Remember how I said I ruined WBWL fic writing for myself? Whoops. Anyway, this is based on an idea in my draft fic, The Hutch, and was inspired by KingVessel on AO3 commenting there. Wink wink nudge-nudge read and comment and maybe inspire me?
Anyway. A WBWL fic that questions one famous assumption of the genre: why do the brothers have to hate each other? Or perhaps, why does that hate have to start early on? I know the pacing here is probably super jank, and if someone wants to expand this, that would be so cool.
Harry Potter was thrust into fame alongside his brother Louis. It was Halloween night, there was an attack by Lord Voldemort… the issue was that the parents were missing. Peter Pettigrew (and Pettigrew alone) was looking after his beloved godson. And Louis too, although he was Sirius'.
When the Potters rushed home, they found a ruin of a household, little trails of smoke curling in the air like snakes. Lily stormed through a crippled doorframe, dashed up the stairwell, and entered the nursery to find three things: a severed hand and the twins, both of them squalling like banshees in their crib.
She nearly shrieked when she saw the scarring across their heads. She scooped up Harry and held him close against her chest, cooing and murmuring to him in hopes that she might soothe the pain. Surely, he must have been feeling some pain, what with the livid red scar that stretched across the left side of his face. Where Louis had a thin, jagged little thing almost reminiscent of the sowilo rune on his right, Harry had a great vicious thing like a thunderbolt, jagged and multipronged.
One of the vivid red lines traced across the eye, and where its path crossed the iris, there was something like a double-side coloboma. The black of the pupil was not the tidy circle it had been when she had seen him last; instead, it formed a shape almost like a spearhead, like an ellipse on top but with a flared end on the bottom.
James took Louis and tried to calm him down – they seemed white miserable to be parted – so it took them a moment to analyze the hand. There weren't many conclusions they could reach other than it being Peter…
But how had it gotten there? Well, it seemed rather obvious that there was an attack, given the damage to the house and the strange feeling of some powerful spell gone horribly wrong… but Peter had been the secret keeper. There was literally no one who could have been less surprised by an attack on their house.
"James, did Peter…?"
"That rat." He hissed. He had made no small number of jokes about Peter's other form, but they had all been done with warmth before. This was furious.
Lily understood, considering she felt much the same. But the hand… surely, Peter must have known they would realize his part in the betrayal. There was no reason to fake his own death, so perhaps it was some punishment by Lord Voldemort?
Now there was only one question: where could they go to keep the kids safe?
They soon realized that they wouldn't have to flee to a safe house, considering that the Death Eaters had lost their leader and heaviest hitter. The war had ended, and no one other than the Potter children could be responsible.
Of course, the truth was hidden until an investigation could be conducted on the wreck. It was the result of a backfired killing curse, at least from what they could tell. There weren't exactly many cases of the spell failing, and especially not in such a spectacular fashion.
Their pictures were in the Prophet a bit after the start of December, and the Potters became hermits about a fortnight afterward. There was simply too much attention: letters and financial gifts and marriage offers and stranger gifts…. They had to have it looked through at another location for fear of traps or Howlers.
The Potter boys weren't lacking for socialization, at least. Sirius and Remus came by frequently, and there was something of an established pure-blood homeschooling scheme. There were parties, broomstick races, and informal Quidditch matches… never done at the Potter household proper. The Potters only made expeditions from their isolated fortress to carefully vetted parties held by close family friends.
There were other visitors, the very best teachers and Order combatants that Dumbledore could send over. The Potter children didn't know the tremendous destiny they were being groomed for, but they did know that they were seeing all of their parent's awesome teachers: Flitwick, McGonagall, and Slughorn.
Among them, Flitwick was their favorite. McGonagall may have amazed with her cat transformation, but Flitwick had something even more impressive:
"Can either of you tell me the first rule of dueling?"
"Hit the other guy!" Louis chirped.
"Keep him from fighting," Harry suggested, a moment later.
"Harry's a bit closer," Louis frowned, and Flitwick made to mollify him: "but I'll ask you this: what do you need to do to hit the other guy, as you say?"
"You need to cast the spell?" Louis answered.
"So…?"
"You can't have gotten hit badly?"
"Yes! The key to winning, both inside of outside of duels, is surviving. There are times when only you can win a fight - like proper duels - but sometimes you're buying time or waiting for reinforcements."
Both Potter boys were aware they wouldn't be fighting proper duels. They were being raised to fight evil, and evil didn't constrain itself to the Amsterdam Rules for Dueling.
"While I do feel an obligation to teach you proper, civilized dueling, following those rules strictly outside of matches leaves exploitable patterns. So much of dueling is patterns…"
There was perhaps no one who knew Harry Potter's patterns better than Louis Potter and vice versa.
They learned dueling at an age that was probably… too early, but you didn't survive Voldemort's wrath by lacking for caution. James was used to magical tutelage from a young age, Lily was glad to indulge her son's overwhelming interest in magic, and both knew they'd need every edge they could get. Keeping their sons safe was the crucial focus of the Potter family's education strategy, but Harry and Louis weren't robbed of a childhood either. Some things were just… delayed.
Like politics. That was pushed back until the months before Hogwarts, basically just enough to ensure they wouldn't start a blood feud or accidentally engage themselves.
So it was barely before his departure to Hogwarts that Harry really had to think about his future. He walked through Potter Manor and looked over the lush gardens and knew he wouldn't get to stay there forever. Not because he would be going to Hogwarts, but because he wouldn't inherit the Manor.
