Chapter Text
Nothing exists, darkness echoes in the space between his ribs. Everything is fire, crackling flames spreading through his muscles. Bright lights, pain, burning consuming his skin, his soul is torn from his body. He hasn’t felt anything like this since the end of the second war, since the moment he died and was brought back different.
What happened? All he remembers is light and pain, then nothing. He was facing off against the Light Lord, his coven at his side, then magic enveloped them and collapsed into their ends. White limbo, King’s Cross station, four other souls at his side.
His body is too light, there’s no aching pain from the injuries he sustained during the battle. His tongue is heavy in his mouth. His forehead hurts in a way it hasn’t since he first died.
Is he dead? That would make sense, he clearly remembers his heart stopping in his chest before the light transformed into a white King’s Cross.
There’s a new light at his eyelids, warm and familiar. He blinks his eyes open and waits for them to adjust to the fire flickering in front of him. He hums and finds his voice is higher than it should be. He blinks again. Oh, he knows where he is, but that can’t be right, can it? Hogwarts was destroyed years ago, he can't be sitting in the Gryffindor common room, it's not possible.
But here he is, looking into the fire with two familiar people on either side of him. The carpet is just as he remembers it beneath his fingers, soft and coarse.
“We’re alive,” the high, scratchy voice of Ron says on Harry’s right.
It’s a revolutionary thought, one that steals the breath from his chest and sets his magic on edge. Ron’s magic grasps Harry’s, and they feel Hermione’s meeting their tangled mix of emotions. Harry can’t feel them in his soul, and that makes his heart pound harder. What happened to their coven bond? How is it gone?
“How are we here?” Harry asks, eyes still on the fire. His friends grasp his shoulders on either side, grounding themselves against the rush of emotions. “We died.”
Hermione’s sharp intake of breath snaps him out of his daze, and he looks over to meet her eyes.
Oh, shit. She’s so young. Her hair is bushy and untamed, her skin is unscarred, and Harry has a sinking feeling that he knows what happened.
“What year is it?” Ron asks, catching on quickly. They’ve spent years sharing interconnected minds, and even now without the coven bond they’re on the same page. “Can’t be after third year, ‘Mione’s hair is too bad.”
That gets a smile out of them, but the mood drops as quick as it lifted.
With his heart heavy as stone, Harry casts a modified, wandless and wordless tempus, one they perfected during the third war from hiding in goblin tunnels for days on end. Text appears in front of him, flickering with magic as they read it as one.
13 September, 1991, 11:32 p.m.
“I thought we were done with the adventures,” Hermione mutters under her breath, wand already in hand. “Thought death would be the end of it all.”
“There’s never an end,” Ron replies. “Not with Harry around.”
He bumps shoulders with Harry to take the sting out of the words, but guilt gnaws at him anyway.
“It’s because of Death, isn’t it?” Harry asks, monotone. He hates that he brings his friends into every battle, but he’s glad he isn’t alone in this.
“Probably,” Hermione leans against his left shoulder, and Ron does the same on his right side. “Being Master of Death brings some side effects. We should have expected something like this to happen. Our lives have never been normal.”
He feels safe in his friend’s warmth, sleepiness tugging at his limbs, but they can’t rest yet. They have to know what happened.
“When the Light Lord cast his last ritual, our magic expanded,” he concludes. His friends tense at his sides. “It enveloped the circle and forcibly contained everything inside, including us. To kill the Light Lord, we killed ourselves. Death did something to bring us back, but we're back in the wrong time.”
“Is it the wrong time? Or is it another dimension entirely?” Hermione chews on her lip in thought, her mind a million years away, then she sits up straight. “Use your Occlumency shields, check behind the green pulsing block.”
They listen to her without hesitation. It’s saved their lives in the past, this kind of loyalty, and they know she should lead in this situation.
Harry dives into his mind as gently as he can. He pushes past stone tunnels and dodges around the creatures he set to guard his memories. There’s a wall where it’s not supposed to be, it flickers with weak magic. He pushes through it.
Ah, there. His memories of this life, the memories of this eleven year old body he now resides in, full of excitement to be at this school of magic, full of anxiety about being good enough. Now he can tell he's two weeks into his first year at Hogwarts. Everything is the same as what he remembers from that time, so it’s only time travel that deposited them in their younger bodies, not dimension hopping like Hermione proposed.
Ron swallows hard as his eleven year old memories flood his brain, drawing Harry’s attention from his own mind.
“We’re back,” he says, “we’re really back.”
“Why us?” Hermione asks, eyes on Harry’s. “Why did we come back with you, Harry? You're the Master of Death, not us.”
“Could be the coven bond, but it didn’t travel with us, so that doesn’t make sense,” Ron slid away from Harry’s shoulder to sit in front of him, so the three of them made a triangle with their crossed legs, from knee to knee, like they used to do in Hogwarts as kids.
Harry hums, “I must have brought you with me. My magic reached out, and yours grabbed hold. Death must not disapprove since we’re here together. I doubt being its Master gives me that much power over it.”
There’s a moment where Hermione’s magic shudders, intrigued with the idea of time travel even if no one has officially mentioned it yet. Harry loves that about her, her intellect, and he can feel Ron's magic burst with pride at the colors tinging his wife's aura.
“If you brought us back with you,” they exchange glances, all on the same page once more, “who else did you bring? Draco and Andy were with us when the explosion happened, shouldn’t they be here?”
It’s a good point.
“I’ll send a letter to Andy in the morning,” Harry says. “We can see if Draco recognizes us at breakfast. Tomorrow’s Saturday, or at least that’s what young-Harry insists in my memories. That’ll be interesting to get used to.”
Ron snorts, “We’re eleven again.”
Hermione sighs, “And I just got to turn 47. I was looking forward to being middle aged, I thought we'd be in less danger. That’s bullshit, of course, but I had hope.”
“Rose just turned eighteen,” Ron whispers into the solemn quiet. “Hugo threw her a party all on his own. Fleur said it was beautiful.”
Harry’s jaw clenches at the reminder. His own children, James, Albus, and Lily, died years ago. First went James, killed the same day as Teddy for being too ‘dark,’ evidenced by his ability to speak parseltongue. Albus and Lily were killed shortly after, before they got the chance to go into hiding like their parents, killed for the blood they shared with ‘dark’ wizards.
Oh, he misses them so much. Misses James’ mischievous grin when he thought he was hiding something from his parents, misses Albus’ aptitude for books, misses Lily’s pout when her brothers got to do something she didn’t.
Ron and Hermione’s magic circle Harry’s in comfort. They've all lost those they loved.
“We won’t let it happen again,” Hermione declares. Her eyes hold the same spark that Harry’s seen so many times in the thick of battle, bloodied hand commanding her wand with a ferocity eleven-year-old Harry could never imagine.
“We’ll fix it all,” Ron agrees. Their magic settles comfortably with the rush of determination. “But we need a plan.”
“First matter of business,” Hermione summons parchment and quills to sit in the middle of their triangle. “Find and destroy the horcruxes before Riddle leaves Quirrel’s body. We can easily get the diadem, but I don’t think Kreacher will see you as his master yet, Harry, so the locket will have to wait. If Draco remembers all of it, he can get the diary, but if not we can sneak in through the wards. Harry, you should get the ring as soon as you can. That just leaves the piece in your scar and the cup in Gringotts. I’ll write to the bank and see if I can get it under the guise of tax fraud or something like that. Goblins hate soul magic more than they hate communing with wizards.”
“Destroying the horcruxes means nothing if Riddle gets the Philosopher’s Stone,” Ron reminds them darkly. “We can get the stone easily, but he has to believe it’s still there or he’ll move on and we lose our chance.”
“Can we get it easily? Theoretically we’re still eleven. Our cores might not remember how to warp Hogwarts’ wards like the house elves do.” Harry can’t help but be doubtful, ready for anything and everything to go wrong like it always does.
Hermione hums, “Well, our Occlumency barriers are still up, and our magical awareness is similar to what it was during the third war, so I doubt we’ll have much trouble with our cores other than a few overpowered spells. Your tempus was easily held, even though an eleven year old magical core wouldn’t have the power or concentration for it.”
“So, theoretically,” Ron sums up, “we’re still at the same power level we had when we died, but our physical bodies are weaker than they’ve ever been.”
“Yes,” Hermione smiles at him, and Harry feels their magic pulse with love. “I suggest daily training until our bodies are back up to speed with dueling. We cannot slack just because we believe we know everything that will go wrong. Our future knowledge will change the more we change.”
Harry swallows hard, a thought coming to him, “They’re all alive. All of the ones we lost in the wars, Sirius, Fred, Minerva, Colin, Alastor, even Snape.”
The fire flickers with his magic.
“I won’t let them die again,” Harry meets his friends’ eyes, seeing the same conviction in each of them. “We won’t let them die again.”
He knows he’ll see most of them tomorrow, and he thanks his years of loss and the strength of his occlumency for the control he now has over his grief. He doesn’t want to break down crying when he sees Dumblefore at breakfast, that would be way too out of the ordinary.
“We have to act normal,” Ron says, following Harry’s line of thought. “Nobody can suspect anything’s wrong, especially not Dumbledore. I know we have conflicting feelings for him, but we can't trust him with this. He wants the Greater Good, and he’ll do anything he can to push for it, including abusing our future knowledge and sacrificing us.”
It hurts, but Harry knows it’s true. He nods.
“In the morning,” he says, “I’ll send Andy a letter, implying I heard about Sirius and wanted to get to know his family. If she’s here, she’ll understand the meaning. Then I’ll find the best time to get the ring. I can’t be seen to be absent or people will worry. ‘Mione, when you write to the goblins, could you schedule a heritage test for me? The sooner I become the Black Heir the faster we can get the locket.”
She nods, “I'll write to Gringotts both for the cup and the locket. I’ll also draft a letter to the Flamels, informing them about the lack of security around their stone. I don’t want them to take it away, so I’ll wait on sending it, but meeting them this time will only be good for our connections. Are you both okay with me outlining the year from our memories? I don’t want to miss anything important.”
The boys agree.
Ron squints into the fire, his mind running through different strategies.
“If we plan things right, we can publicly confront Quirrell by Samhain. Public would be best so the Ministry can’t deny Riddle’s resurrection and final death, and we want to take care of him before break. I’ll see if Amelia Bones can help us get Sirius out of Azkaban, if anyone can do it it’s her. Shame she died so early last time.”
The dark humor gets a brittle laugh out of Harry.
“What about the rat?” Harry sneers at the thought of Pettigrew.
“I can take care of him,” Ron offers. “A Draught of Living Death and a cage warded for his animagus form should contain him until we can deal with him properly.”
Harry hums his agreement.
Ron continues, “If Draco isn’t himself, I’ll get the diary from Malfoy Manor. I think it would be best if in the meantime we collect connections from each Hogwarts house, you never know when we'll need them.”
“Neville,” Harry brings up. “We won’t let him deteriorate this time. He’s ours, and we'll protect him even if he doesn’t remember us. Same with Ginny and Luna.”
Hermione and Ron share a look then meet Harry’s eyes. He sighs. He knows what they want to ask, so he answers before they can.
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Ginny’s too young this time around, it wouldn’t be right. And you both know our marriage was more for convenience than anything else. We loved each other, but we weren’t soulmates in the way you two are, y’know?”
Hermione smiles softly and clasps his hand with her own, “We understand, don’t worry, Harry. War ties people together but also tears them apart.”
“Yeah, mate,” Ron mirrors Hermione, “it’s up to you.”
Harry swallows hard. He isn’t sure why that impacts him so heavily, but it hits him hard in the chest.
“Love you guys,” he says, emotion thick in his voice.
They respond in kind.
“We should get to bed,” Hermione says. Her eyes are bright with ideas and plans, and he knows she’ll have something worked out by morning. They’ll be okay. “Busy day tomorrow.”
They stand as one and hug each other tight. Harry’s hand buries itself into Hermione’s bushy hair, and his fingers tangle with Ron’s as they hold each other. They’re so warm, so real, so alive. He loves them more than life itself.
Ron and Harry retreat to their first-year dorm, taking solace in the sounds of their roommates snoring. They share a look as they take their own beds. It'll be odd not to share a bed with his coven, but that's just one more thing he has to get used to.
They’re really back. He’ll probably freak out about it all in the morning when his thoughts aren’t full of white light and blistering pain, but for now, he and Ron look at each other and grin. His body isn’t full of war scars, just scars from his relatives. His soon-to-be family is alive, and they will stay that way if it’s the last thing Harry does.
He misses his coven bonds as he tries to slip into sleep. The six different sources of magic that connected so fully to his own helped him sleep while he was in hiding from the Light Lord, and he wishes he can have that now, but the bonds have yet to be forged in this time.
Sleep comes to him at last. It’s full of smiling redheads and screaming centaurs, cackling wixen and Ginny’s slack face as she bleeds out in Azkaban just for her connection to him.
Thankfully, Harry rises with the sun.
War makes you numb to most things, which is probably the only reason Harry hasn't gone mad by now, but anxiety and paranoia still prickle at his skin as he gets ready for the day with Ron at his side. It’s setting in now, the insanity of their situation. Ron holds his hand as they walk down to the common room, fingers tightly laced together to the point of pain.
Hermione meets them there and takes her place on Harry’s other side, clasping his hand as well.
Without the coven bond, it’s hard to tell what they’re thinking, but they’ve known each other long enough to understand each other without a mental connection. They’re worried. They’ve stopped two separate wars in the span of 35 years, and the trauma gets to them even when they’re together.
He squeezes their hands before he lets go. The three of them pass through the large doors leading to the Great Hall, and the sheer amount of magic in the large room makes the breath leave his lungs.
“Missed this,” Ron whispers behind him. Harry hums his agreement.
As they stand there, taking it all in, familiar footsteps approach them, and Harry’s magic lashes out in excitement. It takes all his willpower to keep the grin from his face. He gestures for Hermione and Ron to retreat to the Gryffindor table, and they don’t protest. They understand what’s about to happen.
He turns and meets Draco’s eyes, and their hearts beat in tandem.
They cannot approach each other this early in the school year, they aren’t yet good friends. It would be odd for Dumbledore and Snape at the high table to see them interact as anything but enemies.
Instead, Draco puts on his best sneer and pushes past Harry as he goes to sit at his own table. Harry feels the physical connection open into Draco’s mind. He was always better at Legilimency, while the three Gryffindors were best at Occlumency.
Harry sits at his own table, between Ron and Hermione, and the mental link stays open. He takes his friends’ hands under the table to let them into the link.
“Time travel,” Draco drawls into their minds. His body is eating breakfast with a rigid posture that displays his assumed superiority, but his mind is a rolling mass of confusion and pain. “How did this happen?”
“We don’t know for sure,” Hermione responds as her body sorts through her bookbag. Ron and Harry eat ravenously to avoid suspicion; it doesn’t help that Harry’s body is severely malnourished from his time at the Dursleys. “Probably Harry’s connection with Death, but I have a few different theories.”
“Alright.”
Draco makes polite conversation with the Slytherins at his table, focused especially on Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott. Those two died after the second war, as Wizarding Britain brutally rejected anyone with ties to dark magic. They weren’t bad people the first time around, and Draco missed them terribly after they died. They were his first friends at Hogwarts.
“Can you get the diary from your home within the next week?” Harry asks through the link as he chews on some crispy bacon.
“Of course,” Draco’s voice is serious. “Meet in the Room of Requirement after lunch? I have a feeling we’ll be busy until then. I want to send my parents some letters, nothing too important, but I need to know they’re okay.”
“I’m gonna do the same with my family and Luna,” Ron says. “Luna might have had a vision about this, so I’ll see what she knows.”
“I’m writing to Andy while Hermione writes to the goblins, so we’ll see if Andromeda is here with us as well as retrieve the cup from Bellatrix’s vault without making an enemy out of the goblins.” Harry leans back from his food and adjusts his wand in his hand. He’ll need to transfigure a holster for himself soon.
Draco’s voice comes through as he listens to Blaise talk, “I assume we all have our missions to retrieve the horcruxes. Am I only getting the diary? I could fetch the diadem from the Room before we meet.”
“That sounds good,” Hermione sips from her goblet of pumpkin juice. “If we all agree, I’d like to find a time for a coven ritual within the next week. I don’t like being this vulnerable with Riddle still on the loose.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Draco leaves the Great Hall with Crabbe and Goyle at his heels, and the connection breaks.
Harry leads Ron and Hermione out shortly after. They split to go their separate ways. They have letters to write and Gryffindors to befriend, and a limited time to do both.
Harry’s letter to Andy is short but to the point. He walks up to the owlery and almost breaks into tears at the sight of Hedwig. Her perfect white feathers are soft as he strokes them, and she seems relieved to have something to deliver, anything to get away from the emotional human. He laughs as she leaves.
Neville is in the common room when Harry returns. Oh, Neville.
Harry marches up to him with gentle intent, then thrusts out his hand, “Neville, right? I’m Harry. I heard you’re my godbrother.”
It’s best to jump right into it, Harry’s found over the years.
Neville startles so badly he drops his book on deadly plants. His wide eyes look up at Harry as his mind processes what he said.
“Oh,” Neville hesitantly shakes his hand. “H-hi, nice to meet you.”
The stutter fills Harry with warmth, but he hates how shy his friend is after years of emotional abuse from the Longbottoms. Hopefully Harry can fix that this time around.
Harry asks about the book Neville was reading, making the boy blush and start on a stammering rant about the finicky nature of carnivorous plants. He listens with a soft smile the whole time, love heavy in his heart. Even as Neville apologizes for talking too much and ducks his head to avoid eye contact, Harry keeps his soft smile and gently asks for more.
Ron joins them after an hour of conversation, and Neville reverts back to a blushing, stammering mess. But Ron doesn’t make fun of him or his interests, and Neville slowly finds his confidence once again. It’s a blessing to watch. The first time around, Harry was too involved in trying to keep up with his peers and stay alive, he didn’t get to make friends like this. By the time he really got to know Neville, they had killed the Dark Lord.
Things will be different this time around.
Lunch comes with a bright-eyed Hermione to drag them to the Great Hall. She invites Neville too, but he declines; he says he has to get a start on the Herbology reading. Harry knows it’ll take longer than just one conversation to draw him in fully, so he leaves it be.
