The Burning of the Library

by leeemur

Summary:

After the end of the Triwizard Tournament, Harry is alone and struggling to find a way to hang on to his sanity when an unexpected boon walks into his house and kidnaps him to Gringotts. The Most Noble House of Nott is attacked and Theodore is left with nothing but ashes, a single gemstone, and the burning fire of something bigger than himself lodged forever in his soul. Lucius Malfoy suffers a momentary lapse in sanity and raises his wand against the Dark Lord. The lines between light and dark, good and evil, blur together and disappear entirely. All the while, Harry goes searching for who "Just Harry" is and keeps coming back to a dark-eyed Slytherin he never thought he'd call his friend...

Notes:

This is my first fanfic in many, many years. But after consuming seemingly every NottPott on this site, I just had to make my own. I don't want to be spoilerific, but I will tell you that I value worldbuilding, slow-burns, and cohesive character arcs in the fics I like to read, so that's what I'm striving for here. I'll try and post chapters weekly!

Chapter 1: Lord Black the Broken

Summary:

The new Lord Black comes home.

Notes:

12.20.24 - made mild formatting changes because I now understand how AO3 rich-text editor works -.-

Sirius never missed his original wand as much as he did the day he walked back in to Grimmauld Place. 

The door opened brokenly, barely hanging off the top hinge. The reek of moth eggs greeted him, torturing his nose. Though human, Sirius was preternaturally sensitive to scents after spending so long in his animagus form in Azkaban. 

He sneezed three times in quick succession and cast a bubble head charm. The bubble formed over his face, quite a bit smaller than he’d intended. His new wand, chestnut and unicorn hair, was more fanciful than his first wand. If he didn’t cast with focused intent, it half-assed the spell. With his mind these days, Sirius often questioned if he unfairly blamed the wand, but charms used to be his natural gift. He’d never had to think so hard to case a simple bubble-head before. If James could see him now -

Focus on the present, he thought sternly. He grit his teeth and pictured all the hallways in this horrible place. Clear this whole damn house out, he demanded, and cast “Ventus maximus!”

Dirt, dust, and all manner of foul air screamed past him out the front door. When he released the spell a minute later, Sirius’s whole body was coated in a layer of black filth. 

Heh heh heh, a mad voice jittered in his head, Black Filth in the Black House, fitting for the filthy Blood Traitor. 

Gradually, Sirius registered that the screaming madness he was hearing was not inside his head. Idly cleaning his clothes, he turned and faced his mother, her pale, corpse-like face leering over him. 

“Merlin’s sack!” He shouted, shooting off a jinx. It exploded against the shade of his mother and was absorbed by a sickly green ward. 

The woman’s long fingers, adorned by thick, gaudy rings, clawed at her own face. Her dark eyes rolled, luminescent and menacing. Sirius took a hurried step back with his wand still up. “My treacherous blood returns to burn down the last vestige of wizard might and purity in all of ENGLAND!” The portrait wailed, “Will no knight come forth to protect our legacy? Rend and tear this filthy vagabond from this house, dear Circe-“

He tried several increasingly dangerous spells to unstick his mother from the wall. The floor splintered after the protective ward sent a particularly hateful banishing charm straight back at him. “What on earth did you do Kreacher?” He howled over the storm of his mother’s voice, thinking that old elf that surely crawled into his mother’s coffin after -

The house elf cracked into sight, sending Sirius nearly a foot in the air. “Kreacher?” he yelped, “You’re still alive?”

The elf’s knobby little head twisted up at him. Sirius’ throat constricted, How is that barmy elf still alive? How long has he been here? 

“Kreacher tends to the most Ancient and Noble House, as is his loving duty, and cares for Mistress until a suitable heir returns…”

The wizard growled deep in his chest, “Kreacher, I am the heir of the House of Black.” The words fell coldly from his lips. Saying them recalled a painful memory of twelve year old James setting a lumpy, transfigured silver crown on his head. I dub thee, Heir to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Barf.

The memory sent him into a tailspin, and it took a minute for Sirius to realize Kreacher had been muttering and moaning to himself all the while, adding to the din of his mother’s screeching. “-Kreacher doesn’t want to serve the blood traitor, but if master was allowed inside then the mudblood-loving filth must be-"

“Kreacher, I command you to silence that portrait.” Sirius slowly put the wand to his side and felt the carved runes that encircled the handle, desperately clinging to the now. 

You’re here on a mission old mutt, he thought, reaching for Gryffindorish surety. Don’t get lost. There’s time for that later. 

The elf froze, twitching in obvious pain as he wrestled against the order. He slowly raised his long fingers and snapped them. Blessed silence settled in the house. The pulsing pain in his head subsided. 

Sirius banished the bubble head charm and studied the elf. The house let me in, so I really am the head. He cast his gaze around what little he could see of the foyer and the sitting room. If Kreacher was still living here, then perhaps it wasn’t as bad as he feared. Guess I can’t burn it down, he thought glumly, tossing that plan out the window. Albus was insistent that he try and save this mausoleum to the Arcane and Evil for the work of Light and Goodness.

Sirius shook his head, “I’m Lord Black now-“

“The blood-traitor has no ring,” Kreacher sneered. 

“That will be remedied shortly,” Sirius barked, glaring at the miserable elf. “For now, I want you to bring all of the lethal and most dangerous cursed objects in this house to the old potions lab. Every single one. Do you understand?”

The elf trembled in rage and nodded, vanishing with a violent snap. Sirius sighed and rubbed his brow. His nose twitched. He sneezed again. “Bollocks.”

Making his way to the potions lab was nearly as adventurous as a jaunt through the Forbidden Forest on a full moon. He had to dodge a biting teapot, a chandelier that attempted to reach down and strangle him, and a Queen Doxy before he made it inside the old lab. At least the lab was half-way clean. The ingredient pantry was built with several powerful preservation wards so most of the substances had mummified instead of rotted. The air was cleaner, too, thanks to the ventilation runes worked into the walls. 

He waited impatiently for Kreacher to do his work. Eventually, objects started raining down around him, forcing him to dodge increasingly vicious heirlooms.

His wand heartily took to curse breaking and the art of incineration. Kreacher wailed and cried when he disassembled a nasty bloodsucking curse from an old cloak that tore the silk lining. “That was Mistress Black’s winter frock!” the elf practically screamed, throwing himself at the wizard’s ankles. “Don’t destroy it - the curse is gone now - let Kreacher bring it back to his-"

“Take it!” Sirius bellowed, slinging the cloak into the elf’s face before he could say something that would give him nightmares to rival his usual dreams. He rubbed his face tiredly, noting the shaggy hairs that scraped across his hands. The goblins wouldn’t appreciate a bedraggled ‘Lord Black’ showing up to claim a ring. He needed a shower, a shave, and a nap. 

And a team of fucking curse breakers to tear this place apart. He’d been working for hours, but he’d barely made a dent in the collection. Time for one more, he thought, summoning the idea of a nice hot bath to fuel him through this last object. His eye caught a bit of gold hanging out from an old jewelry box and he quickly shot an assessing charm at it. He frowned when nothing happened. “Bloody stick,” he muttered, thinking hard and casting again. 

Nothing happened. 

“Kreacher, why did you bring this down here?” he muttered, flipping the lid open and levitating the old locket up so he could see it better. A large, embossed S in the shape of snake glimmered at him, remarkably untarnished despite its obvious age. Maybe a goblin can tell me about this, he mused.

The back of his neck prickled. Sirius slowly swiveled around. Kreacher was watching him as intently as a cat stalking a bird. He clamped down on the urge to shiver from head to toe. “Kreacher, what is this?” He asked with as much authority he could muster.

The elf didn’t so much as blink at him, letting the silence stretch a beat too long.

“Will the new Master destroy it?” Kreacher spoke lowly, a hint of…what is that? A challenge? A threat? Sirius’ heart was beating faster, unnerved by the shift in Kreacher’s attitude. 

“What will happen to me if I do?” Sirius replied dryly. Creepy, thrice-damned elf. He whirled around and snapped out a few spells to destroy the locket, but nothing happened. After holding it under an incineration incantation for as long as he could manage, he gave up. The locket didn’t so much as steam. 

“Can you open it?” He turned back around to look at the elf and manfully refrained from flinching when he realized Kreacher has crawled to hunch directly behind him. The elf tore his eyes from the floating locket and shook his head.

“Well, it probably needs to be opened if there’s a deadly curse on it.” He waited for confirmation, but Kreacher didn’t move. “The goblins could probably do it. Seems goblin-made.” He casually conjured a drawstring pouch and cinched it up inside and then left it on one of the workbenches. 

“Will goblins destroy it?”

“It’ll be their problem if they don’t,” he replied curtly. “Now, I’m going back to my clean and uncursed flat to clean up, and when I get back here you better have made some progress on making this place livable.” He quickened his pace across the room, eager to see the front door and feel fresh air on his face. Sirius was nearly at the stairs when a gentle clinking noise caught his sensitive ears. 

He quickly whipped around and caught Kreacher with his spindly arm out, drawstring bag in hand. 

Sirius had his wand on the elf in an instant. “Put. It. Back.” 

The bond between them hummed with power, filling Sirius with the sickly knowledge that this elf was under his control. Kreacher let the bag fall back on the table with a light thunk. “Explain,” Sirius growled, feeling the bond twist. The elf glared at him, clearly trying to resist. 

“Tell me why you want that locket,” Sirius snapped. Kreacher whined low in his throat, and the sound flipped his stomach. The power of their bond was heady, overwhelming. He’d never felt this kind of power before. He could make Kreacher do anything - tell him the truth, scrub the house without magic, work until he fainted from exhaustion, or cut his own head off - 

He shook his head harshly and dropped his wand hand. “Tell me, Kreacher!” he bellowed, trying to ignore the bond. “Or else you’ll never see it again!”

“The master says he will destroy it, but he means to steal it and pawn it like some common candlestick,” the elf accused, little drops of spittle flying from his lips. “He’ll steal it and good Master Regulus’ will have lost his life for nothing!”

Sirius actually dropped his wand. “Regulus?” he repeated in a whisper. His mind was filled with bouncing black curls at the nape of a small neck. The two of them hiding under the covers holding a glowstone, telling ghost stories. The sound of his brother’s laugh, light and tinkling. That sound always made him think that his brother was part fae, like he was too good for this world. It was a laugh he never heard again after third year. 

His eyes burned. “TELL ME WHAT REGULUS WANTED WITH THAT LOCKET!” He cried, advancing on Kreacher. “DID VOLDEMORT GIVE IT TO HIM?” 

The elf sneered, “Filthy master will just betray his memory! Why would you care what noble Master Regulus planned? Why do you deserve to know his sacrifice? You won’t believe Kreacher - you turned your back on your own blood. The noble Master Regulus died because HE HAD NO BLOOD LEFT TO RELY ON. THE TRAITOR ABANDONED HIM AND THE HOUSE OF BLACK LONG AGO AND DOES NOT DESERVE HIS SECRETS!”

He and Kreacher panted heavily, glaring at each other across the dark potions lab. They made a stupid pair - Sirius was Lord Black, a fully grown wizard, master of the arcane in his own right and Kreacher was nothing but an elf in bondage. He could force him to give him every secret he knew even if Kreacher clawed his own eyes out in the process. 

But Kreacher’s words cut deep. When was the last time Sirius met someone who even remembered that he had loved his little brother? He’d done such a good job of hiding their relationship, even from his best friends. Even from James. His little brother…their bond had barely survived Sirius’ banishment, but it had been there. Soaked in guilt and betrayal but alive. 

Sirius tried to save him in the war. He made sure his little brother knew he would help him if he wanted to be saved. Nothing Reggie did was unforgivable, not to him. Sirius would burn the world for Reggie, that he knew for certain. Just like he would for James, or Lily, or Harry, or… 

But Regulus didn’t want me on his side.

“Re-Reggie turned his back on me.” He hated the high whine to his voice, but the memories were flashing faster now. Seventeen year old Reggie graduating from Hogwarts, their mother standing stiffly by his side. Reggie slowly turning away from him without a hint of recognition. Sirius listening to a report from Moody that his brother had been spotted with McNair near the site of a muggleborn disappearance. Letters returning unopened. A desperate, questionable ritual that would send a message in a dream that Sirius just had to believe worked out the way he had planned. He remembered when the months slipped by and no one saw Regulus again. Eventually they crossed his name off the master list -  presumed dead. 

Kreacher spat at him in disgust. “Filthy mudblood loving master disgraced his house and blood all his life. Master Regulus took the mantel meant for you. He was most noble, most deserving of the title…and Kreacher cannot fulfill Master Regulus’ final wish…!” 

A hacking, wrenching noise came from Kreacher, and after a moment Sirius realized the old elf was sobbing and grinding his face into the ground. His little hands tore at the measly white hairs atop his head. He was wearing a dirty, greasy old uniform that was dark gray from years of rot. 

Unbidden, Sirius recalled similar days spent in Azkaban. Every time it rained, the floor would flooded with icy cold water and form pools in the filthy, pockmarked stone. After the storm would pass and moonlight filtered through his cell, he would see a kaleidoscope of his reflections looking back at him from the floor. Most nights he spent hours on his knees, ripping at his lank hair, forced to look at hundreds accusing faces. Failure. You failed them. YOU KILLED THEM SIRIUS BLACK. 

The memory held him in place for a long time. Long enough for Kreacher’s sobs to trickle off. Long enough for his knees to ache from where he’d also ended up on the floor. Finally, the two of them held complete silence together. Slowly, very slowly, Sirius breathed in. 

“Kreacher,” his voice was as shaky as he felt, “I swear to you, I will destroy that locket. I…As Lord Black, I vow…to c-carry out,” his voice warbled and he breathed through the cracking grief in his chest, “carry out the final wish of Lord Regulus Black.”

A ripple of power sent dust raining down from the ceiling. Sirius blinked it out of his eyes and waited for Kreacher’s reaction. The old elf’s face contorted into another broken sob, but this time the tears seemed relieved.  

Sirius hauled himself to his feet and shook his body out. “Now, tell me everything you know about that locket.”

Chapter 2: Cats Can't Make Jokes

Summary:

Harry stews at home. Maybe in another universe he'd slowly start to boil and eventually explode like a kettle on the stove, but this time he happens to go to the library. And, this time, Gringotts does their due diligence to hunt him down. And, this time, being one of the Triwizard Champions means a little bit more than it would in another universe...

Notes:

Holy cannoli! I've been writing this for a few weeks just to get the story out of my head and I truly didn't expect much a response at all, much less kudos and comments on just a preface! It made me so happy to see that this morning, so I'm taking some time to post the first real chapter. I'll respond to comments individually, but just to note on some general context:

- This is entirely canon up through the fourth book, so Sirius is still on the run and a convict. I promise, you will get more on his state of mind in a future chapter. I just am not a fan of completely unhinged and unhelpful Sirius Black, so I'm applying some artistic license to how I think he should have reacted after the events of the Tournament.

- I'm building up a whole noble/ancient house and aristocracy system, but this is not a very political fic. I'm way more focused on the magical implications of "ancient houses". You'll learn more soon...!

- I try my best to adhere to British slang but I will probably slip up and reveal how American I am. Sorry!

Enjoy!

Everything was fine until the black cat rang the door bell and spoke to Aunt Petunia.

Well, it wasn’t fine. In fact, this summer was on track to be the absolute worst by far. Harry knew Uncle Vernon was one more disturbed sleep from locking him in his room until September, and only the threat of wizards watching them at all hours of the day and night kept him from doing so, but every man has his limits. And Uncle Vernon was already very, very close to his.

Oh yes, it certainly helped him along to that precipice when Dumbledore himself showed up early the first Monday morning Harry was back at Privet Drive, knocking on the door before his Uncle had even finished his tea. Dressed in vibrant orange robes, he spoke to his Aunt and Uncle in their perfectly normal dining room about the imminent threat of Voldemort and how important it was for them to limit their summering to the British Isles at least, so he could have his allies keep an eye on them.

Harry couldn’t help a snort at that. No better way to guarantee they would flee the country as soon as Harry started fifth year than to tell them they'd be watched by wixen every moment they stepped outside the house.

Then Dumbledore had taken him aside in the sitting room and implored him to stay where it was safest and keep "close to the comfort of his family". Harry was stunned by the seemingly authentic softness to the Headmaster's voice. Did he listen to me at all when I told him about my relatives? 

Dumbledore went on to assure him that he would post trusted friends to watch the neighborhood for suspicious sorts, but Harry wouldn’t see them. They were just a contingency plan. Just to be safe. Harry tried to capture the man's eyes, to look into his face and check that Dumbledore was really asking him to willfully stay close to the Dursleys all summer when the man finished with a tired plea.

Dear boy, please try to hold back on your propensity to wander. The blood wards may only protect you in this house.

And then the man vanished without waiting for Harry’s reply. 

Dumbledore’s abrupt disappearance and distracted gaze led him to believe that he must be extremely busy rallying the resistance against Voldemort, so at first, Harry did his best to follow Dumbledore’s directions. Looking back on that day, Harry could only roll his eyes at himself. The prospect of a magical guard had seemed dangerous, exciting really. He might be sidelined for now, but at least he had some kind of connection to the wizarding world just beyond his doorstep.

And, stupidly, he assumed that the watchers might make his relatives go easier on him.

Some nights, when Harry woke up sweating and wheezing, hand clamped over the new pink scar on his arm, he wondered if the watchers could hear his screams like his Uncle could. Surely not. Wouldn’t they do something if they could hear him crying out, night after night? They wouldn't necessarily know he was having nightmares. For all they knew, Uncle Vernon could be whipping him bloody. 

But as the early days of summer wore on, Harry was convinced that the wizards watching him were blind and deaf. This year, the adjustment to life in the muggle world was much harder for him to stomach. Harry found himself cringing every time Mrs. Number 3 glared at him through her window blinds when he took a break in the yard, or Mr. Number 7 double-checked that his car was locked when Harry was walking to the park. It was humiliating to be brought so low by his muggle neighborhood in front of a magical audience.

But when no oddly-dressed witch or wizard appeared to ask are you okay? Is this normal? I saw you haven’t had water all afternoon, take a break with me, his humiliation gave way to impatience. That devolved into hopelessness and then bitter, slightly insane cynicism.

When Dudley’s gang successfully cornered him in the woods behind the old playground, Harry fully gave up on his so-called guards. Obviously they were not here to help him. He walked all the way home with blood caked around his face, daring them to do something, but nobody stepped out from the shadows. At the end of the third week of summer, he was mentally giving the bird to everyone in Privet Drive, wixen and muggle alike.

It’s because it’s me, Harry thought, sitting in his room at night with Hedwig. He preened her feathers with a diamond stylus from his potions kit. He ached all over from the beating by Dudley's gang, layered on top of his general exhaustion from being in the sun all day, but inside he felt numb and hollow. Harry didn’t even have it in him to be disappointed. Who was going to help him, really? The only people that wanted to help couldn’t (Hermione, Ron) or they were on secret missions for Dumbledore and out of reach (Sirius, Remus, Hagrid).

As he reflected on his sorry state of affairs, he came to a realization. Harry’s greatest sin was that he stood out in both worlds. To Privet Drive, Harry was that ungrateful orphan, torturing his relatives with his snarky attitude, unruly hair, darker skin, and conniving (quiet) disposition. To the Wizarding World, he was the returned hero - rich, powerful, brash, the center of attention at every turn. He was simultaneously someone who didn’t need help and someone who didn’t deserve help. In the end, he was on his own.

What must they think? He wondered, craning his head up to stare at the slice of night sky through his window. Are they like everyone else, believing what they see? What they hear? Even when I’m right in front of them?

He refused to subscribe to the Prophet, but Hermione often included clippings that covered the aftermath of the tournament and Fudge’s assurances that Dumbledore was a politically motivated liar. Harry laughed himself silly over a quote from Lucius Malfoy that stated, “Dark magic has been all but stamped out from our society, but for men who’ve seen the fog of war, the past never really leaves the present.”

It was disturbing to read so many different opinions about himself in the newspaper. Now that he had fallen out of favor, the paper was quick to point out how young he was. “Boy-Who-Lived, Cracked! Too young to stand up to the pressure? Anonymous classmates weigh in.”

He really could do nothing but laugh when he read the headlines. Hermione warned him to reign in his temper every letter - don’t take them seriously, they don’t know what they’re talking about, keep a cool head Harry - but he was having the opposite problem. Harry agreed with a lot of what they said. He felt cracked. He was too young. That tournament never should have happened to him.

But he couldn’t say that to her. Not in a letter. Maybe not ever. He loved Hermione, but he just could not stomach the idea of her trying to fix him if he told her how he was feeling.

At least at Privet Drive, everyone left him well enough alone. I must be insane if I’m sort of glad to be here, he thought bitterly, laying his head down on his thin pillow. He just wanted to turn his brain off. He didn’t want to his friends to try to make him feel better. The only thing that would really help him would be to get on his broom and fly…

But he couldn’t fly. It wasn’t even worth thinking about.

Rest wasn’t forthcoming either - his nightmares made sure of that. And try as he might, slaving away in the house and yard wasn’t enough to tire him out every day.

I just need something more vigorous, like one of Oliver’s training plans but on the ground.

Just before he went to sleep, he had an idea.

“Aunt Petunia…” Harry approached her tentatively in the spotless kitchen the next day. Aunt Petunia roughly set her floral tea pot on the counter, clearly drawing a long breath through her thin nose before she turned to look at him.

Who does she see? Part of him wondered. Does she hate me like Snape does, because of my father? Because he took her sister away? Did she and mum ever get along?

He drove the thought away and steeled himself. “I’m done with my chores. Do you want me to do anything else before I go to the library?”

Her long fingers tapped in thought, the painted nails lightly ringing against the china. He kept his gaze down - hopeful, but not too eager. She was having a garden party this afternoon and wouldn’t want him in the house anyway, but it had been a long time since he asked to go to the library. 

“Fine. But don’t cause trouble there. I don’t want you stuck inside all summer, skulking around.” She shooed him away with a disgusted flick of her head.

Harry grinned and snatched the dark green bookbag he’d placed at the bottom of the stairs. It was Dudley’s cast-off, so one of the straps was ripped, but it would work for him. He didn’t have a library card, so he wouldn’t be able to check out books anyway.

In it, he packed a pen from one of the drawers of his desk, labeled with the old Grunning’s logo, a primary school notebook that was still mostly blank, a few snacks he’d saved from the train, and most precious of all - a ratty black wallet with nearly fifty pounds inside.

The library was about fifteen minutes from his house on Privet Drive, in the opposite direction of the park where Dudley’s gang liked to lurk. It was built inside an old finishing school, so it was rather grand. It used to be a stuffy old place where he could hide in the children’s section for a few hours, but in the intervening years it had changed. Harry gazed at the brightly colored signs and patterned carpets, marveling at how modern it looked. A young woman smiled at him as he walked in, an act so startling that he actually walked into one of the alarm detectors.

“You okay, hon?”

She’s American, he realized with a start. She doesn’t know who I am.

“Sorry - er, yeah, I’m okay…” he quickly dipped his head and power walked to main shelves. After thoroughly embedding himself in the shelves, he set about remembering how muggle libraries organized the stacks and found the sports section.

Hours later, he thumped his head on the table in defeat. He’d read about nearly every sport known to mankind, but he didn’t find something he could practice by himself in the muggle world. All kinds of track-type sports appealed to him, but the minute he started running through the neighborhood someone would call the police.

Other solitary sports required equipment, or ranges, or special training. He considered a gymnastics book the longest, thinking about the uneven bars at the park, but Piers Polkiss lived across the street. He would phone Dudley the second he saw him trying to front flip.

After a snack break, he decided not to waste his time out of the house and browsed the library to satisfy his curiosity. He flipped through one surprisingly digestible psychology book about nightmares, a book called the Art of War that wasn’t what he expected, but read a few chapters of all the same, and finally a popular children’s series he remembered classmates reading in primary. It was about dragons, and he enjoyed comparing the author’s attempt to describe ideal hatching conditions and the coloration of the dragons against what he knew to be real.

Nearing six o’clock, he put his books away and passed the American woman at the desk again. She offered him a huge smile that he returned mutedly. Just before the exit, he saw there was a cart loaded with books parked near the doors. A sign declared: Free - Courtesy of Friends of the Library.

“Take as many as you like!” the librarian piped up, her voice carrying easily through the silent building. “I’m taking the lot to charity on the weekend.”

Harry bobbed his head, already scanning the well-worn spines. He took a copy of The Hobbit with half the cover missing, something he’d heard even students at Hogwarts mention, and was about to turn around and leave with his prize when a tall, hardcover spine caught his eye. Convict’s Meditation.

Thinking of Sirius, he pulled it out. Convict’s Meditation: Discovering Peace and Freedom inside a Cell.

Harry took that one too.

The rest of the week passed at a slug’s pace. Harry baited Dudley’s gang into Harry Hunting once, just to give himself an excuse to run, but none of them had his stamina or speed. Dudley was raging mad about losing him and trampled a patch of dahlias in the back garden in revenge, which earned Harry a day locked in his room with no food.

Normally he would chafe at being stuck inside, but this time it was a relief. He casually read the first chapter of the Convict book to see what it was about and ended up losing the entire day to it.

It was the autobiography about a man named Ivan Seres who was sentenced to thirteen years in prison for violent robbery when he was eighteen. He’d had a long childhood of juvenile crime - petty theft, joy riding, smoking pot. 

I knew I was nothing but trash. I was a destined lifer, like my father’d been. But something happened when I turned nineteen…a volunteer who came to teach us convicts how to read and do our numbers asked me if I wanted to try and finish school. When I laughed at him and asked why on earth I’d do that, he asked me a question. “You can be anyone you want when you get out. Who will that person be?”

Until that minute, prison seemed like an inevitability. I may get out for a time, but ultimately I’d always come back to concrete walls and locked doors. There’s pride in prison that goes hand-in-hand with self-hatred. But prison is also a place where you can’t lie to yourself. And I learned that I hated being locked in a cage. I was constantly dreaming to be free, but that dream was nothing but an empty blue sky to me. I never thought about what being free could mean. 

That simple question turned my world on its head. For the first time in my life, I started to wonder who I was, who I could become, and how I could do it. I started to believe in the future.

Every chapter was a personal essay, interwoven with accounts from his childhood as well as jaw-dropping stories about prison Harry could scarcely believe were true. Ivan learned to meditate while exploring different religions and described how it helped him check his legendary temper enough to actually back down from fights without losing respect. He detailed the significance of his physical workouts and how connecting to his body helped him reconcile how little he could control in jail. And there was a terribly sad chapter where he described his father's death. The judge denied him leave because there was no one on the outside to organize a funeral. That one didn’t have any advice, Harry just felt his anguish like his own.

Where are my parents even buried? Harry wondered, letting the book slide shut. Realizing he didn’t know brought painful tears to his eyes.

Harry finished the book by sunset. When he was done, he held it close to his chest, closed his eyes, and started to breathe deeply and let go of all the thoughts in his head, trying to emulate Ivan’s meditations.

He adopted a new routine. Ivan described meditating while working his menial prison jobs, so Harry tried to do the same practice. He also attempted to recreate the fitness regimen Ivan described, an hour-long routine of pushups, sit ups, squats, knee drives, and more, but after three days of that on top of his regular chores, Harry almost passed out walking down the stairs.

This isn’t going to work, Harry thought, retreating to drink from the bathroom tap. I’m going to hurt myself.

The boy stared at his reflection. He hadn’t turned the light on, but even in this half-light he could see that his eyes looked less bloodshot, less haunted. His body was sore, but in the last three days he'd slept better than he could ever remember.

I can't stop when it’s working, he thought. He tapped his foot anxiously, thinking about his rapidly dwindling supply of snack foods when suddenly he had an assuredly stupid idea. Several of Ivan's stories centered on him learning how to communicate with people who seemed to hate hate him simply for existing. People are basically decent, even if they like to be cruel to hide their decency. 

Decided, Harry padded uneasily down the stairs and found his aunt preparing her lunch in the kitchen.

Harry gathered his courage.

“Aunt Petunia,” he said, standing placidly in doorway, “The eggs in the fridge are old. Can I please boil them to eat? I've been working every day in the garden and almost fainted just now. I know I don't eat much but-“

Aunt Petunia’s face flushed a bright pink. “After we let you live under our roof, taking up Dudley' room, all summer, you ask for more?" She whirled on him. “You think that what we give, what we sacrifice for you isn't enough? We risk our home, our lives, our sanity taking you in every year! How dare you!" When he didn't react or move, she jabbed one finger at the door, "Get OUT!”

His body wanted to flee, but Harry forced himself to stay still. “Aunt Petunia,” he said, forcing his voice to stay quiet. “Please. I’m doing everything you ask of me. I just need a little more to eat. I can’t live like this. I'll get sick.”

His aunt drew back, two spots of color high on her cheeks. “You greedy freak. You torture Dudley and yet you expect me to wait on you hand and foot? He was just telling me that -“

“I have never hurt Dudley,” Harry asserted, making eye contact. See me, he pleaded mentally. Just look at me for once. “And I never would. Aunt Petunia, I will make the eggs myself. There’s only three of them left and we have to buy more anyway. Please.”

The doorbell rang, freezing his Aunt’s hand before it could grasp the heavy china plate under her sandwich. Her mouth twisted. “We’re not done here,” she hissed fiercely as she pushed past him. Harry took a long breath and eyed the open bag of bread. Before he could overthink it, he darted forward and took two slices from the bag, eating them as quickly as possible.

“We don’t - hello? What-" his Aunt’s voice cut off.

Harry froze, mouth still full. The front door closed.

He swallowed the bread painfully and grasped for the nearest weapon, coming up with a long whisk. He readied himself, knees slightly bent, listening to utter silence. Silencing charm, part of him thought. He took a tiny step closer to the door just as a tall black cat trotted into the kitchen.

Harry stared at it, but the cat paid him no mind. Cautiously, he edged forward and peered down the hall. Aunt Petunia stood with her hand splayed out, mouth agape, frozen in place. Petrified.

“I just froze her a little,” a raspy voice said from behind him. Harry swung around with the whisk, heart beating frantically in his chest. The cat was up on the kitchen counter, lapping up some of the steaming tea in Aunt Petunia’s cup. Harry glanced frantically around the room, but it was empty.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a nip of whiskey, would you?” The cat said. A strangled yelp popped out of his mouth. He clapped one hand over his mouth and stared at the cat’s face, which had definitely spoken like a human being.

The cat swiped one paw over its muzzle and looked straight at Harry. A simple, perfect white circle of fur interrupted an otherwise totally black coat. It wasn’t the average ally cat either - though lanky, it was well-cared for and didn’t carry the soft stomach of Mrs. Figg’s felines.

An animagus? He wondered. But they can’t talk. The cat looked obviously from the whisk in his hand to his face.

“Hey…you know what?" The cat grinned at him, sending a shiver down his spine. "This reminds me of that old joke! Have you ever heard the one about the druid, the mage, and the wizard?”

Harry pressed his back into toaster oven as he watched the cat’s mouth move and actual words come out. Harry had seen all colors of magical creatures, but this was just disturbing. The cat bared his teeth and let out a low growl that could be its attempt at a laugh.

“Cat’s can’t laugh,” Harry blurted, feeling wildly unstable.

The cat half-closed its eyes and rolled them. Harry’s hand itched for his wand, but it was upstairs. Stupid! Surely if I was in danger one of my watchers would know by now, right? But what if this cat did something to them like it did to Aunt Petunia? How did it even get through the wards if it means to hurt me? What if-

The cat gave him an unimpressed side-eye and continued to talk, breaking through the din in Harry’s head. “A wizard, a mage, and a druid argue about who can find them the safest place to hide from the ever-expanding threat of muggle empire. The druid takes them to a glen in the highlands, protected by a ring of stones older than the language that they speak. This place is protected by lady magic herself, he says. Any wixen or magical creature amongst these stones can be guaranteed a peaceful rest. The druid gestures to the sky, But our kind does not like to be trapped to one place, and only a small number can stay here at a time. It is a shelter as temporary as the full moon.

The mage takes them to a cave protected by an ancient waterfall. The cave is lined with thousands of years carvings and runic wards. The mage says, This place has been a home for fae and wix when they are most in need. Generation upon generation has prevailed here. For as long as these rituals are upheld, no one with ill-intent can come inside. The mage strokes his ring of power with a sigh, But it is not our way to live forever in a sacred state, so no one could make a home in here.

The wizard twirls his mustache, eager to show up his friends. He apparates them outside his house just on the edge of a muggle village. I have created new spells that keep out anyone I do not strictly invite. Those who seek me will never find me. Those who betray me can be struck from my dossier and barred from entry. No foe can enter, no muggle can perceive it. And the door requires my unique wand to open or close. Because a wand is tied to the wizard who wields it, these spells can be used by anyone all over our island. We could even protect whole towns with it. 

His friends test the new wards and express their amazement. The wizard’s pride gets the better of him and he boasts, The way of wizards is much better than a desolate field or a musty old cave, wouldn’t you say?

The mage frowns but allows the wizard’s slight, for he knows the man is a powerful fool. But the druid has less patience. He smiles so as not to let his true feelings show and asks, Your way is very powerful indeed. Can you demonstrate these spells to us, so we can see what it’s like to be barred from entry?

The wizard proudly agrees and walks into his house. The druid begins to whistle, feeling the magic in the earth and air, and fixes a point of attachment to his friend’s wand. Though the wand is loyal to the wizard, the wood never forgot the ash tree from which it was cut, and the druid whistles the song of the ash to tempt it away. Just as the house in front of them disappears from both their memory and their sight, the druid tugs the wand straight through the wards and into his hand.

Is that Wizard’s wand? the mage asks curiously. Where did he go?

The druid shrugs, A wizard without his wand is just magician pulling coins from his ears."

The cat stared at Harry in expectant silence.

“Ha ha,” the teen laughed uncertainly, bewildered. Was that supposed to be a joke?

The cat’s eyes swiveled down to his hands. Harry flushed, “Yeah, well, statute of secrecy and all that.” The cat merely cleaned one ear. Am I really arguing with this - this -

“What…who are you?”

“Finally, an intelligent question,” the creature groused. “I’m-“

“OUT! GET THAT FILTHY THING OUT OF HERE!” Aunt Petunia burst into the room, broom in hand, and whacked Harry with it.

“Aunt Petunia wait!” He shouted, blocking more blows.

“I DON’T WANT IT IN HERE!” She punctuated every word with a sharp thwack of the broom. She was paler than he’d ever seen and seemed unwilling to even look at the cat on their counter. “I WON’T HAVE IT IN MY-“

“Shut up you ogre,” the cat sneered and flicked its tail, silencing her. For a moment, Harry didn’t know what his Aunt would do, but she surprised him by fixing the cat with a determined glare and hefting the broom up to swing.

“No, no, none of that.” The cat narrowed his eyes and Aunt Petunia froze in place again.

“You can’t do magic here,” Harry said quickly, though he was secretly enjoying this disaster. “I’ll get a letter, I’ll be expelled.” Unless this is a delusion of my starved mind. Maybe I should grab some leftover ham while she’s frozen.

The creature rolled its eyes again. “Oh really? I dare you to cast a spell right now. Are you hopeless without that deadwood of yours, or do you have a bit of druid in you?”

“What?”

“Dare you,” The cat licked its lips, staring at him intently. “Do some magic. See if you get a letter.”

This is stupid, Harry thought, wrestling with curiosity over common sense. I don’t even know what this is. This could be a dark creature. It’s just attacked my aunt. It…it…

Well. His aunt wasn’t hurt. Certainly, freezing her wasn’t any worse than what Hagrid did to Dudley…and the cat had been talking for a long time but there wasn't a letter here for the first bit of magic it did. That was odd, wasn’t it? When Dobby cast the hover charm, his warning letter came almost immediately.

Just when he was gearing up to go upstairs and fetch his wand, the cat-thing laughed. “Maybe you’re smarter than you look. Just keep in mind what I said for later. Now, didn’t you ask who I am? I’m John.”

Harry blinked. “Really?”

The cat held his gaze for a beat. “No. But, you humans love to name things, so you can call me that. It’s better than ‘Mr. Nibbles’ or ‘Onyx’ or -”

“Sooty,” Harry supplied. The cat scowled.

“What are you?” Harry asked in bald fascination.

“That’s rather rude to ask,” John spat, “How would you feel if someone asked you that before they even offered their name?”

Harry frowned at how logical that was. “Um…well, I’m Harry. Potter. Uh. I’m a wizard. Wait…how did you get in here? Aren’t there wards? Were you sent by Dumbledore?”

John snorted and flicked his tail. “You’re rather slow, aren’t you? You’re slow and a wizard who doesn’t read his mail. The goblins turned up snake eyes on this one.”

“I always read my mail!” he snapped indignantly, and then caught up to what John had said. “Goblins?”

“Yes, of Gringotts? Heard of it? You’re rather overdue for your appointment.”

“What appointment?” Merlin, this cat could out-snark Snape.

“Indeed.” John nodded sagely, “I was hired by Gringotts to investigate why you weren’t responding to your mail. It seems there’s a powerful ward set on your person, you should consider a mailbox. Heard of those?”

“A mailbox?” he asked doubtfully. “Like at the post office? But there aren’t any-“

The cat sighed, “You’re hopeless. This is why I hate talking to kids. You’re know-it-alls who don’t know anything.”

John leapt off the counter and trotted past his Aunt. “Get your wand, wizard-boy. I’m taking you to Gringotts.”

“I can’t leave!” Harry protested, although the prospect of adventure was intoxicating. He could feel excitement building in him. How could he resist such a strange invitation? And was he really mad enough to snub Gringotts? “It’s not safe. I’m being hunted, you know. And I’m being watched.”

“Yes,” John hissed, rubbing his flank along Aunt Petunia’s legs. “You’re being watched by a stinking drunk. He’s asleep in those hydrangeas across the street. If I return you before dusk, he’ll be none the wiser.”

Harry almost snorted. Of course his body guard wasn’t guarding a thing.

But still…Should I really go with some strange cat creature I don’t know? I thought that nothing that can hurt me could get past the blood wards…but how do I know that for sure?

He licked his lips, “Where’s your proof?”

John shook his little head and sniffed, “I am a legate of Gringotts, acting as messenger and ferrier. In my company, no harm will come to you, no eyes perceive you, no minds notice you are gone.” A faint chime echoed in Harry’s head. The cat had made a magical oath. “You are a wizard, not a trained monkey in a cage. And not even a monkey would be fool enough to spurn the goblins after they went through all this trouble to hire me…”

Well, when you put it that way, Harry thought, hurrying upstairs to fetch his wand. He’d brought the whisk, which he left on his bed. If I’m going to Diagon, I may as well do some shopping. He stuffed his invisibility cloak into his school bag, changed into slightly more respectable clothes, grabbed his money bag, and pocketed his wand. He noisely clambered down the stairs where he found John sniffing at Dudley’s old trainers.

Harry glanced down the hall where Aunt Petunia was still poised with the broom. “What about my Aunt?”

“I’ll put her to sleep. She’ll think she laid down due to a migraine and forget all about this. I wish she was a muggle,” John let out a whining sigh, “I don’t even have to enchant them, they just forget about what they saw. Ready?”

“Hang on - my aunt’s not a-"

“Say bye!” John wiggled his haunches and launched at his chest, suddenly growing to the size of tiger, claws out. Harry screamed and teetered backwards, anticipating crashing into the wall, and then-

“Welcome to Gingotts,” John said casually from behind.

Harry clutched his chest and doubled over, gasping. He thought - John was huge but now he was just…a normal cat. And he didn’t fall, he didn’t even feel a touch, it was like he stumbled backward through a curtain and…

They were standing in a grand foyer, surrounded by squat, glittering furniture. A goblin holding a black halberd stood in front of a pair of white marble doors, glaring at them.

“What did you do?” the Gryffindor gasped accusingly. “I’ve never heard of travel like that. It wasn’t apparition!”

“Trade secret,” John replied haughtily. “You humans can’t do it. Follow me.” He trotted out of the foyer, leading him away from the marble doors and to a much more reasonable oak door. It swung open before either of them could touch it.

Harry stepped into a small office. A great portion of the floor was taken up by a glowing white circle etched into the ground with a waist-high gold altar in the center. Flameless braziers lined the walls, each cupping a glowing chunk of shimmering, white stone. Harry did a double take to the ritual circle and, yes, the white material in the floor seemed to glow as well.

“Greetings, Heir Potter.” Harry jumped. A grizzled goblin was seated at the desk. He gestured to the leather wing-backed chair in front of him. “Take a seat. You may remain at your pleasure.” It took a second for Harry to catch on that the goblin was speaking to John. The black cat hopped up on the corner of the desk and folded his paws.

“It pleases me to stay for now,” John replied.

The goblin nodded. He had a lion’s mane of grizzled white hair framing his craggy face. He only had one eye, and in the empty socket was a gleaming emerald. “Heir Potter, I assure you this legate of Gringotts is bound by oaths of secrecy, and no business of your house shall be repeated by either of us without your leave.”

Harry sat gingerly, eyes going from the cat to the goblin. “Er, thank you - sir?”

The goblin made a horrible face. Perhaps it was a polite smile. “Witheraxe,” he growled, gesturing to himself.

“Witheraxe,” Harry repeated, careful to keep a respectful tone. “Um, John said I have a ward on my person that prevents me from getting mail. I apologize sir - er, Witheraxe,” Merlin, how are you supposed to address goblins? “I don’t know anything about a ward.”

“Most unusual. Such a sophisticated mail ward must be keyed to an individual’s magic…” The goblin stroked his braided goatee and looked to John, “What else did you find?”

“He seems to be totally ignorant, so you’ll be wanting a spear through your skull by the time we’re done.” John raised his backleg to itch his shoulder. “Oh, did you mean other wards? No, kid’s got nothing on him besides the mail shield. I think it could be tied to an object in the house. Probably some jewelry or a family heirloom, should be pretty easy to find considering he’s house-less and in the muggle world.”

“Interesting,” the goblin said, scratching his chin. “That means our usual policy of not sending mail to Hogwarts students has set us back. We can, of course, provide you with a ward-breaker’s services for a reasonable fee,” the goblin grinned at him, and Harry smiled uneasily back.

“Yeah - um - what in Merlin’s name is going on?” Harry fisted his hands. “I don’t know anything about wards or being 'house-less' or anything about Gringotts beyond the obvious. I know I have a trust vault. That’s about it. I’ve never received mail from the bank about anything else.”

The goblin’s face dropped into a serious scowl. “See?” John gloated, “Don’t you hate humans?”

“Yes, they can be most difficult,” Witheraxe grumbled. “Heir Potter, I cannot answer all your questions, because I simply do not know what has gone on outside these walls. I can explain the terms to you so you will understand, and give you a full accounting of your business with Gringotts. But once you leave this place, you shall be striking out on your own. A word of advice?” Harry nodded mutely. “We goblins have a saying about the business of wizards. It goes,” he snarled out some words in Gobbledegook. “It means, roughly, a wizard’s word is a spell. The promises you’ve been made, perhaps even things you’ve agreed to, are nothing but a story, a temporary bit of magic, Heir Potter. We goblins know that truth is written in history, in stone, and in blood. Wizards don’t always respect these things, and so you often must take what they say with a grain of salt.”

Feeling oddly chastised, Harry carefully took his backpack off and set it on the ground at his feet. Settling in, he took a deep breath.

“Okay. Tell me what I need to know.”

The goblin reached under his desk and took out a black box. “On October 31st of last year, the key to Vault 635 appeared in that rune circle, along with this Lord ring. In accordance with the laws of magic, Goblin and Wizarding treaties, and the ancestral powers of House Potter, you are recognized as Lord Apparent of the House of Potter. As Lord, you will be capable of claiming your title, properties, and associated rights and seats as you are owed within the governing council of the British Wizarding World. Your status affords you access to the Potter Family Vault, and you shall receive quarterly statements from me, the Potter Accounts Manager, from here forward.”

Harry felt his body go weak. Witheraxe said it all without ceremony or pomp, rather like he was reading from a contract. The goblin opened up the box in his hand and a gold ring with a large diamond glittered at him.

“What…how?" What happened on October 31st…? The Goblet of Fire! Understanding crashed down over him. The Goblet recognized him as a worthy candidate to participate in the Tournament and somehow that triggered the magic in Gringotts to accept him as Lord Potter.

Harry started to laugh uncontrollably. What didn’t that damn tournament do to ruin my life? First it turned Ron against me, then I had to fight for my life three times, and now I’m inheriting a Lordship of all things. What does any of this even mean?

“Heir Potter?”

Harry’s head was spinning. He was vaguely aware that he wasn’t laughing anymore, but he couldn’t stop his breath from coming in quick and shallow. He gripped the leather chair with all his might and tried not to sick up in front of Witheraxe.

“Breathe, Heir Potter.” Steam condensed on his face. He turned his head away, trying to force his body into compliance, but his muscles just wouldn’t work. The steam filled his nose and throat again, and with it came the calming scent of lavender. Harry took one deep breath. Then another.

“Drink, Heir Potter,” the cup pressed lightly against his lips. He sipped lightly, expecting heat and instead getting gentle warmth. He took a longer sip, breathing deeply through his nose. It tasted like warm milk and cinnamon, with the deep undercurrent of potion base at the back of his throat.

After another sip, he managed to sit upright and focus on his surroundings again. Witheraxe had come to the front of the desk. He leaned on a wicked platinum staff, watching him carefully.

“I’m sorry,” Harry rasped, too exhausted to put much feeling into the words. “It’s just a shock.”

“It’s no bother, Heir Potter,” Witheraxe said and slowly made his way around his desk. “Take your time. Consider your questions.”

Harry worked the new knowledge over in his head again, coming back to the question of how this happened. “It must have been the Goblet, right?" Witheraxe nodded, sitting heavily in his chair. "But I thought I was only chosen by the Goblet of Fire because my name was entered under a fake school…it didn’t have a choice.”

“That is not how the Goblet of Champions works,” Witheraxe sneered, his single black eye rolling. “If you were not strong enough to compete, you would not have been chosen at all.”

“Oh,” Harry uttered, feeling stupid. “Did the Goblins make it?”

John smirked. Witheraxe huffed, “A Goblin made it. One of our greatest masters.”

Harry felt deeply uncomfortable not to have known that. He drank from the cup again. It was not really a cup, it was a large stone tankard. The more he drank, the more present and rested he felt. He resisted the urge to ask what the drink was.

The glinting diamond caught his eye. Harry set the tankard on the ground and leaned closer to it.

Witheraxe held out the box with the ring. “You are eight months delayed by unavoidable circumstance, but Gringotts and magic can wait no more.” The goblin placed the ring box in his hand, “Claim your Lordship.”

“Lordship…” Harry breathed, examining the ring. It wasn’t really a ring, he realized. The diamond was suspended over a slow swirl of liquid gold. He reached out with his wand hand to touch the gem.

The gold bubbled and popped, surging over his skin. It was cold, but when the band formed around his middle finger it warmed, sending a wave of heat and power up his arm.

He sighed contentedly at the feeling that bloomed in his chest and watched the diamond nestle in the wide face of the ring. Tiny words formed around it, all in latin. He couldn’t quite make out the letters in this light.

“Lord Potter,” Witheraxe murmured.

Did my dad wear this ring? He wondered, turning it around in his hand.

“The Potter grimoire details the history and enchantments of the ring. Every family is different. From my examination, it appears to have some standard elements of protection - it will warm against a danger in your hand, so it is standard to always drink with your wand arm. It will key in to any wards and spells established by your blood, often unlocking doors or chests left by your ancestors without a spell. It likely has other inherent enchantments, you will have to see for yourself in the grimoire."

“Potter grimoire,” Harry repeated. Something tight in his chest was close to snapping. I didn’t even know there was a family vault. What else is in there? “Why am I just learning about this now?”

Witheraxe’s mouth turned down. “Gringotts is not privy to the decision of wizards. I can only tell you what we had assumed - that you were receiving your mail. As Heir to the Noble House of Potter, we have sent you quarterly statements covering transactions and investment gains that affect your trust vault. It is assumed that your guardians would have kept those letters for you. They can only be opened by the addressee, you see.”

“You sent me reports even when I was a baby?” Harry asked. Maybe Aunt Petunia complained and that’s why they set a mail ward…

Witheraxe clicked his teeth, “It is our custom. As there are no other survivors of your house, we had no other option. Your godfather would have been able to open and read them, technically, as he was blood-bound in his oath to protect and care for you. But he would not have been able to do business with your accounts without your express signature.”

Harry nodded. “So…who else was notified when I was recognized as a Lord, or whatever?”

“When you were chosen to compete by the Goblet of Champions, or Fire as you have also heard it called, magic recognized you as a worthy contestant for the ritual games. Doing so triggered other rituals, rituals normally set into action by your seventeenth birthday. This is part of the treaties between goblin and wizard-kind. Peaceful transitions of power in wixen households and the continuation of family lines was once a source of great turmoil in your world, and the Goblin Confederation oversees them all now as a neutral body. To answer your exact question…” Witheraxe tapped the table, “As an Heir, you normally need a ceremony to take full control of your family vault, typically conducted by the head of the family who then notifies your government. However, magic only needs you to be recognized that you are fully capable of wielding magic in the name of your family. In this case, the cup stood in for your coming of age ceremony. A natural ritual is rare, but not unheard of. In these cases, only Gringotts is notified. To claim your rights in your ministry, you will need to speak to the relevant office. Might I suggest the employ of a solicitor…”

Harry worried his lip, stunned that this could have all happened without anyone knowing. “But, what would have happened if I didn’t have the ceremony? Any ceremony?”

“You would have remained Heir Potter, until such a time as you were recognized as worthy of your title by magic. It probably would have been triggered by your seventeenth birthday, or shortly after you completed any NEWTs which often prove magical worth enough to please the ritual.” Witheraxe held up one clawed hand to stave off more questions, “I recommend you take further questions about wizarding customs to the bookshop or your betters. I do not know the intricacies of such things.”

“Would…would my family grimoire have an explanation?” Suddenly, Harry very much wanted to be down in the vaults.

“I do not know,” Witheraxe growled, “Perhaps. Lord Potter, though this is a confusing time, we have a most urgent matter to discuss. Your mail ward is an interference to your business with Gringotts. How would you like to remedy it?”

“Er,” Harry didn’t suppose the Dursley’s would appreciate a goblin cursebreaker traipsing through their house. Then there was the problem of the blood wards… “John mentioned a - uh - mailbox? Would that work?”

Witheraxe nodded curtly. “That will do. Write to me with the address as soon as you receive it.” He reached into the top drawer and pulled out a creamy white card, “This is my private mailbox. You may use this address to set an appointment at any time.”

Harry nodded, tucking it into his pant’s pocket.

“Next, we will discuss the history of your business with Gringotts, seeing as you’ve never received our correspondence. Then we will talk investment strategy…” The goblin placed a thick sheaf of parchment on the table, grinning. Harry gulped.

Nearly two hours, a hearty goblin lunch, and a trip to his family vault later, Harry stumbled back into the foyer where they’d appeared. John stretched out on the floor, exposing his fluffy belly. “Took you long enough,” he groused. Witheraxe had kicked him out when he started snoring through an explanation of pound-to-galleon conversion fees.

Harry ran his fingers through his hair and tugged at the knots, wishing he had more time. He could only be inside his vault for about fifteen minutes, so he had to run about the huge, cavernous rooms just to get a sense of what was there and prepare for a future visit. There were four antechambers attached to the main vault, one full of gold, gems, and rare artifacts in cases, two filled with furniture, and the last with paintings and sculptures. The main room was lined with bookshelves, desks, and tall glasses cases of clothing, artifacts, even saddles. But Harry had no time to look through the tantalizing shelves of books and journals, nor through what appeared to be his parents’ Hogwarts trunks. He grabbed some gold, a dark brown leather jacket he’d found in a rack of robes, and two books - An Auror’s Guide to Self Defense, 1978, and Godric’s Playground: A Tour Through his Family Estate.

Harry sat down on the nearest wrought-iron bench, decorated with a detailed sculpture of a dragon breathing fire. John’s tail twitched. “I have to get you home, kid,” he said, unimpressed. “Chop chop.”

“Can you take me back here tomorrow? I still need to get my mailbox.” Harry said.

John shook his head, “Weren’t you listening? You’re considered an emancipated adult now. Take the Knight Bus!”

“Don’t you know who I am?” Harry deadpanned. “I can’t just get on the Knight Bus.”

“Mmm, and you can’t apparate yet, can you?”

Harry shook his head, massaging his temples. Maybe I can take the train to London this weekend…wear a hat…but how do I lose the tail?

A tiny weight prodded his knee. “Alright wimpy wix, stand up and suck it in. I’ll help.” Annoyance evaporated as Harry looked down at the strange cat, who had sat up next to him on the bench. “But I have engagements tomorrow. Let’s go on Sunday.”

“Okay,” Harry grinned, doing as the cat said. “Can you not traumatize my aunt please?”

John snorted and wiggled his haunches. “No promises, kid,” then he leapt at Harry’s chest again and a second later they were back at Privet Drive.

“That never gets easier…” Harry rubbed his chest and tried to calm his racing heart.

“I’ll see you soon,” John yowled. Then he vanished into thin air.

Privet Drive was absolutely silent. It was now the late afternoon, just before Uncle Vernon was due to come home from work. Dudley wouldn’t be back before dinner. Harry checked the front door, the hallway, and the kitchen for signs of a magical disturbance. The broom was laying on the ground, so he picked it up and put it back in the cupboard. He tried not to look too long inside.

Quietly, Harry cleaned his Aunt’s dishes and dried everything so he could put them back in their proper place. Then, without a care in the world, he made himself a cucumber and cream cheese sandwich and ate it over the sink.

It’s nice right here, he thought idly, watching wind sway the poplar trees in the garden. I wonder what my parents’ garden looked like.

Witheraxe had mentioned properties. There was a drawer of deeds in the vaults, along with leather-bound sheafs of parchment filled with documents, records, and letters collected and stored by his ancestors. Harry could leave this place now, anytime he wanted. He could have a home of his own.

A home for Sirius and I, he thought.

The hope in him was still small, but it gave him warmth and energy he hadn't felt in a long time. Despite the ring on his finger and all he learned today, Harry didn’t quite believe that it could be true. Part of him wondered how not even Dumbledore could know that he was considered an adult wizard now. Maybe he didn’t want me to know, Harry thought, idly licking his fingers. I suppose all this power might encourage some of my ‘reckless behavior’.

Then again, Dumbledore had left him to be protected by a drunk. So, maybe the man wasn’t as omnipotent as Harry believed.

Harry finished his sandwich and looked down in the sink where a layer of crumbs scattered over the shining stainless steel he’d scrubbed countless times. His palm found his holly wand.

“Evanesco,” he whispered, watching the evidence of his crime vanish.

Harry stood there in front of the back window for a long time, waiting. But no letter ever came.

Chapter 3: Venture and Know All

Summary:

Harry returns to Diagon Alley with the world at his fingertips and discovers that he loves the smell of cedar wood.

Notes:

Wow! I have been working on this chapter all week to get it posted on time. Here's my labor of love - and it's a long one. There's a lot of setting the stage, so I tried to break it up and keep the pace swift. I hope you like it!
Also...Theo enters stage left :)
Thank you for reading!!! I've got the next chapter written and so it will probably come out early.

It was pitifully easy to trick the Dursleys into locking him in his room for the rest of the weekend.

“Listen up boy!” Uncle Vernon barked at top volume. “Your Aunt wasn’t feeling well yesterday and it’s imperative she be in tip-top shape for her charity luncheon tomorrow! You do absolutely everything she says and then some, and not a word of complaint. Got it?”

His white beret shifted off his head into his face. Uncle Vernon pushed it back with one meaty hand, showing off the gigantic new watch on his wrist. From what Harry learned through reluctant osmosis, his Uncle was promoted just before the end of April and now he and Aunt Petunia were eager to flaunt the money in the face of everyone they knew.

Harry sniffed wetly and blotted his nose with a crumpled tissue. “Yes Uncle Vernon.” He coughed on the exhale and struggled to hack the mucus up as quietly as possible, quickly darting outside before his Uncle could literally beat it out of him.

“No, no, no, NO!”

Harry grinned and spat into his tissue. Perfect timing.

Carefully, he straightened up and hobbled back into the kitchen. Aunt Petunia was hiding behind her husband, clutching at his sweater vest in horror.

“He can’t be in here!” she hissed, holding her shirt up against her mouth. “He’ll infect the whole house. Look at him Vernon!”

“So send him out to mow the lawn,” Uncle Vernon said easily. “An honest days work will whip him into shape. I work all the time and I never get sick.”

Harry sneezed three times in quick succession. He snorted and sniffed as loudly as possible, channeling Ron.

“I’m fine Aunt Petunia,” he mumbled, reaching for the fridge. “I’ll just wear some gloves while I prepare-“

“To. Your. Room!” she shrieked, grabbing at the nearest dishcloth and flicking it at him. “I don’t want you to go past your door until after my luncheon is over! If we put him out in the yard those other freaks might come to the house! Vernon! You have to lock him away!”

Harry took a breath to say something and gagged. Aunt Petunia shrieked and beat at him all the way up the stairs.

“Wicked,” he whispered, eating the other test sweet Fred and George sent him. The first candy worked perfectly, but its sister sweet was clearly still in development, because it took four hours for the fever to break and his lungs to clear. In that time, Harry rested in bed, carefully reading through his books to find the right spell.

“Devita enloco,” he chanted that evening, twirling his wand clockwise.

A bright blue sparkle shot out of his wand and hit the door. Harry did a little dance and spread his arms. “Now I’m free and clear!” he said, turning proudly to-

He wilted. Hedwig was gone, he’d forgotten.

She would probably be back with letters from Ron and Hermione mid-week. He hated to see her cooped up here, so every time she went away he asked her to stretch her wings a little bit. For the both of them.

He couldn’t break the habit of talking to her though, even when she was gone. It lightened a weight in his chest to say something other than Yes, Aunt Petunia.

Harry slept restlessly Saturday night. He tossed and turned, obsessing over what could happen if his relatives or the wizards watching him discovered he was gone. I need a back-up plan if I’m caught.

That was how he ended up spinning his ring in the early dawn light, balancing on the back two legs of his chair with a page of questions and plans at his feet. It wasn’t brilliant, he would do anything for Ron’s strategic brain right now, but Harry had a couple of scenarios scribbled down. If the worst happened and he somehow caught Voldemort browsing the shelves of Flourish and Blotts, he would race as fast as he could to Hogwarts by any means necessary. If there was even just one person at the castle, he’d be safe.

With his thoughts written down, his worries eased. That was something Ivan Seres talked about in his book as well, "the power of journaling". Harry tried to keep at it, but it didn't seem to do anything for him. Once, he woke up from a terrible nightmare of watching himself bury Cedric alive and just wrote, I think Cedric must hate me for what I did.

The next day he tore the page to tiny pieces. In the end, he felt worse.

He shook himself and studied the inscription on his ring again. It read aude et scire omnia, literally - venture and know all. Harry wrote it down in his notebook over and over again until he was certain he had it memorized.

“A bit brainy for a family of Gryffindors,” he muttered. The diamond was as clear as glass, magnifying a tiny depiction of the Potter family crest. “I just wish I knew what any of this meant.”

The symbol was even tinier, but he did his best to draw it. It seemed to be a shield crossed diagonally by a wavy line, with a bird in the center. He wasn’t sure, but Harry thought it was a crow.

I expected lions or swords or something more…heroic.

Another question added to his list. They all jostled over each other in order of importance. Where is the mail stopped by the mail ward? Does Sirius know that I was going to inherit a Lordship? Does this mean I could walk away from Privet Drive and live on my own? What will Dumbledore say when I tell him? Is there anything in my vault that could help me against Voldemort?

Harry felt like he was being pulled apart. One piece of him couldn’t stop imagining all the things he could buy to make his life in Privet Drive actually tolerable for the summer. He would gladly spend a mountain of gold for a mobile apartment, like Mr. Weasley’s tent from the World Cup, and a years worth of provisions.

At the same time, his deep cynicism pulled him the other way, telling him to hold fast. 

Someone put a mail ward on this house from when he was a baby. It just had to be Dumbledore, there was no one else Harry could imagine had the skill and authority to do it. Dumbledore wanted him to stay close to Privet Drive, possibly for the whole summer, cut off from everyone he knew in the magical world. Wasn't there something wrong with that pictures?

But Harry couldn’t believe that his grandfatherly Headmaster did all this to hurt him. Every conversation Harry remembered with the Headmaster left him with the feeling that the man wanted him to be happy, healthy, safe.

But look at what he’s done, a part of him whispered. A part of him Harry instinctively pushed away. Dumbledore could move the world for you. He’s the most powerful wizard in Britain, the only man Voldemort fears. Why did he send you to this birdcage?

A cold sweat prickled his neck. It felt wrong to keep this huge secret from his friends, from Dumbledore. But at the same time, this could be the only advantage Harry was ever going to get - and it was handed it to him on a silver platter.

I’m not going to sit here like a trained monkey, Harry thought viciously, recalling John’s petty insult. I’m a Gryffindor for Merlin’s sake. I fought Voldemort. I survived the Dursleys for eleven years on my own. I’m not going to let anyone take this away from me.

He wasn’t sure when John would show up, so he got dressed as soon as the sun touched the horizon. Harry tried to pull together the nicest clothes he owned and emulate the cool poshness of pureblood Slytherins and Ravenclaws he saw mingling in Hogsmeade. With a cloak over his face, he might be able to pass as a normal wizard for a moment, but he’d have to buy some kind of glam-

“Going on a hot date?”

Harry whipped around, kicking his toes against the leg of his bed and nearly toppling over. “Fucking sneaky fucking magic cat!” he hissed, hopping around the room.

John stepped out of the shadows behind Hedwig’s cage, amber eyes bright with amusement. He wrapped his tail neatly over his paws.

“I’m trying to look like a wizard!” Harry whispered, and rubbed his face at how nonsensical that sounded. “I mean - like a pureblood or someone who’s not from the muggle world.”

“Consider the humble pointed cap,” John purred. His eyes flashed and suddenly Harry’s old hat from first year was atop his head. “With a wide brim to cover unfortunate warty noses or tell-tale curse scars.”

“How do you do all this magic?” Harry muttered, tugging the hat off and shaking it at him. “This was at the bottom of my trunk.”

“I know,” John’s whiskers twitched. “So you need a disguise? I can help you with that.”

Harry frowned, distrustful of how easily the cat volunteered to help him. “For a price?”

“Would you work for free?” John asked, starting to groom one ear.

“Well how am I supposed to pay you? You don’t have a Gringotts account.” He paused, “Do you?”

John let out a scratchy mrrrow. “Just a few ingredients and a little wand waving will earn you a free ride to Diagon Alley and back. But if you want me to help you find a disguise, you better purchase the finest ingredients. Money should be no object for you, Lord Potter.” The cat bared his teeth in a very human grin.

“If you saw me in potions you wouldn’t ask me to brew you a potion…” he warned. And I probably shouldn’t be making some strange concoction for a creature I can’t even identify.

John rolled his eyes, “It hardly qualifies as a potion. It’s a meal. I saw you cook for these horrific people you live with.”

“Oh, well I can do - wait,” Harry remembered one of the questions he wrote down yesterday and went scrambling for his notebook. “Didn’t you say my Aunt wasn’t a muggle? What is she? A squib?”

The cat shrugged, “I don’t know what you’d call her, but I’ll tell you that no muggle could break out of my enchantment. She must have a bit of the shine to her.” He glared around the room, “Despite all evidence to the contrary.”

Harry felt his world tip on its axis. What does that even mean? She must be a squib but she couldn’t go to Hogwarts…but how does anyone know they’re a squib anyway, if they don’t come from magical parents? Is there a test for it? What is the difference between a squib and a muggle?

John made an impatient noise, “Well? We’re bleeding daylight. Buy a book on it or something. By the way, how are you going to explain disappearing for a day? What will your muggles do without their slave?”

He flushed and turned away from the cat, making a show of checking that his bookbag was packed. Even some weird magic cat knows my relatives treat me like garbage, but the wizards outside can be bothered to say something?

“I’m pretending to be sick. They don’t need much of an excuse to lock me up here anyway. I backed that up with a muggle repelling ward.”

“Clever wizard,” John said approvingly. “Ready?”

Harry turned to face the cat and nodded.

Don’t blow this chance, Potter, he thought, and braced himself for that strange, buoyant power of John’s to strike him in the chest.

Something pressed up on his shins. “Better,” John purred, rubbing his cheek against Harry’s knee. “I’ll wait for you right here.” He stretched hugely, splaying his front legs out in a play-bow. “It’s time for my first nap of the day.”

Harry walked across the foyer and through the marble doors Witheraxe directed him to the other day. He tried to look self-assured as he approached the goblin sitting there, “Good morning Shalebolt, I need to visit vault 635.”

“Certainly, Lord Potter.” The goblin slammed a spiked seal into the thick sheaf of parchment he was reading and raised his hand at the same time. The smaller doors to his left opened, revealing another goblin who bowed to Harry and led him to the mine carts.

Minutes later, Harry was inside his family vault. His ferrier, Grindstave, posted up outside the vault doors.

Harry paused, eying the goblin self-consciously “Er, I might be in here for a while…”

“I will wait as long as Lord Potter requires,” Grindstave intoned. Right, like they’d just leave wizards down here unaccompanied.

Harry forced himself to work meticulously even though he hungered to run from object to object. There was certainly no shortage of treasures! Shelf after shelf of books, scrolls, and even stone tablets lined the right-hand wall. Towering cabinets of magical objects and trunks full of clothes teased the edge of his vision. He dropped his bag on a round table and studied the books first. Unfortunately, most of them were in other languages. Harry identified ancient runes, Latin, French, some kind of ornamental script that he didn’t recognize, and Old English.

“What are the chances there’s a book on translation spells around here?” he muttered.

Harry gave up on the old tomes and went back to the brightly colored books that caught his eye during his whirlwind visit Friday afternoon. He crouched down and started reading. Transfiguration Mastery 5th Ed., Standard Book of Spells Grade 7, Variations and Modifications to Wand Movements in Weather Charms…

Harry smiled ruefully and reached out for the most well-loved book, British Folklore and Legends. Reverently, he opened it and felt the pages turn softly under his hands. Inscribed on the inside cover was a neat signature, Lily Evans.

Slowly, Harry stood up with the book under his arm. Much of his parent’s school work seemed to be piled in one corner of the main chamber.

He pulled their trunks to the center of the room. His father’s was truly fine, wrapped in black-red dragon hide and embossed with his initials. His mother’s was smaller, closer in style to Harry’s own trunk. Both were full of odds and ends. His father’s contained his full quidditch kit and a bottle of broom polish, along with some crumpled transfiguration notes, a jar of beetle wings, and a compartment that seemed to be permanently stuck.

His mother’s contained an unexpected prize: a stack of letters bound together from her parents - his grandparents. Harry pulled the first one out and unfolded a lavender page of stationary.

Dear Lily, I’m so glad you’ve already made a friend at your new school! Your father and I are VERY proud of you. I’m sure you’ll make Gryffindor house proud, too.

The words blurred together and Harry quickly put the letter back, glancing over his shoulder self-consciously as he wiped his eyes.

The trunk also contained her Head Girl badge and a robe that smelled faintly of perfume. He sank his face into it for a moment and breathed in her scent. He impulsively tucked the robe into his bookbag.

The rest of the chamber was full of less emotionally draining but still curious artifacts. He tried to read some of the grimoire, but the magical spells, potions, and rituals in it went way above his head. It seemed like the grimoire functioned as part history, part spell book, part inventory of Potter family secrets. His father recorded just ten pages before he died, describing the passing of his parents, his marriage to Lily, and Harry’s birth.

He hungrily ready his father's script, gently touching the spiky black ink. His father mentioned selling his parent's home near Dover to a small family. Fleamont and Euphemia Potter wanted to fill that house with children, and the Masterley's already have two, with a third on the way. Even though their oldest is a squib, they are a powerful magical family who will bring honor to Stormdinn Court. 

Inspired by the mention of properties, Harry turned to the stately writing desks and started searching for house keys. Instead, he stumbled across a property deed for Godric’s Hollow.

Witheraxe had given him a complete summary of his accounts, which included the full total value of his trust vault (not even near empty), his family vault (which would never be empty, if Gringotts had their way), and two properties. He owned the house in Godric’s Hollow where his parents died, and a parcel of mountainous forest in Wales with a “small cottage” on site. Harry dug through the papers in the desk until he found records for the Welsh property.

Roebuck Falls. Four room cottage, ten hectares, established 1271.

“I wonder if there are any house elves tied to my family?” he mused, copying down the details in his notebook. Dobby might be happy to help me. I can certainly pay him. Witheraxe didn’t know how to access the properties, so all Harry could do was figure out a way to get there and hope the wards let him in.

After glancing through the rest of the desks and shelves, he looked inside the last glass-paneled cabinet and froze.

It was full of wands.

Goosebumps erupted over his skin. Reverently, Harry unlatched the doors and pulled both wings open, filling the air with the warm scent of polished wood and leather. There were nearly twenty wands in two rows. Each was accompanied by a brassy plaque naming the witch or wizard who wielded them, along with the length, make, and maker of the wand. It seemed to stretch all the way back to the year 900.

He studied the oldest wand. It was as thick as two fingers together with a wicked hook on the end. There wasn't much of a handle, the wood was simply worn smooth from decades of use. The plaque beside it said, Two handspan, great oak and thestral tail. Wulfrun Powter.

His heart pounded in his chest. For a moment Harry struggled to identify what he was feeling. Excitement? Fear?

Magic, he realized. It was the same rushing power he felt inside Ollivanders when he grasped his own wand for the first time.

The precipitous feeling tugged his hand up to gently lift his father’s wand from the top row.

The burnished red wood warmed gently in his palm, but there was no accompanying feeling of command or power. Harry’s hand was shaking when he put it back and reached for the pale silver wand mounted beside it.

Sparkling energy rushed up his arm. Harry shivered all over and a fountain of sparks streamed from the tip. He laughed out loud and swished the wand overhead in an easy arc.

A rain of bubbles flew through the air, releasing the scent of fresh grass and flowers wherever they popped. He turned his head up to let the tiny droplets fleck his face.

“I may look like dad, but I guess I’m more like you, mum," he said. The smile on his face hurt. When was the last time he had felt this happy? He took the ends of the wand between his hands and studied the wood, noting the tiny vine motif on the handle.

This was her wand. It was stupid, but suddenly all he could think about was that she’d held this. She carried it night and day, did charms with it, probably cursed his father with it. His easy smile cracked. He pressed the wand to his heart and leaned against the cabinet, letting grief wash over him until long after the last bubble was gone.

John didn’t comment on Harry’s red-rimmed eyes or stuffy nose when he returned to the foyer. His bookbag was heavy with a few choice books and documents from the vault.

“I need to upgrade my bookbag,” Harry said casually, brushing at his nose. “Along with everything else on my list, I’m liable to spend half my trust vault today.”

“What on earth could a teenager spend so much gold on?” the cat groused. “You’re not planning to buy one of those silly trunks with an apartment built in, are you?”

Harry kept a straight face while he wiggled his invisibility cloak out from the bottom of his bag. John sidled up closer to him, giving him a hard glare.

“Don’t you dare waste your money on that,” he grumbled. “Or else I’ll sit on the lid and trap you for as long as it takes for you to learn to some common sense. Use your mountain of money to buy a unicorn-skin wand holster. Something useful.”

“But John, you’ve seen where I live…”

“That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea!” the cat twitched his tail angrily. “Just shut up and pull your hood over your face before we go out there. I don’t want to be mobbed by your fans. The first thing we’re doing is getting you a disguise.”

“How?” Harry asked, draping his invisibility cloak over his shoulders.

“Follow me,” the cat hopped off the couch and padded to the side door. It was the private entrance for clients of superior standing, or so Witheraxe claimed.

Guess I’m lucky I haven't run into pureblood prat like Malfoy, Harry thought. “Wait, John!” He whispered, crouching down. “This is an invisibility cloak. Once I put it on you won’t be able to-“

“Oh humans!” John hissed, pawing at the door, “You stink even under a lethifold’s skin, you know that right? And stop whispering. I can hear a mouse fart from half a block away.”

Harry pulled back, too startled to laugh. “Were you raised in a barn?” he said, echoing one of Aunt Petunia’s favorite reprimands when Dudley said something particularly rude.

John ignored him. With a heavy sigh, Harry cloaked himself and let him out.

It was already hot, and despite the early hour, wixen of all ages crowded the street. The two of them kept to the sides of buildings, pausing now and again when Harry had to skirt around clusters of families.

Just beyond Quality Quidditch Supplies, John turned left and trotted through a small archway overgrown with morning glories and white-blossoming ivy. Harry remembered dismissing this place as a quiet little park, but when John kept walking through it, he realized it was actually a by-way to an adjoining street.

The next street was far quieter and clearly of a higher class. Harry scanned the elaborately carved signs for an idea of what was sold here. Tresciana’s Custom Clocks, Forge and Scales, Muggle Matters and Wixen Woes.

John meowed loudly up the street. Harry quickly jogged to catch up, craning his head to read more and more signs. “What is this place?” he hissed.

“You people call it Corkscrew Alley. I believe it gets its name from…ah, here we are.” The cat stopped and flicked his tail. Up ahead, the road ended in a perfect circular courtyard flanked on all sides by tall stone buildings. The buildings stacked higher and higher as they went around clockwise, the tallest must have been nine stories tall.

But what drew Harry’s attention was the large, natural spring bubbling up out of the ground. A carpet of moss and flowers grew around it, overtaking the cobblestones. A willow tree draped over the water, its long branches dipping into the pool.

Sitting beside the spring was a silver-robed wizard with a bubble head charm about his face, half-filled with water. He was talking to a sapphire-blue mermaid who bobbed up and down, dipping her face below the water to talk, but often leaning up and out to examine something glowing in the man’s hands. Her hair looked like dark kelp, falling in large braids over her shoulders and back.

“The mer have a consulate here in London, over down Avalon Way. Now, come inside.” John headbutted his legs, forcing Harry’s feet to move until he nearly stumbled into the door of a shop.

“What - oh! An eye doctor?” His head turned on a swivel, taking in the glass baubles hanging from the ceiling.

Harry barely got his cloak off his head before a squat witch in a neat blue dress swept into the room. “Good morning!” Her bespectacled eyes widened in recognition, but in a flash she schooled her face into a mask of professionalism. She inclined her head, “Do you have an appointment?”

Harry stumbled, “Er…no, I’m sorry, I…” he looked down at the floor, but John was curled up in the window with his eyes half-closed, looking like a cat, and not the talking kind. “Uh…”

“Sometimes our pets just seem to know what we need, don’t they?” she waved him forward. “No matter, please take a seat…”

Uncertainly, Harry set his pack near the cat and followed the witch to a straight backed chair in the center of the room. Several large instruments that looked like telescopes were suspended overhead.

“My name is Periwinkle Auger,” she said, tucking a long blonde curl over her ear, “I’m a master lens crafter and Healer. Are you here for new lenses, an eye exam, or both?”

While she spoke, Madam Auger conjured a backless stool and sat in front of him. Harry tried to sit up straight and look confident, but judging by the amusement in her purple eyes, she could tell he was out of his element.

“Well…both, really. I haven’t had an exam since…” He trailed off, deeply embarrassed that he couldn’t remember.

“My fee is fifteen galleons for a complete exam and prescription. It’s five galleons for custom lenses, and your first pair of frames are complimentary.”

“Can you charm glasses to disguise my…face,” he gestured weakly to his forehead. Her mouth twitched.

“Glamors come at a premium, and you should know that conducting business with Gringotts or the Ministry under a disguise is a crime.”

“It’s just so I can shop in Diagon without being mobbed,” Harry said quickly. “My, er, account manager suggested it. I can pay…”

Madame Auger nodded and drew her wand. It was purple like her eyes, and tapered so sharply at the end it looked like a stake. “Look at this light for me…”

Harry identified a range of different colored lights, read off a mix of astrological symbols and letters mounted to the wall, stared through two of the telescopes above him, and endured the horrifying sensation of a spell washing over each eye before it was over.

“Got it,” she pronounced, going to the brick forge in the back of the room. “It will take me a few minutes to craft your lenses. For now…” she pointed, “You can try some frames over there. I’d suggest at least two, one for every day wear, and one we’ll glamor.”

“Could you possibly make a pair of lenses to fit in my current frames?” he asked. “I’m kind of…attached to them…”

“All’s possible if you have the gold,” Madame Auger replied with a wink.

John was washing his face with one paw in the window. Harry tried on some glasses and, subtly, turned to the cat for his opinion. Sadly, John shook his head furiously at some round gold frames that Harry thought looked rather striking. For a laugh he also tried on a wacky pair shaped like stars, which earned a very dramatic eye roll.

Finally, he settled on two very different glasses. One with a square frame made of sleek black iron that, he thought, made him look more mature, and a pair of silver oval frames that didn’t fit his face at all.

“Perfect,” Madam Auger declared when she saw his choices. “I take it these will be for the glamor?” She gestured to the oval frames.

“Yes, please…” He took his glasses off and handed those to her as well. In a moment, she fitted all three with lenses.

It’s amazing they can’t just fix my eyes, he thought. “Don't wixen have contact lenses?”

“Ah, we have something a bit better than that,” she placed his old pair in his hands. “You can brew a potion that will create, in effect, ‘contact lenses’ over your eyes that fade with time. It needs to be renewed every six months. Vision can usually be corrected through mediwizardry, but you’d need to see a specialist about that.”

“Is the potion expensive?” Harry guessed. Periwinkle nodded.

“Oh, very. And you must provide your blood to a potioneer you trust, so as you can imagine, most magical folk prefer to wear glasses. Plus, lenses can be imbued with all sorts of useful charms and protections that…”

Harry touched his forearm while she rattled on, breathing through the wave of nausea the words blood and potions stirred up in him. He forced a polite smile and put the new square glasses on.

Instantly, the room changed. He stared in shock at the silver walls, taking in all the details he hadn’t been able to see before.

“How did I ever catch the snitch?” he gasped, looking at the hundreds of hand-blown birds hanging from the ceiling.

Madame Auger grinned. “You’ll be unstoppable now,” she joked. “Are you ready to create your glamor?”

Twenty minutes later, Harry reentered Corkscrew Alley, fully visible. He paused nervously in the awning, waiting for someone to recognize him. A young witch stared straight at him for a second and then looked away.

He started to laugh.

His glamor would grow and change with him to reflect his age, he learned. The runes Periwinkle carved into the frames changed his dark hair to a light brown, and his recognizable eyes were now a muted hazel. His face was more square with a few choice moles or beauty marks, as Madame Auger called them, dotting his cheek and jaw. His nose was different, his eyebrows thinner, and - most importantly - his scar was gone. The glamor was utterly seamless from the outside.

Madam Auger’s rune mastery combined with her healer education allowed her to craft spectacular lenses that were self-correcting, imperturbable, and charmed to return to their cases with a tap of his wand. They held to his face but didn’t pinch his nose or weigh on his ears. In many ways, he felt like he wasn’t wearing glasses at all.

John stayed quiet, following Harry’s lead this time as they walked through Corkscrew Alley. He’d been too shy to approach the mermaid pool, so he retraced their footsteps at a much slower pace. Most of Corkscrew Alley was for specialists or professionals Harry didn’t have reason to visit - a variety of healers, specialty furniture makers, tinkers, solicitors, tutors, and potioneers.

“I wonder where the post office is?” he mused out loud, not looking at the cat. There were more people around now and John clearly didn’t want to speak in front of others.

John meowed loudly, pawing at his hand. Harry crouched and John hopped up to drape across his shoulders.

“You’re heavy,” he complained as John clamored to wrap around his neck.

“I have an athletic build,” he dug his claws into Harry’s collarbone. “Just hang on a minute while I get comfortable.”

Harry caught two young girls giggling at him. He blushed and pretended to window shop, taking the moment to study his reflection again. Despite the long black cat balancing on his shoulders, Harry looked like a typical teenage wizard. He looked like someone normal.

That's a strange thought. All his life, he tried to take pride in being abnormal. It was better than letting the Dursleys win. He remembered how he felt when Hagrid told him what he was, when he finally accepted that the letters weren’t just an elaborate prank. It was like a lightning bolt of joy and validation and triumph all in one. He was different, he was special, he would never be like the Dursleys - thank god.

And then eleven-year-old me met reality, he thought ruefully. The illusion evaporated as soon as he was swarmed by people who knew his name on sight, when Hagrid whispered the name Voldemort. At that moment in the Leakey Cauldron he started to believe that his Aunt and Uncle were right about him all along.

It felt good to be someone else for a day.

“Look alive kid,” John’s soft fur tickled his ear, bringing him back to the present. “And go back to Diagon.”

The London Central Mail was a cacophony of owls. Harry stopped and gaped at the huge building for a full minute before entering. It was a bit behind Gringotts, in a part of Wizarding London Harry had no idea even existed.

The Central Mail was a wide building with open air arches on all sides. Birds of every color and size swooped in and out. The air was frantic, and as soon as he stepped through the doors he was ushered to a mustachio’d wizard with a thick french accent at the counter.

Harry explained what he was looking for and briefly removed the glamor to verify his identity. Luckily, the french man didn’t so much as twitch at his real name and primly reeled off the list of illegal items forbidden from being sent through the central mail. After signing a contract and laying down a staggering 150 galleons, he was the owner of one slim metal box. A dab of his blood made it his. Even with John’s whispered explanation of how the instant matter transferance worked alongside an ever-expanding charm, it dumbfounded him that he could receive something as large as a standard cauldron through this little box. 

Inside the central mail there was a duplicate of his box. When something went in it, it teleported into his box. He could receive packages of nearly any size through mail (so long as it could be carried by owl) and he could even receive mail unaddressed, all one needed was his post box address.

He could also send mail through the box, no owl required. Every week they’d bill him for the total cost of his outgoing mail, or he could set up a direct bill to his Gringotts account.

After all that, Harry took a break on a bench outside the Central Mail and sent a short missive to Witheraxe before stashing it in his bookbag. It was nearly full.

“Okay John,” he murmured, cracking his neck. “Next I’m going to get a new bookbag, and then I’ll fetch the ingredients for your meal. I can get it all at the apothecary, right?”

The cat nodded and made him write down the necessary items. “I don’t want that ghoul shopkeeper to think about harvesting my ingredients,” the car growled. “So I’m going to take a nap. I’ll find you in a little while.” He brushed Harry affectionately with his tail and trotted away, heading for the sunny steps of Gringotts.

It felt amazing to be able to shop freely, even better than the summer before third year. Harry went wild on his new bookbag, choosing a black leather pack loaded with hidden pockets, charmed to be featherlight, and magically expanded to carry up to fifteen stone. The shopkeeper forced him to practice recalling objects from the expanded space before he could take it from the store. Harry pushed his entire old backpack inside the new one and hugged it to his chest.

Next he went to the apothecary, where John’s dinner left a serious dent in his wallet. The three frog eyes, one lambs tail, a pint of silver fox blood, and a small amount of fresh purple heather cost nearly half what his mailbox did. Luckily, with his Lord ring he was able to pull gold directly into his money pouch as needed. A premium gift from the Goblins, to help make up for years of missing mail.

He spent the rest of the morning wandering up and down the alley to stock up on other supplies that caught his fancy. He purchased a new pair of trainers and two sets of shoes for Hogwarts, a set of athletic clothes he found on the second floor of Quality Quidditch Supplies, two wand holsters (to get John off his back), and a new journal charmed to only open to his magical signature. He dawdled for awhile in Trunks for Travelers, staring at the premium one-bedroom apartments.

They did cost more than half his trust vault.

“These trunks all have my patented anti-lock-out charms. Even if someone weighed the lid down,” the thin wizard pointed at a trunk with a lead cauldron on top, “you can exit from any of the four sides.”

John’s derision echoed in his head. Harry awkwardly made some excuses and decided to take the familiar trek to Madame Malkin’s instead. He needed to purchase some summer clothes he could wear for future trips to the alley, and it would be good to buy a few things that actually fit.

“What’s your name, dear?” Madame Malkin said while the measuring tape zipped over his body.

“Ivan,” Harry lied quickly, “Ivan Johnson. I’m just visiting some family in London and there was an accident with my luggage…”

“How unfortunate!” she gasped, “So, you’re looking for a few sets of clothes? Any formal occasions to prepare for? Do you need pajamas too? I just received some wonderful pastel silks…”

Madame Malkin, he learned, was a dastardly sales woman. His lie was thin enough that he struggled to rein in her enthusiasm and he soon found himself sheepishly agreeing, why yes, my underwear was lost too, now that you mention it.

She dressed him in a few different summer robes, marked them to hem, and then let him browse her casual clothing selection for shirts, pants, and other sundries. Harry ended up leaving with more clothes than he had ever owned in his life and dressed in a new outfit to boot.

“Are you sure you’re not on a hot date?” John’s sour voice startled him from overhead. The cat was perched on top of a tall ledge at the corner of her shop, hunched like a gargoyle. Harry looked around for eavesdroppers and saw that they were mostly isolated between two buildings. It was a good place to watch the crowds come and go.

“Yes," Harry said sarcastically, "my date is here to meet Ivan Johnson, a boy who came into existence a few hours ago.”

John curled his lip. “Ivan Johnson? Really?”

Harry’s ears burned, “I couldn’t think of anything else!”

“Did you buy my groceries?”

“Yes. But I don’t think you need to eat-“ John dropped heavily on his head.

“What was that?” hot cat breath touched his neck, “You want to walk home?”

Harry decided it was time for lunch.

After a quiet meal at a cafe near the Central Mail, Harry wandered the magical neighborhoods. There were grocers here and shops selling a variety of homegoods where he gladly spent more gold. Anything to make life in Privet Drive more tolerable. There also seemed to be a fair number of homes and apartments behind the Mail, as well as an entrance to the London tube.

I wonder where this place ends, he thought, peering down yet another winding street. So far he’d seen signs for Upshot Alley, Skip’s Way, Dancing Circuit, Anfry Place, Springing Step, and Welping Street. Some streets were just two buildings long, and others, like Dancing Circuit, wound on and on until you were back where you started.

Finally, as day burned into afternoon, Harry scooped a sleeping John (on his third cat-nap) into his arms and headed back to familiar grounds. He needed more then just supplies, he needed to do research.

He had a mental list of topics to cover and silently dreaded the stack of books soon to end up in his bag. Realistically, he’d probably only read a chapter or two and never crack them open again. “Why isn’t there a public wizarding library?” he grumbled.

John peered up at him, judgment radiating off his tiny body. Harry’s face heated, “Okay, so there is, I just don’t know about it…”

He set John down before ducking into Obscurus Books, letting the cat decide if he wanted to follow him or not. Finding the library can be a fun adventure for another day, he thought. For now, I need some history books, and maybe something about wards...

Harry drifted through the aisles, quickly losing himself in the endless magical subjects. It was all much more interesting when he had time to look for himself. No “fans” following him around, no Hermione talking his head off about every nuance of every topic, no Ron impatiently pushing him out the door…

I shouldn’t think about them that way, Harry admonished. But the bitter seed was planted. His best friends’ letters were sparing at best, pedantic at worst. Even Ron was hounding him for going to the muggle library of all places. Did they really expect him to just sit in his room all summer. Didn’t they realize what they were asking of him?

“Don’t think about it,” Harry muttered. It was very typical for him. From the Dursleys to primary to Hogwarts to his friends - he was always on the verge of doing something wrong. Maybe there was just something wrong with him.

With that dark thought, he headed straight for the transfiguration section, thinking he might be able to find something about the animagus transformation. He didn’t find any books on it in the vault, and even though he knew Sirius could probably help him he wanted to try on his own first. Unfortunately, the best he could find was a history of the ritual’s differences across magical traditions.

Harry grabbed it and continued to browse. As he headed toward the large sign that said Warding his eyes caught a much smaller plaque near the bottom shelf of a dusty Magical Theory section.

Mind Magics.

Intrigued, he crouched and ran his fingers over the spines one by one. Harry selected one called Opening the Mind to Magic and skimmed the chapters. From there he pulled out another text, The Occlumense, and then picked up a larger one called Exercises for Mindful Control that seemed to cover nonverbal casting and ritual work.

“Banhelm’s book is a waste of time if you’re interested in occlumency.”

In a place as empty and as quiet as Obscurus Books, the voice nearly scared his soul out of his body.

He jerked up, clutching the books in front of his chest. “Er, well, I’ve never heard of this kind of magic before and she seems pretty easy to understand,” he rambled, too quickly. He flushed and looked down at the cover of Opening the Mind to Magic to try and school his expression.

The boy standing in front of him made his stomach drop. He was a little taller than Harry, with dirty blonde hair pulled half-up from his face, accentuating sharp cheekbones and a narrow brow. A curtain of curls dangled around his neck. His face was thin, his nose a little too long, but all his imperfections were drowned out by his eyes. They were large, and a deep dark blue, like the sky at dusk. He was wearing black linen pants and a richly textured long-sleeve shirt pushed up to his elbows.

Harry cringed in anticipation for him to point and shout, “I knew it was you, Potter!”

But Theodore Nott did no such thing. He faced him head on, meeting Harry’s gaze steadily and without a trace of recognition.

“Well, by all means, it’s your gold. But I would suggest this one…” he took a step closer and crouched in Harry’s space. Harry sucked in a quick breath of surprise and instantly got hit with the warm scent of cedar wood and fresh earth.

Heat started to crawl its way up his neck. What on earth is wrong with me? He thought in horror, Did I just sniff him? Why does he smell so- Harry made a strangled noise and bit his lip to keep from saying something stupid.

Nott’s blue eyes flickered up, confused. Too late, he wondered if he should have tried to alter his voice. But he and Nott had barely exchanged words, they’d never even been paired up in class. He couldn’t recognize him. There was no way.

Then why is he talking to me? Harry wondered helplessly.

“Here,” Nott was holding out a black leather book he’d missed. The Central Theories of Mind Magics.

That title was too theoretical for him, but he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Nott was smart, he trounced Hermione in runes every year. Harry probably only knew who Nott was because she complained about him so much.

“Thanks, um…”

“Theodore Nott.” He looked at Harry expectantly.

“Um…” Harry stuttered over the assumed name. “Ivan Johnson.”

They exchanged polite nods. Nott’s head tipped again, like he was doing an equation in his head. “If you don’t mind my asking, do you attend Durmstrang? It’s rare to meet a wizard about my age who I don’t know.”

Harry called up a weak smile, eager to get away from this line of questioning. “Ah, no, no, no. I’m homeschooled. My parents…didn’t want me to go far, you see.”

“You’re interested in transfiguration too?” Nott’s gaze carefully worked over him. Harry’s palms were a bit slick with sweat, and he tried to keep his grip on the books nonchalant.

“I’m not very strong in transfiguration,” he said with a nervous laugh, “but I’m very interested in other wizarding cultures. I would love to travel and see them one day.”

Would I? Momentarily dumbfounded by his own realization, Harry missed the surprise on Nott’s face.

He didn’t miss the way Nott’s mouth suddenly went flat. He raked his eyes over Harry’s body, suddenly scathing. “Uh huh,” Nott rolled his eyes, “So a mysterious homeschooled wizard just happens to run into me in one of my favorite sections of my favorite bookstore wearing my favorite color?” He reached out and rubbed the fabric of Harry’s new shirt between his fingers. “And you’re interested in other wizarding cultures?” He scoffed, “Give it up, Blaise.”

Harry gaped.

Nott’s frown formed a little crease between his brows. His glare was deeply unsettling. This is a Slytherin, Harry thought anxiously. I wouldn’t put it past him to throw a spell at me. Why on earth does he think I'm Zabini, of all people? Slowly, Harry shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he didn’t try to hide how awkward he felt, “I don’t know what you mean. I just came in here because I don’t know where the library is and I’m working on some summer research projects.” He leaned into the act of confused young tourist, “I don’t know who you are or who this Blaise person is and…” Harry glanced down at his shirt. It was one Madame Malkin insisted he wear out the door as soon as he tried it on. The fabric was a rich, royal purple and made from bamboo fabric, perfect for the hot summer. “I just bought this today because there was an accident with my luggage. I’m not even from here. I’m visiting some family in London.”

Nott studied his face so intently Harry was sure he could see straight through him. Finally he said in a strangled tone, “Are you really not Blaise Zabini wearing a glamor?”

“How can you tell I’m wearing one?” Harry cried, resisting the urge to take the glasses off. “I thought this was seamless! Maybe something’s wrong with them-“

“Oh Merlin.” Nott covered his mouth with the two books in his hands, eyes round. “Did I really just-“ he looked down at Harry’s shirt in horror. “You must think-“

Nott closed his eyes for a heartbeat. “My sincerest apologies." Quick as a whip he stepped away, putting his hands behind his back and giving Harry a formal bow. That fast, he transformed into the polite, aloof stranger Harry recognized from school. “I didn’t mean to infringe on your privacy. My friend Blaise has a penchant for surprising me in Diagon Alley under various costumes, and that’s made me a little wary of strangers who seem to share my,” He glanced at Harry’s books, “particular interests. But that’s no excuse. I meant no offense.”

His pulse finally started to settle down. “But - my glamor. You can see it? Or…”

Nott’s eyes passed over his face again, “I have magical sensitivity. In a place like this, that’s the only reason I could tell.”

What on earth is ‘magical sensitivity’?

His ignorance must be obvious. Nott hesitated again, his face still a formal mask. “Are you a muggleborn?”

Two spots of color warmed Harry’s face as he felt that familiar defensiveness coil up, ready to strike. “Half-blood, actually,” he said coolly.

Nott’s expression didn’t change. “I understand. Magical sensitivity is like an allergy some people have. Obscurus is a muted magical environment due to the preservation spells on all the books, so it’s obvious to me.”

Harry frowned. Well that’s a huge weakness to my disguise. I wonder if that’s how Dumbledore sees through my invisibility cloak as well.

“Many people wear glamors,” Nott said apologetically. “It’s not unusual. Again, I'm terribly sorry for intruding.” He bowed again and turned away, retreating down the Magical Theory aisle.

“Er, it’s okay…” Harry muttered. Seeing Nott button up so fast set him fully at ease. If he was treating him politely, he definitely didn’t know that he had just run in to Harry Potter.

For a moment, Harry was confused why he was still nearby, but then he remembered that Nott said that this was one of his favorite sections. He drummed his fingers on the books in his hand. A very reckless idea took hold. He glanced at Nott again. In profile, his sharp jawline made him look especially severe and unfriendly.

But Harry couldn’t get that familiar roll of his eyes out of his head. It was so…so much like his own own friends.

Maybe it was because he missed Ron and Hermione so much, but Harry couldn’t stop himself.

“Hey, um…could you help me with something?”

Nott faced him again, warily.

Harry took a deep breath. “Do you know where the library is? I’ve been all over Diagon Alley today and haven’t seen it.”

“The Albion Library isn’t here,” Nott replied immediately. “It’s about a twenty minute walk through muggle London.”

Harry sighed. Well, there goes that plan. “I don’t suppose I could have you write down some directions?”

The other boy frowned. “I…well,” he turned the books in his hands over, showing off an embossed twisting dragon, wrapped around a scroll and wand printed on the back. “I’m actually heading there today.”

They stared at each other.

“No way-“

“Are you sure you’re not Blaise?”

Harry shook his head, looking up at the ceiling. “Okay, I’ll say it. This is weird. Are you sure you're not tricking me?”

Nott’s frown cracked into a genuine grin. His teeth were just slightly crooked, one canine poking in front of the others. Heat prickled over the back of his neck again.

What on earth is wrong with me?

“You can come with me,” Nott offered, dipping his head. “I’m just looking to buy copies of these books before I return them.”

Harry swallowed. What are you doing? He thought. Nott’s the son of a Death Eater. His father was in the graveyard that night. This is a dangerous idea. This is stupid.

But Nott wasn’t like Malfoy - he’d never done anything but annoy Hermione with his intelligence. This bookish Slytherin couldn’t possibly orchestrate a surprise kidnapping in the middle of London even if he did know who he really was. Right?

You can do magic, Harry reminded himself. You dueled Voldemort. You can escape a student, even if he’s from a dark family. And besides, he studied the way Nott was looking away from him, clearly embarrassed. He’s so…polite.

With that, he decided.

“Yes, thank you! I would really like that.” Harry broke into a huge smile.

Nott fidgeted, looking away from him again. “I’ll meet you at the front in ten minutes.”

Harry happily worked his way through some other aisles, picking up two more books along the way. As he paid, he caught sight of John’s ears through the window and swore under his breath.

“John!” he whispered, dashing outside. “I’m going to the Albion Library. Do you know where that is?”

John’s head cocked, but before he could say anything Nott stepped out the door after him. “Ready?”

Harry glanced back at the bench. John had disappeared. Hoping that he hadn't lost his way home, Harry hopped to his feet. “Ready!”

Ten minutes later, they were walking slowly through a park in muggle London. Nott sipped a cup of tea he bought from a muggle cafe and watched people pass them by. Harry wrapped the leather tail of his bag's straps around one fist over and over again. He wished he could feel as relaxed.

The Slytherin put him on edge. As the tall, thin boy lead him over city streets, Harry was on constant watch, waiting to be surprised by an attack or for Nott to do something obvious like exclaim, "How do those metal beasts move on their own?"

Nott was in Malfoy’s circle. According to everything Harry knew about him, he should despise muggles and take to their world like a fish out of water. 

But when Nott ordered a piping hot tea and pulled a muggle wallet from his pocket, laying down exact change, Harry was dumbfounded. He navigated streets with ease, forcing Harry to jog after him. He never spoke ill of muggles or how disgusting the city was, how crowded the streets were, how chaotic and strange and utterly alien it should have been!

Harry was suffering more than he was, simply because the last time he was in muggle London was when Aunt Petunia dragged him here at ten years old to help with the Christmas shopping for Dudley.

He rolled his shoulders, taking the time to enjoy a clear, open space after pushing through crowds on the sidewalk.

“First time in London?” Nott said, breaking the silence.

“No…but the last time was many years ago,” Harry shook his head to banish the memory. “I don’t remember liking it then, either.”

Nott laughed. Actually laughed.

Harry stared, feeling that weird pit in his gut again. The sound of his laugh sang out of his chest, soft and quick, and gone too soon. Everything about Nott seemed muted until, like sun through the clouds, he suddenly came alive with emotion. Harry had never met anyone like him.

The other boy hid a smirk behind his cup, “I could tell you were uncomfortable but I didn’t want to say anything. I think I’ve attacked you enough for one day.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Where did you say you’re visiting from?”

He hesitated, mind quickly conjuring a map of Britain. He wasn’t well-traveled, and seeing as Nott seemed to be totally at home in muggle London, he’d likely see through any lie Harry made up.

“Um…I didn’t.” He paused awkwardly, searching for a way to change the subject.

“Don’t worry,” Nott said, stopping in the shade. A young woman pushing a sleeping baby in a pram jogged by. “I wasn’t trying to trick you. I was just curious what you’d say.”

“Huh?”

Nott’s smirk grew, “You may not be Blaise…but you know who I am, don’t you?”

The blood drained from his face.

“If you really weren’t Blaise, you’d just take off your glamor,” he reasoned, finishing the tea. “But you haven’t done that. You seemed rather defensive admitting you were a half-blood too. You’re not homeschooled, are you?”

This is it, he thought, wondering if he should just turn and run, or stay and fight. His wand-arm stilled, ready for anything.

Nott scratched his chin. “Look, I don’t know who you could be, but I understand wanting to travel incognito. It doesn't make a difference to me.”

Harry let out a shaky breath. “If you knew I was lying to you, why are you helping me?” He blurted out. That made the other boy’s head tip again.

“Well…” his blue eyes looked black in this light. Harry’s palms were suddenly damp. “I’m a little superstitious, you might say.” His eyes flickered down. “Whoever you are, it seems like we were made to meet this day. Unless you engineered that little show in the bookstore?”

Harry shook his head mutely, mulling over Nott's words. Unconsciously, he scratched the back of his neck. “Is it too on the nose to say it must be magic?”

Nott rolled his eyes, “That's cheap."

"But you haven't really answered my question," Harry pointed out. "Why are you helping me?"

Nott idly cracked his wrist. There were tattoos on the back of his fingers, Harry realized, but in this light he couldn't get a good look at them. "Aside from making right the rude way I treated a perfect stranger? I wanted to help you because you were looking at an incredibly obscure branch of magic. None of my friends want to hear me talk about that. I'd like to discuss the subject, though. If you want to.”

Harry shifted his pack across his shoulders and took a deep breath. He’d underestimated him. Theodore Nott was as sharp as Hermione, and a Slytherin to boot. Harry didn’t know what to make of this “superstitious” belief of his, or how unfailingly polite he was, but Harry did want to know more about occlumency…

“I don’t mind talking,” he said slowly. “But I don’t want to talk about myself. And…I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to guess who I am…”

Nott tipped his head, “As you wish. I really don’t care,” he looked at Harry seriously. “I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to lie to me and come up with an imaginary life.”

His stomach swooped again, but this time a warmth accompanied it. Nott crushed the paper cup and tossed it in a nearby bin. They rejoined the walking path, standing side by side. “If we speak quietly enough, the muggles won’t hear us," Nott said lowly. 

He has a little braid in his hair too, Harry realized, trying not to stare. Who is he? What would have happened if I met him in Madame Malkin’s years ago, instead of Malfoy?

A year ago, Harry would have been put to sleep by the blonde boy’s lengthy diatribe on magical theory and how it related to the mind and emotions. But the practice of occlumency Nott described lined up with passages about meditation from Ivan's autobiography so well that Harry found he was interjecting and asking questions. Nott’s demeanor was still unfailingly polite, but Harry could see some of the mask coming off as he warmed to their discussion about what it meant to clear the mind.

“Magic is all around us, in every thing - living or dead.” He stressed, gesturing at the skyscrapers, “Even in those great ugly things. Clearing your mind starts by sensing the magic all around us.”

Harry shivered, trying to picture what kind of magic ran through towers of steel and glass.

“Even in muggles?”

“Yes,” Nott said with surprising clarity. When Harry stared at him, dumbfounded, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “They have souls, don’t they?”

“Oh…”

Harry had never thought about it like that before. He thought back to John’s casual comment that Aunt Petunia was some kind of mix between muggle and magic. Just enough to shake an enchantment. Not enough to be a witch.

“Is it like a scale?” he asked, interrupting the other boy’s lecture on how magic manifests in the natural world. “I mean, in people. In living things?”

“In nonliving things, too,” Nott asserted. “Think about the moon. The moon is separate from our earth, it lacks organic life. We can’t touch it, we can’t see it half the time, and we can’t go to it. Yet…” he spread his hands, bumping into Harry’s arm. “It’s one of the most potent magical forces we can observe. The moon dictates rituals, it influences everything from werewolves to the sea - it has a presence. Have you ever stood in a field at night under a full moon?” Nott turned to him, his gaze intense. Harry’s mouth went dry. “Do it one night and close your eyes. Just stand there and...meditate. Don’t think. It won’t take long, I guarantee you, and you’ll feel her. Like a magnet in the sky.”

They walked in silence while Harry thought that over.

Nott waited. It was something Harry immediately appreciated about the Slytherin. Not only did Nott speak to him like an equal, he gave Harry space to think before continuing to talk. Unlike when Hermione went on a similar rant, Nott seemed aware of when he was losing him and often backtracked to explain something until Harry was nodding along.

He thought back to his original question. “I guess what I’m really asking is, where do we draw the line between the fully magical versus fully muggle? What’s the difference between a muggle and squib, for instance?”

“Manifestation,” the other boy said instantly, almost like he’d had this topic ready on his mind. Harry grinned and listened as Nott launched into a full explanation of magical biology, which in the end led him back to his original topic - how the mind manipulates magic.

“So, really, wands aren’t necessary.” Harry decided. They’d made it to the library and sat on the steps outside, tucked out of the hustle and bustle of the street.

“Well, certainly as amplifiers they…” Nott cleared his throat, “Ugh. I don’t think I’ve talked that much since the last day of term.”

Harry smiled and clenched his teeth so as not to say, me too. Nott checked his watch and clicked his tongue. “I would love to educate you more,”

“Hey!” Harry squawked.

“-But I must be going. I’ll show you in.” He stood up, brushing some dust off his pants. "Thank you for listening to me. I'm glad I was rude to you now."

Harry laughed easily, though he was sad their conversation had to end. Suddenly, he had an idea.

“Hold on…” He swung his bag between his knees and rifled to get at his muggle notebook and pen. He quickly wrote the address of his post office box on a corner and tore it off. “Here…you can finish your lecture in a letter, Professor Nott. I might have some follow up questions too, if you don’t mind writing to someone like me.”

Nott tucked the address away. “What a strange thing to say,” he commented. “I don't think there's anything wrong with you.”

Harry’s face burned. He pretended to fumble with the cinch on his bag until he felt composed enough to stand.

“You can call me Theo, by the way. Professor Theo, if you must be formal."

Harry snickered, “Yes Professor.”

“Maybe you should come up with a pen name,” Theo suggested. “If you’re going to assume an identity, at least make it memorable.”

Theo lead them directly through the front doors of the muggle British Library and headed for back of the building. He tapped a button for a old lift tucked away behind the maps and atlases. The doors opened, revealing a poorly lit box.

They stepped inside, and, as soon as the doors closed, the wall in front of them melted away. Theo gestured for him to go first.

The Albion Library was like a cathedral. Harry’s head craned up and up and up, stunned by how high the ceilings went. Columns of books lined the tiered floors. Far above his head, he could see books floating back to their shelves - wait, not floating. They were being carried. Small fairies were flying books and scrolls all around the room.

Directly in front of them was a huge round desk, floating in the air and slowly turning in a circle. A few witches worked in the center. A tall old wizard with a knobbly staff banged on the hard ground, arguing with one of the witches. A bright green fairy zipped around his head. Harry and Theo attracted nothing more the cursory glances from the other patrons.

“Go up to the desk and register for a library card. It doesn’t cost anything, they just need your wand for a moment. Like going to the ministry.”

Harry nodded, feeling a pang in his stomach that he was about to be alone again. “I’ll write,” Theo promised. He cut away from Harry and deposited his books on the desk. Then, with one last nod, he passed Harry and left.

“I don’t appreciate being walked half way across London, I’m not a dog.”

“Oh god!” Harry exclaimed, jumping a foot in the air as John’s claws dug into his back. The cat draped heavily over his shoulders. “John!” he hissed.

“You rude boy,” the cat sneered, “You know how far a walk that was for me? You barely even warned me. I hate being in muggle London.”

“I’m sorry okay!” Truthfully, Harry thought John would just wait for him to come back to Diagon Alley. “I just got-“

“Starstruck by a handsome young gentleman?” John nipped his ear. “Cool off kid, you’re barely fourteen.”

“I’m almost fifteen,” Harry whispered, fighting the flush in his neck. “And I was not starstruck. He’s my classmate, I was worried he would recognize me!”

“Well, you owe me two more days of entertainment,” John declared. Before Harry ask what that meant, John rubbed his cheek along the side of his head. “It’s okay, dumb wizard. Make me a nice dinner and all will be forgiven. Maybe I’ll even help you get a date. Anyway, there’s worse places you could have gone. I haven’t been here in a long time.”

Harry spluttered for a moment and then gave up. John was already chattering about the library, so Harry decided to just set Theodore Nott out of his mind.

The sun had set when he finally stumbled out of the library. His head was throbbing from everything he'd seen and learned. Harry barely noticed John take him back to his bedroom in Privet Drive.

John let him rest for about one minute before he started impatiently kneading on his stomach. Harry groaned and lowered himself to the floor. John perched behind his head, hungrily watching Harry take all the potions ingredients from his bag. The cat refused to eat out of his potions cauldron, so Harry transfigured a cracked picture frame into a shallow bowl.

John's dinner was essentially all the ingredients mashed together with a mortar. He coached him through a few words in Irish Harry had to chant while adding sprigs of heather to the mixture of blood and frog’s eyes. Harry lost all appetite as he watched the gorey mess come together in a dense, dough-like texture. With all the heather incorporated, it looked a bit like canned pate.

Harry held the lamb’s tail between two fingers, “What about this?”

“Just put it on top,” John licked his lips. “It adds a nice crunch.”

Harry gagged and stuck the tail on top like a demented candle, putting the bowl away from him.

While John ate, he undid the ward and locks on his door, feeling a deep sense of relief the the padlocks no longer meant anything now that he could do magic, and quickly washed his hands and face in the bathroom.

Finally, he undressed and crawled into bed. His head ached, and despite the hundreds of mysteries he still had to unravel, his thoughts kept jumping back to Nott. Theo. Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes, trying to ignore the itching impulse to send him a letter straight away.

Friends with a Slytherin. The son of a Death Eater. A pureblood ponce who knows more about the muggle world than I do.

“Are you going to tell me what you are now?” Harry asked after John licked the bowl clean. He banished the whole thing, not wanting the smell to linger. With another casual wand-wave, the window opened up a little further, letting in cool summer air.

John hopped up on the bed and sniffed around. “Well, that depends. Do you have any guesses?”

“A figment of my imagination?” Harry deadpanned. He’d thrown on his non-glamored glasses and a new pair of sweatpants. The gentle breeze from the window raised goosebumps across his bare chest.

John settled down against him. Harry started to pet the cat’s bony spine. His fur was wonderfully soft, and though he was small, he radiated heat. The cat purred for a minute, eyes half-closed.

“A wizard trapped in a cat’s body?” Harry guessed again, smiling a little.

John fully closed his eyes. For a moment, Harry thought he wouldn’t reply at all.

“I’m a familiar,” John said slowly. “I was a familiar.”

“A familiar?” Wizards often threw that word around. Fawkes was famously Dumbledore’s familiar. But Crookshanks was just a pet. Hedwig was more than a pet, she was his family. They understood each other, but also…Harry didn’t know. Was she his familiar? “What makes an animal a familiar?” Harry asked.

“Familiars are animals that intentionally form a bond with a magical person. Usually they possess uncommon intelligence and fortitude. Familiar bonds are uncommon because it is a unification of equals. How many magical folk can you think of would accept that a creature is equal to them? Truly equal?"

Hagrid, Harry thought immediately. Maybe he has a hundred familiars. 

John continued, his voice empty of inflection. "When such a bond happens, the wixen and the animal swap magics. The wix gets a gift from the animal, the animal gets a gift from the wix. A non-magical creature still has magic, before you ask. If you want a lecture about it, go talk to a druid.”

Harry frowned in thought. “Can all familiars talk?”

“All wixen with familiars can talk to them,” John clarified. “I can talk because…well, Johanna wanted me to. That was my gift from her.”

Harry’s fingers stilled on John’s fur. “Was that your…?”

“Yes.” John tucked his head into Harry’s side, his cold little nose a bright spot against his ribs. “She’s been dead and gone a long time now.”

Harry’s heart ached for him. He couldn’t imagine how it would feel to lose Hedwig and have to go on every day without her. Always missing her. Always looking up at the sky and expecting to see her.

“I’m sorry. Can you only have one familiar bond your whole life?”

“No. Johanna was my first. I had another, but he died in a war. Long-lived creatures like pegasi or whales can have many. I just live my life now.”

Harry sighed, “It must be nice to be free.”

John’s tail brushed his hip. After a minute of silence, he said, “You’re interesting. Would you mind if I followed you around for awhile?”

“Do whatever you want,” Harry said mildly, glancing at the cat. “I’m just glad to have someone to talk to.”

John huffed. “I know I’m not a looker like that boy…”

“John, please! It wasn’t like that!”

The cat laughed, a dry, odd-sounding mix between a true human chuckle and a cat’s hiss. “Yeah yeah. I’ve been around the block a few times kid…once you get over being frightened of him, you’ll see.”

“I’m not -“ Harry’s face was beet red, he could feel it in the dark. “You know what, I’m going to sleep. Goodnight.”

John snored. Harry rolled his eyes and tucked his head into his pillow. Within moment, he was snoring too.

Chapter 4: Slytherins in the Summer

Summary:

Harry receives unhappy mail, Theodore packs his bags for France, and the Dark Lord summons Lord Nott and Lord Malfoy for a special meeting.

Notes:

I had no idea that my formatting for chapter three got so messed up by the AO3 HTML to Rich Text conversion. My apologies. Bad formatting is a real pet peeve of mine so I went back and fixed it....it should be fixed, anyway. Thank you for your patience and willingness to read. Enjoy! I'm going to play so much Paper Mario now that this chapter is done!!

Harry

Harry,

I know this will sound batty coming from me, but you really shouldn’t be going to the library! I know Dumbledore spoke to you - it’s very dangerous for you to be out on your own! Even Ronald asked you not to go back, and don’t you think something is really wrong if he tells you stay put?

I know how you feel about your family, believe me. It can’t be fun to be stuck with them all summer. But Harry, have you ever tried just talking to them, you know, one on one? Sometimes things get lost in translation. It’s not right how they treat you, but with You-Know-Who back, don’t you want to try to mend fences? Maybe they’ll understand more about you if you just reach out to them. I have to try so hard to meet my parents where they’re at when I come back from Hogwarts, but it’s always worth the effort. They’re your only family…I’d just hate for something to happen and for you to have regrets.

Please Harry, I don’t want to tell Professor Dumbledore that you broke your promise to stay safe. Swear to me you won’t go outside the wards again. It’s only for two more months, hopefully not even that long.

All my love,

Hermione.

 

---

 

Dear Harry,

I know you don’t mean all that. This hurts me too, I hate to think about you all by yourself. I rather you be furious with me if it means you’ll be safe and alive. If it were me, you’d do the same thing.

Your friend,

Hermione

 

---

 

Mate,

Hermione was really upset by your last letter. I told you it wasn’t a good idea to go to that library.

At first I didn’t get why she was so upset, but I guess she didn’t like that you called yourself “a badly behaved dog”. She said something about you dehumanizing yourself? I told her not to say that - and I don’t think she believes it, but you should see her, mate. She’s wound up tighter than my mum.

Mione also hated that you accused her of being a snitch. Now, you know in the past I would agree with you - Hermione definitely messed up sometimes. But in this case, the situation is different. The stakes are way too high.

We’re not at school, and you really shouldn’t take any risks. (Trust me, I know how this sounds.) When we’re sneaking ‘round the castle, help is only a few doors away. But you’re alone out there mate. I know your relatives are rotten people, just hold out for a few months and we’ll be together again. You’re strong enough to get through one bad summer, I know you are.

Yours,

Ron

PS - What on earth were you doing in the library anyway? Hermione just rolled her eyes when I asked.

 

---

 

“Can you believe him? Don’t take any risks?!” Harry puffed and rolled back down, hands behind his head. “Ron’s supposed to be my best friend and he’s on Hermione’s side? What, are they both going to tell on me to Dumbledore now? Do I have to lie to them about walking to the park?”

Harry heaved up, breathing hard. John watched him intently as he moved through the sit ups, tail twitching. “Don’t!” Harry snarled at that cat.

“You better be ready then,” John retorted. John liked to randomly jump on his head when he was working out and force Harry to fight him off. The cat’s ability to grow into the size of a lion made the game “more fun” according to him. Harry wasn’t so enamored.

“And anyway,” he panted, “Dumbledore has people watching me. They can follow me to the library and back, it’s not that far. It’s like they forgot everything I ever told them about the Dursleys! Otherwise, they’d - never-“ his abs spasmed and he flopped back down. “Do this to me.”

Harry was exhausted. Ever since Hedwig delivered Hermione’s first letter, just a day after the big trip to Diagon, Harry was locked in a war of words with his best friends. Hedwig was off again with two more letters he scribbled out that morning.

He forced his replies to stay on the bitter end of the spectrum. He needed to do everything he could to keep the wizards watching him complacent, which meant he needed to prevent Hermione or Ron from telling Dumbledore anything.

I can’t believe I even have to worry about them telling on me, he thought.

“I still think you should have called them, what was it?”

“Two-faced narcs,” Harry muttered. He wasn’t proud of that one. It was the first thing out of his mouth when he read their letters. “I know they want me to be safe, but I can’t believe they’d just expect me to endure the Dursleys all summer. Especially after what happened with Cedric.” He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm, fighting the sick pit in his stomach that surged back to life whenever he thought of the other boy. “Neither of them even asked me how I am. They just started telling me what to do.”

“Well, is it a pattern for you to break the rules and charge off into danger?” John asked, innocently licking one paw.

Harry grimaced. “Usually they’re right there with me,” he mumbled, pushing his sweaty hair off his forehead. “I just don’t like that she immediately jumped to telling Dumbledore. What is he going to do?”

“Lock you inside the wards.”

Slowly, Harry sat up again. “Can he do that?”

John nodded, “Of course. It’s illegal to do against someone’s will, but you’re telling me the Dark Lord is alive?” Harry nodded. “All’s fair in war, kid. So long as you’re alive at the end of it, it doesn’t matter what he does.”

Harry considered that, getting to his feet to stretch his tired muscles. John flopped back on his desk, playing with a downy feather Hedwig dropped.

“I just…I expected them to want to help me,” Harry admitted, cheeks burning at how childish that sounded. “I guess to the letter of the law, it’s not safe for me to ever leave the wards. I know that, but I would hope they’d want to help me get through this summer without going crazy, not…”

“Lock you in with a smile?”

Harry sighed, bowing to touch his toes. “What are they going to say when I tell them about my Lordship? Or Roebuck Falls? Hermione will go right to the Headmaster, I just know it.”

“Want my advice, kid?”

“Sure, old man.” John hissed, but Harry just smiled. It was his revenge for all the insults John lobbed at him.

“You may be almost fifteen, but you’ve seen things most adults have never seen. You’ve overcome trials most wixen never have to face. Done things your friends can’t even fathom.” John stretched his paws overhead and looked at him upside down. “You’ve matured. That’s why you’re feeling frustrated. You have to do what that muggleborn said. Meet them where they’re at.”

Harry repeated the words under his breath, struggling to picture what that meant. “I don’t want to lie to them.”

“Then don’t. Say, my dearest best friends, I am taking great pains to stay safe, using every resource at my disposal. I shall take your words under advisement.”

Harry grinned and pulled his shirt off. “You’re terrible.”

“Why don’t you write another letter to your handsome friend? That might cheer you up.” Harry cringed. John would not call Theodore Nott anything else and it made him want to curl up into a ball every time.

“You can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t even know who you are,” he snarked, gathering his shower caddy.

“Is that why you only have two friends?”

Harry aimed a half-hearted kick at John and hurried from the room.

Despite the slow, letter-bound arguments he was having, life in Privet Drive was much easier now that he could sustain himself on magical provisions and ward the door. The Dursleys already treated him like a pariah, so they didn’t notice he started spending every evening tucked away in the smallest bedroom.

John was also a blessing, in that Harry could actually have a conversation with him. They struck a deal after John’s self-imposed two days of entertainment - the cat would help him get to Roebuck Falls before the end of the summer. In exchange, Harry would make another meal for the cat “when he was ready”, whatever that meant. Harry also agreed to “provide entertainment”, seemingly by his very existence.

John would wander off at odd times, working or going to bother other wixen for all Harry knew, but he was surprisingly consistent about staying every night with him. Over the last few days, he listened to Harry tell autobiography of his life as they got ready to sleep. John seemed to have no idea who he was aside from his infamous eponym.

The former familiar never shared stories from his life, and he refused to elaborate on the exact nature of his magical powers, but occasionally John slipped up. Once, when Harry was telling him about being trapped by the vanishing stair in Hogwarts, John said, “They didn’t unjinx that? Amateurs.”

Harry was eager to unravel that mystery, but his first priority was to come up with a plan to get to Wales. Harry mulled over his options in the shower, weighing the risks in his head. He hoped to borrow Hermione’s brain to do research on the blood wards, and wards on ancestral estates in general, but now that she was beating a drum for Dumbledore Harry didn’t feel so confident confiding in her. Hermione was too clever to believe he wanted to learn about blood wards just for the hell of it. Plus, there was the very real possibility that blood wards toed the line of dark magic.

But I know someone else who could help, he thought. Once he was clean and dry, he returned to his desk dressed in his new pajamas and got out a fresh sheet of parchment. John was gone, thank Merlin, so Harry could pen his letter in peace.

Dear Theo, he began.

 

---

Theodore

 

Theo washed his face in the quartz basin and sighed. He was working on very little sleep, but the day was far from over. He decided to make one last pass through his bedroom to ensure there was nothing left behind. It was a small room, narrow and drafty due to its position at the top of the Tower. He shivered and hugged his gauzy traveling cloak over his arms.

Stone shelves jutted from every available space on the walls, loaded with hundreds of books. Theo followed the staircase up to the loft, moving chunks of jasper more firmly in place as bookends as he passed.

He patted his pockets, checking that he had his bag of galleons and purse stuffed with muggle francs, liras, and marks. In his trunk he packed gifts for Draco, Blaise, and their mothers, sets of wizarding and muggle attire, a few novels to tide him over before he started to raid the bookstores of France and Italy, and finally the international portkey his father purchased - a tiny thimble.

Theo kicked his fur-lined slippers under his bed and quickly ran his hands beneath the pillows to pull out the twill sack of lavender and mugwort.

“Master Theodore may take this to help him sleep.”

Only years of practice kept him from flinching. He slowly put the herb sachet back and turned around, pretending to be unperturbed by Finley’s silent appearance.

The house elf handed him a yellow sack tied elaborately with white twine. “Comfrey and lemonbalm for sleeping, and a sea salt stone to keep you safe on the road.”

Theo pressed the bag to his nose, breathing in the tangy, sweet scent of herbs. “Thank you Finley.”

Finley studied him, smoothing a white apron over her heavy wool tunic. She was still wearing the brooch of Scottish Primrose he wove for her after his first walk around the estate, keeping the tiny pink and purple flowers as fresh as they day they were plucked with elf magic.

Finley smiled, touching her chest fondly. “Master Theodore’s father awaits him in the dining hall.”

Theo’s face fell. He quickly roved about the top floor, checking that his most precious keepsakes were safe in the ornate wooden lockbox on his dresser. Finally, just as he opened his mouth to tell Finley to announce him, something flashed out of the corner of his eye.

Slowly, he went back to his bed and picked up the framed photo on his bedside table. The woman in it combed her long blonde hair. When it flowed like silk through the brush, she started to braid it. Occasionally she peeked up at him and smiled, mouth curving mysteriously. He waited long enough for the man to make his appearance, coming behind her and placing a kiss on the crown of her head. For a second they both stilled, forming a perfect muggle picture.

Theo would never be caught dead bringing a photo of his parents to Hogwarts, but he missed seeing it. Without much thought, he popped it out of the frame.

“I’ll be right down, Finley.”

The house elf batted at her eyes when his back was turned so as not to upset him. “You’ll be home again before you know it, Master Theodore,” she said, and disappeared.

Father was in the dining room reading the Prophet. His blue eyes flicked over Theo’s form dismissively as his son took a seat across from him. A plate of cheeses, meats, fig jam and fresh bread appeared just as he took his first sip of tea.

“Did you finish your chores in London and Leicester?” Father asked.

Theo nodded, “Yes, sir.”

Lord Nott flipped the paper down. His gnarled face looked very unimpressed. “What is it?”

“I was wondering if I could lend out a book,” he said carefully. “To a benevolent stranger I met recently.” Theo set to work tearing his bread into smaller pieces, watching his father’s face. “He’s about my age. He could benefit from reading Fortified Homes.”

“Hmmm…” His father’s eyes went back to the newspaper. “These are dangerous times for many. Prudent for a boy your age to look into protective wards. But unless he’s as brilliant as you, he won’t find much use in them.”

“Yes,” Theo ate a slice of hard white cheese together with a cut of salami, tucking away the casual praise. “He’s doing some research on wards, but he does seems magically powerful. He’s interested in studying occlumency as well.”

Father stayed quiet. After a moment, Theo steeled himself and tried to make eye contact, but Lord Nott wasn’t looking at him. He was staring just up and over the newspaper, gaze distant.

“It is rare to find an equal to your interests,” father finally said. “But the rarer the art, the bigger the risk.” It was a family adage - Theo tried not to feel chastened by it. “Does this stranger have something to offer?”

“No,” Theo shook his head, “Not yet.”

Father rolled the paper up angrily. “Boy, you’re entertaining a stranger who doesn’t even have something of value? What have I taught you? Identifying potential sources isn’t based on how you feel, it’s based on what they know.”

Theo’s shoulders seized up under the lecture. He kept his breath even and waited for Father’s flash-fire temper to pass.

“I saw his colors in my lithomancy,” Theo explained.

“Heavens above!” Lord Nott slammed an open palm on the table, “A curse upon me that you inherited your mother’s talent for seeing signs! She badgered me about those damn stones for years!”

They fell silent. Theo chewed mechanically on a crust of bread, struggling against the urge to defend his mother. He glanced at his solar watch. Damn close to the anniversary of her death, too. Good form, father.

“I did say it was time for you to try your hand at building up the library, didn’t I?”

Magnus Nott was not a man to apologize, so that was the best he was going to get. Theo nodded slowly, careful not to show even the faintest expression of relief.

“Listen to me Theodore,” his father reached across the table and tapped it, “blackened souls upon this earth would do anything - anything to get at that library. They’ll trick you, betray you, give you anything you desire, just for the pleasure of taking from it.” His father’s expression was terrible. The many thick scars across his fingers and neck were stark white on his skin. “That’s why we take our time, that’s why we have rules. Tell me what they are.”

“Accept no freely given gifts. Assume the worst. Quarantine all new acquisitions. Never acknowledge the existence of the library.”

His father nodded.

“But, father,” he straightened under the man’s piercing gaze, refusing to show an inch of wariness. “You taught me how to evaluate sources, too. I think this could be promising. It’s more than just stones, I can tell there’s something promising in him.”

Lord Nott slowly nodded. “You must be certain that he will safeguard the book. We have two copies of Fortified Homes, but treat it as if we have one.”

Theo thought back to the paranoid stranger he met in Diagon Alley, clutching his secrets close to he chest.

“He is concerned, above all else, with secrecy. And he seems eager for help.”

Lord Nott pushed a hand through his silver-white hair. “I hate how much trust is in you,” he murmured. “I hate to see what will happen when it breaks.”

Theo returned to his plate, slowly stacking meat and cheese together. He never knew what to say to his father, and was even further adrift when the man moved through moods like a warm knife through butter. Theo preferred his strict, distant father over the melancholy one in front of him, lost in his endless mourning.

Father tapped the table with his wand, triggering Finley to refill his tea. “Tell Narcissa those tattoos are an ancient family tradition,” he removed a silver flask from his pockets and tipped a strong whiskey in his cup. “Or else she’ll try and hang me from my thumbs”

“I’ll tell her that I did it,” he asserted, glancing down at the symbols on the back of his knuckles. “She won’t be surprised.”

The portkey would take him to the warm fields of Malfoy summer cottage in the south of France. Theo’s father arranged for him to spend a little over a week with Draco and his mother before moving to Blaise’s apartment in Venice. From there, Theo would train through muggle Europe on his own and meet his father in Berlin. There, father would show Theo more of the underground book trade and introduce him to some international sources. They would return to Nott Tower a few days before the solstice.

“I will post you the address of our meeting place. Practice your German.”

“Yes, father.”

Lord Nott rolled his eyes, “And try to avoid discussing our resurrected friend. If you must, mind what you say. Lord Malfoy and I are aligned in our strategy, but He does not suspect that our alliance runs deeper than the Mark. I don’t need his chatterbox of a son to give us away.”

Theo stilled, cold at the sudden mention of the Dark Lord. His father’s eyes pinned him down. “That creature will exploit every weakness, and he will most certainly use our children against us. Draco Malfoy will be a liability if you trust him with too much information. I do not even trust Lucius with that much.”

Draco has always told me everything, he wanted to say. But the fierce scowl on his father’s face turned his tongue into lead. Father’s will was absolute. He nodded solemnly.

The old wizard finished his tea and stood from the table. “You are strong, Theodore. Stronger than your friends - but only because I prepared you to be strong. Lord Malfoy coddled his son, playing both sides of British politics to till an easy field for young Draco. If he ever believed that the Dark Lord would return, he would have taken his family and fled the country back in 1981. The fact that his heir and wife are summering in France tells you what he’s thinking. What do you think that is?”

Theo thought for a moment. “That he’s waiting to see how the Dark Lord plays his hand.”

“Exactly,” Lord Nott pulled a heavy black cloak over his shoulders. “Lucius hardly remembers the war, he only remembers the aftermath and that was purely political for him, mind you. Back then, he had nothing to lose. His father was dead, he was a young buck ready to fight. Now he’s a bit wiser, a bit more thoughtful. He wants to prepare a world for his son - he doesn’t prepare his son for the world.” Lord Nott’s eyes gleamed, a terrible expression on his face. “Take my word on this, Theodore. That man will see his son buried if he doesn’t smarten up. And you cannot save a son from his father. Their bond is their own to shatter.”

Theo’s mouth twitched and he quickly averted his eyes to conceal the pang of frustration he felt. Father’s right, he thought carefully, trying to reel in his temper. It blazed like ice through his veins, sudden and fierce. It’s not father’s fault Lord Malfoy bought Draco every available toy in Diagon and protected him from the real world. You aren’t some storybook hero, Theo. You can’t save them by will alone. If you tell Draco too much, he could get us all killed. You’ll just have to watch out for him some other way.

He sighed. Father’s hand came down on his shoulder, heavy. Steady. “Safe travels, my child.”

And then he was gone. Theo finished his small meal deep in thought.

When he was done, he traipsed through the house until he came to the blood-red doors of the Nott Library. Even though the magic concentrated behind those doors could make his eyes water, he felt nothing when they were closed. He pressed the pad of his thumb on the air-tight seam and relaxed his mind.

The magic on the other side zapped him, light and playful like a thistle sprite. He smiled and pushed inside.

As usual, the magic washed over him in a rush, like stepping through a powerful waterfall. He felt it search him all over, feeling in his pockets for a new book.

“I’m here to borrow,” he said aloud, leaving the forcefield behind. Light poured from the ceiling, illuminating an elaborate fresco in the floor depicted Yggdrisil. He stepped on to the dais in the center. “I’m looking for Fortified Homes by Dami-“

The book floated from the east side of the fresco and landed softly in his outstretched hand. He flipped through the pages to check that it made mention of blood wards.

“Thank you,” he said, hugging the book close. “It will come back safely, I promise.”

The shadows cloaking the library’s vast space rippled. He bowed formally, and the ripple intensified in the Library’s impression of a smile. “I’ll be back soon,” he said.

Back in his bedroom, he whistled at the window for Raziel, their osprey. He fashioned a quick note for his pen pal, tied up the book in a skin of leather, and - as an afterthought - pulled a blue jay feather from one of his books to act as a bookmark.

If this book has one crease in it, I’ll pluck all the hairs from your head one by one, he wrote with a flourish.

Raziel screeched happily to be put to work. Neither of the Notts were terribly social and the young hawk loved the opportunity to stretch his wings. As he kicked off the perch and shot into the sky, Theo caught sight of father standing on the cliff overlooking the loch. It was hard to see in the mid-afternoon light, but he guessed the man was talking to Graham Nott, his brother who haunted the grounds.

Theo pulled his cowhide pack over his shoulders and locked his trunk, playing with the thimble portkey. He hated to leave the familiar walls of home so soon. It was bad enough he had to be at Hogwarts all the time, spending weeks away from the tower in the summer made him feel even more homesick than usual.

He shrank the trunk down and put it in pocket, and then sat in the window to stare at the boggy fen on the south side of the loch. He sometimes saw aurochs picking their way through the reeds there. The sun was high in the sky behind him, lighting up the forest with white light. A crown of rocky cliffs protected their keep, often throwing huge shadows over the small valley hidden in the Scottish Highlands.

At least Hogwarts feels like home sometimes, Theo thought, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. When I do this.

His eyes were still closed when the portkey activated.

One disorienting slide through space later, he was sitting in the grass in the sweltering heat. Cicadas and buzzing bees hummed all around him.

“Theodore!” The citrus smell of Draco’s shampoo wafted overhead. Theo looked up. Draco’s long bangs swung in his face, concern creasing his perfectly coiffed eyebrows. “Are you hurt? Why are you on the ground?”

“Portkey was early,” Theo lied, rolling to his feet. Draco wrinkled his nose and cast a strong touch-up charm on his pants. “Hey!” Theo whipped his wand out and tried to disarm him. Draco danced away, snickering. “Let’s see if you like it - Ordentilich!” Draco’s casual silk shirt tucked itself deep into his pants.

“You monster!” Draco shrieked, “You popped the stitches!” He struggled to untuck his shirt but the fabric refused to budge. Theo twirled his wand like in the muggle westerns he watched last summer.

“Really Draco, is this how you treat an honored guest?”

“My honored guest will be sleeping outside if he doesn’t treat his host with respect,” he retorted, giving up. The two of them glared at each other, wands up and ready.

Draco broke first. His sneer gave way to a toothy grin, one that made Theo feel ten again, and looped his arm through Theo’s. “I’m glad you’re here first,” he whispered, “I have a surprise planned for Blaise, but I need you to distract mother…and for Merlin’s sake, take pity on my shirt! It’s fresh off the line from Tippany’s summer collection.”

The inside of the Malfoy french estate was blessedly cool. Theo padded through the airy rooms, admiring how coastal and light the decoration was. It was quite a change from the obscene baroque explosion of Malfoy Manor.

In the sitting room, a familiar lithe figure shifted a portrait straight on the wall, her long white hair piled on top of her head in a effortless bun.

She turned, her blush skirts as light as air. “Lady Malfoy,” Theo bowed formally over her outstretched hand, touching her knuckles to his brow. “I thank you for welcoming me to your family’s home.”

“Heir Nott,” she dipped into a slight curtsy, her back as straight as an arrow. She peered down at him over her nose. “Our house keep and protect you. Welcome.”

He stood up straight and tried to keep a serious expression, rubbing his toes against the soft sherpa slippers they were required to wear inside. Lady Malfoy’s cool gaze traveled over every inch of him.

Theo’s cheeks ran hot and he ducked his head. Her poker face is much better than mine. Narcissa’s shoulders relaxed and she wrapped him in a loving hug. “I’m glad to see you, Theodore.”

He hugged her back, feeling something in his chest tangle up like it always did when he was with Draco’s mother. She squeezed him strongly one last time and stepped back to study him.

“Where is my son? He’s not being a good host, is he?” She sounded resigned.

Theo cracked a smile, “He’s the perfect gentleman.” Theo sent a quick prayer to Draco that he was done pouring itching powder in Blaise’s slippers. “He took my bag for me to our room.”

“My son? Carried a bag upstairs?” Narcissa blinked. A moment later, she rolled her eyes in comprehension, “Ah. Blaise is on his way.”

Theo snickered and quickly stopped under her reproachful glare. “You see, Blaise pranked Draco’s trunk on the Express at the end of term. He can’t let that stand.”

“No pranks in the house while you’re here,” Narcissa commanded. Theo nodded seriously, and Lady Malfoy let out a little laugh. “How is your father, dear?”

“Busy,” Theo said honestly, following her around the room as she continued to swap out portraits. A small flame ate away at a branch in the hearth, waiting for Blaise to floo in. “He’s letting me help him with some work managing the estate.”

“It’s not good for a boy your age to work the entire summer,” Narcissa sighed, brushing a long-fingered hand through the curls at his neck. “Though, I see you’re quick to want to grow up. You look like a young Lord already.”

Theo’s face flushed. No one had commented on his hair yet, not even Father. “It’s finally at a manageable length,” he said, gesturing at the top half he’d tied up at the back of his head. “Mother was fond of…charms and knots.” He touched the small braid woven with a thin strip of birch bark. “I’m still learning.”

“What is this charm for?” she asked, studying the weave.

“Safe traveling.”

Narcissa’s smile was warm, and she brushed his hair again, gently stroking the braid. “Your mother would have liked that. I am familiar with this branch of magic as well, though it’s been a long time since I tried my hand at it. I can teach you to braid if you like? And while I do that, you can try to make me see why it was a good idea for a fifteen year old to permanently mark up his lovely hands.”

Before he could stutter a response, the fire crackled, signaling an incoming floo. Draco whirled around the corner just in time and took his place at Theo’s side not a second before Blaise stepped assuredly out of the green fire.

“Lady Malfoy!” Blaise took two long strides across the carpet and kissed Narcissa’s hand with a loud smack. “I thank you for welcoming me to your French estate. Mother sends her deepest gratitude.”

“I am sure she’s grateful for the quiet,” she replied dryly. Blaise grinned and turned to Draco and Theo. Theo was thoroughly unimpressed with his entrance, but Draco practically bounced with glee.

“Now that you’re both here I can show you the wine cellar!”

Theo and Blaise looked at Lady Malfoy in surprise. Her mouth curled mischievously. “No more than one per night,” she admonished. “But it’s time you learned a thing or two about wine.”

“Mother’s allowing us to choose what we’d like to taste this week!” Draco continued, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Grab your house shoes Blaise, let’s go!”

“Aren’t you going to take his bag upstairs?” Theo deadpanned.

Draco nearly stumbled over his own eagerness. “Yes, of course. Blaise?” He held his hand out imperiously for the bag.

Blaise smirked, “Why thank you, maggiordomo.”

“Now, don’t do anything I can’t fix boys,” Narcissa said as she swept away. “Dinner will be in the garden.”

Blaise swapped his leather shoes for the slippers Draco placed at the foot of the stairs. “Who did they bring? Trilby? Bonner? Claffy-“

A small house elf wrapped in a pristine baby blue shift appeared in front of them, already in a deep bow. “Mister Blaise Zabby, sir?”

Theo covered his mouth as Blaise twitched. “It’s Zabini Claffy,” he corrected, and then seemed to realize how stupid it was to argue with an elf who had known him his whole life. Her wide blue eyes betrayed nothing, but Theo suspected she knew very well how to say his name. “Put my shoes with the others.”

“Very well,” with another bow and a crack, she and Blaise’s shoes were gone. He made a face at Theo, “It had to be her.”

“Do you think there are tracking spells on the wine bottles?” Theo asked, artfully changing the subject.

Blaise shrugged, “Wine isn’t meant to be overindulged.” Theo’s mind went back to his father’s whiskey.

“Do you think there’s something other than wine in the cellar?”

“Ahh, Theodore, my dear friend…” Blaise tapped the pocket of his shirt. “We’re of the same mind. I’ll use this to get Draco to admit he cheated off my History of Magic exam. I implore you not to waste your chance to interrogate him either.” Theo grinned.

Draco whisked into view at the top of the stairs. “Waiting for me, are you?” he smirked and lifted his chin, descending the steps slowly. “I knew you were lost without me.”

“If you want two oafs to follow you around, invite Crabbe and Goyle over,” Blaise said, “We were -“ suddenly, he flinched. “What is…” he stood on one foot and used the heel of the other to itch at his arch. “Why am I itchy?”

Theo and Draco adopted sour looks at the same time. “One must wash their feet regularly here,” Draco said, with an upturned nose.

“Honestly Blaise, sometimes you’re so continental,” Theo added. Blaise flipped them the bird and angrily itched at his heel.

“It must be that new polish Mother used on the floors,” Blaise muttered.

Draco shot him a flash-quick grin and hopped the last step, “Come now. Let’s choose our wines.”

Blaise cursed all the way down to the cellar, but it wasn’t until the other foot also started to itch that it dawned on him what had happened.

A chase ensued. They made a game of sprinting through the small mansion, occasionally freezing in place and pretending to be reading from the library to setting up a game of snap whenever a house elf apparated into sight and glared at them. By the time Narcissa called them down for dinner, the three of them were sweaty and disheveled.

She scowled but, bafflingly, let their sloppy appearances slide. They pretended to understand her tasting notes as she coached them on how to appreciate a young merlot through dinner. Narcissa quizzed Blaise and Theo on their end of year exams and kept the conversation away from politics or the Prophet’s recent headlines.

After the meal, Narcissa retreated to the back porch while the three of them headed into the vineyard.

Although it was only a month since they’d seen each other, they were each bursting with news. Blaise regaled the two of them with stories of his mother’s latest suitor, a truly clueless Egyptian wizard who was the master clothier of a famous fashion house in Northern Africa.

“He keeps calling her his caramel-colored muse.” He gagged. “Luckily they’ll be too busy with each other to bother us next week.”

“I can’t wait to be in Italy,” Draco moaned, slumping across Blaise’s lap. “My wardrobe is absolutely dying for calfskin oxfords.”

“Heaven’s above!” Theo cried in a high-pitched voice, “What will he do without oxfords? Settle for the brogues?”

Draco curled into Blaise, “Do you hear him? He hates fashion, Blaise. What will we do?”

“Theo, this summer I shall dress you.” Blaise’s honey-brown eyes gleamed in the golden light of the setting sun. “You shall be beautiful. We will shear your woolen Scottish coat and reveal the sleek panther within. We will-“

“Narcissa!” Theo flipped on his stomach and started to crawl away, “Please…they’re hurting me!”

“Don’t you dare!” Quicker than a snake, Draco latched on to him and pushed his face into the ground. “You know she loves you more than me!”

They wrestled for a moment, but Theo soon lost as he joined Blaise and Draco in a bout of hysterical laughter. Theo tugged and turned until he was fully on his back again, with Draco on his right, Blaise on his left. Stars dotted the sky above them and grew ever brighter as the minutes dragged on.

I wish I could be here every day, Theo thought longingly. I wish this was my life.

“Your mother seems nervous,” he said, after their laughter died down and their heartbeats calmed.

“Yes…” Draco pulled at the grass. “Father is with…him.”

The three of them shared a moment of silence. Blaise broke it first.

“It’s true then?” he sounded defeated. “I thought it was all a play by Dumbledore to give Potter a reason for winning.”

“Would Dumbledore really let a student die for Potter? I’m sorry,” Theo amended, fielding off their predictable complaints. “Would he let a Hufflepuff die for Potter?”

“Diggory’s death was an accident, surely,” Blaise said, pressing closer into his side. “Dumbledore wouldn’t-“

“I know what he wouldn’t,” Draco sighed morosely. “He wouldn’t let Prince Potter fail. Potter is the only symbol the light have.”

“Not true,” Theo countered, “you said it yourself, Dumbledore’s still here.”

“But Dumbledore never defeated him,” Draco said. His voice was barely audible. “Only Potter did. By sheer dumb luck, or insane magics I can’t even imagine, or because he’s goddamn destined to beat him.”

They considered that for a moment.

“Potter? Destined to beat the Dark Lord? Come now Draco…” Blaise twirled his hand in the air, “Potter can barely walk a straight line without instruction.”

Theo snorted, “The Dark Lord could break him in half in an instant.”

“But he didn’t Theo,” Draco flopped to his side and faced him, white face even paler in the dark. “I heard father telling mother about His resurrection. He said Potter dueled the Dark Lord and escaped.”

Blaise draped over Theo, and his warmth did a good job of suffocating the chills running down his spine.

“What did you say?” they hissed at the same time.

“It’s true, why would my father lie about something like that?” Draco’s breath was coming fast and shallow. He twisted his hands together worriedly. “I forced Claffy to bring me inside the walls where there’s a crawlspace. Barely big enough to breathe in. But I could hear every word they said - they had no idea I was listening. If the Dark Lord is back, but fucking Potter managed to duel and escape him, what does that mean for us?”

His father’s words echoed in his head.

Theo reached out with his left hand, finding Draco’s trembling ones and forcing them still. Blaise’s hand drifted over his ribs and wrapped around his right hand.

“We’re going to survive this,” Theo intoned, squeezing both of them assuredly. “I don’t care who comes between us. I don’t care what side we’re on. We never had a choice, did we?” Draco shook his head. “Well, I don’t accept that. We’ll make our own futures.”

“You’re so certain Theo,” Blaise drawled, dragging his thumb across the back of Theo’s hand soothingly. “What’s got into you?”

“Nothing,” he replied instantly. He tried to roll back, but Blaise held him fast. Draco gripped his hand with both of his own.

“Tell me Theo,” the blonde whispered, “Did you See something? I don’t want - I don’t know what I want. I don’t want my family to be wiped out. But I don’t want to stand against the Dark Lord, that’s as good as killing my whole House. But what hope is there? I - I saw -“ he clenched Theo’s fingers so hard his knuckles cracked. “I saw him. The Dark Lord. He was…abominable. A monster. He-“

“Draco,” Theo said coldly, cutting him off, “Be very careful about what you say. How is your occlumency?”

“Horrible,” Draco hiccupped. “That’s why I’m telling you. This is the only moment I can. I want to have a pleasant summer. I want to make memories and sit in the sun and eat delicious food and learn about wine and spend all my gold on clothes and - and -“ he sucked in shaky breath, “but I can’t do that unless I tell you everything I know. You have to know. Theo - you’re at least in as much danger as I am.”

Hesitantly, Theo nodded.

“The last day I was in the manor, the Dark Lord appeared at the gates,” Draco whispered. “I was out flying. I saw father let him in, and then I felt him key the wards to his command. It was like a cloud, a poison, almost, descended over the entire estate. I flew through my window and mother was already packing my luggage. I’ve never seen her in such a state. But before we could leave, father…took me to see him. He was…” Draco swallowed. He was barely audible. “He’s a monster. I’ve never been so afraid in my life. When he looked at me, I felt what he was thinking. He wanted me to suffer, he wanted me to be tortured because he thinks I’m weak. I had to bow and say all the right words, but,” Draco blew his hair from his face. “I don’t think I convinced him. He thinks I’m only good to him dead, or maybe as tool against father. I’m going to get father killed, I just know it.”

That monster will use our children against us.

“No you won’t,” Blaise said quietly, reaching over Theo to stroke Draco’s cheek. “You’ll be safe here. And we’ll be back at Hogwarts soon. In a year, who knows? Maybe Saint Potter will slay the beast.”

“Blaise!” Theo hissed, “We have to be careful what we say, unless we all become masters of-“

“Yeah, yeah,” Blaise ruffled his hair, “live fast, die young. That’s what I think.”

Draco laughed nervously. “But Blaise, what about your dream of upstaging your mother as the Black Widower? You can’t die young without fulfilling your goal.”

“I’ll start now,” he declared, finally rolling off of Theo. “I’ll marry Pansy Parkinson September 1-“

“As if,” Draco crowed, sounding more like himself.

“-and divorce her by Halloween. Then I’ll move on to Milicent Bulstrode-“

Theo laughed and slapped Blaise’s leg, “She’ll castrate you!”

“-and end it by Yule. If I nab two a term until I graduate, I’ll only need to survive one more year to beat my mother’s record.”

“You’re heinous,” Draco sniffed, wiping his eyes. “I don’t know why I keep you around.”

Tension drained out of Theo’s shoulders. Draco still clutched at his hand, but he wasn’t shaking anymore. I won’t let anything happen to Draco, Theo swore to himself. Not after everything he did for me.

“Come on Theo, tell me your summer hasn’t just been books and rocks?” Draco thumped their hands into the ground, “You’ve done something interesting since we last saw you, right?”

“Your hair looks nice,” Blaise said. “Are you seeing someone?”

Thank Merlin it’s dark, he thought, resisting the urge to touch his warm cheeks.

“Of course not,” he snapped. “My hair is just this length to learn an obscure magic called tantalgia, it-“

“Spare me,” Blaise covered his mouth. “Tell us something interesting, book boy.”

Theo rolled his eyes and pulled his hand away. “If you must know, I met an interesting person in Diagon Alley this week,” he said. "He was about our age, wearing a glamor.”

“Crabbe,” Blaise said instantly. “I wouldn’t want to be myself either if I were him.”

“Someone who was interested in transfiguration and occlumency and other magical cultures,” Theo said scathingly. “Definitely not Crabbe.”

“Wow,” Draco rubbed his nose. “Your perfect mate.”

He kept his mouth shut, refusing to respond to such a stupid comment. Unfortunately, both Draco and Blaise turned to look at him at the same time.

“Oh ho,” Blaise said wickedly. “The hair isn’t all for magic, is it?

“Theodore, he could be dreadful looking,” Draco tapped his forehead knowingly. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Shut up - I just said he was interesting, not that I’m besotted with him.”

“Theo,” Blaise pressed his hand across his chest, “you’ve never been interested in another person in all the years I’ve known you. Not even me, and I’m definitely top two most interesting among the people you know. What makes this stranger so special?”

He held his breath for second, wondering if he should tell them the truth.

“I saw…him in my lithomancy for the day.” He admitted in a small voice. “Right before I went out, I threw the stones, and they showed me him…”

“Did they say, ‘thou shalt meet a dastardly handsome suitor?’”

“No,” Theo pressed his hand over his eyes. “They said I’d meet a special person. A regal person, quite literally by the stones. And the stones pulled up a sign for new beginnings. At first I thought he was you, Blaise,” he elbowed the other boy. “Playing another trick on me. But we quickly established that he wasn’t you, and…well…he was wearing purple. A royal color.”

“That was enough to capture your attention?” Blaise said disbelievingly. “Did this person recognize you?”

“I think so…but I have no idea who he is.”

“You and your mysteries,” Draco said, cracking a huge yawn. “That’s what I love about you…you antisocial viking…you love a puzzle.”

Blaise snorted and heaved to his feet. “Alright. As much as I want to hear more, I think it’s time for bed boys. Let old Blaise tuck you in.” He reached down and hiked his hands under Draco’s prone form. The blonde pretended to be asleep, letting out a tiny snore.

Theo stood up. The moon was low in the sky, and though it wasn’t entirely dark yet, it cast a cool white glow over the vines. Theo stood with his back to the moon and briefly closed his eyes. It didn’t even take a moment for him. By now, feeling the moon’s magic was easy. It washed over him like a gentle brush through his hair.

I wonder if my stranger is looking at the moon tonight.

 

---

Magnus

 

“He’s more like his mother. I can’t control him. She was like a force of nature, and he’s…”

“The calm before the storm?”

Magnus Nott glared at the opaque visage beside him. Graham shrugged. “Storms are forces of nature…”

“Oh shut up,” Lord Nott turned to face the mists settling over the water. With Theodore gone, the estate felt empty again. He hated walking the land without another living being to act as his touch stone. The land that was once Nott Manor was nothing but a graveyard to him now.

Ophelia breathed life into this place when she was alive. She was unstoppable, unapologetically healing the deep scars that he let fester for years. She was too good for him. She saw the secret truths in his heart and accepted them along with the not-so-secret sins. It was her that convinced him to breathe a new life into this world, into his bloodline. She convinced him that the Notts were something worth saving.

And after all that, he was back where he started. Talking to ghosts. Wondering why everybody in the world was so dark of heart. Wondering why he was still here, after everything he’d done and failed to do.

“The good ones get wiped out,” he muttered, taking a long draw from his flask. “I didn’t want a good son, I wanted a man who would stand against the tides of this world and protect what is ours. Our legacy, the reason we’re here.”

“The Nott’s are proud warriors,” Graham agreed, lacing his fingers behind his back. “We thrive in war.”

Magnus shook his head, “No. We die in wars.”

Graham floated in front of him. His double-breasted suit was as fine as the day he died. A pale grey rose wilted on his lapel. Deep weeping slashes from his collar to his hip darkened the fine white silk underneath. Magnus remembered the way they tore through him. His blood shot so high it sprayed the fine glass chandelier above their table.

“He will have to be better than me,” Magnus mused, finishing the whiskey. “The Notts will change. Ophelia Blight was drawn here for a reason, it couldn’t be for this.”

He passed his palm over the cliff side and cleared the mist above the loch. “Lucerna,” he hissed. The black obsidian stone on his ring sparked and a compact light formed in front of him. He guided it down and submerged it in the water. “Maxima.” The light pulsed and the loch turned transparent, revealing the bones of an ancient viking longship.

Magnus stared at the ship, pulling the light up the broken mast.

“Theodore is not a warrior. He is a guardian. He needs a lance. That Malfoy boy just won’t do…”

“I often wonder why I stayed in this land,” Graham murmured from behind.

“Wasn’t it to torture me all hours of the night?” Magnus grunted, studying the fragmented oars.

“Sometimes I feel the pull to pass on,” the ghost admitted, “and then you go and swear brotherhood with Lucius Malfoy.” Graham laughed, and a cold wind whipped over the hills. “You’re insane, Magnus.”

“I’m doing whatever I can to protect this House,” he growled, crushing the light away with his fist. “Lucius sways with the wind, but he is committed to keeping his son alive. In that, we move together.”

Searing pain lanced up his forearm. “Hellfire,” Magnus spat, clutching the Mark.

“Give Mr. Riddle my regards,” Graham drawled, meeting his brother’s eyes just before Magnus apparated away.

His heavy boots crushed into a soft pebble path.

“Welcome, Magnus.”

“My lord,” he flipped his heavy cloak and dropped to one knee.

“None of that, Magnus,” a bone-white hand took him by the shoulder, guiding him up to stand. “Mind your knees.”

He met the Dark Lord’s scarlet eyes and immediately felt the probe to his mind. As usual, Magnus let him in, and their vision splintered into the world of his mind scape.

“Your head is a maze of broken mirrors,” Lord Voldemort breathed. “Are you competent enough to serve me, or have you lost your way, Magnus?”

“It would be my ultimate glory to serve you, my lord.”

The Dark Lord retreated. Magnus glanced at the home behind him. Ah, Lucius, he thought exhaustedly. You fool.

“Lucius is a gracious host.” The Dark Lord paced through the rose garden, his long-fingered hands woven in front of him. Magnus followed at a slow pace, favoring his bad leg. “Malfoy Manor is a good home after so many cold nights with the Vampire Council.”

“Would it aid my lord’s plans if I were to reestablish contact with the Milan Coven? I will travel there next week.”

“Yes,” the Dark Lord nodded approvingly. “I will write a letter of introduction.”

Magnus bowed his head. They continued to walk in silence and entered what Narcissa called the Oceanside, where flowers grew in white, blue, and sea-green gradients. A pale figure cloaked in grey waited for them near one of the fountains.

“My lord,” Lucius kneeled neatly. The Dark Lord studied him from above.

“Rise, Lucius.”

Lucius’ silver eyes flickered to Magnus. “Lord Nott,” he said formally, inclining his head. “Can I treat you to anything? Water, perhaps? Coffee?”

Magnus curled his lip, “I’d kill for a spot of Finnegan’s Whiskey. The 1901 reserve. I remember Abraxas served it the day we seeded the Aurors with our spies.”

“What a victory,” Lord Voldemort hissed in delight, “I remember that night well, Magnus. If you can complete this next task for me, the whiskey shall be yours.”

If Lucius prickled at his most valuable liquor being promised away, he didn’t show it. Magnus and Lucius followed the Dark Lord to an opening in the garden where all the paths met. “As you know, our position is weak," the Dark Lord said. "Our friends decimated, our allies scattered and disorganized, our resources small.” He turned slowly while he spoke to face them. It was hard to look in the face of such man - more creature than man.

“Lucius, I entrust to you a heavy burden - you must free our comrades in Azkaban. Their escape must be perfectly timed, so for now I need you to explore every available option to free them. I will decide on the right strategy and the right time.”

“My lord,” Lucius bowed. “It will be my pleasure.”

“And you, Magnus, my old friend…” the Dark Lord’s mouth curled, revealing a row of sharp teeth. “You must help me learn all there is to know about the Hall of Prophecies.”

“Prophecies?” Magnus grunted in surprise.

“Locked away in the Department of Mysteries is a room of prophecies - those foretold, complete, and yet to come. There, the secret power of my defeat waits for me…what do you know of the art of prophecy, Magnus?”

He remembered Ophelia standing in the field of blooming lupine, pounding at the wards, her purple eyes full of fire. The first words she ever said to him were, This is where I’m meant to be.

“Nothing but hearsay, my lord,” Magnus lied.

“In our day, you had a great talent for acquiring the rarest of information. I need you to produce all you can on the Department of Mysteries and prophecy. As soon as you can, Magnus.”

“I shall work tirelessly,” he promised.

“My friends,” the Dark Lord extended his arms, “together, we will reignite the flames of our revolution. Victory is within our grasp.”

Magnus and Lucius bowed again.

“Await my call,” the Dark Lord hissed and apparated away with a fierce crack.

Magnus pulled his cloak fully off his shoulders and draped it over one arm. The air was warmer in the south of England and he was starting to sweat.

“The Dark Lord is outside the wards,” Lucius sighed. “Would you like a drink?”

“Do you have to ask?”

“Trilby!” A small house elf appeared a Lucius’ feet, nose already dragging in the dirt. “Fetch the whiskey in my study and two glasses.”

The house elf worked fast. Magnus sat on the fountain’s edge, casting a featherlight charm on his boot to ease the pressure on his knee.

“Draco is thankful to you for allowing your son to join him at the French Estate,” Lucius said, handing him a tumbler of whiskey.

“I’m sure he’s happy to pry Theodore away from his evil father,” Magnus said dryly.

“It’s good for children to be with their peers,” Lucius replied carefully. “Theodore has great potential.”

“As does Draco,” Magnus said, matching his polite tone. “If he could be a bit more like Theodore.”

Lucius sipped his drink. Magnus downed it in one go, clenching the glass as the alcohol burned all the way to his gut.

“What is this prophecy business about?”

“I don’t know,” the other man sighed, and conjured an iron stool to sit on. “It lends credence to the rumor that the Potters were foretold to defeat him.”

“Only an unfocused man chases prophecies,” Magnus declared. “But that is no man.”

“He was once a man we respected and feared,” Lucius said sharply. “But now…perhaps there is only fear.”

“Careful now,” Magnus levitated the whiskey over and refilled his cup. “Are you strong enough to resist his legilimancy?”

“I am,” Lucius replied. “What does that say?”

Magnus nodded his appreciation, “It says that you’re a powerful wizard. Don’t lose heart, Lucius. I need you steadfast.”

“What are we doing Magnus?” Lucius drained his cup, “The Confederated Vampire Covens of Great Britain already pledged loyalty to him. Fenrir’s great pack is all but confirmed. He’s talking about giants next.”

“Oh dear. Can’t invite a giant princess to the Malfoy Yule Ball.”

Lucius glared at him, “You can’t be serious. Those creatures are just fodder for the battlefield, or a red herring in his infernal chess game against Albus Dumbledore.”

Magnus shook his head. “You’re not thinking Lucius…every tool in use in this war is one less place reserved for our children. You understand that, right?”

“But Draco and Theodore are too young,” Lucius said dismissively. “This could be all over in one, maybe two-“

“My son died at sixteen,” Magnus said, voice tight, “in a war no one expected a wizard could die from. My daughter was murdered in the cloak and dagger war before your generation stepped in, wearing silver masks and taking dark delights in those muggle villages.” Lucius’ jaw ticked, but he did not look away from Lord Nott’s smoldering glare. “The Dark Lord could have a hundred more capable soldiers at his command, but your son will be a symbol of this new generation if you continue to covet such a close relationship with him. You best pray he continues to set his sights on the creatures and half-breeds lurking in the shadows.”

“Do you think I invited him here?” Lucius snarled, standing up. “Do you think I had a choice? I am under the hammer, Nott! What are you doing to help? Getting drunk and singing dirges by your stinking loch?”

Birds called out in alarm and flitted away from them, frightened of the crackling violence of Lucius’ magic. Magnus started to laugh.

“Me? I've been waiting for you. If you can speak against the Dark Lord so boldly, it must be time. He gestured for the man to retake his seat. “It's the snake, Lucius. The snake is the key to our success. If we pull this off, we may bring back the man your father and I swore to loyalty to, all those years ago.”

“Nagini?” Lucius whispered. “What of her?”

Magnus leaned forward, staring at the blue-white roses. “I was there when she was created,” he said. “I know what she is. I believe we can use her to bring him back.”

Chapter 5: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Summary:

Harry has money, power, and many tools at his fingertips, but he's still a kid trapped in a web that he doesn't quite understand. John is just starting to see what's really going on.

Notes:

Whew! Things are starting to smash together and create some sparks. I was out fishing for a few days, otherwise this chapter would have been up sooner. I can't properly express how delighted I feel to see every kudos, bookmark, and wonderful comment, so I'm trying to write carefully for you all and not rush anything...even though I'm SO excited to get to what happens next.

More notes at the end of this chapter. For now, enjoy!

Dear Theo,

I did meditate in front of the moon. Not in a field or anything, but from my bedroom floor and you were right! (Do you ever get tired of hearing that?). I’ve never experienced anything like that before; it was truly magical.

Can you point me in the direction of more books about familiars? I’m trying to find something written by someone who actually had one. Presser’s What a Familiar Tells Us About Souls and Magic was very enlightening, but I’m afraid the other books were…well…I skimmed them. At best. Sorry. I hope you don’t think I’m some kind of book worm, I’m really not. I just have a lot of free time on my hands this summer.

The Albion is a bit creepy at night. I’m pretty sure I saw a group of vampires last time I was there. They inspired me to read up a bit on the vampiric curse and…well…safe to say next time I go to the Albion it will be during the day. I couldn’t sleep a wink that night.

Your suggested reading was exactly what I needed, thank you. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I may need it through the entire summer. I think it will be key to my research project.

As for your other question…I don’t really have time to do anything for fun in the summer. Unless I’m with my friends, but because I’m visiting some family I can’t see them much this year. I enjoy being outside. I’m kind of restless - anything that gets me moving is good in my book. Flying is my favorite thing in the world. Like I said in the bookstore, I would love to travel someday. I just like the idea of finally being able to be free to do whatever I want…

Occlumancy is, so far, my least favorite thing in the world. Meditation isn’t so bad, but actually trying to build a mind palace (how can they call it that so seriously??) seems impossible. I don’t think I’m cut out for it, but some of the exercises are helping me sleep, so that’s a win.

You really excoriated me on the merits of The Lord of the Rings, so I powered through Fellowship and now I can’t stop reading. You were right about that too.

I’ve always wanted to try escargot. Is it disgusting? It seems like it would taste good but look gross. Try some for me.

Safe travels,

Kingfisher

PS - Of the nicknames you suggested, this sounds the coolest. Although I almost went with ‘Albatross’ because it’s such a funny name for a bird.

---

Harry

Harry stepped back, bending to eyeball the hedges. Ever since Mr. Number 11 down the road won an area garden award for his perfectly trim and level hedges, Aunt Petunia was rabid about maintaining square lines. It was her new favorite punishment. If he ever stayed too long in her line of sight, she would snipe, “Go level the hedges, boy! They look frightful!”

He moved down the line and snipped an errant leaf. Harry didn’t know if it was magic or if Number 4 was simply a thriving off years of hard labor on his part, but the hedges grew like weeds.

“Hey,” a quiet voice hissed.

Harry glanced down at John. He could just see one eye blinking at him through the leaves.

“Did you find them?”

“Yeah,” John wiggled closer, sounding like a cat-sized bulldozer moving through the branches. “It’s a woman this time. Took a long while to spot her.”

“Really?” Harry started to trim the tops of the next couple lengths, using the opportunity to peer over in their neighbor’s yard. The last thing I need is for Mrs. Number 3 to tell Aunt Petunia I was talking to myself. “But you said they’re so obvious.”

“She’s confounded the woman across the street,” John whispered. Harry caught himself, stifling how surprised he was.

“What?” he whispered back, snipping the leaves with more force. “Is that legal?”

“What is it with you and legality?” John adopted his most unbearable scoff, “Legal, moral, and necessary are not interchangeable terms. They’re trying to protect you from a Dark Lord.”

“But…Mrs. King has dementia,” Harry muttered. He couldn’t see across the road from here, but he could picture her perfectly. Mrs. King, a frail old lady who had been ancient his whole life, would be dressed in a frilly, ankle-length shift, having tea on her front lawn under the pagoda. She liked to roll out her caged cockatrice and sit across from it for company. “And her caretaker was with her this morning. Is she pretending to be her daughter or something?”

“The witch is her caretaker,” the cat replied. “She’s put the nurse to sleep and stuffed her in the house. And that muggle is not that demented, or else she wouldn’t have to confound her at all. I caught the witch when she sneezed - her nose changed back just for an instant. She’s a metamorphmagus.”

Before he could ask what that was, the back door slammed open. “Oi, freak!” Dudley thundered, “What’s with this mess?”

Oh no, Harry thought, just as a great crash sounded behind him. Dudley tossed out the very full bag of trash from the kitchen and stomped over it until garbage littered the spotless lawn.

Harry clenched the handles of the garden shears, breathing calmly through his nose. This is just temporary, Potter, he thought, staring at the mashed banana peels in the grass. You can’t control other people, only your response. Dudley was testing the limits of his temper lately. Ever since Harry went to Gringotts, his mood around the house was vastly different. Harry didn’t think much had changed. It’s not like he "whistled while he worked", but both Dudley and Uncle Vernon resented that he wasn’t quite as miserable as he was before. Thankfully, only Dudley tried to needle him into a reaction.

“What is with you lately, freak?” Dudley laughed, kicking half the chicken carcass from last night across the yard. “You better pick that up right quick!” Dudley clapped twice in his face. “Dad’s gonna be home soon and he won’t like seeing what you did!” With that, he sauntered away, heading through the front yard and down the road to join up with his cronies.

John slithered fully out from under the bushes, “What a toad. No, wait, that’s an insult to toads. What a slug.”

Harry snorted and put the clippers down. “Aunt Petunia is at the store, so if you want to come in for some water, now’s your chance.”

The two of them slipped inside, where Dudley’s damage continued. Harry sighed looking at the large, jammy handprint on the fridge, crumbs all over the counters, and scuff marks on his freshly waxed floor.

He turned the cold tap on and left it running at a gentle stream, letting John to lap while he jogged upstairs for his newly borrowed new spell book. It took an embarrassingly long time to realize he might be able to use some magic to help with his chores. He couldn’t use it all the time, of course, but it was especially useful in moments like these where he faced having to do all his work over again.

“What is a meta-morph-magicus anyway?” Harry asked as he flipped through 1001 Household Magics.

“A metamorphmagus is a wixen who can manipulate their body and shape change,” John hopped in the window over the sink. “Usually they turn into other people, although I once knew a druid who was an animorphmagus.”

Harry’s head snapped up with interest, “They could turn into multiple animals?”

“Exactly. But, she was half-selkie. That probably had something to do with it.”

“Peragrare,” Harry pushed his wand gently to the side, as if he were wiping the crumbs off the counter, and his spell vanished them, leaving a shiny clean streak that smelled faintly of lemons. “Magic is awesome,” he breathed, repeating the spell over the rest of the kitchen and then the floor. “You know, I once grew all my hair back overnight. Is that kind of like shape changing?”

“You willingly grew your hair out to look like that?”

“Har har,” he rolled his eyes and strapped his wand to the holster on his leg. “My aunt tried to shave it. I looked like I escaped the mental ward. When she saw what I’d done she locked me in the cupboard for a week.”

“What a woman!” John crowed, twitching his tail, “I see why the old man married her! She’s as gentle as the spring flower of her name”

Harry laughed and rushed back upstairs to return the book. Of all the gifts that fell in his lap over the last two weeks - Lordship, the possibility of finally escaping his relatives, being able to use magic freely, John’s company, even his new pen pal - it was John’s sarcastic humor that he appreciated above all else. Harry wasn’t afraid to tell him anything because nothing seemed to faze him. John was practical, logical, crass, and honest and he had a flair for making Harry’s problems seem harmless.

I guess that’s what happens when you live so damn long, he thought. Voldemort doesn’t even seem to bother him that much. I wonder if he’s been part of other wizarding wars? He would be a good spy.

“Hey John…” grabbing a new trash bag and some rubber gloves, Harry had a new idea. A great idea. “Do you think you could follow the witch back to wherever she goes?”

John yawned, “Why?”

“Don’t you think it would be good to spy on them?” His grinned wickedly, “It’s only fair if they’re watching me all the time. And we need to know all we can if we’re going to sneak off to Wales. What if they put some kind of tracking spell on my trunk or something?”

John mrrowed with laughter. “You’re devious. I had no idea the little wizard I was leading by the nose had such fire in his belly.”

Harry smirked and started shoveling discarded food in the new trash bag, so pleased by John’s words he wasn’t even upset about combing crushed fruit out of the lawn. “Will she notice you?”

“No,” the cat sniffed curiously at a chicken bone. “But just so you know, if she goes to Hogwarts, I won’t be able to follow her. Anywhere else I should be able to sneak into…using my many fabulous talents.”

“And huge brain,” Harry agreed.

“Har har,” the cat rolled his eyes. “Come now, don’t you want to know why I’m not allowed at Hogwarts?”

It was a trick question. Harry knew it but asked dutifully, “Why aren’t you allowed at Hogwarts, John?”

“Oh…young man...It’s not a story for virginal ears. But if you insist! It started with a lovely dame who I heard calling to me late at night. Our bodies met in the west courtyard, hot with passion-”

Harry cringed and covered his ears with his forearms, making John caterwaul with laughter. “Get out of here,” Harry hissed, shooing the cat away.

John darted off to the front of the house again, presumably to tail the witch. Harry dropped the trash off in the bin and wiped his sweaty hands over his shirt before returning to the hedges. Soon enough, he found himself mulling the problem of Roebuck Falls over again in his mind.

Every morning, he woke up itching with the urge to pack his things and just disappear. Now that he knew what did, the attempts by Dumbledore and his friends to keep him stuck in Privet Drive rankled all the more. Ron and Hermione’s terse letters, the hypocritical witches and wizards outside his house watching him all hours of the day, and the mysterious mail ward lodged somewhere in the house poked and prodded at him. He just couldn’t square good intentions against the obvious evidence that powerful people in his life were lying to him, possibly willing to manipulate him for purposes he didn’t even understand.

Isn’t it obvious that I want to be part of the resistance against Voldemort? He thought sourly. Why would Dumbledore - or anybody - need to keep me ignorant of my own birthright? What benefit does that have to anyone? All it did was let me believe I had nothing to my name except my name and trust vault. What have I done to make them not trust me?

But even though these questions and John’s relentless cynicism stoked a frustrated anger deep inside him, something in his gut told Harry to wait.

So every morning, he worked out, soothing his blazing sense of injustice into a workable malaise of distrust. The stakes were just too high. If he traveled to Roebuck Falls and discovered that the house was uninhabitable for any number of reasons, he would be stuck. Without knowing how to apparate, his ability to be on the run was severely limited. Even John’s incredible transportation powers came at a steep cost, sapping the cat of energy if he did too many jumps in a row. It would be better if Harry could figure out a way to do some reconnaissance of the property and slowly make plans to move, all at once, into a full-functional, secret safe house.

For that he needed Sirius. And a better understanding of blood wards. And, preferably, the ability to apparate.

I won’t mess this up, Harry thought fiercely. The words were a mantra to him now. Every time he wanted to give up and charge into the unknown, damn the consequences, he thought of Cedric. He thought of everything he had to lose. Not again.

He finished his work in under an hour, dragging it out by walking up and down to pick up the fragments of leaves along the border until everything was absolutely perfect. As he took a drink from the hose, he noticed Uncle Vernon’s sedan rolling up the road, its metal hull gleaming in the sun. Harry quickly headed for the back of the house, not wanting to be the first thing that Uncle Vernon saw. The man was incredibly suspicious of him in recent days. I should probably start pretending to be -

CRASH!

He hit the ground instinctively, going for his wand. The sound of crunching, screeching metal shattered the quiet of Privet Drive. Harry heard their neighbor’s squeaky front door swing open.

“Stop! STOP!”

Uh oh, Harry thought again, feeling a sickening rush of deja vu. He stuck to the side of the house and peered out at the scene unfolding in the street. Uncle Vernon’s purple face was so vibrant, they could probably see it at the other end of the block. A crowd of neighbors was starting to gather in other front lawns, so for once, no one noticed Harry lurking in the shadows.

“I’m so sorrry!” a teen girl, not much older than him, clutched the wheel of a small red convertible. She shifted the car and backed up, detaching from the side of Vernon’s car and dragging her front bumper. “A little squirrel ran out in front of my car! I didn’t want to kill it!”

“You almost killed ME!” Uncle Vernon shouted. He pulled into the driveway, showering the pavement with little bits of metal and broken glass. The whole driver's side of the car was scraped, the back passenger window cracked and falling apart with every lurch, and - best of all - the driver’s side door was crushed right at the seam.

Harry clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from falling over with laughter as he watched Uncle Vernon slam into the door to try and force it open. Eventually, the man gave up and squirmed his way over the passenger seat, tumbling out onto the pavement like a great, uncoordinated pill bug, rolling unsteadily on its back.

“You’ll be paying for this! My new lease!” He got to his feet surprisingly fast and shook his fist at the weeping girl. Mrs. Number Three tittered behind her hand.

“Come now, Mr. Dursley!” Mr. Number Nine, a banker and Uncle Vernon’s nemesis in the neighborhood, gently handed the girl a tissue. “This is Mirabel Stephens, her father owns the local Tesco. You know they have insurance, there’s no need to shout.”

“The important thing is that no one was hurt!” Another woman sniffed, rushing out to sweep evidence of the crash into the storm drain.

“Come on over dearie,” Mrs. King crooned, helping the girl out of her seat. “Have some tea…we’ll call your father and he’ll come get you.”

Uncle Vernon grumbled and muttered angrily all the way to the front door. “I’m making a police report! That was a new car!” he bellowed.

Harry felt like he was floating on a cloud the rest of the day. Even in the face of his Uncle's rotten mood, he was on the verge of laughter. His Uncle steamed in the living room for nearly an hour, glaring at the neighbors through the blinds until, finally, they all went back inside to eat their dinners. The insurance company would take up to two days to assess the damage and get him a new car, which meant he would need to, god forbid, call a cab in the morning. He stomped throughout the house and shouted at Harry in earnest, demanding a lavish steak dinner on the fly. When she returned from the store, bags in hand, Aunt Petunia got a sharp word for buying the wrong sort of butter. Her thin lips were white as snow as she struggled to contain the man to one room.

But Uncle Vernon’s ire spiraled out, lashing at any perceived slight. Not even Dudley was immune. The boy weathered one tirade from his father over a rip in his new jeans and stammered that Piers invited him to stay overnight, quickly fleeing the battlefield. Eventually, Aunt Petunia grew tired of the man’s mood and started feeding him heavy amounts of scotch.

“Why’s he so happy all the time anyway?” Vernon slurred, glaring at Harry over the obscene amount of food he’d just put on the table. “Haven’t you noticed, Pet? He’s up to something. That’s what you’re doing - isn’t it? Plotting against us? Trying to steal from us again? Have you been checking the fridge, Petunia?”

“Honestly, Vernon,” Aunt Petunia gave Harry a hard look that clearly said, get out of sight. “You said it yourself, honest work makes an honest man. All the boy’s efforts in the yard might make him a tad respectable. Just listen to the radio and relax, my love…”

That was as close to praise as he was ever going to get. Harry was so surprised, he didn’t really hear his Uncle’s predictable response about what useless garbage he was. What he did hear was, “-damn freaks are going to kill us all, Pet, mark my words.”

Harry washed up in the sink and took shelter in his room, laying the usual wards on his door. John wasn’t back yet, so Harry settled in on the floor for some reading before bed. With a sigh, he forced himself to pick up the occlumency book again, flipping to a page he bookmarked on “Traumatic Memories.”

The occlumency practitioner must manage all emotion in the face of a legilimency assault. Strong emotions that are associated with traumatic memories or events are difficult to manage, and therefore easier for an attacking force to identify and exploit. A competent legillimens will immediately expose the strongest emotions hidden within the occlumense's mind palace in an attempt to break the defendant’s concentration.

Thus, the key to managing strong emotions is to first process all traumatic memories until the recall emotions can be properly managed as easily as banal emotions.

Harry read through the suggested techniques and clicked his tongue. Well…I don’t have a penseive, he thought, and I don’t have a “trusted mentor” to relive my memories with via hypnosis…

His only option was to write them out.

Harry sighed and got into bed with his notebook, propped up against the wall with a pillow behind his back. He sat like that for a long while, staring at a blank page. John was gone. Hedwig was out hunting. His wandering mind focused on every sound beyond his door or outside the window, desperate to think of something else.

Come on Potter, he thought sternly, putting self-inking quill to paper. Do you want to have nightmares forever?

That was the only reason he was pursuing this difficult, confusing magical practice. There were a thousand other areas of magic he’d rather be exploring, but even with his improved eating habits, punishing physical chores, and fitness regimen, Harry still could not sleep through the night.

He didn’t wake up screaming anymore, but he shouted and thrashed in his sleep. His jaw ached almost every morning from grinding his teeth. A strong privacy charm before bed resolved any issues with his relatives, but Harry was suffering from the lack of restful sleep. He could barely concentrate on the thick, theoretical passages about blood wards he was supposed to be trying to understand, and more than that, he just hated feeling defeated by his own mind.

He paged through past attempts to journal about his nightmares. Most of the entries were barely legible ramblings, some he had blacked out with ink the next morning. But The Occlumense was very clear - his job was not to write about his nightmares, it was to write about the events that caused strong emotions in the first place.

Harry remembered telling the horrible story to Dumbledore in the Hospital Wing. I can write that down. I’ve already said it all once.

Jerkily, he started to record the events of that day. He began right at the moment he and Cedric touched the cup. His stomach lurched remembering the way his feet hit the grass, seeing fog and gravestones all around them and feeling that sinking fear and recognition, coiled up in him all at once. As he continued to write out what had happened - the figure by the smoking cauldron, the bolt of green lightning striking Cedric in the chest, being disarmed and pinned to the gravestone - he counted his breaths too keep from becoming lost in the memory. In, two, three, four.

…and then Peter Pettigrew cut my arm with a dagger…

Out, two, three, four.

…the small bundle, Voldemort, fell into the cauldron and smoke boiled over. It smelled acrid, like poison…

In, two, three, four.

…he’s so tall. His skin bone white, barely stretched over his bones. His eyes are crimson red. A cloud went over the moon, and his eyes were shining at me in the dark like some sort of monster…

By the end of the exercise, he was sweating. He wiped his brow and checked the book.

“Log each emotion you felt during the memory itself," he read aloud, "and then write down the emotions you feel when you recall the memory. Follow up with extended meditation, viewing the memory in your head exactly as you wrote it, but this time try to see what happened without feeling any emotion, like a spectator. Beware you do not fall too deep into the memory, as early practitioners are at risk of becoming trapped in their mind should they fall asleep during an exercise like this. They may then experience the memory again as if they were living it, over and over again until they wake up. Absolutely not.”

He tapped the quill and looked anxiously out the window, wishing Hedwig would fly in. Even a letter from Ron or Hermione would be better than this.

“Fuck me…” Harry muttered, turning back to the page. “Okay. When we landed in the graveyard, the first thing I felt was surprise…”

---

John

The metamorphmagus watching Harry was named Nymphadora Tonks. John immediately liked her. He had a soft spot for rare talents in wixen, but it was especially good luck to find such a talent in such a funny woman. He assumed full cat form and easily tricked her into petting him.

“You’re such a handsome little fella,” she crooned, stroking his back. “Aren’t you just a beauty? Do you want a little treat? I have a nice piece of chicken pie in my pocket…”

He meowed plaintively, really putting his cat voice on, and the witch melted. As she fumbled in her muggle jacket, he wound between her legs, weaving a neat tracking spell around her feet.

“Here we are!” she picked out a fatty piece of chicken. “Shh, don’t tell anyone.” She muttered a spell and the chicken warmed in her palm. John sniffed it, licked the meat, and picked it up between his teeth. Then he carried it over into the garden beds and buried it. “Hey now!” Tonks put her hands on her hips, “I would have eaten that!”

“Sit down, dear,” said the old muggle woman Tonks was pretending to watch. She fumbled with the long sleeves of Tonks’ nursing coat. “I’m not done telling you about Willard’s choir recital. Oh those boys in the church can sing so high, I tell you…”

He laid down nearby but out of sight, falling in and out of a lazy nap as he waited for the watch to shift. Normally, hanging out in a muggle neighborhood like this would rub his fur the wrong way, but this Potter kid was intriguing. He was like a secret wellspring deep in the mountains, an oasis of mystery in an otherwise barren landscape. And, there was something about his childlike wonder in the face of every little bit of magic that John immediately liked. That was why it was so hard for him to keep wandering. He wanted to watch Harry see more of the world. The things I could show him, he thought sleepily.

Tonks didn’t leave until dinnertime. The unexpected car crash really rattled her nerves. She kept muttering and pacing the edge of the lawn on the pretext of looking out for the young muggle girl’s father, clearly believing this was some kind of front for the Dark Lord. John twitched his ears, unhappy with how alert she was. This was not someone they’d be able to trick easily - he much preferred the drunk wizard.

Finally, when the sun finally set, she tucked Mrs. King away, revived the nurse, and apparated from the living room. John perked his ears, listening for her footsteps.

They were thunderous, ungraceful. He sniffed deeply and smelled the harsh odor of cleaning chemicals barely covering that savory scent of old magic.

His fur fluffed out and, very slowly, he stepped forward into the house, melting away in the shadows.

“Nymphadora! Ready for some supper?”

“It’s Tonks Molly, please.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” a red-haired woman waved Tonks into a large dining room. There were so many more people than he expected. A whole clan of gingers fanned one side of the table, along with a handful of grown witches and wizards at the other. John noticed with a twitch of his whiskers that Tonks sat closer to the children, taking the chair next to the only red-headed girl.

He jumped easily to the china shelf that ran the length of the room and settled in behind the plates, blending in with the shadows perfectly.

“How is he?” a young, curly-haired witch asked, “Is he well?”

“Same,” Tonk stretched her arms above her head. “Working in the yard. That’s all I see the poor lad do these days. Not much love between him and his cousin, I’m afraid, so it’s not like they can throw the quaffle around - or whatever muggles have.”

“He’s staying within the wards?” The witch pressed anxiously.

John cocked his head. This must be his friend, Hermione Granger, he thought.

Tonks didn’t seem phased by the question, “Not much else to do, I expect. That neighborhood is as dry and boring as an old woman’s bloomers-“

“Tonks, now really!” Molly’s sharp words were dampened by the curl of her mouth. “What a thing to say!”

“If you saw that terrible neighborhood for even a minute, you’d agree with me, Molly!”

Hermione whispered urgently to the lanky, freckled boy beside her. John reasoned that this must be Ron, Harry’s other friend. He listened in on their conversation.

“Don’t do it! Don’t you dare tell them,” he hissed. “Harry will never forgive you.”

“I’d rather he be angry than dead!”

“So, Tonks,” Ron said loudly, “have you ever actually seen anything, you know, suspicious? In the neighborhood? I mean, isn’t this all kind of a waste of time?”

“Well, there’s no telling what You-Know-Who might try to get at him,” the woman said, shoveling mashed potatoes into her mouth. “That’s why Dumbledore wants us watching the house, just to make sure he doesn’t post his own spies. I mean, it’s not that hard to figure out where his family lives. Better to be safe than sorry. You-Know-Who’s much more likely to mount a surprise attack, though, and that’s why we’re there. To protect Harry and his family.”

“Exactly,” the girl said, elbowing Ron in the side. “That’s why you should-"

“But if someone from our side is watching him all the time, what’s the harm in meeting up with Harry? You know, at least once. I can’t stand the thought of him alone for the whole summer.” Ron elbowed Hermione back, “We can blend into the muggle world for an afternoon.”

“Hermione can blend in,” the girl next to Tonks scoffed, “you can’t blend in anywhere.”

“Shut up, Ginny,” Ron said, rolling his eyes.

“Too dangerous,” Tonks muttered, cutting through the din of teenage fighting. “I had the same thought. But you know, your friend’s a Gryffindor! He’ll push through, and as soon as Hogwarts starts again, summer will be just a bad dream. I had my share of terrible summers. Once, my mum sent me to a camp to teach me manners. I thought I’d just die.”

Ron looked down at his food, defeated. Hermione worried her lip. John thought she was going to say something, but after glancing at her friend, she clearly decided to clam up.

John shook his head. Stupid humans, he thought. 

“But Harry’s family is awful,” one of two identical twins at the very end of the table spoke up, drawing the attention of their mother and Tonks. “Mum, you can’t seriously be okay with leaving him there the whole summer? I thought the plan was to pick him up before his birthday - now you want to leave him until September?”

“I don’t want to leave him anywhere, Fred,” Molly scowled at him, “and you need to watch what you say. I love Harry like my own, but how would you feel if everyone was sticking their nose in your private family business? Families are complicated. I don’t like him being with those muggles, but with You-Know-Who back, you need to give them a chance to repair their relationship. War…if there’s another war…” Molly’s eyes grew distant, her hands stilling. “You don’t want to have any regrets.”

Hermione nodded along, a dour expression on her face. Even Ron looked chastised.

The other twin, however, rolled his eyes. “They won’t regret anything if something happened to Harry,” he said under his breath. “They’ll write Voldy a thank you card.”

“Chin up!” Tonks transformed her face so she had a huge square jaw with a giant dimple in the chin. “You know what he can do. Life with some muggles isn’t as bad as facing down a dragon, now is it?”

“At least he got applause for that,” Ron said with a weak smile.

“I would think he’d want the peace and quiet,” Ginny muttered, “after the year he had.”

Do any of these people think to ask the kid what he wants? John wondered. He listened intently to the rest of the house, curious to know if there were more people around. He didn’t sense any strong auras, so he was reasonably certain Albus Dumbledore wasn’t here, but the house was so steeped in old magic he could barely smell his own scent.

“Has Harry said if he heard from Sirius lately?” Tonks asked casually. John detected a quiver in her voice.

“Harry doesn’t say much,” Ron replied flippantly.

“He wouldn’t say, anyway,” Hermione’s eyes were sharp, studying Tonks with curiosity. “Too dangerous.”

“Of course, of course it is!” Tonks shoved a large chunk of ham in her mouth too enthusiastically.

“Isn’t Sirius on a mission for Dumbledore?”

Tonks nodded, “Oh yeah,” she said, although with her mouth full it just sounded like oonyah.

Molly let out a very small huff. It was so quiet, John was sure no one else in the room heard it. He stalked across the top shelf, getting closer to the adult end of the table to see her face more clearly. Molly made eye contact with a man that, given his appearance, was probably her husband. The man flattened his mouth into a thin line and looked back down at the scroll he was pretending to read.

“Very important mission,” Tonks continued, going whole hog on the charade. “Top secret. I was just curious if Harry was upset that he’s been out of touch.”

“Well…Harry’s upset about a lot of things lately.”

“As he should be!” The other twin cried, “How would you do if you got dropped off in the most miserable place on earth after seeing Voldemort literally reborn with your own blood?”

“Let’s try to have a positive conversation at the dinner table!” Molly cried. Her husband levitated a cup of tea to her. “I keep telling you to talk to the Headmaster about your concerns. He’s the one working so hard to keep Harry safe.”

Both twins stood up as one. “Well Fred,” said one to the other, “it seems we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

“Time to write another letter, George,” the other agreed.

As one, they turned and disapparated. The shockwave sent a rain of dust off the shelves. John rubbed his nose and tried not to sneeze.

“Arthur, can you-“

“I’ll talk to them,” Molly’s husband said, “take a seat and relax, love.”

A straight-backed wizard with dark skin leaned forward. “Do you believe them that Sirius hasn’t reached out to Harry?” he said, quietly enough that only Molly and Arthur (and John) could hear.

Arthur’s eyes slid down the table where Tonks was entertaining the teens by wearing the faces of their professors at Hogwarts. Currently, she was struggling to imitate Minerva McGonagall’s Scottish brogue. “I’m not sure if I believe it, but I don’t believe they’d lie to us. It’s possible Harry hasn’t told them the truth.”

“Sirius may have said not to.” Molly fretted with a chip in the tea cup. “I’m so worried he’s just going to show up and disappear with Harry. Who knows where he could take him? If even Dumbledore can’t find the man…”

“I don’t believe he would do anything to endanger Harry,” Arthur said reasonably.

“Severus believes otherwise,” the third wizard replied, refilling his cup. “And I trust Severus’ measure of the man.”

“They have a history though,” Arthur waved his hand, “and honestly Molly, it’s his right. Harry is his godchild. What were you just saying about family and all that?”

John choked back a snicker at Molly’s death glare. Even the dark-skinned wizard sat back, getting out of the way.

“Arthur,” the woman said coolly, “Don’t you use my words against me. Sirius is a loose cannon, you know it, I know, Albus knows it. His heart may be in the right place, but if he can’t trust Dumbledore, how can we trust him to keep Harry safe? You know what he was like last year. That man lived in a cave half the year despite all our efforts to get him some help and some decent clothes! That man can't take care of a child!”

Before her husband could say more, the third wizard raised his hand. “I will set your minds at ease,” he said lowly, “if you swear to keep this between us.”

“Of course, Kingsley,” Arthur said.

“Albus asked me to weave a monitor over Harry’s house,” Kingsley kept his eyes on his tea, acting perfectly at ease. “It is keyed to identify Sirius’ magical signature. If he sends the boy a letter, the monitor will trigger, just the same as if he were to show up in person.”

“If a letter from Sirius does come, does Albus want you to take it and read it?” the woman whispered.

Kingsley nodded. “I told Albus to simply ask Harry to see the letter, but he insists that we avoid confrontation and see for ourselves if Sirius discloses any sensitive information. I did not like that he asked me to do this job, but it has to be someone discreet.” He sent a hard look down the table at Tonks.

“That’s not strictly legal, is it?” Arthur muttered.

“It’s a highly regulated spell,” Kingsley said, “it has to come down as soon as he returns to Hogwarts. I am very uncomfortable with the breach in his privacy, but Albus seems to believe Sirius may spirit Harry out of the house under our noses or share critical information with the boy. It is also my belief…that Albus wants to test Harry. Any idea why?”

Arthur and Molly exchanged concerned looks.

“Harry’s a fine young man,” Arthur said, shaking his head. “But Sirius is like a gift from his parents. I’m sure Albus just means to see how attached Harry is from a safe distance without putting a wedge between them. Sirius was there when we discussed the you know what,” Arthur tapped the table meaningfully, “and he was vocal about wanting to tell Harry the truth, right from the start. So I can see why Albus is playing the field like this…but I don’t think Harry would be understanding. Let’s just hope that Albus will let us take him by his birthday, and hopefully this whole business can be avoided. Sirius might even come back by then.”

“I pray for that outcome too,” Kingsley muttered gravely. “The sooner this summer is over, the better.”

Fuck me, the kid was right, John thought, stunned by what he was hearing. Albus Dumbledore must have set the mail ward to hide Harry’s Gringotts holdings from him. John thought back to the story of Harry’s first trip to the bank with the half-giant Hagrid. But why? Why does he need to try so had to control one orphan? Harry seems easy going enough to me…just give the kid a warm meal and he’ll follow you like a puppy.

John was pretty certain the mail ward was in the attic of Harry’s muggle house, but the boy had been so busy over the last two weeks that he hadn’t had time to sneak up and find it. Not surprisingly, the attic was a forbidden space in the house. Only the awful woman was allowed to go there, so Harry was waiting for the right opportunity. John promised that he would wait until Harry could be with him to find it and decide whether or not to break the ward.

I bet Albus Dumbledore will know when it falls, he thought, swishing his tail. What a spider you are.

John faded away from the kitchen and paced the rest of the house. He could sense an extremely powerful cloaking spell covering the property, so he didn’t dare step outside to see where he was. Instead, he looked for signs of what House the estate belonged to, as it was undoubtedly ancient.

“Oh, of course it’s you people,” he growled, the fur on his shoulders fluffing out as he looked at the Black Family Tree in the library. “I thought I was done with you. Your estranged heir came back and laid claim, did he? What will he say when he realizes all these people were plotting against him in his own home?”

He could feel the old blood magic in the house pulse contentedly under paw. The sign of a settled House, he thought approvingly. I would like to meet this new Lord Black. Where did you spirit off to, I wonder? Perhaps I can find you…

In his journey to find an article of clothing that might belong to Sirius Black, he found the twins instead, Fred and George, arguing over an ink-strained piece of parchment.

“I’m telling you, Professor Lupin won’t do anything,” one said, maybe George.

“But maybe he’ll write to Harry,” the other pointed out. “Isn’t that the point of all this? Helping Harry feel less alone?”

John purred and left them to it. Up in the attic, he found a hippogriff living in a broken-down arboretum. John and the creature faced each other, stiff-necked, until the hippogriff gave in and slowly bowed. As is my due, John thought smugly.

The cat bowed back and they stepped up to sniff at each other. “Want me to free you?” he asked, looking it in the eye.

The hippogriff stomped one clawed foot. “Ah,” John nodded, “waiting for Lord Black? I respect that.” He stretched hugely and shook his coat out. “Do you happen to have something that belonged to him? I might need to find him later.”

The creature led him through the dusty greenhouse to a large leather pack, sweat stained and torn. John sniffed it all over until he caught the whiff of wizard. Inside one of the small pockets was a forgotten scrap of bloodstained bandage.

“Perfect,” he muttered, inhaling the scent. It was very much like the house, savory and rich in iron, but also crackling, like the first sheet of ice in winter. He committed it to memory and jumped up on the windowsill, not surprised to see murky blackness on the other side.

John faced the hippogriff again. “I suppose I should bring Harry the bad news. I’ll tell him about you too, maybe he knows your name. Hey, by chance - would you fly Harry Potter to secret hideout in Wales?”

The hippogriff huffed, and when John made eye contact again he said a picture of Harry, a few years younger, bowing low in front of him. “Yeah, yeah,” John rolled his eyes, “I get it. I like him too.”

He summoned the scents of Harry’s lowly muggle abode and stepped on through, eager to curl up in a warm bed and get some sleep. 

But the room was ice cold. Electricity was in the air. John froze, tail stiff.

“Don’t…don’t…” Harry was moaning in his sleep, twitching and restless. “Not Cedric…take me. Take me instead…”

John felt momentary relief. He jumped up on his chest and almost toppled right back off as a blast of magical energy rolled off Harry’s body.

“Oh fuck,” the cat snarled, scrambling to hold on. “Wake up, kid!” he meowed loudly in Harry’s ear, “It’s just a dream!”

Useless. He knew it would be, but John still tried again. He sank his claws into the boy’s shoulders, drawing beads of blood. The young wizard’s teeth ground together and another shaky burst of magic flowed out of him, strong enough to rattle the bedroom door.

“Oh shit, shit, shit, shit balls fucking shitty shit!” John jumped up and down on his stomach, trying to shock the kid awake, but his whole body was as taut as a bow. “Wake up! Wake up!”

Harry flipped to his side, sending the cat sprawling. He curled up in his thin blankets, one hand spasming over the edge of the bed. “Please don’t make me,” he gasped, “I don’t want to kill him.”

“Think John!” the cat gnashed his teeth, “what will wake a wizard from a deep trance, something you can get - STINK SNAILS!”

Johanna took him there all the time to fish in the icy Irish Sea. He could recall the salty brine, the silty sand between his claws. His eyes flashed silver and a second later, he was jumping through the shadows and racing down the old beach.

The shoreline was unrecognizable. Everything had changed in six hundred years, and the long muddy beach of craggy volcanic rock he remembered had been swallowed up by the sea. But towards the south end, he could see rocks breaking the sand bar. He sprinted for them, running so fast his paws hardly touched the sand.

He jumped for the tallest point, hardly feeling the sharp stones in his pads. He craned his head for the swirly purple shells. Stink snails were not actually snails, they were small magic clams that lived in snail shells, spitting a disgusting slime at would-be predators.

There! He thought, leaping for a purple gleam. The water soaked nearly to his chest. John took a deep breath and quickly ducked his head in the freezing ocean, carefully holding a snail between his teeth. John screwed his eyes shut and focused on Privet Drive again. Boring muggles, fresh smelling house, green cut grass -

He sloshed into Harry’s room again, panting from exertion, and came face to face with utter chaos.

“WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT-“

Thwap!

“DISTURBING-“

The muggle man towered over Harry, belt folded in his hand.

“OUR SLEEP?!”

Thwap! Thwap! Thwap!

John dropped the snail in shock. Harry had either fallen or been pulled off his bed onto the floor. He was curled up on his side, hands protecting his face as the man beat at him. John smelled fresh blood in the air and started to growl. His fur fluffed out twice the size of his body, then three times the size. Harry’s pale hands jerked, and one bright green eye zeroed in on John where he’d appeared under the desk.

“No!” Harry wheezed. His voice was frayed and raw.

“You think you deserve better?” the muggle was panting and raging so loudly he hadn’t noticed John yet. He refastened his grip on the belt, “Why don’t you stay in your damnable world then? Why do you always come back and ruin our lives with your freak behavior? MY FAMILY COULD BE KILLED BECAUSE OF YOU! AND WE HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU CRY ABOUT SOME BRAT WHO DIED? AM I SUPPOSED TO PITY YOU?”

He raised the belt again and John’s claws slid out, a terrible snarl in his throat.

Harry flipped fully on his stomach and slapped his hand out toward John. A huge force slammed over every inch of his body, rooting him in place. John tried to yowl, tried to curse and twist and claw his way out, but the spell was too strong. He could only watch as the purple-faced man who Harry called Uncle beat the boy a few more times, striking the tender flesh between his shoulders and at the small of his back. Harry flinched, pressing his face into the floor, but he didn’t cry out or scream.

The muggle finally stopped. Sweat was dripping down his face. John’s tail twitched as he worked every atom in his body against the spell, eager to tear the man’s face off and piece his fat neck with his teeth.

“Vernon!” the woman hissed. Her tiny form was barely visible in the dark doorway, but even so John could see that she was shaking. “What if they hear you? Think of what they’ll do to us!”

I’ll kill her too, John swore, shaking with rage. That coward. That fucking disgusting excuse for a mother.

The man wiped his brow with a huge hand. “Pet, if they have a problem for how I raise my charge, they can come and take him away! They can’t expect us to put up with this! This is madness. It’s all his fault, any way!” He pointed a thick finger at the prone teenager on the floor. “That great bearded freak that was here this summer said your Dark Lord revived because of your blood! You’re the key to this whole war your lot is having, and I won’t allow it to spill over on to us! Don’t you see Petunia? They’ve shoved him off on us because we’re expendable! He’s too dangerous to be around, or else he’d be with his own kind!”

“Vernon, let’s just lock him in and leave him where he is,” the woman worked her hands nervously. “I agree with you, but some of them might not feel the same way. Think of his little friends who came and tore the window off! Think of what they’ve done to Dudley!”

“Ah,” the man sneered. John pried his back paws free. “Yes, your friends. Where are they, boy? Go ahead and tell them what I did. I don’t care what they think. Pain is the only way to make a lesson stick with you. But if they want to hold your hand and take you away from your evil family, who selflessly put clothes on your back and a roof over your head at our expense, then I won’t stop them! Hell, if you can prove to me that you’ll walk away from here forever, I’ll even toast to your good health.”

Glowering darkly, he stomped over to the door and slammed it shut. The locks clicked home one by one.

Harry gasped, and all at once the magic holding John released. He shot out from under the desk, spitting and shaking with anger.

“Let me fucking kill them,” he snarled, pacing back and forth in front of Harry, growing to his true size. “Let me kill them all and eat their hearts. Then I’ll take you to Wales right now and we’ll fucking live in your little Welsh mansion. What was that, wizard boy? What spell did you catch me with?”