Harry had come out second. That was the simple truth, and the thought constantly nagged at him: Potter Manor wouldn't be his. He wouldn't do anything to Louis for the Lordship, nor did he doubt Louis would give him help if he needed it…
However, he only stood to inherit the repaired house at Godric's Hollow, and from there he might found a cadet branch. Perhaps House Potter-of-the-Hollow, to be contrasted with Louis's line, if he didn't choose some new name for himself.
That was what Harry was left with. His brother would be there for him, but he would have to make his own way. Become his own man, create something that might last. For whoever was to come.
He resolved himself to do as best as he possibly could at Hogwarts. Not just to show up Louis, but to make sure his house would stand a chance.
"Talent and a voracious thirst for knowledge, an overwhelming desire to make a place for yourself… you'd make an excellent addition to any House."
The Sorting Hat was so big it obscured his vision. He couldn't see anyone in the hall, not even the boy just one spot behind him in line.
"And of course, there's your brother." The Hat said. "You love him like a Hufflepuff. You're loyal. There's a place where you can protect your brother and grow without you stifling each other. I know you shall nurture your high ambition in…"
"SLYTHERIN!" The Hat boomed. There was a moment or two of silence before he heard applause. Lifting the Hat, Harry could see Louis beaming at him.
He made sure to clap just as hard when the Hat proclaimed his brother a Gryffindor. It hurt a little, to know they'd be parted, but there was no rule to stop them from meeting up and talking.
Harry could give his brother status updates about how soundly he was being beaten academically, but this was also a chance to grow beyond him, as much as it hurt. They wouldn't walk the same circles, they wouldn't have the same friends, but Harry could look into things that might help his brother knowing that Louis would help him in kind.
It was good to have Louis close. From what he gathered from Mom's letters, Dad was upset. In part because he was a Slytherin, but mostly because of fear for his safety. Harry quickly learned conflict avoidance, developing a tendency to sit in corners so the whole room might be in view. Saved him from some pranks. Not all, of course.
The one thing he never did was run to Snape. Mom wrote letters to him, asking the professor to keep an eye out. Harry had practically begged the man to not give him any special treatment. That might have earned some approval from Snape? Harry wasn't sure, but he was quite sure he didn't want the protection of a man so dismissive of his brother.
The year crept along. Harry and Louis speculated about the third-floor corridor as any pair of young boys would, at least when they weren't busy talking magic or comparing notes. Comparing notes after tests, to be specific, so each boy might fix the other's weakness after scoring an educational victory. Harry did better in Potions and Charms, while Louis seemed to have a solid lead in Transfiguration and Defense…
Of course, their work was dross compared to the upper years – the library had a lot more upper years going about than little firsties like themselves – but both of them were elated. This was the theory they learned, put into practice… even if that practice was needles and matchsticks. Their little table at the library would occasionally get visitors: Lavender Brown asking if Louis could go over that hand motion one more time, Terry Boot asking if the Gryffindor Transfiguration lecture was any different, or Susan Bones asking Louis if he was keeping up with the business of domain management as well, because isn't this budgeting stuff just a nightmare?
It was different from the Slytherin Common Room, where Harry tended to read most people approaching him as the lead-up to a confrontation. The upper years were worse – kids around his age would just do these stupid quasi-political mind games that Harry could ignore. Circumnavigating Cassius Warrington was a step above tuning out Pansy. Still, he supposed Adrian was nice enough, and in an absolute worst-case scenario, a Slytherin could be depended upon to give the appearance of a united front when in public.
It seemed like he wasn't really outgrowing Louis if Harry was depending on him to make friends, but some of the people who visited were willing to cooperate with Harry when it came to studying, so… it was a start, at least. Well, that and the people he vaguely knew from attending those pureblood parties back in the day. He had people he met with outside of school contexts by the middle of October!
Halloween was not something the Potters really celebrated anymore. The terror of an assault on your house paired with the realization one of your greatest friends had betrayed you to a murderer… Louis and Harry had the usual meaning of the holiday explained to them a bit before they went to Hogwarts. Dad had said this: "Remember boys, spend Halloween with true friends. Someone you can trust."
When Hermione Granger didn't show up to dinner, Louis was concerned. When news of the troll came, he slipped away as soon as he possibly could. How could he ask for a true friend without doing trustworthy things in turn?
And where Louis went, Harry followed.
(Well, everywhere except the Quidditch pitch. Snape wasn't breaking rules for Harry even if he was tolerated.)
The troll was felled, Hermione joined their study circle. Louis and Harry ate up her explanations of the muggle world and shared what they knew of the magical one.
Harry was Louis's in to Slytherin, although both of them were smart enough to keep it on the down low. He wasn't part of Draco's clique so he couldn't get information on every one of his schemes, but he wasn't blind or deaf. Well, that and Draco bragged to Pansy who talked to Daphne who was… not nearly as clever a politician as she considered herself. It might have been a kindness, in her own strange way, "building up goodwill and accumulating political capital" or whatever.
Louis and his family liked hearing about Daphne and Adrian… not all bad eggs, right?
He liked to think the Potter blood bred true, even in a snake. There wasn't much he could do for Mom and Dad at Hogwarts, but if Louis called Harry would answer.
