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Chapter Four-Harry, Again

"Who's she, mate?"

Harry smiled weakly at Laocoon as he sat down at the table just inside Diabolic Defenses. (He had tried to get Laocoon to change the name, but Laocoon had just said that they needed a memorable name, and this was memorable). "Someone who wanted my help."

"But that's once. She's been here almost every day." Laocoon's eyes traveled up the stretch of Diagon Alley right outside the window as though he could still trace Mariana Prince's path.

Harry sighed and leaned back. In general, Laocoon didn't ask that many questions, because he regarded Harry as his token of good fortune and thought he might leave if he didn't get what he wanted. But Harry knew that he wouldn't get away with answering some of these questions. "She's someone from my past. Listen, you can't tell anyone about this, okay?"

"That's fine!" Laocoon beamed at him and set up a sparkling-strong Privacy Charm on the door, such that the normal noises of Diagon Alley suddenly dimmed. "Just tell me whatever you want to tell me, Harry!"

Which is nothing, Harry thought, but he lowered his voice as though he didn't trust the Privacy Charm. "She was a friend of my mother's. My mother, she was...different from what other people thought she should be. She caused a rift in the family."

Laocoon's eyes lit up. "Did she have mysterious magical powers like you do?"

"I do not have mysterious magical powers," Harry began, but cut himself off with a sigh when he saw the beginning of a pout forming on Laocoon's face. He seemed utterly convinced that just because Harry had stronger skills in offensive magic and could cast some spells that were original to his universe but didn't seem to exist here, Harry was some sort of magical prodigy, or hidden wandering mage doomed to crisscross the country, "you know, like a comet, except on earth."

"She was like me," Harry restricted himself to saying. It was even true, at least if you were just talking about eye color. Harry ached as he thought of all the ways he wasn't like his mother. Lily Evans wouldn't have broken the universe.

"Ooh." Laocoon sat on the table that he had used earlier to put together an adamantine shield and swung his legs. "And this Marian woman knew her?"

Harry managed a wan smile, impressed that Laocoon actually remembered the name that Mariana had chosen as a cover. It wasn't foolproof, but then again, she never gave her last name, and Laocoon would have announced it in an excited voice if he'd had any idea who she was. "Yes."

"Is she part of the same secret brotherhood of sorcerers that you and your mother were?"

Merlin, it's hard to even lie to him without him coming up with a better lie. "You could say that."

Laocoon nodded. "And don't tell me! She's coming here to give you dire warnings against betraying any secrets to me!" His eyes sparkled as Harry eyed him in disbelief. He honestly couldn't imagine being that young.

"That's only part of it," Harry temporized. Maybe that would cover Mariana's visits here, especially if Laocoon kept the secret to himself from the sheer pleasure of having it. "The other part is that there's a young-sorcerer I have to swear to protect."

"Oooh! And you're reluctant to fulfill your duty because you think I'll keep you too busy in the shop!" Laocoon sat up proudly. "Please don't worry about it, Harry. I'll be happy to give you any time off that you need."

"What? No, I'm not reluctant to fulfill that duty! I just don't think I'll...do a very good job." Harry let his voice trail off as the words sounded in his ears and he finally named the source of his reluctance even to himself. Mariana shouldn't have had to answer so many of his doubts, especially since he was the one who had put Severus in this position, and yet, she had.

Shit. I really might mess this up. I broke the entire universe. What makes me think that I'd be a good protector for anyone?

"I think you'll be perfect for it, Harry."

Harry looked up. Laocoon had leaned forwards to pat his shoulder. His smile was bright, if a little condescending. Harry shook his head. "You don't know me that well, Laocoon. It's nice of you to say, but-"

"No. I'm sure you'll do fine."

Harry paused. Laocoon looked as sure as Neville had when he cut Nagini's head off. When he used to cut it off, or when it had once happened, Harry thought then. "Why?" he couldn't help asking, despite the fact that he didn't think he'd share Laocoon's unshakable certainty even if the man explained it to him.

Laocoon smiled. "You're a protector."

"You are, though. I'm good with offensive magic-"

"Which can make someone a good protector." Laocoon sounded calm now, and much older than he usually did. "And you care about people. It's obvious from the way you talk with this Margaret person. And me. And that girl I saw you give all those Sickles to the other day, the one who was hungry."

"So because I make foolish decisions out of impulse, that means I have to be a good protector and capable of accepting this destiny?"

Laocoon pointed a triumphant finger at him. "Even you think it's destiny."

Harry sighed and leaned back in his chair so that it came near the glass window at the front of the shop and Laocoon sat up in concern. "Well, maybe not that way..."

"You said it. You can't take it back. You said it." Laocoon all but bounced in place, then abruptly became serious again and nodded importantly. "Maybe it's only because we're coming out of a war, but did you notice that not a lot of people have those charitable impulses?'

