Disclaimer Nothing is mine. Not the characters, not the plot, and not Hogwarts. No matter how I wish. Please don't sue.

Prologue

Harry meets Crow three days into his summer holidays, and he actually likes the bastard despite the fact that the arse won't tell him his real name. ("Why would I need a name to know who I am? I already know who I am.") The man that he's taken to calling Crow, for the tattoo peeking out over the collar of his t-shirt, is like no one that Harry's ever met before, with dark skin, dark eyes, and midnight-black hair reaching to his waist. His hair is actually the only reason that Harry even talks to him at first – well, his hair, and the knowledge that it would give his aunt and uncle a heart attack, because three days in to his holidays, he's already sick of Privet Drive and its identical houses and identical people. ("No one wants a freak like you around here. Just keep quiet and don't make any more trouble.")

The second time that he talks to the man, it's because Crow has a wicked sense of humour and a mocking glint in his eyes and Harry needs something to keep him from the black mood that's been threatening. The third time, he doesn't have an excuse at all.

Four days after he first meets Crow, when the man shows up at the part-time job that Harry's taken to keep himself occupied while he's still being not-allowed back in the house, with (not-drugged) candy in his jacket and a crossword book in his back pocket, Harry thinks that he might have found love.

Or maybe not.

It turns out that the reason that Harry has never met anybody like Crow is because he hasn't. The man is American, and Indian, whatever the hell that means, and he's the owner of a club that really would give his aunt and uncle matching heart attacks. It is, incidentally, also how Harry finds out Crow's real name and the story behind it. Truthfully, he likes "Crow" better.

None of which explains why the man is hanging around one small, skinny, sharp-tongued and mostly odd almost-sixteen year old, but when Harry asks, Crow just laughs and tells him to look around.

-"Hey, it's the Freak," Piers Polkiss smiles. "Let's play a game."-

Harry has to agree, and since he actually likes Crow, thinks he's funny and likes his jokes, and he hasn't actually done anything creepy, Harry lets it go.

-That night, Harry dreams of Sirius. Not of Sirius falling through the Veil, or Sirius caged up like a lost stray, but of Sirius like he should have been, laughing and causing everybody more trouble than he's worth.

Truthfully, it's the best sleep that he's had in a long time and the next day, he gives in to the urge that's been plaguing him ever since he met Crow.-

He never does completely figure out why he likes Crow –he's rude, mostly arrogant, and really too old for him to hang around with, but the stories have something to do with it. Crow knows the best stories, and none of them are anything like the ones Harry knows. Most of the time, they're stories about people, about who's sleeping with whom, or who's just lost their job, or an endless list of other things. These stories are sharp and cutting and funny as anything and Harry learns a lot from them, but sometimes, the stories are…something else, and these are the ones that Harry falls in love with. Stories about dancing goddesses and whirling stars and suns tricked out of caves with mirrors, but Harry's favourites are the ones from Crow's homeland, the ones with animals that speak and open skies that laugh and world's floating on the backs of turtles. These are the stories that harry can listen to forever, letting words paint pictures of tricksters with familiar smiles.

Harry learns a lot that summer, and when he stops to think about it, it occurs to him that maybe he should be worried about that. Among other things, spending lazy summer days with someone whose hair rivals (and far, far exceeds) Lucius Malfoy's can't possibly be good for his health.

Somehow, the worry never really sets in.

Still, he learns. Crow, when he's not teaching Harry how to make the perfect Long Island Iced Tea or how to toss back a shot, he's showing Harry things that he never could have imagined, like crow paths

"No, just look," he says quietly. "And try to forget the crap on the car."

He pauses.

"Although, that is pretty funny…"

Only days later, long after Uncle Vernon has taken the car in to be washed, Harry sees it. Sees the way that the birds fly the same patterns more often than not, and the way that those patterns sometimes looked like roads…

and how many colours there are in the world than the ones that man ever named. And at night, how many less colours and how many more ways to shine. In a way, it's a magic, a brighter and more dangerous kind than Harry's ever learned at Hogwarts, and he finds that he doesn't really care.

He learns a lot on his own, too. When he goes back to the Dursleys', and he still does sometimes, because Crow does actually have a job, and it sometimes keeps him away all night and asleep all day, he learns different things, like how angry music should never be played when you're actually angry, or how people who have no sense of humour hate to be laughed at more than anyone else. He learns that he likes music and movies and having the money to pay for the things that he actually wants. More than anything, he learns that while he despises idiocy, what he really hates is an utter dearth of imagination, of any idea that the world could be different.

Harry takes to staying away from the Dursleys as much ass he possibly can.

-It turns out that Uncle Vernon likes this idea so much that he gives Harry fifty pounds "to pay for a motel" for every night that Harry stays away.

Neither of them tells Aunt Petunia, and Crow laughs for a full ten minutes after hearing the story…before asking Harry if he wants to be a kept boy. The appropriate answer is probably not "Can you afford me?" but it's been a long day and Harry just wants to -feel wanted- let someone else deal with the world.

The longest that Harry stays away is three days in a row and when he returns, it occurs to him that maybe he shouldn't have ignored the owl tapping at his window however many days (nights) before

-he was comfortable and didn't want to move, and besides, you're not supposed to open owl mail in front of muggles anyways-

because there sits Albus Dumbledore, looking for all the world like he's…disappointed.

