'The End' - Part 3
The weeks leading out of winter, 1998-1999.
Harry liked working with Hao Buu. He in fact loved working with her. She was his connection to what being an Auror would have been like. It was exciting, demanding and focused work. She caught herself several times over that week making the suggestion he go to the Ministry of Magic here in the Baltic's and apply.
"My parents wouldn't want me to," Harry found himself saying. Lying. "They're not very use to magic and have a hard time listening to me about it."
Buu would roll her eyes at these Muggle antics, knowing "Alderbaron's story" that he was born to Muggles and hidden away in Canada for a his magical studies, so as to keep his schooling separated from his extended Muggle family.
"You shouldn't feel ostracized from your magical culture!" she raged one day.
Harry liked her cheek.
Buu had fought in the war as an Auror. She hailed from Hamburg and joined the Ministry of Magic there as an Auror about eight years ago. Her accent was heavy but her English was clear. During the early stages of the Second Wizarding War, while Harry was still in his fifth year at Hogwarts, Buu lost her partner to a Death Eater attack while defending villagers in a rural part of the country. When the war had ended, she quickly made her exit from the Aurors and joined the Herbology Institute for a quiet life that could utilize her skills.
She praised Harry Potter for stopping the war.
"I even have his photo at home," she let fall on that cold morning.
"You what?!" Harry gasped, but reigned in his tone. He hid embarrassment. "Why?"
She looked at him as if he wasn't sane.
"He ended the war! What a sacrifice he made! I hear it is a tradition now to eat omelets and Butterbeer on Februar vierte. Did you ever read that article?"
He had. He'd heard it from Draco, too. Dumbledore was a big part in that new tradition. The graduate students of Hogwarts were especially planning on going out on February fourth and ordering that from the menu, aiding in the acknowledgment of the life he once had. People were talking about celebrating that as a tradition in February.
It was no wonder she was an A-1 level, having been an Auror. She was so hard on him because of the memory of her younger partner. Harry listened to her story avidly that first day of their partnership. She told it while they were flying towards Dresden, Germany to make their delivery.
When in the country, one could cast a few spells on themselves and fly over the Muggle farming fields, cutting down travel time extensively compared to the usual public transportation routes. There could be traps set up out here, though. Magical traps to find flying witches and wizards and stop them. One had to be careful.
They had flown the whole way - all the way over Poland - taking the long route so she could teach him more about flying the distances over Muggle towns while using magic to stay hidden.
"Always be vigilant!" Buu demanded of Harry, to which Harry's memory of the imposter Bartimus Crouch Jr. - in disguise as Auror Mad Eye Moody - use to say. He wondered if they knew each other.
Buu passed Harry easily after their time together. She liked him, liked his bravery, liked his focus. He was interested and talented, and not nearly what the gossip around the building made him out to be. He was private most of all. She found herself talking about herself but learning little about him. He seemed to have nothing to hide, though.
A long interlude to conclude 1999.
Draco's and Narcissa's abilities at potion brewing were starting to remind Harry of Professor Snape's skills, but they were clearly nicer than him. As the greenhouse in his kitchen turned from sad little plants into thriving ones, they began to have what it took to start making potions of significant importance.
They started with Veritaserum, but honestly it all blurred after that. Wolfsbane, various concealments including temporary invisibility, explosive potions and others that burst but didn't cause damage, but just had area effects like darkness, radiant light, and even gravity problems - and more potions on top of these; Harry stopped trying count the number of jars that filled his cupboards.
Some of these sorts of potions were simple enough that even Harry thought he could brew them up; there was no way anyone at Hogwarts had come across these easier potions, or they probably would have tried their hand at them. Perhaps Hermione had read about them in the regulated books at the back of the library, but she wouldn't have broken the rules and made anything as chaotic as these, though.
Good thing she wasn't around to see him doing just that, not to mention doing it with these Malfoys, who were also seeking avenues on the black-market to find buyers for them.
Draco eventually found the way into this business though the thin lines the Ministry drew about distributing the Wolfsbane Potion. There was a political war going on to cheapen the product for all those new lycanthropes created during the Second Wizarding War. Many had gone the first year or two suffering through their transformations, but as the months added up, people were starting to seek relief from the pain and torment of turning into the monster under the moon, and it was starting to be conversed about by the Wizengamot of various countries - the high court of law and parliament.
England was especially at the forefront of this battle, with the other, smaller countries usually following their lead. In Lithuania, Harry hadn't heard much tell of the topic entering into discussion there, but Narcissa, Lucius, and Draco sure did where they resided.
There had been potion shops already shut down because they were caught brewing the potion, selling it at half the cost. And though they may have brewed it successfully each time, because it wasn't regulated by professional potioneers, the Ministry shut them down. Such regulation allowed for businesses like The Eight Companies of Essential Enchanting to monopolize.
Lucius saw the monetary value in starting this business, so agreed wholeheartedly. But it was anger that spurred Narcissa. On some deep level, more so than any one of the three closest men in her life would have thought, it riled her up.
And although it was a great risk on his part, Harry had never felt so bound to helping a person as he felt to helping her, so he was willing to do his part. With various precautions and with Harry as the intermediary, they would sell directly to their customers. This is where having an inside person like Draco helped build a selective client list. Because he worked in the medical potion lab and had gained such favor from the superiors there, Draco had access to the list of registered werewolves the Ministry of Magic kept. He also got to see who had applied for the delivery of Wolfsbane and who had canceled their deliveries due to cost or anger with the Ministry.
Because Draco made the connections of who they brewed for, this meant that the majority of their clients were in England. This meant that after the potions were brewed in the cottage by the sea in Lithuania, that Harry would Portkey back to Malfoy Manor with the potions to deliver them there.
As Harry was to aid Narcissa in her new potion hobby (being the one delivering and taking payment for her potions), he could do with a rather specific form of magic, to which Lucius would help. He'd need to learn to Apparate perfectly, repeatedly, and swiftly, and the large estate of Malfoy Manor would help him do that. He was planning on being in a time crunch, specifically because Narcissa wanted to brew the Wolfsbane potion, which they had plenty of ingredients for. The potion needed to be drank quickly after completion, so time was of the essence.
He was back at Malfoy Manor, and had at last exited the Second Courtyard into the main house. He felt nervous each time he looked out the window and saw the city off in the distance. This really did feel like his first time back in all these years.
"And we're planning on me splinching?"
Harry's voice rose with mild anxiety as Lucius's plan for him to Apparate ten times in a row, relaxing for only twenty seconds between each jump.
Lucius's short answer wasn't very compelling.
"I have healing potions and salves from Draco, who assures me they are the most advanced in healing such abnormalities."
He did indeed have an array of such things close at hand on a table. They were in the large dining room, the table shoved to the side, and Harry would be practicing Apparating from one drawn circle on the floor to several others, in a clockwise fashion.
Harry swallowed hard at the sight of it all.
"Don't tell me you are afraid, Harry?" Lucius remarked, a fire alit in his eyes. He tilted his head ever so slightly.
"I think this might be insane," Harry decided.
"You think? I'll tell you what I thought was insane. I thought that you at the Herbology Institute was insane. You? There? Dealing with all those people who know you below the mask, knew your story as they told it to their children or had it told to them as children? How many times have you heard your own name mentioned in conversation?"
He was being rhetorical, not really desiring an answer.
"I thought that you asking for my help to fit in with them was insane, but - mercifully - you chose instead to live on the sidelines of them instead, steeling plants for my wife at your own expense."
Draco's father paused and took a deep breath.
"You chose us."
"And I want to keep choosing you, but I don't know if I really can Apparate this many times," Harry answered bluntly.
A flicker of pride crossed Lucius's face, and he went so far as to rest his hand on Harry's shoulder, making Harry's heart pound faster. Lucius tilted his head ever so slightly down, as the two of them were nearly on the same level, so that he could stare into Harry's eyes as he spoke.
"After the things I've seen you accomplish in my house, I believe you capable of anything."
"Thank you," Harry said softly, biting on his lower lip. "I want to help you and Narcissa. Repay you for -"
Before he could finish, Lucius pulled him close. And wasn't this odd to be hugged by yet another Malfoy? Lucius's masculinity engulfed him in not an dissimilar way as Doka's did, but there was that leanness here, too. Lucius didn't have ulterior motives as Doka had, either.
"Never mind repayment," Lucius said. "What I want from you is for you to live to your fullest. I'll only try to help you do that."
It would take a lot of practice.
January, 2000. Harry had been an A-2 for a year and three months, and is 19 years old.
Harry had gone so far as to cross the Gulf of Finland using the Floo Network, relying on the security in Finland's biggest wizard street in Helsinki. And he picked up a tail. It wasn't his first, but it was his first so far out of a city. There was something definitely urgent to be said about the argument to link the public Floo Network with private Flooplaces for quicker deliveries, but as Narcissa had once said, "That would be the end of liberty."
His secret followers appeared to be trailing him by about a mile. Thanks to a few charms on his glasses, the fog didn't seem so thick to him and he could see both of them come and go from view. Being right on the border of his vision, they were probably using the same method as him to see through the fog. The difference being that Harry must have cast his spell a little better than they did.
It was midwinter of the new year, and Harry was expecting his promotion to an A-1 level flyer any day now, probably by spring. This wasn't his first harrowing experience, but it had come on a cold day so it stood out. He was charmed warm, though, and his hood was up and form-fitted to his head, covering his forehead and up over his cheeks. His red and black winter jacket was as tight on his person as all the other layers buckled down and strapped, and he was happy to have it.
He was quite use to this job by now. He was also quite good at it.
As a side note, every bump in the road made during a delivery had to be reported. It was then sent up the line, discussed in meetings with attendees from all the Eight Companies and solutions were made to educate others about the problem and methods to counteract. These education seminars were held every month for A-level flyers, and a test was performed after each one to prove that the subjects understood the new criteria. During the many meetings Harry had gone to, he'd learned a few new and interesting spells, and found use of a few of them on occasion.
Harry was flying solo over the watery land of Finland, making his way with a large package of stock for a potion-brewer. This wasn't even his most valuable package yet to deliver, but the attackers couldn't have known that; they certainly found him interesting enough to follow all the way from the Floo Network to the middle of nowhere in Finland.
Harry was giving them a run for their money. He was kicking it at top speed and not taking a straight path at all. The landscape was rocky, snowy, and interspersed with trees and fog. The sun was up but seemed to be far off and supplied no heat at all. The landscape was frozen. He was casting a constant stream of spells to thicken the fog - magical fog being something even his eyes couldn't see through - and cause alternate shadows to fly about, using various spells such as his friendly red bats and another that sent great black forms flying off like cannon balls. He was intending to make it seem as if he was taking alternate paths when he lost them for those moments he would go over hills or lower into the trees. He had a few more tricks up his sleeve than these, but even this was giving the people behind him trouble.
The landscape was in his favor and he was sure he lost the following flyers several times, but always he saw their return. It was starting to become suspicious how well he was being picked up again, even though he could lose sight of them for long stretches.
The space between them and his destination was narrowing. He really wanted to lose them entirely before he got there for fear that it wasn't a place that could handle intent thieves. He might not have worried, really. Once the package was delivered it would be the problem of the potion-brewer, and so far he'd known all brewers worth their weight to have defenses that weren't anything easy to trifle with.
Did he start to suspect they knew his route? Yes. That was becoming the only thought in his head, as the coincidences were raw and obvious.
There was a town up ahead. Harry saw the house lights and needed to check for a name to be sure he was still on the right path. The worst thing would be to fall off course and miss his drop off, especially with a tail.
Harry swooped near the town, catching sight of the faded town sign with graffiti covering half of it and ice the other half. He cast a spell to knock the ice off. 'Welcome to Uusikylä' it said in Finnish. He picked up speed again, knowing it wasn't much farther now. Once he could get the next large Muggle town in sight, if he was high enough in the air, he should be able to identify the road south of it and then find a farm of alpacas just along it. Once that was found, there would be a stone house with a turret just between it and the city.
He saw the flash of a spell and only just dodged it.
He didn't stick around.
He Apparated in no particular direction, but made sure it wasn't a long jump. Wherever he was, it looked like the same landscape. He kicked it to high gear and kept his eyes sharp for any road signs to realign his distance once again. He'd never been this far into Finland, but he had a general idea that he still had a bit of a ways to go and had time to get on track again.
Harry kept his eyes sharp, but that Apparation had appeared to do the trick to give him space.
He stayed at speed for another twenty minutes, unable to catch sight of his tail and suspecting perhaps that he had lost them. He rose higher, getting a view from above the hills and trees to try to spot the next large town. It was right before him, spanning out miles with thousands of Muggle homes and businesses. He could clearly make out the colorful Muggle cars, driving even during the day with their lights on to cut through the fog of winter. He dove down to follow along it, looking for the alpaca farm.
The road had a few Muggles driving along it, but nothing that his magic couldn't hide from. So long as he remained going fast enough he would be invisible to them. But for other wizards on brooms he was still visible, as he found out when two bright magical spells flew his way.
He dodged by reflex and turned his broom straight up to the sky. He looked down and behind him as he climb, looking and then spotting his tail on the mere border of his vision before the fog grew thick again. His trackers must have recast their spell and gotten it more precise than his, because for who knew how long they had a better view in the winter fog than he did.
He cast a Shield spell upon the next barrage of spells, blocking all of them. Then he fired a few of his own - Confusion, Vertigo, and Blindness. He chose these because they were speedy little spells that liked to hit their targets.
One even did. He smiled as one of the two small dark assailants went spiraling, then leveled out his climb and started forward at speed again.
He would have figured taking out one would have stopped the other, but when he was hit from behind by a hard, hammer-like punch to his back, he knew otherwise.
He cried out in pain.
He was numb. Instantly numb. He didn't lose hold of his wand or broom, or feel paralyzed enough to have dropped to his death so far above the earth, but he was numb and losing the battle of staying in the air. He could feel it instantly: he was going down and there was nothing to stop that.
The one hit was all it would take to drop him to the ground, he realized. They'd got him.
"Oh, fuck," he said to himself.
His wand was in his hand and though he couldn't move it much, he could still cast a few spells.
First came a Shield spell, which waylaid two more spells aimed at him. He couldn't even turn his head to face his opponent or see where and how far away they were. He had no control to do much. But he thought fast.
He cast three more spells in quick sequence. First he blasted off a huge, thick cluster of fog to hide his form. Then the red bats. The bats were nearly the same color as his blasted red uniform. For the final spell, he cast a unique one he learned from work that would shed his body in a hazy shadow, hiding his form in its miasma.
Then Harry went for broke. The bats stayed clustered and shot off to the side, and without feeling in his body, the best Harry could do was to let all the fight he had left in him go and just let gravity take control. Harry started straight for the ground. Hell if he couldn't see the ground coming up on him fast, and hell if he didn't start trying to pull up when he did, but without much use of his body he was shit out of luck.
He blacked out when his head slammed the hard ground.
Hot, disgusting breath gusted over his face. That's what first roused him. Then he heard an animal grunt and the sound of hoofs crunching through icy grass. Even with his eyes closed he could picture a large beast looming over him.
Harry opened his eyes and came face to face with a brown alpaca with flakes of snow on its thick fur. Harry held perfectly still. He still had on the spell he last cast, the black haze made his form that of a moving shadow, like smoke but spikier. The alpaca was harmlessly grazing near him. It was watching him, yes, but it wasn't fazed or frightened. He must have appeared as just an odd natural event. He didn't want to spook them and have them alert anyone to his presence.
It was still light out, a slightly breezy day and the grasses moved. The light cast over the snowy land and he realized he was laying near a fence and near some trees. There was a lot of shadow around here in the place he had fallen, and that was probably lucky. Some time must have past, but not much of it. In the shadow of the tree and the fence, laying atop the muddy and snowy grass, his spiky shadow form blended him in well. It even moved in a similar speed as the wind rustling the strands of grass that poked out for the alpacas to feast upon. He had no idea he'd been this lucky.
But when he tried to move, that's when he realized he wasn't terribly lucky at all. His spell was still active, but so was the numbness caused by his attacker. He couldn't feel any of the movement he tried to make. His arm just flopped.
Two negatives, though. Trying to look on the bright side: Harry wasn't in any pain. He had fallen a great distance and landed hard enough to knock himself out despite all his protective gear and enchanted hood, but he felt no worse for wear. That could have been dried blood on his face, it could have just been cold muck from the slushy ground he had landed upon. What did it matter? He could have had broken bones or been skewered from something he landed on, but could he feel it? He couldn't feel anything.
"Oh, fuck," he said to himself yet again, his words slurred.
The spell they cast - whatever it was - was a body numbing spell. Unlike the Binding spell used to hold a whole body still, he had been placed in a lesser form of restraint. This spell might actually have allowed him to land without knocking himself out if he hadn't let himself get so out of control to begin with.
So, whoever had tried to rob him weren't murderers.
Harry kept vigilant of his surroundings for about ten minutes. The alpaca was joined by two others - two black ones - but no one on brooms ever appeared.
He had held off using the Finite Incantatem spell, not daring to risk canceling his own simple magical enchantment just to return nigh zero movement to himself, when he was planning on staying in his hiding place until he was sure the coast was clear anyway. But now he had had a good look around and he was feeling confident he could risk exposing his red uniform.
"Finite Incantatem," he cast.
The unfortunate part about it all was that the Finite spell didn't release him from the body numbing spell. Harry was left just as numb but also a glaring red target. His sudden appearance spooked the alpacas and they hurried away.
He sighed, because he didn't know what spell would undo the numbness. He recast the concealment spell in the meantime. In a crowd in the city he was often distinguished for this uniform, but in the wild he needed to keep it hidden.
"Crap..." he muttered, closing his eyes for just a moment.
He had nothing on him that could help. Even if he could manage to get his numb hand into his pocket and open a vial of potion, all he had were some healing potions, some Beatification potions to re-dose his image of a scar-less tanned pretty boy, and even a few sandwiches. But nothing that could help him here. From now on he was going to heavily consider a few more potions to keep with him, as well as learn the counter spell to this numbing curse!
It took a full ten minutes to turn himself over and get into a position that would convince his broom - still in his grasp and between his legs - to raise him. During all this his wand had fallen out of his hand, and he couldn't get his fingers working enough to pick it up. The sensitivity of his Firebolt was his best hope at this time; he maneuvered slowly on it, dragging over the ground and getting his face into the mud to bite his wand.
What a stupid picture he painted.
So long as he concentrated hard and struggled through the numbness, he could keep his balance and his wand in his teeth. He dragged himself the first few feet over the icy mud of the alpaca farm, sure that there was more in the soil than he really knew. He was fortunate the cold temperature probably hid the worst of the smell.
He knew he didn't have any other choice. He knew the direction he came from and knew also that this was the alpaca farm he had been looking for. He was going to follow the fence line and hoped that it would lead to the potion-brewer's house.
Really, how much worse could it be? He was alive, that was enough to keep moving.
Well, it was as bad as an hour of flopping himself from one side of the broom to the other, trying to stay where shadows naturally formed, and probably picking up ten pounds of mud into the hem of his clothes and boots. He moved so awkwardly that by the time he came within sight of the stone house with the turret he might have done the same with just one more minute of flying normally. Lights were on inside and smoke was coming from the chimney stack. It was a sight for sore eyes.
Harry made the choice to take the safer way to the front door along a tree line. The whole time Harry belly-flew - still in his hazy black smoke shape - he kept his eyes peeled for the thieves. If they were there, if they knew this was his destination, either his spell was too good for them to notice him, or they had given up. Five minutes later Harry had made it to the front door.
He righted himself, leaning his whole frame against the door frame and weakly holding his broom to his body. In this position his blood started to flow a bit better, making it possible to delicately drop his wand from his mouth into the crook of his arm, then let it slide towards his hand so he could grasp it.
"Finite Incantatem," he cast again, removing the shroud that had hid him so far.
For just a short time he cast his eyes around, waiting expectantly for someone to ambush him again. Nothing appeared to be disturbed.
Harry knocked slowly on the front door.
It took a moment, but then he heard rustling.
He frowned in concern, hearing fully that there was someone right on the other side. But they were just waiting there.
He knocked again, unable to add much force to the action.
He frowned again because still no one answered.
But finally it opened.
She was probably in her forties. She wore a thick sweater and grey pants, and had her hair pulled up in a knot. Her wand was at the ready, but the sudden anguish at seeing Harry made her lower it. What sort of image he presented caused her to gasp.
He wasn't very stable on his feet, still using the doorjamb to support him, but he said with a bit of a numb mouth, "Delivery from the Herb...ally Ins...tute. Sorry 'bout being late."
The door was opened fully and Harry was washed with warm air. Behind her the room was lit brightly. There was a home beyond the front room, but this front room was her potion brewing lab, as clearly it was filled with shelves of ingredients and had a few tables with a dozen cauldrons - only two of them were brewing potions, a crackling fire keeping them bubbling. The beams going across the ceiling had hanging plants and utensils.
It wasn't a large business. Even Professor Snape's potion lab at Hogwarts was better equipped.
With the door wide, Harry could see something more. There were two wizards behind her, one young and in a chair but slumped over the table, and one older standing beside him. The sitting lad had a head wound and didn't look like he was in the best state.
The other wizard suddenly shouted in Finnish and looked frightened, wand in hand, Harry noted.
The woman at the door turned back to the man, saying something urgently in the language Harry couldn't understand. She turned back to him and pulled him toward her with strength he couldn't match. She pulled him into the house, jarring him so he accidently dropped his Firebolt - it landed a foot above the floor, floating there of its own magic - and she shut the door behind them. The man yelled more, rushing forward not to help her support Harry, but instead to grab Harry's wand out of his slack hand.
He couldn't resist as she supported nearly all his weight to a chair at the table with the other lad and dropped him onto it. There was already a rag on the table among glasses of water and a pitcher of the very same. She took the large white rag and wiped it across Harry's face. It came away with mud and a fair amount of red blood. She swiped it over his face again, coming away with even more of both. She was holding him up with a hand on his shoulder, but his head lulled.
She was furious as she next spoke to the standing wizard. Her tone was demanding. She was so heated but still allowed some care into her actions as she lowered Harry towards the table so that he was laying there in a similar way as the other. For a kidnap, this was the nicest one yet.
The older man retaliated for a time, waving his arms at Harry and the other young man on eye level with Harry. Harry could see clearly the teenager across from him was suffering from the Vertigo spell he had cast. From this close, Harry could even smell the vomit that surely he had been unable to stop from spewing, only probably now stopping because he was empty inside. Harry knew the counter spell, but clearly these two did not.
Finally, done completely with the man, the witch left Harry and was around the table, slapping the wizard over and over and yelling worse than ever. He weakly defended himself, backing away until he hit the counter behind him with a thud. He had to take her verbal abuse for some time until he changed his tone, lamenting now. When silence fell, he left her and came over to Harry, pointing his wand on Harry and casting a spell Harry had no way of stopping.
The change was immediate and surprising: the numbness went away and Harry had his feelings back. He blinked and gave a full body shake in a similar way to the alpacas he had watched earlier. The animals had done this to shake off frost that formed on their coats, but Harry did it to get his nerves working again. He sat up and groaned as the effects left him, and true feeling returned: pain in his head and right shoulder, stiffness all over, piercing cold that caused him to begin shivering.
The knowledge that the spell he had been inflicted with was so minor, and his wounds were only the result of his own fall, did not forego Harry's thoughts; he didn't feel too endangered.
At last, the woman spoke to him in English as she came over with the rag again to wipe more mud and blood off his face.
"You might have frozen to death."
Harry moaned, flinching back.
"Ow! Ow!"
