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: Sorry for the long wait, I just moved cross country from Virginia to Colorado!! I've been spending the last several weeks getting settled with Batsutousai and trying to find a job. Given that most companies are trying to get rid of people rather than hire them, I'm stuck waiting and being stressed out, so I hope you'll forgive the long wait on this post.
Chapter Six: Explorations
The next morning, Henry awoke with the other boys in his dormitory and joined them in the loo for showers and other ablutions. He snickered quietly as he watched Draco meticulously slicking down his thin blond hair and joined Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, and Zabini in some good-natured jostling for the other three mirrors above the sinks.
There was nothing to be done about his own messy black hair, of course, so he returned to the room and began gathering supplies for the first day of classes the next day (term this year would begin on a Sunday, so the students had the chance to relax the first weekend in the school.) Just as he was bending over his trunk for the last time, rustling around the compartments trying to find his box of quills, a sharp pain stabbed him directly over his heart, causing him to clutch his chest and rub the spot as though it were a sore muscle. An image of Harry suddenly popped into his head and he bit his lip, worried that this was a sign that something had happened to his twin. The pain faded a bit, but remained a low ache that was quite distracting.
Luckily Draco had finally emerged from the bathroom and Henry hustled the boy into his clothes so that they could rush down to the Great Hall for breakfast (and so that Henry could surreptitiously see if Harry was all right).
The walk up from the dungeons was a short one as the Slytherin dorms were actually the closest to the entrance of the castle. The head table was fully populated and Professor Snape stood from his place as his first years trickled in, a thick sheaf of papers in his hands.
Henry glanced across the hall at the Gryffindor table, relieved to see that Harry was sitting there, even if he was picking morosely at his food. As he watched, the other boy turned and pierced him with an identical green gaze and both of them visibly relaxed. The pain that had been gripping him for the last fifteen minutes slowly evaporated away. Was it just because Harry was upset with him that it had happened?
Draco tugged him down onto the bench, which caused him to face away from Harry. Sighing, Henry slid a few bangers onto his plate as well as a spoonful of eggs before digging in. His new friend frowned beside him and thickly buttered a slice of toast then slathered it in jam and placed it on an empty corner of Henry's plate.
"What's that for?"
"Eat it. You're too thin and you need to fatten up a bit," Draco reprimanded him.
Henry's eyebrows drew down slightly, but when he had finished the rest of his meal, he did pick up the toast and nibble slowly at it until he had eaten most of it. By that time, Professor Snape had worked his way down the table to the first years and was beginning to pass out schedules to them all.
"Malfoy." He handed the slip of parchment to the blond boy.
"Potter." He sneered down at Henry and handed him the next sheet.
"Crabbe." He moved on down the line.
"We've don't have Potions until Friday!" Draco said, disappointed. "But it's with Gryffindor anyway. Double period, too." He groaned.
Henry grinned. "Yeah, but after that we've got the rest of the day to ourselves. That should be all right, don't you think?"
"Prolly just get our homework done, then we can spend the rest of the weekend exploring the castle," Draco mused.
He laughed. "I like the sound of that, even if it means homework. You don't think they'll let us off easy for the first week, do you?"
"Nah. Especially Professor Snape. We'll have at least a foot or two to write for him, you mark my words."
Henry dropped the last bit of his toast back onto his plate. "That's just ruined my appetite, that has. Come on, let's explore a bit today first."
The two boys, sans their dorm mates, made their way out of the great hall and began to wander the halls, getting hopelessly lost and learning their way around in the process.
"What was it like, growing up with Muggles?" Draco asked after they had walked past a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy for the third time.
Henry stopped, looking up and down the passage they were in and trying to figure out how to get back to the main part of the castle. "Like growing up with anyone, I expect. If you discount the sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs, the starvation, and the verbal abuse."
"Blimey," Draco whispered, "I can't even imagine."
