Sometime after getting a crick in his neck but before Harry had the chance to get a decent rest, the camp began to stir in earnest. Resigned to wakefulness, Harry rolled off the pallet only the sadly misinformed would call a mattress, acutely aware that he'd gotten soft.
He blinked blearily around the room, trying to remember where he'd dumped the chest. He found it halfway under his bed, and working through the morning routine, pulled the wad of thin fabric off the top of the pile. It made him feel cold just looking at it.
He stripped mechanically, and was still shirtless when the epiphany struck (and really, it was remarkable how often those states coincided). He was in Ferelden - a land happy to go to the dogs, scornful of complicated politics and subtly, a culture that revered practicality over all.
With no small amount of glee, Harry stuffed the garment back, took care not to fall into the deep pit, and rummaged until hard scales met his fingertips.
The wyvern hide robes fit like an old skin; comfortable and familiar, and though they were a bit ripe on the nose, it felt refreshing to be himself again. With the dead animal equipped, he was practically Ferelden already.
Certainly, the armour was more comfortable than Tevinter fashion pieces, and not just because they lacked buckles in unfortunate orifices. There was something altogether relaxing about stripping away the pretense, and the new honest set to his shoulders allowed him to take on a level of self-assurity he hadn't known he'd been missing (and probably didn't really need).
He strapped on his enchanted daggers and briefly considered dolling back the theatrical billowing… but where was the fun in that? He turned on his heel with a great swoosh.
So good was his mood, that he could even endure porridge.
...
"Good, you're awake."
Harry just about died.
"Could I have a moment of your time?" Leliana asked politely, as if she hadn't just witnessed him jump a foot in the air from a sitting start.
The wizard nodded absently, quickly spelling drops of mushy oats off his person, lest it be glued there forever. "Of course, what do you need?"
"I spoke with Solas." She settled into the opposite chair and examined a dry chunk of bread before eating quickly. She didn't elaborate.
It was all rather secretive, Harry decided, considering the tavern was mostly empty and there was no need to make their interaction seem like a social call. He found he had very little patience for it this morning.
"Do you have questions?"
"I will save them until we may discuss it properly with the rest of the leadership. The Inquisition cannot change its plans without their input," she smiled briefly. "I have already written to Cassandra and the Herald. I expect to receive word of their support in the coming days."
"So you approve," he nodded happily, at least until his teeth crunched over a mystery ingredient in his breakfast. He swallowed with a shudder.
Leliana's eyes narrowed on the doorway. "The sooner we are able to act, the better."
Her words were sharp and bitter. Harry was at once struck by how much time had passed since he'd travelled alongside an optimistic young bard. "In any case, we need enough mages and Templars to replace the rebel group."
"Correct. I have been assured you can handle the recruitment, but still I would like to suggest a few prospects from my own past. No doubt the Commander and Cassandra will have more names to add."
Tension in his shoulders eased a little in relief. Between them, they would get enough mages on board. Probably.
Surely.
But it wouldn't hurt to start wearing the stubborn ones down right away, just in case they ended up stretched for numbers.
"I'm going to drop in on a few today," he decided.
She smiled, "Then it will be far quicker for you deliver a message for me. How fortunate, it will be far more personal than a raven."
Walked right into that one. "Sir, yes sir," he saluted sarcastically.
Evidently satisfied, she stood. "Try to look a little more intimidating," her smirk fell into a considering frown. "Though I doubt that will work for you. Perhaps aim to look darkly mysterious, and older, if you can; confidant certainly, or they will walk all over you."
Harry's eyebrows climbed, his lips twitched.
"Get a fur coat. A white one. Oh and leave some blood on the lapels to bring out your eyes."
He snorted, surprised and delighted. "You concern me. What kind of people are you setting me up against?"
"Just some old friends," she waved off. It would appear he was in for one of her ever-entertaining 'surprises', then.
"Right, shall I pack any specific poison antidotes or will general fire tonics suffice?"
...
The crack accompanying his arrival in Nevarra was met with silence. He raised an eyebrow, and bellowed; "Anyone up yet?"
There was an expectant pause. A muffled crash. Then the door slammed open and rebounded against the wall. "Uncle Harry!"
A little blur shot out unsteadily on sleepy, shaky legs and Harry knelt to catch her just before impact. He lifted her squealing, squirming body high above him with a great deal of effort. "Little monster, you're getting so big!"
Merlin, he forgot how fast they grew. "Are mum and dad around?"
"Sleeping," she told him, and they shared a look of great betrayal.
Harry posed thoughtfully, deliberating whether or not to unleash a horror. He decided, in the end, that in deciding to settle down Sirius had brought this on himself. He didn't have anything particular in mind, exactly, but he was sure there was something. "Do you want to learn a little magic, Romy?"
