TWO.

The heat of the room was unbearable.

Harry had on his flimsiest shorts and the T-shirt he'd worn since he was eight, which Dudley had worn before him, and which was by now nearly see-through with use. It didn't matter because he was still boiling. He was being made into roast. He was a stag beetle and the house was a cauldron set to high heat.

He gazed longingly at the window, the final barrier that stood between him and the world outside. They had air in the world outside. Maybe even a breeze.

The half-finished essay laid out on the desk was laughing at him with its papery teeth. This wasn't the weather for homework. Come to think of it, summer wasn't the season for homework. The ink took a solid minute to dry into the parchment, for Merlin's sake—how was Harry supposed to get anything done?

He could always say he'd been too anxious to study. That was a fair excuse, wasn't it? It would never work on McGonagall, but the essay was for Flitwick—I'm so sorry, sir, I don't know if you've heard, I'm being hunted by an escaped convict—and the existential threat, you see, on top of the homework, it would have been too much for just about anyone—

'Boy!'

Harry jumped to standing, chair skittering behind him before he hooked a foot around one leg and caught it in a precarious balance.

'Yeah?' he called out, extra loud to adjust for the shut door to his room.

'What did your little friend score in Transfiguration last year?'

Harry flung the door open and bounded out of the room, homework forgotten. Saving your friend from an interrogation by a paranoid auror was higher priority than the Charms summer essay. Surely, Flitwick would agree.

Hermione stood at the front door, looking golden brown from the sun and exceedingly alarmed from the interrogation. She'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail like she rarely did: that's how hot it was.

Mad-Eye Moody rose like a mountain before her, wand at the ready.

'Outstanding,' Harry told him, a little breathless from the sprint. 'But she always gets that in everything—anyone might know that. Can you not point your wand at my friends, please?'

'Ask her another one.' Moody ignored him completely. 'Something only the two of you would know.'

'Uh—what's your favourite sweet?'

Hermione's eyes grew. 'I have a favourite sweet? I—Harry, I don't know—is it—oh—Drooble's blowing gum? Is that my favourite?'

'I thought it was chocolate frogs.'

'Oh—well, I like those, too.'

Moody lowered his wand. Hermione's shoulders, which had ridden up to her ears, dropped.

'You're bad at this, Potter. One day, you're going to get us both killed.'

'Sorry,' Harry said, not meaning it. It was best to nod along. In Harry's experience, Moody rarely required more than the very appearance of compliance. 'Come in, Hermione—I'm sorry about him—'

'Is he like this every time anyone visits?' Hermione whispered as they made their way to the back of the house, where Harry's bedroom sat.

'Yeah,' Harry snorted. 'You should see him with Snape. He makes him give up his wand and then he searches him, like, thoroughly. Like making him empty his pockets and everything thoroughly.'

'That's horrible.'

Harry grinned. 'I know!'

As he flung open the door, he was assaulted by the thick swelter of the room. The rest of the house was a broiler, too, but at least the heat was spread out over a larger space. Harry liked to keep his bedroom closed for privacy. He'd only been living here a month—he'd been with the Weasleys before the whole Sirius Black debacle had happened—but it was the first time he'd had a real room of his own. Moody didn't much care what Harry did with the space, so he and Tonks—she was another auror who came by often, and she was Harry's favourite of the lot—put up new shelves and bought bedsheets that changed colour depending on the time of day. Harry had two photos on the wall, too: one was of him and his friends, the other of his parents with baby Harry. He looked a little silly in that one, all chubby-cheeked and salivating over his mum's sleeve, but he liked the way his parents were laughing and cooing at him.

'Oh, Harry, can we maybe open the—'

'No opening windows!'

The door, which Harry had only just begun to pull shut, burst open again to reveal Moody, his magic eye spinning wildly as he took in the room.

'The windows stay shut,' he barked. 'First rule of the house.'

'Okay,' Hermione said weakly. 'I was just asking—'

'The windows keep you safe,' Moody lectured in his gruff monotone. Harry had heard this one before, so he dropped to the bed, stretched himself out, and pulled out the box of chocolate frogs he'd tucked under his pillow. 'I paid good money for the protection spells on these windows. You open that window and then what? Any stray spell could find its way in, couldn't it?'

'Maybe we could have it a little ajar. I don't think anyone would manage to cast a spell through the crack.'