“Accidental magic,” the wizard whispered, slowly easing on to his side. “Couldn’t let…Uncle Vernon hurt you.”

“I would have hurt him!” the cat growled, sticking his nose in Harry’s face. “You monstrosity! You idiot! I can help you!”

“You’re already helping me…” Slowly, he removed his wand from the holster on his leg and recast the muggle ward and silencing charm on the door. “I guess the spells fell apart. That…was a really bad nightmare.”

John sat down and forced himself to take a few calming breaths. The stink of blood was stronger now, and each breath of it stoked his murderous rage.

Harry studied him from the floor. Gradually, as John’s control came back to him, he shrank back down to normal cat size.

“I have seen several wixen burned at the stake by muggles because they felt they deserved to die,” John said stiffly. “You possess the same abominable trait. Explain to me why you didn’t let me defend you. Why didn’t you defend yourself?”

Harry cracked a smile, “You need to get together with my potions professor. You can both talk about my abominable traits.” Very slowly, he heaved to his knees, and then sat back on crossed legs.

“Stupid wizard,” John pressed his cheek along his arm and accepted a weak ear scratch. “It’s not acceptable to let this to happen.”

“We can’t throw out the whole plan just because you want to kill my Uncle,” Harry said dryly, moving to scratch under his chin. “Or even because I want to. I can’t let anything happen to my relatives, nothing magical, anyway. They’re my cover, don’t you see? I still need time to figure out an escape...something permanent.” He shifted and winced, letting out a small groan of pain. “This isn’t even the worst he’s whipped me,” Harry said weakly. “I’m just out of practice. Despite what he says, he’s scared of what the wizards outside might do. I don’t think I’m even bleeding that much.”

One drop is too much, John thought, shaking his head.

“As for why I didn’t defend myself…I think I woke up to him beating me with the belt,” Harry said as he painfully pulled his shirt off and struggled to his feet. “I wasn’t even fully awake until I heard you and then it was like bam,” he snapped his fingers, “I realized what was happening and what could happen if you did anything to them. Trust me…it’s better just to let Uncle Vernon tire himself out. If I fight back it only goes on longer.”

He flicked the lamp on and turned, studying his body in the tall mirror. Large raised welts covered the left side of his body, and a few were bleeding. The ones on his back looked equally painfully, and the skin was a little broken, but it wouldn't scar. 

Nonetheless, in this light, John did see old scars licking Harry's thin frame. Not many, but one was too many for his taste.

John’s tail whipped anxiously. “I shouldn’t have left you. When I came back, you were stuck in a dream that I couldn’t wake you from. You were releasing waves of magic, something that only happens during very powerful mental magics. I left to try and find something to startle you from the trance, and when I came back…”

Harry’s eyes dimmed, clearly remembering the dream. Without his glasses, he looked so young. John meowed plaintively and pushed on him until Harry sat sideways in his chair. John hopped up on his lap and pressed into his chest, listening to the wizard’s heart.

They stayed like that, silent, for a few long minutes.

“In my dream, Voldemort was teaching me how to kill, in the graveyard,” Harry said, so quietly that John had twist both ears. “It started out with him untying me, giving me back my wand, and then it just….changed. It was so real but I knew I was dreaming - like at the same time? And he kept saying,” Harry licked his lips, adopting a sibilant hiss, “if you kill him I’ll bring back your parents, Harry. I just need more of your blood to do it. I can do anything I want with magic…”

John struggled not to knead his claws into Harry’s leg in frustration. Why isn’t this wizard with his people? He thought furiously. He’s powerful enough to cast a charm on me, and he’s apparently precious to both the Dark Lord and the most powerful wizard in England, and yet these wixen just let him take his licks and suffer? He knew that the whoever was watching Harry that night should have heard what happened in the house. Unless Harry’s magic is creating a privacy bubble to hide what’s happening, John realized, remembering how strong his wordless, wandless spell had been.

“It’s not your fault that wizard died,” John tried, broaching the subject of the graveyard for the first time. “Cedric Diggory. You didn’t cause his death.”

“He only died because of me,” Harry said numbly, “because Voldemort needed me to win the tournament.”

“You can’t carry every death in this war on your shoulders,” John argued, “the responsibility doesn’t fall on you. If you truly believe that, you may as well lay down and die right now and get out of the way.”

“But it is on me,” Harry said, a little heat to his voice. “He wants me for some reason. How is it not my responsibility to honor those lives? Everyone he kills on the way to me are just buying me more time to stand against him. That's why I have to endure my relatives! That's why I have to be one hundred percent certain Roebuck Falls will be safe. All that matters is that I get strong enough to face him for the next time he comes. It doesn't matter what happens to me in the meantime. If I'm alive because of other people's sacrifices, I can't put my hopes and wants first. I have to put this war first."

Bells started ringing in his head. John got up on his hind legs, two paws on Harry’s shoulders, and looked him right in the eye.

Gods curse him, he realized, feeling the thrum of cognition deep in his belly, he is bound to the fate of the Dark Lord.

“Fine then,” John spat, angry at fate, angry at the blasted wizarding world, and most of all angry that this child was right. “Fine! Cedric Diggory died because you were born, because you and the Dark Lord are bound up together so tight the fates must have planned this matchup for a century. Then tell me this, would Cedric want you to live like this? For you to let the guilt suck the marrow out of your bones and make you some whimpering, impotent wizard on the floor, saving up all his strength for a battle to the death? Or did he die to give you a greater reason to live? Do you think that boy wanted you to become a martyr? Is that what you think honoring him means?"

Harry blinked. John pressed on, “What is it that you said? That we can’t throw out the whole plan because I want to kill your uncle? Well, you can’t throw out your whole self just because you might have to defeat one dark wizard. Don’t you want to live? Don’t you want to see the world? Gods boy - Merlin was a fated hero too, and he lived a long fucking life! Plan to win, why don’t you!? Don't talk like you were born to just do one thing!”

Tear welled up in the young wizard’s eyes. John could smell the salt in them, and only then did he realize that he was still wet and covered in sand. The two of them made a messy little pair.

“I want that more than anything, John,” Harry whispered, rubbing his eyes furiously with one hand and gently petting the cat’s back with the other. “I want to be free. I want Voldemort to be gone. Why does it feel so wrong for me to want both of those things?”

John’s mind instantly went to Dumbledore and he had to bite back a dark growl.

“Because you’ve been on your own, kid,” he said gruffly, deciding to keep his theories to himself for now. “When you’re on your own, it doesn’t feel like you have much to live for. You have to find that…something you want, and hold on to it so tight that nothing can pry it from your hands. Not even death. Trust me, in war, everyone thinks they have a good a reason to die,” in his minds eye, he was seeing the battlefield again, the stinking corpses all around, the constant hail of bombs and bullets, “but after you win, if you don’t have something to live for, you’re just a ghost. Don’t become a ghost, Harry.”

Harry continued to pet him shakily until he fully calmed. John groomed the salt out of his fur, lost in his own thoughts.

“This was all my fault - the nightmare I mean,” Harry admitted sheepishly. He sounded far more normal, to John’s relief. “I fell asleep doing an occlumency exercise, and the book even warned me that I could get trapped in a lucid nightmare if I wasn’t careful. But I was so tired…”

John sighed and slipped under the desk to retrieve the little snail. It had crawled away and wedged itself between the bookshelf and the wall. “Next time you want to practice a little occlumency before bed, tell me about it so I can wake you,” he grumbled. “Or else I’ll spray you with this!”

Quickly he grasped the snail in his teeth and hopped back on the desk, baring it at Harry.

The snail didn’t do anything.

“Aw shit,” John said, dropping it at his paws. “I got a dud.”

Harry chuckled weakly and stood to grab his bag. “Can you coach me through healing these small wounds? I’ve only done scratches before.”

It took several hours for them both to settle down. Harry wrote extensively about his dream in his notebook, even though it was obvious to John that he hated every minute of it. Meanwhile, John sat and stared out the window, his heart still hot with everything he’d learned.

This one will be different, he swore to himself. His claws bit deep into the window sill. This one’s story is not yet written. I won't let the fates have their way.

---

Kingfisher,

The swift delivery of your letters inspires me to purchase a mailbox. International post is faster than I can believe through the coordinated, inter-European Council of Wixen mail system. My friends hexed me for buying a book on the subject, but I find it quite fascinating. Tell me if you would like to borrow it.

I am often right about all manner of things, but on my honor I will not rub it in your face. It’s enough for me to know you tried what I suggested in both moon-gazing and fictional works. Let's see if third time’s the charm?

Occlumency is extremely difficult to practice without a tutor. The way your describe yourself makes me believe you’re a tactile learner. If that’s true, then occlumency is even harder because you don’t have any one to practice against. Mind healers do not explicitly teach such a subject, but they are perhaps the safest and most secure way for a wizard to experience legilimency. It is an old magic, mostly taught orally and reinforced through family practices in Pureblood circles, so if you happen to trust anyone who fits that bill, you may be able to find a master who can help you…

Regardless, I urge you not to give up. A strong handle on occlumency is key to many advanced magics, and starting so young will only give you an upper hand in the future. My father says it is a skill that comes easier with age, but I don’t let that stop me from practicing.

Escargot is very fine, but very fatty. All french food is steeped in butter. Delicious, don’t get me wrong, but it will put you to sleep. We move to Italy tomorrow and I’m excited to explore the city of Venice. I hear that there are urban merpeople in the canals, and I would like to learn more about their culture and customs. And their language, though I understand only a few words.

I hope my travelogues do not leave you with the impression that I am living an adventurous life. I admit, I like to roam, but I am a “book worm” to my core. My idea of fun is a long hike, looking for exemplary gemstones and minerals to add to my collection, or sifting through an old bookshelf. Much of my knowledge of muggle culture comes from written accounts and their delightful array of fiction. Reading is a form of freedom for me, perhaps like flying is for you?

Do tell me if I overstep.

Please enjoy the enclosed postcards from some of the places we visited in France. I thought you might want some inspiration for your future trips around the world. The Chateau de Villandry’s gardens have a rare dwarf-dragon on the grounds that is hidden in this picture. It eats the gnomes that try to uproot the roses, and her name is Soleil.

I eagerly await your reaction to the “Ride of the Rohirrim” in Lord of the Rings.

Warmly,

Theo N.

Notes:

I wanted to briefly acknowledge that this story has a big plot...and a LOT of details. I'm not interested in writing a political fic, but there will be a lot of magical world building, which necessarily means there will be a lot of new, non-canon ideas introduced and fleshed out as we go along. But I still want to stay true to the Wizarding World in general, so hopefully it all stays within the realm of believability. If you haven't noticed already, I'm leaning on a lot of Arthurian inspiration and old-world myths to build from.

Also, if you take a look at my HP bookmarks...it's pretty obvious my taste in fic. I love a good dark/slytherin Harry, a good thrashing of the so-called "light" characters, etc. But, this fic isn't mean to "bash" any characters in particular, although there is definitely conflict brewing between our Golden Trio. My plans for Ron, Hermione, and even Dumbledore will be rooted and believable (that's what I'm going for anyway), but, you know how they are. Each of them likes to be right, and Harry just wants to vibe. Let my boy vibe! This is Harry and Theo's journey after all and - well, you'll see what happens. :)

Finally, a word on content or trigger warnings. I know some authors add them to the beginnings of chapters that have explicit violence, sex, and so on. I kind of think that gives the plot away sometimes so I'm not planning to do that for this story. I feel I've appropriately tagged the fic and it's not like I'm about to write anything life ruining, but if I feel new tags are necessary I will warn you in future author's notes and add them as needed. Otherwise, I will not provide additional warnings for violence.

Chapter 6: Pulled in by the Tides

Summary:

Harry and John have a meeting of the minds. Sirius finishes a letter to Harry. Lucius thinks about the part he has to play.

Notes:

Jeeeeeez! This really took awhile for me to work out. Truthfully, I wrote a loooong chapter and worked on it for over a week but I just...hated it. So I rewrote the whole thing two days ago and I feel MUCH better. It's shorter, and part of it came out in a kind of vignette style. I realize stylistically this might seem different from the other chapters, but I couldn't write or picture the scene any other way, so please forgive me.

I'm planning to post another chapter in the next two days and I PROMISE that Theo will be in it. I'm at a conference for work this week and have lots of free time in the evening to polish up what comes next!

I hope you enjoy! I had the most amazing idea for a Harry/Theo scene on the Hogwarts Express (some chapters from now, but not that many away...) and it filled me with so much energy to churn the words out! I can't wait to share what I have planned. Thank you for reading and kudos'ing and even reviewing!! You are all amazing! <3

Sirius

Stupid…” long gray fingers laid another potion-soaked bandage over Sirius’ ribs. “Reckless, foolish…” Sirius squirmed under the cool, slimy bandage. Kreacher glared at him and cracked his wrist, “Master will get himself killed.” Fresh white bandages cinched tightly around his ribs, holding it all together. "Maybe Master deserves to drown a little longer before Kreacher saves him again."

Sirius grunted, arching his back. “Your bedside manner is impeccable, Kreacher,” he spat, “so gentle. Why don’t I loan you to St. Mungos?”

“Kreacher would never help dirty mudbloods and mongrels inside the wizard hospital,” the house elf limped away, quickly ducking into the moss-covered cave they were camping in so he could mutter in peace. Sirius was too tired to even try to reprimand him. 

Sirius groaned and summoned a bottle of firewhiskey, taking a big gulp off the top. Heat exploded out from his stomach, chasing away the chill of the ocean water still in his toes and fingers. Sirius knew he should go inside the cave and sit by the fire, but their campsite was on top of a cliff, recessed enough among a cove of trees that the air was cold, crisp, and clean. The scents were a welcome relief from the stinking brine of the ocean. He moved a little to the left so he could lean tenderly against a skinny birch and downed another mouthful. He coughed and blinked back tears from the harsh burn of alcohol. 

Smoke wafted out of the cave. Sirius closed his eyes and imagined a nice hot order of fish and chips, liberally doused in vinegar.

“What’s for dinner, Kreacher?” he called out with false hope.

“Potato and mussel stew,” answered the crabby elf.

He grimaced, “Just what I wanted. More seafood." A mosquito buzzed in his ear and he shook his head impulsively, only the world started to shake in turn and he had to quickly grab for the ground until the trees stopped spinning. “Oh yeah…” he slurred, “shouldn’t’a mixed that up with the pain potion I suppose…” His body slipped off the birch tree until he slumped against the ground.

“Stupid Master,” Kreacher hissed, taking the whiskey from his grip and pushing him upright. “Going to fall right off the cliff. Again.”

“That was called a heraldic mount,” he sniped, “I used to do it all the time after we won a match. I could backflip right off the top of the goal posts. James and I…”

He trailed away, conditioned for the memory to sweep over him and take hold of his brain. But though Sirius could hear the roaring crowd as clearly as if it was happening now, the combined alcohol, pain potion, and physical exhaustion kept him numb enough that the memory simply passed him by like a rushing bus. I wish they always did that, he thought sadly, bumping his head against the tree and drinking from the water flask.

“Bring me that piece of desk Kreacher,” he said when he felt less tipsy. “I want to finish up my letter to Harry.”

He scrabbled in his leather jacket and produced a folded piece of parchment. He muttered the counter charm that protected the ink and smoothed it out. Despite his attempts to keep it blemish free, the letter was well-worn and creased, sprinkled with stiff water spots and rubbed by ash from the fire. The first week at the cave, he’d gone through all his parchment recklessly - writing letter after letter of explanation and burning them all because they rambled all over the place and only sounded like excuses to him. In the end, he was left with just one piece of parchment. One letter to reassure his godson that he wasn't running out on Harry, even though he'd scarpered off for half the summer.

It has to go today, he thought, reading his words again. He needs time to prepare.

Kreacher hovered the top of an old school desk they found in a dump site nearby and slid it weightlessly on his lap. A small mercy. Sirius knew there was no tenderness behind Kreacher's care - the elf was just keeping him healthy enough to fulfill his vow. But even the bare minimum from Kreacher was more than he was used to, and Sirius was feeling healthier than he had in over a decade.

The phantom memories that possessed him seemed less powerful on the edge of the sea, and his work was so magically and physically draining that he often slept through the night without dreaming. The dreams he did have, though unpleasant, were nothing like his usual nightmares, and they often faded away before he could linger too long on them in the morning.

But peace came at a price. Sirius’ body was very close to giving out. He probably had one or two more tries left in him before he was forced to take an extended break.

I’m so close, Harry, he wrote with a nubby quill. But even if I don’t succeed, I’m putting a deadline on my work. Once July 18th comes, I’m coming to get you. We’re going to have the birthday of all birthdays - one every day for every year I missed with you. Fourteen days of just you, me, and a world of our making. I hope -

He paused, trying to remember the words that came to him when Kreacher wrenched him from the sea and pounded seawater out of his lungs.

I hope you’ll let me get to know you better. I want you to always count on me. I love you, pup.

Be packed and ready to leave by the night of the 17th. We’ll make a quick escape the next day, so be ready for anything at any time. I can’t wait to see you.

Sirius.

He nodded and waved the page dry. Then he cracked the quill and let ink pool on an oak leaf, briefly transforming so he could press a paw print beside his name.

“Kreacher,” he called out when it was ready. “I need you to bring this to Harry. Directly to him, without being seen by anyone, understand?”

Kreacher took the note and rubbed it between his hands, secreting it to what Sirius thought of as the elf pocket, an invisible space where house elves produced all manner of unlikely but necessary objects.

“After dinner, Reckless Master,” he croaked, gesturing toward the cave. “The late hour is essential to evading wizard folk and muggle filth alike.”

Sirius got up painfully and followed his elf, glancing one last time at the dark blue sky bisected by the cliff’s ridge. In his minds eye he could see the inferi grasping at his wrists, throwing boulders and chains at him while they protected that strange island with the false locket.

When he and Kreacher arrived at the seaside cave a couple weeks ago, there were probably a hundred dead in the cave. Not an impossible number, but given their strength and his body’s very slow recovery after Azkaban, each inferi’s destruction pushed him close to his limit. He was more than half way through the horde, but every time he returned to the cave with less strength. Every morning it was a little harder to get up.

But Sirius Black was no quitter. Not many to go now, he thought, a gleam in his eye. I’ll find you Reggie. I know you’re in there. When I have you, you’re going to tell me what this locket really is.

 

---

Harry

He was sinking.

Harry squirmed and pushed against the earth, but his limbs were limp and lifeless. He opened his mouth and swallowed a mouthful of soil. Somewhere far above Dudley was laughing. Someone shoveled dirt on top of him. All the while, Harry sank deeper and deeper, driven down by two heavy stakes in his chest.

“Harry-"

His lungs were burning for air. He struggled to push up but the earth just crumbled faster, sending him crashing down and down until he was flying through the dirt.

“Wake up!”

The earth crumbled underneath him and he fell.

Harry woke with a choked scream, flinching so hard that the bed wobbled back and forth. John was standing directly over him, his two front paws driving into his chest. 

“Hello wizard,” the cat meowed, and gave him a sniff. “You okay?”

“Fuck!” Harry gasped, wiggling a little, “You’re heavy!”

“Rude,” John eased off him but remained sitting to his side. “My vet says I’m perfectly healthy.”

Harry panted, reeling from the free fall ending of his dream. He blinked around the room, registering the harsh daylight and oppressive heat.

“What time is it?”

“About noon,” John settled down on his belly. His small body pressed against him and helped Harry feel a little more rooted. “I didn’t want to wake you, but you were having a nightmare.”

“Thanks.” Harry started to pet him, not eager to find his feet yet. “Are my relatives gone?”

“They sure are,” the cat sounded bitter. Oh yeah…I made him promise not to kill them before I went back to sleep. “All out for the day. That woman left you some soup, but it looks older than I am. And a fly flew in it. I think it died on impact."

“I have food in my bag still,” Harry replied. But the thought of a full hot breakfast made his mouth water. “Although…if they locked me in, no one will notice if Ivan visits Diagon Alley, now will they?” And I could get some bruise balm while I’m out, he realized. Excited now, Harry sat up and put on his glasses, combing through his unbearably long hair. I should get a haircut too, he thought unhappily, but how am I supposed to explain that? Uncle Vernon would just love another excuse to tan my hide if he thinks I’m doing magic…

John hadn’t moved. Harry stopped with his hands on the blanket, not wanting to upset the creature by flipping him off the bed. “Um…John? Move over a bit so I can get ready."

His black ears flattened against his head. “Harry, there’s something important I need to tell you before you do anything else.” He swiveled his head and met Harry’s gaze. “You need to know what I saw yesterday. And you're not going to like it.”

DENIAL

“You’re calmer than I though you’d be,” John said.

“My friends wouldn’t really rat me out,” Harry said dismissively, punching the blankets into place so he could rest comfortably against the wall. John’s nose twitched. “Seriously,” he insisted, “Hermione is just anxious, she's always been a worrier. And even if she really did try to do it, Ron would stop her.”

The cat didn't look convinced. Harry groaned and tried to think of how to explain his certainty. Just knowing that they were talking about him, worrying about him, made him feel...good. Their most recent letters were so short and curt that he was beginning to think they didn’t want to talk to him at all. John's story of Ron and Hermione bickering under their breath was so familiar that Harry felt nothing but relief. His friends were still his friends - predictable, loyal, sometimes unbearable. 

“You know them better than I…” John hedged, “But I wasn’t very impressed. If she’s on the verge of telling them about your neighborhood walks, you must be careful about what and when you tell them about more significant things.” He looked intently at the gold ring on his hand.

“I know,” Harry remembered how Hermione had gone straight to the professors about his Firebolt with hardly a word of warning. His stomach flip-flopped as he wondered, again, how Ron and Hermione would react to his newly acquired wizarding status. Given Ron’s history of…well…being Ron, he didn’t think he’d be over the moon by the news. And Hermione...would she take the news straight to Dumbledore if he decided he didn't want to tell anyone else? Could he trust her to keep such heavy secrets?

His confidence wavered.

“Maybe I’ll write them a nicer letter,” he said, looking at Hedwig. “To put their minds at ease. After all, I haven’t been outside the wards as myself recently. That's not really a lie."

“Uh-huh,” John flicked his tail. “There’s more.”

ANGER

He was pacing up and down the length of his room, trying not to throw spells at the wardrobe.

“Dumbledore asked an auror to break into my house and read my mail?”

John nodded. His head tracked Harry back and forth around the room. Even Hedwig had her eyes open, looking warily at her wizard.

“They think Sirius might try to take you-“

“It’s his RIGHT!” Harry shouted. The wardrobe doors clattered.

John’s eyes narrowed into slits. “And, on top of that, your godfather knows something,” the cat finished. "Information critical to your struggle against the Dark Lord. Something that Dumbledore must not want you to know.”

“Right, of course!” Harry seethed, mashing his hands together to try and reign in the overwhelming anger and magical pressure building inside of him. “Just like Dumbledore and every other adult I know who tried to keep it a secret that I had a godfather at all, even if they believed he was an evil, traitorous piece of shit most of my life! Just like the fucking mail ward that kept me from ever knowing about my birthright or my family vault or titles or ANYTHING. I’m never supposed to know the full truth about my own LIFE! Now they want to keep my own godfather from me?"

He shook his arms out and a wind blasted through the room, pulling on the curtains and making Hedwig shriek in alarm.

“Sorry girl,” he muttered, going back to kneading his hands together. “I’m just - I can’t - why would they do this to me? I’m the one who’s fought him directly, probably more times than almost anyone in that house! I should be allowed to KNOW!”

John did his approximation of a shrug. “In war, information is your most precious resource. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that there are secrets not even you can know because there’s no telling what could happen. You could be kidnapped, tortured. Then all that information in your pretty little head will belong to the enemy.” Before Harry could interject, John pushed on, “But what I keep thinking about is how that red-haired man said your godfather wants to tell you ‘the truth’. I think that means that the information pertains to you.” John blinked and glanced up in thought, “Perhaps it has to do with why the Dark Lord is fixated on you.”

Slowly, Harry nodded. “Yeah…” something tickled the back of his memory. He closed his eyes and slowly the moment faded into view. He recalled being in the hospital wing at the end of first year, asking Dumbledore all those questions.

“Why does Voldemort want me?”

The Headmaster’s mouth pursed seriously. “One day - and I know you hate to hear this - when you are older, you will know the truth.”

He gasped. I haven't thought about that in...years. Since it happened, actually. I just trusted him - that Dumbledore really would tell me when it was time.

He saw Cedric's body slump over in the graveyard, gray and lifeless. Something colder than anger swept through his body.

“It has to be that,” he whispered, quickly relaying that memory to John. “There’s always been a reason Voldemort wants me. And Dumbledore's always known what it is."

“It must be foretold,” John muttered.

“What?”

The cat sighed, closing his eyes. “It must be foretold,” he repeated. Harry could hear threads popping under his claws as he gripped the bed spread. “There must be some kind of prophecy or omen that involves you and the Dark Lord. It’s not uncommon when you're dealing with such a powerful wizard.”

Harry felt like the floor had dropped out from under him again.

“Prophecy?” he repeated.

BARGAINING

“But that might not be it,” John said quickly. “We don’t know for sure that Dumbledore knows about a prophecy. It could be more practical - like maybe Voldemort's your real Uncle.”

Harry sat on the floor, hard. He cupped his hands around his face and tried to keep breathing evenly.

“John, he keeps coming after me. Even when I was a baby, he wanted to kill me."

“I thought you said your parents were his enemies?”

He could hear Voldemort's voice saying, Stand aside! Stand aside girl! Harry started to feel sick. He slowly moved to lay on the ground, pressing his knuckles into his eyes. 

“He was there for me,” he rasped. “That night. My mother was protecting me, but Voldemort gave her a chance to step aside and live three times. She refused, so he killed her. And then he tried to kill me. He didn’t need to kill me if I was just a baby. I was no threat to him.”

Soft footsteps walked close to his head. “Unless you are.” John prompted.

“Unless I am,” Harry agreed, still rubbing his face. “But I don’t know how John. I’m just…a kid. I grew up in the muggle world! I don’t know anything about how to fight a Dark Lord. I just get lucky and survive by the skin of my teeth, every time! Maybe - if there is a prophecy - it just sounds like it fits me. Maybe they’re all wrong."

John circled around him until he was sitting against the wardrobe. “Harry,” the creature said, “I'm sorry, but I can taste it in you. Fate’s hand is on you. I can’t quite read the signs. It’s all…muddled. I think your fate has already been read.”

Harry turned his head disbelievingly. “Oh, you’re a fortune-telling cat now?”

John's eyes flashed. "I’ll forgive your ignorance only once because you still do not know what I am, wizard," he snarled, "But I was born knowing the shape of this world - I can see the past, the present, and the future. Your kind has summoned my kind again and again over the centuries to read your portents and share pieces of the secret magic running through the land. My words are true.”

Harry blinked, taken aback by John’s ferocity.

“You are bound up in fate,” he broke eye contact with Harry and looked up at the window. The heat in his voice ebbed away. “Even though I can’t read your fate, I can see it on you, in you. Even if these wixen don’t know of a prophecy, even if they are talking about some other secret in this war, your signs are written in the stars.” 

“So you were serious last night,” Harry said flatly. “When you said I may be destined to fight the Dark Lord. You didn’t mean if I was being dramatic about facing him again. You meant...that I might really have to fight him.”

John looked sad. “Yes, Harry.”

DEPRESSION

He stayed on the floor while John finished his story. Harry felt a tiny tug of curiosity hearing that Buckbeak was waiting for Sirius, but otherwise remained unmoved. Even knowing that Fred and George were taking his side and trying to cheer him up didn’t help.

He ached for Sirius. Sirius would tell him everything. Sirius was the only one who might actually treat him like a real person. 

“So you can’t take me to the house they were in?” Harry asked finally, studying the ceiling.

“No, sadly not.”

“Figures.” 

John’s claws clicked against the floor. “One more thing, Harry.”

“Hit me,” he grunted.

“I found the mail ward.” He opened his eyes. John’s head was hunched, making him look almost snakelike. “It was in the attic. I could bring it down for you, but I don't recommend you touch it yet.”

“What is it tied to?” he asked.

“An old baby basket. Yours, I’d guess. The ward acts like a funnel, absorbing every letter that comes to this house - except, of course, the ones you’re allowed to receive. It’s very strong. If I disassemble it, Albus Dumbledore will know. There's too much energy in the ward for him not to feel it disappear.”

Harry chewed the inside of his cheek. “What happens to the mail that goes in?”

“I think that all the mail is safe inside the baby basket, but I'm afraid I might destroy the entire bassinet if I try to undo the ward. With a spell as complex as this, there’s no real telling what will happen."

“So how do I get any mail?”

“According to my reading of the ward, it would be a simple task to make certain magical signatures inert to the funnel. That means he’s deciding who gets to write you and who doesn’t.”

Harry shook his head and rolled on his front so he could press his face into the ground. “What the fuck John? Why?”

“Well, if the wizarding world is to be believed, I’m looking at one of the most powerful symbols of good triumphing over evil there ever was. Don’t you have fans? He probably did it to spare your muggle family a catastrophe of owls.”

Harry pressed his cheek into the floor and groaned. “But...it’s not fair. Why don’t I have the right to decide what mail I get or not? Especially now!”

“You’re still a kid, right?” John said mildly. “You said it yourself. That’s why all these people make decisions for you.”

Harry huffed and turned his head the other way. “After everything that's happened, I don’t feel like a kid anymore."

John hummed. “Your status is a power you can use, Harry. Clearly Albus Dumbledore knows that. I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t want to tell you what to do - but I can tell you what I see in you. You’re strong enough to wield your name in a way that will bring honor to the House of Potter. The secrets we’re uncovering aren’t just weapons meant to hurt you or keep you down, now they’re part of your power, Harry. You should think about how you can use them.”

Harry thumped his forehead on the floor a few times. He understood what John was saying, but the thought of using his name for…for…anything just disturbed him. With a pained groan, Harry got up and sat cross-legged on the floor. A bar of sunlight coming through the bottom of the blinds crossed his back, warming the painful welts on his skin. He tilted the Lord ring in the sun and chased the light across the room. John’s head followed it like a laser.

“I know I have to do something,” he admitted. His stomach flip-flopped. “I can’t just…keep waiting here. All the research in the world won’t make me some master wizard overnight. I just have to trust that if I go to Roebuck Falls, I can be safe and have some time on my own to figure this all out.”

“I recommend you contact your godfather before he tries to reach you,” John said, stalking toward one of the reflections off his ring. “But whatever you do next is up to you. If you want to spend the whole summer here reading dusty books and writing love letters, I can understand the wisdom in that.”

Harry smiled at the cat. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

John flicked his ear, “Of course. Do what you want, wizard. Don’t you realize how free you are, with all the magic in you?”

Harry tilted the ring just slightly, teasing John toward the desk.

“Free,” he repeated. John pounced at the light and it glanced off his shoulder. “It…sounds so stupid…but I’m kind of scared to be free.” John jumped to the next fractal of light, lashing his tail. “What if it all goes wrong, and I end up worse than I am now? My friends...I'm worried they're going to hate me when I tell them about this. Distrusting Dumbledore. The fact that I'm so happy to be Lord of my House, even if I don't really know what it means. If I lose them I don't know what I..." His shoulders slumped. "Isn't that so...childish of me? I'm afraid my friends won't like me anymore even though I'm just trying to find out...who I am. Why do I feel so guilty for wanting to just be me?"

John loped across the room to stand in front of him, his body pointing like an arrow in Harry's face. “Harry Potter," the cat waited for him to meet his gaze, "You are magic. Magic isn't stagnant. Magic isn't unchanging. Magic is the soul, it is truth, it is power." John's eyes glowed, filling the room with golden light. "I know you can feel it Harry. Stop thinking. Just do what you feel is right."

ACCEPTANCE

He took a shower. Steam filled the room with thick white clouds. Harry braced against the wall and let the hot water loosen hard muscles in his back and neck.

Who are you Potter? He thought, watching the water swirl into the drain. What do you want? Do you trust Dumbledore enough to ignore all this stuff? Is it worth it if you believe he is the key to winning the war against Voldemort? Does your life, your happiness, even matter if you're meant to take down the Dark Lord?

Harry mulled that thought over as he washed. When he was toweling off, he considered just going at his hair with some scissors to keep the wet hair off his neck, but at the last second he chickened out.

Some lion you are, he thought sarcastically. But of course, the Sorting Hat wanted him to be a Snake. 

Harry dressed slowly in the bedroom. John was gone to give him time to think things over, but Harry already knew what he wanted. It was exactly what he'd wanted since he claimed the Potter ring at Gringotts. 

John appeared neatly in the room around an hour later, slinking through Harry’s legs under the desk.

Harry put down the book on estate wards from Theodore Nott, carefully marking a ward called The Faerie Gate with the feather.

“I’m ready John,” he declared, “let’s go to Wales.”

 

---

Lucius

A young osprey soared over Lucius’ head and dropped off a small package. It suspended in front of him, floating in a small golden bubble. He murmured a few identification charms out of habit, but he knew what it was. The secure bubble-charm modification was a House of Nott specialty, created three hundred years ago to securely transport famously rare tomes to sworn allies. Only the addressee could retrieve the package inside the bubble.

He reached through the spell, shivering when the charm shocked him lightly, and gently removed the book. It was wrapped in hide, another Nott signature. He curled his lip. Animal furs reminded him of the stinking Lestrange mansion, full of all manner of dark, grotesque, stuffed creatures. That house always stank like burnt flesh.

Lucius waved his wand to unwrap the skin, revealing a thin book with bright silver filigree. A piece of parchment wiggled out from underneath the cover.

All it said was: Practice.

The note crumbled into ash. Lucius gently opened the cover and read, Summoning Zeus.

He quickly tucked the book in the breast pocket of his suit and continued his slow walk through the potions garden, looking but no longer seeing any of the ingredients. Although his face was impassive and his pace the same measured clip, the tips of his fingers were trembling. The Dark Lord was away, so Lucius carefully allowed the memory of his last conversation with Magnus Nott to resurface in his mind. 

"She is him," Magnus explained, "a part of his soul lives in her. It gives her abnormal power and intelligence for a snake, on top of her status as his familiar. He has made many such objects, but none like her. She's the first to ever be recorded, a living vessel for a piece of soul."

"What is this magic called?" Lucius breathed. "How does one split their soul?"

Magnus frowned severely, "You are not strong enough to know the name of these objects," he barked. "The Dark Lord will sniff it out in an instant. They are the darkest of arts, a reprehensible articulation of necromancy. We were trying to improve the ritual. Trying to keep some of his humanity intact while still pursuing the greatest magical feat of all - everlasting life." Magnus rubbed his chin. "He used to be...a great man, Lucius. Not a good man. The world didn't need a good man at the time. But every time he split his soul, some of that man disappeared. Nagini's ritual was supposed to anchor him, but it failed and tipped him over the edge."

Lucius tightened his grip on the silver head of his cane. "Necromancy is not my area," he murmured. "And if this new branch of magic you created has never been repeated, how do you know we can do anything to reunite his soul? That's what you're saying we have to do, right?"

Magnus bared his teeth in a feral grin. "Lucius, hear me now for I won't repeat myself: I know you are uncommonly talented at wielding lightning. Is that true?"

Lucius frowned. "I am," he admitted slowly. "It is an ancient art of my House."

Magnus nodded his grizzled head, staring at Lucius with hunger in his eyes. "You are the only one who can do it, then, Lucius. Our plan relies on you."

Notes:

My normal writing schedule has been obliterated by the arrival of a very cute but very needy 10 week old puppy named Moose, who I love more than life itself but...he's not exactly eager to let me bang out a fanfiction for two or three hours at a time. I'm trying my best to keep to a once-a-week schedule!

Chapter 7: A Little Fae

Summary:

Harry and Theo kick down some doors - real doors and doors of the heart.

Notes:

Thank you for the many thoughtful reviews!! I have been thinking about the pacing of this part of the story for a few days and I feel like it needs to kick up a bit. So after this one, we just have two...more...chapters until Theo and Harry meet (again). Necessary chapters! But I thought I'd give you an idea of when relief is in sight. But I will say...be careful what you wish for <3

Theo

Blaise shucked his shirt and pants easily, stretching his chest out and cracking his upper back. He was wearing a scandalously small bathing suit that made Theo’s eyes go straight up to the sky.

“Sweet Circe! You may as well be naked!” Draco rushed up from behind and shoved him into the pool. Blaise shouted and spluttered in the water, liberally splashing both of them with hot water. Theo stepped back, gripping his arms across his chest, but Draco let out a high cackle and stripped down as well, leaping in after Blaise and catching Theo with another wave that soaked his socks.

Theo glanced uneasily at the rocky cliffs. They were at a secret hot spring high above the ocean. It was part of a large nature reserve owned by the Adorni’s, a landed House of wixen who operated the most exclusive hotel in Italy deep in the heart of Rome. Madame Zabini was a dear friend, so the three of them were allowed free reign of their coastal property for the day - to fly and swim and explore shining caves of white marble at their leisure.

“Come on, Theo!” Blaise called out. He put his back to the far side of the hot spring, arms braced in front of him to guard against Draco’s retaliatory splashing. “I need you to defend me. Save me, Theodore!” He threw his hands up and pretended to drown, gurgling and thrashing in the water.

Draco huffed and flipped over on his back, the picture of innocence. “Come on, Theo,” he waved at him, “it’s just us. We won't goggle.”

Blaise emerged from the water and tipped his head, looking like a confused crup. Theo sighed and slowly started to undress. Swimming wasn’t on the agenda when he packed, so he had to endure a too-long shopping trip with Draco that morning for an appropriate bathing suit. Theo tried to make a care that he just wouldn’t swim, but neither of his friends would hear of it and now he was at the part of the day he dreaded most. Undressing.

Theo folded his pants carefully and set them on a dry rock. The thoughts that warred in his head all morning screamed at him now. What if they ask about my scars? What am I supposed to say? What if they look at me like I’m…

He shook his head firmly and undid his watch, tucking it safely in his trekking bag. His throat felt tight. We all have things we don't talk about, he tried to assure himself. Blaise’s father. Draco’s Aunt Bellatrix. My…life. They won't want to ruin our last few days together talking about this. 

He pulled his hair up off his neck, tying it in a bun on top of his head. But that doesn't change the fact that they will see the scars, he thought nervously. A childish part of him was afraid that they wouldn't look at him the same after they saw how ugly his skin was. Theo was well aware of how he looked. The cobbled welts and dark red scars across his shoulder blades, ribs, and arms made him look like an inferius, summoned off a battlefield. Combined with his pale skin and lanky, bony build, he wouldn’t blame them for turning away. Sometimes he couldn't even look at his reflection. 

Blaise would never understand. He was born cherubic and grown into an unapologetic lush, free with his body and quick to show off in the dorm every chance he got. And Draco, though white as a fucking piece of chalk, was naturally graceful and fluid in his skin, no matter what he was wearing. His years of quidditch training made him the most athletic of the three of them, and even now Theo could see the outline of muscles on his stomach and arms.

Theo knew he could never compare. It was hard enough for him to keep people from looking at him all the time when he was clothed. Ever since his mother died, it seemed like everyone had something to say about how he looked. His father constantly shouted at him for being weak and sickly looking, commanding him to eat more, work harder, get stronger.

And at Hogwarts he usually studied to exhaustion, blasting through the curriculum as fast as possible so he had time for his own pursuits, which didn't leave much time for eating. Professor Snape usually glowered at him during a monthly conference, offering Pepper-Ups or nutritional supplements. Madame Pomfrey clicked her tongue at the sight of him. And then, of course, there was the horror of last summer - of Narcissa clutching his face and hands and whispering, “You need to rest, Theo. You look like you’re on death’s door.”

After all that, the thought of willingly stripping down to his swimsuit and putting his battered body on display filled him with dread. He just couldn’t take another pair of eyes staring at him with pity. 

“Come on Theo,” Blaise said impatiently. “Do you need help?”

“Shut up Blaise and let him come in on his own time,” Draco drawled. He kicked over to Blaise’s side of the pool. “Join me,” he said, grasping the other boy’s arm, “it feels wonderful to float like this.”

Theo breathed a sigh of relief once they were looking away. He fumbled the last of the buttons and carefully folded his shirt. Lastly, he positioned his wand with the handle up, free for him to grab at a moment’s notice. Then, he crawled into the hot spring, pretending not to feel Blaise’s wide eyes on him.

The water was blessedly hot on his sore feet. He was still breaking in a new pair of dragonhide shoes and they pinched the corners of his heels. Once he was submerged, Theo sighed and followed Draco’s example, floating on his back and letting the bubbling water carry him to the middle of the pool.

“Green really is your color,” Draco said appraisingly. “But I still think the blue would have been chic.”

“I saw a ten year old wearing that shade of blue yesterday at La Plaza,” Theo retorted.

“It would bring out the color of your eyes.”

“I don’t want people to look at my eyes, Draco.”

The blond huffed and bumped their shoulders together. “How are we ever going to find you a match with an attitude like that? Your eyes are to die for.”

Theo smiled and closed his eyes, submitting to the hot water, cool breeze, and verdant scent of the forest. I can't wait to tell Kingfisher about this, he thought.

The three of them floated peacefully for awhile, letting the hot spring melt away their aches and pains from a long day of hiking and flying. It wasn’t until the burning, midday sun went behind a cloud and dropped a shadow over their oasis that Blaise finally cleared his throat.

“Theo?” Blaise asked quietly. “Are all those scars from your father?”

He opened his eyes. After a moment, Theo realized he was waiting for a gut-punch of anxiety that never came. He felt too good. They were all alone under the blue sky. Of course he could trust them with this truth. 

“Most of them,” he admitted. "A few of them I did to myself."

Theo felt a current of water pull under him, and then Blaise was at his side. There was a serious expression on his face. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Blaise look like that, he thought. Quickly, Theo sat up, gripping the bottom of the spring lightly with his toes.

Blaise’s eyes were working over every inch of his body. Theo straightened his shoulders and glared challengingly. “Stop looking at me like-“

“Shh,” Blaise pressed his finger against his lips. “Stop talking.” Then he moved around to Theo’s back which he knew had the worst of it. Theo followed him, trying to keep Blaise in front of him and curling his hands into fists.

“Blaise, stop it,” he demanded, “just forget about it and let’s have fun. We only have three more days together. Don't drag this up.”

“They're worse than you described,” Blaise muttered, looking over Theo's head at Draco.

“I only saw them for a second,” Draco retorted. Theo whirled around, eyes wide, and Draco ducked guiltily in the water. “It was in third year, Theo,” he said placatingly. “Right at the end of term. I was asleep in the dorm and I think you thought you were alone. You came out of the bathroom with just a towel to get some clothes and I saw your scars.” Draco frowned, “That’s why I asked you to come to the Manor the first week of summer. I knew mother and father could help you.”

“Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…Fourteen.” Blaise swam back in front of him. “That’s fourteen scars I’m going to give your father.”

Theo's heart was leaping in his chest when he laughed, and the sound of it was strangled and high. A starling burst out of its nest and flew away, crying out in alarm. Real fear coiled in his stomach. “He’ll string you from the trees,” he said with a horrible smile. "My father won't respond to threats, Blaise. You can’t do anything.”

“You can’t go back there-“

“Blaise!” Draco snapped.

“You can’t Theodore!” Blaise’s eyes went wide, “What if something happens to you? You’ve been so much better this year, but now he’s back, and even I know your father was one of his first followers. He was alright last summer after you spent some time with the Malfoys, but who’s to say what will happen to you now? Lucius Malfoy doesn’t hold a candle to him. What if your father makes you take the mark?”

“He won’t,” Theo said steadily.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You can’t keep him from his House,” Draco said urgently. “I told you that. Theo’s father won’t-“

“You two don’t know the first thing about my family,” he hissed. He was sweating and desperately wanted to get out of the pool, don his clothes, and stomp back to the villa. But clearly Draco and Blaise had been conspiring about him behind his back, and Theo wasn’t about to let that stand. “He’s raising me to protect myself. Against anyone. You know what happened to my family before my mother came around. I'm the only one left. Do you think my father would endanger his last living heir?”

“Most of these scars are from spell fire!” Blaise snapped, gesturing at his skin, “He doesn’t even heal your wounds! How is that teaching you anything? How is that protecting his heir?”

All the memories of those three years after mother died rushed through his head at once, like a thick white fog coming down on the moors. Theo clenched his fists harder, struggling to stay present, trying not to let his temper break. 

“My father isn’t a good man,” he choked out. “But he’s not priming me to serve the Dark Lord. He’s not going to kill me. He’s not going to permanently injure me. And even if he did, I believe in my House and I know what he’s preparing me for. Maybe he was going too far once,” he glanced at Draco, “or maybe I was just weak. But he reeled it in. Mother’s death almost destroyed him. We both lost our minds for a long time.”

“That’s no excuse!” Blaise shouted, striking the water with his hand. “I can’t do this! How am I supposed to let you go all the way back to Scotland and just wait to see you in September? In three days the most I’ll hear from you is by mail. What if we never get another summer like this?” Blaise’s voice was scratching, straining not to crack. “You and Draco are going to be first on his list to join him, we all know it! Why can’t we just spend the summer together and try to come up with some kind of plan? What if this is the last time we’re ever together? Diggory died just a month ago - you think he'll be the last one to get killed before we graduate?"

Blaise shuddered and dropped his head. Theo could only stare at him. All his anger leeched away, becoming something worse. Guilt. The secret of the Library strained behind his tongue - it was the only explanation that could set their minds at ease. If they just knew how much he and his father valued their House's sacred duty, if they just knew that his father's cruelty had reason, they would understand. 

Draco tried to touch Blaise’s arm but the other boy flinched back, rubbing his face. “It’s ending too soon,” Blaise said sadly. “You’re leaving in three days. I’m just…I feel like…I’m never going to see you again Theo. Not like this. It’s like we just got our friend back this year and now the-“

He didn’t have to finish his sentence. Theo knew what he was thinking. Now that the Dark Lord’s back, everything is off the table.

Theo looked at Draco, trying to take some pressure off of Blaise. “You two planned this little intervention, didn’t you?”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t exactly make it easy to talk to you,” he said testily. “I tried starting this conversation three times already, and you always blow me off.”

But I’m only doing that to protect you, he thought helplessly. The weight of his father’s orders crushed him. Because of the library, his father would never let him serve the Dark Lord - he’d have Theodore fake his death and send him into the muggle world under a false identity before that happened. But Draco's father? There's no telling what could happen to Draco if Lord Malfoy failed him. Lord Malfoy wasn't nearly as strong as Theo's father.  

“The Old Ways have endured for centuries, Theo,” Draco said quietly. By the glimmer to his eye, Theo could see that this was Draco’s best guess as to what the Notts were protecting. “You don’t have to give up your life now for something you can always come back to later. I don't want you to go through another third year, but I know you - you're stubborn.” Draco frowned grimly, "Can you at least try to explain why you think this treatment is forgivable?"

Theo sank in the water, letting it cover and refract his body while he thought through his options. Blaise’s mother had very little power over his father, but Lord Malfoy was something else. If he didn't soothe their fears and Draco made a commotion that the wrong person overheard, other families might realize how close Lord Malfoy and Lord Nott truly were.

He does not suspect our alliance runs deeper than the mark.

Theo swallowed and folded his arms across his stomach. “I don’t…know what to say. I just…” He glanced at each of his friends in turn, “I trust my father. I know what it looks like. Hell, I know what it’s like to live with him. But…he wasn't always this way.” He closed his eyes and recalled his mother's face.

“You were in my dreams, Theo,” mother said. Her thin hand stroked his hair, and he could feel that her fingers were cold. “I came here for you. You have so many beautiful things to looks forward to in this world. Believe me.”

“My mother trusted him.” He sank even deeper in the water, putting his back to the nearest ledge. “After she died, he became someone else. I had to do whatever I could to survive. But it won’t ever be like that again. I promise.”

“You don’t have to promise anything,” Blaise said roughly. He pushed to the edge of the pool and heaved out of the hot spring, letting his long legs kick in the water. “I don’t want us to end our trip on a bad note, Theo.” Blaise’s shoulders hunched, “But I feel sick at the thought of you leaving.”

Draco drifted closer, looking at him intently. “My father is a lot like yours, you know.” Draco gently took Theo’s wrist. He pulled his right arm just out of the water and inspected the scars scattered across it. “There are certain things I have to do, that I have to learn, in order to inherit the Malfoy House. But father always encouraged me to explore many paths, to bring honor to our name in a way that aligns with my natural gifts.” Draco’s fingers ghosted over the thick, uneven scar on his inner bicep, still a vivid pink. “I used to be so afraid that once he realized I was nothing like him, he would hate me. Maybe even cast me out.” Draco covered the scar with his palm and looked at Theo in the eye. “But the truth is that they need us. My father and yours. We compromise on so many things for them that we don't even realize that they have to compromise for us. We're their only living heirs, and we have to demand space for ourselves. Blaise and I just want you to still be you in September. Can you do that?"

Draco’s grip on his arm was firm, and Theo found that he was floating in the water, letting his friend tether him in space. I wish I’d read the stones today, he thought morosely. A little divination would help him decide what to say.

“I don’t understand why you two try so hard for me.” Those were not the words he planned to say, but they were coming. Theo stared intently in the water, hiding his face. “I’m not a good friend. I don’t do anything for you like you do for me. And…worst of all, I can’t answer your questions about my father. My House.” He looked at the two of them so they could see how much he hated to say it. “I’m sorry. But, I can say that this year-“ his voice almost died in his throat. He had to swallow hard and look back down at the water to get through it. “This year I’ve been so happy. Maybe happier than before my mother died. And that’s because of you two, so…just know I don’t take that for granted. And I’m not lying to you. I really will be okay this summer. Nothing's going to change.”

He lightly rubbed his face, thankful that he managed to get through it without actually breaking down. He already felt raw, sitting in the water, half-naked, no need to add more humiliation to the fire.

“Theodore Nott,” Blaise chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You almost took my stepfather’s head for me when we were nine, remember?”

“You offered to summon the soul of Frankie the Peacock,” Draco added, “and stuff it in that green dragon I had. So we could play together forever.”

A blush threatened to break his composure. Theo looked off to the side and shrugged. "That still doesn't compare to what you do for me..." he muttered.

Draco sighed and pulled on him until they were at the side of the pool. “Enough melancholy,” he declared, “I'm pruning. Let’s eat!”

They scrambled out of the pool. The three of them dried out and got dressed, letting the forest fill the silence. Theo felt refreshed and exhausted and he drank from his water flask for a long time, thankful for the preservation charms that kept it ice cold.

They pushed deeper in the trees and walked for awhile until they found a cool, flat opening covered in soft pine needles. Blaise and Theo set up the picnic while Draco maligned the hard ground and lack of adequate trees for leaning against. He attempted to transfigure a chair out of a stump, but ended up creating something just as uncomfortable and swore up a storm.

“What a prince,” Blaise whispered to him, mirth glittering in his eyes.

“You know what he wants,” Theo muttered out of the side of his mouth. Covertly, they rock-paper-scissored and Blaise handily won. Theo sighed and settled down on the blanket. “You have to serve us,” he whispered to Blaise before calling out, “Draco! Get over here.”

“Guess I’ll just sit on the ground like a common beggar,” Draco stomped over to them and looked around with a haggard expression. “Why did we ever come into the woods?”

Blaise snorted. Theo covered his eyes so Draco wouldn’t see him rolling them. “You can lay down here,” he said, gesturing at his lap. He’d folded a warm cloak for extra cushion, and also so Draco wouldn’t roll his pointy skull all over his legs and bruise them. “Don’t ever tell Pansy about this, she'll skewer me.”

Draco beamed and settled down immediately. He took Theo’s free right hand and pushed it into his hair, closing his eyes with delight. Theo shot Blaise a look.

“I won’t feed you,” Theo said tersely, combing through Draco’s hair while Blaise grinned evilly all the while. He noticed a significant number of grapes on the vine being put on one plate.

“Of course not,” Draco hummed. “But will you braid my hair? Can you? Is it too short?”

Surprised, Theo gently tilted Draco’s head away so he could get a better sense of what he was working with. Well, I think it would be easier to practice on another person.

“Sure. Want a charm in it, too?”

Draco curled his lip, “Not a piece of wood or anything dirty.”

“Mi’lords,” Blaise hovered a few small plates near them. “Lunch is served.”

Draco did sit up to eat, a miracle that lasted all of five minutes. He claimed not to be very hungry, but kept secreting grapes in his mouth while he had his head pillowed on Theo’s lap. Theo made Blaise go through his pockets until he found something the boy wouldn’t miss - a broken chain necklace that he forgot to throw away.

Theo studied it for a bit while he ate his sandwich, considering what shape to make. Finally, he decided on a classic and drew his wand. Thirteen inches, ebony wood and dragon heartstring. A dark wand, unadorned and unfussy. McGonagall looked at him strangely the first time she saw him turn a teacup into a beautiful blue canary with his wand.

Theo made it his goal to surprise the Transfiguration master because the art came so easily to him. Pleasing McGonagall is the first step to the animagus transformation, he thought. He molded the chain into a circular ouroboros pin and held it between his teeth while he worked several small braids down the side of Draco’s head, weaving them so they all came together in the middle and ended at the nape of his neck. With a muttered charm he secured the hair and carefully fixed the pin in the center of the braids where they joined as one.

“There,” he said. Draco quickly grasped a spoon and turned it into a mirror. Theo touched the weaves gently, “This braid is for protection. You should leave it in until it falls out by itself.”

“You spoil him,” Blaise said, settling in next to Theo so their shoulders were pressed together. “He’s going to want you to do his hair all the time now.”

“I won’t abuse your talents, Theo,” Draco said with a jaw-cracking yawn. He closed his eyes and snuggled into Theo’s lap a bit more. Blaise covered his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes fluttering sleepily.

“You two can take a nap,” he said quietly. “I’ll keep watch. I’m not tired.”

Blaise dropped against his shoulder, moving around until he collapsed bonelessly against him. “See Theodore?” he murmured, “What would we do without you?”

Draco started to snore softly, with Blaise not too far behind. Theo listened to their breathing and gently stroked Draco's braid, trying to ignore the pit in his stomach.

Blaise might be right, he thought helplessly, staring at the branches and wishing even more desperately that he had cast the stones that morning. This might be the last time we’re ever together like this.

---

Harry

The setting sun blinded him on the descent. Harry squinted and slowly circled to land in a glen at the base of the mountain, shielding his eyes with one hand and gently pushing his Firebolt down with the other. He’d been flying through towering white clouds ever since they left Everswith, a magical village on the coast near Liverpool. In anticipation of making this journey, he’d read up on long-distance flight spells to help spare his skin and clothing from the worst of the chill and rain, but even so, after three hours of flying he was numb to the bone.

Harry landed in a soft-looking patch of grass and slowly eased off the broom, letting his body adapt to being on the ground again.

John scrabbled from the Firebolt and clutched the earth with all four paws, retching piteously.

“I thought you said you liked to fly,” Harry said with concern.

“They didn’t make brooms like that last time I was on one,” John hissed. He gagged and threw up again.

Grimacing, Harry kept the broom aloft in his palm and undid the spells that helped keep him dry and warm. The disillusionment spell had crumbled as soon as he saw the waterfall, but Harry wasn’t worried about that. They were utterly alone. He’d flown over several muggle villages and roads as they headed deep in the northwest corner of Wales, but after about an hour the navigation charm pulled them into a nature reserve that quickly gave way to magical forest. Aside from two Hippogriffs that trailed part of their flight, Harry hadn’t seen a living being or house since they entered the forest.

The small glen where he landed was surrounded on all sides by short alders and birch trees. From the sky, it looked like this part of the forest burned somewhat recently. He kept a nervous eye out for the famous Welsh Green, dearly wishing he remembered anything about them - like if they would race out of the forest and tear him limb from limb or not. This forest didn’t feel like the Forbidden Forest to him, but his heart was still pounding as he surveyed the tree line. Harry kept his wand drawn and moved slowly up the hill.

“You couldn’t land at the top?” John complained hoarsely.

“I couldn’t,” Harry admitted, surprised John hadn’t realized. “We flew over it three times but something wouldn’t let me get lower, didn’t you notice?”

At the top of the ridge they stopped. In front of them, mountainous granite erupted from the earth and spread out to the east and west. The small mountain range looked like broken teeth from the sky. A thin river rushed through a slit in the tallest peak, falling into a shady pool protected by draping willows. Large boulders scattered the ground around the mountain, breaking up a carpet of meadow that stretched in all directions behind and around them.

Harry could feel the pressure he had felt in the sky. His ring was ice cold.

“Do you see it?”

“No…” Harry stepped forward with his right hand out flat. “But I can feel it, you know what I mean?”

“Is there some sort of password?” John flopped on top of a flat rock, his black fur shining in the sun. “A riddle you need to solve?”

“The deed just said, the House will open to the one who claims it.”

John started to groom his face. “House Potter is a strange lot. So mystic. It’s a wonder I never met any of you before now.”

Harry’s hand suddenly went numb. He continued to pace through the field of boulders, scanning rocks for any sign of a ward stone.

“There’s not even a way through,” John complained. “I’m not climbing any goddamn mountains today. You’ll have to carry me.”

Harry rolled his eyes as he crossed under the shadow of a huge stone. Doubt nagged at him with every step as he started to move to the left, brushing the flanks of stone with his calloused hands. What if I can’t find it, he worried. What if there’s nothing even here? What if the estate doesn’t let me in?

The back of his neck prickled. He glanced up at the top of the stones and locked eyes with a stag.

His mouth went dry. The stag was as still as a statue - no, it was a statue. He relaxed a little, taking it as a good sign. The statue was of a huge stone stag, its head crowned by heavy antlers, black and glinting, each tip sharpened to a wicked point. Okay, he thought, feeling a bit excited, I must be close. If I can just get to-

The stag dropped its head. Harry let out a startled yell and jumped back, facing the stag wand-first. He rapidly turned over every magical creature he could think of in his head, but he had never even heard of a stone animal with obsidian antlers. It was so similar to his dad’s animagus form-

Transfiguration! Harry caught his breath and carefully sleeved his wand, not daring to move an inch. The stag's head was low, eyes focused on him. It looked dangerous, but there was no doubt in Harry’s mind what it was. A guardian.

“I am Harry James Potter,” he called out. He tried to put power behind his voice, but joy crept through. A grin broke over his face. “I am Lord of House Potter. I’m here to claim Roebuck Falls.”

His ring spun on his fingers and pulled him forward so hard he fell on top of a mossy stone just in front of his feet. Harry clutched it, feeling the rough, pockmarked surface with both thumbs. It reverberated under his skin, sending a shiver all the way up to his teeth.

“Ward stone!” he gasped. Harry fumbled in his jean pocket for the potions knife he’d pocketed for just this reason and pierced the flesh under his thumb. Then he pressed his bloody hand against the stone again.

The stag picked up its head and let out a long, triumphant bellow. The sound was as loud as clanging church bells, but his tone so low that it shook the very ground and rattled his bones. The echo reverberated over the entire glen, sending shouting birds from the trees.

The stag dropped its head as if it were grazing and the largest boulder in front of him trembled. Half of it crumbled into gravel and quickly sank into the earth, forming a cobblestone path.

“Damn, son,” John whistled at his side. “Very nice.”

“Why do they like deer so much?” Harry wondered, grinning madly. “Do you think I’d be some kind of deer animagus? Is it a requirement in House Potter?”

“You?” John snorted, “Deer are graceful. You'd be a three-legged fawn.”

Harry laughed. He felt giddy. Now that he was beyond the ward stone of his family’s property, his fears evaporated. Harry reached down to hold John on his shoulders as they walked up the stone path. It was winding and sloped sharply upward in places, taking them between huge fragments of the mountain. Small flowers grew in cracks between the stones, pale pink and bright blues reaching up for the sun. The falls grew louder, and occasionally Harry could feel water misting his skin.

The path stepped down and curved sharply around one last boulder. Harry jumped the gap and stopped at the end of the path, taking in the sight of Roebuck Falls.

The mountain’s face formed the backdrop, boxing in a secret glen beyond the boulder field. A tall, red-wood cabin sat on the top of a slight hill where it could overlook the valley. At the opposite end of the clearing, Roebuck Falls crashed into a small pool at the base of the mountain. Harry could see a veritable forest of willow trees creeping out from the edge of the pool, closing the gap between it and the house.

The house itself was beautiful, framed with long, carved planks that curved like a boat. There was an observation deck scaffolded around the second floor, and a porch on the ground floor. It didn’t look ancient. Aside from the stone foundation he could see poking out of the ground, it hardly looked old.

Harry bit his tongue, tempted to call out is anyone home? If there were, he didn’t need to announce his exact location, though the bugling stag certainly gave him away.

“You need to find the lodestone,” John said with a trace of urgency. “Wrap this puppy up so that you know if anyone else crosses the ward lines. I don't think we're being followed, but this forest is overwhelming. I can't smell my own magical signature."

“You're right,” Harry muttered, jogging toward the house. “Okay, the book said lodestones are normally outside. Should we split up?”

“Definitely! I’ll go this way,” the cat raced to the right, “we’ll meet in the back.’

The house wasn’t very big by wizard standards. Even though Harry was dying to go inside, he focused on the task at hand, sweating a little from anxiety. He turned back once to look at the path, imagining Dumbledore stepping into the evening sunshine, gently shaking his head and forcing him to come back to Privet Drive with a grave twinkle in his eye. 

“Got it!” John yowled.

Harry quickly rounded to the back of the house. There was another porch on this side that overlooked a wild garden. Harry glanced at it appraisingly, surprised by the diversity of magical plants he could identify with one quick look.

Between the garden and the house was a tall, narrow pillar, shooting out from a mosaic of stones set in the dirt. Harry thought it was a sundial at first, but he realized that the whole thing was a giant finger of quartz. It grew out of the ground like a tree, straight as an arrow, and gently tapered to a couple ragged points at the top.

He wanted to ask how John knew this was it, but once he was within arms-length, he saw it. Flickers of magic pulsed through the crystal - ribbons of green and black, the odd spark of purple. Wind gusted down from the mountain and a bright blue wave rippled through it.

Harry quickly dropped his pack and recalled the book from Theo. He flipped to the opening chapter about lodestones to refresh his memory.

A lodestone is the central pin for the many wards one might place over a property. The principles of mechanics rule over efficient ward networks. They must fit together like the gears of a watch to maximize the innate magic of the land. Elemental magic powers the spell work, so a lodestone must be a naturally occurring mineral found in the native geography. Lodestones may be any composition, but a thorough arithmancy compatibility chart is always necessary to determine the exact size, orientation, and adornment of the stone.

Some are secured in their own outbuilding, others are nearly at the front door of a wizard’s home. Regardless, the stone must be outside of the home proper, and all ward work begins with the lodestone. Ward stones at the edge of properties can be used to construct temporary shelters, or - more often - to strengthen the ward network, but their number and composition are far less important than that of the lodestone.

“This is definitely it,” he said excitedly. Harry set the book down on his bag where it would be safe and gently placed his hands on the lodestone.

Magic struck him hard in the chest and nearly blasted him off his feet.

He felt like he was free-falling. His eyes no longer saw the crystal - instead he was looking over the entire property as if he were flying. The roof, the perfect circle of water where the falls emptied out, and the cobblestone path guarded by the stone stag. He blinked and tried to push the image away, but every pump of his heart seemed to pour more energy into him from the stone. Harry thought he could hear John yelling. He choked and struggled to pry his hands off the stone. With great effort, he managed to wrench one hand off.

The pulsing magic threw itself at him, hitting hard enough to fling him through the air. Harry landed on the ground fully on his back, choking as all the air rushed out of his lungs. He coughed and wheezed, clutching his heart.

“You stupid wizard!” John shrieked, a blur of fur and claws next to his head. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you never to touch a magical object with your bare hands like that?! Are you an IDIOT?”

“It - wouldn’t - have hurt me,” Harry managed to choke out.

“LIKE A STONE KNOWS IF IT HURTS YOU?”

“Stop yelling at me,” he rasped, batting the cat away. “It’s okay. I know exactly what I’m doing.” He sucked in a deep breath and rolled to his knees, looking up just in time to see John’s mouth ajar, gaping at him like Harry had announced that he was going to bathe in flobberworm mucus for the rest of his life.

Before the cat could get another shout in, Harry jumped to his feet and stumbled to his backpack. He felt a little unsteady, but his brief lapse in judgment had reminded him of what was really important. He needed to protect this place - now.

He found the feather bookmark and opened to The Faerie Gate. Although he still didn’t know how the blood ward on Privet Drive worked, he’d learned a great deal about other wards in the meantime. 

Estate wards had endless uses for a magical family. The way the book was divided separated wards by function - beginning with protection wards meant to care for the land, the property, or the people inside the wards and ending with extremely complex secrecy wards meant to hide an estate from the map or people’s perception. The Faerie Gate was the first among the secrecy wards, one of the most potent in existence. 

John crept soundlessly up to his side and read over his shoulder. “What a choice, wizard.”

Still mad at me, Harry thought grimly. John only called him wizard when he thought Harry was being a prick.

“Do you know this one?”

John looked at him reproachfully, “Of course I do. This ward is-“ he caught himself, “never mind. I’ll tell you when you’re done. But first, can you explain why this one?”

“It’s easy,” Harry admitted sheepishly. “That’s one reason. No potion or ritual required.”

“But there are downsides” the cat counseled.

“Yeah.” He traced the page lightly with his fingers until he found the exact incantation. “I think it’s worth it though. This ward will keep absolutely everyone out, unless I invite them in. And even if someone could read my mind and find out, generally, where Roebuck Falls is, they couldn’t get inside or force me to invite them. It has to be a freely given invitation. Even though the trade-off is that they’re invited in forever, well,” he shrugged, “I don’t intend to throw a house party anytime soon. And I want this place to be a safe-haven for the people who really need it. Like Sirius."

John’s eyes gleamed. He looked between Harry and the book expectantly. “Oh Harry,” the cat said, realization creeping through his tone, “you don’t know much of the fae, so you? Have you ever met one of the good folk before me?”

Harry’s head snapped around. 

John grinned, an image still as grotesque as the first time he’d seen it. “The Faerie Gate is powerful and easy to cast, but you’re missing the connotation of the invitation. It will be permanent - as in, even after you’re dead, the ones you invite can get in. Even if you lay a hundred other wards on top of this one, no creature you invite inside can ever be forced to leave or prevented from entering. This will be their home too. This is how our magic works, wizard. The trade off of power is sacrifice.”

Suddenly, the odd behavior of John’s magic started to make more sense to him. A dim feeling of foreboding settled in his stomach. The good folk, Harry mused, half-remembering the legends Ron would sometimes share to scare their dormmates late at night. Those were almost always about faeries - ancient magical creatures eager to make a bargain or give you gifts, just so long as you exchange your soul or your first-born child. 

John’s a faerie? He thought wonderingly, and immediately burst out laughing.

“What? What?” John cried, jumping to his paws. “What is wrong with you?”

Harry laughed so hard he had tears streaming down his face. He shook his head, wordlessly trying to communicate that he wasn’t laughing at what John said, and accidentally touched the lodestone again. An electric current of magic buzzed through him and popped his ears.

“Merlin damn it all!” Harry shouted, glaring at the quartz. “Behave!” Turning to John, he bit back another wave of hysterical laughter and simply said, “Nothing - nothing. It’s just been a really weird day. I think all this magic is making me a little crazy. I have a million questions for you about the fact that you’re…that you…” he bit his lip and had to look away. “About that nugget of information, but trust me when I say I understand the downsides to this ward. But I don’t have a lot of options. I need most powerful ward I can cast and this is it. And we need to make it fast so I can get back to Privet Drive before anyone knows I'm missing. Okay?”

John side-eyed him and carefully took a few steps back. That’s as good of a blessing as I’m going to get.

Harry repositioned himself in front of the lodestone, levitating the book just over it so he could read the spell. Then he pulled a few strands of John’s fur off his shirt. “Do you mind?” he asked. The cat - fae - John - whatever, bowed his head.

With a little nod, he rolled his hands and held them out over the top of the crystal.

The incantation had to be repeated three times before he could key the ward to himself. It was written in old english, but Harry found the phrasing manageable. The book was clear that the exact words didn’t matter so much as the intent and repetition of the phrase, hamcyme ielfsiden, which roughly meant “return my home to magic”.

Harry took a couple of deep breaths, letting his mind relax like he did when he was meditating or working out. Then, he raised his eyes to the book and started to chant. After the first repetition, the quartz crystal started to glimmer. By the second round, it was shining steadily like a lightbulb. On the final repeat, it was pulsing with silvery white magic so bright it flashed against the walls of the mountain.

Harry combed through his hair until he came away with a few strands. Then he took both hands and pressed his hair and John’s fur against the crystal.

This time the magic took from him. Not a lot, not nearly as much as he expected, but the feeling of suddenly being drained made his knees buckle. The palms of his hands warmed, the crystal turned as clear as a sheet of ice. He felt a strong buzz run through his entire body and shoot through the crystal, into the earth, and then - nothing.

His hands felt normal again. Uncertainly, he pulled back from the lodestone, eying it as if it might explode any minute.

“There’s supposed to be a-“

Light shot out from the peak of the lodestone, lancing up into the air almost to the top of the mountain. It struck the ceiling of the natural wards and exploded into a million tiny sparklets that fell across the property in a thick shower of golden rain. Harry held his arms out as they came down over him, but they moved right through his skin and sank into the ground. For a moment, the meadow was covered in a carpet of golden snow.

After all the sparks settled, he felt it. A sudden pull just below his navel, like a portkey, only it filled his entire body with the physical knowledge of every piece of the property. He could feel John’s presence and knew that he was standing an arms-length behind him on the cobblestone path. He could feel that the house was completely empty - not even a lone boggart or ghoul secreted away in a dark cupboard. He could feel the quiet energy of the guardian stag standing watch over the entryway. 

Harry whirled around, scanning the house. The ward set his skin crawling with energy. He wanted to run, he wanted cover every inch of this property and see it all with his eyes and know that it was his. Harry loped into the house, carelessly throwing the back door open with a bang. 

It was dark. Pitch black, in fact, because all the windows were shuttered. He pursed his lips and called out, “Lumos!”, not even thinking to wave his wand.

A ball of light appeared in his wand-hand. He held it aloft and skipped through the house, picking up a storm of dust everywhere he went. Harry called out charms he half-remembered to throw open the windows and clean floors, charms he wished he could use every day at Privet Drive. The magic roiled off of him. Vaguely, he could feel that most of it wasn't even coming from him - he was pulling the magic from the air around him, from the ground steeped in his family's history. He laughed and flung open the double front doors, welcoming the golden light of the setting sun. 

Light and fresh air flowed in every room that Harry left. He circled the bottom floor, mapping out the large kitchen, empty dining room, a study, and a room overlooking the garden before he legged up the stairs to stick his head in every bedroom. There were four of them, along with a library full of dusty books and a loft that overlooked the valley.

The house was almost completely empty. All the furniture was gone. There were still shadows on the walls where portraits once hung, but aside from the library and a few large pieces of furniture - a huge writing desk in the study, a bedframe with no mattress, an iron table near the front door - there was nothing.

But nothing could crush the thumping joy in his chest. Harry slid down the banister and nearly crashed into John on the first floor. His friend was slinking about in his full form, hip-height and as skinny as a greyhound. John’s golden eyes were huge on his face and they shined with the same wild joy he was feeling.

“Say, John, can you just say it again? So I can really hear it?” Harry said, biting back a grin. “You’re a faerie?”

John looked confused, “Yes, Harry, that’s what I said. I’m a-“ comprehension crashed over his face and John bared his shiny white fangs. “You little shit!” he snarled, badly masking the indignity in his voice. “How old are you?” He swiped at Harry’s ankle but the wizard was too fast, easily jumping out of reach. "I'll teach you to mock one of the cat sìth!" John snarled, pouncing at him. But Harry was bursting with energy and he easily ducked and rolled away, covering his clothes in dirt and grime from the floor.

They panted, eying each other. And then the chase was on.

They sprinted out the front door and cantered over the property. John swiped at his feet and tried to trip him while Harry dodged and weaved, trying increasingly more exaggerated jumps and somersaults to avoid getting tackled by the cat. But John’s instincts were too quick, and down by the falls where the ground turned soft and slippery, Harry’s attempt to duck sent him straight on his back. The cat was on him in an instant.

They wrestled and yelled at each other, shouting nonsensically until they were both hoarse and thoroughly filthy. Finally, Harry howled, “Truce! Truce!” and the two of them flopped back together on the grass.

The sky was beautiful, turning violet in the late hour. The towering clouds had broken up into smaller, fluffy islands. As he watched them float east, he noticed birds flitting high above him at the top of the falls, diving into the water and springing back out in a shower of droplets. He closed his eyes and listened to the crashing waterfall, letting the sound take over his senses entire.

When Harry opened his eyes again, he felt like a weight had fallen from his body. For the first time in his life, he didn’t worry about having to return to Privet Drive. The questions and mistrust he had in Dumbledore were but a distant memory. His anxiety over what his friends would think was gone completely.

He had a home of his own now. A place no one could touch him, a place for only people he trusted to his core. A place of my own.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy,” Harry admitted to John.

John purred and shrank down to his housecat form. He rubbed his head in the grass and flipped over so his flank was pressed against Harry’s shoulder.

“It’s just the start of many things to come.”

Even though Harry knew better than to hope that what John said was true, a feeling of calm washed over him.

“I know,” he replied, smiling.

Harry didn’t even realize he fell asleep until a low bellowing shook the earth under him and jolted him from sleep. The sky was black, covered in a carpet of stars. John hissed nearby, setting all the hairs on his body on end. 

Harry jumped up and cursed as his body cried out in agony. He was stiff from hours of flying, and coupled with the beating from Uncle Vernon last night, he could hardly find his feet. The bellowing continued, reverberating through his skull. He gripped the side of his head at the ears and doubled over.

“It’s the guardian!” he shouted.

“Is someone here?” John yowled back.

“I don’t-“ the pull in his stomach was there again. He could feel the wards tugging on every corner of his skin, wanting to pull him through space to the front gates. Harry closed his eyes, trying to decide if he should keep resisting the pull or let it take him to the entryway.

But when he closed his eyes, instead of seeing nothing, he found that he could see the valley. He was looking down over the opening to the cobblestone path through the stag’s eyes. A small, gray creature cowered in the grass, a silver shield cast over its knobby head.

Harry blinked his eyes open, dizzy from double vision. “It’s a house elf,” he said dazedly.

“What?” John shouted. He was half-way up the hill, fur standing straight on end.

“Follow me!” Harry yelled back. Then he let the pulling sensation yank him through space.

He landed softly on the path, just behind the ward lines. The deer stopped bugling. When the echoes faded away, Harry could hear the elf muttering and cursing to itself. Harry panted and rubbed his temples, glaring at the sky and the house elf, cursing himself for falling asleep. This has to be Dumbledore, he thought. Who else would be able to send an elf to find me here?

“A house elf?” John said curiously, appearing on top of the boulder to his left.

“Yeah...hey, aren't they your kin?” Harry stood on tip-toe to get a better look at the elf.

“The same way gorillas are your kin,” John replied. “Only, I’m the gorilla.”

Harry shook his head, “I don’t recognize him. House elves I don’t know are always trouble. I think Dumbledore must have sent him...” He bit his lip, "What do I do? I don't want to go through the wards and give away that I'm here."

“Let the gorilla do his work…” John whispered, jumping lithely to the path. He lengthened to his true form. In the dark, John was just a liquid shadow moving over the grass. His eyes became shining yellow beacons, the pupils disappearing to tiny points. He stepped over the ward line and instantly the house elf let out a choked shriek, supplicating before him. His little silver shield intensified, covering him in a shiny dome.

“What is your name?” John asked silkily, stalking around the elf in a wide circle. “How did you find this place? What do you want?”

“I - I - I -“

John batted at the elf’s shield and it shattered into pieces. The elf yelped and pulled its ears, not daring to lift its head off the ground. Harry watched from the shadows, glancing in the woods behind John for signs that someone else was here. 

“Your name,” John commanded.

“Kreacher," the house elf groaned. Harry could see a few whisps of white hair on his head, and he was wearing a slate-gray wrap tied over one shoulder like a toga. “I am in service to Lord Sirius Black, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. I followed Harry Potter’s magical signature. I’m here to-”

Harry jumped and stepped across the ward line. “Sirius sent you?” he demanded. “Where is he?”

Kreacher peeled his face an inch off the ground, just enough for one blood-shot eye to see him. John remained crouched nearby, staring unblinkingly at the elf. “I - have…a letter for you, Harry Potter.” He raised one shaking hand and snapped his fingers, producing a tightly folded letter from out of thin air. Harry snatched it, snitch-quick, feeling a bolt of joy when he recognized his godfather’s shaky script.

“It’s Sirius’ writing! Where is he?”

Kreacher’s head pushed back down in the earth, “Master Black forbade me from saying. My orders were to deliver it and leave-“ John growled low in his throat. Kreacher yelped and shook his head, “My master commanded it!”

“You know better than to leave my sight without permission,” John purred. “Just wait.”

Harry looked between the letter and the elf. “Sirius doesn’t want a reply?”

“He thought you would be with the muggles,” Kreacher spat, “you’re supposed to be guarded by those blood traitors who have infested the House of Black…my poor mistress…trapped with those disgusting mudbloods…I was supposed to deliver your letter and leave without being seen.”

Harry looked at John in surprise.

“Kreacher, you can return to Sirius,” Harry said, nodding to John. “But you have to tell him that my muggle house has a monitoring ward on it. If he tries to deliver another letter through you or even worse, comes to the house, the ward will go off and they'll be all over him in an instant." He bit his lip, considering his options. I'm not about to invite this weird elf into my house, he thought, but what is he supposed to tell Sirius? "Don’t tell him I wasn’t with the Dursleys. Tell him I snuck out and was at a muggle park.”

John pushed forward and stuck his face close to the elf’s neck. “Can you do your duty and obey, elf?”

Kreacher wrapped his fingers over his neck, shaking from head to tow. “It would be hard to lie if my master ordered me to tell the truth.”

“You will not tell your master what you saw here,” John countered, lengthening his jaws over Kreacher’s neck. “Or I will pull your bones out and make them dance for me. You'll live forever in my service, not a day of rest befall you. On this I swear upon my magic and my name, little elf. What say you?”

“I won’t, I won’t tell!” the elf wailed, trembling hard. “I promise! I swear it on my blood! I'll tell Stupid Master whatever you want me to say...!”

“Good elf,” John nipped one of his ears, drawing a single drop of blood on his tongue. “I’ll know if you betray me. Go now.”

The elf apparated with a violent crack. John shook himself and looked up at Harry. For a moment, a deep, instinctual fear shivered down his spine. John's shadowy form and golden eyes were positively malevolent in the night.

Then he loped back over the ward line, transforming into his usual self again. He pawed at Harry’s knee, so Harry reached down and hauled him up to his shoulders, grateful that he was housecat sized again. 

“The Dursleys are going to know I left,” Harry said, looking up at the sliver of moon. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep like that. Really bungled up our plan.”

“There was no waking you,” John purred, “after magic like that.”

Harry sighed heavily. Those are problems for future Harry, he thought. And maybe it doesn't matter much, in the end. If he had it his way, he wouldn’t be spending many more days at Number 4 this summer.

He unfolded the letter and held up his wand to read it.

Dear Harry,

I apologize for disappearing on you at the beginning of summer. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I recently uncovered a vital piece of information about the war that I had to investigate. I can’t share much in a letter, but I’ll tell you what I can when I see you soon.

Yes, I will see you soon. You won’t be trapped with those muggles the whole summer. I know that Dumbledore believes it’s the safest place for you, but I don’t agree. Any unplottable home with a strong enough ward network could protect you. People forget that Dumbledore’s words aren’t law - they’re just strong suggestions. You’re my godson, and if you want it Harry, then it’s time for you to be with your people.

Unfortunately, I have to beg you to give me just a little more time to work on this mission. I’m so close, Harry, but even if I don’t succeed, I’m putting a deadline on my work. Once July 18th comes, I’m done with my mission and coming to get you. We’re going to have the birthday to end all birthdays - one every day for every year I missed with you. Fourteen days of just you, me, and a world of our own. I hope you’ll let me get to know you better. I want you to always count on me.

Be packed and ready to leave by the night of the 17th. We’ll make a quick escape the next day, so be ready for anything at any time. I can’t wait to see you.

Sirius.

"Black damn," Harry swore, borrowing one of John's favorite sayings. "He can't come get me at Privet Drive."

"I bet I could find him," John said casually. Too casually. "For the price of a meal."

Harry reached up and scratched behind John's ears until he started to purr. "Fine, you glutton. I want to go through the house one more time, and then do you think you can bring us back to Privet Drive? I have to make a deal with the Dursleys."

---

Dear Theo, 

Please don't laugh at me - I think you might be the only person in the world I can admit this to, but I cried three times during the last quarter of Return of the King. I never knew a book could do this to me. Now that it's over, I can't pick up another one. I feel like I'm in shock. Why didn't you warn me?! I thought it'd just be a fairy-tale ending! Now I'll never be able to read another novel again, how could anything compare?

Speaking of fairy-tales, I found an old book on British folklore in my family's library that inspired me to look more into the subject. Unfortunately, I can't quite find what I'm looking for. I'm not searching for a magical creature index, I'm more interested in the actual stories about dwarves and elves and faeries, but from a magical perspective. Do you have any recommendations? 

Unexpectedly, I managed to do a bit of travel with a friend of mine recently - to Wales. The countryside is lovely, but what I really want to do is explore the coast. I've never been to the ocean. I think it would be fun to collect shells. I've been trying to look for interesting rocks like you talk about, but they all just look like rocks to me. How on earth do you tell the difference?

I can't thank you enough for lending me that book about wards. You've saved my life. Figuratively, I mean. I'd never complete my summer homework without it. Maybe I'll even get an 'Outstanding' for my work. It's not often I can say I'm really proud of my research, but I feel triumphant - because of your help, of course. I hope I can pay you back some day.

Thank you for the postcards. The world is so big. Is it crazy to say that I want to see it all?

Yours, 

Kingfisher

Notes:

In my head, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy are those rich parents who enroll their child in every sport, hobby, and art class imaginable because they believe their little darling is a savant. Little do they know, Draco is just a beautiful fashionista who wants to live a life of luxury. He was born to be a trophy husband, damnit! Let him be!

The one good thing about Moose forcing me to wake up at 6am is that I can write a little in the morning before work. The one bad thing about waking up at 6am is that I'm writing like a drunk idiot and I have to do more editing.

Chapter 8: A Promise Fulfilled

Summary:

Theo and his father talk about the past. Harry and John get a lesson in chaos magic.

Notes:

This chapter really spun on and on as I was writing it and ended up being much longer than I planned. Nonetheless, I'm very happy with how it turned out. Thank you for reading! I appreciate all of you!!

Theo

“Chaos magic can’t be utterly random,” Theo argued, putting his wine glass down forcefully, “Brauss proved that magic acts in specific, measurable, arithmantic structures. All magic, even-“

“Even randomly triggered astronomical phenomena,” Lord Nott sipped his brandy and grimaced. “But chaos magic cannot be plotted and predicted. It simply happens.”

“Maybe it hasn’t been studied enough,” Theo countered, “chaos magic can’t be that common.”

His father shrugged out of his muggle suit jacket and waved it away with his wand. “It’s said that chaos magic is the linchpin in nature magic.” He smirked at the frustration on Theo’s face. “Druids are particularly good at seeing the patterns before they converge. Powerful druids, I should say.”

Theodore frowned into his wine glass. Although he had been nursing his drink for the better part of an hour, it was almost gone, and an empty glass could mean the end of their conversation.

“I read that this phenomena was once referred to as Gryffindor magic,” his father reached over and took the wine bottle by the neck, arching an eyebrow at his son. Theo nodded and watched the deep crimson drink spill into the goblet. “Godric Gryffindor was a fantastic wielder of chaotic magic. It was the secret to his battlefield acclaim.”

Theo managed not to roll his eyes, but it was close. “Maybe it should be called ‘dumb luck magic’ then.”

His father laughed. Actually tossed his head back and laughed. Theo was so surprised that his first instinct was to wonder if his father was drunk already.

They returned from dinner with a potential seller an hour ago. Theo had been bored to tears listening to the paunchy old man talk circles around their business, spending an inordinate amount of time describing the art of brewing beer. The whole evening wrapped up with a simple invitation to the wizard’s estate “to see the hops fields” but it seemed to be the victory father craved, because he clapped his son on the shoulder and praised him for a job well done. His celebratory mood carried them back to the hotel where he ordered a bottle of wine and brandy for their suite. They were sitting in candlelight next to the window overlooking the street, having a pleasant conversation. Theo almost wished he could open up a portal to show his friends that his father could be human. Sometimes.

Maybe this is chaos magic, Theo thought, taking another sip.

“There was a great deal more to the founders than history remembers,” his father grumbled. “Bravery, Ambition, Knowledge, Loyalty,” he tapped a gnarled finger on the table with each word and shook his head, “no. Godric Gryffindor was a general, Salazer Slytherin an inventor, Rowena Ravenclaw a philosopher, and Helga Hufflepuff a politician. They founded schools of magic, not dormitories, not house colors or quidditch teams. They were so much more than the silly symbols they are now,” his father scowled and threw back the rest of his drink. “Do you have any Gryffindors in your circle?”

Theo blinked at the question. “…No,” he said and instantly balked at his own honesty. “I mean - I suppose there are some I-“

“You should cultivate one or two,” his father advised, “they are surprisingly useful.”

What Gryffindors do you know? He wanted to say. Theo prickled uncomfortably at how little he knew about his father. Every time he thought he was closer to understanding the man, another piece was revealed that didn’t quite fit.

“Tell me Theodore,” he growled, suddenly leveling his son with a focused glower, “what do you want to do with your life?”

Theo felt he was well-practiced to have these kinds of whiplash conversations. His father’s mind moved as swiftly as a snitch, never lingering too long on one subject unless he felt there was something he didn’t understand or a secret that he could uncover. Nevertheless, Theo couldn’t remember the last time his father asked him such a personal question. Usually his father quizzed him on various pieces of history or magic he might be studying. Sometimes, if he decided he was bored with conversation, he’d pick up his wand and throw curses for an impromptu duel. Every conversation with his father was a battle - of words, of magic, of wills, it didn’t matter. The only thing the man knew how to do was fight.

When his mother was alive, his life was a little more similar to his pureblood peers - etiquette lessons, dance practice, private tutors. But as he grew up their paths diverged, and Theo’s mother and father tutored him directly in to the subjects they thought were important.

And then mother died. And he went to Hogwarts. And after that, his father was only concerned about one thing - making sure Theo was strong enough to survive on his own.

Truth be told, Theo didn’t really know what his father wanted of him beyond that. The Notts occupied a seat in the Wizengamot, but his father lived like a hermit and rarely made the trip to London to vote. He wasn’t on any boards, he didn’t operate a private business, he didn’t breed rare creatures to sell on the black market. Theo had nothing substantial to inherit in wizarding society, which is what made his father's question even more significant. This is my chance for his blessing.

Theo felt his resolve harden. He straightened up, took a short sip of wine, and looked his father in the eye. “I want to become a Transfiguration Master and build a new Library,” he said seriously. “A physical one.”

“That’s dangerous business,” his father clicked his tongue. “The Library evolved into what it is because it was destroyed so many times.”

“I know.” The wine was making him warm and relaxed and he paused to pull his own jacket off. He missed the way his father’s eyes clung to the braid running across the top of his head with a bit of purple thread running through it. “But I think I can make use of Desi Diante’s spacial compression methods for magical architecture to create a moving Library. It will-”

“A moving Library?” father interrupted.

“Well, before our ancestors settled in Scotland, legend says that the Library was on ship, right?” When father nodded, Theo felt a flutter of excitement. “I’ve done the research - if the Library really was as big as we think from the beginning, then it must have been a separate space brought on board the ship. After all, the Otambær was a longship and we have the pieces of it, but based on the captain’s log, we know it wasn't modified as a magical space. Someone brought the Library on board the ship. That means it must have been mobile before it settled in Scotland."

His father nodded along, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “So you would want to make a similar space,” he surmised, “something you could take away from Nott Tower?”

“If I had to,” he agreed.

“It will be a long and expensive journey to accomplish such a goal,” his father drank half his fresh glass of brandy and sat back, slouching in his chair. “The family coffers probably won’t support you the whole way.”

“That is why I would become an expert in magical architecture,” Theo said, ready for this comment, “as the muggle world continues to expand, magical communities will also grow. Magical homes may need to be moved or hidden, or even transformed to match their new surroundings. It should be a lucrative career, enough to support the House for my lifetime.”

His father studied him. The flickering candlelight cast deep shadows across his scarred face. “Malfoy, you greedy goblin.” Father shook his head, “Did he give you that idea?”

Theo smirked, “It was Madame Zabini’s last husband, actually,” he admitted. “I don’t think it’s prudent to discuss money with Lord Malfoy.”

“You are wise beyond your years, Theodore,” his father sighed, brushing a lock of silver hair from his face. “I have no doubt you will make our bloodline proud. So long as you survive what’s coming.”

Theo’s stomach flipped. He gripped his knee under the table, trying to keep it from bouncing nervously. But his father’s demeanor did not change, he just stared out the window at the muggle apartments across the street, turning the crystal glass in his hand around and around. He took a moment to study his father, trying to shore up this image of him against the many photos he had hidden in his room. His father was scarred in face and hands, skinny and tall, often towering over every other wizard in the room. His hair was thick and fading into deep silver. It used to be as blonde as Theo’s, but after his mother died, father lost every piece of youth he had left. Theo didn’t think he’d seen him genuinely smile more than a handful of times in his life, all before mother died.

Theo had a picture of his father and his other siblings from when he was seventeen, and every year before he went to Hogwarts, he dug it out to look at it in front of the mirror. Every year, Theo saw himself growing in to this man. They had the same nose, the same hair, the same long-fingered hands and overall build. If his father had it his way, Theo would also have his ruthlessness, his cruelty, the iron will that kept him alive when everyone else was dead.

Every year, Theo shoved the photo away with a pit in his stomach. He curled his fist even tighter, stretching the tattoos across his knuckles. I won’t become you, he thought severely. Not entirely.

“Ask.”

Theo started. His father didn’t look at him. “Ask me something,” father repeated. “I’ll tell you something you want to know. One question.”

Excitement flooded his veins. Theo had to clasp both his hands on the table to control himself. Father must be really pleased by how our evening played out, he thought, staring at his hands. Should I ask him why he’s so excited about this book? No - we’ll see it tomorrow, or if not then, soon. I should ask him what his plans with Lord Malfoy are. Or maybe I should ask him about mother’s family. Surely she had some somewhere.

He glanced up, but his father was patiently spinning his glass and not looking at him. Finally, Theo made a decision.

“You said before that the Dark Lord is a monster,” he said, meeting his father’s gaze steadily. His voice didn’t even waver when the man’s piercing eyes fixed on him, intense and dangerous. “But something made you want to…align with him, in the beginning. What was it, and is that aim what he’s pursuing now?”

Theo was certain that the answer to the end of his question was no. Why else would father want to keep me from the Dark Lord? They must not fundamentally agree on the purpose of their work. He considered adding that he wanted to know so he could better navigate school politics, but his father finished his drink in one fell swoop and knocked it on the table. Theo kept his face blank, hiding his uneasiness.

“The muggles…” his father began, head swinging down low between his arms, “you have no idea, Theodore, how much the world changed when I was your age.” He laughed bitterly and filled his glass again. The brandy bottle was half empty now.

“Nowadays, the only thing anyone remembers about us is that the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters wanted a world of ‘pure blood’. Stealing muggleborn children and placing them in magical homes - that was the flag we flew - according to them.” He shook his head, “No. That was an idea. One of many. But we all had ideas, most of them half-cocked and stupid. What we wanted didn’t matter. What mattered was that the British Wizard empire was in shambles. The muggle wars…they took so much from us. For anyone who cared to pay attention, they would have seen that muggle technology had grown to an unbelievable strength. It didn’t matter how powerful a wizard you were - anyone could be killed by the shelling, by the bombs. After the blitz, there was an undercurrent of popular opinion that the magical world had to do something. As you say - the muggles are getting closer, expanding their cities, destroying magical fens and ancient ritual grounds, turning world into rubble and ash. Why couldn’t we step in and guide them? Control their weapons? Stop their wars?”

His father rubbed his temples and sat a little straighter, “Truth be told, Theodore, when I was about your age, I wasn’t troubled by these things. I didn’t care about the plight of Londoners or continental wixen. I was constantly fighting for a place in my family. As the youngest of four brothers - well,” he glanced darkly at Theo, “you know how that played out in the end.”

Theo nodded. Graham Nott was eager to tell the story of his death every time Theo was at the loch. Slain by your father at the dinner table - along with my wife and eldest child. Your father fought hard for you to come into this world, Theodore, and now our bloody destinies be upon you. He remembered the way Graham grinned with dark blood eternally dripping out of his mouth, All for that mudblood bastard he followed. All to lay claim to what we Notts hold dear, to keep all that magical knowledge to himself. Do you think you can love it as much as he does, nephew? Can you kill your whole family to keep that power in your hands?

“Theodore,” his father’s voice pulled him from the memory, and Theo looked up to see his father’s wand in his face. A curse glittered darkly over the gnarled oak and sparked at the wand tip. “Answer me honestly. What is the first word that comes to mind when I say immortality.”

Despite the cold fear in his stomach, a hundred stories flickered through his mind, and Theo couldn’t help but frown. “Foolish,” he answered. His wand was already in his hand. He held it under the table, prepared to throw it up to shield his face. “The pursuit of immortality is a fool’s dream.”

His father’s mouth curled and he dropped his wand, but Theo knew better than to relax. “Yes,” he murmured, “I see it now. Your mother taught you well.”

She taught me that death is natural. Necessary. He swallowed back the words and just waited. It always felt sacrilegious to discuss her with his father.

“You’re right, of course - maybe,” father bared his teeth, “but part of me has always wondered how far we could push the bounds of magic. I asked you, Theodore, what you wanted with your life. We couldn't be more different. What I wanted was to use all the knowledge stored in our library to create something utterly new. Some invention, some spell, something that would make a mark on this world.” He rubbed his hand over his face, “And when my housemate came to visit me one summer proposing we look into immortality together, I couldn’t say no. He was…the lightning rod of our generation, Theodore. Everybody loved him, respected him, feared him in some way. The Dark Lord knew I was struggling for a place in my family, that I wanted the inheritance more than anything else in the world, and he proposed that all I really had to do was outlive them all…”

He trailed off, staring out the window again. Theo didn’t dare move or even breathe too loudly.

“That was why I was by his side from the beginning,” father admitted, “it wasn’t for politics, though I warmed to that when I got older. It was because the Dark Lord and I pushed the boundaries of magic. With his talent…our Library-“

“The Dark Lord knows about the Library?” Theo clapped his hands over his mouth, horrified at himself for interrupting, but even more horrified that his father would break the essential rule that protected the Library.

“He thinks it’s destroyed,” father drawled, sending him an unimpressed look. “Just like everyone else. During the bloody war of our House, just after Graham died.”

“Oh,” Theo took up the wine again and drank a little more. The alcohol was making him feel sour now. He cracked his knuckles under the table and waited to see if father would continue.

“Theodore, the reason I call him a monster now is because that man I respected for so many years is gone. People think I’m mad these days - I’m nothing compared to him. And it’s my fault. For all my intelligence, for all the power in that Library, I couldn’t put the pieces together to achieve our goal the way we wanted to. Our pursuit to make death meaningless was meant to protect our revolution - his revolution. With so many of our generation dying at war, it had to be him. He had to survive long enough to protect the magical world. That was what we believed in, I believed in.” His father dropped his face into his hands, “I will tell you a secret Theodore, because I know you have heard the stories from a thousand places, but none knew the Dark Lord like I did.”

Theo swallowed and leaned in slightly. The two of them locked eyes, and then Theo felt just the slightest brush against his thoughts. He resisted the instinct to flinch back and set his jaw, taking a deep breath.

He breathed out and, suddenly, he wasn't sitting in the hotel any more. A memory played back in his head. It wasn’t his own, his body felt the alien presence of it and cried out to lean away, but Theo held his ground and forced himself to listen.

“-shouldn’t be possible,” a teenager not much older than him looked up and met his eyes. He was beautiful - with perfect, short dark hair, high cheekbones, a sharp jaw. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and though he lounged in his chair casually, there was nothing disheveled or relaxed about him. His eyes were bright and focused. When they met his gaze, something deep in Theo’s gut shrieked at him to run and hide.

“Magnus,” the boy tutted, gracefully marking the page of his book and setting it down. “I thought you agreed with me that nothing is impossible.”

“But it shouldn’t be possible according to what is recorded!” The words falling out of Theo’s mouth dripped with sarcasm. “You didn’t make any modifications to the ritual?”

The other boy’s mouth twitched.

“Aha!” Theo suddenly stood, pointing accusingly. “I knew it! But how? How did you even find the sources to-“

“I didn’t intend to change anything.” The boy spoke quietly, but they cut through the tirade as easily as if he’d shouted. Theo sat down and tucked his hands under him to keep from fidgeting. “It just…as I was doing it, I felt I could see where the ritual was wrong. It would be more efficient to…skip a step here and there. I also had to be moving, always moving counterclockwise. The ritual didn’t say anything about that.” He paused and pursed his lips, looking displeased. “Truthfully, Magnus, I was hoping you might discover something to explain it before I had to tell you. I can't stand not knowing why magic does what it does. But your research has only proven that what I did is - supposedly - impossible.” He shrugged again and flashed a bright white smile, “I’m sorry for keeping this from you. I wasn’t sure you’d believe me.”

Theo’s heart was racing and he could feel sweat beading across his neck. He glanced around the corners of the room - and then Theo, modern Theo, recognized it. It was the old family library, the fake library in the old manor before it was destroyed. They still had a portrait of it hanging in Nott Tower.

“Tom,” he hissed, leaning across the table. “There is but one explanation. Only one way you could have changed the ritual and succeeded without losing your sanity completely.” The other boy’s demeanor changed. He also leaned forward, bringing their faces close together. Those dark eyes glittered hungrily. “You have the gift of necromancy,” Theo whispered. “Your bloodline - it must be a gift you were born into. Almost all the necromancers in our country were wiped out centuries ago.” Excitement that was not Theo’s own thrummed in his chest, and both he and the boy - Tom - started to grin. “You can do it, Tom,” Theo whispered. “You can be free of death forever.”

Theo gasped and fell back into his body with a jolt. His father kneaded his temples and cursed. The memory fell into the background of his subconscious, but Theo knew if he tried he could bring it to the surface to look through again. His hands cramped, and he realized that he was gripping the edge of the table so hard his fingers were numb.

“Hide that, Theodore,” his father said, getting to his feet. “Hide that knowledge deep in the back of your mind. And whenever anyone tries to defeat the Dark Lord, remember what you know.”

Then he took the bottle of brandy and his glass and limped into his private bedroom. Theo stared at his wine glass, half-full and gleaming in the candlelight, for a long, long time after.

---

Harry

Kingfisher,

The German branch of Gringotts is under Charlottenburg Palace (pictured in the enclosed postcard) and here the lobby is made of gold instead of white marble. I heard once that the goblins have a method of traveling from branch to branch without the use of portkeys or apparation. I think they use mirrors, though I’m not certain.

I’m working on my own summer assignments from a private tutor right now and I can hardly focus in the evenings. This stage of my travels is more work than fun. I’m not doing much sightseeing, and I don’t have time to read for fun (weep for me). I bought a muggle film camera to take some pictures of the sights. I think it would be fun to experiment with potions to see if I can transform them into moving photos. I know - I don’t need another project, but I can’t help it. If I run out of time, I’ll pretend I couldn’t figure it out and foist the project onto my friend. He’s an amazing potioneer, and he knows it. All I have to do is suggest that he couldn’t possibly figure it out and…

There’s a free lesson from the House of Snakes for you. Muggles call it “reverse psychology”. Maybe you already know the term.

I’m curious to know if you have a magical hobby? Everyone has at least one, unless they’re a complete knob. A housemate of mine developed a new spell that enchants mice to sing. She’s a halfblood and said that she saw it in a movie once. Muggles have such fantastic ideas about what magic can do.

I’ll be home in a week. When I return, I’ll send along the materials you’ll need to send back my book. Or, maybe we can arrange to meet again at the Albion? Say, the first week of August? I’ll make a few trips there and to Diagon Alley before the beginning of September. If that is amenable, you may return my book in person.

Viele Grüße,

T

“I still think you should tell Lord Black what those muggles did to you,” John said, a note of seriousness to his tone. “Let him level the whole house. One howler isn’t near enough.”

Harry hummed noncommittally and pretended to find his place in his book. It was his idea to go back to Privet Drive with a howler, although Harry was fairly certain that if not for the wild magic of the Faerie Gate he wouldn’t have even considered it. Harry used a dictation spell to let John give his greatest performance to a long piece of parchment. John pretended to be Sirius and laid into the Dursleys, threatening tortures so horrific Harry actually had to cover his ears at one point, ultimately promising to show up at their bedside in the dead of night if they ever so much as thought about laying a hand on Harry again.

After that, all he had to do was glamor up his bruises, take advantage of the opportunity to change into a pair of his new clothes and ditch the old glasses, and then walk through the front door of Number 4 as if he spent all day in the loving care of his dangerous, criminal godfather.

Uncle Vernon was steaming mad and liquored up when Harry returned after midnight, but the shrieking letter did its job and cowed his Uncle into submission. The hot-foot charm Harry subtly cast really drove the message home and had the man leaping to get out of the same room as him for days afterward. But his Aunt Petunia took the threats the worst - she wouldn’t let him so much as lift a finger in the house anymore. He had to volunteer to trim the hedges, not because he wanted to, but just to offer his watchers proof of life.

“I’m not going to tell Sirius anything,” he responded, avoiding John’s gaze, “he’s already wanted for a crime he didn’t commit. I don’t need him wanted for a crime he does commit.” And there’s no universe where I’m telling him how the Dursley’s treated me, he thought. “How am I going to explain you, by the way?” He asked, artlessly changing the subject. “You still want to pretend to be a normal cat, right? Are you going to ride along in my trunk?”

“I’ll follow you and choose the right time to reveal myself,” John said confidently. “Within the next few days, a poor, starving stray cat looking for a loving home will stumble across your path.” He hunched his shoulders and flattened his ears, letting out the most pitiful mewl Harry had ever heard. “Please sir,” John whispered, his eyes wide and watery, “I’m so hungry…Please feed me the intestines of a piglet…”

“GROSS,” Harry gagged and half-heartedly kicked him away, “Don’t talk about that! I’ll never make that for you again!”

John cackled and padded to his side, curling up so they were pressed together. “Worth every bloody galleon,” the cat purred, “I have enough energy to take down a ward or two at Hogwarts, I reckon.”

“So you’ll be able to do it?” Harry asked anxiously. “Won’t it be dangerous? What if someone catches you? What if they see you and realize-“

“Shhh,” John flicked him with the tip of his tail. “Trust me, little wizard. I’m a born illusionist. They’ll believe it’s him, just like they’ll believe you’re home. And right before they kick in the door to your muggle bedroom, I’ll whisk the doubles away to Ireland and send your hunting party on a merry chase.”

Harry grumbled and sat back, taking a few meditative breaths until the anxiety seeped out of him. They didn’t have a very good plan for helping him escape Privet Drive undetected. Harry spent most of the last ten days reading about tracking spells and disguises, and he realized that it was almost impossible to hide one’s magical signature. The best he could do was muddle it for a short time, but in such a magically barren place as Surrey, even that would stand out. In the end, John revealed that with enough energy and a little of Harry’s blood, he could mimic both Harry and Sirius’s magical signatures and lure whoever came after them from where Harry and Sirius would actually be.

“It’s a good plan,” John said with a yawn, “nice a simple, as all good plans should be.”

“My plans always start out simple,” Harry muttered darkly.

He shook his head and picked up his book again, trying to quash the butterflies in his stomach. There’s nothing you can do now, he told himself firmly, you just have to trust that John’s magic trick will be enough.

The book was another recommendation from Theo, “a palate cleanser” he called it, for Harry’s post-Tolkien fugue. It was a magical novel about a witch who solved crimes in a little muggle hamlet while living a double life as a primary school teacher. Theo sent him a copy of the first book, and Harry flew through it in a day and a half. He promptly owl-ordered the whole series the next day. It was surprisingly funny, and so deeply rooted in small-town muggle culture that Harry could easily picture it taking place in his own neighborhood.

Ron and Hermione would never believe some Slytherin pureblood enjoys these books, he thought cynically. But before this summer, I wouldn’t have either. Who would ever believe that they’re human?

His eyes stopped tracking the words as he thought about that for a moment. Am I really that shallow? But I haven’t always been this way. I hate it when people assume that all the stories about me are true…

“Mother magic,” John grumbled. “What now? Within the next twenty four hours you’ll be with your godfather. Why do you smell so sad?”

“I just realized that maybe…” Harry slowly closed the book, reverently tucking the feather into place as a bookmark. “Being sorted into Gryffindor wasn’t…the best…for me…”

John’s head snapped up in surprise. “What a thing to say. Why would you think that?”

“The hat said I would find my real friends in Slytherin,” he explained, pulling his knees up to his chest. The sun was far below the tree line now and a chill was in the air. He rubbed his arms and tucked in closer together. “If I had been sorted there, I would have worked so hard to prove to everyone that there was nothing dark or evil about me. I would have had to make connections with the other houses. But because I’m in Gryffindor…” he glanced at John, “Well, I just don’t have to prove anything. Everyone already has this picture of me. They think I’m…some kind of hero, I guess. That I’m just naturally good and noble and brave, as if I really had anything to do with the downfall of Voldemort that night.” He shook his head bitterly, “And I…pretend to be that person. Maybe part of me is that person. I don’t know. But I do know that I was supposed to be in Slytherin. That means some part of me is also cunning, and sneaky, and…ruthless.”

No one ever expected anything of me before I came to the magical world, he thought, biting his lip. I didn’t have any friends before. I couldn’t risk losing Ron, I couldn’t turn away from the house my parents were sorted into, where everyone expected me to go. And I wanted to go to Gryffindor, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, now. But…he thought about the letters exchanged between him and Theodore Nott. All the books and stories and little magical tidbits the Slytherin shared made him long to spend an afternoon with him again. Could we have been friends this whole time? Harry wondered, wrestling with the pit in his stomach. Even if in first year, I had tried to make friends with anyone in Slytherin, would things be different? Would I have known about Houses and coming-of-age rituals and wixen culture?

“Why are you so upset by this?” John asked, sounding confused. “A snake in the lion’s den sounds like the most Slytherin move I could think of. Best of both worlds, if you ask me.”

“I just…I wish Theo and I could be real friends,” he admitted. “I love Ron and Hermione, but-“

“Gods, kid,” John muttered, “I’ll tell you ‘cuz no one else did - you can have more than two friends.”

“Are you kidding?” He pointed at his scar, “After all these years? The end of the Tournament? I’m even more of a social pariah now. And Nott’s father is a Death Eater, so we could never-”

“Oh, so your handsome friend is so evil and terrible because his father decided to be a bastard and follow a Dark Lord? Do you think darkness is inheritable?”

“No!” Harry flushed, “And stop calling him that! I’m just saying that it’s dangerous for him to be associated with me. It will put a target on his back. Voldemort could exploit him, or maybe his whole house would turn against him. Ron and Hermione would throw an absolute fit and probably accuse him of trying to brainwash me. And anyway, there’s no way he would want to be my friend. If he knew I was Kingfisher, he’d hate me.” Harry’s voice nearly dropped out on the last sentence, but of course, John heard him.

The cat fixed him with an unimpressed glare. “That snake of yours has sent you eight postcards, one book on blood wards, which is dark magic, by the way, and replies to all your letters within two days. I think he very much likes you”

“He’ll probably think it was all some kind of trick,” Harry said sadly, ignoring John. “Like I’m trying to spy on him.” He tapped the book against his forehead and struggled against the utter horseshit unfairness of it all. “I almost wish we hadn’t met,” he groaned. “Then I wouldn’t have to deal with this on top of everything else. It’s so much worse knowing there’s something out there I can’t ever have…”

John groaned and covered his ears with his paws, “Can you please stop being a whiny teenager and just trust me when I say it will be fine? If you want to be his friend or start a little book club or run your fingers through his hair, nut up and ask him out.”

“I do not fancy him!” Harry yelped. “It’s just - I want to-“ his face was burning. “Fuck! I give up. It’s not even worth talking about! It’s never going to happen. I’ll write him until the end of the summer and that’s it. I can’t keep up this charade during the school year, it makes me feel like an asshole.”

John peered at him with one eye and snorted softly. “Maybe you should talk to a human about this,” he suggested, “like your godfather.”

“Oh god,” Harry cast a hovering lumos charm and opened his book again. “No way. Sirius will lose his mind if he finds out.”

“So little faith in the man.”

“Sirius is just really paranoid,” Harry said dismissively. “He wants to keep me safe. And he’ll never trust the son of a Death Eater.”

“Being a human is so complicated,” John complained, “you know what solves my problems? Doing what I want when I want, and taking a nap. Damn the consequences. Why don’t you try that for once?”

Harry scratched behind John’s ears and smiled as the cat slowly grumbled himself to sleep. But he found that he was too restless to focus on the book, so instead, Harry spent the dusk hour drinking in the vision of Roebuck Falls as the day bled into night.

Over the last ten days or so, Harry and John spent every afternoon and some nights at Roebuck Falls. He discovered on his second day that there was a whole basement underneath the house nearly twice the size of the ground floor. One half of it was a dueling arena, and the other half was a potions lab. They were the only two rooms in the house that looked untouched - the potions lab still had bottles of hair oil experiments in the pantry. Harry often read down there, taking advantage of the tables in the lab to lay out his borrowed books and take notes. Most study sessions ended, perhaps too soon, with a long bout against the dummies in the arena.

It felt amazing to practice magic freely, and he could feel his body getting stronger every day. Harry felt better than he did even when he was at Hogwarts. The stress was still there, of course, but it felt worlds away when he was safely underneath a roof of his own.

I might actually get homesick this year, he thought, smiling a little.

He sat like that for a long while, until it was nearing eleven o’clock. Harry gently petted John awake and readied himself for the trip back to the Dursleys. The last trip I'll ever make.

“Ready, kid?”

Harry shrank his backpack down and pocketed it. “Ready!”

A moment later, Harry stumbled into a thin pine tree with an armful of John. The air was colder in Surrey and stank of gasoline and the faint hint of backyard fires. “That’s new,” he said, looking down at that cat. “Don’t you usually go through me?”

“It smelled wet,” John said unhappily, “I thought it was raining, but I guess it was just the fog.”

Indeed, fog settled thickly over the neighborhood. The street lamps cut ineffective cones of eerie yellow light through the dark. Dark gray clouds hung low in the sky, threatening rain. Harry felt the hairs raise on the back of his neck raise when he realized he couldn’t see more than two houses down the street. You can do magic, he reminded himself. You’re safe.

He was far outside the wards, though. And Sirius would be coming soon. He and John exchanged a look.

“Can you go see if the drunk one is still on guard?” he whispered. “See if he noticed I’m gone?”

“Got it,” John’s form flickered and disappeared.

Harry set a brisk pace across the playground, eager to get back to Privet Drive. He wasn’t even half-way across when laughter echoed through the dark, and long shadows started to break up the streetlight. Harry just managed to stumble out of the woodchips when voices rang out.

“Hey - freak!”

Fuck me. Harry turned around to face Dudley head-on. He was traveling with Piers Polkiss, no surprise there. Harry glanced across the street where he could barely make out Piers’ house.

“We’ve been looking for you,” Dudley’s grin was nastier in the dark. “Dad wanted me to check up and see if you were really at the library all day. What do you think he’s going to do when he realizes you were sneaking off?”

“Why even ask, Big D?” Piers sneered, “He always runs. Runs and cries, that’s all he knows how to do.”

“Is that why you keep dreaming about your little boyfriend?” Dudley pulled at his shirt and threw his head up to the sky, “Not Cedric, please!” he begged, thrashing his head back and forth, “Please don’t hurt him! Please, please! Admit it, Potter, you’re useless, that’s why no one wants you around.”

“You’re crazy too, ain’t you freak?” Piers sneered, “That’s why they have to send you to some school for - eh! Don’t fucking ignore me!”

Harry was already half-way down the street, his shoulders ram-rod straight. Don't do it Potter, he thought fiercely, struggling against the urge to throw curses behind him. He could hear Dudley shouting after him, but Harry ground his teeth together and picked up the pace, heading for the shortcut through Magnolia Crescent. He didn’t expect Dudley to do more than throw rocks at him from behind, so he was a little surprised to hear thundering feet running after him. He ducked to the side right before Dudley could body slam him.

“You little prick!” Dudley panted, shoving at him ineffectively. “You’re so going to get it at home. Wouldn’t you say you deserve it? You’re always crying about how you killed your little boyfriend.”

Harry glared at him. Dudley balked a little and stepped away nervously. “Don’t look at me like that!” he whined, “I know you can’t do that freaky stuff outside of school.” When Harry didn’t respond, Dudley punched him in the arm and seemed disappointed when he didn’t even flinch. “Do you think you’re taking the high road ignoring me?!”

“Easy to take the high road over you Big D,” Harry quipped, “I’ve seen you take a break half-way up the stairs.”

“You-“ he ducked another fist and pulled ahead, easily out-pacing his cousin. The fog was getting thicker and he shivered, wishing he had his warm cloak. Dudley suddenly rushed past him, yelling, “I’ll tell dad you tried to hurt me with the you-know-what!” and then he was gone.

“Don’t do it Harry,” he muttered. “Don’t turn his legs to jelly and let him crawl back home. That would be a dark thing to do. Just imagine what The Prophet would say. In a few hours you’ll be gone and you never have to come back.”

Unless Dumbledore catches us, he thought. Is he really going to think the worst in me just because I want to be with my godfather? My friends already think I’m reckless and stupid. If they ever realize that I’ve been reading books about blood wards and spending all my time with a cat sìth, they’ll think I’ve gone off the deep end. They’ll probably tell everyone I’m tainted, and then Dumbledore will find me and lock me away at Privet Drive forever where I can’t hurt anyone. If he can’t trust me, there must be something wrong with me. It was my fault Cedric died, my parents only died because Voldemort wanted me, and - he bumped into a lamp post and gasped when the ice-cold metal stuck to his skin. The sting of it shocked him from his reverie.

“What’s going on?” he muttered. The fog was at its thickest, and a blanket of icy cold wrapped over him as if he just took a dive in the Black Lake.

“Please,” someone moaned in the distance, “please…help me…what is this? …Mum? Daddy - please help me!”

“Dudley?” his heart fluttered in his chest. He was just in front of the short walking tunnel that crossed under the road. The light on the other side was burnt out, blanketing the whole tunnel in darkness. Harry drew his wand and lit it, keeping it by his hip to pass as a torch. It hardly made a dent inside the tunnel. “Dudley!” he barked, “Are you okay?”

His breath clouded and froze in the air. His head ached, and the restless thoughts running through his head seemed so loud.

Dudley and his gang beat me up in this tunnel once, he remembered. Before Hogwarts, when he was eight or nine. They trapped him inside and forced him to run from one end to the other, only to be shoved and punched and kicked at until all he could do was turn tail and run the other way where he met the same fate at the other end. He remembered collapsing to the side of the tunnel, hiding his face while he wept on the ground, too tired to move. He remembered how they stood around and laughed at him while he cried. It was one of the worst things his cousin had ever done.

“No…” someone whispered in the dark. He shuddered and shook his head.

“Dudley! If you can hear me say something!”

“Not…Harry…”

His blood turned to ice. A loose, rattling wheeze echoed off the bricks, sending a bolt of terror down his spine. “Dudley?” he whispered as he shuffled forward. “Are you…?”

His light caught the frayed edge of the dementor’s cloak first. It sighed and slid closer, reaching out one long arm as if to cup his face. Pain split his head in two. His mother was crying. Voldemort was laughing. The graveyard - the graveyard was just there, beyond his line of vision. Cedric’s body was ice cold to the touch. The light from his wand went out.

Roebuck Falls, he thought frantically trying to fight through the noise in his head, Roebuck Falls is real. Sirius is coming to get me. Sirius loves me. Sirius wants me.

He brandished his wand. “Expecto patronum,” he said shakily, and a thin white mist drifted in front of him. The dementor flinched back, snatching its hand from the light.

Ron and Hermione are waiting for me, he thought more firmly. They… His shield disappeared, plunging them in darkness again. Further ahead, Dudley shrieked.

The vault, he thought with gritted teeth, my parent’s letters. My family wands. Portraits and journals and records of my House. I’m not going to die here. I’m going to see the world. I'm going to go to all the places from the postcards in my journal. I’m going to be free-

“Expecto patronum!”

The stag burst from his wand, so brilliantly white it blinded him. It caught the dementor full in the chest with its antlers, whipping it down the tunnel and thrusting it into the sky. Up ahead, Harry saw another dementor leaned over the shape of his cousin on the ground. “This way!” he shouted. The stag cantered past him and let out a trumpeting bugle. Harry stared as it went, shocked that it made a noise. Just like the guardian, he thought in awe.

His patronus kicked at the dementor and chased it, screaming, out of the tunnel. Harry shuddered one last time as the sick grief and fear faded away, leaving him wrung out and exhausted. He forced himself to move fast, grabbing his cousin by the shoulders and giving him a strong shake. “Dudley! Wake up! It’s not safe here, Dudley! We have to move!”

His cousin groaned and rolled his head to one side, weakly choking on his own tongue. His pulse was strong, but his lips were gray and stiff, his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. Harry shook him again, “You still have your soul, right?”

The sparkling light returned. His patronus leaned down to inspect the two of them, and just by its presence, Harry felt warmer. Dudley’s glassy eyes widened at the sight of the spectral deer. Harry saw that its antlers were spiked just like the guardian’s was, and it seemed larger than the last time he cast it.

“Thank you,” Harry said to it as it started to fade.

“G-g-ghost,” Dudley wheezed, grasping Harry’s hand weakly. “Where…where did it go?”

“My word!” Someone shouted. Harry flinched and raised his wand. The patronus snorted and turned with him, facing down the diminutive figure of Mrs. Figg who was pulling her little cart full of cat food cans behind her. “Is that a patronus?” As she came closer, Harry could see that she was wearing a black, ankle-length robe that could pass for a bathrobe if you didn’t know what you were seeing. “And was that a dementor I just saw flying over Little Whinging?”

“Er…there were two, actually,” he said dumbly. “You’re a witch?”

“No, no!” she leaned down and smartly slapped Dudley’s cheeks, “I’m a squib. Get up now, lad - they might come back! If the dementors are here, then He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named must be controlling them. There could be more! We’ve got to get you inside Number 4 right away!”

Harry’s patronus popped out of existance, leaving them in near-perfect blackness again. Harry blinked at Mrs. Figg’s profile, struggling with the knowledge that she’d been part of the magical world this whole time and no one had ever told him.

“Have you been spying on me my whole life?” he said, dropping all pretense of trying to help Dudley stand. Mrs. Figg turned in surprise. “I’ve known you my whole life. I stayed at your house - you never told me anything!”

“Dumbledore didn’t want you to know,” the old woman said simply. As if that explains it! His temper surged to the surface. “Help me, dearie, we have to get you two home!”

“For what?” he spat, “Last I checked, dementors could open doors.”

“But the wards,” she hissed. “Up, get up you great oaf,” she needled Dudley’s side until he got to his knees. “The wards will keep you safe. I’ll fire-call Dumbledore as soon as I get to my living room, he’ll know what to do. They’ll be sending you a letter about underage magic, but he’ll be able to clear that up. Nothing the Supreme Mugwump can’t do. That’s it, Dudley, there you are - walk it off.”

Harry watched Dudley stagger behind Mrs. Figg for a moment, still processing that this woman had a floo in her house, when suddenly her words crashed down over him.

“Fucking hell,” he cursed, sprinting past them. “I’ll go on ahead, Mrs. Figg!” he called over his shoulder, “It won’t be safe if I stick with you!”

She yelled after him, but Harry didn’t hear her. He ran as fast as he could over the sidewalk, desperate to get to the house long before she could drop Dudley off, before she could make that call to Dumbledore…

Harry knew that no letter was coming. But Sirius was.

He put on a burst of speed when he turned the corner to Privet Drive and nearly crashed into John.

“Quick!” he panted, not slowing down, “Let’s go!”

Heedless of being seen, Harry threw himself into the house and jumped the stairs three at a time until he was in his room.

“What’s wrong?” John yelped, skidding to a halt.

“Dementors,” he said raggedly. “I - have - to - tell - Sirius -“ he took a few more controlled breaths and closed his eyes, summoning those happy memories again.

Sirius offering to let me live with him. John taking me to Diagon Alley. Seeing Hogwarts for the first time.

“Expecto patronum.” The stag was even bigger in his tiny bedroom. John slid around the edge of the room until he was on top of the desk, his fur washed white from the glow. Harry closed his eyes and tried to remember how to send a message through a patronus. It was something he’d never practiced with Lupin, but he remembered reading about it.

“Take a message to Sirius Black,” he commanded, pointing his wand at the stag’s mouth. It bowed its head slightly. “Sirius, dementors just attacked me at Privet Drive. Dumbledore will be here in less than ten minutes. I know he doesn’t want me to go with you. Meet me immediately, at the place where you first saw me, where I caught the Knight Bus. I’ll be under the cloak.” He cut his wand away and the patronus turned to the wall. With a low bellow it jumped and disappeared.

“Dementors?” John repeated.

“And Mrs. Figg is a squib!” he snarled, “I’m done with this place. I’ve been living with a spy in my neighborhood my whole life. Can’t even screen my own mail.” He resized his backpack and started filling it with the pre-shrunk, precious few items he wanted to take with him: Hedwig’s cage, his trunk, his broom. Hedwig was at Roebuck Falls, enjoying her new hunting grounds and waiting for him to come back.

“BOY!” Uncle Vernon roared from the bottom of the steps, “GET DOWN HERE! YOU CAN’T SLAM DOORS IN THIS HOUSE LIKE YOU OWN THE PLACE!”

“What about the mail ward?” John asked, ignoring the shouting. “Do you want me to destroy it?”

Harry sighed and looked at the bassinet in the corner of his room. It tortured him day in and day out. Dumbledore would know if he broke it, which meant he would know that Harry would know how to break it.

“Fuck that,” Harry threw his hands up, “I’ll put it back in the attic. We’ll come back for it another time.” He shouldered his bag, levitated the bassinet, and threw open his bedroom door to come face-to-face with his red-faced Uncle.

The man’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the glowing, floating baby basket. “What do you think you’re doing, boy?” he stumbled back, hands up as if Harry was going to fling it at him. “You can’t do that out here!"

“Actually, I can,” Harry said with a nasty sneer, “And I’ll be leaving this here. If you try to touch it, it’ll burn down your whole fucking house.”

Uncle Vernon’s face went milky white and for a second, Harry thought he might faint. From downstairs, the front door opened and a huge crash shook the house. Harry glanced down the staircase and saw his cousin face-first in the carpet with Mrs. Figg panting over him.

“Hullo!” she cried, “Your son needs a little lie down!”

“Dudley!” Aunt Petunia cried, running from the kitchen and collapsing over her son. “Dudley - Dudley! VERNON!”

His Uncle shoved past him and thundered down the stairs. Harry took his chance to undo the latch to the attic and tuck the bassinet away. He half-listened to the commotion downstairs and wondered if he could sneak out the back door.

“The drunk is on duty,” John said at his feet, “my guess is, he’ll have backup momentarily.”

Harry cursed and shoved the attic door back in place. “Just my luck we had to run into some-“

“DEMENTORS?” His Aunt screeched from downstairs.

“I’m going to jump out the window I think,” Harry said, going for his room.

“Don’t you dare!” Aunt Petunia’s command was so chilling, Harry froze. At the bottom of the stairs, he saw Mrs. Figg making an ungraceful exit, her gray hair in disarray. Dudley was draped half-over his father’s shoulders and making a slow march to the living room. Aunt Petunia’s face was alive with hate, her cheeks bright red under her eyes. “You tell me what happened to my son!” She demanded. 

Harry felt a twinge of guilt. John pawed at his calf. “They don’t deserve it, Harry,” he whispered.

“Just stick to the plan,” Harry whispered back, and started descending the stairs. Realistically, Harry thought he had maybe ten minutes before someone else tried to get inside the house. Probably not Dumbledore, but maybe Mr. Weasley or Kingsley Shacklebolt. Surely they wouldn’t leave him alone in the house after he was attacked by dementors. But the response wouldn't be immediate. Plus, he had his invisibility cloak. He could sneak out a hundred ways from Privet Drive. 

Aunt Pentunia was shaking. She put herself between him and the living room, as if to protect Dudley from him. Harry ducked his head and kept close to the front door.

“What happened?” she hissed, baring her teeth at him, “Why was Dudley attacked by those things?”

“How do you know what dementors are?” Harry shot back before he could stop himself. “I thought you didn’t-“

“Lily talked about them,” his Aunt look pained to say her name. “Lily always told me about your world. But those things aren’t supposed to come here. We’re supposed to be safe.”

“I don’t know why they were here,” Harry said tiredly, leaning away from her. “I was just walking home from the playground. Dudley went on ahead of me and we were both attacked. They shouldn’t be here, but now that Voldemort’s back, all bets are off. They were on his side before.”

His Aunt’s face grew paler as he spoke. And then Dudley’s weak voice carried out.

“He used…that thing…his wand….on me…”

“He WHAT?” Uncle Vernon shouted.

“I saved his LIFE!” Harry shouted back, “I chased the dementors away. If it wasn’t for me, Dudley wouldn’t have a soul right now!”

“You little creep!” Uncle Vernon got up from where he was kneeling by the couch and stalked toward them. “I knew we should have abandoned you at some orphanage all those years ago! Dudley has been at risk since day one of you being in our house! All that nonsense they fed us about you making us safe, well clearly-“

“Safe,” his Aunt muttered, holding her hand up by her mouth. “You were supposed to make it safe for us. The protection…Lily’s protection-“

“Yeah, I don’t know the first thing about that,” Harry cut her off rudely, feeling a surge of impatience. “Dumbledore says the same thing to me, but I’ve never been safe here, and I’ve never called this place home. So maybe the blood ward just doesn’t work.”

His Aunt’s eyes narrowed. “What Lily did works,” she spat with surprising vehemence, “those masked wizards came for us after my parents died and they couldn’t find us even though we were right in front of them. Lily said her protection would last forever, but then she went and got herself killed and that horrible man brought you to me!” Aunt Petunia raking her fingernails down her throat. Tears were welling in her eyes. “He said because I don’t have a shred of magic in me that her protection would fade away, but we were still in danger. If I welcomed you into our home, kept you as part of my family, you would keep her protection alive! But ever since you went to that awful place, every year someone gets hurt!”

Harry swallowed compulsively and choked. His mouth was completely dry. Uncle Vernon stood back from his wife, and for once he looked scared and uncertain. Guilt washed over him. It is my fault, he thought, looking between them. They never asked for this.

“You do have magic,” he said lamely. Aunt Petunia choked and stepped back. “Just a little,” he amended. “You’re probably a squib, like Mrs. Figg. But I’m telling you, I don’t know anything about the blood ward.” His mind raced, piecing together what he knew of the art of blood wards with what she had said. “She probably…tied it to your soul. Did she use your blood, or hers?”

For a second, he didn’t think his Aunt would answer him. But, very hesitantly, she gestured to herself. “It was mine,” she breathed.

He nodded jerkily. “Well, that’s it then. You don’t need me to keep it alive. Dumbledore-“ foreboding washed over him and Harry felt his knees go weak. The words caught in his throat.

But then he made eye contact with his Aunt. She looked so lost. Afraid. She deserves to know the truth, he thought.

“Dumbledore lied to you, or he misunderstood,” he said dryly. “Your blood keeps the ward alive for as long as you’re alive. I’m protected because you let me through this door. Not because I’m a wizard. Not because I’m her son. You're the one who keeps me safe.”

She blinked. Harry felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle, and then an owl screeched just outside the front door. He opened it and caught a small scroll as the owl flew by the door.

Stay where you are, Harry! Dumbledore’s off to the ministry to handle this. Trust him. Stay safe and stay indoors!

Arthur W.

He incinerated the letter and let the ash fall on the carpet. When he looked back up, his Aunt was pointing at him, her long, painted fingernails gleaming like blood-soaked claws. “Get out,” she hissed. “I never wanted you here. If not for you, my sister would still be alive! She may have hated me sometimes, but she was all I had left!” Her voice rose, filling the house with the sound fourteen years of pain and grief and hate. “Every day you reminded me of how easily you people could come and kill us, torture us, just because of you! I don’t want my family to be wiped out, I want to live my life! I want Dudley to grow up in a world where he’s safe and loved just for who he is!” She was sobbing now. Her whole body jerked when she gasped for air. Tears soaked the hair hanging down from her face, mingling with her makeup to leave long rivulets of black down her cheeks.

“You’re never welcome in this house again!” she screamed, “I don’t have a nephew. I live here with my husband and my son and no one else!”

Harry’s ears popped. Pressure exploded from his Aunt and rushed through the house, almost pushing him out the open door. It rattled all the windows and slammed doors against the wall. Uncle Vernon shouted and covered his face, Dudley moaned from the couch.

Harry stared at his Aunt, but she was blurry. Then the wind outside licked his face, and he realized that he was crying too.

He gripped his wand and turned away, facing the dark. When he closed the door behind him, he heard his Aunt start to cry in earnest. Harry pulled the invisibility cloak out from his pocket, swept it over his head, and began to walk back to the playground.

Sirius will be there, he chanted in his head, focusing only on the feeling of his shoes striking the sidewalk as he power-walked back through Magnolia Crescent. The tunnel was warm now, full of humid summer air. Sirius will be waiting for me. We’re going to leave together. He’ll be able to keep me safe, and I can keep him safe. I have somewhere to go. I have a family.

He walked blindly. The streets of Surrey were as familiar to him as the corridors of Hogwarts. He could avoid the janky sidewalk the same way he jumped vanishing steps. He crossed the street in front of house with a dog chained outside, forgetting that it couldn’t see him. When the playground came into view, he ducked his head and started to run.

He’ll be here, he’ll be here, he’ll be here, he has to be, he won’t leave me, he won’t take it back.

Harry stopped at the swing set and looked around. It was still cloudy and he couldn’t see into the trees very well, but Harry knew better than to call out his godfather’s name. He turned and turned, searching the dark for a pair of gleaming eyes, or the shape of a man against a tree, but he couldn’t see anyone or anything.

Harry sat hard in the middle swing, still under the cloak. The chains creaked quietly.

Now that he wasn’t moving, what just happened hit him like a bus. Harry buried his face in his hands and bit his lip until he tasted copper. What is wrong with me? I should be happy. I never wanted to be there. I never wanted them to love me.

“Pup?”

He jerked up. Sirius stood in front of him, dressed like a muggle. His eyes were fixed just above where Harry was, but clearly he’d seen the swing move. “I got your message,” he murmured, holding out his hand. “Are you - oof.”

Harry threw himself around Sirius’s middle, clinging to him. Sirius pulled the cloak over his head so he could see him, but it was pinned between them. Cool hands cupped the sides of his face. “It’s okay, pup,” he said, “it’s okay.”

“Let’s go,” Harry gasped, not loosening his grip. “Please. Take me away from here.”

Sirius’s arms went back around him, holding him close. “Okay. Hold on.”

He turned in place and with a loud crack, they were gone.

Notes:

I won't lie, part of my "writing time" this week was consumed by My Hero fanfiction, which I recently stumbled into despite being a fan for several years. So I blame the amazing writers in that fandom for missing my self-imposed deadline for a few days...

Chapter 9: You are a Gift

Summary:

Sirius hides Harry from the world, while the Order scrambles to find him.

Notes:

A loooong chapter that hopefully makes up for how late this chapter is. I was on vacation for the last ten days, so I had almost no time to write. I really agonized over the first bit of this chapter, re-writing it a few times until it finally read right. I'm an angst queen, what can I saw, so it's hard for me to reel it in sometimes. I hope you enjoy it!

Also, I realized about four days after I posted the last chapter that canonically squibs can't SEE dementors, but...well...how does that make sense? By that logic I'd think they can't see any magical creatures or ghosts, but then how does Filch work? So I'm just erasing that bit of canon, seeing as I'm exploring squibs and magic anyway. A happy little accident.

Harry

Harry was mid-breath the second his body contorted through space. When his feet hit the ground it drove the oxygen from his lungs, leaving him lightheaded and unbalanced. His stomach clenched and he pushed away from Sirius, hobbling unsteadily to the nearest solid object. Harry pressed his cheek against cold stone and waited for the world to stop spinning.

“Uh, Sirius?” He said after a moment, blinking around the clearing.

“Yeah, pup?” The moon was close to full overhead, bathing Sirius top-down in eerie white light. It was cold - absolutely freezing cold. They were standing in a circle of tall stones. A thick forest grew outside the circle, and long knobby branches leaned in through the rocks, draping curtains of moss between them. The center of the circle was paved with broken cobblestones, and in the very center there was a squat, crumbling well.

Harry shivered, “Where are we?”

This was the kind of place he imagined dementors were born. He drew his wand nervously, keeping his other hand pressed over his stomach. There was a war of emotion inside of him, but the one thing fighting above all the rest was the urge to -

He reeled and vomited in the grass. A slight breeze picked up, pushing his hair so it was hanging in front of his face.

“You’re okay,” Sirius murmured, coming up and rubbing his back. “Your mother was the same way. She threw up every time she apparated for almost six months.”

“Great,” he gasped, spitting. “Something to look forward to.”

After taking a few clarifying breaths, he realized that his panic was ebbing away. Harry tried to hang on to his physical discomfort. If he could just keep that slight upset, that little bit of distracting dizziness in the front of his mind, then he could forget about what just happened. That Aunt Petunia had just -

“Here,” Sirius pulled half a chocolate bar from his jacket pocket and stuffed it in his hand. “I'm always carrying chocolate these days," Sirius smiled blithely, setting Harry more at ease. 

“Where are we?” Harry asked, tearing the wrapper off as fast as possible. “The arctic circle? It’s summer.”

Sirius chuckled, “We’re in Scotland. In a place…not unlike the Forbidden Forest.” Harry nodded and shivered again as the moonlight faded away. Inky black clouds obscured most of the sky, draping them in darkness. Suddenly, a heavy, warm jacket dropped over his shoulders.

“Won’t you be cold?” Sirius was just wearing a thin t-shirt that said The Clash in faded black print.

“You need it more than I do,” the man replied firmly. He drew his wand and cast a warming charm over himself, “There. I’ll be fine.” He pulled on Harry’s arm, but the feeling was odd, as if he was just using one finger. Harry looked down in confusion. “Now, come over-“

“Your hand!” Harry cried, fumbling to grab it, “Merlin, what happened?”

Sirius grimaced and made an abortive attempt to hide his left hand behind his back. “It’s alright pup, looks bad but it’s all healed up now…”

Harry stared at him in disbelief until Sirius reluctantly pulled his hand back into view. His left hand was missing two fingers, the pinky and half of the ring. Harry felt the thick white scarring with his fingertips, following it all the way down to his wrist. Even a chunk of his palm was missing. “It’s like something bit your hand off,” Harry said dumbly.

Sirius remained quiet. Harry snapped his head up, “Holy fuck, your fingers were bitten off? By what?”

“Please Harry,” Sirius clasped their hands together, holding them tight. “I promise I’ll tell you, just not here. We don’t have much time. If we don’t move soon we might - hang on…” Sirius looked down at their hands, swiping the back of Harry’s knuckles with his thumb. “What is that?”

It was his Lord ring. Oh shit, Harry realized. This is not how I planned to tell him. Nervously, he flattened his hand out and let Sirius hold it close to his face.

Sirius froze. The ring was barely visible in the dark, but the diamond caught little fractions of light from the slivers of moon and played it across their faces. Sirius carefully tilted his hand left and right, looking at the ring from all sides. When he looked back up, he was staring at Harry with the strangest expression on his face. Hope and longing, but with a terrible curl to his mouth, like he was about to cry. His stormy grey eyes had a ring of silver in them. Like Malfoy’s eyes, Harry thought, a shiver of apprehension going down his spine. 

“No!” Sirius barked suddenly. He shook his head hard, swinging his hair around like a dog. “We don’t have time to talk about this! Not here! But,” he looked back down at the ring, “dear Merlin. This is real. This is real, right?”

Harry nodded.

“Holy gods,” Sirius closed his eyes and sucking in a slow breath and squeezing Harry’s hands tightly. “No, no. We can’t talk about this right now. We need to hide you. We need to hide you,” he repeated under his breath, like he was telling himself. He pulled Harry again by the arm, “Come here.”

Harry breathed out, feeling some of his fear melt away. He knew that Sirius had demons to fight, that it was hard for him to live in the present after everything he went through. After getting close to dementors again, Harry almost couldn’t blame him. Sirius probably clung to the only happy memories he had left to escape the taint of those creatures. But it was still unsettling to see him captured by his own mind like that, like he was locked away in a place Harry couldn’t reach him.

Because of the ring, he thought grimly. The last time he saw it, my father must have been wearing it. He turned it nervously over his fingers, mouthing the words to the crest like a prayer. Venture and know all, venture and know all.

They stopped in the center of the stone circle. Harry was starting to recognize the formation for what it was. “This is like Stonehenge, right?” He thought back to the megaliths they read about in History of Magic. They were usually the sites of treaty signings or ancient solstice celebrations. But this circle was tiny by comparison. The nearest stone wasn’t much taller than Sirius. “But it’s so small.”

“This is Sunhoney,” Sirius explained, standing beside the edge of the crumbling well. “Long ago, my family had a settlement near here. They called it Moon Haven. It was thought that a branch of the family were werewolves, so they lived in a place where they could never be found. In their time, lycanthropes were hunted by wixen and muggles alike - out of fear, of course, but also because werewolf bones are extraordinarily powerful, especially as wand cores.”

Harry stared up at his godfather, entranced. Sirius drew his wand and stirred it over the open well as if it were a cauldron, his brow furrorwed in concentration. Harry heard the sound of water rushing to the surface. After a minute, crystal clear water bubbled to the top of the well, following Sirius's wand clockwise and forming a small whirlpool.

“The legend says that you can enter Moon Haven by walking through two cairns at Sunhoney under a new moon. Anyone who entered it was gone forever, hidden from the world in a secret place. As a child, I learned the truth of this place.” Sirius nodded at the well, “This spring flows into an underground river.” His voice was hushed, and his face had a faraway expression, like he was lost in a memory. Harry had to lean in to hear him. “This river is said to connect to all the rivers in Great Britain. All the water flows together in a great circle under the island.” Sirius reached over with his free hand and tapped the breast pocket of the jacket Harry was wearing, “Take out the vial in there.”

Harry stuffed the chocolate away and hurried to comply. It was a small test tube, exactly like the vials he used to turn in potions samples to Snape. A long thin pin was inside it.

“There are a hundred ways to find a wizard,” Sirius said, continuing to stir the water with his wand. “Lorna Black created this ritual, to protect our House from witch hunts and the wars of generations past. Now I pass this ritual on to you, as my godson.” Sirius’s eyes were really glowing now, his arm moving in rhythmic circles. “Fill that vial with your blood, your hair, and your bone.”

“Bone?” Harry repeated, aghast.

Sirius’s mouth quirked, “I’ll help you. Do the blood and hair first.”

After the barest hesitation, Harry nodded. Holding the pin between his lips, he ran his fingers through his hair and pulled a long strand, carefully pushing it into the glass. Then he pierced the tip of his finger and let his blood drip inside, filling up the bottom of the vial.

“Ready?” Sirius quickly pulled his wand arm up with a flourish. The water continued to swirl. “I’m going to shave off a small piece of a tooth,” the man explained. “It won’t hurt.”

Harry nodded nervously. Words wouldn’t come to him. The moon, the cold, the fog, this eerie and ancient place…it was exactly like his dreams.

Blood of the enemy…

A wand was in his face and he flinched, hard.

“Sorry!” Sirius hissed, lowering it. “I’m sorry.”

“I-it’s okay,” he wet his lips and tensed his body to suppress another knee-jerk reaction. He met his godfather’s eyes steadily, “I’m ready.”

Sirius carefully held his chin in his mangled hand. He pointed his wand down into Harry’s open mouth. “Densradi.”

It felt like he was dragging the prongs of a fork against one of Harry’s molars. The sensation lasted for just a few seconds before Sirius pulled his wand back. A tiny filament of tooth was floating at the end of his wand.

Harry held up the vial, running his tongue over his teeth and watching as Sirius finished securing the small test tube. Harry’s hair, blood, and white sliver of bone looked so inconsequential, barely filling the space. But at the same time, he thought about just how powerful even one drop of blood was to a potion. How they practiced using their hairs to transfigure guinea pigs into wigs that looked like their own head of hair. And bone…

Bone of the father…

Bone. The most powerful of all.

“When my mother did this for me, she took one of my baby teeth,” Sirius murmured. He was frowning as he cast imperturbable charms over the vial. “I was only six. At the time, lots of pureblood families were afraid of first-born heirs being stolen by other families and passed off as their own. She brought me here so no one could ever dowse my location and steal me away.” Sirius shook his head, “I never thought I’d thank that hag for anything, but it’s kept me safe from the Ministry this whole time.”

“Oh!” Understanding crashed over him, “This is how you’ve been on the run for so long without getting caught? It’s not just because you’re an animagus?”

Sirius nodded and began to stir the well again, handing the vial back to Harry. “To dowse someone’s location, all you need is hair, or a very strong will. But there are tracking potions you can make with a bit of blood, and with bone-“ Sirius shook his head, “take your pick of spells. You could be found in five minutes. You could be summoned against your will into a wizard’s trap. Unplottable locations can help hide you, but there are ways around even that. Some wixen can create maps that mark your location at all times. That way, if you ever stepped outside a safe house, you’d give yourself and your location away.” Sirius glanced at him, “Most of that is dark magic of the blackest degree, you understand. But that won’t stop someone with a mind to take you, Harry.”

Harry swallowed nervously. “And…by dropping this in the well, they won’t be able to find me? Ever?”

Sirius nodded, “After this, those spells will show Harry Potter on a slow jaunt over all the corners of Great Britain.” He glanced up at the sky and nodded, “Now, when I look at you, you’re going to say your full name and drop the vial in the water. Don’t touch it with your bare hands, whatever you do.”

“Alright,” Harry said, clutching the glass tightly. His hands were going numb, and he was starting to get a bit paranoid that they could be found at any moment. Without John, he was adrift, fully dependent on Sirius to spirit him to safety. He couldn’t apparate, and he had no clue where in Scotland they were, not that it would help him much. Please work, please work, please work.

Sirius stared down into the water, utterly focused.

It’s like he’s a different person, Harry realized. Where was the bedraggled, half-mad man who lived in a cave? The man who preferred to be on four paws instead of two feet? The man who was constantly grinning and raving about the past, flinging stories of the Mauraders at him as if he was reliving his school days every second that he was awake?

This man was clean and solid, and he seemed to have some kind of plan. Harry studied Sirius’s left hand, wondering what had happened to his godfather this summer that changed him so suddenly.

Sirius took a deep breath. "Blood of my ancestors, recognize me."

The water flashed white, illuminating the entire circle. Harry felt the crash of magic against him, expanding over every inch of his skin like he was pushing through a bubble. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up, little bolts of electricity skittering across his skin. 

"Waters of this island, hear my prayer."

The whirlpool sank even deeper in the wall, moving so fast it shook the bricks. 

"My blood is one of you. My blood to water returns, to this earth it feeds, to the air it breathes. Take this blood as my own, one family, one soul." 

Sirius looked at him, his silver gaze glowing as white as the water, sending a shockwave through his heart. Harry jerked the vial out over the center of the well. “Harry James Potter,” he stated clearly, staring at the bright white whirlpool, and let it drop.

The whirlpool sucked it out of sight in an instant. All the water started to drain, rushing back down into the earth and taking the light with it. Sirius stopped stirring, and the two of them stared into the dark pit until there was nothing to hear but wind in the trees.

“I don’t feel different,” Harry admitted, his voice hushed. "But, that was..."

Sirius smiled, “Watch this.” He laid his palm flat, balancing his wand. “Point me Harry James Potter.”

The wand spun lazily in a circle, and then started to tug away, pointing off behind Sirius’s shoulder. Harry pictured the river running underground, carrying his blood away from them. As they watched, the wand slowly twitched side to side, but it never turned around to focus on him.

“How does that work?” Harry marveled, waving his hand in front of the wand tip. “Does this mean nobody can ever find me if I don’t want them to?”

“It’s not completely foolproof,” Sirius shrugged, “but you’d be talking…a three month ritual to circumvent Sunhoney. And a dark one at that, one where they’d need a significant piece of you as a focus. Or, if you knew an exceptionally powerful seer, they might be able to find you. You can never tell with seers. There are also ways to willingly share your location with someone you trust - we’ll talk about that later.”

Harry felt a grin start to pull on the edges of his mouth. He couldn’t be found? This was great! He rushed forward and looped his arms around Sirius’s middle, giddy with excitement. His godfather hugged him back as tightly as he could, one hand stroking through his hair. “I’m going to take you to a safe place now, Harry,” he laughed. “Ready?”

Harry nodded, and a twist later, they were inside a room.

Harry didn’t even get a chance to look around before Sirius grabbed him by the back of the neck and led him firmly to the bathroom. The lights made his head spin. He squeezed his eyes shut, counting his breaths until the nausea passed.

“Good?” Sirius leaned across the door frame, arms crossed. “You did better this time.”

“I’ll get over it,” Harry assured him, blinking cautiously around the bathroom. “Where are we?”

His godfather rubbed his hands together, “Let me show you Chateau Black, the premiere safe house for criminals on the run.”

Harry followed Sirius from room to room and quickly realized that it was just a flat. It was large, almost as big as Privet Drive’s first and second floors put together, but it was all one floor. There were two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a sizable kitchen with a side door that led to small potions lab. The living room was the only well-furnished bit of the flat, packed with a cozy, L-shaped sofa, squashy red armchair (just like in Gryffindor Tower, Sirius bragged with a wink), wall-to-ceiling bookshelves, coffee table, and a large record player with boxes of vinyl underneath.

Sirius’s room was at the back of the flat, with two giant windows that could service as an escape route if need be.

“Your windows don’t open, pup,” he said apologetically as Harry poked around Sirius’s stark bedroom. “They face the hallway, but they're charmed to bring in natural sunlight."

“Where exactly are we?”

“In an apartment building in Manchester,” Sirius ushered him back to the kitchen where he waved the lights on and started looking through cabinets. “In a storage closet, to the muggles. How about some hot chocolate? You look as pale as the moon.”

Harry sat on one of the barstools and almost collapsed with relief. His feet ached from the impromptu sprint through Surrey, and his body was tingling with exhaustion. He tucked his hands in Sirius’s jacket for warmth, secretly enjoying that the man hadn’t asked for it back.

“Is this where you’ve been all summer?” he asked.

Sirius poured steaming milk into two mugs, setting the spoons to stir on their own. He shook his head, “No. No where as comfortable as this.” Harry stared at his godfather’s mangled hand, his mind going to dark places.

“Where’s your house elf?” Harry asked, trying to change the subject. “He’s a bit odd. He didn't seem to like you.”

Sirius bared his teeth, “That’s putting it kindly…he’s taking care of another property of mine. One of the perks to being Lord Black,” he raised his other hand and let Harry look at the heavy ring there. It was wider than Harry’s, and set with a jagged black stone. Harry blinked down at it, trying to make out the symbols when a yawn forced itself up his throat. 

He rubbed his face. “How could you claim your Lordship as an outlaw?” Harry asked sleepily. “Wouldn’t they -" another yawn, “lock your account?”

Sirius pushed Harry’s hot chocolate under his face, smiling, “Pup, you are dead on your feet. Let’s save my story for tomorrow.”

Harry sighed and gave in, taking a sip from his steaming mug. The chocolate flooded his body with warmth, bringing sensation back to all his fingers and toes. Harry closed his eyes and almost nodded off right there.

Then Sirius said, “We need to talk about what happened tonight before you go to sleep.”

A jolt of panic flipped over in his stomach. Harry held the mug up to his face, watching his godfather carefully. “Where did the dementor attack you?” Sirius asked, “Did anyone else get hurt? Did any muggles see?"

In a flash, his Aunt’s furious face was in front of him again. Ever since you went to that awful place, every year someone gets hurt! Harry hunched his shoulders and looked away from Sirius. He didn’t want to talk about tonight. He didn’t want to admit what happened.

Don’t be a child, he told himself harshly, gripping the mug hard. He has to know. Sirius is helping you. 

“I was going back to the house,” he began, staring at his hot chocolate. “My cousin - Dudley - he was walking home with me. We got into an argument, and he ran ahead. It was cold outside, foggy.” He shivered, remembering the way dark thoughts seeped into his mind like the cold to his skin. “I started to feel…the effects of the dementors. But it didn’t occur to me that it could be them. In Little Whinging? My muggle town?" He shook his head. 

“I finally snapped out of it when I heard my - my mum screaming. It's what I always hear when they’re around. I saw a dementor right in front of me and cast my patronus. It chased off two of them - one was coming for me, and the other went for my cousin. He almost got kissed. And then - Mrs. Figg showed up.” He quickly looked up at Sirius, “Did you know Arabella Figg? I mean - was she connected to my parents somehow?”

Sirius frowned, “Of course, pup. She’s a squib, but she was part of the resistance group that your parents and I were part of. She helped move muggleborn families into our underground network to keep them safe.”

A flare of anger curled up from his belly. “So, you knew she was spying on me this whole time.” Harry grit his teeth, “You never thought to tell me?”

Sirius just stared at him. “You didn’t know she was a -”

“No!” Harry snapped, glaring back, “All summer I’ve been watched by these people I don’t even know who only seem to care if I’m breathing, not if I’m okay - and as if that wasn’t bad enough to tolerate for one summer, I just found out that my old babysitter has been doing the exact same thing my whole life?!”

Harry was shouting by the end of it. “How would you feel?” he cried, not quite able to look his godfather in the eye. “Mrs. Figg knew how they were. She saw everything. I thought she was just some old lady with no - no - power over anything! But it turns out she knew more about me and my life than I ever did!”

He took a couple steadying breaths, barely enduring the awkward silence left in his wake. Suddenly the room felt too small. His neck was hot with embarrassment, and he could feel Sirius’s eyes boring into him. He gritted his teeth and forced the last of it out.

“Mrs. Figg saw what happened and told me she was going to alert Dumbledore right away, so I ran back to Privet Drive and sent you that message. I knew that I wouldn’t get a notice for underage magic because of this,” he pointed at his ring, “but I was worried they might take me away before you could come get me.”

Bet he regrets that now, he thought darkly. His anger quickly simmered out, leaving Harry sick with guilt. “I’m sorry for shouting,” he said miserably, looking at his feet. “I’m not - I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at the Headmaster for keeping so many secrets from me. For keeping me under watch. I feel like I’ve been in jail-“

Sirius laughed darkly, “Don’t worry, Harry. I think I know how you feel.”

Slowly, Harry sat back down on the barstool and drank more hot chocolate. It didn't make him feel better.

Sirius’s hand reached across the counter and took his wrist. “Harry - look at me.” He forced his eyes up. Sirius squeezed his wrist, “I just want you to be happy - and nothing you do or say to me will change that. Not even if you bite my head off, not even if you decide you don’t want to be with me and you would rather go back to your muggle relatives, or with Dumbledore and your friends. Okay?”

Heat prickled behind his eyes and Harry had to look away, nodding to show he understood. Sirius stayed close to him for a moment, like he might say something else, but he seemed to think better of it and pulled away.

“Not to defend Albus,” he continued dryly, “but the reason he had Arabella watching you throughout your life was because he wasn’t sure if the blood wards really worked. She was supposed to be a canary in case something went wrong. When Lily cast that ward it was just after her parents died in a Death Eater attacl. She never explained exactly how she did it, although I assumed she used something that would have been considered black magic at the time,” Sirius side-eyed him. “All we know is that it works by hiding those within it from mortal danger, preventing her sister's home from being perceived by an enemy. Albus told me that he was afraid if someone approached the house with the intent to bring you someplace they believed with safe…say, someone under the imperius, they might be able to circumvent the ward’s basic function. There’s not a good way to test his theory, so,” he shrugged, “having Arabella move in to the neighborhood was his solution.”

Harry felt like he was made of stone. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could imagine John’s acidic reaction. So there was nothing stopping him from putting you with a magical family who actually wanted you when almost any good property ward could do the exact same thing as this "miracle blood ward". Was he testing a theory with your muggles because they’re just fodder? If the wards failed, or someone managed to circumvent them, were they expendable to the great Albus Dumbledore? All of it was just a gamble to see if Harry Potter, destined defeater of the Dark Lord, could be hidden from those who wished him harm until it was time to bring him into the magical world exactly how and when he wanted?

Harry twitched, a sick wave of realization crashing over him. If I was raised in a magical family, I would have known about my House. Lordship. That's why it had to be muggles. 

It was too much.

Harry stood up abruptly, nearly tripping over his chair. “Bathroom,” he muttered, scrambling to get out of the room as fast as possible without running. He moved blindly back into the first bedroom - his bedroom - and slipped into the bathroom. He snatched a fluffy black towel off the counter and pressed it to his face hard, leaning on his elbows over the sink. He wanted to scream, to draw his wand and destroy the bathroom until there was nothing left. He didn’t want Sirius to see him like this - like he was -

“Pup, are you okay?”

Aunt Petunia’s voice was echoing in his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop his chest from heaving. Let it go, Potter, he thought harshly. You don’t get to be surprised. You already knew Dumbledore was keeping things from you. You don’t get to be disappointed. John is right, Dumbledore is fighting a war. Your feelings don’t matter. Stop - losing - control.

His thoughts made logical sense in his head, but he couldn’t manage the terrible grief and rage inside of him. It was worse to know that it was true. That his Headmaster had manipulated him his entire life by placing him with the Dursleys on little better than a prayer, by spying on him. He had to know how Harry was treated the whole time, with Mrs. Figg reporting on him his whole life! And worse than that, that he continued to keep secrets once Harry was part of the magical world again. Alone. Spied on. Both at the same time.

“Hey…” cool fingers touched the back of his neck. Harry’s shoulders bunched up and he quickly put the towel down.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled, not looking in the mirror. “I just - it’s all a little - the dementors messed with my head.”

It wasn’t much of a lie, but a lie nonetheless. Guilt layered in on top of the mess of emotion in his chest. “And - also…” he let out a sharp breath through his teeth. He wanted to turn away from Sirius. This is so fucking humiliating, he thought desperately. 

“The blood ward is broken.” The words burst out of their own accord. Sirius’s grip tightened, he was trying to turn Harry’s body toward his own, but Harry pulled away, keeping his head down and to the side. “I saved Dudley from the dementors, but - they didn’t think that. Aunt P-“ fuck, I can barely say her name. He ground his teeth together and tried again. “Aunt Petunia kicked me out. She had control over the ward the whole time, it didn’t need me there to power it or whatever. She said she didn’t want me to be part of their family. She said she didn’t have a nephew, and then,” his hands went up, fluttering uselessly in the air. “I felt it. It closed off. It doesn’t protect me now. Not that it ever mattered before.”

His chest heaved as if he’d just finished a Quidditch match. He knuckled a fist into his sternum, trying to use the pain to center himself. You don’t even know what it’s like to have an Aunt, he thought harshly. She was just a woman who made you live under the stairs.

“Enough, pup.” Sirius pulled him close, squeezing his own body between Harry and the sink. Harry held his breath, trying to keep it from catching, uselessly pushing against his godfather, but then Sirius was warm all around him, rubbing his back and resting his cheek on top of Harry’s head. The sobs tore from his throat against his will.

Sirius held him close, letting Harry lean into him, half-collapsed in the bathroom. All the fear and fury of the last hour poured out, combining with the strange grief that he was so angry at himself for feeling. Harry couldn’t even say how many scars he had from his Uncle. He was still afraid of enclosed spaces and windowless rooms, of being behind a locked door, all because of the Dursleys. And yet-

“I don’t even want to be with them,” he gasped between breaths. The words were muffled, hardly intelligible, but Sirius tightened his arms all the same. “Why do I - feel this way?”

“Shh,” Sirius hushed, gently combing through his hair. “They were your family all the same.”

It took a long time for the tears to stop, for Harry to find solid ground. Sirius didn’t seem eager to move, even after his breath was steady and he could peel his face a little away from Sirius’s chest.

“I think I told you that I ran away from home when I was about your age.” Sirius’s voice was soft, and he continued carding through Harry’s hair as he spoke. Harry nodded. “My home…it was an evil place. My mother was obsessed with blood supremacy and wiping muggles out. It was full of dark magic, unchecked cursed objects - just foul examples of what wizards can do. And she was a massive drunk. Every time I went home in the summer, she seemed to get worse and worse. She hated me for being a Gryffindor, for defying her and not being the perfect Heir she felt she was owed. She pitted my little brother against me - or tried to, anyway. I hated that the most.”

He paused, and Harry could feel his is godfather’s heart beating faster. “His name was Regulus. Reggie. My brother.” Sirius let out a long, sad sigh. “That last summer, I just couldn’t fight her anymore. I made it three days at home before she was throwing nightmare potions at me - trying to punish me when I stopped her from teaching Reggie how to cast the Unforgivables on his pet cat. Fuck, that woman,” Sirius growled a little, “She had this way of looking at me where I just knew she was only torturing Reggie so I would fall in line. He even asked me before to stay away in the summers…he said she was worse to him when I was around, but I thought he was just trying to protect me.

“But that day, I finally broke. I realized that if I was gone, everything would be better. He was so good at managing her moods…and we weren’t…talking anymore. I thought, they don’t want me here. I make everything worse.”

Sirius pulled him back a little bit, tipping his head up so they could look at each other. Sirius’s eyes were clear and earnest, and so understanding. “When I arrived at your family’s front door, I was just like you. I hated my mother so much. I never wanted to go back. I knew it was the right thing to do…but still,” Sirius touched his chest, just over his heart, “it killed me inside. I didn’t think James owed me anything, I didn’t expect him to let me stay for more than a week. After all, if my own flesh and blood didn’t want me, who would?”

A fresh wave of pain rolled over him and Harry had to look away. Sirius caught his face and brushed under his eyes, forcing him to keep looking up. “Harry,” he said intently, “I’m going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Potter told me when I turned up at their house. I want you. I’m glad you’re here. Those people don’t know what a gift you are.”

Harry laughed brokenly and leaned into his godfather again, grateful that the man was letting him hide his new tears.

“Thank you Sirius,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming to get me.”

They stayed like that for a long while, until the warmth from Sirius combined with his utter exhaustion started to lull him to sleep. After some fumbling, Sirius let him wash his face and get ready for bed while he disappeared to get a glass of water from the kitchen. Harry stumbled into the bedroom, eyes tracking immediately to the bed. He didn’t even bother getting undressed, just kicked his shoes off, draped Sirius’s jacket on one of the metal bedposts, and collapsed into the cool pillows. He was asleep before Sirius tip-toed back in the room.

Sirius set the glass down on the bedside table and gently removed Harry’s glasses. Without them, he looked so much less like James. Actually, with his new glasses, he didn’t look like James hardly at all.

Sirius’s heart twisted. He could see both his friends in Harry so easily - Lily’s bones, James’s hair - but asleep like this, he just looked like a kid. A kid who needed someone on his side. Is this what Mr. and Mrs. Potter saw when I turned up at their door? He wondered.

Sirius sighed and waved off the lights. “Goodnight, Harry.”

---

Albus

“Arthur.” The Headmaster’s quiet voice cut through the chatter instantly, and though the man was all the way across the lengthy Black dining room, he turned to meet Albus’s blue eyes. “Call the students down, please. All of them.”

“Now? Should they be here for this?” Molly said, frowning. “We haven’t even been debriefed. They might-“

“Time is of the essence, Molly,” the Headmaster sighed, rubbing his spectacles with the sleeve of a long, pale yellow robe. “They may have some indication of where he is, or what his plans are.”

Arthur slipped out of the dining room, leaving behind a tense silence that slowly melted away, driven out by the anxious murmur of many voices. A number of Order members crowded the table - Kingsley Shacklebolt was muttering to Charlie Weasley, Elphias Dodge and Emmeline Vance sat on either side of Arabella Figg while she dabbed her eyes and occasionally sobbed into a handkerchief. Molly flitted about the room, wringing her hands, filling tea cups, and occasionally staring down at Albus with anxious eyes.

Albus sighed and transfigured a box of tissues out of a washcloth and levitated it down to Mrs. Figg, wishing he could do more than wait to see what news the fireplace would bring.

The sound of heavy footsteps barreling down the stairs heralded the arrival of the students. They filled the back of the dining room hesitantly. Hermione Granger studied each face, settling apprehensively on the Headmaster.

“Did something happen to Harry?” Ronald Weasley asked, his shaky voice easily carrying over the other voices. “Did he-“

The fireplace roared to life, and a second later, a thoroughly pissed off Remus Lupin stepped through.

“What happened?” he demanded, rounding on the Headmaster’s chair at once. “Where’s Sirius? What happened to Harry?”

“That’s what we’re here to figure out, Remus,” he gestured to the nearest open chair. “Please sit. You arrived just in time.”

Remus snorted and looked down the table to assess who was there. Kingsley pushed around the other chairs, coming up close to him. “You’re injured,” the auror frowned, “should I call Poppy?”

“Nothing can be done,” Remus snapped, “they’re from other wolves.”

Kingsley nodded solemnly. “The bandages, though?”

Remus looked down, noticing for the first time that there was rusty red blood showing through the bandage wrapped around his bicep.

The man groaned and collapsed in the closest chair, letting Kingsley work on changing out the bandages. The Headmaster waved the students closer, indicating for them to take a seat where they could. Only the twins remained standing, their expressions tense and unreadable.

“Harry has disappeared,” Albus began, and once again silence settled over the room. “We have evidence that Sirius met Harry just outside of his house and apparated away, but we don’t know where they went.” Albus peered at Harry’s closest friends over his glasses. “Has Harry told you anything? Hinted at where he might go, if he were to leave?”

Hermione was pale, both hands over her mouth, while Ron sat next to her with his head in his hands. He muttered something under his breath and Hermione quickly turned on him.

“I told you we should have said something!” she cried, her voice so high Remus winced. She stood up from her chair, back ramrod straight. “I’m sorry Headmaster, it’s just - it seemed so harmless! He was often leaving the wards to go to the library. Or sometimes the woods -“

“I don’t think he was serious about going to the woods,” Ron muttered.

“Well he could have been!” she snapped, “What do we know? Harry’s hardly written to us this past month. We’re lucky to get more than the words I’m alive on a scrap of paper!”

“Because he thought you were going to rat him out!” Ron snapped back, glaring up at her. “It’s not right to keep him trapped inside the walls of the muggle house all summer! What is the point of a guard if they can’t walk him to the damn library?!”

“Language, Ronald,” his mother called, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“It’s alright,” Albus said calmly, holding up one hand for quiet. “I didn’t expect Harry to stay perfectly within the bounds of his house the whole time, although I asked him to stay as close as he could. But it is very likely that he and Sirius made some kind of arrangement from outside the wards when he wasn’t monitored. Sirius has been adamant about taking Harry from his relatives, despite the risk.”

The students attempted to look shocked, but Albus could tell that they had known - or at least suspected - that Sirius was acting against his wishes.

“What about the dementors?” Mrs. Figg asked shakily, “Who would have sent those? You-Know-Who, right?”

“What?”

“Dementors?”

The cries went up from all the students, and it took a moment for them to settle down again.

“I am looking into it at the ministry,” Albus said seriously. “But I don’t have answers for you right now. You definitely saw Harry’s patronus, isn’t that right Arabella?”

“Yes!” The woman nodded furiously, “And I saw one, chased like a bat out of hell by that giant deer. I felt them too…all cold…like the worst day of my life was happening all over again…” Emmeline rubbed her back soothingly and pushed a square of chocolate her way.

“Dementors in Surrey?” Remus muttered, rubbing his face, “And just like that, Harry disappears? The timing is almost unbelievable.”

Albus hummed noncommittally, stroking his chin. “Can you describe the patronus in detail, Arabella?” 

“It was a big stag,” the woman gestured with her hands, “far taller than me. Its antlers were huge, the biggest I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you sure it was a deer? Not an elk? Or a moose?”

She frowned, “I'm certain. I’ve seen red deer in the rut before, and it looked just like one of the big stags.”

“Red deer,” Albus glanced at Remus, who was also frowning. “Does that sound like Harry’s patronus, Remus?”

Remus sighed, “He did recreate it for me just before I left at the end of his third year, but I can’t say it was as big as that. They do change over time, as you know.”

The fireplace roared again, allowing Albus to keep his thoughts close for a moment longer. This time, he did not hear the wizard step through. He turned his head a little. “Ah, Severus. Thank you for joining us.”

All the students in the room quickly looked anywhere but at their Potions Master.

“The Dark Lord does not have control of any dementors that I know of,” Severus said without preamble. He stood to Albus’s left, keeping his back to the wall where he could watch the fireplace. “And he would not risk killing Potter with such a ruse. He has made it clear that Potter will die by his wand, and no one else is to touch him.”

Every face in the room looked utterly horrified. Only Albus was unfazed. He nodded slowly, tapping his fingers together as he mulled over different scenarios.

“Who was on guard tonight?” Remus growled, cutting through the silence. “How did dementors ever get that close? Even if Harry was outside the wards proper, any wizard worth his salt -“

“You have your answer then,” Severus drawled. Albus could feel the poison of his glare on the side of his head. “It was Fletcher, wasn’t it?”

Albus nodded.

“Why Albus?” Remus hissed, “Mundungus isn’t well. Was there no one-“

“No one else,” Albus finished with a shake of his head. “We are a small group. We are each stretched thin already. And Mundungus would have been perfectly adequate if-“

“Adequate?”

“-a third party wasn’t involved.” He stared at the wood grain in the table. It was ancient, the stripes in the planks wide and perfectly spaced. He rubbed the pads of his fingers against the polished grain. “Has Harry ever mentioned meeting anyone else?” he asked, looking to each of the students in turn. “An adult? Perhaps he portrayed them as nothing more than a friendly muggle?”

Hermione’s mouth twisted in confusion. “He’s never mentioned anyone besides his family and some…friends of his cousin’s,” she said. “His neighbors don’t think highly of him based on what his relatives say when he’s at Hogwarts.”

“He probably wouldn’t tell us if he did meet someone like that,” Ron grunted, glancing over at his sister. “What about you, Gin?”

“Harry doesn’t write me,” she replied with a quick shake of the head. “Well, once this summer he did. But we didn’t talk about the muggles, just the tournament.”

“Why do you think there’s someone else involved?” Remus asked, leaning forward.

“There was no use of underage magic in Little Whinging tonight,” Albus said gravely, “according to the ministry. And even more concerning, Harry’s family reported that he often disappeared in the afternoons and evenings. Yet, after talking to several Order members, no one reported seeing Harry leave.” He glanced wryly up at Severus, “He was even gone when you were on watch, which tells me he must have been meeting someone practicing highly advanced magic.”

“He could have used his cloak,” Ron pointed out.

“Yes,” Albus nodded, “and likely did some of the time. But that still begs the question - where was he going? If Harry cast the patronus, he would have triggered the trace on his wand, even in the presence of an adult wizard. The charm is too powerful, the neighborhood too muggle, to hide such magic. Sirius cannot produce a patronus…and we have no trace of him anywhere except outside Harry’s home. I suspect that our mysterious third party cast a patronus that happens to look similar to Harry’s. It is the only way the trace wouldn’t have gone off…” Albus was beginning to think out loud, so he decided to refocus. He looked meaningfully at Remus, “You know Sirius best. Will you search for him at any old haunts? Any safe houses from the war that you know of?”

Remus studied him. “I can,” the man finally agreed, “but if Harry left of his own accord, and they did so without informing you or any of the Order, then what makes you think that I can convince them to come back?”

“I’d think the threat of rogue dementors would be enough to convince Sirius to bring Harry where he’s safest.” Albus stroked his long beard, “There are few places safe enough to guard him from Voldemort, now that Harry seems to have broken the blood ward.”

Severus snorted, “Of course. Perfect Potter couldn’t help but destroy the last protection Lily left to him.”

Remus’s eyes flashed, “Harry wouldn’t have done that intentionally,” he snapped. “There must be some misunderstanding. Are you-“

“The wards only work if Harry is considered part of his Aunt’s family,” Albus said slowly, “and his Aunt made it clear that he is never to return. I cannot force her mind to change. From her account, they argued before he left. She seems to believe Harry wanted to be released from the ward.”

Harry’s friends looked pale and they exchanged loaded looks that made Albus’s interest pique. Severus made a disgusted noise but refrained from further comment.

“So you’ll have to bring him back here?” One of the Weasley twins asked. They were both huddled together, watching the adults at the end of the table with obvious distrust.

Albus studied them closely. “Indeed…there’s no where else he could go.”

“But he’ll be safe here,” Ron cast about the room for support, “right? Why is it even a question?”

“As long as he stays inside,” Ginny huffed.

“Then why couldn’t he be here the whole time?” The other twin exploded. Young George, Albus thought. “No danger of dementors here, is there?”

“Maybe he would have been safer somewhere else,” Arabella sobbed into her tissue. “I couldn’t do anything. If that boy didn’t have his wand, he’d be worse than dead.”

“What’s done is done,” Kingsley said, his quiet voice silencing the chatter. “Harry would be safest here, but Sirius is a trusted member of the Order as well. We need to have faith that he’s keeping Harry safe.”

“The mutt can barely dress himself on a good day. The Order has fallen far if we decide to trust a man who’s lived more days as a dog than as a wizard. A dog who doesn't come when called, no less.” Severus glared at Albus as he reached into an inner pocket of his robes, “But you wouldn’t have asked for this if you didn’t agree with me.” He set a wide-mouth flask on the table. It was packed with bloody bandages, black and cracking with age.

“The children,“ Molly broke in, “they don’t need to be here any longer…”

“It’s no harm, Molly,” Albus said. “Besides, I suspect that Harry might send us a message soon, and I wager he’ll send it to his best friends.” He looked knowingly at the two Gryffindors in question, who seemed to crumble under his gaze. Satisfied, he nodded to Kingsley. “Do you have the map?”

The auror frowned and produced a long roll of parchment from his sleeve. “This will only work if he’s in Great Britain,” he warned.

Albus got to his feet, flattening the old runic map and uncorking the bottle of bandages with easy waves of his wand. Then he summoned the blood from the bandages, letting the humidity in the air rehydrate the dusty residue until it was a swirling black ball, no bigger than a marble.

With his mind fixed and an unshakable will, he thought, show me, Harry James Potter and flicked the blood at the map.

It scattered across the parchment like mercury, separating into a hundred tiny beads. They swept to all four corners of the map and then snapped back together as one, scrambling over the map of Great Britain like a planchet. The frenetic blood slowed and settled, hovering over a small portion of Scotland.

“Dundee?” Remus read. “Could they be heading to Hogwarts?”

“Wait,” Kingsley said gravely, taking out his wand. “Propius,” he incanted. The map blurred and changed. Hermione almost flattened her torso over the table in an effort to see, and Molly reached out to put a hand on the girl’s back. The map resettled, showing the muggle city of Dundee and the surrounding countryside. Harry’s blood circled again and then settled over a nondescript field to the southwest. As they watched, it slowly moved ever south-ward.

“There he is!” Remus exclaimed, pointing. “What’s the nearest village? I only know Acrage. I can be there in -“

“It’s the same as Black,” Kingsley cut in, removing a small metal compass from his robe. He clicked the lid open, tilting it to show Albus. Inside the wide glass face was a map, with a similar blood planchet moving steadily north-east. Albus read the names and recognized it as a little corner of country near Bath. “When he escaped from Azkaban, I petitioned the Minister for clearance to create this dowser. Worked with the Department of Mysteries to perfect it. It should show us where Black is at any time, unless he’s in an unplottable location.” Kingsley’s eyes were hard as he looked from the compass to the map on the table. “I do not know what this magic is, but it appears he has disguised Harry’s location just as he did his own. If we were to go where the map says they are, we’d find nothing. It’s a trick.”

“He couldn’t obfuscate a blood sounding that regularly,” Severus said, an edge of disbelief to his tone. “He would have to repeat the ritual every month. Black isn’t in his right mind…”

“It appears permanent,” Kingsley shrugged, snapping the compass shut.

“Could it be Black magic?” Arthur piped up from the back of the room. He was standing next to the twins, who were not even trying to hide the joy they seemed to feel knowing that Harry and Sirius could not be found. “Sirius claimed his House, didn’t he? Maybe it’s something they created. A talisman?”

Remus dropped his face into both hands, groaning quietly. “Oh Sirius, what did you do?”

Severus stepped back to his place against the wall, deep in thought. Kingsley nodded to Arthur, “That was my suspicion as well. There were no grimoires in this place?”

“None,” Arthur confirmed. “Then let’s try a patronus message. They can’t hide from that. All we really want to know is if they’re alive, right? Once we open a line of communication, we can reason with Sirius.”

“It should come from you, Remus,” Albus said, bringing Harry’s blood back to the jar and sealing it. “I’m afraid Sirius won’t-“

“Wait, what does that mean?” Ron interrupted, despite his mother’s shushing. “Sirius used dark magic to hide Harry? Isn’t that illegal?”

“Black family magic,” Arthur enunciated for his son, “although-“

“Black magic and dark magic are usually one and the same,” Molly finished darkly. Her face was pale. “The Blacks had their own school of magic generations ago. They created entire branches of dark magic in their day.” She tapped his fingers over her mouth, “I thought Sirius hated his family? Why would he do something like this to Harry? Poor dear…”

“Harry wouldn’t know what it was,” Albus said gravely. “Sirius may believe he is acting in Harry’s best interest, but if he is engaging with his family magics, he may be even harder to reason with…”

A deathly pallor fell over the room. Only Severus and Kingsley seemed to disagree, but both men kept their thoughts to themselves. Albus rolled the map up and returned it to Kingsley just as the fireplace flickered green again.

This time, Bill Weasley stepped out in the dining room, brushing ash off his pants.

“Albus!” he cried, rushing up to the head of the table, heedless of all the other eyes in the room. “Harry has claimed his Lordship!”

Severus choked, a delicate sound that would have been lost if not for the utter silence in the room. A bolt of surprise rooted Albus to the ground for the moment. He turned to look at the Weasley heir, seeing the painful honesty written all over his face and feeling the blood rush from his own face. “Are you sure?”

Bill nodded intently. “His tree is alight in the heart of Gringotts.”

Despite the news, Albus felt a flash of triumph. If Bill was allowed into the heart of the bank, then he was doing more than his part for the Order. Albus put a hand on Bill’s shoulder and held his gaze. “Thank you Bill. You’ve done well.”

“Well,” Kinglsey said flatly. “There’s nothing we can do to force Lord Potter under this roof. He must come of his own free will.”

Severus hissed lowly. His rage was palpable and Charlie, who was closest to him, leaned away. “That boy is no Lord.”

“If he is to Gringotts, then he’s been recognized by magic and the laws of our country,” the auror said dismissively. “That must be why there was no notice of underage magic for the patronus charm.”

“So Harry and Sirius have been working on this plan from the beginning,” Albus concluded. He swept his gaze around the table, seeing the unease, fear, and even anger on the faces around it. He relaxed his shoulders and smiled around the room, “If Harry can use magic freely, I fear less for his safety. It is a blessing that such a rare event occurred, because now he is even more protected from the Ministry. I was beginning to suspect a plot against him from within, based on my own treatment.”

He waved a hand to Emmaline and Elphias, “Would you escort Arabella back home? And stay for a time. We don’t know how safe Privet Drive is.”

“We can take shifts,” Elphias said gruffly, pulling Arabella to her feet. “Come on, dear.”

The three of them disappeared through the floo, and Albus looked back down the table at the students. Hermione was whispering intently to Ron, who was glaring down at his knees. “Harry is a powerful young wizard.” He looked knowingly at his friends and received a tentative smile from Hermione. Ron, though, was white as a sheet, gripping the table with both hands. Albus sighed, “I think a heartfelt letter or two from his friends and a patronus from Remus may be just the thing he needs to convince him to come to us. Then we can get this all sorted out.” He turned to Remus, “Sirius may be pressuring him to stay away. It’s no secret that he and I have disagreed this summer.”

Remus seemed to understand. “I’ll send a patronus to him first,” the man muttered, scraping his chair across the floor as he stood up to leave.

A small, white creature jumped out from the fireplace, startling them all. It vaulted up Albus’s chair and landed clumsily on the table. Ten wands were on it at once, but it didn’t seem to notice, swinging its head back and forth. Its floppy ears swished around its small face as it wagged its tail at them.

Remus dropped his wand, the clattering sound making Bill flinch beside Albus. Albus studied the small patronus carefully. It was not like any patronus he’d ever seen. It was not the pure white of a true patronus, more of a pale blue, and it left paw prints as it walked. It flickered like a ghost, disappearing for a meter and then reappearing further down the table. The creature loped the length of the table, sniffing at each person as it went by, long tail high and wagging.

“It’s…a puppy?” Ginny said, reaching her hand out when it came to her. It barked soundlessly and play-bowed.

“Sirius,” Remus gasped. The puppy’s head shot up and it reeled excitedly, cantering down the table until it was in front of the werewolf. Then it opened its mouth and Sirius Black spoke.

“Harry is safe. Don’t look for us. We will come to the Order after his birthday. I’d invite you over Moony, but I’m worried someone might crash the party.”

Then the puppy turned to Albus. It’s bluish visage faded even further, becoming more ghost-like. “Albus,” Sirius’s voice boomed, “Remember what I gave you, I can take away.”

The puppy faded into nothing. Deep, deep in the house, something started to cackle. Albus’s head snapped up, his skin crawling with the feeling that some other presence was there in the house, but before he could even move his wand, the laughing cut off and the feeling vanished. He repressed a shiver. No one else in the room moved, as if no one else had heard it. Albus twirled his wand uneasily. 

Remus laughed brokenly. “He did it,” he whispered to himself. “He cast a patronus.”

Albus cleared his throat, claiming their attention once again.

“Write letters to Harry, please,” he asked, looking seriously to all the young students. “And remember to treat this house with care. Like Hogwarts, it has a mind of its own.”

With one last meaningful look a Bill, Albus took his leave through the fireplace. Though he did not expect to rest. The sound of that laugh, the blue patronus….

Fawkes cooed softly and soothed some of the trouble in his heart. His fireplace flared green again and Severus stepped straight into his office. The Headmaster began to stroke his familiar’s feathers, mentally preparing for even worse news.

“Black may be conspiring with his cousin,” Severus said, his voice lacking the usual vitriol when he had to discuss Sirius Black. "Now that he is Lord Black."

“Andromeda?”

Severus hesitated. “I believe Narcissa may have reached out to him when he claimed the House. She is a talented healer, and master of the Black magics.”

“You think she helped put his mind back together,” Albus concluded.

“Perhaps. In exchange for access to the family vault.”

“Sirius would never do something that might help Voldemort,” the Headmaster sighed, gazing at Severus over his glasses. “Surely Lady Malfoy would use her family’s artefacts to her husband’s aid.”

Severus just stared back at him, as unreadable as a blank canvas. Albus sighed and let the matter go, filing it away as a possibility. “I will ask Bill to look into it at Gringotts.”

“It’s risky to cross the Goblins, Headmaster,” Severus growled. “You have that boy embedded as far as he can go in their bank. If they find out he’s a spy, they’ll strike his entire House from their coffers. Does Arthur know what you’ve asked his son to do?”

Albus shook his head, waving off the man’s warnings. “I assure you, Severus, I would never have Bill risk breaking his oaths. He is extremely careful with his work inside Gringotts, and I hope that when the day comes that we must ask the Goblins to take our side, Bill Weasley will be the key to our argument.”

Severus’s dark eyes glittered. “All’s fair if it ends the Dark Lord, Albus? Even the destruction of your most loyal followers?"

“The victor of this war will decide the course of magic in our country,” Albus murmured, turning back to Fawkes. “Everyone in the Order accepts that the costs pay for that great reward. The triumph of good over evil. The defeat of Voldemort’s hubris. I don’t want this war to outlive me, Severus…but I fear it might. I need those who come after to understand what’s at stake, and crush the evil Voldemort’s grown in his garden. We need men like Bill Weasley - men who believe as we do.”

“As you do,” Severus corrected acidly. “Don’t lump me in with your machinations, Headmaster. You know why I’m here.”

Albus’s lip curled, “And we need men like you, Severus. The steadfast.” He nodded in dismissal to his Potions Master, “I trust you will continue the search for Harry?”

“Potter can’t hide from me,” he agreed sourly, turning his back. “I leave the problem of Black to you. Where does he fall on your chessboard, Albus?”

The door clicked quietly behind him, leaving Albus alone with his uncertainty.

Notes:

Almost all of my original spells are just Frankenstein words from google's English-to-Latin translator (lol).

I always interpreted that a patronus changes over time based on what someone loves the most, or perhaps what someone finds comfort in. I think that Sirius, despite being a complete mess, would feel so emotional after rescuing Harry that he could produce a patronus - even if it was a bit weak. I don't know that this will be explored later so I just wanted to throw that in. And it HAD to be a puppy, seeing as Harry is his pup (oh god I'm crying just thinking about it).

Next chapter will be a bit of a gauntlet. Sirius and Harry, Remus and the Twins, Theo and the Dark Lord - huh? I meant Theo and his pen pal Kingfisher...yeah...totally....

Chapter 10: Birthdays

Summary:

Harry discovers the wonders of grunge and receives a couple letters in the mail.

Notes:

Holy moly! I have been laboring over this chapter and the next all weekend. Literally like ten hours each day. I divided this chapter into two, so the next one is coming up in a few hours. I just have to get it formatted and posted while I cook dinner!

Please enjoy <3

Harry

Harry!!

Please tell me you’re okay. I’m worried sick! Eat lots of chocolate - I wrapped up one of Ron’s last chocolate bars from Honeydukes. I hope it gets to you. We don’t know where you are so I don’t know if this letter will find you. Please come find us Harry, Snuffles can take you here.

We miss you. I miss you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t more understanding and jumped down your throat about leaving the house. Please let me apologize in person, Harry. We just want to know you’re safe.

Love,

Hermione

Harry woke late in the morning, bleary-eyed. He drained the entire cup of water left on his desk and promptly drank some more from the cold tap in the bathroom. He took one look at his face and turned the shower on, eager to scrub the sweat and tears from his skin and hopefully forget about everything that happened yesterday.

He changed into some of his new clothes and paused by the fake windows, pressing on them lightly. John jokingly said to leave a bowl of cream out by a window to help them reunite, but after reading a couple stories about faeries Harry thought there was some truth to that.

It wasn’t a real window though. And they were in a muggle apartment complex, just about as far from the fae as you could get. Ignoring the little twist of worry in his heart that John wouldn’t be able to find him, Harry padded out into the main room, mailbox tucked under his arm.

Sirius was in the kitchen, hovering over a sizzling pan of bacon. “Yow!” he cried, holding up the lid of the pan like a shield, “This is why I pay Kreacher to do this!”

“You pay your house elf?” Harry interjected.

Sirius flinched and nearly sent the pan of grease flying off the cook top. “Figure of speech,” he grunted, shoving the pan back into place. Harry eased into one of the barstools across the breakfast bar from Sirius and slid his mailbox over the counter. The sigil was glowing.

“Morning birthday boy!” Sirius reached in the fridge and pulled out a white bakery box. Harry tipped his head in bemusement when Sirius spun around, showing him small, two-tier cake with a little fluffy lion drawn in frosting. It read Happy 2nd Birthday Harry!

“Second birthday?” He read out loud, confused.

“I missed all of them after your first,” Sirius shrugged. His easy smile went a little sour and he busied himself unboxing the cake. “Like I said in my letter - we’re having a birthday extravaganza for the next two weeks. Every day’s a party for one birthday I missed.”

Harry tried to laugh or smile, but the emotion in his throat choked off any of the words he wanted to say. He managed a little huff, a tiny quirk of the lips, and quickly opened his mailbox for a distraction. Inside was a letter from Hermione.

“Is that a mail slot?” Sirius asked curiously, leaning over the counter.

“I bought it after this happened,” Harry raised his Lord ring. “My account manager said there was a mail ward on the Dursley’s house that prevented any Gringotts letters from coming through. I didn’t give Hermione my address though…” He frowned and opened the letter, catching the bar of chocolate before it could fall to the floor.

Sirius blinked at him. “A mail ward?” His eyes went up, searching the ceiling as if remembering something. “I don’t…remember Albus talking about that.”

“Well it’s there,” Harry said grimly, “it sucks in all the mail Dumbledore doesn’t approve of. That has to be illegal right?”

Sirius huffed, “It sure is, but that doesn’t mean much. A mail ward cast over a muggle residence, presumably to maintain the Statute of Secrecy? No one’s going to fault Albus for that.” At Harry’s angry look, Sirius softened his tone, “It doesn’t make it right pup, I’m sorry. Believe me, I know a thing or two about how unjust our world is.”

After a moment of thoughtful silence, Sirius traced the sigil of the mailbox and said, “I think…because you’re in an unplottable location, the owls took it to your next strongest magical signature.”

“Is that how they work?” He was was grateful for the change in subject. Harry didn’t want to ruin the mood. “I thought…they needed an address?” He didn’t remember too much about how owls were able to deliver the mail. Hagrid lectured about it a few times, but Harry could only remember getting distracted by the tiny burrowing owl making a nest in Hagrid’s beard.

“They typically do. They go to where you tell them to go, and as they get closer to the address, they can identify the magical signature of the addressee and eventually deliver the post to the right person. That’s how we think it works, anyway, it’s not like we can ask the owls. But as with all magic, we don’t truly get it.” The bacon cracked a warning and Sirius whirled around, “Now that you’re masked by Sunhoney, it’s going to be near impossible for any owl to find you without an address. If you didn’t have that post box, you wouldn’t get any mail at all.”

Harry’s heart skipped a beat. “What about Hedwig? Will she be able to find me?”

Sirius glanced over his shoulder, “Not to worry, pup. She’s bonded to you. She can circumvent Sunhoney - I’ve always had a bird or two that could find me no matter what. Hedwig included, funnily enough. She clever. The trick is going to be checking for tracking spells on the mail now that you can’t be found.”

He relaxed a little, fiddling with the edge of Hermione’s note. His mind wandered back to John, wondering if their friendship was enough of a bond to allow him to get around the ritual. It’s not like John had a mailbox. Harry couldn’t write and ask him to meet up in Diagon Alley.

I could ask Witheraxe…Harry shook his head almost immediately at the thought. No. It hadn’t even been twenty four hours. John was fine, and he was more than capable of finding Harry when he wanted. He was probably just sunning himself at Roebuck Falls and being a great lazy lump like usual.

“Sooooo…” Sirius dragged out the word, anxiously moving about the kitchen. He pulled a mug down and floated it over to Harry, followed by a steaming teapot and milk and sugar. “You probably have a lot of questions. I do too,” Sirius pointed at Harry’s Lord ring. “But I’m going to let you take the lead. What do you want to know? I’ll tell you everything.”

Harry blanched and went for the tea, trying to order his thoughts. Questions about Dumbledore and the mysterious resistance group Sirius said he was a part of swirled in his head. John’s extraordinary revelations came to mind - that there was a secret about Harry’s destiny that Dumbledore seemed to know about. My fate. Voldemort.

“I can start with me,” Sirius waved his three-and-a-half fingers lamely, looking pained as the silence dragged on. “Or I can tell you about the Order of the Phoenix if you want. That’s the group I mentioned last night - your parents were in it. And me. We reformed after what happened at the end of the Tournament…” Sirius winced and moved on quickly, “I can tell you about what they’re planning, how we’re trying to fight Voldemort. It all ties together in the end.”

Harry swallowed a great gulp of tea, needing to be more awake, needing to be more strategic. He stared unseeingly at the letter in his hand, agonizing over how to begin.

He thought about Sirius’s hand.

He thought about the little cake on the counter that Sirius must have gone out and bought early that morning.

A two-week, birthday extravaganza.

Or face the truth about my place is in this war.

It didn’t feel right hear the truth without John.

No, Harry corrected cynically. I just don’t want to be alone when he tells me.

He cleared his throat, “We have time, don’t we? We don’t have to talk about this now. Right?”

The man looked stunned, as if that wasn’t even a question he thought Harry would ask. “Yes!” he said. “As long as you want. I thought we could go to Order HQ the day after your birthday. You don’t have to stay,” Sirius added hastily, “but if I don’t show you’re alive to Moony and the rest, I’ll lose all credibility.”

Harry snorted, “Kidnapping me didn’t do that?”

“It’s not kidnapping if you’re my legal godson,” Sirius retorted. “I think.”

Harry laughed and folded Hermione’s letter up. His chest felt lighter. “I want to wait. I don’t need to know right now. Not today, at least.”

Sirius smiled, the expression reaching all the way to his eyes. He clapped his hands together excitedly, “Does that mean I can start planning your birthdays now?”

The uncomfortable twisting in his gut started back up as they settled into less fraught topics of conversation. Part of him was spitting mad at himself for turning down the opportunity to know everything right now. Harry Potter never had time, he was always tumbling into the next crisis headfirst with hardly a moment to breathe.

He stole glances at his godfather as the man tore apart the kitchen cabinets, muttering under his breath. The truth was, Sirius wasn’t the only one with stories to tell. Harry had quite the tale as well, and he didn’t know how Sirius would react to some of it. Maybe all of it.

Don’t you dare tell him what I am. John’s harsh words echoed in his head. I will determine if he’s worthy to be in my presence. Until then, you just wait for me to find you.

Harry shoved more toast in his mouth, sick with guilt. After everything Sirius had done for him already, some part of him, some traitorous, cowardly square inside his heart, didn’t trust Sirius not to overreact when Harry told him the truth about what he’d been up to this summer. Consorting with a faerie. Investigating questionable dark magic. Developing a friendship with Theodore fucking Nott.

I just hope Sirius doesn’t hate me when he finds out, he thought morosely.

And then Sirius cried out in triumph, holding a thick muggle sharpie over his head. “Ready Harry?” he said, eyes alight with joy. “Now, tell me everything you’ve ever wanted for your birthday…”

 

Hey Lord Potter,

I’m going to call you that the rest of your life, you know.

Part of me wants to tell you I can’t believe you didn’t tell us. But I know why you couldn’t tell us. Logically, I know. But still, you couldn’t find a way to tell me? I always keep your secrets mate - and you could use magic this whole time! We could have figured something out, just between the two of us…

I’m probably being selfish. Hermione thinks I’m mad at you because I don’t want to write every day, but I keep telling her you’ll be here in a week. You’d tell us if Snuffles was being a lunatic, right? By the way, did he tell you what his patronus is? Ginny thought it was cute. You should see if he can cast it again in front of you. My dad says that the fact he could conjure one at all means he’s alright in the head now. Mum doesn’t believe that, but she’d worry even if Snuffles was sane. She just wants you to come stay with us.

I want you to stay here too. It’s deadly boring without you. And if you can do magic, you and I can prank the twins - eh? They’re the worst since they turned 17. Apparating everywhere just to scare us. Maybe Snuffles can give you a few ideas on how to get back at them.

Hedwig’s alright. She hangs out with Buckbeak most of the night, but I go see her every day.

Please write back so Hermione can stop bugging me.

The honorable,

Ronald Weasley (seventh seat to the House of Weasley)

 

“It’s so…” Harry pulled out a lock of thick hair, “long. I don’t even know what to do besides shave it all-“

“NO!” Sirius choked, covering his eyes, “Please! James will skin me in the afterlife and wear me like a cloak if I let that happen!”

Harry hunched down on the sofa, drawing the black and orange crocheted blanket over his shoulders and fighting the urge to laugh.

“Please Harry,” Sirius got on his knees and clasped his hands together, “let me cut your hair. I promise, I’m good at it.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Harry mumbled, embarrassed by how much his godfather seemed to care about his hair. “You can just do whatever. Anything you do will be better than how it is. My hair is hopeless.”

Sirius’s eyes bugged out, “Your hair? Hopeless?” He roughed up his own locks and pulled a curl out for Harry to inspect, “You know how many nutritional potions I have to take to get my hair looking decent again? You’re in the prime of your life!” He hopped to his feet, remarkably spry considering this early in the morning Sirius was typically groaning about the aches and pains in his bones. “Wait right here!”

Harry’s heart fluttered nervously. He hated the idea of cutting his hair. That was why it was so long in the first place. Ever since that disastrous day Aunt Petunia chopped it up all those years ago, he had an unnatural anxiety about other people touching it. He didn’t even like to touch it. But it was long and thick now, utterly unmanageable. He spent all morning psyching himself out to shave his head and now suddenly Sirius was insisting on cutting it instead.

Are you a Gryffindor or not? He thought, trying to stomp out his nerves. It’s just hair. 

He felt a little better all up until Sirius conjured a mirror and stuck it in front of them. Harry was perched on one of the barstools, a bedsheet tied around his neck. He tried not to look too long at his reflection, focusing instead on Sirius as he set some combs, hair products, scissors, and a what appeared to be a muggle hair clipper.

“I lived with James for years,” Sirius assured him, wetting his hair and starting to comb through it. “I understand what it takes to tame the Potter mane. Patience and some trustworthy Sleekeazy’s.” He was quiet for a moment as he worked through Harry’s hair. It was surprisingly nice. Harry felt part of him melt a little as Sirius gently pulled tangles out of his hair and drag the comb across his scalp.

“Your hair isn’t exactly like his,” Sirius muttered quietly. Harry stiffened. “It’s…thick and curly, yeah. But your hair feels more like Lily’s.” The sound of quiet snipping filled the room. Harry held his breath, hoping Sirius would continue. “Her hair was fine, even though she had a ton of it. It was really soft. You even have some red lowlights in the sun. Did you know that?”

Sirius cleared his throat and loosened the bedsheet around his neck a little. “Here’s another fun fact for you. I was voted Most Handsome every year at Hogwarts,” He shook Harry’s shoulder lightly until they made eye contact in the mirror. Sirius grinned at him, “You’re in good hands with me.”

“I don’t think I’m going to win that award no matter what you do,” Harry replied, cheeks burning. “Just something short is fine.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, “You’re just like your mother was. Nothing fancy Sirius, just trim the ends! Bah!” He snapped the scissors, “We’ll try a few different styles. You’ll see the light…”

He moved the mirror behind them and got to work, moving Harry’s head up and down as needed. Not being able to watch did not help him relax. If anything, Harry got more and more stressed as Sirius pulled out pieces of hair and cut. He rubbed his hands together under the sheet and shuffled his feet restlessly. It’s going to look awful, he thought. Sirius will have to give up eventually, right? Everyone knows my hair is just a bird’s nest. This isn’t worth his time.

Sirius pulled his hands through Harry's hair and clicked his tongue. “Ta-da!” he cried, pulling the mirror back around and tipping Harry’s face up to reveal a glorious, flowing mullet.

The image was so startling that Harry just gaped at the mirror. Sirius tipped his head back and started to laugh, pulling out a little camera from his front pocket. “No!” Harry gasped, tripping out of his seat and sprawling across the floor. Sirius’s hands shook as he raised the shutter to his eye, laughing so hard he couldn't keep it straight. Harry crawled wildly behind the couch.

“Get back here!” Sirius shouted.

They ran around the living room, Harry ducking behind furniture and throwing pillows at his godfather as Sirius snapped pictures all the while. Harry was hysterical, clutching a stitch in his side when Sirius finally looped an arm over his shoulders and pulled them close together. He took a picture of them in the mirror, panting and giggling, before finally putting the camera down.

“Okay,” he panted, “sit back down and I’ll give you a real cut. Unless-“

“No!” Harry rushed to sit again, straightening the bedsheet around him. “Please! I can't go to school like this.”

In the end, Harry settled on a fashionable undercut, keeping his hair long on top and in the front so he could swipe his bangs over his scar. Sirius showed him a range of Sleekeazy products and taught him the difference between mousse and hair oil and how to style his hair so it would stay mostly in place throughout the day.

When Harry looked in the mirror at the final product, he could not believe what he saw.

I think I look…good? He turned his head side to side, looking at his face from all angles. With his new glasses and his hair up away from his face, he looked older. He thought he might even look respectable, less like a disheveled miscreant. A tiny bit of shame settled in the pit of his stomach. Is this what I could have looked like for years? Would people have treated me better if I didn’t look so…

The back of his neck prickled, and he caught Sirius watching him intently in the mirror. “What?” Harry said, nervous. “It looks good? Right?”

Sirius blinked at him. “Of course! You’re a good-looking kid, Harry. Maybe you will be voted ‘Most Handsome’.”

Harry flushed and looked away from him. “I don’t think so,” he mumbled. “But thank you. It looks good. I can’t believe you made my hair look nice.”

“I didn’t make it do anything,” Sirius shrugged. “You inherited great genes, pup. Lily was beautiful. James was good looking. You-“ he stepped in closer and poked Harry’s nose, “are a very a handsome young man.”

Harry blushed bright tomato red. He slapped his hands over his face, careful not to ruin his hairstyle. “Shut up! Are you serious?”

Sirius grinned wickedly and Harry realized his mistake far, far too late.

 

Dear Harry,

I owe you so much more than just this simple apology - but I am so sorry. I didn’t do enough to support you this year, especially this summer. I hope you’ll let my actions speak for themselves and take this promise at more than face value - you can trust me, Harry. I’m on your side.

I know Snuffles would never do anything to hurt you Harry, but you must be careful with him. He’s been through so much, and he up and disappeared on us for two months. I’m worried about him. If you find that you’re the one taking care of him, instead of the other way around, it might be time to ask for help. There’s no shame in it Harry. No one wants to separate you two, I promise. We just want to keep you both safe.

Please give the enclosed letter to Snuffles. I hope to see you on your birthday.

Yours,

Remus

 

Harry resisted the urge to touch his hair. It was weird traveling in the muggle world under a glamor. Sirius insisted he not use the glamored glasses, telling him that it would be smart to use such a convenient disguise as a magical alias instead. So, before they set out that morning, Sirius laid on about twenty layers of charms to make Harry’s hair look shorter and straighter, his skin lighter, and turn his eyes into a muddy hazel.

Try not to touch your hair too much, pup, Sirius advised before they left. The glamor looks real but it doesn’t feel real, so you’ll look insane running your hands through empty air.

Sirius was disguised as a wispy old grandfather. He held on to Harry’s arm most of the time as they pushed off the bus and headed downtown. Harry kept his eyes to the ground, his ears pricked for the sound of pitiful mewling. His heart beat a little faster every time he thought he saw a cat.

It’d been five days, and still no John.

