Hey there!
Thanks again for the wonderful reviews, and all the alerts/favs!
Now, just to clarify some things that keep coming up on reviews/messages/msn/e-mail: the timeline of both stories (Harry Potter and Supernatural) has not been altered in any way. The Halloween when the Potter's died was in 1981. The November 2nd the Winchesters were attacked was in 1983.
Anymore than that and I'll give away my poor plot. I just wanted to come clean about the timeline. Also, this is not an AU; it's an AR – meaning Harry Potter's and Supernatural's Universes keep being the same – same problems, same class of problems, same creatures, same timeline, same enemies. What I DID change was what happens with all of them, but they are the same.
Now that's out of the way, on with the story!
Nothing you recognize belongs to me.
Renegades
An End to My Running
Albus Dumbledore was no fool, nor was he a weak willed man. He wasn't a pessimist or a negative person either, but this time – only this time – he allowed himself to think that all had gone wrong.
And once more it was all his fault.
What could possibly have gone wrong, he wondered, as he remembered Petunia Dursley feeding her overfed son candy so many years ago. What had happened? How could Harry be on the other side of the world, living with hunters? Not only that, but how could Harry be living on the other side of the world, with hunters, and magicless? What in Merlin's name had happened?
When he left Harry at the Dursley's doorstep ten years ago he had hoped for the best. He knew Harry wouldn't have it easy. He also knew the people in that house would see him as an outsider, a stranger, more than as a family member, but he had hoped they would take him in, feed him, treat him as child in need as he truly was.
He was obviously wrong.
In the last three days, he had come up with every possible kind of explanation that would explain Harry not being where he was supposed to be, and none of them satisfied him.
He hadn't even noticed at first.
In the first few days after the Halloween of 1981, he would go to Privet Drive and watch. He watched as little Harry had been pushed and shoved by his bigger cousin. He watched as Petunia pretended she hadn't noticed. He watched as Harry got less food, no hugs, less attention.
He had watched, and he had, as always, hoped for the best.
As the weeks passed by, he stopped going every day, and went once a week, and then once a month, and then stopped going there altogether. He had plans of setting up a watch there, but never did. Perhaps that was his first mistake.
Perhaps his first mistake was pretending he didn't know how Harry would be raised had he remained there.
Years passed by, and when the time came for Harry to get his letter the owl had simply gone in circles over the castle a few times, and then returned to Minerva's office, where it had landed and waited, as if she had done her duty.
It took him a few hours to find out where Harry was living now, and with whom.
His first concern was that the boy was being held captive of the hunters. Seeing in John's mind that Harry – Alex – was considered his son was a blessing that lasted just a few minutes, when he had also seen that Harry had never, in all of his time with the Winchesters, shown any kind of magic.
Not even once. Not when he had seen his younger brother get attacked by a Shtriga, not when John was injured, not ever.
But he couldn't believe such thing, this was the child of Lily and James Potter – this was the Boy-Who-Lived. And so he tested Harry the way he could, sending a spell used to determine magic prowess, expecting to receive the usual angry red for untrained wizard. He was so shocked with what he saw that his hold on the spells he put on John Winchester had slipped.
The more in control the wizard, the darker the shade of the light. It would start with a bright orange for squibs, then angry red for untrained wizard, maroon for werewolves and vampires, dark brown for teenagers already in training, deep black for adult wizards.
Light blue for muggles.
The fact that a person held no magic at all in their body would cause the spell to slip by, not affecting the person on whom it had been casted. Just like it had happened to Harry.
It wasn't that Harry didn't use his magic, as he had first assumed. It was that Harry didn't possess any magic.
And that didn't make any sense. He had seen with his own eyes the small baby boy levitate his bottle to his crib. He had seen the tests taken in St. Mungus which attested that the child had normal and healthy levels of magic.
But not anymore. Harry wasn't even a squib, who had magic but could not access it, he was a muggle.
How could that have happened? How could magic disappear… magically from a healthy magical boy?
Maybe he had been wrong all along. He had thought that in the night Voldemort disappeared, Harry had gained some of the man's power. Maybe that wasn't it. Maybe Harry had… lost his magic? The cost of Voldemort's defeat had been Harry's magic.
He had been wrong, so wrong.
There was nothing he could do now. At the moment he saw Harry, he wanted to take the boy with him to England, but what kind of life would Harry have? Being the strange boy, who had no magic, but had saved the Magical World? Being treated like a Squib?
And most of all, how could he bring Harry to the very kind of environment that he had been taught to despise, hunt and kill?
He couldn't.
He couldn't think of Harry's wellbeing in a world that would take years to accept him – and be accepted by him – when he had a war to fight.
Voldemort was going to come back and he didn't have a prophesied child to fight him.
