A/N: *crawls out of grave with a fic chapter held aloft* Here! Take it! *immediately rolls back into grave*

Really, though, if you're still here even after all this time, thanks for sticking with this work throughout that hiatus. A lot of irl things have kept me from sitting back to work on it, but the occasional comment emails expressing support always brought joy to my heart.

Warnings for this chapter - Minor character death! And some brief descriptions of injuries. Canon-typical violence.

Before: To fix the damage done to his soul by the removal of the horcrux, Harry travels through time, leaving his old soul behind and relying on his younger counterpart's soul to keep him alive. He arrives a year later than he intended, in 1981, the morning after his parents died and he became a horcrux. He runs into Frank and Alice Longbottom while in Diagon Alley. Knowing the Longbottom's fate and wishing to save them, Harry invites them to dinner that evening. As he leaves the Leaky Cauldron, the news of Sirius Black killing Peter Pettigrew along with twelve muggles breaks in the Prophet.

Now: Harry makes the first real changes to the timeline.

Chapter 6: Red, Red Blood (I)

Guilt settles on Harry's shoulders like a well-worn cloak, heavy and familiar.

He used to stay up at night, after that disastrous night at the Department of Mysteries when he was fifteen. He used to lay awake through the small hours of the morning, wondering what he could have done differently. Counting the ways he could have done better, been better. And then the sun would rise, rays would hit dried-out eyes, settle across his pillow… and Sirius remained dead, Harry awake without him.

Could he have kept Pettigrew from killing twelve innocent muggles today, had he been there? Could he have stopped Sirius from pursuing him? Harry will never know, since accurate time travel clearly continues to be an impossibility for him.

He glances down at his wristwatch. It's set incorrectly. He hasn't adjusted the time to make up for his erroneous arrival in 1981. What time is it, really? Is his watch some two hours ahead, or ten hours behind?

Or am I just too late?

Harry shakes his head softly and keeps his gaze down. Every angry mutter in the Leaky Cauldron regarding Sirius Black abruptly cuts off the moment he steps through the magical gate into Diagon Alley, as if he's slammed a door.

He has to keep moving. Sirius isn't dead yet, he reminds himself. The blanket of guilt can wait.

Sirius… can wait.

Harry has a dinner date.

According to the files Ron had procured from DMLE Records, they'd targeted Frank first. They'd waited until he was alone, working some overtime at his desk in the Ministry of Magic while his wife went home ahead. A fellow Auror spoke to him briefly at around seven p.m. on November 1st, exchanged nothing but friendly goodbyes before heading home himself. That was the last time anyone had seen Frank Longbottom sane.

Augusta Longbottom had declared both her son and daughter-in-law missing the next morning, and handed the Aurors one of the most heartbreaking pieces of evidence Harry had seen on file. Augusta had dropped by his son's house that same morning, as she had previously agreed to babysit Neville so that the couple could have some free time. She'd found the house already empty save for her grandson, crying in his crib. Tucked into Neville's blankets had been a note, in Alice Longbottom's handwriting.

A last, desperate note, so rushed it was nearly illegible:

Frank missing. DE past wards. At least three. Going out.

Going out, the note said, and Harry wonders what she meant. I'm going outside before they come in, maybe. I'm going out without a fight.

He thinks of Neville, tucked into warm blankets, undisturbed till morning.

The whole note had been splattered with blood, but there were no signs of a struggle. Harry assumed she'd purposely bled on the note, hoping for it to be used to scry her location. If someone had done so, there were no records of it. This doesn't mean no one tried; there are a lot of legal hoops one has to jump through for the Ministry to authorize using human blood, so much so that Harry knows Aurors have a habit of filing for permission retroactively, when they've already succeeded and there's only a need for authorization so that their actions are 'legal' on record. Whatever wards the four Death Eaters had hidden under must have concealed them from blood scrying.

Harry morbidly wonders whether Frank was already insane by the time Alice was taken, or whether they took that descent together. It takes little more than three compounded hours under the Cruciatus Curse to inflict that sort of damage, from what Harry understands…

He looks at Alice Longbottom now, this woman whom he knows would willingly submit to torture and near-certain death if it meant her son had a better chance of surviving. It's not an easy walk to take, quick as that decision must be made.

(Harry…! Harry, you're not thinking of handing yourself over?)

She and Frank dressed casually for the occasion, their robes simple, complementary shades of blue, but clearly high-quality. They wore matching black cloaks, and Harry isn't sure if they did that on purpose, if they meant to present such an unbroken front, a team even off the clock.

Alice sips her drink just for something to do, stares at the center of the table but sees something else entirely, a thousand miles away.

Night has already fallen and it is chilly enough that none of them shed their layers, but Carkitt Market looks beautiful, lit by hundreds of outdoor lanterns. The three of them are sitting in a circle at one of the tables in the outdoors terrace at Landings, waiting for their orders, and all of Harry's attempts at small talk have ended in awkward silence.

He should have known — if the Longbottoms had been close to James, they must have also been close to Sirius. It's been an hour since the Evening Prophet ran the headline, and it is clear by the look on Frank and Alice's faces that they are having just a good a day as Harry.

He wonders if they blame themselves.

But that's beside the point. They are here, with him, waiting for their orders at a popular restaurant in Carkitt Market, the chill of the evening just settling down. They are here, together, which means Frank Longbottom did not stay at the Ministry to work overtime, which means husband and wife didn't get separated, which means neither of them has been abducted.

Miserable, awkward, Frank shifts uncomfortably in his seat, but he is decidedly not being tortured into insanity, so Harry counts that as a win.

Now if only Harry could ascertain they won't get kidnapped as soon as they leave, that would be great.

And if Harry could be sure that Crouch Junior, Rodolphus, Rabastan, and Bellatrix Lestrange would be arrested despite not torturing the Longbottoms, that'd be fantastic.

Perhaps a letter. Dear Head Auror Bones, I must inform you that a group of four Death Eaters — all from powerful, influential families, including your own boss's son — is currently attempting to capture and interrogate two of your best Aurors. Proof, you say? No, no, I've none of that…

"—travels… Mr. Thomas? Evan?"

Harry is torn from his thoughts by Alice's repeated bids for attention. "Hmm? Sorry — what was that?"

