Author's Notes
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
If anyone is going out tonight, please remember to be safe, in both the new ways and the old, and thank the Weather Gods that Mother Nature got her frigid mood out of the way yesterday so we could have today Snow-Free.
On another note, there is mention of a panic attack in this chapter. I, personally, have never suffered one though my roommate gets them frequently in varying levels of severity, so I know that there's really no one-way-to-have-an-attack. Having said that, I'm pretty sure I managed to keep it vague enough that it shouldn't be a trigger, but by their very natures, triggers are not what one would call 'logical'.
Have a great Halloween everyone, keep your ancestors in your thoughts and prayers (because they might be visiting, after all), and enjoy the next chapter of
Harry Potter, the Valerians, and the Chamber of Secrets
Chapter Five: Rerouted
Ron struggles to find logic when Harry has a severe panic attack in Muggle London after they're cut off from the Weasleys and the Valerians at King's Cross. Fallen admits that he isn't sure how to help Harry recover, but will follow Draco's lead as they figure it out.
The remaining few weeks of the summer passed faster than those weeks after Harry's arrival.
Several days after their trip to Diagon Alley, Yoko found Harry half-hidden behind the shed on the Weasley's property.
"Harry?"
The child jerked, startled by Yoko's voice, and quickly wiped at his face.
"Don't." Yoko reprimanded him gently. "You're allowed these feelings."
Harry shook his head. "She's gone. She doesn't get to do these things."
"But you're not, Harry," Yoko told him, crouching down beside the child and curling his tail around his paws. "You're not gone. You were left behind. Trust me when I say that I understand those feelings. Any Valerian who has a rightful claim to the race understands those feelings."
Harry sniffled. "I didn't…I couldn't stop Dark or Arcana. I couldn't stop the Animal Control officers…I was useless, Yoko. It's my fault that She's not here. That you guys had her and lost her again."
"Bullshit," Yoko sneered.
Harry jerked away from the fox as though he'd slapped him, and Yoko immediately softened.
"Harry, we had Her for nearly a millennia. In the long run, these last few decades, these last few centuries, were nothing. You were in no way responsible for her loss. That loss falls entirely on Dark and we know that. We would never expect a wizard of your age, or even your parents' age, to have gone to a fight against someone of Dark or Arcana's experience."
"But it would have been a help," Harry pointed out.
Yoko's ear twitched. "Who knows," he said evenly. "Dark and Arcana are powerful opponents and it isn't entirely because of their abilities. They've been fighting for over a thousand years and have the experience to back them."
"Are you saying I would have been a hindrance?"
"I'm saying that Her Highness could ill afford to be worrying about her charge in the first real fight he would have been a part of. The best place for you, was out of Dark and Arcana's line of fire, so to speak." Yoko hedged.
Harry was silent, arms wrapped around his knees as he rocked slowly. "Does this ever get easier?"
"I want to tell you no," Yoko tells him. "I want to tell you that you'll remember everything about her."
Harry flinched.
"It took a long time for us to come to terms with the losses we suffered after the Fall, but eventually we did. Slowly, the pain began to fade, and we were able to remember them fondly. We still can, to an extent." Yoko said, looking out at the property.
"I'm not saying that what happened to us will happen to you, Harry," the fox said, turning back to the child at his side. "Your life will be significantly shorter than ours, so you may be able to do what we couldn't, keep the memory of your losses without the pain that comes with that loss.
"Harry, there is something I want you to do for me this year."
Harry looked down at the fox.
"Live."
Harry frowned. "What?"
"I want you to live your life. Don't forget her, I would never ask you to because I can't do it either. Just…don't forget to utilize the gift she's given you. Don't squander it."
Harry looked away. "I don't even know if I want to."
"And that's what I am trying to remind you of. She gave you a gift at great cost. Grieve, but don't wallow. Hurt, but don't break. Keep moving forward. Do you think you can try that for me and Fallen? For Draco and Ron and Blaise?"
"For Tarana," Harry whispered, the word broken into less than its own syllables.
Yoko nodded, leaning his full weight against the child.
The two were silent for nearly an hour, soaking in one another's grief and support before Yoko eventually pulled away.
"Come," Yoko said, getting to his paws. "I had been sent to tell you they were preparing dinner. It will likely be ready soon, and the twins tell me that it is a meal to be savored."
Harry used the fox to gain his own feet, feet tingling as the blood rushed back to them.
XX
During dinner, Ron brought up another secret of Harry's, when he asked his friend if he needed help packing his things after dinner.
"Packing? You're not done packing yet, dear?" Molly asked him.
Ron tilted his head in Harry's direction, looking between his friend and his mother, frowning. "He hasn't even started," he revealed. "All the things that were sent over from the Leaky Cauldron are still spread out of the bottom of his cot."
Harry's jaw clenched and his fist tightened on his fork.
"Do you need help?" Molly asked him.
"Harry has plenty of hands to help if needed, Molly," Yoko injected, almost boredly, from where he was spread out by the garden.