She hissed in that way one does to sympathize. Harry reached up and stopped her from patting at his head anymore.
"You were the ones following me? You were after your own supply?" Harry asked, knowing the answer.
The witch sat at another of the chairs, wrapping her arms around the younger of the men and now unable to stop her sorrow and tears.
"It wasn't meant to hurt anyone! Please! Please tell us how to fix our son!"
Harry looked to the young man - probably his own age but a bit younger - who was weakly shaking.
Harry looked back at the father who held his wand and Harry's. He looked sorry, yes, but he also looked trapped. He wasn't a threat the likes of which Harry had found in his past, but more like the sort of diplomatic threat described in the books he'd read of Lucius Malfoy's. This was a poor family in the country, perhaps plotting to steal their own herbology supply so as to seek the upper hand that was closely tied into this dramatic action.
Harry had a lot of diplomatic routes to take, and was careful to weigh his options.
He stayed calm regardless of his pain and took a deep breath, but then halted that when his ribs protested. He swallowed weakly and looked back at the teenager at the table who was suffering because of the Vertigo spell.
Harry took pity over all the other feelings he might have felt.
"Averzadish. Say Averzadish and go like this," and with his non-dominant arm he made as if he was holding his wand and was slowly looping his hand in circles.
The boy's father narrowed his eyes and asked a firm question to the woman in another language, but she made a hurried motion for the man to do as Harry had said. He gave Harry a look, then practiced the movement. Harry nodded in approval.
"Averzadish," he cast nervously, twirling his hand just as Harry had shown.
The young man's change was as immediate as Harry's. He sat up, shaking his head and groaning, wiping his hands over his face and hugging his stomach. He quickly reached for some water from one of the cups and drank it. Meanwhile, the boy's mother hugged him tightly and they had a subdued conversation that Harry couldn't understand.
Harry let the moment carry on.
And then there was a bit of movement from the doorway deeper in the house. The subtle motion was missed by the family, but Harry caught it. There in the shadow of the house interior was a shape that soon became two. Two little kids peeking in on the happenings of the potion room. Harry looked from the doorway to the father, letting his eyes speak for themselves that there was something up over there.
The father turned his gaze from Harry to the door behind him, then exclaimed. He rushed to the door, opening it and speaking in an upset tone, pointing at the two children that were out of sight, indicating they leave. The mother got involved. All in all it transpired that the son at the table left the room, off to watch the other two children, Harry assumed.
Then he was left with just the mother and father, still sat at the table and unarmed. He had his arms around himself, hugging himself to hinder the pain and try to get warm. The dirty rag was on the table and he was dripping mud, ice, and blood onto the chair and floor. On his body was the expensive delivery he was entrusted with, in a pocket that was tied and buckled closed for safety. With the moment of silence dragging on, Harry made the decision to reach for the package that was secured in his wizard-spaced pocket.
While unclasping the buckle and undoing the knot, Harry held the eyes of the father, who raised his wand at Harry's slow movements. For a heartbeat before reaching in, Harry held still, but then he slowly reached in and pulled out the delivery to set on the table. Also with the delivery was a piece of parchment - the contract that he needed to get signed. It had the names of the people at the Institute that verified all the ingredients already, but needed a signature still.
"Olsem Bladquester," Harry read, and confirmed with a look up that Olsem was the woman, now looking even more sorrowful for having her name known in this act of thievery.
Harry looked down again at the parchment.
"Delivery for..." he scanned the list, then fell on one item that stood out from all the rest.
When he saw what it was and how expensive it was, he understood the reason for the hijacking.
"Wolfsbane. A fair amount. Once the ingredient was in your possession you'd be contacted by Regulation for this amount. The Ministries of Magic would have an inquiry and charge you a fee. Put you on a list..."
His statement held them in their place.
Aconite, better known as wolfsbane. It was an ingredient only needed in a few rare potions. Remus Lupin used it in the Wolfsbane Potion that made his transformation into a werewolf each month easier, but it was expensive and for years Remus couldn't afford it; suffering during his transition because he had no other option. Harry always regretted not knowing, not being able to have used his parent's money to have bought the potion for him. But he hoped he'd made amends by leaving him Sirius's vault. The wealth from there would buy him and a hundred people the Wolfsbane potion for the rest of their lives.
Harry saw this mother and father in a new light, and wondered about the two children hiding in the shadows.
Harry pushed the package across the table and sat back in his chair, looking directly at them.
"You could take it still. Mind wipe me or hide my body. Claim I never arrived. Either way, you'd be investigated and probably found out."
Still, the witch and wizard didn't speak, but the woman started crying again and turned to her husband to hug. With fierce but hurt eyes, he watched Harry.
Harry then pushed the parchment he'd read from further across the table towards them.
He weighted his next words down with a level tone of voice, furrowing his brow in thought.
"Or, you could write an addendum. Deny the wolfsbane and I'll return it back to the Institute. You'd get a fair amount of money back."
That's when the father spoke English.
"And what of you? You would report us!"
Harry looked away for a moment, thinking.
He wasn't going to report them. A situation like negotiating with criminals - if that's what these two were - would encumber his career more than he desired. And negotiating...that's what he was doing because he could hardly help feeling a sense of worry about the whole situation. There was something to say for Narcissa's point of view: there were people who needed regulated plants and potions, and who didn't need the Ministry breathing down their backs about it.
He'd come a long way with the use of such potions, and he knew that Remus Lupin really needed an easier time while he transformed each month. He even considered Severus Snape a nicer person for having brewed the potion for Remus in his third year at Hogwarts, and that was saying a lot against his usual feelings on Snape.
While still not looking at them, while still thinking forlornly about his old professor and childhood friend of his father's, Harry asked them, "One of your kids is a werewolf?"
He got no reply. He looked up at them and also asked, "How old?"
The mother still hugged her husband, but put on a brave face.
"They're almost ten. Our twin girls."
"Both of them?" Harry asked, chafed by the answer.
The father raised his chin in defiance to the problem, while his wife wiped the tears that came newly to her eyes.
It must have been Fenrir Greyback; only he'd be as sadistic.
Harry didn't see any but one way out of this now. He risked being cursed but stood up anyway, and pushed the parchment further across the table with his better arm than the hurt one.
With a strong tone of voice, he made his demands.
"Sign this. Deny the wolfsbane."
"And you?!" The mother exclaimed as question, because clearly in his current state there was no denying their wrongdoing.
They were good people; he knew they didn't want to hide his body.
Harry produced an inked quill from a pocket and set it on the table next to the parchment, then reached into his pocket again and produced one of the illegal black pouches that held his secret potions. He knew still how popular a topic these magical pouches were, and figured they recognized it, but he didn't try to hide it because he was still in the fire line of the wizard. They watched him open the expensive pouch and pulled from within a potion in a glass vial about the size of a cola can, and drank half of it. Immediately the healing potion poured through his body and started relieving the ache and pain, closing even the wound on his head under his hood. It tasted disgusting and emitted a white vapor from his mouth for a short time.
Secondly, Harry produced another potion - the Beautification potion that Narcissa had perfected long ago - and took just a refreshing sip. He knew it would have the effect of evening out his black and blue skin as well as any distraught look he had around his eyes. He was still covered in mud and blood, but that could be fixed with a spell.
He held out his previously aching dominant arm, eyes locked on the man.
"Give me my wand, Mr. Bladquester," Harry demanded but without threat.
It wasn't him who moved first. Olsem left her husband and picked up the quill he had left on the table, looming over the parchment and looking for how to fill it in properly.
The standoff was on now.
"Don't, Olsem. We need the wolfsbane for our girls," Mr. Bladquester whispered with a stiffness.
"Not like this," she said, not looking up as she was writing on the parchment.
Harry narrowed his gaze.
"It's not an easy potion to make and you need more than just wolfsbane. And you'll be making the potion for two. You'll have twice the fees to pay if you could even afford the ingredients at all."
"Which we can't!" Said Olsem right away, signing the document now and standing up straight, pushing the parchment angrily to Harry. She was exhausted and at the end of her nerves. "We've got two little girls, you know! Innocent, sweet girls! Don't you understand what this potion would do for them?! They were attacked during the war; they were just outside playing! The werewolves who cursed them did it just for fun! They have been through so much and it's not getting any easier! We just can't take much more of it!"
Harry lowered his hand that was still asking for his wand.
He asked, "Have you registered with the Ministry?"
She shook her head.
"Do you know what would happen if we did? No one would buy our potions if they knew our girls had lycanthropy. This is our livelihood!"
So they had healed their wounds personally; dealt with all the trauma themselves. Narcissa had done the same but with expensive resources that these two just didn't have. Who knew how far their therapy still needed to go. Harry could only believe that it had been nearly three years since the children would have been bitten - depending on what time it had happened during the war - and that they had suffered all this time without proper medication. Well, all this time unless the family paid their savings down to nothing to buy them the potion.
Harry didn't need to think twice from here.
He explicitly said, "I can get you the Wolfsbane Potion and it wouldn't cost you a thing."
The two before him were sure that they had misheard him. Either that, or sure that he was lying.
Harry shook his hand that waited again for his wand back, palm spread open.
"Give me my wand and I'll take back the wolfsbane and go. You think I'd keep my job if they found out I negotiated with you like this? They'd investigate me and find out that I had already stole some of the rarest plants in the world from them, and they'd send me to Azkaban for fifty years. I have wolfsbane, I have everything needed to brew the potions the week of the full moon, and I can get it for you for free on those days. You just have to do one thing for me..."
English wasn't their first language and it took them time to understand fully what he had said. But he knew he had the mother warming to his side by the looks of it, but still he didn't convince the father.
"You lie," the father said.
"No, I don't." Harry was firm.
The silence lasted while he judged Harry.
Harry was more compassionate when next he spoke, because he wanted to help.
"I'm telling the truth. Look," and Harry fished into his pouch, taking out the half-drank healing potion for a closer inspection by the man. "Do you recognize this potion?"
Olsem reached out for the vial with a shaking hand, but her husband said before she took it.
"That's Healing Dash."
Harry nodded.
"A regulated healing potion. They wouldn't give that to me to just carry around. And this," and Harry produced another potion.
This little vial appeared to be nothing but clear water.
"Veritaserum!?" The mother recognized its purity immediately.
Harry nodded again.
"I'm not going to take it just so you'd believe me. I sell a drop for a galleon when I'm running short on money. Plus, now and again it's nice to have some on hand to put in someone's drink. I rather prefer the open air than secrets, especially when I get the chance to make a politician talk."
He let that sink into their minds.
"But I'll leave a drop for you to try later," and he took the half-empty cup the son had drank from and put a drop within it.
Then he returned the Veritaserum back to his pouch and to his pocket. Plenty of newspapers also appreciated the loose tongue of a politician. On many occasion they were quoted for one thing but voted for another; it made for new bodies in office when conflicts like this went on.
He was just trying to show them how corrupt he was when it came to the law.
"What do you want?" The father asked hollowly, now in belief that Harry might really get them the Wolfsbane Potions.
Harry thought of Remus, thought of Hogwarts, thought of all the cases in the paper of people who were discussing the crime of regulating the Wolfsbane Potion and not offering any discounts, even for the children who were cursed in the crib because of Fenrir Greyback and his pack of evil lycanthropes.
"Send a letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Harry told him seriously. "They've had children there before who have had the curse. They hired a teacher once who had it, too. They are supportive of these children and know they're coming of age; they would take them unlike most other schools. They'd supply the Wolfsbane Potion for your girls while they are there. I'll supply you the potion until they are accepted. They're almost ten? I'll supply the potion for a year."
Harry amended with a stern, "First, you have to give me my wand!"
Mr. Bladquester looked down at Harry's wand still in his other hand. He stared at the muddy wand, lost in his thoughts and worries. But then, slowly, the wand was extended out to Harry.
Harry took it gently from its kidnapper, then he turned it upon his own body. He cast two spells he was quite familiar with, spells that he used nearly every day to freshen himself before going back into work after a delivery. One was to clean himself and another to straighten his uniform. Both spells had no visible auras, but they worked quickly to rid him of his muddy and shabby look. Buckles that had come loose tightened, the wrinkles were flattened, the fabric shimmered clean, a lost button reappeared. Overall, having the mud out of his shoes was the best part. A few seconds later, Harry stood before them clean as a whistle. The healing potion allowed him to stand straight and the Beautifying potion hid whatever bruises were left. He appeared as if he hadn't been through any trouble at all.
He re-sheathed his wand in its holster and stood with his hands empty.
The two got their first look at him, realizing only now how young he was. Their son, who had tried to rob him alongside the father, was just a little younger. But despite his age, Harry was honorable.
"I promise to be on time for every delivery."
"Really? Really? What is in it for you?" Olsem said, voice as hollow as her husbands, narrowing her eyes in question.
Harry thought about that. Once again, his old teacher came to mind, as did his staunch resilience against succumbing to the status quo of just accepting how werewolves were treated in society.
"I get to make a difference," he said honestly, softly, and without question of himself. "Wizarding society has a lot of problems that could be solved if we let go of preconceptions and regulations. I know why they got there, but I don't think certain rules still apply if they cause people like you to suffer because of monsters like Fenrir Greyback."
Their eyes widened.
"How did you know it was him?" Olsem asked.
Harry shrugged, looking away and rubbing his cheek for a brief moment, as if he could still feel the chill that had run through his body from the man while in the Malfoy basement. He recomposed himself.
"I didn't. But he liked hurting children the most."
With that, Harry picked up the order form with the signature, reviewed it for accuracy, and put it into his pocket. He then picked up the delivery box and opened it, pulling out only the packaged wolfsbane plant and returning it to his secure pocket as well. He was so very straitlaced about it all.
He turned to the door where his Firebolt was floating and grabbed it, tucking it into the crook of his elbow in a practiced motion and standing at attention to face them again.
"But not all werewolves are bad," he said honestly.
He didn't realize that would be his parting words until the moment turned from quiet to uncomfortable. He quickly turned and pulled open the door, shutting it behind him and leaving the two parents to themselves. He mounted his broom and left in a hurry.
As he flew, he was consumed with thoughts of Remus, of werewolves, of the children that Fenrir Greyback had molested with lycanthropy. When he closed his eyes, he could see the hairy, grey and scarred man standing outside the door in the basement of Malfoy Manor, telling him he was going to enjoy watching Harry die.
As Harry flew onward, he wondered what sort of things the two twin girls had gone though. He also vowed to speak more about his worries with Narcissa, in hopes she might lower her prices for the Wolfsbane Potion even further.
January 15th, 2000. A week before the full moon.
It was just over a week ago that he met and made the promise to Olsem and her husband to supply the Wolfsbane Potion. As the potion went, it had to be drank every day for the week leading up to the phase. This evening would be the first delivery.
Narcissa had accepted the deal Harry made to deliver the potion to the twin girls without a fee. They were well practiced at it. Narcissa had brewed the potion fresh for the past year and he would have to make the deliveries for all her clients. The first time he did this it felt like returning home, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. He had to drink some of the Calming Drought to help him sleep every night that week.
The A-1 Transportation Officials at the Potion Division of the Eight Companies were the only ones eligible to deliver such a potion and to such a "dangerous" clientele. Harry grew livid when Draco talked about those clients being labeled that way. The youngest was five and yet they treated him no differently: dropping off the potion without physical contact with any member of the family, keeping a distance, using magic to sign the documents from afar. The precautions left the humanity of the person out of it, causing yet another failing of the Ministry of Magic handling delicate things.
Harry treated the people differently. He took precautions, but they were for his own identity. He would wear Muggle clothes and hide under a common ball cap, too. He had a few different colored ones at home (today would be dark green). He also always drank the Abjuration of Bane potion on these days, just in case he needed that added protection if he was caught and his magical signature was sought for identification.
All other potions besides the Wolfsbane were easier deliveries that were so much more random, so he rarely took such precautions as the use of Abjuration of Bane.
Sometimes when it came to brewing potions, he'd help prepare ingredients, other times it would be all on Narcissa; other times still Draco would come to lend a hand - at which times Harry usually left it all to them. Draco was able to come help out now, even though his personal life was busy. When he could, though, Draco liked the practice learning difficult potions. It irked him when he couldn't brew a potion perfectly, because in fact he was wanting still to move up at his job at the Potion Institute and needed greater skill for that.
They were waiting until that perfect minute to begin brewing for their twelve regular clients and now these extra two. It was as tight a schedule as it was a production to get this potion right. All over the wizarding world, those in this time-zone were doing the same to get it right.
"Are we ready?" Asked Draco offhandedly, measuring out some freshly chopped herbs with meticulousness.
Narcissa looked up from her own prep at the enchanted clock that had a hand with a full moon symbol on it. It was nearly into position.
"Nearly," she told her very supportive brewing assistant.
Harry could have helped, too, but with Draco there he felt less inclined. He sat in the living room with a book on his lap, not minding the two of them at all; feet dangling from the arm of the couch. It was his day off. He'd probably be helping Narcissa for the next six days anyway, so didn't feel bad skipping out today since Draco had made it.
"Really?" Draco said to him from not far away. "You're just going to sit there while we do all of this?"
Harry smiled, still not bothering to look over.
"You know I'll just get in the way. Besides, I'm going soon."
The way Harry had said his last words probably were what clued Narcissa in to where he was going.
"Are you seeing Doka?"
Harry looked up, smile broadening.
"At his place," he supplied.
Draco rolled his eyes. He wasn't thrilled with Harry's choice of lover, but it had been over a year since they started up, so he knew the full story. He also knew how secretive the two of them still remained to the outside world.
"Don't worry. It's not a big date or anything. He's just in town from Wales and didn't seem to mind a visit..." his happiness was obvious.
Like always, Narcissa kept neutral.
"It's been awhile since you saw him."
Harry closed his book about advanced transfiguration and moved himself into the kitchen.
He earnestly asked, "It has, hasn't it? He left for home a few weeks ago, but reached out suddenly."
Like last year - after their first delicate encounter in the locker room - Doka had gone off home to Wales. It had been another two months before Doka came back to Lithuania, back to work as a player for Tallhorn United. He would stay at a rented house closer to family, enjoying their company to which Harry wasn't invited. They had a slow beginning, but soon enough the warmer days were filled with sneaking around behind everyone's backs for some late evening fun. He and Doka got up to so many new things that he wasn't entirely sure Doka was ready for, but had tried anyway. Harry had the creative imagination among the two of them.
Narcissa inquired casually, "Are there any other reasons for him to have come back here in December?"
Harry shook his head.
"Just me. He's coming today because it's my day off."
"'Coming today,'" scoffed Draco.
Harry couldn't be bothered with Draco's petulance; he was too happy. Narcissa wasn't impressed, either.
"You could go visit him in Wales...if he was willing to have you over."
Harry shook his head.
"No, he doesn't want his family to know about me. I'm fine with that, too. One less complication."
He shrugged, maybe not altogether liking what he had previously come to terms with.
"You could go anyway," Draco said blatantly.
Again, Harry didn't reply to him.
"You don't feel trapped here, do you?" Narcissa asked.
Harry's eyes rose, roaming over the large ceiling and open banisters that were up there. He loved this place. It was more home than any he knew before. He told them just this.
"Well, I want you to stay as long as you want. But the world is out there, too."
"Go on vacation," Draco said.
Harry shrugged, falling into a stupor for a moment. He arose from it in melancholy.
"Can't really have a deep relationship, though, can I? I'm not exactly an open book."
Narcissa said helpfully, "You'll be surprised how long life really is. It's all about making yourself happy."
That was about all that could be said about it, as at that time the brewing had to begin.
On a side note not really needing much more to be said: Harry had a good visit with Doka for the few hours the potion brewed. One thing to mention is that Doka really loves it when Harry runs to him and jumps into his embrace, wrapping his legs around his middle; Doka liked that he was strong enough to lift Harry easily. And maybe one more thing that could be said is that Doka - for all his size in comparison to Harry - often doesn't take charge while they were alone, if you get the right drift.
But duty invariably calls.
"But I came all the way here!" Doka complained.
Harry shrugged while he was pulling on his large and warm boots, pants and shirt already on.
"And I'll come back. I just have to help my mother with some shopping. I promised."
"When will you move out and stop having to do chores?"
"It wouldn't matter if I moved out; I'd still help her if she asked."
"Momma's boy!" He declared.
Harry kissed his annoying mouth goodbye with a smile.
"I'll be back later."
Time was of the essence. The potion had to be drank soon after completion, and the clients wouldn't appreciate tardiness. He had never been tardy before and wasn't on this day, either.
He'd shown back up at home an hour before the potion was ready. He took a shower, changing into common Muggle winter clothes and that green hat. He even put on a Muggle t-shirt though it would be hidden under his jacket - a dark blue one with bold white letters that said 'Chop Up,' though he didn't get the meaning. He went out and helped them with the final steps, making sure everything was in order for the speedy delivery: his Firebolt, the travel cups, all his straps on his coat. He was ready.
Draco whispered to him insensitively, "Did you have a nice fuck?"
Harry smiled ruthlessly
"I did indeed. Thanks for asking."
Draco wasn't nearly as active in this field as Harry was. He was currently dating a girl from work, and it helped him make connections in the field; it was a very domestic partnership at the moment.
Standing over the cauldrons in their final moments, Narcissa inspected each.
"Once again," she said seriously, "we'll pour these into their cups, and you'll wait with the people just long enough for them to drink it all. On to the next right after. Don't let anyone slow you down; with the last two clients in Finland, there will be a rush to get there while the potion is still hot."
The brews were finally finished around four in the afternoon. The three of them each poured potions and placed all but two in the traveling case, then the case was placed in one of the black magical pouches Harry had got for his birthday those years before. By now he no longer was stealing plants; Narcissa had all she wanted. The pouches were rarely used for anything but potion transportation now.
Harry placed the pouch in his inner pocket, ripe for reaching in and taking a cup out for delivery.
"I'm ready," Harry informed them.
"Then go right away," Narcissa said, rearranging the two travel cups left behind of the hot potion for the girls in Finland.
The two of them would stay behind to clean up while Harry made the deliveries.
The Floo Network was a double edged sword: one could pick up a tail as he well knew, or be delayed by their security. This was why Harry tried to avoid any major Floos for his day job, and why he had to devise a plan to avoid them to deliver the Wolfsbane potions, too.
He went right up to the Portkey that sat year-round in the corner of the room: their travel between his house and the Second Courtyard at Malfoy Manor, and touched it. His kitchen blurred into a dark vortex and he felt the familiar jerk behind his navel. That falling feeling lasted several seconds, but then he was thrown forward, feeling the weight of gravity again and the hard floor under his boots - the same floor he had at one point passed out upon with Naginni wrapped around his body. Harry hardly thought about that snake anymore, but somehow she crossed his mind now and then after using the Portkey; something about the physical pressure of it all.
He hardly took a breath. He closed his eyes, focusing on the first drop-off site and then Apparating away, just as he'd done all the times before to started his deliveries. He'd Splinched eight times while practicing with Lucius last year, but hadn't had an incident since. He was capable of this, for sure.
Slough, Grays, and Southend-on-Sea were the three major cities he went to, with smaller Apparations done within those three areas to get the potions delivered. No, he didn't meet the clients in shady alleys and abandoned buildings; that would still be too risky in his mind.
He met them in their own back yards, which they had protected from outside eyes seeing him coming and going.
It was just easiest to get in and out swiftly, not to mention Draco had thoroughly vetted the people for confidentiality in this matter and knew their home addresses anyway. He checked in on them both for his sake and theirs, because should the Ministry get wind of his black-marketing and their purchasing of their goods, a lot of people would be arrested.
The exchanges were done quickly. The client would be waiting, galleon in hand, and Harry would pop in and pass over the potion in its cup the size of a coke can. They'd drink, he'd be returned the cup and coin, and off he'd go to the next.
