After reading GeminiCancer's wonderful, but as yet unfinished Tin Man/Harry Potter crossover (the only one ever - And Now For Something Completely Different) I couldn't resist trying my hand at it, despite the many, many WIPs that I have at the moment. However, because of various… uh… abused projects, instead of a multi-chap fic, this is an epic-size one shot. For all you magic-believers out there! ("I do believe in faeries, I do, I do!") The only warnings I can offer, other than the length of this fic, are a little bit of smut, a little bit of fluff, a little bit of angst (because, hel-lo there's an evil witch possessing DG's sister), a little bit of magic and a whole load of adventure. (PS, there's slash and het. Deal with it.)
And so, finally, I present you with my story;
-oOo-
Down the Yellow Brick Road
-oOo-
Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart.
Weep little lion man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start.
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing problems that you made in your own head.
Tremble for yourself, my man,
You know that you have seen this all before.
Tremble little lion man,
You'll never settle any of your scores.
Your grace is wasted in your face,
Your boldness stands alone among the wreck.
Now learn from your mother or else spend your days biting your own neck.
- Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons.
-oOo-
"You never do anything anymore, Harry!"
"You're fading away into mediocrity, Potter."
"You don't even care, do you? Did you ever love me at all?"
"You're losing her, mate. You're losing all of us."
"I can't do this anymore, Harry. I'm sorry, but… goodbye."
Voices of friends, of colleagues, echoing through his somehow empty mind. But Harry didn't care anymore. He had told them that he needed time after the war, and they hadn't listened. They'd forced him to do and to be and to rise above the others, the saviour having finally triumphed. And so all the old scars, that he had put away in the midst of battle, but could not ignore forever, had slowly reappeared. He had withdrawn from the all, bit by bit, resenting all of them for forcing him to be someone, something that he was not.
All Harry had ever wanted was someone to love, a couple of children, a dog, perhaps, and a honeysuckle smothered cottage with a white picket fence and a red door. He wanted the worries of a family man looking after his brood. To be a gardener or a cook, maybe. He was good at cooking, and could have grown all his own vegetables and spices. He wanted a place, in some remote village, where he knew all of his neighbours and sat with them in church every Sunday morning. Harry had never been religious, but the idea of having so familiar, so reliable, as an ever-watchful God - even just the structural help of having something planned to do once a week every week… but it was not to be.
Not with Ginny, anyway.
She had suffered him long enough to birth their first child - a premature, sickly looking little boy whom Harry named Albus Severus - before she had left him for good. Which was how Harry found himself, at the tender age of twenty, lost to the world and a baby boy to support.
Sick and tired of the same, old pitying faces, he left England and travelled all the places that he'd dreamed of, curled up in his cupboard under the stairs and counting spiders. He travelled across Europe and Russia, glorying in being able to show off the world to his son, who - whilst still too young to truly appreciate the sights - loved his father and laughed and wondered at the sights, just as Harry did. They went to New Zealand and Australia, staying there for a while and slowly touring the country.
But, as soon as Al could walk, they were off again. Indonesia, China, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, across to Africa, trailing the coasts and glorying in all that they saw there. Then, back up, through Egypt and Libya and across the Atlantic, to Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela. They crossed Mexico, and up along one coast of the US, and through the middle, pausing when they reached Kansas.
Al was five by this time, and learning everything and anything he could, as soon as he got his hands on it. After despairing of carrying all of the many, many books Al wanted to read and Harry found hard to deny him, he resolved instead that once he found somewhere nice - somewhere not-British, where he could remain anonymous - he would buy a house. Just a small one, with room enough for him and Al. And then they'd become friends with their neighbours and buy a dog. Harry would grow a garden and open a small restaurant and Al would go to school and learn all the things he wanted to know. And Harry would buy the hundreds of books Al wanted and build shelves all over the house to keep them in. He hoped they could have a chimney, so that Al and he might curl up next to it and read together, marvelling at what the world - a Muggle, magic-free world - could create.
But as they arrived in Kansas, Harry's hackles were immediately raised. The air here was thick with a foreign type of magic that he hadn't felt before. It was old, so very old, like the magic the Egyptians used daily, but on a much more major scale. The Egyptians could only tap into the remains of a strong magical footprint, using it only for everyday jobs like boiling water, helping the growth of plants and stopping their skin from burning under the sun. The magic here was… huge.