Harry made a quiet sound behind clenched teeth.
'I can out stubborn you, boy,' Yoko told him pleasantly, though honestly without Fallen's backing he probably wouldn't have been able. 'I thought Fallen and I had made it rather clear that, in order to honor Her Highness, we needed you at Hogwarts. Are you reneging on your end of the deal with us?'
Harry didn't say a word and Yoko nodded.
'Pack your things tonight, Harry, or I will have the boys do it for you and shove you in a trunk emptied of the Weasleys' things from the attic and have you shipped there.'
Harry blinked back tears.
'I know we are being harsh, Harry, but understand this from our perspective. You were already a target once and the attack failed, though at cost. You will continue to be a target until Dark is dead. We will protect you, because you are a child in our care, and because it is something She would ask of us if She were here to do so.'
There were tears in Harry's eyes that he hid by keeping his eyes on his plate. "After dinner," he told Yoko quietly.
Yoko nodded and lay his head back down on his paws, closing his eyes to hide his own pain at having used Tarana so blatantly to ensure Harry remained in his and Fallen's fading influence.
XX
Harry was up until nearly midnight, unwrapping the packages from Diagon Alley and packing them neatly into his trunk, but it was still a rush to get to the train station the following morning.
While the Weasleys were rushing to-and-fro calling for this thing or that thing that had been misplaced or forgotten, Harry and Blaise were left to sit on the front stoop and listen/wait for the others to be ready.
Arthur noticed the two melancholy children on his second trip from the house to the car and called both boys over to proudly show off what he'd enchanted the Ford Anglia to do.
Though the spellwork was amazing, it did little to distract Harry from the fact that he was, despite all his efforts to the contrary, going to Hogwarts without Tarana, or Blaise's own worry for Harry.
Blaise hadn't been immediately aware of it, not until well into the school year, but Harry was like a chameleon, constantly tweaking his behavior based on who he was interacting with to put that person at ease. He had used that skill to bridge the gap between three totally different purebloods and forced them not only to interact kindly with one another but to like one another.
At first, he'd thought that person nowhere to be seen after Harry arrived at the Burrow, but when he walked in on Harry crying into his pillow after the two of them had listened to a rather amusing anecdote from Yoko regarding the Valerian Crown before the fall of Valeria, he realized that Harry's ability hadn't gone anywhere at all.
He was still putting up a front, only he was now doing it to try and hide.
The problem, Yoko had told him when he'd brought it up, was likely that Harry's mask wasn't strong enough to hold back the emotions Harry had built it to contain and they were leaking out around its edges.
Blaise had wondered, then, how strong those emotions had to be if he, Yoko, and the Weasleys were only seeing a fraction of it.
It appeared now, weeks later, that whatever mask Harry had created at the time of his arrival here at the Burrow, was fracturing, because as the two pre-teens flanked Arthur and listened to him gush enthusiastically about the work he'd put into the muggle car, Harry looked more depressed than ever.
XX
Despite the neat little tricks that Arthur had installed in the car, the group was still running behind when they finally arrived at King's Cross station at quarter to eleven.
They were down to five minutes before the train left when Molly began to usher the others through the barrier between platforms nine and ten.
Percy, Blaise, Fred, Yoko.
George, Ginny, Molly.
Harry, Ron, Arthur.
The crash and clatter as two trolleys tipped, and things spilled across the platforms.
XX
"What in the blazes d'you think you're doing?!"
Harry, a hand over his ribs where he'd caught himself with the trolley handle, scrambled to his feet.
"Sorry," he wheezed, "lost control of the trolley."
The station guard eyed the two of them suspiciously while they scrambled to pick up their lost belongings.
It isn't until Ron is leaning against the brick wall, the seconds ticking down to the departure of the Express beyond the portal, that Harry realizes that Arthur isn't with them on this side of the barrier.
"Ron, where's your dad?" he hissed, looking around with a new sense of nerves.
Ron looked around, startled that he hadn't thought to look himself. "I don't see him."
Harry shook, hands clenched tightly around the handle of his trolley.
The people around him, some of them still whispering about the two boys and their 'delinquency', were suddenly not nearly as benign as they'd been two seconds ago to him.
"Harry?"
"We gotta go," Harry whispered, his eyes skipping through the crowd, waiting for the dark shadow or the flash of white between the humans of the station.
"Harry, we should wait-"
"Train's gone," Harry said sharply. "We don't know if they can even cross back over. We're alone, Ron. They could come at any second. They already almost killed Dudley and Uncle Vernon; do you think they'll care about these muggles?"
Ron glanced at the crowd.
Most people weren't paying them any attention, too eager to get to whatever platform they were headed to, but those that were on nine and ten, waiting for their trains to arrive, were suddenly giving he and Harry looks, and he was sure that one of the reasons was because of Harry's increasing paranoia and volume.
"The car," he heard himself say. "Let's go to the car."
