Nunquam Somnus: Never Sleep
Words: 8,837
Disclaimer: Own not, profit not. If you recognize it, darn good chance it isn't mine. Not for the closed minded. And it's only as canon as I want it to be. So nyah. Spoilers from all seven books, plus made up stuff where I don't like what they have. A bit of a "Super Harry" fic, in that he is competent. And yes, I am very much female.
Warnings: Spoilers from all books. DH and HBP ignored sometimes (such as in the cases of the Happily Ever After, Harry not taking the Elder Wand, he actually learned how to do wards and stuff from Hermione (as in not dumb enough to think that there was no chance she could die/get hurt while he was still alive), he's competent, etc). Dumbledore and Prewett/Weasley bashing. Mixed up genders. Mentions of child abuse and sexual abuse. Extra characters, mainly minor. Some characters have different names. May be more warnings in later chapters. Impolite language. Same sex pairings. Sort-of drug abuse.
Pre A/n: Lots of summation of facts in this one and the history behind Evan's names being discussed. Just had to get this stuff out there (like Evan's history and what not). I've always been of the school that though Sirius is brash and impertinent, he's not dumb. Just terribly Gryffindor. Thought I'd toss this in before starting. Oh, and I'm introducing parseltongue to the story now.
"Ƨ parseltongue Ƨ"
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Chapter 4: Truth is a Weed
"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair." C. S. Lewis
Charlotte blew out a puff of breath as she patted Buckbeak. It was chilly that morning, but she didn't mind at all. The cold air made it easier to think, kept her head clear. Tomorrow she was leaving the Stag's Sanctuary until the Christmas Holiday, and even that was iffy because of the Yule Ball that Evan had claimed would be on the day itself. It had been a dream, the past month. She had her godfather and honorary godfather with her, always ready to entertain (even though Remus claimed he was not moving in, he had only stayed at his own house about five nights all month and had been entrusted as the house/dog sitter for the coming months). She had a cousin who wasn't an evil git. For the first time in Charlotte's memory, she had a family.
Even with the moments during the World Cup when she had worried about Evan's wellbeing (he was only eighteen, not old enough to go off dueling Dark wizards, surely!) and the revelation of a prophecy hanging over her head (that it should come down to her and Voldemort in the end was horrifying, but she would try to be ready) the summer since her birthday really had been as a dream. Sirius was safe, Remus had a steady supply of Wolfsbane, Evan seemed happy enough, and she was free of the Dursleys.
Buckbeak lay suddenly on the ground as the sun peaked over the trees and one of the two horses (a palomino mare) trotted past in the sudden light. A calm sigh followed Charlotte as she too sat, though she shifted quickly as something cold and smooth touched her ankle. A glass phial, a small cheap one at that, was soon in her hand, the final drops in the bottom, blue, telling her what she needed to know. Evan's calming draughts.
There was a distinct pattern to his drinking of them, she had noticed this after he had let her see him take an extra during the trial. It was a weird pattern at that. She noticed that he took one after breakfast if there was bacon, a small sip at the sight of her and Remus playing chess, a larger sip at seeing Remus and Sirius together (perhaps he was a homophobe?), and he almost always took one the first time he was seen during the day. She had Remus and Sirius on the look out for the small phials of blue liquid since she had realized what was going on, and found out he usually had at least eight in a day, to her knowledge, the current record being on the day of Dumbledore's interrogation (having taken four throughout out the day before they came, munching on more of the potion-laced biscuits than Sirius had had – which had been an overdose for the man - and having several after the meeting).
And those were only the times he was caught. Both of the older men living in the Sanctuary and Charlotte woke every morning after Evan (with the man in question having been up long enough to prepare breakfast and look quite awake) and went to bed before him. The night before, Charlotte had gone downstairs for a glass of water somewhen around two am and found her cousin was still awake, a tune being hummed from behind the door to the mysterious office that no one outside of Evan himself had been in (and she had been awake since then, fearing having another nightmare of Voldemort in the muggle mansion like the one which had woken her to begin with). Not only that, but Evan was in that office quite often, for hours at a time on occasion. Every so often Charlotte would hear voices from behind the door – a kind sounding man with a constant laugh on his tongue and a woman with a chuckle like glass being those heard most often, though once Remus swore he heard himself from through the thick pine door – but hadn't asked after them. While she hadn't been eavesdropping per se, she never knew what Evan would do about anything.
After another half an hour of wistfully stroking Buckbeak and thinking about the many mysteries of her life, Charlotte left the "great brute," as she recalled Malfoy calling him, for the indoors. It was half five by then, and a semi-reasonable hour to be awake. Maybe she could return the favor of breakfast to her cousin, as his late night no doubt meant he would sleep in. Five minutes later she entered the back way that led to the back fields from the kitchen, immediately surprised to see Evan was already up (or perhaps he hadn't slept at all) and cooking bacon.
