Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.
Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. There is also references to canon child abuse, panic attacks, and unlawful child custody change. Feel free to back out if need be.
Author's Note: I was not expecting this fic to take the turn that it did, but now that it has, I can't say that I dislike it.
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 15); MC4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: n/a
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 15 – Assignment 03
Subject (Task No.): Muggle Art (Task#4: write about someone 'dark' or in a dark space encountering something/someone light or hopeful.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [171](Singing for Someone); 365 Prompts [299](Holding Hands); Scavenger Hunt [71](Soulmate AU w/ OTP); Auction [7.1] (Harry/Luna/Blaise)
Other MC4A Challenges: SuB [3B](Sickle/Scythe); AU [2B](Creature); Ship (Heroic Shadow)[SuMed2 (Marks on Skin; Matching Marks); SuMic1(Soul Marks); SuMic2 (Black; Green); 4C (Comforting Comforter)]; Chim [Dextrin](Sweater/Jumper; Royal Purple); Garden [Mixed Bag (Holding Hands); Behind Green Eyes (Master of Death); Personal Favs (MoD Harry Potter)]; Fire [x3](Transitional; Hearts Abound; One Two Three); TWT (Genderqueer Harry Potter; Post-War) [Task#2](Book)
Representation(s): Genderqueer Harry Potter/Luna Lovegood/Blaise Zabini; Desi Harry Potter; Lorelai Blaise Zabini; Fairy Luna Lovegood
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: n/a
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: HoSE (Schooner; Sanctuary)
Word Count: 1945 words
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The Changeling
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Blaise knew something was wrong the moment he walked in the door. The whole flat smelled of distress and pain, completely eradicating any lingering trace of Luna's peacefulness that remained after she had been gone for most of the week attending to business in the sidhe. He kept his pace through the apartment as calm as possible without wasting any time. Harry, he knew, would be in the over-sized wardrobe they kept in their bedroom. He always was if he had a panic attack while he was alone, and that was what that particular combination of scents always meant.
He had only popped off to the bodega down the road. He only been gone for a half hour. What could have possibly gone wrong in that short of time? They hadn't been expecting any visitors until much later, when Theo and Justin would be coming over for dinner. Teddy was spending the weekend with Andromeda. Maybe something had happened to the toddler and Harry had been informed while Blaise was out?
As soon as he had the thought, Blaise dismissed it. Harry wouldn't have had a panic attack over that. He would have sprung into battle mode. It was how Harry tended to solve problems, or at least any that weren't his personal ones. Blaise would just have to ask him about what had happened after he got him calmed down.
At least that was also their ritual for dealing with this kind of thing. Harry would remove himself from whatever situation had triggered him. Blaise or Luna or both would find him. Once they managed to get him calmed down enough to be responsive again, whichever one was with him would ask about what it was that had triggered Harry in the first place. It had taken them a lot of work to even reach this point, because Harry had repression and disassociation down to a fine art.
Sometimes Blaise really wished that he could meet Harry's muggle relatives, just once.
As the meme went, he just wanted to talk.
As it was, Blaise was left frustrated that Harry refused to have anything to do with them. The last time he had seen any of them had been when Dumbledore's bird club had moved them in secret shortly before Harry's seventeenth birthday. That was nearly a full year before Blaise had realized that both Harry and Luna bore the same soul mark as him. By that time, the few Order members who had been trusted with the project of moving the Dursleys had either died or had altered their memories to remove the information beyond any hope of recovery.
Not that Blaise would admit to having checked or anything.
At least, not to his littlest mate, who despite all that he had endured in his life was still impossibly kind even to those who did nothing to deserve it.
Blaise entered their bedroom. Surprisingly, he spotted Harry immediately. He was not, as expected, in the wardrobe that Luna had purchased specifically for Harry to have a safe place to retreat to while in a blind panic. Instead, he was curled up in the center of their large four-post bed, his hands pulled into the sleeves of his royal purple jumper and pressed tightly under his chin. The simple black skirt he was wearing was hiked up high enough to show off the royal purple knee socks he was wearing (because they matched the jumper, Blaise understood from hearing Luna and Harry discuss the topic in the past). Harry had tear tracks on his light brown cheeks even if he had seemingly fallen asleep already with his head in someone's lap.
Death turned her emerald gaze upon Blaise as he entered, but her fingers did not stop carding through the strands of Harry's ink-colored hair. She did set aside the book she had been hold up to read in her other hand. With a casual flick of her thin wrist, she sent it floating towards the bedside dresser on Luna's side of the bed, the one farthest from the door.
As always when she visited, Blaise felt like every hair on his body stand at attention. He felt his spine straighten as well, even if he knew that there was nothing he could actually do to fight against Death, if it came to that. No matter how powerful a lorelai he was or how seeped in magic Luna tended to be after visiting a sidhe, there was something different about being in the presence of such an entity.
