The safe house had a roof that leaked when it rained and windows that didn't quite close, but it had something more valuable than comfort: privacy. Harry sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by parchment he'd convinced Lysaro to steal from a merchant's office. His quill—a simple thing, nothing like the enchanted instruments the Unspeakables had given him—scratched across the page as he sketched.
Lysaro hung upside-down from a rafter, because apparently that's how he thought best.
"So let me make sure I understand this correctly," the Tyroshi said, blood rushing to his head and making his voice slightly strained. "You want to steal a ship—already love it, very piratical, good start. You want to make this ship *indestructible*—ambitious, possibly insane, I'm intrigued. You want to make it move *without wind*—that's just showing off. And you want to put... what did you call them?"
"Cannons," Harry said, not looking up from his sketches. "Metal tubes that use explosive powder to launch projectiles. We had them in my world. Very effective for ship-to-ship combat."
"Right. Cannons. Metal tubes of death. Because regular combat wasn't exciting enough." Lysaro swung himself upright, dropped to the floor with cat-like grace, and moved to peer over Harry's shoulder. "These symbols you're drawing. More of your Unspeakable magic?"
"Runes," Harry confirmed. "They're a language older than most civilizations. You inscribe them properly, with the right materials and intent, and they change the fundamental properties of whatever they're carved into. The Unspeakables had me study runic arrays for years." His hand moved faster, more confident now. "There was a ship at my old school—Durmstrang. Came up from the depths of a lake, traveled underwater, bigger on the inside than the outside. And a car—a self-moving carriage—that flew and had a mind of its own after enough magic soaked into it."
"A carriage that flew," Lysaro repeated. "With a mind."
"It liked Ron better than me," Harry said with a faint smile. "Saved our lives once. Tried to kill us another time. Temperamental."
"And you think you can recreate this? Make a ship that can't be sunk, doesn't need wind, and possibly develops opinions about its crew?"
Harry set down his quill and looked up. "The Unspeakables had me working on theoretical applications for seven years. Time manipulation, spatial expansion, material reinforcement. I never got to test most of it—they said it was too experimental, too unpredictable. But here?" He gestured at the window, at the world beyond. "Here there's no one to stop me. No oversight. No committees arguing about proper procedures."
"That sounds either brilliant or catastrophically stupid," Lysaro observed. "I genuinely can't tell which."
"Probably both." Harry turned back to his sketches. "The hull gets reinforced with runes of durability and regeneration. Same symbols they used on the walls of Hogwarts—my school. Stood for a thousand years through wars and dark magic. The ship would repair itself, given time. Arrow, scorpion bolt, even dragon fire—it would take damage, but it wouldn't sink."
"Dragon fire," Lysaro said faintly. "You're planning for dragon fire."
"Always plan for the worst." Harry moved to another page. "For movement, I'll adapt the propulsion enchantments from the Durmstrang ship. Runes that pull water through channels in the hull, push it out the back. Like a permanent wind, but underwater. No sails needed, though we'd keep them for appearances."
Lysaro was quiet for a long moment, studying the sketches with an expression somewhere between awe and terror. "Harry. My friend. My partner from another world. This is the most insane thing I've ever heard. It's also possibly the most brilliant. If you can actually do this—"
"I can do it," Harry said with quiet certainty. "The question is whether I can do it before someone notices and tries to stop me."
"Right. Small detail." Lysaro grabbed his own piece of parchment and started sketching a rough map. "So. Ships. The Crabfeeder's got dozens in his fleet, but they're all war galleys—meant for fighting, not stealing. Too many soldiers, too well-guarded. But there's a merchant ship that came in two days ago. Westerosi. Flying the sigil of some minor house in the Reach—three wheat sheaves on a brown field. House Caswell, maybe? Doesn't matter. Point is, it's a good size, maybe forty feet, two-masted. The crew's ashore, probably drinking away their trauma from getting stopped by the Triarchy. Ship's at anchor in the harbor with maybe three guards aboard."
"What's her condition?"
"Decent. Little weatherworn, but seaworthy. The kind of ship that's seen honest trade and hasn't fallen apart yet." Lysaro tapped the map. "Guards change at dusk. We'd have maybe a twenty-minute window where the old guards are leaving and the new ones are still half-drunk from dinner. Get aboard, overpower whoever's there, cut the anchor line, drift out on the tide."
"And the harbor defenses?"
