Thank you Roofuls and nateyeh for the brainstorming, editing, and brit-picking help.
CW two rabbits are killed, and I altered the canon inscription on the Potters' grave.
.oOo.
The forest crunched and cracked as Harry trudged along through the underbrush. He'd meant to take the path, but he'd lost track and was suffering for it.
"Fuck!" He cast a numbing spell at his ankle, took a deep breath, and cast a bandaging charm. "Fuck," he said again, though quietly enough not to bother the many, many creatures that called the Forbidden Forest home. Part of him was hoping he'd run into Firenze to hitch a ride, the rest of him knew a chat about Mars being bright tonight was the last thing he needed.
Transfiguring a fallen branch into a walking stick, Harry shifted his wand to his left hand and hobbled on towards where his location spell said Sherry was.
Having Sherry age himself seven years and start Hogwarts under a Black identity instead of waiting another year to go as Harry Potter was really bloody inconvenient. Harry understood not wanting to be eleven again, and he understood not wanting to wait around while there were important things going on, but he was also scared.
They were supposed to have more time before Sherry would come into his own and inherit the Potter-Black names and all that came with them. They were supposed to have more time before having to figure out how much of Magical Britain Sherry wanted to take over. A Voldemort-style civil war wasn't an option now that Harry had successfully restructured the Ministry of Magic from the ground up. The system and the laws he'd spent the past decade setting up were the answer to everything that Voldemort had decided needed changing.
Knowing what he did, Harry couldn't fault a young Tom Riddle wanting the racism, corruption, and rampant nepotism done away with. It was just the way he'd gone about it that Harry hadn't liked.
He stopped and cast the location spell again. Adjusting his direction a bit, he hobbled on deeper into the forest.
School reform had been next on Harry's list, right under Figure out a way to uphold the Statute once video cameras become widespread, and Get Magical Britain into reasonable shape. He'd had plans, so many plans revolving around being the guardian of the Boy-Who-Lived. Lucius Malfoy was still on the school board, but Harry had been buttering him up for years so he'd be ready to play right into Harry's hands.
Gellert Grindelwald coming to teach DADA at Hogwarts had not factored into his plans.
Though he'd told Mycroft he'd forgiven and forgotten, Harry still wished Mycroft and Sherry had used their words once they'd deduced it. What was the point of a family of ridiculous geniuses if they didn't tell him things?
At least Luna, with her unfortunately vivid Seer tendencies, was telling them what she knew.
Harry sighed and switched his walking stick so he was holding his wand in his right hand again. Up ahead, he could hear crashing and spellfire.
"Sherry!" he called, "It's me, it's Harry. Don't shoot, please."
The spellfire stopped. Harry clambered awkwardly over a felled tree to find Sherry panting in the middle of a small magic-made clearing.
"Hullo." Harry stopped at a safe distance and tried to project a feeling of calm. "I thought you might want to talk?"
Sherry sneered and shot out a spell.
Harry watched the fallen tree behind him burst into bright blue flames. "Alright, then. I'll go sit over there until you're ready for me."
"Piss off."
Harry could hear the footsteps following him, but he didn't turn around. He clutched his wand and tried to keep his breathing steady.
Sherry strode past him and came to a stop at the edge of the clearing. Scowling, the teen transfigured a log into an ornate bench and threw himself onto it.
Harry let out a little sigh and sat down at the other end. He conjured a footstool and propped up his leg.
"Here, let me take a look."
His son, the ex Dark Lord, cast a series of diagnostics on Harry's swollen ankle. "It's just a sprain," he said. "Episkey."
"Thank you, Sherry."
The teenager huffed.
They sat there listening to the flames crackling their way through the log. The fire didn't spread, but it burned brighter and brighter until Harry could feel the heat on his face.
"I wasn't anticipating things happening this way," Sherry said.
Harry nodded. "You and me both, Sherry. Actually, I was hoping Dumbledore and Grindelwald would take each other out."
"You're a hopeless romantic." Sherry said, a sneer in his voice.
"There's a thought." Harry laughed. "No, I meant that in a more deadly, final way. They could both destroy each other and leave the rest of us to it. And once they're out, we can move in and reform the school." He waved his hand vaguely. "You know, something like that."
