**The Leaky Cauldron, London**
**January 16th, 1982 - 1:55 PM**
Wanda and Sirius stepped through the portal into the alley behind the Leaky Cauldron, the scarlet mist dissipating behind them. Wanda had left her more casual clothes at home, dressing instead in dark jeans, a crimson blouse, and a black leather jacket that managed to look both Muggle and vaguely threatening. Her wand—the yew and chaos magic hybrid—was tucked up her sleeve for easy access.
Sirius had gone with wizard robes, but expensive ones. Black silk with silver threading, the kind that screamed "old money" and "pureblood aristocracy." His hair was pulled back, his bearing aristocratic. Every inch the heir to the Ancient and Noble House of Black.
"Ready?" he asked.
"To deal with Dumbledore's manipulations and probably some ambush guests he didn't warn us about?" Wanda's smile was sharp. "Always."
They entered through the back door, bypassing the main bar. The Leaky Cauldron was busy for a Saturday afternoon—witches and wizards drinking, eating, conducting business. A few heads turned as they passed, recognition flickering across faces. Sirius Black, the wrongly imprisoned, recently pardoned heir. And Wanda Maximoff, the mysterious woman who'd delivered Peter Pettigrew and somehow knew about Death Eater attacks before they happened.
Tom the barkeeper directed them to a private room upstairs. "Professor Dumbledore's waiting for you. And, er, his guests."
"Guests," Sirius repeated flatly. "How lovely."
Wanda touched his arm. "Remember—we're here because we chose to be. The moment this becomes uncomfortable, we leave. No explanations, no apologies."
"I love it when you're ruthless," Sirius muttered.
They climbed the stairs and Sirius pushed open the door to the private room.
Albus Dumbledore sat at a round table, his blue eyes twinkling behind half-moon spectacles, his silver beard cascading down his purple robes. Standing beside him were two other men—one tall and scarred with a magical eye that spun independently, the other thin and shabby with premature grey in his light brown hair.
Alastor Moody and Remus Lupin.
Wanda felt Sirius go rigid beside her.
"Remus," Sirius breathed. Then, louder, with an edge: "You didn't mention you'd have company, Albus."
"Ah, yes." Dumbledore's smile was apologetic but unapologetic. "I thought it would be beneficial to have Alastor present, given his expertise in magical detection and security. And Remus—well, he was quite insistent on seeing you once he learned you'd been pardoned."
Remus Lupin stepped forward, his amber eyes full of complicated emotions. "Sirius. I—I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have known. Should have believed in you. Should have done *something*—"
"You thought I was the traitor," Sirius said. His voice was carefully neutral. "You thought I betrayed James and Lily and murdered twelve people. Why would you have done anything except let justice—such as it was—take its course?"
"Because we were friends," Remus said quietly. "Because I knew you. Because I should have demanded a trial, should have questioned the evidence—"
"Should have, would have, could have." Sirius's jaw was tight. "It's done, Moony. I've been pardoned. Harry's safe. That's all that matters."
The tension in the room could have been cut with a knife.
Wanda moved forward, drawing attention away from the charged reunion. "Professor Dumbledore. Mr. Moody. Mr. Lupin." She didn't offer her hand. "I'm Wanda Maximoff. Since we weren't informed there would be additional attendees, perhaps you could explain why an Auror and a—" she paused deliberately, "—werewolf are present at what was supposed to be a casual meeting about Harry's welfare?"
Remus flinched at the word "werewolf," but Moody just grunted approvingly. "Direct. I like that. Dumbledore said you were unusual."
"I'm many things, Mr. Moody. Unusual is certainly one of them." Wanda took a seat at the table, Sirius following her lead. "Now. Shall we begin? Or are we waiting for more surprise guests?"
"Just us, I'm afraid," Dumbledore said. His voice was warm, grandfatherly, completely unrepentant about the ambush. "I asked Alastor to join us because of his expertise in magical detection. The disturbance on New Year's Eve was... significant. I thought his perspective might be valuable."