“Letters all sent?” Draco’s voice asks as he meets Harry’s gaze across the hall, though his lips don’t move. Hermione and Ron grab Harry’s shoulders to enter into the connection as well. They send an affirmation to him. “Good. The diadem is in the Room’s training configuration. I’ve made plans to retrieve the diary tonight, but I have to wait until Father leaves for dinner. Mother is out of town, shopping with Ms. Zabini.”
“I’ll have the ring by tomorrow,” Harry offers. “If I go tomorrow morning while Ron distracts Neville, Seamus, and Dean, nobody will know I’m gone. Once the goblins get back to us, I’ll get the locket.”
“I expect the goblins will reply by tomorrow night,” Hermione hums, mind churning with thoughts. “They won’t let a human store something without registering what it truly is, and I bet Bellatrix never told them it was technically a living being, which has a higher price for the bank.”
“Bones will probably get back to us this week,” Ron says. “She’s gonna want to check for trial notes and evidence, but she’ll reach out when she finds there were none. In the meantime, I’m going to check the library for switching magic to see if they have a way to get Harry’s horcrux out of his scar and into an item.”
“And that’s all of them,” Harry breathes out. All this planning is more Ron and Hermione’s styles, it takes a toll on his mind.
Worry and warmth push through the bond from Draco, and Ron and Hermione tighten their grips on Harry’s arms.
“We’ll figure it out,” Draco assures.
“Then we can cruise through our classes and eat everything we want with no danger in sight,” Ron mentally chuckles. “Think about it, Harry, no Dark Lord out to kill you, no magical divide that will push a Light Lord to get rid of all dark magic and creatures. We’ll be free. Everything else is not our problem.”
Harry smiles. It’s a nice thought, though he knows it won’t work out that way, it never works out that way when he’s involved.
“We could finally hike Everest.” Harry leans into his friends’ warmth. “Ginny always wanted to learn how to ride a horse, we almost got Albus onto one when he was little.”
Draco smiles sadly, “Astoria will get to marry who she wants. I’ll miss Scorpius, but she should have the right to choose. It’ll be nice to get to know Theo better this time around, last time he was pressured by his father to conform, but all he cares about is reading. He couldn’t give a shit about being a death eater.”
“I look forward to meeting him,” Hermione says, grinning clearly. “I’ll finally have another book-reader around here. We just need to help the houses mix once they realize there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Give me a week,” Draco promises, “then Harry and I will make a public alliance. It won’t mix the houses outright, but we can start a friendship from there and branch out. The house divide only creates bigotry and prejudice, it’ll be easier if we get rid of it early.”
They finish their lunches and leave one at a time to make their way to the Room of Requirement. They can’t yet be seen together, so they try for subtlety. Subtlety comes in handy when you’re at war, so they’ve gotten pretty good at it. It’s hard not to when you’re hiding for your life. Harry is the last to enter. The Room is set up in its training configuration, the one they used to duel and bulk up after the second war before they started families, when the memories were still fresh.
The diadem is sitting on a pedestal near the door, surrounded by glass that blocks its dark luring tendrils of magic.
He ignores it and heads right for Draco. They hold each other, forehead to forehead, arms clasped. They breathe together, in and out. It’s been so long since they last truly saw each other, since before the final battle against the Light Lord. They take a moment to just hold each other, then Draco pulls back.
He cocks a dull smirk, “Nice to see you again, Potter.”
“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry snickers and pushes at his shoulder. His gaze fixes on the diadem. “We’re really doing this, then?”
“No other way around it,” Ron says.
“Alright then,” Harry’s face falls seriously. “Here we go again.”
They spar, the four of them, the only ones remaining from the third war. They take their time getting used to their old wands and small bodies. Their magical cores are the same as when they were older, but their muscles are clearly lacking.
Time passes, and they know they have to be careful spending time together, but they can’t help but bask in each others’ presence. Their magic mixes happily. They miss their coven bond, the magic that held them together in times of crisis.
Harry leaves the Room an hour before dinner. He leaves his friends with tight hugs where foreheads pressed together.
The Black Lake calls to him as he walks through the castle. He doesn’t disguise or disappear himself when he exits the school, though he considers it carefully. The twins still have the Marauders’ Map. It would be too big of a risk to go invisible while they could figure it out; Elf Magic only goes so far.
He remembers learning from the elves, the last ones in London after the Light Lord declared them dark creatures and had them ‘removed.’ Those few house elves taught his coven everything they needed to know about neutral magic, the magic that relies on not being found. That’s how they get through wards, like the ones at Malfoy Manor and Hogwarts. No one ever thinks to ward against elf magic, not even a genocidal Light Lord.
He sits at the edge of the lake, far enough that nothing can drag him below the water yet close enough to feel sand between his fingers.
The water ripples before him. It’s calming.
The hardest lesson he had to learn was balance. People die, and people live. Magic is everything and nothing, it has a spectrum of differences and similarities. There’s dark, light, and gray, and there’s nothing wrong with any of them until they rise alone to leave the others behind. That’s why Riddle and the Light Lord could never succeed. Life needs balance.
His coven needs balance. Draco is the dark while Neville is the light. They need Neville, but until then they have Ron, light enough to balance the rest of the dark magic of the seven. Ginny and Luna are light, but they won’t join for years to come. Harry needs to adjust to compensate.
Draco holds the dark, while Ron holds the light. Hermione and Harry drift in the middle. Harry is usually the gray of their coven, but now he is light gray while Hermione is dark gray. Balance, always balance.
Oh, Ginny. He misses his wife so badly, but this version of her will never be her. He has to adjust to being eleven again. He can’t reminisce on his children or his wife, not until Riddle is defeated and his family are guaranteed long lives.
Draco should be at Malfoy Manor by now, apparated through both Hogwarts and the Manor’s wards with his own version of house elf magic. The diary should be easy to find with all the dark desire radiating from it. He’ll get it without any problems and return to the Room before dinner. Everything will be okay. In the morning Harry will get the ring, and with it, the stone. Death will be happy with one of its Hallows in its Master’s hands, he knows this instinctively. He hums, he could take the wand and the cloak from Dumbledore now, if he wants, but he’ll wait until Ron and Hermione tell him he can. They know better than him.
Dinner passes with a victorious Draco and a solemn mood between the three Gryffindors.
It takes everything in Harry not to burst into tears at the sight of the twins at the dining table, and he knows Ron feels the same. They hold each others’ hands and squeeze until their fingers are numb. Hermione directs them back to the dorms in silence.
They go to bed alone, and Harry wishes once again for the coven bond that helped so much.
He dreams of blood and tears, a live feed of the death of Teddy and James, the stubborn look in his son’s eyes before he’s cut down for being a parselmouth. He dreams of screaming, of Alastor being struck with so many killing curses that his magic is unrecognizable even to his own coven.
He’s thankful when he wakes. The sun hasn’t yet risen. He has an hour at the most, and he’ll use it well.
He transfigures his pajamas into a dark cloak. It wouldn’t do to be seen for what he's about to do. His wand is tucked into a temporary wand holder made from his pillow case, and he shoves his feet into polished boots, switched with his own and taken from Draco’s dorm.
He’s ready.
With a deep breath, he focuses his magic until he’s taken away from his bed and blinks his eyes open to see the outside of Little Hangleton. The Gaunt Shack stands before him, run down and filthy.
To get to the horcrux, Harry moves through the house, hissing in parseltongue all the while. The spells decorating the house’s walls are easy to disarm with the power he’s collected through his 46 years of life, and he finds the loose floorboards without much difficulty.
The curse on the ring is there, the same one that took Dumbledore’s life. Harry conjures a snake to slither through the ring and take the curse in his stead. All that’s left is the horcrux’s dark energy and the Hallow’s pull to be used.
The ring in hand and the sun rising above the horizon, Harry materializes in the Room of Requirement. Its natural magic senses the horcrux and offers a podium trapped in glass for him to house it in. The glass seals, and the dark magic ceases to pull on its surroundings.
There, all done. Now to focus on his Sunday. After all, he has school tomorrow.
Breakfast comes with a shared smile to Draco. Neville sits closer to the three Gryffindors than he has before, which is progress. Ron is acting out of his normal routine by reading a book about summoning magic as they eat, but only the twins look at all suspicious.
The owls swoop down from the windows to deliver letters and packages, and Harry perks up. Hedwig has a letter from Andromeda for him. Harry sees Draco get a letter, probably from his parents, and Hermione has a thick parchment with the Gringotts’ wax seal dropped on her plate from a mellow barn owl.
He opens his own letter with caution. If Andy doesn’t remember, they have one less potential ally, not to mention one less sister in war.
Harry, it says, and a rush goes through him at the familiarity in her writing, good to know I’m not going crazy. When I woke up to my Edward’s concerned face I thought this was the worst kind of Heaven. Nymphadora’s alive, Harry, so is Lupin. Oh, Merlin, Cissy’s alive! Send me your Stag when you can, we need to set up a way for easy communication…
I assume you’re going to do something risky, and I want to help, really, I do, but I can’t risk my family by diving headfirst into it like I did with the final battle…
Please, tell me we killed the Light Lord. If this is a parallel dimension, I can only hope we left that world better than we found it. How are you all? I can’t imagine it is easy to see your families. Oh, Harry, please let me know if I can do anything for you all. I’ll be writing to Cissy and Minnie to see if I can subtly draw them in, I need some connection to the years I lived with them…
It goes on like that, each paragraph expanded into at least a page of thoughts. Harry’s magic whirls around him, sweeping up against other papers at the table, drawing attention, before his remaining coven’s magic meets his own and holds it close.
“She’s here,” he breathes through the link of magic. He feels his friends breathe a collective sigh of relief. “She remembers.”
People are glancing towards them, towards the palpable collection of magic surrounding the Golden Trio (oh, how they hate that name), and Harry senses more than sees the professors at the head table shuffling with curiosity and concern. Dumbledore must be wondering who would send Harry a letter. That makes him chuckle. After all the work the headmaster did to make sure Harry grew up alone and afraid, malleable, now he’s a part of a whole, stubborn and steadfast.
He looks to Hermione’s parchment to see her rifling through it.
“What’s the word, ‘Mione?” Harry asks through the link.
“They want to see proof immediately,” she says, caught up in the passage she’s reading. “You and I can head over after breakfast to show them the one in your scar. Kill two birds with one stone, see if they can get yours out while retrieving Helga’s cup with the promise to return it unharmed.”
“And the inheritance test?” Ron pushes some pieces of bacon onto Harry’s plate thoughtlessly. His mothering nature was always extreme after a summer with the Dursleys, it seems he’s reverted back to it.
“They’ll do it then, for a fee, of course.”
Draco hums mentally as he physically nods at something Blaise says at the Slytherin table, “That takes care of the last two, not counting Harry’s scar. I’ll work on gathering allies while you’re gone. Slytherins are always good to have favors from at a moment's notice.”
“I’ll take Neville, we have an Herbology project anyway,” Ron says. “And… I guess I can get the map from George and Fred’s dorm.”
Harry stops eating to look at his friend. He smiles gently and grips his hand. He knows how hard it must be for him, after all, he doesn’t know what he’ll do when he finally sees Ginny again.
“We’re here for you, Ron,” he assures.
Draco and Hermione send similar assurance over the bond.
Breakfast ends, and Hermione walks Harry to the Room so they can disappear from Hogwarts. One blink, they’re staring at three caged horcruxes, the next, they’re in Gringotts’ main hall.
He takes a moment to pull up the memories of goblin culture he learned after the second war. It’s not a lot, mainly due to their ability to hold grudges from the second war, but the third war made many unwilling groups work with each other to survive.
Hermione squares her shoulders and walks up to the nearest bank teller, arm linked with Harry’s. She converses with the goblin quietly.
They are directed to a side passage, and they follow a guide down many winding halls until they step into a familiar office. Harry didn’t realize until now how much he missed Griphook, the bloodthirsty goblin that ultimately betrayed them with his distrust in wizardkind.
“Warrior Griphook,” Hermione says formally, giving him a deep nod. If he’s shocked, he doesn't show it. “We thank you for giving us the opportunity to hear the truth, as we are only wixen.”
Goblins have a culture of honor and truth. They value those things over everything else, even over their hatred of so-called ‘lesser beings’ than themselves. Though, they consider them ‘lesser beings’ due to a lack of honor, so maybe that makes sense.
Griphook nods shallowly, and Harry nods back.
“You are here to prove the witch Bellatrix Lestrange, née Black, lied to Gringotts Bank and by association the Goblin Nation about the nature of an item.” His voice is gravelly, and it feels good to fall back into this way of formality. Harry missed it. “How will you prove this claim?”
“We ask for a soul-specialist to look over Harry Potter’s cursed scar.” Hermione gestures to his forehead. “This will reveal evidence pointing to the existence of Tom Riddle’s horcruxes. Beyond that, we point out the fact that two other Founders’ Items have been mutilated by similar dark magic.”
Griphook hums low, “It will be so.”
Harry relaxes from his tense posture. Good. If that didn’t go well, if their hatred for wizardkind overwhelmed their small amount of generosity, they would have no evidence until Harry summoned the locket from Kreacher.
Another goblin comes in. Griphook greets her with a nod and a short, “Seer Gornuk.”
She squints toward Harry’s general direction and hums under her breath. He imagines she sees his magical core along with the dark heartbeat of Riddle’s horcrux in his head. He tries not to fidget at the appraisal.
“I see,” she mutters through sharpened teeth. “The witch tells the truth. Warrior Griphook, negotiate a contract for Helga Hufflepuff’s cup. The Goblin Nation deals in definites. We will not allow our work to be stolen from us, even by a death-cursed Warrior such as what Harry Potter is.”
Harry straightens almost painfully. He has just been designated a Warrior, a high honor for any species other than the goblins. He bows his head low in reverence to Seer Gornuk. He will respect her decision, even as doubts run through his mind.
Griphook observes Harry with fresh eyes. “It will be done.”
The Seer leaves, and Griphook waves his hand to summon an already-written contract. Hermione takes this time to read it over, but Harry clacks his dull teeth to call for Griphook’s attention.
“Warrior Griphook, I believe you and my friend previously discussed the possibility of an inheritance test. I would like to go through this process now, if you are agreeable.”
It’s been years since he had to fall back onto these kinds of formalities, so he hopes he isn’t as rusty as he thinks he is.
“It shall be done, Warrior Harry.” Last names are not an idea in goblin culture. Griphook summons a potion from a nearby drawer along with a large, blank parchment. “You will add your blood to this vial.”
Harry does it without question. Despite him having Warrior status, Griphook is a goblin and will always rank higher in his own society than Harry does. He slices his palm with the tip of his wand, a subtle slicing charm. His red blood drains into the murky brown potion. He heals the wound with a nonverbal healing spell.
“Observe the parchment,” Griphook demands. He pours the potion onto the paper, and they all watch as Harry’s family tree extends from the mark of his own name.
To the side of the branching lines, his titles are listed.
Lord Potter - by Blood
Heir Black - by Blood and Magic
Lord Peverell - by Blood and Magic
Heir Slytherin - by Magic and Conquest
Goblin Warrior Wizard Harry - by Magic and Honor
Master of Death and Time - by Godly Right
Griphook’s claws tighten around the edges of the parchment and for a moment Harry thinks the goblin will tear it in half, but then the grip relaxes, and Griphook raises his gaze to meet Harry’s own. They stare at each other for a moment. Harry's pulse picks up, and he drops his wand into his hand with a subtle flick of his wrist.
“Hm,” Hermione, used to diffusing such tension, glances over the list then turns back to the contract. “I wonder what mine would say. I’ll have to get Ron and Draco over here one day soon to check.”
“Warrior Griphook,” Harry says, voice threatening, and squares his shoulders, “I expect you will not share this information. I will pay double the fee for the potion if you observe this wish.”
The goblin seems to be considering his request. “It shall be done.”
“Good.” Harry relaxes and turns to watch Hermione sign the bottom of the contract with the proffered blood quill. Goblins do not lie or stretch the truth. Their secrets will be safe with Griphook.
As the blood red signature shimmers with sealing magic, Helga’s cup appears on the table in its place.
“We have two months to expel the horcrux from the cup,” Hermione says, tucking the cup into a quickly transfigured bag. “That should be more than enough time.”
“The Goblin Nation wishes not to see your presence for the better part of the near future,” Griphook snarls in his own goblin-grin. There’s a twinkle in his eyes at the amount of gold he just obtained from the Potter vaults.
“Likewise,” Harry says.
He grabs Hermione’s shoulder and grabs hold of his magic, turning like with apparition until they stand in the Room of Requirement. Technically, he doesn't need to twist in that way, but he's used to it. The house elf way of snapping is similar, pinching the space around them into folds that their neutral magic can step through.
The Room seals the cup in a new pedestal, encased in dampening glass.
Before they do anything else, Harry commands roughly, “Kreature!”
There’s a pop, and the ragged house elf appears with a scowl. He looks curious about who dares to call him, but Harry doesn’t let him get far enough to ask.
“I know of your Master Regulus’ quest to destroy the necklace,” he says. Kreacher’s eyes go wide in something like fear and awe. “I will finish this quest. Give me the locket, and I will make sure you see its destruction with your own eyes.”
He watches as the elf’s magic crackles violently with emotion. He lets Kreacher come to his own decision, even as he knows the elf has no choice with Harry being his legal master. He makes a note to improve that later in life. Slowly, Kreacher removes the locket from his neck. His hands shake as he dangles it in the air. The Room hovers it into another glass case on a low pedestal, and tears come to the house elf’s eyes.
“Kreacher will have young Master Harry swear,” he grits out.
Harry smiles softly, “I swear on it.”
The elf disappears with a harsh pop.
“Only one left, now,” Hermione says into the silence. “Then we confront Riddle, and he won’t ever be our problem again.”
“Unless we come back again,” Harry grins. Hermione elbows him at the dark humor.
They leave the Room of Requirement an hour after they've entered and go to find Ron and Neville. The alliances in other houses will have to wait until Harry and Draco have a public acknowledgment, but that doesn’t mean they can’t bond with the other Gryffindors in the meanwhile.
Harry’s heart warms as Neville’s face lights up at the sight of them. Maybe this will all work out, he muses to himself.
Lunch comes and goes. Harry exists in his little, eleven-year-old, gryffindor bubble, and he’s happy. He can almost forget about the wars and the dying, the blood and the screams, the Dark Lord and subsequent Light Lord. They laugh at the pranks George and Fred set upon some seventh year Ravenclaws, and Hermione holds Ron’s hand tight to stop the tears.