"How stunningly comprehensive."
"I'm more of a by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of man."
"Quite."
The log groaned and creaked, crumbling apart into halves. "You know, Luna's been very worried about us all dying in a civil war. Her nightmares are very vivid."
Sherry sat up straight. "Is she alright? The girl is nine."
Harry blinked. He hadn't expected that reaction. "Well," he said, "We've managed to convince her that the prophesied one is going to save us all, so there's nothing to worry about."
"Hmm."
"Yeah." Harry sighed. The log sparked and sputtered. Harry cast a warming charm around them.
"I didn't mean to break the truce with Grindelwald," Sherry said. "I wanted to work with him, and he turned me down. How dare he turn me down? He's short-sighted and narcissistic, with delusions of grandeur."
Harry managed not to smile. "Sounds like he's not the kind of man you wanted to work with, anyway."
"He's a Dark Lord. The amount of things we could learn from each other—wasn't the enemy of my enemy supposed to be my friend? We have a common foe in Dumbledore, and Grindelwald is too idoiotic to be of any good. Do you know what he told me? He said I can't see the forest for all the trees." Sherry scoffed, tilting his head to look up at Mars and co. above them. "Nonsense, I say."
Harry looked around at the trees of the Forbidden Forest and hoped that he was imagining the eyes looking back from the darkness surrounding them. "So you, what, cursed Gellert?"
"Worse. I went to Dumbledore."
"Ah." Sherry really was doing unexpected things.
"I asked him for an alliance. The enemy of my enemy might be an ally, I had thought. And you know what he said?"
"Sherry, please." Harry swished his wand in a circle to cast a sound-muffling charm. "I don't want an Acromantula to have us for a late night snack, yeah?"
He didn't look chastised, but Harry wasn't expecting him to. Sherry was still, at heart, a Dark Lord in his own right.
"So, what did Dumbledore say?"
"He said that I was a bright young mind full of potential, but that I needed to gather more experience in the real world before engaging in warfare. He told me to leave the conflict to the adults."
"Ha! That's rich, from him. And then?"
"I told him he was making a mistake and left. And, I might have also stolen the Sorting Hat."
Harry sputtered. "You didn't!"
Sherry pulled the frayed hat from his pocket. It blinked at them. "Remove this blasted enchantment at once! I might not know who you are, but the Headmaster will find me soon!"
"Want me to look after that for you?" Harry took the hat and renewed the silencing spell it was under for good measure. He wasn't sure if he could ever get the sword from it again, or even a decent conversation, but he didn't want it to stay scrunched in Sherry's space-expanded pocket either. It had been Gryffindor's hat, and it deserved a bit of respect.
Sherry sighed and threw himself back onto the bench. "I don't know what to do," he said, with enough pomp for a Royal National Theatre production.
"I'd say leave Albus and Gellert to fight out their battles, but according to Luna and Trellawney, you've got to do some prophecised vanquishing too." Harry's heart ached at the thought of it. He didn't want his son to have to vanquish anyone, regardless of his mental age compared to the rest of the family.
"How am I meant to do that? I can hardly poison their tea or challenge them to a duel to the death."
"I don't know," Harry said. He frowned up at the starry sky. Firenze would have said something stupid, but Harry was tired of prophecies making decisions when it should be people doing what they thought was right. "You're a very, very clever young man. You can figure this out, too."
"Thanks, dad." Sherry said. He sounded like he wasn't sure himself whether he'd meant it sarcastically or not. "So, how are Eurus, Luna, Medusa, and Papa doing?" he asked while turning his face away.
Harry smiled. "They're doing well. We all miss you, too. It's not the same without you. Did Eurus tell you she has a girlfriend now?"
"That should have been obvious to everyone." Sherry scowled. "It's an unnecessary weakness she's exposing herself to. Love, what utter lunacy."
"Yeah," Harry said. He felt his smile widen. "Utter lunacy. Sirius and Remus are finally getting together. I was about ready to kick Sirius out, anyway. He's a terrible flatmate. Never cleans up after himself, for one."
"So kick him out. He deserves nothing less. Or send him very sternly to the French Cottage."