"And Remus?" Wanda asked.
"Is here because he was James and Lily's friend," Dumbledore said simply. "And because Sirius has been through a terrible ordeal. I thought he might appreciate seeing a familiar face."
"How thoughtful," Sirius said, his tone suggesting it was anything but. "Though I notice you didn't think to *ask* me if I wanted this particular reunion sprung on me without warning."
"My apologies." Dumbledore did sound genuinely contrite about that, at least. "That was poorly done of me. But since we're all here now, perhaps we could move forward? I was hoping to see young Harry. Is he...?"
"With his nanny," Wanda said. "In a location that remains undisclosed. We're not bringing Harry to potentially hostile meetings."
"Hostile?" Dumbledore looked wounded. "My dear, I assure you, no one here wishes Harry any harm—"
"Then why is an Auror present?" Wanda's voice was calm but her eyes were sharp. "You invited us to a casual meeting to check on Harry's wellbeing. Instead, we walk into an interrogation room with a magical law enforcement officer. Forgive me if I find that less than reassuring."
Moody's magical eye fixed on her, spinning through various spectrums. "You're suspicious. Good. Shows you're thinking clearly. For what it's worth, I'm not here in any official capacity. Just as an old friend of Dumbledore's who's curious about the woman who can apparently break into Azkaban and predict Death Eater attacks."
"Curious," Wanda repeated. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"Let's not dance around the real questions," Moody said bluntly. "That magical surge on New Year's Eve—what were you doing? What kind of power were you using? And what did you do to Harry Potter?"
Sirius's wand was in his hand before Moody finished speaking. "Careful how you phrase that, Moody. She's Harry's mother now. Questioning her like she's a suspect won't end well for you."
"I'm not questioning her like a suspect," Moody said, though his eye kept spinning. "I'm questioning her like someone with unprecedented power who's doing unknown things to the Boy Who Lived. There's a difference."
"Is there?" Wanda leaned forward. "Because from where I'm sitting, this looks very much like an interrogation. You want to know what I did. Why I did it. What power I used. What Harry is now." Her eyes flashed red. "And I have absolutely no obligation to answer any of those questions."
"Harry deserves—" Dumbledore started.
"Harry deserves to be raised by people who love him," Wanda interrupted. "People who put his wellbeing above their grand plans and political machinations. People who don't leave him on doorsteps in November cold or plan his life out before he can even walk."
Dumbledore's expression shifted, the grandfatherly warmth fading slightly. "I don't know what Sirius has told you about my intentions—"
"Sirius has told me nothing," Wanda said. "I don't need him to. I can see it clearly enough myself. You had plans for Harry. Plans that involved the Dursleys, blood wards, a carefully controlled upbringing away from fame and magic until you deemed him ready. Plans that probably involved shaping him into exactly the kind of hero you needed him to be."
"That's not—" Remus tried.
"Isn't it?" Wanda's gaze swung to him. "Tell me, Mr. Lupin. When Sirius was thrown into Azkaban without a trial, where were you? When Harry was placed with Muggles who hated magic, where were you? When your best friend's son needed advocates, needed family, needed *someone* to question what was happening—where were you?"
Remus paled. "I—I was grieving. And I thought—"
"You thought Sirius was guilty. You thought Dumbledore knew best. You thought it wasn't your place to interfere." Wanda's voice was cold. "How convenient. How thoroughly you all let each other down."
"That's not fair," Remus said quietly. "You don't know what it was like. The war, the losses, not knowing who to trust—"
"I know exactly what it's like," Wanda said. "I've fought in wars. Lost people I loved. Been betrayed by friends. The difference is that when I had the chance to save someone—when I found Harry on that doorstep, alone and cold and bound for abuse—I didn't hesitate. I didn't defer to authority or assume someone else would handle it. I *acted*."
"By kidnapping him," Moody said.