When Louis asked for the Invisibility Cloak – given them by their father with a warm grin and a farcical warning not to get in trouble – Harry let him have his turn. It saw more use in the first months after Christmas than it had in the past eleven years: spying on snakes or roaming hallways, allowing expeditions to the Forest or the Restricted Section.
On separate meanderings, they found a mirror, and for the first time, they argued about who deserved the Cloak. Louis never invoked his status as firstborn, but they went from swapping every day to between weeks.
Funnily enough, they both saw the same thing: two brothers, side by side, each head of their own esteemed house. (Foggy, barely coherent wives, but with children raised like siblings.)
When they passed the Cloak to each other, they talked. Shared their common room passwords, just in case and talked about new discoveries in the castle. Talked about a giant dog on the third floor, argued about whether or not a certain Potions professor was really that bad.
"Nicholas Flamel? Isn't he that alchemist bloke?"
Knowing that some tremendous evil lurked in the school, they made to prevent it themselves. Maybe it was a school year away from their parents doing a little something to wean themselves off adult authority.
A team of four: Harry, Louis, Ron, and Hermione. A series of tasks that were perhaps a bit too easy, although they were too jumped up on the thrill of it all to notice. A chess match that all four of them together couldn't even manage to salvage.
Potions, curtains of strange fire. Louis took the lead, going someplace where Harry couldn't help. A brief hug. "See you on the other side, Harry." Flames, rushing for help.
A dead body was brought out, the whole morbid tale unfolding. A trap. The enemy they were trained to fight for most of their lives in the very same room for weeks on end. How easily they could have been caught…
The grim news was sweetened by Voldemort being played for a fool. The Philosopher's Stone was on its way to destruction and was never even in danger of being stolen.
Some small part of Harry wondered if he would have gotten the Stone if he had stood in front of the mirror. Because some portion of him couldn't help but desire the Philosopher's Stone for the money it could make, the security it would provide his future. The thought of it being destroyed hurt, and not for any altruistic reasons like funding orphanages or covering textbook costs.
It was a shortcut. Harry Potter didn't need shortcuts.
What he didn't need in top of that was a serious parental talking to regarding their end-of-the-year adventure. They had known that Voldemort was out there, but to meet him in such a way…
Harry and Louis took some small consolation in not receiving a tongue-lashing nearly as fierce as the one Dumbledore landed. James and Lily could forgive childish adventurism a bit more easily than a scheme, even if it nearly landed them their man.
In addition to intensified training, summer was eaten up by letter correspondence. The Grangers were visited by bewildered neighborhood birdwatchers, so many owls came by.
Sirius fulfilled his self-assigned role as cool godfather/quasi-uncle by bringing no small amount of muggle stuff for the boys to marvel at, even taking them on a few trips to muggle London during sleepovers at Grimmauld. Sirius liked presenting himself as their 'ally', although every visit did have to be approved by James and Lily…
Unfortunately, second year proved itself trouble before the summer even came to a close. Their parents took one look at the shopping list and James collapsed into a stream of very impolite words. Harry and Louis heard a few despite their mother's hurried noise-canceling charm.
Why the expletives? Because James Potter had an issue with Gilderoy Lockhart. James considered himself, fairly, a trained professional in the field, and he had never taken any of his writings seriously. They read like serious investigations, sure, but the keen investigator described did not seem anything like Lockhart – in fact, the books seemed to depict different types of investigators altogether. One book he's a cautious, hesitant gumshoe, the next he's a zealous protector of some tiny community he met mere weeks ago, bold enough to use himself as bait for a trap. James also had a bad feeling about the timing of the various books…
When he was asked to buy all of the man's books for his son's education… well, the first thing he did was cheap out. One set for his sons to share. That wasn't something a well-paid Auror and successful potions mistress should have needed to do to save money, but he refused to give the man a sickle more than absolutely necessary. Especially when he did the math regarding dates and got some numbers that painted a very unflattering picture, even if they weren't totally damning. In an absolute best case scenario, Gilderoy Lockhart was an incredibly swift traveler who never faced any issues crossing borders, despite the international attention he should have gathered and the investigations he would have needed to help finish off.
Harry was hopeful that Dumbledore might suffer another haranguing from his parents, but after a surprisingly quick chat, Dad was mollified, at least in part. He demanded a supplement of some kind to Lockhart's teaching – "The position might be cursed, but there's no reason we can't send an Auror as an aide, is there?" – and explicitly told Harry and Louis they had the right to ignore Lockhart if they spent that time getting better at DADA.
(They had a pretty strong incentive not to slack, considering that Louis had survived a confrontation with a bona-fide Dark Lord who managed to keep death from properly sticking.)
The Potter twins were ready for a big year, especially considering their little academic rivalry was about to gain two new fronts in Care for Magical Creatures and Quidditch. Well, assuming that Harry managed to get into the Quidditch team that year. It was possible now, but it being possible and it being likely were two very different things.
Lockhart proved himself to be the clown that Dad had expected, but there was always a trainee Auror nearby to repair the damage he did, both academically and more broadly. It was a step above their teacher being literally possessed, Harry supposed. There was a decent stretch of time when Harry really thought this would be as normal of a Hogwarts year as he could get while actively preparing to fight a Dark Lord.
And then Halloween swaggers in, pisses all over Harry's hopes, and turns Filch's cat into a rock.
