Harry had not completed the quest.
That realization lingered in the back of his mind for the entire day after Crowley left the townhouse, presumably to work, though Harry was no longer entirely convinced the solicitor’s daily activities followed human standards of normality.
Edith was still out there.
Harry had only destroyed her manifested form temporarily.
Eventually the wraith would reform and, considering Harry’s increasingly catastrophic luck, probably sooner rather than later.
The curse remained active, but now that Harry finally understood the truth behind Ashford Estate, he understood something else as well: the curse had never truly been about death.
It was grief.
Grief so profound it had poisoned the land itself.
Love twisted into betrayal.
Loneliness rotting slowly into hatred over centuries of suffering and misunderstanding.
Edith had not become a wraith simply because she died horribly.
She became one because she died abandoned, convinced the man she loved had chosen someone else over her, and that kind of pain did not disappear just because someone blasted the ghost with holy light until it exploded dramatically across the sky.
Which meant permanently destroying Edith would solve nothing.
Even if Harry somehow managed to erase her completely, eventually another spirit would rise from all the unresolved suffering festering across the estate.
No.
The curse did not need destruction, it needed peace.
Fortunately, Harry now possessed exactly the ability required for something utterly insane.
His Angel Mode had come with more than wings and terrifyingly expensive mana costs.
It came with Skills.
Plural.
Harry was still a bit annoyed the system had waited until after he nearly died to mention that particularly important detail.
One skill in particular mattered more than the others.
[Echo of the Departed]
A divine skill allowing him to summon the spirits of the dead temporarily.
At its lowest level, it manifested them as spectral echoes similar to ghosts, capable of speech and interaction but unable to physically affect the world.
The mana cost for that was manageable.
The second function, however, was significantly more powerful: By spending vastly more mana, Harry could temporarily restore the dead into corporeal forms identical to how they had appeared in life, allowing them to physically exist and interact with the world for a limited time.
Which meant, technically speaking, Harry possessed the ability to temporarily drag dead people back into existence.
Harry had stared at the description for several long seconds after discovering it.
“Oh,” Harry murmured quietly after reading the skill description once again.
This changed absolutely everything because if Edith’s hatred had been born from believing Cadmus abandoned her… Then perhaps only Cadmus himself could finally free her.
The summoning itself proved surprisingly simple, disturbingly simple, in all honesty.
Later that morning, Harry sat alone inside Crowley’s guest room with the curtains drawn and the lights dimmed low while focusing carefully on everything he knew about Cadmus Peverell:
His love.
His grief.
His devotion.
The desperation that had driven him to seek death itself.
The Resurrection Stone.
His death.
Harry exhaled slowly.
“Echo of the Departed: Cadmus Peverell,” he whispered.
Mana flowed outward and the room darkened.
Not violently but quietly, like the world itself lowering its voice.
Then silver light began gathering near the center of the room, pale radiance twisting softly through the shadows before slowly taking shape and a figure appeared.
A young man dressed in dark medieval robes emerged from the glow, his long black hair falling loosely around a pale face marked by exhaustion and grief.
Grey eyes lifted slowly toward Harry, ancient sorrow lingering within them even after death.
For one heartbeat, Harry suddenly understood why legends had formed around the Peverell brothers.
Even as a spirit, Cadmus carried a strong presence.
Not magical power exactly, something else.
Cadmus studied Harry in silence for several moments before speaking softly.
“…You are not Death.”
Harry blinked.
“…That is a sentence I am choosing not to think about right now.”
Cadmus looked faintly confused, and Harry quickly moved on because time was of the essence; he cant keep his angel form for long after all.
He explained that Ashford Estate had been cursed for centuries.
That when he investigated the origin of the curse he found it centered on what happened in the 13th century to the estate’s original owners, to Edith Ashford.
Harry tells Cadmus what had truly happened that night.
And the moment Harry described the rats, Cadmus broke.
The spirit staggered backward slightly as though struck physically, horror flooding across his face so completely that Harry stopped speaking.
“No,” Cadmus whispered.
Harry’s chest tightened painfully seeing the reaction of his ancestor.
Cadmus raised trembling hands to cover his face while his breathing turned uneven despite technically not needing to breathe anymore.
“I searched for her,” he said hoarsely after several long moments.
“When I returned, the castle had already fallen into ruin.
I searched for Lord Ashford’s people and eventually found survivors.”
His voice cracked.
“They told me she had taken poison.”
The grief in those words felt ancient.
“I thought…” Cadmus swallowed hard.
“I thought she chose death rather than suffer what the villagers intended for her.”
His expression twisted violently.
“So I killed them.”
Harry froze.
“I destroyed the castle so none of them would ever use it again.” His grey eyes darkened with rage and grief.
“Then I left believing… believing perhaps magic might still offer some impossible answer.”
“The Stone,” he whispered.
Harry felt his stomach tighten.
