Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 ,13 and 14 are already available at Pat re on.
If you want to support me, read the next chapters of the story and more, I invite you to my
Patreo n .com(slash)BoobsHunter (Remove spaces)
The house looked just as he remembered it, yet completely different. Harry signaled to the Uber driver, feeling both his body and mind groan as he stepped out from the back seat. He wasn't sure what he had expected after four years, but his arrival felt anticlimactic.
"I bet they'll be happy to see you," the driver said. They had chatted on the way through Surrey, exchanging pleasantries about his trip and plans.
"We'll see," Harry replied.
He pulled his suitcase from the trunk. It felt heavier than just the clothes, books, and various trinkets he had acquired over four years at the magical college, MACUSA. It seemed to carry the weight of the past he was now returning to. Four years without a single visit home, and now he was back for an indefinite future.
Harry felt the length of those years as he waved to the Uber driver and began walking towards the front door, dragging his suitcase behind him. He hadn't brought much to school nor acquired much beyond a gaming console, which he kept, and a TV, which he sold. This left him feeling oddly vulnerable, as if he were homeless rather than coming home.
He stopped at the door and decided to knock instead of just walking in. He was almost certain it was the first time he had ever knocked on his childhood home's door. Harry waited, letting the wind tousle his hair, pondering that it was quite possible no one was home. He hadn't called ahead except for a brief letter he had sent a few weeks earlier, announcing his intention to return.
He was sure his dad, as he often called Sirius, would be at work as usual. His mother Bellatrix, or rather his aunt or stepmother, would surely be there. Jamie, his older sister, who had been adopted by Sirius and Bellatrix, was two years older than him, making her twenty-three, and she had likely already moved out. Then there was Astoria, little Astoria, his younger adopted sister, who had just turned seventeen and was finishing her last year at the magical school.
The door opened. He found himself staring into his mother's face, feeling a surge of emotions. One of them was surprise – she looked completely different than when he had left, even though she was now forty, maybe forty-one. She was still the same beautiful woman with long, glossy dark hair and warm hazel eyes behind librarian-style glasses.
Bellatrix sighed, full of emotion, and rushed forward to hug him. "Oh, Harry, we weren't sure if you'd come! I can't believe you knocked – why didn't you just come in?"
"I don't know," he said. "I just feel... so different." He wrapped his arms around her, smiling despite himself. Different, yet the same. He felt her body against his, noting her breasts pressing a bit too distinctly against his chest.
It was still warm for early autumn, and Bellatrix was dressed accordingly. She wore a yellow dress with white polka dots and thin straps. Harry noticed her smooth, slightly tanned shoulders as they broke the embrace and had to avert his gaze from where it shouldn't linger.
"You're home," his mother said. "That's all that matters."
She reached out and stroked his cheek as if he were five years old, not a newly graduated master of magic. Harry felt a mix of amusement and embarrassment.
"Well, I'm here." He smiled and rolled his eyes as his mother began to fuss with his hair. "You don't have to fuss over me."
"It hasn't started yet, sir," she replied with a smile. "I'm still in shock. Even after receiving your letter, I wasn't sure if you would actually come back. You missed so many holidays, Thanksgivings, and birthdays."
He shrugged. "I was attending school at MACUSA. It was too difficult for me to make the trip back."
He suspected it sounded like a poor excuse out loud, just as it did in his mind. His mother gave him a look he remembered well—one that showed she saw through his nonsense, but loved him too much to call him out on it.
"Come inside," she said, moving past him to take his suitcase from the stairs.
He felt how close she was to him, close enough to catch a faint whiff of her scent.
"I'll fix you something to eat, and you can tell me everything."
From the upstairs hallway, leading to the bedrooms, familiar footsteps echoed, and a moment later, a young woman appeared. She had shoulder-length red hair, a slim figure, and a freckled face that became familiar only after a few seconds. "Astoria!" Harry called out with a laugh.
