Chapter Six

Yo, it's been a while again. Thanks for stopping by!

Once again, this chapter was betaed by Nothinglikeyou. Everybody, say thank you to her for polishing up my extraordinarily ordinary writing!

"Peregrine–?" Hermione murmured aloud, disbelief colouring her voice. "As in Peregrine Lestrange?"

The man in question brought his hand up to cover Harry's against his cheek, tears unravelling down his face like finely spun silk. The skin felt like parchment beneath Harry's palm.

"You haven't aged a day," the once-Slytherin whispered, his eyes devouring every inch of Harry's features.

"I wish I could say the same to you," Harry whispered back, "but you've got old."

Peregrine choked on a laugh, releasing Harry's hand and embracing him instead. His body was warm and solid, real. An actual living person from Harry and Hermione's impossible adventure. If ever Harry had doubted his own sanity, this was the nail in the coffin proving that none of it had been a dream after all.

The handkerchief trembled above them for a split second, as though exhaling for the first time in many years, then collapsed upon the ground, forgotten once more.

"Can someone please explain to me what the bloody hell is going on here?" said Ron, more annoyed than anything.

Harry pulled away from Peregrine reluctantly but did not release his sleeve. An unwelcome image of a child lost in a store and finally reunited with his mother cropped up in his mind's eye. Waving it away, Harry glanced in Ron's direction. He was standing there with his arms crossed and an expression of great suspicion scrawled across his borrowed face.

"Ron," Harry said, "this is one of my old friends, Peregrine Lestrange."

Ron's jaw went slack momentarily before he recovered himself.

"Lestrange," he muttered, sliding a weary hand down the side of his face. "Merlin, I'm never going to get over the fact that you actually became a snake."

"Is there an issue with that?" asked Peregrine, his face hard. Suddenly his younger self was shining through and Harry had no idea how he hadn't recognized him earlier. "Harry was amongst the best of us."

"Yeah?" Ron countered. "Considering how you lot rank each other, that's not saying much. No offence, mate," he added to Harry, who shrugged.

"Boys, boys, you're both pretty," said Hermione irritably. "But right now there are more pressing matters to address."

"Might I ask whether your name is actually Hoppy?" asked Peregrine, though not without one last disdainful sniff in Ron's direction.

Hermione coloured.

"It's not actually Hoppy, it's Poppy," she said, before hurriedly tacking on at the end, "And it's not really Poppy either, it's Hermione. I doubt you'd remember me, but I'm Harry's cousin– well, not really his cousin but I was pretending to be when we met… you may recall the whole fiasco that ensued when this was uncovered, it was an awful mess–"

Peregrine's tired face immediately brightened. It was astounding how much younger he looked in that moment. A veil seemed to lift from Harry's eyes. It was as though he was gazing upon that seventeen-year-old boy from so long ago, and always had been.

"But how could I ever forget you, my dear?" Peregrine was saying. Had these exact words been spoken during their school days together, there was no doubt Harry would have interpreted it as nothing short of flirtatious. Now it seemed like a fond grandfatherly statement. This realisation rattled Harry to his core. His grip on Peregrine's sleeve tightened almost imperceptibly, but Peregrine seemed to notice it at last. He glanced down at Harry's hand, forming a cross-bridge between them, and smiled softly but said nothing.

"Well, it has been a while," countered Hermione politely, taking no notice of the silent exchange between Harry and Peregrine. Her tone of voice was of someone speaking to an old acquaintance they'd never cared for much.

"I must ask when will that hideous Polyjuice be wearing off, I've rather missed your actual face," he said, and this time there was a distinctly less grandfatherly purr in his voice.

Hermione started to puff up indignantly. Ron made a sputtering noise like a balloon letting out air.

"Please don't tell me you two fancied each other," he demanded.

"Don't be ridiculous, Ronald!" snapped Hermione, in unison with Peregrine saying, "Unfortunately, lovely Hermione was too busy making enemies with the Dark Lord."

If Harry's mood had lightened even the slightest amount at the discovery of Peregrine Lestrange, it rapidly deflated at the mention of the name. He glanced skyward, and Hermione and Ron followed suite.

"Speaking of your Dark Lord," said Hermione, levelling her gaze upon Peregrine as she spoke, "would you care to explain why you're not at least a little shocked at the sight of us, since last you saw of us was when we died by his hand?"

