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Chapter Text

A man sat in front of a small bundle on a doorstep.

Inside said bundle was a boy, breathing softly. The boy was just a little over a year old, his small form inside the bundle revealing nothing past his young age. The man took a sobering breath, observing the boy’s face with acute fascination. The child had a fresh wound of what appeared to be a lightning bolt starting at his hairline and branching off and down through his eyes, the longest branch tapering off on the crest of his nose. Blood slowly dripped from the injury, covering the boy’s forehead and eyes in sticky red. Almost in spite of it however, the child was sleeping softly, breath coming out in visible puffs of heat due to the cold weather.

The man had his pointer finger on the start of the lightning bolt scar, right at the boy's hairline. Pressing into it, the man shuddered, as if the cold was bothering him, and very suddenly he flickered, as if not truly there, his form becoming transparent for a moment as he grunted in pain. Pressing his finger in further, he gave a shaky breath, before flickering again, nearly disappearing entirely for a moment before returning, now very clearly translucent and weakened.

The tattered memory of Tom Riddle sat on the porch of number four Privet Drive, pressing desperately into the horcrux housed in Harry Potter’s forehead.

Chapter Text

Harry Potter was about to die.

He knew this, logically, and was prepared for it. Well, no, actually, he was rather unprepared, all things considered. But… well, just taking into account how many times he had almost died in his short life, he was more prepared than one would initially expect, certainly more prepared than the average person, that was blatantly clear. After all, life had tried to get rid of him far too many times for the last Potter to be all that surprised to learn that he was destined to die young, though it felt like cruel irony that he was only just hearing about it, not even an hour before he had to go and get it over with.

I Open at the Close

Dumbledore was a right bastard for not telling him sooner. Really, he couldn’t even be bothered to give Harry some sort of sign before he died? A footnote in his will about the prophecy? Hell, Harry would have been happy with a postcard from the bloody afterlife! Certainly, such a  great  wizard of Dumbledore’s calibre would have been able to manage it, with a picturesque beach scene as the backdrop to an explanation of his untimely demise and all. Okay, sure, Harry was getting rather cynical and rude in his final moments, and it was probably quite unhelpful and rather pointless for him to be spending his final minutes sardonically cursing his dead mentor, but really, he would have preferred just about anything other than having to be told about the situation through Snape’s painful memories, and he certainly would have taken it better if he had gotten a letter with nothing but, ‘hiya Harry, since I’m going to die a year before you need to know this, I'll just say it now to save you the trouble: you need to go let Voldemort kill you and fulfil the prophecy! I know, I know it sucks, but that's the only way to save the world. Sorry about that, kiddo. But, hey, I guess I'll see you soon!’

Perhaps the weight of what he had to do was boring down on him in more ways than one.

“What's done is done, Harry. Leave the dead where they lie,” he muttered, pushing aside branches and brambles as he walked through the forest. He hated what was coming out of his own mouth, but knew deep down that it was true. He wouldn’t be gaining anything from dragging the dead and dying back into the living world out of spite. Though, if he really wanted to….

Harry paused, peering down at his palm keenly. The resurrection stone sat there, gleaming in a way he thought might be a tad sarcastic. He hadn’t a clue how a stone could be perceived as sassy in any respect, but he still felt half-convinced that the thing was watching him back. As if it was testing him… mocking him.

I Open at the Close

It was definitely mocking him. Inanimate object or not, the blasted thing could see right through him, and very clearly thought he was something of a mess.

Harry Potter stood in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, watching passively as a battle was waged between his own moral code and conflicting emotions. What was the point of bringing them back, even for just a moment? The fairytale about the hallows already remarked that the stone was hardly worth the trouble, as the souls being brought back will be in pain or agony or what have you. He didn’t want to put his loved ones through that, no matter how much he wanted to see them.

He looked up abruptly, and with a rather constipated look on his face, peering around the woods as if they would answer his questions. Really, it was rather absurd what he was doing, contemplating if he should use the stone to speak with his dead family, especially since he was only a few minutes from joining them.

The stone seemed annoyed with him.

He was annoyed with himself, too, really. His entire life was spent wishing he could talk to his parents, just once, and the first chance he actually has to do it, he's about to die anyway, so there was really no point. Well… surely he would feel some sort of comfort from seeing them, right? Or would it feel more satisfying to greet them in the afterlife once he had already sacrificed himself? Honestly, there were so many variables and so little time for him to contemplate each and every one. It was fair that he was a tad overwhelmed.

While Harry Potter weighed the pros and cons of an impromptu family reunion before tossing himself to the wolves, the resurrection stone began to heat up in his palm. Just barely, mind you, so minutely that it went completely unnoticed by the man currently holding it. He was also none the wiser when the invisibility cloak draped over his head and shoulders started to heat up as well, encompassing him with a gentle warmth very unlike the humid air around it. Nor  could  he notice when a wand made of elder followed the stone's example, pulsing with heat as it was held aloft in the waiting hands of a madman. 

Three brothers requested counsel with Death. An ancient deity cursed old promises. Shackles were raised, and the cold eyes of Fate opened slowly from the darkness of time, peering curiously out into the aether as things began to shift and bend, twisting about the place as the universe altered itself on the whims of long-dead mortals. Somewhere beyond the veil, the goddess of destiny and prophecy couldn’t help but laugh, the sound grating and piercing and cruel as threads of time became loose between her fingertips.

“Well, I suppose that's that, then.”

Apparently, Harry Potter had come to a decision as this was happening, and dropped the stone to the cold forest floor. Brushing his hand of the feeling it had left with him, he continued on his path towards the Death Eaters—towards Voldemort. 

Mere minutes later, Harry Potter dropped the invisibility cloak into the dirt, and soon joined it, lifeless and cooling on the damp soil as his soul returned to the void.

Harry woke in what appeared to be a never-ending expanse of white. 

He groaned in pain as he laid on the floor, grumbling as the ache in his bones thrummed unpleasantly. For a moment, all he did was press his face into the not-floor, blinking blearily at the jarring white that seemed to stretch on for miles and miles as a mechanical buzzing noise filled his ears.

Eventually, though, he grunted, picking himself off the cold ground and glancing around the place, unsure of what to do next. Deciding to first look more closely at his surroundings, Harry found with mild surprise that what he had originally thought was an infinite plane of white was, in fact, a very bleached-out version of Kings Cross Station. Odd.

“If this is the afterlife, it's awfully unimaginative.”

“Yeah, well... humans tend to be awfully boring with their conceptualising. This is one of the more creative places, really. It's usually just a bunch of clouds.”

Harry nearly jumped out of his skin, whipping around to find himself face to chest with a  very  tall man. Stumbling back several feet, a muffled curse ripping from behind his teeth as he did, he looked up at the man with wide eyes, taking in his otherworldly features with something akin to disbelief. For a moment, he wondered if this was some sort of sick joke the universe decided to play on him, as surely he would have been greeted in the afterlife by some sort of angel or demon or, hell, the grim reaper, not… not his…

“Dad?”

For a moment, they stood in something of a stalemate, eyes locked in a battle of wills. Harry held himself there till his eyes started to water, vision blurring indistinctly till he blinked the tears away. He rubbed at his eyes then, breaking himself from the eye contact before he looked back up again, trying to take in every single inch of the man standing before him. He was young, maybe in his early 20’s, just like Harry had imagined him to be. With broad shoulders and tan skin, and wild hair. Something was wrong, though—terribly wrong. The man wore no glasses, and his jaw seemed just a little too sharp—too angular and defined. He looked like some odd, distorted version of James Potter, equipped with a leather jacket thrown over his shoulder that looked uncomfortably like Sirius’, and a more bulky, unsettlingly intimidating figure. The man was… tall. Too tall. No one was  that  tall.

“Who… who are you…?” 

The man grimaced with James Potter’s face, and Harry realised with a sudden jolt that the man’s eyes were… were  wrong.  They were narrow and tired-looking, that much was clear from first glance, but the… the  colour.  It was a bright green colour around the outer edges, copying the hue of his own  perfectly,  but moved more towards a harsh and unnatural  gold  as it went towards the pupil.

“W-what … are you?” He re-articulated, stumbling back half a step as the man leaned down slightly. Almost as if realising Harry’s discomfort, the man backpedalled—apologetically, Harry thought—as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I’m… sorry, kid. You’re the one making me look like this. It’s your subconscious talking.”

Harry shook his head, not understanding—not completely sure he  wanted  to understand.

“S-sorry?” He finally choked out, watching as the man’s grimace deepened.

“I’m not your father, Harry,” he replied, rather indistinctly, as if he didn’t really want to admit it. “You just want me to be. Kinda. Well, I’m not really sure. The afterlife interprets one’s subconscious in odd ways.”

“Right,” Harry nodded. He was dead. This was the afterlife. That was an idea he could agree with.

And yet the man was still standing there, looking for all the world like he  really  didn't want to be.

The entire situation really didn’t make any sense, in Harry’s personal opinion. He was supposed to just…  die.  Why was the universe granting him confusing conversations with a strange man who looked like James Potter? Where were his  real  parents? Did he even get an afterlife to share with them?

“Look, I get you’re going through some sort of-of  psychological meltdown  at the moment, but can we get this over with?” The man’s voice cut through his thoughts like a razor, and Harry stumbled back further, craning his head up to watch the man shift from one foot to the other, as if he would much rather be doing something else. “Fate is ecstatic that we’ve got the chance to go back—and I am too, don’t get me wrong—but I’m also not that keen on sleeping on the proverbial couch for the next few centuries if this whole…  conversation  doesn't go the way she wants. So, if you could process things a tad bit faster, I'd really appreciate it.”

“Right.” Harry didn’t think he was processing the situation any faster than he was before, if his wide eyes and empty stare were any indications, and the man who looked like James Potter seemed to only get more and more uncomfortable and agitated as the silence stretched on.

“Uhm…” He tried again, clearing his throat and grinning in a way that was just as horribly awkward as the situation. “Uhhh… right—so I’m dead?”

The man closed his eyes, looking very near a conniption. “We’re doing great here, aren’t we.”

Before Harry could bother with an offended reply, the man sighed tiredly, shrugging on the leather jacket and pulling a pack of cigarettes out of one of the pockets. He lit one, grumbling on about foolhardy necromancers and long-since expired promises as he put it in his mouth. Harry wondered if this wasn’t a regular occurrence for him—greeting dead people to discuss their lives, that is—since he didn’t seem awfully happy about it.

“Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, kid,” he took a drag, sighing in apparent relief as he blew smoke into the air. The smoke spiralled for a moment, before seeming to just… disappear in the air, as if it hadn’t ever existed. “—but the timeline’s been in the shitter since that first Halloween, and Fate is dead set on fixing it.”

It took a moment for Harry to quite understand what was being relayed to him, thinking over what had been said and what was irregular about it, before one thing in particular finally seemed to click. Blinking, Harry craned his neck up further in an effort to make proper eye contact with the giant of a man, finding that a conversation could not be had while staring at the shiny leather of Sirius’ jacket. 

“I'm sorry, did you just say fate? Like the concept of fate?”

The tall man sighed again, motioning Harry to follow him as he began walking down the long length of King’s Cross. “No, like the deity Fate. You know, happiness’s nemesis, lady luck, the creator of destiny, kismet? Ring any bells?”

Oh, brilliant.  Harry nodded slowly, biting the inside of his cheek in an effort not to yell in frustration because, apparently, societal concepts like fate had been honest to Merlin personifications, and that was a perfectly reasonable thing to exist, apparently.

So it seemed quite likely every religion out there got the afterlife completely backwards.

“So, who are you then?”

“Death, obviously.”

“... Right.”

Right.

At this rate, Harry was going to be processing things for the rest of his afterlife.

He glanced around again, patting a rhythm into his thighs as they continued to walk through King’s Cross, which—now that he was thinking about it—seemed far longer than he remembered it being. Odd.

Death lit another cigarette. 

This entire situation felt far more peculiar now that the entity across from him had introduced himself. Really, Harry thought this welcome committee was a bit overblown for someone like him. He had hardly done enough to be granted a personal introduction to the afterlife by Death himself, right? Especially since the entity didn’t seem particularly happy to be there. Although, maybe it was a courtesy call? The headmaster had probably sent the poor god over as a favour, or something ridiculous like that.

Nodding to himself, Harry gathered his wits and made an effort to carry the conversation further, just  knowing  that there was likely a great deal of things he  didn’t  know about the situation. “Well… uhm, Death, sir, I hate to ask too many questions, but—”

“No, no, please, ask away.”

He nodded a few times, feeling a little more assured as he wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. “Right… right, well, I just… right, okay, why do I feel like you don't do this for everyone? Not-not to say I don't like the company… here.” He gestured vaguely to the surrounding nothing-ness. “—b-but you don't seem to be particularly used to or… all that interested in this conversation—no offence.”

Death snorted, taking another drag from his cigarette before blowing out the smoke into the air in front of them, which immediately flew back into Harry’s face. “I don't do this,  ever,  but an abnormal, once-in-an-eternity opportunity arose, and I've sadly got to take it.”

“Abnorm—” Harry coughed, waving a hand in front of his face as he stormed straight through the smoke cloud. He had been a rather good person in life, right? He had done well enough for what he had been tasked to do, relatively speaking. “That—no, that isn't comforting at all. Actually, you-you’re not the best at comforting people, you know that, right?”

“Isn't s’posed to be, and yes, I do. It's part of the charm.” Death paused suddenly, putting out his cig on the bottom of his shoe before motioning Harry over to a nearby bench. Sitting down, the man got comfortable—throwing his arms across the backrest and looking up with a sigh of either contentment or exhaustion. Maybe both, really. Harry—much less relaxed and still desperately processing all his new information—sat on the edge of the bench with his elbows on his knees, hands in constant gentle motion around each other, rubbing at the skin of his knuckles as his shoulders slowly drew more and more taut. They sat quietly for a while, contemplating the beginning of his end in a macabre sort of companionship. Somehow, it wasn't all that awkward for Harry, at least after he had gotten over some of his anxiety. This was where it ended for him, it seemed. It was the end of a long, painful road. The train was going to pull into the station at any moment, and he would be off—off to his real father and mother, and then he could finally take a bloody nap. The war was over; he was sure of it. Voldemort was dead by now, everyone he loved had lived, and—

“I'm sending you back in time.”

Harry nearly fell off the bench.

He would have, actually, if Death had not grabbed him by his collar and yanked him back, throwing Harry’s shoulders into the hard iron of the bench in the process. Harry didn’t stay there long, though—in an instant, he was standing, rounding on Death as the edges of his vision began to blur with fury.

“I  do  beg your pardon?”

Death shrugged, looking infuriatingly unapologetic. “I'm going to send you back in time. You know, to fix things.”

“Fix  things.”

“Yes. Fix things.”

There was an infinitesimal moment where no one moved—or even breathed—as Harry tried to decide if he should be outraged or curl up in a ball and sob. Perhaps both. Perhaps he would entertain the thought of getting himself thrown into hell for socking the god of death in the jaw. It seemed a lovely way to solve the current issue, he thought.

“And may I ask, why the everloving, bloody  fuck  you would do that? Have I really screwed it all up  that badly?”

Death, to his credit, looked just as enthusiastic about the idea as Harry was feeling. Leaning his head forward again, he caught Harry’s eye and attempted something that could have  maybe  resembled a comforting smile, if he hadn’t been wearing a dead man’s face and the eyes of some sort of eldritch horror.

Who was he trying to kid? It looked more like a pained grimace than anything.

“Look, kid, things need to go a certain way for the world to function properly. The right people have to die, and the wrong people have to rule. It’s the most basic function of the universe, and it’s what Fate and I work so hard to keep in check.” He sighed, running a hand through his wild hair before continuing. “There is wiggle room—of course, there is—there’s always wiggle room. You’re just humans, after all. Free will exists no matter how hard we try to tamp it out, and most of the time, it’s impossible for us to even  try  to take it away. And we try—we try a  lot,  I assure you, but we can’t just-just… well, anyway. Things just got out of hand.”

“I… I don’t understand.” Harry’s mind was  reeling,  his already jumbled thoughts spiralling into something far darker as his unease doubled and tripled the more Death went on. The god shook his head, running a hand down his face as if trying to rub away a headache.

“Sadly, Fate gave too much free will to the wrong person, and after what he did on Halloween in 1981, neither of us were left with much to work with. And… well, since nothing is anywhere  near  where it was supposed to be, the universe is drawn a little tense because of it and is… well, fracturing. I mean—really, you've blown so far off course that if I let you go off to the afterlife, Fate is going to go mad from the inconsistencies. She likes things in a very precise way, you see? And—and I’m rambling, aren’t I.”

“He? Who is  he? ” Slowly sitting back down beside Death on the bench, Harry furrowed his brows, the initial confusion slowly settled down into a vague numbness. 

Death squirmed for a moment, before grunting.

