.oOo.
TW: Death/ghosts. Ghosts of dead children. Grief.
.oOo.
"So," Harry began, plopping down on the couch next to Mycroft. "Er."
Mycroft smiled at him, capturing Harry's hands where he'd been fiddling with his ring. "What's got you all in a pickle?"
Harry had triple-checked that Sherry was fast asleep in bed. He wanted to be sure they'd have plenty of time to figure this out. "Well," he said, then swallowed. "Remember Sirius Black?"
"Intentionally murdered twelve people as acceptable collateral damage, which was worth six months in Azkaban each?"
"Yes, well, I mostly meant the bit where he's Sherry's godfather," Harry said to his fidgeting hands.
"Oh. Oh dear." Harry was glad they were sitting side by side, even if it meant watching Mycroft wince out of the corner of his eye. "My dear, and I ask from a place of wanting to understand: do you recall our mutual decision to no longer allow Mummy's influence for the sake of Sherry's positive development?"
To call it Sherry's positive development was a bit of a stretch. He seemed determined to get through his GSCEs for his coming ninth birthday so that he could get his A-levels before Hogwarts, but Harry had been hoping for the London School for Gifted Youths to teach a bit more socialising and a bit less academics.
Judging by how the Holmes had turned out, it really shouldn't have surprised him, actually.
"Well," Harry said, fingers still fidgeting between Mycroft's, "I might have been using Sirius as a bargaining chip to keep Dumbledore off our backs."
"That man," Mycroft said, then sighed out a long breath. "I have yet to comprehend how one can be simultaneously so machiavellian, so incompetent, and so annoying at the same time."
"It's a gift." Harry smiled. "I'm sure there are plenty of people who say the same about me and you."
"I resent that," Mycroft said, but he was smiling too. "If we let Sirius and presumably the wolf he'll be dragging in influence Sherry from the magical side, I believe we'll need to balance it out with increased influence from non-mag family."
"That's fair," Harry said. "Mummy will be pleased."
"I was hoping we could mostly schedule around the times when she'd be out."
Harry felt a bit lighter at the thought. Constantin Holmes was a lot kinder and more understanding than his very forceful, opinionated wife. "I also think it's time we introduced him to his parents? I know Sherry's never really asked about them, but it feels wrong to just leave mum and dad out of it."
"Beyond visiting their graves biannually?"
The doubt in Mycroft's tone had Harry stifling a laugh.
"My dear," Mycroft continued, his tone trying to be kind, "Like Eurus grieves differently, I suspect that Sherry—"
Harry pulled the resurrection stone out of his hoodie pocket, regardless of the fact he'd left the rock on his bedside table. "I was thinking more of a conversation, actually."
Mycroft swallowed.
Harry turned to watch the feelings play across his face. There was something stiff, and something vulnerable underneath it.
Grief, perhaps. It was hard to put his finger on it because Mycroft so rarely showed his own shame.
"I think," Mycroft said thickly, "I think it is time for you and I to revisit the family plot."
.oOo.
The sunshine felt disarmingly warm on his skin. Sherry had been upset about having to stay with grandpa Constantin while his dads went out to practise some necromancy, but he'd quieted down when Harry had offered he wait at grandpa Arcturus' instead.
The autumn leaves had been meticulously raked away, but more had already replaced them. The gravestones depicted names as weird as any wizard's: Lysander, another Sherrinford, Fergus. The more recent addition was glossy marble: Maude Verity Holmes had died in 1964.
"Here is my other uncle," Mycroft was saying. "Alan Holmes had almost a hundred patents to his name. His level of genius was surpassed by very few."
Harry wasn't really listening. Two empty graves marked the spots where Mummy and Constantin Holmes would end up, but there was a polished white obelisk beyond it.
William Sherlock Scott Holmes
06 Jan 1955 – 01 Aug 1961
Gone, Yet Not Forgotten
"Holy shit."
The ring was already on his finger, one, two, three spins.
He had curls that looked just like Sherry's. The boy was six years old, and his eyes were brimming with curiosity.