"The first one always tastes the worst, for some reason," said the first lycanthrope Harry visited that day as she passed back the cup. She was in her fifties.
Harry was sympathetic and smiled kindly.
"Well, that's good then. The rest won't be as bad."
She at least smiled a little at that. The woman was quite the recluse. He was gone before her eyes a moment after the cup was back in his pouch, so he wasn't there to see that she stood for a full minute outside, just looking at where his feet had impressed in the grasses. She was fond of this stranger, and very thankful for him.
By now, the clientele were familiar with him. None knew his name, but they often smiled and thanked him. Of the twelve people, only two ever came outside with their spouses; most were poor and reclusive like that first woman, and all of them lived out where there were only a few neighbors. He was quick and careful, taking a payment of a gold galleon for this particular potion - getting one for each dose, which was seven per person over the course of the week, times twelve patrons. The Ministry of Magic had issued a charge of four galleons per dose, as per their regulation.
Harry had arranged his deliveries so the Bladquester house was his final stop. He returned after only twenty minutes back to Malfoy Manor, then popped right back home.
Thirteen Apparations over those distances always wore him out, but it had been a long time since he'd Splinched, so felt good still.
"Good timing," said Narcissa, still standing in his now quite clean kitchen (or her brewing room, depending on the hour of the day).
"Draco left?" Harry asked as he opened up his travel case so she could pull out the twelve empty cups and insert the two full ones.
"Yes, a few minutes ago. He says he'll be by day after tomorrow."
"Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow, too," he said to Narcissa, knowing she was ready to go home anyway.
He was wasting no time to put the travel case into his black pouch and pick up his Firebolt, which Narcissa had put on the table. He wasn't wearing his usual flying gear, but his clothes were enchanted with the same spells to keep him warm. She had also laid out an extra scarf and a different winter hat on the table. She was reading him differently, silently telling him he didn't have to hide so thoroughly with these new clients; the first children they'd ever distributed to.
"Thank you," Harry said nicely - knowingly - as he wrapped the scarf around his neck.
He also abandoned the green ball cap for the less air-catching black beanie, and then he hurried into the corner where the Portkey to Malfoy Manor was...and also another Portkey recently created.
"Good luck," she said as her final goodbye.
The moment he laid his hand on the Portkey he was off, reappearing in a rather familiar place: an alpaca farm in a large bushy hedge. Just now, the sun was already down on the horizon - it being after four in the afternoon in winter.
It was his decision to place the Portkey here, as it was a truly hidden part on the farm. He placed it a few days before, but of course had to fly all the way out again to do so. He decided also not to use the Knight Bus and instead fly by night. He missed his Invisibility Cloak while he was in the air. That whole trip he couldn't help be melancholy as he remembered his past possessions.
Just to add that extra layer of security to his arrival at the Bladquester house, Harry cast a familiar spell on himself, shedding his body in a hazy miasma before he exited the patch of trees after his first arrival in the area. On his Firebolt now, he stayed close to the shady tree line and kicked it into a high speed, bee-lining right for their house. There was no one around as he made his way there, but he still kept his eyes out.
He landed on their doorstep and knocked loudly.
"Finite Incantatem," he cast, removing the shroud that hid him, doing so just as the door opened.
There stood Oslem, and behind her was her husband and the older teenage boy.
Harry pushed the door open further and stepped in hastily, pushing it closed behind him. Oslem had been driven back a few steps upon his hasty entry.
"Hello," he said to her, not wasting any time to take long strides to the table and pull out his black bag. "We need to hurry and have them drink these."
He took out the travel case and produced from it two steaming potions.
The two girls weren't in the room, but Oslem called in Finnish and got moving - along with the son - into the house to find them. This was their first time getting the potion, and they didn't have Draco's instructions about how the drop-off was going to go, so it made sense they weren't quite coordinated at it. The first set of potions always seemed to make the client the most ill at ease, as it wouldn't be until the transformation that it's known if it would work or not. He had his fair share of dealing with skeptical first-time clients, and was rather comfortable with it.
"We did not know if you would really come," said the father sternly, having stayed behind in the room while his wife went to get the kids.
Harry connected with the man by saying, "I understand. But I'll do my part."
He hoped they did theirs and try to get them into Hogwarts.
There were loud footsteps and the girls appeared between their mother and brother.
Holding a steaming cup in each hand and meeting them as they just walked into the room Harry said, "Drink these."
He was being pushy, but it was very important they drink it soon, as it had been awhile since the potion was finished.
The girls stared wide-eyed at him. One of the two was shyer and cuddled against her sister. The other turned to her mother and spoke in a complaining tone. Oslem urged them by the tone of her voice to drink it quickly.
"It won't taste good," Harry warned them as they deflated and took the cups.
The girls drank his first two gifts of Wolfsbane potion. The complicated potion would need to be taken fresh every day for seven days before the user transformed, meaning it would cost a small fortune to produce fourteen doses for the twins before each full moon, just for the benefit of having one transformation where they were in control. The little girls probably didn't understand this yet, but the looks on the parent's faces - that of hope - was clear.
For Harry and Narcissa, the cost wasn't dire, and even the galleon from the paying customers more than paid for each dose thanks to the method of how they procured their ingredients. The Ministry really needed to lower their prices, too.
This was Harry's first look at the twins Unis and Janice Bladquester. They had smooth blonde hair and round eyes with dark circles under them. Also, each had a matching scar on their left cheek, just on the cheek bone. It looked like it was a talisman leftover from their werewolf attack, as these two scars were clearly put there purposefully. They weren't big or unsightly; they were just obviously matching and odd. The two girls looked unhappy, he might even say. They certainly looked tired.
Harry took a content breath as the girls each finished the foul drink, because finally his rush deliveries were over for the day.
The girls stood awkwardly with their empty cups, mouths screwed up out of distaste for the potion.
"Why are you just standing there? Don't you have other deliveries?" The father asked moodily.
Harry inhaled deeply, both to speak as well as in relief of his duties.
"No. You're last on my list. The other twelve already got theirs."
The little girls before him raised matching eyebrows, probably astonished that he knew twelve other werewolves. But without speaking, how was Harry to really know what the two girls were thinking? But yes, they were astonished by him, that was for sure.
Harry held out his hands and they nicely passed over the empty cups. He took them back to the table where the traveling container and the black pouch was resting, getting everything together.
"I'll be back tomorrow around the same time. This is how it will be for the next six days, okay?"
He looked over his shoulder, seeking Oslam's answer more than any other.
She was quite emotional at the moment and could only nod in reply.
He looked at the others, who were also nodding, then put his pouch away and stood at attention, as he'd done before. He was ready to go. There wasn't much left to do, anyway.
"Thank you," said Unis quietly.
They were such small girls, he noted. As he progressed through the years at Hogwarts, he was always startled to see how much smaller the first years were. But at one point in time, even he was their size. Hard to believe it was barely ten years ago.
He may have mentally checked out for the barest of moments as he remembered the past. A long blink, though, and he came back to himself.
"You're welcome," he said at last to the little girl.
He tried not to linger. He turned for the door and nearly made it, but then the father came forward and grabbed him by the arm. Looking at eye level with the father, he could see the frustration that forced the father to hold him - not tightly - but firmly from leaving. Harry also found the spark of anger that hovered in Oslam's husband's eyes.
"I'm letting you into my house. I'm letting you give my daughters a potion I have not inspected...tell me your name."
It was all so true. Harry was putting this father in such a terrible place emotionally...he understood it was hard, but his sympathies were running short.
"So you can find me and kill me if this all goes wrong?" Harry clarified for all to understand.
Harry was spun and shoved against the back of the door. Mr. Bladquester held him there by both hands pressing against both his shoulders.
No one interrupted.
It wasn't the first time Harry had been thrown against a door, and it certainly wasn't the most enjoyable time, either. He could have handled his last response better; he deserved this.
"Tell me!" He demanded again. "I need to know!"
Harry felt nervous about telling them. Of the people he delivered the potion to, no one had asked before. He'd always been a bit veiled, wore simple Muggle clothes - it was obvious he was keeping himself separated from them. But this family knew who he worked for, so they had a chance to discover who he was on their own. It was just a startling feeling to be found out.
It was also sort of a relief. He was bare to see. It was nicer than he might have expected.
Harry adjusted his stance and then nodded.
"It's Alderbaron Gravewatcher, sir."
Sir. He meant it to be as respectful as he could.
Mr. Bladquester repeated him slowly.
"Alderbaron...Gravewatcher..."
Harry nodded.
He looked at the two girls who were cuddling against their mother, who held a hand around each of them. The son was to the side, watching, willing to join his father if asked. Then he looked back at Mr. Bladquester, who was starting to turn a bit red in the face.
Oslem moved first, though. She left the girls and came to him. She rested her hand on her husband's shoulder.
"Let him go. He's doing us this favor."
Mr. Bladquester sighed, letting Harry go.
"I know he is. He's doing too much for us, though."
She pulled her husband away.
She said to Harry in English now, "We understand secrets in this household, Alderbaron. Our girls were cursed three years ago, and for no reason. We cannot tell anyone; their grandparents don't even know. Our son, my husband...we will keep what you're doing for us a secret. We know if anyone found out, they'd lock you away...just for helping people like us. Don't be afraid, because we won't talk about this."
Harry felt her honesty. He also saw it in the faces of the others.
He understood their point of view.
"Momma?" Asked Janice from over by her sister.
"Tyttäreni?" She turned around.
The two girls were looking between them all, understanding everything happening there was for them. They knew Harry was coming with the potion for them; they had seen and heard so much while they hid in the house close by with their brother, close enough to have heard everything the first night Harry had come. They had talked with their brother about it for further understanding. For this reason, the girl spoke up now.
"Can we say thank you?" Janice asked in hesitant English layered with a British accent.
Unis nodded her head in agreement.
The moment turned from intense to easy when the two girls walked up.
Their parents stood back. Harry pulled himself off the door and realigned his feet.
Janice and Unis stood side by side. Just two ten year old girls for now, but Harry saw their bravery and instantly wondered what House at Hogwarts they would be sorted into.
"Thank you. Thank you very much." Janice said.
"And...asking you..." Unis looked at her sister, then pulled the courage together. "...if you werewolf? Because...you are help us..."
Not their most practiced subject while homeschooling, it seemed. Oslem tried very hard to get them to learn English, but hearing them now, the mother swore this year they would try much harder, because she really wanted them in that English school famous for its spell craft and consideration for werewolves - well, according to Alderbaron, anyway. The deal was a deal, and she would try hard to follow through.
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but the words were caught. How innocent these kids were, he kept thinking. He didn't know where his voice had gone, but it left him upon the look on their faces. His head swam in a muck of memories he'd long since thought he had come to grips with. The story in his head was edited for viewer discretion, thanks to the potions from Narcissa, but still there was sweat and blood that couldn't be washed off.
He pulled his Firebolt closer to his body, like a shield. He shook his head as an appeal, then breathed at last a quiet word.
"No..."
The girl pushed just slightly harder.
"But...we think...you are."
Harry's shaking head slowed, then dropped and he closed his eyes.
"No. I'm not."
"You are like us," Janice said unerringly and sure of herself.
"You are...bad friends...with the bad boys," agreed Unis.
They could hardly find words for what Fenrir Greyback and his clan were. 'Dead' was the only proper word to use now. But they knew Harry was familiar with that level of evil that they knew so well.
Harry's face was flush and his lips were tight. His eyes found their way back to the girls. The room was quiet while he thought about their words. Then, he spoke the truth as carefully as he could to these children.
"Yeah. We were bad friends. But I'm not a werewolf."
"Not scratch you?" Unis asked.
He looked away with dread in his eyes. He found the faces of their parents. The father's strength and the mother's endearment were familiar to him; it was the same with Narcissa in the beginning. It almost made him remember how he use to be. But really, that was long ago. Harry sighed and then spoke - eyes still on Mr. Bladquester because he couldn't fathom speaking these words directly to the girls.
"They did other things to me."
That was when Mr. Bladquester's eyes softened upon looking at him for the first time.
He couldn't believe he'd make it another second, so he fled. He was back home before he knew it, standing alone in his kitchen. He dropped his broom and went to the cupboard with the Calming Drought.
Doka was at home. Harry kept it together long enough until he emerged from his Flooplace. But it was clear as he stood there in the center of the room that something had happened to him. He still wore the Muggle clothes, which Doka had never seen him in.
"What is it?" Doka asked, setting things aside and rising.
The potion was working wonders to sedate Harry's heart and mind.
Harry said monotonally, "I do a lot for my own sake...but I want to help people, too."
Doka pulled Harry into his arms and kissed his head. Doka didn't ask, but he knew there was something that ever so often crept back up in his lover's life that irked him. He knew the darkness would pass.
"Want to tell me more?" Doka wondered.
Harry nodded.
"Yes...but I shouldn't."
Doka slid his hand under Harry's chin and pushed his head back, looking into his teary eyes.
"Was it your mother? Or your father?" Doka had to elaborate, because Harry only scrunched up his face in pain and confusion. "Merlin, fox! You bend over backwards for them and they're still hurting you. Those Muggles! I can't really complain...I know I'm half the problem."
Harry shook his head in denial, but Doka kept speaking because he thought he knew what he was talking about.
"No, I am. Your parents are probably hard on you because I don't let you tell them the truth. And I don't let you come with me to my home in Wales. I don't let us go out when I'm back during the Quidditch season, either. I'm...I'm making you lie to everyone. I know I'm making this relationship impossible. We've been together for over a year, for crying out loud! We would be living together by now if - if - you know..."
If Harry wasn't a boy.
Harry hugged him tightly, trying to stave off more uncertainty in his life. He was use to the sneaking around by now. It was one thing that he was hiding the fact that he was really Harry Potter, and it was another thing that Doka was a Quidditch professional and was bound by the rules and status-quo of that job. These were obstacles that simply didn't affect their time romping around in Doka's bed at night. What did any of that stuff matter when they liked each other so much and when the sex was so untamed?
Harry squeezed his eyes shut against Doka's chest. He knew he should say all of this, but he just couldn't at this moment, because logic was lost on him since taking the Calming Drought.
"It's just..." Doka was whispering now. "...I don't know how to make this relationship really work..."
"Let's talk about this later," Harry begged.
Doka nodded. He was always willing to comfort Harry when his personal life stretched into their time together. Rarely did Harry tell him what bothered him, as it just wasn't in the cards to discuss.
Later that week.
Doka had already returned home, but was assured he would have Harry again come the spring and the return of the Quidditch season.
Harry delivered all the Wolfsbane potions on time, but was spared any more questions from either Doka or the Bladquesters. On that full moon, Janice and Unis played in the yard with each other as two lanky little werewolf pups; far from the growling beasts they were otherwise.
The family stayed indoors watching them as they fumbled around in the snow, until slowly even they went to sleep. The girls awoke in a warmed alcove that a dog had once slept in; the dog they had to get rid of because it kept barking at the girls. The alcove had their warmest robes waiting for them in it, and when they awoke the next morning transformed back into girls, they dressed and came back in. The sun was just barely in the sky, but their mother was waiting for them with open arms.
Later that day, Oslem sat down with some paper and quilled a letter to Hogwarts, made out to Headmaster Dumbledore.
...I've learned you have had werewolves in your school, both as students and as teachers...My girls will come of age this year...can you help them, as there are no others willing...
Her pleading was well founded; she knew what sort of life they would live if they couldn't get a proper education; they'd be limited by what she and her husband could teach. She'd been saving all of her son's old schoolwork, so as to understand the progression children made. Perhaps those boxes could be thrown away if the girls could get the proper education.
She sent the letter away with their barn owl after her husband read it. It flew off into the cold day, and they wished it all the best.
The barn owl flew steadily through the turbulent winds and frigid temperatures to Scotland, where it flew through the warm halls of a school and landed upon the lunch table of Headmaster Dumbledore. He was in the Great Hall with the student body there for a meal. It was loud, students were talking of their previous and upcoming classes, and overall the mood was normal.
He took up the letter right away, as he wasn't in the midst of any conversation. When he was finished reading it, Dumbledore set the letter down and sighed deeply, lowering his glasses and rubbing at tired eyes.
"What is it, Albus?" Asked Professor McGonagall quietly, leaning in.
He looked again at the letter, at words like 'my only hope' and 'they are my little girls.'
"We have a problem, Minevera," Albus replied, handing over the letter to her.
She, too, lowered it slowly after reading it.
"Albus..." her voice jittered. "...we must do something!"
"I intend to...I intend to..."
Dumbledore made the hard decisions for the school, including the ones that would put Hogwarts at the forefront of another war. He would do it with integrity, because he was the Headmaster of Hogwarts, a position that demanded he not let any child go without aid. The twin witches cursed with lycanthropy needed him, and having been given this pleading letter from their parents, he would do what he could.
Dumbledore would first have to consult the one person in the world who could really help him: Remus Lupin. It became public knowledge some years ago that he - a known lycanthrope - was asked to become a teacher, and it didn't take much digging on anyone's part to identify that that same teacher was once a student here with the same disorder. At the time it had made several families extremely angry; Dumbledore knew he wouldn't have gotten Remus to teach if he had revealed to the School Board that he was a lycanthrope. This time around, though...
He didn't send a letter. Dumbledore went to their home later that day.
Dumbledore walked the road to the Lupin-Tonks residence while humming to himself. His light blue eyes looked merrily at the Muggle Christmas lights that still adorned some houses even late into this month. This was a very nice, quiet neighborhood, and one he hadn't visited before. But the address was known to him because both were members of the now disbanded Order of the Phoenix. They had disbanded shortly after the war, their jobs done. Now, what work needed doing was being done by Tonks and the other Aurors, mainly to find the few remaining Death Eaters.
He trudged up the pathway and turned the last corner. As he neared the house he straightened his large hat and looked upon it. It was a big house, nicely kept. Remus bought it using the money he inherited from Harry Potter, who had left him the Black vault. Remus's life was changed after inheriting all that wealth, he was sure. He knew he took the Wolfsbane potion every transformation now, and would never have to wonder where he would sleep at night. Also, Dumbledore knew he had given money away to help others procure the same luxuries he now did. Tonks was very supportive of it all.
Dumbledore went up the few stairs, then knocked three times on the door.
Remus looked through the window first, then opened the door.
"Albus!"
Dumbledore smiled. "Remus. Would you mind a visitor?"
"Merlin, yes!" Remus smiled warmly, opening the door wide to let Dumbledore in.
Dumbledore stepped through.
"Sorry for arriving without warning. This could very well have been taken care of by Floo, but I wanted to stretch my legs and see your garden."
"The garden is covered in snow, so maybe come back in a few months. Can I get you anything? Hot tea?"
Dumbledore was settled in on a nice soft sofa. The decor was very wooden and warm, with enchanted flowers blooming in vases. There was a fire snapping in the hearth. When Tonks came down the stairs, her face contorted in worry and amazement, never quite calming down even as they settled in with Earl Gray. She suspected the business Dumbledore had was something Remus would agree to, no matter how dangerous it would be.
"Teach again!?"
Only then did Tonks settle down and burst into laughter.
"But that's wonderful!"
"Truth be told, I wasn't sure if that's really what I intended to offer when coming by or not, but it is a very good idea, isn't it?"
He seemed the most amazed by his offer.
The two across from him wondered to themselves, but only Remus asked, "You didn't come by to ask this?"
"In a way...but actually, it's because I've been sent a letter by a witch with two twin girls, both of whom are ten years old, and both who have been cursed with lycanthropy by Fenrir Greyback during the war."
He gave them a moment to comprehend what he said. Both looked equally piteous.
"They weren't as young as you, Remus, when you were cursed, and they have had each other and their parents and brother all these years, but the family would like them to attend Hogwarts, and I would like them to as well. I would like, in fact - now hear me out - to open the school to all lycanthrope children cursed during the war. I know there are more than these two. I know - in fact - that some have denied attending Hogwarts even though they had received their entry letter."
Remus's heart fell.
"It was the best thing that ever happened to me to go to Hogwarts as a child. Have children really turned down the offer?"
"Their parents have. I received two denials last year. I'm willing...to ask them again. With changes to Hogwarts, it could be possible. With you as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, with Severus brewing the Wolfsbane potion, and - most importantly - with the support of the Ministry of Magic."
Tonks snorted in derision. She didn't say anything, but she didn't have to with this crowd; they knew the Ministry's views about lycanthropes. Parents didn't want their children to be in the same class as werewolves, and the Ministry supported them more than the children that denied an education to.
"I understand the sentiment, Tonks, but I still have quite the sway among some. You have such influence as well, Remus; your connections with others of your kind during the war created bonds that cannot be broken. I need you to rally. I need you speak up and get their help."
Tonks turned to her quieting husband and brought his face to meet hers. She looked deep into his eyes.
"Remus, when you taught before, the children loved you. Some of those kids are even working as Aurors now because of you. They said you were the best teacher they ever had. And the changes you have made to my life are profound. We can do this."
Dumbledore cleared his throat and said, "We have an ally at the papers, if you can believe it. Rita Skeeter and I have kept in contact over the years, and I have a feeling she would love to advocate for us. She knows your history with James Potter and - though I hate to bring him up - with Peter Pettigrew, as well."
Remus fell into a gloom.
"I don't really want to talk about him."
Dumbledore nodded.
"We're looking for him," Tonks said softly, rubbing his hand in hers.
The Aurors were trying to locate him especially, as they knew he was the one who revived Lord Voldemort during the Tri-Wizard Tournament years before, and wanted justice for that.
As all this information came to Remus, he saw the plan forming. It would take so much luck, but Rita would be a big help. When she latched onto topics the readers of the Daily Prophet listened. Little did he know, but once those articles would start coming out, she would focus on the bond between him, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew, and infer also that the only one of all of them who lived and thrived was Remus, who - because of being a werewolf - was a good man and wanted to dedicate himself to children who were also the victims of the war.
"I think we can do this," Remus said at last.
Dumbledore nodded.
"I want to do this, too, Remus."
A short time later, Dumbledore was on his way out of the house, and he said, "You have a beautiful home. I especially love the photographs over the fireplace. Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight, professor," said Tonks in the end, and they closed the door.
Remus hugged Tonks, his eyes having fallen on the mantle where the photographs were. There weren't many, but they were all of people the two of them had loved. The one on the end was of a black-haired, bespectacled teenager long dead. The photo was given to him by Ron Weasley as a house warming gift, who said he had enough photos to share.
After the door had closed, the two wedded people looked long at each other.
"You'll go around and consult the other werewolves about this?"
Remus nodded.
"I met some new families who were introduced to the curse just before the war ended. I've not been in contact with them since then...And those that were cursed in the last war...Do you think it's been too long? Will I be able to rally them to sway the public?"
She thought about it seriously.
"Since nothing has changed in all these years, they would probably be open to any idea that can help. The Ministry has put a hold on so much progression, even though petitions have come through asking for more. That young Hermione Granger has been advocating for the reduction in prices for the Wolfsbane potion, but she's not making any of the right friends."
"She's a bright young witch. She'll figure it all out sooner or later."
"You will probably be helping her, with the right sort of support..."
"He talked about Rita Skeeter...I should look into that, too."
The two started planning, knowing it would be a long uphill walk to make even the littlest of changes.
Spring, 2000
The long winter was over and spring was proving to be favorable. He was training with Hau Buu again, this time in the three month course to become an A-1 flyer, at last making it to the top of his field.