Hearing the door open, he looked up and saw Severus Snape waiting for him.
His last act of cowardice was to decide not to interrogate Petunia Dursley on why her own nephew was in the USA, living with strangers. He didn't want to know how much she truly despised her own blood.
Had he decided to go, the whole of Wizarding History would be different.¹
†
Just as it had seemed it'd be from the very beginning, 1991 was the year that never ended, or that was how it felt for John Winchester.
The whole freak in a suit incident had been just one of the various problems that kept following the family throughout the whole of the 365 days.
Alex had fallen into a slightly insecure mode after the revelation that his blood parents had made deals with demons to get powers, and used him as a bargain tool. John didn't believe in watered down versions of the truth and in the first occasion he was alone with his middle son – courtesy of Bobby taking Sam and Dean to a diner with him for dinner, the very same day they arrived at the hunter's house -, he told him everything he knew – or had deduced – about his parents.
Never once Alex doubted that his father loved him, but he wasn't his by blood, was he? His insecurity had reached levels John didn't know how to deal with, and that's what delayed his resolve to take his boys hunting with him for the moment. First, he needed to reassure Alex that he was his son, blood or no blood.
As always, Alex couldn't keep his past a secret from his older brother, and soon Dean was trying to make sure Alex knew how much of a Winchester he was. Sometimes Dean thought that if they could only tell Sammy the whole truth he would be the most capable of helping Alex. He and his father simply didn't possess the ability of expressing their feelings in words, and while Alex could see through their actions that they cared, it wouldn't hurt for him to hear the words once in a while.
They stayed with Bobby for three days, before heading out for a few hunts across the country, and in the last week of August they were headed towards a small charming village up north, where four families seemed to have gained an amazing strike of good luck in the past months. John had been convinced they were related to witches, and as nine times out of ten, John was right.
The whole case turned out to be fairly simple, as the women didn't really know what they had been messing with. At John's warning about who exactly they were selling their souls to, three of them gave up the whole power thing, and left the coven.
The fourth one hadn't been so understanding, and decided to kill John for the loss of her coven members, without whom she could not access the power she wanted. Now, John Winchester might have the fame of being a hot headed hunter, forgiving nothing in his way to kill the Supernatural, but he did give people chances. Those three witches, for instance: once they had abandoned their ways, he had let them go, with a minimum amount of violence.
The trouble was that most of the time the things he hunted didn't heed his warnings, and then things got ugly.
His modus operandi has been quite simple since he had begun to understand the functioning of hunting methods. He would analyze the case by far, understand his enemy, comprehend what he was going up against, and then move to face it. Normally, he would hunt in a determinate area of the country for a few weeks or even months (although that had happened only twice up till 1991), so that his boys could attend school. He had never, though, stayed in the same place where his hunt was. This time he decided to take the boys into the town with him, even if they weren't allowed to hunt with him yet. He would come to regret his decision soon.
He had known the fourth witch would try and attack him soon, so he decided to make the first move, and get it all over with quickly. She was – or had been – a common housewife, but the power coming from the demons had twisted her nature, and she no longer had the right to be called human. She was a witch, too far gone to get back to her normal life, and therefore she didn't deserve to live.
John would see later that his mistake was to be so honest with Alex and Dean. He should have never told them what he was going up against – not with what Alex was going through.
He left the house a little past five, knowing it was more than enough time to get ready, kill the witch, and disappear with his boys right after. He had left them with orders to pack everything and be ready to go any moment. Sammy, even though he was still a child, was mumbling against their moving around the whole time, and Dean was just trying to get the job done with the bare minimum of fights. Alex was quiet, as he was prone to be the last few months, so John didn't think much about it.
After all was said and done, he realized he should have.
When he finally managed to break into the house of the witch, knowing her husband was out of town, it was nearing eleven, and he was sure she would be asleep. The job was easy: get in, shoot the witch, get out. The problem was, as soon as he set foot inside the house, he knew he had been followed.
Right after him, with a gun that seemed too big in his still small hands and a determined face, was Alex. His bright green eyes staring up at John with such hope, he couldn't bring himself to chastise the boy at that moment.
John followed through with his plan. He entered the house, he found the right bedroom, and he looked at the woman sleeping peacefully in the bed, the white sheets contrasting with her dark hair. Raising his gun, he made to shoot her, but before he had the chance, three shots were heard in rapid succession.
The older hunter didn't quite know what to make of the scene before his eyes. His son, his small, innocent son, had just shot a woman while she was asleep. Dark red was now staining the sheets, her eyes half open in surprise, as if she had woken up just in time to die. Alex's face was impassive, and his hands were steady. None of that fooled John though - he knew his son was a wreck inside.
