He takes a left on Wellesley, the copse of chestnuts flanking the tall, white building telling him he'd arrived on Harvard Road. The early morning sunlight catches onto the golden cross perched on the very top of it, and Harry moves the side of his palm close to the old scar, shielding his eyes from the powerful glimmer.
The street is eerily empty, Harry observes. He checks the battered watch quickly and grips his wand; he steps through the church gates, confident and easy. The scarlet of his robes shines bright under the light gently filtering through the chestnut foliage and Harry gives the outside world one last look before his figure blends into the shadows on the inside, elongated and enhanced by the candles burning hot along the painted walls.
At the back of his mind, a child, bruises along his arms and knobbly knees, stifles his cries as he hides in the belly of a similar building. Hand over his mouth, he slips behind a heavy tapestry, coated in dust and ornate with gold. There, among the pungent scent of myrrh and bells ringing on another Sunday morning, twenty-something years down the line, Harry had escaped his bullies for the first time.
And also there, through hours and hours of keeping still, his child self had become familiar with the wax-faced figures, the halos around their heads, their pointy chins searching for mercy in the sky, their hands knitted in prayer. Their eyes had watched over him as Dudley and his friends got bored of waiting and eventually gave up on finding him. No adult ever came looking for him in the deserted church by the old playground, no grown-up worried that something might have happened to him.
It's there that Harry learned he could escape, that there was always a solution, no matter how tight the spot he might've found himself in. And it was also there where he learned he could only trust himself.
His footsteps echo along the corridor, their vibration running over the wooden chairs on the sides, over the long, narrow benches bracketing the aisle.
"Welcome, Auror Potter."
There he is, in front of the altar. The man remains peacefully kneeling on the stone floor, his hands in prayer as he speaks to Harry, his back turned to him. To his right, a grand painting of a woman casts a quivering shadow over him, her body covered by her long, red hair, sad eyes turned to the sky.
His robes are different than the brown, stained ones Harry'd always seen the caretaker in. Those are dark and neatly ironed, a black, clean pair of shoes shining from beneath them. A faded bowler hat is carefully placed near his feet.
"Nice hiding place," Harry observes, polite and conversational.
The man takes his time rising, switching his weight to one knee, pushing up from the ground on his fist. Slowly, he turns to face Harry, blue eyes piercing.
"Oh, I was not hiding. I was simply waiting for you."
"You knew I was coming?"
"You're only here because I wanted you to be."
They stare at each other across the aisle, the portrait of Mary Magdalene watching over them from above. Harry's fingers ghost across the edges of his scar.
"Do explain," he says in an exhale, eyebrows raised.
The caretaker continues as though he had not been interrupted, gaze half-lost and Harry has the odd impression that the man is looking through him. "And you're only alive because I wanted you to be. As is your Magdalene."
Harry frowns at him, angry, fingers clenched around his wand. "Don't call her that."
There's something in the man's expression that Harry finds terribly deranged, a sunken sort of look about him, as though life had been slowly drained off him and, in its stead, his being had been filled by something evil.
"Witches!" he suddenly shouts, wand pointing at the painting. "Sinful, dirty, wicked witches. Men seek me, they entrust me with their burdens, deliver their secrets," the caretaker lowers his face, lips now twisted in a hollow smile, "and then God speaks to me."
Harry lets out a short whistle. "So you're simply doing God's work, are you, Balthasar?"
"You know my name, Auror Potter," he responds, pleased.
"Did my homework," Harry shrugs, feeling his body tense as the man's smile grows wider.
"I expected you would. That's why I chose you."
"Chose me?" Harry bites back incredulously.
"Yes, Auror Potter," he nods slowly, "to witness my mission; to watch as I'm doing God's will and then recount what you have seen, make them shiver in fright of the Red Right Hand."
His stomach folds into itself, an image of each woman passing through his mind, their desecrated bodies, their empty eyes - he feels rage, he feels disgusted.
A faint gust of wind blows against the edges of his scarlet robes, making them ripple, but Harry doesn't look back.