"Ah, that's where it gets fun." Lysaro's grin was sharp. "The harbor's protected by two watchtowers—here and here. Each has a scorpion and a bell to raise the alarm. But the Crabfeeder's soldiers are lazy. They're used to merchant ships being too scared to run. They're watching for ships coming *in*, not going *out*."
Harry studied the map, his mind already calculating angles and probabilities. "We'd still need a distraction."
"I know a girl—Lysara, no relation despite the similar name—who owes me a favor. She can start a fire in the dockside warehouse. Nothing too dramatic, just enough smoke to make people panic and run toward it instead of watching the harbor."
"A fire." Harry looked at him. "You're suggesting arson as a distraction."
"I'm suggesting *strategic* arson. Very different. One's a crime, the other's tactics." Lysaro's expression turned serious. "Look, I know stealing and burning might seem extreme, but this is the Stepstones. Extreme is our baseline. If we're going to do this—really do this—we need to embrace the local culture of creative lawlessness."
Harry found himself smiling again. It was getting easier. "Alright. We steal a ship. But we'll need more than just the two of us to crew it."
"Already thinking ahead! I love it." Lysaro pulled out another piece of parchment. "So. Crew. We need people we can trust, who won't immediately betray us to the Crabfeeder, and who are either brave or stupid enough to sail on a magic ship that shouldn't exist. That's... actually a pretty specific requirement."
"Start with people you know," Harry suggested. "People who have reasons to want the Crabfeeder gone."
Lysaro's quill moved across the page, writing names. "Alright. First: Marro of Tyrosh. Big guy, missing two fingers from his left hand courtesy of a Crabfeeder interrogation. Used to be a carpenter before he got pressed into service. He knows ships, hates the Triarchy, and he's been looking for a way out."
"Can he fight?"
"He can swing a hammer like it's a war axe. Close enough." Another name. "Septa Sarya. And before you ask, yes, an actual septa. Follower of the Faith of the Seven. She was traveling to minister to the poor when her ship got stopped. The Crabfeeder killed the captain for 'piracy' and kept her as a slave. She's been cooking in the fortress kitchens for three months, and I've never seen someone pray with quite so much murderous intent."
"A holy woman," Harry said dryly. "Perfect for piracy."
"A holy woman who knows poisons and has been collecting them for a very specific purpose. She'll want in, trust me." Lysaro wrote more names. "Timoro and Varro—brothers from Lys. Former oarsmen. Quiet, competent, know how to take orders. They've got a sister back home they're trying to buy out of a pleasure house, so they need coin. Jarla of the Fingers—Westerosi, ran away from an arranged marriage, learned to sail on a smuggler's ship. She's sharp with numbers and sharper with a blade. And Koro."
Lysaro paused on that last name.
"Just Koro?" Harry prompted.
"Just Koro. Summer Islander. Used to sail a swan ship before he killed his captain for raping a cabin boy. The Crabfeeder would have staked him out, but Koro's got a gift with ships—he can read the sea like you read those runes. The Triarchy needed him more than they wanted him dead, so he's been sailing their galleys under guard." Lysaro met Harry's eyes. "He's dangerous. He's got reasons to hate authority. But if we can get him on our side, we'll have the best sailor in the Stepstones."
Harry studied the list. Seven names plus himself and Lysaro. Nine total.
"It's a start," he said. "But we'll need specialists. Someone who knows metalworking."
"For the cannons," Lysaro said, nodding. "I was thinking about that. There's a man—Varos the Mad, they call him. Myrish engineer. He worked on some of the Triarchy's scorpions until he started experimenting with explosive powders. Blew up a workshop, took off his own eyebrows, and got himself exiled from the smithy. He's been doing odd jobs around the fortress, muttering about 'contained explosions' and 'directional force' like it's poetry."
Harry's eyes lit up. "He's been working on explosive powder?"
"Oh yes. The Crabfeeder's guards think he's touched in the head, so they mostly leave him alone. But I've seen his notebooks. He's *close* to something. He just doesn't know what." Lysaro's grin was wicked. "But you know exactly what, don't you?"
"Cannons," Harry said. "Gunpowder weapons. In my world, they changed warfare completely. Castles became obsolete. Armored knights became targets. A peasant with a gun could kill a lord in full plate." He tapped the sketches. "If we can build even a few working cannons, mount them on our impossible ship..."
"We become the most dangerous thing in the Stepstones," Lysaro finished. "A ship that can't be sunk, doesn't need wind, and shoots metal death from a distance. That's not a ship, Harry. That's a sea monster with delusions of grandeur."
"That's the idea."