"By saving him," Sirius corrected sharply. "From a family that would have destroyed him. From a manipulative old man who thinks he knows better than everyone else. From a prophecy that had already cost him both his parents."
Dumbledore's expression hardened. "The prophecy is not something we can simply ignore, Sirius. Harry has a role to play—"
"Harry is *sixteen months old*," Wanda said, her voice dangerously quiet. "He doesn't have a role to play. He has a life to live. And we're going to make damn sure he gets to live it without people like you trying to turn him into a weapon."
"Is that what you think I'm doing?" Dumbledore's voice was soft, hurt. "Sirius, surely you know me better than that. I cared for James and Lily deeply. I want only what's best for Harry—"
"What's best for Harry, or what's best for your greater good?" Sirius shot back. "Because I've seen your greater good in action, Albus. It killed my brother Regulus. It would have killed me if Wanda hadn't intervened. And it absolutely would have killed Harry, eventually, when you decided his sacrifice was necessary."
"That's a grave accusation," Remus said. "Albus would never—"
"Wouldn't he?" Sirius's voice was bitter. "Tell me, Remus, what did you think was going to happen? Voldemort targeted Harry specifically because of a prophecy. A prophecy that said 'either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives.' Did you really think Albus was grooming Harry for a peaceful life? Or was he preparing him for exactly what the prophecy demanded—a confrontation with a Dark Lord that could only end in death?"
The room fell silent.
Dumbledore's expression was carefully neutral. "The prophecy is... complicated. There are interpretations—"
"There's one interpretation," Wanda said flatly. "And it ends with Harry and Voldemort facing each other. With one of them dying. Possibly both, if your carefully laid plans went wrong. That's what you were building toward, wasn't it? Raising Harry to be just heroic enough, just brave enough, just *expendable* enough to walk into that confrontation willingly."
"You speak as if you know the future," Dumbledore said quietly.
"I know people," Wanda corrected. "I know how men with power convince themselves that sacrifice is necessary. That the few must die for the many. That children can be weapons if the cause is just enough." Her eyes blazed red. "I've *been* that weapon, Professor. I've been the person someone else decided was expendable for the greater good. And I will not—*will not*—let that happen to my son."
"He's not your son," Moody said bluntly. "Genetically, legally, magically—he's James and Lily Potter's son. You've known him for two months. You can't just claim him and rewrite his entire life—"
"Watch me," Wanda said.
The temperature in the room dropped. Scarlet mist began to gather around Wanda's hands, and suddenly everyone could feel it—the weight of her power, the reality-warping potential that made normal magic feel like candlelight next to a sun.
"Wanda," Sirius said quietly. Not a rebuke. A reminder. *Not here. Not now. Not for this.*
Wanda took a breath and the mist dissipated. "You want to question my claim to Harry? Fine. Let's talk about legal claims. Sirius is Harry's godfather and magical guardian. James and Lily's will specified that custody should go to him if anything happened to them. That will was filed, witnessed, and magically binding."
"But Sirius was in Azkaban—" Remus started.
"Because of a miscarriage of justice that you all facilitated through your silence," Sirius interrupted. "I've been pardoned now. Which means my guardianship claim is fully valid. And I've chosen to place Harry with Wanda, his primary caretaker. That's my right as his guardian."
"And if we challenged that in the Wizengamot?" Dumbledore asked. His voice was still soft, but there was steel underneath. "Argued that Harry should be with family—with his aunt—or at least with someone from the magical world who could properly prepare him—"
"Then you'd lose," Wanda said simply. "Because I would stand in front of the Wizengamot and tell them exactly what the Dursleys are like. How Petunia hates magic and everything associated with it. How Vernon is a small-minded bigot who would rather see Harry broken than magical. How they would have treated him like a servant, a freak, something to be hidden away and stamped down."
"You can't know that," Remus protested weakly.
