Like a swallow at the beginning of its summer migration, or a child on the last day of school, Harry was aching to go home. The entire aurors' locker room seemed to be repurposed into an interrogation room for him, the way they fired question after question. The chatter was louder than usual tonight, no doubt due to the excitement of their last operation. A thief's last stand in a dark abandoned store.
"Unbelievable, Potter," one of the voices had said. "You actually saw him, under an invisibility cloak, no less! How did you do it?"
He had forced a smile. Lucky, he'd said. Just lucky. But trying to brush it off only seemed to pull them in deeper. The undercurrent of having avoided more paperwork had lifted everyone's spirits and the tale was reaching more admiration than it really deserved. Normally, receiving praise in a room full of war-scarred wizards and seasoned veterans, was a rare thing to be savored. But today, it acted like a noose around his neck, tightening with every passing second.
Every potion is also a poison.
"Lucky?" One of the younger Aurors snorted, shaking his head. "No one's that lucky, Potter. You've got a gift."
A gift. The word hovered in the room and Harry resented it. If so, he would assume no weight of gratitude for it. Harry vaguely heard himself make an excuse about needing to go home. They didn't hear the strain in his voice. Or maybe they did, and they just ignored it. Either way, he didn't manage to set foot outside the room until half the room's occupants clapped him on the back. He nodded, smiled, made the right sounds, but it was all just noise until the door shut behind him with a heavy clang.
Harry had always been a bit awkward about accepting compliments, but this one weighed more on him than usual. He entered the elevator and leaned against the cold metal wall, trying to clear his mind. 'What did he see?' Was the question they'd asked over and over again. The fact of the matter was that there was nothing to see, it was all about what he had heard.
Footsteps in the dark.
It's strange how some senses can transport you back decades. He'd walked into that dim store hours earlier, illuminated only from the aurors' glowing wands, where the floating dust particles were almost as suffocating as the memories they brought up.
There in the swirls of darkness, he could almost see a 10-year-old boy cowering in a broom closet, surrounded only by dust and spiders. Hurrying into the next room, he spotted that same boy in a young auror's eyes, in the way the man's hands shook while he was holding his wand. There'd been a boy clutching a flashlight just like that. It had been a boy who'd learned to concentrate on every creak and groan in the house, on every breath that wasn't his own. And in that instant, the world fell away, and he was that boy again, senses on high alert.
Those were always the signals to look out for, back then. Wooden stairs groaning under the weight of heavy-handed relatives. Cabinet doors slamming shut. A restless jangling of keys at the front-door. But most of all, it was the footsteps that haunted him. Those harbingers that could mean everything or nothing, sometimes they just passed by his closet and left him shivering in the dark, other times they stopped. And then he'd know.
Some people believed his hearing was more sensitive to compensate for his terrible eyesight. But this wasn't the case at all, it only became sharper because it had to be. You had to learn the warning signs, so you knew when to run, hide or at the bare minimum brace yourself for what was coming. And Harry had learned.
He learned to pick out Dudley's rapid steps, a cadence much higher than his parents. He learned when the sugar rush would hit the boy, and to detect the anticipation in his gait when he was impatiently looking for a new thrill. He learned when to vanish before the boy's excitement turned into cruelty.
Harry easily recognized his aunt Petunia's footsteps as well, not because hers were lighter than the others, but because they were usually accompanied by a pair of well-worn slippers dragging across the floor. The sound of clef clef clef was forever burned into his mind. Even now, he caught himself tensing up when Ginny came around the corner in her pink kneazle slippers. But he didn't have the heart to ever tell her that. Harry refused to let this dull ache seep into the lives of those around him, especially if it meant his wife's feet would be cold because of it.
He learned from surfaces too, how the sound of footsteps would change depending on what material met their feet. When he was chased from the living room's soft carpet, to the hall's linoleum flooring, to the hard brick patio. He learned the entire orchestra of them, and which instruments preceded the worst pain when he eventually got thrown down onto them. That was the way surfaces whispered to him.
And all surfaces whispered to each other as well, a surface half a world away could tell you the secrets of its sibling from that little house in Privet Drive. He had a vivid memory of hearing the clef clef of Petunia's slippers on the porcelain kitchen tiles, before a saucepan connected with his temple. clef clef, bang! All porcelain tiles shared those stories, and Harry was forced to listen.