Peregrine's face stilled, sweeping clear of emotion.

"Perhaps you should come inside," he said, stepping to the side of the doorway into his house. "I never like to remain out in the open for too long. Walls have ears. Trees have ears. Handkerchiefs have ears, for all we know. Ah, yes, that would be a smart little trick, wouldn't it, Riddle?"

He threw the handkerchief on the ground a dirty look.

"I can assure you, that handkerchief is not bugged," said Hermione patiently. "We've been travelling with it for weeks. If it was, You-Know-Who would have come after us by now."

"Not if he's been waiting to kill two birds with one stone," Peregrine muttered, and it was his turn to cast wary eyes to the sky. "Please come away from that awful sun, perhaps we can speak over tea inside."

"'Awful sun'?" Harry repeated, finally relinquishing his grip on him and stepping across the threshold. Before he could place a single foot on the magnificent Persian rug in the corridor, Peregrine had pointed his wand at Harry's shoes, caked with red dirt, saying, "Scourgify!"

"Oh, thanks," he said, listening as Hermione and Ron courteously did the same to their own shoes before following Harry in. "Anyway, if you hate the sun so much, why live here?"

"Only because Riddle hates it more than me," Peregrine said. "My choice of real estate makes it far less likely he'll choose to drop in for a surprise visit."

Peregrine stepped back into the doorway and pointed his wand skyward, murmuring under his breath, "Protego horribilis."

Something translucent pulsed from the tip of his wand, like life-blood pounding from a broken artery. It continued until it surrounded the entire property, a large, clear dome. Harry could only be sure that it was there because of the slight shimmer it projected when the sun bounced off it just so. Peregrine proceed to wave the door closed and muttering a few spells, knocking the door lightly with his wand before starting down the corridor, his robes fluttering like blue wings behind him.

"Any tea requests?" he called back to them as he glided into a side room off the corridor.

"Ah, no," Harry replied, lingering in the corridor with his two travelling companions. "Anything's fine, Peregrine. We'll be along in a moment."

"Well, I have a lovely Earl Grey I purchased a little while ago, this may be the occasion to crack it open…"

"Thanks, that sounds great."

Hermione beckoned Harry towards her and Ron furiously and waited for the kettle to start rumbling. As soon as it did, Ron hissed, "He's absolutely bonkers! Even more than Hermione!"

"What do you mean?" said Harry, stung, in unison with Hermione's, "Excuse me?"

"It's like Moody all over again," Ron continued in a low voice, then the corner of his mouth twitched. "Well, fake Moody. Crouch Junior. Mr Nutcase. The whole 'constant vigilance' rubbish."

"Not entirely rubbish, Ronald," said Hermione.

"He thinks the handkerchief has ears," Ron retorted.

"I think that was a joke," Harry interjected.

Ron shook his head vehemently, jabbing a finger towards the door. "I don't reckon so. He went and cast the strongest shield charm known to wizard kind!"

"Oh!" said Hermione, forgetting to keep her volume down. "Is that what that was, I was thinking it didn't sound familiar to anything I'd heard before."

Harry and Ron gestured for her to lower the volume again, and she scowled.

"It doesn't matter if he's paranoid or not, those ones'll be the survivors of this world," Harry said.

"This isn't why I wanted to talk to you two." Hermione threw a backwards glance towards where they could hear the kettle settling down and Peregrine preparing their tea. "What I want to know is why he's behaving as if it's perfectly normal for an old friend who died fifty years ago to turn up on his doorstep. And why he's hiding from You-Know-Who out here. They were relatively good mates last we saw."

"Key word – relatively," he said, exchanging a dark glance with her. "Either way, we're clearly missing a lot more information than we previously thought."

Peregrine poked his head out into the corridor. "The tea will be cold if you lot continue to plot out here for much longer."

Muttering under her breath, her brow furrowed, Hermione followed Peregrine into the side-room. Ron raised his eyebrows at Harry and sauntered past him in perfect imitation of Peregrine's self-assured walk.

"Come along, old chap," he said mockingly. "All the villains are plotting over lukewarm tea. Didn't you get the memo?"

