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Chapter Four—Disbelief

"So, what was it that you needed help with, my boy?"

Harry found himself holding his breath. He let it out irritably. Yes, he was in a different office in a different time, and Dumbledore wasn't yet the Headmaster. The office looked different, too, without as many fiddly silver instruments and some things that seemed to be stuffed toys which changed constantly as they cycled through different Transfigurations.

But he was still sitting in front of Dumbledore's desk with a cup of tea in his hand, and the professor sat across from him with a kindly smile in his eyes and Fawkes on a perch beside him.

"I hope you can help me," Harry said, and braced himself and stared at Dumbledore, "because I knew you in a different time."

Immediately, he sensed that something had gone wrong. Dumbledore was still smiling at him, but something behind his face had pulled away. It reminded Harry of the way that Dumbledore had avoided looking at him all through Harry's fifth year.

"Pardon, my boy?" Dumbledore took a sip of his tea.

"I time traveled here from the future," Harry said, and drank his own tea thirstily. The Dursleys hadn't let him have anything to eat or drink recently, like usual. He set down his teacup hard when Dumbledore stared at him. "I'm serious, sir." He ignored the flash of pain that the word "serious" touched him with. "I don't know how it happened—it must have been a magical accident—"

"You don't know how it happened?" Dumbledore asked softly.

Emboldened, Harry nodded. "Exactly, sir. I opened my eyes and I was in the middle of Knockturn Alley—"

"An interesting place for anyone harmless to be."

"Yes, but I was—"

"Are you sure that this was a magical accident, my boy?" For a moment, Dumbledore seemed to be staring at Harry's hair, which made no sense. It wasn't as though Harry could have reminded him of anyone when his father wasn't even alive yet. "There isn't something else going on that you want to tell me?"

"What other thing would there be, sir?"

Dumbledore sighed, softly and long. "I know how it is. I've seen it in the best of my students, Mr.—" He paused.

"Po—Evans, sir." Harry would have told Dumbledore the truth a moment ago without hesitation, but he had to admit he was a little hesitant when it seemed as though he was telling the truth and Dumbledore didn't believe him.

The professor inclined his head. "Of course." His eyes darted to Harry's hair again, and this time, he also seemed to be studying the outlines of his face. "I know how it is, when your family ignores you and overlooks you. The temptation to invent something that will make them pay attention can be—overwhelming."

"Sir?" Harry repeated, stunned. He had thought that Dumbledore might be angry with him for traveling through time or announce that it would take a long time to help Harry get back to his own decade. Never once had it occurred to him that Dumbledore might simply not believe him.

"I know that you didn't really time travel, my boy, because no such thing is possible."

"But Time-Turners—"

"Would not be capable of sending someone through both time and space in the manner you describe," Dumbledore interrupted, his smile a little more patronizing now. "That is well-known, and all theoretical investigations into attempting to make the time period longer have stalled. I suppose that you will tell me next that you are an Unspeakable who has suffered an accident with your age as well as time?"

"No! I really am a student at Hogwarts, about to go into my sixth year. I Sorted Gryffindor—" Harry watched Dumbledore, but while he looked politely interested, he also continued to look like he didn't believe Harry. Harry took a deep breath. "Listen, I know that you stopped the war with Grindelwald by dueling him. That's something, right? Something I couldn't know unless I time-traveled?"

Dumbledore looked at Harry with some pity. "The war is ongoing," he said. "And there is daily speculation in the papers that I will duel Grindelwald at some point, if only because he would be unable to resist such a challenge from someone that the public might believe is more powerful than he is."

Harry gaped at Dumbledore, feeling as if his world was crumbling around him. This was—this was ridiculous. Of course Dumbledore should believe him and help him. Why wouldn't he? He had believed that Tom Riddle was really the Heir of Slytherin—

And he didn't manage to get Hagrid's name cleared, either.

With a sinking feeling, Harry realized that Dumbledore might not have been the same person in the 1940s that he was in the 1990s. Maybe it took him becoming Headmaster for him to really be kind and the kind of person who would always believe in and want to help other people, even if their stories were ridiculous.

"I—I really did," Harry said, because even if that was true, he didn't have another plan if he couldn't convince Dumbledore. He set down his cup of tea and leaned forwards, widening his eyes and catching Dumbledore's as much as he could. Dumbledore was probably already a Legilimens, right? That was how he'd sensed Riddle was a bad person? Well, Harry could invite him to look into Harry's mind and realize he was telling the truth. "Could you—could you look into my thoughts and see—"

Dumbledore jerked back, his eyes widening. "My dear boy, do you realize what you're saying?"

"Do you believe me now?" Harry asked him eagerly. How many other people knew that Dumbledore was a Legilimens? Probably not many! Dumbledore would have to believe him now!
"You are inviting me to read your mind, an activity that is certainly illegal without parental consent on someone your age. Your apparent age, at least." Dumbledore sounded like he was starting to doubt that Harry was really sixteen, just like he seemed to doubt that Harry had appeared in Knockturn Alley without knowing how he got there. He straightened his glasses. "I would not damage a student's budding mind looking for the kind of evidence you seem to want me to look for." He sighed. "Not to mention, I could not trust what I found."

