Title: The Boys Who Lived
Author: Shara Lunison
Beta: Batsutousai
Rating for this Chapter: T
Pairings: Harry/Henry (OMC), several others—none of them canon
Warnings: SLASH, eventual twincest, slightly manipulative!Dumbledore, grey Harry/Henry, OoC-ness, others as I think of them.
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: Surprise!! Twincest!!
Chapter Twenty-Six: Love
The twins explained their predicament to Hermione the next morning on the way to breakfast.
"So you see, we could really use your help," Harry finished, giving their friend his best 'I really need a favor' look.
"And as you can see, I'm really quite busy. Besides, Professor Slughorn only invites me to his stupid meetings because of my grades. I doubt he would take well to me asking uncomfortable questions about the things he taught Voldemort as a student."
"Then, can you at least help us think of some way to convince the man to give us the memory?" Henry pleaded.
Hermione stopped outside the doors to the great hall and huffed at them. "He's afraid of your Marks, right?"
"Right…" Harry started, but she cut him off.
"Then use it! He's a Slytherin, he should respond well to fear tactics and blackmail. Now, if you will excuse me."
"What's up with her?" Henry asked once she had gone to sit at the Gryffindor table.
Harry watched as their sole female friend sat across from Ron, a knife and fork clenched in her hands as she glared at the red-head. Ron kept his head down and seemed unconcerned, if the rate at which he was devouring his breakfast was any indication. "Dunno. Seems like Ron must've done something."
They joined Draco at the Slytherin table and found him staring morosely across the room at Ron and Hermione, pushing food around his untouched plate.
"What happened?" Harry asked as soon as they were seated across from the blonde, blocking his view.
"Oh, you know," Draco said miserably, stabbing an already pockmarked bit of sausage. "Love."
"Oh."
Breakfast passed in unusual silence after that. Henry went to his class, and Harry returned to his common room to catch up on homework before meeting everyone again for lunch. They trailed together down to the dungeons afterwards, observing the tense silence between their three friends.
After potions, the twins stayed behind, intending to corner Slughorn and ask for a meeting later, ostensibly to discuss the previous week's assignment. But the professor nearly shoved them out the door after everyone else, saying that he had to set up the room for his next class and he had no time for them.
"We need to find out his schedule to find a good time to talk to him," Harry said with frustration.
"More than that," Henry said. "There aren't any other potions classes today, so he must know we're up to something already. That will make this twice as hard.
They joined their friends to head to defense class, and smiled at Remus inside.
"We could ask Sirius to follow him around under the cloak," Harry murmured as they took their seats.
Henry sighed and shook his head. "But then he'd want to know why, and we can't really tell him much. It would be better if we do it ourselves, but we can't miss any classes."
"I've got it, then," Harry said, just as Remus was starting class. "Tonight we'll use it to sneak into his quarters and then do as Hermione suggested. Fear tactics and blackmail."
With a plan, however badly formed, in mind, they turned their attention to their last class for the day.
-o-0-o-
"Move over," Henry hissed at his brother. They were sitting on a couch in Slughorn's quarters, waiting for the professor to return for the night after sneaking in as he was leaving for his nightly walk. It was already past midnight and he had yet to reappear.
"If I do that he'll see my feet when he comes in," Harry said for the millionth time. He didn't understand why Henry was so hot and bothered about them sitting so closely pressed together.
Henry groaned quietly and resolved, then and there, to ask out Ginny Weasley the next day. The girl hadn't stopped making eyes at them even after her unfortunate circumstances the year before. On the contrary, the hero worship in her eyes seemed to have gotten worse. At the least, maybe he could tone that down by dating her for a while.
The door into the teacher's quarters opened then and Slughorn came in looking quite pleased with himself, holding a clutch of potions vials in one hand.
The twins waited for him to close the door and remove his outer robes before slipping from under the cloak, locking and silencing the door and training their wands on their professor.
The fat man, sitting in a high-backed and horridly upholstered chair by the fire, raised his hands into the air as though they were aurors come to arrest him. "B-boys…what is the meaning of this?"