"Oh Merlin," Harry whispered. He felt like he was standing at the edge of a gaping cliff without his broom, without his magic, with nothing there to catch him when he inevitably—
Mycroft's hand wrapped around his own. Harry locked his knees. The sun felt cold on his skin.
"What's…" And then Mycroft gasped as his finger brushed against the resurrection stone. "Oh," he said, then again at a higher pitch. "Oh."
Harry cleared his throat, eyes still fixed on the ghostly boy in front of them. "Mycroft, in three years of marriage, you didn't ever think to tell me you had a little brother?"
They both watched the incredulity blush across Sherlock's face. "You're married?"
"Well," Mycroft began, then took a deep breath. "Let me tell you a story about three siblings…"
.oOo.
Harry didn't say much for the rest of that trip. He let Mycroft, Constantin and Miss Pennywort keep Sherry from getting into anything he shouldn't. When Mummy arrived, Harry stayed quiet all through tea instead of his usual pointed comments. When they settled in for the night, he tucked himself into his own bed feeling like the world was about to float away.
Mycroft came and sat on the end of his bed once he'd put on his pyjamas and brushed his teeth. Harry blinked at the sight of him like that, holding the rubber guard so he wouldn't grind his teeth between his fingers.
"I don't know what to say," Mycroft said. "I'm sorry for unsettling you like this. It wasn't my intention."
"I'm not blaming you," Harry said. "Well, maybe a little, but mostly I'm blaming me. I could have asked, or I could have gone to that graveyard myself after we went the first time, or I could have reminded you I have a stone that lets you talk to the dead."
"Yes. Yes, you might have mentioned that." Mycroft sounded like he was feeling a bit untethered, too.
Harry fiddled with the hem of his blanket. He couldn't meet Mycroft's eyes as he whispered the words. "He was a great man, in the world I came from." He didn't stop talking at Mycroft's gasp, wanting to get it out. "More compassionate than Eurus, though he drove you just as mad." Harry smiled at the memory of all those moments of frustration and fondness and brotherly grief. "You were always trying to keep him safe. You did a great job being there for him.
"That's all there is to it, really." Harry added, shrugging. "You know I've always been honest with you. That thought, of why your brother was a sister in this world, it bothered me a bit, but never enough to ask."
"It makes sense," Mycroft said. "You knew me, and yet so much of who I am has been built around my need to keep her safe. I do wonder what he did differently, though, to have kept both of them."
"Oh, no." Harry swallowed the next words before he could say them. He didn't know if Eurus had existed in that world. He distinctly remembered the exact same armchair, the one Mycroft had reupholstered after fire damage. Parts of the house had been rebuilt in both universes. "There was a fire there too," he said slowly, piecing it together. "Sherlock survived. I don't know when your parents died, exactly, but you never mentioned a dog."
Mycroft's eyes were sharp with need when Harry met them. "You believe she might have died instead?"
"I don't know," he whispered. These worlds were different worlds, he'd always known that, but somehow he'd been fooling himself for this whole time that he was the one making the changes, one flapping butterfly at a time.
He watched Mycroft start to cry and reached out his arms in a helpless, silent offer. Mycroft set aside his bite guard, took off his slippers, went to his own bed. The rejection stung Harry in a way he hadn't known he could still be hurt.
Then Mycroft stripped the blanket off and brought it over, climbing into Harry's offered arms.
Bit by bit, Harry watched Mycroft fall apart. And throughout it all, Harry held him tight.
.oOo.
They had skipped telling Sherry the result of their necromancy for the indeterminate future. Little Sherlock's wide, curious eyes haunted Harry's days. He saw how Mycroft sometimes flinched at the sight of their son, too. The similarities were startling. The poodle that lay in Sherry's shadow reminded them of yet another ghost. Harry didn't think Eurus would know what to do, really, but if she'd been there they'd all be feeling a little less alone.
Too often, Harry's finger was already through two spins of the ring before he stopped it. Some things were meant to be left buried in the past.
By the end of the week, he'd apparated to Godric's Hollow to tell his parents about his exhausting day at work.
Moody had officially unretired himself just to take Harry on as an informant, sending him around to investigate muggle baiting when he wanted an excuse to have a ministry worker poking around the Malfoys' drawing room or the Bulstrodes' basement.
