Title: The Boys Who Lived
Author: Shara Lunison
Beta: Batsutousai
Rating for this Chapter: K+
Pairings: Harry/Henry (OMC)
Warnings: SLASH, Eventual twincest!
Summary: The Potter twins are attacked by Voldemort and somehow defeat him. Now the Dark Lord has returned and they have to choose between light and dark. SLASH, Twincest, rated M for later chapters.
Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: I apologize in advance for the large number of lines with similarity to the scene with Ollivander in Chapter Five of HPatSS. It's rather hard to get away from in that place. :(
Chapter Four: Diagon Alley
Snape escorted them to Gringott's, the wizards bank. Inside, the twins were awed by the goblins balancing gold and gems on their scales from behind the high counters. The Professor presented a small gold key to one of them and within moments they were rolling through the twisting underground passageways to reach the Potter vault. The goblin, whose name was Griphook, opened the door to reveal a huge mound of gold, silver, and bronze coins. Both boys filled a small bag with a little of each as Snape explained the particulars of wizard gold.
"The gold ones are galleons, silver sickles, and bronze knuts. Seventeen sickles to the galleon, twenty-nine knuts to a sickle. You'll be wanting more galleons for this trip, since you're getting all of your first-year supplies."
When they were finished, they traveled the mine tracks back to the surface where a great giant of a man was waiting for a goblin to return to take him to his vault. To their surprise, Snape stopped to greet him before they continued:
"Hagrid. What brings you here?" Severus asked.
"Business for Professor Dumbledore." Hagrid beamed proudly. "Sent me to retrieve the you-know-what in vault 713."
"Did he?" Snape murmured.
"Excuse me, Hagrid, sir. Do you know the Headmaster?" Harry asked curiously.
"Know 'im?" Hagrid boomed, "Why, 'e's the greatest 'Eadmaster 'Ogwarts 'as ever 'ad! Trusted me with an important mission, 'e did." The giant man peered down at them a moment later, realizing that he didn't know who had been asking. His eyes widened a second later, "Blimey! The Potter twins. Why, I 'aven't seen you two since you were nigh on 'bout a year old, the both of ya." And before either Harry or Henry could react, they had been pulled into a musty, furry hug by the Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts.
"Hagrid, put them down. We need to be getting on with their shopping, and I don't have all day," Snape interrupted.
"Oh, o' course, Professor. Sorry, kids, just couldn' help meself, it's been so long since I seen ya. Take care!" Griphook led the man into the mineshaft and Snape motioned impatiently for them to get going the opposite direction.
"We'll do uniforms first, then books, then all of the other supplies you'll need. Follow me." He moved off at a fast clip through the crowd of wizards and witches. Harry and Henry were hard-pressed to keep up. At last they stopped outside of a shop called Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Go on in, I'm sure Madame Malkin will know what you need. I have a… request," here the Professor sneered, "that Professor Dumbledore asked me to take care of. I'll be right back."
Left alone at last, the twins made their way into the shop where a middle-aged witch, who was looking quite frazzled, immediately pounced on them. "Hogwarts, dears? Step on up!" She motioned them onto two black stepstools and motioned her wand at two measuring tapes, which immediately began to whip around them in a frenzied state.
A third boy was being fitted with his own robes on a stool beside them. "You're for Hogwarts as well?" he asked.
"Yes," The twins replied simultaneously.
"My parents are next door picking up my books. As soon as I'm done here I'm going to drag them off to look at the newest broom, the Nimbus Two Thousand. Do you play quidditch? It's a shame that first-years aren't allowed on the teams."
"Er…" Harry mumbled, unsure what to say.
"What's quidditch?" Henry asked.
"What's quidditch!?" the boy asked incredulously. "Don't tell me you're muggleborns?" His nose wrinkled distastefully at the thought of consorting with them if that were the case.
"No," Harry said quickly, "Both our parents were magical, but we were raised by muggles. They didn't see fit to tell us about any of this until our Hogwarts letter came."
"So that's the way of it. My name is Draco Malfoy, I'm a pureblood." The boy, now finished with his fitting, held out his hand for both of them to shake. Henry did so readily enough, but Harry only stared at the offensive hand for several moments until his brother nudged him sharply in the ribs. He grudgingly took the hand. Draco looked at the front of the shop as they heard the bell jingling. "There are my parents now. Oh, and…"
Professor Snape had entered the shop with the Malfoys. Draco's parents were quite similar in coloring, both blond and regal in appearance. Draco clearly took more after his mother, however.
"Professor Snape." The twins greeted their guide respectfully. "Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy."
"That's you done, dears." Madame Malkin told them. They quickly hopped down from the stools to join the adults.
