A nauseating green kaleidoscope spat Harry out of a huge fireplace in the middle of a shabby corridor, and only Bill's hand on his shoulder kept him from falling. Slithers didn't fare much better, hissing curses and sneezing from where she held tightly to his waist. Harry didn't even know snakes could sneeze.

"I like brooms better," he said, wiping soot off his glasses with the hem of his T-shirt.

Bill, looking unfairly unruffled after the swirl from hell, frowned and nudged him along the corridor with its two rows of identical doors that ended in a balcony, a half-wilted potted plant tucked in the corner. "I can't believe you flew down from Gryffindor Tower. It was a very dangerous thing to do on your first try, especially on your own."

Harry's shoulders went up at the tone. Bill seemed alright, but Harry didn't know what to expect now that they were alone, not really. He took a deep breath and grinned. "Maybe if it was a broom made of that murder willow."

Bill gave him a long look. "We'll get you to play Quidditch with the boys at the Burrow. Under supervision."

"Quidditch?"

"It's a game that's played on brooms. You'll love it."

"As long as I can try doing loops again." The thought of flying chases the worries from Harry's head.

"Loops," Bill repeated to himself. He stopped at the orange doormat that read, 'Beware of the Curse of the Gingers'. A freckled cartoon face next to the words blew Harry a raspberry.

"What is the curse of the gingers?" Harry asked.

"Annoying younger brothers who mistakenly think they are funny."

Not the worst thing to be cursed with, Harry thought to himself. Some people didn't appreciate what they had. The only jokes he could imagine from Dudley were to laugh at his expense, never with him. Not that he saw Dudley as a brother, and the feeling was certainly mutual. Most days he tried to forget they were related at all. He wondered what Bill would have thought of Dudley.

Bill touched his wand to the keyhole, and the door swung open. "Home, sweet home."

The flat looked more like a storage unit than a place to live. Boxes, suitcases and stacks of books cluttered the living room, and the walls were bare other than a single painting. Where the portraits in Hogwarts looked old and traditional, this one was a mess of colours and shapes that Uncle Vernon would call degenerate modern art.

The longer Harry stared at the painting, the more it seemed to rearrange itself. "Looks kinda like a snake," he decided. Once he said it, the brush strokes coalesced into a green serpent with a red plume on its head. "Wow."

Bill chuckled. "Clever, isn't it? The artist actually lives next door. Last time I heard, she was planning an exhibition in Diagon Alley—that's the main magical street here in London."

"Only witches and wizards live in this building?" Harry asked.

"They do here on the thirteenth floor, but the rest of it is Muggle. There aren't many of us; Hogsmeade is the only village in Britain that's fully magical."

Bill scooped a pile of parchment scrolls from the leather couch and dumped it on the mantelpiece of a fireplace, much smaller than the one in the corridor. The ones that spilled over he chucked onto an ancient TV with an aerial that looked more like actual antennae of a bug than steel.

"I can see who Fred and George get their tidiness from," Harry said before he could bite his tongue. He glanced warily at Bill, but the only response was a rueful laugh.

"Make yourself at home," Bill said, kicking something in under the couch. Judging by his satisfied expression, this was the last of his tidying efforts. "There's even electricity!" he announced proudly, as if it somehow was the most unusual thing here, and flicked the light switch on and off. Harry couldn't help a grin. Maybe for a wizard, it was. Hogwarts was lit with sconces and flying candles that didn't burn out but snuffed themselves when it was time to sleep, and Harry hadn't noticed any sockets in the Shack. "Don't tell my Dad, or he never stops asking questions, and I'm not actually clear how exactly it works."

Harry tagged along to the kitchenette where Bill opened a fridge and peered into it. A light bulb turned on, if a bit late and after a few unsuccessful blinks, and cast harsh electric light on a mummy's hand with peeling brown bandages, a carton of milk Bill vanished with a flick of his wand and a half-empty Tupperware of some kind of casserole. Bill took the casserole out and sniffed cautiously. "Mum's stasis charms are unrivalled, but it's been here since April." Still, he put it back inside, avoiding the hand that was now showing him a rude gesture. "Stop that," he told it sternly. "We have a guest."

The hand responded with a shooing motion.

Harry giggled. "I can cook," he offered. Cooking was a chore he hated the least, and even found it soothing when his relatives were not in the kitchen offering nasty commentary. He wasn't bad at it either, if he said so himself. Bill would see that Harry wasn't going to be a burden. "But you need to buy groceries first."

"Believe it or not, I'm not completely useless. You can't afford to be with six younger siblings," Bill said with a wry smile. "There was just no point to stock up as I was never here for more than a night or two. But you're right, now that I'm done with my apprenticeship and might be staying a bit longer, a shopping trip is in order." He closed the fridge with a decisive snap. "Let's go."