Harry sagged and eagerly pushed his trolley away from the oddly closed barrier and Ron followed.
XX
The situation on the other side of the barrier was less frantic but no less upset.
It had taken Arthur all of half a second to realize that the boys hadn't followed him through the barrier, and a tragically long five minutes to find his wife and the Valerians.
In his haste, he was ignorant of the chill blue-gray eyes that followed his rush through the scattered crowd of parents, or the dual curled lips of distaste as he passed them.
When not only the two adult Weasleys but also the Valerians, rushed back towards the barrier, however, Lucius found himself intrigued enough to drift after them.
"I'll return shortly, Nathaniel," Lucius assured his brother over his shoulder. "Do try to keep yourself out of trouble in the interim."
XX
"-longs to a House-Elf, but there's little time for me to try and determine which House it's tied to," the fox said as Lucius approached, a scathing comment on Arthur and Molly's decorum on his tongue.
The woman wrung her hands together fretfully and made a soft noise in her throat.
"Can you unravel it?" Fallen asked, barely sparing Lucius a glance before glaring up at the stone wall between the iron etched archway and sign for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. "We need to retrieve them before they find themselves more trouble to get into."
Yoko shook his head. "The train is leaving in little over a minute," he told the others. "I can unravel the Net, but I'd have to take the time to differentiate what parts of it are the House-Elf, and which are those that are naturally a part of the barrier." He glanced grimly up at the clock, now little more than thirty-seconds away from eleven. "There's no time."
"Could Dark have done something to the House-Elf?" Arthur asked. "Do you think Harry and Ron are in danger from them?"
"No," Lucius injected firmly, drawing the Weasleys' attention to him with a curled lip, but moving no closer to the two of them. Behind him, the Hogwarts Express' whistle echoed over the platform. "Dark's Talent does not extend to anyone who's will or mind is bound to another. House-Elves are bound not necessarily against Dark, but for that purpose. To ensure that a family's secrets remain just that."
Arthur's lip curled. "And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Malfoy."
"Stop," Fallen growled warningly.
Lucius looked down at the wolf, who was looking at the departing train. "Don't you two have Bonded charges to be watching over?" he asked coldly.
Fallen's lip curled in a silent snarl.
Molly's lips pressed together furiously. "Go," she told the Valerians. "There's no time to waste on this argument. Arthur and I will find one of the station employees to do something about this. Have one of the boys inform Dumbledore what's happened, and we'll send them along as quickly as we can."
Yoko glanced at the departing train, as torn over this decision as Fallen was.
With echoing snarls, the two canids tore through the platform.
XX
It was mere minutes after the train pulled away from the station that the barrier preventing everyone from crossing over from one side to the other, much to the anger of the parents on the magical side, fell on its own.
Molly and Arthur rushed worriedly through nearly the entire station calling for Ron and Harry, before eventually returning to the car in the hopes of finding the boys waiting anxiously, but safely, there.
They're horrified to not only not find Ron or Harry, but no sign of the car itself either.
XX
Famed Malfoy composure or not, Draco was just this side of not-a-mess the entire nine-hour ride, demanding information, answers, and action that neither Fallen nor Yoko could provide.
None of Fallen's assurances or threats calmed his charge for more than a handful of minutes at any given time, and the wolf was ready to tear Draco's throat out himself by the fourth hour.
Archimedes and Hedwig had been sent ahead of the train to Hogwarts, each with a message for a member of the staff there.
Hedwig had the letter that Molly had asked to be delivered: that Harry and Ron had been delayed at King's Cross station and would hopefully be brought to the school either ahead or after everyone else by the Weasleys.
Archimedes, however, had a far more detailed letter to the only true ally the Valerians had at Hogwarts, the Potions Master, Severus Snape.
Fallen had, with more detail than he'd like to have given to the children, told Severus of the House-Elf's intervention at King's Cross and how he and Yoko had been cut off from Harry and Ron. He adds that it was likely the very same House-Elf of questionable allegiance that had prevented Harry from effectively communicating over the summer. He closes the letter with the fact that the Weasleys were supposedly to deliver Harry and Ron to Hogwarts via the Headmaster's Floo or to Hogsmeade Station via a Portkey but doesn't like the odds of success. He, carefully, considering he is dictating to Draco, warns Severus that he fears that someone or something else was already working to take advantage of Tarana's absence.
XX
Predictably, McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Severus were waiting for the Valerians in the Entrance Hall.
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, was old even by wizarding standards at well over a hundred, and the length of his beard and hair both emphasized that age. There was, even with the grim expression and the absence of the trademark glittering of his sharp blue eyes, an aura of power and mystery over the man that was only partially hidden with the absolutely atrocious wizarding robes he wore.
Despite his kind demeanor, the Valerians knew he was as cold and calculating as the man he supposedly fought and defeated decades earlier, the Dark Lord that held sway over the wizarding world prior to Voldemort.