Never had she actually seen him cooking (well, excepting when he decided to "experiment" with beef and lemon a week into her stay, which had actually been awful and the reason that Remus was broken of his "pizza-virginity" as Sirius had put it, and the simple dishes while camping for the Cup), and was surprised with what she saw. Blank. Even when Evan was completely calm, he never looked so emotionless. Half-lidded green eyes slid from pan to pot, hands gliding effortlessly around the counters to chop onions, cleaning his mess as he went. It was compulsory, the exactness that ran his movements in the kitchen as he did everything in a way that belied years of experience in the kitchen. That, however, wasn't what struck Charlotte. It was that when the door at shut behind her, Evan had barely acknowledged she was there, and then not even that it was her.
"It'll be ready in a minute Aunt Petunia," Evan's voice sounded almost fearful... but was that right? He hadn't shown fear of anything before... but, no. Evan was human, and all humans feared. That was what set them apart from Voldemort, surely. The man had forgotten what a healthy dose of fear could do for a person and that had led to everything. At least, that was what Charlotte thought. And there Evan was, gliding around the kitchen as if he were... well, like her. The line was much the same as what Charlotte would say when her own Aunt hung over her shoulder as she made breakfast, just replace Petunia with Patricia and it was the same.
"Evan?" She murmured carefully. It was a mistake as the knife (when had Evan picked up that knife? He was over by the eggs!) slipped from a slack hand and fell point down, stabbing through Evan's slipper (a giant grisly bear foot). Naturally, Charlotte shrieked, thinking that she had made him stab his foot, though there was, luckily, a lack of blood. With the increasingly odd teen out of his stupor, the knife was pulled from the ground (and the front bit of the slipper that was a couple of sizes too large) and being cleaned in the sink. "I'm so sorry Evan! I didn't mean to startle you!" It was a scare, yes, but luckily no one was hurt.
"It's okay Cheri," Evan waved the concern off, just like he did most worry or positive mention. "It isn't your fault; I was spacing out I guess." Already the tear in his furry slipper had been repaired with an idle wave of his wand, the knife back in his left hand, suddenly dry, and his wand poking at the eggs a moment before it was all put on the plate he pulled out from Merlin only knew where (no one was quite sure as to the organizational system of the kitchen other than the house elves and Evan himself). "Do you want pancakes this morning? I'm sure I've nothing on the Hogwarts elves, but they don't make blueberry, do they?"
It was all so normal that Charlotte almost screamed. She had come in, startled him, almost gotten him to chop off his toes, and he was acting completely normal about it! Still, she replied with a simple, "Blueberry pancakes sound lovely," and stood awkwardly in a corner of the room. Why should he already be up? And the small phial on the counter – better quality than the one from the field as he had the better phials for where he was unlikely to lose them, not wanting to have to buy out an apothecary of them – was still slicked blue on the inside. It wasn't natural to have them so early in the day, was it? Still, she stood by, not wanting him out of her sight. It was only half past five in the morning! Did he get breakfast ready so early every morning? If so, that meant he was awake at least three hours before anyone else frequently. She could only imagine how he would adjust to Hogwarts, as she was pretty sure that the Hogwarts elves would be less inclined to let him help make breakfast than the elves of the Sanctuary, but it was probably a good thing. If he was mistaking his cousin for a dead aunt, it was cause for worry.
When Evan rushed her to the breakfast table to eat, Charlotte started cataloguing what little she knew of him. His full name was Evan Romulus Grimm Pronghorn. Evan because his father was religious and believed that, as their first child, he was a gift of God. Romulus because Lily Evans-Pronghorn had been a History buff. Grimm was explained as needing something to fill in his name with and deciding that the brothers Grimm were as good a namesake as any. James Pronghorn was an American wizard from a family that had been in the States for hundreds of years, the last magical heir of the family with one squib sister. Lily Pronghorn moved to the States to work for the United States Ministry and met her husband there. Evan had had a set of twins for younger siblings named Rose and Eric. All of them had been killed in one of Voldemort's American campaigns not long before Charlotte's own parents were and Evan was sent to live with his aunt because the Americans hadn't known Evan had magical family in Britain.
She knew that when he should have gone to a magical school, his aunt refused to pay and never told him about the money he had in Gringotts. A local wizard had taken up training him, bringing in friends to help in certain subjects that he was less adept with. Apparently Evan liked the man about as much as he did Dumbledore but had still gone without schooling for a year "for mourning." This apparently included a lot of camping, but remaining under the thumb of his only known blood relatives. He had, in that year, opened his family vault and read some of his mum's old diaries, the last opening a week after his arrival in Britain, when he was finishing the setting up of the Sanctuary. This revealed he had family living and contained the correspondence between his mother and her father.