"I was just saying I imagine you must have met a lot of interesting people during your travels," said Alice patiently, though her eyes were tired.

Ah, yes, his fictitious travels. The only time Harry has actually traveled outside of the UK was for his DADA Mastery thesis, which took him all the way to Latin America. As most things in his life out of the ordinary, it involved vast amounts of soul magic, and none of it is fit for pleasant, casual conversations.

"You know," he says instead of explaining all this, "I've found that the most interesting people in the world are those you come home to. I'm glad to be back. If you'll excuse me, I need to use the restroom."

"Oh — of course."

Frank winces slightly at the screech Harry's chair makes against the floor as he pushes it back, and he can feel their stares as he weaves his way between tables across the restaurant.

Smooth, Harry.

But he can't help the awkwardness of the situation. He can't help his own reticence. The longer he sits at that table, the more he is convinced that this was a bad idea. What's to stop Crouch and the Lestranges from simply enacting their plan a few hours later? Harry is stalling, not fixing.

He makes it to the restroom and locks himself inside a stall. His eye catches once again on his wristwatch.

(Two hours ahead, or ten hours behind?)

Perhaps this is the wrong approach altogether. Harry isn't good at preventing confrontations. He can't think of a peaceful conclusion to this; he cannot arrange for the guilty parties to face consequences without a fight and he cannot let them walk free either. He would take the fight directly to them if he could, but he doesn't know where the four Death Eaters are currently based. Harry only knows where they were caught, after torturing Frank and Alice into insanity.

They had been found by chance. For whatever reason, the four Death Eaters had changed location, prisoners and all, and their new base of operations — a property owned by Barty Crouch Junior himself — was not nearly as well protected as their last. The DMLE file listed Alastor Moody as the arresting officer and very little information onward, so Harry suspects the Order of the Phoenix had been somehow involved.

Too bad the Order wasn't big on record-keeping.

Harry rests his head against the stall door with a sigh. If he just knew where the Death Eaters are, he's sure he can catch them unawares — but this is all wishful thinking, of course, because, vast as his knowledge of the future is, he hadn't expected to have to deal with this specific situation and had therefore not researched the tragedy as in-depth as he perhaps should have.

He knows where they might be. He has a list of Death Eater hubs and known Death Eater residences and could hazard a guess, but that's all it would be — a guess. There isn't enough time to check all properties owned by the Lestrange family and perhaps the Blacks.

I can track Frank, Harry thinks desperately. If he let Frank get captured with a tracker on him — but no. Any wards that protect against blood scrying, of all things, will undoubtedly protect against tracking spells.

Unless… unless they're conditional.

Spells like the Trace and the Taboo are conditional tracking spells, in which they can be placed on an action instead of a person. They will not activate unless this specific action is taken — actions such as performing underage magic in a muggle area, or saying the word 'Voldemort' out loud, respectively. Essentially, they are two-part spells — incomplete and undetectable until the action is taken, which is how they can easily get past wards. There is nothing for the wards to block or guard against, since the spell has not technically been cast as one passes through them.

Of course, conditional tracking spells are as powerful as they are complicated. There's a reason that only large organizations have been known to use them effectively over vast regions, and that's because the area of land one intends to monitor directly correlates with the amount of people it takes to cast it. Harry could probably manage… one of the bigger Lestrange properties.

Hardly useful.

But… Harry does know of one other two-part tracking spell, much, much smaller in scale.

The Collector's Duo Spell is, technically speaking, a household dousing charm used to keep collections — or sets of items — together. Andromeda taught it to him during Teddy's eighth birthday party, upon seeing Teddy unwrap a 500-piece puzzle box someone had gifted him. She'd cast the first spell on the whole box, and when they discovered a couple of the small pieces were missing weeks later, Andromeda cast the second spell and they were able to track down the missing pieces that had somehow made their way beneath the couch cushions.

Harry takes his coat off in that cramped Landings bathroom stall, examines it critically, eying one of the bottom-most buttons, which is starting to come loose. He starts casting.

"Partotum."

Once he's seated back at their table — their food has still not arrived, unfortunate but unavoidable with the amount of customers — Frank clears his throat. "So…" he starts, and Harry braces himself for another attempt at small talk. "What do you do for a living, Mr. Thomas?"

"Please call me Evan," Harry insists for the third time that night. He then takes his time sipping his drink while he thinks of an answer. "I… used to teach — tutor," he amends before they ask him where he taught. "Nothing nearly as exciting as being an Auror, of course. I imagine that's much more interesting…"

"What did you teach?" Alice asks, sounding mildly curious.

"Er, just… general Defense."

"That was my favorite subject at Hogwarts," Frank says lightly. "Did you attend…?"

"Hogwarts? Erm — no. No, I — er — I was privately tutored myself." It's a bad lie, one that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny. Had Harry actually been muggleborn, it would have been extremely unlikely for his muggle parents to have the connections and direction within the magical world to be able to hire private tutors — not to mention enough money after the conversion rate into galleons. But Harry cannot claim to have gone to Hogwarts while in 1981; it's too easily disproved.

Neither Alice nor Frank accuse him of lying, however. They simply look surprised. Frank blinks in confusion, but settles into a look of polite acceptance after only a moment. "Hmm, that's a shame," he says. "Hogwarts was fun."

"Yes, I've heard." Harry forces a chuckle, grasping for a change in subject. "I've heard stories — everyone seems to have at least one. Is — erm — is it true Hufflepuff throws the best parties?"

An age-old question, hotly debated among students whenever conversation is slow.

"Not nearly," Frank says at the same time Alice says, "Oh, yes."

Ah. Harry raises his eyebrows and hides a grin by taking another slow sip from his drink.

Frank rolls his eyes. "The amount of food present does not make a party great," he says with such familiarity that Harry is sure this is the hundredth time he's said it.

Alice gives a small huff, more out of fondness than true exasperation. "You only say that because you've never had it." She places a mock-consoling pat on top of Frank's hand and says to Harry, "Frank is still bitter he was never invited to a Hufflepuff party."

Frank holds up one finger and makes sure Harry is looking at him as if to ascertain he's listening. "No one outside of Hufflepuff house has ever been to a Hufflepuff party," he says. "That's a myth."

