Disclaimer: Quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows near the end.

Chapter 18 - Lost Boys

Hedwig visited Luna at dinner with a note from Harry, apologizing for not being at dinner. He didn't give a reason, but Luna didn't need one. He would tell her why later or he wouldn't. She was simply glad he thought to tell her.

Hedwig stayed on Luna's shoulder, watching the students around them in every direction. Nobody screwed with Harry's owl, for a number of reasons; first, the snowy owl was uniquely beautiful, second, Harry was known to be good in a duel and would likely lose the remainder of his sanity at anyone who tried to hurt his familiar, and third… Hedwig was capable of dealing out her own damage.

No one really wanted to lose a finger.

Luna ate contently, appearing to all as the living embodiment of the wisdom Goddess Athena with her owl.

oOo

"Sirius!" Harry called, walking into the kitchen after thanking Kreacher for bringing him here.

"Harry!" Sirius cheered, rounding the corner to near-tackle Harry in a bear hug.

Sirius wrapped him in a tight bear hug, "How are you?"

Harry grinned, "Good, great, wondrous, and apprehensive. You?"

Sirius chuckled, giving a strange look to the cracks in the wallpaper before shaking himself free of whatever thought that was holding his attention. He waved over to the table as he went to the stove. "Better now that you're here. Are you staying for the night or just for dinner?"

"Dinner," Harry sighed. "I have Occlumency with Snape tonight."

Sirius made a pained face. "I wish I knew the wards my Mother put on my mind to give to you. Unfortunately, that knowledge is passed down only through the females in our family."

Harry sighed again. "I don't suppose Narcissa Malfoy would help me?"

Sirius shook his head, "Andromeda might but I haven-" He sighed, "I haven't reached out to her."

"How about Tonks?"

Sirius smiled sadly. "Andromeda was all for kicking tradition, but it isn't something the Black mothers would teach until and unless their daughters had daughters."

"How do you even know about it, then?"

"My dearest mother kept cursing at me that she regretted she couldn't remove my mental shields without killing me."

Harry's eyes widened. "Oh." He pinched his nose, "Your mum sounds even worse than Uncle Vernon."

"She was definitely a charmer."

"She has a boy by the way," Harry said, accepting the grilled cheese Sirius had whipped up.

Sirius frowned. "Who?"

"Tonks. They name him after her dad. My godson's name, therefore, was Teddy Remus Lupin. I never got to meet him."

Sirius almost dropped his plate. "Wait, back up. You're telling me, my niece, my niece who is thirteen years younger than me, has a baby with Remus?"

"Yep. I think they get engaged in two years. Before the baby."

Sirius sank into his chair. "No kidding," he said, a bit dazedly.

"Don't approve?" Harry asked.

"No, I mean, it's fine, the age difference is pushing it a bit, after all, Remus couldn't be described as a young thirty by any stretch of the imagination, but it's more- it's just I never saw Moony being in a committed relationship. He doesn't have enough self-worth."

Harry snorted. "He tried running away from her after he knocked her up. I may have lost my temper with him. Next time I saw him he asked me to be Teddy's godfather all aglow with being a father."

Sirius's face fell, "Didn't you say-"

"Tonks and Remus died at the battle at Hogwarts. So did I, so I get zero godfather points."

"I passed you off to half-giant and got myself arrested."

"Yeah, but you're here now," Harry shot back.

Sirius raised a brow, "So are you."

Harry looked away, the silence stretched between them.

Harry took another bite of his grilled cheese sandwich.

"So, are you going to tell Snape?" Sirius asked as he began eating his sandwich.

"Nope, I am going to shove useless memories in his face until I figure out how to get him out of my mind."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Then he finds out."

"I hate to say this, Harry, but I think we can trust Snape."

Harry made a face. "Why? And don't you dare say because Dumbledore trusts him. I would rather tell McGonagall or Pomfrey before Snape."

"I think by now, Snape mistrusts Albus enough and is building a tolerance for you that he might be willing to keep your secrets, even from the Headmaster."