It tingled across his skin, so much so that even Al, who wasn't anywhere near being able to use his magic yet, could feel the prickle of it. And yet, there seemed to be no magical community whatsoever. Harry had come to recognise those with magic, compared to those without and the amount of magic most people in Kansas had was surprisingly very low. Only when he and Al stopped off in a diner, somewhere between Phillipsburg and Kirwin did they finally bump into someone with any considerable magical potential.
And what a potential she had! - She must have been in her early twenties and, from the feel of it, she hadn't ever used her magic; it seemed to be bound down. She probably didn't even realise she had magic, but it rolled off her in waves, like dry ice being exposed to the air. She had bright, bright blue eyes, that were made all the brighter by all the build up of energy inside her. Harry hoped that whoever bound her magic released it soon, because if they didn't he had the horrible feeling that she would burn herself out.
"Hey, lady," Al piped up, grabbing the young waitress' attention. "You're real pretty," he drawled with a bright grin. Al had the strange habit of picking up whatever accent was the most common in the place they were in. He also had developed an uncanny knack of picking up new languages, with a speed that Harry had trouble keeping up with.
"Thanks," she replied. "Can I get you two anything more?"
"Can I have a slice of apple pie, Daddy?" Al said, bouncing in his seat and staring up at his father with emerald eyes. "Please oh please oh please?"
"Hey, kid, you know you can't pull puppy eyes on me," Harry shot back, ruffling his hair. "You got those eyes from me, Al."
"'Daddy'?" the waitress stuttered, stepping backwards a moment, before regaining her equilibrium. "Aren't you a little… young?"
Harry grinned ruefully, "Engaged to my school sweetheart. It lasted long enough for her to hand over this fella before she hightailed it outta there."
"Ouch."
"Apple pie?" Al asked again, pouting now and clutching Harry's arm.
"Aw, go on, then. A mug of coffee and a slice of apple pie," Harry asked, hugging Al to him briefly and dropping a kiss on his son's forehead. "I spoil you, kid."
"Love you, Dad!" Al paused to say, before following the powerful waitress to the counter, ploughing her with questions about her life, her job and the country they were in.
Harry shook his head in fond exasperation, settling back to watch his hyper-active son make friends with all of the staff and a couple of the other kids also seated at the counter. It still amazed him that the sickly, too small new born babe he'd held in his arms had grown into such a proactive, excitable little boy. Al was still a little on the small side for his age, and had developed asthma early on, but he acted just as any other child his age did - or, at least, almost like any other child. He was comfortable around complete strangers, but when it was with people he knew a little better, or people he knew he'd come to know better, he was unbearably shy. Harry blamed that on their jet setting lifestyle.
DG - the name the waitress gave as she talked to Al and the other kids - soon came over to Harry to say, "I'm off work in a couple of hours, if you're still around. I think Al would probably like to see an actual farm, if you can put up with meeting my parents."
"Al and I go where the wind takes us. I was thinking of sticking around for a little while anyway, so I don't see why we can't visit you, if you don't mind. Al's got an insatiable curiosity and I'm sure he'd be thrilled."
"If you don't mind me asking," DG said, "You're not from around here, are you?"
Harry grinned and looked across at his son, who caught his eyes. Al raced across the room and planted himself firmly in his father's lap. "Al's not ever really known it, but we're from bonny ol' England originally."
"Why the move?" DG asked.
"We travel everywhere!" Al said, bouncing on Harry's knee excitedly. "We went to India, with elephants, and Eygpt with some really cool mummies. Not like my Mummy, who ran away, but real mummies with bandages and who used to be kings and everything! And Daddy has a photo album full and full and full of pictures of both of us, all across everywhere in the world."
"England holds some bad memories for me," Harry added quietly. "And not just Al's Mum. My childhood wasn't exactly a happy one. These past five years have been the best of my life."
"I'd love to go travelling," DG replied dreamily, staring out of the window, staring out at the horizon, until an exasperated shout from the kitchen recalled her attention and she left them to it.
Harry turned Al so that he was sat sideways on his lap, so he could look his son in the eyes. "So, kiddo, what do you think? Should we go meet DG's parents? See a real life authentic Kansas farm?"
"Yeah!" Al cried out, bouncing again.
"Alright, then. We better find a motel for a couple of nights. You need a pee?"