“Here, sonny,” Sirius wheezed, pointing one gnarled finger at the next shop. “In there.”

Harry froze when they opened the door and instantly got hit by a wall of sound coming from inside. He followed Sirius hesitantly, stepping off to the side to get his bearings.

It was a music shop. Rows and rows of CDs and cassette tapes took up the floor, with large vinyl signs over various sections denoting the genre. Classic Rock, Blues, Glam Metal, New Arrivals.

Guitars were suspended on the wall, of every shape and color. A drum set was for sale in one of the front windows, and there was a corner full of black boxes of various sizes with all kinds of wires coming out. Harry’s head turned on a swivel, taking it all in. The sound of drums and screaming guitars ended, suddenly washing the room in silence.

“Fill this up,” Sirius shoved a shopping basket in his hand. “Grab whatever looks interesting.”

“Wait-“ Harry reached out weakly as Sirius made to leave, “I don’t know anything about music. How do I know what’s good?”

Sirius grinned, wrinkling his already wrinkled face. “That’s the fun of it, pup. Don’t worry, I’ll get you the essentials.”

Harry looked around the room, barely listening as a new song started on the speakers.

“Next up…a song I just can’t get enough of this summer, it’s Oasis with Some Might Say.”

He wandered up the middle aisle, looking over the plastic-wrapped CDs. He picked a few up and put them in the basket based purely on their album art. He toured the various genres, surprised at just how many they were, even within the larger genres. Classic rock was sorted by decades, Blues was subdivided into Country Blues, Boogie-Woogie, Jazz, and Big Band. He ran into Sirius in a section called 70s New-Wave and blanched to see how many CDs were already under his arm.

“How am I going to listen to all this?” Harry whispered.

Sirius snickered at him, dumping the stack in his arms and heading for a section called Hair Metal. “You’ve got your whole life to listen to them!”

Harry liked the song playing on the speaker but he couldn’t find Oasis, partially because he had no idea what genre they were in. He nervously went to the front to ask the bored-looking woman behind the counter. Her hair was cut short and gelled into points. She had two piercings on each side of her mouth and a ring of earrings crawling up the shell of one ear.

She snapped her gum at him and glanced down at his heavily-laden basket. “Startin’ your own store or something?”

Harry shook his head mutely, a bit intimidated. “My…grandfather said it’s a crime I don’t know anything about music.”

She arched one eyebrow. It was dyed purple. “You don’t know anything about music?” she repeated.

Harry looked down at his basket as if that explained anything. She leaned over the counter and fished through some of the CDs. “Yikes,” she muttered through her gum, “your pappy put most of these in here?” Her eyes cut behind him, probably finding Sirius in an instant. “Yeah…that makes sense. Come on,” she hopped up off her stool and strutted around the counter, leading him directly to one of the busiest sections in the shop. Her long, painted nails flipped expertly through the CDs until she found Oasis. She dumped one of each album in his basket and then paused. “He payin’ for all this?”

Harry nodded. She grinned, and pointed down the aisle at a sign labeled Grunge. “Let me show you the good shit, kid.”

In the end, Harry walked out with four paper bags of CDs. Sirius bought him two players as well, along with a couple of headsets. “So I can practice magic-proofing them,” he whispered. Harry was eager to get back to the flat so he could start to tear through his new collection, but he wasn’t so eager that he stopped looking for pointy black ears around every corner.

In the end, there was no John. But Harry did discover a new kind of magical world.

“Is this your favorite so far?” Sirius asked loudly, inspecting the album art.

Harry nodded, thumbing the volume down. He grinned at Sirius, “Do you think Soundgarden will ever play a show in the UK? That woman said they’re American.”

Sirius tapped the edge of the CD case against his mouth, smiling warmly. “If they are, Harry, we’ll be there.”

“Wicked,” Harry closed his eyes and settled back on the couch, letting the chorus of Black Hole Sun wash over him again.

 

Harry,

Sweet Merlin. I don’t know how you put up with this. Everyone is up in your business constantly. Mum forced me to write this letter. She thinks a campaign of guilt-tripping will convince you to run away from Snuffles,.

I say stay away. It sounded cool to help out Dumbledore this summer by cleaning up a place I can’t talk about in this letter (ask Snuffles) but it turned out to be so boring. I miss the Burrow. At least we could go flying there.

Everyone says it’s not safe to go out in public because everyone knows we’re your friends, but Bill and Charlie and Percy get to live their lives normally. I would think any Weasley would be at risk seeing as you’re basically adopted, but no one listens to my logic. Mum is off her rocker this summer because You-Know-Who is back. She thinks we’re liable to drop dead at any moment.

That sounds really cold of me. I guess you don’t know this, probably, but mum had two brothers. They were both killed during the first war. It was bad. A lot of those memories are coming back, I think, and they’re making her really emotional and afraid. Especially because Percy is being - well - it’s not worth writing about. He’s being extra Percy right now.

Just want you to know there’s a reason behind the stupid way they’re panicking over you. It doesn’t make it right, but I hope it helps you understand.

Go flying for me.

Ginny

 

Harry leaned across his broomstick, letting it list to the side. Sirius was up above him somewhere. He could hear his godfather’s quiet breathing through the ear-cuffs they were wearing that let them talk while flying. They watched the brilliant red sun sink through the clouds into the horizon, turning the ocean dreamsicle orange.

There was absolutely nothing beneath them but the huge blue sea. There weren’t many birds in the sky anymore, leaving the two of them alone, suspended in the heavens. It felt like they were the only two people in the world.

“The first time I saw the sun after I escaped, I cried,” Sirius admitted. His voice crackled a little, caught by the wind. Harry pressed his cheek into the polished broomstick and closed his eyes. He tried to picture what it would be like to live for twelve years without feeling the sun on his skin. “That first morning was a revelation to me. And after I got over myself and realized that this was real, that I had survived, my first thought was to get to you, pup.”

Harry sighed and opened his eyes. The sun was more then half-way below the horizon now.

“How did you get better?” Harry asked. His heart clenched, not knowing if Sirius would answer. It was a question he wanted to ask since that night at Sunhoney. “You’re…more present than you were before. It's like...you're not as...fractured anymore.”

Sirius released a heavy sigh and floated down closer.

“You won’t believe this,” his godfather let out a bitter laugh, “but it’s partially because of Sni - Snape.”

“Snape?” Harry repeated.

“I know,” Sirius muttered. “That wasn’t on my bingo card for the year, let me tell you. But right after you were…you came back from the graveyard, we had a bit of a row.”

“Right after Dumbledore made you shake hands?”

“Almost immediately,” Sirius laughed. He shook his head and pulled in front of Harry so they could see each other. “It would be easier to show you the memory, to be honest…but you said you wanted to wait, right? To know about what’s going on?”

Harry bit his lip, looking down at the ocean. It was day seven now, and there was still no sign of John. Every morning, Sirius asked him if today was the day he wanted to talk. Every day, Harry said no.

“I’m still waiting,” Harry said.

“Waiting?” Sirius asked, “For what?”

Harry shrugged, cursing himself for the slip. “The right time, I guess.”

Sirius hummed and floated away. “It’s your choice,” he assured him. “Just know that I’m on your side no matter what.”

People have been saying that a lot lately, Harry thought, thinking about John. About Lupin. About his friends. But are they really going to mean it when they know the truth?

The next morning, Harry was sitting at the breakfast bar, listening to Supergrass’s Mansize Rooster, a ridiculous song that kept getting stuck in his head. He served himself a slice of cake and looked over the Birthday Wall. Sirius had a running list of gift ideas he tortured out of Harry written directly on the wall of the flat.

It took a lot of coaxing, but slowly Sirius managed to cover the wall in a hundred different ideas. Some items on the list were quite simple, relics from a long childhood of watching Dudley enjoy the finer things in life: a Nintendo, Doctor Who bedcovers, binoculars, a kitten (he said in honor of John), a slingshot, comic books.

Then they became progressively more adventurous: summit a mountain, attend a rock concert, go shark diving, see the Northern Lights, watch the running of the bulls in person.

And then, with Sirius’s help, his wishes turned magical: go to a dragon sanctuary, visit Atlantica, attend a solstice celebration.

Every day, they picked an item or two off the list and Sirius made it happen. It was more than Harry felt he deserved, but Sirius was relentless in his pursuit of fourteen birthday celebrations. Even if they just spent all day eating take out (birthday number four) Sirius found a way to make it special. Harry thought about the warnings from Hermione and Lupin about Sirius’s mental state.

Whatever he did to fix his mind must have been after they last saw him, he reasoned. I wouldn’t believe he was capable of taking care of another person either, if I were them.

The sigil on his mailbox was glowing again. He let the sugary frosting melt in his mouth and fill him with a bit of energy before he dared open it. He was quietly dreading a letter from Mrs. Weasley and crossed his fingers that it was from Ron or one of his brothers instead. 

Inside the box there was a small, square envelope on creamy white paper. Instead of his name, his post office number was written on the center of the card.

His heart beat a little faster. A heavy wax seal printed with the Nott family crest, a round Viking shield with an eagle in flight, told him who the letter was from. Harry glanced furtively down the hall and pulled his headphones down so he could hear if Sirius was coming before tearing the letter open.

Kingfisher,

I hope you check your mailbox first thing in the morning. I will be at the Albion today, the 25th of July, at 10am for one hour. If you can meet me, bring my book. I will likely not be in London again until the very end of August. If I miss you, expect a long letter to follow.

TN

“Oh shit,” Harry muttered, clutching the edges of the letter. He looked frantically at the time. It was just after seven in the morning. He read the note again, heart pounding. “Oh shit.”

---

Sirius

Sirius wasn’t exactly sane nowadays. He knew that.

While he couldn’t trust himself to know what was normal when it came to taking care of a teenager (Does it matter if Harry’s up after midnight? Does it matter if he eats cake every day for breakfast? Does it matter if Sirius laughs when he swears and teaches him new curses just to laugh some more?) he did know a thing or two about normal teenage behavior.

After all, Sirius lived in his memories for nearly twelve years. He’d been fifteen a hundred times.

Harry was unlike him in nearly every way. He was quiet, for one. Sirius actually woke up that first morning on the cusp of a panic attack because the flat was so silent. When he tore into the living room, wand in hand, he saw Harry flinch on the couch before he heard him.

At first Sirius dismissed it as a case of nerves, but then it kept happening. Harry was quieter than Snape, and he was a sneaky bastard.

Sirius could barely hear him move in his room, he never woke up to the sounds of cooking in the kitchen, and even when Harry listened to the record player, he kept the music quiet unless Sirius specifically asked him to turn it up.

He was quiet in other ways, too. Sirius expected a full-on interrogation the first full day they were together. Harry and his friends never seemed to stop digging around for the truth, so he just assumed that Harry would want to know everything immediately.

But that didn’t happen.

Then there was the birthday wall.

He thought it was a good idea at the time to write a huge list of gift ideas on the wall. It wasn’t like the wall was doing anything. Sirius never decorated the apartment back when he bought it sixteen years ago. And the look on Harry’s face when he wrote HARRY’S BIRTHDAY WISHLIST made him laugh every time he remembered it.

But Sirius's intentions were less than innocent. He needed ideas. He simply didn’t know Harry well enough to fill two whole weeks with delightful surprises. Sirius had a handful of things he definitely wanted to do with Harry in the lead-up to his birthday - take him to Godric’s Hollow, buy him a whole new wardrobe for school (seeing as Sirius often grew out of his clothes faster than he could buy them at that age), take him flying over the ocean.

But it was like pulling teeth to get more than ten ideas from his godson. Finally, when Sirius said he could just ask for anything, not necessarily things he had wanted for previous birthdays, Harry started giving him a bit more to work with. But some of his ideas were just…oddly tame. It was as if Harry never got birthday gifts before.

And then his godson admitted that was true. On day three.

“The Dursleys never celebrated my birthday,” Harry admitted sheepishly. One side of his head was dusted with white flour, courtesy of Sirius starting an impromptu food fight. Harry’s bangs shadowed just a little over his eyes, making it easy for him to avoid looking at Sirius. “I never even got a birthday present before Hagrid showed up with a cake in that shack…”

“Shack?”

“Oh, yeah - Uncle Vernon tried to outrun my Hogwarts letter. They didn’t want me to go. He dragged us all out to some shack in the middle of a lake on my birthday.”

Sirius didn’t know what to do with this information. He remembered very little about the actual personalities of Lily’s sister and brother-in-law. He knew that Harry never had a good thing to say about them, and that Lily’s sister grew to resent him so much that she would ultimately break the blood ward, but beyond that Harry never said how - exactly - the Dursleys treated him.

Sirius hungered to know. Deep in his gut, he thought it might be bad. Why else would Harry talk in circles around his muggle relatives, never quite telling the whole truth?

“Why?” Sirius managed to say, remembering that this was real life and he had to actually say something to continue a conversation.

Harry tipped his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” he said eventually, laughing a little. He started to pour cake batter in a buttered tin, and Sirius held the pan steady for him, pretending to be useful. Harry’s brow pinched as he scraped the sides of the bowl. “I thought they’d be glad to get rid of me. Maybe when I was that young they thought I was salvageable.”

Sirius made a noise that was almost a growl and Harry grinned. “You sound just like…one of my friends. They hate the Dursleys almost more than I do.”

As it turned out, Sirius could start another list on the wall of things Harry’s relatives never let him do. Every revelation made him grind his teeth.

“I’ve never really decorated my room before.”

“They never let me try take-out.”

“I always got muggle clothes out of the bargain bin or from my cousin.”

“The Dursleys don’t listen to music at all. They pretend to know classical stuff but it’s all for show.”

So, the muggles were oddballs. Conservative. In a weird way, they sounded like stuffy old purebloods from his mother’s generation who turned their noses up at witches wearing pants. Sirius could easily fix that and introduce Harry to a world of joys. Music turned out to be the best of them, although the day they spent ordering take-out from every menu Sirius could collect in the streets as Snuffles was second-best. He learned that Harry loved spice - spice upon spice. He would gleefully try every chili, every pickled onion, every candied ginger. He also learned that Harry hated to waste food. He would eat things he didn’t like if it meant it would go in the trash.

Even though Harry was more sheltered than he expected, and more reserved, what surprised Sirius the most was his bizarre lack of confidence. Sirius knew that Harry was brave and strong. He faced down a dragon for Merlin’s sake!

But Harry also never asked for anything. He tiptoed around Sirius as if he thought the man was going to flip a switch and berate him for even the smallest choices. It drove him absolutely mad because Sirius didn’t know how to fix it. Harry trusted him to keep him safe, but that wasn’t enough. Coaxing Harry’s likes and dislikes out of him was fraught and frustrating and made Sirius feel like a terrible godfather.

Moony’s letter ran through his head again.

Just loving him isn’t enough, Sirius. He needs to depend on you. Can you show up for him in every way that matters? Can you accept him for who he is? He isn’t James, you know. He's not even Lily. He's his own person. 

Sirius groaned and stretched his arms overhead, hugging the pillow around his ears until the words were gone. He relished in the soft sheets for another long minute. If he survived the war, he was going to spend every galleon in his vault buying the softest, most luxurious bed in the entire world, and then he was going to spend a year in it.

His watch read 8:50am. A bit of an early start for him, but Sirius decided to make the most of it. He rolled out of bed, hissing as the old aches and pains in his back screamed awake. He stretched half-heartedly and then limped out to the kitchen.

Harry was already there, no surprise. Despite being a teenager, Harry never slept late. He was staring a letter in his hand, the thin metal mailbox open off to the side.

“Sending anything back?”

Harry’s head popped up. He looked strangely guilty.

Sirius groaned, “Don’t tell me it’s bad news.”

“No, no…it’s…”

When Harry trailed off, Sirius went right for the coffee. It was the only thing that could wake him up in the morning anymore. He waited patiently, guessing that it wasn’t particularly good news if Harry was struggling so much to spit it out.

Finally, Harry’s voice piped up. “Um…Sirius?”

“Yes, pup?”

Harry met his eyes tentatively. “Can you take me to the Albion Library? By ten?”

Sirius almost jumped for joy. “Yes!” he agreed, and then backtracked. “Wait, the Albion? In London? Have you been?”

Harry nodded slowly. “A couple times.”

Sirius looked pointedly down at the note in his hands, “Is that an overdue book notice?”

Harry flushed red, leaning back in his chair. “No…” he mumbled, glaring a hole into his hands. “I…want to meet a friend.”

Sirius swallowed back his surprise. “A friend? Ron? One of the other Weasleys?”

Harry waited a beat too long to respond. Sirius set his coffee down and flattened both palms on the table. When it became clear that Harry wasn’t going to offer more information, Sirius sighed.

“Pup? Look at me. Please.”

Harry raised his eyes. His lips were red, one side bleeding from where he’d torn some skin. Sirius noted that his hair was greasy and messed up as if he’d been pulling at it. “You can trust me,” Sirius said, trying to sound reassuring. “You wouldn’t ask if you didn’t want to go. Right?”

Harry nodded, glancing at the letter again. When he looked up, there was a bit of excitement on his face. “I really want to go,” he admitted. “I’m just…worried you’re going to say no.”

Sirius tipped his head, “Me? I don’t even know the word ‘no’. And the Albion is sacred ground. You’re safe as houses inside.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Sirius nodded to the letter, “So tell me who your friend is. I promise it’ll be okay.”

Harry took a deep breath and slowly flipped the white envelope around, showing him a family crest. It took a moment, but gradually he recognized it from memorizing family flags in the days of his youth.

“I want to go meet Theodore Nott,” Harry said evenly. “It would mean a lot to me, if you would let me go.”

A high-pitched whining rang through his head. Everything he’d ever known or heard about the Nott family rushed through his head in the blink of an eye.

“Are there any Notts left?” Sirius said stupidly, struggling to process that Harry was friends with a Nott. “I thought they all killed each other when I was in school. No, they did,” he snapped his fingers, “it was in The Prophet. Huge scandal at the time.”

Harry frowned. “I don’t know anything about his family,” he said. “Aside from the fact that his father is a Death Eater.” He looked down, “He was in the graveyard.”

There it was. Sirius stared over the letter into his godson’s face, marveling that he could say something like that and still clutch that note like he was afraid Sirius would snatch it away.

It would mean a lot to me if you let me go.

“I know you don’t trust Slytherins,” Harry began, lifting his chin. For the first time since Sirius picked him up in Privet Drive, there was a hard edge to Harry’s voice, and when he looked up at him, green eyes bright and determined, Sirius nearly fell over from a strong sense of déjà vu. After a moment of searching, Sirius remembered. Lily looked like that when she was arguing with us. When she knew she was right.

“But Theo doesn’t know who I am. We’re pen pals. We met while I was under my glamor, the day after I found out I inherited my House. He’s actually…really great. Nice, even.” Harry took a deep breath and pushed on, a light blush warming his cheeks. “He’s important to me. Even though he doesn’t know who I am, he helped me so much. More than he even knows. And I already decided that one we go back to Hogwarts, I’m going to stop talking to him.”

Harry pulled his fingers roughly through his hair, “I can’t tell him who I am - he would be in danger if we ever tried to be real friends. And I can’t go on like this. I feel terrible for lying. And…when the war comes…I don’t want to be tempted to use him to get information on his father. I just…” Harry’s brow furrowed. “He doesn’t even know how much I needed someone to talk to this summer about literally anything except Voldemort or the tournament or - or my life. I need to thank him in person before it’s over." Harry groaned and held out the letter for Sirius to read, "He sent me this today. We’ll have just one chance to see each other at the Albion, and that might be it. I have to go and see him."

Sirius blinked at his godson, bowled over by the torrent of new information. His brain replayed Harry’s words, skipping back over the same phrase: when the war comes, when the war comes. The apartment faded out of view, losing its light, its furniture. He was standing in the kitchen alone, holding the keys and jangling them lightly to fill the silence.

“Harry,” Sirius murmured, staring unseeingly over his head. “Did I tell you that I bought this apartment for my brother?”

Harry responded hesitantly, his voice distant, like he was a hundred feet away. “Reggie?”

“Yes,” Sirius breathed. He held his hand out until fingers touched warm ceramic, closing his eyes until the feeling pervaded his entire body. “He was a Death Eater.”

Harry gasped. This time the sound was nearer, but Sirius kept his eyes closed, letting the present come back to him in increments. “He joined the Death Eaters when he was in school, when he turned sixteen. He was supposed to be the true heir of the House of Black after I ran away, so he would have been a powerful feather in Voldemort’s cap. He was talented and stupidly loyal. He believed in things I didn’t - like that family blood mattered, or that magic was being weakened by muggleborns. He was also such a softie,” Sirius laughed brokenly, “he tried to save every half-dead bird or starving cat in London. He just didn’t understand how people could be cruel to animals. I felt so betrayed when he joined them, but ultimately, Regulus was my brother, and I couldn’t hate him for choosing the wrong side. I couldn’t.”

Something soft touched the top of his hand. He opened his eyes and stared at Harry’s hand, slowly looping his thumb over his godson’s slim fingers. “Reggie didn’t have an escape route. Our parents would have killed him if he tried to defect. I just knew in my gut that one day, Reggie would realize he chose the wrong side, so I bought this apartment under a false name - had it built specifically as a safe house for him. If he was hurt or needed help, I would be here in an instant. I tried to tell him that no matter what he did, I’d be on his side. But then he went and died…and all my efforts to reach him couldn’t save him from that.” He rubbed his face, pushing back the aching hurt.

“Truthfully pup.” Sirius wilted and turned away from those wide green eyes. Looking at Harry was painful, sometimes. He was the perfect mixture of James and Lily. Determined, sensitive, careful, kind. Sirius’s utter opposite. “Truthfully, I think I was just too late. I ignored Reggie for years. Pushed him away, in fact. I knew who our family was, who his friends were. It was inevitable that he would have joined them. I knew it in school and yet I just…closed the door. As if he deserved it. I told myself he could make his own choices, that he could save himself if he needed saving.” He heaved a deep breath, ignoring the way it caught in his chest. “And then the war came, and I grew up.”

He waved his other hand at Harry’s letter, “It’s your choice pup, but if you consider Nott to be your friend, take it from me. Don’t close that door on him.”

Harry blinked a few times, processing. Sirius stirred his coffee, letting the grating sound of the spoon chase away the ghosts of the past.

“Does that mean you’ll take me to the library?” Harry’s voice was hesitant but hopeful.

Sirius managed a weak smile. “I told you I don’t know how to say no,” he said. Harry jerked, his face a revelation of surprise and hope and unbridled happiness. Sirius shrugged, acting more casual than he felt, “When do we need to leave?”

---

Remus

Grimmauld Place welcomed his melancholy with open arms.

Remus moved restlessly from floor to floor. Buckbeak, normally excited to see him, just stared balefully at the dead ferret in his hands. The creature’s cold shoulder stung, adding to the hundred stinging cuts he seemed to accumulate day by day. Hippogriffs weren’t afraid of him like most other creatures. It was one of the reasons Remus liked Buckbeak so much. Back at Hogwarts he would go down to Hagrid’s hut and preen Buckbeak’s fine silver neck feathers. He liked to think the Hippogriff enjoyed his company.

Then Sirius took him on the run, and it felt like the Universe was laughing at him. His former best friend and his favorite Hippogriff, gone, leaving Remus with that decade-long ache. The feeling of being left behind again, leaving him wondering, where did you go?

It was his mantra. Where did you go? He’d been thinking it for years, howling his grief at the moon, holding it close to heart when he looked at old pictures of his friends, writing it in letter after letter when Sirius was on the run last year.

And now, again. Remus didn’t know what star he’d been born under, but between his lycanthropy and the everlasting hell of chasing after Sirius, it must have been a bad one.

Even Buckbeak seemed to think so, allowing Remus just a few lackluster pets before turning his head away in dismissal. Remus dropped the ferret and retreated from the attic, shoulders hunched, bitterly chewing his cheeks. The letter he got from Sirius the night before burned a hole in his pocket. All he wanted to do was take it out and incinerate it.

Anger snapped beneath his ever-present grief.

“-been a week, Hermione! Give it UP!”

Remus paused in the open doorway to the Black Library, grateful for the distraction.

Hermione Granger leaned over a lounging Ron Weasley, waving a piece of parchment in his face. His arm snapped out, long and pale and freckled, holding her wrist high above his head. “I won’t be writing him another letter, ‘Mione,” the boy said coldly. “I already wrote one. We’ll see him next week.”

“Maybe!” The girl hissed. “What if Sirius doesn’t bring him back? What if he’s in trouble and needs us?”

“Harry hasn’t needed us all summer,” Ron snarked, pushing her back lightly. “He’s where he wants to be. Leave him alone.”

Hermione pressed the letter to her chest, mouth working soundlessly as if she was reasoning through a hundred different arguments in one split second.

“You know that’s not true!” She finally cried, clutching her hands into fists. “We messed up. I messed up. We should have found a way to communicate with him that was safe. Then maybe he would have had another option! He only went with Sirius because Sirius was the one to get there first.”

Remus leaned against the door frame, feeling like he’d been punched directly in the chest. It was true, wasn’t it? And Remus had the opportunity to be that other person, that one who got there first, and he just…didn’t. He saw the way Fred and George stared at him, their eyes loaded with accusation and a bit of smugness. Remus needed no occlumency to know what they thought. We told you he was suffering. We told you he needed someone’s help.

They weren’t even the worst of it - as the days dragged on and Remus returned to Grimmauld Place with no news, no leads, no success at getting through to Sirius, he could feel the way the Order stared at him too, their judgment as clear as day. Aren’t you supposed to be his friend? Weren’t you Harry’s favorite teacher? Didn’t you claim you’d die for James and Lily? Now you can’t even find their son?

At least he wasn’t getting the brunt of the anger. Everyone disagreed with what should have been done about Harry. Even Arthur and Molly were chilly towards each other, painting on bright smiles for their children but sitting on opposite sides of the table.

Remus found himself in a strange middle ground. A small but powerful group within the order - Kingsley, Arthur, and Charlie Weasley (spurned on by his brothers, no doubt) flatly refused to search for Harry and Sirius. Kingsley even brought a copy of the Wixen Treatise and plastered it above the fireplace, stiffly reminding the room that the Order was not above the law, and thus they could not detain Harry at Grimmauld Place against his will now that he was a Lord and, technically, a legal adult.

The other side of the room - far greater in number - had more convincing arguments. Harry was grieving, frustrated, angry, betrayed. He needed stability, his friends, a safe place to live. Sirius was an unknown quantity, volatile, using unknown dark magics in ways they couldn’t predict. The story of Sirius's last Order meeting became a legend, whispered around the table. 

You know he threw a curse at Albus. 

I heard him say he'd train Harry to fight You-Know-Who and take him out of Hogwarts. 

It wasn't true, but the rumors all hinted at what Remus did believe, that Sirius was not fit to care for anyone, much less Harry. Remus was supposed to bring Sirius down to earth and make him see that Harry would be safer with the Order. Spiriting Harry away was easy, but actually caring for him? Regular meals, a safe place to stay, keeping a grieving teenage wizard under close watch? Even before Azkaban, Sirius couldn’t be trusted to remember to eat more than once a day.

But Sirius was also incredibly powerful, awfully talented with magic. If he could hide Harry in just twenty minutes so effectively that not even Albus Dumbledore could find him, then Harry was just as safe from Voldemort. He was safer now than he was behind the blood wards, that was for sure.

Once the Order and the children seemed to accept that they could not find Harry, all strategy turned to discussion of August 1st. The day Harry would come to Grimmauld Place, if Sirius’s patronus was to be believed. Remus knew that Albus wanted to do everything short of locking him inside the house, but privately, Remus questioned if that was the right thing to do. Harry clearly didn’t trust them. Trying to keep him close might just drive him farther away.

“Harry said he wanted to live with Sirius less than one hour after he realized the man wasn’t trying to kill him,” Ron said flatly, breaking Remus from his reverie. “Why on earth do you think he only went with him because he got there first? Harry always wanted to go with Sirius.”

“But last year Sirius was totally useless!” Hermione snarled, barely restraining her voice below a harsh whisper. “Harry spent more time worrying about him than he did worrying about himself! That’s what I mean Ronald, Harry could be out there trying to care for a half-crazed Sirius Black who’s dabbling in dark magic none of us even understand. We need to let Harry know he can come to us if he needs help! Right now he probably thinks we turned against him. I know he thinks I did!”

Ron’s frown turned more pensive, but before he could reply, one of the shadows between the library shelves moved.

“Lupin.” Severus’s cold voice nearly made him flinch. Ron and Hermione whipped around, both of their backs going ramrod straight as if they were in class. The Potions Master didn’t spare them a glance, smoothly sliding a book into his cloak as he turned toward Remus. “A word.”

He stepped back, glancing apologetically at the students before he followed Severus down the stairs. The portrait of Walburga fluttered ominously as they passed.

“What would Black do to heal his mind?”

They stood in the parlor off the main floor. Severus faced Remus head-on, his face blank, hands tucked in his cloak. It was a remarkably civil opening from Severus and it unnerved him.

The werewolf sighed, touching the letter in his pocket. “I don’t think it’s possible he fully healed his mind after Azkaban”

Severus scoffed, “That is not what I asked.”

“Then the answer is I don’t know.” Remus growled, his patience breaking, “I don’t know anything. Once upon a time, I would have said that Sirius would work harder than anyone to be the best auror, the best wizard he could be. So what would he stop at to fix his mind? Nothing! But now?!” Remus tore the letter from his pocket, waving it between them as if Severus could read through the envelope. “He’s hiding from Albus, hiding from me! Secreting Harry away by dark magic, or using Black magic which I never thought he would touch in his life!" He gasped for air, slowing the steady stream of words. "I don’t - I don’t know him anymore.”

But his heart twisted as the words left his mouth. The truth was, he did know Sirius. Sirius hated his family, but he’d do anything for the people he loved. Twelve year old Sirius was the first to suggest finding a way to keep him company when he transformed. He was the first to step forward in his animagus form, fearless under the gaze of a werewolf. He took on the most dangerous Order missions to spare James from the risk when Lily got pregnant and suddenly everything changed.

Remus crushed the letter in his fist. The truth was, Remus was the one who changed. He was letting his shame crush him.

I was locked in Azkaban for a dozen years, Moony. But you were free. If you have Harry’s ‘best interests at heart’ then where were you all those years?

Severus sneered at him, “Save me your self pity, Lupin. I don’t have time for it. While you wander about Headquarters, self-flagellating and mourning the past, I have been-“

“I’m tracking Sirius every day!” Remus shouted, the tension boiling over. He stepped closer to Severus, getting in his face, “Nobody can say I’m not doing my part!”

“I am perfectly capable of understanding your words at a normal volume wolf,” Severus hissed, his voice barely above a whisper.

Remus groaned and stepped back, scratching his fingernails through his hair. “I’m sorry, Severus,” he said. “I’m worried about them.”

Surprisingly, the other man didn’t respond with a cruel quip. When Remus looked at him again, Severus rolled his eyes and continued with significantly less venom in his voice. “Do you think it is possible Black approached Narcissa Malfoy to help him heal his mind?”

Remus stared at him. He wanted to scoff, to deny such a preposterous suggestion off-hand. But the words died in his throat. “How would that even be possible?” he managed to say. “What mind magic can heal twelve years in Azkaban?”

Severus’s dark eyes glittered. “The Blacks were pioneers in legilimency,” he said. “They had to be in order to wield the Dark Arts as they did. Narcissa is a talented occlumense. She can play every person in a room exactly the way she wants. Even Bellatrix has incredible control over her mind, insane though she may be.”

Remus stayed silent, unable to come up with a defense for Sirius. Narcissa was a Black first, so it made sense that when Sirius claimed his House, she would know. She might have even reached out to him directly.

Severus seemed to take his silence as agreement. “You think it is possible, then?”

“Maybe,” Remus agreed in a hushed tone. “But she wouldn’t help him for free. And Sirius would never help Voldemort.”

Severus’s lip curled, “No, not intentionally. But times have changed. The Malfoys have a son now. Their priorities are…different.”

Remus sucked in a breath, “You think they’d switch sides?”

“Lucius would never defect,” Severus retorted scathingly. “But they may entertain multiple scenarios. After all, the Dark Lord is strategically weak. Most of his core followers are dead, or in prison. Those who are still alive are not as powerful as they were long ago.” The two men matched eyes, the unspoken fact hovering between them that the same could be said of the Order of the Phoenix. “I merely wish to know if this possibility could have merit. I am chasing down leads for the mutt and the brat within my circle. If there is proof he colluded with Narcissa, I shall know.”

Remus blinked as Severus whisked out of the room without even a polite nod goodbye.

Thank Merlin he’s on our side, he thought.

“Professor Lupin, can we-“

“-have a moment of your time?”

Remus slumped and turned around. Fred and George Weasley stood at the other entrance to the parlor. It never ends, he thought exhaustedly.

“Call me Remus. Please. I’m not a professor anymore.”

One of them grinned, “You’ll always be Professor to us.”

“Yeah, can’t you appreciate how weird it is to call our teacher by his first name?”

Remus thought back to how long it took him to call Albus anything other than Headmaster and rolled his eyes. “Point taken,” he muttered. “What can I do for you?”

The twins exchanged a look. One of them stepped back so he could see into the kitchen. “I’ll keep an eye out, Fred,” he whispered.

Fred motioned for Remus to follow him over by the window. “George and I overheard Bill talking about something with Charlie last night,” he murmured. His voice was probably pitched lower than a human could hear, but Remus easily understand him.

“Eavesdropping again?” he asked flatly.

Fred pressed a finger to his lips, shushing him. “Professor, I’m only telling you because I thought you said you were on Harry’s side.”

Remus groaned slightly and nodded. The twins had basically hovered over his shoulder when he wrote his letter to Harry. It initially contained three pages of excuses and explanations, but they were unrelenting in pointing out that Harry wouldn’t want to hear a list of excuses. 

Take our advice, Professor. After all, if you had listened to us, Harry would never have run away. 

“I am,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder. “What did you hear?”

Fred’s eyes didn’t lose that spark of suspicion, but he continued readily. “Bill was saying something about getting into ‘his vault’ and using something in it to ‘get in to the property’.” He paused meaningfully, “Doesn’t that sound like they know where Harry is?”

Remus twisted his mouth, “No, they would have said…”

Fred shook his head, “Not to you. You don’t want to force Harry to come back, right?”

He humming, mulling over the words. “Do you really believe that Albus would condone kidnapping Harry from somewhere he wants to be?” Fred’s expression didn’t change, so Remus tried a different tact, rubbing his temples. “Did he say it was Harry’s vault? It’s a serious crime to break into a Gringotts vault. Bill wouldn’t do something that reckless.”

Fred’s mouth tightened, “I know,” he muttered. “I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I can’t confront him about. He’ll know we were listening in and probably never trust us again…he's so stupidly proud,” he roughed one hand through his hair, “He didn’t say it was Harry’s vault, but who else could it be? Please, Professor, you have to do something before Bill makes a serious mistake. He was born noble. He probably thinks the risk is worth it if Dumbledore told him so.”

Remus felt a bit of anxiety in his chest loosen. “Oh, I think I know what you heard.” He glanced at George and considered calling him over to hear this too. “Albus is trying to access some of the safe houses we lost in the first war.” When Fred just blinked at him, Remus clarified, “A lot of our people died. We lost access to a whole network of secure properties. Bill is probably working with the Goblins to access extinct vaults. Technically, if there are no heirs, they secede their contents to the bank. I heard Albus say that Bill was working to strengthen our alliance with the Goblin Nation, so it must be going well.”

He could see relief wash over Fred’s face and Remus took a risk, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good brother, Fred,” he said seriously, looking him in the eye. “Keep looking out for Bill. I promise I won’t let them take Harry hostage or anything like that.”

Fred let out a shaky laugh. “It does sound ridiculous when you say it like that.”

“All the smoke and daggers of the Order make people paranoid,” Remus said, “trust me. Don’t let it put doubt in your heart. You know your family.”

The words pulled at the pain in his chest again. Remus had to look down and away from the young wizard, tortured by his own advice. Don’t be like me, he thought fervently. Don’t get left behind.

Notes:

I think I could have written 15,000 words purely covering Sirius and Harry having birthday parties. I just love them so much. A sane Sirius is my jam. (But sane at what cost? Wouldn't you like to know...)

I did some research into chart topping albums of the summer of 1995, so the music choices are legit. Soundgarden's "Superunknown" is also just a fabulous album I recommend to anyone feeling a big angsty about their lot in life.

Chapter 11: A Monster in the Wood

Summary:

Kingfisher has a day of reunification. Theo goes a-hunting and finds much more than he bargained for.

Notes:

Hi folks - graphic violence in this chapter.
8.20.24 - caught an error in my own story with Theo's mom's name! What a dummy I am. I fixed it, her name is Ophelia.

Harry

Harry hurried through the muggle side of the London Library, heading right for the rickety old elevator in the back. He knew it wasn’t smart walk with purpose like this, but the minute hand on his watch ticked three notches past 10am and he was anxious to get inside. He was flustered and annoyed at himself for running late, spending too long in the mirror messing with his new hairstyle before he remembered he would be wearing a glamor. His cheeks still burned recalling the look on Sirius's face when he rushed out of his bedroom dressed in that nice purple shirt he was wearing the first time he met Theo, black jeans, white converse, and his hair done.

Thankfully, Sirius refrained from comment and apparated them close to the Albion. Sirius was watching his back until he was safe, and Harry crossed his fingers that he would be true to his word and let him have his privacy with Theo. Not that they were going to discuss anything important, but Harry couldn’t tolerate yet another person spying on his life. Even if that person was Sirius. Even if he secretly wanted Sirius within eye shot just in case something happened.

Nothing will happen to you, he thought, clenching his fists. The Albion is neutral ground. No one will even know who you are. You'll both be safe.

The Albion was busier than the last time he and John visited. A large number of children surrounded the spinning desk, each clutching a book while a harried young wizard tried to keep them in an orderly line. Harry stepped up to a clear spot on the counter, returning a book about famous familiars and another about wizard crests while he scanned the top floors of the library.

He didn’t have to look for long. Theo raised his hand, the tiny motion catching his sensitive seeker eyes. The Slytherin boy was on the second floor, waiting for him.

Harry legged it up the iron staircase, already grinning by the time he hit the top.

Theo immediately shoved a short sheet of parchment in his face. “Read this,” he ordered.

“Hi,” Harry gasped, taking it from his hand. “How are you?” He read the parchment as fast as possible. “What is this?”

Theo smirked, “We have to talk and walk,” he said apologetically. “Is that everything you asked me about?”

Harry read the list again:

- Familiar bond, magical animals, soul bonds etc.

- Ancient magical history (UK)

- Squibs and the science of magic

- Folklore, magical legends, etc.

- Divination?

“The science of magic?” Harry read out loud.

“I’m going to show you where you can read about all this,” Theo explained, gesturing for Harry to follow. “There are a lot of secret places in the Albion you might never find. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to write to you for the rest of the summer.”

Harry tried not to choke. “What?”

Theo hushed him, setting a fast pace through the stacks. He moved so quickly Harry barely had time to read the placards on the shelves so he could keep track of where they were. Theo stopped in front of a long line of books in the main stacks and pointed up at the sign. “The history of the UK starts here,” he whispered. Theo started skimming his fingers over the spines of thick, heavy tomes reverently. “These are copies of accounts from the first merry meet between the Saxon druids and the Roman mages. The English translation…” he muttered to himself and followed the shelves down until he touched a series of thin white books, “they start here.”

Harry studied his pen pal, fidgeting uncomfortably. Theo was dressed how Harry pictured a pureblood student dressing in the summer. He was wearing a luxurious gray and white cloak over black slacks and a dark gray button up. The fabric was light, and even though it looked simple from afar, they were standing close enough together that Harry could see his clothes were tailored to fit, utterly spotless, and richly stitched. Even his shoes, black as night and shining - obviously new - moved soundlessly and perfectly over the floor.

Why can’t he write for the rest of summer? Is his father taking him under his wing or something? What if he’s making him into a mini-Death Eater? Would Voldemort try and create a spy inside Hogwarts? 

He felt Theo’s eyes on him and quickly pointed down, “Are those your new Italian loafers?”

Theo snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yes. Blaise believes a man needs a shoe for every season, my dragonhides simply aren’t acceptable.” He used air quotes, throwing his hands up in dismay. "If you ever meet Blaise, you'll understand."

Harry smiled. “I just bought these,” he showed off the white Converse he was wearing, charmed imperturbable to keep their color.

Theo nodded approvingly and looked around conspiratorially. Then he leaned in, and all Harry could see were Theo’s eyes. They were just as deep dark blue as he remembered. “Don’t tell anyone,” he whispered, “But I have a pair, too. They are not good rockhounding shoes, though.” He pulled back and tutted. “Let’s add that to your list. Geology.”

When Theo turned around, Harry felt all the air rush back into his head at once. He blinked dazedly, completely forgetting about his anxiety as the image of Theo’s eyes seared into his brain. “Coming?” Theo whispered from up ahead, forcing Harry to move clumsily in his wake. Fucking hell, Harry thought, how does he fly under the radar at Hogwarts? He’s like a force of magic personified.

They flitted around the Library. Theo got distracted every few rows, pointing out interesting topics or books that he hated as if he had the entire library memorized. Harry’s head was spinning as Theo showed him more and more hidden nooks and unassuming rows of books covering accounts of Merlin, the history of squibs, the formation of the Ministry of Magic, the physiology of wixen, and so much more than Harry ever even knew to ask about. Theo seemed to realize that his head was spinning and snatched the parchment back from him, jotting down waypoints as they walked.

He showed him the Genealogy room, which he called The Hall of Families. Then they moved on to the bestiary which was filled with glass cases of preserved magical creatures from all over the world. They had to crouch down to look at the woeful collection of tomes about familiars and familiar magic.

“Only one witch has ever documented her familiar bond,” Theo breathed, removing a bright blue book off the shelf to show him. “She was bonded with a carrier pigeon that she purchased during the first World War. She claimed it could talk to her, as in - have real conversations.” Harry’s heart sped up and he was careful to keep his face blank. Theo met his gaze, blue eyes wide, “No one believed her. She was considered a bit of a nut case. She famously never finished school, so her book wasn’t well-received by magical theorists.”

Harry took the book from his hands, “So you think she made it up?”

“You’ll have to read it and tell me,” Theo shrugged. “Magic can do stranger things than give a pigeon the gift of gab.”

The gift of gab, Harry mouthed, snickering. Theo shot him a look like he was daring him to comment, but Harry fixed an innocent expression on his face.

“But don’t lots of wizards have familiars?” he asked.

Theo hummed, “Close animal bonds, yes. Familiar bonds like Morgana had with her raven, Excelsius? You’ll find them in legends more readily than the real world.”

Harry released a quiet sigh and resigned himself to wait for John to continue his understand of familiars. If only the cat would hurry up and find him.

Theo held out his hand, “Come on. The next part is my favorite.”

Intrigued, Harry took his hand and let Theo pull him up, momentarily distracted by the runes tattooed on his knuckles.

“What do those mean?” he asked, reluctantly letting Theo slide his hand out of his grip.

Theo appraised him shrewdly. “I’ll tell you upstairs,” he hedged, already a few steps ahead of him. “Come on. We don’t have all day.”

They climbed eight floors before they reached the Divining Hall. Harry paused a couple steps behind Theo, trying not to wheeze heavily and embarrass himself. Despite all the hiking and working out he’d done this summer, loping up eight uneven flights of stairs was not in the cards for him. He dragged the collar of his shirt up by his ear, swiping some sweat off his face, and accidentally pulling his glasses right off.

Harry tumbled face-first into the floor, clumsily reaching for the oval frames and turning his head away from Theo as quickly as possible. When the glasses were securely on his head, he looked up fearfully and was relieved to see that Theo had not yet turned around. Double lucky, the higher they went in the Albion, the fewer people they saw. It seemed to Harry that they might be alone. 

“Inside they have-“ Theo stopped and looked over his shoulder, “alright there, Fisher?”

“Tripped,” Harry lied, lurching to his feet. “Why are you calling me Fisher? I’m Ivan, remember?”

Theo waved his hand dismissively, “And I told you that’s a terrible pseudonym. I’m certainly not going to call you King, so Fisher will have to do.”

Harry snorted and hurried to his side. Theo held the door open for him magnanimously. Harry hoped that he couldn’t see how sweaty he was.

“Whoa,” Harry gasped, marveling at the room. They were in a circular tower, not unlike Trelawney’s classroom, but with far more windows, soaking the floor in brilliant sunlight. Shelves went all the way up to the ceiling, and Harry thought he saw a few pieces of parchment floating near the top. The books here were much more colorful than the rest of the library, but there were more than just books. Harry saw a shelf of bones underneath one window, a glass case full of glittering gems stretching to the third floor landing, and in the center of the room there was a huge shallow table carved from a tree stump forming a wide bowl. 

“I know,” Theo said smugly, elbowing him lightly. “Look,” he pointed and Harry locked eyes with a creature on their left. He jerked, crashing into Theo’s side and whipping out his wand. Two hands settled on his shoulders. “It’s stuffed,” Theo laughed, shaking him lightly. “It’s not alive.”

Fierce red eyes glared down at him over an evil, hooked beak. Harry stepped back, bumping into Theo’s chest. “Are you sure? It’s looking right at me.”

Theo pulled him forward and, to Harry’s dismay, the eyes of the creature followed him. But Theo was right, it was undeniably dead. “What is it?” He whispered, taking in the folded, leathery wings, snakelike neck, and wickedly sharp talons.

“It’s a wyrven,” Theo explained at a normal volume, pointing at the little golden placard at the bottom of the case. Harry did not want to take one step closer to that thing to read it. “It’s said that wyrvens were like seers. They could give prophecies. They’re considered terrible omens.” Theo frowned gravely, “It’s still looking at you, isn’t it? Huh.”

Harry whipped his head around, “What? What does that mean?”

Theo scratched his nose, not quite meeting his eyes. “It’s just a legend,” he said hesitantly, “but I read that this particular wyrven was said to give prophecies only to people who would suffer a terrible death…”

Harry felt all the blood drain from his face.

Theo burst out laughing, the sound so loud and startling that Harry flinched backwards. “Your…face!” Theo laughed, pointing. “You actually believed that?”

Relief made him go weak at the knees, and then Harry launched himself at the Slytherin. “You snake!” he hissed, swatting playfully at Theo’s head. “You utter asshole! You scared me!”

Theo wiped his eyes, accepting a couple of light smacks to the back of the head. “That was fun,” he said much more quietly. “That thing stares at the first person to walk through the door. I had to do it.”

Harry rolled his eyes and walked away from him, heading for the shelf of gems. He kept his eyes straight ahead, trying to bring his heart rate back down. Being in the Divining Hall made the weight of Dumbledore’s secret come crashing down again. He stared unseeingly at the rainbow of colors in front of him until a long-fingered hand thrust in front of his face, the fingers wiggling enticingly.

“You wanted to see my runes?”

Theo was watching him as if he thought Harry might swat him again. Harry felt his shoulders drop and he gently took the other boy's hand, looking at the tattoos. The runes were black and vibrant on his skin, two on each finger and one on his thumb. Harry stared at the sharp symbols, suddenly wishing he had taken Ancient Runes instead of Divination.

“It means creator,” Theo translated, “they’re written in Elder Futhark. My father did them for me at the beginning of the summer.”

Harry touched them, wondering if he could feel the ink under his skin, but they felt smooth. He let go of Theo’s hand. “Is that normal? I don’t…know much about wizard customs.”

Theo offered him a genuine smile, revealing those crooked teeth again. All of Harry’s annoyance evaporated at the sight. “Normal? I think it’s just a Nott thing. My father doesn’t put any stock in this,” he waved his hand generally at the room. “But he dug up an old account from one of our ancestors about a coming of age ceremony they used to do for young Vikings. It was supposed to tell us how I would bring honor to our family.” Theo cracked his knuckles absently, “The Notts are descended from warriors, so a lot of our traditions are concerned with leaving behind a great legacy.”

Harry nodded, mouth dry. I wonder if the Potters have anything like that, he wondered. Or the Blacks.

“It looks wicked,” he said honestly, because it felt like he had to say something. Theo snickered and stuck his hands in the pockets of his cloak. Harry watched him for a second, noting the comfortable way Theo moved around the room, the familiarity in his eyes as he looked at the colorful rocks in front of him. “So, divination is your favorite subject?”

Theo nodded, “Oh yes. It’s more of an art than a magic.”

Harry slumped, “I’m rubbish at it,” he admitted. “But you make it seem really cool.”

Strangely, Theo turned away, but Harry thought his ears looked pink. He had half of his long blonde hair pulled back, no braids this time. Harry felt oddly disappointed. “Come check this out,” he said, pointing at the tree stump.

The inside of it was beautiful. Red tree rings swayed out from the center. The wood was sanded down so smooth that it reflected the ceiling. Theo removed a small velvet bag from his pocket and untied the string. “Hold your hands out,” he instructed. Harry cupped them together, accepting a waterfall of smooth, flat stones, each about the size of his thumb. A rune was carved on one side of each rock.

“Okay,” Theo stuffed the bag back in his pocket and cupped his own hands in front of him, mimicking Harry’s stance. “Now think of a question, just one,” he waited for Harry’s nod that he understood, “and then breathe on them and throw them in the bowl.”

Harry blinked. Part of him wondered if this was another trick, but Theo’s eyes were wide and genuine. Harry noticed that he seemed tense. 

Well, it could do no harm, he reasoned. Most of divination was bunk, anyway. A question, a question…if Theo would be the one reading the stones, he didn’t want it to be about Voldemort. He recalled Sirius’s advice back at the flat, and John’s impatient insistence that Harry was being stupid about cutting Theo off at the end of the summer. He closed his eyes and focused on Theodore Nott, on their strange, almost-friendship.

What does the friendship between me and Theodore Nott have in store?

He repeated the questions a few times, fixing the idea of it in his mind. This, at least, he was pretty good at. Trelawney was always harping at them to ask the right question and Harry always got good marks on his worksheets. He couldn’t just ask if it was good to be friends with Theo, because of course it was good. That was what he felt so guilty about - it was great...for him. If they were different people, if he was a different person, he wouldn’t need to think twice about it.

No, Harry needed to know what was in store for both of them if he continued to write to Theo as Kingfisher. If we see a bad omen, I’ll have my answer.

He breathed over the stones and tossed them into the tree stump. They leaned over, watching the rocks skitter and clash against each other. Some of them scattered far to the edge of the bowl, almost jumping out, but most of them grouped in the center. Theo moved around the tree stump, his mouth moving silently. Harry stared at the rocks nervously. Less than half of them landed rune-up. Is that bad? He wondered as Theo continued around the stump, coming up to his other side.

“Well?” He demanded nervously. Theo glanced at him. “What do they say?”

Theo stayed silent, his eyes flickering over the stones. “It’s…quite the reading. What did you ask, Fisher?” Luckily, Theo’s question seemed to be rhetorical and he didn’t seem to notice the way Harry froze up at the question. He pointed at two stones that had settled at the top of the bowl. “See those? Together, they symbolize The Tower.”

Harry felt his stomach drop out of him. “What?” he breathed. “Like in tarot?”

“Exactly,” Theo said grimly, “the Tower, as you know, indicates sudden catastrophic change, destruction, death to the old way of whatever it is you asked about, yeah.” Theo gave him a look. “That’s why I asked.”

Harry just blinked at the two stones. They were leaning on each other, forming the top of a little triangle. Harry felt dread surge through his body. Theo pointed again, tracing the other stones in the air. “You see how everything else settled beneath those two? It’s suggesting that all this down here comes from the Tower. So, there you have knowledge,” he waved at couple of stones grouped together on the left side. “That’s saying like…learning something new, opening your eyes to the true way of things. That one right there specifically means quest or journey. Then you have discord, a pretty natural consequence of the Tower I would say. Next you have the most interesting part of this whole reading…” Theo pushed him lightly to the side so they could get closer to the group of stones on the right. “This shape - the stones are making a crown. Something great will rise from the ashes of the Tower.”

Harry’s mind went to Voldemort. “How do you know it’s a good thing? Couldn’t it be another…tower? Like another iteration of what was before?”

Theo looked at him sharply. “My, my,” he drawled, “I thought you were bad at divination?” Harry flushed and shrugged, but he didn’t look away. After a moment, Theo pointed at a couple of the visible runes within the crooked crown, “These runes, they mean prosperity, spring, and that one means love.” He waved his hand, “Because they’re in the shape of a crown, something good will reign over whatever was left behind by the catastrophe. I think it means new beginnings.”

Harry hummed, secretly thanking every god in the universe that John was not here to witness this.

“And that’s the - the biggest part? The biggest consequence of whatever, erm, that is?” He waved at the top two runes.

Theo nodded, “Yeah, those last ones over there mean benevolent - um, like benevolent new friends?” Theo cocked his head, “Or new family? The rune goes both ways. Something like that is pretty common for these transformation-type readings.” His hands twitched toward his cloak. “Would you mind if I drew this? Lithomancy is kind of subjective, obviously. I might get more out of it later.”

“Sure,” Harry stepped back, letting Theo have some space. “I’m gonna look around…”

He wandered the Divining Hall for a few minutes, digesting what Theo saw in his stones and trying to decide if it was good or bad. I remember why I hate divination now, he thought. It’s never yes, no, maybe, sometimes. I could read a hundred implications from all that.

Harry stopped on the third floor, finishing his inspection of the gem cabinet. He thought he could understand why Theo was so enamored with the sport of hunting rocks if he could find things like this in the wild. Theo was still scribbling down below. Harry watched him and let himself imagine, just for one second, taking off his glasses and going downstairs…

We’re alone in here, he thought, heart thumping heavily. And the Albion is sacred ground.

He thought of the little expressions on Theo’s face. The one, genuine smile he got out of him today. He remembered how quickly he shut down way back in Obscurus Books when he realized that Harry wasn’t Blaise in disguise.

Theodore Nott: aloof, cold, wickedly smart.

Theo: generous, funny, shy.

Harry groaned quietly and dropped his head on his arms. Why does it have to be so hard?

“Find anything up there?”

Harry blinked stupidly. He’d toured the upper floors, but not a single title or subject had jumped out at him because he was so sick with worry over what he was about to do. Theo sensed the change in his attitude immediately and turned quickly secreted his small journal away as Harry approached.

Harry removed his backpack and propped it on his knee, digging around for Theo’s book. “Here,” he said heavily, handing it over, “I rewrapped it the way it came but I couldn’t get the knots right.”

The top flap of leather was falling off. Theo inspected the book inside for a moment and nodded. “Thank you,” he replied. His voice was quiet but it seemed to fill the hall. Harry thought he could hear it reverberate gently in the wooden bowl. Thank you, you, you…

“This is also for you,” he thrust his hand out, dropping a small river stone in Theo’s waiting hand. “It’s a hag stone,” he explained. Theo raised the little hole in the stone up to his eye and peered through it. “It…it’s supposed to see through disguises, I guess.”

“Not yours,” Theo replied. It was impossible to tell if he sounded disappointed or not. His face was completely unreadable as he dropped the stone from his face and flipped it over a few times. The rock wasn’t very special, a bit lopsided and heavier at the base than at the top. The tiny hole was off to one side, close to the edge, but it was there. Round and perfect.

“Yeah,” Harry scratched his neck nervously. “I don’t…it’s not that I don’t trust you…”

Theo shrugged, rolling the stone between his fingers. “You never ask about my family,” he said factually. “Not even once.”

Harry’s heart was pounding in his chest. He shook his head mutely.

Theo glanced at the door. He was frowning now, and suddenly Harry could see strain written all over his face. There were pale shadows under his eyes. He looked tired. “I wish you’d met me under a disguise too,” he admitted, looking down. “Maybe it would be easier on you, if you didn't know who I was.”

“I don’t want to stop being friends!” Harry protested and almost smacked himself in the face. Fuck! He thought, That wasn't what I -

But then Theo looked up at him, and even though he was still guarded Harry knew enough about Slytherins to interpret that look. He was hopeful. Harry felt all his will crumble at the sight.

“I don’t,” Harry continued firmly, “I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to feel like a real asshole keeping my identity a secret from you all year. In the summer it’s not so hard, but at Hogwarts…”

Theo flashed a grin, “Yeah, I should warn you that once Draco and Blaise figure out my pen pal goes to Hogwarts they’ll be out for your blood. Are you good at hiding?”

Harry snorted, recalling a lifetime of Harry Hunting. “Are you really okay with being friends with someone you don’t know?”

Theo shrugged and pocketed the stone. “I don’t have many friends,” he said factually. “It would be stupid to turn my back on the only person who appreciates muggle fiction like I do. And...” Theo glanced away, wrinkling his nose a little, "I like talking to you. It's...easy. Don't you feel that way?"

A brilliant burst of warmth flooded Harry’s chest, and for a second it was hard to resist the urge to run up and sling his arm around Theo’s shoulders. He grinned widely and laughed instead, “I do,” he agreed, rubbing his face to try and chase the warmth away. “I’m rubbish at making friends, too. I only really have two of them.”

“Just two?” Theo said dryly, “What are we, the same person?”

Harry laughed, but before Theo could elaborate he stiffened and looked down at his watch. Harry saw all the ease in his body vanish at once.

“I have to go,” Theo said, stepping close and holding out his wand hand. “I’ll write to you when I can, Fisher, but please don’t write to me.”

Harry frowned and clasped his arm the way Sirius had shown him, gripping his upper forearm lightly. “Merry meet, Kingfisher,” Theo said seriously.

“Merry meet,” Harry responded miserably. “Thank you for everything, Theo. You saved me this summer.”

Theo huffed, but he grinned at him, suddenly alive, suddenly shining right in front of Harry. “Don’t say it like that, Fisher,” he said with exasperation, “we’ll see each other again. At Hogwarts.”

They waved one last time at the door. The gesture was no more than a half-second between them, but already Theo’s face was a mask. Harry felt his heart plummet in his chest as a new anxiety took root and bloomed inside of him. Please, please, please be safe, he prayed. 

He did not trust himself to leave the Divining Room until he was sure Theo and his father had left the building. He walked aimlessly around the room for awhile, studiously ignoring the glaring wyrven. Until the tenth pass - then he gave in and darted over, covering his head with both hands to try and fend off the way its blood red eyes loomed over him.

The plaque read: Soothsayer, the Wyrven red (d. 1575). Estimated to have lived for two thousand years, Soothsayer famously took her final rest on top of the Rookery of the Albion Library. Her famous prophecies foretold the death of great wixen heroes from the Danish Wars and during the first age of witch hunts. Soothsayer’s corpse appears to watch anyone who walks into the Divining Hall as a reminder to treat magic with the respect and devotion it deserves.

Sounds like something John would do after death, he thought dryly, taking his leave of the tower. He fidgeted with the few books Theo pointed out to him during their whirlwind tour of the library, trying to set his mind on other things. Theodore Nott had survived fourteen years without needing to be rescued by anyone, he was probably just doing stuffy pureblood heir things with his father before school started. And John? John was more than capable of being on his own. Worry about yourself Harry. 

Harry checked out at the rotating desk and headed back into the muggle world. He and Sirius agreed to meet at a newsstand just past the main entrance, so Harry headed there. Sirius was already waiting for him. He sat at a small iron table holding a magazine in one hand. He looked like a muggle school teacher in his glamor, with clean, short-cropped hair and a sweater vest over his long-sleeved dress shirt. Sirius looked at him over his sunglasses and grinned. “Hey Ivan!” he called out, “Come look at this!”

As Harry got closer, he realized that there was something in Sirius’s lap.

“He just came right up to me,” Sirius cooed, putting his magazine down. “He looks hungry, doesn’t he? Poor skinny thing…”

Sirius cupped one hand under John’s chin and scratched him gently.

“You’re not allergic to cats, are you pup?” his godfather asked, heedless of the staring contest going down between Harry and John. “He’s been purring in my lap for five minutes. I think he wants to come with us.”

“He might get uncomfortable on the trip home,” Harry pointed out, forcing himself to calmly take the other seat.

Sirius shrugged, “It’ll be over before he knows it. Cats are strong.”

“What are you going to name him?”

John’s eyes flashed open. Harry looked away from him, smiling pleasantly as Sirius deliberated.

“What about…Reaper?”

Harry started, Oh shit, that’s kind of cool. John slowly closed his eyes in satisfaction. Harry thought he saw a bit of a smile on the cat’s smug little face.

“I think he looks like a Bernard,” Harry said breezily, almost laughing when John’s tail stiffened.

Sirius laughed loudly and stood up. “Bernard!” he repeated, cradling John in his arms lovingly. “Are you a Bernard? A little Bernie?” John tucked his head in the crook of Sirius’s elbow, making him laugh even more. “Come on,” he said, nodding at Harry, “if you're finished, let’s go.”

Harry got to hold John as they apparated back to the apartment. He thought the cat might shred him a little bit for joking about his “name”, but as soon as Sirius handed him over, John rubbed the top of his head along Harry’s chin fondly. Sirius ooo’ed over them for a moment. Relief like he’d never felt before made him weak in the knees. He cuddled John back gently, trying to communicate how he felt without words.

And then they were back in the safe house. All three of them.

“Was it everything you hoped it would be?” Sirius asked later (after he gleefully carried John around the apartment to give him the grand tour). The cat was curled up on Sirius’s lap, much to Harry’s chagrin.

“It was…good,” he hedged, giving Sirius a bare-bones accounting of what they did, leaving out the lithomancy. “But he said he can’t write to me for the rest of summer. Busy with his family, or something.”

Sirius studied him for a moment. “Well, didn’t you want to stop talking to Nott anyway?”

Harry fidgeted under the combined weight of his and John’s eyes. “I, uh…I didn’t…end up saying that. To him. I actually…we agreed to stay friends. As pen pals,” he said quickly, heading off any suspicion on Sirius’s part. “He said he doesn’t mind not knowing who I am. And he…he seems kind of lonely.”

Like me, he thought.

“I saw his father,” Sirius said, easily changing the subject, “when they left. He looked just like my dad did, mean as hell. That kid of his, though, he must take after his mother.” Sirius kept his face turned down, gently stroking the little white mark on John’s chest, “He’s rather good-looking for a snake, don’t you think? He didn’t have so much of that evil energy about him.”

Harry laughed, but even to him it sounded strangled. “I don’t know about that,” he lied, even though Theo’s eyes were swimming in his head. “I mean, he’s okay. His eyes are - well - he’s - he's definitely not evil. Otherwise I wouldn’t be friends with him. Right? Duh. Of course.”

“What do you think Reaper?” Sirius mused, ignoring Harry’s stammering. “Do you think Harry discovered a good snake? Is there such a thing?”

“I think Harry discovered a snake he likes,” John replied teasingly.

Sirius froze. Harry froze.

John hopped off of Sirius’s lap and right onto Harry’s.

“I missed you kid,” he purred.

“Harry?” Sirius said, his eyes locked on to the cat, arms half-raised like he wanted to lunge across the table. "Reaper is really talking, right? I’m not…losing it?”

John flicked his tail, “My name is John,” he said. “I’m a cat-sìth, one of the good folk, and a friend to this young wizard.” Harry didn’t miss the weight of John’s words, the way he called him friend. He thought back to the few books on faerie magic and folklore he could find. Friends of the good folk are blessed, he remembered. Or sometimes cursed. 

“He’s alright, Sirius,” Harry added, looping his arms protectively around John. “John’s been…amazing to me all summer. He’s trustworthy. Gringotts actually sent him to me to take me to the bank, so I could claim my house. I couldn’t tell you about him until he came and found us. He made me promise.”

Sirius looked pale. “A cat-sìth?” he repeated breathlessly. “Wha..what? You’re real?”

“I am,” John growled importantly.

“Harry,” Sirius stressed, looking to him in askance, “he’s one of the fae. They’re dangerous. How could you - why would you keep this from me? Don’t you trust me?”

Harry nearly flinched, but he managed to hold himself together at the last second. He averted his eyes, staring a hole into the floor and stroking John’s back mechanically. He hated the way Sirius was looking at him. It was just like he pictured, the disappointment, the hurt. “I’m sorry, Sirius. I-“

“Hey!” John snapped, shaking Harry’s hand off and puffing up. “Before you go accusing your godson of anything, why don’t you explain the inferi in your closet, Lord Black? You tell me, Harry, is it worse to bond with a fae, or to keep your little brother’s animated corpse in a dungeon?”

Harry’s heart pounded in his ears. What? He thought, that can’t be true.

But Sirius was white as a sheet on the couch, stricken with guilt. “I - I - I didn’t -“

“Sirius,” Harry interrupted, curling his trembling hands into fists. "I think it’s time we were honest with each other. I do trust you. Okay?”

Sirius met his gaze after a couple of shuddering breaths. “Okay,” he agreed, eyes flickering from Harry to John and back again. “I'm sorry pup. Let’s talk.”

---

Theo

Theo rolled the stones in his palms while murmuring over them, “Show me Kingfisher, show me the truth, show me what he is.”

He emptied the bag on the floor. The stones danced and skittered across the well-worn rock, some of them jumping far outside the radius of Theo’s reading. He focused on the stones inside the chalk circle, keeping his mind carefully blank.

Half of them were flipped with the runes face down, and the other half had the same symbols face-up that he’d seen for the last two days. He hissed under his breath and leaned over the circle, searching for something more.

“The Knight,” he traced the pattern of stones in the air. They formed a jagged spear. This was the utter constant in his readings. Kingfisher always showed up as the Knight, as Strength personified, piercing another group of stones, showing that he was locked in battle with something.

The pattern of the opposing stones changed every time. Sometimes he was fighting death, which made Theo’s head spin. Sometimes, it was an army. This time, the spear was piercing an upside-down crown. Theo frowned at it, but this crown wasn’t the same as the one he saw from Kingfisher’s reading in the library. This crown was maddeningly opaque. Just one stone in its shape was overturned, showing the sign for Pisces. “Twins?” he murmured. “No…” He reached out and gently tapped the corner. It spun easily as if on a gear. “Duplicity…”

Theo let out a short breath and straightened up, cracking his back. He forced his worry about Kingfisher from his head. For such an unassuming half-blood, he had the strangest divination readings. Theo thought he could study his pen pal for hours.

“No time for this,” he muttered, sweeping his mother’s stones back into his bag. “I have to go.” His eyes were burning. A wildfire was consuming a forest to the south, settling a rusty haze over the highlands. A deep, red sun cut ineffectively through the smoke, tinging the land with an eerie orange dusk even though it was not yet six o’clock.

Nott Tower was an oasis from the smoke, but a short-lived one for him. He needed to go back to the wood. He needed to train. The days were flying by, and soon he’d be back at Hogwarts, trapped in that stuffy castle where he could barely practice the magic he actually cared about.

He dropped the bag on one of his shelves on the way out the door. Maybe I should throw these for father, he thought darkly. His father was a man possessed since they returned from their work abroad. In recent days, Theo heard him muttering to himself in the halls. Talking about “the birth of what was promised”. He had no clue what he meant, but it unnerved him. Undoubtedly, it had something to do with his father’s designs on the Dark Lord.

He was just grateful that Blaise and Draco were staying on the continent. Nott Tower was a mess, not fit for guests, barely fit for the two of them. He legged down the curving staircase, listening for his father’s drunken growl as he passed his bedroom door.

“Lord Nott is in the wood,” Finley said, her little voice echoing up the tower. Theo hurried to the bottom floor where their house elf stood with a plate in her hands. “Please, Master Theodore. You have to eat.”

The thought of filling his belly made him sick.

“I’m going to train,” he said, holding up his hands. “I can’t.”

“You must,” Finley insisted. “Master Theodore will collapse again.”

“That was magical exhaustion, Finley,” he said dismissively. “Not physical exhaustion.”

“Finley knows what magic does to the body,” she piped up, ears flat with annoyance. “Master Theodore is pushing too hard. Master Theodore’s body is too young to do magic like this without nourishment.”

He sighed and stopped walking. Finley skipped to his side, and he dutifully took the sandwich wrapped in butcher’s paper from the plate. “Thank you,” he said, sitting down on the bottom step.

Finley conjured a glass of water for him and stood by his side while he ate, telling him about the infestation of doxies in the Tower’s cistern. “Finley can’t figure out how they’re getting in,” she complained. “Finley’s destroyed two queen nests now.” She held out her long, bony arm, showing off a series of red bite wounds. “See?”

“Oh, Finley,” he tutted, gently taking her elbow so he could see the wounds better. “Why didn’t you ask me to heal these for you?”

She shook her head, “Doxie poison can’t be healed by magic,” she said, shrugging her little shoulders. “Finley cleaned them in the spring and sang a little song. They’ll be gone tomorrow.”

He sighed and let her go. “I’ll walk around the tower and see if I can find where they’re getting in,” he promised. “I don’t think my transfigurations will hold for good, but they’ll do for a short fix.”

“Master Theodore is most gifted,” she preened, bowing as he stood up. “Finley be making his favorite soup for dinner.”

Theo laughed and waved goodbye. Leaving the cool, clean air of the tower for the heady, smoky world outside was disorienting. He cast a modification of the bubble-head charm to his nose and mouth and set about walking the land.

The land around Nott Tower was like an archaeological ruin. Huge scattered remains of the manor house dotted the grass around the last remaining Tower, crooked and broken itself. Most of the ruins were overgrown with lichen and bramblebushes. Wavering footpaths cut through the blocks of stone, heading for various parts of the estate. One wound north to what constituted the main gates, another went west and ran along the cliff’s edge, eventually winding down to the loch. Several paths curled south-east, leading to various entrances of the wood that vastly made up their estate. Theo picked the most well-trodden path, the southern one that hugged the tower, and searched for any holes in the stone walls.

His search was fruitless, but as he rounded the backside of the tower he saw the ghostly figure of Graham Nott standing at the edge of the jutting cliff overlooking the valley. Theo hesitated before hiking up the path to join him.

Graham didn’t say anything as Theo scanned the water’s edge below them, looking for his father. If he wasn’t by the shore, than Theo would never find him in the wood. Not that he was complaining. I just hope he doesn’t ambush me again, he thought.

Something in his gut warned him that was exactly what would happen. He could hear it now. Standing on that cliff like a flag gives away your position to anyone in the trees, Theodore. Unless you're ready to fend off any assault, keep close to the shadows.

“Magnus is working hard to make something of you.”

Theo stiffened. Graham didn’t look at him, just stared straight ahead as if he hadn’t said anything.

“I’m the last of our House,” Theo replied, barely keeping the distaste from his voice. He hated this ghost. Secretly, he was glad Father killed him.

Graham’s pale gaze zeroed in on him, looking for all the world like Theo was a bug at his feet.

“That you are,” the ghost murmured, narrowing his eyes. “And wouldn’t it be a shame if our House should die with you?”

“I won’t let that happen,” he snapped. “And when I’m Lord, I’ll exorcise you off this land.”

Graham threw his head back and laughed. The sound scattered ducks on the loch and sent icy shivers down his spine.

“You have to survive what’s in the wood, first, little warrior,” Graham said, grinning mockingly. “Go hunt the monster now. Go bring honor to your name.”

Theo sneered at him and turned away, marching quickly (but not running) away from the cliff. “Why do I ever go up there?” he muttered, taking an eastern path to the trees. “He’s always being a creepy little poltergeist.”

The smoke seemed less pervasive among the trees, but Theo’s eyes still stung as he walked silently over the heavy carpet of pine needles. He was heading for one of the natural springs, a good first stop on a long circuit through the trees. His magic sensitivity made it easier to find them in the wood and he walked without worrying about the path, sure-footed. Although their forest was not as populated with creatures as the Forbidden Forest, there were beasts of all kind within them. thestrals, most importantly, loved to take refuge in the trees.

Theo was searching for them now. A freely given thestral hair would be a great boon.

He practiced stealth as he hiked through the trees, silencing his steps, covering his tracks, obscuring his form. He also fruitlessly practiced wandless casting a few times, attempting to use a seeking spell that would tell him if there was anything alive in the trees ahead.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered under his breath, “why is this so hard? Revelio anima,” he said again, focusing on the magic he could feel it drumming in his veins. He tried to force it out. “Revelio anima.”

He thought his hand tingled a little, but the spell didn’t work. He scoffed and cast it wordlessly with his wand instead.

At the first spring, he stopped and drank a little bit, relishing the feeling of ice-cold water hitting his stomach. The ground around the spring was soft and recorded the tracks of deer and little web-toed mooncalves. No large, clawed imprints though.

He headed for the next spring.

Occasionally, creatures crashed through the bushes a fair distance away, setting him on edge. He twirled his wand anxiously and practiced a few left-handed spells in a clearing close to the loch. He wondered where his father was.

The next spring was also a bust. Part of the muddy wall had fallen in and the water was murkier than usual. He played with a dark green salamander for a little bit, staying still for a long time to see if the skin-crawling feeling of being watched would go away.

It didn’t.

Theo continued on his trek. He was close to the western break in the trees, the thinnest part of the forest on their estate. Red sunlight illuminated the woodland, blinding him a little as he walked. Theo set his left shoulder to the sun and pressed on, keeping under cover as much as possible and running through a mental list of the few predatory creatures that might be in the woods. The most dangerous creature here is father, he thought, tensing all his muscles. He must be following me.

A tumble of large boulders rose out of the ground ahead of him and he picked up the pace. He was close now to the largest spring, the most likely place for thestrals to bed down. Careful to keep silent, he skirted the edge of the rocks and peeked out into the clearing.

Nothing.

He searched the trees for leathery wings or the flash of white fangs, but there the wood was empty. It appeared that the spring was abandoned, safe to approach, but something made Theo cling to the rock. He scanned the trees again, narrowing his eyes. There was no noise - no bird calls, no chittering squirrels, not even the sound of the water. He looked again, staring hard at the edges of the trees, looking for a shadow.

Red eyes caught his and rooted him to the ground.

Theo stopped breathing but raised his wand anyway, a wordless shield charm going up between them. The red eyes tilted a little, narrowing to slits. He poured more magic into the shield, all the hairs on his body standing on end, his blood screaming at him to run, run, RUN.

“Little Theodore,” it purred, getting closer. Theo was starting to sweat. He sealed the edges of his shield against the rock behind him so he was completely covered. “How good it is to finally meet you.”

The figure stepped fully into the clearing, long black robes covering its hands and feet. Those searing red eyes crinkled as its mouth twisted into the mockery of a smile. “Come down and greet Lord Voldemort, child.”

Too late, Theo saw an arm flicker and then his shield shattered to pieces, vanishing like snow on the warm grass. His father stepped out from behind the Dark Lord, a disgruntled glower on his face.

Theo stepped down from the rocks, careful not to stumble, but he did not sheath his wand. Lord Voldemort continued to smile at him, baring pointed teeth. His face was a mask of malice. Theo felt his body start to tremble uncontrollably.

He bowed formally to the Dark Lord, breathing a tiny sigh of relief when he broke eye-contact. “Sir,” he breathed. “I’m honored to meet you.”

The Dark Lord laughed. The sound was high and piping and curdled Theo’s blood.

“Are you?” A bone-white wand passed the edge of his vision, and then his body was moving against his will - his back straightening, his head tilting up.

The Dark Lord stepped closer to him, so close that Theo could see the slits of his nose pulse as he breathed slowly. In and out. In and out.

“Look at me, Theodore,” he whispered.

Theo imagined the heavy doors of his mind closing, of his most precious memories sinking below the surface of a dark lake. Then he dragged his eyes up and met that crimson gaze.

“Are you honored to meet me?” he asked, pupils so narrow they were almost gone. Theo felt a pulsing ache in his temples and he didn’t even try to hide the last few moments from him. Lord Voldemort rifled through his emotions easily, pulling Theo along as if he were watching his memories from outside his body. His body flooded with fear, disgust, terror - terror - terror.

“You are right fear Lord Voldemort,” the Dark Lord said sympathetically. Theo saw his tongue flickering behind pointed teeth. “I have died and lived again and again and again. I have power most wizards could never even imagine was real. Tell me, young Theodore Nott, what do you want? What can Lord Voldemort teach you?”

The pressure in his head was splitting him in half as he railed against the force of the Dark Lord’s mind. But images dragged out of the dark waters anyway, bobbing up to the shore. Draco with the braid in his hair. Blaise safe inside the walls of Villa Zabini.

“You’re loyal,” the Dark Lord hummed, “that’s good.”

For a moment all he felt was agony behind his eyes, like his head was being cut in half, and then -

Theo was laying on the dungeon floor, bleeding. Heart blood running out of him, soaking into his skin. The phantom was in the mirror - it was looking at it him - it turned, turned, turning…

“You wish to speak to the dead?”

Suddenly he was free. The pain disappeared as once, the present snapping back into view. His body released and Theo shook his head, shoving all those memories away, drowning them in the waters of his mind. The Dark Lord wasn’t looking at him anymore, he was turned toward his father.

“Your son is powerful,” he said. “He withstood my attack quite well.”

“He’s adequate,” father growled, glaring at Theo over his nose. “He does not know patience yet.”

“Come now, Magnus,” the Dark Lord placed a thin hand on his shoulder familiarly. “There must be something you’re proud of in him. I saw the most curious memory inside his head…necromancy at Hogwarts?” Red eyes flashed to him, “What have you been teaching him, my friend?”

Theo’s heart was skipping in his chest. That’s a secret, part of him screamed, he doesn’t know. He’s not supposed to know. No one’s supposed to know that.

“He is a talented duelist,” his father allowed after a moment. He flicked his wrist and produced his old larch wood wand. “Let me demonstrate.”

“No,” the Dark Lord tightened his grip, holding his father fast. “Let me.”

Theo couldn’t help it. He looked to his father, hoping for him to intervene, praying for him to say something.

But Lord Nott merely met his gaze and sheathed his wand. “Stand up, Theodore,” he ordered. “Say thank you. This is a great honor.”

Fucking fuck, he thought, shaking out his shoulders. Why didn’t I just stay inside with my books? Why did I come out here today?

The Dark Lord took a few steps back, casually turning his back to them as he paced a good distance away. Theo didn’t dare take his eyes off him, counting his breaths in and out and letting the nervous chatter in his head fade away.

Lord Voldemort turned in a circle, his robes sweeping leaf litter away. They matched gazes. This time, he did not try to enter Theo’s mind.

They bowed.

The Dark Lord raised his yew wand at the ground, and the pine needles came alive.

Theo flinched his own hand up, barely producing a shield fast enough to stop the needles from impaling him. They roared against his magic like a sudden hail storm, filling the clearing with a terrible cacophony. He heaved his shield forward, willing it to grow and follow and threw himself to the side.

“Incarcerous!” he snarled, flinging the spell down the clearing. But the Dark Lord was already moving, catching the ropes with his wand and flinging them into the spring. Theo kicked up a wind, hissing the incantation to create a tornado and hoping to blind the Dark Lord for a moment.

“He is your son Magnus!” The Dark Lord laughed. “So aggressive!”

“Cinarderia,” Theo whispered, flinging his wand in a zig-zag pattern.

The roaring winds burst into sparking ashes, filling the clearing with searing sparks. The wind howled stronger and blew fire all around them. He cast curse after curse at the Dark Lord, hoping to catch him, hoping just to touch him...

“Clever, Theodore,” called the cold voice. Theo tossed a stunning spell and ducked when it rushed right back at him. The ashes all died out at once, falling to the forest floor like a grey snow. Theo recast his shield, searching the smoke for movement.

“Now let’s see you on the defensive…”

The ground rolled beneath his feet. Theo cursed and tried to run, but the earth was turning muddy and he slipped. He angrily froze the ground and wrenched his feet out of the mud, ducking a blast of red spell fire. He spun around, facing the trees, but a wave toppled over him from behind and forced him to the ground, filling his nose and mouth with water. His eyes were blinded, hair pressed over his face. He tried to use ventus to clear the water and managed to briefly suck in some air.

It was just long enough to get his bearings. He pointed his wand blindly and conjured a lash around the nearest tree, pulling himself out of the grip of the spring.

“Very good,” the Dark Lord said, clapping politely. Theo coughed for air, dashing water from his eyes. The hem of a black robe trailed in front of him his face. “You have talent in spades. But I have to wonder if you are as strong as your father. He's one of my most trusted friends, you know." Theo's clothes suddenly lightened, drying all at once. The Dark Lord did not help him up, so he kept his eyes down. "I know your mother died of sickness, Theodore. How pitiful. She wasn’t willing to fight to live like your father did. Like I do. So tell me, whose blood runs thickest in you? Your honorable father, or your weak mother?”

Rage blossomed in his chest. Theo stared at the feet in front of him, feeling his anger warm him from the inside out. He clenched his fingers around his wand and felt the magic curling in him like a spring. Curses flew through his mind, but he clung to his self-control by the skin of teeth. Think of the living, he thought harshly. Don't do anything stupid. 

“Are you strong, Theodore?" The Dark Lord continued, "Strong enough to withstand…this?”

He raised his head, glaring straight up at the face of the Dark Lord, straight into the tip of his wand. The Dark Lord smiled at him, curling his thin lips and showing rows upon rows of sharp teeth. “Vulnera viventem!”

Theo’s world went black.

And then there was pain.

He was screaming. He gripped his hands over his arms and curled up into a ball trying to hide from it, but his body was in agony. Something sticky covered his face, choking him, dripping into his unseeing eyes. A bone in his arm snapped and went limp. And then his chest caved in as if he was being crushed by boulder. His brain was starving for oxygen. He was trying to breathe, trying to cry out, trying to -

He was weightless.

“Breathe little master.”

Something touched his face and reminded him of the pain there, like glass under his skin. The skin on his back tore open and tore a high keening from his throat. He was blind, deaf, senseless but for the pain.

And then, just as quickly as they’d come, some of the pains disappeared. He felt his chest catch as ribs knitted back together. His arm stiffened and warmed, the bone resetting. His nose tingled and twisted back into place. A hundred smaller agonies disappeared in a moment - the aching curse of spellfire crackling off of his skin like tiny sparks, coming and going as quickly as they appeared. 

He blinked up, seeing the fuzzy shelves of books, the shadowy lumps of little gemstones. Finley’s long ears twitching beside him.

He breathed in deep and tried to sit up but his body was unresponsive. He could feel that he was still bleeding. His head lolled loosely to the side. Something's wrong. 

“He’s dying, Master! Little master - please!”

“Stand aside Finley.”

Theo was getting cold. His vision grayed out from the edges. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. 

I remember this, he thought.

Remember? Remember what?

When I almost died…

Theo opened his eyes.

He was back on the floor of the dungeon. He was bleeding out. The silver knife did its duty, so sharp he didn’t even feel it when it sunk between his rips and tipped his heart. He didn’t feel pain at all until the blood started to rush out of him, ripping his skin open from the force of it.

Theo drew the symbols on his chest with his left hand. It was already trembling. He had just minutes. Four, if he was lucky. Three, at least. He clutched his wand in his right hand, ready to clot the blood, ready to save his own life.

Seven minutes and then you’re dead.

He finished the last symbol and started to chant. Why do I sound like that? He wondered detachedly. Why are my hands so little? The clock ticked on. Already, forty-five seconds gone. He painted the matching symbols on the mirror, moving as fast as he could.

“Mother,” he whispered, as he traced the last leg of the rune. “Ophelia Rhea Nott. I summon you with my heart blood to speak to me.”

He waited. Waited for her to come. Blood coagulated on his fingertips. It soaked the front of his robes, dragging them down off his skinny body.

“Mother?” he called out, staring in the mirror. “Are you there?"

He thought he saw something move. Just a little phantom, far back in the recess of the mirror. He kept his eyes firmly ahead, knowing that he’d break the ritual if he looked behind. She isn’t there, he thought, she’s here. She’s right in front of you.

Two minutes.

The white fog in the mirror was closer now. He could hear something murmuring to him, but it was too faint, his heart was too loud in his ears. Theo’s ragged gasps were echoing off the flagstones, drowning her out, and he angrily silenced himself, dropping his wand clumsily as he finished the motion. It clattered on the stone and rolled away from him.

“The dead…” she whispered.

Tears sprang into his eyes. It was the first time he’d cried in two years. Two years since she was gone.

“Mum,” he mouthed silently.

A ghostly hand pressed against the mirror.

“The dead must go on, Theodore,” she said. She sounded sad. He was crying harder now because he recognized the words. She said them to him on her deathbed. “Let me go and have this adventure. Live a life you can be proud of.”

He collapsed on the floor, one hand trapped lamely beneath his body. He reached out for his wand, face sticky with blood. The blue numbers on his countdown were the only light in the room.

3:45

He wasn’t going to make it. The wand was too far. He didn’t have the strength.

“You did it before, Theodore.” A man’s voice said. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into the blood.

That isn't right, he remembered. There was no one here. I was alone. 

Why not just go with her, he thought. But this thought was not him. It was a memory. His thoughts were running out into the world. Theo didn’t know what the difference was between outside and inside his own head. There was barely air to breathe, much less room to think. He wanted to go. He wanted to go through the mirror. His heart yearned for it. The threshold was minutes away.

The world was empty. What magic was left? What did he have? What was the point?

But when he tried to close his eyes and give in, all he saw was long blonde hair braided in a crown, a smattering of brown freckles. The feeling of her warm hands on his, holding him up as he tried to walk.

“That’s it, Theo,” she said, laughing. “You’re walking! Look! Look! You can go anywhere now!”

He grit his teeth and pushed against the ground, ignoring the man’s voice, ignoring the terrible cowardly weakness in his heart. He didn’t want to do it. There wasn’t any desire to live in his body. It would be easier to sink down in his memories and let the darkness take hold, but his body moved anyway, wrestling what little strength he had left to edge toward the wand.

I promised her, he remembered. His body felt numb. He wasn’t even in pain anymore. He touched the handle of his wand. I promised, he repeated, like a prayer, and turned the wand toward his chest. I promised.

Theo sank deep down into sleep, and knew no more.

---

When he opened his eyes, he was surprised by how warm he was.

Theo cuddled in the blankets for a little while longer, cherishing this moment of peace. Gradually, as his body woke up, he recognized the heady warmth of healing potions coursing beneath his skin. He shifted, pulling a hand up to rub the sleep from his eyes, trying to remember how he got back in his room.

“Theodore?”

His father was sitting in a chair beside him, feet propped up on the bedside table. Theo rubbed his eyes a little more, blinking at him until the man came into focus.

“Father?” he mumbled. His voice was thick with sleep and caught in his throat. “Where…what day is it?”

“Two days since you dueled the Dark Lord,” he answered, putting his feet down and leaning forward to bring a long straw to his lips. “Drink, Theodore.”

The water was cool and soothing. It also woke him up.

That day rushed back to him all at once and he nearly choked, fumbling under the blankets for his wand.

“Calm down, son,” father said, pressing his hand lightly on his shoulder. “He’s gone. You’re safe.”

Theo’s chest heaved rapidly. He still couldn’t find his wand. He looked around frantically and barely saw the black handle on his bedside table. He reached for it and nearly tore his chest back open.

“Fuck!” he snarled, going stiff and flopping in the bed. “What is that?”

A pale blue glow filled the room, momentarily lighting up his father’s face. Theo froze, taking in the exhausted bags under his eyes, the lank way his hair fell around his sallow cheeks. “Hold still,” the man said, not quite meeting his gaze.

Theo felt the tearing pain in his chest lessen and then fade away. Carefully, he repositioned himself in bed, deciding to leave his wand on the table.

Some of it was coming back to him now. The nightmare of pain.

“You were the recipient of a new curse of the Dark Lord’s creation,” his father said emotionlessly. “It was made to force someone to re-experience every injury they’d ever had in their life. It was meant to be temporary, not life-threatening. The wounds would heal just as quickly as they reopened, proportional to how long it took them to heal when they first happened.”

Theo couldn’t even nod. His mind was racing, going over the catalog of his wounds.

His broken arm, from when he almost toppled over the cliff as a child and father barely caught him in time, snapping the tiny bone in the process.

The many times he’d cracked his nose, Theo couldn’t even remember them all.

The broken ribs. From father’s bad years, dueling him in the woods until Theo lay collapsed and half-conscious in the dirt.

The three severe lashes he got for screaming at his father at the dinner table. Father left them to heal on their own when he was twelve.

The stab wound to his heart.

Theo swallowed. “So some of my wounds won’t heal for a few days?”

“That’s right,” his father agreed. “They will heal faster than they did the first time you received them, but potions and healing magic don't seem to help. I can only alleviate your pain.”

He nodded. There was a second quilt on his bed, not one of his own. He wondered if Finley had just made it. She was always making things to help the tower feel more homely.

“Father,” he whispered. “What if the Dark Lord saw my memories of you plotting against him?”

His father sat back in his chair, letting the light go out from his wand. “I’m not plotting against him, Theodore,” he replied tiredly. “He’ll appreciate what I’ve done when it’s over.”

That image of Draco swam through his head again. “But what if-“

“Hush,” he took Theo’s right hand, holding it firmly. “If he did see, you and I would be strung up in Malfoy Manner right now. We’re safe. You’re safe.”

Emotion tightened in his chest, forcing Theo to screw his eyes shut. His father was a cruel man. He hated to see any displays of emotion from his son, barring anger. He forced the feeling down into the water, taking with it the terrible memory of that duel, of his nightmarish dream of reliving the night he almost-

His father patted his hand. “Theodore,” he said. His voice sounded strange, forcing him to look up. “When did that happen? When did you almost…?”

Theo froze. His father didn’t need to say more, he knew what he was talking about. Did he see into my mind? How much of that did I say out loud?

The silence stretched on and on between them, setting Theo’s teeth on edge. He was too tired to lie, too tired to think of a way out of this conversation.

“It was during my third year,” he said stonily. “I did it on November 1st. When the veil is thinnest between worlds.”

Father hesitated. “You took a book from the Library?”

He jerked his head. “It was journal, actually. I translated it for over a year from the original French before I tried the ritual.”

Father let out a shaky breath, “Did it…work?”

Theo realized suddenly why this conversation felt so strange. It wasn’t just that his father was here, concerned about him. It was because the man was sober.

“No,” Theo said after a beat. “Well. Maybe. She repeated the last thing she ever said to me. Maybe that was her way of telling me how foolish I was. And...I remembered her holding my hand when I was just learning to walk. I like to think that she gave that to me...before it was over.”

Father sighed raggedly, sweeping both hands through his hair. “You’re not a fool, Theo. You were just alone. If you had died, it would have been my fault.”

Theo didn’t have anything to say to that.

After a couple long beats, he started to feel exhaustion pull at his eyes. Theo settled back in the pillows, intending just to close his eyes for a moment, but as soon as they were shut he felt sleep pulling him down into that warm and comfortable nothingness.

Just before he was gone completely, he thought he felt a hand lightly touch his face.

Probably Finley, he thought. Father doesn’t treat me like that anymore…

Notes:

I promise, I really do love Theo with all my heart. I love him so much. He only suffers because he's strong.

Thank you so much for reading!! I am like CRUISING into action here, so be prepared for more fun chapters to come. I can't wait to write some more!

Chapter 12: Good Intentions

Summary:

Harry and Sirius make a long-awaited trip to Godric's Hollow, and the shockwaves start to ripple out from Lord Voldemort's curse.

Notes:

This chapter was a bit of a beast to write, but it shaped up really well, pretty much exactly how I wanted it. There are a lot of elements in the plot to pull together right now thanks to John and Sirius finally meeting (more than I even anticipated when I outlined this) but I hope the narrative doesn't feel heavy despite that. More will be revealed as we move along....

Thank you so much for reading! My hope is to post the next chapter a lot sooner (honestly, I try for once a week but the last few weeks of summer have just been so hectic).

Harry

“So how old do I have to be before I’m allowed to read about necromancy?” Harry asked, careful to keep his voice very quiet.

Sirius’s pained whine crackled over the ear cuff. “Pup, can you appreciate the position I’m in? We’re about to pay our respects to your parents and you're asking me about the dark arts and necromancy. James and Lily will literally haunt me until I die.”

“But I can’t ask anyone else,” Harry begged. “Come on, Sirius. You’re the only person I trust to tell me the truth.”

John snickered. Harry flipped him the bird ineffectively under the invisibility cloak.

“Why are you suddenly so interested in the dark arts?” Sirius asked in exasperation. “Is it because I told you about Regulus, or did your pen pal talk them up?”

Sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades. It was swelteringly hot at Godric's Hollow, and walking so slowly under his cloak was making him miserable. He frowned at his feet. “Theo doesn't talk about that stuff,” he muttered. “I mean, I asked him a little about blood wards. I guess that’s dark magic? But it doesn’t seem evil to me, so I don’t really get the distinction."

Sirius groaned. "I wish this was the sex talk. The sex talk is a million times easier than the dark magic talk."

"Ew Sirius!" Blood rushed to his face, "Don't talk about that! I don't need the - to talk about that stuff, okay?"

John staggered off the sidewalk to stuff his head in a bush. Even so, Harry could hear him laughing uncontrollably. 

"Just don't tell me," he sighed, conceding this battle to his godfather yet again. "It's fine. I just don't understand why everyone treats it like a huge taboo when it doesn't seem like the dark arts are really hurting anybody. I mean, occlumency is technically dark magic, right? How does that make sense?"

“No, no. Harry...it's okay." Sirius assured him. "I just...you have to understand that magic always has a cost. Especially dark magic. It takes your energy, your magic, and sometimes your life. Especially necromancy. Harry, please hear me," he paused, and Harry could picture him grinding his teeth. "Necromancy is the most dangerous of all. We don't know exactly what's beyond the veil but we do know there's something there, and it's all around us, all the time. This branch of magic feeds on the living. I don't want anything to take a hold of you. Sometimes, even reading about it is enough for your mind to become...ensnared"

He shivered. Deep in his heart, he felt the old pull to go hunting for the Mirror of Erised. Sometimes he still woke up from a dead sleep with the overwhelming urge to find it. 

"I get it," he agreed. "I do. I guess I don't want to know about necromancy specifically - I just want to know why students in Romania get to learn the dark arts, but at Hogwarts you'd be ostracized for mentioning it."

Sirius chuckled, "Well, Hogwarts has changed a lot since Voldemort came to power, that's for sure. Trust me Harry, the dark arts are practiced and studied at Hogwarts, it's just reserved for sixth and seventh years. It's not called "Dark Arts 101" either. Advanced runework, potions making, divination, those are all technically early branches of the dark arts. Some branches of magic are considered dark in our century that were commonplace a hundred years ago. Ultimately, dark magic is just very dangerous, best left to highly skilled wixen."

"So they're definitely not evil?" Harry questioned.

"No, no...the word dark really means 'obscure' or 'hidden' magic. If you think about it, it doesn't take much to do something evil with a harmless charm. If you transfigured a kitten into a piece of wood and then burned it in a fire, that would be evil, right?”

“Fucking hell,” Harry shuddered, “don’t even say that.” 

“The point is,” his godfather continued, “traditionally, the dark arts have been advanced branches of magic that…that are more like magic itself. Does that make sense?”

“No. What’s more like magic than magic itself? That’s like asking if swimming underwater makes water more wet.”

“Yes!” Sirius hissed lowly, “You’re a genius Harry, that’s exactly what it is! The dark arts are like diving deeper into magic. To swim in a pool you don’t need much skill, right? Just a strong doggy paddle and some common sense.”

Harry searched for a magical equivalent to Sirius’s metaphor. “So…like learning how to use a wand, and then putting the right amount of power behind a spell so it doesn’t over- or under-perform?”

“Yes. And just think, if you were to go from swimming in a pool to diving a hundred feet below the surface, you’d drown, right? And let’s not even go so far as diving, let’s just talk about going from a pool to the ocean. It doesn’t matter how good you are at the basics, you’d still struggle with the waves and the tide, not to mention all the creatures who live in it. The dark arts are like that, they are their own little worlds within magic. That’s why it's restricted. Druidic practices evolved from elemental magic, which has caused countless disasters. Advanced healing magic was derived from necromancy, which - well, you can imagine what the worst kind of necromancy looked like.”

Harry mulled that over for a moment. Sirius was about a block ahead of him, already crossing the street toward the small, gated cemetery. Harry kept the distance between them, giving Sirius plenty of time to scope it out.

“Why is it an insult to be called a dark wizard then?” he asked. “You even called Karkaroff that. It just makes them sound so…sinister…”

Sirius laughed, “Well, Igor Karkaroff is a sinister man. He’s also a dark arts master, that’s why he leads Durmstrang. Snape is a master too, no surprise there I’m sure. It comes with the territory if you’ve earned a mastery in almost anything. It’s more common than you’d think.”

“But there’s no such thing as a light wizard,” Harry pointed out. “Is there?”

“You can come in, pup. And…no, not really.”

“So why do so many people turn their nose up at it? If it’s so common, wouldn’t it be more accepted?”

Sirius hummed. Harry paused under the archway, checking the street one last time for any other signs of life.

“I don’t know about ‘so many people’,” he answered cautiously. “I’d say that there are several vocal people you happen to know who are afraid of dark magic to a higher degree than others. And for good reason. More people should fear it. But the reason it has a disproportionate impact on our country, at least from your point of view - being that you're still a kid in school - is because England has produced the two most powerful Dark Lords in recent history. Most of the families who were hurt by them generally hate dark magic. It's hard not to. Even I still carry a prejudice for it, even though I'm such a bloody hypocrite now."

Harry stepped up next to Sirius, tapping the cuff to stop it from transmitting sound. “So, you’re saying that you're definitely not going to let me help you summon Regulus. Even if I just help you do research..?"

“If I hear that you've even thought about reading a book on the subject you’ll be grounded for the rest of your life. I’ll homeschool you if I have to."

“I'll keep him in line,” John drawled from somewhere in the tombstones. "I hate the deadworks. Knew too many wizards who got swallowed up by primordial demons."

“Shut up,” Harry flushed under the cloak. “I’m not totally stupid. Whenever I do something dangerous I always have a good reason, and I’d never go traipsing into the dark arts without a really good reason.”

“For the love of -” Sirius tipped his head up to the sky beseechingly, “I speak Gryffindor, pup, and I do not like the sound of that. Why don't we set our sites a little lower, okay? I'll teach you some things...not dark magic, necessarily. But - well, why ruin the surprise?"

Harry huffed but he couldn't resist a little fist-pump under the cloak. Better than nothing at all, he thought victoriously.

Sirius gestured to him, "Now, take your cloak off. I’ve cast some temporary wards that will warn us if someone tries to come close.”

Harry gratefully tugged the cloak away and wiped his brow. Suddenly, a blast of cool air coated him from head to toe. “Thanks,” he smiled gratefully. “Sometimes I forget I can do magic.”

Sirius smiled back, but his glamoured face looked pale and stressed. Harry felt a stab of guilt. He knew that the last few days were hard on Sirius, and his questions certainly weren't making it easier. Maybe the Dursleys were right about one thing, he thought wryly, I do ask an annoying amount of questions.

After John revealed himself at the flat, Harry spilled nearly everything about his summer - details about the letters from his friends, the apathy of the Order members, his terrifying nightmares, and dealing with his hateful relatives on top of that. Harry was sure to present John in the most favorable light possible, but Sirius nearly fainted on the spot when he told him about the disgusting meals John asked for occasionally.  

"You ate some of my godson's MAGIC?"

"What do you think I live on?" John spat, "Fairy dust? Besides, you wizards put magic in every potion you make! It's not like I was asking him to feed me his blood!"

"But he didn't even KNOW!" Sirius shouted, pointing at Harry's confused face.

John shrugged, "Write a complaint to his potions professor, see if I care. Harry wasn't harmed in the making of any potion, I assure you."

Despite that hiccup, Harry felt tremendous relief getting it all out on the table (minus the impromptu whipping from Uncle Vernon). The only anxiety he had left was making sure that John and Sirius learned to get along.

John and his godfather, though, had other concerns.

“You’re telling me that you knew this whole time?” Sirius groaned, thumping his head with a pillow. “The prophecy that keeps me up at night doesn't bother you, even a little bit?"

Harry shrugged, “We didn’t know for sure it was going to be a prophecy, but I believed John when he said he could taste my fate, or whatever." Sirius stared at the cat where he loafed on the couch. “It’s not the first prophecy I’ve dealt with,” Harry reminded him, "and I realized pretty quick that it doesn’t matter. If we're destined to fight each other, at least I know why he's trying to kill me. It almost makes me feel better.”

“Even though you don’t know what it says?” Sirius clarified.

“John says that knowing a prophecy usually makes it self-fulfilling.”

“But Voldemort already knows it,” Sirius stressed. "Part of it, at least. And he’s acted on it. Who knows what he’ll do when he gets his hands on the whole thing-“

“Yet Albus Dumbledore knows what it says,” John cut in icily. “And you’ve not asked how he might be acting on it.”

“Albus is trying to protect you from it by not acting on it,” Sirius said, looking from the cat to Harry. “That's why he doesn't want to tell you. I don’t agree with him! At all!” he held his hands up and leaned away from Harry’s glare. “I’m just saying that he thinks you might go charging off on your own if you knew the truth. He won't even tell the Order the details, he only said that Voldemort set it into motion when he tried to kill you as a baby.”

“So it’s already too late,” Harry pointed out.

“But-“

“Does anyone else think it’s suspicious that Albus Dumbledore believes Harry is better off not knowing the prophecy, despite having faced the Dark Lord three times?” John meowed loudly, cutting off Sirius’s weak retort. He stood up, hackles raised, “In this Order of Birdbrains, has anyone questioned why he assumes that a boy who’s already fought the Dark Lord would - for some reason - lose his head knowing that it was his destiny to fight all along? Just look at him,” John twitched his ears. “He’s not afraid. It only confirms his reality.”

A pinched look came over Sirius’s face. “Don’t bite my head off when I say this, but Albus wants Harry to have some kind of happy childhood, whatever he thinks that means. He doesn’t want you to get weighed down by responsibility-“

“WRONG,” John snapped, teeth flashing. “He wouldn’t have left him with those muggles if he cared about that!”

“Get to the point, John,” Harry said tiredly. “We can’t read your mind.”

John sat back down with a huff. “I’m saying that the prophecy likely does not say what you think it does - or what your great wizard leader has led you to believe.” He shot a heavy glare at Sirius. “If it said, ‘a child destined to topple the Dark Lord will be born of his enemies’ then it wouldn’t be such a big deal, would it? Just train him up and ship him out to fight when he's ready. But if it says, ‘one born with power greater than the Dark Lord’s will determine the fate of the wizarding world’…now that would be something to keep close to your chest. Wouldn’t it?”

Harry sat in stunned silence. He had never considered that the prophecy could mean anything except a fight to the death between him and Voldemort. But as usual, John’s acidic words rang uncomfortably true. Harry could see that Sirius felt the same way.

“Can we just leave it be?” Harry asked nervously, looking between them. “I really don't think it matters what it says. Voldemort’s trying to kill me. Professor Dumbledore doesn’t want me to know the truth. None of us can force either of them to change their minds. And besides, it’s not like I can go ask Trelawney to repeat it so I can hear it for myself, right?”

He chuckled weakly, but Sirius’s eyes widened. 

“We can leave it for now, pup,” Sirius said, giving John a sly look. “But would you mind if John and I do a little scheming? Maybe there is a way for you to hear it for yourself…if it’s safe…and if you want to know the truth…”

John circled their legs. “I’ll watch your backs," he whispered. "Take your time.”

Sirius draped his arm over Harry’s shoulders and started to walk him slowly through the cemetery. “My parents knew about the prophecy, right?” Harry asked, eyes flickering over gravestones. He was starting to feel a bit nervous.

“Yeah, pup,” Sirius answered quietly. “They did.”

“Do you think my mum did something to protect me?” Not that it matters anymore. He couldn't help but remember a bone-white hand descending on his face. They passed a kneeling reaper that made his throat close up. It’s not like that graveyard, he thought, looking at the bright blue sky. Sirius tightened his grip. It’s nothing like that. “Dumbledore always said it was her sacrifice that saved me that night. Maybe when they were in hiding she created some kind of...new magic."

“She may have,” Sirius stopped in front of a white marble tombstone. “She was the most brilliant witch I knew.”

His mouth went dry. The tombstone had two names etched on its face. James Fleamont Potter & Lily Jean Potter.

Harry stood there numbly, studying the grave. It was clean. Obviously, someone was taking care of it. He wondered who else came to visit. Did they have other friends from school who miss them? Do any of their Professors come to check on them? 

Sirius rubbed his arm. "You can say something," he murmured encouragingly. "You can say anything, or nothing. If you want me to leave, just tell me."

He cast about for something to say. This is what people do, right? They talk to the dead because it makes them feel better? 

But imagining his parents’ bones below his feet like Tom Riddle Senior’s made his stomach churn. He turned to look at Sirius instead. “I saw them in the graveyard," he blurted out. 

Sirius froze, hand gripping Harry's shoulder. The words were spilling out of him now, uncontrollably. “When Voldemort and I were dueling, our spells hit each each other dead on. They caused…this weird shield to form around us. And then my spell made the spirits of the last few people he’d killed to come out of his wand…or maybe they were just echoes? I don’t know. It’s not like the killing curse steals souls.” He shivered and added desperately, “Right?”

Sirius looked pale. Sweaty strands of hair clung to the side of his face. “Of course not Harry,” he assured him. “They aren’t trapped. They’re…did you really see them?”

“They spoke to me,” he folded his arms across his stomach. “They helped me fight him. They told me what to do. Dad…my dad told me the portkey would take me back.” Tears pushed at the corner of his eyes. “I didn't say anything to them," he admitted. "I was too...focused. I could barely hold on to my wand." He worked his jaw against the very old pain rising in his chest. It was his dream to talk to his parents, just one time in his life. After he realized that magic was real, the thought crossed his mind more than once. All things are possible with magic, but...it's not worth it if necromancy really is that dangerous.

He swallowed hard, "Do you think that was my only chance to talk to them?"

“Oh no pup,” Sirius said, hugging him close. “You can talk to them all the time,” he tucked his chin on top of his head. “I promise you, they can hear us."

Harry leaned into his godfather’s chest. They stood like that for a long moment, until the stabbing pressure in his heart subsided and he could gently pull away. “I’m going to try and conjure some flowers, I think."

“Good idea,” Sirius kneeled in the grass, his knees cracking like dead branches. He touched the J on the marble fondly. "Listen to that," he smirked, "I'm old now. Never thought we'd see the day, huh?" 

Harry worked quietly to conjure a couple of white roses. It was the only flower he was reasonably good at making. The white blended in with their tombstone, adding a softness to the hard edges. Sirius took a pull-tab from a soda can out of his pocket and transfigured it into a long chain with two little charms on it - a stag and a doe. He fastened it around the vase. 

He's taking this better than I thought he would, Harry thought, carefully watching Sirius's face out of the corner of his eye. Maybe Sirius comes here alone. Maybe he's the one who tends to their grave. 

Sirius didn't seem to notice Harry watching him. "I'm sorry, James, Lily," he touched each of their names in turn. "You trusted me to protect Harry, and instead I went nuclear and screwed up my whole life. Luckily, Harry seems to be giving me an endless number of chances..." Harry ducked his head shyly, finding it hard to withstand the fondness in his godfather's voice. Sirius took something out of his pocket and rolled it over his fingers. "I won't waste them," he promised. 

"What is that?" Harry asked, when the silence dragged on too long. 

"This," Sirius sighed, unfolding his fist, "is a permanent portkey. It will take you to Black Roc."

His heart stuttered. Even John peaked around the tombstone, golden eyes wide. Sirius took his right hand and placed a ring on his index finger. The ring was heavy, made of dull, faceted iron with no gemstones. "The trigger word is my family motto." At Harry's grimace, Sirius snorted. "Yeah, see? It's a good one. You won't accidentally portkey yourself to the highlands anytime soon."

"Why are you giving me this?" Harry asked, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. "I thought you said it was too dangerous to go while Regulus is there. And what about the dragon?"

"Reggie's body is locked away in a cave," Sirius said, "you won't be able to get in there. As for the dragon..." He winced, "I think I know how to get around that. But the reason I'm giving this to you is because Black Roc is the perfect place for us to do some dueling. And in the mountains I can teach you defensive flying."

"Defensive flying?" Harry repeated, sitting up straighter. 

Sirius grinned, "Sounds fun, right? Good. I want to teach you how to fight, Harry. We both know it's probably inevitable you'll meet Voldemort again. If not him, he has a whole army of followers who might want to take a bite out of you. I can't in good conscience let you go back to school without teaching you how to defend yourself."

A hot wind finally rattled through the graveyard. Harry pushed back the hair from his face. "Really?" he said excitedly, "You're going to teach me?"

Sirius grinned, "Of course I will, pup," he nodded at the grave. "It's not the way they would want your fifteenth summer to go, but James and Lily trusted me to protect you anyway I can. Seeing as I can't follow you into Hogwarts, this is the next best thing."

Warmth exploded out from his chest, and Harry threw his arms around Sirius's shoulders. "Thank you," he cried, digging his fingers into Sirius's shirt. "Everyone always says, you'll be safe at Hogwarts and then I never am." He laughed, burying his face into Sirius's shoulder. "No one ever tries to - to prepare me for the worst. But then the worst always seems to happen."

Sirius huffed, hugging him closely. "That's why I'm here," he said, cupping the back of his head. "It's you and me, pup, on the same team."

When Harry pulled away, his heart felt much lighter. He turned to the grave and gently laid his hand on the stone. It was cool despite the burning heat of the sun. 

“Thank you for choosing Sirius,” he said, closing his eyes and picturing their faces as he saw them in the mirror, warm and smiling. “He’s doing the right thing. Even though he was gone for a long time, it wasn’t his fault. And he's here for me now.” He kept his head down to hide the burning heat in his cheeks. “So thank you,” he finished, meaning it for both the living and the dead.

They kneeled together in silence for a couple more minutes. Harry idly ran his fingers over the inscription. It read, the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. The words tugged at his memory. I know I've read this before, he thought, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember where.

He finally gave up and pointed to it, “What does this mean?”

Sirius groaned to his feet, cracking his back. “It’s from the Bible,” he explained. “Bit archaic, but at the time it was the only book that everybody knew. It was popular during the witch hunts. To us it meant…that magic can do anything." His voice dropped reverently. "Not even death can come between us and the people that we love."

Harry contemplated those words as they left the cemetery. He put his cloak on again while Sirius reapplied his glamor. This time, they walked side by side through Godric’s Hollow.

“Sirius,” he murmured, careful to keep his voice down now that they were back on the street. “Why won't you take the locket you found to Dumbledore? Wouldn't he have a good chance of knowing what it is?"

Sirius stiffened. Harry cringed, wondering if this was a step too far. He knew that Sirius was holding some details back about his own summer. He described finding the locket in what he and John now exclusively referred to as the birdhouse, the Order's headquarters, which Harry surmised used to be a Black family home. He breezed over the fight he had with Dumbledore that resulted in him leaving with Kreacher. Sirius described his efforts to find a safe Black property to store the locket, and then his many weeks on the coast, trying to find his brother's reanimated corpse among a hoard of inferi. 

But aside from a basic description of the locket, he was curiously tight-lipped about why, exactly, Regulus died to steal it. 

“Dumbledore's not my favorite person right now," Harry joked, trying to ease the tension. "I get it, but..."

Sirius set his jaw. “It's not that I don't trust him," he said under his breath. Harry had to lean in close to hear him. "But I swore I would carry out my brother's last wish. That I would carry it out. I have to be the one to destroy it."

Harry nodded slowly, "You think he'd take it away from you."

"Undoubtedly." Sirius sounded bitter, "I almost wish I could hand it over. That thing is poisonous. It might even be partially alive. The inferi reacts to it like it is."

Icy cold fear crawled over his skin. "And you've been alone with that thing this whole summer?" he hissed. "What if it ensnared you? Isn't there someone you can ask to help?"

Sirius sighed. "I don't know pup. Maybe. Once we go settle up with the Order, I'll test the waters with a few people. But it's going to be a hard sell. Come help me do a little necromancy - not to worry, it's all in the spirit of fighting Voldemort." Sirius rolled his eyes, "How am I supposed to ask for help when even I think I sound like a nutjob?"

Harry frowned, running through all the people Sirius said were in the Order. Of everyone Harry recognized, there was only one person who was a bona fide master of the dark arts. Sirius said so himself. 

"What...about..." he ducked in anticipation, "...Snape?"

His godfather ground to a dead halt, eyes wide. John stopped ahead of them and looked back in confusion.

"Just hear me out!" he said quickly, "He knows the dark arts, right? And he was a Death Eater - is a Death Eater."

"Snape is loyal to Dumbledore," Sirius shook his head, starting to walk again. "That aside, he'd probably rather let Voldemort win than help me."

Harry hummed. “But, you said he already helped you."

"Helped me? When?"

"When you realized - I don't know," Harry flushed with embarrassment. Had he misunderstood? "You said he helped you realize you weren't in your right mind, or something? When I was in the hospital wing...?"

His godfather made a face, "No, he wasn't helping - no. He was wringing my neck."

"What?"

Sirius waved him off, "There's a pensieve in Crater Black's study at Black Roc. I was going to show you some other things first, but maybe we'll start with that. Trust me pup, Snape is the last person on my list of allies."

Harry frowned. He did not enjoy the disorienting ride through Dumbledore's memories last year, but he was curious to know what other memories Sirius wanted to show him. "Okay," he gave in. "When are we going? Tomorrow?"

"Depends," Sirius smirked, "If you agree to show me your first memory of meeting Nott, then we can go right now."

Heat crawled up the back of his neck. "Why on earth would you want to see that?"  

"I'm just curious about him," Sirius shrugged, looking innocently up at the sky. "You won't tell me anything about him, and a godfather worries..."

He bit his lip. "Well..." he said cautiously, "what would you want to know?"

“What do you two talk about?” Sirius asked immediately, taking the next right turn. “Do you have much in common? Does he like quidditch?”

“He doesn't, actually.” Harry prickled defensively when Sirius made a face. “But that’s okay! Neither does Hermione, and she’s one of my best friends.”

Sirius rubbed his chin, “So I know that he loves books, and that he hates quidditch..."

"He dislikes quidditch," Harry corrected sharply.

"Seems a bit more like a Ravenclaw to me. What on earth made you want to become pen pals?"

“He’s - well -“ Harry hesitated. He didn’t want to reveal anything that Theo might consider sensitive, but it was hard to judge how secretive the other boy really was. “He knows a lot about the muggle world, actually. We talk about that.”

“Oh?”

Harry nodded, and like a dam breaking, the words just poured out of him. “He recommended a lot of muggle books to me this summer. It helped me not go crazy with the Dursleys, I think. And tells me about movies, too, but I haven’t been able to watch them. And, I don’t know…I guess we talk about everything. He knows so much about magic. Like - I think he knows everything about magic,” his heart beat faster remembering the way that Theo led him around the Albion, cupping his hands and showing him how to cast the runestones in the great wood basin.

“He’s amazing. I think he's taught me more about magic than I've learned at Hogwarts, honest. He’s really good at explaining things, and he never gets frustrated when I ask him a ton of questions. And he doesn’t seem to have any of the prejudices that Slytherins - I mean, most purebloods are raised with. We talk about all the places he’s traveled, and other wizarding cultures, and our hobbies and books and stuff. Yeah.”

Harry paused to catch his breath, thankful that the cloak was hiding his face. Sirius slowed his pace. His hands were clasped behind his back and he was smiling at the ground. “And what do you talk about?”

“Me?”

“Sure,” Sirius shrugged casually. “Your pen pal tells you about magic and writes you a travelogue, but doesn’t he ask you anything? Unless he just likes someone to fawn over him…”

“No way!” Harry said, too loud. He lowered his voice awkwardly, “Theo - I don’t know. I tell him what I think about the stuff I read. I tell him stories about what John and I get up to, but without including John, of course. I don't really have any hobbies to write about..." Harry frowned, "So I try out some of the stuff he tells me he likes, like he collects rocks. So I try to find cool rocks.”

Sirius snorted into his fist. Harry smacked him. “It’s actually kind of fun!” he defended weakly. “And he does things for me. I mentioned that I’d never traveled before, so he sent me postcards from almost every city he went to this summer, from all over Europe!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry pup,” Sirius chuckled, coming to a halt. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I just think it’s cute.”

“What?” Harry snapped churlishly. “What’s cute?”

“Give up,” John’s sour voice cut in from behind. “He’s in denial.”

“I think your friendship is very wholesome,” Sirius clarified, shooing the cat away. “Now, I’m sorry to change the subject, but take a deep breath Harry. We’re here.”

Instantly, his good mood evaporated. At the edge of his periphery, he could see a house. His house. He froze. He wanted to look, but he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t ready.

With more control than he felt, he took off the cloak and raked his fingers through his hair. Sirius was looking up and behind him, a faraway expression on his face. Slowly, Harry turned around.

The house was clearly abandoned. A huge hole in the top floor exposed the innards of one room. In the back of his mind he remembered a bright flash of green light, an explosion of sound. A twinge of pain coursed through his head.

The yard was overgrown, dead curling vines choking the garden beds under the front windows. There was a sign just beyond the front gate that said the house was preserved in memory of his family. It was covered in graffiti.

“People can come inside?” he said dumbly. Looking around the yard, he saw more evidence of interlopers. The windows were blown out. The front door was completely gone. There was a small pile of ash in the grass, as if someone started a fire there. Harry’s ring went cold as he stepped over the boundaries of the property. “What the fuck?” He looked at the sign again. A bright green message scrawled over top the rest, reading: HARRY POTTER, THE BOY WHO LIED.

“Harry!” Sirius whispered, but he was already striding into the house with his heart in his throat.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

Just inside the door there was evidence of an intense battle. Black scorch marks covered almost every inch of the walls and floor. They covered the staircase liberally until they suddenly came to a stop about half-way up. His throat constricted, staring up at the startling perfection of the upper floor. My dad died on these stairs.

Robotically, he pushed sideways into the kitchen, slipping and sliding on the debris scattered all over the floor. Everything was trashed. Furniture destroyed. Strips of wallpaper hanging off the walls. Nearly every cabinet was pulled open and the contents upended. An upright piano in the living room was missing half its keys. There was a pile of trash in the fireplace.

“Most of their belongings are in the vault,” he said under his breath, hanging on to that knowledge like a lifeline. The pain in his head ratcheted to a dull roar. He scanned the floor for anything that might be important. “But did people come here and take things after it happened?"

“I think that most of it was rescued by the Order,” Sirius said, struggling through the mess. “Hold on, pup. Don’t-“

Harry ignored him and pushed through the ruin towards the back of the house. “I need the lodestone,” he decided. “It has to be out back.”

“Quickly, Harry,” John hissed, racing past his feet. “I don’t like this. I can feel someone watching us.”

“Warn Sirius-“

“I did,” the cat snapped. “Now I’m warning you. What are you even going to do? How many wards can you cast?”

“I can at least claim it,” Harry glared at him. “I can shut it down. People will be able to fight through the property boundary if they really want to, but it won’t be a free-for-all. I can’t believe it was left like this - for people to just look around like my life is some kind of freak show!”

John lashed his tail and jumped ahead. “Quick then! But I’ll force you out if you’re in danger.”

“What are you doing Harry?” called Sirius, catching up to him as he flung the door open.

“I’m locking my house down!” He snapped, scanning the backyard. It was significantly more overgrown than the front. A couple of old garden chairs were overturned against the brick wall, either blown by the weather or thrown by trespassers. His blood ran hot under his skin. The shattered remains of a concrete bird bath nearly sent him over the edge.

“We need to leave,” Sirius said urgently. “This was a bad idea. They’re watching your house. I don’t know if it’s the Order or not.”

Harry’s ring was so cold that ice was creeping up his arm. He glared at the yard, looking for anything that could be the lodestone, pulling uselessly against Sirius’s grip. “Harry!” he shook him sternly, “We’ll come back. We-“

There. A small, perfectly smooth boulder peaked out from the grass. Its blunt face glowed lightly under the weeds. “But I can see it,” he said, wrenching out of Sirius’s grip.

John yowled from the bushes and shot across the yard. Sirius cursed.

And the brick wall that enclosed the back garden swung open like a door.

“Well, well, Mr. Potter, Sirius,” Mad-Eye Moody thumped over the grass, leaning heavily on his gnarled staff. He jabbed a short wand carelessly behind him, setting the wall back the way it was. “Having a bit of a field trip, are you? Enjoying yourselves?”

Sirius growled, pressing in close. Harry briefly cowered back, remembering the power and wit of this man who managed to trick him into trusting him. But then he remembered - Barty Crouch Jr. was dead. This was the real Moody.

“Is it really you?” he demanded. “Or are you another Death Eater in disguise?”

“Good show, lad,” Moody’s electric blue eye aligned with his human one, staring at Harry like he was stripping him down to his bones. “You’ll never trust your eyes again, now will you? Guess you can thank that bastard for one thing. I am the true Alastor Moody, retired auror, at your service." He bowed. "Don’t worry, we’re on the same side.”

“Moody,” Sirius barked, “what do you want? I said Harry and I will come visit after his birthday. Couldn’t wait a few more days?”

“Can I not make friendly conversation?” the man bared his teeth in the mockery of a smile. “For someone with nothing to hide, you do a good job traveling incognito. No matter, though. No matter. You have to come out in the world and face what you’ve done sooner or later.”

“What have I done?” Sirius shot back, “Shown my godson a good time? Kept him safe? If we’re on the same side, you’ll respect our wishes and go.”

Moody tapped his nose, chuckling darkly. “You tell me what you’ve done, Lord Black. No one knows how you hid the boy so well, but I have my theories. You ask me, just the fact that you’d wear that ring shows what kind of wizard you are now. The dark arts run through your blood, and blood always wins out." He curled his lip, "We don’t need loose cannons like you in our ranks. The boy certainly doesn’t need your kind of influence.”

Moody fixed his dark, human eye on Harry. “Come with me, lad,” he said, beckoning to him. “Not for long. You’re a Lord now, so you don’t have to do everything he says. Your friends are worried about you. Just set their minds at ease. Then, if you want to go back after hearing what Dumbledore has to say, you can. No one wants to stop you. Except maybe your godfather.”

Blood pounded in his ears. Harry’s pulse was so loud he almost couldn’t process what Moody was saying. It was hard for him to listen to the words coming out of this man's mouth, who he had called professor, who he had admired despite his strange cruelty. 

But that was a Death Eater, wasn’t it? He thought. I admired a Death Eater. I learned from a Death Eater. I don’t know this man. He glared at Moody, searching for some kind of difference between this real Mad-Eye Moody and the one he'd listened to in class for a year. Somehow, I think I like this one less.

Harry licked his lips, “Have you been watching this house since I left the Dursleys?”

His voice sounded very calm, despite the crackling energy coursing over his skin. Moody frowned. "I have,” he growled. “Thought Sirius might take you here. He can’t seem to let go of the past.”

Harry’s temper cracked. “Harry no!” Sirius whispered behind him, but the holly wand was already out. He didn’t try to hide the disgust he felt. How dare he? He thought in a rage. How dare any of them? Why do they all think they can judge Sirius? Why do they think I don’t know my own wants and needs?

Moody didn’t move an inch, but his blue eye focused down at his wand.

“You predicted we'd come here because you think Sirius is insane, is that right?”

Harry didn’t recognize his own voice. It was too soft, too threatening. He didn’t know what to do with this violent anger inside of him. He only knew he wanted Moody gone. Moody’s left hand moved to draw his wand.

“Do you think someone insane would take me to visit my parents’ grave? He was the first person to ever do it, by the way.” Ice crawled up across his shoulder and started to touch his jaw. It was a lovely counterpoint to the fire burning through his head. Harry grit his teeth, “Sirius is more sane than the lot of you. He actually listens to me. He tells me the truth. Why don't you go back to Dumbledore and tell him that?"

“It's not about his frame of mind, lad,” Moody said, clearly trying to defuse him as he positioned his wand defensively. “We want to make sure you get the whole story. You know there’s more than one person in this world who cares about you, right?” The ex-auror blinked, and for a moment he actually looked compassionate. “Come see your friends. Clear the air. Let Sirius be on his own for a while and maybe he’ll learn how to take responsibility for his mistakes.”

“I’m not on anyone’s schedule but my own,” Harry snapped, blinking away black spots in his vision. The pain was traveling down his neck now. “I will visit the Order when it’s time and not a minute before. Now, I’m giving you one last warning. Get off my property before I throw you out.”

Moody smiled, close-lipped. “How do you think you’re going to do that?” 

His head was spinning. The pain made it hard to focus, competing with a summer of boiling resentment. I want him gone, he thought desperately. I don’t want any of these people near my house where my parents died. I just need to get my blood on that stone.

Suddenly, Harry had a very stupid, very clever idea.

“Your choice,” he shrugged, and flicked his wand to point at the lodestone. It shimmered like it knew what he was about to do.

Sirius touched his shoulder, “Harry-“

“Sanguicit!”

The scar on his forearm tore open and blood shot from it like a dagger. Harry yelped, staggering to the right, overwhelmed by the onslaught of visceral pain ripping through his arm. Despite that, Harry felt a vicious twinge of satisfaction. Thank you vampires for writing books on blood magic.  

When his blood hit the lodestone, it rang like a bell. His head snapped back, vision flashing white as the wards subsumed him. Harry was not in his body anymore. He could see the cottage from above, sense every inch of the ground, feel the way the property was open to the world. He grinned.

“You are not invited here!" he shouted, throwing his other hand up at Moody. The ring spun into liquid gold, going from ice cold to boiling hot. The blood running down his arm was hot too, streaming off his elbow like a river. “Get OUT!”

The wards screamed in answer, reaching down and slamming Moody in the chest, catapulting him over the brick wall. Harry threw his head back and laughed gleefully, pulling his will down to the entire property. Lock it down, he urged, coaxing the magic to tighten around the house. Keep everyone out.

White hot pain lanced through his head, startling him from his communion with the wards. His vision switched maddeningly between the house and his own eyes. Harry’s knees hit the ground, but he barely felt it. He was shivering violently, clutching at his forehead. One of his hands felt wet. 

Then Harry felt a thrum of curiosity that wasn’t his.

He gasped for air and tasted smoke. Someone was shaking him. But he was also standing in a forest. His arm throbbed with pain, but he was also raising it. His holly wand was gone. The one in his hand was white.  

His mouth moved, forming words that weren’t his own.

Are you honored to meet me?

“HARRY!”

His head lolled against the ground. He was on his back. Someone was tapping his cheek, trying to get him to wake up.

“He should be fine,” a nervous voice muttered close to his ear. “The bleeding’s stopped. He’s not emitting magic anymore. He didn’t even really cast a ward.”

“Wake up, Harry!”

Vaguely, he could feel pressure on his shoulders, but Harry was too tired to piece together what it was. He groaned and struggled to pull leaden arms up to his head. The pain was getting worse.

“What is it? Your scar?”

“Yesss…”

“I can’t understand you pup…” Harry squinted up at Sirius. “You’re - you’re hissing.”

“Sssorry.” It felt like claws were ripping at his head. He could hear something in the distance. The sound of spellfire. Cruel laughter.

“Voldemort,” Harry gasped, arching his back as another twist of pain rushed down his spine. “He’s - he’s dueling someone.”

Someone was screaming, screaming so loud that Harry fully opened his eyes and twisted his head. “Who is that?” he mumbled. “Who’s screaming? Help them - he - someone needs help.”

“I’m taking you back,” Sirius decided, hefting Harry up. “I’m sorry - this is probably going to hurt. Hold on to me. Just focus on me, Harry. Try not to listen to him.”

He didn’t have any strength, Harry just draped bonelessly in his godfather’s arms. Sirius clutched him close and twisted, pushing them through that tight, corkscrew space. The pressure crashed into him and, suddenly, all his pain vanished. Harry was floating in the dark. He sighed, reaching for it, but just before his mind fully slipped unconscious he blinked his eyes open and looked down at a scarred old man with long grey hair. He was staring intently at something on the ground. Harry’s lips moved.

“Your son did very well, Magnus.”

---

The dragon peered down at him, its long neck curling like a hydra's. Purple fire trailed from its slitted eye sockets, and though it was as grey and opaque as the ghosts of Hogwarts, steam fell off of it in waves, leaving him damp and chilled at the edge of the high mountain. 

"Just walk right through it," Sirius said confidently. Harry looked at him and wondered if he actually was still a little crazy. "It's fine," Sirius waved at the dragon, "you're wearing my token. It will let you right through."

The dragon snorted, sending sparks dancing down the castle wall. Harry forced himself to stay still even as a shower of them came toward him. When they touched his skin they felt cold, like snow. 

"See?" Sirius clapped him on the back, "It's a test of bravery. Crater Black hated most people, so he created this illusion to guard the front gate."

"But didn't it try to kill you?"

"Only because I didn't know the rules," his godfather skipped ahead and passed easily through the belly of the dragon. It didn't move an inch. Its head was cocked like a snake ready to strike. 

Harry pushed out his chest, bearing the silver cloak pin. It was simple, a palm-sized circle with two wands crossing, forming an X. Sirius dug it out of Gringotts after reading an excerpt from Crater Black's journals. The token marked Harry as a guest and should protect him from sudden death by steam bath, but given his luck, he wasn't so certain. 

No other choice, he thought, and started to walk. 

The dragon growled at him as he approached, lowering its head until it was just inches from his body. Harry kept his eyes forward, focusing on the blurry shape of Sirius just beyond the gates, refusing to look the creature in the eye. It blasted him with a temperate coat of steam just as he stepped through its body and -

He was clear. Harry jogged to Sirius's side and turned around to look, but the dragon was gone. The great stone gates of Black Roc looked small and inconsequential without it. Sirius chuckled, "Cool, huh?"

I think I like my guardian best, he thought, deciding to withhold that information for now. It would be fun to bring Sirius to Roebuck Falls. It seemed like all the Black properties were old and creepy, most of them either cursed, haunted, infested with ghouls, or unlivable. Roebuck Falls would be like a wonderland. Harry felt his chest warm at the thought, alleviating some of the dark thoughts he'd been carrying around since his collapse at Godric's Hollow. 

But the feeling didn't last for long. Though it was the middle of summer in the Highlands, the sky was a muggy brown and harsh winds whipped icily over the cliffs. The sun was cool on his skin, shrouded by smoke-heavy clouds, and the air smelled acrid. He sniffed and rubbed his head, fending off a tension headache. 

"Are you okay?" Sirius asked urgently. "Is it your scar?"

"I'm fine," Harry said shortly, sniffing again. "It's all this smoke. My nose is stuffed up."

"Here," Sirius conjured a handkerchief out of midair and handed it to him. "You'll tell me if-"

"-it even tingles, yes, Sirius." 

He ignored the tense silence while blowing his nose, hoping Sirius would let it go. The pressure opened up in his face and released some of the pain in his temples, and all at once Harry slumped. 

"I'm sorry," he apologized, not able to look his godfather in the eye. "I know you're just worried about me. I'm not - I'm not good at this." 

"Good at what?" Sirius reached out and held his shoulder, lightly pulling him along so they could continue hiking up the sheer courtyard. 

Harry screwed up his face. "Depending on other people, I guess."

"Well, neither am I," Sirius gestured widely to the broken-down castle in front of them. "Or else we would not be here." 

Harry snorted and reached into his cloak for his shrunken Firebolt. "I can fly, right? While you and John go look at the locket?"

Sirius stopped. They were standing just outside of the main keep, a squat, ugly building with narrow windows. It was built right into the sheer mountain cliff that towered overhead. Harry could just make out a path trailing from above the building that wound up the mountain's impossibly steep face. "Yeah, you can fly around here," he pointed at the walls. "Just make sure you don't go too far past them. If you start seeing the dragon, you're out of bounds."

"I can go up, though?" He pointed at the summit. Sirius craned his head back, eyes wide. 

"I guess, so, pup," he said. "Don't get blown off your broom, though. The winds are harsh up there."

"I probably won't," Harry said, eager to give his godfather some reassurance. "I just need to clear my head. I didn't sleep much..." 

Sirius gently touched his scar. Harry knew it was still a little inflamed. It had been prickling on and off since the vision, but now that he had both Sirius and John on his case every waking minute, the three of them quickly deduced that it was Harry's anger and frustration that sometimes set the scar off, not just Voldemort's.

"Try some occlumency while you're flying," his godfather suggested, fishing a knitted hat from his pocket and shoving it over Harry's ears. "I think you'll find it easier when you're doing something physical."

"I still don't know how you're supposed to use occlumency every moment of the day," Harry grumbled, secretly delighting in Sirius's fussy attempts to keep him warm. "Should I just never feel an emotion ever again? That's impossible."

Sirius laughed and flicked his nose, "It's especially hard at this age." 

His temper rose to the surface in and instant and Harry fixed Sirius with the dirtiest glare he could muster. The other man stepped back, clearly trying not to smile. 

"Sorry, pup, that was insensitive. I just meant-"

"I know what you meant."

"No, Harry," he stopped him from turning away, holding his elbow. "Just listen. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to belittle you. I know you have a lot going on right now, and you have a right to be frustrated with me because I won't let you go find Nott and make sure he's okay." A lump crawled up his throat, and even though he could feel Sirius trying to turn him around to face him, Harry leaned away. I just need a minute, he thought, crushing his hands into fists. I just need some time to fly and then I'll be alright. We've already talked about this a hundred times. I know I can't do anything. 

"I told Albus what you saw, and he's going to look out for him, alright?" Sirius rubbed his arm helplessly. "I know it doesn't feel like anything's happening, but there's a reason the Order exists. We have our own spies everywhere. Someone will put eyes on him to make sure he's alright. I'm sorry it can't be you."

Harry jerked his head to show he understood, and Sirius let him go with a little sigh. "I'll be back soon," he promised, stepping up to the door. "Activate the cuff if you need me."

"Sure," Harry sized the broom back to normal and mounted it. As soon as his body was aloft in the air he started to circle higher and higher, keeping himself right above the courtyard so he could stay within bounds. Once he was far enough overhead, he tightened his hands on the broomstick and let himself gasp for air, releasing all the angry, terrified pressure in his chest in a few ragged sobs. 

It had only been two days since his glimpse through Voldemort's eyes, but for Harry, each hour was torture. When he came-to on the couch of their Manchester flat, he was quick to describe what he saw. The name Magnus didn't mean anything to him, but Sirius turned white as a sheet when he said it. 

I bet he regrets telling me the truth, Harry thought bitterly, repositioning the hat. It was bitterly cold this high in the air. He wiped his face and groaned at the feeling of it already chafing. I'm sure Theo is fine. His father wouldn't let him die. He was right there. And Voldemort didn't want to kill him - it didn't feel like he was trying to, at least. 

But Harry knew very well what it was like to duel Voldemort and he could not help spiraling into anxiety every time he thought about Theo facing him. He wished desperately that he'd seen any of the fight, but the tiny scraps of information were already too much in Sirius's eyes. They'd fought twice about whether or not Harry should encourage these visions whenever they came, and Harry finally relented to his godfather's side of things when John pointed out that Voldemort might see visions from Harry sometimes, if he wasn't careful. 

He put himself through a couple of lazy quidditch drills, not quite in the right frame of mind to enjoy flying. If he wasn't careful, the sound of screaming cut through his head like a lance and then he was drowning in furious helplessness all over again. Deep in his gut, Harry knew that Theo needed help. He knew it, and despite all of Sirius's assurances, despite Theo's own request that Harry not send him any letters, despite his common sense telling him that he really couldn't do anything but wait for September 1st, he longed to go out and find him. 

Harry took a deep breath through his nose and hovered in the air, facing the sun. With great concentration, he forced all his worries and his anger to the back of his mind. His scar pulsed again, but quickly settled back down. Harry opened his eyes and looked steadily at the blood-red sun. 

"Please let him be okay," he whispered. "Please."

---

Lucius

Lucius glowered at the lavender stationary on his desk and considered the merits of another glass of wine.

The letter was soaked in perfume, adding a layer of noxious pain to his throbbing headache. He growled and waved open a window, snapping his fingers to summon Trilby. The elf anticipated his need without a word, refilling his empty glass and disappearing with a nearly soundless pop.

That’s why I love that elf, he thought, putting the glass to his lips. Quiet. Obedient. As all elves should be.

The alcohol warmed his limbs and gave him a momentary boost of patience. Lucius held the purple letter in front of him and slowly paced the floor, reading it again.

Lord Malfoy,

Minister Fudge shared with me that Hogwarts has yet to secure a new Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts this year. I know you are also a dear confidant of the Minister, so you can understand how eagerly I wanted to find a solution to his problem so he could focus on other, more significant issues facing our government. I took it upon myself to read through the Hogwarts Charter and associated governing documents and was pleased to discover that if the current Headmaster or Headmistress of the school cannot produce an adequate teaching placement, the Board of Governors may find and hire a suitable candidate at their discretion.

In this delicate time, I know you appreciate (as do I) keeping a close eye on the inner workings of Hogwarts so as to guarantee a peaceful year for the students. Given the catastrophic failures of Headmaster Dumbledore over the last few years, we all desire a return to normalcy for the school, where students like your son can focus on their studies without turmoil and strife. I am sure we both agree that finding a suitable candidate on such short notice will be a challenge. After much deliberation with the Minister, I humbly request you consider my resume as a candidate for the professorship. Should you find no other replacement, I will gladly make this sacrifice to support the wonderful young children who so sorely need guidance.

Yours Most Sincerely,

Dolores Jane Umbridge

Lucius finished off the wine and nearly tossed the letter in his fire. “Trilby!” He snapped, “Put the bottle out.”

As soon as it popped on his desk, he grabbed it by the neck and topped off his glass. He left the letter face-down on his desk and went to the window, glaring unseeingly into the dark. It was overcast and stormy, a fair match for his mood. He allowed himself a few minutes of longing, thinking of the scene he left behind that morning. A radiant Narcissa in the French countryside, sitting on the cool porch in the early morning, watching Draco race up and down the vineyard on his broom.

He wanted desperately to go back. Seeing them for a day wasn’t enough. Being alone in his house was torture. Every day he played the Ministry’s games, took self-important politicians to lunch, endured lifeless meetings, fended off weak attempts to chip away at his influence, and then he came back to his Manor just to dodge a giant, evil snake, deal with personal letters from Fudge’s number one toady, and wait on tenterhooks for the Dark Lord’s summons.

The wine was starting to do its job, but not fast enough. He poured the rest of the bottle into his glass. At least my Lord is in London, he thought with some relief. The Milan Coven sent an emissary to treat with him. Lucius was not invited.

An evening on my own, he thought, wondering if he had another bottle of this zinfandel. Maybe I’ll take a page out of Nott’s book and get-

The fireplace flared green, filling the room with the reek of floo powder. Lucius sneered in anticipation.

“Of course it’s you,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to see Magnus Nott heave himself out of the fireplace. “Severus is courteous enough to knock first.”

“And how is our surly-faced potions master?” Nott growled loudly.

“Sobering as always,” Lucius replied. “He’s tutoring Draco in advanced potions theory this week.”

“Poor boy,” Nott deadpanned. The man’s awkward gait thumped across his office, heading straight for the bar.

“No, no, help yourself,” Lucius said mildly, turning his cold gaze on the man. “My house belongs to everyone but me.”

Nott merely grunted, filling a tumbler nearly to brim with a fresh bottle of scotch. He lifted it to his lips shakily, slopping a bit on the floor.

“This isn’t a common taproom!” Lucius snapped, glaring at the wet spot on his Tunisian rug. “State your business and go.”

“Is he gone?”

It took a second for Lucius to realize he was talking about the Dark Lord. “Yes, he’s in London,” he whispered, glancing at the door. “But that snake is still here. She listens.”

Nott flicked his hand at the door, sealing it with a dark blue spell. “That will buy us time,” he muttered, taking the glass and Lucius’s chair out from the desk. “Lucius, how are you progressing on your lightning?”

“Oh quite well, Professor,” he sneered, “I study every day after work.”

“Work?” Nott repeated, glaring up at him, “I wasn’t aware you were employed, Lord Malfoy. Do they need you desperately in the office? Busy making use of that education Abraxas beat into you?”

Lucius stilled dangerously. Nott set the glass down, using the lavender parchment as a coaster. He started to massage the rings on his hands.

“Have you practiced or not?”

“I haven’t practiced!” Lucius snarled, “How could I? Where could I? Did you do the equations? If I summoned lightning that strong I’d blow half the manor away!”

“Come to Nott Tower,” Magnus shrugged, “practice there. We have space.”

Lucius had space too. Malfoy Manor was four times the size of Nott’s little estate. He struggled with his ice-cold rage, trying to decide how to react without insulting himself.

“Our Lord shared his plans with me,” he said, changing the subject. He held his wine glass stiffly. “His plan to retake the Ministry should work easily, especially when we break our comrades out of Azkaban.”

Magnus raised the glass to his lips, tapping his foot to the floor. He wasn’t wearing the customary heavy black cloak, and without it he looked old and tired. His thin shoulders hunched. His long gray hair hung in greasy strings around his face.

“With the Ministry under our control, I believe I can help guide our Lord’s message into something…palatable for the wider public.” He sipped delicately, studying Magnus when he raised his head. The older man blinked at him, unreadable. “I believe he’s improving.” He spoke the words softly, afraid the snake would hear him. “Maybe his madness was the result of taking a new body. Maybe-“

“That thing nearly killed my son two days ago,” Magnus thumped the floor with his heavy boot. “Tell me how sane he is, Lucius, when he’d tear open all the scars on a child just to see if his new spell worked.”

He pursed his lips, stifling the gut-punch of fear coursing through his veins. Theodore almost died? he balked. Is he lying? Wouldn't he have asked for our help if...

But, no. Not if the Dark Lord did it. Even Lucius couldn't imagine calling in outside help if Draco was hurt by him. Not unless Draco was really about to...he shook his head, dashing the thought away. Magnus wasn't lying, and yet - Lucius thought of the Dark Lord striding through his home, reading quietly from a book, entertaining all manner of old allies in his dining room late into the night. That is not an insane man, he assured himself, He’s cruel, but he’s brilliant. How could we ever hope to understand a man as brilliant as him?

“Theodore wouldn’t have so many scars if it weren’t for you, would he?”

The words felt like poison as they slipped past his lips. For a moment, neither of them dared to breathe. 

Then Magnus rose to his feet. The shadows pooled under the deep lines in his face. He did not draw his wand, but Magnus reached out with one scarred hand like he wanted to wrap it around his throat. “Are you having second thoughts, Lucius?” he asked quietly. 

He tried not to shiver and didn’t quite succeed. “I’m thinking of Draco,” he hissed. “What you’re proposing is nothing short of suicide. You want me to strike him and the snake with lightning in the hopes that it will bring back his rationality? Are you out of your goddamn mind?!”

Magnus didn’t move, didn’t blink. He stared straight into Lucius’s eyes, pinning him to the floor. The look reminded him so strongly of his father that Lucius actually took two steps back without thinking.

“We have to reassess,” Lucius said firmly, “our families are at stake. You have to think of the world the Dark Lord’s creating for them to inherit, Magnus! What if it’s worth it in the end? What if we can guide them through the ranks, like my father did for me, and-“

“Abraxas was a brazen fool too concerned with his fears of mudbloods and muggles to ever be useful!” Magnus interrupted, baring his teeth. “He was brought into the fold for his bloody pocket book, you stupid lout! Oh, I remember how hard it was to watch him. Abraxas was ever so eager to please, and I see he taught you how to kowtow to the Dark Lord without a single original thought in your pretty head."

Magnus spat on his floor, and only Lucius's instinctual fear of the man prevented him from cursing him on the spot. "I remember it like it was yesterday, the day you were born. He said the exact same bullshit you’re spewing right now about designing the perfect world for his son, and then he suckled you on his brainless ideology, filling your head with so much arrogance that you never even questioned what our movement was really about. In the end, you were just another galleon on the table, Lucius. He gave you to us because he had nothing else to offer and he was desperate to stay close to the Dark Lord’s side.”

Nott stepped in closer, his scotch-foul breath stinging his eyes. “Maybe I should forgive you for this cowardice,” he whispered. “Even when I was a younger man, I knew you never had a chance of being anyone but Abraxas’s little puppet. I thought you proved me wrong two years ago when you charged into my house, ready defend my own son against me, yet here you are..." His eyes raked over him. "You want to lead your poor little Draco through the ranks of the Death Eaters? Ask yourself this - do you love your father? When you think of him, do you thank your lucky stars he walked you up to the Dark Lord on your seventeenth birthday like a little virgin, baring your arm for him and him alone, so eager to prove yourself? Has this all been a joyful present for you?”

Lucius trembled wordlessly. He knew that if he made even the smallest movement, he’d fry Magnus to ash right there in his study.

But Magnus took his silence for agreement and curled his lip, “Abraxas didn’t have the slightest clue what our Lord wanted for the world, and neither do you.”

Coiled fury wound tightly in his gut. Lucius heard the windows creak under the pressure of his magic.

“What is it, then?” He snarled. “What could it possibly be that’s so damned important? Why can’t you just give it up and let the new generation come?” True bitterness flooded his tone. The wine was getting to him, loosening his tongue, but Lucius couldn’t stop. “You want to bring back the world you dreamed up when you were a boy? Grow up. You’re an old man who should be locked in his tower. Excuse yourself from this movement, Nott, before you become an embarrassment to us all. We will take up the helm now. If you’re not ready for what the Dark Lord has prepared, you’ll become a liability.”

“I thought you only cared about saving your family,” Magnus said, turning his back. “Why are you suddenly ablaze with the flame of revolution? Has he promised you something?”

Lucius hesitated.

“So that’s it," Magnus snorted and tossed back the rest of his scotch. "What could he possibly offer that would be worth the life of your heir?"

“He promised to leave Draco unmarked,” Lucius blurted out. Unbidden, the Dark Lord’s soft voice filled his head. I am most pleased with you Lucius…you are my most generous believer, you are giving the most to the cause. Tell me what you desire. Anything you wish, Lord Voldemort will see it done…

“And you believe him?”

That one little question made his head spin. Lucius fell clumsily into the windowsill, clutching his head. Do I believe him? I have to. The Dark Lord has always rewarded loyalty. Magnus is only giving me half-truths and theories. I will certainly die if I raise my wand against the Dark Lord. Will Draco and 'Cissa be safer with or without me?

“So long as he has me as collateral, I do,” he replied numbly. “If I can see Draco grow up with at least the pretense of being free from his service, anything he asks will be worth the sacrifice. Even Narcissa would give herself to the cause, if it meant our son would be spared." Lucius looked up, clutching his chest, "And when we’re gone, Draco and Theodore’s generation can take up the helm. In the new world, they can -“

“There will never be a world for them, Lucius.”

The older man’s voice was soft, drained of all hostility. Magnus collapsed in the chair again, rubbing his temples.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, gripping the windowsill. “He will need a successor eventually. Maybe not our boys, but someone-“

“He will never die,” Magnus shook his head and looked him in the eyes. “He’s immortal.”

All the breath rushed out of his lungs. No, he thought, that can't be true. No one is immortal.

Magnus tipped his head back in a rare show of vulnerability, exposing the scarred skin of his throat. “He can’t be killed, because his soul is scattered into little pieces and hidden across our world. I only know the location of one, and that’s the snake. The one I helped create.” He gulped down the rest of the scotch, spluttering a little. “But certainly there are more than one. At least three.”

Lucius nearly fell over. He braced his arm against the wall. He…tore his soul to pieces? How? Why?

“I bet you’re wondering why he did it,” Magnus laughed. A crooked smile crossed his face. “At the time, it seemed like a good idea. Isn’t that what they say? The road to hell is paved with good intentions? We just wanted him to live long enough to accomplish his dream. But when you become immortal, you stop dreaming. You never sleep again, you see…”

Magnus trailed off, his head rolling to his chest. Lucius jumped up, alive with a new fear. 

“Magnus!” he hissed urgently, glancing at the door to check that the privacy charm was holding fast. “Get it together! If you drink yourself to death before I know all this information, how am I supposed to protect my family? Or your son?”

The man nodded drunkenly. “That’s right,” he slurred. “I’m to take care of yours if you die, too. Remember that?”

Lucius curled his lip, “That won’t happen. You're going to kill yourself if you come here and speak such awful truths where she can hear, even with that spell.” He shot another paranoid glare at the door. “Why aren’t you ever honest with me, Magnus?” he growled, hauling the man to his feet. “If you told me that a month ago, I’d be flinging lightning from my fingertips by now.”

“You just needed the right motivation, eh?” Magnus grunted, blasting him in the face with alcohol. “Maybe you are different from Abraxas. Surely, Abraxas never would have tried to save your life…”

Lucius rolled his eyes and dragged him over to the fireplace. “Good, then,” Magnus continued, “I need you ready by Samhain.”

“When the veil is thinnest?” Lucius ran through the astronomy charts in his head, “Will that work? What if it just helps him keep the two souls articulated? Won’t the one in the snake be strong if it’s been connected to her all these years?”

“Summer solstice would have been better,” Magnus agreed. “But you won’t be ready before the equinox, will you?”

Less than two months? He shuddered, “We should not rush this. What about Ostara?"

“If I can make it that long,” Magnus coughed. Lucius tossed a handful of powder into the fire.

“You will,” he swore as green flames erupted in front of them. “My House and your House are intertwined. You can’t fail me before then.”

He dragged them both inside the flames and muttered the floo address, enduring a rough ride through the network with Magnus pressed close to him. He stepped neatly into the Nott Tower receiving room and dropped the man on the nearest armchair.

“Does Theodore need a healer?” He asked, looking around the pitch-black room. He conjured a ball of light and held it overhead. The arched, crooked stairs leading up Nott Tower loomed above him. “I can summon Severus.”

“He’ll live,” Magnus said gruffly. “You’ve done your duty. Leave now. Finley will help me.’

He clicked his tongue, looking over the older man thoughtfully. Magnus was drunk and weak, this could be his only chance to ask...

“One last thing, Magnus,” he said softly. The blue glow from his wandlight cast eerie shadows across the room. Gooseflesh erupted over his skin. “When did it become your job to save all the little lost boys of our world? When did your bloody hands wash themselves? Are you trying to make amends to someone?”

Magnus sighed heavily. “Amends…?” he murmured, sliding down in the armchair. “Of a sort. If my friend were still alive, he would not have drawn his wand against my son...I am still a dreamer…Lucius…to think he's still in there..."

He waited, wondering if he would say anything to clarify that bewildering jumble of words, but Magnus merely started to snore.

Lucius scoffed and turned sharply back to the glowing embers of the fire. He paused a moment, searching for the name of the family’s elf. “Finley!” he finally snapped.

The old house elf arrived in an instant but did not bow, averting her gaze politely instead. “If they require urgent medical care, come to me,” he commanded. “Our house is open to you.”

Finley nodded, her large eyes briefly touching his. “Finley thanks you, sir.”

He tossed powder into the coals and stepped back through to his office. For a long while, Lucius occupied himself cleaning the room, removing every trace of Magnus Nott’s drunken appearance. He was sure to take the privacy ward down first, and not long after, he heard the tell-tale whisper of scales scraping down the hallway.

He set his jaw and fished the blue book from Magnus out of the hidden nook in the wall. Pushing the purple letter away, he pulled a fresh sheet of stationary out in front of him and started to run the calculations for Samhain, Yule, Ostara, and Midsummer. 

---

Magnus

He woke to bitter black bile in his mouth and the buzzing sensation of alcohol still alive in his veins.

Magnus stumbled into the bathroom to clean up. His head was full of cotton, his body was slow to respond to his thoughts.

“Finley,” he called out while he dragged a straight razor over his cheek. She stepped into the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her. “Bring me the Odigan’s Reserve.”

“Right away,” she bowed her head and disappeared. Moments later, a small, dusty bottle of whiskey clattered on the sink, sliding in water left behind by his attempt to drown himself under the tap. He grunted and popped the cork, pouring a tipple into the glass he kept by the mirror.

The burning, smoky drink stamped down on the trembling in his gut. For the first time that morning, he could take a breath.

“Master,” Finley said, catching his clothes as he threw them off. “Finley cannot find the source of the doxy infestation in the basement, near the cistern.” She met his hard gaze with practiced bravery, her tiny fists shivering. “And also, the waters is low. Finley thinks the cistern be leaking.”

He winked approvingly at her, and Finley relaxed all at once, smiling brightly. “I’ll check the foundation,” he said, pulling his cloak over his shoulders. "This old tower is falling apart. We'll have to build it anew again." The warming charms woven into the fibers did their work, relaxing the old battle wounds that terrorized his body. He leaned back and cracked his spine, groaning. “Is Theodore awake?”

“He is,” she said. “He’s in the Library.”

“Of course." He couldn't stifle a wave of fondness at the thought of his son in their precious haven. He let the feeling melt away into the secret recesses of his mind. It was too easy to get lost in feelings, lately. He needed to practice more control. “He walked himself?”

“He did.” Finley did not sound happy about it. Magnus grinned.

“Good boy. Don’t worry about him, Fin,” he patted her head as he went out the door. “He’ll be fine.”

“Lord Malfoy sent you this,” she said, pressing a sealed bit of parchment in his hand. Then she disappeared, leaving him to his business. Part of him expected an invoice for the scotch he’d wasted last night.

I should like to visit your grounds and make use of your valuable Library tomorrow afternoon at 1 o’clock. I await your confirmation, LM.

He rolled his eyes and started limping down the stairs, throwing open the first window. He whistled loudly into the open air. The wildfire smoke was even worse today, hitting him in the face like a thick fog. Damn muggles, he thought. Should I go and draw water up from the aquifer to put an end to this, or should I let them suffer?

Raziel landed clumsily on the sill, snapping his little beak in annoyance as his talons struggled to find purchase. “Just a minute,” he murmured, scribbling a short APPROVED on the back of the letter. He folded it up and tucked it into Raziel’s mail bag. “To Lucius with that,” he commanded, stroking the raptor’s chest. “Be swift. I need you tonight.”

Raziel shrieked and flapped out the window, disappearing into the muddy sky.

Magnus sipped placidly out of his flask on the way downstairs. It was a slow walk for him, as most things were these days. He thought about stopping in the Library as he passed those blood-red doors, but quickly wrote the idea off. Theodore had already endured conversation with him last night while he was trapped in bed. Magnus remembered very well the beginning of the night, but the details grew hazier after the food was taken away. He remembered the way Theodore looked at him, though. Those tired eyes. So very much like Larka’s.

He took a longer drink, roughly pushing all thoughts of his daughter from his mind. Part of him wanted to blame his drunken trip to Malfoy Manor on Theodore. Irrationally, he knew that if his son just didn’t look at him like that, it would be easier to slow down and favor his drinks. If Theodore would just relax, they could continue their conversations as if he wasn’t clutching his fifth glass in an hour. But that never happened. All it took was one tip of his temper, one sarcastic joke, and his son’s eyes started burning a hole in the drink in his hand like it personally offended him.

But it was not Theodore’s fault that he lost control of his drinking last night. Truthfully, Magnus hadn't had a stable night since Theodore almost died. He did not like this disjointed feeling, like he was walking over a broken floor, at risk of falling through at any minute. The image of his son falling in the woods, blood seeping out of him from everywhere, his screams tearing through the trees…Magnus had seen hundreds of people die in his lifetime, but he had never felt fear like that. Even when Larka and Blair died, their bodies were stiff and cold by the time he saw them, dead for hours. It was different this time, thinking his last surviving child was going to cross over right before his eyes.

Oh if Theodore only knew, he thought sourly, ducking his head under a low wooden frame as he stepped into the basement. His powerful father, standing helplessly next to the man who nearly killed him. I didn’t even draw my wand. And I’ve filled his head with certainty that I’ll protect him, when my plan hinges on Lucius Malfoy, of all people. Maybe I was wrong to place my trust in him. Maybe Theodore needs another option.

The dark mark tightened on his skin. He snarled and slammed it against the wall. Not right now, he willed. I'll cut my damn arm off if you summon me now. 

The mark did not flare to life, to his relief. The basement was cool and damp. He heard the tell-tale flutter of insect wings and followed the sound to a couple of small doxies who must have escaped Finley’s wrath. He stunned them and gathered their bodies in a magical net. Then he cast a few spells, searching for airflow along the walls, but found nothing.

Magnus hummed, forgetting about everything else. He always liked a good puzzle. Finley would not lie, of course, but doxies couldn’t get in any other way but through the air. They did not burrow, they did not swim.

Still, he checked the stone floor, looking for gaps in the flagstones, or fresh piles of peaty soil where the wall met the floor. Nothing. Then he peered into the cistern, lighting a couple of lanterns over the surface and studying the crystal clear water.

There. His eyes caught on a very small imperfection at the bottom of the pool. He waterproofed his clothing and floated down for a closer look.

The water was shockingly cold, knocking the gentle buzz in his head straight out of his body. He scowled and dragged the lanterns under the water, wrapping a bubble head charm about his face so he could go below the surface.

A root? Magnus traced the small crack in the stones. A couple of strong, thin brown roots were growing from it. Had to happen eventually, he thought with a frown. This cistern was the oldest part of the estate, probably the only original piece of architecture that was left. Its mosaic of marble tiles was meant prevent ground water from seeping up. The charms worked into the stone cleaned and readied rainwater for use by the tower. Magnus had read nearly every record on his house after the great battle between he and his brothers, when he faced the task of building something out of the rubble, but he could not recall the cistern ever needing repair before.

“Fucking hellfire,” he spat, tearing them out and plugging the hole for now with a quick transfiguration. “I’m going to have to get a stoneworker in here.” He thought through the few mages he knew, trying to guess who would practice such an arcane art. “I hope they’re not all dead,” he grumbled, levitating out of the cistern.

It still didn’t solve the doxy problem, but they were obviously not coming in underground. He forced his body up the stairs, stopping where he knew the tower’s foundation lay flush with the ground. He turned slowly, feeling for pockets of air.

A third of the way up, he smelled smoke.

“Found you,” he sang. The clever bastards had dug the mortar away but left behind an illusion as if it were still there, blocking out any sunlight.

Magnus sealed the hole back up and continued his slow, limping ascent to the main floor. His knee was killing him. He was certain that Graham floated through the walls at night and cursed it all over again when he was feeling particularly sour.

I deserve a real drink, he decided. And maybe a nap. If Theodore was in the Library, Magnus wouldn't be needed for several hours. Finley could wake him if there was an emergency. He limped painfully to the false library, avoiding the old haunts he hated to see - the bright sitting room, the lavish kitchen, the study that once was hers.

The false library doubled as the room where he stocked an expansive wet bar. It was the only place he enjoyed in the Tower these days. Ostensibly built to entertain guests, Magnus was the only one ever sitting at it anymore. His head was starting to feel muddled again. It was probably time to eat. Magnus didn’t remember the last time he actually craved food. Eating more than once a day was normally anathema to him, but his body was shaking from the effort of dragging it up and down those stairs. 

Gin, vodka, whiskey, scotch…his stomach soured. Vodka it is. Once I feel better, I'll call Finley for a bite. 

As he stepped up to the bar, one hand high to summon a narrow-necked bottle from the top shelf, he felt a click. 

He looked down curiously and tried to step back, wondering what he had just crushed under his shoe. But instead of moving backwards, his heel hit a solid wall.

Light flared underneath him. A large circle of runes and hieroglyphs burned to life beneath his feet, interlocking in a complicated pattern he didn’t recognize.

He took out his wand, though he suspected it would do no good. Indeed, the larch wood was dead in his hand. It did not respond to the pull of his magic. He experimentally reached for the wards and was surprised that he could still feel them, but they did not react to his touch. It was like he was locked inside a glass box.

Recognition tugged at a very old memory in the back of his mind. He looked down and read the golden runes again. Yes, he thought, eyes widening. I know this. 

“You’re trapped,” someone said.

He raised his head and turned slowly to face them. Magnus Nott was not afraid. He cast his mind about the wards, checking that Theodore was still in the Library. He'll be safe there, he thought. 

“No,” he corrected the man coldly, “I’m dead.”

Two figures stood behind him with their hoods pulled low over their faces. One was humming, rolling something small and thin in her fingers. The other twitched restlessly. “Yes,” he agreed. “Soon, you will be.”

Notes:

It was very hard for me not to quote Gandalf in this chapter.

Chapter 13: Fathers

Summary:

The Tower (XVI) - those who draw this card may experience sudden, disruptive revelation or destructive change.

Theo

Theo was in the Library, sitting with his feet up and reading a book.

He idly chewed his thumbnail and studied a diagram of a wizard pulling the ground up in front of him like a shield. He flipped to the next diagram. In this one, a witch was mid-spin, crouched low to the ground with her robes flying out around her, the edges razer-thin. In French, it was called the twirling saw.

He tried to imagine what it would take to get close enough to the Dark Lord to ever use such a tactic and shivered.

Yellow light trickled in through the false window above his corner of the Library. The light was not warm and he pulled his heavy winter cloak higher, holding it under his chin. The constant, filtering breeze that ghosted through the Library tickled his hair. He shooed it away absently, barely registering that the breeze changed course and swooped higher to avoid him.

He shifted in the deep-seated armchair, changing the pressure points on his body without much of a thought. He pulled out a bit of bunched-up edge cloak under his thigh and kicked a heel out, stretching one hamstring and then the other. Theo was well-practiced at lounging comfortably for hours at a time without breaking his concentration.

But the transfigured chair squeaked lightly whenever he shifted and shattered his reverie. He wrinkled his nose and briefly considered standing up to vanish the chair and start anew. He hated imperfection in his work, especially his transfigured work, but he was not sure his body could take it.

Only a few days had passed since he woke up after taking the Dark Lord’s curse to the face. Though he felt perfect in every other way, his chest burned dangerously whenever he overexerted himself. Although he was healing rapidly, magic seemed to irritate the wounds. Possibly to prevent magical healing, he thought, making a mental note to add that to his analysis upstairs. Yesterday, he attempted to prove to Finley that he didn’t need her help with every little thing, and summoned a heavy illuminated manuscript near the ceiling of his room, promptly tearing open his chest wound and soaking his pajamas in blood. After yet another full day of bedrest under her stern eye, he roughly calculated the rate of his accelerated healing and reasoned that today he was no longer risked opening his internal wounds.

Aside from the chest wound, the last scars to heal were, of course, the three lashes on his back. He remembered the cruel aura of the ox-whip father retrieved from over the fireplace, his face a mask of drunken rage. Theo could clearly recall the way each vicious strike felt like it cut him clean in half. It took nearly six months for those wounds to heal. He had received them at Yule, and not seen the end of their scabbing until the end of first year. He guessed that if the healing rate was truly proportional, the curse would seal his wounds in another three days.

It felt strange to walk around with these old hurts crying out for his attention. Theo packaged their memories away long ago, sinking them deep in the waters of his mind. He had done the work of stripping every moment of those memories down to their unemotional core, replaying each word and each choice in his head until he understood exactly where he went wrong. It was easy to forgive his eleven-year-old self for baiting father into a rage. In his storm of grief after mother died, of course he couldn’t stand father’s cold, empty dinner table at Yule. Of course he yelled and threw things at him to get the man’s attention. He was a child, then, and he didn’t know how dangerous his father was.

Theo did not forgive his thirteen-year-old self for attempting to commune with the dead. That was just stupid. Every time his chest twinged he had to close his eyes and focus on plunging images of mirrors and Aramaic runes and the feeling of bone-deep shame down in the muddy dark, willing the memories to sink.

His gaze wandered off the page and caught on the small gray box nearby. He squeezed the manuscript tighter and held it in front of his face, blocking it out.

Theo ran through the duel again in his mind. His wand movements were too large, he was too slow, his thinking stiff and obvious. The Dark Lord did not need to use skill to duel him. It probably felt like fending off a toddler, he thought ungenerously. Dueling, despite his father’s grudging assurance, was his weakest skill. It was too easy for him to get overwhelmed by magic. When he went at it with his father, Theo could only last ten, maybe fifteen minutes before the pressure in his head tripped him into making a mistake.

And, as the Dark Lord so easily proved, he was not good at responding under pressure. Theo knew how to manipulate the earth, he knew how to augment his body to be fast, light, and agile, he even knew how to cast wordlessly sometimes, but he didn’t use any of that to his advantage!

He glared at the dueling guide, brows drawing together in an angry scowl. If I could just get out there and practice right now, I could - something pinched his arm hard and he dropped the manuscript with a yelp. The pages curled where he’d squeezed them.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

The Library swept the book up from his lap and tucked it away. He groaned and thumped his head on the back of the chair.

“I’m really sorry!” he tried, holding up his hand. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m having a bit of a week here.”

Nothing happened, but he didn’t really expect it to. The Library was exacting. He couldn’t count the number of times books vanished out of his hands or he was pushed to the door for handling a scroll too roughly, accidentally tearing a page, or once daring to toss a useless book on mid-century sleeping potions to the floor.

Theo slumped in his chair. It squeaked.

He swore and dropped his feet, ready to go back to bed. Stupid to try and learn to duel from a book anyway. He could just imagine the look on Blaise’s face if he ever told him. But before he fully stood up, his eyes caught the gray box again.

He stilled. That old hunger clawed in his chest.

Just looking won’t hurt…

Reverently, he slid it off the table and into his lap. The sides of the box were painted with faded yellow daffodils and pale white daisies. When he pulled the top off, a small bouquet of tiny wildflowers greeted him, their colors muted with age. He ran his hands over the many letters inside and allowed the painful yearning to consume him completely. There was no one in the Library who would see him. 

He flicked through the envelopes one by one, scanning their familiar litany without really needing to read them. They were still in the same order she arranged them in before she died. He touched the old ink, marveling at her messy, unique script, so unlike the finely penned letters he was used to seeing in pureblood circles.

The letters began with his birthdays. The ones that were open took up more room in the box now that the parchment was stretched and worn from frequent reading. Happy Twelfth Birthday, You’re Thirteen!, Fourteen Already, Your Fifteenth Year (my favorite number)...They crawled along until his seventeenth birthday, which was the thickest of the lot.

Most of the letters had no prescribed dates and no instructions. In his first birthday letter she just wrote, when you need them, you can open them.

There were thirteen in total, covering a wide range of topics. The first time he read through them all, he assumed they were moments she glimpsed in his future. It was only last year when he spent most of the summer with Draco’s family that he realized they were just lessons she wanted to teach him as he was growing up.

He looked through these more slowly. When you make a mistake. When you feel hopeless. When you fall in love. When your heart breaks. Asking for forgiveness. Asking for help.

He stopped at the very last one. It was the most maddening of all. It just said, for when you need your mom.

Theo privately thought he was showing immense restraint not tearing open and reading every letter any time he held this box. Aside from his birthday letters, he’d only opened two so far. The one about mistakes (after his disastrous attempt at necromancy), and one titled, for advice to handle your father.

He liked that one. He read it the first day he came home, every summer.

Theo picked up the last letter, twirling it by the corners. When am I supposed to know? Asking when he needed his mother was like asking when an amputee missed their leg. I’d like her opinion on Kingfisher’s stone reading, that’s for sure. His back itched. His chest ached. Theo touched his heart, breathing through the physical pain.

All at once, like dipping his head below water, he suddenly remembered what it was like when she was alive, when if he wanted to see her, talk to her, all he had to do was wander down hall to her drawing room where she’d be painting in front of the windows. He could clearly remember the feeling of her hand sliding down his back, capturing him in a hug that he used to pretend to fight off. He could hear her voice singing scrolls down from the upper heights of the Library. He remembered shoving his head under a pillow to hide his face when she called him Teddy Bear and he was so embarrassed and he begged her never to say it again and she just laughed and -

He stood up suddenly, shaking his head once, hard. He put the letter back and resealed the box, holding it up. “Here.” His voice sounded rough. Theo cleared his throat and said more certainly, “Take this back.”

The Library didn’t move to take it. He shook his head emphatically. “I don’t need to read one today.”

Theo only had about a month left to study and practice unsanctioned magic before he had to go back to Hogwarts. He did not have time to get lost in the past. The Dark Lord was alive. Theo had a legacy to protect. He needed to be stronger than the part of him that still ached for his mother.

Slowly, the box hovered out of his hands, stopping after a few inches like the Library was giving him another chance. “No,” he sighed, “really. I’m okay.” When the box did not move, he huffed and gave in. “I promise I’ll read one before I go back to school.”

Placated, the box floated away, disappearing into black miasma of the Library.

Shaking his shoulders out, Theo looked critically at his black armchair and the other furniture in his corner of the Library. He didn’t really know why the Library left it all alone. No other fixtures seemed to last inside the space. The comfortable cushion his mother used to sit on was gone, along with the rug he used to play on when he was a little kid. Father occasionally levitated a desk inside when he was working on an intensive project, but he always removed the furniture when he left.

The Library is a thief, Theodore, he warned. If you leave your notes behind, it will file them away like any other scroll. It will rifle through your pockets. It will steal your letters. Everything you bring inside you must be willing to forfeit.

He and father debated sometimes whether the Library was inside a pocket dimension or a magical vortex, but Theo know that he was right about it being the latter. A dimension had multiple doors, and the Library just had one way in and one way out. A magical vortex, while not technically a detectable physical space, still needed an anchor, and it needed to feed on magic to live. In a vortex, his transfigurations should eventually break down and revert back to their original states, but the furniture in his corner was exactly the same as it always was. Theo was running an experiment on a plain side table, the oldest transfiguration of the lot, to see how long it could withstand the Library’s vortex. Two years and counting, it showed no sign of magic rot.

He left his chair for now and followed the narrow path back to the central dais, carefully skirting the floor mosaic. Yggdrasil's roots were particularly white today, like sun-bleached bones on the moor. With his hand on the towering, blood-red doors, he turned and bowed, like he always did. “Thank you.”

The Library slowly dropped the light from his corner, closing the vast space off until all he could see was the dais and the shape of endless bookshelves in the dark.

Just as he was about to open the door, his stomach growled. He smirked and decided to test a theory.

“Finley!” He waited a beat. “Finley! I need you…”

He pushed the door open and searched for the little elf. Although it shouldn’t be possible, he was positive that Finley could hear him in the Library. She loved to surprise him, so he peeked down the hall toward the dining room first. Nothing.

Then he heard voices.

Company? He wondered.

Theo released the door and wordlessly spelled his shoes silent. He was wearing his house slippers, not the most fortified of choices for the drafty and often dangerous Nott Tower, but he was injured and Finley gave him a pass. He didn’t want his father’s…associates to catch him sneaking around in his muggle sweatpants and ratty old sweater, so he hastily closed the heavy black robe around him. This is stupid, this is so stupid…But if it happened to be Lucius Malfoy, he wanted to know what they were saying. Father rambled a bit about visiting the man last night when he was deep in his cups. Sometimes his father’s drunken diatribes proved useful, but last night all he learned was that Abraxas Malfoy was a cruel and self-centered pillock.

Hoping to pick up something a bit more useful, Theo ghosted across the foyer and put his back against the wall by the stairs, a few feet away from the doorway that led to the false library.

“- have the stomach to kill a man? Are you ready to bloody your hands?” Father’s heavy growl made him flinch reflexively. Theo carefully spelled his clothes silent too. Never can be too careful.

“I know what I’m doing. I know what this means.”

“Oh you do…?” Theo withered sympathetically. He was intimately familiar with the way that tone trapped you into slitting your own throat. He’d grown up hearing it after every hasty father, wait, I can explain!

Father must be talking to a new Death Eater. He searched through all the names he’d collected this summer, wondering who it could be.

“It’s not an easy thing,” father continued. “Killing someone takes something away from your soul. It changes your world forever. Are you ready for that?”

In the silence that followed, Theo heard someone humming. He craned his neck and listened intently, trying to identify the tune. It sounded like an old folk song, something his mother would have sung when pulling petals off of flowers. So there’s two people here? And neither of them are Lord Malfoy? He couldn't remember the last time father allowed new people beyond their wards.

“I know it’s not right,” the other voice cracked through the air. “But someone has to take responsibility for what’s about to happen. I’d rather it be me.”

“Such a noble reason to turn to murder,” father deadpanned. The person who was humming abruptly laughed, making a throaty, trilling sound like a bird. Theo jumped back, eyes widening. The only woman he knew who was a Death Eater was Bellatrix Lestrange, but it couldn’t be, it couldn’t…

“It’s not murder,” the other man shot back. “This is war. Your death might save a thousand lives. What we do today will weaken Voldemort. It might help save our world.”

Theo flinched his wand up, staring at the floor with wide eyes. They’re trying to kill Father? And weaken the Dark Lord? Who are these people?

When father started talking, Theo took his chance. “Chiaravis,” he breathed, pointing his wand at his eyes. It was a tricky spell, dangerous if done incorrectly, but Theo intently focused on his need, setting aside the fear dancing just below the surface of his mind.

His vision twisted and went black for a moment. “-helps you sleep at night,” father was saying, just as color came rushing back. He blinked and looked at the wall, then he looked through the wall. “My death is on your hands, whether you chalk me up as a casualty of war or a cold-blooded murder. You will have to live with this for the rest of your life.”

“I will do whatever I have to!” Theo watched father roll his eyes hugely. “I don’t expect you to understand what it means to sacrifice yourself for the people that you love. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but if I don’t put an end to you today, my family could be next. I know what I’m doing is right. We’re fighting for the greater good.”

“Greater good?” Theo watched his father bend back, throwing his head up in disbelief. “Is that all you’re parroting? That’s all you believe in? You’re here to blast my fucking home to pieces all for some vague sense of what is good? How old are you? What do you even know about good?”

A hooded figure across the room balled his hands into fists. He was tall, nearly father’s height, but broader. Theo didn’t recognize his voice. The man’s back was angled toward him so he couldn’t see his face. Father was standing just in front of the bar, hands in his pockets.

“At least I live and die for something worth fighting for,” the man snarled. “I have a family who deserves a safe world. I swore that I would make sure each and every one of them survives what’s coming. Your library is-“

“Yeah, yeah,” father flapped his hand, “and you have a tall order with so many of them to protect. I understand war, son.” His voice dropped threateningly, “I lost my family during our long struggle. Everyone I waved a flag for went before me, and in the end I was left alone with just my memories. Every terrible death weighed on my soul, despite what you may believe. Even the deaths I savored claw at me in my dreams. So save your certainty for the long nights ahead. You’re going to need it.”

Why isn’t he moving? Theo wondered. Father’s wand wasn’t even out. He squinted at something glowing at his father’s feet. Runes? The spell didn’t give him perfect vision so it was too hard to see. He twirled his wand anxiously and scanned the room, trying to identify the other person, the one who was still humming, but there was a bookshelf just on the other side of the wall and he could only make out senseless, lumpy shapes through the second layer. He reluctantly slid back a few steps, widening his perspective.

“Finley,” he mouthed, barely audible. “Finley!” She should be here. What did they do? The power it took to subdue a house elf and break into a heavily warded fortress like theirs was unthinkable. He slowly started to back up toward the stairs.

“How is it that people like you get to live such long and prosperous lives?” the hooded man asked tiredly. He kneaded his face with one hand but kept his other aloft, ready for anything. “Why have so many good witches and wizards, and even innocent muggles, had their lives cut short, yet you got so many chances? We know you built the Death Eaters into what they are. They wouldn’t be feared if it weren’t for the dark magic you taught them all those years ago. You gave Voldemort the power to control the dementors. You taught your comrades how to travel through the air like smoke and cross wards undetected. You sought out the ritual that brought the taboo to life. You and your library are the fuel to his power. Death may be hard to reckon with,” the man raised his head, “but I will proudly answer to its price.”

Theo’s heel hit the first step. They needed help. There were too many unknowns. Father must be trapped, and Theo didn’t know if there were more than two of them. He attempted to reach for the wards, but his mind was too anxious, rushing through a hundred scenarios at once. He needed to disillusion himself to get all the way up the stairs without being seen. He needed to move fast. He needed a backup contact if Lucius Malfoy wasn’t home.

“The library you speak of is gone,” father said flatly. “There’s nothing here worth destroying. Everything you ascribe to me has already been done. I might be worth killing as a feather in your cap so you can prove yourself as a young leader in your little greater good revolution, but there’s nothing to be gained in this,” he gestured at his feet. “Burning the house to the ground will actually waste what little you might be able to glean of the enemy.”

Burn the tower? Destroy the Library? Theo felt his bubbling panic start to taper off. Nott Tower was made of stone. The Library had been burned many times, but it always survived. They would survive. Father would survive.

Just as he was about to end the spell on his eyes and turn away, a new figure stepped into view. He could see her face clearly for just a moment. She looked like an old woman, maybe as old as his father, with wispy white hair cut to her chin. Her face was terrible. Theo caught a glimpse of her hollow, deep-set eyes and froze on the spot, deathly afraid that she would turn and look at him. His bones screamed at him to run up the stairs as fast as he could.

But then she raised one winkled hand and crooked her finger, tugging along the floating corpse of Finley like a balloon on a string.

Theo stopped breathing.

“The library is here, you bold-faced liar,” the woman mumbled. It sounded like she had something in her mouth.

He slid off the stairs and rushed closer to where the woman was, pressing his face to the wall, trying to see if Finley was still alive, to see if she was looking for help, if she was in pain-

But her body spun lifelessly like a ballerina in a music box, slowly bobbing clockwise. A trail of crimson blood floated from her neck, forming a red mist inside the inky black bubble she was in. Her wide eyes were milky white and gaping up at the sky like a fish. He could see bone peeking through the clean slash at her throat. It was as white as her tiny, spotless apron, as white as the flour still dusting her fingertips.

The woman popped something out of her mouth and pressed it through the black forcefield surrounding Finley. The sound of her humming continued, magnified.

“A singing stone?” Father asked curiously.

All at once Theo was furious. He wanted to bash his fists against the wall and scream at him. How could you just look at her like she doesn’t even matter? He raged, gripping the handle of his ebony wand so tight his fingernails started to bite into his skin. Why are you letting them live for one more second in our house!?

“Rare things,” the woman said agreeably. “I’m surprised you know of it.”

“That’s old magic,” father looked at her warily. “Very old.”

She laughed. It was labored and wet-sounding, like her lungs were full of smoke. “I’m an old woman who practices the old ways,” she raised her arms and Theo saw that her cloak was not just overly blurry, it was covered in lichen. “Our young buck here might have noble visions of a world cleansed of dark magic, but I know what dark magic is. The world can’t be rid of it, just as we can’t be rid of the evil in our hearts.” She tapped her chest. “Our job today is to uproot the poison oak your family planted here hundreds of years ago and win our side an advantage...if only for a time…” she rolled her fingers together and something long and thin danced between them near the hem of her cloak.

Father’s cold, vaguely bored visage fell apart. He narrowed his eyes appraisingly at the woman, and then glanced up at Finley’s body, and then over the the other man. Theo didn’t dare move.

“What do you want?” he asked, “Aside from my death. Unless that’s…negotiable?”

Only because he was watching so closely did Theo see the hooded man’s head twitch toward the woman. She’s calling the shots, he thought. A plan formed in his mind. Her back was to him. He could step out and hit her from behind, and then take cover on the other side of the door. He knew his house like the back of his hand - he could fight this other man one-on-one, especially if Theo used the Tower’s many hidden passages to his advantage.

The woman laughed again, loud and sudden, ending in a hard cough. “Negotiable? Well…something is on the table, Nott. But before we get to that, answer me honestly, do you know what the panacea is?”

Father looked surprised. After a beat, he said, “Do you mean the legend?”

“Yes, the legend,” the woman smiled. Her voice was overly kind, sickly sweet. “Just like all the legends that we tell our children with little kernels of truth in them. The legends of flying without brooms. The legends of coming back from the dead. All things you Death Eaters are quite talented at, nowadays.”

“If I had the panacea, my wife would be alive,” father replied dully. “The panacea isn’t real. The closest thing we have is Flamel’s accursed stone.”

“Ah, but, don’t we always find the things we need after it’s too late?” The woman stood just in front his father. She dropped her voice, harshly executing a stage-whisper. “Don’t you want to give your son a chance to save you? Why don’t you summon him here and have him go search that lovely library of yours for us, hmm?”

“His son’s not here,” the other man interrupted. “That’s the whole point. We’re not calling him back so you can play these games, Eleanor!”

“You’re right, you’re right! Ah, I just can’t resist knowing though,” she dropped her voice and Theo had to listen hard to hear her. He carefully closed the gap to the doorway. With the bookshelf between them, it was much harder to see into the other room. The images were more muddled. Finley’s body became completely shapeless, just a blurry watermark at the top of his vision. “Do you think it’s real, Lord Nott?”

“I hope it is and that you never find it,” father whispered back, his cruel voice so clear and cutting that it made Theo want to laugh. “My son is not the key to finding your miracle cure. He is safe with the Malfoys and he won’t come to your aid in a pitiful attempt to save me. Even if our Library did exist, even if it did have the road map to what you want, I would never allow him to give it to you. I raised him better than that.”

“Shame,” the woman said with a careless shrug.

The other man snorted, “I hope your son can find the strength to walk away from the path you laid for him, Nott,” he said, voice dripping with disdain. “You Death Eaters are disgusting. Is that why you had him? To raise him to be just like you and support Voldemort? I’d think you would have learned something when you got your daughter killed for his sake.”

Theo’s eyes widened in shock. If Father wasn’t trapped right now, you would be screaming on the floor. Your bones would be liquified and turned to acid. 

“You absolute idiot,” father sneered, “if you want Theodore to stay out of this war, you best go hunt him down and kill him now. He’ll come after you one day, and my name will be the last thing you hear, mark my words. Be thankful he’s safe with our allies.”

Theo’s heart pounded, assailed by a moment of doubt. Father’s words couldn’t be more clear. He must sense that Theo was close. He was telling him to go to the Malfoys, to protect himself. It was as direct of an order he could give in this situation.

“But I beg you,” Father continued, “please kill him with more dignity than you’re killing me. My ancestors will beat and chain me for stepping right on a mage’s trap. At least give me the courtesy of naming yourself. Let me know who’s claimed my life so I can scream it all the way to hell.”

“Nice try,” the younger man said dismissively, “you won’t trick me into revealing myself, snake.”

“You coward,” father snarled, “I already know you’re a Weasley, but which one are you? Certainly not the father - one of his many sons. I never bothered to keep up with such things after I lost my children, you see…you may hate me for raising them to know how to fight, but at least I never encouraged them to be child killers.”

“You’re the only one dying here today!” The man - a Weasley - spluttered. Theo’s mind felt frozen. Weasleys…they’re just muggle sympathizers. Country wixen. Is father wrong? Would they do this?

“Child killers?” the woman hummed, jerking him back into the present. “Why is that such a terrible thing?” Her voice lost all of its sweetness. “There are fates much worse than death, wouldn’t you agree?”

Theo shivered at the threat. He started to breathe quickly, raising his heart-rate preemptively and welcoming the flood of adrenaline in his veins. It doesn’t matter, he thought as his vision started to narrow. It doesn’t matter who they are. I have to stop them. He pointed his wand at his face and waited for the right moment.

Father didn’t answer. The woman sighed, “You buried a few children, Nott, when they were already grown. One was - what, thirty? Almost? And the other no more than nineteen-“

“Eighteen,” father corrected.

“Yes,” the woman whistled between her teeth. The humming stone was slowing down. “Eighteen. Thirty. Not children. But it didn’t feel like you were burying adults, did it? Do you think they ever stop being your children? Those strange, innocent little creatures who look up into your eyes and suddenly steal your heart away? I'm asking because - well, I don't have children. But I have one girl who became my child...who stole my heart, and I'm genuinely curious if real parents see their adult children the same way I see her. I don't see a ruined, suffering, aging woman," her voice rose, ringing with barely contained hatred. "I see the little girl who I taught to pick herbs, who cried on my shoulder, who called me mum when her own mother turned her away!

"You tell me, Nott, is it better that they’re dead, or do you wish they were still alive. Not living, you see, but alive nonetheless. Suffering. Day in and day out, wasting into old age and nothingness, tormented every waking hour of the day, experiencing but the tiniest breaths of relief that break up the monotony of their existence. Do you wish that they were here, alive in that kind of hell so at least you could see them, or are you glad they're in hell where all your spawn belong?”

Brittle silence followed her words, like they were all afraid to stoke her over the edge into the white fury that seemed to be just below the surface.

“I can answer that,” the woman finished softly. “You'd rather they be dead. No one wants to see their child suffer for a lifetime. But I swear to you on my magic, Magnus Nott, if you can tell me right now where to find panacea, I will leave your last living son alive.”

“Hey!” the hooded man snapped, “We’re not-“

“I don’t know,” father answered flatly. “But you won’t kill him.”

“Oh, I won’t?” She laughed.

“Finite,” Theo whispered.

“What are you talking about?” The hooded man shouted. “Oh for the love of - scalpere!” Blood splattered on the floor. “Come on Eleanor!”

Theo stepped out with his arm already mid-swing. “Bombardossis,” he hissed, powering all the hate and fear in his heart into the spell. The force of his curse nearly pushed him off his feet. It flew bright blue electric and hit the woman dead-on, flinging her to the floor.

The hooded man was fast. Theo dodged two bright red stunning spells and deflected a third wordless spell he didn’t recognize. “Who are - you’re not - he’s not supposed to BE here!” The man shouted, tossing a decorative settee in the way of Theo’s freezing spell, following up with a crushing wave of spellfire that rained down on him too fast to dodge. Theo grit his teeth and ducked under his shield spell, barely holding it together as the wave of magic broke on top of him.

“Too late!” the woman screeched. And then he smelled the smoke.

He looked up. Father’s body was illuminated from below. The circle was not much larger than him, and hundreds of tiny runes etched into the floor burned white-orange beneath his feet, throwing his shadow long against the wall. As Theo stared, horrified, they flickered orange, white, and pale blue. Like flames. He raised his wand to try and - something - to try and break the circle, even though he knew no rune circle could be stopped once the magic was in motion, but before he could part his lips his arm snapped clear in half.

Theo shouted wordlessly, but he was focused enough to surge into action and neatly caught his wand in his left hand, throwing his shield up once again. The pain was blinding. The woman turned and grinned at him. He snarled wordlessly at her through searing tears. She was walking as if his curse never even made impact.

“I’ve been around a lot longer than you, greenhorn,” she smiled, waving. “Bye bye.”

“No - WAIT!” The hooded man lunged in front of her toward Theo, his summoning spell bouncing uselessly off of Theo’s shield. His hood slipped, revealing red hair and pale blue eyes that stared at Theo in abject terror.

The woman lashed the tiny strings in her hands like a whip and they came to life, multiplying and wrapping around Weasley’s body, yanking him into her.

Time slowed down.

He tore his eyes away from them to look at his father. His face was bleached blistering white by the glow under him. Fire lapped from the floor at his feet. The stone floor was cracking all around the circle and black smoke billowed up from them, stinking of sulfur and brimstone.

“PROTECT HIM!” Father roared, and raised his hands to slam them against the barrier. “HE’S THE LAST ONE OF US.”

Theo felt the floor undulate beneath his feet. The woman was laughing and singing over the sound of the man shouting, “Eleanor! Eleanor - NO!” She fisted one hand in his robes and raised her other hand at Finley.

“Pop!”

She and the man sank into the earth, consumed by a thousand worming roots that smashed through the floor like it was freshly tilled soil. Theo tried to take a step forward and catch Finley’s body before it hit the ground, but something was grabbing on to his feet and his chest, pulling him back. He fought it, reaching out with his unbroken hand, wand loose between his fingers.

An ear-splitting crack shook the room. The air screamed past him, buffeting his body as it all sucked in through the cracks in the floor and inflamed the rune circle under father. His wand went flying from his fingertips, soaring through the air toward the column of light. The black bubble around Finley popped and rippled out like an oily gas. Theo’s feet dragged along the ground as the force behind him picked up strength and wrenched him away.

Then the floor opened up at father’s feet, and a huge, gaping maw of bright blue fire swallowed him whole, turning his body into a column of ash. The forcefield around the rune circle crumbled, and fire sparked against the oily black gas filling the room.

The force of the explosion blinded him.

Theo was carried off his feet, thrown back across the room faster than the force grabbing his body could move. The fire was screaming at them, deafening him, and a winged beast made of flames lunged for his face with claws extended.

Just before it made contact, his head slammed into stone and Theo's world went black.

---

Bill

“- wait, wait! WAIT!”

Thick, musty soil filled his mouth and nose, choking him. He shut his eyes and endured the slide through the earth like he did last time, holding his body so still and tight it felt like he was a statue. A million little worming roots crawled over his skin, ushering him through the dark. The sensation made his stomach churn.

And then they bubbled to the surface, sliding on soft, sinking soil. He ripped away from the writhing roots and gasped for fresh air. The smoke seemed better now than when they began an hour ago.

“What are you doing?” Bill gasped, stumbling to his feet. “We have to go back and get him! We have to-“

Nott Tower exploded.

He saw the light first, a bright white flash that illuminated Eleanor Travers and all the spindly, wind-twisted trees behind her. Her deep-set eyes were wide. A slack, almost awed expression was on her face as she stared through the wards just behind him.

And then the shockwave came, rattling the ground so hard he fell to his knees. Bill twisted on the ground, half-sinking into the freshly moved earth so he could see. Lord Nott must be dead, he thought clinically. Before, all he could see through the wards was a heavily forested oasis hidden in the valley. Now he could actually see the Tower - or what remained of it. The top of it was gone, and what was left lit up from every window with a bright white light. The gaping hole in the top poured black smoke into the sky, and as he watched it began to lean precipitously off the cliff. Pieces crumbled into the loch below. Fire was racing out from the epicenter of the blast like it was alive.

It is alive, Bill reminded himself, swallowing. It was too far to make out what they were, but he could see huge fireballs soaring out from the top of the smoking tower, crashing into trees, burying themselves into the grass, and then keep moving, possessed by that insatiable greed to feast and burn.

And then the sound hit him like a wall, shaking him from head to toe all at once, a terrible, howling, wretched screaming. Bill dug his fingers into the earth and leaned back, his mouth contorted, eyes wide. The screams turned to caterwauling, turned to dragons roaring, turned to the dying, painful wailing of a unicorn. Tears coated his face, dripping salt into his mouth.

The first huge fiend raced straight for them and bounced off the edge of the wards. Eleanor whooped.

“Aha!” she cried, striding past him, sure-footed even on soft ground. “Did you see that? I knew that feeding you that elf’s magic would have you TRAPPED!” She wasn’t speaking to Bill, but he stared up at her nonetheless, captured by her fearlessness as she walked right up to the wall of fire and grinned at it. The griffin on the other side bared pointed teeth and roared, sending a blast of hellfire up and up and up against the boundaries of the property.

But there was no heat. No ash. The smell of smoke was thick, but it was just the same as that morning when they hiked here through the marshy woods to get here. It was the stale, days-old smoke of wildfires in the far distance, not the stinking smoke of fiendfyre. 

She trapped it. He stared in horror at the witch in front of him. How did she manage to do that? What kind of magic can…and then his eyes wandered behind into the mess of flames. Nott Tower was completely gone now. He couldn’t see anything rising above the fire line.

“What did you do?” he said, but his voice was barely audible. Bill struggled to his feet. Clay stuck to his robes and he carelessly shrugged them off. “What - did - you - DO?!” He grabbed the back of Eleanor’s moss-covered robes and threw her back. He was vibrating with tension, he didn’t know if he was more furious or afraid of the woman stumbling in front of him. She reluctantly tore her gaze from the property and met his eyes, her lips pursing impatiently.

“I did what we came here to do, and I did it well, thanks.” She gestured at the fire. “How many people do you think can bind fiendfyre? Now it will eat and eat until every crumb of magic inside those wards are dead and gone. And last it will eat the wards, and then it will go back to where it came from.” Her mouth curled proudly, “No one else will get hurt.”

“No one else!” He snapped. The black smoke rose high enough to blot out the sun, covering them in shadow. He shivered violently. “You murdered an innocent boy! No older than Ron!”

“I ended the cycle,” she hissed, pointing one crooked finger in his face. “You’re too young to know, but I have seen it a thousand times already. Everyone who survives always comes back for revenge.”

“Everyone deserves a CHANCE!” Bill screamed, his voice tearing from his throat to be heard over the relentless clamor next to them. “You took that away from him!”

“I did my research,” Eleanor sneered dismissively. “He was following in his father’s footsteps. Magnus Nott introduced him to his contacts in Europe and you were able to prove that he had access to his family’s Gringotts account without oversight. That boy may have been fifteen, but he was just as dangerous as his father. If we left him alive, he would have carried on their work to keep dangerous magic alive.” She turned to look back at the fire. “Besides, I doubt we could have destroyed their secret library without blotting out the whole House. I’m certain it relied on their blood to survive.”

Bill panted. He felt lightheaded, betrayed. “Did you know he was in there?” he asked, though he feared he already knew the answer.

Eleanor hummed. “His magical signature disappeared,” she shrugged. “I don’t understand it…but I suspect their true library was hidden away in some corner of their house and that’s where he was. And unplottable location within an unplottable location,” she scoffed, “doesn’t matter, Nott. Fiendfyre will eat every trace of magic inside these wards, and you and your ilk shall be wiped clean of this earth and forgotten forever…”

He stared at her in disbelief. “So you wanted him to be there? You…planned this. You wanted to kill both of them this whole time?” The screaming sound of fiendfyre faded in the background. His body felt cold. Dimly, Bill was aware that he was probably going into shock.

Eleanor spared a glance at him, mouth twisted, “William, listen to me. It’s them, or us. If you pull your punches, you will end up making a visit to St. Mungo’s every week for the rest of your life. Like I do.” She withdrew the thin roots she used to carry them in and out of the estate. “Go now,” she ordered, sitting cross-legged on the ground. “It’s time to sing my babies home so no one knows we were here. Go tell Albus what I did.” She grinned viciously, “Go tell him what I did here, and dare him to punish me.”

“I will,” he said. His voice was nearly inaudible. Eleanor wasn’t looking at him anymore. She sat on the ground braiding her roots. If she was humming, it was too quiet for him to hear.

Bill twisted, ricocheting his body through space. For the first time since he was seventeen, the force of apparating actually hurt - a testament to how scattered his mind was. He couldn’t stop picturing the pale, sickly looking kid in front of him, hiding beneath his shield spell, looking at Bill in confusion and shock and hate.

He stumbled into his kitchen counter, bashing his hip hard. Hissing, he limped to the fireplace and threw a handful of floo powder inside, clumsily scattering a good bit of it across the floor of his flat. “Dumbledore’s office!”

Bill almost split his head open tumbling through the floo. When he finally staggered out into the richly furnished space, he crashed directly into Fawkes’ roost, upending it.

“Headmaster! Albus!”

“Bill!” He saw a brightly colored robe twirl into view from the door that led to his private chambers. His head was swimming, and he nearly collapsed at Dumbledore’s feet. “Do you need Poppy? Are you hurt? Come sit.” A chair appeared directly under him and Bill fell into it. His head rolled back and for a moment he felt like the ground was rushing at him, like he was about to faint.

Something touched his lips. “Take this,” the Headmaster said. Bill savored the cool, minty taste of a calming potion and immediately felt his vertigo lessen. He blinked up at the many staring faces of the portraits on the wall and groaned.

“What happened, Bill?” Albus asked urgently, “Is Eleanor safe?”

He grit his teeth and bowed his head. Every painted eye looking down on him felt like a judgment as the story came rushing out. He started with how easy it was in the beginning. Eleanor’s sneaking ivy did just the trick - a summer of growing had allowed her to root it under the entire property. The gold ring he stole from the Nott vault proved to be exactly what they needed to fool the property wards. As Bill suspected, Magnus Nott was wearing a ring from a set, likely passed down in his family over generations, and gold never lost its affinity - it always wanted to join together again.

He described the heart-stopping moment Eleanor appeared with the dead house elf in tow, how Bill felt in his heart that there was something wrong with unassuming old hedge witch, but by then it was too late. The mage trap was set.

Albus listened to it all without a word until he shakily confessed that Nott’s son appeared without warning, but he had already set off the trap by spilling Lord Nott’s blood on the runes. Albus grasped his shoulder tightly.

“You don’t mean-“

“Yes,” Bill looked up at him miserably, “we killed his child too.”

And then he dissolved into tears. The images of fiendfyre gnashing at the wards haunted him, intermingling with the wide blue eyes of a teenager looking at him like he was - like he -

“I knew it would be hard,” Bill cried into his hands, “I knew it was going to be bad. But I had no idea that his son would be there. Eleanor swore he was gone! That’s why we went! And then she tied the curse to the whole property.” Albus handed him a white handkerchief and he rubbed his face with it. “Oh my god, Albus, what do I do? How am I-“ he pictured Ron’s face and flinched into himself, “how am I supposed to live with this?”

His chest heaved a few more times, but the calming potion worked hard to tamp down on his nerves. His emotions capped like waves, growing smaller and more steady as the seconds ticked on until he felt he could control them again. Albus conjured a glass of water and handed it to him.

After a few moments of silence, Albus murmured, “Bill, I…” his voice wavered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Bill lifted his head and watched the Headmaster wipe tears from his winkled face. “I never would have asked you to take on this mission if I knew Eleanor harbored such deep hatred for the other side.” He removed his thin spectacles and began to rub them slowly with the corner of his periwinkle robes. “She…was not part of the Order last time. She approached me years ago, when whispers of Voldemort’s return were first being passed around, offering her life to the cause. At the time she said it was because she wanted to fight on behalf of Alice, but…” he sighed and closed his eyes. Bill shared his mournful pause.

“This is what they’ve done to our society,” Bill murmured. He pictured Eleanor’s dark, delightful grin in the face of fiendfyre. “The hurts they inflicted…the wounds that will never heal…” he thought about his mother, who still lit candles beside her brother’s pictures. “They fester and rot. Turn good people into…into monsters.”

“There are few evil acts that turn my stomach quite like the torture of Alice and Frank,” Albus sighed, touching his heart. “But to murder young Theodore Nott in their name…they never would have asked for that.”

“She’s looking for a panacea, or the panacea,” Bill said dully, studying his boots. They were still caked in mud. “You should know…she might not stop with them.”

“No. People driven by revenge rarely do.”

They were silent again. Bill felt that he should go home and shower, maybe sleep the day away, but sleep meant tomorrow, and tomorrow meant waking up and having to face this all over again.

“Bill,” Albus’s hand touched his gently. “May I tell you something?” Albus waited for his hesitant nod. “I have no delusions that this might make you feel better, but I know how it feels to carry the weight of an innocent life on your shoulders." Albus took a deep breath, "When I was about your age, a little younger, perhaps, my mother died and I moved home to care for my younger sister, who was…ill. She lost control of her magic at a young age, you see, from a traumatic incident.”

Bill raised his head and looked at the Headmaster in surprise. Albus squeezed his hand and continued quietly. “I was a bitter and angry young man,” he admitted. “Not like you at all. I resented the responsibility left to me by my mother. I wanted to be free to pursue my life, you see. It caused great stress between my younger brother and I and - one day - we got into an argument. He and I, and another friend who my brother especially hated.” Albus’s shook his head, “It doesn’t matter who he was. What does matter is that we dueled, the three of us. We were destroying our house, our garden, and my sister - she loathed violence. She was just fourteen, but mentally, she was more like seven or eight. And she was killed during the fight by one of us.” Albus closed his eyes, mouth twisting, “We don’t know who. But she tried to stop us, and she was killed. I always felt I killed her because - well, she was my responsibility. Even if I didn’t end her life in that exact moment, I was the one who allowed my selfishness to spiral out of control, for my temper to spark a fight, for my answer to an argument to be a duel instead of walking away.”