As mentioned before, the Potter family didn't really do big Halloween celebrations, and this meant that Harry and Louis were alone at the time… only dependent on each other to substantiate an alibi. In a serious investigation with Veritaserum and mind specialists (helped by an Auror on-premises), this wasn't necessarily a problem – modifying memories was tricky work, especially getting two separate points of view remembering fictional events properly – but in the eyes of the students of Hogwarts? Well, it seemed off.
The atmosphere in school was tense afterward. Obviously. There was some paranoia, letters from parents expressing concern, and more attention paid in Lockhart's class. Magnanimously, Lockhart tried to address their fears by starting up a dueling club – Harry couldn't imagine him being that great of a teacher or referee, but an excuse to duel was an excuse to duel, and neither of the Potter brothers would give that up.
The suspicion ramped up a notch when Louis proved himself a Parselmouth in front of a large audience, immediately exacerbating the rumors about Potter twin chicanery. Harry proved himself a Parselmouth as well later that night – because of course he needed to know if they shared this ability as well – but was keen enough not to share such damning information.
The year passed in relative isolation – Granger, Weasley, and Brown stuck around Louis, at least – with Harry investigating the Slytherin commons for any hint of the Heir. When he wasn't busy doing that, he tried and struggled to reach out to the muggleborn students who seemed so terrified of him and his brother. It didn't always work out, and when a few of them ended up paralyzed… well, it started looking like Harry had some sort of touch of death. Nothing could be pinned on him, but rumors ran rampant…
Near the end of the year, they found proof a certain Chamber, and a professor's plot. There was an attempt to turn the situation around, but Gilderoy Lockhart didn't have dueling instincts hammered into his head. There was a cave in though, leaving Louis to go forward alone as Harry and Ron scrambled to seek help. "See you on the other side, Harry."
Their third year had a pleasant surprise: they actually knew something about their professor beforehand, and they knew he wasn't a total fool. In fact, he was a family friend. Remus Lupin came and went, his condition making him an almost eternal sojourner in most every part of magical Britain. He simply could not stay in one place for too long, although that was more enforced than Sirius' willful meandering.
With careful planning and some cautious use of political capital, Dumbledore and James Potter not only got a competent professor in the seat, but they had him swapping out with a professional Auror so he could receive 'training' for his teaching. The Lockhart mess practically forced greater oversight of teachers, and they were playing a dangerous game by trying to introduce a werewolf as a teacher during the first year of this new oversight…
But the possessed diary was a very bad sign. James and Lily pored over every library they could get their hands on: their private collection, Hogwarts, the Black collection, even going as far to file a request for the Unspeakables' records. The diary was filled with, from what Louis said, magic of the foulest sort, and it seemed to somehow be linked to the matter of the soul.
Another favor was cashed with the Unspeakables to guarantee the delivery of Time-Turners to accelerate the curriculum of several students. Not only would Harry and Louis be receiving competent instruction, but they would receive more hours of it than should have fit in a normal school day. Hell, more hours of it than should have fit in any day.
In a serious break from form, their third year passed without any serious issues beyond some minor drama with their pets. Ron was convinced that Hermione's cat had killed his rat, a conclusion that grew more and more likely as the weeks stretched on without Scabber's appearance.
Unfortunately, it seemed as if their fourth year would serve up the trouble they had missed the year previously, with interest. The Triwizard Tournament and two other skills visiting Hogwarts… it would have been very impressive to watch if the entire school year wasn't poisoned by the resurgent Death Eater activity at the Quidditch World Cup. They probably would have been too busy training to really enjoy the Tasks… at least, before Louis' name flew out of the Goblet.
With James and Lily caught up in investigating Voldemort and political damage control after it was revealed that they had recommended a werewolf for a teaching position at Hogwarts with full knowledge of his affliction, Harry was left as Louis' main support in the tournament. Harry didn't doubt his brother's innocence regarding putting his name in the Goblet for a second. Perhaps that made him tremendously unpopular in Slytherin, but he could live with that. His recent choices in friends had already done that.
(Harry Potter wasn't in a good situation politically. His near-constant support of his brother made him look… well, like a slavishly obedient cadet house that would never so much as breathe if the main Potter line didn't permit it. Add to that Potter political power waning more generally, and Harry wasn't a good prospect, especially considering little blocs and cliques had already solidified in Slytherin. Harry didn't mind that, though. What mattered was survival and the allies he could make.
So what if there wasn't a political advantage in befriending the Creevey brothers? Harry wasn't sure if he had much of an eye for talent, but whatever he was going to make of himself after Voldemort was handled, it would probably be new. Why not make friends with muggleborns who might know some untapped niche? He couldn't afford to turn up his nose, not when he was without the grand inheritance Louis had.)
Harry was Louis' research man. He was proud to be. Even if the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs glowered at him, keeping his brother alive was his sacred mission. When he heard the first task was dragons… he was afraid, but fear wouldn't make fangs any less sharp or fire any less hot. He got to work.
They hammered out a plan. Utilize Louis' Quidditch skills to let him dodge and dance the dragon into exhaustion so he could sweep in and take the egg. Risky, certainly, but dragons were too strong for their dueling skills to make any difference. But that meant learning accio.
"Alright, here we are." Harry laid an egg on the table of the empty classroom. It wobbled for a second before falling on its side and rolling. "Oop, you better hurry–"
"Accio egg!" The egg might have turned a bit, but Louis had a bad feeling that was just due to it being an egg. Not very prone to staying still, were they?