They ended up walking to the local Sainsbury's. Slithers stayed back at the flat, dosing off on the sun-lit window sill; not that Harry would be able to hide her without the robe. He was really, really happy not to be wearing the robe. On the way out of the flat, Bill had cast a critical eye to Harry's hair and with a flick of his wand, reverted it back to black. He had looked a bit disappointed at the revelation but said there were probably enough gingers around.

Shopping with Bill was a very different experience from shopping with Aunt Petunia. For the first time Harry was given free rein of what went into the cart and used his newfound power to convince Bill, who was obviously more unsure among the aisles than he tried to let on, that Lucky Charms, while not actually magic, were the best and most traditional Muggle food that he just had to try. The simplest things surprised Bill, as if he and not Harry had grown up in a cupboard, and he had more opinions than anyone frankly should about the fresh produce section. It was, Harry reckoned, a farmboy in him.

Harry got lost for a bit in the toy section to stare at the coolest transformer car before sternly reminding himself that he was too old for toys. Magic was cooler, anyway. Right before the checkout, he stopped at the newspaper stand—by habit rather than interest; Aunt Petunia always chose at least one magazine.

'Man Brutally Murdered At The Seaside,' read a headline right at his eye level.

Harry felt lightheaded. His vision narrowed down to the black and white picture of the familiar beach, and his mind filled it with colour and smells and sounds. For a moment, Harry was back there again.

A hand clasped his shoulder. "Dudley?" Harry shuddered. The name made him want to hurl. "What—Oh."

"I'm fine," he said. Why did he have to be such a mess?

"You're not. You don't have to be." Bill steered him away from the stand. "Let's go, buddy," he said softly.

But he had to, Harry thought, avoiding Bill's perceptive gaze. What other choice did he have?

Absently, he watched as Bill fumbled with the money at the checkout. He wondered, looking at the hustle and bustle around them, if the article had his photo. 'Deranged Boy That Caused His Uncle's Death.' Although nobody spared them a glance so far, Harry kept expecting this old lady with a cart or that man in a tweed jacket to turn around and point an accusing finger at him.

Only once outside, could he breathe a little easier. Not that there were any family pictures with him for them to print, anyway.

Back at the flat, Bill was oddly apologetic, even though none of this was his fault. For some reason, he kept trying to feed Harry and asking him about his feelings. Feelings! Harry, who had never been fussed over before and had no idea how to react to that, snatched a book from the closest stack, curled on the couch and made a show of being deeply engrossed in it.

The book turned out to be the journal of a Norwegian Curse-Breaker travelling with a South Pole expedition. The man used too many long words and couldn't stop with the descriptions of snow and whales, and Harry was ready to give up when the Curse-Breaker and his crewmates came across an abandoned tent of the rival British wizards and started losing their minds one by one. Huh. Now that kept Harry's attention.

"Can wizards really turn into animals?" he wondered aloud when Fredrik the cook turned into a raging polar bear, a skill he had apparently had even before catching the 'Antarctic fever', as the author dubbed it.

"Hm?" Bill raised his head from the letter he was writing. "Sure. Takes a lot of study, and many don't want to go through all the effort only to find out that their form is a trout, but why not. Pay attention to your Transfiguration class, and you can learn to become an animagus if you're still serious about it after you've passed your O.W.L.s. The Transfiguration Professor is one herself.

"What animal can she turn into?"

"A cat."

"Wicked. A polar bear would be cooler, though. Well, until you crack and start eating your mates and huskies."

"What are you—" Bill squinted at the book and smiled fondly. "Oh, I remember that one. My uncle gave it to me when I was your age and decided to become a Curse-Breaker. I think it might have been an attempt to dissuade me but ended up doing the opposite."

Harry burrowed deeper into the comfy leather. The Dursleys would never allow him to sit with his feet up on a living room couch, but Bill was not his relatives, and a much more laid-back person besides, so Harry felt safe to try. He only put the book away hours later, after Bill flooed to the post office to send his pile of letters and got to sorting through his many bags and boxes. Some were full of boring things like clothes—more cargo pants and shirts and those bloody robes than a satchel of an average size should have been able to fit. One robe was literally bloody; Bill tossed it into the laundry with a promise to tell the story later. Others held all sorts of curious odds and ends: vials of different shapes and colours, an old-fashioned camera, a looking glass and a set of fragile-looking silver instruments that softly whirred and vibrated. Harry snatched a glass spinning top as it rolled to the couch. It lit up blue and spun on his palm.

"This thing tickles." Harry giggled.