Vernon was different. Where Petunia's steps snapped, Vernon's roared. His steps were heavy, deliberate, his feet resting on the ground as long as possible before lifting back up again. He wanted the world to know he was coming, wanted every inch of the house to know who was in charge, each exhale almost a growl. Yet the man's demeanor had always been easy to read, he was predictable in his fury. He was a man who could see the negative in almost everything, and used it to fuel his rage.
Harry used to wonder, lying in that cupboard, how someone could live like that, with all that fire inside, and not burn out. In the end, Vernon had never collapsed, but neither had Harry. He had escaped from that house, taking with him nothing but noise.
The clear ding from the elevator bell shook him out of his thoughts. The elevator doors slid open, and he stepped out into the crowded atrium, slotting into a checkout line. Around him, people buzzed, grateful about the end of a long day, and Harry tried to feel grateful as well. If it weren't for those footsteps in the dark, he would've been doing paperwork with the rest of his colleagues right now.
It came instinctively to him in that room. The wand was in his hand, aimed with exact precision at the source of those mismatched footsteps. They didn't belong, they weren't his colleagues', weren't anything he recognized. The spell hit its mark, but the panicked tightness in his chest lingered until long after the threat had passed.
Even now, he couldn't shake it off. He tried to ignore the piercing click clack sound of a lady's high heels on the black atrium tiles. The way she marched; it was as if the lady was piercing holes into his lungs with every step. The noise was always there, just as it had been at Hogwarts, after he'd escaped the Dursleys.
That wasn't to say Hogwarts was bad, those had been some of the best years of his life. There was friendship, happiness and adventure. But it had been difficult to adjust. There were so many people around, with many more stares. And the castle, with its endless corridors and echoing halls, was filled with the sound of footsteps.
He'd learned to pick out the footsteps of his dormmates, just as he had with the Dursleys. Because there had been too many embarrassing moments. There was the awkward night in his first year when he'd leapt from his bed, heart pounding, convinced he'd heard Dudley's familiar footsteps in the room. But it had only been Neville, sleepily stumbling around to get a glass of water.
There were other moments too, sometimes a door slamming unexpectedly would leave him staring at the broken remains of a quill clenched too tightly in his fist. Or even just the clearing from a professor's throat would see him holding his breath. Sometimes it was even the absence of sound that would frighten him. At first, he had hated the ghosts in Hogwarts, because they could sneak up on you without any warning or footsteps to be heard. And how do you run, hide, or brace yourself for something you could not hear coming?
He used to curse himself for those reactions, ashamed of the way his body betrayed him. Especially in Hogwarts, a place where he should've been safe, away from the Dursleys. Later, of course, he realized it was inevitable. Ten years of training his body to survive couldn't be undone with a wave of a wand. So, he forced himself to listen, not just to danger but to safety.
As he reached the end of the line, Harry focused on the comforting noises around him. At the other side of the room, the fireplaces acted like a roaring symphony. It was the sound of people moving. Families, lovers, strangers, all connected through nothing but warmth. A phoenix would be proud.
The clerk handed back the worn papers with a dismissive nod. The bureaucratic ritual complete, Harry pocketed them and made his way over to an apparition point. Harry twisted, and with a familiar sensation the world folded in on itself. With a slight pop he disapparated and found himself in front of the familiar walk-way to his home.
That same pop had left its mark on Hermione, a result of the war and the months spent in hiding around the woods. Months of intently listening to whether the Death Eaters had finally located them, or not. The way those months brought stressful hours and only fleeting moments of relief. Until the pops finally did arrive, and with it they brought her torture at the hands of Bellatrix.
Hermione never talked about that day, not until recently. When she confessed she couldn't stand that noise, it was as if the world cracked open under him. He had always believed he was alone in having that feeling about noises. A last remnant of the Dursleys who called him a freak, over and over, until he had started to believe it himself. But now he knew better, and those sounds were something he could share with his friend step by step, pop by pop.
He jogged up the steps of his house, ready to take off his heavy coat and pour himself an even heavier drink. Gingerly, he entered the quiet house and let the front-door fall into its lock behind him. Harry hung up his coat and was just about to kick off his shoes, when suddenly out of nowhere, wham, a small six-year-old creature slammed into his leg, nearly toppling him over.
"Daddy!" Lily squealed in delight. "I knew it was you coming in!"
"Hello there, dear," he laughed, the surprise fading into warmth. But then her words hit him, and something sharp flickered in the back of his mind. "Wait, what do you mean, you knew it was me?"