She's lost another couple teeth since his last visit; they showed when she smiled. "Yes!"
"Well come on, this is how we make water."
Sirius nursed a glass later, and gave it a look that wished for something stronger. "I hate you."
"Did you want to teach her that one?" Harry scoffed, "Everyone knows pranking comes from the cool uncle. Besides, she's being helpful! Look at her watering the plants."
"She's making a mud pile," and was it just Harry or did Sirius look a little wistful? "There's a better spell for that."
There was a pointed cough from the other room.
Sirius grinned unrepentantly, "I mean, the hard work will do her good."
"You boys," his wife, still beautiful and smiling as the grey hair started to show. She put up with so much. They were both going on fifty now, but they looked younger, brighter than they'd been apart.
Sirius drew her in and rested his head on hers contentedly.
"How was the moon?" Harry asked.
They watched Romy throw rocks, splashing mud every which way with delight. "Kind," Claudia said proudly, "She's getting a grip on it. She threw a tantrum and turned right back around midnight."
Harry was glad to hear that the kinda-but-not-entirely-a-werewolf thing wouldn't control her life.
He stayed and they caught up until lunch. It was nice. He put off his news as long as he could, he didn't want to pull Sirius away from this. He knew Sirius deserved this happiness; Harry reminded himself every time he visited, which unfortunately was not as often as he'd like. Parental life was busy, it wasn't anyones fault that Sirius couldn't, or no longer wanted to, run the careless bachelor lifestyle.
There was a little unpleasant part of Harry that the wizard tried to ignore - it pouted about Sirius having more people in his life, people whose own motions had skewered the previous orbit and separated Sirius' life from Harry's; it was just so bloody selfish. Everyone (well, almost everyone) progressed through life, they moved on and up, a decade is an awful lot to (most) people and they must rush to make the most of it.
Harry wasn't bitter (right, of course), but he perhaps wasn't as sorry as he should have been when Sirius readily agreed to lend a hand saving the world, just like they used to.
Harry couldn't dislike Romy, however else his feelings might betray him, that fact never changed. Like her parents, he would do anything to preserve the world long enough for the girl to grow old as well.
From there, he took a world tour in a single afternoon.
Irving had passed just a year before, before the initial outbreak of fighting, but the Ferelden Circle was running peacefully, a little island in the chaos.
It was terribly creepy, actually.
The residents were the same group that had chosen to stay after Harry introduced apparition and gave most of the mages an opportunity to flee. After the drama in their past, not one of them was perturbed by the small war around them.
As a legendary Disturber of the Peace, Harry's arrival was not warmly received by all. The old folks had never been his biggest fans, and all the apprentices he'd known had grown into young adults, retaining only blurry impressions.
He was surprised to see so many people about, including a new batch of children and old Templars and some people he was convinced weren't from either group. The fighting must've driven some fed up mages and families to seek refuge in the Tower. Fancy that.
At first they wouldn't hear a word about saving the world. They were aggressively determined to go about business as usual, to the point where some denied there was trouble. In their little island, there really wasn't, so it was all the more difficult to recruit volunteers.
He left with four promises plus a significant headache, and went with relief back to the chaotic world where Templars and mages hated each other and ruined the livelihoods of common people and the world made sense.
Harry probably should've started with the elves; a fresh quota of patience and a calm mind might've made a difference. Unlikely, but not impossible. In the end, the Brecilian Dalish wouldn't spare their Keepers or Firsts, but his Chasind friends clamoured at the chance, and a pair of twins were strong enough to take part.
From Rivain to Ferelden to the Free Marches, back to Tevinter. Harry dropped in on Wynne's old laboratory. It hadn't changed much since it's founder had passed, having given her guardian spirit for another. Wynne should've marched through the doors, pleased to see him but pretending otherwise, ready to share her progress with Shale and the other golems. Or just shove a cookie at him. She'd always done that.
The cookie smell persisted, which was odd until he realised, of course, her apprentice Antonia, must miss her too. The short girl loved her enough to drop the research at the chance to do what Wynne surely would've done.
He didn't track down Amell. Preserving harmony and all that.
From Tevinter to Antiva to Orlais. Harry visited anyone he could think of, any mage he'd met, heck, any person he'd met who was even remotely friendly with mages and might know a friend of a friend who rumour said was a closeted 'archer'.
It was astounding how many mages had lived outside of Circles for years. Some wouldn't come, other wouldn't make promises, but more did. The Inquisition had built a steady reputation for being helpful and reasonable, and Harry made a note to hug whoever was in charge of PR.
Some wanted in on the historic moment, the religious fervor, others cared more about the world than they did themselves; none of the reasons mattered. He gave them portkeys and told them to dress for the weather.
By late afternoon, he had nearly fifteen candidates.
Naturally, he decided that was the perfect time to visit Leliana's friends.