"That's the plan, yeah. He'll have to learn to live without an elf, there. Nobody there but Remus to do the cleaning, and Remus will put his foot down fast. Maybe Bella would like to stay with them instead of being by herself in Austria, with the baby?" Harry grinned. He couldn't help feeling a bit smug at the thought of Sirius struggling to make things work for himself. "Do you think I should stop giving him money, too?"
"Finally, we're having a good influence on you." Sherry grinned, then laughed. "Ten years living with associated sociopaths. Or, with Holmeses, as Papa would say." He sighed, then sat up properly. "Dad? Remind me to never get on your bad side, yes?"
"I will in case you forget, son. But, you've got your own Dark Lords to be vanquishing now. D'you think we should head back to Hogwarts?"
Sherry stayed seated, but Harry didn't let that bother him as he put the clearing back to rights. They left the burned out husk of the log behind to turn into fertiliser for the trees to come.
On the way back, Sherry didn't let them walk for more than a few minutes before tutting dramatically. "You're limping," he said.
"Hang on, I'll conjure myself another walking stick."
"Nonsense." Sherry drew a knife, and Harry took a step back. "Accio rabbit," Sherry cast, then gutted the little thing.
They stood and watched the blood drip from Sherry's fingers. "Accio rabbit," Sherry repeated. Harry didn't know what to say. He looked around for a branch he could transfigure, not sure if he wanted to understand the inner workings of Sherry's mind or not.
He didn't look up until he heard the hooves and the nickering.
"Took you long enough," Sherry murmured, but he was making his voice sound gentle and soft. "Here you go, there's one for each of you. We just want a ride back to the castle."
Harry heard the crunching bones and watched the Thestrals lick the blood from Sherry's fingers. "Thank you," he said, when Sherry helped him climb onto the mare's back.
"Of course." Sherry frowned. "You should stay off that ankle until tomorrow."
For all the doubts Harry'd had over the course of parenting a Dark Lord, and all the concerns over inevitably releasing Sherry on the world, Harry suddenly wasn't so worried anymore. Sometimes, Sherry's heart was in the right place. And either way, things were going to be better than if Harry hadn't come swooping into this world in an attempt to make things better.
.oOo.
"She's done it again."
Harry sighed. He didn't have to ask who she was. In the Holmes family, there only really was the one. "Eurus is a grown woman, you know."
Mycroft had brought a cuppa and a plate of biscuits to bed with him and was munching aggressively. Him not caring about crumbs on the sheets was never a good thing.
"Alright, I'll bite. What did she do?"
"She stole my ID card and used it to break into a high security military testing facility in Dartmoor."
"Isn't that near Ottery Saint Catchpole?"
Mycroft gave him a look, the kind that was meant to question his intelligence but mostly just made Harry feel fond.
"Sorry," Harry said. "What did she do there?"
Another biscuit disappeared off the plate. "God only knows. I'd have had them escort her out, but she'd have used magic otherwise. The Imperius always was her instinctive problem-solving approach."
"Hang on, how does Eurus pass herself off as Mycroft? You use photo ID."
Mycroft scrubbed his face with his hands and sighed. "It doesn't matter how she did it. It matters that I found out, they found out, and now Scotland Yard is refusing to collaborate with her on future cases."
"You hate it when I repeat myself, but—"
"Harry, she's my sister. Grown woman or not, she'll always be my little sister."
Harry took the last biscuit off the plate, offered Mycroft half, and ate the rest himself. "Maybe, just like we've taught Sherry to be his own person, you can let Eurus be her own person who makes her own mistakes and has to live with the consequences of what she does. Hmmm?"
"Like you left our son to play Switzerland between a Dark Lord and a Light Lord that both want him out of the way?"
"Yeah, Mycroft, exactly like that." Harry took a deep breath, then vanished the crumbs from their bed. "Mycroft, there are things we can do, like help them when they ask us to. And there are things that we can't do, like swooping in and fixing things every time anything happens, for fear of being murdered in our sleep. I have a lot of wards on this flat. They're most likely not going to murder us in our sleep."
"Right." Mycroft leaned back against his pillow, sipped his tea, grimmaced and put it back down again. "Right. I must learn to accept the things I cannot change, have the courage to change the things I can—and wisdom to know the difference."
Harry snorted. "Has Anthea been reading about Buddhism again?"
