01
“Teddy! Vita!”
Almost immediately, Chloe heard overlapping shouts rising one after another, footsteps frantic and urgent, echoing through the narrow space.
She blinked, still a little dazed, the persistent feeling that several familiar voices were tangled somewhere in the chaos.
“Harry!” Teddy finally lifted the head that had been buried in Chloe’s arms, voice trembling slightly with excitement.
“I’m here! Vita and I are here!”
Victoire seemed to realize then that the disaster was truly over.
Everything held back for so long broke all at once, and Victoire cried out at full volume: “Papa! Mama!”
Outside, responses filled with shock and relief rang back immediately, cut through by a firefighter’s sharp rebuke: “How could you just run in there! You’re not wearing protective gear — this temperature is dangerous for you!”
The door burst open with a violent slam.
A crowd of red-haired people flooded in.
Chloe was still crouched low on the ground.
When she looked up, her gaze met Harry’s directly.
This wasn’t the first time she had slipped quietly into a burning building to help.
But the moment she saw Harry Potter charge in with the entire Weasley family behind him, she understood instantly: things had gotten a little complicated.
Teddy and Victoire, still nestled in Chloe’s arms, both lurched toward familiar faces at almost the same moment, throwing themselves into embraces full of lingering dread and overwhelming relief.
Harry held Chloe’s gaze for a brief second, then immediately crouched down and pulled Teddy into a tight hold.
Beside him, a white-haired woman with reddened eyes trembled as she pressed kisses to the boy’s ash-dusted cheeks.
“Let me take this child, miss.”
A firefighter pushed through, eyes moving quickly to the brown-haired boy still huddled in Chloe’s arms.
“Are you Eric?”
The boy gave a timid nod.
His eyes were brimming with tears, just one blink away from spilling over.
“Come on, over to me.” The firefighter said it gently, reaching out a hand.
“I’ll take you to your mum — she’s been waiting outside and she’s worried sick.”
Chloe watched Eric being lifted with careful hands.
The image that surfaced in her mind was the woman from the television screen, screaming and crying at the raging flames.
“Dr. Aiken?”
George Weasley had noticed her.
George stared at Chloe with undisguised surprise, voice full of disbelief.
“Why are you here? Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Chloe shook her head at once.
Nearly everyone’s eyes had gathered on her now.
It made her faintly uncomfortable.
“I just happened to be passing by when I saw the fire, and I thought I’d go in and get people out… then I ended up trapped.”
“Sister.” Victoire was nestled in Fleur’s arms but stretched out a small hand with effort.
“Sister protected us.”
Chloe walked over and gave Victoire’s little cheek a gentle pinch, her tone soft.
“Victoire was so brave. I really didn’t do much — the three of them reacted incredibly fast, and getting to the bathroom was exactly the right call.”
Chloe turned to Teddy then, eyes carrying unmistakable approval.
“And Teddy, you were wonderful too. You kept protecting Victoire the whole time.”
Teddy’s ears went red all at once.
Teddy buried a face deep in Harry’s shoulder, but couldn’t help sneaking a glance back out toward Chloe.
This was the most terrifying moment Harry had lived through since the war ended.
The flames that consumed everything without mercy had been right in front of him, and his mind held only one name, Teddy.
The only blood Remus Lupin and Tonks had left behind.
His godson.
Trapped somewhere inside that inferno.
Fear seized his lungs in an instant, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
And when someone told him Victoire was in there too, his whole body went almost numb.
He didn’t dare imagine what might follow.
This fire would not only destroy him.
It would destroy the entire Weasley family.
Merlin…
don’t take anyone else from me…
not Teddy, not Vita…
That was the only thought in his mind as he shoved past the Muggle firefighters blocking his way and drove forward with sheer force toward the extinguished blaze.
If Teddy died, there was truly no way Harry could go on living.
And yet he could think of no reason Teddy would survive.
A fire like that.
Teddy and Victoire were only two young witches and wizards without wands, at risk of losing control of their magic at any moment, and entirely without protection.
What could possibly keep them alive?
When Harry rushed into the scorched ruins after the fire had been put out, his whole body locked up.
Even without open flames, the heat hit him head-on, as though it would wring every drop of moisture from a person.
Hermione, Andromeda, and the Weasleys all pushed into the ruins, calling the children’s names in ragged, desperate voices.
Every single one of those voices carried an unmistakable edge of sobbing.
Everything before Harry’s eyes was a desolate, charred black.
Harry didn’t dare look at the collapsed dark mounds on the ground.
The next glance might show Teddy’s body.
Or Victoire’s.
Remorse bit savagely into his heart.
He shouldn’t have worked overtime.
If he hadn’t worked overtime, he would have gone to pick Teddy up on Friday evening.
They would have gone to Andromeda’s place, or attended the dinner Molly had prepared.
Teddy would never have been here at all.
He should have been the one to rush in the moment the fire broke out.
Or he should have been the adult who burned in that fire in their place.
Despair spread outward, mixed with the choking smell of smoke, and worked its way into every person’s chest.
Harry heard Fleur and Molly screaming until their voices nearly tore.
Heard Andromeda holding together by sheer will, still calling out the children’s names.
Heard every stumbling set of footsteps around staggering through the ash.
The air had thickened into a grief dense enough to suffocate.
Harry didn’t dare stop.
Didn’t dare look at anyone’s face.
He was afraid of seeing blame in their eyes.
More afraid of not seeing it.
“Teddy! Vita!” New chapters come out on g.com first.
He shouted until his voice was nearly shredded, the taste of blood rising straight up from his throat.
Then, like Merlin’s mercy breaking through from the depths of despair,
“Harry! I’m here! Vita and I are here!”
Teddy’s voice.
Everyone froze.
Harry stared blankly at Bill for one suspended moment, disbelieving joy flashing through both their eyes at once.
The next instant, as though reason had been yanked clean away, both of them sprinted desperately toward the sound.
A door, scorched black by the flames.
Harry didn’t even have time to raise his wand.
He just lifted a foot and kicked it open with everything he had.
The door slammed into the wall.
And Harry saw something he would never forget for the rest of his life.
A woman crouched on the ground, her posture instinctive and resolute, shielding three children with her entire body.
Teddy, Victoire, and a Muggle boy Harry didn’t recognize, all three pressed tightly against her, as though in all that wreckage, she was the only safe place left in the world.
Their hair and clothes were soaking wet, as if they’d been drenched in water.
But there was none of the terror or collapse Harry had braced himself for.
What was there instead, in the wake of surviving, was something closer to dependence and calm.
The woman’s hair was wet at the ends too, clearly soaked from leaning close to the children.
The woman heard the noise and turned back slightly.
In that instant, Harry recognized her.
Chloe Aiken.
The psychologist he had only seen a couple of days ago.
In the moment when Harry had been powerless to do anything, she had used her own body to block every possibility of death the fire could bring, holding the children firmly in her arms.
Chloe had protected Teddy.
Protected Victoire.
Protected his last remaining family.
Something struck his chest savagely.
Every shred of fear, remorse, and despair he had been holding down collapsed violently in that moment.
For one brief instant, Harry had the urge to tell her right then and there: Dr. Aiken, you don’t need to do anything more for me.
You’ve already succeeded.
You’ve already pulled me back from a breakdown I would never have survived.
➤ Next: Gratitude
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