"You can take it off now. All of you. I know you heard."

Sky's voice was resolutely forlorn, jarring against the subdued murmuring of footsteps from the Great Hall. He'd allowed his grandfather to speed away down a flight of stairs before he addressed the invisible three, his hands balled up into fists. "I said, you can take it off."

Rose hesitantly stepped out from the Cloak and tugged it over Albus and Ville, neither of whom dared to breathe. "Are you alright?" she asked as she folded the velvety material away into her bag. "We're really sorry-"

"I didn't ask you to watch," the boy grimaced, his voice slightly wavering. He cleared his throat, his stare rigidly focused on Albus. "That was-"

"I didn't bloody want to! You should've said from the start," the acridity of his anger surprised him. "You lied, Sky! To us, your mates!" Ville shuffled his feet behind him. Or was it Rose? "You let your grandad joke about the sodding potions and the spells but you lied that you didn't know that place!"

"Because I didn't want you to know!" Sky's eyes blazed with red-hot fury as he withdrew his wand. "We all know the story of your dad, now you know the story of mine! We're bloody equal!" he spat.

The bitter invocation of his father's name unshackled the rage he hadn't realised he'd felt until then. "Yeah, because I chose to have Harry Potter for a dad, I really fancied that, didn't I!? Albus fucking Potter-" He emphasised the plosive consonant, pelting the boy with frenzied punches. "Let's have a tragic backstory, that'll really make me the next Dark Lord!" His face burned as Sky retaliated, hammering him with blows. "If you want to be the next Harry Potter, why don't you try being a bloody hero for once!"

Ville thrust his arms under Albus' arms and tried to drag him backwards but cried out in the scuffle. "Sodding idiot! Stop it!"

Someone jeered. "You tell 'im!" A crowd of students had congregated to watch them jostling around in the dirt of the corridor, shouting commands.

"You're so bloody paranoid, Potter-" Sky bellowed back, his knuckles cracking the cartilage in Albus' nose. A sharp agony ploughed through his nasal cavity, making him yell out. "You're seeing enemies and plans - where - there's - none!" He punctuated each word with a frustrated jab at whatever body part he could reach as Rose and some older Ravenclaws pulled him away. "Just like your dad did! Served him right in the end though-"

Something hot effusively dribbled out of his nose, into his gasping mouth. "I told you, I didn't want to be a Potter!" He closed his swelling eyes, the Ellis-lookalike's face already etched into his consciousness with that deadened cackling guaranteed to pervade his dreams. How the bloody hell had his father coped with it at the Battle of Hogwarts? "Everybody already expects me to be a grand hero-"

A silent Shield Charm must've been cast as the hands tightly clutching his arms relaxed. Not by much, but enough so that if he muttered the anti-Protego spell under his breath, he could deck Sky again-

"You've made your point, boys!" an indignant Professor Longbottom declared, his wand trained on the space between the two panting wizards. They glared at each other with caustic resentment, Albus' nose sleeping blood down his chin, Sky's face ravaged with cuts and bruises. "I shouldn't have to remind first-years about the no-fighting rule - that goes for the rest of you as well! Fifty points each for the brawl. Why do we keep running into each other, eh?" He directed the mass of bored Ravenclaws who'd groaned at the loss of precious house points into the common room and instructed Albus and Sky to sit on a chair as he performed minor healing charms on their faces.

"Maybe it's because Potter's an idiot," Sky suggested scornfully. The humiliation of being docked points he'd worked so hard for in his essays in front of what had been the entirety of Ravenclaw Tower bled into his face, but this was nothing compared to being insulted by someone he genuinely liked.

"Both of you are idiots," Uncle Neville corrected.

"You shouldn't have called me paranoid like Dad," he retorted. "I don't need the attention and the approval of everyone around me, unlike you-"

"You bloody do!" Sky hissed. The professor swiftly brought his hand up to silence him, with Sky unexpectedly flinching. An odd look darted across Uncle Neville's face.