"Their common room is lovely," Alice says with a chuckle.

"Lies. No non-Hufflepuff has entered the Hufflepuff common room in at the very least a century—"

"No one invites poor Mr. Goody Head Boy," Alice teases.

"—but it is irrelevant, because Gryffindor parties are the most fun, and that is what parties are supposed to be. Ergo—"

"Ergo, Merlin. That's how I know I've won here, Evan. My husband gets formal when backed into a corner."

"I most certainly do not."

The conversation is ridiculous enough to draw a genuine laugh out of Harry, just as their food arrives. "Well," Harry says as a waiter places a plate in front of him. "There's one way to know for sure," — he gestures to himself — "An impartial third party."

Frank and Alice glance at each other, sharing a cautious look that quickly turns amused. "Very well," says Frank — then to his wife, "You'll see."

Alice, though a Gryffindor herself, insists Hufflepuff parties were objectively the best, and believes her arguments should hold more weight as she — unlike Frank — has attended parties held by three different Houses. She describes the delicious buffets and live music present in the Hufflepuff parties as the three of them enjoy their own meals.

Frank simply describes Gryffindor parties with more and more fervor.

He describes how a few students would brave the patrolled nighttime corridors down to the kitchens, and how the whole House would greet them as heroes when they returned with the spoils. He describes one particular misadventure in which a giddy Gryffindor girl attempted to make the music louder by using Engorgio on the radio, and three other students had nearly been crushed amid their housemates' laughter. He describes uproarious games that went on till morning and tired students who refused to go to bed and fell asleep right there in the common room, between their friends.

And if Frank's voice wavers when he mentions four particular students and the pranks they would pull on those sleeping — if Harry's breath stutters, if Alice suddenly goes still — they don't draw attention to it. Frank doesn't say their names.

Harry doesn't settle the argument either way. He leans into nostalgia instead, and keeps the conversation going. He asks about Hogwarts castle, the grounds themselves, the teachers, the students, the House Cup. Frank and Alice explain his home to Harry as though to a stranger. Being four years older than James and Lily, the Longbottoms' class was the first to be hit with the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, and theories ran wild with them. They recall trips to Hogsmeade, attending the grand opening of Madam Puddifoot's, watching as the rumors of the Shrieking Shack (—the most severely haunted building in Britain—) became legend. They recall Quidditch matches and prefect duties, group study sessions for their NEWTs and Sorting Hat songs.

They recall simpler times all the way through dessert.

At which point they're interrupted by Barty Crouch Junior himself.

Frank is within arm-reach. Harry has subtly scooted closer throughout the meal; he fiddles with the torn-off button in his hand. Frank's cloak has deep pockets, and they are just… an arm's reach away.

That's why Harry isn't the first to notice. His seat is facing the restaurant and he's concentrating on the Longbottoms, how they're genuinely enjoying themselves as they share an ice-cream topped pie. What he notices is Frank's gaze focusing on something over his shoulder.

Then comes a voice from just behind him, young and casual and unfamiliar in such a tone: "Well if it isn't my favorite partners! Enjoying a good meal?"

"Hey, there, Junior," Frank says with a wave.

"Young Bart," Alice greets.

There is a presence at his back, someone leaning against the railing that separates the terrace from the rest of the market, just a foot away from him. Harry freezes, stops fiddling with the button, and — slowly — turns his head just enough to see him.

Barty Crouch Junior looks better than Harry's ever seen him in memory or picture. He has sandy hair that curls a little at the end, freckles dotting his cheeks, and is not quite nineteen years old yet, if Harry remembers correctly. He's the face of innocence.

"So this was that 'important prior engagement,' was it?" Crouch says in a lightly teasing tone. "Night out with the wife?"

Frank chuckles. "You caught me."

"No matter, Frank. Can't resent a man his life, can I? Oh, but, who's this?" Crouch turns his attention to Harry, gaze sharp. Harry takes another sip from his drink and casually avoids speaking.

"Evan Thomas, a friend. We ran into each other earlier today," Alice says, and she too is smiling. Harry wonders just how close the Longbottoms are to at least one of their torturers. How easy had it been for Crouch to simply… ask Frank to accompany him somewhere, alone?

Alice continues her introduction, unaware. "Evan, this is Barty Crouch. He works at the DMLE, in administration."

Crouch turns that angelic smile toward Harry. He has dimples.

"That's a kind way to say I provide the Aurors their morning coffee," he says, laugh just the right amount of self-deprecating to pass as endearingly humble. Beneath the cheerful veneer, Harry notices the small scrunching-up of his brows as Crouch takes in his face. "Mr. Thomas, was it? Pleasure to meet you."

And he holds out his hand for Harry to shake.

Harry reminds himself they are in a crowded market.

"…Likewise," he mutters, and engages in what must be the shortest handshake in known history.

Crouch is unfazed. "Say," he says, planting his elbow on the railing and his face on his hand, so that his stare is now much closer to Harry, "haven't I met you before?"

"I think I'd remember meeting the son of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Harry says, aiming for nonchalant. "If — I assume — that's you?"

"Keep up with that sort of thing, do you?" Apart from a brief flash of annoyance in his eyes, Crouch gives no signs of ill-intent. He straightens up. "Yes, that's me."

"Barty's keeping with the family legacy," says Alice. "He'll be the Head of the department in just ten years, watch."

"Ten years?" Crouch clutches at his heart in mock-offense. "You wound me, Alice, I'll be there in five."

"Your coffee will need to be a fair bit better if you want to make it in five," says Frank.

Crouch's laugh sounds genuine, if a bit smug. "I deliver a lot more than just coffee, thank you. Which reminds me —" Crouch reaches into a messenger's bag that Harry only just notices, and pulls out a bulky envelope with no address. "I was going to wait until morning to mail this to you, but since I have you here now… Bones would like you to look this over. Ah — just Frank, sorry."

Alice stops just as she's about to take the envelope from Frank's hands. She frowns. "Just Frank?"

Crouch shrugs. "Said it was confidential."

Harry's certain, in that moment, that this is a ploy to separate the Longbottoms — and knowing Crouch, whatever lies inside that envelope is a portkey.