Rushing the child – could he call him a child still? – out of the house, John stopped to take Sam and Dean, and drove out of the village as fast as he could, not even once daring to look back.
The gun Alex had used was still in his son's hands, and through the rearview mirror he could see him staring at it as if he had never seen anything quite like it before. Sam was fast asleep, curled up in the backseat, and Dean was so very quiet it was eerie.
It was almost four in the morning when John finally stopped at some no-name motel by the road, and told his boys to wait in the car while he got the key. Coming back after choosing a room, John gave the key to Dean with a sharp order to take Sammy inside and settle down for the night, and then got out of the car, putting a hand on Alex shoulder when the boy made to pass by him. Alex looked up at his father's eyes with his own shining green ones, and John could see tears gathering at its depth. Dropping to his knees, he pulled the child into his arms once more, and let him cry, while thin arms went around his neck, holding him tightly, as if afraid his father would disappear.
John let his son cry for some time, and then pushed the child gently away from him, so that he could look into his eyes. Alex was looking down, trying not to meet his eyes, and for once John decided not to correct the posture, they needed to end once and for all these doubts Alex seemed to be having.
"Son, why did you come after me tonight?" he asked in a firm but gentle voice, and watched as Alex took some deep breaths before answering.
"I wanted to help you in that hunt. She was a witch. She… she deserved to die." He said angrily, his hands fisted by his sides.
"Is that why you shot her instead of letting me do it?"
Alex simply nodded, finally meeting his father's eyes.
"I'm your son, sir. I'm no witch's son. I don't care who I was born to. I… I needed to prove it."
John was silent at those forceful words coming from one so small. He could understand what Alex had thought, but he couldn't simply dismiss the fact that he had disobeyed a direct order.
He couldn't just forget the fact that his son was only eleven and had just killed someone either.
Although… she wasn't really someone, was she? She was a something, a witch, not a person. Alex would be a good hunter, he knew it, but he didn't quite know what to make of the whole situation. He decided to address the easier problem first, and decide what to make of the whole an eleven year old had just killed situation later – much later.
"Alex… Son, you don't have to prove anything to me. I told you once, and I'm telling you again, I don't care what the people who called themselves your parents did, you would never do something like that. Never. You didn't have to do that, son. I understand why you did it, but you didn't have to."
Alex just nodded again, making his father think that the boy had needed to do that more for himself than for John.
Maybe Alex had just used the anger he had been feeling towards his parents to kill that witch. Alex had – quite literally – killed and buried his past, and maybe now the boy could finally move on. Instead of talking about his doubts and problems, he dealt with it the way he had seen John deal with his issues. He killed evil things, and helped innocent people to ease his own pain. Alex had done the same. Maybe this boy, his son even if not by blood, was more like John than Dean, who actively tried to be like John.
With a rare kiss to his forehead, John sent Alex inside to sleep, he himself leaning against his car, indulging in a cigarette while his sons could not see him.
He could understand Alex, and see the boy's reasoning, and reactions, but he could not forgive Dean as easily.
He didn't have to wait for long. About forty minutes after he'd sent Alex inside, he saw Dean coming towards him, his chin up like a man. John was proud of the man Dean was becoming, but what he had done that night was a grave mistake.
The boy stopped I front of him as a man awaiting his death sentence. John let him squirm for a while, and then finally made eye contact, showing with every single action how displeased he was with his older son.
"Your brother killed a witch tonight", he said, seeing Dean's eyes widen with this piece of news, "Do you have any idea how many things could have gone wrong, Dean? How many ways Alex could have gotten hurt, killed even?"
"No, sir", Dean answered, his eyes to the ground, as his father kept speaking in a low and angry voice.
"Your brother could have been killed by that witch. He's never hunted, I didn't expect him there, and I could have shot him not knowing who he was. The witch could have used him against me, could have hurt him, and could have killed him. He could have shot the wrong way, with the wrong gun. He could have had a serious break down for killing that thing. Did you think about any of this at all after pretending you didn't see him go out tonight, Dean? And don't even try to deny you didn't know, I know you did."
"No, sir, I didn't think about any of that.", Dean said, his voice going deeper in middle sentence as it was prone to do now he was reaching his teenage years.
"Alex and Sam are still children, Dean. I don't care if you think Alex is your equal in everything, he isn't. He's barely eleven. You are almost a man. Your job is to take care of both of them. I trusted you with their safety. How can I trust you again, Dean?"
Suddenly Dean's hazel eyes shot up, and he stared at his father with desperation.
"You can trust me, sir. I won't let you down."
John allowed the silence to stretch for a few minutes, staring at his son, before finally answering.
"We'll see about that. I'm very disappointed in you, Dean."
And with that, he dismissed his oldest son.