Harry kept his wand trained on the man as Henry lowered his and began to pace in a circle around their professor as they had planned. His brother's Slytherin nature made him better suited to the task.
"The Dark Lord is very interested in you, professor," Henry hissed lowly.
"I-is he? Well, I've told him my answer many times already…"
"Yes, but it is not an answer he is willing to accept," Henry said, standing directly behind the man and whispering in his ear.
Slughorn paled dramatically and waved his hands helplessly for a moment. "I am a teacher, a potions master—I should be retired! What could He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named possibly want from me?"
Henry glanced up at his brother in frustration. The answer to that question was exactly what they wanted to know, in addition to procuring the memory.
Harry decided to take a wild stab to see if they got lucky. "There is a very rare potion that the Dark Lord believes you may know of…?" He slyly phrased it as a question, to see if they got any bites.
"That dratted old potion!" Slughorn said scornfully. "Half of the ingredients are myth and legend. It's impossible to brew!"
"Be that as it may," Henry said, looking at his brother again with excitement, "the Dark Lord would like the recipe, if you please. Perhaps he would leave you alone to teach and retire in peace if you cooperate…"
"Fine, let me go to the desk and write it down."
Harry motioned with his wand for the man to stand and kept it trained on him as he shuffled over to a desk in the corner and began writing.
"There," he said a few minutes later. "That's the whole of it. Now leave me alone!"
Henry noted that it was mostly a bluster of fear that the professor was using to discourage them. "Not so fast. There is one other matter."
"A memory," Harry said, drawing the professor's attention. "One that is very dear to the Dark Lord and that he would like to keep safe from Dumbledore. You will give it to us."
Slughorn turned white as a sheet and backed up towards the wall, trying to evade the twins who now both had their wands trained on him.
"Boys, I can't…I mean, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you do, professor," Henry said silkily. "You hold the Dark Lord's greatest secret locked up inside your mind. He would like it back."
"B-but giving you the memory will not erase the knowledge from my mind. You would have to o-obliviate me…"
Harry frowned. Obliviate was an advanced charm that was very difficult to master. If they used it on their professor incorrectly, they could do irreparable damage to his mind.
"Don't be silly, professor," Henry said. "We obviously don't have the skill necessary for that spell. The Dark Lord is feeling merciful. You gave us the recipe, and if you give us the memory he will let you live. But if you ever reveal his secret to Dumbledore he will kill you."
Slughorn's eyes narrowed. "Why would he be willing to take a chance like that on a man like me? He was a Slytherin, just as I am. One of the first rules of Slytherin is self preservation. Even you must know this, Henry."
Henry opened his mouth to respond, but found himself staring at a wand pointed between his eyes. Their professor had managed to hide it up his sleeve while writing the potions recipe for them. Harry sighed and lowered his wand as his brother was now the one with his hands raised in supplication.
"Professor," Harry said in quite a different tone. "We apologize for all of this. But we really need that memory. But not for Voldemort. We are trying to stop him, and we can't do that unless we can get rid of all of the horcruxes."
Slughorn paled at the mention of the man's name, but looked between them with confusion now. "You broke into my quarters, held me at wand-point, and threatened me for Dumbledore!?" he asked incredulously.
They nodded, slightly ashamed of themselves when it came right down to it.
"And you know about the horcruxes already, so why has Albus been badgering me so determinedly for that memory?"
"He said something about knowing the depth of Voldemort's depravity concerning the horcruxes," Henry said.
Slughorn lowered his wand and shook his head as he sat in his chair by the fire again. "Seven. Tell him seven. Because it's the most magical number."
The twins paled, putting the facts together. "He made seven?" Harry asked in horror.
"Made seven horcruxes, perhaps. But also maybe just split his soul into seven pieces, counting the one still inside of himself," Slughorn answered. He eyed the parchment clutched in Harry's hand. "What about that potion recipe, then?"