Evan was a Seer who managed to convince Dumbledore with a few carefully chosen words to not only allow him to petition the Divination instructor, Professor Trelawney, for an apprenticeship after he graduated, but also got the old man to reveal the prophecy to her. He had uncanny knowledge of everyone and everything around him, except some little obscure wizarding things, and had obviously had a childhood similar to her own with a bullying older cousin (named Piers, which Charlotte thought had to be a worse name even than Dudley) and a lot of housework with little food, if his swearing by the nutrition potions was anything to go by.
Other than that, Charlotte knew only his little quirks. He was nearly obsessed with playing with his Gameboy at times, got lost in cooking and cleaning, a very good potions brewer, childish about small things but terribly adult about most others, and he obviously had no clue to deal with girls. His clueless-ness about Rhianna's shamelessly flirting with him was evidence enough, even without his stammered moment when he presented Charlotte with the potion to help with her monthlies (if he'd been an redder she could have sworn he would be a black-haired Prewett).
All in all, Charlotte had been living with a strange guy from America for a month and knew nothing about him. She sighed into her pancakes but ate them regardless, not even bothering to wonder at the knowledge of Hogwarts' lack of blueberry pancakes. To be quite honest, she trusted so hard, that it took ages for her to trust Rhianna and Hayden to any extent to begin with (saving Hayden from a troll may have cemented his trust, but not her own), and yet upon meeting him Evan had exuded this sort of aura that made her trust him. She'd only had that from a few people in her life. The Prewett Twins, Remus, Professor Snape (though why was beyond her), Neville Longbottom (however, they almost never talked because of the corresponding shy natures), and Dana Thomas being most of those few. None of these were people she talked to often, and one hated her very obviously, but it was the truth. Charlotte was never quick to trust and tried to fight those moments where she met someone she could. To not be in control of her own opinion of people was a scary thing.
"Do you like it? I can whip up another batch if you want," Evan inquired as he sat down with one of the omelets that he had been finishing while making said pancakes. Charlotte shook her head quickly, keeping her eyes glued to the introspective teen. Why was he making breakfast hours before anyone in their right mind would be up? "Alright. Don't forget to take your potion, Cheri. You'll still need it for months yet." Rolling of eyes and downing of the disgusting potion were the only reply. Sure, it had helped (she no longer looked anorexic and had gained a half an inch in the past month after all), but did it have to taste so vile? Like the Wolfsbane potion (as Remus had explained it), sugar made the potion useless.
The two had breakfast quietly for the next ten minutes before Charlotte stood, yawning a bit. "I think I'll take a nap before Sirius and Remus wake up," She informed the curious cousin before her. "I can probably get a couple hours in at least."
"Before they get up? That seems to be stretching..." he trailed off, suddenly pulling a handsome pocket watch that Charlotte vaguely recognized as the sort that Percy Prewett had been showing off all the year previous. An intricate cursive "FP" was engraved on the back. "Oh. It's really this early? I was sure more time had passed." The watch went away and Evan smiled. "Have a good nap then."
While Charlotte never actually took a nap, she did reappear after Sirius and Remus came down to have another pancake (she realized there were chocolate-chip pancakes and sausage now added to the breakfast feast and wondered how much cooking Evan usually did in the morning). Evan had dismissed himself to go take care of some paperwork in his office and Remus quickly set down his knife and fork to the surprise of those actually eating.
"Today is our last chance to sit him down," Remus sighed. The man was kneading his temples with tense knuckles, obviously deep in thought. The trio had talked about it often enough, wanting to just make Evan sit down and get him to answer questions. His reasoning was always along the lines of it being the right thing to do, and he was generally evasive when answering personal questions. It was ridiculous. Sirius and Remus wanted to know enough about their host to be sure that staying at his house was completely safe (the many safety measures and the fact that everyone who knew to find the house was trustworthy or else squibs who only would go tend the animals a few times a day seemed to indicate it, but one could never be sure) and that he wasn't some psychopath who was going to kill Charlotte. Seeing as how Evan would have had plenty of opportunities for the latter, she doubted its merit.
"Then let's just get him out of that office and into the parlor or something!" Sirius snapped after less than five seconds of silence. The plan was so simple, too simple. They would have to actually get up the guts to knock on the high doors and hope that Evan actually would answer. If he did, it was more than likely he would apparate out since he refused to let anyone even see a bit of the interior of the office aside from the hazy red images from the stain glass window. That, however, only showed a chair off to the corner, which was absolutely never used (it made Charlotte wonder why Evan even owned it as he wasn't the sort to buy something just because he could), and was thus pointless. Before she could voice her opinion on the matter (or Remus could tell him to stop being Cyrus and be Sirius), Sirius snapped. "I don't care if he has the biggest secret in the world in his office, what can he possibly be spending all his time in there doing? All he does is brew Potions downstairs, read, cook, and hang out in his office. I mean, he's a walking bag of suspicion! Even his name is suspicious!"
"How is his name suspicious exactly?" Charlotte was genuinely curious. He was named for religion, history, and literature, wasn't he? It seemed a normal enough theme. After all, a lot of people had multiple middle names. Half the magical people she knew had at least two!
