Release that Witch…
and Wizard?!
Disclaimer: All characters here are at least 18. Hogwarts starts later, so by the time Harry arrives, he’s 19. Cheng Yen (陈嫣) was in her mid-20s before waking up in the 21-year-old body of Garcia Wimbledon. Witches gain their first awakening upon adulthood, at 18 years of age.
Story Starts
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Chapter 6.2 -
The Witch's Cooperation
Association
Nightingale felt weakness threaded through every limb. She kept her eyes shut, assessing.
How long had she been unconscious? Impossible to say. Her wrists were bound behind her, rough rope biting into skin, pulled taut against something vertical—a stake, probably, as tall as she was. Her waist and ankles were similarly secured, body pressed flush against the wood. When she tried to summon the Mist, nothing answered. The familiar tug of magic, that constant companion since her awakening, had gone silent.
She tried again. Reached deeper, the way she had during her worst demonic bites—past exhaustion, past pain, into the place where the Mist always waited. Nothing. Not even a flicker. It wasn't that the Mist was far away or faint. It simply wasn't there. As if someone had cut the thread that connected her to it and cauterised the stump.
Something cold pressed against her sternum. Angular. Crystalline. She could feel its edges through the fabric of her tunic.
'A God's Stone.'
That explained the silence. That explained everything.
Then a finger glided across her back.
"Eeeep!"
Nightingale straightened, spine snapping rigid at the unexpected touch. Every head in the cave turned towards her.
"You've woken," said Cara.
Nightingale didn't turn towards the matriarch. The finger was persistent, tracing patterns between her shoulder blades. She craned her neck left, then right—nothing visible behind her. Nothing at all.
"Ha—" She caught herself before voicing the name, but a firm tap on her back confirmed her suspicion.
'Harry.'
"How do you feel—"
The finger began writing. Letters pressed into her skin through the fabric of her tunic.
D-o n-o-t w-o-r-r-y, the message traced.
"—about the Petrifying Venom?"
Nightingale turned towards Cara, who stood several paces away holding a lit torch. The flame cast dancing shadows across the cave walls, illuminating the assembled witches in flickering orange light. Behind her, the invisible presence—Harry, it had to be Harry—continued writing.
P-l-a-n-n-i-n-g t-o s-e-e h-o-w t-h-i-s g-o-e-s.
"Nightingale, you know I reposed great hopes in you—"
D-o-n-t w-o-r-r-y a-b-o-u-t b-e-i-n-g b-u-r-n-e-d a-l-i-v-e.
Nightingale's gaze snapped downward. Dry kindling and split logs surrounded her feet, arranged in the unmistakable pattern of a pyre. Her eyes darted to the torch in Cara's hand, then to the assembled witches.
Wendy stood near the front, her expression twisted with guilt. Beside her, Tia—beautiful Tia with her golden eyes—looked equally wretched. Leaf had positioned herself at the edge of the gathering, shoulders hunched, unable to meet Nightingale's gaze. Scroll stood nearby, lips pressed thin, one hand gripping Leaf's arm. Echo hovered near the cave entrance, half-turned towards the passage, as if readying herself to bolt. The remaining witches were some confused, others afraid, a few openly angry, most simply resigned.
And then Nightingale understood.
"You used a God's Locket of Retribution on me?" The accusation cut through Cara's monologue. Nightingale looked down at her chest again, then at Cara, where a prismatic crystal hung from a chain around her neck. The same cursed stone the Church used to hunt their kind. "Do you actually know what you're doing? Would you do this to any dissenting voice?"
Their respected mentor had chained her own sister with the exact lock wielded by their persecutors. But what made Nightingale's hands ball into fists against the ropes wasn't just Cara's betrayal—it was the others who stood aside, who showed no hint of dissent, who let this happen.
"How about the rest of you?" Nightingale swept her gaze across the gathering. "You would accept this as just? I wasn't forcing anyone to—"
"And there's the typical noble arrogance—see?" Cara spun towards the other witches, arms spread wide. The torch dimmed for a heartbeat as she waved it, then flared back to life. "This is the voice of privilege speaking. She cannot fathom how we could do this to her. In her mind, we are merely lowly beings who would never dare touch our betters."
Nightingale couldn't see her own face, but she suspected her expression had gone entirely incredulous. Meanwhile, the invisible finger on her back was tracing new letters.
H-a-h-a-h-a. L-e-t t-h-e-m h-a-v-e t-h-e-i-r v-i-l-l-a-i-n s-p-e-e-c-h.