Bill looked up from a set of cauldrons he was trying to fit into an entirely too-small carton and frowned. "A sneakoscope. It doing that means there are people wishing you harm, but you aren't in an immediate danger."

More people wishing him harm, just what Harry needed. "What would it do if I were?'

"Whistle like a deranged kettle," said Bill. "Their magic is very unreliable, though. Even the best ones can't always differentiate between an enemy plotting your murder and a passer-by cursing you for stepping on their toe, and there's no telling what it will consider immediate danger. Too many false positives. It has its uses, but watching it too much will only make you paranoid." Despite his words, he looked concerned.

Green flames rose in the fireplace, making Harry drop the sneakoscope in surprise.

"Somebody's coming?" he asked, remembering their earlier trip.

"This fireplace can only take calls." Bill gave him a considering look. "Stay in my bedroom for a bit, alright? Just while I'm taking this."

"Sure."

Harry left the living room and opened the door to the bedroom but didn't go inside. Instead, he tiptoed a few steps back, curiosity and worry gnawing at him. Bill didn't have to know; Harry could be very quiet when he needed to.

From his spot, he couldn't see the fireplace well, but was that a head floating in the fire?

"Hey, man," the head of a black man said. "How's it been? Haven't seen you in ages."

"Hiya, Kingsley." Bill flopped on the couch. "Life's been hectic. But look at us now! Out-and-out Auror and Curse-Breaker, at last."

"We should get a pint sometime."

"A proper celebration. Take Rori—"

Harry could see Kingsley wince even from that angle. "Actually, we broke up. Schedules too different, you know how it is."

Bill tugged at his earring. "I'm sorry, mate."

"Yeah, well. I'm actually calling because of a—situation."

"Situation."

"I'm technically not supposed to talk to you about it. Or to anybody. In fact, Dawlish would skin me alive if he knew I was doing this."

"Are you in trouble, King?"

"No, no. Not me. But I need to do something."

Bill slid from the couch to the floor, on eye level with Kingsley. "Tell me."

Kingsley was silent for a moment. Then, "You know that Walden McNair was killed in Hogsmeade yesterday, right?"

"I've heard about it." Bill's voice betrayed nothing.

Harry felt his insides filling with ice.

"Frankly, not a huge shock to anybody. McNair wasn't what you'd call a popular guy. Lots of enemies, both from his totally-Imperiused Death Eater days and after," Kingsley said. "The murder itself was a nasty business. Head bashed like a mince pie. The woman who called us said that the assailant ate the victim's brain."

"Ate his brain."

"That's what she said, and the look of that head confirmed it. Almost lost my lunch, I'm telling you," he said with disgust. "So we took her statement and split to search the village. Didn't find anyone, unsurprisingly, neither the murderer nor the kid that the witness mentioned was at the scene."

Harry's fingernails dug painfully into his palms.

"No other witnesses?" Bill asked.

"Even if there were, you know how it is in a village as tight-knit as Hogsmeade, and especially in the Mort Alley," Kingsley said. "I did find something interesting in the Shrieking Shack, however. A muggle woman's bag, with an ID of one Petunia Dursley. So I got in touch with the muggle police, you know we coordinate. And what do you think? Earlier that day, she reported the murder of her husband. All the way up in Dorset.

"Long story short, I got to talk to her with my MI5 ID. Husband, Vernon Dusley, murdered by an unknown robed male on the beach. A bare-handed attack, head injury incompatible with life. The woman is a Muggle but knows about magic, and blames her nine-year-old nephew."

"For the murder?" Bill asked incredulously.

"For the murder, and for everything else wrong in her life. The word 'freak' was used multiple times, with various adjectives."

Harry's eyes prickled. It was no less than he expected from his aunt, but to hear it confirmed like this still felt like a blow to his chest.

"What happened to the nephew?" Bill asked, as if he didn't already know.

"She just left the kid there with an insane murderer, can you imagine? Only took her own son, heartless bitch. But when the muggle police came, there was only one body there."

"How could she?"

"That's the side of people you see at this job. When I signed up, I thought I'd be thwarting evil dark wizards' plots, but the reality of it is—" Kingsley cut himself off. "Anyway, you might ask why I'm telling you all this. Sounds awful, but it's nothing out of the ordinary in the DMLE."

"Brain-eating."

"Happens more than you'd think. And I would go on with the investigation if not for who the nephew is." Kingsley paused. "Harry freaking Potter."

"Harry Potter?" Bill sat up straighter. "What's he doing living with Muggles?"

Harry frowned. Where else would he live? And what was it with everybody knowing his name for some reason?