"Can't I?" Wanda pulled out her wand. With a casual flick, a memory crystallized in the air above the table—silvery and shimmering, unmistakably authentic.
Petunia Dursley, sneering at her sister. "You're a freak, Lily. You and your freaky friends and your freaky abnormality. My son won't have anything to do with your sort."
Vernon Dursley, drunk at a Christmas party: "If I ever have to deal with any of that unnatural business, I'll beat it out of them. Mark my words."
Petunia again, to a young Dudley: "Your aunt was different, dear. Abnormal. We don't talk about abnormal things in this family."
"Where did you get those?" Dumbledore's voice was sharp. "Those are private memories—"
"That I extracted from the ambient magic around the Dursley home when I went there to collect Harry," Wanda said. She dismissed the memory with another wave. "Magic remembers, Professor. Places hold impressions of the people who inhabit them. And the Dursley home was *saturated* with hatred for magic and anything associated with it."
"Even so," Dumbledore said, but he sounded less certain. "The blood wards—"
"Are irrelevant," Wanda interrupted. "Because I can protect Harry better than any blood ward. Because Sirius can protect him. Because even if the blood wards were necessary—which they're not—they wouldn't be worth the price of psychological torture."
"You don't understand," Dumbledore said, leaning forward. "When Lily died for Harry, she created the most powerful protection imaginable. As long as Harry lives with blood relatives, that protection shields him from—"
"From Voldemort," Wanda finished. "Yes, I understand the theory. Lily's sacrifice created a blood ward that would protect Harry from Voldemort's magic as long as he could claim his mother's blood as home." She smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. "There's just one problem with that plan, Professor."
"Which is?"
"Voldemort isn't coming back."
The words fell into the room like stones into a still pond.
Moody's magical eye stopped spinning. Remus went very still. Even Dumbledore's carefully maintained composure cracked slightly.
"What do you mean?" Dumbledore asked carefully.
"I mean exactly what I said. Voldemort is gone. Permanently. Completely. He's not hiding in Albania or possessing animals or waiting for a faithful servant to resurrect him. He's *done*."
"You can't know that," Moody said. "We all felt his presence that Halloween night. His magic didn't dissipate completely—he survived somehow, which means he could return—"
"He can't," Wanda said. "Because I made sure of it."
"How?" Dumbledore's voice was very quiet now, very dangerous. "What did you do?"
Wanda met his gaze steadily. "That's the question you really want answered, isn't it? Not whether Harry is healthy or happy or well-cared-for. You want to know what power I used. What I changed. What I know."
"Yes," Dumbledore said simply. "I want to know."
"Then let's trade," Wanda said. "I'll answer some of your questions, and you'll answer some of mine. Let's see who's more willing to expose their secrets, shall we?"
Dumbledore's expression suggested this was not the direction he'd anticipated this conversation taking. "What do you want to know?"
"Let's start with Gellert Grindelwald," Wanda said. The name fell like a thunderclap.
Remus flinched. Moody's normal eye narrowed. Dumbledore went very, very still.
"What about him?" Dumbledore asked, his voice carefully neutral.
"You were friends once. More than friends, actually. You were in love." Wanda's voice was matter-of-fact. "You met when you were seventeen, the summer your mother died. He was staying with his great-aunt Bathilda Bagshot in Godric's Hollow. You were brilliant together—researching the Deathly Hallows, planning a revolution, dreaming of ruling over Muggles 'for the greater good.'"
The silence was deafening.
"How do you know this?" Remus whispered.
"I know a great many things, Mr. Lupin," Wanda said. "I know that Dumbledore's sister Ariana died during a three-way duel between Albus, his brother Aberforth, and Grindelwald. I know that Dumbledore has never been certain which of them cast the spell that killed her. I know that guilt has shaped every decision he's made since—every grand plan, every calculated sacrifice, every time he's decided one person's suffering was acceptable for the greater good."
"You have no right—" Dumbledore's voice shook.