“Albus Dumbledore.”

Harry blinked, before frowning. “What did the headmaster do? I don’t… I just don’t understand.”

I need to slow this down.

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Hermione piped up from somewhere in the back of his mind, telling him that no good would come of rushing into things. Taking a long, gentle breath, Harry leaned forward somewhat, eyes narrowing as he forced his mind onto the conversation. He didn’t know how long he would be here and how long Death would speak to him. Best to sort out what to do and where he was going before anything else. He just… needed to  understand.

“If I may,” he started, forcing himself to stare into those uncomfortably unnatural eyes. “I’m awfully confused with what Professor Dumbledore did to ‘ruin’ the world.”

“I already told you.” Death began to light another cigarette. “On Halloween of 1981—”

“When he brought me to the Dursleys?”

Death shook his head, the gold of his eyes glowing brightly with some unknown emotion. “No, he brought you to that house the day  after,  on the night of the first of November, and that's the root of the issue. That’s where it all started."

Harry shook his head, turning the statement over and over in his head as he tried to figure out what felt so…  odd  about it. Pieces of the puzzle were missing for him. But… it didn’t seem like Death wanted to elaborate. 

Brilliant.

“So, one single day is the root of this whole issue?” He questioned, leaning back on the bench as he did. “I can't help but find that… unlikely. What could have even happened in one day for things to change so much? What exactly  had  changed?”

Death made a face, looking like he was trying hard not to laugh. “Quite a few things, actually, but let's focus on the first and foremost: your mind.” 

Leaning forward suddenly, Death held up his hands, his palms facing out towards Harry, who jumped with surprise, blinking as the god’s hands started glowing with a faint, greenish-gold light.

“Let's start with a thought experiment.” The god’s expression was stony and almost… educational? Death held his hands out then, as if he expected Harry to take them. Harry did not. “If you were, say, an incredibly powerful wizard like Dumbledore, and a man of nearly equal power was trying to take control of your home country, what would you do?”

Harry blinked, watching warily as the light emanating from Death’s palms steadily increased in intensity. “Well, I suppose I would try to kill him, so he doesn’t hurt or kill any more innocent people...?” 

Death tsked, shaking his head mournfully. “You aren't thinking how you should, Harry. You have so much more compassion than you should.”

“Compassion? Are you saying I should care  less?  I just said I would kill a man!”

“Well, yes, I am, but I’m also saying that you’re caring about the wrong things. But don’t worry, this is one of the main issues that we’ll be fixing now.”

“Fixing?”  Harry felt the onset of panic gripping him. This didn’t feel right. Slowly, he began to inch away from the god, eyes pinned on the golden-green light. “What are you on about? How am I not thinking right?” The light grew steadily stronger, and Death started to move closer to him. “What are you doing?”

The light emanating from Death’s palms was becoming unbearable to look directly at, and Harry was forced to screw his eyes shut and turn his head away as his retinas began to burn. “You'll realise in a moment, but for now, let me tell you what Albus Dumbledore would do.”

Instincts flooded his mind—some instincts telling him to  run,  but others telling him to stay and look. Just take  a little peek. What’s the harm in a little peak?

Harry ripped his eyes open, air surging through his lungs and body halfway up off the bench just as Death shoved his hands right over Harry’s eyes.

He screamed. He screamed and screamed and  screamed  as something deep within him screeched out in  agony.  It howled with fury as the burning light flooded into his body and surged through every inch of him. The thing inside him—so deep within his being that he couldn’t even discern if it was him or the air around him—suddenly felt so heavy and hot and angry that it was as if there was a stone settled deep in his gut. He screamed. He screamed until his throat went raw from screaming, and then he screamed some more. All the while, the hot, heavy thing in his stomach started  burning.  It started burning and writhing and hissing like some sort of  thing.  Some sort of living thing sitting heavy and hot inside of him.

And just as suddenly, it was gone.

Harry shuddered, a feeling of impossible coldness overtaking him as suddenly he came to. His cheek was once again pressed into the not-floor, burning with heat as the comfortingly cool tile soothed the ache all over him. Death’s shoes appeared as the god crouched down next to him and just… watched. He blinked at the man, before closing his eyes and just… groaning.

“Wh-”

“What you would do,” Death started, pulling him back up against the white bench. Harry fell across it like a sack of flour, groaning wordlessly as his entire body slowly regained motion and feeling. All the while, Death was staring at him quietly. Harry barely noticed, slowly shifting back up into some semblance of solidity. “—is kill him. Not because the people need you. Not because someone told you to. Not even because you think it’s the ‘right thing’. No, you would kill him because strength is everything, and any sort of up-and-coming wizard who has the potential ability to topple the power balance is doomed to either fight and destroy or  be  destroyed by another, superior wizard.”

Death wiped his hands on his trousers, and took out another cigarette. “Albus Dumbledore took you to the Dursleys a day late, because on the thirty first of October, he brought you to Hogwarts for a single day,  just  so that he could be assured that Tom Riddle didn’t reside inside you, and that if he did, he could kill Riddle and you at the same time and be done with both. You were, and always had been, a threat to him. And the only reason he kept you alive was the Horcrux in your head, and the prophecy that kept it there.”

Harry felt an amalgamation of differing, clashing feelings, all far too intense for him to ignore yet too overwhelming to comprehend. The light that was now glowing faintly through his body made him feel impossibly good and relaxed and  incredible,  but Death’s words sank heavily into his stomach, pooling there like liquid mercury. For the first time, his body felt free of subtle aches and pains, the early onset of arthritis in his joints having been diminished to almost nothing. He felt completely healthy. He felt okay.

But the Headmaster would have killed him as a baby if he thought it was necessary.

“What did he do to me?” Harry paused, looking down at his fingers and arms and trying to discern what was different. “What did  you  do to me?” 

Death was watching him carefully, his unnatural eyes boring into him as if studying a particularly fascinating science experiment. Harry held the gaze for a moment, before the death god looked away, examining the bleached-out Kings Cross as if it held all of the universe’s secrets. “All I did was reverse what Dumbledore had done, and tether myself to you.”

“Teather…?” Harry couldn’t quite focus on one thing or the next, as each word that came out of Death’s mouth just spelt even more danger. The god nodded, lifting the stub of the cigarette back up to his lips.

“You were chosen by my Hallows, after all. It would be doing you a disservice not to.”

“But… I’m not the—”

“The Master of Death? Well, yes, actually, you are.”

Harry shook his head, eyes unfocused as he contemplated all the times that he had touched one of the hallows, he had certainly touched all three, but he had never held them all at the same time. “I can't be. That’s impossible. I’m just….”

Death shrugged, “consider it an abnormal, once-in-an-eternity opportunity, then. There was a job opening. Your name was pulled out in a raffle. Whatever helps you sleep at night, honestly. I’m not here to tell you how to lie to yourself, just what you shouldn’t be lied to about.”

Everything was quiet—painfully so, and Harry was positive that he wasn’t even breathing. 

Master of Death. 

It was something he had only really thought of in passing. The possibility of ever becoming it was so small and seemingly impossible that he had simply… never even considered it. Now though, as he sat in his own special purgatory and was told that it was true and his burden to bear, Harry found himself wishing that he had considered it more, that he had contemplated the consequences of it. What was he going to do now?

“But once I go back in time, that will change, right?”

Death shook his head, letting out a tired breath. “I’m not really sending  you  back in time. I’m sending your soul back in time. Your soul, it… all human minds hold the memories of their life, so when I put  your  soul into your younger body, that body’s mind will sort of… meet your soul in the middle? You’ll probably regress mentally, sadly, and probably won't really remember the first three years since you’ll be a baby, but you’ll still have your memories, so—”

“A baby?”

“—anyway, no matter what time or place, as long as you have that human soul of yours, you will always be my master. No matter how either of us feels about it.”

“I’m sorry, you’re sending me  all  the way back?”

Death pursed his lips, “I don’t see any other way to go about it. Your new soul needs to be put into the body you had on the first of November that year, or the things Albus Dumbledore did to your original soul will stick and… well, it would all just make sending you back rather pointless, don’t you think?”

Harry thought about that revelation for a very, very long moment, his mind void and empty as his thoughts ran through the past several minutes with a furious intensity. “The headmaster did something to me.” Death nodded, looking unimpressed with Harry's problem-solving capabilities. Harry ignored the look and kept going. “Well, out with it. What was it? Why did he do it? What did it change?”

Death observed him very closely for a very long time, before turning away. “I’m really not quite sure why he had done it, but I suppose he thought that it was a necessity. Either way, you’ll be living your second life free of those obstructions, so no need to worry.”

Harry narrowed his eyes, “what kind of obstructions?”

The god’s gaze was avoidant and almost… abashed. “It is a very ancient and very destructive magic, and has damaging consequences when left to lie for as long as you were saddled with it.”

Harry pressed even further, taking the caution in Death’s tone to mean that it was something he wouldn’t particularly like. “What? What kind of magic? Please, for Merlin’s sake, just  tell  me.”

Death waved his hand, a grimace apparent in his expression. “I don't know if you want to know, kid. Just trust me when I say  not  to trust him and—”

“No.” Harry shook his head. “That’s not good enough. If you tell me only a portion of the truth and expect me to just be fine with it, then you're  wrong.  I've spent far too long having to find the rest of the truth on my own to know for a fact that it is only a  waste of everyone’s time.”

Death was very still for a moment, blinking blankly, almost surprised by the outburst. Harry held his gaze, feeling for once in his life that he knew  exactly  what he wanted and how to articulate it. 

There was only another moment of silence, before a smile cracked across the old god’s face.

“There you are.”

Harry was taken aback, blinking as Death leaned forward and—acting as if he hadn’t said anything at all—began to speak.

“Its called the Ritual of Compulsions, or just Compulsions for short. It was most often used throughout history to… well, to  bind  specific traits away and force others out into the open, making someone compelled to act differently to their nature. Albus used the Compulsions for… well, he was picking out a personality for you, to be perfectly blunt, though Albus—really he was… rather ingenious about it—he altered the ritual in such a way that he was capable of dampening your  magic  to a certain extent as well, almost giving you a sort of-of magical  handicap.”  Death waved his hands animatedly in front of his face, eyes glowing green with some sort of sick fascination. Harry felt terror churn in his gut, the sudden urge to vomit climbing up his oesophagus as the god continued, seemingly without care. “His reasoning for all of it was that, if you didn’t have the personality traits that may incline you towards being a dark wizard, then you wouldn’t become one. Which was—again, bloody ingenious, really, if rather cruel. He went even further than that train of thought, though, thinking that once you reached Hogwarts—well, really, his dedication was incredible. Everything, down to who you were allowed to have a crush on to what you ate in the morning was all carefully planned out so that you would be  exactly  who he wanted you to be. I mean, its honestly impressive. The attention to detail is just absurd.”

Harry felt the sudden need to lash out and rip something to shreds. The red of fire or blood or mind-numbing anger rose up and clouded his vision till he couldn’t see anything but  red.  Red over red over red. Had he even been himself for the past seventeen years, or was his entire personality—his entire  identity —built up around the image of what Albus  fucking  Dumbledore wanted him to be?

Suddenly, needing to move—or perhaps destroy something, Harry leapt to his feet and began to pace, arms unable to stay still and mind awash with a mix of cold grief and burning anger as he pivoted around in circles till he made himself dizzy. A deep, sizzling hatred bubbled and churned below his skin, swarming every pleasant memory he had of Albus Dumbledore and ripping them to pieces. Everything felt so… so  fake  now. The kind eyes. The understanding words. It was all  fake.  His entire life was a lie, and Death was treating it like a sick science experiment—like what the headmaster had done was something  commendable.

“So, what you’re telling me is… is that I haven’t been myself for  most of my life because of these Compulsions, and now the universe is about to end?” He threw his arms up in the air and waved them wildly, his eyes blown wide and entire body hot with anger. The god made a face, utterly unperturbed with Harry’s anger and seemingly ignoring it completely. Death waved his hand back and forth in a ‘so-so’ motion, acting as though this was a pleasant little conversation and not the end of Harry’s sanity. 

“You’ve dumbed it down a bit, but… well, yeah, pretty much.”

Harry forced himself to nod, his entire body strung taut enough that his arms were shaking with exertion. “Explain what I got wrong, then. Tell me what else there is.”

“Well...” The man started, his jaw working slowly as if he was contemplating how to word it. “Let's start with the after-effects of Dumbledore’s detour, shall we? Come on then, sit back down.” Harry shook his head stiffly, staying rooted in place and, instead of continuing to pace, shoved his shaking hands under his armpits in an effort to stay still. Death made a motion of assent and settled further back into the bench. “Well, for starters, Fate originally wanted Riddle’s main soul—the one whose body you destroyed—to follow you to Privet Drive, and attempt to possess you as an infant—”

Harry choked on his saliva, eyes widening as he stared at the god in horror. 

“—But,  relax, kid… hell, you alright?” Harry nodded, biting the inside of his cheek so hard he was positive it was bleeding. “Good. Anyway, he was going to fail, obviously, instead becoming trapped in your mind where all he could really do was talk to you. This would function as sort of… ehh, a sort of wakeup call, or his own personal penance for several years, as eventually, he would begin to help you throughout your Hogwarts career like some sort of... oh, I don’t know, weird uncle? Honestly, I don't really know what her plan was. Fate only ever starts out with an endgame in mind and just makes it up along the way from there—it's one of the reasons that prophecies are so finicky, because she works hard to make it come true in the end, regardless of what happens in the middle. But—I'm getting ahead of myself.”

The god paused for a moment, contemplating what to say next, before continuing. 

“-but because of Dumbledore’s little…  redecorating,  your soul was hidden under a lot of walls and general strain, so Riddle was blocked out and, because of his frenzied effort to possess you, his soul was damaged even more than before, and he became a wrath, which then proceeded to run off to Albania, which set of the chain reaction that eventually led to the second wizarding war.”

Harry was silent, staring slack-jawed at the god with a mix of shock and horror. Death continued, appearing on something of a roll as he continued on about the inner complexities of the original intention. “Fate said that, originally, she wanted to push you to bring Riddle back so you could have a father-like person in your life, but that was scrapped aeons before you were even born, and after the whole situation in ‘81, I took over the entire ordeal since souls are more my forte. Honestly, I really hope you understand how much effort is getting put into taking you back to start things over. Your story is going to be different—for obvious reasons—but it’s still similar enough, and, honestly? I feel like the new draft is better than what we had before. Certainly better than whatever Albus Dumbledore decided he wanted the world to be. Or perhaps I just like it because it's more dramatic. I’ve certainly got my biases—but… well, anyway.”

It was quiet for a very, very long time. Death chain-smoked as Harry stood there and contemplated what life could have been—what life was  going  to be once he was sent back in time. It sounded horrible. The idea of having Voldemort wriggling around in his mind was just so vile and intrusive that he could barely even stand the thought of it. He wanted very much to talk to Fate just to convince her not to make that happen.

“I-I don't understand where it went wrong, I guess.” He finally choked out, running his hands through his hair as he stared off into the middle distance with something akin to disbelief. “How were things even  capable  of changing if Fate wrote them to be a certain way? How was the headmaster able to go against her decision?”

Death let out an annoyed breath, motioning again at Harry to sit back on the bench. “Sadly, us gods can write all we want and push all we like, but humans have this incredibly infuriating thing called free will. Ever heard of it? You little mortal monsters will occasionally go against us for no particular reason other than you’re annoying and want to mess everything up. Fate and I keep trying to come up with ways to neutralise your stupid little free will, but the only thing that ever seems to work is fear, and I’ve never been very good and weaponising terror. It’s more Fate’s forte, really. It's why seers are so scatterbrained—she just keeps terrorising them into submission.”

Harry grimaced, blinking at Death’s seeming uninterest in the mental torture he was describing. He thought that was likely an over-exaggeration of the issue, then, but didn’t say anything to disprove it, far too focused on the picture that was being laid out before him to really care anymore.

“So what am I supposed to do? You say you're sending me back in time, but what would that even fix? I have no ability to fight back against the headmaster—I don't even know  how  to fight against him. Would you be sending me back to save my younger self? Would that by proxy create a mess with the timeline, and I would cease to exist?” He began to breathe erratically, running shaking fingers through his hair as Death watched on with detached interest.

“Ignoring the fact that having two Harry Potters running around is impossible from both a timeline standpoint and the fact that your body is, at the moment, quite... dead, I’ve already said that I’m sending your soul and, by extension, your memories, as they are now, back into your body from when you were an infant. Do you not remember? We’ve already discussed this, Harry. Please pay attention.”

“Shove my attention up your  ass.”  Harry hissed, falling back down beside the god with a dull thump. Death didn’t reply—didn’t even bother acting insulted, really. Harry couldn’t bring himself to be mad about the lack of reaction. He could only really stare, emotions dulling down into a dense cloud of shock as the infinite expanse of his afterlife dragged on before him. “So… so that's it then? I'll be sent back in time to live out my hell of a life with Voldemort in my head, and everything will work out all… fine and dandy?”