"I think you did something!" Harry chuckled. "Maybe all you need is this. Steal the egg straight out from under her."
"They'd be smart enough to stop me from doing that, I reckon. Accio egg!"
"You're expecting a lack of loopholes from Mr. Devil's Snare security?"
"That was Sprout, wasn't it? Accio egg!" Louis lunged desperately like he was trying to lodge the wand into someone's abdomen. The egg remained unperturbed.
"Oh, I think you got one!" Harry cried out. Louis looked up to see an egg flying at his face, which he narrowly dodged. It splattered against the wall.
"Oi!"
"Dodge, dodge! Remember the first rule of dueling!"
"Expelliarmus!"
"I've got something else for you. I was looking through a book of rituals…" Louis instinctually cringed, and Harry rushed to explain himself. "This one could save your life! This one exchanges the strength of a limb for overall dexterity."
"That wouldn't work, Harry. How am I supposed to handle a dragon if one of my arms doesn't work? One of my legs?"
"That's the thing." Harry grinned. "Nothing in the ritual says it has to be your limb. It just has to be a sacrifice willingly made by someone."
"Harry…"
"We can do it. You need to be at your best to fly around that dragon, but I don't need strength in my off arm."
"You do, Harry!"
"You could die out there!" Harry exclaimed, equally heated. "The Triwizard has killed before. It could again. You're doing a seventh year's job!"
Louis Potter was an unusual quidditch talent before his fourth year. Afterward? He was a once-in-a-century savant. (He pulled the person really responsible for that change out of the lake one trial later.)
When Louis Potter reappeared with a dead body, Harry Potter practically leapt out of the stands to get to his brother. "Louis! Louis!"
"Harry!" Louis gasped, "Help me- help me with Cedric! He's…"
He was dead. He was dead, and Voldemort was back. Louis may have looked the part of some mad prophet spouting doomsday prophecies, but Harry knew it was the truth, knew it was what they had been trained for. Amid the chaos, Harry knew they only had one goal: get to their parents. Get out. Prepare for war.
Thankfully, his parents thought much the same: Mom and Dad rushed up, executing a brief hug before they all went into emergency mode. Despite the bad optics of fleeing the scene while Cedric's body was still cooling, Lily pulled Louis and Harry away, while James went to help Dumbledore regain control of the situation.
A house-elf got them out of the mess almost immediately, and they went about turning the Potter Manor into a fortress. Louis nicked himself to spill blood on ancient wardstones, Lily animated statuary in the garden, and Harry ran checks on their escape routes. Emergency potions on bandoliers, checks on safe houses (with secondary wands), dragonhide armor 'liberated' from the collections of Death Eaters they managed to pin, the larder stuffed to bursting with foodstuffs in case things came to a siege of the compound.
The night stretched long. Lily told the boys to get some sleep, which turned out to be a bit of a struggle. Both were trembling with fear and anxiety (and perhaps a perverse bit of hope and gladness that their preparation was finally going to bear fruit) and they were sleeping in a room at the heart of the manor, more like a bunker than a simple bedroom.
When they woke, Louis felt something strange. Rising from his bed, he fumbled for his wand on the bedside and muttered Lumos to get some light to see by. The light woke Harry up, and his brother grumbled a bit as he reached for his wand and glasses. Harry loved those glasses. In addition to correcting the vision in his bad eye – curse scar, couldn't be magicked away – it acted almost like binoculars for his good eye. Useful little piece of magic.
Speaking of jewelry with a useful piece of magic attached… Louis found the thing that felt so strange. A signet ring sat on his finger. The Potter signet ring, but that shouldn't have been possible. It had never left his father's hand. Literally couldn't, as long as he drew breath. It was stuck to the current head of the Potter family like glue.
His eyes started to water.
Voldemort gaining a body sped up several plans that their parents had hoped to delay. James' hope of using Animagus training as an incentive for good OWLS performance was cast aside for the obvious utility of the transformation in wartime. James' hope of guiding his boys through the fascinating and frequently awkward journey of Animagus transformation was also ruined, although that was because he wasn't there to do it.
The Death Eater who had infiltrated Hogwarts – why was this such a frequent occurrence? – had been caught up in the chaos immediately following the end of the tournament, and spent the last moments of his disguise for everything they were worth. James Potter was dead. The Aurors were robbed of one of their finest members, and the Boy-Who-Lived ascended to the position of Head of House Potter. A promotion that brought political power… if he could brave the Ministry.
Any Death Eater sympathizer in the Ministry could sell their life dearly by killing the Chosen One during a Wizengamot meeting, meaning that the paranoid Potters were in absentia for all future meetings of the Wizengamot. This caused some obvious political damage, not helped by their espousal of the Voldemort revival story.
Hogwarts was safer, and continuing to attend would give Harry and Louis continuous access to some of the Order's best teachers, in addition to keeping them away from the lion's share of the public. Even then, Dumbledore arranged for Harry to sleep in different quarters than usual, just for safety's sake. It was… a bit like home again. They weren't split up between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and didn't allow themselves to be separated otherwise… a tendency that only cemented the fact that Harry was in Louis' camp, even if he might have known the password to the Slytherin Commons.
DADA was essentially a wash. Umbridge was a completely intolerable political appointment who seemed to make it her personal mission to make the Potter brothers recant. She managed nothing more than creating such an oppressive atmosphere – and such a miserable learning environment – that students flocked to secretive training held by the Brothers Potter.
