Chapter Four:

"Personally, I see nothing but bad coming from him staying here."

"You absolute beast, Gregory," Pansy growled, slapping her wand down on the countertop so that the spoon stirring the pot of soup fell to one side. She glared at the man stood beside her chopping vegetables, his hulking form one of the least intimidating things to someone who understood the calm, peace keeping brain at work behind the muscle. "How can you say that? You of all people!"

The man tensed, his brown eyes slanting in a glare at the shorter girl before he rolled his eyes and continued on with his task. "It's not as though I'm saying it to be cruel. Truly, I like the kid, I think he's someone who could be a good friend to us all; at the same time you really have to consider just how much of a danger magnet he must be. I mean, we went to school with Neville and despite his title he was no different from the rest of us, protected from the war, never told what was going on. As far as we were concerned, nothing could harm children and until Neville took his own life, the war seemed like something that would never touch us. You know how treasured children are."

"Your point being?" Pansy replied snidely, flicking the stove off with a turn of her fingers and gathering her hair in one hand to throw into some semblance of a bun.

"Well," Greg put down his knife, glancing up to watch Ron and Tommy set the table, an unhelpful Draco lounging in the window seat to one side and shouting directions when his eyes were not trailing over the sunlit garden outside. "Think about it. Obviously, where he's from the war involved children. It made them fight, made them terrified; their teachers could not even protect them. What kind of damage would that do to a kid his age? I know there are children in this world who are mentally abused from a young age, I being one of them, but we are few and far between and I have always had Professor Dumbledore and Slughorn to fall back on, and Sirius and James when we became a part of the Order at nineteen. I never had to deal with it alone and I have a home to turn to when my parents attempt to interfere now."

He turned to look at the girl squinting up at him, her mouth pulled in a tight scowl. "This boy has had no such backing. Even you, when your parents attempted to force you apart from Ron could counter with leaving home and staying here unless they changed their minds. What second home did he have to run to? All I am saying is that his mentality is unstable at best from what I can gather of his background and home life. I'm not saying to cast him out on the streets, just that reservations must be had with regards to trusting him entirely."

Pansy sighed, her shoulders slumping beneath the heavy material of her pullover. "It's hard not to feel sorry for the boy... Neville may have had a normal school life and every adult fighting for him but I still remember the nightmares he had near the end. They came on so suddenly, and he said it was as like you-know-who himself was in his mind, whispering to him, showing him horrible things. Harry suffered more even than that when he was just a little boy."

"He's stronger than you're giving him credit for. The both of you."

Draco watched them turn towards him, their faces a mask of both pity and wariness. One too willing to trust and the other not willing at all, it was an opposition of opinions that could, if treated badly, grow into something far nastier. He stood from his perch by the sill, stretching his arms before his body and watching the play of sunlight against his pale skin; the perks of being heir to a true vampire. The blonde crossed his limbs swiftly. "He is strong. His mind is not broken from years of abuse, it would show too easily in his eyes. He desires above all else to live and that desire has lent him a strength beyond his years. Do not attempt to coax a reaction from him Greg, if the power I can smell on him when he is distressed is a fraction of what he possesses, you would end up the worst off from the confrontation. And Pansy, you know better than to coddle people. In my opinion, he does not need your sympathy or your observations on how damaged he may be, he needs only a friendly hand."

"And this has nothing got to do with the way you were staring at him while he was asleep on the couch?" Ron was grinning, his freckled nose wrinkled in mirth as he put down the last plate. Tommy snorted beside him, his golden blonde hair tousled with the many times he ran his hands through it.

"Yeah, Draco," the shorter blonde smiled up at him, "the googly eyes you were making 'till Severus took him upstairs weren't exactly 'only friendly'."

"Desist, you nuisance," Draco hissed, swatting the small yellow-haired man with a good-natured backhand to the head. "I'll admit, he intrigues me."

"Is that what you're calling it now, is it?" Tommy squealed as he was grabbed in a headlock, his hair mussed further by a pale, slender hand before a thickly accented bark from the other room had Draco releasing him and backing up like a wounded puppy. There were perks to having a vampire mentally leashed to a man of practical nobility. Reckless and childish though Draco tended to be, Severus would never be far enough away to allow the man to get himself into danger or show himself up in the eyes of the media. It was both a blessing and a curse when that strive for perfection bled into other aspects of Draco's life, such as his friends.