The Resurrection Stone: one of the Deathly Hallows.
And suddenly Harry realized he wasn’t speaking to some distant historical figure from a children’s story.
He was speaking directly to Cadmus Peverell himself, a real man, not some fairy tale figure, a man who had lost everything and then himself.
“I tried to call her back,” Cadmus continued quietly.
“Again and again.”
His gaze lowered toward the floor.
“But her spirit remained distant.
Like mist behind glass.” A weak, broken smile crossed his face.
“I thought death had separated us forever.”
And then he had killed himself trying to reach her, Harry finished in his head, understanding the grief and sorrow of the man before him.
Cadmus had killed himself not because he was insane, or because he was obsessed, but because he loved her.
The kind of tragic, overwhelming love capable of destroying people just as thoroughly as hatred ever could.
“All I ever wanted,” Cadmus whispered softly, “was my Edith.”
Silence settled heavily across the room afterward.
Rain tapped gently against the windows while pale silver light from the ghost flickered faintly across the walls.
Cadmus stood motionless in the center of the room, looking less like one of the legendary Peverells and more like a grieving young man who had never truly recovered from losing the person he loved most.
Finally, Harry spoke carefully.
“I think she believes you abandoned her.”
The words struck harder than any curse could have.
Cadmus visibly shattered, pain crossed his face with such raw devastation Harry immediately regretted saying it aloud, even though it was the truth.
“She still remains there?” Cadmus asked quietly.
Harry nodded slowly.
“As a wraith.”
The spirit closed his eyes and for several long moments he said nothing at all.
His hands trembled faintly at his sides while grief and horror warred visibly across his expression.
Harry understood something awful: Cadmus had spent centuries believing Edith died peacefully by her own choice.
Meanwhile Edith had spent centuries believing Cadmus willingly left her behind.
Two people destroyed not by betrayal… But by a misunderstanding born from fear and tragedy.
Eventually Cadmus opened his eyes again and looked toward Harry with fragile hope buried beneath all that ancient sorrow.
“…Can I see her?” he asked softly.
Harry exhaled slowly.
“Yes.” The answer came quietly but without hesitation.
“I’ll summon you tonight.”
For the first time since appearing, something in Cadmus’s expression eased slightly, not happiness exactly, but the desperate relief of someone finally being offered a chance to correct the worst mistake of their existence.
***
Near dusk, Harry returned to the tower.
Dobby had protested the entire idea with increasing levels of despair and mild hysterics.
Harry had needed nearly twenty minutes to convince the elf that returning to the cursed estate was not, in fact, suicidal behavior.
Though in all honesty, Harry himself was not entirely convinced by his own argument.
Still, he felt strangely certain this would work; he felt hopeful.
His instincts, which had already saved his life more times than any reasonable twelve-year-old should experience, insisted things would turn out differently this time.
So Harry listened.
The estate felt different now as he crossed the grounds beneath the fading evening sky.
Sure, the air remained heavy with lingering sorrow and death, dark magic surounded the lake and the isle like foul tasting mist, but it was not as scary as before.
Now Harry understood the tragedy buried beneath the curse, and that made the darkness feel less overwhelming.
The estate no longer felt like some ancient malevolent mystery.
It felt sad.
By the time Harry reached the ruined upper chamber of the tower, the sun had nearly vanished beyond the lake.
He sat atop a broken section of stone wall and waited quietly while dusk slowly consumed the sky.
Then the cold returned.
It swept through the tower suddenly enough to frost the ruined stones beneath Harry’s feet.
Edith appeared exactly as before.
Beautiful at first glance and terrifying underneath.
Pale silver light surrounded her translucent form while shadows drifted unnaturally through the folds of her gown.
The moment her eyes settled upon Harry, hatred flickered immediately across her expression.
“You returned,” she whispered.
Harry rose slowly to his feet, activating his Angel Mode right away.
White spread instantly through his dark hair while black wings unfurled behind him beneath the darkening sky.
Golden light flickered faintly beneath his skin as divine power awakened once more inside him.
Edith recoiled violently at the sight, but before she could attack Harry activated Echo of the Departed.
“Echo of the Departed: Cadmus Peverell”
Silver light erupted between them, and Cadmus appeared.
Everything stopped.
Edith froze completely, her expression collapsing into stunned disbelief.
For one impossible heartbeat, silence ruled the ruined tower.
Then fury exploded from her.
“You abandoned me!” Edith screamed.
The tower shook.
Darkness erupted outward violently while Edith’s form twisted further into monstrous shadow.
“You left me here!” she shrieked, her voice breaking into something monstrous beneath the grief.
“You chose HER!”
Cadmus stared at her like his heart had just been ripped from his chest all over again.
There was no fear in his expression.
No disgust or horror at what she had become.
Only devastation.
“Edith…” he whispered.
The sound of her name in his voice seemed to wound her almost as much as it wounded him.