He cleared his throat and lowered his voice, presumably having cast a muffling charm, so their conversation was private. "Wrestling each other in broad daylight is a bloody good way of going about it. Would either of you mind telling me what you were arguing about?" Longbottom asked, his sinewy arms folded across his chest. He'd taken to wearing a wand holster, sewn into the right side of his dark green cargo trousers. In his muddied confusion, Albus wondered if the Hogwarts staff were preparing themselves for something. "Eh?"

Albus' face burned as Sky opened and shut his mouth - if his father ever found out he'd broken into the Headmistress' study over something he'd misremembered… Or even about the fight; he'd be forced out of school before he knew it. Would Sky give him up that easily? He scratched at his chin, half-dry clumps of blood soiling his fingers.

His uncle looked back and forth between the two before laughing. "Exactly. Albus, with me."

He couldn't decipher Neville's broad face. Was it clouded with concern for his godson? Or was it unexpressed disappointment? He readied himself for the tirade.

"What the hell was that? I've never seen you get angry before… I thought you were keeping your head down? Normally, it's your older brother that loves to hog the limelight…"

Albus hung his head, his eyes boring into the grey flagstones beneath Uncle Neville's feet. "It - it was a moment, sir," he stammered.

"There's no need to be respectful, Al, it's a conversation amongst family," his uncle replied. "Look at me. What's going on?" When he shrugged his shoulders, Neville continued. "This isn't you - I've known you since the day you were born and you've never shown me cause for this kind of thing. If there's stuff you don't want Dad to know, that's okay. Trust me, my door's always open, whether that's here or at home."

Albus bit his tongue as he looked up, desperate to tell his uncle everything. But what if he was wrong? Worse still, what if he was going mad? "Thanks, sir, but there's not much to talk about," he finally asserted.

Neville met his eyes. "Did you mean it when you said you didn't want to be a Potter?"

He swallowed, unsure of what the correct response was. Lie and receive a lecture on why he should be proud of his heritage or nod and face condescension from his teachers later on? "It's not important, Professor. Just tired of everyone expecting wonders of me."

Longbottom nodded thoughtfully. "I kind of get it. You know, the pressure to live up to your name. Fit the 'mould', whatever that is... I was rubbish 'til my sixth year. Mum and Dad were brilliant Aurors and I couldn't go two minutes without seeing the disappointment in my teachers' eyes," he explained. "In my family's eyes, I was a Squib. What was the point?"

"What did you do?"

His fingers drifted to the uneven line between his left ear and his neck, charting its rugged edges as if the past was still breathing and barking 'Constant vigilance!' inside his mind. "This is a horrible truth but... I started believing in myself. It - it was bloody hard, I'm not saying it's easy, it took me years, another bloody war and a new wand," he chuckled to himself, cheerlessly. "The point is that you're your own person. You can do whatever you want with your life; that's what your parents fought for."

The tempered sounds of Ravenclaws and their friends from other houses meandering down the corridors towards the common room coagulated in Albus' ears, forcing a frown. They hadn't been the same since the first memory earlier. The matter wasn't resolved but he nodded anyway. "Thanks, Neville."

His godfather offered his fist for him to bump, reminding him of the warm, honest conversations about his anxieties and fears he'd shared since his eighth birthday, where James and Rose had forced him onto a broomstick for the first time. "Your dad forgot to write you about Teddy this morning - he made it into the Ministry's Auror programme yesterday. As per tradition, we're having an impromptu celebration in Greenhouse Four this evening."

"What - no way!" Albus' stomach dropped, the adrenaline of elation surging through him. It had been Teddy's constant ambition all through his childhood and Hogwarts years to follow Albus' father into pursuing the Dark Arts into oblivion. To be finally accepted after a year or so of delving into the Muggle world to gain a foothold in both environments meant everything to him. "Eight o'clock. It'll be all the relatives."

At eight o'clock, Albus' father, a formidable figure in his elegant, dark three-piece suit, stood to the side of the buoyant gathering. He was joined by Mullard and Ellis, consumed in conversations. The contrast between Harry and Sky's grandfather was vast: the former repetitively tapped his foot, his cloaked arms enfolded around his wand whilst the latter was alarming in his reticence, his eyes flicking back and forth between attendants.