People eased up around him, too, partly because of two reasons: first, he had the praise of Buu, a respected A-1 who was once an Auror. And the second reason was Neville, who helped him blend in with people. He was an ally Harry found remarkable on many occasions. Yes, it meant he had to endure larger social gatherings, as he on rare occasion would go out with Neville and his friends for a drink in a close by wizard's bar.
The little town wasn't as touristy as Blūesoul Alley, nor was the bar as loud as the Mad Flagon Alehouse, but the quaint evening crowd of older witches and wizards was right in the comfort zone for these nerdy Herbologists.
Harry endured quietly with his beer, sitting next to Neville and remaining a hushed listener.
One of the Herbologists from the Tropical Greenhouse was telling a long winded life story, just now concluding it.
" - and when the war started, my family moved away from England. It wasn't any use, as there were Death Eaters even out here. We were just about to up and move to South America, but thank Merlin that Harry Potter stopped it all, huh?"
The carelessness of the comment drew Neville's attention.
"I wouldn't thank anyone that he died," Neville said passionately.
Neville had a girlfriend, Stacy. She rubbed his back.
Harry was trying in vain to not be spooked. He set his drink against his lips, forcing the bitter liquor down.
Another of the close knit group leaned in and to Harry's great surprise was looking directly at him. He furrowed his brow. Usually he wasn't involved in conversations, but clearly this moment was going to change that.
"Neville has shown us the pictures he has of him when they were kids," said the wizard from the Mush Rooms (the wing at the Institute that grew the fungus with fruiting bodies), "and wouldn't any of you say that Harry Potter looked a little like you? Is that why you're friends?"
Harry glared. His searing eyes went from this fungus freak over to Neville, who immediately cringed under Harry's - Alderbaron's - glare.
Neville immediately shook his head.
"No, no. You have it all wrong. Alderbaron, he's wrong," Neville was urgent. "Really. I'd never think that!"
Neville was still quite charmed by this particular Transportation Official, but had never allowed it to interfere with their friendship. He always tried desperately to treat him like the person he was - not the person he reminded Neville of.
Even though he did remind him of Harry.
Even though it did hurt sometimes just how much he reminded him of that old friend.
But the fungus freak was adamant.
"Oh, come on! No one sees it? I mean, except for his eyes and hair and - yeah - not around the nose either, or even his expressions. He was gay, too! You even said! I see it...a little..."
Even he was starting to ease up when he wasn't getting the encouragement from any others.
"You're just seeing what you want to see," concluded Stacy, still rubbing Neville's back to ease his alarm.
Harry had to chime in, then.
He said arrogantly, "Perhaps I look like the Prime Minister as well, if I don't have his eyes or hair, or anything at all."
Two others - including Neville - laughed at that and the topic was dropped.
His personal life wasn't all bad, though. For instance, Doka was a high point.
Secret meetings were a given, and Doka was well past his reticence lately. They'd jump right into the good stuff, well practiced by now and easily accustomed to each other. Doka's house was open to him and he would spend the night on occasion. He felt comfortable there, because Doka didn't make him feel like he was looking for more.
More what: well, more understanding of each other; for them to tell each other secrets and know everything about each other.
That was the nice thing: Doka was still distant because if they got closer, they'd have to address the elephant in the room: coming out publically about their relationship.
Doka was attractive. Or was he just annoying? Or was he just annoyingly attractive?
When Doka heard about Harry's friend, Neville, and the fact that Harry had been going out drinking from time to time with him and his friends over the course of months - and hadn't mentioned one word about it until so much later - he was surprised. Because Alderbaron was anything except social. He was anything except careful not to get hurt, is really what Doka thought.
Could he honestly say he didn't know anything about Alderbaron? No. He knew his family was hard on him, but that he was fiercely beholden to them. If he ever had an engagement with them, he'd stop anything they were doing to be sure to be home on time. A few times this left Doka high and dry, and other times it left Harry in a wounded and sloppy state that he had once commented on: "I like feeling it inside me. It keeps you in my mind when I need the distraction. Do it, Doka. As much as you want."
He was still lewd to a point that Doka never stopped blushing.
But with the addition of another boy following him around, Doka had to know more.
Was he going to go to his secret lover about this? He couldn't. Alderbaron never proved to be willing to break their oath to keep their personal lives to themselves. It was the one facet that kept the relationship going.
But how could Doka resist the chance to know a little more about the male human who swung his life around? What effect was his talented little lover having on the people around him? What effect was he having on this dark haired boy his own age that brought the two of them together enough to go out and have drinks?
Was Doka too old? Was Alderbaron moving on?
He'd made it his new habit to visit the courtyard between the training stadium and the Institute, where many people spent their time while on break. He'd watch Neville, waiting for his moment to approach. His time came soon enough while Neville was alone on a bench.
Doka walked up and stood next to him, his shadow falling over the sitting young man.
Neville looked up at him in pale shock.
"Hey," Doka said, eyeing the lad up and down.
Jealousy was his thing. It was something he and his ex, Foxy, had in common. It sprung to life in his gut the moment he met eyes with Neville.
"Mr. Bandar! H-hey. Hey! H-how c-can I help you?"
Doka turned his body half away, staring across the courtyard. People were milling about, some watching them. He had to make this brief and casual.
"What's your name?"
He already knew the guy's name.
"Neville Longbottom, sir. I'm a Herbologist."
Doka pursed his lips. He looked away from the others and glared down on Neville without lowering his chin. Neville felt the vibe that Doka was scrutinizing him. He looked around uncomfortably.
"Uh...sir..." Neville sought the words that were hard to come by. "Is there...something...?"
Doka finally asked what he wanted.
"You know Gravewatcher?"
Neville's eyes widened.
"Uh...yes. I know him."
"How long have you known him?"
Maybe Doka was being unfriendly. He couldn't help it, though.
Neville explained as best he could.
"T-two...about two years. From work. He...we...hang out, too. Friends, I guess. He's good at what he does..."
Doka's jealousy spiked.
"And what does he do?"
He reached for the arm of the bench and sat down, looming still over Neville, who had to scoot over on the bench to not only give him room, but give himself breathing space. He cowed under the professional Chaser's build and glare.
"H-he...he flies well? He delivers supplies? He hasn't lost anything yet? He's being promoted?"
Doka just watched him closely. Was he hiding anything? No.
And Foxy thought Alderbaron was the stalking type; turns out it was actually him.
He felt like he had something important to say, but the words...they were shrouded behind his mask. He was falling apart a bit by this new turn of emotions.
"Okay," he finally said, only he didn't look okay at all.
He needed to get his head back on. He had Quidditch to play. He had a profession he couldn't lose just for some boy!
Some boy with the body and mind of an incendiary sylphine.
He made to stand up, but Neville had found a rush of bravery and common sense.
"Wait! Don't - don't mind me asking..." he held his hands up in surrender anyway, because Doka was really big this close up. "...but...are you worried about me? I mean...are you worried about me...being with him?"
Doka scoffed, but really, it was at himself. If he had the time to look in earnest at himself, he'd be embarrassed. But he was commonly known for being careless before smart.
Neville said, almost to himself, "So...it's true..."
Doka turned on him, full anger winning out over all else.
"What are you talking about?! Nothing's true! What are you implying?!"
Neville's bravery blossomed, much to Doka's surprise.
"Alderbaron is a great guy, and he's right about you: you are just a blockheaded jock! You do just run up to people and run your mouth, getting yourself in trouble. He said all that trouble with the papers and with the magazines was all just people not understanding you, and if I was just a little stupider I probably wouldn't understand what this is really about, but you're really here to check out if we're together, aren't you? You're checking to see if I'm with Alderbaron, because in fact you're with him."
Doka was put in his place. It wasn't often he heard the truth spelled out like this. The truth: the truth that he was with a guy.
Neville had been eating his lunch, but it was forgotten on his lap as he glared daggers and kept Doka's attention.
"I'm not willing to let you and your stupidity hurt Alderbaron. If you need it spelled out...then no, he and I aren't together. We're just friends. He's one of the few people I really trust, and I'd like to think he thinks the same about me. I had a feeling he was with you...I had a feeling he was also keeping it a secret. But he talks about you sometimes - only around me - and he's careful not to let anything slip, but he likes you, Mr. Bandar."
Doka took a deep breath, wondering where his voice had gone.
Neville filled the uncomfortable silence that fell between them.
"I won't say anything. The Institute doesn't want him to make a public display again. And I bet Tallhorn United doesn't exactly want you on the lifestyle page about this, either. Everyone wants to hear the gossip, I know - but I'm not one of them. It was nice to see the papers pointing out the mistreatment of alternate lifestyles, and hitting the main points of gay witches and wizards being ostracized, but at the expense of someone's career it's not something I'd support. Sacrifices are made...I can't deny that. But I don't want them to be made by those close to me."
Doka slapped his hand across his own face, covering his guilt.
When he spoke, his voice was fricative with his hand still over his mouth.
"Ffffuck. You are a good friend..."
Doka removed his hand and closed his eyes briefly.
"He's...free spirited. I'm too old for this...he's too young...and he always smells like peaches..."
Neville made a strangled sound.
Doka looked up and saw Neville's face had washed-out and he looked suddenly uncomfortable.
"I...really don't need to know -"
Doka looked wide eyed, like he'd just now realized what he'd said.
"Right! Right! Forget it! It's - you know - his wand - his stupid wand - have you seen it - ?"
"Uh - yeah - the wood - yeah - he mentioned -!"
"Forget it! It's nothing!"
"Right!"
The two of them mumbled themselves into silence.
At last, Doka spoke up.
"Right. Kid. You know - don't say anything. Nice talk."
Neville had no idea what had just happened. But Doka marched away back to the training field. He looked down at his sandwich. Then, his face burst into a cheesy and relieved grin. He was happy for his friend for finding someone.
A little later. Spring time.
Working with Hau Buu really brought to light how spoiled and sheltered Harry was by all the people trying to keep him alive - by Albus Dumbledore most of all, he knew. He now realized the amount of strings that had to be pulled to get a direct Floo line. The Order of the Phoenix was most likely involved in those strings: like the trips away from his old home at Privet Drive, or when he'd gone to the Quidditch World Cup directly from the Weasley house...those sorts of trips didn't happen in the real world.
These days, he was spoiled and sheltered by Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, two of the most critical people Harry had ever known. They were bias people, though, and the favors he did for them equaled by now the favors they had done for him. They offered him money in exchange for risk, but researched the best spells to learn to make this career choice safer.
In the mean time, Hau Buu was training him to be an A-1. They had an assignment today: deliver a Herbologist to Germany to collect an award. She was nominated by the Herbology Institute to go to the Notable Magical Names of the Year gala and needed an escort.
Where further Harry could go at the Institute was simply - nowhere else. But he'd only just begun this new position, so didn't knock it.
Harry'd taken the precaution to drink every potion that would help conceal his identity, and dressed accordingly in uniform, which had been updated with the new A-1 garments. He now wore a stylish skull cap with a long knot and a high collar, two things that distinctly set his branch of Transportation Officials apart from any other. He wasn't planning on mingling with the guests of the gala himself, as he was told by Hao Buu that people like him were merely there to guide, not to enjoy such events. But he was planning on showing off a bit to the other Transportation Officials of the Eight Companies Institutes, who would also be delivering their nominees; he was hoping to impress, just as Buu was.
Buu was explaining things to him as they prepared for the trip.
"We focus only on the Herbologists while we're on duty, and we don't often cross paths with other Institutes. But you get that we want to look our best, right? Our utmost importance is making sure the Herbologist gets to her destination and back again. She's one of the few who ever get to receive this award, and there's no reason to allow her to get lost on the way. But once we're at the gala we can leave it to the security there and fuck about a bit with the others."
Redundant, but Harry replied anyway.
"Right. Fucking about. But no kidnaps. No theft. A hundred percent good work every day!"
He was quoting her obnoxiously.
She scowled.
"A hundred and ninety-nine percent, every day!"
Harry had the great fortune to be placed alongside Buu, but she was intense. She'd been guiding people around the world for years, and had seen a lot - and a lot more during her time as an Auror. She liked him, though.
It was three in the afternoon and Harry sat quietly with the two women on the Muggle train headed for Berlin, almost at their destination. He'd followed all of Buu's precautions, all of her twists and turns. The Herbologist was being worked up by all of it. But there was no direct path for the distance they were traveling, and the awards ceremony location didn't have a Floo Network connection.
They were in an open compartment and he was keeping his eyes on all the patrons, expecting the worst but - yeah - not really. It was Berlin and the middle of the city, and there hadn't been any mishaps yet besides one woman who kept being bothered by some unprincipled thugs looking to get her phone number. Buu had dealt with them by inflicting them with severe stomach cramps and they'd already gotten off at an earlier stop. She taught him that he was allowed to use magic in public, so long as wands weren't seen and it couldn't be traced back.
Soon they were on foot, rounding the corner on the Muggle streets of Berlin and coming upon the entrance of the gala auditorium. Harry walked behind the Herbologist, who walked behind Buu as they made their way up the stairs and between the seventh and eighth pillar, which was the entrance to the magical place out of Muggle eyes.
He was awed by the room upon entering. The auditorium was a huge dome shaped room with many tables set up and many people scattered about. It was ablaze with light and the smell of food and of chatting folks. Their charge immediately left them and rushed the entry table to get her name badge and register.
"We'll be here when you're ready to leave," Buu told her retreating back.
She thanked them in a hushed tone, but was thrilled to be rid of them, obviously. She was a quiet witch, really, and not at all made for the life of a celebrity Herbologist. But to accept this award was an honor she wouldn't pass up, even if it meant leaving her quiet greenhouse and putting up with two serious A-1s.
Harry followed Buu to the sidelines where other A-1s were milling about, having just dropped off their own charges. They were in pairs, just as them, and Buu immediately started hassling them, a big grin on her face upon seeing some old faces.
Harry held back, though.
He watched the witches and wizards coming to the gala and started to feel excitement. He hadn't realized how popular this event was going to be...when he spotted a face he recognized from a Chocolate Frog card, that's when he knew he was in the presence of some really great people.
I'll probably see Albus Dumbledore!
His mind raced with anticipation of how many people in the crowed he might recognize.
He scouted out the area for the best place to merge with the decor. He wanted to watch the awards be given out, have a taste for what the rest of the world was doing while he was - to quote Buu - fucking about.
The event was - for some - the event of the year. People were dressed up to high heaven and laughing in glee as they chatted with those who had made a hard mark on the world this year. He watched quietly, attempting to blend in with the walls. Pretty soon, Buu left along with the other Transportation Officials to some other part of the building - perhaps a side room made up just for them. But Harry let them go - he wasn't terribly interested in shooting the shit like she was.
He kept to the very edge behind a large fern, shadowed between it and a pillar. He turned his face mostly away as he watched, chin tucked in his raised collar. A server spotted him - many had passed him by without noticing - and came over to him with a plate of bubbling champagne and a smile.
"Sir. Would you like a glass?"
Harry smiled nimbly and took one. The server - knowing that Harry wasn't a guest - left him with a friendly smile compared to how he departed the other people of the evening.
A speaker took to the stage and everyone clapped.
"Welcome to this year's celebration of Notable Magical Names. I'm pleased to be hosting for all of you. We're here now to learn of the winners. The people I'll be calling up, who will accept their award and give a small speech, are people who have made a difference in the Wizarding World this year. There are always a few familiar faces, as they continue to predominate their field, but there will also be new faces who have made remarkable and surprising contributions. Let us now meet our first winning category: Headmasters and Headmistresses of our schools! Winner now for a number of years that will remain unspoken - Albus Dumbledore! Headmaster of Hogwarts!"
Harry shrank even more, if that was possible.
He knew he'd see him. He was glad they were the span of the whole room across from each other.
Dumbledore rose from a table at the front, receiving his award and placing himself in front of the podium. Harry held his breath as memories filled him of seeing such a similar sight after so many years.
The clapping settled down and Dumbledore smiled out on the crowd.
"Thank you, all. Yes, the number of years has added up to quite a lot. I appreciate every one. I would be remiss to tell you I would ever jeopardize that..." and here Dumbledore looked solemn. "...but this year I will be weighing my return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry upon the conclusion of the School Board to open the school to children cursed with lycanthropy. This year, should those children be denied a place at my school, I will retire in shame and disgrace. Thank you for this award."
Harry - everyone - was speechless. Dumbledore's footsteps could be heard from across the room. Then a murmur arose and then scattered applause. The speaker returned to the podium shaken.
"Ah - " he sought to gather himself and the mood back. "- yes - yes, well, there you go! Albus Dumbledore, staking his claim for his Notable Magical Name award for next year already!"
Murmurs and scattered laughter as heavier applause resumed the event.
Harry was still digesting the words he had said, and completely missed the remainder of the awards from the other Headmasters and Headmistresses.
Did he have any help in this?
He had demanded that the Bladquester's write Hogwarts and petition to get Unis and Janice into that school. Was this the result of that?
He felt chilled to the bone as the category of awards moved on to magical skills. He zoned out during Jonel Chardoney's extra long speech as he accept his award for Transfiguration. He was still picturing the headlines in the papers soon to come, about Hogwarts fighting for the open enrolment of lycanthropes.
He was so thrilled as he imagined this that he didn't notice a man dressed in black robes walking closer to him. He came upon Harry slowly from the front, unnoticed because Harry was looking off to the side at the podium through the fern, distracted. When the man was only three paces from him, drawing Harry's attention at last, Harry met his eyes.
Immediately his heartbeat doubled and blood rushed to his face.
An expression of terror became frozen onto his face.
Severus Snape.
Snape himself was numb with incredulity. He was menacing, unyielding, towering...
Feelings stirred in Harry's body. His mind pounded with memoires from school, of detention, of secrets.
As an Occulmenist, Snape could see Harry's mind like words on a page in a brightly lit room. He came up so close Harry could feel his breath on him. Snape was right there, staring intensely down into his eyes.
"Potter...?" Snape breathed, voice hardly capable of voicing the truth.
The voice was so familiar that it made Harry's world quake. The glass still had an inch of drink left in it, but that spilled onto the floor with a small pattering sound. And Harry needed to hold onto something that would tether him back into reality; his last resort to hold it together. With his other hand, he clenched the stock of the plant by his side, twisted it so he heard the fibers snap. He felt minutely sorry for the thing.
His mind swam with the buzzing truth of this moment.
The room rang with celebration claps again as - finally - the longwinded speech was over and another name rang through the air, another person called up to collect their award and give a speech.
Snape took up residence also behind that plant, stepping into Harry's space so they were within two feet of each other's faces. Snape was the first to look away. He looked down at Harry's hand and took hold of his wrist and dislodged it from the stem. As if he was petrified, his hand dislodged but remained stiff, and Snape remained holding it until he turned cattycorner to Harry and leaned against the wall. Harry's hands were by his sides now, both numb.
They stared at each other again, but no words were said.
Another name was called. Quentin Linkheart. Another speech. Then another. Cassandra Orderith.
Harry watched Snape. Other times he was looking at the floor. Other times he was looking to the crowd. Snape equally stood as awkwardly and silent, but mostly kept looking at Harry.
They were getting their realities straight. Time was helping him focus.
Harry couldn't say that he was unhappy about this turn of events. He had no one other than the Malfoys to talk to about his leaving - well, his dying - and the truth was that he wanted more opinions. He knew no one would respect Narcissa's choice to hide him...but now standing with Severus Snape, maybe that wasn't true? A spy certainly could have respected the choices that lead to the outcome of a war won. No matter Harry's sacrifice, it had no bearing on Snape other than to free him from danger.
Harry was soon staring wide-eyed, wondering if Snape perhaps was the one who could understand his choice the most: stay dead and keep Voldemort dead.
As a byproduct of standing there for so long, Harry moved beyond necessary thoughts into unnecessary thoughts. He thought Snape looked better than before. He stood straight, looked particularly healthy, nothing like the pale goon from his youth that he remembered; he must have been getting more sun. Snape still sported a close goatee, shoulder-length hair, and still had a nose capable of much conversation, but there were no potion fumes at all.
Half an hour later, Harry concluded that Snape no longer looked unhappy, either. He still looked like he was a sarcastic brooding man, but Harry knew he was no longer unsupported, mistrusted, or malevolent enough to try to kill him. Quite the contrary, on this occasion it fell upon Harry's mind like a lead cauldron that he was free and out of hiding, just like Harry. He was completely free to have his own life.
Harry had always thought if more of his old classmates would be seen he would have to run, or have to beg for their silence and their forgiveness (in that order), and not because he didn't want to see them, but because he was supposed to be over his old life. He realized now that plans had a way of always being undone.
Harry could meet the other's eyes steadily now, and he wondered how long their silence was going to last.
Clapping. Someone had finished a speech. Harry wasn't ready for the next thing that happened.
"...the potions professor at Hogwarts, Severus Snape!"
Harry's head shot around to the podium, looking to make sure he'd heard correctly. Snape gave Harry a last glare and then started striding forward for the stage before anyone began looking around for him.
"Ah! As he makes his way to the stage from the back there, Mr. Snape is being awarded the Notable Magical Names award for his lectures on the brewing of the Wolfsbane potion. His accomplishment has trained many other potioneers how to brew this one successfully, for the benefit of all lycanthropes. He works at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..."
The speaker trailed off with a sudden odd expression, perhaps suddenly making the connection about Snape's dealings with teaching about the Wolfsbane potion and Dumbledore's sudden threat of retirement unless the school opens up to werewolves.
Harry cowed into the corner, looking subtly about to see if anyone was lingering on him. But they weren't.
Snape went to the front and up the stairs, accepting his award and taking the podium. During this time, Harry got a chance to calm down.
Snape stared out at the crowd.
"Thank you for this award. I hope to further assure everyone of the success rate of the Wolfsbane potion, to ease the worries about lycanthropes joining into mainstream society. They should receive as many chances as the rest of us."
That was it.
He left the stage.
Most people clapped halfheartedly at his brisk nature, except from the potioneer's corner, where he got a standing ovation. The speaker lined up at the podium, ready to call another name when the clapping stopped.
Snape was a master of the arts of potions, magic, and dueling, and so now as Harry watched him leave the stage without so much as a blush, he was sure the man was courageous. He had defied Voldemort for the Order of the Phoenix, for crying out loud, so of course there was more courage in him than Harry often got to see.
Snape was held up as people stood and shook his hand. Harry saw his trajectory wasn't back his way, but was for the exit. Harry took his leave from his place by the fern and went along the back wall, slipping out through the doors first. Snape spent a few minutes near the potioneer's table, allowing an exit without rushing. At last, he went to the back of the room and further, leaving through the doors.
Snape expected to just get back to his rooms at Hogwarts. He didn't expect there to be someone standing in his path.
But Harry stood there in the center of the empty entry room, where all the coats were hung.
He got another good look; they both did.
Harry finally spoke to him.
"I think freedom suits you, too."
Snape furrowed his brow in contemplation. He recognized the voice. He hadn't expected that.
But he was speaking to a person who was supposed to be dead, who hid himself away these years, not a hint at all about having survived the night of February 4th, 1997.
The potion's professor held back a response because he was a gentleman and respected the outcome of the war. He looked ahead of himself as he walked away, stepping around Harry and leaving the gala entirely without a last word.
Harry waited outside for the last hour, until he was called by Buu and their Herbologist, and pretty soon they were leaving, too.
Hogwarts, Snape's room that night.
Snape sat hard in a chair and stared at the fire the house elves had lit.
He had seen a ghost. He wasn't mistaken.
I think freedom suits you, too.
He had spotted the man standing in the shadows watching out silently among the guests and was drawn to him. He knew concealment potions when he saw them...easily spotted because the person looked just too unblemished. Perhaps that was Snape's years working around speckled youths and wrinkled professionals; he didn't often get to know people of that age group. No one else in that room was that young.