It's a good thing that Harry's stuff is already packed -has been since the second day of holidays- because they leave immediately to go to the Weasleys'. For the first time in his life, Harry is almost…sad to be leaving. He's been mostly content -happy- this summer, and he won't even have the chance to let his boss know that he won't be coming back the next day. Or to say goodbye to someone that he actually kind of liked.

When he gets to the Weasley's house, his stuff is already in Fred and George's old room, and as soon as Mrs. Weasley is gone, he's rooting through it, looking for something that he hid at the very bottom. Hedwig is more than happy to help, seems to think it's a challenge actually, and once she's gone, Harry lays in bed for a long time, thinking.

-When he dreams, he's lying in bed, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, just watching -and enjoying- the way that the late afternoon sun paints the room gold.

Crow is somewhere nearby, like he always is, and Harry can see him out of the corner of his eye, sitting on the edge of the bed, languorously braiding his hair and then shaking it loose, over and over again.

It's been a good day already, full of movies and music and laughter, and Harry thinks that maybe he should go - Crow has work soon, and Harry thinks that he should probably make his token appearance at the Dursleys' for the week, but he's comfortable here, wrapped up and secure like he's laying in his very own nest. Crow keeps looking at him like he wants to laugh, and Harry knows he must look a sight, buried underneath every blanket that they could find, but Harry ignores him. He's had a lot of practice doing that, and despite the sun now, it's cold out, and hasn't stopped raining all day.

"You know-"

Harry smiles, and settles in a little bit more, because that's how Crow starts all of his best stories, and he's ready, more than ready, really, to let slow words paint pictures in the dancing motes of gold in the air.

He's not disappointed, and it ends up being two stories wrapped up in one, although Harry doesn't realize it at first.

It starts out with Crow, and Harry's smart enough – has heard enough, now – to realize that this means Coyote, trickster with a trickster laugh. In this story, Crow is unhappy, although he doesn't start out that way. Actually, he starts out much the same way that he normally does, loud and laughing and causing trouble wherever he goes.

Eventually, Old Man gets fed up with Crow, and all the ruckus that he's stirring up down below, so he gathers all the animals to him, and they come up with a plan. Everybody knows that Crow loves shiny things, and everybody thinks that it would be a grand trick to put up something that Crow will love, but won't be able to steal. It would put the irritating bird in his place, and while he's trying, maybe it'll keep him from stealing everybody else's things.

Old Man knows that he has to put up something that Crow won't be able to resist, and he knows just the thing. In Mama Sky's garden, there's a gold flower, even brighter than the light shining off of his bald head, and although it takes some doing, he convinces her to let it go, and he puts it underneath Brother Tree's branches, where he knows Crow will see it, and then sets all the animals to guarding it.

It's a good trick and, foolproof, and no one expects Crow to be able to steal the flower. Only he does.

And then he hides it, because he knows that everyone was out to trick him, and he thinks that maybe he ought to teach them a lesson about trying to trick Trickster himself.

With Mama Sky's permission, because she's more powerful than the Old Man and far, far more frightening, and can see everything that goes on, he hides Sun Rose atop Brother Tree's head, where not even Sister Moon can reach, and makes a nest. Then he does what he does best, and starts to takes things. Takes Armadillo's skin and River's laughter, Lightning's gentleness and Thunder's whisper, among other things (and it's another story how snake still searches through all his skins, looking for the feathers that he lost), and uses them to line the nest. And then, to guard it, he leaves his heart, setting it like the sides of a shell, so that no one will be able to touch dawn Rose and steal her back.

And then he leaves, to lead all the animals and Old Man on a merry little chase. It's not until he gets back that he realizes just why Mama Sky let him take Sun Rose and keep her, because the egg has hatched, and his heart is gone.

So Crow is unhappy, and he spends a long time looking for his heart, that he left at the top of Brother Tree. Much time, and many many stories go by and Crow still looks. Only now, it's harder, because once, there was only the animals, and the Old Ones, but now the world is hatched, and with it, small children with skin and legs and voices that sound just like his laughing one. He's actually rather proud of them, and their songs that change to suit the earth that they live on, and especially proud of the ones that remember his skin-changing ways, living to cause trouble, but none of them are quite right, and it eats him up inside.

Eventually, he sees his heart, but it's not his heart anymore, because Sun Rose, most beautiful of all, has taken it and made it her own. She's reborn too, with skin softer than Armadillo's ever was laughter that sounds like River's did once, and eyes that make him think things he's never thought about before. He knows there are other secrets there, too – there always are – but he loses his ability to think about any of that, because on top of all of that, there's hair black as his blackest feathers, and softer than Snake's pin feathers that he stole. He gets lost staring at that hair, and thinks that he can probably see the stars in that hair, if only he stares hard enough.

He stares so long and so hard that eventually his heart wanders away again, but not before he names it – Tlalli, for the earth that his greatest love blesses with its footsteps.

…

Harry doesn't hear what happens after that because he's warm and comfortable and wrapped up so tight that he's never felt safer, and Crow's voice is slow and hypnotic and lulling and Harry finds it easy to fall asleep to the sound of laughter in a much-loved voice.

When he wakes up again, it's already dark out and Crow is long gone, but there's a coyote fang on a leather thong lying on the pillow beside his head. Harry isn't stupid – he understands unspoken messages just fine – and he grins all the way home.