"Might," Harry said sardonically even as he thought of what he had done to Snape Monday morning. He highly doubted that the man's had any tolerance for him at the moment. He sighed, "I suppose I don't really have a choice in the end."

Sirius stood and went back to the stove to make Harry another sandwich. "It will work out. We know at least that Snape isn't on the Dark Lord's side. And it gives me an excuse to pick a fight with the greasy bat if he does try to go blabbing to Albus."

Harry had nothing to say to that and took a deep swig of water.

Returning to the table with two more sandwiches, Sirius asked "Enough about Snape, why were you glowing when you came in?"

"I wasn't glowing," Harry protested.

"You were skipping and had a stupid grin on your face, is that better?"

"I was not skipping."

"Harry," Sirius whined.

"I kissed a girl. Or rather she kissed me and then I kissed her back."

"Ohh- two kisses!" Sirius said, ecstatic, "Was it the Lovegood girl you mention so often in your letters?"

Harry flushed. "Luna."

Sirius barked with delight. "You are head over heels for her, aren't you? Was she a good snog?"

Harry shook his head. "The kiss- kisses- I've never felt like this before. I'm not really sure if I'm in love with her yet, but she's… she's amazing."

Sirius grinned, "Not in love with her yet, oh Harry, you're a goner."

"I think I'm okay with that."

"When did this happen?"

"'Bout two hours ago."

"So why aren't you with her now?"

"I'm not sure… that is–I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing with her," Harry said in a rush.

"How do you mean?"

"The time travel-"

"I thought you have been sharing with her. It is only a matter of time before she figures it out. You trust her, right?"

"More than I trust anyone aside from you. But that's not what I meant."

"Then what do you mean?"

"Sirius, I am four years older than her. Which isn't a big deal if we were both older but she's only fourteen and I'm technically a legal adult."

Sirius's lips twitched, his shoulders started to shake, and a few moments later, he was rolling on the ground with laughter. Barking up a storm.

Harry glared at him. "This isn't funny."

Sirius snorted and laughed on. Between gasps, he was finally able to speak in words, "She's-" he sniggers, "-a witch."

"I know she's a witch!" Harry said indignantly. "We go to Hogwarts together!"

Sirius rolled onto his back, looking up at Harry still in his chair. Sirius's long curls were spread around him like a dark halo on the wood floors. "She's a witch from an old wizarding family," he said, now coherent. "Harry, witches have gotten engaged before their tenth birthdays. Hell, Harry, my parents were second cousins. They were both Blacks before getting married, their grandparents were siblings. A four-year age gap is nothing, and Harry, you may be mentally older but you're still in the body of a fifteen-year-old. Your body is less than a year older than hers. You have nothing to feel weird about."

"Just because the wizarding world is two hundred years behind the modern world doesn't make it right. I'm too old for her."

Sirius sat up straight in his seat and met Harry's gaze without any trace of mirth. "No, you listen to me. I know you, I know you've changed, I know you carry in your soul more tragedy, that you are more mature than the other boys in your age group. But you are still a fifteen-year-old boy. Your emotions are too high to the service, your mood swings to pronounced. You may have the memories of of your older self, but you are not him."

"How do you know that?" Harry demanded.

"Because when I was sixteen I ran to James, when I was twenty-one toward death. You don't look at the girl you're falling in love with thinking of marriage but friendship. If you were an adult your thoughts would be more complicated and your emotions less overwhelming."

"And you were more sensible when you broke into Hogwarts during my third year?"

"Yes, I could say rage drove me, but it was my thoughts I could not bring myself to terms with. You still have time to be a child, Harry, a proper teenage. So much has been taken from you, and you have given so much."

"That doesn't mean I deserve Luna."

"Deserve her? No. Deserve a chance with her? I think that's for her to decide, don't you?"

Harry didn't know what to say.

Sirius let out a breath, "I know Xeno from school, you know? He was older than me, so I never shared the same circles as him, but I knew Pandora better. Kind people. Brilliant in their own ways, but neither had a lot of friends. Which I never truly understood with Pandora; Pan could enter a room, and the air would be sweeter for her presence, the lights brighter. I think she intimidated people."