He was drawn in for a curious closer look.
Severus had seen that uniform before but couldn't place the location, just that it was the Eight Companies. He slowly made his way closer, and that was when he could start to make out his eyes. He'd come fully in, and Harry Potter's life was read like a book. Some things - like mental skills - couldn't be taught to blockheads like the Potters, he now fully believed.
He pulled a blanket around his shoulders and shivered. Harry Potter was alive. Quietly alive.
I think freedom suits you, too.
Dumbledore didn't know. Who did?
Why was it that he discovered this? Why was it that he couldn't break away from this curse?
Early July, 2000.
To think of the life he would have been living before, Harry was glad it turned out this way. He would have been an Auror, maybe...but he most likely wouldn't have been using potions like the Beautifying potion that Narcissa made for him, and would have been walking around with all those scars for everyone to see. He would have just been another Mad-Eye Moody, walking into a room and scaring children half to death.
He had to relate also to the frightening figure of Severus Snape, whom Harry had gone almost three months now without hearing from. Maybe Snape didn't know how to get in contact with him?
Well, good.
Or maybe Snape just didn't care?
Well...also - yeah - also good! What did Harry care about him, anyway?
It was just through luck that he had any life at all, let alone one where the children he encountered didn't flinch in his face. In fact, the two little girls he'd come to really favor would run to him for hugs now, glad to see him whenever they could. The girls had been practicing English all this time, and were so much better at it. Oslem had done a very good job homeschooling them.
"You're back!"
Harry couldn't help grinning at the two ten year olds when he saw them as he came into their house, not even knocking anymore, as he was an expected guest. They were at the table with some English papers, practicing their lettering, but then their heads whipped up and huge smiles crossed their faces and they'd run over.
"Full moon next week. Are you excited?" Harry asked with a grin.
They wrapped themselves around his waist, pressing their heads against his ribs. He quite loved it when they fawned on him. Having little kids in his life was something he hadn't realized he liked. These two kids not only needed him but liked him back, and that recent discovery made him quite happy.
It was his first delivery to them for this month's full moon. He produced the potions and held them out to the girls with his gloved fingers. The girls hurried and took the two foul drinks, consuming them like pros.
He looked up at Oslem and she was grinning. She was brewing a potion and couldn't step away.
"Hello, Alderbaron," she greeted him fondly.
"Evening, Mrs. Bladquester. How is your brewing going?"
"Splendid. I got an order for three Beautification potions from some local girls. It looks like there's a concert happening tomorrow and they have passes to see the musicians," a very fond smile crossed her features, as if she was picturing just how much fun those girls were going to go off and have together.
Harry tagged along with a grin.
"Oh, really? They want to make a pretty impression? I know how that goes..."
"Mom? Can you make us a Beautification potion, too?" Janice asked from around Harry's middle.
The mother raised her brow in a hurry, then shook her head.
"No, I will not! You two are just beautiful the way you are!"
He felt s the girl's grips loosen - knew his Muggle shirt with the word 'Blade' across it appreciated the tension being let off the cotton - and looked down at them again. He saw their fallen expressions and it just tugged at his mind a bit. Unis had scrunched up her face, distorting the scar that was across her cheek.
Harry dropped down to their level slowly, taking each by a hand as he looked slightly up into their faces.
He made sure he had on a nice smile.
"Your mom's right. You two don't need those potions."
Each looked disappointed.
Unis said, "You haven't seen our real scars..."
And at that, she lifted her shirt just halfway up and turned to the side. Harry was on level and close up to see the permanent scratch marks where the werewolf had lain its mark. Unlike Unis, Janice wrapped an arm over her stomach, perhaps hiding where her own scar was.
"Do mind your manners!" Oslem expressed to her girls, then said in her language, "And don't lift your shirt like that!"
The daughter dropped her shirt, looking forlorn.
Harry glanced back and saw how upset Oslem was, but knew there was something he could do to help.
He said lightly, "I really think that's not too bad."
"Can we see any of your scars?" she asked him.
Harry was taken aback a bit.
"My scars?"
Both girls nodded.
"We bet they won't look like the scratches we have. Are they on your hands?"
He still held their hands, but really now it was more like they were holding his. In fact, it was like they were holding them for inspection.
Harry had always worn his gloves while making deliveries. It was just convenient to have something that helped him grip the bottles. He hadn't realized it was causing the girls to wonder if he was hiding something under them.
Harry wasn't bothered by their question, though. He smiled, pulling off his gloves now and easily displaying two perfectly scar-free hands.
Unis and Janice reached out, taking each a hand in theirs and inspecting it closely.
"See any scars?" he asked, also holding out his arms so they could see the nicely tanned flesh.
The girls looked closely, then shared a look.
Harry got the feeling they were saying a lot with just their eyes. He use to have these conversations as a kid with Ron; he use to love it when he had a best friend.
"Can you stay for dinner?" Janice asked meekly, brown eyes looking widely at him.
Harry saw the eagerness back in their eyes. He was lost for words, though.
Oslem liked the idea of dinner. She seemed to relax when the idea was brought up.
"You should stay," Oslem said. "It's early so dinner isn't ready yet. My husband is cooking fish and cabbage shchi. You should stay and have some, too."
This was the first time Harry had been offered a meal by any client, and it wasn't an unwelcome offer. Harry stood again, his hands still held tightly by the girls, and they were all waiting for his response.
What was he to say?
"Yes, okay. I'll stay."
They couldn't be happier.
He was taken along into the main house, though the open door and into the kitchen where, spread over the dining table that they had run to him from, they showed him their English pages and handwriting samples. They were practicing spelling and punctuation.
Mr. Bladquester was standing over the stove grilling fish, while the son was by the counter cutting vegetables. They were a little shocked to see him dragged in and hounded by the girls at first, and had weary looks.
Oslem called from the other room, "Alderbaron is going to stay for dinner!"
Mr. Bladquester looked like he wanted to protest, but kept it to himself. He removed his sour look from Harry and let it slip onto his son, who caught sight of the same look and turned away from his father. Harry was suddenly, avidly aware of William's stiff shoulders as he kept preparing the vegetables. Clearly there was unease between these two right now.
Unis leaned in and whispered, "Dad is angry with Will."
Janice nodded along.
"He started wearing makeup and wanted to go to that concert, like those girls do. Dad won't let him."
Harry looked a little closer now. He couldn't see his face, but the band t-shirt he wore was different compared to the style he'd seen worn before. There had been a lot of news about a popular rock band that young people were in to. It started a fashion where young men were going around wearing eyeliner and band t-shirts, and the girls were getting attention for having all their clothes cut a little shorter.
The father turned once again to view the three of them, catching Harry by the eye. Harry let his look linger long enough to see that clearly he was quite frustrated. Harry wouldn't say angry, just out of sorts. He turned back to the girls and their homework.
"Have you learned about the lettering of Ancient Runes at all?"
He was segueing away from the personal business of the household and into to topic of their education. Harry knew how hard it was for him to figure out Ancient Runes, and knew that they'd need a little forethought on the topic. At the very least they rather liked drawing the letters and had an easier time pronouncing them than he ever did.
The girls were being treated to all this homework due to Oslem's desire for their English to improve. They hadn't heard yet from Hogwarts, but it was her great desire that they fit in - should they get that call. Harry had high hopes and kept a watchful eye on the waves going through the news recently. It was definitely a topic of interest, and with Hogwarts sending out invitations next month, they were all very close to discovering if the girls were in or not.
Before not long, the meal began and ended again. The father kept his son close, the two of them now at the sink. Mr. Bladquester was washing the plates while William was drying them. Harry hadn't heard more than two words spoken by either as they lingered over there in their moods. Little did Harry know that they didn't dislike having him around; it put off their fighting. Oslem knew this, too, which was why she made Harry comfortable with a coffee and had gone off back to the other room and her potions.
Harry was back to talking to the girls about their homework, weighing in with what he thought was some very good advice after Janice asked, "What happens if we write something that's completely wrong?"
"The first time you get bad marks on a paper will make you feel like the teacher hates you, but they really don't. Just think of it like they are preparing you for more advanced mistakes as you get better. Unless you're born perfect - which no one is - there's a lot to learn and mistakes will happen. Don't even feel bad if you mess up entirely..."
Harry was drawn back to a time at school, when he and Ron had done something that entertained him even to this day. A grin spread over his face and the girls copied him; avidly listening as he prepared the story for them.
"One time, at the school I went to, my friend and I didn't study at all for a big test. We should have, because it was worth a lot of points, but instead we stayed up all night playing chess. It was something he really enjoyed doing and I..." Harry faltered, realizing who he was telling this story to, "...um...I just liked playing it, too. So, we took the test and we had absolutely nothing right to say."
"What happened?" Janice asked.
"Did you write anything at all?" Unis asked, too.
Harry delighted in telling them.
"It was Divination. We both made up a load of lies about our untimely deaths and we both got full marks."
The girls swelled with giggles, and Harry swore he saw the two sour apples doing the dishes smile a bit, too.
"Alderbaron, I couldn't agree with you more."
Harry looked over at the one who spoke. It was William, who looked appreciatively at him.
"Sometimes we just have to live a little. There's no harm in it."
Harry glanced at William's dad, who looked put off again.
Harry quickly said, "That's right. I claimed I was going to be dead by the end of that year...but look at me: still alive. Even got to meet you two," Harry smiled down at the girls. "I bet even if I had Divined sitting here, talking to you, and wrote it up on that test, she would have still preferred what I wrote instead. No one is perfect, and no should have to pretend to be."
It was at that moment that Harry realized he'd lost track of time.
As he had sat at the dining table in the house proper after the meal of fish and vegetables, Harry was content, and wasn't that a startling realization? That was something that rarely happened to him anymore, although sometimes happened while he was with Doka.
Truth be told, Harry had to always be aware of the time, because he had a dosage of the Beautification potion that was going to wear off at ten past six.
Harry looked around now, seeking to find a timepiece, but none were around.
"Excuse me," he said to the room, "could you tell me what time it is?"
William arched his neck, looking out into the other room where there was a clock he could see.
"Five minutes past six."
Harry's heart thumped like a Bludger suddenly.
He swallowed his urgency hard, and kept his cool.
"Thank you," Harry said, making a sudden motion to rise.
"Are you going?" Janice asked.
"Do you have to go so early?" Unis added sadly.
"But you should stay!"
Harry unconsciously clenched the pocket where his potion was. He saw the looks in these girls eyes and wanted to do right by them. He shook his head, though.
"Sorry, girls," he didn't know how to say it. He needed to sip the potion or just get out of here. He had five minutes only. "I'll see you tomorrow. But right now I have...to go."
His worry was tangible, because his hands grew numb.
"Let me show you out," said the father suddenly, setting down his soapy dish and motioning for Harry to follow. It appeared like more of a command than anything. Really, it appeared like he had been waiting for this.
"We'll miss you!" Called Unis after him.
Harry waved goodbye behind him as he followed.
"Heading out with him, Tartis?" Oslem asked her husband from behind her potion as they passed.
"I'll just walk him out," Tartis said.
She grew a bit worried.
Harry collected his Firebolt.
"Thank you for the meal, Mrs. Bladquester. See you tomorrow."
She held her hand up in a wave.
"You are so polite. See you later, Alderbaron."
He stepped out into the warm summer evening ahead of the father of the house. It was nearing sundown, with flocks of birds flying in the trees just ahead of them. The two of them went down the drive a bit, with Harry walking by Tartis's side. He didn't have time for a conversation; he had to get out of here right away; he had mere minutes left until his scars would begin to show.
When they got to the swing attached to the big tree by the fence, Harry spoke.
"I better go -"
Tartis waved his finger over the area of Harry's chest, where his hand still clutched the fabric of his vest there.
"What are you hiding?" He asked bluntly.
"What?" Harry lowered his hand.
Tartis didn't falter.
"I have a feeling you have been lying to us."
"I'm not lying," he lied.
"You have a potion you need to drink. I see the look in your eyes..." he narrowed his own in a glare. "We're potion brewers, we know the look. Is it like the Wolfsbane potion? You have to drink it before the sun falls?"
Harry shook his head.
"Don't lie," Tartis warned, ever the protector.
Harry shook his head, although he knew he wasn't fooling anyone.
"You sat at my table today, ate the dinner I cooked for you, helped my girls with their studies. You are entering deeper into my life, and I want to know what that entails. Show me whatever potion you are in need of, so I know you are still to be trusted."
And wasn't he in a bad mood? Being so protective of his family was a familiar thing for Harry. He thought of Uncle Vernon allowing him into his old Muggle school, the prestigious Smeltings he went to for those few months when he returned home. Uncle Vernon had swallowed his pride when Harry needed him...doing everything he could for a hurt family member.
Harry licked his lips.
"It's just a potion..." Harry looked away momentarily, brushing his fingertips against the rope of the swing with a light touch.
Tartis reached forward and gripped the same rope in a tight fist; Harry lowered his hand again and returned to looking at the severe man who stood closer to him.
"Just let me see it, and this will all be cleared up."
Yes, he had his choice: he could have drawn his wand, he could have flown away, he could still lie and pull out - what? He didn't have any decoy potions.
Harry looked at the palm of his hand for a moment - the one that would be splattered with scars any minute now - and then followed through with the order. He produced the Beautification potion in its opaque capped bottle.
Tartis took it and turned the cap, looking within. He saw clearly in this sunlight the swirling colors of the potion, but when colorful bubbles started to emit, he knew for sure. It appeared to make him even more upset for some reason.
"This is a Beautification potion," Tartis looked baffled then. "Why does this somehow make sense?"
Harry said honestly to Tartis, "It's a modified Beautification potion. It does more than hide the shadows under my eyes."
Tartis looked again at the brew and shook his head.
"Explain something to me, why do boys of your generation want to look as pretty as girls?"
This made Harry choke on sudden laughter, which surprised him. Was it his imagination, or was Tartis suddenly looking to him for advice about his son wearing makeup? And what had he said?
"You think I look pretty?"
That upset the man.
"I didn't say that! I said that you want to look - urg! Listen closely! Just tell me your side of it. And tell me if you're hanging out with my son without my knowing about it! Putting these ideas in his head!"
Harry was amused but not liking that he seemed to have walked in on a family squabble.
"I'm not hanging out with William," Harry said honestly. "I've never even wanted to hang out with him! And I don't know why people dress the way they do. Maybe because they just want to? Maybe because they just like the way it makes them feel? And if you think I'm pretty now, I won't be in a minute, so I better have that potion back!"
He managed to wrap his hand around the cup over Tartis's, but Tartis held firmly.
Harry stared him in the eyes, and he was stared at back. Together, they held for that uncomfortable showdown here in the front of the house, where from within was a family Harry had no intention of coming clean to. Harry noticed their flesh was warming where they both held, and the dark hair on Tartis's knuckles was coarse.
"It's my business because you are in my house..." Tartis said slowly. "What are you covering up with this potion?"
Harry looked aggrieved.
"It's not your business. Whether I'm in your house or not. And I don't have to be in your life if you don't want me to!"
He had his wand. He could have pulled it by now. He'd have stunned the man and got his potion back, yes, but...but this was the father of Janice and Unis. This was Oslem's beloved. This was a father with a teenage son who was confusing him...This was just a man caught in a whirlwind of problems and was figuring out the ones he could.
Harry sympathized, although he was losing steam. He felt that if he shared any of his secrets now - releasing more of that burden of secrecy he kept all these years - that he would have lost a bet somehow. Snape finding out was one thing; they had a sort of understanding, Harry had decided. They were both better off with Voldemort dead and without each other, so why would Snape go looking for him? If Harry had graduated like normal, they probably never would have spoken again, anyway.
He was supposed to keep this secret, not let anything out. He hadn't even let Doka know anything more than that his true eye color was green; Doka had seen it some time back, but Harry never made any special efforts to show him again; Doka didn't ask to see regularly, either.
But the truth was sounding just so appealing right now. He could tell someone...he could get recognition. There was something to be said about the disappointment of meeting Snape and having him walk away without saying word. The lack of acknowledgment he'd given Harry was chipping him away.
He had the excuse: he lost track of time, he was in a narrow window to leave the view of others, but he just didn't make it.
It would be like giving in to a weakness; having that instant gratification that would inevitably be followed with regret.
He released the potion and pulled his empty hand back, keeping it out in front of him. He turned it here and there, then made a fist.
"You wouldn't want to see," he warned. "Not even my boyfriend has seen..."
His words hit Tartis's ears like a hammer, although he didn't comment on that surprise.
Harry felt a heat rising in his cheeks, both embarrassment and a thrill. He was glad he was facing away from the house...when the scars showed - if they showed - the others wouldn't see. It would only be his face and his hands and arms really, as nothing more of his flesh was exposed.
Was he really considering revealing himself? Risk his lightning bolt scar being seen? His hair was thick and parted naturally at the side, tucked behind his ears.
Harry turned his hand over and looked at the smooth palm, where even his calluses were smaller due to the potion. He was afraid to look at Tartis.
"This hand...it will have a few scars. Right here - and here - and here. And this little finger..." he wiggled his pinky. "Will be a bit crooked."
He was born with that little finger a bit crooked, but the Beautification potion straightened it. It was worth telling him.
He looked nervously from his own hand to the face of the father in front of him. Tartis was older than Doka, but younger than Lucius, but had nothing in common with the two of them. In looks, he might have even resembled Harry's own father - pale skin, black hair, hazel eyes... Harry noted that newfound idea with worry.
"And my face," he went on, to the single audience. "It will have scars, too. You really wouldn't want to see them."
Tartis held Harry cornered. There in the sun they stayed until there was no more waiting to be done. Pitifully, Harry kept his eyes lowered.
The changes happened moments later.
As the potion faded, scars were being revealed in just the places that Harry had said. He watched his own hand as first came the white scar from the slice over his fingers, almost whip-like in its formation. Then, his little finger looked more bent. On his arms welts grew where magical hooks had pierced him straight through. The memory of it all happening was caged up in the alterations of the Oblivious Unction, leaving him free of the horror.
By the time Harry met Tartis's face and saw the expression there, all the scars had formed.
He kept his gasp quiet, but the surprise was clear: Tartis was taken aback by the sheer amount of the deformed flesh, and there wasn't a chunk out of his nose like Mad-Eye Moody, but the scratch that lain over his nose and under his eyes was long and jagged. Other marks trailed down his throat, one wrapped around from ear to ear.
He looked once at the lightning bolt shaped scar, too. Blinked upon seeing it.
"You can't tell me I look the same," said Harry sternly, pulling their eyes back together.
"Who did this to you?" He asked quietly, accent stronger now that he was so shocked, his eyes gazing back down at the worst of them, then lower along Harry's front, wondering how much more had been done.
Harry smiled ruefully, stretching three of the scars on his face.
"Don't ask, alright? You don't want to know."
Their eyes met, with the father's dark eyes feathering over Harry's sad blue ones, then up again on the lightning bolt scar. His eyes narrowed.
"Don't ask..." Harry whispered.
Tartis's eyes squinted as if he couldn't quite focus, or maybe was trying to remember something.
The pit in Harry's stomach grew gaping.
"Don't..." Harry whispered again. "...ask."
Tartis's spine straightened suddenly and his eyes blazed as if caught afire.
"My god!" He gasped, breathless, staring at Harry in shock, because he made the connection.
Harry didn't know what he was thinking doing this. How mad had he become to lower his disguise like this? Everyone knew that scar. Everyone! But somehow - somehow - Harry kept as cool as he could; he'd had plenty of opportunities to practice. He stayed where he was even though Tartis stepped away towards the tree, now leaning against it for support. His scars were all Tartis looked at now. Not Harry. Not the person. Just the mess.
Harry shook his head in warning.
"Don't say anything," Harry said quietly, seriously. "Not to anyone. Not ever."
"Wh - why? Who...?"
"Shh..." Harry hushed him, but gently. Tartis had lost his voice anyway upon the shock of it.
And that was when Harry extended his hand towards him. He was asking - silently - for that potion. It took a long stretch of time for the message to be received, but then it was back with him. Harry curled it close to him and uncorked it, taking a good sip. With his neck still arched the magic started to do its job. By the time he'd returned it to his pocket, the scars were gone.
His face looked nice again, but Tartis would never forget what he saw.
Harry thought about that important thing he had to say from earlier. When his mask was back on, the words had come to him.
"Just know this one thing, that everyone has scars you can't see. Scars on the inside that are just as bad as mine are on the outside. I hide mine because I have never - ever - been looked at for me. Everyone sees only the scars, as if that's all I am. Almost no one...has ever seen anything else."
He wondered if he'd ever stop hiding the real truth under here.
Tartis still only just stared at him with shock.
Harry took a breath.
"I think it's time I go home. But I mean it...don't tell anyone. Just let me have my freedom."
It was an awkward way to leave a house as a guest, but Harry mounted his Firebolt and just left.
As for Tartis, he might have heard and replied to his wife when he reentered the house, but soon enough he was upstairs, alone in their room. He went to the small bookshelf there and sought a particular volume. Oslem stayed with her potion until she could get away, but then she found him in their bedroom, sitting on the side of the bed with a book open and resting on his knees. As soon as she entered the room he closed the book and set it aside on the floor, slipping it under the bed a bit, even. She thought that was nice of him to get it out of the way so they wouldn't stub their toes.
Tartis looked up at her, an awe inspiring look on his face. His eyes shone with brightness.
Oslem asked her husband as she closed the door, "What happened between you two?"
After a beat - after wiping his hands on his knees, he said, "Nothing."
Oslem studied his face with a narrowed look.
Tartis needed to deflect with as much assurance as he could, so he stood, went over and kissed her. She lightened up immediately, unable to hold back a smile.
"Tartis? What's gotten into you?" She asked, pleased with his friskiness.
"We just had a little chat, that's all."
"You and Alderbaron?"
Tartis swallowed hard but nodded, breaking a smile onto his stony face.
"About what?" She wondered.
He thought hard, then came up with the truth.
"About William. I'm going to go ahead and accept what he wears now. I'm sorry I gave him such trouble over this...but people can be who they need to be...so that they can be who they want to be. Does that make sense?"
She smiled so brightly upon hearing him say this.
"I have no idea how this change came upon you so quickly! What did Alderbaron say to make you say this?"
He hugged her just then, so that she couldn't see the expressions that kept crossing over his features.
"Nothing much, just that people need to get use to young people growing up...and so do I. We're still the same on the inside, even if we look different on the outside. Sometimes...it's necessary for a person to change a little."
She squeezed him hard and warmly and added, "He's still our son whom we love."
He signed and his eyes fell to the floor. She didn't think much of his deep breaths, and Tartis soon had his emotions under control. The day was only just coming to a close, but Tartis stayed in the bedroom even after Oslem went back out into the house. He sat again on the bed and pulled out the book he'd put down.
The book was an account of the Second Wizarding War. It was a novel comprised from the various events that lead up to the return of the Dark Lord, and then the various events that lead back to his death. Oslem had bought it when it came out two years ago. It was a fairly popular book at that time, mostly because it had pictures of the people involved. Some clamed this book had major plot holes, and truthfully it did.
But Tartis opened the book up again anyway and leafed through a few pages until he found the one he'd been looking at earlier: the one of Harry Potter in his school Quidditch gear, a Firebolt over his shoulder, with his green eyes and famous scar quite clearly seen from under his black bangs. He was fifteen in the photo. It was a popular one used to portray him.
He knew he could find the exact quote somewhere here in this book, but off the top of his head he could remember only a little of what was considered the last words ever recorded spoken by Harry Potter. We'll spend every day flying in the air, not even looking at where we're going.