Dinner is a raucous affair at the Gryffindor table, as it always is. Harry catches Draco’s eye across the Great Hall, and they share a content stream of emotion between them. Draco’s parents have been writing, the boy says, and they’ll follow him wherever he goes.
Nightmares overwhelm him when he sleeps that night. Harry misses their coven bond more than ever.
He rises with the sun.
Today is Monday, their first day of school since they've come back to this time. They share weary glances at breakfast, but they don’t let their peers see them shake. Harry puts on his boisterous act and Draco equips his best sneer. Hermione sticks her nose in a book while Ron daydreams. They’re ready.
Their first class of the day is Defense, and Harry is dreading it. He remembers how much his scar hurt the first time around. If not for Ron and Hermione, he probably would’ve skipped the class, appearances be damned.
But no, Harry walks to the classroom with his friends on either side of him. He doesn’t back out at the last second, mainly due to Hermione’s insistent grip on his elbow.
He’s faced down Dark Lords and Light Lords alike, but the memories from his childhood are still tinged in an extreme sort of intensity. If they happened later in life, he would probably be over them by now, but all he remembers is his childhood fear, that absolutely bone-chilling terror, that he faced as only a child.
The room smells so strongly of garlic and other various herbs that Harry recedes into his mind so he won’t throw up. His Occlumency shields are stronger than ever, and thankfully they help him ignore the nauseating stimulation. Quirrell glances up as they enter, eyes locked on Harry. It sends a shiver down his spine, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he puts on his best smile and settles into his seat to act like a typical eleven year old for the next two hours.
He watches as Quirrell stutters through what he will teach them today. There’s something different now, something that wasn’t in his original memories. He can feel the dark aura coming from the professor’s turban, the same dark magic that comes from his scar. He wonders how he didn’t notice it his first time around, then berates himself silently. Of course he didn’t feel it, he had no reason to. Harry’s ability to see magic really only started with his lessons with the remaining house elves. Elves are empaths. They capitalize on neutral forms of magic to move around and affect their surroundings, and the first thing they taught him was how to observe the magical world from a distance in the way they do. He quickly learned how to see and feel magical auras, thanks to the little empaths before they were killed.
Quirrell’s magical signature is warped beyond all recognition. The sickly tone to its color makes Harry dizzy, and he has to look away every few minutes. Ron and Hermione aren’t faring much better behind him. He grits his teeth and breathes slowly until his Occlumency kicks in to put him into a slightly meditative state.
Class ends, and Quirrell’s beady eyes follow Harry out of the room. His scar flashes with a hot, searing pain.
“I did not miss that bastard,” Ron mutters under his breath. His arm is linked with Harry’s in an uncharacteristic display of affection for his eleven-year-old self, but Harry can’t bring himself to call him on it. He appreciates the comfort more than he can say.
“Me neither,” Harry says.
He smiles as Hermione pretends she doesn’t hear them complaining. She leads them through the halls, and Harry lets his mind reboot after those long two hours of hiding in his mind. The feeling in his limbs comes back to him by the time they’ve reached Transfiguration.
He grins as he senses Hermione’s magic buzz excitedly around his and Ron’s own. He missed the way she brightened when she was in Minerva’s presence before the woman died. The smirk on Ron’s face tells him she’ll be mercilessly teased on her little crush later.
They take their seats near the front, Ron and Neville beside Harry and Hermione.
Minerva is sitting at her desk with a stern look on her face. It softens as she glimpses Hermione’s excited beam, and some amusement enters her eyes, something that Harry can see only because of their many years spent together. Harry takes her in while he pulls out his textbook. The last time he saw her she was thirty years older and covered in cursed vines, slowly bleeding to death. He pushes the sorrow to the back of his mind.
Class starts, and McGonagall passes out matches for each table. Oh, that’s right. Harry remembers the first month of Transfiguration was learning theory and doing basic transformations until they could do it in their sleep. He looks down at his match and wonders how much skill he should show for a first year on his third week of class.
He follows Hermione’s lead and transfigures the match into a crude approximation of a needle. McGonagall’s lecture flows past his ears as she stalks around the class. Her movements are feline in their grace, which almost makes Harry chuckle. If he looks close enough, he can see the form of her cat animals form highlighted in her magic, walking just behind her.
His match is now made of hard metal and sharp at the point, but he’s purposely messed up by not including the hole on the other end. Hermione might be able to get away with a perfect transformation, but Harry doesn’t think eleven-year-old Harry was that good yet.
McGonagall stops at their table to peer at their work, and her lips twitch in a repressed smile. There’s surprise in her eyes at Harry’s needle, and he puts on his most sheepish grin.
“Five points to Gryffindor for your transfigurations, Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger,” she says in that clipped tone of hers. “Wonderfully done for students who have grown up in the muggle world. I hope to see this level of work continue in the future.”
Harry beams at her. He’d forgotten how good it felt to receive her praise, as she so rarely handed it out. Hermione looks like she’s going to cry nostalgic tears beside him, so he elbows her, and they share a grin as the professor goes to look at Ron’s crude needle and Neville’s hybrid match-needle.
It’s odd to know Minerva so well from a future they’ve already lived through yet appreciate her at the same time from a child’s point of view. It might be their younger memories that fill their chests with butterflies, or it might just be seeing the woman alive again without the weight of war on her shoulders. Either way, they take this time to adjust to their new reality, Minerva's appearance a cold splash of water to their faces.
Oh, he would pay to be there when Andy sees Minerva again, alive for the second time. He knows the pain of losing a coven, he lost Ginny, Luna, and Neville before the final battle with the Light Lord. Andy lost her sister Narcissa, Alastor Moody, Xenophilius Lovegood, Filius Flitwick, Minerva, and Poppy Pomfrey. She lost her whole coven. That pain must be unimaginable.
Hermione’s elbow jabs into his ribs as his magic reaches towards Minerva’s, and he quickly reins it in before the woman can notice.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “It’s going to be a long day.”
“I know.” Hermione squeezes his hand before focusing on her needle once more. She turns it back into a match without any effort.
Class ends some time later, and they retreat to the Great Hall for lunch. Draco catches their eyes over the middle tables and gives them a small smile. His alliances must be going well then. That’s good.
Harry glances up at the professors’ table and drags his gaze over the assembled group. Severus isn’t there, but that isn’t out of the ordinary. Dumbledore catches Harry looking and his eyes twinkle as he smiles back at him.
Harry doesn’t really know what to feel about Albus Dumbledore, so he smiles back and makes sure his mental shields are impenetrable.
Time passes quickly now that they have no immediate work to do.
They walk to History of Magic and spend the entire class flicking notes to each other, magic helping them along, the paper folded into enchanted origami figures. It’s like they’re kids again. Maybe that’s why they were sent back here, to have the blessing of learning how to live without the pressures of war. No, he pushes that thought aside. Why would Death care about mortal happiness like that?
He follows Ron to the Room of Requirement, but Ron stops dead in his tracks and groans, eyes fluttering shut like he remembered something important.
“The map,” he groans. “I totally forgot to get it from the twins.”
Harry hums, considering, “I can get it tonight. We just can’t draw their attention until then, same as we’ve been doing, right?”
“Right.” He meets Harry’s eyes with a frown. “Sorry, mate.”
“It’s fine, Ron,” he claps his friend’s back. “It’s been a busy couple of days, not to mention the last ten years. Totally understandable.”
They walk to the Room slowly after that, bumping shoulders every few steps.
Hermione is probably in the library by now, studying and getting ready to breach the next step of their plan for school unity. She’ll lure in the studious Ravenclaws with academic arguments and keep talking to them until they don’t see anything wrong with conversing with the other houses.
Soon, Harry will join the Quidditch team, and he’ll work on winning the favor of the upper year Gryffindors then. Draco is making connections with Slytherins, and Ron has been stuck to Neville like glue in all their classes today. The Hufflepuffs will require less persuasion to mix with other houses, Hermione thinks, and Harry has to agree with her. So, they'll work on the houses one at a time until they’re ready to mix.
Ron and Harry spend the time before dinner in the Room of Requirement. They duel and physically spar until they’re panting every breath.
Harry’s muscles ache as he lays his upper body on Ron’s stomach, both of them collapsed on the Room’s floor after a particularly athletic fight. He hums into Ron’s abdomen and turns his eyes up to the ceiling. The Room creates flickering stars to hover above them, and Harry feels Ron chuckle under him.
They stay like that. It’s a familiarity that comes with a relationship as deep as theirs, from years of war and years of peace, from fighting and dying together. It’s the same way he is with Hermione and Draco and the way he used to be with the rest of their coven. He misses them.
“‘Mione wants to learn how to fly better this time around,” Ron says, and the vibrations travel through Harry’s head nicely. “Next lesson we could probably help her out.”
“Hm, sounds good.” Harry glances to the side to see Ron’s face, the splayed red hair against the padded floor. “You two good?”
It’s a big transition, to go from married war veterans to eleven-year-old children, and Harry worries about them sometimes. He and Ginny had a mainly platonic relationship, fostered by the second war and their shared trauma from Riddle, but Ron and Hermione got together after all that. They took their time, and, as far as Harry knows, they love each other like soulmates.
Of course, they had their problems and other stipulations, but their love always came first. Their romantic love for each other was unparalleled, even if they didn’t engage in much sexual contact. Harry had stopped blushing at that thought long ago. Wizard culture views sex as different from romantic intimacy, as he learned when his first ritual required sex magic. He had Ginny for that, of course, but Hermione and Ron never seemed to bother with sex. They usually found other partners for magic of that kind.
Who was Harry to judge? He was married to someone who he shared no romantic feelings with, and he knew Ginny felt the same. They had had years to learn this, and it bettered them in the long run.
“We’re okay,” Ron says, smiling, and looks up at the shifting stars. “Haven’t gotten a lot of time alone since we got back, but we’ve talked some. As soon as it’s legal, we’re probably gonna get married again, but other than that, nothing’s changed much.”
“I’m glad for you,” Harry murmurs. He turns to bury his head in Ron’s stomach and sighs at his friend’s warmth. “Let me know if you both need anything.”
“Will do.” Ron’s hand cards through the mess of Harry’s hair.
They make it to dinner a few minutes after Hermione gets there, and they grin at the victorious look in her eyes. She made some friends, it seems. Good.
Draco meets his eye across the hall, and he feels the boy’s Legilimency breach his shields. He quickly grabs Ron and Hermions’s hands on either side of him to include them in the connection.
“Mother wants me to establish myself more heavily in Slytherin,” Draco says. “She and Father understand that the winds are changing in your direction, as I told them in my first letter, and she wishes for me to have my own power outside of my parents’ connections.”
“That definitely sounds like Cissa,” Hermione snorts. There’s a fond emotion coming from her mind in the link. She always had a fondness for the Black sisters (they don’t acknowledge Bellatrix as a Black, not after what she did to Hermione), just as Ron’s always had a fondness for Neville and Luna.
Draco grins through the link, though his face doesn’t move from its neutral state outside of their mental connection. “I’d love to see you call her that to her face, but I’m afraid that would be the end of you, ‘Mione.”
“Hah,” Hermione grins, “this version of her definitely would not like it. I want to do it anyway just to see her face.”
“This is why you three are Gryffindors,” Draco drawls. Amusement comes from his side of the bond. “Anyway, I’ve got alliances with Crabbe and Goyle, those two and I worked that out before first year started, and I have a tentative arrangement with Blaise and Theo for now. I need to establish my power before they fully commit.”
Harry smirks, his eyes full of mischief. “Power, you say? We could probably work something out for that.”
His coven looks at him warily. They’ve lived through many of his ideas, and they don’t always go well.
“I know we were going to have a public meeting to show we don’t hate each other, probably this weekend, but what if we change that a bit?” Harry squeezes Ron and Hermione’s hands to reassure them. He doesn’t want them to think he’s going to mess up their situation.
“Change it how?” Draco feels intrigued, and that might just overwhelm the wariness.
“A public duel.” Harry has to stifle a laugh as his friends’ grips on his hands get tighter. “Just enough to show that we both know what we’re doing. We don’t want Dumbledore or Riddle getting anxious about how powerful I am, but it needs to be enough to be impressive. After the fight, we shake hands and acknowledge each others’ skills.”
“Hm,” Draco muses on it, “that could actually work.”
“No need to sound so surprised, Dragon.”
The nickname brings a genuine smile to Draco’s face, which he quickly covers with a grimace, fitting right in as Blaise goes on about something dark his mother taught him. Harry mentally ticks a point in his favor for getting Draco’s mask to drop, even for a split-second.
“I want it to be known,” Hermione catches their attention with her stern tone, “that there are other ways to go about this without bringing suspicion our way. That said, I think a duel would be excellent.”
Ron snorts, “You just want to see them struggle to bring their spells down to first-year level, don’t you, ‘Mione?”
“Maybe,” she smirks.
Draco chuckles over the link and breaks the connection, turning to Theo to inquire about the book the boy is reading. The Gryffindors fall into conversation with Dean and Seamus about quidditch. Hermione even tries to comment on the sport, which makes Harry cackle.
Dinner ends, and they retreat back to the common room. Ron sits with Neville to talk about Herbology, the one subject that draws the boy fully out of his shell. Hermione hums and cuts in appropriately, and Harry sneaks up to the dorm.
The map is easy to retrieve. It’s in Fred’s trunk at the foot of his bed, guarded by some half-hearted wards that tell Harry the twins don’t expect anyone to go looking for it.
He slides through the wards of Hogwarts as the house elves taught him, taking advantage of the neutral space and folding it until he pops out of the twins’ dorm and steps into his own. He puts the map in Ron’s trunk, guarded by wards Ron created in the third war. No one will be getting in there unless Ron allows them to.
Mission accomplished, Harry sneaks back down to the common room to catch up with the other first-years. Parvati and Lavender seem happy to rope him into their conversation about magical beauty products. Their shocked faces when he knows the specifics of what they are talking about are marvelous. Harry mentally thanks Ron’s love for makeup.
Sleep comes easily that night, but his nightmares don’t disappear entirely. He sees red hair covered by redder blood, watches as Teddy metamorphs his eyes into cat eyes with a beam while Andy claps in the background, sees his youngest child’s dead eyes looking up at him.
It’s a blessing when he wakes, though he misses the vision of those he lost. Seeing them, even dead and bloody, is better than the hole their loss has left behind in him. Ron pulls him into a tight hug when he sees the look in his eyes, and they hold each other until they’re ready to get ready for the day. They each send a patronus to Andy before they can forget, updating her on anything and everything important.
Breakfast arrives with a flurry of owls, though nothing for the golden trio.
Their first class of the four that come with Tuesday is Charms. Harry is so excited to see Filius in person again that Ron has to sit next to him so he doesn’t bounce out of his seat. Hermione takes the seat next to Neville with a small smile, and the boy smiles back, though slightly fearful. It’s progress.
Filius walks them through the theory of affecting an object versus changing the object, and Harry listens to the man speak with rapt attention. He never did appreciate the man enough through his school years the first time. He won’t make that mistake again. After the second war, of course, they grew closer, but it is never too early to make friends, especially when Filius doesn’t remember the time he and Harry spent together talking about all sorts of theories.
He watches as Filius flicks his wand in a precise movement, and writing appears on the chalkboard detailing the importance of wand movement being synced with intention. Harry dutifully copies the words in his notes like everyone else.
He should catch Filius in the hall later, he thinks as the professor demonstrates a wand movement. It would be nice to start their friendship on a good start, and Filius always loved to answer questions about the subject he taught.
Next is Transfiguration, and Harry smiles the whole way through.
He makes his needle sharper this time and is amused when Minerva watches him the whole time, probably waiting to see something amazing after his last attempt. Hermione huffs at him when he turns it back into a match and receives praise. She's just jealous.
At lunch, a Ministry owl drops some parchment on Ron’s plate and steals a sausage as payment. Ron tucks the paper into his school bag, meeting his coven’s eyes with a nod. It’s from Amelia Bones. Harry knows Ron will open it in private and tell them about it when he can.
The letter, as Harry learns from Ron’s quick explanation on their way to History of Magic, says what they thought it would. Amelia has looked into the claim of Sirius’ innocence and found no proof of trial. She won’t guarantee anything, but she will keep looking into the issue. It’s the best she can do, Harry knows, and he appreciates her firm sense of justice.
He relays this information to Draco with a glance as they pass each other in the halls. Draco sneers in his direction, acknowledging him in his own way. Harry can’t wait until they can be seen being friendly with each other publicly, he misses his friend’s blunt sense of humor.
History of Magic is just as boring as it always is. The only thing keeping him from skipping is Hermione, but even she scowls as the ghost lectures straight from an outdated textbook.
Herbology is their last class of the day, and Harry partners with Neville with a grin. They share the class with Hufflepuffs, and Susan Bones’ eyes linger a little too long on Harry. She must have talked to her aunt recently.
He misses sticking his hands in dirt and wrangling magical plants. The first time around, he didn’t like it that much since it reminded him of his relatives, but after the second war he started gardening again. He and Neville would indulge themselves every Sunday in the garden behind the Lovegood House, until they were covered in mud and laughing happily at the personality of one plant or another.
Professor Sprout is someone who he didn’t know all that well last time, and he makes sure to pay attention to her now. Her love for the plants in the greenhouse is clear. He admires her for it, understanding now why she had such an impact on young Neville.
By the end of the long class, Harry has dirt absolutely everywhere. Ron bumps shoulders with him, grinning. He had partnered with a Hufflepuff boy named Justin Finch-Fletchly. The first time around, the boy was petrified in second year, which was the main extent of their interactions outside of Dumbledore’s Army in fifth year, but Ron seems to like him so Harry tells himself he’ll put in the effort to get to know him. They’ll need Hufflepuff allies anyway, so might as well get started now.
Harry helps himself to a long shower, scrubbing dirt off his skin and rejoicing at the warm water. He didn’t get much warmth in the goblin tunnels where he was in hiding during the third war, so he ends up showering slightly longer than normal just to fully appreciate it.
Ron shows him the letter he wrote back to Amelia, and they get Hermione to read it over before they make their way up to the owlery to send it off.
At midnight, Harry disappears into the Room of Requirement, alone.