"Nope," Al replied, after concentrating seriously for a moment.
Harry grinned at his son and ruffled his hair. "If you're sure. You stay right here, I'll be back in a sec."
-oOo-
They never did get a chance to meet DG's parents. By the time she was off her shift, the wind had picked up significantly, and Harry had decided it would be safer to stay at the motel that afternoon, and visit her the following day. Al was disappointed by this, but was soon distracted by the weather.
It was a magic storm, Harry could tell. The prickling feeling had increased to feel like a static shock, rolling up and down his spine. It was strange, though. The magic was obviously being controlled by someone, and that someone was present, they just weren't… there. It was as though they were both in Kansas and not, right at the same time. But what worried Harry was the darkness that now tinged the magic. Before, it had simply been magic; neither 'light' nor 'dark', but whoever was controlling it was steeped in the dark arts and their taint was spreading like oil into the neutral magic.
When he finally realised what it was, Harry quickly shook Al awake and told him to dress as quickly as possible.
"Hey, Al, do you fancy an adventure?" he asked his son excitedly, green eyes lit with a glimmer of the old fire that lasted him through the war against Voldemort.
"Yeah!" his son replied, awake within moments, and scrambling to find his clothes.
Swinging Al up onto his hip, though the boy was too large to be carried like that anymore really, Harry raced out into the storm.
"I thought you said to stay in doors when there's a tornado?" Al yelled above the winds.
Harry smiled brilliantly at his son, clutching him tight. "That's right, but don't you feel it, kiddo? The magic! This isn't a normal tornado, it's one of the transporting ones of legend!"
"You sure?" Al said doubtfully, though his eyes, too, matched his fathers exactly.
"Yeah!" Harry replied in an imitation of Al. "Ready?"
"Yeah!" Al echoed.
"Let's go!" And with that Harry and Al were running through the storm, getting closer and closer to the body of the storm, until…
Harry's magic wrapped around them and protected them from crashing like rag dolls to the Earth. Soaking wet and planted in the middle of a field, they stood there, laughing and laughing at each other, green eyes bright with excitement.
"Look, Al, two suns!" Harry cried, crouching down beside his son and pointing up towards the sky.
"Where are we?" Al asked, voice filled with awe.
Harry laughed and stood, grabbing his hand and swinging it. "I've no idea, Al. None at all. But that's part of the adventure, isn't it?" he flicked his wand and the rain water evaporated off them, leaving them both warm and dry. "Which way should we go?" he asked his son, hoisting him up so the five year old had a better view of where they were.
"Wait, wait!" Al cried out, wriggling from his father's grasp and landing with a thud back on the ground. Then he placed a hand over his eyes, and pointed the other hand out straight ahead of him. Then Al span around and around, before he started running in a wobbly line following his pointed finger.
Harry let out a laugh again, not feeling this elated in years, and took off after Al, sweeping the boy off his feet, swinging them around before setting him down, grabbing his hand and running together towards the tree line they had been headed for.
When they stepped past the first tree, Harry pulled Al to a stop. He could feel the tinge of magic everywhere in this world, but it was stronger in this forest, and he suspected that there might be rudimentary wards set up. Harry crouched down beside his son and placed a hand on both of Al's shoulders, looking at him seriously, so he would understand the seriousness of what he was about to say.
"Al, I know this very exciting, and that we're off on a real adventure, and we don't know when we are, let alone where, but I want you to promise me that you'll stay close by. I don't know how friendly the people here are so, until I do, I want you to be careful, OK?"
Al smiled disarmingly, and moved forward to hug Harry, as though he were the parent, reassuring the worries of a child. "Of course, Daddy. You be careful too. I won't have anyone if you weren't here."
"Nor me without you," Harry replied, before standing and hugging Al to his side briefly. Then he took up his hand and they carried on walking, more slowly this time. Suddenly they heard a cry, and indignant shouting. Harry looked down and caught Al's eye. They both grinned like fools and raced towards the disruption, stopping short of being seen. Harry was surprised - but then scolded himself for being so - when he saw that the one making all the fuss was DG. She was surrounded by small blue people.
Written: 12th January 2010
Chances of continuation: possible
Feel free to use this piece of writing for whatever the hell you want, so long as you credit me (either this account or my main one - Calistabelle) and let me know what you do with it.
Much love,
Cal