Dumbledore was being annoying as ever, working to fight legislation the second he found out Harry was behind it, regardless of the actual content of his bills. The latest House Elf rights reform had almost gone through, if not for the deciding vote from the biggest slave owner-slash-school against it.
Malfoy, thank Narcissa, thought that Harry had a hidden pro-dark agenda, which was making things both more and less difficult at the same time.
And Cornelius Fudge was another step closer to being forced to resign in a new scandal, so Harry was scrounging to set up a good candidate when the inevitable happened.
The white marble stone bearing Harry's parents' names said nothing. In the fading sunlight, it shone orange.
He'd left the ring at home that morning, and at the office that afternoon. Harry knew if he'd only put his hand in his pocket it'd be right there. It felt as heavy and potent as Flamel's.
"I'll be back," Harry said, and disapparated.
He'd married the man, for Merlin's sake. It was time Harry introduced him to his parents.
.oOo.
Sherry was not pleased at all to be holed up with Grandpa Arcturus on a Saturday morning, but that was what he got for being eight.
Mycroft just looked tired in his wool coat with a felt cap and a polished wooden umbrella.
Standing in a graveyard only a few weeks from Samhain probably wasn't his best decision, but Harry needed it done. The sky was a sad grey, though at least it wasn't raining.
"Mum, dad, this is my husband Mycroft," Harry said. Then he took his ring, twisted three times, and held it clasped between his and Mycroft's sweaty palms.
They were smiling, just like in the photo he used to pour over back in Dudley's second bedroom. A happy couple holding their happy baby, like everything wasn't about to go tits up.
It struck Harry how young they looked.
Then it struck Harry—they were holding a baby.
Mycroft's hand was there, soft and real as Harry squeezed it half to death.
"We're so proud of you, Harry," Lily said.
The words almost didn't reach him. He'd been wanting to hear them for so long, but he couldn't see past the baby. Why was there a baby?
"Were you pregnant?" Harry said.
The noise Mycroft made sounded sad. James' smile was even sadder as he shifted the toddler—it was too big to be a baby—so that Harry could see the lightning bolt scar.
"No."
Harry sunk to the ground, pulling Mycroft with him. James and Lily sat, letting little Harry toddle across the frosted grass.
"It's alright, Harry," James said. "You didn't know."
"No," Mycroft said. "No, we didn't."
No, it wasn't alright.
"I don't understand," Harry said, but he did understand. The ghost of the little boy with the familiar scar crawled onto his lap, feeling almost as real as the same boy Harry had taken to the Goblins seven years ago.
Seven years spent raising the wrong child.
"Did the blood adoption murder him?" Mycroft said, almost whispering.
"It's not that," Harry said.
"He's still your son." Lily was smiling. "You can't help how you love him."
The cold, dead ghost of the child Harry had tried so desperately to keep alive nuzzled against the crook of his neck.
"The Goblins," Harry said. "That Healer, Bill recommended Ironrott to me. She was meant to fix him."
"Oh," Mycroft said.
"This isn't the Healer's fault." James' smile was sad. "This isn't anybody's fault. You did what you could."
Harry's face was burning; a breeze made the tears on his cheeks feel like they were freezing.
Lily scooted forward and picked her son out of Harry's arms. "It's alright. We forgive you."
Harry couldn't hear the words anymore. The ring was hard and unforgiving pressed between his and Mycroft's palms.
"I want to go home."
Mycroft spent a stupid amount of money on a cab back to London, and then helped him up three flights of stairs.
Harry's knees wouldn't stop shaking.
.oOo.
He was just a boy putting margarine on his breakfast toast, and yet—
Harry didn't know how to look at Sherry now.
The boy didn't understand what was going on, how could he? Mycroft managed to keep them on an even keel, treating Sherry just the same as always.
It was the same careful, controlled wariness. Like the boy was a ticking bomb and all Mycroft could do was steer him towards something that he thought was worth blowing up.
There was egg yolk running down the side of his plate like a wound.