"Why weren't you friends then?"

"She thought I was a git," Sirius said with a grin, unabashed in his troublemaker ways.

"Why would she ever think that?" Harry asked sarcastically, but he was grinning too.

"From your letters and from what you've told me about her, I can tell that Pan's daughter is much of the same and from your letters, I also know that you don't have a friend who makes you happier or someone whose company you enjoy more than Miss Luna Lovegood's."

Harry ducked his head, "Yeah."

"So as someone who loves you, I am telling you not to screw this up because of some fabricated problem that doesn't exist. You are not too old in body or mind to start anew. Just take things slow."

"How can you be so sure?" Harry asked. "You've never met her."

"Harry," Sirius sighed. "Someone who watches their mother die at an early age is unlikely to lack maturity."

Harry stared at his empty plate as he properly chided himself for not thinking of Luna's childhood. Wasn't that why she had been crying last night? Not because some jerks had been picking on her but because she didn't feel like anyone understood her? Because she kept more pain bottled up inside than would ever show on the surface?

"It's okay, Harry…" Sirius said gently. "It's okay to let yourself be happy."

Harry looked up at his godfather. "I just don't want to hurt her. I don't know what promises I am ready to make her yet. But it would destroy me to cause her harm."

Sirius nodded. "Opening our hearts is always a risk, Harry. But don't shut down because things might break down. Ask instead; of all the people you know, who would you want to make mistakes with? Who do you want to grow up with? Who do you want, whether it works in the end or not, to shape you? Romance isn't a game of chance, it's a series of choices and circumstances we invite into our lives."

Harry's shoulders slumped, a small smile blooming on his face. "There is no one I would rather be with than Luna and I want her in my life."

"Then let what happens, happen," Sirius said smiling back.

"I didn't expect you to be this good at girl advice," Harry remarked.

Sirius's eyes turned sad, but his smile remained. "Oh, my personal advice, based on my experiences will have to wait until the conversations where you aren't worried about the girl's- er well, we will get to it in a few years. The heart and flowers advice comes from your Dad. James gave me a long, long talk about the proper way to court a lady once."

"About someone specific?" Harry inquired.

A shadow crossed Sirius's face. "She was murdered a year after we graduated."

"Sirius, I'm sorry-"

Sirius waved Harry's words away. "It's done with. Just don't make my mistake, and never talk about your feelings. I know your Luna seems to get you on an instinctual level but she's still a girl and girls like giving emotions voice. I'm not saying you have to write her poetry or any nonsense like that. Just, if you have worries or fears or tiny, happy, seemingly irrelevant thoughts… sharing those things make them feel more comfortable, more secure in a relationship. Otherwise, they start guessing and thinking every tiny action you do to death."

"Seriously?" Harry exclaimed, "where were you when I first tried dating?"

Sirius laughed. "This wasn't explained to me by your parents until a girl sent me home smelling like a wasted cherry margarita. Lily would always give these lengthy explanations that I would drift off in and James would translate it later. James was the love guru in the group. However, Lil's would always point out that it took him seven years to have a simple conversation with her. To which Prongs would inevitably end up saying, 'Yes, but now you are carrying my spawn, so I win.' Your mother gave him quite a few hex burns while she was pregnant. It's a wonder James survived to see you born at all."

Sirius's eyes drifted off to the past and Harry replayed every word over in his mind like new found treasures. The trick with Sirius was not to ask direct questions too often as he would get sad and melancholy. But sometimes an unprompted Sirius would share anecdotes that turned the fairy-tale figures of his parents into being once-living people.

Not wanting to change the topic but glancing at his watch, Harry knew he would have to leave soon.

"Xeno invited us to their house for Yule."

Sirius's focus sharpened, and his lips tightened. "I'm not sure that is a good idea, Harry."

Harry tried not to let his disappointment show. "That's alright, I'm sure they will understand if we don't go."