Alderbaron Gravewatcher would be about the right age, should Harry had lived. Alderbaron had light brown hair, blue eyes...and exactly the same scar. And the way he posed in the photo, with that Firebolt...Alderbaron stood with a similar posture. As the story went, he was tortured before death, without a body to be found.
"It's you..." Tartis said quietly, running his hand over the face of the moving picture.
The nose was now hidden under a scar, the jaw was now ravaged, and the mouth still hesitated when it smiled, but when he drank that potion again, this was the face he saw. There was no difference in the silhouette or the proportions, just the colors and the marks.
"It's really you."
He was excited to his core but didn't know how to celebrate. But then tears started to drip down the father's eyes. He was losing control, with fear and happiness and surprise consuming him. He had to get it together; he had to honor the request of the boy who survived Lord Voldemort yet again. The Hero of the Wizarding World.
Time passes. February 4, 2001.
On this day every year, Ronald Bilius Weasley would eat an omelet with pepper poppers and have a butterbeer. It was honestly the saddest day of the year, lived year after year. It had now been four years since Harry had died. Amazing...but it still felt like yesterday.
This year, when he was aged twenty and had just come off duty from a day plagued with derogatory remarks from a particularly cantankerous old wizard fed up with the world, Ron updated the butterbeer to a heavy mead at a popular Auror drinking haunt. He sat alone at the bar, glad that it was one of the few that did little to celebrate this anniversary. Ron looked at some familiar faces, a good number of Aurors were actually in attendance tonight, having an after-work brew before heading home. Over the years, they'd gotten used to Ron spending this holiday alone.
Little did he know, he'd been followed here by a sneaky young witch, who had sat herself in the shadows of the bar and watched him. When he ordered that drink, though, Hermione came out.
"Hey there, Ron," she said as she took a seat next to him.
At age twenty, both Ron and Hermione had lost that little spark that came only to children. They were serious, career driven adults fighting for what they believed in: Ron for vengeance, and Hermione for the law. Both ultimately tracked their desire for a better future back to an infamous day five years ago.
Hermione reached into her pocket and pulled out some chocolate, setting it on the counter between them, then ordered a butterbeer from the barman.
"I haven't had my butterbeer today yet," she explained to the silent man beside her, still eyeing her up like she was a phantom. "But I've been snacking on chocolate all day...just trying to do my part. I've been thinking, too. About him. I can still remember meeting him for the first time on the Hogwarts Express. He wasn't in his robes, but wore oversized Muggle clothes. Remember?"
She left a wide opening for Ron to speak. Ron took another deep gulp of beer instead. It had been a year since he'd seen her...last February 4th, to be precise. She was busy at work, as was he.
"I remember they hung down lose around his neck and were shabbier than your hand-me-downs. He was so mistreated by his Muggle relatives...I was honestly surprised that he made friends with them again there at the end."
Ron finally found his voice.
He asked sourly, "That's what you remember? I remember his funeral. I remember them saying that not even a speck of dust of him was left after fifty Death Eaters all fired their curses at him."
Hermione sighed in exasperation, snapping some chocolate off and shoving it into the corner of her mouth. Her dark eyes and red lips barely held back a touch of anger.
"Stop it, Ron. Stop it before you start again. This is why I left last time...you need to let some of this go."
Hermione's butterbeer was set before her. She wiped a tear from her eye that Ron hadn't seen approach.
Ron took a breath. He was never charming or affluent, but he didn't need to be to arrest criminals.
"Sorry, Hermione," Ron whispered, chancing that she would accept his touch, and then when she didn't pull away, he started rubbing her shoulder gently.
Hermione spoke again, looking at him closely.
"I also remember...you choosing Harry over me, even though he died. You didn't have to do that, you stupid man. I'm still so jealous. You always make me feel left out."
Ron looked sharply at her.
"Shh! God, Hermione. Don't let that get out!"
He looked about to see if anyone was within earshot. Only the barman, but he was kind enough to back away.
"What?" She wondered, raising her voice anyway. "That you think you love him? That you refuse to date anyone out of some loyalty to him?"
The barman took another two respectful steps farther from them.
Ron pushed her from her seat and rushed her out the front door. Out in the cold February night air, he pushed her into a quite place away from any onlookers or snoops. He towered over her at his height of more than six-foot. It in no way made him fierce, because nothing about this fiery redhead made Hermione fearful.
"Will you stop it!" He exploded. "Will you leave me alone? Will you give me a little break?!"
"Will you just talk to me?!" She said louder than him. "I miss you, Ron! I miss everything I use to have! I miss my friends! I hate what's happened to you! Why are you doing this?!"
Ron, not yet quite as drunk as he'd hoped to be, did something really stupid then. He grabbed her face and he laid a kiss onto her, but all too quickly he fell to her shoulder and gripped her like his life depended on it.
Hermione was shaken, confused, and all she could think to do was hold him.
"Why?" She whispered again.
"Why?" Ron echoed.
"Yes! Why?! Why can't you let the past go?! What's keeping you there?!"
"Really want to know my secret? Really want to know why I'm so fucking mad all the time?"
Hermione nodded.
"I do, Ron. Let me back in."
And that was the moment Ron let someone closer to him.
He didn't tell her the specifics of it, but he told her the answer lay at the Ministry of Magic.
"Let's go there," he said, staring the journey to their work.
The two employees easily went through the late security and onward to the elevator that led them to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Once there, Ron took her to a back room.
"Evidence Lockup?" Hermione asked, repeating the words written on the back of the door.
Ron led her in.
There wasn't a body guarding the many rows of locked little doors, but Ron didn't need any wizard to lead him where he was going. Locker number 67,488 was a long way from the door, and in the dimly lit gray and metallic room, it was just another locker. Ron pressed his wand against the door and it popped open, revealing an alcove with two things within it: one, a bagged and tagged piece of evidence, and another: a glass jar with a silvery glowing essence within it.
Hermione stared at the evidence of the memory.
She at last reached forward, taking the tag in hand that was wrapped around the jar.
Memory of Clouse Malfoy, February 4th, 1997.
The other tag read, Bloody rag, Victor Snoffit's murder, 1873.
Hermione looked at Ron, spooked by this. Her voice wavered.
"Why is this in this old locker?"
"Hiding it," Ron said.
"From who?"
"From everyone."
Hermione's brow furrowed. Her thoughts coalesced and she said, "Clouse Malfoy only just saved you. That's all you said he did. What is there to hide?"
Ron shook his head, mouth held tightly closed. He reached in and took the jar, turning around and with a wave of his wand, Ron activated one of the many features of this room that made it Evidence Lockup: he accessed a table with a pensieve.
They went over and Ron carefully poured the memory out into the bowl.
"You've used one of these, right?" Ron asked her.
Hermione nodded.
"At school, up in Dumbledore's office. For awhile there, after you dumped me, he was really nice. He was helpful in showing me memories of things the Order of the Phoenix had done."
"Yeah, Dumbledore was helpful..." but somehow, the way he said it, Hermione got the feeling Ron really had other feelings about the Headmaster.
Hermione leaned forward, but stood quickly once again.
"What's in this?"
"Look and see," Ron jibed her without remorse.
Hermione looked down again. Ron saddled a hand up to her warm neck, using a gentle touch to guide her downwards. He followed her, their heads touching and the swirling memory coming closer. They leaned all the way down into it until their noses touched the wispy surface.
Suddenly, they were standing in a great dining room filled with guests. The food was set, the people were eating and talking, and Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were at the head of the table. Hermione looked at the man sitting right in front of her, and she knew this was Clouse Malfoy. He was so similar to all the Malfoys, blending right in with them.
Then a commotion. The doors burst open and there were two men in Death Eater masks come in.
"We've got him! We got Harry Potter! We got him here!"
A great wave of laughter settled over most of the guests, with only a bit of panic from the host and hostess. But Clouse wasn't one of the celebrating Malfoy's. He'd kept his seat and had stayed unusually calm.
"He just bides his time," Ron told Hermione. She jumped a little, almost forgetting she could be seen. Ron's voice was dull and resigned in the memory landscape. "Let's move on...it happens in just about an hour."
Ron waved his wand, and then suddenly Ron and Hermione had to walk to keep up with Clouse, who was walking quickly down a stone corridor with his house elf following closely behind.
"Oh good. Looks like they've all left." Clouse whispered, then with a smile he asked the house elf, "Apparate me in. I know you can do it."
The fearful house elf nodded diligently, then snapped its fingers.
At once, Hermione found herself popped into a room in the blink of an eye. She was startled suddenly by the sounds of two frightened shouts. In the room, against a wall, two sixteen year olds jumped. They were sitting against the wall. Sitting close for comfort.
Clouse held his wand on them. Quickly, the house elf left. Ron and Harry sat stationary.
Hermione took a step over to them, hesitated, then walked right over and kneeled next to Harry to get a very close look. She reached up and tried to touch him, but her hand went through his skin like the silvery wisp that he was. But Ron - young Ron - could touch Harry. He flung a protective arm across Harry's chest and put his body mostly in front of him. They were both still sitting, but Ron was so protective and angry.
"Who are you?!" Ron demanded.
Clouse said jauntily, "Doesn't matter. We were all having a nice dinner when you two were brought to us. Tsk. Ruined the lovely evening."
"Where are we?" Harry asked.
His voice was a long forgotten memory for Hermione.
He held up his hands.
"Malfoy Manner, of course! Can't you tell? The prestige? The elegance? This family knows how to throw a banquet!"
Hermione looked behind her at Clouse. He was so evil to her suddenly. She had no idea...she knew no Malfoy was without evil, but this one was particularly sprightly. He was grinning as he spoke to the two memory forms of her friends.
"You know…I graduated from Hogwarts a year before you showed up, Potter. Never got to see you up close until now. Want to know what I see? What I see is a good boy…handsome…a bit too scrawny – we'll call you lean – and from what else I hear, a very good lay!"
And he laughed loudly. Hermione stood up when Ron did, hands fisted and ready for a fight.
"Leave him alone!"
The man raised his hands in mock surrender.
"Oh – oh, no offence, Weasley! Boy Who Lived! No offense! I know you weren't exactly participating in the experience! But it was obvious from the way it was described that you liked it at least a little!"
He laughed some more.
Hermione turned to Harry, who was getting to his feet. Harry looked weak and shaken, bruised and sore. She saw he'd been roughly handled until this point.
"Oh, Harry..." she moaned, trying again to reach out. At his full height, even at sixteen he was taller than her now as an adult.
Behind her, Clouse said, "I hated it at Hogwarts. All of you stupid kids with your clubs and your girlfriends. You didn't leave any room for anyone different. One little thing out of the ordinary and no one gave you an inch. I'm sure you're the same. You are Gryffindor's Prefect, aren't you? Quidditch Captain? Got a girlfriend – I bet she's smart, isn't she?"
Hermione gasped, turning around and looking at Clouse, then looking at twenty year old Ron as he stood off to the side, watching it all from a distance with dark, cold eyes. Neither Ron said anything.
"What did they use to say about you?"
Hermione whipped her head back again, feelings torn at the sound of her friend's voice. Harry asked this with a level tone, trying to stay as neutral as he could muster. She saw the conviction in his eyes to stay alive.
"Can't you guess? Poufer, fairy, queer. I knew I was gay since I was five, so I didn't really consider hiding it. A school like Hogwarts leaves scars for people like me…and my cousin, Draco."
"Are you saying Draco Malfoy's gay?" Ron asked hesitantly.
"Such is the bond between the two of us! That…and our crush on you, Chosen One."
Hermione felt then that Harry was being threatened. It was as if the man in front of her - of them - was looking to really hurt Harry...looking to really, really hurt him.
All she could do was shake her head and pray that she was wrong.
"So…you like me?" Harry asked, his voice soft, delicately spoken.
"I do."
And now Hermione had to take a step back and watch as Clouse caressed Harry's cheek with the back of a finger. Harry's eyes darted away and he looked like the touch burned, but he didn't flinch.
"Too bad you're going to die. I wanted to get to know you first. The Dark Lord will be here soon, though. I can't risk…hanging around."
That hand against Harry's cheek went lower, fingers curling around his neck, thumb settling between his collarbones. Clouse's wand kept Ron at bay as he leaned in, smelled Harry's hair.
Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and asked, "You aren't on his side?"
"I'm on the winning side," was the answer.
"Do something for me?" Harry whispered, so very quietly.
"What?" Ron and Hermione both gasped in horror.
She couldn't tear her eyes away. Harry opened his eyes and looked meekly up.
"My friend has a family. He has five brothers and a sister. And a mother. And a father. He has a lot to live up to…and for."
Clouse tipped his head to the side and regarded Ron. He suddenly became more threatening than ever, forcing Ron to take a few steps away from Harry. Harry held still before this monster. Then Hermione saw something she never thought she would. Harry reached out, cupping a hand over the man's neck in such a similar way as Ron had cupped his hand around hers to lean her down into the pensieve.
And Harry's words shocked her still. He said in a whisper, "Just name your price. I'll do anything you want. You have no stakes here, and if you're going to leave before the Dark Lord shows up, take Ron with you back to Hogwarts – to Hogsmeade – and you can have…anything."
It took not long at all for it to register what Harry was saying.
Ron shouted, "No – no!"
He lunged forward to get to Harry's side, but Clouse's Petrification spell came too quickly. Ron was left frozen with his hands out towards Harry, who had turned and now reached out for Ron. His hands almost got a hold of Ron - he was so close - but Clouse body slammed Harry the two steps back towards the wall, behind Ron's still form. Harry struggled for a moment, but Clause pinned Harry's hands above his head with magic.
"I'll take that offer," he said to Harry, and he cupped Harry's face and laid a deep kiss onto his mouth.
"No!" Hermione shouted, staring.
Harry gasped as he sought breath, barely fighting against his hold. Hands tore open his shirt and then started on his belt. Harry panted when at last his mouth was freed and Clouse latched onto his chest for a bite.
Harry closed his eyes as tears filled them, and he moaned in fear and pain.
"I can't watch this!" Hermione gasped, turning around to face the real Ron.
Ron looked down on her, blue eyes as slate as stone but his voice full of pain. Tears were running down his cheeks but he made no move to wipe them away; she'd never seen him so raw.
"Then don't," he said through his ache. "I didn't watch it the first time. I only listened."
"Stop this, Ron!" She pleaded.
Ron shook his head, eyes returning to the scene behind her.
"No. You asked, Hermione. You wanted to know why I'm so loyal. It's because of this. Because of what he did for me."
Hermione turned back to the display when Harry let out a pain-filled cry. Clouse was blocking Harry's naked body from view, but he'd by now undone Harry's trousers and turned him around so his wrists twisted awkwardly and with pain. Harry was wheezing, trying to catch his breath as he cried.
But Clouse was chuckling.
"I'm going to make you scream, Potter! I've dreamed about doing this! I think we all have!"
Clouse undid his pants, exposing himself and pressing it against Harry's bottom. His hand moved in front of him, guiding himself. He bent his knees and then thrust - halting when he was on tip-toe. Harry didn't scream. There was just a long moan, a deeply withheld shout of pain that he contained somehow.
Hermione collapsed to the floor while Ron, behind her and in front of her, didn't move.
"Did you get fucked like this at school? Or were you spread apart from the front?" Clouse asked. Hermione moaned in anguish, shutting her eyes. Clouse said more after a time. "Trim and tight, just like I like it. Will you miss this when you're dead?"
Hermione half the time had her eyes closed, and the other half felt it her punishment to watch. It lasted for a mere minute, but there was one thin line of blood running down one of Harry's thighs when it was over; a trail that stopped just above his knee. She couldn't stop this. She couldn't help her friends. She was left there on the floor, with her stomach turning and turning, listening to Harry's strained sounds as he cried through the rape with his eyes closed.
Clouse was panting fast, jutting in and out of Harry, making slapping sounds against their friend's body.
"I'm going to come! Boy Who Lived, you're going to die with this inside of you!"
Clouse made a point to moan loudly as he came inside of Harry, who at last let out a broken shout.
The air was then filled with only the sound of breathing.
Hermione was slack jawed in shock.
When finished, the man closed up his pants and swished his wand, causing Harry's clothes to go back together as best they could. Harry could barely keep his feet. He twisted back around, untwisting his wrists, and weakly opened his eyes. Only now did he see Clouse aiming his wand at Ron's head.
Harry shouted, his voice raw, "What are you doing?!"
"Don't want this one to go telling anyone what happened here…my reputation and all…"
Harry asked urgently, "You'll keep your promise, though? You'll take Ron to Hogsmeade?"
"Yes," Clouse said, looking back at Harry who flinched immediately at the gaze. Clouse smiled, then said the memory charm. Finally, he said, "Now I get out of this house. The Dark Lord will show up any second, and I don't want to be here when he does."
With a clap of his hands the house elf Apparated back in. Clouse put his arm around Ron's shoulders and looked one last time upon Harry, strung up by his wrists, tears streaming down his face, a look of utter fear and desperation.
The moment Clouse disappeared from the room, Hermione was pulled up from the pensieve and dropped like a rock again to the real floor in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She sobbed alone for a time, but before not long Ron took her in his arms and hugged her until she was too weak to cry anymore.
"Fuck this holiday," Ron said at last, his voice tight in that way he'd been speaking for years. Suddenly, it was all so clear why.
Hermione gasped for breath.
"My god, Ron! You didn't tell me! I didn't know at all! No one knows!"
"Some people know," Ron clarified. Hermione looked at him in awe. "Dumbledore knows. Remus and Tonks. Her partner, Moody - Mad-Eye Moody. They were the ones who hid the memory here. They were the arresting Aurors when that Malfoy was brought in. And now you. I always swore I wouldn't keep this secret forever."
Ron sat back, taking himself to the wall and stretching his legs out far in front of him. He was stretching the ache out of them, but really, ache permeated from the inside. Hermione was left kneeling where she'd fallen, looking at her friend in this new light.
"Ron..." she said at last. "I didn't think I'd ever see anything like that in my life."
Ron pursed his lips and nodded, looking down. He felt sorry he had to show her, but wanted her to know.
Ron promised her something then, "I won't show you what happened after. What...the Dark Lord did to him...I only saw that memory once. I don't need to see it again, and you don't, either. Sick..."
Hermione wiped her eyes one last time. She composed herself enough to breathe steadily again.
"I really...came to talk to you tonight...to let you know that I'm leaving the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I've gotten a new position," and now she met his eyes. She hesitated to say, but said at last, "to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
Ron looked on with disbelief.
"I need to be a field agent for awhile. They told me it's a stipulation. But my goal is to be a progressive voice to ensure the eradication of oppressive, pro-pureblood laws. I can't do that just from a desk. I need field experience to move up in this department. Ron...I wondered...would you be my partner?"
Ron was lost for words. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. His mind was swimming with images of Harry, of his past, of his present woes. He didn't have the energy to think about change. Change was...too much.
"Fuck sake, Hermione. That's why you came to see me? To get something from me?"
Hermione nodded, feeling a bit ashamed.
"Just tell me no. I'll understand."
Ron rolled his head back to face her. His face was weakened with his exposed emotions. He simply shook his head at her.
"Fuck. You know I will."
"Thank you. This changes things, of course it does. But Ron, what can I do?"
"Nothing. That's why I never told you. What could anyone possibly do?"
May 2001.
Remus's quarters at Hogwarts had been chosen for him by Dumbledore when he began teaching last year. They were in the dungeons, located quite closely to one of the exits that trailed closest to the Whomping Willow. Remus was met in this corridor by the student body infected with lycanthropy every full moon. Together, they would walk past the Whomping Willow and into the forest just near Hogwarts, where the little wolves would chase each other within sight of Hogwarts.
It wasn't like in his day; there was less need to hide their infection. Everyone took the Wolfsbane potion, and thank goodness they could.
His was one of the few dungeon rooms that had some high windows to offer some natural light. He believed that Severus Snape - who slept just down the hall - did not even have windows in his room. Not coincidentally, the dungeons were chosen because they were far away from most of the sleeping students. People had argued that all the werewolves be put down here, but that was argued against by Dumbledore and therefore hadn't happened. The only werewolf down here was Remus, as the other six lycanthropes were sorted into Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.
Remus believed that it was no mistake that Dumbledore had placed his rooms so close to Snape's. In case of an emergency, the Potion's professor was probably the one best suited to handle things. And...Dumbledore thought Snape could use a friend; Remus was his same age, after all.
But Snape had hardly made his acquiescence since he started in September, and now it was summer, with the year up at the end of the month. If either Remus or Dumbledore thought the two teachers down here were supposed to be on a first name basis by now, he was wrong. Despite the years of their working together against Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and the last months as colleagues at Hogwarts, Remus never stopped his polite behavior towards Snape, even calling him Severus when the student's weren't around. But Snape always called him Lupin, or Mr. Lupin when the students were around. The fact was that the two of them still had years of woes from their days at school. They never reminisced.
They did take tea together from time to time, though.
Snape cleared his throat and reinforced his stance on their most current dilemma as close-living professors.
"They will not be children forever; you shouldn't be coddling them like their parents do. Do you believe they will have the proper skills to deal with disappointment if they are not taught here? Do you believe their parents capable of that instruction?"
Remus looked suddenly heated; only Snape could raise his hackles like this.
"You know that doesn't mean giving detention just for sneezing on their potion!"
Snape glared.
"That sneeze ruined that potion. Those ingredients were wasted, the cauldron melted, and my table was burnt. Detention was necessary for such a blunder!"
Even Snape was flushed slightly.
"With that in mind, should I take points for every student who trips on their own foot while walking into my classroom? I set the Trip spell up, just as you supplied the tickling toxy ingredient that your student sniffed a little too closely. Are we to sabotage the students in the name of education?"
Clearly holding a good point, Remus took a magnanimous sip of tea. But Snape wasn't having it.
"Why do you have the need to ask, Lupin? I know from fighting the Dark Lord that tests are put in place for a reason, just as you know from working for Dumbledore the same thing. Our superiors want perfection from us; anything less would be a wasted life...or no life at all."
Remus had never really asked him anything personal unless out of necessity, but Snape was bringing up a topic that challenged his will to continue to be so professional. While Snape still scowled, Remus's features softened.
"Would you find it annoying to hear me ask if you always - always - strove for perfection? I remember a time when you couldn't care less what other's thought of you. When did your image become so important?"
Snape raised an eyebrow at this.
"When others started dying, you ninny. Stuck between Dumbledore and the Dark Lord...I only know of one other person as stuck as I was, and he wasn't nearly so careful as me."
Remus needed to digest that for a few long moments.
He finally inquired, "Are you really talking about Harry? I didn't know you still thought about him."
Snape shrugged. It might have been the first time Remus saw such a thing.
He replied, "He didn't stand a chance surviving the Dark Lord, and he didn't stand a chance from getting out from under Dumbledore's thumb."
Remus took a breath.
"Are you trying to say you think he's better off...dead?"
A shrug again. Records were being broken tonight.
"And what do you mean, under his thumb?"
Snape's black eyes sparkled at the confusion still resting on Remus's brow.
"Oh? You didn't know?"
Remus tried to keep his emotions cool.
"Know what?"
"That Dumbledore was going to start some private tutoring classes with him just before it all began; get him back on target with his magic that was failing. In fact...the day Potter and his pal went wondering into those woods you run around every full moon, that was the first day those lessons were supposed to begin. Potter was late; Dumbledore even asked me to go looking for where he had gone."
Remus hadn't known.
"You knew he was missing before you knew he was kidnapped?"
Snape nodded.
"By about twenty minutes only. No one would have thought he'd be stupid enough to exit the safety of the school...I couldn't imagine what would have brought him out of bounds."