"Dumbledore was just curious what the Dark Lord wanted from you, since he kept badgering you. Harry just guessed it was a potion," Henry admitted.
"It's a useless recipe. I suppose a potions master might be capable of altering the ingredients to make it work, but it would take years!"
"What does it do?" Harry asked, glancing through the list of ingredients. Fairy wings? Angel feathers? Did such things ever even exist?
"That's just it, I don't know," Slughorn said in exasperation. "Some of the ingredients are similar to the polyjuice potion, which allows someone to change into someone else for one hour. But those mythical ingredients have no known properties. I have no idea how they would react with the familiar ingredients." He summoned a glass and a bottle from a cabinet across the room and poured himself a hefty dose of something. "Oh, just go away. I've had quite enough of you for one night. I knew you were up to something, always trying to single me out and corner me. I'm just glad to know that Lily's sons aren't truly working for You-Know-Who."
The twins moved towards the door and looked at each other sadly. Dumbledore had done it again—had they just asked the professor instead of harassing and stalking him, perhaps this would have been easier.
"We're really very sorry, Professor," Henry said softly. "But I promise that we would never do something to make our parents, especially our mum, disappointed in us. We love them even though we never knew them."
Slughorn's eyes closed painfully, but he spoke just as they were closing the door behind them. "Lily was a great witch. Perhaps if you prove to me that she would be proud I will reconsider letting you into the Slug Club. This incident does not set a good example."
They closed the door with a snap and leaned against the walls of the hallway outside with identical sighs of regret.
"Next time Dumbledore asks us to do something, we do it our way from the beginning," Henry said firmly. "None of this sneaking around or skirting an issue like the Headmaster likes to do."
Harry nodded his agreement and they walked back up to the common room under the cloak to avoid Filch and Mrs. Norris.
Inside the portrait hole, they removed the cloak and were immediately crushed in a hug by Hermione.
"There you are! I was beginning to think the worst when you never returned from dinner. I wanted to apologize for this morning. Ron, Draco and I had a bit of a fight and I was feeling a little out of sorts. I'm sorry I took it out on you two."
"It's all right. I think it worked out for the best. We talked to Slughorn, that's why we're so late. We got the memory we needed."
"That's good," Hermione said, smiling happily. "See, you didn't need my help after all."
"Actually, I was wondering if you could look at this potion and maybe figure out what it does?" Henry said, showing her the parchment with the recipe on it. "I don't want to give it to Dumbledore until we know what it's for."
"Sure, I can try anyway." She glanced over the list of ingredients and her eyebrows rose. "Some of these don't even exist, but I assume you know that. Maybe they're code names for more common ingredients…"
"What happened, anyway?" Harry interrupted her analysis of the potion. "When we asked Draco this morning, he said 'love' had happened."
Hermione giggled and hid a smile behind her hand. "Well, Draco sort of asked out Ron on a date next Hogsmeade weekend and Ron didn't take it very well. He said if he was going to date anyone, it would be me." She blushed bright red as she admitted that, and seemed a little pleased if the twins were any judges. "And then he accused Draco of trying to steal me from him, which makes no sense at all, and I'm not a possession in the first place. After I told him that, everything sort of fell apart. Now Draco is sulking and Ron is pretending that nothing happened, and I'm just sort of stuck in the middle of it all."
"Would you rather that Ron date you or Draco, then?" Henry asked curiously.
She blushed again and looked away. "Oh, well…I think I'm a little young to start dating. I mean, we're all only thirteen or fourteen. I think once Ron grows up a little more, he might make a nice boyfriend…maybe." Her face was now one flaming mask as she stared at the floor. "Anyway, good night."
She ran away into the girl's dorms and the twins were left alone in the common room again.
"Well at least we know who needs comforting, now," Harry said optimistically.
Henry just grunted and led the way up to their dorms. And perhaps, he thought to himself, him asking out Ginny tomorrow would distract Ron from his own issues long enough for their friends to return to normal.
-o-0-o-
They sent a message to Dumbledore before breakfast the next morning, and received a reply from McGonagall that he was once more out of the castle.
