Author's Notes
And here we are, at the end of the second installment of Harry Potter and the Valerians, formerly Harry Potter and the Guardians.
I realize that I've mentioned it in the past, but this story did notwant to be written and put up a hell of a fight, which may be why I'm unhappy with how it eventually turned out, though everything that needed to be in it is.
I'll be taking the next week off to try and get some headway on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but I assure you that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is done. I hope you all stick around to read it because I'm far happier with the end result of that one than I am with this one and want to see how many people agree. Maybe we can do an unofficial poll by the halfway point of the series and we can all choose our favorites :D
Thank you all for sticking with me through this painful installment of the series (and not because of the obvious death and grief attached to it).
For your enjoyment, the epilogue of
Harry Potter, the Valerians, and the Chamber of Secrets
Chapter Nineteen: Recovery
The Chamber is closed, the Monster dead, and no one needed to die to do it. The time has come to say goodbye. But what, exactly, is to be done with the Dursleys who witnessed Tarana's death….
Harry and Tarana were called up to the Headmaster's office in the middle of Harry throwing his things rather haphazardly back into his trunk the day before they were all to leave and return home.
He'd apparently taken Yoko's advice to heart, because he'd put off packing until the very last minute, much to Tarana's amused irritation, as she'd taught him better than that, to spend as much time as he could with her, trying to bridge the time they were apart so the gap wasn't missing memory for either one of them.
Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, hands folded together, with Severus standing behind him.
To Harry, who had seen the potions master in the midst of a duel, it was a little weird to see him back in his robes and fully detached as he'd been for most of the time he'd known him.
"Harry," Dumbledore said once the preteen was seated before him. "It was brought to my attention the nature of your removal from the Dursleys this summer."
Harry glanced at Tarana, but her eyes were on Severus, with a curious tilt to her head.
"Given that your relatives currently believe Tarana to be dead, we thought it prudent that someone meet you in King's Cross to modify their memories of the event, ensuring that you can return there."
Harry glanced at Severus before looking back at the Headmaster. "Sir, I'm not sure if the Dursleys will be at King's Cross to pick me up. Can't I just go back to the Weasleys?"
Dumbledore's eyes lost a bit of their glitter.
"The Weasleys are, unfortunately, not in a condition at the moment to take you," Dumbledore told him, apologetically. "There is also another matter that requires, at least a temporary, stay with your aunt and uncle. Our only option is for you to return there."
Tarana's eyes narrowed on the Headmaster, but she wasn't willing to push the topic in front of Severus and Harry.
"If Severus is willing to escort him from the station to the Dursleys in that event, the result will likely be the same," Tarana said instead. "It would also be contained chaos. I do not reveal myself to those on the muggle platform, but I can be convinced to remain hidden until the Memory Spell is cast on the three Dursleys."
"That seems the most prudent," Dumbledore agreed.
"I will meet you at King's Cross in London," Severus told him coolly. "Do not dally on the platform, Potter."
Harry blinked up at him. "You won't ride the train with us?"
Dumbledore hummed and reached for his candy dish at the same time that Tarana developed a rather sudden hacking cough.
Severus narrowed his gaze on the Gryffindor. "In what world, Mr. Potter, would I subject myself to more of the idiocy you and your fellow students bring into this school?"
Harry flushed. "Right," he murmured, rather embarrassed that he hadn't remembered that Severus, despite his job and moments to the contrary, really didn't like kids much.
XX
The compartment home was packed.
Despite the age difference between them, Fred and George had spent the last couple weeks hovering around Ron, fascinated by his Bond to Arcana as well as the tiger himself, and Ginny, who was slowly beginning to blossom now that the diary was gone and the attacks had been stopped before a serious loss of life could occur.
Their need to be close stayed with them through the train ride home.
The group had commandeered two of the large compartments across from one another and had propped the doors open with Arcana and Tarana respectively, and they spent much of the train ride making the most of their last few hours able to use magic without consequence.
They'd set off the last of Fred and George's Filibuster fireworks, which had pleased none of the Valerians in such an enclosed space and practiced disarming one another with magic before they grew bored of it.
Harry was proud of himself because he was getting to be rather good at it.
They had a rather competitive 'tournament' of Exploding Snap, made that way by Draco's inability to lose with any semblance of good grace.
For all that Draco was better than just about anyone in Gryffindor Tower, bar Ron, at chess, he was apparently a rather terrible Snap player and the others took pretty shameless advantage of it, teasing him relentlessly with every loss until he was pretty much sulking in the corner of his compartment.