He feels a little guilty at leaving Ron in the boys’ dorm, but he knows his friend will understand. The hole in his chest that used to hold his family has started aching like it did before the final battle, and he needs to be alone. He needs to mourn.
The high from a day of merriment with his friends has faded, now replaced by the guilt of being happy when his family is long dead. He’s dealt with this before, the second war gave him plenty of survivor’s guilt, but it never gets easier.
The Room gives him a replica of his home from his past, the future that won’t ever be again, and he collapses in front of the flickering fire. The rug is soft beneath him, full of memories of his children tumbling over each other and Ginny’s laughter. Harry pulls a pillow to his chest and pretends, just for a minute, that he’s not eleven again. That he’s not stuck in a past he never wanted to repeat.
He doesn’t cry, though his young body is more inclined to tears than his older one. No, he just lays here on the replica of his family’s rug and stares into the bright fire, clutching a manufactured version of the pillow Molly made for him years ago to his chest.
By the time he feels gentle arms around him and slowly thudding heartbeats against his skin, he’s empty of that damning guilt. He’s empty of a lot of things.
His magic recognises Ron, Hermione, and Draco, so he doesn’t lash out at the unexpected contact. Instead, he settles back into Draco’s arms and counts Hermione’s heartbeats. The familiar fur of Ron’s lion animagus form is scruffy under his hand. (In the back of his mind, he notes that they kept their animagus status through death, but he’ll think about that later.)
Harry opens his eyes to see a young lion curled against his side, different from older Ron’s form. It seems age does impact that then. He turns further into Hermione’s grasp so he can tuck his face into her neck. Draco, a solid weight on top of Harry’s back, weaves his magic into his like a warm embrace.
“How long has it been?” Harry asks into Draco’s quiet mind. It feels wrong to break the careful silence.
“It’s almost morning,” Draco mentally hums. “We’ll need to be at breakfast in case Bones sends a reply, but ‘Mione said you have a Herbology first then Defense, so you won’t have to do much until lunch.”
Harry swallows hard and lets his magic loose to send warmth through his coven. He loves them so much, loves how they gave him time but ultimately proved they were here for him. He has a feeling today will be hard, but he knows his friends will be at his side.
Draco squeezes him to acknowledge the thanks that must be rolling around his mindscape. The man’s always been a natural legilimens, inherited from Narcissa and trained after the second war in preparation for a political career. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone who knows what Harry’s thinking without him having to say it.
Amelia Bones does not reply at breakfast, nor lunch. Their classes pass quickly in the meantime.
Harry acts like the eleven-year-old he is supposed to be, and nobody looks at him suspiciously, least of all Quirrell. Dumbledore’s eyes twinkle at him during lunch, and Harry tries his best to embody the nervous yet strong-willed Gryffindor he was as a child. His saving grace, as always, is his coven. Ron talks Quidditch with the other Gryffindor first-years while Hermione squeezes Harry’s hand until he forgets about the hole in his chest.
They don’t talk about his breakdown, they don’t need to. After spending so much time connected to each other, they know Harry will come to them when he needs them, and he expects the same from each of them.
Astronomy is a welcome reprieve from the noise of Wednesday. Harry sits between Neville and Hermione, with Ron on Neville’s other side. They have to sit far from Draco to prevent any public interaction, but in the dark of midnight nobody can see it if they smile at each other.
Professor Sinistra talks them through certain star charts while they observe through their telescopes. Ron helps Neville focus his lens, and Hermione leans against Harry, content. If he closes his eyes, he might be able to imagine nothing’s changed, but he knows that’s not good for his mental health. He leans back against Hermione to stave off those thoughts.
Thursday at lunch, after Charms and Herbology, Ron receives another letter from Amelia Bones. Harry catches Susan Bones’ eye from the Hufflepuff table, and they keep eye contact until Susan looks away. He meets Draco’s eye to ask what that was about. Draco concentrates, a tensing of his jaw as he searches through the girl's mind, then looks back to Harry.
“She wants to meet you properly,” he explains what he saw in her mind, surface-level thoughts only. “Her aunt has sent her some letters to ask about your temperament and ascertain your motives for freeing Sirius. Other than that, Susan is a Hufflepuff, you know they make friends easily. She’s interested in your story.”
Harry hums and shovels some food into his mouth. Three weeks is not enough to do more than make a dent in the malnourishment Harry’s experienced, but at least his appetite has improved since the Dursleys. He’s even gained some weight between three daily meals and dueling in his spare time.
“I’ll talk to her when I can,” he decides. “We don’t have any classes together until Tuesday, so I’ll try to corner her before our duel on Friday.”
He senses laughter from Draco’s side of their link. He’s amused at the idea of a duel, Harry can tell. They look away from each other, link breaking, and Harry starts to eat again.
He’s interrupted by a group of owls hooting above him, and he grins when he looks up to see them lower a conspicuously wrapped package. It’s the Nimbus 2000 that Minerva got him the first time around. The sight of her handwritten note makes his heart lift.
History of Magic is easy to bear, only because Harry knows he’ll get to fly when it’s done for Madam Hooch’s flying lessons. He didn’t even realize how much he missed being on a broom until Minerva’s present was delivered.
They walk out of the castle together, Neville trailing behind them. Harry is practically buzzing with excitement. He’s already made the team, he knows, but he can’t wait until practice starts up so he can fly daily.
As soon as he sits on the old Shooting Star broom, something in him lifts. It reminds him of the freedom he used to have in his animagus form before the third war, before pictures of his raven form were posted on every corner of Wizarding London, calling for his arrest, dead or alive. He rises up from the ground on this rickety broom, and he grins.
Hermione beside him is faring far better than she did as an actual eleven-year-old, but he can tell she’s not a fan of the feeling by the grimace on her face.
He looks to her other side to see Ron carefully guiding Neville into the air, terror clear on the poor boy’s eyes.
At the other side of the line of first-years, Draco sits elegantly on his own old broom. Blaise and Theodore hover around him, and Harry notices Daphne Greengrass looking curiously in Draco’s direction. Hm, he must have talked to her about his betrothal to her sister. She could be a powerful ally if everything goes right.
Madam Hooch lets some of them free so she can coach the less-skilled fliers alone, and Harry takes off.
The wind in his hair and against his face makes his heart skip. He breathes out all his guilt, doubt, fear, and loss, and he flies. Draco’s right behind him. Public personas seem to take a backseat while they’re in the air, and they make a show of chasing each other around in the air until they’re panting and covered in sweat.
Draco still sneers at him when they land, to keep up appearances, but his eyes are gentle.
Class ends for the day, and Ron leads Harry and Hermione to the Room of Requirement. They sit together in a replica of the Burrow’s living room, and Ron finally opens the letter from Amelia Bones.
His face falls halfway into reading the page. Harry’s heart drops, and Hermione squeezes his hand tight.
“She doesn’t think he’ll be able to get a trial, even if he’s innocent,” Ron says, eyes hard. He passes the letter to Hermione so she can read it while he explains. “Same as last time around, I guess. Corruption in the Ministry is too deep to dig it all up just for one trial.”
Hermione scowls, “We’ll need more power to turn that around. Bones has power, yes, but she’s firmly on the Ministry’s side in this. We need someone who can bribe their way through the bureaucracy.”
She meets their eyes, and the thought comes to them at the same time.
“Lucius Malfoy,” Harry grins, showing too many teeth.
He’s never been a fan of the man, and the fact that he retreated from Draco and Narcissa’s lives after the second war doesn’t do him any favors in Harry’s eyes. Yes, Harry understands that Lucius got in over his head with Riddle, and he understands that at that point protecting himself and his family was all the man could do, but Harry doesn’t think he’ll ever really like the man.
“I’ll let Draco know at dinner. He’ll take care of it.”
Ron glances over the letter one more time before casting a quiet Incendio. It goes up in flames.
Harry passes on the message across the Great Hall in a flash of eye contact. Draco sets his jaw and nods subtly. He has his own reservations about his father, Harry knows from many drunken nights in the goblin tunnels, but he’ll get it done if it’s what gets Sirius out of Azkaban.
He heads out to the Quidditch pitch after dinner, around seven, for his first practice with the Gryffindor team, though he knows it’ll just be the Captain who shows up. It’s a private lesson so Harry can stay as a secret weapon. He brings his newly unwrapped Nimbus and beams when the other students remark on its prowess.
Oliver Wood is a welcome sight. He talks about living up to Charlie Weasley’s legacy, as he graduated the year before, while Harry watches him with a deep-seated nostalgia strong in his chest. He looks into the boy’s eyes and sees a ragged man carrying the dead body of little Colin Creevey in the second war’s final battle, sees the victorious smirk as an adult Oliver wins his first professional Quidditch game years later.
They run drills together until Harry’s eleven-year-old body can’t move anymore. That night, his nightmares, his memories, don’t seem as bad.
Potions is the next morning.
Harry composes himself best he can and follows Ron’s squared shoulders to class. His friend looks like he’s leading them into war, again. Harry can’t fault him. Their relationship with Snape is complicated, even after all these years. The man’s death certainly didn’t help matters. Maybe now they can get some closure, Harry thinks as he sits next to Neville with a tense smile. The boy looks terrified.
Severus appears in a sweep of black robes, and Harry feels a bit envious of the presence he has. The room quiets instantly.
“Today,” Snape’s low, drawling voice rumbles through the room, “we will be learning the importance of lavender in potions such as the Sleeping Draught. Ms. Parkinson, can you tell me another potion that uses this ingredient?”
Harry relaxes in his seat, eyes looking everywhere but Snape’s eyes. He takes this time to strengthen his Occlumency shields. It wouldn’t do for Snape to get a peek inside his mind, trained Legilimens that he is.
The first period of Potions goes on, and Harry takes dutiful notes. The second period starts with a nervous Neville and a sneering Snape.
Neville apologizes for his lack of skill at least three times within the first ten minutes, and Harry has to silencio him before his stuttering reaches the professor’s ears. Neville looks abashed, but Harry comforts him with soft words, words that he wished someone told him when he was a kid struggling under Snape’s unyielding presence. They work their way through the making of a Sleeping Draught, slowly but surely.
As an adult, Harry became quite adept at potion making, and he uses those skills now. Snape side-eyes him, but Harry ignores it. He’s not purposely drawing attention to himself, Harry tells himself, he’s helping a child get a passing grade when their teacher is useless. So what if Snape looks at him with something other than hatred for once? That’s totally not why he’s doing it.
Hermione gives him a knowing look as they turn in their final potions, and he smiles sheepishly in return. Even as an adult, he wants his teachers to like him. Is that so wrong?
Lunch comes and goes, and Harry’s excitement is palpable.
The duel will take place in the middle courtyard just after lunch. There should be a decent sized crowd by then, though if not, Ron’s carefully stoked rumor mill will definitely take care of it. He’s spent the last few days befriending the upper years, and those Gryffindors absolutely love to gossip. The courtyard will be well populated in time for the duel.
Harry needs to seek Susan out before the time comes, so he leaves lunch behind his coven to wait for the Hufflepuff.
She catches his gaze and slows, letting her friends go ahead.
“Potter,” she greets, face neutral. Harry sees intrigue in her eyes, and a part of him chokes down emotion at the thought of these children being so easy to read. “Nice to meet you.”
He grins, even as a Hufflepuff her pureblood attitude shows through when confronted with the unknown.
“Bones,” he says, cocks his head in question, “Call me Harry.”
“Then call me Susan.”
With that out of the way, Harry starts moving towards the middle courtyard, Susan at his side.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Harry comes clean outright. He’s a Gryffindor, sue him. “Ron and I have been talking with your aunt, and I got the feeling she talked to you about me. Not that that’s the only reason I want to talk to you, I’ve heard you’re a really great friend, but it’s definitely a factor.”
She hums, “I appreciate your honesty. I have to admit, I don’t know what to expect from you, Harry.”
“That’s part of my charm,” he grins.
She rolls her eyes but can’t hide a small smile.
“Now,” she narrows her eyes at him, something she probably got from her aunt, “what’s this I hear about a fight between you and Malfoy?”
Harry just chuckles, and they step out of the castle and into the courtyard. He looks around and is glad to see plenty of students though no staff members gathered there. It would be amusing for a teacher to see their skills, but that would draw too much adult suspicion.
He meets Draco’s eyes from where he stands amidst the Slytherins. Anticipation passes through them both.
A hush goes over the crowd, and they part so he and Draco can face each other without restrictions. It goes quiet as they look at each other. Internally, Harry is buzzing, but he puts on the act of a nervous child for the watchful students around them.
Ron steps up behind Harry as his Second. Gregory Goyle presents himself as Draco’s own Second. Harry approves of that choice, Goyle was always best at dueling out of him and Crabbe, even if the first time around he was more sadistic than defensive. Hopefully Draco can change that this time. They’re just kids, after all.
Their Seconds take a step away to hover just inside the oval the students have cleared for the duel.
Harry and Draco bow in unison, proper bows with deference towards the other that make some of the students murmur in surprise. They straighten, and their wands come up in the intended positions, vertical in front of their faces.
Harry mirrors Draco as they each take three steps back.
Their Seconds shoot red sparks straight up, though not high enough to see outside of the courtyard, and the duel begins.
Draco fires immediately, a shouted Flipendo that is blocked by a low level Protego from Harry. They’re sticking to low level spells, but the Shield Charm is too useful to pretend not to know, especially against a Knockback Jinx.
“ Petrificus totalus, ” Harry calls out the Body Bind Curse, and Draco deftly steps out of its way with a sneer.
“ Tarantallegra, ” Draco casts, but Harry jumps over the beam of light with ease.
Harry casts an Engorgio. Draco blocks it with a shielding charm without hesitation. They’re starting to pick up speed now, sending spells back and forth with dexterity not usually seen in first-years. They’re moving too, dodging jinxes and charms instinctually.
A Jelly-Legs Jinx rushes just past Harry’s face, making him laugh. He’s smiling so big he must look mad, but Draco’s eyes are alight, and it’s all worth it.
“ Incarcerous ,” Harry calls.
“ Finite ,” Draco counters before the ropes can reach him, and they disappear from the air.
Eventually, when they’ve run through most of the spells from Hogwarts’ lower year curriculum, Harry and Draco cast the same spell at the same time. It’s how they agreed to end the duel, and it is bound to look impressive to the crowd.
“ Expelliarmus ,” they cast together.
Harry’s wand flies from his hand to rest in Draco’s, and Draco’s wand flies into Harry’s hand at the same time.
They’re both breathing hard, pulses racing. Harry’s hair is sure to be a mess, and Draco’s blond locks are distinctly ruffled from their normally slicked-back look. Harry’s sleeve is charred from a rogue Incendio. Draco shakes his non-dominant hand to chase away the remains of Harry’s last modified Jelly-Legs Jinx. The crowd is losing it, torn between shocked silence and raucous chatter, but they fade away as the two boys approach each other once more.
Harry exchanges Draco’s wand for his own, eyes locked. Then, to the surprise of almost everyone there, they shake hands with a shared smile.
“Draco Malfoy,” the boy smirks. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Harry Potter. Good to meet you too.”
They ignore the mumbling around them and walk together, shoulder to shoulder, out of the courtyard. It’s the first step to joining the Hogwarts Houses, showing that change is possible. They’ll spend the next week conversing politely before fully integrating into each others’ lives.
Ron and Hermione stay behind with the Gryffindors to hopefully settle any arguments about the "slimy snakes stealing their savior."
“I was thinking,” Draco muses quietly as they walk down the many corridors of the castle, ignoring the gawking looks they’re receiving, “tomorrow would be the perfect time for the ritual. I can get Andromeda here at midnight and bring what we need for it, I just need you three to show up prepared.”
“Thank Merlin,” Harry releases a heavy breath. “I wasn’t sure how much longer I could last without the bond. The memories are getting more detailed. I was afraid I would start losing sleep soon.”
Draco bumps his shoulder softly, “Me too.”
“Any word from your parents on Sirius’ trial?”
“Nothing concrete,” he sighs. “Mother has not expressed any unwillingness, but Father is doubting the usefulness of the entire thing. I sent a letter before lunch explaining that if Sirius is set free, you will owe the Malfoys and, on top of that, my parents will be responsible for getting you away from those ‘filthy muggles.’ Father’s words, not mine.”
Harry hums. “That should work, but if you need help convincing them, let me know. I’m sure I can find a way to get through to Lucius.”
Draco raises an eyebrow, something he so clearly learned from his mother, but doesn’t say anything else on the matter.
“The rat is still safe?” Draco asks.
Harry nods, “Enough Galleons can get you anything, including an anti-animagus cage and a good supply of Draught of Living Death. He’ll be safely tucked away until Sirius gets a trial.”
“Good.”
That night, as the three Gryffindors enter their common room after dinner, everyone freezes. All eyes are on Harry, some considering, some hateful, and some neutral. Harry meets their glares and gawks with his own charming smile, the one he used to use on Molly Weasley when she would get on him about his health, the smile that made her coo and try to pinch his cheeks.
The twins are the ones to break the long silence, with matching manic grins.
“Making friends with the snakes, are we?” Fred, or at least who Harry thinks is Fred, asks. Fred has always been the instigator of the twins, the one with the most reckless desires, and Harry learned long ago that Fred almost always speaks first out of the two. Oh, Harry’s missed them both so much.
“Or is the ickle Harry planning something?” George cocks his head in sync with Fred.
Fred takes over, “Something that requires ickle Harry to enter the pit of vipers, hm, I wonder what that could be, Forge?”
“I’m also wondering that, Gred.”
Harry grins, and the twins grin back in sync.
“I’m not quite sure I know what you’re talking about, Gred, Forge. I simply wanted to get some exercise, and Malfoy gave me the perfect excuse. It has absolutely nothing to do with the attention I’ll get by befriending the Heir to the Malfoy family, nothing at all.”
Some of the Gryffindors breathe out sighs of relief at that, but Harry doesn’t look away from the twins.
“Besides,” he continues, “Draco’s not as big a ponce as he looks to be. He can hold a surprisingly good conversation over Quidditch or the assimilation of muggle culture. I’d give him more credit if I were you.”
And the students don’t look so relieved anymore.
“Malfoy, not a ponce?” Fred and George look at each other with wide eyes, then back at Harry, expressions comically dramatic.
“Ah, I didn’t say that,” Harry smirks. “I said he isn’t as big as a ponce as you’d expect , not that he’s the pinnacle of kindness. He might hex me if I even implied that.”
