In Eyes Of Innocence
Abby Ebon
0-0-0-0-0
Wizard Wands
0-0-0-0-0
"Cordelia, you said we're on speaker?" Angel asks, and if he's not touching Harry he is hovering in a way that can only be called protective. Harry can appreciate that space, but wonders all the same what he's done to earn the vampires high estimation, vampire's do not lightly protect those who don't mean something to them. Perhaps, with a soul, Angel is different. Harry tries not to think he is the cause, either what he feels for Angel now, which he clings to even as he knows it's a frail tie between them, Harry can't think that he did something – left something of himself – in the blood or by magic. He might go mad, between losing – everything – gone now, instead of merely himself misplaced; and thinking he's done something to Angel he can't fix.
Because now, there are no others out there – none, save Sirius - and Sirius? Sirius had been in Azkaban for thirteen years before this, and there was no real help there, Sirius might try –Harry could count on it that he would, if asked, he knew - but he was out of practice mentally, physically, and magically.
"Yes boss." Cordelia answers Angel, her eyes still on Harry. He can't help but wonder what she sees.
"Okay then, listen up, this morning Cordelia had a vision and heard a name; Illyria, what we know now - thanks to Wesley - is that is a demons name, an Old One. Like Olvikan, only apparently Illyria was a God-King among the Old Ones, one to whom Olvikan paid homage to. We don't know much more then that, but things are moving quickly." Angel warns, and there are things he doesn't say, that his son Connor was involved (because when he'd told Harry the connection between Connor and Sahjhan it'd been in a whisper the phone could not have picked up), that Wesley betrayed him, and what – exactly – Sahjhan's part to play in this is - now, though surely they've heard enough over the phone to guess. The things that Angel doesn't say is enough of a warning to clue Harry into the fact that, whoever the people on the other end of the phone are, they have a history with Angel and it might not be that they trust each other.
"I think…I think you guys need to get to Los Angeles." Cordelia says softly to the phone, watching Harry carefully – like one might a wild animal, and then she looks to the phone, puzzled.
"The line is dead." Cordelia explains softly, and Harry can't help but wonder if it's fried from the little bit of magic Harry used to turn a coin to dust in the same room. A backlash, Harry realizes - he'd forgotten that magic 'burned' off without a wand, having a source in emotion, could be felt by – Connor's eyes are wide open and he's looking up at Harry as if he hasn't ever seen the wizard before in his life.
"What happened?" Sirius demands from the doorway, panting and out of breath – it's clear enough he ran up the stairs, and probably ran though the hall, frantic to open every door and find Harry. Now that he's here, Harry feels as if something's fit back into place, and he relaxes a little bit, can feel past the drain of sorrow and rage – maybe he isn't ever going home, to a world which matches his memories – but he isn't truly alone, either. Even if the home that Sirius remembers isn't going to be the same world Harry had lived and worked in for ten years after the Dark Lord fell.
"It's gone, Sirius." Harry answers soft, dead inside and scared, and so miserably sad it chokes him in a sob. Angel makes a sound beside him, but Harry can't think of anything else but that he isn't alone, Sirius is here – safe – with his memories intact, but does that matter?
"Harry…what – what's gone?" Puzzled but concerned, Sirius comes nearer, wide eyed and looking between the vampire and the girl and the babe on the bed for answers that only Harry and a demon could truly answer.
"Our world, Sirius, he took our world – it's not – it's gone. He's gone back and changed everything." Harry's hand is shaking, and he doesn't really notice it until Sirius looks at the gold-dust on his fingers.
"Voldemort….?" Sirius whispers it, because he'd guessed that the Dark Lord was gone with Harry grown up, and Harry hadn't told him otherwise. Harry hadn't told Sirius much of anything about home, he realizes. Harry shakes his head, because it's impossible to say, now.
"More, everything – I don't know how much, I only had the D.A. coin." Harry realizes that destroying the coin had been a bad idea, but he hadn't been able to help it, hadn't wanted to see what else was changing that he couldn't put a stop to, that he was helpless to prevent. The fake Galleon, he reminds himself firmly, could only give him hints to only so far back – before fifth year, Hermione hadn't put the Protean Charm on his D.A. coin.
Sirius makes a motion to Cordelia that Harry's puzzled by, until she scoops up Connor laying at her side and hands him over to Sirius, and Harry finds himself with his arms full of baby. Sirius looks all too pleased with himself when Connor giggles up at Harry, having forgotten whatever had startled awake him beforehand.
Harry closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling of having Connor in his arms; there is a peace in him that can't be touched when Connor is near. He can still feel the pain, the loss, but it's easier to breath, to live with.