"You do."

"When?" Laocoon looked around quickly as though beggars would crowd out from behind the walls of Diabolic Defenses any second.

"When you took me on."

"You had me worried for a minute there, Harry!" Laocoon pressed a hand against his chest. "That wasn't charity, that was employment, and I hired you because my Divination professor said so."

Harry just sighed and decided that discussing his continued employment at Diabolic Defenses probably wasn't helping anyone. "Fine. Well, I don't want you to have to constantly reassure me. And I already agreed to accept Marian's petition for protection, so I can't back out now."

"Marian? I thought her name was Margaret."

Harry smiled in spite of himself, even though he thought this was probably a pretense and no one could be as naive and silly as Laocoon seemed. "Marian. Thanks for talking it through with me," he added, even though Laocoon hadn't really said anything he needed to hear. He'd still made the effort.

Laocoon leaped up from his chair and clicked his heels together, bowing his head. "You're welcome, Harry! Now, about that Shield Cloak." He picked up the heavy steel shield from the center of the table. "If you could come with me, then maybe we could try firing curses at this and getting ready for the cloak."

Harry frowned as he took the shield. "Do you want the cloak to be made of steel, though?"

"If necessary. What do you think of an overlapping pattern of steel scales? We could make it look like a trout's. A salmon's, of course, is right out."

Harry rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Laocoon hadn't come close to replacing Ron and Hermione, and never would, but it was good to know that he had a friend.

"It took me a while, but I have Severus here. Seneca doesn't actually pay attention to him most of the time, unless he wants to pose for a picture for the paper with him in his arms. He thinks the house-elves are bathing him right now."

Mariana seemed utterly determined to make Harry hold the toddler, so Harry swallowed and extended his arms. Severus stared at him in silence as Harry steadied him on the counter that ran along the side of his small room at the back of Laocoon's shop, which was kitchen and bedroom in one. At this age, he should be talking, and Mariana said she was sure he could, but apparently Severus hadn't uttered a word since the day he had seen his mother killed in front of him.

And why should he? Harry thought wearily as he met the black eyes under a lightning bolt scar it was strange to see from the other side. He has enough people trying to manipulate or trick a reaction out of him. Maybe he wants to see what they'll do when they don't get it.

"Severus, this is Harry Evanson, who has promised to protect you," Mariana said. Her voice was soft and nervous. She was standing on the other side of the counter, and she seemed smaller now that her grandson was out of her arms. "To teach you magic, and watch over you, and make sure that you survive to adulthood and defeat your enemies."

Harry twitched as she laid it out like that. It wasn't that he objected to doing it, in principle. It was simply that it hadn't been part of the oath that Mariana had had him swear.

"But he doesn't want to."

Harry's head snapped around, and he ignored Mariana's soft cry. He focused on Severus, who was glaring at Harry with the most intense look he'd ever got from him, even counting the first day of Potions class back in his original universe. That Severus had had his gaze clouded by bitterness and his sureness about what he would see.

"He doesn't want to protect me," Severus said, and reached to poke his finger for a second into the side of Harry's cheek. He faced Mariana. "You should find someone who wants to protect me."

Harry swung Severus to the floor, so that he could go back around the counter to his grandmother if he wanted to, and stared at her. "No one should be talking like that at the age of fifteen months," he said.

"Well, he's nearly seventeen months old now-"

"What did you do to him?"

Mariana straightened her back, while Severus frowned at Harry but made no move to step away from him. "Don't yell at her."

"It's not what we did," said Mariana, twisting her hands. "I-it's something that Eileen did. I found the evidence of it on Severus the first time I gave him a bath. I think she was terribly worried that her son would turn out to be a Squib, since she married a Muggle. So she used runes on his skin, and probably fed him certain potions, the kind of thing she could do without a wand and that wouldn't be obvious to her non-magical husband-"

"I see. What did they do?"

"Modified him," Mariana said, softly enough that Harry had to strain to hear her. "Made him smarter, and gave him the ability to think through things that no normal child of his age should be able to."

"I don't want to be normal," Severus announced. "It sounds boring."

Harry managed a shaky smile, even as his mind raced. What kind of mother would do that because she would rather have an altered child than a Squib one? "It was pretty boring when I was a kid."

Severus turned to stare up at him. "Why was it boring when you were a kid?"

He repeated Harry's words almost exactly, down to the intonation. Harry ignored his own uneasiness and smiled at him. "I lived with Muggle relatives. They thought being normal was the best thing on earth. They wanted me to be, but my magic wouldn't let me. So I decided that I would be something better than normal, and normal was boring."

"Your mum was a Muggle?"