Minerva McGonagall was a stern-faced witch in her early-to-mid-fifties, still young in the eyes of the wizarding community, with an aura of authority that diverted the attention of most of the returning second-through-seventh years and kept them all moving along. Her presence there was apparently natural because none of the third years and higher were surprised to see her.
Though she was a stern woman, she and the Valerians had an unspoken agreement when it came to the students of the school, though she was never that fond of Yoko or Fallen due to the families the two were bonded to.
Severus, a pale-faced man who's skin pallor was only worsened by his dark choice in wardrobe, had a rather dour expression on his face as he watched the students enter the Great Hall to their left, not an unfamiliar expression when it came to many of the students there.
Though considered an odd choice because of his obvious disdain for the students at Hogwarts, Severus was the only professor that the Valerians had trusted during the search for, and protection of, the Philosopher's Stone the year before, despite the history between the Queen and the Slytherin Head of House. He was also Draco's godfather, which had ensured a measure of respect from the blonde's Gryffindor friends that the House normally didn't afford to their rival House's Head. It was he who firmly, but subtly, tilted his head in the direction of the Great Hall and halted Draco's determined stride towards the trio of professors.
Draco's fists clenched at his side at his godfather's dismissal, but he turned and led the others into the Great Hall regardless.
The Valerians, however, stayed their course and came to stand before the three professors. Before either could question them regarding Harry and Ron's arrival status, Dumbledore bowed his head.
"Hogwarts expresses its sincerest condolences to the loss of your People, General."
Fallen rumbled deep in his throat, the sound barely making it past his own flesh, let alone the bubble that surrounded the five of them.
"You can express them by telling me Harry Potter has been safely and swiftly recovered from muggle London." The General said coolly.
McGonagall's expression was grim. "Unfortunately, not." She said.
Severus pulled a folded newspaper out of his robes and, with a flick of his wrist, opened it for the two Valerians to see the front page. "They made the front page." He said drily.
"Son of a bitch," Fallen swore, turning sharply on his tail and darting out the doors they'd just entered.
Yoko stared at the moving photo for another few seconds before looking up at the wizards grimly. "Warn Arthur and Molly if you haven't already. Mr. Weasley will be lucky to have his job after this is over."
He turned his back on the Daily Prophet's evening edition, where the Weasleys' Ford Anglia was flying high in the clouds over a muggle city somewhere, if Yoko's suspicions were true, over England or Scotland, on its way to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
XX
Unlike the train ride for their friends, the flight to Hogwarts was practically smooth sailing for Ron and Harry.
As soon as they'd been off the ground, Harry's panic attack had abated, though it was done slowly and in stages, as it sank in that there was no way for Voldemort, Dark, or Arcana to get to him or Ron in the sky.
They stayed above the clouds as often as they could, ducking down only to check on the route of the scarlet steam engine they were following to Hogwarts.
As they approached the school, however, their luck ran out.
The radiator, whether it was due to the magical adjustments made by Arthur, the fact that it was at least thirty years old, or just poor vehicle maintenance, gave up as they began to cross the massive Black Lake that spread over much of the southern part of Hogwarts' property, large enough that only a third of it is covered by the Hogwarts property wards.
Ron, aware that it was going to take several minutes before they were across the lake, struggled to keep the car in the air enough that they didn't drown before they reached a point where someone might notice the car going into the water.
By the middle of the lake, the engine had sputtered and died, and both boys screamed as the nose plummeted towards the dark water below them.
Amazingly, just before they hit the water, the car leveled out despite the engine no longer running. It glided, not easily, towards the edge of the water, but the moment its front tires cleared the edge of the lake, the engine came to life again.
The tires spun, uselessly Harry thought briefly before they seemed to catch on air and propelled it forward.
The boys screamed again as the tires threw up mud and water, before clawing its way out of the shallows and up the incline.
Ron tried to turn the wheel, slamming on the brakes repeatedly to no avail.
The two pre-teens could only stare in horror as a massive tree trunk appeared out of the darkness, lit like an approaching demon by the headlights.
There was a loud crash, a deafening crunch, and the headlights went out.
XX
The boys woke to the car jerking around them.
"-you fucking morons get the fuck out of the car!"
Ron and Harry exchanged worried glances, looking out the shattered windshield just in time to see a red-tinted tree limb come down on them.
They screamed, but though the car shuddered with the force of it, the limb didn't even touch the windshield.
They were terrified and gasping for breath as they realized that it wasn't the limb that was red-tinted, it was the car.
The entire front half of it was encased in the signature red tint that signified Fallen's Element of Air and Wind.
"Don't sit there like deer, you fools, get out before the Willow crushes you both. YOKO! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" Fallen roared.
XX
Yoko was currently sprinting over the lawn, Severus a black shadow several meters behind him.
Both came to an abrupt and startled halt as they finally cleared the hill that hid the infamous Whomping Willow from the immediate view of the entrance to the school.
"Fuck," Severus swore quietly.