Tommy coughed awkwardly, black eyes darting towards the window when Severus' scowling face appeared around the door and glared in their direction. "And just what do you zink you are doing, behaving like a wild dog who 'as been unleashed from 'is lead? Desist your play acting, Draco, or I will 'ave no option but to return you to our 'ome. And you, Mr. Pettigrew, your father may 'ave ruined 'is name but you are your mother's only 'ope of showing zis damnable society zat blood counts for little when doing what is right is in question. Behave yourselves!"

Tommy shrunk back, his blonde waves dropping over one dark eye as he tipped his head. Family was a sore subject with him at the best of times. Though he adored his mother and prayed she was happy living with her sister in America, the neglect he had suffered from her subservient ways and inability to be responsible had often left him in the care of others his whole life. When his father had been imprisoned for following He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the woman had become a wreck, certain that no husband of hers could ever deceive her in such a monumental way. For years, his father had sought to help a madman who wanted to eradicate all that was different from the purity of Wizarding society and neither of them had known. Just as he had obviously done something wrong in the world this new boy had come from, so had Peter Pettigrew been a bad man in the reality that had been Tommy's life. Pleasant, if distant, to his son, that had not stopped him from bringing danger and suspect down upon his family and then leaving them for life in Azkaban. Had he not begged his mother to leave him with the Order, with the men who had raised him, Tommy believed he would have succumbed to her unending cycle of love and hate for a man she had given everything to and been given nothing but heartache in return. At least, with the Order, Tommy had a purpose and the logic of knowing that his father was not an extension of himself.

Cold hands gripped his face, fingers tipping his chin upwards as a gentle voice tsked above him. Watery black eyes found a set of similarly dark orbs surrounded by flawless pale skin. Severus shook his head, his thumb stroking against the soft skin of Tommy's jaw. "I mean not to upset you, sweet one. I mean only to remind you of the 'onour you so rightly deserve to carry. 'Old your 'ead 'igh, Thomas.

"You, 'owever!" The older man whirled, gripping Draco by the ear in one fluid motion and dragging the lanky blonde closer, "You, I expect to 'ang your 'ead in shame! What 'ave I said about physical displays of violence, serious or not? You set a bad example for the children you may one day 'ave running around your feet when you resort to 'andling another person without consent."

"I doubt he'd mind handling Harry with consent."

"Ronald Weasley, must I remind you zat lowering your voice to a quiet murmur is pointless wiz a vampire in ze room?" The statement was spoken with a weary sigh, Severus' fingers leaving Draco to pinch the bridge of his nose as the redhead leaning against the counter beside Pansy turned a shade of puce. "It would be wise of you to take Ms. Parkinson and let Molly know what 'as transpired. Is your sister not trained as a Mediwitch? I do not doubt zat Ginevra will offer the boy a far better treatment than any 'e may receive from simply taking my nutrient potions."

Ron's ears were still a vibrant scarlet as he dragged Pansy from the room to make use of the floo. Draco watched them go with a glare. Though he understood completely the need to let as many trusted people as they could know what had transpired last night, it did not sit well with him that the fragile little thing that was sleeping soundly upstairs would soon be mobbed by familiar strangers, or outright strangers if the paths of his reality had gone a separate way. James, Sirius and Tonks had already left that morning to discuss the occurrence with the Minister and would no doubt return come evening with a wagon-load of Officials and even a few Unspeakables. Those people put his very teeth on edge. What right would they have to poke and prod at the little one who so obviously needed just a simple chance to breathe. Draco's only easing thought was that, in the eyes of all who would look at him, Harry was barely matured, almost a child despite his years and war scarring. If there was one thing that existed in this world that had not in the boy's own, it was that children were revered with the upmost importance, a crucial group to protect and shelter. Far too many were lost to illness to even consider harming one to the point of doing psychological damage. Those who did were punished, those who did were so few it almost counted for nothing.

"'E is not a child zough, you understand zat, do you not?"

Draco blinked, red eyes taking in the suddenly empty dining room. How long had he been lost in his own internal rant? He turned to take in the sight of his mentor leaning against the open window, face upturned against the weak, September sun.

"By Wizarding law, he's an adult. He's reached the age of majority. By those who will judge him by outward appearance, he is a child. He's barely matured into his own body, years of neglect have damaged and weakened him. He is small, he's young in everything but a wariness for what he doesn't know. How can you look at him and not think he is something to be protected?"