Such a little thing, but Remus had licked his lips and looked away. Instantly, Snape knew Remus may have been hiding something more than his dislike of badmouthing Harry Potter. The Potion's professor set down his cup and switched how his legs were crossed.
"What are you thinking?" Snape asked.
Again, Remus was digesting his thoughts.
"I...don't see the harm..." he said at last.
Snape looked quite interested.
"I know the reason they went into the woods. I know it was an accident that they went out of bounds, but..."
Remus had been told by his wife, who was told by the oldest Weasley son, Bill, who was told by the twins Fred and George. Ron had told them.
"He wanted to take Harry somewhere secret."
Snape was trying to follow the story.
"Ronald Weasley did? Why?"
"I know you'll think even worse of him after I tell you this. Most wizards probably would, too. But you especially could never find much good about him. It's just one more thing to add to the pile you've built up..."
When Remus wouldn't continue, Snape urged him.
"Go on, Lupin. Tell me."
"If you want to know the truth, it's just that Ron wanted to try a kiss on his friend, but was embarrassed so went somewhere private."
Snape gave a genuine bark of laughter at that. Then he shook his head, looking off in thought of it all.
"Are you kidding me? Weasley and Potter becoming an item? It was bad enough being there when we all first learned that Potter had feelings for him."
Remus rolled his teacup between his hands. The contents swirled, much like his life. For the first time ever, Remus and Snape reminisced.
Remus said, "Ron can't forgive himself...either for not knowing Harry's feelings or for taking him beyond bounds. I remember when I first learned that James and Lily were together. They were always fighting, so it just didn't make sense that they'd come together. Harry, though..." his mind wondered. "...he was private about a lot of things. Most of all, private about how lonely he was. He always felt close to the end of his life, and it made him angry sometimes. I guess...that's what I feel regret about. I wish he just had more time to live a little as an adult and have a relationship."
Snape shrugged, without comment.
Remus smiled.
"I have faith there's someone out there for everyone, including you, git."
Both these Hogwarts professors knew that surviving meant saying goodbye to others, and usually those others were young friends. Snape had said goodbye to things that he'd never even had before. It was something Remus was starting to learn about him.
Late May, 2001.
Remus was a fine Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and he was again haled most kid's favorite teacher. He was considerate and honest, and they all sensed that. Some students even remembered him from their first or second year at Hogwarts, back even before the start of the Second War, and once again agreed he taught DADA with a more advanced curriculum than any other predecessor.
Particularly, Remus was the favorite of the first year's. Specifically, he was Unis and Janice Bladquester's favorite. He would get hearts on his papers from them, smiling faces, too. They would chase him about when the full moon was up. They were bright girls, made brighter because these girls had a hero at home. Remus had slowly pieced it together by delicately leading them to reveal little bits about this person, and by now they'd said enough for him to have a clearer picture.
This person made them accept who they were and not feel terribly different. If only Remus and some of these other lycanthropes had the same support system! He was also the person who supplied them the Wolfsbane potion...and wouldn't that be an expensive feat to pay for two potions every month, when the honest wage for the potion was four galleons a dose. He knew there was no dealings of that high expense happening at the Bladquester residence, since he had visited last summer with Professor McGonagall to offer them a place at Hogwarts personally, and saw the state of their small home business.
Most disturbingly, though, was that this was a secret person and they very clearly weren't supposed to talk about him. They were just children, though. They slipped up from time to time.
Perhaps Remus was curious for his own reasons...but if these girls knew someone who could make the Wolfsbane potion and offer it freely - well! Remus wanted to know more. He didn't need the potion, he just wanted the connection...he wanted to know how it was done.
During the final weekend before graduation, another event involving the Wolfsbane potion crossed his path.
Remus was visiting with his wife who had come, as usual, to see him on the weekend at Hogsmeade. She was frustrated, unlike usual. She started telling him about her current investigation. Tonks and the other Aurors didn't have much at all to go off, other than one wizard recovering from the effects of a botched Wolfsbane potion at St. Mungo's. It was horrific. He was burned and his magical signature was altered, but as he had yet to awaken they still didn't know who he was, just that he was in his fifties and had purchased the potion from someone unidentified.
Surrounded by students here in this popular bar, it wasn't easy to have this conversation in private, but most people were leaving them alone.
Remus felt for her, and the wizard.
"How will you try finding who did this?"
"First, we have to wait and see the final results from St. Mungo's about the contents of that potion. It could just have been laced with poison, but if it was a common mistake, then the findings will stay in their hands and a warning will just go out to not make that same mistake...but Remus, this was no mistake. We're preparing to infiltrate the black market, but we just have to wait on the findings."
"When you say that...I get the feeling you mean you're preparing to infiltrate the black market...?" Remus let the question hang at the end of that.
She smiled and winked, allowing her natural metamorphic abilities to shift her nose and lips. She was a wonder with Concealment and Disguise magic, usually the one to infiltrate hotbeds for information. Even her clumsiness with stealth and tracking was becoming minimal; she was honestly one of the best Aurors Remus had ever met, even though she'd only been doing it since 1994.
"He could have brewed it himself," he offered.
She shrugged.
"Unlikely. His hands didn't show any indication he was handling ingredients."
A worry line creased Remus's brow. He felt she could make a connection with what he'd most recently discovered with the two girls and the potion-brewer offering discounted Wolfsbane potion, but didn't believe the person from Finland was the same as the person here, so didn't bring it up. Instead, he tried to refocus the conversation.
"Many people have tried to take advantage of innocent people for their money. There have been groups supplying botched Wolfsbane potion before without the case going into St. Mungo's. I wouldn't be surprised if there haven't been problems with the potion in the past and a werewolf simply wouldn't report it, even if it was a common error in brewing it."
Tonks covered Remus's hand with hers.
"Have you heard of people who have suffered from these botched potions?" she whispered.
Remus nodded his head.
"Yes...quite a few. They live around London even. While I was working for the Order, I heard tales of some of them trying out a new potion and being sick in bed the whole week leading up to the transformation, and then suffering though that as well. Usually without any one to help them."
"That's just terrible," she said miserably, taking his hand and kissing it. "The Ministry is asking for too much regulation on this potion, making it too expensive to acquire. I know people have been seeking other avenues, and some have found competent ones I bet. Remus, during the summer, could you ask around for me? I wouldn't want us Aurors asking around and hindering the supply line that's actually benefiting some lycanthropes; that just isn't something that I want. But if it's you asking around...someone they know...they may talk about who they think this person in St. Mungo's is."
She was full of worry, but taking all the leads she could get. Remus was willing.
He nodded his head and spoke extra quietly.
"I lead a life before knowing you, Tonks; I can look into this safely. I'll ask around London when I'm back home next week. You don't think it'll be too late?"
Tonks offered wisely, "He's been in a coma for a week already, and truthfully he may never wake up."
Remus contemplated that.
"I'll try everything. I want to help you stop the person who botched that potion."
Tonks nodded.
"We'll do our part, too. I'm meeting Alastar, Ron and Hermione tomorrow to go over the plan. I'll let them know you'll be an informant starting next week."
Remus leaned back from their conspiring tones and spoke a little more easily now.
"How is Ron and Hermione?"
She smiled fondly.
"They're both sharp as whips. I never was as good as him when I was that new to the job, and she's even better. Proper meat for Alastar to chew up."
Remus scoffed at her analogy.
"You really shouldn't talk like that to a werewolf; we might get ideas."
She shook her head in good humor.
"I mean it. They are both particularly interested in finding those outlaws that harass Muggle-born and 'blood traitors,'" she did mock quotations sarcastically as she said this. "They've been sending threatening letters to the Ministry again."
"You're jobs are never done," Remus remarked.
She couldn't agree more.
June 1, 2001.
Harry asked Narcissa for two extra potions that day, knowing this was the first day Unis and Janice were out of Hogwarts, and the day to start the Wolfsbane regimen. But something else was on Harry's mind, too. All year long he hadn't had a need to go to the Bladquester residence, but two moon cycles before the girls had gone away to Hogwarts, Harry had revealed his big secret to the father, Tartis. Tartis Bladquester had kept it to himself that he knew Harry's true identity, and for that Harry was relieved. But it weighed on his mind that he had burdened the man with that and hadn't given him any chances to ask questions. Harry was feeling ready for those questions, now...assuming Tartis was interested.
Harry had a typical delivery for his older, year-round clients, and hurried home now to use the long-dormant Portkey to the thicket near the alpaca ranch that was near the residence of his youngest clients. He felt the usual tug and the darkness swallow him, then the light return and the view from within the bushy tree. Harry's feet found purchase on the crooked limbs of the tree he had become accustomed to greeting. The air was fresher here than his home; no salt from the sea.
Harry mounted his Firebolt and took off through the small gap in the tree, bee lining right for the girl's house.
He was surprised to see the two girls sitting outside in the front yard. It was a nice sunny day, but usually they were indoors with their heads in books. This was the summer, though, and these girls were on their first day back from Hogwarts, so yeah, he probably should have expected they weren't thinking about studying. He remembered all he wanted to do was sleep on his first day back. But sleeping was often not on the table at the Dursleys residence.
"Heeey!" Harry shouted, a smile spread wide over his mouth.
The girl's heads flung up and they were on their feet, shouting his name and gleeful.
He landed and pulled the potions, marking the relieved look on their faces as they took the concoction and downed it. He let them finish before he started in on the questions. "How was school? How were your teachers? How was the Wolfsbane potion from there?"
Harry hadn't realized he had so much to ask.
He also hadn't realized how much he missed these girls and kept giving them a big long hug.
Their answers were given exuberantly. They loved it. They chatted about it for an hour. They had a hundred stories to tell and a thousand good things to say. They even liked Professor Snape, which Harry found alarming. But they'd been sorted into Ravenclaw and quite respected a man who brewed their Wolfsbane potion to perfection each month. Harry supposed all the lycanthrope children had a soft spot for Snape, but was assured he was a personal preference and not at all a universal like, even for their ilk.
"Come on in for a snack, girls," called a familiar voice.
Harry looked over and saw the girl's parents there by the door. Harry was told they were brewing something inside that they couldn't get away from, so had waited outside with the girls so far. But he wanted to see them. Well, he wanted to see Tartis specifically. Right now, Harry stood up off the grass, his Firebolt in his hand, and met the father's eyes with a locked and meaningful stare. From this far apart, Tartis knew the call. He stepped out of the house while Oslem called them in with open arms. Tartis patted his girls on their heads as they rushed by. They, too, had missed the girls all year long.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask right then and there. Do you remember what you may have discovered when I showed you my scars? But Harry chickened out. His sudden fear that Tartis didn't care struck him hard. The question in his head changed from 'do you remember' to 'do you care to remember' as he thought of ways to phrase it that wouldn't hurt himself.
But really...Harry needn't have worried.
"Would you come sit by the swing with me?" Tartis asked, his voice as soft as ever as he strode past Harry, carrying him along to the tree with the swing where Harry had first showed his scars. Like a magnet picking up a smaller magnet, Harry followed. He held his Firebolt out and let go, the magical broomstick holding still in the air where it had been left, and Harry sat on it sideways, miming Tartis's movements as he himself plopped onto the wooden board suspended by the ropes.
If Harry thought he was nervous, Tartis was worse. He was fidgety. He was working his mouth this way and that, trying to open it to speak. It calmed Harry down to see this, to know he wasn't alone.
"Can I ask you something?" Tartis asked, giving him a sidelong glance.
"I suppose so."
"Could you tell me - truthfully - what your name is?"
Harry nodded in understanding, understanding now that this was going to be a dance.
"I have two names. Which would you like to hear?"
A really high tempo dance.
"Both?"
Like he didn't know, Harry looked him in the eye and told him. "Alderbaron Gravewatcher... Harry Potter."
Tartis gasped and his eyes grew wide. Shocked, yes, but underneath it all was relief, as if Tartis had been waiting to hear that name spoken aloud and now that it was he was content.
He let out a long breathy sigh.
"I really had such a hard time believing! I didn't even tell my wife... You asked me not to, anyway, so how could I? You... a legend. A hero who ended the war... "
Harry always knew that people wanted to do him favors. They wanted to know someone as famous as him, either for personal satisfaction or to brag to friends...or just to put him down so that they could make themselves feel bigger. The look that Tartis was giving him now, Harry hadn't seen that look on another's face in years. No one looked at him at Hogwarts that way anymore, except the littler ones who were fresh into the school.
"Can I ask you something, too?" Harry asked, hiding his discomfort at all the names.
Tartis took a breather before answering, eyes lost somewhere in the distance. He brought himself back and turned to Harry, nodding.
Harry told him, with a touch of sadness to his tone, "Do you see why things are this way?"
Another long silence, followed by him shaking his head. No.
Harry thought not.
He took a deep breath and plowed forward. "Wizards and witches think I'm dead, and I like it that way because not only have I escaped from their attention, but they have a better reason to forget the war. I use to remind them of it; just my face and scar there on my forehead would. And they'd get angry or sad. Or they just expected I was working on it; working to end it because that's exactly what I was born to do, no matter the cost to myself, no matter if I was eleven years old or thirteen or fifteen...they all expected me to fight like I knew at all how to do that. Do you really think anyone cared if I lived or not? They would hardly care either way, just so long as I did this for them. I was a symbol of the war. So long as I lived, so did the Dark Lord. Right?
"I told you the truth," Harry pushed onward, fiddling with a strand of hair that had fallen from his ponytail nervously, "because I really, really didn't want to lose you and your family. Maybe I'm just making excuses, but I hadn't sat down and had a meal like that in a long time. I missed what it's like sitting at a table with a real family and just being with each other. I never even knew what that was like until I was invited over my best friend's house when I was twelve years old. All these years since the war ended, I've just been on my own trying to hash out something for myself, but I realized since knowing you and your family that this is what I really want. I want to have something like this...and if telling you my secret allowed me to keep you a little longer...then it wasn't such a risk."
For just a little while he'd been grinning, lost in the glow of sharing his feelings with Tartis openly. Somehow, the warm glow that he still had from that dinner with them last year just hadn't faded; he'd locked those feelings in a glass jar inside of him so that he could cherish them as well as look at them even as the months compounded. Harry wondered exactly how long he'd go on so foolishly chatting like this and decided he didn't care if it was for days; Tartis looked very much willing to continue sitting there, and he supposed that made it all right.
"My family is something I would never want to lose," Tartis said then, but then more nervously continued, "I read up on you - I hope you don't mind - so I know a little about you. I know that you were particularly close to only one wizarding household, and I assume when you mention your best friend, that you mean this young man named Ronald Weasley?"
Harry grimaced hearing that name. He nodded in affirmation.
"Hmm...he is a powerful Auror now? I wonder if he misses you?"
Harry didn't say anything for awhile, but then he found his voice again.
"I was sometimes afraid of asking for things when people knew my real name. Even asking you not to tell anyone...you said it yourself, you didn't tell anyone. Not even your wife? Yeah...that's the sort of dark power that comes with that 'being famous' hogwash. I was afraid of asking for things like help and advice. People always hated me or loved me, but they were always a stranger so it was rather startling as a kid to have people keep approaching me with these extreme emotions all the time. It was weird, too...sometimes I had to insist on paying for things like school books or food. Once that happened around Ron and he got so angry at me, like it was my fault they treated me this way; like I had asked them to do it. But it was out of my control, wasn't it? I had to always have money ready whenever I wanted to buy something after that, so that the shop would have to accept it because it was already on the table. I had to hide my scar, too. I had to pretend I was someone not myself..."
Remembering back, Harry felt he had it pretty rough.
"Your best friend was hard on you, too?"
Harry nodded. "But it kept me grounded. He was the one I impressed the most when I was just being myself. When I was breaking rules or making authority figures unhappy, or when I was meeting the challenges head-on, it was only his approval that really mattered. He held me to higher standards than all the others."
Tartis nodded along, seeming to understand what Harry was talking about.
"I didn't want to be hated. Especially not by my friends. I pretended I was just a normal kid like them, but you know, I was constantly reminded otherwise. I always did things that stood out, no matter how hard I tried to blend in. Whenever I messed up, people always just made such a big deal out of it. I couldn't escape my name."
Harry looked over at the father of the girls and laughed when he saw his worried expression. Harry's laughter eased the crease in Tartis's forehead, relaxing the man. Harry was moved on, really. He was just reminiscing...not really complaining anymore because so much time had lapsed.
"As many times as I managed to get into trouble, I always managed to find a way back out. Over and over. You know, we're talking about Hogwarts, here? That's the school I went to, you know? I probably shouldn't be telling you how risky some of the rooms are, or that the kids there can be horrid little creatures...when your girls are going there?"
The man lifted his feet and swung a few times. He looked stiff while doing it. He must have been inside brewing that potion standing up for hours, because he was having trouble getting the momentum right.
"I realized that, yes. But you were saying anyway?"
Harry laughed again, happy in a free and open way that he just hadn't been in years. He started to swing his legs, too. On the Firebolt, it had a similar but smaller effect as that swing.
Being listened to as he talked about the past like this was affection Harry hadn't realized he was lacking. He was so starved for this need to talk about his past that he hardly considered the result from doing it, as it felt so good right now. Inevitably, the memories of his fourth year, the loss of his classmate and the rising of Voldemort came to mind. His head drooped and his shoulders slumped despite this happening a lifetime ago.
"Hogwarts," Harry smiled weakly now. "A lot happened to me while I was there. A lot of good, but bad, too. I'll just skip it all and tell you the worst of it: that I was the reason the war started up again. Stuff like that is the sort of thing I was responsible for. Stuff like the return the Dark Lord back to power. Like my classmate being killed. Like my godfather being killed. Like having a prophecy made about me that would windup getting my parents killed...yeah. That's what it means to be me..."
Harry kicked the ground and shot back a few feet accidently. He got his broom back under control quickly, though.
He felt miserable, and it must have shown on his face.
Tartis left his swing and walked over to where Harry had stabilized. He did the most surprising thing, then: he took him by the shoulders and pulled him in, squeezing him firmly in a hug.
Against his ear, he told Harry, "I don't know much more than your two names. But what more do I need to really know about you that you haven't already shown? You've done more good than I think you are giving yourself credit for. Thanks to you, my girls are happy. Thanks to you, my family is holding together. I understand why you think you had to play dead to the rest of the world, but we would not be here if it wasn't for you surviving. So...thank you, Harry Potter. For living!"
Harry didn't even dare move, too afraid that he would dislodge this comfortable embrace. His eyes moistened around the edges.
Tartis pulled back and looked at him. "Now...pretending to be dead? If any of my children did that...or if Oslem...I couldn't bear the thought. I could never do it, either. Do any of the people you use to know have any idea?"
Harry blushed and shook his head. "That's not how this works. I want them to move on, too. I want them to have no fear of the war beginning again."
At least Harry didn't know that many people. He could list them out in order of importance to him and be done before he included his thumb on his second hand. He really, really had lost a lot of people already to the war.
"Will you keep this a secret forever?"
Harry shook his head again, because wasn't that the truth? He just wouldn't. "I've done everything I could to keep this a secret, but forever? No...I honestly couldn't say if I had the stamina for that."
Tartis sighed and let Harry go. He stepped away. "I forced your hand. I forced you to reveal yourself. I am sorry about that. Am I making this hard on you?"
"No. You're making this better. I sort of needed to tell someone. I needed to see what another's reaction would be..." And now Harry sighed, perhaps looking paler. "And...what I've discovered...is that I'll probably never be forgiven."
A soft hum, and Tartis went back to the swing, gripping the rope with his cheek pressed against his hand. "I doubt that. It was a shock to learn your secret...but I was happy in the end. Hiding, lying, pretending to be someone you were not and coming into my home...those things I forgave months ago. All I believe now is that I am happy to know you as you are. I mean it: happy to know you as whoever you are, because you are quite remarkable even without a famous name."
Harry blushed and shied away from the heavy compliments.
"Is there anyone at all besides me who knows about you?" He murmured, allowing for Harry to recompose himself.
"It was a mistake that one person from my past found out, so besides you there are four others," he said quietly. "Three were in on it from the beginning. I don't want to tell you who they are."
"And the person from your past? How did that person react?"
Harry sighed. "He didn't speak to me. He just saw me...and walked away."
A frown. "And what did you think of that? Was that what you wanted? Did he walk away because he agreed with your decision to play dead?"
Fuck, but Harry had been waiting a long time to answer those questions, too. He spent the whole summer last year looking over his shoulder, expecting a dark shadow to be looming. Then, he spent all the cold months expecting Snape to just be taking a tour of the building as 'an interested party.' But nothing ever happened.
In his own self-centered way, it hurt to think that being ignored was Snape's way of approving of what he'd done. What had once not bothered him was now eating away at him. It seemed now plainly obvious: Harry wanted to know what Snape thought. If the answers he got today from Tartis were at all congruent with what he would get from Snape, Harry would be content for a decade more hiding from those from his old life.
Still June 2001.
Harry waited until after the full moon and then he went to England, because he had someone to visit.
He came up with a million scenarios of how he was going to meet Snape again, what they were going to talk about, how they were going to reconnect. He was so pent up, but he never told Narcissa, even though he knew she respected Snape enough to trust him. She had talked about him from time to time, satisfied at least that with Snape's help, Draco got a good job right out of school. Harry knew he wouldn't confide in Draco, though, as he was busy with girlfriends and promotions and hadn't appeared to be in contact with Snape anyway. He contemplated telling Lucius...but keeping those two ex-Death Eaters apart was probably better than encouraging them getting together.
Spring came again, another gala. Harry wasn't assigned.
He was typically the connection to the east, going far north into Russia and far south into China. He'd accustomed himself to the colder climates and could - by now - easily recognize the pathway up the mountains for the rare items for harvest up there. The Herbologists that would need to take these trips to these parts of the world kept recommending him to this assignment, as they liked his company. Harry enjoyed the views as much as the lack of chances of having to duel to defend their harvests; it was very remote.
He'd spend days in these remote areas, sometimes in tents or in monasteries completely out of view of Muggle's, who had already broke ground in these parts, too, desiring to climb even the most dangerous mountains for sport. Often they would pass the wizarding outposts used for Herbologists and other specialty magical workers studying the area, but they wouldn't be able to see them.
He was granted a private storage, as well; the sort that no one would ever inspect. It wasn't even an honor system; it was a rule in his contract. The long trips would wear everyone out, so they offered everyone this privacy. The catch: yes, he could steal items on the way; he never bothered. He did bother to always have a Portkey back to London, though - from there to Malfoy Manor, where he could meet with Narcissa and deliver her goods. If he was ever caught missing while on assignment that would be a big deal, but he made sure everyone else was dead tired before he left.
He was stretched thin during the longer trips, skipping meals and getting only a little sleep on some occasions, but life was enjoyable and adventurous. It was also lucrative, like she promised.
He still kept to himself, which the quiet Herbologists really liked about him compared to some of the other Transportation Officials. The older people liked his young face, too.
And what? Was he going to make a request to go to that gala just to see Snape and the other famous wizards again? Have to deal with the dreaded question, "Why do you want to attend the gala? Who are you looking forward to meeting?"
He couldn't do that.
He was a subject to his life, not the main character.
A year and a half of nothing, and then it took talking to Tartis to show him just how fed up he was. Snape wasn't going to try to meet him. He couldn't kid himself anymore...and he was upset that he was being ignored. He was upset that he was so worthless to Snape that he wouldn't even try to ask him why he was still alive. Harry was angry in a petulant way. He was jealous, too. Stupid Snape got to spend his life as himself, whereas Harry had to hide.
"Fuck..." Harry muttered, closing his eyes and pressing his face against the glass of the window as he rode the Knight Bus.