Henry shrugged and walked back and forth in front of the tapestry a few times, trying to decide which of the corridors on either side of it they hadn't tried yet. They both looked exactly the same to him. He rubbed his chest for about the millionth time. The pain had come back shortly after he left the great hall.
"Whoa!" Draco cried.
"What?"
The other boy was pointing at the door in the wall opposite the tapestry. "That door just appeared out of nowhere as you walked past."
Henry frowned. That door looked awfully familiar. He strode forward and turned the old-fashioned brass knob and opened the door to find… his cupboard?
"Why would a broom cupboard appear out of nowhere?" Draco asked. "And why is there a bed in it?" The blond boy ducked his head under the angled doorjamb and turned around in the small space. "Hang on, there's pictures in here!"
Henry crowded in and looked at the wall by the door. All of he and Harry's primary school pictures were there, including his twin's prized artistic masterpiece of the two of them riding a flying motorcycle. "It's impossible," he breathed.
"What, what is it?" Draco asked. He had pulled out his wand and cast Lumos to see the pictures better.
"This is our cupboard. This is where I slept with Harry for ten years. These are our pictures, but Harry took them down before we left because Dumbledore promised not to send us back there."
"But why would it be here, in Hogwarts?"
"I don't know." Henry tugged his bottom lip with two fingers. "Budge out, now. I want to try something." Both boys left the room and he closed the door. It disappeared almost immediately back into the wall. "Now, think of someplace you want to be really badly and walk back and forth in front of the tapestry a few times."
Draco did as he was told, his forehead creased in concentration. After his third pass, a new door appeared in the wall--an ornately carved wood paneled door. Opening it this time revealed a large and comfortable room with elegant green furniture, a roaring fire, and two steaming cups of hot chocolate waiting on a coffee table in the middle of the arrangement.
"Is this somewhere in your house?" Henry asked.
"No, I was thinking of the Slytherin common room. But this looks loads better." The pureblood waltzed in and settled into one of the chairs, grabbing one of the mugs and taking a cautious sip. "It's delicious, Henry! Come see!"
Henry closed the door and joined his friend in the opposite arm chair, taking the second mug for himself. Looking around, he asked, "What, exactly, were you thinking about?"
Draco shrugged. "Just that I was tired and would like to go back to the comfort of the common room and have a nice cup of hot chocolate." He raised his mug in a toast.
"Then that means, it doesn't show you places that actually exist, it gives you whatever you need at that moment in time. Whatever you're thinking of that you really need."
His friend frowned. "But why did you need the cupboard?"
Henry looked away. "The cupboard was our safe place in that house. I've been feeling kind of strange since this morning. I've got this ache that just won't go away." He rubbed his chest to show Draco what he meant. It seemed to be growing stronger every minute.
"Then let's go, you should head to the hospital wing and make sure it's nothing serious."
"The hospital wing? I don't want to be poked and prodded on my first day in the castle!"
But Draco wouldn't take no for an answer and was soon dragging Henry away from the magic room and back towards what he hoped was the rest of the castle and the hospital wing.
Harry's morning had not been going particularly well. He had awoken with a strange ache over his heart and the sense that he needed to see Hen right away. But of course, once he'd gotten Ron out of bed, the redhead only had breakfast on his mind and kept trying to reassure Harry that Henry would come to the great hall and he could see him there.
Well, Ron was right, and while the feeling dissipated when he saw Henry, it didn't make Harry feel any better. The feeling was so strange and weird, nothing like he'd ever felt before. He watched from a distance as Hen and his friend left the great hall and was somehow not surprised when the ache came back a few minutes later.
Once Ron had finished his second helping, the two set out to explore some of the castle. They chose, strangely enough, the dungeons. (And incidentally, a certain bushy-haired young witch decided to follow them.)