They looked at each other, and something passed between them. Not quite friendship—it was too soon for that. But partnership. Understanding. The recognition of two people standing at the edge of something mad and deciding to jump anyway.
"Right," Lysaro said, rolling up his maps. "So. Tonight we approach Marro and Septa Sarya—they'll be the easiest to convince. Tomorrow we track down Varos and see if he's willing to build metal tubes of death for the foreigner with glowing swords. Then we work on getting Koro free, which will be significantly harder because the Crabfeeder doesn't like losing his best sailors. And somewhere in all that, we need to actually steal the ship and start carving your magic symbols into it before anyone notices."
"Simple plan," Harry said. "Nothing could go wrong."
"I know you're being sarcastic, but I'm choosing to interpret that as confidence." Lysaro headed for the door, then paused. "One more thing. These cannons. They're dangerous, right? Like, kill-lots-of-people dangerous?"
"Very dangerous," Harry confirmed.
"Good. Because the Crabfeeder's got scorpions and Greek fire and his own special brand of creative torture. If we're going up against that, I want to be *more* dangerous. I want to be so dangerous that when people tell stories about us, they start with 'this is probably a lie, but' and end with 'and that's why we don't sail near that ship.'"
Harry stood, rolling up his own parchments. "You want to be a legend."
"I want to be a legend who doesn't get fed to crabs," Lysaro corrected. "There's a difference. One involves profit and glory, the other involves shellfish and screaming."
They left the safe house as the sun touched the horizon, painting the white stone buildings in shades of gold and blood. The fortress-town was settling into its evening rhythm—soldiers changing shifts, taverns filling up, merchants closing their stalls.
Somewhere in that controlled chaos was a carpenter with missing fingers.
Somewhere in the fortress kitchens, a septa was probably praying while grinding poison.
Somewhere in the harbor, a perfectly ordinary merchant ship was waiting to become something extraordinary.
And in the ruins outside town, Harry's armor waited in its cave, the skull-mask reflecting nothing, patient as death itself.
"Harry," Lysaro said as they walked. "When this is all over—when we've got our magic ship and our cannons and our crew—what are we going to call it?"
"Call what?"
"The ship! You can't have a legendary vessel without a legendary name. It's basic maritime law. Probably. I might be making that up, but it sounds true."
Harry thought about it. About the Unspeakables and their timeless rooms. About falling through Rookwood's ritual. About being someone's weapon and then choosing to be something else.
"The *Fawkes*," he said finally. "After a phoenix I knew once. It died and came back. Over and over. Always returned when needed most."
"The *Fawkes*," Lysaro repeated, tasting the word. "I like it. Very mythical. Very 'this ship has significance beyond mere transportation.'" He paused at a corner, checking for guards. "Your world sounds like it had a lot of interesting things in it."
"It did," Harry agreed. "Magic and monsters and people trying to kill me on a regular basis."
"So basically the same as here, just with different geography."
"Basically."
They turned down a narrow street toward the docks, where Marro would be finishing his shift in one of the shipyards. Above them, the first stars were emerging, different constellations than the ones Harry had known. Strange skies above strange seas.
But the magic in his blood was the same.
The runes he knew were the same.
And the choice he'd made—to stop being a weapon and start being a person—that was the same too.
"Let's go recruit a crew," Harry said.
Lysaro's answering grin could have lit ships on fire.
"Now you're talking like a proper pirate captain."
---
Marro was exactly where Lysaro said he'd be: in the shipyard, working late on repairs to one of the Triarchy's war galleys. He was built like a wine barrel with arms, his face weathered by years of sun and sea. The missing fingers on his left hand didn't seem to slow him down as he worked a plane across a length of timber.
He looked up as they approached, his expression flat and unwelcoming.
"Lysaro," he said, his accent thick with Tyroshi vowels. "Heard your crew got killed this morning. Heard it involved magic and a stranger. Heard the stranger was pretty."
His eyes moved to Harry.
"Hello," Harry said.
"Pretty confirmed," Marro grunted. He set down his plane. "What do you want? I'm busy. The Crabfeeder doesn't like delays."
"The Crabfeeder can feed himself to his own crabs," Lysaro said cheerfully. "We're here to offer you a better job."
"Not interested."
"You haven't heard the offer."
"Don't need to. Whatever it is, it'll get me killed." Marro picked up his plane again. "Go away."
Harry stepped forward, close enough that Marro would have to look at him. "Show me your hand," he said quietly. "The one with missing fingers."
Marro's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because I want to see what the Crabfeeder did to you."