"I have every right to ask questions when you're sitting in judgment of how I raise Harry," Wanda said coldly. "You want to question my methods? Fine. But I get to question yours. I get to ask why a man who helped create one Dark Lord thinks he's qualified to prevent another. I get to ask why someone whose sister died because of his ambition thinks he should be trusted with molding a child's future."
"That's enough," Dumbledore said. His voice was hard now, all pretense of grandfatherly warmth abandoned. "You're crossing lines—"
"Lines you crossed first," Sirius interjected. "You left Harry on a doorstep, Albus. You sent me to Azkaban without a trial. You've been manipulating lives for decades, always convinced your way was best. Wanda's just doing what you've always done—making decisions based on what she thinks serves the greater good."
"The difference," Dumbledore said quietly, "is that I have experience. I have wisdom earned through decades of mistakes and hard choices. Ms. Maximoff has power, yes, but power without wisdom is dangerous."
"And wisdom without compassion is cruelty," Wanda countered. "You're so concerned with grand strategy, with prophecies and blood wards and the greater good, that you forget individual people matter. Individual suffering matters. Harry isn't a chess piece, Professor. He's a child. And he deserves better than to be sacrificed on the altar of your guilt."
"I would never sacrifice Harry—"
"Wouldn't you?" Wanda leaned forward. "The prophecy says one of them has to die. You know that. You've always known that. And you were preparing Harry for exactly that outcome—raising him just heroic enough, just brave enough to walk willingly to his death when the time came. Don't pretend otherwise."
Dumbledore was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was tired. "Perhaps I was. Perhaps I saw the prophecy as inevitable and tried to prepare Harry for what I thought was his fate. But it was never about sacrifice for sacrifice's sake. It was about giving him the tools to survive, to have a chance—"
"A chance you didn't think included a normal childhood," Sirius said bitterly. "A chance that required trauma and hardship to forge him into your perfect weapon."
"I never wanted him to be a weapon—"
"Then what did you want him to be?" Wanda asked. "Tell me, Professor. If everything had gone according to your plan—if Sirius had rotted in Azkaban, if Harry had grown up with the Dursleys, if I'd never intervened—what would Harry's life have looked like?"
Dumbledore was quiet.
"He would have been miserable with the Dursleys," Wanda continued relentlessly. "Unloved, unwanted, told he was a freak every day of his life. Then at eleven, he'd have been swept away to Hogwarts and discovered he was famous—the Boy Who Lived, the child who defeated Voldemort. Everyone would have expected things from him. Expected him to be brave and special and perfect."
"And he would have risen to those expectations," Dumbledore said quietly. "Harry has his parents' courage—"
"Children shouldn't have to be courageous," Wanda said. "They should get to be *children*. They should get to play and learn and make mistakes without the weight of the world on their shoulders. They should get to be loved unconditionally, not groomed for some grand destiny."
"And is that what you're giving him?" Moody asked. His magical eye was fixed on Wanda, spinning rapidly. "All I'm seeing here is someone else deciding what's best for Harry. Someone else with their own agenda, their own plans. What makes you better than Dumbledore?"
"I'm not planning his death," Wanda said simply. "I'm planning his *life*. There's a difference."
"Is there?" Dumbledore's voice was soft. "From what I understand, you performed a massive magical working on New Year's Eve. Something that registered across hundreds of miles. Something that involved Harry directly. You speak of letting him be a child, yet you've fundamentally altered him in ways we can't even measure. What makes your interference better than mine?"
"The difference," Wanda said, "is that I would die before I let him be hurt. I would rewrite reality itself before I let him sacrifice himself for some prophecy. You were preparing him to die, Professor. I'm preparing him to *live*."
"By making him powerful enough to survive," Dumbledore said. "By giving him advantages beyond normal magic. By ensuring he won't need to make the sacrifices I feared he'd have to make." He paused. "That's what you did, isn't it? On New Year's Eve. You gave Harry power."
