Chapter Text
Dorea Potter had always known that fairytales were lies.
They were told to keep children complacent. To control the narrative that good triumphs over evil.
To fool the ones who dared to hope.
She knew this long before she found out she was a witch.
Long before she stood in front of the Mirror of Erised and begged silently for a family that loved her back.
Long before she faced Voldemort at eleven with nothing but bravery and luck.
Fairytales lied.
Heroes don’t get happy endings.
It’s all a lie.
Because no one ever tells you what happens after the war.
The world was supposed to be better.
Safer. Kinder.
Instead, it simply replaced one Dark Lord with another kind of monster, a smiling one in gold-trimmed Ministry robes, preaching “unity,” “purity,” and “necessary healing.”
They pardoned monsters like Umbridge, who tortured students and Muggleborns during wartime, claiming "duress."
They were supposed to be heroes.
The Golden Trio. War-scarred saviors. The slayers of Voldemort.
But now, with the war over, they were obsolete. Inconvenient. A liability.
Dorea was summoned to the Ministry three times in a single week for “political consultations.”
Once, a well-dressed official had suggested, ever so politely, that she consider marrying Draco Malfoy to “show unity between bloodlines.”
After all, The Prophet had already started printing stories about their so-called relationship. Lies dressed in gold.
Dorea had choked on her tea. “You mean the same Draco Malfoy who held a wand to my throat while I was bleeding in the Astronomy Tower?” she asked coldly.
The official hadn’t even blinked. “We believe his betrayal of you can be reframed as a moment of doubt. Redemption makes a strong story, Miss Potter.”
Dorea had loved him. That was the truth.
In Sixth Year, when the world had been falling apart, when Ron was drifting and Hermione was burying herself in books, it was Draco’s quiet fury and lonely bitterness that mirrored hers.
They had met in hidden corners. Shared stories. Touched lips in trembling silence.
But in the end, he had chosen his family.
He had let Hermione be tortured in his home.
And when Dorea's blood stained the floor, he had held her wand…and given it to Narcissa.
That was the end of their story.
Ron was offered a Ministry job he didn’t want. “Public Relations Office.”
A euphemism for puppet.
He threw the letter into the fire. “I want to help George,” he said. “Fred’s gone. George needs me more than this bloody Ministry circus.”
Hermione was told, gently that it would be best if she stepped out of the spotlight.
A Muggleborn witch, too smart and too loud, was “making the purebloods uncomfortable.”
They offered her a position as an Unspeakable.
A supposed honor never granted to a Muggleborn... a leash in disguise.
“Uncomfortable?” Hermione had hissed. “They want me to disappear so I don’t remind them that I outwitted them all.”
It got worse.
The Goblins froze their Gringotts accounts “pending investigation.”
The Prophet ran headline after headline:
“Trio Looted Vaults for Personal Gain?”
“Was Dorea Potter’s Defeat of Voldemort Really a Solo Act?”
“Golden Trio: Thieves and Murderers?”
“Erased Muggle Memories - Deliberately?”
“Girl Who Conquered: A Delinquent, Says Childhood Neighbor.”
Each article chipped away at their reputation.
Each lie was more believable than the last.
Even their friends began to drift away.
Parvati blamed them for Lavender’s death, as if Dorea hadn’t walked to her own death to save them all.
The Ministry refused to let Dorea adopt Teddy unless he was registered as a werewolf. The next day, Andromeda packed their bags and left for France.
No goodbye. No address.
And those few who dared speak up in their defense found themselves under investigation.
Then came the Aurors. Three of them. In the dead of night.
They burst into the Burrow, where the trio had been hiding after Grimmauld Place was seized.
Wands blazing. No warning. No warrant. They didn’t even pretend it was legal.
Their faces appeared on the same wanted posters Voldemort had used during his reign.... Dark, grainy photos. Wild eyes. “Unstable. Dangerous. Traitors to Wizarding Peace.”
They were kept in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement’s holding cells.
A single, cold room. No food. No light. No answers.
Their wands were snapped in front of them.
Kingsley Shacklebolt visited. No longer a comrade, just a man in power. He urged them to cooperate with the Ministry. To endorse him as Minister. “I can save you,” he said. “But only if you stand with us.”
But it wasn’t about safety.
It was about obedience.
“I won’t go to Azkaban,” Ron whispered in the dark. “Not after what it did to Sirius. I won’t survive.”
None of them would. That was the point.
The Ministry didn’t want them dead.
It wanted them broken.
Silent. Hollow. Tame.
But they would not break.
One night, the Deathly Hallows appeared in their cell.
The Elder Wand, whole again.
The Resurrection Stone, humming with ancient grief.
The Invisibility Cloak, smooth and familiar.
But they were useless.
Their magic was bound by cuffs. Nothing worked.
Even blood magic didn’t make them invisible under the cloak.
The wand sparked and fizzled.
The stone summoned no ghosts.
Still, they kept them.
Ron held the stone. Hermione clutched the wand. And Dorea wrapped herself in the cloak, her father’s legacy.
“It doesn’t work because we can’t access our magic,” Hermione whispered. “Maybe... maybe they’re waiting.”
The next morning, they were to be transferred to Azkaban.
Instead, they were led barefoot, bound, starving through the Ministry’s deepest corridors.
Grey prisoner robes hung off bruised skin. They knew this was their last chance.
A final warning: surrender, or disappear.
Dorea looked at her friends. Hermione’s eyes were hollow. Ron’s lips cracked and bloodied. They looked like she had after a summer with the Dursleys.
The Hallows had always been hers.
She didn’t know why. Only that they changed for her. Responded to her.
Now, they whispered a new path.
They escaped.
Not through blood.
Not through magic.
Not even through luck.
They waited. Timed the guard rotation.
Ran barefoot into the Department of Mysteries.
The Veil of Death loomed ahead, swirling, soft, eternal.
Dorea turned to them. “This is it,” she said. “We either die as ourselves… or live as something less.”
Hermione nodded, silent tears falling. “Together.”
Ron’s voice was cracked. “No Azkaban.”
They held hands.
And stepped into the Veil.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Just white. Just wind. Just silence.
Then...
Pain. Light. Fire.
The Stone flared. The Wand glowed. The Cloak billowed.
The Hallows, united... shimmered. The Veil twisted.
And the three of them, scarred, betrayed, forgotten, were not consumed.
They fell through the worlds.
They awoke on soft grass, beneath an open sky.
The stars above them were unfamiliar.
Ron was the first to sit up, blood trickling from his temple.
Hermione coughed beside him, limbs tangled.
Dorea opened her eyes slowly. Her hand went to her chest.
The Hallows were gone.
All that remained was their prisoner robes, their scars, and the whisper of wind that had carried their names across the Veil.