For a long moment, Marro didn't move. Then, slowly, he set down the plane and held up his left hand. Two fingers gone at the second knuckle, the scars old and white.
Harry took the hand gently, studying it. "What did you do to deserve this?"
"Built a ship too slowly," Marro said, his voice flat. "Crabfeeder wanted it done in two weeks. Took me three. He said I needed motivation." His jaw clenched. "Took the fingers himself. Smiled while he did it. Said next time it'd be the whole hand."
Harry was quiet for a moment, his thumb brushing the scarred stumps. Then he looked up, meeting Marro's eyes.
"We're going to steal a ship," Harry said. "We're going to turn it into something the Crabfeeder can't sink. Then we're going to use it to destroy everything he's built here. Would you like to help?"
Marro stared at him. At the stranger with green eyes and scars of his own. At Lysaro, still grinning his manic grin.
"You're serious," Marro said.
"Completely serious," Harry confirmed. "I need someone who knows ships. Someone who can work with wood and metal and make repairs under pressure. Lysaro says you're the best carpenter in the Stepstones."
"Lysaro says a lot of things. Most of them are lies."
"Hey," Lysaro protested. "I'm *selectively* truthful. Very different."
"What's in it for me?" Marro asked, still looking at Harry. "Besides probably dying?"
"Freedom," Harry said simply. "A chance to hit back at the man who took your fingers. And payment—we'll be taking prizes, and every crew member gets a share."
"Piracy," Marro said. "You're asking me to be a pirate."
"I'm asking you to be free," Harry corrected. "The piracy is just what we'll do while being free."
Marro was quiet for a long time, his eyes distant. Then he picked up his tools, wrapped them carefully in a leather roll, and tucked them under his arm.
"When do we start?" he asked.
---
Septa Sarya was harder to find. The fortress kitchens were a maze of heat and smoke and shouting, and it took them an hour to navigate to the herb garden where she was harvesting night-blooming flowers.
She was younger than Harry expected—maybe thirty, with the kind of face that looked kind until you saw her eyes. Her septa's robes were stained with kitchen work, and her hands moved among the plants with the confidence of someone who knew exactly which ones healed and which ones killed.
"Lysaro of Tyrosh," she said without looking up. "I heard your crew died. I prayed for their souls."
"That's very kind," Lysaro said. "Wasted effort, they didn't have souls, but kind."
"And you've brought someone new." Now she did look up, studying Harry with disconcerting intensity. "The stranger who killed four men this morning. The one with magic."
"News travels fast," Harry observed.
"Violence always does." She returned to her harvesting, plucking petals with careful precision. "What do you want, stranger?"
"We're putting together a crew," Harry said, coming closer. "Lysaro thinks you might be interested."
"I'm a septa. I minister to the faithful and tend the sick. Why would I be interested in crewing a ship?"
"Because you're not just tending those plants," Harry said quietly. "You're making poison. And you're not making it to heal people."
Septa Sarya's hands stilled. When she looked up again, her expression was different. Colder.
"Very observant," she said softly. "Yes. I'm making poison. Specifically, I'm making enough poison to kill the Crabfeeder and everyone who eats at his table. I've been working on it for three months. Another month and I'll have enough to slip it into his wine."
"And then what?" Harry asked. "You'll be caught. Tortured. Probably fed to the crabs yourself."
"I've made my peace with that." Her smile was serene and terrible. "The Mother judges us by our actions. The Stranger takes us all in time. If I can rid the world of that monster before the Stranger comes for me, I'll die content."
"What if I told you there was a better way?" Harry crouched beside her, bringing himself to eye level. "A way where you don't have to die. Where you can watch the Crabfeeder fall and live to see what comes after."
"I'd say you were lying."
"I don't lie," Harry said, and meant it. "We're going to destroy the Crabfeeder's fleet. Break his power. Free the Stepstones from the Triarchy. And we're going to do it from a ship that can't be sunk." He gestured at her plants. "We'll need someone who knows medicines and poisons. Someone who can tend injuries and also make our enemies regret boarding us."
Septa Sarya studied him for a long moment. "You're serious."
"I don't joke about fighting monsters," Harry said. "I've done it too many times."
She looked at Lysaro. "And you're part of this insanity?"
"I'm the brains of the operation," Lysaro said proudly.
"Then you're all doomed." But she was smiling as she said it. She gathered her plants into a basket and stood. "I'll come. On one condition."
"Name it," Harry said.