Wanda said nothing.
"And Voldemort?" Dumbledore pressed. "You said he can't return. How do you know that? What did you do?"
"I took away his anchors," Wanda said. "All of them. Permanently."
"The Horcruxes," Dumbledore breathed. "You destroyed the Horcruxes."
Moody went rigid. "What? How many—"
"All of them," Wanda repeated. "Every fragment of soul he'd hidden away, every anchor to immortality. Gone. Unmade. Voldemort can't return because there's nothing left of him to return. He's as dead as any mortal can be."
"That's impossible," Moody said. "Horcruxes can't just be destroyed from a distance. You need specific methods, specific magic—"
"Unless you have power that rewrites the rules," Wanda said. "Which I do." She looked at Dumbledore. "That's what you felt on New Year's Eve. Me ensuring that Harry would never have to face Voldemort. That the prophecy was null and void. That my son could grow up without that particular sword hanging over his head."
"How many?" Dumbledore asked hoarsely. "How many Horcruxes did Tom make?"
"Six, plus the one he didn't mean to make—the one that was in Harry's scar. Seven pieces of soul, scattered and hidden. I destroyed them all in a single moment." Wanda's voice was calm, matter-of-fact. "The diary at Malfoy Manor. The locket at Grimmauld Place. The cup in Bellatrix's vault. The ring at the Gaunt shack. And the piece that was in Harry. All gone."
"Merlin," Remus whispered. "The power that would take—"
"I told you I'd make sure Harry never had to sacrifice himself," Wanda said. "This is how. By removing the threat entirely. By making it so the prophecy can't come true because one half of it is permanently dead."
Dumbledore stood abruptly. His chair scraped against the floor, and for the first time since they'd entered, he looked his full age. "You've changed everything. The entire future I was trying to navigate, all the careful planning—you've rendered it meaningless with a single act."
"Yes," Wanda said. "That was the point."
"You've also exposed yourself," Moody said grimly. "Announced to everyone in this room that you have power beyond anything we've ever encountered. Power that can destroy soul magic, alter reality, change the course of destiny. What do you think we're going to do with that information?"
Wanda smiled. It was not a nice smile. "You're going to do absolutely nothing. Because if you try to move against me, if you try to take Harry or restrict my power or interfere in any way..." The temperature dropped again. "I will make you regret it in ways that will haunt your nightmares."
"Is that a threat?" Moody's hand moved toward his wand.
"It's a promise," Wanda said. "I have fought gods, Mr. Moody. I have torn through the fabric of reality itself. I have unmade Horcruxes from across hundreds of miles with a single declaration. Do you really think you can threaten me?"
"I think you're dangerous," Moody said bluntly. "I think you're powerful and potentially unstable and you're raising the Boy Who Lived. That combination terrifies me."
"Good," Wanda said. "It should. Because if anything happens to Harry—if anyone tries to take him from me, tries to hurt him, tries to use him for their own ends—I will become the most dangerous thing this world has ever seen." She stood. "Now. I believe this meeting is over. We've answered your questions about Harry's wellbeing. He's safe, healthy, happy, and loved. That's all you need to know."
"Wait," Dumbledore said. "I need to see him. Just once. Just to confirm—"
"No," Sirius said flatly. "You don't get to see him, Albus. Not until we're sure you won't try to manipulate him the way you've manipulated everyone else. Maybe not ever."
"Sirius, please—"
"You left me to rot in Azkaban," Sirius said, his voice shaking with suppressed emotion. "You didn't question my imprisonment. Didn't demand a trial. Didn't investigate. You just... let it happen because it was convenient for your plans. Because with me out of the way, you could control Harry's placement, his upbringing, his future."
"That's not true—"
"Isn't it?" Sirius moved toward the door. "I loved James like a brother. I would have died for him, for Lily, for Harry. And you threw me away the moment I became inconvenient. So no, you don't get to see Harry. Not now. Maybe not ever. You lost that right when you left me to the Dementors without a second thought."