Tea was an awkward affair. Harry's mind, however, was so preoccupied staggering through a maze of half-formed thoughts of 'Peregrine' and 'why' and 'how' that he may as well have been on an entirely different planet. When one is on a different planet they tend not to be affected by the bubble of awkward silence within the small kitchen of a house in the middle of the Australian outback. For Peregrine, awkwardness seemed to slide off him like water off a duck's back. He reclined in his chair luxuriously, cradling his cup of Earl Grey and milk, all the while watching Harry like a fond uncle might watch his favourite nephew. He showed no inclination of noticing the awkward silence nor initiating conversation.

To reword it, tea was an awkward affair – at least for Ron and Hermione (both had been restored to their everyday body a couple of minutes prior).

Ron's eyes were continuously darting between Harry and Peregrine as if he were watching a Quaffle being tossed back and forth in a fast-moving Quidditch match, despite no exchange occurring. He kept missing his mouth with his teacup. Hermione's eyes were glued upon Peregrine, tracing his face as if trying to make sense of a particularly enigmatic puzzle.

The silence was at last broken when Ron misjudged where his mouth was entirely and sloshed half a cup of tea down his front.

"Oh, bollocks," he said, leaping to his feet and searching for a napkin. Peregrine lazily flicked his wand and a towel materialised in thin area, practically throwing itself over Ron's head in an attempt to mop the spilled tea up. It was entirely off target and Harry wondered whether Peregrine had done this on purpose. Neither he nor Ron had exactly taken a shine to each other.

"Geroff me!" came a muffled shout from within the towel, which had managed to wrap itself into a creative turban around Ron's face while he clawed at its death grip.

A full smirk had painted itself across Peregrine's face.

Hermione clicked her tongue impatiently.

Harry sighed and passed Peregrine a look which was partly amused, partly annoyed. Clearly, he had not grown out of certain habits. Catching Harry's eye, Peregrine bit back the smirk and pointed his wand at the rampant towel. It unravelled itself, revealing Ron's reddened face.

"Very sorry about that," said Peregrine smoothly, giving his hand a careless wave. "Seemed to take on a mind of its own."

The towel wrung itself out into the neighbouring sink and returned to meekly rubbing Ron dry despite his protests.

"No, that's okay, I can– really, I'm able to– will you just stop it already!" he finally snapped, losing his temper, and the towel flopped to the ground sadly.

Peregrine raised his eyebrows at Ron, a picturesque image of astonishment at the young'uns rudeness.

Flushing slightly, Ron muttered, "Thanks, but I've got it under control."

Harry sighed again. It seemed he was full of sighs today. Something in the back of his head was observing what a perfect representation of the Gryffindor-Slytherin relationship Ron and Peregrine were, and wondered whether he had been so easily manipulated in the past. Almost definitely, he thought. He would have just been too blind to see their underhanded tactics.

"As enjoyable as this tea party has been," interrupted Hermione, leaning forward in her seat and narrowing her eyes at Peregrine, "I think it's about time we got some answers."

The atmosphere immediately sobered. Ron found his way back to his seat, and three sets of eyes found the man who held the key to all their answers.

Peregrine set his teacup on the table in front of him and reclined back into his chair, rubbing his chin between forefinger and thumb.

"So you want to know about the book," he said.

"The book can wait a wee moment," said Hermione, and she was leaning forwards so far that at this point she was practically off her chair. "I want to know why You-Know-Who can't remember Harry."

The temperature in the room plummeted to Arctic levels.

"What? That can't be right." Peregrine stood from his chair, sweeping his hair back from his face. He met Harry's eyes, and his own were deeply troubled. "Last I saw of him, he was right as rain."

"Right as rain," repeated Hermione, disbelieving.

"As right as a thunderstorm, then," Peregrine elaborated, appearing mildly annoyed.

"Peregrine," interjected Harry, a chill in his tone. "When exactly was the last time you saw him?"

Peregrine eyes swept down to his feet, apparently finding something extremely interesting on the floorboards, though his restless hands gave him away. In his pockets, out of his pockets, through his hair, scratching his chin.

Harry passed a sideways glance to Hermione, only to find her already directing a hard gaze towards him, her lips pulled taut. Words that needn't be spoken aloud darted between them for a split second, then Harry turned back to Peregrine, steeling himself.

"Peregrine," he said, and speaking gently it wasn't so hard after all. "Tell me."

Peregrine swallowed. The loosened skin did little to disguise the elegantly long column of his throat, the laryngeal prominence on display. It remained one of the showiest swallows Harry had ever seen.