Sirius sighed, "It isn't that I wouldn't like to. But the papers will not shut up with the speculation of your one-week disappearance. If you go to your girlfriend's house for Yule, I would not be surprised at all if the Ministry paid the Lovegood's a visit. I don't want to put anyone in those circumstances."

Luna wasn't his girlfriend, but the thought made something flutter in his chest.

Harry nodded. "That's what I told Luna."

"Tell you what though, I'll reach out to old Xenophilius and see if we can't arrange something. Unfortunately, Dumbledore is secret keeper or else I would simply invite them here."

"I understand." He looked at his watch again, "I have to get going or I am going to be late."

Sirius stood as Harry did, giving Harry another bear hug. "Thanks for sharing dinner with me, kiddo."

Harry gave him a half smile. "I will be here so often, you may get sick of me."

"Never," Sirius said, his tone lacking the humor Harry's comment had invited.

oOo

Since returning to the past, Harry had been practicing clearing his mind before going to sleep and controlling his emotions, but as he descended the steps to the dungeons alone, the old resentments and fears rose.

He knocked on the door and Snape's response was sharp.

He's still mad about Monday, Harry thought and had to bite his cheek to keep from entering Snape's lair with a grin.

The professor jabbed a finger toward the chair. "I warn you, Potter, I don't care how painful the memories get this time. You will stay until we have made some progress."

Harry kept his mouth shut but all he could think was, but you don't know how bad, bad can get.

"Prepare yourself," Snape instructed with the same amount of careful, detailed instruction he had in the last timeline.

Harry gripped the edge of the chair until his knuckles strained white and he was thinking of Monday when Snape's mind delved into his.

He remembered Madame Pomfrey's laughter as Harry grabbed his Potion's professor in a hug.

Snape verbally growled.

The next memory Harry found turned out to be more problematic, as he was unable to push Snape out of his mind. In fact, the professor seemed to have renewed his efforts to break through his meager defenses.

Harry was soaring the skies on Buckbeak.

But that memory reminded him of soaring on Thestrals.

They were in the Department of Mysteries and Sirius was punching Lucius Malfoy and then Bellatrix was after them.

Harry could feel Snape's shock, his confusion, his curiosity.

Harry was soaring on the back of the bank dragon with Ron and Hermione.

Snape pushed further, looking for the why and the how.

Harry was using the Imperius curse on a goblin. Hermione was disguised as Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione was screaming, her tortured screams and Bellatrix's shrieking filtering down into the Malfoy dungeons.

Lucius was a crumpled mass at the Dark Lord's feet as Snape and other watched either stone faced or eager.

Draco was bleeding, the product of Harry not understanding the spells he'd found in Snape's old potions book.

Draco was telling Snape to go screw himself. Snape hissing "I made the unbreakable vow to keep you safe."

Slughorn was giving Harry Liquid Luck.

They were back at the Department of Mysteries.

Voldemort.

The prophecy.

Sirius falling into the veil.

The DA Club.

Dumbledore escaping in a flash of Phoenix flame.

The Death Eaters breaking out of prison.

In Snape's shock, in his horror, he released the spell.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" Harry gasped. He was sweating. He would have to tell him now.

But Snape didn't wait for an explanation, he raised his wand again and took what Harry might have shared willingly. But this mental torment filled Harry with an old, deep, seething rage.

Fine, Harry thought at the Professor, you want to know? Well, here it is.

And rather than pushing Snape out, Harry yanked him in, slamming the door shut behind him. The memories went forward this time.

"Avada Kedavra."

Dumbledore was falling, dead before he hit the ground.

Snape was fighting off McGonagal, whose face was raw with broken fury and sorrow.

Nagini was killing Snape.

Snape was dying in Harry's arms and sharing with him his memories.

Harry fed those memories back to his professor now, hoping they caused the man pain.

He was holding Lily's body, crying as Harry wailed in the crib beside him

Snape was in Dumbledore's office.

'"I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter —"

"But this is touching, Severus," said Dumbledore seriously. "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"

"For him?" shouted Snape. "Expecto Patronum!"

From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded, he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.