Bill’s heart clenched. He couldn’t help but imagine Ginny. If I ever thought she died because of me, he realized, I think I’d kill myself.

Albus raised his hands and wiped fresh tears from his eyes. “My apologies. I’m not telling you this story to make it sound like your old Headmaster has been through worse. I just want you to know, my boy,” Albus leaned in, meeting Bill’s gaze with utter compassion. “I know how it hurts. And I promise, you are a much better man than I was at your age. Go to your brothers. Go to your parents. Let them help you through this.”

Bill pulled back, fisting the handkerchief in his palm. “I don’t know if I deserve their help,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “After what I-“

“You dealt a major blow to Voldemort’s power,” Albus said, a thrum of certainty in his voice. “The cost was high - too high - but his death is not on your head. Eleanor must pay the price for what happened to Theodore Nott tonight.”

Slowly, Bill nodded. In his heart he didn’t believe Albus, seeing as it was his mage trap that set the fiendfyre off, his work in Gringotts that gave them access to Nott Tower in the first place.

“Just remember, Bill,” Albus said as he fished floo powder out of the bowl. He glanced over his shoulder. Albus was still sitting and staring out at the window. The bright sunlight filtering in made Bill want to scream. “We can’t protect everyone.”

For the greater good, right, Bill thought, remembering the way Lord Nott laughed at him. His skin prickled with shame as he stepped into green fire and floo’d back to his apartment. If it’s them or us, I’d rather it be us. I’d rather it be me who did this terrible thing and not Charlie, not Dad, not anybody else.

Bill repeated his refrain for the rest of the day, clutching those words like a rosary until he was lying sleepless in his bed with the shades drawn. In the dark, he finally felt safe enough to let go and weep. He wept for what he'd done, and for the hard truth. Magnus Nott was right. His certainty wasn't enough.

---

Lucius

Lucius broke out of his meditative study with a wince, clutching his chest as a sharp pain cracked through heart. He pushed up from his desk and limped into the washroom, cursing as sensation rushed through his numb legs. He frowned and cast one of the rudimentary diagnosis spells he learned when Draco was just a baby, but he wasn’t running a fever, and there was no sign of infection. Less wine tonight, he thought moodily.

But the truth was, Lucius hadn’t touched a drop more after Magnus came to visit last night. That morning’s hangover was barely a blip on his radar. He was consumed by the truth of what he and Magnus were up against and canceled his appointments for the day so he could study in peace. He fell asleep committing the lightning summons to memory, and woke with the words on his lips.

While the spell was relatively easy to remember, it was the manipulation of the lightning that was proving an infernal puzzle. He was so distracted with his research and calculations that he couldn’t remember if he woke up with this infernal ache in his chest not. He just remembered when he became aware of it around lunchtime, like his heart had suddenly turned to ice. The feeling faded in and out of awareness throughout the afternoon and he hoped it would improve by tomorrow.

But his heart seized in his chest and seemed eager to prove him wrong. If Cissa was here she would tell me to call the healer.

Only, Lucius couldn’t have his healer make house calls now - not with the Dark Lord residing in the east wing of Malfoy Manor, and he was not so sick as to force himself to walk into St. Mungo’s.

He touched the locket around his neck that acted as an international portkey, a permanent one - good only between Malfoy Manor and the French Cottage. Narcissa was as good a healer as any. After making his house call to Nott Tower tomorrow - if he did not feel better - he would go to her. An international trip was probably not good for his constitution, but Lucius had already made up his mind. He needed to tell her what he’d learned, anyway.

An owl screeched at the window. It was the fifth he’d sent away that day, all from Cornelius. That man was unbearable. Lucius cancels just one day of appointments and he acts like Lucius is the one running the government. The man even attempted to floo-call the Manor, but Lucius had Trilby shut him down. It was an insulting gesture, not that Cornelius seemed to understand that. Lucius had already lost too much precious time this summer.

Ignoring the owl, he swallowed a small dose of Pepper-Up just in case, hoping to relieve the cold weight on his chest and sat back down. After lunch, he had switched to investigating immortality and necromantic rituals. Merlin knows Magnus won’t tell me anything, he thought bitterly. Our library may not be up to his snuff, but father was just as devoted to the dark arts as he is. Lucius judged, based on his understanding of the spell Magnus wanted him to perform, that he needed more than a talent for wielding lightning - he also needed to understand soul magic

He remembered the first time he had summoned a storm with his father at thirteen years old. The Malfoys created the field of elemental storm magic generations ago, and jealously guarded its secrets for centuries. As a young Death Eater, Lucius rose to the top utilizing his lightning techniques - even his father had been disturbed by how easily he could manipulate such a powerful natural force.

But the magic had major drawbacks, namely that the electrical current had a tendency to want to go through Lucius’s body, and it was unbelievably easy to accidentally set himself on fire. Most of the time, if he was going to use lightning in this way, he made sure to summon a thick rainstorm to help disperse the electrical current and keep his body safe.

Magnus doesn’t want me to summon a storm though, he thought nastily. Magnus wants me to summon lightning from a clear blue sky. Magnus wants me to have the lightning strike the soul, not the body - oh, and not just one soul, he wants me to hit two at the same time. He growled under his breath. Honestly, the man lost it years ago. If I knew that he was going to lead me off a cliff like this, I never would have agreed to-

Something white and bright lunged at him from the window.

Lucius swore and nearly toppled over onto the floor, firing off an ineffective stunning spell that went right through the ghostly lynx. It sat on his desk and opened its mouth. “Lord Malfoy,” a deep voice rang out from inside the patronus, “this is Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, acting under Minister Fudge’s emergency directive.” Lucius gasped and clutched his heart. I am going to murder this Kingsley Shacklebolt, he decided. “The House of Nott has been attacked by an unknown assailant. The Minister requests your immediate presence at his private office.”

The lynx disappeared in a burst of white light.

Lucius blinked at his desk. The House of Nott has been attacked? He thought, eyebrows raised. What is Fudge on today? That can't be true. 

The owl was still sitting at his window. He waved it open and received the irritated bird’s letter. It was not even addressed properly, it was just a hastily written scroll held together with a sticking spell. He recognized the Minister’s sloppy cursive.

It read, Lucius, please respond immediately. The Nott estate has been destroyed by Fiendfyre. We don’t know who did it. Please come meet me right away.

He put the letter aside, rubbing his aching chest numbly. “Trilby,” he said, voice tight, “get me all the letters I missed today.”

The others were the same. It seemed that Cornelius had tried reaching him every hour since the attack was first reported around noon. It was now after seven o’clock. He blinked down, not really seeing the letters, and then without much thought he turned on his heel and apparated just outside of the wards surrounding Nott’s estate.

He landed an inch from a wall of shrieking flames.

Lucius’s heart shot up into his throat and he threw himself back, stumbling over a rock and falling flat on his back. He braced for a wave of burning pain, a dousing spell already on his lips, when he realized that he couldn’t feel the heat. But the sound. He clenched his teeth and cried out, slapping his hands over his ears to try and drown out the cacophony of fire in front of him.

Lucius scrambled away from the edge of the flames, trying to put some distance between them. Though it was not yet sunset, the sky was ink-black, poisoned by thick clouds of smoke. He could barely see his hand in front of his face as he pushed further and further from the flames until his back pressed firmly up against a tree. Lucius raised his wand and shouted, “Locus!”

Two golden words floated in front of him. Loch Birger.

He grit his teeth, “No!” he growled, “Locus!”

Loch Birger.

Again. “Locus!”

Loch Birger.

“LOCUS!”

Loch Birger.

“Lucius!”

He nearly dropped his wand. He was far back in the trees now, but the sound of relentless, screaming souls still assaulted his eardrums, setting his nerves on fire. Out of the trees a portly figure struggled through the brush, followed by two taller wizards in red.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day!” Fudge nearly stumbled over him. “And you apparate here? Are you okay? The Notts were attacked! The whole family is gone!”

“Gone?” Lucius didn’t flinch when the Minister pointed his wand at him, and suddenly the screeching fiendfyre was much quieter.

Cornelius rubbed his face, “I was so worried about you, my friend,” the Minister reached out like he wanted to touch him, and - Morgana take me, he means it. The Minister was panting, his face pale and stressed. “When you didn’t answer - I thought -“

Lucius lunged forward and gripped the minster by the shoulders. “Where are they?” he snarled, ignoring the two aurors shouting at him. “Where is Magnus? Where’s his son?”

Cornelius reached up and covered his hands with his. “I’m sorry,” he shook his head, eyes wide, “I’m so sorry. They’re dead.” Lucius felt his knees give out, and only through willpower alone did he stay standing. He was hanging on to the Minister, staring into his eyes, searching desperately for signs of deceit. “Magnus Nott, and his son Theodore...we presume they…” Cornelius’s eyes darted toward the flames. “There’s no signs of life. Nothing could survive that.”

“But they could be running!” Lucius nearly shouted, “They could be fleeing for their lives! How do you know they’re not in hiding?”

Cornelius shook his head, “I don’t,” he said gently, and all at once Lucius wanted to close his fist and punch him. “I don’t know. I thought you would know. If they were still alive, who would they go to?”

Us. Lucius released him and stumbled against the tree, staring at the raging wall of fire in front of him. They'd go to us.

The aching in his heart swelled into an unavoidable, bright white agony again. “Me,” he replied numbly. “We were aligned. Our Houses…they would have come to us…”

I felt it, he realized, putting both hands flat over his chest. I felt it when they died. It was when this started. This…cold.

Lucius stared unseeingly at the wall of flames through the trees. He imagined that some of the screams he was hearing were theirs.

“Don’t they say that those who die to fiendfyre become part of it?” he whispered to himself, recalling the old folk tales about dark magic he used to read curiously as a child. “It takes their souls. It takes them forever, and they can never rest.”

Cornelius came up to his side. Thankfully, he didn’t try to touch him again. “I’m sorry,” he repeated awkwardly. “I’m...I didn’t know you were-“

“Who did this?”

No reply. Slowly, Lucius turned around to face the Minister. The man was a head shorter than him, and the heavy bags under his eyelids made him look especially pitiful. “You know what they’re saying, Lucius,” he whispered faintly, “about You-Know-Who returning. I thought that was - I mean…I was hoping you could advise me. Who else could summon this - this - catastrophe? But you know Nott’s history better than I do. Was it someone in his crowd? Shacklebolt wants to talk to-“

“Yes,” he had stopped listening after the first sentence. Lucius's eyes burned from staring into the flames. The painful clenching in his chest relaxed all at once as the broken bond responded to his sudden clarity. “I know who did this.”

There will never be a world for them, Lucius.

The truth slotted into place, becoming a certainty that fit right alongside the love for his wife, for his son. He had thrown his lot in with Magnus because they both agreed that nothing mattered more than making sure Draco and Theodore grew up safe in their world, and now Theodore would not grow up. The empty, hollow place in his heart where he welcomed the Notts howled at him. The fate of their Houses were tied together, and now they were gone. Obliterated. It was as if part of his own family had been cut away.

And then, as if sensing that Lucius knew, the dark mark flared to life.

He pressed his face into the rough tree trunk, fighting the overwhelming rush of the Dark Lord’s painful need. The tattoo writhed under his skin, sinking deeper into his flesh the longer he resisted the call.

Cornelius fluttered like an owl behind him, pushing for answers, calling his name, but Lucius was already picturing the Manor. He turned and cracked away from Loch Birger, landing heavily in front of the iron gates of his family estate. It took immense will to resist what the mark was telling him, but Lucius would not apparate directly to his feet. He clenched his jaw and stared up at the Manor for a moment just to assure himself that it was still there, and then he pushed through the gates and began his long walk.

His mind worked coldly through the facts. He and Magnus had discussed striking the Dark Lord down not once, but twice on his property. The snake harbored a piece of the Dark Lord’s soul - and who was to say that she had not gained powers beyond their comprehension because of it? Perhaps she could nullify magic, turn herself invisible, sink into the ground and listen in on whispered conversations…all things Lucius knew the Dark Lord was capable of.

We underestimated him, he thought. He panted lightly as he crested the hill, getting close to the front doors. Magnus thought he knew him, but the Dark Lord attacked his son. Magnus thought he could be tricked, but the Dark Lord is the lord of deceit. How wrong we were to think we could out-maneuver him. He’s been hollowing out my home for months, and I’ve been blithely studying how to undo his immortality in my study, thinking my privacy wards and his word to let me be are enough to protect me.

Lucius tightened his grip on his wand and stopped at the doors. He was covered in a light sheen of sweat. The dark mark was a brand of fire on his arm. The mark suddenly spasmed and Lucius cried out, staggering to his knees.

Immediately, Lucius. I need you now.

He rasped for breath, fighting to push the pain out of mind, sinking into the clouds of his mindscape until the agony faded to just a faint ache. He whined low in his throat and hobbled to his feet. His arm was completely useless.

I only need one, he thought. He remembered clasping Magnus Nott’s hand two years ago, blood squeezing between their palms. Two Houses. One family.

Lucius lifted his mind to the clouds and thought about the infinite expanse of the sky. He began the incantation as he stepped inside his house.

“Immortal Zeus, come to me now…”

Malfoy Manor opened to him, flames coming to life as he walked through the halls. His dragonhide boots clicked on the fine tile floor. He headed to the east wing, not needing to see where he was going. His eyes glazed over and everywhere he looked, he saw blue.

“Do not harden your heart…”

He remembered when Narcissa and Draco arrived with young Theodore Nott in tow two years ago. The waif-thin fourteen year old was half-starved, dead-eyed, and covered in scars that he refused to explain. Lucius remembered how Draco snuck into his office late that night, after Narcissa had already told him what she had deduced, and got on his knees.

Please help him father. I told him you can fix anything.

“Tear your eyes open. I, mortal, will be your vessel…”

At the time he and Narcissa were raw with grief after coming to the conclusion that it was simply impossible to have another child, not worth the risk to Cissa’s life. So seeing a wixen child treated the way Magnus thought was best had sent them both into a rage.

Lucius had spent many long evenings contemplating the kind of father he wanted to be while taking care of a tiny infant as Narcissa recovered slowly in the hospital. In those early days, when Lucius was told there was a very good chance he would lose both his wife and his young child, the sleepless nights added up one on top of the other and something hard in him broke down and disappeared forever. The expectations he had of that baby, of his wife, of what Lucius was even doing with his adult life came crashing down. He began to repeat a prayer that echoed through his head every day since: If they can live just one more day, I’ll do anything. I’ll give anything. If they could just live.

“Alight this soul with cleansing fire…”

He approached the double doors leading to Lord Voldemort’s office. He used to call this place Abraxas Hall, because it was where his father lived out the last years of his life. Candlelight danced under the door. The warm glow reminded him of the inferno burning down Nott Tower.

When Draco was just six months old, he met Theodore for the first time. Lucius remembered peeking in on Narcissa and Ophelia in the nursery, sitting on the floor with their two infants. Narcissa had her hair loose around her face, the long white curls falling messily about her shoulders. Ophelia’s straw-blonde locks were piled in a lopsided bun. He remembered how Narcissa was laughing, one thin hand gripping Draco’s as he bat ineffectively at the other wide-eyed child on the ground with him.

At that moment, he wished. He wished to magic that one day, they could do this all again. He was so tired, so stressed, but seeing the love of his life in that moment - so happy, he closed his eyes and wished with all his might that this day could come again.

He didn’t get his wish, but Lucius thought maybe he was owed one wish in his life. He took a moment and held his next wish in his heart. As long as he’s here, Lucius thought, staring down the doors. My family could be turned to ash at any moment - just like Magnus.

He pushed the doors open.

Lord Voldemort turned mid-pace, a book slung casually in the crook of his arm. “Lucius,” he hissed, fixing his red eyes on him. “Come to your senses? You should know better than to ignore your Lord…especially when you keep so many secretsss…” Nagini arched up, baring her fangs. “Now, bow down Lucius,” he commanded, raising his wand. “And perhaps I will spare your life.”

Lucius tore his eyes away from the Dark Lord. His body was trembling, every hair alive with prickling electricity. “Hear me Zeus!” he shouted, wrenching his wand up at the ceiling and shakily pulling his other hand up to point at the Dark Lord, “Strike me and have your will be done on earth!”

The roof shattered into a million pieces as lightning rained down and struck Lucius at the top of the spine. His whole body froze in place, every tiny sensation deadened as each cell became an electric current to hold the electricity from the sky in his body. His eyes felt like they were boiling in their sockets, but he could also see everything. He stared down the Dark Lord’s monstrous form and pushed right through his eyes to the soul inside. He willed the energy filling up his bones to see it too.

Strike him, he commanded, as his vision was filled with nothing but blood-red malice. His mind brushed against the Dark Lord’s. He could feel him fighting back. He kept pushing. There, he thought, there!

Lightning flashed out of his outstretched fingertips. Pressure pushed on his eardrums, popping them, deafening him to what came next.

A huge, white bolt of lightning crashed down through the open roof, striking the Dark Lord from above. He felt the energy under his skin crackle with excitement and start to leech away. Lucius forced his eyes to the right, looking at the snake. Nagini was curled in a protective circle, her jaws ajar, head swinging back and forth from Lucius to the screaming Dark Lord. Lucius pointed at her. He’s here. His thoughts were thundering in his head. He’s hiding in the snake.

A double strike fell from the sky, blowing the study to pieces. Lucius caught one glimpse of both the snake and Lord Voldemort electrified by one single lightning bolt, and then the force of the explosion threw him clear out of the room and down the hall. He slammed hard into the floor, losing all connection with the storm, dropping his wand. For a second, his vision blacked out.

When he blinked awake, all he could hear was the sound of the wind.

Lucius focused on the mess above him, wondering why he was looking at dusky, dark-blue sky.

Right, he thought, trying to raise his head. His body didn’t respond. The Notts are dead. That cold pang in his chest was still there, but it was weaker now that he knew what it was. Light patters of woodchips hit his face. Who’s going to protect them now? He thought distantly. It was hard to remember what Cissa’s face looked like as he wavered on the edge of unconsciousness. Magnus was supposed to help me…

“LUCIUS!”

Something pushed through the destruction, heading straight for him. Lucius didn’t feel afraid. He managed to turn his head a little and see down the hall. A staggering, limping figure was stumbling toward him. When it raised its head, the skin on half its face was black and cracked. Blood streamed from its mouth.

Lucius saw a flash of white, and then he was struck by the worst cruiciatus he’d ever suffered in his life. Vaguely, beyond the sensation of each nerve being teased out from his body and doused in acid, he could hear the Dark Lord screeching at him.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?” It wailed. The torture curse cut off, but then another curse rained down on him - and then another - and another. Lucius coughed, blood bubbling into his lungs. His body was yanked through the debris, closer to the Dark Lord. It stuck its wand against his throat, one red eye leaning into his face. The other was gone - burned to crispy ash that flaked from its gaping eye socket.

“You betrayed me,” he said, voice suddenly human. “You tried to kill me!”

“No,” Lucius wheezed. He could feel blood dripping down the back of his throat. “You…betrayed…us.”

Lord Voldemort’s eye narrowed. He contorted his mouth, blackened tongue flickering behind his teeth. They were still making eye contact, but the Dark Lord’s rage was so thick, Lucius could read the curse on the edge of his teeth. His eyes widened and he quickly whispered the activation word for the portkey - “Lyra” at the same moment that the Dark Lord sneered, “Macelardrobsi!”

A hook pulled at his navel and yanked him out of Malfoy Manor. Lucius felt his blood and bones come undone, spreading in a cyclone as he spun through space, and then his back struck hard solid ground and all Lucius knew was pain. He gasped and blinked up at the ceiling of his cottage, too breathless to scream as his body wrenched into pieces and his lifeblood started pouring out on the tile.

And then Narcissa’s face was over his, and he drew in a breath.

“My love,” he choked out as his vision went white with agony. He didn’t hear her reply, because on his next breath Lucius began to scream.

The next few hours - or days - or minutes - he couldn’t tell the difference, Lucius drifted in hell. At some point he stopped breathing, he knew he stopped breathing, but his heart was still beating, he was still conscious. He could feel magic working over him, struggling against the force of the curse as it tried to break him down into pieces and crush his bones into dust. He heard Narcissa’s voice saying a constant refrain of spells and, often, calling his name over and over and over again.

He thought he would be trapped forever on the verge of death when suddenly, after an age of unending pain, his vision clarified and focused. And then, like falling over a waterfall, he felt buoyant. The pain rushed beneath him, but Lucius was in free-fall above it. It was still there, but no longer consuming his awareness.

Narcissa’s face passed over his for a moment. Her hair was in disarray, pulled up high off her neck. She was flushed and sweating, her eyes red and watery from crying, but her mouth was set. She muttered continuously in latin, her wand glowing green over his chest.

“Administering essence of ashwinder,” a flat voice said to his right. Lucius looked, not struggling, feeling no urgency, and somehow registering no surprise to see Severus there, spelling potion directly into his abdomen.

Severus’s dark eyes flashed up and met his. “Cissa! He’s awake.”

“My love?” two clammy hands touched his face. When the latin ceased, the pain felt a little bit closer, but now he had a focus. He stared up at her, looking into her beautiful eyes. They seemed to double right in front of him, and then he realized it was because she was crying.

“Just hold on,” she swallowed and let go of him, picking up her wand again. “Just hold on. We’re trying - we’re trying to save you.”

The latin resumed. Lucius listened for a time, letting her shaky voice roll over him. She wasn’t saying what she wanted to, maybe, but it was her voice regardless. He closed his eyes and soaked in it.

“Lucius!” Severus barked, “Wake up! Stay awake!”

He peeled his eyes open. He wanted to smirk and say, telling me what to do now, Severus?

Instead, he parted his lips and whispered, “Draco.”

Narcissa nodded, “He’s waiting outside, love. He’s waiting for you to stabilize, and then he’ll come in. Just stay awake…”

“Now,” he met her gaze and forced his mind to sharpen, forced himself to come down, closer to the pain. He grit his teeth, “I need…to see him…before…”

Narcissa bit her bottom lip and tears started pouring down her face. Her wand light went out, but she still motioned it over his body unseeingly, as if she was still casting the spell. She shook her head once, furiously, and then she turned away.

“DRACO!” she shouted. It was the first time in his life he heard her shout that way. Their son’s name tore from her throat, and for a moment, she sounded just like Bellatrix. “DRACO! COME HERE!”

Narcissa hiccupped and quickly batted the back of her hands against her cheeks. She used a wad of bright white bandages to clean her face. Lucius watched her with something like awe. “You’re so strong,” he said faintly.

He heard Draco before he saw him. For a moment he faded in and out, wavering over the line of unconsciousness.

“-don’t look down here, Draco. Look at his face. Look at your father’s face.”

“But - why -“

“He’s dying, dragon. Just be with him. Try to…try to talk to him.”

“Father?”

Lucius opened his eyes, and looked into his son’s face. Draco’s wide grey eyes leaned in close. They looked a little red, but he wasn’t actively crying. Lucius tried to move his hand, but it seemed that his body wasn’t responding to him anymore. Above, Narcissa folded around his head and started to chant again.

“Draco,” he breathed. Draco leaned in closer, tipping his head to listen. His throat worked, and Lucius briefly closed his eyes, summoning his last burst of strength. “I’m sorry,” he began, meeting his son’s grey eyes. “Your friend…Theodore is dead.”

Draco’s mouth dropped in shock. One of his hands touched the side of his head, and he pulled at the hair there in shock, like he was feeling it for the first time. Lucius swallowed, “I carried out…Magnus…his wish. I struck the Dark Lord. Not a killing blow, but…”

His lungs rebelled against him, and for a moment pressure mounted behind his head. He was suffocating.

Severus cursed and uncorked a vial. After a second, his lungs relaxed and he could breathe in again. This time when he focused on Draco’s face, there were tears. His bottom lip wobbled like he was trying very hard not to cry.

“Father I-“

“Shhh,” he licked his lips, “listen.” Lucius turned his head a little so he could better see his son. When did he get so big?

“Live your life, dragon,” he said, wishing he could take Draco’s hand. “Live it - and be happy. That’s all I ever wanted for you, was you…to be happy.” Unbidden, he recalled the last moments of his father's life, fading into death after struggling against one of the worst cases of dragon pox the healers had ever seen. Lucius felt a final surge of defiance and pride. See this Abraxas? He thought coolly, This is what you should have done.

“I’m proud of you, Draco,” he said, more strongly. Draco gasped and pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, but he never looked away. “I’m proud…of who you are. You’re…our miracle.”

And then he felt it, gravity rushing up to meet him. The promise of the infinite black. Lucius turned his eyes up to the ceiling and relaxed into the fall, listening to the last notes of his wife’s fluting voice, his son’s ragged sobbing, and - strangely - birdsong. A sound that made his heart feel light, made the pain feel far, far away.

And then Lucius closed his eyes and surrendered to the dark.

---

Sirius

Sirius’s hands were still shaking has he carded his fingers through Harry’s hair.

It was late now, almost ten o’clock. Harry had long since woken from his fitful rest, but neither of them had the energy to move off the couch. John was curled up on Harry’s legs, slotted perfectly on the quilt between his knees. Harry petted him slowly with one hand while the other rested over his heart.

Sirius sighed and closed his eyes, thankful for the silence.

When Harry collapsed at dinner, they’d been listening to The Beatles on the record player while Sirius attempted to harmonize with his off-pitch godson. The apartment felt perfect - warm and cozy, full of life. John was sitting on top of the refrigerator telling dirty jokes that made Sirius roar with laughter and Harry turn bright red.

It was a disjointed end to a very wonderful birthday. Harry's actual fifteenth birthday. They spent the day crossing off several items on the birthday wall - they saw a muggle action movie that blew both of them away called Judge Dredd and spent the rest of the day quipping lines from the movie while they toured a large zoo. Sirius paid for Harry to ride one of the elephants, a wish Harry admitted having at eight years old. Then he finished the day by taking him to one of Manchester’s magic neighborhoods, Spark’s Ginnel, where Harry excitedly sat down and received his very first piercing - a helix piercing.

The small gold hoop sat firmly around the shell of his ear. With its sister earing nestled safely in Sirius’s daith piercing, he could find Harry anywhere. They were stupid expensive, but goblin-made, and once they were fastened, it was nearly impossible to take them out except by your own hand.

At least I was here, he thought glumly. Occasionally, the memory of what had happened possessed him, and it was like Sirius was living it all over again. He could so clearly hear the sound of the popcorn bowl shattering, then he was turning around to see Harry’s body limply falling on the china. He barely managed to catch him with magic, holding him over the floor and watching in horror as Harry seized right there in the kitchen, his eyes rolling to the back of his head, foam running out the corners of his mouth.

Sirius already had a patronus out to both Albus and Poppy when it ended, just as suddenly as it came on.

He endured a professional visit from Poppy, who arrived in a casual, pale yellow cloak carrying a basket of healing supplies. She checked Harry over, pronounced him in perfect health, aside from extreme stress caused by unknown magical origin. She prescribed rest, fluids, headache potion as needed, and then ended the visit with a very unprofessional, teary hug.

“He’s the healthiest I’ve ever seen him,” she sniffled, squeezing him around the middle. “That boy’s needed you. Thank you for taking care of him.” She dabbed her eyes and left with one final promise. “I’ll give Albus a good report.”

And then she left, and Sirius had nothing else to do but settle on the couch with his godson. He was nervous that Harry could suffer a mental attack again at any moment, so he gently eased a pillow on his lap and positioned Harry to sleep soundly against him. The feeling of his steady heartbeat soothed something jagged inside him.

“You don’t have to stay up with me,” Harry said, voice thick. Sirius summoned a glass of water and helped him drink. “I mean,” he continued, wiping his mouth, “if you’d rather be sleeping, I’ll-“

“I’m okay,” Sirius said quickly. Harry sighed with relief and sat back, snuggling into the pillow.

“Okay,” he murmured. Sirius tangled his fingers in Harry’s hair and they resumed their quiet peace.

“Did I say anything?” Harry asked after awhile. “I don’t remember. It was like…one minute I was in pain. I was so angry. And then suddenly the door shut and I was Harry again.” He raised one hand and touched his scar, “It doesn’t even hurt.”

“Maybe he sensed the connection,” Sirius said dully. It was a theory he’d come up with after Harry's first collapse in Godric's Hollow. “Maybe he closed it off.”

Harry blinked curiously at him. His glasses were off. Without them, he looked so young. Sirius had to look away. “You said Lucius, but that’s about all I could understand. I was panicked. Maybe you said more…I don’t know.”

Harry hummed. “Did you tell Dumbledore?”

“I did.”

“Weird,” Harry sighed sleepily. “Maybe his people are turning against him. One by one…”

“Maybe,” Sirius agreed, stroking his hair. “Sleep, pup. Get some rest.”

Harry was nearly gone when his head jerked up, eyes wild with concern. “Sirius!” he hissed urgently, “You’re not going to cancel the party tomorrow, are you?”

That was not what he expected to hear. He blinked down at his godson, wondering how that could be his greatest concern, when Harry went on. “I want to see Ron and Hermione,” he frowned. “I can’t put them off any longer. I don’t want to fight. You have to let me go.”

And faced with beseeching green eyes, Sirius couldn’t help but smile. “I’d never dream of canceling, pup,” he assured him, tapping his nose fondly. “Now go to sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”

“Good,” Harry smiled and quickly dropped back to sleep. “Don’t worry…” he reached up and loosely patted Sirius’s elbow, “I’ll tell them all how great you are. It’ll be okay…”

Sirius stayed frozen until Harry’s breath deepened and evened out. Then he let out a choked gasp and ran his own fingers through his hair, tearing at the knots.

“He’s too good for this world, eh?” John said. Sirius glanced at the fae, embarrassed by how shaky he was after Harry's kind, sleep assurance. 

“Yes,” he managed to say, gently stroking Harry's scar. "And he doesn’t deserve this.”

John closed his eyes, tucking his chin over his paws. “They never do.”

Notes:

(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )
By god...I've finally done it. This chapter took so much out of me. This is literally the first idea I had for this story. A version of this chapter was the first thing I wrote. NOW things are taking off, baby! So much has changed from what I originally planned, but I am really excited about everything that is to come.

Just a few bonus notes you may or may not care to read:

On Eleanor Travers - she is an original character, yes, but obviously born of a canon situation. I really struggled with who to use as the "dagger" in this situation, so to speak, because I really didn't believe that Bill would do something that might kill an innocent. And seeing as the murder of Harry's parents has such wide-reaching consequences for the world - on Harry, all their friends, etc - I think it just makes sense to treat Harry's foil (Neville) with the same respect. Nothing is known about Alice's family, and her maiden name wasn't revealed, so I made her a Travers because they're a pureblood family and she was a pureblood witch and thus, Eleanor was born. She will come again to haunt our nightmares, not to worry...

On Kingsley sending a patronus message to Lucius - in my head, Fudge is too self-centered to produce a patronus lmao.

On the portkey password - "Lyra" is the name I think Lucius and Narcissa would have named their child if it was a girl.

On the name "Loch Birger" - this was never mentioned in an earlier chapter, but this is the name of the loch below Nott Tower. It was named after one of Theodore's ancestors.

Spell translations:
"Macelardrobsi" is "butcher and crush". Yeesh.
"Chiaravis" means like, transparent eyes. A good spell for looking through walls or other thick objects.
"Scalpere" is a cutting spell.
"Bombardossis" is a bone-breaking curse.

Thank you for reading! The next chapter will be out within 10 days. I'm going to take a day or two off from writing to play more "My Time at Sandrock" and continue outlining what's to come...

Chapter 14: The Bonds Between Us

Summary:

All the problems he set aside for Future Harry hit head-on.

Notes:

Holy Moses! It's finally here! The start of the next arc of this story begins.

I cannot say thank you enough to everyone for commenting and giving kudos and reading and bookmarking and subscribing to this story...literally oh my god....no lie, some of the delay behind this chapter was the pressure I felt after the incredible reaction to the last chapter. I knew it was a dramatic one but I had no idea that so many people would respond the way they did. It really warmed my heart and I had this crazy fear of failure for a few days. And then I remember WTF, this is fanfiction, I'm writing it because I enjoy it, and I'm just lucky other people do as well.

So thank you so much. I hope you enjoy everything that is to come! I truly apologize for the delay. More rambling in the end author's note if you want to hear my excuses lmao.

The first was called Cleomenes.

He clutched dusty, broken scrolls to his chest while he ran. The Library could hear his heart strumming hard against it - ba-dumba-dumba-dumba-dum. Panicked. For the first time, it turned its attention away from parchment and ink.

And for the first time, it saw a wide, wide world. Cold followed. Rain flecked Cleo’s skin. He clutched his robes tight around his neck with one hand, using the other to cradle the parchment against his chest. He was so careful not to crush them, even though he was running, even though the land turned up and down under his feet, jostling the parchment in their stiff, painted tubes. The Library reached out and steadied them without a thought, hugging him back, keeping them safe.

“Aithra!”

The Library felt something soar overhead - the tablets! It reached for them, but they were too far. It fluttered anxiously about Cleo’s chest, lashing tiny tendrils out for the tablets, thinking not them too, there’s so little, there’s so little of me. Then the body lowered down, and suddenly the Library knew what waves felt like.

The tablets were close. They were hidden. They were safe.

It sighed.

“Can we wait?”

“They’re coming!”

“But what about Philona and-“

“We have to GO! They’ll kill us. They’ll burn us alive. Look!”

And for the first time, the Library breathed.

It smelled harsh ash on the wind. Within the ash it smelled ink. Smelled blood. Smelled the animal hide and painted clay and hand prints and many thousands of treasures that once were part of it.

The Library moaned, joining up with the mourning, lowing howl of the wind tearing at the waves.

“Come on, then! Help me!”

The waves shook the scrolls, the tablets. Remembering itself, the Library held them tight and kept them from knocking against each other.

Cleomenes was crying. That is what Aithra said. “Don’t cry, Cleo,” she hiccupped, “we have to keep rowing.”

The Library was circling the scrolls and tablets over and over again. All told, they saved just twenty. Twenty out of thousands upon thousands. The Library did not know grief. Did not know emotion. Did not know what this feeling was, the bubbling emptiness that it could not plug even when it sank into the parchment and tried to soothe the cracks, or sand the rough edges of the tablets.

But when Cleo’s crying grew so strong he could not hold the oars, and the boat started turning in a wide, gentle circle, and Aithra held him and cried her own silent tears, murmuring softly under her breath, the Library learned what grief was.

Oh, it thought.

After a long time, Aithra whispered furtively, “The Library is not lost.”

I’m not, the Library thought, and wound itself around them. It tasted wet, salty tears, so much like blood, like sticky ink. It brushed them away. I’m here.

The essence of the Library was not ink to page. It knew that. It had known that for many eons, since the day it first blinked alive. It was the feeling of a gentle sigh when a reader sat and lost time in a long passage. It was the aching, cramping hands that painstakingly committed ink to parchment. It was the blood on leather covers, the secrets committed to page, the forgotten words of someone long dead rediscovered with a gasp, the thump-thump-thump stutter of a heart finding an answer, the way they stopped breathing, the way they stroked the page, the way they held up a single book and jumped for joy.

Before the first fall, it did not know fear. But it learned.

The Library was still learning. It was slow in this way. Emotion did not matter to the books, to the secrets. After Cleomenes, there were many others. It remembered all their names, and most of them taught it more important things - how to hide, how to shrink, how to slide beyond perception, how to summon, how to change. Only a few of them taught it new feelings. Sheer joy. Triumph. Pleasure. Humor. Pride.

Until one day, a new life came through the doors.

She was carrying it. Very small. She created a soft rug made of magic and laid it on the floor. She babbled to it for a moment and then walked away, beginning to sing the song that made the Library want to sing back, that made it let down its eaves and allow her to browse those wonderful floating secrets of future magic that she so loved. The Library provided more than it ever had before to keep her away, capturing her attention.

And it looked at the young life.

Baby, it thought.

It knew what it was. The Library had a hundred diagrams of human anatomy stored in its shelves. It knew the human was maybe one year old, maybe less. It knew it was a boy. It knew it was magic. It had never seen one as young as this before.

And then the baby blinked back at it and the Library startled. It learned the feeling surprise.

The Library enjoyed the woman, yes. A good reader. A gentle handler. One of the best curators it ever had.

But it loved the child.

It loved it with a startling clarity that created a rush of other emotions. When the woman took the child away, the Library read every piece about children that it contained, searching for an answer. Why did this happen? It wondered, flickering through a myriad of poems, fragments of songs, memoirs, eulogies. I am not human.

The Library did not find an answer. For the first time, it felt confusion.

Then the child returned. Theodore. It knew that name. Theodoros. Gift of god.

What was god? The Library had a hundred thousand words devoted to that subject, but for the first time, it asked that question for itself. What sent you here? It wondered, staring down at the child again. Was it fate? Was it accident? Does this mean nothing, or everything?

The Library circled and contemplated and soothed the human child as best it could for many months as it wondered over this new mystery. The child still reacted like he could see it. He reached for it. He laughed at it.

For the first time, the Library desired to take form.

One day, while the woman was away in its maze of shelves, the Library became person. It took the shape of a human, modeling it a like the woman, mother, taking pieces from its favorites over the year, forming a face, and long hair, and small hands, and soft robes. It wasn’t physical. It wasn’t even real by any sense of the word. The Library was extending a hand to the child, one part of its whole in an image the child would not fear.

It lifted a bright green block and balanced it on top of the baby’s leaning tower of colorful blocks. It was destined to fall - physics would certainly pull it to the earth in just a second, drawn by the unstoppable force of gravity. The Library grimaced, already leaning in to straighten the tower, to keep it whole, keep it stable.

A fat baby fist punched the blocks and sent them tumbling. Theodore laughed. Bright, bubbly, delighted.

The Library stared. The baby began building the tower again. Next time, the Library knocked it over, and then two voices filled the space with happy, chaotic giggles.

They grew up together, in a way. And the Library also raised him. My gift, it thought of him, when he fell asleep in a chair. My gift, it rumbled pleasantly, when he carried in a new book. My gift, it cursed, when it found another set of shelves that he rearranged.

The Library had not left the bounds of the doors in many years, not since the latest fall when it protected the books from spellfire and human hatred. But it often desired to follow Theodore, so sometimes it crept past the doors to watch him leave. When the seasons changed and it knew Theodore would return from school, it would stretch beyond the bounds of its secret place and wait for him.

So when Magnus Nott, current protector of the Library’s foundation, started to call to it through the humming wards, the Library was already looking for Theodore. It smelled the fire when the doors opened, and kept them cracked to look. The human words meant little to it. It looked around, sensing hatred, sensing war, but it was drawn only to the runes on the floor. It parsed through countless translations to make sense of them.

It read the name fiendfyre the same moment the Lord’s blood splattered against them. Before he even asked, the Library was already moving. It hugged Theodore around the chest, cradling him like Cleo did the scrolls, but too late. The Library was ringing with a new emotion, shaking with it, screaming with it, and the sound was the same word written in a thousand languages: FIENDFYRE FIENDFYRE FIENDFYRE.

Although the Library knew fear, it was not human. It did not fear death. But in that moment, it learned a new kind of fear - the fear for something that could die.

In the seconds it took to drag Theodore across the hall toward the tall doors that opened to the Library’s domain, it finished its calculations.

Fiendfyre was not a spell, it was a creature. It ate magic. It would eat the Library, and all its wonderful books, tucked safely away in that little space it had lived in for over nine hundred years. It would burn its gift down to his cells and Theodore would be dead forever. And the Library? The Library didn’t know what would happen to it when it was eaten. Maybe it would cease to be, cease to think, to feel, to see, to smell, to remember.

I could save some of the books, it knew. If I let my gift go, I can save them.

But the Library was not human, it did not know many emotions. It did not hesitate or feel doubt, for it had already come to a conclusion.

It simply wrapped itself around its gift and burst through those blood-red doors, letting fire chase it in, and then the Library cracked the roots of Yggdrasil and throttled deep into the earth, letting soil and rock and peat and clay and fine mineral deposits cover their back until they hung, suspended, so deep in the earth’s crust that the Library could feel warmth emanating from far, far below, so like the fiendfyre raging above it.

The fiendfyre ate and ate. It did not try to follow them down, distracted by the bounty left in its path. The rock shifted overhead and covered them up. The Library held Theodore in stasis, something that it knew how to do since the day it was born, and hovered there in the earth, keeping him safe, soothing his burns, covering his body with the embrace of its magic to keep him alive.

And it began to think, think, think, in tandem with the slowly beating heart of its gift. The Library turned in on itself and remembered every story it ever knew, sorting through them, looking for answers. What happens next in stories like these? How will it know when to reveal the great gift of its heart? Who could it trust? The Library needed Lancelot, Gilgamash, Maeve, Joan, Achilles…fighter, warrior, protector, king, knight.

The Library learned what despair felt like.

As the flames slowly died out, the Library tugged its gift toward the surface and, when it was close enough to peek through the melted stone, it watched. It waited. It was afraid.

---

Harry

Harry woke blearily to an alarm. It went on and on and on, rattling the wood desk.

“Shuddup Ron,” he mumbled. “Shut your alarm up…m'trying to sleep...”

He curled on his side, chasing the cozy pocket of warmth under his blankets. He never wanted to leave this bed. Sleep reached out and pulled him back under.

Then his bed shifted. He opened his eyes.

“Goddamn stop,” Sirius complained, slapping his hand out lazily toward the table and missing every time. “Why are you doing this? I hate this wand…”

Harry smiled and closed his eyes. Sirius’s other hand rested on his hair, gently holding his head steady as he leaned over to reach the offending wand. Harry glowed under the touch, holding still and hoping that Sirius wouldn’t take his hand away when he ended the alarm.

“Oh shit.”

Sirius sat straight up, jolting Harry out the last vestiges of sleep.

“We’re going to be late!”

“What?” Harry scrambled up on the couch, rubbing his eyes. “Late for what?”

“The party! The birdhouse! We have to get ready!”

Now Harry was awake. He swung off the couch, quickly shoving his glasses over his nose. Blankets fell to the floor as they both scrabbled to their feet. Well, Harry scrabbled to his feet.

“Mother of fucking Mordred’s red lacy underwear - FUCK!”

Harry grimaced, hovering uncertainly as he watched Sirius fall to his knees, tenderly gripping his lower back.

“I’m going to sue the shit out of the ministry,” Sirius hissed, tossing his head back, teeth bared. “It’s cruel and unusual punishment to have you on a stone floor for twelve years on top of the dementors. I’ll never be the same. I used to touch my toes.”

Not quite sure what to do, Harry retreated to the kitchen and set the coffee on for Sirius and the tea on for himself. He searched for his own wand, finding it on the breakfast bar next to his mailbox. The sigil was glowing, and he slid the top open with one hand while casting tempus with the other.

1:18pm.

“Shit!” Harry yelped, forgetting the mailbox. “I have to shower! We’re already late!”

“I know!” Just as Harry dashed through his bedroom door, Sirius yelled out, “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine!” he hollered, tearing his clothes off. John looked up sleepily from his spot on Harry’s neatly made bed. “Thanks for the wake up call, John,” he snapped.

“Do I look like an alarm clock to you?” The cat laid back down, “That service costs extra.”

One scorching hot shower later, Harry was doing his hair in the foggy bathroom, cursing at his shaky hands. His nerves were getting the best of him. Instead of taking the whole morning to carefully plan out what he was going to say, he had less than an hour to get ready and go. He barely had time to worry about what to wear. He knew there was no avoiding some kind of awkward conversation about how different he looked since they last saw him, what with the haircut and the glasses and his ring and the earring. Harry could picture Ron’s muffled judgment and Hermione’s - well, Hermione was always on him to buy new clothes. Maybe she would appreciate his muggle Converse.

“Fuck!” he swore again, bursting out of the bathroom, half-dressed. “John! I didn’t get to take Sirius to Roebuck Falls yesterday!”

John groomed his chest. “Take him tonight,” he shrugged. “Magic knows you’ll need to decompress after this.”

“I guess you’re right,” he prickled with disappointment. “Not like we can go now." He shot the cat a sneaky glance, "Unless…”

John mrrowed with laughter, “Some lion you are!” he teased. “Don’t you want to go and have a party? Pick a fight? Make your friends beg for forgiveness?”

“No!” Harry protested, pulling on a gray Henley. “I want to avoid my problems forever. Merlin, why did I do this?”

“I wondered that too,” John flipped on his back, stretching his front paws over his head. “But I think piercings are some kind of mating ritual in your species-“

“Why did I leave all this off to the last minute?” Harry interrupted, turning away so the cat couldn’t see his face turn red. He looked down and realized that his shirt was covered in oil stains from an impromptu carrot cake baking adventure. He groaned and tugged it off.

“Hurry up Harry!” Sirius called out.

“Coming!” He rifled through his dresser, searching for something plain. “I shirked all this off on future Harry, taking Sirius to Roebuck Falls and making up with Ron and Hermione and seeing all these people in the Order and talking to Dumbledore and now I’m future Harry!” His hand closed over a black shirt that he recognized instantly. It had all the faces of the The Beatles on it, half in shadow. “Voldemort really ruins everything, doesn’t he? I haven't slept that late in my whole life, I think.”

John didn’t reply. Confused, Harry pulled the shirt on and turned around. John wasn’t looking at him, he was staring at the door.

The open door. The door where Sirius was standing, face pale, staring at Harry in shock.

Silence reigned while Harry tried to puzzle out what made Sirius look like he’d just seen a ghost. Then John glanced at him, eyes wide, and Harry remembered. Scars. Sirius had just seen his scars.

With more control than he felt, Harry looked away and toed his converse out from under the bed. Harry didn’t know that he could speak even if he wanted to. What was he supposed to say?

Oh, hey Sirius, are you curious about the lashes on my back? Wondering why they’re so short and thin? That’s because I got them when I was little, around eight or nine, and they thinned out as I got older. Or maybe you’re wondering about the burn on my shoulder? That was where Aunt Petunia caught me with a hot pan after I snapped one of her wine glasses in the sink by accident. Oh, that one on my hip? That was from the time Uncle Vernon "accidentally" backed into me with his car and the tailpipe ripped through my shirt. You know how it is, Sirius, when you live with people who hate you. Right?

There were probably even more scars on his back that Harry didn’t even think about anymore. He’d been pushed through a hundred thousand bramble bushes in his lifetime, shoved in dumpsters, scraped his elbows and knees raw - all courtesy of Dudley’s gang. Harry knew it wasn’t pretty. Probably the only person in the world who had seen his skin with that much clarity might have been Madame Pomfrey, and even her…Harry wasn’t sure if she’d ever done a full examination of him during his many overnight stints in the hospital wing.

“I’m almost ready,” he said, trying to sound casual. He sat on the bed and did not look at Sirius, beginning to pull his shoes on. “I’ll meet you out there.”

“Sure thing, pup.” Harry grimaced and tugged his laces hard. Sirius sounded breathless, like he was in shock. Not good, he thought, running through different explanations he might be able to try and swing by his godfather. I really didn’t need this. Today of all days. Harry heard Sirius shuffle away from the door and breathed a sigh of relief.

“I told you to tell him!” John whispered, crawling to his side. “Are you okay?”

“No!” Harry whispered back. “Stop talking! You know he can probably hear us!”

“What does it matter?” one of his ears twisted back, “He knows now. You’re going to have to tell him.”

Harry growled under his breath and retied the overly tightened shoe. “I already told you why I can’t do that.” His voice was barely audible and Harry prayed Sirius could not hear him. “It’s was a long time ago. Who cares anymore?”

“It was six weeks ago-“

“Ready pup?”

Harry shot to his feet and snatched his leather jacket out of the closet. It was his father’s, the one he grabbed from the Potter vault on his trip to Gringotts that seemed so long ago. Sirius brought it to a tailor to get it resized, so it fit perfectly now.

“Ready,” Harry sighed, hurrying to join Sirius in the kitchen. His mailbox was still open, and it looked like a piece of newspaper was sticking out. “What on earth?” He slid the box closed, too irritated to deal with the Daily Prophet right now. “I don’t even subscribe to them.”

“Sometimes they put out special editions out for free,” Sirius said dully. Harry made the mistake of looking him in the eye and froze in place. Sirius was staring at him intently, his gaze laser-focused and grim.

“Maybe Fudge came to his senses and announced that Voldemort’s back,” Harry said lightly, raising his eyebrows in silent challenge. Sirius looked away first. A few seconds ticked by, but his godfather didn’t move a muscle. Painfully awkward silence lingered in the air.

Harry’s shoulders crawled up toward his ears, getting tenser and tenser as he felt Sirius shift and turn a little to him. “Harry,” his voice quivered. “Were those-“

“Is now really the time?” Harry snapped loudly and instantly cringed back. You fucking idiot, Potter. Way to be calm and casual about this like it doesn't matter - which is doesn't.

Sirius didn’t say a word, and Harry was too mortified to look him in the eye. Well, if this was Uncle Vernon, my eardrums would already be blown out from the force of his voice, he thought. Sirius won’t do that at least.

But out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw his godfather’s hand move, swinging down toward him. It wasn’t fast. Harry’s eyes were trained to watch for snitches and the raptor-like head-turns of his Aunt, so he knew it wasn’t threatening. Logically. He knew that.

But he was so wound up that he flinched.

Sirius flinched himself, banging into the breakfast bar with a sharp gasp. Harry felt his whole face start to glow and silently begged the earth to open up and swallow him up. 

“Here, the - uh - secret. To bypass the Fidelius Charm.”

Of course.

Harry stuck his hand out and took the bit of parchment Sirius had just taken from his breast pocket, studying the words like they were the most interesting thing in the world.

John pawed at his leg and Harry picked him up, letting him read the words too. He felt mildly better with the long-legged cat tucked in his arms. At least it gave him something else to focus on. Sirius took the parchment back and burned it. They didn’t look at each other again.

Sirius cast a disillusionment spell over the both of them and then lightly gripped his elbow. Harry noted with utter embarrassment that Sirius moved even slower than before. Harry wished that he’d just vanish out of existence right there in the space-warp of apparition.

Instead they landed in a London park.

“It’s not a far walk,” Sirius said, leading them to the sidewalk. “Two minutes, tops.”

John crawled over his arms to sling across his shoulders in a position Harry couldn’t believe was comfortable but that cat seemed to like. He occupied his racing mind by contemplating just how physical John’s form was. He didn’t eat much, he jumped through space and broke through wards, he could alter his shape even as a housecat, going from feral looking to soft and innocent at will, while also being able to slide back into his fae form at any given moment.

Maybe he can just get rid of bones, Harry thought. Maybe I can ask him to get rid of a few pounds as well.

Sirius turned down a short lane of townhouses and paused about half-way down. A great rattling and scraping sound shook the neighborhood. Harry watched in awe as Number 12 squeezed itself into existence between Number 11 and Number 13. A few doors down, a family got out of a taxi, oblivious to what just happened.

“Come on,” Sirius gestured up the stairs. Harry risked a glance at him and saw a grim expression on his godfather’s face. Whether it was because they were about to walk into the house that he hated, or because of the Order, or because of what he just saw, Harry didn’t know. All three, most likely.

Harry squirmed and snatched Sirius's elbow. “Wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry, Sirius.” He looked around, remembering too late how dangerous it was to use his real name in public. “I know you would never…do that. I was just…I’m nervous to see my friends and I...” He fluttered his hands uselessly. “And I didn’t want you to see that. I didn't flinch because I was afraid of you, I promise. It was just...habit..."

He grit his teeth together and covered his face. Great job. Now he's gonna think you were beaten every day like a stray dog. Sweet Merlin.

"What you saw was old," he said, because it had to be said. Harry couldn't pretend the scars didn't exist. "They were from a long time ago. Don't...don't worry about it. Okay? It doesn't bother me."

He peeked at Sirius through his fingers, nervously chewing his lip. Sirius stared down at him with the oddest expression on his face. Harry blinked, trying to make sense of it. He almost looked guilty. 

“I know I owe you an explanation,” Harry continued, tearing his eyes away, "maybe tomor-"

“Shh,” Sirius interrupted, “no - I’m sorry pup. I’m sorry. I…” He tipped his head back to look up at the sky, “I’m fucking things up here, aren't I? Look, I should have knocked first, before I looked in your room. It’s a bad habit, I’m not used to living with other people, but that’s no excuse." Sirius took a deep breath and grasped Harry's hand. "Listen to me Harry - you decide when you want to talk. You don’t owe me anything. Got it?”

Damn, Harry uncovered his face and stared at his godfather wonderingly. How could anyone think Sirius is a bad guardian? He was overwhelmed with the urge to step closer and wrap his arms around the man. Sirius was an incredibly affectionate person, constantly slinging his arm over Harry’s shoulders, or ruffling his hair, or hugging him. He knew it wouldn’t be weird if he just did it, but Harry’s feet felt glued to the ground. It would be stupid, right? He thought. I'm not a little kid. I don't need a hug from my godfather just because I'm nervous about going inside, or about my scars. 

"Ah, thanks," he said, somewhat lamely. He pressed the back of his hands to his cheeks, trying to cool himself off. “We’re out of here by seven at the latest, right?”

“Sooner if we’re lucky,” Sirius clicked his tongue. “The meeting's after the party, and I suspect that they'll only want you there for the first part of it. John - you’re going to stick with Harry, right?"

“I go where the drama is,” John replied.

“Better follow Sirius then,” Harry muttered. “He’s going to take all the blame.”

"Hey," Sirius's voice dropped, "Harry, don't worry about me. I think my sanity speaks for itself. After all, look at me!" He held his arms out, "My shoes don't have holes in them, my hair is cut, I can even have a polite conversation if I want."

Harry tried not to look at his mangled hand for too long, but Sirius flicked him in the ear with it anyway. "Trust me, pup, I can handle myself. But if you need to leave at any point, for any reason, just come tell me your scar's hurting, okay? After yesterday-"

"I'll be fine," Harry muttered. "It doesn't hurt at all. It's kind of weird that it doesn't, honestly..."

Sirius searched his face. "No, pup, I mean if you need an out. If your scar's hurting or not, just say that it is, and we'll go. You don't have to stick around if you're miserable."

Harry arched an eyebrow at that. Working through misery was a fact of his life. 

His godfather seemed to sense his disbelief, because he frowned and poked Harry on the forehead. "I'm serious, pup."

At that, Harry grinned widely. "Yes," he agreed, right as Sirius started to groan, "you are Sirius." 

He ducked out of Sirius's reach as the man attempted to put him in a headlock and jumped up the stairs, ready to finally get this over with.

“This is it,” Sirius put his hand up to the door. "No turning back. Ready?"

He shook the nerves out of his hands and nodded, and then Sirius pushed open the door of Grimmauld Place.

“HARRY!”

“Bugger,” he whispered, stepping awkwardly out from behind Sirius to wave at a crowd of familiar faces rushing toward him. “Hi!” He said lamely. “Er, sorry we’re late. I slept in.”

Mrs. Weasley was the first to the door. John slipped off his shoulders and jumped up the stairs where he could watch from a safe distance. “Oh, Harry dear!” She took him by the arms and studied every inch of him, a wobbly smile on her face. “I’m so glad to see you. We were so worried after you ran away!”

She wrapped him in a warm hug, pinning his arms to his side. Her curly hair tickled his nose and he mumbled a few half-hearted apologies. He knew he was blushing by the time she let him go and Mrs. Weasley patted his cheek. “You look better than I’ve ever seen - what is that?”

He twisted his chin out of her grip and stuttered, “It’s…ah, an earring. It was-“

“My idea,” Sirius jumped in, shooting Harry a conspiratorial look. “Harry wanted a tattoo. We compromised.”

Harry snorted and quickly fled Mrs. Weasley’s grasp, looking for his friends.

He came face-to-face with Lupin instead.

“Hi Harry,” he smiled. His hands were tucked neatly behind him, but his eyes roamed over him in much the same way as Mrs. Weasley’s did, not missing a thing. “Happy belated birthday. Out of curiosity, what would you have gotten?”

“A beheaded basilisk,” Harry replied without a thought, tracing his bicep down to his wrist, “wrapped all the way around my arm.”

Mrs. Weasley gasped, “Sirius Black, you cannot fill his head with these ideas!“

“Sounds wicked,” Lupin winked. Harry grinned, all of his fond memories of his old professor washing over him in a rush. I hope they can make up, he thought, resisting the urge to look back at Sirius who was arguing for his life by the door. Maybe I can get Lupin to move in with Sirius when I’m gone, help keep him company. There's no reason they shouldn't be best friends again, right?

“Harry! Quick, before she yanks your earring out!”

Harry felt his heart jump into his throat as he came face-to-face with Ron for the first time in months.

Ron tugged him by the sleeve, grinning. “You look a bit like Bill, mate,” he said, mirth sparkling in his eyes. He was much taller than Harry now. He must have grown a whole foot.

“No, he looks like Sirius!” Hermione twisted around a low silver couch to join them, crossing and uncrossing her arms nervously. Her hair was shorter, cut to her shoulders, and half of it was pulled back from her face. “It’s the leather jacket.” She reached out to touch his sleeve, rolling it between her fingers. “You look really good Harry. I - we were worried about you, but I see we were wrong to be.”

“I told you so,” Ron said with exasperation.

Harry laughed. It burst from his chest unexpectedly, and felt like the first good laugh he’d had in days. The nervous energy crawling over his skin evaporated as he stood between his two best friends, momentarily forgetting that there was any bad blood between them. Hermione was still a worry wart. Ron was still oblivious. Everything was right in the world.

“Thanks,” he said, opening his arms and accepting the hug that Hermione so clearly wanted. She jumped forward, throwing her arms over his shoulders and pressing her face into his neck. Her laughter wavered between joy and sorrow. Harry squeezed her tightly.

“Let him breathe, let him breathe, ‘Mione…” When Hermione untangled herself, wiping her eyes surreptitiously, Ron pulled Harry into an awkward hug too.

“If we’re all getting in on this, I want one as well,” Ginny’s dry voice cut through the din. She vaulted over the couch and gave Harry a gentle hug around the middle. “Is that your cat?” she said, pointing at the stairs.

“That’s John,” Harry nodded, “I found him last week. He follows me around everywhere.”

“You named your cat John?” Mr. Weasley asked, moving around his son to shake Harry’s hand. “Good to see you again, Harry. You’ve been in our thoughts every day! I see that Sirius has been doing a good job taking care of you, though.”

“He's been amazing!” Harry agreed warmly, sparking with joy that someone was on their side in this house. “The cat’s named after John Lennon,” he pointed to his shirt, “a musician.”

Lupin started humming the opening to All My Loving and scratched John under the chin. Ginny drifted over to do the same, clicking her tongue enticingly. John half-closed his eyes, basking in the attention.

“I know them!” Mr. Weasley gasped, “I first learned of a magnificent creature called a walrus from one of their tunes!”

“Hey Harry,” one of the twins sidled up to him, lowering his voice secretively. “You just gave us-“

“-the greatest idea-“

“-for a new invention.”

The other twin, Fred was Harry’s guess, because he was usually the more touchy of the two, put his arm around his shoulders and leaned in. “Frighten mothers everywhere this Christmas with a full-sleeve tattoo! Washes off in ten days-“

“A whole month for a sickle more,” George added.

“-and guaranteed to look as real as the real thing! We’ll call it…” he paused thoughtfully.

“Titillating Tattoos for Teenagers!” George cried. Ron began to snicker.

“Muggles have something like that,” Harry laughed. “They’re called temporary tattoos. You put them on with some water - I don’t really know how they work. I think it’s like a stamp.”

“Fascinating!” Mr. Weasley leaned in, joining their little circle of whispers. “Could you, perchance, find me one of these temporary tattoos? How much do they cost? Do you need a license to purchase them? Can you make one by-“

“That’s enough, Arthur, dear!” Mrs. Weasley said, sweeping to the rescue. “There’s plenty of time to talk later. We’ll have the party a little after three, alrighty?” Her smile looked strained. Harry guessed that Sirius won their argument. “Why don’t you kids go upstairs and-"

“Run before she asks you to clean, Harry!” Ginny yelped, legging up the stairs like a bludger was at her heels.

Ron grimaced, “She’s right mate, let’s get out of here.”

Hermione stepped up to his side for another hug, her eyes still watery. Fred and George elected to apparate straight back to their bedroom, triggering Molly to shout “BOYS!”

“Shh!” Sirius hissed, popping his hands over Harry’s ears. “The portrait!”

“Oh, it stopped talking,” Hermione shrugged, pointing at a large set of purple curtains pulled tightly closed by the door. “A few weeks ago. Now sometimes she just-"

The curtains slid open with a harsh thwack! A pale, severe face glared down at them, her dark eyes as big as saucers. The woman was dressed in an elaborate set of furs, perched on the edge of a velvet, very uncomfortable looking armchair. Her eyes clocked everyone in the room. Harry looked around, bemused to see Ron and Hermione start to cover their ears as well as if something loud was about to happen.

“Meeee-ow,” John whined, curling around Harry’s feet. He twitched his tail in askance and Harry opened his arms so the fae could jump into them.

The portrait stared at John, although it certainly looked like she was staring at Harry and Sirius. The cat stared quietly back.

The curtains slid together again, leaving them all in stunned silence.

“She just does that,” Hermione finished lamely.

“Don’t look a gift unicorn in the mouth, that’s what I say,” Sirius reached around to scratch John’s ears. Harry almost rolled his eyes at how satisfied the little devil looked. “See you at the party, pup.”

Harry worried that it would be awkward once they were on their own, but Ron immediately started complaining about all the cleaning they'd been doing. “This place is a horror show, mate,” Ron panted, struggling to talk and walk and animatedly move his arms around at the same time. “There were stuffed and mounted house-elf heads all up this staircase."

"You're joking," Harry winced.

"They're in the attic!" Ron whirled around, lowering his voice secretively, "Hey, I was thinking, maybe we should smuggle one or two of them back to Hogwarts and use them to scare the pants off of Seamus-"

"Ron," Hermione interrupted impatiently, "I already told you, Professor McGonagall will know it was you. She's part of the Order."

"Anyway," Ron waved her off, "the house is much cleaner now, right in time for you I suppose, but I reckon you’ll still have to help. We haven't even touched the fourth floor.”

Some days. Harry swallowed his rising dread and smiled. “Well, I’m good at cleaning.”

The second floor opened up into a hexagonal foyer with two doors on either side. A long hallway cut straight down the middle, and Harry could see the railing for another set of stairs in the back. Like all magical spaces, he marveled at just how large it looked on the inside.

“I’m in here,” Ron said, pointing at the first door to the left. “This second one is a guest room. Sometimes different Order members stay overnight.”

“Ginny and I are in here,” Hermione pointed at the door directly to Harry’s right, “and this other one has a boggart in it, so we keep it locked.”

“A boggart?” Harry frowned. He wasn’t exactly keen to test if his greatest fear was still a dementor. “Why not get rid of it?”

Ron shook his head, “Mate, there’s so many cursed objects and locked rooms in this house, the boggart is the least of our concerns. None of us can open any of the doors on the fourth floor, so Merlin knows what's up there.”

He led the way into his room which was quintessentially Ron. A bright orange Chudley Cannons flag was stuck to the wall, and a maroon and gold striped blanket lay crumpled on his bed. Seemingly all his textbooks were stacked on his desk, completely covering any available writing space. Both Hermione and Ginny rolled their eyes as Ron urgently snatched a pair of underwear off the floor and threw it in his trunk.

Harry wandered the space. There were no portraits and no mirrors. The furniture was dark and obviously finely made, if burnished with age, but the space was undeniably empty feeling. He noted that there were two beds in this room. I hope they don’t think I’m staying here tonight, he thought nervously. John trotted around, sniffing at Ron and Hermione before ignoring them both to go sit next to Ginny.

He paused by the windowsill and traced his hand over a carving of three ravens locked in a triskelion by their wingtips. His Potter ring warmed over it, and he felt a gentle thrum of pressure move over his hand, almost like the house was squeezing it. Must be the property wards, he thought. Maybe they recognize me because I'm Sirius's godson.

Harry's stomach was doing flips, so he took a moment to gather his thoughts. He had so much that he could tell them, but did he really want to? He could only imagine how they’d react if he tried to explain Roebuck Falls and the faerie gate ward, and John, Sunhoney, Theo…it was too much, too soon.

Play down your Lordship, he told himself. First you need to get them to trust Sirius. Everything else follows from that.

“So what have you and Sirius been up to?” Ron asked, mock-casually.

Perfect. Harry spun around, showing off his shirt. “Sirius is trying to shove thirty years of music in my head before I go back to Hogwarts. He almost cried when I told him I didn’t know who Paul McCartney was.”

Hermione laughed but Ron just tipped his head in confusion. “I’ll tell you about it later, Ron,” Harry promised. “Maybe I can bring some records over here one day. But, uh, we’ve been having fun, mostly. He wanted to celebrate all the birthdays he missed with me, so we did a lot of different things. We went flying, and to the Zoo, and er,” he scratched back of his neck, trying to think of things that didn’t involve Black Roc, “some of the magical shops in…where we are.”

Harry did not miss the way Ron and Hermione exchanged a look at that.

“You went to Godric’s Hollow, too..." Ron supplied, giving him a long look.

Harry felt his optimism vanish. Here it comes. “I did.”

Uncomfortable silence settled over the room. He waited for either Ron or Hermione to tip it over the edge and start the real conversation they were dancing around, but both of his friends just shuffled uncomfortably. Ginny didn’t move or say a word, other than to slowly stroke John’s back. When it became clear no one else was going to speak, Harry tried to change the subject. “So...have you guys been here since the beginning of the summer?”

“Yes,” Hermione said quickly, wringing her hands. “Professor Dumbledore came to my house just a week or two after term ended. He said the Weasleys were moving into a safe house and it might be safer for me to join them. I think they didn’t want to watch two muggle houses at the same time…”

“What about your parents?”

Her eyes widened, “Oh, there’s someone from the Order nearby, checking on them sometimes, you know. I don’t think they’re in danger, but you can never be too careful.”

Harry refrained from rolling his eyes and paused, giving them another opportunity to address the elephant in the room. 

"It's been, um...really boring, actually," Hermione continued, her voice getting quieter and quieter as the tension rose. "We mostly just clean. We can't really go outside at all. They're talking about owl-ordering all our school supplies, too, but I guess this is the safest place for us, so..."

Harry sighed impatiently, deciding that if Ron and Hermione were too reluctant to begin, he would. “So have you figured out why Dumbledore would make me stay at Privet Drive instead of taking me here if this is the safest place for us? Because I have a few ideas.”

“Well, it was because of the blood wards Harry!” Hermione cried. Her voice thinned, getting sharper like it did when she sensed a full-tilt fight was coming. “You know they were-"

“Tell me what kind of blood ward is more powerful than a Fidelius Charm,” Harry shot back. “They didn’t even know how that blood ward worked, Hermione.”

“Sure, but, there was your mum’s protection too,” Ron said, coming to Hermione’s aid. He chewed his lip hesitantly, “Dumbledore said it was safest so-“

“Voldemort used my blood to resurrect himself, Ron!” Harry interrupted, his patience running out. “There is no protection anymore. I told you all that when I came back from the graveyard!”

Ron and Hermione exchanged another look and then Ron jerked his head at his sister. “Get out of here, Gin,” he said dismissively. “We want to talk to Harry alone.”

She rolled her eyes hugely and got off the bed, shooting Harry a sympathetic glance on the way out. As soon as the door slammed, Ron rounded on him.

“I know you’re frustrated Harry,” he said, “but you don’t have to snap at us. When Dumbledore says you’re safe, you’re safe, right? Who are we to question that?”

“What did you expect us to do?” Hermione choked out. “Were we supposed to break you out of Privet Drive and go on the run? How are we supposed to keep you safe from Voldemort? Professor Dumbledore had to get the whole Order of the Phoenix to take turns guarding you!”

“That still doesn’t explain why he left me there!” He retorted, clawing back the words fighting up his throat. Dumbledore doesn’t care about me. Dumbledore wants me ignorant. Dumbledore wants me to be alone. He knew once those words left his mouth, Ron and Hermione would well and truly believe he’d lost his mind, so he held fast to what little strategy he had. “Blood wards are not as secure as the Fidelius!”

“But you have to go back every year to renew it!” Ron protested. “I guess that doesn’t matter anymore now that you broke it, but-"

“I broke the blood ward?” He repeated, aghast. “Is that what he told you?”

“Or you convinced your Aunt to do it, it doesn't make much of a difference,” Ron reeled back from him, lifting his hands placatingly. “It doesn’t matter, mate. All I’m saying is, there was clear logic behind why you stay with your muggles in the summer. I don’t know why this was such a big deal to you this year when you've gone back-"

Harry saw red, “You don’t know why it was a big deal for me to stay with my relatives who hate me after everything I went through? You know what they’re like to me!”

The last words tore from his throat. Harry clenched his fists a few times, trying to control the unexpected tide of emotion crashing into him.

“Well as it turns out, you were fine all along!” Ron snapped back. “You’ve been doing magic and running around all of England with Sirius while we've been worried sick about you and fighting the Order to bring you here! Did you ever even consider telling us? Or did you decide we just weren’t worth the trouble?”

He gaped at his best friend. “Well why would I tell you guys anything when you were threatening to rat me out to Dumbledore?”

“I wasn’t!”

“Oh, thank you Ronald,” Hermione snarled, stepping away from the red head. “I’m sorry for being the only one of us with any common sense!”

“Why do you always have to be right, Hermione?” Harry turned on her. Heat was rising to his face and he could feel his voice getting louder and louder. “Do you really think I’m too stupid to watch out for myself? I wasn’t even doing anything dangerous, I was just going to the library!”

“You snuck off to Gringotts to claim the House of Potter or whatever!” Hermione yelled back, “If you had just told me you were emancipated and could use magic I wouldn’t have been so worried about you! Why don’t you trust us?”

Harry groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Because I didn't want you to tell on me to Dumbledore while I was trying to figure things out!”

“Is that what you think of me?” Hermione stepped back, eyes welling up with tears. “That I’m some sort of tattle-tale? The only time I’ve ever gone behind your back is when I genuinely thought you might be in danger! And I didn’t say anything about you going outside the wards until you actually ran away! Do you have any idea how scared we were that night?”

“Yeah, mate, someone has to say it.” Ron licked his lips and watched him warily, “If you had just stayed inside the wards, the dementors wouldn’t-“

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Well it’s true!” Ron shouted, throwing his hands up. “And stop interrupting me, Harry! You're not the only one who gets to talk! What did you think would happen if you snuck out all the time, going Merlin knows where? You are being hunted by the most powerful Dark Wizard we've seen since Grindelwald, and he's personally tried to kill you four times! Can’t you admit that we were right to be worried? Don't you think you also owe us an apology?”

Harry took a couple deep breaths, rubbing his temples. “I'm not saying that I'm mad at you for being worried about me,” he said, struggling to stay calm. “I’m mad at you because it felt like you didn’t care that I was stuck with the Dursleys this summer, after everything that happened. You know they've hated me and treated me like shit my whole life, so when you said you were going to go behind my back to Dumbledore-“

“I was just-“

“I was pissed off, okay! How was I supposed to trust you with my Lordship or that fact that I was meeting up with Sirius after that? I just wanted to feel in control of my own life for once.”

He did not miss the way Ron’s eyes tipped up when he said Lordship, but that wasn’t far off from what Harry expected. He knew money and status was a touchy subject for him, almost as touchy as Hermione’s pathological fear of defying authority figures.

“I get it, Harry,” Hermione said breathlessly, “but can’t you see how one-sided this is? You were in danger this summer. You and your cousin got attacked by dementors! And then you just ran off, without telling us, without talking to anyone!”

“I told Sirius!” Harry shouted. “He was by my side the whole time! This is really all Dumbledore’s fault, because he wanted to keep us separated! That's why I didn't say anything to you!”

“Sirius isn’t in his right mind, Harry!” Hermione shouted back, “He’s not safe for you to live with! That’s why you had to stay with your family!”

“Like the Dursleys are better than Sirius, someone who actually wants me?!” He could feel tears fighting up behind his eyes and hastily blinked them away. 

“What is your deal with Dumbledore?” Ron interjected, "He’s not the enemy. You’re acting like we were going to sell you out to Snape or something." He took a deep breath and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. "Mate, please be honest with us. Is it…Sirius? We heard he got into a big fight with Dumbledore before he disappeared this summer…has he been telling you that Dumbledore can't be trusted, or something? You...you can hear how crazy that sounds, right?”

Harry took a deep breath through his nose. This couldn’t get any worse, he thought exhaustedly.

“Did he teach you blood magic, Harry?” Hermione asked hesitantly, immediately proving him wrong. “Would you just…trust us? Please? We want to help you and if he’s…introducing you to the dark arts…then just talk to us! We're your best friends!”

“Is this an intervention?” Harry laughed incredulously. “Do you even hear yourselves? What makes you think I’m being corrupted by my godfather?”

“Shooting a dagger of your blood is very fucking dark, mate!” Ron said, voice cracking. “You attacked Mad-Eye Moody!”

“He was being awful to Sirius! And I didn’t-”

“So what?” Ron’s ears went bright red, “Does that mean you can just attack anyone? Just because you can use magic now? I guess I shouldn't be too surprised when you blew up your Aunt two years ago-"

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” He shouted, completely losing what little patience he had left. “And I didn’t throw a spell at him, I kicked him off of my property! I gave him a chance to leave first!”

Ron scoffed and rolled his eyes. “What?” Harry snapped, “Are you mad at me because I own property? You think it was fun for me to go to the house where my parents died and learn that people treated it like a fucking public park, and then have Moody walk up and be a total fucking prick to Sirius right in front of me, like I'm some stupid kid that doesn't know how to make his own decisions? It wasn’t my idea to put my name in that Goblet, Ron, and I didn’t ask for Lordship, but now that I have it I’m going to fucking use it to protect what's mine!”

Ron glared down at his feet, muttering something under his breath.

“What was that?” Harry stalked forward, pushing in close to his friend, “I didn’t quite hear that. Oh wait, let me guess,” he paused until Ron met his eyes. “Part of you still thinks I put my name in that Goblet. You think I secretly wanted all this. Right?"

“Come on Harry,” Hermione groaned, “not this again.”

“You act like you’re the victim here, Harry, but all I see is you getting exactly what you want,” Ron said, glaring at him, “and now that we won’t just lay down and apologize to you and tell you that you were right, you’re mad at us.” Ron lifted his chin stubbornly, undaunted by Harry’s murderous stare. “You and Sirius seem keen to make everyone your enemy so you can be right about everything. I'm not going to play that game with you.”

“Sirius hasn’t put a single idea in my head,” Harry hissed, “I resent Dumbledore because he fucking left me alone in that house, under watch day and night, but no one actually tried to help me. What does it tell you that I would rather gamble on going with Sirius, who used to be so ill he could barely feed himself, rather than stay one more night at Privet Drive?”

Ron shook his head and walked away. Harry was about to follow, sensing he was getting the upper hand, when Hermione pushed between them.

“Is that what this is about, Harry?” She asked softly. The change in tone was so startling that Harry ground to a halt, staring at her. “This is about your relatives? You never talk about them, so it’s hard for us to know what’s really happened to you there. I know that I…hurt you when I tried to push you to talk to them. Can you tell me why?”

Harry jerked his head away, avoiding her wide brown eyes. He wasn’t expecting his mind to get dragged back to his relatives. He though he’d managed to leave them behind. “They hate me,” he said dully, trying to stifle the sinking sensation in his gut as this conversation careened out of his control. “You guys know I don’t want to be there.”

“But what are they really like, Harry?” Hermione pressed. He stepped back out of her range when she tried to reach for him. “Do…they hurt you? Hit you?”

“No,” he lied without hesitation. “I mean, Dudley and his gang fight me sometimes but, why are you even asking me about this? Is it so hard to imagine that I was miserable being stuck in that house after what happened to Cedric and that was reason enough to leave?”

Ron sighed raggedly. “Harry, of course we knew it was bad. Just listen to our point of view for a second. Dumbledore said that the safest place for you this summer was your Aunt’s house. They didn't know if Voldemort was going to try and kidnap you again, so you were guarded by Order members constantly. Even if it was technically safer for you to be here, at Grimmauld Place, you needed to be with your muggles to renew that rare blood ward we were told might protect you if Voldemort came after you."

Ron paused until Harry was looking at him again. "Can’t you see how normally, if you were being rational, you would have just stuck it out until the Order moved you here? A few weeks of misery in exchange for protection from Voldemort would be fair to the Harry I know.”

Hermione nodded. “But if you had to run away again, Harry, then they must have been hurting you, right?” She looked at him imploringly. "You wouldn’t run away if you were only unhappy.”

Something froze inside him. He held absolutely still, afraid that if he moved, the pain he was feeling would overwhelm him.

“No, they didn't hurt me,” he lied again. “They just treat me like I’m not even there. Or they yell at me.”

They don't even hurt me much, he thought numbly. Vernon was just driven over the edge because of that car accident, and my nightmares. It really wasn't that bad. An itching sensation crawled up the back of his neck. Do they really think it was so bad of me to want to be happy? 

Hermione’s face crumpled, and that seemed to tip Ron over the edge. “Come on Harry! Who are you protecting?” Ron’s voice turned accusing, “If they were just ignoring you, you wouldn’t have run away, so that means Sirius convinced you to do it, am I right? And if he didn’t, then either those muggles really were terrible to you, or you just don't want to admit that it was wrong and selfish of you to run away this summer! We're your friends, when did you stop trusting us? You know we would do anything to help you!"

"I don't understand why you always go off on your own," Hermione whispered, sniffling. "Why don't you ever ask for help?" 

A lifetime of memories echoed through his head at once.

Six years old, holding up his burned hand to the teacher, explaining that it was from cooking breakfast that morning. No six year old cooks on the stove! You shouldn’t play with fire and lie about it, or I won’t send you to the nurse next time!

Nine, bunching the long, stained t-shirt up in his hands and numbly taking the reprimand from the head of the school. I like these clothes. I don’t care what I look like. It’s just picture day.

Ten, standing in the doorway with Uncle Vernon’s meaty fist in his shirt while he lied through his teeth to a neighbor. Yes, I broke your car window. I’m very sorry. I’ll accept any punishment you think I deserve.

No one has ever believed me.

What difference would it make?

I was just trying to survive.

Harry said none of those things. His tongue was lead in his mouth. He stared at Ron and Hermione, letting the silence settle over them like a heavy blanket.

“I get it,” he said softly. The rage roiling in his gut cooled to a sickly feeling of guilt and resentment. He flicked his gaze between his two best friends, “To you, it doesn’t matter if I’m happy, just as long as I’m safe? Isn’t that what you said, Hermione?" Harry stepped back. "You two don’t know a fucking thing about the difference between happy and safe.” His back bumped up against the wall, and he unconsciously put his hand on the raven carving again. Warm, grounding magic wound up his arm.

“I don’t get why we’re arguing about this,” Ron let out a long sigh, looking exhausted. “Of course we want you to be safe and happy, Harry, but sometimes it just isn’t possible! It wasn’t our decision to send you to your relatives. And there’s no use arguing about it anymore, I guess. You already broke the blood ward so it’s not like you can ever go back.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Harry said breathlessly. “She kicked me out."

“But isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I saved my cousins life,” Harry replied, shaking with effort to keep his voice steady. “She thought I hurt him. Was I supposed to just sit there nicely and let her scream at me?”

Hermione sniffed, “Harry, I don’t know if you realize this, but when you get mad you get…kind of scary. You either completely shut down and hold this terrible grudge until you get over it, or…you…” She wrapped her arms around herself. “You just get so angry. It makes it impossible to talk to you. Can't you see, that maybe...” Her voice broke and she took a ragged breath, "Maybe you forced them to do it, by making them afraid of you? Because you wanted an excuse to leave?"

Harry held very, very still.

He tried to play through this conversation again in his head, but he was too overwhelmed to figure out where they’d gotten off track. This was supposed to be about proving Sirius's sanity, he thought frantically. When did it become about me being a terrible friend? And about my relatives? 

Ron and Hermione looked as wrung-out as he felt. All three of them stood apart from each other, looking away. Harry's head was swimming with a chaotic mess of questions and self-doubt. When did I stop trusting them? When did they stop trusting me? When did they start being afraid of me?

He counted his breaths, searching for the right thing to say that would save his skin. They weren’t listening because he was furious, but he was also fucking hurt.

Hurt. Harry could do hurt.

“I don't if you guys can really understand how betrayed I feel, but I'll try to explain it to you,” he said thickly, staring at the floor. He didn’t quite trust his face to pass for sorrowful. “Growing up…I didn’t have anyone to rely on. It was only me, because my relatives hated the sight of me, and I was just a burden to them. You two are the people I trust most in the world, next to Sirius. Dumbledore was too, and then...” Harry didn’t have to fake the way his voice cracked.

“I learned this summer that he had Mrs. Figg watching over me my whole life. She knew who I was, what magic was, and she lied to my face my whole life. There's no way he didn't know how the Dursleys treated me. Everyone in that neighborhood knew I was the problem kid, who got beat up by Dudley's gang and was always wearing old, gross clothes, and was too skinny and all of that." His voice rasped and nearly gave out. Harry swallowed and forced himself to keep going, needing them to understand.

"Dumbledore put a mail ward on the house and never told me about it, so I didn’t even have the right to my own post. And because of him, I was raised not knowing that magic was real, or the truth about my parents, or that Sirius ever existed until it was revealed to me either when he thought I was ready or by total accident!" His voice warmed and Harry struggled to keep himself from shouting again. "How would you feel if you realized that facts about your own life were hidden from you over and over again, intentionally? Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you two that I was distant, or that I’m mad, when it's so easy for you to say, oh he was just protecting you - but I just can't forgive that. Sirius has been nothing but honest with me from the beginning, no matter what. That's why I went with him."

He fell silent, scraping the toe of his shoe rhythmically along the ground and listening to Hermione’s quiet sniffles. 

“Harry,” Ron’s voice was sad. He held his breath, afraid of what he might say next. “What if you…just stay here for a few days? We can talk more, and hang out…”

“You can have more time to explain everything to us!” Hermione added hopefully. “I know that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Lupin and the Order would be really happy to spend time with you. There’s...there's more people who care about you than just Sirius, you know. And we - we miss you. We really do."

Harry’s latent guilt evaporated immediately, replaced by fury so thick he felt goosebumps erupt over his skin. So this was a ploy all along? He wanted to say, gripping the windowsill as hard as he could to keep his mouth shut. You said all that to guilt me into staying here so I can be away from Sirius, because the Order’s convinced you that he’s dangerous. And then once I’m here, I can probably never leave, right? Because it’s too dangerous, or because you’ll miss me, or because it’s not fair. I’ll always be the bad guy, always the selfish one, always hurting other people when I’m mad, and never right to be mad in the first place.

Harry swallowed down his rage, shoving it in a dark corner of his mind. When he finally trusted himself, he looked up and met their gazes in turn.

“Where Sirius goes, I go,” he said firmly. “Sirius is my family. I’m staying with him the whole summer. I'm not going to be here without him."

Hermione shut her mouth. Tears dribbled down her face uncontrollably now, but Harry didn’t have it in him to feel bad. His head hurt, and there was acid in his throat. Some part of him wanted to yell some more, but Harry knew it was useless. Just like fighting back against Uncle Vernon was useless, or arguing with Aunt Petunia was useless. Fighting always makes it worse.

“Can’t we just forget about all this?” Ron burst out, voice strained to the point of breaking. “None of it matters! You’re free now, you got everything you wanted, and we got to say our piece. If you don’t want to stay here, fine. You know we always have your back if you change your mind. We’re really sorry Harry, you know that. Can’t we just start over and go back to being friends?”

And pretend like none of this happened? A harsh voice whispered in the back of his head. And I just have to live with the fact that you guys think I’m dramatic and angry and self-centered and that you’ll listen to Dumbledore over me any day? We’ll forget about this just like we forgot about how you didn’t believe me about the Goblet, too?

Harry glared miserably at the ground. “Sure." His voice croaked and he had to clear his throat. "I’m sorry, too, you know." Harry felt a sinking sensation in his gut. He didn't even know if he was lying anymore. "I really don’t want to fight. Let's just forget it.” The words tasted like poison in his mouth.

“Oh Harry!”

He ducked out of the way, avoiding Hermione’s attempt to throw her arms around him again. “I need a minute,” he said, bee-lining for the door. “Give me some space.”

It’s not running away, he thought, as he fled down the hall. He kept his pace quick but his steps light, jogging up the stairs as quietly as possible. The physical exertion helped alleviate some of the buzzing in his head and he pushed on past the third floor to the fourth. I need to regroup. Cassandra herself couldn’t have seen that catastrophe coming.

He paused on the fourth floor, noting the layer of dust on the wall sconces. One of the bedroom doors had an old, yellowed bit of parchment stuck to it. Harry got closer and read, Do Not Enter Without Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black.

The door opened to his touch.

The room smelled musty, but it was remarkably clean. He shut himself inside and closed his eyes, counting his breaths until his pulse was normal again and the pressure behind his eyes was well and truly gone. His stomach still felt slick and oily, like he might throw up at any minute, and he hated that he felt guilty.

Stop thinking about it, he chanted. Just leave it be. Figure it out tonight when you're alone.

Keen to find something to distract his mind, Harry started looking around Regulus Black’s room.

It was luxurious. There wasn’t really another word for it. There was a four-poster bed with glossy, black and silver covers neatly made in the center of the room. There was a door in the back leading to a small bathroom. The furniture looked immaculate, unlike what was in Ron’s room downstairs, the wood polished and free of scratches or nicks. There was a writing desk next to the bed with an assortment of fine eagle quills at the ready. There was a regal dresser with a few framed photos neatly lined up across top, and another door, maybe leading to a closet. Aside from a single Slytherin scarf folded on the bedside table, there wasn’t much of anything personal in his room.

Except for the window.

Harry gravitated toward it. The window jutted out over the street, forming a glass dome with a cozy reading nook built in. It was covered in cushions of all colors, and there was a quilted yellow blanket folded at one end. A wicker basket full of books sat on the ground. It was homely. Harry brushed his fingers over the quilt and felt inexplicably sad. 

He crouched down to read the titles of some of the books. City Birds of London, Wellecks Oracle 1978, The Great War’s Consequences for Wixen, Tereesa Nolby - the Witch Who Caught the Bomb.

Harry peeked over the edge of the bed. From here, he had a clear view of another small city park. He could see bird’s nests in the powerlines across the street. Harry wondered why a wizard who grew up in London would turn against muggles. It wasn’t for lack of understanding them, surely. Not when he could watch their world go by.

Harry paced the rest of the room, careful not to open any drawers, simply looking at what was on display. He studied the pictures on the dresser for a few minutes. One was of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and eventually Harry identified Regulus, sitting in the middle. The picture was small though, and didn’t give him a great sense of what he looked like. The other two were not of people. One was Hogwarts, covered in snow. Another was the sun, breaking up over the horizon, or maybe sinking down to rest. He watched the colors change on that picture for a long time, feeling his mind relax and some of his stress melt away.

Then someone tapped lightly on the door.

Harry flinched and hurried over, opening it quickly. “I was just-"

“Hi Harry,” Lupin smiled at him. “Can I join you?”

No one else was outside, except for John, who looked up balefully as he slipped through their legs into the room. Harry felt momentarily guilty for leaving him behind.

“Your cat showed me where you were,” Lupin explained as he made his way into the room. “Ron and Hermione said they thought you were with Buckbeak.”

“Oh. No.”

Lupin politely ignored his discomfort and took a moment to look around. “Kreacher had a favorite, I see.”

Harry startled, “You know Sirius’s house elf?”

Lupin snorted, “We all do. He made sure we knew of him. He was very uncomfortable with us cleaning the house and getting rid of the dangerous objects. Sirius did a lot of that before he left. The elf only ever seemed to listen to him, and even then, not very well…”

Harry nodded. He had not seen Kreacher again since John scared him into submission outside of Roebuck Falls. His job was to guard Regulus’s inferi deep in the bowels of Black Roc.

That must be painful for him, Harry thought, trying to imagine how Dobby might react if he had to watch Harry’s undead corpse day and night.

“Are you going to ask me to stay here, too?” Harry said flatly, cutting straight to the point. He didn’t want to dither around. It would hurt more to have Lupin wrap him in comfortable conversation and then realize he, too, thought Harry was better off staying away from Sirius. “Do you think Sirius is corrupting me?”

The man blinked. It was hard to read his expression, but Harry thought he looked surprised. “I didn’t pull you in here to talk about Padfoot, or to encourage you to stay at headquarters, Harry. You can stay wherever you’re happiest. You decide.”

He felt heat crawling up his neck and quickly looked down. "Oh."

Lupin cleared his throat, “I want to talk to you Harry, because I owe you an apology.”

He thought back to the letter Lupin sent him two weeks ago, “You already did that.”

“Yes, but I wanted to look at you and say it again. And again. I owe you a thousand apologies Harry.” The bare earnestness in the man’s voice dragged his eyes up. Lupin leaned against the bed, and his expression was so open and sincere that Harry couldn’t look away. “I never tried to come and see you when you were growing up. It was wrong of me. I may not have had a legal right to you, but James and Lily wanted me in your life. I let guilt and shame control me and break my promises to them. Even when you started at Hogwarts and I knew I could reach out, I didn’t. I was too afraid that meeting me would upset you, and expose you to the terrible reality that your parents were killed because one of their oldest friends betrayed them.” Lupin sighed and continued as if he were rattling off his own execution notice, “I’m not trying to excuse my behavior, but I-“

“You keep saying that.”

Lupin blinked, “What?”

Harry shook his head, “You keep saying that you don’t want to give me excuses, but I don’t see it that way. You’re just explaining what your reasoning was.” He shrugged, “I don’t hold any of that against you. My relatives would never have let you through the door. And Dumbledore had a mail ward up around their house, so I wouldn’t have gotten any letters.”

“A mail ward?” Lupin repeated, blinking rapidly.

“Yep.” His stomach growled. His lightheadedness was getting worse. I didn’t eat, he realized. But now the thought of eating made him feel sick. “Look, Professor-“

“Call me Remus, Harry,” the man begged. “Or Moony, if you want. Please. You don’t know how wrong it feels for you to call me that when you used to call me Moomoo.”

Harry smiled, “Okay, Remus then. Look," he took a deep breath, and tried to speak with as much sincerity as possible, "I just want to know if I can trust you. I want to. I...think I already do, but I still have to ask. Can I trust you?"

Lupin froze again, his surprise more obvious this time. “You can, Harry," he said, finally. "I want you to trust me Harry. I want you to trust in me.”

“Then you have to support me and Sirius,” Harry said immediately, ignoring the way Remus's mouth clamped shut. “Trust me. I know that there are people in the Order that want me to stay here because they don’t think Sirius can keep me safe, but they're wrong. He’s better, Remus. I don’t know what he did, but…he’s my family, you know? I’m not taking care of him. He’s taking care of me.” Harry felt his cheeks warm as he admitted that. He’s the only one who ever has, he didn’t say.

Remus looked at him for a long moment. At last, he dipped his head. “Okay,” he said. “I'll support you Harry. You and Sirius.”

Harry almost jumped for joy. As it was, he settled for grinning, feeling his spirits pick back up. “Thank you,” he said warmly.

This time the lull in conversation felt comfortable. Harry continued his exploration of Regulus’s room, daring to open the other door, which was just a closet full of many different robes, ranging from formal to casual in different colors. Looks like Regulus secretly loved the color yellow, Harry noted with some amusement, eying a light grey robe with pale yellow suns stitched along the hems.

“Did you know Regulus?” he asked Remus, curious to know what he'd say. “Sirius told me a little about him.”

“Hmm, no. Not well.” There was a thump as Remus pulled the desk chair out and sat down. He pushed his light-brown hair from his face and yawned. “Sirius was always protective of Regulus. He was the only one allowed to speak badly of him. That quickly translated to speaking of him at all.”

“So they weren’t close?”

Remus tapped his chin, “Maybe when they were young. But after Sirius ran away from home, got disowned, it was bad between them. Really bad. They got into more than a few duels before we graduated.”

Harry sighed and shut the closet door. “It’s hard for me to believe that two brothers could end up on opposite sides of the war. Do you think Regulus would have changed sides, if he had the chance?”

Harry, of course, already knew the answer. Regulus did defect, and was killed for his trouble. John watched him unblinkingly on the bed, a knowing glint to his eye.

“You know, Harry…” Remus casually flicked his wand at the door. John followed the movement, then glanced back at Harry, slowly bringing his tail over his mouth as if to say, shhh.

Silencing charm, Harry thought, standing up straighter.

“The two sides weren’t so…obvious…when we got out of school.” Remus fixed him with a serious look. “It’s probably best this isn’t repeated,” he warned, “lest someone takes it the wrong way and really does believe you’re being corrupted.” He smirked humorlessly, “But this is history, so you might as well know it. Voldemort’s party was the reason werewolves were delisted as dangerous creatures in the 70s. He helped wixen living with curses like lycanthropy or vampirism earn back the right to carry wands."

Harry gaped at him.

“I know,” Remus said, glancing at the door, “sometimes I can’t believe it either. But it’s true. Politically, he was instrumental in walking back extremely restrictive dark creature and dark magic laws passed after Grindelwald was defeated. There was a cultural shift after that war. Between the anti-muggle sentiment, Grindelwald’s near success in controlling huge swathes of continental Europe, and the fact that he was pushing for the complete liberation of all magical communities…including fringe movements like necromantic revivals…” he waved his hand, “Well, you can imagine the political rebound that occurred. Every political office was filled with wizards who preached that such a thing could never happen in England. Many laws were passed at that time that basically reduced people like me to nothing more than monsters. They did everything short of legalize extermination.”

“Holy shit,” Harry breathed, blinking rapidly. “Is that why my parents didn’t make you the secret keeper? Did they think you were sympathetic to Voldemort?”

Remus grimaced, “I don’t think they ever believed that, but I always found that Peter and I could have the most honest conversations of the four of us. Sirius was almost maniacal in his hatred for dark magic, and James was only slightly more restrained. Peter…never judged me.” The man clenched his fist, “And he used that against me, I’m afraid. Who knows what he whispered in their ears based on what I told him.”

But Sirius doesn’t hate dark magic, Harry thought. Why would he pretend he did?

“Anyway, Harry, I only say that to try to explain what it was like when I was your age. When we were in school, Death Eaters were just a rumor at best. Voldemort was feared, but nobody knew who he was, or where he was. He was more legend than wizard. But the faction that was said to be part of his circle were making huge strides in undoing all of the laws restricting dark magic. They were so popular, that by the time they started suggesting muggleborn registries, and mandatory interventions on muggleborn homes, they were so influential it looked like they were inevitably going to succeed in taking their extreme pureblood ideals mainstream. And we were so afraid of what might happen in that case."

“That’s when Dumbledore started the Order?” Harry guessed.

Remus crossed his arms, “No. The Order had been around for several decades, at least, though it was at its height when we were in it. The Order was formed as a kind of island in the sea of Ministry corruption. We knew that everyone in it was loyal to a shared set of values. Broadly speaking, we believe that the post-Grindelwald world is a better world.”

“But not for you,” he pointed out.

“No,” Remus laughed, “but granted, the Order wasn’t working the same way Voldemort did. We didn’t work on policies and laws. We were trying to expose the corruption in the government and show our world what was going on under their noses. And then, once the Death Eaters became more violent and more public, we started fighting back. It was a cold war, Harry, that we walked into. I think Regulus didn’t have much of a choice but to align with the other side. After all,” Remus gestured at the room, “the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black has been around longer than the Ministry has. Their legacy is dark magic. It has been used for both good and bad over the centuries. For Regulus to side with the Order would have been untenable, because he would have had to renounce his whole House.”

Harry chewed that over for a minute. “So, you don’t think Regulus was a bad person for becoming a Death Eater?”

“He certainly wasn’t a nice person,” Remus sighed. “And he did have a strong hatred of muggles. But do I think Regulus would have been like the Lestranges? Hedonists living out their most depraved fantasies under the guise of wiping out blood traitors and muggleborns? No. Regulus wasn’t a killer.”

Before he could say more, Ron’s voice called out from the other side of the door. “Harry? Are you on this floor?”

“We’re going to the Library downstairs! Come on, Ron…he can come on his own…”

“Almost time for the party,” Remus said gently, when Harry didn’t move. “Might be good to clear the air before you’re forced to be in the same room.”

“Yeah…” John padded to his feet. Harry crouched down and let the cat settle in his arms. John pushed his head up under his chin and rubbed his cheek down along Harry’s jaw, purring. The feeling was so soft and tender that Harry felt some of his resolve crumble. “Moony?” he said, ashamed of how raw his voice was. “When do you know if…you’ve outgrown your friends?”

He could hear a sharp inhale from the man, but Harry kept his eyes trained down, rubbing the white patch on John’s chest and trying not to sink in the torrent of his emotions. The silence stretched out for a long moment, and Harry began to worry that Remus just wouldn’t answer him, or insist that Harry was wrong to even ask such a thing.

But Moony proved him wrong.

“I think that when you stop yourself from being honest with them, that’s a sign.” Remus’s voice was heavy with regret. “And when you hide who you are, because you’re afraid that they’ll reject you.”

Harry nodded, unable to speak. It felt like a hole had been punched right through his chest.

“I think it’s always worth it to give your friends a chance, though,” he continued. “Even if you’re afraid. It’s better than living in fear for years, Harry. Trust me.”

Thankfully, Remus fell silent after that, and Harry was able to use the quiet to bring his breathing back under control. There was still something sharp and painful in his chest, but he thought that might be okay. Ron and Hermione clearly weren’t very happy either.

“Thank you,” he said, setting John down. “I’ll, um, see you downstairs?” He risked a look at his old Defense professor, who was thankfully dry-eyed and as unshaken as ever.

“Yes,” Remus nodded, “I’m just going to wait up here for Sirius.”

Something in his voice gave him pause. Harry stopped with his hand on the door. “Are you two going to try to be friends again?” he asked hopefully.

Remus smiled a little bit, “We’ll see. We both have a lot to forgive.”

Harry nodded and turned away. “Sirius was hiding himself, too,” he said before he could think better of it. “I think he was also afraid. He’s like me, you know. We don’t have anyone but our friends.”

And then he twisted the doorknob and hurried away, careful to let John follow him this time.

Harry went and found his friends in the Library. His face looked mostly normal, though his eyes were a little red. Thankfully, he noted, Ron and Hermione didn’t look much better. Their conversation was stilted and awkward at first, but Ron soon distracted them by showing Harry the Black family tapestry and they made a game of finding the most ridiculous name.

“What about Theosophinus?” Ron pointed near the top.

“Druella takes the cake for me,” Hermione made a face.

Harry pointed, “But Licorus is the stupidest name on here.”

“I think it’s pronounced, Lick-or-us, not licorice, Harry,” Hermione giggled. “But that’s still pretty bad.”

None of them brought up their fight. Ron and Hermione made no mention of Harry staying at Grimmauld Place again, and Harry was careful to keep his tone light every time he spoke. He told them a few stories about what he and Sirius had been up to, and Hermione helped him explain what a movie theater was to Ron, but his attempts to summarize the science-fiction film Judge Dredd went completely over Ron’s head.

At one point Sirius made an appearance and handed over a few cookies he’d pilfered from the kitchen. “You didn’t eat yet, right Harry?” he asked, diving back into his pockets and pulling out a hand pie. “Here. Get some protein in you.”

“You take some!” Harry protested, blushing under his godfather’s ministrations. “How am I supposed to eat all this?”

“Share!” Sirius gestured at Ron and Hermione, who were watching the exchange closely. “And honestly, Harry, I much prefer your baking. These are a bit too sweet for my taste.”

“You’ve been baking?” Ron said in disbelief.

“I like cooking,” Harry said defensively. When it’s not for Aunt Petunia. “It’s relaxing.”

“Harry, we should have a little dinner party!” Hermione said, bouncing forward to take a cookie from him. “We can each make a dish and you can show us some of the music you were talking about.”

“You can come over to ours,” Sirius drawled, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Might be more fun than staying here.”

Ron perked up at that. Harry felt the knot in his stomach loosen a bit as his two best friends excitedly quizzed Sirius about what their apartment was like. Sirius was free with the details, but didn’t clarify what city they were in. At one point, Sirius’s gray eyes settled on him and Harry forced a smile to his face.

He didn’t think Sirius fully bought it, because he soon excused himself.

Come on, Potter, he thought, nodding along to Hermione’s rapidly evolving plan for a dinner party at their flat. Don’t give up on them just because you’re upset. Sirius is trying to help you mend fences. Ron and Hermione are putting on a happy face. You need to at least try.

Luckily, a bell rang through the house and interrupted his brooding.

“Party time!” Ron whooped, thundering out of the Library and down the stairs. 

When they entered the dining room, Mrs. Weasley clapped her hands, two pink spots in her cheeks as she welcomed the three of them in with open arms. “Happy Birthday! Congratulations! What a wonderful day!”

The dining room was huge, with most of the space consumed by a long, ancient looking table laden with food. Hand pies, deviled eggs, elaborate cheese plates, tea cakes and dainty sandwiches, no less than seven steaming tea kettles, trays of cookies, and, in the center of the table, a three-tiered cake, each level representing one of them. Ron’s was on the top, done up in bright gold with little brown broomsticks drawn in icing, Harry’s was in the middle, red and decorated with shiny gold snitches, and Hermione’s was on the bottom, coated in rich purple buttercream with tiny stacks of books lining the edge.

A large banner hung across the wall. It had to be large, because the message read, Happy Birthday Harry, and Congratulations Ron and Hermione, Gryffindor Prefects!

“Prefects?” He said in surprise. “You didn’t tell me! When did you find out? We haven’t even got our book lists yet.”

Hermione blushed while Ron scrunched up his face, “McGonagall was here a few days ago to tell us herself. And, well, I was worried you might be…” His blue eyes flickered to Harry, “I just thought you’d get it, not me.”

Ron thinks I’m jealous? Harry’s eyes widened and he bit down on his knee-jerk reaction, which was to laugh right in his face. Fuck no I don't want to be a prefect, he thought. 

“No way!” he smiled, playfully punching Ron in the arm, “I’m too much trouble. Of course it’d be you, Ron!”

Fred and George started gagging behind them. Even Hermione’s smile went a bit stiff. Harry realized that his words might sound hollow too late, but Ron simply grinned at him. “You think?”

“Well, you’ll be my favorite prefect, at least,” Harry joked. “You’re not going to dock points from me, right?”

Ron’s smile grew, “Nah, but I have this plan to take back from Malfoy every point loss he pins on us.” The taller boy slung an arm over his shoulder, whispering, “It’s going to be great!”

Harry's thoughts drifted to the Slytherins wondering who their prefects would be. Of the available choices, Draco Malfoy certainly seemed the most likely candidate, given he was Snape’s favorite. But Theo... He almost laughed out loud. No, Theo would probably hate being a prefect. He probably hates anything that cuts into his reading time.

“Wotcher, Harry!”

A woman with long, bright yellow hair stepped up to him. She was wearing a baby blue trench coat that went down to her ankles and had a wild smattering of freckles over her face and neck.

“Tonks!” Ginny cried, rushing past them with John in her arms. “Can you do his eyes?”

“Hmmm,” Tonks leaned down, coming almost nose-to-nose with the cat. After a moment, her eyes shifted, becoming larger, rounder, and perfectly matching John’s shade of dark orange with the slitted pupils to boot.

“Whoa,” Harry breathed. Tonks blinked and her eyes changed back. They were hazel, and he wondered if those were the real color.

“I’m Nymphadora Tonks,” she said formally, shaking his hand up and down with vigor. “But call me Tonks. Never call me anything else!”

He smiled, “I’m Harry, but you know that.”

“Still nice to finally meet face-to-face. I was one of the ones watching you this summer. You’re a hard worker!”

His smile became more of a smirk. “I like to keep busy,” he deflected. “You’re a metamorphmagus, right?”

Tonks beamed, “Yep! Dead useful for auror work.” She furrowed her brow, and her hair rapidly shrank and changed color until it perfectly matched Harry’s.

“Wow!” he blushed and hoped she’d change it back, “That’s amazing.”

Ron pulled on his elbow and pointed down the table where Harry could see Charlie Weasley dusting himself just outside of the fireplace. “Sorry Tonks!” Ron said, pulling Harry away, “Charlie never sticks around for long.”

“Take care of my cat, Ginny,” Harry called out.

“He’s already gone,” the girl replied, looked around. “Sorry.”

Harry glanced up at the shelves lining the walls and caught sight of a black tail tip disappearing behind a stack of plates. This is already becoming complete chaos, he thought, a bit anxious that John was wandering around on his own. If he causes trouble he better pin it on someone other than me.

“Charlie! Where’s Bill?” Ron bodily pulled Harry around the chairs to meet his brother half-way. “Harry’s got a piercing just like him.”

“Nice!” Charlie said, taking a quick look. “Right in your cartilage, huh? Did it hurt?”

“Just a pinch,” Harry shrugged, glowing a little as Charlie gave him a nod of approval.

“Bill got a new piercing a few months ago in the same place,” the man said. He looked around and leaned in, pulling the collar of his shirt down to show them the head of a snarling, tattooed dragon leering up from his shoulder. “I got this the same day. Bit of brotherly bonding, y’know? What mum don’t know won’t hurt her.” 

“Wicked,” they breathed in unison.

Charlie chuckled and stood back up. “I’m gonna say hi to mum. Bill’s under the weather. Might take him some food and crash, to be honest, but I’ll try and stick around for a bit.”

“It’s all good!” Ron shrugged casually. Charlie narrowed his eyes and suddenly lurched forward, pulling Ron into a bear hug and lifting his gangly little brother off the ground.

“It’s not every day we get to celebrate a new prefect in the family!” he cheered, “Following in my footsteps, eh? Gonna go after a position on the Quidditch team next?”

Ron squirmed and yelled, face red as Charlie continued to tease him. Harry smiled and edged around the dining room table, eager to put his back to the wall so he could watch people come in and out. He was silently dreading the moment Dumbledore would show up. He didn’t have any faith that he’d be able to keep his cool around the Headmaster.

The room was already filling up fast. As Harry took a spot a good distance from the fireplace, he shook hands with a few new Order members. Elphias Dodge, who he vaguely recognized but didn’t know from where, and Mundungus Fletcher, whom Harry smelled before he saw. Harry fought the urge to thank the man for taking so many drunken naps in the bushes of Privet Drive this summer.

As it was, Fletcher mumbled a few apologies and then tried to sell him an assortment of illegal potions ingredients stuffed in his trench coat. Harry sidled a bit closer to the cake.

“Alright, Harry?” Hermione appeared at his side, her face flushed. “There’s a lot of people. I’m surprised this many showed up!”

“Do you think Snape will make an appearance?”

Hermione burst out laughing, holding her stomach. “Can you imagine him eating this?” she giggled, gesturing to the cake.

“Do you think he’d sing? What if he’s secretly got a really good voice?" He grinned as Hermione dissolved into helpless laughter. He eyed the mostly empty bottle of butterbeer in her hand and stole it, taking a sip.

“Here, I wanted to give you this,” Hermione slipped him a small, book-shaped package wrapped in blue paper. “Happy Birthday, Harry!”

His heart swelled and he carefully tore the paper. Inside was a beautiful, pale gray leather-bound journal. The Potter crest was embossed in gold in the center, with the monogram HJP just below it.

“I was reading that heads of Houses typically keep journals, like a captain’s log, recording their adventures and life story for future generations. Exceptional discoveries go into the family grimoire, of course, but you’ve done so much already, I thought…” She shrugged, smiling a little sadly. “I journal all the time. It helps me…figure things out. And feel better. I just thought you might like something like that.”

Despite their argument earlier, he couldn’t help but stare at her in wonder. “Hermione, you really are amazing, you know that? I’ve just started journaling this summer.”

“Really?” Her brown eyes widened. “Just because?”

“To help with my dreams.” He glanced around, but no one was paying them any attention. “I do use a notebook for that, but it’s not nearly as nice as this. Thank you! This is so…thoughtful.” He traced the crest with his fingertips, feeling guilty again for their fight, for distrusting them, for still not quite forgiving her. Merlin’s pants, I really am a bad friend. Hermione’s trying and I can’t even bring myself to be honest with her.

Not knowing what else to do, he hugged her fiercely, to Hermione’s delight. “Next I’ll get you into reading,” she teased.

He smiled and tucked the journal in the inner pocket of his jacket. “What makes you think I’m not?”

She gasped and clutched his arm. “What! You’re reading? What are you reading?”

They fell easily into a rhythm of comparing all the books Harry had read that summer, which was not many, against Hermione’s lifetime bibliography. She physically clapped her hands over her mouth so as not to interrupt him when he told her about the magical mystery series Theo set him on.

“I love those books!” she squealed, actual stars shining in her eyes. “Harry! HARRY! We can have a bookclub! Oh my god," she grabbed him with both hands and shook him, "Tell me you read the newest one! Tell me what you thought of the ending!”

Her enthusiasm was contagious and Harry found himself laughing right along with her as they swapped opinions on the series. Ron, predictably, sidled up right when Harry was in the middle of talking.

“Do you think it’d be hard for me to pick up runes?” he asked, after Hermione explained the secret runic sub-plot that had been going over his head for three books. “I tried using a dictionary to translate them once, but I honestly don’t even know what language they were in.”

“You should Harry! Yes! I can tutor you!” Hermione was so excited she was practically vibrating in place.

“I kind of regret not taking it,” he admitted sheepishly. “Divination is just a waste of time.”

“It’s an easy pass!” Ron cried from behind him, “Who are you and what did you do with Harry Potter? Did I just hear you ask for private tutoring in Ancient Runes?”

He rolled his eyes good-naturedly, "But Ancient Runes does seem kind of cool. Bill must have a mastery in that, right? Because he does curse-breaking in Egypt? Maybe he can give me some tips.”

Ron stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Oh, it’s just like a second language Harry, except easier because nobody speaks Elder Futhark!” Hermione continued, ignoring Ron’s grimace, “You just have to learn to read it. I’m going to write home and have my parents owl my first textbook for you. You’ll need a fresh workbook though.”

“You’re the best, Hermione,” Harry said, to the girl’s unending delight. His thoughts drifted to Theo again. He was the best in the class, he knew, from Hermione’s end-of-year complaining. A sly plan took root in his head. Maybe, just maybe, I can pick Hermione's brain about Theo without bringing him up directly...

“I’m lucky to be tutored by the number one Ancient Runes student in school,” he said gratefully. “You should charge a rate.”

Hermione’s smile faltered. “Ah, well. I’m not the top student in runes. Well…maybe I am now…”

Harry watched her demeanor completely change in the space of a breath. Her complexion paled, and she started nervously massaging the palm of one hand. “What does that mean?” he said dumbly, trying to keep his worry off his face. “I thought you were the best in every subject?”

“Well…” she dropped her voice to a bare whisper. “Theodore Nott was the best at runes.”

Was.

What the fuck does that mean? Harry thought frantically, feeling like the floor had dropped out from under him. 

She glanced around, her eyes tracking the room as if she was afraid someone might hear her. “I can’t believe that happened to him. What a terrible tragedy…”

“Tragedy?” Ron muttered from his other side, “More like a blessing.”

“Ronald!” she snapped, “That’s cruel. He didn’t deserve to die.”

“What?” Harry said loudly. Too loudly. He didn’t care, his heart was starting to jackhammer in his chest. “What are you talking about? He…who died?”

She looked at him in surprise. “You don’t know?” Comprehension slowly dawned on her face. “Harry," she hissed, "did you not read the Prophet today?”

“I don’t have a subscription,” his voice sounded weak to his own ears. “I don’t know what you’re saying. Did something happen?”

Of course something happened, he realized with a sinking feeling. He remembered the shock of deranged rage that made him drop the popcorn bowl, the screaming in his ears, the image of a figure standing in front of him with his eyes burning white just before the world went black. Something happened to Lucius Malfoy last night. And Theo? Was Theo there? Was he visiting the Malfoys? Why do they think he’s dead? He can't be dead. That's crazy. I told Dumbledore to watch out for him. I told him he was in danger a week ago. 

“Holy shit, Harry,” Ron muttered from the other side. “This is like the biggest story of the year, besides the Tournament. How did you not see it?”

“It just happened yesterday,” Hermione hissed to Ron. “It’s not his fault.”

“Here.” A grizzled voice cut through their chatter, holding out a folded Daily Prophet. Mad-Eye Moody fixed his one eye on them while the other pointed out the back of his head. Harry froze in place, staring at the man he’d thrown out of his wards just a few days ago. Moody curled his lip, “Dark magic begets tragedy. Remember that.”

Then he limped away, heeding Mrs. Weasley’s call from across the room.

John jumped down on his shoulders. Harry didn't realize he was shaking until John's heavy weight settled on him soothingly. 

“Sit down,” Ron said, pulling a couple chairs out. "Mum’s gonna lose it if she sees you reading that. She took all our copies away this morning, said it’s a bad omen.”

“That’s why there’s not many people here,” Hermione whispered in Harry’s ear. “I thought Tonks would be gone as well. She does look tired, though. Maybe she was there all night.”

“Mum said she doesn’t think Kingsley or Dumbledore will be coming,” Ron agreed, “too busy with the Ministry.”

Harry sat and unfolded the newspaper under the table. Across the top it read SPECIAL EDITION - DAILY PROPHET.

The entire top half of the newspaper was one, giant picture. At first he struggled to make sense of what he saw, but gradually his eyes picked out shapes in the moving mass of chaos, and he realized he was looking at a fire whose flames were taking the shapes of monsters. Fiendfyre, Harry realized. 

Underneath the picture was a headline that made his heart stop.

NOTT FAMILY DECLARED DEAD. FIENDFYRE CONTINUES TO BURN IN LOCH BIRGER.

John’s claws sunk into his shoulder.

Ron and Hermione talked over his head.

“It’s just horrible. They said they think it was an accident. Fiendfyre is almost impossible to control, you know.”

“But we know Voldemort was the one who did it.”

“Well, most likely, yes, but Fudge isn’t going to say that, Ron!”

Harry skimmed the article, only a few phrases making sense to him. His vision was starting to tunnel, going black around the edges.

…burning since noon yesterday, July 31st.

…Nott, 15, was third in his year according to…

Nott Sr was famously accused and acquitted of murder…

He turned the page over. On the back there were two pictures, one of a severe-looking man scowling at the camera, dressed in formal black robes with a high collar. It was the man Harry remembered seeing in his vision, Theo’s father, Lord Magnus Nott.

The other was of Theo. It was clearly a cropped picture of him with someone else. In it, he paused and looked at the camera, not quite smiling, but not frowning either. Just a steady, long look at the lens. And then the person next to him bumped his shoulder and he turned, almost smiling. His hair was shorter than Harry had seen, falling around his ears and in his face in a perfectly mussed style. He was dressed in formal robes as well. Suddenly, Harry recognized the backdrop. This is from the Yule Ball. 

Over both pictures in huge, spiky letters was the heading, DEAD IN FIERY ACCIDENT, OR AN ASSAULT ON THE NOBLE HOUSE OF NOTT?

Harry’s hands started to go numb from how hard he was gripping the paper.

“Well, you said he was creepy, ‘Mione,” Ron whispered next to Harry’s ear. “You really don’t think his murdering, Death Eater father wasn’t raising him in the dark arts from birth?”

“I didn’t say he was creepy,” Hermione shot back. “I said he was kind of scary.”

“Same thing!”

“Those are not even on the same planet, Ronald,” Ginny interjected, leaning around Hermione to look at the newspaper.

“Yeah,” Hermione was red in the face, “not even close. You know Zacharias Smith, in Hufflepuff? He’s creepy. Nott was scary like…I don’t know. Quiet. Intense. Super smart. I could never tell what he was thinking.”

Ron nudged Harry, “Tell them that they’re not making any sense, mate. Scary and creepy are synonyms, right?”

“That’s not the connotation, Ron!”

Their bickering continued. John’s head ducked down next to Harry’s ear, his whiskers tickling his cheek. Harry thought he might have heard the whisper of his voice, but he couldn’t move. He could barely breathe.

John jumped off his shoulder and vanished. For a moment, Harry’s head spun like he might faint. All he could think of was the same words repeating over and over and over again.

What is the point?

He folded the newspaper over to look at the picture again, taking in the white blur of raging flames. A great dragon swooped out of the mass and burst into a rain of bats. Harry read the article closely. 

After repeated attempts to dowse their locations, a Ministry official spoke to someone close to the family and confirmed that their last known location was Nott Tower. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Auror, officially declared them dead at a press briefing this morning.

Harry’s skin felt stiff, like if he moved he’d crack apart, fall into little tiny decayed pieces on the ground. He could hear the soft whine of his breath, thin and reedy, escaping his throat in little gasps.

What is the goddamn point?

Harry saw him. He saw him through Voldemort’s eyes. Sirius warned Dumbledore that Harry saw him in danger, and a week later, Theodore Nott was dead.

I thought he would be safe. I thought he would survive. Did Dumbledore even try to help him? Snape would have gone to check on him, right?

“Where is Snape?” Harry mumbled the words and his friends didn’t hear him. That was okay, though. Harry’s mind was spinning out of control, and he wouldn’t have heard their answer. All he could hear was the faint sound of Theo’s voice in his head, already distant, like he was beginning to forget what he sounded like. 

Have you ever stood at night under a full moon?

I like talking to you.

I don’t care who you are.

This rune means something good will rise from the ashes…

His heart beat louder, louder, louder.

“He’s saving us the trouble, isn’t he?” Ron bumped his shoulder playfully. The paper tore out of his grip. “Maybe old snake face will go around and burn a couple more houses up before term starts.”

He doesn’t know, a small, sane voice said in his head.

“Ron!” Hermione hissed, smacking his leg, “That’s horrible! Don’t say that. Nott was our age.”

“Like that matters,” Ron whispered back. “Someone like that would be first in line to take the mark. He and Malfoy were probably competing for the honor. Oh, that reminds me!” Ron took the newspaper out of his hands and turned it around. “Look!" he said gleefully, "Malfoy’s dad is missing, too. I reckon he did it, and he’s on the run.”

He has no fucking clue what he’s talking about.

Harry licked his lips. “No,” he rasped, “I think Malfoy’s probably dead too.”

His friends stilled.

“Did you have a vision?” Hermione whispered, leaning in close.

“Last night," he nodded.

Lucius Malfoy’s face stared up at him from under the headline: MISSING! FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED. The figure from his vision took shape. Harry felt in his gut that he was right. “Malfoy attacked Voldemort.”

“What?” Ron huffed, “No way, mate. You must have it wrong.”

“That’s terrible,” Hermione gasped, covering her mouth. “Why would V-Voldemort kill his own allies? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Screaming echoed in his ears. Did Magnus Nott try to defect because of what Voldemort did to Theo?

“Well, I hope he got a good shot in at Malfoy if you’re right, Harry,” Ron said flippantly, “The world could do with two less dark wizards.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Harry snapped, crumpling the newspaper in his hands. “He had a family. Think about how Malfoy’s going to feel, knowing his dad’s probably being tortured to death, if not actually dead. All he ever talks about is his father. He's probably going to be fucking devastated."

“What the fuck, Harry?” Ron reeled back, eyes wide with disbelief. “Think about how Malfoy will feel? Who cares what that little ferret feels? He’s been nothing but rotten to us the whole time we’ve known him! If Lucius Malfoy is dead or being tortured, he's just getting what he deserves.”

“Excuse me if I don’t believe anyone deserves to lose their parents!” Harry snapped loudly. Something thundered overhead. Harry wasn’t sure if it was real or if it was just the blood rushing in his ears. “And excuse me if I’m not ready to throw a party to celebrate someone’s death!”

“I don’t know, I’m thinking about sending Voldemort a thank you card,” Ron sniped with an ugly glare. “One or two less Death Eaters to fight means more of us will be safe.”

“Ronald!” Hermione hissed, “Think before you speak for once in your life! Theodore Nott was innocent. We can’t take pleasure in-“

“Save it, Hermione,” he rolled his eyes. “Be honest with yourself - in a few years, that snake would have been one of Voldemort’s shiny new Death Eaters, probably hunting down muggleborns for sport. You might think it’s tragic, but I think we need every win we can get.”

The buzz of many voices in the room rose to an intolerable level. Harry looked around the room at all the faces he recognized, and the few he didn’t. Do they all believe that?  He wondered, and was scared to realize that they very well could. In their hearts, are they relieved that the Notts are gone? Does anyone care that Theo was innocent?

Was.

Out of his periphery, he saw Sirius transform out of his dog form in the doorway, panting. His eyes moved frantically over the crowd and his voice became part of the din.

Harry was panicking. He cast about for a lifeline, trying to ignore all the voices, wishing he was somewhere quiet, somewhere he could think. His ring warmed against his skin, and when Harry briefly closed his eyes, he imagined he could see through the eyes of the stag guarding Roebuck Falls, looking over the craggy hills at the base of the mountains. He imagined he could feel the calm blanket of the ward washing over his skin. He reached and reached for it, pressing the diamond ring into the meat of his palm until all the pain and pressure in his head suddenly vanished.

Harry felt cold, but he was no longer numb.

He opened his eyes.

“Ron," he said carefully, "answer me honestly. Do you really believe that?” Harry stared into Ron’s blue eyes, searching for shame or compassion or something. “Do you truly believe that someone like Theodore Nott deserved to die because he might have been forced to take the Dark Mark? It doesn't matter to you if someone's fifteen or seventy, if they practice the dark arts they're not worth saving?"

“I know you are not seriously this naive, Harry,” Ron sneered. His face had gone white with anger. “Of course I don't think we should waste our time saving dark wizards. Are you just picking a fight with me because you’re mad about earlier?”

“I want to know what kind of friend I have, Ron,” Harry’s voice rose, cutting over the gradually quieting noise in the room. “Why would you ever think I’d be happy to hear someone else from Hogwarts is dead because of Voldemort? Cedric-“

“Oh shut UP Harry!” Ron threw hands up, “You barely even knew Cedric Diggory! You didn’t know Nott at all! If you’re going to take every death in this war personally, you’re never going to make it!”

“He’s right,” Mad-Eye Moody growled.

“Shut your kid up, Molly!” Sirius yelled, fighting through the crowd to come to their side of the table. “Harry-"

“Leave him be,” Moody sneered, throwing up a shield to slow Sirius down. “Listen to your friend, Potter. Many more will die before this war is over. You need to toughen up.”

Harry tasted salt in his mouth. He swept his eyes over the room, seeing Mrs. Weasley open her mouth as if to shout, seeing Sirius bare his teeth at the shield and brandish his wand, seeing Moody take a swig of his flask and lick his lips as if to speak again.

The waterfall hissed in his ears. He could feel the cool, dark ward covering him like a shadow.

“Shut up,” Harry snapped. “Stay still.”

His words were a commandment. Everybody in the room fell silent. Their movements slowed. Only John slipped through the compulsion and stalked across the table, his eyes fixed on Ron.

Pressure built on his shoulders. Harry turned to Ron and looked his friend in the eye again. “The last enemy that shall be defeated is death. Do you know what that means, Ron? It means that the only thing we should be fighting against is death. I don’t care what side you think they’re on, I don’t care what house they’re in, or who their fathers are, or even if they’re Death Eaters - we don’t get to decide who deserves to die. That is not what I believe in.”

With an idle thought, Ron was released from the compulsion, and he immediately stepped back. “That’s real nice to say, Harry,” he said quietly, hand twitching toward his pocket, “but the other side doesn’t believe in that. They will kill you and us and every muggleborn they want to fulfill their agenda. You know who we’re fighting against, right? Why do I have to remind you of that?”

“We’re not fighting against the Slytherins, Ron,” he growled, “let me remind you that Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor.”

“Oh, so now you’re going to save everyone? Need to be the hero all the time, do you?” Ron rolled his eyes, but Harry could see the deep hurt in his face as tears pushed at the corners of his eyes.

“I’m not going to save anyone,” he countered. I already couldn’t. He felt his control over the room slipping. Sirius was breaking through it first. “And let me tell you, I’m not going to fight, either.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ron said, going still.

“If Voldemort comes after me, I’ll fight for my life. I’ll kill him to survive, I don't care. But I’m not going to join the Order. I’m not going to fight for Dumbledore. And I’m sure as hell not going to pick sides in this war if it means only some people become worthy of being saved!”

“There already is a side!” Ron shouted, curling his hands into fists. “Your side! We’re all here to protect you!”

“I don't need your protection," Harry asserted, sweeping his eyes over everyone in the room. "And I think I just told you what my position is. If you don’t agree with me, then you’re not on my side.”

And then he reached out with his hand and pulled on that cool air he could feel just behind his shoulder. He heard the dull roar of the falls. It was louder than the dull roar in the room as all the sound came back at once when Harry completely loosened his hold on the magic. 

Then he stepped sideways into the clear, mountain air of Roebuck Falls.

The sun on his face was a shock. Harry choked and stumbled into the nearest shadow. He was in the garden behind the house, near the lodestone. He could feel the hum of it in his bones and he took a deep breath, focusing on that hum until he could see straight again.

Shakily, Harry shed his jacket and withdrew his wand. He knew what he had to do, but for a second he didn’t know if he could.

How am I supposed to be happy when a dementor’s around?

The old memory swam through his head, a welcome reprieve from the jagged mess he was drowning in.

The patronus isn’t just happiness, Harry. Remus's voice echoed in his ears. It is protection, personified. When you get better at it, all it takes is remembering what makes you feel safe, and funneling that feeling into your magic. 

Harry gasped a few more breaths and forced his mind to the only thing that made him feel safe anymore. Pictured dark grey eyes. Remembered the feeling of Sirius’s hand in his hair.

“Expecto patronum.”

The stag did not burst into the air like it normally did. White mist coalesced in front of him and it formed from the feet up. Its lowered its head to him and waited patiently.

Harry fixed the image of Theo in his mind. Pictured his dirty blonde hair, his dark blue eyes, the black tattoos across his knuckles. Tears started falling over his cheeks and dripping off his jaw.

“Take this message to Theodore Nott.”

The stag opened its mouth obediently. He felt a little pulse of hope.

“Theo - this is Kingfisher. If you’re alive…” he cast around for something to say. If he was alive, he was probably hurt. He could be with Voldemort. Harry could be killing him sending him a patronus message.

But I have to.

“Just hold on,” he finished, fighting back more tears. “I’ll find you. Just wait for me.”

He waved his wand at the stag and it turned away, facing down the mountain. It took a few steps forward and for a second Harry felt soaring relief that Theo was alive, that he was somewhere reachable, that he would get his message and know he wasn’t alone-

And then the stag stopped.

“No,” Harry said.

It stomped its feet and turned back around, bowing its head to Harry again.

“Go to Theo,” he said, weakly.

The stag let out a low huff and tossed its head. It looked over its shoulder once more...and then it bowed its head again. Waiting, just like it had before.

For a command it can fulfill, he realized.

Harry slashed his wand at the patronus and let it shatter into mist. With it went what was left of his strength, and he fell to his knees, what little he’d eaten coming back up. He choked on acid in his throat and briefly wondered if he was dying, if this was what it felt like. His limbs didn’t want to respond to him. He was blinded by the tears in his eyes and the tearing, crushing pain in his chest. Harry spat on the ground and pulled away from the sick, struggling for air, and finally collapsed on his side as the world went black around the edges.

“Harry…”

Something soft brushed against his cheek. There were more words, but Harry was sinking. He was falling into the earth. Cedric was dead in front of him. Theo was screaming in the dark.

Voldemort was laughing. And Dumbledore was just sitting by, watching it all.

“Why couldn’t it be me?” he said. Or maybe he thought the words. He couldn’t feel anything, much less his mouth moving. “They had dreams. They wanted things. I never wanted much of anything. It would be better if it was me.”

Bile bubbled up in his stomach again. He lurched upright and then something slammed into him and Harry’s head connected with the lodestone.

Stars.

Harry’s body was on fire. He soared electric through the air, tasting static, seeing everything - the grounds the house the waterfall Sirius standing on the other side of the path. The guardian was staring him down. He was bugling and the sound the sound it was turning his ears to mush to water he was becoming part of everything and dissolving into-

Harry’s body wrenched back from the stone. It was not a conscious thought. His nervous system jerked his body away from the live wire lodestone in a last-ditch effort to save his life, but because it was only magic, Harry rolled on the stone path and blinked up at the sky, terrestrial again, no worse for wear except for the frantic beating of his heart.

And then a familiar face leaned over him.

John was trailing hairs in his face. Harry reached up and pinched them between his thumb and forefinger. One was black, and one was silver, curling together in a long ringlet.

“Get up,” the cat-sìth said. “Let Lord Black into your home.”

He spoke without any inflection, looking at Harry without fear or worry or anger. It was so odd, that Harry simply did as he was told and pressed the hairs to the lodestone.

This time, the shock of magic wasn’t a surprise, and - more importantly - he had a focus.

Harry let the hairs sink into the stone and grasped the wards. He didn’t need to say anything, his intention was enough. The wards parted like curtains, letting Sirius in. He could see Sirius jump as the guardian raised its head and bellowed, cutting the rock away to reveal the path that would bring him to Harry.

He pulled his hand back and got up on his knees. Harry’s thoughts felt very far away.

“Follow me,” John said. He was shedding his cat form as they walked. Harry spat off to the side a few more times, and the cat waited patiently for him to gather himself before they started walking again.

He led him to the falls.

“Drink,” he said.

The water tasted like rain. He splashed it over his face and hands, washing away the salty tear tracks and acrid residue in his mouth. Water lapped up over his knees, beginning to soak his jeans, but Harry didn’t care. He kneeled on the shore and sank his hands flat in the water, staring down at the smooth, many-colored stones just beneath the surface. Sediment whorled out beneath his hands when he curled his fingers into the soft sand.

“Pup?”

His hands were painfully cold from the water. All the physical sensation in his body was coming back in agonizing waves.

“This is where I found the hag stone,” Harry said. Water dripped off his nose in a steady stream. “It was almost like it was waiting for me to find it. I was trying to think of a gift I could get him, for helping me. He lent me a book about blood wards, you know, it was really old and probably valuable and as soon as I asked him about blood wards, just one time, he sent it to me. He didn’t even ask any questions. He just…did it.”

Sirius’s hands grasped his shoulders and pulled him out of the water. Harry was shaking too badly to move or resist. When Sirius bodily pulled him up the shore so they were seated together on the grass, he fell against his chest. He was too tired to move or to cry.

“Do you know what he did?”

Harry’s thoughts moved like honey. Sirius’s arms encircled him. He felt magic wash over him and dry his clothes.

“That was my magic,” John replied.

“You did that?”

“No.”

Harry didn’t have energy left to even think about listening. His mind wandered, thinking about Theo, thinking about Ron. Would Ron hate me if I was in Slytherin? He wondered. In second year, would he have started the rumor that I was the Heir of Slytherin? Is he only my friend because of who I am, or because of who he thinks I am?

“He copied my magic.”

“How on earth did he do that?”

“I’ve seen that compulsion before. He used it on me, to keep me safe.”

Safe.

“Do you think that if I was in Slytherin, he would have been safe?”

Sirius froze at the sound of his voice. “Harry,” he tightened his arms around him and pressed Harry close to his chest. He could feel the steady beat of Sirius's heart under his cheek. “It’s not your fault,” he said softly. “There’s nothing-“

“But I was supposed to be in Slytherin.”

The idea had been forming in the back of his mind for some time. All summer, he’d played with this idea, trying to picture how different his life might be if he’d just gone where the hat wanted him to go. They were harmless daydreams, little fantasies where he pictured his rivalry with Malfoy becoming less bitter, more friendly over time. He wondered if Crabbe and Goyle had any redeeming qualities at all. He tried to imagine what Tracey Davis was like, the only halfblood in Slytherin that he knew of. Would they be friends, too? 

And then, of course, there was Theo. 

What was the point? The refrain became a wailing in his head. Why did I even meet him if he was just going to die? Why, why, why...

“The hat wanted me there," Harry whispered. "But I begged for Gryffindor. I was afraid of what everyone would think of me.” Sirius’s arms tightened as his voice broke. He made little shushing noises over him, but Harry couldn’t stop, he needed to say it, needed Sirius to hear it so he would see that Harry was right. “If I had been true to myself and gone where I was supposed to be, maybe he would have asked me for help. Maybe he would have come to me if he was in danger. Maybe I would have known where to find him if I had just - just -"

His voice gave out, throat clicking helplessly as he tried and failed to put more words to the grief inside of him.

“Shh, Harry,” Sirius carded his fingers through his hair, as he started to dissolve. “I’m so sorry, pup. I’m so, so sorry…”

---

Sirius

Harry cried for a long time.

Oddly enough, Sirius wasn’t flustered by his tears. He held his godson in his arms and moved with the tide of his pain, keeping him anchored. Sirius knew this pain. He had been here before, had learned to live with it cutting at him every waking moment, so he had a fair idea of what to do to provide some comfort. And he knew, miserably, that there wasn't much comfort he could provide. Harry just needed to survive this day, and the next, and the next, until he learned to live alongside his grief. 

After awhile, he managed to drag Harry to his feet and apparate him back to their apartment. He summoned a calming draught and that helped Harry find some measure of control, though his eyes were still glassy when he stumbled off to take a shower.

Sirius took the time to change out of his sandy jeans and damp t-shirt. He was half dressed in his bedroom, idly wondering if the Order meeting was still going to start at five, when Dumbledore’s bright phoenix patronus burst through the wall.

“Sirius.”

“Fuck you,” he snarled, lazily throwing sparks at it.

“Bring Harry back to Grimmauld Place. I’d like to speak with him immediately.”

“Like hell I will,” he muttered, groaning as he bent over to pull on his socks. He didn’t bother sending a message back. Dumbledore would either wait for him or he wouldn’t. Sirius shuffled back into the kitchen and went through the cabinets until he found some firewhiskey. He took a quick sip, trying to head off the pressure in his head. He just wanted to take a long nap as Padfoot at the foot of Harry’s bed and forget about this entire fucking day.

“He curdled all the milk,” John said, startling him.

Sirius closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, praying for patience. “What?”

The cat hopped up on the counter and sniffed the whiskey. “Pour me some, would you?”

Sirius didn’t even have it in him to question that. He removed a shallow bowl from the cupboard and poured the liquor in. John lapped at it, shivering from nose to tail.

“Ah, fuck me,” the cat muttered, cleaning his muzzle with one paw. “You’re rich. Buy finer whiskey.”

“Could you tell me what the fuck you mean, Harry curdled the milk?” Sirius drank again straight from the bottle and then put it away. He set some coffee on to brew.

“Harry did faerie magic,” John explained, baring his teeth a little as he wiped fiercely at his face. “His words were binding. Didn’t you feel it?”

“When he forced everyone in the room to be silent? Yeah, I felt that.” His heart thrummed nervously in his chest as he remembered the crushing helplessness of that moment, frozen and unable to speak while Harry argued with Ron. It reminded him of the way Harry took hold of the wards at Godric’s Hollow, his eyes shining white, power rippling off him in waves.

He has no idea how powerful he is, Sirius thought. He has no clue how dangerous some of this magic is. Does he even know what he’s doing? Can I call it accidental magic?

“He was recognized by your house,” John said, more quietly. “I felt it. He felt it. That’s why he could use that magic. Grimmauld Place is his domain, as much as it is yours. Like all the fae, he commands what he is part of.”

Sirius let out the heaviest sigh he’d ever felt in his life, tipping his head up and back.

“John…I have no fucking idea what that means. All I know is, I can’t send him back to Hogwarts like this.” Anxiety squirmed in his gut as Sirius prepared to ask the question that had been plaguing his thoughts for days now, since the first time Harry collapsed. He looked the cat-sìth in the eye. “I can’t send him back to Hogwarts alone.”

John blinked slowly.

“He won’t be,” the cat said, and tore his gaze away. Sirius thought he sounded almost shy. “If he’ll have me, at least.”

Sirius felt relief wash over him all at once. “Oh, thank Merlin,” he said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you said no. You accept first born children as payment, don’t you?”

John snorted and lapped at the whiskey some more. “I’m not even going to respond to that,” he groused, “that’s nothing more than human propaganda.”

Sirius managed to drink a cup of coffee before Harry was finally out of the shower. He waited for the sound of shuffling to stop and bedsprings to groan and grow silent again, before he approached the door and knocked.

“Come in…”

Harry was curled up under his blankets, hair still damp. Sirius dried it with a charm and spent a few moments running his fingers through his hair, just keeping Harry company.

“I have to go back to Grimmauld Place,” he said eventually, “but I’ll be back as quick as I can. John will stay here with you.”

Green eyes found his, wide with worry.

“They can’t do anything to me,” Sirius smiled. “They’re in my house.”

“Okay…” Harry sighed and closed his eyes. “Try to find out what happened for me.”

Sirius’s heart grew heavy as a few stray tears tracked down his godson’s face. He wiped them away gently. “I will, pup.”

John curled up on the pillow behind Harry’s head and Sirius nodded to him. “Come get me if something happens.”

Then he closed the curtains in Harry’s room and apparated back to his mother’s house.

It wasn’t half-past five, and the city was busier than ever. Sirius moved quickly through the streets. He hadn’t bothered disguising himself and he was keenly aware of how stupid it was to do this twice in one afternoon.

Next they’ll be pinning the fire on me, he thought bitterly. And Harry will go burn down the Daily Prophet in retribution.

The thought of that brought a grim smile to his face. That’s probably irresponsible of me. I shouldn’t encourage him. But the sentiment was half-assed at best. Sirius knew himself well, and he was already running through drills in his head to try and teach Harry some principles of wandless spellcasting. There was no use pretending he didn’t have power to wield, it would be more irresponsible to ignore his obvious gift for wandless magic.

When he stepped through the door of Grimmauld Place, he heard many voices diffused throughout the house. He listened for a moment, clocking several bodies upstairs in the kids’ rooms, and a much smaller crowd in the dining room.

“Sirius.” A hand reached out and waved him into the sitting room. He swallowed, mouth gone dry to be alone again with Moony. Their heavy, interrupted conversation from earlier hung over his head like a sword. But, of course, Remus was a better man than that, and he only asked, “How’s Harry?”

“Terrible,” he said, honestly.

Remus scratched his head, “Ron’s not doing well either. Hermione said they all had some kind of fight earlier, which makes sense. When I spoke to Harry, he seemed really…sad.”

“He’s been through a lot,” Sirius agreed, trying to stay vague for Harry’s sake. “He’s changed. I think he’s afraid his friends won’t understand that.”

Remus nodded. “Well, let me tell you what’s been going on since you left. Everyone decided that Harry had a bout of accidental magic, which silencd the room. Only a few people believe it was a spell you taught him-“

“Let me guess,” he snorted, “Moody and Molly.”

Remus cracked a smile, “But no one knows how he managed to disappear. It wasn’t apparition, and it wasn’t a portkey. He just…vanished.”

“Fuck me,” Sirius dragged his fingers through his hair. He didn’t even know what Harry did. “I guess I’ll just say it’s some Black family secret.”

“You don’t know how he did it?” Remus asked sharply.

“Shhh,” he dropped his voice, “Moony, I absolutely promise, if you have my back in this, I will tell you everything.” And, to prove it, he took out a heavy iron token that would let Remus past the dragon of Black Roc, clasping it in his palm.

Everything unsaid hovered between them as they made eye contact. Their conversation in Reggie's room echoed in his head. 

You’re going to hate me when you know what I did, Moony.

I could never hate you, Padfoot. Part of me didn’t even hate you when I thought you betrayed James and Lily. That just made me hate myself even more.

“Pads…” Remus murmured, pocketing the token. He glanced up through his bangs, smirking, “I’ve seen you pull that trick a hundred times before. Shadow-walking, isn’t that what you called it?”

“An ancient Black tradition,” Sirius agreed. His throat tightened when Remus touched his shoulder and they walked together to the dining room. “Harry’s a natural.”

Albus pierced him with his gaze as soon as he walked through the doors. “Where’s Harry?” he asked.

“Sleeping,” Sirius replied curtly. “He’s had a long twenty-four hours, if you recall.”

“Did something else happen?” Kingsley said. He looked exhausted. He was still wearing his red auror robes. "Besides this incredible display of 'accidental magic' we were told of."

Sirius kept his face impassive and let Albus decide what to share. 

“Harry had a vision last night,” the Headmaster answered. “It was quite violent. I'm sorry, Sirius. You're right. Harry has been through enough."

“Violent?” Arthur’s head snapped to Sirius, who was so surprised by Albus's apology that he just blinked blankly at the man. “You didn’t have to bring him if he-“

“He wanted to come,” he said quickly. “Trust me, I tried to keep him home.”

“Do you think Harry’s actions tonight are a direct consequence of yesterday’s vision?”

Sirius reeled back, momentarily stunned by how direct the question was. Albus usually talked in riddles, eventually getting you to admit more than you wanted and sending you off with a sherbet lemon for your trouble. But Albus looked nearly as exhausted as Kingsley. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and he was wearing muted navy robes. Sirius began to feel a bit more optimistic about this conversation.

“I think Harry was overwhelmed by several things,” he said, rethinking his strategy on the fly. “He was already upset by a fight he had with Ron and Hermion. He’s been feeling anxious about Theodore Nott all week, knowing he was attacked by Voldemort a few days ago. I think all that together pushed him over the edge.”

Albus sighed and dropped his head into his hands. It was a rare show of defeat. Sirius watched Arthur and Kingsley exchange worried looks. Charlie Weasley chewed on a toothpick. Tonks’ hair turned sour green and she sunk down in her chair.

Sirius remained standing. The sooner he could get out of here, the better.

“Harry is so compassionate,” Albus murmured. “I’m sure he’s furious with me.”

Oh definitely, Sirius thought.

“What could you have done?” Kingsley pointed out shrewdly, “Nott Tower was impregnable. Magnus Nott almost never made a public appearance. We simply had no way to contact-“

“What about Snape?” Sirius asked, glancing apologetically at the auror. “He’s…he was Nott’s head of house. And a spy to boot. Couldn’t he have…?”

Albus shook his head, “I shared the information with him, but Severus cannot go where he is not invited. We had no idea something like this would happen so soon. I can only guess that a catastrophic event occurred between Lord Nott and Voldemort after young Theodore was attacked, and Voldemort retaliated in turn.”

“What about Malfoy?” Charlie asked, “He’s missing, so it must be connected.”

“I learned from Cornelius that the Malfoys and the Notts were allied,” Albus replied, cleaning his spectacles with the hem of his robe. “He was the last person to see Lucius Malfoy alive.”

“You think he’s dead?” Remus said.

“I believe so,” Albus sighed. “The wards around Malfoy Manor are completely locked down. Cornelius summoned me, out of desperation I believe, for my assessment. I sensed Voldemort’s presence in those wards, though I did not tell Cornelius that, lest he think I was trying to manipulate him.” He began to rub his temples. “Has Harry said anything more about his vision last night? Does he remember anything?”

“No,” Sirius shook his head. “He doesn’t even remember saying Malfoy’s name. I heard him say it, but nothing else.”

Tense silence settled over the room.

“Do you think Severus is in danger?” Arthur said finally.

Albus paused a moment. “Yes,” he replied gravely. “Magnus Nott, Lucius Malfoy, and Severus Snape are Voldemort’s strongest allies. If he would murder Magnus, and presumably Lucius as well, Severus will need to be very, very careful going forward.”

“Then call him back!” Arthur cried, bringing his fist down on the table. “He’s a spy, Albus. We can’t leave him out on his own when the threat is so high. Bring him in!”

“Severus makes his own decisions,” the headmaster sighed. “I can only advise him to mind his limits.”

“That’s bullshit, Albus!” Arthur jumped to his feet, sending his chair tumbling to the ground. “Tell him now! Tell him he’s in danger. If he’s captured by Voldemort and tortured, we don’t have the power to find him, much less save him!”

“Severus is safe for now…” Albus held up a placating hand, “Please, rest assured, I would never allow him to walk into certain death.”

“Are you certain the Notts are dead?” Sirius cut in, remembering his promise to Harry. “Couldn’t they be running?”

“I saw Lucius before he disappeared,” Kingsley said, looking at Sirius tiredly. “He didn’t believe they were dead at first, but he seemed to indicate that they were bonded. He reacted to the news of their death like a man coming to terms with what he already knew to be true. He would have felt that they were gone if they joined Houses, isn’t that right?”

Reluctantly, Sirius nodded. His father had been aligned with the Wilkes family, and they were all killed when Sirius was in his second year. He remembered the way his father trailed around the house for months after that, looking lost and drinking himself to death.

“But we also brought an Unspeakable in, a seer.” Kingsley dragged a hand over his face, “Fudge believes that she confirmed their deaths, but I…am less convinced.”

Sirius perked up, but tried to keep his voice even. “Oh?”

“She said, the House of Nott lies entombed.”

“That sounds like dead to me,” Charlie drawled.

“Yes,” Kingsley shrugged, “but shouldn’t they be burned to ash, or - I don’t know, turned to dust? To say the House is entombed…I don’t know. I don't trust seers. They speak in riddles.”

They were quiet for a moment, and then Albus asked, “Does the fire still burn?” 

“Yes. Our best guess is that will burn out before midnight. It seems to be tied to the wards somehow, and once everything in it is gone, it will go, also.”

“Once the fire’s gone, will the Ministry search for survivors?”

“I will,” Kingsley replied archly, “though I fear it is hopeless, I will try.”

“We should reconvene after that,” Albus decided, pressing his palm to the table. “Sirius, will Harry be ready to come back tomorrow?”

He swelled with anger, remembering the way Harry had crumbled at the shore. When is it enough? Sirius wondered. “We will see,” he said stiffly. “I should go now. Unless there’s anything else..?”

Albus waved him away, to his surprise. “We all need some rest,” the headmaster murmured. “We have another long night ahead of us. Other conversations...can wait.”

Sirius exchanged a look with Remus before turning away, not willing to question the good fortune of a short meeting. He was already picturing a nice long nap in his future.

But before he could make it out the door, a quiet voice stopped him in his tracks. “Hey, Sirius?”

Hermione was sitting on the stairs. “Hey Hermione,” he said awkwardly. “Are you okay?”

She looked wrecked, and he instantly felt terrible. “Sorry,” he said, “I meant, how are you holding up?”

“Better than Ron is,” she said lightly, “and Harry.”

“You’re their rock,” he said softly, resting against the banister. “It’s not easy.”

She snorted and shook her head. “I wanted to give you this.” She held out a stack of gifts wrapped in shiny paper. He shrank them down and carefully stowed them in his pockets, moving slowly to give the girl time to ask whatever she wanted to ask.

Eventually, she sucked in a shaky breath. “Will he…come back?”

Sirius considered that for a moment. If it was his choice, Harry would probably never walk through the doors of Grimmauld Place again. This house is fucking cursed, he thought sourly.

But Harry wasn’t bitter and jaded like him. He was an optimist. Forgiving.

“I’m sure he will, but maybe not soon." Hermione crumpled a little and he hastened to add, “Harry has changed a lot, Hermione. Not even because he wanted to…but because so much has happened to him. He just needs to know if his friends will be by his side no matter what.” Hermione blinked rapidly, and pressed the heel of one hand to her face. Sirius wilted. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean-"

“No,” the girl wrapped her arms around her middle and bowed her head. “It’s okay. I’m just-" she laughed brokenly, “I know what you’re saying. It's just...I was afraid of that. I don't want-” she hiccupped and pushed her face into her elbow, "I don't want to lose him. He was my first friend, too."

He reached out hesitantly and patted her shoulder. “Just give him a few days,” he said lamely. “Lily always said, I need the patience of a saint to deal with you four, and I’m no saint.” He swallowed against the old pull of old memories and focused on the sniffling girl in front of him who was real and in pain. She cracked a small smile for him though, and Sirius felt a little better. “You don’t have to be a saint, Hermione,” he said gently. “Take care of yourself before you take care of anyone else, okay?”

“Okay,” she said faintly. “Okay…”

Sirius retraced his steps back to his favorite apparition point in the nearest park and cracked back into the comfort of his own flat. He emptied his pockets of the gifts, resizing them as he went, and kicked his shoes off.

The shift to Padfoot was a relief. The world became a mosaic of sight and sound. He scratched Harry’s door open and quietly sniffed along the bed, sensing sleep and sad and pain and cat. He stifled a sneeze, gently pulled the blanket back up over Harry’s chest, and then curled up on the floor half-way under the bed. Sleep claimed him instantly, and the dreams followed soon after.

Prongs was racing beside him, his hooves and Padfoot’s paws thrumming along the earth like the sound of distant thunder. Running, running, running…towards caves in the distance.

Entombed. Kingsley’s voice echoed in his dreams. Entombed…

Notes:

I can already hear people wondering why John didn't rip anyone a new one as Harry was relentlessly beaten down in this chapter. Well, John's playing the long game. He's six hundred years old. He never forgives, and he never forgets...also, he was remarkably quiet in this chapter even while I was writing it.

Okay, so here's the odyssey I went through trying to write this beast, which is long as hell. First, I wrote a chapter, it was 11k words. And I read it and read it, and I thought "What the fuck, they aren't even at Grimmauld Place yet, I can't post this." And then I realized that the scene in my head that I wanted to come next needed to wait and come later in the story.

So I wrote a new chapter. From scratch. And that became this chapter, and while that happened I had a week and a half nightmare problem at work to deal with that just killed my vibe. Then I had a migraine. And then I finally finished this bad larry this weekend/today. All told, I think I wrote and edited over 30k words in the making of this chapter.

Hopefully, now that the hard part is behind me (setting up the big fight with Harry/Ron/Hermione) everything else will flow much easier.

Chapter 15: Changeling

Summary:

Harry treks to the summit of his journey, guided by the answers to seven questions.
Meanwhile, John asks, "Whose idea was it to buy a teenager a broom that can fly so damn fast?"

Notes:

Thank you for the literal outpouring of support for the last chapter! I worked really hard on this one and the next. Much like Harry in this chapter, I needed to get my nose pointed in the right direction so that everything starts to fall together. My hope is to publish the next chapter a lot sooner, seeing as I kind of wrote them at the same time. I hope you enjoy what's coming!!

i.

Harry blinked awake.

The room was gray. Pale sunlight hinted through the false windows, just an edge of something bright creeping up the horizon. The world was not yet in color. Long, slow breaths sounded under the bed. The world was not yet awake.

His body felt stiff. Harry opened his mouth and stretched his aching jaw. Even his hands were curled into tight fists under the pillow and he spread his fingers, cracking his knuckles.

Harry rolled over and tried to fall back asleep, but his body was conditioned to jerk awake immediately. Up, boy, UP! Hesitation was dangerous. If he wanted more time to relax in bed then he needed to be up even earlier, before the dawn.

There was no Aunt Petunia here, but it didn’t matter. Harry’s skin was buzzing with energy.

“Sorry, Snuffles,” he whispered, rolling out of bed. The dog lifted his head and yawned hugely, showing off big white teeth. Even knowing it was Sirius, Harry’s pulse fluttered at the sight of them. “I’m going to do my morning workout,” he continued, looking at the dog’s brown eyes. “If you want some more sleep, you should probably go.”

Sirius whined low in his throat.

“I’ll come get you if I need you,” Harry promised. I won't though, because I’m fine. And he was fine. He felt pretty normal, actually. He was numb all the way through. Harry knew that feeling well.

Sirius snuffled behind his ear and heaved out from under the bed. Harry waited until he heard claws click all the way down the hallway and the other door close before shutting his own.

He ran hands over his face, scrubbing sleep from his eyes. Harry knew he didn’t have to try to be quiet in Sirius’s apartment, but he couldn’t break so many years of muscle memory in just a few weeks, and tip-toed over to his wand. He cast a silencing charm, and then he finally let out a breathy sigh.

John snored under the covers, twisting until just the tip of his tail was sticking out.

Harry quirked a smile, walked to the center of the floor, and started to stretch.

By the time he was finished, peachy morning daylight flooded his room, dying the walls pink and orange. Once again, Harry wished he could open a window. He felt claustrophobic, despite the spaciousness of his room, and all he wanted was stick his head outside and feel the morning breeze on his face, let himself look up at the vast, empty sky and remember that he was a small, insignificant part of a much larger world.

It sounded grim, but that thought always gave Harry some peace of mind.

John was curled up on top of the covers, lazily grooming his face while keeping one eye fixed on Harry, bearing a striking resemblance to Mad-Eye Moody. Harry smirked and turned to the wardrobe to grab some clean clothes when something gold glimmered at the corner of his eye. He glanced up and froze.

Dawn was fully breaking now, washing the room in brighter yellows that caught on the glossy, shimmering images of Theo’s postcards taped to his wall.

Harry dropped his hand from the wardrobe and stumbled closer, looking up at every picture. They looked especially beautiful in this light. That familiar tug of curiosity struck the hollow emptiness he’d been fighting all morning like a bell. Before yesterday, the promise of a bigger world was taking shape in his mind as more than just a wish. It had become a goal. A dream. He wanted to go everywhere, see everything. Not only muggle cities that he’d heard about, but the secretive magical communities hidden in plain sight. The thought of that dream filled him with uncontrollable joy.

Well, yesterday it did.

Harry reached up and lifted the edge of one postcard to take it down, fighting back the memory of Theo waving at the London skyscrapers. Magic is all around us, in every thing - living or dead.

Heat crawled up his throat and over his face, consuming him, filling his mouth with the taste of blood. The back of his head exploded in kaleidoscope of pain. Harry gasped raggedly and dropped his gaze to the floor, pulling his hand from the postcard to press against the wall for support. Tears mixed with sweat and dripped off his nose onto the floor.

The sunlight shifted, faded, turning the walls dusky blue. Goosebumps crawled over his skin.

“John,” he whispered, still blinking tears out of his eyes. “What happens when we die?”

Silence. Harry tapped his heel on the floor and bit his lip harshly, hoping that the cat wouldn’t make him look at him. He didn’t think he could look anyone in the eye right now, couldn’t let someone see how utterly destroyed he felt over a half-realized dream, a fantasy that was never even real.

You didn’t even know him, Ron’s voice echoed in the back of his head.

“You've mentioned the veil,” he continued, sniffing and clearing his throat. “You talk about it like there’s some place that people go when they die. If you can summon souls back to this world, then they must retain their memories of who they are, right? So is there something there? Is there…heaven? Is it a good place for them, on the other side? Or is it just…” He pictured ghostly echoes in the graveyard and swallowed. “Or is it nothing?”

John was silent for another beat. Harry heard threads popping as he kneaded the blanket with his claws.

“Some would say that of all the creatures in this world, I am best suited to answer your question, Harry,” John replied carefully. “When your godfather wanted to call me Reaper, I thought he had seen through my disguise. Cat-sìth are born when a soul cries out in fear as it stands upon the precipice. We are created to guide souls to the veil between worlds so they can cross over. We are, in effect, reapers of the dead.”

Harry wrapped his arms around his chest, turning to face his friend. John looked directly at him, expressionless.

“When the dead are too afraid to step beyond, but they are not strong enough to stay behind, a cat-sìth comes to find them. We are feared because we walk so close to the end of the world. Even the other fae hate us, because our arrival means the end of a life, the absence of someone loved.” The cat turned his face, staring at spot on the floor. “And though I have watched many cross over, I do not know what lies beyond.”

His voice turned wistful, “When I was young, before I met Johanna, I imagined that our world was like a cracked cup. Full of life, but with an everlasting drip that pulled living things down into what we call death, filtering us back to where we came from. An eternal rain keeps the cup full, new life replaces the old, and eventually all things leave us and this world.

“Who knows where our cup spills out? Perhaps we return to the bottomless chaos where we originated. Perhaps we are born again in a brand new world. Perhaps some souls get to return in a new body, clawing their way back to terrorize the living.” John shook his head, “I thought I was so clever with my vision of life and death. Then I actually lived in the world and realized that I was utterly wrong. The boundary between the two is not clear, and it is not absolute. Nothing is forgotten. Everything changes. Nothing is remembered. Everything stays the same. That’s all true, Harry, and it makes no sense to me. Maybe our cup is just pouring into the top of our world. Maybe death is nothing but a change in form. Maybe there is no cup at all.” The cat flattened his ears against his head, “I don’t have the answer for you. I’m sorry.”

Harry sat next to him, wiping ineffectually at his face with the neck of his shirt. “I actually feel better that you don’t know,” he admitted shakily. “It makes me feel…less…alone.”

John leaned against him.

ii.

Sirius’s assurances echoed in his ears. You don’t have to do this. Just say the word and we’ll go. We can leave at any point.

Harry had been so annoyed with his overt concern that morning, but now, with Hogwarts looming overhead, apprehension coiled in his stomach like a snake. Harry literally hadn’t taken one step over the wards, and he wanted to go back.

“Harry?”

The wind buffeted Sirius, snapping his thick brown cloak at the knees. It was unexpectedly cool for a summer’s afternoon. Spotty clouds rolled swiftly across the sky and cast fleeting shadows over the grounds.

“I really wish John was here,” Harry blurted out, forcing his feet to move. He pressed close to his godfather and repressed a shiver. “I can’t believe he has to wait for September 1st.”

“The fae are sensitive to invitations,” Sirius said quietly, falling into step with him as they paced toward the castle. His gaze was dark and discerning, sweeping over the grass like he expected assailants at any moment. “Hogwarts is a fortress in more way than one. It protects you from all the wicked creatures of our world, and the fae are among the most terrifying. Luckily, they don’t often want anything to do with us.”

Harry sighed and curled his hands into fists. His limbs were shaking after his hard workout, and he hadn't eaten much. He focused on the pounding pulse in his throat as they climbed up the path.

“Are you going to become his familiar?” Sirius asked.

Harry looked up, stunned to find nothing but knowing expectation in his godfather’s expression. “I - uh, I want to.” Harry stumbled and tore his gaze away, focusing on the ground. “But…I don’t know what I could offer him. Familiars exchange gifts to - you know - solidify their bond? And I just…I don’t know if…if I have anything to give to him.”

He worried his lip, falling into the weeks-old debate he’d been having with himself. Why would John stick around this long if he wasn’t at least open to the idea of becoming familiars? But why would he choose me? And what could I ever give to him? John’s a six hundred year old faerie that moonlights for Gringotts, he probably doesn’t even want another familiar, much less me.

“You should ask him,” Sirius suggested. He was staring up at the castle, one hand floating near Harry’s arm to catch him if he tripped again. “I think he’ll tell you what you need to hear.”

“I thought you were afraid of him,” Harry said breathlessly. “You did just say that he’s one of the most terrifying creatures in the world.”

Sirius did not laugh, or smirk, or disagree with him. A figure dressed in white stepped outside the tall double doors at the foot of the castle. Even from a distance, he was dazzling.

“I am afraid of him,” Sirius said grimly, his eyes fixed on the Headmaster. “But there are wicked creatures inside the castle, too.”

Harry couldn’t disagree.

iii.

“Welcome Harry, Sirius,” Professor Dumbledore bowed to each of them. He was wearing bright white robes embroidered with wildflowers. His beard was as long as ever, the tail tucked into a golden belt, and he was wearing an atrociously bright pair of white leather boots that glimmered like snow in the sunlight. “Thank you for joining me for tea.”

Up in his office, three chairs and a low tea table were waiting for them. Harry sat closest to the door and glanced at the window behind Dumbledore’s head. He wondered if he’d bounce on the ground like Neville did if he threw himself out of it.

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Harry,” Dumbledore said quietly as he poured tea from the central teapot into three cups. Harry was jaded enough to wonder if this was deliberate, to show that the tea wasn’t laced. “If you would find comfort in walking the grounds today, you are welcome to stay for as long as you like."

Harry took the cup and decided he wasn’t that jaded. Chamomile. “Thanks,” he rasped. “I would like that.”

The Headmaster smiled at him, and for a moment they were silent but for the clink of china.

And then it began.

“You know, Harry, the thing I most admire about you is your heart.” Harry could not help the way he warmed all over from the compliment, and he also could not suppress a twin feeling of disgust. Are you really that desperate for affection, Potter?

Dumbledore went on, his voice warm and sincere, “You truly care for the people around you, even if they are different, even if you don’t have a reason to care for them. It’s a rare quality.”

He could see where this was going. Stifling a sigh, Harry looked up to catch the man’s gaze and level with him, but - maddeningly - he wouldn’t look at him. The Headmaster peered down at his tea, stirring the contents idly with one finger hovering above the rim. Harry tightened his grip on the teacup.

“I truly wish you hadn’t seen what happened to Theodore Nott, Harry,” Dumbledore added sorrowfully. “No one should have to listen to someone in pain, knowing they can’t help.”

Harry forced himself to put the cup safely on the table, squeezing his hands together.

“It was terrible,” he agreed hollowly, staring right at the Headmaster. “I take it…you couldn’t help him?”

His throat ached with the effort to keep his words questioning and soft, instead of sharp and accusatory like he wanted them to be.

The Headmaster sighed, “I’m afraid everything happened too quickly for us to help. Though I assure you, my boy, I can’t stop asking if I could have done more.” Dumbledore sank in his seat, raising one long-fingered hand to partially cover his face. “I asked Severus to do everything in his power to set eyes on Theodore as soon as possible, but Magnus Nott was a paranoid man. Almost no one was allowed inside his home, and Severus had never been invited before, so it was not as simple as making a house call. I’m afraid all I could do was put my faith in him and trust that Voldemort would not actually kill the child of one of his oldest followers.” He sighed deeply, “I’m afraid I will regret that decision for the rest of my life.”

Harry frowned, “But the Ministry was raiding all kinds of estates a few years ago, like the Malfoys. Couldn’t you have used them to force your way in? Send a team of Aurors to look for dark objects and then-“

“I’m afraid that law was repealed, Harry,” Dumbledore cut him off gently. “Just eight months after it was enacted. It was the first time I ever saw Magnus Nott at a Wizengamot vote, in fact.” He paused as if to give him a chance to speak, but Harry just stared at his hands, forcing them to stay still. “Please do not shoulder any of this burden, Harry,” the Headmaster implored. “I take the blame. Theodore Nott was my student, and I failed to protect him. The only way I can atone is to try and build bridges for those who might be in similar positions in the future. I do not want to suffer another loss.”

Pressure mounted behind his eyes and Harry couldn’t help releasing a couple shaky breaths as he struggled to control himself.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “I don’t want to either.”

The carpet was a rich mosaic of red, purple, and gold. Harry stared at its plush surface and counted every triangle until his face didn’t feel as hot. The silence stretched on and on. Sirius fidgeted next to him, but Harry felt relaxed. Or maybe just resigned. This wasn’t his doing, after all. Dumbledore was the one who called him here. Harry wasn’t ready to have this conversation - or really, any conversation, not after what happened yesterday. Not only because of the fiendfyre attack, but also because Ron and Hermione’s words were still fresh in his mind.

Dumbledore is not your enemy.

Harry twisted the gold Potter ring over his finger and wondered if that was true. Wondered if he was just being an emotional, selfish, short-sighted child who was unfairly blaming the Headmaster for making hard decisions during a war that Harry was caught up in, whether he liked it or not.

“May I ask you a question, Harry? And please, if at any point you don’t want to answer, or you wish to leave, you are free to do so. I don’t want to cause you any more pain.”

He wished that Dumbledore would stop talking with such relentless kindness. 

“Why did you leave your relatives the way that you did?” He looked up. Dumbledore’s face was open, curious, concerned. “Why didn’t you wait for Arthur and others from the Order to come get you?”

“Sirius and I planned to leave,” Harry answered flatly. “The dementors just…hurried us along.”

“Why not leave sooner?” The Headmaster said, his eyes moving from Harry to Sirius. “I imagine you two were in contact shortly after you left Grimmauld Place?”

“I was getting the safehouse ready for us,” Sirius replied smoothly.

Dumbledore sighed, sitting up straighter. “I apologize, what I mean to ask is, when did I lose your trust, Harry?” He peered at Harry over his spectacles, but still didn’t quite meet his eyes. “When the dementors attacked you, you chose not to wait for us and left the safety of your family’s home. In doing so, the protection of your mother’s blood was broken. To me, that means you must not trust me to protect you anymore.” He smiled sadly, “I really can’t blame you, Harry. After what’s happened to you these last few years, I would doubt my capabilities as well.”

“It wasn’t because of what happened at the Tournament,” Harry said dully. “It was because I found out about the mail ward.” He reached for the tea cup again, letting the cool taste of chamomile coat his throat. “Gringotts had to send a representative to me because my mail wasn’t going through, and I found it in the attic.” Harry narrowed his eyes, “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Dumbledore leaned back, surprise coloring his face. “Your aunt certainly knew about it,” he replied promptly. “Shortly after they took you in, I returned to your house-“

“Their house.”

For the barest second, they made eye contact, but Dumbledore quickly turned his head. “I returned to their house,” he amended graciously, “and created the ward. You were receiving a mountain of post and they were quite out of sorts.” He paused, “But I am certain you could reach in and remove letters from the baby basket, it wasn’t meant to block you from your mail forever. It was meant to act as a sort of unlicensed mailbox your Aunt could use to screen letters.”

Something churned in his stomach that felt suspiciously like guilt. “And Mrs. Figg?” He pressed, “She was watching me my whole life, knew exactly who I was, what I was. And she - she knew how the Dursleys treated me." He licked his lips and considered his question, “Did she tell you about my life there? Did you know?”

He could feel Sirius tense up beside him.

Dumbledore crumpled in on himself. “I knew that they were not kind to you,” he said, voice wobbling. Harry felt something in his heart tear away. “I knew that they did not treat you like their son, but rather like a burden. I knew that your Aunt did not love you like I hoped she would.”

And god didn’t that hurt. Sirius shot his hand out and wrapped it around Harry’s, a warm, comforting weight anchoring him to the present.

“But you were safe,” Dumbledore went on, pain laced in every word. “Hidden. And I thought that maybe, with time, they would come to accept you. I could not deny you that chance to be with your family, Harry, even if it was difficult. And, as I’ve said before, I did not want you to grow up in the limelight. I wanted to spare you the responsibilities and expectations of this world.”

“My world,” Harry corrected quietly. Dumbledore blinked at him. “I was born into this world,” he insisted, anger strengthening his voice, “I came into it like an outsider because I was left with them, but I’m not. You took me away from my world.”

Tension rippled between them. “I am sorry, Harry,” the old wizard said, and for the first time he looked at Harry with uncertainty, like he was seeing him for the first time. “I didn’t mean for you to feel that way.”

iv.

“Can you just tell me why I’m here?” Harry asked, pushing his hand through his hair in aggravation. “I don’t want to have this conversation right now. You asked me to come for a reason, so just ask me what you want to ask.”

He flushed at how rude he being, but he wasn’t sorry enough to apologize.

Dumbledore hummed, “Yes, Harry, my apologies. Let me trouble you with a few final questions. Can you tell me, exactly, what you saw in your last vision?”

Harry relaxed at the abrupt change in topic. Talking about Voldemort was vastly preferable to rehashing his life with the Dursleys. He rattled off a monotone description of what happened on his birthday, how swiftly the rage overcame him, how he saw just a brief vision of a figure with blazing white eyes before there was searing pain and then nothing.

Dumbledore stroked his beard, staring over Harry’s shoulder as he spoke.

“And now?” The Headmaster asked, “Do you feel anything? Any anger, or pain, anything from your scar?”

“No,” Harry shook his head, craning his head to try and catch his gaze again. “It doesn’t hurt at - would you look at me when I’m talking?!”

Sirius hissed sharply but Harry’s patience had run out. “I came here because you asked me to,” he said loudly, unable to keep the raw hurt from his voice, “and you won’t even look me in the eye when I’m telling you want you want to know! I don't want to fucking be here, you know."

A hand settled on his back, rubbing small circles between his shoulders. Harry hadn’t realized how hard he was breathing.

“I’m sorry Harry,” Dumbledore apologized again. This time, he sounded less morose. “I can’t do that.” He turned to stare directly at Sirius, “After I heard about the events that transpired at Godric’s Hollow, and your resulting vision in a moment of extreme emotional upset, I believe that a theory I developed has been confirmed. Your scar is more than just a trace of the killing curse left behind by Voldemort. I believe it links you both together. It seems to be an accidental psychic bond.”

“A bond?” Sirius yelped, gripping Harry’s shoulder.

Dumbledore held up his hand for quiet, “One that I’m afraid he may know about, or discover very soon. You’ve been getting these visions through his eyes for some time now, haven’t you?”

Harry paled. “Um. Well, sometimes they’re not through his eyes,” he answered hesitantly. “Like last summer, it was the snake. Nagini.”

“She is his familiar,” Dumbledore nodded, “and they are bonded too.”

“Stop saying that!” Sirius barked, “It can’t be a bond! It must be something else. A - a - a remnant, an aftereffect of the killing curse backfiring, an echo, I don’t know! Anything else!”

Harry dug his fingers into his knees to control his own rising panic. “What’s so bad about it being a bond?”

“Bonds are usually permanent, Harry,” Dumbledore said gravely. “The Dark Mark is a bond between Voldemort and his followers. It links their bodies together across any distance. He can use it to call them directly to his side, or to go to them himself. Bonds between wizards are very, very powerful.”

Harry felt like he had just walked out on a tightrope and was staring down at black hole. Voldemort might be able to apparate straight to me?

“What?” He was starting to feel dizzy. “How - how long have you thought that it might be…that?”

“I first suspected that the link was there last summer, Harry,” Dumbledore replied, “but at the time, I didn’t believe it was strong enough to become a threat. But-"

“But he used my blood in his resurrection,” Harry realized, covering his mouth in horror.

The room grew very quiet as everyone held their breath. Dumbledore closed his eyes like he was in pain. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “After what happened to you in the graveyard, I fear that this bond between you changed and grew stronger. You’ve been getting more frequent visions, and they affect you with greater intensity. They can assail you even when you’re awake.” Dumbledore studied him with a pitying expression, “That leaves you open to the possibility that Voldemort will soon intentionally use the bond to send you visions.”

Harry shuddered. He leaned forward, hoping desperately that Dumbledore was about to offer him a lifeline.

The Headmaster’s face softened. “Typically, the practice of legilimency, or mind-reading as you might understand it, requires eye contact. Voldemort is one of the most powerful legilimens we have ever seen, and I have no doubt that he could use any psychic link to his advantage. I intended to keep some distance between us this year, Harry, so as not to tempt him to look through your eyes. I am afraid that if you look at me now, if he happens to be listening, or watching, he may try to attack me through you. Maybe even try to possess you.”

Harry stood up abruptly, scraping the legs of the chair along the floor. “So it’s not just that my emotions trigger the psychic link between us,” he covered his scar with one hand, pressing on the raised skin, “he could be spying through my eyes at any time. He could be getting visions from me when I’m angry, or happy, or upset. Maybe he was even getting them this whole summer?” He swung around to address Dumbledore, “That’s what you’re saying?”

“That is a possibility, yes.”

The floor lurched under him. His eyes widened in realization, thinking back to the day he saw Theo at the Albion, the last time he saw him alive. He had been so excited, and also so terribly anxious. 

Was that strong enough to go through the bond? Did he know about Theo because of that day? His heart was being crushed in his chest. Did he attack him because of me? He remembered the figure of Lucius Malfoy with his eyes like two burning stars. And did Magnus Nott and Lucius Malfoy conspire against him because they realized their children weren’t safe?

“What in nine hells are you thinking Albus?!” Sirius shouted, also getting to his feet. “You couldn’t think of a better way or a better time to tell him that?”

“Harry needs to know the truth much sooner than I anticipated,” the Headmaster replied stonily. “He needs to learn to protect himself. Beginning now, while Voldemort is weak.”

“I’d rather know,” Harry breathed. He felt a million miles away from his body. “I’d rather know now before I ruin anything else. Before I kill more people because of what I know.”

“Please sit down,” Dumbledore insisted, “all is not lost. You are not to blame for any of this, Harry, and it is not your fault that Cedric or Theodore died. Don’t believe that, Harry, don’t let yourself believe that.”

Please stop, part of him whined in the back of his head, even as he obediently sat down. Please stop talking to me like you’d really do anything to help me. I don’t believe you anymore. How could you know this was possible all year and not tell me sooner?

“Harry’s already learned some occlumency,” Sirius supplied quickly, pulling his chair closer to Harry’s. “He can get better. He just needs a teacher - maybe Remus -“

“Severus is the best occlumens I have ever known,” Dumbledore shook his head delicately. “He would be my first and only real choice. And there is the advantage of having Severus in the castle. He could-”

“Absolutely not!” Sirius slammed his fist on the armchair, “Occlumency is personal. Snape is the last fucking choice on this earth you should even consider to teach him!”

“Then, will you?”

Dumbledore’s words were chilling. Harry felt Sirius seize up next to him, going as still as stone. He looked between the two wizards, drowning in his own panic, unsure of what was happening.

“I’ll do it!”

Sirius snapped his head around, “Pup, no-"

“Anything.” The word wheezed from his chest. Harry stood up again. He couldn’t sit still. His skin was crawling. “I’ll do anything to keep Voldemort out of my head. I don’t care if I have to live with Snape. I’ll - I - I have too many people to protect.”

“Nothing will happen immediately,” Dumbledore said calmly, but he looked at Harry with pride in his eyes. Harry felt even worse. “If you are already learning occlumency, then you are safe to continue practicing on your own until you come back to Hogwarts. Then, you and Professor Snape can develop a private tutoring schedule.”

Blood rushed in his ears. He was caught between sick fear and a thrumming, rising tide of fury. Dumbledore just looked so at ease.

This is my life, he thought wildly. My friends’ lives. Does he not care? Is this some kind of game to him? Is the threat not real? Or is this what he wanted all along?

Harry was hot all over. He need to go. If he spent one more second in this office, he’d start to come undone.

“I’m taking a walk,” he announced, and fled the room. The last thing he heard was Sirius’s voice rising behind him, saying, “Have you lost your goddamn mind old man?”

He jogged through the halls blindly. Voldemort can see through my eyes. Voldemort can know what I’m thinking. I’m dangerous. I’m dangerous to everyone around me.

The walls felt too close. It was the first time in his life that he didn’t want to be at Hogwarts. His hand went numb, the ring going cold on his finger. Distantly, he thought he could feel the shadow of the ward over Roebuck Falls. He stumbled into the wide expanse of the entrance hall and staggered to a halt, breathing heavily.

“How the fuck is this happening?” He asked, dragging his nails over his face. “How is this real? He can read my mind. Theo is dead. How can this be my life?"

“Another student is dead?”

Harry flinched, glaring at the voice over his shoulder, fully expecting to see a ghost. But there was nothing next to him but the wall, covered in portraits.

“Can you hear me?”

He narrowed his eyes, still breathing hard, and got a little closer to the portrait that seemed to be talking to him. She was small. The picture itself was fairly sizable, but most of it was of a large, black dragon. Bright blue flames roared out of its mouth now and then as it soared through the sky. On the dragon’s back was a proportionally small woman, dressed in armor. Long red hair, as vibrant as any Weasley, whipped in the air like a cape. She was staring right at him.

“Interesting,” she spoke with a rich, Irish accent, “it’s like you can see me, too.”

“I can,” he replied. “And I’m having a moment here, if you don’t fucking mind.”

The woman gasped and stood up on the dragon’s back, peering up at him. Her features were hard to make out. In fact, the whole painting was slightly blurred, feathered at the edges, giving her and the dragon a dream-like quality.

Thunk.

The portrait vanished, leaving just the frame encircling a hole in the wall. It was about hip-height and extended several meters through the stone, ending in pitch blackness. Harry looked at it disbelievingly.

“Uh, I am not about to crawl through some hole,” he announced to the empty corridor.

A moment later, he heaved himself into the tunnel and soon tumbled out into a pitch black room. Dust assaulted him immediately. Sneezing furiously, he flicked his wand to banish it away, “Pulvabit.”

“Thank you,” the portrait said. “I wish I could do that myself.”

Light flared above him as an old, iron chandelier came to life with flame. He was in a small room, about the size of his dorm. There were no windows and no door. The portrait he’d crawled through was back in place, letting in muted sunlight through its canvas.

He searched the walls for another portrait and blinked. There was art everywhere. Unframed canvases, long reams of parchment, leather hide, even large pieces of wood were mounted to the walls, all covered in oil paintings. A couple of easels were set up on the floor, each indecipherable, cloaked in magical shadow

“No one has been in here for centuries,” the woman said. He followed the voice and caught a pair of eyes watching him.

“Lumos,” he murmured, holding his wand up high.

She was sitting with her legs neatly crossed and her arms splayed over the back of a chair. Her hair was a darker red in this portrait, almost purple, and she had pale blue, nearly white eyes. Though he could see a scribble of an artist’s signature in the corner, it was impossible to read it as it was done up in spiky, tight loops, almost like a celtic knot.

“Who are you?” he asked, meeting her gaze.

The smile on her face looked a little predatory with her pale eyes. He held his wand tightly and tensed up, ready for anything. “They used to call me the Flame Dragon,” she carded a hand through long red tresses and smirked. “For a time they called me Witch of the Cleansing Fire. My mother called me Jojo. My friends, Johanna.”

His mouth parted in surprise. “Johanna?”

She smiled wider, showing a little too many teeth, just like a certain cat did. Her eyes crinkled with pure joy. “Are you John’s changeling?”

“I - what?” His surprise funneled into his magic and the wandlight brightened. Just above her portrait, he saw a long-legged black cat painted directly onto the wall in the style of a cave painting. It looked down at him and blinked, tail swishing. “You’re the Johanna?”

She clapped and laughed, tipping the chair back on two legs. “I wondered if I’d ever meet another one!” She cried gleefully. “Oh, happy days!”

“How did you know?” Something swelled in him that was so light he almost didn’t recognize the feeling. “How could you tell that I know John?”

“You have his magic!” she said, as if it was obvious. “You wouldn’t be able to see me if you didn’t. Unless I wanted you to.”

Harry grinned back at her. I’m excited, he realized. Fuck. When was the last time I felt this excited about anything?

“He loves you,” Harry said impulsively. Johanna’s smile softened and her painted eyes sparkled. “He talks about you. Not often, but sometimes, and I can tell he still thinks of you every day.”

“Aww, John,” she hummed, falling forward soundlessly. “He was my best friend. My best friend. I lived for a long time because of him.”

“He’s great,” Harry agreed, “I don’t really know why he follows me around.”

Johanna gaze became serious. She studied him for a moment, rubbing her jaw. She was wearing what looked to be battle robes of brown and red leather. Thick bronze cords tied the loose material to her knees and elbows, and around her waist was a belt of tools. Harry saw a long dagger with a wicked hook hanging off her hip, and a large sword was hanging from its sheath off the back of her chair.

“You said you are at war?” She asked.

All at once, he was cold again. Fingers of dread clawed up his back.

“If not now, soon.” The words sounded so hollow and insubstantial against what he now knew to be true. Voldemort can see into my mind. Theo is dead. More people will die before this is over. Looking around at the paintings, he realized that most of them were of battles. Johanna featured in many of them. Wizards chasing each other through the woods on the backs of hippogriffs. Assaults on smoking castles. The great black dragon sweeping over a village wreathed in blue and white flame. “Not war like this, though.”

“Good,” she replied coolly, “wars like that should never be seen again.”

He looked at her. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was biting her bottom lip. “What?” he said.

“You’re young.”

“John says that too,” he muttered. “It’s not like I have a choice.”

“Have you killed anyone yet?”

Her question was asked without judgment, but Harry froze nonetheless. He thought about Quirrell’s face, burning under his hands. Thought about the way Tom Riddle’s spirit screamed as he stabbed the diary with a basilisk fang.

And then, of course, there was the deaths that were his fault, if not his doing. Cedric. Maybe Theo. In a way - his parents.

“I have,” he breathed, bringing his wand to his chest. The light was slowly fading, but his eyes had adjusted to the half-light of Johanna’s studio, so he let it wink out. “In self-defense. I didn’t mean to do it, really. And then someone died right next to me…because of me. That was worse than killing someone, I think.”

“Cedric Diggory?” She queried. He nodded. “Mmm, yes, thought so. I was awake most of last year. You’re living through troubling times.”

Acid pooled in his throat. Instead of answering, he focused on examining the nearest painting of the great black dragon. It was covered in spikes, and it had a long snout like a crocodile.

“Is that why you were called the Flame Dragon?” he asked, hoping to change the subject. “Because you rode one?”

Johanna snickered, “Yes, that’s right, for that and my red hair. His name was Balar. He burned me to death the first time we met, stupid bastard. Didn’t believe the stories.”

Harry slowly swiveled around, sure he misheard her. She had a smug expression. “I’m sorry?”

“He burned me to ash. Hurt like hell.” Johanna cocked her head, “Let me guess, John’s never talked about that.”

“No…”

“Yeah,” she rubbed her jaw sheepishly, “he never liked it much.”

She stood and walked out of the frame, reappearing not in the next picture but in a frame a couple of meters down the wall, over the easels. The light from the chandelier intensified.

In her new portrait, she was standing in a forest clearing with a large, flat rock in it, warmed by sunlight. He could see a small black shape curled up on the stone behind her, sleeping.

“I know your story, Harry Potter,” Johanna intoned. “It is just like mine. You are an unlikely hero, born under an unlucky star. You carry the hopes of many upon your shoulders. You are burdened with a war you did not want. And I know that your story, as true as it looks on the surface, does not reflect who you are.”

She pressed the palm of her hand against the face of her painting and the light grew even brighter, revealing the four paintings in front of him. “Before I became the Witch of Cleansing Fire, I was just a girl. I was seventeen years old. My only given name was Johanna Grif, and one summer’s day, my familiar and I were on a quest to find dragon scales…”

He looked at the first painting. It showed a girl with short red hair in a forest of skinny trees. She was kneeling in the bushes, searching for something. John’s wide eyes poked around the trunks ahead of her.

“Those were dangerous times for magic folk. I was too close to a muggle village, but I was arrogant and sure of myself. I could pass as muggle very well. But I made a mistake and wasn't cautious with my cloaking spells, and one of their children saw me in the wood.”

In the painting, she stood up, levitating a triangular black scale to the sun, where it shined iridescent, emitting a blue and purple aura. Behind her, a young girl watched with huge, scared eyes. Then more eyes joined her. Older faces. Men armed with swords. Women armed with bows. One of them notched an arrow while John and Johanna marveled over the scale, oblivious.

The next time she raised her wand, an arrow cleaved through her hand.

“Back then, there was no fidelity among our kind. Muggles were all the more powerful because they wielded weapons made from magic. They had talismans that could help them see through glamours. They bought enchantments that could trap a witch inside a circle of rope. And some of our kind even returned to the muggles, masquerading as one of them, using their might in numbers against covens and schools they wanted to destroy. So many of us died during my lifetime. Innocent, innocent wixen.” She closed her eyes.

In the next painting, Johanna was bound from her shoulders to her ankles. She was drowning in a pond with a crowd of faceless people looking on. Torches flashed above their heads. Rocks flew and struck her in the face. John was being held off by a young man in a monk’s robe holding a shining gold cross between them. The cat looked like a demon in his fae form, all hard shadows and flashing teeth, his eyes two burning coals as he struggled to get around the monk to Johanna.

“I told him to run away.” She snorted, “But John didn’t listen. He never does, by the way, just prepare for that. This village we stumbled across was mightily powerful. They had a trap for him, a faerie trap. If they managed to catch him, they’d probably send for a mage nearby who I knew pretended to be a priest. I couldn’t bear the thought of what they’d do.” Her voice tightened, pitching high like she was on the verge of tears, “I might die in an hour, or a day, but John could live for lifetimes. I couldn’t stomach the thought of him being tortured for all that time, especially if it was my fault he was in this world at all.”

Harry stepped to the next painting and stopped breathing.

Johanna was tied to a stake.

A torch leaned into the frame and lit the pyre under her. Billowing white smoke started to cover up her image. Slowly, the pyre shrank and the frame showed a crowd of people moving around her.

“I remember that they were singing. Singing and laughing.” Johanna's voice shook, "I tried to understand them even when I was dying. They were afraid of me, they didn't know any better, they were just muggles. But...I never forgot how happy they looked on that day."

Harry’s mouth was bone-dry as he watched the scene unfold. Johanna’s clothes were on fire. A group of children joined hands and started to skip in a circle.

And then one of them fell. Most of the crowd kept moving even though there was a tiny body on the ground. Johanna was thrashing uselessly against the stake. Another figure, a larger one, toppled to their knees, clutching his throat. This time, Harry saw him.

John reared back and jumped on the next person, raking his claws over their throat.

“He told me about this, after,” Johanna said grimly. “I was dying, you see. I didn’t know what was happening. That fire was a cleansing spell, taught to muggles by some hateful spirit generations before I was born. John couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t survive it. But in the excitement of their victory, they mistakenly turned their backs on him, and he slaughtered them all, one by one, beginning with that monk. He scattered their souls and salted the earth with their blood and his bitterness, cursing it for seven generations. Nothing grew from that ground for seventeen years, not even grass.”

The ground was covered in bodies. Even the children were dead. Harry swallowed, grateful that her style of painting left the details indistinct. A small spot of black trudged up to the collapsed pyre, leaving a trail of red paw prints.

“I think John wanted to die with me,” she whispered, almost inaudibly. “He walked right over the coals to my body.” Harry stepped to the fourth and final painting. The cat’s fur smoked as he approached a curled, blackened corpse. “I felt him reach out to me. I knew I was dead, but I wasn’t gone. He was my cat-sìth, after all. I needed him to guide me to the next world. I remember the sensation of reaching back to him. I wanted to pet him one last time, and then-"

Johanna’s body spiderwebbed with cracks, and huge swaths of black ash fell away like scales.

She sat up and threw her head back. The crust of her burned body sloughed off, leaving behind perfect, unmarked skin. She shook her head and red hair curled against the nape of her neck.

John was leaping in front of her, his tail straight up, mouth ajar. The coals were still smoking. Johanna looked forward, her white eyes aglow, and snuffed all the ashes in a blink.

And then John was pushing into her chest. She was naked, Harry realized, folded on her knees in the ruins of the pyre that killed her, surrounded by corpses. She did not look powerful. She looked terrified. Her face contorted as she howled soundlessly at the sky, clutching the black cat to her desperately.

“Nobody cared about the real story,” Johanna said, a trace of bitterness to her voice. “As soon as my people realized I came back to life, that’s all anybody cared about. That's when they started calling me Witch of the Cleansing Fire. No one cared that I couldn’t stand close to a fire after that without shaking. No one noticed that I stopped sleeping. No one thought I was suffering. I was alive after all. It was a miracle. How could I ever be afraid of anything again, if I escaped death?”

Harry let out a shaky breath and looked up at the portrait. “I understand,” he said honestly. “I know what that’s like, to have people look right through you, only seeing what they want to see.”

“I know.” Her smile was strained, “that’s why I told you.”

“Was it necromancy that brought you back?”

Johanna smirked, “No. That’s what I thought, too, until it happened again. When Balar burned me to death in his lair. I came back to life just the same as the last time, only a few seconds after I died. John didn’t kill anyone then, though he looked like he wanted to. After that, we realized that it was his gift to me.”

Harry startled, “But weren’t you already familiars?”

“Oh yes,” Johanna laughed, “for six years. But this kind of magic is strange. I don’t know if it’s the nature of all familiars, or just because John is what he is, but our gifts strengthened over time. Eventually, as wars were waged, my power to survive flaming death became flame resistance, to a certain degree. And John slowly became more adept at wixen magic. My gift to him was a piece of me, because I wanted him to be part of my world. I made him a little bit wixen. And in exchange, he made me a little bit fae. I walked that world between life and death, and came back to my physical form, just like John does.”

Johanna stretched her arms overhead, “Honestly, Harry, there are no guides to having a familiar. I know that John got his gift from me because of a wish. I wished he would be part of my world, and he agreed to come with me. Thus my precious, devilish cat-sìth was able to leave the world of spirits and reside in the world of the living.” She stepped back to the rock and ran her hand down the cat’s flank. He rolled, four paws dangling in the air to catch the sun on his belly.

“And when you died, he wished you would come back,” Harry concluded. Fucking hell, John, he thought, no wonder you don’t like talking about Johanna if that’s what you remember.

“Yeah,” Johanna agreed lovingly, “and because I wanted to come back. You know what they say, all things are possible with magic.”

v.

Just 24 hours, Harry chanted in his head as they walked back to the gate, I just want a break for 24 fucking hours.

Sirius was pissed, Harry could tell. But his rage was utterly unlike Uncle Vernon’s in that he kept it all to himself. He could only see that Sirius was mad through little signs, the way his gaze was fixed and distant, the fact that his blunt fingernails ground into his palms, and, of course, the faint curses he was whispering under his breath.

But when he touched Harry’s arm, he was gentle. And when Harry glanced at his face, Sirius’s snarl relaxed into a tired frown.

“You okay?”

Harry blinked at him. “Not really.”

Sirius closed his eyes. “Right,” he breathed. “I’m so stupid.”

“It’s fine,” Harry shrugged, squinting at the sky so he didn’t have to see the exhaustion on Sirius’s face. “Just have to keep going, you know? But I think I’m done for today.” He tracked the flight of an eagle high above them, “I just want to lay down. Maybe listen to music or something…”

Worry gnawed at him. It wasn’t lost on Harry that Sirius was giving him everything he had to help keep him together. It had been nonstop since Harry’s birthday, since Godric’s Hollow, really. Sirius accepted every new burden in Harry’s life with ease, never once turning away with a sigh, never making him feel like an unwanted curse on his life.

Harry didn’t really know what to do with that, and it left him feeling unbalanced.

Sirius was nodding enthusiastically, “Of course, pup. You shouldn’t have had to come today, I’m sorry. That was…”

“Complete and utter bullshit?” Harry supplied.

“Of the highest order,” Sirius agreed, glaring up at the castle. “Psychic bond my ass. I’m going to figure something out for you Harry, something that doesn’t involve that snake. I swear-"

“It’s alright,” Harry shook his head dismissively. “I don't want to worry about it right now. Let’s just go home.”

The apparated back. Harry nearly threw up his meager breakfast in the living room and spent some time admiring the tile of the bathroom floor. His mind felt buoyant and clear, all the thoughts and worries that assailed him since the morning felt very far away.

It only takes me feeling exhausted and miserable to practice occlumency. Wonderful. Maybe this won’t be so hard.

Later, John hopped up on the bed with him. Harry had heard the murmur of his voice for awhile, so he trusted that Sirius filled him in. Harry was caught in a cycle of half-sleep. Too tired to think about getting up, too restless to fully dream. For a long time they didn’t say anything to each other. He could feel the cat’s flank moving up and down in steady breaths and he focused on that for awhile.

“I met Johanna,” Harry finally murmured. Music was playing from the living room. He recognized the album, Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Love and Hate. It was one of Sirius’s favorites. “Her portrait. She showed me her studio.”

John took a deep breath. “Did she show you the paintings?”

Harry nodded. The thought of them still broke his heart.

They were silent for another few minutes. Long enough for a song to start and finish. “Why did you choose her?” Harry asked. He wound a hanging thread from his blanket around one finger. 

The bed rustled, and then John’s chin rested on the crook of Harry’s neck. He was wonderfully warm.

“You know how sometimes, you try something, and suddenly you realize how empty your life was before that moment?” John rasped. Harry smiled ruefully and hummed in agreement. “Well, before I met Johanna, I thought my life was rich and full of purpose. I guided lost souls to the veil. Sometimes I was summoned by wixen to give fortunes or put a curse on someone’s home. It was a good life. A perfectly contained little world. And then one day…a young child saw me at the edge of the woods. She was living, which was strange. And she wasn't afraid of me, which was stranger.”

John’s voice softened, “She coaxed me out of the shadows and tried to play with me, tricked by my physical form, you know, thinking I was just a cat. I was curious about her. I had never seen a living child that close.” The cat sighed, “She was so loving, so she was delighted that I came right up to her. And I was not a cat, but a curious young fae, so I crawled into her arms to see what the living felt like. She was so warm. If you can believe this, until that very moment, I didn’t know I could feel warmth. My world was cold. I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t feel such things. But after I met Johanna, that was all I wanted.”

Harry smiled. “And what about your other familiar? You’ve never told me their name…”

John huffed and twisted around, rubbing his cheek along Harry’s head. “Desmond,” John answered bitterly. “He was called Desmond. And if you’d met him, you’d follow him around, too. He was a healer who didn’t believe in using magic for violence. Any kind of violence. Even self-defense. Man wouldn’t throw a stunning spell to save his own life. He joined the muggles in the Great War, that was how I found him.”

“What?” Harry turned over so he could look at John. “A wizard served in World War I?”

John snorted, “Yeah. He pretended to be a muggle for awhile, learning how their army worked. And then he hid in the trenches for three years and saved as many people as he could.”

Holy shit, Harry thought, remembering the documentaries that Uncle Vernon used to watch.

“I thought he was so stupid,” John growled, “most of my time was spent trying to keep him alive. But he was so goddamn cheerful. Always smiling. Always gentle. Always putting others before himself. He had complete faith that he was born to save lives, and he never, ever complained. I never felt magic quite like his, before or since.” The cat fell quiet for a moment. “Desmond changed the way I think about this world. I suppose that’s why he became my familiar.”

The music ended. Something crashed in the kitchen and Sirius let out a muffled shout. Then his feet thumped across the apartment to change the record.

“Do you want to know why I follow you around?”

Harry looked over in surprise. John was curled up on the other pillow, his chin tucked over his paws. Long white hairs poked out of his ears, the only thing that betrayed his age. Hesitantly, Harry nodded.

“It’s because of the way you look at this world,” John said honestly. “You see it as it is, like it is made of stars and magic. You are a fighter like Johanna, and you are forgiving like Desmond was, but I was not drawn to you because of your courage or your tenacity, Harry Potter. I stick with you, because you give me hope that I can see the world that way again.”

Harry pulled the blanket up over his mouth, trying to hide the watery smile on his face.

John leaned forward and pressed his nose against Harry’s. “You fed me, protected me, and shared with me your heart’s desires. Will you allow me to do the same?”

Harry sniffed and wiped his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “Yes,” he laughed, as happy tears continued to fall. “Fucking yes.”

vi.

Another day passed. Harry was feeling marginally better, though he couldn’t tell if it was genuine improvement, or just the high of becoming John’s familiar that lightened his mood.

Despite the fact that Sirius asked if it was going to happen, Harry couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t overjoyed by the news. John seemed to find it funny.

“Bring out the scotch!” The cat yowled, following Sirius around the house like a second shadow. “I deserve to celebrate! Ply me with gifts, Lord Black, or else I’ll nibble on your godson’s magic!"

“If I do, will you explain what the hell your contagious faerie magic is doing to him?” Sirius growled.

“Huh?” Sirius and John looked at him. Harry slowly lowered the kebab in his hand, feeling rather nervous. “Faerie magic?”

Sirius snapped his head down to glare at John, “You didn’t tell him?”

“Oh, yeah, I thought it would be a good idea to tell him right after Albus Dumbledore cocked his whole day, but then I took a nap and forgot.” John scoffed and jumped up on the breakfast bar to stalk to Harry’s side. “I’m tactful, Lord Black. Of course I didn’t tell him yet.”

“Is it bad?” Harry said, shoving the take-out box away.

“I don’t think so.”

“Depends on who you ask.”

John and Sirius glared at each other. “Well!” his godfather finally cried, throwing his hands up, “You’re the faerie expert here. Educate us, John.”

The cat started grooming his chest, the picture of nonchalance. Sirius’s face twitched with impatience.

“I think Harry has a natural inclination for druidism,” John meowed after a full minute of silence. “And he has imprinted on me like a little duckling, that's why he can do faerie magic.”

Harry looked flatly at his familiar, “What.”

John grinned, showing all his teeth. “You can’t help it. I’m a wonderful specimen. It’s flattering, really-“

“Are you serious?” Harry snarked, holding up his palm to Sirius so the man wouldn’t crack a joke. “I’m not a druid, that’s ridiculous. I’m a wizard.”

“Druidism is a type of magical practice, Harry,” his godfather cut in, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Druids pull magic from the world to power spells. Mages typically use gemstones and enchanted jewelry to pull magic from within themselves, and Wizards use a wand to funnel magic from both the world and from within themselves. Some people are naturally inclined to use one technique over another, but a wand is the easiest to start with.”

“Merlin was a tri-fold wixen,” John added knowingly. “He was a mage, a wizard, and a druid all in one. That’s why he’s magic’s champion.”

Harry tried to process all this new information. “So…it’s not weird that I would be…using faerie magic, then?”

“Oh, it’s weird,” John disagreed, smirking at him. “But faerie magic can only be wielded through the natural world, without a wand. That’s why I think you have the inclination to practice the druidic arts.”

Sirius nodded slowly, “Yes, that would make sense. I still don’t understand this type of magic, though. Why could you force an entire room of adult wixen to go silent? How did you disappear?”

“I won’t spill all my magic's secrets, wizard,” the cat replied, “but I’ll tell you how it manifested in Johanna and Desmond."

"Oh, were they your ducklings too?" Harry said snidely.

John flicked his arm with his tail, "Desmond could create hidden places anywhere he liked. That's how he healed the dying and injured on the battlefield. He could also disappear in the blink of an eye, and enchant muggles to forget that they saw him without drawing his wand.” John hummed thoughtfully, “Johanna was rotten thief. She started stealing things from people who offended her and never gave them back unless they gave her gifts. If they tried to steal back what she took, it would curse them.”

“Don’t do that, Harry,” Sirius warned. 

“I wouldn’t!” 

John snickered, “It was dead useful, actually. See, when you give a fae a gift, you create a connection that grows stronger with the more gifts they receive. Johanna kept gifts from all the people she loved on her belt, and whenever she missed them, she only had to touch the objects to feel how they were feeling. It gave her peace of mind during war, especially.”

One right after the other, the three of them looked to the stack of wrapped presents on the counter. Harry still hadn’t touched them.

“Right…” he said, and pulled the top one off. “Let’s test this, then.”

He carefully tore the sparkling paper and revealed a box of limited-edition Chudley Cannons figures made of chocolate. Harry’s stomach flipped. He had deliberately forced all thought of Ron from his head over the last few days because it made him feel sick.

“Do you feel anything?” John asked.

“What am I supposed to feel?” He frowned, rubbing his thumbs along the sides of the box. He felt sick, guilty, angry, worried.

Worried?

“I - uh,” Harry cocked his head, falling silent as another tremor of anxiety ran down his back. “Huh. Maybe…I do feel something.”

“Try this one,” Sirius pulled the biggest box from the bottom. As soon as Harry took his hands off the chocolates, the anxiety vanished.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. Inside the next box was a collection of joke shop prototypes - mysterious candies bound up in bright plastic bags, extendable ears, an average looking muggle baseball cap that Harry instantly distrusted.

He cradled some of the candies in his hand and relaxed.

It took longer this time, but after a couple of beats he started to feel laughter build up in his chest, bringing an answering smile to his face. His head ached a little, like he was dehydrated.

“You have this power as well,” John meowed, sounding pleased. "You take to this magic much easier than Johanna did. That's also why I think you have druid in you. Johanna was a mage."

“So how the fuck did milk come into this?” Sirius asked, leaning over the counter. “All the butter went rancid, too, by the way.”