At the word 'confidential', Frank frowns and quickly tucks the envelope away inside his cloak, pulling it closer to himself. "I'll look it over in private. Thank you, Junior."

Oh, it's definitely a portkey, Harry thinks. No witnesses when Frank opens the envelope in the privacy of his study, no wards to protect Frank from opening it if he carries the envelope inside the house himself, no one to claim he didn't simply Apparate away on his own free will — except perhaps Alice, whom they'd no doubt collect later.

"It's no trouble, Frank," Crouch says with that same, easy smile. "No trouble at all. Though I should probably get going."

Harry makes a split-second decision then. He concentrates on a glass pitcher, some three tables away, where a family of four is dining. He sends them a silent apology and, giving no outward signs that he's performing magic, goes for a wandless, nonverbal Expulso.

It's slow at first — a crack appears on its surface — and then all at once it shatters, drenching the table and eliciting a shriek from the lady closest to it. Frank and Alice react immediately, heads snapping towards the sound. Crouch turns also, face blank. Harry makes a show of startling slightly.

No one notices him drop something into Crouch's open messenger bag.

It takes no more than a few seconds, and the Longbottoms settle down again. A waiter repairs the pitcher and dries the table.

"Some kid must have gotten upset or something," Frank mutters.

Harry hums in agreement. He turns to Crouch, who is just straightening up, adjusting his bag. "Well, then," says Harry. "Perhaps we'll meet again."

The smile Crouch gives him is unlike the ones before, full of teeth and promise. "Oh yes," he says, "Perhaps we might."

The Longbottoms don't let him pay for dinner. He insists — he was the one to invite them, after all — but they wave him off, and Alice rolls her eyes and bids him to indulge her husband's pride, however illogical. They settle for splitting the bill and part on good terms. He watches as they walk through Carkitt Market, hand in hand, as Frank leans in to whisper in her ear just as they turn the corner into Diagon.

Harry's eyes dart to his wristwatch.

(Two hours ahead, or ten hours behind?)

Time to go.

He hurries to a dark corner of the Market, into the narrow alley between two closed stores, and pulls out his wand. Awkwardly, he casts the spell at the coat he's still wearing, "Untotum."

The coat glows briefly red. As the glow fades, Harry begins to feel the coat start to pull him forward, guiding him towards its missing piece — the button he'd planted in Crouch's bag.

It's weak, Harry thinks with a sinking feeling. He lets himself move forward with the straining coat, but the pull is hardly more noticeable than a strong gust of wind. Can he truly follow this? He's only traveled by Blind Apparition a couple of times before — during his one year of Auror training, where the tracking spells used to get to unfamiliar locations were decidedly stronger than this one. What are the chances that he'll splinch himself horribly? And what other choice does he have?

Fuck it, he thinks, and tries to give himself over completely to the pull of the household tracking charm, mind concentrating only on keeping his body together, blank of destination — and Disapparates.

He's weightless, being pulled along slowly — so slowly, he can't breathe — through the rubber straw that is Apparition, until, finally —

Rain, thunderous, so thick he's soaked completely in a second. It's cold, and completely dark; a canopy of trees block out any moonlight. Harry feels faint. His spelled coat continues to push him forward, stronger now, but even this slight pressure makes him drop to his knees, dizzy. Why is he so dizzy? He lands in what is clearly mud, but — there's something warm on his leg. What—?

Lightning flashes, just a hint of it through the trees, but it's enough. Red. On his leg, from knee to ankle, as if someone took a particularly large potato peeler to his calf, taking a gouge of his trousers and all — red. He can't see muscles because the blood pools too quickly for the rain to wash it off, but there's no question that there's a chunk of flesh missing. The blood is warm as it runs in rivulets off him, mixing down into the mud where he can't distinguish it anymore. It's warm, but Harry's cold and getting colder.

That's bad, he thinks dumbly. Where's the pain? He tries to move his leg to bring it closer to himself, and has to choke back a scream — There it is.

Harry pulls his wand out with trembling fingers — Shaking already? — and Summons the miniature trunk he'd stuffed down his sock. It nudges the wound as it flies towards his hand and he nearly drops his wand as he snaps his hand back to muffle a cry. The storm should cover up any noises, but he can't be sure. If the two-part tracking spell worked at all, he's in enemy territory right now.

As quickly as he can, Harry re-sizes the trunk and Summons out another Blood-Replenishing Potion. He chugs half of it before turning to the wound with a steady, "Vulnera Sanentur, Vulnera Sanentur, Vulnera Sanentur…"

The rain washes away the blood as muscle knits itself together — but it's uneven at places; Vulnera Sanentur is a powerful healing spell, but it works best at closing wounds, not muscle regeneration. He misjudged how much regeneration would be needed. Oh well, too late to change tracks now, and it won't be the first ugly scar on his body. There's another flash of lightning, giving him a clear glimpse of this new addition, lumpy pink skin running all down his lower leg.

Harry downs the rest of the Blood-Replenishing Potion and takes a moment to gather himself. He doesn't bother fixing the tear on the leg of his trousers.

His coat continues its insisting pull, the tracking spell still in effect. Harry shakes off his misgivings, wipes at his eyes in a futile attempt to shield them from the storm, shrinks the trunk back and re-places it back down his sock. If he's lucky, Frank Longbottom has not yet opened the envelope containing the portkey, and Harry can catch the four Death Eaters by surprise with no hostages. It's only been a few minutes since he parted with the Longbottoms, after all.

He stumbles along the woods, following his coat's pull and nothing else — only to be stopped short just a minute later.

Wards. Strong ones.

Harry readies his wand with a sigh. He supposes it was too much to ask for a household tracking charm to enable him to Apparate past such wards.

Then he smirks. It's been a stressful day. He's almost looking forward to a fight.

In the end, he doesn't have to bring down the entirety of the wards surrounding what he recognizes as a Lestrange property — due to the particularly painful paralysis curse he just barely evaded that was woven into the Anti-Disapparition Jinx placed in the wards. It was supposed to restrain anyone trying to do exactly what he was doing, and keep them in a contorted position, twisted by their own broken bones, until the master of the house saw fit to deal with the intruder. A favorite of the late patriarch Bastian Lestrange, and present in all Lestrange properties since the late seventeenth century, as far as future Aurors and Curse-Breakers had been able to tell when they'd stormed the place. It was easy enough to bypass if you knew anything about curses; Bastian Lestrange didn't invent it to be a stalwart barrier against intruders, he invented it to be cruel.