The car from the photo had been picked up and thrown about before Fallen had arrived on the scene, multiple dents to the frame and the nearly caved in roof of the car a testament to the abuse it had suffered at the hands of the violent and unpredictable Willow.
Currently, the Willow was fighting a dual battle. One to beat the unholy hell out of the car that had apparently slammed into it; and the second against the red-wolf that had pressed himself low to the ground to avoid behind slammed into by another of the massive tree limbs.
For all his own power, Fallen couldn't withstand the repeated collisions of the Willow against the hardened barrier he'd created to protect the two boys trapped inside the Anglia, and even as he and Yoko watched, the cracks that had appeared on the passenger side's barrier were reforming, knitting back together, just as the next blow fell on the roof and neatly cracked it into spiderweb-like fractures that healed just the same.
"Yoko!"
Yoko didn't even have enough thought to shake himself free of the boys' sheer luck and it was instinct alone that had his Element erupting from his flesh.
Mid-swing, the Willow froze.
"Out!" Severus ordered, uselessly as it turned out because the doors were already shoved open and Harry and Ron's heads appeared as they prepared to abandon the vehicle.
Before they could, the Anglia came to life again, tires spinning uselessly for several seconds before they caught on the bark and hardened soil and the vehicle threw itself backward, away from the Willow, doors slamming shut with the abrupt movement.
Yoko and Severus threw themselves out of the way of the reversing projectile and barely avoided being mowed down.
Severus' wand slipped into his palm, but as he brought it up, and the Valerians turned to the vehicle, all prepared to rip it apart to get to the two children it had, knowingly or unknowingly, trapped inside, the car doors slammed open and everything was violently ejected.
Wobbling, one wheel entirely flat, and smoke still billowing from beneath the hood, the Ford Anglia drove off towards the Forbidden Forest as fast as it was able and was quickly out of sight.
After assuring themselves that both boys were alright, Fallen went from concerned to enraged in a literal heartbeat.
"What the fuck were the two of you thinking? Do you have any idea what this is going to do to your father, Weasley? How much trouble you've brought down on him? What the hell possessed either of you to take that fucking car and come here?"
"The barrier was-"
"We're aware of the barrier." Yoko interrupted with deliberate evenness. "The Weasleys bypassed it to get back to you with plans to have you brought here ahead of the train in one way or another."
The boys winced.
"I believe," Severus said slowly, hands tucked into his sleeves. Amazingly, both boys paled even further as he drew attention to himself, as though his own presence was just as terrifying as Fallen and Yoko's. "That this is hardly the place for this conversation. Right now, all the two of you need to know, is that you were seen. By at least seven muggles and made the front page of the Daily Prophet doing so."
Harry's shoulders hunched and Ron had gone an unhealthy shade of off white in the torches that lined the path up to Hogwarts behind them.
"I believe both of you should think on that as we go. Come with me."
Turning sharply on his heel, robes flaring out behind him, Severus led the two boys up to the castle, the two Valerians bringing up the rear to ensure neither of them got lost on the way.
XX
The group went, not to the Great Hall, but down into the dungeons and into Severus' office.
Likely because the school year hadn't even begun, Severus' desk was clear of class notes, papers, and schoolwork.
The Potions Master sat behind his desk and the two boys, still shaking in the aftermath of their ordeal, sank into the two chairs before it.
"Are the two of you certain you don't need to see Madam Pomfrey?" Severus asked evenly.
Harry and Ron glanced at one another, before numbly shaking their heads and looking back down at their hands.
"Wonderful," Severus said, leaning forward in his chair and steepling his fingers. "Then tell me what possessed the two of you to steal a car and fly it over nine hundred kilometers to Hogwarts?"
"We didn't steal it!" Ron said, looking up at him sharply.
"Is the car in your name?" Severus asked him.
"No, but its-"
"Then it was stolen, Weasley." Severus sneered. "A crime, I am aware, in both the muggle and our world. On top of that, you have broken the Statute of Secrecy and revealed that your father had an illegally enchanted muggle object in his possession. Where, exactly, is it that your father works again?"
Ron looked back down at his lap, face flushed with anger and embarrassment.
"Perhaps the two of you don't quite grasp the level of trouble you're in," Severus said, leaning back in his chair. "So, let me put it to you in a way that you might understand. If you were in my House, you would be back on that train on and your way home this very second."
Ron's fists clenched and Harry swallowed nervously.
Severus was notorious for turning a blind eye to the many faults of his House, favoring them over all others.
"So, perhaps the four of you can enlighten me as to what led up to this foolish decision, when I had, if nothing else, thought you, Potter, at the very least, were slightly more intelligent than this."
Ron's flush, if anything, got darker.
Harry didn't even lift his head.
Slowly, Harry explained that shortly after the last school year had ended, he had stopped receiving mail from everyone except Draco.
Fallen added that it was the reason that he had been asking Severus' help in investigating things and creatures that could intercept a wizarding messenger owl in transit.