"Ginny?" Henry tapped the redhead on the shoulder at the end of the meal. He had left his confused brother sitting at the Slytherin table to walk across the room and talk to the girl.
"Oh, Henry." Ginny blushed cutely and tried her best to look him in the eye, but her shy affection was painfully obvious by how often she looked away.
"I was wondering if you would be my girlfriend. I know we can't go on Hogsmeade weekends together or anything, but…"
The room around them was already buzzing with the newest gossip as she interrupted him with her answer.
"Yes!" Ginny said quickly, an ecstatic smile on her face. "I would love to. But what about Harry? Won't he feel left out?"
"Hold that thought," Henry said. He turned to the table beside Gryffindor and sought out the blonde head of Luna Lovegood. She looked up as though feeling his eyes on her and stood as he walked over. "Er…Luna," he began.
"It's all right. I'll go ask Harry," she assured him.
Before he could even blink in surprise she was skipping over to the Slytherin table. Henry squashed his jealousy as she laid a hand on his brother's shoulder. Harry was looking at him with outright confusion and even a little hurt. Was he wrong…? No, this was necessary for both of them. They needed to dispel the yoke placed around their necks by this bond.
Henry returned to Ginny's side and spent the rest of the meal sitting with her.
Over at the Slytherin table, Harry found himself in the unusual situation of suddenly having a girlfriend he had never agreed to having. Luna had just waltzed over and announced that they were now dating before sitting beside him and chattering about several imaginary creatures that her father was studying.
"Luna. Luna!" he finally interrupted her.
She cocked her head to the side questioningly.
"Why are we dating? I barely know you."
"Because Henry is in love with you, and knows you're also in love with him and can't admit to himself that that is natural and right considering the nature of the bond between you, so he's trying to displace your affections onto me and his onto Ginny."
"Oh."
Harry spent the rest of the day in a daze, while Henry spent his being glared at by Ron for asking out his only sister. The Weasley twins were merely amused by the whole situation.
That night, Harry found himself dwelling on the kiss he had given his brother over the summer and wondering if it meant more than he had originally thought. Did he love Henry? And what did that mean, if he did? Was he attracted to his own brother? Did he want to spend his life loving and being loved by Henry?
Before he fell asleep, he was forced to realize that the answer to every one of those questions was 'yes'.
-o-0-o-
By the end of February several things had happened. Ginny got over her hero-worship of the twins and realized that not only were she and Henry not made for each other, but her boyfriend was a little obsessed with watching his brother with Luna Lovegood. Thinking that his affections had moved on from her to the blonde witch, she cut him loose just before Valentine's Day with a few gentle words. Almost immediately, several other boys who had noticed her because of her relation to the Boys-Who-Lived expressed an interest in her company.
Harry, for his part, simply strove to enjoy Luna's company until his brother had given up on setting him up with someone else. At least Luna held no illusions about their relationship being anything other than friendship, which was more than he could say for some of the other girls he could be dating. When Henry announced that Ginny had broken up with him, Harry gleefully told Luna that her services as his 'girlfriend' were no longer needed. She just smiled and returned to the Ravenclaw table, though she occasionally joined them for meals after that, since they were her only friends.
Henry's disappointment when he found out about Harry's decision to end the relationship was nearly palpable. "I thought you two got on well, though."
"We did. As friends. We never really behaved like an actual couple anyway," Harry explained.
But Henry wasn't ready to give up, though a lack of suitable partners for either of them made it hard to try again. He thought maybe a boy or two would work better, but hadn't decided who yet. Boys who liked boys were a little quieter about their preferences in Hogwarts.
Finally, on the last day of February the Headmaster returned and they sent another note asking for a meeting to which they received an immediate response to come that evening after dinner.
When they entered the Headmaster's tower, Dumbledore immediately came around his desk and asked, "You got the memory?"
"Not a physical memory, we ended up just asking him," Harry explained. "Once he knew we knew about the horcruxes, he just told us to tell you 'seven, because it's the most magical number'."