Harry left the Anti-Disapparition Jinx where it was, not wanting any of the Death Eaters to flee so easily, even if it meant he couldn't do so either. He left all Muggle-Repelling Charms, not wanting the local muggle authorities to get involved. He didn't even look at the plethora of charms protecting the fauna. No, in the end, the only enchantments he had to dismantle were the Anti-Foe Spells.

Not easy by any means, but he had enough experience tearing down Anti-Foe Spells from when he tried to renew the wards at Grimmauld Place only to find that the house still considered him an enemy, Kreacher's allegiance be damned.

(He brings down the Anti-Tracking Spells partly so Aurors can find them if Alice leaves a note again, but mostly out of spite.)

It takes him about thirty minutes. The break is barely visible — Harry can only see it after years of studying magical theory, of training himself to see it — a spiderweb-thin thread circle in the air in front of him, expanding from the tip of his wand. As if a very large bubble was popping in slow motion. The wards retreat, slowly and quietly, like a thread unraveling, all over the property. It will take a few minutes for the entirety of it to be exposed, but it's a domino effect that's difficult to stop, and anyway —

Harry walks over the property line with none the wiser.

The rain is gentler within the remaining wards, and not nearly as cold — a Fair Weather Charm, he thinks. Heaven forbid a rough storm damage the blood supremacist's rose garden while they're busy torturing Aurors. The dichotomy of it makes Harry roll his eyes.

And indeed, there is a rose garden — and some sort of fern garden, and a greenhouse — Harry steps out of the small woods and into what he now realizes is the backyard of not just any property, but the Lestrange Manor in Norfolk itself.

He Disillusions himself. There's still his faint outline visible because of the rain, and his footprints on the grass, but it's better than nothing. The short sprint across the garden is spent glancing at each of the manor's windows for signs of movement. All remains still and dark as Harry approaches the door. He hears it just as he places his hand on the doorknob — faint through various walls, but unmistakable — an agonized scream.

He's through the door and closing it behind him before the scream even tapers off, lips set in a grim line. It seems Crouch's portkey was successful.

(Two hours ahead, or ten hours behind?)

His coat pulls him forward more insistently, as if desperate now that they're so close. It leads him down the hall and past a grand staircase. He hardly notices the opulence he's come to associate with old pureblood homes, takes no heed of his surroundings past the need to memorize the way to the nearest exit. He turns into a parlor at the behest of his spelled coat, barely registering the messenger bag carelessly set aside on a coffee table, which is what his coat is leading him towards. Harry cancels the spell with a muttered "Finite" (becoming visible once again) and hurries to the far side of the room, where an otherwise-innocuous bookshelf is open slightly, revealing a hidden staircase leading down — because of course the Lestranges have a secret dungeon entrance in their parlor, of course they do. There's another piercing scream of agony, cut short, and there's no question where it's coming from.

But it doesn't sound like Frank Longbottom.

Harry descends cautiously down the spiral stone staircase and strains to hear what's going on.

"—fighter, aren't you?" The mocking tilt of a woman's voice is immediately recognizable as Bellatrix Lestrange. "But for how long?"

"Protego!" comes the desperate voice of Alice Longbottom, followed immediately by the sound of several bouts of spellfire hitting a shield. "Protego Maxi— aaaaah!"

Alice's scream is joined by a mocking rendition by Bellatrix, quickly turning into laughter.

"S-stop playing around, Bella, just disarm her," says the voice of Barty Crouch Junior, oddly strained.

A gasp as a spell is lifted. A defiant, if wavering, "Protego Maxima!"

Someone snorts.

A different male voice — one of the Lestrange brothers — says, "See, Crouch? She wants to play—"

That's as far as he gets before Harry rounds the final corner. He takes in the scene in an instant. They're in a barren stone chamber, empty save for the torches on the walls. Directly in front of Harry are the four Death Eaters, three of them crowding their victims — Alice crouches in front of her unconscious husband, one hand holding her wand aloft, the other poised protectively over Frank, cornered — while Crouch looks on at the foot of the stairs.

Harry's "Ventus Tria!" sends a typhoon-level gale of wind hurtling into the narrow room, sweeping Barty Crouch Junior completely off his feet and into the Lestranges. The Death Eaters, caught off guard, crash first into the Shield Charm that Alice erected, then into the wall farthest from the exit once Harry sweeps into the chamber and adjusts the angle of the spell.

"Go!" Harry tells her, standing between the Longbottoms and the Death eaters pinned to the wall. "Go, go!"

To her credit, Alice wastes no time with questions. She immediately picks up her husband, drops the Shield, and rushes to the exit.

One of the Lestrange brothers — Rabastan — is the quickest to recover. He sends a silent curse into the wall — the only place his pinned hand can point to — and some dark conjuring slithers its way inside the stone only to spring up at Harry's feet, forcing him to end the Ventus spell to counter.

"Stupefy!" Alice sends down the stairs, catching Bellatrix Lestrange just as the Death Eaters drop from the wall.

And the fighting starts in truth.

Here is a picture of a battlefield: The parlor room in Lestrange Manor is large, dark, and cold. One wall has windows facing the rose garden, though its current guests would be hard pressed to see it, what with the dark clouds and storm blocking all moonlight. Another wall is covered mostly by shelves filled with books, sculptures, and various expensive knick-knacks the hosts could show off. On the wall directly opposite these shelves is a grand, ornate fireplace, large enough for an adult man to stand in.

It is to this fireplace that Alice Longbottom hurries to, husband over her shoulder, as Harry holds off the Death Eaters in the bottleneck that the secret passageway behind one of the shelves has created. She throws a handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace, shouting, "Auror Office!"

Nothing happens, of course. The Lestranges would have made very incompetent Death Eaters indeed, had they forgotten to seal the fireplaces knowing very well they were going to kidnap a couple of Aurors. But it would have been tragic if they had and the Longbottoms kept captive only for lack of checking. Harry can't fault Alice for trying.

Someone must have revived Bellatrix, because she comes into the fight like a sight from hell, and suddenly Harry is on the defensive.