"Evan means the gift of god, but it is also the base for the name Evans, so he was named for his mother's family," Sirius explained. Oddly, Remus looked just as eager about the revelation as I was confused. "The Evanses almost all hated Lily, which is why Lukas said she moved. She couldn't stand living within a day's drive and being so reminded of a family where only her brother and nephew cared. She wouldn't have named her son after the whole family, but probably just Luke or her brother. And there's his first middle name: Romulus. Romulus was the name of the founder of Rome who killed his twin brother Remus in a duel. He was raised by wolves and went on to kill all his living family but his mother and grandfather. And then Grimm... well, not only is that, you know, the Grim, but the brothers Grimm were a pretty gruesome pair. If you actually read any of their stories, it isn't something you'd name a kid."
"And Pronghorn hardly sounds like it could be a name," Remus finished, eyes wide as he looked at his lover. Charlotte was generally surprised. Her godfather wasn't dumb per se, but he wasn't the sort to study random little things like that. Though it did explain his fascination with the library a few days before. "Prong means something thin and pointed, so it means a pointed horn. I've rarely heard of family names using that format."
"And we called Jo's," Jo was the name the marauders had called Josephine Potter in school before the Marauders were the Marauders, "older brother Prongs when we came up with the Marauder names because he had registered the year before as an elk animagus. Even though he was only honorary, he was the one who taught us to be animagi. Add to that Evan looks exactly like Jacob Black... well, I can tell there's a lot he isn't telling us. I mean Merlin, from what it seems like, he's taken a name from each decent member of the Marauders, sans your Mum, and tossed in a bit of Evans for good measure to pretend that he's someone he's not!"
In an odd way, the whole little diatribe actually made sense. Evan did look just like Jacob, provided he wore his glasses, and the only Evans feature (which was literally impossible to fake magically or scientifically) was the eyes. How could anyone with just an Evans and random American background manage that? And it had been decided that the only potions he took regularly were calming draughts and about two dreamless sleeps per week – the amount just under the danger-of-addiction line. It was no small coincidence about his looks, however, and even Charlotte could tell when she usually didn't think of stuff like that. Such things were usually Hayden's to notice, as a mystery wouldn't really get going until Gryffindor's legendary "Golden Trio" had returned to Hogwarts for the year. This year would obviously not have the usual mysteries.
"Merlin..." Charlotte breathed finally. "I don't get it. Evan just has this sort of air about him that can be trusted, but if even his name is suspicious..." She trailed off, unsure of what else she could really say. She knew both the canine and lupine men knew what she meant. They, too, had mentioned that Evan seemed completely trustworthy, and not in the spell or compulsion induced way that they thought about Dumbledore, but in a genuine "trust this guy, he's reliable and pretty nice to boot" sort of way.
It was instinctual and unlikely to be fought off too easily. Charlotte suspected that even Mr. Prewett had felt that way, but the man was so protective of his brood that there was no way he could ever accept any immediate feelings of trust without backup. The word of one teenaged girl and a werewolf he'd only met a few times through his own older sisters (Fiona and Ginevra were a pair of brave girls often spoken of in the Prewett home) weren't terribly convincing. But she knew that despite all the little things that were off about the older boy, one had to work actively at not liking him for such a thing to happen.
"So we get him out of there or steal him away at lunch," Sirius brought his very simple, but now very tempting, plan back into the conversation. "No Veritaserum – truth potion, Charlotte – as that'd make him not trust us, but we can at least get him to tell us something; even his favorite color would be a step in the right direction!" He then flopped back into his seat, picked up a piece of bacon, and stuffed it into his own mouth before it was decided by Remus to do so. Silencing the man with food had become a habit of the werewolf's when he started acting weird.
Dreadfully curious (something that drove her to do immensely stupid things that rarely ended well), Charlotte dismissed herself and went to Evan's office. She listened at the crack of the door, but for once there were no voices, mutterings or anything going at all. Not even the scratching of a quill on parchment that usually signaled that Evan was doing his head-of-family thing. Just complete silence. The door itself was locked with something beyond a simple locking charm, and Charlotte knew that her cousin was very paranoid by now. There was no way he'd have something that could be tampered with from the outside keeping his sanctuary within the Sanctuary just that, meaning that Charlotte had no clue what he was doing. She knocked of course, but there wasn't so much as a surprised noise or "hello" from beyond the doors.
Absolute silence.
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Evan looked at the dilapidated house before him. The cottage had a collapsed roof on one side, that wall having fallen in at some point. On the front door was a snake with an ever-fresh charm keeping it with the appearance of one freshly dead. The Gaunt House looked in even worse shape than its horrendous state from the memory shown to him in his school days, and even then it had looked abandoned. Unfortunately, Evan had only a vague explanation from the Dumbledore of his own universe to go on. No one ever would have thought that a piece of wizarding history lay within that building unless they already knew about it.