"God wanted you to slaughter women?" he growls instead.
Balthasar flicks his wand and Harry ducks to the side, shielding his head from the bits of canvas zooming through the air; the caretaker had exploded the painting above him, a headless Mary Magdalene now banging miserably against the walls.
"The Holy Lord talked to me!" he shouts from the altar. "He taught me to send the witches to purgatory. Mary Magdalene will not sin again!"
Suddenly, he lifts his arms above his head, wand between his index and middle finger, startling blue eyes now locked with Harry's. His mouth doesn't move, but, as he lowers his arms, a great black wave of light bursts from the tip of his wand and ripples through. Harry can't move anymore.
"Get down, you git!"
His heart leaps at the familiar voice before his head hits the hard, stone floor, glasses cracking on his nose. In the distance, the church doors bang against the walls as pairs of heavy boots come thumping through it.
Ron's here, Harry registers, a warm rush coursing through his chest, and the Aurors have the church surrounded.
The noise slots oddly into the background, vague shouts and cries swarming at the very edge of his hearing. Through the cracks in his glasses, Harry briefly squints at the exchange of spells and curses flying within the church's belly, and finds himself sighing in relief; it was finally going to be over soon.
"Up, Potter," Robards' bark-like voice ricochets through. As though electrocuted, Harry opens his eyes widely and jolts to his feet. This is his fight more than anyone else's.
"Balthasar," Harry roars, swifty blocking a nasty looking curse aimed at Ron's back. "Reducto!"
The spell zooms above the caretaker's right shoulder, shattering the stone baptismal font behind him to jagged pieces.
"Oppugno," he bellows, and instantly a swarm of candles descendents upon Harry and Ron.
"Incendio!" they both shout, the candles melting halfway to them.
"Oi," Auror Howel grunts, siphoning the melted wax off his bald head. Harry grimaces, waving his colleagues out of the way.
"Might need to coordinate a bit," says Ron and, looking shortly at each other, they nod.
What happens next is mayhem, pure bedlam. Bright and dark jets of light flock throughout the church and Harry ducks behind a statue of a saint, sending jinxes in clean coordination with Ron. They've always worked well together, the two of them. Through the gaping holes in the broken windows and from the edges of the church's aisles, Aurors throw as good as they get at the caretaker.
"God will punish you all," he roars furiously, raising his hands above his head again.
"Fuck - Ron, down," Harry manages to shout before the light goes out and a wave of raven black plunges downwards, threatening to swallow them.
Harry jumps forth, chest painfully connecting with something hard, and whispers "Expelliarmus! Impedimenta!" before something that feels and hurts like a block of heavy stone knocks the wand out of his hand.
An unsettling quiet falls inside the church and then, suddenly -
"Stay down, you knob."
Harry grins.
The church is properly devastated, he notes as light returns, filtering through the cracked and broken glass, the small paintings on them now chipped. The long, towering painting of Mary Magdalene, her ginger head now missing, sits in contempt above them, her hand knitted in prayer to the heavens. Beneath her, a satisfying click announces that Ron had locked the shackles on him, his knee holding the caretaker firmly to the ground.
There's no forgiveness for sins like his, no mercy for souls as dark as his, Harry distractedly thinks as he slowly rises from the rubble-stained floor, searching for his wand. It's a strange thought and one that, soon after, he hurries to forget.
He slaps the dust and debris off his sleeve, flinching as he touches over a bruised patch of skin. "Thanks, mate," Harry says and pushes the glasses higher up his nose, not fully looking at Ron.
"You're still a git," Ron shrugs, "but yeah, you're welcome." Then, his arm wavering just a bit in the air, Ron rolls his eyes and claps Harry on the shoulder.
"Alright, then?"
"Fuck you," Ron answers and grins.
Harry nods curtly at the bald barman, settling into his old spot, in his preferred dingy pub. His cloak is piled in a messy ball by his thigh, exhaustion heavy on his face and bruises on his chest and arms covered by one iteration of the faded black shirt he always wore beneath his uniform.
