July 31, 1988
"Did you know my dad?"
"You mean back when 'e was in England? Sure, I did."
Harry shook his head, pushing aside a blackened scrap of wood. "No, not Father. I meant my real dad."
"Oh! Yea, I knew your dad. Not very well, but I met 'im."
"Father says I'm just like him."
"'E would know, wouldn't 'e? They were best mates, after all."
"What about my mother?"
Dung scratched the back of his neck. "Um, what'd Sirius say about 'er?"
"Nothing, really. It makes him sad to talk about it." Harry put both hands against a collapsed section of wall, throwing his weight against it to no avail.
"Well, that's that, then, ain't it? Wingardium Leviosa," Dung incanted, happy for the distraction.
Harry quietly sorted through the rubble the fallen wall hid, before eventually responding, "I think I know the truth, though. About my mother, I mean."
"Oh yea?" Dung asked, with no small amount of trepidation. "Maybe you should bring this up with your fath-"
"I think she was like Meadow. That's why she's not here. Fairies can't leave their circles, it's not safe."
"What? What're you talking about?"
Harry sat back on his heels, rubbing his hands on his trousers. "In Kitezh, when she escaped, Meadow, she touched me here," Harry brushed his soot-covered hands over his brow, leaving an ashy smudge behind. "It hurt the other men, but not me."
Mundungus didn't know how to respond, so he stayed quiet. "I felt… it felt safe. Nice. It felt like, like getting back something I didn't know was missing."
"I can talk to your father abou' bringing a 'ealer-" he trailed off when Harry vigorously shook his head.
"You don't understand. She told me we were the same." The little boy looked down at his hands, then up to Mundungus. "Just like my mum. I'm sure of it."
"The fairy talked to you?" But fairies couldn't speak! It'd be like having a conversation with a flobberworm!
"Yes. In here." Harry tapped his forehead.
Dung approached and patted him on the back, not having the heart to tell the grieving child it was all in his imagination.
Yuri screamed in agony. "I swear, I've told you everything!"
Sirius paused, then started burning him again, his weak incendio bubbling the man's flesh, the blisters slowly giving way to charred skin that sloughed off of him in chunks. "I don't believe you," he said, and though he couldn't think of any other questions to ask, he continued the torture.
It hadn't taken much to get Yuri to talk, and he ended up being a veritable font of information. He and Dmitri, his cousin, had inherited this grisly trade from Dmitri's father. Luring families of means into buying the property with a charitable sale price, they would murder them and then have Kitezh's city clerk - the man gored by the angry unicorn - provide them with a new deed for ownership of the estate. The core of the gang kept the gold from the sale, and the proceeds from looting the deceased family's belongings kept a dozen other conspirators cooperative.
Hilde had been right about the Invisible City. It was a den of villainy and thievery.
Yuri finally expired, and Sirius shrank the corpse and threw it into the fire with the other bodies. He left the house in search of Mundungus and Harry, finding them picking through the ruins of the servants' quarters.
Dung waved him over as Sirius approached, keeping a watchful eye over the boy. "'e insisted on looking for your elf's body. Wants t'bury it next to 'is nanny." Sirius only nodded in reply. "Uh, what exactly 'appened back there?"
"I can't explain the 'how', but I think I know the 'why'," Sirius answered.
Harry had relayed the sequence of events leading up to their return as best he could, his cries of grief frequently interrupted by bursts of feathers pouring out from within his bushy beard. Just like all of the other magical effects (including the unicorn), the beard and feathers vanished after one hour elapsed.
"There was a prophecy, involving Harry and Lord Voldemort. It's why James went into hiding; Voldemort learned of it, and was determined to kill him before he grew to be a threat." Sirius paused, unable to repress a grim smile at the memory of learning about Severus Snape's death, the life debt he owed James exacting its penance the moment he died by Voldemort's wand. Sometimes magic really was a beautiful thing. "The prophecy foretold of an unknown power contained in Harry, one that could defeat the Dark Lord."
"An' this power, it's what caused all that back there?" Dung motioned towards the main section of the house.
"It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"Nothing 'bout all this makes sense to me." He heard Mundungus take a deep breath. "Listen, just now, 'arry tol' me 'e thinks that-"
"I have another job for you. I want you to find me a group of wands-for-hire, ones I can trust but who won't mind getting their hands dirty."
"What? You lookin' for more guards? Once 'is teachers come back, there'll be plenty o' wizards and witches on the grounds." Harry's tutors had been given a brief holiday for the child's birthday.