In bits and pieces, Severus was informed of Dobby the House-Elf and his attempts to prevent Harry's return to Hogwarts through emotional extortion, making the child believe that there was no one to return to see, as his friends had all forgotten about him; of Fallen's assumption that Dobby was one of Nathaniel Malfoy's branch elves; and of Yoko and Fallen's belief that Dobby had, more directly this time, prevented Harry, and subsequently Ron, from passing through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
Ron told the others of Harry's panic attack on the platforms when it was clear they couldn't get through, and the subsequent decision to take the car to Hogwarts, as they hadn't been sure that the Weasleys would be able to get through the barrier any more than they could.
"None of that," Yoko said evenly, "tells me what made you think that flying an illegal car to Hogwarts was a smart idea. I've watched you play chess, Ronald, and you've never been a stupid student, Harry. Both of you are intelligent enough to know better."
Ron glanced at Harry, bit his lip, and didn't answer.
Harry's shoulders were practically at his ears, and his fists were clenched in his oversized jeans.
Severus stood slowly. "I've made my thoughts on this clear. Fortunately for the two of you, you're not in my House. You'll both remain here while I go and fetch Professor McGonagall and the Headmaster. One or the other will decide on your punishment."
Harry made a startled sound in the back of his throat, strangled almost as soon as it was made.
'Yoko and I have put a great deal of effort in getting Harry to Hogwarts, Severus,' Fallen said.
Severus glanced at the wolf but didn't respond as he swept around the desk, squeezing Harry's shoulder as he passed the boy's chair.
He paused in the doorway only long enough to flick his wand at his desk, a plate of sandwiches, two goblets, and a pitcher appearing on the surface.
"Do try not to damage anything else while you're unaccompanied." He sneered, before sweeping out of the office.
XX
The sandwiches and pumpkin juice tasted like ash in their mouths.
McGonagall was the Gryffindor Head of House, and while certainly fairer that Severus, she was no less strict.
It was entirely possible that she would agree with Severus in that they should both be expelled and sent home.
Dumbledore was an unknown.
They'd had very few dealings with the Headmaster last year, most, if not all the decisions made regarding their investigation and subsequent 'theft' of the Philosopher's Stone having been done through Tarana or one of the other Valerians.
Neither Ron nor Harry was sure of what Dumbledore would decide to do about their breach of the Statute of Secrecy or the one on Underage Magic.
By the time the door creaked back open again, they had managed a sandwich or two apiece, but their appetites, which had grown as they'd gotten closer and closer to Hogwarts, had fled them in the face of the potential consequences of their actions.
They jumped as someone stormed into the office, though it quickly turned out to not be McGonagall or Dumbledore.
"Are you two idiots in one piece?" Draco demanded, dragging Harry to his feet to give him a once over, turning to Ron as an afterthought to do the same.
"We're fine," Harry mumbled.
"Good," Draco snapped, shoving him back into the seat.
Sure that his two friends were hale and whole, the Malfoy heir went through the long list of names he could think of, or make up, for what kind of idiots he thought they were.
There was a sharp throat-clearing from the direction of the door and all three Gryffindors looked up at the three professors there.
"Perhaps we should leave their discipline up to you, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling and an amused tilt to his mouth. "You seem to be doing rather well."
Draco drew his apathy around him, though it was clearly too late to matter. "Apologies, Headmaster. It won't happen again."
'I would like you to keep in mind that you are neither professor nor parent, Draco,' Fallen told his charge, though there was a thread of amusement that told the blonde that his guardian wasn't nearly as upset about it as he claimed. It died a quick death with the wolf's next sentence. 'You certainly don't have much of a leg to stand on, considering the trouble you got yourself into last year.'
Draco grimaced.
He and Harry had made an ill-thought-out trip around Hogwarts around Christmas the year before that had seen Tarana and Fallen ensuring a month-long stint of detentions for the both of them, and that didn't account for what trouble they had gotten away with that year, at least in the eyes of the Hogwarts staff.
"Severus has told us what happened at King's Cross," McGonagall said, any amusement that may have been written on her face wiped clean as she approached the three pre-teens. "Why did neither of you send an owl ahead? Last I recall, you Mr. Potter, own an owl, yes?"
Harry fidgeted. "Hedwig was with Ginny," he told the professor. "I didn't…she spent a lot of time at the Weasleys."
"Hedwig had been sent to the Burrow three weeks into the summer holiday," Fallen told them. "She had become seriously ill-tempered and was putting a strain on the household, putting Harry's place there in jeopardy."
Severus' lips pressed together as he read between the lines.
She'd been sent away as much for her protection as it had been for Harry's. This Dobby had been assaulting her to get to Harry's letters.
"That doesn't explain why Ms. Weasley had your owl, Mr. Potter." McGonagall pressed.
"I didn't want her," Harry said flatly. "So, I gave her to Ginny."
Draco darted a glance in his friend's direction but kept his mouth shut for the moment.
Hedwig had been the first 'bonding' experience between himself and Harry, the brunette had better have a good reason for giving her to a Weasley of all people.