"No, she was Muggleborn, but she died when I was young," Harry said quietly, and then wondered if he should have. He had given a very different story to Laocoon, after all. But Mariana knew he was a time traveler, and she seemed much more focused on what he could do for Severus than questioning him about his past. "So I lived with her sister. My aunt."

"What about your father?"

"He died at the same time as my mother."

"So he wasn't there to protect you."

Harry shook his head. "Things were pretty bad for me until I got my letter and went to Hogwarts. But that's one reason I want to help you, if I can. If you'll let me protect you," he added. It seemed clear that the choice would be up to Severus, this time, instead of Mariana.

Severus folded his arms and paced back and forth. He shivered slightly. Harry cast a Warming Charm in the air above him, wordlessly, because he thought any charm cast on Severus's robes right now wouldn't be a good idea. Severus still looked at him as if he knew what Harry had done.

Mariana stood with her hands pressed close to her mouth and her eyes brilliant with something that looked like wary hope.

"What do you want to protect me from?" Severus asked, looking up. "I live with my grandparents. Not my aunt."

Mariana started to shake her head, but Harry was already answering. If he was going to be Severus's protector, and Severus was like this, then he owed his loyalty to Severus first. "Your grandfather. He doesn't sound like a pleasant person."

Severus considered that in silence, then nodded. "And who else?"

Now Mariana really looked as though she wanted to tell Harry to shut up, but Harry answered freely anyway. "The people who will want to you use because you're the Boy-Who-Lived."

"What would they want to use me to do?"

"To make themselves popular and win popularity contests." The minute he said it, though, Harry was unsure if he should have phrased it like that. What if he made it sound as if these people weren't really a danger to Severus?

Severus tilted his head back and locked his eyes with Harry. "How can you stop them?"

"With magic and knowledge." Harry felt more and more like this was an interrogation, but he didn't feel tempted to smile. Severus's eyes were utterly serious, and Harry thought he owed him the courtesy of taking this seriously.

"What kind of knowledge?"

"Some of that is about magic, too," Harry admitted with a shrug of his shoulders. "But the other stuff..." He bent down towards Severus, noting the way he curled his lip at the word "stuff." Apparently he wasn't impressed with Harry's vocabulary. "If I tell you a secret, can you keep it to yourself for the rest of your life?"

Mariana cleared her throat. From that, and the red tint to her cheeks, Harry thought that she probably hadn't told Severus he was a time traveler.

"Yes," Severus said. He looked at Harry with such old eyes that Harry was suddenly sure that he'd kept many secrets to himself already. Maybe about his parents, maybe about the Princes.

Harry's uncertainty, not fully quelled even by conversations with Laocoon and Mariana, abruptly snapped into place. He had to do something to help Severus. He would do whatever it took. Severus desperately needed someone on his side.

"Then I'll tell you," he said, and leaned towards Severus, casting another wordless spell that would prevent Mariana from listening in, if she was even trying. "The main reason that I know about this is that I used to be the Boy-Who-Lived."

Severus's eyes widened for the first time since the conversation had begun. "Are there-lots? Do you get a new Boy-Who-Lived every generation?" he whispered seriously, tiptoeing towards Harry and looking like a real child for a moment.

"Not like that," Harry said. "I was one in another world. But it was the same thing. Voldemort killed my mother and father, and my mother sacrificed her life to save me, and I had a scar like yours on my forehead."

Severus stared at him. "But you don't have that scar now."

Harry pressed his wand against his forehead and peeled back a section of the glamour he'd taken to wearing the morning after he'd come to this world. It was a risk, but without the context of the conversation, he didn't think Mariana would know what he and Severus were talking about. And the scar was little more than a faded dark line at the moment, anyway.

Severus stared harder. Then he reached up a hand, trembling with something that Harry hoped was wonder rather than fear, and ran his fingers along the edge of Harry's scar as Harry bowed his head down towards him.

There was a weird sensation all through the room then, and Harry realized later that he would probably never know how to describe it. The closest he could come was likening it to someone playing a drumbeat in his head. Severus's hand dropped, and he shivered next to Harry, confirming that he'd felt it too.

"I don't know what happened," Severus whispered. "I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what you should do."

He stepped back and met Harry's eyes with a fearlessness that overwhelmed Harry. "But I'll trust you."

Harry put a hand on Severus's shoulder and smiled, since he thought trying to embrace him would be misunderstood by everyone in the room, including Mariana. "Thank you. I'll do the best I can to keep you safe."

"What did you tell my grandson?" Mariana asked, her face uneasy.

Harry shook his head as he stood up. "I'm afraid that I can't tell you that without his permission, and I don't think that he'll give his permission."

"No," said Severus, in a snotty tone that was more the way Harry had thought he would behave as a child. But he met Harry's eyes, and smiled, and the drumbeat sensation traveled through Harry again.

For this, Harry was thinking, I would give up almost everything.