Looking back, Sirius wondered if Hilde would be alive today if he hadn't sent them away.
Shaking off his regrets, he responded to Dung. "The standard employment contracts won't do, I'll write out more stringent loyalty and nondisclosure oaths. I want this done quickly; you've got five days."
"What about 'arry?"
Sirius looked over to where the child squatted, hands black and sooty, digging ineffectually among the ruins. "He's coming with me. I want him to have at least one good memory from this birthday."
"Poor kid."
Sirius agreed, pausing as he started to make his way over to his godson. "Dung? Remember your Vow."
"Here we are!" Harry looked up, taking in the bright, gaudy storefront. "Are you excited?"
"Sure. I mean, yes." He paused, biting his lip and lowering his head. "Can't I keep Hilde's, instead?"
His father knelt down, putting his arms on Harry's shoulders and meeting his gaze. "I miss her too. What happened- I wish things were different. You know that we won't ever forget her, right? Just because she's not here, it doesn't mean she's left our hearts, okay?"
Harry nodded, blinking away his tears. "Okay."
Sirius cleared his throat and rose to his feet. "Right. Well, it's important for every wizard to be matched with his own wand. You'll understand once we find the correct one."
"What's yours?"
Harry looked at the black wand his father drew from his sleeve. "Ebony and a heartstring from a Swedish Short-Snout." He opened the door for Harry, gesturing him inside. "Ready?"
Stepping inside Gregorovitch Zauberstäbe, the first thing that struck Harry was the splendour. There were wands inside of glass cases gilded with gold and silver, elaborate tapestries lining the walls, and a soft, thick carpet beneath his feet.
"Herr Gregorovitch?" Sirius called out, and from further within a grey-haired man emerged.
"A moment, please, I am with customers," he said in German, ducking back from whence he came.
Sirius gestured for Harry to come along and followed. It would be good for the boy to see a wand being matched; hopefully it would show him there's nothing to fear. They stepped into the rear of the shop, a large hexagonal area ringed with shelves full of wand boxes.
Standing in the center was a dark-haired boy and his parents. He was gangly, like his legs and arms had outgrown the rest of him, dark eyes locked on the wandmaker with a serious expression on his face. His parents shared his colouring, father brutish and large, his mother rounded and doughy.
"Fir and unicorn hair, nine and a half inches," Gregorovitch said in Slavonic, sliding a wand into the boy's hand. "Give it a wave, Viktor."
A sound like nails on a chalkboard was the only result, and everyone present save for the wandmaker winced. "No, I suppose that won't do, but we're close, I can tell."
While he climbed the shelves in search of the next wand, the boy, Viktor, turned and looked at the new arrivals. "Hello. Here for your first wand, too?"
Harry nodded, but didn't respond verbally, green eyes cataloguing the scene before him. Viktor's parents stepped closer to Sirius, greeting him in a language he didn't know.
He responded in German - a language they apparently did not know, either - before they settled on very broken Common Slavonic. "Aleksandr Krum."
Sirius shook his hand. "Sirius Black. Your boy's first wand?"
Aleksandr nodded. "He starts first year at Durmstrang this fall. We want him to have the best before Gregorovitch retires."
He watched Viktor try to engage a reluctant Harry in conversation, then Gregorovitch returned. "Here we are. Ten and a quarter inches, hornbeam and a heartstring from a Chinese Fireball."
A shower of colourful sparks resulted when an awestruck Viktor waved it, and the stoic boy's face cracked into a happy grin. "That's the one, then!" Gregorovitch affirmed with a satisfied nod. He looked at Aleksandr. "Ready to settle up front?"
The older Krums followed him to pay for the wand, but Viktor lingered behind. "Are you starting school this fall?"
Harry shook his head. "I have teachers at home."
"Oh." Viktor looked closer at Harry, then at Sirius, taking in the quality of their clothing. "Okay. Good luck to you."
He left to find his parents, and Sirius nudged Harry. "What did you think? Your own wand is pretty special, huh?"
"So!" Gregorovitch called out, hands clapping together as he returned to the back room. "You're here for a wand?"
"That's right."
The wandmaker looked sceptically at Harry. "He doesn't look eleven."
"He's old enough," Sirius said emphatically. "Although if you feel otherwise, my wand Ollivander's has served me well, and I'm certain son would find his work just as-"
Gregorovitch scowled. "His design is flawed, too little attention paid to the grain of the wood. My wands are superior in every way!"
"I suppose we'll see," Sirius replied in a noncommittal tone.