Despite his dreadful Slytherin reputation, Harry Potter proved himself a fair teacher with no blood-bias chip on his shoulder. Amicable. Friendly. Willing to lend a hand to anybody who needed it… or quick to build up a debt of gratitude. Maybe that was the cynical way of looking at it, but even then it didn't look political compared to Louis, who juggled the duties of preparing his classmates to defend themselves and being the head of, essentially, a political movement of conspiracy theorists.
(Well, they were perceived as such.)
Louis was glad to leave the teaching to Harry when some political affair or top-secret meeting dragged him away; in fact, it was probably pretty logical. Between the two, Harry had always practiced a more defensive style: one that could be adapted to protect two. Both could duel on their own, but together, Louis played offense and Harry played defense, and that bled into a tremendously aggressive style on Louis' part, one that avoided injury only through incredible skill and freakishly good instincts.
Harry's style was more approachable, feasible for someone who wasn't used to dancing around with a wand like it was an extension of their arm. It had its own difficulties – a reliance on minuscule tells, a tendency to dodge as narrowly as possible – but it was a bit more feasible unsupported. Not that Dumbledore's Army lacked teamwork exercises.
Even when it fell apart, there was a tight core of older members who joined Harry and Louis Potter when they rushed to the Ministry in hopes of stopping the theft of the Prophecy.
And so the war began properly.
"Dumbledore says Horcruxes. It has to be." Louis said.
"And you want to wander around the country looking for clues with Dumbledore," Harry said, frowning.
"Yes. Do you disagree?"
"I don't. It's just… we still need to fight, right?"
"Eventually." They both knew that, at least. However many Horcruxes Voldemort had, when they were all destroyed Voldemort needed to be forced into confrontation before he could make a new one. If he could make a new one.
Still, you get the point: they needed a way to handle Voldemort's minions so the subject of the Prophecy could finish off Voldemort and bring the whole affair to a close.
"So…" Harry said, "One of us needs to make sure the public is in a state to fight."
Louis chuckled. "Are you volunteering, Harry?"
"I'll do it. Keep me at Hogwarts… maybe give me the cloak. I'll keep an eye on things."
"You think I'm letting you back without the cloak? I'm not a monster."
"Be serious," Harry said. "It would keep me safe from any junior Death Eaters, but you're practically the face of the war…"
"We have Fidelius'd safehouses outside Hogwarts. You do not."
"Just… give me a shout and I'll give it right back, alright?"
"You'll be waiting a while."
Harry found himself serving as a channel of communication between Louis – Horcrux hunter, face of non-government resistance against Voldemort – and the students of Hogwarts. Sometimes the duty was funny, like all the courtship offers and love letters his brother was receiving, but those were brief moments of levity in the midst of growing pressure. Harry supplemented Snape's (admittedly excellent) Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching with a lean, efficient curriculum focused on survival and protecting those dear to you during wartime. At times, Harry got better info than the papers, considering that neither his brother nor mother were beholden to censorship rules.
That did mean that he bore the unpleasant responsibility of telling quite a few of his classmates that their parents had died… he tried to give them a shoulder to cry on, at least. There were times when Dad's… when it didn't feel real. Like he had left the country at the outbreak of the war and might just come back when it was over and done with. Never mind that his father would never be such a coward… it was a fantasy that crept into his mind sometimes.
Harry knew that Louis was taking it harder than him because he had the additional weight of inheriting the Head of House position without proper training for it. The process was usually a bit more gradual, the heir taking on more responsibilities as they were introduced to more and more of their parent's contacts… but Louis didn't have any of that.
Louis would either make avenging his father the first great accomplishment of his leadership of House Potter, or he would pass it on to Harry. There really wasn't any other option.
And Harry supported him, in what ways he could. He formed a new Dumbledore's Army, and discussed plans for getting young students out of Britain should worse come to worse… despite his presence in Hogwarts, his sixth year barely saw a lick of studying for any class that wasn't Snape's. He almost appreciated the normalcy.
And then there was the attack at the end of the year. There had been some minor success in the Horcrux hunt, but Harry was rather distracted at the time, considering he was standing in the van during a desperate defense of Hogwarts from Death Eaters.
Harry killed someone that night. He didn't feel nearly as bad about it as he thought he would have. He knew there was no prison that could truly hold them, he knew that their continued living presented a serious threat to him and the residents of the castle, especially the muggleborns. (He didn't realize it at the time, but he barely thought of his brother at all that night, at least until his arrival with Dumbledore.)
Dumbledore arrived to meet a weathered Death Eater force. They pushed Draco to finish the job and kill Dumbledore, and he delayed. That had to be the worst part. He might have been able to melt back into the mass of Hogwarts students if he wanted to – Dumbledore promised that he could turn things around, that Harry could help him… Maybe that was the intolerable part, actually. But Draco couldn't kill the headmaster and he couldn't flee. All he managed was to disarm him before Snape finished the job.
And then- and then it was making sure the new leader of the light didn't die mere minutes after the old. Death Eaters followed Dumbledore's long descent, Harry cast a spell that lopped off Malfoy's wand hand at the wrist, and only Snape and Malfoy managed to escape.
There was a funeral, and then there were preparations. The Horcrux hunt would become more intense… and Harry had to seal whatever loophole had allowed Death Eaters into Hogwarts. He couldn't allow the school to be unsafe – even if he was training the upper years to be part of an army.