"When the time comes—when we're face to face with Craghas Drahar—I want to be the one to poison him. Slowly. I want him to know who killed him and why."
Harry met her eyes and saw the same cold purpose he'd seen in his own reflection after the Unspeakables finished their work.
"Deal," he said.
They shook hands, and Marro, who'd been standing guard, grunted approval.
"A carpenter, a septa, and two madmen," he said. "This crew is already legendary."
"Just wait," Lysaro promised. "It gets better."
---
Finding Varos the Mad took them another two hours and led them to a shack on the fortress's outskirts that smelled distinctly of sulfur and regret. The Myrish engineer answered their knock with wild eyes and wilder hair, eyebrows still noticeably absent.
"WHAT?" he bellowed. "I'm in the middle of a CRITICAL EXPERIMENT involving the RATIO OF SALTPETER TO CHARCOAL and if I lose COUNT I'll have to START OVER and the LAST TIME that happened I was FINDING BITS OF WORKBENCH for THREE DAYS!"
"Varos," Lysaro said calmly. "We need to talk about directional explosive force."
Varos blinked. "What?"
"Directional. Explosive. Force." Lysaro gestured at Harry. "My friend here has a theory about how to weaponize your powder. We'd like to discuss it."
"Weaponize?" Varos's eyes lit up with the particular madness of someone who'd been told their obsession might be useful. "You mean beyond just... exploding? Like, DIRECTED exploding?"
"Exactly like that," Harry said. He pulled out one of his sketches. "What if we put your explosive powder in a metal tube, closed at one end, and used the explosion to push a metal ball out the open end at high speed?"
Varos grabbed the sketch like it was holy scripture. His hands trembled as he studied it.
"The tube would need to be thick," he muttered. "Very thick. Otherwise the explosion would rupture the metal and kill everyone nearby. And the powder charge would need to be precise—too much and you destroy the tube, too little and the ball doesn't fly far enough..." His eyes moved rapidly across the drawing. "But if you got the ratios right. If you reinforced the tube properly. If you—" He looked up at Harry with something approaching religious fervor. "This could work. This could ACTUALLY WORK. Do you know what you've given me? Do you UNDERSTAND?"
"A cannon," Harry said. "In my world, they changed everything."
"A CANNON," Varos repeated reverently. "I'm going to call it a cannon. That's perfect. That's BEAUTIFUL." He clutched the sketch to his chest. "When do we start? Where do we build it? How many do you want? I can make dozens! Hundreds! An entire FLEET of cannons! We'll revolutionize warfare! They'll write SONGS about us!"
"Start with one," Harry suggested. "Prove the concept. Then we'll scale up."
"One cannon." Varos nodded rapidly. "One cannon. Yes. Yes. I can do one cannon. I'll need bronze. Good bronze. And the best powder I can make. And space—somewhere away from the fortress where an explosion won't bring guards. And—" He paused. "Wait. Why are we building cannons? Are we attacking someone? Please say we're attacking someone. I've had IDEAS about attacking people with cannons and no one ever LISTENS."
"We're attacking the Crabfeeder," Lysaro said.
Varos's expression went from manic to coldly sane in an instant. "The Crabfeeder. Craghas Drahar. The man who exiled me from the smithy because my experiments were 'too dangerous' and 'kept exploding.'" His smile was sharp enough to cut. "Yes. Yes, I'll build you cannons. I'll build you the most beautiful, most deadly cannons the world has ever seen. And when we point them at the Crabfeeder's ships and light the fuses?" He made an explosive gesture. "BOOM. Splinters and screaming. It'll be MAGNIFICENT."
"Is he always like this?" Septa Sarya asked quietly.
"Usually he's worse," Lysaro said. "This is him being restrained."
They left Varos already sketching furiously, muttering about "bore diameter" and "optimal powder charges" and "the beautiful mathematics of destruction."
Four crew members now. Five counting Harry and Lysaro.
"The brothers and Jarla will come," Lysaro said as they walked back toward the harbor. "They'll want to hear about the ship and the plan, but they'll come. That leaves Koro."
"The Summer Islander," Harry said. "The one who killed his captain."
"The one the Crabfeeder keeps under guard." Lysaro's expression turned serious. "Getting him will be harder. He's too valuable to leave unwatched. They keep him on one of the war galleys, always at least two soldiers within arm's reach."
"Then we'll need a distraction," Harry said. "Something big enough to pull guards away."
"Like stealing a ship?" Lysaro suggested.
Harry smiled. "Exactly like stealing a ship."