How was Harry staying invisible? If he was touching her, he should be within range of the God's Locket. The stone suppressed all magic in its vicinity—she'd seen it neutralise witches from ten paces away, she'd seen it suppress Harry when they first met within that cell. Yet here he was, writing messages on her back as casually as if they were passing notes in a tavern.
She could feel the God's Stone working. The dead silence where the Mist should have been was proof enough. So the stone was real, and active, and it had shut her magic down completely. But Harry was standing inside its range, invisible, touching her, his concealment holding steady. Either he pretended to be weak then, or he found a way to bypass the stone's effects.
She filed it away. Later. If there was a later.
Another message traced itself across her skin: P-l-a-y a-l-o-n-g.
Nightingale sighed. This was hardly the first time Harry had treated mortal danger as a spectator sport.
Fine. She would play along.
"This is the way to punish unruly children!" Cara's voice had risen into a sermon, every word placed and deliberate, pitched to carry to the back of the chamber and bounce off stone. She turned back to Nightingale. "And Nightingale, you're the one who needs punishment. Or... shall I call you Veronica? A girl who fell from nobility and became a witch, yet still dreams of reclaiming her station."
The old name landed like a slap. Nightingale's jaw tightened.
"I don't understand what you're saying."
"You've disappointed me. I thought you'd stand with us when Wendy saved you from your noble chains. Now look at what you've done." Cara shook her head, sneering. "You mean to gut our foundation when Holy Mountain is within our reach. Take your sisters to a princess? Either you've been chained so long you cannot live without a master to enslave you, or..." She let the pause stretch. "You plan to sell them to the nobles in exchange for restoring your title."
S-h-e-s l-a-y-i-n-g i-t o-n a b-i-t t-h-i-c-k, Harry's finger traced.
Nightingale fought the urge to snort. Between Cara's accusations and Harry's running commentary, keeping a straight face was getting difficult.
"All I've done is for my sisters." She forced her voice level, knowing that curses and shouting would accomplish nothing. "All I want is for them to suffer no more tortures on the Day of Awakening. To live better lives, in warm shelters with enough food. I didn't mean to undermine your plan—they deserve a chance to choose their own path. Many things are changing in Border Town now—"
"I do not know how you managed to weave a tale so unbelievable." Cara cut her off. "Improvements in a backwards mining outpost. A princess who cares for witches. A male witch." She spat the last words like poison. "Do you think us children?"
"If you would just examine what I brought—"
"Silence!" Cara's composure cracked, rage bleeding through. "Stop lying. We've already thrown your items of trickery down one of the deep crevasses. And I've sent witches to deal with your male companion."
Garcia's sealed letter. The cement samples that had taken days to prepare. The wall sketches drawn in Garcia's own hand. All of it—tossed into the same abyss that swallowed sound and light. Weeks of preparation, gone, because Cara couldn't afford to let the evidence speak for itself.
And the witches sent after Harry—
Nightingale couldn't help it. She snorted.
The sound echoed off the cave walls—dismissive, almost pitying. Cara's face darkened.
"You've exhausted my patience." The matriarch brandished her torch threateningly. "I'll give you one last chance. Confess before all sisters of the Witch Cooperation Association that you were deluded by nobles, and I'll spare your life. Your gullibility will be punished with whipping, nothing more." She raised the torch higher, letting the firelight play across the kindling at Nightingale's feet. "Otherwise, you'll burn. Don't waste my final mercy. State your decision."
The cave held its breath. Twenty-odd women stood motionless in the half-dark, their faces lit from below by the pit fires, waiting. Even the ones who hadn't met Nightingale's gaze were watching now.
Nightingale met Cara's gaze and said nothing.
T-h-a-t-s m-y g-i-r-l, traced across her back.
Cara raised the torch and swept it close. Flames licked towards Nightingale's face—and passed over her skin without burning. The sensation was oddly ticklish, like feathers brushing her cheek. She didn't flinch.
Warmth, but not heat. Pressure, but not pain. The fire touched her and found nothing to burn. She could feel it—a barrier between her skin and the flame, thin as gauze but absolute, bending the heat around her the way a river bends around a stone. It wasn't her magic. Hers was dead. This was something draped over her from the outside, placed there by someone else's hand.
He had cast it before she'd woken. While they were tying her to the stake, while they were stacking kindling around her feet, Harry had been standing right there, invisible, and he had let them build their pyre around a woman he'd already fireproofed.
