brow. "She can do this."
A short distance away, Regulus Black stood silent in the shadows. He was two years younger than Lycoris, but there was something prematurely still about him—as though time had passed through him differently. He had never married, would never father children, and had long since accepted the quiet ache of watching others live the lives he could not. But he adored his siblings, and his eyes—deep, weary, and kind—never left Lycoris now.
Near the foot of the bed stood Mediwitch Amethyst Corner, robes pushed to the elbow, wand lit with diagnostic runes. She was one of Lycoris's most trusted colleagues at St. Mungo's—a pragmatic witch with a sharp tongue and softer heart. Blood speckled her sleeves. Sweat beaded at her brow.
"She's nearly there," Amethyst said, not looking up. "The baby's position is favourable, but her magic is flagging. She needs reinforcement."
"No augmentations," Arcturus said immediately.
"Only support," Melania clarified, giving him a sidelong glance. "We are not tampering with the child."
"Of course not," Amethyst muttered, already casting a charm—soft and golden—to cradle Lycoris's exhausted magical core.
The air shimmered, warm and humming. Somewhere, wind pressed against the windowpanes, and the manor's timbers creaked, as though echoing Lycoris's pain. The house had held many births, but none quite like this.
None born in the shadow of grief.
None born with Wane's Grasp still thick in the air like smoke.
The illness had taken Hamza six months earlier. Quietly, at first. Then brutally. It devoured magic from the inside out—no cure, no mercy, only time. That Lycoris had conceived before the sickness advanced was nothing short of a miracle. They had tried for a decade. Like many old pureblood families, conception had come slowly, and not without sorrow.
She was forty-nine and the late Hamza had died at thirty-eight. It wasn't strange that she was giving birth at her age—what was surprising was the years it took them to produce a child.
But those who knew of the fertility of purebloods were aware of how hard it was for them. That was the reason why there were considerable age gaps between so many pureblood heirs and their younger siblings, if they ever got to have them.
Just then, the door opened with a whisper of air, and a tall man entered—robes damp with summer rain, dark eyes scanning the room with quiet urgency.
Marwan Shafiq, younger brother to Hamza and interim Lord of the Shafiq House, stepped forward with controlled grace, pausing only to bow his head slightly to Arcturus. There was tension in his jaw, and grief still lived behind his eyes—but it was tempered now with hope.
"I came as soon as I could," he said quietly.
"You're in time," Melania said, voice kind. "She needs family now."
Lycoris turned her head just slightly, saw him, and tears slipped down her temples.
"Marwan…" she breathed.
He came to her side at once, sinking to one knee beside the bed and taking her free hand in both of his. He pressed his forehead to her knuckles in a gesture older than speech.
"I'm here," he said, and his voice nearly cracked. "You are not alone."
Lycoris nodded weakly, her fingers curling around his.
Another contraction seized her. Lycoris arched up with a cry, her fingers digging into the carved bedposts.
"Now," said Amethyst sharply. "This is it, Lycoris. One more—breathe—yes—push!"
The room contracted around them. Magic shimmered in the air like dust.
Lycoris bore down with a sound caught between a sob and a scream. She thought of her father who had died last year, of her husband. Her body arched, trembling, breaking—and in that moment, her pain became something else. Rage, devotion, grief, longing—
And then—
A cry.
Small. Sharp. Furious.
Alive.
Amethyst caught the child with sure hands and immediately wrapped him in the enchanted Shafiq swaddling linen—woven in golden thread and soaked in protective spells. Melania moved at once to her side, reaching for towels, her hands steady.
"It's a boy," Amethyst whispered, breathless.
Lycoris collapsed back into the pillows, chest rising and falling in shallow, broken gasps.
Arcturus moved first. His presence seemed to pull the room into order.
He crossed to the cradle Amethyst had conjured and looked down. The child blinked slowly up at him—wet, ruddy, blinking as though the world was merely curious, not terrifying.
Not confused. Not afraid.
Alert.
"Give him to her," Arcturus said.
Melania took the boy gently, with a kind of reverence, and brought him to Lycoris. She guided her arms and nestled the child against her chest.
The moment they touched, Lycoris froze.
The baby's eyes were open.
They were not the storm-dark of the Blacks.
They were green. Deep Shafiq green. The colour of Hamza's magic. The colour of old decaying forests in starlight.
Melania leaned in close, brushing a hand gently along the baby's downy hair. "He's beautiful," she murmured.
Marwan rose silently to his feet and stepped forward. He looked down at his nephew, his lips parting slightly, eyes shining.
"He has his eyes," he whispered.
Lycoris touched the baby's cheek with a trembling fingertip.
Her lips moved.
"Hello, my star," she whispered.
The baby blinked once, and then settled, utterly at peace. As though he had waited for this moment across lifetimes. As though he had found his place.
Arcturus's voice broke the quiet.
"His name?"
Lycoris swallowed hard.
"Mizar," she said softly. "Mizar Hamza Black-Shafiq."
Arcturus and Marwan exchanged a silent glance. Then, in a single motion, both men drew their wands. Arcturus conjured the ceremonial scroll of Black parchment; Marwan conjured the Shafiq signet wax.
Side by side, they enchanted the birth certificate together, words etching themselves in gleaming ink:
Full Name: Mizar Hamza Black-Shafiq.
Date of Birth: 31 July, 1953
Mother: Lycoris Elara Black.
Father: Hamza ibn Ayman ibn Hassan Al-Shafiq (deceased).
Wards and Heirs Registry: Clan Shafiq (Egypt), House Black (England).
Witnessed and Sealed by:
—Lord Arcturus Sirius Black III.
—Marwan ibn Ayman ibn Hassan Al-Shafiq, acting Head of House Shafiq.
Arcturus sealed the scroll with the Black crest.
Marwan sealed a duplicate with the Shafiq emerald insignia and whispered a spell in Arabic.
"Mizar Hamza Black-Shafiq here in England and Mizar ibn Hamza ibn Ayman Al-Shafiq in Egypt."
The duplicate curled into smoke and vanished—dispatched directly to the Egyptian Ministry of Magic in Cairo, where the Registry of Magical Lineage would enter Mizar's name under House Shafiq, confirming dual legacy and legitimacy.
The silence that followed felt old. Like prophecy. Like memory.
In the arms of a woman carved from sorrow, a child who should not have been possible dreamed of stars.
And in the quiet beyond, Arcturus turned to Regulus.
"Come," he said.
Together, the two men walked to the western corridor of Hammersmith, down a hall of woven spells and portraits, until they reached the tapestry room—a sanctuary of ancestry. The Black family lineage snaked across the wall in silver thread, marked by births and burnings alike.
Arcturus whispered the charm. The tapestry glowed softly.
There, freshly embroidered in silver thread, just below Lycoris's name tied to Hamza's, a new line shimmered into visibility:
Mizar Hamza Black-Shafiq
Born 1953.
Regulus stared. His throat bobbed once.
"He's real," he whispered. "He belongs."
Arcturus didn't speak.
He only nodded, the flicker of emotion in his face visible for just a moment—then gone.
And the child who carried two legacies, and all their hopes, slept on.