With a sigh, the teen stepped toward the door and examined the snake. A quick spell identified the charm as having been set forty years previous, so it was Voldemort's own spellwork. Voldemort had killed a snake and nailed it to his grandfather's door to guard his soul. Evan scowled, looking for anything else to deal with on the door itself. After all, the locket had been protected by a blood ward and inferi, the cup by the goblins and a bloody dragon, and the snake had kept the diadem in the place no one would ever even think of it being – Hogwarts – so what was to be keeping him from putting up a lot of very unpleasant things, even if it was one of the earlier horcruxes. With this in mind, Evan wasn't surprised to find dark magicks on the door that he had never seen. He really hadn't seen much dark magic in general.
But taking liberty with assumptions (and chance), he stumbled upon the easiest way past. After several tries at similar methods, he found the proper way to open the door without killing himself. When "Ƨ Open Ƨ", "Ƨ Flight from death Ƨ" (he was surprised to find that "Voldemort" didn't translate into Parseltongue and then wondered at what language the name was – he suspected Charlotte already knew the meaning behind the name as she was generally more knowledgeable about the Voldemort situation than he had been until after sixth year), and "Ƨ I command you to open Ƨ" failed, Evan eventually figured it out. A visit down memory lane (thankfully Occlumancy, being an art of the mind, made recollection so much easier, even if Dumbledore could use that same recollection against him should he stumble) retrieved that solution for him.
"Ƨ Open in the name of Salazar Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts Four Ƨ" Evan hissed at the snake. As it lifted its head to nudge to door (what that in and of itself was to do, he don't actually know), he was glad to have gone through such a huge list of parseltongue options before daring to try hexing the door. Said door opened slowly, allowing a quick scan of any further booby-traps in the area. True, Voldemort had been the only parseltongue not up for life in Azkaban at the time of the horcrux's hiding, but one never knew how far that monster would go to protect his soul shards, though Evan had seen what he believed to be the worst of that paranoia.
Thankfully, the way was without anything of the sort. It was simply a house falling to pieces and reeking of dark magic. Nothing dangerous whatsoever. Really. Apparently Mr. "Flight from death" (such an amazingly ironic name that would be forever immortalized in Evan's mind) never even considered there could possibly be any Parselmouths other than himself. Now there were two to spare, so the guy really had more to watch for. A small curiosity sparked as to how Dumbledore had managed to get through, but he supposed it had to do with the Headmaster being one-hundred and fifty-two years old at the time and knowing about half a million more spells than the out-of-place teenager did. The matter flew from his mind as he used a "Point Me" variant to locate the source of the dark magic that permeated the room (for all that remained of the house un-collapsed was the living room/kitchen) and identified the source as a cupboard he remembered vaguely. It was the one that Merope Gaunt had failed to retrieve a pot from without dropping it.
On the very top shelf and in the back was a small box made of ebony and onyx stones embedded all over in what he assumed were runes. A subject Harry hadn't studied in school and Evan's singular attempt to comprehend even the basics behind it had failed miserably. So, standing on the dilapidated counter and staring at the back of a very webby kitchen cupboard, he was faced with a problem. How was he to handle that box? Naturally, he would be taking it into the Chamber of Secrets (a quick sip of calming draught plowed away any residual fears or memories of seeing Ginny dead into the back of his mind) and likely stab it with the basilisk fang that hadn't been used on Voldemort's diary, but getting it out of the cupboard would be a toughie.
But... maybe he'd taken a bit too much calming draught that day. Suddenly, he really didn't care one whit as to getting his hands burnt off or being turned into a lifeless husk by the box. His left hand reached out with a detached calm (for the right kept balance on the slim counter) and he simply grabbed the box, and pulled it out of the cupboard. Nothing happened. With his mind swimming in utter calm that may have even surpassed the near-high he had in Dumbledore's office, Evan found himself in his office again.
How he got there, he didn't actually know. He recalled holding the box in his left hand and getting off the counter, and the next thing he could actually remember he was standing his office, the box was set on top of his trunk, and he was standing in front of the portrait of the Marauders.
It was a simple, if very large, portrait. His parents sat cuddled under an apple tree with Sirius and Remus wandering about as they pleased (Sirius would usually climb the tree or try to lure James away for a quick joke while Remus preferred to study or chat with Lily). Pettigrew was hogtied about ten feet back, miniature Dark Mark exposed as he tried to squirm out of the binding that the painting-Remus had conjured. It was amazing what magical portraits, especially the more modern ones, could manage. The fact that a small library (and a Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes shop) had been painted for the portraits on either side at least kept them entertained a bit better. After all, even though they had agreed to the security of not letting anyone see them, they were still human (by personality) and thus wont to become bored.