Grumbling under his breath, the wandmaker waved his wand and plucked a tape measurer out of the air. "Right-handed, yes? Very well, let's start with-"
"What's that one?" Harry asked, pointing to a dull, white wand with reddish flecks of colour interspersed in the wood, seated on a worktable in the corner of the room.
Gregorovitch looked over his shoulder at what Harry was pointing at. "Ah, just an experiment I conducted, an attempt to utilise novel core materials." The wand was an irregular shape, with a strong bend mid-way up the shaft. "It is maple, with a hair off the beard of a frost giant from the frozen steppes of Siberia." He withdrew a box from one of the shelves, holding out a wand for Harry to try. "Give this a wave. Oak, twelve inches, with ground jackalope antler. Excellent for…"
He trailed off, though, as Harry ignored the outstretched focus, attention stuck to the wand on the worktable. "Can I see that one?"
The old wandmaker sighed, shooting a caustic glare at Sirius, as though it was his fault for the child's distraction. "Very well, although there is little point. It's far too unstable for regular, consistent use."
"Unstable how?" Sirius asked, curious at what his godson found so enticing about it.
"Core ingredients drawn from giants tend to be solid, inflexible; born of the earth and such," Gregorovitch said, stepping over to the table and carefully lifting the wand. "Conversely, maple is the wood for wandering wizards, takes quickly to new magic and spells, but struggles with repetitive casting. I'd sought a balance, the wood acting as an equal and opposite of the core."
He raised it as though in offering, allowing the light to more clearly illuminate the wand. "But it didn't work?" Harry asked, eyes remaining fixed on the magical instrument.
"It did not. Far too unpredictable and disordered. That's the price one pays, I suppose, for being the most innovative wandmaker in the last millennium. Not every experiment works out."
"Can I hold it?" Harry's request was desperate, needy. He still hadn't looked away from the white wand.
Gregorovitch shot a shrewd look at him, then at Sirius. "While it is not the most functional focus for spellcasting, the core is extremely rare. I'd hate to have such a precious ingredient ruined for nothing more than idle curiosity."
"Ollivander charges seven Galleons for a first wand. I'm willing to pay triple that if my son damages your… experiment."
"Here you are, then, child," he said, lowering his arms for Harry to take hold of it.
His small fingers wrapped around the handle, removing it from the wandmaker's grasp. Harry held it aloft, in a loose grip, the wand looking almost comical as he extended it, the tip pointing in a different direction than his hand.
Harry took a deep breath, and closed his eyes for a long moment. There were no sparks, fireworks, or any other sign of a match, but when he turned to look at Sirius, a massive smile slowly taking shape on his features, no one needed to say what was already obvious.
He'd found his wand.
August 3, 1988
"Are you almost ready, girls? We'll be leaving in ten minutes!"
Susan groaned, and made to shake her head in irritation. "Don't move," Hannah ordered, keeping a careful hold of the half-done braid she was weaving into her friend's hair.
"I can't believe you asked to go."
"It might be fun. And if you had your way, we'd never wear anything but trousers and t-shirts."
"Ow! You're pulling it!"
"I have to pull it some. I thought you liked me to do your hair."
"I like when you tie it up out of the way," Susan muttered. "I'd rather it not be so long."
Hannah didn't reply. She wished she had the dark, crimson locks Susan did, rather than her own curly blonde hair. Susan never had to worry about a halo of frizz, at least.
"It's just so stupid! It gets in the way all the time, and it takes forever to dry."
"I know."
"Boys are so lucky, nobody cares if they cut all their hair off!"
"I know. Okay, I'm done," Hannah said, tying the end of the braid.
"Girls!" Miss Vance called from downstairs. "It's time!"
Susan took off running down the stairs. Hannah quickly separated her own hair, deftly tying two pigtails. She knew, from painful experience, not to ask Susan to try and braid hers. Still, she was happy with how she looked, giving a spin in front of the mirror to try and see all of her new orange dress before grabbing a wide-brimmed sun hat and heading for the stairs herself.
The crowd at Longbottom Manor ran the gamut from ancient to fresh out of Hogwarts. Refreshments were laid out on a receiving table, the gathering taking place outside on account of the pleasant summer weather.
"Emmaline, lovely to see you." Madam Longbottom leaned in to kiss both her cheeks before looking down at Hannah and Susan. "And don't you two look absolutely precious!"
"Thank you," Hannah said, while Susan nodded absentmindedly and looked around for anyone their age.
"Is Neville here?"
"He's with his father right now, but I'm sure he'll be along soon enough. Your hair is lovely, Susan!"