His glasses are still cracked and, lazily, he draws out his wand and taps them; the cracks quickly disappear, the glass now clean and neat.
"So he wanted his victims to wish for atonement?" Ron leans in and asks, his voice barely a whisper. It's just them in the pub anyway.
"I'd wager he wanted attrition," Hermione remarks distractedly, her eyes still adjusting to the dim-lit room. It's the first time Harry's brought them both here.
"Sorry?"
"Sorrow for sin arising from fear of damnation," Hermione sighs and finally focuses her gaze on Ron, his hair coated in dust the way Harry suspected his own was, "he wanted them to be sorry for what they did, but be terrified of what's awaiting. He wanted them to suffer."
Ron shakes his head, "That mental piece of shit. And he was right there with us the whole time."
Hermione's fingers pick a small piece of brick from Ron's hair, the three of them leaning back as the barman bangs three steaming butterbeers on the sticky table. Too tired for alcohol, they all agreed.
"They always are, aren't they?" Harry grunts, hand curling around the warm glass.
"I really wanted to believe it was one of Riddle's followers, you know?"
"I know, mate," Harry sighs, raising his glass to Ron's, "me too. Hard to accept there's more evil in the world besides them, isn't it?"
Ron stares at him, as though ready to say something. Ultimately, he doesn't - he simply sips his drink and Harry appreciates it. He knows, he knows so bloody well there's a lot to talk through and perhaps a lot of groveling to do as well, but now isn't the time. And they both recognise that.
"Are you preparing for a long trial, Harry?" Hermione breaks the silence, tongue dashing swiftly over her upper lip to lick the butterbeer foam off.
"Oh, reckon it's fairly simple with this one. It will be life, won't it?"
Hermione stops briefly and frowns. "They don't really solve anything, do they, life sentences?"
"Hermione, you saw the pictures of those women!" Ron exclaims, a little scandalised.
"No, you didn't understand. I didn't say it isn't warranted because, with our current legislation, I must say it is. But rather that we should search for a solution, for the kind of thing that would sooner prevent more Balthasars from emerging than lock up the existing ones," she continues, brown eyes more animated as she lays down her arguments. "Putting someone in a cell and letting them rot there only fixes the problem at hand, but does nothing to prevent the future ones."
Harry listens closely, quite surprised to find he'd been paying attention. It was so like Hermione to approach such things with reason, carefully, searching for that one solution to ensure long-lasting change. "What are you suggesting?"
"That there's also need for societal change," she answers quickly. "Educate your boys to respect girls, that's what needs to happen to prevent those very same boys from growing into men who hate women. Educate girls to respect other girls, nurture a culture of kindness and respect not only in the Wizarding society, but across the Muggle world as well. After all, it's the thought that flicks the wand."
Her cheeks are heated by the time she finishes, her eyes glinting.
"Cheers, Hermione," Harry raises his glass and grins, "you've always been the smartest of us."
Her warm breath sends him spinning, her name bursting through his lips as she takes him in her mouth, tongue swirling along his length. His nails scratch at the mattress beneath him, fingers gripping at the sheets as his other hand moves over her spine.
She glides her lips over him, takes him fully in again and Harry's hand moves to her thigh, searching for her as she kneels over him.
She moans against him when his fingers find her warm and wet, his own moan ricocheting against the ceiling, plunging down to knit with hers.
"Ginny."
He pumps his fingers into her and she lowers herself into his hand, her tongue flicking at the base, then over the tip, then taking him right in again. His mind spins, his stomach taut, he needs all of her.
"Ginny, wait," Harry breathes. She stops, her eyes locking with his, and Harry groans.
Slowly, she places her hand on top of his and starts to move it, their hands disappearing between her legs as her mouth slides up and down him once again, brown eyes still watching him.
Harry can't take his eyes off her, can't rip his gaze from the freckles peppered on her cheeks, from her lips gliding over him, from her hand controlling his, pleasuring herself as she's pleasuring him.
"Fuck," he groans and finally lets go.