"I never said zat." Severus smirked, ruby eyes glancing at Draco through dark lashes. "'E is most certainly in need of strong guidance and a firm hand to show 'im not everyone wishes to lead 'im wrongly. Zat being said," Severus' gaze slanted, "I still do not view 'im as a child. 'Is eyes are too keen, too tired to be ze eyes of a child. It would be best, mon étoile, to view 'im as submissive rather zan as something in need of a parent."

Draco's own eyes narrowed, his head tilting to one side as he listened to the sound of Gregory and Tommy moving about the house, Remus and Lily safely tucked out of earshot in the rooms upstairs as they waited for Harry to wake. "A submissive would need an altogether different type of guidance. To view him as I would a vampire submissive would be to view him as something intimately precious, something feral but in need of control, something fertile... something to strive to be desirable for. You want for me to court him."

Severus shrugged, his lips tugging in a smile. "I see only the desire within my heir's mind and offer a solution that will grant 'im what 'e desperately wishes for. Your childhood bond was weakened to me ze moment you laid eyes on zat boy, I felt it. My only 'ope now is that you do not ruin a potential bond wiz the mate you are pining for. Treating 'im as a creature like your own will offer you a middle ground by which to work wiz 'im, or make 'im so grateful 'e will tumble into your arms. I seek only an heir to my bloodline and your 'appiness. The little one can grant me both."

Draco froze, his red eyes flaring wide. "You're saying you would change him for me... If we both wanted it. You'd truly make him a submissive vampire?"

Severus sniffed, standing straight and dragging a hand through Draco's long blonde hair with a sharp smile. "'E is already submissive. The boy cries out for 'is 'eavy burden to be lifted from 'is shoulders, for someone else to be in charge. Making him a true vampire would only heighten such tendencies, as it brought out your need to lead and to take on responsibility of zose you 'old most dear." The man paused, sharp teeth flashing against his bottom lip, "but yes, if you both desire it, I will turn 'im."

###

His eyes were open before sound had begun to sink into his conscious mind, scanning the small room, his hands moving to shift his body from the plush bed until legs unstable with sleep made him crumple to the floor and drag his quilts with him. The sudden snap from dreamless sleep to awake was done with barely a noise to notice it by, his body kneeling against the carpeted floor as cautious eyes stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling, uncomprehending and blurred still with the remnants of sleep.

It wasn't until his almost soundless escape from the sheets that entangled him brought a ghost to his bedroom door that Harry's new reality came down on him like a bucket of ice cold water.

"Remus."

The man that could have been no other than Remus Lupin also couldn't possibly be the professor Harry had loved and respected. This man looked younger by several years, at least half a decade below the age he believed the new Sirius to be and with skin that positively glowed with good health. His cheeks were rounded with a lifetime of healthy eating, his body slender and swift, devoid of the weariness the old Remus had carried so heavily upon his shoulders. Had his bright eyes not been the vibrant gold of his wolf, Harry would have mistaken the man for human, so... natural did he appear with his soft brown hair cut in a neat bob around his fresh face. Harry watched him shut the door with a gentle click, his lips spread in a blinding smile over his perfect teeth as he all but scampered across the room and flung himself quietly and soundly down on the floor beside the younger man. Before the reality of the man's sudden jump in status from dead to living could even sink in, Harry was being embraced by his old mentor, arms seeming just as familiar now as they had done all those times he had comforted Harry in the past.

When Remus drew back, it was with eyes almost blinded by tears, his hands coming up to wipe the stains from his cheeks as a self-deprecating chuckle fell softly from his lips. "Sorry," he laughed, "Merlin, you don't even know me and here I am. Oh, Harry... You've no idea what seeing you means to me, to us. Alive and well."

"Seeing me?" Harry's own voice had broken, his lips clamping shut to avoid the tremble, he hiccupped, diving forward to wrap his arms around the man's neck. Stranger or no, this was Remus. This would always be the man who had raised his hopes after Sirius had passed, who had gone into battle with him as a friend. "Remus, you're dead," Harry sobbed, "where I come from, you're dead. You and Tonks and you left him behind just like I was left behind when my parents died. I can't..."

"Shh, Harry, shh, dearest," Remus stroked a hand against the boy's knotted hair, combing through the mess with long fingers, "it'll all be alright now, my strong, little godchild." His Harry was as beautiful as he had been as a baby, as a child; those round eyes still a brilliant green and his scent just as comforting. That he had come from an alternate world made little difference to the beast inside Remus, this was the cub that had been entrusted to them should anything happen to James or Lily. This was his cub as surely as his own son was.