"You and I last saw him," he said, "on the very same night."

For a very long moment silence held them captive, its wicked talons caging around their throats. Then Harry rocked forward in his chair, steepling his fingers together.

"So," he said, aiming for a casual tone but his voice broke on the word. He winced slightly and persisted. "That night?"

Peregrine gave a miniscule jerk of his head, mouth pinched.

"Well." Harry sucked on his teeth noisily and bounced one of his knees a few times, perhaps an unconscious manoeuvre to mask the ugly emotions rearing up within his chest and trying to claw their way out between his ribcage. "We're all ears for your riveting tale."

"I… I don't know," said Peregrine quietly, his gaze yet to leave the ground. "I'm not sure it's a tale you'd fancy listening to. I'm afraid you'd be rather disappointed in me, Hardwin."

Harry shook his head slowly, his pulse ticking palpably below the angle of his jaw. From the corner of his eye, he could sense Ron staring at him, perhaps waiting for the time bomb to finally detonate.

Briefly considering his options (diving headfirst out the nearest window wasn't one of them), Harry stood and carefully sidled up to Peregrine, the way one wild creature might approach another. If he was to ever be grateful for standing a handful of inches shorter than his old friend, now was the time because it made it so much simpler a task to catch his eye. It seemed a lifetime ago that he had once compared Peregrine's eyes to a shark's – flat, black, cold. How mistaken he had been, now that he could see the love, the shame brimming in those dark irises.

Harry put his arm around Peregrine's shoulders and led him back to his chair. Once he was seated, albeit stiffly, Harry dropped into a crouch before him and clasped his hands in his own.

"Don't be silly," he said softly. "I doubt I could be disappointed in you. It's because of you that I'm able to stand here today."

"You give me too much credit," Peregrine whispered back, his fingers tightening on Harry's own. "I know who you are, Harry Potter. I know that you stand your ground against the Dark Lord. I know of your bravery. I've witnessed it firsthand. And I'm ashamed of what a coward I am in comparison."

The question shone out from Harry's eyes.

"I fled that night." Peregrine's face was a white as a ghost, his gaze grew distant as he tumbled back into the memory of long ago. "I didn't have the courage to face him, as you had done. I ran, and some nights I lay awake and wonder what if."

"What if you'd stayed behind? What if you'd fought him?" Harry shrugged, smiling bitterly through his teeth. "There's little point pondering all the 'what ifs' in the world. That's a sure way to whittle away a lifetime. I thought you'd've know that by now."

Peregrine gave a short, sharp laugh.

"I'm afraid the face doesn't reflect the age beneath. Perhaps I've already 'whittled away' my life, as you put it. Perhaps all my daydreaming means I never really grew up." His lip curled upwards slightly, the weakest of sneers. "Now look at me. Look at what I've amounted for. The game will be over soon, for me, and I never caught the Snitch."

"Not your job to catch the Snitch," countered Harry, resting his chin upon Peregrine's knee and looking down at their intertwined fingers. "I'm here, so you can stop fretting now. Just enjoy the view while it lasts."

Peregrine heaved a deep sigh, but it was more exhale, more release than anything.

"With your blessings, I'll do just that," he murmured, and his eyes fluttered shut for a moment. When they snapped back open, they were clear once more. He looked first at Harry, then Hermione, then Ron. "Now, my memory's not what it once was, but I'm sure I can conjure up at least a decent recount of that inexplicable night fifty-three years ago…"

Bound by ropes upon the ground, humiliated before the eyes of his closest followers, betrayed by the one he wanted to trust but never could. It was not a good night for Tom Riddle.

Peregrine shifted in the doorway at the top of North Tower, concealed by shadows. When Riddle had threatened torture earlier, it was clear in his eyes that he meant it.

Torture, or worse.

Throughout the entirety of Harry and Riddle's duel, this was the only truth clear to Peregrine. Harry would lose, he thought, and he himself would meet some terrible fate. Riddle would not be toppled from his throne; his reign was absolute. No other outcome was possible.

The duel passed before his eyes unnoticed. Peregrine was too preoccupied within himself. A candid audience would put this down as him being self-absorbed, selfish (never mind your friend who may be duelling to the death, let's just focus on our own trivial problems). A kinder one might excuse it as simply fear (it's part of the human condition, cut the boy some slack).