He hears a crash behind him. "Evan!" Alice calls him.

Harry retreats behind the makeshift barricade Alice has created out of some overturned heavy, ornate furniture just in time for a good portion of the wall creating the bottleneck to explode into the parlor.

The bookshelf teeters dangerously from its hinges, but holds. Bellatrix takes cover behind it and the rest of the Death Eaters pour into the room.

"Crucio!"

"Stupefy!"

"Confringo!"

"Protego!"

"Cru-"

"Expelliarmus!"

Spellfire fills the air as the dust from the exploded wall begins to settle. Harry sees his Disarming Charm hit Barty Crouch Junior, who curses loudly but ineffectively as he takes cover behind a couch, wand shooting out of his hand and clattering onto the opposite side of the room.

Alice casts nonverbally and hisses, "Evan, can you—?"

"I've got it," he confirms, and proceeds to cover her while she ducks down to attend to her husband, who was still unconscious. "Ventus Tria!"

Rabastan Lestrange is ready for him this time, and counters quickly.

"Sanentur," Alice whispers, running her wand along the form of her husband. "Sanentur… Rennervate."

Rodolphus throws a sickly-yellow curse at Harry, who ducks and retaliates. Rabastan uses his distraction to strike. Bellatrix cackles.

Harry holds his own against three Death Eaters for a good ten seconds.

It is, thankfully, enough time for Alice to rejoin the fight. For Frank to stir between them with a groan. For the room to take a breath. For Barty Crouch Junior to use the brief lull in fighting to lunge at his wand. For Bellatrix to —

"Avada Kedavra!"

Nothing survives the Killing Curse.

His students tended to shoot him incredulous looks whenever he gave this particular lesson, but he would only double down. Nothing survives.

It's dangerous for them to believe otherwise. It's dangerous for them to believe that the power of love will save them as it did Harry, once. Harry knows enough about soul magic and rituals to understand that whatever magic Lily Potter wove that Halloween night to ensure her son's survival included some unreasonable risks, and while her love for him was essential in it all, her circumstances are near impossible to replicate. He would not recommend her course of actions to anyone.

He cannot, legally, explain how he survived the second time.

So, whenever he reached his lesson on the Unforgivable Curses, Harry grit his teeth and insisted, barring any prophecies and curse scars, nothing survives the Killing Curse. The rest of the lesson included zero demonstration of Unforgivable Curses on spiders. Instead, Harry went over how to avoid being hit by the Killing Curse in the first place. He would open the question to the class.

Dodge.

Simple and effective against most curses. It's a strategy he's emphasized every year, so it was often the first thing his students suggested. He'd put them through countless exercises to practice their evasion skills by the time they had this lesson, and when they say it, he's confident only about half of them would be able to react fast enough to dodge the Killing Curse. It's a grim thought, and it would keep him from awarding any points even if the student expounded on their suggestion. It's an important lesson; he hadn't wanted to distract from it by bringing something as trivial as house points into it.

Yes. The Killing Curse is a strictly verbal spell. The incantation — Avada Kedavra — must be said out loud, so you have the possibility to dodge it. And? What else?

His students would fidget at this point, sensing his mood; his lessons are usually, if not lighthearted, then more optimistic than the tone he'd reserved for this one. They answered hesitantly, but they answered; he'd given them a hint.

Disrupt spellcasting.

Difficult to employ, since it requires an exceptional reaction time, but the Killing Curse is a strictly verbal spell, so it is possible to cut off the assailant's spellcasting with a faster, nonverbal spell of your own. It allows you to hold your ground, which may give you the upper hand in a duel. It's also incredibly, stupidly dangerous as a strategy for anyone who hasn't completely mastered nonverbal casting. Harry could cast a nonverbal Expelliarmus with barely a twitch of his wand, and he encouraged every single student to aim for the same. In the meantime…

Not many students can think of a third option. They'll say hide or take cover — variations of dodge — that skirt so close to the answer. He often has to say it outright, walk them through it.

Nothing survived the Killing Curse. When an object intercepts the curse's path, it is also destroyed. There is no soul to sever from the object, so instead it just explodes. When dodging the Killing Curse, then, one has to keep in mind that hiding or dodging behind cover may very well harm you through the explosion of whatever object you hid behind, further giving your assailant an opening or incapacitating you altogether.

This can work to your advantage.

Close-quarters interception.

Especially effective when your opponent has taken cover being a relatively small structure. A nonverbal Levitation or Summoning Charm at the right moment can intercept your opponent's curse just as it is cast, violently destroying the levitated or summoned object in their close quarters, forcing them to shield, cover, or retreat. Don't just hold your ground — advance, with a low-energy spell that serves both defense and offense. Use your opponent's curses against them.

That's what Harry tries to do. That's all.

Avada Kedavra, says Bellatrix Lestrange, always so eager to hurt others. But many things happen before then. Harry will go over these few seconds countless times in the next days, weeks. And every time he'll remember some detail he'd missed, think of something else he could have done. He will recall the scene years from now, wondering at all the change he has effected, and picture a sequence of events that perhaps never happened. He's running high on adrenaline and the night's blood loss has affected him more than he realizes.

Too many things happen at once. Back up.

Alice finishes healing Frank and hits him with a Rennervate.

Rodolphus Lestrange peeks from behind the love-seat from which he took cover to hurl an unknown, sickly-yellow curse at Harry, who ducks. The curse hits the fireplace behind him, but he pays it no mind, immediately retaliating with a "Stupefy!"

Bellatrix cackles, perhaps at the nonlethal spells her opponents are using.

Alice rejoins the fight in time to catch Rabastan Lestrange as he attempts to curse Harry in his moment of distraction. Frank stirs and groans between them.

"Avada-" Bellatrix begins casting behind the cover of the heavy-built bookshelf that once served as an entrance to a secret chamber in the parlor. Experienced duelists know to start casting before locking their wand on target; it gives their opponent a smaller time frame to dodge, retaliate, or disrupt spellcasting.

Rodolphus hits the ground, stupefied, and his wand clatters and rolls away. Harry doesn't register it, focus taken completely by the sound of Bellatrix casting the Killing Curse. The rest of the room seems to share his sentiment. The Aurors tense beside him. The room itself tenses, creating a single moment's lull in the fighting.