"Glad to see you're back, Harry," his mother said, shifting comfortably in her husband's arms. Her hair fell in auburn waves down her shoulders where Evan's dad's fingers played with the ends. Green eyes that matched her son's own to the dot seemed to twinkle in the way that those of many a portrait (and Dumbledore's) often did as their owner's own hands were ruffling James' messy black hair and dog-earing the novel that was held in her lap. "How was your mission?"
"It went alright, Mum," Evan was in his chair, the nice black leather recliner he had set just in front of the Marauder Family Portrait. When had he sat down? "I wasted almost two hours trying to get the door to let me in with various Parseltongue phrases and got the ring from one of the kitchen cupboards. Honestly, I should have thought of using Slytherin's name in my pass-code a lot earlier than I did." Okay, so two hours was a bit obsessive. Most people would have just tried to open the door manually (or magically) by that point. But he was a Gryffindor for a reason. He was Slytherin enough to have patience as well as the stubborn streak was all.
"Well, at least you got it taken care of," James nodded his head sagely, swiftly adjusting his glasses on his nose as they were knocked loose by his dearest wife smacking him upside the head. "Ow! I'm congratulating him!"
"Prongs, just quit," the painted lycanthrope snorted. When the painting had first been located, Remus had asked after Teddy, not a happy subject. As it had been painted years (almost twenty) before, Evan had assumed that he would still be the nineteen year old Remus, not the one in his late thirties that he had known. Telling him that his son had been blown up because he was brought to the after-exams party was not a great moment for the young godfather. "Good job on the first horcrux, Harry. Hopefully the diadem will be no problem as well. Have you considered where you want to be sorted?"
Evan shrugged in a noncommittal way. "Wherever it wants to put me, I suppose. I just intend to ask it to put me where I can best protect Cheri. How the hat takes it is up to it, of course. It may decide that shows loyalty, to want to stand by my 'cousin,' or courage to protect her, smart to want to ask the hat, or cunning to want to subvert any house hierarchies. Or the thing could just decide to take it at face value and toss me where I can do my best to help and protect She-Who-Survived. So, really, there are a lot of ways it can go… and I'm leaving my fate up to a hat." He had never been one to downplay his suicidal side, having long since accepted it. His life sucked horribly, but he lived with it, for better of worse.
James snorted. "Every kid does, they usually just have a better idea of what they want," he stated amicably. "Are you sure you can step into that without prejudice? I mean, you have quite the past with Slytherins, I would imagine Ravenclaw could be an issue after that Chang girl, and compassion for the 'Puffs in general, right? Not to mention you sided with Gryffindor for years."
"I had issues with Malfoy at school, and now he can't beat up on me, nor will he particularly care. No matter my house I can simply divert his attention from Cheri; I already have a plan to sabotage his attempt at embarrassing her with the 'support' badges," a very-explicable calm rolled over Evan in waves as he set the chair to recline properly. Conversation continued, he thought, but everything seemed to go fuzzy as he laid back. The chair was so comfortable, and a slight buzz was going through him, the sound of the ocean rocking him to sleep...
With a jolt, he sat up. The light on the faux window showed it was early morning. When had Evan fallen asleep? Admittedly, he had needed it, very much so after not sleeping at all the night before... but he could see the sun rising in his east-facing window. It can't have been even noon when he had returned from the Gaunt shack, and by the portrait-people on the wall, he could tell that he really had slept for sometime – Lily never splayed books like that while totally cognizant – so what had happened? Going one night without sleep wasn't at all odd for him after all; over the past year he had gone as much as two nights without any rest, and usually only got five hours maximum each night over the past summer due to nightmares, discomfort, or general insomnia. What changed?
Thoughts were shed like snake skin as soon as the robin's egg blue potion flooded him throat, morbid thoughts of the past swept away in a cool torrent. Soon Evan had placed the horcrux's container in the empty compartment of his new trunk, levitated said trunk upstairs to his room to pack everything, and placed it in the special pouch that Hagrid had given him, where he kept his second wand (the twin to Charlotte's) and several other mementos. In the kitchen he decided to let the house elves make breakfast for once. Total blankness was not something he needed just yet either.
Evan spent at least an hour going through the Potions cabinet, pulling out potions that he believed would be a good idea to bring along. Most of the remainder of Charlotte's nutrient potion went into the crate, a good mix of healing potions, and more than half of his supply of calming draughts. The Draught of Peace was tossed in for good measure, given that he could use a third year calming draught for only so long, while the Draught of Peace, at OWL level, was the next logical step up (though the gap between strengths in the two was wide). Rumor had it that he would learn another, stronger calming potion for NEWTs - albeit one that wasn't legal to use without a prescription from a Healer - so he could run away from life a bit longer too. Maybe long enough to take down Voldemort before he had to be put in the St. Mungo's permanent ward. That would be nice.