Harry thought he saw a bit of hurt in Sherry's eyes, but not much. He seemed almost unsurprised that the day had come where Harry turned away from him. That was what brought Harry back.
He was a father, albeit to a little Tom Riddle rather than Henry Potter, and his job as a father was to love, love, love.
Lucius and Narcissa had given their son over to Voldemort, but at least they'd kept him alive. It was more than Harry had managed for his charge.
"Stop it," Mycroft said.
Harry flinched. "Sorry"
"He meant that you should stop thinking dumb things." Sherry wiped his mouth with a napkin. "It's all over your face. You're going to get frown lines."
It was instinctive to smile. Harry studied Sherry, and the boy looked back at him, unafraid.
"Well." Harry sat up. "I suppose I have been thinking dumb things. How about you come in to work with me today, Sherry?"
"It's Saturday."
Mycroft looked a bit uncomfortable, but he didn't say anything as he got up to clear the table.
"We'll be going to the Department of Mysteries," Harry decided. "There's a prophecy we need to look at. Unspeakable Longbottom will let us in."
There was recognition and curiosity in Sherry's expression, and a tiny bit of wariness. Harry had no idea what it meant, but he knew that this was important. He felt like time was breaking and reforming, a hummingbird bursting endlessly from an egg. There were a hundred ways that Sherry could turn out, and he had to join Mycroft in steering their son towards the right one.
"You're my son," Harry said, and the words felt like knives in his chest. "We're going to make the best of this."
Grey-green eyes blinked back at him. They listened to Mycroft telling Medusa to get her doggy arse out of the kitchen.
"I'm not scared," said Sherry, reaching out to take Harry's hand.
Harry smiled and squeezed it, feeling like his heart was suffocating in his chest.
I am, he didn't say. I am.
.oOo.
They weren't allowed their wands in the Department of Mysteries, a standard security precaution. That wouldn't stop the Elder Wand from following Harry in, but it made him feel better to have the conversation in a place where they had no choice but to talk it out.
Unspeakable Longbottom led them to the Hall of Prophecies, then to the Death Chamber. For some reason, the woman thought it was a good place to leave them for their heart-to-heart. She returned to her experiments, while Sherry and Harry sat down in the farthest row.
They could barely hear the curtain's whispering. When Sherry activated the orb, Trellawney's voice echoed like there were hundreds of secrets trying not to be spilled.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches.
Born to those who have thrice defied him, Born as the seventh month dies…
"We did the ritual to blood-adopt you in July," Harry said. "Just before your second birthday." Harry wished the dog was there for the bit of humanity Medusa gave them. It'd be nice to bury his hands in her soft fur.
"It says I'm supposed to vanquish the Dark Lord," Sherry said. He didn't look surprised or bothered or uncomfortable. It was just a fact he was stating.
The sky is blue. Trees are green. I am Lord Voldemort.
"It isn't obvious which Dark Lord," Harry said. "I'm telling you this because I learned something last week. I was a bit upset."
"That's one way to put it," Sherry muttered. His eyes were fixed on the Veil.
Harry could almost hear his parents' voices calling to him. You did nothing wrong.
It felt wrong. It had been such a stupid, childish wish, that Sherry might be normal.
"I know you've studied soul magics," Harry said. He wished he could make himself get to the point. He wasn't sure what his point was. He wasn't sure if he should be drawing his wand, just in case Sherry decided to attack him.
"Dad, remember this morning father told you to stop thinking dumb things?"
"Yes." Harry breathed for a bit, and that helped. "The thing is," he said, "I think you're the Dark Lord?"
He hadn't meant it to come out as a question. Sherry turned to look at him. "Excuse me?"
"That Halloween night, when Lily and James…died…"
It sounded silly, it shouldn't be sounding silly, it was a deadly serious matter.
The smile on Sherry's face was lop-sided. Harry wanted to take him home, tuck him into bed and read him fairy tales. There once were three brothers who came across a river. They'd forget all about soul magic and Horcruxes and children who were too clever, far too clever, How had it never bothered him before?
"Dad, you've been raising me for six years now, and you never thought there might be something else going on?"
Sherry's voice was light, but his expression was guided, careful.