Perhaps his confidence was buoyed by the string of recent successes, and on top of his shiny armour, his ego reached near critical levels. But that was no excuse.
…
He ate like a famished dog.
"Nightingale was looking for you, earlier," Varric announced, giving Harry pause. "Where've you been?"
Where hadn't he been? "Securing allies." He considered the storyteller. He'd have contacts upon friends upon minions.
The dwarf chuckled at his look, "Yeah, I know your plan. I sent a bunch of letters off, with any luck a few decent Templars will turn up from under the rocks they've been hiding under. I'm sure Daisy will come, too, provided she doesn't get distracted along the way. Might need an escort, come to think of it."
Harry hummed and gulped down another spoonful of the gritty food. Varric added his bowl to the table.
"So my fingers are cramped and my eyes hurt," the dwarf rolled his eyes at his own expense, "but how was your day?"
"Fine. Very productive, for the most part. Then shit happened," the wizard twisted his elbow around, rotating sooty marks into view, "A table hit me here; that was my greeting the moment I appeared in the living room. My mistake; it might've startled them slightly. Then there was a couple daggers, a bit of lightning and a startled horse. The second bloke was very creative."
"Friends of yours?" Varric laughed.
"Leliana's," Harry muttered darkly.
Varric grinned, gesturing for more.
Harry was all too happy to commiserate. "I even told them I was there on her behalf. The first one looked like at me like I was a Pride demon offering a special. The second bloke tried to dump a vat of acid on me. So I suppose they weren't her friends as much as distant acquaintances she keeps an eye on. I don't even want to know what she put in that letter to convince them."
"I hope you at least got their help, after going through that."
"Damn right I did." He stabbed a lentil for emphasis.
Varric took pity on him, "How about a distraction from all this worldly nonsense - have a drink and i'll tell you about the time Anders turned Darktown upside down looking for his cat."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "How bad is the ale, here?"
"It's not brewed for dirt," the dwarf shrugged. "Tastes like it, but isn't."
"Eh, why not?"
A drink turned into several, and sometime between longing for bed and killing the nerves in his mouth, Varric brought out a deck of cards.
By the second game, Harry was staring a little cross-eyed at his hand and still trying to recall the rules.
On an unrelated note, the dwarf was robbing him blind.
"You started without me?" the Qunari shouted across the pub. Or maybe volume was proportional to size and that level was quite normal, Harry couldn't be entirely sure. He looked up; realising at once that the Chargers had returned from a day of work, and that the Bull was headed their way.
"I couldn't resist! Look at him," Varric chuckled, which was good because Harry really didn't know what to do in this situation, "It's like his face doesn't remember how to be a politician at all."
Harry sniffed, "Subtlety is overrated. You can get away with being flashy."
The Iron Bull and another man, smaller man, a lieutenant possibly, pulled up chairs.
"I've heard of you," the man said. That sentence usually went one of two ways, but Harry couldn't guess which in his state. The slight accent conflicted him; it eased Harry's concern about the Bull hating all Tevinters on principle, but then again, the man might've heard and told the Qunari anything.
He played a card, enunciating carefully in the way only the drunk can manage, "What have you heard, exactly?"
"Something about setting a Magister's garden on fire, and then making him vomit slugs to get out of being arrested."
"It was the other way around," Harry admitted bemusedly, because really, that was the story that travelled? "The slugs came first, and for some reason he found that insulting. One thing led to another."
Varric's eyebrows were trying to distance themselves from his chest hair for prominence. "Why?"
"He cut a slave. Said his hand slipped. I was drunk, my magic slipped. Pity. Those slugs are surprisingly flammable."
"And you got off scot free and I bet the slave copped it later, am I right?" the Qunari sighed, shaking his head like Harry was another kid with a lot of good intentions and little experience. He hadn't been for a while, thanks.
"He freed the slaves," the lieutenant recalled before Harry could, looking at said mage with eyes narrowed. "That's why it was such big news in Qarinus. How'd you manage that?"
The words brought it all back. Harry couldn't remember the Magister's name, only that he'd deserved every minute of suffering.
"Selective memory," Harry grinned unashamedly, adopting an overly remorseful tone. "Even once I'd sobered up the next morning, I hadn't used the counter curse in so long, for a moment there I was worried I'd have to start the research from scratch. I think his life flashed before his eyes, he re-evaluated all his choices."
The Bull roared. Harry and half the patrons, jumped. He almost fled before he realised those teeth were bared in amusement. Varric raised his tankard, a silent cheers in the chaos.
The lieutenant slapped in on the back and sent him careering into the table, laughing, "Congratulations, it's actually nice to meet you. I'm Krem."
Harry grabbed the cards before they spilled off the table and divvied out two more hands. "Pleased to meet you too. Now are you going to take my money or what?"