"-Ke-" Bellatrix allows half her body to emerge from behind the bookshelf, wand arm extended and steady, a manic smile on her face.

Barty Crouch Junior emerges from his cramped spot next to the now-unconscious Rodolphus Lestrange, to dive for his wand —

(Perhaps he'd been waiting for a pause just like this one. Perhaps he was eager to fight with his comrades. Perhaps he was just young and foolish and inexperienced, and wasn't paying attention at all.)

"-da-"

(The bookshelf. Close-quarters interception. A nonverbal Levitation Charm, so practiced it takes but the twitch of a wrist. Being an experienced duelist, Harry begins casting before locking target.)

— putting him directly in the path of Harry's wand.

"-vra!"

It felt strange, the first time Harry had given that lesson. Trying to teach people how to avoid the Killing Curse when he'd been hit by it twice. The more he talked about it, however, the more uniquely qualified he felt.

The curse is un-blockable. No Shield Charm can withstand it. The most powerful wards will fail to slow it down. Once the curse has been let loose, it will not dissipate, will not stop until it hits something. Your best bet is to dodge before the incantation is complete. To drop like a sack of bricks if you have to.

If you have time enough for your brain to register the green light coming towards you, it's too late. You didn't move fast enough.

Harry can at least attest to that.

A nonverbal Levitation Charm gives no indication of successfully being cast — no sound, no flash of light — other than the object of the receiving end jerking upwards at the behest of the caster's wand.

For Barty Crouch Junior, it looks like standing up.

The green flash of light meets a target, and Barty drops to the ground.

(Harry drops him to the ground.)

There is a beat of silence. Then—

"Junior?" Frank Longbottom croaks.

Things develop quickly after that. With the addition of Frank on their side, the fight becomes three-on-three, and despite how exhausted the two of them must be, the Longbottom duo are a force to be reckoned with.

The Lestranges fight like professional duelists. That is, they tend to plant their feet into one spot and concentrate their spellfire to drive their opponent into a corner — or outside the hypothetical bounds of a professional dueling stage. Their dodges are minimal, favoring by far the use of shields. Their use of their surroundings is mostly reactionary, as though unused to fighting with obstacles between themselves and their opponents. In other words, their fighting style is fast-paced, focused, aggressive, and best suited for one-on-one fights.

The Longbottoms, in contrast, have trained as a team, and are well-practiced in fighting at Auror raids, where the battlefields vary greatly. They communicate and work off of each other's spells effortlessly, and seem accustomed to trading opponents, defense/offense roles, and physical dueling places continuously, making them hard to predict. They use their surrounding liberally and to their full advantage.

Harry keeps most of his focus on Bellatrix, the only other person in the room who seems to realize what he's done.

She'd been startled when her curse hit one of her comrades, no doubt, but she pulls herself together in the next two breaths, no longer laughing. Her face is set in hard stone, eyes blazing with a hint of the madness that would one day overcome her. She sends an Entrails-Expelling Curse at him, which Harry swiftly dodges, quickly followed by "Confringo!"

Still unbalanced from the dodge, Harry only manages to put up a Shield Charm before she fires another Killing Curse, making Harry dodge even as his shield holds otherwise.

Bellatrix, it seems, is done playing with her food.

A flurry of spells, curses, and counter-curses fly somewhere to Harry's left, where the Longbottoms and Lestranges are locked in a duel, but Harry is barely aware of them. One of the sofas in the room, hit in the crossfire, briefly catches fire before being frozen along with a good chunk of the floor. Frank responds by spontaneously and violently evaporating all the ice in the room, filling it with steam, which Harry immediately utilizes by re-freezing it into thin, sharp ice spikes that he sends hurtling to Bellatrix as Alice uses the brief lull in enemy spellfire to aim a "Deprimo!" at the ground at her opponent's feet, trying to gain high ground where there previously was none.

The floor above the hidden room gives in with a loud crash, forcing the Death Eaters to either fall or scramble.

(The body of Barty Crouch Junior falls ungracefully, torso buried underneath the detritus.)

It is important to note, that humans, like most animals, become more dangerous when cornered.

Bellatrix's smile, even half-buried beneath the hole that used to be the floor of the parlor room, is vicious — more of a threatening display of teeth — as she shouts, "Protego diabolica!"

For one heart-stopping moment, Harry balks. He doesn't recognize the spell, but its relation to Fiendfyre is immediately apparent. Combined with Protego, what-?

"Evan!" Alice is shouting at him and then black flames burst forth from Bellatrix's wand like an ever-enlarging fireball.

The only reason Harry isn't immediately ashes is that Frank is fast and kind enough to to erect a "Protego horribilis!" wide enough to cover Harry from the onslaught of fire. They encase Bellatrix and the Lestranges in a tight circle of flames, harmlessly dancing on their shoulders while the fire spreads. The heat is so intense that Harry thinks every single hair in his body is singed, even behind Frank's shield.

"Protego horribilis!" Alice covers their backs, the two shields curving into a circle around them as the dark fire twists and roars at Bellatrix's command, winding around them to try to get them from behind.

"Protego horribilis!" Harry reinforces Frank's shield as it begins to crack. The space where Harry and the Longbottoms crouch between the two shields becomes so hot that it distorts the air around them.

Sweat rolls down Harry's face as he tries to maintain his shield. The fire has completely surrounded them, burning the room's furniture in a matter of seconds. The manor itself — the ceiling, the walls — remain unharmed, from what glimpses Harry can catch of them. There aren't many. He can't see the Death Eaters beyond the flames at all. It's hard to breathe as the fire takes more of the room. His vision starts to waver.

Now, Harry knows isn't quite Fiendfyre, despite the small, waifish creatures he can see begin to form on the topmost licks of flame. If it was Fiendfyre, he could confidently tell you several ways to put it out, just as he'd taught the sixth-year students who'd chosen this curse for a case study.

One, if the caster has either left or died, you could try to wrest control of the sentient fire from itself by casting the General Counter Charm, so long as your will and magical power is greater than that of the curse's will to consume. Moot, since, Bellatrix is, more likely than not, still in full control of this particular curse.