"How…?" Harry breaths the question, and Sirius tries not to grin too much as he answers.
"He may not be of your flesh and blood, Harry, but to your magic he is as good as." Sirius looks to Angel, and Harry knows what he's looking for, judging and measuring whatever expression Angel might show. It's why Harry doesn't look. Can't look, in case this isn't what Angel wants, in case there is a hint that Angel will take Connor from him, or separate them. Harry would see it, and he wouldn't protest (because Angel is Connor's father, regardless) if Angel took Connor away. It'd break something in Harry, his heart, he wants to say – but its soul and magic and mind, everything more so then just something, or one thing.
It'd hurt worse then losing the home his memories have of his world, because Connor is…is the future, his future. He has something to live for, in Connor, so his magic keeps him going, living – despite the shattered path he's left behind him. He can't help but realize that his world, his home, it's gone because of Harry; standing in the way of Sahjhan, for Connor, but Harry can't regret that choice even now.
He'd do it all over again just the same to have what he has now, Connor in his arms.
"It helps? Connor helps him, because his magic thinks Connor is his…son?" Angel asks of Sirius softly, for clarification. There is something cautious in the way Angel asks, as if he's afraid of breaking something with his words.
"Magic is funny like this, especially for wizards and witches. It's not a father-son bond, exactly. Harry will always protect Connor; he won't be able to help himself. Connor comes first." Sirius is trying to explain it, how Harry has tangled their lives together. Harry feels a bit like a coward, that he doesn't say anything, leaving something like this to Sirius to explain, he's a grown adult – older then Sirius, here, not a youth that needs his godfather's protecting. Yet something in Harry still feels sick despite the surface peace Connor gives him, so what can it hurt to let Sirius do the talking?
Connor waves a fist triumphantly, Harry's necklace in his hand, when Sirius gestures for it in an absent minded way, sheepishly Connor hands it over to him. Sirius looks down at what's in his hand, and there is sorrow there when he realizes what he sees.
"You're talking as if Harry doesn't have a choice in this bond, as if it's forced between them – did Sahjhan do this to him – to them?" Angel's voice is low, a growl. He's still though, Harry realizes, too still, like something not-living.
"No. Magic is a part of us, so Harry's magic choosing Connor is just the same as Harry choosing Connor." Sirius wraps an arm around Harry's shoulder, for comfort, his hand hiding the necklace and the ring that hangs on it. What Sirius does not say is that there are ways to channel that inner magic, and the most basic one is a wand, which Harry didn't have upon arriving. Harry doesn't have to ask to know that Sirius thinks the reason Harry's magic bonded him to Connor, and Harry just let it happen, is because he didn't have a wand to focus his own magic, to choose to keep a distance from a baby, so magic used Harry like a catalyst, manipulating events as was in its nature.
Harry knows too that he wouldn't have chosen to not protect Connor – that isn't in his nature – and wand or not would not have changed that.
Yet it might have saved Harry from his doubts to what he'd done inside Angel's head.
Angel didn't look very convinced with what Sirius had told him, but when Sirius urges Harry out and away, Angel does not protest – or follow. Harry feels the absence of his presence keenly, and it's startling that he'd gotten used to it so easily and all too quickly for his tastes.
As if sensing this, Connor wiggles a little in his arms getting a better look around the wizard's rooms.
Sirius is quiet, looking at the ring on the necklace, he glances at Harry then and presses his lips together like he's about to ask something unpleasant. Or, if he isn't sure how Harry is going to react to this question, Harry is fair sure of what Sirius is going to ask and he takes a slight hitching breath to brace for it.
"You were engaged?" Harry nods, lips twisting on the name.
"Ginny, but, we –ah – never married. She's pureblood and sure, her mom had kids alright, but I didn't – couldn't – risk…" Harry trails off, taking another breath. Sirius flinches as he trails off, finishing the words for himself 'her life', 'losing her'; they fit well into the void of what he'll never say out loud, that ultimately it was futile, he lost her either way by crossing the Veil of Death and coming face to face with Sahjhan, and not warning them fast enough.
What could they really have done with that warning, if it was believed? He didn't know, and couldn't dwell on it.
"You – we – can't go on like this." Sirius says, and the ruby on the gold ring catches the light and dances tauntingly, teasing him with what he'll never have, because it's forever now out of reach.
"What do you suggest we do?" Harry isn't fooled when Sirius smiles, because Connor stirs yawning on his hip. Sirius has had this planned, no matter that it should have just occurred to him.