"I…" It was practically a confirmation. "I thought you were gifted."
"I think it's time to stop being stupid," Sherry's smile was as pretty as ever. "Father always knew. Grandpa Constantin and Grandpa Arcturus, too. I thought…you never treated me like a child. Well, not really."
"You're taking this very well," Harry said. They both went back to looking at the Veil billowing ominously in its frame.
"I've had enough time to come to terms with it. When you came back from the graveyard looking spooked, it was easy enough to deduce possible situations."
"I don't understand." Harry wished his mind would stop spinning. He wished the bloody curtain would just shut up for a bit.
"You thought you were raising Harry Potter. Instead, you were raising Tom Riddle's Horcrux."
"I did understand that bit, actually."
Sherry shrugged. "What do you want to know? Clearly, you have questions."
Why are you so calm? When did you stop being a murdering megalomaniac? If we send you to Hogwarts, will she still be standing when you're done with her?
"What do you remember? From…before."
"I was hurting." Sherry lowered his voice to a whisper. "I was angry. I was awful. And then, I was—gone."
"Do you remember a train station?" Harry got up almost without thinking, his feet leading him to the archway. "I remember a train station. I was given a choice. I thought, maybe—"
"We should go," Sherry said, taking Harry's hand and turning them towards the exit. "Let's leave this behind us, alright?"
Harry didn't know why he didn't feel afraid. He looked back at the curtain.
"My parents told me they were proud," he told the man who had murdered them, he told the boy that he'd raised as his son.
"They're right to be," Sherry said, and pulled them forwards. "One day, I'll make you proud of me too."
That's part of the problem, Harry thought to himself. I already am.
.oOo.
"What are we going to do?" Harry asked.
Mycroft leaned over and kissed his temple. "What would you like us to do?"
"A nap would be nice."
He felt Mycroft's answering smile. "I think we need to talk about who wants what, and how we're going to do it. Just because he killed your parents doesn't mean you don't also love him. Love is strange and mysterious."
"I'm sorry, Dumbledore, I almost didn't recognize you without the beard."
"Shush you."
"The power of love," Harry echoed. Then he sighed. "This wasn't how I was expecting things to turn out."
"Life doesn't usually turn out how we expect."
Harry flopped over, putting his head on Mycroft's lap. He closed his eyes as Mycroft carded his fingers through his hair. It felt nice, and Harry also felt like crying. "I knew he was going to get into trouble come Hogwarts, but this? What are we going to do?"
"What would you like us to do, hmm?"
They rested like that for a bit. Harry's thoughts kept spinning. He didn't know how to feel, what to feel, what to think. He didn't understand how he'd skipped the anger and grief and gone right to being worried if Sherry was going to be okay.
"If Dumbledore finds out, he's going to kill him."
"Then Dumbledore must never find out."
"He'll be bored if we send him to school."
"We already do send him to school, and he gets by just fine. He's an old soul in a young body, Harry, but he's still got a young body. Let him experience being young, alright?"
"What if he decides to murder us in our sleep?" Harry opened his eyes. He hadn't expected to say that. He wasn't sure where it had come from, either.
Mycroft shrugged. "Then we'll die. Growing up with—with Eurus, you have to understand—" He pressed at his own temples and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "She was different. Had I wanted her changed, I'd have failed. She, and Sherry, they'll never be like us. You and I will never be like normal people, either. I've learned it's better to accept, or perhaps to hope. If he wanted us dead, we'd be gone. Ergo, he wants us alive."
Harry licked his lips. His throat felt dry, but he didn't want to move his head off Mycroft's lap. "I don't want to die."
"You used to, though. I'm glad, and…perhaps, just as your priorities have been realigned, so have Sherry's. He hasn't been Tom Riddle for a long time now."
"So, what, he's going to go to Hogwarts when he turns eleven and will pretend to follow the first year curriculum, and it'll all be daisies and butterflies?"
Mycroft sighed. "Probably not." He went back to stroking Harry's hair out of his face. "We could get him tutors. Home-school him."
It was hard to picture that working out well, not if it meant another person being in on a secret that could get them all killed. Besides, Sherry's education wasn't their main worry.
