Secrets have lasting consequences. Archie after the exile of Harry Potter – a fanfic based on murkybluematter's Pureblood Pretense series.
Is this cheesy ? Oh, yes.
Is this melodramatic ? Absolutely.
Is this writing severely lacking compared to Murkybluematter's writing ? A million times yes.
Hope you will enjoy it, though.
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Getting Harry back is the narrowing of one world, and the widening of another.
Archie is standing on the windswept station of King Cross, hands stuffed into the purple sik of his birthday robes. The animated hummingbirds dance over the fabric, the embroidered lines glittering golden in the shallow morning sun. He is seventeen today, and still as out of place as ever.
"Seventeen," Dad had crowed, when Archie finally emerged out of his room. The sun was already high and blazing by then. "No Trace! Time for magic and Firewhiskey!"
"It's only two o'clock," Lily said, running a hand through her long, red locks. Her fingers snagged on a loose knot. Her smile was tight. "Happy Birthday, sweetheart."
"Are you ready for the maelstrom that is adulthood?" Dad laughed and clapped him on the back.
He is a planet without a sun. Or a brother without his sister, Archie supposes. At home, Harry is like a tumor, never to mentioned. She creeps between every crack, fills the valleys of silence in every conversation. Even Addy, older now, and no longer the sweet, unknowing toddler she used to be, is starting to ask questions. When she dragged one of Harry's old cauldrons from the basement into the living room, Archie swore James almost had a heart attack.
Not mentioning her is tough, when they have had so many passages together; learning how to ride a broom, tumbling face first into the grass, coloring all of Aunt Lily's plates neon green. He remembers her laugh, the crease of her nose as she smiled, how every one of their motions was synchronized.
But memories are quite fickle, and the image of her face is quite hazy. When he tries to picture her in his mind, a Harry from a picture comes to mind, before eleven, when her hair was longer and her face full of baby chub. Or worse, Rigel's Black face, eyes a flimsy grey, lips too full to belong a boy.
Archie spends most of his time at his clinics, where he is slowly gaining a reputation for something other than the ruse. Even the older Healers come to him with questions now. Or he spends his time at Hermione's place, a quiet apartment in Muggle London. He likes to play with her Kneazle, or bury his head into her shoulder. She has gotten used to his escape tendencies by now.
When Harry's banishment lifted, and Grimmauld Place became horded by his family members, tension packed in every twitch and tilt, Archie fled towards the Floo and went to her.
"Are they still angry?" Hermione asked. Her hair, bushy and frizzy, cascaded down her spine in a long braid. She was wearing her Healer robes, and the room smelled of disinfectant.
"I can't say I approved of your methods, and particularly the lying -," she began, and gave Archie a dirty glare over her shoulder, while she poured tea, "but I believe none of us can deny it did have an impact. I mean, more people are fighting for rights for Halfbloods and Muggleborns! There's even talk of new legislation for creature employment!"
"I don't think they're angry, per se," Archie said, and heaved one shoulder. "Dad has forgiven me, I think, though he's still hurt. Forgiving is not forgetting, and we're no longer who they thought us to be."
"Will they let her into their home?" There was concern in Hermione's voice now, and Archie felt himself swell with love for this wonderful woman. Hermione, with chapped lips, frizzy strands of hair tossed into her eyes, and who cared so deeply.
"Yes," Archie said. "Of course," he added hastily, when Hermione's brows drew together. "But Harry isn't the same either. She's not the critical, easily-smiling girl they knew, and she's not Rigel Black, calculating and academic Hogwarts student. And who knows who she has become in these years..."
He has so many letters from her. About her at the American Ministry of Magic, after having been invited by the Minister herself. About her in China, bottling new shape-imbued potions. He has a sample on his bedside, labeled "Potter's Pain Potion".
He has so many articles, ripped out of their papers, with a Authors: Acturus Rigel Black, Harriet Potter at the end. So many questions at work – so many wide, awed eyes, when patients catch his name card. So many people asking for him. So many people asking for her.
When Hannah Abbot and her aunt stepped into his office, she stared at him for two whole minutes without saying anything. When they had covered the treatment for her relative – a minor case of Radgen's Disease – the yellow-haired girl had shot a look up at his face, and asked, "how is Rige- Harriet?"
He hadn't known what to say. He had no idea who this woman was, beyond the small details from Harry's story. And for the first time, Archie understood why so many people wanted to know him, and her. Their ruse reached further than their handful of friends, and their family. And Harry, or Rigel, had always been alluring – a tidal wave that drew the current in.
Archie hears the shutter before he spots the photographer. His only reaction is a light twitch, and he keeps his face carefully blank. By tomorrow, a picture of him will be in the Daily Prophet, and the entire Wizarding World will have heard of Harry's return. But that's inevitable, so he doesn't turn, doesn't twitch. This is normality now.
Dad steps up to him, places a hand on his shoulder. "It is almost time," he says in Archie's ear. His voice is low, and emotionless. Archie peers over his shoulder at him, and takes in the worried grey eyes. By his side, James, who looks like he is trying to either generate emotions or suppress them, Lily, clutching Addy firmly in her arms. Uncle Remus is standing next to Dad, face set in an unreadable expression that has no shape or name.
Then the train comes sliding in, in a blurry flash of motion. Steam billows above the steel. The dark dirty windows glitter as they reflect the sunrays. He watches with a strange detachment as throngs of bodies come spilling out the doors.
Every dark head of hair is Harry. Every gleaming of glasses in the shallow sunlight is his cousin. But none of them resemble her. He scans the crowd, ignores James hiss "maybe she decided not to come", but the bodies move along, crawling like ants over the platform.
He doesn't see her first. He senses her. Feels her. A wave of power washes over him, and steals his breath away. He is being submerged in water; it pulls at him from all sides, and it rises rhythmically with his every breath. Archie hears the click of the shutter, and only then turns to look.
Harry's face is both familiar and alien. It is older, with high cheekbones and light freckles dusting her nose. She still has round glasses, but the eyes behind them are greener than the murky, flat lenses. So green they seem to glow.
There are people turning around to look at her. Maundering voices, pointing hands. Archie ignores it, as he tears himself loose from his father's grip, and halts in front of her. Her eyes, sharp and terribly green, meet his own.
"Welcome back," Archie says, and then he buries his head into her shoulder, and while Harry's hands creep up his back to embrace him, Archie finally, after years of absence, thinks: I'm home.
I'm home.