"Not quite, though the idea can be attributed to both Epictetus, Shantideva, and a Mother Goose rhyme."
"A Mother Goose rhyme?" Harry grinned, then sighed. "Actually, let's not go down that rabbithole. I was more worried about Sherry or Eurus going after Luna. If they wanted us murdered, it would have happened long ago." Harry tried to keep his voice light, even if he knew Mycroft would always see right through him.
"They both love Luna, dear. You're being ridiculous."
Harry didn't know why, but he never minded when Mycroft told him he was being stupid. "Even Sherry? He's so possessive. He's definitely broken up about Bellatrix."
"No, no, you have to think more like someone with a personality disorder, Harry." Mycroft leaned over to rest against him. Harry felt the man's sigh against his own shoulder. "Luna has valuable talent and no outstanding ambitions. If they can't be attached to her out of sentiment, it'll be from some rationalisation."
"Do you think I'll ever get it? How you Holmeses think?" It wasn't frustrating, per se, but he did feel left out sometimes.
Mycroft hugged him in his usual clumsy way. "I find you perfect just the way you are," he said, as if it was a normal thing that Mycroft Holmes said.
Harry hugged him tighter and kissed the thinning hair on his husband's head. Here he was, in the middle of a family of geniuses falling to silly weaknesses like sentiment. "I love you too, Mycroft," he murmured, "And no matter what's coming, I'm glad you're by my side."
"Quite," Mycroft said, and that was that.
.oOo.
It was drizzling, which suited Harry just fine. He was only here for a short visit, but it was nice to be alone with the dead.
"Hello again," he said.
'In Loving Memory of James Potter and Lily Potter,' the gravestone said.
"Not much has been happening lately. I keep waiting for shit to hit the fan. It's got to be sometime soon, I can feel it coming."
In his pocket, Harry twiddled with the ring, twisting it once, twice—stop.
"But you're not worried about any of that. You're dead. I'm sorry you're dead. I mean, I'm not sorry sorry, because I wouldn't be who I am and maybe Voldemort would have been ruling Britain instead of setting tigers on his Defence professors. Who knows?
"I suppose I know more than most people about would-haves, should-haves, and could-have-beens."
He spun it again: once, twice—stop, then shifted it to the next finger. Once, twice—stop. His ring finger was occupied, of course.
"Mycroft is doing so well. He doesn't get surprised by much. I'm…I'm really glad to have him around. He's a good man. He makes me happy. I'd say, well, I'd say you'd have liked him, but I never actually knew you, did I?"
Spinning once, twice—stop, switch to his thumb. Harry sighed and looked around. The graveyard was empty as ever, and he had his silencing charm anyway. As for the dead, they were known for not speaking.
"I wish I could have saved you. Especially you, Harry. It wasn't supposed to happen like this." He wiped the rain from his face and crossed his arms, dropping the cursed ring onto the ground where it couldn't tempt him.
"I'm making this world a better place for all of them. For Sherry, for Eurus, for Luna—but I wanted to make it better for you, Harry. And I failed. And I'm sorry."
The gravestone didn't even have the child's name on it. It glistened in the damp, as if it was mocking him. Harry's feet were cold from the wet grass.
"You know this already, of course. I like to think you're watching me, not always, but sometimes. And not in a creepy way. Which means I could talk to you whenever, but coming here feels right. Sometimes, it's the feelings that are more important than the logic. I'm still teaching Mycroft that.
"Here, I brought you something." Harry crouched and reached into his other pocket, shoving aside the ring that had magicked itself back there. After having vanished last month's wreath, the stuffed bear looked very small next to the large headstone. "I conjured it, so it'll disappear before you have to worry about it growing mouldy."
The bear seemed to be looking back at him through its tiny round spectacles. In Harry's pocket, the ring felt impossibly heavy.
He wanted so much to hear their voices again. We forgive you, Harry, Mum and Dad had said. We love you. It's okay.
On the other end of the graveyard, Cadmus and his wife lay side by side, mocking him.
Sighing again, Harry got up and stepped back. "I'm going now." He patted the marble. "See you after Easter."
The stone said, 'The Last Enemy That Shall Be Destroyed Is Death.'
.oOo.