Two, you could let it die out. Contain it with strong enough magical defenses that the fire has nowhere left to go and nothing left to burn. Quite the opposite position in which he and the Longbottoms find themselves.

Three — and Harry had not known this until a particularly enthusiastic student brought it to his attention — you can fight fire with fire.

"Get ready to put it out!" Harry shouts at Frank over the roar of the flames.

The Auror looks at him incredulously. "What—?"

Harry backs away from his own shield as much as possible, pressing himself against the Longbottoms, and drops his Shield Charm.

"Emos kyopyr!" he casts.

A stream of blue fire erupts from his wand, clashing with the dark flames that surged towards him as soon as the shield dropped. Where the two bouts of flame meet, they merge into ordinary orange fire, and halt their unnatural movement.

Cold Fire — what is known as Bluebell Flames in smaller quantities — is a hyper-controlled type of magical fire which burns on the caster's magical reserves only and on anything physical not at all. It isn't actually cold, the temperature can vary from warm to lightly singing; rather, the spell leaves the caster feeling cold if they overdo it and magical exhaustion sets in. It's quite the opposite of Fiendfyre.

Whatever type of cursed fire Bellatrix is using is close enough to Fiendfyre that its counterpart nullifies its cursed effects, leaving only normal fire behind.

Which still burns.

Frank curses behind him before casting a strong Aguamenti.

The Death Eaters, visibility hindered by the burning room as much as they're hidden by it, do not notice their friendly fire is slowly turning into — just fire. Harry can tell the exact moment they notice by the startled yells that come from the direction of the hallway.

They were trying to run.

Alice is already on it.

"Stupefy! Stupefy!"

At least one of those Stunners find their target, given the thud heard immediately after.

There is a moment of confusion as both parties gather themselves, making their way through the burning room — licks of flame running up the walls now that no one is controlling it.

As Frank follows the attack, Alice grabs Harry's shoulder, roughly pulling him to face her.

"Who—" she cuts herself off, lips pressed into a hard line. "Where are we?" she demands.

"Lestrange Manor," says Harry, and pauses to clear the fire and smoke around them in a six-foot radius. "Near the North coast of Norfolk."

"Expecto Patronum!" A brilliant gazelle forms in front of Alice. "Moody," she tells the gazelle, and repeats their location.

That is a good idea. Harry's glad Alice was the one to do it; having to explain how he knew the Order's secret messaging system on top of how he found the Longbottoms was not something he wanted to do.

They could certainly use the backup. Now that the Lestranges made their way further inside the manor, Harry and the Longbottoms are forced to give chase into a household that is clearly hostile to them. Though Harry successfully dropped the Anti-Foe Spells around the property, there's nothing he can do about an old, magical household's ambient magic, the paths that generations of witches and wizards forged within a building with nothing but force of habit. Lestrange Manor seems to be full of convenient hiding places for Death Eaters to regain their breaths and sudden obstacles for the people chasing them.

They're all worse for wear by the time Alastor Moody proves he abides by his own creed of constant vigilance by showing up with two other Order members not five minutes after Alice sends her Patronus message.

Harry and the Longbottoms are engaged in an uphill battle — the three Death Eaters shooting curses down at them from the upper landing of the foyer, neither party willing to end the confrontation and run. Harry takes an unknown curse to the shoulder. He ducks behind the Longbottoms to quickly counter the effects before they spread, but it leaves his shoulder feeling rough and tender. He's sure he's lost a few layers of skin; the feeling of acid spreading across his shoulder lingers.

Moody bursts through the front doors, already casting. He finds them like that, Alice and Frank covering Harry while he deals with the curse that hit him, two Aurors against three (presumed) Death Eaters, battling from lower ground while Lestrange Manor is steadily lost to the spreading fire.

As Moody and his reinforcements move in, Harry comes to the quick conclusion, fully aware that his existence in 1981 would not hold up to Auror Moody's interrogation, that he needs to leave. Now.

Perhaps she can sense his skittishness, his hesitation at rejoining the fray. "Evan," Alice starts reaching for him, a warning in her voice.

He scrambles back and runs.

He'd like to attribute the fact that he doesn't get hit by a Stunner to his amazing dodging skills, but he knows it's luck that he staggers at the right moment.

"Stupefy!"

"Crucio!"

"Expelliarmus!"

"Depulso!"

Harry ignores the sound of battle behind as he runs back through the burning halls of Lestrange Manor. Someone's running after him.

"Blast it all — Evan! Flipendo!"

The Knockback Jinx smashes against a window and Harry wastes no time and jumps through it.

Whoever was chasing him seems to give up. Nothing stops Harry as he sprints past the rose garden, past the lawn.

"Who are you!?" someone demands from the broken window.

Harry Disapparates as soon as he makes it past the wards.

If he were in any better state, he would Apparate to two or three different places before his intended destination to ensure he was not being tracked. As it is, he Apparates to Charing Cross Road for all of two seconds before being hit with a dizzy spell strong enough that he's deeply thankful to be able to walk the rest of the way to the Leaky.

A Notice-Me-Not Charm is all that's necessary to avoid the wary gazes of the few muggles trekking the night in London. The streets are dark compared to Lestrange Manor, raging fire that he left it. That, and the adrenaline still pumping through his veins leave Harry jittery, hyper-alert of any sudden movements by the occasional passerby, all hairs standing on end every time a car rushes by.

No one pays him any mind.

By the time he reaches his room at the Leaky Cauldron, he's about ready to collapse. He forces himself to take a quick shower anyway, washing away the soot, blood, and sweat that covers him, trying to feel more like a person in his own body instead of the charged wire his heart thinks he is. He forces himself to stay awake enough to apply burn salve where needed, healing ointment and bandages where he was caught by curses. There is an anxious bubble somewhere between his throat and his heart, that ever-present awareness of his soul he'd acquired over time, ringing like tinnitus, insisting that something was wrong.

Soon, he promises himself tiredly. He'd perform the Soul-Viewing ritual soon. Tomorrow.

Harry gives in to exhaustion shortly thereafter, damp hair leaving imprints on his pillow.

A/N: Time is an illusion, and I won't be held accountable to it, really. But if it makes you feel better, I do have most of next chapter written already: we'll be checking in on Harry. No, not this Harry. The other one.