And so it was that when the twins were at opposite ends of the castle, Henry in the seventh floor corridor and Harry in the deepest, dankest corner of the dungeons, the achy feeling they'd been fighting all morning suddenly tripled in strength. Harry doubled over and screamed--scaring Ron so bad he almost pissed his pants. While on the seventh floor, Draco barely managed to catch Henry as he cried out, clutching his chest and feeling his legs give out beneath him. It was only because of their friends (Ron was joined by the bushy-haired witch and they mostly carried Harry to the hospital, while Draco had the presence of mind to cast a levitation spell that by all rights he shouldn't have known yet) that they made it to the hospital wing at all, and Madame Pomfrey was beside herself as she tried to figure out why both of the Potter twins were screaming at the same time.
Dumbledore swept in as the mediwitch silenced them to protect their vocal cords and everyone in the room shuddered to see the boys silently screaming. The Headmaster waved his wand over them a few times, and seemed particularly interested in the scars on their cheeks. But he frowned a moment later and told Madame Pomfrey to, "Place them on the same bed and join their hands together."
"Headmaster, I really don't think that would be wise in their current state. Not to mention that this is a hospital ward and patients simply cannot…"
He ignored her tirade and levitated Henry into Harry's bed and placed their hands together himself. The silent screams stopped immediately.
"My word…" she whispered.
"Run along now," the Headmaster told Ron, Draco, and the witch who had identified herself as Hermione Granger, "They'll be just fine now, but they need their rest. I think they'll be fit enough for classes tomorrow."
The three filed out of the room as the mediwitch laid into Dumbledore again, "Headmaster, this is my hospital and I say when and if patients may leave."
"With all due respect, Madame Pomfrey, do you have any idea what's wrong with them?" Dumbledore asked, a sparkle in his eyes.
"No." Pomfrey snapped, "But you must, since you got them to stop screaming."
"Then perhaps you should let me be the judge of whether they will be fit for classes tomorrow or not."
She huffed and stomped out of the room and into her office, slamming the door behind her.
The Headmaster smiled and turned to the twins on the bed. "Enervate," he said, calmly waving his wand.
The boys awoke and looked at one another in confusion. Henry tried to speak first, but no sound came out.
"Ah," Dumbledore said, "Finite Incantatem."
"What happened? What's going on?" Harry asked.
"It would seem that something a bit untoward has happened to you."
"And?" Henry asked.
The Headmaster smiled. "I cannot say for sure without finding the correct spell to test for it, but I believe the problem is that your hearts, your very souls, have been bound together."
"WHAT?" both boys cried.
"By who?" Henry asked.
"By Voldemort."
There was a long moment of dead silence as they digested that.
"You mean, the night he attacked us? The night we somehow lived? But how? Why?" Harry cried.
"Oh, do not mistake me, boys. It was almost certainly a complete accident on his part. Though it does answer some of my questions from that night, and raise a few new ones." The Headmaster looked pensive, troubled even.
"Well, how do we fix it? I assume this is what has been causing us to be in pain all day?"
Dumbledore shook his head. "It is as irreversible as a soul bond. Bound to one another for the rest of your lives, and clearly incapable of being separated by great distance for any length of time. We will simply have to find a way to cope."
Harry looked at his brother and gave him a half-smile that was reluctantly returned. "Truce?"
Henry sighed. "Truce." He smiled indulgently as he suddenly found his vision blocked by a head of tousled black hair and a pair of arms gripping him around the middle for dear life. He looked up to see the Headmaster twinkling at them, a bit of sadness at the back of his eyes. "But Professor, how are we going to make this work? We're in different houses. We have different schedules. Different friends."
"Well," Dumbledore said brightly, "The Sorting Hat has been encouraging me to promote inter-house unity for some time now. Perhaps you two can help be the start of that. For now, rest. I believe that your schedules tomorrow are similar enough that you can attend classes together. I'll meet with your heads of houses and arrange for a more long-term solution."
"All right." They answered, settling back into bed again.
"Good. I'll have the house elves pop up with some lunch for you in a few moments. And don't be surprised when the Madame reemerges as soon as I'm gone and runs her own tests. Goodbye for now!"