"What do you mean, sir?" Harry knew his own voice was desperate, but he didn't care.

"It seems obvious to me that you have been neglected and treated so unkindly that your thoughts have begun to border on the delusional," Dumbledore said quietly. His eyes were gentle, and he looked at Harry as if he was going to suggest a Mind-Healer any second. "I could not trust what I saw there."

Harry stared at him. Then he slammed the teacup down on the little table next to his chair and stood up.

"Harry? Harry, my boy?"

Harry kept walking back towards the Floo. He kept his back turned to Dumbledore, even though he didn't—

He didn't have anywhere else to go. He was here with no money, no name that would protect him, and with the only man he had thought he could trust acting terribly kind, and not believing Harry, no matter what he said.

He knew, even then, that he would have to come back to Hogwarts eventually. Where else did he have to go?

"Orion? Orion, dear, wait a moment."

Orion turns around with a small sigh. His best time to corner Charlus Potter is going to be after the fourth-year Gryffindors' Herbology class, and if Orion misses it, then Potter will probably vanish into Gryffindor Tower and be untouchable for another day. Orion is starting to feel that he can't wait that long to know about Harry.

But his Cousin Walburga, the woman even Father has sometimes discussed Orion marrying someday, is hurrying up behind him, and it won't be worth the contretemps that it will cause with Cousin Pollux if Orion ignores her.

"Walburga, you're looking as lovely as always," Orion says when she slows down near his side.

Walburga simpers, but it's as automatic as his compliment. Orion blinks as she takes his arm and draws him along to the far side of the corridor. Nothing has ever preoccupied Walburga more than her own appearance.

Something is going on.

"You can tell me," Walburga says, with a faint flutter of her eyelashes, "because you're in the same year as he is. You must have spent some time with him. Is it true that Harry Potter is going to take over Slytherin House?"

"Where did you hear that?" Orion asks, a little sharply, because those are more concreate rumors than he expected to surface so quickly after Harry revealing that he had Parseltongue.

Walburga's face glows. "So it is true!"

"He hasn't said anything about taking over Slytherin House. All I know is that he's a Parselmouth and he isn't scared of Riddle."

Walburga laughs, a tinkling little sound that Orion has always thought of as splinters of glass breaking. Only now does he recall that splinters of glass are sharp. "That's the same thing in other words, Orion, darling, given what Tom fears."

"Since when do you call him Tom?"

"Since he invited me to."

Orion stiffens, and tries to ignore the fact that doing that will tell Walburga exactly what he's thinking and what he's afraid of. "You can tell him that as far as I know, Harry has no plans to take over Slytherin at all. He just—doesn't like it when people use Unforgivable Curses on little kids like Alphard."

Walburga stares at him. Then she licks her lips in a way that Orion can't interpret as nervousness or eagerness, and asks, "Doesn't Potter have the power to use Unforgivable Curses himself, if he wanted?"

"Of course he does," Orion snaps, with a slight sneer. "But he doesn't want to, and he doesn't think he should have to."

Walburga steps back, her hand dropping from his arm, and thinks about it long enough that Orion assumes she's going to run away and report something to Riddle. He lets his wand drop into his hand. Walburga is his cousin, but he has no compunctions about hitting her with a Memory Charm if he has to.

Walburga finally shakes her head and murmurs, "I'll tell Riddle the truth, but I don't think he's going to understand, really."

Orion shrugs. "I can't do anything about that. Harry doesn't want to take over Slytherin." In some ways, it would be easier if he did, but then, he wouldn't be the kind of leader I wanted to follow, either. "And he thinks that he has better methods of attaining power than the Unforgivable Curses." That's true, although Harry's methods seem to include kindness and the like that Orion doesn't think Riddle would understand if they were staring him in the face.

"Does he?"

"He thinks he does," Orion says, because he's unwilling to betray Harry that much in front of Walburga.

Walburga nods slowly and cautiously, and then turns and retreats down the corridor. Orion stares after her, then shakes his head, reminds himself of his errand, and hurries on to catch Charlus Potter.

"Potter!" Orion calls when he catches up with Potter in the Charms corridor.

The boy is already scowling by the time he turns around. Studying him, Orion has to admit that while Potter's hair and the lines of his face are extraordinarily like Harry's—no wonder so many of their professors refused to believe Harry was just "Evans"—the rest of him really isn't. There's a sulkiness to the way Potter scowls and a thickness to his waist that Harry will never have.

It's the comforts of good living that he can see in Potter, Orion realizes abruptly. Potter has never had to go without a meal. He's never had reason to doubt that people love him, no matter how much he swaggers or boasts.

Harry isn't like that. He's sharp and lean edges, and Orion remembers now, with a jolt that makes its way through him like a blast of cold water, that he's seen Harry hide food in his pockets and the like. Scones, hard-boiled eggs, a piece of toast. Orion thought Harry was saving them to eat in class, since he's frequently late to breakfast, but no. Orion can't remember seeing Harry eat them.