"She insists on being called Astoria now," his mother said, touching his arm.
"Astoria is fine," said Astoria.
Her voice was soft, and she didn't maintain eye contact, glancing up and around, everywhere but directly at him.
She was wearing a plaid skirt that barely reached mid-thigh and a white blouse with a red ribbon around the collar. She looked adorably cute, nothing like the clumsy little sister he remembered, yet she still carried the essence of that same person. She had always been pretty, but now there was a delicateness about her that made her seem rare and vulnerable.
Harry felt an odd impulse to run over and scoop her up in a bear hug and lift her off the ground like he used to, but he resisted. She wasn't a little girl anymore. It was both obvious and unfortunate, meaning he would have to find a way to get to know her as a new person.
"I missed you," he said, opting for honesty. Astoria shrugged but responded in kind. "I missed you too."
Harry chuckled softly. "You're so quiet now. What happened to the sister I remember, who always stomped around and asked five questions at once?"
Astoria looked away.
His mother grimaced slightly. "Hogwarts. But she's still the same old Astoria."
"Yes, of course," he said.
He heard more footsteps from behind Astoria. He immediately recognized Daphne, although she had changed almost as much as Astoria. Her blonde hair was cut short and streaked with purple highlights. She had several new piercings in each ear and a metal stud in the corner of her left eyebrow.
Not to mention her tattoos. Her left arm was now a canvas of artistically swirled butterflies and flowers. It was the kind of tattoo that made Harry wonder what other tattoos she might have and where they might be located. He blinked and realized Daphne was looking at him with her arms crossed.
"Daphne." He smiled and laughed, again feeling the urge to rush up and hug her. "Wow. I love the new look."
"I already had a tattoo before you left, for your information," she said, smiling slightly despite her tone. "I just never showed it to you."
"They look good on you."
He couldn't stop his eyes from tracing her figure, the tight shirt she wore strongly suggesting the fullness of her breasts underneath. He halted quite abruptly when he realized what he was doing.
"Are you going to scrutinize my piercings too, Harryy-kun?" Daphne's tone was mocking as she used his old nickname, born from his teenage fascination with anime.
"Everything's fine." He looked back at his mother, then slowly began taking off his shoes. "God, this feels so strange. Do I even still have my room here?"
"Of course you do!" Bellatrix hugged him and kissed his cheek. "It's just as you left it."
"Assuming you want to live at home," Daphne said, leaning against the interior balcony railing. "Good luck with that if you plan to date at all." Harry snorted at the mocking note in her voice. "You should take your own advice."
"It's different for women, Harryy-kun. It's one of those old, ridiculous double standards that don't really exist anymore."
It was Daphne's turn to laugh. "If you think that, I pity the girls you dated in college, assuming you managed to date anyone at all."
He felt his face flush with a hot blush, emotions hitting him as her words echoed beyond their context. Hermione, his last ex, had said something too similar about not seeing a future with him and sometimes pitying herself for being in a relationship she wasn't happy with.
No, it was more brutal than his softened memories allowed him to admit. She had also bluntly said she couldn't imagine ever being happy long-term with a man who couldn't make her come.
Kate, his first and only other girlfriend, always seemed disappointed with sex. She had taken his virginity, and he always wondered if she was comparing him to someone else. His face grew hotter. "Fuck off, Daphne," he snarled.
Daphne blinked and parted her lips slightly. "Fuck you too."
"You know, I would probably be looking for my own place if I knew I would feel this way coming home!"
He grabbed his suitcase and hurried upstairs. Daphne rolled her eyes and stepped out of his way. Astoria watched him, looking detached from reality.
"Harry!" his mother called. "Wait a moment! Daphne, why did you say that?"
"I was just giving him advice," Daphne said. "He's the one who told me to fuck off."
Harry hissed as he found the door to his old room and opened it. There was dust on the doorknob. He threw his suitcase inside and slammed the door shut.