(What a hypocrite he was. But they needed to survive this.)
Hogwarts was one of the most defensible positions in magical Britain, so much so that Voldemort preferred to takeover over the Ministry so that he might seize Hogwarts politically instead of besieging it. Perhaps some part of that was love for the old castle… but it was a strategy that benefitted Harry.
Some people wondered if the castle had a will. After his seventh year, Harry Potter would never doubt it did. The secret passages and stairwells were simply too lenient to him, too accommodating to a growing rebellion that hid from Snape and his goons. Funnily enough, it was Harry Potter's Parseltongue that allowed his resistance to retreat to the chamber, where none of the Death Eaters could catch them.
Communicating with Louis got harder and harder. They had mirrors to communicate, sure, but both of them were constantly on edge, constantly moving about, and actively shooting their circadian rhythms to hell. One conversation with Louis was basically a single sentence: "Horcrux hidden in school. Ravenclaw diadem or Hufflepuff cup. Love you."
He met with his mother sometimes, when circumstances called for him to leave the castle to help people. She was working with the Order on the outside, which gave her a sleep-schedule nearly as shot as her son's. She looked… older. Harry supposed that was what two wars and a widowing did to a woman.
(She brewed many potions for the resistance against Voldemort, and funnily enough, the Voldemort regime brewed many of the potions she invented. They were that useful, even if they took pains to reassign credit to other Death Eaters. From what Harry heard, it was a bunch of lunkheads who claimed themselves as the inventors. Better idiots than a mudblood, he supposed. At the very least, Snape had the dignity to not claim his mother's work.)
Harry Potter smuggles basilisk fangs out of Hogwarts. Louis Potter finishes off a locket. Harry Potter escorts dozens of students into the Chamber of Secrets, the resistance's base camp. Louis Potter goes underground to find a cup locked away in a Gringotts vault. Harry Potter throws a coup. Louis Potter enters Hogwarts a conquering hero. A tiara dies with a wail.
(Severus Snape dies without ever passing his memories onto someone else. When the Potter brothers hear the story, it is from Lily's perspective.)
The defenders of Hogwarts prepare for a final battle. Louis gives an exhausted smile. "See you on the other side, Harry."
When Harry saw his brother next, he seemed to be dead. For perhaps the first time in his life, he truly fought like his brother – he must have killed people, he didn't use the Stupefy he usually did, but he didn't particularly care – and when his brother proved himself to not be nearly as dead as he appeared…
Well, one of them killed Voldemort. People had opinions, but Harry and Louis could never say for sure: "It was probably my brother."
When the war ended, they had to sit down and think about how they would put the country back together. Well, perhaps 'stop and think' was a bit generous, as it implied some sort of trepidation, a possibility for debate regarding the best solutions and steps that might be taken to prevent the same issue from bubbling back up again.
What was the official government stance? Old titles and lands were to be redistributed to the gallant heroes of the war, seats redistributed to create the youngest Wizengamot in recorded history. Which was nice, he supposed, but it didn't change the system. Placing good people in charge didn't do anything to change a rotten system in the same way that a new exterior didn't excuse the crumbling supports in a house's foundations.
It was exactly what Harry had hoped for when he first walked into Hogwarts. A title and income and a seat that he could make the most of now that Voldemort was dead. Six or so years ago, this would have practically been his win condition.
Yet it had the taste of ash now. It meant… nothing. Well, it meant a lot, in some senses, but he realized how unimportant their pretensions actually were. While Louis was off hunting the Horcruxes – an important job, of course, he'd never argue otherwise – Harry was on the ground, rallying resistance and trying to evacuate muggleborns and executing ambushes on Death Eaters. Holding the line so Louis could gallop in to strike the Dark Lord down.
But he would never say he did it alone. Harry had survived because he was trained and because he was lucky, but the first was really just an extension of the latter. He was lucky enough to be born into the Potter family, lucky enough to have been trained for war from the get-go, and lucky enough to have had some forewarning before the Voldemort regime started hunting. He was lucky enough to not be a second-class citizen just due to his birth.
A masked stranger hadn't come by to burn down Harry's house with his parents inside when he was eleven. A 'government official' hadn't carted him off to a show trial. He hadn't gone down fighting in a desperate attempt to buy time as his siblings crossed the Channel.
He hadn't died like the muggleborns had. And what did they get for dying in droves? Nothing.
Harry had what they didn't. Political training. Allies in the government. A mouth that could still speak, hands that could still write.
He got to work.
Money? He had money. Political favors? He'd promise anything. Begging? If it worked.
One vote. It came down to one vote. If they could chip so much as one person off of Louis Potter's bloc, they could start pushing the reforms the magical world needed so urgently; however, they simply didn't have any more options. They had begged and pleaded and bribed their way up to precisely halfway, a sliver below majority. Now that he could actually go the Wizengamot without fearing for his life, Louis had become very involved in politics, very involved in maintaining the seat of his forefathers. He meant well. Harry knew that. But love of his departed father had turned Louis Potter into the biggest reactionary in the Wizengamot.
Harry's allies were so close it hurt, so close they searched for any possible workaround or precedent that might let them cross that threshold.
They found one. Historically, magical skill had been a critical part of deciding who became the heir to a house. There was the simple fact that the duties of a house head could not be fulfilled by a squib, but there was also the unfortunate reality that sometimes, jealous younger sons were stronger than their elder siblings. Strong enough to murder their way into title, if they so pleased.