"Goodbye Professor," Hen answered.
When he was gone, Harry ventured to ask, "Hen? What's a house elf?"
His brother shook his head. "No idea."
The matron of the ward did indeed pop out as soon as the Headmaster had left, demanding an explanation. When she found out they were soul bonded, her face went quite pale and she stopped running her incessant tests immediately. "That does explain things," she said, smiling at them sadly.
A few moments later, they found out that house elves were tiny little creatures with large eyes and floppy ears that had some sort of weird propensity towards wearing tea towels and were the magic that made the Hogwarts kitchens run. Their delicious lunch was chased by a mild sleeping potion that Pomfrey gave them, saying that they would be awake in time for dinner and that they would then be allowed to leave the hospital wing. Neither of them fought her after that promise.
Several hours later, they followed their noses back down to the great hall and then stopped, unsure if they would be all right sitting at their own tables but also unable to decide which one to pick if they sat together. They were saved by the approach of Professors Snape and McGonagall.
"We have discussed the situation with the Headmaster and have determined that for the time being you will eat meals and share dormitories with the Gryffindors on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Slytherins on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and alternate Sundays," Mcgonagall informed them.
"Classes," Snape sneered, "For tomorrow will be shared, and after that we will begin trying to determine if the distance between each of your lessons is a problem. If possible, we will simply have you stay near one another when you can and relocate those classes that are too far apart."
"Well, today's Sunday." Harry pointed out. "Which table should we sit at?"
McGonagall smiled. "I suggest that you inform your friends and dorm mates of the situation first and then make your decision."
"Your things will be moved each day accordingly," Snape said, and then stalked off.
The Gryffindor head sighed in exasperation. "Go on then, dinner's just started."
"It's all well and good to tell them first, but if we decide now we can tell whoever we're not spending the night with first and then tell the others as we eat," Henry suggested.
"Right. Rock, paper, scissors?" Harry asked. It was how they usually decided whose turn it was for Vernon's newest list of chores.
They went several rounds, but eventually Henry won, which made Slytherin the winner for this Sunday.
"Right." Harry muttered. "Let's go tell the Gryffindors."
They approached the red and gold table and Harry leaned over the far end of it where most of the first years were seated.
"Harry!" Ron cried, "Are you all right? Gave me a right fright when you started screaming like that." The other first years who knew him clamored for news of his health.
"Listen, mates," Harry called over them, "I've got some bad news. It turns out that Henry and I are bonded to one another. We can't have too much distance between us or we end up being in pain. So the Professors have decided that we'll alternate what days we eat and sleep with Gryffindor and Slytherin. I'll be with you on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and alternate Sundays with the Slytherins. Hen won for today, so it's the Slytherins tonight."
Everyone stared at them, speechless. Finally, Ron spoke. "Blimey, sleeping with the snakes? And a Slytherin sleeping with us? There's no way that will work!"
"Ron!" Harry snapped, exasperated, "This is me and Hen we're talking about. It's not like Malfoy is going to be sleeping in the Gryffindor dorm half the year. It'll be fine."
Ron shrugged sheepishly. "Yeah, all right."
Henry rolled his eyes.
"Good luck, Harry," Hermione said.
"Thanks, er… do I know your name?" Harry asked.
"Never mind that, come on, I'm starved!" Henry dragged him away and they attempted to explain the same thing to the Slytherins. Draco stared at Harry with something akin to disgust on his face until Henry pointed dug his shoe into the other boy's shin.
"Sorry," the Malfoy heir mumbled into his peas.
By the time they made their way down into the dungeons (the Slytherins told Harry that if any other Gryffindors turned up in their dorms because he blabbed the password, they'd eviscerate him) both twins were exhausted. A seventh bed had been added to the first year boy's dorm and Harry fell into it gratefully, falling asleep moments after he had pulled up the covers.