Dean took slow steps back into their room, swallowing around the lump that had formed in his throat.
He had disappointed his father, and that hurt. He tried so hard to be what John expected of him, obeying every order, fulfilling every command, and at his first mistake, John treated him as if he had never done anything right.
Only it wasn't his first mistake, was it?, a treacherous voice whispered in his head. He had let Sammy alone that night, going out with Alex, and that thing had almost killed his brother. Now he had let his brother go out unprotected, and he could have died too.
The big difference was that Dean understood Alex in a way John would never understand him. He wasn't shocked Alex had killed the witch, he would have gone after her too if he knew the people that should have taken care of him had offered him up as a bargain tool to become someone like the woman he had killed. Alex needed that to move on, and even if he would never admit it to their father, he would do it again, even if he would disappoint John again. Because John was important, and he would do anything to please him, but as John had said, Alex and Sammy were his responsibility, and unlike John, who only thought of their safety, Dean thought about their happiness too.
Finally reaching their room, Dean laid down beside Alex, who turned around to face his brother immediately.
"Are you in trouble?" the younger boy whispered.
"Nah", came the reply, "He's mad but not that mad."
"I'm sorry", the whisper was completely honest and sincere. Had Alex thought about what would happen to his brother for letting him go, he would never had gone, but that was Alex: always acting before thinking things through.
"Don't worry", Dean said, and suddenly he grinned, "Dude, you ganked a witch, how awesome is that?"
Soon the room was filled with childish laughter, and John didn't have the heart to make them go to sleep when he entered the room.
Their sons were happy again, and that's all that mattered at that moment.
†
The very last days of 1991 were some of the longest John had ever lived. After the incident when Alex had killed a witch, his boy was back to being the talkative, happy and curious boy he had always been.
And since Alex was happy, and Dean was happy… Sammy, of course, had problems. John couldn't quite decide if he was happy his youngest finally knew what he did for a living – not that he got paid for it – or if the disappointment and fear he saw every time he looked into Sammy's eyes was too much to bear.
After the Christmas of 1991², when he wasn't home again, and had forgotten to even bring presents home – in his defense he could say he had saved a family from being killed by a poltergeist – Sammy was always looking at him, observing his every action, and silently accusing him of not being there.
Sammy was simply different. Dean understood his job, and so did Alex. They wanted to grow up and be like him, save people, hunt things, make the world a better place as they were hunting the demon that had killed their mother. Sammy didn't. Sammy wanted a normal home, a common house, maybe a dog and an ordinary life. And in a way John could see, but couldn't understand, Sam didn't forgive him for the life they lived.
When he came back home, nearing midnight on New Year's Eve, he heard his youngest son say he hated him for the first time.
1991 had been a long, long year.
¹So, let me just put here what I won't write in the actual story: I had this plot when I was talking to a friend, and suddenly I thought, 'What if someone had captured Voldemort when he was trying to take the Stone out of the Erised Mirror?' Because, well, Harry took it out because he didn't want to use it. If Harry hadn't been there, nobody would have gotten it, so Voldemort would keep trying, and then someone could catch him.
From that idea to this story, I simply jumped universes, and the only thing I'm using for Renegades is the fact that Harry isn't at Hogwarts. For those of you who got curious about what will happen to the Wizarding World since Harry is not there to save them all, here's a brief explanation: Dumbledore caught Quirrell and Voldemort in the chamber where the Stone was hidden. He found a way to capture Voldemort's spirit, and ended up deducing the whole Horcrux thing by analyzing said spirit-thingy. With Severus's help, he hunted them down, and destroyed all of them except one: Harry's (what happens with this one, I'm not telling, but it'll be answered along the story, sorry).
Not being able to bring himself to kill an eleven-year old in cold blood, he decided to just keep the remaining spirit of Voldemort in a stasis state, not alive nor dead, until Harry died naturally. As wizards have a longer lifespan than muggles (which he believes Harry classifies as now), he passed onto Severus the duty to kill the rest of Voldemort spirit once they knew Harry was dead.
About Sirius's innocence and Remus's life I'll confess I'm still undecided. Maybe they'll take part in this story. Maybe they won't. Please, feel free to tell me what you think (and try to convince me of your ways lol), but I won't promise anything. Let's see how the whole thing plays out as it goes.
² I'm supposing that this Christmas is the Christmas we see in the Xmas Special of the 3rd Season of Supernatural, when Dean gets his pendant from Sam.
Well, FINALLY, I'm done with their childhood, YAY!
Now, we move on for the actual plot, everything is set up for the story as I needed it!
How did you like this chapter? Too long? Too short? Too fast paced? Too slow paced? Please let me know.
Thanks for all the comments, guys, keep them coming and
R E V I E W !