And so the ancient and honorable practice of the Cadet's Challenge. A younger sibling could challenge an elder to a duel for a title the elder held, essentially forcing a confrontation that might win them a seat. Gaining such a title did not see any of the younger's titles given over to the eldest… meaning that Harry could gain an extra vote in the Wizengamot without forfeiting his own.
It left a bitter taste in his mouth, the thought that they would only get the power they needed to make a meaningful change by invoking some ancient, barbaric precedent. By fighting his brother. But it would work.
Harry trembled in his seat and checked the script one last time. The wording of a challenge was important, he'd need as much legitimacy as he could possibly get… "I have an issue I would like to discuss on the floor, Chief Warlock."
"You may proceed, Lord Potter-on-Avon." That was his title. His was the branch of the family that resided in a manor house on the Avon. If this went through and he won, he would be able to drop the on-Avon. He marched to the floor.
Louis was smiling. He was smiling. Sure that his brother was going to introduce some bill that had merit. Louis always thought his proposals had merit, or a good end goal, even if he would argue vociferously against them and move his bloc to knock them down. Harry was silent for a beat longer, his own bloc starting to get a little worried.
Harry looked up at his brother, looked dead into those green eyes: "My blood and my flesh, I challenge thee by my right as a magician – for I proclaim that my strength alone can lead House Potter to prosperity. Stand against me, as the old vows require, or reject the ancient accord!"
Silence swept across the hall, and for a moment Harry wondered if he had gotten the wording wrong. There were pops as house elves were sent to grab ancient tomes of precedents… but all Harry could focus on was the look of absolute betrayal on his brother's face. It was the old trope of the jealous younger brother, but with the added insult that Harry already had enough to live off of.
Harry did this solely to deprive Louis of his seat. And Louis seemed to know it.
An old-fashioned Wizengamot duel did have rules, although they were very different from the various European dueling traditions Harry and Louis were taught. Some parts were obvious – no sabotage of the competitor – but others were different. There was no rule against bringing a blade or secondary weapon, they had carte blanche to use many banned spells (some of which hadn't been invented yet), and fighting to kill was allowed.
There were requirements for location as well: a clearing in a suitably magical location, at least fifty paces in diameter, mowed by hand. Trusted witnesses would examine the location, ensure no traps or undue advantage, and draw a square dead center.
They stood on opposite edges of the square, wands in their right hands and their left hands touching, palm-to-palm. Face to face, man against man, brother against brother. Louis smiled, but it was thin. "See you on the other side, Harry." Harry's hand was shaking, his wand nearly slipping from his hand due to sweat.
"I'm sorry about this."
Louis frowned. "You're not. And I'd prefer you be honest with me and say you think I need to be stopped. It's the truth, isn't it?"
"It is," Harry said.
"That's the ticket." Louis smiled. "Family stops family from doing something stupid. I'm warning you, if I lose this, I'll run for office."
"Good. And so… I, Harry Potter, do challenge thee."
"I, Louis Potter, accept your challenge." It was terribly old magic, magic so old that it almost seemed in tune with the very air. Like it had time to properly settle. Their hands parted, both Harry and Louis turning away from each other and walking fourteen paces. Count to seven and–
When Harry turned around, he was in the eye of a miniature storm. The raging gale caught a fusillade of darkly shimmering stones and sent them screeching away, where they slammed into the trees. Spectators shrieked.
Harry had always been the defensive half of their partnership, Louis always the offensive. It was a style that worked. In unrestricted, high-level dueling like this, they would normally fall back on what they were comfortable with, but Harry wouldn't let his ambitions fail here. If he acted like he normally did, Louis would be able to predict him better than anyone in the world.
With a wave of his wand, Harry tore the leaves off of most every tree in the area, gathering them in a great cloud that shifted from vivid green to rich autumnal shades… the shades of a roiling storm of copper sheets that turned like a great snake and lunged towards Louis. He shouted some spell that even Harry didn't know, and a spray of noxious liquid shot out, melting metal into acrid smoke…
They danced. Smoke and thunder, the earth tearing itself apart and sewing back together. Absurdly, Harry was reminded of their duels when they were just children, pulling out every gimmicky little spell they knew, giving their utmost even if the greatest extent of their abilities was turning each other's hair glittery purple. But they were very different men now.
Louis wore scars from the basilisk, both carried wounds from the war. Years after the ritual back in fourth year, Harry's left arm was still weak. True to Louis' worries, it had nearly killed him several times during the war. But he had been saved, saved by people who had no business sticking their necks out for him. People he should have protected.
Harry ducked into a cloud of sparkling purple smoke and dropped his wand from his right. Catch with his left and cast–
Cast at an angle Louis hadn't expected.
An arrow of red struck true as Louis dodged the Harry he once knew, instead of the one who stood before him today. He collapsed.
I know the whole surviving AK shouldn't work without a sacrifice, but I was vaguely toying with the idea that it was brotherly love that saved Louis. It's ambiguous, like a lot of this story. Who really was the Boy Who Lived? Louis does a lot of heroics, but you could argue a case for Harry, or do vice-versa if you wanted to be contrarian.
Maybe there's something to that. Whoever you pick, someone will think him the WBWL.
I hope you enjoyed reading. I enjoyed writing this – it reminds me of the absurd output I managed during NaNoWriMo.