Chapter 21: A Sense of Self

Harry sat against a tree next to the black lake, his fingers slowly running through Dora's hair as it flowed gently between colors like the aurora borealis. She was between his legs, her eyes closed as she enjoyed Harry's ministrations and the nice weather. It was May, and the scottish springtime had finally arrived, as the snow receded and revealed bright, fresh grass and new growth bloomed on the bushes and trees. Harry was particularly content, as only yesterday they had managed to strike a blow against Voldemort that he hadn't achieved his first time through the time loop - to finally make tangible progress was a heady, intoxicating thing. He found himself almost giddy, grinning incessantly, smiling and flirting with Dora, it was as if he was a new person, a weight lifted from his shoulders.

Dora smiled to herself - if this was who Harry was when he wasn't preoccupied with a coming doom, she was excited for their future together. She loved him regardless of if he was brooding or not, but she did love to see him happy - and while he was always attentive, she had enjoyed the extra level of care and attention he gave her. A light breeze wafted over their skin as the sun warmed them despite the slightly cool weather. It was a perfect day to sit by the lake and do nothing.

"Harry?" Dora said, almost as a moan due to his fingers massaging her scalp as they played with her hair. Her body was completely putty in his fingers, and he did exploit that sometimes, often to her benefit. They hadn't gone too far yet, but even just a massage left her limp and content for the rest of the day.

"Hmm?" He lazily acknowledged her, also luxuriating in the weather and intimate comfort. The small things were what made life living after all, and being able to run his fingers through his girlfriend's hair on a gorgeous spring afternoon was certainly one of the better days he'd ever had.

"What do you think about doing, ya know, after all this is over?" Dora asked quietly. There was no tension in the question, like there normally would be, no worry or concern. "What would you like to do?" Harry's fingers paused for a moment, before he pulled his hands away to a sigh from her, before reaching around her stomach to pull her back flush against his chest.

"I've never really given it much thought, to be honest." Harry mused, the normal bitterness of the subject absent. "Before I came back, I certainly didn't see a future for myself - and for good reason. But with progress being made, the horcrux from my scar gone, and time, I can see us winning this." He rested his chin on her shoulder, his cheek against her ear. "We've been back for just under a year, we've gotten a horcrux, and I'm being trained by some brilliant teachers, and I'm rediscovering my family's legacy." He pulled back, with a grin she couldn't see, before tickling her sides and drawing squeals and peals of laughter from his girlfriend as she twisted in his arms to escape.

"Stop! Stop! - Harry, Please!" Dora finally twisted away from him, ending up flat on her back in the grass a few feet away. Harry moved to pounce, but Dora used his movement against him and rolled them both so she was on top, straddling his waist and pinning his wrists to the ground. She lowered her head with a soft smile to rub the tips of their noses together, before pulling away with a giggle. As she moved to get away, Harry reached up and pulled her back down against his chest, her ear resting right over his heart. His fingers ran up and down her spine, gently tracing patterns on her back through the shirt she wore.

"I don't know what I want to do as a career. Part of the problem is that I'm training to fight Voldemort, and that's a very specific set of skills. I don't know what I could switch to afterwards." He sighed at that, before continuing. "Not that I need to work, really. I may not be Malfoy wealthy, but I could live off investments and still leave something to my kids." Dora picked up on that, a smirk on her face as she looked up at his pensive expression.

"Kids, huh? Just who would you be having these kids with?" Harry froze beneath her, and she could hear his heart rate spike.

"Well, ah, I suppose when I think about that sort of thing, I imagine it being you." Dora's smirk softened into a fond smile, and she brought her hand up to run through his hair.

"I'm just teasing. But I think of that too - I'm not going to give birth to a whole quidditch team like the Weasleys and it sure as hell isn't going to be before you off the Dark Wanker - but I like to think of two or three kids with your eyes or hair." She chuckled against his chest. "Well, I hope that if we have a girl, she only gets your eyes, or she can morph her hair." Harry laughed at that, the reverberations in his chest audible to her.

"I wouldn't want any kid of mine to have my hair, Nym. Plus with two metamorphs as parents, they will almost certainly be too." They rested there for a moment longer, enjoying the sun. Eventually a gurgle from Harry's stomach indicated that it was time to return to the castle, though. As they gathered themselves and began to walk back, Dora asked one last question.

"Why don't you morph much? I know it's supposed to be a secret, but you could do small things." She was curious, as she had always changed the little imperfections that bothered her about her body. Harry laughed, before cycling his hair colors quickly then settling back on black.