Death shrugged in a very agreeable way, as if they were talking about the weather. “That's the hope.”

“Well, that's just brilliant, isn't it,” Harry whispered, chin in his palm as his eyes started to cross. He was very,  very  far from agreeing to anything of the sort, but he couldn’t seem to come up with a way to get out of the whole mess without pissing off a literal  god.  

He had died under the expectation that he would be greeted by his family, not this sarcastic prick that called him a kid and wanted to send him back in time to relive his own personal hell.

“You can't make me go back to the Dursleys.”

Death took another long drag, seeming to savour the taste before blowing out a long stream of smoke. For a moment, Harry thought that there might be screaming faces floating through the grey gas. Perhaps he really was going mad.

“They’re better than anyone else you have, Harry.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he whispered, an inconsolable weight pushing down on his shoulders as he tried to fight back the urge to cry again. There was a look in Death’s eye—a very sad look. “Don’t lie like that. Not to me. Not right now.”

Death just looked at him. Something in the god’s gaze made Harry feel so, so alone.

“No.”

“Harry—”

He shook his head, turning away and throwing his hands over his eyes, trying to force away the feeling of horrible, inconsolable  loneliness  tearing at his heart. 

“Harry… I truly meant it when I said that  everything  in your life was planned out by Albus Dumbledore. Everything, from what you ate for breakfast to who you were allowed to have a crush on to who you were friends with—”

“No.”

“Harry—”

“Oh,  fuck you.”  Harry pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and choked back the rock that had become lodged in his throat. He was so,  so  tired of… of always having to worry about people going behind his back. His entire life had been filled with his relatives making it  painfully  obvious that no one cared about him, that he was nothing but an insignificant stain on their couch, and only when he got to Hogwarts did he finally start to believe that they were wrong. Was he supposed to accept that all of  that  was all a lie too? That he had been hated and loved and vilified for his entire life and for  nothing?  Was it  all  for nothing? He felt the sizzling, burning loneliness begin to churn and boil till it blinded him, burning through his senses till he was suddenly grabbing Death by Sirius’ leather jacket, screaming like a madman in the face of god himself.

“Did any of them  actually  care about me, or was it just one big ruse? A means to an end? Well? Tell me! Tell you-you  fucking bastard!”

Cold hands fell over his eyes. Harry stopped mid-sentence, hiccuping as the cold, cold hands migrated from his eyes to the back of his head and gently pulled him into a hug. He breathed in, choking out a painful sob as he threw his arms around the larger man, burying his face into the familiar, old leather as those cold hands gently embraced him.

“It’s okay, Harry.” The whisper in his ear felt distant, but also so close that he could feel a cool breath on his ear. “It’s okay to hate them. It’s okay to miss them, too. It’s okay to feel anything that you want to feel, but please never forget that they were never meant for you. They were never meant to fill up all your time. They were never meant to be your whole world. The  world  was meant to be your whole world. Never forget that your fate was never meant to be so… so  limited.  Don’t let them limit you a second time. Not again.”

Harry tightened his grip on the man’s jacket, squeezing his eyes tighter in the hopes that, somehow, he could make himself forget where he was—make himself forget that this man wasn’t Sirius, or his father, and that he was so, so far from home. What  was  home, even? Was the afterlife home? Everyone that truly loved him was dead, it seemed, so that seemed the only reasonable place for his home to be.

“Tell me the truth,” he croaked. “Who were they, really? My friends—everyone, who were they? What were they  really  like?”

There was a moment of stillness, before Death leaned down and pressed a cold kiss to his forehead. 

Memories erupted through his mind.

Not his memories—no, he couldn’t recall a single one of them as his own. But there they were—Ron and Hermione and… and Ginny. But… they were different—harsher. There was a cold, distanced look in Hermione’s eyes, as she worked through book after book that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend. War books and weaponry and… and psychology? Ron sat there too, practically snarling as he sat hunched over a chess table, eyebrows furrowed with fury and mouth moving wordlessly as he seemingly ranted to air. And then there was Ginny, her smile lopsided and uneven and discomforting as she brewed…  something,  the glimmer in her eyes sending nausea spiralling through him as a plume of smoke erupted from the cauldron. Quiet calculation, barely-contained fury, incomprehensible conspiracy—it echoed through his head like a mantra, only gaining intensity and depravity as they grew older and things became harder—more dangerous. Their anger and silence and lust spiralling out of control till he couldn’t even recognise the faces in those memories, the hard lines and empty eyes and… and above them all stood  Albus Dumbledore,  unchanging and all-knowing and, Merlin, what was he  looking  at?

Harry gasped, ripping away from Death’s embrace as he stumbled, falling back on his arse as the memories were suddenly yanked away from him again—ripped from his mind as if they had never existed in the first place. Harry breathed heavily, hands gripping his chest as his heart thundered in his ribcage.

“Wh-what? What was—”

“You weren’t the only one that was altered,” Death muttered quietly. “They probably would have been fine children—no different from anyone else—but you needed someone close by who would be willing to watch you. You… needed to be guided in all the right ways, and the best way to do that was with other children. He surrounded you with them, putting more care into how he raised them so that they, in turn, could raise  you.  Do you understand, Harry? When you go back in time, you will be saved from the chains around your soul, but  they  are outside of my reach, and will only repeat their fates over again. You will be fighting against them every step of the way. It is… best that you understand this and learn to despise them.”

Harry stumbled to his feet, shaking his head as he almost immediately collapsed again, turning over and vomiting onto the floor. It was black—like tar. The bile oozed and sizzled, whimpering like a dog as the not-floor slowly absorbed it till it was nothing—till  he  was nothing. Harry stared at the empty floor—the empty white that stretched out in all directions.

“Despise them,” he whispered, shaking his head slightly. “How could I—”

“You’ll learn.” Death’s hand was on his shoulder, steady and firm and  freezing.  “One day, this entire conversation will be a distant memory, and as they start to act in the way Albus designed for them to, you’ll find yourself wanting nothing more than to see them dead.”

“I couldn’t—”

“You will,” spoke another voice—a high, feminine voice. Harry whipped his head up, eyes wide and bloodshot, as someone came into view. She smiled at him charmingly, pale green eyes squinting down into his own with an odd curiosity, long red hair curling up around her chin as she kneeled down in front of him, long curls falling down around his head in a halo of fire. He felt his lungs collapsing in on themselves.

“Mum?” he whispered, almost unsure. She wasn’t… no, she wasn’t quite like Lily Potter—she was too short, he thought—much shorter than even Harry—and her face was too round. She wasn’t like the photographs. She was… just like Death. Just like how he wasn’t quite James Potter, she wasn’t quite his mother. She was…

He swallowed wetly, feeling for all the world like he was staring into the eyes of agony itself.

She stared at him for a moment, blankly, before throwing her head back and erupting into laughter. He scrambled back on instinct, the hair-raising cackle shaking his bones and sending sharp jolts of  terror  racing through him. His back slammed into Death’s chest, his arms flailing out as he tried to put as much distance between himself and the-the  thing  in front of him. Death’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding him steady.

“Goodness!” the entity that was wearing Lily Potter’s face crooned gleefully. He breathed in a croaky gasp. “Of course I’m not your mother, dear. Don’t be so silly. Now, Death…?”

“I've got it handled," the god muttered, pulling Harry further and further away from the woman as she grinned sharply. “Just leave him be; he’s fragile at the moment.”

“Fragile?” she echoed. Harry blinked through the tears as the creature hiding inside his mother’s skin approached slowly—stalking towards him. He was crying. When had he started crying? He flinched as the thing reached out, gripping his arm with a disconcerting mournfulness before she suddenly jolted forward, ignoring his terror-driven shout of protest as she took his head and hugged it to her chest. “Oh, you poor thing, let’s all calm down for a little while, hmm?”

He let out another choked sob, unable to control the rampaging emotions as the burning, blistering feeling of her hands across his cheeks drove him mad. Her nails bit into his shoulder blades—angry like knives and sharp like talons as she gripped him tightly. He felt like he was being embraced by pain—by torture and grief and every wretched thing that he had ever experienced in his life—by starvation and thirst and the harsh heat of a slap across his cheeks. He felt like he was being hugged by the source of all his misfortune, the tangy bitterness of blood and honeydew melting into him until he was nothing and everything at the same time.

And he was, he realised distantly, as the agony gripped him. This was his fate—to be in pain. This was his purpose.

“Enough of that, Fate,” Death whispered scathingly, ripping Harry’s shaking form from the creature’s clawed grip as she laughed brazenly. Harry whimpered, curling in on his side as Death took him up in his arms, cradling him to his chest like an infant. The creature, ‘Fate’, he supposed, sighed forlornly, but seemed to step back several paces, leaving space for Death to manoeuvre Harry’s shaking form back onto the bench.

“Are you ready, Harry?” the man whispered, golden-green eyes glimmering with a sort of gentle apologeticness. Harry couldn’t even bring himself to reply, so in shock that all he could do was shake his head in refusal. Death grimaced, before placing a hand over Harry’s eyes.

“Then… I’m sorry, but it’s time for you to go.”

“Oh, can’t I do it, Dea—”

“You’ve done plenty,” said the god quietly—forcefully, and Fate fell silent, dissatisfied. Harry shivered, trying to move—trying to speak as the light in Death’s palms began to glow once again. He wasn’t ready—he wouldn’t ever be ready. He wanted his parents. He wanted to see Sirius and Remus and everyone who had died in the war. He wanted to be with them. He didn’t  want  this.

“I’m sorry, Harry. I’ll make the memories of what happened here distant so you can focus on growing up. I can’t say for certain that they will always be hiding somewhere in the back of your mind, but they will be blurry for a decade, at least. That much I can promise you.”

He didn’t say a word—didn’t get the chance to as the light emanating from Death’s hands overwhelmed him once again, and he suddenly felt himself be shoved back with incredible force, flying back through the bench and out—ripped through time and space, years of pain and anguish flashing past as he was sent hurling backwards. Magic lurched out of the void and towards his soul, a dark thread of reddish black latching onto him and intertwining with his very existence, intertwining with all that he was. More threads of magic joined it, little wisps of gold and green and one bright, unearthly sliver of light, all intertwining around his soul and encompassing it in warmth and chill and comfort. All of this was not comprehended by Harry Potter, who was much too focused on staying conscious to pay attention to little wisps of inconsequential light.

Consciousness slowly began to leave him, however, and as darkness began to fly about his vision, Harry felt a great lurch, the cool air of November slowly making itself known to him as he was then, rather unceremoniously,  thrust  into his infant body.

He then proceeded to, quite promptly, pass out.

Chapter Text

A man sat in front of a small bundle on a doorstep.

Inside said bundle was a boy, breathing softly. The boy was just a little over a year old, his small form inside the bundle revealing nothing past his young age. The man took a sobering breath, observing the boy’s face with acute fascination. The child had a fresh wound of what appeared to be a lightning bolt starting at his hairline and branching off and down through his eyes, the longest branch tapering off on the crest of his nose. Blood slowly dripped from the injury, covering the boy’s forehead and eyes in sticky red. Despite the painful-looking injury, the child was sleeping softly, breath coming out in visible puffs of heat due to the cold weather.

The man had his pointer finger on the start of the lightning bolt scar, right at the boy's hairline. Pressing into it, the man shuddered, as if the cold was bothering him, and very suddenly he flickered, as if not truly there, his form becoming transparent for a moment as he grunted in pain. Pressing his finger in further, he gave a shaky breath, before flickering again, nearly disappearing entirely for a moment before returning, now very clearly translucent and weakened.

The tattered memory of Tom Riddle sat on the porch of number 4 Privet Drive, pressing desperately into the horcrux housed in Harry Potter’s forehead. He didn't know how he managed to get to this point really, trying to possess a baby that is. It was pathetic, the greatest dark lord of all time having fallen so low so quickly and being so horribly desperate and in need of a body that he lowered himself to possessing a small child, and not only that but the very child that had banished him from his body in the first place. He shuddered again, and flickered, slowly starting to become more and more transparent. 

I'm running out of time.

The realization sent a wave of panic through him, and he rose higher on his knees, pressing his entire hand desperately into the horcrux, trying to take over the small body with pathetic results. It shouldn't be so difficult to do this. He thought to himself despairing, flickering more aggressively as another shudder distorted his form. Giving another, desperate shove, he started to waver, flickering like a candle’s flame in a gentle breeze, and his hand sank further into Harry Potter’s forehead. He gasped, choking in pain as something began working against him, protections or enchantments or something that was doing its damndest to push him out. He gurgled in silent pain for a time, his form flickering in agitation and agony for several minutes before the baby appeared to flash golden-green for a moment, shudder, and settle down again. He felt the painful blocks melt away and without a single warning he gave out and collapsed into the curse scar, unravelling like string and slipping through the gaping wound, his flickering form falling to pieces as he sunk into the boy's skull. His consciousness floated around the child’s mind for a moment, lost, before he found the rest of himself in a small part of Harry Potter’s subconscious. He reached out to it, unthinking, and felt the rest of himself connect and return to the whole. It only took a moment before he went still, allowing himself to fall into a deep sleep now that he was safely hidden away in the boy’s mind. 

Privet Drive fell back into normalcy again, the only deviation from the norm being the little bundle that still sat on that doorstep. Little Harry Potter did not shiver and shake however, despite the cold November wind and the thin blanket that was attempting to warm him. No, he sat quite comfortably in the chill, relaxed and sleeping softly as if nothing was amiss, as if there were not two great forces about to do battle inside his mind.

Baby Harry Potter stayed that way for a long time, sleeping comfortably in the cold, winter wind, sat there as the sunrise finally crept over the horizon. He slept quietly as early-morning joggers and a particularly exhausted paperboy passed, all of them completely unaware of the child that sat on the doorstep. This became clear as the paperboy threw the morning paper towards number four and very nearly hit the boy, narrowly missing him by some miracle as the thick bundle of paper bounced off the front door and into the basket, where the child was starting to rouse from his slumber. 

As the sun began to rise higher, the residents of Privet Drive began to wake in larger numbers, and as Mrs Number Three began pruning her daisies, a woman opened the door to number four, likely in an effort to get the morning paper, and proceeded to fall backwards with a shocked yelp. She stared at the child for a moment, appearing to be making a considerable effort to try and decide between feeling shocked or perturbed that a seemingly random child was left on her doorstep sometime in the night. Snatching up the newspaper that laid on top of the bundle, she caught sight of a letter nestled in the folds of the blanket, and snatched that up as well. Reading through the letter, her face slowly fell, her fingers clutched around the folds of the parchment as a shuddering gasp rose up from her throat, fat tears quickly beginning to fall from her face and onto the parchment. Looking down at the boy again, she raised a shaking hand and ran it over the blood that coated his forehead, before pulling away as if burned. Mumbling curses, she picked the basket up and brought it inside the house, shutting the door firmly behind her. 

No one on the street could see the blood-red wards flickering into existence, continuing to go about their lives as if nothing was amiss. They also didn’t notice as a web of dark, twisted light sprung upwards towards the red wards and latched onto them, beginning an insidious descent onto the interior of the home, weaving a cruel web of hatred through the interior of #4 Privet Drive. No one noticed as Petunia Dursley’s face seemed to twist from the deep concern and grief to that of anger and hatred, or how Vernon Dursley’s hands bundled into fists in his sleep. No one on that perfectly normal muggle street noticed these things, just as no one noticed as they flickered out of sight. One person, however, one tiny sliver of a person, felt this cruel magic taking place, and woke with a start.

Tom Riddle, upon realizing that he had not, in fact, succeeded in possessing Harry Potter, quickly tried to figure out what options he had. Of all the things to go wrong... Taking in his surroundings, Tom found that he was incapable of looking out at the outside world, likely because the boy’s eyes were still closed. However, reaching out with his magic to peer around the child’s mind, he was able to discern that not all was lost. The boy was still asleep, and would likely be so for some time still. It would be much easier to wrestle control from the child if it was awake, but he needed a great deal of time to gather his bearings and sort out some way of using the boy to gain his body back, so it was a blessing in disguise. For a moment, he was about to do just that, before taking a small, impossibly important second to feel for the wards that had woken him, curious as to who had placed them there and what they were. However, what he found made his calm demeanour dissipate near-instantly, and if he had a mouth to do so he would have cursed every god, deity, and religious figurehead there was to curse.

There were exceptionally strong blood wards encompassing the entirety of the house, of which seemed to have somehow granted him entrance into the home despite the fact that the Potter woman had clearly cast them. What was truly worrying however, was that the wards had been overlaid by various negative curses, ones pertaining most often to aggression and hatred. He snarled with disgust, writhing around in the boy’s mind in an effort to find a way to force his will onto the child and gain control. He had no way of taking them down where he was, and in the wrong situation those sorts of behaviour changing curses could be deadly to his vessel and by extension to him. Not knowing what else to do, he threw all his power and attention into waking the infant, knowing that there was a very small window in which to take down such curses before they grew too powerful to destroy.