Some awkward chuckles from the rest of the room.
Neville clears his throat and flinches as most eyes turn to him, but he pulls himself together to look into Harry’s eyes and ask, “You t-talked about muggle culture?”
“Yeah,” Harry smiles softly. “People seem to forget that coming from a dark family doesn’t mean you advocate for genocide, I know I didn’t learn that until recently. Draco, though, he’s pretty understanding about muggle things, once he got over that ridiculous arrogance his family instilled in him.”
Most of the upper years are frowning, but Harry ignores them.
“He even asked to meet with Hermione so she can explain muggle healing techniques.” He turns to face a bright-eyed Hermione and smirks at her, “If you’re up for it, of course. He’s genuinely curious. He’s never got the chance to learn some of the things that we grew up with. It might be a good opportunity to learn about the magical world while you’re at it, if you want, ‘Mione.”
She hums, even as her eyes say she’s amused at the show they’re putting on for their house.
“Fine,” she sighs dramatically. “I’ll see if he’s bearable to be around. But if he makes even one disparaging comment about my blood, I’ll hex him out the window.”
He smirks, “That’s all I ask.”
“Now,” he turns back to the crowd of Gryffindors, “I’m going to bed. See you all in the morning, I guess.”
He holds in the cackle he wants to let out until he’s in the empty boys’ dorm. Ron and Hermione stay behind to smooth over any ruffled feathers, so Harry tucks himself into bed and pulls the curtains closed around him.
He’ll need all the rest he can get for the ritual tomorrow night.
It feels like everyone in the school is staring at him as he walks to breakfast the next morning. The situation is not made better when he and Draco nod to each other as they sit at their separate tables.
Dumbledore looks particularly befuddled, while Snape looks like he’s been chewing on a raw lemon. Harry absolutely does not smirk at their faces, that would be childish. No, instead he ignores the look and makes polite conversation with his fellow Gryffindor first-years.
The ritual used to bind them as a coven will start at midnight, and Harry is very much looking forward to it. He spends the day with his yearmates, but as the sun sets they send him away for being too jittery to study around. He’s okay with that, as he gets to train in the Room of Requirement without looking suspiciously absent. He has too much energy.
His wand is sparking by the time midnight approaches, he’s used so much magic against the conjured training dummies.
Hermione meets him near the edge of the Forbidden Forest an hour before midnight. They walk further in together, hand in hand.
Ron is in a small clearing left behind by migrating unicorns, and his magic is staticky with anticipation. It reaches out to mix with their magic and buzzes happily as Ron pulls the both of them into long hugs.
It’s odd, having to do the ritual now. They’ve spent the last week working on plans for the future and worrying about acting normal, but now they get to rebind themselves to each other. Harry remembers the first coven ritual they made, one where Draco was a secondary coven member, at the start of the third war when things started going downhill, when Lucius was killed.
It’s a weird feeling that this time around they’re binding themselves to each other without the immediate threat of war in front of them. They’re doing this to stay together this time, to reestablish their shared experiences and unite their love for each other, not to keep their secrets and each other safe from the enemy so dead set on killing them all.
Hermione’s head whips to the side as they sense a new magical signature approach the clearing along with Draco’s dark aura. She’s in Ron and Harry’s arms one moment and racing towards Andy in the next. The boys chuckle at her enthusiasm.
“Oh, darling,” Andy’s voice breathes out, catching Hermione before she can send them both tumbling onto the dirt below. “It is so good to see you," She looks to the boys, “It’s so good to see all of you.”
Harry has the strangest urge to cry. Ron takes his hand and squeezes hard as Draco shuffles around the clearing, marking runic symbols on rock and through dirt. Harry breathes, in, out, and meets Andy’s eyes once again.
“Good to see you too, Andromeda,” he manages to say over the lump in his throat.
Hermione detaches herself from Andy’s grip and wipes tears from her eyes. She’s beaming, her smile so bright, a look that Harry hasn’t seen since before she and Ron sent their kids to live with Fleur in France.
“Come here, both of you,” Andy opens her arms with a teary grin.
Harry and Ron collapse into her arms. She’s so warm, as she’s always been. Even though they’re adults now, despite their young bodies, they’ve always looked up to those older than them, their mentors. Having Andy here makes something in Harry lift. Everything will be okay, her presence says, the adults will take care of it all. He knows that’s not true. Andy has her family back now, she doesn’t have time to solve their problems. But she’ll help, Harry knows. He’s not alone, not that scared little boy facing off against Voldemort for the first time, surrounded by fire and rage.
“Missed you,” he murmurs into her neck. Ron squeezes them both harder and lets them have their moment. Ron always had his big family, while Harry had to collect adults like they were rare chocolate frog cards.
“Missed you too, little bird,” she responds.
They separate, and Andy brushes back Harry’s bangs to let her thumb pass over the lightning scar, comforting him through a simple touch.
“Now,” she clears her throat and wandlessly cleans her face of tears, “time for the ritual, yes?”
Right, the ritual, the reason she’s here. Harry steps back to survey the clearing, the work Draco’s done to prepare their ritual space. It looks good. The runes are evenly spaced, and Draco has placed the ingredients in eight spaces to frame the circle.
Ron has the knife they’ll use, ordered from an apothecary that didn’t ask any questions, decorated with painted runes and specifically carved markings.
They take their places around the middle of the circle. Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Draco form a square, and Andy stays out of it but still in the circle. She will be a secondary coven member, same as Draco was at the start of the third war. They’ll be connected to her, but it won’t be as strong as their main bonds.
The four of them pass the knife around and cut their own left palms, one at a time. They let the blood drip onto the stone between them, the center of the circle adorned with the runes for family, power, and consolidation. The magic seeps into Harry’s bones, making him shiver. The cut on his palm heals with a stinging flinch, and he watches as it glows silver with the forest’s natural magic. His own magic fuses with the other three lashing out around the square they’ve made.
Oh, he thinks, this is what I’ve been missing. This warmth and unity that comes from having my coven near my soul once more. How have I ever lived without this?
Ron’s familiar warm tones laugh the thought away, Feels so good to have your fluttery soul close again, Harry. Oh, look at ‘Mione, her tendrils are settling into the cracks.
Hermione’s coven bond has always been like her magic, curious and wily. It creeps into the gaps between her covenmates’ souls and fills the space, warm and searching all the while. Harry’s bond flits about between them, touching each of their magics and leaving them calmer than they started.
Dragon, Harry sighs into the bond, your shadows are back. Balances out Ron’s fire.
Draco is all shadow and warped darkness. It wages gentle battles with Ron’s flickering fire and pulsing light. They ground the coven as Hermione and Harry bind them together, showing that all four of them can’t exist as one without having every piece present.
In the past, Ron was only fire and torchlight. Neville took up the grounding stance of too-bright light. But Neville isn’t here. They’re without three of their own, and so they’ve adjusted until the time those holes can be filled once more.
Andy’s soul reaches out to tether a small bond to each of their souls. Her blood drips loudly into the stone marked for ally.
The high of the moment fades, and the five of them settle into their new connections. The moon is high, casting silver light into the clearing, and the forest whispers joyously around them, blessing their union. They won’t tell Dumbledore, the trees promise. The man doesn’t know how to listen to them anyway, they say.
Harry hums. The sound echoes through his physical body and his mental one, passing through his coven’s web of interwoven bonds.
“Time for bed,” Hermione says out loud. Her voice is melodic in her fading bliss, but she’s clearly starting to gain awareness of her body faster than the others. “We’ll pass out soon. Andy, will you be okay getting home?”
“Hm,” Andy shakes herself out of the haze. It’s easier for her as a secondary member, but her mind is still foggy. “I made a portkey… thought this would happen.”
“Good.” Hermione tugs Ron and Draco towards the edge of the clearing, towards the castle through the Forbidden Forest. “See ya’.”
Harry lets Draco grab his hand as he’s pulled away, and they march through the trees together. The ripping of a portkey sounds behind them, then Andy’s bond flares with warmth to let them know she got home safely.
Everything outside his mind is muted. His mental landscape is alight with light and darkness, filled to the brim with his coven while lacking their missing colors. He can’t feel his limbs all the way.
Draco peels off once they’re in the castle, and Ron tugs Harry along instead, Hermione pulling Ron in turn as they go. They make no noise. Through the neutral magic taught to them by the last house elves, they’re basically invisible when they want to be. The twins no longer have the Marauders’ Map to stop them from fading into the background, and they take advantage of that now.
Hermione leaves them with a kiss to each of their foreheads. The boys pile onto Ron’s bed, and with a wave of Harry’s hand the curtains close, sealing them away from the rest of the dorm.
Ron’s head rests on Harry’s chest, their hands entwined. Feeling is returning to his body, slowly but surely, and he clutches his covenmate to him in the same way Ron returns the action. They exist in this moment, together, whole once again yet missing their pieces at the same time.
The effects are mostly gone by morning, but this closeness will stay until they know they’re safe to be apart. Already it hurts to be separated from Draco and Hermione at night.
The rest of the weekend is spent strengthening their alliances with the other students. Every mealtime, Harry looks up to the staff table and meets Snape’s eyes. He puts on a facade of innocence and empathy, trying his best to be the opposite of James Potter and embody Lily Evans. By Monday, Severus looks ragged with fatigue. He’s stopped meeting Harry’s eyes, but he’s kinder to his students.
An odd looking owl lands on Harry’s shoulder at lunch that day. Its feathers point every which way and are painted in vibrant colors in a way that the cross-eyed owl can only have two owners, Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood. Harry shares a look with his covenmates and grins.
He gently takes the rolled up letter from the owl’s leg and watches as Hermione feeds the owl some greens from her own plate. The owl hoots, sounding like an elephant’s trunk trumpeting, and launches into the air to fly back to the Lovegood House.
They read the letter in the Room of Requirement after class has ended, all four of them cuddled together on the large bed that the Room has summoned for this purpose.
Harry Potter,
I hope you and your friends are having a good time at Hogwarts. I’m sure you miss your moon, and I assure you I can’t wait to meet you all next year. The Blibbering Humdingers have told me the most fanciful tales of your adventures, though I expect some of them to be false as they so love their exaggeration.
Daddy wants me to wish you all a happy Autumn Equinox. He says to be wary of the parasites and queens, but to be confident in the prideful and cunning. The time of Second Harvest is full of opportunities to collect friends, like the one with the sword and light.
You have a worthy cause, Harry Potter, and Daddy and I are here if you need anything from us. Though I doubt you’ll need any nargle-filled garden sheds or enchanted earrings for this particular quest.
Good tidings,
Luna Lovegood
Ron is nearly crying by the end of it, both from joy and sorrow. Hermione holds him close and runs her hands through his red hair, whispering comforting words as Harry gently folds the letter and sets it aside to rest on the bed at his left where it won't be disturbed by their mess of tangled bodies.
Luna and Neville were always more Ron’s than the rest of them, just as Narcissa and Andromeda were Hermione’s, and Draco and Harry had each other. Ginny lived for their children, everything she did was for them. But they all cared for each other too, and they knew in their hearts that they belonged to each other first.
“Merlin, I missed that witch,” Draco blinks back tears of his own, lying between Ron and Harry. Harry takes his hand and squeezes softly.
“Just one more year,” Harry says. “One more year and she and Ginny will be here, they’ll be back. We’ll be whole again.”
“We’ll work on Neville this year,” Hermione decides, cradling Ron’s head to her chest. “And by the end of second year, everything will be as it should be.”
“Promise?” Ron asks in a whisper.
“Promise.”
They make their next big move after flying lessons on Thursday that week.
In a move that makes the Great Hall fall silent, Harry parts from his fellow Gryffindors and makes his way towards the Slytherin table. All eyes are on him, and he smiles sweetly up at the aghast teachers at the high table.
Draco merely scoots a bit into Crabbe, not acknowledging the attention of the school on him, and makes sure there's enough room for Harry to sit.
There are no rules against inter-house seating, Hermione has made sure, so they’re not doing anything wrong. Though, the whispering that spreads through the table of snakes says there’s going to be some pushback.
So far, Draco hasn’t had any trouble from his house about being friends with the savior, but that can be credited to their duel last Friday. The amount of power and skill they displayed that day has stopped any disparaging comments. But, this is a bigger step. Draco will have to prove he has the power and Slytherin cunning to keep breaking the status quo. Slytherin is united, that’s how they’ve always been. If someone breaks off from the group, they push them back down violently. Draco has to prove he is not the outlier, he is the leader. Somehow, Harry doesn’t think another duel between them will cut it.
Harry sits next to Draco, between him and a gawking Pansy Parkinson, and starts loading up his plate. Draco wordlessly passes him some food from his own dinner plate without looking.
The other tables are in uproar, clamoring about this move like it’s the results of the next World Cup. Slytherin stays muted in their whispers and glaring looks.
Draco has made enough alliances within his house that nobody will speak directly against him in fear of what he can do to them, but that will mean nothing when they return to their common room. The subtle hierarchy of Slytherin will convene and decide what to do with him. Draco won’t let anything happen that goes against their plan though, so Harry doesn't worry to hard.
“So, Draco,” Harry starts, and the table goes quiet, all of them listening in, “I was talking with Hermione, and we decided you would be best at explaining to the Gryffindor muggleborns why pureblood traditions are so important to Wizarding society. ‘Mione and I lack the background you have.”
It’s blatant pandering to his audience, but Harry keeps from glancing around, his full attention on his friend. If he can get the Slytherins to understand that he doesn’t mean any harm, that he will stick to his beliefs while also accepting theirs, less will go wrong in the future.
Draco puts on a sneer, though it's not as full of disgust as the real young Draco would make, and replies, “Granger just doesn’t want to admit she knows nothing on the subject. Why should I lower myself to educate some idiotic blood-traitors?”
He loads his sentences with subtext in the way only good Slytherins can. ‘Granger,’ he calls Hermione, sticking to her last name. She’s a muggleborn, she doesn’t deserve his praise or him calling her by her first name. Then, asking what he’ll get in return for this favor. It’s a deal, an alliance. That’s what Slytherins understand, after all.
Harry smiles like he understood none of that subtext, just as a naive Gryffindor wouldn't.
“Well, we were thinking that if we understood your traditions better,” he says, ignoring how some of the Slytherins are starting to shift in consideration, “there might be less bleedover from muggle culture. Isn’t that something purebloods want?”
Draco hums and sips at his goblet.
“And besides,” Harry continues, “wouldn’t it be fun to insult some Gryffindors for an hour? You get free reign as long as you’re being mostly helpful.”
A sly smirk comes to Draco’s face, “You might be onto something here, Potter.”
Harry grins and continues to eat the food on his plate, carefully chosen to project an innocence he doesn’t actually possess to the watchful Slytherins. They’ll probably think Harry to be gullible, which will work on his side in the future. As long as they don’t see him as a direct threat, they’ll leave him alone. And, if he presents himself as an ally, someone beneficial for them to side with, they might even help him in his future endeavors.
Slytherins are a tricky bunch, but once Harry learned to speak their language things came a lot easier.
Dinner finishes, and Harry returns to the Gryffindors, smiling happily.
The next day, Draco leads a class on pureblood culture. He covers holidays and celebrations, proper Wizarding attire, and the importance of separation between the magical community and the muggles.
Only a couple dozen people show up, some Gryffindors, mostly Ravenclaws, and one or two Hufflepuffs, but Draco handles them all with a surprising kindness (well, surprising to them). He doesn’t reprimand them when they say something unkind, he corrects them and moves on.
After that, people start coming to Harry with certain questions. Some, he can redirect to one of the professors or even Draco, while others he can answer himself. The weekend is full of shy yet determined lower years with questions about both pureblood culture and muggles alike.
Draco’s parents send a letter late on Sunday, stating that they’ve made some headway on Sirius’ trial, but they can’t promise anything. Lucius is still stagnant in his desire for the trial, while Narcissa has taken the reins for the time being. Sirius is her cousin after all.
The 30th of September, Monday, dawns with a flock of owls at Breakfast.
This is the day that the houses really start to mix.
Some of the Ravenclaws sit at the Gryffindor table, mainly to pick Hermione’s brain on the assimilation of wizards into the muggle world, though some are simply talking Quidditch with Ron, Dean, Seamus, and some other lower years. Harry sits next to Draco at the Slytherin table and makes polite conversation with Blaise and Crabbe. Theodore ignores him, along with all of the upper years and some of the other lower years. Parkinson isn’t happy with his decision to sit there, but Draco glares haughtily until she stops complaining.
The Slytherin hierarchy has decided to let it all play out, or at least that’s what Draco has told them, and Draco is usually right about these types of things.
On Tuesday, after their last class of the day, Herbology, Harry stops dead in his tracks. He, Ron, and Hermione are walking towards the owlery so Hermione can send a letter off to the Flamels, the makers of the Philosopher’s Stone.
“Oh, shit,” he mutters, green eyes glazed over at his sudden realization. “We forgot about the Chamber of Secrets.”
His friends freeze on either side of him.
“Shit,” they say in tandem.
Ron’s coven bond flares as he relays this thought to Draco where he is across the castle, and Hermione’s magic lashes out violently at the grass beneath their feet as she thinks. It bends away from her, knowing of her wrath.
“The basilisk shouldn’t be a problem without the diary,” Hermione says, head cocked as she thinks it through. “But, I don’t think we should leave that to chance. Harry, you and Draco can go down tonight when the castle’s asleep to see what state the basilisk is in. Its mental state will be important when deciding if we need to rehome it or kill it.”
Ron looks apprehensive, but Hermione raises a hand to cut him off.
“Its original purpose was to protect the school, yes? Without Riddle’s command, it never would have started attacking students the first time around, so we can assume the purpose wasn’t to protect the castle against muggleborns, rather against an invasion of muggles during the time when wixen were killed for having magic. If that’s true, we can probably get out of this without any bloodshed.”
“As long as another parselmouth doesn’t command it to do their bidding,” Harry worries at his lip with his teeth. “But that could be taken care of with a strong protection charm to the snake’s scales. If a command can’t get through, it won’t have to give in.”
Ron sighs, “Good thing we don’t have to worry about Hagrid’s dragon egg until April. I don’t think even we can take on both a dragon and a basilisk at once.”
Harry snickers while Hermione elbows her boyfriend gently with a fake scowl.