McGonagall took a steadying breath and looked at Dumbledore.
"Should we pack our things?" Ron asked miserably.
"Not today, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore told him gravely. "However, I must impress upon you both of the seriousness of what you've done. I will be writing to both your families tonight and warn you that if you do anything like this again, I will have no choice but to expel you."
Draco glanced at his two friends.
If Dumbledore had threatened to write to his father about a stunt like this, Draco was fairly certain that he would beg Fallen to take him into the Forbidden Forest and teach him how to live there rather than face his father's wrath.
Judging by the look on Ron's face, he felt much the same.
"Any further punishments will be up to Professor McGonagall to decide," Dumbledore continued. "Harry, if possible, I would like to see you in my office before you retire. I have some questions regarding your birthday." He looked at the brunette over the rims of his glasses.
Fallen and Yoko stood fluidly, though neither made a sound, and Draco took a half step to his right, putting himself bodily between Harry and the Headmaster.
Harry didn't notice.
He'd tensed up and checked out at the very mention of explaining what had happened to him over the summer to a member of the staff that couldn't be bothered to acknowledge the fact that She was gone until nearly four weeks after it had happened.
"Perhaps another time, Headmaster," Severus said evenly, eyes on the boy. "He doesn't appear to be in any condition to answer our questions at this time."
Dumbledore, the twinkle in his eye evaporating as he watched the others close ranks around the Potter Lord, nodded. "Of course," he said gravely. "I should have expected that. My apologies, Harry, and our condolences. Let us know if there's anything you need, understand? A bond as deep as the one you shared with Lady Tarana can't be easily shaken off."
Fallen growled quietly.
There had been no mistaking the bodily flinch from Harry, or the twitches of nearly everyone else.
Dumbledore had found a catch in their armour and it wasn't likely that he wouldn't eventually exploit it.
XX
Draco negotiated no points lost for Harry or Ron, but both boys would still need to serve detentions as punishment.
Personally, the blond thought it was rather lenient, given the number of laws, not rules, that they had broken that day, but he wasn't going to argue with a gift given and possibly change McGonagall's mind.
Once the feast had ended, and the sandwiches finished, Yoko escorted the boys up to the tower that housed the Gryffindor dorms and common room, with Fallen remaining behind to speak in more detail as to Dobby's actions against Harry and the wolf's suspicions.
Blaise and Hermione were waiting outside, a short, round-faced boy leaning against the wall beside the portrait slightly behind them.
"Neville," Harry greeted with a weak smile.
"Heya, Harry," Neville said with a soft, commiserating smile of his own as he pushed off the wall and, after a glance in Draco's direction, offered his hand to Harry. "Holding up alright?"
Harry shrugged. "Still here," he told them, taking Neville's hand. "You?"
Neville shrugged. "Reckon my summer was a lot better than yours," he said, before turning his attention to greeting Ron.
"So, I suppose this means you're not getting expelled?" Blaise asked arms crossed over his chest.
"No," Harry said with furrowed brows. "Though it was close. Where did you hear that?"
Blaise shrugged. "It's the most popular rumor floating around right now. That you two flew a car to Hogwarts and are being expelled for it."
"Tell me you didn't," Hermione said, hands planted on her hips.
"I can't say that," Harry told her.
Draco rolled his eyes. "Not that it's any of your business, Granger, but Professor McGonagall has already given them detention. Maybe you can lay off the lecture and tell us what the new password is?"
Hermione's lips pressed firmly together.
Ron snorted. "You're one to talk, Malfoy. Should I repeat some of the things you called Harry and me in Snape's office?"
Draco flushed.
"'Wattlebird'," Neville told them, interrupting what could become a rather lengthy argument between the two. "The password is 'wattlebird'."
Draco's lips twisted in distaste. "Who comes up with this nonsense?" he asked as the portrait that guarded the entrance to the tower, a fat lady in a beautiful pink dress, swung backward to let them enter.
They almost didn't want to, when the sheer noise of the cheering Gryffindors escaped the common room beyond it.
"Couldn't warn us a little?" Draco mumbled to Blaise, who shrugged.
"I had planned to," Blaise admitted. "Didn't get the chance."
Both boys' attention was drawn to Harry, as the brunette shrank back from the noise, oblivious to the praise he and Ron were receiving for their method of arrival at Hogwarts.
Neither Draco nor Hermione was impressed.
XX
It had taken Yoko ten minutes to shut down the impromptu party to congratulate Harry and Ron on breaking the law and school rules to 'arrive in style', sending everyone up to bed with threats that he'd ensure they didn't wake up if they didn't leave his charge and his friends alone.
Once the room was cleared out, Harry dropped onto the couch closest to the fireplace, back braced against the armrest, and dropped his forehead to his knees.
Yoko glanced from the brunette to the blond, before urging the rest of their friends up to bed. He told Draco and Harry that they had until Fallen's return before they were to be in bed themselves.