"Now that I can control it, to be honest, I forget that I'm a metamorph sometimes. I spent so much of my life without that power, I just don't think about it." Harry took her hand, interlacing their fingers. Dora frowned, considering that. She couldn't imagine forgetting that she was a metamorph.

"Huh."

Harry walked down the sidewalk back towards Privet Drive, on his way home from school. He had left as late as possible, not wanting to go home, nor did he want to be caught by Dudley and his friends. They had run down to the shops, as Aunt Petunia had given Dudley some spending money and Harry knew it would be all used on sweets. He used to wonder why his aunt only gave Dudley anything, but he had accepted the animosity directed his way a long time ago. He was resigned to it - had internalized it to some degree. It had really set in when he realized that everyone else had known their name before school started a few years ago.

A pounding of feet on the sidewalk behind him gave him some small advance warning before Dudley shoved him out of the way. He wasn't able to fully avoid being tossed into the street, but he did manage to keep from cracking his head or glasses.

"Oi, Freak!" Polkiss yells, moving to grab him, when a very large dog pushes between them, whuffing at Polkiss's pockets. The relatively tall redheaded woman who was walking him struggled a bit with the leash, apologizing even as the dog nipped at the kid's trousers, trying to get at the snack inside. The kid tumbled to the ground with a small scream, and scrambled away as the rest of the gang scattered. Polkiss managed to get away, leaving Harry on the ground. The dog didn't give him a second glance, still struggling forward. The woman shot him an apologetic look as she was dragged forward by the mutt. Harry stood and watched them make their way around the corner, before gathering his stuff and continuing the walk back to number 4. He had really lucked out there, that dog had saved him from a session of Harry Hunting.

"This huge dog then went for Polkiss! He was gonna get killed! That woman had no control over it!" Harry walked into the house to hear Dudley exaggerating the story to his parents, undoubtedly for sympathy and more treats. True to form, Aunt Petunia offered him a slice of cake that Harry had baked but had never tasted. He tried to put his stuff away as quietly as possible, hoping to not be noticed, but then Uncle Vernon saw him in the foyer out of the corner of his eye.

"Boy! Get started on dinner! And I don't give a damn if you burn yourself like last week, I expect you to do it properly!" Dursley promptly ignored his presence as he scurried to go do as he was bid. Vernon had backhanded him the last time he had complained, and he had done his best to not deserve that again.

"And don't overcook the greens, Freak. I know that Dudley isn't eating right because you can't cook!" Aunt Petunia chimed in as Dudley gave him the largest shit eating grin he could from behind her back. Harry sighed and retrieved his stool before beginning work on food that he would most likely not get to taste.

Sirius and Amelia popped back to Bones manor, Sirius cursing a storm as Amelia was more reserved, though her anger was plenty visible to those who knew her tells - a tightening around her eyes, furrowed brow, and white knuckles gave it away. Sirius, meanwhile, was ranting and raving as he paced up and down the entryway. Amelia let it go on for a moment, to let him get it out of his system, somewhat, before calling him back to reality and away from his dreams of retribution.

"Sirius!" She barked, in the same voice she used to demand the attention of auror recruits. He stilled, turning to look at her, his hands fisted at his sides.

"Merlin's bloody pants, Amy, I know it was my idea to go look, but fuck that was hard. I know it needed to be a forgettable enough interaction to not cause too much a change, but I'm really tempted to say fuck the timeline!" He was breathing heavily, as he struggled to rein in his fury.

"I know, Siri, but we can't. A change that large would probably kill him." Amelia walked over to her boyfriend and took his hands into hers, forcing him to calm down.

"Did you see him, Amy? I remember what he looked like in his third year, and it wasn't good, but that was after a couple years of eating properly at Hogwarts. He's nearly ten and looks seven! And those clothes, they're clearly left over from his fatarse cousin, just hanging off his body." Sirius's anger had evaporated and now it was mostly grief. Amelia moved into his arms, pulling him into a hug and consoling him as he began to freely cry.

"I should have been there for him, Amy. There were a lot of reasons I ended up in Azkaban, I know that, but one of them was my own impulsiveness. What could his life have been like if I had been there?" Sirius was not an explosive crier, unlike in his anger - this was a dark melancholy that Amelia hated even more. He rested his head upon her shoulder as he once more began to wallow in self-recrimination. Amelia slowly led him to a couch in the sitting room, holding him as he processed some of his grief and guilt. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, though she hoped that it was helping.