With small glass phials tinkling lightly together (charmed unbreakable of course), he ascended to the kitchen from the potions lab. The crate was set by the kitchen door, ready to be carried out. Unfortunately, due to the volatile nature of potions, they could not be shrunk. A spare trunk was conjured (with several accidents, but not too bad) and the crate placed properly. That way, no one would question the Potions, and it wouldn't look odd that Evan wouldn't have a trunk because he would, technically. Simplicity was key.
However, after much swearing and magic slinging, he finally had the trunk complete, potions stowed, and allowed himself to walk into the Dining room. Let's just say that he hadn't expected anyone else to be awake before nine.
Charlotte was seating with a plate of bacon and Belgian waffles and having a rather nice chat with Remus and Sirius. How he hadn't heard when he was a few feet away from the kitchen was confusing (until he found out that the house elves preferred to sound proof work areas), but it quickly stopped when they realized Evan was actually around. He realized with a start that he hadn't actually been seen by anyone who wasn't dead or bound to silence for almost twenty four hours. The fact that, to them, he had essentially spent his last day of not being a student in his office which was, at the very least, disconcerting.
"Morning all," Evan greeted finally, feeling slightly awkward. Hopefully, they wouldn't have worried about him.
"We had noticed it was morning, yes," Remus replied, casting a curious glance Evan's way. His fork seemed to have been forgotten halfway between his plate and his mouth, and a waffle dripping with whipped cream hung in the balance. "How are you?"
"Stiff," it was true. Sleeping in a chair, even the cushy La-z-boy, was rather dumb of the ex-Golden Boy after all. "I slept in a chair last night. Just sort of drifted off while I was working yesterday. Nothing a quick potion can't cure."
A strained silence followed... or maybe it was only strained because he felt the sort-of-explicable need to continue the conversation? After all, a silence is only awkward if someone felt they ought to fill it but didn't know how, right? At least, that's what Hermione said. A companionable silence was being quiet because nothing had to be said, but an awkward one was when someone felt it out to be filled with dialogue... or something like that.
"What were you up to yesterday anyway?" Charlotte asked finally. Despite an attempt to be discrete, Evan caught a glimpse of her foot swinging under the table to kick her lycanthropic pseudo-uncle in the shin before taking a bit of waffle. Devious, yes, and she certainly caught onto things quickly, but her methods were terribly obvious. Terribly Gryffindor. "I was wondering if you had any pictures of your parents that I could see. It's always nice to see family, even if it's only in pictures."
Maybe not so obvious as he had previously thought then. Evan's eyebrows had shot up, but as he sat he pulled out his muggle wallet, taking the small picture from the photo slot. A simple picture of his parents, standing together in front of Big Ben. For their Honeymoon, they had actually done the tourist thing instead of anything at all grand. They stayed in the best London hotels and visited all the sites that no one who actually lived in Britain actually went to. All the couple did was giggle, whisper to each other, and on occasion James would kiss his new bride on the cheek while she played with her new wedding ring. What was the harm in showing them a photo?
Charlotte plucked the small picture from her pseudo-cousin's fingers delicately, obviously seeing the care with which he had handled it. Her eyes grazed over the glossy surface and she smiled with a sort of softness that showed she knew exactly why he kept such a picture on him at all times.
"She's beautiful," she finally stated. "Your mother... my album only has pictures including my parents, and none of them have your mother. But your dad is the spitting image of Uncle Jacob from what I saw of his picture. There are a lot of him and my Mum... Jacob Black and James Pronghorn could be twins, you know."
"Any two people could be twins," Evan countered with little thought. It was true – the Prewett twins, Gideon and Fabian, hadn't looked alike but for the general hair color and the height of their cheek bones, if he remembered Moody's photo correctly. "But I get what you mean. A Potter probably married into the family a few generations back is all I can really say; after all, the Pronghorns have been in America since almost a hundred years before you lobster-backs shoved off. Honestly, I never cared to learn the family tree. I know who my parents were, who their siblings were, and any direct cousins I might have, but nothing else." That was about how much he knew about the Potter family tree, so he wasn't lying per se, though he knew that his paternal grandmother was a cousin of Sirius' on the opposite side that the Weasleys were most related to. It was no stretch to imagine it was the same, but reversed gender-wise, for Charlotte. Charlus became Charlotte the first and Dorea had become Dorian Black.
Slowly, Charlotte nodded, passing the picture over to Remus and Sirius to look over. Evan immediately caught the flying eyebrows that disappeared under their hanging bangs, but luckily no comments were made. It could have been awkward. After a minute or so, the picture was back in Evan's grasp, then wallet, and the interrogation, such as it was, begun in earnest.
"You know, Evan, I'm curious," Sirius started lazily, eyes glued on his host, "as to what sort of teacher you had. He must have been awfully well rounded, you know, to teach you everything you know. I mean, you're right where you ought to be as a seventh year in most subjects it seems. It's a tall order for one man to teach you."
