I Solemnly Swear


Summary: He's just gullible, dyslexic, Avatar loving Sam right? "If I told you, I'd have to obliviate you."
AN: I was just sitting thinking, "Hey, Sam's last name is Evans..." and the, "Holy shit, Lily's last name was Evans!" and then this story was born. It'll be written in shots throughout Sam's life.
Spoilers: All HP books and S2 of Glee.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Glee. Sad...


Cousin


In early December of 1994, Samuel Richard Dursley was brought into the world. He'd been an unexpected addition to the Dursley family, but not totally unwelcome. Vernon was happy to have another son, Petunia was awed by how beautiful her second baby was, and Dudley figured having a little brother to boss around wouldn't hurt.

No one bothered to clue in an oblivious fourteen year-old who hadn't even realized his aunt had been pregnant before he'd left with the Weasleys to see an International Quidditch match.


Halfway through June of 1995, Harry James Potter came back to Number Four Privet Drive traumatized, depressed and wondering on the car ride if he was going to be murdered during gardening this summer now that Voldemort was back. The thought of dying while with the Dursleys was something that only served to depress him further. He highly doubted that his death would be seen as anything more than another inconvenience that he had imposed on them. He was also sure they'd give no word to his friends or Dumbledore about his unfortunate demise.

If he'd been paying enough attention, he would've been picked up on the odder parts of Uncle Vernon's rant about how he was to be on his chore load had been doubled, he had to attend to his aunt's every need, and he was to be on his best behavior around his little cousin. Absolutely no freakishness!

It had all sounded like the usual Uncle Vernon rants. Ignorable as long all demands were met.

The minute he reached his room, he kinda wished he'd listened a little more. He'd walked in to see his belongings completely rearranged. Shoved up against the far right wall of his room. Just as he'd been about to go look for Aunt Petunia to ask what they'd done to his room and why, he noticed the crib set up on the other side of the room. The last time Harry had seen that crib, it had been packed away into the cupboard under the stairs. It had been Dudley's when he was a baby and temporarily Harry's when he'd first been put into the Dursley's care.

Seeing it again after so long had him on edge. Hesitantly, he approached to investigate the crib and was stunned to see a baby lying in the crib, staring back up at him with eyes that were a startlingly familiar shade of green.

He was pretty sure that given the circumstances, he was entitled to passing out.

His aunt had less than politely woken him up by dumping a glass of water onto his face. She'd apparently come to feed Sammy- that was the name of the baby in the crib- and found him on the floor. Though upset with him, she couldn't yell because she was afraid displaying negative emotions around the baby would be bad for him. She then went on to explain to him that he now had a second cousin and that he was going to be giving up half of his room to the baby because for some reason, his room was the only good place they could keep the baby. And he was also expected to take care of whatever baby Sammy whenever he needed it. Harry was able to smother the voice in the back of his head (that sounded deceptively like Hermione) that wanted to point out how unfair that was and begin the process of accepting this as another crappy uncontrollable thing his relatives were forcing on him. Compared to a lot of other stuff, this wasn't even that terrible.

Maybe.

That night, he stayed up sitting on his bed watching his infant cousin sleep, unable to get any himself.


In the beginning, Harry hadn't known what to think about Sammy. The immediate thought that came to mind was that having a baby in the house, and more specifically, in his room, was an inconvenience. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had always complained that having to care for and provide for Harry was costly. Wouldn't another child add to that financial strain? And the person who usually found himself saddled with Sammy duty was none other than Harry, who wasn't allowed out of the house to do anything but run errands because he had to be on call. He never thought there'd be something he hated more than having to sit through a potions class with Snape, but then he got to know what changing nappies was like. Having Sammy around also made it more difficult to get his schoolwork done. His aunt and uncle were more sensitive about magic now that they had an impressionable baby in such close quarters to him.

He learned to live with the baby peacefully. He wasn't the kind of person who would take out his resentment towards the Dursleys on a helpless baby. It had already been done to him and he wouldn't see it done to anyone else. Besides, Sammy turned out to be an easy baby to manage. The blond infant only ever cried when he really needed something and he didn't make the job any more difficult than necessary for the fumbling teen. For that, Harry was extremely thankful.

And to his astonishment, he started to like spending time taking care of Sammy. He always seemed happy to see Harry once he started differentiating him from Aunt Petunia. Sammy was ecstatic when he was played with, shrieking in delight when Harry did something that seemed stupid but for all the world was probably the funniest thing the baby had ever seen. Everything Harry did for the baby seemed necessary, important. Like Sammy depended on him for something other than being a celebrity or someone to dump all of their problems on.

Sammy depended on him because he was family.

Conversely, Harry grew to depend on Sammy too.

After Voldemort's resurrection and Cedic's death, Harry didn't know how to deal with things. Voldemort had been his boogieman suddenly come to life after years of lurking in the closet. He'd become real and he'd already killed a friend, a good man, in cold blood just because he was there and... and... a spare. He'd written to his friends, to his godfather, begged them to talk to him, give him some guidance. But all they sent were meaningless missives that did nothing to assuage the guilt, the fear, the loneliness, the misery, the isolation he felt.