"After all this time?"

"Always," said Snape."'

And then Harry showed Snape the dead. The ruin of the castle.

"You want to know?" Harry hissed in his mind, "Look, how we failed. Look, what our choices led us to."

Body after body. Children's bodies. Unidentifiable figures beneath the stones.

And then on Dumbledore's orders, Harry was walking to his own demise. The shades of his loved ones, of Lily leading him forward.

"So brave."

"Easier than falling asleep."

Harry did not fight. He let the Dark Lord kill him. The lamb at the altar.

Harry tossed Snape out of his mind. Shoved him out with such force that Snape was physically thrown back.

Harry wasn't the only one shaking this time. Snape looked positively ill.

Harry watched him try to stand before he fell back to his hands and knees. Snape retched on the dungeon floors.

Dumbledore's spy, Voldemort's pet Master Potioneer and double agent, could not stomach the future Harry had lived through.

Harry's rage faded. He hated this man for how he had always treated him, even if Snape had kept him alive, he did not by any stretch of the imagination like this man. But he did respect him, to some degree.

Yet seeing him like this, knowing that it had to be a combination of Dumbledore's betrayal, seeing Lily, and the death of countless Hogwarts students that made him lose his composure?

Harry pulled his wand and vanished the sick from the floor, even as Snape stayed on his hands and knees dry heaving.

Harry got the man a glass of water and found a bit of fresh ginger that, after shaving with a clean knife, he was able to squeeze some juice into the water. Harry balanced on the balls of his feet as he crouched to held out the glass.

"Drink this," Harry instructed, his tone not all that sympathetic.

Snape panted, his eyes looking up at Harry. He looked lost.

Slowly he sat back on the floor, reaching out a shaking hand to take the ginger water from Harry's own trembling grasp.

After a long swallow, Snape asked, "How?"

"How did I time travel?" Harry repeated. "No damned clue. But then Vold- the Dark Lord-" Harry corrected himself, "should have been able to kill me as a baby."

"How do you cope?" Snape clarified.

Harry huffed a laugh and sat on the newly cleaned floor. "Being able to go back and correct my mistakes helped a lot. Cedric's alive, as well as the majority of the student body. So is my godfather. I would be- I don't know if I could even pretend to forgive myself if he wasn't alive."

Snape stared at him with a fathomless expression. "Why does Albus want you dead?"

"Ever hear of a horcrux?"

Almost impossibly, Snape's face went paler. His skin took on grey undertones.

"Yeah, well, the Dark Lord made seven of them. That's why we were breaking into Gringotts, by the way."

"But what does a horcrux have to do with your dying?"

Harry tapped his scar, which was only a faint white line in this reality. "I was one of the horcruxes. That's how he got access to my mind in the first place. Occlumency didn't help much though, you are a shitty teacher."

Snape didn't even pretend to care.

"So Albus reasoned that by the words of the prophecy, you would both have to die if one was to be defeated?"

"Yep," Harry said, rubbing his hands together.

Snape shut his eyes, an expression of pain crossing his features. "That ignorant old fool. There is more than one way to respond to the dark arts. One solution does not solve all."

"That's what Sirius said."

"So, we have to find a way to-"

"It's gone," Harry said shortly. "It didn't survive the trip through time. And the first thing I did when I came back was kill the other ones with the help of house-elves. I confided it all to Flitwick so don't waste your breath saying I shouldn't rely on just my own judgment. For very obvious reasons, though, I haven't gone to Dumbledore. Oh, and I killed Nagini."

Snape was quiet for a long time before he said, "You can go, Potter."

Harry stood, relieved. "Are you going to tell-"

"No." Snape's voice was harsh, "No, I'm never going to tell that bastard anything ever again. I did what I did for Lily, for you, Lily's son, not for the elaborate schemes of men too large to see the lives they destroy."

Harry retreated for the night, not knowing how to feel, but knowing he wasn't the person to hold Severus Snape's hand as the man's world and his illusions shattered around him.

oOo

AN: Thoughts, aussie puppies, or reactions, pretty please?