"He had friends who helped," not a lie; Dumbledore was at least friendly with most of the Hogwarts staff. "An old friend of my mentor's who boarded in his house taught me Divination for one," Trelawney also couldn't leave without his say-so, "when I took interest, and several different people taught me bits and pieces where his knowledge was lacking. Really I had quite a few teachers, and most were rather nice people, or at least insane, nothing big."
Questions were fired for at least an hour, and everything was kept near to the truth. No names if possible. What was his favorite color? Green. What was his teacher's name? Alexander Bumblebee. (Dumbledore, after all, was Olde English for Bumblebee, so it was no stretch, and Alexander had some sort of savior-thing attached to it. Everyone had believed Dumbledore would save them, after all.) The one that came closest to tripping Evan up was when Remus had the insight of asking what state he'd lived in. When he answered "Washington" and was asked about the weather, he was very lucky when saying "cold and wet" turned out correct. His three day foray into New York in early July for some hands on experience of American life (they had huge refrigerators! He bought one immediately) hadn't really helped with that, but it worked. So far as he could tell, they didn't suspect a thing.
Maybe he as being unfair. Remus and Sirius were both accomplished Occlumens, not to mention on his side of the Dumbledore debate. Telling them what he had done that directly related to the Marauder family (not counting his actions which might have caused the rise of Voldemort or him driving the Slytherin house into said Dark Lord's hands) had taken care of that for Evan. But how could he tell someone that he was from the future of an alternate universe where things had gone so badly at the end? In all honesty, he didn't think he could. The premise that they couldn't not tell at least Charlotte about it was his excuse, even if only to himself, but he still knew the truth. He couldn't stand to see the disappointed looks on Sirius and Remus' faces when they realized that in his world he had caused their deaths, that he couldn't even protect an infant after Voldemort fell. There was no way he could tell them.
"It's nearly half ten," Evan said when the onslaught started to die down. "Cheri, you have everything packed?" A nod. "And you'll remember not to pick any fights with Malfoy on the train?"
"It's Rhi who does that!" Charlotte protested immediately, scowling slightly. Evan nodded in response. "Well, it's true. I don't pick fights, look for trouble... anything like that. Fate just has it in for me, I swear!"
The infamous Potter luck, he thought with a sigh. Potter's were notoriously unlucky, magnets for trouble and such things. They also usually had someone close to them be a traitor of some sort. In a way, Ron might have been a traitor... turning his back when I needed him most and driving Hermione away all the time. But he got better... eventually. Then again, he might have gotten worse after Voldemort's defeat. Evan wouldn't know, as he'd been busy with the Press, his supposed adventuring, and Teddy in the month and a half between the Defeat and the exam party in June.
"Just try to avert catastrophe," Evan replied in a placating tone. "This year is going to be rough, and you don't need Ferret-boy on your case adding on to it. Life is a lot easier without an influential pureblood family trying to bring you down. Besides, bullies get bored when they're ignored."
A pause. Then, Sirius snorted. "Never thought you would be rhyming," he explained after his little outburst. Evan rolled his eyes and stood.
"It's time to go was all I meant before. Come on Cheri, we're apparating. You're trunk is in the parlor, right?" How Evan knew that, he wasn't sure. However, he was right, and he simply followed her to said trunk with the potions trunk behind him. With both trunks secured, Evan was ready.
"I just remembered," Charlotte said with the air of something trifling being brought to mind. "You said the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, didn't you? But..." she paused, "you said you heard about it from a Ministry official, didn't you?"
"Don't believe everything you hear," Evan replied simply. His hand was placed in the crook of her elbow, gripping tightly, and with a slight turn they found themselves at King's Cross.
Sometimes, he amended mentally, you should though. The truth spreads quickly, and so do lies... With this advice to himself, he led his counterpart to the train and left to find his own compartment. Sometimes, the truth ought to be avoided. It could be choking. Like a weed...
X.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.X
A/n: Jacob Black is a lot like James, personality wise, about ten years older than the Marauders, and was an auror who went on various missions in the late seventies out of country before outright vanishing in '78. The body was found in '86, but nothing could be determined about time of death beyond "at least three years before." As Evan's birth (1976) fits into the bubble of unknown, they would naturally suspect something. Just thought I should toss in that bit of background.
Evan is not idle in this life. He owns four of the three Deathly Hollows, probably has access to a fifth if he liked, and being the Master of Death gives a huge advantage over Dumbles, but said old codger is much more knowledgeable and experienced, so he isn't about to press his luck. Evan is hasty and addicted to calming draughts, not stupid.
The irony of this chapter: when I was halfway through writing it I got an unsigned review stating the failings of my renaming Evan. I burst out laughing because I'd already written Sirius' unveiling of said problems almost a week before hand (I didn't much touch the story for a week). I realize that "hedatary" won't be reading anymore, but I gotta say, I was laughing quite a lot. My dad was confused as to my sudden outburst.
Edit: I've put everything into third person. See chapter 7's author note for details... if you care.