Seeing Cadmus too stunned to respond properly, Harry stepped in immediately before the situation collapsed entirely into violence.
“He never stopped loving you,” Harry said quickly.
Edith froze slightly, and Harry continued before she could interrupt.
“He tried to bring you back.”
Confusion flickered across her twisted expression.
“When he failed,” Harry said quietly, “he killed himself trying to join you in death.”
The wraith staggered backward as Cadmus finally found his voice.
“I dreamt of you every night we were apart,” Cadmus whispered, his voice breaking.
“But I returned too late.”
Edith trembled violently.
Harry could see it happening in real time now, hatred and grief tearing against one another across her distorted features.
Shadows flickered unevenly around her body while the monstrous shape of the wraith struggled to hold itself together.
“You left me,” she whispered again, but this time the words sounded weaker, less certain.
Cadmus looked at her like the very idea hurt him.
“I never would have chosen another,” he said softly.
“Never.”
The silence afterward felt almost unbearable.
Wind moved gently through the broken tower while the lovers looked at each other.
For several long moments, neither spirit moved at all, then Edith lowered her gaze for a moment before looking back at him, and for the first time since Harry met her, he saw hope beneath all that rage.
“Prove it,” she whispered.
Harry blinked in confusion.
How exactly was Cadmus supposed to prove his love?
Veritaserum?
Some kind of magical oath?
Or—
While Harry was still trying to figure that out, Cadmus moved toward Edith without the slightest hesitation.
Up close, her current form remained horrifying.
Her body was still half-made of shadows, grief, and centuries of endless suffering.
Darkness clung to her skin like living smoke while silver light flickered within empty eyes.
Cadmus kissed her anyway.
There was no fear or reluctance in his actions, only love.
Harry stared at the scene in stunned silence.
Oh.
So that was how, Harry thought with a blush.
He felt a lot of respect for his many times great-grand uncle because Harry personally felt he might have panicked at least a little before kissing the nightmare wraith lady radiating enough dark magic to traumatize an entire squad of veteran Aurors.
But Cadmus held her gently as though none of it mattered.
And slowly, her form began to change.
Light spread across Edith’s body in soft waves, pale radiance replacing the writhing shadows consuming her form.
Darkness dissolved piece by piece while the monstrous shape of the wraith slowly fell away like smoke scattered by the wind.
Silver-black mist unraveled into gentle pale light.
The claws vanished.
The empty eyes softened.
The hatred faded.
And standing there once more was simply Edith Ashford.
Young, beautiful, and human.
Tears filled her eyes as she looked at her beloved.
Cadmus rested his forehead gently against hers, smiling shakily like someone witnessing a miracle he had stopped believing possible long ago.
The curse haunting the entire estate broke as the lovers kissed once more.
The oppressive weight crushing the estate vanished all at once, dissolving like fog beneath sunlight.
The air itself seemed to breathe again as warm wind swept through the ruined tower carrying away the lingering darkness surrounding the lake.
Far below, the forest stirred softly and somewhere in the distance, birds began singing.
The estate lived again.
Harry stood silently while moonlight spilled across the ruins for the first time without feeling cold.
A familiar translucent screen appeared before his eyes.
[Main Quest Complete!]
[The Curse of Ashford Estate]
Rewards:
+10,000 EXP
[Angel Mode] Unlocked
[Rare Skill Acquired: Mana Perception]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
Harry immediately frowned.
“Excuse me?”
The system had the audacity to list Angel Mode as a reward despite Harry very clearly unlocking it himself through sheer desperation and refusal to die.
Cheap.
Bloody cheap.
Still…
Mana Perception looked absurdly useful.
The Skill essentially transformed mana itself into an additional sensory system capable of perceiving the surrounding world in complete detail.
Sight, sound, movement, intent—even languages could theoretically be understood through mana vibrations.
The descriptions became increasingly ridiculous the longer Harry read: No blind spots, see in total darkness, perceive ambushes instantly, pbserve surroundings from third-person perspectives, potential range measured in kilometers.
The downside, unfortunately, involved potentially frying one’s brain through sensory overload.
Harry decided that sounded like a future problem.
Right now, he simply watched as Cadmus and Edith slowly faded together into silver light beneath the stars.
At peace at last.
***
Omake:
[Status]
Name: Harry James Potter
Level: 7
EXP: 30/3725
HP: 120/120
MP: 180/180
AGI — Rank E (16)
END — Rank E (12)
MNA — Rank E (18)
[Unassigned Stat Points: 6]
“My stats increased!”
“…I also just remembered I still had unassigned stat points this entire time.
Which really would’ve been helpful during the whole ‘fight an ancient nightmare ghost’ situation.”
***
Author’s Note: About the stats, the human peak limit is 20 (Physical Stats-wise).
In his regular form, Harry is reaching the human peak of AGI.