"Sirius is being released next month. He's going to be in this flat, driving us all up the walls, talking about how great Albus Dumbledore is. He'll bring Remus. They're going to expect a mini-James and they're going to get," Harry waved his hand towards Sherry's bedroom, "that."
"I trust Sherry to manage the situation without violence."
"I don't," Harry said. "You haven't met Sirius. He can be a bit over the top."
"We successfully run two nations, Harry. We'll make do."
"Jesus, what if our son wants to take over Britain? He could topple the Ministry." Harry could picture a statue of a ten-year-old Sherry on a golden throne in the middle of the atrium, surrounded by fawning faces of purebloods and muggles both.
"We can't know what he wants," Mycroft said. He sounded alright with it. Harry wondered at which point in his decades with Eurus he'd reached that level of resignation.
"You could just ask," Sherry said.
Harry twisted to see the little white face peering at them through the kitchen door. "It's past your bedtime."
"I'm not sure that's relevant," Sherry answered, and walked in. He looked exactly at home sitting in Mycroft's armchair, his legs tucked up under his chin.
Mycroft's fingers kept combing through Harry's hair, so he stayed there, looking at the ceiling. It was easier than watching his son's face, actually.
Are you sorry? he wanted to ask, but he knew better than to throw around accusations he didn't want to hear the answer to. How much of you is Sherry and how much of you is Him?
"I think you're doing a fine job with the political reform," Sherry said. "If you continue as you have been, there'd be no reason to topple the regime. I only wanted to fix a broken system."
"You also wanted death and destruction," Harry told the ceiling lamp.
It answered with silence. Mycroft's hands moved methodically, gently.
"I made some bad decisions in the past," Sherry finally said.
"Do you think," Mycroft asked, "that I did the right thing?"
Harry blinked.
When Sherry spoke, they could hear that he was smiling. "Eurus is very lucky to have you," he said. "Me, too. It was disorienting and the limitations of my stature are often frustrating, but your support has made it much, much easier. I'm very grateful, and I'm sure she is too. She'll come back when she's ready."
Mycroft's face didn't change, but Harry could feel his relief. It was a bit ironic, because he'd been saying the exact same thing for years. But somehow, from Sherry's mouth, they felt solid and absolutely true.
"Do you want us to do something differently, now?" Harry asked. They'd let him have a wand and access to all the books he could want, but he'd always thought of his son as a very, very mature child.
Not an adult. Never a murderer.
"I'd appreciate more consideration of my own goals. Education is all very well, but it's dull. I want Hogwarts."
They had been planning on sending him to Hogwarts, age eleven. "Yes?"
"Dumbledore won't give his school up without a fight," Mycroft said.
Oh. The one thing Lord Voldemort had been denied time and again. Harry would continue with politics, Sherry would take over the school that shaped what the next generations would think.
"For the record, I think you'd hate teaching," Harry smiled at the mental image. "Grading, especially. You have to be patient with kids and they'll drive you up the wall with their drama."
"Thank you," Sherry bit out. "I am aware of what children are like."
"Sorry." Harry closed his eyes. His head felt heavy, like a Hippogriff was sitting on it.
"I'm sorry, too," Sherry said.
Harry looked over at him. "It's alright?"
"No, I mean, I'm sorry for what I did. In the past. I was…it was bad."
There was something burning in Harry's throat. He blinked, and tears dribbled down his face.
Mycroft wiped them away. Harry looked up at his husband, not sure what to think or say.
I forgive you, Lily had said when he found out that he'd killed her baby.
It's alright, James had said when Harry had told his father that he hadn't known.
There were dozens of corpses, hundreds of broken families, thousands of shattered dreams because one man had decided to punish them all for his shitty childhood.
Bloody Lord Voldemort, sitting on his armchair asking Harry for absolution that wasn't his to give.
"It's alright," he said anyway. Because he couldn't see Lord Voldemort, he could just see his little boy with the bright, calculating eyes and another boy's curly hair.
Harry didn't need to absolve him, he decided. This wasn't the Dark Lord, this was Henry Sherrinford Holmes, Harry's son, and he was going to do his best by him.