As far as Harry could tell, his room was exactly as his mother had said—exactly as he had left it. He walked over to the bed and sat down, allowing himself to sink into both the mattress and the moment of stillness. He felt he needed this calm after the emotional eruption on the stairs. He hated how Daphne always managed to get to him with just a few words, just like she did when they were younger.
Although he realized she probably didn't intend to hit such a painful spot, one of the reasons he had finally returned home was to escape from Hermione after their breakup. She was younger, and if he had stayed in the city, living in the off-campus room he rented, there was too much of a chance he would run into her.
He had also run out of money, and his last scholarship had dried up, which was another significant factor.
He stared at his old computer, now pathetically outdated, and the dusty monitor on the desk. There wasn't much more in his room than that, a closet, and a modest double bed. It was the room of a boy, at best a teenager, but it was the place he would be living for the foreseeable future. It was hard for him to be humble after what he had gone through before finishing school and over the last few months with Hermione.
On the desk lay a letter addressed to him, the only thing out of place in the entire room. He recognized his father's handwriting and felt a shiver of anticipation as he grabbed it and tore open the envelope. His hopes soared as he wondered if this might be why his mother hadn't mentioned his father, preferring to let the man speak for himself and surprise him in his own way.
Hey Harry,
I'm still stuck in Germany because of work. I regret that I couldn't be around to welcome you back. I have some leads on a few job positions if you don't mind working remotely. Call me when you read this.
Sirius
Harry closed his eyes and set the letter aside, feeling his anger rise again. His godfather wasn't a bad man, but like Daphne's words, something about this touched a nerve.
His godfather had always been distant, even in the years before Harry went off to college. Part of the reason Harry had been so adamant about not visiting was a way to cut himself off from him. It felt so typical and banal, trying to strike out at his father by doing what had first made him resentful.
He wondered if it was even an attack or just a plea for attention in his old man's language.
Harry took out his phone and called his father. The call went unanswered. He ended the call without leaving a message and threw his phone onto the pillow, so irritated he began to question his decision to come back home.
"Harry?"
A soft knock came at the door. He turned his head to see his younger sister standing in the doorway—Astoria, as she was known now.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Astoria. I mean, Astoria." He shook his head and chuckled lightly. "I'm not used to calling you that."
"It's okay," Astoria said. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
He looked at her for a moment, struck by how similar and different she seemed from the young girl he had left behind. He hadn't expected her to come check on him, but she always did. She was the younger sister who empathized with his emotions more than he did.
But now she also seemed so quiet, so withdrawn, and the effect became even more pronounced when she looked away from his gaze. He wanted to reach out and hug her like he had imagined downstairs and then somehow pull the past
into the present.
"How about you?" he asked. "Are you okay?"
Astoria shrugged. "I guess so."
Harry sighed and patted the bed beside him. Astoria gave him a curious look, then slowly walked over and sat down. She said nothing. The old Astoria would have started chatting away immediately. The old Harry would have only pretended to listen, feigning interest with the tolerance of an older brother.
"Is school going well?" he asked.
Astoria gave him a strange look. "Sort of."
"Why sort of?"
She shrugged and didn't elaborate. The mood wasn't great, but not broken or troubling. They just hadn't seen each other for so long. The time spent apart had created a new distance to overcome, but he would find a way to bridge it.
"I think I'll take a nap," he said, smiling and touching her arm reassuringly. "Tell Mom I'm not planning to go anywhere. I think the plane ride got to me a bit."
"Alright." Astoria got up, walked towards the door, and then turned back. "I love you, Harry."
"I love you too, Astoria."
"Do you want me to tell Daphne that you're sorry?"
"Daphne can go to hell."
Astoria looked bewildered. Harry smiled to show her he wasn't entirely serious and then lay down on the bed.
Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 ,13 and 14 are already available at Pat re on.
If you want to support me, read the next chapters of the story and more, I invite you to my
Patreo n .com(slash)BoobsHunter (Remove spaces)