At the time, Peregrine would vehemently agree with the latter of the two. Indeed, his mind was swarming with terror as if a cloud of Billywigs had entered through one ear and never exited through the other. Ricocheting around within his skull, the ceaseless droning made focus on anything at all impossible.

Later, he would remember his fear in the past. He had been fearful for his friends all too many times, but that had never prevented him from stepping in, speaking up, forming some kind of intervention. Perhaps it was different this time. Perhaps it was because it was his own hide on the line.

At some point in time, Peregrine had glanced sideways at Francis, at Cassius, but neither acknowledged him. Their eyes were drawn to the duel, reflecting the whirlwind of bright lights and colours. Silent save the snapping sound of hexes and jinxes rebounding off shield charms and walls. A fascinating but deadly sight. It was surely magnetic to them in the same way an insect is attracted to the pretty flower before it is snapped up in the carnivorous plant's jaws.

Francis and Cassius were too far ensnared by the honeypot Riddle promised them. In his heart of hearts, Peregrine knew that neither would stand up in his defence. He had seen their horrified, their disgusted faces when his betrayal had been revealed. They were no longer brothers. Riddle had lifted his wing and neither had followed Peregrine out.

But now there was Harry, standing on the opposite side of the field. He offered no wing to shelter Peregrine beneath, but there was a space to his left, mirror to Hermione Delacour's place, where they could stand as equals. Yet still he cowered and never crossed the field on his own.

Perhaps if he had, then he may have been dubbed as courageous. But no, instead he lurked upon the threshold, too fearful to take the fall.

Now Harry's battle was fought and won.

There would be no forgiveness for the cowards.

Harry stood over Riddle, his wand unwavering, his eyes clear and hard.

"Stop this now, Tom," he said, and despite the harsh lines of his face his voice was soft, little more than a caress. "No more fighting. You lost, fair and square, so it's time to back down."

Cassius slipped forwards as Riddle rose to his feet, radiating such as terrible energy that Peregrine didn't understand how Cassius could stand to be in such close proximity.

"We should go," he murmured, without so much as a backwards glance at the two figures conversing in quiet tones across from them.

His face pinched and pale, Riddle turned and started towards the doorway. His gaze met Peregrine's and it's all my fault, it's all my fault really.

The sight of Peregrine seemed to reignite a flame in Riddle's belly. His eyes widened, his pupils blew wide – there was only the thinnest ring of iris visible. For a split second he stood motionless, he may have been a statue if it weren't for the mad light pulsing in his eyes. Neither Cassius nor Francis noticed this moment when the cards flipped. They were already halfway out the door.

Riddle was slowly raising his wand again. Trapped like a rabbit in headlights, Peregrine braced his back against the wall his stood against and turned his face away. That hatred would not be the last thing he saw on this earth…

The curse was not intended for him.

Perhaps if he had left then and there with Cassius and Francis, perhaps if he had fled then everything would have been different. He never would have seen Hermione Delacour blink out of existence, as if they were all a bad dream and she was finally waking up. He never would have seen the bravest wizard he knew begging for death.

Harry Delacour's final act in life was outfoxing Tom Riddle. Perhaps that was why Riddle coveted him so. But 'covet' was not strong enough a word for the sight that Peregrine beheld.

People covet life, Peregrine thought as he backed himself away from the terribly bloody and tender scene playing out before him. But does life covet energy, or water? No, it simply cannot exist without. Maybe, on this night, he had lost one thing but found another. Maybe he had finally gained an understanding of the enigma who was their schoolyard king.

Peregrine hovered on the top step of North Tower, his presence well and truly forgotten, but for how long? In that moment, Riddle was cradling Harry in his arms, rocking back and forth and pleading him to stay. Despite everything, Peregrine saw past the elaborate costumes and masks, the props and titles of this stage play they had all been a part of since the moment they stepped onto the Hogwarts Express almost seven years ago.

Tom Riddle wasn't a monster, he was just a cold-hearted leader. He wasn't a cold-hearted leader, he was just a lonely prodigy. He wasn't a lonely prodigy, he was just a boy.

Peregrine inclined his head towards Riddle, just slightly, a final farewell. Then he pressed a hand against his heart before extending it to the boy who was dying at the top of this tower, amongst the stars.

"Hardwin," he whispered, then turned and fled down the winding staircase. He tripped over his own feet occasionally but always managed to right himself before he took the plummet, one hand against the wall as he ran. His palm burned from the rough friction but he did not stop. There was too much to do and so little time.