"Lucius." Snape inclined his head slightly to the Malfoy partriarch.
"Severus. Running errands for the Headmaster again?" Lucius glanced down at the twins with a raised eyebrow. "The Potters? But of course."
Strangely, Snape shifted his weight slightly to move subtly in front of Harry and Henry. "Just collecting their school supplies. Their guardians were…unable to come."
Draco, meanwhile, was looking at them with wide eyes now that he knew who they were. But with his father so close, he didn't dare say anything to them or ask how the boys who lived had been raised by muggles.
Severus finished saying something to Lucius and beckoned the twins to follow him. "Come along, the bookstore is next door."
He followed them both closely, and prevented Henry from running off and exploring the stacks of books by himself. "Stay together!" he snarled when they tried to protest, "I can't keep an eye on both of you if you go off by yourselves."
Sensing that the professor was worried about something, they obeyed him after that. Henry, of course, still ogled more books than Harry would ever have even a passing interest in. When the Professor tried to stop him from buying extras, "Stick to the first-year texts, Mr. Potter," Henry just turned and leveled his best glare at the man until he backed off, then purposefully dropped the three volumes in his hands into their shopping basket.
"Hen, come on!" Harry whined after his brother spent ten minutes gleefully perusing the section on curses and their counters.
"All right, all right," Henry agreed, "But the next time we come by ourselves, I'm going to stay as long as I like."
"Fine. Can we just go, already? Remember, the Professor doesn't have all day."
Henry snuck a guilty glance at the Professor, only to catch the fleeting edge of what he could swear had been a smile and a muttered comment about "Lily". Putting two and two together, he casually asked as they were checking out, "Did you know our mother, Professor?"
Snape frowned caustically at him, before giving in with a resigned sigh. "Yes. We were good friends as children. I used to live right next to Lily and Petunia. Of course, all that changed when James Potter came into the picture." The man snapped his jaws shut after that, refusing to say anymore.
When they had gotten their wrapped parcels tied together and were leaving, Snape spoke once more, "I did not have a chance to finish my task before I spotted Lucius and Narcissa making their way to the robe shop. It was Dumbledore's wish that the professors could buy you a birthday present, and he suggested that we get your pet animals. Since I was interrupted, I see no reason why you can't pick them yourselves."
Both boys' eyes' lit up with joy. They had never had a pet before, and now it seemed they would each be getting one. Moments later, Snape led them in the Magical Menagerie.
"Do keep in mind, Messirs Potter, that students may only have an owl OR a cat OR a toad. Though there have been exceptions." Snape said, remaining near the door of the shop while they made their selections.
Harry quickly made his way to the owls. Mrs. Figg had explained a bit more about the wizarding form of mail to them, and he wanted to be able to keep in touch with his friends during the summers. At least, he hoped he would make friends.
A snowy white owl caught his eye. She hooted gently at him and, grinning, Harry took her cage down and returned to the front of the store.
Henry, on the other hand, had been intrigued by snakes ever since their adventure in the zoo earlier that summer. Although he had heard Snape's warning about the allowed pets, he just couldn't help looking anyway. Besides, he and his brother wouldn't need more than one owl and he knew that was what Harry intended to get.
That was how he found a Quetzalcoatl winged snake curled up in its terrarium in the dark back corner of the store. Gently touching the glass enclosure, he watched as a vibrant blue eye peered open and the opalescent white scales uncoiled, revealing a line of steel gray feathers along the snake's spine. The wings were located just behind the head joint, covered in the same soft gray feathers.
"Hello," Henry whispered, unconsciously using Parseltongue.
The snake's eyes widened a bit at being confronted with a Speaker. "Hello, Ssspeaker," he answered. "Have you come to free me?"
"I would like to," Henry answered sadly, "But we aren't really allowed to have sssnakes at ssschool."
"What petsss are you allowed, Ssspeaker?"
"Owls, cats, and toads," the boy answered distastefully.
The snake laughed a sibilant hiss of syllables. "Then free me. I will come with you as a cat." With that, the snake's scales began to shift, changing to a soft white fur with spots of gray along his back. The pale blue eyes kept their slitted appearance but grew wider, framed by whiskers and a small heart-shaped nose. "Meow!" the cat ordered him insistently.
Realizing that the cat was now too large for the terrarium, Henry hurried to remove the cover, gently picking up the cat in his arms. "How did you do that?" he asked.
"I am a Quetzalcoatl, young Ssspeaker. Named after the god of the Aztecsss. I have many abilities that I do not know how to explain."
"All right. I'll sssee if I can find the time to research snakes at ssschool, then." Henry smiled, scratching the cat under his chin and feeling the rumbling purr in response. "Do you have a name?"