She looked up at him, eyes wide with pride. "I heard you coming up the stairs, silly. I count the creaks, and you always skip the first few steps. Is that because of your really long legs?"
For a heartbeat he panicked at those words, because here was a girl who was listening. Harry gently scooped her up and stared into those green eyes, his eyes. But there was no fear there, no cowering boy trapped behind those irises. Just a curious girl who had a knack for finding trouble and knew how the world sounded without having to learn it the hard way. Harry gave out a small smile and shook his head, "No, I skip those steps because I just can't wait to hear what new adventures you got up to."
Lily's face lit up, "Today was great, I found a toad down the river! I put it in my room, do you want to see it?"
Normally any parent would grimace at those words, but Harry was just relieved she hadn't invited the garden gnomes in for a tea party again. "Sure, let's see the toad, darling," he said, setting her down and watched as she bolted towards the stairs, already halfway up before he even took a step.
Why bother with a drink when there were toads to be found?
Lily led the way to her bedroom, where she was dismayed to find that the toad wasn't where she had left it. But then, with the authority of a seasoned auror, she started organizing a search party for the toad. Which mostly meant barking orders at Harry. And Harry listened, because this was her world, and he was just a visitor, lucky to be part of the mission.
Yet, it seemed as if the toad had found an invisibility cloak of its own, as they weren't able to spot it anywhere. After what felt like an eternity of rummaging through Lily's world, Harry's hand paused beneath the bed. "Maybe if we're really quiet, we can hear the toad croak," he suggested, voice low.
Lily emerged from beneath a frilly blanket on the bed, eagerly nodding. "I'm good at listening," she whispered.
They sat, side by side, a girl and her father. Both quiet. Both good at listening. Harry gave her a long look. "Lily, can you recognize anyone else from their steps besides me?"
She smirked, as if this was the easiest question in the world. "Of course! James' steps go like baf baf baf, because he wants to be everywhere first. And Albus' steps do pat pat pat, because he's a scaredy cat. Sometimes they try to skip steps on the stairs like you, but they always mess up and fall down, and then I laugh."
Harry shook his head at the mental image of his competitive sons tumbling down the stairs. He looked at her in wonder. "And, what are mom's steps like?"
"Mommy's steps are happy steps. Sometimes it even sounds like she's dancing. She told me that dancing is like talking for the body, and she always has a lot to say."
A smile broke out across his face, and the remaining tension of today's ordeal seeped out of him. He felt as if he could listen to Lily describing footsteps for hours and hours, and not regret a single moment. And so, that's what he did, from the entire Weasley clan to the minister of magic, she mapped out their sounds. Harry was just about to ask about uncle Hagrid when a noise interrupted them.
Ribbit.
Two pairs of green eyes knowingly met. The sound came from an upward direction. Harry scanned the shelves lined against the wall and sure enough, hiding behind a chimera action figure, a fat brownish toad was staring down at them with bulging eyes. He nudged Lily gently. "Looks pretty cool, dear."
"I love him, Daddy."
Harry blinked, silently realizing the toad was part of the family now. There was no question about it, no discussion to be had. Whether he or the toad had any say in the matter was irrelevant. He was about to say something vague about discussing it with her mom, when the toad shot into action. In the blink of an eye the toad had launched itself from its shelf. Jumping. Flying. Landing, squarely on the top of Harry's head.
Pandemonium broke out in the room, Lily started laughing so hard that she tumbled off the bed. She was in hysterics, clutching her stomach. The sound was so contagious, that Harry couldn't help but join in. But then an idea sparked in his mind, and he decided to play the fool.
"Where did it go, honey? Lily, did you see where it went?" He shouted confusedly, while he stumbled around the room, spinning in circles until he got dizzy. Meanwhile the toad was clutching to his hair as if it was in on the joke. It worked. The notes in her laughter went so high she had to gasp for air, her face flushed. Squeals, gasps, snorts, and ribbits bounced off the walls.
It was the most beautiful noise Harry had ever heard.
Right then, everything from before started to fade away. Whatever happened in his past, this was what he wanted now, and what he would work for with every ounce of strength. A house full of laughter, full of dancing, full of warmth, music, and toads. But above all, he would work for what every person, every child, every heart deserved.
A house of safe footsteps.
And in that moment, with the toad on his head and his daughter's laughter ringing in his ears, Harry felt like he was already there.