Seventeen year old Harry Potter woke up on a very familiar kitchen table to Petunia and Vernon Dursley arguing loudly, and what seemed like a very pissed off Voldemort screaming inside his head. For a moment, he thought that perhaps he really had gone to that eighth layer of hell he had been worried about, before realizing that the voice in his head would not be there if that was the case, as Voldemort had not yet been killed when he had died. It was then that he realized, with an insurmountable amount of horror, that he was very clearly a baby, and was likely about to be shoved into a cupboard for an incrementally large amount of time. Panic surged through him, and in a moment of desperation, he began wriggling about, mind awash with fear as Vernon threw his pudgy fist hard into the kitchen counter.

Oh bloody buggering FUCK!

Voldemort went quiet inside his mind almost immediately, with what Harry correctly assumed to be shock. In a moment of clarity, Harry tried to block out the arguing voices and deep-seated fear in order to try and assess his situation. Unfortunately, Voldemort got over his shock very quickly and started hissing in his head, acting as though he had every right to be there despite being something of a pressing concern to Harry and his quickly dwindling emotional control.

Listen child, you must let me take control of your body. They will only become more agitated as time goes on, and there is a very limited window in which to stop this.

Harry scoffed, at least as well as a baby could, his fists bundled up as he began to wriggle more aggressively. Merlin, being a baby was hard. Right, sure, you should know that trying to kill them or whatever your grand plan is won’t work, so save your breath. Making an effort to scramble out of the basket, Harry mumbled curses under his breath, which sounded more like baby nonsense than anything else.

No you moronic child! There are aggression wards leeching off of the magic surrounding this house, I need to take control of you in order to remove them right now or they will become a permanent fixture.

Harry thought a very impolite sentence that made the Dark Lord go quiet in shock for a second time, sputtering in his head with indignation. He should have known that Death had not been over exaggerating in the slightest when saying that Dumbledore had orchestrated everything down to the last detail. Really though, setting up some sort of… what was it, aggression wards? Setting aggression wards around the house was really pushing the line between insidious and just plain cruel. Perhaps this was why neither Death nor Fate had seemed all that concerned about sending him back to the Dursleys, as Voldemort appeared as though he was supposedly inclined to fix the mess for him.

Taking a shuddering breath, Harry forced the feelings of fear and pain down where he would contemplate them later, focusing firmly on the task at hand. Alright, what do I need to do?

Voldemort, still reeling from the rather crass thing that had been thought by such a young child, told him, his voice echoing in Harry’s skull. Close your eyes and reach out to me with your magic, I'll grab a hold of it and pull myself to the surface.

How do I know you won’t take over permanently? How do I even do something like that?

Voldemort seemed particularly annoyed with him, his voice impatient and harsh. You won't, and I don't particularly care how you go about it, just do it, you pathetic little leech.

Deciding to ignore the irony, Harry did as he was told, stumbling around in an effort to reach his magic till he managed to figure out where it was. He could feel it sitting firmly in his chest, in the exact spot that it had always been. Reaching out, he grasped hold of it and practically threw it to the void that encompassed the dark recesses in his mind, working entirely on instinct as he did so. Reaching into his mind was just as difficult as it had always been, but Snape’s rather sour occlumency teaching had somehow come into play in that moment and managed to help him a great deal. Something latched onto the magic, and he felt something of a tug as he was forced into the darkness, a snaking web of deep red light hurling out and into the forefront of his mind as he went falling backwards.

The Dark Lord, now only a shard of soul inhabiting a surprisingly intelligent one year old, opened his green eyes and got to work. Taking downwards from the outside was hardly a picnic, but from the inside it was quite a bit more difficult, as wards were always cast from the outside and therefore were best broken the same way. It took several minutes of deep meditation and fumbling on his part to figure out how to untangle the aggression and hate curses around the property, yanking at the disgusting threads of magic in an effort to destroy every last string of cruel magic. Luckily for him, they were still quite fresh, and seemed to have been banking on the woman of the house accepting the child. Since she hasn't officially done so, still too focused on arguing with her circular husband, they were at their weakest, and could be pulled apart after a great deal of force was exerted. Pulling with one final tug, he sighed in relief as the last of the threads fell apart. Almost immediately the arguing couple was soothed, and Voldemort managed a sharp nod towards his job well done before very quickly passing out a second time that day, magically exhausted.

Harry woke up to his aunt warming a baby bottle, humming a happy tune as she swirled around the kitchen. He watched, gobsmacked, as she picked him up and shook the bottle, her eyes holding nothing but concern and worry for him. She slowed her humming to something more soft and sweet, gently pushing the bottle past his lips and cooing softly as she held him and observed attentively while he greedily drank the milk, whispering soft platitudes and concerned questions about if his scar pained him. It took Harry mere moments to finish the bottle, and he then watched, almost unbelieving, as Petunia burped him, patting his back gently as she continued to hum. He was quiet and almost... introspective as she sat him back down on the counter, bringing over disinfectant and other medical supplies before beginning to clean his scar, whipping the dried blood from his face with a gentle hand. 

He closed his eyes as she started to wipe closer to his eyebrows, contemplating what on earth Voldemort had to have done to make his aunt so… gentle. Surly there was some sort of evil curse involved in the entire thing, there was simply no other option. He sat for a moment, wondering why he instantly jumped to the ideology that every little thing that was questionable had to be dark magic related, and pushed the previous thought aside, annoyed with himself. Voldemort was very clearly too weak to cast any sort of magic, since he had seemingly managed to fall asleep after pulling down what he had called ‘hate curses’. 

“You poor dear, once this thing is all healed up I'll look into getting some scar ointment to make it fade faster. Such a brave little thing.” Harry sighed softly as Petunia wiped some sort of gauze across his scar, practically slathering the entirety of his forehead and nose with the sticky substance as she did. She left him there for a moment to wipe her fingers off, and he took the free seconds to wriggled around, managing to roll over on his stomach. Or perhaps this was just how Petunia had always been as a mother, and those ‘hate wards’ had really been all it took for her and Vernon to turn against him. It didn’t feel right though, the concept of the Dursleys being pleasant and kind felt severely off-putting, and he quickly started wishing for an alternative solution as Petunia picked him up, settling his small body on her hip.

“Aren't you a smart little chap, hmm? Can you say ‘Auntie Petunia’?” Staring blankly at the woman for a moment, Harry worked his mouth in an effort to concede to the request, before realizing that babies probably couldn’t do something like that, and settled to just babble, waving his arms and generally acting in a way he hoped was baby-ish. Petunia seemed impressed either way, and cooed happily as she set him down in a crib next to another baby, one far plumper than he was. Harry stared at baby Dudley in silent horror, turning quickly towards Petunia in a desperate attempt to be removed from the space, but found that he was a second too late, and she had already left the room. He despaired about the situation for a moment, before turning back to Dudley and promptly sticking out his tongue.

Baby Dudley merely gurgled in reply.

He sat back against the rings of the crib, getting somewhat comfortable as his new roommate settled as well and began playing with his binky. He felt something of a pinch in the back of his mind, and somehow just knew that Voldemort was waking from his little power nap.

Get out of my head, Riddle.

How do you know my name? You cannot possibly be Harry Potter. Who are you!

Harry couldn’t help but groan, scooting down onto his back as Dudley made more baby noises from across the crib. I am Harry Potter, just an older version. Look, I can explain later, we need to figure out how to get out of this house before Petunia goes back to normal.

Voldemort made a noise of disgust, the pinching feeling in the back of his mind becoming more prominent. Blasted child, I can't get anywhere in this mess of a mind, you'll need to build up occlumency barriers and sort through everything. You don't even have a proper mindscape!

Harry nearly blushed in embarrassment, but it quickly led to indignation as he realized that Voldemort was trying to sort through his memories, the image of his tanned hand wrapped around the elder wand coming rocketing to the surface of his thoughts. Get out of that! If you must know, y our favourite potions master said that I'm a lost cause in occlumency, so you’ll just have to deal with the mess. Serves you right.

Severus? The Dark Lord questioned, almost flippantly, pulling the memory of the man’s death to the surface. He seemed to have gone through the entire conversation with Death and Fate already, and was now peeling through the days and weeks prior to that. Harry made an effort to not scream in frustration as his memories were forced to the surface, his hatred of Voldemort only building as the man scoffed at special moments and snarled at glowing victories. That is of no matter, if I am truly stuck in your mind, I might as well attempt to do it myself. So, you managed to become the Master of Death, did you, Potter? Quite the achievement, how ever did you do it? The voice was cruel and sarcastic, rattling through his head in an incredibly annoying way and making Harry feel vindictive and potentially cruel. Riddle deserved every little second of annoyance Harry would bring him in the future.

What in Merlin's name is that? Do you honestly expect me to believe that I underwent such a horrible human transfiguration to end up so… so inhuman? Your memories are clearly defective.

Harry narrowed his eyes at the ceiling, tiny fists clenched in annoyance. If you must know Riddle, and as you have already clearly seen through my memories, the title was practically thrown at me. And yes, that is you, and you seemed to enjoy looking like a snake quite a bit. Perhaps you enjoyed pretending to be a snake? Hm? Are you a snake lover Voldemort? What did you and darling Nagini do behind closed doors, I wonder?

A near-unbearable stab of pain went through his skull, and through sheer force of will Harry managed to only let out a small whimper, his tiny fists coming up to press desperately into his skull without much reprieve. You pathetic little leech, how dare you!

Eat my arse, you megalomaniacal, snake-loving, no-nose piece of shit!

Another sharp pain rocketed through his skull, and Harry’s infantile instincts took over and he burst out into tears, baby Dudley making a noise of confusion as footsteps came pounding up the stairs. Petunia’s concerned voice was all he heard besides his own cries and Voldemort’s shouts of victory, a feeling of warm blood trickling down his forehead proving that the recently cleaned injury had been reopened. He was lifted from the crib, worried voices filtering through the air as he sobbed, the entire day weighing heavy on his small shoulders.

“Oh Vernon, look! What should we do?”

“Clean him off again, Pet, then we can see about taking him to the hospital tomorrow morning, see if they can do anything about the pain.”

His head was cradled close to the soft fabric of a blouse, and his cries slowly faded as he let himself be dragged into unconsciousness, Voldemort’s taunts and Petunia’s concerned muttering slowly fading into white noise.

Harry fell asleep, and didn’t wake up for some time.

Harry Potter was a very quiet baby, as observed by the Dursleys, and exceptionally well behaved. Petunia had, at first, worried quite a bit about the silence, as in stark contrast to Dudley’s cries, Harry only ever made little grabbing motions towards the milk bottle when he was hungry or, when he got a little bit older, merely pointed at the fridge and whispered ‘food?’ in a quiet, questioning voice. It was Vernon’s personal opinion that the boy was like that due to all the ‘fancy-pancy magic’ that he had been reared up around, but Petunia wasn’t so sure, watching as the boy peered around the house with strangely intelligent eyes. 

She liked to think that her sister, wherever she was now, had given birth to something of a prodigy, and took it upon herself to figure out just how smart Harry Potter really was. She found that, unlike Dudley, Harry was always thinking about something, either having a contemplative expression on his face while playing with blocks or staring off into the middle distance as if solving a great puzzle. Always wondering, always thinking. It had become a bit of a habit for her to watch the baby, and she had plenty of time to do so as a housewife, watching him as she pottered around and cleaned, observing as the two infants went about meaningless activities on the living room floor.

She quickly came to the conclusion that Harry Potter was not, even by magical standards, normal.

He was too aware, too smart to be considered anything but extraordinary, and she couldn’t help but worry that when the magical world came back to snatch him away from her, just as it did to Lily, he would not go quietly. There was something almost… vindictive behind his eyes, a fire that burned brightly with grief and anger, and she wondered how an expression even remotely similar could ever mar the face of someone so young. Petunia thought that perhaps what had happened to her sister and her husband might have been witnessed by the boy, or that the horribly gruesome scar across his face had impacted him in an irreversible way. She questioned if he would need therapy down the line, or if she needed to be as gentle as possible when handling him. She didn’t voice these worries with Vernon of course, who was still reeling at suddenly having two children instead of one, and was slowly turning into something of a workaholic as he took on more overtime to bring in more money to provide for them all. She didn’t want to worry him with even more things that might go wrong, but as she watched her nephew go about the day, his eyes too bright and intelligent and haunted, she began to believe that something would have to be said at some point. There was simply no way to keep going on without acknowledging the boy’s peculiarities.

It was with quite a great deal of luck that her husband didn’t notice the boy’s eyes or expression or the very obvious intelligence he held, though she believed that Vernon had his sights ever focused on other things.

“He has quite the impressive appetite, don't you think Pet?” Was what he would say every mealtime, watching the boy eat with an appraising eye. It was true as well, Harry’s large appetite that is. During each meal, he would eat twice as much as little Dudley would, growing like a weed as he devoured everything on his plate. Petunia could already tell that he would be quite tall, as he was already very nearly the same size as Dudley, who was older, though was admittedly quite a bit thinner than him. 

Regardless of any peculiarities the boy had, whether it be intellectual or appetite-wise, Petunia couldn’t help but feel an immense amount of love as well as an immense amount of grief every time she watched her nephew eat or waddle around or just sit next to her and peer up at her with those big green eyes that were so very similar to his mother’s. Harry reminded her of the bad times, when Lily was gone away from her and Petunia’s own jealousy took root and festered in her heart, but he also reminded her of the time before all that, when Lily was just her sister and they were just children. She clung to those brilliantly green eyes like a lifeline, taking hours out of her day to make sure he was happy and fed and living. 

She didn’t want to make the same mistakes with Harry as she did with her sister, she wanted him to know her as something more than his muggle aunt with nothing special about her. She wanted him to love her, just as Lily had before magic swept her away.

If Lily couldn't save her son from a life as an orphan, if she couldn’t raise him with magic, then I'll give him the next best thing. 

Oh yes, Petunia Dursley had promised herself that she would give her nephew the very best life that she could. Lily Evans’ boy would grow up right and proper, wizard kind be damned.

Harry Potter was coming to some very peculiar conclusions. 

The first being that Voldemort had to be the most melodramatic, cynical, petty little monster that ever lived, or in this case, not lived. In his process of building up occlumency walls for Harry, he continuously complained about absolutely everything, doing so while also insulting Harry in every way imaginable. After the first week, the green-eyed boy had begrudgingly admitted to himself that it was much easier to handle a whiny soul shard in his head than a murderous dark lord trying to kill him every other minute, but was still found the man agonizingly annoying. The second conclusion of his being that a Petunia Dursley that wasn’t under the effects of aggression and hate curses was possibly the most doting, loving, endearing aunt on the planet. He really should have seen it coming considering how she treated Dudley in his first life, but really, the woman was giving him everything he asked for! His baby body required an almost inhuman amount of food and she just cooed about how he was going to be ‘such a big strong lad’. Vernon was just as bad, boasting about how cute he was and how the neighbors would be incredibly jealous that their nephew was ‘such a looker, Pet, him and Dudley will be lady killers once they grow!’ He honestly wasn’t sure if it was disturbing or endearing, so he settled on being confused and left it at that, going about his various baby activities as the couple continued to act in a way that was completely foreign and not at all how he was used to them acting. 

Regardless of his new experience in the Dursley household, life went on for Harry Potter. Voldemort was mostly quiet after the first month, instead lowering himself to making the occasional sarcastic quip or petty insult when the opportunity arose. He seemed to be taking his task of creating Harry’s occlumency shields very seriously, muttering occasionally about how a particularly unsavoury old man could easily peek inside his mind and make everything go to hell very quickly if they were not constructed effectively. This went on for several months, until the occlumency walls were finally completed, and the now quite bored ex-dark lord went on to organizing Harry’s ‘mindscape’ into a perfect recreation of Hogwarts grounds and castle, saying that it would be for the best for both of them. 

Harry had never even considered what having a mindscape could be like, never having even heard the term before Voldemort brought it up. Truthfully, he thought that it was a rather ingenious idea, as it functioned as a sort of mental file cabinet in his brain, as every little memory could be sorted and locked firmly into specific areas for him to sort through later. It was, apparently, supposed to help him with memorizing things, and would further allow him to remember little things like an acquaintance's birthday or hundreds of specific spells. Riddle, having an apparent flare for the dramatic, thought that modelling his mindscape off of a real place would allow for ‘better traversion of the inter-complexities of his mind’...whatever that was supposed to mean.