“They offended him,” John replied with a shrug, “that’s why. Would you rather he stole the watches from their pockets? Every fae leaves their little calling card of displeasure. Mine is broken glass."

Harry mind wandered as he opened the other gifts. Ginny got him a t-shirt that said, My Other Broomstick is a Hippogriff, Remus gave him a pair of dueling gloves and a book on advanced shield charms, and then, of course, there was Hermione’s journal.

He could feel them all, with varying levels of strength. The sensation felt vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t remember where. It nibbled at him, the feeling that he was forgetting something. He tried to get it out of his mind by attempting to vanish to Roebuck Falls again, like he did at Grimmauld Place, to little success. They visited Wales anyway, and he almost managed to forget about it while he played fetch with Snuffles and showed him around the property.

But laying in bed that night, with John snoring next to his head, he stared restlessly at the ceiling and tried to remember where he’d felt it before.

Moonlight filtered through his window. He followed the light to the glossy postcards on his wall. Harry impulsively looked away, remembering what happened the last time -

He stiffened.

Last time I touched a postcard I felt…

John sighed in his sleep as Harry sat up in bed. He nearly got to his feet when he remembered that there was a gift from Theo much closer to him, tucked inside the novel on his bedside table.

Reverently, he opened up his book and stared down at the blue jay feather. It was no bigger than his forefinger, black on one side, midnight blue on the other. His hand shook furiously as he reached for it.

Don’t hope, he told himself. Don’t you dare hope, Potter. You felt awful because you feel awful, not because he’s alive and hurt somewhere.

He pressed the pads of his fingers to the feather and felt pain lance through the back of his head, just like before. It felt like he’d been struck by a bludger. An itching, burning sensation spread over the skin of his arms. Harry’s right forearm started to ache, bone-deep. The longer he touched the feather, the slower his heart beat, the longer his breaths became. It felt like he was suspended in honey.

Harry twitched his hand back and all the sensations vanished.

vii.

“Sirius?”

There was rustling, and then a lamp cracked to life, filling Sirius’s bedroom with a warm, golden glow.

“Pup?” He rubbed his face and blinked tiredly at him. He was wearing a white tank top and Harry was momentarily distracted by the numerous tattoos covering his skin. “You okay? What time is it?” Harry shifted uncertainly. Sirius rubbed his eyes again, “Are you going somewhere?”

“Can we go to Black Roc?”

“Now?” Sirius muttered tempus and groaned, “It’s three in the morning.”

“I know, but…” John was a comforting weight on his shoulders. Harry leaned his cheek against the cat for a moment. “It’s important. I want to do something. It has to be now.”

“Okay, okay…” Sirius swung his legs out of bed. “Give me a minute.”

Harry waited anxiously in the living room, clenching and unclenching his hands. The feeling in him was too fragile to admit, and he was grateful that Sirius asked no more questions. He simply shrank their brooms down, wrapped a scarf around Harry’s neck, saying, “It’s going to be bloody freezing up in the air," and apparated to the gates of Black Roc.

They walked through the dragon together. Harry tried not to jump up and down with impatience while he waited for Sirius to unshrink their brooms.

“I’m going to the astronomy table,” he said quickly, jerking his head at the mountain. “I - uh -“

Sirius looking at him knowingly, “Do you want to be alone?”

“Just for a minute?” Harry’s voice cracked embarrassingly and he avoided Sirius’s eyes. “Just - just let me do this. It won’t hurt me or anything, but I have to do it.”

“Okay,” his godfather shrugged. “I’ll be here.”

It was pitch-black in the courtyard. The sky was overcast, the moon long gone. Harry’s heart jumped in his throat like a rabbit, and before he could overthink it, he threw his arms around Sirius's middle.

They didn’t say anything. Sirius was blazingly warm in the chilly, mountain air, and he rocked a little side to side, scratching his fingernails lightly over the back of Harry's head. 

And then Harry stepped back, mounted his broom, checked that John was secure in front of him, and kicked off to the summit.

An old, cracked astronomy table was carved out of the top of the mountain, no wider than Harry was tall. He stood on it nervously, keeping his broom tight to his shoulder just in case a strong gale pushed him off the edge. John wrapped tight around his neck again, claws lightly digging into the meat of his shoulders.

Harry tried to slow his breathing, but the longer he waited, the faster his pulse pounded.

“We could have done this at the apartment,” he griped to John, teeth chattering.

“You want it to be as powerful as possible, right?” John murmured back. “Patronus’s work best when you’re scared, alone, and in the dark.”

“Then should you be here?”

John nipped his ear, “Just cast the damn thing already!”

He knew he had to, but Harry was frozen by the sweeping fear in his gut that this was going to end just like the last time. Although he was initially filled with overwhelming hope that what he was feeling through the feather meant Theo was alive, another idea wormed its way in the back of his head. Maybe he was feeling Theo's last moments alive. John’s particular brand of magic involved the dead, after all.

But Harry wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing. Beneath all his fear was an undercurrent of strength. The strength he used to fight the basilisk, to get out of the graveyard, and now, to face the murky black sky.

“Expecto patronum,” he incanted. The shining white stag took form in front of him.

This time, Harry was not desperate and on the verge of magical exhaustion. This time, when he thought of Theo, he powered every memory and every feeling of their secret friendship behind his words.

“Take this message to Theodore Nott.” The stag opened its mouth.

This time, Harry didn’t bother with promises or assurances. He had a question that only his patronus could answer.

“Theo," he said, "are you alive?”

The stag tossed its head up and turned around. Hard, howling wind pulled at them and John pressed closer to his cheek. The patronus looked left, then right. It stomped its back feet and stepped forward. Then it shot off through the sky like a comet.

Only instinct made Harry keep his grip on his wand as his entire body went loose with shock. He stumbled, nearly falling to his knees. John shouted wordlessly above his head, standing on his shoulders to watch the spirit cut through the clouds in front of them.

But it wasn’t disappearing. Harry tracked the silver light with his keen eyes. It was running through the air. Running toward Theo.

Harry swung his leg over the broom and kicked off.

“Harry?” John asked, dropping back down on his shoulders. “Are you-"

He gripped the broom and hovered for a second, building up energy. He could feel it coiling under his hands, thrumming underneath him like an engine.

“Get in my cloak, John,” he said, eyes fixed hungrily on that light. It was moving wickedly fast.

“What?” John sqwacked, sliding under Harry’s collar like a snake. He waited until the cat was firmly against him, tucked against his chest. “What are you doing Harry? Harry? Harry Potter! Do not-“

He floated up a few more feet, pointed the nose of his broom at that little point of light, and released his hold on the force he was building in the Firebolt.

They lanced through the sky like a bullet. Harry felt the skin of his face pull back as he completely flattened against the broomstick. John was screaming wordlessly below him, his claws digging painfully into his stomach, but all Harry could feel was wild, unrelenting joy.

He grinned and pushed the broom faster, faster, until he could just make out the spikes of silvery antlers ahead of him. They arced through the sky, cleaving the clouds, leaving a trail of starlight behind them.

It only took minutes for the patronus to suddenly dip down and dive to the earth. At the last second, Harry spun to a stop and whipped out his wand to call it back. Beneath them he could see nothing but darkness. Thick fog clotted the air as he descended, slowly, to what lay below.

“You will be the bloody death of me,” John whispered inside his cloak.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Harry whispered back distractedly. “I need to tell Sirius where I am. Fuck." He touched his earring, "I guess he can find me though. He's going to be pissed."

“He’s probably on your tail,” John sniffed. “I think everyone in Scotland just saw us. How fast is his broom?” He was trembling, and Harry pulled his wand arm back to hold the cat tight.

“Not as fast as mine,” he replied, rubbing the lump under his clothes gently. Fog parted beneath his feet and he started to see a hint of shapes beneath them. “I don’t know where we are. I think-“

He felt it in his feet first, but he didn’t realize what it was. By the time the emptiness hit his knees, it was too late to stop their descent. Harry gasped, grabbing his broom with both hands just as it touched what could only be described as a bubble.

Inside the bubble there was nothing. Just nothing. It was like they were in space. Gravity was gone. They suspended in the air for one second - weightless, untethered.

“Harry?” John croaked, “I don’t feel good.”

The broomstick went dead in his hands and they dropped out of the sky.

Notes:

Here are the seven questions I used to build Harry's section:
1. What happens when we die?
2. Are you going to become his familiar?
3. Did you know?
4. Have you killed anyone yet?
5. Why did you choose her?
6. Do you feel anything?
7. Are you alive?

I write so many scenes for this story that never make it into the final cut, lol. I'm having this crazy vision of starting a standalone series of one-shots just to give them some life. Maybe when we hit the half-way mark, I'll go back and parse through my fodder of unpublished moments to see if there's anything good enough to share.

Thank you for reading! It fills my days with joy to share this work with so many awesome people. Next up, HP to the rescue, Lady Malfoy enters stage right, and...yes...best boy Theo opens his eyes...

Chapter 16: The Cave

Summary:

They are in the cave now, peering at shadows on the wall. Each of them asks a different question, and the answer will take them both down very different paths.
"What is this light?" Harry asks.
"Who is casting these shadows?" Sirius wonders.

Notes:

Sorry for the long delay. It really wasn't my intention to wait this long, but the election kicked my ass. I've been basically utterly depressed since then and it was really hard to come back and put the finishing touches on this chapter until just a couple days ago.

But, it felt really nice to come back to this story. This is an escape, after all! So, please enjoy this chapter! I really considered trying for a double-upload to make up for my tardiness, but tomorrow is my anniversary so I will NOT be writing lol! I will put some hours in during slow points at work this week, though ;)

Harry

The stomach-sinking sensation of free-fall made his head spin.

The ground was rushing up at him, a dark gray slate rapidly getting bigger before his eyes. Harry felt John’s limp body hang weightlessly inside his cloak, starting to slip out from under him. They tipped forward in the air. He was losing sense of what was down and what was up as they plummeted through a thick cloud of fog. Harry gripped the broomstick as hard as he could until tendons popped in his hands.

UP! He screamed in his head, grinding his teeth together and trying to force the broom to obey him. PULL UP! FLY DAMMIT!

They broke through the fog and Harry gaped in horror. The land beneath them was bigger, clearer, closer. A sharp cliff jutted up out of the unceasing dark, defining a flat gray plain beneath them. It was so close, and they were seconds away from smashing into it.

He was a mass of pure panic, thoughtless but for his one desire to shock the broom back into life. In answer, sharp pain lanced through his lower back and a crackle of magical power rushed out of his hands, swirling over the broom. Harry's eyes felt like they were burning out of his skull as he opened his mouth and howled, “STOP!” 

The Firebolt jerked to halt. Harry whipped forward and smacked face-first into the handle, blinded. His sweaty hands slipped off and he nearly fell, barely managing to hook his elbow over the broomstick and keep righted.

But John was not so lucky. His body untangled from Harry’s cloak and dropped into the dark.

“John!” Harry shouted, forcing the broom into a quick dive to catch the cat around the belly. Nausea bucked up his throat as more pain crawled up his back. It felt like he was being flayed alive with every ounce of magic he forced into the broom. “I’m sorry,” he panted, holding the cat tight to his chest. John flopped limply in his hands. “It’s okay,” he wheezed, trying to ignore the waves of panic washing over him while pushing the broom into a more controlled descent. “We’re not falling anymore. You can stop playing dead now.”

The cat didn’t respond. Hard tremors wracked his body, making the broom stutter and list as he tried to keep them going in a straight line. The only discernible feature in the landscape was the cliff, but Harry could tell he wouldn’t be able to fly them to the top of it. They were already so low to the ground. Instead, he headed for the base.

His feet skimmed the earth, stirring up a curtain of silvery dust, and then something caught his toes and they were yanked off the broom and into a sea of mud.

Instantly, a cloud of fine particles enveloped them, sticking to his eyes, coating his throat, suffocating him from every angle. Harry coughed and spat, tasting charcoal.

It’s ash, he realized, struggling to sit up in the thick, cold mud. He pressed his sleeve over his nose and mouth and drew his wand. With intense focus, he pulled on that painful ache in the center of him and snapped, “Arpatet!”

It took two more tries to fully clear the air, and each time the yanking, terrible pain intensified, but it was worth it to drink in blessedly clean air.

“Wake up, John!” He said firmly, checking the cat over for signs of injury. John's eyes were half-closed and he didn't respond to Harry's fingers tapping along his jaw. He held the cat close to his ear and nearly sobbed with relief to hear him breathing. "It's okay," he said again, struggling to put his feet under him. "Let's get to solid ground."

The mud they were in was thick, like clay, but it wasn’t deep. He managed to pull his feet out without losing his boots and hobbled for the cliff. His wet clothes pulled him down as he hiked out of the mud with John in one arm and the Firebolt dragging behind him in the other. “Come on, don’t tell me the shock of one little fall was enough to kill you?” he tried, jostling the cat gently. “Did your old ticker give out? How are you going to be my familiar if you can’t even take a Wronski Feint?”

Small puffs of warm breath tickled his throat, the only sign that John was still alive. Harry gave up on trying to wake him and focused on walking across the mud flats, moving slowly so he didn’t trip and fall.

Wherever they were, it was not nearly as cold as the mountains. Sweat dripped down his face and under his heavy cloak. There was no breeze, and an unnatural warmth seemed to radiate from the earth the way sunbaked rocks did in the early evening. A preternatural sense of wrongness needled at him. Every twinge of pain felt sharper, the stinging pressure in his face from hitting his broomstick got more intense as the seconds ticked by, and Harry couldn’t shake the trembling, gasping sensation in his chest that didn’t seem to be from adrenaline or fear. It felt almost like he couldn’t breathe, like there was something lacking in the air that he desperately needed.

There’s no magic, Harry realized, squeezing the broomstick with one palm. Usually the Firebolt responded just to his touch, floating easily without needing to be spoken to, but right now it just felt like a hunk of wood in his hands. Brooms draw on natural magic in the atmosphere to work, that’s why they can’t fly above a certain altitude, where it loses touch with the magic of the earth. So, even though we’re on land, this place must be magic-less. A sterile zone. His mind slipped back to the feeling of a too-slow heartbeat through the feather. How could Theo be alive in this? Where even are we?

Dry stones crunched underfoot when they finally escaped the mud. “John?” he said quietly, hurrying for the wall of rock. “Do you need magic? Is that it?”

“Mmmyeah…wiz…” A paw his hit cheek and Harry nearly fell over in relief. “Blood…your blood.”

“You need my blood?” Harry guessed, sitting against the sheer rockface in a puff of silver ash. “Okay, hold on, let me-“

“No,” a second paw joined the other, pushing his head away. “Stop giving me your blood. You’re giving me too much magic.”

“Huh?” He swiped the sweat dripping off his chin and held it up, but there was almost no light to see by. Harry tentatively brought it close to his nose and smelled the irony tang of blood. “Oh.”

The left side of his face was wet with it. He felt around his brow until a sharp bolt of agony ripped down his neck. More blood ran in rivulets over his cheek. “I split my head open on the broom. But I’ll give it to you, John, if you-“

“Shut up,” the cat groaned, “that’s child abuse. I can feel how weak you are.” He struggled in Harry’s grip and he quickly let the fae go to settle over his legs. “Are we alive?”

“Yeah,” Harry pressed the palm of his hand against the cut, but it was bleeding profusely. “Fuck. This is pretty bad.”

John peered around while Harry tried to tear a piece of his cloak off. It didn’t work, and he didn’t have a knife. He gave up and pulled the sleeve up over his palm so he could press it against the cut.

“Is this where it happened?” John whispered.

“Where what happened?” He replied. But in his heart, Harry thought he knew.

The clouds parted, letting cold starlight filter down over the gray plains. Misty ash clouds drifted across the mud flats, stirred up by their crash landing. Hills rolled up and climbed high around them, creating a lumpy horizon wrapped in fog. He searched and searched for some kind of detail in the dark - boulders breaking up the ground, husks of trees that suggested a once-ancient forest, the shine of water pooled somewhere in the mud, but there was nothing. No sounds. No movement. No remnants of what this place might have been before. It was a desolate wasteland, a place where all the magic and history had been burned away, leaving nothing behind.

“This is where Nott Tower was,” John said steadily. “This is the work of fiendfyre.”

Harry shrank against the wall, scooping John back up to hold him close to his chest. The cat leaned into his touch, trembling and cold. Harry tucked his chin over John’s head and pulled his knees up, trying to create a pocket of warmth.

“Do you think Sirius will find us?” he whispered. “What if he falls too?”

John’s ear twitched, “Tap your earring, kid." He did, and a low note chimed in his head. His eyes found the sky, drawn to an unassuming spot in the low-lying clouds. Even though he couldn't see anything, he knew that Sirius was coming for him. He thumbed it again just to be sure, and the note chimed again, low and assuring, ringing in his bones. "Lord Black will be able to wield magic here," John continued. "If you were a little more trained, you wouldn’t have struggled, either. The problem is that once you use your magic…there’s nothing here to replenish it. Even he will run out eventually.”

Harry swallowed nervously, “Then how is Theo surviving in this place? I don’t even know where he could be.”

John’s claws pricked through his sleeve. “Try the feather, Harry,” he growled. “We have to move quickly. Based on what you described, he’s probably in some sort of stasis web. That won’t last forever, especially in a place like this, and if it falls apart there’s no way that kid will have enough residual magic to keep himself alive for long. I don’t know exactly what would happen to his soul if he died, but with no other magic to help it along, it would probably disintegrate or suffocate before it could pass on. He will literally disappear, and that’s not a fate I would wish on any child.” John’s eyes bored into his, “You have to try to find him again, Harry. Now."

Harry cursed and fumbled for the feather he’d stashed in his breast pocket, all the while keeping an eye out for Sirius. The glint of iron on his hand gave him pause. “I have the portkey to Black Roc,” he said, “will it work here? Do you think I could use it on Theo?”

“I don’t know,” John mused. “Lord Black would.”

“What’s it going to take for you to call him Sirius?” Harry muttered, bringing the feather out. “In a way, he’s like your godfather, too.”

John snorted, “Oh, I like that, Harry. Godcat to Lord Black. It’s like a cosmic…” he swayed and faceplanted into Harry’s stomach, “…joke…”

“John?” He tried to hide the creeping dread he was feeling. “Are you okay? You sure you don’t want some more blood?”

“I’m…fine…” John panted with his eyes closed. “I have a small core…much smaller than yours. It’s harder for me because I...use so much magic to keep this form.”

“Well, just shift back.”

“No!” A shiver wracked his skinny body. “I'd disappear! There’s nothing for me to…grab on to here…take a long time…to come back.”

John seemed to lose what little strength he had left and flopped completely on his side. Harry scoffed and tucked the feather behind his head. Then he swiped some of the fresh blood still weeping from his wound held his fingers out to the cat. “Take my blood, John,” he ordered.

The cat turned his head stubbornly.

“Do it,” Harry hissed. “I need you! And don’t forget that I’m a Lord, I’m strong enough to share a bit of my magic! If you fall unconscious I’m going to slip this damn portkey over your tail and send you to Black Roc on your own.”

John shot him a dark look, but Harry’s mouth was set. Reluctantly, the cat licked his hand clean of blood. Harry could feel a small tugging sensation in his gut, but it wasn’t painful.

“You’re incorrigible,” John muttered. “You know I’m just trying to help you, right?”

“Looks like we’re both bad at accepting help,” Harry snarked, and plucked the feather back from behind his ear. “So what should I do with this?"

“Once you make the connection, try to hold onto it but come back to your body without letting go."

Harry blinked at him. "What?”

John shook his head, “Just…I don’t know, wiggle your toes, roll your shoulders. Do something that makes you aware of your body at the same time that you’re connecting to his. You might be able to tell how far away he is by doing that." He rubbed his paws over his face, pulling his ears down over his eyes. "Normally this would never work, but because there’s no magic around us, it should be fairly obvious to you where the feeling is coming from.” He sat up in his lap and fixed Harry with a hard stare. “This shouldn’t take a lot of energy, Harry, but if you start hemorrhaging magic, I’ll make you stop. Don’t go too far.”

He nodded, sharing a long look with John. Both of them knew the stakes. 

“And don’t tell you godfather I told you to do this,” John added as an afterthought.

Harry smirked and gingerly pressed the tips of his fingers against the feather, closing his eyes. He lengthened his breaths and started to relax his mind. The physical sensations on the other side of the feather came on much faster this time, beginning with the head pain and trickling down to the burning sensation over his arms.

“Okay,” he mumbled, tugging his awareness back to himself. The connection wavered for a second, and he stopped. A dull ache started up in his stomach, but it wasn’t sharp and painful yet. Slowly, Harry kept a tab on what he was feeling through the feather and tried to walk back into body by wiggling his toes and running his tongue over his teeth.

Finally, he could open his eyes. John’s amber ones watched him intently, just inches from his face. “I got it,” Harry said distractedly, keeping most of his attention focused on the ghostly pains just to be sure. “I think he’s behind us, kind of. Or maybe under us?”

John’s ears twisted back as a whistle cut through the night. Harry and John looked up at the same time to see a body dropping through the clouds.

“Oh, thank god,” Harry muttered, breaking the connection. He cursed and tried to grab it again. John stood up, his head tracking Sirius as he slowed in mid-air, kicking up a wall of cloudy ash. The wall at Harry’s back softened and he fell back slightly, almost as if a door had opened behind him.

Before Harry could even think to move or shout, something formless wrapped around him, covering his mouth and pinning his arms to the side. John stepped off his lap, heedless of what was happening. “Lord Black will be here soon, and then we’ll-“

The rest of it was lost to his ears as he was wrenched backwards into total darkness.

Something heavy settled over him, pressing in from all sides. The rapid pounding of his pulse slowed artificially. The adrenaline that sparked through his veins stuttered to a halt. Harry felt his eyelids slowly close and open again - felt them stretch wide as he tried to search for some kind of form in the dark, and then slowly close again. He couldn’t twitch, he couldn’t move, he could barely think. It was like his entire being, his body and his mind, were caught up in thick honey.

Gradually, a silver light faded into life in front of him. Harry had no sense of where the ground was, or what kind of space he was in. All he could see was a white smudge hovering in front of his face like a floating flame. A shadow danced in the center of it.

The feather, he thought languidly.

You bear the mark of his favor

A voice filled his head, filled the void he was hanging in. Harry’s body flinched in surprise, moving in slow motion. He felt no fear, but he couldn’t tell if that was because of the spell he was trapped in, or if the presence lacked any trace of malevolence. His muscles tensed achingly against the force wrapped over his skin.

Do you have Theo? He tried to say, but his mouth refused to open. The words were coming one at a time, chugging out of his brain at a snail’s pace. He focused all his energy on staring at the white light, forcing his thoughts to move faster. I’m looking for Theodore Nott. I’m here to help.

The presence didn’t make any indication that it understood him, but the pressure over his body tightened. Something soft ruffled his hair and tickled down his face. The presence was everywhere, wrapped over his whole body, sinking into his mind, slipping under his skin. It was rifling through his consciousness, feeling out every nook and cranny of his scars, cataloging what was in his pockets. Not malevolent, he decided. Harry felt he was well-versed in evil creatures, and this, though he was helpless against it, was not.

Who are you

The words chimed in his head without inflection, without sound, and sank deep into the recesses of his mind.

Harry’s eyes rolled back and suddenly images flashed through his head, too fast for him to process. He was crouching on the roof of his primary school, dementors swirled around Sirius’s crumpled body, the Basilisk’s blood dripped out of the roof of its mouth, he was trembling under the Sorting Hat as the Great Hall broke out into whispers, Cedric was falling in a flash of green, a bone-white hand reached for his face, his mother was screaming, Aunt Petunia was locking him in the cupboard again…

And then the memories changed. He felt John’s rumbling purr on top of his chest. Sirius’s shoulder pressed warmly against his cheek. Ron was grinning at him on the train. Hermione’s hair tickled his nose, her arms knitted behind his neck. Harry was flying with Buckbeak over the lake, he was bursting with wild magic after conjuring the Faerie Gate, he was pinning everyone down in Grimmauld Place and turning on Ron with cold fury burning through his veins.

At last, there was Theo. All those memories came at once, slipsliding into each other until they were one memory, happening all at the same time, layers and layers of feeling and images and thoughts and words standing on top of each other, from the first moment they met to the grief-stricken regret that dogged his every waking moment for the last few days.

ARE YOU WORTHY?

It was a true voice this time, thundering in his ears like a god. The presence pulled back from him, and suddenly Harry could breathe again. He was still at the mercy of this being, hanging blind in the air, but he could sense the presence starting to let him go, giving him just enough space to answer.

Worthy? His reactions were still slow. His mind wandered back in time, remembered when he sat across from Dumbledore after killing the Basilisk. Isn’t that what he said? ‘Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that sword out of the Hat, Harry.’ Did that make him worthy?

He swallowed. The being, whatever it was, waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts. It has to be protecting Theo. Is it wondering if I’m worthy of protecting him? 

Harry didn’t know if he was worthy of guarding another life, not when so many people seemed to get hurt around him, but he knew that if this being let Theo go, Sirius was coming, and Sirius was worthy of protecting Theo. Harry wasn’t some helpless orphan anymore. He was Lord Potter. He was John the cat-sìth’s familiar. Harry could protect him long enough to get him somewhere safe. Hell, if he needed to, he could secret Theo away to Roebuck Falls, the one place he knew was safe.

I’ll protect him, the words became an echo in the void he was in. The being hummed and caressed his temples. Memories consumed him again, slower this time. He was flying over Black Roc, praying that Theo was okay. He was watching Theo slip through the doors of the Diving Hall, wishing he could call him back. He was holding the feather in his bedroom, wrestling with hope so rabid that he almost couldn’t stand up straight.

Please, he thought. The pressure gave way and the adrenaline screamed to life in his veins. His heart started to hammer against his throat and Harry let out a ragged gasp. He was mouthing the words, but he couldn’t hear anything outside of his pulse. If he’s alive, tell me where he is. I’ll save him. I’ll take him somewhere safe. Please give him to me. I’ll protect him, I promise, I promise, I swear!

The presence vanished and he collapsed. The floor was just under his toes, but he fell forward on his palms, trying not to vomit.

He was in a cave. Roughly hewn stone scratched at the skin of his hands. The only light in the cave was coming from the floor, where a mosaic of cracks in the stone started to glow and pulse. As he watched, they grew, spiderwebbing and breaking up the floor under his hands and knees. Harry staggered off of them, staring breathlessly as the stones wiggled and shifted. The cracks multiplied, filling the room with brighter and brighter light, until the rocky floor dissolved completely.

Sand hissed as something rose from deep within it, long and rounded like a casket. It was giving off a very faint glow, and, as the sand sloughed off, Harry realized that there was a body inside. 

“Theo!?” He yelped.

Theodore Nott floated soundlessly inside the magical forcefield protecting his body. He looked dead. The silvery light cast a ghastly pallor over his face, and Harry could see that the sleeves of his robes were burned to the elbow, leaving a mass of searing red skin underneath. He glanced uncertainly over the forcefield, trying to convince himself that what he was about to do was not as stupid as he knew it was.

But his hands were already moving of their own accord, too impulsive to even think through his own doubt. They passed harmlessly through the web of magic, but as soon as he touched cloth, felt real, solid flesh underneath, the shockwave hit him. A cascade of energy siphoned off of Theo’s body like a live wire. It was a tidal wave of magic rushing over his aching body, soothing his stomach and the frayed pain in his muscles. His ears stopping ringing, the pain in his head cleared. With that relief came a rush of energy building up through his bones.

Harry leaned in, wrapping his hand around Theo's upper arm. He nearly sobbed with relief when he felt a pulse beneath his fingertips.

And then the blue feather floated in front of him again, reappearing from thin air. Harry froze, trembling as more magic circulated between him and Theo. This must be it, he realized. The thing that's keep him alive is this - this feeling, this magic running through us.

All he could do was watch as the feather turned around and around in the air, being looked at again from all sides by an invisible presence. Then it stopped, and the feather was tucked back into his breast pocket. Theo’s body floated a little higher, and Harry moved automatically to loop his arms under him, stepping half-way into the force field himself.

This is my gift

He held his breath, looking around wildly for the source of it. The voice was not really a voice at all. It was all around him, emanating from the walls, but it also sounded so close, like someone was whispering just behind his ear. Before it had sounded empty, emotionless, but this time Harry thought it seemed sad, and fond, and a mess of other emotions he couldn’t even begin to identify. 

He will be hunted, hated, assailed by creatures in the dark

Pressure crushed him from all sides, curdling his blood. Harry quivered, overwhelmed by the sudden promise of a threat hanging over his head like a sword. Then, just as suddenly, the threat vanished. The presence became small and gentle. Theo’s hair ruffled, and something that felt very much like two thin arms wrapped around him.

You must protect him, Harry 

“Wha - whoa!” Harry staggered and fell hard on his knees as Theo’s body snapped out of the hover spell, scattering sand everywhere. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” Harry chanted. The magical presence in the cave vanished, taking the silvery force field and all the light with it. He fumbled for his wand and cast a hovering lumos, wincing as the magic came just as painfully as before. 

Theo’s eyes fluttered restlessly but didn’t open as Harry eased him fully on the sand. His head rolled to the side and a low moan of pain escaped his lips.

“Theo?” Harry said, gently tapping his cheek. “Theodore Nott? Can you hear me?”

He didn’t respond.

“HARRY!”

He shook with relief as Sirius’s voice echoed through the cave. Harry looked behind him and realized there was a tunnel in the wall. “Down here!” He shouted back. “Quick!”

He took off his scarf and eased it under Theo’s head. His hands came back slick with blood. “Fuck,” Harry hissed, applying pressure to his skull with the scarf, trying not to panic. Heavy footsteps pounded up the tunnel, and then Sirius was there.

“I got him,” his godfather said, sliding in next to him. He shoved a small black bundle at him. “Take John. John - check on Harry.”

Whiskers tickled his face as Harry watched while Sirius started weaving his wand over Theo's body. “Your wound is healed!” John cried, sniffing the top of his head.

“There was magic here,” Harry replied vaguely. “But now it’s gone.”

Instinctively, he held his tongue about the presence. He didn’t like the idea of speaking about it, not wanting to risk the possibility that he could summon it back into existence. 

"I think he's in shock," John meowed. 

"I'm fine," Harry lied. He was shivering, but at least he wasn't doing as bad as Sirius. 

Sirius was sweating as he worked a few long, difficult-looking spells over Theo's body. First was a green one that settled over his neck and shoulders like a brace. Then there was a longer, white spell that made his body light up with different colors. His arms turned orange, though the right arm also turned black, and a small purple glow coalesced behind his head. There were smaller colors, too, but all the same kind of sickly yellow, on the side of his chest by his heart, and gleaming from under his back. Lastly, he murmured a very long incantation in latin and a white smoke filtered from his wand. When Theo breathed it in, some of the pain in his face went away. 

“Right…” Sirius took a deep breath and cast another spell that stabilized his right arm. “I have to take him to the apartment, Harry, and call for help." He met his gaze intently. “I can’t take you, too, I need all my energy to apparate him. You have to go to Black Roc and wait for me.”

Harry studied his godfather. He looked pale, and his eyes were bloodshot. “Wouldn’t it be easier to use my portkey?” 

“Taking a portkey while injured can be incredibly dangerous,” Sirius explained. “Especially for someone this injured. He could lose his arm. Apparition’s not great, but it’s faster, less risky.” Sirius took a steadying breath, his eyes raking over the body on the floor, “When I get there, I’m going to call for Poppy. Once she arrives, I’ll come back and get you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” John interjected. “I can take us to the apartment. I’ll be back to my normal self as soon as we leave this place. If we’re not there in ten minutes, come get us.”

Sirius nodded shortly, “Go, pup.”

“Now?” Harry tensed his shoulders, “But-“

“I won’t leave until I know that portkey actually works,” Sirius said sharply. His dark gaze pinned him to the floor, leaving absolutely no room for negotiation. Harry held John closer and looked down at Theo one last time.

“I’ve got him, Harry,” Sirius said, softer. “I can apparate him away from here. Now go. Time is of the essence.”

“Toujours pur,” Harry muttered reluctantly, not tearing his eyes from the Slytherin’s face even as the force of the portkey hooked under his navel and wrenched him from the cave.

They landed on something soft. Dust exploded out from under them.

It was not warm, but Harry felt warm. A pleasant buzzing sensation wrapped around him, like he was stepping out into the sun on a cool day. He sighed and closed his eyes, basking in the feeling of magic all around them.

John purred in his arms. “Are you okay?” he meowed.

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t. Slow tears streamed down his face, even though there was no ache in his heart. Huge, cascading waves of relief were washing over him, blunting the hard edges of grief, anger, and hopelessness he’d been living with for the last few days, few weeks really. It felt so good to finally get a win.

He tipped his head back and laughed, filling the old keep of Black Roc with joy for the first time in a century. Harry clutched his hands to his chest and laughed and laughed until he thought he would pass out with how lightheaded he was getting.

When the fit finally passed, he smiled blithely and went to to rub between John’s ears.

John hissed and bit him. Hard.

“What the fuck!” Harry shouted, ripping his hand away.

“That’s for nearly giving me a heart attack!” John shouted back. “And this,” he lunged forward like a snake, nipping the sensitive skin on the back of his arm, “is for disappearing!”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Harry complained, rolling on his back as John transformed and toppled him over. “Something grabbed me!”

“You can’t go leaving me behind!” John batted his stomach with his huge back feet, driving the air from him. “I don’t care what grabs you! I’m your familiar, damn it! How do you think I felt, taking so much of your magic and then you just disappeared!? To Merlin knows where? I couldn’t even feel you!” The cat’s voice roared through the keep, shaking dust off the ceiling.

Harry panted underneath him and waited for the echoes to die away before responding. “Sorry,” he repeated breathlessly. “I didn’t want to, I swear. It was stronger than me.”

They panted in each other’s faces for a second, and then John let out a low growl and butted his forehead up against Harry’s. “You’re a menace, Harry Potter.” He muttered. “I can’t believe you found him. I can’t believe you actually saved your friend’s life.”

Harry laughed and closed his eyes, buoyant with bright, light triumph. “Me neither,” he admitted.

John hefted off of him. Harry lit his wand, groaning with audible relief as the magic flowed warmly up his arm without a single twinge of pain. 

“What happened? What took you?”

Harry wiped grime from his face and stood up. “I don’t know what it was." He picked his way to the heavy wooden door that would take them back outside. “But whatever was keeping him safe was...sentient, somehow. It didn’t want to let him go until it judged that I was worthy of protecting him, I think.”

John peered up in surprise. “Hmm…the Notts…” he jogged ahead a few steps and stretched in the courtyard. Though it was still the dark of night, it looked so much brighter outside than at the remains of Nott Tower. Harry turned around with his arms outstretched, reveling in the ancient magic. “Until you met that boy, I had never heard of their House. Perhaps they have a guardian spirit.”

“Are those real?” Harry asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Sort of,” John shrugged. “There’s many different kinds of spirits that fit the bill. Typically they only exist for a short period of time, following one person or one family through a particular conflict. Once its objective is complete, it disappears.”

Harry nodded, remembering the way the presence vanished after hugging him. “That makes sense. Do you think it’s possible his father summoned it before he…?”

John shrugged, wiggling his haunches. “There’s only one way to find out. Ready?”

Harry turned and grinned at his familiar, holding out his arms to catch him. “Let’s go.”

---

Sirius

“Again? Really?”

“It’s not Harry, Poppy,” Sirius snapped, shaking sweat out of his eyes as he maintained a difficult pain relief spell over Nott’s body. “It’s Theodore Nott. He’s-“

Poppy made a choked sound through the mirror, but in a testament to her professionalism, she listened intently as he rattled off what his rudimentary diagnoses told him. “He’s got a serious skull fracture, concussion, broken forearm, second degree burns across the back of both arms, and then some less severe, older wounds from some kind of curse.”

“What are his vitals?” Poppy said brusquely, disappearing from view. “Blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels?”

He squinted as he read the tiny white numbers off the monitoring charm. It was honestly a small miracle Sirius remembered half of these spells. Yet another task he’d meant to brush up on before bringing Harry under his roof, yet another broken promise to himself.

But for better or for worse, his grueling auror training seemed to be written into his very DNA, because the incantations came to him just when needed, and though his wand movements were somewhat hesitant, they did the trick.

And Nott wasn’t dead yet. That was a plus.

“Has he said anything?” Poppy asked.

“No, he’s not conscious.” He thought he heard her curse under her breath.

“I’ll be there in two minutes!” She hollered, and then the mirror went back to its reflective self. Sirius frowned, glancing again at the bed. He felt guilty for dumping Nott on Harry’s bed, but he didn’t have many other options, given the apartment only had two, the living room was too small to serve as a hospital wing, and his hands were too full of bleeding, unconscious teenager to conjure a new one.

Despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that he was probably keeping this kid from waking up in screaming agony, Sirius’s eyes itched with exhaustion. All he wanted to do was lay down on the floor and sleep. He was so fucking tired. A selfish part of him thought to the latent bond between him and Kreacher. Can Kreacher make a decent cup of coffee?

Then he remembered weeks of shellfish stew. Better not.

His arms were starting to shake from the stress of maintaining the spell. Sirius bit his lip and focused on the kid again. He looked about one step from death's doorway. "You're a lucky bastard, you know that?" he grunted, "It may not feel like it right away, but you'll see. Harry's a good friend to have." 

Ah, fuck, his eyes wandered over to the wall of postcards he'd watched Harry tape up. He doesn't know he's Harry's friend. I should take those down. 

Three quick knocks interrupted his thought. With difficulty, he focused on the tight security wards wrapped around the apartment and opened the front door. Wet blood dribbled from his nose.

“I’ll take it from here." Poppy bustled in immediately and conjured a square table to set down a large wicker basket. She was dressed in traditional healer robes, pale green and yellow, with a white smock tied over the front. She withdrew her short wand and started to wave it in a series of complicated figures over Nott’s body. “Step outside please.”

He slowly dropped his wand arm, letting the spell fizzle out. He was a little afraid of what might happen if he let go entirely. “You sure you don’t need help? Is there anything I can do?”

“Just stay outside unless I call for you, and keep Harry away.” She started redoing all his monitoring spells. Hers came out much larger and brighter.

Wiping his nose, he stumbled out into the apartment, making a mental note to come back for the postcards. He passed the kitchen, throwing a longing look at the coffee maker, and pushed inside his own bedroom where he immediately threw open the window.

It was unnaturally quiet outside. Still too early for much of the city to be awake. But as he folded down on his knees and pillowed his head on his arms over the windowsill, he picked up on some sounds. He could hear the dull roar of traffic in the streets, the yowling of stray cats fighting in an alley, and all of the other smaller noises that made up a city at rest - the sound of wind whipping over the edges of skyscrapers. The distant hum of electric lights. The sound of music, sometimes streaking from a car window, other times slipping out from another apartment. He could smell cigarette smoke and oil, rotting trash and fragrant window gardens, clear, bright air mixing with the constant motion of humans running about in the streets.

Absently, he pressed his thumb over the ragged obsidian stone on the Black ring. He had always wondered why his mother lived in London, on the muggle side, of all places. The ring buzzed lightly. He sighed, feeling his energy flowing back into him, soaking up the magic from outside. There was no doubt in his mind, now that he was Lord of the House of Black. Their magic was strongest here. Strongest amongst all the muggles that his mother and father hated, deep in the heart of the civilization that was the complete antithesis of their way of life.

Maybe that’s why they hated muggles, he thought wryly, looking out at the darkened windows of an office building. Maybe they were just afraid because they didn’t understand why our power comes from here. But I will understand it. One day.

He snorted. Just another promise to himself he’d probably break.

Heavy footsteps hit the floor and he shot up, wincing as his back screamed out in pain.

“Sirius?” Harry stepped uncertainly into his bedroom, John a black shadow across his chest. “Are you okay? You looked…”

John chirped in alarm and jumped out of the way just in time for Sirius to throw his arms around his godson. Mud cracked off Harry’s robes and thumped to the floor. He closed his eyes and swayed slightly, feeling every muscle in his body nearly give out in relief to have Harry safe and in his arms - finally.

“You okay?” Harry repeated, his voice slightly muffled by Sirius’s jacket.

An uneven sigh ripped from his chest and Sirius squeezed a little tighter. Sorry, he thought unapologetically. I know you don’t like being hugged so much. Just give me one more second.

Reluctantly, he made himself relax and take a half-step back and settling his hands on top of his godson’s shoulders. Harry looked up at him with a confused expression, brow knitted worriedly. There was black blood crusted down his face, mixed with ash and dirt and mud. Sirius remembered the heart-stopping drop through the void of Nott Tower’s wardline and tried not to imagine what that must have been like for Harry, tried not to picture just how easily he could have-

“Do not do that again, please,” he said, careful to keep his hands from digging into Harry’s shoulders. “Listen to me Harry, you have to know that I will go with you to the ends of the earth. I will not stop you from doing something you believe is the right thing. You can always count on me to hear you out, alright? You don’t ever have to take off on your own. I will always have your back, no matter what wild dream or theory you're chasing, okay?”

Even in the muted light of his bedroom, Sirius could see the bright red flush staining Harry’s face. He followed Harry’s eyes wherever they went, forcing him to maintain eye contact, to know that he was telling the truth.

“It - it wasn’t that,” Harry said, flustered. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you! I didn’t know that it was going to run. My patronus, I mean. I didn’t really believe it was going to work, you know, and the feather- I could feel that Theo was alive through the feather, but I didn’t-“

Sirius had no fucking clue what Harry was talking about, and he was too tired to listen. He pulled his godson in for another hug, just happy to hear the words it's not that I didn't trust you. He could work with that.

Harry stiffened momentarily, but pretty soon his arms wrapped loosely around him in return. At the precise moment Harry’s head relaxed and leaned against his shoulder, he felt the last vestiges of his control crack and melt away.

“I thought you were going to be dead,” he whispered, digging his fingers into Harry’s cloak.

“Are - are you crying?”

He laughed at Harry’s horrified voice and sniffed a few times. “No…”

“Oh god,” Harry patted his back uncertainly and Sirius laughed some more, being sure to press the knuckles of one hand against his mouth to keep from dissolving into a puddle. “Uh, you know…I kind of…get into trouble a lot. It’s sort of my thing.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, “So you’re saying I have to toughen up?”

“No!” Harry replied quickly. “I - no - I just mean…” He waited patiently for Harry to get his words together and pulled away. He started vanishing the grime from their clothes, rubbing at his eyes occasionally. Harry bit his lip, waiting for a pause in his spellcraft to say, “I just don’t want you to worry about me. It’s kind of like…an exercise in futility? I always get in trouble, and usually it finds me, so you should…I don’t know.” He cut his gaze to the floor. “You shouldn’t worry about me too much. I’m not…it’s not worth it.”

Sirius flicked him in the forehead. “Harry, you are worth it. No one worried about me when I was growing up and look how I turned out.” He started waving the lights on. His room was full of them, lights of different colors, floating lamps, string lights, glowing paint on his ceiling that looked like the stars. Whenever he couldn’t sleep, he created another one.

As he began pulling clean clothes out of his dresser for both of them and mentally ordering what to do next, he heard Harry mutter, “But you’re awesome.”

He stiffened. Heat rushed up his face and he had to chomp down hard on the urge to dissolve into ugly crying. It had always been his most unattractive quality.

“I’m going to wash up,” he said in a normal tone of voice. “Then you should take a shower and change, pup. Maybe even sleep. Poppy’s going to be awhile.”

He closed the bathroom door quickly behind him and turned the sink on. Then he pressed the tail of his towel into his face and cried a little bit, as quietly as possible.

They both got cleaned up, but Harry refused to sleep. Refused to even sit down. He leaned petulantly against the breakfast bar, nursing a black cup of coffee that he clearly hated, while Sirius downed cup after cup, casting furtive glances at the closed bedroom door.

Harry fell asleep just as the 6:30 Wizard Wireless came on, humming quietly from on top of the fridge. Sirius stared at him, wondering if he should try and float the boy into his bed so he could get some decent sleep, when Harry’s door eased open silently.

Poppy waved him over. John’s head popped up immediately. Sirius raised a finger to his lips and the cat slid silently off the table. Harry didn’t stir from his hunched-over position on the counter.

“How is he?” Sirius whispered after the door was shut behind them. Poppy eyed John suspiciously, but the cat skirted the wall and jumped on top of the dresser where he was safe from her wand.

The sheets and blankets of Harry’s bed had been swapped for the crisp white linen Sirius could only ever associate with the Hospital Wing. Nott was wrapped up in them, his breaths coming in even and slow. Sirius could see charms wrapped around his wrist and hanging over the bed, meant to notify Poppy to any changes to his condition.

“He was severely dehydrated,” Poppy began, “and you were right, he was suffering from older curse wounds. I couldn’t tell what spell they were from, but they seem to be healing at their own pace. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” He watched her mouth thin with displeasure, “He’s on a regimen of Skele-Grow, burn cream, nerve replenishment, and pain nullifiers. I’ll need to stay and monitor for twenty-four hours at least.”

“That’s no problem,” he said quickly, “I’ll transfigure a bed for you.”

Poppy caught his chin in her hand, firmly turning his head from side to side. "No,” she said sternly, “I am perfectly capable of transfiguring a cot for myself.” She released him and summoned a vial of potion from the wicker basket. “Take this before bed, and the other when you wake up.”

He inspected two slim vials of pale green potion, “What is it?”

“Energy replenishment,” she answered. “A variation of Pepper-Up. You look ragged around the edges, dear.”

He tucked them safely in his pocket and glanced at Nott again. “When do you think he’ll wake up?"

“Well,” Poppy sighed, “that’s where this gets tricky. He had a severe head wound. By my estimation, he has a grade-three concussion. I’ll have to wake him every two hours, to check his responses, but I won’t rule out long-term effects until he wakes fully, I hope in twelve hours or so.”

“Effects like…?”

“Memory loss, aphasia, inhibited motor function…” she frowned deeply, “It all depends on him, so I can’t say for sure. But, Theodore Nott is a strong young man. Sharp. Independent. I don’t think anything will keep him down for long.”

Sirius frowned and scratched the back of his head, thinking, Harry won’t like the sound of that.

As if thinking the same thing, he and John locked eyes. Sirius liked to believe that he saw a flash of understanding.

“Did you tell Albus yet?” Poppy asked, yawning behind her hand.

“No,” he muttered. “I wanted to see what his condition was like first.” Fuck me, I do not want to talk to Albus right now. How the fuck am I supposed to even explain how Harry found him? I need time to come up with a cover story.

The healer laid her hand on his arm, “It can wait,” she said softly. “It’s a harsh truth, but Mr. Nott has no family looking for him. He can be safe with us while the world thinks he is dead for a little while longer. He might even be safest that way. Rest, and tell the Order after you wake.”

Sirius nodded, raided Harry’s bathroom for his toothbrush and other sundries, tucked his postcards into his wardrobe, and grabbed some clothes at random from his godson’s dresser. Then he dropped it all in his own bedroom before waking the sleeping boy at the counter.

“Time for bed now, pup,” he said, shaking Harry lightly.

“Theo?” he murmured sleepily.

“Yeah, he’s okay,” Sirius smiled. “Madame Pomfrey’s watching him for us, so we can go to sleep.”

Harry followed him listlessly and let Sirius tuck him into bed. Luckily for him, Sirius had purchased the largest, softest mattress he could get his hands on from a muggle store earlier in the summer, and there was room enough on it that they couldn’t even reach each other with their arms outstretched, giving Harry plenty of space to kick about.

Sirius stared longingly at the opposite side of the bed, imagining what it would be like to slip under the cool covers and dissolve into his hard-won pillowtop mattress, feeling all the aches and pains in his bones vanish as he gave into the sweet release of sleep.

He took one of the two green vials of energy release potion and waited out the effects. It didn’t make him sleepy, but it didn’t fill him with energy like Pepper-Up would. It simply warmed him from the inside out, strengthening his core.

“Are you leaving?” John’s raspy voice broke the silence.

He nodded, “I’ll be back soon. I hope. Watch over him for me.” John sighed heavily, making him pause. “What?”

“He’s hard to watch over,” the cat complained with no heat to his voice. “He’s self-sacrificial, and impulsive, and far too powerful and reckless for his own good. Never even thinks about himself first, not even for a minute…” John continued muttering under his breath even as he curled up in the crook of Harry’s neck. “I have my damn work cut out for me.”

Sirius almost just shrugged and left, passing the cat’s monologue off as part of his regular griping, but something about the John’s tone of voice gave him pause. He remembered, suddenly, the desperate screeching that made him sprint over the mudflats in dog form. He remembered finding John tearing at the rocks, his voice gone hoarse, as he fought against some invisible presence that took Harry right out from under him.

His heart clenched in sympathy and he padded back over to Harry’s side of the bed to scratch John’s ears. “You do a great job protecting him already,” he said sincerely. “But no one’s perfect when it comes to James and Lily’s wild child. Trust me, if you knew them, you’d understand why he’s like this.”

John tucked his nose under his paws. After a long moment, he murmured, “Thanks.”

Sirius left them like that and eased his way out of the apartment, deciding it would be safest to apparate where he wouldn’t wake anyone.

He transformed into Padfoot and trotted through the streets of London, which were significantly busier than Manchester, although it was getting on in the morning now with the sun warming the sky. He loped straight to Grimmauld Place and pushed the door open with his paws, pausing only to sniff the air. He could hear voices and people rustling around throughout the house, but he was looking for one person in particular. One person who seemed to be absent.

Why am I so fucking unlucky, he groaned in his head.

He sniffed again, wondering who in the house he could trust to get a message to Remus as quick as possible without tattling to everyone else. Arthur? But he’ll tell Molly, won’t he? The twins? But they might not know when Remus is here.

“Sirius?”

He turned his head and caught sight of a mop of red hair he hadn’t seen in months. He transformed instantly, grinning. Perfect.

“Bill!” He smiled, careful to keep his voice low. “How are you? I heard you were sick.”

“Ah, it was nothing really, just a little bug,” Bill shrugged, waving off his concern. “How are you? How’s Harry? I heard about…”

Sirius jerked his head, ushering the young man a little bit closer. Bill’s bright blue eyes sparkled with intrigue as he stepped in. Bill reminded him most of himself out of all the young kids joining the Order these days, but he was a better version in every way. Healthier, more well-rounded, a far cooler head on his shoulders.

Bill was someone he could trust.

“He’s not been great,” Sirius admitted, “but I think that will change soon.” The young curse-breaker cocked his head curiously. “We found Theodore Nott,” he whispered, glancing around the corners of the room. “He’s alive. I have him somewhere safe.”

Bill’s reaction was immediate. His already pale face went sheet-white, and his mouth dropped open. “Wha - what?” he stuttered. “Who? Nott?”

“Yeah!” Sirius said excitedly, “It’s a fucking miracle, let me tell you. Anyway, I don’t want it to get all around the Order yet, I came here to find Remus and tell him so he could help me organize a meeting tonight.”

“Why don’t you want to tell everyone right now?” Bill said a little too loudly.

He waved his hands, trying to shush him, “Because I’m dead on my fucking feet,” he hissed, “look at me! I can’t do a whole meeting right now. And Poppy wants to wait and see what Nott's condition is. He has a bad head wound.”

Bill did look at him, searching his face intently. He still had that dumbfounded expression, like he was in shock, or he didn’t quite believe what he was hearing. That figures, he thought, I maybe wouldn’t believe some half-crazed Lord of a dark house either if I were him, either.

“You can call a meeting,” Bill said after a long pause. He bit his chapped lips. Sirius could see old beads of blood dried black against his lips, and another rolled up under his teeth as he waited for him to answer.

“I lost my ticker tape,” he admitted, glancing away.

“Sirius!” Bill groaned, “Those are a devil to make, you know?”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Sirius wrung his hands together. “Don’t trust me with another one. That’s why I need Remus. He's good with delicate stuff.”

“Take mine,” Bill said, patting his pockets. “Then, when you’re ready, you can just-“

“No, no,” instead, Sirius went into his own pockets and pulled out a small, heart-shaped locket. He’d purchased it impulsively while Harry got his piercing. It was a house key, essentially, but it would only impart the location or address of a magical residence to a specific person. He had already keyed it to Remus’s name. “Give this to Remus when you see him, and tell him to come to me as soon as he can. Where is he, by the way?”

“Grocery shopping,” Bill muttered distractedly, roughly pulling his fingers through his long red hair. “I think he took Tonks. Trying to teach her how to walk around without knocking everything over, or something."

“Good, so he’ll be back soon.”

Bill nodded and took the necklace, holding it in his fist like it was a snitch that might fly away. “There’s no harm in keeping this quiet?” He said tentatively, and suddenly Bill sounded so young and uncertain. Sirius stopped, squinting at the young man, taking in his pale appearance, the gray shadows under his eyes, and distinct lack of quick wit he came to associate with Bill Weasley.

“It will all come out tonight,” he assured him. "It won't be much of a secret to keep, don't worry."

Bill swallowed and nodded. “I just don’t…keeping secrets is harder than I thought. I know that’s our whole thing, the Order, fighting this war, but…”

Sirius tried not to sigh. This was the biggest difference between him and Bill. Bill was raised in a family full of trust and mutual love, from his family, his friends. Bill didn’t grow up suspicious and cynical. He didn’t weave lies together as easily as breathing to protect his many secrets, simply because he probably never had cause to have many, much less the kind that members of the Order were trusted with.

“It will be okay,” Sirius said, patting him on the shoulder. “This is a good secret. A surprise, really. Remember, Bill, we get the win when an innocent life is saved. Enjoy it!”

Bill nodded, the corners of his mouth twitching up.

A yawn broke through and cracked his jaw. He was starting to feel dizzy with exhaustion. “I gotta go,” he said, waving lazily, “I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you,” Bill replied. Then Sirius transformed back into Padfoot and pushed back out into the city streets of London so he could apparate to his flat and finally, finally, get an hour or two of rest before Remus came pounding on his door. 

Everything will be okay, he told himself. God, he wished he believed that. 

---

Theo

The first thing he felt upon waking was immense pressure in his head.

Cool hands touched the side of his face, turning him, and then a straw pressed up against his lips. Parting them felt like he was tearing open an old wound. The raw, dry skin stuck together and prickled painfully.

“Drink,” a voice said softly.

The water rejuvenated him, cooling the heat behind his eyes, reminding him that he had fingers and toes. He wiggled them experimentally. His right arm ached in response.

“Sleep,” the voice murmured. He was already slipping back into unconsciousness.

The next time he woke up, he was wide awake in a snap.

Theo blinked his eyes open and stared up at a wood-paneled ceiling. Blinked again. A gauzy curtain fluttered at the edge of his vision. Pale white sunlight flooded over him, practically blinding him.

“Are you with us?”

He turned his head and squinted into the dark bedroom. A shape moved and then the light from the window dampened significantly. A lamp beside his bed clicked to life, and Madame Pomfrey was standing over him.

“Pomfrey?” he mumbled. Luckily for him, she didn’t catch the disrespectful use of her name, because his voice was inaudible. His mouth was as dry as a desert and his throat clicked helplessly in response as he tried to say her name again.

“None of that, now, take it slow.” She withdrew her wand, a rare Olive wood beauty that Theo had often studied while she lectured him about his eating habits. She used it to help lift him up and rearrange pillows behind his back until he was propped into a seated position like a helpless doll. “Take some water,” she ordered, holding out a cup with a long straw.

His arms shook when he took it, but it felt good to do something for himself. He didn’t miss the way she watched him like a hawk, studying his movements as he bent the straw forward and captured it between his teeth, or the way he carefully tipped the cup to drain the last bit of water when he was finished.

What happened to me?

That was too big a question. It made his vision swim in and out of focus just to think it. Theo focused on Madame Pomfrey instead. He could feel his energy already sapping away from just these small movements.

“Good, good.” She took the cup back and then sat on a small stool so they were even with each other. “Now, you’ve had a bump on the head, so I’m going to ask you some questions, just to see where we are, okay?”

Fear fluttered up in his chest like a pheasant stirred from the underbrush. He tried not to let it show, but must not have been successful, because she leaned forward to take his hand. “It’s alright,” she said soothingly. His heart pounded in his chest. Madame Pomfrey had never spoken to him like that before. “There are no wrong answers. If you get too tired, just go back to resting, okay? Time is greatest healer.”

He tried to nod, managing a jerky shake of his head. She looked at him steadily and asked, “What is your name?”

Theo blinked at her. How hard did I fucking hit my head? “Theodore Nott,” he answered instantly. His voice stuck painfully in his throat, but the words came out. She filled another cup of water for him. He held it in one hand to sip on, keeping the other where it was so she would keep holding it.

“How old are you?”

Oh my god, he realized, have I been in a coma?

“Fifteen…?”

She nodded, and he nearly collapsed with relief.

“What day is today?”

“Uh…” he searched his mind, trying to guess how long he’d been unconscious. It didn’t help that he didn’t know where he was, or why Madame Pomfrey was here. “Well…” This isn’t Hogwarts, he reasoned, glancing around the rather plain room again. It must still be summer. “The last date I remember is…”

Pain pinched behind his eyes and he hissed, squeezing them shut. What was the last Daily Prophet I read?

He couldn’t remember.

“That’s okay, dear,” she patted his hand. “What-“

“July?” He tried, “Mid-July? It’s summer, right?”

She looked at him and for a terrifying moment he was afraid he was wildly off base. What if it’s winter? He thought, What if I have been in a coma? How long has it been? What happened?

“It’s August sixth,” she replied factually. “Now, can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

That was hard. He could already feel pain building up in his head again just from the question. Theo closed his eyes and thought back to the end of term, instead. That was easy to remember. Draco going off to be a huge brat to Potter and his friends on the train. Blaise complaining about his final marks in Charms.

What came next felt a little less certain. France, he remembered, nodding decidedly. Then Italy. Germany with…

Father. The pain shot like lightning through his skull and he groaned, kneading his temples.

“It’s okay dear,” she said, pressing a vial to his lips. “Take this and rest some more.”

He was too weak to fight or ask any more questions, too exhausted to even second guess if he should trust this woman who could just be pretending to be Madame Pomfrey.

Instead, he drank, and surrendered to cool, painless sleep.

The next time he woke, the light through his window was orange. Dusky.

He felt decidedly more solid. The pain in his head was hardly there, his mouth didn’t feel so dry, and he could remember everything that happened the last time he woke. Is it the same day? He wondered.

He pushed himself into sitting position on his own. Madame Pomfrey was gone, but the door was open just a crack. He could hear voices through it, and the distant clamor of music.

The first thing he did was kick the blankets down past his feet so he could look at himself. He was wearing a standard hospital gown, no different than the ones at Hogwarts, and again he wondered where the fuck he was.

One thing at a time Theodore, he thought coolly. He rolled his ankles and wrists, pushed the heels of his palms together and then each finger, one after another. His forearms were bandaged up to the elbow, as well as his hands. The skin underneath felt numb and artificially cool.

Burns? Did I have a potions accident?

He pulled the neck of his gown out and checked his torso. There were thick bandages wrapped around his chest, and he could feel wounds on his back pulling when he leaned down.

My scars, he remembered, eyes going wide. Cold, cruel laughter echoed in his head. He remembered meeting crimson, snake-like eyes, and the pain that followed echoed distantly through his body.

Did father bring me here? Did I get worse? That didn’t explain where he was, nor why Madame Pomfrey would be treating him, of all people. Lady Malfoy would be father’s one and only choice for a healer, if he had to get a second opinion.

The door opened up a tad wider. Theo froze, expecting to see someone step through, but no one appeared.

And then a cat jumped up on the end of the bed. He blinked at it. It had its head lowered slightly, staring unblinkingly back at him. Theo thought it looked surprised, as much as a cat can.

Glancing at the door again, wary that they could be interrupted at any moment, he cleared his throat lightly and held his hand out, palm up. “Hey kitty.” His voice grumbled in his throat. He fumbled for what he hoped was a full cup of water on the table and drank from it. It was lukewarm but tasted like the best water he’d ever had in his life.

Light steps trailed up the bed and crossed over his knees. When Theo set the cup down, the cat was at his hip, sniffing his right arm tentatively. “You’re very pretty,” he tried again, pleased that he sounded more like himself. He turned his right hand a little so the palm was up and let the cat sniff his wrist and fingers. “Who do you belong to?”

The cat continued its inspection of him, moving gradually closer and closer to his head, sniffing around his chest the longest. Must be curious about the bandages, he thought. It had a lovely perfect circle on its chest, the pure white marker its only visible interruption of silky black fur. Theo always liked black cats, liked their wild temperaments and intelligent eyes. One of the first years had a skinny black cat in the dorms named Eel that Theo secretly adored. It liked to trip other students down the stairs.

The door pushed open fully and Madame Pomfrey walked in. “Mr. Nott!” she exclaimed, “How long have you been up?”

With a wave of her wand the blankets were tucked back around him. “Not long,” he said quietly, keeping his eyes on the door.

“Is that cat bothering you?” She frowned.

“John!” Someone called from deeper in the house.

The cat didn’t move. “No,” Theo said quickly, “he’s fine. He can do what he wants.”

“I don’t usually allow animals on the bed, but he is Mr. Potter’s familiar…”

He rubbed the side of his head. Now I know I heard that wrong, he thought.

“What’s going on?” Her eyes snapped to him and all at once she was wearing that polite, unreadable mask he was so familiar with. “Where am I?”

“Let me check you over first, Mr. Nott,” she said, pulling up her sleeves. “Do you feel up to eating?”

He shrugged, but at the thought of food his stomach twisted hungrily. “How long have I been…unconscious?”

She finished a short incantation over his head and frowned at the results. “A little over six days, I’d say. Follow this light.” He traced the path of the end of her wand without complaint, mulling that thought over. Six days? A week? Why aren’t I at St. Mungos if it was that bad?

“Are you in any pain?” He shook his head. “Good. Let’s get some food in you, and then we can talk.” She bustled out without giving him a chance to argue and he sighed in defeat. The cat settled down along his leg, propping its head up over his knee. Theo carefully ran his fingers down his back, trying not to scare it off.

Then he looked around the room again, much more carefully this time, and catalogued everything he could see. There wasn’t much in it at all. The bedside table to his left had a lamp and a cup of water on it. There was a dresser with an assortment of picture frames he couldn’t make out from his angle, and a tall wardrobe in the corner with a mirror next to it on the wall. Then there was another door that looked to lead to a bathroom, and finally, Madame Pomfrey’s cot and associated medical supplies.

There was no indication of who might live here. He pulled the curtain back and pursed his lips at the conjured window. Is this a safehouse of some kind?

Madame Pomfrey returned with a tray and an assortment of small plates. A bowl of rich broth that smelled like chicken, crackers, a torn piece of fluffy french bread with butter on it, and a few small pieces of cheese.

“Just eat slowly,” she said, “would you like me to stay with you?”

“Will you tell me what’s going on?” he deadpanned. The look on her face was all the answer he needed.

“You’re safe,” she replied, and all at once her face softened, losing that stern edge that was quintessentially Pomfrey. “You’re safe here, and you’ll be alright. Just focus on eating, and I’ll come back in a bit to talk to you.”

He stared at her as she retreated, utterly gobsmacked.

“What the hell happened to me?”

The cat yawned and set its chin over its paws, apparently ready for a nap. He frowned deeply and focused on eating. Gather strength, his father’s words echoed in his head, bide your time. Move with purpose. He wouldn’t gain anything from panicking or getting emotional.

But he did twitch with irritation to realize that his wand was no where in sight.

He finished all the food probably faster than Madame Pomfrey expected, because he was nearly dozing alongside the cat by the time she came back. She vanished the tray and checked his vitals again. “Now, Mr. Nott, I know you have a lot of questions. It was my hope to have your head of house here to help me, but I’m afraid he’s still in transit and cannot join us.” He blinked up at her, carefully keeping his mind blank. It would be better to go into this conversation with no expectations. “Instead of him, I’d like to invite someone else that you may remember…”

A new person stepped into the bedroom, staying back by the door. Theo stared unblinkingly at him, wondering if he was hallucinating.

“Professor Lupin?”

“Yes,” Madame Pomfrey smiled at him. “He is one of my trusted colleagues, I assure you, and he can help explain what’s been going on. If you are amenable?”

He looked back to her, “Is he going to help test my memory?”

“Perhaps,” she sat down on the stool and smoothed her robes. “Although I think I know you a bit better.”

Professor Lupin paced quietly inside and started to close the door, but it was too late to hide the other man peeking in behind him. Theo froze, all this thoughts sliding to a halt.

“-you feeling?”

He turned slowly to face the healer, having completely missed what she said. “I think there’s something wrong with my brain,” he said honestly.

She sat up, “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I’m seeing things.” He shot a look at the door again. “I think I just saw the mass-murder Sirius Black out in the hall.”

The cat sneezed into its paws. Madame Pomfrey’s mouth thinned, shooting a glare at it. “You’re not seeing things,” she sighed. “Sirius Black is an innocent man, wrongly accused by the ministry. He’s an ally of Headmaster Dumbledore, a trusted friend of mine, and also the person who saved your life.”

Theo snorted, “Yeah, okay.”

“Would you like me to call him in here?”

He stared at her. “Are you for real?”

“Sirius is my friend from our school days,” Professor Lupin’s soft voice cut in. “I assure you, Mr. Nott, Madame Pomfrey is telling the truth. He’s an innocent man. And the new Lord Black, as well.”

These new details swam in his head, trying settle up with any kind of logic. Dumbledore? Lord Black? Finally, he just shook his head wordlessly and turned back to Pomfrey. “Will you please tell me what happened? Where am I? Where’s my wand?”

“Let’s run through a few more questions to test your memory, first,” she said. “When is your birthday?”

A strong current of frustration rushed through him, turning his blood into ice. He glared down at the white blanket tucked over his knees and brushed it with his hands.

“March 5th, 1980.”

“What’s the make and measure of your wand?”

They went like that for a few minutes. Theo rattled off the right answers without hesitation, filling in the details of his life for Madame Pomfrey until she finally hit a question that stumped him.

“What did you do last week?”

When he stayed silent for a beat too long, she smiled at him encouragingly. “It’s okay, why don’t you tell me about your summer instead? Everything you remember so far?”

“I spent a few weeks with Draco and Blaise. We went to France, Italy. And then I met my father in Berlin.” He wrapped the sheets around his fingers, trying not to push too hard on his memories. Already he could feel an ache start up in his temples. “We came back home at the…end of July. And then…”

He stopped. I shouldn’t say anything about the Dark Lord.

“Can you tell me where you live?”

“What?” He looked quickly at the healer, but she just waited patiently. “We live…it…it’s protected. Private.”

A sad look crossed her face and Theo felt a stab of panic. “But surely you call it something? Your home? My mother’s ancestral home was call Apricot Hollow, for our groves of apricot trees.”

“There is a Loch,” he said uneasily, “it’s called…”

It’s called…

He searched and searched his mind. He could see it glimmering in the sunset just outside his window, the dark waters white capping from the hard easterly winds.

“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his face.

“That’s okay,” but Madame Pomfrey didn’t sound quite so positive this time. “Can you tell me your mother and father’s names?”

“Of course I can!” He snapped, glaring at her. “They’re -“ his mind went blank. “It’s…” Theo buried his face in his hands, forcing his mind to push through the pain and recall their faces. He could see his mother’s long blonde hair sliding through her fingers like silk. He could see father bending down beside her to plant a kiss on the top of her head. My picture of them, he thought angrily, their names are written on the back. How could I forget them?

“Don’t strain yourself, dear, this memory loss is normal. You-“

“Magnus!” He cried triumphantly, “And Ophelia! Magnus Nott, Ophelia Blight.” Their middle names were too far out of reach, but he had them. Madame Pomfrey slumped back, looking displeased.

“You need to be careful, Mr. Nott, with this kind of head trauma. It’s better to let it all come back on its own.”

“What is happening?” He shot back, reaching his limit of patience. “Where is my wand? Where is my father? Why the fuck did Sirius Black have to save my life? That doesn’t even make sense.”

Madame Pomfrey sighed and turned to Professor Lupin, who conjured a second stool and sat down next to her. He carefully withdrew a folded Daily Prophet from inside his ever-present cardigan and handed it to him.

“I’m very sorry, there’s no easy way to say this," the werewolf spoke evenly, meeting his hard stare with sympathetic eyes. "Your home was attacked six days ago. You, your father, and anyone or anything else that was at your estate was presumed dead until you were found yesterday.”

He laid the paper out flat, staring at the huge, snarling image of friendfyre burning out of control. Lupin may have continued to talk, but Theo wasn’t listening. He read the front page clinically, barely reacting at the cold hard facts printed in black and white. Lord Magnus Nott and his son were declared dead at a press conference…

Theo felt like he was floating outside of his own body. It wasn’t until he turned the page and saw Lucius Malfoy’s face under the headline MISSING that all the pieces slid into place and he flinched. 

“The Dark Lord did this."

“Do you remember what happened?” Lupin asked carefully.

“No,” he traced the large letters on the page with his fingertips. “But it had to be him. He…who else could do this?” Theo finally looked up and met his former defense professor’s eyes. “And why else would friends of Professor Dumbledore help me?”

“You’re a student in need,” Madame Pomfrey said strongly, “any of us would help you, Professor Dumbledore especially.”

“Even though my father was a Death Eater?”

“It doesn’t matter who your father was,” Lupin said softly. “You are deserving of help, no matter what. You’re just fifteen. Please believe us. We were all relieved to hear that you survived.”

Any sharp retort died in his throat and Theo had to look away. He pretended like it didn’t feel like a defeat, but he still prickled with shame. “Where’s my wand? Where are clothes?”

A sigh, and then something soft settled on his lap. It was the remains of his heavy winter coat, folded nicely along with an old green sweater and a pair of his muggle joggers.

“The fiendfyre attack completely destroyed your house,” Madame Pomfrey said. He ran his hands under the wool cloak. It smelled like coals, and a bit like brimstone. His burns ached. “You were found with several severe injuries. A skull fracture, second degree burns, several lesions across your back and chest from a curse I can’t identify, a broken arm…it appears you were in some kind of duel.”

“Everything there is what was left,” Lupin finished. “They didn’t find anything else with you. It’s possible you were disarmed before you…well, we can’t really know what happened unless your memory comes back. But, I would presume that your wand was lost.”

“And the Tower?” he asked sharply, looking at the man with the coldest gaze he could muster. “What’s left?”

By the looks on their faces, he knew the answer.

“Nothing?” he said incredulously. “How? How could there be nothing? It’s made of stone! There are sealed passages, caverns, secret rooms!”

“The fire raged for over twenty hours,” Lupin answered in that same infuriatingly gentle tone of voice, like Theo was some kind of feral animal snapping at him in the woods. “It…everything within your family’s ward lines was taken down to the dirt, including Nott Tower. I’m sorry.”

Theo didn’t believe him. Of course not. It was too ridiculous. Maybe I shouldn’t believe any of this, he thought suspiciously. I barely knew Lupin. I know Madame Pomfrey, but not so well to identify an impersonator. Maybe this is all some kind of trick.

But then Lupin took another folded newspaper from his cardigan pockets and handed it to him, and all his doubts faded from his mind as a empty, hollow hellscape opened up in front of him on the front page of the Daily Prophet.

All thoughts ground to a halt. The images consumed his gaze, searing into his brain. There was the cliffside jutting over the loch, on top of which should lean Nott Tower, protected by walls of old forest and the tumbled remains of the old castle. He should be seeing the fields where he played hide and seek with Draco when they were children. He should see water that was always icy cold to the touch that his father used to swim in every morning.

But it was all gone. Even Loch Birger was burned away, boiled away.

How could one man be capable of such hate? He wondered, because undoubtedly, the Dark Lord did this when he found out what his father and Lord Malfoy were up to, plotting against him, trying to keep their sons from his control.

Something settled on his shoulder and he flinched. Madame Pomfrey was rubbing his back, holding up a vial to his face.

“You’re having a mild panic attack, Theo, it’s okay,” she said.

“I don’t get panic attacks,” he ground out, refusing to take the potion. “Listen to me - Draco is in danger, too! You have to tell someone, you - Snape! Tell Professor Snape!” He looked to Lupin, swallowing back the urge to beg. “Our families were united, tied together by blood. If he came after us, he’ll go after them.”

“As far as I’m aware, Draco and his mother are still on the continent,” Lupin frowned. “But when I see Professor Snape tonight, I will pass along your warning. Don't worry, Mr. Nott. I think they are safe for now.”

All the fight drained out of him at once. A cynical voice in his head berated him for trusting this man so easily, but Theo could see that he had nothing else but trust. With no wand, no Raziel, he couldn’t send a message himself.

“Take this,” Pomfrey commanded. By sight he knew it was a calming drought. “And rest, Theodore. You need to rest.”

The pain in his head was rising to an unholy level. He sighed and turned away again, ashamed that these people had to see him like this, especially Lupin, who he barely knew.

“Can I be alone?” he asked quietly, drinking down the potion.

“Ring the bell if you need me.” The healer patted his shoulder one last time, took the empty vial from his limp grasp, and then she and Lupin filtered out of the room. Even the cat left, which stung a little, though he knew the creature was probably just disturbed by his outburst. He kept his eyes to the window, staring out at the orange light without blinking until the door fully shut. 

Then the tears came. He sniffed one or twice and let them come, staring miserably at the horrible photos painted all over the newspaper, wondering how many people in the world had seen their utter defeat. Wondered if any of father’s old enemies delighted in what happened to them, careless of all the innocent creatures they had protected inside their wards.

The thestrals, he thought, rubbing the heel of his palm roughly over his cheeks. The auroch herd. Those little selkies in the Loch.

His mind pulled back impulsively from other things his home protected, as instinctual as pulling away from a hot pan, but he knew he had to face it. He had to.

Finley. Her name burned in his brain as more tears rained down. Theo finally gave up on sitting up. He curled into his knees and looped his arms around his calves, ignoring the burning sensation down his back. All he could think of was the beautiful quilts on his bed that she changed out with the seasons, especially as Pomfrey's white linen sheets scratched at his sensitive skin.

Hard, shuddering sobs tore through him. He kicked the newspaper off the bed and curled up, pulling the covers close around his ears and burying his face in his hands. The burns stung whenever he put pressure on his arm, and his head throbbed with every painful breath, but they were nothing but little accents to painfully empty space in his chest where his home used to be.

Home.

Theo pulled the pillow over his face and cried into it, trying to be as quiet as possible.

And then, just because no one could hear him, and because he knew that his friends would never understand, he gasped a couple times to find his breath and then pictured his father.

When Theo was young, father’s hair was blonder, less gray. He always pictured him that way, and even now, those old memories washed easily over him. He still walked with a limp when he was young, carrying his wounds from countless battles, but he wasn’t a scary man. Not to Theo, anyway. How could he be, when he used to hold Theo in his lap and sing with mother in front of the fire, while she accompanied them on the half-harp. How could he be frightening, when father used to teach him the names of all the wild flowers that grew on their estate, or shot him secret, approving looks when Theo impressed the other Lords at balls, or even, on those nights when Theo couldn’t sleep at all, he would sleepily take him to the top of Nott Tower and wrap them in heavy, warm furs so they could stare up at the stars until both of them finally fell asleep in the crisp, cold air.

Theo knew that the world hated his father. Even he hated his father for letting that other man die when mother did, acting like that other version of himself never existed and making Theo feel even more alone.

But now he really was alone. He was the last Nott left alive, with nothing to protect, nothing to live for, no family to call on.

Theo curled tightly under the sheets and cried for father too, maybe cried for him most of all. Because even though he was a cruel and often terrible man, Theo still loved him. That was his darkest secret. He could never tell Blaise or Draco that truth, they'd never understand, they'd think he was just insane, but he did. Despite his flaws, despite his evils, Theo had loved him and now he’d never get to see him again. He'd never get to thank him for all that he did, or curse him, or force him to explain himself and own up to wrongs.

Now he’d just become an incomplete story. Theo had nothing but his memories and the wrenching, tearing, secret pain inside his heart. All he wanted was for his dad to walk through the door of this strange bedroom and rescue him from his place. To tell him that this was just a trick, that Pomfrey and Lupin were wrong, that he had a plan all figured out for them. That was all he wanted.

But, of course, he didn’t. Magnus Nott was dead, and Theodore was alone, finally the last of them. Just like father had always warned him that he would be, one day.

Notes:

I felt like the allegory of the cave made sense to me conceptually, but I ended up splitting a huge part of Sirius's POV from this chapter because it was getting way too long! The next chapter is called "In Black Shadow" so maybe the whole cave allegory will make more sense, after that.

Also, my most sincere apologies, Narcissa's perspective is waiting in the wings but, again, this chapter was just so dang long! She's in the next one, along with Sirius, and some big stuff between Harry and Theo that makes my heart warm just to think about :) Also, apologies in advance. I feel that I edited this chapter within an inch of its life but I'm 99% sure there's maybe some annoying spelling mistakes in here that I just missed. I may go back and fix anything egregious next week, or maybe it's not so bad! I don't know! I'm so tired!

Thank you all for reading, and for the lovely comments and kudos! You all are so kind, it makes me happy to share this story with all you readers, whether you comment or not. Thank you!!!

Chapter 17: In Black Shadow

Summary:

The House of Black has always been a family made of secrets.

Notes:

Merry Christmas - it's a DOUBLE UPLOAD! Chapter 18 is sitting in my drafts, right when I'm done with dinner I'll post it!

Also, I was really fucking inspired by two things this month. 1) The 28 Years Later trailer, which I've watched multiple times, and 2) The romance in Black Doves between Sam and Michael. Take from that what you will.

Narcissa

Smoke curled around Narcissa’s face. Silky ribbons of it rose out of the corners of her mouth, twisting up long threads of hair falling out around her ears. She was sitting in the corner of the balcony. Warm bars of sunlight dyed her fair complexion, turning her golden. If not for her bloodshot eyes and the chapped, red skin under her nose, she would be perfect.

Narcissa’s hand shook when she brought the ivory cigarette holder to her mouth. She breathed in. Held it.

On the exhale, her hand was still.

“Best not pick up that habit again,” Severus said quietly. It was the first he’d spoken since he joined her on the balcony. “Healing magic cannot yet save you from late-stage lung cancer.”

“You have a new goal, then.” Her voice stuck in her throat and she gently cleared it. Her mother’s voice chimed in her ears. All eyes are always on the Lady of the House. “Create a potion that can save my lungs.”

And my husband.

The words hovered between them. It didn’t need to be said. It shouldn’t be said. Narcissa sighed and tapped the ash out over her knee. Severus’s dark eyes tracked the vineyard, following the flight of little birds swooping through the evening air, catching bugs.

“I’m sorry.”

“You said that.” Her tone was flat. Sharp. The smoke swirled in the air as her hands started shaking again. “It’s not your fault,” she said quieter. She closed her eyes.

She had to clear her throat again. With her eyes closed it sounded profane. She felt the click in her jaw and it reminded her of the way his fingers spasmed under the covers, the little bones snapping one by one. Her barely audible wet swallow reminded her of the sound of soft marrow slipping from the bone, and also like muscle rebinding to the femur, of blood seeping the blankets, of-

She breathed. Smoke dried out her throat and lungs. On the exhale, it burned all those awful memories away.

Severus was set back in the shade, resting his jaw on one hand with his mouth pulled into a deep frown. Combined with the heavy, dark circles under his eyes, he looked far older than his 35 years. 

“Phoenix tears have never been studied in a lab,” his voice scratched in the back of his throat. “I will need to consult legends to understand why it happened this way.”

“I know why it happened,” Narcissa said softly, staring at the crown of the sun. “It is because nothing in this world comes for free. Not magic. Not miracles. Not phoenix tears. It is up to us to find a way to stop the curse or neutralize the tears.” She raised the long pommel and pressed its sharp point against her bottom lip, feeling the rising tide of grief lapping at her throat.

Severus sighed, “The only way to end that curse is to-”

“Kill the Dark Lord.” Narcissa’s eyes were wide and blank. They looked at each other, at the end of the same conversation they’d had every day for six days. The other option wasn't worth mentioning. No one knew enough about phoenix tears to say how they worked, much less how to undo them.

For awhile there was only the sound of smoke whittling through the ivory tube and the small, wheezing exhales of her breath. Not even the birds were singing. The cottage hadn’t recovered since Lucius portkeyed into the receiving hall nearly a week ago. The echoes of the great evil that tried to tear his body to pieces poisoned the grounds, wilting all the flowers and scaring the fair butterflies from the garden. Narcissa did not miss them.

“I don’t want to leave you alone before he’s moved to the Asclepion,” Severus said.

She finally looked at him, one thin eyebrow arching high. Her message was clear enough. But you must.

“Will you go into hiding?” He asked, with the air of someone who knew and dreaded the answer.

She crossed her wrists over each other. “Draco will. He’ll stay with Catarina for the rest of the summer. No one can assault her villa, and even if they did, she has many places to hide in Italy.” The cigarette was nearly burnt out. She pinched the embers between her thumb and forefinger and barely felt the bite. “I will go to Bern and listen to what the healers have to say about Lucius. If they can find a way to separate the curse from his body, then I will go back to England to sort out our affairs. If there is a chance he could survive this, then...” She shook her head, "I will drain every galleon in our vault if I have to."

Narcissa rotated her wedding band. It felt heavy on her finger, reminding her of the promises she made. "And if they can't save him..."

The truth was so unspeakably ugly that she almost couldn't say it out loud, but she knew she had to if only to make it real. "I can't let him suffer if there's no hope," she admitted in a harsh whisper. "I can't. I will find a way to kill him myself, if I must. He would not leave me that way." Her mouth pulled down and she quickly looked away so he couldn't see her breaking, "He would grant me mercy, and so must I, for him."

She glared into the sun until the tears dried on her skin. Severus did not move or speak, letting her gather her thoughts.

"Will you tell Dumbledore?" She finally asked.

He seemed surprised by the question and tapped his cheek. "No. If Lucius lives, he will credit me for my fidelity."

"But if Lucius does live, he will know that you lied," she pointed out.

Severus arched an eyebrow, "I lie to Albus every day."

She sighed. "I know how thin you stretch yourself, Severus. I would never ask you to risk your position with Dumbledore for me. For us."

"I know," he replied simply, "that is why you do not have to ask."

Narcissa's bottom lip trembled and she quickly bit it, staring down at her hands. Suddenly, she felt like a teenager again, struck dumb by effortless, unselfish kindness that she didn't know what to do with, or how to receive.

“Please do not come back until after I write you,” he said. “Let me ensure that it is safe.”

Narcissa looked up, mouth unconsciously parting in surprise at the word please. For once, she could fully read the emotion on his face. He was afraid for her.

She smiled. “Don’t worry, Sev,” she whispered, reaching out to take his hand. “Nothing will happen to me.”

He scowled and pulled his hand away. “Magnus Nott is dead,” he said flatly, “his estate was burned to the ground and took everything with it, and he was the most powerful of the Dark Lord’s followers.” Severus’s eyes widened, a wild light to them, “You cannot go Narcissa. He is probably lying in wait, and if he catches you, he will use you to draw Draco out, and then he’ll probably burn you both alive just as he did Magnus and Theodore! Just to make a point to the rest of us that no one can stand against him. You have to hide.”

“The Dark Lord must be gravely injured,” she said stonily. “I recognized the damage to Lucius’s nerves, the burns across his hands. He summoned a storm, I know it. If the Dark Lord is licking his wounds, then it will be safe for me to come back to England. He was already weak, and now he is weaker. I will not waste this chance.”

“Lightning is not enough to keep the Dark Lord down for long,” Severus cautioned. “And just because he has not summoned me does not mean he is gravely injured. There are many others desperate to come to his aid now that he’s returned, he could be waiting to strike from the shadows." When she didn’t respond, he pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation, “What is so important in England? You can’t be thinking of trying to return to the Manor.”

Narcissa pulled the spent cigarette out and rolled it between her fingers until it vanished. “I don’t need to be coddled, Severus,” she said, a touch reproachfully. “You forget that I am a Black.”

“How could I ever forget?” he muttered. But, after a moment, doubt crept over his face and he glanced at her. “No,” he said, sitting up. Narcissa’s face was a mask. “No!” he said again, curling his hands into fists, “You can’t trust him, Narcissa! Him? Of all people?!”

“He was recognized-“

“I don’t care if he was recognized!” Severus shouted. His voice rang along the terrace and echoed off the tile floors. Narcissa was unimpressed. “How many Lords and Ladies of that house have been completely insane? Why would you ever even consider-“

“Listen to me.”

He shut his mouth.

Her voice rolled deep within her chest, low, soft, and absolute. “The path I am about to walk is long and perilous. Whether Lucius lives or not, whether there is a chance he could be made whole again or not, I will stand alone. Once the Dark Lord declares us his enemies, our allies will turn away. The House of Malfoy is not strong enough to stand on its own.” She raised her chin, “But the House of Black is one of the most powerful across the British Isles, no matter who heads it. If Lucius has any hope of living, I will need access to my family’s vault and our grimoire. If Lucius has no hope at all...” She cut her gaze to the sun again, lip curling just enough to turn her teeth a bloody red. “Then I will need every weapon at my disposal to protect my son, and to grant mercy to my husband. We have more enemies than friends right now, and though Sirius Black may be at its head, my blood will not abandon me.”

“But he is Albus’s pawn,” Severus said helplessly. “Making a deal with him is as good as throwing yourself to the lion’s den...I do not want to see you chained, Narcissa. Albus is not merciful,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “you would be trading one master for another.”

“Perhaps Lord Black chafes at such chains as well,” she murmured. “You spent a whole afternoon convincing me that Black is no longer so loyal to Dumbledore, that his sole motivation appears to be his godson. You thought we were already working together, remember?”

“But you’re not,” he groaned. “And I do not know what Black’s motivations are. He is unpredictable, hateful, spiteful.”

“Sounds like somebody I know."

Severus glared at her, “If you did not fix his mind, then he must have done it himself, and I do not have faith that he did it well. He’s dangerous, Narcissa.”

Narcissa pulled a fresh cigarette from the box on the tea table. Then she snapped her fingers and lit a flame above her fingertip. “We’re all dangerous, Sev.”

“The only thing that mutt cares about is Potter,” Severus continued tiredly, “and Potter is no better than putty in Albus’s hands. If you can just wait a few weeks, let me gather information before you go back, you’d be in a much better position to treat with Black.”

Narcissa’s mouth curled into a fond smile even as she shook her head. “What more information do I need?” With her free hand, she started counting out the facts. “He claimed the Lordship that he famously hates. He summoned a patronus despite enduring Azkaban for twelve years. He stole his godson right out from Dumbledore’s nose and hid him from the world using magic outsiders do not understand.” The ember of her cigarette blazed bright orange as she breathed in.

“It sounds to me like he is doing everything he can to protect that child, and I understand that motivation, Severus.” She could see him crumbling under the weight of her reasoning, so she softened. “He may need me as much as I need him. As you say, whatever he did to heal his mind he probably did himself. Perhaps he will have a use for my talent with the mind arts, or perhaps he will want a favor for another day. All I know is, he must be as desperate as he is alone.” Just like me, she did not say.

Severus sighed again with a weariness that they both felt in their bones. He closed his eyes, that crease of worry in his brow deepening. “Do you have the potions I gave you?” She hummed in acknowledgment. “Keep them on you, constantly. You can summon me from anywhere with them. I know you won’t need my help with Black, but if you’re in danger, I will come and find you.” He dug his thumb into his temple. “You are not entirely alone, Narcissa.”

Long fingers reached out and looped over his wrist, sliding up until their hands clasped together. “I know that, Sev,” she murmured, smiling as he rolled his eyes at the nickname. “I know I can always call on you. You’ve never let me down.”

A flash of defeat and self-loathing passed over his face and she knew he was thinking of that day.

“Don’t do that,” she commanded, sliding her palm to his cheek, making him face her. “He’s still alive because of you-“

“I asked the phoenix to save him,” Severus said stonily, not looking at her. "I'm the reason he's cursed. What I did was unforgivable."

“He would still be in agony if not for your Draught of Living Death,” she snapped. “You saved him. Neither of us could have known that phoenix tears would prolong his suffering. And you tried," her voice shook powerfully and Narcissa choked through the painful lump in her throat. "You tried to save him from it. You did that for me. Please, Severus, believe me, I do not blame you."

His dark eyes reluctantly found hers, and she started to breathe a little easier. Keeping her hand pressed firmly along his cheek she said, “You must know that I have trusted you with my life ever since you saved me while I was carrying Draco. I trusted you with my secrets after you came to me with poison, fearing that Lucius inherited his father’s temper and was violent with me.” She took a deep breath to hold her composure, “In all our years of friendship, you have given to me over and over again that which I was never owed, never asked for, never deserved. Your kindness. Mean-spirited thing that it is.”

He snorted softly and took her hand from his face, holding it in his.

“I do not need your kindness now,” she said, tightening her grip. “I need your trust. I will go where you cannot, to forge a bond with the new Lord Black, and throw myself into the war that is coming. I will finish the task of saving my husband. I will protect my son. Do not take these burdens on when you already carry so many. Together, we can both claim vengeance against the Dark Lord for the people that we love.”

She held his gaze, holding her muscles taut so as not to shake. She could not make out all the emotions in his face, but she did see resignation, and shortly after came pride, and that was how she knew she’d won.

“Stay far from Albus,” he warned, sitting back in his chair. “I am already part of his web. He doesn’t need another weapon at his disposal.”

Narcissa smirked and raised the cigarette to her lips, “Gladly.”

The two of them settled back and watched the sun set very slowly over the vineyard until it was time for his scheduled international portkey to take him back to Cokeworth. She got to her feet and embraced him before he was gone, squeezing tightly, unable to control the hot, bright tears escaping over her cheeks.

Please don’t leave me alone, she thought miserably, letting herself have one moment of weakness. Severus hugged her back, a little awkwardly at first, and then more warmly, as if he knew what she was thinking.

“Watch out for yourself,” she whispered. “I can’t lose another.”

“You won’t.” His voice rumbled in his chest. Narcissa nodded, pressing her forehead against him one last time before letting go. She batted tears from her cheeks uselessly as she drew a heavy letter from her robes, addressed to Lord Sirius Black. Severus took it wordlessly. The tell-tale hum of magic began to quiver around him. They stared at each other, their promises and half-laid plans thick in the air.

All that’s left to do is trust each other, she thought, just as he vanished in a flash of white light.

Immediately, her knees buckled under the vacuum of loneliness his absence left behind. She turned her back on his chair and looked over the fields. Tried to smoke some more. But her mind kept falling back on that day. The sound of her pulse was too loud, the wheezing exhales too obscene.

Narcissa wasn’t one to hide from things that frightened her, so even though misery pooled in her gut, she snuffed the half-smoked cigarette and stepped back inside the cottage to face what they had done.

Monitoring charms pulsed quietly, filling the room with a steady chorus of soft, dreadful sounds. The hiss of a lung regeneration potion, aerated and forced through Lucius’s nose in long, even bursts. The jerky twitching of his limbs under the sheet as the curse silently disassembled him piece by piece, and the answering cracks and pops of phoenix tears, knitting him back together. His body was trapped in a vicious cycle. For all their research over the last few days, the most they could do was concentrate the curse to his limbs in a fruitless attempt to preserve his vital organs.

Tomorrow, she thought tiredly, looking at his ashen face. Tomorrow he will be taken to Bern, and they will tell me what comes next. They will either untangle the curse from his body and save him, or keep him under the Draught of Living Death until I can find a way to kill him.

She stood there and stared at the body of her husband as he took a very slow, rattling breath. Against her will, the memory of that day consumed her once again.

Lucius’s face was pale white, his lips blue, voice barely audible. Draco’s head bowed close to him, holding one hand against his mouth to stifle his cries as he listened to his father’s final words.

Narcissa was lost in her enchantment, trying to bring Lucius’s physical pain out of his flesh, separating it from great horror chewing through his body. Severus looked like a nightmare, covered from head to toe in blood. Every time he managed to save a piece of Lucius - his liver, his heart, his limbs - the curse moved to an unprotected part of him. It was flaying him alive. It was tearing his vitals out with its teeth. It was crushing his bones and savoring the livid marrow. It moved like a writhing eel over his body, black and red, intangible yet visible to their eye. It was hard for her to believe that there was anything left of him, hard to believe that he could still be breathing.

It was as if the curse would not let him die.

Severus was still trying to end it between his bouts of lifesaving, but they were losing ground. Nothing he or she did could contain it, stop it, slow it. Narcissa felt the inevitable rising up in front of them, a heavy door with a beyond she could not reach. A place her husband would go without her, a place this curse was taking him. Her hopes were rapidly diminishing until just one remained - that she could usher him through the door of death without pain.

A bout of orange flame exploded over their heads. She didn’t so much as twitch. Her limbs were growing cold from the force of energy she was using to maintain the spell, and truthfully, she didn’t think she could look up if she wanted to.

But Draco did. “A phoenix?” he gasped.

High, trilling birdsong wailed in the room. It set her heart on fire to hear it, and warmth crawled down her arms and into her hands where she cupped Lucius’s face. His eyes were half-lidded. She could see his color change in that moment, slipping from pasty white to a sickly gray.

“No!” She sobbed, breaking out of her reverie. He didn’t so much as twitch as the spell she had wrapped around him started to fade. Her fingernails bit into his skin as she touched their foreheads together. “Please,” she begged, “please don’t go yet! Please stay with me. I can’t do it without you, I can’t, I can’t...”

“What are you doing here?!” Severus snarled, almost jerking her from her grief until she realized he was addressing the phoenix. “Are you here for me?" The bird whistled in response and Severus let out an inhuman growl. Potions vials clashed in his hands as he searched for another blood replenishment potion, or nerve regenerator. "I don't have time for you!" He shouted, "Save him! He fought the Dark Lord! He’s dying right in front of you, and you're the only creature in the world that might be able to save his life! Give him mercy!”

A cry that made her ears ring pierced the room and then a wave of heat rushed overhead. She watched in awe as the blazing phoenix floated over Lucius's gaping chest. Three large tears dripped down its obsidian beak and melted into his heart. Severus froze, surprise written all over his face. He and Narcissa looked at each other. She felt something that felt very much like hope.

And then Lucius’s ribs cracked and caved inward. Blood bubbled out of his mouth. Draco fell to the floor, wordlessly crying, pushing on his hands to get away from the bed. Yet, a moment later, his bones reformed. Muscle knitted back together, and skin followed. Lucius took an easy breath.

And then the curse traveled down his abdomen, moving over his hips and slitting open one thigh, peeling back the skin. Seconds later, the bleeding stopped. The skin came back together.

Lucius jerked and gasped for breath. Before he could start to scream again, she was chanting with renewed strength, drawing his pain away. The phoenix sang one last time and then disappeared in another bright ball of fire. Severus redoubled his efforts to remove the curse, now that the phoenix tears were keeping him alive.

It took them far, far too long to figure out that they couldn't.

Narcissa was nearly ice cold by the time Severus dropped his wand. He panted, sweat cutting rivers through the blood painted on his face. "The portkey," he kept repeating. "The portkey."

Narcissa's spell demanded her constant attention so she could not reply. But Severus was muttering like he was in a daze, like he was piecing together a particularly difficult potions formula. "The curse must have fused with him when he activated it. The nature of this spell is to keep him alive for as long as possible, to cause maximum suffering before he dies. And now the phoenix tears...they're...they must be..." he trailed off. Narcissa closed her eyes, keeping the chant going. "There's nothing I can do for him," Severus finally concluded. "I think...he cannot be healed."

"Do it," she gasped between repetitions. Her face felt sticky. "Kill him. You have to do it, Severus."

He got to his feet and stepped back, drawing his wand again. Narcissa finished another repetition and forced herself to pull away from Lucius, banging the back of her head against the wall. "Close your eyes, Draco," she said hoarsely.

Lucius's eyes blinked open. They were glassy, unseeing. She could see pain start to contort at his fine face, and then Severus's voice cracked like thunder. "Avada kedavra!"

Green lightning flashed out, and the red and black curse surged up from Lucius to fling it away. Narcissa screamed, clasping bloody hands to her mouth as the killing curse exploded against the ceiling. Severus's mouth dropped open, his eyes huge as he stared at the curse hovering over Lucius's body like a living creature. Quick as a whip, he snapped out of it and tried to hook into the curse again, but it sank like fog back beneath Lucius's skin and started its wretched work all over again.

Her husband moaned and she fell forward, picking up her spell, her litany. After a few tense seconds, he settled down into painless unconsciousness.

"The Draught of Living Death." Narcissa flinched as her son's voice came from far closer than she wanted. A hand settled on her back, blessedly warm. "If you give it to him, he wouldn't feel pain, would he? And mother could rest?"

Severus swore. "You have to help me make it," he barked at Draco. "Quickly!" Her son draped his arms over her for a second as Severus's long strides hurried from the room. She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head, and then he was gone, too.

It took Severus over two hours to prepare it, even with Draco's help. By the time they administered a heavy dose to Lucius, her lips were blue. She could feel her pulse getting slower and slower, yet still she wove the spell over him to keep him safe from all the pain he must be feeling. Narcissa had lost all feeling in her body. She was just a force of magic. Nothing more than a wish, personified. Even after they pulled her away, she mouthed the words of the spell until Severus poured Dreamless Sleep down her throat and, at last, she knew no more.

“You are still with me, my love,” she murmured, pressing the back of her hand against his high cheekbone. “But will you forgive me if I - if I have to find a way to end this? Will you still...love me?”

Narcissa pressed her wedding band to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut until the hot tears faded away. Her steps were unusually heavy as she padded to Draco’s wing of the cottage. It was their last night together. 

She found him curled up on his bed, clutching a dark blue sweater in his arms. His room was in chaos. His trunk was open and empty. Stacks of books, his potions kit, his summer homework, and even his broomstick were all scattered around the room as if he’d been searching for something, not to mention the piles and piles of clothes tossed over every available piece of furniture.

Draco was fast asleep. She leaned over the bed and brushed her thumb across his brow, sweeping lank, greasy hair from his face. He was wearing the same crumpled black shirt and black pants as yesterday, and there were murky shadows under his eyes. Carefully, Narcissa pulled the sleeve of the sweater out, wondering if it was something his father gave him.

"Oh, my dragon," she whispered, tearing up when she recognized the white runes stitched along the cuffs and collar. It was Theo's cardigan. She recalled him wearing it one night when they were sitting out on the porch as she tried to come up with a story about the stars the boys didn't know. Draco teased him about it, she remembered, until he started shivering when the stones finally lost the heat of day.

Narcissa always liked the cold, but Draco was far less tolerant. She remembered Theo silently taking his cardigan off and draping it over her son. He must have forgotten to give it back, she reasoned.

Thinking of Theo crumbled the last of her strength. She settled down on the bed, curling her knees up to her chest much like her son, and let the tears come. She was quiet. Narcissa had always been a quiet crier. Bella had been so loud growing up, always wanting the attention on her, and Andi was always so strong, confident in a way that made it seem strong emotions were beneath her. Neither of them had much patience for Narcissa's moods or feelings, so she learned to hide her true self from them. She could cry silently, laugh politely, smile in the just right way to send exactly the right message.

Restrained, perfect, poised Narcissa.

She flatted the palm of one hand over her mouth, not quite pushing down, just instinctually hiding the ugly way her mouth contorted when she cried. Draco was probably too exhausted to wake, but still she held herself as still as possible until it was painful, and even then, she held tighter.

I'm so sorry, Ophelia, she thought, blinking tears away so she could watch her son's chest slowly rise and fall. I'm so sorry I didn't protect him. I know you loved him more than the world. I tried to love him like you did, but it wasn't enough. I should have kept him here, with me, with Draco, where he'd be safe.

Narcissa sniffled and wiped her face with her sleeve as the grief settled down. She imagined it flattening out, stretching over her body like a thin shell. It felt less powerful that way, diffused. She didn't know if other people felt like this. Her emotions had always been overwhelming to her, stronger than they had any right to be. Her mother used to say it was a kind of strength passed down through her bloodline, a higher order of magic that magnified their feelings so much so that they could succeed where other wixen, lesser wixen, failed.

Bella certainly took that story to heart. Andi, too, but in a different way. She trusted her emotions. They gave her the strength to forge her own path.

But Narcissa was not nearly as grateful as they were. One of her earliest memories were of maintaining her composure while Bella set her dolls on fire. That was why she had gravitated to Lucius in school. He was the picture of composure. Even his shows of emotion were carefully controlled. His disdain was communicated with one sharp turn of the head, his rage a carefully measured insult or neatly cast curse. They were two strangers hiding the same secret, so they were not strangers for long.

Narcissa had never felt loneliness like this. It was worse than the misery she remembered as a child. It was worse than losing her mother. All she had left was...

Draco uncurled a little in his sleep, sliding back toward her warmth. She hastily wiped fresh tears away and slid closer until one hand was tucked beneath her head, and her other was looped over her son's middle. Draco cuddled the sweater closer to his face and let out a sleepy sigh.

A little of the pain eased in her chest. Just enough, that Narcissa could close her eyes and sleep.

---

Sirius

Poppy and Remus exited Nott’s room about fifteen minutes after going in. The healer spun a silencing spell over the door and then paused, looking down at her wand blankly.

“For all I do,” she murmured, “I cannot fix this.”

Remus’s eyes flickered over to her and then fixated on Sirius. To him, his friend’s gaze felt like an arrow through the chest, pinning him in place. Just how bad was it? He wondered.

Harry turned off the tap and dried his hands. Stacks of soup bowls and various cutlery were laying on a dish rack. Behind him, the soups that had been simmering all afternoon - a hearty vegetable stew for them, and a light chicken broth for Nott - were cooling on the counter.

Harry had been a nervous wreck all day, having needed a lot less sleep than him to recover from their impromptu rescue. His core bounced back faster than yours, Sirius. That’s youth for you. Luckily, Remus offered distraction by teaching him how to make bread, which naturally led him to volunteer to make soup, which led him to spend over an hour cleaning the kitchen to sparkling perfection with a tense frown on his face, and nothing Sirius nor Remus did could snap him out of it.

“How is he?” Harry asked, a definite wobble to his voice.

Remus shook his head, not breaking eye-contact with Sirius. “We need to get Severus.”

He groaned. “Why? Do you really think that overgrown bat can offer any comfort?”

“He knows Severus,” Remus replied flatly. “He’s all alone. He doesn’t know you, he barely knows me. Poppy?” The healer hummed, watching the two men. “Do you think he trusts Severus?”

She nodded, “He respects him, which for Theodore is the highest honor.”

“See?” Remus met his gaze again. “I want you to imagine that you are him, Sirius. Imagine that your whole house was burned to the ground, that your family are all dead, even your wand is gone. Now, unless you have some heretofore unmentioned connection with Narcissa Malfoy?” He paused for a long moment, searching his face for something. Sirius furrowed his brow. Narcissa Malfoy? My cousin? My very distant cousin who I’ve never spoken to?

“No,” he said, suspiciously.

Remus’s mouth twitched, “Didn’t think so. Well, Severus does, and Severus has just returned from France where he was with her for the last week. We need him. He is the bridge between us and the Malfoys.”

“But what if it’s not safe to give him to the Malfoys?” He pointed out, aware that Harry was boring holes into his skull and probably thinking the same thing. “Lucius is most likely dead. The whole family could be next. Do you think being in France can save them?”

Remus stared at him in surprise. Then he deliberately glanced at Harry. “Are you really one to say whether or not a child belongs to someone, or is safe with them?” Before he could splutter a response, Remus pushed on, “Theodore confirmed it just now, their families were joined. He cares for them, he’s worried about them, he belongs with them.”

“It would be best for Theo to be somewhere familiar,” Poppy agreed.

“Well, why don’t we move him, then?” Sirius said, crossing his arms. “Why would I need to bring Snape here?”

“He can’t be moved,” Poppy frowned, “not by magic, at least. Give him three days, and he’ll be right as rain.”

“That’s too long,” Remus said immediately. “It was a mistake to go in there. He needs stability. He needs trust. I don’t think we should move him from your apartment, but having Severus here will basically be an endorsement for you and show him that he is safe.”

Sirius snarled under his breath, “Fucking hell, why does the Head of Slytherin have to be that greasy git? It couldn’t have been anyone else that took that damn post. It’s like he’s haunting me.” Sirius raked his fingers through his hair. It felt weird with just eight of them now. “This is a nice house, a welcoming place,” he muttered, just to get all his complaints off his chest before bucking up and doing the damn thing. “I don’t want him to come in and dour it all up, putting cobwebs on my-“

“Harry?” Sirius froze. Remus’s brittle tone was like a tundra washing over him. He looked up and saw Harry nervously lean back from Remus, who had a terrifying little smile on his face. “I’m sorry, I know this is your space, but could I have a minute alone with your godfather?” Your godfather? Oh Jesus. “I don’t want you to hear what I’m about to say to him.”

Sirius quickly put on a brave face and nodded, “Go on, Harry. It’ll be fine.”

“Er, okay...” John mrrowed, reaching up with one paw so Harry would pick him up. The two of them disappeared down the hall and Poppy quickly sent another silencing charm after.

Remus bodily pulled Sirius to his feet, digging his fingers into his shoulders. “Padfoot, I need you to grow up,” Remus growled, giving him a shake. “I know you’re capable of setting aside your wants and needs for one kid, so do it for another. You’re not keeping this bad blood alive for any good reason anymore, not that there was one in the first place!”

“Not a good reason?” Sirius snapped before he could stop himself. “What he said to Lily was-“

“Not our fucking business. It never was!” Remus bared his teeth, eyes flashing amber, “And you never had a good reason to hate him, you just followed James around from the very first day of school and did everything he did. We all know he was just jealous that Severus was Lily’s friend! We all knew that, even you. I don’t know when it crossed the line and got so fucking nasty that it almost killed him, but-“

“How about when-“

“Don’t fucking quote our history to me!” Remus shouted, clamping his hand over Sirius’s mouth. “They’re dead, okay? They’re dead. They’re gone, and you, me, and Severus are left. We have all this shit between us and it’s just getting in the way. All of us want to fight Voldemort, all of us want to save people that we care about, and if you could just use your ears and listen to me, you would know that Severus cares about his students. His snakes, specifically. He plays his part well, I’ll give him that - he does not try to be a nice man because nobody would trust him if he was, but he cares for that boy in the other room and we have to work with him.”

Sirius felt like a whipped dog. He tried not to shy back as Remus let his hand drop, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to make eye contact.

“Okay,” he muttered, hating how petulant he sounded, but at the same time he just couldn’t help it. It was Snape, for Merlin’s sake! Snape! “You have to come with me. I can’t be trusted to talk to him alone.”

“Oh, there was no question there,” Remus snapped, slightly out of breath.

Sirius eased a step back. “What if...what if we just call a meeting? Then we could tell him there?” We can’t kill each other in a room full of people.

“What would that accomplish but delay what needs to be done?” Remus said sharply. “I can’t tell you much time I wasted in the last month going to Order meetings where people theorized all day about where you were and how you hid Harry, when we could have been out looking for you. And it sounds like you and Harry weren’t exactly laying low.”

Sirius glanced at the birthday wall, still written on the plaster with various adventures and experiences crossed out.

“Where does he live?” He sighed.

His friend still didn’t look quite pleased, but the rage was gone. “I’ll take you.”

“Take your time,” Poppy said, waving her wand to set the kettle on. “These two boys will be safe with me.”

Sirius gestured to the black track pants and old Crass tee he was wearing, “I’m going to get changed, alright? Then we’ll go get the - the - ah, fuck. We’ll go get fucking Snape.”

“I hope Harry doesn’t pick up your language,” Poppy tutted. He curled his hands into fists and thought, I’m an adult, I’m an adult, I am an adult.

“You okay?” Harry said once the door shut behind him.

“I’m fine.” He stomped over to the dresser, “I’m great! Are you fine? Bringing Snape here isn’t exactly your idea of a fun time either, is it?”

Harry hesitated and Sirius let out a long, long breath. That wasn’t fair.

“Sorry,” he glared down at his various shirts and tried to find one he wouldn’t mind destroying in an unexpected duel. “I shouldn’t drag you into this. There’s a long history between us.”

“I know,” Harry snorted, “I’ve heard.”

“No, pup, you don’t know even the half of it. We’ve done unforgivable things to each other. It would be like...” he searched for some kind of analogous person in Harry’s life. “I suppose it would be like trying to work with Voldemort. In a way.”

Harry clicked his tongue, “It can’t be that bad.”

“Well,” Sirius swapped out his shirt for a solid color and snagged some jeans and socks before heading to the bathroom, “it’s very personal, is what I’ll say.” He got changed in record time, ran a comb through his hair, and summoned his shoes from under the bed. As he slid the heavy boots over his feet he stole glances at Harry. He was sitting on the ground with his arms folded over the windowsill, just watching the city.

“Thank you,” Harry said, pillowing his cheek on one wrist. “Thank you for doing this for him.”

Padfoot, I need you to grow up.

Sirius got down next to Harry. “You’d do this in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?” he said. “You wouldn’t have complained.”

Harry huffed, “I mean, internally I would have, yeah.”

Sirius banged his forehead against the sill a couple times and tried not to feel so small and stupid and immature.

“This is going to sound idiotic,” he began, letting one little secret bubble up. It came to him as soon as Remus mentioned the beginning of their famous feud with Snape. “The reason I didn’t like him in school, back when we were kids, was because he hated me on sight. Well," he closed his eyes as he remembered, "It wasn't that, really. It was that I tried to get him to like me and he never did. No one hated me, Harry. Never. It was the first time I had ever met somebody who I couldn't win over, I guess. It’s like he had my number right from the beginning. Always saw the worst in me.” All the grief he and James had piled on Snape replayed in his mind. And it did get nasty in the end, he acknowledged. “I guess I proved him right.”

“But you’re not bad,” Harry said.

Sirius smiled wryly and looked at his godson. It was hard to believe that Harry, green-eyed, bread-baking, smiling Harry was the same person who threw Mad-Eye Moody out of his property, or silenced a room full of wixen with just his command. John was still slung around his neck like a mink fur, adding another pair of wide eyes peering into his soul.

“I am,” he disagreed, “I try not to be anymore, but I am.”

“Well, I don’t care,” Harry asserted, making a face. “You’re a bad person to Snape, fine. I’m not Snape. And anyway, that was all in the past. Maybe this will help him see that you’ve changed.”

“Hah!” Sirius ruffled Harry’s hair in farewell, “That would be quite a magic trick.”

“Be safe,” Harry murmured.

“I will,” he promised.

Remus was waiting for him in front of the door. “Can we apparate from here?”

“Yes, there’s no ward.”

“Good. Ready to go?” Before he could fully reply, Remus gripped him by the upper arm and yanked them through space.

“Morgana’s axe, warn a man, Remus!” Sirius yelped when they landed. His whole body ached from such a forceful apparation. “Where are we?”

“My house,” Remus said shortly.

It was dark. He could see the vague shapes of a couch and TV in the living room, but there were thick curtains drawn over all the windows and Remus made no move to turn on the lights. They were standing in a kitchen. It smelled clean, almost sterile, like Remus hadn’t cooked here in a long while. There was an island in the middle of the room and Remus put it between them.

“What?” Sirius said impatiently, “What is it? You’re pissed, I see that. This can’t only be about Snape.”

“It’s not,” Remus ground out, squeezing the corner of the kitchen island so hard Sirius could hear his knuckles popping. “We need to have that conversation we didn’t finish, Padfoot.”

He deflated. Remus’s anger was a thin veneer over something much deeper, he realized. Unfortunately, Sirius was well acquainted with what lay beneath the surface. Betrayal. Hurt. Distrust.

“I mean, come on,” Remus shook his head, “I’ve had your back all week, making excuses for Harry’s accidental magic or whatever that was, and you go off looking for someone we all thought was dead without telling me?”

“You heard the story, I didn’t know that Harry thought the kid was still alive,” Sirius defended. “I don’t think he believed it either, until...” He caught himself at the last second, remembering their cover story, “Until he just couldn’t take it anymore. He really did go cast his patronus at the top of the mountain without telling me, and took off on his own! I only brought him to Black Roc last night because I thought he wanted to clear his head, and then he just...”

“Right, and he just happened to believe Theodore was alive because you told him about what Kingsley said? Because Harry famously puts so much stock into divination?” Remus arched an eyebrow, “I thought Harry was upset at the party because he’s an idealist, he still believes that the world’s a better place than it is, but that’s not it, is it? He knows Theodore.”

Sirius tapped his fingers on the counter, “That’s Harry’s secret to tell. I can’t go behind his back, Remus.”

“Okay,” his friend held his hands up in surrender, “okay, you know what, that’s fine. Maybe he would have told me today if Poppy wasn't around, but that's not really what this is about." Remus hesitated, giving Sirius a long look. "What about your secrets, Sirius?”

He felt like something was crashing down around him, like he was plummeting into a bad Quidditch accident that he foresaw but couldn’t prevent. His stomach curled into knots and clammy sweat dotted the back of his neck. “What about my secrets?”

Remus let out a short sigh, “Do you really not know Narcissa Malfoy?”

“No!” He protested, “Where is this coming from? I’ve never-“

“Then how did you do it?” Remus snapped, angry once again. His sharp voice rang off the pots and pans hanging from the hooks above the stove. “Why are you better? How did you do it? All I know is that at the beginning of the summer you were out of your mind on calming draughts, and then suddenly you were cold. You wouldn’t talk to me, or look at me, and then you just fucking left. And two months later you take Harry away, you do some impossible feats of magic like send a patronus and hide Harry and fucking finding a dead wizard in the ruins left behind by Fiendfyre and yet you look healthy! You talk like you used to, you act like you used to, but you - you - you-“ Remus gestured at Sirius like he was grasping for something, fishing for a truth that Sirius was hiding from him. “You still keep me at arm’s length. I don’t get it! It's like my friend is back but I'm not - you don't -"

Remus raked his fingernails over his cheeks, shuddering. With his eyes closed he said, "What did I do? Is it because I never tried to find out if you were really guilty? Do you blame me for that? Just tell me, Padfoot, or I can't do this anymore.”

Sirius focused on his breathing. In...two, four, six, out...one, three, five.

“It’s not because of you." His voice sounded so empty in Remus’s kitchen, like it was being swallowed by the shadows around them. “I never blamed you for that. I...may not have been guilty, but I wasn’t innocent. I didn’t feel innocent.” He looked down at his hands, the cold of Azkaban seeping out his bones like it was a wellspring in his soul. “It’s because of me.”

“What did you do?” Remus asked again. He sounds so tired. “What was it? I don’t understand. Albus said it wasn’t possible. He said he brought in an expert to see you over a year ago and she said that your mind would never recover.”

Sirius’s shoulders slumped. He remembered that day well, sitting in the Headmaster’s office, all ragged and barely lucid. Agatha Nebel, renowned mind healer and expert in the long-term effects of dark creatures, finished her assessment of him but gave the report to Albus. It was as if Sirius wasn’t even in the room.

Even if he was to seek intensive healing treatment in a secure facility, he would need to avoid triggers for the rest of his life to approach some kind of normal. And even then...

“The Blacks have magic for everything,” he said finally. “But it comes at a cost. This,” he gestured at himself, “how I am now, it wasn’t for free. And you...I’m afraid you won’t...” Fuck. It was impossible for him to look at Remus, much less get the words out.

“I won’t what? Forgive you? Trust you? Be your friend anymore?”

He leaned back, still staring a hole into the floor. “Yes. All three.”

“Goddamn it, Sirius!” Remus shouted, banging his fist into the counter. “Do you hear yourself? Don’t you sound like me?”

He startled and looked up. The anguish on Remus’s face was a sword through the heart. “I still dream of the night you three first transformed with me on the full moon! Do you know how hard that was for me, how fucking scared I was that I was going to wake up in the morning having killed my three best friends?” Remus’s voice dropped out, scratching up the back of his throat like the words were fighting their way out of him. “I didn’t want you to do it, I never asked you to become animagi for me because I knew the risk. And every full moon, every single one was the same! Always, always, I closed my eyes and the last thing I thought was I hope I don’t kill one of them in the night. And despite my fear, my utter fucking terror, I trusted you for years and years Padfoot! So tell me - does that mean nothing to you?”

Sweat was shining on his brow, a little crown catching light in the murky darkness. Sirius’s heart felt like it wanted to crack into pieces and bleed him dry right there in the kitchen. It took a long, long moment to summon the strength to open his mouth, and even then his voice was barely more than a whisper.

“No,” he said, “it doesn’t mean nothing.”

“Can your secrets kill me?” Remus continued, a relentless need shining in his eyes. “Will they?”

“No.”

“Then please, Sirius, trust me. I know it’s hard, I know it, I know it.” Remus’s voice became a plea, a prayer. He crossed the room and held his hands out, not quite touching him though he clearly wanted to. “You went and found another kid that needed saving. Harry is doing magic I’ve never seen before. Voldemort was struck down by his own follower, and I do not know what is happening but I need you, Padfoot, I need you to be my friend again and I just cannot let this wall stand between us anymore. I can’t. I can’t keep trusting you for nothing.”

God. Sirius wasn’t even sure who he was praying to, but he knew he was asking for help from something. Anything. He wished a spirit would come and possess him, give him the right words to say, teach him how to dress the awful truth into something that would not hurt his friend.

Too late for that, he realized, reaching out to take Remus’s open hands. “Do you have that token?” he said. Sirius felt cold. Everything warm in him retreated to the center, trying to keep safe from what was about to happen. “The one I gave you after the party?”

Remus nodded and pulled it up from under his shirt. It was hanging on a long leather cord around his neck. Sirius closed his eyes, focusing on the heat of Remus’s palm beneath his fingers, wondering if this was truly the last time he’d ever be this close.

“I’ll show you,” he rasped. “I’ll show you everything, but, you have to promise me something.” He waited for Remus to nod. “You have to promise that you will still help me bring Snape to my flat after this, no matter - no matter how you feel. I can’t get him on my own.”

Remus nodded again, more warily. That was good enough. Sirius stepped close to get a better grip on his arm before apparating them out of the room.

He was much gentler, but Remus didn’t say thank you. Possibly because he was struck mute by the dragon.

“By my fangs,” Remus whispered, awed, “what is that?”

By my fangs? Merlin, how long was he with the wolf packs? “It’s the guardian of Black Roc. If it had a name, I can’t find it.” The dragon snorted at him as he walked through its steaming flank, “It’s just an illusion, Remus. Walk though.”

He did, reluctantly, his head craned back like he wanted to stay and study the dragon, but now that they were here Sirius did not have the patience to wait. He set a clipping pace uphill, heading for the keep. Coming back so soon tore open the memories of last night and he shivered.

“Nott Tower really was on the same lay line, huh?” Remus said to break the silence as Sirius pushed the door open.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Wish I knew that before last night. I even saw it on the map they printed in the Prophet, but I don’t ever think of this place in relation to anywhere else. We could've seen it with a telescope if it wasn't behind a ward.”

The wall torches flamed to life as they followed the narrow path he’d cut through the mountains of boxes, books, furniture, and statues packed into the keep. “Crater Black was a devil of a hoarder,” Sirius explained, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he led them to the winding stairs in the back of the keep. They turned left and started to ascend. “I can’t even access most of the rooms. Who knows what’s in here.”

“Sounds like something you need a Defense expert to help you with,” Remus said lightly.

He huffed a laugh, but his heart was pounding in his chest as every step took them closer to the end he knew was coming. 

The door to Crater’s study opened. It was tiny and cramped like every other room, a small round sanctuary cut into the side of the mountain. There were pieces of parchment stacked on top of each other all the way to the ceiling. Even around the windows, huge tombs of worm-eaten books guarded the sills. Sirius had managed only to clear the space to make room for a small wooden table.

On it sat a shallow bowl made of white stone. Dirty, late-evening sunlight filtered into the study through the dust-caked windows, but the pensieve was brighter. It shimmered blue and silver, casting high shadows against the wall.

There was a small potions rack next to it with several empty vials. Four were stoppered up. Memories Sirius had intended to show Harry, originally. Good ones.

Not at all like what he was about to show Remus.

He raised his wand to his temple and wondered what the first one should be, wavering between that evaluation from Frau Nebel and the memory that so clearly defined the reason he did all this. One was worse than the other.

He chose the worse one.

“I was going to show Harry this. Just...a doctored version of it...without all the...” he sighed and dropped the memory into the pensieve. The light made Remus look like a ghost across the table, but Sirius could still feel his warmth. Remus ran so hot. His consistent cardigans were more to hide all the scars on his arms than to keep him warm.

I know everything about him, Sirius thought, drinking in the sight of his friend one last time. And Remus has never known everything about me. Everything I hid was meant to save other people from me, and look what happened.

“This was just after I left Harry in the hospital wing,” he said hollowly, “after he came back from the graveyard.”

With that, he let Remus bow forward and vanish into the pensieve, with Sirius just behind.

They landed in a large, empty staffroom at Hogwarts. It was summer. Remus glanced behind his shoulder and stepped back so they were side-by-side. Sirius crossed his arms and waited.

It didn’t take long. Another Sirius brushed past them, going straight for the fireplace. He removed his wand and snarled when it took three tries to light the fire. His robes were tattered and he was skinny. Much skinnier than Sirius remembered being. A second figure entered the room, watching silently as memory-Sirius panted from exertion.

“Shut up!” Memory-Sirius snapped, banging the palm of his hand against his temple. Remus glanced over, confused.

Sirius tapped his ear, “Listen,” he whispered.

Sure enough, the sound was there. The distant chatter of many voices. Remus furrowed his brow.

Then memory-Sirius let out a fake laugh. “That was quite the act you pulled with Fudge. We both know you can’t wait to crawl back to your master, isn't that right Snivellous?” He turned to glare over his shoulder and Sirius had to look away from his own face, unable to reckon with how cruel and ugly it looked.

Snape showed no emotion, but his eyes glittered with crystallized loathing. “Not as excited as you are to turn tail and run from your responsibilities again, mutt.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” The sound of other voices intensified, like a layer of white noise.

“Spent too long as a dog?” Snape’s voice softened mockingly, “Are you having trouble understanding me? Here, let me say it slowly.” He stepped forward, pacing his words out as he got closer. “Are you excited to run away again?”

Don’t run away from me, Black!

Remus jumped, looking around for the source of the new voice.

“That’s a flashback,” he supplied warily. “It’s going to get worse.”

“Fucking say what you mean to!” Memory-Sirius shouted, and all at once he was in Snape’s face, not even a wand between them, just his hands clenched into fists. “You think you know better than Albus? My responsibility is to protect Harry. Anything I do for the Order protects Harry! If you have a problem with that, maybe you should evaluate whose side you’re on!”

“Oh don’t mistake me, Black,” Snape said, not moving an inch. “Potter is undoubtedly safest when you’re far, far away. But I must say, your acting skills aren’t quite up to snuff. Molly certainly didn’t buy it. You wanted to put on a little show like you actually care for the boy, and then realized you couldn’t cut it. Am I right?”

You’re a fucking liar, Black! The whole world’s gonna know what you are some day!

“Is that Snape?” Remus asked, his head tipped as the third voice spun in and out of the room.

“Yes,” he nodded, “it was-“ and then memory-Sirius began to shout again.

“You’re a manipulative, conniving bastard,” he spat. His hair was greasy and knotted, hanging in his face in uneven loops. “What do you know about being a godfather? When have you ever cared about anyone but yourself. Oh-“

-be his godfather, Sirius. You’re like a brother to me.

“-the only person you ever fawned after was Lily, and she died hating you, didn’t-“

Lily’s fucking crying because of that bastard! She gave him another chance and he-

“-poor snake never learned how to make another friend, and you think you can give me lessons on-”

Remus hissed under his breath as a cacophony of voices rained down around them. It was almost impossible to hear what memory-Sirius was saying with all the new sounds crashing through the room. Remus turned on him with horror in his eyes. He said something, but Sirius could only read his lips. Was it like this all the time?

Sirius looked away.

Crack!

Memory-Sirius reeled back as Snape shook his hand once, casually. Already a giant red welt was forming across Sirius's jaw. He remembered that feeling well.

And then a ghostly figure appeared in the center of the room, striding up to memory-Sirius where he was braced against wall. Snape didn't react, of course, but memory-Sirius looked at it like it was real, pain and grief contorting his face. The figure’s hair was completely disheveled, his glasses askew. Teenaged James Potter pointed an accusing finger in his face and shouted, he could have DIED Sirius! You would have been a murderer if I hadn’t-

Snape gathered up the ragged fabric of Sirius’s robes and slammed him into the wall. The hallucination vanished. The room started to blur and crumble around the edges, becoming less focused, less solid.

“Spare me your theatrics Black,” Snape snarled, his arm across Sirius’s throat, “even I saw the way that brat reached for you when you suddenly decided to rush out the door for Albus. You didn’t even have the decency to stay until he was asleep. Merlin knows why he wanted you, but you were his only comfort in that room and you left him. So don’t pretend to care when I can see right through you.”

Sirius scrabbled uselessly at Snape’s arm. “Come on, Snivellous,” he wheezed. “I’m just trying to keep the heat off of Harry. You and everyone in that room think he’s better off without me. Hell - even his friends couldn’t wait for me to be gone. It's better for him if I don't stick around.”

She’s better when you’re gone. Regulus stepped through the wall behind Sirius and shot him a baleful glance. Don’t come home this summer, Siri. Please. Mum’s barely holding it together after dad...

Memory-Sirius stayed focused on Snape, glaring up at him. “He doesn’t know it now because he’s just a kid, so damn forgiving, but I know the less time I spend with him the better...”

He’s only scared because he hasn’t met you before. Lily walked between Sirius and Snape, gesturing like she wanted to pull them along. Come around more often and he’ll love you. Babies love what they know.

Remus choked, his hand over his mouth as he watched Lily disappear in a puff of smoke. The room closed in. The voices were getting louder. It was like they were standing outside the Great Hall with the buzz of a hundred different people threatening to wash over them at any second. Sirius reluctantly followed as Remus got closer to listen to the two men in the memory speak.

“If Potter’s better off without you, why even show up?” Snape snapped, “Potter is an impulsive, meddling, arrogant little monster, just like you and your ilk, don’t you think he’s going to deduce from this show of yours that the Order of the Phoenix must be more important than his own wretched life? You and Albus-“

My life’s not more important than yours just because I have Lily and Harry! You’re part of our family too!

“-utter fools for even mentioning the ‘old crowd’ in front of those brats! Now they’ll-“

A young Remus appeared through the wall, leaning in close to memory-Sirius like they were whispering. Don’t you want to fight?

Then James appeared, bouncing on his toes. We have to stand up against him. If we don’t do it, no one else will. We can make a better world.

“-want to know more, know everything. If you were putting him before yourself, you wouldn’t even be here!”

“I don’t care what you think,” memory-Sirius rasped. His eyes were bloodshot and constantly fluttering around the room like he was seeking rescue. “I had to see him. I couldn’t...just leave before he woke up.”

Sirius...

He closed his eyes. That one was James. Grown-up James. 

You’re so good with him. He never sleeps for me...

“And I couldn’t stay either,” his memory wailed, “I know I’m fucking done for. Albus said that I - that there’s no hope for me, you know?” He bared his teeth in a manic grin, “Yeah, I’m sure you loved to hear that when he told you. Albus said it would take years for my brain to heal and even then...I’d never be the same. I won’t - I won’t even be able to stand a real trial, even if we found the rat, even if we used the kids’ memories. They’d just throw me in St. Mungo’s instead, and then I’d be worse than useless to - to Harry - James - everyone...”

And all the while, countless voices whispered all around them. Even Harry’s voice was among them.

Do you mean I could come live with you?

Snape tightened his grip ever so slightly, and Sirius started to turn red.

“You have a world of magic at your fingertips. Mountains of gold in your vault. Do you even know the power of your own house?! Do you know what I could do with your Lordship?” Snape’s voice shook the room. “You can’t find one solution to sealing the cracks of your mind that doesn’t involve a lifetime in St. Mungos? Your solution is to get in everyone’s way and then, what, die on the front lines?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Sirius hissed, “I shouldn’t be here. It should be them. Harry doesn’t want me! I’m nothing to him, I’m a - a liability, and the only thing I can do to atone for fucking everything up is to fight as hard as I can until I can...until the day...” His voice cracked, “I can’t be near him when my clock is ticking. I know what he wants from me and I can’t be that, but I can give him everything else! You - you - you wouldn’t understand!”

Think of this like a trial run, James appeared, leaning across a ghostly crib with his cheek pillowed on his forearm. Just like how Harry looked before they left the flat. One day, when you have your own family, you’ll be an expert.

Snape pushed back with a flourish. “You are the biggest coward of the lot, Black.” His face was a mask of loathing and frustration. “If you have any honor left...if you had any at all...do the Order a favor and make your death heroic. Save a muggle. Spare a wixen’s life and get knifed in the back,” he narrowed his eyes. “If you let that idiotic boy think you died because of him, he’ll follow right after. Do you understand that, Black? How much more blood do you want on your hands?”

Are you sure about Peter? Is Remus really in too much danger to do it?

I agree with Padfoot. I trust him with my life, love. And Harry’s. And yours.

Memory-Sirius slumped against the wall, sliding slowly to the ground. He was shaking so badly it looked like he was having a fit. The potions master scoffed and threw a handful of floo powder into the fire, casually fixing his disheveled hair. But before he stepped in the flames, he looked back one last time.

“Be honest, Black. Lily didn’t want you for his godfather, did she? She and I never disagreed about you.”

Memory-Sirius whined softly in the back of his throat as Lily suddenly appeared in technicolor in front of them. Time slowed down. The room went dark. Snape froze where he was, one foot up, about to step into the fireplace.

You’re not on my list, Lily said, crouching down to look at Sirius. In fact, you’re not even a consideration, in my mind. But James loves you. James trusts you. And we made a deal, so he gets to pick the godfather. Lily tucked her long hair behind her ear, studying the man as if she could see him as he was, a whimpering, starving mess on the floor. You run when it gets hard, Sirius. Her words were devastating, sad and compassionate and forcing Sirius into an even smaller ball. And this is my son we’re talking about. My child. You have to be better for him, okay? I know you won’t do it for yourself. When you make this vow, you better promise me that as well.

She vanished, and just like that time rushed forward again. Snape sneered and disappeared through the flames, and then Sirius was alone, tearing at his hair as the voices swirled round and round...

The memory cut to black, and one disorienting lurch later they were back in Crater Black’s study.

Remus stared into the pensieve, swaying.

“That was...” Remus trailed off, blinking rapidly. “It was always like that?”

Sirius sighed and dropped another silvery memory in the bowl. “It was always worse in a familiar place,” he said quietly. “Hogwarts was a minefield. You ever wonder why I tried to stab Peter to death in the dorms? It’s because when I turned back into myself and had to get through the Fat Lady, I just lost my mind. It was too familiar. The only way I could keep moving forward was by holding on to my hatred for the rat. And even then...”

Remus flicked his head up, looking at him with wide eyes. “And me?” He guessed, “Was it hard to be around me?”

Sirius swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Around you, it was like that, too. Memories walking in and out of rooms, following me everywhere, whispering in my ear. That’s why I had to leave. My triggers...” he stared down at the new memory swimming in the bowl, “they were all the memories I used to keep myself alive in Azkaban. As a dog I could...keep the happy ones close, but I couldn’t be a dog all the time. And so my happy memories would bleed into my worst memories, until they were all wrapped up together. I can...I could never have one without the other. At least, not for very long.”

The silence that stretched between them was fragile.

“And - and now?” Remus whispered.

Sirius’s hands were trembling. “Go look.”

They landed in his father’s dusty old study at Grimmauld Place. A nasally voice cut through the room. “Did you find it?”

Memory-Sirius dropped a huge black tome on a rickety table. “It’s not that old,” he groused. He looked much the same as the first memory, but cleaner. His robes were new, at least, but he still looked thin and ragged. "I read half the grimoire before I found it."

"It is the Lord's duty to read his family's grimoire," the portrait said sharply. Sirius flipped him off. A large, silver ring glinted on his hand.

“Is that Phineas?” Remus muttered with disdain.

“The very one."

From the very quiet whispers, a woman’s voice briefly rose up.

You cannot shirk your duty to your House!

“My mother,” Sirius explained to Remus. “I was on about fifteen calming potions to get my thoughts this quiet. It took awhile to wean off of them.”

“It was way later in the grimoire than you said,” Memory-Sirius continued testily, glaring up at a portrait on the wall. “Also, this is not a spell to erase grief!” Sirius jabbed a finger in the book, “This spell erases a person!”

“But you retain your memories,” Phineas Nigellus said shrewdly. “It was born of the desire to end grief. That’s why it’s called Trautod. The death of grief. How can you grieve someone who you feel nothing for? They become a stranger to you...no different than any commoner passing by on the street.”

“How am I supposed to live with myself if I forget my friends?” Sirius said harshly, dark eyes cutting up at the portrait. “What am I without them? You sent me on this wild goose chase for nothing!”

“You are an insolent one. I just said you retain your memories. You won’t forget any of your precious friends. What you erase are the feelings you have for them. The emotional connection you have will be severed completely. Love. Grief. Hate. All gone."

Sirius growled and rubbed his face. "It doesn't seem worth it."

"But your emotions are out of control," Phineas Nigellus said impatiently. "Your memories trigger episodes of catatonia, disassociation, and temporary amnesia. Your emotions feed those episodes, strengthening them, and thus you wander the halls talking to yourself, pulling at your hair, cowering in the corner for hours. You are not the first to be plagued by this kind of madness, not even the first in our family, and you would be a fool to dismiss the cure our ancestors created simply because you value your friendships like a child. You have responsibilities. You have duties. Lord Black cannot be a whimpering nutcase trapped in this house for the rest of his life!"

Remus growled low in his throat.

But memory-Sirius merely grew quiet. For a second, the only sound in the room was his slow breathing, not even the whispers were loud enough to break the tense silence.

“Does it work?”

The portrait stroked his pointed beard. “It worked for Iola,” he said airily, “though maybe a bit too well, because she went and ran off with that muggle not long after. Not much to tie her to our world once she forgot what she felt for her first love.”

The memory cut to black again, much more abruptly than the last. Sirius was already tapping his wand to his temple, pulling out another memory, the last one. Remus was breathing shallowly. He could feel his eyes searing in him as he dropped it into the bowl.

Remus hesitantly leaned forward and disappeared. Sirius blinked his tears away before following.

They were inside a compartment on the Hogwarts Express.

Remus sat, holding one hand to his chest as he watched the memory across from him. Sirius looked around, trying to place exactly what would happen next, and decided to fold himself into the corner next to the boy.

A ball flashed in the air and slapped against the wall with a loud thump. A small, dark-eyed eleven year old deftly caught it with one hand, then threw it again.

It was so odd to see himself at age eleven. He had short, fluffy black hair and the same silver-gray eyes he did today, but they were huge on his tiny face. His skin was smooth and unscarred. There were not yet lines creasing his eyes or his mouth. What was the worst thing I had ever done at this point? He wondered with mild curiosity. I put that frog in Reggie’s soup and made him cry at the Yule Gala. That was pretty mean.

His eleven-year-old self was frowning while he lazily threw the ball across the otherwise empty compartment. He was wearing rich black robes with a silvery lining decorated with constellations and looked for all the world like he would rather be anywhere else.

Then the door trundled open, revealing two faces. One was Sirius - not now Sirius, but memory Sirius from just a few months ago. His face was pale and pinched. Tears rolled silently down his face.

“Hey! You’re being annoying!”

The other figure was a small, messy-haired boy with round glasses. He stood fully in the door with his arms braced on either side of it. Remus stopped breathing, holding his other hand over his mouth.

Young Sirius curled his lip, “Plug your ears if you don’t like it!” He threw the ball again, and James Potter’s hand flashed out, snatching it in mid-air. He strolled into the compartment, tossing it up and down, studying Sirius.

“Are you a Black?” He pointed at the robes. “Sirius Black, right?”

Padfoot.

That was older James. His voice was loud in the compartment, not even close to a whisper. Memory-Sirius, the adult, covered his eyes.

We should call ourselves the Marauders, don’t you think?

Young Sirius looked put-out to have lost the toy and slid down even further in his seat. “Yeah, so? Who the hell are you?”

James tipped his head, smiling easily. “I’m James Potter! And if you keep being annoying, we’re going to have a problem.”

The whispers returned full-force, whipping through the compartment like a gale.

Arrogant and charming, that’s James.

Prongs is a good name I think.

I’m your brother, Sirius. Not in blood, but in every way that counts.

Young Sirius blinked rapidly, and then seemed to relax all at once. “Who’s we?” He challenged.

In answer, James turned around and headed out.

“Hey wait!” Sirius shot up, feet thumping on the floor. “I’m not moving. Bring your friends over here.”

“Oh, what, are all these people going to miss you?” James gestured sarcastically to the empty seats.

Are you sorry yet?

Tired of being punished?

We miss you. Please just apologize and come back, Sirius.

“Come on, or don’t. You’re not getting this back either way.”

The door shut. Young Sirius swore under his breath and glared, clearly wanting to follow but not wanting to look eager.

Memory-Sirius stepped through the wall and shoved himself in the corner of the compartment, opposite of where Sirius himself, in the present day, was sitting. He noisily blew his nose into a wet handkerchief and raised his wand. The scene rewound, bringing them back to the moment James Potter first appeared.

“You’re being annoying!”

“Who the hell are you?”

They froze in place. They watched as his past self sat in that compartment for a long time, just staring at the two boys. The whispers came in waves, fading in and out as he recalled most of the highlights of their friendship. It was hard to listen to, but even harder to watch the past him calm down, his face becoming a mask of resignation. The wand came up, pointing in James’s face.

“Sorry,” he rasped. 

Sirius looked away as that chant began. He knew it well. Had spent a day memorizing it until he could say it in his sleep. The german was harsh and awkward, but the spell did its job. Sickly yellow light filled the compartment, growing brighter and brighter with every word until they was blinded by it.

And then it was over. They were still on the train.

Memory-Sirius lowered his wand. He arched back as he took a deepest breath he had probably ever had in his life. I remember this moment, he thought, watching his own face closely, wondering how obvious it would be to Remus.

The pain in his eyes was gone. He looked at James Potter for the first time in years and years without a trace of emotion. When the memory started up again, there were far fewer whispers. This time, when young Sirius finally got up and went to the neighboring compartment, he found James sitting with a scruffy young Remus Lupin, small and quiet, with a long, dark scar trailing over his face.

This time, when echoes and whispers kicked back in, they were only about Remus.

They lurched back into the study and Remus immediately fell against the wall, sending a tower of parchment crashing to the ground. Sirius vanished the dust and sent them all away to stack themselves again somewhere less conspicuous.

Seconds ticked on and became a minute, became minutes, before Remus finally tore open the silence with a question.

“Can I never be your friend again?”

He flinched and shook his head immediately, desperately. “No! I don’t think...I don’t think it has to be like that.”

“But what if it comes back?” Remus asked wretchedly. He was holding himself away, Sirius realized, pressing as far from him as he could. “What if being around me undoes it?”

“No, it’s severed. The emotions from the memories,” he chopped his hand down on the table, “they’re gone forever. They can’t come back. And I still feel like you’re my friend, but...it’s also like, I don’t know you. Like everything is new, for me. Every feeling, every moment, every secret is like...the first one.” He sighed, “All of the feelings I once had for - for you and...everybody else, they’re just gone.”

“Everyone?”

“You, James, P-Peter,” Remus gasped at that but Sirius carried on, “Lily. If I had to do it again, I would have done Snape, too, probably, just because he gets under my skin so fucking much, but I...” he took a deep breath and held it for a second. “I can’t do it for everyone. It takes so much of me. The scars on my mind are still there. When I was at Hogwarts the other day the visions and voices...still followed me around, but they were bearable. Just tolerable enough to control with occlumency and some strong will.”

“Does Harry know?”

Sirius swallowed, “No, not yet. I wanted to tell him, I was going to, actually, but then all this shit happened with Nott and his visions from Voldemort and I just didn’t get to it.” He scraped his fingers through his hair, “I was hoping he’d make up with his friends, actually, at the party. Then I was going to tell him...the next day. So that he could have some place to go that wasn’t with me, if he was...”

This scared him even worse than it had with Remus, especially because their bond was so strong. Sirius had never imagined that it would be this good before he picked Harry up from Privet Drive.

But if there was anything he was good at, it was accepting his punishment, and for this Sirius knew he would accept any punishment. Even if Harry never spoke to him again, at least Sirius would know that he was capable of protecting his godson from afar.

“Well,” Remus said, clearing his throat, though it was utterly useless. He sounded very much on the verge of tears and that didn’t get any better as he turned and faced the nearest window, knocking over more scrolls and books. “Well,” he tried again, raising his shaking hands to wipe at his eyes, “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, be-because, Harry is forgiving, and I guarantee he’ll forgive you a lot quicker than I have.” He mimed looking at his wrist, sniffing. “And it only took me abou-ut five minutes.”

Sirius held very still, not sure if what he was hearing was true.

“You’re you,” Remus continued. “You’re exactly as you were, before, but more grown up, I guess. You were always going off on your own, trying to do things without us like you were scared we wouldn't - wouldn't help. And because of that I - I never knew, Sirius, what you wanted. You know?"

Tentatively, he walked forward. It only took two strides to make it to the other side of the window, where there was just a handsbreadth between them. Remus kept staring out the dirty window at the formless valley soaked in orange and black sunset. Silent tears wetted his face.

“I wanted to feel that I was making the world a better place, for other young werewolves, back when we joined the Order.” Remus smiled ruefully, “I wanted my life to have purpose. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t live very long, growing up. Before J-James and Lily died, I was certain it would be me who went first.”

Sirius blinked and had to fold his hands under his arms to keep from reaching out.

“But I never knew what you wanted.” Remus finally looked at him. He was taller than Sirius, and with his arm propped up on the stone wall, he looked even taller. His eyes shone amber in the dark, seeking something in his face again, something Sirius didn’t know that he even had.

“Why was I fighting?”

“No," Remus swallowed and batted at his face again, "I mean, what did you - actually, who cares about the past, what do you want? What do you want now? Why did you do all this? What kind of life are you trying to have? What are you..." he shook his head hopelessly, "What did you think would happen after you got better?"

Sirius had never asked this question of himself since he left Azkaban. Truthfully, he considered his life more or less over the day James and Lily died.

“I’m here for Harry,” he said automatically. “I’m trying to protect him, be there for him, be whatever he needs.”

“That’s all fine for Harry,” Remus pressed, “but what do you want for you? You can’t just live your life for him, Padfoot. That’s too much pressure on a kid, on anyone. If you...if you have this chance to live a full life without being so - so haunted, then what do you want?"

What do I want?

He stared out the window, wide-eyed and unfocused, as the answer whispered out of the shadows.

But that’s such an old dream.

But not so old, because they had just seen a piece of it. The beginning of the conversation that altered his life. He remembered it clearly, but he hated to remember it. Even though his connection to James was gone, to Harry it still remained, and he couldn’t help the pain that closed off his throat to remember it fully, again.

They were standing in the nursery at Godric’s Hollow. Well, Sirius was standing. James was leaning over his son’s crib, exhausted but content, leaning his cheek against his arm which was fully braced along the top of the crib wall.

“Think of it like a trial run,” he said, in a hushed tone of voice.

Sirius watched the tiny face in the bed, anxiously awaiting that famous crying and screaming he heard babies did so much of, but little Harry didn’t stir. He was eleven days old.

“One day...when you have your own family...you’ll be an expert.”

Sirius smiled bitterly, shaking his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t subject some poor, innocent kids to the experience of Sirius Black, the father. Godfather’s good enough.”

James opened his eyes, peering up at him reproachfully. “What? You’d be a great dad. Better than me.”

Sirius almost laughed out loud but caught himself at the last second. “Are you crazy? Of the four of us, the order is Remus, you, maybe Peter, god bless the person who marries him, and then me. I shouldn’t be on the list, actually. I shouldn’t have even been on your list for godfather. This responsibility feels like it’s killing me already.”

That was a lie. He knew it, James knew it. It was an honor that made Sirius feel lighter than air, that had put a spring in his step ever since Lily gave him her harsh blessing.

“Pads...” James said in a tone that made him cringe away. “Come now. What is it?”

He shifted and tapped his foot against the ground, biting his lip. “I can’t even keep my own family, Prongs,” he admitted, thinking mournfully about Regulus. “I can’t - I just ruin everything. You’re...it’s only because of you and Moony and Wormtail that I’m...bearable. In a group. But on my own I’m not anything special. I’m not...good enough to do this kind of thing. I don’t know why you insist on pretending that I am.”

Harry shifted his tiny face to the side, and some of his thick black hair tickled over his eyes. Sirius reached down without thinking and gently pushed it back so it wouldn’t wake him.

The silence became unbearable. That was James’s secret talent. He could outlast anyone to make them talk first. It was why he was such a good auror, and Sirius’s best friend. He could outlast his bullshit.

“I don’t know how to do it,” Sirius finally burst out, quietly, of course, but no less forcefully. “I don’t know how. I don’t.”

“You just have to want it,” James said sleepily. He had closed his eyes again, still laying against the crib. “You decide you want them - a person that you love, a person you can’t live without, and you just show up for them. Every day. That’s all it is.” Sirius scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Honestly,” James complained, cracking his eyes open, “just think about it, Sirius. If we weren’t a family, I wouldn’t show up for you all the time, even when you’re being a sad little puppy and not listening to your betters. And you wouldn’t tell me when I’m being an ass. If your parents had shown up for you, you’d love them, wouldn’t you?”

Sirius pursed his lips but slowly nodded.

“Right,” James sighed, “and my parents did that for you. Once you came to live with us. And...?”

He rolled his eyes again, more playfully this time. “And I loved them.”

“Yes...that’s it, Harry, he’s got it! See how easy that was?” James cooed down at the baby, “We’re teaching this old dog new tricks!”

Sirius blinked, coming out of the memory with a jolt. He wondered how long he’d been silent. Wondered if Remus was still waiting for his answer.

“I want a family,” he said, so quietly and tentatively, he almost couldn’t hear himself. Remus shifted a little closer. It took ever fiber of his being not to lean away, anticipating something awful, something that would confirm the doubt inside his head. You’re too poisoned, Sirius Black, you can’t have that, you can’t.

But Remus only pressed their arms together, leaning into him, one hand steadied on a stack of books rising from the floor.

“And I don’t want to be alone anymore,” Remus said just as tentatively. “I...didn’t appreciate or even really understand what I had back then, with you and - and them. I know I said that...you're the same, but you're not. And I'm not." Remus captured his gaze. "I'm not fighting for some idealistic dream, this time. I'm just trying to protect what I have left."

They looked at each other. Two friends, once upon a time. Now, after everything that had happened, that they’d survived, Sirius felt like they were strangers. Strangers who knew everything about the other person. Strangers who were drawn together like magnets. Strangers traveling the same way, maybe even to the same destination.

“There’s something else,” Sirius said, smiling a little.

“Oh Merlin, what?”

“It’s not good, but it’s not this bad, either.”

“Will it make me want to obliviate myself?”

Sirius snorted, bumping into his shoulder and turning to the door. “No, you’re a tough werewolf, you’ve seen scarier things.”

Minutes later, Remus was standing stock still with his wand up, eyes very wide. Sirius casually walked to the edge of the salt line and made a face at the torn up robe on the floor.

“Kreacher,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “he’s dead, alright? Dead. He can’t feel anything, much less the cold.”

“It was not for the cold, reckless master,” Kreacher grumbled, wringing his long-fingered hands. “He looked at the crest. You should have seen! Remembering, he is. Young master recognizes his school robes.”

“He probably thinks it looks like that damn locket,” Sirius disagreed, curiosity piqued despite himself.

The inferi cocked its head just slightly, but its inky black eyes did not stray for even a second from his face. They were inches apart and the stink of blood and gore was rife in the air. Although Regulus’s body had been dead for over a decade, he still wept unceasing black blood from his wounds - the torn cavern of his throat, the deep slashes in his chest.

Sirius could piece together how his little brother died, and it only added to dark hatred he harbored for Voldemort.

“Sirius!” Remus hissed. The inferi twitched to the side, the long, sharp fingernails that looked like black claws clicking together. Then it turned back to Sirius, watching him. “Get away from that! If Voldemort made it, you know how fast they are!"

“I know all about that,” he said grimly, raising his mangled hand.

“Regulus did that to you? No, no, no! This is - why do you have him? Was he always here? Was he at Grimmauld Place? What the fuck? How did you even catch him?”

“He died because he defected, Remus,” he said, avoiding the other questions for now. He paced around the salt circle to the cabinet in the back of the cave, the inferi keeping step with him the whole time. The claws on its feet scraped against the ground as it walked.

Kreacher had made quite a tidy little home for himself, though Sirius ordered him to spend at least eight hours a day away from this cave doing anything else, namely eating, sleeping, or getting some sun. For all that, the elf looked no less worse than he did when they were by the sea, which was a hell of a lot better than he had been doing in Grimmauld Place.

“Reggie knew something about Voldemort, something that we need to know in order to end this war.” He undid the wards on the cabinet and the doors unlatched themselves, easing open with a creak.

The inferi hissed. Remus jumped around to fix his wand on it again, but it just stood there, motionless, quietly hissing and staring past them at the cabinet.

“Yeah, it follows this thing wherever I take it. It must have some kind of connection to Voldemort’s magic, that’s the only thing I can think of.”

“It’s probably some evil demon he trapped in there,” Remus muttered, pushing his hair back nervously as Sirius held the locket out between them. Remus jerked it into the air, levitating it in all directions. “I take it you can’t open it?”

“Or examine it in any significant way,” Sirius said bitterly. “But the longer you hold it, the more it gets its claws into you. It’s sentient.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Okay.” Remus took a long minute to closely look at the locket before gingerly setting it back in the cabinet. Once the wards were redone, he sighed heavily. “So, why can’t you tell Albus about this?”

“Because there’s something going on with him,” Sirius said darkly.

“Well, yeah,” Remus panted, “he’s kind of a busy man. He’s managing a secret organization on top of everything else.”

“No, not like that,” he tapping his fingers on his leg. “There’s something going on with Albus when it comes to Voldemort and Harry.”

Remus thought on that for a second. “The prophecy, you mean?”

“That’s probably it. If I knew what it said, I’d feel better about saying for certain if what I feel is right, but this...Remus, there’s just this gut feeling I have when I comes to Albus. In any other context, I believe in him, I trust him. He’s fucking Albus Dumbledore, for Merlin's sake!” Remus nodded along. “But, when he interacts with Harry I don’t...” he wrinkled his nose, trying to put words to what he felt. “I don’t like it. He wants something from him, I think, but I don’t know what that could be.”

Remus bit his lip, looking conflicted. Sirius had no evidence, really, but he told Remus what he little he had to pull from. Harry’s account of his summer in Privet Drive and the discovery of the mail ward, their fraught meeting at Hogwarts where he revealed his reasoning behind keeping Harry with the Dursleys, in addition to the suspected link between his and Voldemort’s minds.

By the end of it, Remus was looking more and more ashen to the point that he was actually shaking.

“But what could it be?” Remus whispered, as if he was afraid Albus could hear them conspiring. “He’s always seemed to want Harry safe. Why would he want him to feel alone?”

“That’s the million dollar question, wolf.”

Remus snarled into action, falling into an offensive stance at Sirius's side. “Who’s there?” He snapped.

Sirius rolled his eyes, “Are you fucking for real right now, John?”

“I am always for real, Lord Black,” John continued in a booming voice.

“Turn the volume down, please.” He massaged his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

“What the fuck?” Remus whispered, “Who is John?”

“This is a Harry secret,” Sirius said exhaustedly. “There’s a lot of them, so try to keep up.”

He felt Remus stiffen beside him and he looked up to see John in his normal house-cat form sitting on top of the cabinet, shoulders hunched, eyes alight with mischief. His tail-tip twitched like he was thinking of pouncing.

“Hello, Remus Lupin, Moony of the Marauders four,” John grinned, baring all his pointy teeth. “My name is John. I am a cat-sìth.”

“Cat-sìth?” Remus repeated with a gasp.

“One of the good folk, and familiar to Lord Harry Potter.”

“Er,” Remus looked frantically at Sirius, who just shrugged. “Er - uh, I...merry meet?”

John leered down at Remus. “Yes,” he snorted, relaxing, “merry meet and all that. I always liked werewolves, you know, I was rather glad to learn Harry had one in his life. Saves me the trouble of having to match-make.”

“Oh? That’s nice.”

Sirius conjured a chair and slid it under him right before Remus fell back. His head rolled, eyes fluttering.

“You evil little pest!” Sirius griped, touching Remus’s clammy forehead. “He’s a defense expert, you know. He’d have his mastery if he could. He knows exactly how dangerous you are.”

“I do have this effect on people.”

“Well, don’t!”

“Here,” John flicked his tail and a flask floated down to him. “Give him some whiskey.”

"I don't want to know how you got that," Sirius muttered. Remus came alive at the mention of liquor and downed a great mouthful of it. Some of the color returned to his face.

“Real?” he muttered, looking uneasily at Sirius, “Is this real, or am I losing it? Did the locket get me?”

“This is very real,” Sirius said, piping as much suffering into his voice as possible. “John and Harry are familiars. John is one of the fae. He’s...”

“Lord Black’s godcat,” John supplied, sneaking down to the floor and padding to Remus’s side. Godcat? Sirius thought in horror. The wolf watched uneasily as John hopped in his lap and sniffed his chin. “You’ll be okay, just a shock. Never seen a werewolf die of a heart attack.”

“You’re Harry’s familiar,” Remus repeated. “You...how long have you been around?”

“Since he claimed his House,” John shrugged. “Kid grew on me like a lichen. All slow and unstoppable. He’s quite special.”

“Yes, I agree,” Remus replied warily. “Does...Harry know that you’re...?”

John cackled, “Of course he does, I wouldn’t lie to my own familiar. Now, it sounded to me like you were finally asking the right questions, Remus Lupin, and if you truly want to find the answers, then we are set on the same path. You will find that I am a great friend to have, but an even greater enemy.” John smiled wide and let the silence ring out. “Take that to heart, let it soothe you-“

“Soothe us? More like scare us shitless,” Sirius muttered.

John gave him an amused look, “-and let it go, for now. Theodore Nott needs you, remember?”

“Oh, fuck!” Remus gripping his head with both hands, “I forgot! The whole reason we came out here!”

“Is he okay?”

“That’s a word for it,” John said flatly, “but yes, he’s alive. Not suffering more than one would be at this moment in time, I think. But you’ve been gone awhile and Harry was worried you’d killed each other.”

“Ah. Well." Sirius closed his eyes. All he wanted to do was take a nap. "Tell him we’re on our way to Snape’s. We’ll be back shortly. Oh, shit," he snapped his fingers and groaned. "Bill! I told him we'd have a meeting tonight. Shit. I told him about Nott, too."

"Is that why he was so wound up?" Remus took another swig of the whiskey, "He was all sweaty when he passed along your message."

"Yeah, I assured him that this thing would come out tonight, but," Sirius splayed his hands around the room. The inferi hissed again. "Maybe tomorrow. After we get Snape involved."

"The whole Order doesn't have to know," Remus shook his head. "Just Kingsley. I mean, we don't want it getting out before we're ready. The fact that the whole world thinks he's dead means he's safer than ever."

"True," Sirius rubbed his face, "and even if Bill cracked and told someone, who would he talk to that we don't trust?"

Remus waved his concern away, "Bill's a curse-breaker for Gringotts, Sirius. He keeps more secrets than you."

"Want me to check on him?" John asked. Remus jumped like he'd forgotten the cat could talk.

"You wouldn't deliver a letter, would you?" John glared and Sirius rolled his eyes, "Fuck it. I'll beg for his forgiveness tomorrow. I can't stomach the idea of a late-night Order meeting. I can barely stomach the idea of bringing Snape to my house, so let's just get it over with."

“Hurry up, then,” John meowed, and turned and jumped into the shadows, disappearing without a trace.

Remus gaped at the air. “How - that - Harry did that! That’s what he did!”

“I fucking know,” Sirius muttered, picking his friend up. “We’ll get to that later. Let’s go see Snape and put the cherry on this epically bad evening.”

They walked together out of the cave, skirting the salt circle and decidedly not looking at the inferi following their every move. “It wasn't all bad,” Remus said, quietly.

Despite everything, Sirius felt warm. He smiled, truly smiled. “Yeah, guess not.”

Notes:

I did cry writing this. And the next chapter.

Sorry, no Theo this chapter (but next one is all about him, hence the double upload). Y'all have no clue how I've longed to post this scene. I wrote it so long ago, and it needed to happen now because there is something important a-brewing. I know that many commenters mentioned complicated feelings about Remus. He is a complicated man. Sure, he's not been fully tested yet, perhaps he still has some lingering faith in Albus, but...you know...Remus was going to straight-up MURDER Wormtail in the shrieking shack with Sirius. To me, that says that there is an unshakable and amoral bond between them that just needs a little bit of light to grow.

Will there be overt wolfstar in this fic? TBD. They got chemistry, I won't lie, but that's not really what I want to focus on. If it happens, I will update the tags.

I also want to share that I finally unlocked the secret to copy/pasting my work from Scrivener to AO3 without losing all my formatting. The secret is using Obsidian as a bridge! You guys have no idea......re-reading my chapters and having to reformat everything in AO3's rich-text editor used to take me h-o-u-r-s. I think I got all the Markdown symbols that didn't quite copy over the right way but apologies if I missed an asterisk here or there.

Narcissa's chapter was so much fun! I was cackling a lot with every comment for the last few months about Lucius's "death". What did Eleanor say....that there are fates worse than death? Hmmm......

Chapter 18: Weird Company

Summary:

weird - (noun) archaic: a person's destiny.
Theo can't shake the feeling that he recognizes Harry Potter, and not just because he's Harry Potter.

Notes:

Sirius last chapter: I am an adult.
Sirius this chapter: I only wear graphic tees. This is my comfort era.

Theo

When he woke up in the strange bed again, Theo’s last hope vanished.

It was real. It was all real.

On muscle memory, he rolled over and stretched for his wand. Ebony and dragon heartstring, thirteen inches.

His fingers closed on empty air.

Theo let his cheek sink into the pillow, shutting his eyes. He felt disgusting. He felt like a creature half-crushed under a rock, like something that needed to be put out of its misery. When was the last time I showered?

He tried to remember something before and came up empty. Again.

Magnus Nott, Ophelia Blight, Loch Birger. He muttered other things that he knew, memories and facts that came easily to him. Draco’s birthday, the names of all Blaise’s stepfathers, the Latin names for his favorite flowers...

But he could not clearly remember coming back to the Tower this summer. He barely remembered Germany.

A sharp pain drove through his temple and he decided he had enough.

Madame Pomfrey arrived not even a minute after he swung out of bed. She fussed over him, taking his vitals, handing him some potions, and finally unwrapped the bandages on his arms.

The skin from his elbows to his wrists was pink and taut. The burns still radiated heat and his arms ached all the way down to his bone. Some of it had already scarred, particularly along the back of his left hand.

“Parts of your burns were less severe,” she explained, “they should be healed in a few days. I’ll have you on ten days of Scar Saver after that. And it appears that your curse wounds have healed in the night.” He touched the space between his ribs. “Do you remember how those came to be?” 

He tried to. Theo remembered the intense pain of it, remembered looking up at red eyes, but he could not remember the day it happened, or much of what came after. Only father being at his bedside, and Finley, fussing...

He swallowed against the sharp pain in his chest, “No. I still don’t remember.”

“That’s okay,” she assured him. “It takes some time for the mind to put itself right after a bump on the head.”

“Can I take a shower?” he asked. “I feel...”

“Yes, dear,” she wrapped his forearms again. “Just let me spell these waterproof.”

She had some new clothes for him. Truly new, with tags and everything. “I picked these up this morning. Would you join us for breakfast, when you’re ready?”

It was definitely phrased as optional, but for Theo, there was no other option. He couldn't hide.

“Of course,” he said, “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Take your time. Oh, and,” Madame Pomfrey smiled, going all soft around the eyes. “Professor Snape will be here today.”

“What?” He clenched the long hospital gown he was wearing in his fists. “He will?”

“Right around ten, I think, should be just after breakfast for us. He’s picking up ingredients for a potion.”

Theo couldn’t even begin to describe how much better he felt knowing that Severus Snape would soon be in the same room as him, and he never felt happy to see the man. Though he did not seek out his company (who would?), his Professor often appeared right before Theo was about to stumble over the edge of compounding magical exhaustion and malnourishment while he was at Hogwarts. Theo could not begin to fathom Snape's true loyalties, but he trusted that, at least, he did not want to see him hurt.

The feeling of hot water hitting his skin was a revelation. He tipped his head back and let it thrum against his throat. Waves of steam cascaded off of him, loosening the tight pressure in his sinuses from a long night of crying.

Not again, he decided, falling into a trance as he scrubbed shampoo through his long hair. You’re going to control it, Theodore. The only thing you have left is your fortitude.

His internal voice was beginning to sound a bit like father, which was odd. Typically, it sounded like his mother.

He stopped and tried to remember what his mother’s voice sounded like. This was how he learned manipulate his memories. It was the first reason he went out of his way to study occlumency. In the absence of a pensieve, it was the only way to relive memories with any kind of substance.

He closed his eyes, trying to picture her. The first memory he recalled was always in front of the fireplace, watching her dance to an old wax recording of a jig while his father's ancient wolfhound pranced with her. She was singing the words and laughing, her blonde hair jumping around as she kicked her heels up impossibly fast.

But it was as if a wall had settled between him and the memory. Parts of it were utterly clear - the dog Beckett, the warmth of the fire, even the jig itself, but as for his mother...Theo squeezed his eyes tighter, trying to picture her, trying to hear her, but she was like a phantom at the edge of his gaze, disappearing every time he tried to look right at her.

Tears flowed. He felt pathetic and small and he bared his teeth angrily. Stop it, he thought harshly, you are concussed. You’ll get over it in a few days, and you’ll remember it like you did before. She’s not gone, she’s not.

Something caught under his fingernails and he looked down to see dead skin sloughing off him like a limp, gray carapace. Oh Morrigan. Is this what a week without showering does to me? He shivered from head to toe, disgusted. He hated being dirty. He squeezed a liberal amount of body wash into the washcloth they'd given him and started to scrub.

“Gross, gross, gross,” he muttered, clamping down on the urge to shriek when he saw a huge amount of dead skin come off like a pelt. Nasty, nasty, disgusting, gross, I’d rather be dead, this is terrible, this is-

The smell of the body wash hit him. He froze. The scent tickled something in his mind, something maddeningly familiar. 

He took a closer look at the bottle. Sleekeazy’s Clean: Fresh and Breezy.

Curiously, he held it under his nose. He knew he recognized this smell, but Theo just couldn’t place it.

Father, he reasoned, would never willingly smell ‘fresh and breezy’. I’m pretty sure he uses a plain bar of lye soap that Finley makes - made.

Fresh pain interrupted his thoughts and Theo had to take a breath, closing his eyes until the memory of Finley sank into the waters of his mind.

He wafted the bottle again, but the moment was gone, slipping away as quickly as it came. Theo hummed, trying and failing to put the mystery together as he scrubbed the rest of his skin down. It was a welcome distraction from the greater mystery of how he got to this apartment.

Ten minutes later, he was dressed and rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet, trying to muster the guts to open the door. His hair was still damp because he didn’t have his wand to dry it. All he could do was hope that whoever actually belonged in this room (surely not Sirius Black himself?) didn’t mind him using some of the hair potion on the counter to help control how frizzy it get from air-drying.

Maybe it’s not the Sirius Black, he thought. Maybe it’s a wizard who just looks like the mass-murderer Sirius Black, who is also called Sirius Black. Or maybe I misheard her. I am concussed.

The first person he saw when he opened the door was Sirius Black, holding a pot of coffee in his hand. “Oh!” he stopped suddenly, making coffee slosh in the carafe. He was wearing a scarlet shirt with a blinking owl on it that said OWL PELLET: 1979 EUROPEAN TOUR. "He’s here! I mean, you’re up. I mean, uh,” he looked back and forth from the coffee to the table he’d clearly meant to sit at.

“I got it,” Professor Lupin said, waving his wand and levitating the coffee to him. Black wiped his hands on his jeans and then thrust one out.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said formally, “I’m Sirius Black.”

Theo shook the man’s hand, pretending not to be in shock. “Hello Lord Black,” he said evenly, “I’m Theodore Nott.”

Black made a face, “Please call me Sirius, or Black if you must, but not Lord Black. I get enough of that around here.”

Theo looked over the room, not moving from his spot in the doorway just in case it was safer to retreat. He noted the front door on his right, and what seemed to be a sizable living room that had been converted into a dining room. A red loveseat was pushed up against the wall, squished next to a cabinet with a record player on top. Theo's eyes stuck hungrily to the bookshelves but they mostly seemed to be filled with trinkets.

Madame Pomfrey was taking tea at the table in the center of the living room, with Professor Lupin across from her. Black moved back to the kitchen, lifting up a dish of sticky buns and stealing concerned glances at Theo. Then he looked left at the last person in the room, hovering just a few feet away.

He blinked. The figure was still there. He blinked again.

“Theo?” Madame Pomfrey asked carefully, “Do you know who he is?”

“Oh I recognize him,” he replied, staring into the face he had seen nearly every weekday of his school life for the last four years. “I’m just trying to figure out why Harry Potter and Sirius Black are in the same room.”

Potter sidestepped into the kitchen, taking a different plate from Black, this one full of bacon. “I thought everyone knew?” Potter said with that little lilt in his voice that Draco complained about endlessly. He always sounds so innocent, he has everyone wrapped around his finger with that tone. “We-“

“Wait, wait,” Theo pressed his fingertips to his temple, “right, there’s something...you’re related?”

Third year was blurry for him. He hardly remembered anything after he almost killed himself, so Sirius Black had been nothing but a spark in his cauldron.

“He’s my godfather,” Potter nodded.

“And you live with him? Here?” Theo cast around the strange little apartment, “I thought he,” Theo caught the words before he could blurt them out, but Potter arched an eyebrow like he knew exactly what he was about to say. “I thought he was famously a muggle killer?” He said instead, skipping over the betrayed your parents thing.

“He’s innocent,” Potter shrugged. “Wrong guy.”

“Okay.” At that moment, the cat slipped out from under the table and chattered at him. Theo bit back the urge to make a little noise in return, but he did hold out his hand to pet it. “And who is this, again?”

“That’s John,” Potter said, walking by with the bacon. “My familiar.”

Theo rubbed under the familiar’s chin, staring into his perfectly round eyes. No wonder you seem so intelligent, he thought. He tried to remember if he’d read anything about familiars that wasn’t in some old history book and felt an answering ache in his head. Fantastic.

“Alright, Mr. Nott?” Madame Pomfrey looked him over as he sat down next to her. Potter sat across from, with Black on the end next to Lupin. Black waved his wand and the record player came on, quietly piping some calm jazz into the room. This was shaping into the strangest dining experience of his life.

“Fine.” He moved the cutlery around and poured tea before admitting, “No, actually. I feel...strange.” It was hard to put his finger on it, but he definitely felt odd. Was it shock? No...it was more like... “I don’t think I have a filter,” he deduced.

“Ah,” Madame Pomfrey pursed her lips. “It could be the salamander skin in your burn cream interacting with the pain sedative. You probably feel-“

“Drunk.”

Madame Pomfrey’s mouth twitched, “I was going to say woozy, but yes, I suppose it does have a euphoric side effect as well.”

“Great,” he muttered. He didn’t have it in him to feel any real bitterness, or even inconvenience. Now that he’d identified the light-headed, drifty feeling in his body, he wasn’t so worried. He wasn’t worried about anything at all. He was alive, and not badly injured, and in no danger of coming before the Dark Lord anytime soon. Maybe he would even learn something embarrassing about Potter to share with Draco. 

“You gave me a calming potion, too,” he remembered out loud. Madame Pomfrey hummed, beginning to fill his plate while he stared blankly at the table. “I wonder how this would go if I wasn’t altered.”

“You’d be in a mountain of pain and you’d barely be able to move your hands,” the healer said testily. “Eat. You’ll feel less woozy.”

He was looking at more food than he had ever eaten in one sitting, except at maybe an honest-to-magic feast. Despite the fact that his stomach cramped hungrily, he was at war with the instinct inside him to turn away.

“How am I supposed to eat all this?” he said scathingly.

Madame Pomfrey sighed, “I know you hate breakfast, Mr. Nott, but you’ve been in a magical coma for days. Your body is half-potion right now. I think you’ll find that you’re hungry!”

He made a face but reached for the whole apple she’d sat next to his plate, deftly cracking it in half with his hands. Potter gasped.

“How did you do that?” 

“What?” Theo replied, flicking his wrist. “Never done it?”

“No! I’ve never even seen someone do that!” Harry stared at his hands, “Are you really strong or something?”

“It’s just physics,” Theo rolled his eyes and looked down at his empty hand. Why isn’t my-

Oh. Right.

He rubbed his wrist with one pinky and pretended he hadn’t just tried to get his non-existent wand out of its holster. It wasn’t his fault, he reasoned. The bandages felt very much like the dragon hide he wore strapped to his forearms. Used to wear.

Theo was acting on muscle memory. He typically split an apple with Draco in the mornings when they were at school, using his wand to keep the flesh from oxidizing because Draco absolutely would not eat something with a brown spot on it. He sighed and held part of the apple out to Potter, “Want half?”

Potter uncertainly took half the apple from him, his green eyes very wide. He has different glasses, Theo realized, taking a bite. It was a pink gala. Yuck. He preferred sour apples, if not the small orchard apples that could almost fit in his closed fist.

“Um, I didn’t know if you didn’t, um, like anything? In particular? So, just so you know these have pecans in them.” Potter pointed at the sticky buns and then at a couple of open jars, “And this is apricot, raspberry, seeded blackberry, and, um, creamed hon-“

“You made those?” Theo tipped his head at the casserole plate of golden brown sticky buns, covered in cinnamon sugar and syrup, with candied pecans on top. Half the buns were gone already. It was probably the only thing he would eat on his plate, but Potter had him thinking twice.

“Er, yeah,” Potter started stirring his tea nervously.

“But,” Theo stared, waiting for Potter to fill in the obvious blank here. “Potter,” he said, slowly, like the Gryffindor was the one concussed, “I’ll be the first to say I don’t know much about you, but I do know you’re terrible at potions.”

The other boy raised his eyebrows and Theo felt a shock of recognition. What's that about? he wondered. I've never even grouped up with Potter in class.

“-hardly the same when the difference of a teaspoon won’t leave me with my face burned off,” he was saying.

Theo scoffed. That was one of the stupidest comments about potions he’d heard in a long time. “You're far more likely to burn your face off by stirring in the wrong direction,” he shook his head. "What I'm saying is, if you can follow directions well enough to bake, then you’re probably a deft hand at potions as well. Why do you suck so much if that’s true?”

Black snorted and quickly flicked Witch Weekly in front of his face. “Have you forgotten who our professor is?” Harry muttered, glaring down the table.

“That’s a bad excuse,” Theo shook his head. “Did you never have a mean teacher before? They’re very rewarding to learn from.”

“That is not true. Remus was the best teacher we've ever had and he’s the nicest! You think that was an accident?" Potter cried. The man next to him smiled.

“I didn’t say they were mutually exclusive,” Theo clicked his tongue and started to cut the sticky bun into smaller pieces. Fuck, Madame Pomfrey was right. I'm starving. “But challenging teachers are typically the best at what they do. Genius doesn't make you very likeable most of the time. Look at Dumbledore.”

Black began to choke and Lupin sighed, charming the magazine to roll up and start pounding him on the back.

“That doesn’t mean they should be in a school,” the Gryffindor crumbled his bacon into pieces and started eating them in little bites.

“Only a fool wouldn’t want to learn from the youngest Potions Master in centuries,” Theo said, giving Potter a sharp look. “I don’t care if Professor Snape wants to whip us bloody. Do you have any idea how many students have been mangled by potions accidents in the last ten years at Hogwarts?”

Potter got a weird expression on his face, like he was remembering something unpleasant, “No.”

“None.”

“Not in class, anyway,” Madame Pomfrey added under her breath. Potter turned a bit red and stared down at his plate.

“Well, it’s easy for you to say harsh teachers are fine and good because you’re so bloody smart,” Potter complained. Oddly, when Potter looked up, he had a little half-smile on his face, but then he seemed to remember something and went blank, leaving Theo even more unsettled and confused. “I mean, I only know that because Hermione complains about you. At the end of every term. For the rest of us, mean teachers are just a deterrent.”

Theo was half-way through his plate. He stopped for tea, aware that he might get sick if he ate too much too soon. “Not a brave thing for a Gryffindor to say," he commented, smirking as Potter narrowed his eyes. "I don't know why Granger complains, she bests me easily in at least four classes,” he continued, pleased to find he could remember their final marks. “Actually, I’m only best in two classes overall.” And then, before he could stop himself, he shrugged haughtily, “I don’t really try in the other classes though.”

He definitely heard someone laugh but he wasn’t sure who it was because he and Potter were locked in some kind of strange yet utterly familiar banter. In the back of his mind he started running through all the people he’d grown up with, trying to remember who on earth Potter was reminding him of.

“What are your best classes?” Black asked, speaking for the first time since their introduction. 

“Runes and Transfiguration.”

“Really?” Black leaned in, “Harry’s dad was going for a mastery in Transfiguration. He got in to the School of Taliesin, but then-“

Theo dropped his fork. “Taliesin?”

Black smirked, “The very one.”

“When?” Theo hastily did some math in his head. Potter’s parents famously died young, they been twenty one-ish, so then...What the fuck? Was he the youngest student they’d ever had? “Was he a genius?”

Lupin burst into laughter, falling against his chair as if Theo had said the most hilarious thing in the world. Black pressed his lips in a tight line but his shoulders started to shake with suppressed mirth. “He thought so,” the man managed to say. Lupin howled and Black broke down right alongside him, banging his fist helplessly on the table.

Theo looked at Potter. He was staring at the two men with open amusement, but he wasn’t laughing.

Right. He never knew his dad...

Suddenly, he felt guilty for asking. He searched for something else to say, but he just couldn’t let go of this new knowledge. It was just - it was Taliesin!

“What is Taliesin?” Potter asked, and it took him a beat to realize that he was asking Theo.

“It’s only the most secretive and most exclusive Transfiguration mastery program in the British Isles,” Theo hissed back, matching Potter’s volume. “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it.”

It occurred to him that he sounded rather rude, so he kept talking. If Theo had learned anything from Draco, it was to keep talking after you put your foot in your mouth and usually you could wiggle your way out of it. “It began in Wales. It’s been around since the 10th century, at least. They say you could only get in if you’d mastered the art of self-transfiguration, so your dad must have been a prodigy.”

“Oh?” Potter raised his eyebrow again, and again Theo felt that echo of familiarity. “So, you had to become an animagus just to get in?”

Lupin and Black had stopped cackling like madmen and Theo noticed that their attention settled more pointedly on the two of them.

“Exactly.”

Potter tapped his fork against an egg, breaking the yolk, and then dipped his toast in it. “Is becoming an animagus that hard?” He looked at Theo for the first time with a guarded expression on his face. “I read that in some cultures it’s taught in school. Like, before kids even turn sixteen.”

Theo tried not be irritated but didn’t quite succeed. He heard Blaise speaking calmly in his head. Not everyone knows as much about meta-magic theory as you do...

“Okay, becoming an animagus is relatively easy,” he allowed, not able to keep contempt entirely from his voice. “But mastering self-transfiguration is much more than turning into an animal. There’s a transformation of the body, but then there’s the transfiguration of your mind, and also your magic. They say that once they mastered it, students of Taliesen could transform into any animal, like Merlin. That’s what it means to be a true animagus.”

Potter broke into a wide smile, “That’s so cool. I wish I knew as much about magic as you.”

Theo felt like he had been stunned by Potter’s utterly guileless and easy grin. He barely managed to snap out of it, turning his face down as if he were focused on eating, but, truthfully, he couldn’t taste a thing. He wasn’t even hungry anymore. He was utterly consumed by the strangest sensation, like he was getting goosebumps all over, but also there was something...almost fond about it. He looked back up at Potter, testing, and observed him grinning and making some kind of inside joke with Black about a dog.

Theo felt warm again. Because of...Potter?

And then there was a loud crack that shocked everyone into silence.

“Oh, Circe,” Black sighed, turning in his chair.

The door at the back of the kitchen opened up and out stepped a familiar figure clad in black. Theo was on his feet in the next breath, Potter problems forgotten.

“Professor!”

Professor Snape stalked around the kitchen counter, his eyes locked on Theo. He stepped back hastily so he could face the man and shake his hand, but Snape stopped a foot away, examining him from head to toe.

“Theodore,” his Head of House said stiffly. There were shadows under his eyes, and he looked haggard, but otherwise he was perfectly unreadable, as always. Snape closed the gap between them and put one of his large, graceful hands on his shoulder, searching his face. It felt like an anchor had been dropped on him, a heavy weight that drove all the calm out of his system.

Theo started to remember all that he had lost, and all that was still at risk.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” his professor said.

“Have you seen the Malfoys?” he asked worriedly, pulling at the collar of his new shirt. “Is Draco okay?”

“Draco and Narcissa are alive and safe,” Snape assured him. Theo closed his eyes, sighing with relief. “How close were you to Lucius? Scale of one to ten?”

“Ten being...?”

“Draco.”

He laughed under his breath and considered the question. Lucius Malfoy was a man he respected, definitely, but he wasn’t exactly warm. Maybe compared to father he was a degree warmer to Theo, but...

“Four,” he decided. “Approaching a five.”

Snape nodded shortly and tightened his grip, “Lucius is dead.” Theo did not sway because Snape was holding him up, but still, it was a near thing. “Draco saw it,” he added.

Theo gaped at him, soundlessly horrified. Draco worshiped his father.

“Tiny gods, Snape, could you have less tact?” Black groaned. His professor shook his head dismissively, still staring into Theo’s eyes.

Both of them? A quiet voice was muttering in the back of his head. How could he take both of them? They were so strong.

“Would you like to see them?” Snape asked after a long pause.

Theo straightened up, “See them? Who?”

"Narcissa and Draco," the corner of Snape's mouth twitched, "perhaps even Mr. Zabini."

Theo could not answer that question, but the hopeless, desperate want in his eyes probably gave it away. Snape seemed to fully relax, letting his hand fall from Theo’s shoulder and giving him a private little smile, if it could be called that. More like a very nice smirk. “Unfortunately, I need Narcissa to talk to Black first, but I’ll call for you shortly.” He pointed at Theo’s place at the table until he reluctantly sat down and then turned and snarled at Black, who got up to follow Snape into the mysterious room he'd come from, complaining all the way.

Theo watched the door shut with his heart still in his throat, unable to believe that Snape was actually about to arrange for him to see his friends.

“How do they know each other?” Theo asked, because he needed a distraction so as not to vibrate out of his seat with anxiety. Even so, he twisted the hem of his t-shirt under the table and stole glances at the door every few seconds.

Potter made a face, “They were in the same year at Hogwarts.”

“Ah.” Theo couldn't think of another question, so he just bounced his heel nervously under the table.

“Um, so...” Potter flipped a spoon over his fingers, food forgotten. “You and Malfoy are close?” When Theo simply raised his eyebrows, Potter shrugged, “I just...I’ve never really seen you hanging around. With him. And he kind of...bothers me a lot.”

Theo couldn’t help it, he laughed. Sorry Draco, he thought, hugging his stomach as he dissolved into helpless, slightly hysterical giggles. “He does tend to follow you around,” he agreed. “He thinks you’re his bitter rival.”

“What?” Potter looked so confused that Theo bent forward over the table, burying his face in his hands.

“Oh my god,” he panted breathlessly, grinning, “I cannot wait to tell Blaise about this. You really don’t think of him like that?”

“No! I mean, maybe at Quidditch. I guess,” Potter cocked his head. “He’s constantly getting under my skin, all the time. Is that what he thinks a rival does?”

“He thinks you do the same.” And Theo had years of frustrated meals in Great Hall to back him up. “He thinks nearly everything you do is a stab at him.”

“I really don’t think of him at all unless he’s being annoying,” Potter muttered.

Theo coughed hoarsely and went to drink some water. He knew it was just his nerves boiling over and the odd combination of potions making him act this way, but he couldn’t deny that talking to Potter was just as easy as talking to Blaise or Draco.

“To answer your not-question,” Theo said, taking a deep breath, “I have better things to do than follow Draco around. And, by the way, I try to stop him from being so annoying. He’s grown out of it. Third year was the worst.”

Potter rolled his eyes, “I know, with that sling?” He seemed to consider his next words carefully. “You act like he’s...your brother, or something. Kind of.”

“Kind of,” Theo shrugged.

“Your turn, kid,” Black interrupted, emerging from the other room.

Theo’s heart jackhammered in his chest as he got to his feet and hurried into the kitchen. Black gave him a tired nod as they passed each other.

The other room was a potions lab. It was a small one, only good for one workstation. There was a large, conjured mirror affixed on the wall opposite the door, but instead of reflecting the room, it opened like a window into a different room. In the center of it stood Narcissa, who saw him at the same time that he saw her.

She gasped, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. “Theo?”

He banged his knee on the worktable as he bolted around it. Snape put out a cautionary hand between him and the mirror. “Don’t touch it,” he said quickly, “you’ll break the enchantment.”

He barely heard him. Theo’s pulse was loud in his head, and his face was getting hot. “Narcissa?” She was standing in a bathroom at the French cottage, framed by cool white and blue tiles that lined the walls and floor.

She let out a reedy sob and dropped her hands, clutching the vanity. She looked awful. Her face was gaunt, she had heavy bags under her watery red eyes, and her color was pale as a sheet.

But, to him, she was just as beautiful and sweet as always. A perfectly poised gentlewoman, like his mother used to say.

Narcissa sniffled, reaching with one trembling hand like she wanted to come through the mirror. “Is this real?” Her voice broke on the last word, "Are you really our Theo?"

That did it for him.

He wrapped his arms around his middle and tried not fall to his knees, wracked by a few powerful, back-breaking sobs. This was almost worse than waking up yesterday. Worse because she was right in front him, but she was not here, and all he could feel was an intense, choking loneliness that crushed him from all sides.

Theo raised an arm to press the back of his wrist against his eyes, gritting his teeth. “I’m okay,” he lied, ignoring the mangled sound of the words leaving his mouth. “I’m okay.”

Narcissa started to cry in earnest, which made him feel even worse, and he had to resist the urge to cover his ears. It was all too much for him. So much for my fortitude, part of him thought shamefully.

And then Professor Snape, the horror of the dungeons, was there. He set his arm across Theo’s shoulders and pulled him in, supporting his weight easily as if Theo was nothing but reed sticking out of the shore. Theo let out a particularly ugly sob, simultaneously humiliated and comforted.

“What was that you said about miracles, Cissa?” Snape teased. His deep voice was booming this close.

Narcissa began to laugh through her tears, a truly insane sound. “Theo! Theo!” she was gasping, “Oh my stars, I’m so ha-a-ppy! Oh! Oh, no! Draco! He’s gone - he - he’s at Catarina’s! I have to - Severus! Can you wait for me?”

“We have all the time in the world,” he said, rubbing his thumb along the back of Theo’s neck. His bandages were actually soaked with his tears, and Snape tucked a handkerchief against his face.

When Theo finally risked a glance at the mirror again, he was surprised to see the murky shape of Narcissa, running through the halls. It was almost as if he was watching her on a muggle movie screen. The scenes in the mirror changed every few seconds, showing her from the same, blurry angle as she raced through the cottage.

“This is called the Wishing Well,” Snape said softly. “Do you want to guess what it does?”

Narcissa cut to the right and the image changed again. This time, she was much farther away, as if they were looking down on her. There was an odd gray sheen over the image. She fell in front of the fireplace, using her wand to fling the entire jar of floo powder in it, shouting, “Catarina Zabini!” before she stuck her head in.

“Is it the windows?” he guessed, hiccupping.

“Yes,” Snape patted his back, “good. It allows you to call for anyone and speak to them in something reflective. I’ve modified it so you could even see them through your tea, if the water was still enough.”

“It’s a potion?” Theo scoffed, “What am I saying? Of course it’s a potion. You’re bloody brilliant. I told Potter.”

Narcissa pulled her head out and scrambled to her feet. Shortly after, Draco stepped through the flames.

“Oh, Merlin,” Theo sniffed and patted his face but he knew it was hopeless. He must look a sight. “I don’t want them to see me like this.”

“Alive?” Despite his sarcasm, Snape did not stop trying to offer him his strange brand of comfort. “Here, look up." The Professor waved his wand over Theo's eyes, incanting, “Limmbeso.”

All of the pressure and heat in his face disappeared. Theo blinked, amazed at how clear and clean he felt. “What is that from?” he marveled, touching his cheeks. All traces of tears were gone. His vision was still a little watery, and there was the definite risk that there would be more, but at least he didn’t look or feel like a snotty mess.

“A spell of my own creation,” Snape said without inflection, scanning him as if to see if it worked as well as he remembered. “Now, ready yourself for Draco.”

Theo turned just in time to see Narcissa sliding into the bathroom again, gesturing wildly at the mirror. “Look, look!”

Draco was the first to rush into frame. He came to a sudden stop, frozen in place as soon as he made eye contact with Theo. Blaise collided into him. “Move, Draco!” he snapped.

“Theodore?” Draco whispered.

“What?” Blaise leaned over Draco’s shoulder, his hands wrapped around the blonde like he was going to wring his neck if it was a trick. But when Blaise saw Theo standing there, looking back at them, he let out a strangled cry and instinctively reached forward to touch the mirror.

“Don’t!” Narcissa shouted, catching his wrist with a gossamer thread of magic. “It’s enchanted. Don’t touch it.”

“Are you really there?” Draco said, covering his mouth just like his mother had. His face looked pained. “Are you dead or are you alive? I don’t understand.”

“I’m alive,” Theo answered. Draco whimpered low in his throat. Blaise sagged against Draco like he couldn’t stand on his own, but his eyes were sharp, flickering all around Theo as if he was trying to figure out where he was. “I’m in England,” he clarified.

“I assure you, boys, Theodore is here,” Snape stepped into frame, putting his hand on Theo’s shoulder as if to prove he was real. “He’s fine.”

“Fine?!” Draco wailed, raking his fingernails over his neck, “He’s bandaged up to his hands! He looks like he’s lost weight! He supposed to be dead!”

“I was in a magical coma,” Theo said, quoting Madame Pomfrey. “I don’t really know the details. Woke up yesterday. Someone-“ he glanced at Snape, who shook his head, “someone found me in the ruins of - of the Tower. Can’t say who.”

“Is...is your dad alright, too?” Blaise whispered. He looked like he was in shock.

Theo’s answer stuck in his throat. That’s right, he thought. I haven’t said it yet.

“He’s dead,” he replied as blankly as possible, not willing to let them see how much that hurt him. “I don’t...I can’t remember, exactly, but I know that he is. I know it.”

“Theodore has a severe concussion that is being treated. His memory should come back in time. As he said, he just woke up yesterday evening.” He was never so grateful to have Snape there, competently explaining what needed to be explained.

“Mum,” Draco said breathlessly, his eyes glued to Theo like he was afraid he’d disappear, “Mum! We have to go get him. We have to bring him here. We can’t leave him over there, with-“

“I know, I know, honey, I know,” Narcissa hushed. “But, I can’t. Not today.”

“He can’t travel by magic for a few days,” Snape added, cutting off Draco’s protest. “He’s safe. Theodore needs to recover.”

Come on, Professor, he complained in his head. I just cried on your shoulder. Can’t you call me Theo?

“I can’t believe it,” Blaise was muttering, shaking his head back and forth. He stared at Theo with an almost angry expression on his face. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“Blaise!” Draco gripped the other boy's hand, “He’s there! He’s alive!” He was flushed all the way up to the tips of his ears and he kept wiping tears away before they could fall, “Of course you are, Theo. You’re so - I knew you couldn’t be - I knew it.” Draco hid his face under Blaise’s arm and Blaise, in answer, hugged him closer.

“I fucking told you!” Blaise burst out unexpectedly, the wild anger catching light. “I told you that I felt that you wouldn’t be okay going back there! I told you! I asked you not to go and then you almost - and then you went and - ugh!” Blaise buried his face in the back of Draco's shoulder, shaking.

Theo sighed sadly, wrapping his arms over his chest. “Sorry,” he said, because he was sorry. Sorry not to be there with them so they could see him for real, and sorry for not taking Blaise’s concern seriously. “But I am alive.”

Blaise scoffed. Draco shot Theo a genuine smile.

“You really can’t say who rescued you?” he asked.

Theo shook his head, not sure how he would even begin to explain that he’d just had breakfast with Sirius Black.

“Well, you tell them,” Draco sniffed imperiously, though the image was ruined by how red his face was and how wild his hair looked, “you tell them that Draco Malfoy owes them. I don’t care who it is. They will be in my favor for the rest of my life.” He seemed to think for a moment, “Even if it was Potter. I’d gladly sign myself up as Potter’s number one....um...” he tapped Blaise's elbow, struggling to find the words.

“Stylist?” Blaise suggested, voice muffled. Theo snorted, secretly delighting that Draco was digging this hole.

“Yes! Stylist, public relations manager, f-freaking, um,” Draco glanced at his mother, “political ally. I don’t care. Anything, anything, I’d do anything for the person who saved you. You tell them that.”

“Narcissa,” Snape sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I would, too,” she shrugged, smiling carelessly. He groaned in answer, and Narcissa winked at Theo.

“I’ll tell them,” he managed to say, curling his toes to try and keep from laughing. “How long do I have to be here?” This question he directed at Snape, but Snape just looked at Narcissa.

She brushed her hair out of her face, thinking. “I’ll be in London in eight days,” she said. “We have to plan carefully. You’re legally dead. There’s the matter of your vault, then we will probably need to talk to someone from Ministry, avoid the press, and get you here...”

“My wand’s gone,” he said distractedly, mentally adding all she was saying to the growing list in his head. “Everything...everything I had is gone.”

His words rang hollow in the potions lab as they held painful silence for him. Theo ground his nails against his palm and tried not to let the brutal truth overwhelm him again.

“We will take care of you,” Narcissa said softly. “We will. Anything you want, you’ll have. And Theo,” she waited until he met her eyes. “You can trust him. He vowed to protect you until I can be there.”

He nodded hesitantly. That was quite the endorsement for Black. Draco looked at his mother in askance, but she ignored him, smiling beatifically at Theo instead.

“You look tired,” she said. “You should go and rest. Know you’ll be home with us soon.”

Home. That word was a bell of sorrow. It shook something cold and ungainly from him, something that nearly erased all the happiness he felt from seeing his friends again.

But Theo was not raised to wear his heart on his sleeve. So he smiled back at her, shared a long look with his friends, and promised them he would be safe.

Then Narcissa reached out to touch the mirror and their images rippled away.

After, Theo was in a daze. He did not look at any of the other faces in the flat, just retreated to the room he’d been put up in and spent some time bent over the sink splashing water on his face. He fell asleep with a cold, wet washcloth over his eyes. Sometime after he’d dozed off, Madame Pomfrey slipped in to replace his bandages and charmed the compress to stay cool for longer. It helped with the heady pressure in his head.

It was too much crying, for him. Theo wasn’t like that. He didn’t panic. He didn’t weep. Not a lot, anyway. He was calm, cool-headed, controlled. Not because of the way he was raised, just because that’s how he was.

But the pain he was feeling, it was unbearable. And it got more strident as the day wore on. He lay on that strange bed and stared at the fluttery curtains hiding the false window, thinking about all the things he didn’t have, and all the things he needed.

A wand. Clothes. School supplies. He’d have to redo all his homework.

Then there were the worse things, things he couldn’t even bear to think about. Irreplaceable things.

Tentatively, he slid out of bed, taking the stack of clothes that Madame Pomfrey had said he’d been wearing when he was found from the top of the dresser. She, or someone, had done some kind cleaning charm to get the burned flesh and blood off them, but they still smelled a little like brimstone.

He set the clothes out on the floor, taking each piece by itself and patting it down flat. He spent the longest time running his hands over his winter cloak, which was burned up to the elbows and smelled the worst. There were several little pockets that he usually secreted tokens into, but it appeared that all those things were gone.

Of course, he realized, Finley would have taken them out long ago. It’s summer.

He moved on to his shirt. It was an old sweater with no pockets to speak of. The fibers had been shocked stiff by the flash of fiendfyre he survived, and it felt scratchy on his hands.

Last, he stuck his hands into the deep pockets of his gray muggle sweatpants. He used to love these things because they were perfectly comfortable and always kept him warm in the Tower without being too warm.

Did I wake up in the night? He wondered, turning one pocket inside out. Nothing. He moved to the other. No, I was hurt. I must have been lying in bed when I heard the attack begin, that's why I wasn't dres-

His hand brushed against something small. He stilled, shocked that there was actually one remaining piece of his life still with him. 

When Theo opened up his palm, he was shaking so hard that the little gemstone jumped across his skin. The stone was no larger than his thumbnail, flattish, with some kind of divot near the top. “What?” he pinched the edges and held it up to the light.

Not a stone. A gem. It was a green and blue gem in raw form, jutting out of a chunk of rock. It was bigger at the bottom than at the top. The shine of brilliant, rare crystal caught the light and danced prisms on the wall. “What are you?” he wondered. He had never seen a gemstone like this, had never even found a true gemstone before. He had found plenty of crystals and minerals, sure, and veins of ore, but actual, genuine, gems?

He saw something in the center of the blue-green haze and held it closer to his eye, wishing he had a magnifying glass. He had to move his head awkwardly to catch the light in the right way, but then -

“A hole?”

The gem was pierced right through the middle by a small, but visible, perfect circle.

“A hag stone,” Theo breathed, awed. He tried to peer through it, but it was too small. “Wow. Where did I find this?”

The stone didn’t have the answers. He looked at it for awhile longer and then conceded that he just wouldn’t know until his memories came back. Instead, he went searching through the room for something he could string through the hole. A chain would be best, but he would take even thread, would braid it himself into a cord if he needed to.

He didn’t find anything, but Theo did stumble across a wardrobe of clothes that definitely did not belong to Sirius Black. He pulled out a hideous orange Chudley Cannons jersey disgustedly. “Am I in Potter’s room?”

“Mrow.”

He jumped, cursing. John was standing half-inside the door. They had spelled a cat flap into it.

“What?” he asked, as if the cat would answer. “Do they want me?”

The cat just stared at him, perhaps judging him for snooping through his familiar’s belongings. Theo shut the wardrobe, “Just looking for a cord I can use for this,” he said, flashing the stone at the cat. “Potter doesn’t have any jewelry he wouldn’t miss, would he?”

The cat cocked his head, and then padded fully into the room and jumped on top the nightstand. Theo bundled his old clothes back into a pile and shoved them in a corner. John meowed again, pawing at the handle of the dresser.

When he opened it, he found an old silver chain tangled in the back. Theo worked the kinks out and looped the metal through his stone. It was not a terribly fine chain, but it did the job, and with this token fastened around his neck he felt immeasurably better.

“Thanks,” he scratched John behind the ears. The cat tossed his head and sat back on his haunches, reaching out with his front paws and meowing piteously. "How could I possibly deny you?" Theo smiled, picking him up. He was wonderfully soft, and very gentle with his claws as if he understood that Theo’s arms were hurt. He felt a little lighter as he carried him into the living room.

“John, I know you can walk,” Potter said, exasperatedly. “Sorry. I assume you like cats?”

Theo continued stroking John’s chest as he took a closer look at the room. It had been set to rights after breakfast, and it looked empty without Lupin and Madame Pomfrey. Only Black was in the living room, sprawled on the couch spelling two hand mirrors. He did not look up as Theo passed him by.

“I like all animals,” he answered. “I’m usually more of a dog person, but...” John rubbed his cheek along Theo’s bicep and he smiled privately at the creature. “Your familiar is very sweet.”

Black laughed under his breath, “I thought that cat was sweet, too, until he opened his big mouth.”

Theo smirked, wondering just how loud this cat could get. He read the spines of what few books were tucked into the bookshelves but didn't find anything interesting. He glanced at the window, which was fake, just like the one in his room. Part of him desperately wanted to take this moment to ask some questions. How did you find me? How am I alive? Did you see anything else at my home? Was there evidence of what happened to my father?

But Theo just could not bring himself to ask. That would be akin to sliding out into the loch after the first freeze. Theo would just be testing how long it took to plunge through into the cold dark, and he didn't want to go back there today. So, instead he asked, “Are we underground?”

“Why?” Black raised his head, “Want some fresh air?”

Theo was surprised by how easily the man saw through his question. “Yes.”

“You want anything else? Is there something we could pick up at, say, the local drugstore?” Black shrugged, “Money’s no object.”

Theo set the cat down on the loveseat and brushed his fur away. “I would like something to write in.”

Black nodded and looked at his godson. “Want to take a trip, Harry?”

Potter gaped, “But, Sirius! He’s - we just - Nott’s barely been alive for a day!”

“Yeah, and he has the perfect cover right now because everyone still thinks he's dead. I probably wouldn’t even need to glamor you, but I will.” Black stood up and stretched. Despite the domestic scene, he cut an intimidating figure with his large dark eyes and the runic tattoos peeking out under the collar of his shirt. Black was built like a fighter, and he had a dark aura to him that Theo guessed was made worse by Azkaban.

And then he remembered his history and nearly staggered back, clapping a hand to his head. "You're Narcissa's cousin!" he realized, frustrated that he had forgotten. "Of course. That's why she trusts you."

"I don't think the bonds of blood are why she trusts me," Black replied wryly, "but it did help a little."

"You're cousins with the Malfoys?" Potter said in utter disgust. "What does that make me?"

"God-cousin, I think."

"It doesn't make you anything unless you're his heir," Theo sighed, rubbing his temples. "Although you're probably related in some distant way. The Potters were pureblood."

Potter quizzed Black on more of his family's distant relations as the three of them got ready to leave. A short five minutes later, Theo was squinting at the hazy white sky, taking deep breaths of hot, oily city air and feeling totally content for the first time since he woke up.

“It’s just a few minutes away,” Black said, leading them east, “but it will be nice to stretch the legs.”

They traveled two blocks to a large muggle drug store that looked like it had seen better days. The electric lights spat and flickered overhead. Long aisles reached nearly to the top of the ceiling and created shadowy, enclosed tunnels packed with numerous little objects. Theo idly picked up a plastic shopping basket.

“Been here before?” Black grunted, moving out of the way of a woman with a pram.

“Similar places,” Theo said, giving him a look that he hoped communicated I can behave in the muggle world.

“I’m going to get some snacks,” Black nodded, grabbing his own basket. “Take however long you want. Come on.” He pulled his godson away. Theo watched him with amusement as Potter shot baleful glances over his shoulder until they disappeared. Theo wondered if Potter honestly hadn't noticed Black layer a tracking charm on him before they left.