---
They stole the merchant vessel two nights later, and it went almost perfectly.
Lysara—the woman who wasn't related to Lysaro despite the similar name—set fire to the dockside warehouse exactly on schedule. The flames rose high enough to be seen from the harbor, and suddenly every guard in the fortress was running toward the smoke.
Harry and Marro went over the side of the *Salty Pearl*—soon to be renamed—with the silence of shadows. The three guards aboard barely had time to register their presence before Harry's cutlass pommel struck the first one unconscious, Marro's hammer took the second, and Septa Sarya's poisoned needle did something creative to the third that involved paralysis and an expression of existential horror.
"He'll recover," she said primly, stepping over the frozen guard. "Probably. Eventually."
They cut the anchor line and let the tide pull them toward the harbor mouth. No alarm bells. No shouts. Just the creak of wood and the whisper of water.
They were almost clear when a war galley moved to intercept.
"Well," Lysaro said from the wheel, "that's unfortunate."
The galley was one of the Crabfeeder's patrol ships—thirty oars, a scorpion mounted in the bow, and at least forty soldiers. It moved with the predatory grace of something built for violence.
"Harry," Lysaro called. "I don't suppose you have a plan for this?"
Harry stood at the bow, watching the galley approach. His hand found the hilt of his cutlass, and runes began to glow in the darkness.
"Actually," he said, "I do."
He drew both cutlasses—the matched pair he'd earned in blood and training—and began to spin them in patterns that made the air hiss. The runes traced light through the darkness, and Harry spoke words in a language that predated most civilizations.
The water around the *Salty Pearl* began to move.
Not with current or tide, but with *purpose*. It swelled and rose, forming a wall between their ship and the galley. Not quite solid, not quite liquid, something in between—water that remembered it could be a barrier if you asked it nicely and spoke the right words.
The galley's scorpion fired. The bolt passed through the water-wall, slowed, slowed more, and finally stopped entirely, suspended in the unnatural barrier like an insect in amber.
"MAGE!" someone on the galley shouted. "THEY'VE GOT A MAGE!"
"Thank you!" Lysaro called back. "We're very proud of him!"
Harry held the water-wall long enough for them to slip past the harbor mouth, then let it collapse. The galley's soldiers were still scrambling to turn their ship around when the *Salty Pearl* caught the open ocean current and vanished into the darkness.
"THAT," Marro said, his eyes wide, "was the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my entire life, and I once watched a man eat three live chickens on a bet."
"It won't hold them for long," Harry said, breathing hard. That kind of magic was expensive, even for him. "We need to find a place to anchor. Somewhere hidden."
"I know a place," Lysaro said. "Small island, two hours south. Nothing there but rocks and seabirds. The Triarchy patrols don't bother with it."
"Good." Harry sheathed his cutlasses. "That's where we start work on the runes."
"And where we pick up Koro," Lysaro added. "Because the chaos we just caused? That's the distraction. While every soldier in the fortress is searching for us, our brothers are breaking the Summer Islander out of his galley."
"You didn't mention that part of the plan," Septa Sarya said mildly.
"I like to keep some surprises!" Lysaro's grin was manic in the moonlight. "Timoro, Varro, and Jarla are good. If anyone can get Koro out, they can."
"*If*," Marro muttered. "There's a word that does a lot of work."
But the *Salty Pearl* cut through the dark water, leaving the fortress and its fires behind. Above them, strange stars wheeled in strange patterns. And below deck, in the hold, Harry's armor and mask waited in their canvas wrapping.
Agent Reaper, sleeping.
Harry Potter, awake and choosing.
The ship that would become the *Fawkes* sailed into history, and the story—as stories always do when you add magic and madmen and the careful dismantling of tyrants—accelerated toward something that would be sung about for generations.
Assuming any of them survived to hear the songs.
---
Hey fellow fanfic enthusiasts!
I hope you're enjoying the fanfiction so far! I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Whether you loved it, hated it, or have some constructive criticism, your feedback is super important to me. Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Can't wait to hear from you!
If you're passionate about fanfiction and love discussing stories, characters, and plot twists, then you're in the right place! I've created a Discord (HHHwRsB6wd) server dedicated to diving deep into the world of fanfiction, especially my own stories. Whether you're a reader, a writer, or just someone who enjoys a good tale, I welcome you to join us for lively discussions, feedback sessions, and maybe even some sneak peeks into upcoming chapters, along with artwork related to the stories. Let's nerd out together over our favorite fandoms and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling!
Can't wait to see you there!