"I love you, Siri, and I know Harry does too. He doesn't blame you for anything, and neither does anyone else who knows the truth of it. It'll be okay." She ran her fingers through his hair as he cried, tears slowly tracking down his cheeks and staining her blouse.

"I failed them, Amy. I failed Harry, I failed Lily and James, I failed Remus, I failed Fabian and Gideon, I-I failed Marlene…" The last was just a whisper, a small vocalization of a perceived personal failing, one that Amelia had not heard before. She knew he and Marlene Mckinnon had been involved after she had shot him down, but she didn't know how close they had been before she had been killed. Eventually Sirius fell asleep, and Amelia wondered yet again if there was a mind healer they could read into this secret.

Remus stepped off the ferry to the greek isle where he would spend the next two years - He may have been in a drunken stupor for the last nine, but he needed a mastery in Defense Against the Dark Arts before teaching at Hogwarts, and the man waiting for him was one of the few who would consider doing so given his furry little problem - mostly because he too was a werewolf, although infected after having earned his mastery.

"Hello Remus, it is good to meet you, I am Dimitri Tordorov." The man introduced himself, and Remus noticed the same trailing scars over his skin as he had. The mark of a werewolf, more than anything else, was how they scarred themselves.

"It's good to meet you too." Remus answered with a soft smile as he shook the hand offered. "I look forward to learning from you, I have been postponing this for a long time."

"Well, you are never too old to learn!" Dimitri laughed, before leading Remus away from the dock.

"By the way, I know of you as a Bulgarian master - why are we in Greece?" Remus asked, curious.

"Because the warmer air does not hurt my bones so, before the change." Dimitri answered, tapping his finger against his temple as if he had imparted some great thought.

"Well, I shall enjoy it for now, because after I have earned this, I have a standing offer to go work in Scotland." Remus replied, shaking his head. Tordorov only scoffed.

Spectre flipped through the records again, looking at every member of House Black - living, dead, from a squib line, or cast out - Not a single Phineas Black existed besides the squib that had been cast out, though the man she had seen had clearly had his magic. There was no record of his son, Hadrian, either, and despite growing increasingly frantic over failing to find any records of them and what that meant for her memories, she was satisfied to see pieces of the time traveler investigation finally come together - Whoever was masquerading as Phineas and Hadrian Black, they were likely her prime suspects. Not that it helped her, of course. She had long since stopped caring what Croaker's directive was, and considering they had been part of an effort to find and destroy one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, she wasn't terribly worried about their likelihood to go on a killing spree - so trying to regain her memories was her first and only goal still.

She stopped, before putting the records room back to rights. This wasn't going to give her any further answers - only talking to this Phineas would. So it was to be yet another stakeout, this time of Diagon Alley. She would polyjuice as various muggles and simply spend time in the Alley, and then hitch a ride on his apparition signature as he left, to wherever he would be going. Normally such a risky scheme wouldn't be her first option, but it was truthfully her only option. She had no record of the man, and was forced to simply hope for random chance to smile in her favor.

Spectre walked out of the records room as if she was just spending another day at the office, slipping into her persona as an emotionless field agent. Internally it felt like she was coming apart at the seams, but nothing was being exposed underneath. She exited the department and the ministry, before taking her normal detour and random apparition hops to avoid being followed, before catching the train back home. Her mind was awhirl with possibilities - Was Phineas her lover? Her husband? Was this Hadrian her son? Was Phineas her enemy? It didn't sit right, she expected that wasn't true, but she had no idea.

Upon getting home, she removed her hood, revealing unkept hair, tangled and tossed, and red eyes with bags beneath them belying her struggle to sleep, often kept awake with endless what-if scenarios, both about her past and about this Phineas. Spectre paused before a mirror, having caught a shadow of herself from the corner of her eye, before slowly reaching a hand up to her cheek, as if asking if that was truly her. She reached out to the mirror, her fingertips making contact with the cool glass, a barrier between her and her true self.

"Who are you?" No answer came, just as she could not remember.

A/N:

This is my first story on FFN! I have some more works on AO3, if you're interested. I'll post a chapter a day here on FFN until I am caught up with AO3, at which time I'll be posting weekly!

Please comment with any questions, constructive criticisms, or recommendations! If you want early access or to chime in on oneshot polls, please see my linktree: /anarettekors