"Godchild?" Harry drew back, a frown embedded in his pale skin, "I thought Sirius was my Godfather?"

"Yes, Sirius and I both, just like James promised. I... I wasn't where you came from?" The thought was one that didn't sit well with Remus, his inner beast protesting the notion that James could have left him out in any world. Where there was Sirius, there was also Remus, James knew that. The pair were bondmates, bonded since before their graduation from Hogwarts. Why christen one Godfather and exclude the other? It was... worse than cruelty.

"Well, no," Harry was shaking his head, "I don't think I ever had a Godmother but Sirius was my only Godfather. I think I was meant to go to you if anything happened to him but it didn't work out that way... Dumbledore needed me with Aunt Petunia."

Remus snarled, "that's ridiculous. Why would you go to me if something happened to Sirius? We live together, we've been together most of our lives, why would going to one be different from going to the other... Oh." Gold eyes flared wide as the scent of Harry's shock filtered to him. "That's why." The werewolf breathed, his mouth falling open in a pained sigh. "Sirius and I were never bondmates in your world. We never fell in love. Oh..."

Harry watched the youthful man press a shaking hand to his lips, his eyes brimming once more with fresh tears as he choked down a sob. His Godfather and Remus were living together? Not only living together but practically married? How in Merlin's name had that happened?

"No," Harry scooted closer to Remus, taking one of the man's clenching fists, "No, I don't think ye were ever together like that. Sirius was never with anyone permanently, he spent a great deal of his life in Azkaban and died a few years after he escaped. And you, you didn't marry Tonks 'till a couple of years ago and Teddy was only a baby when ye both passed in the war."

"Tonks?" Remus' laughter was disbelieving, his golden eyes widening, "Teddy?" The man shook his head, his smile bemused if a little strained. "God forbid. Tonks is a lovely girl, but heavens, no. I would be half the man I am without Sirius." Harry couldn't help but agree with him there. Especially if this Remus was the same age as Sirius, life with the dark haired prankster had clearly done wonders for him.

"And Teddy? Who's Teddy?"

"Your son," Harry smiled, thinking fondly of the little baby with the shock of lightning blue hair and vivid pink eyes. He had barely caught a glimpse the last time he had seen his little godson before Andromeda had had to leave to visit family off-land. "He's the cutest little kid, was barely a few months old when you passed. You made me Godfather, you know, but the courts decided it would be best if Tonks' mom raised him considering I was so young."

Remus snorted, shaking his head. His life had clearly been a roller coaster of a ride in this strange alternate world. "Clearly your courts' system needs a revision. I had my Philip when I was only sixteen and he's turned out positively incredible. A published scholar already and travelling the world to discover new creatures and he's only twenty-eight. My youth did him no harm and nor did it take away from my life. I do wish I could have had more though..."

Twenty-eight years since he was sixteen, so that would make this Remus forty-four, Harry nodded slowly before Remus' words registered and he gaped. "What do you mean you had a baby at sixteen? You're a man! You had a baby with Sirius? Really? At sixteen!"

"Woah, Harry relax," Remus frowned, grounding the frantic boy with a steady hand on his shoulder and drawing him in until the youth was eye to eye. "Werewolves, vampires, fae, water nymphs... So many other male creatures, you're telling me there wasn't a sub species of males within any of these that could give birth naturally in your world, without the help of magic? Are you sure?"

"What do you mean, without the help of magic? Even wizards can't give birth with the help of magic! Can they? Merlin, really? Were we supposed to learn that, that seems like a pretty big biological fact to just skim over... I zoned out in studies but hell I don't think I was that bad..."

Remus almost smiled, this bewildered and insatiably curious Harry one he had never had the pleasure of meeting with their own Harry passing at so young an age. Would that boy have turned out such a way had he lived to see adulthood? Remus would never be sure; but this particular version of his godchild made his heart sing within his chest.

"Maybe it wasn't covered in your particular curriculum, maybe the war distracted from such things. Maybe you were too distracted to consider such options. But I can assure you, Harry, that in this reality there are certain males who can conceive and deliver children and there are wizards who have borne their offspring with the aid of spells and invaluable fertility potions. I did have a son, granted I had him a little young, but once I realised Sirius felt for me what I felt for him, we were bonded almost instantly. I have a picture of Philip that I always keep on me, look."