'You're forgetting curving spells, Hermione,' Harry pointed out. Moody thrust his finger at Harry to indicate a point well-made.

Hermione was looking from one to the other, her forehead creased. 'What spells?'

'Curving spells.'

'I've never heard of—'

'That's because they don't exist,' Harry supplied helpfully. 'But they might one day.'

'The boy knows what he's talking about!' Moody bellowed. 'They're always coming up with new things. We need to stay one step ahead—what's the other thing you were saying, Potter?'

'Heat-seeking spells.'

'That.' Moody clapped his hands. 'Heat-seeing spells might be next. You can never be too careful.'

Alright, so Moody was a little—you know. But he was also cool. He'd caught more Death Eaters than you'd know what to do with, and he told Harry horrifyingly gruesome stories about fights and torture and missing limbs. Moody had no filter and no interest in things like stains from posters on the walls or bedtimes or how old Harry was. He had heard him saying once he thought Harry was ten, and then another time he'd offered him a glass of Firewhiskey like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Mrs Bones privately told Harry Moody gave her a headache and that if Harry told her he wanted to, she would fight to move him. Snape didn't like Moody either and told Harry only a herd of idiots would ever allow him anywhere near a child, but then Snape didn't like most people, and he certainly didn't like anyone remotely cool.

But where else could Harry go, tailed as he was by a horde of aurors? And yeah, maybe Moody didn't know the first thing about looking after children, but Harry wasn't a little kid anymore. He didn't need to be told to eat or wash his hair or anything. And if it came to that, he was fully capable of reminding Moody that he was too young to be drinking Firewhiskey.

Once he got Hermione to agree that she would start taking precautions against heat-seeking spells in her everyday life, Moody left them be. Harry let Hermione have first pick of the chocolate frogs. Some of them had completely melted into the wrappers.

'That's disturbing,' Hermione said when her frog tried to take a leap off her palm, only to trip over a missing leg.

'Yeah. How was France?' he asked.

'Oh, it was lovely—but who cares about France? Harry, how are you? Have you heard any updates on Black? I tried to get my daily copy of the Prophet, but I missed a few issues, and then of course there's probably lots going on behind the scenes that the Prophet doesn't have access to—'

Harry shrugged. He'd rather talk about France than Black.

It wasn't that he was scared, exactly: he'd been just that when he was first told, but he'd had a full month to get used to the idea, and it's not like Harry was a stranger to death threats. The topic made him uncomfortable, though, with a belly-deep discomfort that made food turn to ash in his mouth.

He set his frog aside.

'Nothing new really,' he sighed. 'I mean, they're looking for him, but they've had no luck. We can ask Tonks today when she comes get us. You haven't met her before, have you? She's great.'

They were headed to Diagon Alley for the afternoon to get their school supplies. Harry wished Ron could come with them, but the Weasleys were on their lottery-funded trip to Egypt and Hermione was too stressed out about third year to wait around that long. From the moment she'd come back from France and got her supplies list, every minute waiting was a minute lost.

'Oh, Harry, what do you think, do we need to do all of the reading for Ancient Runes before the start of term? I'm going to visit my grandparents and I just don't know if I can manage—you don't think we'll need the later chapters right away, do you?'

'There's reading for Ancient Runes?' This was the first Harry was hearing of this. Fantastic. He knew he should never have let Snape bully him into taking the class. He'd wanted to take Divination, which probably didn't have any assigned reading at all. According to Percy, the teacher was plenty impressed if you just showed up to class.

'Well, there's the syllabus—'

'Yeah, that we're going to use in class, Hermione. You don't have to read that ahead of time.'

Hermione pulled her face tight. 'If you'd rather go into a panic when you are confused on the very first day of class, then that's your prerogative, Harry. I would rather come prepared.'

Harry thought it would take more than one confusing class to send him into a panic, but it seemed cruel to point this out to her.

Tonks was meant to come pick them up at three, but when Harry and Hermione came into the kitchen at five past she wasn't there. Instead, Moody was glaring across the table at a tall man with a bright smile that never failed to make Harry feel something between annoyed and shy.

'Harry,' Quentin Lamotte said, extending a hand as though they were meeting for the first time. 'And this is your friend?'

Hermione introduced herself and shook the hand Harry had ignored, blinking slowly like she was trying to clear off a daze. Harry knew how she felt. There was something about Lamotte that just did that to people.