"We're wizards, Harry, we'll put the memories away, and when they aren't so painful, and all this isn't so urgent, we can always remember." There are some things that Harry isn't sure he wants to remember, or would what Sirius to know – Remus and Tonks dead, and raising Teddy – but there are other things Harry never wants to forget or misplace even within a Pensieve. The memories, he knows, would still be there but less, they would have a certain lack of substance, of reality. It'd be like remembering a vivid dream, it fades and slips away when you reach for it.
"We don't have a Pensieve. I don't have a wand." It seems final, that way. It won't happen because it can not – they, after all – do not have the tools.
"Ah, but we do, it's just tradition that a Pensieve that is passed though a family be shaped like a bowl. See, it doesn't really matter what the memories are in, it can be a bowl – or something as small as an engagement ring, but it has to mean something to you, and that's why there is the pureblood tradition of inheriting the family Pensieve, so it becomes something important to you. Something your memories attach to, I'm guessing you've had this around your neck for a long time, and its Gryffindor colors." His grin is a little wicked, and Harry wonders just how long Sirius has wanted to tell him this. Maybe it's also a Black family tradition, this sharing of Pensieve knowledge and memories.
"You're serious." Harry realizes his slip, Sirius and serious sounding similar, but he'd want nothing less then an answer – and Sirius seems to sense that, to respect it.
"I am," Harry nearly groans at the glint of amusement in storm grey eyes, "and tell me Harry, what could be more appropriate for you to remember her – them – by?"
Harry doesn't have an answer for that, Connor giggles as if he's understood the similar sounding word and name, and Harry bounces him on his hip, a feeling a little bit betrayed.
"I thought you were supposed to be on my side?" Harry asks of Connor, absently, but Sirius is grinning as if pleased and all too proud of a baby he hasn't been much around.
"Kid's got a sense of humor, Harry. Hard to believe with his dad, but there you go – maybe he gets it from you, Marauder blood and all that." Harry doesn't bother to correct Sirius about there being blood between the baby and him, because as Sirius had tried to explain, for a wizard between blood and magic, magic was the stronger life source for them. Blood, for the old pureblood families, as good as meant magic.
"Then I need a wand." Harry realizes that that had been the point all along, why Sirius had told him all this and given him a why – to lessen the memories, so it wouldn't hurt him so very much, so he wouldn't feel so broken – shattered inside, if not out - Sirius sees when Harry realizes it, and smiles a little sadly.
"You have to want it, Harry." Sirius explains, simple and not. Harry takes a breath and lets it out; he forgives Sirius his tricks in reasoning, because Sirius is right. It's too dangerous for him not to have a wand, not only for others around him – but for himself.
"How do I do this?" Harry asks, because he doesn't really know anything about making wands, or how a wand chooses a wizard. Sirius takes out his wand, smirking.
"Magic, of course…" Sirius teases, Harry rolls his eyes but he can't help but notice how his magic unfurls like a blooming flower, tugged open by the feel of welcoming magic nearby. It feels comfortable, warm, like sunlight on his skin. Harry closes his eyes, and thinks on that feeling. He doesn't know how long he does this, because everything feels quite in his head, calm inside and out and he hasn't even touched the Pensieve, maybe – after all – he won't need it.
"Harry…" Sirius mutters softly, and Harry blinks open his eyes, unable to help himself in responding. He notices right away what Sirius was calling his attention to, smooth and reddish-brown, there is wand-wood at his feet, pointing at him. He wonders what it was that Sirius did while Harry wasn't looking, if he did anything at all.
Sirius bends down and picks it up, as Harry can't with a baby in his arms.
"Now, it just needs a wand core." Stormy grey eyes flick about the room and Harry's person; there are enough potential magical cores here that Sirius and Harry have their pick of them.
"A phoenix feather…? My shirt has some of Fawkes' feathers." Harry offers, even though the wand-wood is very clearly not holly. Sirius is shaking his head before Harry even finishes speaking.
"No. I think…" Sirius eyes the black that holds his engagement ring. Carefully, he takes the ring off the hairs, and lays it against the wand-wood. Harry watches this part carefully, and it seems to him that the wand-wood swallows up the braided hairs, the surface rippling like water and then stilling as the core seems to settle into place within the wood. Sirius looks up; meeting his eyes and the grin on his lips is like tasting triumph.
"There you are, thestral hair braided with unicorn hair, tamarisk wand-wood, a slender and smooth twelve inches." Sirius presented it with a flourish, and when Harry took it in hand, it was warm to the touch. It felt right.
0-0-0-0-0