Hogwarts castle was sleeping at this time of night. Despite the thundering of his feet down corridors, his loud, ragged breathing and his heart which pounded like a drum to his ears, he encountered nobody. Not a soul stirred.

He had not yet reached the Slytherin common room when he felt it and had to pause to gasp in a breath of air, dragging as much oxygen back into his lungs as possible lest he pass out.

It was an inexplicable sensation that he could almost taste in the still night air, the silence in the walls, the wink in the sky as some distant star at long last exhausted the last of its fuel and could be seen no more.

It was in this moment that Harry fell away from this world.

Peregrine pushed onwards, clacking his teeth together into a hard grimace. The clock was ticking, he couldn't risk losing any time to grief.

Upon arrival in the dungeons, he said, "Ashwinder," and entered the common room. It never occurred to him what he would do if he stumbled upon any of Riddle's inner circle. All that was clear to him was that he was no longer a part of it and he had to escape this ring of terror before it was too late. It was the least he could do to honour Harry, who was no longer with them.

Cassius nor Francis were there. It didn't surprise Peregrine. This setting – with the soft carpets and the armchairs and the tables strewn with half-finished assignments – was all too mundane a place to return to after all that they had witnessed.

All others in the house had retired for the night. It was quiet and devoid of life. The ceiling and the walls glowed a soft green, reminiscent of the curse Riddle had last cast. Peregrine moved straight to the seventh-year boys' dormitory and took the stairs two at a time.

The room was like a tomb. It was dark and the bed hangings were all drawn shut despite the absence of a body to shield from view. The shadows twisted in the corners of the room, forming figures that weren't truly there, and Peregrine hurriedly dragged his wand through the air, watching as all his belongings hopped across the room, skidding across surface tops and jumbling into his open trunk. It didn't matter that it wasn't a neat job.

He snapped the clasps shut on the trunk and tapped it with his wand. It rose into the air and followed him obediently out the door and back into the common room, where he halted for a split second to take in his surroundings, wanting to memorise it all as best as he could. The sheen of the dragon-hide cover of his favourite armchair. The chip on the corner of the black marble-top side table he and Francis had accidentally left during second-year.

He would never return.

Angrily scrubbing at his eyes and cursing his traitorous tear ducts, he pushed open the common room door and stepped back into the chilly corridor. The door slid shut behind his levitating trunk, shutting in the residual warmth of the common room. His bones were immediately leeched cold. Ducking his head, Peregrine began his final journey to the front entrance of Hogwarts.

He should have known his luck wouldn't hold the entire way.

It was as he moved across the entrance hall, the front doors within sight, that a dark figure cut across his path, blocking his pathway out of the castle.

His breath catching in his throat, Peregrine plunged his hand into his robes and emerged with his wand, his arm unsteady as he directed it towards the person cloaked in shadows. They were no more than a dark smear to his clouded vision.

"Please calm yourself, Mr. Lestrange," the figure said benignly, raising his hands to show that he was no threat.

Peregrine let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding but didn't lower his wand. His quickly wiped his eyes with the back of his other hand and said in as haughty a tone as he could manage, "Fancy seeing you here, Professor Dumbledore."

"I could say the same to you, my boy. What are you doing out at such a late hour?" He was smiling, just a little, perhaps to soften the confrontation. Peregrine could hear it in his voice and was suddenly mad, madder than he'd been in a long time.

"I am not obliged to answer your questions," he said harshly, taking a few more steps forward. "I'm no longer a student at Hogwarts. I quit."

"I see," said Dumbledore. He had not moved from his position and his voice was serene. "If that is what you must do, then I can take no action to prevent it. You are of age, after all."

He wanted Dumbledore to also get angry, to raise his voice. He wanted any sort of justification to channel his fury through to the grandfatherly wizard that Riddle hated so much. Anything but this calm acceptance when his own world was crumbling, dragged out to sea like a broken sandcastle with the current.

He took another step forward, another step closer to the doorway that Dumbledore had centred himself within.

"You're blocking my way," he said. He wanted to shout at the man to move, but he felt sure there was a limit to Dumbledore's affability and didn't fancy being cursed to high heavens before he even managed to step outside.