But Sammy, even though he couldn't make conversation beyond a babbled string of sounds, listened to him talk. The baby would be silent and wide-awake in his arms as he sat on his bed letting Harry tell him about all of the bad and scary things. Harry was aware that Sammy was a baby and babies probably couldn't understand a single word being said to them, but sometimes it felt like Sammy did. When he'd finish speaking, his cousin would stare back at him and then, as if to tell him it was all all right, would place his tiny hand on his cheek and pat it. For a moment, they really would be all right, because he had his adorable cousin with him and he could forget about Voldemort and Cedric for a while as he blew raspberries into the child's stomach and enjoy the reactions he got from it.


His time with the Dursleys that summer had ended abruptly when the dementors attacked him and Dudley in that alley. He'd actually been a little sad to go. When he arrived at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, he'd been so mad at Hermione and Ron, he'd kept the news about his new cousin a secret. For some reason, even after forgiving them, he didn't tell them about Sammy. Sometimes he really wanted to mention it, but decided against it. He'd tell them some day, but for the meantime, they'd just focus on fifth year and OWLs.

Towards Christmas time, Harry was buying Christmas gifts for his friends. Ron and Hermione had of course been taken care of first. Then there were the twins, and Ginny, and surprisingly Neville too. He had wanted to get Cho something, but didn't really know what to buy for her. He knew Hermione and Ginny well enough to get something practical and kind of nice to look at for them. With Cho, the only things he knew (and bothered to remember) about her was that she was a Ravenclaw, she'd dated Cedric, and she cried a lot. None of those things really helped him out. Once he'd gotten his friends out of the way, there was family. Sirius, as his newly found godfather for going on two years now, was considered family. Loath as he was to part with pictures of his parents, he knew it would mean a lot to Sirius. He found a nice one of his mum and dad sitting together on a coach somewhere smiling at the camera and had it framed and sent without a letter.

It was safer, considering the toad's mail checks, that he didn't write anything incriminating. Besides, Sirius would know it was from him because of Hedwig.

Once he'd finished with Sirius, Harry had come down to his most troubling gift. He'd known the minute he'd seen it the person he wanted to give it to. The problem was whether to send it at all. The Dursley's had never bothered sending Harry any thing and he'd seen fit to send them nothing either. But this year, he did want to send something back. Something for Sammy.

He'd seen it while window-shopping for the other's gifts in Hogsmeade. It had been a simple but warm looking blanket that hadn't been enchanted to have its designs move. All that was on the green blanket was a doe. Inoffensive enough. But when he looked at it, it made him think of Sammy and his mother at the same time. He'd bought it before he'd even know what he'd been doing and hid it away from Ron before his best friend could see it.

Harry spent days agonizing over whether to send it or not. It would be a birthday and Christmas present for the soon to be one year-old. His aunt and uncle would dislike the fact that it came from the wizarding world. He scowled at the thought of them tossing it out the minute they received it. Just as he was about to give up and settle for not sending it, a crazy idea occurred to him. It seemed like a really bad plan, but he really wanted to at least try.

So at the next Hogsmeade visit, Harry broke off from his friends and stopped at the owl post office. The man at the desk had been surprised that he'd wanted something delivered muggle style, but shrugged at in nonetheless. Nervously, he inked in the recipient, one Dudley Dursley at Number Four, Privet Drive and tucked a note and some candy into the package as a bribe for his older cousin to please do as he asked.

He hoped Dudley wouldn't be too suspicious of the candy, considering his experiences at the hands of the Weasley twins.

And that he still wasn't upset about the dementor thing from this summer.

Surprisingly, weeks after Christmas, Harry received a delivery from the owl post office with a letter from Dudley. All Dudley said was thanks for the chocolate and that he'd done like he'd asked. It wasn't much of a letter, but considering it was Dudley, this had to have been an incredible breakthrough.


After the conclusion of fifth year and the loss of Sirius, things seemed bleaker than ever before. Everything moved faster. Classes, relationships, battles, news, deaths. In the midst of it all, there were few good things Harry could hold onto, his friends, Ginny, Sammy. All of it was tentative at best. Ron and Hermione were always fighting, he had to push Ginny away for her own good, and he worried everyday he'd receive news that the Dursleys had been attacked and had all been found dead.

He returned to Number Four after sixth year with the knowledge he never would again. The blood protection from his mother would wear off on his seventeenth birthday and he and the Dursleys would be left defenseless. The Dursleys were informed of this and were told for their own good they would need to leave and be put under protection indefinitely.

Harry didn't care how much of a fool he looked like to Hestia and Dedalus as he held Sammy one last time. Dudley had understood, and had made his mother let Harry have his goodbye.

"Bye Hawwi."

His hold on the two year-old tightened fractionally.

"Bye Sammy."

The minute he was done, Petunia scrambled to reclaim him. He watched them go, resigned. Watched as the taillights of Vernon's new car grow smaller in the distance before disappearing entirely around a corner. He wanted Sammy to stay close, to keep him safe himself. But Harry knew that the safest place for anyone was to be far, far away from anywhere he was.

But Harry had some hope. Maybe he would find the horcruxes. Maybe he would defeat Voldemort. And maybe someday, he'd find the Dursleys, and he'd see Sammy again, and see him grow up.

Maybe.

It would be really nice if he could.