I have constructed the chamber of secrets. Riddle had quite proudly proclaimed it so one day while Harry was busy mushing up his peas. Harry hadn’t bothered to put in the unnecessary effort to roll his eyes, instead sourly congratulating the raving lunatic as he shoved the thoroughly obliterated peas into his mouth. Anyone who manages to break through the barriers will first have to traverse into the school and past several defences, and even then they will have to know parseltongue in order to enter, just as the real chamber requires. Now, upon finding the memory of your second year, I demand that you leave the basilisk I have created there well enough alone.

Harry had to admit, it was a rather ingenious idea, as it seemed that the general concept was to make the chamber house all of Voldemort's memories, as well as his consciousness when he didn't feel like watching a toddler go about his daily activities. Harry wasn't nearly skilled enough to enter his own mind through meditation quite yet, so he couldn't see all that Riddle had been doing, but the man waxed poetic about the grand library that housed all his memories, and the adjacent study for… plotting, or something, and the grandness of the entire thing and how it was much better than anything that Harry could ever comprehend. Generally, after all that nonsense, Harry had been doomed to having a rather good idea of what everything looked like. Personally, the last Potter could hardly roll his eyes enough at the man’s manic obsession, knowing that Voldemort was very clearly losing his mind while being trapped in Harry’s.

Time passed by in monotonous normalcy, and Harry’s third birthday came and went faster than he had expected. Everything was relatively peaceful with the inhabitants of number four, the only thing managing to upset the waters of the happy little family being Harry’s apparent inability to talk. It worried Petunia a great deal when Dudley started to speak in full, if grammatically incorrect sentences, while Harry was stuck on the occasional one word if he needed something.

It was a tricky situation for the boy, as he was worried that if he spoke more often, he would slip and say something that a three-year-old shouldn't. He knew that Petunia was already starting to suspect that he was a bit more than just a toddler, and was concerned that she would ship him off to some sort of penitentiary for being too freakish if he spoke with a greater vocabulary. It seemed to Voldemort, who was wholly frustrated with the drama, that Harry had some leftover ‘trauma’ regarding his first life. Upon listening to the soul shard’s words however, he smartly and expertly pushed all concepts of ‘trauma’ or ‘emotional constipation’ to the side, focusing instead onto slowly and steadily increasing his ability to speak words around the Dursleys. At first, he was proven right, as he did indeed slip from time to time and blurt out words that would be surprising for even a ten-year-old to know, but was able to get a relative handle on things after realizing that Dudley spoke in something he could equate to ‘caveman’ jargon, and was able to replicate it somewhat, much to Petunia’s slowly diminishing suspicions. 

However, as he crept slowly into the third year of his second life, Harry was able to splurge on his vocabulary somewhat and impress upon the Dursley’s with words like ‘ankle’ and ‘obnoxious’. Sure, no normal four year old could likely say either, but Petunia seemed to have already decided that he was something of a genius years prior, and the apparent development seemed to make her feel much better about his intelligence, as if she had somehow known he had been faking it. Despite this rocky start with his communication skills, life chugged along smoothly enough, and nothing of his past life managed to rear its ugly head for quite some time.

Of course, not all could be washed away with something as simple as a few words, and as Fate seemed intent on ruining the stable and happy life he had found himself in, everything was turned very sharply on its head.

It had not been his intention to summon Death, of course. In fact, the god couldn’t have been further from his mind, contemplations of the evening teatime crowding much of his thoughts that delightful winter morning. In complete transparency, Harry had rather hoped that he would have been able to avoid seeing Death or Fate for as long as physically possible, wishing to just be a normal muggle boy for a little while, So, he had ignored Riddle’s constant prodding on the topic and focused firmly on all that a toddler was supposed to focus on, that being sleep, food, and play.

He had been in the process of the third when it had happened. He had been playing with a toy car to be specific, laid out across a soft blanket in the playroom with Dudley not far away. His cousin, who was just as much of a four-year-old as any normal four year old could ever be, was blowing raspberries into the air as he waved another toy car frantically through the air. Harry thought that it was an accurate show of how he felt currently, that being that he was the toy car and Dudley’s arm was boredom.

He sighed, before shifting onto his back and staring up at the ceiling blankly, which had been decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars at some point over the past few years, he didn’t quite remember when. He lazily pretended to play with the toy car, a rather sad mockery of Dudley’s far more lively movements. It was incredibly boring to be a four year old if you did not, in fact, possess a four-year-old’s brain, and despite keeping his focus on pretending to act a certain way in a desperate attempt to fill the days, even pretending to be an above-average toddler got incredibly dull after a while. He had actually taken to purposefully antagonizing his brain-mate whenever possible, making fanciful remarks about Riddle’s various, and completely unsuccessful, attempts on Harry’s life, all of which ended with rather childish mental arguments in which they played a petty game of who-can-act-more-like-a-toddler, complete with name-calling and a great deal of low blows.

Considering who was the actual toddler in this scenario, it was really quite funny that Voldemort won the game nearly every time.

He sighed again, sitting up and taking in the room with a critical eye. It would be so much more bearable to be so young if he could go into his mindscape to pass the time, but he had yet to quite figure out the meditation and mental focus necessary to reach inside and stay there for longer than a few measly and very arduous seconds. Though, as Voldemort had once begrudgingly admitted, he was making leaps and bounds in comparison to what he had first attempted with Snape in his sixth year. Harry believed that it was likely due to the re-reprogramming that Death had put him through during his brief stint in purgatory those three years prior, as he could no longer put it past Dumbledore to not do something like wall off any occlumency abilities Harry could have before knowingly sending him off to get his brain torn into and dissected by one of his most loyal professors.

He had become quite bitter about the entire thing, really, as the rage he had felt at first slowly abated and sunk into a constant itch that would occasionally and rather forcefully remind him of the person he had been forced to be in the previous timeline. It always managed to rile him up again, as the distance between who he had been in his first life fell further and further away from who he was becoming.

Harry quickly realized that the starkest difference was his inability to trust adults. In the first timeline, he had rather blatantly mistrusted all adults besides a handful of professors at Hogwarts, even though Harry now saw a great deal of suspicion in that. There was also the fact that his apparent and deeply rooted hatred for the dark arts nearly instantly dissipated upon his reawakening in the second timeline, and Harry found it all not only unsurprising but also obnoxiously, hilariously obvious. How no one had realized something was wrong during the first timeline proved that Dumbledore had managed to ingeniously blend a variety of negative character traits into his personality to the point that no one was the wiser. 

It made Harry’s blood boil just thinking about it.

Dudley had since grown bored of playing with cars, was now eating a small snack that consisted of one half of a green crayon. Harry grimaced, finding that he was starting to feel the effects of having a moody dark lord in his head and a stupid toddler as his only companion.

Scrunching up his face, Harry wriggled into a sitting position, watching as Dudley coughed on the crayon fragments in his throat and proceeded to sneeze a rather large amount of mucus out of his nostrils. Voldemort, who had apparently been paying attention in that moment, made a noise of disgust that Harry could happily agree with. Huffing, he slowly stood on his two stumpy legs, muttering under his breath all the while. 

“Honestly, there has got to be something more for me to do around here, I'm bored to death.” Nearly instantaneously he regretted what he had said, as there was a painfully loud screech that made him fall to the floor and cover his ears in pain, and an impossibly bright flash of golden-green light. He sat, shaking and curled up in a ball on the floor for a moment, eyes shut tightly as the light bore into his eyelids. 

There was another impossibly loud bang, and the world went still.

“Fucking finally.”

Chapter Text

“Fucking finally, do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to do that? I swear to myself, how you managed not to say the word ‘death’ for three fucking years is beyond me.”

Harry froze where he sat, eyes widening comically at the familiar voice before he practically jumped to his feet, whipping around to lock eyes with painfully familiar golden-green.

“Hiya Harry, didja miss me?”

Lounging lazily across the rocking chair in the corner was Death, looking for all the world like he hadn’t just ripped apart the very fabric of reality. Harry stuttered for a moment, blinking in confusion as his mouth worked useless thoughts past his lips. “But you—but I… what?”

Death rolled his eyes, pushing the rocking chair into motion with one of his outstretched feet. “Did you miss me at all over the past three years? English Potter, do you speak it?”

Harry was only able to manage a reply after a few seconds more of nonsensical babbling, his tongue seeming incapable of functioning without his brain. “Wha-what the hell are you doing here?”

Death took out a cigarette, lit it, and settled the thing between his lips as slowly as physically possible, being very pointedly deliberate about the whole thing. Harry felt his heartbeat settle moderately, the god’s arduous movements being more comical than aggressive. He felt safe enough with his new situation to take in his surroundings, peering around at the room with curious eyes. Everything seemed to be in order, all the toys sitting in the same place he had left them, but Harry realized rather quickly that Dudley had gone stock still, his hand frozen up in the air as he seemed to be in the process of tipping backwards. Harry watched him for several seconds, but he didn’t move an inch, still stuck in the same, very uncomfortable position. Has Death… frozen time?

“You finally decided to summon me, about three years too late, so here I am.”

“Summon you?” Harry turned back to the god, eyebrows knitted in confusion. How on earth had he managed to summon Death without even knowing it?

“You said my name. Which, for you at least, is as good as summoning me, all things considered.”

Right, yes, I’m Master of Death and all that. Nodding slowly, Harry began walking cautiously towards the man, who looked even more obnoxiously large than he had when they met in purgatory, likely due to Harry’s infantile stature. “Well... I don't need you for anything, so if you would like to just…” He made a cautious shooing motion with his small hands, watching as Death raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “-leave, I'd rather appreciate it.”

The god snorted, and took another drag. “Nice try kid, but Fate cut our conversation rather short last time and I didn’t get the chance to explain what being the ‘Master of Death’ actually entails.” He tapped the cigarette against the arm of the rocking chair, letting the ash fall and settle onto the carpet below. “So you'll just have to deal with me for a moment longer.”

Harry felt an immediate pique of interest somewhere in the back of his mind, and wasn’t completely sure if it was his own or Riddle’s. Cautiously, he sat down onto the carpet nearly a foot from Death’s outstretched legs, sitting crisscrossed and tense as he nodded companionably. “Well, get on with it then, I don't want to keep time indisposed for too long.”

Death waved him off, snubbing the cigarette on the rocking chair’s arm and likely leaving a burn mark. Harry winced, that would be difficult for Petunia to explain away. “Don’t worry too much about time; it's easy enough to mess around with it if you're a god, something you’ll understand eventually, I’m sure.” He sat back, folding one impossibly long leg over the other and slouching low in his seat. “Now, as Master of Death, you have a natural link to me and my magic, this allows for you to control a wide variety of magics that would not be easily accessible to normal wizards, among them being necromancy.”

Riddle made a noise of great interest somewhere in his mind, and Harry couldn’t help but agree with the feeling. There wasn’t much he knew about necromancy besides that a knowledge of its intricacies was necessary in creating inferi, but he could guess that Death knew all there was in regards to ancient art, since it fell under his general scope of influence.

“Now, that is, admittedly, one of the more notable abilities you have, though there are others. Before getting into all that however, I want to talk about what duties you have, among them being—Harry, look at me.” His heartbeat picked up in direct conflict with his mind, and Harry looked up into those unholy eyes and found a seriousness that shocked him to his bones. “You listen to me here, Harry Potter, because this is very likely the most important thing you have to do in this life: do not neglect me, do not pretend that I am nothing, do not pretend that I do not exist. You are my tether to this world, just as I am your tether to the world of the dead. If you do not summon me here, to this plane of existence, I will never be able to come here. I will never be able to help you fix this timeline, and we will very likely have to start all over again.” His eyes had become far more gold than green, so impossibly bright that Harry was absolutely certain that there would be spots doting his vision once he finally looked away.

“Your duty as my master, is to be my master, don’t force me away for another three years, or everyone—and I really do mean everyone—will suffer the consequences.”

The room was so impossibly still, so quiet and small that the only noise was Harry's own shaky breaths. Nodding jerkily, he visibly sagged as Death leaned back again, eyes perfectly irregular and calm and his posture just as relaxed as it had been before. “Now, you also have three choices after dying, not just two. You can either get reincarnated with your memories intact, in which I will make an effort to have you placed into a life that might be interesting or, in the very least, a welcome change from the norm, or you can live on in the afterlife with all the other sentimental souls.”

“And the last choice?”

Death worked his jaw, a tic that Harry remembered typically meant that he was going to say something particularly unpleasant. “If reincarnation or heaven isn’t your cup of tea, you can join me, Fate, and the other gods and goddesses in the aether, though it may bore you a great deal.” 

Maybe it was the odd way he said it—that uncomfortable sort of caution that meant Death wanted whatever truth that existed out there to be hidden out of sight—but Harry got the distinct impression that Death didn't want to discuss the 'third choice' anymore. Fiddling with his chubby fingers for a moment, feeling distinctly uncomfortable with where the conversation had led them, Harry decided to change the subject.

 “Is there anything else?”

“Well… I suppose you can't be killed, if you consider that a plus.” Death said it in such a flippant, uninterested way that for an embarrassingly long moment Harry thought for certain that the god was joking. However, when his expression continued to not give any indication of insincerity, Harry was forced to realize that he was very much telling the truth.

“Pardon?”

He could barely focus onto the conversation, an irate dark lord rambling on in his head about his own foolish mistakes and how he should have spent far more time looking for the hallows instead of making horcruxes. Death nodded in assent, playing with the black stain his cigarette had left in the wood of the rocking chair.

“Of course, you will eventually die, I’m sure, your body’s got to give out at some point after all, but sickness and injury won't cause your heart to stop or your organs to fail. In fact, I'm not completely sure what would happen once your heart stops, though I suppose we’ll find out eventually.” And then he shrugged, apparently being quite uninterested in the concept of immortality and that fact that Harry was now saddled with it.

Nodding slowly, Harry contemplated his new reality with rising trepidation. Sure, he had realized at some point that he would have to do quite a bit in order to fix his new timeline, but had never quite thought about what he would do after that. If he was doomed to a long life, who would he spend it with? Voldemort’s soul in his head was the first thing that came to mind, but was also the least pleasant option in a very small pool of potential. Brushing aside the thoughts, as any decision on them was decades into the future, Harry pressed on, finding himself immensely happy that he had managed to somehow summon the death god after all. As terrifying it was, this was the most fun he had had in three years!

“I’ll think about that for a while, is there anything else? Any sort of… Merlin I don't know—some sort of curse or unpleasant physical deformation I can expect on the horizon?”

Death shrugged, adjusting his stance so his legs were stretched out even further. “Nothing about your deathly duties at the moment, as quite a lot of them will be revealed with time. But I do have to warn you that, because of a long conversation I had with Fate, she decided to give you a particular… ailment, that will eventually help you further down the line. I had a great deal of say in the specifics, so I can confirm that while risky, it will eventually give you a rather notable advantage in life.”

“You aren't going to tell me anything about it, are you.”

Death winked, cheeky smile splashed across his handsome features. “Hey now, if you really want to know, I'm sure the goblins could give you a blood test to show what’s swimming around inside of you.”

While Harry felt a certain amount of dread over the idea of Fate adding something new to his DNA, he swiftly decided that if it was an advantage as Death had said, then he would thank her kindly at his next convenience and call it a day.

“Alright… well, if that’s everything, do you know anything about necromancy? I'm rather intrigued by it.”

Death smiled, the fingers of his right hand twisting around what Harry greatly suspected was a wedding ring.

“Oh, I know a thing or two. I did invent it after all.” His grin widened, a glint of excitement showing through his eyes. “Let's make a deal, I'll give you every means available to learn all there is to know of necromancy, and you'll order me to go take care of a little thing in this realm that's been bugging me for some time now.”

Harry hardly gave himself the time to contemplate it, hand already outstretched and waiting. “Deal.”

Death had left him with a large amount of very dangerous-looking tomes and a small piece of parchment that said in which order they were to be read. Voldemort seemed particularly ecstatic, though Harry went against the man’s incessant prodding and shoved them all into a darkened corner of the playroom, hoping that he would be able to manage a decent enough wandless invisibility charm to keep Petunia from finding them and pitching a fit. Riddle seemed particularly annoyed with this, and rather bluntly declared that he would be in the chamber of secrets until Harry decided to finally open the books, and then promptly fell silent. He was rather pleased that the man had politely and promptly left him be for once, as any sort of politeness on the dark lord’s end was few and far between, though the same could be said of Harry himself.

Looking down at the invisible books, He couldn’t help but crack an excited smile, turning away just as Dudley unfroze from time and fell backwards, smacking his head into the wall behind him and promptly bursting into tears.

After the thrice be damned god of death had left, leaving behind a gold mine of necromancy texts that the infernal Potter child saw fit to ignore, Tom sat himself down in a comfortable desk chair, staring out into the barren library that made up his mindscape with narrowed eyes. He frowned severely, settling even further into his chair with an annoyed grunt. The interaction between his vessel and Death had been a curious one, as while he would not consider himself afraid of the god, he was quite… wary of what the embodiment of the end could do to him, a measly little soul shard residing in the mind of his master. It certainly didn’t help that Harry Potter didn’t seem to like him very much, and was likely quite capable in simply requesting that Tom be physically removed from his place of residence and killed.