'You realize that if you keep that up, the Twins will likely never let you live it down, don't you?' Fallen pointed out to his moody charge. 'Best to put on that face of yours and be a Slytherin about it.'
Draco continued to sulk for another ten minutes before he got himself together and jumped back into the game.
If his verbal retaliation against the Twins was a little more brutal, the Twins took it with good grace.
They had put the deck away and were changing out of their wizarding robes when Ron remembered something.
"Hey, Ginny," he called into the compartment she and Hermione were changing in. "What was it you saw Percy doing that he didn't want you to tell us about that day?"
Ginny popped her head in, briefly, and when it was clear that the boys were, for the most part, decent, came to the doorway a massive grin on her face.
"He's got a girlfriend," she said, laughing when Fred somehow dropped a stack of books on his twin's head. "It's that Ravenclaw prefect, Penelope Clearwater? He was writing to her all last summer and meeting her all over the school in secret. I walked in on them kissing in an empty classroom one day." She narrowed her eyes suspiciously on Fred and George. "You won't tease him, will you?"
Fred's grin was entirely unrepentant, looking very much like his birthday had come early. "Wouldn't dream of it," he told her.
George got to his feet, rubbing his head and snickering despite it. "Definitely not," he assured her, completely unconvincingly.
The Valerians exchanged exasperated looks when the Twins promptly turned to Draco, who appeared, of all of them, to be the most relaxed about the information.
Upon closer inspection, Tarana rather thought he looked like a contented cat, actually, and worried what those three would cook up for the eldest Weasley still attending Hogwarts.
Oh, dear. She snickered to herself.
XX
It was controlled chaos to get from the train through the enchanted barrier to the muggle station platform.
Given the number of students that needed to get from one end to the other, attendants stood on either side of the barrier to ensure that only a handful of students went through it at any time, to prevent a couple hundred people streaming through a stone barrier in muggle London from raising any eyebrows.
The Second Years passed the time with making potential plans to try and get everyone together somewhere before the summer was over, though their locations were limited, as were those who would be allowed to attend.
Blaise's stepfather rarely let him out of the Mansion in the Moors for anything less than something that would further the Zabini's influence in one thing or the other, usually where an appearance of 'family' was required.
Draco was relatively certain that he might be able to convince his father to let him visit Harry, because the odds of anyone finding out that he'd gone into muggle suburbia was unlikely, especially if Fallen cast his Disillusionment Charm on him when he went.
Harry was excited by the prospect, as it would be the first time that he had a friend over, period, in all the time he'd lived with the Dursleys.
Once they were through the barrier, as predicted, there was no sign of the Dursleys.
Lucius was standing off to one side, however, with Katelyn on one side of him and Severus on the other.
Draco nudged Harry and led him in their direction, waving distractedly to the friends they were leaving behind.
"Father," Draco greeted politely.
"Hello again, Mr. Malfoy," Harry said, bowing his head like Lucius had done to him in the corridor weeks ago.
"Lord Potter," Lucius said slowly. "A pleasure to see you again."
Harry wasn't sure if the man meant it or not, but wasn't given much time to think about it.
"Come along, Draco," Lucius said, turning on his heel. "I have additional errands to run before we return to the Manor. I assume we will be seeing each other again, Lord Potter."
"Yes, sir," Harry mumbled because the man and the two children were already gone.
Harry looked up at his new escort. "Was that bad?" he asked Severus.
Severus blinked down at him. "You weren't cursed by the Lord of a family notorious for having supported the Dark Lord you destroyed no less than three times thus far. I suppose it depends on which side of the argument you're on. Tarana?"
Tarana stepped up so her fur brushed the man's hand. 'I am here, Severus,' she told him.
Severus nodded and, without warning, dropped a hand on Harry's shoulder and the world spun in that discombobulating way that he was quickly coming to associate with Apparation.
XX
Between one blink and the next, Harry, Tarana, his trunk, and Severus were all in Little Whinging, only a couple of blocks from the Dursleys' home.
"Come," Severus said sharply, leading the boy and his former-future guardian down the street.
"How does he know where the Dursleys live?" Harry whispered to Tarana.
'He and your mother were fairly close at one point,' Tarana told him. 'I imagine she told him, though I couldn't tell you when.'
It was, of course, only one of a set of possibilities.
It was equally as likely that Severus had discovered it at any point over the last ten years, or even before that when he was probably searching under every rock and stone for Lily, her husband, and their child for the Dark Lord.