Greenhouse Four was easily one of the largest greenhouses housing the Herbology faculty at Hogwarts, sheltering the biggest collection of tropical plants on the British Isles. During one of their lessons, Scorpius had reverently whispered that 85% of the biodiversity had magical properties Neville and his department hadn't gotten sound to cataloguing yet. Naturally, to show off one of Hogwarts' most outstanding features, it made sense to host celebrations, conferences and such events here during the long Scottish winters. Minute orbs of light shimmered between the plants, spelling out 'CONGRATULATIONS TEDDY' and personal messages left by family members. The equatorial climate allowed the guests to flaunt their summer wear but it left Albus sweating in his shirt and tie, a fatal combination with his nerves and tiredness.

"What d'you think they're talking about?" Albus asked, loosening his collar. Dressing formally after school hours had never appealed to him, whilst Teddy had taken advantage of the occasion, donning a silver-grey overcoat over his jumper and dragon-hide boots, his dazzling purple hair accentuating the effect. Rose discreetly glanced at the three, scowling at him. "Dad hasn't spoken to me all evening."

"Probably James. They found out he broke one of the gargoyles earlier," she answered, yawning. When he made a puzzled face at her, she snickered in a way that rivalled Ron's blunt humour. "No, seriously. They caught him trying to throw a Quaffle through its gob. Only realised when it nearly killed Filch's cat." His older brother, with his dark brown hair the most slapdash he'd ever seen it, glowered at Rose in response, rubbing the back of his head where their grandmother had walloped him with one of Neville's books.

"Wasn't even me!" he protested, his chin jutting out in defiance. "You can't talk, Albs, you ended up in a fight! Surprised Mum hasn't kicked off yet." Despite Longbottom's healing spells, Sky's blows had left a nice circle of magenta shade around his left eye, the bridge of his nose still swollen. He wasn't sure whether or not to be thankful that his parents hadn't seen it yet.

Rose rolled her eyes. "If you say so. Albus is clearly the Chosen One. The fight was a vehicle of personal growth…" Albus made to cuff her but she dodged it, much to James' amusement.

"Explains why Dad hasn't replied to my letters. Git. Doesn't matter anyway, they're all moaning about the newspapers and one of the Ravenclaws," James grumbled. "I bet Teddy'll sneak off to snog Victoire later, I walked in on them at it earlier, urgh…" He let his brother's voice dwindle as Rose chattered away with him, almost certain that the Ravenclaw was Kav. If two senior members of Hogwarts staff and the Head Auror were uneasy over a first-year's collapse, was there something more to it? Could Sky be right? He'd only heard the Janus Thickey Ward in the context of Dark Magic injuries sustained by his dad's colleagues or over the family radio at home.

"Did they mention a name?" his cousin quizzed James, her eyes suddenly sharp. She'd guessed along the same lines as him. "Our classmate had to go to the Hospital Wing earlier and we don't know if he's alright or not…"

"Dunno, just a first-year. Didn't catch their name, Teddy asked. He apparently overheard one of the panel tell his mate on the way out someone was in for severe burn-out. Odd, innit? You never hear stuff like that nowadays," he shrugged indifferently. "Speaking of Ted… Oi! D'you reckon you could get me some of the Horntail Draught for research purposes?"

The nineteen-year-old darted over, laughing. His left hand unconsciously flexed, drawing Albus' attention to the leather arm guard that crept up his inside wrist, the tip of his wand visible for a fraction of a second. Was that one of the requirements of becoming an Auror? Learning to conceal your wand like a Muggle weapon? "If you want mind-altering substances, the 'Puff common room is the way to go, mate. Dom'll get you some if you ask nicely…" James smirked and went off to find his older relative, citing 'an exploratory experience for Potions', leaving Albus and Rose to laud their family friend. "Nasty bruise there, Al," he remarked after a minute of awkwardness. "Were you making the most of your Hogwarts experience?"