Hannah smiled at the compliment like it was directed at her - in a way, it was, since she was the one to do it. They thanked Madam Longbottom for her invitation, and then Emmaline continued to guide them through saying hello to the rest of the attendees.
She'd only just finished a sandwich when Miss Vance ushered her and Susan back towards the manor.
"But I wanted to play outside!"
"You can in a little while, after our meeting is over."
"Can we stay? We'll be on our best behaviour!" Hannah offered, but their teacher wasn't fooled.
"I'm afraid it's likely not appropriate for a young audience. It won't be long, not more than an hour. Look, here's Neville."
Indeed, there he was, making similar entreaties to his father and Mad-Eye Moody about attending whatever meeting was starting.
"Hi, Mad-Eye!"
"Little Susan," he greeted. "How's your aunt doing?"
"Busy as always," she replied.
"Aye, I don't doubt it," he replied in his gravelly voice. "You three stay outta trouble, now, understand? I'll be watching." At that last bit, his magical eye spun around in a circle.
"Hello, Nevil-" Hannah started to say, but she couldn't even get the greeting out before he interrupted.
"It's so unfair! It's not like I'm going to charge out and try and fight them. I only want to hear what's happening!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Do you even know what this meeting is?"
"Of course!" Susan instantly replied, "It's a bunch of old people hogging all the good food."
Neville shook his head. "It's a meeting of the old Order of the Phoenix. The ones fighting against the Death Eaters."
"The Ministry fights the Death Eaters," Hannah corrected.
"Not very well, though, do they? Else the war wouldn't've gone on for so long."
"So what's this Order?" Susan asked.
"Here, I'll show you." Neville led them into another room with a large desk covered in various scrolls and parchments. On the wall behind it hung a framed photograph. "This is the original group, back when Dumbledore formed it. My dad told me all about it."
The girls stepped closer to examine the photo. "Hey, that's my dad!" Susan exclaimed.
"And look, there's Miss Lily!" Indeed it was, her features clearly visible in the sepia-toned photograph. "Is that her husband?"
"Yep," Neville said from behind them. "James and Lily Potter were part of the Order, just like your dad was, Susan."
Hannah looked closer at the man standing alongside Lily. Because it was a group picture, his figure was small, but she took in his dark hair and glasses. James, she silently mused. Miss Lily's husband.
"Why wouldn't my aunt tell me about this?" Susan demanded.
"The Order works outside the Ministry's supervision."
Susan narrowed her eyes. "Why don't they just join the aurors, then?"
"Because they don't take prisoners, anymore than the Death Eaters do."
"Well, that's not right! You can't beat bad guys by being bad!" she hotly replied.
"Your father thought differently," Neville replied, but winced when Susan gasped in reply. "Sorry, I really am. Trust me, I know how it feels."
Hannah slipped an arm around Susan, giving her a squeeze of sympathy. "I'm sorry about your mum, Neville."
He just nodded in acknowledgment, and the three of them sat in the study in silence for some time, none of them in the mood to play any longer.
August 6, 1988
"Mr. Fletcher," Jakub greeted. "Harry will be glad to see you're back."
Dung nodded, acknowledging the huge quidditch player. "I'll be glad to see 'im, too. 'E been doing any better?"
"No such luck, I'm afraid. Perhaps he's simply too young, but the results have thus far been rather comical."
"What?" Belatedly, Mundungus realised Jakub was referring to the boy's magical training, not to his emotional state. "Oh. Right. Well, I 'member how tough it was my first year. I'm sure e'll pick it up soon."
The two men looked over the grounds to where Harry opposite his Defence instructor, presently walking the small child through the casting of the Knockback Jinx. Harry listened attentively, his focused look completely out of place on an eight year-old.
"You brought back quite an entourage," Jakub said casually while they watched. "Looks like a rough crowd."
"They're mercenaries. All on our side, nothin' to worry about." The instructor pointed his wand at a target, firing off the jinx in demonstration, sending the conjured object tumbling end over end.
"It's tragic what happened to the nanny. She seemed like a kind girl."
Harry aimed his wand down 'range', trying to line it up with the newly restored target. "Yep."
Jakub's questioning came to an end, both of them anticipating the boy's attempt.
"Revernut'!" Harry incanted, and a jet of blue rocketed out of his wand, blasting towards the target.
The spell struck, dead-on, but immediately ricocheted and came lancing in the opposite direction, colliding with the instructor's chest. The man started belching slugs a moment later.