That night, armed with their wands and an old protection spell they found in the back of the Restricted section, Draco and Harry sneak into Myrtle’s bathroom. The ghost is asleep, or wherever ghosts go when they’re not on this plane, so Harry whispers in parseltongue to the sink. They jump into the entrance, featherlight charms already cast on themselves.
Harry is almost overwhelmed with the feeling of nostalgia that rushes over him, and Draco has to squeeze his shoulder to get him to start walking through the tunnels.
After the second war, Harry frequented the Chamber quite often. He was an Auror, but every so often he was called in to give Defense lectures at Hogwarts, at least before the school was destroyed in the third war. These tunnels were his second home at that time, the place to get away from family and responsibilities when things got to be too much.
He swallows the lump of emotion in his throat and makes his way to the main chamber, Draco right behind him.
Then, as they enter the chamber, he hears it. The great, deep breaths of a being so big that its scales scrape on the stone beneath it and create divots in the walls as it breathes.
Harry shuts his eyes immediately, and Draco does the same. He licks his lips, clears his throat, and calls out, loud enough to wake the beast if it’s still sleeping.
“Serpent of Slytherin,” Harry hisses. Draco’s hand tightens on his shoulder at the sound of eerie hissing echoing almost violently against the cavern walls. “Bless me with your presence, Oh Great One.”
Nothing for a moment, then the scraping sound of scales against stone. A low, long hiss reaches Harry’s ears, and he tenses in anticipation. His grip on his wand tightens. Spells are mostly ineffectual against the basilisk, but a good enough cutting curse could kill it.
“A speaker?” it, no, she asks. The sound of slithering comes nearer, almost upon them now. “The speaker will explain why it has brought a wizard into the Serpent’s cave.”
Harry takes a deep breath, keeps his eyes closed. He can do this. “We mean you no harm, Serpent. The wizard is here to defend me in case you attack, though I am sure a Serpent as magnificent as you would not have much to do with a lowly speaker.”
“Oh, the Serpent likes the speaker,” she lets out a hissing laugh, and something wet touches Harry’s cheek. He holds in the flinch that so desperately wants to get out. The basilisk’s voice sounds pleased when she continues, “No worries, speaker-friend. The Serpent will not attack.”
Thank Merlin. Through the coven link, Harry explains the situation to Draco, and the boy’s grip relaxes significantly, though he’s still tense.
“Are you happy here, Serpent?” It wouldn’t do to rehome the basilisk only for the creature to find her way back to the school.
“Curious speaker,” she hisses. Her scales scrape around him once more. “The castle is the Serpent’s home. There is nowhere else for her to be.”
That makes things difficult, though they still have the protection spell as an option. The basilisk’s mental state seems to be stable after all those years switching between sleep and hunting for food, but can he leave something this big up to chance?
“Say what is on the speaker’s mind, little one.”
He takes a deep breath, then, “Some believe you to be a danger to the castle and its inhabitants. What is to stop you from harming the children here if you are ordered to by another speaker as strong as Tom Riddle? The wizards think you should be expelled from your caves.”
Okay, maybe that isn't all true, but Harry thinks bending the truth is necessary in this instance.
“The wizards will not remove the Serpent!” The basilisk hisses angrily, a sound like stone grating on metal. “Riddle was a pest, something for the Serpent to eat, but its tongue commanded the Serpent to do its bidding. The Serpent did not want to kill the witch.”
Well, that’s good, at least.
“My wizard friend and I,” Harry says, “we can stop another speaker from commanding the Serpent, if the Serpent allows it. Does the Serpent wish this?”
More scraping sounds, then a hot breath on Harry’s face, a forked tongue flicking against his cheek.
“The Serpent will allow this if the speaker speaks the truth.”
“She will let us cast the spell,” he tells Draco.
“Thank Merlin,” Draco mutters.
They raise their wands as one, giving the basilisk plenty of time to react to the gesture, and start casting the spell. It’s an ancient one, a spell not used in centuries as most creatures able to be affected by this brand of magic have been extinct for hundreds of years. The book they got it from was falling apart in its old age, tucked away in the back of the Restricted Section of Hogwarts' library.
With their combined magic, the spell settles against the basilisk’s scales in a wave of something like the hum of a lightning storm.
“The speaker has spoken the truth, so the Serpent will allow the two to look upon it. That is the Serpent’s judgment.”
Something as old as this basilisk is best to be obeyed, Harry knows, so slowly, ever so slowly, he opens his eyes and tells Draco to do the same.
Oh. The creature is even more beautiful than the last time Harry saw her, all those years ago laying dead on the floor. Her scales are a green that Harry imagines to be the color of her venom, a poisonous green that takes his breath away. Two large, yellow eyes watch as Harry looks her over. She flicks out her long tongue to scent the air again, letting Harry get a glimpse of her sharp fangs.
Draco swallows hard behind him, not only because of fear, but also the beauty of the creature before them.
“The Serpent is beautiful,” Harry hisses. Praise is the best thing to go to when faced with a snake, Harry learned that lesson years ago.
Her tongue flicks again, “The speaker is truthful, the Serpent is magnificent.”
Harry sheathes his wand in his sleeve and bows his head to the basilisk.
“The speaker and the wizard must be going. The Serpent is safe in the castle while the children are, the speaker promises this.”
Those large yellow eyes peer at him, judging his sincerity. They soften.
“Begone, speaker.”
Later, as they walk through the halls of the school, Draco snorts slightly hysterically. They’re invisible to human eyes, but sound carries, so they switch to talking through the link instead.
“That went way better than I thought it would,” Draco swallows another high-pitched laugh. “Merlin’s beard. Remind me to send Ron with you next time.”
Harry just mentally laughs, letting their parts of the bond reach out to the rest of the coven and convey how the meeting went. Hermione’s magic sings with victory of a problem solved. Ron dismisses their message, deep in a chess game with himself.
Wednesday passes without much fanfare, and Draco and Hermione lead another class on wizarding versus muggle culture in an empty classroom. More people show up, this time including a few upper years. There’s one Slytherin, Blaise Zabini, but other than him they seem to be staying out of it. Blaise seems to be an exception to most of their rules, Harry thinks.
It’s on Thursday at lunch that the first Slytherin approaches Harry with a proposition. It’s Tracy Davis, a first-year that Harry hasn’t gotten the opportunity to talk with yet. The girl sits without invitation, and the Gryffindor table goes quiet around them.
“Ms. Davis,” Harry says, his public persona in full use. “How can I help you?”
She smiles politely, and there’s a very Slytherin look in her eyes. “I was wondering if you could do me a favor, Mr. Potter.”
Harry grins, showing all his teeth. He stands, and just like that the entire Hall is looking at him. Tracy stands as well, and Harry gestures towards the large doors.
“I prefer to do business in private, Ms. Davis.”
They leave the Great Hall together, Harry’s magic buzzing in intrigue. When they get to a hallway not far from the hall, Harry stops. His grin is gone and so is her bland smile.
“I’ll cut to the chase, since you’re a Gryffindor ,” she says, sneering the word like it’s a slur. “I’m a halfblood, as you might know, which the higher ups in Slytherin don’t look favorably upon. I want to prove them wrong.”
Harry tilts his head, too-green eyes locked onto hers. “What can I do to help? I imagine you wouldn’t want me hexing them within an inch of their lives, you don’t want anyone to fix this problem for you, especially not by a Gryffindor .”
Her eyes search his face like he’s a puzzle she can’t solve, and maybe he is. He hasn’t gotten to show this side of himself yet since he returned to the past, too caught up in the innocent act to bother switching. Though he can't help the tingle that goes through him at the possibility of letting his magic loose against some bigoted Slytherins.
“I need ingredients, certain ones that I can’t order by owl.” Because they’re tracked by the Ministry, she doesn’t say.
He grins, “Now you’re speaking my language. What do I get in return?”
“Allies,” she says simply, prepared for this question. “I can get Greengrass and Bulstrode in our year on your side, and I’m sure I can convince some second and third years if you give me the time to.”
“‘My side’? Which side would that be?”
“I’m not sure that’s any of my business, Mr. Potter,” she smiles, daggers in her polite voice.
Oh, he likes this girl.
“Give me a list of ingredients tonight, and you’ll have them by the weekend. Is that satisfactory?”
“More than.”
They part ways, Davis heading towards the dungeons and Harry returning to lunch.
He settles back down in between Hermione and Neville with a cocky grin. The closest Gryffindors look at him curiously and ask what that was about, but Harry just smiles and says it was about early exam studying. Ron and Draco chuckle through the link at that.
Friday comes, leading Harry to Potions with Snape.
The man carries himself as tense as he always is, but there seems to be a weight off his shoulders. He only sneers at Harry once during the entire double block, a record by far. Neville drops his knife once, and the only reaction Snape gives is to reprimand the boy then move on, wordlessly floating the knife back onto the table before turning to sweep across to the next table.
Harry is beaming by the end of class, but Snape doesn’t call him on it. It’s progress.
Lunch comes. An owl drops a rolled-up parchment on Hermione’s head and leaves before she can feed it in payment. She tucks the letter into her bag.
They read it over in the Room. It’s from the Flamels, Nicolas in particular. It’s a reply to the letter Hermione sent on Tuesday, the one informing the couple of the Stone’s position in Hogwarts and how easy it would be to get to it. In that, Hermione had asked for them to create a fake for them to switch it out with instead of outright taking it, since Hermione’s plan requires Quirrell to think the stone is still in Hogwarts.
The return letter asks some questions about Hermione’s motives, though was catches her attention is an odd sentence that makes her scowl in confusion.
I have been alive long enough to recognise the plans of Fate, dear girl, so do not think you are fooling me as you will fool the Lords; Death and I are friends.
Ron gets a big smile on his face when he reads that, and Harry thinks he knows what his friend is going to say before he says it.
“He knows Harry is the Master of Death,” Ron grins, ever the chess master. “Think about it, you can’t survive for almost seven hundred years without talking to Death at least once. If it wanted to, Death could kill him and his wife easily, but it lets them live. They must have a connection, though it’s not as strong as the one Harry has with it.”
Hermione licks her lips and rereads the letter in her hands, “That would change things. I’ve been going about this as if I am a child, but Flamel is treating me as an adult. I’ll need to write another letter, a truthful one this time.”
While she gets to work drawing up another attempt at contact, Harry retreats into the castle to sit in the library with Draco and Theodore. The boy still hasn’t said anything to Harry, but that doesn’t mean much. Theodore seems more interested in books than people. Harry understands that. As they work on homework, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott sit resolutely down at Harry’s other side. Hannah looks nervous, but Susan just looks at him and Draco until they look away. Harry does so with a smile.
Their plan is working.
The same owl that delivered the Flamel letter meets them outside of the castle on Saturday morning as they’re laying by the shore of the Black Lake. It drops a package on Hermione’s lap, hoots, and flies away.
Harry, from his position on Draco with his head on his stomach, lifts his head to see Hermione pull out a replica of the Philosopher’s Stone. He grins and lets his head fall back to Draco’s stomach, making his friend let out an ‘oof’ as the air is knocked out of him. Hermione tucks the replica stone into her pocket and shares a look with Ron.
After a couple hours in the cloudy sun, Neville joins them. He skips rocks on the surface of the lake and doesn’t comment on the odd closeness between the four coven members. Neville never comments on their oddities. He watches, yes, he’s always watching with gentle eyes and an unassuming demeanor, but he doesn’t comment.
It feels good, being here with his remaining coven. Neville’s magic is bright against Draco’s darkness, and though he doesn’t notice it, his magic reaches out for theirs as often as theirs reach out to his.
Harry runs into Filius later that day, after the coven has gone their separate ways in a peaceful silence. He asks for the man’s time, and they gleefully discuss some of the theories the first-years have been learning in Charms. It’s nice to talk to Filius like this, an adult that doesn’t talk down to him because he’s a child. Harry’s been realizing lately that he has some reservations about the adults in his life from the first time around. Too many times being ignored and dismissed will do that to someone, he supposes.
Just as Harry has been fixated on Filius for the past few weeks, Hermione has been conversing with Minerva. As her star pupil, it hasn’t been hard for her to get time with the Deputy Headmistress, and when they get started they have some very thought provoking discussions on the subject of Transfiguration. Harry has listened to many of them through the coven bond as he wanders through the castle, though he has little interest in the topic.
Ron takes the day to sneak the replica Stone into the trap Dumbledore and the other professors laid for Quirrell. It’s frighteningly easy to get in and out, even without the elvish magic the coven learned years ago. That thought brings a sour taste to Harry’s mouth. It’s easy enough for a first year to get into, he swallows hard, pushes away the anger. Dumbledore made it easy for him, planning his life like little more than a chess piece, then he pretends to be shocked when Harry gets into so much danger year after year.
No, best not to think about that. He doesn’t have time to be angry now, not when they’ve planned the confrontation with Quirrell to be in a week.
On the sixth of October, Sunday, Harry gives Tracy Davis the potion ingredients she requested, and in return some of the lower year Slytherins give him subtle nods when they pass each other in the halls.
It’s been just over three weeks since Harry has traveled back in time with the last remaining members of his coven, and things are moving along well. He prepares for every situation, used to things going wrong, but nothing does. The teachers look at him as a naive Gryffindor, just aching for a fight and only just skilled enough to win, and the students view him as a powerful ally and a deadly enemy.
Now, they just have to wait a week. On the eleventh, they’ll strike. For now, they send out anonymous letters to everyone important, to everyone who is someone.
Classes flash by. Harry goes through them by muscle memory alone, and his spells are overpowered in almost every class. He gets considering looks from Filius and Minerva. Severus just looks away with something like grief in his eyes.
On Wednesday, October ninth, Harry gets himself sent to the Hospital Wing from a spell gone wrong in Defense. His Lumos was too powerful and blinded him. Quirrell looked particularly curious at this, but Harry played it off as excitement for Quidditch practice at the end of the day. He can't let the man realize something is wrong, not until they have him cornered and put on a pedestal for everyone to see.
Madam Pomfrey, Poppy, is just as Harry remembers her. The last time he saw her was in the goblin tunnels before the third war’s final battle, before Harry and his remaining coven sacrificed themselves to kill the Light Lord.
She makes him sit in a free hospital bed with only a look. The Mediwitch hasn’t lost her touch in all the years she’s lived, she’s the same stern woman that forced Narcissa into a hospital bed after Teddy was taken by the Light all those years ago.
Harry sits still as she looks over him, tutting at the clear signs of malnourishment he suffered under his relatives. She glares at the display that tells her of his many poorly-healed broken bones and mutters a comment under her breath about Albus’ stupidity. In the end, she sends Harry on his way with a nutrients potion and a pain potion for the headache from the badly charmed Lumos.
The next day, Thursday, Andy sends a letter informing them of Alastor's whereabouts. The paranoid old wizard has just recently taken Nymphadora Tonks under his wing, and they’ve been busy training her for her Auror entrance exam, so Andy hasn’t seen her daughter very often recently. It’s nice to know what the last member of Andy’s old coven is up to, but Harry feels like he’ll be okay not meeting Alastor for as long as he can wait. The man never did warm up to Harry, not even after the war.
Then, finally , it’s Friday, October eleventh.
The double block of Potions goes by too slowly. Harry pulls his wand out on two separate occasions, once after Severus makes a sudden movement that startles the war-bred instincts in Harry, and the other occasion as Goyle drops his cauldron. It hits the floor with a loud bang that has the four coven members reacting like the finely-tuned veterans of war that they are, not as how eleven-year-olds should react. Severus side-eyes them cautiously after that, but they don’t acknowledge his looks.
The four of them are itching for a fight at lunch. One of the twins taps him on the shoulder, and it takes everything Harry has not to twist Fred’s wrist until it snaps in instinctual reaction.
Lunch ends.
Dumbledore looks haggard. He keeps glancing out the windows, as if waiting for something. Harry grins.
Those that listen to the regular Hogwars rumor mill are starting to gather outside the castle near the entrance. They think there’s going to be another duel, and soon the whole school, professors included, is gathered on the grass outside the steps of Hogwarts. New people start arriving then, people coming from so many different places that they fill in the gaps of the grass that the students can’t cover.
Ministry employees, Amelia Bones, the Minister himself who looks not quite sure why he’s here, Dolores Umbridge, Aurors, reporters of all kinds and reputations, Mad-Eye Moody with Tonks at his side, Andromeda and Edward with solemn faces, Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa, Luna and Xenophilius Lovegood, the Weasleys, Remus Lupin with confusion clear on his face, three goblins from Gringotts, and many more.
The people mill around the crowd, wondering why they’re here. The students get increasingly more excited as time goes on, even as the professors start to get visibly worried at the gathering of this many important people.
Finally, finally, Harry steps into the middle of the crowd and sends up an array of red sparks, his coven behind him.
Silence reigns. All eyes are on him, a familiar feeling these days, and there’s shuffling so the crowd can clear a space for him and the three coven members with him.
Harry casts a wandless, wordless Sonorus on himself and starts, “Hello, all of you. We thank you for answering the summons we have sent you, and we thank you for all those who you have brought along to this joyous occasion. My name is Harry Potter, and today I will be righting a wrong that the last generation made.”
Dumbledore looks furious now, though he doesn’t seem to know why. One of the professors shoots a Finite on the Sonorus Harry cast, but it does nothing. Minerva doesn’t know what to do if the look on her face says anything.
Quirrell looks one misstep away from running and never coming back. Harry bares his teeth in a feral grin at the thought. This is what Harry was made for, this show, this violence of war. He was born into it, destined to kill, guided by his mentors into being the Savior of the Wizarding World. His coven at his back is the same, born on opposite sides of a war that should have never happened, a war that should have never affected children like it did.
“I ask that you all stay here as I right this wrong, as without the full picture how will you carry the truth out to the world?” Harry waves his hand, wandlessly and wordlessly summoning five boxes from the Room of Requirement. Some in the crowd gasp at this display of skill, though most are silent.
The boxes move to sit in a line in front of Harry, and his coven forms their own line on either side of him. Ron is on his right, the light of their coven, while Hermione is at his left with Draco on her left, the dark end of their coven.
“What I’m about to do will be frightening for some though gratifying for others. I hope we can deal with this together, not as a divided people, but my faith in humanity is not as strong as it used to be, so I have my doubts.”
People are shuffling where they stand, unsure of what will happen. But he’s the Boy Who Lived, why shouldn’t they listen to him? They stay put.