He thought that his wariness was perfectly reasonable, all things considered.

Sighing, he took a small sip of his scotch, gazing out into the unchanged library with a critical eye. There was no doubt that the last three years had been rather dire for the Dark Lord Voldemort, but he had at least managed to reconstruct his mindscape, which he considered to have been an incredibly important move. If he hadn't, Tom was certain he would have gone mad years prior, the blasted ‘boy-who-lived’ using every second to make his life a living hell.

However, even with the barrier between his mind and Harry Potter’s, he still felt horribly confined and in need of something to accomplish, which was what led him to today. Tom glanced at the barren library shelves and the rather meagre amount of books they held, contemplating all that had to be done. 

A downside of making horcruxes, he had found years ago, was that his mind and consciousness were severed along with his soul, and with them a great deal of memories. This meant that he could just barely recall the vast majority of his life, as he had lost roughly ten years per horcrux, depending on how big the soul piece was. He still could remember quite a few things, but the older he got the faster the memories seemed to fade, and even the most recent memories were fuzzy at best. Of course, memories were hardly of consequence in the greater scheme of things, and he could still remember knowledge and things that he had read or learned, even if his horcruxes were holding the memories of learning them captive.

Sadly, just knowing that he was missing massive parts of his life was slowly itching at him, and Tom was finding it harder and harder to ignore the barren shelves. He couldn’t recall why he hated orphanages, hadn’t a clue why he and Dumbledore despised each other so thoroughly, and couldn’t for the life of him remember who had told him of horcruxes to begin with. Truthfully, he was rather agitated that such important information was being withheld and held captive by the pieces of himself that he had created.

Of course, the horcruxes were his, and if he wanted the memories, he could simply take them.

He had realized it a few years back, of the horrible truth of Lord Voldemort and how he could barely be considered living any longer. He had realized that, as he now resided in a living horcrux of his own making, he no longer had any pieces of his soul out in the living world. Lord Voldemort was now nothing more than the scattered remnants of a once-powerful soul, and there was no main, conscious piece of him to speak of. He had no body, he had no ghost, he was not even a wraith, just a scattering of soul shards with no purpose and no function.

The realization had made him nearly scream in frustration, all of his previous plans of dominating the Potter brat’s mind going out the proverbial window as it became horribly clear that the boy had very acute control over if Voldemort was allowed to take control over his body or not. However, his predicament was not without its uses, and he found quickly enough that it would not be difficult for him to speak with the other horcruxes. This led him to believe that it would not be difficult to request, or, more accurately, steal their memories to put in his own personal mindscape.

It was risky, of course, and full of potential issues. He knew himself well, and he wasn't a particularly trusting individual, and would be cautious of anyone attempting to take something of his, especially if that someone was himself. If he was even able to convince the horcruxes to talk to him, it was doubtful that would just hand over the memories, which was why he was already prepared to steal everything and anything he could find.

Standing, he brushed invisible lint from his shirt, eyes drawn towards the western wall of his library. He had designed his mindscape to be quite long, with his earliest memories starting at the southern wall and slowly moving along towards the northern wall as he got older and the amount of his memories grew. Of course, all of the shelves were rather sparse at the moment, but that would change soon enough. 

On the eastern wall was a door, which stood stark against the rich emerald green wallpaper that surrounded it. It was a perfect replica of the true entrance of the real chamber of secrets, with seven massive snakes coiled around the large circular handle in the middle. Voldemort knew that the other side was the exact same, though the surroundings of it were quite different. It was the door out into Harry Potter's mind, and was, at the current moment, sealed tight.

Might as well start with the biggest and youngest. He had been foolhardy and, frankly, quite stupid in his youth, as any child would be, and had managed to split a much larger portion of his soul off into the diary, far more than was necessary. This meant, of course, that it would be quite a bit easier to steal from the child, or if he was lucky, for him to reabsorb the soul altogether.

The great Lord Voldemort stood facing the western wall, looking closely at the five doors that stood there. They were labelled quite plainly, going in order of which was created earliest.

Diary. Ring. Locket. Cup. Diadem.

They were waiting patiently to be opened from either side, waiting to be used as a bridge between shards of the same, twisted soul. Knocking back the rest of his scotch, Tom banished the glass and threw open the door to the diary with reckless abandon, peering into the contents of it with a malicious gleam in his eyes.

It was a very familiar hallway, long and grand, with old stone and suits of armour lining the walls. He heard the distant sound of wind howling outside, rain pattering uselessly against the exterior walls.

Hogwarts.

He couldn’t help the wide smirk that stretched across his face, his eyes gleaming like the pits of hell as he strolled merrily through the door and into his teenage self’s mind. Letting out a short bark of a laugh, he brushed a finger across the cold wood of a nearby painting frame, listening as a distant, confused shout and hurried footsteps echoed through the halls, nearing his position at a fast pace.

Waving his arm lazily, the door behind him shut with a quiet click, locking the two shards of soul firmly inside the replication of Hogwarts.

It was time for a little self-reflection.

Harry Potter was a very smart child by most standards, as she had long since realized. But Petunia Dursley still found herself momentarily stunned when he stormed up to her, his chubby cheeks pouted adorably as he tugged on her skirt insistently.

She smiled subconsciously, peering down at him with an appraising eye. “What is it dear? Would you like a biscuit?”

He shook his head mournfully, pointing towards the stairs. “Dudley is chewing crayons.” It took her only a moment to register what had been said, before she jumped to her feet and took off up the stairs, muttering about how her little boy would accidentally kill himself before his tenth birthday at this rate.

Vernon Dursley had come to a similar conclusion as his wife, finally noticing how his nephew was already speaking complicated sentences and reading the books in the playroom, despite never being taught to read in any true capacity. There had been some talk between the two parents about settling their nephew into a program for gifted children, but neither were quite sure if it was a good idea quite yet. Harry was still so young, despite acting like he was twice his age. They didn’t want to rush him.

Of course, none of this talk was reaching Albus Dumbledore’s ears, as the headmaster surely would have been quite alarmed upon hearing such a thing. Alas, all word coming out of Privet Drive was positive, so he was much too focused on other pursuits to bother with it. In fact, he was currently sat, idle, in his office at Hogwarts, contemplating all that had to be done before Harry Potter was brought back into the wizarding world.

Albus was not so much a fool to think that everything would go precisely as planned, but he certainly thought that everything that could go wrong had already been corrected for three years prior. Harry Potter had long since been solidified as a budding pawn in the greater chess game of life, and Albus was not concerned for the boy in the slightest, focusing instead on other pieces in the game.

It was obvious to anyone who had once been in the Order of the Phoenix that Molly and Arthur Weasley had fought bravely through the war against Voldemort, and he hadn’t a single doubt in his mind that they were loyal to him and to the goodness in the world. It was also quite clear, to Albus at least, that Molly had the inkling of a plan brewing in her mind, the birth of her first daughter coming quite swiftly before the first Harry Potter Adventure books were published. He was not so blunt to ask her outright if the timing might have given her any ideas for her daughter’s future, as the questioning would be not only unnecessary but also irrelevant, as her tendency to be seen in Diagon Alley buying the books by the dozen was not so much suspect as it was damning.

Both of the youngest Weasley children were in his field of influence widely because of that, as  the beginnings of a plot came wriggling through his mind. Albus was perfectly aware that Ronald was close enough in age to the boy-who-lived that the two of them would be in the same year at Hogwarts, and he rather thought that the youngest Weasley boy would do well to keep an eye on the Potter heir. That concept was certainly brought to Molly’s attention, and the woman seemed to also agree that the two would get on rather well.

Of course, Albus had no idea how Ronald would end up acting as when he was eleven and susceptible to judgment from his peers, but he was certain that there were many years left to plant the proper seeds in his young mind. Even if all was lost, Albus had still been keeping close tabs on any other children that might be worth speaking to personally, and had his eyes on a select few that might do quite well as Harry Potter’s friend.

He sat back in his chair, observing his office with a calm gaze. All the children had left for yule break the day prior, leaving him with little to do and much to think about. It had taken a great deal of pressuring on his part to keep his dear Deputy at the school as well, but he was certain that she would go running right off to Privet Drive the second she was gone and no doubt make a mess of things while she was at it. He truly regretted bringing her with him on the expedition to drop the Potter heir off with his family, as she was never quite convinced it was the right choice. However, he had managed to divert the potential catastrophe for another year and kept Minerva at the school for another yule break, under the guise of needing help with sorting through a vast amount of ministry mandated paperwork. He was glad that the woman was equally swamped with forums and acceptance letters over the summers as well, or Harry Potter would surely be lost to him. Standing, Albus hummed a little tune as he made his way over to a nearby cabinet, slowly opening it to find one of his most treasured prizes inside. 

The invisibility cloak.

He had yet to find much use for it over the three years that he had held it in his possession, too bothered by the elder wand’s finicky nature to care much for experimentation. He had taken to using his old wand at every opportunity, as the ender wand only seemed to cautiously obey him, as if it was waiting for someone better to come around. Albus was extremely concerned with who that person might be, and thought that perhaps it was time to do something to figure out what was wrong with the deathly hallows in his possession.

Reaching into the cabinet, he pulled the cloak from its confines, watching as the peculiar material shimmered in the light of the midday sun. On the few occasions that he did use the cloak, he had found that it worked well enough, though it seemed to be just as cautious as the wand was in giving him any sort of dominion over it, and seemed intent on slipping from his shoulders at the earliest opportunity. He had attempted to use a clasp, but had found that puncturing the fabric was nigh-impossible, and had eventually been forced to admit defeat.

As Albus Dumbledore stood there, contemplating the cloak and its mysteries, he was unknowingly joined by a towering, shadowy figure, who watched him with raised eyebrows, its golden-green eyes rolling in annoyance. The old man was unaware of time slowing to a standstill, or of the shadowed figure taking the cloak from his hands and the wand from his pocket. He was unaware of a large hand resting on his head, and a deep green glow overtaking his eyes as memories were cheerfully ripped from his fortified mind.

As the figure disappeared back into the shadows, time slowly resumed ticking again, and Albus Dumbledore looked around with confusion, wondering what he had been contemplating just moments prior.

“Odd…” Glancing down, he saw how one of the empty storage cabinets had been pulled open, exposing the bottom of the unused storage to the elements. Humming, unperturbed, he shut it and returned to his desk, thoughts being overcome with that of paperwork and other meaningless things. Every memory of the Deathly Hallows that he had once held, treasured, in the deepest recesses of his mindscape, had been ripped from their place by an irate god. Death watched the old man go about his paperwork with a satisfied smile on his face, looking down at two-thirds of his hallows with an appreciative gaze.

“Sorry Dumbledore, but these don't belong to you.”

In another part of the castle, one Minerva McGonagall sat behind her desk, a steaming cup of tea held aloft in her hands. She had been cautious of spending another yule at the school, as she had long since garnered years of vacation time, and was quite looking forward to a break from scolding students and cleaning up messes. However, Albus had been incessant that she stay for just one more yule break, promising that the next year she would have every opportunity to go home and see her great-niece for yule. She was quite looking forward to it, knowing that a vacation from Hogwarts was decades overdue.

Sighing contently, she eased back into her chair, peering conspiratorially towards the door she had just entered through. Of course, despite promising that she would stay for another year, Minerva couldn’t have helped but feel that she was neglecting her own worries. It had been three years since she had allowed Albus to leave sweet little Harry Potter on the steps of that muggle home, and she had been worried sick for those three years, wondering just how he was fairing.

So, against her better judgment, she had snuck out early that morning and made a quick flight to Privet Drive, just to see how the dear was fairing. She had been met with the picturesque happy family, two cute little toddlers playing outside in the fresh snow as darling Petunia Dursley watched them with eagle eyes. Harry looked happy, healthy, and well taken care of, and she had quickly left the scene, feeling silly for ever doubting Albus and his placement of the boy.

She couldn’t help the small smile that spread across her face, tickled by how she had been losing days worth of sleep over the child, who was clearly as happy as could be with his blood relatives. Of course, she had no illusions that the boy’s reintegration into the wizarding world would be anything but a difficult one, but for now, she was assured that all was well.

All was not well with Tom Riddle.

Things were going rather horribly really, as he was now standing face to face with what appeared to be himself, though himself much older and with a rather monstrous set of red eyes. He had been secluded in his prison of a mindscape for what felt like either days or decades, and this was the first he had seen of anyone but himself.

Well, technically it was himself, but that felt like a rather unimportant detail in comparison to the situation.

“You… you are me.”

His older self raised an eyebrow, red eyes gleaming like the gates of hell laid behind them. “How very astute of you.” The man, who Tom felt might just be the devil incarnate, gazed about the hall that they stood in, his expression thoughtful. “How very creative of you as well, making your mindscape something so easily accessible. Did you never consider broadening your horizons?”

He felt an embarrassed blush rise up his neck, annoyance quickly brushing aside any wavering feelings of caution or awe at seeing himself so old and so cruel. Squaring his shoulders, Tom sneered, watching as Voldemort brushed a pale hand across the cold stone wall. “If you must know, none of my more important memories have left the Slytherin common room, so they are safe from prying eyes.”

The older man scoffed, rubbing the dust from his fingers. “Far too obvious, anyone who knows a thing about you will find them in an instant. Is this truly all that you have to show for?” Voldemort shrugged, beginning to walk as though the perfect recreation of Hogwarts was merely adequate. Tom glowered, bunching his hands into fists as Voldemort brushed past him. “You are rather underwhelming for a memory of me, though I suppose that is why you are nothing but a memory, hmm?” Voldemort caught his eye for only a moment, disappointment evident in his posture and expression, before he turned and began walking away.

Tom watched him for a moment, hatred bubbling upwards to the surface as he grit his teeth. How could he have ever grown into such a… such a wretched, cruel man? He was supposed to be the champion of magical freedom, a figurehead that fought against the wills of lesser men to create a world in which all magic was used freely, in which dark magic was commonplace. Was this what that world had created? Was this the champion of the magical world?

The words fell from his lips before he could consider them, his tone harsh and cold. “What happened to us, Lord Voldemort? How far have you fallen from our original goal? Fallen from grace?”

The older him stopped, abruptly, before turning sharply, his eyes blazing with silent fury. “You dare speak as if you know all there is to the world? You hopeless little memory, you know nothing of the world outside these harrowing halls.” Voldemort began to stalk back towards him, monstrous and cruel and so bloodthirsty that the sight caused Tom to stumble backwards in surprise. 

“I am your better in every way imaginable, how dare you question my authority.” A pale arm came forward, cold fingers gripping him tightly around the neck. “You hold no power over me, you are inferior in every way, even when we play in the halls that you seem to address so fondly.” The grip tightened, and Tom felt his feet lift off the ground as he choked, clawing at the arm desperately in an effort to escape the man’s grasp.

“~Now...~” The parseltongue sounded rough and unearthly coming from Voldemort’s mouth, so unlike how Tom was used to. It was inhuman. It wasn’t even serpentine, it was just evil. “~You have a decision to make, little memory. Either you submit to me, and we become one, or I leave this place with everything that makes you a memory, leaving you as a husk of a soul with no clue as to who or what or where you are. The choice is yours.~” 

He choked for air, nails digging into the arm in a desperate attempt to draw blood. His older self’s words fell heavy in the air, crushing into him as the fingers continued to tighten their grip on his throat. He kicked his legs viciously, aiming for the most sensitive areas with little luck, only receiving a tighter hold for his troubles. He did not lose consciousness however, even as he felt his neck break under the forces applied to it, he simply couldn’t. A soul, no matter how strong or weak, was incapable of sleeping or of eating, or living or dying. He was stuck, suffering for as long as the devil saw fit to keep him there.

He realized it just as Voldemort did, the man’s cruel eyes glowing brightly with anticipation. They could sit there, with him in utter agony, for the rest of time and neither would grow tired, or feel the need to sleep, neither would change or grow. 

He would be stuck until he made a decision, no matter how much he struggled, and no matter how long they sat there.

Letting his arm fall limp, Tom let his legs dangle, still making an effort to breathe despite no longer fighting for it. Voldemort hummed, sounding almost disappointed.

“Come to a decision, have you?” 

“F-fir-rst.” He barely managed to croak out a reply, his entire trachea crushed under the overwhelming pressure. Voldemort smiled, almost kindly, and let go, allowing Tom to crash onto the stone floor below, coughing roughly as he gasped for air to fill his lungs.

“Shall we?”

Tom coughed once more, eyes fuzzy and mind still overwhelmed with panic. Breathing deeply, he raised a shaking hand upwards, palm outstretched towards Voldemort. The man took it, and everything faded away, his pain and his consciousness and all that he was. Everything fell away, sluggishly, into murky darkness.