After all, Death was not a creature, magical or otherwise. Death was Death in all of its entirety. She was the sudden sharpness of that silent sigh escaping at the end. She was the simple solace of entering that great sleep. She was the sorrow of those left behind and the grief that preserved beyond all expectations.
And Harry was hers even more than he could ever belong to either of his soulmates or the family they had all built out of the ashes of the war. Her claim had been laid from before he had been born. It triumphed over Destiny every single time. She allowed them to keep Harry because she loved him too much to see him unhappy now that she could interact with him freely.
"I did not anticipate his reaction," Death said quietly, as if ashamed at what she had admitted. It was rather disconcerting to see how much she clearly regretted that small fact, as if being surprised by Harry's reactions to things was not something that Blaise had to deal with on a regular basis. (Luna seemed to not have the same problem, but that could just as easily be having known Harry longer as it could be how much Luna saw even when people did not want them to do so.) Blaise dared to approach the pair. "I thought that he would be interested in the knowledge."
"What did you tell him?"
"His cousin has beget a child," Death stated simply. Blaise felt like the words were a punch to his gut. He could imagine why Harry might panic at such news. "They will call the child Violet."
"Is she—" Blaise started only to stop because he had to swallow bile. His gaze traced over Harry's slumbering form, certain now that Death must have made him sleep. There was no way that he would not be still deep in a panic attack otherwise. Still, Blaise needed to know just how bad this news was for his tiny mate. "Does Violet have magic?"
"He asked the same thing," Death commented, tilting her head slightly to the side. Her spiky hair quivered in an unseen breeze. "If I tell you the answer, will you panic as well, singer?"
"I won't," he assured her as he settled on the bed near them.
The promise even had the benefit of being true. There would be more practical aspects to deal with regardless of the answer. Either way, he could already feel the stirrings of protective rage in his veins at the mere thought of another magical child in that family's care. To anchor himself to the needs of the present, he wiggled his hand in between both of Harry's. Even in the magically induced sleep, Harry's grip tightened around Blaise's hand like it was a lifeline in a storm.
"She does possess magic," Death answered. Blaise closed his eyes as he processed the information. It was on the tip of his tongue to demand that Death to strike down those who had not only harmed his beloved mate but now had possession of another vulnerable child. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he did not have the right and Harry would never forgive him for even trying. His mate's kind heart did not wish them any harm. "She is a speaker like the others of her line before her."
"They hurt him," Blaise managed through the thick clump of sorrow in his throat. He opened his eyes in time to see Death give a single nod of acknowledgment. "They hurt him because he had magic."
Death's eyes widened slightly. It truly was a marvel that an entity so eternal and ancient could still be confused about some things which were fundamentally human. Blaise could never decide if it was forgetfulness or blindness that made Death not understand. Since he would never dare to ask her, he may never truly know.
Blaise felt the wards shift to accommodate someone entering the flat. There was only a few people who could enter their home so easily and three of them (if one counted Death as a person) were right there in the bedroom. Thus Blaise did not need the sound of Luna singing what sounded like a lullaby in Greek to know who had just arrived. He was ridiculously pleased that she was home.
A few moments later, Luna entered the bedroom, still wearing the heather-colored robes made of spider silk and moonlight that she always did when attending the Court. In her carefully folded arms, she was holding something that had been bundled in a white blanket with a series of rose-pink stripes along the hem. She kept up her singing as she paused halfway between the door and the bed. She looked up with her wide eyes that gave her a naturally surprised expression. She swayed in place as her song wound down to a closing note that lingered in the air just enough to entwine with the scent in the air around her that made it clear that she had recently passed through fairy space.
"I won't give her back," Luna declared instead of greeting them or commenting on Harry's state. The gray of her eyes were heated like molten silver. "The deal was struck, and it was kept. It is already done. I will not give her back."
A tiny fist struck out of the bundle in Luna's arms. Luna shifted her hold just enough to offer a finger for the fist to curl around. The entire time, she kept up the gentle sway that he had seen her use over the years when Teddy was fussy and having difficulty settling.
"What did you do?" Blaise asked. He already had his suspicions and if they were even the slightest bit true, he would support her in a fashion that would make any foolhardy Gryffindor proud. He just had to know.
"Petunia made a wish," Luna answered. Her tone was flat but no less determined than a moment before. "Perhaps it was a prayer. It's hard to tell the difference. She made a request for her son to never have to deal with a magical child. She said that she would give anything for that. The deal was struck, and it has been kept."
"What did you do, Luna?" Blaise repeated. Luna gave them both a smile that would have been at home on a cat that had not only eaten the canary but had also gotten into the cream.
"I've taken away the offensive child," Luna said like it was the simplest of things and perhaps to her it was just that simple, "and ensured that there would be no more."
Death threw back her head and laughed like it was the greatest joke that she had ever heard in her long, long existence. Perhaps to her, it was. Blaise could only imagine what Harry would think of this situation.
Thankfully, things were starting to look a whole lot more hopeful than they had when he had arrived home to the scent of Harry's distress and fear.