With a snap, the boxes hover in the air and turn to glass, letting the crowd see the objects inside, the Horcruxes. Dumbledore gasps, though no one else except Quirrell reacts. Quirrell, on the other hand, fingers his wand. His dark aura grows stronger as Riddle takes control of the man’s body fully. Harry feels Death inside him, itching for a fight.
“I have before me five of six objects that contain parts of Tom Riddle’s soul,” he looks over the crowd, but only some react to the name. “Most of you may not know that Tom Riddle is Voldemort’s real name. These five objects are the only things that keep him tethered to this world.”
Chaos in the crowd, both disbelieving and defensive. But nobody leaves, not even Quirrell. If he tries, he’ll find a wall where the wards of the land end, keeping him in the castle, stuck in his future tomb. Harry wonders if Riddle can sense this.
Harry continues despite the noise, “Yes, Voldemort is still alive. He has been hiding for the past ten years in many countries, but he’s finally gained enough strength to return to us today. I’m afraid to say that Riddle has possessed one amongst us.”
He smirks as people scatter, though they stay within the wards, just going far enough not to be in the blasting radius of another person. The younger students look terrified. Dumbledore looks ready to faint.
This is when Riddle turns to flee, but Harry won’t let him. A flick of his wand, a murmur on his lips, and Quirrell is lifted into the air, covered with magically summoned ropes, frozen in a Full Body Bind Curse. Harry and his coven move as one, all four wands trained on the possessed man as he floats up to hover just above his soul pieces.
The aurors are in action, wands drawn on both Quirrell and the four first-years, though none of their spells get through Hermione’s Protego Maxima that surrounds the small space taken up by the coven and the glass boxes.
“Attention!” Harry’s Sonorus is still intact. The crowd pauses at his shout, his tone enough to calm their frenzy to a hum of fear. “I would prefer it if everyone would just be quiet!”
His last word is shouted, and silence reigns in response.
“Good. Now, I’ve set this up so Riddle cannot hurt any of you. If you doubt this, ask your Minister if his aurors have gotten through Hermione’s shield.”
Buzzing of questions. Fudge’s face is pale, but his aurors affirm Harry’s claim.
“May I continue then?”
Nodding throughout the crowd, even as they keep their wands out, looking ready to run. The remaining professors have stepped in front of their students in a defensive line. They eye Harry warily, as if they’ve never seen him before. He can't bring himself to feel hurt at this.
“As I said, Tom Riddle, known as Lord Voldemort to the world at large, has possessed our dear Professor Quirinus Quirrell. To get rid of him, once and for all, one would need to destroy the host and all six of his Horcruxes, the parts of his soul he tucked away during his reckless race for immortality.”
Dumbledore is trembling with a mix of fear and rage, directed at Harry and Riddle both.
“If you distrust my word, ask Headmaster Dumbledore. After all, he knows about all of this. After Voldemort was considered dead, Dumbledore was a strict supporter that the Dark Lord was still alive. You all ignored him. So, yes, go ahead and ask the Headmaster, and I’m sure he’ll tell you all about the Horcruxes he thought Riddle had made before his ‘death’.”
Almost all of the crowd turns so Dumbledore, faces aghast.
“Young Harry speaks the truth,” the man says through gritted teeth, as if it pains him to say. “Though I think it unwise to bring it up so publicly, Harry Potter is correct. I suspected Tom had split his soul to keep from dying, but I did not think even he would go as far to split it six times. It is no wonder the man was insane.”
Mad-Eye hasn’t stopped trying to break through the shield, casting curse after curse at the invisible wall, but Hermione only adjusts her grip on her wand with a smirk. She knows all his tricks after fighting two wars with the man.
The attention returns to Harry once more.
“I have arranged this to prove to the Wizarding World that Tom Riddle truly is dead. Or, he will be in a moment.” He turns to the three goblins at the edge of the crowd and bows his head low in deference to them. “Seer Gornuk, Warrior Griphook, Emissary Urgruff, I ask you three the large favor of removing the final Horcrux from my scar. Will you do this for a wizard Warrior of the Goblin Nation?”
They step forward without hesitation, even as they maintain their air of superiority, Emissary Urgruff at the front of their group. He’s an old, scraggly goblin with scars that denote him as a friend of the King, and his voice is gruff when he speaks.
“The Goblin Nation will remove the mutilated soul piece from Warrior Harry’s head in accordance with the contract the Witch Hermione signed on the fifteenth of September, in return for the intact Founders’ objects.” The goblin stops at Hermione’s shield and gestures for Gornuk and Griphook to enter. They do so without a problem.
His coven’s wands are still trained on the immobile yet struggling Quirrell, so Harry lowers his own wand and kneels. Seer Gornuk touches his scar with calloused fingers. She hums low, a building chorus of drum beats that echo through the field reverberating from her throat.
Pain, sharp pain in his scar, so sharp that he lets out a keen of displeasure through the haze of it.
Then, relief.
Seer Gornuk’s pointer finger glows with dark magic, and she touches it to a summoned trinket, metal in nature yet delicate enough to break easily enough.
“It is done.” Seer Gornuk turns with Griphook on her heels, and the three goblins retreat back into the crowd of witches and wizards.
Ron levitates the trinket until it floats in line with the other boxes.
Dumbledore looks like he might throw up.
Never thought of asking the goblins, did he? Ron snickers in the coven bonds. It brings a sharp grin to Harry’s face as he stands and raises his wand once more.
“Now, I do believe it is time to get this show over with, once and for all. I will not let this monster live any longer, not after all the people he has hurt.” Harry vanishes the turban from Quirrell’s head with a flick of his wrist.
People gasp, some retch in the grass. It is truly a terrible sight, Riddle’s deformed face on the back of Quirrell’s head. Harry spins the man in the air so everyone can see. As Riddle’s face turns in Harry’s direction, Draco lifts the Silencio from the man’s throat. He curses at once, spells falling from his twisted lips without a moment to breathe. The spells do nothing. Neutral magic will not let dark or light have a place in this bubble of Hermione’s doing.
“How dare you!” Riddle shrieks. “I am the Dark Lord! I am more powerful than all of you combined, I will kill you all before you can blink!”
It’s the rambling of a mad man. After all the time spent as no more than a wraith in Albania, Quirrell and the Horcruxes are the only thing keeping him together. Yes, if he obtains a body once more he’d be something, but as of now Riddle is just a cockroach, surviving until the next apocalypse comes to crush him.
“Tom,” Harry says, his voice projecting through the still active spell, “It is time to stop.”
“I will not!” He searches the visible crowd until his eyes lay on Lucius and Snape. “Death Eaters, my loyal servants, come to me!”
Neither Lucius nor Severus move. They stand resolute against the madman they once served, which further angers the man. Their marks do not pulse with pain as Hermione's shield keels Riddle's dark call contained inside.
“I will not be defeated by a child!" Riddle sneers, then in a last defense he roars, "Avada Kedavra!”
The Killing Curse does nothing. No spell light leaves the hovering Quirrell, no one drops dead. Death has final say in matters of this curse, and it will not let Harry be killed by it again, not after all the work Fate put into keeping the boy alive. The crowd is in shock. Nobody moves, nobody breathes. All eyes are on Harry and Riddle.
Harry moves to point his wand towards the five glass boxes, eyes hard and apathetic.
“ Fiendfyre ,” he says calmly.
Fire explodes from the tip of his wand, forming rippling forms of ravaging beasts, anger clear in their brightly burning eyes, claws extended and teeth bared. Harry holds the spell effortlessly, caught in Death’s thrall while also relying on years of experience with this particular spell.
A flaming serpent, identical to the basilisk beneath the castle, speeds towards the diary horcrux, rearing back with its fangs as they pierce through the box and the pages. Ink soaks through the fiery form and drops to the ground in a shrieking, writhing, mess of black smoke. The soul piece is dead.
Next, a dragon made from the hottest fire roasts the ring and eats the locket whole, wings flapping to launch himself at the crowd, bloodlust in his eyes, but Harry reins him back into the stream of flame coming from his own wand with little more than a frown.
The cup and the diadem are enveloped in flame from the fire-bound form of a thestral, death in its bright red eyes.
Finally, a raven, not much bigger than normal though made of flames hotter than the hottest hearth, sweeps down from the stream of fire to snap up the trinket in its beak. With that, all six Horcruxes are destroyed.
Death’s thrall leaves Harry, ripping the being’s power from their shared soul, but Harry keeps the Fiendfyre sedate as the stream of fire recedes into the tip of his wand.
Riddle is screaming above the remnants of his Horcruxes. The cup, diadem, and locket remain whole on the grass, if not a little charred, but the other items have been decimated by the cursed fire. The goblins will collect them before the Ministry can get their hands on them.
“Nicolas, Perenelle,” he says over the oppressive silence of the crowd, through Riddle’s shrieking. “I believe you two wanted the honors of separating Riddle from his host.”
The Flamels step into being from where there was previously no one, hidden by the knowledge they have spent hundreds of years collecting. They give a dark look to Dumbledore as they enter Hermione’s shield. The aurors try once again to get through, but they cannot.
“Hello, Mr. Riddle,” Nicolas stares up at the bound man with a blank face. “I have to say, I am not impressed. We have lived through far stronger Dark Lords than you, Mr. Riddle, I thought you might actually live up to Albus’ hype. Alas, we cannot all get what we want. Perenelle, do you want to do the final honor? I am quite ready to put this man behind us.”
“Yes, Nicolas, I think I will.” The woman looks severe in stature, reminding Harry of Narcissa if hundreds of years older. The look matches her husband’s perfectly.
She wordlessly summons her wand into her hand and takes control of Riddle’s bonds. Harry and his coven let her. Riddle’s body, Quirrell, lowers to lay on the grass, human face down and Tom’s face looking up. He no longer screams, only spits curses into the silence.
“I will explain the process for those less acquainted with possession,” she says briskly, wand already moving in various ways, tracing different symbols into the air. “First, we sever the bond between host and parasite.”
Riddle shrieks again, louder now, and a cruel smile comes to Perenelle’s blank face.
“Next, we cage the parasite to make sure it does not attach to anyone else.”
Another scream, this one muffled as lights start to surround Riddle’s disfigured face in a cage of colorful magic.
“Finally, we eliminate the pest.”
Through Harry’s vision, a wave of magic blasts through the field. He watches as Perenelle’s brand of magic, murky like the deepest parts of the sea, filled with mystery and death, fixates on the dark spot of Riddle’s soul in Quirrell’s body. Then, in the gap between seconds, it’s gone. Riddle’s face gives a final shriek, a horrible sound that will haunt Harry’s nightmares along with Ginny’s dead eyes and his children beaten bloody, before he fades from existence.
“Tom Riddle is dead,” Nicolas announces, tone bland.
Hermione lowers the overpowered Protego Maxima, and Aurors immediately fill the space, sensing the lack of a border between them and the Dark Lord. She keeps a shield between the coven and the rest of the crowd, which Alastor bounces off of as he gets too close to Harry for comfort.
Quirrell is rapidly pushed to his knees and into magical bindings, warded handcuffs on his wrists and ankles. It seems they are taking this issue seriously. Harry doubted they would, after all, how many things does the Ministry actually get right? He's glad they are being forced to act with the presence of the crowd around them.
The crowd is alight with shouting and movement. Harry ignores it.
Dumbledore approaches with Minerva and Severus at his side. Harry ignores them too. He focuses on the Flamels, standing apathetically in front of the four coven members.
“Mr. Flamel,” he says with a too-sharp grin, “it has been a pleasure working with you. I believe my friend promised you something?”
Hermione pulls the real Philosopher’s Stone from her pocket and hands it over with a smile. “It was an excellent opportunity you gifted me with to guard it. I enjoyed looking it over for enchantments.”
Nicolas smiles now, a wide toothy grin that crinkles his eyes with his happiness. He looks like a completely different person.
“Ah, dear girl,” he says in a booming voice, “it was our pleasure to let you guard it. The replica should be gone now as the Stone is returned to us, but let me know if you feel the need to study the real Stone further. We would be happy to have you.”
A flare of possessive instinct rushes through the coven bond, and the three boys snarl as one.
“Ah, I see,” Perenelle smiles softly, eyes dancing around as if she can see the coven bond between them. “You are taken for, Hermione Granger. That is alright, we will allow you to study with us while staying with your coven, we have no problem with joint custody.”
Harry clears his throat to take their attention off Hermione, eyes hard, “I’m sure we can work something out.”
The Flamels laugh boisterously, so different from the public masks they shed just a few moments before. Harry allows a small smile on his own face once the threat to their possession of Hermione has faded from the air. They would have reacted like that to a threat to any of them, it has nothing to do with the love Ron feels for her.
“Nicolas,” Dumbledore’s airy voice interrupts, “I did not expect you so soon, or I would have prepared something.”
And just like that, the Flamels’ faces recede back into neutrality tinged with anger and disgust.
“Ah, Albus,” Nicolas steps away from the coven and links arms with the man in a metal grip, not letting him pull away, “just the man I wanted to see. Tell me, how did four eleven-year-olds retrieve my Stone from the trap you told me you set yourself? I cannot fathom how this has happened.”
Perenelle stays behind as her husband leads the Headmaster away from the scene, marching back towards the castle.
“Minerva, Severus,” Perenelle greets mildly. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”
“I’m afraid this reunion will have to wait,” a stern voice cuts in, making Harry grin.
“Amelia Bones,” he turns to greet her with a low nod. “Nice to finally meet you in person. I expect you will be taking us into the Ministry to be questioned?”
The woman’s mouth ticks, like she’s trying to hold back a smile, and she briskly nods. Her demeanor is all business, and Harry finds himself unconsciously relaxing. He trusts that this woman will get justice done.
“If that is the case,” he drawls, “then I believe we have something, or someone, for you.”
Ron flicks his wand, and a rat cage appears in the air before them.
“Peter Pettigrew,” Ron says with a sneer. “Under a Draught of Living Death, trapped in his animagus form for the Ministry’s viewing pleasure. I hope you and the Minister treat this new evidence in Sirius Black’s case seriously, or we will not be pleased.”
Amelia looks shocked for only a second before schooling her face into a considering grimace. She takes charge of the cage and hands it off to Kingsley Shacklebolt, a high-ranking Auror that Harry remembers from the second war, the man who eventually became the Minister of Magic in the future that will never be. The man disappears into the crowd with the cage and the rat inside, heading for an apparition point close by, same as Alastor does with an unconscious Quirrell in hand and Tonks at his side.
“Will the four of you come peacefully?” Amelia asks with a hard look. She has likely considered the possibility of a fight and doesn’t look too comfortable with the idea.
“We will,” Harry says, “after we reconvene with certain family members of ours.”
He gestures to the Weasleys, looking worried on the outskirts of the crowd, waiting to be let closer to Ron by the Aurors keeping people back.
Amelia clenches her jaw and nods. “This can be done. I have more faith in your word than I do many others’. You have ten minutes.”
She leaves and her Aurors pull back with her, though they stay just in sight, ready to fight at a moment's notice.
First, Harry turns to Minerva and Severus. He smiles softly. The energy of the day is fading, and all he wants is to curl up for a long nap with his coven, but he has things to do before he can even consider relaxing.
“Professors,” he greets.
He’s cut off immediately, and Minerva’s Scottish accent is thicker than Harry’s ever heard it before.
“Young man! What did you think you were doing, taking on a Dark Lord like that? It kills me to think you went through that alone, the four of you, why didn’t you come to one of us? We could have helped you. You’re just children, the lot of you, you’re not supposed to be fighting wars for us!” She looks genuinely conflicted. Oh, how he missed this version of Minerva. His lips pull into a grin. Hermione beside him is laughing, her magic slithering around Minerva’s happily.
Severus cuts in now with gritted teeth, “Potter, you and your little friends took a large risk, larger than you reasonably should have.”
Harry sighs. He has a feeling they’re going to be hearing that a lot over the coming days.
“But,” Severus continues, looking like he's swallowed glass, “I thank you for the service you have done for this world. The Dark Marks have faded, and we owe this to you. So, Potter, Granger, Weasley, Malfoy, I thank you all.”
He meets each of their eyes.
“But, I swear to Merlin, if you ever do something that idiotic again, I will send you to Azkaban myself.”
Ah, that’s more like the normal Severus Harry knows. He grins at the man and hums his agreement, his coven doing the same at his sides.
Draco clears his throat, “Uncle Severus, I promise you that we did not come upon this situation lightly. We have been planning this for longer than you know, longer than you will likely ever know, and we prepared for every possible outcome. We had the situation well in hand.”
“I notice,” Minerva starts, mouth in a grim line, “that none of you have promised not to repeat this foolhardy stunt in the future.”
Harry laughs. “Well, we can’t promise that, can we? Trouble seems to find me, Professor.”
“Yes, yes it does.” Minerva sighs. “Well, you can bet that we will be having words when you return from the Ministry. Until then, I wish you all luck. Come, Severus, let the children greet their families.”
She ushers the man past them and back into the castle, disapproval and resignation written clearly across her face.
Before they can sigh in relief, they are bombarded with the clamoring voices of the Weasley family, followed closely by the Malfoys. Harry backs up on instinct as red-headed bodies flood the space. Ron takes the brunt of the mothering, though Molly makes sure to pull Harry and Hermione into tight hugs as well. Hermione visibly swallows down tears at the display of affection.
Draco is pulled away from his coven by his worried mother, but Harry keeps an eye out on both situations.
“What were you thinking, Ronald?” Bill’s loud voice demands from within the huddle of red hair and bodies. His siblings voice the same kinds of thoughts.
“Oh, my dragon,” Narcissa says in a small voice, “I wished you would never be involved in this.”
“It’s not his fault,” Andromeda pushes her way past the remaining Aurors.
Narcissa straightens at once, mask in place, the Ice Queen once again. She peers coldly at her sister. “Andromeda.”
“Cissy,” Andy says softly. There's a shine to her eyes, one moment away from tears at the sight of her baby sister after so long being separated. “There’s a lot we need to explain.”
Confident in Andy’s abilities, Harry turns back to the raucous Weasley family, Hermione trapped in their huddle.
Harry catches sight of Ginny in the middle of shouting, and his heart skips a beat. She looks so young, so… unscarred from the traumas of life and war. Oh, he would kill to keep her that way. He will kill to keep her that way.
Then, pushing through the crowd, Harry spots Luna and her father. They wear matching patterns, bright yellow fabric and dangling plum earrings.