Chapter Text

Life went on for Harry Potter, and as he slowly grew, so too did his knowledge and abilities. He eventually managed to figure out how to enter into his mindscape, succeeding in the task merely months after his fifth birthday. The action had felt so bizarre and unfamiliar that he had quite nearly fallen out of his bed when it happened, jolting from the deep meditation and being forced to start all over again. It took several hours after that to return to the state, but he had once again found himself standing in his own mind, looking out at a perfect recreation of the fields directly outside of Hogwarts.

Tom Riddle had been there to greet him, appearing strangely human despite the rather deep and cruel voice that Harry had gotten used to over the past four years. Harry had been rather surprised to see a middle-aged man of quite handsome features instead of the older, more crass and cruel version of Voldemort than he had been expecting. They had stared at each other for a moment, Riddle taking in his small companion with a formal if strained gaze, before holding out his hand and requesting something of a truce. Harry had hardly believed him at first, very nearly snorting before stopping himself, realizing that Voldemort’s crimson eyes held nothing but cautious sincerity.

They had made a rather ingenious deal: Riddle would teach Harry everything that he knew, and Harry would allow the disgraced dark lord to take control of his body at night in order to wander through the world and relax. It was a bargain that worked well for the both of them, and upon making it, Riddle endeavoured to give him a full tour of his mindscape.

Harry had admitted—only to himself, as any sort of positive reinforcement would do no good for Riddle’s ego—that the man had truly outdone himself. The fields outside of Hogwarts were exactly how he remembered, some snippets and blades of grass seeming to have come right from his own memories of warm spring days. Hogwarts itself sprawled menacingly over the Scottish hills, massive and imposing in its imperfect perfection. Harry felt so incredibly small walking those halls, so unused to seeing the place from the perspective of one so young. 

Riddle had been extremely thorough and precise when filling the place with Harry’s memories, hiding his experiences regarding Death and Fate in dusty, long-forgotten corridors that no one would ever find the entrances to, the secret passages long forgotten to even the most diligent of adventurers, the Marauders unwittingly included. Harry had found himself entranced by the Hogwarts that Riddle had forged in his mind, the warm common room of Hufflepuff holding memories of friendship and of longing, stretching out and upwards into the great expansive greenhouses, of which went on for miles and held not only Harry’s but also Riddle’s extensive knowledge of herbology, both muggle and magical plants taking root in the cool soil of clay pots.

He had been led through the halls and up to the Ravenclaw tower, from which he was shown an extensive library within which sat Harry’s slowly budding necromantic knowledge, great tomes of death magic lining the bronze bookshelves. He had been dragged, sluggish, down to the dungeons, in which sat the supercilious Slytherin common room, glowing green from the light of the lake and filled to the brim with the nonsensical thoughts and feelings of his day to day life. Harry had been rather confused, questioning why Voldemort would use his most treasured place as a source of meaningless junk. However, it seemed to him that Riddle was very particular about where secrets should be kept, revealing how most would look to the most obvious place first, and then the least obvious second. 

“The goal of any mindscape, of course, is to keep one's knowledge safe and secured in organized spaces, but only the smartest of occlumens ever consider that hiding the most dangerous knowledge from all who might try and break into your mind is one of the best ways to keep said knowledge truly protected.” Riddle had been insistent, prattling on about how, when he had been young and foolish, he had kept all of his most important, damning secrets in the Slytherin dormitories of his mind, and would have paid the price for it if anyone had thought to try and break through his barriers.

“Dumbledore, who is not only a genius manipulator but also a pragmatic strategist, will see through you in an instant if you try to hide your true thoughts and feelings in a place of importance to you. Never allow him to see how smart you are either, or he will attempt to dive deeper into your mind and force his way into every crevice. You will be able to hide nothing from him if he suspects you. Nothing.”

Harry had not been taken to the Gryffindor tower, which was so impossibly high that it would have taken aeons to climb all the way to the top. Riddle had noted that nothing was held inside the tower, as the second he had made it Harry’s mind had forced it to grow to impossible heights, till one would be walking for the rest of time just to reach the top. It had been a subconscious thing on Harry’s part, Riddle had remarked, pointing out how Harry clearly had to feel some sort of deep-seated hatred towards the place for his mind to act in such a manner. Harry had pushed the man’s prodding aside, focused instead on the sprawling grounds of Hogwarts and what laid beyond them.

Perhaps one of the most altered things in comparison to the true Hogwarts was the forbidden forest, which sprawled for hundreds of miles in all directions and encompassed the school in a seemingly infinite jungle filled to the brim with ravenous and grotesque creatures of unknown origin and size. It had, apparently, been the infinite expanse of his subconscious before Riddle had filled it with monsters, and now within it resided not only his deepest contemplations and feelings, but also his most ferocious memories, all of which were given life and form by the ever-ruthless and ever-conniving Lord Voldemort.

Harry had been momentarily stunned when a great, serpentine tail had risen from the dense woods in the far distance, appearing so massive even from so far away that Harry was forced to come to the conclusion that the forest inside his mind was ripe with far more dangerous monsters than ones he could ever create by himself, and that Riddle had certainly left quite a few of his own demons to stalk the shadowed underbrush.

“At the edge of the forest is a cavernous canyon a mile wide and infinitely deep. The canyon completely surrounds the perimeter, effectively making it so that, if someone wished to peer into your mind, they would find that they would first need to make it across the canyon, before traversing through the bowels of the forest. By the time they even manage the former, you surely will have noticed and broken the connection.” It was ingenious, and cold-blooded, and Harry couldn’t help but shiver as an unholy, inhuman screech rose up from deep into the woods, distant but cruel and incredibly, horrifyingly angry.

The tour was not completed with the forest however, as Riddle begrudgingly dragged the considerably smaller Harry through the halls until they reached the entrance to a very familiar girl’s loo. Harry had been rather fascinated with Riddle’s mindscape, the sloping ceiling and Victorian-esque design of the massive library being a rather aggressive contrast against the medieval aesthetic of the castle. Harry had not been allowed to wander far from Voldemort, who was quite clearly uncomfortable about his home being invaded by the child. In order to quell any sort of hostility that might be found between them, Harry took it upon himself to respect the older man’s wishes, and left the majority of the fascinating library well enough alone. 

In the days after that first night, Riddle embarked on fulfilling his half of the deal, vigorously lecturing Harry on not only the most important parts of magical society but also of the darkest magics there were, tantalizing him with tales of unholy acts of sacrifice and the cruelty of old gods. Harry found himself staring off into space quite often, half in his own mind as he listened with rapt attention to Riddle as the man regaled him with stories of his travels through the crueller parts of the middle-east, of the spiralling tombs of undead lich and of the freezing temperatures of Siberia, where only the darkest of arts could be found and only the most desperate of people could use them.

Harry found that he could not do any of the incredible magic that Riddle described, as he was without a wand or any need to raise an army of undead monsters. However, that was not to say he didn’t memorize all that he could, and as the years passed by he amassed an incredibly large theoretical knowledge of not only dark magic, but of the philosophy and politics of wizarding Britain. Even more so as he started muggle schooling, where climbed the ranks effortlessly till he was learning almost three years above his level. Harry had taken to spending hours on end in the library near his school, obsessively reading through every topic that might have interested him. From physics to embalming to ancient history, he read about everything that he could get his hands on, his drive to understand anything and everything propelling him towards very nearly graduating from year eight of secondary school by the time he was nine. 

Harry had found that it didn’t really matter what he read about, or if it was useful to him or not, but that he just wanted to know, that he simply needed to learn. There was a deep-seated feeling he got on occasion, that his entire world would be ripped from under him like a loose carpet, and everything would go back to how it had been before, when his curious mind had been completely tamped down till he had no interest in any of the academics that he now flourished under.

The years passed quickly for Harry Potter, and as he grew, so too did his knowledge of necromancy, the books from Death flowing steadily as he finished them in his spare time. Harry hadn’t a clue how he would go about using the delicate art, as he had no need to bring anything back to life, but had been fascinated by it anyway. Tom though, who was immensely intrigued by the forbidden art necromancy created by the gods, was insistent on him at least practising once, if ever possible.

That was how he had found himself some sweltering summer afternoons, when the sun was hot in the sky and roadkill could be occasionally found on the sides of the road. Harry had spent afternoons out in that hot summer heat, travelling down the sleepy roads and deliberately searching for the unfortunate squirrel or particularly unlucky hare, and slowly, deliberately, stitching them back together and forcing breath into their lungs, twisting death magic around his fingers as he would sit, crouched, in near-unbearable heat, as the small hearts began to beat once more. 

It had been fascinating to learn about the necromancy created by Death, of the subtle art of not so much bringing life back into a corpse, but reversing the process of death. It was different from the necromancy known by wizards, which was in itself rare and understudied due to deep-seated fear in the unknown. The necromancy that Voldemort knew could not bring a human back to life after all, it could only reanimate a corpse. 

He had found it particularly strange then, on one of those impossibly hot days, that he had the sudden and inexplicable urge to bend down and take a bite out of a dying fawn.

It had been a particularly hot day, the sun sweltering in the sky and hanging low beneath the clouds that he had found the little fawn, still twitching in pain as the life drained from its eyes, dying slowly as the perpetrator sped away. He had not known quite what to do, looking at the bleeding baby with interest instead of disgust, the poor thing’s back leg being bent in three angles, bone and blood and gore strewn about the place. He had smelt the blood in the air and the death near-tangible and questioned why his stomach grumbled hungrily.

Tom’s cynical voice had been the thing to pull him from the daze, sarcasm and harsh cruelty evident in his tone. Leech, you would do good to not live up to the name I’ve saddled you with.

“Sorry—I… so sorry, I lost myself for a moment there.” He had spoken out loud, more so to the dying fawn than to Tom, who merely snorted. He couldn’t very well help the little thing while it was alive, and instead sat next to it and watched with barely contained fascination as the life drained from its eyes, its entire body falling limp in the dry grass. Only then, when he was sure that its heart had given out, did he reach forward and mend its broken leg and ribs, taking special care to observe how each little muscle contracted as the blood began to flow quickly through the fawn’s body, its little heart thumping back to life as it sat up with a start, scrambling off and away before he could do so much as blink.

Harry hadn’t let himself consider what blood might taste like again, and stopped going out to revive roadkill, worried that he would have another odd episode and do something that pushed the bounds of what was considered respectable. Instead, he dove deeper and deeper into the books that Death brought him, finding himself slowly growing used to both the god’s company and the occasional halting of time that seemingly followed him.

“Not all of the Weasleys were even aware of the plot of course. The older three brothers were mostly out of school by the time you showed up and Dumbledore could hardly find it in himself to care about them.” It was one of those quiet, long days where Death made time stand still so he could observe Harry’s progress, and the god had decided to list off all that he had heard through the grapevine. It was strange that Death seemed to know so little of the mortal world, and had to gain his knowledge through either speaking with Harry or Fate or some other, faceless deity. It made sense however, as it had been stated to him years prior that Death had never seen much reason or had much ability to watch the human world, too busy shepherding souls through reincarnation or the afterlife to really bother much with it.

“So the eldest three are potential allies?” It was hard to say whether or not he would bother with any of the Weasley family after what had happened, but it would be good to know who he could trust when the time came to start building bridges.

Death shook his head, leaning back against the headboard of Dudley’s bed. “I wouldn’t jinx it. The only people in that mess of a family that I would personally trust would be those twins, but that's because I’m a tad partial to Chaos and all of her nonsense.”

“Chaos?” Harry questioned flippantly, not looking up from his book as the god nodded.

“One of the more amusing goddesses by quite a large margin. Fate and I have dinner with her every Tuesday, but that’s unimportant-” Harry snorted, flipping the page and letting his eyes settle on a particularly macabre caricature depicting decomposing male genitalia. “-the point is that she has a tendency to mark her favourite humans and focus a bit of her attention onto them. Fredric and George Weasley are both marked by her.”

“How does that make them trustworthy?”

“Simple. Chaos is, at its very core, a neutral force, just like fate and death are. It’s part of the reason we all get along so well, the simple fact that, in the end, no mortal creation can truly stop us.”

“And what does that mean for the twins?”

“They don't care who you are, as long as they can prank you.”

Harry made an ‘ahh’ noise, sitting back in his seat to contemplate that particular notion. “So I can trust them because no one can stop them from being who they are and living how they want. Not Dumbledore, not their parents, and not me."

“Pretty much. They, at their very base instincts, only live to cause problems. The best way to know that someone is trustworthy is to know what their motivations are, and the simple fact that all they want to do is mess everything up? Well, it'll be easy enough to fund their exploits if you want them on your side.”

Harry watched as a mocking jay flew past his window, settling onto an electrical wire with the rest of its kin. “Everything can be bought, even people, as they say.”

Petunia Dursley had watched her son and nephew grow into two strapping young men with pride, nurturing Dudley’s love for boxing as she cultivated Harry’s obsession with knowledge. Her boys were both growing like weeds, Harry being the tallest in his year group and very nearly taller than every boy in the age above. She was quite concerned that he would have issues with his back as an adult, if he was truly on the trajectory that the doctors said he was. Dudley, on the other hand, was built much the same as his father had been at his age, thick and heavy with a tendency towards being more short and stocky. It was quite funny really, seeing this tall stick of a boy standing next to his considerably smaller, heavyset cousin. She got quite a few laughs out of it, especially when laundry was confused between the two.

She had been rather saddened however, that Harry’s scar seemed to not want to fade, healing up nicely but still staying quite raised and white, appearing rather obvious and stark against his tan complexion years after healing. It would have been better if he had ended up needing glasses like his father, but it seemed that he had inherited more of his mother’s eyes than just the colour, and had perfect vision unburdened by blurriness or short-sightedness. She often suggested that he grow his hair longer to cover the ghastly thing, but he was always rather adamant about keeping it somewhat short, at least on the sides. ‘I don't like the feeling of hair on my ears’ was what he would say each time, dragging her along for yet another trim at the barber. She had eventually convinced him to grow out the hair on the top of his head more, though it never managed to get long enough to cover his forehead before he got it cut again, instead just standing right up on end in a look that Dudley often liked to compare to a mad scientist, like Frankenstein or Doctor Jekyll. Eventually she just stopped trying, regretfully acknowledging that the scar didn’t bother him much, the occasional questions about it from curious strangers leading to nothing but an eye roll from the boy and a practised excuse from her. She tried not to let it bother her too much, and as the years went by her memories of that cold November morning, finding him swaddled in a thin blanket with blood completely covering his face, slowly began to fade, and the feeling of helplessness and grief with it.

Oh yes, everything for Petunia Dursley had been perfectly pleasant for many years, until of course, Harry’s tenth birthday rounded the bend, and she was faced with an obscenely difficult decision. It had become obvious to her as he continued to excel in school, that her first thoughts on his intelligence were comically underdone. However, regardless of his apparent genius, she knew deep down that if she didn’t tell him of his parentage soon, he would be wholly unprepared when the wizarding world came to take him away just over a year later. She knew that, regardless of her own feelings, magic would come and rip him from her arms just as it had done to Lily, and as much as she didn’t want him to know of magic until he had to, it was clear to her that he had likely already discovered his peculiarities.

Her nephew was well aware of his intelligence, but never boasted it, and the same could be said of his magic. It was small things she noticed, like a falling glass managing to merely clatter onto the tiled floor of the kitchen instead of shattering, or how his shoes never came untied and his clothes were always free of mud and dirt, even after he had spent the entire evening roughhousing with Dudley and the other neighbourhood kids. He likely thought that she didn’t notice, but Petunia had always known to keep an especially diligent eye on Lily Evans’ son, and had come to the horrible conclusion that not only did he know, but he had figured out how to control it.

So, on his tenth birthday, after the cake had been eaten and presents had been opened, she had taken him aside and explained all that she knew. She was unperturbed when he seemed unsurprised, listening to her quietly explain her childhood with Lily and of her little sister’s eventual marriage to James Potter. He had almost seemed… reflective, as if considering how the knowledge of his parents’ death fit in with his life as he knew it. She had rounded it out with handing him the letter from Headmaster Dumbledore with shaking hands, explaining how she had found him that cold November morning, and how there had been not another word from the man after the fact.

He had read the letter quietly, before returning it to her and quietly proclaiming that he didn’t trust the man who wrote it within an inch of his life. He had then stated that no one who had a modicum of sense would have left a baby out there in the cold, and certainly should have discussed things with Petunia in the very least, face to face.

It had been almost… relieving for her to hear that. After all those years, her ever-logical nephew agreed with her and, in the end, solidified that her feelings on the matter were wholly reasonable and within the bounds of logic and sense.

And then of course, he had asked a question she had been completely unprepared for. “Could you take me to Diagon Alley? The one my mum went to to get her school things.” His eyes had held nothing but curiosity, unwavering and wide as she stumbled over her words.