"I apologise." It didn't sound genuine, and now Dumbledore moved into the light, revealing his ridiculous robes of banana-yellow with purple suns dancing along the hemlines. The pathway opened wide again, and Peregrine set his jaw to continue his journey.

But Dumbledore wasn't yet done.

"Before you leave," he said softly, "might I ask you what occurred tonight?"

Caught off kilter, Peregrine glanced at Dumbledore in a split-second moment of surprise. Their eyes met in that moment, and Dumbledore's piercing blue gaze gave him the sensation of being read like a particularly simple book.

Then the moment passed and Peregrine wasn't entirely sure whether he had imagined it. He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes, shoving himself forwards again.

"Nothing," he spat out, the same way a boxer in a fistfight might spit out a bloody tooth knocked loose.

Dumbledore sighed wearily and reached out a hand. Peregrine tensed, preparing to knock it away if it was intended to hold him back, but instead the hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed.

The weight was warm and real and drained him of the venom that had chased through his veins so rapidly.

"I'm sorry," the deputy headmaster murmured, as if he knew anything which had happened.

Peregrine's muscles slackened and he whispered, "So am I."

He shook the hand free from his shoulder, breaking the connection, and flicked his wand at the front doors. They creaked wide open, slow and heavy, and as he stepped across the threshold, Dumbledore called after him one last time.

"Oh, Mr. Lestrange?"

Peregrine turned his head in acknowledgement.

"I almost forgot to mention, the Tempus Charm may prove to be a fascinating point of research, should you choose to delve down that path." Dumbledore's eyes shone bright as he spoke. "Goodnight and good luck to you."

He turned on his heel and waved his wand in the air. The doors closed again with a resounding boom that echoed through the night.

Peregrine stood frozen for a heartbeat, his face like stone but cogs and gears whirling and creaking to life beneath the surface. The Tempus Charm was not one he was familiar with, and why should Dumbledore choose to leave him with this prompt? There was no love lost between the two of them, and Dumbledore was notorious for his nonsensical offhand comments. It didn't matter. Peregrine had larger issues to attend to.

Either way, as Peregrine strode across the courtyard he made sure to file away the exchange in his head for a later date. It was time to go off the grid.

"I headed to Hogsmeade, Apparated to Diagon Alley," said Peregrine, turning his head to gaze out the window. "Took as much out of my parents' Gringotts vault as I dared and left the country. Changed my name."

"To Hardwin Fjord," Harry put in, and smirked. "It's honestly ridiculous."

Peregrine smiled at him fondly.

"Changed it many times," he said. "That one was one of my most recent incarnations."

Hermione shushed them and held up a finger.

"Let's just get this straight," she said. "Dumbledore told you about the Tempus Charm ever since you've been studying it, unpicking it and putting it back together?"

"It's a bit of a stretch to say that he told me about," Peregrine said, a little irritably, pouring himself another cup of tea. "I wouldn't give him that much credit, he just gave me the name and sent me on my way. I'm the one who did all the heavy lifting. It's too bad the Dark Lord took such an interest in my research after I had it published. Do you know how many times I've had to change locations because of it?"

Ron snorted.

"What d'you expect?" he said, throwing his hands in the air. "Some bloke invents proper time travel and shouts it to the world, why wouldn't the king of domination and dictatorship try catch you? He'd probably want to put you in a pretty cage in an exhibition of all his favourite toys, and when you're not on display he'd pick your brain to bits."

"Ron," Harry cautioned. Clearly, he had not yet forgiven Peregrine for the towel face-turban.

"I'm just saying." Ron shrugged, but there was the trace of a smirk on his face. "You'd be the sunflower in the family window box."

Peregrine glared at him. It was an intimidating glower, clearly one which had taken years to master.

"Well, it was a little silly of you to publish it," Harry reasoned, and Peregrine scoffed.

"Why should all my work go ignored?" he demanded. "It was ground-breaking, if I do say so myself. Besides, all readers dubbed it a work of fiction. None of the methods were applicable to a real-life setting. Not a single spell worked."

"Don't I know it," said Hermione loudly. "I want to know why none of it worked. I followed it step-by-step, precisely as you'd written it all down, but no magical, glowing gold portals spraying unicorns and rainbows out of its arse appeared!"

Harry cringed. Ron's mouth dropped open.

"Unicorns and rainbows out of its arse?" he repeated, a little indignantly.