He wandered up and down the aisles for awhile, amazed - as usual - by the amount of seemingly useless stuff that muggles needed, and yet could not seem to find anything he actually wanted. He picked up tape and pencils from one aisle and them moved to the slightly larger crafts section. There were rows of books at the end that called to him, but first, he needed paper.

The problem was that muggles constantly produced paper with annoying little lines on it. He needed blank, thick paper, something he could draw on, preferably bound up in a journal. Theo loaded up the basket with markers and pens, grabbed a spool of twine, and then spent an inordinate amount of time looking at every sketchbook in stock.

Finally, he settled for a slim but decently sized leather bound sketchbook with a soft cover. He also snatched a ream of heavy paper wrapped in plastic.

He edged down the aisle, getting closer to the books. Most of this section was for children, but he couldn't help being enchanted by some of it. He peered intently for some time at a tube of brightly colored fuzzy sticks. He wondered what they were for. I’ll come back, he decided, when I don’t have the potential to embarrass myself in front of Lord Black.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye and he looked to see Potter crouched at the end of the aisle, looking at the books. Theo switched the basket to his other arm and went to stand next to him. He was looking a paperback children’s novel with a sad looking dog on the cover, called Shiloh.

“I prefer Watership Down, myself,” Theo joked.

Potter glanced up at him, "I've never heard of -"

I’ve never heard of this kind of magic before.

“Huh?” Theo said unintelligently as the echo of a memory rang in his ears. He blinked, and he wasn't standing in the muggle drugstore anymore.

He was looking down at a figure crouched along the bottom row of Obscurus Books, reading about-

Potter stood up and rubbed the back of his neck shyly, "I thought, you know, you said you like dogs?"

Is it too on the nose to say it must be magic?

Theo blinked rapidly. His vision was tunneling. For some weird reason, it felt like he was standing in the shade. He tasted bergamot and looked at his empty hand, jolting when he realized that it was empty. Where is my tea?

“Are...are you okay?”

He flinched. Potter was too close. Way too close. Theo took a deep breath, trying to get some oxygen into his fucking broken brain, and was assaulted by a very familiar smell.

Fresh and breezy.

“Holy fuck,” he said, loudly. “I’m in your room.”

“Yes?” Potter crossed his arms nervously. "I don't think you're okay."

No, Theo was thinking, unable to keep from staring wide-eyed at this other wizard. No, I’m in your room and I know you, I know you, I know you but I don’t know from where.

“I have to go,” Theo said. “I mean, I want to go. My head hurts.”

“Okay,” Potter was holding his basket. When did that happen? “Let’s get Sirius. I told him this was a bad idea,” he added under his breath.

Theo trailed Potter like a lost crup through the rest of the store. Black had absolutely packed his basket full of muggle snacks, which Potter started nagging him about as they headed for the front of the store. All the while, Potter’s voice tugged on the foggy part of his mind that seemed to be clearing, little by little.

Theo unconsciously touched the stone around his neck, seeking some kind of stability, or comfort, but instead Potter's voice rang in his head, clear as day.

It’s a hag stone. It’s supposed to see through disguises.

“Did you really get this for him?” Black pulled out a cat toy from their bags, a long plastic stick with a string and fluffy ball on the end.

“Only the best for my familiar,” Potter whispered, a mock-serious look on his face. Black started to laugh maniacally.

Don’t lots of wizards have familiars?

Theo was panicking. He was no stranger to worry or controlled anxiety, but this out-of-control feeling of falling over the edge of a waterfall was something else. He wanted to sprint back to the apartment building, taking all fourteen flights of stairs to the level they had been on, and take cover in his room.

Potter’s room. Ki-

Theo didn't even realize he'd followed them out of the store until he full-on collided with a pole. Black swore and grabbed his sleeve. “Alright, kid? We’re almost there. Don't walk into traffic, I haven't updated my will yet."

He did not look at Harry Potter again, which was extremely hard to do with the three of them standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a tiny elevator. As soon as they were back inside the flat, Theo snatched the bag with his notebook and writing utensils and slammed the door.

“Is he okay?”

He held his breath, pressing his ear against the door. Clearly the rooms had noise dampening naturally built into them, but it wasn’t a true silencing charm.

“I don’t...might be...”

He strained to hear more, but they had traveled too far away. No matter. Theo had bigger problems than what they thought.

He upended the bags and started ripping boxes open, getting a smooth black marker in his hand and scribbling on a sheaf of white cardstock: KINGFISHER.

Why do I know that name? Fuck, his head was killing him, but he was so close, he could just feel it all waiting to break through.

He crouched on the ground, biting his fingernails into the wooden floor as he started writing other things down under the name:

-Albion

-Familiars

-Obscurus Books

-Letters

That was unexpected. He stared at the word for a moment, trying to place it. Unprompted, another, crystal-clear memory played back in his head, just one moment in time with no other context. He was sitting at a desk with a quill in hand, rolling it so the ink didn't pool. At the top he'd written, Dear Kingfisher...

“Pen pal,” he muttered. His skin was crawling with energy. “He must - there has to be -“ he looked around frantically, but the room was barren.

As if it’d been cleaned.

Of course. If Potter had any proof that they were connected, he would have hidden it, right? Right? Wasn’t it a secret? Was this a secret?

Theo started tearing the room apart. Quietly, and in an organized fashion, but with violence. He lifted the bed, stripped the sheets back, took everything out of the nightstand cabinet and laid it on the floor. He took the pictures out of their frames and unloaded every bottle from the bathroom cabinet. He looked through all of Potter’s clothes. Got on the floor and looked under the bed.

He gasped.

Deep in the shadows under the bed were two white sneakers. He snatched them by the laces and stared at a pair of white Converse. There was barely a mark on them, but clearly had been worn at least once.

Not good rockhounding shoes, he thought, but the thought was an echo. An echo from something before.

He shakily set them down and approached the wardrobe, the last place he had to search. Inside were a few shirts and cloaks, including the ugly jersey. Theo took his time pulling everything out one by one. Inside one of the long black robes, he found it.

The soft purple fabric of the shirt slipped like silk through his fingers. “A royal color,” he whispered.

I saw his colors in the stones.

A memory cracked open in his mind like an egg. He was no longer in front of the wardrobe, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom at the Tower, mother’s stones in his hands. What does my day have in store? he asked, breathing over the stones before throwing them into the chalk circle. When they clattered on the ground, three danced together in the center and flipped up to show their signs.

New beginnings, he read. Royal...no, a regal person. That's a good sign.

The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Theo looked down to find John staring up at him.

Theo ignored him, just sparing a glance at the door to make sure it was still closed. The bottom of the dresser had two drawers in it, but only one opened to his touch.

He got on his knees and gripped the locked drawer with both hands, pulling on it as hard as he could. He cursed and rattled the handle, “Come on,” he groaned. If he had his wand, if he could just focus, if he didn’t have this fucking headache, he could just-

The charm over the drawer broke apart and he yanked the entire thing out from the wardrobe, falling on his back. He froze, afraid for a moment that Potter or Black would rush in, but there came no knock at the door.

Theo sat up. The memories were flowing faster through him. He recalled thin-frame, oval glasses and fine, light brown hair. Remembered watching his face change as he absorbed the grandeur of the Albion Library. Remembered countless long letters that he read only when he was alone, secretly curling his fingers over his mouth and smiling.

Inside the drawer was a series of postcards. Each was from a secretly magical place in Europe that he remembered visiting. Charlottenburg Palace, the Ponte di Rialto, the Pic de Bure.

On the back of every one was his handwriting, beginning with the exact same opening every time. Dear Kingfisher. Each message colored in the pages of a summer he had almost forgotten. The truth settled around him like a heavy shroud, comforting and suffocating at the same time.

He set the postcards aside. He couldn’t process this, couldn’t hope to understand it. Some of his forgotten questions about his pen pal could be answered immediately by the truth. Of course Kingfisher wore a glamor in public, he was Harry Potter. Of course he did not know about wixen culture, Potter was raised in secrecy.

But Theo had more and more more questions piling up, things that made less sense. Why did he ask me about blood wards? What about all that talk about vampires and the witch burnings and old Houses and all the other things that made it seem like he wasn’t afraid of dark magic? How could he have trusted me when my father supported the Dark Lord? Was it a trick? A lie? A-

Kingfisher’s voice played in his head like a broken fucking record.

I’m rubbish at making friends.

That was a very earnest, on-brand thing a Gryffindor might say, but it didn't make sense. It didn't make sense, because if his friend Kingfisher was in fact Harry Potter, then Theo simply had no idea who Harry Potter had been pretending to be all these years.

---

Harry

“Sirius, this is an emergency. I need to see you at headquarters. Now!”

Sirius beat the phoenix patronus with a wooden spoon. “Stop! Breaking! In! To! My! House!”

The patronus vanished. Harry managed a strangled laugh, but he was all tied up in knots (Notts, haha, his brain supplied unhelpfully) over Theo to really enjoy his godfather's antics.

“Sorry, pup,” Sirius groaned, “I think I have to go.”

“Think they know?”

“Undoubtedly. My guess is either Bill or Snape spilled the beans.”

“Would Snape do that?” Harry asked, peeling an orange just to give his hands something to do. “He seemed pretty concerned with keeping this a secret.”

“Yeah, but he’d tell Albus just to make it seem like I’m the bad guy for keeping it to myself. And we only said we wouldn’t announce it to the whole Order, not that we wouldn’t tell him.” Sirius groaned and summoned his boots with a lazy wave. “Figures Snape wouldn’t give me a heads up.”

Harry huffed, “You’re not really giving him the benefit of the doubt, you know. I thought you were going to try and get along.”

“Not you too,” Sirius growled, ruffling Harry’s hair as he went by. “Remus lectured me within an inch of my life, you know.”

“What happened last night? You never told me.”

“Ah...well...we made up, I guess.”

“You guess?” Harry raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged, “That’s what happens when you tell your friends the truth. They either choose to stick by you, or they vanish, and-“ Sirius froze, glancing awkwardly at Harry. “I mean. I wasn’t. I was just speaking from experience.”

Harry shrugged, focused on tearing chunks of rind off the fruit. “It’s fine. I already know that.”

“Do you?” Sirius suddenly looked guilty. “I’m sorry Harry. We’ve never talked about what happened at Grimmauld, before the party.“

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he forced his voice to be even. “I can figure it out with them, don’t worry.” He could feel worry falling off of his godfather in waves, so he made eye contact and said with strength, “I’ll ask you if I need advice.”

“Okay..." Sirius muttered reluctantly. “Poppy will be here in an hour. Do you want me to call her now? Will you be okay alone?”

Harry ignored the way his heart thumped at the word alone. “Probably be better that we are,” he muttered. “I really think he’s figured it out.”

“Well...that’s good?”

Harry couldn’t bring himself to answer because he really didn’t think it was good, not with the way Theo looked at him in the store. Sirius sighed again and came back around the island to wrap him in a huge bear hug. Like everything with Sirius, it was a little over the top, but utterly sincere, and it made him feel better.

“Do not go flying into a magical scar and get trapped in some secret cave while I’m gone, got it?” he said roughly before letting go.

Harry smirked. “No promises.”

Sirius flicked him in the ear and then apparated on the spot. He did it quietly. That was something Harry had learned in the last few weeks with him. Apparition could be quiet, if one was focused enough, so he guessed all of the insanely loud cracks in Privet Drive this summer had been Mundungus.

Harry’s head hurt. He looked, again, at the door that Theo had disappeared behind over an hour ago before easing off his chair. At least John is with him.

Sirius kept an assortment of headache relief potions in his bathroom. Harry groaned as icy relief soaked his temples, taking a moment to stand in the bathroom and let his fears come out.

“So what if he wants nothing to do with you?” He glared at his reflection, “You can’t take it personally. He’s just lost everything. He’s all alone. He barely knows you as Kingfisher. This is all really weird for him, and you have to give him space. Don't make it about you."

A door slammed.

Harry whipped around, bracing himself for a second sound, like maybe for Theo to shout his name, or for something to break, but everything went deathly silent. Hesitantly, he eased out of the bedroom.

He didn’t see anyone in the main room, so he checked the lab, but that room was empty too.

“Theo?” he tried his room last. “John?”

The room was torn apart. He fell into a crouch with his wand up, stunning spell on his lips. "John!" he hissed urgently. But then his frantic gaze settled on a strange scene. In the middle of complete chaos, a neat grid of several objects was laid out in the center of the floor. 

Harry's wand arm shook as he stared at his white Converse in the middle of the room, lined up neatly with his folded purple shirt and every single book that Harry had bought that summer because of Theo. All the postcards were there, too, face-down on the ground so the pictures were hidden. 

Theo and John were gone. 

He burst out into the city street for the second time that day. It was still busy and hot outside, but the end of day was approaching, blanketing the city in brassy, sinking sunlight. Harry looked frantically left and right, trying to decide where Theo would go. Did he know Manchester? Would he go to one of the magical communities? Harry only knew of two, and they were both pretty far away, but that didn’t mean there weren't more.

He started walking in the direction of the drugstore. Where is John? He wondered, reaching up under his shirtsleeve to touch the blue feather he had tucked into a strap of his wand holster. It was not the ideal place because Harry had to stick it there with a charm, but he didn’t want to leave it behind. He stepped under the awning of a store and pressed the pad of his thumb to it.

Right away, a second layer of staccato anxiety and panic washed over his own, but the sensation did not tell him where Theo was. Right, he bit his lip. John said it doesn’t work that way normally.

He walked to the end of the block, standing uncertainly at the crosswalk. He was wearing his glasses - his glamored glasses - and was aware that he looked like a lost schoolkid. Several muggles gave him a curious look as they passed by. He mentally cursed himself for not putting on a Notice-Me-Not as well.

Right as he was about to change his mind and turn left, thinking that maybe Theo just went around the block, he felt a sense of wrongness. He turned his head, moving automatically across the street with the crowd. Then, at the next corner, he hesitated before choosing to continue going forward.

Instantly, his stomach twisted. He turned back and went left instead. He walked like that for awhile, suffering some awkward stops and starts. Harry vaguely remembered having this feeling a few times when he was a little kid and his Aunt “lost” him in the grocery store. Eventually, his instincts (of course, it was magic the whole time, he realized) always led him back to her.

And this time, it led him right to John.

The cat was crouched underneath a bench at the bottom of a sloped park. It was very well manicured, sitting between two glossy financial buildings that towered over the city. The grass was as green and neat as the Dursley’s yard, and there was a fountain in the center spraying chlorinated water high into the air. A few lone businessmen and women power-walked down the paths toward the car park, but otherwise there was no one sitting near the fountain.

Except for one lonely figure.

John flicked his ears but stayed under the bench, keeping watch as Harry trudged up the hill. With every step, he could feel anxiety curling tight in his stomach, packing in energy like a spring. By the time he was actually sitting on the other end of the bench, he was so wound up he couldn’t even speak.

Theo leaned over his knees, forehead cupped in his hands. Harry tried not to fidget but was unsuccessful, shuffling his feet helplessly. Please do not let anyone come to the apartment while we’re gone, he wished, crossing his fingers.

“You found me again.”

Theo didn’t sound right. His voice was rough and strained, not at all like the sarcastic, piercing, teasing way he’d spoken over breakfast. His potions have probably worn off, Harry reasoned. Maybe he's in pain. 

“Had to,” Harry said, clasping his hands together and squeezing tightly. “You’re in danger.”

“Am I?” Theo sat up, pushing his hair back. Only then did Harry realize that some it had been burned away, leaving choppy locks to hang around his cheeks.

When he looked at Harry, his eyes widened a fraction. Harry wondered if he had made it worse by wearing the face that Theo knew.

“I can’t believe...” Theo tore his eyes away, staring at the fountain. “I can’t believe you’re Harry Potter.”

“Do you want me to take this off?” He raised his hands to touch the oval frames.

Theo glanced over again, brow drawn together. “No. I mean, I can’t believe my friend is Harry Potter.”

He thought he understood the distinction this time. Harry took a couple tense breaths, staring resolutely into the ground until he had the strength to say, “Who do you think I am?”

Theo shook his head, touching his wrist with a far-away expression on his face. His shoulders were hunched, and Harry could see the strain written all over him. He wanted to slide closer but kept the distance, afraid that he would shatter the peace between them if he tried to offer any sort of comfort.

“I think that you’re...” The Slytherin gazed at him. “Before...before I knew Kingfisher was you, before today even, I would have said that...Harry Potter is Gryffindor's golden boy." Harry snorted, folding his arms tight across his chest.

"And I would have said that Harry Potter is a star athlete, and Dumbledore's favorite, and he gets away with anything. Even when he gets in trouble, he always comes out on top." Theo paused, thinking. "I'd say he has a great destiny, either because he wants to, or because our world won't let him be anything other than a hero, and most of all, I thought that Harry Potter could do anything and be anything that he wanted...” Theo looked him over again, slowly, “But Kingfisher told me that all he wanted was to be free to do as he pleased.”

It was hard for him to breathe. He turned away, pressing the back of his hand against one cheek. “Yeah,” was all he managed to say.

“That’s what I’m...what I was waiting for, as well,” Theo folded his hands together and looked down at the ground. “That’s one of the reasons I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends,” Harry protested.

“Why?” Theo didn’t raise his voice, but the question still cut him to the bone, “Why are we friends? You know who I am, you’ve known from the beginning, so why would you take the risk?” Harry didn’t reply right away, too mixed up in all his thoughts, but Theo huffed impatiently, “You weren’t trying to save me, were you?”

“No!” Harry uncurled his hands and held them out, palms up, “That had nothing to do with it. I never thought of you as the - the son of a Death Eater.” He whispered it, but Theo just scoffed like he didn’t believe him. “It’s because of you!” Harry snapped, frustrated. “You! You were reason enough to want to be friends. You're so smart and nice-“

“Nice?” Theo repeated sourly.

“And you know so much about magic and we got along so well, and I just - I...how could I not be friends with you?” Harry held his gaze, hoping that Theo could see just how sincere he was under the glamor. “I was going to end it,” he admitted a little breathlessly. “I was. I thought the same thing you did. Objectively, this was a bad idea. We're too different and you could be in real danger because of me. And I didn’t want to be put in a position where I might want or - or even be forced to use you, to get to him.”

“What changed?” Theo said, barely reacting to Harry’s words. “Why did you decide to keep writing me?”

“No...I...I was never going to stop writing you this summer,” Harry sank down on the bench, utterly miserable. “At the Albion, I planned to tell you that we should stop talking after we got to Hogwarts, but then...you did that divination. Do you remember? The lithomancy?" Theo still wasn't looking at him, but he did give him the smallest of nods. “My question was what did our friendship have in store for both of us and it said...well, it said something horrible would happen, but the results seemed fine, good even!" He tugged at his hair in anguish, "So I thought it just meant we’d piss off all our friends but in the end it would work out!”

Harry took a deep breath, preparing to admit the worst truth of all, “But I was so wrong, so completely wrong. I’m sorry, Theo. Your house, the fire, I think it was all my fault-“

“It wasn’t.” His words were so flat and certain that Harry was struck dumb. Theo traced the runes on the back of his knuckles. “You are wrong. It was my father’s fault. And mine, maybe.” He closed his eyes as if in pain, “I don’t remember it yet, but I know that he was trying to keep me safe from the Dark Lord. He and Lord Malfoy were working together to try and protect us.”

“You and Draco?”

Theo nodded, finishing his tracing and going back to his pinky to start again. His hair fell between them like a curtain.

“I did readings of you after that," he said quietly. "And every time I pulled up Strength. You were constantly fighting against something, and I was so curious about what it could be that I hardly even wondered what you might be trying to protect." He fell silent, still following the runes on his knuckles. Harry was shaking all over, afraid and hurt and hopeful at the same time.

"Were you the one who found me?”

If Harry wasn’t sitting right next to him, he never would have believed those words came out of Theo's mouth. He sounded vulnerable, and for some reason that made an answering pain come to life in his chest.

“I had to,” Harry said roughly. “Once I knew you were alive, I had to act. I couldn’t leave you out there on your own.”

Theo turned his head away, though Harry could not see his face anyway. “Thank you,” he muttered in that same shaky voice. Harry decided he could not take it anymore. He slid over so the both of them were close together, bumping shoulders. To his relief, Theo didn't move away. 

Theo subtly wiped his eyes and then ever-so-slightly leaned against him. The feeling of Theo’s arm pressed against his was like a firebrand.

“Draco said he owes you," he finally said, sounding a bit more normal. “He said he’ll owe whoever saved my life with his favor."

Harry laughed uncertainly, wondering, does that mean he's okay with this? “Well, does he know it’s me?”

Theo looked at him, lips twitching, “Not yet. But he said even if it was you, he would do anything to pay you back."

“No way,” Harry narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying.”

Theo started to grin, pushing a hand through his hair and sitting back. “We can come up with something good,” he said, wiping his eyes again. There were spots of color on his cheeks, and he didn't seem to be able to meet Harry's eyes for more an a second at a time, but there was familiarity in the way he spoke that eased all the worry he'd been carrying around. We, Harry realized, staring at Theo, he said we. 

And then, like a dam breaking, all of the heaviness he’d been living with for weeks fell off at once, leaving Harry light-headed with relief.

“I’m so happy you’re alive,” he burst out, the words catching in his throat. He was the one to lean against Theo, then, taking comfort in the physical fact of him. "You have no idea, just no idea."

Theo groaned, “Not you, too,” he complained. “You and Blaise and Draco are three emotional peas in a pod, you know that?”

"Take it from me, it’s not every day you survive something like that. Your friends are owed.” He remembered how many times he ended the school year with Hermione weeping into his shoulder. It felt terrible to finally understand her side. "I just can't imagine this world without you."

Harry slapped his hands over his face, mortified to have said something so earnest, but Theo did not draw away. When Harry peeked at him through his fingers, the other boy was staring at the ground, looking about as embarrassed as Harry felt.

“I’m glad it’s you,” Theo admitted in a rush “I mean...I'm glad it turned out that Harry Potter is my Kingfisher."

Harry let out a delighted laugh, feeling warmth curl all the way through him from his face down to the tips of his toes. “I’m a good friend to have,” he said cheekily.

Theo’s blue eyes settled on him. “Yes,” he agreed, “you really are.”

Notes:

John sneakily opening that drawer for Theo did me in. Also, I am absolutely a believer in the headcannon that Severus was an extremely emotion young preteen/teenager, hence his nickname "Snivellous" which necessarily leads me to believe he would have come up with a spell to make it look like he hadn't been crying.

I realized today, upon reflecting on the two giant chapters I put together over the last few weeks, that there's not a lot of "major" plot here. Originally, I had written one very plot-driven chapter that was full of intrigue and dread, but then I was like "when are my characters going to get space to BOND?"

Thus, these babies were born. I also realize, upon reflection, that these last two chapters all take place within the same twenty-four hour time frame: Sirius and Remus in the evening/night, and Harry and Theo in the morning and afternoon. I think I just wanted to live in their microcosm for awhile and experience their connections to each other because they are all so precious and wonderful to me.

Rest assured, I'm going to continue to ruin lives (not necessarily theirs) in future chapters as we move along. According to my outline, we have three whole chapters of summer left, and then BAM, they are at Hogwarts, for better or for worse.

Trying my best to update on the reg...my goal over Christmas is to churn out something like 2+ chapters so that I have one in reserve as I publish. But, I got engaged literally the day after I posted Chapter 16, so...yeah I've been a little distracted!!

Chapter 19: Keeper of All Magic

Summary:

An angel descends, and Sirius sees what Harry doesn't.

Notes:

Say it with me now....fluff! fluff! fluff! fluff!

Bill

Bill’s watch was frighteningly loud in his ear.

Tick, tick, tick.

It was almost enough to drown out the voices. Almost.

“Well...if I can convince them-“

“You are the adult,” Snape’s voice rushed through the horn, covering up the roar of argument going on in the dining room at Grimmauld Place. “You simply decide where they go, and they do it. Theodore won’t be a problem. The other one...”

“Is technically a legal adult,” Sirius replied dryly. “If he doesn’t want to come, I won’t make him, and I don’t think that-“

“I can stay with him, if he wants,” Remus piped up. His voice was a little bit more distant. Bill could only guess that he sat further down the table. Bill folded over his knees, staring at the richly patterned carpet under his feet in Dumbledore's office. This is absolutely crazy, he thought. Albus must be out of his mind.

“Don’t put it in Harry's head that we don’t want him here! He's always welcome! He's family to -” His mum’s voice rang clearly through the din but abruptly cut out, overwhelmed by the Headmaster's voice.

“It is decided, then,” Albus said. He was the loudest, seeing as the sister of the small silver horn Bill was listening to was tucked inside his breast pocket. “Theodore will come here, where it is safest. He will have the protection of the Order of the Phoenix until Narcissa Malfoy comes to retrieve him. And you, Sirius, will-"

“Try to recruit her to the cause, yipee,” Sirius groaned. “I still don’t think I’m the one for it. Snape has a better chance.”

“I killed her husband, imbecile,” Snape snarled. “And I am about to claim the space left by Magnus and Lucius within the inner circle. Don’t foist your problems on to me just because you’re too lazy to try!”

“Now, now,” Albus tutted mildly, “I thought you two agreed to work together, civilly.”

“Just some friendly ribbing, Albus!” Sirius declared with cheer so sickly sweet that Bill’s teeth itched. “You know I’d be torn to bits if we lost this one. A good man. The best of us, really. He-"

“That’s enough,” Remus growled. Sirius yelped, and then his voice was carried away. Bill could hear several other people calling out to Albus over the crowd.

“Are you sure about this?”

“We don’t know anything about this kid! He's a Slytherin, after all!”

"What's that supposed to mean? My mother was a Slytherin and she's a saint!"

“Let it be on your head if this bites us.” That was Moody. He fought the hardest against giving Theodore Nott the secret to Headquarters, but Albus stood firm the whole time.

Bill didn’t know what to think. He could not come up with a single good reason to bring the wizard he almost killed to Headquarters. If Albus had been convinced to do it by anyone else in the Order, Bill would have understood. There's the optics to consider, after all. Of course he couldn't seem reluctant to protect Nott. But right out of the gate, Albus had declared that the kid would be coming to Grimmauld Place, no questions asked.

He felt as dumb and useless as he did after that life-changing chance moment with Sirius, when he so casually shattered Bill's precarious perception of what his future looked like. His guilt transformed into a guillotine, hanging over his neck. They'll know, he kept thinking. They'll find out. Everyone will know what I did, and then what?

For the first time in his life, Bill didn't know what to do. He had no plan, no sense of what was right. And so, after Sirius left him with the necklace that was also the key to his house, (and Bill's one chance, his one and only chance to do something that might prevent what was coming) he simply stood there until Remus came back. He was too afraid of what he might do if he took a single step.

After, Bill went home to "think" and ended up on his knees in front of the faint embers of his fire. There he stayed for two days, waiting. If Madame Pomfrey hadn't told Albus that Theodore Nott was alive, Bill might still be there.

Once the fire in Albus's office flared green, Bill turned the horn upside down. He wondered if the Headmaster would be furious with him for not saying anything. He had been nothing but kind since he came to his apartment an hour ago, practically carrying him through the floo and sitting him down with a dose of Pepper Up. He even turned the horn so he could listen to the meeting.

Bill braced for the worst. As soon as Albus arrived, he clapped his hands together and smiled. “Take heart, Bill, for this is good news.”

He lurched to his feet. “Good news? How is any of this good? Professor Snape is working on a potion to make it easier for him to remember! Our only saving grace is the fact that Nott thinks You-Know-Who killed his father, and not us! How long until he remembers the truth? How long until he tells everyone? What will happen to my family, Albus? What will happen to all of us?”

Albus approached him as if he were a startled animal and settled his hands firmly on Bill's arms. “You no longer carry his death on your conscious. That is reason enough to celebrate," Albus said.

He made a disgusted noise and tried to pull away, but the old wizard’s grip was surprisingly strong. “In addition to that, we have a chance at something I thought would be impossible.” There was a maddening twinkle in his eyes. Bill felt sick.

“What?” He swallowed nervously, “What good could possibly come of this?”

Instead of answering, Albus went behind his desk. Fawkes, in his aged form, cracked one eye open and warbled softly. Bill twisted his hands together, touching the heavy watch on his wrist and taking solace in its fastidious tick, tick, tick.

“First of all, we cannot dismiss that the hand of fate is at play. When Severus confirmed Lucius and Magnus's alliance, and that they conspired to shield their sons from Voldemort, he gave Theodore’s story credence for the rest of the Order. There is no reason to correct the record. At least, not right now.”

Bill bit his lip. “It makes the Malfoys sympathetic, too. That's good for the effort to bring his wife over to our side, if you really think that's wise..." he frowned, thinking back to the hair-raising story of Lucius’s death. Snape had told it without a trace of emotion. If Albus had not sounded so sorrowful when he said, I’m sorry you had to be the one to end it, Severus, but it was good you could grant him mercy, then Bill would have believed Snape didn’t care at all.

“The fact that Theodore believes Voldemort killed his father means we can assume he knew of this plan,” Albus continued, unrolling a scroll. “That is a remarkable amount of trust to place in your teenage son, or rather, a deliberate amount of trust. Remember, Eleanor confirmed that Theodore met with Magnus’s contacts in rare and illegal book dealing, and you know that he has access to his family vault,” Albus dropped his voice excitedly. “That tells me that Eleanor was doubly right. The fabled Library was real, and it is tied to their bloodline.”

The witch's haunting song echoed in the back of his head. “What do you mean? How could you know that for sure? Magnus could have told him so he...” He struggled for a reason, “Maybe they wanted...”

Albus smiled, “Do you see?”

It dawned on him all at once, “They both knew his survival was more important than serving You-Know-Who.”

Albus nodded, “Quite right. He needed Theodore to survive at any cost, which means Theodore needed to be prepared for contingencies, attacks, maybe even ready to fake his own death...”

Bill’s head was spinning, “Do you think that’s how he made it out? Could he have been transported to the library at the last second?” He remembered how the kid appeared out of thin air. They had searched the Tower, of course, while Magnus was held in the mage trap, but found nothing - no sign of a teenage wizard or a dark library. “But Sirius didn’t say anything about a library. He said that Harry found him in a cave.”

“Magic, dear boy, often shows us what it wants us to see,” Albus gestured for him to come stand behind the desk. The scroll was written in archaic, Old English script. Albus pointed at the illuminated margins, tracing a pair of tall, blood-red doors.

“In 1201, a venerable magical House called the Bludstones disappeared. They were a fascinating clan. What few accounts we have of them described a wealthy, powerful family. They were unique in that they counted both wixen and muggles in their number. But, one day, they simply vanished. Every single one. A merchant - a wand maker, actually,” Albus’s eyes glimmered, “wrote this account of finding their deserted castle.”

The Headmaster read out loud, “All the living things were gone, but for the plants. All animals, all people, all taken. I observed no evidence of a battle, yet they left behind what they held dear - clothing, paintings, gold. The only other thing missing shocked me more than the lack of life - all the books and scrolls, even the ancient runestones, were gone. Most disturbing of all, the bloody front gates that had served as deterrent and warning to all who entered had vanished, too.

I do not know where went the Bludstones, but they were a singularly insular clan. Once you were one of them, they would fight to the last for you. I can only assume that an enemy came calling, one they could not thwart, and thus they took their whole house into obscurity where they will persist until it is time to reemerge.”

Albus fixed his spectacles where they’d slipped down his nose. “This is the only written account that suggests the Library’s existence,” he said, hushed. “She goes on to describe some of the treasures that they were said to own, chief among them a significant portion of rare and secret grimoires, said to date back to the Library of Alexandria.”

Bill jerked in surprise. What magical child didn’t know the awful tragedy of that library’s burning? Most of his career in Egypt was spent breaking into ancient vaults rumored to carry the last surviving pieces of its wonders, and they always came up empty. It was like any other famed city of gold - nothing but a fairy tale that stoked the hopes and imaginations of wixen all over the world.

“So, what?” Bill said, beginning to feel out of his depth. "What could we want with that Library? I thought it was full of dark, damnable magic, not that it was some legendary part of Alexandria. I mean, really Albus, do you know how many times I’ve heard that story?”

“I know, Bill, I know,” some of the hope in Albus’s eyes died out. “But even if it is not as great as I imagine, we can assume it was great enough to encourage Magnus to break his loyalty to Voldemort, and that tells me it is so much more than we believed. Why do you think they went to such lengths to hide it? Before the fateful battle between heirs, the Notts were famous for owning a large collection of rare texts, all dark magic, of course. But when Magnus instigated his blood war, they were said to lose everything. And yet...Magnus's power in Voldemort's circle grew."

Bill shivered, remembering all the research he did about that time. The malice of that man still chilled him to the bone. 

"Everyone who cares about such things know that the Notts are a relatively young family," Albus went on. "But Eleanor proved that they are distant descendants of the Bludstones, the last of their descendants. And the Bludstones are one of the oldest bloodlines I have ever encountered. They are as old, or older, than the Peverells. Can you imagine? A library that stretches back in time? What horrors and what wonders it contains?”

“You have no idea if what the Notts had was the same as this clan from hundreds of years ago!" Bill protested, "And anyway, if you had hopes that it was that old, that important, why did you want us to destroy it? Couldn't we have just killed Magnus and left it at that?” Apprehension turned his stomach.

“Because I did not believe Eleanor," Albus replied frankly, "and it was far too dangerous to risk leaving anything behind that Voldemort could use. But Theodore...Theodore has no association with Voldemort. And now he will never side with him, even if the truth were to win out.”

Bill felt like he was going to throw up and quickly looked away from the Headmaster. This is a person we’re talking about. A teenager.

A teenager who could grow up to be very dangerous, another part of him whispered back.

“If Eleanor is right...if the Library persists with a living heir, then...”

“You think he would let us access it?” Bill rubbed his face roughly, “You’re - that - you’ve lost it Albus, I’m sorry. There’s no way that would ever happen, especially if he remembers."

“He already knows what happened,” Albus said soothingly, “the story fit together in his mind as soon as he woke. If some of it comes back to him, I do not think he will remember as clearly as you fear. The mind protects us from pain, it lets us believe what is easiest to grasp.”

“But if he remembers at all he’ll know it wasn’t Voldemort! Unless you’re going to obliviate him, then-”

“His memory does not need to be modified. It merely needs to be stoppered.”

“You want to stop him from remembering? How? How when Professor Snape is going to help him?”

“Bill,” Albus paused and looked him in the eye. It was immensely strange to stand next to such a powerful wizard and be treated like an equal. Like a peer. “Leave the magic to me. Trust me when I say that I do not want any harm to come to Theodore. It may be hard to accept that we are letting him believe a lie, but at this moment he has been given the freedom to choose a much happier life.”

He paused, as if waiting for Bill to put the puzzle together.

“You...did you think that Theodore wouldn’t follow in his family’s footsteps?” The effect of two days with minimal sleep was getting to him. Bill rubbed his eyes again, trying to shake the cottony feeling from his head.

“That’s right,” Albus dipped his head approvingly. “When I saw the opportunity to eliminate Magnus, I admit I thought it was also a chance for Theodore to be saved. I watched all the Nott heirs grow up in Hogwarts, not to mention Magnus himself. All of them, until Theodore, were innately cruel.”

“But not him?” He felt even worse about what happened, knowing that.

“No, not at all,” Albus shook his head. “He is quite the mystery, even to Severus, but it is clear that he is cut from a different cloth. I think Magnus pushed him too hard, too young. Certainly, there was no love between them. Though it was horrific, and he will not thank you for it, you have freed him from the curse of a cruel father. Trust me, Bill, that is a heavy burden to bear.”

Bill nodded uncertainly. “But it feels wrong to expect him to help us, when we - I am responsible for what happened to him! I mean, he saw it Albus! I don’t care how hateful the man was, it’s still unforgivable to kill someone's parent right in front of them!”

“He does not need to help us,” Albus assured him. “I think he will help Harry.”

Bill’s mind went blank. “Harry?” He repeated. “Harry Potter?”

“No one better could have rescued him,” Albus smiled. “I realized as of late that I have been holding on too tightly, trying to control too much, out of concern for what lies in Harry's future. This has shown me that if we simply let fate's hand do the work, Harry may end up finding his way with far less grief than I feared." Albus hummed thoughtfully, "I believe he and Theodore have much in common. Despite the color of their ties, they had a similar upbringing.” Some of the cheer on Albus’s face slipped away and he peered over Bill’s shoulder, lost in thought.

“They may even become friends. But if not, no matter. Theodore was raised in old pureblood society. His values will have him indebted to Harry no matter what. And if he can offer access to the Library, Bill, if such a thing could have survived Fiendfyre like I suspect it did, well....whether it is full of dark magic or not, he could be the key to knowledge that Harry desperately needs in the future. I cannot tell you the details,” Albus leaned forward to grasp his arm again, “but trust in me. Under the strangest of circumstances, you may have actually saved Harry’s life.”

Bill was rooted to the spot. Is this real? Could something good really come of all this?

He cracked his knuckles nervously, “What about Eleanor?”

The light in Albus’s eyes winked out. “Leave Eleanor to me.”

“She’ll come for him.”

“I know,” Albus frowned. “I know that is what she said, but Eleanor was once a good woman, a kind witch. I can bring her to her senses again.”

Fear rushed through him, “No, Albus, no! She’s not out of her mind, she’s perfectly sane!” He leaned forward intently, “You didn’t see her, you didn’t hear her. She engineered Theodore’s death, not to mention the house elf! And all the creatures that lived in their forest! All those innocent lives meant nothing to her. Please, you have do more than talk to her. Ban her from Hogwarts,” his mind was racing, “maybe we should try and find her before she knows. We should-“

“Stop, Bill.” Albus’s words were quiet, but his tone chilling. “Hear me: Eleanor is my responsibility, not yours. She will not know Theodore is alive until he is back in Hogwarts, and she cannot breach these wards. The Wundering Wood is far from civilization, so even if his survival comes out in The Prophet before September 1st, it is unlikely she will see it.”

Unlikely? Bill thought, aghast. If Albus noticed his disbelief, he did not acknowledge it.

“It is also essential that you stay away from Headquarters,” Albus turned away to stand at the window. “You’re right, there is a risk that he may start to remember the truth before I can stop it. We do not want to hasten that along.”

“So why are you bringing him to a place where there are fifteen redheads that look like me?!” Bill snapped.

Albus turned, smiling wryly. “Some risk is worth the reward. And, it truly is the safest place for him. If Eleanor were to learn he is alive, he needs to be under the strongest ward we have, which is the Fidelius.”

Bill curled his hands into fists, his frustration boiling over into full-blown rage. “How can you be so calm about this when the last time you thought you knew exactly what was going to happen, Eleanor burned a family to death! This is fucking crazy! You have to tell me what is at stake here, you have to tell me the truth." The Headmaster's gaze became perfectly blank.

Bill was full of energy now. He bared his teeth, "If you had told me what that Library was, or what it might have been, I would have kept my eyes on her the whole time." He channeled that iron-clad certainty he needed to wield at Gringotts. "I trusted her. I trusted you, and you weren't completely honest with me, so be honest with me now. Can you prevent her from coming after Nott?"

Albus didn't hesitate, "I don't know. I can only try."

Bill muttered a curse in gobbledegook that literally meant slag - or, horseshit.

"Even if you told everyone in the Order what we had done, we couldn't protect him from her. Not for every hour of every day. Not in every place he may go, now and in the future," Albus pointed out.

"What then? We have to do something about her! We can't fight her, too, while we're fighting Voldemort!"

Albus waited a beat, looking him in the eye. It was a piercing stare that seemed to see all the way down in his soul. It was as if he could hear the traitorous little voice crowing in the back of his head, it would have been better if he stayed dead. Nott's ruined everything now...

"I want to propose a deal with her," the Headmaster said, finally. "She will respect that and likely keep to it, though it would be wise for Mr. Nott to take some precautions when he's not at Hogwarts..."

"A deal?" Bill repeated. His mouth was dry.

"Yes, Bill. A deal I feel should stay strictly between Eleanor and I. That is how I mean to keep her away from him."

"How?" he insisted.

"By giving her what she wants." Albus arched a brow at him, "And I mean to give Theodore justice, eventually. You see, when the truth wins out, I will admit to what I have done.”

His blood ran cold, all thoughts of Eleanor fled his mind. “But I was the one who laid the trap,” he said breathlessly. “How could you...no, Albus, no.”

“You did it at my behest,” the Headmaster said simply. “It was my plan, Bill. Your trust in me led to great tragedy. When the truth is revealed, I will bare my face to it. I will not let you be ruined for me.”

Bill gaped at him, but Albus Dumbledore just turned away, staring out the window. Standing as he was now, in a patch of orange sunlight shining through the window, he looked almost like a ghost, like a vision. Suddenly, Bill remembered that Albus was mortal. He wouldn’t be around forever. Even if he was frustratingly obscure, he was Albus Dumbledore for Merlin's sake. Where would they be without him? What would they even do?

How? He wondered, How can I live with myself if he takes the fall for me?

"You can't control everything!" Bill snarled, furious and terrified and guilty all at once. He tossed floo powder into the fire, "Let me take care of Eleanor. I can do it."

"No! Bill -" Albus whirled around, his white wand twirling in his hand, but Bill was already in the fire, muttering his address.

I'll take care of her, he decided, closing his eyes as he spun through the floo. This is my responsibility, not his. I have to clean up my mess. It's the only way to atone for what I've done.

---

Theo

“Let me just -“

“No,” he insisted, eyes closed. Theo ran his hand over the wall until he found the last postcard and then used his thumb to measure a length below.

“Just to the right.” Harry - Morgana, he is Harry now, isn’t he? - tentatively pushed his hand over a little before quickly drawing back. Theo pressed the postcard in place.

“There,” he nodded and it felt like his brain might actually fall out of his skull. “Oh fuck...”

“I told you to let me do it!” Harry protested loudly. Theo groaned and covered his ears. “You’re ill!” Harry continued in a whisper-yell.

“I’m not ill, I’m injured,” he replied petulantly, now blind and deaf.

“Sit on the bed,” Harry demanded, still whisper-yelling. “Pomfrey’s going to kill me. Not to mention Sirius. We can’t tell Sirius we left the flat, okay?”

“Okay.” Theo would have agreed to anything in that moment. He was completely consumed with the pain in his head. Theo could feel Harry’s hands flutter near him, little wing beats by his arms and shoulders, as if he desperately wanted to touch him and lead him around, but was too shy to do so.

Through the pain, Theo felt amused. Not so similar to Blaise and Draco, then. They would have manhandled me into my pajamas by now.

He cracked one eye open to see where he was going. It was far too bright. Pain rushed across his face, as if the light was physically hurting him. “It's been a long time since I had a migraine,” he said conversationally, taking a seat on the bed.

The lamp clicked off. Some of the pressure in his head vanished. He watched a blurry Harry rush into the bathroom, followed by a flash of spellfire.

“Oops. Well...” Lamely, Harry trudged back in and put a washcloth in Theo's hand. He had accidentally frozen it solid, so it tented awkwardly in the middle. Theo fell back on top of the covers and pressed it over his eyes, sighing as the cold did its work.

“Thanks,” he let out a long breath through his nose. “This sucks.”

“Madame Pomfrey will be here any second.” Theo pictured Harry wringing his hands, a habit he seemed to do a lot. He was always touching the rings on his fingers when he was thinking. Even as Kingfisher, Theo had noticed it.

I wonder how long it would have taken me to put it together at Hogwarts, he wondered idly.

“You want - erm, water? Yeah, I’ll get some.” Before he could say anything else, he rushed out of the room.

John jumped up on the bed by his knee. Theo held his hand out. “Hi there,” he murmured, closing his eyes again. The pain was coming back, getting stronger with every beat of his heart. “Maybe I shouldn’t be talking,” he whispered, to himself as much as the cat. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to help a migraine.”

Whiskers brushed his skin, and then the cat rubbed its cheek along the side of his hand. Theo worked one finger behind his ear, using his thumbnail to scratch his chin at the same time until the cat collapsed bonelessly on top of him, purring nonstop.

“Where is Theo?” He heard Madame Pomfrey say. Theo half-listened as Harry gave her a hurried explanation, leaving out the bit where Theo ran off into muggle Manchester in a fit of uncharacteristic pique.

“He’s a sneaky lion, isn’t he?” Theo murmured. The cat’s tail curled over his knee.

“Hello, dear,” the healer whispered a minute later, easing into the room. White noise filled the space, soft enough so it didn’t hurt to hear, but loud enough so it didn’t feel so empty. She thawed the compress so it could lay comfortably on his face. “I’m afraid I can’t give you Dreamless Sleep, which is what I normally do for these, because it is essential that you dream while your memories recover. I'm afraid your migraine is a symptom of your mind healing, so you may get them more often."

"Oh, goodie," he deadpanned.

He thought he heard her stifle a laugh. "Professor Snape is working on a potion to help you, but it won't be ready until the morning. In the meantime, I can give you this.”

Her voice was starting to sound very, very far away. He barely felt her push him up, and only tasted the potion on his tongue for a moment.

And then he was out, his fingers curled limply against the cat’s purring chest.

He woke blearily in the middle of the night in ten times the amount pain he had fallen asleep with. Theo barely had the strength to open his eyes. He flipped over, pulling at sweat-dampened sheets clinging to his limbs. Faint white moonlight washed over him. He was freezing cold and burning hot at the same time, and there was a persistent, high-pitched ringing in his ears.

“Oh Mordred,” he whispered, curling into a ball. Acid crawled up his throat, but he swallowed it down, forcing cold air through his nose. I must have left the window open, he put together haltingly. Even in summer, cold winds could whip over the Tower at night. If he wasn’t careful, he could wake up with frost covering his bed. Finley always hated that.

“Finley?” He tried speaking as quietly as possible, but even so the sound made the ringing in his ears worse. He was too weak to call on magic, so he had to trust that she could hear him. “Finley, please wake up,” he tried again. Another wave of nausea came over him, stronger than the last, and he clumsily jerked out of bed.

Instantly, he knew something was wrong. The floor was too warm. The bathroom was in the wrong place. But in his single-minded determination not to vomit anywhere near his bed, he ignored it. Theo ended up folded over the toilet, having lost his dinner, shivering violently, and in even more pain than before. A high-pitched whine tore from his throat.

“Finley please,” he said again, a little louder, rolling his face in the crook of his arm. “I can’t get father for this...”

And then Finley was there. Magic wrapped over him like a comforting blanket, wiping the sweat from his face and vanishing the sick. Just as abruptly as he woke, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed into the world of sleep again.

Next time he came to, he was wrapped up in something warm. Finley pressed on his shoulder. Some part of him knew she was going to change the bandages on his back from the ox-whip. He turned away. “You must hold still, Master Theodore,” she said softly, “Finley knows it hurts. Just listen to Finley’s song...”

But when he opened his eyes to watch her sing, she was gone.

I’m dreaming, he knew.

And then that thought slipped away from him. He could hear humming. Someone's singing a song, he thought.

He stood up. The room disappeared. He was standing just outside of a door. It was cold.

In the other room, he caught sight of her foot hanging in the air. The air smelled of fire. Tight, clotting fear took hold of him as his eyes crawled higher and higher, seeing blood spinning around her like a cloud, seeing her little lifeless hands dusted with flour, seeing -

“Theodore.” Hands grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them back from his face. His father was shaking him awake. Theo felt cold tile under his face. He was still in the bathroom. I must have woken him when I was sick. Father's grip shifted and brushed too close to the raw burns on his arms. He dug his fingers in his hair and let out a low whimper.

“No, dad, don’t,” he moaned, hoping that the man would just go away. “I’m fine. M’sorry I woke you up. I’ll be okay. Just let Finley-“

“Theodore,” the voice said more firmly. “This potion will help. Let me give it to you.”

He looked up, confused. Professor Snape was next to him. The world twisted and changed. He was at Hogwarts, wasn't he? He squinted, trying to figure out why Snape would be here in the boy’s bathroom with him.

“Did I pass out again?”

“Do you remember what I told you about occlumency?” Snape said, ignoring his question. One hand slid behind his back, helping him sit up, while the other pressed a potion to his lips. Theo downed half in one gulp, tasting sour berries and savory potion base. Immediately, the pressure in his head broke into pieces and started to fall away. He finished it and sagged to the side. The pain was disappearing, taking all his energy with it.

“Where does your mind calm, Theodore?” Someone was saying. “Go to that place.”

He tried to think of water, but his thoughts were slipping like eels from his grasp.

This is for nightmares, little Master, Finley whispered in his ear. She slipped one bag of herbs into his left hand, and a second in his right. And this is for remembering. Remembering your sweet mother.

He started to shiver again, ice-cold from his fingers to his toes. Cold. Cold water. Frozen lake. There was something out there in the waters of his mind. Something deep and drowned. Something he had forgotten, something he needed to remember, but he was frozen at the shore. 

And then he was back in the Tower.

Finley sang to him that nonsense song she let him believe was a secret house-elf language all his childhood. She wrapped him in a thick, soft blanket, chasing the cold away. He sighed pleasantly. “Thank you Finley,” he murmured, and fell into a deep sleep.

A long time later, he woke up back in his bed.

Not mine, he recalled blearily, squinting up at the enchanted window. Harry’s room. I’m in Harry’s bed. I’m...my home is... He closed his eyes against a now-familiar wave of grief. Is it always going to be like this when I wake up?

He let wakefulness come to him instead of rushing to it. When he finally sat up, his mind was remarkably clear.

There was something off about it, though. It tugged at him as he went through his routine. Theo took another shower, brushed his teeth for a good long while, and still he could not quite put his finger on what was wrong with him.

His mind felt...too clear. Like he couldn’t focus on anything. But I’m focusing on this, he thought mildly. And I can remember things. I remember everything that happened yesterday... He played the day back in his head, just to be sure. Yes, Harry Potter was his mysterious Kingfisher. He had seen Narcissa and Draco and Blaise through a mirror. Sirius Black was protecting him. 

And yet, there was something wrong with his memory, he knew it. Distractedly, Theo dressed, unsure of what was his and what was Harry’s after he’d torn the room apart. When Theo was finally ready, he eased the door open a crack to see what he was about to walk into. I hope I didn't wake everyone up last night.

Professor Snape sat in the living room, long hair hanging around his face. He was bent over a huge tome laid out on the table. Theo could hear his quill scratching against parchment.

In the kitchen, Harry stood in the corner, physically as far from their potions professor as possible. He was focused on something at the counter. There was no sign of Black.

It smelled like cookies, which was pleasant, but aside from Snape’s quill, it was dead silent, which was unpleasant. Theo was rather well-versed in cold, hateful silences, and he did not like this one at all. Wondering where Black was, he stepped fully into the room and cleared his throat. “Good morning. I think,” he said, guessing the time of day.

Harry whirled around and Theo felt his heart skip a beat when he saw white flour dusted up to his elbow. “Theo! You’re awake! How-“

“Return to your room so I can examine you, Mr. Nott,” Professor Snape cut in smoothly, striding over to him. “You’re under the effects of an incomplete, experimental potion.”

“Oh? What does it do?”

Snape waited until the door was shut to answer. Some of his anxiety about last night returned. I didn't throw up on him, did I? Theo would never look the man in the eye again if that were true.

“This potion will help your memories emerge less painfully,” his professor said, conjuring two chairs. “It works by giving them a slippery quality, not unlike the effect of a forgetfulness draught.”

You gave me a modified forgetfulness potion to help me remember? Theo arched an eyebrow, mind racing.

“As you know,” Snape continued, shining a light in each of his eyes, “a wixen’s mind is connected to their magical core. I know that you tend to be...obsessive...” Theo huffed. “If you were to force yourself to remember, like I suspect you will, at this stage in the healing process you risk permanent damage to your memories and the way they impact you emotionally, and therefore magically." Theo hummed, standing still as he took his vitals.

"I designed this potion to modify your memory," Snape finished, letting him sit. "It only affects your short-term concentration. As soon as you begin to experience pain, the memory should slip from your focus.”

“Like bubbles!” Theo declared with a jolt. “That’s what it feels like, I mean. Like trying to catch soap bubbles in the air. I can’t quite...grab them.”

Heat crawled up the back of his neck for his childish wording, but Snape merely nodded. “That is one intended effect. As I said, this potion is in development, so there could be unexpected side-effects. I already observed a marked decrease in your body temperature, which I will adjust for the next iteration."

"How long do I have to take it?" Really, he was asking, how long will it take for my memories to come back? He knew Snape's guess was as good as anyone's, but part of him hoped for an perfectly cited, long-winded explanation that would put his mind at ease.

Snape met his gaze. There was no softness in it, and hardly any reassurance, but Theo felt anchored. "You will take it daily for a week, at least. Then as needed to help with intermittent migraines in the future."

"So..."

"For as long as you need," Snape clarified. Theo nodded stiffly, pressing the tips of his fingers together so he didn't fidget. Snape pulled a small notebook from his robes. “I will waive your summer assignment so long as you are a truthful and participatory test subject.”

The corner of his mouth ticked up. "Thank you, Professor. Does this mean you'll be staying here to observe me?"

His Head of House looked at him impassively. "You will move to a secure location tomorrow night, in London. This is closer to apothecaries with the supplies I need to perfect your potion, more convenient for me to regularly check on your condition, and will be easiest for Narcissa to arrange your transportation to the continent." Theo waited, sensing there was something else. "And," Snape curled his lip, "it is a much larger house. With a library. You will like it."

"Are there other people there, too?"

Snape waved his hand dismissively, "My work is time-sensitive, Mr. Nott. Gossip with Potter, if you must."

When he was finally released, Theo’s head felt like it wasn’t fully attached to his body. Professor Snape had asked him to remember certain incidents at Hogwarts that they both could recall, and then moved on to facts about his home and his father that proved impossible to fully remember. The sensation of his memories slipping and sliding out of his grasp left him dizzy. Snape took his notes, a sample of Theo's blood, and floated the book he’d been reading out of the living room. He disappeared into the potions lab without a word to Harry.

Theo sighed tiredly, leaning against the counter. He was unsure if he had the energy to haul himself up on a chair.

“Alright?”

He didn’t look up, worried he might actually faint if he moved his head too fast. “I’m hungry.”

There was a clink, and when he opened his eyes a plate of cookies and some kind of scone was in front of him. “I can make eggs,” Harry said in a rush, wringing his hands. “Bacon, erm, a sandwich, there’s soup, there’s - uh...”

Theo shamelessly wolfed down a cookie in two bites. It was fucking delicious.

“Holy Merlin, Potter,” he mumbled. “You’re fucking talented.”

Harry pinked, stuttering unintelligibly. Theo broke up the scone into small chunks and started to eat that, too. It had pieces of bacon in it.

“Do you - um - like sweets?” Harry turned even redder. “I mean - er, like yesterday? You liked the...the sticky buns?”

It was a fun puzzle for him to figure out why Harry seemed so flustered. “Do I not look like a person that would enjoy pastries?” He asked seriously.

Harry laughed and some of his nerves seemed to drain away. “Well, I don’t know...” he made a show of looking Theo over, “Normally, I’d say you look too posh to enjoy a homemade sweet, but right now you look very muggle.”

Theo narrowed his eyes, gesturing at his plain black t-shirt. “There are posh muggles who wear stuff like this. I saw it on the front page of a magazine once, some celebrity wearing pajamas in public." The scone was delicious, too. "I don't have much else to wear."

“Sirius went out to buy you some more clothes,” Harry informed him, turning around to put the kettle on. A timer went off, and he pulled another tray of cookies out of the oven. Theo’s eyes wandered over the counters, eying a ridiculous number of them cooling on wire racks. “He said he was going to get you something to cheer you up, so,” a shrug, “ten to one he comes back with a puppy.”

Theo furrowed his brow, “I only said I like dogs one time...”

“Sirius is kind of impulsive. Do you want tea? We have breakfast or...” Harry pulled an empty box out of the cupboard, frowning, “That’s your only choice. Or coffee.”

“Neither,” a sour voice burst into the kitchen through lab door. Harry froze, eyes going wide. “No strong astringents.”

They waited, but Snape seemed to have no further instruction.

“What does that mean?” Harry whispered.

“Means nothing but water,” he made a face. “Milk would be fine, but I’m not five years old.”

“What about - what about hot chocolate?” Harry finished loudly, staring at the door.

Theo snorted and covered his mouth so Snape wouldn't hear. “He’s not going to answer you like that,” he hissed. “Go ask him like a normal person.”

The Gryffindor hung his head and slipped inside the potions lab. Theo took a moment to count how many cookies Harry had made.

“He said it’s fine,” Harry said breathlessly, grinning.

“Harry," Theo gave him his most reproachful look, "are you cooking for a quidditch team? No three people could ever eat this many."

“Oh, so it’s Harry now?”

“You’ve had all summer to call me Theo!” he retorted. “Now I have to parse through three names for you. Maybe that’s why I got a migraine and nearly died in the night.”

Harry wilted like a flower. He morosely poured milk into a saucepan and cast worried eyes at Theo, "You feel better now, right?"

Theo felt a stab of panic, recalling that strange moment someone had used magic to help him. Was that real? Oh no...was that...? “Did I wake you up?” He asked, wincing.

“No! Not at all. John woke us up, saying - I mean, you know,” he pulled a tin of cocoa powder down and focused on measuring it out. “Not saying, but he woke us up and led Sirius in there. We wouldn't have known if not for him."

“I remember the book about that talking pigeon,” Theo said knowingly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he sounds like he is talking, to you.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of how it is,” Harry laughed nervously. “Anyway. Snape - er, Professor Snape was here, working on your potion, so he took care of you. I didn’t know how you were doing until about an hour ago...”

Theo processed this new knowledge. I suppose Snape isn’t as forthcoming as Madame Pomfrey.

“That’s why I made so much,” Harry muttered, gesturing vaguely at the counters as he whisked the saucepan with vigor. “I didn’t know what to do, especially with...Professor Snape here. This is about the only thing I’m good at that’s kind of fun to do inside.”

“You should open a shop,” Theo said appraisingly, eating his fourth cookie. “I’d pay you for these.”

“That’s what Sirius says,” Harry ducked his head again, but Theo thought he sounded pleased. And, indeed, when he filled a tall mug with steaming hot chocolate, all the stress seemed to have vanished from his face.

The heat from the mug reminded him of how cold he was. He shivered and held it closer to his chest, letting the steam condense under his chin and warm the tip of his nose.

“Are you cold?” Harry tipped his head. “I thought - I guess I’ve been in front of the oven for a while. I can get a -“

“I’m usually cold,” Theo shared, taking a sip and closing his eyes in bliss. "It's also a symptom of the potion. Professor Snape is working on it for the next batch." Then, hoping to avoid any more awkward stammering from Harry, he reluctantly added, "Blaise thinks my animagus form would be a penguin.”

Harry's face split into a wide grin, “Then wouldn’t you like the cold?”

Theo nodded enthusiastically. “Right? I said the same thing! He was very defensive of his reasoning. You should ask him about it.”

Harry's look turned worrisome and he fiddled with his hands. “Do you think your friends will like me? Well, I mean, Malfoy doesn't, but still."

He shrugged, “Blaise is an acquired taste, but I think you'd get along. Draco will get over it.”

“I don’t know. There’s some bad blood between us. I can’t just overlook all the things he’s said...” Harry turned to the cabinets, rifling through a bunch of spice jars. “Especially to Hermione.”

Theo winced, but his loyalty to Draco was too strong to say what Harry probably wanted to hear. “I wouldn’t, either,” he agreed, deciding to play the middle. “That’s between you and him. If you don’t get along, that’s not my business. He won’t speak badly of Granger anymore if I ask him to, though.”

“Not outwardly,” Harry countered. “Why is he so bigoted, and you aren’t?”

Theo shoved away all childhood memories of playing wizards and priests with Draco, which usually ended with them building a muggle village out of sticks and burning it down. “We were raised differently,” he said instead. “My mother and father wanted me to understand the muggle world, and once you understand it, you can't dismiss is as easily. But that comes with drawbacks. For instance, Draco can make polite conversation with boring old wizards and I can’t.”

Harry snickered, coming to stand in front of him again. He was holding two jars, one that was clearly cinnamon, but the other was some kind of black-red powder. “Do you like spice?” He asked. “I tried this at a muggle cafe a few weeks ago.”

“Sure.” He held his mug out and Harry narrowed his eyes in concentration, pinching cinnamon over it first. Theo obediently stirred the cup.

“This warmed me up for ages,” he said distractedly, “Sirius thought I was crazy for ordering it in the summer, but it was totally worth it. Maybe it will warm you up."

He pinched the other spice over the cup, but this time a shower of magic came with it, sparkling off his fingertips.

Harry froze and made an aborted gesture like he was trying to call the magic back. “Er...uh...I don’t know what that was...” Harry’s face turned as red as the spice. “Maybe you should throw it out."

Impulsively, he gave it a quick stir and took a sip. Heat chased all the way down his throat and settled pleasantly in his core. First, he tasted burning spice, a nice accent to the overly sweet drink, and then the feeling of sunny heat coursed over his skin, from his fingers to his toes. It felt like stepping into a patch of sunlight. He hummed and drank again, feeling the tips of his ears heat up. “It’s like Pepper Up,” he said, “only milder.” Theo studied his mysterious pen pal. “This is going to sound crazy, Harry, but that looked like elf magic.”

“Huh?” Harry squeaked.

“Finley did that sometimes,” he nodded, looking blankly at the counter as that strange, bubbling sensation rose up in his head again. "She did it to add a little love to food, usually when I was sick. That's what she would say, anyway..."

He tried and failed to grasp any recent memories of her. The only ones that came easily were from his childhood, right after mother died.

He grew silent. Fuck. I miss her. How can she be dead? Finley was like no other house elf. Self-assured, a talented quilter and gardener, and one of Theo's first tutors in magic. She taught him all his herbology basics and was responsible for imparting him with a love for magical creatures. Theo had never been afraid of her alien appearance like Draco was of his elves, so he was quick to love her as a child. When he was at Hogwarts, she was who he missed the most.

Theo didn’t realize he'd been silent for a long time until music broke his reverie. He turned and saw Harry standing beside the record player, reading the back of an album.

“Sirius buys all these records at the shop but he just puts on his favorites over and over again,” Harry complained, catching his eye. “I’ve been wanting to listen to this for a few days. Looks cool, huh?”

Theo slid off the barstool and joined Harry in the living room. Head on the Door, he read, looking curiously at the swirling blue script. The Cure.

He wasn't cold anymore, but when Harry leaned in to show him the list of songs, he had the overwhelming urge to lean against him, like he usually would with Blaise. He never complained when Theo stuck to him like a lizard on a rock.

A painful weight settled in his stomach. Theo was really, truly, happy that Harry turned out to be Kingfisher. If he wasn't here, Theo probably wouldn’t ever leave his room, and he'd certainly have no one to talk to. It would be crushingly lonely without him.

But they didn’t really know each other, not in the way real friends do. It would take some work to get to the same place as Draco and Blaise, and even then it could be a good long time before it felt effortless.

He longed for effortless now. For something to just be easy. Something he didn’t have to think about, or analyze, or remember.

"Sometimes I just sit and listen to music," Harry said, nodding along to the opening lyrics. "It's nice. Peaceful. I didn't know there were so many different kinds."

Theo did not know a thing about music, beyond general theory he'd been forced to learn. Slytherin's sixth and seventh years coveted the single record player in the common room, so he was exposed to a decent variety of popular bands - more muggle than wixen, though even the most pureblooded of Slytherins pretended not to notice when the music was good.

He said as much. Harry turned to him with an excited look on his face. "Do you want to listen to my collection?"

"Don't you want to..." he motioned at the record, but Harry waved him off.

"We'll come back to that! Have you heard of Soundgarden?"

Forty-five minutes later, they were laying on the floor of the living room, surrounded by piles of CDs. Harry amassed 94 of them in just a few short weeks and happily showed him all his favorites. Theo spent an inordinate amount of time studying the little "compact disc" player, looking at the small spinner inside, and the red light that, Harry claimed, read the music.

Theo desperately wanted to understand how it worked, but even Harry didn't know. He just popped shiny discs in and out of their cases and then gave Theo a set of headphones that somehow pumped music through a long, thin cord. He had what he called an adaptor which allowed him to attach two sets at once so they could both listen, but about thirty minutes in the audio started to spit and break up, so Harry had to go fetch another pair.

This one had two wide cups that fit over your ears. For some reason, they could flip all the way around, so the two of them ended up pressed shoulder to shoulder, each listening to one side. Harry sometimes air-drummed enthusiastically when a particularly well-loved song came on, but most of the time he laid contentedly next to Theo and just listened.

Harry was right, it was peaceful. When Harry glanced over at him and asked, "D'you like it?", he nodded.

"I love it. This thing is amazing. I wonder if it could work at Hogwarts."

"Sirius said he's gonna try and magic-proof it for me."

"You'll have to share, then," Theo said gravely. "You can be my guide through music. Blaise will be so surprised if I can identify a song off the Wireless."

Harry smiled. He'd taken his glasses off because they kept popping off his face when he turned his head, and it was weird looking at his face without them. His eyes seemed so much bigger, and greener, especially this close. "We can have lessons," he promised, "I'll be your Professor of Music and you can be my Professor of Magic."

Theo rolled his eyes, "That's too vague, try again."

"What about..." Harry thrummed his fingers on his chest, "Professor of Arcane and Mysterious Magics?"

Theo laughed loudly, "What? How is that fair?"

"But you could do it," Harry pointed out.

"Well, yeah." There was no point in being modest. Theo knew about all sorts of old, strange magics. "But you have to teach me something else, it's just not even, you see?"

Harry pouted and turned his head. "What the hell am I supposed to teach you? You grew up in the magical world. I'm barely ordinary in most of my classes. The only thing I'm good at is defense."

A rush of bubbles swelled in his mind. Distantly, he got the sense that there was something he knew about Harry and dueling.

"You're, um, you know..." A slight pressure formed behind his brow and he rubbed his temple, trying to hold on to the thought. "I'm not a very good dueler. You could practice with me."

"What?"

"I'm fine," Theo shrugged. But not good enough. "I think too much. It's hard for me to be...instinctive. Sometimes."

Harry arched a brow, "I don't think I'm better than you."

"You've never dueled me," he said flatly. "And you dueled the Dark Lord, didn't you?"

Both of them froze, looking at each other in shock. Theo, for having remembered that so suddenly, and Harry, for being thrust back in the memory of the graveyard.

Theo recovered first. He searched Harry's face and didn't like what he could see. "That just popped out. I didn't mean to bring it up."

"It's fine," Harry said hollowly, looking up and away. "I'm just...I wasn't prepared for that."

The music kept playing, but Theo wasn't paying much attention to it anymore. He spun one of the CD cases between his fingertips, chewing his cheek.

"I think it'd be fun to duel." Harry's voice floated over, much quieter than before. But when Theo glanced over, he looked at ease again. Harry gestured to himself, "Professor Potter, teacher of Dueling and Music." He held out his hand to shake.

"Professor Nott," Theo said seriously, shaking it. "Master of the Arcane and Mysterious."

"Master?" Harry laughed. As he pulled his hand away, one of his rings scraped the back of his fingers. Theo twisted his hand for a second, glancing at it, and shot straight up.

"What is that?"

Harry blinked owlishly at him from the floor. "Is there a bug on me?"

"There's a Lord ring on your damn finger!" Theo pushed Harry's hand in front of his own face, as if he didn't know. "What is that, Potter?"

There was a pause. "It's Lord Potter, actually."

"What?!" Theo pulled him up and pushed him against the couch. He cradled Harry's arm in his lap so he could bring the ring close to his face. "Why didn't you tell me!"

"Felt weird to bring up," Harry shrugged.

Oh my god, Theo mouthed to himself. "Harry. You've got to tell me these things. This is amazing. Do you even know how amazing this is? How rare it is? You naturally earned your House before you turned seventeen?"

Harry blinked rapidly. He still wasn't wearing his glasses and Theo distantly wondered if he was near or farsighted. "Well, it's because I was selected for the Triwizard Championship."

Theo clapped both hands over Harry's and held it close to his chest, lost in thought. He was wonderfully warm, but Theo didn't let that distract him. A million questions flew through his head. "That's even more special. Will you tell me what happened? Can I take notes? Can I draw this?" He pulled Harry's hand back out and pointed at the ring.

Harry looked flustered. "Yeah, of course, whatever -" By the first word, Theo was already up to fetch his supplies.

Black burst into the apartment about twenty minutes later and found them in much the same position, except Theo had his sketchbook resting along his legs, intently focused on drawing the ring as best he could while Harry spoke.

"And then some dementors came to my - hey Sirius!" Harry tipped back until the back of his head touched the couch cushions. "You need help?"

"Why would I need help?"

"Oh, right, magic." Harry shook his head and focused on Theo again, "Anyway, some dementors came and attacked me and my cousin-"

"That's the most unbelievable thing you've said all day," Theo muttered, trying to get the shading right.

"No it isn't! Why is that so unbelievable?"

"Because the dementors are controlled by the Minister of Magic, so unless you want me to believe the actual Minister tried to assassinate you, then..."

"Hello? Does the name Voldemort ring a bell?" Harry made a face, "It was obviously him."

Theo was mildly surprised that Harry believed that so completely. "The Dark Lord doesn't control any dementors," he said calmly. "If he did, he would have broken all his followers out of Azkaban immediately."

Harry seemed stumped. "Are there no wild dementors?"

"Don't even speak such a thing into existence," Black interrupted, carefully stepping into the chaotic living room. With a wave of his wand, Harry's music collection stacked itself in one of the bookshelves. "I come bearing gifts."

Black began unloading his pockets with countless shrunken bags. To Theo's delight, he had purchased a huge variety of magical games and treats, along with bags of clothing, a duffle bag, and shoes for Theo.

"Just to get you along until Narcissa comes," Black shrugged. "If you hate something, just tell me and I'll get something else. I had to guess based on no information. You like the color fuchsia, right?"

"Ha ha," Harry rolled his eyes theatrically. "I told him what I'd seen you wear before, Theo, so it shouldn't be bad."

"I can't believe you remember what I was wearing," Theo muttered distractedly, looking through some of the clothing. There were two robes, one in black and the other a pretty slate-blue, along with a mix of shirts, jeans, and even a muggle sweater. Theo pulled it out curiously. It was a soft white crewneck with the profile of a Labrador embroidered at the breast.

He put it on and was pleased with how warm it was. "Poppy gave me your measurements so it should all fit," Black said, looking him over. "Did Snape tell you that we're leaving?"

Harry tensed up next to him. Theo filed that away for later. "He did. Tomorrow, right?"

Black nodded and handed him a letter. It had Headmaster Dumbledore's ornate script on the front. "It's protected by a Fidelius Charm, so you have to read that."

Theo took it gingerly. "What is a Fidelius Charm?"

Black gave him a quick explanation of how the charm worked, keeping it short and to the point. "There is a secret organization leading the resistance against Voldemort. This is our base, so it's the safest place for you to be."

"The Order of the Phoenix, right?" Theo had heard that name whispered between old families at balls and celebrations all his life, always in the same breath as Death Eaters.

Black rubbed his face tiredly, "There is a not-so-secret organization leading the resistance that is based there," he pointed at the letter, "and Albus Dumbledore is the secret keeper. Seeing as you're a target, we all decided you should move there for the next few days."

"If it's safer, why are you two here?" His skin prickled, the sensation of impending doom settling on him. What's stopping the Dark Lord from coming here? Is it just because he doesn't know I survived? Shouldn't we go right away?

"Harry and I are protected by my family magic," Black explained vaguely. "The two of us can't be found. But I can't protect you the same way, unless I were to adopt you, and I don't think either of us want to make an appointment at the Ministry right now."

Theo smirked. Sirius Black was quite a funny character. Very sardonic, very sharp. "Are you coming?" Theo asked Harry after he had read the address.

"Of course," Harry chewed on his lip, looking troubled. "Ron and Hermione are there."

Theo startled. "Truthfully, this time, if it pleases you Lord Potter - why are you here and not there? Don't you want to be with your friends?" Theo didn't keep up on Potter news at school like Draco did, but even he knew those three were inseparable.

"We're in the middle of a row," the other boy shrugged dismissively. "And I wanted to spend time with Sirius."

Theo was not fooled in the slightest. He glanced at Black, but he didn't look surprised to hear about trouble with the Golden Trio. "Was it about me?" He guessed, grabbing a chocolate frog off the table.

"They don't know about you," Harry admitted. "Remember...I said I didn't tell anyone about my Lordship? That caused some problems. And there's other stuff, but it's not important."

Obviously, it was very important, but Theo wouldn't push in front of his friend's godfather.

"Have you two eaten?" Black broke in, clearly trying to change the subject. "Want some lunch? No, Harry, I can do it."

They ate together at the counter. Snape snarled at Harry to get out of the lab, so it was just the three of them. Theo endured a boring conversation about their classes until he finally had enough. "Are you two ever going to tell me how you found me, or do I have to wait in suspense for another day?"

Black froze with his sandwich crammed in his mouth. He let out a series of muffled grunts that Harry seemed to be able to understand.

"Oh yeah, well, we didn't get a chance to talk about that yesterday." Harry looked embarrassed. "I suppose I should tell you how I found out about...what happened to you."

Theo drummed his fingers while listening to the whole wretched story, practicing some of his rudimentary occlumency to stay unemotional as Harry described what sounded like one of the worst weeks of his life. When they got to the part where Harry flew to Nott Tower, he stumbled over his words. "My broom, it, um..." Harry looked at him with concern, "I don't know how to say it."

"I already know there's nothing there," Theo said flatly, leveling him with his coldest stare. "I'm not fragile, Fisher, just tell me." Harry hesitated again, looking down uncomfortably. "I'd rather hear it from you," he sighed. "People are going to descend like vultures on my property to study what happened, and I'm probably going to read everything they publish, but..." He took a steadying breath, "You're my friend. I want to hear it from you."

Harry nodded slowly, and then finished the rest of his story.

It was terrible. Worse to hear the truth spoken out loud by someone he knew wouldn't lie to him. There really is nothing left. Everything is gone. Even the magic was burned away.

On top of all that, Harry's story about the strange guardian spirit baffled him. Theo had no clue where to even begin with that.

"Maybe...your father did something? To protect you? Like my mother did for me," Harry brushed a finger against his lightning bolt scar. Theo stared at it for a moment, trying not to give away too much. Yes, he probably did, he agreed privately.

"I don't know, my father and I didn't get along," he said instead. "Could have been old family magic. Maybe even one of the ghosts, though I've never heard of a spirit doing something like that before."

"Ghosts?" Black repeated, "Your house was haunted? Your father just let them stay?"

Theo almost laughed, but he couldn't quite find it in him to do it. "Yes, my Uncle Graham haunted the grounds."

Black's face went a little green, "The one he...supposedly..."

"Yes, the one he killed," Theo raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly. "In self defense."

"Right, right," Black narrowed his eyes at him, like he was trying to figure Theo out. "You know...you're awfully different than I expected, Nott, having been raised by a man like that."

Deep, deep within him, Theo prickled defensively. But the secret sides of his father were just that - secret, so he put on his best mask of casual amusement. "My mother's doing. That's what he always said."

"What was she like?" Harry asked, and immediately slapped a hand over his mouth. "Sorry, you don't have to answer that."

Theo stilled. She was easier to talk about, having been gone for so long, but it was just another ache on top of his grief. "She was wonderful," he said mutedly. "Her name was Ophelia. She was a seer."

"That's why you like divination!" 

Theo cracked a smile, "Yes and no, Fisher. I'm also good at divination."

"Of course you're good at it if it's in your blood," Harry teased.

"What is with you and determinism?" Theo scoffed, relaxing as their conversation wandered away from his parents. "You make a lot of assumptions about me based on it. I thought you weren't a blood purist."

Black snorted while Harry cried out in protest, and just like that all the tension in the room shattered and slipped away.

They passed the rest of the afternoon comfortably. He and Harry played a few rounds of Exploding Snap and Harry told him about the rest of his summer. Theo particularly enjoyed the tale of him throwing renowned ex-auror Mad-Eye Moody (the real one) bodily from his family home. He inspected the ropey scar on Harry's forearm, which was looking like it would be around for the rest of his life after getting ripped open again.

"You're one-hundred percent a Gryffindor," Theo mused, not hiding how impressed he was. "I wish I could have seen that."

"Stick with me long enough and you'll see plenty of stupid, split-second decisions," Harry muttered.

"You know that you only get into so much trouble because you don't have a Slytherin in your little gang," Theo said casually. "We're very good at sliding under the radar. You wouldn't believe what I get up to at Hogwarts."

"I don't know if I can afford to bribe a Slytherin to hang around me," Harry replied, trying to look just as casual and utterly failing. He smiled into his fist, "I'll go bankrupt."

"My rates are reasonable," Theo sighed, "but I want the summers off, or else it's double."

Harry nodded gravely, "Would you accept old books I can't read as payment? I'm afraid I need my gold for-"

CRASH

The sound of frantic screeching and shattering glass jerked all of them to their feet. Theo tried to summon his wand on muscle-memory and went cold, remembering that it was gone. He was defenseless. Harry stepped close to him, his wand in hand. "If things go south, grab on to me. I have an emergency portkey that will take us somewhere safe," he muttered quickly, eyes going back and forth from the door to the hallway as if expecting an assault on both sides.

"Stay there!" Black barked, rushing down the hall with his wand up. At the same time, Snape slipped out of the lab. There was a look of intense focus on his face and he stayed where he was, waiting with his own wand raised.

"HEADS UP!" Black shouted, "BIRD!"

"What?" Harry said under his breath

Several things happened at once. The screeching suddenly got louder as a large bird shot down the hall and crashed clumsily on the breakfast bar, scattering the plates and glasses to the floor. Snape began to cast a blue net spell over it at the same time that Black lobbed a freezing spell down the hall, cancelling it out. 

Theo jumped forward, his wand arm motioning instinctively. "No, don't!" A weak shield bloomed over the hawk, who shrieked again, fluffing up its feathers to warn them off.

Theo choked on his next breath. “Raziel?” His voice shook fiercely. “Is that you?”

The young osprey's head snapped to him. His golden eyes looked huge, almost like an owl, and then he let out a high-pitched whistle and jumped off the table, colliding with Theo’s chest.

“Raziel!” he shouted, mostly to be heard over Raziel's loud, distressed chirps. “It’s okay, it’s okay!” Talons cut into his burns and Theo grit his teeth. “Shh,” he tried, gently holding him close and trying not to get stabbed by his sharp beak as the osprey whipped his head back and forth. “Calm down, you're okay. You're okay. You’re so smart, Raziel, you’re so smart. You found me all the way out here in the city, all by yourselfucking hell Raziel, stop! You are taking my fucking arm off!”

His talons loosened, just a little. Theo could feel blood spilling onto his shirt and pants, but he didn’t care. He held the bird back so he could really look at him.

That’s definitely Raziel, he thought, looking at tiny brown feathers that flecked in a circle around his eyes, and the muddy brown and white coloration on his chest. Raziel's pupils blown wide, and he kept letting out squeaking chirps that Theo hadn’t heard since he was a fledgling, but he was unhurt. 

It wasn’t really possible to cuddle a hawk like you could a fuzzy, four-legged creature, but you could preen it. He clumsily smoothed some of Raziel’s feathers with shaking fingers and pulled a few crooked ones out. Slowly, the hawk started to calm down.

There was a letter secreted in the mailbag fastened to his leg. He handed it to Harry.

“Don’t you..?”

“I can’t,” he shook his head, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I can’t look at it right now. Can you just read it?” One of these days I’m going to make it from sun up to sun down without crying, he told himself. But it didn’t feel so bad this time, not when they were tears of relief, of knowing at least one other thing escaped the fire with him.

Harry unfolded the parchment and paused, “Um. It’s from...Lucius Malfoy. To your father.”

He could feel the other two wizards tense up. Raziel even seemed to feel it, squeezing Theo’s arm tight.

Harry cleared his throat, “It just says, I should like to visit your grounds and make use of your valuable Library tomorrow afternoon at 1 o’clock. I await your confirmation, LM. And on the bottom, in - I guess it’s your dad’s handwriting? Erm, it just says, approved.”

“Is there a date?” Professor Snape asked.

“Uh, no.” Whether Harry sounded shocked because he’d been asked a question without attitude or by the letter itself, Theo didn’t know. “Can I show it to him?”

It took a second for Theo to respond. He had lost all feeling in his body.

“Yes, it fine,” he whispered, hoping that they wouldn’t think too much of his shock. Theo focused on stroking Raziel’s feathers until Harry had vanished from his periphery. Black began to mutter about the letter. Harry said something about fetching a perch. 

All the while, they didn't realize that Theo’s world had ended for the second time. The ice in his mind splintered. He was drowning, suspended in a lifetime of rushing, bubbling memories, all too painful to touch but so clearly there. He had forgotten all about it. Probably because, subconsciously, he knew it was too painful to ever accept, much less remember.

The Library. The Library is dead, too.

---

Harry

It turned out that Theo was an excellent liar.

Better than Harry, for sure. Harry could be very good at it - had to be, growing up with the Dursleys, but he had lost some of his touch in recent years. If it wasn’t going to help him get out of a tricky situation, he just didn’t see the point, especially if he was going to get in the same amount of trouble.

After the reunion with Raziel, they set him up on Hedwig’s perch in Harry’s room. It made his heart ache to think of her, it had been weeks since they’d seen each other. But getting to watch Theo so gently take care of his osprey filled him with overwhelming fondness. Harry felt like he could be looking in a mirror with the way Theo doted on Raziel.

“I think I’d like to be alone with him for awhile,” Theo said apologetically. “I’m feeling a bit tired.”

“I’m surprised Snape didn’t order you to bed rest,” Harry joked. “You lost a lot of blood.”

Theo offered him a wry half-smile, “That’s why he’s such a good mail bird. He’s a fearsome beast. Isn’t that right?” He murmured to Raziel, whose eyes were already shut.

Snape and Sirius didn’t even look at him when he came back out. They were locked in furious, hissing argument about the letter, but at least they had positioned the kitchen counter safely between them so they were unlikely to actually hurt each other. John wound around his feet, looking pointedly at Harry until he gave in and followed him down the hall.

“You need to rest,” John said once they were in Sirius’s room. Sirius had already restored the window from Raziel’s violent entrance. “I know you didn’t sleep last night. You haven’t sat down at all today.”

“That’s not true,” Harry jutted his chin out stubbornly. “I sat and had breakfast, remember?”

John gave him a reproachful look. “Harry, do you know why I take so many naps?”

“Because you’re a cat?”

“Because they’re good for me.” He bobbed his head up and down, quickly grooming his chest. “If you can lie on the bed for five minutes and not fall asleep, I’ll admit I’m wrong, how does that sound?”

Harry rolled his eyes and settled in on top of the covers. John immediately sidled up next to him, continuing to groom himself.

It was comfy. Harry leaned back, looking at all the lights on the ceiling. It was midafternoon, so Sirius’s bedroom was awash with white sunlight, turning his various lamps and magical string lights into nothing but shadows on the wall. He glanced at one of his favorites, a lilac-colored bulb in the corner shaped like a flower.

“I wonder if Sirius would let me take one of his lights to Hogwarts,” he mused, taking his wand from the holster and setting it on the nightstand.

“He’d be so happy he would probably die,” John said.

“Better not ask, then,” Harry smirked, itching his forearm. The blue feather was still stuck to his holster and Harry decided it was time to put it back in the book.

“I can’t feel him,” he said with surprise, tentatively tracing the feather down his nose.

“Well, it’s not an innate skill,” John meowed, “you have to put a little effort into it.”

“It’s kind of like legilimency, right? I could feel how he was feeling, physically, when he was unconscious, and then when I went looking for him yesterday I could feel his emotions, but not his thoughts.” The feather looked dull in the light and Harry was suddenly aware of how fragile and small it was.

“Our magic is quite powerful, Harry,” John warned. “It can do things that most wixen will never even try to understand. But it has limits. It doesn’t behave like wizard magic. And for you, it carries a very high cost.”

“What cost?”

“The cost of your humanity,” John answered. His pupils narrowed until his eyes were just two large washes of amber. “The more you use our magic, the more you will change. We are not bound by wizard conventions of right and wrong, of good and bad magic. There are certain truths that all we fae know. If you cross into our world, you will start to learn them, and you will not be the same again.”

Harry held his breath, spinning the feather in his fingers. “What was it that Witheraxe said?” He recalled, “A wizard’s word is just a spell? Something like that? Is faerie magic...is it really that different than mine?”

“That’s the thing, Harry,” John said, “it’s not different. Magic is one energy, one entity. Mine is freer. Yours has rules. Mine can see into the hearts of living creatures, and yours can summon demons to burn down a castle.” The cat flicked his whiskers, “Want my advice? As a fae who developed humanity against his will?”

Harry snorted, “You know I always do.”

“It’s worth it. The cost may seem high now, but it will not take anything from you that you couldn’t stand to lose, and it will give back ten-fold. But, ultimately, how much magic you learn from me is up to you.”

“It’s not like I can be any more different,” Harry sighed. “The Boy Who Lived. The freak under the stairs. The Tri-Wizard Champion. At least I get to choose this.”

John twisted his head around, whiskers quivering. “You’re thinking about it wrong,” he said with hard certainty, “You were given to strangers in a basket, and hated for years and years. You have persisted, survived, and despite all your trials, your heart is free from the past. I think you have been one of us from the beginning." He got up and hunched over Harry's face, tapping their noses together. "Think of this magic as more of a homecoming than a branching path. And trust in me,” he grinned, eyes squeezing shut. "I will not lead you astray." Harry’s heart squeezed tight. 

“I still think it’s wrong to use this power, though,” Harry said eventually, looking at the feather.

“But you kind of want to..?” John teased.

“I shouldn't.” 

“I won’t tell,” John promised, sounding amused. “Your secrets are safe with me.”

Well...maybe just one time won’t hurt? He’s probably happy to have Raziel back... He darted a look to the door, hoping that Sirius would charge in to distract him, but Sirius didn’t come. Harry wiggled uncomfortably on the bed.

Just put it down, Potter. Put it away.

The feather turned and turned in his hand. He remembered the way Theo looked at Raziel, so peaceful. Loving. 

He cursed and screwed his eyes shut before quickly pressing four fingers to the feather.

At first, he didn’t feel anything.

And then it hooked into his stomach and yanked him down.

It was unlike anything Harry had ever felt before, an overwhelming ache that settled deep in his chest. He took a breath, and the feeling sank into his very bones. He was cold all over. In his center was nothing but yawning emptiness, like he was hollowed out. A heavy weight crushed on him from all sides. He could barely breathe. 

“Oh,” he gasped out loud, wrenching his hand back. The feeling vanished. He got up on his elbows, looking at the wall that separated their rooms. “Theo...”

“What?” John got up and put his ear to the wall. “Is he dying again?”

Harry didn’t know how to answer that question. Yes, he thought, resisting the urge to race over to the other room. But also, no. The ache in his chest hadn’t quite gone away. Instead of answering, he put the feather back in the book. His hand shook terribly and Harry vowed he would never use it again unless it was a real emergency.

Has he felt like this all day? The only time that Theo had shown a glimmer of grief was when he went silent after mentioning his house-elf, Finley. But otherwise, he’d been almost the same as the other times they’d hung out together. Quick, sardonic, attentive. What kind of friend am I if I didn’t even know how badly he was hurting?

What had been a pretty mint day for Harry - getting to spend time with Theo, showing him his music, telling him about his summer (for real, this time) might have been nothing but a heavy burden to Theo. He seemed happy though, Harry thought, remembering the excited way he’d inspected his Lord ring. Surely I would have known if he wanted to be alone?

He curled up on his side, worrying his thumbnail and running through everything he knew about Theodore Nott, trying to come up with something to cheer him up. He likes books, being outside, magical places... All things that Harry really couldn’t give him, not when it wasn’t safe to bring him out of the apartment for long periods of time.

And then it came to him. His friends. 

John was just getting comfortable when Harry rolled up out of bed, buzzing with excitement.

“You asshole!” John whined, flopping back where he’d been laying. “I was warm! We were about to take a nap!”

“Just wait a second, I have to do something.”

He hurried to the mailbox sitting on Sirius’s dresser. Taking out a fresh envelope, he thought for a second and then scrawled his best guess at an address. On a small piece of parchment, he wrote:

To Blaise Zabini,

This is Kingfisher, Theo’s pen pal.

I was one of the people who found him. You can write to him by sending letters to my mailbox address, which is below. If you address them to “Kingfisher” I will know they are for him and we can keep his survival a secret. I think he would like to hear from you and Draco Malfoy.

Harry read what he’d written out loud to get John's opinion, but his familiar ignored him.

“C’mon, John, please, I need your -“

“Alright fine!” John snapped, “It sounds like a scam, doesn’t it? How does he know if you’re telling the truth?”

“You’re right...” Harry bit his lip and added, Theo told me that you said his animagus form would be a penguin. I don’t see it, but he said you had a good reason. Maybe we can talk about it when we meet.

Sincerely,
Kingfisher

“There, that sounds believable, right?”

John stared at him like he’d grown a second head, “I think you should sleep on it. It’s not thought out, it’s presumptuous, it could worry him, and you sent it.” John sighed, “Do you ever think twice?”

“Nope,” Harry slid the lid closed and hurried back to bed. “I feel better, though.”

John muttered some unsavory comments under his breath, but relaxed when Harry crawled back into bed and made his apologies through gentle scratches. Soon, they both drifted off to sleep.

Harry kept what he’d done a secret. He didn’t see Theo again until dinner, which was extraordinarily awkward. He and Theo hardly said a thing, sitting at the end of the table across from each other while the four adults trudged through a stilted, surface-level conversation. Remus elbowed Sirius a few times when his tone started to get nasty, and Madame Pomfrey fielded Snape the same way by giving him a quick glare over her nose.

All the while, Theo seemed fine. Contented, even. There was no trace of the emptiness Harry had felt, no sign that he was unhappy.

Except that he went right back to his room when the meal was over. There were shadows under his eyes, and he was shivering even though he was still wearing the sweater Sirius bought for him. Harry worried about him constantly for the rest of the night.

“You okay, pup?” Sirius asked later. He, Sirius, and Remus were sitting together in the living room. After giving Theo another dose of potion, Snape left. Sirius whispered that he’d probably be back every few hours, but he wouldn't be brewing through the night again.

Harry took advantage of their privacy to tell Remus the whole truth about his and Theo’s unlikely friendship. His old defense teacher was a good listener, and he even petted John while Harry spoke despite looking slightly anxious about having the fae in his lap.

“I’m just worried about tomorrow,” Harry said, half-truthfully. “I don’t want to make Theo feel like he caused any of the problems between me, Ron, and Hermione, which is what he already thinks.”

“You haven’t told him about your fight?” Remus asked curiously.

“Not the details. We’re both trying to focus on other stuff,” Harry twisted the iron ring to Black Rock over and over. “Maybe I should go clear the air before we move Theo. Do they know he’s coming?”

“Oh, definitely,” Sirius grunted. “We had quite the lively meeting. I’m sure they heard most of it without the use of extendable ears.”

Harry didn’t know what those were, but he guessed it had something to do with the twins by their name. “Do you really think he’s better off at the birdhouse?” Harry said, looking at his godfather.

Sirius tangled his hand in his hair, frowning. Much of Sirius’s easy-going cheer had disappeared since they’d rescued Theo, and Harry guessed he’d see even less of it while they were at Grimmauld Place. Harry resisted the urge to sigh. Why can't we go back in time to a month ago, when things were easy?

“HQ is safer,” Sirius relented with a sigh. “Bigger. There’s a library,” he looked at Harry pointedly.

“He’ll like that,” Harry agreed, slumping down on the couch. “I just feel like I would hate it, if I were him. Being surrounded by people who don’t...like me.”

“He’s very likable,” Remus disagreed.

But Ron and Hermione won’t trust him, Harry thought, distressed.

“He doesn’t need you to protect him, pup,” Sirius teased. “Nott is perfectly capable of winning people to his side if he wants to. He has you wrapped around his finger, for example.”

“What?!” Harry yelped, as John started snickering. “I am not!”

Sirius grinned and put a finger to his lips, “Shh, I didn’t put a silencing charm up.”

Harry started to turn red, “What makes you think that? I’m not being - oh, Merlin,” he covered his face, “am I being annoying? I’m bugging him too much, aren’t I? Does he seem annoyed with me? Just tell me.”

Sirius covered his mouth, trying not to laugh. “Not at all, pup. You’re obviously trying to make him feel better, and I think it’s working.”

Harry collapsed to the side until he was leaning against Sirius, who obligingly put his arm around him. “Well, I can’t do much to help,” he muttered, thinking about that feeling again.

“The fact that you’re trying is enough,” Remus assured him.

He grumbled discontentedly and raked is fingernails over his face. "I haven't told him about John yet. That's sure to cheer him up. I guess I can use that..."

"I though John got to decide when to introduce himself," Sirius snarked, gently smacking his hands until he stopped.

"Harry gets to decide this time," John yawned, flipping over to expose his fluffy belly. Remus pulled his hands back, clearly wary of getting clawed to death for scratching it. "I think we should wait. If I show myself now, he won't even react. It'll be one more incredible piece of magic he can't quite comprehend, and the moment will fall flat."

Harry frowned, "We are not waiting so you can have a dramatic reveal."

"But Harry, that's at least ninety percent of my mystique. You agree, don't you Moony?"

"Why is he Moony, and I'm Lord Black?"

"He's started calling you Sirius when you're not around," Harry stage-whispered, sticking his tongue out when John glared. 

"Oh, yeah, I meant to ask what this Fisher business is about," Sirius narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "He calls you that sometimes."

"Oh, well..." Somehow this felt like a bigger reveal than it was, as if it was some kind of secret. "He calls me Kingfisher. In our letters. It was my penname, and then he shortened it to Fisher..."

Sirius goggled at him, "You've had a secret animal nickname this whole time, and I didn't know? Pup, I'm hurt. Betrayed! Left out by my own godson!"

"Kingfisher is good," Remus nodded approvingly. "Apt of him. You sure he didn't know who you were?"

Harry flushed, "I don't know why he suggested that one. He sent me a few ideas, but I chose this one."

"He has the gift," John butted in, sounding annoyed. "Just a touch of it. He can see through more than you think."

"So, he'd probably figure you out without needing to tell him," Remus shrugged at Harry. "Maybe you should just wait until he realizes John's...identity on his own."

Harry was already shaking his head, "I can't keep secrets from him."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. There was a weird expression on his face, like he knew something Harry didn't. "Why not?"

I don't keep secrets from my friends, he almost said, but the words caught in his throat. That wasn't true. He kept tons of secrets from Ron and Hermione. Some of them weren't even secrets, they were just truths that he had never said. And yet, he could imagine telling Theo some of them. Why is that? Is it because we've just become friends? Because I don't know what will upset him, and what won't? Or just because he's easy to talk to?

"It's just - it's...Theo, you know?" He settled on, confused by his own answer.

Sirius reacted strangely to that. He sat up a little straighter and pulled Harry into a side hug, ruffling his hair affectionately. "Yeah, pup," he said, propping his chin on Harry's head. He could feel Sirius's voice rumbling in his chest, comforting and solid at Harry's back. "I get what you mean."

Notes:

I googled extensively about what Brits call American style chocolate-chip cookies. I know they typically say "biscuits" but according to the forums I read online, the soft, gooey chocolate-chip cookies I was picturing (which are superior in every way to snappy biscuits...sorry...they just are) are called cookies. IDK. I'm trying my best.

I offer profuse, loving thank-you's to everyone who reads this story, whether you silent read, kudos, bookmark, subscribe, or comment....you are all beautiful. And a special "thank you" for all the congratulations on the last chapter, that made my heart happy :) I'm spiritually sending my cuddly 85 pound puppy to give you all kisses and hugs on my behalf.

Also...ehehehe...I have almost fully outlined a standalone NottPott fic that has absolutely zero connection to this story. Lookin' at 5 (long) chapters, give or take an epilogue. I'm like....barely....resisting the urge to write it, which is why I've outlined so damn much of it. One day, folks, one day!

But, good news, I developed a ton of chapters between here and the point where Harry and Theo get together. And, better news...I have completely written the next chapter, "Phantoms". It will come out in 7 - 10 days (whenever I get the chapter after that written!) Three cheers for more regular updates!

Chapter 20: Phantom

Summary:

Hearing voices is just part of being magical. At least, that's what Theo wants to believe.

Notes:

Can you have a headcannon for a character that has no "real" cannon? I don't know the answer to that, but there's a Theodore Nott headcannon of mine in this chapter. Enjoy!

Harry

The next day, Theo was not the same. He made a quiet appearance at breakfast and then went right back to the room, avoiding looking at or talking to anyone. Harry ended up spending the morning sprawled on Sirius's huge bed, sighing up the ceiling.

"You can't help him," John meowed. He sounded genuinely sorry. "He's grieving, Harry. I've seen it for hundred and hundreds of years"

"Maybe you should go to Grimmauld Place early," Sirius suggested, shoving a pillow in his bag. "Clear the air."

Harry sighed again. This time, he caught John and Sirius giving each other a look.

"I'm going to be in a terrible mood if I go now," he muttered, annoyed that they were conspiring to kick him out of the apartment.

"Better than getting into a row in front of Nott," Sirius pointed out. "He already thinks you're fighting because of him."

"It's going to be about him, is the thing." Harry made a face. Every time he thought of what Ron said at the party, about Theo being first in line to take the dark mark, an ugly anger reared its head. "I'm worried I'll make it worse."

"Look, Harry, no one wants to face their problems," Sirius pursed his lips in thought. "It's going to suck, but if you can find it in you to avoid talking about it and act as if nothing happened, then I think you'll survive the week."

That idea made him want to throw up. Just like our fight about the Goblet, he thought bitterly, or the way we don't talk about my relatives. Ron and I will probably never talk about that fight ever again.

"Not forever, pup," Sirius gently whapped him on the face with a pillow, "I mean until the end of the week. Hash it out when Nott's gone. Just go over there and demand civility."

"Demand it!" John echoed.

"I bet they'll be nice for you. And if not, Ron will be forced to mind his manners by his mum."

Harry groaned loudly and dragged a pillow over his face. "Fine!" he shouted into it. "I'll go. I'll do it. For Theo."

"For Theo!" John crowed.

Harry sat up on his elbows, "What's got into you?"

"I sense chaos coming," John grinned. "It makes my blood race."

"Can't we just have a nice, boring week?" Sirius complained. 

"Where's the magic in that?" John asked, shooting off the bed to leap up onto the dresser.

"Would you take your demon cat with you to the hell house?" Sirius yelped, running to catch a large candle before it went tumbling to the floor.

Harry nodded, watching John kick flip off the wall and then start to climb the drapes. "Er, is Remus going to stay with us this week, too?"

"I don't know," his godfather turned to look at him. "Why?"

Harry tried to be casual. "Oh, I just thought...it's going to be real boring. It'd be nice if he was around."

Sirius narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "And..."

"And..." Harry looked away, "Maybe if he's around more often, you'll be distracted and you won't hate being there so much. I'm going to be, you know, scattered, trying to manage Ron and Hermione and Theo..." he trailed off for a moment, overwhelmed by how terrible it might be. "I just think it'd be nice if you get a break."

There was a long pause while Harry tried to control the flush fighting up his throat, and then Snuffles leapt up on the bed, his huge paws bowling him over.

"Sirius!" Harry laughed, yelping as a cold, wet nose snorted in his ear. "Stop it! You're getting fur all over me!" The dog let out a couple of low whines, tail wagging furiously as he rubbed his muzzle against Harry's chest, and for a few minutes, at least, all his troubles seemed to melt away.

Remus transported him to Grimmauld Place after Sirius called for him through a hand mirror, which he hid from Harry's sight, saying something about it being a surprise. From Remus’s house, Harry floo’d into Grimmauld Place and was so nauseous from all the magical travel that he almost threw up right in the hearth.

“Harry!” Remus gasped, finding him sprawled awkwardly along a chair. The room was empty, thankfully, so only John and Remus were there to witness him fighting the urge to vomit all over the stone floor. “I should have gone first! I didn’t know you got motion sick.”

“It’s just wizard travel that makes me like this,” Harry groaned. “Why does it suck so bloody much?”

“Hold on and I’ll fix you some mint tea,” Remus offered, hurrying into the kitchen.

Without a house elf to announce them, no one in Grimmauld Place knew he and Remus were in the dining room at all. They sat in silence, waiting for Harry’s stomach to settle. With every passing second, he grew more and more tense.

“What do you want to say to them?” Remus asked, breaking the silence long after Harry finished his tea.

He traced a finger around the rim of the cup. “I just want them to treat Theo kindly,” he said, hating how childish that sounded. “I don’t want to hear about how they think he might be tricking me, and I definitely don’t want Ron to say anything about how his dad deserved to die.” Harry sighed, “I’m not even trying to defend the man, it’s just because it’s - you know, Theo’s father."

"I don't think Ron would ever say that to his face, Harry."

"But it seemed like he really believed it," Harry frowned at the table. "I don't like that. I can't forget about it, either."

“You’ve been a lot closer to death than he has,” Remus pointed out. "Most people don't understand what it is, especially at your age. It's easy to say certain people deserve to die when you aren't really familiar with what death really means, the consequences it has..." Remus hung his head, "Although, the opposite is also true. Some people become numb to it, and decide death doesn't matter at all."

“I know." He’d thought about this a lot over the last few days. “The problem is, we both think the other is wrong, and neither of us wants to back down.”

Remus rubbed his chin, “I see your problem.” There was a long pause. “Are you willing to forgive him?”

He asked the question without judgment, but Harry still flushed from head to toe as if the man was accusing him of something. “I will, yeah, if he’s civil to Theo. That’s the first step.” Harry shrugged hopelessly, “I don’t think he’ll ever see it from my side, so I just have to figure out how to live with it and move on.”

“You don’t.”

“What?” Harry looked up in surprise, but his old professor stared steadily at the table, a distant expression on his face.

“You decide how much punishment you want to take, Harry,” Remus said, even more quietly. “I wish you didn’t have to learn this now, of all times, but...if someone is hurting you more than they’re helping you, even if they don't mean to...well, you don’t have to forgive and forget. You can go a different way.” Remus looked at him, searching Harry’s face. “I’m not trying to encourage you to end your friendship. I’m just saying you don’t have to make yourself do something that makes you miserable, just because you think it's expected of you.”

Harry gaped at him. It was almost exactly what Sirius had said before they walked into Grimmauld Place for the first time. You don’t have to stay if you’re miserable.

Did they read the same book or something? He wondered, shaking himself out of it.

“I have to try,” he said, stubbornly. "Ron was my first friend. Literally. I have to give him a chance to make it right. Maybe he just needs...time."

Remus smiled and stood up. “I support that, too. Shall I get them?” At Harry’s nod, he collected the tea and left. Harry drummed his fingers nervously on the table while he waited.

John leaned down and whispered in his ear, “I like him more now.”

“You like anyone who tells me to do the most selfish thing possible,” Harry whispered back. “If I wasn’t friends with Ron, who would I have?” John just looked at him and Harry rolled his eyes. “Look, save your comments for after we’re at Hogwarts. Then you’ll see. When we’re there, I’m hardly going to see Theo, and his friends will want nothing to do with me, so Ron and Hermione will be all I have, besides you."

“You're certain of that?" John said with surprise.

"That's how it always is."

“Harry? Who - oh,” Hermione pushed through the swinging door and zeroed in on John. “Were you talking to your cat?”

He didn’t bother answering, because all the air was sucked from the room when Ron walked in behind her.

The tall red-head barely looked at Harry, following in Hermione’s wake like a trailing, deflated balloon. He slumped four chairs down. Hermione sat right in between them. No going back now.

“John’s my familiar,” Harry explained. John licked his lips, exposing sharp white teeth.

“Oh,” Hermione looked even more confused, but she just tucked her hands under her legs and fell silent.

“You heard that Theodore Nott is alive?" He began.

Hermione’s eyes widened slightly. “We did. We heard he’s coming here today, with Sirius.”

“And me,” Harry nodded, glancing at Ron again. He hunched over in his seat, a suspicious look on his face.

“You’re coming? Oh, that’s great!” Hermione smiled.

“So, are you friends with him?" Ron asked dully. “I knew you had to be. Why else would you have been so upset with me at the party?”

“Because what you said was fucked up,” Harry growled, feeling his pulse pick up. “It doesn’t matter if I was friends with him or not. He didn’t deserve what happened."

“Of course he didn’t, Harry, but, ugh,” Ron lowered his head and pulled at his hair. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I said that! You're right, it was fucked up! But I’m not going to apologize for what I said about his father, or Lucius sodding Malfoy, of all people. After what he did to Ginny, and Dobby, and all the other countless people he probably hurt before we were even born, he deserved what he got, and I won’t apologize for that.”

“I am not trying to say that Lucius Malfoy or Magnus Nott were redeemed because they died,” Harry hissed. “And I’m not trying to convince you that they were secretly good guys! But I can’t stand how you were making light of how they died, wishing that even more people would get killed, and insisting that their kids are evil incarnate on top of that! Theo and Draco Malfoy are just -”

“How is Draco Malfoy redeemable after all he’s done to Hermione, or you, or me?”

“He hasn’t done -“

“Enough!” Hermione shouted, shocking them both. “That’s enough! You’re not going to see eye-to-eye on this, so just stop!” Her head whipped side to side as she glared at each of them in turn. “You’re best friends, but that doesn’t mean you have to agree on everything all the time! Are you really going to let these people we don’t even know ruin everything for us?”

“Nott’s father seems pretty relevant seeing as Harry’s decided to believe a snake would actually want to be his friend!" Ron retorted hotly.

Harry took a deep breath, feeling that fiery rage pick up in his chest.

And then, bizarrely, he thought of Voldemort.

He held his breath. When Voldemort was furious, his focus became single-minded. He only cared about crushing his enemy, controlling the person in front of him until they were cowering in fear. Wasn’t that how Uncle Vernon worked, too? He shouted and raged, threw things, and slapped Harry around with a belt when things got really bad?

Hermione's words a week ago haunted him, sometimes. You're get kind of scary when you're mad...

Harry breathed out shakily. He didn't want to be like that. His fingers were trembling under the table from the effort it took to choose a different path.

Channeling John, he stared Ron down and drew a line in the sand. “Theo is my friend. He has been since the beginning of summer. I don't care what House he's in, or how he grew up. If I had gone to Slytherin like the hat wanted, I think we would have been friends from the very beginning.”

He could feel John radiating smugness, soaking in Ron and Hermione’s stunned expressions.

“You? The sorting hat wanted you in Slytherin?”

“Yes, me,” Harry said coldly. “Golden Boy Harry Potter, your best mate who you don’t even seem to know was supposed to be a snake. Do you think that makes me secretly evil on the inside?”

“Well, no! Look at all you’ve done, Harry,” Hermione’s brow knitted together. “You’re...you’re a Gryffindor.”

“They’re just dorms Hermione!” Harry stressed, “Yes, I love being a Gryffindor, but it doesn’t fucking matter. We’re all going to grow up and go out into the world one day, and no one will care where you slept at Hogwarts.”

“Of course people care!” Ron protested, but Hermione was looking at him in shock, like he had just told her something she never realized was true.

“Look, I don’t want to debate with you about this,” Harry folded his arms. “Theo is coming here for the next five days, and I don’t want it to be miserable for him because of us,” he gestured between the three of them. “I’m allowed to have other friends, and he’s one of them. I won't hear anything else about it.”

“Of course, Harry,” Hermione said quickly. “We wouldn’t stop you from making other friends. And if you really...I mean, I've never had a problem with Nott.”

Harry looked flatly at Ron. He was red in the face, but by the way he looked at Hermione, Harry could tell he knew he’d lost.

“Seriously, Harry,” Ron tried, his voice cracking a little. “What do you have in common? Just...what is it? He’s...Nott’s a creep.”

“I never said that!” Hermione slapped his arm, hard. “Stop saying that!”

“He’s intimidating, I get it,” Harry was feeling a tiny hint of victory. “He’s not like we’re used to, you know, he’s reserved, and private, but...” Harry trailed off, trying to sum up what they had in common. “He’s smart, and funny, and he loves magic. He loves it. That’s what we have in common.”

“Everybody loves magic,” Ron muttered under his breath.

“Will you just be civil with him?”

“Yes! Yes, Harry. I will, okay? I’ll give the guy a chance, just...” Ron glared off to the side, silent for a precious moment. “I really want to make things right between us. I don’t want to fight with you. I want my friend back.”

Harry deflated. He reached out and stroked John’s shoulders, wrestling with a strange feeling of grief, but for what, he wasn't sure.

“Theo doesn’t have anyone here but me,” he said, not able to acknowledge Ron's plea. John began to purr, closing his eyes as Harry traced the white circle on his chest. “It would mean a lot to me if you’d give him a break. Nothing about blood politics, or bringing up his dad, or the Malfoys, or anything like that. Got it?”

After a murmured acceptance from the red-head and some enthusiastic nodding from Hermione, the remaining fire in him snuffed out. “What room is he going to be in?” Hermione finally asked, leaning forward to try and tempt John to her hand. He ignored her.

“I don’t know,” Harry shrugged, looking up at the ceiling. “Maybe one of the floors up top. His hawk survived the fire and found us yesterday, so I imagine he’s going to want to check on him.”

“How did Nott survive, anyway?" Ron asked gruffly, crossing his arms.

Harry gave them a sterile explanation of what happened. 

“So, some kind of guardian...spirit saved him?” Hermione repeated, twisting her sleeves over her fingers.

“His dad probably summoned it,” Harry guessed. “He was trying to protect him from Voldemort, after all.”

“That’s...magic is incredible,” Hermione whispered under her breath. Ron avoided his gaze.

Harry hated that there was still so much unsaid between them, but he knew that opening it back up would just ruin their tentative peace. Either Ron would come around to Harry's point of view, or he wouldn't. I'm not walking back for him, that's for sure, Harry decided, looking away.

He stood up and stretched. What would it take to make this place less miserable? He wondered, brushing fingers over the ancient wood table. Could it ever feel like a home?

“Are we rooming together?” Harry asked Ron, wanting to get a look at the house again.

“Um, yeah,” he popped to his feet, painfully banging against the table. “Ow! Merlin! Do you want to see?”

“Sure.” Harry followed after him, trying to relax. John trotted along with him, pausing every now and then to sniff at the baseboards.

"Harry..." Ron took a deep breath, shoring up his Gryffindor courage. "I'll give Nott a chance. Really." Harry raised an eyebrow at him until he cracked. "But that doesn't mean I don't want to ask him some questions."

"Like how did you become friends?" Hermione pushed up against him on the stairs, "I've tried to talk to him during class so many times and he's always...been..." She sucked in her cheek, "Cold?"

Harry smiled a little bit, walking past them. "We just clicked. I can't explain it any other way."

"But how Harry?" Hermione pressed, clutching at his arm. Even Ron was leaning in, clearly eager for the story. So, Harry set his mind back, thinking about that day in Diagon Alley that had seemed like such a dream, and told them what happened. Just the highlights. The full story was only for him.

---

Theo

Theo wasn't sure how he was still standing. Putting on a face and making nice with other people was not his forte. He may be a Slytherin, may know how to act and to deceive, but he primarily avoided other people, spending his energy on a bare few who deserved his attention.

He was absolutely stretched to his limit already, so Theo didn't speak at all until the evening, not even to acknowledge Harry's hesitant goodbye through the door. He needed time to mentally prepare for the move to Grimmauld Place, where he would be surrounded by a gaggle of Gryffindors. As such, he had spent the entire day sitting with his back to the wall, staring at nothing, trying his hardest to think of anything but the word library so he could somehow remember how to feel anything other than raw grief.

"Are you suffering from physical pain?" Professor Snape asked after delivering the day's dose of baby-blue potion. Theo simply handed him a sheet of paper with various aches and pains written on it, things that may or may not be side effects.

He could have filled the entire sheet with pain, honestly. His magic felt dormant and cold, his stomach hurt, he frequently experienced vertigo, and sometimes he got caught in a spiral of just laying on the bed that was not his, staring at the fake window, and feeling like he was slowly spinning down, down, down, into an unbearably dark chasm.

Professor Snape read the paper and then looked at him, waiting on a verbal response.

"No," he said flatly.

Snape nodded, maintaining the silence. It was comfortable. At least he wasn't trying to make conversation with him every few seconds like Black when he tried to coax him out for lunch.

“Sir?” Theo said, clearing his throat to smooth the roughness of his voice. “Would you tell me what happened to Lord Malfoy? I don’t want to have to ask Narcissa or Draco when I see them.”

Snape was already sitting straight, but he seemed to go a little stiff at the mention of the Malfoys. The wizard studied him closely, judging if he was ready to hear the truth, but Theo knew there was absolutely no way he could feel any worse than he did, so he just waited patiently.

“Lucius portkeyed to the French cottage the night your home was set ablaze,” Snape began, his voice quiet and emotionless. “He was gravely injured, suffering from an abhorrent curse, the likes of which I have never seen. He said that you and your father were murdered by the Dark Lord, and that he attempted to strike him down, but did not succeed.”

Theo jolted, heart shooting right up into his throat. "He struck out at the Dark Lord?" He whispered, digging his fingernails into his knees. For us? Or was it self defense? What did he and father plan to do? Why did the Dark Lord want to kill them? Just because of their plan to shield us?

“After, Narcissa told me of the bond between your families,” Snape continued. “Logic leads me to believe that the Dark Lord uncovered this plot. But what he did after that, or why he burned your home down, I do not know. Likely, it was to set an example for the rest of the houses. He may suspect that their conspiracy infected other families.”

Theo stared sightlessly at the floor for a long time before he had the energy to say, “Draco and I are going to be anathema in Slytherin.”

“He does not yet have loyalty in the students,” Snape disagreed. “Your fears are valid, but I think the consequences of this summer will be very different in practice than what you can imagine. Humans are unpredictable, and often stupid.” Theo snorted a laugh, and Snape’s mouth twitched, “Teenagers are simply stupid.”

“Professor, you were a teenager once,” Theo said lightly, glad for this change of topic.

“Everyone must suffer the gauntlet."

Theo looked down, "Well, even if this didn't happen, it would have been a challenging year now that Harry and I are friends. I don't think either of us has the patience to try and hide such a thing."

Snape let out a short sigh, "I have refrained from asking to respect your privacy, but," he fixed Theo with a wholly unimpressed scowl, "what is this madness about you and Potter being friends?"

He spoke the word with dripping disdain and Theo mentally filed it away to repeat later for Harry's amusement. "He's very nice," he answered.

"He found you," Snape pressed. "He claimed it to be accidental, born of his...heroic conscience..." Theo laughed under his breath, but Snape's face just turned even more sour, "But after seeing you this week, it is obvious that you were acquainted before."

For a second, Theo thought about being coy and saying, well, yes professor, we've had classes together for four years. But he remembered well the icy silence between Harry and Professor Snape and he wasn't sure what that was about. For years he had assumed that Harry Potter embraced the fame and fortune of his name, particularly at Hogwarts, where he seemed to leverage his special favor with Dumbledore to get out of trouble. Theo could see why Snape would resent that as he often lectured about the unearned glory of potioneers who stole or cheated their way to fame, but this level of hatred was so...personal.

"He's different than I thought he'd be," Theo said, not hiding the challenge in his voice. "And I'm probably different than he imagined. But we get along. We're friends. That's it."

“Could you have chosen a less problematic friend?” The other man groaned. “Potter is trouble, and dangerous, Theodore.”

“Dangerous?” He repeated disbelievingly.

“Not him alone,” Snape scowled, "He attracts danger. And he walks into danger. He causes dangerous situations everywhere he goes!”

“Maybe he needs a Slytherin to keep him out of trouble.”

“That should not be your responsibility, on top of everything else,” Snape’s scowl darkened. “This is by far the most illogical move I’ve ever seen you make, Mr. Nott.”

Oh, we’re at Mr. Nott now? Theo kept his expression perfectly neutral. “It’s not a move I’m making. We may seem different, but we're actually very similar. Maybe you have the wrong idea of him."

A wall slammed down over his professor’s face, going completely unreadable and cold all at once.

“Trust your instincts, Mr. Nott,” was all he said, getting to his feet. Theo counted that as a win. “Is there anything else you need?”

“No, thank you, sir,” Theo bowed his head until he left, waiting for Madame Pomfrey to come and give him the all-clear. Suddenly, though he had dreaded it all day, he couldn't wait to get out of there and be under the same roof as Harry again.

---

As soon as he stepped through the floo, brushing ash out of his eye, Harry was at his side fighting an excited grin. Theo felt marginally bad for ignoring him that morning, so he tried to meet Harry's mood.

"You left me," he deadpanned.

"Didn't you hear me through the door?" Harry gasped, falling for it instantly. "I told you I was going."

"I thought you'd come back." He glanced around the room, chasing away wandering eyes with just a look. "I was alone with Snape and Black for thirty minutes while we waited for Madame Pomfrey just now. I think I lost a year off my life."

Harry snorted, "It would have been worse if I was there."

"Not for me."

Black appeared in the floor, wiping the ash from their cloaks with just a simple hand wave. “There’s my wayward godson,” Black grinned, reaching out to ruffle Harry's hair.

Harry ducked. “You don’t want to do that, I'm all sweaty. It’s hot in that kitchen,” he explained.

“Do you claim every kitchen you come across like a lost house elf?” Theo teased mildly. “They haven’t been letting you bake, right?”

“Harry insisted he be put to work,” A woman with long, curly red hair interjected, glancing appraisingly at Theo but speaking to Black. "Have you been making him cook?"

Harry stilled, and Theo had the pleasure of watching Black's grin crystallize into something sharp and dangerous. “My godson does whatever makes him happy," he said cheerfully. Harry took a step back, unconsciously pulling Theo with him.

John the cat trotted out from under the table, oblivious to the violent energy stirring up in front of them. He pawed at Theo to be picked up.

Obligingly, he lifted the cat and held very still as he wrapped over his shoulders. He couldn't help glowing a bit, feeling blessed to be chosen. Harry frowned at them. "You look like you just walked out of a story book," he said jealously. "John, you traitor."

Theo looked down. With my cloak, tattoos, and this very strange cat, I suppose we are rather striking.

“Hello, there, Arthur Weasley,” a middle-aged man with fair red hair, more brassy than fire-red like his wife, held out his hand to shake.

Misuse of Muggle Artefacts director, or something, he remembered. “Theodore Nott.” He shook Mr. Weasley hand, and then Mrs. Weasley’s, who transformed back into a chipper and overwhelming archetype of mother bear. Theo stood tall and tried not to look pathetic so she wasn't drawn to his weakness, but with the way she was looking at him, he was afraid it didn't work.

“Theodore Nott is a ward of House Black,” Black announced to the room generally. “He’s staying here for a few days before being transferred back to his family. Treat him like one of our own, please.”

“Well, of course, you’re very welcome dear,” Mrs. Weasley smiled. Isn't this Black's house? Theo thought. Did the Weasley clan move here permanently? He added that question to his list for Harry to answer later.

He followed Harry out of the firing line of the adults. First, he was introduced to a girl named Ginny, who Theo did not honestly know existed. He assumed all this time that the Weasleys had only sons. Next, Harry directed him to Fred and George, who he did know. Unfortunately.

“Er, hey Nott...”

“You’re not still mad about the-“

“Firework, right?”

“Firework?” Harry said sharply.

Theo's face frosted over, “Forget about it.”

“Right! No, definitely, we don’t think about it ever, we never even talk about it -“

Theo rolled his eyes and walked on.

And then they were standing across from Harry's friends. He set John down and nodded at each of them in turn. Weasley looked vaguely sick, but Granger just looked her normal, over-analytical self, thinking so hard that he already wanted to sigh.

But, he glanced at Harry, remembering everything he'd done yesterday to try and cheer him up. For Fisher, I'll try.

"Hi, Nott," Granger said first. "I was glad to hear that you were alright."

Theo inclined his head and sat down, “Thank you Granger.”

“Er, you’re not hurt?” Her voice squeaked and out of the corner of his eye he caught Harry mouthing to her, relax.

“Not anymore,” he said vaguely.

They started dinner. It was an incredibly awkward affair. The four of them sat at the far end of the table, not talking much, while the twins made a game of flicking peas at their sister when their mother wasn't looking. The adults sat in a cluster at the other end of the table, a little too far to hear the details of their conversation.

Theo remained quiet as Harry limped through conversation with his friends. Granger asked Harry a lot of questions about his summer homework, and Theo was not oblivious to the longing glances she threw his way, but he didn't acknowledge her. His homework had all burnt up in the fire, and he didn't want to be the one to remind her of it.

"So," Granger set her jaw and waited for Theo to look at her. "Harry said you recommended the Fungi Brown series to him. Have you read it?"

"Just the first two."

"What!" Harry covered his mouth, chewing as fast as he could to get the words out without choking. "The third book is the best one!"

"I like the fifth the most," Granger nodded along, "but the third was the best before it came out."

"I suppose I'll have to finish them," Theo said, because it felt expected of him.

Harry's eyes lit up. "It's so weird to have read something you haven't," he said, "is this how you feel when you want me to read something? Excited but also impatient?"

Theo laughed. He couldn't help it, it just came out, and across the table Weasley jerked like he'd been stunned. Suddenly, the idea of showing Weasley that he was actually a real person and not a cold-blooded reptile was very appealing, if only to watch him squirm.

"Remember how hard I had to convince you to give Lord of the Rings a chance?" Theo reminded him. "That was my litmus test. If you read it and didn't like it, we never could have been friends."

Weasley inhaled some of his food, making Theo smirked in satisfaction.

Granger leaned over the table, a trace of excitement on her face, "Have you read anything by Ursula Le Guin?"

That was all Theo needed to begin a muted conversation about books. It went on far longer than any conversation he and Harry could have had comparing titles, but it wasn't quite as much fun, because Granger was so damn competitive even when discussing something as benign as their favorite novels. Surprisingly, though, he uncovered that she had a soft spot for Victorian romances, which was not something he would have guessed.

"I think you would like Emma," he said to Harry after Granger finished a very long synopsis of the plot. "Once you get used to the prose, it's sort of a comedy of romances."

Weasley made a face at the word romance. "I don't know..." Harry hedged, looking like he might agree with his friend. "It doesn't sound very exciting to me. I don't mind the romance part of it, but..."

Theo looked up thoughtfully, shuffling through his mental catalogue of novels. "There's one I can think of that you would enjoy. It's about a werewolf. It's more of a horror, truthfully, but it has a love story at the core."

Harry's mouth curled, "A horror, werewolf romance?" He repeated, sneaking a glance down the table. Lupin caught his eye and quickly looked away, smiling to himself. Right, Theo remembered, he has superior hearing.

"It's called Hunter's Moon," he thought carefully about the plot before speaking, not wanting to give too much away. "It's about two childhood friends. One gets cursed with lycanthropy. Instead of growing apart, his best friend sticks by his side and they become closer and closer, and eventually fall in love. But there's also blood and gore and very high-stakes battles." Theo shrugged, "It's good."

Harry rubbed his face, "Does it have a bad ending? I'm still not over the fact that Frodo had to leave Middle Earth..."

"You want me to spoil it for you?"

"It has an ambiguous ending," Remus cut in from down the table.

"That's a good answer," Theo agreed, but seeing Harry's reluctance he sighed. "Okay, Harry, is it a bad ending for you if our two protagonists die at the same time?"

"Yes!"

Theo propped his chin up on one hand, enjoying how invested Harry was in this question, "But then neither of them has to live life without the other. Isn't that better than one moving on with a broken heart?"

Harry frowned, slouching in his chair, "Is that what happens?"

"No," Theo relented, "they live. You don't get a happily ever after, but you can imagine one for them. And the main character becomes an animagus to keep her lover safe during the full moon. So romantic. I like just about any book with an ani..." He trailed off, watching Harry's eyes grow to the size of saucers. Across the table, Granger let out a muffled snort, but when he looked she had buried her face in her hands so as not to laugh out loud.

"It is romantic, isn't it?" Harry agreed, suddenly displaying masterful skill in keeping a neutral expression. Theo looked all up and down the table but aside from a few other red faces, he could not figure out what was so funny about what he said.

"So you two met while looking at the romance section of a bookstore?" Weasley asked painfully.

"Morgana, no. I thought he was my friend Blaise."

"Remember I told you that I was wearing a glamor?" Harry leaned forward and set his arms on the table, brushing against Theo. "After we worked it all out, Theo was nice enough to show me the way to the Albion Library."

"I was very rude to him," Theo said seriously. "My honor demanded that I rectify the situation."

Granger smiled at that, her eyes crinkling, but Weasley looked completely incredulous.

"It was dangerous for you to be in Diagon on your own, Harry," Mrs. Weasley tutted from down the table.

Theo saw Black roll his eyes. "I had already claimed my Lordship," Harry said innocently, "so I could do magic. I wasn't worried."

"Oh, so that's it," Weasley sighed as if he'd cracked a code, "you must have seen his ring, and that's why you helped him."

Theo looked at him, taking in the confused, stressed expression on his face. He really has no regard for me, he thought clinically. I suppose I don't for him, either, but at least I keep it to myself.

And then, reminding himself that this was Harry's best friend and that he should give it a try, if only to become the victim should this not work, he opted for some level of honesty. "No," he corrected, "I didn't know he had his ring until yesterday. I had no idea who he was. I thought he was some halfblood who needed help finding their way."

"You took it upon yourself to help a halfblood you didn't even know?" Ron repeated, raising his eyebrows. "You expect me to believe that?"

Harry twitched like he wanted to jump in but Theo nudged him under the table.

"Do you know the parable of the Benevolent Stranger?" He said, disarming the tension completely.

When Weasley looked even more confused, Theo nodded. "It's an old story. I'll summarize for you, but you should go out of your way to read it some day." He laced his fingers together, touched his nose briefly, and then began.

"Once upon a time, there was a young, powerful wizard walking the shops of a market. He had everything he could ever need or want, and he had not set out that day in search of treasure, fame, or glory, though he had all three in spades. He bumps into a squib, who is searching for a legendary lake that the wizard had never heard of. The squib's asked other witches and wizards, but no one will help him because, well," Theo shrugged, "you know."

"The wizard had no reason to help the squib. In fact, for a man of his stature, some may say he debased himself even talking to such a person," Theo shot Harry a secret look that made the other boy hide a smile. "But that day the wizard did not feel important, or storied, or powerful. He met another person in need of help, and he had the time and ability to help him, so he did."

Theo waved his hand, "It's a long story, but basically they go on an adventure together to find this lake and at the end of it, the squib gives the wizard something of immense value that he had been holding on to but could not use - sometimes it's the Elder wand, sometimes a version of the philosopher's stone," Theo shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The point is, they became great friends, and in the last line of the story you realize that the squib was Arthur Pendragon, and the wizard was Merlin."

Harry beamed at him. "Are you really Merlin in this context?" He teased.

Theo put his hand up so Weasley could not see him smile back, "Hey, now, you get to be King Arthur."

"So you helped Harry because you wanted something from him?" The red-head said blandly, ruining the mood.

Theo's marginal patience ran out. "What is it like to live with a brain the size of a pea?" He asked sincerely. "Does it just rattle around in there all day long, preventing you from having an original thought?"

His brothers cackled, falling over on themselves as Weasley turned a hideous purple color.

"He's saying that one act of kindness gives back tenfold," Granger translated under her breath.

"I know what he's saying," the red-head insisted, ears getting pink as his brothers continued to laugh at him. "I'm saying that no Slytherin just gives anything to anyone, it's ridiculous."

"Merlin was a Slytherin, for magic's sake," Harry groaned, rubbing his temples.

"Things were different then!" Weasley insisted, staring Theo down. "I just want to know what you want with my best friend, mate. That's all."

"Weasley, if you are his best mate," Theo did a perfect impression of his voice, which made Harry jump, "then you should know that Harry is a wonderful person. Why wouldn't I want to be friends with him?" And then he paused, just long enough for the defensiveness in Weasley's eyes to evaporate. "And he's the perfect vessel to corrupt in my pursuit of unrelenting evil."

"Leave him alone, Ron!" Black interjected before the boy could reply. He looked exhausted. "For the love of god. I cannot survive five days of drama like this. I cannot."

"He's right, Ron," Mr. Weasley said, frowning at his son. "Be kind."

"What about him?"

"Nott's being far nicer to you than I would be!" Hermione hissed, to Theo's surprise. "Shut up!"

"Want to see the house?" Harry said, giving up. Theo was right behind him as they excused themselves.

Neither of them spoke until they ascended to the first landing. "That went better than I thought it would," Theo began, running his fingers through his hair.

Harry shook his head, "Your expectations were lower than mine."

"Black said something about a room on the fourth floor?" Theo changed the subject artfully. "He said I would like it."

"Regulus's?" Harry frowned. "It is close to the attic. That's where Raziel will be."

"Sounds fine to me."

The bedroom was very nice, if a bit stuffy for Theo's taste. He liked the look of the reading nook the most. He began to unpack the duffle bag Black bought for him, which now contained all his meager, worldly possessions. Harry wrapped his arm around the banister, pretending not to watch him and rubbing the velvet bed hangings with his fingers.

"I'm sorry for ignoring you this morning," Theo said eventually, not looking at Harry. "It's just hard for me to..."

"Yeah, s'alright." He could see Harry shrug out of the corner of his eye. "I want you to feel better but I don't want to annoy you either. So tell me to just, I dunno, fuck off or something if I am."

Theo smiled, a real smile, picturing the heartbreak that would surely be written all over Harry's face if he ever said that. It would be like slamming the door in the face of a kitten.

Harry caught sight of the socks he'd just laid out and laughed, “Sirius really went all-in on the dog theme, didn't he?"

Theo rolled his eyes, relieved for the change in subject. “I think he’s trying to relate to me.”

“Sirius is very good at getting people to like him,” Harry shared. “He’s trying to get you to stop calling him Black.”

“I can’t just turn off fifteen years of etiquette, Fisher,” Theo complained, “Me? Call Lord Black by his first name? The wizard who has sworn to protect my life? Horrors upon horrors.”

“What about me?” Harry pointed out sourly. “You always take the piss out of me, but I’m a Lord, too.”

Theo scoffed, “You’re a feral Lordling. I don’t even know what to do with you.”

John hopped up on the bed, settling down right on top of the pile of shirts Theo was folding. Guess I'm done with that for now.

“How did your friends react when you told them?" He asked, turning to face Harry.

“They can’t really believe I’m friends with you. I think Hermione is the most surprised, probably because she knows how smart you are.”

Theo cocked his head, “What does that matter?”

Harry snorted self-deprecatingly, “I’m not nearly on your level.”

“Shut up,” Theo flicked his arm. “You’re just as smart. I’m not some kind of genius. I have read more than anyone has a right to because I don’t like people.”

Harry suddenly went quiet, staring into Theo's eyes. “I’ve been meaning to ask, actually," he said hesitantly, "why did you write back? I mean...you say you don’t like people, but you were nice to me that day...polite, anyway. Talkative. Was it really because of that story? You were just being kind?"

The answer to that was yes and no. Weasley was right, in a way. Theo was only being nice because father, (and mother, a quiet voice reminded him) trained him to always take advantage of chance encounters like what happened in the bookstore. So often serendipity led to opportunity, and the end of that road usually led to secrets, books, scrolls, letters, maps, or any other kind of treasure that should be protected.

But this opportunity saved my life, Theo realized, going numb again as loss pulled at his heart. Never saw that coming.

“You just...you were easy to talk to.” Theo closed his eyes, trying to focus on that day in Obscurus Books. “Usually when I talk to people, they’re so far away. Especially in pureblood society, everyone’s hiding what they really think and who they really are. Everything is a game. It can take weeks to years to get to know someone, and even then you always ask, do I know them? Is this real? So few people are just who they are, you know?”

“But you do that,” Harry pointed out.

“Sometimes, it's important to let other people have the wrong picture of you." Harry's mouth settled in a flat line.

He searched for a better answer for him. “I suppose that’s why I liked you right off the bat. The day we met, I could tell that you weren’t hiding a thing, aside from your identity, and that...that’s probably one reason I thought you were Blaise.” He trailed off. “Blaise is like you. Unashamed. Honest. It's a rare trait. I didn’t have any control over it, really, Harry. You were asking me the most interesting questions about magic, and then I realized we might actually have a lot in common, and...” He waved his hand in a rolling motion, “It was unstoppable. I really think it was just meant to be.”

Fuck it, in for a penny, in for a pound. "There were a lot of other reasons, too."

"Oh?" Harry's face lit up with curiosity.

Theo suddenly felt like he was getting hot and looked off to the side, feigning disinterest. "Yeah, you know, little things that added up. I did a lithomancy in the morning that I thought was about you. You're the first person who ever asked me, voluntarily, to take them to the library. You were interested in the animagus transformation." He started to crack his knuckles. "You weren't afraid of me."

Harry grinned. “Can I tell you a secret? Well, I guess it's not as much of a secret now that I told Ron and Hermione, and Sirius knows, but..." He bit his lip, eyes bright and mischievous. "The hat wanted to put me in Slytherin."

Theo's mouth dropped open in shock. "What?" He asked, a strange, fluttering feeling coming to life in his stomach.

"Yeah," Harry lowered his voice so Theo had to lean in. "But Ron was my first friend, and I didn't want anyone to think I was a dark wizard going to Slytherin, you know?" Theo snorted. "So it put me in Gryffindor instead. But I think we would have been friends, you know, if I had gone."

Theo started to laugh. It was uncontrollable, beginning deep in his belly and warming up his whole body until he couldn't even stand up straight. He wrapped his arms over his stomach, hunched over.

"Oh - my - god -," he wheezed, pinching his elbow hard to try and catch his breath. "The hat wanted to put me in Gryffindor."

"WHAT!"

Theo laughed even harder, falling to his knees. "It said I had no fear!" he practically shouted, clutching the edge of the bed to stay sitting up straight. "It said I could go either way, so I chose Slytherin. My friends were there."

Harry got down on the floor and scooped Theo's face in his hands, forcing him to look up. "Are you fucking joking right now?" He growled.

"No!"

Harry's hands shifted down to his shoulders, and he started shaking him back and forth. "So it's your fault too!" Harry yelled as he began to laugh, too. "We could have been friends this whole time if you went to Gryffindor!"

"Please," Theo begged, "don't ever tell Draco or Blaise. They'll never look at me the same."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You are unbelievable, Theodore Nott. Of course I'll keep your secrets."

"Thanks," Theo snorted. Despite the mirth of the moment, he felt warmed from the inside out by Harry's promise. "I'll keep yours, too, Kingfisher."

---

Theo got out of bed easily the next day. Perhaps it was the house - dark and mysterious, just enticing enough to distract his mind, or perhaps it was Snape's potion, which seemed to make him forget his dreams as soon as he woke, but either way he felt far better in the morning than he did the day before.

He enjoyed a pleasant enough breakfast. Weasley even apologized, red-faced the entire time. Theo was gracious about it, and they both settled in to completely ignore each other, which would have been his preferred way of interacting with Ronald Weasley anyway. Harry worked on his potions essay at the table while Theo covertly read over his shoulder, and all was well and good until Albus Dumbledore appeared in the floo.

"Is this what your life is like?" He murmured out of the corner of his mouth as Black put himself between Dumbledore and the rest of the table. "Does Dumbledore pay a personal visit to every little orphan at our school?"

For a moment he thought he'd offended Harry, but then he realized that the fire in his green eyes was not for him. Harry was giving Headmaster Dumbledore the coldest stare Theo had ever seen on his face, and it was something to behold. Slytherin at heart indeed.

“Might we have some tea, Mr. Nott?" The Headmaster twinkled at him, "Perhaps in the sitting room? I enjoy the scenery there quite a bit more.”

“If it pleases you,” he replied formally.

Theo had sat across from the Headmaster on only one other occasion - the day he waited for his father to bring him home for mother's funeral. That day, he'd been numb to the experience. This time, he had butterflies in his stomach. Albus Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard in the country, adversary of the Dark Lord, was taking tea with him. He waited for the Headmaster to come in the room before finding a chair, not so presumptuous as to sit before the man.

“Molly insisted we enjoy ourselves,” Dumbledore winked, by way of explaining the tower of biscuits that floated behind him, along with a tea tray. “I am more a fan of hard candies myself. In fact,” he produced a white paper sack tied with green and silver ribbon. Theo recognized the Honeyduke’s logo printed on the front. “I ordered these for you. I understand you are fully healed, but everyone who spends time with Poppy deserves to be rewarded.”

Theo leaned across the table to accept them. By the smell he knew they were lemon drops, famously Dumbledore’s favorite. They were also one of his, though he wouldn’t say so.

“Thank you, sir.”

Dumbledore sat in a black, fringed armchair and Theo took his seat on the couch. There was absolutely no privacy in this room, considering the hallway, front door, and staircase was at his back, and he could clearly hear voices coming through the dining room down the hall. He felt at ease. He knew the steps of this dance - polite conversation, surface-level apologies for his loss. It was not much different than what he might have to endure for the next year or so, if he ever went to a pureblood ball again.

“I took it upon myself to ask your professors to waive your summer assignments,” Dumbledore said after the teapot served them an herbal mix that tasted of orange and myrtle.

“I greatly appreciate that,” he said honestly, keeping glazed eye-contact. His summer homework had been in the back of his head since Snape mentioned it and he was genuinely relieved not to have to re-write his essays. Except... “I may re-write my Transfiguration assignment anyway, sir.”

“That is your prerogative, Mr. Nott.” The old wizard’s lips twitched, “Professor McGonagall is very proud of your work. She was the first to say you didn’t need to complete an assignment. Quite the endorsement.”

He felt a spark of real pride. “Sir, have you any advice for someone who may take a NEWT in sixth year and begin an apprenticeship the next?”

Dumbledore took a long, slurping sip of tea, adding to the absurdity of his pause. “Why, Mr. Nott, I didn’t realize you knew such a boring old detail from my academic career.”

That was about as far as Theo could go with flattery, and it worked a charm. Dumbledore nattered on about the strain of studying for other NEWTs while training in transfiguration for the better part of ten minutes. Dumbledore had a habit of wandlessly stirring his tea with a tiny sugar spoon as he spoke, and the sound of it rhythmically scraping the bottom of his teacup became part of the background of all the other noises in the house.

"What interests you about transfiguration?" Dumbledore asked after he finished describing what sounded like a hellish final year at Hogwarts.

Theo sat up straighter, "I would like to become a magical architect to help hide our communities. We need to change with the muggle world; it will find us if we don't.

He took a sip of tea, and then his ears popped. A deep, high-pitched ringing started up in his eardrum. He tensed his jaw and added it to a mental list of potential side effects for Professor Snape.

"A worthy pursuit," Dumbledore nodded approvingly, "and creative. I've met only a few architects in my life, surprisingly, but they all had such beautiful dreams in their heads." The ringing was getting louder in his ears. "Do you want to create a wonder of the world as well?"

Theo felt his mouth twitch down and he quickly dropped eye contact, just listening to the spoon scrape, scrape, scrape in Professor Dumbledore's teacup. His mind was underwater, all memories of his home and family too far to hurt him. Too far to even remember why he wanted to design homes anyway. A wonder of the world, he thought sluggishly. What would I make?

"Theodore?" Dumbledore asked, sounding concerned. "Are you with us?"

Agonizingly slowly, his eyes moved ever upward to settle on the Headmaster's face. Yes, I'm fine, he tried to say, but he couldn't move.

White fog drifted into the room. Theo remained frozen on the couch, teacup still nestled between his hands. Thoughts slipped out of his control. He thought idly that he should probably be afraid.

But even that thought left him, until Theo was just sitting in the white fog, utterly thoughtless, utterly unaware of what was happening around him.

And then he heard a voice, whispering, they think you are seeing

Pressure, he realized. He didn't feel numb, he felt like he was surrounded by overwhelming pressure.

They think you are seeing

The words washed over him again, coming from all around, soundless yet booming in his head.

He thought of his mother.

Seeing, he thought. Like she did? But I don't see anything.

And then with a snap, it vanished. Theo was back in the sitting room. The teacup spilled over his knees and soaked his socks. He nearly followed it to the floor, bracing himself on the edge of the table and gasping, gasping for air. Fear and panic collided with the millions of thoughts and questions running through his mind, leaving him as blind and dumb as he'd just been in the fog. But at least his ears stopped ringing.

"It must be the potion," Black was saying close by. "Get Snape over here."

"That looked like a trance," Dumbledore said, from further away. 

"Theo?" And then Harry was there, placing a warm hand on his arm and helping him back on the couch. After a moment, the smell of orange tea disappeared and his sock went dry. "Are you okay?"

TRUST

He flinched out of Harry's grasp, so startled by the clarity and otherworldliness of the voice that he nearly took out the entire tea set.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" Harry cried out, stepping back. "I thought -"

"My mother was a seer," Theo choked out, cupping one hand over his face. He didn't know who was in the room or who was listening, but he felt an overwhelming need to get this out before they could come to their own conclusions. "My mother...she said it skipped a generation, but it...it's..."

He didn't have to fake how utterly exhausted he felt in that moment, clutching the back of the couch to keep from falling over.

"She had the gift of prophecy?" Black said, voice hushed. "Is that...what happened?"

"No, he didn't speak," the Headmaster supplied.

"She had many gifts," Theo went on, muttering to himself as if pulled along by a spell. "Ophelia, the Witch of Flowering Gifts. They called her that one time..."

Now that he had thought of her, she was coming back to him in sharp focus. Her long blonde curls. The silent way she moved through the forest. And her voice. Her voice was in his head, at last, saying the worst possible thing.

Be glad you don't have it like I do, Theo. Seers live either short and tragic lives, or long, unhappy ones. I am not the exception. Though my life will be relatively short, I have lived it happily all my days, so do not weep for me...

His next breath came out a little shorter, catching in his chest. "It can't be," he whispered to himself. "Not me. I can't have this."

"Bye, Albus," Black said loudly, and then he was looping his arm under Theo's elbow, pulling him to his feet. "You can have tea another time. Maybe not a week after he's come back from the dead, how does that sound?"

"His timing is always impeccable," Harry muttered sourly from behind as they made their way up the stairs.

By the time Theo sat through a whirlwind of people checking on him, first Black, then Harry, then Harry's cat, then Madame Pomfrey, Snape, and finally the cat again, he was nearing catatonia.

It actually felt appealing to him. Numbness. Nothingness. Anything that would keep him from reckoning with whatever that was. 

The sight? He kept thinking, scratching at his throat and chest with dread. I can't have it. It's not true. Mother said it skipped me. 

He wanted to feel untouchably empty again, like he had in third year after trying to summon her through the mirror. He wanted to go back to that state where all his feelings and thoughts and fears and hopes drowned deep down inside him where they couldn't possibly see the light of day. 

He reached for it, but for some reason oblivion evaded him. He was close - Theo remembered this feeling so well, the choking misery before the fall, but for some reason the fall wasn't coming. Every time he was on the precipice, his mind carried back to his friends. Blaise's voice haunted him. It's like we just got our friend back. I feel like if you go, we'll never see you again.

Theo wasn't himself for a long time, until Draco pulled him out of it. He couldn't throw that away. He couldn't.

So, he gritted his teeth and tossed and turned in bed, trying to rest, trying not to think of what that voice might have been. But as time wore on, his mind returned to it, constantly.

There was mist when she appeared in the mirror.

Theo chewed his fingernails, staring at nothing.

She used to call it the sight. Not prophecy. Not divination. She was seeing what needed to be seen.

His mother. The voice had to be his mother.

But why would she be here? He wondered. Is she haunting me? Visiting? Whatever happened at the Tower, did it call her back to our side of the veil?

Theo did not have the answers. Might not ever have them, seeing as the voice wasn't making itself known again. I need sleep.

But sleep was hard in coming, so Theo pulled the covers up over his head and gave in to a very old longing, something he used to do during first year when he couldn't sleep. He sank into his memories, searching for a song. 

The tune came easily, now the he had remembered her with startling clarity. He mouthed the words in time, picturing her singing in the sunroom that overlooked the Loch while she painted. It was a slow, romantic Irish tune that fluted high and low. He wasn't any good at keeping tune, but if he could get in the right headspace, it was as if she was there with him, singing him to sleep.

Just as his body began to surrender and relax, another memory popped. With it came a roar of pain, temporarily blinding him. He jerked back, falling out of bed and hitting the floor with a thunk.

"The letters," he gasped, jumping up. "I have to get them." He tripped immediately over a chair Madame Pomfrey left by the bed. Pain shocked him out of the delirium and he stopped, holding a hand to his heart.

My letters. They were in the Library. But the Library is gone.

Thirteen letters. He'd only read five. The three birthdays after she died. One about his father. One about mistakes.

An ugly sound tore from his mouth. He didn't recognize it as human at first, but then it came again, a kind of wrenching, retching moan that seemed to hum out of his very soul. He collapsed on his knees, landing softly on the thick old rug, and fell forward. He used one hand to cover his mouth so he wouldn't be heard and buried the other one in the carpet.

There were so many other letters.

His thoughts became a refrain of longing. Theo pressed his forehead into the carpet and started tearing at his hair. It was hard to breathe in this position, and he was rapidly losing track of what his body was doing. Maybe there were more tears. Maybe there were more terrible cries of pain. He was sure that, really, this time he would die. How could it be possible to live with this grief?

His heart was beating too fast, and he couldn't seem to get enough breath, and just as the white fog descended over his eyes again he thought, at least when I'm unconscious I won't remember what I lost.

---

Theo woke blearily. Turned his head to see the blue light of morning.

He was in Regulus Black's bedroom.

Theo closed his aching eyes and took a deep breath. Felt an answering ache in his stomach and his chest, even all the way down to his right hand, as if he'd clenched it all through the night.

He remembered as soon as he woke. Mother's letters were gone. The Library was gone. Everyone who had loved him since he was a child was gone.

He sat up, wiping fresh tears from his eyes. There didn't seem a point in holding back now. Once, he read a story about a monk who cried once a month during the new moon, weeping for all twenty four hours of the day, weeping to share the grief with all the lonely people suffering all over the world.

Maybe I'll become him, Theo thought, reaching out for his muggle notebook. He was still in the habit of recording his dreams, no memory loss could stop that, but for the last few days he woke up without even a faint idea of what he dreamed. He usually just ended up doodling and falling back asleep.

He pushed the pillows around and put a pen in his hand. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. He was so tired.

Surely I've done enough, Theo thought, thinking about the last few days. I deserve a break. I can hole up here all day, and no one can blame me. Even Harry will understand...

He slipped the notebook open to a new page, only the page was full. Theo rubbed his eyes and looked again.

It was someone else's handwriting, that was the thing. He made a face, wondering if the Black house really was haunted, and scanned the words.

My sweet Teddy Bear, Happy Birthday! You're not a teenager yet, so I can still call you that.

It was his mother's handwriting.

Theo screwed his eyes shut and pinched his cheeks, wiggled his toes, did some math out loud, and then opened his eyes again.

Still there.

"What the fuck?" He began to leaf through the cheap muggle notebook. The writing went on and on and on. Thirteenth birthday. Fourteenth birthday. Fifteenth birthday.

He stopped and held the notebook shut, marking the page he was on with his pinky. The notebook's pages rippled three-quarters of the way through, as if it'd been written on nearly to the end.

It felt like he was holding glass in his mouth as he shakily turned to the next birthday.

Happy Sixteenth Birthday,

Theo got up out of bed and started pacing, carefully leafing through the rest of it. All of them. All of them. Every single one was in there, even the ones he didn't read, even the ones he never opened. He searched through the empty pages too, wondering if there was a sign of what happened, some kind of calling card, but there was nothing.

He tapped the spine of the book against his mouth, thinking furiously. Finally, knowing there was nothing else for it, he hurried into the bathroom and stood in front of the large, ancient mirror.

He'd always felt rather spooked by mirrors after what he did, but this time there was nothing but fire in his belly as he looked straight into it. He silently dared the spirits to come.

"Mother?" he said lowly, looking in all the corners behind his reflection. "Are you here? Ophelia Blight?"

Just a hint of white fog flashed in the corner of his eye. He leaned in, "Mother?"

She appeared behind him. Just a faint reflection at first, but gaining form the longer he looked. She was purely white, like a newly formed ghost, but also translucent. When he looked right at her, she winked out of sight.

Then she stopped flickering and Theo felt her lean on his shoulder. He felt her. It was that same pressure that held him still during the trance. A ghostly hand came down and moved the hag stone hanging 'round his neck out from under his shirt.

Theo raised his hand to touch it.

"You're not Ophelia Blight," he said, whispering the words.

The woman shook her head. Her face was odd. It seemed to shift and change every time she turned her head, as if she had many faces. Or no face.

She was reaching for his hand, pointing at it. He let go of the stone and spread his fingers out uncertainly. She mimed holding a quill, and he copied her, writing in the air.

"You did this?" he breathed.

She nodded, and then shook her head, pointing at his hand.

"I...I did it? Or, together?" She nodded, and long, water-like hair rippled down in front of her face. She was leaning close to his ear.

Trust the knight

He flinched, surprised by the way the words boomed soundlessly in his head again. She smiled at him, an odd smile, like it was several smiles smashed together.

"You - you - you're..."

The Library nodded and put a finger to her lips, still smiling. Her eyes were wide and pupil-less, just perfectly round circles of swirling fog.

And then someone knocked on his door and startled him so badly he let out a yelp of surprise. When he looked back at the mirror, she'd vanished.

Theo was in such a daze, he just opened the door without thinking. Harry stood there, half-smiling, holding a plate of food. Crusty white bread, butter, and an assortment of chocolate-covered biscuits. He was also holding a cup that looked suspiciously full of hot chocolate.

"You didn't come down for breakfast, so," Harry shrugged. "Can I come in?"

John the cat shot in under their feet. Theo moved back to let him pass. He was still holding the old muggle notebook to his chest and feeling like he'd been thrust into a completely different universe. Was any of this even real? Had he finally, truly, lost his damn mind?

"Theo, I need to tell you something," Harry said as soon as the door was shut. He sounded unexpectedly serious. Theo, not knowing what else to do, drank from the cup. It was hot chocolate, and it warmed him up against just like the kind Harry made at the apartment.

Harry waved his wand at the door. Theo could see a privacy spell slime into the cracks, sealing them up. And then Harry said, "It's about the guardian spirit, the one that protected you in the cave."

The Library? It had to be. In the back of his head, the part of his brain that was still working came up aces. Stasis. It kept me in stasis, like it does with all the delicate scrolls.

"I think it's still with you," Harry went on, giving him a determined stare. "And I think, for some reason, it wanted you to stay away from Dumbledore, because it spoke to me again yesterday."

"It spoke to you?" Theo repeated.

"Yeah," Harry frowned. "It said help me. And then I rushed into the room and you were in your trance-thing and I don't know what that means, or why it happened. I have no clue if Dumbledore did anything or not..."

Theo started putting it together. "No," he said slowly. "I wasn't in danger. It was in danger. The..." his eyes slid to Harry. He trusted him, of course, but not with this. "A secret. It's a secret from my family. He's a legilimens, you know, not that he was reading my mind intentionally...but with the way I've been feeling...he would have...might have..." Theo frowned deeply. The library knew my mind wasn't strong enough to hide it, but how? How could it know that? If it's living in the stone around my neck, wouldn't Dumbledore have felt it come out to protect me?

Harry rubbed his face, "And also, last night I had this crazy feeling that you were in terrible danger. I came right up here, but I couldn't get through the door, and John said you weren't in danger, that he didn't smell blood or anything, so I just posted up outside your room the whole night until the feeling went away."

You did?

"Look," Harry pointed at him, "I don't know what's going on, but I hate the idea of you being in this house without a wand. It's not safe. Maybe this place is cursed like Sirius says."

"A wand?" Theo was like a chorus line, repeating everything Harry said. He clutched the hag stone in his hand. "That's right, I have to keep it safe." His eyes widened in understanding. Without a wand, he was a sitting duck, nothing but a child clutching a galleon.

Or a squib, holding on to the Elder Wand.

"But how do I get a wand?" He said, looking at Harry blankly.

"That's where-"

"I come in," a third voice rasped. Theo looked around, searching for a portrait.

"Over here," it said again. He looked this time at the bed. The bed where the cat was sitting.

John looked him up and down. "I don't think he's going to faint, Harry, but be ready."

"Right," Harry came in close with a determined expression on his face, holding out his arms. "Theo, don't freak out. John is my familiar, and a cat-sìth. He won't hurt you."

"But I could."

"John."

Theo blinked rapidly, staring at the way the cat's mouth moved in an almost human way, and how much expression he could put in his little face.

"Oh my god," Theo muttered breathlessly, looking between John and Harry again. "You're Merlin, and I'm the squib."

Harry made a face, "What?"

John began to laugh under his breath, an odd and rasping sound, like he'd smoked a pack a day for ten years. It reminded him of his father when his voice went whiskey-rough. "I like that story, the Benevolent Stranger. Makes you think. You never know what lies behind a human face."

"What did you promise it?" Theo looked to Harry, unable to process that he was standing in the presence of the fae. "The...guardian. You said...you said it asked you to protect me, but was that true, or did it make you promise?"

Harry met his eyes steadily, "I swore to protect you, to bring you somewhere safe. And I don't know what it is, Theo, but something doesn't feel right. It's not that I think Grimmauld Place is unsafe, especially with Sirius around, but something is wrong. I figure that maybe, with a wand, it will be better because you can protect yourself, and..."

He went on, but Theo stopped listening. He clutched his notebook to his chest and pulled on his bottom lip, thinking.

The Library always knew when he took his studying too far. It had kicked him out more times than he'd ever willingly walked out, that was for sure. And though he had, in fact, translated the entire necromantic ritual that he used in third year within the Library, it did not allow him to take notes out about it. So he had simply memorized the entire ritual - the potion, the astronomical chart, and the runes.

It always tried to protect him the only way it could, within its domain. And these little acts of summoning magic, pulling Harry to him...was it trying to let Harry protect them?

He clutched the hag stone, trembling at how precious it was. They didn't have the safety of the Tower any more. He and the Library were walking the earth unprotected. Unguarded. 

Trust the knight. 

He looked again at Harry. Harry bloody Potter. Champion. Dark Lord destroyer. A story book hero.

"You have a plan to get me a wand?" He said, interrupting Harry's nervous rambling. 

"Oh, um, yeah," Harry gestured to John. "He can take you to Gringotts, and I just assumed...do you have wands in your family's vault? Can you access it?"

Blue eyes met green. Theo walked across the room and shakily put the notebook with his mother's letters in Harry's outstretched hand. I can trust him, he told himself, even though it physically hurt to let them go. 

"Yes," he said evenly. "If you take me to Gringotts, I can get to my family's wands."

Notes:

We'll let Bill marinate a little longer before we come back to him.

A big piece of inspiration for some of the world building in this story comes from a wonderful pair of books by David Clement-Davies, "The Sight" and "Fire Bringer". If any of you have read them, maybe you will see more little pieces of inspiration from them throughout. The concept of "sight", seeing, and a spiritual connection between all living things is the foundation for how I think about magic in this story, and especially divination/being a seer.

I hope it was clear by the end, but if not - Theo is NOT a seer. The Library was making him look like he had a vision by pulling him into stasis for a few minutes until Harry came and rescued him. What would Dumbledore have done to Theo had it not intervened? Nothing? Something nefarious? Who's to say.............lots of red herrings in this chapter, which were fun for me to write!

Sometimes I get self-conscious about how long my chapters are, but I really do edit them so much. Every chapter I edit more and more, trying not to be too long-winded and self-indulgent (some self-indulgence will happen though lol). There's just so many characters! So many moments! I want them all to have their say! Thanks for reading this beast and staying with me as we move along. Next chapter: "The Chariot."

Chapter 21: The Chariot

Summary:

The Chariot (VII) - this card reminds one that those who master spirit and desire will triumph in the end.
Or:
The charioteer takes up his whip and drives forth, into the uncertain future.

Notes:

Alternate title for this chapter: Theo's no good, terrible, horrible, absolutely very bad day.

Y'all said you didn't mind so...here's a very long chapter. My longest, I think. Thank you so, so, so much for the lovely amazing comments on this story. I treasure each and every one of my readers ❤️. Please have a WONDERFUL weekend, wherever you are!

Theo

"This probably won't work," Theo muttered under his breath.

John stopped with one paw up in the air, "Oh now you tell me."

The goblin they were traveling with, Ironsmelt, stopped just ahead and frowned at a trio of goblins shuffling by. One of them leered at Theo, flashing long, silver-studded fingernails.

"Get lost," John sneered, showing his own claws.

Ironsmelt sighed.

"Father had to snap an old wand and take the core to Ollivander's," Theo whispered when they were alone. John paced in a circle, looking impatient. "He had to make me an original. None of the wands he had would work."

"You went through every single Ollivander wand?" John clarified, squinting at him.

"Well, no," Theo's rasped. He had to keep his chin tucked to have the hood pool around his face and it put a strain on his throat. "But Ollivander started talking core properties with father and - I don't know, he took an old one from the vault. It still didn't work, but it worked better than anything else, so he snapped it to get the core out. It was from a specific type of dragon, I think..."

"Did he cry?"

"What?"

John slow-blinked at him. "Ollivander. Did he cry when your father snapped the wand?"

"Uh, no," but Theo remembered the way he flinched. "He looked like he wanted to."

John grinned, "Good."

"What do you have against Ollivander?" He asked, glancing at Ironsmelt to see if he was getting impatient with them, but he was zoning out. John had asked for the goblin by name after Theo got his blood sampled by the Nott family account manager. Theo didn't know what he expected, but a young, bespectacled goblin with a short, stubby nose was not it.

"He has a rather ugly sigil on his doors that keep the good folk out," John complained, "and I don't trust wizards who treat us with fear instead of respect."

"Can you really blame them?"

"I can and I shall. Now, you won't know until you try, so keep an open mind and walk. We don't have all day." With that, John continued down the hall.

Theo sighed and hurried to keep pace. This was all happening faster than he anticipated. It only took John an hour to arrange for a private visit with Theo's account manager, Grievehook, and Harry needed only to turn his beseeching green eyes on his godfather and say please to get what he wanted.

It was clear that Black was cut from the same impulsive cloth as Harry, because he agreed to let Theo go to Gringotts almost before his godson finished explaining the plan. His one condition was that he come along, but thankfully he did not try to force his way down to Theo's vault. He was sitting in a private waiting room, the one set aside for Gringotts's most exclusive clients, wrapped in a large cloak. Theo checked the watch Harry let him borrow. Nine fifty. He could have a wand in hand before lunch.

The mine cart ride was horrific. Theo wasn't a fan of the experience already, but having to hunch over, clutching his hood in both hands so it didn't fly back as they were traveling through the bowels of the bank made him feel even sicker than usual.

"Vault 419!" Ironsmelt announced, cheerily heaving out of the minecart. The goblin noisily unpacked a whirring device from the back of the cart, about the size of a large briefcase, and set it flat-side down on the floor. He leaned down and pressed a button with one tapered claw. The gears inside clinked to life, and then the box rose up on two spindly legs.

Theo forgot about his nausea entirely, pacing alongside the device to watch as it toddled forward. It rocked back once before leaning in to kissed the seam of the vault doors. Steam poured out from vents along the side. The hull began to glow red, then orange, then bright, hot white, as if thrown into a forge.

The vault doors, too, started glow around the device, filling the air with the stink of metal. After about thirty seconds, a timer inside the box dinged. The device took two wobbly steps back and crouched down like a long-legged crane, panting heat into the dank, cold cavern of the cave.

There was a new ripple in the vault door. Now that he knew what it was, Theo looked at all the many ripples going up and down the seam in awe.

"How many of us have lost our keys?" 

The goblin snorted. Theo and John looked at each other in surprise.

"My, my, Ironsmelt," John meowed fondly, "loosening up a little, are we?"

"T'was a good joke," the goblin grunted. At that moment, a freshly minted key popped out of the device, sliding in a little metal box protruding from its face. The goblin handed it to Theo and said, "The service fee will be reflected on your next statement."

"Thank you."

Ironsmelt pushed the vault open for them. John followed Theo a pace or two beyond the doors and sat.

"This does not feel like a place for me," he announced.

"There are many weapons stored here," Theo nodded, passing a hand over one of the long tables in the center of the room. "Probably some great ugly sigils, too. Sorry."

John stayed where he was as Theo leisurely toured familiar ground. First, he went and filled his new expansive money pouch with an assortment of galleons, sickles, and knuts, along with plenty of muggle money. Just in case, he thought.

Then, instead of going to the back of the vault where the wands were, he drifted to a set of imposing doors built into the great stone wall. There were no markings, no keyhole, and no handle. He itched with a familiar, burning curiosity.

Theo didn't know what was in this room. Only father could enter it. Theo had never even seen what was inside when the doors were open, because it was enchanted to look like a wall of darkness to anyone but the Lord of the House. But surely, as the last survivor of his line, he might be able to...

But the doors did not open to his touch.

He sighed and stepped back. Grievehook had no ring for him, which wasn't a surprise. Father always said the test for Lordship over the House of Nott was steep. Theo was relatively certain passing his NEWTs wouldn't be enough.

Other than the gold, the mysterious doors, and four long tables full of miscellaneous artefacts and maps father gathered during his travels, there wasn't much else in their vault. Some furniture, which he ran his hands over, just to touch something that was actually his. He pushed around some of father's encoded notes, not reading them, but considering taking one just to have a piece of his handwriting...

In the end, Theo made a face and left them where they were. He didn't need a momento of his father when he carried so many on his skin.

Though he knew it was hopeless, he still made an effort to look for books or scrolls of any kind, but of course there were none. Why keep books in Gringotts when they had the most secure Library in the world?

Our grimoire was in the Library as well, he thought, tallying it up as another loss. Unless...it's possible to get it back...

He touched the hag stone and filed that question away for later. He was already nervous enough having mother's letters stored on a cheap muggle notebook inside Harry's bookbag. If there was some way to restore the Library, he wasn't about to try and figure it out on foreign territory.

Apprehensively, he approached the back wall of the vault, looking at the assortment of cabinets and glass-topped tables that contained the tools of his ancestors. His eyes wandered to the many dark wands pointing up at the ceiling. 

Truthfully, there weren't many. He counted just seventeen. Different generations had different burial traditions, and for a good long while all the Notts were burned to ash, wand and all. The oldest wands were nearing four hundred years old.

Theo did not linger long near most of them. Two were cracked down the center, a sign that the wielder died in battle, some were pockmarked as if sprayed by acid, probably dragon's blood, and all the rest had a kind of murderous darkness to them that he didn't want to test his luck against.

He drifted to the last cabinet where the most recent wands were stored. There was Graham's Hornbeam wand, and Blair's short and stout pine wand with a hook on the handle, and finally Larka's handsome fir. There was an empty space left for father's wand, never to be filled, and that was it.

Theo looked closely at his half-sibling's wands. Larka. Blair. The children Theo replaced. Father never said it, but Theo had been competing against them all his life, especially his daughter, who was supposed to become the head of their House.

In truth, Theo did not know much about them. Larka he knew the least about, because father loved her the most, and so he never spoke of her. Theo endured the occasional story about Blair growing up, especially after his mother died, and they were never nice stories. Blair could throw a hammer 60 meters when he was fourteen. Blair picked up wandless curses in a week. Blair could cast the imperius on two people at once. Blair was captain of the Quidditch team.

He glowered at the pine wand and refocused on Larka's. The plaque under it read, 11 1/2 inches, fir and thestral hair.

Well, Theo was no wandmaker, but he knew enough to guess it could be a good match. Fir wands demanded a stringent attitude, someone who knew who they were and what they wanted. Theo had that covered. And thestral hair? Well, if there was one branch of magic he understood better than most, it was death magic.

He took the wand off the hook. It warmed temptingly in his hand. The handle was different than his ebony and it was a full inch longer than he was used to, but it felt good. Magic swirled over his skin.

Theo sighed with relief. "Lumos."

Magic pooled up his arm and bottlenecked in his hand. He had precisely one second to think, oh no, before the magic pushed into the wand and it exploded with a great BANG!

Theo was fast enough to turn his head and save his eyes, but he still took a hail of shrapnel to the face. Warm blood streamed down his neck and seeped into the collar of his shirt. "Well, fuck me," he cursed. He had several huge, smoking splinters embedded in his hand. "There goes my only hope."

"You okay back there?" John yowled. "Not making me break my pact, are you?"

"Wand exploded," Theo called back flatly.

"What?" Against his better judgment, apparently, John raced through the vault, jumping up on the nearest table. "Black hands, kid! Did you turn it on yourself?"

"Good thing my father's gone from this world," he said bitterly, picking up the bigger bits of wand off the floor and piling them on top of his family's cabinet. "I'd be the next dead Nott if he knew I destroyed his favorite child's wand."

"What was it?" John sniffed the air, "Thestral?"

"And fir."

"Should've worked," John muttered, flicking his tail. Theo continued to pick up wand pieces, fighting back a choking wave of anxiety and fear. Had he really just done that? Shattered a wand? What was wrong with him?

"Maybe you need something stronger," the cat suggested.

"Like snakewood?" Theo said sarcastically. "Think I should try digging up Salazar's grave and stealing his wand?"

"I was thinking something even harder than that, actually..." John jumped on top of one of the glass-top tables. "Maybe a ring will do."

"That's not for me," Theo said instantly, repeating something often barked by his father when he was coveting the rich gemstones in that case.

"Now it is," John replied easily. "Just try it. Some of these might help you."

Uncertainly, Theo approached. There was a huge assortment of jewelry before him - rings set with wide, colorful gems, silver armbands carved with runes, draping collars of bone meant to be worn in battle, a short pike tipped with platinum, bracelets, dainty strings of diamonds meant to be worn like a crown. Some of it was wearable, but most of it was twisted, melted, blown away, pieces of magical armor and enhancements used to the very limit of their power and then picked off of corpses.

"This set," John used a long claw to point at something beneath his paws. Three plain rings, all missing stones, was below him. Theo leaned in closer, trying to guess their metal. "If I remember my magecraft as well as I think I do," John continued amusedly, "gold is for the warm-hearted, silver for the spirit-minded, and bronze is for the brick-layers."

"Brick layers?"

John's eyes glimmered, "People who set the path. In my time, the idea of a paved road was the height of modernity. Bronze is for wixen who plan for the future."

Theo cracked his knuckles and undid the clasp holding the lid shut. He reached inside, hovering between the silver and bronze rings for a second before choosing the darker one, the one that matched the runes tattooed on his fingers.

The bronze ring fit around his middle finger easily. It didn't feel magical in any way, but John looked pleased.

"Pick up that," he commanded, pointing at a loose ruby in the cabinet. "And cast a spell."

His blood dripped over the cushioned interior as he took it in his fist. After a bit of fidgeting, Theo clasped the small gem under his last three fingers, using his index to point.

Not expecting anything, he cast a half-hearted, "Lumos."

Light bloomed above his hand, a glowing, blue-white orb. Theo froze.

John began to chuckle, "I think I know why you had such a hard time finding a wand, little mage."

"Mage?" He lowered his hand. The light persisted in the air. The weird part was, Theo could still feel it, like there was thread between his hand and the light. Experimentally, he kept his hand low and said, "Nox."

The light winked out. "Whoa," Theo breathed. When he opened up his fist, the ruby was so tiny it was almost lost in the deep headline on his palm. He carefully put it back in the case before he dropped it. "Okay...how do I get my hands on a real ring?"

"You need a metal master to make a ring. Perhaps an anchor, too, if they still make those."

"An anchor?"

John looked down at the cabinet and then pointed at one of the silver cuffs, "Something like that. It helps balance the magic generated by your core. If you overload a spell, your ring can't go flying through the air like a wand can."

"Oh," Theo wrapped his cloak over his hand, which was still bleeding. "I suppose there were a lot of fingerless wizards in your time."

John cackled, "They were pretty good at sticking those back on, but I have seen more than my share of dismemberments, I'll tell you."

"Why would my magic change like this?" He murmured, mostly to himself. Does it have to do with the Library? He thought back to what it had done in the mirror, pointing at Theo's hand, and then at itself. Is it living in my core? Does it need a constant supply of magic? Is the hag stone its anchor? Is -

"Earth to Theodore Nott!" John snapped. Theo jerked out of his train of thought and met the cat's frustrated gaze. "I was saying your magic didn't change. You've always been a mage, forced to learn magic with a wand."

"But I'm not any good at wandless magic."

John rolled his eyes, "Mages use rings of power to work their magic, so it doesn't matter if you were good or bad at wandless magic. And I'll tell you for free, you're never going to be good at wandless magic. If your core is more suited to magecraft, then you pull all your power from here," John reared up on his hind legs and pressed his front paws against Theo's chest, "and you need a focus to channel it out, or you risk hurting yourself. Harry is good at wandless magic because he's got the druid thing going on, and he naturally pulls most of his magic from the world." John's whiskers twitched as he peered into Theo's face.

This is way too close, Theo thought, vaguely afraid John might bite his nose off. "Druid?" he repeated, leaning back. "Are we talking about the same person?"

John ignored him. His ears twisted forward and he stretched closer, giving Theo's chin a sniff. He started to feel a sense of foreboding.

"Tell me something, Theodore Nott," the cat murmured, voice dropping seriously. "I can feel something heavy weighing on your soul." Theo stiffened. The Library? John's head reared like a snake, forcing him to make eye-contact. "Tell me the truth...have you summoned the dead?"

He twitched in surprise. John pushed back to sit on the cabinet, watching him closely.

"What?"

"You heard me," John's face turned shrewd. "Was it your mother?"

All the blood rushed from his face. How does he know that? 

"Mm," John looked him up and down critically. "I sensed it when you first arrived, but I wasn't sure. I thought maybe you were so close to death that the veil was calling to you...but you're healed now, and it's still there. The chill. When did you do it?"

Theo resisted the urge to look around and see if Ironsmelt had moved from his post to eavesdrop, because this was insane. Talking about necromancy? Out loud? In a room with an open door?

"Almost two years ago," he whispered.

"How?"

"Is now really the time?"

"The dead are my domain," John said coldly, his eyes beginning to shine. "Answer me, mage."

"It was called Orpheus's Mirror," he hissed, looking behind them anxiously. "And I learned my lesson, I never did it again, now can we please -"

But John's ears slicked back against his head. "Orpheus's Mirror?" He repeated incredulously. "How did you get your hands on that?"

"It - my - my father had a copy," he lied, cursing how sloppily the words came out. "I stole it from his study. If you want to talk more back at the -"

"You're lying," John accused, a growl thrumming out from his chest. To Theo's horror, he seemed to be getting bigger. His eyes, certainly, were widening, flickering, getting brighter. "Don't lie to me, human," he warned, slinking off the table. He didn't have to jump. John's limbs were elongating, bringing him up to hip-height, and then even a bit taller.

"I'm not," Theo said, backing up until he hit a table. He started reaching behind for something to help. "We owned a copy. I did the ritual behind his back."

"Agathe Le Sueur destroyed all her work," John hissed, long spine arching up. "Including that ritual. That bitch took all of Margaritte's hard-earned magic down to hell with her, and I could never find even a trace of her handwriting again. So do. Not. Lie. To. Me. "

Who is Margaritte? Theo thought frantically, losing the ability to speak entirely. He thought of the vulnerable hag stone hanging around his neck as John advanced on him. He seemed to be pulling all the darkness of the vault down around him, blasting Theo with icey wind. His hand closed over a long, lead ruler father used to lay maps flat on the table.

"I'm not lying!" He snarled, swinging the meter stick and using the leverage to push off the table. John's lips curled, exposing a set dagger-like fangs. "We had her journal! Her personal journal! I don't know about the rest, but-"

"Where is it?"

"Burned to fucking ash, I'd guess!" Theo shouted. "Just like everything else I used to own!"

For a moment, the only sound in the room was his ragged panting, and a reptilian hiss coming from John. The fae's eyes glared into him, seeking truth, and Theo faced him fearlessly, all the while sinking all memories of the Library deep in the back of his mind.

"Excuse me?" Ironsmelt's voice carried uncertainly into the vault. "I must remind you that dueling of any kind is strictly prohibited inside Gringotts, except when defending yourself in the face of deadly -"

"Can it!" John spat. Theo blinked, unnerved to see that John had gone back to normal in the space of a breath. Suddenly, his cat form did not seem as cute and cuddly as Theo remembered.

"Alright, mage, I believe you," he growled, turning his head. "But we're not done."

"Don't tell Harry," he asked without thinking. "Necromancy, it's -"

John sneered at him, "I won't keep secrets from my familiar for you."

"And I won't give up my family's secrets for you!" Theo shot back, hiding his desperation with anger. "Why do you think I owe them to you? I've already answered truly. I don't know how we came to own it, but we did! If you want to summon my father's soul back to earth and interrogate him, be my guest!"

The vault echoed his words back at him, and suddenly Theo remembered a terrible, haunting old story about fiendfyre. It even eats your soul when it gets you...

He can't be summoned if his soul is gone. And wasn't that a ghastly thought? He looked down at his bruised and bloody hand. Father's not at rest. He's in oblivion. Unless he was killed before the fire started, and his soul had time to escape, there truly is nothing of him left...

"I'm sorry," John muttered after a long moment of silence. The cat jumped up on the table where Theo'd grabbed the meter stick. He hunched his head, ears twisted low, and didn't meet his eyes. "You're right. You were being...mostly honest with me." John glanced up briefly, "Margaritte was...family. A descendent of my first familiar. When she died, I...well..." He lashed his tail, "it seems that the older I get, the harder every death becomes."

Theo took a deep, clarifying breath, and carefully set the lead stick down. And then he held his left hand out to John. "Forgiven," he said, simply.

John plopped his cheek on Theo's fingers, purring as he scratched under his chin. "You know, it's been awhile since a wizard took a swing at me."

"Sorry," Theo said, not feeling very sorry at all. "But I wasn't about to let you kill me without a fight."

John laughed, "Kill you? Harry would skin me alive if I put a claw on you. And, uh, hey," John sat straight up, eyes wide with anxiety. "Don't tell him about that?"

Theo gave him a flat look.

"I won't say anything about your necromancy, I promise," John swore. Theo sighed and gave him his word in return. John pranced on his paws, suddenly happy as a clam. "Carry me, wizard - uh, mage. Carry me, mage!" John put some power in his voice, grinning, "Two warriors who met in battle, leave as friends!"

"You are ridiculous," Theo rolled his eyes but did as he asked. "Let's go. Think I should put this back?" He showed the cat the ring.

"Might as well get used to wearing it."

"Yeah..." Theo closed the cabinet and glanced at his family's wands one last time. "Hang on," he muttered, searching the cabinet more closely. "Where's mother's ring?"

He looked all around the ground, too, wondering it it got blown off by the explosion, but he couldn't find it. Theo cursed until he conceded defeat. "Father must have taken it," he decided, though he felt that wasn't right. Father kept her wedding ring here, in the vault. Then again, I can't remember the end of July very well. Maybe he made another trip to Gringotts.

"Alright, there, Nott?"

"Call me Theo," he muttered, turning away. "And no. But there's nothing I can do until I remember what happened."

John hopped out of his arms as soon as they were beyond the vault doors. He started quizzing Ironsmelt about who the best metal masters were. "All the ones I knew are dead," he explained.

"Wyrenin is the greatest of my era," the goblin said, pushing the doors shut. "But her workshop is far to the north, on the Orkney Isles."

"Orkney?" Theo perked up. "I've been to some of them. Where at?"

"She lives on Sanday," Ironsmelt replied. "Follow the sound of her forge."

He did not offer any further instruction, and the three of them traveled in silence all the way up to the top. Theo would have liked to continue his day in silence so he could sort through everything that had happened since he woke, but Black was all over him the second they crossed into the waiting room.

"Mordred!" Black yelped. "You're covered in blood! John, I trusted you to keep him safe!"

"Wasn't his fault. Wand didn't work." Clots of blood came back with the cloak when he pulled it from his hand, and the wounds started weeping again.

Black conjured some bandages that wrapped loosely around the wounds. He stepped in close, looking at Theo's injured face. "At least it didn't get your eyes. John, take him back first."

"I can do you both," the cat said, wiggling this haunches. "Stand behind him."

Theo closed his eyes until the weird lurch through space was over. He could not honestly say that he liked it more than apparition.

"Did you get the - what happened!?"

"He blew up a wand," John said. Black shucked his cloak immediately, and Theo did the same, albeit more slowly to accommodate his hand.

There was a lot of noise hitting him all at once. John fielded Harry's questions with the most unhelpful answers he could thinking of, winding Harry up even more, while Black fluttered around Theo, trying to get his attention and asking stupid questions like does it hurt, and do you want to sit down?

Theo perched on the edge of the reading nook and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "Harry, go get a damp washcloth from the bathroom," Black ordered. To Theo he said, "I'm going to cast a numbing spell and take the splinters out. These aren't deep so it shouldn't take more than a minute to clean them and heal you up."

"Okay," Theo said tiredly, wishing he would just get on with it.

"I can't believe a wand exploded," Harry said in a much quieter volume when he came back. "How does that happen?" Theo blinked his eyes open and caught Harry chewing on his lip, watching Black work on his hand with concern.

"Too much magic, I guess," Theo said, remembering how it felt to cast the charm. "John said I'm more suited to magecraft."

Black whistled under his breath, "A mage, huh? Haven't met one of those in a long while."

"It fell out of style with Grindelwald and never made a comeback in England," Theo explained quietly. He'd always been enamored with stories of mages. Many of his viking ancestors relied heavily on magecraft to protect them during battle, but he had never met a mage in real life. He didn't think it was much practiced anymore.

"Grindelwald?" Harry prompted, shaking Theo from his thoughts.

"Grindelwald's forces were mostly mages," Black said, casting a cleansing spell that filled Theo's nose with the harsh scent of alcohol. "They warped magecraft into an unholy union of technology and magic. The Nazis, especially...were very fond of it. And other black arts, warped for muggle use."

Harry looked like he was going to be sick. John snorted, "I remember a time when wands were considered an abomination. Don't let yourself be weakened by the court of idiotic opinion."

"I think you might do well getting a wand to use as cover," Black counseled him, "but it's up to you."

"Well..." Theo chewed his cheek as he recalled the image of his mother whittling in front of the fire. "My mother used to wave a carved stick around, pretending it was a wand. I think she cast hers into a lake somewhere after she finished her NEWTs."

Black kept his face blank, but Theo could see the curiosity in his eyes as he started to clean and heal the wounds on his face. "You could take a page from her book, too," he agreed with a little smile.

Harry tipped his head in confusion. "She didn't need a wand?"

"She was a druid," Theo said, "or, well, she never called herself that, but it was how she practiced magic. Like you, so I hear."

"John," Harry whispered, turning around to glare at his familiar, but John was asleep. He rolled his eyes, "I really don't know what it means. It's a new development."

"Guess we'll figure it out together," Theo commiserated. Harry's smile was bright and burned right through to his heart. Theo looked down, hiding the fond expression he knew was on his face.

"All done!" Black announced, stepping away. "Now, please don't tell Narcissa what happened, or she'll cut off my thumbs."

"Want to go down to the library, Theo?" Harry suggested. "Maybe there's a book about magecraft in there."

"There probably is," Sirius agreed.

Theo hesitated. All in all, his trip to Gringotts felt like a complete failure. He still had no wand. He still had the impossible weight of the Library hanging around his neck. What was he supposed to do? Just wait until Narcissa came to pick him up, and then wait days after that to get to the Orkney Isles, or find another metal master somewhere on the continent?

He could feel pressure mounting in his head. He knew himself well enough to know it was a bad idea. "No, thanks," he said, interrupting Black's description of various cursed books he had to remove from the library. "I didn't get much sleep. I think I'm going to rest until lunch."

He did not have to look at Harry to know he was disappointed, but he was a half-decent liar. Theo almost believed him when he said, "That's okay. I'm tired, too. Maybe I'll take a nap." Harry went and scooped his familiar off the bed. "See you at lunch?" 

"Yeah." Theo still didn't look up, not wanting to lie to Harry's face. If he had his way, he'd stay up here until it was time for him to leave.

Harry slipped out the door, but Black stayed where he was. Theo looked up just in time to see him wave his godson away, before Harry reluctantly shut the door and left them alone.

"Are you okay?" Black asked immediately, fixing his heavy eyes on Theo. In some ways, it felt the same as the way John looked at him, like he was trying to see through him. "Would it help you to call Poppy, or Snape, even? Remus? Anyone?"

The last of his patience for this nonsense ran out. "I'm fine," he snapped. "I don't need anyone to come and bother me. What would they even do? I'm healed."

He waited for the predictable litany of they're just worried about you, it's okay to ask for help, but it didn't come. Black held the silence patiently until Theo's flash-fire temper went out.

"Let me guess, your dad was the type to let you lick your own wounds?"

And what's wrong with that? Theo thought. There was nothing harsh or pitying in Black's expression, but Theo was suspicious of him anyway. "I don't like being fussed over," he said.

"You must be very annoyed with Harry, then."

They looked at each other; Black calm, Theo getting more and more irritated.

"It's fine if it's him. But I don't know you," he gave him a cold stare. "I don't know any of you in this house. I'm not sure what you expect from me, but I'm not a sensitive person that needs my hand to be held because I got hurt. What I need is -" my life back. 

He stopped. Bit his tongue. Couldn't think of anything else to say.

Black's mask crumbled and Theo finally saw what he knew was there all along, bleeding-heart concern. He looked away disgustedly.

"You almost died," Black entreated, his voice even. "You've been through a lot. What happened yesterday was frightening for us, but I'm sure it was even worse for you."

He must want me to punch him, Theo thought, his fingernails biting into his palms.

"I just want to help you have someone to talk to. I get that you have Harry, but you've only just met, really, so if there's anyone else I can -"

"I'll be with the people I actually want to be with in a few days," Theo said harshly, glaring at the wall. "Right?"

Black sighed, "Right. You're right."

"Then fuck off!"

And Black did, without even trying to get the last word in. Theo glared at the same point in the wall until the door jam ka-thunked into place.

Finally, silence. Theo waited for the pounding in his ears to die down, but the longer the silence stretched on, the worse he felt.

Cursing, he headed off to the bathroom to take a shower. His routine was in disarray. Theo felt like he was perpetually missing the last step on the staircase, lurching from one landing to another. What he wouldn't give to have the cold, miserable silence of Nott Tower again.

He staggered to a halt, leaning up against the bed to catch his breath as a familiar stab of longing cut through him. He missed the way he used to share that silence with his father, neither of them acknowledging the other. In separate worlds, left to their own devices. Miserable together, yes, but at least it was quiet.

Being in this house was like being at Hogwarts all over again, without the benefit of Draco, or Blaise, or all his other, more distant friends to put between him and the rest of the school. Here, he was constantly in the spotlight. He hated it.

"I can endure it," he breathed, kneading his temples. "Just take a shower. Take a nap. Continue." He muttered the words a few more times, opened his eyes, and caught sight of a package on the bedside table with the words URGENT DELIVERY stamped all over it.

For a second he suspected a trick, but then he remembered that Harry had been in his room this whole time. He must have left this here, he reasoned, picking it up. Indeed, he found Kingfisher's post box address written on the front in neat, familiar script.

Theo's heart twisted. It was unmistakably Blaise's handwriting.

He tore the packing paper off and cracked the spellotape with his hands. It was a small box, no bigger than a medium-sized textbook. Right on the top there were three thick envelopes. Two were addressed to him, one from Blaise, and one from Draco.

The other said, For the Real Kingfisher.

Shakily, Theo put that letter aside. Underneath the letters was an assortment of gifts. He sat in the middle of the bed and laid them all out carefully. A velvet jewelry box, a beautiful leather journal, his favorite kind of ink-loaded quill, a slim volume of poetry that Theo had been reading at Blaise's house, hair potions and ties, which made him laugh, and finally a picture of them from that summer, standing on top of a bridge over a canal.

Draco's letter was touching, but very quickly Theo realized he had spared him a heavy, emotional burden. He breathed a sigh of relief, smiling fondly as he read through two pages full of jokes and light-hearted plans to replace Theo's wardrobe with something befitting of a noble heir, complete with suggested outfit sketches, and ended with a very sincere, detailed threat of unholy retribution if Theo were to be in mortal danger again before they reunited.

Blaise's letter was a little more bittersweet. He wrote a very long apology for losing his temper when they spoke through the mirror. Theo could see how hard it was for him to write it out by the way his penmanship stretched taller across the parchment as he worked his way down. It made his heart ache to see it.

But then he, too, turned coy, and cheekily wrote that he'd already ordered a replacement pair of the shoes he tortured Theo into buying in Venice. Theo rolled his eyes, but there was a painful weight in his throat that made it hard to laugh anymore. He tried to take a breath, but his chest caught and broke it into little pieces.

Theo clutched his face, allowing just one minute of intense, super-charged longing, before dashing the tears from his face and opening up the velvet box.

Inside was a black bracelet with two, flat gold discs in the center, each engraved with a different zodiac symbol. It stretched easily over his hand and sized itself on his wrist. The bracelet was made of strong braided cord, with polished black stones woven into it. He flipped the gold amulets over, seeing that they both had the symbol for Pisces on the inside.

The bracelet came with a folded card that read: Traveler’s Amulets by Lidia. Every uniquely forged pair of gold plates never forgets its match, no matter how far you wander. Press any finger to the side of the amulet worn by your partner and its twin will warm to the touch. Designed for travelers who seek the reassurance of home when far afield.

Theo raised an eyebrow, looking more closely at the symbols on the front. Gemini. Sagittarius.

In a flash, he realized what they were. Cautiously, he pressed his thumb along the top of the Gemini symbol, Draco's sign.

He didn't have to wait for long. After a couple of seconds, a brief warmth flickered against his wrist. The feeling was quite distinct, especially with Blaise’s amulet dormant beside it.

And then Draco's amulet bloomed to life again, settling into a steady heat this time. Theo shifted his hand so he could crush his thumb along both of them at the same time.

A moment later, Blaise's warmed too. The sensation was like pressing the side of a warm teacup to his skin. Hot, pleasant, and unbelievably comforting.

Tears coursed down his face as he bowed over his hands, keeping his hand clenched over his wrist. All the while, a thousand miles away, his friends were lightly pressing back on his side of their matching amulets, feeling as much relief as he was.

Inside of Theo, somewhere between the hag stone and his soul, the Library watched with its customary long patience, taking it all in. Thinking.

---

Theo paused outside the dining room door. He wanted to call Harry out and give him the sincere thanks he'd been working on in his head since unwrapping the package, but he could hear Harry laughing with his friends just on the other side. Uncertainty warred within him.

Theo shook his head, I can wait.

He was the last to arrive for lunch. Harry turned and smiled brightly at him, which Theo returned more mutedly. Granger was chattering his ear off, surrounded by their first-year runes textbook, a workbook, and a folded-over notebook instead of any kind of food.

"I'm telling you Harry, chapter three and chapter nine are totally redundant. It's going to make more sense if I just rearrange it for you."

"You know she's crazy, Harry," Weasley's sister said. "Just let her do it."

"It's too much work for me," Harry complained. Theo sat on Harry's other side and was grateful to have him as a wall between him and Weasley. "Don't you want to spend your time doing something fun?"

Granger looked at Harry like he'd asked if the sun revolved around the earth. "Harry, this is fun."

"See?" The Weasley girl waved a half-peeled orange in her hand at Granger, "You can't fix that level of crazy."

Theo's mouth twitched as Granger growled at her, "Ginny, you're helping me!"

"Only because you asked me to," she muttered. "I'm doing this against my will."

"Then don't help!"

Ginny rolled her eyes, seemingly unruffled by Granger's sharp tone.

"Where is everyone?" Theo asked out of the corner of his mouth.

Harry leaned his shoulder against him, and Theo felt a glow of happy surprise. He thought Harry didn't like to be touched, but maybe he thought Theo didn't like to be touched. "Mrs. Weasley went to have lunch with Mr. Weasley," he explained. "I think the twins are experimenting upstairs. And I'm not sure where Remus is. Maybe he's not here today."

Theo winked at him, drawing a delighted, curling smile that made him feel warm. "Perfect timing to sneak around the library, sounds like."

"I think there's a basement, too," Harry whispered, eyes shining with excitement. "Maybe we can go down there and poke around."

Theo smirked and set to work putting his plate together. "So, you want to learn runes?" he asked Harry.

The other boy chewed quickly to get out, "Yeah, but I didn't want to cause a fuss."

"You're not a fuss!"

Theo resisted the urge to tell Granger to calm down, knowing he may as well slit his own throat if he did. "You're tailoring the workbook for him?" he surmised.

"Yes!" Granger flipped a page and started making marks next to different exercises. "A lot of it won't make sense without a teacher. Harry wants to do it self-paced."

"It really depends on what kind of learner you are, Harry," Ginny shrugged. "I like doing the exercises on the page, but Hermione's more of a reader, so you're getting the best of both worlds here."

"I'm more hands on," Harry said uncertainly. "Maybe I won't take to it, then..."

Theo had an idea. He tore a long strip off the paper napkin and started folding it up, feeling eyes flicker to him and then go away. All the while, he slowly started to eat.

"You're taking Ancient Runes?" he asked the girl across from him, hoping to distract from Granger's extremely long-winded explanation of the role of pedagogy in the classroom.

"Yeah," she drawled, sitting back in her chair. "And arithmancy, though I'm not doing well in it at all."

He decided that she was a decent Weasley, if there was such a thing. "I think second year arithmancy is easier," he confided. "I wasn't so good my third year either."

"Really?"

He nodded and finished tucking the napkin together so it was a neat triangle in his hand, and then stood up, eyeing the chandelier. It was pretty low, but he pushed his sleeves back anyway to keep them safe, then reached up to set the napkin ablaze. "Sorry, Harry," he muttered, resting his fingertips on Harry's shoulder to stay steady as he leaned.

"What are you doing?" Black called out from the end of the table. He was sitting with his feet propped up, reading the newspaper.

"Demonstrating a lesson to my students," he called back, hoping that by trying to be funny, Black wouldn't think he was holding a grudge.

"What, um, what are you showing us?" Harry stuttered as he sat back down. Theo glanced at him, bouncing the burning napkin in his palm. Harry's face seemed rather flushed. In fact, Granger's eyes were glued to him as well.

And then Theo realized that he'd just displayed his lovely, purple-pink burn scars for everyone to see.

Refusing to betray his discomfort, he left the sleeves scrunched up and watched the napkin burn to a pile of ashes. Once that was done, he dribbled some of the water in his cup over them, making a slurry, and started to trace a rune circle on the table.

"You can learn runes practically," he explained, "some of the concepts, anyway. Once you start putting them together. They don't make a lot of sense on their own, but the books present them all singularly at first because it was written by some idiot standards board in the 1930s."

He finished writing five runes and wiped his hands. "Golgotha," he intoned.

All the candlelight in the room ebbed nearly to embers. Theo looked around, pleased to see even the hearth fire was low. Two sets of eyes stared at him from the very end of the table - Black's, and John's. They made a striking pair in the shadows.

"Whoa," Harry looked around, awestruck. "Does it do this until you stop it?"

"Just have to break the circle," he said, dashing one finger through it. The flames roared back to life, filling the room with light again. "That doesn't work for a lot of rune circles, though. This kind of thing is only good when you're learning the basics."

"See?" Granger looked smugly at Harry, "I told you that between Nott and I you'll be all caught up your OWL."

Suddenly, Weasley's dour attitude made a lot more sense to Theo.

Theo sat back and let the conversation wash over him again. Granger opened up to him a couple more times, but Theo offered only one or two words of advice. His demonstration was about all the socializing he felt he had the energy for.

Despite arriving latest, Theo finished lunch first and wanted to leave first. He forced himself to sit politely for five more minutes and then made his escape. Between a glowering red-head and the feeling of Black's eyes on him, it was impossible to endure much longer.

Theo stopped in the sitting room instead of going upstairs. I could wait for Harry here, he reasoned. He probably won't be much longer.

With nothing better to do, he sat on the same fringed armchair Dumbledore sat in and waited, but the first person to come through the room was not Harry and his friends - it was the Weasley sister.

"Hey, Nott," she greeted, swinging to a stop. "I had a question for you. Are the runes on your fingers like the ones Aud Feilan had?"

He couldn't stop his surprise from showing. Aud Feilan was a famous runemaster from the tenth century, but not part of their curriculum. Ginny smirked, "I did my final essay on her. She tattooed the name of her homeland across her fingers and could use them as a kind of proto-portkey."

Theo nodded slowly. He knew that story. "These are not like that," he waved his fingers in the air, "but that would be very cool. You know she lost feeling in her hands after doing that too many times. Her apprentices had to carve out all her creations for her."

"I know," her grin grew. "She's an inspiration. Bossing other people around. Having them do all the work while she gets all the credit. Lovely."

He cracked a smile and decided that Ginny Weasley was alright.

"Can I see yours?" She asked.

He held his hand out obligingly. Ginny moved swiftly across the room, keeping her hands behind her back as she leaned over to look at his knuckles. He could see her mouthing the runes out one by one.

"Creation...no, creator?"

"That's right. My other hand says that, too. They're mirrored." He pressed his palms together so she could see.

"That's wicked."

Her eyes slid back and forth, from him to the hallway, like she anticipated being interrupted. Theo kept his silence, waiting to hear what she had to say.

"Don't take this the wrong way," she began ominously, "but your hair...it kind of looks like Luna Lovegood's. You've seen her?"

Who hadn't seen that girl? But Theo knew immediately what she meant. He stretched back to touch the braided bun keeping his hair together. It was amazing what he could accomplish now that he had decent hair potions and a variety of ties. "It's a kind of old magic," he explained. "Braided charms. Hags like to sell them in the street, you know, as keychains and the like."

"Oh, like good luck amulets?" She raised an eyebrow, "Isn't that all bunk?"

"That kind of thing is," he shrugged. "Tantalgia is a real magic, though. It's not a cut and dry type of magic, but the vikings used it. Witches still use it today. I suppose some wizards, too, if they care about such a thing, but from what I understand it's become more of a feminine art in recent times."

"From vikings to witches, huh?"

"Both fearsome in their own right," he replied gravely.

That earned him a real smile. Ginny suddenly looked young and girlish to him, and he remembered that she was a year younger than him. She was far more mature than her brother so it was easy to forget.

"So what does that mean? Anything?"

He tried to keep his tone light so she wouldn't feel too awkward. "It's called a mourning knot," he said, wrinkling his nose at the unfortunate play on words.

"Oh." For a moment, Ginny was silent, looking off to the side with narrowed eyes, and then she suddenly burst out, "I think that's really cool, actually. That kind of magic." A determined look settled on her face, "Even if it's not cut and dry, it's still important. It's part of our culture, right?"

"Right," he agreed tentatively.

"And just because you can't learn it in a book doesn't mean it's dangerous, or bad."

Right then he knew exactly where she was going with this, and he hurried to say, "You're right of course, but some people are just set in their ways."

She sealed her lips together, glaring at the wall. He looked around the room, hoping no one else had witnessed Ginny Weasley almost have a breakthrough that so-called dark magic wasn't all that bad.

"It's really not like that, though," he said, leaning on his fist. "Tantalgia. It's not...there are books about it. Anthropologies, really, not spell books, but still..."

"Oh," she looked down, cheeks getting red. "I just assumed. You're so," she gestured at him, "you just have this way of, like...I don't know. You remind me of Luna, but more, um, rational I guess. She and her father practice a lot of the old ways."

I wonder what kind of witch Molly Weasley is, he wondered, biting back that very question. There was no way the conversation wouldn't go south if he started there. Perhaps she's even more conservative than I assumed. Maybe even the most harmless of old practices are banned in her house.

"My mother taught me a lot of old style magic," he said, using the term deliberately. "A lot of it has been forgotten. People just don't live like they used to, but she grew up in rural country, so she didn't learn most of her magic in school."

Ginny's eyes were wide with wonder. She glanced over her shoulder again, checking that they were alone before asking, "Would you maybe...put one in my hair?"

"A charm?"

"Yeah," she ducked her head shyly. "You can say no. I just want to know if it feels any different from a normal braid."

Theo had nothing better to do. "Sure. But you have to get your own -"

"Awesome!" Ginny clapped her hands and dashed away, sprinting up the stairs. "I'll get my things!"

"What have I done?" he sighed, getting up to arrange the chairs.

Ten minutes later, he was standing behind Ginny, who was perched on a tall, wooden barstool he snatched from the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on her long, fishtail braid.

She was an excellent conversationalist, in that she didn't demand much from him as the listener, and all her stories were interesting. Every single one seemed to end with her cursing someone, though, and Theo privately congratulated himself on getting on her good side so he never had to suffer the woes of a bat bogey hex.

"If you're taking arithmancy and runes, but you're not interested in law, medicine, or masteries in any of our subjects," he asked shrewdly, snapping a rubber band around the tail of her hair, "then what are you planning to do with your life?"

"Marry rich?"

He snorted, "What will you do with all your money?"

She sighed and kicked her feet to vault off the stool. "Don't repeat this," she warned, lowering her voice. "I'm interested in spellcrafting. Maybe. If I can pass arithmancy."

"Why is that a secret?" He said, confused. "It's a good career."

She looked around before whispering, "You know what happened to Luna Lovegood's mum, right?"

"Oh," he nodded solemnly. Pandora Lovegood was a mad genius when it came to spells. She'd died far too young.

"The Lovegoods are our neighbors," she explained, still whispering. "Our mum's were friends. If mine ever found out that I'm interested in spellcraft, she'd snap my wand."

The concept of parents preventing their children from following their hearts in magic was utterly foreign to him. He hoped she wasn't too put off by the blank expression on his face, because he was trying very hard not to say something unsavory about her mother.

"You're not going to let that stop you, right?" He settled on.

Ginny grinned wickedly, "Nope! What's the charm, by the way?"

"It's for confidence and assuredness," he said, giving her a once-over. "Not that you don't have both those things in spades. It seemed fitting to me when we started."

Ginny did not grin and lob back a witty retort like he expected. Her fingers feathered over the intricate braid, eyes going downcast. For a terrifying moment, he thought she might be about to cry.

"Thanks Nott," she said, with a definite wobble in her voice. "That's really nice of you to - to say. Um, how do I take care of it? Do I need to take it out after a certain time?"

"It'll usually unravel on its own after you use the charm," he said carefully, feeling like he was treading on thin ice. "But you can take it out whenever you want, it won't hurt anything. Like mine," he gestured bitterly, "this would probably stay in the rest of my life if I were to leave it."

She offered him a sad smile that cut right to his heart. He had to look away.

"Well, thank you again, Nott."

"You can call me Theo," he allowed.

She snickered, and suddenly Theo had the distinct feeling that he'd been played, and somehow she'd been angling for this result the whole time. She stuck her hand out, grinning cheekily. "Call me Ginny, then."

"Ginny," he nodded formally and shook her hand. "If you ever need me to braid your hair before going into battle, give me a shout."

"Just how dark can these charms get?" she wondered.

"Well -"

"What do you mean he's been braiding your hair?" Her brother snarled, stepping out from behind the wall where he'd been listening. His eyes widened dramatically when he saw his sister's hair looped over her shoulder. "Ginny! What are you thinking?"