"Seven." Dumbledore stumbled behind his desk and sat, hard. "I never dreamed of something like this."
"Slughorn wasn't sure if that meant Voldemort made seven, or just split his soul seven times, retaining the seventh piece within himself," Henry added.
The old man nodded several times before murmuring an odd list to himself. "There was the diary, the ring, and Henry, of course. And the locket and the cup, probably. What was the sixth, and is there a seventh? Something belonging to the other Founders?"
The twins looked at one another. A list of horcruxes?
"What's the ring you mentioned, professor?" Harry asked.
"What? Oh. The ring is what did this to my hand. It belonged to Tom Riddle's mother's family and he obtained it sometime before his sixth year. I found it over Christmas and was unable to avoid the curse he placed on it."
The twins had noticed when they saw the Headmaster again this time, that his entire left arm appeared to be immobile now. His fingers were bone thin and black—they had not seen him move them the whole time they were with him now.
"The diary that was emptied when Tom was reborn was another, and Henry carries another piece of Voldemort's soul. In addition to this, there are two items that Tom procured while working for Borgin and Burkes after he graduated. The first was a locket that was a family heirloom belonging to his mother that she sold to the shop to get some much needed money. It once belonged to Salazar Slytherin. The second was a golden cup that belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. It is probable that the sixth and hopefully final item belonged to one of the other Founders."
"But why?" Harry asked.
"You remember the collection of treasures that Tom kept in the orphanage?" Dumbledore asked tiredly, leaning on his desk with his good hand. "He had a magpie-like tendency to collect treasures from his victims. That is how he obtained the ring, locket, and cup. They would have held significant value only to him, just like the diary."
Henry frowned and sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk. "Sir, I've been wondering something for a while. The Tom Riddle who I spoke to in the diary was sixteen years old. That piece of his soul joined with the bit of Voldemort that was wandering around and their ages sort of averaged out until he was about the same age as Snape."
Dumbledore nodded, unsure where the boy was going with this.
"But the thing is, the image of Tom that rose out of the diary was much older than sixteen. I'd say he was closer to being in his twenties."
The Headmaster's eyes widened. "Think of the memory of your confrontation in the Chamber," he said, holding his wand to the boy's temple. Henry did so and watched at the silvery tendril was drawn from him.
The old man immediately placed it in the pensieve and disappeared into it.
"I had wondered about that, too," Harry said. "It's not like the diary aged or anything, right?"
"It shouldn't have. The soul should have been the same age it was when it was made into a horcrux," Henry answered.
Dumbledore reemerged a moment later and sat in his chair once more. "This is most distressing. It's almost as if the diary had already absorbed a piece of Tom's soul."
"But how?" Harry asked.
"Well, if the diary had been placed near to another horcrux they might react in such a way. The pieces of soul are sentient, after all. They may have decided to combine for mutual survival."
Harry shook his head. "I hid it in the Room of Requirement. Unless Voldemort hid one of his horcruxes in there…" he paused, remembering the memory of Tom Riddle returning to seek the DADA post. "The real reason he came back that night, to apply for teaching…"
"Think of the memory of you hiding the diary in the Room," Dumbledore held his wand to the other twin's temple this time and extracted a new memory. He watched this one in the pensieve several times, following Harry as he placed the diary behind a bust of a past headmaster and placed a wig and a tiara on its head to mark the place. The twins even watched it to see if they might notice the object they were looking for.
"It's no use," Dumbledore finally decided. "If there is a horcrux in that room, we might never figure out what it is. But it would have to be close to where the diary was placed to react in such a way. Let's go look at the room ourselves and see if there is anything different. Clearly Colin Creevey found the diary there, so maybe whatever has changed will still be apparent.
They followed the Headmaster out of the tower and down the corridor to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. Harry walked past the wall himself to summon up the familiar door that led to the room of hidden objects. Inside, they all split up to search for the bust where the diary had been hidden.