'You absolute—'
The matriarch's brow furrowed. She thrust the torch closer, letting flames engulf Nightingale's shoulder. Still nothing. No screaming, no smell of burning flesh, not so much as singed hair.
"What—"
"Stop it!"
The shout came from the crowd. Wendy pushed forward, positioning herself between Cara and the stake.
"Mentor, please." Wendy's voice cracked. "Look at the bandage bound on your arm—the one Nightingale wrapped after you cut yourself before she left for border town. We've seen so many departures over the years. Too many sisters lost to the demon bite, to the Church, to accidents and illness and despair. You want to add another with your own hands?"
"Why, did she deceive you too?" Cara's lip curled. "Wake up, Wendy. Those stories are lies."
"I don't know if they're lies." Wendy shook her head slowly. "I'm not saying I'll leave for Border Town with her. But I think she's right that we deserve a chance to choose our own lives."
She turned to face the assembled witches, raising her voice.
"Is there anyone who wants to go with her?"
Silence pressed down on the cave. Nightingale watched the faces of her sisters—some avoiding her gaze, others staring at the ground, a few glancing nervously between Cara and Wendy as if calculating which side would prevail.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The fire in the pit crackled. Smoke drifted upward through the cracks.
Then someone stepped forward.
Tia. Beautiful Tia with her golden eyes, daughter of farmers who had sold her to an old nobleman for a handful of coins. Wendy and Nightingale had rescued her before the man could claim his prize—one of Nightingale's first missions after joining the Association.
"I want to go," Tia said quietly.
Cara's face contorted. "Seize her!"
Three witches moved immediately, grabbing Tia's arms. She struggled against their grip, crying out as they wrenched her backwards.
"Stop!" Wendy stepped between them, arms spread. "Do we not have the freedom to choose what we want? Nightingale didn't undermine the Association—she offered an alternative. I won't watch you do the same to Tia for simply wanting to take a chance on what our sister proposed."
The crowd stirred. Whispers rippled through the gathering like wind through grass.
"That's right." A witch near the back spoke up. "If she wants to return to the outside world, let her."
"Too many lives have been taken by the Church and pain already." Another voice, trembling but determined. "Respected Mentor, please reconsider."
"Shut up! All of you!" Cara's rage erupted, her carefully maintained composure shattering. "What if more girls follow her after we let her go unpunished? What if she betrays us—sells our location to the Church? There'll be nowhere to run!"
She didn't wait for an answer. The torch arced towards Nightingale.
Wendy was faster. Air condensed into a solid wall of force and slammed into Cara, sending her tumbling backwards. A second blast scattered the witches holding Tia, who stumbled free and ran towards Wendy.
"Traitor!"
But embers had already scattered. Sparks from the torch rained down into the kindling at Nightingale's feet, and dry wood caught immediately. Flames raced up the pyre, hungry and bright.
The witches watched in horror as fire engulfed the stake.
The flames climbed her boots. Her shins. Her waist. They swallowed her entirely, and the world became orange and roaring and warm—warm the way bathwater was warm, the way sunlight through a window was warm. She could see through the fire, the shapes of the witches beyond it wavering and distorted, and every one of them was staring at her with an expression she had never seen directed at a witch before.
Not hatred. Not disgust.
Awe.
Silence.
More silence.
Then—something tingled.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
Nightingale was laughing. The flames roared around her, tongues of fire licking up her legs and torso, wreathing her in an inferno that should have reduced her to screaming agony—and she was laughing, head thrown back, the sound ringing off the cave walls.
"What—" Cara scrambled to her feet, staring. "How—"
A male voice cut through the crackling flames.
"And now we're even."
Harry Potter appeared directly in front of Nightingale, his back to her, facing the assembled witches. One moment the space was empty; the next, a tall figure in a long black coat stood between her and her would-be executioners, completely untouched by the flames that continued to burn around them both.
"Witches burning witches at the stake." He tilted his head, examining the crowd with bright green eyes that reflected the firelight. "There should be some form of irony in this, don't you think?"
The cave had gone utterly silent. Even the fire seemed to burn more quietly, as if cowed by his presence.
Nobody moved. The witches stared at the tall man standing inside the pyre—coat unblemished, hair unsinged, hands loose at his sides—and for the first time in Nightingale's memory, every single woman in the Witch Cooperation Association was looking at the same thing at the same time.
A male witch.
Standing in the fire.
Smiling.
A giggle escaped his mouth.
"Oops, I forgot that this particular spell was ticklish."
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End
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