Lamotte pulled at the collar on his summer cloak, a glittery thing that looked like it might have cost more than Moody's whole house. 'Such a lovely day we—'

'Where's Tonks?' Harry interrupted. He was being rude, but he didn't know a single person who particularly liked Lamotte. He didn't think anyone would begrudge him the bad manners. Also, if someone had once tried to kidnap you, you were allowed to be rude to them for the rest of your natural life.

'Had to go on an assignment,' Moody said, sounding as unhappy about it as Harry felt. 'Won't be back until next week.'

'But we were her assignment.'

Moody nodded Lamotte's way, eye swivelling with the motion. 'Now you're his assignment.'

It was obvious to everyone this was not ideal. Lamotte must have picked up on this, too, because he leaned in close to Harry and flashed him another one of his smiles.

'If you want to wait for—who was it that you said? Tonk?—this Tonk person, I understand that, I do, Harry. But if you want to go shopping today, then—ah, what do I have to do to convince you? Ice-cream is on me, for one.'

Harry considered him. Lamotte was an auror. He must have been sent by the department, or else Moody would never have let him past the threshold. Also, he was on the pointless committee that decided everything about Harry's life these days. Going to Diagon Alley with him wouldn't be as fun as going with Tonks, but it was technically fine. On the other hand, Harry had promised Snape he wouldn't go anywhere alone with Lamotte ever, and this probably qualified even if Hermione was there with them.

But he really didn't want to make her wait another full week for the trip.

'Fine,' he mumbled. 'We'll go.'

Diagon Alley was packed with people just as tightly as it was packed with heat. The sun beat down on their backs, but Harry and Hermione didn't dare slow their march in case Lamotte managed to match their step. They bought lemonade by absolute first order of business, and only once the crunch of ice-cubes had made Harry's teeth ring with pain did he finally stop feeling like that beetle floating on the surface of a brew, bobbing on bubbles of steam as it disintegrated.

They got parchment and ink and books. Hermione had grown a full inch over the summer, so she got a new set of robes, too. Harry bought Hedwig her favourite treats, then took advantage of Hermione's distraction as she mused on what pet she might get for herself and drew her into the Quidditch store.

'Well? Are you going to buy anything, Harry?'

'Give me a minute. I'm looking.'

Hermione sighed explosively. As though they hadn't just been choosing ink bottles for a year and a half.

'Besides, Snape wanted me to tell him what I want for my birthday,' remembered Harry. 'He's getting properly pissed off now.'

Harry probably wouldn't ask for anything Quidditch-related: Snape didn't think much of Quidditch. Hermione didn't have to know that, though.

'What is it I hear, then? A very happy birthday, Harry.' Lamotte emerged from behind a shelf like he was goddamn Peeves. It made Hermione jump.

'My birthday was two weeks ago,' said Harry. 'But thanks.'

'Forgive me. I've never been one for dates—there've been years I've forgotten Christmas. How about I repay the insult with a gift? Maybe that broom you were so admiring?'

Harry didn't mean to shoot a look in the direction of said broom, which he and Ron had hailed the Holy Grail of their age. He did look, though. Lamotte noticed.

'Ah, I see I've struck gold,' he grinned. 'The Firebolt, it's called, is it?'

'I already have a broom, thanks,' said Harry weakly. 'Ice-cream, Hermione?'

He would lie in bed later that night, imagining what it might have been like if Lamotte had bought the Firebolt for him after all. Harry didn't think he'd been serious in talking about it, but in another world, he thought, he might have been Lamotte's son and might have had Lamotte buy him extravagant gifts two weeks after the date.

It was a stupid fantasy. Harry didn't even like Lamotte. But Lamotte was charming, wealthy and arrogant, and those were the three things Harry knew James Potter to have been, too.

In this imagined life where Lamotte was his father or James Potter was alive, Harry wasn't even sure—in that life, Harry would never have been staying with Moody. He would never have met Tonks, or Mrs Bones, or any of the people he'd met with Snape in Europe. He wouldn't have felt magic thrum in the ground under his feet and would not have done the things he'd done or thought the thoughts he'd thought. If he could step into that fantasy now, everything important in Harry's life would be lost.

It embarrassed him to think how much he wanted it anyway.


On Wednesday, Severus takes on the first day of term.

Thank you for reading!