In the end, it was Henry who found it. "Harry, Professor! Over here!" he called into the expansive room.
Together, they studied the small table where the thing had been hidden and Harry snapped his finger. "The tiara is missing."
The Headmaster nodded in agreement, though he searched nearby to make sure it hadn't just fallen.
"But why a tiara?" Henry asked, confused.
Dumbledore led them from the room deep in thought and they almost walked through the ghost of the Grey Lady on their way back to his office.
"Ah!" the old man cried when he saw her. "Dear Lady, your mother had a diadem, correct? Can you tell me what it looked like?"
The Grey Lady paused and stared at them in silence for several long moments. "It was bronze. Pointed in the front like a hawk's beak and curving around the head on either side." With that, she drifted away.
"That's it!" Harry said excitedly, remembering the feel of the thing in his hands. "Who was her mother, Headmaster?"
"Rowena Ravenclaw."
They entered the office and returned to their seats and drank the tea that the professor summoned for them.
"So three have been destroyed, and we know what the others are. The ring, diadem, and diary are gone. Only Henry's piece, the locket, and the cup remain."
"Professor," Harry said hesitantly, sipping his tea and avoiding his brother's gaze. "How do you destroy a horcrux?"
Dumbledore glanced briefly at Henry before answering. He pulled the diary from his desk and placed a silver ring with a large black stone on top of it. The stone had a symbol of a circle inside a triangle with a vertical line drawn through them. It was also pockmarked as though it had been dipped in acid. "The diary was absorbed, as was the diadem. The ring, I poured basilisk venom over. That and a spell called fiendfyre are the only things known to work."
Henry's brow furrowed, even as Harry asked, "And what about the piece in Henry?"
Their professor closed his eyes and set down his teacup with a soft clink. "I am afraid the only remedy I know of is death."
The older twin stood and left the office. Harry apologized and bade the Headmaster goodnight before following. He trailed Henry all the way back to the common room and found his brother standing outside the Fat Lady's portrait, staring up at the ceiling with a lost expression.
"We'll find another way," Harry said firmly.
Henry barely even turned his head to glance at him. "How? Have me poison myself with basilisk venom? Set me on fire? Kill me and bring me back to life?"
"I don't know, but we will." Harry walked up in front of his brother and placed his hands on either side of his brother's body in a physical cage. "I won't lose you," he whispered fiercely, protectively.
His brother grimaced and looked away, the glimmer in his eyes showing he was close to tears. Something told him they were having two conversations at once. "Don't, Harry. It will never work."
"Bullshit," Harry snapped, forcing his brother's gaze back to his own with a firm hand. "I love you, do you hear me, Henry Jareth Potter? I love you and no one is going to take you from me. Not ever."
Henry made a slight keening noise in the back of his throat as he tried to resist temptation for just a moment longer. "Why?"
"Because I can't stop. I don't know why, Hen, but this is meant to be. And I'm tired of running from it. Aren't you?"
He just nodded and didn't pull away when Harry's lips descended on his own. The kiss was bittersweet with the taste of Henry's tears mingling on their lips. Harry licked the seam of his brother's lips and explored the cavern beyond when Hen's slight gasp invited him to. Their tongues stroked each other awkwardly, and their noses seemed to inevitably get in the way, but it was their first true kiss and they both cherished it even as the proper, social conscious parts of them reviled it.
When they broke apart, Harry leaned his head against his brother's and smirked smugly.
"Shut it, you," Henry whispered hoarsely.
"No more pushing me away or denying yourself," Harry said firmly.
Henry gulped, but nodded shyly.
"Good." Harry stole another kiss before leaving his brother wanting against the wall to enter the common room once more.
That night as they slept in the same bed, they took more than comfort and warmth from being in one another's arms. As Henry snuggled into his brother's embrace, he whispered, "I love you too, Harry."
"I know," Harry answered, his arms tightening. "I never had any doubt about that."
-o-0-o-
A/N: The chapter many of you have been waiting for. I'd better get some reviews for this. XP :)