"That's a sight I would love to see," said Peregrine, raising an eyebrow. "If you're ever successful with that, my dear, please be sure to let me know."

"That is not my point!" Hermione all but shrieked. "What is wrong with your book? Did you forget to put something in? Is there a mistranslation somewhere?"

Harry lifted a hand to calm her, but she ignored him, her eyes only for Peregrine.

He ran a weary hand through his hair and said, "Well, I never expected it to work for anyone. I switched out all the correct spells and replaced them with fakes."

There was a long, deep silence. The silence before two armies in a battle meet in the middle of the playing field.

Hermione's voice was deathly quiet when she said, "And why would you do that?"

Peregrine huffed out a breath, as though she were being unreasonably angry.

"Because we can't have everyone nipping back in time for a cup of tea when they feel like it."

"Then why," said Hermione, rising to her feet and the room grew darker, "did you publish anything at all?"

"It took me nearly half a century to put all the pieces together!" Peregrine massaged his temples, his face screwed up. "Wouldn't you want a little recognition for that?"

"Not if it means raising the hopes of people who have nothing left but dreams," said Harry softly.

There was another extended silence, punctured only by Hermione pouncing across the room onto her backpack and rifling through the contents feverishly. Peregrine's head was inclined slightly, reading Harry's facial expression like a curious bird.

"I've disappointed you again," he observed, his tone almost detached.

"You didn't disappoint me when I was duelling Tom," said Harry. "I didn't expect or want you to step in. That was my fight, and my fight alone. I won't deny that I'm disappointed now."

Peregrine nodded slowly, understandingly, his face suddenly very tired again.

"I see," he said.

"I'm not disappointed in you, per se," Harry said hollowly, ignoring Ron rushing over to help Hermione, who had finally pulled out her wand to perform a summoning charm. "I'm just disappointed. If time travel isn't possible after all, well, the three of us are back to square one."

A light reignited in Peregrine's eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione beat him to it, thrusting Tales from Beyond into the air and saying, "Are we all agreed that this book is a pile of codswallop, then?"

"That's a little harsh," began Peregrine, but that was all the affirmation she needed to hear.

She threw the book away (Ron barely managed to catch it) and began pacing.

"Just excellent," she muttered, scrubbing a hand through her bushy hair and making it stand up even more than it already was. "Can't believe we've wasted this much time… should have known it was too good to be true… great big idiot… totally naïve of me…"

She would occasionally throw a dirty look at Peregrine, who finally interrupted her tirade by raising a hand.

"You should have said a little earlier that you were looking to do a little time-hopping," he said sombrely, but there was a twinkle in his eye again.

They all stared at him. Harry's heart tap-danced in his chest, hardly daring to believe.

"Can you–" he began, but then the whole room vibrated. His eyes shot down to the shallow pool of tea he had not yet drunk in his cup. There were ripples spreading across the clear, amber liquid. Then the room shuddered, as if something heavy had knocked into the side of it. The whole house did, in fact – he could hear picture frames in the corridor fall from their perches and shatter on the ground, and his teacup skittered off the tabletop and shattered on the ground.

He didn't bother repairing it, instead shooting to his feet, his wand in his hand in an instant.

"What's going on?" he asked loudly.

The other three were also on their feet, Peregrine bracing himself against the wall. The spark Harry had seen in his eyes a moment ago had been extinguished again. His gaze was flat as he met Harry's.

"They're here," he said.

"Who is?" Harry demanded, and the house rocked again, forcing him to space his feet apart to gain greater balance.

"It's them, Harry!" yelled Ron from his place over by the window, hanging onto the window frame, his red hair glowing like a halo in the sunlight. "But how the fuck did they find us?"

Harry skidded over to meet him by the window and blinked against the blinding sunlight filtering it.

Everything about the scene before his eyes was so wrong that it might have been funny if the circumstances were different. As it was, there were five figures cloaked in black, dancing around the dusty red dirt in the sweltering heat, aiming curses at the protective shell Peregrine had thankfully erected around the property.

Harry slipped back to Peregrine's side as the house shook again.

"Come out, come out, Potter!" he heard one of them bellowing outside.

"What do we do?" he asked urgently, grabbing Peregrine's arm. "D'you know how they tracked us?"

Peregrine's face was pale but resolute, as if this had been a long time coming.

"Handkerchiefs," he said.