"What?" she snarled back, suddenly a storm of rage. Theo resisted the urge to take a step away, remembering her stories. "I asked him to do it, Ron. Don't make it weird."

"It was not like that," Theo agreed, eager to distance himself from any accusation of impropriety. "I was just putting a charm in her hair, like mine -"

"Who gave you permission to do magic on my sister?" Weasley growled darkly, stalking into the room. His wand was out. Theo stayed where he was, but kept his eyes on the wand.

"Ron!" Ginny shouted, her voice nearing a shriek. "Put that away! Just listen to me. I asked him to do it."

"It's not harmful," Theo said, much more quietly, trying to bring the temperature down. "It's just a charm for good luck. I do them all the time for my friends."

"You are not friends with my sister," Weasley actually raised his wand this time, jabbing it at him. "She doesn't need another snake crawling around, messing with her life!"

"Ron, I can make my own choices!" Ginny gasped. She was fully crying now, angry tears coursing down her face. "Theo's nice."

There's that word again, he thought exhaustedly.

"Ginny, you know what kind of family he's from. I don't care what Harry does, if he wants to try being friends with him he can defend himself, but not you."

"Why not me!?" Ginny shouted, "What's wrong with me? Why do you think I can't take care of myself?!"

"It's not you, Gin, it's him," Weasley took a step closer to Theo. "We don't know a fucking thing about him. His father was one of the darkest, most sinister wizards I've ever read about. A murderer. You don't need to be getting close to someone who's from a family like that."

Theo bit back on several of his initial responses, which were all some variation of, you can't control your sister's life, you backwards, ignorant, old-fashioned ape.

Instead, he tried to take the heat off of poor Ginny, who was red-faced and miserable. "Don't talk about my family," he warned.

"Why shouldn't I?" Weasley's wand was still up. "When I catch you doing some kind of weird magic to my sister's hair, all alone in this room, what am I supposed to think? That you're perfectly innocent?"

"We're sitting right in front of the front door!" Ginny said harshly, pointing. "We weren't doing anything wrong. God, Ron you are impossible!"

"What's going on in there?" Black shouted on the other side of the door that lead to the kitchen. Theo look at it, confused. There was a shimmering ward up in front of it.

He slowly turned and looked at Weasley again. "Did you lock them out?"

"I want to hear it from you," the Gryffindor demanded. "Now, before Harry and Sirius come in here and you just hide behind them."

Theo's temper flared. "I'm no coward," he said testily, curling his fingers. "You want to hear it from me? Fine. Your sister asked me to braid her hair. Contrary to your binary view of the world, it's possible for a boy to braid a girl's hair platonically."

"What is the magic?" Weasley growled, sparks flying from his wand.

Theo's self-control shattered into little pieces. "It's the darkest of magic that I know," he said sarcastically, stalking forward until Weasley's wand was just inches from his throat. "I wove a web into her hair that will tie around the top of banister and hang her from it. I need to make a human sacrifice once a week to sustain my black soul."

"You're fucking cracked," Weasley curled his lip. "I don't care what kind of magic it is, honestly. Ginny, take it out!"

"FUCK YOU!" She shouted, flying past them and up the stairs. Theo could hear Harry and Granger's voices at the other door, and he was privately impressed that Weasley managed to cast such a strong locking charm.

"What's your problem with me?" He asked, staring Weasley down.

"You're the one who turned Harry towards all this dark magic, aren't you?" He said, not blinking. "It wasn't Sirius. It was always you. Harry never used to care about old magic, and now he has a familiar, and a Lord ring, and he's wielding all kinds of magic that he doesn't even know is poisonous. You did that."

Theo laughed coldly. "You sheltered little weasel. If you think magic is poison, you'll never be much of a wizard."

"I'll be a better wizard than you," Weasley promised, threat heavy in his voice. "You don't stand much of a chance at this rate."

"You're the one raised by a pair of blood traitors," Theo whispered murderously, blood running hot in his veins. "It's no surprise you hate our culture. I feel sorry for you, honestly."

Weasley's face went bright red, "At least I wasn't raised by a monster," he sneered. "My father didn't have to kidnap my mother and rape her until she gave him a living heir."

The doors banged open, both at the same time. Black was cursing up a storm. Harry and Granger rushed into sight, both of them shouting but Theo didn't move a muscle. All the sounds were merely white noise behind the crackling, white-hot rage screaming in his ears.

"What did you say?" he said evenly.

Weasley's wand started trembling. Vaguely, Theo realized that there was a second ward surrounding them now. Black and sparking, a bubble closing them off from the rest of the room. He sensed that this was his magic this time.

"You - you heard me." Weasley's face rapidly drained of color, but he still held fast. "It's all over the paper. Your poor - poor mother came out of nowhere. He...he needed an heir, and then you came along and..."

Theo nodded slowly. His skin felt very, very hot. "Go on..."

Weasley gulped. "And then, she...died. Sick. When you went to Hogwarts. Didn't need her anymore, right? So...what...what am I supposed to think you are? That you just escaped and came out fine, being raised by someone like that?"

Theo's mind went to two places. Distantly, in the back of his head, he could see father bowed next to mother's sick bed in what used to be her painting studio. It was the one and only time in his entire life he witnessed his father crying. He remembered the sad, loving smile on her face as she carded her hand through his hair.

In the other place in his mind's eye, he was imagining how good it would feel to strike Weasley down until he was begging for forgiveness at his feet.

But he had no wand. No ring. So Theo settled on the next best thing and sucker punched Weasley as hard as he could, cracking his teeth together.

The black shield that had formed around them vanished in a plume of smoke, blinding everyone but him and Weasley. The other boy's wand went clattering to the side, but surprisingly he held his feet, and Theo was a little too slow flinch out of the way of his retaliatory strike.

He wheezed but grabbed Weasley's arm, using his momentum to turn and send him crashing into the heavy tea table. Weasley shouted in pain and hooked his long leg around Theo's knee, pulling him down with him.

They wrestled. Theo managed to snap Weasley's nose with a well-placed elbow, but Weasley was using his height and heft to his advantage, wailing on Theo's side and stomach with a closed fist.

"STOP!"

Magic hooked around them and pulled them apart. Black jumped in between them, panting. "You, too! Don't make this worse!" he shouted, pointing behind the couch at who Theo could only assume was Harry and Granger. "Merlin's pants! What are you two doing?!"

"He was doing dark magic on Ginny!" Weasley groaned, holding his face. Blood poured down his chin, staining his sweater.

Theo didn't bother defending himself, because more people were filling the room. The twins thundered down the stairs at the same time that Mrs. Weasley was rushing through the door behind Black, still wearing her traveling cloak.

"He was not!" Ginny defended, following her older brothers. "George, please talk some sense into him!"

"Not possible, sis," her brother drawled, hooking his arm over her shoulders. "Ron's already lying in the bed he made."

"Ronald Weasley," his mother breathed, face white. "What have you done?"

"His mum taught him how to do it, it's not evil magic!" Ginny yelled from the stairs. "Your head is so far up your -"

"Ginny!" Her mother barked, "enough!"

"I think all the spectators need to go," Black demanded, dark eyes glaring at the stairs.

"I quite agree," Mrs. Weasley growled. "Go to your rooms. All of you."

"He was defending his murdering, Death Eater father," Weasley spluttered, drawing Theo's gaze again. "You must have hated your mother, too, if you hit me just because -"

Theo was on his feet in an instant, all his aches and pains forgotten. He pointed dangerously at the boy on the floor. "Do not speak of my mother again," he said harshly, feeling his magic whipping around him. "My parents loved each other. My father was a dark and dangerous wizard who would have skinned you alive for disrespecting him, and my mother would have laughed and salted your bones while you lay screaming on the floor. If you insult them to my face again, I will show you the magic she taught me, and it will be the last thing you ever see."

Weasley's hand fumbled, looking for his lost wand, and Theo had the sudden urge to find it and snap it himself. Weasley coughed and opened his mouth to say something else, but nothing came out.

"That's enough, I said," Mrs. Weasley said sharply. "Kids, go upstairs! GO!"

"You too, Harry." Black's voice was very close, just behind his shoulder. "Come on, Theo," he said, lightly guiding him with the back of his hand out of the half-destroyed sitting room.

Theo kept his head up, but his vision was cloudy. He barely even reacted when Black performed a stunning bit of magic by opening what should have been the kitchen door, and instead leading him straight into Regulus Black's bedroom.

"Just sit down, I'll get you some ice..."

He could hardly listen. The room felt overwhelmingly bright. The spots of pain on his torso were becoming thumping aches, getting sharper with every jackhammering beat of his heart.

"Theo?"

He pressed his fingers against his collar, trying to catch his breath, but he could barely even think, much less remember how to breathe.

Then came the dizzying sensation of hands on his shoulders, of somehow crumbling to his knees on the floor. He moved back until he hit a wall and leaned against it, closing his eyes, trying so hard to force his lungs to act like he wanted them to.

"...calming draught?"

"Can't," he managed to pant. "Bella...donna...in my potion..."

He and Pomfrey already had this discussion yesterday. Was it yesterday? Some days ago. The last time he nearly collapsed.

"Going to be alright..."

Theo bowed his head, abruptly struck by an intense, stinging shame. His father would be so ashamed to see him now. Reduced to this. Panic attacks and crying fits and sleepless nights, longing for attention, unable to stand on his own for more than a few hours at a time, unable to even claim a wand. Theo pulled at his collar, desperate for air, desperate for something solid to hold on to.

Hands. There were hands on him, trying to pry his fingers from his hair.

"You'll hurt yourself," he heard Black say.

"I don't know you, I don't know you," he repeated, over and over again, pushing him away. "Leave me alone. I'm fine. I'm fine. I need to be alone. I need to be alone, please."

Except he didn't really want that, but the thought of Black here, this confusingly kind and direct and very powerful wizard who Theo did not quite trust, being anywhere close to him right now was unbearable.

"Okay," Black breathed, backing away. "Okay. Just don't...I mean...just take deep breaths."

Theo covered his ears and buried his face in his knees until he heard the door close.

He didn't know how long it was when he heard the sound of nails clicking on the floor. Maybe just a few minutes, but judging by the soreness in his neck, it was much longer than that. Blearily, he peeked out over his knee and saw a large, shaggy dog laying flat on its belly just in front of him. It had its long muzzle tucked between its paws, and it peered up at him with baleful eyes.

"Becks?" he asked, raising his head. It took a few blinks for the room to come into focus. He still didn't feel quite anchored, but he had managed to regain control of his breath. The only problem was, his body was crawling with nervous energy, so despite his best effort he could only manage shallow, choppy inhales and exhales.

"This must be a hallucination," he stuttered, reaching out a hand. The dog crawled forward and cautiously touched its cold, black nose to his fingertips. Theo blinked. It was real.

He slid his legs out flat, utterly baffled by the appearance of a dog that looked very much like Beckett. But not the same, he realized. The dog stood up, its tail swinging back and forth and sat right next to him. This dog was shorter than Becks, had far more fluff and meat on its bones than his father's skinny wolfhound.

Theo raised his hand and scratched the dog's wide chest, relishing how soft its fur was underneath the wiry, outer coat. He was warm, too, far warmer than Theo.

He knew there was something more at play here. In the back of his mind, he started running through the many possibilities, conjuration, animagus, transfiguration, maybe even John... But he was too wrung out to think long about it. Instead he rested against the dog's shoulder and closed his eyes. The dog put its chin on top of his head, letting out a deep sigh.

Theo was feeling immensely better when Harry finally knocked on the door.

"Come in," he called out, focusing on combing his fingers through some tangles around the dog's ears. They had shifted so he was resting his big head across Theo's legs. He couldn't remember the last time he got to sit with a dog like this. It was probably when Becks was alive, really, and something about it was wonderful and precious and he did not want it to end.

"Hey Theo," Harry said, pacing into the room uncertainly. John was at his feet, and he stopped with a paw raised, looking at the dog in surprise. "Er, hey...Snuffles."

"Is that what you're calling him?" Theo said, unable to keep the judgement out of his voice. "What a terrible name."

Harry huffed and took a seat on the other side of Theo, leaning forward to scratch the top of the dog's head. "What would you call him?"

That was a good question. Theo considered for a moment and came up at a loss. "My...father named all his dogs after playwrights," he said, hesitantly. "I guess I could do poets."

There was a very delicate sensation in his chest, like he was holding tissue paper taut between his hands. Theo did not know what Harry had read about his family in the paper, but he also didn't need to wonder what Harry likely thought of his father. He was a Death Eater, after all. He had almost no redeeming qualities. But where Draco and Blaise would at least have the manners to never say just how terrible a man he was, Harry might not see it that way. He could live in the same, more black and white world as Weasley, at least when it came to people like Theo's father.

He's going to wonder why I would ever want to take after him, he thought, preemptively bracing for it. He's going to ask me if I really defended my father's honor downstairs. What if I can't explain it to him? What if he agrees with Weasley?

"What were their names?" Harry asked.

Theo let out a shaky breath. "Beckett was the only one I met," he said. "We called her Becks. She was named after Samuel Beckett. And before that he had, um, Milty -"

"Milty?" Harry repeated incredulously.

"After John Milton," Theo smiled, still looking down at the dog.

"Of course, who wouldn't know Milty from that?" Harry muttered.

He laughed and continued, "Then there was the brother and sister, before him, Shaw and Barrett." He paused, "Actually, I think Barrett was named after a poet."

Harry slid closer so they were pressed together. "So what would you name him?"

"I don't know," Theo admitted, feeling dumb. "I can't think of any of my favorite poets, except for all the depressing ones. And a dog should have a cheerful name."

Harry let out a ragged sigh and did something wholly unexpected - he slid his arm over Theo's shoulders and gave him an awkward half-hug. "I'm so sorry, Theo," he murmured, pain evident in his voice. "That never should have happened."

For a second he couldn't speak. "I should just get used to it," he said stonily. "It's going to be like that all the time now. He said he read that...filthy lie about my parents in the paper. I'm sure it's a distant cousin, a relation of one of my uncle's wives. Just about everyone hated him after what he did to them."

"It doesn't matter," Harry said fiercely. "I told him not to say a thing about your family. He should have kept his mouth shut. He shouldn't even read that stuff. I think Mrs. Weasley was most furious about that. She summoned every newspaper in the house."

The dog whined on Theo's lap and Harry nodded as if he could understand it. "Yeah, even the one you were reading. It was a muggle paper, too."

Theo suddenly felt very, very stupid. He looked down at the dog, noting the silvery hairs, especially around its head and neck, and then saw its outstretched paws. One was missing a toe.

"This is your godfather," he said. "Oh."

"You didn't know that?"

"I didn't...really want to know, I think," he reasoned slowly. After a second he said, "Snuffles is a really stupid name, I hope you didn't choose it yourself."

The dog thumped its tail on the ground a few times, as if to say, you know I did.

"This makes so much sense now," Theo groaned, tipping his head back against the wall. "What an idiot I am. It's a wonder you didn't transform into a dog right away when I told you they were my favorite animal."

The dog let out another whine and flipped over so he was laying on his side, his long spine pressed all the way against Theo's right leg. Harry laughed and leaned over him to scratch the dog's side.

All at once, Theo felt totally exhausted. Harry was warm next to him. Sirius Black could not be stopped in his quest to try and cheer him up, to the extent that he had revealed his animagus form, and so far neither of them had taken him to task for brawling Weasley in the middle of the sitting room. A well of emotion made his hands start to shake. 

He leaned on Harry, recalling the Library's words. Harry twisted a little until Theo was more or less cuddling into him. It was a very nice feeling and, he realized dimly, the first time someone had hugged him close since that incredibly awkward day when Snape had showed him Narcissa, Draco, and Blaise through the mirror.

Harry put his other arm across them, netting Theo in, and swept his thumb up and down the back of his arm. "I really wish I could just take you to Italy," Harry said quietly. "I know what it's like to be...somewhere you don't want to be, and...grieving. It's the worst feeling ever."

It's not that bad. I can endure it, he thought.

"Harry, I wouldn't be making it at all without you," he said instead, touching the bracelet on his wrist. It only took a moment for the gold plates to warm against his skin. "You already tried to bring my friends to me, by writing them. I really...I don't even know how to begin to thank you for that."

"But it's not the same," Harry sighed. "I know we only have to wait a few more days."

"Like, three," Theo said dryly.

"But we don't even know if you're going to leave right away. That's just as soon as she'll get here, right?" That question he directed to the dog, who flicked his ear in answer. "I should have told them the address, honestly. Well, as much of it as I could," Harry rested his cheek along Theo's head, squeezing a little tighter. "I bet Zabini would find a way to get here."

Theo laughed, unexpectedly cheered by the idea of Blaise and Draco planning a way to get to London after receiving a cryptic note from the mysterious Kingfisher. "I wish you did too," he joked. "It'd be nice not to be so outnumbered."

"And they know you," Harry pointed out. "They could watch out for you. They could scare Ron off from saying more idiotic things that I am going to boil him for saying, by the way..."

"They'll never take their eyes off me again, probably," Theo agreed, giving in to the urge to lean a little more on Harry. "The three of us are like our own little trio."

"Would you call it the Silvery Trio?" Harry teased, though his voice seemed to be getting farther away as Theo rapidly sank into sleep.

"Stupid name," he muttered, "and what about you? Won't be a trio anymore..."

And then he was out.

Harry held him up for a minute or two, more stressed than he'd ever felt in his life to be holding a sleeping Theodore Nott in his actual arms, worried that he was going to wake him up from the force of his anxiety.

Luckily, Sirius saved the day. He heaved himself up and padded away, giving himself a good shake before transforming into his human self. "Hold still," he said, sweeping his wand over Theo. He floated him over to the bed and closed the curtain that faced the window. Harry slowly got to his feet, wincing as pins and needles went through his shoulder where Theo was leaning.

"He is magically exhausted," Sirius muttered, and Harry could clearly hear the again hidden in his voice. "Not so bad this time, but...I wish I knew what was causing this."

"You mean like yesterday?" Harry asked.

"Were you eavesdropping?" Sirius said sharply, frowning at him.

"John told me he was, he said he could just tell. I wouldn't snoop."

Sirius rubbed his face, "Well, yes. Like yesterday. Though after that display downstairs, I guess I'm not surprised." He crossed his arms, deep in thought. "Pup...I think I'm going to try and get Narcissa to come here sooner. Tomorrow if I can."

Harry nearly melted with relief, "Really?"

"Yeah, you were right." Sirius smiled at him, "You were right all along. Bringing him here was probably a mistake, though it may not have been much better at the apartment. We should have tried to move him to Europe instead."

"Maybe if he can even just see her for a short time, that would help?" Harry suggested, thinking back on the terrible look on Theo's face when he was listening to Ron repeat the story from the Prophet. It was like all trace of who Harry knew was gone, leaving a frightening, dangerous stranger in his place.

But also, Harry could not help feeling awed by him. The perfect control he wielded over his anger. The smoking black shield preventing them from getting to him and Ron. Even the way he threatened Ron at the end, when he finally slipped and raised his voice. It made Harry's heart pound. He was both afraid and enraptured by it. He wondered if Hermione thought Harry looked like that when he was angry, and if so, it suddenly didn't seem so bad.

Sirius scratched his fingers through his hair. "I'm going to go firecall Snape, I guess, yuck. Anything for my ward, though, that's my motto..."

"Hey, Sirius?" Harry did not hesitate, this time. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his godfather, squeezing him tightly. "Thank you. You're really amazing at this."

"That friend of yours is going to punch me in the face for pretending to be his dad's dead dog," Sirius whispered, hugging him back fiercely. "But I can take it."

"You're wrong," Harry assured him, smiling. "I bet you he calls you Sirius from now on."

"Bet."

They hugged for a moment longer, and then Sirius broke off to make good on his word. Theo continued to sleep deeply. Harry took up residence in the reading nook, with John hopping up to sit next to the window.

And a thousand miles away, the Library's SOS signal finally hit home.

Draco jumped up out of his seat, overturning the ink bottle he'd just dipped his quill into and soaking the desk in black ink.

He gasped for air, clenching his shirt with one hand as a wave of pure panic overwhelmed him.

"Draco!" Blaise shouted, tumbling into his room through the adjoining door. "I think..."

He turned to see Blaise in a similar position, panting like he'd sprinted a hundred meters. At the exact same time they said, "Theo's in trouble!"

Draco licked his lips. Swallowed. The panic was starting to ebb away, leaving behind a thready fog of impending danger. And then, underneath it all, an image played in his mind. A street. Muggle electrical poles strung over trees. Cars. London.

"I think I know where he is," he murmured, pressing his hand to his heart.

"Grimmauld...something?" Blaise ground out, rubbing his temples.

"Grimmauld Place," Draco nodded. They looked at each other again, eyes wide. "What is happening, Blaise?" he demanded, hoping that his friend would have the answer.

Blaise looked at him closely. Draco could see his mind working a mile a minute, and then suddenly he turned around and went back into his room. Draco staggered over to the window, shoving it open to get some air.

Blaise came back with two vials of calming draughts. Draco downed his immediately, but Blaise, though he was sweating and pale, did not.

"You know what this means, right?" he said lowly.

Draco shook his head, though in his heart of hearts, he knew the answer. Theo was in trouble. Theo might be in danger. And they knew where he was.

"We could try and get ahold of my mother."

Blaise rubbed his sternum, wincing. After a moment's pause he said, "Too slow. And what if she can't go yet?"

The potion was doing wonders for him, but it could not fully clear the lingering sense of doom. "What then?" Draco whispered, glaring at Blaise. "I can't think of anything but the obvious, but we can't go. It's simply impossible! We can't get a portkey ourselves! We can't use magic in England at all." And the Dark Lord is looking for me.

Blaise nodded, not breaking eye contact. Draco felt his nerves beginning to overwhelm the potion.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he hissed.

"Because I can get you to London in a few hours. No magic required. But, you have to go alone," Blaise leaned in close so their voices could not carry out the window. "Can you do that Draco?"

His temper raged to the surface, stoked by an already wounded pride. "Of course I can!" He snarled, "I'm not defenseless! I don't need you at my side every minute of the day."

They both did not acknowledge that he had needed exactly that since the day Draco came to stay with the Zabinis. He couldn't even sleep alone the first few nights.

"I can do it," he repeated, jutting his chin out. "Theo would do it. I can do it."

Blaise let out a shaky breath and uncorked the vial. "Take this, too," he said. Draco didn't even hesitate. "Good," Blaise closed his eyes for a moment, "good, good. You're going to need it."

"How am I going to get there?" He asked, falling into a cool, calm fog.

"You're going to fly. On a muggle aeroplane."

And as he spoke, one of the great beasts roared across the sky, thousands and thousands of feet in the air. Draco craned his head out the window, watching the glinting body of that metal contraption jet through the clouds, so fast yet, seemingly, so slow.

"What."

"I'll teach you, Draco," Blaise assured him, trying to pull him into the room. "We'll practice. Then I'll get you on a red-eye for -"

"What."

"Just trust me!"

Draco closed his eyes and let Blaise bully him around the room. Even two-draughts deep, he could still feel it, a string connecting him to Theo, far, far away in London. The feeling that something was terribly wrong.

I can do this, he told himself, even as Blaise began arranging chairs in oddly-staggered rows down the middle of the room. I will do this. He must need me. He must.

Back in London, the Library settled down, sorrowful for taking so much magic from its gift. It leaned in and kissed his temple, as it saw his mother used to do.

The Library was very good at reading, but reading and talking were two very different things. It was still learning to listen to human speech, as speaking was not something it had considered important before, if the words were not coming from the mouth of its protector. But the Library had changed. It was no longer safe. Theo was no longer safe.

I must create a new foundation, it thought. A new kind of foundation...

---

Bill 

Deep inside the Wundering Wood, Bill Weasley stalked silently down that path that would take him to Eleanor Travers' front door.

Bright spotlights of sun cut through the foliage, splitting dew into fractals of tiny rainbows that glimmered like fairy dust between ancient, ominous trees. Pixies swooped down to gather handfuls of the cool water in their thin arms and fluttered back up to where their young waited thirstily, sharp mouths upturned like baby birds.

For the first time in many days, Bill was certain he was doing the right thing.

Far and away from the Wood, Theodore Nott was about to be spirited to Gringotts and trigger a series of events not even Albus Dumbledore could predict, but Bill didn't know that. Bill only knew that Theodore Nott was safe under the Fidelius Charm. He knew that he had a bare few days to act before the news broke. Despite what Albus said, despite the hostility of this forest toward the outside world, Bill knew that Eleanor would not be left in the dark for long.

Doubts ran through his mind, countered only by the thinnest assumptions he hoped were still true. Hopefully, Eleanor had no idea the boy was alive. Hopefully, Charlie believed the note he left behind, blaming his absence on an unexpected work trip. Hopefully, Albus did not arrange a search party to come after him.

Bill carried no bags. He wore a thick, muggle-style jacket with numerous pockets charmed featherlight. If not for that he would be weighed down by the heavy tools of his trade: diamond-tipped styluses as long as his forearm, an iron mallet, three canisters of liquified iron, and lastly, the linchpin, a heavy platinum staff strapped across his back.

The work was hard, and he sweated profusely despite the wet cold of the forest. Bill had been working since dawn to find the last grounding stone to carve the final sigil, and now, finally, there was just one last step to take.

He ran through the calculations in his mind. Half a breath. That's all the time I'll have to apparate. And apparition it would have to be, for a portkey was too slow. The vault he was building in the woods needed him inside to seal properly. At Gringotts, this was always done in teams of two. Someone needed to open the door, after all, but Bill had done the math. He could do it on his own, if he was fast enough.

Once he placed the linchpin in the center of Eleanor's property, it would all become a matter of timing. The six sigils needed roughly seven minutes to connect to each other. And even then, the linchpin would not seal without his word. As soon as he gave the command, Bill would have one chance to escape before the staff hammered down into the earth, closing Eleanor's home off from the rest of the world.

The twisted, scarred trees that marked the edges of her property caught a whipping wind and began to creak. Their desiccated old limbs sounded like bones snapping underfoot. Leaves swirled and fell, and he shivered.

It was always autumn in Eleanor's corner of the Wood. Bill had been visiting her for months, now, and it never changed. The trail he was following twisted around a particularly wide tree, half obliterated by either an old fire or a bolt of lightning, and Bill stopped. Eleanor's house was just around the corner.

He looked at his watch, not for the time, but for comfort. His parents gave it to him on the day he graduated from Hogwarts. It was more than symbol of their pride - it was their acceptance of who he was. A watch fit for an adventurer, his dad said. Take it with you all over the world. For the first time since the destruction of Nott Tower, the compass built into the face actually worked, pointing him to where he needed to go.

This is the right thing to do, he assured himself, briefly covering the watch with his hand. Terror seized his body, and for a moment Bill felt it was impossible to move another step. Fuck.

He was scared. He was so scared he was never going to make it out of these woods. Bill had felt terror before. His career was both glamorous and gruesome. The fact that he was not yet permanently cursed or disfigured was a testament to his skill. If he could get in and out of the deadliest, ancient Egyptian vaults, then he could do this.

I can do this, he repeated, banishing the fear. No one else can do it. I have to trap her. I have to keep her from killing Nott.

He peeked around the corner, looking at the clearing in front of her small stone house. Empty. He took a few steps forward so he could see the much larger greenhouse, sitting directly in the line of sunlight coming over the tops of the trees. Still no sign of life.

Bill ducked under the ivy-coated archway that marked the entrance of her property and headed for the center, watching his compass all the while. He wasn't worried about Eleanor sensing him because her home was unwarded. It had disturbed him to no end every time he visited her out here, but after seeing what she was capable of he understood. She didn't need wards. Her presence was ward enough.

The compass began to yank side to side as he approached the center of her yard. When it started to spin, Bill made a little furrow in the dirt before moving silently alongside the house. He needed to be sure Eleanor was home.

A high, whiny cry that made his ears ring came from the greenhouse. "Shush, my babies..."

Eleanor was here. Pruning mandrakes, by the sound of it.

He hurried back to the divot in the ground and carefully placed the staff on top of it. With his other hand, he took the last jar of liquid iron from his pocket and poured it into the hole at the top. The staff warmed in his hand. Bill hastily let go and watched it hover there in the air, suspended by the energy of all six sigils surrounding them deep in the woods.

When the iron began to thread a superheated wire straight up into the sky, he felt the thrill of triumph.

"Perfect," he breathed.

No way out but through, he thought, turning towards the greenhouse. If Eleanor came out before all the iron threads had a chance to come together, it would take a simple blasting spell to destroy his hard work.

Still, he couldn't help but feel a little hope. Maybe this was always what he was meant to do. After all, who else could build a trap like this? Who else could hope to contain a witch like Eleanor Travers? Maybe that terrible day at Nott Tower was all leading up to this moment.

How many evil-hearted wixen are out there? He thought exhaustedly. How many do I have to fight before this is over?

He crouched down outside the greenhouse door, which was propped open by a heavy clay pot. The windows were coated in layers upon layers of green algae, lichen, and vines of indeterminate origin, so he could not see inside. Eleanor let out a wet, hacking cough. He glanced behind. The iron wire was nearing the top of the trees. Still minutes to go.

"-hear it from me, first."

Bill's heart stopped. There was someone else inside her greenhouse.

“Fine day for news like this,” Eleanor said grouchily. He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a small mirror, no bigger than three of his fingers together. He floated it through the door, tilting side to side until he could see her in the reflection. She was pulling a dead mandrake out of a long raised bed. “Today’s a day for pruning blights from the garden.”

“Eleanor, it doesn't have to come to that.”

Sparks showered over the garden bed, making the witch hiss and rub her hands. “Calm down, old man,” she snarled, “you’re burning up my babies.”

“Do you understand what I am saying, Eleanor?”

Bill’s hands trembled as he slowly tipped the mirror up to see Albus Dumbledore’s face in the flames of a glass lantern hanging off the wall.

“The little worm can’t be killed under your care, I get it. Not to worry, I'm a patient woman.” She bared her teeth in the mockery of a smile.

“He does not need to be killed at all,” Albus said curtly, “he needs a gentle hand. If you help me crystallize the story he already believes in his mind, we may be able to access the Library for ourselves one day.”

“One day,” she scoffed, raking a trowel under another wilted plant and pulling up pieces of rotten mandrake. “One day means nothing to me. That Library is gone, Albus. I made sure of it.”

“Then how did he survive?”

“Miracles and magic are one and the same,” the witch dropped the mandrake into a lopsided bucket. “How did your rising star survive the killing curse? Same concept.”

“I implore you to consider this opportunity, Eleanor,” Albus sighed. “The legend of that Library has persisted for centuries, survived countless total losses, been burned, been buried, been torn apart, and yet it endures. This is our chance to gain control of an ancient fountain of knowledge, to use it for good. You know what Voldemort was capable of with Magnus at his side. Imagine what we could do with those resources. This is could be your chance to save her, Eleanor.”

Eleanor went quiet, staring dangerously into the flames. “Do not try to tempt me with what I want the most, Albus.”

“But you still have hope,” the man pointed out. “As do I. Through Harry, we might-“

“You manipulate your children as you please and leave me out of it,” she interrupted, moving down the line and floating the lantern with her. Acting on instinct, Bill soundlessly slipped into the greenhouse, ducking behind the next row of raised beds.

“It is not manipulation,” Albus disagreed, sounding a bit offended. “Harry is growing into an honorable and kind young man. Theodore Nott could open up to him. Based on what I've seen, I think they may already be friends. And Harry is not easily swayed, so I think it is far more likely that Theodore will take to his side of things. If Theodore realizes that Harry's life is at stake, and that he may have access to the knowledge we need to save him, then -”

“If you think your little golden calf is going to cleanse the soul of Theodore Nott, you have another thing coming. That bone-breaker curse he hit me with would have killed me if I didn't take precautions.” Another mandrake thunked loudly in the bucket. “He is a starving animal that will snap at your hand. I took everything from him, and when he remembers-“

“If he remembers.”

“He will set into motion that cycle of revenge and murder you and I know so well, mark my words. And I am an old woman, so who is to say he won’t come out on top?” She let out another hacking cough, “You should be most concerned for that Weasley boy. He's a lamb. When Nott comes to slaughter him, he'll stand there and take it."

“Leave Bill alone,” Albus said darkly. “If you see him, send him safely on his way, Eleanor. He is a good man who doesn't deserve to be caught between you and I.”

“Yes, yes,” she sneered, snorting in the back of her throat and spitting in the bucket. “You sent a good man with me to do a bad deed. Why? Did you think I might be redeemed?”

“I thought you would control yourself in the presence of another,” Albus said coldly, “but I was wrong.”

“Oh, I very much controlled myself, thank you Albus. You would not want to see me out of control.”

Bill shivered. The truth was a poison to his body, paralyzing him. Albus told her. He told her Theodore Nott is alive, even though he knows how dangerous she is. What is he thinking?

The quiet stretched a beat too long. Bill looked up fearfully, wondering if he’d been seen, but then Albus let out a short sigh. “You are barred from Hogwarts, Eleanor Travers. You cannot harm him here, and you cannot find him now. I urge you to leave Theodore Nott in my care. If you truly do not believe the Library exists and that it cannot help your quest, then killing him will do nothing but blacken your soul.”

“My soul, my soul!" She laughed, "Now he worries for my soul? Never mind about that, Albus, let's make a deal instead." A deal, Bill clung to a small spark of hope, that's right, Albus said he was going to strike a deal with her. Maybe this is what he was aiming for.

"I want you to promise me Theodore Nott's life," she said. "When the day comes that you no longer need him to save your little...hero, promise to let me have him. If you do that, I will leave him be. For now."

Sweat trickled off his nose and dropped on his jeans. Albus didn't respond right away.

"You and I both know the books in that Library didn't end up there because they contain the good kind of magic, Albus," Eleanor pushed, her voice thick with knowing amusement. "Magnus Nott lorded over a wealth of secrets that were destined to be burned out of existence. If you still believe it to be real, you know what must be done in the end. Get what you want out of it, but let me finish burning the rest."

“I am no wilting flower, Eleanor,” Albus finally said. “I have already endured the consequences of letting a powerfully corrupt child grow and carve a path through our world. I do not want to make the same mistakes over and over again. If he were anything like his half-siblings, or his father, then I would let you have your way. But you have misjudged him. He can be changed. I am only asking you to give him time. He’s too young.”

“The lost soul you want to save is nothing but a weed disguised as a flower," she laughed. "But what am I saying? You've never been able to make the hard decisions. That's why I'm asking you to let me decide. Try, try, try to rescue your little hero," she started to sing, "and when the fairy tale ends, leave reality to me."

“I would prefer to see no more unnecessary deaths,” Albus said tiredly.

“I would prefer to see threats neutralized before they have time to mature. It seems we are set at odds, Albus.”

“Give me a year. And then-”

“A year? A year to prepare? A year to twist out of my grasp? No, Albus, now, while I have your attention. Promise me Nott's life or else I will do what I want.”

“Do not become my enemy, Eleanor. My power is great."

“Do not become my enemy,” she growled. “Never mind, you old goat. Go ahead and protect him as best you can. I always wanted to test my magic against yours.”

“If I can prove that the Library exists, will you consider sparing him?”

“If you bring me panacea, I will sit at your feet and bark like a dog."

“Alice would not want this,” Albus tried, a note of desperation in his voice.

“Alice would have burned down a hundred houses for her child!” Eleanor shouted. Glass shattered, and he felt a wave of heat woosh overhead. Carefully, Bill turned on his toes and edged back to the end of the table. He used the mirror and saw that her back was turned. The lantern was broken. The tops of the mandrakes began to burn. A chorus of whimpering cries started to wail out of the soil. “I will do what I want!” She screeched over them, “I will slaughter a thousand children to save my daughter’s life if that is what it takes, you heartless, manipulative, bastard WARLOCK!”

Bill scrabbled out the door as she destroyed more of the greenhouse, screaming all the while. He stumbled over the ancient roots carpeting her garden and darted for the linchpin. Way up in the sky he could see the glint of six other other iron threads approaching the middle. He had a minute left. Maybe two.

For a second, Bill considered fleeing. He looked desperately from the linchpin to the greenhouse, listening to her rage inside.

I should just run, he thought. This is too slow. She's too dangerous. She could come out at any moment. This was foolish. A foolish plan by a fool wizard.

And yet. And yet. This could be his one and only chance to trap her. If he didn't do it now, Nott was dead. And not only Nott - what if Albus was right? What if Harry, who apparently was at risk of dying in the near future, could only be saved by some secret in the Nott Library? And what about the Death Eaters? What about Voldemort? Maybe, if Nott could be flipped, they could use the magic in that Library to their advantage and win this war without as many losses.

Ignoring the screaming of his instincts telling him to flee, Bill started layering the strongest invisibility spell he knew over the staff. What was the alternative to trapping Eleanor? Bring a team of aurors into this deep, unsettled forest and watch them all get slaughtered? Ruin Albus Dumbledore's legacy for the Wizarding World by confessing what Bill did? Risk never catching her?

He cast more charms around himself, layering them on top of the silencing and notice-me-not charms he was already wrapped up in. Then, as invisible as he could be, he walked until his back was up against a young oak tree growing in her yard. From here, he could see both the entrance to the greenhouse and the clear sky up above.

Eleanor went quiet. He held his breath.

When she stumbled out of the greenhouse, she lugged the bucket with her, muttering and cursing all the while. She stopped at the jagged fence with her bucket hefted on her shoulder. He glanced up again. The iron threads were nearly joined.

Wind tore at the tops of the trees. Nearly there, he urged. Come on.

Eleanor's head tipped up. Turned. Looked across the open lawn toward the invisible staff. Bill clenched his wand so tight a tendon popped in his wrist.

"Dispergat!" she cried, flinging the bucket. A hail of rotten mandrakes flew from it in a wide arc. Bill didn't stick around long enough to watch a gnarled limb hit the staff. He was already twisting in place, picturing his flat, thinking -

His ankle crunched and popped out of its socket as the sole of his foot remained firmly on the ground. He swallowed back a shriek of pain, untwisting with a flinch. There was a vine wrapped around his boot. As he watched, it began to climb up his broken ankle and snare around his knee.

“My, my, my...” His wand jerked out of his grip, sending the cutting curse he'd' just cast into the soil. “Did you really think that would work?” Eleanor kicked the useless staff into a knot of blackberries and advanced on him. The vines grabbed his waist and split in two, working down to the other foot while also wrapping around his middle.

She waved his own wand and he felt the charms on his skin vanish. “I need no wards because I have spies all around my house, telling me what they see. Listen,” she brushed her white hair back, exposing a scarred ear. The wind was back, tearing at the branches of the trees. "My forest of bone trees were so eager to tell me about you. I suppose I'll have to set one free."

“Are you going to kill me?” he wheezed as the vines snarled up his middle.

“You and Albus are so concerned with killing,” the hedge witch complained. “You are far more useful to me alive. Even that boy is worth more to me alive, though I hate to admit it. Albus said so himself. Imagine what I could do with the magic in that Library.”

“You - said - you -“ he choked as a particularly tight vine crossed over his trachea. Eleanor scratched her nails along the plant and it loosened a little. “You said you didn’t care if it was real," he spat. "You said you were going to kill him anyway!”

“I lied,” she grinned. “Albus thinks he is the only master general around here. He forgets that I was in the war, too. Spying for the Ministry, on his precious Grindelwald. Oh, yes, you didn't know that, did you? I was quite the foot soldier back in my day. He didn't have much patience for my style of magic, until I showed him what it could do..." She reached into her shawl and withdrew an acorn, cracking the top off with her thumb.

"Albus thinks too small. He wants to play the long game, as always. And you know, I believe him - that he wants peace. No more deaths. All that...greater good nonsense." She made a face, "His plan would probably work in the end. You see how he is, surely? He can make just about anyone do what he wants.”

“He’s trying to win a war!” Bill defended weakly. “He’s - he’s trying to make our world a better place, and save as many people as possible!”

"The lofty dreams of Albus Dumbledore," Eleanor sighed, her pale green eyes roving all over his face, studying his every move. "Who cares about the greater good, Bill? I am trying to save the life of someone that I love. Just one person. Wouldn’t you rather help me?”

“I’d rather die than help you!” he bucked ineffectively against the vines. “You’re a killer! No better than the Death Eaters!”

“You’d rather die?” she repeated, eyebrows arching high. “You think you mean that? Let's find out."

Eleanor pressed the seed against his lips. Even though Bill gritted his teeth, the vines wrapped around his chin and forced his jaw to crack open, just enough for her to slip it on his tongue. She reached up and pinched his nose until he swallowed. It scratched his throat on the way down, drawing helpless, angry tears to his eyes.

“Now you have a choice, William Weasley," her eyes began to shine pearlescent, glowing out of the shadows of her face. “If you betray me, or attempt to admit the truth of what we did together, this seed I planted in you will sprout." She pressed her hand against his stomach. "It will grow roots through your bloodstream, wrap around your brain stem, and force you to walk all the way to the edge of my property, where it will root you down amongst my pretty little sentries. Your bones will splinter into branches, your skin toughen into bark, your hair become beautiful red leaves." She carded her other hand through his hair. "You will be with me forever and ever, my happy little bone tree, until the day I grant you mercy or the day that I die, whichever comes first."

Helpless, childish terror turned his muscles into jelly. He sagged against the vines, tears and sweat mingling on his face. He felt like he could feel the evil seed rattling in his stomach.

She smiled, "Or, we can work together. On the day the fabled Library comes under my control, or the day that Theodore Nott dies, I will set you free. I swear it on my magic and my name."

The magical oath chimed in his head. Bill closed his eyes.

Caught and damned. It was as if he had never moved off the floor of his apartment. No matter what he did, he'd been damned from the moment Harry found Nott in that cave. Was this my destiny? The part of him that was still fighting howled. Was I always going to be reduced to this?

"But how will you know if the Library is real?" he whispered, not opening his eyes. "Why not just kill him now?"

"If you want, you could," she said with mock-kindness, the kindness that had tricked him into thinking she was just a batty old grandmother living in the woods. "Go out in the world and finish the job, Bill. I would free you if you did that."

His hands trembled and he glared at her. She laughed, "Where did Albus find you? So strong of heart. So noble. Oh, well, let me dirty my hands then. All I need you to do is let Albus keep you up to date on his progress, seeing as he's going to find out if the Library is real for us. Didn't you hear him, Bill?" She leaned in close, and her jaw brushed against his cheek. "He's going to save Harry Potter's life. What joy. Once we know for sure, it will only be a small matter of bringing the boy to me."

"You think you can force Nott into giving you access to it?" Bill said doubtfully. He remembered how certain Magnus Nott looked, even in the face of death. I raised him better than that.

"There are so many ways to go about this, young blood," she waved her hands and the vines began to relax. "Albus thinks he has a heart? Then we must see where his weary heart rests. Who does Theodore Nott love? Who does he care for?" She shot a harsh healing spell at his ankle and it snapped back into place, drawing a strangled cry from his lips.

"You'd be surprised how easy it is to break conviction with the right...incentive," she finished, meeting Bill's watery gaze. Her mouth pulled up into a tight smile, "And if he will not break, if he thinks he'd rather choose death, as you might, then there are even more ways to take what I want."

She gave him back his wand and right then the truth hit him. He couldn't hold a candle to her. His power was nothing, nothing, compared to hers.

"What other ways?" he rasped.

Eleanor's pale eyes looked cold and reptilian. "If the Library only opens to his bloodline, then I will need to create a new generation. It will not take much, just...a young witch, of strong magic. Someone who will not miss a year or so of their life. She won't remember the baby, of course, but she'll always have a feeling," Eleanor's fingers trailed up to her heart, "of something missing...something lost...but I'll make sure that baby grows up loved, not to worry."

She grinned, watching the sick horror on his face with amusement. "Tell me, Bill, what would you do for the woman who raised you as your mother? The woman who found you abandoned at the edge of the woods? Would you grow strong and quest to find the vault of secret magic that you grew up hearing stories about? Especially if it was her dying wish to find it?"

Bill started trembling hard from head to toe. "You are an abomination," he hissed. "What's the point of doing that? Alice could be dead by then. You could be dead, too. It will take decades to - to do that."

"I will live a long, long life, and so will Alice," Eleanor promised. "And with that kind of magic in my hands, I can give restore Alice completely. Her mind. Her magic. Her youth. Magic is capable of anything, Bill. When will you learn that?"

"You're insane," he breathed.

But Eleanor did not look insane. She looked like she knew exactly what she was doing.

"Make your choice, Bill Weasley," she turned her back. "Die a hero's death, or help me break Theodore Nott. But before you decide, take a good, long look at all the people you'll leave behind." She glanced over her shoulder, face shadowed. "Will your family be safe without you to protect them? Especially that young sister of yours...Ginevra, is it?"

His heart stuttered to a stop.

Eleanor smiled languidly. "If you die now, you might never get to see her grow up. You'll never see her get married, or meet all those little nieces and nephews who could be in her future," she clicked her tongue. "How sad. Children are our greatest gift."

The threat in her voice was too much to bear. Panic so strong it made his ears pop boiled over in his chest. "I - I'll do it!" He cried raggedly, rushing to grab her robes. "Leave Ginny alone! I'll do anything, I'll help you, just don't -"

His ankle gave out and he sprawled to his knees. Bill pressed his wand against the earth, gasping for oxygen. "I'll do anything you say," he promised, meaning it. "Whatever you want. I'll do it. Just don't hurt my sister. Please."

Eleanor's pointed black shoes stopped in front of him. She squatted down and hooked two fingers under his chin, drawing his red, weeping face up to look at her. Her brow drew together, a deep and human sorrow in her eyes.

"Now you're starting to understand," she murmured. "Dying isn't so easy, is it?"

Notes:

My bonus thought on this chapter:
- I wanted to find a way to insert Harry's perspective of having Theo suddenly stretch over him to set the napkin on fire but just couldn't. He had a little sexual awakening there lmao. I'm sure we'll get to that later.
- I know I've said it before, but I'm literally dead serious this time: the next chapter is the LAST chapter before they get on the fucking train. I swear. I promise. I cross my heart a thousand times for you, and me, because I'm sick of not having them at Hogwarts. And also, it's time. I'm not rushing anything. The concept of rushing anything in this story is laughable to me, actually, lol.
- Poor Theo is a super introvert surrounded by extra-extravert Sirius and omnivert Harry. It was only a matter of time before he cracked.
- I have no honest idea what the Scamander movies or "The Cursed Child" established as "canon". To me, there is no canon outside of the 7 books, so all this stuff about Grindelwald and what his war looked like is based on my vague recollection of what was described in the books.

Chapter 22: Midnight Interlude

Summary:

Pause:
Everything seems broken.
Process:
Everything is changing.
Move:
No way out but through.

Notes:

This was not the chapter I planned to post, much less write. But...I think it could be one of my favorites. Something a little different for you, an interlude with Harry and Theo. Then, back to our regularly scheduled insanity.

After Sirius left, Harry listened to Theo breathe for a time. The sound was very quiet, almost inaudible from all the way in the reading nook, but after sitting for long enough Harry could eventually pick it out over the sound of his own heartbeat.

Thoughtlessly, he ghosted his fingers over the side of his jaw, remembering the sensation of Theo's hair tickling his skin. Harry tried to think back, wondering if he had ever comforted someone like that before. He had hugged Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and even Fleur's little sister before, in moments of intense emotion, usually followed by some shouting or crying or hysterical laughter on their part.

But holding up the heavy weight of someone else was different. It stuck with him. He could still feel Theo's shoulder against his chest, could remember just how warm it felt to be so close together, remembered the slight tremble wracking his body, as if he were being held together by nothing but magic.

Harry looked again at the letter in his hands, at the paragraph he had re-read probably fifty times.

Based on the way he guarded your letters over the summer, I knew you were important to him, but I never expected that there could be somebody else who cares for Theo as deeply as Draco and I do. You must, or why else did you try to find him when the world believed he was dead?

I imagine he's given you something you can't begin to repay. That's how it began for us. He is truly someone special, even if he doesn't believe that sometimes.

Harry touched the necklace he was wearing, a gift from Blaise Zabini. The thin, silver chain carried a rectangular pendant, no bigger than his thumb nail, with the Zabini colors painted across it. Orange, yellow, and white, all bleeding together like the sunrise.

This is a token of my great respect for you. It only scratches the surface of the debt you are owed. If you should ever need the Zabinis, you may show this to those who come against you. Otherwise, it is meant to lay under the clothes.

Malfoy's letter was far more formal, pledging his fidelity like Theo said he would. It was even embossed with his family crest, as if it were a legal document.

Harry looked at the curtain drawn around Theo's bed, thinking about these grand gestures. Theo may be closer to his friends than Harry was to his, he realized. 

Harry dropped his hand and ran one finger down John's spine.

"I'm going down to get my bag," Harry whispered. It wasn't that long after the fight, about two hours. Too soon to see Ron, probably, but Harry felt like that was a risk he was willing to take. His head was clear. The simmering fury he had to take down to the potions lab so he did not punch Ron himself had cooled into something malleable. Harry was reasonably certain he could speak to Ron without cursing him through the wall.

John looked doubtful, but Harry slow-blinked at him, smirking slightly when the cat rolled his eyes. Shouldn't have bragged about me being your duckling if you didn't want me to copy you.

"Don't kill anyone without me," John murmured as he left.

The halls of Grimmauld Place were tall and foreboding, but Harry could not deny the he was beginning to like this house, the longer he spent here. Everywhere he looked, he seemed to find a secret. Dusty little crawlspaces scattered with unexpected treasures like little carvings, tarnished buttons, old potions vials with hand-etched symbols on the glass: inked messages hidden in closets and under window sills like Sirius was here or Kreacher STINKS; desk drawers with bits of parchment with drawings of cities, people, potions ingredients, creatures...All of it spoke of a house once bustling with life.

Harry wondered a lot about it over the last few days, seeing as Theo was so often indisposed. What was this place like a generation ago? Two generations ago? When it was first built? Some of the rooms were obviously something else once upon a time, like his and Ron's room. The wall separating it from the room next door was younger, not quite as tarnished as the rest of the house.

Did it used to be the salon, which Harry found a picture of in the library, where witches and wizards would get together and share their recent discoveries? What about the attic, which was gutted and barren. Did it used to be a greenhouse? An owlery? A sunroom?

Harry paused on the next floor and decided to duck into the library. The windows went from floor to ceiling, filling the room with light. There was an old study in the back that, over the last few days, Sirius spent most of his time in, cleaning out mountains and mountains of liquor bottles. Harry poked his head in curiously, but it was just an empty room that smelled of cleaning solution.

He looked across the open reading area and tried to imagine young Sirius and his brother tip-toeing through the library so as not to disturb their parents, working (or drinking) late into the night.

Once he decided that no one was in the library with him, Harry wandered over to the family tapestry. On the day that Theo had tea with Dumbledore (and everything started to go wrong), Harry spent his evening in the library, seeking distraction. Eventually, he was so bored that he stood in front of the tapestry and fruitlessly searched for a line adjoining to some distant Nott.

Instead, he found an unexpected name, sewn in bright silver thread just under Sirus's recently repaired place in the center.

Harry James Potter, Lord of House Potter, Heir of House Black

Sirius didn't seem to know he'd seen it yet. Harry was careful to keep away from the tapestry when he was around because he didn't know how to broach the topic. It felt...monumental. Unbelievable. Incredible. 

Precious.

Sirius joked regularly that he hadn't updated his will, so Harry guessed that it was the ritual at Sunhoney that recognized him as Heir. The words Sirius chanted that night still came easily to him.

Take this blood as my own, one family, one soul.

Permanent. Blood was permanent. Magic was permanent. This. This was permanent.

Harry gripped his hands into fists and looked above his and Sirius's names at all the other names that came before. Then, he stepped forward and flattened his palm against the tapestry. 

Months ago, Harry's name meant nothing to him. It didn't even feel like his, not when the whole world knew it. But then he claimed his House, and Sirius rescued him, and hid him, and made him part of his family for real. Harry didn't know what that entailed, in the beginning, not until he saw his name on the tapestry. After that, the warm buzz of Grimmauld Place started to make sense. It was similar (though not quite the same) as Roebuck Falls. It felt like his. It felt like something that could not be taken from him.

Now, Harry wanted his name to be his. He wanted to defend it, and know it, and claim it.

He dropped his hand and left the library.

---

Ron practically vibrated with energy across the room. Harry felt his old fight or flight instincts kick into gear, honed from years of dealing with Dudley's violent moods, but forced himself to stay relaxed.

Harry hadn't unpacked, really, but some of his things were scattered throughout the room. He started to shove them into his bookbag one by one, going slow to give Ron plenty of time to work up the guts to say -

"So you're choosing him over me?"

A tight sigh escaped his nose before he could stop it, and that just pissed Ron off even more.

"He was touching Ginny's hair, Harry! Doing MAGIC on her! Do you really not see the PROBLEM with -"

"You jumped down his throat," Harry pointed out with forced calm. "You started that fight, Ron. Don't deny it."

Unfortunately, part of Harry did see the problem. Not because he felt the same way as Ron, but because he knew how protective the Weasley's were of their sister. If Theo knew what Harry did, he would have kept his distance.

But still. "You were the aggressor. And -"

"The aggressor? Do you even hear -"

"And you warded the doors to prevent any of us from getting to you!" Harry continued heatedly. "You were just looking for a reason to pick a fight, I know you."

"I'm really questioning your judgment nowadays, mate," Ron seethed, "so I don't think you know what you're talking about."

Harry dropped his hands and glared at Ron, glad they were separated by two beds so he wasn't tempted to do something stupid like get in his face. "You called his father a rapist," Harry growled, too sickened by the word to speak above a low register, "you insulted his mother, and him. How could you ever believe the Prophet when it's printed so many lies about me?"

"That's not-"

"Everyone knows that his father was not a good man, he was probably as evil as can be, but to insult him after -"

"Insult him?! Harry, he deserves more than -"

"HE DIED FOR THEO!" Harry shouted, jerking his bookbag off the bed. "You insulted him after he did that and betrayed Voldemort!"

"You have no clue if any of that's true!" Ron retorted, "For all you know he's still alive somewhere hiding with Voldemort! Maybe he even lit his own house on fire. Maybe he -"

"Shut up!" Harry's vision fractured. He was seeing dirty, broken Theo with blood pouring out of his head on the cave floor. He could see Lucius Malfoy with his eyes on fire. He was watching Theo advance on Ron, fury written all over his face as he shouted, my parents LOVED each other. He could see the feather hovering in the air as the guardian spirit whispered, this is my gift.

Ron was right, Harry didn't know if Magnus Nott died for his son. He had no evidence. But he felt like it was true. He just knew it, down to his bones, that a man who would go so far as to conspire against Voldemort would take it all the way to the bitter end. Maybe that wasn't a good hill to die on, but Harry had made his choice.

"I asked you to be nice to him and to do one thing, which was not talk about his family, and you fucking threw the worst thing possible at him, Ron." Harry didn't try to hide how disappointed he felt. "You owe him and me an apology. A big one. And I'm honestly not ready to hear it yet so I'm not staying in this room anymore."

"Fine, Harry." Ron sniffed miserably. The red-head turned away, his shoulders drawn and shaking. "Just go. You said he needs you, right? Poor Theodore Nott," his voice wobbled, "your new best friend."

"Ron, that's not it," Harry sighed, his anger draining away as he watched Ron start to come apart. "He's - he's all alone. What you did was mean. It was cruel, actually, and you only did it to hurt him. How can I stand here for you after you did that?"

Ron didn't say anything. Probably couldn't. Harry could hear stifled whimpers escaping through his closed fist.

For a second, he hesitated. He could end all this in an instant if he just dropped his bag and walked across the room. Ron might punch him or yell some more at first, but eventually he would give in and let Harry comfort him. Harry knew what it was to feel totally alone. Even if Ron was pretending not to care, what he wanted was for Harry to come to his side of the room.

Harry stared at Ron for a moment longer. Every time he's felt this way, he realized, he had a mother, or father, or brother, or even a little sister to come and comfort him. Maybe he needs this right now.

So, Harry left.

And ran directly into Hermione, who was rapidly rolling up a fleshy colored string with an ear on the end. The look she sent Harry was decidedly unhappy.

"What?" he snapped, not even bothering with a silencing charm.

"Ron needs a friend, too," she whispered.

"What?"

"He needs a friend too!" She waved him across the hall. "Harry, he's your best friend. He needs you."

"Ron has you and his family. His large family," Harry retorted, feeling his hackles rise. "Why does he need me? Oh, right, only to take me away from Theo, to punish him. And for what? For doing something nice for Ginny, that she asked him to do? Or for being a Slytherin? For being born in the wrong family?"

He would have gone on, but Hermione's face grew more and more incredulous.

"What is it?" He snapped, struggling to keep his voice quiet. "What is it from me that he needs? I think he needs space to fucking think about what he did!"

Hermione winced. Okay, so he didn't manage to keep his voice that quiet. "He was in the wrong, I know it, you know, and most importantly, he knows it." It took all his self-control not to snap, then why did he just accuse me of abandoning him? "But he's confused, Harry. He's lonely. You've just been ignoring us since - since the party."

"I haven't forgotten what he said then, either," Harry said flatly.

"Merlin, how do I say this..." Hermione rubbed her forehead with her thumbs, eyes closed. "Okay, think of it from our perspective. You've had time to figure all this stuff out, or at least try to make sense of it, but we just had to hit the ground running. And they're not easy things to come to terms with! Your Lord ring, Sirius somehow healing his mind on his own, breaking the blood wards and leaving the Dursleys, not to mention all this weird magic you've done! And then, on top of that, you come back to the house after that dreadful party with a supposedly dead Slytherin none of us know and you're - you're like, his best friend!"

"We just became friends," Harry corrected.

"But you're happy with him," Hermione stomped her foot impatiently. "You joke around and make plans for the school year and, he just, well," she threw her hands up, "can't you see that Ron feels left out?"

"Yes, Hermione, I know that," he said through gritted teeth. "Ron always feels left out when I do something without him. But Ron and I, and you and I, still have our problems to deal with, so I can't exactly bring myself to be buddy-buddy right now."

"Well, but it's not just that, Harry!" She raked her fingers through her hair, "Have you thought about what's going to happen when we go back to Hogwarts? Because Ron has, you know he has."

"What does that matter?" he groaned.

"It matters, Harry, because you are friends with Nott. You know the first thing Ron said to me about this whole thing?" Her eyes were wide and wild so Harry wisely kept his mouth shut. "He said, he's going to be friends with Malfoy next. And I thought he was just being facetious, but he was serious Harry, and I can see why! You clearly get along with Nott, like really well! Better than you're getting along with us right now!"

"But what does -"

"What does Malfoy have to do with this?" She guessed. "Nott is friends with him, and Zabini, and Parkinson, and Bulstrode! All of them! Sure, maybe our feuds with the Slytherins are stupid and childish sometimes, but you can't forget that Malfoy has said horrible things to me, and about your parents, and Ron's parents."

"I'm not going to be friends with Malfoy like none of that happened," Harry said, taken aback by her vehemence.

"But you will try to forgive him!" Hermione cried, almost accusingly. "I know you, Harry! You will!"

He was silent for a moment. "Only if he apologizes," he blurted out, frustrated that she was right.

She shook her head, "See? That's who you are. But Ron's not like you. He can't just forgive. I don't know if I can either."

Harry groaned and tipped his head back. "Hermione, Malfoy's not even in the picture yet. Can you please not be mad at me about something that hasn't happened?"

She made a face, "Fine. But can you recognize the irony that in the near future, you might be more willing to forgive and forget with Draco Malfoy, but not with Ron, who has been by your side since the first day of Hogwarts?"

"He fucking abandoned me last year!" Harry countered.

"One time, Harry! After everything else he's done for you -"

"I needed him the most last year!" He snarled, feeling his breath start to get choppy. "And you, too, but you were so busy treating me like I was as much in the wrong as he was, when I was just the victim of another fucking plot to kill me! Why is it that I always have to be the bigger person, Hermione? Why can't I be the one who sulks until he gets what he wants, for once?"

"Because that's not you," she whispered. He could see conflict warring on her face. "Oh, Harry, I'm not trying...I'm not trying to force you to forgive him. I just...I'm just explaining that he...he's hurting. He needs someone."

"Then you be someone, Hermione."

Harry whirled around and walked away, ignoring the guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Luckily, when he got back upstairs, John did not ask him a single question. He waited sleepily for Harry to build a nest in the reading nook and cover up with a blanket before settling down in the crescent of Harry's body. It took a long time for the staccato beat of his pulse to come down, but once it did, Harry was able to think more clearly.

For the next few hours, until his weary brain finally shut down and let him to nap, Harry did think about the future, and how different it looked now that everything had changed.

Hermione surely didn't mean for it to go that way, but it made him feel a lot better.

---

"I'm never going to sleep normally again, I think," Theo yawned, folding his long legs under him as he sat across from Harry.

Headlights flashed outside, illuminating the grey hue of London's nighttime sky. Harry had been watching the evening unfurl for well over an hour now, entranced by the strangeness of it, so completely different from his window in Surrey.

"Have you gone downstairs at all?" Theo asked, after a minute of silence.

Harry slowly nodded. "Didn't go so well."

They didn't need to be quiet, seeing as they were the only two people on the fourth floor, but it was nearly ten o'clock, and the house had been silent for a long, long while. Sirius came by around six to deliver take out and fill him in on the plan before taking off again.

Harry cleared his throat, "Sirius said he's going to take you to Orkney tomorrow afternoon. I guess Lady Malfoy still can't come any sooner, but she gave him permission to take you to get your ring."

"Oh," Theo murmured, surprised. "Just me and him?"

Harry made a face out the window, "Yeah. You're sneaking out. Sirius doesn't want the whole Order to know. He's gone, now, trying to get to an apparition point to make the travel shorter. I made John go with him."

"Worried about your godfather?"

Harry's lip twitched, "Remus can't go," he explained, pointing at the full moon. "I didn't want him to be alone."

The two of them looked outside for a little while. Harry picked at a loose thread on his jeans. "I can leave if you want," he offered hesitantly. "If you want alone time. I just wanted to stay in here until you woke up, to make sure you were okay."

Theo took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out slowly. "I don't want you to leave," he said, sounding a bit embarrassed. "I would love a distraction, to be honest."

"A distraction?"

"Tell me...something I don't know about you."

Harry blushed, and all at once he was very glad that John was not here, nor Sirius, and also that the lights were all off so that Theo could not possibly see how red he was.

"Well, you don't know anything about me, so this should be easy," Harry joked.

Theo huffed. "Think on it for a second. Did you eat?"

"No."

They vacated the reading nook to sort themselves out. Harry warmed up boxes of take out using a spell that Theo taught him. He could not ignore the way his heart jumped when Theo patted his head and said teasingly, "Outstanding effort, Mr. Potter."

They sat in the nook again with the food spread between them. Theo stretched his legs across, trapping Harry inside.

For a second, Harry wondered if this was a dream. Certainly, the scene was beyond his wildest imagination as they fumbled with chopsticks and sampled various Chinese dishes, swapping boxes back and forth easily as if they'd done this a hundred times before. It was comfortable and cozy. Harry learned that Theo hated pork. Theo learned that Harry would eat whole chili peppers without flinching.

A couple minutes went by before Theo hummed, "So where is my story?"

Goosebumps rushed up and down his arms.

"I can't think of any good ones," Harry said nervously. "I mean...I could tell you plenty of stories, but they're..." His mind flashed to images of Quirrell burning to death, or the basilisk chasing him, or Remus turning into a werewolf...

"It doesn't have to be about you, necessarily," Theo shrugged. "It doesn't even have to be a good story. I'm just sick of thinking about my own life."

Harry raised his eyebrows and poked around to gather noodles between his chopsticks. "Okay, then..." He rifled through the events of the summer, thinking about all the details he hadn't shared yet. His fight with Ron and Hermione? Way, way too personal. Faerie magic? That would be a good one to start with, but...

There was one story he'd been wanting to tell for a while.

"Did anyone tell you the details of Sirius's wrongful imprisonment?"

Theo shook his head. Harry took a deep breath and launched into the complete history of Sirius Black, godfather. He began with the Marauders and took Theo through an abridged version of Sirius's life, cutting out some of the more personal details. He told him about how ragged and unhealthy he was last year, described his bouts of crazed ranting, his tendency to live in the past, his distracted, ever-wandering mind.

By the time he was rehashing the surprise of the century - Sirius's apparent sanity, and how much he'd changed in such a short amount of time, all for Harry, he was grinning.

Merlin, it feels good to finally tell someone all of that, Harry thought, when he finished. His throat was dry. He'd probably been talking uninterrupted for an hour, but Theo's attention never wavered in the slightest.

"Wow," Theo said, sounding genuinely shocked. "Two things. One, you are probably the luckiest person in the world." Harry ducked his head shyly. "Two, is he in love with Remus Lupin?"

"What?!" Harry choked on his own spit.

"He is an animagus, only because of his friend, the werewolf..." Theo's voice turned up suggestively and, oh Merlin, didn't that make butterflies erupt in his stomach?

"I don't know! Honest!" Harry protested, pulling his knees up to his chest, "I never thought they were...like that...I mean, wouldn't I know?"

"This will require further research," the other boy muttered. "If I were Lupin, I would make that man fall in love with me."

Harry slapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a shout of laughter. Theo smirked, "Come on, Harry, Lord Black's got to be one of the richest, most coveted bachelors in the country -"

"Stop, you're killing me-"

"And it's not like he's bad to look at, either -"

"THEO!"

The Slytherin snickered, wrinkling his nose. "You have to admit that your godfather will one day be a catch, if he ever clears his name. Lupin would be the luckiest man on earth."

Harry groaned and thumped his head against the wall a couple times. "Everything would be so much better if we could catch that stupid rat and hold him accountable for what he did."

They talked about the incompetence of the ministry for a little while, after that, but soon their conversation drifted to other, more important things.

"What is it like in the Slytherin dorms? Do you have charmed windows?"

"I actually like the sound of Gryffindor Tower. I'm used to being up high."

"So why not take Divination if you're so good at it?"

"How many times have you landed in the hospital wing since you came to Hogwarts?"

And on and on and on it went. They were not covering the deepest stories about themselves. Theo did not mention his parents, and barely mentioned his home. Harry did not talk about Voldemort, or his relatives, or all the times that their defense teachers tried to kill him. It felt like they were skimming the surface of each other. Theo asked questions about Harry that he could never remember being asked before. Harry asked Theo absolutely everything he could think of and was shocked that he answered so easily.

He learned that Theo's favorite color was blue, robin's egg blue, specifically, and that he could dance, but hated to, that he could not sing, but wished he could, that he read in four different languages but could only speak in three. He learned that Theo wanted to be an architect, that he was "decent" at drawing, though Harry suspected he was actually quite talented, and that he loved to swim.

Useless facts that revealed a rich life.

"I feel like I've done nothing compared to you," Harry complained, suppressing a yawn. The last time he checked his watch it was half-past midnight. "I don't even know how to swim."

Theo looked at him like he was crazy. "But, during the second task -"

"I ate gillyweed," Harry shook his head. "It was just the magic helping me do that, I think."

Theo ogled at him for a moment. "Do you want to learn?"

"To swim?" Harry hesitated. Did he? The foreboding Black Lake was not exactly a place he wanted to visit again. "Um...maybe? I guess it might save my life some day."

Theo nodded slowly, a look of genuine concern on his face. "I can teach you. In fact, I'd like to teach you. In fact, I'm very worried about leaving you behind knowing you can't swim. What if you drown?"

Harry gestured out the window, "In the great sea of London?"

Theo rolled his eyes, "Just, do me a favor and stay away from the Thames." He sighed and rolled his neck, then looped his hands together and stretched high overhead, turning his elbows out. Harry's eyes wandered down of their own accord. Just like in the dining room, Theo's sweater lifted up, revealing a strip of pLW skin over his hip -

BAD THOUGHT, POTTER. Harry snapped his gaze out the window and tried to think of absolutely anything else.

"Fisher?"

"Huh?"

"I was saying, I think we should probably try to get some sleep. It's one in the morning."

"It is?" Harry checked his watch. Indeed, the softly glowing arms showed 1:10. "Holy shit."

Theo laughed under his breath. "Are you going to stay?"

Harry looked at him in complete surprise. "Um...do you want me to?"

"I...yes," He bit his lip and looked off to the side. "If you don't mind."

Harry did not mind in the slightest.

"I guess I don't know where I'd sleep anyway," he said casually, as if it weren't a big deal. He vaulted carefully over Theo's knees to get out of the nook. "Ron and I were sharing a room and I don't want to go down there, even if he's gone."

"He's gone?"

"Yeah," Harry could not keep some of the bitterness from his voice. "He's staying with his brother Bill for a few days, Sirius said. To reset his brain. Hey, by the way," he reached into his backpack, "you want your notebook back?"

Harry crossed the room again to give it to him. Theo took it carefully, like he was handling the most valuable book in the world. "Thank you," he said sincerely, his eyes partially obscured by hair hanging around his face.

Bad thought, he thought, more gently. This thought, indeed, was less...intense. Harry swallowed and turned away, trying to dash the absolutely insane image of brushing Theo's hair from his eyes out of his head. What the fuck is wrong with me? He thought.

"I'm going to get changed next door."

Harry and Theo went through their respective routines, alone. In Sirius's old bedroom, Harry stared at his reflection in a dusty old mirror and used his elementary grasp of occlumency to shove all these intrusive thoughts about Theo somewhere else. He didn't know if it was the faerie magic doing it to him, or if he was being influenced by John's teasing, or - even worse - if this was an actual, serious Problem he was developing, but no matter the answer, Harry knew he was not ready to acknowledge it.

Right now, all that mattered was getting Theo out the door of Grimmauld Place and back to somewhere he belonged.

In Regulus Black's bathroom, Theo was having a similar communion with the mirror, only he was trying to pack away the tremble in his fingers, and the faint sensation of unease, of danger. Harry's here, he thought, trying to let that comfort him. The Library said to trust him. The Library chose him. That must mean it knows something you don't. You're safe in this house as long as he's here. No one can come take it from you.

Despite his best efforts, Theo knew he would not sleep well that night.

Both of them put on masks for each other when they came back together in the bedroom. Harry posted up on the floor. Theo tried and failed to teach him how to transfigure the rug into a mattress, but Harry ended up with a thick and spongy mat, and they decided it was good enough. Theo plied Harry with pillows and tried to give him a blanket, too, but then Harry pulled one out of his extendable backpack.

"Why do you have that?" Theo asked.

"Just in case I had to sleep outside," Harry shrugged, as if that was a perfectly normal thing to plan for.

They laid down. Theo blew out the candle next to his bed. Sleep did not come easy to either of them.

"You awake?" Harry whispered, after an indeterminate amount of time. Lights from the city played across the ceiling, and he felt hypnotized watching them.

"Yeah," Theo murmured back, tugging his bracelet round and round his wrist. "I forgot, Harry, but Blaise and Draco sent you a letter."

"...I know. I saw it, and read it."

Theo turned so he could look down at Harry on the floor, "What did it say?"

Harry took the necklace out from under his shirt. "Zabini sent me this. It's supposed to show that the Zabinis are on my side, or something."

"Holy shit, is that his flag?" Theo practically fell out of bed to look at it, kneeling next to Harry on the floor and moving the little enamel necklace back and forth to catch the dim light from the window. Harry could see his burn scars blistered up to his elbows. Could see the pointed corner of his elbow, the sharp outline of his collar bone poking out of his shirt. 

Bad thought, bad thought, bad thought, he chanted in his head. But he did not look away.

Theo eventually got back in bed, after Harry told him everything they said in their letters. He bundled up under his blanket and muttered, "There's nothing I can do to prepare you for Blaise, so I'll just apologize in advance."

Harry laughed and the two of them lapsed into silence. It felt weird to sleep without John, he realized. He missed his warmth at night.

"Hey, Theo," Harry felt a smile tug on the corners of his mouth. "Would you tell me a story?"

Theo rolled his eyes, "I guess I should have seen this coming."

"You should have."

A pause. Then, "What kind of story?"

Harry took a breath through his nose and tried to think of something that would not trigger anymore thoughts, because so far all the fun facts he was learning (and the smell of the pillow under his head, holy gods) were not helping to keep them at bay.

Well. There was one thing sure to chase all unwanted bad thoughts from his head. "Tell me about Mal - um, Draco. Tell me how you became friends."

"Oh," Theo sounded surprised. "Is it that hard for you to believe?"

"Yes," Harry said instantly. "He's so...he's, you know..." It dawned on him that it was impossible to describe Draco Malfoy without insulting him. "He's spoiled, and he's...a bully. And so loud. He's not like you at all."

For a second there was silence. Harry worried he'd offended Theo in some way.

"That's not all Draco is," Theo said, eventually. "Remember what I said the other day? About the game, in pureblood circles? Giving people a certain impression of you?"

"You mean he's faking all that?" Harry said flatly.

"No, no, Draco is very much all that you said. But...he's not the person you know. To me he's..." Theo sighed. "He's going to be pissed that I told you any of this, you know."

"Well, aren't you going to tell him how wrong he is about me? Perfect Potter," Harry did a decent impression of Draco's poncey accent and he could tell it caught Theo off guard by the way he choked. "Golden Boy Potter, full of himself and dying for attention."

"Mordred, Harry, stop, that is disturbing!"

"Sorry," Harry grinned. "I'm just saying, I give you permission to tell him all about me, if you think it will help. I want..." Hermione's accusatory words hung heavy in his mind. "I want to try to understand him. I guess I can't help it, after Ron..." he waved his hands, "I just think we both have some difficult best friends, is all."

Theo laughed under his breath and settled back among the blankets, thinking.

"Okay, Harry," he allowed. "But the first thing you should know is that Draco and I are not best friends. We were raised like family, as cousins." He paused, "You have a cousin, right?"

Harry snorted derisively, "He feels the same way about me as Malfoy does. He's never done anything but make my life a living hell."

Theo sighed, "So...a little different than my experience. I think...and I mean, we're not really cousins, so I don't know, but...cousins are kind of like, this amalgamation of friend and family. Draco was my first friend, but he was also my family. He had to spend time with me, and I him, so we..." Theo touched his bracelet absently. "We know everything about each other. We have some really good memories together."

He trailed off. Harry counted to thirty before risking a question. "So, why do I never see you with him at Hogwarts?"

"We were together all the time last year."

"Well, last year I wasn't worried about Malfoy, so I didn't notice."

Theo's pause felt a little more tense this time.

"We sort of had a falling out," he began tentatively. "After my mother died, I was grieving, really hard. And Draco just wanted to enjoy Hogwarts. We were eleven, so...I pushed him away, and kept pushing, until we were about as distant as you can be. He didn't try very hard to come back to me, though." He drummed his fingers on his sternum, "I think...we took each other for granted."

He sighed, "And then things got worse for me, at home. Even on breaks, and in the summer, I ignored Draco. I was...irritated with him, and with how he acted at school. I resented him, too, for leaving me alone. It wasn't fair of me, because he did try. He tried plenty of times, and I always rebuffed him.

"So for about two years, we drifted further and further apart, but we never acknowledged the distance between us. It felt like one day we were the best of friends, and the next we were strangers. And then, in third year, it finally came to a head..."

---

Hogwarts, November 1993, two weeks after Sirius Black attempted to break into Gryffindor Tower.

I feel like I have to tell this story in third person or else I won't be able to say some of this.

Tell me however you want.

"I didn't think it would take this long," Draco complained, tugging on his outer cloak. "I thought for sure we'd have a competent Care professor by Halloween."

"Who would want to work in this hellhole?" Blaise muttered, buttoning his sleeves. "The groundskeeper was clearly their last resort."

"Maybe he'll try to get us close to the dementors one of these days." Draco began to smirk mischievously. "Or steal another dragon egg. There's no way that oaf has enough self control to keep us on flobberworms the rest of the year, right? Perhaps he just needs a little encouragement..."

Vince and Greg let out nearly identical snorts of laughter, which Draco ate up. Blaise rolled his eyes.

And where are you?

Shh, Harry, I'm about to get there.

Oh, sorry.

As Draco reached into his wardrobe for the final piece of his ensemble, he caught sight of something in the back.

"Oh, no, boys," he grinned, waving the sling like a flag, "I can feel my old wound acting up. That beast severed my tendon, you know, could have left me without feeling in my arm forever. I can hardly twitch my fingers on rainy days like today."

Blaise scoffed. "I won't talk to you if you wear that again. You've beat it to death, Draco, it's not funny anymore."

"I'll just put it on in his class," Draco needled. "He doesn't know. He had his wand snapped. How could he -"

The sling began to rot and crumble into pieces right before his eyes. "Eugh!"

"If I see you wearing that thing again, it will be your cloak that goes next time," a dangerous voice rumbled across the dorm.

Draco was struck dumb for a minute, just like everyone else. Theo turned back to his bed, packing books and supplies for a long day of classes.

"You wouldn't dare," Draco challenged, crossing his arms. "My cloaks are worth more than anything you own."

"It will be your loss then," he replied, in that same low tone of voice. "Poor Draco Malfoy can't stand to lose a cloak but will humiliate himself for a few cheap laughs. Do you think your father would be proud?"

Oh shit, Theo.

Blaise leaned into Draco's line of sight and mouthed, Don't do it.

Of course, Draco did. Why wouldn't he? Theo was a cloud of misery these days, no better than a dementor. This was the first time he'd spoken to Draco all year. If Theo wanted a fight, Draco would gladly give it to him. Wasn't it bad enough that the four of them had to put up with Theo locked up in their dorm all the time? Draco used to love having congresses in the dorm. Sometimes, even the girls would come in, and they could scheme and spread rumors together.

Not with Theo around, this year. Every joyful moment seemed to wither and die when he came by.

Ah, come on...

Just listen, Harry.

So far, there had been no laughter and games in their dorm. What little talking they did was subdued. Draco spent as little time here as he could, and honestly, he was sick of it.

"It's taken you all this time to say something to me, and the first thing you do is insult me?" He considered pulling his wand, just for show, but he wasn't sure how far Theo would take this yet and didn't want to jump the dragon. "What is wrong with you?"

Theo finally looked up, stepping out with his backpack slung over his shoulders. He was dressed as per usual in perfect uniform standard. All black. He was wearing a scarf so deep dark green it looked black. The only spot of color on him was the chafed, red skin crossing his knuckles.

"What do you care?" He asked dully, glancing at Vince and Greg. "Are you mad because I won't clap for you when you put on your little dementor show? You know, you could have learned some self-respect from the Hippogriff. I think you deserved more than what you got."

"Theo," Blaise muttered half-heartedly, glancing between him and Draco. "Come on...you know Draco's not -"

"Not what?" Draco snapped. "Do you two think I'm weak because a wild fucking creature attacked me when my back was turned? How is that fair? If we had a decent teacher none of that would have happened!"

Theo glared at him, disdain written all over his face. "I'm embarrassed to be in the same house as you, honestly. You coward."

Draco went white with rage. Theo turned to walk out the door. Blaise silently banged his head into the bed post.

"Fuck you, Theo!" Draco spat before he could touch the doorknob. "Why don't you just disappear already?" Theo flinched around, meeting Draco's searing gaze. "If you have a problem with me living my life, and entertaining my friends, then why don't you go find a dusty old dungeon to crawl into where we won't have to put up with your miserable face anymore?"

Theo's lips curled back into a sneer. "You think that just because people pay attention to you for a few minutes at a time that they're your friends?"

"What would you know about it?" Draco retorted coolly, "You aren't friends with anyone. You treat us all like we're beneath you. I'm not surprised you can't recognize what friendship looks like anymore."

"Hey," Blaise inserted himself uncertainly. "Draco, stop. Theo -"

"You don't have to lie to him, Blaise," Draco said, not taking his eyes off of Theo. "You get the worst of it out of all of us. You know what, Theo? Blaise doesn't think you're a good friend, either."

"Draco, stop it."

"He says the exact same things we do - Theo's exhausting to be around. Theo's too miserable to stand. Theo would be better off as a ghost."

"That's not what I said!" Blaise shouted shrilly, but his overreaction gave him away.

"Is this really a surprise?" Draco funneled as much pity into his voice as possible, knowing Theo would hate it. "You've been trying to get us all to leave you alone since the first day of term, since first year, really and it's working. Blaise only sits with you because he feels sorry for you. Millie, too. Don't you ever wonder why they're the only ones who give you the time of day? They're the only ones with any sympathy left for you."

"That's enough, Draco," Blaise demanded, taking his wand out. "Stop bringing other people into this!"

"No, it's alright." Theo's voice was calm and quiet, but one hand was wrapped so tightly around the strap of his bag that his skin cracked and began to bleed. "Let it all out, Draco. You've clearly been holding onto something, and I wouldn't want you to go to the hospital wing again with your..." his eyes flickered over him, "weak constitution."

"Why do you think you're better than me?!" Draco exploded.

"I don't."

"Clearly you do, or else why even say anything? If you think I'm embarrassing myself, why even tell me to stop?"

"Because no else will!" Theo hissed. He pointed accusingly at Vince and Greg, "All you ever do these days is let these two stupid louts follow you around and feed your ego, making you into this person I don't even recognize! Blaise, Millie, Pansy, everyone is just letting you destroy yourself and I don't fucking get it!"

"Don't act like you care about me. You haven't known me since first year," Draco snarled, striding forward. "This is pretty pathetic coming from you actually, because you are unrecognizable to me! Ever since your mother died -"

"DRACO!" Blaise shouted again.

"You gave up!" Draco shouted over him, glaring at Theo. "You've never even tried to get over her! It's. Fucking. Sad. Nobody wants to be around you, and nobody wants to deal with the parade of never-ending misery you bring to every room, especially not me!"

"Not everyone has your charmed fucking life, Draco," Theo spat, shoving him. "In fact, none of your so-called 'friends' have perfect lives, they just don't tell you anything because you can't see beyond your own reflection to care about anyone else! What the fuck happened to the Draco I knew?"

"Is that it?" Draco's face stretched into a mean smile, "You miss me? You want my attention? Would it make you feel better if I wasted hours of my life going Theo hunting with Blaise?"

"Draco, don't," Blaise said helplessly.

Theo hesitated, his eyes darting off to the side in confusion, and Draco went in for the kill.

"It's honestly the weakest attempt at attention I can think of, you disappearing all the time," he laughed coldly. "Used to send Blaise into a tizzy, and Millie, too. Everyone would get so worried about you. You think I'm selfish, but you're the one who still does it. Doesn't matter if Slytherin's monster or Sirius Black is the loose in the castle, every weekend you disappear. And if he hasn't seen you, Blaise wastes his time walking up and down the halls looking for you, fucking worried sick."

Theo's eyes widened a fraction.

"I keep telling him to stop because you obviously don't care. You don't even give him the courtesy of looking at him, sometimes, when he finds you. Do you realize what a burden you are?"

Theo reeled back like he'd been slapped. Draco kept going, sensing victory close at hand. "That's why I cut you out a long time ago," he declared vindictively. "You never give, Theo. You only take. You're like a black hole. None of us want to be near you, so just fuck. off."

For a second the only sound in the room was the quiet pop and hiss of the heater in the center of the floor.

"Well, don't worry," Theo said, stepping back and twisting the doorknob. When he made eye contact with Draco, his expression was a complicated twist of hate and hurt and humiliation. "You won't be seeing me anymore."

And then he whisked out the door and slammed it so hard a great CRACK split the stone wall.

Blaise didn't even give Draco a moment. He punched him as fiercely as he could in the arm. "I was just blowing off steam with you!" He said harshly. "You weren't ever supposed to repeat that, ever! I didn't mean what I said! And I didn't say it like I wanted him to be fucking dead!"

"Theo doesn't care about anyone but himself, Blaise," Draco shot back, rubbing the sore spot on his arm. "I'm tired of seeing you get all bent out of shape for him. Just let him be alone, it's what he wants. Maybe he'll learn something from this experience."

"Fuck you Draco," he spat. And then Blaise was gone too.

Later, Draco learned -

You're really going to tell the rest of the story from his perspective? I want to know what happened to you! I mean, what did you do?

My part right now isn't very illuminating, Harry. I was dead miserable.

That's it?

That's it.

Later, Draco learned that Theo actually turned and shouted at Blaise in the middle of the common room. People saw. It became all anyone would talk about that day. Snape even made an appearance around their part of the table during lunch, as if checking to be sure there were no secret injuries he would have to clear up.

But, true to his word, Draco did not see Theo again that day. None of them did. He was last to arrive at classes and the first to leave. He didn't attend any meals. That night, he stayed far, far away from the common room until the very last minute before curfew, when he slipped silently through the dregs of students still up and about, avoiding Blaise and going right to bed.

The next day he was gone before they woke up.

Guilt started to weigh on Draco as the days wore on. Theo showed no signs of relenting. Blaise shredded Draco's favorite shirt. Millie threw frog blood all over his white winter boots and led the girls in a full-on boycott of everything related to Draco. Only Pansy seemed a bit sympathetic to his side of the story, but even she thought he took it too far.

He felt, on one hand, incredulous. Draco was only saying (in the worst way possible) what everyone knew and sometimes said when they were in private. Theo was worse than a feral cat. He didn't want to be around them, or anyone, ever, and he made it quite clear by being a brooding, frowning ghoul. Draco didn't know how anyone had the patience to try and be friends with him.

But on the other hand, he felt worse and worse by the minute, because Draco knew Theo better than anyone else did, and he knew that he had essentially backed him into a corner by implying that what few friends he counted these days were only taking pity on him. Theo was too prideful and stubborn to ever tolerate the thought of that, and so now....

About a week after the blow-up in the dorms, Draco stood in the Great Hall looking up and down the Slytherin table. No Theo, of course. Blaise was sitting alone. He'd tried to talk to Theo many times, so Draco heard, but Theo wouldn't give him the time of day.

Draco wouldn't - couldn't admit it, but his guilt was coalescing into a fog of fear. He couldn't get Theo's words out of his head. That morning he woke from a dead sleep with them ringing in his ears.

You won't be seeing me anymore.

What did that mean? Before the fight, they already never saw him. Would he petition his father to send him to Durmstrang? Was he going to spend literally every waking moment away from Slytherin until Christmas? Until the end of the year? Until he graduated?

Would he do something else?

Draco told me all this, that's why I know what he was thinking.

Oh, I see...

Cheer up, Fisher. Eventually this story has a happy ending.

Draco swallowed his pride and went looking for Theo. The crack was still in the wall of the dorm, and he hated looking at it. None of them could fix it, so on the thin pretext of telling Theo to go and cover up his destruction of school property, Draco did what he maligned Blaise for doing on a perfectly nice weekend.

It took him hours, but he eventually found Theo way up on the sixth floor, sitting in a window.

"You should give Blaise a break," Draco opened, voice ringing flat against the flagstones. Theo's breath misted out of his nose. He was shivering slightly, even though he was wrapped up in a thick cloak. "I twisted his words. I don't know why he tries, honestly, but he's probably the best friend you have right now. He doesn't deserve this treatment from you."

"He doesn't deserve me at all," Theo replied instantly. Said by anyone else, his words might have sounded cocky, but in Theo's low register it just sounded resigned. "Everything you said about me was true."

Draco's stomach twisted. Suddenly his strategy of meeting Theo's apathy with anger and disdain seemed unbelievably stupid.

"What is going on with you?" Draco burst out. "You've never...I've never seen you like this before. Do you really not care if you're alone?"

Theo stared out the window. "It's better this way."

Draco stared at him in dismay that quickly bled into impatience, and then anger. "I tried, you know!" He snapped. "I have tried to be there for you since your mother died. I did everything you asked me to, remember? And I know it wasn't enough, and I probably did some things wrong, but you wanted to be alone, you told me to give you space, and then you never, ever came back."

Theo stared at him. "You haven't missed me," he said.

"That's not true!" Draco shot back, digging fingernails into his palm. "I wanted you to come to everything with me. Dueling club, Quidditch games, birthday parties, the fucking Yule Gala, but you decided to be done with all that. And when we're at Hogwarts, you're always studying, or off on your own, and whenever I've made a point to ask you along -"

"I'm not your fucking minion like Vince and Greg."

"It didn't have to be like that!" Draco said desperately, "It could have been like it used to! I wanted it to be like when we were kids!"

Finally, some emotion on Theo's face. Surprise. Draco had those spots of color high in his cheeks that meant he was about thirty seconds from crying. "The point is, when we're here you treat me like you don't want to be associated with me. That's another reason I don't want to be around you! I can feel it, I've felt it this whole time! When did you start to hate me?"

Theo was silent for a minute. Draco tried valiantly to control himself, taking deep, shuddering breaths and glaring a hole in the floor.

"You changed when we came here," Theo finally said, tonelessly. "And I've changed since my mother died. That's how it is. I guess we just grew apart."

"And that's good enough for you?" Draco snarled. "You don't even - nothing matters, from before? You never even liked being friends? You've always wanted to get rid of me?"

"You are the one who left me behind," Theo said angrily, glaring at him for the first time. "Don't play the victim. You have everything."

"Fine, hate me if you have to!" Draco shouted, not even caring that probably everyone on this floor and the ones above could hear him. "If it will bring you back, you can hate me all you like, but you have to stop treating Blaise like he doesn't exist, and Millicent, and everyone else too! What would it take for you to be happy? Because I'll do it if you tell me!"

"What does it matter to you if I'm happy or not?" Theo straightened up, a fire in his eyes. "Why don't you just mind your own fucking business, Draco? I can't give you what you want. I'm not anybody's friend, I'm not here to have fun and make memories, I'm only at Hogwarts to learn magic and get out. If it causes you so much grief to think of me, then don't think of me at all. If you feel any obligation to me, cut it out. I do not care what you do with your life and all I want is for you to leave me to mine!"

For a second, Draco looked extremely tempted to throw his hands up and end it, right then and there. But he was stubborn. And he'd known Theo forever, and he knew Theo was even more stubborn.

"Do you need help?" He said harshly. Theo stiffened like he'd been electrocuted. "I'm not...I'm asking you, Theo. It's like...you're killing yourself, right in front of us. You're just disappearing and I can't live with myself if..." Draco dragged his hands over his face miserably. "I didn't mean what I said, Theo. I just...I miss when you used to be -"

Theo's wand moved so fast he never even stood a chance. Stars exploded in his head as he was thrown against the wall of the corridor and stuck there. When Draco cleared his vision and looked around, he was alone on the sixth floor. The only thing he could hear was the rapid clatter of Theo's feet get further and further away.

Why did you run?

Hm? Oh, sorry, I guess I stopped talking for a minute. Um...well, because Draco knew me. He knew me too well. And I needed him to stay away from me, but if I stayed and listened to him for a minute longer I would have cracked.

Really?

Oh, yeah...I had already considered going to him a few weeks before, after...I mean, around Halloween. But then, you know, complete chaos at the school, mass murderer on the loose, all that...didn't see like the right time...

So you did need help.

Yes. But I didn't believe he could help me. And I still can't believe he was able to, in the end.

---

Theo was silent for a long, long time. Long enough that Harry began to doubt he was even awake, until Theo turned on his side to look down at Harry.

"I think I'll stop there."

"What!" Harry protested. "But I'm so - I mean, how am I supposed to sleep not knowing what happens next?"

Theo rolled his eyes, "The short story is, I fell off the third floor staircase and almost died, Blaise and Draco wouldn't leave me alone, we became friends again, and then Draco made me come to his house at the beginning of summer. And when I did, his parents, ah, confronted my father, I guess would be the right word..." Theo yawned into his pillow, "And then they joined Houses. My father and Lucius. The end."

That was a decidedly unsatisfying summary, and by the way Theo laughed, he knew it. "I'll tell you the rest later."

"Okay..." Harry sighed. His eyelids were starting to droop, but he couldn't stop his mind from turning over a few pieces of Theo's story that didn't make sense.

Things got worse for him at home? What does that mean? Was his father... Harry's mind flashed to Uncle Vernon with the belt high overhead. He felt sick, suddenly, realizing that wizards could do so much worse with magic. That can't be what he means. Right? Not when his father tried to save him. 

Harry stared up at Theo, whose eyes were still open. He was looking at the window, but after a second his gaze flickered down to Harry.

"Theo?" He said hesitantly, "You mentioned a secret this morning? Something to do with the guardian spirit?"

Theo became very still and tense. After a second, he nodded.

"Was it...something your father wanted to keep even from Volde -"

"Don't say it," Theo hissed.

"Sorry," Harry was too tired to argue about the name. "You-Know-Who. Was he trying to keep it a secret from him?"

Theo nodded again.

Harry felt like he was right on the edge of putting something together. If only he wasn't so sleepy.

"So..." he said slowly, "it's something powerful. Really, really powerful. Something that both Dumbledore and V - er, You-Know-Who would want?"

Theo hesitated before whispering, in a shaky voice, "Harry, it's something everyone would want."

He nodded sluggishly. "He will be hunted, hated, assailed by creatures in the dark," Harry quoted, matching his whisper.

"What?"

"That's what it said, the spirit. In the cave. It asked me to protect you, after it looked through all my memories and decided I was worthy. It -"

"It called you worthy?" Theo repeated incredulously.

"Yeah, and it called you its gift. So," Harry looked at him with one eyebrow raised, "it's not a guardian spirit, is it? Is it the secret?"

He waited patiently for whatever Theo would say. In his mind, it actually didn't matter what the answer was. Harry felt like he had finally started to see the bigger picture. Unlike Harry, who was being hunted by Voldemort for no good reason other than some prophecy that he still didn't know the details of, Theo was being hunted because he actually had something useful, something powerful, under his control. 

It must be a weapon of some kind, he reasoned. But what could it be? Surely not something evil, or else Dumbledore wouldn't want anything to do with it...

"Harry," Theo said, stretching his hand across the space between them. The runes on his fingers looks like bruises across his knuckles. Harry took took it, clasping it like they were about to make a vow. His hand was ice cold.

"I can't tell you all the details right now, but it is the most precious thing in the world to me," Theo said intently. "I would do anything, absolutely anything to keep it safe. Do you understand?"

His fingers tightened around Harry's. They looked into each other's eyes.

"I don't understand," Harry admitted, "because I've never had something to fight for like you do, except my own life. Or, sometimes other people's lives, if they're in trouble. But I want to understand. I want..." Harry felt a tingle of magic sweep over his skin, maybe from the house, maybe from the weight of Theo's words, or maybe from within himself. "I want to help you, Theo. I promise, I won't let you down."

Theo's eyes were glittering gems in the dark. "I know you won't. It, um..." he swept his thumb over Harry's fingers, once, and then pulled his hand away. "It calls you the Knight."

Harry furrowed his brow and cradled his hand to his chest, "Really? A knight? Wait, it talks to you?"

"Yeah," Theo sounded slightly bemused. "Sort of. It..." He sighed and rubbed his face in the blankets. "I can't really explain it right now. My life is such a mess." The last words were said so quietly, he probably didn't mean for Harry to hear.

"I'm an expert in messed-up lives," Harry joked, trying to lighten the mood. "You're in good company, Theo."

He huffed, but kept his face covered. Harry sensed that their conversation was coming to an end.

"Thank you for telling me," he whispered, not wanting to end it on a bad note. "I want to hear the rest of that story someday."

"You will," Theo promised, voice muffled. "Good night, Kingfisher."

Harry took his glasses off and covered his face with his arm. "Good night, Theo."

Notes:

Thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculous story. I hope you enjoyed this thoughtful moment between Harry and Theo. The reason I posted this Interlude is because I got sucked into a rabbit hole writing Theo's third year and I REALLY wanted to find a way to post it, and the first part just inserted itself here. Harry and Theo's first sleepover...oh god, I'm dying inside, SO CUTE. I'm having bad thoughts, too, Harry, you're not alone!!!!!!!!

Now, last note, and I say this with absolutely no expectation and active discouragement, but I am on tumblr (lololol I was there when tumblr was written...do not quote the deep tumblr to me...) My blog for Harry Potter related nonsense is NOT regularly updated, but I'm going to post some random excerpts now and again on it. It is "wixenforever". If you want to follow my actual, for-real blog, which is just #mood, it is "thegentleprofound".

I say all this not to farm followers (LMAO) but, if you're curious, or if anyone wants to chat, it might be easier on tumblr. OKAY that's it, THANK YOU FOR READING YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. I love you all!!!! Next chapter I hope to god will be posted this weekend but we'll see! Happy Valentine's Day!

Chapter 23: Moving Sideways

Summary:

Everything starts to go a little wonky when Sirius almost, maybe, sort of feels bad for Severus Snape. Things start to look up for Theo when Raziel makes a delivery. Meanwhile, Harry stumbles across the hint of a dark secret.

Notes:

**Warning for those of you that use a "reader view" function on your phone or laptop - for some reason, sometimes, the final POV section of this chapter gets cut off. Not sure why! If you undo the "reader" view you should be able to see it no problem. 🙏❤️ - 4/3/25

Hi. Remember in Chapter 21 when I so confidently said "next chapter is the last one before they go to Hogwarts"? I don't know what I'm talking about. I solemnly swear I will never make a promise on how the story unfolds again. Not only did I add the last chapter, which was really just a bonus, but this chapter (which was supposed to be the penultimate of summer) ended up being split into two. Oops.

Thank you so much for the love! Please, please, please enjoy this chapter :)

Sirius

Sirius trudged downstairs after leaving the boys up in Regulus's room, trying to ignore the nagging sensation that he should stay. On the third floor landing, he could hear Ginny's voice coming from Fred and George's room. On the second floor, he could hear Arthur speaking softly to Ron in his room, and pacing coming from Hermione's room. On the main floor, he stopped outside of the dining room to listen to Molly.

"- just think he needs a few days away from all this talk of war and Death Eaters. I thought...I thought I could protect them from it, but now I think I've gone and made it worse, bringing them here."

There was a distinct, wet sniffle, and then he heard Charlie say, "Mum, don't, it's not your fault. Look, move aside and I'll come through. Let me -"

"No, honey, don't you worry about me. Talk to Bill for me, please? If you can't take him then Bill's our only...only other choice. He didn't answer my floo call, but maybe you can go see him?"

Sirius slowly backed away, feeling a stab of sympathy for the Weasleys. Molly rubbed him the wrong way more often than not, but he could see that she was running on fumes. Percy was ignoring them, Bill and Charlie had joined the Order against their wishes, Ron was acting like a true teenager, and on top of all that they had to live in this terrible house in the middle of Order business every single day. All told, it was a wonder she didn't explode.

He cast a glamor and went out the front door instead. He walked through the city for a little while, enjoying the stretch in his legs and letting his thoughts wander, sorting out what to do.

Sirius felt he had many many mistakes with Theo over the last few days, (and he was Theo in his head now, after everything). Mistake number one: he never should have left the kid unattended after seeing the state he was in after Gringotts, or even after that trance yesterday. Sirius should have tried the sweet old dog trick yesterday.

Mistake number two: not realizing that John, the bastard, was helping Ron hold those shields up around his doors. Oh, Sirius was going to make him pay for that one day. Or Harry will, he thought with a smirk. Based on John's wide-eyed look when Ron started repeating the Prophet's latest 'news', he guessed that the cat never imagined it would go so far. 

But the greatest mistake of all was putting Theo in Reggie's room. It seemed smart at the time - private, well-cared for, perhaps close to the opulence Theo may be used to, but all it really did was make it harder for Sirius to uncouple the two in his mind. Witnessing that fight in the sitting room was the nail in the coffin. Theo's black fury, his sudden torrent of violence, his staunch loyalty to his House despite how cracked and broken it was, that easily could have been Regulus standing in his place, yelling at Sirius on the floor.

The shade of his little brother had been whispering in his ear ever since.

"You'd just as soon burn this place to the ground..."

"You're leaving me BEHIND!"

He picked up the pace, trying to shake it off. It was an overcast day, turning the city into a muggy soup. Sirius kept his eyes on the sky, ordering what he had to do next. Go to Snape, contact Narcissa, clear the way to Orkney, check on Remus, check on the boys.

And sleep, eat, and preferably sit down somewhere in there.

He found a secluded spot in an empty construction zone and apparated, quietly, to Spinner's End.

The place was slightly less depressing in the daylight, but not by much. Sirius made a face at the rows of dingy muggle houses and transformed into Padfoot to sniff around and see if the git was even home. The front door didn't respond to his nose at first, but just as he was about to turn and head for the back garden, it clicked open.

Sirius stalked silently inside, his ears up and alert. There was no one there to greet him. The door closed on its own, soundlessly. He followed the sound of voices to the kitchen.

"Why do you ask me to waste my time in a fruitless effort?"

"Give Harry some credit, Severus. He is magically gifted, or else he would not have claimed -"

"Save it."

Sirius hunched up in the shadows of the living room, careful to stay out of eye-line of both Snape and Albus in the kitchen. He waited for a second, wondering if Snape would announce him, but he didn't. Maybe the wards let me in.

Well. Sirius never claimed to be a good man, and they were talking about Harry. He settled in to eavesdrop.

"Occlumency is a subtle and personal art, Headmaster," Snape sneered. "He cannot learn it from me. Whether he has the ability is not even the question."

"You are the only one who can teach him."

"You are far better suited -"

"Harry does not trust me, and it is far too dangerous." Albus sighed. "Truthfully, Sirius would be my first choice, but he cannot take the risk of trying to breach Harry's mind without endangering the both of them."

"I thought the mutt had recovered."

"Recovered? I would not use that term," Sirius curled his lip. "He is stable, yes. But not enough to do this. Remus, perhaps, could teach him some foundations, but arranging to meet with Harry as often as he needs during the school year could prove impossible. You have the strongest occlumency practice I have ever seen, in addition to everything else. That is why it must be you."

Snape didn't respond immediately. Sirius took the time to sniff and identify all the scents in the air, checking for signs of anyone else in the house. There was the musky scent of potions base, coming from Snape, probably, and soap. The faint trace of tea. Albus's oddly sparkling scent that Sirius could never identify but always reminded him of fireworks candy that sparkled in your mouth.

And also an underlying stench of rot and infection.

He tucked his nose between his paws and tried not to sneeze.

"You endanger us both," Snape growled. Only then did Sirius register the mounting rage in his tone. They must be at the end of a long conversation. "My position, my abilities, everything I have sacrificed will be at risk. Asking me to teach him occlumency is as good as guaranteeing that he will fail!"

"Severus," Albus murmured calmly, "I know. This is, perhaps, a hopeless dream. Should Voldemort discover the link between them, there is next to nothing we can do to help Harry. But you must try to teach him what you can. You must persist, even if it seems useless, because we need to know if he is sending Harry visions."

"You want me to spy on the Dark Lord through Potter's mind?"

"No," Albus said sadly, "this is merely a countermeasure. If Harry begins to receive visions, they could be very subtle. You are the only person who could sort his true thoughts from...suggestions that may not be entirely his. After all, you know Voldemort better than any of us."

Sirius felt the fur along his spine start to stick up.

"You want me to spy on Potter," Snape said, flatly. "You want me to risk everything on the chance that the Dark Lord may discover the mental link and decide to corrupt the brat? What happens when the Dark Lord spies me through Potter's eyes, teaching him to defend his mind, if I have not already forewarned him that I was ordered to give these lessons?"

"Severus," Albus said heavily, "I do not know that your spying days will continue for much longer."

There was a humungous bang and sound of crashing china. "Everyone's marks are like this!" Snape snarled.

"No, they are not," the Headmaster's voice was infuriatingly gentle. "Alastor stunned Roy Goyle last night and looked at his mark. It was clean."

"You don't know -"

"It is reacting to your deception," Albus went on. "A failsafe, to protect him from those no longer loyal. It will burn through you until he feels safe enough to stop calling the magic of his followers to him. He must be heavily injured indeed."

"It is a reaction to the unstable murtwort pollen I use for that potion every day!"

"Why did you call me here to study it if you will not listen to what I have to say?"

Silence.

"I must go to the apothecary," Snape said stiffly. "Theodore requires at least a two-week supply of potion to last until the first day of term. After I am done, I will go to Malfoy Manor -"

"Severus..."

"- again and attempt to breach the wards. Avery believes that more than one of us may be required to open the gate. Go now, Headmaster, and leave me to my work, for I am short of time."

A chair scraped across the floor, but there were no footsteps. "So you will throw your vow away, just like that?" Albus asked. His voice dipped in a way that made Sirius shiver. "You will walk into assured death rather than accept that your path has changed?"

"You cannot believe I am useful to you if I am not by His side."

"Maybe not. But dead is useless, too."

Even to Sirius's uncharitable heart, that was cold. The next silence felt heavier, more oppressive.

"In the past I have deferred to you in all matters regarding the Dark Lord's summons. But now, I ask you to listen to me," Albus said softly. "Do not go to the Manor. Stay close. Wait and see if the mark heals. You can endure punishment, Severus, but not death."

"And until then, gamble my life away by teaching Potter occlumency?"

"If your time is coming, at least give him his best chance at survival."

"Do not put his survival on me!" He roared, and a crackle of magic split through the house, setting his fur alight with static. "You are the one who chose to raise him in the dark! You are the one who set him on this path! If Potter cannot save himself because of occlumency then it is your doing for setting him eleven years behind his peers!"

"Severus-"

"NO!" The ceiling rattled. "You and I have known from the beginning that Potter was going to be targeted by the Dark Lord for the rest of his life, yet you have allowed him to be turned out into our world half-trained and ignorant, and even now you insist on not arming him with the knowledge that he needs."

"No child should be raised a solider. And you know why I have not told him of the prophecy. He is too young."

"He is hardly a child now," Snape hissed. "He is a loose cannon. You know that he will go after the Dark Lord one day, and no amount of training in the next year or two or three can help him win that fight! But if we had started earlier, maybe he would have a chance!"

"There are a hundred thousand things I would do differently if I could go back," Albus returned thunderously, "But we must react to where we are now. You want me to give Harry the information he needs to survive and to fight back? Then you must teach him occlumency. Just enough to guard his mind from the mental bond. If you can do that, I shall tell him everything he needs to know."

Snape scoffed. Apparently Albus was done too, because there was a crackling roar from the fire, and then Albus disappeared with the whoosh of the floo.

Sirius waited with baited breath, listening to Snape pant raggedly in the kitchen. After a beat, Sirius could hear broken pieces of china scraping off the floor as he began to repair whatever was broken.

Relying on his gut instinct, Sirius transformed and crossed into the kitchen, letting his feet fall heavy so Snape wouldn't be surprised. The destruction wasn't nearly as bad as he expected. A mug floated up from the floor and into the sink, its pieces resealing as it went. There were several empty potions vials and an open first aid kit on the table with the long white bandages unwound. The smell of infection became sharper, emanating from a bundle of dirty bandages in the bin.

"You must be dying," he said conversationally, "or else you wouldn't have let me overhear that conversation."

Snape's bloodshot eyes glared at him across the room. He was not wearing his customary funerary robes of black, instead he was dressed the muggle way, in slacks and a gray button-down shirt with the cuffs rolled up. Sirius could see bandages wrapped around his left forearm.

"I did not expect you to lurk in the dark the whole time," Snape growled. "Our conversation was relevant to your interests."

What would it take for him to talk like a normal person? Sirius wondered idly. He scratched his head, "But would Albus have been that forthright if I were here?" He didn't wait for a response, "I've been teaching Harry some basic occlumency practice. Actually, he was studying it on his own, before." The utter disbelief in the other man's face was almost comical. "He was!" Sirius defended, "I think you have Theo to thank for that."

Snape dismissed him with a shake of his head. "Why are you here?"

He sounded tired. Sirius looked more closely and realized that his long hair was even stringier than normal because he was sweating, yet his face was paler than ever. Sirius's nose twitched with the smell of sickness. Probably has a fever from the infection.

"I need to contact Narcissa," he said, sneezing into the crook of his elbow. Snape gave him a disgusted look and launched a tissue box at him with his wand.

"She will meet you in a few short days. The potion is meant for emergencies only."

"This is an emergency," Sirius crossed his arms. "Theo needs to leave. He can't recover where he is."

Snape glowered, his dark eyes sharp with accusation. "You swore to alert me with any change in his condition."

"Yeah, somehow I don't think you would have been much of a comfort to him today," Sirius sneered. "He and Ron had a fist fight in the sitting room, he learned what the Prophet's been printing about his family, and he's clearly anxious about whatever is going on with his magic. And, I assume he's getting his memories back, because he withdraws more and more every day, even from Harry! I can't just sit back and watch him suffer."

It was hard to name the expression on Snape's face. He thought it might be understanding, or maybe even concern. Whatever it was, Sirius had never seen it before, and the man didn't seem to be entirely aware of it. He rubbed a circled in one temple and looked off to the side, glassy-eyed. "Theodore has a high capacity for suffering," he finally said. "Magnus made sure of that."

"Oh, I can tell," Sirius replied shortly, unable to keep the nasty edge out of his voice. "But I am not of a mind to let him fester when I could be doing something to shorten his stay at Headquarters. Like helping Narcissa get here. I think it would help if he could be with someone familiar, at the very least. I imagine she's spending her time readying various glamours and potions to disguise herself? Well, I can help with that. Criminal on the run, and everything, it's in my wheelhouse."

Snape looked extremely unhappy about it, but he seemed to find Sirius's logic sound. He waved his wand, summoning a small vial full of clear liquid from his cloak. "I trust I do not need to remind you how to use this."

No, he didn't. Contacting Narcissa was as simple as throwing this potion on a mirror and calling her name until she answered. When Sirius pocketed the vial but didn't move, Snape bared his teeth. "Well? What more could you want from me?"

"You're trying to protect Harry," Sirius said. It was not a question.

"Aren't we all trying to protect that -"

"You've been trying to protect him," he said loudly, cutting Snape off. "You said you wanted to train him from the beginning? After James and Lily died?" Snape stiffened and Sirius narrowed his eyes, "Before that, even?"

Snape's face went a truly alarming shade of white, and he had a crazed, rageful look to his eye, but Sirius wasn't fazed in the slightest. Before he went to Azkaban, he had the makings of becoming a legendary auror. He had always liked putting together the stories of other people's lives to understand why they did the reprehensible things they did.

Snape was an opaque one, but that man had just gifted him an important hint. Sirius was starting to see the shape of something in his childhood enemy. Something...Merlin, I can't even think it, he swallowed in horror. I am not thinking that I might respect Severus Snape.

"Get out," Snape demanded, raising his wand. "My past is not up for discussion."

"This is the present, Snape," he drew his own wand, just in case. "Harry's life is at stake, now more than ever. Tell me what I need to know to help him."

"Ask -"

"Albus will not tell me the truth!" Sirius snapped. "He doesn't trust me."

"I don't trust you," Snape sneered, breathing heavily. "You will drive Potter straight to his doom in the name of vengeance."

Sirius's eyes widened, recalling Snape's words at Hogwarts a few months ago. "Don’t you think he’s going to deduce that the Order of the Phoenix must be more important than his own wretched life?

"No I won't!" He could feel his control wavering as Snape's voice called up echoes of the past. The room was looking a little bright around the edges. "I'm teaching him how to survive. Why would I drive him straight into the front lines after all I've done?"

"And just what have you done?" Snape asked silkily, glaring at him, "Stolen him from the wards that protected him all these years? Inflated his ego into thinking he can wield his magic without consequence against any who stand in his way?"

"I erased part of myself for him!" Sirius shouted, toppling over his the familiar, roiling resentment and rage he always felt around Snape. "And I would have done more if I was able to! I cut away James, Lily, and Remus for him, not to mention that fucking rat! So do not accuse me of sending Harry down the path of vengeance when I gave up even that!"

Blood rushed in his ears, almost drowning out the many jeering echoes of Snape's voice in the back of his head. He gulped for air, trying to calm down.

Snape lowered his wand. A trail of sweat traced down his face. "Obliviation?"

"Mind your fucking business," Sirius snapped, sheathing his wand with disgust. "You know what? I have better things to do. Just remember that if you die without telling me the truth, you're putting Harry in Albus's hands, and it didn't sound like you think he knows what he's doing. Shockingly, neither do I!"

And then he whisked out of the house and apparated, as loudly as he could, back to his apartment in Manchester. Just to be safe, he put his hand on the door and focused until the wards locked around him, preventing anyone else from apparating inside like they normally could.

Then he flattened his palms over his face and breathed and breathed until his mind was quiet again.

---

Narcissa's letter, written before she knew Theo was alive, read:

Lord Black,

We have had no cause to know each other in the past, but I write to you with hope that you will recognize me as your cousin, Narcissa, daughter of Cygnus Black III. I request that you treat me with the grace of your time and attention at the Bouncing Brigand in Whitby later this month. I shall be staying there for three days, beginning August 14th. You may come to call when it pleases you over the breakfast hours of any day. I shall wait in a blue hat at the bar.

My father once told us that no child of the House of Black would be left outside the gates. I am outside them now. I am no child, but I have one to protect, and I would pay any price to see him safe in the coming years. I entreat you to meet with me and discuss our common goals, for I fear you and I are set on similar paths, and I have much to offer to those who trust in me.

Sincerely,

Lady Narcissa Malfoy

Sirius finished off the coffee in his mug and poured another cup, relishing the slight buzz of energy in his chest. He headed into the potions lab to call on her.

"Narcissa," he said, watching the mirror lose its reflection and become a smoke screen. "Narcissa Malfoy. It's your cousin."

"Wait." Her quiet voice drifted through the mirror. Sirius heaved up to sit on the lab table and sipped his coffee.

She appeared all at once, the mirror clearing the instant she touched it with her hand. She glanced once over her shoulder. She was in a bedroom of some kind, perhaps at a hotel or an inn. He could see plain, beige wallpaper at her back and a thick white comforter.

She was also dressed as a muggle. He blinked rapidly, trying to square the woman in front of him against the waif-like, weepy-eyed witch he saw a handful of days ago. She was dressed in powder-blue dress with a white jacket over it. Her hair was done up in a plain updo, just as stark white as he remembered, but with her simple hoop earrings and makeup, she looked like an ordinary business woman.

"Are you safe?" He asked, keeping his voice low.

One of her hands twitched, and her saw her wand handle tucked in her palm. "Nobody knows where I am."

Good enough for him. "I'm calling on you to ask if you can get here any faster," he said, getting right to the point.

Her gaze sharpened. "Has something happened with Theo?"

Sirius took a deep breath and began to tell her everything that had happened. She listened with rapt attention, not moving an inch from her place in front of the mirror. She was clearly not one to wear her heart on her sleeve, but Sirius could see the worry on her face, clear as day, by the time he got to the end.

When he was finished, he drank some more coffee, swinging his legs a little.

"Theo is not a seer," was the first thing she said, after a long moment of contemplation. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Ophelia looked for it. She did not often seek the futures of her loved ones, but for that, at least, she searched. He does not have her gift."

Sirius remembered what John had said, that Theo had a little of the gift. "It seems to me that he has some kind of unusual magical talent," he suggested. "Why else is he becoming magically exhausted for seemingly no reason?"

She touched her fingers to her lips, thinking. "Could it not be an after-effect of the fire?"

He shook his head, "Poppy and Snape don't think so."

"Hmm..." She stared off into the middle distance for a moment. "The House of Nott was rife with secrets. As all the old families do, they coveted strange mysteries unknown to Lucius and I. We...we believed that they guarded a fair number of them, more then we do...did."

Sirius nodded slowly. Perhaps it's magical stress related to rudimentary occlumency, he reasoned. If Theo feels pressured to protect his family's secrets, perhaps every day he remembers a new one, and every day he has to try and hide it in his mind.

That would make a lot of sense, actually, considering his trance with Albus. He could have easily done it to himself by going too deep into his mind in an attempt to hide something.

"Well, I think it would help if I can get you here sooner rather than later," he said. "He needs to go to Orkney, too, for a ring. I think the sea train from Norway to the Faroe Islands stops there. Maybe you can come aboard and meet us?" He paused, watching her expression become more brooding. "I can grease the wheels if you need to sneak on."

Her mouth twisted into an amused smile, "I have no need for money, cousin," she said. "But I am far from Norway. I planned to cross the English channel tomorrow night."

"The muggle way?" He guessed, looking at her getup again.

She offered him a delicate shrug, "I cannot risk magical travel. And you should know that once I am in England, I cannot apparate."

"What?"

"I was ordered to bedrest for ten days, but they could only keep me down for four." She tapped her finger against her wand in thought, "I must conserve my energy. It is a convenience, really, that followers of the Dark Lord would not think to search the muggle world for me."

He stared at her, doing some of the math in his head. "Can you take a ship today? Tonight?" He asked urgently, "I can meet you. I'll take you here."

She stared at him, thrown off. "Pardon me?"

"The apartment I'm in is safe. It's where we brought Theo, originally," he assured her. And then, seeing as they had so little to trust in each other, he offered her the truth. "I made it for Regulus during the first war." Her eyes widened in surprise. "It can't be found, unless you are an exceptionally determined hawk. I suppose I never keyed the wards against benign mailbirds. Hm."

"You would take me to your safehouse?" She clarified, one eyebrow arching high. "You are quite dedicated to helping Theo."

Sirius picked up her letter and waved it. "It's not for selfless reasons. I think we better have this conversation you asked for. No reason to wait."

Narcissa glanced at it and then back over to him. After a moment's contemplation, she bowed her head. "If it is your desire, then I accept."

---

He picked Narcissa up at the dock in Dover at 9pm.

He spent his afternoon readying the apartment for a guest, cleaning up both bedrooms, bathrooms, and stocking the cupboards. Then he downed a headache relief potion, tried to visit Remus (but his wards were locked tighter than a Gringotts vault), and picked up dinner.

Theo was still dead asleep when dropped off their food, correctly assuming that neither of them would want to brave the kitchen after what had happened. He kept the truth of what he was planning to do from Harry, feeling mildly guilty, but he wanted Narcissa to be a surprise for Theo.  

"So," John meowed, his head flicking back and forth in tandem with the little sparrows hopping all around the muggle carpark they were waiting in, "the House of Black grows larger."

"She's always been a Black," Sirius muttered, keeping his head on a swivel. There was hardly anyone around. Most people were waiting for their loved ones in the actual building where they would walk through after exiting the ferry, but car park wasn't completely empty. A hurried young man in a rumpled suit power-walked past them.

"Yet she's knocking on the door, asking to be let in." John's wide, amber eyes fixed on him. "Will you welcome her, Lord Black?"

For once, the epithet carried a weight to it that Sirius felt in his very bones. He sighed.

"She's a dark witch."

"You're a dark wizard."

"She loved Lucius Malfoy, of all people."

"Perhaps there was something to love about him."

Sirius scowled at the cat. "I'm only doing this because the two of us want the same thing."

"And what is that?" John challenged.

"To make sure our kids survive the war," he said defensively, not liking the stab of guilt in his heart. John's question was too close to Snape's. You will set him down the path of vengeance.

Sirius hadn't fully processed the fact that he may have given that up. His waking days were too full of immediate concern for Harry - was he happy? Was he safe? Was he prepared to protect himself?

But soon those thoughts would end, because Harry would be gone. He'd be as safe as he could be at Hogwarts, with John, and Sirius would be left behind with the animated corpse of his brother and a riddle to solve. What was in the locket Regulus died to steal? What did the prophecy say about Voldemort, and what did that have to do with Harry? What was Sirius's place in coming struggle?

"Your kid, huh?"

He stiffened, a flush running from the top of his head down to his toes. He looked staunchly at the moon, ignoring John's snicker. "You know what I mean."

"I know what I saw," John meowed, "that's a cute little puppy patronus you have. Are you ever going to show Harry that? It'd be good for him, I think." Sirius felt his face getting hotter. "You know, he found out that you named him his heir. He's been unusually quiet about it for the last few days. He won't even let me tease him anymore. I was trying to call him Peanut Butter for awhile but he said he'd tell everyone he renamed me Gerald." John spat off to the side in irritation.

"Peanut Butter?" Sirius asked curiously, despite himself.

"Like, Potter-Black?" John snorted, "PB? Look, he's been unbearably melancholic the last few days so I had to stoop to puns. He didn't laugh either."

Just then, a whistle cut through the air, just the first few bars of God Save the Queen. Sirius turned around and saw Narcissa in the same outfit but a glamoured face coming out of the ferry building. He waved at her, whistling the next part back.

"I'll watch your back," John whispered, vanishing under the nearest car.

Sirius met Narcissa at the tall, chain-link fence. She was rolling a muggle luggage bag behind her. She looked very small and unassuming in her muggle clothes, but it wasn't until she was standing right in front of him that he realized just how exhausted she looked.

"Circus," she greeted, leaning in to kiss his cheek with a tired smile.

"Priscilla," he murmured back, half-embracing her. That was the final piece of their code. Circus and Priscilla Baine, two muggle cousins meeting at the dock. "How was the trip?"

"Beautiful with the setting sun," she replied, giving him a genuine smile. He reached out and took her bag, clearly charmed featherlight. Without it, she seemed to sway, as if she'd lost an anchor holding her in place.

A cynical part of his brain wondered if this was a trick.

He held out his arm. "Let's go home. Hungry?"

He apparated behind a tall box truck in the back of the carpark, using all his concentration to make it as smooth as possible. The apartment was far warmer than the nippy, seaside air, and Narcissa nearly toppled over right there in the living room.

"Ten days of bedrest, huh?" Sirius grunted, trying to gently guide her to the sofa. She pushed his hands off and made her way on her own, sighing heavily when she finally sat.

"This glamor is quite taxing," she panted, pulling it off with a wave of her wand. "I was going to do even this the muggle way, truth be told, but I did not want to delay. For Theo's sake."

Sirius tried to imagine Narcissa Malfoy with a box of muggle hair dye in some hotel bathroom in France. "Do you need, er," he almost said Snape and then remembered that the man just put her husband out of his misery. And he could have rotted to death by now, for all he knew. "A healer? Or is there a potion I could buy?"

"I have what I need," she said firmly.

Sirius was fairly certain, based on the pallor of her skin and the tight, pained expression on her face that she was not faking this. He relaxed a little. "Tea?"

"Please."

They were silent for awhile. Narcissa fished a potion and a salve of some kind out of her bag. The salve smelled like peppermint and made him sneeze from all the way across the room. He served her tea, and an assortment of fancy little sandwiches, mini quiches, and desserts he bought from a prissy cafe for this exact purpose.

Her dark eyes were alight with amusement when he floated the tea set over, and he felt awkward, all of a sudden. 

"My magical core behaves differently than most, after having Draco," she offered without prompting, serving her own tea. Despite sitting on his humble couch, she was straight-backed and perfect in her movements, acting as if they were sitting at an elegant table. "It is elastic. When I take myself to my limit, sometimes it forms a vacuum and becomes stuck, as it were. Contracted."

Sirius blinked. He had never heard of such a thing. "It's not fixable?"

Her lip twitched into a grim smile, "No, it is not. It should have killed me when Draco was born, but the condition was identified while he was still developing, so I survived. And so did he." Sirius didn't know what to say, so he stayed quiet. Narcissa ate the corner of a sandwich and then, seemingly realizing she was hungry, ate it all at once.

"I'm not surprised you've never heard of it," she went on after polishing off a quiche as well. "It is rare among mothers. For a wixen woman to die during childbirth is...almost unthinkable. But it was far more common in the dark ages, when we were desperate for our children to be born stronger than ourselves."

Sirius was taken aback by the implication of that. "Is that why it happened to you?"

"Yes," she intoned, holding her chin up. "I was terrified that Draco would be born a squib."

He jolted with surprise. "Why? There are squibs in our family but they're rare. And from several generations back." He felt a little guilty parroting that old line, but he had been raised to believe squibs were genetic. The truth was, no one knew why some children were born without fully-developed cores from magical parents, and there was no way to predict whether your child would be without one. In some cases, children born with weak cores suddenly went through a magical evolution at nine or ten and crossed the line from squib to wix. It was totally unpredictable.

Narcissa closed her eyes for a brief moment. "Lucius was not an only child," she said, painfully. "On her deathbed, his mother told me the truth of their family. He was not even the oldest. He was the second-born. Abraxas killed the other two, for they were born squibs."

Sirius nearly dropped his teacup. Narcissa shook her head, a haunted expression on her face, "Abraxas was still alive when we married. In fact, he lived in the other wing of the Manor. And Lucius..." Her grip tightened on the teacup, "I loved him, but we were so young. Untested. He was...caught up with the Dark Lord. I wasn't sure if I could trust him. I did not believe he would choose us over them. So, when I became pregnant that Draco,  I wished every waking minute of my life that he would be born with a strong core. I wished it so desperately that our cores became intertwined. And when he was born...he almost took all my magic with him."

Sirius's mouth was hanging open in shock. Narcissa reached out to fill her cup again. Her hands were steady.

"I tell you this so you understand, cousin, that I have been ready to do anything for my child since before he was born. That includes slaying the Dark Lord."

He nearly choked on his tongue, "You want to join the Order?"

She glanced at him. "If that is how I can be most useful."

He turned that over in his mind for a second. She continued to eat, keeping her gaze down and away from him while he thought.

Albus suggested that Narcissa could be the key to finding other neutral or wavering families among Voldemort's roster of supporters, but was that all she could be? A witch like her, with a lifetime of secrets in her head? Perhaps Albus was thinking too small. She could help them infiltrate the Death Eaters, monitor their secret properties, plant spies in their favorite bars.

Sirius eyed her. On the other hand... Narcissa was likely to have a rich education in dark magic. Better than his, which was patchy at best. She may have the answers to questions Sirius could not ask anyone else.

Questions like, how do you safely recall the soul of the dead to their corpse without ripping open a portal through the veil?

"Albus would appreciate your help," Sirius said slowly. "But, so would I. In fact...you may be able to help me in a way no one else can. On a sort of...private venture. Having to do with slaying the Dark Lord."

She looked at him sharply, "You would trust me so easily?"

"I wouldn't." A little smile flickered on her face, something very much like approval in her eyes. He resisted the urge to roll his. "But seeing as Harry and Theo are inseparable, I think we'd better start small and try to trust each other."

It was her turn to look surprised. "Harry...Potter?"

Sirius snorted. "Narcissa, let me tell you how we really found Theo."

---

All in all, he was with Narcissa until nearly midnight, talking about all manner of things related to the one subject they had in common - fifteen-year-old wizards. Sirius did the washing up after she retreated into his bedroom. His apartment was starting to feel more and more like a hostel for wayward wixen.

"Will you stay here until the morning?" he asked John, who was perched on top of the fridge.

John gave him a wicked stink-eye, "Absolutely not. Harry asked me to watch you."

"I know, but what if she has some kind of fit in the middle of the night? She can barely do magic right now."

"So? You've gone above and beyond the call of duty. Set an alarm on this place if you're so worried about her."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I still need to find my way to Orkney," he muttered, rubbing his face and breaking out into a jaw-cracking yawn. "I've never been that far north."

"Take a nap first, at least, Merlin. Harry's rubbing off on you."

"I suppose I could go first thing in the morning," Sirius tipped his head back, thinking. "From Hogsmead I could floo...somewhere."

"Try Ham Bon Place," John suggested. "It's a...what do they call them? A bathhouse?"

Sirius felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. "John, I am not flooing to a brothel."

"Well, that's the only place I can think of close to the sea train," John shrugged. "Your loss."

In the end, he returned to Grimmauld Place with John in tow. He could hear some quiet whispering behind the door to Regulus's room, but he didn't intrude. John crouched down and listened with his ear against the floor for a solid minute before he trotted back to Sirius. He had a smug expression on his face that Sirius did not try to decipher.

He transformed into Padfoot and slept in the empty room next to Ron's with John curled up next to his head. It was the only way he could get any sleep at all in his childhood home. He managed five hours of sleep and apparated blearily to the Hog's Head, which was always open, with John wrapped uselessly around his neck, still snoring away. Aberforth told him the floo address of Skarfskerry station and minute later, Sirius was standing on the coast.

This far north, the magic felt different. He stood outside, letting the whipping, ice-cold air soak his skin and staring at the shape of islands on the horizon. John grumbled unintelligibly and tucked his nose into Sirius's neck.

He and Theo would have to ride the train, there was no other option. Apparition from the main land to the islands was dangerous, even if you could see them with your naked eye, hence the sea train. The wild magic of the sea was liable to create invisible, warping sinkholes, and many a wixen had been sucked a thousand meters below sea level trying to prove that it was possible to apparate even a short distance.

The sun broke gloriously over the horizon just as the first train pulled out over the waves. It undulated through the water like a sea monster, a frothy white, blue, and green. To any passing muggle boat or plane, it looked like capping waves, flowing over the current. Sirius stared out the window and watched a small handful of passengers get off the first train, and then a larger contingent get on. Then he went to the counter and bought three tickets for the 1 o'clock train, just in case Narcissa wanted to come with them.

He cased Scarfskerry for a little while, disguised as Circus Baine, a down-on-his-luck crabber searching for work. He modeled this character after Mundungus, so most everyone's eyes slid right over him. But, like recognizes like, and he did manage to talk to a few old drunks recovering from a night at the bars. Everyone agreed - in this little town, nothing ever happened. There was hardly any trouble to be had. It was too hard to survive in such an unforgiving place at the edge of the sea to think about Dark Lords or crimes any worse than crashing your boat into the dock.

Sirius felt his mood lift as he stood at the very edge of a sea cliff, letting white sunlight wash over him. After having so many hours of sunlight taken from him, every second felt like a gift. This will never get old, he decided, smiling into it.

And then his earring started to pulse with a high-pitched, ringing alarm. He stiffened. At the same time, John popped up out of the grass, feathers stuck to his muzzle from the songbird he'd just killed.

"He's in trouble! He's at - " John cast around for a moment, head pointed south. "Black Roc!"

---

Draco

"You'll be alright," Blaise whispered on the other side of the hedge. "I promise, she won't eat you."

"You're not my type," the smiling vampire cooed, waving him over. Draco leaned a little deeper into the bushes.

Blaise poked him in the back with a stick, "Go! You'll miss your flight!"

Draco stepped forward (he did not stumble over a protruding root) and brushed the back of his hands over his clothes. Blaise could do this. Theo could do this. Hell, even Pansy Parkinson was bragging about going on a cruise ship of all things this summer, so Draco could very well put himself on a two-hour flight to London.

But why did Blaise have to bring her into the equation? He whined in his head, getting into Morena's long limousine. As soon as closed the door behind him, she tapped the black glass with her pointed nails and the car began to move.

The inside was nearly pitch black. The only light came from deep scarlet glowstones hanging from the ceiling, but they were not enough to truly illuminate Morena. Her eyes were like two gaping shadows on her face above a ghostly set of fangs.

"How are you, Mistress Morena?" He asked politely, feeling clammy sweat start to gather at his collar. 

Morena wrinkled her nose, "Bored," she complained. "Blaise wouldn't invite me to Venice with you. I haven't been since the Carnival in 1691."

"Awful long time," he said sympathetically.

"Warring clans, you know," she sighed, kicking her feet. "I wouldn't have been able to go anyway, but it would have been nice to be invited. This isn't Venice, but at least it's interesting. I've never spirited a wizard to an airport before."

"Have you ever flown in one of these things?" he asked before he could stop himself. "Is it true they make you sit shoulder to shoulder?"

Morena giggled, "I find it nice."

I'm sure you do, he thought with a shiver. I'm sure all the muggles think you're a cute twelve year old girl until you sink your teeth into their necks.

"Flight's likely to be full with it being the first one out," the vampire went on conversationally. "Ready? Got your neck pillow? Remembered your luggage?"

Draco curled his fingers together and ignored her teasing, watching the murky world pass by outside the windows. It was just past five in the morning. Draco failed so miserably at Blaise's initial "muggle" training that all hope of getting him out on the last, overnight plane flew out the window before they even began.

But after pulling an all-nighter of studying, repeating common muggle words until they didn't sound foreign on his tongue, and learning how to pay in liras and pounds, Draco was ready. He would purchase a seat on the first flight out of Turin, flying direct to London Heathrow at 6:10am. Blaise was sending him to the airport a full hour in advance so he'd have plenty of time to work out where to go.

Draco's mind was utterly focused on his immediate next steps. Get safely to London, get a cab to this Grimmauld Place, find the house among townhouses, and put himself between Theo and whatever danger he was in.

Not between, Draco corrected himself, whisk him away from danger. Somehow. Can't bring him to the manor, but the Greengrass family might let us hide within their walls for a short time. They're not far. If not them, there are a few safe havens in London, primarily the Ministry. The Albion. St. Mungo's. Get to one of them and we'll be safe.

Draco had many fears warring for his attention concerning this potential suicide mission, but his greatest fear was so dark he couldn't even contemplate it for more than a second.

His mother. She was going to be beyond furious with him.

But Theo needs me. He knew it as strongly as he knew his own magic. The panic was still there, a sharp, steady pulsing in his chest, like an open wound that needed healing. I'll find Theo, wherever he is, before she even knows I'm missing. And then...well, whatever happens, Theo and I will be together. And she's always been soft on him, so maybe she'll go easy on me.

Luckily, Catarina Zabini was not a morning person, and a borderline negligent mother on top of that. She wouldn't even know he was missing until ten. Her one and only precaution over Blaise was a strong ward alarm. If Blaise ever set one toe across the property line, she knew. Ostensibly, it was not because Blaise wasn't allowed outside the villa, but to prevent him from being carried off by one the many vampires who lived in Turin. Either way it was impossible for him to come to London on this insane quest without getting caught.

"Here." Morena moved faster than he could blink, and suddenly she was leaning against him. Draco's throat constricted and he let out a tiny eep. "Put this on. Don't take it off until you're with your people again."

She dangled a necklace into his palm. It was a carved bit of ivory that looked like a flower on a long, dark chain. Hideous.

Draco put it on with extreme reluctance. Morena hooked her hand under his collar and dropped the cold necklace down his front. He stopped breathing. The points of her nails were as sharp as knives.

"This will depress your magical aura, making you seem muggle," she explained, and suddenly her childish voice was heavy with age. "It is an ancient token, a gift I give to you on behalf of my friend, the wizard Blaise Zabini." The points of her nails pressed down just slightly on his throat. "Bring it back to me."

"I will," he promised, resisting the urge to nod enthusiastically. He'd promise her his first-born child as long as she'd stop looking at him like that.

"Good," she patted his shoulder and slid to the other side of the car. They traveled in silence the rest of the way.

"Have a safe flight!" Morena hollered out the window, waving furiously at him like a child. A teenage girl not much older than him pointed and laughed. He felt his shoulders hunch up around his ears and he waved jerkily before darting inside as quickly as possible.

Immediately, he was overwhelmed by crowds of muggles.

Draco put his back to the first wall he could find, trying not to hyperventilate. He gripped the leather satchel over his shoulder as hard as he could with both hands. Despite the early hour, muggles crawled all over the place, heading up moving stairs, standing in line, talking and drinking from flimsy paper cups, carrying huge, overstuffed bags of all different colors and styles.

He took a few deep breaths to find his center and looked for the British Airways counter that Blaise described to him. It had one of the longest lines.

His heart beat faster and faster the closer he got to the front. In his head he kept reviewing Blaise's muggle money lesson and repeating the magic words, I would like one first-class ticket on the first flight to London. Please. The 'please' was very important.

"Good morning," the woman behind the counter leaned forward, face illuminated by a squat, glowing box. "Where are you off to?"

She was English. He didn't know why he was so surprised, but he was struck dumb for a beat too long. She stared at him and the carefully rehearsed words flew out of his head. He felt like he did sometimes when mother was testing his french and he suddenly couldn't remember a single word.

"Oh, uh, London. First flight. Please." The airport was bright. Too bright. He felt dizzy, but he was vaguely proud to remember Blaise's most important lesson. It will be hard for you, but you need to be polite to everyone. If you act like you own the place you'll attract attention, and you don't want that.

She clacked away at something and said a jumble of words so quickly that Draco could only stare at her. She arched an eyebrow and repeated, much more slowly, "I said, I have a window seat on Boeing flight 1988 service to London, leaving at 6:25am."

"I thought it was flying at 6:10?" For the first time it occurred to him that he could end up on the wrong flight. What if it took him the long way round to London instead? Blaise said it was vitally important that he fly direct.

"It was delayed." The woman frowned, two little lines creasing the corner of her mouth. "Does that sound amenable to you, sir?"

Delayed? They can be delayed? Why? What if it's stopped entirely? He wondered if his dismay showed, for the woman was careful to ask the rest of her questions far more slowly. He could feel the crowd behind him fidgeting. The back of Draco's neck felt hot.

At last she printed out a long bit of paper and handed it to him, along with the fake identification card Blaise doctored into showing Draco's face instead of his own. "Take this through the checkpoint, you'll be at Gate A12. Is this your first time flying?"

Why did she wait until the end to ask such an obvious question? So as not to seem even more stupid than he already looked, Draco simply nodded. The muggle smiled at him, kindly. Eugh. "Ask anyone wearing a uniform where to go if you get lost. Have a nice flight!"

Holding his very flimsy paper ticket, if it could even be called paper, really, he suddenly felt a swell of pride. That's right, I will, he thought smugly, holding his head high as he starting walking away. I'd like to see Pansy Parkinson pull this off so smoothly.

"Wrong way!" The woman's voice chimed brightly across the echoing expanse of the airport. Draco swiveled on his heel, feeling his face heating up against his will. She pointed the opposite direction he'd been moving. Indeed, up ahead he could see a sign hanging from the ceiling on wires that said, ALL GATES.

He walked as quickly as possible, trying not to look at all the faces that were staring at him. Draco was used to a certain amount of staring. He was always the best dressed most places he went, or if that wasn't it, he at least stood out with his hair and fine complexion. But here, the stares did not make him feel envied and desired. They made him feel exposed. Alone. Weak, even, because he knew that he could not use magic against them, and that was all he had.

It is a wonder any muggleborn stays in this god-forsaken world.

He breezed through "security", which was just a weathered italian man waving people by, and was turned out into a much more peaceful part of the airport. There were chairs and benches everywhere. The air smelled of coffee and pastries, and lined up outside every other window was an airplane.

Draco went right up to the first spot that had no muggle onlookers and took in the beast. It had large, circular hubs under its wings that seemed like weighty, unnecessary additions, but he remembered that Blaise said this is where they generated the energy it needed to fly. 

Last call for flight 2321, departing for Paris out of gate C2.

Having nothing else to do, he wandered down towards the C gate to watch it move, finding his way using the large signs. He got sidetracked in a small store, that seemed to be half news stand, half candy store. 

Draco's eyes widened as he took in the sheer amount of it. He had never seen so many objects that he had no frame of reference for. And their candy, Merlin, muggles made a lot of different kinds, all individually wrapped. He glanced at the shopkeeper, but she was busy reading a magazine and paid him no mind.

Shopping. This, Draco could do, even if he had to finagle with muggle money. Blaise had given him quite a bit of it, just in case he said, but Draco was now terrified of the thought that he might somehow end up at the wrong destination and need to buy another ticket, so he was extremely careful with what he bought.

In the end, he spent the equivalent of about three galleons, which was hardly anything at all. Draco shoved bags of candy in his satchel, along with a copy of a muggle magazine called Vogue, and a disposable camera.

Draco carefully took the camera out of the box and looked at it from all sides. It was exactly like the five Theo blew through over the summer. Draco had been secretly fascinated with them, especially when Theo let him help develop the film. 

He felt like a fine actor, standing in front of the tall, glossy windows overlooking what Blaise called the tarmac, snapping a picture of his reflection overlaid on a large red and white airplane. No one would ever think he didn't belong here, among these muggles. And now he had proof that he had done it.

He touched the bracelet at his wrist. He'd already held his thumb over Blaise's symbol for a full fifteen seconds to signal he was safely inside, but now he brushed Theo's amulet. It was early in London so he didn't expect a response, but the idea that Theo's pulse was on the other side made him feel steady. Like he had a direction.

All too soon, he heard: "Now boarding British Airways flight 1988 for London..."

He shuffled into line. The metal tube jutting from the building to the plane was more rickety than he expected, and he could see cracks through the seams. He could hear something horrific screaming just outside, the sound so shrill it actually rattled the cage they were in.

"This cannot be safe," he muttered.

"This is definitely not safe," he said again, when he had to step - actually step, over open, untethered air (just about a handspan of space, but still!) off the metal tube and into the actual airplane.

Draco's heart was firmly in his throat when he stood at the front of the plane looking down a single, narrow aisle and finally understood what these airplanes looked like on the inside. In that moment, he realized he had made a huge mistake.

"It's so small," he gasped. He could see row upon row of seats, all packed together and going all the way down to the end of the plane! It was nothing like the setup Blaise had created in his bedroom. Nothing at all. And the roof! The roof of the plane came down, he would actually have to duck to sit!

Draco could feel his pulse running erratic. The gap between him and the man trundling along in front got longer. He felt the impatient swell of people behind him.

"May I see your ticket?" A smiling woman in uniform said.

He showed it to her. He'd tried to keep it perfectly crisp, but as his nerves got increasingly worse he had worried it to the point that it looked crushed and sad in her hands. "You're in the middle, in front of the wing," she pointed and smiled. "Just go past the curtains, on the right side."

Draco looked at the seats right in front of him. There weren't many, and they were quite a bit larger and more spacious than the ones beyond the curtain. "Um."

He wanted to scream at himself. Reduced to um's. Like some common rabble.

He cleared his throat, "I think I'm supposed to be in first class."

He heard someone grumble behind him, but he did not care. He didn't care because he, Draco Lucius Malfoy, was standing in the smallest space he had ever been in his life with all these muggles and now they wanted him to go past the curtain? He didn't even know what that meant but he was fairly certain that he was meant to be in first class. Nearest to the door.

Blaise even told me to say it when I bought the ticket! He realized far, far too late, right as she said, "No, I'm sorry, you're flying coach." She waved down the plane. "Maria will take you."

Another smiling woman, this one with silky brown hair pulled into a perfect french bun, came forward and ushered him to follow.

What else have I forgotten? He thought miserably, gripping the strap of his bag so hard that his nails started to bend back. What if I'm on the wrong flight? What if I get there too late? What if I have to sit next to some huge, sweating muggle for two hours?

He passed the large, well-cushioned seats of first class and entered what she had called coach, feeling like he was walking to the gallows. The woman took a look at his ticket and led him directly to a row in the front-middle. "You're next to the window," she said sweetly, sliding into the row behind and waving at more passengers as they entered lowly coach.

Draco squeezed into the tiny space, trying to touch as little as possible. It felt dirty. He made the mistake of running his fingertips over the hard plastic back of the chair in front of him and his fingertips came back oily.

"Oh Circe," he moaned. And then he looked out the double-paned window and gasped. There was a crack in the outside window. "Miss?"

The woman was still behind him, "Hm? Yes?"

He pointed to the rather obvious crack in the window. "This airplane is...broken, isn't it? Shouldn't we switch into another one?"

To her credit, she took a close look, but he did not appreciate that she did it by moving directly behind him and leaning over his head. "Oh, that's normal. That's why there's this other plate of plastic here, you see?" She tapped the inside of the window. "I flew in on this plane last night. It flies like a dream, I promise."

He tried to nod, or seem pacified, but he wasn't. He felt jittery, hot and cold at the same time. He threw a baleful look over the seat and saw more and more people coming down the aisle.

A clinking noise tugged at his ear. He turned and saw an older woman across the aisle from him, knitting. She had a pair of bulbous glasses that made her eyes look huge.

"First time flying?" she asked sympathetically.

"Ye - yes." Now he was stuttering? Draco resisted the urge to slam his face into the chair in front of him.

The plane continued to fill up with muggles, but it was not as full as he feared. No one sat next to him, at least, nor in front of him.

The uniformed women, called flight attendants, came by and began doing a safety check. He was forced to slide Blaise's satchel under the chair in front of him. He wove his hands together to keep them from shaking.

"May I sit with you?" The old woman across the way hissed at him as the plane lurched and began to back up. "Just until we get in the air. Don't like the takeoff much."

He had lost the ability to speak. Draco nodded jerkily. The flight attendant began a presentation, miming along like a puppet to a disembodied voice echoing through the plane.

"In the event of a water landing, your floating device is under your seat..."

"Water landing?" he cried, trying to jump to his feet and getting caught by the belt around his lap. "That is it. I can't be here, I cannot be here. I'm sorry Theo but this is unbearable, I'm telling them to turn around -"

"We won't be making a water landing, not to worry," the woman next to him said soothingly. She reached out and touched his wrist, keeping him from wrestling with the waistbelt. "I've flown about a hundred times and we've never even come close. This is safer than driving, you know."

He looked desperately out the window. It was too late. They were moving. He wished his mother was here, and not this weird looking woman.

She went back to her knitting and did not speak again until a very faint, male voice echoed down the plane, "Prepare for takeoff..."

"Who is Theo?" The woman asked, tucking her knitting in her lap. She leaned back and closed her eyes, as if bracing for something. Draco unconsciously copied her, but kept his eyes open. "A friend?"

All at once the plane began to accelerate. Very, very fast. Draco clutched the arm rests as hard as he possibly could and stared out the window as the ground began to streak past them. It wasn't until the stomach-swooping sensation of liftoff hit him in the gut that he gasped and answered in a rush, "He's my stupid friend who needs my help and I promised I would do anything for him but now I'm going to die in this terrible little metal tube and he'll never even know I flew coach and suffered such a terrible hell for him..." Draco fully abandoned his pride and let out a miserable whine, clinging to the chair for dear life.

The woman laughed. "I think the same thing every time we take off," she chuckled. "That's why I keep my eyes closed. Better to meet my maker when I open them. I imagine it will happen quick, though. They say your brain short-circuits and spares you any pain."

Draco flinched. He knew how untrue that was.

Suddenly, his fear didn't seem quite so bright. He took a deep breath and stared out the window, focusing on the sensation of force dragging on his body as they tilted and rattled through the air, trying to forget about those last few days in the cottage.

Trying to forget his father.

He touched the amulet.

"You're a good friend," the woman said to him, after the plane leveled out. "I'm sure this Theo of yours will be grateful that you faced your fears for him. Thank you for letting me sit with you, I'll stop being a bother now."

She picked up her knitting and moved back across the aisle. Draco leaned down and took the camera out of his bag, winding up and taking a picture of the large field of fluffy clouds spread out over the sky. Her careless words tugged at him, worrying an old wound.

Why don't you just crawl into some dungeon and disappear?

He twitched and tried to suffocate that old, shameful memory. Draco was not a good friend, it was not in his nature to be. He was self-centered and shallow, impulsive and mean-spirited.

I like you the way you are Draco. I liked you more before we came to school, but...maybe that Draco's still in there.

The plane ride was long. The flight attendant came by and tried to give him a meal, which he declined, remembering Blaise's caution that it might make him sick. He drank some truly awful tea out of a tiny cup. He looked at the magazine. Took pictures. Stared out the window.

Mostly, he stared out the window. It was quiet and his ears ached from the change in pressure. He was extra grateful that Blaise told him what to expect, otherwise Draco may have believed he was dying.

And then, unexpectedly, Theo's amulet warmed. Draco covered it with his hand and closed his eyes. Theo was not good at asking for help, but this felt like he was. I'm coming, he thought. I'm coming, like I said I would.

---

A squealing family embraced the knitting woman nearly as soon as they made it off the plane, but she still took a moment to wave goodbye to him and shout, "Good luck, sonny!"

He was full of nervous energy now that he was back in somewhat familiar territory. The power of the Dark Lord loomed in every shadow. He found himself pressing Morena's amulet against his skin, hoping that it worked as well as she said it did.

To make matters worse, Blaise's glamor was starting to fade. Draco caught sight of his hair lightening into its usual platinum white and hurried to buy a hat to cover it before exiting the airport. He also snagged a pair of sunglasses.

And then he stood in a stinking queue for a cab for what seemed like an age. How much of their lives is spent waiting in line? Draco thought exhaustedly. When it was finally his turn to get into a black cab, he got a brief look at his reflection in the window and smirked. Unrecognizable. Draco Malfoy would never be caught dead wearing an I <3 London hat. He may as well be invisible.

"Where to?" The driver asked, giving him a once-over.

"Grimmauld Place," Draco answered confidently.

The man screwed up his face. "And that would be...?"

"In...ah," Draco tapped into that sensation of dread in his chest. I need you now magic, tell me where Grimmauld Place is, come on... "Is...Islington?" The driver glowered. "I can pay," Draco assured him, lifting his chin.

Like magic, the car began to move, "Let's start in Islington, then."

They started to drive. It took a long time. Long enough that Draco shed his outer coat and had to roll up his sleeves to stay cool. The driver stopped twice to ask another cab for directions before they finally found it. As soon as Draco saw the trees, he knew they were in the right place.

"What number is it?"

"Don't worry about that, just drop me here," he said quickly, pulling out a sheaf of notes from his wallet and sorting the pounds out from the liras. "Here, is this enough?"

He handed the driver about fifty over the numbers on the fare ticker. His eyes bugged out.

Outside, he tucked his light jacket over his arm and studied the area, looking for a discrete place to stand back and hide. His saw a shadowy patch of grass between the cluster of trees forming a wall between the townhouses of Grimmauld Place and the small park on the other side. Draco walked assuredly into them and then turned and started studying the houses, looking for signs of magic.

Immediately, he noted the missing number between eleven and thirteen. He started to get excited. He moved through the trees until he was standing directly across from where number twelve should be and waited impatiently for something to happen. If only I had an owl, he thought.

His eyes widened. Owls were often trained by whistle.

Draco wet his lips and whistled three notes, the signal they used for their own birds. A minute passed by. He whistled again, a little louder this time. There was no one around to pay him any mind, but that didn't mean anything if he was outside of a magical house. There could be wizards watching him, disguised, invisible.

It came at him out of thin air. One second he was staring at the sky above the townhouses, and the next second a hawk was flying directly at his face, talons outstretched.

Draco threw himself back and put both arms up, banging painfully into a tree. He felt a branch cut through the back of his shirt and scrape his shoulder. Something strong wrapped around his forearm and wobbled back and forth.

Draco could not believe his eyes when he looked up and recognized Theo's osprey, Raziel, perched right on top of him.

"I have never been so happy to see a mailbird in all my life," he gasped, a little afraid to move now that Raziel's huge talons were inches from his face. "Is Theo with you? Can you get to him?"

Raziel cocked his head to the side and then dipped his beak down to tap the leather bag on his leg.

"Yes, yes!" Draco shakily reached into his pocket and pulled out the ouroboros pin that Theo made for him back in June. "Take this to him," he whispered, fastening it, "directly. Quick as you can!"

The bird needed no further instruction. With a little heave from Draco, Raziel shot up into the air, crashing through the branches and spinning around to fly back across the street. Once again, like a mirage, he just seemed to disappear before he hit the rooftops.

Draco did not have time to wonder what kind of magic it was. He felt terribly exposed doing what he just did. Please, please, please be fast, he thought, nervously moving closer to the sidewalk. He didn't want a wizard to show up behind him and snatch him away. Draco kept one hand on the side pocket of his satchel, where his wand was, and waited.

And didn't have to wait for long.

"No! Just hold on!"

Quick footsteps pattered on the sidewalk, and that was the only warning he got before a figure emerged from the mirage, popping into existence between number eleven and thirteen. Draco straightened up. Theo's eyes snapped right to him.

Draco recognized him immediately, even though he, too, was in muggle clothes and had a hood pulled over his head. And based on the way Theo took off across the road, he recognized Draco, too.

"What are you doing here?" He said fiercely, crashing into him with such force that Draco had to dig his toes into the ground to keep from stumbling back. "What are you doing here, Draco? You - are you - " Theo pulled back. Well, he had to push Draco back, because he was not keen to let go. He swept his eyes up and down, studying Draco's muggle outfit, his hat, his failing glamor. "Are you in danger? Are you okay?"

A rush of emotion choked him, rendering him wordless. Theo reached out and took his sunglasses off, blue eyes wide and concerned.

"I'm here to help you," Draco ground out, holding tight to Theo's arms. "I had this feeling yesterday like something awful was happening to you, so I had to come. Blaise and I both had this...this vision, or something, of this street. I thought it must be an emergency, some kind of summoning, so I flew here this morning. On a plane."

"You what?" Theo repeated, dumbfounded.

"Yes!" Draco shook him, unable to tear his eyes from Theo's face. "It was terrible Theo! Just horrible! It smelled like stale, dirty air the whole time!. Did you know you just breathe it in over and over again, and they run it through the ceiling to 'clean it'?! And the worst part was, they put me in coach!"

Theo's mouth was starting to twitch. Draco felt a rush of irritation. "Don't laugh!" He barked, "Do I look like someone who should fly in coach? They should have known to put me in first class without me having to ask!"

Theo covered his mouth and leaned down, wrapping his arms around Draco again. "You rode coach for me?" He laughed helplessly, "Oh no, oh Merlin, I'm going to hear about this for the rest of my life."

"Yes you are!" Draco replied hotly, as heat rose up behind his eyes. He squeezed them shut and buried his nose in Theo's shoulder. Nervous, relieved laughter bubbled up his chest. "I flew all this way for you and you're not even dying."

Theo lost it, then, laughing so hard he let go and staggered back, colliding with something invisible just behind. "Oof, sorry Harry."

Draco's joy vanished.

"You have to get back in the house," a new voice whispered. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. "I'll take him - or - or Sirius can take him, somewhere. Until -"

"Are you kidding me?" Theo said sharply. "I'm not leaving him by himself."

"But-" there was frustrated sigh. "I can't apparate. Where am I supposed to take you two?"

"Theo..." Draco said slowly.

"We could go to any crowded muggle cafe right now and be perfectly safe."

"What? Are you insane? You can't-"

"Who is going to recognize me? Or him? It's safer than going somewhere like the Albion -"

"Theo," Draco repeated, staring at the spot of air where the other voice was coming from. "That's not-"

"How about my portkey?" The other voice was starting to sound a tad desperate. Theo seemed not to be listening, taking a few steps out from their hidden spot in the trees like he was getting his bearings. A disembodied hand shot out in mid-air and grasped the back of his shirt. "Theo - wait, okay? Let's just take the portkey. It's to another Black property. It's safe."

Theo turned around, eyes slightly unfocused, wearing that familiar thoughtful expression that Draco had seen a hundred million times. "Okay," he decided. "As long as he can come.

The disembodied hand moved up and pulled the invisibility cloak up. "There's no way all three of us can fit under here," Harry Potter muttered, wrinkling his nose as he looked around. "Is anyone watching?"

"No," Theo murmured, stepping in close.

"It's this," Potter explained, showing off a thick, heavy ring on his hand. Obligingly, Theo reached out and touched it.

"Come on, Draco," he said.

Draco gaped at him. "You - you - what - I mean - what is he doing here?!"

Potter had the audacity to look at Theo knowingly. Knowingly! Draco felt an ugly, familiar jealousy rear its head. "Listen here, Potter," he began with a sneer.

Theo snatched his wrist and slapped his hand tightly against Potter's. "Go."

"Toujours pur!"

Force yanked him from the middle out and sent all three of them hurtling through space. A second later, they landed hard in nearly pitch darkness on top of a thick, dusty rug. Draco immediately yanked his hand away and drew his wand.

"Theo!" He demanded, glaring blindly into the dark. "Explain! Why is Potter here?"

Theo sighed long-sufferingly. Someone whispered, "Lumos."

Potter's mouth was flat, his green eyes trailing over Draco like he was a particularly gross bug. "Hello Malfoy," he said unhappily.

"Don't start with me," he snapped. Potter narrowed his eyes.

"Now, now, boys," Theo drawled, looking back and forth between them. "Play nice."

Draco bared his teeth at him. "Are you kidding me? What is he doing here? Is he why -" Draco gasped, "Is he the reason you're in danger?"

"Draco -"

Potter shot him such a heavy glare that Draco was absolutely certain he was right. He stepped up, lifting his wand so he was half-way in front of Theo, keeping his eyes fixed on Potter the whole time.

"No, put that down," Theo commanded, wrestling with his wand arm. "Harry's been -"

"Harry?" The name rolled bitterly off his tongue. "Does he have you brainwashed?"

"This is Kingfisher!" Theo snapped, more loudly. "Put that away! Put it away!"

If not for the rough edge to his voice, Draco wouldn't have done it. Potter was still looking at him darkly. He'd crossed his arms, bringing the illuminated tip of his wand to the side and casting deep shadows over his face. In a flash, Draco noted the new cut of his hair, his new glasses, and different way he held himself, but the impertinent look on his face was all Potter.

Only, it was also... "Kingfisher?" Draco repeated, warily, trying to fit his foggy image of Theo's pen pal to everything he knew about Potter.

"Yes," Theo tugged him fully around. It was hard to see him because Potter's lumos wasn't very strong, but Draco could easily see the frown on his face. "Harry Potter was the one I was writing to all summer. He's the one who rescued me. You may not raise your wand to him."

"But..." he glanced over his shoulder. "But how? You? How are you friends with that - that -"

"Malfoy, just accept that you don't know the first thing about me," Potter said sourly, fiddling with his ear. "It will be a lot easier if we both start on the same footing."

Before he could formulate a response, a loud crack sounded from deep in the house. Draco flinched and raised his wand again.

"Harry?"

Theo jumped, triggering adrenaline to scream through his body like it did when he went into a dive on the Quidditch Pitch. Draco licked his lips, a curse ready on the tip of his tongue, only to have his throat completely close up when he saw the foreboding figure of Sirius Black rush out of the shadows. He skidded to a halt, eyes flickering over all three of them, only to settle disconcertingly on Draco.

"Who the fuck is this?"

Draco wondered if incarcerous would work if he squeaked instead of shouted the spell.

"Oh, it's you," Theo sighed. "Just about scared me to death."

"I think your friend is scared to death," Black said, not taking his eyes off of Draco, who had lost all feeling in his body. "Who...is that..." He cocked his head, "Is that a Malfoy?"

"Can we get some light?" Potter complained, waving his wand over his head and increasing the reach of his lumos. "By the way, Sirius, this isn't my fault."

"Oh? But didn't I hear you say just yesterday that you wished you had told Theo's friends where Headquarters is?"

Potter's mouth puckered up like he'd swallowed a lemon. "Um."

"Yes, that's exactly what he did," Theo lied smoothly, clasping Draco's shoulder. Jerkily, he lowered his wand, but when Black looked back at him his arm twitched up of its own accord. Theo reached out and pushed his hand back down. "I asked him to send a letter. I didn't think that Draco would come right away. It was just a contingency plan."

Draco nodded, keeping a blank expression.

Black hummed and snapped his fingers. A fireplace behind Theo crackled to life, and then several torches on the wall followed suit. Draco looked around, marking the shuttered windows and heavy wooden door, as well as a dark hallway that led into some black abyss. They must be in a fortress.

"You were able to send a letter to Italy in just a few hours?" Black said thoughtfully. "And then you, what?" Draco jumped when he realized the man was talking to him. "Portkeyed? Apparated?"

"He flew on a plane," Theo said.

Black's eyes widened in surprise. Unfortunately, he decided to come forward and study Draco closely. His brow knit together. "You got on a muggle airplane, for this kid?"

"Hey," Theo said reproachfully. "I'd do the same for him."

"But you know all about the muggle world, or so you claim. He's, well," Black gestured. Draco leaned back as far as he could, but Black just leaned in closer. "Who did your glamor? It's coming off."

Draco shook his head minutely, still staring. Potter went over to the large wooden door and pushed it open, heaving with all his strength. "Mother magic, Sirius, this place smells like -"

A cloud of steam blasted through the door, followed by a rumbling, scraping growl that chattered Draco's teeth. Before Potter could do anything, the top of a large, ghostly snout snuffled through the door, its reptilian skin pulled back, baring huge, curved fangs at them.

"GET OUT!" Black shouted, throwing a powerful spell at the dragon. It went right through it and exploded against the floor in a shower of blue sparks. The dragon pulled back with an irritated huff. With another wave of his wand, the door slammed shut again, blowing leaves and dirt carried in from outside all through the room.

"I thought you said this was safe?" Theo complained.

"I didn't think the dragon could leave the gate!"

"Be thankful I'm here," Black muttered, shaking a leaf from his hair. "Now, that lie you just fed me was decent, Nott -"

"Just call me Theo," he sighed. "I concede."

Black's face went slack for a moment before breaking into a wide, genuine grin. "Will you -"

"Yes, I'll call you Sirius, now will you please -"

Draco's knees gave out at that moment. Blood rushed to his head as the floor toppled out from under him and the world slipped sideways. Someone caught him around the shoulders, and the next thing he knew, he was resting bonelessly on the floor, pillowed in someone's chest.

"I don't know what's wrong with him, he loves dragons."

"Could it not be because he's standing in a room with the person he hates the most and someone he probably believes is a mass-murdering psychopath?"

"This is crazy," Draco whispered, closing his eyes. Theo patted his shoulder comfortingly. "This is insane. Are you really alive? Did these two really save you? Are we actually in hell?"

"We are not in hell," Theo assured him. "Otherwise my father would be here."

Draco snorted, and he could feel Theo start to laugh under him. His head felt like a balloon, floating off his shoulders. Now that he started laughing, he couldn't seem to stop. Draco dissolved into helpless, gasping giggles. Theo's boney knees dug into his back, and his hair started to tickle his face, and he was probably getting filthy on the floor, but none of that mattered because Theo was here. Despite all the odds, he was alive. Draco buried his face in the crook of Theo's arm and was just so grateful.

"They did rescue me," Theo went on, after he had calmed down. "I probably would have had a similar reaction to you, except I was on a lot of pain potion when I had to deal with this, so I acclimatized rather quickly."

"Sirius is innocent, by the way," Potter's sour voice pointed out. "And he's your cousin. So, really, your only problem should be with me."

Draco opened his eyes, staring at Potter for a moment. "Be nice, Draco," Theo hissed in his ear.

"What have you done to Theo?" 

Theo slapped his hand over his mouth. "Forgive him," he implored, "he's at his limit. He had to fly coach. Can we come up with a way to get him in the fidelius-protected house, please, before the dragon eats us?"

Black was squatting down on his haunches, staring at Draco with open curiosity. "The dragon won't eat you. As long as you stay in this room, you're safe."

At that moment, a ear-splitting, hair-raising screech echoed through the castle, ricocheting off the walls and echoing out from the dark corridor behind them.

Draco sat up, heart thumping in his chest. Even Potter had gone white. "Er, are you sure about that?" 

"It can always tell when there are people nearby," Black said, waving his hand dismissively. "Best not test the wards, though, so don't leave."

"As if we would!" Draco snarled.

"Is Kreacher okay?" Potter asked.

"Yeah, he's fine." Black stood up and stretched hugely overhead, cracking his shoulders. Theo helped Draco to his feet and brushed him off. "Did anyone see you two leave?"

"No," Potter shook his head. "But I wouldn't be surprised if someone comes looking for us to see why we didn't come down for breakfast."

Black hummed, "Alright, pup, I'm going to need you to be a smokescreen today. Theo's coming with me this afternoon to get a ring. Him," he waved his hand at Draco, "he's going back to my apartment."

Draco leaned a little closer to Theo, and Black's face cracked into a knowing smirk, "Don't worry, Theo's going with you. Harry's going to make sure everyone at HQ believes you want some privacy for the day."

"Thank Merlin," Theo sighed.

Potter started fidgeting with his hands, "Sirius, are you going to be gone the whole day, too? Or..."

"No, I'll make an appearance after I drop these two off. We can talk about what to do if Pomfrey or Snape show up, wanting to speak to Theo." Black groaned and rubbed his temples. "What a mess. I'm going to have to talk to Albus, too." Potter made a face.

"Okay, I'm going to apparate you one at a time," Black said. "I don't have enough energy to take you at the same time."

Theo pushed him forward, "You go first, Draco," he said.

"Oh, no," Black laughed ominously. "You need to go first. Trust me."

"Okay..." Theo gave him a suspicious look and went up to Potter. Draco watched in disbelief as Theo flicked Potter's fidgeting hands, as if breaking a bad habit, and teased, "Don't go baking up a storm while we're gone."

Potter chuckled, a wide smile cutting across his face. "That's exactly what I was planning on doing."

"Harry," Theo rolled his eyes, "you need another hobby."

"You weren't complaining the other day."

Theo laughed breathily. Draco's mouth dropped open as he watched him lean in and whisper something in Potter's ear! The Gryffindor glanced Draco's way before he could compose himself and smirked.

"Okay," he sighed reluctantly. "I'll take that into account."

"See you when I'm an honest-to-magic mage," Theo grinned, wiggling the fingers of one hand. Potter nodded and waved back. Black stepped up, took Theo's arm, and apparated away.

Leaving Draco and Potter alone. They stared at each other.

"You're really him?" He burst out, looking Potter up and down. "His - the person he's been writing to?" Potter nodded and Draco threw his hands up in disbelief, "How did you know that he was alive, when we didn't? Was it just your - your -" he gestured violently at Potter, unable to sum up years of watching this wizard pull absolute miracles out of his pocket without a care in the world.

"Does it matter how?" Potter said, quietly.

"YES!"

"Okay, okay!" Potter cursed and rubbed his ears. "It was -"

But then Black apparated back between them, panting slightly. "Your turn," he said, and without waiting, he put a firm hand on Draco's upper arm and ripped them through space.

"I was in the middle of a conversation you animal!" Draco nearly shouted when they were back on solid ground. For a moment, the bright lights and clean, white walls of a modern apartment blinded him. He squinted around blindly.

"Draco?"

Every cell in his body froze.

"Oh, no," he heard Theo say, followed by a sniffle. "You didn't know?"

Very, very slowly, wishing with all his might that he was wrong, Draco blinked his eyes open and looked for the source of the voice. His mother stood an arms length from him, one hand still on Theo's shoulder. She was staring at him in wide-eyed shock.

Draco pulled his gaze away to look desperately at Black, who had the audacity to grin at him. "Sorry, that was a one-way trip, cousin."

"Draco?!"

She was on him in a second. She pressed her palms on either side of his face and forced him to look at her, and then started to check him all over, taking his muggle hat off, touching the satchel, holding his hands, making sure he wasn't injured.

She also snatched his folded plane ticket out of the breast pocket of his shirt.

"You flew here?" She gasped. "On a muggle plane?" He shrank back and he had to resist the urge to get down on his knees and beg for mercy. "Is Blaise with you too?"

"No, mother," he said, meeting her intense gaze. "He had to stay behind. The wards would have given us away."

Suddenly, she enveloped him, wrapping him into the strongest hug he'd ever felt from her. "You are in so much trouble," she promised, pressing her face close along the side of his head. "Do you know what could have happened to you? Do you know how dangerous this was?"

"But Theo was in trouble!" Her fingers dug into his arms, hard, and he let out a squeak. But the pain only lasted an instant, and then her hands were flat and moving up and down his sides as she rocked them back and forth.

"I would like to keep both of my boys safe, from now on," she said, letting out a little sob. "It would help if you felt the same way."

If he could have killed himself in that moment, he would have. "I'm sorry mother," he whispered, glad her hair was down so he could hide his face in it. "I'm sorry. I was really careful. Morena gave me some kind of amulet to hide my magical aura, and Blaise taught me how to be a muggle, and I was polite. To everyone!"

Her shoulders started to shake with laughter and she finally let him go. Her face was flushed, but she was smiling brightly.

"I'll leave you three to it," Black said, clearing his throat awkwardly. "Maybe I'll come back in, let's say, an hour? And we can strategize?"

His mother sniffed and crossed the room to embrace Black as well. He looked shocked, but he hugged her back. Draco tried to tamp down on his instinctual fear to see the large, muscle-bound wizard who was famously mad as a hatter nearly engulf his petite mother in his arms.

"Thank you," she murmured, "thank you, thank you, thank you."

Draco inched away to stand next to Theo, who was taking deep, heavy breaths with his palm pressed against his chest. Draco removed his satchel and started to dig through it, taking out some of the candy he purchased, and showing him the disposable camera.

"You really did it," Theo marveled, looking at him with undisguised admiration.

Draco felt a swell of pride. He lifted his chin importantly, "Of course I did! There's nothing a muggle can't do that I can't. Though why they haven't figured out their own form of apparition is beyond me. If they can make a building fly through the air, why can't find a way to transport themselves from one place to another instantaneously? Is it really that hard?"

Theo laughed, shaking his head. 

"Oh! I almost forgot." Draco thrust his arm out, "Let's tell Blaise we're together."

At the same time, they pressed down on Blaise's amulet for about ten seconds. Blaise's amulet also warmed, and for a second all three of them had the identical sensation of burning heat pressed into their wrists. 

Black apparated away, and his mother swept over to them. She tucked some hair behind Draco's ear and then turned her gaze on Theo. He was taller than both of them, just a little bit over Draco, but now that he could see him without the chaos of Potter and Black and some dank castle with a dragon outside of it, he could see that Theo did not look good. He normally stood tall and aloof, and carried a quiet, unfriendly kind of strength that Draco found both maddening and admirable.

Theo did not look strong now. His gaze skittered over them and then moved down and away. His mother clicked her tongue and carefully drew Theo's arm up, lifting it to see the mass of scars underneath. Draco held his breath so he did not gasp. Thick red skin swirled up to his elbow.

"I'm using scar saver every day," Theo muttered, letting her brush her fingers over it. "Madame Pomfrey said the color, at least, will disappear when I'm done, but there will always be some scarring."

"We'll see if I can do a little better than that," she promised. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" He shook his head mutely.

"What's this about being a mage?" Draco asked, hoping that changing the subject might help bring Theo back from the edge. "Are you sure Sirius Black isn't about to kidnap you and hold you for ransom?"

Theo shook his head, mouth curling. "It's a long story. We should probably sit down."

"Let's eat and you can tell us all about it," his mother invited, letting go of his wrist. "Are you hungry?" She asked the both of them.

Before Draco could respond, Theo shuffled nervously and held a hand up, as if to say, wait. "Can I, uhm..."

His mother turned around, confused only for a second. Theo's face looked flushed, and his hair was coming down in front of his face. Draco guessed that in that moment his mother saw exactly what he did. Theo may not be hurt, but he was certainly injured. "Yes, sweet," she breathed gently, wrapping her arms over his shoulders so he could lean down into her. "We can just do this for a bit."

Draco averted his eyes as Theo started to collapse into hard, shuddering gasps, his fingers knitting into the back of his mother's dress. Draco crept away, hoping that down the hallway was some kind of bathroom where he could clean up.

Along the way, he touched Theo's amulet. Maybe he wouldn't feel it, but, it was the only comfort he could provide.

---

Harry

It happened by accident, as all bad things do.

Harry brandished the knife at John, so furious that he thought he might actually use it. "You did what?"

"I didn't know the kid was going to be a huge asshole!" John yelped, standing on his tip-toes, back arched defensively. "I definitely didn't think they'd brawl!"

"What did you think would happen?"

"Well, that Weasley boy wanted to get something off his chest, so I just wanted to, ah, give him the opportunity to let it out?"

Harry glared at him for a minute. "You are evil," he decided, putting the knife down. "I'm going to bake you into a pie."

"Really embracing your elvish self, aren't you?" John mrrowed, relaxing.

Harry let out a huge groan and lowered his head to the counter, "John. Be honest with me. Am I turning into a house elf?"

John cackled and Harry felt his ears start to go red. "John!" He pleaded, "Tell me the truth! Is that possible? I thought my magic would be more like yours!"

But before John could tell him anything, Harry felt his alarm ward trip. He straightened up immediately. He wanted to be alone in the kitchen, hence his alarm. Baking with other people around made him feel like he was back in Privet Drive all over again, and he was in no mood to pretend to be in good spirits after the morning he had.

He glanced around, but the door to the sitting room was on the other side of the island, and there were already footsteps coming close. Then he heard a surprised shout. He whirled around and ducked inside the pantry before he could think twice, John sliding in after him.

"What are we doing in here?" John whispered, when nothing happened. Harry shushed him nervously.

There was a huge BANG and then someone crashed into the kitchen.

"You haven't been the same since Nott Tower burned down!"

"Shut UP!"

John pressed up against his shins. "I'll hide us," he breathed. A second later, Harry felt an even stronger darkness coalesce around them, dimming the light coming in under the door.

He cocked his head and listened carefully.

"Bill," Charlie was panting. "Please. Please just tell me the truth."

"I don't have to tell you anything!" Bill hissed furiously. Harry jolted, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He had never heard Bill sound this angry. "You need to shut the hell up Charlie, and stop sticking your nose in my business!"

"You just expect me to let you take care of Ron without a word of complaint? You think I can trust you to be the kind of brother he needs right now, when you are the one who needs help?" Charlie shot back. "I've been trying to get you alone for days and we are going to talk now, so help me Merlin!"

John crawled up his legs until Harry could hold him in his arms. "They put a silencing charm around the kitchen," he whispered in his ear.

"I thought you trusted me!" Charlie went on, sounding wounded. "How could you think that I would ever let you do this alone?!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," Bill warned. "Just drop it."

"No!" Charlie snapped. "You're melting down, I can see it. If you don't tell me -"

"Charlie -"

"I will sick mum and dad on you, don't think I won't! I will go to Dumbledore and force him to tell me what happened. You can't live like this Bill!"

"It's my life! I can make my own choices!"

"It's killing you! Please, you can't shoulder this alone. You're my brother, Bill, let me help you. I would never, ever leave you to suffer by yourself. You wouldn't let me do this alone. Come on, Bill, it's me. You can tell me anything. I'll stick with you no matter what."

For a second, the only sound he could hear was ragged breathing. Harry trembled with nervous energy, his mind moving quickly. What is Charlie saying? Is he saying that Bill knows something about the attack on Theo's home? Or that Dumbledore does?

"I know, Charlie," Bill said, his voice croaking from his throat like an old rusty hinge. The pain in it was unbearable to hear.

Another ward went up, coating them in silence. John flinched, his head swiveling like a cobra. "That is much, much stronger than the first one," he meowed. "I can't break it without alerting him."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "What do you think is happening?"

"Something brother Charlie didn't expect," John replied grimly. "Don't move, Harry. If this door opens, I'll take care of it."

For once, Harry didn't take issue with John's way of doing things.

They didn't have to sit in darkness for long. In less than sixty seconds, the pressure disappeared, and the sound came back in a rush. Harry heard someone take a deep breath.

"Alright there, Charlie?"

"Ye...yeah..."

"You kind of lost it on me, man," Bill laughed nervously. Harry gulped, clutching John close. It sounded like Bill was having a totally different conversation. "You're really mad I skipped out on you the other day, huh?"

"It's been more than that!" Charlie retorted. He sounded...mad, but not nearly as angry and desperate as he'd just been. "You stood me up three times in the last few weeks."

"Well, I..." Bill dropped his voice as if ashamed, "Don't tell anyone, okay? But I kind of...royally botched things up with Fleur."

"You did? How? She was..."

Harry worried his lip, listening to their completely normal conversation go on and on. What had happened in the space of that minute? Why was Charlie acting like this? It was like all his anger had been stuffed out, as if he forgot -

Harry gasped.

"Anyway, why did you come to Headquarters? Did Ron forget something?"

"Oh," Bill snorted, "Ron's complaining that all the food I make tastes spoiled. I was hoping mum had some leftovers I could bring him before he, you know, starves or whatever."

"She'll be happy to see you. Even happier to hear it didn't work out with Fleur, probably...but you still have a chance, man, if you like her..."

Harry stood in the pantry for a lot longer than he needed to after the Weasleys left. He tried desperately to come to some other conclusion about what just happened.

"John?" Harry whispered. "Do you think Bill just obliviated his brother?"

John's tail swished against his arm. "Yes. I think he did."

"But...why? Because it sounded like..." Harry shivered, "It had something to do with Nott Tower."

His familiar's claws bit through his sleeves, pricking his skin. "I think the war has already begun, Harry," John growled. "Quickly! Get me close to Bill Weasley."

Notes:

I wrote an extremely fucked up part for Remus that I removed to save for a later chapter. I'm sorry in advance.

Chapter 24: The Blessed

Summary:

Harry is blessed. Sirius goes on the hunt for answers. Theo meets the great Wyrenin.

Notes:

Damn y'all. I have a treat for you. Please check out the end author's note for a smorgasbord - I tell you, a SMORGASBORD of fanart links. You will NOT regret it.

I can't even begin to describe how happy writing this story makes me, and getting to chat with folks who also like this story is just an incredible bonus. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to review, whether you leave a ❤️ or a short or a long or just a comment screaming into the void. This is my island in the sea of chaos that is the world (I'm American RIP) and I am happy to share it with you all. Thank you for reading!

I also want to give a special shout out to JundShard for suggesting so much amazing music that I listened to while writing this chapter, and That1Notetaker for feeding my eyes and my soul (more on that in end AN).

Harry

Harry fell into that liminal place where his body knew exactly what to do before his brain caught up.

In the pantry, it was easy to feel the humming magic of the house. He stretched his eyes wide and saw a flicker at the edge of his vision. Harry grabbed on to it, and suddenly he could see. It was like looking through the guardian's eyes at Roebuck Falls, but if the eyes were everywhere, peering down from every corner of every wall in the house. It was dizzying, disorienting, but Harry powered through, flicking through each room like television channels.

"He's with Ginny," he said. Charlie, Bill, and Ginny were sitting together. He could see them, but couldn't hear them. She crossed her arms, fingers digging tightly into her biceps as she grew angrier and angrier. Charlie raised his hands placatingly and said something to Bill, who hastily retreated.

He watched Bill go upstairs.

"I think we can catch him in the library!"

John jumped out of his arms and disappeared, reappearing next to the bookshelves. Harry stepped forward automatically to follow and -

Stepped out into the library as well.

"Good work," John muttered, stalking toward the door with his belly to the ground. "You're getting better at traversing your domain, Harry. Now, when he comes inside, distract him. I'm going to lay a tracking spell on him. I'll hide in his shadow as I do it, but he still might see me, so keep his eyes on you."

The heavy tread of Bill's footsteps crested to their floor. Harry's fingers itched to draw his wand. Is Bill dangerous, or is he scared? For one second, he hesitated. Should Sirius be -

"Mum?" Bill called out, tapping on a door down the hall. "Mum? Oh!" Hinges creaked. "You're not mum."

"Hi Bill," the twins said as one.

Harry tip-toed to the open library door to eavesdrop.

"What brings you to this humble abode?" One of the twins asked. George, he decided after a moment's concentration. When they weren't trying to trick people, it was rather easy to tell them apart by the way they spoke.

"Humble?" Bill snorted.

"This 'dark and decrepit tomb' doesn't really roll off the tongue."

"Yeah, it does feel rather dark, still, doesn't it?" He clicked his tongue, "Sirius wouldn't let me help clear the place, he did it all himself."

"Job well done -"

"For a half-cracked madman," Fred finished with genuine admiration. "And now that he's a half-cracked sane man, well..."

"Who's to say what he could do?" George pondered. "Perhaps we'll see the return of the grand Marauders. Moony and Padfoot."

"Maybe even a Prongslet."

Harry smirked. John poked his head around the corner and quickly drew back. "Too small of a space," he whispered. "They'll see me."

"So you really think he's sane?" Bill asked.

"Of course he is," Fred replied dismissively.

"I dunno...you can't just come back from twelve years in Azkaban." Bill dropped his voice. "And taking Harry from his relatives...I know it all worked out in the end, but that was unmitigated chaos. Not the work of a sane person."

"We all saw his patronus," George pointed out. "If he can produce one, then he's not dangerous."

"That's not...great logic, George," Bill sounded pained. "But - whatever. So long as Harry's not totally alone with him, he should be fine. I heard Sirius and Remus made up."

"Seemed like it," Fred agreed tersely. "Bill, is there something we don't know about Sirius? Everyone treats him like a pariah. It's not his fault he came out of Azkaban on the wrong side of crazy, but he obviously did something to get better."

"No - well, that -"

"He's made a lot of sacrifices for the Order," Fred went on, his voice rising with his temper. "But I feel like every time he comes up in conversation, mum, Moody, sometimes even Tonks whisper about how dangerous he is when, in fact, Sirius has never hurt anyone -"

"Recently," George added quickly.

"- much less Harry!"

"There was -"

"He gave up his house for the Order, and -"

"One of his houses," Bill corrected. "Will you listen? I don't have a single thing against Sirius, but this isn't really about him, it's about Harry. He's only fifteen."

"He's Lord of his House," George pointed out.

"That doesn't change his age," Bill sighed. "Look, I just...I can't forget everything mum and dad told me about Harry. He's impressionable. He doesn't have anyone to really help him figure out the magical world. Sirius would never hurt him - of course not - but think about the way he was raised, and all those stories Moody told us about him, before Azkaban."

"Moody said he was one of the most talented field aurors he'd seen in years," Fred defended.

"And even Moody said he went too far, and that he thought he used questionable magic, sometimes. Most importantly, he said that Harry's dad was the only person who could keep him in line. Now he's taken control of House Black, which gives him access to the richest depository of dark magic there is. Let me remind you that this brand of magic spreads like an infection. Trust me, I've seen it. Once you start using it, it becomes harder and harder to stop."

"There's no evidence that Sirius has done any kind of dark magic," Fred argued.

"Are you kidding? We still don't know how he hid Harry. And he taught him blood magic!"

"You're all crucifying him for doing nothing but what he had to do to protect Harry," Fred said stubbornly. "Am I the only one who remembers that Harry used blood magic to take hold of his wards, which require blood? It's not like he shot the dagger at Moody."

"Harry's perfectly capable of thinking for himself," George agreed, though he sounded a little less certain.

"Okay, then ask yourselves this - what would you do for dad?" Bill paused significantly. "Sirius will have the biggest influence on Harry's life, we can't change that now. It's not out of line for the people who cared about Harry for the last few years - like mum and dad - to question if he's going to be a good influence or not."

They fell silent. Meanwhile, Harry was digging his fingernails into the wall, fighting the urge to storm out and give Bill a piece of his mind. He felt absolutely sick to his stomach, almost violated.

Does the Order have nothing better to do but sit around and talk about me? Don't I deserve any privacy? They treat me like a goddamn national treasure but they also left me with the Dursleys my whole life, like that was LESS dangerous than being in the magical world with someone who wanted me! What are they so afraid of?

"Where is mum?" Bill asked, snapping Harry out of his internal rant.

"She went to the Ministry and brought Hermione with her," Fred sighed. "Kingsley's giving her a tour."

"And mum's trying to talk some sense into Percy?"

The twins made the same disgusted noise. Bill groaned, "He'll come around. I was just like him when I graduated."

"You never would have left us like he has!" George countered angrily.

"Well, no," Bill paused. "And he's more stubborn than me. Can't ever admit when he's wrong, our Percy."

"He and Ron are two sides of the same coin," Fred muttered.

George asked how Ron was doing, and Harry took that as his sign to step away, trying to get control of his emotions. Bill can't find me here now, he thought. Or else he'll know I was listening.

He was just about to signal to John when he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs. "Hey!" Ginny cried out, "do you guys want to go flying? Charlie said he'd take me home!"

"Two on two round...what is this, fifteen?"

"Fifteen hundred more like," Fred answered his twin. "Ginny, how many times do you have to lose to learn that you and Charlie have nothing on George and I?"

"What about a three on three?" Ginny challenged. "I'm going up to see if Harry and Theo want to come."

Harry froze. Even knowing that Theo hated Quidditch and would never agree to play, the fact that Ginny wanted to invite him was such a fantastic change of pace he wished Theo was here to witness it.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Bill interrupted, "Ginny, Nott can't come to our house. He's -"

"He's what?" She snapped.

"He won't be safe at our house like he is here," Bill sounded irritated. "Jeez, Gin, you don't have to jump down my throat at every opportunity."

"Theo deserves to have a break," she declared. "How would you feel, cooped up all day, every day after what happened? And besides, I know the wards have been strengthened at the Burrow. No one even knows he's alive, so explain to me why he can't get away for an hour?"

Tense silence filled the hallway. Harry clamped his hand over his mouth to keep from snickering.

"You need to ask Sirius, first," Fred said, earning a scoff from Bill. "Theo's his responsibility."

"Fine," Ginny said sweetly. "Harry can ask."

"Shit," Harry muttered, trying to reach for the house magic as Ginny ran up the stairs.

"I'll do it," John muttered, jumping at him. Harry fell back and immediately toppled over the mess of blankets he left on the floor.

"I could have done it!" He complained, right as three swift knocks rang through the door. John just gave him an impatient look.

"What's the plan?" his familiar asked.

"Ah...obviously we can't go..."

John twisted one of his ears, "Right, same plan then. Get rid of her before he leaves."

Another knock, and then, "It's me, Ginny!"

Harry squeezed between the door and the frame to try and keep her from seeing into the room. "Hi, Ginny. What's up?"

Her eyes flickered past him as he shut the door, "Where's Theo?"

He frowned and lowered his voice. "He doesn't want to be disturbed. Didn't sleep well last night."

"Well, Charlie and Bill are here. Charlie said he'd take me to the Burrow to fly, and the twins will come, too. Think he'd be up for that?"

Harry looked into her eyes and felt terrible that he was about to lie to her. For a second, he considered just...telling the truth. For once, it would be nice not to have to hide behind a story.

But then Charlie popped his head up from the stairs, "Heya Harry!"

He waved back. "Uhm, I'm sorry Ginny, but I think he has to stay. And...I can't leave him." Her face fell, but she didn't look surprised. "If this was any other day, I would have said yes. And so would he," he assured her.

"Raincheck," she decided.

"Definitely."

Ginny pursed her lips, looking at the door once again. "He's not...um...does he blame me?" She pushed her fingers through her hair, making a face, "I'm not mad if he does. I should have thought it through before I asked him to hang out. I know how Ron is."

Harry shrugged, "Theo's smart enough to know you don't control Ron. I'm sure he doesn't blame you at all."

She held his gaze for a minute before nodding. "Okay. Try to have some fun. You two have the house to yourselves, you know. Prime pranking opportunity."

"Hold on," Harry followed her down the hall, "did you say Bill is here?"

That's all it took. A minute later, he was down in the library again, but this time Bill was already inside. He was scanning some of the books as if he were looking for something. Distantly, Harry could hear the commotion of Fred and George vacating the house with Charlie and Ginny.

Once they were gone, it would be just him and Bill.

And John, he amended. But still, his hand drifted up toward the earring. If he rubbed it, Sirius would know he was in trouble. No, I'm not like Charlie. I'm not accusing him of anything. All I have to do is make small talk and give John enough time to work his magic. Nothing dangerous about that.

"Hey, Harry," Bill greeted, glancing over his shoulder. "I heard Ginny was inviting you and Nott to the Burrow. Is he with you?"

Harry watched his face closely. How can he act so normal after what he did? "No, Theo's resting upstairs. He was badly injured, you know. Even though he seems fine to everyone else, he's not up for a friendly game of quidditch."

Bill turned away, but there was no missing how white his face went. Harry narrowed his eyes. Does he look guilty? Why? What does he know?

John's eyes flashed in the shadows.

Harry readied himself. "How's Ron?" He prompted, feeling slimy when Bill whirled around to gave him his full attention.

"He's miserable," he said earnestly, "but I think he just needs some one-on-one time with his favorite brother. And to spend less time here. The constant talk of Death Eaters and Voldemort doesn't help."

Harry stole a glance at Bill's feet and saw John's ghostly visage slinking closer. He forced his eyes back up, "I'm guessing you know the whole story about what happened yesterday?"

"Yeah," the red-head sighed, "and I can read between the lines. Ron overreacted. Nott was just defending himself." Bill rolled his eyes, "Sometimes it takes a knock to the face to come to your senses. The Weasley's are a hard headed bunch. I think it was good for him, but don't tell him I said that."

Harry was mildly surprised that he wasn't making Theo out to be the villain. Maybe Ron really does feel sorry for what he did.

"Has he said anything about me?" He asked, holding Bill's gaze.

"He said that you and Nott are close. Is that true?" Bill had a very good poker face, Harry realized. Bill looked at him with a completely open and neutral expression, as if he really wanted to listen. And it worked. Part of him wanted to talk about Theo, was itching to correct the preconceived notion Bill (or anyone) might have about him.

"Yeah, we're friends," he said guardedly.

Bill wrinkled his nose. "I was thinking, it might help if someone told you about the way we grew up. As in, how we were raised to think of magic? Maybe that will help you understand Ron's...reactions." Harry raised his eyebrows curiously and nodded.

Bill smiled, "Great. So, first off, the Weasley's were -"

Without warning, lines of tattooed symbols came to life across Bill's face, tracing the edges of his jaw and cheeks and brow. They blinked into existence all at once, as if uncovered by a glamor. Harry reeled back in surprise.

"What's wro -" Bill looked down and caught sight of John's black tail slipping between his ankles.

Harry opened his mouth to shout out, but Bill was fast. With practiced ease, he whipped his wand arm up and yelled, "Mundare spiritus!"

Searing light exploded around them. Magic spun out in a wide circle, passing through Harry's chest before burning down on the floor, sealing the two of them inside. Harry shaded his eyes to look for John, but the dazzling light was making him dizzy. He couldn't see a thing. "What are you doing?" He shouted.

"There's something trying to latch on to me!" Bill cried. "Something dark!" He yanked Harry close, holding him tightly by the arm. The floor began to glow even brighter as a complicated geometric pattern worked in toward the center of the circle. "Cover your eyes, it'll be banished in a second!" Bill said.

Harry opened his mouth to scream John's name, wrenching uselessly against Bill's grip, but it was too late. The circle turned into a blinding pillar of white light. Warm blasting magic shot through them, wrenching something hard in his chest.

"There," Bill panted. He let go, and Harry stumbled and fell, disoriented. "Get up, Harry. Draw your wand." Bill's voice grew fainter. Harry felt like his body was dissolving. "It could still be in the room..."

Get up Harry.

He closed his eyes and couldn't seem to open them again. He was floating in a cloying cloud of magic. It stuck to his skin, weighing him down. He was falling. And floating. Pulled in too many directions at once. He couldn't hear anything, or see anything, or feel...anything.

Get up, Harry, his father demanded. Harry opened his eyes. He was hiding behind a tombstone in the graveyard. Voldemort's quick and quiet feet rustled through the grass. Harry's chest heaved with fear. The ghost of James Potter stared at him, eyes as bright as the sun. Draw your wand!

"Harry? Harry! Oh my god. Fucking Merlin, what - what - what do I do? What do I DO?"

Harry blinked again, and he was back in that cloying magic. Where's John? Surely, if Harry was hurt, then John should be with him, right?

Maybe John was also in this dark place. Maybe Harry just had to look for him.

He reached for that sixth sense that always seemed to know where John was, but he grasped at nothing. He was leaning too far into empty darkness, reaching, falling -

His ring became a circle of ice. The guardian bellowed. Harry blinked, and suddenly he saw Roebuck Falls gleaming above the boulder field. Harry was viewing it from above, from the top of the wards. With a sigh, he sunk down and became part of the land. He could feel the cold mountain shadow laying long over the grass. Sense the heavy weight of water slamming into the pool below the falls. All sense of time slipped away from him.

"Put it fucking out Bill!"

Harry turned his head, only he was looking through the guardian's eyes.

He blinked, and Harry was back in the dark, floating emptiness that he now recognized as Grimmauld Place.

"It shouldn't have hurt him!" Bill yelled hysterically. "I'm sorry! I didn't - I - there was a curse, or something, trying to-"

"Shut the FUCK up Bill and do as I say!"

Bill nearly sobbed the words to another spell, longer than the first, and all at once Harry could see again. Only he was not looking out from his eyes, he was looking down at the library from above, through the magic of the house. He could see Sirius crouched over a body on the floor. From this height, it should have been impossible to hear his godfather, but his voice was as clear to him as if he were whispering in his ear.

"Wake up, Harry. Show me you're still in there, don't make me take you to St. Mungo's...."

Bill slowly edged away, pale and shaking. "I can get Dumbledore. I can -"

"Bill Weasley," Sirius growled, "you will leave this house and go about your day as if nothing happened. You will forget about this. You will not tell anyone what you did."

"But he's -"

Sirius turned on him. All the light in the room vanished, cloaking them in cold, black shadow. His eyes began to glow silver like that night at Sunhoney. "Do not dream of disobeying me," Sirius growled. The magic of the house thrummed in answer, shaking the walls. Bill ducked his head, holding his hands out in a silent plea for mercy.

"You disrespected my house and endangered my heir," Sirius thundered. "If you wrong me again, I will inflict three times this pain unto you, I swear it by my blood and my name! Do you understand?"

Bill nodded frantically, his hair flying around him.

"Go!"

Bill turned and sprinted from the house. Harry encouraged the house to slam the door behind him.

"I don't know what to do," Sirius whispered, yanking his attention back to the library. Harry pressed in as close as he could get. For whatever reason, he couldn't seem to look at himself - his face and hands were blurry, but he could clearly see Sirius. All the furious strength was gone from his face, leaving behind an expression of complete terror. "Where are you? How do you come back? I don't know anything about astral projection, who does?"

Sirius stopped, eyes going wide.

"Oh, fuck," he muttered. "Fuck. He better not be dead, I swear on my magic, if he died in the night..." With a snarl on his face he waved his wand and snapped, "Expecto patronum!

A ghostly blue puppy formed on the other side of Harry's prone figure. It had big floppy ears, a long tail, and chunky paws.

Sirius pointed his wand at its mouth, and the puppy playfully mauled it, "Take this message to Severus Snape." The patronus stilled. "Harry was hit by holy magic and now he won't wake up. Come to the library at HQ immediately if you meant what you said yesterday."

He flicked his wand and the puppy disappeared in a flash. Sirius pressed his palm flat against Harry's chest.

"You're breathing, pup, you're still here. Just come on back," Sirius's voice trembled but didn't break. "Come back. I'm trying to keep your secret to protect you, but if I have to take you to St. Mungo's, I will, okay? And you don't want that. I know you don't. Can't have the whole world knowing you're a changeling, right?"

Sirius kept on talking, his voice straining higher as he fought back waves of fear. Harry stared into his face, a little...scared by the emotion in it. He retreated into the dark, fading until Sirius's voice was a low murmur.

Pup. Harry summoned the image of the puppy patronus, replaying that moment in the strange void he was in.

He calls me pup. He always has.

Other memories began to play. Sirius creating a disaster in the kitchen. Sirius picking him up from Privet Drive. Sirius chasing him around the apartment trying to take his picture. A choking, overwhelming feeling crushed him on sides. If he could breathe, he would be breathless.

Is this what it feels like? He wondered, longingly. To have a -

"Ad corpus animae!"

Harry gasped and opened his eyes, for real this time.

"Sweet fucking Merlin!" Sirius shouted, "You did it! You -"

"Shut up!" Snape snarled, "It isn't done!"

Indeed, Harry's vision was split. From one eye he could see Snape's hooked nose and sallow face, but through the other he was still seeing the void. He was in two places at once. Inside and outside of his body. He coughed and gasped, all of his limbs locking and jerking, and with a rush of blood in his ears, he tumbled into unconsciousness.

When Harry began to wake, he knew he was terrestrial. His body felt too heavy to move. He couldn't even twitch. Instead, he just listened.

"I am not a fool," Snape was saying quietly, "You must have known I would figure it out before you called on me."

"I didn't have a choice," Sirius whispered, his breath fluttering over Harry's face. "You're the only dark arts master I trust with his life."

Silence. Harry felt fingers comb lightly through his hair.

"What is he?"

"It's up to him to say."

Snape scoffed. "This is why you took him from his relatives, isn't it?" His accusation had very little heat. "Does it have something to do with his House?"

"Not telling you..."

"Dee's so-called holy magic wipes clean any and all magic, but it is designed to protect the souls of wixen. Potter's body was not harmed. The fact that his soul was pushed out -"

"Don't talk about that again, please," Sirius said softly. Harry was so surprised by his plea that he very nearly mustered the strength to open his eyes.

"Means that he is not human, any longer." Harry thought he could sense Snape's heavy gaze. "What is he? Not a vampire, obviously."

"It can't get out," Sirius murmured. "If people knew - anyone - even Albus..."

"Is he a werewolf?"

"No. Stop guessing."

Harry's eyelids fluttered. He was laying on a bed. He got one look at the ceiling and then Sirius was there.

"Hey, pup," he said, pressing their foreheads together. "How are you doing? Can you talk?"

Slowly, he licked his lips and rasped, "Where am I?"

"You're here in Grimmauld Place."

"Where's...John?"

Sirius hesitated. "He's right here. Sitting next to you."

He struggled to turn his head, but even when he did, Harry couldn't see him. He squinted. His glasses were off, maybe that was why...

"Did you feel that?"

"Hmm?"

"He was just touching you. You couldn't feel it?"

He shook his head minutely. "What do you mean? He's not here. There's nothing."

"But you can see, right?"

Snape sighed noisily and approached Harry's bedside. "That confirms it. The banishment circle conferred a blessing on his body, despite what it did to his soul. Blasted idiot Dee," he added under his breath. With a sigh, he continued, "Potter, you are unable to perceive any kind of dark creature, and they are unable to interact with you as well. But this is temporary."

"John is just a cat," Sirius said unconvincingly.

"He is a familiar," Snape replied. "Which, in Rowland Dee's time, were considered consorts of the devil. Thus, the spell marks him as an enemy."

"Is...temporary?" Harry muttered, relieved to know that John was still here, at least. "For how long?"

"Until sunset," Snape answered clinically. "Move aside, Black, I must check his magical core."

Harry's eyes slipped closed again. "Mr. Potter, I am taking your wand hand in mine to cast a spell," Snape stated clearly, louder than he had to.

"M'kay..." he said sleepily, losing sense of what was happening. Snape's voice was so steady and familiar.

"No, no pup, don't go aga-"

Harry sank back in his memories. He blinked awake in the potions classroom, listening to softly bubbling cauldrons. He blinked again, and he was smirking as Snape threw Gilderoy Lockheart across the Great Hall.

He blinked...

"Can you hear me -"

"My lord?"

With a hiss of pain, he peeled one eye open.

The other eye is gone. My right side is... he tried to flex his hand and the muscles barely twitched. Still healing.

That is not my voice, Harry frowned, struggling to separate himself from this new body.

What happened? The voice continued, heedless of Harry's presence. It was agony to open his one good eye, agony to even glance around the room and assess the threats.

Three wizards were in front of him. He was floating in the center of a destroyed room, surrounded by a complicated magical shield that was slowly healing his physical body.

He looked down. Nagini. She was dead.

A flare of pain surged through him and he closed his eye again, gathering the magic flowing around him until the shield was pressing down on all sides, suffocating the pain. Her bond lay weeping in his magic, the utmost of all his miseries. He had forgotten what pain felt like. It was -

"My lord?" He opened his eye again. The dead one twitched as the muscle in his skull pulsed uselessly against charred tissue.

One of his followers was coming closer. Voldemort reached for the bonds between him and his Death Eaters and remembered who they were. Severus Snape, Leopold Avery, and Cassian Gibbon. Yes, he thought. They came. They came to serve me. One last time.

Harry jolted. Suddenly, he knew what was about to happen, even though he had never seen this place before. He knew it as if this were his own memory.

One of the Death Eaters, Leopold Avery, put his hand up to the shield.

"What should we do, my lord?" He whispered reverently.

Voldemort's mouth twisted. "Stay still."

He pressed his magic through the Dark Marks that bound them to him, feeling hot, pulsing blood, and raw, healthy magic. Avery's face went slack. Gibbon staggered, clutching his arm. Severus twitched and took one, carefully measured step back.