"That horrible aunt might well be his closest relative, but that alone was a shit reason to just stick Harry Potter with a magic-hating Muggle and call it a day. I wonder whose decision it was. If her rant is to be believed—and to be fair, I'm taking everything she told with a grain of salt—he was left on her doorstep like a bottle of milk. That's how we thanked him for defeating You-Know-Who."

Again with this person that everybody seemed to know but avoided naming. That really must have been some mistake. Harry hadn't defeated anybody in his life, except maybe Dudley and his gang occasionally. He had soundly beaten his cousin in their last English test—and oh boy, had that ticked off his aunt—but he doubted Kingsley was referring to that.

Oblivious to Harry's confusion or, indeed, presence, Kingsley went on. "As soon as Dawlish heard Potter's name, the case escalated, right to the new Minister."

Bill made a rude sound.

"Whatever his run will shape up to be, old Nelly is not Bartemius Crouch. Because his response? Demand we table the investigation and classify my report. Didn't even have the decency to come down to the DMLE himself and sent his toady of a PA instead." Kinsley put on a high, affected voice. "Minister Fudge is a bringer of hope, the face of a new, prosperous Wizarding Britain that people voted for. He can't start his term with a scandal of this magnitude."

"Bringer of—what the—Merlin."

"Harry Potter missing, likely kidnapped and murdered by an insane serial killer is too bad, very sad, but we can't allow that to reflect badly on the new administration. Fucking ghouls."

"Hey, we have a family ghoul in the attic, and he'd never do something like that." Bill turned serious. "Do you really think Harry Potter might be dead?"

"What else am I supposed to think? Either that or he's hiding somewhere, waiting for the help that won't be coming. He's a child who doesn't know anyone in our world to turn to!"

Harry's thoughts were racing. Kingsley sounded so distraught talking about his potential fate. It was odd to think that this person Harry had never met cared about his well-being more than his own aunt.

"Do you want me to help you find him?" Bill asked.

"No, no," Kingsley said. "I need your help with the crime scene. There's definitely something fishy with that beach."

"Fishy how?"

"There's an entire empty cliff under a Notice Me Not, the strongest I've ever seen. The readings on that thing are all over the place. I just went back and flew around it on a broom, and I'm pretty sure there's a cave that's warded to high heavens. We had some basic curse-breaking training, of course, but it's not going to crack it, and I can't ask anyone else in the Department."

"Everyone else just agreed to sweep this under the rug?"

"That's how it goes when the Minister tells you to," Kingsley said, resigned. "Dawlish would have me dishonourably discharged if he knew I was telling you this. He already thinks I'm an overeager and insubordinate upstart."

"But you're telling me anyway."

"I am. I knew the Potters when I was a kid, you know."

Harry startled. Aunt Petunia sometimes mentioned his mum, if only to say nasty things, but no one ever told him anything about his dad and his family side.

"You did?" Bill asked.

"Yes. Gran was close with Euphemia Potter. She'd skin me alive if she knew I could help her best friend's grandson and didn't."

Euphemia, Harry mouthed his grandmother's name to himself. He wondered what his grandfather was called.

"So you want me to look at the cave."

"Yeah. Will you?"

"Of course, I will. Give me ten minutes, and I'll be at your place."

Kingsley breathed in relief. "Thanks, man. I owe you one."

His head disappeared from the fire, and it died down into nothing. Bill sprung to his feet at turned to Harry, looking thoughtful but unsurprised that Harry was eavesdropping.

"So. Harry Potter." Bill's gaze flicked to Harry's forehead.

"Why does everybody seem to know my name?" Harry asked, stepping back into the living room. He ripped the plaster off and balled it up between his fingers. "This McNair recognised me by my scar, even though I never saw him before. And now I'm apparently a big deal in your Ministry. I don't understand. Why do they think I defeated someone? It must be some mistake."

Bill sighed, looking uncomfortable. "You did, when you were a baby."

"How can a baby defeat anybody? With the world's worst nappy smell?"

Bill snorted. "Listen, kiddo. Let me go check if there will be any more Inferi coming out of that beach, and then I'll tell you everything I know. I'll try to be back home soon."

"You won't give me up to the police?"

"I promise I won't, Du—Harry."

Harry looked down. "Sorry I lied about my name."

"I understand why you did it." Bill clasped his shoulder. "Here," he said, waving his wand. A brightly coloured box flew out of the closet. "This is for you."

"For me?" Gingerly, Harry took the toy car he had been eyeing in the store, expecting Bill to snatch it away from him at any moment. "Shouldn't you be giving it to your brothers?"

"I got all of their presents from my last trip, and they'll get them tomorrow. Don't worry about that."

"If you're sure. Thanks, Bill." Harry hugged the box closer and smiled tentatively, worry forgotten for the moment as warmth bloomed in his chest. Nobody had ever got him a present like that.