Albus grimaced. Now was his opportunity to try their worried friend line about Kav. "Something like that. Did you hear about that Ravenclaw with burn-out? James mentioned it earlier…"

"Strictly confidential," Teddy shook his head sadly. "That little sod shouldn't have been able to hear anything about it." He rubbed his nose, revealing that his fingernails were painted black. Was that his quiet rebellion against the Ministry? The strict codes that governed appearance and conduct had forced Albus' father to discard the jumper and jeans combination he favoured every Monday morning. He estimated it was probably harsher for a trainee.

"What about the definition of burn-out in an academic context? We're constantly told to be careful but what if there's signs we miss along the way?" Rose queried, framing her question like the ones posed on the exam-papers Professors Ellis and Ishanvi had allowed them to flick through the day previously.

Ted grinned, his hair altering to a crimson red. Albus had loved the rapid changes as a child; all of the Potter and Weasley children had, but it tended to wrongfoot him when he wasn't expecting it in the middle of a conversation. "You're good, Rose. Right, you know the magical core theory? Brilliant. It's like physical energy, you eat food to replace the energy you lose through movement. Burn-out occurs when you overexert yourself and don't rest as well as you should. It's common to experience a depletion of magical energy in first and second-years, you're getting used to handling your raw power, plus the Hogwarts teachers can spot it a mile off."

He held up seven fingers. "This list gets drilled into you during your exam years because this is when you're revising and practising so you're more likely to progress further by the time it's spotted. Okay. Fatigue or mania, increased hunger or loss of appetite, grandiosity, depression, paranoia, anxiety or anger and altered personality. To further complicate things, you've got the stuff that can worsen it. Working with powerful entities, war, your own health, drugs, Dark Magic, and stress. I had a nightmare of a time trying to get past burn-out when I did my NEWTs because of all the stress... And substance-" he coughed discreetly, "-that came with it. But there are solutions," he elaborated further, ticking off each symptom or cause on his fingers.

"What's the chances that somebody our age could end up with all of these symptoms and in hospital?" Albus asked.

Guffawing with a grin like a Cheshire cat (he'd once heard the expression from his auntie and loved the idea of a cat smirking), Teddy replied. "Ooh, you know how to ask these questions, don't you? Don't start 'til next week. It's so bloody rare. Unless you started successfully doing significant Dark Magical acts or trying to call creatures - not even Voldemort would've pushed himself that far at eleven or twelve. Drawing all of your magical prowess - well, you'd lose your magic or sanity or… It's not beyond the realms of possibility, your life."

"Thanks for all of this," Albus replied, shaken by the thought of a classmate dying at eleven. The air of austere worry around the Hogwarts staff and his father began to make sense… But how had Kav managed to do it? He met Rose's eyes, a jolt of dread making him question if his accidental summoning of daemons had forced it. Was he responsible for whatever had happened to Kav? "Hey, Teddy, one last question and we'll bugger off and leave you in peace. Do you know anything about daemonism? We think that's what the fire creature was at the match…"

Teddy's face remained blank as he shook his head. "Never heard of it. Is it Greek mythology? I can have a look in the Ministry archives for you if it's relevant…?" he offered. "You know you're both welcome to owl me, as long as it's not about something I can't tell you about."

Rose thanked him again before he gallivanted off, presumably to find Victoire. They drifted through the assembly of relatives and close family friends frolicking, animatedly talking about their first term and downplaying Albus' facial injuries as a flying lesson incident. Grandma Weasley appeared to demand their waist, shoulder and arm measurements for a 'special Christmas present', whereas, in reality, she fussed over them, her lined face offering Albus solace. Some of their relatives, a minority of whom were of Hogwarts age, dispersed across different year-groups and houses, minus Slytherin, waved a shy hello before making a goblet or bottle of contraband substance disappear. Albus highly doubted they needed a spell for that, such was the clinking of glass emanating from their sleeves or robe pockets.