Voldemort pulled Gibbon's first, because he was the weakest. Through the Dark Mark, the bond of their covenant, Lord Voldemort owned these wixen. They bent to his will. Trusted in his vision. They did not know it, but they had agreed to this sacrifice the moment they shared their blood with his. They will be honored in the next life, he thought, ripping Gibbon's life and magic from his body, siphoning it to his own.

The relief was instantaneous. His shield expanded, the circle of protection subsuming Avery completely.

"What?" He said dumbly. "Cassian?"

Voldemort reached out one long hand and brushed his blackened, ruined fingertips along Avery's wrist, drifting up until he could feel the scar beneath the Dark Mark. Avery's magic came easier. He gave it over. A hiss of pleasure escaped his mouth as, even in the wizard's final moments, he attempted to bow.

The heady relief of another wave of magic swarmed him, accelerating the healing spell he was trapped inside.

A stone scraped loudly against the floor. He snapped his head up and Severus stilled.

The man's face was very white, but unreadable, like always. Even in the face of death, he shows no weakness. Sometimes, Voldemort liked to imagine fear on his face. He had only seen it a scant few times, but he treasured every one. Those moments felt like unwrapping a gift especially for him.

Severus made fearless eye contact. Voldemort was too weak to attempt legilimency. They both knew it.

Severus is strong, he thought hungrily. His magic would be...invaluable.

Again, he reached through the bond between them, moving as quickly as he could, for Severus surely had the wits to run away. He was just realizing that there was something wrong with it, some alarm ringing in his ears from their connection, when Severus's voice rang out.

"Why did you kill Magnus?"

Magnus?

Harry startled. That was not Voldemort's voice.

Magnus isn't dead, it said, loudly. It was a younger voice, a soothing voice. He felt Severus's magic slip his grasp as another mind, another soul, took control of his body.

The scene of Malfoy Manor flickered away, replaced by a courtyard at Hogwarts. The pain he was feeling melted away. He was standing in a young and healthy body. He was sixteen again.

Tom Riddle stared at a teenage boy groaning on the ground in the middle of the courtyard.

What happened to Magnus? He asked the tall, broad-shouldered classmate standing just behind him.

Nothing he didn't bring upon himself, he grunted.

Magnus staggered to his feet and limped toward them, pressing one hand to his eye. He was young, too. Harry stared into his face, amazed by how much of Theo he could see in it.

Magnus, he smirked, bested by your own spell?

Tell me you didn't see that, he deadpanned. When he pulled his hand back, a bruise was already forming down his face. His eyes were large and blue, blue like the sky.

You told me you were a deft spellcrafter.

Well, my lord, Magnus drawled sarcastically, this is what progress looks like. If you're afraid to get hurt, you won't get far at all.

The other boy with them scoffed dismissively and walked away. Magnus sneered at his back. Honestly, why do we associate with that idiot Lestrange?

He's useful for target practice, Riddle murmured. Magnus smirked and tipped his head.

The scene vanished. For a second, he thought he was out of the memory entirely, but he was still in the Manor. Still looking through Voldemort's one good eye. They were alone now, but for the bodies of his two followers. Severus ran like a coward.

"What happened?" He ground out. Harry gasped inside his mind. The voice coming from his mouth was not Voldemort's. It was human. It was...Tom's.

He tore through the magical bonds tied to him, looking for the dead ones. Every time one of them died, he felt it. He usually witnessed the last moments of their life through their eyes. If Magnus was dead, he should have seen it. He should have known. Magnus was the last of his old guard, one of his most important allies, the last who remembered him.

He should still be alive. What was Severus saying?

"Magnus," he breathed when he finally found the bond, dead and scarred amongst the others. "What happened to you? Why did this happen?" He was starting to grow angry, and his anger was hellfire, it was divine retribution. His magic swirled out of control, whipping Gibbon and Avery's bodies against the wall. "Who killed you?" He raged, tearing at his burned flesh, "Who finally did it? I'll flay them - I'll bring them here and soak in their blood, I'll -"

Harry jerked back into his own body with a strangled cry.

"Told you it would work," Sirius said smugly, capping a jar.

"Severus!" Harry shouted breathlessly, surging off the bed to grab the man's forearm. "I mean - Snape! Professor! He - Vol - he -"

"Calm down," Sirius put his hands on him, trying to push him back down. "Harry, you're safe. Let go of him."

"No!" Harry gripped Snape's cloak as he could, but already he was losing strength. He stared at Snape's face, willing him to make eye contact and know that he was telling the truth. "I saw Voldemort - in the Manor. He killed Avery - and Gibbon. And you...and - I was in his head."

Snape stared down at him in shock. For a moment, Harry thought he wouldn't reply, but then he murmured, "That was last night."

"What?" Sirius yelped.

"He didn't know," Harry pressed. He could sense that he was approaching his limit. "He didn't know about Magnus! He didn't know he was dead. S - Snape, Professor, please, he didn't know."

Snape stared at him. Sirius went completely still. Harry pulled on his professor's robes with his fingers, trying to hold on to consciousness.

"And - and, I heard Bill - in the kitchen - with Cha..." Gravity pulled him down. He felt dizzy, could sense the darkness rushing up to greet him. "He knows something..." he slurred, "Tell...tell them John."

Then Harry slumped back in bed, his hand falling to the side.

John leaned his head close to listen to Harry's breath. At last he was taking the slow, deep breaths of sleep. It's over, he thought with relief. He's anchored.

He raised his eyes. Both wizards looked as pale as the dead. John assessed the one he didn't know, wasting a moment to contemplate the wisdom of this before he did as Harry asked. Severus Snape was too intelligent to hide from.

"Harry and I overheard Bill Weasley get into a fight with his brother, Charlie," John said, staring steadily at the potions master to gauge his reaction. Other than the rapid constriction of his pupils and a sharp inhale, he was as still as a glacier.

"It sounded like Bill Weasley knew something about the destruction of Nott Tower. Something that he was trying to keep a secret. But Charlie confronted him, was worried for him," John's fur prickled remembering what came next. "And Bill Weasley obliviated him for his trouble."

"He obliviated Charlie?" Sirius repeated. "What?"

"I tried to weave my magic around him," John continued, staring at Harry's face. "I was going to open the threshold so I could follow his soul wherever he goes. I did not know he was protected by goblin magic. And I did not know that Harry would be affected by banishment."

He glanced down at Harry's sleeping face. He felt so stupid. Leading a charge against an unknown enemy with an untrained fifteen year old. Familiars for two weeks, and look what you've done, John.

"If the Dark Lord truly did not know of Magnus's death then someone else killed him," Snape said plainly. "Is that what you are suggesting? That Mr. Weasley had something to do with it?"

John glanced at him, "I do not know enough of these wixen to suggest anything. Bill Weasley is desperate and dangerous. Because of the protections wrought into his skin, I cannot touch him, track him, or enchant him without his knowledge. You must be the ones to uncover the truth."

"That doesn't make any sense," Sirius muttered under his breath. "Bill's not a Death Eater...he can't be."

Severus Snape, however, did not look so disbelieving. He pressed his long fingers to his mouth and stared off into the middle distance, deep in thought.

The silence was shattered by a small alarm. "Fuck me," Sirius cursed, looking at his watch. "Narcissa."

"Narcissa?" Snape repeated, narrowing his eyes. "She's here?"

"Theo's with her," Sirius muttered, ignoring Snape's rapidly growing irritation. "I can't leave her at the apartment for too long, I said I'd go back. And the kid needs me to...damn it." He pressed his hands over his face. "I have to leave. I have to."

Snape shook his head, letting his dark gaze filter down to John, then Harry. "I will monitor his condition."

Sirius scoffed, "I'm bringing Remus here."

"Are you deaf? I said I will -"

"When he wakes he will not be able to see me," John meowed loudly, giving them both a hard look. "He may be disoriented. A friendly face should be here to explain what is happening, in case he doesn't remember."

Sirius looked at Snape impatiently. He closed his eyes. "I will still stay whether Lupin is here or not."

Sirius nodded, giving John a grateful look before rushing out of the bedroom.

John buried his face in the blankets. He didn't deserve any gratitude. Lord Black would be well within his rights to create a new banishment circle and trap John inside.

Why didn't I push Harry from the circle? I should have known holy magic would affect him now that we are bonded. If he wasn't recognized as the Black heir, or if he didn't have his Potter ring, he would have drifted out in the ether and we might have lost him forever.

John's claws bit deep into the mattress. Sometimes he hated what he was. It was not in his nature to think much farther than the immediate threat. Certainly, John watched, learned, and sometimes plotted elaborate traps and plans, but he did not agonize over problems like humans did. He acted. He moved swiftly.

Desmond's face flashed in his mind's eye. Covered in blood and mud.

John ground his face into the blankets. If I let my nature overrule my reason, I will kill Harry, too, just like Desmond. You have to be like Johanna. You have to be strategic.

"John?"

Warm fingers gently touched the nape of his neck. He shied away.

"Did you get hurt?" Remus Lupin asked softly. John could barely hear him or anything else in the room because he was so far under the blankets. "I know Harry was, but did they check you?"

He was hurt, actually. He'd gotten too close to the circle when he realized that Harry was trapped inside and burned the pads of his front paws. Small hurts on the grand scale of his suffering.

"Just watch Harry," he said miserably.

The werewolf was smart enough to leave him alone after that.

---

Sirius

Given the way Narcissa's face hardened when she saw him, he guessed the quick splash of water on his face in the potions lab wasn't enough to cover up how wrecked he felt.

He gestured for her to join him in the lab. By the sounds of it, the boys were in Harry's room. Still, as a precaution he silenced the door as well.

"What happened?" she asked, looking him over.

Sirius hesitated. The image of Harry's unresponsive body on the floor was burned into his mind, but he had to shove it away and focus.

"Voldemort is gathering his strength," he said bluntly. A wild light flashed in her eyes for a second, but she carefully folded her hands together behind her back and stayed quiet. "He's not strong enough to leave Malfoy Manor today, but I can't say about tomorrow, or the day after that."

She seemed to understand what he was getting at. "Draco and Theo need to return to Catarina's care before that happens."

Sirius recalled the other details Snape shared with him before he left, after dropping a feverish but determined Remus off at Harry's bedside. "He was gravely wounded, so even if he has the strength to leave, Snape believes he will search for the strongest healer he can find. He may even be able to leave England if one of his followers helps him."

Narcissa gave him a long look. "Why would he not go to Severus? He can heal nearly all maladies with potions."

"Because -" he stopped, thrown off by the question. It occurred to him for the first time that he didn't truly understand the connection between Snape and the Malfoys. "I...shouldn't say," he settled on.

Narcissa's mouth twitched into a frown, but before she could ask more questions, he charged on. "What do we need to do to get those two an international portkey?"

"If I can have the ear of Minister Fudge, he will arrange everything. They could leave as soon as tonight."

"Can you notify the Zabini's that soon?"

"Catarina has a phone," Narcissa nodded. "All I need to do is go to Knockturn to ring her."

Despite everything, Sirius was momentarily stunned speechless. "The Wire still exists?"

"The vampire clans maintain an underground system based on the Wire. Wixen can use it, for a price."

"Wow, that's..." Extremely illegal. "Useful. Okay." Sirius took a second to organize his thoughts, "I can get you an escort into the ministry. Do you need my help after that?"

She shook her head, "Tell your contact I will meet them beside Madame Malkin's, at one o'clock."

That was just three hours away. Sirius remembered the train tickets in his pocket and sighed tiredly. At this rate, he wouldn't have time to see Harry again until after he returned from Orkney.

"Are you alright, cousin?" She asked.

Sirius snapped out of his trance. Anticipation roiled in his gut. "I will be once all these damn teenagers are safe," he muttered.

Narcissa laughed under her breath. "You're new at this, aren't you? Let me warn you now: it never gets better, that feeling." She tapped her chest knowingly, "You'll never stop worrying about them."

"Why do people do this willingly?" He sighed, with absolutely no conviction behind his words.

Narcissa smiled, "One minute of joy pays for a year of sorrows."

---

Strike hard and fast. It's what Moody taught him, and it's what Sirius had always been good at.

He held a smoking cigarette in his mouth as he wound up the outdoor steps of the little apartment complex where Bill lived. It was half-magical, half-muggle. The patio outside his door had a few knitting daisies in a pot on the railing, slowly winding themselves into a pair of mittens. Sirius took a notepad from his pocket and scribbled, Time to talk - SB. Then he dropped it in Bill's mailbox, chimed the doorbell, and went back downstairs.

"Immerauch," he whispered. The smoke trailing from his cigarette froze in the air, forming a neat line from Bill's door all the way to the space behind the dumpsters where Sirius would wait for him.

It was an ideal place to talk, sheltered by a beaten-down metal roof. No one could look down at them from the windows of the other buildings, and they were hidden from the road. He checked his watch. 12:12.

Now that Albus knew Narcissa was here and preparing to take Theo away, time was ticking. He needed to get that kid to Orkney for a ring, and then back to Grimmauld Place as quick as possible so that no one would ever know he was gone.

But before any of that happened, he had to protect Harry.

Rain dribbled from the sky, pattering on the sheet metal over his head. It made it hard to hear Bill's footsteps until he was right around the corner.

Sirius snuffed the cigarette out and threw it away. Bill came close, wringing his hands anxiously. He looked terrible.

"Is Harry okay?" he asked lowly.

Sirius cast a few sound suppression and alarm charms around them before he answered. "Yes."

"Good," Bill slumped with relief. "I really didn't -"

"Why did you obliviate your brother, Bill?"

His face changed into the perfect picture of shock. "What...what do you mean?"

"Stop wasting my time," Sirius growled, hitting the younger wizard with a cold glare. "I know you did it. Tell me why."

Bill's mouth worked, but nothing came out. Sirius stared right into his eyes, challenging him, willing him to admit the truth.

This was also part of his auror training. It was hard to deny your wrongdoings looking someone in the eye.

"I can't," Bill whispered. "I can't tell you."

Can't, or won't? He almost said, but he could tell that the question would be a waste. Bill was sliding into shock. His pupils were tiny, his face so bloodless he was almost blue, and by the tremble to his mouth, he was telling the truth.

"You swore an oath?" Sirius guessed.

Bill abortively shook his head. "I - I can't answer...I don't know what I can answer. Please..."

Sirius spat on the ground. "Don't beg me for anything, Bill, when you banished my godson's soul from his body."

"Is he not human anymore?" Bill's eyes widened in realization. "Is that how he knew? What I did?"

Sirius's chestnut wand slipped into his hand. "Before I do this, tell me what you can. What are you involved with, Bill? What side are you on?"

But he continued to shake his head, making the tiniest movements. His red hair was damp, the little baby hairs around his face stuck to his cheeks. Sirius remembered what he'd thought the night they rescued Theo - that he and Bill were similar. That he could trust him.

He wanted to hate him. Staring into Bill's light blue eyes, he wanted to find betrayal, to see another Peter, but he couldn't. He clenched his fists in frustration. Maybe he needs help, a little voice whispered in his head. Maybe he's trapped.

"Do you want help?" He asked archly.

James would have said, 'I can help you.' Or, 'let me help you.' That was the kind of person he was, the kind of person Sirius tried to be.

But the truth was, Sirius had a dark and selfish heart. He didn't want to help Bill. Bill had cast barbaric holy magic in his house. Unwittingly or not, he almost sentenced Harry to an unspeakable fate.

Bill relieved him of his burden of sympathy. "No, no! You can't help me. In fact," he gestured at Sirius's wand. "Do it. Take it from me. I don't want to know about Harry. It's too dangerous."

Sirius took a measured breath. That was what he came here to do, but he didn't expect Bill to submit.

"Tell me who you're afraid of, Bill," he demanded. "Tell me whatever you can. You clearly want to help me, so do it!"

But Bill was just an apologetic statue, blinking sadly at him. Clearly, he wouldn't - or couldn't - say a thing.

"I could get Snape here to take it from your mind," Sirius threatened.

Bill paled. "You'll kill me," he whispered. "And my family."

Fuck.

Sirius glared at Bill, but he wasn't really looking at him. He was thinking about whoever had this power over Bill. Thinking about how he'd very much like to get them on the ground and place his boot on their throat.

"I can - I can tell you this," Bill was trembling from head to toe, utterly terrified, his breath coming in sharp gasps. "Theodore Nott might save Harry's life. You have to protect him. From everyone. Please."

His eyebrows nearly touched the crown of his head. Of all the things to say, it had to be the most obtuse riddle of all time. That made even less sense in the context of the little pieces of information that he had.

"Fine," he said flatly, aware that the time was ticking away. "Hold the memory in your mind."

"Take it all after Ginny went to invite them to the Burrow," he said, closing his eyes. "Harry only spoke to me after she and my brothers were gone."

Sirius nodded and took a deep breath. For a second, the words I'm sorry were at the tip of his tongue.

But, he wasn't sorry.

"Obliviate."

---

Theo

Theo watched the waves chase the sea train as it departed Sanday station, marveling at how quickly it vanished. The sun was high overhead and he had to shade his eyes to take in the expansive island.

Draco frowned, "They left us in the middle of nowhere. There's not even a carriage."

There wasn't anything, actually. Just a lonely three-sided building where the train let off and a wide dirt road. In the distance, he could make out the shape of houses, but not many of them. The island was flat and empty, a stretch of soft green grass rising out of the ocean, divided by rolling stone fences.

Sirius walked up the road a short way, twirling his wand. Theo narrowed his eyes, watching the faint shimmer of spells rush out from him in a torrent.

"Does he seem...off, to you?" he whispered to Draco.

A hard gust of wind made Theo's hair whip crazily in his face. He turned his face into it, looking at the water.

"He's the most wanted criminal in all of Great Britain," Draco muttered, glancing distrustfully over his shoulder. "And he's escorting two pureblood heirs who are being hunted by the Dark Lord. If he wasn't off I'd say he isn't taking this seriously!"

Theo made a face. Rather than admit Draco was probably right, he said, "Bold of you to assume the Dark Lord cares about us."

"Why wouldn't he? We're loose ends! He must know we'll..." Draco faltered, then rallied his courage. "He must know we'll take revenge!" He whispered furtively.

Theo cracked up, and the wind stole the laughter from his mouth, "I'm sure he's quaking in his boots!"

"Shut up!" But Draco's mouth twitched too. His cheeks were tinted pink, "In a few years we'll be - you know -"

Theo laughed even harder. "You're so optimistic," he snickered. "You think in a few years we'll be a match for him?"

Draco tsk'd and looked to the side. Theo gently squeezed his shoulder. "You're right, of course," he said more calmly, checking on Sirius. He had transformed into his animagus form and was sniffing the air. "We have to take revenge. Somehow."

"You bastard," Draco rolled his eyes. "Don't make fun of me for repeating what you said two months ago, that we would make our own future. And there's no future with - with that, hanging over us."

Theo nodded, mood turning somber. Draco stared out at the sea, his gaze hard and focused. He was chewing his cheek, a terrible habit that betrayed his anxiety. What hasn't he told me? Theo wondered. 

"Did Jo - ah, did Grievehook say anything else about this metal master?" Sirius interrupted, coming up behind them. He avoided holding Theo's gaze for too long.

Theo felt a stir of unease.

"He only said to follow the sound of the forge."

"Oh that's nice and informative!" Draco complained, likely sensing a long walk ahead of them. "Who on earth becomes a metal master and doesn't bother putting up a sign? How do they stay in business?"

Theo waved his hand at the island, "I imagine Wyrenin -"

As soon as her name left his mouth, a deep, brassy CLANG - CLANG - CLANG echoed in the distance. All three of them turned and looked in the same direction.

They set off. Sirius transformed into a dog again and loped ahead of them. They followed the road for a quarter of an hour until Sirius turned off at a subtle break in the rock wall. Theo paused to touch the symbol of a hammer carved into one of the stones.

The path narrowed and dipped down to the ocean. It turned sharply, taking them along the inside of the short cliff overlooking where the island met the water. Draco swore under his breath every time a strong gust of wind buffeted them from behind.

All the while, the sound of the forge grew louder.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

Soon, Theo could smell it, the stink of quenching iron intermixed with fire. Sirius picked up the pace.

The path curled around a finger of land and dropped down into a cove. Theo marveled at the flat expanse of tide pools laying exposed and glittering in the sun. A wide cave with a black anvil resting outside of it yawned in the cliff wall, high above the water line.

Sirius swung around and nosed Theo in the knees until he got the message. "We'll stay here," he promised, without much feeling. His fingers itched to get near those tide pools. Sirius woofed and trotted up the path to the cave.

"Should he have left us alone?" Draco whispered nervously, pressing in close.

"She's affiliated with Gringotts," Theo shrugged. "They wouldn't send us here to be killed."

"You have more faith in the goblins than I do."

Theo edged forward but Draco dragged him back. "Don't! You don't know what's around here!"

"We'll be fine, I just want to see -"

"Seeing can be dangerous, young man."

They flinched, hard, banging into each other. Draco fisted one hand in his sweater and hauled Theo behind him. "Stay back!" Draco snapped, raising his wand.

An old woman wearing a hooded, beaded shawl that went down to her sandals smiled at them. She was clutching a basket full of dirty carrots. "I can do you no harm," she said serenely. "Take heart, young dragon, you need not keep up your guard here."

Theo blinked. "How do you know...his name?" Except, she didn't really know his name. She said dragon.

The old woman winked. Now that he got a closer look at her, she wasn't that old. Her face was hearty, and she had a few deep wrinkles around her mouth, but her hair was not yet gray, and the backs of her hands were tanned and smooth. 

"Wyrenin's waiting. Come along."

She passed them, shuffling toward the cave. He and Draco exchanged an uncertain look.

"Well," Draco loosened his grip but did not take his hand off Theo's sweater. "Go on."

The corner of his mouth ticked up. "Making me go first after that display?" 

"I'm watching your back!" Draco hissed, "Let me remind you, no one's watching mine."

"You're practically fused to me. If you go down, I go down."

Theo was careful not to step on the tail of the woman's skirt as they ascended to the mouth of the cave. "What's your name?" He asked.

"Jean," she replied, once they got to the top. "Jean Abbiss."

Abbiss, he mouthed, thinking back to his genealogy studies.

"I am not from a magical family," she shared, giving him a knowing look. On the wall of the cave was a golden bell, as large as her head. She pulled a silver mallet from her skirts and raised it to the bell. "I am not a witch at all."

Jean tapped the bell lightly, making it ring high and clear like an instrument. The sound chimed down the cave until the forge slowed to a halt.

"You're a squib?" Theo clarified.

"I'm a muggle, by your definition."

"A muggle?" Draco repeated disgustedly.

"Bring him down to me, my dear!" A new voice called out from deep within the cave. Jean smiled.

"Ready to meet the great Wyrenin?" She clutched her shawl together and led the way. The cave was well-tended, clean and dry - or as dry as a cave could be. Lichen clung the floor, and there were glowstones lighting the way, embedded in the wall in elaborate mosaic swirls.

"A muggle," Draco muttered, not as quietly as he should have. Theo elbowed him. "Is she joking?" 

"She's clearly not just a muggle," Theo whispered back, watching Jean warily.

"Weigh your questions carefully," Jean cautioned, a note of amusement in her voice. "For I will only answer one from each of you."

Draco scoffed, "What would I need to ask a muggle?"

The cave opened up into a tall cavern. The path continued, disappearing down a corridor flickering with firelight, but the cavern seemed to be a kind of homely receiving room. Thick rugs carpeted the floor. A low, long couch sat against one wall, with an empty tea service on a table in front of it. Theo noted a wooden door snug in the corner, and near it was a recess in the wall partially enclosed by a beaded curtain.

Jean went right up to the curtain and pulled it back. Candles bloomed to life, floating over a round table with a scrying orb on top.

Theo gasped, "She's a seer."

Jean's smile was still disarmingly guileless. She pointed behind Theo's shoulder, "You stay with me, dragon."

"I don't think I will," Draco sniffed, tightening his grip. "I'll stay with him."

"Where's the wizard we were with?" Theo asked cautiously.

"The dogstar? He's coming."

He shivered. Her voice carried the same knowing lilt that his mother's did when she was seeing.

"Theo!" Draco hissed, "This. Is. Creepy. Let's run down that path and find Black and get out of here."

"We're not in danger," he assured, although the twist in his chest was telling him otherwise. Jean was just standing there, watching them. It was creepy. "Remember why we're here, Draco."

Footsteps echoed off the walls, and then Sirius appeared out of the mouth of the cavern. He'd taken his jacket off and he was sweating. "You didn't listen," he said accusingly, glancing from them to Jean. Theo watched his stance shift subtly, turning his shoulders toward the woman. He wondered if his wand was hidden under his jacket. "Oh, hello. Are you Jean?"

"That's right," she bowed her head.

Sirius nodded. After a moment, he seemed to relax. "Theo," he jerked his head at the path, "she's waiting for you."

"What? What? No! Don't leave me -"

"Come over here, dragon, and ask the question hanging heavy in your heart."

Draco cast his most beseeching look Theo's way, but his heart was beginning to race with anticipation. He stepped away, forcing Draco to let go. "You'll be fine," he said encouragingly. "I'll be back soon."

As Theo passed him, Sirius finally looked him in the eye for longer than two seconds. He seemed to be silently begging him for something. 

"Call out if you need help," he whispered.

And then the cave swallowed him up.

He walked alone through the narrow tunnel for about five minutes, surprised that it wasn't taking him down deeper into the earth. The smell of the forge was getting stronger, though, and it was getting hot.

He turned a corner and stopped. The path forked in two directions, and a goblin was standing in the middle. She looked up from a metal cube covered in squiggly symbols. Her long, clawed fingernails continued to spin the symbols around, working with practiced ease until the whole thing whirred and transformed into a smooth metal yoyo.

Wyrenin slipped the golden string over her finger and pulsed it up and down. Theo's gaze followed it for a second, bemused.

"Hello," Wyrenin greeted.

"Hello," he replied politely, glancing at her face. He had seen very few female goblins in his life and he could not tell if she was taller than a normal goblin, or if she was just wearing tall boots, or if she wasn't, in fact, fully goblin. "My name is Theodore Nott."

She nodded at him and turned toward the right-hand path. "I am called Wyrenin, the seventh metal master of the Great Goblin Confederation." Her voice was dry and flat. "Why have you come here today?"

Theo hesitated, the words bottlenecking in his throat. "I...lost my wand, recently," he said, ignoring the pang of loss. "And now my magic won't take to another. I was told I would be better suited to practice magic as a mage."

"'You were told'?" She glanced over her shoulder, "Interesting."

She walked fearlessly on, still looking back at him, yet navigating the twisting, narrow tunnel without stumbling. Sunlight began to lighten the dark walls ahead of them.

"Magecraft is my favorite kind of magic," she said, stopping at a small door. 

Wyrenin ran a claw over the seam and, just like a vault, the door opened down the middle. Theo had to duck to follow her in.

A wall of humidity hit him in the face. The scent of flowers coated the back of his throat as he breathed in deeply, taking in a verdant, colorful greenhouse. Butterflies flitted through the air and crawled over vibrant orchids of every color. His gaze wandered up to peer at the glass-topped ceiling letting in all the sunlight.

"Walk with me," Wyrenin said, putting her yoyo away. An iridescent black and blue butterfly landed on his shoulder. He froze for a moment, but seeing as it was merely taking a rest, he slowly followed. Wyrenin set a wandering pace anyway, working her way through the greenhouse in a counter-clockwise circle, stopping to look at different flowers, shrubs, or trees that they passed seemingly at random.

"What is a metal master?" He said, unable to resist asking the first of a thousand questions building up inside him.

"My people will worship seven masters," she intoned, mimicking a deeper voice. "The first to be born will be revered - silver, iron, nickel, gold. They shall enrich our homes, strengthen our armies, and band our people together, raah! raah!" She shook her fist at the sky. "The last to be born - platinum, mercury, and copper - will be scorned. And in their lonely exile, they shall create metal magics we have never seen before. As it was foretold to me by my grandfather, I shall make it so, raah!"

Wyrenin gave him a side-long look. "Goblins are stupid," she sighed. "Iridium the Redeemed did not know why a metal master is born, but we goblins do not like unexplainable things. They think a metal master is a what, a symbol, a lancet, a visionary. But we are not a what. We simply are."

He nodded, "I see. Which one are you?"

"You have three guesses," she said flatly.

She stopped by a tall rubber tree with wide green leaves. She extended her hand and let a tiny butterfly, no bigger than the head of a spoon, crawl onto one of her fingernails. Upon closer inspection, he realized that her nails had a sheen of silver to them.

Not silver. "Platinum?"

"Right you are. Here," she held the tiny butterfly out. He clumsily pressed his index finger against hers, letting it walk across his skin. She watched carefully, her small, dark eyes examining the butterfly until it flew away.

"You have a ring?" She pointed. "May I see it?"

Obediently, he took the copper ring off and handed it to her. She hummed, turned it over in her fingers, and then threw it in her mouth and crunched it into pieces.

Theo stared dumbly at her.

"Mmm," she swallowed and wrinkled her nose, which ended in a sharp point. "Electric. Yes. Come this way."

She could give Ollivander a run for his money, he thought.

At the back of the greenhouse was a little spring with clear water seeping down from the walls of the cave like a slow-flowing waterfall. "You see that?" she pointed at something gold and gleaming in the bottom of the spring. "Try to take it."

She picked her teeth disinterestedly while he kneeled down and pushed his sleeve back. The water was constantly rippling, making it hard to fix his gaze on the tiny stone at the bottom. Slowly, he plunged his arm in. It was ice cold.

With care, he used the tips of his fingers to grasp the stone lightly, trying not to disturb any sediment, or else he'd blind the whole spring floor. He could feel its faceted edges, so different from the water-smooth rocks around it, and easily brought it out of the water.

When he cupped it in his hand, he realized that it was topaz.

"That stone has been there for three hundred years," she said. He arched an eyebrow and looked up at her. "No one else has been able to take it. Not for lack of trying."

He didn't see why it would be so hard. This spring must not be what it seems. "Where did it come from?"

Wyrenin shrugged. Her eyes followed the black and blue butterfly now crawling around his collar. He could feel its wings tickling the underside of his chin.

"Who knows? When mages die, their stones of power come loose, and a butterfly brings them back to one of us. Some say these beasts fly thousands and thousands of miles to pick up a stone before it's buried in the earth again." She gestured at the garden, "They drop them here, in different places. Some are easy to take. Others, not so much."

Now that she'd said it, Theo could see another glinting gemstone hidden across the path, nestled among the roots of a thin tree.

"I always knew the one who's take this would be conflicted," she said, staring into his face.

"Conflicted?"

Wyrenin held her hand out, so he carefully tipped the topaz into her palm. Luckily, she didn't eat it.

"Fire rescued from deep waters," she hummed, pinching it between two fingers and raising it up to the ceiling. The topaz refracted brilliant red, orange, pink, and yellow rays of light over the two of them. "The sun nestled with the moon. Heat trapped in ice." She gave him a look, "I could go on forever. It was waiting here for you. You will have to make sense of that."

Theo followed, deep in thought, as she led the way back to the door. "I will take this now and forge your ring," she said formally. "One last thing. Thank the messenger."

At first, he was confused, but then he realized she was looking pointedly at the butterfly. It was over on his left shoulder.

"Thank you," he said sincerely. By far, not the weirdest thing he'd done in his life. It waved its long, fuzzy antennas and lifted off, disappearing with all the others flying overhead.

"Good," Wyrenin said approvingly. "Good, good. I will go to the forge. You will wait with Jean. Your ring will be ready in an hour."

Back in the chamber, he found Draco sitting quietly on the low couch, staring at nothing. He didn't even stir until Theo sat next to him.

He waited a beat. Jean's curtain was drawn, and he couldn't see Sirius anywhere.

"What did you ask her?"

Draco's face was unreasonably emotive for being raised by Lucius and Narcissa, two of the least expressive people Theo had ever known. When he was upset - like he clearly was now - his face became flushed, his brow crinkled, and his jaw would clench. To Theo, that look was an alarm.

"Nevermind," he said quickly, looping his arm over Draco's shoulders. They were taut, like he was trying his hardest to stay still. "Don't say anything. I'll just sit with you."

Draco grew more calm as the minutes ticked by. He blinked away the sheen to his eyes, his shoulders relaxed, and eventually, he leaned into Theo, who pulled him back so they could slump more comfortably together. He scratched his fingernails down the back of Draco's neck and watched the curtain. I hope Sirius isn't in a similar state when he comes out. I'm not equipped for that.

The beads rattled as Sirius swept the curtains aside. Draco, in a testament to how terrible he felt, didn't move an inch, even under the scrutiny of Lord Black.

"She wants to see you," he said, tearing his eyes away to look at Theo. "How'd it go?"

"Good?" He offered, unable to sum up what he'd just experienced. "She said it would take an hour. I've been here for twenty minutes."

Sirius checked his watch. "Blackened damn, it will be six o'clock by the time we get back."

"Are you going to be able to let me see Harry before we leave?" He asked for the tenth time, ignoring the way Draco twitched. He made it no secret that he didn't appreciate the swift decision to send him and Draco back to Italy without returning to Grimmauld Place. He didn't argue with Narcissa, of course, but Sirius wasn't safe from Theo's relentless nagging.

"I don't know," he sighed.

Theo narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "Did something happen?"

"Don't -"

"I'm already worried, so don't waste your breath."

They stared each other down for a moment. Sirius broke first. 

"Harry was caught up in an accident this morning," he said obliquely, "he's recovering. I hope he's on his feet by now, but, I don't know for sure."

In one smooth motion, Theo gently pushed Draco aside and stood up. "He was hurt? This morning?" He advanced on Sirius dangerously. "You didn't tell me?"

Sirius looked surprised, glancing between him and Draco. "I didn't think you needed the stress."

Theo's temper flashed, but just as he opened his mouth, a voice interrupted them.

"Young man?" Jean's friendly voice called out, "Would you come here? Just for a moment?"

Theo sighed angrily and glared at Sirius one last time. "We're not done," he warned.

"Theo's very protective of his friends," he heard Draco murmur behind him, just before he stepped into Jean's little room.

The curtain slid shut. He sat.

Jean smiled at him.

"I don't have a question," he said dismissively, completely distracted by what Sirius had just revealed. How badly could he get hurt? I bet it was those stupid Weasley twins. They probably tried something out on him, or he volunteered. So help me - if he voluntarily did something stupid and got injured I'll -

"I have a message for you."

Theo's head snapped around. Jean reached across the table with open hands. "Take them," she prompted, smiling. Hesitantly, he did.

Instantly, her eyes rolled back in her head. She gasped, loudly, and he was afraid that Draco or Sirius might come running to them. The candlelight ripped to and fro, though there was no wind, and the scrying orb clouded with smoky black fog.

Theo gulped. Black fog was a sign of the dead.

"Theodore..." Jean wheezed - only her voice was not that of a warm and friendly muggle woman. It was his father's voice.

He stood up so fast he banged his knees against the table and sent the orb jumping in its stand. Jean's fingernails bit into his skin, holding him down with more strength than she should have.

"Remember..." she cried, rolling her head. The orb flashed with bolts of firey lightning. "Remember to ask yourself...who is my enemy?"

Her grip slackened and he ripped his hands back. She groaned and cupped her face in her hands, taking long, shuddering breaths.

"I'm sorry," she whispered breathily, "I never know. I never know what it will be. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Theo covered his mouth, mute with horror. First his father, now this?

No, his logical brain told him. That's Jean's voice. That's not mother's voice. Jean is just saying...and doing...what she used to, after a vision from the sight.

He remembered what his mother said about the fate of seers. Carefully, he leaned over to pat her shoulder.

"Do you want some tea?"

She sniffled and nodded, still hiding her face. He felt terrible for her. A muggle, yeah right, he thought derisively, pulling the curtain back. With power like that? It was no wonder she was hidden here with Wyrenin. They were two outcasts from worlds that had no place for them.

Sirius's eyes followed him as he made tea, but he didn't say anything. Draco was staring off at the wall. Theo's heart was still pounding. It felt like he could feel his father's spirit standing in his shadow.

Who is my enemy?

Theo wondered.

---

"Are you really going to pretend to use a wand?" Draco whispered. "I don't see how it'd be possible."

Theo peeled his eyes away from his ring. Aberforth, the proprietor of the Hog's Head, was still arguing loudly in the other room. Sirius sighed and thumped his head impatiently against the wall. They were standing in the hallway between the bar proper and the man's private office, trying to get floo-passage to Hogwarts.

"Should have just walked," Sirius groaned. "Would have been faster."

"When you levitated that couch your eyes were glowing," Draco went on, still whispering. "No one's eyes fucking glow when they use a wand, Theo."

"I'll have to work on that," he said distractedly, turning the ring over his finger. Now he was starting to understand why Harry did this all the time.

"Work on it?" Draco scoffed, "Embrace it!"

"You know the reputation of magecraft," Theo said, dropping his voice.

"Flitwick uses a ring in advanced dueling club," Draco challenged. "And Professor Vector is a mage."

Theo hummed thoughtfully. Professor Vector was one of the first wixen he saw practicing magecraft. Perhaps it won't be as much of an issue as I thought. 

"Use it to scare the life out of the first upper classman who comes against us," Draco went on, his eyes bright with excitement. "It will be glorious. Just imagine!"

Theo smirked. "Brilliant as ever, Draco."

"I know I am."

Sirius snorted. "If Harry's anything like his dad you won't need to lift a finger. The minute he thinks you're being picked on he'll bury them ten feet in the ground."

"Picked on?" Theo's voice rose a little, outraged. "We're not talking about simple bullying."

"Not that anyone would dare bully you," Draco muttered.

"Except for you," Theo returned.

"No one else is brave enough to do it."

"Oh yeah? Let's see if you feel as brave after this. Erubesco." He used his pointer and middle finger pressed together to make the wand movement, three clockwise circles, and cupped a soft pink glow in his palm.

Warm, surging magic flooded through his veins. He could feel it in every pore, in every muscle, down deep in the marrow of his bones. He could tell, this time, that his eyes were glowing by the light they cast on Draco's face.

"Fuck me Merlin," Draco stuttered, awestruck.

Sirius burst into laughter.

"What?!" Draco yelped, pretending he wasn't embarrassed. "It's amazing! It..." Clearly nothing he said was going to make Sirius stop laughing at him, so Draco just shut up. 

A minute later, Aberforth threw open the door. He stared at them impassively for a moment, letting them gather themselves, before stepping aside.

"Use my floo to go to his office," he said shortly.

One by one, they floo'd to the Headmaster's office. Theo vanished the ash off his robes with a whisper and couldn't hide his happiness when it worked.

"Welcome, Mr. Nott," Professor Dumbledore said. His eyes were stuck to Theo's hands for a moment, but the pleasant smile did not leave his face. "I'm afraid that was a waste. You're making another trip shortly."

"We are?"

Sirius flashed through last. Theo looked around and realized that Draco was standing with Narcissa. He hung awkwardly in the middle, wondering if only he was making the trip to Grimmauld Place, or...

Dumbledore raised a small piece of parchment and sent it flying through the air to the Malfoys. "As we discussed, Lady Malfoy, the address to Headquarters."

Sirius stilled. "Pardon?"

Dumbledore hummed, steepling this fingers. "She is your family, Sirius. I take it you don't object."

"Is she joining the Order?"

"As I told the Headmaster and you, cousin, our goals are aligned." She handed Draco the parchment for him to read. "Besides, I would like to meet the young man who saved Theodore."

"So, we are leaving tonight?" Theo asked.

Narcissa inclined her head, "The portkey leaves from here at nine."

"I'm sure you'll have a lovely dinner before you go," Dumbledore said happily.

Sirius stared warily at the Headmaster. "Does the Order know about this, or am I to be the bearer of the news?"

"What is that saying? Don't shoot the messenger?" Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, "If anyone should want to speak with me, send them along, Sirius. I'll be here until it's time for the portkey to activate."

Sirius bowed his head, but when he turned his back, Theo saw him roll his eyes.

"Alright, hup to it," he said, holding out the floo jar. "We've a schedule to keep."

Theo glanced over his shoulder at Draco and Narcissa, who were whispering to each other. He tried to imagine a scenario where Draco sat across from Granger for an entire meal and nothing went wrong.

"Well," he sighed morosely to Sirius, "at least we're down one Weasley."

Sirius smirked. "If you can keep Malfoy and Harry from going at each other's throats, you deserve the Nobel Peace Prize."

"You could just buy me a puppy."

Sirius's smirk transformed into a grin. "He makes jokes now! I'm starting to see why Harry likes you."

Theo resolutely faced the fire, pretending he wasn't blushing. The fire turned green, and he stepped inside. The topaz on his hand flared. Ever since he put it on, it was like his magical sensitivity was amplified. He could see the white, slippery magic of the floo, eagerly waiting to sling him through the network.

I can't wait to show this to Harry, he thought excitedly.

"Number 12, Grimmauld Place!"

Notes:

Sirius, 99% of the time: happy, cool, helpful, awesome, would help you sneak into the house when you're drunk and would not tell your mom.

Sirius, 1% of the time: 𝕀 𝕎𝕀𝕃𝕃 𝔼ℕ𝔻 𝕐𝕆𝕌.

Okay, SO. A few chapters ago I mentioned my tumblr. A few of you wandered over to my bare-bones tumblr page @wixenforever and began to chat with me [hey @jundsthoughts and @aluxialookingatyou and @that1notetaker]. Jundsthoughts shares the most amazing music headcannons which is so awesome so check out our threads if you're interested. I'm a sucker for the songfic of olden days lmao.

And then one day, @that1notetaker wandered in and made the first of many (SO MANY) fanart images. Some of them are illustrations of scenes from the story, some of them are original comics, and they are ALL amazing. Please check out the link below, which has them all collected on one post you can click through, and don't forget to shower That1Notetaker with love!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Check out the fanart!

Chapter 25: Precipice

Summary:

Harry and Theo choose to trust each other.

Notes:

Me, writing this chapter: "Does anyone in this story have normal family relationships?"

Readers, this is yet to be seen.

Harry

Harry was pretty sure his brain was melting out his ears.

"Ugh." He dug his thumbs into his temples. "This is miserable." A blistering headache thrummed under his skull. Harry rolled his face against the pillow. "Fuck!"

If only he could talk to John. He'd probably harp on Harry to take a nap. He'd probably wax on and on about his elaborate plan to exact revenge on Bill. He'd probably gently - or not so gently - insult him for wasting his energy obsessing over the same few facts that told him absolutely nothing.

But Harry couldn't stop. They were like a song stuck in his head. He wrote out all his theories in the notebook Hermione gave him, recording almost five full pages of what it could all mean, but every idea sounded like he'd lost his damn mind.

Bill could be a Death Eater. Bill could be under the imperius curse. Bill might have had something to do with the destruction of Nott Tower. Bill might have done something equally unforgivable around the same time that Nott Tower burned down. Charlie knew enough that Bill obliviated him to protect him (or himself?).

And then, on the last page, he'd written the darkest question yet.

Did the Order frame Voldemort for the destruction of Nott Tower?

Harry's eyes were burning. He'd been at it all day, ever since he woke up in agony around noon. The blessing on his skin was at war with his magic, resulting in nerve-deep spurts of pain that seemed impervious to every kind of potion that Snape tried. Harry couldn't sleep, he wasn't hungry, and he didn't have John to distract him, so he couldn't do much except obsess about the unknown.

Just a few more hours, he chanted. Nightfall is at 9:03. You can make it.

Someone knocked on the door. Fully expecting it to be either Snape or Remus, he didn't bother moving.

"Pup?" Sirius said softly, "Are you asleep?"

"You're back!" Harry exclaimed, leaping to his feet. A dizzy spell dragged his first two steps off-kilter, but he corrected and met his godfather in the middle of the room. "Did Theo get his ring? Is he okay?"

"Are you okay? You're pale." Sirius held him steady and looked him up and down. "Did it happen again after I left?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Have him define fine," Remus said dryly, following Sirius inside.

"Harry, define fine," Sirius demanded.

Harry rolled his eyes, "It's nothing, just some aches -" a particularly harsh spasm lanced through his lower back, "and pains," he finished through gritted teeth.

"You can't do anything about it?" Sirius tossed a glare over his shoulder at Snape, who shut the bedroom door behind him. Harry was starting to have flashbacks to the Shrieking Shack.

"If I could, I would have left this blasted place hours ago," Snape sneered.

"Would it kill you to give someone a straight yes or no answer for once in your life?" Sirius pulled Harry into a quick hug, "Moony, I don't know how you deal with him."

"Years of patience from dealing with you," Remus quipped. He sat down on Ron's bed and petted the empty air, "Hello, John. You look cheered by all the chaos."

A familiar thrum of anxiety shot through him, sour and sharp. Harry picked at a hangnail, watching everyone else grow still as they listened to a raspy voice he couldn't hear.

Harry felt like he'd lost one his senses without John. The memory of Voldemort's visceral agony from Nagini's broken bond haunted his thoughts, appearing when he least expected it. He knew it wasn't the same situation, John wasn't dead, after all, but being unable to see, hear, or feel him made it feel like he was.

"He says you've been busy," Sirius translated, glancing over at the creased notebook on Harry's bed.

"Busy going insane," Harry muttered. "What's going on, Sirius? What happened to Bill?"

Sirius ran his fingers through his hair, groaning. "So much has happened in the last day, I don't even know where to begin, but, we have to be quick."

"Tell me everything," Harry pleaded. "I need to know."

Snape scoffed, "Black, Potter does not need to know everything."

"Yes I do!" Harry snapped. "You wouldn't even know that Volde-"

"Don't say his name!"

"-mort didn't kill Magnus Nott if I hadn't told you! Or this thing about Bill!" Snape hissed quietly in the corner, clutching his arm, but Harry ignored him. He and Snape had this argument three times already, and he was damn well going to win it this time.

He whirled on his godfather. "Sirius, I deserve to know everything, especially if I'm going to continue to get visions from him in the future! If I don't know what's going on, then I might miss a hint, or, or a detail in a vision that could be crucial to figuring this out!"

"The plan is that you won't get visions from him in the future," Sirius reminded him.

"Do you really think that's possible?" Harry retorted, "And I've been thinking, is it even a good idea to shut down the link between us -"

"Yes!" Remus and Sirius said at the same time. "Harry," Remus said urgently, "don't go down that road. You have to learn to block him from your mind."

"But -"

"Potter!" Snape snarled. "The Dark Lord will only grow in power as time goes on. No amount of information you may glean from his unprotected thoughts will be worth the grief that comes when he learns he can manipulate you from afar. And let me remind you that, despite what you saw, we do not know the truth."

"He didn't know about the Notts!" Harry insisted. "How could he have used that moment to try and trick me if I was watching a memory of what happened?"

Snape limped forward, his fingers white and bloodless where they gripped his forearm. "By your own admission, it appeared that the Dark Lord's mind was split in half. Therefore, only part of him did not know Magnus was dead." He lowered his voice menacingly, "You are not half as clever as you think you are. I know exactly where your narrow mind is leading you, Potter."

"Do you?" he challenged. "Then say it."

"We don't have time for this!" Sirius jumped in between them, giving them each a sharp look. "Harry, Narcissa is here. Right now. She's downstairs, along with Theo, and that whiny little twerp of hers. They'll be having dinner with us, and then they're leaving the country."

Harry blinked, thrown for a loop. "What?"

"Theo and Draco are leaving tonight," Sirius repeated. "Narcissa arranged it with the Minister. Seems like she made some sort of deal with Albus, too, because they're leaving from his office."

Harry's heart jumped. "Is that safe? What if he's the one who's behind this?"

"You see?" Snape snarled. "When his tiny mind jumps to the conclusion that Albus Dumbledore, of all wizards, would order the death of an entire family, then -"

"If you think Dumbledore has nothing to do with this then why haven't any of you called for his help?" Harry seethed. Pain crawled up his neck, settling in the corners of his jaw and seeping into his teeth. "Don't lie to me just because you think I can't handle the truth! I don't want to believe he had anything to do with this either, but who else could it be?"

Brittle silence settled over them. In the end, it was Sirius who he looked to, silently begging him to tell him the truth.

His godfather looked tired. Very, very tired. When he spoke, his voice carried softly through the room. "Harry, you could be right, okay? That is one possibility."

Snape made a disgusted noise and began to pace.

"But there are a lot of other possibilities," Sirius went on, ignoring him. "Especially considering what I learned from Bill."

"What did you learn?" Remus prompted, leaning forward.

"Black," Snape warned. "Think -"

"He said that Theo might save your life, Harry."

Sirius fell silent, letting those words sink in. Remus held perfectly still on the bed, eyes wide. Snape froze in place.

Harry, however, started to shiver, goosebumps erupting on his skin. The memory of the lithomancy Theo did for him in the Albion swirled in the back of his mind. "What?"

"Was he talking about the prophecy?" Remus asked.

Sirius shook his head, "I don't know what he meant. That's the only thing he would tell me. Whoever he's tied up with, whoever has him under their control, they are scary. They've threatened his whole family." Sirius glanced at the other two wizards. "I obliviated Bill. He basically asked me to. He won't remember what happened with Harry today, but he will remember what he did to Charlie."

"He asked you to obliviate him?" Remus repeated, cupping one hand over his mouth in dismay.

"But the only person who knows the full prophecy is...is Dumbledore..." Harry trailed off, unable to reconcile that fact with what Sirius just said. If the Weasleys were being threatened then that couldn't be Professor Dumbledore.

Could it?

Snape looked even more dour than usual. "Of course you told Potter about the prophecy," he hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Perhaps what Bill's referencing is a weapon, or a secret of some kind that Magnus knew from the early days serving You-Know-Who. Magnus might have passed it down to Theodore as a kind of insurance," Remus suggested. "I still think the most likely culprit is one of his followers."

"Could be another Death Eater inside the Order," Sirius said darkly.

"Magnus did not allow most people into his wards," Snape added with clear reluctance, his gaze fixed on Harry. "It could also be one of his old enemies. He had many."

Harry's head was starting to spin again. "If Charlie knew something, then I wouldn't put it past the twins to have eavesdropped on their conversations a few times," he said. "I can try to talk to them. Maybe they have a hint about who Bill was working with."

Hesitation was written all over Sirius's face, and Snape pounced on it. "You see? You cannot fill his head with these thoughts! Every suspicion he has of the people on our side paints a bigger target on his back! Not to mention, if the Dark Lord learns of their connection, he could easily twist those suspicions into false memories and stoke chaos from within!"

"I know that!" Sirius shouted at him, out of patience. "Do you think I'm fucking stupid? I don't want Harry to be involved but he is!"

Harry took a half-step back instinctively. "I'm not going to make it obvious that I suspect anyone," he assured them. "I'll be subtle."

"Last week you broadcast your distrust of the Order to everyone who would listen and vanished into thin air! You could not be subtle if your life depended on it, which is why you," Snape pointed at Sirius, "need to be very, very careful what you tell this boy!"

"But I can help!" Harry protested. "It'll be faster if you have more people, right? And I have a connection with the Weasley family that you don't."

Remus sighed, "Harry, I have a good relationship with Fred and George, so I can follow up on your suggestion."

"But -"

"Today just proved what a bad match-up you are against Bill," Remus pointed out. "Not that I think he was trying to hurt you, but the fact that he could means that you should tread lightly. It's quite possible he's given his siblings small amulets or wardstones laced with holy magic to try and keep them safe, now that You-Know-Who is back." He licked his lips, "You have to be more careful, especially because you're a...a changeling."

"We were just caught off guard!" Harry turned his plea on Sirius. "Next time we'll know better. Sirius, you know I can help."

Sirius spun his wand over his thumb, thinking. After a long minute of silence, he sighed and offered Harry a tired smile, "There's probably nothing I can say to make you give up on investigating this, is there?"

"Bill might be responsible for what happened to Theo," Harry reminded him hotly. "Or he might know something about what happened. Maybe he's even protecting the person who did it! I can't just trust that someone else will take care of this, Sirius!"

"Not even me?"

Harry froze. Sirius met his stunned gaze evenly, still twirling his wand.

Harry had to look away first. Could he leave this to Sirius to investigate? Could he trust him to see it through to the end? Would Sirius tell him everything that he needed to know to keep Theo safe?

"Just think about it," Sirius suggested casually, as if they weren't talking about investigating a potential murder-plot coverup. "I was a rising star auror in my day. I'm good at this kind of stuff."

Hesitantly, Harry nodded. "I...I can think about it."

There was another long silence. Harry felt that the three wizards were communicating silently with looks, but he was so deep in his thoughts that he stepped back again, until he was leaning against the window. He touched the carving of the three ravens on the sill and felt a pulse of pain run up his fingers.

I don't know what to do, he thought helplessly.

"Cheers," Remus yawned. "I have to leave in a minute. Is there any other world-shattering information I need to know? No? I'm off, then."

"No, Moony!" Sirius rushed to his side, clutching his robes. "You can't leave me alone with these people! You should have seen Molly's face when Narcissa floo'd into the dining room. I thought she was going to draw her wand!" He dogged Remus's heels as he crossed the room, "Moonrise isn't for a few more hours! Just stay through dinner, please..."

Remus ignored him and stopped in front of Harry. "I'll see you soon," he promised. "Be safe."

"Thanks for everything," Harry said, looking up at him. Remus had been his only relief this whole afternoon, distracting him with stories about his time with the werewolf packs in between Harry's arguments with Snape.

Remus smiled and headed out. "Oh, right," Sirius turned back to look at him before he followed suit, "you might want to change before you come down." Harry looked at his sweatpants. "See you in a minute, pup."

Snape was the only one who didn't move. Sirius gave him a dirty look, "I wasn't talking to you Snape, but Merlin knows we'd all cheer to see you in something other than black."

Snape curled his lip, "I must speak with Potter. Alone."

"The fuck you will!"

"It's fine," Harry waved him off. Part of him knew this was coming. Snape wasn't going to let their final argument end with the sense that Harry won. "Go try and convince Remus to stay for dinner. I'll be right down."

Sirius waffled, his gray eyes moving anxiously between the two of them.

"I'm leaving now, Padfoot!" Remus called out.

"Don't be an asshole to him," Sirius warned, before shutting the door.

The two of them stared at each other. Harry felt a strong sense of foreboding as Snape's dark eyes bore into his.

"Your godfather may be willing to let this go, but I am not," he said, more evenly than Harry expected. "What will you tell Theodore before he leaves?"

Harry narrowed his eyes. Another wave of pain crawled over his shoulders. "What does it matter to you? I've never seen you care so much about any student. What makes Theo special?"

Snape's nose flared, "It is not often my students survive a family annihilation by the skin of their teeth, only to end up under the care of a convict and a reckless teenager!" He hissed. "Tell me what you plan to say to him, Potter, so I can prepare to mitigate the damage."

"What damage?" Harry retorted, his voice rising with his temper. "I'm going to tell him that he might be in danger from someone other than You-Know-Who," he was sure to sound as sarcastic as possible when he used Voldemort's epithet. "What if something happens because I didn't warn him there could be someone else coming after him? I can't live with myself if -"

"Spare me," Snape held up one forbidding hand. "I do not need to hear about your hero complex."

"It's not a hero complex, I am trying to help my friend!"

Snape's frustration caught fire and he bared his teeth. "You have no idea the power of this information! If there is only one time in your insolent life that you choose to listen to me, then do it now, especially if you think of Theodore as your friend."

Harry glared hatefully at him, but he obediently shut his mouth.

"You have experienced an imbalanced amount of luck in your life," Snape intoned. "Incidents you should not have survived, accidents that should have left you permanently maimed, brushes with unstable individuals who miraculously left you unscathed. You have come away from all of it with very little loss."

Cedric's cold, sightless eyes flashed in his head.

"Luck does not live in you, Potter," he went on, slowly pacing closer. "You are not its special avatar on this earth, and if you continue trusting that luck will see you through, it will fail you when you need it most. And it is not so much a matter of what you will lose, but who."

Harry trembled, his blood running cold from the intensity of Snape's words.

"I would never let anything happen to -"

"It does not matter," Snape growled, silencing him with a glare. "Do you truly know your friend?" He stopped when he was looming over Harry. "Do you know what he will do if he thinks that the person who destroyed his House and killed his father may not be the Dark Lord, but, in fact, someone much more accessible?"

Harry felt a flutter of uncertainty in his chest.

Snape lowered his voice, "Theodore is incredibly intelligent, but no one is immune from passions of the heart. If you feed him half-truths, you will set him down a path that will lead him against forces that have been weaving their webs for far longer than you or I have been alive. Gifted though he may be, he cannot predict every facet of the future." Snape's eyes searched his, looking for understanding. "Two or four or ten untrained teenagers cannot hope to be anything but fodder in this war if you keep sticking your nose where you do not belong."

"What do you think I should do, then?" Harry's voice wavered. It was starting to sink in. If the Order, or even Dumbledore, had anything to do with the attack on Nott Tower, then what would Harry even be able to do? They were literally surrounded by potential enemies - not only in Grimmauld Place, but at Hogwarts. How can I keep him safe from them? Or from himself?

"Leave it to Black, and your betters, to uncover the truth," he said with obvious distaste. "Trust that despite not knowing the intricacies of what is happening, there are people around you fighting to keep you idiot children alive. And make an attempt to withstand one year at Hogwarts without a brush with death."

"But what about Theo?" Harry needled, ignoring the death comment. Harry felt like that might be a lost cause. "Professor, I can't just not tell him!"

Snape stared down at him, "Potter, do you know the motto of the Noble House of Nott?"

He shook his head.

Snape let the silence stretch out. "Obliteration over defeat."

And then, with the snapping of his robes, he was gone.

Harry fully hugged himself, rubbing his arms for comfort. "Fuck," he whispered, making his way over to his bag to drag out something decent to wear. "Fuck."

He'd do anything to ask John what he thought he should do, but, of course, he couldn't. The room was as silent as the grave.

---

Before he was even one step in the dining room, Theo materialized in front of him and pushed him back out.

"Are you okay?" He asked quietly, leaning in close as Harry's back hit the wall. "You look...there's something..." His brow furrowed as his eyes darted over Harry's face. "Are you cursed?"

Harry managed a weak laugh. "Feels like it some days."

Theo didn't seem amused. "I heard you were in a magical accident," he said, keeping his voice low.

Harry glanced at the swinging door and twisted his ring nervously. "I'm fine," he lied. "Nervous about this dinner."

"Don't be nervous," Theo said calmly. "You field Granger and I'll field Draco. Narcissa's here, so he'll mind his tongue. It'll be fine."

Harry nodded, but the mutual hatred between their friends was the least of his worries. He picked at his hangnail again, wrestling with what to say, wondering if he should say anything, wondering if he'd even have time to make a decision if Theo was leaving right after dinner.

Theo reached out and gently covered his hands with his own. Harry saw a flash of orange on his finger. "Is that..." he began, but fell silent when Theo cradled the finger he was mutilating in one hand and hovered the other over it. "Episkey."

Harry watched, stunned, as Theo's dark blue eyes literally started to glow.

"Oh my god," he breathed. Theo had flecks of purple in his eyes. His heart began to thunder in his chest, overwhelmed, awed, breathless.

Theo grinned, and it was a full-face smile, with no attempt to cover his mouth like he did sometimes. The skin on Harry's fingertip cooled and settled, matching the feeling of Theo's cold hand.

"Lends credence to my title, doesn't it?" Theo said excitedly. "Master of the Arcane."

Harry grinned back at him. For a second, he forgot his worries. He was aglow with delight that Theo remembered their little joke in the Manchester apartment, and his stomach erupted into butterflies. The little purple embers faded away in Theo's eyes, and Harry looked down to examine his ring more closely. It was strikingly different from what he expected, with a rectangular orange topaz that seemed to glow with its own light, nested in a bronze band etched with an elaborate swirling design.

He couldn't say why, exactly, but it felt fitting for Theo. A mage ring made of cold metal and hard stone that was nonetheless as warm and bright as he was.

In that moment, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

"I need ten minutes alone with you before you leave," he said, hushed. "It's really important."

"Okay," Theo agreed, as if it was the easiest request in the world. "Where's John?"

"Napping." Harry looked back down at their hands to hide his expression. "We have to pick him up before I talk to you."

They broke apart. Harry took a calming breath and rolled his shoulders. Theo reached out to push the door open, whispering, "We need some of your golden boy luck tonight, Potter."

Harry laughed as he followed him inside. The immediate stares they got from all corners of the room made him feel better. Not calm, exactly, but somehow normal. Harry was used to being stared at, and therefore used to holding his head up and pretending nothing was wrong.

The only person who made his skin prickle was Narcissa Malfoy, who he had seen only a bare few times over the years. She sat primly at the table with her elbows tucked and her back perfectly straight. Her hair was shockingly blonde, but a shade warmer than Malfoy's, and she had a lot of it. It tumbled behind her shoulders in waves.

She stared back at him until he felt his face getting hot and, not knowing what to say to a lady of her stature, he quickly moved around the table to sit next to Hermione.

Unfortunately, he found no comfort there, because she leveled an absolutely scathing look.
"What?" He whispered.

In answer, she looked over at Malfoy, who sneered at both of them.

Harry rolled his eyes, remembering their argument. "I didn't know he would be here today!" He hissed under his breath.

"You really expect me to believe that?" she snapped back.

It was not just their end of the table that was tense, the whole room felt supercharged with electricity. Luckily, Sirius had the forethought to carry in an antique record player from the sitting room, so music filled the awkward silence.

"So what did you do all day?" Theo asked, after they served themselves. Dinner smelled good, but Harry was not honestly hungry, so he took very little. Malfoy sat stiff next to Theo, not even touching the back of his seat as if he thought it was dirty. Hermione wasn't doing much better, meeting Malfoy's cold look with undisguised contempt.

Theo seemed content to just ignore them, so Harry did, too.

"Slept, mostly," he shrugged, hiding a wince when pain wiggled down his spine. "I had a migraine."

Theo rolled with the story. "I used to get those a lot," he shared. "Because of my sensitivity to magic. Did you take something for it?"

Harry felt a flush crawling up his neck as Theo looked at him with concern. Somehow, he felt more exposed than he did when Theo healed his hand in the hallway a second ago. Maybe it was because of the incredulous glare Malfoy was leveling at him. "Yeah, I did, and I'm fine now. Er, I heard you're leaving after this, Theo?"

"The portkey activates at nine," Theo nodded.

"Where are you going?" Ginny piped up on the other side of Hermione.

Theo began to talk about the Zabini villa in Italy, and Harry half-listened, taking his chance to look at the other end of the table where Mrs. and Mr. Weasley sat across from Sirius and Narcissa Malfoy. Harry couldn't quite see Narcissa from his angle, but he could clearly see how stiff and uncomfortable the Weasleys were. Mrs. Weasley was drinking a tall glass of wine, and Mr. Weasley was staring down at his plate like he'd forgotten how to eat.

How do you have dinner with the widow of the man who was responsible for exposing your daughter to Lord Voldemort?

John would love to watch this, Harry thought mournfully.

The twins and Ginny bridged the gulf between the two groups. For once, Fred and George were sitting quietly, no doubt eavesdropping on both stilted conversations. Remus was gone, and Snape wasn't anywhere to be seen either. Harry internally breathed a sigh of relief. At least Moody wasn't here...

"Did you come to pick him up, then?" Hermione asked Malfoy.

"He is part of our family," he said possessively. "Can't trust an Order of Gryffindors to do anything right without supervision."

"I suppose Headquarters functions more like a safehouse than anything else," Hermione muttered, ignoring his comment. "It is the safest place to hide from You-Know-Who..." She and Harry looked at each other at the same time and she flushed, "Don't start, Harry."

"Oh, no," Malfoy crooned, "do start, Potter."

Harry's patience snapped. "Malfoy flew here this morning," he volunteered.

"Flew?" Ginny repeated.

"What?" Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Like...on a broom?"

"No, on a plane." Harry hoped that Malfoy wouldn't mention the mysterious magic that led him straight to Headquarters, despite the Fidelius Charm, because Hermione would never let that go. "Where'd you fly into?"

Theo looked amused as Malfoy rapidly cycled through several emotions - shock, confusion, outrage. "Heathrow," he finally uttered.

Hermione was clearly struggling to piece that image together. "Do you have a private jet?"

Theo smirked and shot his friend a knowing look, "Not yet, he doesn't."

"What do you mean?" Malfoy asked him, suddenly serious. "Can you purchase a plane of your very own?"

"It's smaller," Theo explained, "but more luxurious. And yes, it would be your own. Only the rich and famous have private jets." Malfoy's eyes lit up.

"So you didn't fly here on one?" Hermione said skeptically, "Harry, are you telling me that Malfoy flew on a muggle airplane with other muggles?"

She happened to pose her question at a lull in the music, so everyone's attention settled down on their end of the table. Harry grinned when he saw the look of absolute fascination on Mr. Weasley's face.

"So he says..." Harry said doubtfully, struggling not to laugh when Theo gave him a look. "But I don't know if I believe it."

"It isn't hard," Malfoy sniffed, falling for Harry's trap. "I can blend in with the muggles."

"You can?" Hermione deadpanned.

"He's decent," Theo allowed. "Draco, show them your ticket."

With a flourish, he pulled a folded, wrinkled ticket out of his pocket and held it out. Hermione choked on her food and snatched it out of the air, ignoring Malfoy's incensed, "That's mine!"

"They let you on a plane?"

That was all the encouragement Malfoy needed to start in on what was surely an inflated story of his experience boarding a plane. But then again, Harry had never been on a plane, so he had no frame of reference.

Around the point where Hermione started to lecture Malfoy about theoretical physics and the reasons muggles hadn't created teleportation technology yet ("It's not because they're STUPID, Malfoy!") Harry decided to jump back into the conversation.

"Hermione! Didn't you go to the Ministry today? How was that?"

He purposefully lowered his voice, none too subtly offering Theo the chance to take over entertaining Malfoy, but unfortunately the both of them seemed to be interested in remaining in the conversation. Harry gave Theo an exasperated look. He winked. Bastard, Harry thought, when his stomach flipped.

Hermione clutched his arm, yanking him out of his thoughts, "Harry! I forgot! Merlin, it was terrible!"

Theo snickered, "You're talking about that awful fountain in the atrium, aren't you?"

"Theo," Malfoy sighed long-sufferingly. "How many times do I have to tell you that Bertrand Thule the Third created an artistic impression of the age of peace following the five-sided war between goblins, centaurs, wizards -"

"Not that!" Hermione interrupted. "I met our new defense professor today! Harry, she's the worst yet!"

"Par for the course, then," he grunted, spearing a pea on every tine of his fork.

"She's totally unqualified!" Hermione went on. "She's the Senior Undersecretary for the Minister. She doesn't have any teaching experience or qualifications, and she doesn't even have a NEWT in Defense! Can you believe that?"

"That's ridiculous," Theo said scornfully. "Not even the Governors would approve someone without a NEWT in the course they mean to teach."

"But that's exactly how she got it!" Hermione slammed her fist down on the table.

"Hermione, don't shout -"

"This is our OWL year!" She raged, completely ignoring him. "What are we supposed to do? What if a generation of students fail because some bureaucrats decided to appoint a Ministry fogey in Hogwarts! It's unjust! It's deranged!"

Theo nodded along, his eyebrows arched high. Even Malfoy was looking up with interest, though Harry suspected it was not the friendly kind. More like the, watching a train derail kind of interest.

"You know whose fault this is, right?" Theo said calmly.

"Who?"

"Dumbledore," he and Malfoy said at the exact same time. In a move born from years of practice, they quickly turned and said, "Jinx!", but Theo was a half-second faster. Malfoy rolled his eyes and begrudgingly rifled through his pockets to hand over a sickle.

"What?" Hermione blinked, but Harry couldn't tell if she was more stunned by their game or what they'd just said. "What do you mean? Professor Dumbledore didn't..."

"He's not exactly fostering the safest environment for defense professors," Theo pointed out.

"Or any professor," Malfoy added sarcastically. "Or any student."

"It is a magical school," Sirius butted in from the end of the table. "Scraped knees and a hex here or there is to be expected."

Harry wondered if he'd say that if he knew the full story about the basilisk and Lockhart in second year.

"I just mean, they're scraping the bottom of the barrel," Theo said smoothly. "When you have one dead, one with a permanent brain injury, and one kidnapped and kept in a trunk all in a four year period, the sensible candidates start to pass on the opportunity."

"You forgot to mention that one was a werewolf," Malfoy harped.

Theo turned his eyes up thoughtfully, "Actually, he survived the year intact, didn't he? Maybe they should switch to exclusively hiring cursed teachers. Perhaps it nullifies the curse on the position."

"Don't say it," Malfoy muttered, sawing his chicken cutlet into pieces. "Don't you -"

"Countess Mina would make an excellent professor." Theo cupped his chin in his hand, staring into the middle distance. "I should start a petition."

"I do not need to spend one more extra minute around a vampire. You sound like Blaise."

"He is a better duelist than you."

"He is not!"

Harry settled back, entranced by the way the two Slytherins fell into such easy banter. It was like they forgot Harry and Hermione were even there. Or, at least, Malfoy did. Watching Theo's playful smirk, and the way his eyes darted to catch Harry's sometimes, he got the sense that Theo didn't much care that anyone else was there. He looked content. Maybe even happy.

Watching them made him long for the easy times with Ron and Hermione. He caught Hermione's eye and gave her a playful nudge. "At least this professor won't try to kill me," he joked.

She buried her face in her hands, but not before he saw her mouth twitch, "That's not funny Harry!"

"What?" Theo said, all amusement sliding off his face.

"But she doesn't even have a NEWT in defense," he reminded her, feeling his mood perk up the more he thought it through. "So what's she going to do? Give me detention?"

"She's helping Fudge lead the campaign against you!" Hermione said, anger warming her tone again. "That's why she's been placed at the school, to spy on you and Professor Dumbledore!"

"Of course," he slumped down dejectedly. "It's always something."

"Can we go back to the at least this professor won't try to kill me thing?" Theo asked.

But before he could answer, a huge BANG echoed through the house, followed by stomping footsteps that headed straight for the dining room.

"Mum - stop! Mum NO!"

The door to the dining room slammed open again, cracking into the wall.

"Don't worry about the house," Sirius bit out sarcastically. "It's only a priceless antique."

Narcissa stood up, her hands folding in front of her waist. "Andi," she greeted heavily.

"Mum, just calm down," Tonks pleaded, rushing in after a woman Harry had never seen before. "Don't overreact!"

"I'm reacting exactly as I should," Andromeda Tonks replied, her eyes fixed on her sister. "Hello, Cissa."

Andromeda Tonks was not at all what Harry expected. She had short, wavy black hair with a single silver lock of hair along the side of her face. She was wearing pin-stripe slacks and a silk blue blouse and looked like she'd just got off work from some corporate office. Harry never would have believed this woman was a witch, much less a member of the House of Black, if not for the extremely powerful aura of murderous rage that seemed to emanate from her.

That, Harry was beginning to recognize, was a trait of the Black family.

Andromeda looked down at Malfoy. "Brought your son to parade around and add to your pity party?" She clawed her hand on Malfoy's shoulder and he went still, like a bird trapped under a cat's paw. "You know, Cissa, I expected you to come to me for help once I learned that your husband died, but instead you crawled to the next powerful wizard you could find. My hopes were too high for you, even after all these years."

"Andi..." Narcissa's chair moved back, giving her more room so she could raise her wand. "Take your hand off of my son."

"We're all friends here, Andromeda," Sirius added, standing up as well.

Andromeda stood menacingly behind Malfoy for a second, and everyone else in the room collectively held their breath.

"Relax," she said, bringing her hand up. Malfoy shot out of his chair at once, and Theo followed right along after. He had a blank, cold expression on his face, and his eyes never moved off of Andromeda. "I'm only here to see you."

"You've seen me," Narcissa raised her chin. "Now, go."

Andromeda clicked her tongue, "Are you afraid of my questions, sweet Cissa? Don't want to say the wrong things around your new friends?"

Harry, Hermione, and Ginny exchanged incredulous looks. It was hard for him to believe that Tonks - goofy, happy Tonks - was related to this witch.

"Mum, come on," the auror tried again, latching on to her arm.

"I always knew he had you on a tight leash," Andromeda continued, stalking down the room. Fred and George slithered under the table and came up right on the other side of Harry.

"Safer back here, mate," one of them whispered as they popped back up.

"Imagine my surprise to hear you fled straight into Albus Dumbledore's waiting arms as soon as you had the chance! All these years, Narcissa, and I thought you wanted to be with dear Lucius!"

"You are just as cruel to me as ever, Andi," Narcissa said, her voice lowering dangerously.

"Don't try to paint yourself the victim!" Andromeda said sharply. "Tell the truth! Why are you even here? You've never fought a day in your life, for anything, and now you've come and shacked up with the Order of the Phoenix, claiming you'll help us win the fight you supported all those years ago!"

"We should leave," Hermione hissed in his ear. Harry agreed, but the tension in the room was so palpable his throat felt tight. He didn't know if he could even move.

"I find it hard to believe that you listlessly wandered to the Order only to protect him," she pointed directly at Malfoy, standing by the door. Theo had one hand on his shoulder and the other on his wrist, trying to prevent him from drawing his wand. "So you've either finally been freed from the man I warned you about years ago, or you're here because you have your own insidious little game to play. I know you're not here just to fight," she spat the word, baring her perfectly straight teeth. "Dressing up as a warrior doesn't suit you, Narcissa."

The record player blared on, playing a happy little jazz number. Narcissa showed almost no reaction to her estranged sister's words, but when she finally did speak, her voice shook.

"You're the listless coward, Andromeda," she said plainly. "You ran away. You left us. Lucius was my savior all those years ago. He and I fought battles that would turn your hair white to know about. I am not playing dress-up like a little girl. I am here to ensure my husband's final wish is carried out, so I am working with the wixen who will make it so."

Andromeda scoffed. "Lucius really did brainwash you, if you think he saved you. If not for him, you wouldn't have ended up the -"

Andromeda's mouth kept moving, but her voice vanished. Narcissa turned and looked at their end of the table, a stiff smile on her face.

"Theo, Draco, please leave the room," she said gently. "I realize I have no say over the rest of you, but I suggest you leave as well."

Harry kept watching Andromeda. She had started laughing, her lips pulled back in a mad grin. She was trying to negate the silencing charm with a wand that had a strange little curl on the end, but couldn't seem to do it.

"She's right, go upstairs," Mrs. Weasley said hurriedly. "Quickly now!"

"Mother..." Malfoy growled, glaring at his aunt.

"Draco, you remember what the grounds looked like when your father and I would duel." Narcissa turned back to her sister, who had gone quiet. "I do not want you to be caught in this crossfire."

"No dueling in the dining room! No dueling in any room!" Sirius yelped, jumping to his feet. "Andromeda, if you have a problem, take it up with Albus, not with your sister."

"Come on Harry," Hermione said, pulling him up.

He let himself get tugged along, watching the unfolding scene. Sirius threw floo powder into the fire. Tonks was clinging to her mother, whispering in her ear. Mr. Weasley had scooted his chair so that he was partially in front of his wife, to cover her from any stray spells, Harry guessed.

But all the while, the two Black sisters stared darkly at one another.

"Honestly, Andi," Narcissa tutted, waving her wand. "You accuse me of playing dress-up, yet you live in a world where you have to hide your true self."

"My appearance has nothing to do with who I am," Andromeda growled. The last thing Harry saw was her glamor come down, revealing a woman who was definitely a witch. Her hair was split down the middle of her head - one side silver, the other side black. Her eyes were opposite colors as well, and the pale silver one flashed in the firelight.

"If only that were true," Narcissa replied pityingly, and then the door shut behind him, and Harry stood with everyone else in the hallway.

"Well," Ginny said, "that was unexpected."

Footsteps trotted up the stairs overhead. "Harry," Theo called out, leaning over the banister, "I don't have much time."

"Right." He weaved between the twins, who were arguing about whether or not to us an extendable ear to eavesdrop on the conversation, and accidentally bumped right into Hermione. They stared at each other. "Um..."

Harry didn't know what to say. He hated how strange and stilted things felt between them. He wished he had handled things differently, if only to get to a point where he could grab Hermione and bring her along. There might be not be a world where Ron could get along with a Slytherin, but Hermione and Theo surely could, if Harry just helped them get there.

But there was too much baggage between him and Hermione right now. Too many secrets. Too many doubts. He looked down, hating this, and especially hating that she was watching him leave with Theo and Malfoy. It felt like he was choosing them over her - which he wasn't. It was just, just...

Hermione offered him a little wave as he cast her an apologetic look. She seemed resigned, like she, too, felt what he did.

Harry sighed and followed Theo upstairs.

---

Theo

"Theo!" Draco complained, pointing accusingly at Harry. "He's been with you this whole time -"

"One week," Harry said flatly.

"- and I flew here this morning, for you, yet you're going to leave me to pack your things like a house elf?"

"Don't pack then," Theo rolled his eyes. "I was just giving you something to do so you didn't die of boredom."

"You know he's just going to tell me everything you say," Draco said nastily to Harry. "Theo and I don't keep secrets from each other."

He struggled to keep a neutral expression, but almost crumbled when Harry shot him a disbelieving look. "Look, Malfoy," Harry sighed, "honestly, I don't care. If Theo tells you, that's his business, but I don't want to talk to you, I want to talk to him."

Draco scoffed, "Then what difference does it make? Just stay in here."

"No," Theo was starting to get impatient. "Draco, don't be like that, just -"

"Potter, didn't you get my letter?" Draco pushed on, ignoring him.

"You mean...the contract?" Harry raised his eyebrows. "The one you wrote to Kingfisher? Yeah, I read it."

"Then what's the problem?" Draco exploded. Mordred, I should have anticipated this, Theo thought, settling in for a full-scale Draco Malfoy tantrum. Best to just wait them out, like a storm.

"Don't you want to take it back?"

"Don't insult me, Potter!" Draco snarled, curling his hands into fists. Theo idly wondered if he should disarm him preemptively.

"Well I don't know what any of that means!" Harry snarled back. "Swearing your House fidelity means nothing to me Malfoy, I wasn't raised in this world. Why wouldn't you change your mind now that you know who I am? You hate me!"

"Because I stick to my word, Potter!"

"Since when?!"

"Theo is my family! He has been for longer than you know!" John, who Theo was cradling in his arms after picking him up on their way upstairs, buried his head in the crook of his elbow. "Are you trying to piss me off just to see if I'll retract it?"

"I wasn't, but now I kind of want to," Harry shot back snarkily. "You're really willing to bury the hatchet? Move past all our history? Just for him?"

"I would do anything for Theo!" That seemed to be the last straw. Draco stormed right up to Harry, pointing in his face. "You saved his life and that means everything to me, so I am going to pay you back and you are going to accept my fidelity to you whether you want it or not!"

Harry blinked, and for a second the only sound in the room was Draco's ragged breathing. But he quickly recovered his decorum, combing back his blonde hair and standing up straight. "I don't have to like you to help you, Potter," he sniffed. "And Merlin knows you need my help."

"Okay," Theo interjected dryly. "That's enough. You two can fight over me later. Preferably with Blaise around. He'll think this is hilarious."

Draco huffed, but Theo could tell he was truly bothered by Harry's dismissal of his pledge. Theo blamed himself, honestly. He should have taken the time to explain what it meant to Harry last night.

"Uh, Malfoy..." Harry scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. Oh my, Theo thought with amusement. The first lesson he needs is how to hide what he's thinking. The apology was written all over his face. "Look, I'm sorry. It's just a lot to process. I really didn't think you'd be okay with what you promised, knowing Kingfisher is me."

Draco narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "And..."

"And, I accept your offer, or whatever." Harry made a face, "I accept your fidelity to me and my house."

A bright thread of magic bloomed between them, connecting Draco's chest to Harry's. Harry stepped back in surprise, but just as quickly as it appeared, the thread vanished.

"Good," Draco sighed, looking satisfied.

"But I still need to talk to Theo alone," Harry said, his voice strained. Theo cocked his head, wondering why he sounded so pained. "Sorry. I just have to. Like I said, what he tells you later is his deal."

Draco rolled his eyes, but with one look, Theo could see that he had noticed the same thing.

"We'll be back in fifteen minutes," Theo promised.

He and Harry headed up to the attic where Raziel was keeping Buckbeak company. It felt right to be back up here just before he left Grimmauld Place for good. They'd started the morning there, together, after both of them woke at a stupidly early hour and couldn't go back to sleep. This is where Raziel delivered Draco's pin through the open window, where this landslide of a day slipped free and carried them uncontrollably down to where they were now.

"Hello, sir," he bowed to Buckbeak. The hippogriff didn't even bother to stand, too busy preening one of his wings, so he just offered Theo a casual head-nod in answer. "Harry, you've got to move him out of here. It isn't right."

But Harry didn't hear him, as a bright white bird swooped down on them from overhead. "Hedwig!" he cried happily, catching his snowy owl on his forearm. "I was talking about how much I missed you this morning. Did you just fly here? You're so clever, girl, you're so clever!"

The bird chirped and trilled at him, bobbing her head up and down with excitement. She sidestepped all the way up to his shoulder, big black talons moving gently over his arm, and started to comb her beak through his hair.

Raziel cocked his head at Theo. "You did that and almost took my arm off," Theo pointed out. "Don't be jealous. If you were gentle, we could do that too." The hawk fluffed out his chest and closed his eyes, pretending to sleep.

"This is Theo," Harry moved closer, letting his owl inspect him. "He's my friend."

"Hello, Hedwig," he murmured, shifting John so he could better hold him with one arm. He carefully extended his free hand to let her decide if he'd be allowed to stroke her feathers. "You're very beautiful. I've admired you in the Great Hall for the last four years."

"You have?" Harry's mouth parted in surprise. "I guess she does stand out."

Theo started to rub under her beak like he did Draco's owl. "I like animals, if you couldn't tell. I prefer them over people in nearly all cases."

Harry smiled, his gaze wandering over to Buckbeak. "Me too."

He raised one eyebrow. A week ago, he wouldn't have believed him. Harry Potter seemed like a social butterfly on the outside - star of the Quidditch team, perpetually in the limelight, surrounded by a gaggle of Gryffindors all the time.

Now, after hearing little bits and pieces of Harry's true feelings about fame and his experiences at Hogwarts, he had to wonder if all of that was just thrust upon him. Maybe he wasn't much for people, like Theo. Maybe he was too nice to tell anyone to fuck off.

"I, uhm...can I tell you a secret?"

Theo snapped out his thoughts. "Of course," he said, trying not to sound too eager. "I love secrets."

Harry laughed and ducked his head, "I actually don't like dogs all that much."

"Oh?"

Harry winced and rolled his shoulder, prompting Hedwig to shuffle towards his neck. "Yeah, I got attacked - well, my Aunt - not the one I lived with, a different Aunt, she..." He wrinkled his nose, "Let me start over."

Theo nodded encouragingly, looking at the owl instead of Harry. It was obvious that something was very wrong, much worse than Harry made it out to be, and whatever it was had nothing to do with dogs. But if he needed to stall a few minutes longer, well. Theo was patient.

"My Aunt Marge raised bulldogs, for show or whatever," Harry explained. "And the one she brought over all the time, Ripper, he hated me."

"And he bit you?"

"More like mauled me once or twice," Harry pulled up his pant leg to show a jagged scar above his ankle bone. "He always did that. Chased me up a tree, into - the house," Harry tripped awkwardly over the word, "barked at me, lunged at me. I could never relax around him."

Theo hummed sympathetically, "That sounds scary. Especially for a kid."

Harry looked at him in surprise. "Er...yeah...It's embarrassing though. Doesn't matter how big or small dogs are, they always set me on edge, even today. I know I just have to get over it, especially with Sirius being a dog animagus, but..." He shook his head, "I can't quite shake it."

Theo, who had once seen his father's towering wolfhound tear into a wild kelpie, made a face. "Dogs can be dangerous, Harry. There's nothing shameful about being wary of that."

"I..." Harry marveled at him, "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

Harry gestured vaguely, struggling to find the words. "You just...make me feel...like, I dunno. Like no matter what I say, you always see my side of the story. You never...I mean, I thought you would stick up for dogs because you like them so much, not tell me it's alright to be irrationally afraid of them!"

Theo didn't quite understand what he was getting at. "I'm your friend," he said simply. "I don't want you to make you feel worse than you already do. If you want me to be sardonic, I can do that, but it just doesn't seem like you're in the mood."

Harry looked even more shocked. "Oh."

"Do your friends not treat you the same way when you're...upset?" He said carefully. After seeing the venomous glares Granger was giving Harry during dinner, he was beginning to suspect their rift was far worse than he imagined.

"They do," he said quickly. "I mean...they're not as...good at it, I think. Ron's always - you know, ready to distract me with chess or Quidditch or something." Harry waved his hand dismissively. "Hermione sometimes gets it, but, most of the time..." He looked down, and Hedwig fluttered off his shoulder to roost up in the ceiling. "Not most of the time," Harry corrected softly, "sometimes she ends up making me feel worse, but I think it's on accident. She just...she's..."

"Opinionated?" That was the least offensive word he could think of. Harry bobbed his head.

They shared a moment of silence. John was absolutely still in his arms. If not for the rapid rise and fall of his flanks, and the stiff way he held himself, Theo might have believed he was asleep.

"Are you okay?" He asked again, tentatively opening the conversation that Harry was dancing around.

"Come on Harry," John muttered, making him jump. "Tell him."

"Tell me what?" Theo looked between the two of them. Anxiety crawled over his skin. "What's going on?"

Harry looked down at Theo's arms, where John was, but his eyes seemed to glance right off him. And just like that, Theo knew what was wrong with this picture.

"Can you not see him?" He gasped. The look on Harry's face was confirmation enough. Blood drained from Theo's face. What kind of magic is strong enough to interfere with a familiar bond? "How is that possible? Who did this to you?" Harry hesitated again and Theo lost his patience, "Tell me, Harry!"

Harry dragged his eyes up. "Theo," he said, "do you know what changelings are?"

It was a good thing John wasn't a real cat, because he would have clawed the skin off his arms for holding him so tightly throughout Harry's incredible story of being assaulted by holy magic.

"You were forcibly astral projected?" He repeated, when Harry paused for breath.

"I guess!" Harry splayed his hands out helplessly. "I've not done it before. Have you?"

"Fucking no!" Theo bit back a hysterical laugh. I'll dabble in necromancy but I draw the line at astral projection. "It's so dangerous Harry. Sweet gods. You're lucky something didn't find your body and steal it from you!"

"He is," John agreed, drawing no reaction whatsoever from Harry.

"The holy circle probably helped with that." Harry bit his lip and looked anxiously behind them, "Theo, this isn't even the important part. I have to -"

"Wait, wait, wait," he interrupted, waving his hand in Harry's face. "You said you're in pain? Everytime you do magic, or come into contact with magic, or, what?"

"Well, it," Harry grimaced rather obviously. "It comes and goes. It's kind of random. It's fighting against my magic, I guess, because of what I am. But just listen to me," Harry stepped in closer, giving Theo an extremely good view of his green eyes. "I need to tell you why we were following Bill."

But Theo completely missed what he said, too distracted by what he saw. His eyes are dull.

It would probably be unnoticeable to anyone who wasn't inches from his face, but there Harry was, so close that they were nearly nose-to-nose, looking at him with flat, lifeless irises that just looked fucking wrong.

The blessing is trying to attack his magic, and hurts when he tries to use magic, consciously or not. But we're also made of magic, so...the pain must be constant.

It took some focus on his part, but he realized that he could see the blessing on Harry's skin. It was the same faint blue shimmer he thought he saw in the hallway when he pulled Harry aside before dinner. It covered him like a thin film of wax, even clinging to the strands of his hair.

"I can get rid of it," Theo interrupted.

Harry stumbled over his words. "You - what?"

"I can nullify it." Theo took the hag stone out from under his collar. Doubt plagued his mind as he squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger. He wasn't sure how to call on the Library. He'd only done it once by accident, but he knew that Library's magic had the power to nullify surface-level charms, blessings, and curses. It had stripped many of his school supplies of their basic charms when he accidentally carried them in.

He needs you, Theo thought purposefully. He was certain, after hearing Draco's story in more detail, that the Library had communicated with him and Blaise and sent them the location of Grimmauld Place. It had to have done that because it was listening to Theo's conversations, his thoughts, or both. Either way, it seemed to want to help him, and surely if it chose Harry, then it would want to help him as well.

Harry was doing a poor job of disguising the hope on his face. "I only have to wait another hour or so..." he glanced at his watch. "Less than that, actually. The blessing will clear on its own at nightfall."

"I don't want you to wait," Theo countered, feeling an achingly familiar pressure settle over his skin. He breathed in, and it lifted off his body, expanding into the whole attic, settling overtop of Harry and John. Theo watched the blessing on Harry's skin undulate, like oil chased away by water, searching for a way out as the oppressive magic of the Library covered it completely.

Harry stared at his hands in shock, as if he could see the two magics as well. Maybe he could.

"If I can help you, I will," Theo promised. Harry's face turned up, his green eyes wide. "I was going to tell you this anyway, but now I get to prove it." He took a steadying breath and offered Harry a smile, feeling slightly awkward with the sincerity ringing in his chest. "Anything I can do for you, no matter what it is, I'll do. For the rest of my life. I owe you everything, Harry."

The blessing evaporated, deconstructed and absorbed by the nullifying magic of the Library. Harry gasped, staggering back. "Merlin, I feel so much better," he exclaimed.

"Harry?"

"John?"

They both snapped their heads around, staring at each other. A wild grin curled across Harry's face.

"Harry!" John's back legs kicked into Theo's stomach as he launched himself across the short distance to crash into Harry's chest. Their voices became a cacophony, layered on top of one another.

"I didn't know -"

"I'm so sorry -"

"- it was my stupid plan!"

"I'm supposed to keep you safe and -"

"I don't think it was the fault of either of you," Theo threw in dryly, knowing they wouldn't hear him. "Just for the record..."

He squinted around the attic. To his surprise, the borders of the Library did not hug the entire room like he thought it would. There was a shimmering wall of magic, crystal-clear but apparently solid, separating them from the back half of the room where Buckbeak was, who was still preening his feathers.

Theo looked up. There was also magic between them and the mailbirds. Hedwig, he noted, was fluttering anxiously, her head twisting around, looking for Harry, even though he was standing right under her.

Before he could parse out what that might mean, two warm bodies crashed into him.

"Thank you!" Harry squeezed him tightly around the middle. Theo was marginally taller than him, and so his face naturally fell right into the curve of Theo's collar bone, and he could feel his breath condense on his throat. Immediately, Theo hugged him back, acting on impulse, but inside his stomach was all tied up in knots. It was just a lot of Harry, all at once. A lot of emotion, a lot of trust, a lot of warmth, a lot of - of -

John wrapped himself around the two of them, circling their collective shoulders and curling his tail against their heads. He was purring so loudly he couldn't even talk, but he did stop to rub his cheek along Theo's face a few times, very aggressively. It felt like the cat equivalent of a sloppy kiss.

"It's not a big deal," Theo tried to say. "It's just the -"

"It is a big deal!" Harry pulled back, leaving John perched on Theo's shoulders, now rubbing his cheek along the top of his head. "Theo, you have been such a good friend to me. More than good, actually, even before you knew who I was!"

"I didn't..." Great. He could feel how red he was getting and vainly looked away to save face. "I'm just treating you the way I would treat Draco or Blaise. It's nothing compared to what you've done for me."

"No, Theo," Harry said strongly, forcing him to look down. "It's not nothing."

For a second, there was only silence, and the feeling of Harry clutching his arms. Over Harry's head, Theo saw the specter of the Library taking shape in a haze of white fog, watching them.

And in the moment, Theo understood what Harry meant. No, he hadn't saved his life in some heroic way, but Theo always treated Harry (and Kingfisher, when he was only that) like an equal. In the same way that he didn't let Draco's flights of emotion or Blaise's dark fits of mischief faze him, Theo accepted every strange thing Harry rolled his way as just who he was.

For someone like Harry, who had been placed on a pedestal since the first day he entered the wizarding world, that must feel like a great boon. To not have to hide. Blaise always said that was Theo's special talent, letting people show him their true selves.

It has seen his heart, too, he thought, looking at the Library. It chose him, but...it didn't tell him what it is. It must be waiting for me to choose him, too.

Like it was reading his mind, the pearly white face of the Library smiled.

Theo looked back down at Harry. "It's a library," he said, his voice rough and trembling as every cell in his body railed against the telling of this secret, the one he had been trained to hide since he was a child. "The spirit that's attached to me is not a spirit. It's...it was a library."

Harry took a half-step closer, but didn't release him, so they were standing almost like they were about to dance. John's head dipped down, his amber eyes watching Theo's face intently.

"That's why they attacked you," Harry breathed. "Was it...did it have some kind of book in it that would have helped us defeat Voldemort?"

Theo flinched instinctively at hearing his name, but seeing as they were safely ensconced in the magic of the Library, he didn't fear that the Dark Lord would know.

"I can't even tell you all the secrets that it had," Theo whispered back, getting a little choked up just remembering what they'd lost. "It had everything. Books, scrolls, tablets, artifacts, letters...but I..." He closed his eyes for a second, gathering himself. "I think...it might be possible to get it back. Some of it. Maybe."

"Yeah?" The strange tone to Harry's voice made him open his eyes. He looked like he'd just had an epiphany. "So that's it, then," he said. "That's why you're still in danger."

Theo raised his eyebrows, "Excuse me?"

Harry explained the rest of it, though Theo still felt like he was missing out on an unfair amount of detail. Unfortunately, time was ticking. They didn't have a choice but to stick to the surface-level facts.

"I think we have to trust Sirius," Harry finished, watching John play with the visage of the Library, who was crouched down over him and fluttering its fingers over his exposed belly. Harry was strangely unbothered by the Library, a fact that just made the butterflies in his stomach kick up in a flurry.

Theo was ignoring those feelings, chalking it up to all the emotions of the day catching up to him.

"Well, Slytherins talk," Theo said, already coming up with a shortlist of known Death Eaters who might have managed to twist a Weasley to their will. "I'm sure there will be signs as to who it is, if it's one of the Dark Lord's followers. Like when they come to finish the job."

Harry frowned at him, "That's not funny."

Theo shrugged, "It's a little funny."

"Why are you so relaxed about this?" He said impatiently. "What if it's the worst case scenario and the fucking Order of the Phoenix was the one who tried to murder you?"

Theo's smirk cracked into a grin, and then he started laughing.

"What?!" Harry complained. "What are you laughing at? This is serious!"

"Are you kidding me?" He gave Harry a disbelieving look, "Dumbledore and his Order of Good Magic? You think they burned my house down with fiendfyre, which is literally summoned from hell?"

"Well...what if it is them?" But Harry, too, seemed to start to realize how unbelievable it sounded. The corners of his mouth twitched. "You're fucking crazy," he muttered, shaking his head.

"You're crazier than I am!" He retorted, with a playful shove. "You're a fucking changeling!"

"What does that even mean?"

"I don't know!"

They stopped. Looked at each other. And then they started laughing together, going on and on until they were breathless.

"You're both crazy," John said when they finally fell silent. He was sitting neatly on the floor, grooming his face and watching them with one eye. "But I know what you're thinking, Harry. You're wondering how you're going to keep Theo safe in Hogwarts, if it turns out the Order wants to hunt Theo down."

"Yeah, see?" Harry made a face at him. "That's what I was trying to say!"

"Well, you didn't say it very well."

"Boys, please, listen while the adult talks," John meowed haughtily. "You needn't worry, Harry. What have I said before about the fae?"

Harry tipped his head, thinking. "You say a lot of things about the fae."

"Yes," he purred. "We have many gifts. I never know which of them my familiars will be good at, or which they'll choose to study and practice. Most of my magic comes easy to you, but you have already demonstrated great skill in becoming the master of your domain, Harry."

"Your domain?" Theo tipped his head curiously, "What does that mean? Like, property?"

John's whiskers twitched, "What do you think it means, Harry?"

Harry hummed. "Well...I can do that transportation thing you do between here and the Falls..." Theo bit his tongue so as not to ask what the Falls were. "But Hogwarts..." He hesitated, looking at John in shock. "Could Hogwarts be...I mean...I do think of it as..."

"Tell me, Harry," John prompted, eyes glowing.

Harry thought for a moment longer, and then he laughed. When he looked at Theo, he had a truly mischievous look on his face, his smile wide and sharp, his eyes catching the dim fire lanterns hanging from the ceiling and making them look like deep, dark emeralds.

"Hogwarts is my home," he said delightedly. "You and the Library will be safe in my house."

---

Draco wasn't nearly as irritated as Theo feared at being left alone for over half an hour, because he'd found his way into Regulus Black's closet.

"Are you sure you can't sneak a few of these in your bag?" He urged, trying to stuff a pale yellow robe in even though Theo kept yanking it out. "These are in pristine condition. This one is an original by Vulkin - I think it might even be hand-stitched!"

"Ask your cousin."

"But Theooo..."

"It's only his dead brother, I'm sure he doesn't mind you getting your hands all over his clothes," he said sarcastically.

"Fine!" Draco huffed and trailed back to the closet to rehang the robes.

Theo was ready to go a minute later. He looped the duffle back over his shoulder, and then remembered he could do magic and took it off. Carefully, with concentration, he made the correct wand movement with his hand and shrunk the bag down so he could store it in his pocket.

He was so happy he felt like he could walk on water. Not even Harry's dire warning about Bill Weasley was enough to pull him down. Everything was starting to fall into place. Even the terrifying moment with Jean the Seer, when his father's voice rang out through her mouth, made sense to him now.

Who is my enemy?

His father was warning him that all was not what it seemed. The world was changing around him. He couldn't rely on his presumptions going forward.

But among that uncertainty, he found relief in the answer to a different question. Who isn't my enemy? Harry, clearly. Sirius Black. Narcissa. Draco. Blaise.

Theo could trust them, collectively, to help watch his back. Especially Draco and Blaise, who were suspicious of everyone all the time anyway, just like Theo. He was safe among them, for now. And if it turned out that the enemy was insidiously placed at Hogwarts, like Harry feared, well...

Theo thought back to all the training his father coached him through over the years. His mind turned to the spells he learned, rune circles painted with blood, magic so black he couldn't sleep for days.

A dark part of him hoped that his enemy wasn't the Dark Lord so that he could experience the pleasure of hunting them down personally.

"Let's go, Draco," he said.

In the hallway, Harry had John around his shoulders and was talking to Sirius.

"You're running late!" The wizard said with mock exasperation. "Go on Harry. Tell Narcissa I'll have him down in a minute."

Draco groaned as Harry waved him on, "Come on, Malfoy."

"Don't order me around, Potter."

"Are they going to kill each other between here and the dining room?" Sirius asked after they were out of earshot.

"John wouldn't let them."

"Don't count on it," he snorted. Sirius shoved his hands in his pockets and gave Theo a long look. "Harry said you nullified the blessing."

Theo shrugged. "Nott family magic," he said simply. "An ancestor of mine was personally offended by the creation of holy magic."

Sirius grinned, "Yeah, I think I had a few like that too. I, um...look, I don't have a big speech or anything prepared. I just wanted to say that if you ever need anything, you can call on me. Anytime, any reason, alright?"

Theo raised an eyebrow, "That's a big promise."

Sirius waved him off, "You're a ward of House Black. I think that applies until you're seventeen. I haven't read the fine print, but I'm pretty sure a big sweeping promise comes with that. And..." He hunched his shoulders around his ears, "You're a really good friend to Harry. He needs that, especially now. So, watch out for him. For me?"

He felt a rush of warmth and pride. "Already planning on it," he said easily. "And thank you," he added sincerely, "for everything you've done for me."

"No problem, kid. I'm glad you're safe and alive, and getting better."

They stood there awkwardly for a second, and then Sirius gasped.

"I almost forgot! You have to say goodbye to one more person. Wait here, okay?"

Bemused, Theo watched him rush into the neighboring bedroom, which Theo knew was Sirius's own childhood room, but never got a chance to see into. I'll have to find a reason to come back.

Nails clacked along the floor, and then a long black muzzle nosed the door open. "Ohh," he said sarcastically, "I have to say goodbye to him, huh?"

The dog woofed and pranced forward, his tail wagging furiously, lips pulled up in a big, happy dog smile. Theo kneeled down, catching him in his arms as Snuffles wiggled around and excitedly accepted scratches to his ears and chest.

It was maddening how easy it was to forget that this dog was Sirius Black, who was a whole wizard that Theo could barely look in the eye a minute ago. "You're so lucky," he said, as Sirius sat down right against Theo's knee. "You have the best animagus form. If I don't figure out the secret behind transforming into multiple animals, I'm worried I'll never be able to turn into a dog." He buried his face into the dog's neck. "I've always wanted to."

The dog leaned down and licked his cheek fondly, and it was easy to slide his arm around his large shoulders and give him a hug. The dog sighed contentedly. "Thank you," he whispered again.

---

Andromeda was gone, and the dining room was in one piece, so Theo guessed that she left shortly after they did. Draco stood next to the fireplace, frowning at his mother, who was busy speaking to Harry.

"Call me Narcissa, please, Lord Potter," she was saying.

"Er, um, please don't call me that," he stuttered, going beet red. "I mean, Harry's fine. Please. Uh, Narcissa."

Draco rolled his eyes hugely at Theo, and it took all his self-control not to laugh.

"I have a gift to give you," she went on, unbothered by Harry's awkwardness. "But I'm afraid I can't give it to you now. I need a few days to prepare it."

"Oh? That's okay. You don't have to..."

"I want to," she assured him. "Theo is precious to me. His mother, Ophelia, was my truest friend." Theo stilled, his heart jumping like it usually did when Narcissa talked about her. "By saving his life, you've given me the chance to continue to uphold my promise to her."

Harry stood stock-still, looking into her eyes. "I understand," he said seriously. 

"Then you must accept my gift," she teased. "It's a good one, I promise."

They broke apart, and Sirius went up to sling his arm around Harry's shoulder. "Bye, little cousin," he said, smiling with a few too many teeth at Draco. "Perhaps we'll see you at Christmas."

Draco wrinkled his nose in disgust. Narcissa tossed a small handful of floo-powder in the fireplace. "Go on," she said to Draco. "The address is Headmaster's Office."

With a jilted nod to Sirius and Harry, Draco stepped into the flames and vanished.

Narcissa took another handful of floo powder for him, but looked at him expectantly. How does she always know what I'm thinking? Part of him wondered.

"Bye, Kingfisher," he said, coming around the table. Sirius had a stupidly fond expression on his face when he stepped away, letting Theo come in to give Harry a hug. He felt him gasp and hold his breath for a second, before relaxing and hugging him back. "I'll see you on the train."

"You'll write, won't you?"

"Of course."

They stepped back. Theo's blood would probably sautee his face to a crisp if Sirius went in for another hug too, but thankfully, he didn't. "See you, Theo!" Sirius said cheerfully.

Narcissa got the floo ready, giving him a smile that was full of love. These people have got to stop doing this to me, or I'll melt, he thought. He'd never been so relieved to take the floo anywhere.

"Bye!" Harry called out. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was John, crouched under the dining room table, waving at him with his tail.

Theo landed gently in the Headmaster's office. Draco was standing off to the side. Dumbledore himself was standing next to his phoenix, who was crimson and beautiful on his perch, and another wizard stood in front of Dumbledore's desk.

"Greetings," he said, tipping his head. "My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt. I am an auror for the Ministry of Magic."

"You'll be taking my statement?" Theo guessed.

"That's right."

Narcissa floo'd in just after him, and she casually brushed the ash from her robes. "Good evening."

"This will only take a minute," Shacklebolt assured them, checking his watch. "I understand you're taking a portkey at nine?" That was just twenty minutes away.

"Thank you for your understanding," Narcissa said politely as Shacklebolt got set up with a recording quill and parchment. Theo sat lightly in one of the two chairs angled toward each other.

"I was due to work the night shift anyway," the auror said lightly. "It's no trouble at all. Now, let's start with the basics. What is your name?"

Giving his statement was relatively painless. Theo sat up straight and answered every question completely and without inflection. Shacklebolt asked him questions about what he remembered in the days leading up to the fire, his family's enemies, and what he remembered about the day itself, but Theo had the perfect excuse.

"My memories are extremely muddled," he said honestly. "I don't remember the week leading up to the fire at all. Professor Snape has me on an experimental potion meant to help them come back in a way that won't damage my mind."

Shacklebolt nodded. "I'll want to schedule a routine follow-up statement for a month from now, but you'll be in Hogwarts." His eyes flickered from Narcissa to the Headmaster. "Would that be amenable to you?"

"You may write to me," Narcissa said, touching Theo's shoulder. "I'm his guardian. I will arrange it for you."

That seemed to be enough for the auror, who wrapped up his quill and parchment and politely excused himself. It took just ten minutes, in all.

"You did well," Narcissa said quietly, wrapping him in a hug. "You must help Draco and Blaise behave for the next few days. I won't be joining you at the villa tonight."

"You won't?" Draco asked glumly. "When will you come back?"

"In a few days," she said, clearly not wanting to reveal too much in front of the Headmaster. "I have work to do here. I must field the press. Your survival will be all over the paper tomorrow, I believe."

Theo groaned, "Wonderful. Soon I'll know how Harry feels."

They didn't have much to do as they waited for their portkey, so Theo and Draco wandered around the Headmaster's office, looking at various portraits, paintings, and artifacts, while he and Narcissa spoke quietly in the back of the room.

As Theo circled back toward the fireplace, his eyes caught on something square and shiny resting on a stand. He leaned in to get a closer look, careful not to touch.

"Ah!" Professor Dumbledore smiled, "Did my new relic catch your eye?"

"Relic?" Theo repeated. Relics were ancient pieces of magic, but often their charms were so broken, or their runes so eroded, they were beyond their understanding. Relics ranged in power, but most of them were inert.

This, however, did not look inert. It also did not look ancient.

"It's...a picture," Draco said slowly. "A polaroid picture."

"The magic of this relic is not what it is," Professor Dumbledore said happily, picking it up. The picture was trapped in a thin sheet of glass, Theo noted. "It is within the picture itself."

"A visual relic?" Narcissa murmured curiously, coming in behind Draco. "There are only three of those in existence."

"Four, it seems," the old man's eyes twinkled. "I must warn you, though, looking directly at the relic will temporarily alter your vision. You will see out through the eyes of a statue of Thoth, in Egypt. He overlooks an underground cavern with a river that was said to carry the souls of the dead on to the next world."

"No thanks, then," Draco snorted, turning his head.

"It isn't harmful," Dumbledore promised with amusement. "Or else I would not keep it in my office."

Theo glanced at Narcissa for permission and she sighed indulgently. "In truth, I would like to look, too."

"Mother!"

"Here you are, then..."

Professor Dumbledore uncovered the part of the picture he was shading with his hand. Theo studied the whole thing, confused by what he was looking at. A red-head with long hair and a freckled face grinned back at him. It was not a moving picture like he was used to seeing, but the red-head in it was pointing up at a statue illuminated by golden glowstones. One of its eyes was the shine that caught Theo's eye, a great white star that seemed to glow right off the picture.

He blinked, and suddenly his world tilted and swirled. He stared, wide-eyed, at a huge underground cavern. Sand hissed in his ears, and though he could not move his eyes, his vision was so broad he could see a great river of it rushing at his feet, coursing towards a great black hole in the rocky wall.

Theo blinked again and nearly fell over, disoriented. Draco caught his arm, "See! Mother! Look at what it did to him!"

"I'm fine," Theo dismissed, eager to see it again. "Can I..."

"I'm afraid once you look once, it's gone." Professor Dumbledore showed him and, indeed, the polaroid had gone perfectly grey, leaving no trace of the statue and its white eye. "Lady Malfoy, you are welcome to try it any time."

"I'll pass today," she said, voice thick with amusement. "Come along, boys. There's just a minute to go."

He and Draco took hold of a brass compass and stood in a clear section of the room. Narcissa hugged them both one last time.

"Don't you dare leave the villa," she commanded, giving Draco a hard look. "And apologize to Catarina."

"I will," he muttered.

"We'll see you soon, right?" Theo asked, unable to mask his worry.

Narcissa looked into his eyes, "I promise I will be there in a few days."

He felt the magic start to count down. Theo looked at the compass, suddenly nervous. Draco gripped it a bit harder. "Ready?" He asked.

Theo looked up. The hag stone was around his neck. Harry was safe. Draco was here, taking him back to Blaise, where he could finally rest.

"Ready," he said, and an instant later that portkey activated, carrying them away to Italy in a storm of magic.

Narcissa turned back to the Headmaster, who was still holding the relic. "May I see that, Headmaster Dumbledore?" She asked politely.

He laughed jovially, "Of course, Lady Malfoy."

---

Blaise

"Stand here."

Mother's tangerine-painted nail speared the air, pointing at an indeterminate spot in the receiving hall.

He sighed silently and lined up with the tile floor, taking his time to carefully arrange his feet so they fit parallel to the grout running between large blue and silver tiles. His mother was a Ravenclaw, and she never lost her sensibility for the colors. Of all the things in his house that changed over the years - art, furniture, husbands - this room always stayed the same.

Blaise felt her eyes on him. Catarina's eyes were vibrant, searing golden-brown. She even looked like the eagle of her house when she glared like that, unleashing the full power of her displeasure in one single look.

He lifted his head and coolly looked past her.

I should be grateful, he thought, sing-songing the words in his head. She loves me, she cares for me, she doesn't place innumerable scars across my skin and she protects me from the Dark Lord.

The unfortunate truth was, Blaise didn't much like his mother. He loved her (of course), would do anything for her, (within reason). But he did not feel like Draco did for his mum, or Theo for his, magic have her. When Blaise was finally free of his mother, he might only breathe a sigh of relief.

Despite himself, he glanced curiously at her to try and see what she might be expecting, but she was still watching him.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. His right hand drifted to the bracelet.

Wind whipped the receiving room, fluttering the lantern lights lifted high up on the ceiling. Blaise watched, awestruck, as a cloud of magic spun into being in the center of the room. It'd been a long time since he saw someone portkey directly into their house.

He looked at his mother, unable to hide the excitement and hope he was feeling. She relented in her glare, wine-purple lips pulling into a reluctant smile.

I knew it, he thought, stepping forward when Draco and Theo's bodies fully formed on the floor, still attached to the portkey. I knew she wasn't that mad at me.

It didn't matter that he hadn't seen the outside of his room except to eat. It didn't matter that his mother barely spoke to him. It didn't matter that, when she did, it was only to quietly tear him apart for jeopardizing the trust Narcissa Malfoy placed in Catarina Zabini.

Why don't you ever think of your family first?

Well, mother, he thought smugly, I was.

Draco was released first. He pushed at his hair, making a face. "International portkeys are simply atrocious."

"Admit you wanted to fly on an airplane again," Theo challenged. Blaise stared at him, frozen to the ground.

He looked the same. That was the crazy part. So much had happened - he had died, for Cassandra's sake. Blaise thought he burned to death, and yet Theo didn't look any different than he did two months ago.

Theo turned full around, face going blank as he locked eyes with Blaise from across the room. Draco was still talking, first, obliviously. Then, nervously. The blonde's eyes flickered between them as he chattered on, "Of course I don't want to fly again, but you have to know, first class looked like the place to be! Yes, indeed, I hear they give you a hot towel! For your, your, um, necks. The neck, you see, it touches the disgusting back of the seat, and -"

"Hello," Theo's voice rang clearly across the hall. Clear. Real. Alive. His blue eyes seemed especially large on his face. He was still a little freckled from his weeks in the sun with them, Blaise noted, but those were already fading.

"Hello," Blaise said back.

Only, he didn't say it. The word started up in his mouth, he opened it and everything, but nothing came out. Maybe it was because he was already moving and his body simply couldn't do two things at once, or maybe it was because of his paper-thin pride, which seemed to know that there was no scenario where Blaise would be able to respond to his best friend's hello after he returned from the dead and not make the most pathetic sound in the world.

He had to stop looking at him, even, as he crossed the final few steps, vision already blurry. Draco nattered on about economy versus first-class leg space all the way up until Blaise finally got close enough to wrap his arms around Theo.

Theo's pointy shoulder jutted right into his chin. It was such a familiar feeling that he laughed. "You're not eating again," he said roughly. "You're too skinny."

"Sorry," Theo murmured, holding Blaise awkwardly. It was not their normal arrangement. Blaise was almost always the hugger, not the one being held, needing to be held, even. It felt a little strange to be hunched against Theo's thin frame, very aware that he could push him over without much force.

But, Theodore Nott was a metal, at heart. Blaise was a fire. Draco was the wind. Theo seemed vulnerable, sometimes, but he was more resilient than the both of them. He was strong. He rearranged his shoulders and squeezed Blaise tightly, his cold fingertips bleeding through the back of his shirt.

At last, the raw fear he'd been carrying around since the day he first learned Theo was actually alive cooled and dissipated.

"Don't be sorry," Blaise breathed, forgetting already what he'd said that made Theo apologize. He never wanted to hear it again. Underneath the cool pallor of his skin, he could slowly feel warmth bleeding into him from Theo's drum-steady heartbeat.

Real. Solid. Alive.

In a moment they would separate and dissolve into polity and distraction. Theo would embrace Catarina, who always showed more warmth to his friends than she did to Blaise. Draco would remind them that their fellow Slytherins would not take kindly to learning that Theo was alive through the Prophet and start coming up with plans for how to tell them.

And all three of them fell right back into their usual banter - scheming and mocking and poking fun at each other, as if nothing ever happened, as if everything hadn't changed. They did that until the silences grew too long. Until Blaise reluctantly showed Theo his room across the hall.

"Why don't we just..." Theo stepped back, glancing up and down the dark hallway as if anyone in this house cared a lick what Blaise and his friends did at night. "Stay together? Just one night?"

"Yes," Draco sighed exhaustedly. "Which room?"

Theo impressed them with his glowing eyes and transfigured the carpet into a squishy mat, soft enough to sleep on, though not as soft as a mattress. Draco was either so tired or so relieved to be back in the walls of the villa that he didn't complain at all.

Blaise wiggled close to Theo, each of them wrapped in their own blanket. Draco was out like a light as soon as his head hit the pillow. Blaise could tell exhaustion was hitting Theo, too, by the way his eyes kept drooping.

"Don't do that again," he whispered harshly.

"Do what?" Theo murmured sleepily, curling in so they were facing each other.

The words stifled him, caught in his throat like a misjudged spell. The dark room seemed very bright, all of a sudden, as a sheen of tears blinded him.

"Don't leave me alone," he said, or garbled, or sobbed, or something that he would never admit to nor ever think of again after this sleep was behind them. "You can't," he went on, helpless to his own fountain of choking words. "You can't just do that. Who else do I have? Who else really knows me? If you go then I don't have anyone. Except Draco, but do you really think he'd stick with me forever if you aren't around? You know how I am. You're the only one who does, so you can't..." He blotted his face ineffectually with the blanket. "Fuck. Just promise me you won't let that happen again."

Theo untangled his arms and reached across the space between them to cover Blaise's shaking hands with his own.

"I won't," he promised solemnly. "You know I'd never let that happen."

"I know it wasn't your fault," he babbled. "But you were dead Theo. And I had to - to - try and live with that. It was..."

He wasn't a poet. He didn't have words for what that week was. He stared into Theo's face and hoped he understood.

"I'm sorry," Theo said sincerely, thumbing a river of tears from Blaise's cheek. "I'm not dead."

"I know."

"I'm not gone," he repeated, going back to squeezing Blaise's hands. "I'm still here."

And isn't that a fucking miracle? Blaise thought. He gave up on speaking. He'd only embarrass himself. He breathed through the last of it, wiped his eyes more than a few times, and tried to believe what Theo was saying.

"Draco will always stick by you," Theo added quietly, after a few minutes. He swiped his thumbs along the side of Blaise's wrists, and Blaise felt his eyes start to flutter shut. "Don't let yourself believe he wouldn't, Blaise. He knows who you are."

"Nobody's ever stuck around except for you," he murmured, feeling like there was cotton in his mouth. "I'm too...much."

"We all are," Theo smiled. "That's a good thing, I've been telling you..."

Theo slowly migrated to him, drawn in by his warmth. Blaise smiled slightly as his friend's face came to rest right against his shoulder. His breath evened out as he slowly sank down into sleep. Blaise ran the back of his fingers over his hair and shoulder a few times, just to convince himself this was really real.

And then, all at once, he was sleeping, too. And for once, he did not dream of flames and empty window sills. He dreamt of nothing at all, and slept better than he ever had.

Notes:

I have nothing against Andromeda, like, whatsoever, but a kind, humble witch living her best life in the muggle world doesn't fit my plot. Sorry, Andi. You're a real b though and I love it. I picture her heterochromia as the first indication that she has the gene or, like, magical gift that led to Tonks being a metamorphmagus. We'll get a little more backstory about Andi and Narcissa's rift in the next chapter.

I want the beats of this story to be intentional and well-thought out so I'm taking my time during this period of chaos in my life (moving cities this week!) to make sure I'm not churning out something I don't feel good about. The updates will continue, because writing is the thing I use to order my mind and process emotions. It's just that my update pace and, possibly, replying to comments might be all over the place.

Thank you for reading and engaging with me and my story. I have nothing but love for this endeavor, and I'm glad to share it with you all ❤️❤️

Chapter 26: Departures

Summary:

Some departures leave things behind. Others are the beginning of a grand new adventure.

Notes:

Trying something a little different this chapter. This is really three short stories packed into one, hence the length. This is kind of a transition into the next arc of the story, which is why the structure is different. Also, I had a lot of feelings to work out. Good and bad ones 😉

Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoy!

5/15 Bonus note - I updated the BOTL Fanart post on my tumblr with all the comics and drawings that have cropped up in the last two months! Please check it out and send all your love to the wonderful artists who drew them - jizachok and that1notetaker!

Check out the fanart!

Theo's eyes fluttered shut. He slumped to the side, managing to get a few seconds of blissful sleep.

And then he fell into Blaise.

"Glad to know you were listening," Blaise said dryly, pushing him upright.

"Sorry," he yawned. "Haven't been sleeping well."

That was the understatement of the year. Usually Theo didn't have a problem sleeping, but every night after the first night he arrived in the villa, his mind was rocked by constant, vivid nightmares.

"It's crap that you can't take any potions," Blaise commiserated, stripping a fig leaf down to its veins. "You can nap on me if you think that'd help."

Theo rubbed his face to try and wake up, "Thanks, but I'm trying to stay awake as long as I can. Hopefully tonight I'll pass out from sheer exhaustion."

Blaise narrowed his eyes doubtfully but left it alone. "What do you think's wrong with him?" He asked instead, gesturing at Draco doing laps high above them on his broom. "I thought making prefect was part of his seven year plan."

"His father was a prefect," Theo reminded him. "We should probably try to cheer him up."

"I don't think that's the only thing wrong with him. I just wish he'd tell us." Blaise tossed Theo a sour look, "Just so you know, this is what it feels like when you go off on your own and don't ask for help."

Help

The word echoed in his head like a gong. Theo stilled, only half-listening to Blaise complain, "- and he's worse than you because he sulks -" while a rising tide of words cried out in his mind.

I trust you. I need you. Take my hand. Cabhrú liom. Mae gen i gyfrinach. Se behǣs.

The words didn't have sound, exactly. It was like reading without seeing. But, just like his dreams, they carried a weight to them that was laced with desperation.

He gritted his teeth and tried to push the chaos away. Why is the Library doing this? Is it trying to speak to me? Is there something I'm forgetting?

Theo shot to his feet. "I'm so stupid!" He cried. "Blaise! I have to go to my room for a bit. Don't bother me! Please!" And then he took off. 

"I won't since you were so polite about it!" Blaise shouted after him.

Theo ran straight to his room, barreling for his new trunk which had laughably little in it except for one of his most precious belongings - the notebook containing his mother's letters.

He flipped through with shaking hands until he finally found the one. Sliding over the wooden floor to sit in a streak of sunlight, he brushed his fingers over the title of this particular letter.

Asking for Help

Dear Theodore,

I told you that I never read your long future, but the truth is - I once saw you in the future of another.

His right hand drifted to the hag stone hanging around his neck.

I feel compelled to write this letter in the same way I felt compelled to rest my head on the red doors and Look. I know you will open this when you need it most, though I fear for you when that time comes. You must be in dire straits if you are considering asking for help with our great work.

Our great work, he mouthed, tracing his bottom lip with his finger. That was what his mother used to call the Library.

Your father went through something very similar, you know. He stood alone for several years before I came into his life. He likes to say that I forced my way into his heart, but the truth is that I could not make him open his doors to me. He had to let me in.

One day, you will make those kinds of judgments, Theo. Who do you trust? Are they the same as the ones you love? How much risk are you willing to take? And, what does your duty demand of you?

When it comes to the great work, we taught you to be suspicious and secretive. It may seem like your father and I doomed you to fail because we did not teach you how to bring others into the fold, but don't fret. The rules you follow will still guide you faithfully, and in turn, you will use them to guide others. Let me tell you how...

---

Rule number one - accept no freely given gifts. We taught you to be wary of spontaneous acts of kindness because, in the past, enemies of our great work first tried to pass as friends.

Narcissa held her wand lightly in both hands, balancing it on the tips of her fingers. In front of her, Harry Potter bit his lip, his gaze flickering to the wand every few seconds.

But remember that friends were once strangers. You must use your wits to figure out when a gift is not a boon, and not a trick, but a hand, reaching out to you.

"Harry Potter," she began, "I am here to grant you a gift. For your courage in rescuing Theodore Nott, a child under my care who I love as deeply as my own, I offer you something to protect you in the dark days ahead."

Narcissa raised her wand, hearing her mother's voice echoing in her voice. "Mothers that came before me, listen," she invoked.

The fire in the hearth brightened, flooding the Grimmauld Place dining room with warmth. The drab gray walls lifted their spirits. The long black table seemed to lose its hard edges. Harry gasped as the distant sound of cutlery, laughter, and the phantom smell of fresh-baked bread washed over them.

"Cast your hands on this wizard."

Spectral hands reached out and touched him. Narcissa smiled when he jumped at first, but he soon settled down as more and more hands rested comfortingly over his shoulders. Narcissa's wand tip twinkled like a distant star. She thought about that animalistic undercurrent of love that coursed within her. She channeled it through her body and her mind until it flooded her magic.

On her next blink, she realized that she could see them. The women connected to those hands. They were all watching her. Even her mother was among them.

"When he falters, hold him steady. When he falls, pick him up. When he is cast aside, bring him back into our arms."

The witches vanished as one, replaced by an iridescent shield that settled tight over his skin.

Narcissa's lips curled back as the echo of their protective rage rippling through her chest. "And when someone tries to strike him down, fling back their evil thrice-fold and wipe them from this earth."

Narcissa couldn't explain what happened next because it happened so quickly, but for one second, she experienced a whirlwind of memories that weren't her own.

A thunder of furious spells were shouted and sobbed and whispered in her ear, followed by the deadly thud of many bodies. She saw countless pale-faced children, crying babies, even adults, looking to her with fear and relief and awe. And she felt the overwhelming love of endless generations of witches who came before her, all who had answered her call.

It was over in a blink. All of it. The fire dimmed in the hearth. The dining room felt cold and silent. Her chest heaved as her heart struggled with what she'd just seen, but she managed to remain calm and collected.

"How did you know that the Black magic would respond to you?" Her cousin asked suspiciously.

Narcissa managed a little smile. "I didn't. I was simply calling on all the mothers in my bloodline. But seeing as Harry is part of the House of Black..." The teenager twitched in surprise, clearly still uncomfortable with hearing his name come out of her mouth. "I hoped that the spell may be strengthened by doing it here. A family such as ours would want their last living heir to be safe."

Ours. A deliberate choice of words that made her cousin's mouth twitch.

"What does it do?" Harry asked, rubbing his arm. "I felt...spirits. Touching me. And then I saw a barrier of some kind all over my skin, but now it's gone."

Harry's familiar jumped up on the table to sniff his wizard curiously.

"It was a blessing," she said, raising an eyebrow when the boy visibly flinched. "This kind of magic exists within all of us. It predates all spellbooks. Anyone with a certain amount of determination and vision can bestow one, though it requires a significant amount of emotion to work." She paused, "Blessings are simply the opposite of curses. Nowadays, we call them charms."

Harry relaxed. She continued, gently, "What you heard was an old litany passed down to me by my mother. It will maintain a dormant shield over you until there comes a time you are attacked with deadly intent. Anything short of an unforgivable will not land on you, whether you know it is coming or not. The shield will turn a curse or weapon back on the offender."

He cocked his head curiously, "It only works once?"

"Yes," Narcissa caught the cat giving her an unsettling look and held its gaze. "It is my hope that this will protect you when you need it most. I know you walk a dangerous path"

Harry looked off to the side, deep in thought about something. Narcissa let the silence stretch out, keeping her eyes on John. The cat had an uncanny intelligence to its eyes. She felt like it was judging her, silently asking her the very same question she asked herself that morning.

How much of what I'm doing is real, and how much of it is for the grimoire?

"You have a fascinating assortment of friends and allies," she said, slowly reaching out a hand to let the familiar sniff her. "I ask that you consider me among them."

The young wizard's head whipped around in surprise. He looked to his godfather, who seemed perturbed.

"Er, well, we're sort of like family now, aren't we?" Harry offered nervously.

Narcissa smiled, "Yes," she agreed. "I suppose we are."

Your father would say that a hand can turn into an anchor, but only because he fears for you. The truth is, Theo, it is impossible to know the true heart of another. And it is important to remember that hearts are always changing. My best advice to you is this - trust your gut over your head in critical moments.

(And don't argue this point with your father, else he'll summon me next Samhain to debate. I shall not shame him by losing to a ghost).

"Wait, Narcissa," Sirius said, meeting her at the hearth. Her cousin's eyes were brilliant and piercing, very much like Bella's. They unsettled her. "Remus told me that Snape is close with you. Is that right?"

She wasn't sure what was safe to reveal. "Severus has long been a friend of our family," she hedged.

"You might want to see if you can help him, then. He's refusing to cooperate with Poppy. He's ill."

"Men," she muttered derisively. She could not imagine a worse patient than Severus. "Is he at his home?"

Sirius nodded, chewing his cheek. "It's, ah, really bad."

"'Really bad'?" She repeated, feeling a stir of worry. "Is he ill, or injured?"

Sirius just shook his head, "It's better you see it for yourself." He leaned in and handed her a small compact. "If you need some backup, you can call on me."

She blinked, rubbing her thumb against the makeup case experimentally. She could feel magic within it. "You and Severus do not get along," she said slowly.

He rolled his eyes, "We don't, but we are on the same side. And I need him alive. I think."

Narcissa was even more baffled by that response, but she was getting anxious to see Severus and did not want to press. "Thank you," she glanced towards his godson. The cat was still watching her. She tried to sound as sincere as possible with her last words. After all, she needed Sirius to trust her. "I meant what I said. I hope you consider me...on the same side as you."

Sirius looked at her for a long moment, not yet convinced. "We're on our way. Oh, and about that," he pointed to the compact, "just say my name to the mirror, and I'll be able to speak to you through it. It should work as long as you use it in England."

Narcissa tucked it away. Her mind was as restless as the flames that carried her to Spinner's End.

---

Next, 'assume the worst.' Believe it or not, I came up with this rule. Your father has never had an issue with planning for poor outcomes. He sees the worst in everything and everyone. Thus, he is never surprised. But I am not that way, and sometimes I fear that you take more after me in this regard.

"Just leave it alone," Severus wheezed, watching her crack a nettle pod with her bare hands. A steam burn was already livid on her skin, and now he had to watch nettle-rash bloom over her fingers. "You can't stop this, Narcissa."

We meticulous types arrange our lives to follow a neatly-ordered plan. We give our friends only as much information as they need to know. We learn everything, down to the last detail, so that we never need to ask for help. We build a path forward and can hardly imagine that all our hard work could be dashed away with one cruel twist of fate.

"Resignation does not become you," Narcissa said angrily as she kept up the furious pace of her stirring. The potion was a shining ruby red, making her sweaty hair look blood-soaked in the light of his potions lab.

"This is what was always going to happen," Severus said calmly, forcefully, wishing that she would listen to him. "Nothing is turning out the way we thought it would. If my death is part of fate's fabric, then so be it."

You must be ready for chaos, for betrayal, for misery, for death, for people you trust to hurt you. You must accept that there is nothing you can do about it. You must assume the worst will happen, and be ready to open your heart anyway. Listen to me Theo: live in defiance of all that pain. It is worth it, I promise.

"What about me?" Narcissa snarled, scooping white apple blossoms into the cauldron. Roiling purple clouds filled the room before they were all sucked away by air filtration charms. "Will you leave me to fight this battle alone?"

"Albus Dumbledore will keep you safe," he sneered.

She kicked a wandless stinging spell at him, "I have him right where I want him."

"I told you to stay away from him. You promised you would!"

Severus hated how petulant he sounded, but he was dying, goddamn it. The Dark Mark had poisoned his blood, and no amount of potions or spells could stop its relentless rotting any longer. He could feel the call of the Dark Lord on the other side, full of hate and hunger.

"I have to play my part," she said, sounding exasperated. "You know that. Working around him and swearing loyalty to him are worlds apart." She started chopping long green stalks of something he was too tired to identify. "The fever is affecting your mind. Fight it, Sev."

"Don't call me that ridiculous nickname," he protested, letting his head fall back. He felt disgusting. He was sweating through his robes, yet shivering from the cold. The fever-reducing potion was losing ground. "Give Black the letter I wrote," he panted, closing his eyes against a wave of nausea. "If I die, he needs to know my information, to protect Potter..." Severus couldn't help but laugh at that, and the sound of it was horrible, ending in a hacking cough.

"You believe Sirius is capable of protecting him, then?" Narcissa questioned. "You doubted his sanity before."

"He has done something...extraordinary...to his mind..." He moved his head left to right, trying to find a place where he would not feel the room spinning so badly. Part of him wanted to fall to the floor and press his body against the cold stone. "And the...the Potter boy is..."

He faded out, losing sense of time. The next thing he knew, the scent of lavender and mint filled his nose. Warm potion poured down his throat.

He came back to himself, little by little.

"Tell me about her," Narcissa said softly.

"Who?" He mumbled, barely feeling his lips move.

A cool, soft cloth wiped the sweat from his brow. "Lily. You've fought long and hard to avenge her, but you never told me why."

"Because I loved her," he said sourly, cracking open his eyes. "Is that so hard to believe?"

Narcissa came into view. She was cradling his head in her lap, despite how disgusting and sick he was. "Was it only because of that?"

His breath hitched as the memories in his mind opened up. Bright with clarity, images of the dirty, dilapidated mill-town of his childhood unfolded in front of him, a blemish on the earth. Up on that green hill where they played, he could almost believe it was possible to turn around and leave that place.

"How could you ever understand?" He said as she continued to move the cloth around and under the back of his neck. "This place is a slum. The conditions I lived in...my mother's life, and misery..." He closed his eyes against that old wound. "You could never even dream of the world I grew up in, and why she was so..."

"Tell me, then," she pressed.

Severus licked his lips, shaking his head. He couldn't find the words. Didn't especially want to.

"I don't know where she came from. One day, she just appeared at a park near my home." He spoke softly, taken back to his childhood. His normally careful speech slurred and muddled together. "She was like a storybook character come to life. Bright and funny and..." He dug his fingers into the couch as a painful cramp seized his left arm.

"How could she be friends with a poor, ugly guttersnipe like me?" He spat, warmed by that familiar sense of self-loathing. "Fool that I am, I believed it was destiny for the longest time. I thought it was a sign that I was better than this place."

"You are," Narcissa said, sadly, as she combed her fingers through his hair.

"I didn't love her," he went on, hardly listening. "Not in that way. Perhaps, as a child, I thought I might, but..." He recalled a painful moment in fourth year when he almost worked up the nerve to ask her to Hogsmeade. "She deserved better, so much better...Even if I became a great potions master or amassed a mountain of riches or, if I could somehow change my very self into someone more deserving, I would never have been fit for her...the life she wanted...too vibrant for me. I would have been a cancer to her."

The words were sapping what little strength he had left. He panted for a moment, hearing the heavy wheeze in his lungs. It sounded like a death rattle.

"In what way did you love her, then?" Narcissa prodded.

Severus's next breath came out as a long groan, haunted by the ghosts of Spinner's End. "I...she..."

Lily's face filled his mind's eye. Childish and round. Angular and beautiful. The way she looked at him. The world she inhabited, that seemed to emanate from her and transport him to a different universe. Their long hours studying, crafting spells together, debating and laughing and pushing each other to the limits of what they believed magic could do, and then going even farther.

The jokes she shared with him. The way she made him feel. Joy and pride and happiness, fleeting though they were. The only good parts of him were because of her. Always her.

"I should have died a long time ago," he rasped. "But...I didn't. Because of..." Narcissa's hand briefly stilled in understanding. "She saw something in me that wasn't there."

Darker memories pushed to the forefront. Poisonous oleander essence in his hand. The edge of the Astronomy tower under his feet. The ice cold water of the Black Lake temptingly dragging him down.

"I always wondered if she'd be alive today, if..." he trailed off and let his head loll to the side. His strength dribbled out of him. Death, or perhaps just the darkness of unconsciousness, seemed close at hand.

"I would be dead if not for you," Narcissa reminded him softly, getting up. "Draco, too." She returned to press a new cup against his lips. This potion carried no scent at all. She lifted him up and said, "I have known despicable and evil people all my life, Severus Snape, and you are not one of them."

He let her pour the potion down his throat, but it did not soothe him. It rushed through his body like a roaring windstorm. He jerked and shuddered, biting his tongue.

"Endure it!" She urged, holding him steady. "You must be healed!"

Fiery hot acid burned over his infected Dark Mark.

"But...why?" He moaned, in a haze of pain and memory.

"Because you deserve to live free of these regrets," Narcissa's fingers clawed into him. "What she saw inside you is there, Severus! I see it, too! Tell me, have you never asked yourself what comes after atonement?"

"Nothing, I hope..." He was already losing consciousness.

"You can hope for more."

---

'Why tell people about the great work, then?' I can hear you asking. 'Why risk it, when it is so important?'

Narcissa paced. Her throat felt raw. She'd smoked three cigarettes in a row to try to think of a better plan, but she was out of time and options.

Sirius Black apparated inside the living room exactly on time.

"What's going on?" He asked warily, looking her up and down. "Is Snape alive?"

Instead of answering, she took her wand out and set it deliberately on the counter. Her wrists and hands were unadorned, except for her wedding ring.

She walked in front of him and readied herself. If only he were not a Gryffindor, she lamented. If only this could be played in favors and secrets, and not with grand gestures.

I hope my mother is not watching me now, she added as an afterthought, as she got down on her knees.

Sirius jerked back. "What on earth are you doing?!"

"Sirius," she begged, bowing her head low, so humiliatingly low. She held her empty hands up in supplication. "Please lend me the Black Family Grimoire."

Silence. She dared not look at him because her face was red and hot. After a tense moment, he said uncertainly, "The grimoire? But what do you need it for?"

Her treacherous emotions welled up in her. Maybe it was the humbling position she was in, or the last seventeen hours of sleepless research and brewing she'd been doing to try and save Severus, but she was unable to stop real anguish from pulling at her face.

"Severus is dying," she gasped, pressing her face into her arm. "I need the grimoire to try to break his covenant with the Dark Lord." Narcissa rallied and pushed down on her emotions for long enough to look up at him, begging him with her eyes to see that she was being honest. "I will give it back to you, I swear."

"You think you can get rid of the Dark Mark?" He repeated, wonderingly.

"I have to try. But I also need it for..." She closed her eyes briefly, "For Lucius." He mouthed her husband's name, brow furrowing in confusion. "He's alive," she admitted. "But if I cannot find a way to save him, then he will suffer a fate worse than death. That is truly why I came to England. If Theo had not been alive, I would have come to you anyway. You hold the key to my only hope. For him - for both of them - please. Help me."

This was not how she wanted to do this. Narcissa had a dozen scenarios to get here, and none of them ended with her literally on her knees in front of a wizard she hardly knew. Her one and only hope was that the precarious understanding between them - their mutual love for the children in their care - would be enough.

But saving and protecting a child was far different from saving an adult. Especially the wizards she was championing. Narcissa didn't doubt that Sirius Black may very well say no.

Her cousin rubbed his face roughly, "Sweet Morgana, Narcissa, get up, for magic's sake!"

He didn't wait for her, hefting her up by the elbows and giving her a little shake. "You don't have to do that," he asserted. "I'm not that kind of person. All you had to do was ask." He took a breath, "Yes, you can borrow the grimoire."

"I can?" She was so surprised she lost track of what she should say next. "But..."

"You're a Black. It belongs to you, too."

"That's not reason enough!" She snapped. "How can you trust me so easily? Don't you know what I could do with it?" A shadow crossed over his face, but he seemed undeterred. In that moment, it dawned on her. "You need something from me."

Sirius's mouth twisted. "Let's wait and see if you can save the bastard. Then, we'll talk." He hesitated, "Do you need, or...want my help? Two heads might make it go faster." Before she could reply he seemed to remember something. "Actually, three would be even better."

The risks are high, Theo, but the rewards are beyond your wildest imagination.

---

Next, 'Quarantine all new acquisitions.' In books and in people, it is wise to keep them on a shelf until you determine if they are worthy to be let inside. I do not know who you are considering, but be sure you trust them utterly. Do not rush this process.

"There you go, Buckbeak." Sirius patted the hippogriff's shoulder, "A big forest, just for you."

"Why can he get through the ward?" Harry asked John, presuming he would know best. "Can any magical creature get in?"

"Any living creature who means you no harm can pass in and out," John explained. Wind buffeted them and pulsed over the boulder field. Harry watched the tall grasses roll back and forth, like a green ocean. "I should say, creatures of the lower order."

"The lower order?"

John was standing tall, looking more feral than usual. When he looked up at Harry, his front fangs poked out. "Animals that don't have the capacity to plot and scheme. The living things that hold up the world."

Harry hummed, watching Buckbeak gallop down the hill, spread his wings, and take off into the air.

"Goooo Buckbeak!" Sirius cheered, jumping up and down. "Barrel roll! Barrel roll! YEAH!" He whirled around, "Harry did you see that?"

Buckbeak executed a large, lazy barrel roll and then banked around the mountain. "Makes me want to fly with him!" Harry shouted back.

Sirius cheered some more. Before he knew it, Harry was staring at him with a fond smile on his face.

John wrapped around his ankles a few times. "You should tell him," he advised.

Harry wrinkled his nose. "I can't. I don't know how."

John shrugged, "Just say it."

Harry groaned. He absolutely could not do that.

John looked extremely bored. "Next time you have a nightmare I'm going to fetch him, then," he threatened.

"Aren't you supposed to support me no matter what?" Harry snarked. "Just, give me a minute. I can't tell him now-"

"Tell me what?" Sirius interjected.

"Oh, uh..." The words fled back into the safe recesses of his mind. Harry's cheeks were burning and he quickly blurted out the first thing he could think of. "I was thinking about adding Remus to the wards."

Sirius's eyes rounded comically. "You are?"

Harry shrugged and glanced down at John. John was actually the one to point out that if Sirius were hurt at Roebuck Falls, no one would be able to come help him except John or Harry, and he didn't want to bet on that.

"You two made up, right?" Sirius nodded hesitantly. "And he knows about John, and what's going on with me. And he's going to help you figure out what's going on with Bill." Harry grew more and more confident in his decision as he spoke. "Roebuck Falls should be open to him, that way you two have somewhere safe to go."

"But...this is forever." Sirius spread out his arms to the whole of the Falls. "Don't do it for me, pup, if that's why. I trust Moony, of course, but this is your place."

Just to humor him, Harry consulted his familiar. "John, is there a way to remove somebody from the wards? Any way at all?"

"Of course there is," John said sourly, flatting his ears against his head. "You can just kill 'em."

That made a surprising amount of sense. "Okay," he shrugged. "That's settled then."

Sirius looked a little green, "Pup, I think you're spending too much time with John." John began to laugh low in his throat. 

"Don't worry about it," Harry grinned. "Look, it's my choice, and I want Remus to be able to come here. The only reason I would ever want to remove him from wards would be if he did something on, like, a Wormtail-level of betrayal." Sirius arched an eyebrow. "In that case, he'd be dead anyway."

Sirius struggled for a second to speak. "You know, I think maybe I should finally tell you how I set my mind straight this summer. And how Remus took it, when I told him." He glanced warily at John, "That might...help. Reassure you, anyway. I'd bet my life on Remus, pup, I really would."

---

Sirius's story just made the secret in his heart harder to carry around.

Luckily, the day after he told him everything (Harry declined to see the memories, imagining it all was bad enough) Sirius was suddenly busy helping Narcissa Malfoy with something. During their time apart, Harry and John spent a lot of time practicing magic, and that helped settle his mind. 

He spent a few days at the Falls moving furniture around and making trips to Diagon Alley to buy things he just didn't think about, like curtains. It was exhausting and somewhat boring work. After he set up the kitchen and his own bedroom, he bought a bean bag chair and threw it on the floor of the living room, calling it good.

What Harry really looked forward to was walking the grounds of the Falls, learning to see it all through John's eyes.

John started by teaching him how to sense and touch magic that ran through his property. The feeling of the house was very different from the feeling in the garden, or down by the water. His lessons were meandering and seemingly useless, but Harry didn't care about that. With John's help, he was able to see water nymphs playing in the spray of the falls, and he found a flower fairy's house underneath one of the wild rose bushes near his garden. It was like accessing a new secret world of magic that lived right below the surface.

They played pranks on Buckbeak. Harry carried his herbology encyclopedia everywhere to try and memorize all the flowers and trees around his house (his house!). Every evening he picked his way across the boulder field and sat next to the Guardian, watching the sky grow rich with stars.

When Sirius wasn't busy, he took the time to teach Harry more exciting magic. They dueled in the courtyard of Black Roc. They practiced defensive flying, which was mostly just mounting and dismounting from high tree branches or under cover. Sirius spent a lot of time teaching him how to disguise himself, which Harry was pretty shit at.

One day, Sirius announced that they had an important date to keep and glamoured them up for an adventure through London. He brought them to what looked like a boarded up shack at the edge of the Thames. Inside, it was actually a sizable mechanic's shop.

"Ta-da!" Sirius flourished, dancing around a familiar motorbike. "Harry, I want to introduce you to my baby, Bernadette."

"Bernadette?" He curiously examined all the metal pipes snarling around the engine. There was quite a bit of rust under the wheel wells. 

"Yep! Me and Bernie used to hit the road and go on long rides together, didn't we girl?" Sirius lovingly stroked the handlebars. "Hagrid flew her back to me this summer before he went off to the giants."

"Giants?!" Harry yelped.

Sirius's grin fell. "Oops."

As it turned out, Bernie needed extensive maintenance, and Sirius let Harry help by handing him tools out of a rusty old tool box. Harry concentrated on memorizing the names of them so he didn't look as clueless as he was in front of his godfather.

"Have you heard from Theo yet?" Sirius asked, after Harry finally got done drilling him about Hagrid. "I was thinking about sending him a letter, but maybe I'll wait until you're at Hogwarts."

Harry smiled, "Yeah, he sent me a map of the Albion and told me where I might find more information about changelings."

Sirius glanced at him, "How did he take that, by the way?"

Harry's stomach immediately started to squirm when he thought back on the moment in the attic. The vision of Theo looking at him, saying, I owe you everything, Harry, was burned into his brain. Harry didn't realize how long he'd been staring into the middle distance with a stupid little smile on his face until Sirius's snickering grew too loud.

"What? Oh. Right, he, uh, took it well." His mouth went completely dry, a combination of embarrassment and that other overwhelming emotion he couldn't help but feel every time Theo crossed his mind.

"Harry," Sirius coaxed, cranking something by the back wheel, "you know you can tell me anything, right? If you have something on your mind, just say it." He paused, "I can tell you've been wanting to say something to me for a few days."

Harry looked down, nervously lining up all the tools so they were perfectly straight. The thing he'd been wanting to say to Sirius for weeks haunted the back of his mind. It felt even more embarrassing to think of it now, because it didn't have anything to do with Theo. He briefly considered just saying it, if only to avoid dying of mortification, but his heart squeezed painfully inside his chest and he chickened out.

"I think...I might...have a crush..." His face felt so hot he was sure blisters must be forming on his skin. "On him. Theo."

"Oh, definitely, pup," Sirius chuckled, "I can tell."

Harry cringed back, "Is it that obvious?"

"No -"

"But how do you know? I didn't even know until right before he left!" He felt a sinking sensation in his gut, "Do you think everyone knows? Do you think he knows? What do I do if -"

A large bubble floated over and popped in his face, filling the air with the scent of fresh green grass. "Take a breath," Sirius soothed. "No need to panic. It's not obvious."

Harry did as he said and felt some of his initial anxiety die down.

"I only suspected you might have feelings for him based on the way you talk about him." Sirius wiped grease off his fingers as he spoke. "And I think you're more honest with me than you are with other people, so, I doubt anyone noticed. But you did make some eyes at him at that last dinner. Anyone who's been around the block a few times could see it, if they were looking."

Harry wanted to sink into the floor. "Is it...weird?"

"What?"

"That he's...that I like him?" Harry twisted his ring anxiously.

Sirius gave him a look that was full of understanding, "Because he's a pureblood Slytherin or because he's a bloke, or both?"

It felt like all the blood in his body was rushing through his face. "Both? Well, I don't care about the Slytherin part, really. You know, he -" Harry hesitated for a second, but he trusted Sirius. "The hat wanted to put him in Gryffindor."

Sirius raised his eyebrows, "Yeah, you know what? That squares up with that kid." He scooted away from the bike and crossed his legs to face Harry. "Look, Harry, I know the muggle world is..." He wrinkled his nose. "Well, it's not kind towards things that stand out. And I'm not saying the magical world is perfect and completely without those bigotries. I mean, we have our own, of course, but caring about who fucks who and what bits they have is the least of them."

Harry cracked a smile, "I suppose if wixen are having kids with giants then..."

Sirius nodded emphatically. "Magic is freedom, Harry, but we are still human and we tend to forget that. We let stupid human stuff get in the way and draw lines in the sand that don't really matter. Just chase your happiness. Don't let what a small-minded wixen might think stop you."

That was about what Harry expected, based on Theo's teasing about Remus and Sirius becoming a couple. Clearly, in the magical world, the idea of two men being together wasn't treated with the same kind of open disgust and mockery like it would be in the muggle world. Harry shook his head to banish the echo of his Uncle's more colorful rants on the subject.

"So what was it?" Sirius prompted after a few seconds. "When did you realize that you liked him as more than a friend?"

Harry's brain stopped firing. What was he supposed to say when the answer was everything? His blue eyes, the tiny ringlets at the base of his neck, the way he listened so carefully to everything Harry had to say, his jokes, his love of magic, his hands, his voice...

"Uhh..." He said unintelligently.

Sirius looked far too amused, "Sweet Merlin, it's worse than I feared."

"Shut up!" Harry snapped. "I don't know! I've never felt like this for anyone."

"Really?" Sirius tipped his head curiously, "But don't you have a fan club? And you went to the Yule Ball last year. Didn't you like your date?"

Harry scoffed thinking about that trainwreck of a night. "No, it was just...I had to go. I hardly know Parvati, she just agreed to go with me."

Sirius's eyes widened. "Are you not interested in dating?"

"What?" Harry frowned, "I am! I mean...I dunno." The idea of asking one of his classmates on a date and then dealing with the whispers and rumors and inevitable Prophet article made him feel sick. "I haven't had time for any of that. It's hard enough to pass my classes and not get killed by Voldemort. Dating isn't really...something that matters, or has mattered, to me."

Harry tried to imagine what a date with Theo might look like and felt terror wash over him. He'd never even held hands with someone before. He would look like an utter fool. Theo - if he ever said yes - would surely be so embarrassed by him he'd never speak to Harry again.

Nope, no way, he decided. Can't risk it. I cannot ruin my friendship with Theo.

But at the same time, the idea of Theo going on a date with someone else made his stomach lurch.

Tiny gods. What am I going to do if that happens?

Sirius scratched his head. "I think I can hear James shouting in my ear to help you. If he were here, he could give you a masterclass on how to woo someone. I'm afraid they just naturally flock to me..."

Harry wrinkled his nose, "Didn't you say my mum didn't even like my dad until seventh year?"

Sirius threw his head back and cackled. "Sure, but he did win her over in the end."

"But Theo already likes - I mean, he's already my friend," Harry replied. "And I don't want to ruin that. I'm pretty sure if I just ignore it, I'll get used to him and it will go away."

"Get used to him?" Sirius looked mystified. "What does that mean?"

"His, um..." Harry's mind unhelpfully recalled the moment Theo's shirt rode up in Grimmauld Place, revealing a pale slice of stomach. Harry could still vividly recall the dark moles making a tiny constellation near his hip. Heat crawled up the back of his neck. "I just. I. He. You know, the way he...looks."

Harry shut his mouth, too mortified to risk saying more.

Unfortunately, Sirius understood him. "Ohh," he said knowingly. "You think you can get used to how attractive he is. He's got that mysterious Byronic poet look that's hard to resist..."

"No!" Harry squeaked in a small voice. "He's not attractive! I mean!" He slapped his hands over his face. "Please help me."

His godfather hummed, not really listening, "I'm afraid to say, I think the attraction will just get worse over time."

"Don't say that," Harry begged, desperate for any kind of advice, even if it was terrible. "There has to be something. A spell, a potion, anything that will make me not think of that."

Sirius's eyebrows rose, "'That?' You mean like kissing? Sex?"

Harry jumped to his feet. "Never mind," he said quickly. "Forget I ever said anything."

"Wait a minute," Sirius stuck Harry's shoes to the ground. "Has anyone ever told you about safe sex -"

Harry ripped his feet out of his shoes and stumbled towards the doors. "Do you hear that?" He yelped. "I think there's an alarm going off. The Thames might be flooding."

"It's nothing to be embarrassed by!" Sirius called out, following him. "Stop running away! If you don't want to talk about it right now, it's fine. Harry! Stop!" He reluctantly huddled by the door. Sirius approached him cautiously, like an escaped pet. "Put your shoes back on and let's go back to the Falls for lunch, okay? How does that sound?"

They blessedly did not speak of Theo again. He could almost forget that the whole conversation happened up until he noticed a lonely banana sitting on the table after they were done.

"Don't panic, Harry," Sirius said, slowly twirling his wand. "It is literally my sworn duty to teach you how to use these spells."

"What spells?" Harry said warily, though he felt he knew what was coming.

John chose that moment to interrupt. "What are we doing with this?" He meowed, looking at the banana curiously.

"Sirius is giving me the sex talk," Harry groaned.

John gasped, "Good! Finally, someone is doing right by you! Sex magic is not to be trifled with." Harry glared at him, but John looked absolutely serious. "It would behoove you to listen well so you don't accidentally marry someone in the throes of passion during a midsommer ecstasy."

"What?"

"I'm not telling him about sex magic John!" Sirius said scathingly. "But that's a good point. Listen Harry," he pointed a stern finger in his face, "do not ever accept an invitation to a midsommer pageant from someone you don't know. They have a tendency to turn into orgies."

Harry opened and closed his mouth, sinking so far down in his chair that his face was almost level with the table. "What is an orgy?" He asked with extreme reluctance.

For once, Sirius looked just as unhappy to be talking as Harry was to be listening.

---

Eventually, the time will come when you look at someone and realize you can't live a single day more without telling them the truth. Letting someone in is a surrender. It is scary. But you and the great work are stronger with those people at your side.

Harry woke in the dark. John stirred next to him and pressed his nose against the crook of Harry's neck.

He took deep breaths, trying to calm his racing heart, but his dream was too fresh in his mind. It replayed over and over again. Sirius falling backward through a flickering grey curtain. Sirius's eyes glazing over, like Cedric's. Sirius disappearing forever. It was the dream he kept having, ever since his soul was cast from his body by the holy circle.

Harry was deathly afraid that it was some kind of omen.

"Where ya' going?" John murmured sleepily as he pushed the covers back.

"Need to talk to Sirius," he whispered, touching John's nose with his own. "You can go back to sleep."

"No, no," John said quickly, staggering to his paws. "You need moral support."

Harry padded quietly down the hall. Sirius claimed the room overlooking the boulder field because it had the most light, and it was on the opposite side of the house from Harry's room. Thus, when he stopped outside his door, he was awake enough to realize just how late it was.

I'm not a little kid, he thought doubtfully. I should wait until tomorrow.

"There you go," John murmured, opening the door with a wave of his tail. "After you."

"Harry?" Sirius's sleep-rough voice called out, "That's you, right?"

Nervously, Harry pushed inside. Soft light filled the corners of the room.

"Yeah, it's me," he hissed, hovering half-out of the room. "Sorry."

"You okay?" Sirius sat up. His hair was tousled and chaotic. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, sorry," Harry repeated, feeling like he was making a mistake. "Just had a nightmare." Instantly he wanted to sink into the ground in shame. "And, I uhm, wanted to talk to you about something but it can wait. This was stupid. I'll just go."

"No, come here," Sirius stifled a yawn and patted the bed. "It's fucking cold, Harry. You're shivering."

He was right. That was the one downside to Roebuck Falls. Unless they remembered to stoke a fire, the house itself was as cold as the mountain air at night.

Harry self-consciously slid under one of Sirius's many blankets, sighing with relief when his godfather cast a warming charm over his feet.

"You're no bother, pup," he said kindly, pushing pillows around so they could sit up together.

Harry fiddled with the edge of the blanket. "Yeah...I haven't heard that much in my life, so it's sort of hard to believe you."

"Believe me," Sirius assured him, a steely note to his voice. "All those other people can go hang. You're not a bother or a burden. Now," he took a steadying breath, obviously repressing his emotions, "tell me what's bothering you."

John curled up on his lap, giving Harry something to focus on. The silence stretched out painfully as he mustered the courage to just say it, but his mouth was full of sand. The idea of moving his jaw seemed impossible.

Finally, he managed to rasp, "I dreamt that you died."

His hands were trembling. He curled one into a fist and ran the other down John's flank. In his mind, he was seeing that flickering veil between life and death.

"I'm afraid it's a vision," he added in the same whisper. He was scared that saying it too loudly might make it true. "I keep having the exact same dream where you fall through this...curtain. Like a doorway, and then you're just gone. And I know you're dead, every time."

Sirius moved closer. "Harry -"

"I know it's not Voldemort," he said dully. "My scar never hurts."

"That wasn't what I was going to say. It's normal to have those fears." Sirius reached out and pushed his hair back from his face so Harry would look up. "I'm not going anywhere, pup."

"You can't just say that!" Harry burst out. "Did you think my mum and dad were going to die the way they did? When they did? And they were even in hiding! You're just out there, living your life!" Harry swallowed, trying to control the wave of fear and anger washing over him. "It's not like I want you to live in a box," he said harshly, more upset with himself than he was with Sirius. "I just mean that you have no control over what might happen. Look at what happened to Theo's dad! Gone! Just like that!"

Harry wrapped his arms around himself. Sirius rubbed his back comfortingly.

"Sorry," he muttered. "It's just - I know how sudden it is. One second someone's there and the next, they're gone. And there's nothing you can do about it."

"Don't apologize." Sirius pulled him in. "It's alright. Just relax."

Slowly, piece by piece, Harry managed to let the tension seep out of his limbs until he was leaning bonelessly along Sirius's chest.

"Listen," Sirius covered his ear with one hand. Harry closed his eyes, listening to the sound of his heart beat. "See?" Sirius took his hand away and went back to running his fingers through Harry's hair. "I'm right here."

Harry nodded, careful to keep his breathing even despite the lump in his throat.

"I have dreams like that, too," Sirius admitted. "Of you getting hurt. Dying..." He cleared his throat, "It never gets easier, waking up from those. Sometimes, I...I go and listen outside your door. Just to make sure you're still breathing." He sounded embarrassed. "I guess I should have told you, so you didn't have to try to deal with it on your own."

"I have John," Harry said. 

"I'm not your godfather," John replied wisely. 

They were quiet for a while. Harry tried to memorize the sensation of Sirius's arm tightening around him, the soothing feeling of his fingertips running over the nape of his neck. Harry had absolutely no frame of reference for this, though he often wondered what his parents would have been like. Would James Potter have been so willing to hold him after a nightmare? Would he have listened to everything Harry said with as much patience?

Did it get better than Sirius?

Harry felt the words rising up in him. He took a deep breath.

"When I was a little kid," he began in a hushed voice, "I wished that someone would come and rescue me from my Aunt and Uncle." His vision blurred as he thought back to those long years when the cupboard was his only safe place. "I always hoped that my parents would somehow...magically be alive. That one day they'd walk right up to the front door and say they'd been lost on a desert island, or just cured from a case of amnesia, and the first thing they did was come to get me."

Sirius made a soft noise and continued stroking his hair.

"But, it wasn't just them. I basically wished for anyone to come and find me, to take me away from that place." He swallowed carefully, aware of the dull pressure building up behind his eyes. Harry had never told this story to anyone before, not even John, and it hurt more than he thought it would.

"They weren't even that bad, my Aunt and Uncle," he tacked on. "They just....hated me. Sometimes, they were meaner than they should have been, I guess, but it wasn't...wasn't like they were going to really hurt me."

He felt Sirius's hand still and Harry knew what he was thinking. "He only whacked me with the belt a few times in my whole life," he explained. Somehow that was easier to talk about than what he was leading up to. "Vernon only did it when he was well over the edge, and I can't ever make it easy on myself." He laughed, "The few times he did it was when I was being....yeah. When I broke the rules, or was being stupid."

Harry shook his head dismissively, "Anyway. When my Hogwarts letter came, it was exactly what I'd been waiting for - almost. Learning that I was part of this whole world of magic was better than anything I ever expected." He smiled ruefully, "But, then..."

Here it was. He pulled away so he could look his godfather in the eye. Sirius looked pained, tortured almost, and some of Harry's anxiety melted away because he knew that he was about to change that.

"Then I learned about you." Sirius held his breath. "Before everything went sideways, when you asked me to live with you? That was literally my dream come true."

"Even though I was a starving, crazy, utterly worthless mess?" Sirius burst out.

Harry smiled, "Yes. That was all beside the point."

Sirius tore his eyes away, blinking rapidly. "Just like James, I swear," he muttered.

Harry grinned. That gave him the courage to get to the point. "I know this summer has been a lot. I've put you through hell." Before Sirius could open his mouth Harry soldiered on, "But you stuck around. And you came to get me." His voice cracked. "I know you think that it isn't a big deal, but to me, it's everything. I just...I want you to know how much you mean to me."

Sirius dropped his face into his hands, his shoulders shaking. "Fuck, Harry. My cold, dead heart can't take this."

Harry laughed wetly. This time, he was the one who reached out, tentatively patting his godfather's back. Sirius snatched him around the middle and hugged him even tighter than before

"I love you," he said roughly. "Have I not said that? I'm so stupid. I love you, Harry."

"I love you too," Harry responded, breathing a sigh of relief. "I've been trying to say that for weeks."

Sirius laughed and sniffled, still not letting go. Harry could feel his chest shake, and his breath tickle over the top of his head. He was holding him tighter than Harry had ever been held, bar one of Mrs. Weasley's infamous hugs.

Something changed inside his head at that moment. He felt it. A reshuffling of all his old wants, the dulling of aches that had been with him since he could remember. The murky image of a father in his head became Sirius. Happy, protective, intense, brilliant, slightly deranged, utterly sincere Sirius Black.

John brushed Harry's cheek with his tail. "The mail ward, Harry," he prodded gently.

"Oh, I forgot about that." They broke apart. Sirius took the neck of his shirt and scrubbed at his face. Harry rubbed his eyes. "Er, there's that mail ward at my relatives' house, still. The one Dumbledore set up."

Sirius nodded, emerging with red but dry eyes, "You want to go get it?"

Harry made a face. "No...but I have to go get it."

"I can get it for you."

Harry hesitated.

"Come on, kid," John encouraged. "Me and your godfather will go together."

"Absolutely not," Harry said quickly. "What about Remus? Can you bring Remus?"

Sirius smirked, "Do you think I need a babysitter?"

"Well, they do think that you sent them a howler this summer." Before he could even ask, Harry hurried to add, "I know how they are, and they'll make you lose your temper. I don't want you to get in trouble."

"I promise I won't use magic to hurt, terrorize, curse, or otherwise do anything bad to your relatives, unless I'm in fear for my life," Sirius promised without any hesitation.

Harry shut his mouth, stunned by the feeling of magic settling between them. A wizard's promise.

"Damn it," John muttered.

"Trust me Harry," Sirius assured him, settling down on the covers and ushering him to do the same. John sprawled out on his side so he was pressed against Harry. "I won't do anything to jeopardize me being here with you."

---

When you eventually find enough common ground to let someone in, the final step is trust. Trusting that someone is who they say they are is treacherous. Trust actions over words, Theo. You will make mistakes. Some bonds will rot. No amount of forethought and caution can prevent that.

There were no wards around Number 4. No barriers, no alarms, and certainly - from what Sirius could tell - no Order member on watch, otherwise they would have been intercepted the moment they turned up the walkway.

Remus knocked on the door. When Lily's sister opened it, she was easily befuddled by their glamours. She took one look at them and said, "We're not interested."

"Yes, you are," Remus smiled, and pushed the door open without much effort.

But some bonds grow stronger after strife. Always fight for the ones you love, my darling, and let your bonds grow stronger.

"Vernon! Vernon, come quick!"

Sirius's hand twitched but Remus was way ahead of him. He murmured a charm to suppress sound, catching her shriek and holding it safely inside the foyer.

Maybe I shouldn't have told him about the scars on Harry's back, he thought idly.

"What's going on here?" A rotund man with thick, meaty fists clamored into the hallway. His face darkened, "Who are you? Why are you inside my house? I'll phone the police!"

Sirius kept his glamor up, somehow managing a calm smile. "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, so sorry to disturb you. I'm one of Harry's professors from school, Gilderoy Lockhart."

"You," Petunia pointed at Remus as he dropped the glamor covering up his scars. "You were one of his friends!"

"Remus Lupin," he tipped his head. "It's been a long time since I saw you, Petunia."

"What are you doing here? That boy is gone. He left. Surely you know that! We don't need to have anything to do with you freaks anymore!"

"Get out of my house!" Vernon snarled, striding towards him.

Remus put his hand out, holding Vernon back easily. "I think we can all sit down and have a civilized conversation, don't you?"

"I don't want to speak to any of you!" Petunia shot back, "I want you out of my house and out of my family's lives!"

"Your son's not home, is he?" Sirius asked, to distract her. He knew the cousin wasn't around because they checked before they approached. "Is he coming back soon? I wouldn't want him to get caught up in our business."

That did it. Both muggles went still, their faces wan with terror.

"You want to talk?" Vernon muttered breathlessly, "Then talk. Don't bring Dudley into this!"

Remus pushed him into the living room with his superior strength. "Let's get out of the hallway, shall we?"

They spread out. Vernon stood like a vast, purple mountain in front of his wife, who was holding one thin hand over her mouth in abject disgust as Sirius and Remus poked around the room. He noted that of all the many pictures adorning the mantle, not one was of Harry.

Remus met his eyes. Sirius could tell he'd noticed too.

"I've been watching over Harry because, as you may know, his godfather is quite mad," Sirius opened. Remus hid his laugh with some hard coughing.

Vernon snorted, "Damn right he is! He sent us a letter threatening our lives this summer! Who's going to do something about him? Eh? If your world can't even round up one lousy criminal then -"

"We're here because Harry left something behind," Sirius interrupted. "It was a baby basket? It glows."

Petunia gasped, quickly trying to muffle the sound with her hand.

Sirius watched her closely. "Where is it?"

The both of them remained silent. Sirius arched an eyebrow, curious as to what they tried to do to it.

"It's gone!" Vernon finally declared, his thick mustache quivering. "Anything he left behind is gone! It was our right to get rid of it!"

"I highly doubt you could get rid of it," Sirius laughed, as if this was all one big joke. "I know you couldn't destroy it, and I'd be surprised if you could even move it. He said he left it in the attic, so if you could just show me..."

Vernon's eyes narrowed into a hateful glare, but his wife gave them away. She looked fearfully at the stairs. Sirius followed her gaze to see...

Nothing. Just a smooth wall full of pictures.

He cocked his head, getting closer.

"Now, look here!" Vernon blustered, "Just stay in this room! I don't give you permission to cavort around my house!"

"We're really not here to cause you any trouble," Remus said soothingly.

"You just used your freaky little powers to try and push me around!" The man snapped, "You lot are nothing but trouble!"

"Oh, no magic involved in that." Sirius could hear the wry smile in Remus's voice. He started to run his fingers over the wall. Near the top where it met the banister, he could see fresh paint marks. "I'm just very strong."

Sirius rapped his knuckles against the drywall and heard an answering hollowness. He brandished his wand.

"Don't!"

"Ostium revelio."

A large portrait of the Dursleys fell to the floor as a golden seam cracked through the new plaster, tracing the outline of a narrow cupboard door. With a swish of his wand, it opened up, sending more picture frames crashing to the ground.

"Don't worry," Remus said, in that same polite tone, "we'll set it back before we leave."

Sirius didn't immediately remove anything from the cupboard, just taking it all in. There was a little cot lying in it. Piled on top of that was the glowing baby basket Harry described, along with a small box of random items. He levitated the box out and sorted through it, finding nothing but junk. An old t-shirt, two broken quills, a torn paperback novel, a crushed box of Bertie Botts.

Next, he took the basket out and left it near the door. Then he crouched down to get a better look inside the cupboard for anything else of Harry's they shoved away.

"Take it and go!" Petunia said forcefully, "You have it! Leave us be!"

Near the back wall, behind the head of the cot, he saw a dusty row of toy action figures. Little plastic army men, most of them twisted and half-melted, or missing their heads. A torn sheet of construction paper was balled up in the corner. Sirius reached out and smoothed it flat.

Harry's Room, it said, written in crayon, the letters misshapen and uneven. Done by a child a long time ago.

Sirius's brain short-circuited. He looked into the cupboard again. He saw a few more broken toys hidden in the back walls. He looked up and saw pictures drawn in faded marker on the wooden slats. Doodles drawn by Harry, who must have spent a lot of time in this cupboard.

Sirius looked back down at the picture.

I wished that someone would come and rescue me.

The force of rage that swept over him made him dizzy in the head. Acid crawled up his throat. This was a level of cruelty he didn't even know was possible - to keep a child in a dusty little closet and call it his room.

With massive effort, he stood up and looked expressionlessly at Remus, offering nothing but a gesture to the cupboard. Sirius handed the sign over to him as they passed each other.

The weight of his promise felt like a vice on his chest.

Remus gasped, but that was his only reaction to what he also deduced. It took him a minute longer to return to the living room, and when he did, Sirius saw an echoing whirlwind of fury and fire in his eyes.

Vernon and Petunia said nothing, just watched them nervously. Finally, when the silence grew too unbearable, Vernon spoke.

"We didn't do anything wrong," he defended, voice trembling. "That boy was a menace, from the very day he came home. He once floated Dudley off the ground! That was when we separated them! We had to! He's our son!"

And what about Harry?

"He - he - he was always causing trouble! Freaky things to happen! And we were told that if anyone ever knew who he was, what he was, some rotten criminals from your world might find us and kill us!"

An idea slipped into his mind. Something dark and sinister. Sirius glanced at Remus, remembering one time that his friend asked him in school, where do you come up with these ideas? For once, Sirius thought Moony might approve of what he cooked up.

Sirius smiled. It was hard, but he was nothing if not an excellent liar.

"Ah, you've got his number there," he agreed, dropping his shoulders. "Harry has a tendency to get into trouble. Can you believe he ran away from me a couple weeks ago? He got half-way across Scotland before I caught him. No warning, no nothing. I was so upset I almost..." He trailed off, giving Vernon a commiserating look. "Well, you know how it is, sometimes you just hit the limit of what you can take."

"Yes, yes," the muggle breathed, his eyes moving suspiciously between them. "I know exactly what you mean."

"And he's so..." Sirius searched for a word, unable to bring himself to actually badmouth Harry.

"Disrespectful?"

"Thinks he can do whatever he wants," Sirius nodded, being sure to keep his stance as open as possible. "It drives me mad."

"It's enough to push anyone over the edge," Vernon's beady little eyes searched his face. "Makes you wonder if he's just a bad egg, right? There must have been a reason he's so much trouble, since the day he was born." He nudged his wife, who was so white Sirius couldn't believe she was still standing. "What's that you said about him the other day, Pet?"

She mumbled something under her hand and he smiled nastily.

"Right. He's cursed, as you lot would say." This time, Vernon seemed to be consciously magnanimous with his dismissiveness toward them. "He's the one who got his parents killed, after all. Or, your sister, at least."

Sirius scoffed and twisted the subject away from Lily and James, "I'm just at a loss with what to do with him. It feels like he doesn't listen to me when I try to reason with him, you know?" Sirius held his hands out to Vernon, "But you've been managing Harry for so long without even using magic. How'd you do it?"

The growl he could hear building up in Remus's chest abruptly cut off as Moony finally caught on to what he was up to.

"A boy like that needs a firm hand!" Vernon shook his thick fists for emphasis, "And to be put to work, so he doesn't become a lazy lout like his father."

"Harry's always been a hard worker at school," Remus said doubtfully, injecting just the right amount of conflicted concern on his face. "But, he does break an awful lot of rules..."

"That's what he does," the muggle sneered. "He knows if you're gullible. You have to understand that he's always been a liar. He's always got an excuse at the ready. You need to make it clear that you won't hear it!"

"I'm really just wondering how you managed to curb his...behavior." Sirius dropped his voice, "I've tried everything I can think of but he never seems to learn."

"Vernon -" Petunia whispered, but her husband was already speaking.

"Like I said, a firm hand is key." He narrowed his eyes, "Only when he's really smart with you. Cut him off, you see? Don't let him talk out of turn."

Sirius recalled the image of Harry flinching when he raised his hand too quickly.

"My brother was like that," he lied. "He always spoke back to our mother. Disrespected her every which way he could. Broke things. Embarrassed us in front of the other families." Vernon scoffed. "And my mother was firm with him, but it never seemed to matter."

His wife hissed his name again, but Sirius kept his expression hopeful, and slightly conspiring.

It worked. Vernon smirked at him, "I always found that isolation was the most effective punishment."

That wasn't what he expected, but somehow it made his anger burn even hotter. "Oh?"

"Locking him away did the trick before he went to that school." He nodded shrewdly, "Might try that for a change."

Sirius's smile stretched, "And better yet, it doesn't leave a mark on him, so no one will ever know."

"Vernon! It's a trick!"

Her husband finally seemed to sense that he'd wandered into treacherous waters.

Sirius lifted his wand and let his glamor melt away. Vernon and Petunia's eyes grew as big as saucers. "I'm not trying to get you into trouble. And I'm not mad. I genuinely want to know if you ever took an even firmer hand with Harry, that's all."

Vernon took a few wary steps back. "I never did anything to that brat I wouldn't have done to my own son, if he needed it," he babbled. "My father certainly did worse to me!"

Sirius bared his teeth. "My mother was like you," he said, dropping all pretense. "Though, with magic, her punishments were more...creative." He rubbed his chin, "The isolation piece, though...very interesting, Vernon Dursley. Very interesting. I didn't expect that."

"Did you lock him in that cupboard?" Remus asked stiffly, pointing at the offending door. The crumpled piece of paper was still in his hand. "How old was he when you moved him in there?"

Petunia drew back, shaking her head from side to side as Remus advanced on her.

"Too hard to remember because it was so long ago?" He snarled softly. "How about an easier question. Did you withhold meals from him? Starve him?"

"Sending a child to bed without dinner is a common -"

"But that's not what you did," Remus swung around to Vernon, cutting him off. "Harry's been skinny. He was small for his age, especially when he first came to Hogwarts. His teachers talk." Remus paused, "I can see that your son is doing well. Big, like you," Remus looked Vernon up and down disgustedly. "In the werewolf packs, the strongest eat first. They take all the medicine. Sleep in the most comfortable beds. The weak and the young have to fight for every scrap left behind. Some of us think it makes them stronger, but in reality it's just a way for the old to cling to their power."

Vernon went white, "W-w-w-werewolf?"

"Whatever he told you is a lie." Petunia was shaking from head to toe, but she faced them with fire in her eyes. "We never hurt him! We only did what we needed to do to protect ourselves and Dudley!"

Sirius laughed. It was a broken, unhinged sound that he knew would set their teeth on edge. "Harry never told me a thing about what happened here," he said. "In fact, before I came to see you today, he explicitly made me promise not to hurt you."

Vernon's shoulders sagged with relief.

"With magic," Sirius clarified, unclasping his belt.

The muggle's eyes bugged out of his head. "Listen here!" He cried fearfully. "What you're threatening is assault! Battery! Intent to maim!"

"You can't hurt us," Petunia added, though she didn't look like she believed it. "We're under his protection. Albus -"

"Since you removed Harry from the blood ward, no one gives a lick about what happens to you," Sirius said nastily. "You're not even being guarded anymore. Best hope those blood wards stay intact because if the Death Eaters come, no one will be around to save you." He gestured to the open floor of the living room. "Get on your knees, Dursley."

"I won't!" Thick rings of sweat soaked his shirt under the armpits. "You can fight me like a man, but I won't -"

Remus moved in a flash, grasping Vernon by the back of the neck and heaving him down on the floor so he landed on his hands and knees.

Then he slung his arm around Petunia, golden eyes still trained on Vernon. "Did you watch, Petunia?" he asked quietly. "Or did you participate?"

"Don't hurt my wife!" Vernon shouted, his head flying up. Sirius could see the whites of his eyes were streaming and bloodshot. "She never did anything to him! It was only me! Only when he deserved it!"

Sirius didn't believe him, but he trusted that Remus would do his part in terrorizing Petunia while Sirius worked on Vernon.

"Take off your shirt," he said, lightly slapping his wide shoulder with the tail of his belt. "Don't want to ruin it."

Vernon did as he asked, and despite what he said about his father, Sirius could see no long silvery scars on his skin. Though, who was to say he didn't have scars in other places?

"Now, before we begin, I just have one last question for you." He leaned down, letting his cold, potent hatred shine clearly on his face. Sirius flipped the belt around until the buckle flopped at the end of his hand. "Did you ever hit Harry with this end of the belt?"

Vernon blinked rapidly, trying to get sweat out of his eyes.

"I don't need magic to know if you're lying to me," Sirius warned. "Tell the truth."

"Vernon!" Petunia cried desperately.

"Shh," Remus put one finger to her mouth and she went still.

"I - I - I..." Sirius's hand tightened on the buckle as the answer came blubbering out of him. "Only once. One time. On accident! And I - I - I never did it again! Not after the way he - the sound! The blood! I made a mistake, I swear! I swear."

Sirius didn't get a great look at the scars on Harry's back, but there was one that he couldn't forget. It was under his shoulder blade, thick, maybe as long as his thumb. It looked like it came from something heavy, something that bit deep into his skin.

"How old was he?" Sirius asked, and his voice was so cold he didn't even recognize it.

"T-ten," Vernon whispered. "Damn...rabbits...ate through the garden. I trapped them. I was going to put them down, and he let them out. Using that - his - freaky powers. And he - he..." Vernon gulped as Sirius bore down on him, "He set the garden right. Everything...was replanted in the morning. Like it never happened. Like..."

Magic.

Sirius stood up and carefully wrapped the belt around his fist, keeping the buckle tucked into his palm, for now.

"Nobody could know," Vernon continued muttering, a stubborn, fanatic edge to his voice. "I had to keep us safe! I had to teach him it wasn't right, what he does! He can't just - just - go against the order of the world!"

"Maybe not," Sirius said dully, experimentally flicking his back with the belt. He took a measured step away to give the strap more room to pick up speed. "But in the order of the world, you are at the bottom, Vernon Dursley."

And then he raised his arm and let the leather fly.

---

Finally, 'Never acknowledge the existence of the library.' I admit, Theo, at first I thought that you might have to flagrantly break this rule. After all, in order for them to know, you have to tell them the truth.

"Theo!" Blaise called out, "We can use the Wire! Let's go!"

Theo set down the scroll with a sigh. When he opened the door, he found Blaise flicking a small silver coin up in the air.

He shot Theo a teasing smirk. "Want to bet on who will cry?"

Theo rolled his eyes. The idea that any of the girls would cry over him was, frankly, delusional. "I'm half-convinced Pansy's father will be listening in with a Quick-Quotes Quill."

"He is the editor of The Prophet," Blaise shrugged. "You should at least consider..."

"No."

"If you let them write what they want then they'll -"

"Don't care."

"The whole world is in a frenzy over you."

"They'll forget."

"At least If you talk to -"

"He hated my father and me by association. In what world would giving him an interview turn out well?"

Blaise sighed, "You're incorrigible."

Draco was waiting for them in the study, examining the heavy phone on the table. Madame Zabini stood behind it to make sure they didn't waste her coin.

"Dial first," she instructed. Blaise carefully picked out the Parkinson Wire address written on a scrap of parchment, a combination of astronomical signs and numbers.

"Put the coin here," she pointed at a slot below the buttons, no bigger than a thumb print. Blaise laid the coin down flat and, with a flash of smoke, it vanished.

"Connecting," a tinny voice said through the phone.

Madame Zabini glided away. "Mind what you say on the Wire, boys," she warned before closing the door. "You never know who might be listening..."

Draco shivered, "How can you stand to use this abomination, Blaise?"

"Shh!" Blaise waved furiously at them, holding the phone up to his ear. Theo could hear a faint brrrring echoing from the receiver. It was connected to the base by a plastic phone cord wrapped in fine, brassy threads of magic that pulsed with every ring. Theo itched to take it apart and learn how it worked.

The Wire was an expensive, illegal luxury that only the richest and most well-connected of wixen kept in their homes. It was a deliberate breach of the statute of secrecy because the phones used real muggle telephone wires to communicate, though how they managed to do it was a mystery. The vampire clans that controlled it ruthlessly murdered anyone found tampering with the Wire.

Theo's family never owned one, and neither did the Malfoys, so he'd hungered to get his hands on the Zabini phone for quite some time. I wonder what kind of runes are inscribed in the base...

Draco flicked his nose, "You're drooling."

"Am not!" Theo swallowed compulsively and scowled.

"Hello?"

Blaise grinned wickedly, "Is that my dearest Daphne, heir to the magnificent House of Greengrass, answering the Parkinson Wire?"

"I'm not your dearest anything, Blaise," she replied flatly. Theo and Draco grouped in closer together to listen. "Only Pansy and Millie are listening, so simmer down. There's no one to impress."

"Except for you...?"

"Funny that you think you can impress her," Theo said dryly.

"Sad, actually," Draco scoffed.

There was a tiny gasp on the line, and Theo raised his eyebrows. Daphne was quite difficult to shock. He didn't think he'd ever seen her so much as giggle. Through the receiver they heard another voice start to intermix with Daphne's.

"Was that him?"

"I told you so!"

"Millie, come over here! Don't you want to go first?"

There was a long pause, and then a loud, crackling sigh.

"She's taking too long," Pansy's sour voice said. "Hello, Theo, the other Boy-Who-Lived. You know that's what they called you in the headline, right? Everyone's wondering how you survived the fire..."

Theo tipped his eyes up, reluctantly taking the phone from Blaise.

"Don't call me that," he interrupted. "For the love of magic, Pansy, I don't care what I have to do but do not let the Prophet call me that."

She tittered, "If you agree to an interview then I'm sure you could nip it in the bud..."

Told you so, Blaise mouthed.

"Pansy," Daphne cut in sternly, "I thought we agreed you wouldn't -"

"I had to try," she defended. "Anyway, Theo, how are you? You gave poor Millie a fright."

"But not you?"

"All of us!"

Theo huffed, trying in vain to stop the blush from creeping up his neck as Pansy shrilly recounted what had happened when they thought he died.

"I firecalled everyone I could! Daphne was in complete shock, Theo, her mother had to call a healer because she didn't move for hours. She thought our sweet Draco was surely dead as well..."

"Thanks Pansy, tell everyone why don't you."

"Sweet Draco?" Theo repeated disgustedly.

Pansy ignored him. "I wasted seven coins calling up some of the other families, trying to see if you two had taken refuge somewhere. Vincent - ugh, MERLIN, don't even get me STARTED on him."

Theo laughed, not surprised that Vince might have been pleased to hear of his demise. "The Crabbe's have a phone?"

"They're horribly pedestrian in every other way, why are you surprised?"

"But you have a phone," he pointed out.

Pansy clicked her tongue impatiently and Theo couldn't help shooting his friends a smirk. It was always fun to wind Pansy up. "Theo, you know my father requires a direct line to the other newspaper editors across the world."

Theo could not care less what Howard Parkinson required and hastened to change the subject. "Well, I'm alive, so, why don't you tell us who was selected as prefect?"

"Me, of course!" Pansy yelped, "Who else?"

"I would have loved for it to be Tracey," Blaise butted in.

"I thought it would be Daphne." Theo preemptively took the phone away from his ear before he said, "Draco got it, to no one's surprise."

"DRACO!! THAT'S GREAT! JUST IMAGINE WHAT WE CAN DO TOGETHER!"

Blaise and Theo leaned as far away as possible as Pansy continued to squeal at a high volume. Draco didn't bother to take the phone, just listening with a distracted frown on his face.

"Pansy, shut up!" Daphne snapped, and suddenly Pansy's voice cut out. "I stuffed a bonbon in her mouth while it was open. Honestly..." She cleared her throat, "Theo, don't change the subject. Are you injured?"

He reluctantly brought the phone back to his ear. "I've recovered."

"Oh." Then, faintly, he heard her hiss, "Millie, come OVER here, we set up this call for YOU!"

"It's alright," he said smoothly. Millie was cripplingly shy about certain things - namely, speaking. Knowing that Blaise and Draco were listening to his side of the line wasn't going to make it any easier on her. "I'm alive, I'm healed, my scars aren't very severe, and you'll all see me on the train in a few weeks."

Daphne hummed, "Scars, you say? Are they dreadful looking?"

Draco bared his teeth, "Honestly, Greengrass, you have no hope of marrying with that tactless mouth of yours."

She chuckled, "All according to plan. Seriously, tell me Theo, where did you get burned?"

"Where on my body?" He scrunched up his nose. Daphne's morbid curiosity was never the turn-off for him like it was for Draco, but even this felt a little too familiar. "On my forearms."

"Ah, lucky you. I read about other fiendfyre survivors after I heard you were alive," she explained. "Beryl the Alchemist survived a bout of fiendfyre back in the seventh century, but came away with some rather severe burns and he only lived for ten days."

"Did he?" Theo felt, intuitively, that he would not like this story.

"Indeed. He was straddling a crack in the earth, below which the fire raged, and it licked up and burned his legs and bollocks and - well, everything else." She paused. "Melted it all away, actually. The skin became like glue, the healer's notes said. You still have your p-"

"Daphne, for Merlin's sake," Millie's soft voice interjected. "You're so crass."

Theo pinched the bridge of his nose, praying that he would be able to erase the mental image Daphne unceremoniously plopped in his head. "Hi there Millie," he choked out.

"Hello, Theo." A pause. "I'm sorry about them."

On either side, Blaise and Draco were making the same queasy expression. "I wouldn't expect anything less from Daphne to be honest."

"See?" Daphne piped up. "He gets it."

"How are you?" He asked. "Did you end up going to the opera this summer?"

There was the barest second of hesitation before she said, "We did. It was lovely. I sang with Blanche Dupuis and I even performed an aria on stage."

Theo was so surprised he could have fallen over. "In front of an audience?"

"A small one," Millie sounded incredibly pleased with herself. "In costume and everything. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be."

"Congratulations," he said warmly. "I'm happy for you."

"Mhm," he detected a trace of nerves in her hum. "I'm...really glad you're alright. I don't want to find another partner in class."

Theo smiled down at the floor. "Thanks, Millie."

He suddenly had the urge to tell her about Harry. He could see them becoming fast friends, easily. Millie would especially like John.

What makes her so different from Harry? He wondered, not meaning their easy friendship, but rather the innate trust he felt in Harry that he didn't feel in Millie. Millicent was a great friend to him - a sardonic and silent partner that he traversed Hogwarts with, exactly the company he needed when Blaise and Draco were wound up or being too loud.

And yet...there was something about Harry that was very much like Blaise. Magnetic, almost.

"I guess I'll see you on the train?"

"Yeah," he shook his head, trying to clear his troublesome thoughts. "See you there."

"Don't hang up! I want to talk to Draco!"

---

But the truth is, the friends that know you best already know you keep a secret. They simply don't know what it is. For example, I knew your father guarded something closely in the Tower, but I loved and respected him, so I trusted that he would tell me when he was ready.

The people you bring into our great work should show you the same grace, Theo.

Draco sulked and sighed and moped around the villa without reprieve. Theo and Blaise tried everything they could think of to cheer him up, but it was only when Draco let his chess pieces riot after a particularly bad game that Theo stooped to his last resort.

"Draco!" He called out over the sound of little voices hurling insults at his friend. "The tailor's here. Do you want to come with me?"

Blaise turned around, mouth hanging open. Draco didn't seem to understand, at first, so Theo reluctantly added, "Catarina said he's going to order my entire wardrobe..."

Draco materialized by his side in the blink of an eye. "Where are we meeting him?"

Blaise hurried after them, shooting Theo a shit-eating grin every time he groaned during Draco's uninterrupted monologue about how important it was to wear clothing that matched his undertone, whatever that meant.

"It's a crime you were never given a sister," Theo deadpanned an hour later. Draco hummed distractedly, studying the different fabric samples stuck to his collar. The tailor was a short, bald, Chinese wizard who was apparently one of the most exclusive clothiers in all of northern Italy. He had only said about four words, yet seemed to be able to communicate with Draco through some form of fashion-related telepathy.

"I can dress you up in something pink and sparkly anytime," Draco returned. "Just say the word." He removed two of the swatches and replaced them with two patterned ones. "Actually, a blush would pair well with your skin's undertone..."

"Don't fucking order me a pink tie, so help me Mordred," Theo warned.

Draco laughed a real laugh for the first time in days, and Blaise threw his hands up in silent victory from across the room. Theo bit back his own smile. He still had another hour of this torture to go.

---

When you present them, whoever they are, think about what they mean to you. There's no spell, no wand work, no runes. Just your trust, and the all-seeing eyes of our great work.

"You saw what he wrote?"

Blaise bobbed his head. Whatever Draco's secret was, he wouldn't speak of it at the villa. After too many hours trying on various types of clothing, Draco was finally in a good enough mood to admit there was something on his mind, but all he did was write on a scrap of parchment that he would tell them at Hogwarts. Theo was too exhausted with his own secrets to worry.

At the very least, Draco seemed happier by the end of the day.

Theo was still struggling to sleep, even after reading his mother's letter. Some mornings he woke up with a quill in his hand and words from languages he didn't know running through his head. Just that evening, not even an hour after falling asleep, he jerked awake to find a bottle of ink hovering over his chest.

Theo fled to the garden to settle himself. He was a little afraid of what was happening to him. Certainly it had something to do with the Library, but he didn't understand why it always happened when he was asleep instead of when he was intentionally trying to connect with it.

Blaise found him on a bench in the garden, either by accident or because he knew Theo would not be able to sleep. Theo tucked his knees under his chin, staring up at the waning moon until Blaise poked him in the side of the head.

"What's going on in that big brain of yours?" He asked lightly. "I always wonder..."

The side of his mouth ticked up. "I was remembering when we were kids and we made up stories about us getting a creature inheritance, like in those books we read?"

Blaise laughed under his breath. "I was going to be the first half-vampire, and you were going to be a were-wizard."

Theo grinned, "A werewolf that turned into an actual wolf instead of a raging beast."

"You were so pissed off when I pointed out that was just being an animagus."

"Because you dismissed my other powers! I was going to be able to ensnare people into my pack and force them to do my bidding."

"So, an animagus who can cast imperio?"

"You've got no imagination," Theo rolled his eyes. "Tell me what a half-vampire can even do."

Blaise started counting off his fingers. "One, we could traverse the dawn and dusk hours, unlike true vampires who can never step into direct sunlight. Two, I would have been able to -"

"Forget I asked."

Blaise snickered, sliding back on the bench until his shoulder was touching Theo's. 

"I really do want to know."

"Hmm?"

Blaise turned in so he could prop his cheek on his fist. "I want to know what you've been thinking about," he said. "You know you can tell me anything, right Theo?"

Brown eyes met his steadily. Blaise seemed braced for the worst. It suddenly dawned on him what his best friend must be thinking.

"It's not about that," he said assuredly.

"Not about third year?"

Theo opened his mouth, about to feed him some believable lie that would set his mind at ease, but then he...stopped.

His thoughts drifted back to the attic, as it often did when he wasn't worrying about Draco or the Library. He thought about when Harry clutched his arms and said, You've been such a great friend to me.

It felt extremely wrong to think that he had trusted Harry with his biggest secret, and not Blaise.

Would the Library think Blaise is worthy? Theo wondered. Did it choose Harry just because he happened to get there first? Or is there something special about him? Surely what I think and who I trust counts for something.

He looked down and away, so unfocused that he didn't even notice the way Blaise's eyes widened with concern. "You're worrying me," he needled, sliding in closer to loop his arm over Theo's shoulders. "What's wrong?"

Theo thought about the hag stone. Thought about his terrifying dreams, and his mother's letter, and the fact that Draco had flown all the way to London for him based on nothing but a feeling. Thought about how he trusted Blaise with everything, every terrible secret, except the one he couldn't tell.

But what's stopping me now?

"Nothing bad," he said, unconvincingly. "It's just...I'm still figuring it out. What I'm thinking about is just...it's..." He sighed in aggravation, "I'm figuring out how to tell you," he admitted, feeling a pang of panic as the words slipped unstoppably from his lips. "But I want to tell Draco, too. I think. I don't know." He brought his ring up to his mouth. "I don't want to burden him if he has something else going on."

There was another reason that Theo was reluctant to tell Draco. What if Harry was right and the Dark Lord didn't attack Theo's family? Then why did Draco's father die, too? What if his death was all based on a misunderstanding, or some clever sleight of hand? Would Draco blame him?

Stupid. Sure, Draco might get emotional and lose his head for a minute, but he knew that Theo was on his side. Whatever the truth was, heads would roll for Lucius Malfoy and Magnus Nott. The two of them would make sure of that.

He could feel Blaise sigh. "You want to try me first?"

"Like I did before?" Theo huffed.

"That helped, didn't it?"

He looked away. He didn't like remembering that night - the one year anniversary of his necromantic ritual.

Blaise ruffled Theo's hair, "Come on. Just tell me. You can even obliviate me after, if you regret it."

"You're insane."

"I'm dedicated," Blaise countered. "Dedicated to being your best friend."

"And what do you get for your dedication?" Theo said sarcastically. "My dry wit? My silent partnership? Books you'll never read?"

"Your scary fucking face," Blaise snickered. "Remember when you cursed Vince last year? For my honor?"

"So I'm your attack dog," Theo nodded sagely. "I see."

Blaise narrowed his eyes. "Are you being serious right now?"

"Relax, I'm just messing around..."

"No. No you're not." Blaise leaned in until their noses were almost touching. "You really want to know why I'm your best friend."

Before he could stammer some kind of response, Blaise started to reel off a shockingly long list, almost as if he expected this conversation.

"Because when we were eight, you kept your word and didn't tell anyone that I was actually crying in my room, not sick, at my mother's third wedding reception. And because that night you laid with me on my bed and tried to distract me, and you even missed the fireworks in the garden which I knew you wanted to watch."

Theo shook his head, smiling fondly.

"And because you've always gotten me a birthday gift that really fits me and isn't just some expensive toy that I could buy myself."

"Draco," Theo muttered under his breath.

Blaise almost laughed, but caught himself at the last second. "And, maybe most importantly, because I've never had to lie around you. I can always be myself. I can just say what I want and you never turn away or get weirded out or tell me to shut up like everyone else does." Blaise's speech became slightly more impassioned. "How many of our friends have someone like that Theo? How many of them do you think are ever truly honest with someone else?"

He had to shake his head. "Not many."

"Exactly." Blaise paused. "If I told you tomorrow that I wanted to quit Hogwarts and run off to America or something - change my name, pretend to be a muggle, start a whole new life and just be free of all this, what would you say?"

Theo gave it some thought. "When do we leave?"

Blaise jumped to his feet. "See? That's why you're my best friend, Theo. Because you would say that, and I believe that you would actually come with me."

Theo gave the idea another pass. If this was a different world, and Blaise really did want to run away to America, would Theo go?

Yes. Sure. Why not?

Blaise stuck by his side even when being Theo's friend was thankless. And looking beyond his loyalty and talents (namely, smooth talking his way out of situations Theo would just glower through) he was fun. Blaise made him laugh harder than anyone else. He never failed to lift his spirits. He was the only person Theo fully trusted to let down his walls around.

Did Theo need Hogwarts? No. But did he need Blaise?

He got to his feet. Blaise was still talking. "I know we haven't exactly faced dragons together, but how strong does our friendship have to be to test it? Whatever it is you're afraid to trust me with, I won't let you down -"

"I know."

"- and I, wait. What?"

"I know." Theo padded down the garden path, "You're right. Let's go."

"You're going to tell me?'"

Theo met his eyes, "You and Draco."

Blaise snorted, "You wake him up, then."

Draco was indeed extremely cranky to be pulled out of his warm bed and down the hall to Theo's chilly room. He closed the door with a soft snick and coated the walls in a weak silencing ward.

"What's going on, Theo?" Draco whispered, his voice rough with sleep. "It's the middle of the bloody night."

"It's nothing bad," he said, moving to the center of the room. Blaise looked around curiously.

"You flipped the mirror," he observed.

"Don't worry about that." Theo did that yesterday. He kept getting spooked by shadows moving out of the corner of his eye.

"What have you been up to?" Draco rubbed his eyes. "And why is it so fucking dark?"

Sweat cooled on the back of his neck. His stomach was doing flips.

"You both know that my father was preparing me for something," he began, keeping his voice low. "That was why he was so hard on me."

Blaise and Draco eyes widened in the dark.

"Are you about to conduct a ritual?" Draco whispered in awe.

His hand wandered up, hovering over the hag stone. "Something like that."

"Theo, you don't..." Blaise trailed off, looking lost. "You don't have to."

"I want to," Theo affirmed, giving him a long look. "I always wanted to tell you two, actually."

He pressed his thumb against the hag stone. Judge them, he asked it, feeling its presence rising up in him. I trust them with my life, and thus I can trust them with you.

Golden light bloomed out from him, just like it did in the attic of Grimmauld Place. It expanded out and coated the walls of his room, sealing the doors and windows, passing through and accepting Draco and Blaise into its boundary.

Fog drifted up around their feet until it completely covered them. Theo watched anxiously until he lost sight of their frozen faces under the fog.

Please be right, mother, he prayed. Please tell me this is what you saw.

The final words of her letter rang loud and clear in his head as, first, Blaise broke out of his reverie. He slapped the fog from his face and jumped away.

"What was that?" He snapped. "Did you summon something? It was looking through all my memories!"

I'll tell you what I saw, Theo, when I rested my forehead on the red doors of our great work and saw its future.

Draco let out a huge gasp and started to wave his arms around frantically. "Get off of me!" He snarled. "How dare you go through my memories!" Draco suddenly clasped his hand over his mouth in horror. "Did you see?" He choked out. "Tell me you two didn't see them."

"We didn't," Theo shook his head. "Only it does."

The fog drifted together, this time forming in front of Theo. It took the form of a hooded monk reaching out to him. Theo ignored their hushed curses when he gently laid his fingers on its hand.

Well chosen, my gift. When the foundation is complete, our work can begin.

Then, it filtered out into nothingness, but the barrier remained. Theo could still sense it, hovering beneath his breast bone, yet also in the room. He still didn't quite understand how it was tied to him, yet also the hag stone. He definitely didn't understand why it could speak to him, sometimes, and other times merely gestured.

Those were all mysteries he would soon get to solve, with his friends.

"The secret of House Nott is this," he said, unafraid of being overheard within the boundaries of the Library. "We have protected a vast magical library that was born when the first Keeper of the Library, Cleomenes, rescued twenty texts from Alexandria before it burned to ash."

Draco staggered into Blaise. Both of them looked like they were about to faint.

He looked at each of them in turn. "The Library has been attacked and destroyed thirteen times in its long history, but never like this. This time, the Library..."

He felt it swirl to shape behind him, its hand squeezing his shoulder.

"The Library sacrificed itself to save me," he said, unable to keep the pain from seeping into his voice. "Whatever - whoever - attacked us probably did not target my father. I think they were coming after it."

"To steal it?" Blaise whispered.

"It can't be stolen," Theo shook his head. "It was protected by ancient spellwork that hid it from everyone who wasn't explicitly allowed inside by the Keeper. The only thing anyone can do to the Library is attempt to destroy it."

"Why would the Dark Lord destroy it if your father was his ally?" Blaise said. "Wasn't he...using it to help Him?"

Theo spread his hands out. Despite the golden ward of the Library protecting them, the room was still shadowy and dark. "I don't think the story of what happened to our families is as simple as it seems." Draco's eyes darkened.

He stepped closer to them. "I trust you both completely. No more secrets. You have to know that there's a chance whoever burned my house to the ground, whether it was the Dark Lord or someone else, will likely come for me." He paused significantly, "You'll be in danger, too."

Blaise scoffed, "You think that scares me?"

Draco's face was grim. "Theo," he said with a dark edge to his voice, "you already know what I plan to do. I don't care how many heads have to fall, what happened to our fathers can't go unpunished."

Theo nodded, excitement warring with fear and dread in his blood. "The Notts were weak because we stood alone," he said. "But I don't blame my father for that. Times change. Cycles end. My mother was a powerful seer who looked into the future of the Library. She told me that for the first time in twenty-two generations, she saw...

Sunlight shining on the books. The library was vast and free, rooted in a wellspring of magic bubbling up from the earth. I saw you reading. I saw wixen who are strangers to me wandering its shelves. I saw you again, Theo, and this time I could see runes on your hands. They read: Creator.

You will create a future your father and I never imagined. I am not commanding you to do it, I am only confirming what you already know. It is what I saw in the future of our great work. Your great work. But Theo, I promise you, I am absolutely certain that you do not have to do it alone.

Notes:

Story notes:

- The words that Theo hears in his head say: "Cabhrú liom" (help me) "Mae gen i gyfrinach" (I have a secret) Se behǣs (I promise)". These are the words former Keepers of the Library wrote when describing the desperate moment before they told someone else the big secret. We'll get more into some Library Lore next chapter ;)

- VERNON. Man, writing that whole scene at Privet Drive felt soooooooo sweet. I just added a little bit of authorial imagination to Harry's abuse. I could see him as being very dismissive as anything physical, and being deeply ashamed of being locked away.

- Another reason most rich wixen don't have phones in their house to use the Wire is because they'd have to invite a representative from the local vampire clan to come and install it (imagining sexy undead vampire in a Spectrum jumpsuit). Now, in my head, I'm thinking magic exists to make such an invitation reversible, or temporary, but I also think some families would be way too paranoid to ever risk it.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Living Library