"Ssserasssh," the snake hissed, still enjoying the scratching sensation.
"Serash," Henry said in English. "Come along then, and I'll free you." He returned to the front of the store.
"Finished?" Snape asked. Both boys had returned now. He noted their choices, a snowy owl and a gray cat. Satisfied, he asked the shop owner how much.
"Fer the owl, ten galleons. The cat…" the owner stopped, looking at the cat in Henry's arms with confusion.
"What is it?" Snape asked impatiently.
The owner startled. "Er… nothing, sir. Just didn't realize I had any gray cats left. The cat'll be another five."
Snape handed over the money and asked for a carrier for the cat as well. When the transaction was completed, he led the boys back into the street to continue their shopping.
"All that's left are your potions things, two trunks, and your wands."
They followed the Professor into the Apothecary next, where he ordered two sets of ingredients for first-year students. "I teach Potions," he informed them, "You will not, under any circumstances, buy extra ingredients that are not included in your yearly set." They also picked up their scales, cauldrons, and crystal phials to store their potions in the Apothecary as well. "Telescopes and trunks." Snape said, leading them to their last stop, Sterling's Sundries. Each of them selected a single black steamer trunk edged in silver and piled all of their purchases inside. The Professor shrunk these and pocketed them.
"Now, there's only one place to get wands. Ollivander's."
They entered the dusty shop to find it empty except for a counter and a single rickety chair which Snape immediately sat in and crossed his legs. The twins walked forward hesitantly, eyeing the tall shelves full of thin little boxes in a variety of colors.
"Messirs Potter," a voice said softly out of nowhere. They turned to see an old man with pale, wide eyes shining like moons from his wrinkled face. He studied them with an odd smile on his face, "Yes, I thought you would be in soon. You have your mother's eyes, just as they say." He moved closer, studying the mark on Harry's right cheek and the one on Henry's left. A finger moved forward to hover over the younger twin's face. "And that's where… I'm sorry to say that I sold the wand that did it. Yew, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Very powerful."
The twins exchanged a brief glance at that, but Ollivander continued.
"Well now, Messirs Potter. Which are your wand arms?"
Harry immediately held out his right, but Henry seemed unsure. "Er… I write with my right, but it seems strange somehow to hold a wand like a pencil."
"Ah! You are one of those, I see." Henry frowned in response. "Very well, let us begin the testing." The old man began to pull down boxes, removing the dusty covers so that each boy in turn could take the wand inside. The first one that Harry tried shot out sparks that exploded a vase behind the counter. Henry caused the only lantern in the shop to shoot upwards and slam itself into the wall.
It took a half dozen more tries before Ollivander tapped his lips, saying, "I wonder…" he disappeared into the back of the shelves and returned with an especially dusty box. Pulling open the lid, he announced, "Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches."
Both twins reached for it at the same time, Henry's left hand and Harry's right landing on it at the same moment. A swirling rush of magic surged through the room and multicolored sparks shot around them. They both felt the oddest surge of power that quickly dissipated as they reflexively dropped the wand back into the box.
"How odd," Ollivander mumbled. He motioned for Henry to take it. The boy obliged, but nothing happened. Harry picked it up as well with the same result. Exchanging a glance, they both picked it up at the same time again, and experienced the same swirl of magic as before. The shop owner removed it from their hands after a few seconds, replacing it in the box and wrapping it in brown paper with a wave of his hand. "Very odd, indeed. It so happens that the phoenix who gave the feather in that wand gave one other. Just one. And that wand, why it gave you those scars."
Harry looked at the wrapped box sadly, while Henry tried to appear stoic.
"But, that doesn't help us with the problem of your wands. I feel it would be best if you took that one, since you had such a strange reaction to it. I've never seen a wand react to two wizards touching it, but neither one by themselves. But your own wands must be here somewhere. Let's keep looking, shall we?"
Twenty minutes later, the selections had been made. For Harry, there was a twelve inch mahogany wand with a dragon's heartstring. Henry's was ebony, a slim and slender ten inches with a unicorn tail hair inside.
"Twenty-one galleons." Ollivander announced happily, receiving payment from Snape, who was holding their moneybags.
"All right, then," the Professor looked down his nose at them again. "I shall return you to your relatives now. They will deliver you to the station on September the first. Do you know how to reach the platform?"
The boys shook their heads in confusion.
Sighing, Snape handed them their tickets. "Platform nine and three-quarters is between platforms nine and ten. All you have to do is walk through the barrier between them. Look about for other wizarding folk if you have trouble." By this time they had reached the Leaky Cauldron once more. The Professor motioned them towards the fireplace. "Just ask for Mrs. Figg's."
One behind the other, the twins used the floo powder and returned to Privet Drive.