Albus and his cousin eventually bumped into Aunt Hermione who gave both of them a tight hug, with Ron fondly squeezing his shoulder. "Pair of you need to bloody stop growing! I'll have to pay an arm and a leg on new robes next year!" he joked.

"Come off it, you let Hermione pay in the summer!" Harry chortled, emerging from a taciturn Mullard's grasp, the crow lines around his eyes deepening. "Alright Al, Rose?"

Both of them gestured an unquestionable yes, Albus glancing down in embarrassment. Did his dad know he'd yelled his dislike of not having a choice about who he was to the whole of Ravenclaw this afternoon? Dare he look? He took a deep breath, the sweetly warm oxygen swelling his lungs and looked up, scanning his father's face. Dad frowned, recognising the black eye and mouthed 'Fight?' to which he nodded. Expecting admonishment, he looked away.

"You don't need to hide it, Al," Harry chose his words laboriously. Had Uncle Neville briefed him? "It's okay. What happened?"

Albus raised his fingers to his mouth, absentmindedly gnawing on his fingernails as he considered how best to move forward. How could he explain any of it? Was the relief of not having to carry the furtive secret of figuratively stumbling into somebody else's memories worth it? Was it worth seeing how he'd let Dad down written across his face? "I've screwed up…"

Disguising his recollection of the first memory and his real intentions of entering the Pensieve, he described the horror of the memory he couldn't forget and the ensuing argument over being inflicted the agony of being a bystander.

Without warning, Harry enveloped his youngest son in a hug, pressing his face against his chest. As his dad repeated "You haven't messed up, you haven't messed up, you haven't messed up..." like a mantra into his ear, Albus almost broke, the pressure of keeping his mask in place stinging his eyes and nose.

"I've really bollocksed this being mates thing, though, Dad."

His father released him from the hug to look him in the eye. "You haven't. Al, you have so much time ahead of you to work things out," he tried to reassure his anxieties, bringing his wand hand down in mid-air, as their signal to breathe. "What's his name? We can sort things out. Invite him round for a match with us. It's okay."

"Oh, Sky. His grandfather teaches Potions," Albus answered, biting back the tears.

His father froze, his emerald green eyes behind the glasses terrified. "Julius Ellis - of the Ellis Emporium?" When Albus nodded, unsure, he shook his head. "You're absolutely sure, Sky?"

Clearing his throat, Albus demanded, "What's wrong?", afraid of his dad's excessive reaction. Had he seen something he hadn't liked? Was it something to do with his work?

Harry stared into the crowd, his mind evidently elsewhere.

Albus' mention of the Ellis surname had reminded him of a routine check of census records that'd brought back horrible memories. The Auror department's designated Healer had firmly told him the never-ending cascade of memories and the survivor's guilt was an aftereffect of fighting an old man's war from fourteen. It was to be expected from their generation, the bloke had said.

Perhaps by mistake, he'd noticed the only single-digit figure in the age column on the register of missing witches or wizards. A stamped 'D' had been inked over it, the imprint scarring the page. Aghast, he'd consulted the disarray of his desk, searching for one of the archived records bearing the surname, morosely wishing he hadn't seen the small number. It had sent a sliver of ice crawling through his insides - James had been a little over one at the time, with Albus trailing, due a few months after the date - as one of the first incidents he'd handled as Head Auror. He'd been seven minutes late to the scene on that miserably grey morning.

But those minutes had cost the Ellis family everything. He hadn't been able to look the veteran professor in the eye for a decade afterwards.

Hermione's logical high-pitched voice kicked into gear inside his mind, shrilly listing questions that had so often helped him in his career at the Ministry. How could he really be sure that his son's friend and the Ellis boy were the same person?

"Dad?"

He summoned a grin, hoping Albus would accept the lie. "It's probably one of these names, like James. Ask him if he wants to come over for a few hours at Christmas, mate. I'll speak to Professor Ellis, get it all sorted..." He squeezed his son's shoulder in that practised reassuring way he'd had to console Julius with.