This is going to be a long day.
He’s right.
The Ministry reviews their memories of the fight and the fake memories they created to show a journal they found in an abandoned classroom, a journal that detailed the creation of Riddle’s Horcruxes. The Aurors watch as Harry shows memory after memory of his scar hurting in Quirrell’s presence, as well as a fake one showing his realization of the possession of the man.
By the time the four of them are out of Ministry questioning, Harry feels like falling over. He’s running on will power alone, Draco’s arm in his while Hermione and Ron walk with linked hands behind them.
Amelia Bones takes them back to Hogwarts in the evening light, shadowed by the moon.
Before they can retreat into the Room of Requirement and collapse on its large bed, Dumbledore meets them at the large doors. Harry holds back a groan of frustration. His eleven-year-old body isn’t supposed to do this much in one day, he’s exhausted.
Through her secondary coven bond, Harry senses Andy somewhere near. In the dungeons with Cissy, she tells them. Talking things through.
Ah, that’s good. Harry can’t bring himself to think more about it beyond that.
Dumbledore leads them to his office in silence. The man’s office is full of magical trinkets and whirling parts, and it’s almost too much for Harry to bear. He just wants to sleep.
The four of them sit in the provided chairs and stare as Dumbledore takes his own chair. The four heads of house are standing behind the desk, staring at the coven with a mixed range of emotions. Minerva looks slightly pleased behind the intense expression of disappointment, and Hermione's magic flares with that look of pride aimed at them.
“What you did,” Dumbledore says, voice low, “was incredibly risky. If it went wrong in any way, we would all be dead. Do you understand that?”
Ron pulls on the bond: he wants to answer. They let him with a nudge of acceptance each.
“With all due respect, Headmaster,” Ron says in an innocent voice, perfect for a Gryffindor in trouble, “We knew what we were doing. Nothing would have been able to go wrong. And besides, everything happened the way it was supposed to right? So what’s the harm?”
The adults take a collective breath, silently begging for patience. Harry, tired as he is, cracks a smile. This is a mistake, as Dumbledore ignores Ron to fix on him instead. Harry sighs.
“Harry,” the old man says, “I expected better from you.”
Oh, that is rich. Harry bites the inside of his cheek to keep from retorting, but he’s used up enough energy holding back lately. The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them.
“And I expected better from you, Headmaster,” he cuts back, tone sharp. His fatigue turns his eyes stoney, folds his mouth into a scowl of contempt. This is what he normally hides, this is what war has done to him. Dumbledore deserves to see it. “I expected to have a competent headmaster, one who wasn’t raising me to be a sacrificial dove in the war against Voldemort. I expected someone who actually cares about my well-being, not just what I can do against your enemy, all according to a fucking prophecy!”
He lowers his voice from the shout it reached, clearing his throat as he tries to rein in his temper before his magic decides to take action.
“I expected more from you, Albus.” He holds the man’s gaze, staring into his soul and pushing back against the tendrils of Legilimency that intrude against his mental shields. “But no. All I am to you is a pawn. You left me with people who beat me down at every opportunity, all in the hopes that I would latch onto you at our first meeting. I will never be able to forgive you for that.”
Hermione sits forward, says, “You should be thanking us, Headmaster. We, four first-years, got rid of the enemy you created. Tom might have never become Voldemort without your influence. All we did was finish what you started.”
“And,” Draco steps in, face blank in that Slytherin way of his, “I would watch out if I were you. There are people high up that don’t like the risks you’ve taken in your time as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. I’m sure Harry’s account of your actions won’t help. I'm afraid these next few days won't be good to you, Headmaster Dumbledore.”
The five adults before them look stunned, but Harry cannot bring himself to care.
“Now,” Ron says, “may we be excused? It has been a very long day for us, Professors, I’m sure you can understand.”
Minerva shakes out of her stupor first. She swallows hard, eyes glancing across each of them. “Yes. Yes, you may leave. Though, I will wish to speak with you three in the morning, as I assume Severus will wish to speak with young Mr. Malfoy.”
They nod, and Harry catches Snape looking particularly tired as they leave the office.
As soon as they are out of sight from paintings and wizards alike, they fold their surroundings into neutral space and jump to the Room of Requirement, using their learned elvish magic once more. They collapse as one onto the bed the Room provides for them with a warm hum of magic.
Harry’s last thought before sleep claims him, curled up at Hermione’s side while Draco lays between her and Ron, is that that was surprisingly easier than he expected. The dark of the Room settles them into deep sleep where no nightmares will touch them, and they fall into rest without any fanfare.
Further away, in the dungeons, Andromeda finishes her explanation to Narcissa and watches as her sister fights to regain control of her emotions. By the time night reaches its peak, they are on the floor, clutching each other like they used to before Andromeda left, like how they used to comfort each other when they were little. Severus returns to his office to find them curled up on his couch.
In the morning, the coven wakes slowly. Harry stirs into wakefulness from Hermione’s gentle fingers combing through his messy hair. He hums and leans into the touch. Behind him, he feels Draco’s animagus form, the soft black fur of a young wolf, affected by his young body’s age. Harry considers turning into his own raven form, but he dismisses the thought as Hermione’s fingers continue scratching at his scalp. Not worth the loss. Ron’s snores peter off on the other side of Hermione. He’s waking up as well.
“Wha’time ‘s’it?” Harry asks, mouth full of cotton.
Hermione chuckles warmly, “Just past seven. We have some time before breakfast, but not a lot.”
“Hm,” Ron groans as he stretches, “don’t wanna.”
“What?” Harry peeks his head up to look at him over Hermione’s lap. “Ron Weasley doesn’t want food? What has the world come to?”
Draco stretches at his back, shifting out of his wolf skin and into his human one. He buries his face into the back of Harry’s neck.
“‘Heard breakfast,” he mutters. “When‘re we going?”
“Soon, Dragon,” Hermione soothes, moving to scratch at Draco’s scalp instead. Harry pouts at the loss.
Slowly but surely, the four of them make themselves presentable until they’re walking through the halls, ignoring the odd student that stops to stare at them.
They enter the Great Hall, and everything falls silent. Harry’s seriously starting to get tired of that. It looks like the whole school has shown up to breakfast, more than Harry remembers ever being there before. He shakes off the looks with practiced ease. He leads the charge towards the Gryffindor table. The students at the end of it get up and scatter towards the other end, Harry taking the seats where they were. Draco, Ron, and Hermione join him, Draco at his side with the couple across from them. Nobody remarks about the Slytherin at the Gryffindor table, in fact, nobody talks at all.
Then, a break in the heavy silence, Neville gets up from his spot a little further down the table. He marches towards them with a set expression, determined. Harry almost reaches for his wand, but then the boy pulls him into a bone-crushing hug, and he feels his coven relax behind him. Harry sighs into the embrace and clutches Neville just as tight against him.
“Don’t do that again,” Neville says with surprising force as he pulls back, then his eyes soften, “not without me.”
Harry smiles so softly he thinks he might cry, “Okay. I promise.”
“Good.” Neville nods and lowers himself into the seat next to Draco. He offers his hand to shake, “Neville Longbottom, pleased to meet you.”
“Draco Malfoy,” he grins, “pleased to meet you as well. I’ve heard wonderful things from these three.”
And just like that, the Hall returns to its normal volume and chaos.
Harry sits back down on the other side of Draco. His heart lifts at the sight of four of his coven here within reach.
Ron snickers as they look up to the high table. Dumbledore is missing. They share a look of pride, of happiness that the man is gone for the moment. Harry’s not sure if he could have put up with the man’s stare so soon after confronting Riddle like that. Trauma hurts when it’s revisited, Harry knows from experience.
They eat together, as a coven, and Neville fits in seamlessly.
Halfway through breakfast, Minerva stands from her seat at the high table, and silence falls upon them all once more.
“As most of you know,” she starts with her mouth set in an unyielding line, “there was an incident yesterday involving four first-years and the ex-Professor Quirrell. It was revealed that Professor Quirrell had been possessed by the remnants of the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Thanks to the help of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, and Ron Weasley, Lord Voldemort has been officially declared dead, for good this time.”
The ensuing silence is filled with awed looks pointing towards the coven, but Harry keeps watching Minerva and soon so do the gawkers.
“I can assure you that the threat of the Dark Lord is over. I have been notified by the Ministry and the Flamels, the leading researchers of immortality and the ones to kill Voldemort themselves, and they confirmed that He will not rise again.”
Some of the students, lower and upper years alike, start to cry, those that were affected by the first war, all that have lost people to Riddle and his regime. Harry feels sympathy for them.
Minerva continues, “Headmaster Dumbledore wished to tell you this news himself, but the Hogwarts Board of Governors had convened in an emergency meeting following the incident, and he was pulled away. In his stead, I say this: you are safe in Hogwarts. Nothing like this will ever happen on school grounds again, and if you suspect something nefarious, contact one of the staff immediately. We will take care of it.”
She glances out to glare sternly at Harry, then sweeps her gaze back to the rest of the school.
“Thank you.”
She makes her way to sit back down, and the Great Hall bursts into chatter. Harry pokes at his eggs with his fork as they talk amongst themselves. Then, as one, the houses stand, turn to the coven, and applaud with everything they have. The Slytherins look less enthused, but even they show their thanks through applause.
Harry swallows down the emotion that threatens to emerge as the students in the hall stop clapping and return to their seated positions, most smiling happily.
As Harry looks, some of the Slytherins shoot him angry glares, but more look grateful that Riddle is gone. He suspects there’s going to be a lot of that going forward, especially from people like Lucius and Narcissa, this complexity of emotions. He pushes that thought aside and starts on finishing his plate of food. He has to make up for all the nutrient deficiency he received as a child, or at least that's what Madam Pomfrey told him a few days before.
After breakfast, after most of the students abandon the Great Hall and return to whatever plans they have for the day, Minerva pulls the three Gryffindors aside with a stern look. Severus does the same with Draco. The man no doubt got destroyed by an angry Narcissa last night, so Harry wishes Draco a brief 'good luck' through the bond.
Minerva gives them the lecture they were expecting, full of disapproval and disappointment at the way they handled things, but pride at their courage and planning. They nod along to each threat and compliment. She gets teary-eyed when Hermione rushes to pull the woman into a hug, and she cautiously pats Hermione’s back before pulling away with a final warning. Harry and Ron stifle their snickers at Hermione’s pleased smirk.
The week after that passes in a haze of whispering students, people approaching to thank them, and lower years asking them to help with bullying they themselves cannot stop or help with studying, basically any problems they have.
Ron and Harry take care of the bullying while Hermione and Draco reinstate their pureblood versus muggle culture classes.
When the news comes in about Dumbledore, splayed on the front of the Daily Prophet in tacky, attention-grabbing, bold font, the coven celebrates in the Room of Requirement. Albus is officially solely designated to the position of Headmaster. His rights as Supreme Mugwump and Chief Warlock have been revoked. Harry says a prayer of thanks to every god he can remember.
The time between then and winter break shrinks rapidly.
Harry and his coven don’t hold back in classes after the confrontation with Riddle, what would be the point when the whole school saw them overpower the Dark Lord and the Ministry?
More people come to them for help and alliances. The Slytherins are used to their little group at their table, and the ones who disagree are dealt with by Draco personally. Their Dragon is awfully creative with nonviolent punishments. Though, when one of the Slytherins goes after Neville, Harry turns the boy into a frog and leaves him on Minerva's desk with a short note to turn him back within the week.
Dumbledore stays in his office most days, trying to repair his relationship with the wizarding world through one Daily Prophet article after another. But the problem isn’t his reputation, it’s his position in Hogwarts. He cannot be Headmaster while also being head of the Wizengamot, there are rules against it, rules that were overlooked previously when Dumbledore had been in power. No, the public loves Dumbledore just fine, but the law keeps him from expanding his power like he did before.
Hagrid’s dragon egg doesn't present itself as a problem as Quirrell isn’t in a position to sell it to the half-giant in an illegal card game, and Hagrid is too busy rehoming Fluffy to worry much about gambling.
By the time term is coming to an end, Harry has won his first Quidditch game, improved in all his classes, and settled many inter-house disputes along with his coven members.
The Christmas Holidays are fast to approach. As Sirius is recovering from Azkaban before he’s able to be tried formally, Harry is left with the decision to stay in Hogwarts or return to his relatives. It’s an easy choice, really. He's not sure his mental state could survive another summer with the Dursleys.
A week before the students leave, Narcissa writes to him, inviting him to stay at Malfoy Manor during the break. He accepts right then and there, penning a response on the back of her letter and sending it off with Hedwig. Draco smirks for days after that.
The five of them, Neville included, board the Hogwarts Express with beaming faces. They promise to write to each other over the break, promise to send presents when they can, and promise to meet up the day after Christmas (for the Grangers and Weasleys, while the Longbottoms and Malfoys celebrate Yule).
Narcissa and Lucius meet them at King’s Cross Station, blank faced, and they lead Harry and Draco to the floo so they can travel to Malfoy Manor. If not for the letters they exchanged with Draco since the confrontation, Harry would never guess that they know the whole story. Andromeda told Narcissa that night, then convinced Andy and Draco to tell the whole thing to Lucius a week after that, after Cissa had had time to stew in the information. It’s because of this that Draco’s parents don’t react negatively when he and Harry share his room at the Manor instead of giving Harry a guest room. In fact, Narcissa looks at Harry with such understanding and care, disguised by her icy mask, that it reminds him so much of future Cissa, and he messes up a few times by calling her that.
She waves off his apologies with a carefully crafted mask of blankness.
The day after Christmas, Hermione, Neville, and Ron floo into Malfoy Manor and tackle the two with hugs and kisses. Hermione audibly squeaks when she sees Narcissa, and it’s only Draco’s hand on her elbow that keeps her from launching at the woman. Narcissa looks less than impressed at that. Harry wonders if Cissa’s natural Legilimency has been passively reading them all this whole time, and he amuses himself by thinking of what she could be hearing from ‘Mione’s mind. Hermione has always been one to ramble, even within her own thoughts.
Neville introduces himself to Draco’s parents shyly yet with that strong determination hiding in his eyes. He really is a Gryffindor, and Harry will spend the rest of his life reminding him of that if he has to, though he suspects Ron has taken up that job for the time being.
Lucius makes no comments about blood traitors or mudbloods, which Harry and Draco count as progress. During Harry’s stay with the Malfoys, he’d hardly seen Lucius except for at meals, and he’d found that he could share three meals a day with the man without either of them verbally attacking each other. Progress.
The rest of the coven stays for two more days, with Neville in a guest room and the other two sharing Draco’s with him and Harry. Narcissa turns her nose up at this, but Harry reckons she needs to get used to her baby boy mentally being an adult, so he doesn’t push. She and her husband are going through quite a large ideal change, and he won't make it any harder than it needs to be.
The Christmas Holidays pass, and before he knows it Harry is bundled up in the Hogwarts Express, sharing a cabin with his coven.
The four bonded members share a look as Neville pushes his trunk to fit under his seat. They’re in agreement, though they’re not sure if it’s a good idea. Ron clears his throat, catching Neville’s attention, and he’s the one that begins their story.
They tell of school years riddled with death and misery, then the climax of a second war, then the end of said second war, and the recovery that came afterward. They tell him about the families they made for themselves, the jobs they excelled at. They talk of the increase of Light propaganda in the Ministry, of the ban that affected all dark magic, including the natural kinds. They detail that the Light went after the Dark creatures next, freed the house elves against their wills, severing the empathic bonds the elves created with their masters, and slowly deprived them of magic until they were wiped out by the next round of ‘reforms.’
They tell Neville, with tears in their eyes, of a little boy named Teddy Lupin and his capture along with Harry and Ginny’s eldest son. They gloss over the killing of the children, but Neville looks destroyed all the same. They talk of the start of a rebellion, of the allies they gained from the repercussions of the Light’s crusade. Harry mentions that he spoke out against them and was rewarded with a prison sentence for being too dark. Ron and Hermione hold hands as they explain that they had to send their children away in fear of the rising Light Lord.
Neville cries as Draco tells the story of how they went into hiding, how the covens formed to preserve the last of the creatures and dark magic as a whole. They talk of wide-spread genocide and the power that the Light Lord held over the people. They swallow their emotion and tell him the names of those they lost over the years. And, as the final hour of the train ride dawns, Harry explains how they got here, how they confronted the Light Lord and managed to take him out only by sacrificing themselves.
Neville collapses into Harry’s arms and sobs. The others pile into them as well, forming a cushioned nest at the floor of the traincar. Ron holds Neville as they cry together, whispering comforting words through the hardest of the sobs.
Ron is the stalwart soldier, adept at strategizing in the worst scenarios, a lion against a tide of wraiths, a burning fire against the cold of their enemies. Harry is a rolling mass of power and force, flittering from one thing to the next while standing stubborn against the first waves of a storm. Hermione is and always has been the curious flickering of the dark shadows at the corner of your vision, the academic that hungers for knowledge and will hunt it down to the ends of the earth. Draco is the cold of the dark, the absence of all things light yet warm in a paradoxical way, he is willing to do anything for his pack, his people, and his cruelty when not reined in will destroy everything in his way.
But Neville... Oh, Neville has always been the light of the sun, he is the brightness that keeps them tethered to reality, the good of their coven, the main chain keeping them on their leashes, keeping them from going off on their own and creating chaos in their wake. He is necessary. He tempers Ron's fire, hot as a forge. He calms Harry's fluttering storm, slows it to a gentle roll once more. He keeps Hermione from running herself ragged in the library, keeps her in one piece through four and warmth. He warps Draco's shadows into puppets, turns the dark into a beautiful night sky. He is a knight, noble in his cause of justice.
When the time comes to exit the train, Neville is holding Ron’s hand with red eyes and a sore throat. Harry’s hair is as messed up as it’s ever been, arm linked with Hermione while Draco holds Neville’s shoulder in solemn acknowledgement. It's easy now to remember that Neville is just a child. But they had to tell him, he had to know why they need him.
The other students eye them curiously, but the coven says nothing.
Dumbledore welcomes them back with a feast and an announcement. Harry’s heart drops, and he has to hold back a devastated groan at the sight of Gilderoy Lockhart sitting at the high table beside an irritated Severus Snape.
He swallows his dread and puts on the act of an innocent first-year once again. He will make it through this year if it kills him.