Draco waved a hand in the fox's direction but dropped onto the couch by Harry's feet and made himself comfortable there.
XX
By the time Fallen arrived at the common room, it was after eleven and Harry was, finally, dead to the world.
Draco had traded places with Harry, stretched out over the length of the couch, with Harry now trapped between the back of the couch and Draco, the two twisted together like a knot.
Fallen is unsurprised.
His charge had been dozing before his arrival but glanced bleary-eyed over his shoulder at Fallen as the wolf quietly approached them.
"Time s'it?" the blond slurred sleepily.
"Closer to midnight than eleven," Fallen murmured, sitting by Draco's head. "How did this happen?"
Draco glanced down at the brunette head practically lost in his robes and frowned. "He didn't want to be alone but didn't want to answer any questions either."
Fallen carefully braced his forepaws on the couch to get a better look at Harry over Draco's protective bodily shield.
The slight tinge of salt that had teased his nose was suddenly sharper as Harry was gently jostled by the move.
He was crying in his sleep.
'Did he actually tell you that?' Fallen asked.
Draco flushed. "Just…seemed obvious." He said.
Valerian and wizard were silent for several minutes, with Fallen jumping onto a nearby armchair and curling up there, eyes on the two children curled together like pups on the couch.
"Fallen…what's going to happen to the Potters now that they aren't tied to a Valerian?"
Fallen averted his gaze, though Draco wasn't looking at him.
'You already know that answer, Draco,' he told him.
"Please?"
Fallen sighed. 'The wizarding Sacred-Twenty-Eight are all Noble Houses, all of them dating back long before we came into the picture.' He explained. 'Our blood, however, is older even than your Families and as such, anyone bonded to the Collective is given the additional title of 'ancient' to show that you were lucky enough to bond with one. Thirteen of the Valerian Collective were brought forth from our destruction. Dark has corrupted or killed all but the four-three-of us if you don't count the Traitor. Those that lost their connection to the Collective also lost their ancient status. That doesn't change simply because of who She was.'
Draco frowned. "Does that mean Father's going to leave him alone? Stop caring?"
'I can't say,' Fallen admitted. 'Normally, that would be an automatic 'yes'. Without being an Ancient family, your father sees it as lesser than your own. With Harry, however, he still has one tie that no one else does, which keeps him invaluable. He's the only survivor of the Killing Curse. The Infant Hero.'
"The Boy-Who-Lived," Draco said with a sneer, tightening his grip on his friend. "He's going to hate it."
'Of course, he is,' Fallen agreed.
Whether it was Harry having been raised by Tarana, or because of the way the Dursleys treated him, the boy was amazingly down-to-earth for a wizard of both his status and power.
'Draco, there is something I need your assistance with this year, though I am loathed to burden you with it.' Fallen eventually said.
Draco tilted his head back and to the side, trying and failing to bring Fallen into his view.
'You have a, frankly unnerving, knack for knowing what Harry needs before he notices it himself. I'm afraid that, at least until I can get a feel for him myself, I'm not sure how to help him. I will likely need to rely on you to pick up on those needs.'
Draco snorted. "And here I thought you were going to ask me something hard."
Fallen's lips twitched, and it was by his amusement alone that Draco realized he had reacted at all.
"Just…how much do you think you and Yoko can get away with this year?" Draco asked. "Are you going to try and protect him, too?"
'You're a bright child,' Fallen told him. 'We have every intention of fulfilling oaths made to the Queen. Regardless of how the Ministry of Magic plans to retaliate.'
Draco hid a smile in Harry's hair.
"Good."
XX
Fallen never did send Draco and Harry up to bed, leaving the two to curl around one another on the couch.
It's nearly two in the morning, when Blaise staggered, sleepy and rubbing at his eyes, down the stairs.
The wolf watched silently as neither Harry nor Draco really wakes but simply move around to accommodate the additional body as it joins them on the already cramped couch.
He snorted quietly as they finally settled, drifting back to sleep again without a word or sign from any of the children.
He adjusted himself as Yoko ghosted down after his charge, giving the boys a once over as he moved past them.
The two Valerians barely fit on the armchair, but personal space had long stopped being a problem for the two of them before they'd given up their Valerian bodies, and Fallen simply hooked his head over the fox to ensure that he was anchored and wouldn't slip backward.
'I'm fairly sure that this is the longest that Harry's slept since he arrived at the Burrow,' Yoko confided. 'Definitely, the longest that Blaise has gone without a nightmare.'
'Nightmares?'
Yoko hummed, burrowing further into the other's warm fur. 'He won't share, but I assume it has something to do with Her death. He doesn't sleep well usually, and it has only gotten worse since….'
'It'll take time. They're not alone anymore.' Fallen said softly.
'It will take time for all of us.' Yoko said.
Fallen flinched, turning his head to press his nose firmly into Yoko's fur, nostrils flaring as he took in the other's scent, grounding himself with it.
Together, Assassin and General watched over their charges until dawn was lighting the sky.