There was little conversation between the man and child as they made their way to one of the last links that tied Severus to Lily Evans, and Tarana didn't say a word when the man knocked sharply on the door with an expression of severe distaste.
"Can I help you?" Vernon asked when he answered the door, face purpling as he took in the black robes that Severus wore.
He promptly tried to slam the door shut on the Potions professor.
Tarana neatly prevented that by stepping forward and bracing herself against it, then blowing it open with a sharp, controlled burst of telekinetic power.
'Is that any way to welcome your nephew home, Dursley?' she sneered darkly.
Vernon paled drastically, breath coming in short, sharp gasps as he struggled to pinpoint the location of the 'ghost'.
"You're dead." He gasped. "Dead! I watched you die!"
"Liar," Severus drawled, stepping through the open door, slipping his wand from his wrist, and advancing on the large man. "I have it on relatively good authority that you were cowering in another room when Tarana was killed."
Vernon backed up quickly, the wall behind him shaking as he hit it, one of the pictures hanging there, one of Dudley as a child that Harry particularly hated, fell and the glass broke.
Pointing his wand between Vernon's eyes, Severus tilted his head, appearing for all the world like a snake contemplating his prey.
'Severus,' Tarana murmured for his ears only. 'I understand your stance. It will not help.'
Severus' lip curled. "Obliviate." He hissed hatefully.
There was an unpleasant squeaking noise from the kitchen and the sound of something falling with a splat, that had Severus neatly spinning to put the next muggle before his wand.
Dudley screamed, backing away, but was too slow.
"Obliviate." Severus hissed.
Harry watched, partly in horror, at how easily Severus 'took down' his targets, each of his relatives falling, senseless, to the floor with vacant expressions on their faces the moment they were hit with Severus' spell.
'This isn't quite as neat as one of the Ministry Obliviators,' Tarana told Harry, dropping her 'Notice-Me-Not' spell and appearing, sitting, beside her former-future charge. 'But it will get the job done, I imagine.'
"Harry," Petunia breathed, then froze when she came wand-to-face with Severus.
Severus eyed her warily. "Petunia."
Petunia's face tried to do something distasteful and relieved at the same time. "Severus," she whispered, staring at the wand pointed at her face. "What are you-"
She gasped, horrified, as she caught sight of her son and husband behind the wizard. "What have you done?!"
"Nothing so detrimental," Severus sneered.
Tarana stepped around Harry, drawing Petunia's attention, and Petunia clawed at her lower face. "Y-you-you're-"
"He is wiping my death from their memories," Tarana told her. "Fallen has told me what you've let happen to my charge, Petunia."
Petunia quivered and fell to her knees, Severus' wand following her even though Tarana was now between the two.
"I didn't know what to do," she whispered into her palms. "I didn't know how to help-"
Tarana's eyes narrowed and she looked over her shoulder at Severus, questioningly.
Severus stared at the woman he had grown up with, wanting to see the hateful shrew she had been then, but only seeing a broken woman.
He dropped his wand.
"I think it will do her more good to remember," he drawled, causing Petunia to suddenly sob. It was clear that she thought it was worse than being magically forced to forget. "To remember what it taught her."
"Severus, please," Petunia begged. "I can't-"
"You will," Tarana interrupted. "Because despite his grief, you cared more for him in the days after my death than you ever did while I was alive. You will remember what my death taught you, Petunia, and you will remember it for your son."
There was a sharp crack behind Tarana and when Harry and Petunia looked up, Severus was gone.
'And more importantly,' Tarana said quietly, leaning forward so she was nose-to-nose with Petunia. 'You will remember what you've said and done to him. You will remember that when given the chance to do serious harm to your family. Harm that, in his eyes, you deserve for the way you treated your sister and her son, he still chose not to, because I have and do not want, any control over Severus Snape, half-blood of Spinner's End.'
Petunia buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
Harry glanced at Tarana, before stepping around her to wrap his aunt in a hug.
"Thank you, Aunt Petunia," he whispered into her shoulder. "Thank you for trying."
Petunia let out a strangled wail and clutched her nephew to her.
Tarana wrapped the three of them in her Notice-Me-Not spell, a fragile defense against the eyes of Vernon and Dudley as they slowly woke from the post-memory-adjustment state, but one she was sure that aunt and nephew both needed for the moment.
It would be a long road to acceptance between Petunia and the world Harry was a part of.
A world she had spurned her sister for.
A sister she had, once upon a time, loved a great deal.