Harry watched the brunette dig through his very muggle-looking denim jeans, pulling a faded wallet from one and digging through until his fingers closed around a square bit of card worn with age. He took it with wary hands when Remus thrust it in front of him and stared down at the giggling scene of a five year old boy that flickered up at him. On a background of grass, the young child was coloured a healthy peach, his bare arms slathered in snow-white sun lotion and his rosy cheeks flushed with the force of his chuckles. The child bore some resemblance to Teddy, without a doubt that was Remus' round chin and wide eyes. However this child's eyes were a static bronze that blinked happily up at the camera and his nose was a degree sharper, his jet black curls framing his pretty face in a way that could only be a striking resemblance to one Sirius Black.

Remus had a different son that he had given birth to himself.

Remus was bonded to Sirius. They were both alive and together and happy.

Harry's breath caught in his throat, his eyes misting. "He's beautiful, Remmy."

Remus clapped a hand across his lips, his own breath breaking in an almost-sob. "Oh," the brown haired man chuckled, pulling Harry close, "the other Harry used to call me that," he chuckled, "as a toddler, Merlin, I thought I'd never hear it again, cub."

Harry rubbed his nose as he moved back, reality sinking in around him like the most comfortable of blankets. Everything seemed... perfectly alright here. "I thought I'd never hear you call me cub again." Harry shook his head at the surreal-ness of it all. He had met a father he had known he would never meet or know in his own time. He had been reunited with a father-figure he had watched die and never come back. Now, Remus was before him showing proof of the wonderful, happy life he had had simply with one little photo and the health in his features. For a fleeting moment, the thought that he would never again go home, didn't seem like a bad one.

"Remus, did I hear you talking to someone?"

Green eyes pulled away from Remus' smiling face, his own lips tugging upwards as he turned to see who had spoken and for a lifetime, his world froze. The figure in the door had his heart exploding in his chest, the logic of his mind understanding that he should have expected this was nothing compared to the earth-shattering realisation that the matured, pretty-faced woman now stood hesitantly in the doorway was none other than Lily Potter; his mother.

There was no time to consider that this woman may not want to see the sight of him lest it remind her of a son long since dead. There was no logic left in him to play this out in a manner she might prefer, his body had moved with a speed he hadn't known he was capable of. His mind, hardened from years of war tactics and abuse, had recessed to little more than the mind of a child losing their mother for the first time. Every nerve in Harry's body was alight with the fact that she was alive, she was real. His mother was there in front of him and he could hold her for the first time in his life.

He crumpled at her feet, his arms a bruising force around her legs and his sobs destroying whatever voice he tried in vain to use to sound out every thought he needed her to hear. This was his mother. It didn't matter that this was a different woman, it didn't matter that she had raised and put to rest a different son and might not even want him, the only reasoning that kept Harry's magic from sparking a fire against his skin was that this was Lily Potter and Lily Potter was his.

"Mum... Mum,mum,mum,mum..."

Remus stood with a tortured stare, his cub's pitiful whining as he wrapped himself around his mother's legs like a terrified child striking at the very core of his heart. No boy should have to cling to a parent's legs as though they would vanish if they loosened their grip. No boy's painstaking wails should sound like a tortured infants about to be ripped from his mum's arms and draw every member of the household to the landing to discover the heartbreaking sight of the eighteen year old lost to his own destructive thoughts and terrified tears.

Lily stood frozen, her green eyes blown wide and leaking tears that fell, unnoticed, down her cheeks. She bore the heart-wrenching cries for the barest minute before she was dragging the skinny youth to his feet, his short stance half a foot below her average height. She clutched him like she had clutched her own son to her chest all those years ago when they had found his blue-tinged body tucked into his bedsheets. Her Harry. Her son. Hers.

"Oh my poor boy, my beautiful son, what have they done to you? What have they done to you?" She sobbed the words, refusing to release her hold on the sobbing boy until Severus and Draco had no choice but to lift the both of them and force them onto the bed instead of the cold open doorway. Remus felt Sirius' curiosity thrum once more through their bond with this new wave of pain, his thoughts steadying to allow his bondmate some sort of peace as he turned to find a distraught, wide-eyed Molly Weasley clasping her hands in the doorway. He tilted his head to indicate the redhead be with her friend and son before beckoning Severus out to help him get the rest of the Weasley hoard in some semblance of order.