"Wait- that weren't the spell 'e cast…" Dung said. The Knockback Jinx didn't make one spit slugs. And why had it bounced off the target to begin with?
Jakub laughed at his confused expression. "I wouldn't bother trying to figure it out. No one else has managed so far."
"Is it alright if I come through?"
Lily signalled an affirmative, and Amelia stepped out of the flames into the bakery, wand out and spelling away the ashes from her robes. "Thanks for coming."
"What's this about?" She obviously wasn't interested in exchanging small talk.
That was fine with Lily. "Hannah mentioned what you suspect happened to her parents." She held out a sheaf of parchment for Amelia to take. "I asked an old friend to take a look, to see what he could discover."
"Who exactly is this friend?" Amelia asked, but Lily ignored her suspicion, turning to lead her into the kitchen.
"Come, there are stools in the kitchen. I'll prepare you a cup of tea while you read."
Amelia did so, and Lily busied herself heating the kettle, getting out the milk and sugar. She set her tea next to the DMLE's Director, where it sat untouched while she read through Remus' findings.
Eventually, she set the parchment aside. "This is… it's hard to believe. Assuming all of the information here is accurate, what possible motivation would the Bletchleys have? They were set to partner with Abbott once he acquired the hippogriff preserve!"
"Given the way the Bulstrodes have assimilated the Abbott's businesses into their own, it seems pretty obvious, doesn't it?" The Bulstrode family had very obviously taken a side in the ongoing civil war. "Did you get to the part about Fletcher?"
"Yes. I hadn't thought him the sort to care about any cause aside from his next payday."
"I know Dung- well, I knew him. He's no Death Eater." Indeed, he'd been a member of the Order with her and the rest.
Still, there was the matter of the five hundred Galleon payment Bletchley had made to him two days before the fatal incident at the hippogriff preserve. "I guess we'll find out when I interrogate him," Amelia said darkly, though her tone lightened soon after. "So you hired an investigator on your own? For Hannah?"
"Yes. Are you going to tell her what I found?"
"Not yet," Amelia ultimately replied. "She's still struggling to find her peace. It's hard enough, with her seeing her father like that every week."
Lily hesitated, not wanting to cross Amelia and potentially jeopardise the time she got with Hannah. "I'm sure she'd want to know."
"I think she needs a little more time. Thank you for coming to me with this first. I assume this report was for me to keep?"
"Of course." Amelia pushed back from the counter, standing up off the stool she sat on. "Hannah's father - she says he's going to get better, eventually. Is that true?"
Amelia paused, already halfway to the fireplace. "Edward was grievously injured, and it was some time before he was discovered. There has been no higher brain function since he was taken to the hospital, two years ago."
Lily pursed her lips. "Why are you prolonging it, then? Why not allow him to pass on?"
"We didn't know the severity of the damage when he was first admitted, and at the time everyone hoped he might improve. Hannah is so young; it seems cruel to take that hope from her."
"You don't have the right to make that choice for her. A false hope is crueler than the truth!"
Amelia finally turned around to face her. "I suppose you'd know all about the dangers of false hope."
She gasped, then clenched her fists. "Leave," she hissed. "Don't ever come back here!"
"Hannah is my responsibility. If I find out you've been telling her things she's not ready to hear, I won't hesitate to cut you out of her life."
"Get out!"
And with that, Amelia departed, leaving Lily equal parts furious, hurt, and - just like always - completely powerless.
A/N: Harry's incantation was in Slavonic, not Latin (canon version is "Flipendo" for Knockback Jinx), a bastardization of the Russian word for "upend". RE: Common Slavonic - it is an actual language, similar to how PIE is for most Western European languages. Didn't make any sense to me that wizards worldwide would use Latin when they were developing their magic completely separately. Hogwarts and Beauxbatons would teach Latin incantations, definitely. But would Durmstrang? The African and Asian schools? I doubt it.
It's becoming a recurring struggle for me to develop storylines for Lily and Hannah that run parallel with Harry's. Obviously, Hannah has her own plot arc, and Lily's is intertwined with Sirius and Harry, but for right now - the 80s at least - they are kind of just going through the motions, hanging out, being a kid/baker, etc etc.
So if it feels like their scenes are less weighty, more character-building than plot-driven, that's because... they are, haha. I just don't want to have 15k words of Harry's adventures/backstory and no attention at all paid to the other characters.
Anyway, glad to have FFN back in action and another chapter done. This story was promo'd on the reddit, which was really awesome to read. Thank you! Sorry for the wait!
Stay safe, healthy, and happy! ~Frickles