His heart was beating fast and hard as the Knight Bus zoomed through England. He had readied himself after work, feeling antsy. He'd Portkeyed into Malfoy Manor late that night, around nine, not telling them he was going. Then he'd Apparated away to a familiar place he often went to drop off potions he was selling for Narcissa. England wasn't a place he went to often or for personal endeavors; this was the first.
He'd called the Knight Bus and boarded.
It had to happen, because not even sips of Calming Drought could bring the logic back to his brain on this one. He was bound to this fate.
The dark and moving landscape outside the window was no help in settling his mood. He was hot and sweaty (his own fault for wearing a zip-up Muggle training jacket) and really doing a stupid thing. He was going to visit Snape. What could be more stupid a thing to do tonight than this?
The Knight Bus pulled to a stop.
"Cokeworth, laddy!" Called the driver.
Harry offloaded himself swiftly, keeping his face turned away but thanking the driver, too. The bus was gone nearly the moment he stepped off it.
The night was warm and clear. Windows were open in the houses surrounding him, with sounds of the televisions drifting out. It was late enough, but there were two die-hard girls kicking a football about in the street. They hadn't seen how close they had come to the Knight Bus running them down, and continued playing on merrily.
Above him, an immense chimney reached high into the sky, attached to a disused mil that had posters glued to its walls declaring "Green Earth" and other such recycling endeavors that had gone on around these parts. There was overgrown weeds along the clean banks of the shadowy river.
The Muggle clothes he wore belied the charms he'd placed on them, and his Firebolt was stowed safely out of sight. He was ready to grab it as he walked the dim street below the lamp lights, past the one-on-one football game to the end of the row.
Old words came to his mind as he approached the house he figured was Snape's.
Forgive to forget.
He needed something from Snape - something - anything - but he needed to put this past him. So...something needed to be forgiven. What could it be? He was willing to do anything, even something dangerous like this. It had worked out with Tartis, after all. He'd gone on his way after meeting with him, gone about acting normal around him the rest of his time delivering those potions to his girls. It couldn't be said that had worked out anyway but for the best.
Harry stood there before the final house with resolve. He was going to get Snape to talk. He needed answers, and once he got them, then he could do something about this pit in his stomach.
He wiped a tear that had fallen unbidden from his eye. He was so nervous and emotional that he was crying. Was it sadness? No...it was like a sort of happiness. A sort of longing to see someone who he hadn't in a long time. It was odd he was having this kneejerk reaction for his old potions professor.
He knew which house to come to because Narcissa had told him. She'd learned such information years before...back during the first war, before Harry was even born. She knew because her and her husband were close to Snape, relying on him in many ways because he did not seem to discompose no matter the event. The two of them found that Slytherin charming and lead him as best they could - even following him at times as best they could.
Narcissa confessed to keeping in mind where he lived, which she described only briefly as, "The last house on this dreaded Muggle road, Spinner's End."
Harry had found the only Spinner's End in England, and was now standing in front of what he assumed was the last house.
Why was he so sure this was it?
It was the only one without lights on.
Harry had also been told that this was where Wormtail lived after bringing Voldemort back to life. Voldemort had placed him in Snape's house - so Lucius believed - because he believed right under Dumbledore's nose was the best place for him. Harry had no idea...not even the papers talked about it, but Narcissa assured Harry that Aurors had come looking after Voldemort was dead, only to find the house empty - he'd run off. Harry had to wonder how thorough their search was, considering they'd missed his body in the walls of Malfoy Manor when they'd done their "thorough inspection" of that place.
He was a month away from turning twenty-one, but he felt like a kid right now.
Harry tried to fathom what he'd do if he knocked on the door and it was answered by that rat, but he just couldn't, because he needed to trust that Narcissa was right: Wormtail had run off for good; no one knew where he was.
It was just so natural to hate the person who had done so many wrongs.
Snape was a person he should hate, too. Snape was the worst teacher he'd ever - well, no. Umbridge was the worst ever. Also, Gilderoy Lockhart, Quirrell, Trelawney...
A small smile set itself on the corners of Harry's lips as he walked up and knocked on the front door. His mind backtracked over his predicament: how had he come to decrease his vile hatred for Snape by comparing him to the likes of these others? Was he really looking for a reason to like him?
Harry's hand moved up again to tap the knocker, but he came upon thin air.
He looked up from his hazy thoughts, expecting to see the wooden door before him, but instead he stared into the eyes of his old teacher. Harry's mouth dropped in revelation: it was Snape's house!
"Well...surprising," said the man, standing before him with nothing but gloom behind him. He still wore dark robes, perhaps having no other clothing style to speak of.
Harry was lost for words. Then he had to scold himself because he felt another tear fall unbidden. He slapped his hand to his face, trying to hide what he knew was clearly seen. Snape had raised a brow in interest.
"You - you never tried - " Harry's voice cut itself off. He tried to speak harshly, but his voice came out quieter than he hoped, and then failed him. He turned his face away. Whereas at the gala last year, Snape had approached him with such a glower, at this time he looked nonplus; board, in fact. Harry didn't want to see that.
"What were you expecting?" Snape asked, now sounding like he cared for a reply.
Harry couldn't look at the unfazed man, but he did bring his gaze back and instead looked past him into the gloomy house. Did he always walk around in the dark? Harry's eyes squinted with a pained look and he glanced away from that, too. He looked back over his shoulder into the night.
He felt exposed out here, but he wasn't willing to go into that house just yet. He knew he had sacrificed himself in coming here - putting himself fully on display. He seemed to collapse in upon himself in that old way he use to at Smeltings, back when nobody was around to pick him up. Except...unexpectedly - his cousin had on occasion. Harry had once spent the night on Dudley's floor in his dorm room, and he realized now that this loneliness he felt - standing on Snape's stoop - felt like that: he was broken without anywhere to go, so he'd just have to endure.
He knew that Cokeworth wasn't all that far from Privet Drive, if one drove fast enough, took the Knight Bus, or flew on a Firebolt.
Harry wound up just standing there, thinking that maybe he had let his feelings get the best of him, and that if he had just endured through the months a little more he would have eventually gotten over his need to come here.
"Are you just going to stand on my step?" Snape asked, his voice tight with dislike.
"No..." Harry muttered, still looking away.
He felt a tug on his arm. He looked down and Snape had his sleeve pinched, tugging lightly. Harry followed into the house and the door closed with a click. As soon as that happened the lights in the place rose a bit, as Snape had his wand in his hand and had spelled them so.
Harry leaned against the door, feeling the handle dig into his lower back. He stared up at the face of his old teacher. He looked older than he had at the gala.
"Just a moment..." Snape said, leaving his view into the other room.
Harry listened to his footsteps recede around a corner, returning shortly holding a potion.
"Drink this," and he passed the potion over.
Harry examined it with tired eyes.
"What is it?"
"It's not Calming Drought."
Harry wasn't satisfied enough to just take a sip. He was willing, yes. He knew he'd be interrogated and would have to do this Snape's way...but yeah - he was willing. Snape probably wouldn't kill him or turn him in, so...
He asked again, "What is it?"
Snape hummed.
"What does it matter...you will sip it, no matter what it is. I can see it in your eyes."
Harry leaned his head back against the door, fully exposing his face and his gaze, waiting for the answer to his question. Snape's black eyes were fixed upon Harry's blue ones as he continued to stare with a portentous airs. But he relented, because Gryffindors were stubborn, but Slytherins were smart.
"It's a Detoxify potion. I know you're using something...I want to see for myself what's under there."
Harry lowered his head and nodded. He'd taken a lot of care to get his potions right before he came over, but he should have suspected this anyway. A Detoxify potion would be uncomfortable under normal circumstances, but the more powerful the potion drank before hand, the more painful it would be. He sipped anyway.
The thing tasted terrible and expelled fumes from his mouth and nose. He felt a mild burning, but then cringed and held his stomach as it twisted. He felt his skin take the brunt of the pain, but as he'd also drank the Abjuration of Bane to alter his magical signature, it was like fingernails were slicing along his veins. He cringed, trying to hold his supper in.
Snape examined him with impassiveness.
Soon, all pain subsided. He took some deep breaths and then opened his eyes. Sure enough, his hands were covered in those familiar scars.
Harry fortified his resolve once again and stood up straight. Snape stared at his face, at the scar he was known for, at the newer and obvious one slicing across his face.
Harry reached up for his throat where the zipper on his Muggle jacket was. He met Snape's eyes as he pulled it down and - further - shrugged it off his shoulders and let it fall.
Snape's eyes lowered to the scars on his neck.
Harry gripped the hem of his shirt and lifted, taking that off, too. It fell silently to the ground.
Now, Snape could see it all. Only this time his old teacher wasn't looking board or cynical; he was feeling something - whether surprise or sympathy or something else... - because there was certainly something twisting his features now.
That's what Harry liked best.
That's what he wanted: he wanted a reaction to his presence.
"Yeah," Harry muttered, trying not to lose his nerve. "I look like this now."
Snape just stood there for another moment, still most avidly attuned to the lines on his neck.
Finally, he met his gaze and said, "Your eyes are still blue. That must be topical?"
It was. Harry reached down and gathered his garments, using his shirt to wipe off the powder on his eyelids. At last, he looked up with a familiar green.
Snape looked away.
Snape was an emotionless wall usually, but there was something in his look just then that he couldn't conceal: sadness, although Harry couldn't fathom why.
Snape was once a Death Eater and tried to kill him on occasion, but Harry was happy to see that had changed. A lot had changed.
"Done looking?" Harry asked.
Snape huffed.
Harry put his shirt and jacket back on.
Had Snape's attitude matured? His own certainly had. A lot of hate and dislike for this man came from him knowing his father and Snape had been antagonists...it looked as if someone could grow out of that as an adult. Harry could rationalize how he had been an offending youth growing up; his attitude really wasn't conducive to a friendly adolescent boy...but nowadays, Harry had the patience to learn people.
He was getting the sense that Snape wasn't entirely okay with knowing that he was alive.
He was getting the sense that Snape was still coming to grips with him.
"Cup of tea?" Snape offered out of the blue.
He didn't wait for the reply, but went again into the room he had gone to for the Detoxify potion. Harry waited in the hall a moment, and then joined him.
He found himself in a dimly lit and small kitchen with a small square table, with only two chairs set around it. He sat himself down as Snape went about boiling the water and finding cups and teabags. It was nice how patient this ritual made an uneasy moment...like making tea automatically forced a pause, allowing a breather for the minds of those waiting to resume the trouble at hand.
Snape sat a cup down in front of Harry.
Harry took it up idly, bringing it to his lips.
"Laced with Veritaserum?" He wondered, sipping.
"Yes, actually."
A sudden grin spread across Harry's face so impulsively that it spilled tea out the sides of his mouth. He felt it immediately, the start of the numbness.
He wiped the tea away from his chin.
He laughed and took another sip, just to watch the first truly communicative expression cross Snape's face: he sneered in contempt of Harry.
It was wonderful to be authenticated at last!
His body felt fully lax, the truthful words ready to spill from his mouth.
This really was Veritaserum; he'd tried it out a few times on himself, chattering without anyone in the room: just talking to himself. It felt a bit like he was his own therapist when he did this. Anyway, he knew the effects of this potion, and he also knew he was willing to tell Snape anything. He was a trustworthy guy, after all. Even Voldemort knew that.
"I missed you," was the first thing Harry said, still with a smile. "I hate that I missed out on your potion lessons. I could have taken my N.E.W.T.s if I'd stayed in school. I'd have gotten to spend time with you and everyone else. I regret missing out on that."
Harry's face nearly landed on the table. How much potion had Snape given him? Well, he probably hadn't expected him to take a willingly big sip...
Snape caught him before his nose planted itself down hard on the table. He quickly rose and scooted his chair close to Harry, holding both his shoulders and pressing him back. Harry's collar had been twisted since he had put it back on; Snape corrected the error just now, which had been bothering him.
Harry giggled.
"My lover holds me like this. He'd have my clothes off quicker, though."
"I don't want to know about your lover," complained Snape, keeping a hand on his shoulder so he wouldn't fall out of his chair. "I want to know how you survived."
Of course he did.
At last...more substantiation that Snape wanted to talk to him!
The story was told. It was long and twisted...Snape couldn't follow the logic of it during the transitions after each Oblivious Unction sip. He catalogued each of these moments though, ready to scold Narcissa for giving him so much of it. He hardly needed to prod Harry; it was either the amount of the potion he ingested, or his own willingness, but he gave it all up from the very beginning on how he was hiding his feelings from Ron, to his night with Draco, to his kidnap and fake death, to Draco's confession...and then onward to his new life courtesy of the Malfoys. Once he started revealing how he sold potions on the black market, Snape was starting to finally be content.
His anger had boiled and then simmered down.
Harry talked until his mind faded...he was exhausted to begin with and this hadn't helped. It was all a blur until he awoke with a start on the couch in the next room at Snape's house. He hadn't noticed falling asleep, but here he was.
The light from the windows illuminated old book shelves that lined every wall. Harry hadn't seen them the night before, as it had been so dark. He might have believed the place was his own home if he had fallen asleep for two decades in it, like Sleeping Beauty. It was an awfully disused sort of quiet house, with many doors and a stairway leading both up and down. But he recognized Snape's kitchen when he sat up and looked through that doorway. Snape was fucking about with breakfast, to which Harry never thought he'd see the day.
He groaned and arose, walking into the room. Snape hadn't even taken his shoes off; the bastard.
"Happy with your answers?" Harry asked.
Snape set down two plates of food.
"Satisfied, yes," he agreed.
Harry plopped down and consumed the first egg in a bite, half the coffee in one go, too. Snape really had put a little too much Veritaserum in that tea and it messed with him, apparently.
He slowed down after that and they ate in silence until their plates were empty.
"Go on," Snape said.
Harry looked up from the last sip of his coffee at these words.
Go on. Go on? Go on where?
Harry was confused.
"You don't make sense, professor. I can't read your mind like I know you're reading mine."
Snape smirked, pleased at least Harry was somewhat not stupid.
"Go on and ask a question. A trade."
Harry smiled. He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee without asking.
With his back turned, he said, "Fair is fair, huh?"
He went back and sat down.
"Alright. But you know, the only thing I think I'd like to ask is...if you know where Wormtail is, because I don't need much else from you anymore."
Snape looked bothered that Harry was in good humor. But he knew why: Harry had gone on and on about how distressed he was that Snape hadn't tried to find him. It made him feel invisible in a way being dead didn't even feel...it made him feel forgotten. He knew now that wasn't the case and felt immensely better this morning.
Snape didn't have a good answer to the question, though.
"I don't know. Truly."
Harry's smile faltered and he took another sip. He looked about the room, trying to brush off his disappointment.
"Ah, well. Narcissa's right, then. I should just wait for him to die of old age and let it go."
Again, Snape didn't look pleased.
"People are still looking for him," he said dourly. "He was responsible for your parent's deaths, for bringing the Dark Lord back to life, for ultimately being the reason you died. That hasn't been forgotten."
Harry sipped his coffee again, raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
"Yeah. That all sucked."
Snape tisked his tongue behind his teeth and landed his fist onto the table, toppling the salt and pepper shakers.
Anger. For the first time Harry saw something that really bothered Snape, and he took serious note of it. Harry hated Wormtail, too, but he had potions to help push the past behind him. It had to also be noted that Snape could have done with a few sips of Oblivious Unction right now; it would improve his attitude wonders.
"Sorry," Harry mentioned in a formal way. "I'll drop the subject if you want."
Snape looked away and composed himself, but there was anger lacing his next words.
"As I know it, your friend Weasley is on this case. Why they would put someone so young and inexperienced on such an important matter is beyond me. Incompetence in those Aurors is rampant."
Harry defended Ron adamantly.
"He makes a lot of arrests, you know! He's been part of six Death Eater arrests since he started up."
"Just six!" Snape protested.
"Well!" Harry set his cup down and sat up straight, glaring at Snape. "I'll just put in an anonymous tip and get him over here to arrest you! That's one more!"
Snape rolled his eyes.
At last, the topic was dropped and the silence returned.
Harry looked out the window at the view of a solid brick wall across the street, now believing he was starting to wear out his welcome. But then Snape found calmer words again.
"So...Draco was the one who slept with you at Hogwarts. That was a mess."
Harry returned his gaze. What a topic change! Harry vaguely recalled the questions he had been asked last night, but this definitely had come up. As had his encounter with Clouse Malfoy. Harry wondered if Snape was in the know on that one, or if it really was a bigger cover-up than he imagined.
"Like you didn't know?" Harry asked offhandedly. "You really didn't find out back then?"
Snape pursed his lips. "And have the Dark Lord possibly take that child's life? No. Dumbledore took measures to hinder my search of the culprit; in this way it would only harm my standing with the Dark Lord and not anyone else's. He had me interrogate them all, yes, but he had magically charmed every meal at the Slytherin table to assist in deflecting my methods of interrogation. We felt the truth would only hinder the outcome of the war we most desired...and it was best to leave it all to rumor. He took the lead and probably discovered who it was, but to this day he has never told me or any other Order member."
Dumbledore may know? Harry hadn't thought of that. All this time he had thought Draco was just very good at lying and hiding his thoughts... But then again, Dumbledore often considered much of what children did harmless, so long as malicious intentions weren't involved. Draco hadn't done the deed out of anything more than stupid lust.
Harry was curious now of Snape's thoughts on Draco, and if this changed anything.
"Do you still talk with Draco? Or his parents?"
"There has been no need."
"Maybe you should. At least with Draco. He's still bothered by the past, too. You two have a lot in common: brewing potions and putting up with me are the least of them. You would be of help to Narcissa brewing her potions, too."
Snape was put off.
"That is a horrible idea. It's bad enough that now I know the full story and will have to hide it from Dumbledore while at Hogwarts."
Harry's brows raised in surprise.
"Wait..." Harry gathered his feelings and thoughts. "You're going to...hide this?"
Snape tapped a finger on the table and waved neither here nor there. "I realize you are still bound to your thick headedness, and have known this since I first met you. But I am making it easier by not mentioning your name, if you hadn't noticed. I hid my knowledge of you all this last school year from everyone...and Draco was able to hide it while in his final year at Hogwarts because of Narcissa's Binding potion, too. Speaking a person's name aloud is easily one of the ways through an Occulmenist's skill."
"Or maybe Dumbledore did learn from Draco that I'm alive?"
Snape steepled his fingers and let the silence last. "I cannot deny that perhaps he could know you were alive...but I highly doubt he does. He mourned you. He seems to have also moved on."
Harry was fine with that. He wasn't terribly interested in rekindling anything with his old Headmaster, although he knew how bad that sounded when Dumbledore had done so much for him at Hogwarts. But then - really - in the end, Dumbledore had always tried to use him as a weapon for the war, as well as never gave him the potions to heal his mind as Narcissa had done. Did he know what Draco had done? Did he know he was alive?
Harry smiled ruefully. "Because I'm no use to him anymore, what does he care?"
Snape hummed under his breath again, shaking his head in dissatisfaction.
"What? You think he's a saint and would never do something as heartless as that?"
"Yes, that is exactly what I think," Snape said dowerly. "There has never been a greater wizard alive than Albus Dumbledore. He loves the school and the children, and he loved you most of all. You being taken from the school was his greatest regret. Your death was beyond painful for him; like the loss of his own son. Why...if you revealed yourself alive to him now, I know he would accept you back into his life, but you would have to live with knowing you have hurt him."
Harry felt the grip of pain within his stomach, upsetting the food he'd just eaten.
"He always needed me, I'll give you that. But he didn't need a son. He needed a weapon."
Snape nodded. "Someone with survival instincts. Yes. If he knew you were alive today, he would still be using you, that is true. He'd be making greater use of you than you're making of yourself: selling illegal potions, flying herbologists to remote sites to pick up fungus. He'd be helping you like he's helping Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley."
"Helping them?" Harry wondered.
"He tutored Granger himself, probably gave her those 'private lessons' he was going to give to you. He gave Weasley every excuse in the world while he was at Hogwarts; any other student who pulled the shit he did would have been expelled. Yes, Gravewatcher, he helped them into their positions. He wants to make sure there are bodies to protect against another rising evil within the Ministry."
A chill ran up Harry's spine. He doubted Dumbledore really would have left him alone; he was such a powerful wizard that he wouldn't need to cover his tracks the way Draco and Snape would have to; no one would be trying to break into Dumbledore's mind, as far as Harry knew.
Harry looked down, coming to the conclusion that he was glad Snape was confident he could live with this secret.
"Another thing..." Snape said dourly, lingering eyes on his, making Harry a bit self-conscious. "Narcissa dosed you with an over-abundance of Oblivious Unction. I have a book on that potion, if you'd like to read about it. She may have done you the favor of getting over the torture, but you're missing connections that normal people have. Do you at all notice that?"
Harry could only agree with that...and be a bit surprised that Snape was offering him a book. He perked up.
"I have noticed. I know I'm different. Like how - just now - when you mentioned Draco and what he'd done at school. I don't really feel anything negative about that anymore, even though it blasted me apart at first. The same goes for my boyfriend - I know, you said you didn't want to hear about it, but he tells me just to slow down with him, that he just needs time to catch up with things that I'm okay with doing that I hadn't ever even tried before. And at work, I'm careless..."
"With lives?" Snape implored.
Harry shook his head. "That's one thing that still hasn't changed about me. No, not with lives. I'm careless with myself; not with others. I've stolen from work, I sell the illegal potions...the sensors at work don't even catch me in direct lies. If I break the rules, it's like it doesn't matter."
Snape nodded, slightly distracted as he thought out loud.
"Your mental and magical states are stable. That's what her modifications with the Oblivious Unction did to you. Narcissa fed you that potion and told you how to cope. Now, that's exactly what you do; what you are made for."
Harry smiled ruefully.
"She didn't teach me everything, though. I still came here. I still told Tartis Bladquester who I was. I still miss Ron."
"Well, that's only because she'd never been trained in using that potion to its full effect. She could have remade you into another Dark Lord if she wanted to."
Harry merely laughed. "Good to know!"
And then the silence held again. Harry rose from his seat when it was too much.
"Listen...I should get going. I'm going to have to Apparate to Malfoy Manor from here - the Knight Bus is off duty. I'm already late for work."
Snape seemed pained in asking, as it would prove himself now closely set to Harry, but he asked anyway.
"You're going to work?"
"Yeah. Why not? They don't know the sort of night I had, and I try not skip days. Besides, we're having a meeting about a trip to Yugyd Va to collect some - you guessed it - fungus that only grows on arctic fox excrement. Fun, huh? And...if you meant it about loaning me that book...I won't say no."
Snape went and got it for him. It was a very old book bound in leather. As he handed it over to Harry, he said scornfully, "Only by sheer luck and more talented allies are you still alive, you know that?"
Harry smiled, politely rueful, but probably only for Snape's benefit.
"Yes, professor. But I'm still getting by, aren't I? Should I really try to change so much?"
Harry took the offered book and tucked it into the crook of his arm.
His eyes lingered on Snape's this time.
"I did mean it, last night..." he teased.
Snape nearly rolled his eyes, but bit despite his loathing of Harry.
"Did mean what?"
"That you can come over and visit. That I have rare potion ingredients at my house that you can have. And that I can get you more if you want them."
"That's illicit."
"That's the perk of knowing me."
Then with a few stiff farewells and promises to have that book returned shortly, Snape watched him Apparate away from his living room. They both knew one thing for certain upon parting, one thing that wasn't spoken aloud: Harry had a nice long visit, but he did not get that satisfaction that he had been hoping for. It seemed that hiding for another decade as Alderbaron Gravewatcher wasn't going to be as content a life for Harry, afterall.