He's saving them in case he has to run, or in case someone takes his food away from him.

"What do you want, Black?"

Potter's voice is churlish in the way that says he believes he's the one who has the right to be offended, but Orion glares at him in such outrage that Potter's mouth snaps shut. The other fourth-year Gryffindors who are with him shift around and exchange glances, but none of them try to get in between Potter and Orion.

"Who starved him?" Orion asks softly.

"What?"

Potter's face reflects true confusion, making Orion think, for the first time, that if his parents or aunts and uncles mistreated Harry, Potter wouldn't necessarily know anything about it. But his rage drives him on. "Harry. Potter. Our Harry. Who starved him? Was it your mother and father? Your grandparents? Your Uncle Fleamont? Who had the charge of him and didn't take care of him properly?"

Potter's face turns a lovely bright red. "You shut up about him," he snaps. "There's no reason for you to think—there's no reason for you to think he's related!"

"Of course he's related. Look at the two of you—"

"Leave off, Black," one of the other Gryffindors says, but in a low voice. Orion glares at her, and she draws back. She's a Prewett, from what he can remember, but he only knows that from her bright red hair, not because he really knows her.

"Why should I? Harry's been neglected, and treated poorly by his family, and even now they deny his very existence—"

"He's not related to us!"

Potter practically yells the words, in a voice that echoes around what seems to be most of the Charms corridor. A group of fifth-years arriving for a class pauses and gapes, at least until Potter glares at them and they seem to decide they don't want to be involved in this argument.

"Look," Potter snaps, turning back to Orion, "has he sent you to ask for money? I bet he has. You tell him that we don't owe him a thing. He could have asked us for money when he wanted to come to Hogwarts, and we might have given him some if he was really family, but instead, all his things were paid for by Professor Dumbledore—"

"What?" Orion demands in fury.

Potter breaks off and eyes him cautiously for a moment, but then seems to decide that this is encouraging. He smirks. "He didn't tell you that, did he? Suppose that he didn't want to stand out as poor in the House of posh pureblood prats. Well, he did. Professor Dumbledore paid for them all, his robes and books and cauldron and the rest, because he didn't have a Knut to his name."

Orion can barely breathe for the distress. How did he not know this? It's true that Harry's robes have never looked as clean and new as Orion and Alphard and the rest of the Blacks can afford, but then again, very few of the Slytherins can afford the standard of the Black family. And Harry appeared out of nowhere after not attending Hogwarts for five years. Orion simply thought that Harry had to scramble to put together what he could from the stray Galleons tossed at him by a family who have done their level best to ignore him.

To hear he had nothing—

Orion blinks when he finds that he's pressing Potter against the wall with his wand against the younger boy's throat. He doesn't even remember crossing the corridor. From the way people are shrieking now, they're going to summon a professor any moment.

"You're insane," Potter is spluttering.

"You mean to tell me," Orion says, because he has to get this one thing clear before someone comes over and makes him release Potter, "that no one in your family ever gave Harry anything? Shelter, money, anything?"

"Of course not! He's not ours!"

Orion releases Potter with a contemptuous shove at the same moment that Professor Merrythought stumps into view and looks sternly back and forth between them. Orion has the feeling that she's faintly surprised to see him instead of Alphard or some other member of the Black family better-known for pranks. Orio has kept his head down these past few years after some pretty wild trouble he got into during first and second year.

Part of that is because he didn't want to attract attention or seem like he was trying to be better or cleverer or funnier than Riddle. But he knows, now, what a waste of time that was.

"Mr. Black, I want you to apologize to Mr. Potter," says Professor Merrythought loudly.

Orion thinks about muttering an apology and slinking away, but then he turns to Potter and sees him smoothing down his robes and thinks about how Harry deserves the money to buy robes like that, and rage leaps to life in him like a white-hot flame.

"I'm sorry for confronting you about how your family treats children, Potter," he says, looking directly into Charlus Potter's eyes. They're a dull hazel, nothing at all like the marvelous green of Harry's, and they widen in surprise as Orion stares into them. "Neglecting them and leaving them without money and starving them—that's a hard burden and hard knowledge for someone who's only in his fourth year to bear."

"Now, wait a minute—"

"If I heard something like that about my family," Orion goes on, smug, certain, "I would be so ashamed I'd want to talk to someone at once to understand what happened. Not go on denying it. I'm glad that I could bring this to your attention so you could do the honorable thing."

Orion nods to Potter and spins around, stalking away down the corridor. People get out of his way like they only usually do for Riddle, something Orion once envied and thought would be gratifying to have happen. But Orion barely notices. He's thinking.

In a short time, of course, it won't matter how poor Harry was for this one school year. He'll join the Black family as Orion's spouse and have all the money and comforts and fancy robes and expensive brooms he could possibly want.

But Orion is determined that Harry should receive some beneficial attention from his birth family, too. If only so they can understand what a treasure they're losing when Orion steals him away.