He opened the door. Wanda moved to follow him, but Dumbledore called out: "The Deathly Hallows. You mentioned them earlier. Do you know where they are?"
Wanda paused. "Yes."
"Are you going to take them?"
"Two of them," Wanda said. "The Cloak of Invisibility belongs to Harry—it was his father's, and before that his grandfather's. The Peverell legacy that should have been his all along." She turned back. "As for the Elder Wand... well. I think we both know where that is, don't we?"
Dumbledore's hand instinctively moved to his wand. The Elder Wand, hidden in plain sight, disguised as an ordinary wand to anyone who didn't know its true nature.
"You're not taking my wand," Dumbledore said quietly. But there was uncertainty in his voice. Uncertainty about whether he could actually stop her if she tried.
"Not yet," Wanda said. "But when the time comes—when I decide Harry needs all three Hallows for his protection—I'll take it. And you won't be able to stop me."
She raised her own wand, the yew and chaos magic hybrid that looked like a normal wand but was so much more. With a casual flick, she cast the summoning charm she'd been preparing all evening.
*"Accio Invisibility Cloak."*
The words were in English, but the magic behind them was pure chaos—reality-warping power that ignored distance and wards and physical barriers.
A portal ripped open in the middle of the room, scarlet mist swirling. Through it, they could see Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts—the phoenix perch, the sorting hat, the portraits of former headmasters all staring in shock.
And from a drawer in Dumbledore's desk, an silvery cloak flew out, sailed through the portal, and landed in Wanda's outstretched hand.
"No!" Dumbledore lunged forward, his own wand raised. "*Protego! Finite! Impedimenta!*"
His spells hit the portal and dissolved like raindrops on hot stone. The portal collapsed, and Wanda stood there calmly, the Invisibility Cloak folded over her arm.
Moody and Remus had their wands drawn now too, all three of them pointing at Wanda.
"That was theft," Moody growled. "From Hogwarts. From the Chief Warlock's private office—"
"That was recovering stolen property," Wanda corrected. "This cloak belonged to James Potter. It's a family heirloom, passed down through generations of Potters and Peverells before them. Dumbledore had no right to keep it. Harry does."
"I was keeping it safe—" Dumbledore started.
"You were keeping it from him," Sirius interrupted. "Just like you were keeping him from me. Just like you were keeping him ignorant and controlled and exactly where you wanted him."
"Return the cloak," Dumbledore said. His voice was hard now, commanding. "Or we will be forced to—"
"To what?" Wanda asked. "Attack me? Here? In a public place?" She smiled. "Please. Try. I'd love to demonstrate exactly how outmatched you are."
"You're threatening us," Remus said. He looked shaken, torn between loyalty to Dumbledore and horror at what he was witnessing. "You're threatening to attack us if we try to stop you from stealing—"
"I'm not threatening anything," Wanda said. "I'm simply pointing out that if you draw your wands, if you cast spells, if you try to take what belongs to my son—I will respond in kind. And you will not like how that ends."
She raised her wand. Not pointing at anyone. Just... held it casually, red light already gathering at the tip.
"Last chance," she said. "Put your wands down, let us leave peacefully, and we'll forget this unpleasantness. Or continue this confrontation and discover exactly why people in my world called me the Scarlet Witch."
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then Wanda flicked her wand.
"*Expelliarmus!*"
But it wasn't a normal disarming charm. This was chaos magic wearing the skin of a Hogwarts spell, amplified beyond reason.
Three wands flew from three hands simultaneously. They sailed through the air and Wanda caught them one by one—first Moody's, then Remus's, then last of all, Dumbledore's.
The Elder Wand.
It was warm in her hand. Powerful. Eager, almost, to be wielded by someone with strength to match its legacy. The most powerful wand in existence, won and lost in countless duels over centuries, currently hers by right of magical conquest.
---
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