“Well… I can when your letter comes, I'm sure-”

“But why not before that? Is there an age requirement on going there?” He had seemed so insistent, so curious and inquisitive that she had been momentarily stunned. For what purpose was there to not take him there, when they very easily could find books and perhaps even someone who would be able to further explain what his life will be like once he enters the magical world? It seemed like such a good idea, something that could very easily give him an edge in the coming affairs of his life. It had been such a good argument that she had almost said yes.

“I’m sorry dear, I just don’t think that this is a good time for it. Perhaps sometime closer to your next birthday we could pop by?” It had been a flimsy lie, one told in that sugary sweet tone that was loving but also left no room for argument. He hadn’t seemed to buy her bluff for a second, but was amicable about the loss anyway, returning to where Dudley and her husband sat around the fire.

Petunia had known then that she wouldn’t be able to keep him away from the wonders of magic for long, and quickly set off to dredge up every last scrap of magical things that Lily had left behind. Be it textbooks from her time in Hogwarts or stacks of thick white parchment detailing complex nonsense, Petunia dragged it all out of the attic and into the room Dudley and Harry shared, leaving everything in a heap on her nephew's bed.

“I'm sure you’ll figure some sort of sense out of the lot, dear.” Was all she had said, leaving just in time to see that particular shift from bored to fascinated move across his face as he reached for the first stack. She had almost regretted it too, when in the months after that Harry would fill hours at a time combing through his mother’s notes and the scribbled margins of her textbooks, reading at the table and sneaking magical texts off to school to read there too. It had become such a problem that she had even confiscated several stacks of parchment labelled Advanced Charms when he designed to flip through them under the table during a dinner party. Of course, he had somehow gotten them back within the hour, but the warning still stood proud. It did not hold water though, and as time passed by and Harry got more inclined towards messing about with magic in the home, the entirety of the Dursley family was slowly forced to grow used to the natural peculiarities of their nephew, and eventually came to embrace it.

As Harry Potter grew, so too did many others. The Weasley family, so proud and assured in themselves, grew and shrank as time passed, their eldest sons leaving as their youngest children grew. More and more Weasleys went off to Hogwarts, and as the years went by their numbers during the greater stretches of the year dwindled to merely four, and that was soon to change even more in the coming years. 

Molly Weasley was not one for confiding her emotions in those who were not so privy to understanding them, but as her children either went off to school or moved away entirely, she had found herself on many occasions telling little Ginny about her wishes and wants, of the delights she had once enjoyed as a daughter of the Prewett family. She often told stories of her youth to her daughter, as the two of them worked on meals or sat about drinking tea. She told stories of how she had grown up a proud Prewett girl, of the family estate and of the finery and china, and she had always rounded these fantastical stories off with how she was now an even prouder Weasley, exclaiming how her life was so lovely with a family that she adored. Ginny, to her utter delight, loved these stories almost as much as she loved the Harry Potter Adventure series, asking question after question about what balls she went to or of what kinds of dresses she wore. Molly never thought for a second that her daughter would be anything but brilliant as she aged, assured that Ginny already had the perfect idea of the ideal life.

Ron, however, was another story. He had a drive towards all the wrong things, be it quidditch or chess or even just sleeping outside in the grass. No ambitions to speak of, no wishes or wants other than a warm meal and good company. Sure, he spoke often of becoming a prefect or head boy or even a professional quidditch player, but every time she asked him what he would do to accomplish those goals, he always seemed unsure of what she meant. It had been such a stark contrast between Ginny’s wants that she had questioned if her youngest son had any inhibitions at all. She had even spoken to the headmaster about her worries when the boy turned ten, realizing with dread that he would be going off to Hogwarts very soon and had no idea what in which he wished to do there. Dumbledore, being a brilliant man and wonderful friend, assured her that all would be well, and that children often were unsure with what they wished to do with their lives.

“All will be revealed in time Molly. It may be hard to see but young Ronald has a great drive to prove himself, he just is unsure with how to go about it.” The headmaster had seemed so sure as he told her of a brilliant little muggle-born girl that would be sure to sort him straight, and Hermione Granger did indeed sound like a smart, sturdy, and delightfully proper influence on her son, that it had been hardly a challenge to agree that the two should find themselves companions through Hogwarts. It was also quite fun to envision her son being not only good friends with a smart muggle-born but also the boy-who-lived, as Dumbledore had long since confided his wish for Harry Potter to become friends with Ronald. Truly, she couldn’t be happier with the proceedings, feeling assured that while Ginny would be chasing after the wizarding world’s saviour, her son would be standing firmly by his side.

Albus Dumbledore set a piece of fresh parchment down on his desk and began to write a letter. He had known years prior that leading Molly into his plans could have disastrous consequences, but the steady incline he had coaxed her up was one that led quite clearly towards keeping Harry Potter exactly where he should be. He was not so foolish to believe that Tom would not try to return, and with the prophecy stating that Harry was destined to defeat him, it was paramount that Albus keep the boy firmly in line. The fate of the world depended on it after all.

It had been quite difficult to decide how to proceed in the case of Hermione Granger, as while he had told Molly that the girl would be in Gryffindor with her son and the boy-who-lived, he had not been so sure for very many months. The girl was already eleven, and he had been studying her personality and behaviour for many years, finding that she lacked many of the very important traits that would assure her a place in the house of lions. She was, to be rather blunt, quite stubborn and nosey, lacking a great deal of decorum and tact that led her to having no friends to speak of, though perhaps that had to do with her overbearing need to always be right. Either way, he doubted that she would go naturally to Gryffindor, perhaps Ravenclaw or most likely Slytherin, but certainly not the house of the lions.

It had kept him up for months, as while he knew for a fact that she would be perfect to keep both boys in line and out of trouble, he knew that it would be very unlikely that the sorting hat would place her in the house most convenient to him. So, upon a few months of self-reflection, he endeavoured to do a familiar sort of alteration to the girl. It would have to be subtler than the ones preformed onto Harry Potter and the Weasley children, but it would work well enough—just enough to smooth out her edges. Yes, it would be as simple as that. 

He sighed, completing the letter with a flourish. It was all well and good to contemplate what had to happen in the next year, and a completely different thing to actually do it. Hermione Granger would need to be contacted earlier than other muggle-borns usually were, likely both in person as well as over letter, and her parents would need to be properly convinced of magic of course. However, he would also have to designate to send someone to her who would not only appeal to the girl’s intellectual preferences but also towards the idea that Gryffindor was the best house, which left very few besides himself or Minerva. He could send Severus and hope that the man gives off a horrible enough impression to steer her away from Slytherin, but it was far too likely that he would steer her away from going to Hogwarts altogether, which certainly wouldn’t do.

Difficult… very difficult. There was also the issue of Harry Potter, as the boy would no doubt have to be led through Diagon Alley by someone on the staff. However, that kind of contemplation was nothing but theoretic, and he would have to wait many months before being able to decide, depending purely on whether or not Petunia would let her fear of magic override her hatred of the wizarding world long enough to shove the boy off in the right direction.

He sighed a second time, folding the letter and slipping it into an envelope. Either way, there was no use in contemplating all of that when there was so much else that could be corrected for months earlier. Handing the letter off to Fawkes, who gave a short scree before flying out the window, Albus carded a hand through his beard, watching as the phoenix gave a great flap before bursting away in a flame of light. No matter what happened in the coming year, and even the summer after, he was still sure that Harry Potter was exactly who he needed to be, and would stay that way for years to come.

Chapter Text

One Year Later:

Albus looked down at the acceptance letter with concern, observing how Harry Potter’s name shone with fresh ink. The bedroom addressed was… not what he had been expecting, to say the very least. It worried him a tad, how it seemed to be hinting at a life much different from what he had set the boy up for. Was there something that he was missing?

“Is there something wrong, Albus?” Minerva’s clipped tone rose up from the desk he stood in front of, her eyebrow poised in silent question. He sighed slowly, running a finger down the address once more before cautiously setting the letter back down with the rest. He had cast the curses, he was sure of it, so why did it seem that Harry Potter might have been raised in a way that deviated from his carefully laid plans?

“No Minerva, nothing at all, I was just remarking on your particularly beautiful calligraphy.” Humming slightly, he turned away from her, leaving the office quickly as his mind ran rampant with concerned thoughts. He had done the ritual properly all those years ago, he was sure of it, and the likelihood of it failing was next to nothing. However, his… additions to Lily Potter’s blood wards could have fallen if the original wards reacted negatively to the curses. If that was so, then there was much to be done that he hadn't considered before, and he had very little time to do it.

Never trust a squib to do a wizards work, as they say. That had been his first mistake, allowing Arabella Figg to watch the boy despite her knowing nothing of the wards or their importance, but it had been foolhardy of him to think that they would hold on Petunia Dursley’s hatred alone. Clearly, the woman was more of a mothering force than he had originally accounted for.

Stepping into his office, he breathed a great sigh, attempting to calm his busy mind. There was no time left for him to contemplate the wards and their functions, the boy was still exactly who he was supposed to be after all. If he loved and was loved by his family in spite of that, then it was hardly of consequence.

All would work out fine in the end, of that Albus Dumbledore was certain.

The summer of his eleventh birthday was a rather mild one in comparison to the past two, and Harry and his cousin had taken immediate advantage of that by spending every waking moment they had away from the house and either in the yard or out at the park with the other neighbourhood boys. However, as a heatwave descended on Privet Drive like a blanket of suffocating humidity, they decided instead to hide away from the sun and into their home, where there were mechanical fans and ice lollies to drive away the oppressive weather.

“The beginning stage, medically referred to as the autolysis or ‘self-digestion’ stage, is the very first stage of human decomposition, and begins immediately after death.” Harry, finding himself bored with the sweltering day, had taken it upon himself to finally take up one of the more fascinating books in his collection, one detailing the processes of human decomposition. “As soon as blood circulation and respiration stop, the body has no way of getting oxygen or removing wastes. This creates excess carbon dioxide and causes an acidic environment, which causes membranes in cells to rupture. The membranes release enzymes that begin eating the cells from the inside out.”

Dudley grunted, uninterested in what Harry was reciting from the medical textbook held aloft in his arms, focusing instead on throwing a ball against the wall with such a ferocity that Petunia occasionally screamed at him to cut it out from where she was situated below them in the kitchen.

“The second stage, being aptly labelled the bloating stage, is triggered when the leaked enzymes from the first stage begin producing gases. The sulfur-containing compounds that the bacteria release also cause skin discolouration. Due to the gases, the human body can double in size. In addition, insect activity can be present.” Flipping the page, Harry glanced up to see a rather nauseated look on Dudley’s face. Holding back an amused smirk, he continued. “The microorganisms and bacteria produce extremely unpleasant odours called putrefaction. These odours often alert others that a person has died, and can linger long after a body has been removed.”

Dudley coughed, and started throwing the ball again, likely trying to drown out what Harry was saying with the rhythmic smacking of the ball against the plaster.

“The third stage, called active decay, embodies a period indicated by fluids releasing through orifices. Organs, muscles, and skin become liquefied. When all of the body’s soft tissue decomposes, hair, bones, cartilage, and other byproducts of decay remain. The cadaver loses the most mass during this stage.”

Dudley made a gagging noise in the back of his throat, wrinkling his nose at the imagery as Harry snorted. “That's rancid Harry, how can you stand reading things like that?” Throwing the ball one last time, Dudley flopped down on the bed opposite of Harry’s own, picking up the nearest comic book and leafing through it. Harry rolled his eyes, setting the book away for future reading.

“It's not ‘rancid’ Dud, its nature.”

“Weren't you just going on about an ‘extremely unpleasant odour’ that comes off of corpses? Sounds awfully rancid to me.”

Shaking his head, Harry stood lazily from his bed, meandering over to where the window sat open and peering out of it, watching the sky for a moment before cautiously returning to his bed. It was the day that his first Hogwarts letter had arrived in the original timeline, but he had yet to see any owls in the sky over Privet Drive, despite it being the middle of the day. Even more worrying was the fact that no mail had been delivered that morning, which would have likely carried the letter with it. Everything was pointing towards something having gone differently already, and he hadn’t even done all that much to change things!

Tom’s voice piped up in his head, very clearly revealing some affectionate annoyance with him. Would you stop worrying, leech? The world will hardly end if you are set to receive your letter five hours late. 

Harry rolled his eyes, staring up at the ceiling in thought as Dudley continued to leaf through his comic. There was hardly any aggression between him and Tom anymore, as their various arguments had developed from mental wars to petty squabbles, and then finally to companionable debates. It certainly helped that Tom seemed to calm down and become more… human as the years went on, and Harry’s own emotional and mental development had allowed them to stand on similar ground after a good four years of constant battles.

It wasn’t just the dark magic, of that Harry was certain, and it couldn’t have been the various and rather extensive lessons Tom put him through, though the days upon months upon years of learning and perfecting and memorizing certainly helped them grow closer. No, Harry rather thought that the biggest change was within himself, as his main hatred of Tom had always stemmed from all the deaths that Voldemort had caused, and the agony those deaths had in turn caused Harry. However, he simply… didn’t care now. It had been a very gradual shift, but a noticeable one, one that became more and more clear the further he delved into death magic and necromancy. Even with the shift being noticeable, Harry still hadn’t managed to really take note of it until Tom questioned why he never felt anything but fascination when reading about or studying dead bodies, or why he was so inclined towards more casually morbid thoughts when going about his daily activities. Truthfully, Harry hadn’t even been all that concerned about it, even after noticing the apparent shift in his morals, too focused on the next topic to study or branch of magic to obsess over.

Perhaps his apparent lack of unease when regarding death could be attributed to his descent into necromancy, or perhaps it could be explained away through his tie to the death god himself, but Harry could hardly find it in himself to care all that much in the end.

“Boys! Lunch is ready!” Petunia’s voice rang through the house, causing Dudley to jump from his bed and sprint from the room, Harry hot on his heels. It had become obvious in the Dursley household that the first to get to the table was the one to eat their fill, as Harry inhaled food at alarming rates and Dudley was just as bad, the two of them combined causing Petunia to make nearly twice as much food as she might have if cooking for a normal family of four. 

Grabbing Dudley by his collar, Harry pulled his cousin backwards and took the lead, jumping down the stairs and skipping two at a time, Dudley shouting out in anger as Harry put a considerable amount of space between the two of them.

“Harry James Potter what on earth-”

“Sorry Auntie, it's a cutthroat world!” Whirling past the woman, who huffed, Harry slid into his seat at the table right as Dudley hit the bottom of the stairs. There were sandwiches of various pieces of bread and fillings lining a large plate there, all with the crusts cut off and lined up prettily on a massive platter. Harry practically shoveled those pretty little sandwiches onto his plate as Dudley stumbled into his chair, the two of them doing battle over who was to get the most food onto their plates and into their mouth faster. Tom grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘savages’ from the back of his mind, causing Harry to roll his eyes.

Have something to say, Riddle?

You are disgusting, Leech.

Harry leaned back in his seat, his plate empty and stomach full for the time being. Dudley made a noise of victory as he shoved an entire sandwich into his mouth, causing Harry to laugh at the absurdity of it. Petunia, however, was far less impressed, and smacked her son lightly on the back.

“If you two boys have enough energy to eat like pigs, then surely you have the time to go and do your chores, hm?” Nodding genially, Harry took several gulps of water before carrying his plate to the sink, listening as Dudley made a considerable effort to complain while choking on the sandwich still lodged firmly in his throat. Almost absentmindedly, Harry focused his attention on the sandwich-sized lump and urged it to regurgitate, smiling satisfactorily as the boy spat the mix of bread and chicken back onto his plate.

Petunia made a sound between a gasp and a groan, her posture stiff as she watched her son with disapproval. “Dudley Adams Dursley if you don't start chewing your food I’ll put it through a processor and make you drink it.” Harry muffled his snickers as Dudley sheepishly apologized to his irate mother, who had her hand on her hips and was addressing him with a severe look on her face. Harry grabbed for the bush trimmers, intent on doing just as his aunt asked and wrapping up his chores before the sun got even more unbearably hot. Catching his cousin's eye, Dudley made a pleading motion, hands held in prayer as Harry raised an eyebrow. Wagging the bush trimmers sternly in the other boy’s direction, Harry slipped out of the back door with a triumphant shout, watching as Dudley’s face fell and he was handed a mop.

Blinking blearily, Harry squinted at the overbearingly hot sun, wrinkling his nose as if it had personally offended him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the heat, it was just that he generally despised it and preferred that the sun stay firmly behind clouds where it belonged.

Reaching for the rosebush to his immediate left, Harry settled into pruning it as he struck up a pleasant enough conversation with Tom. Do you think we’ll find a snake today?

There was a hum of excitement, which caused Harry to bite back another snicker. It's a good day for them to be out. Lots of sunny spots.

You’d know that of course, being a snake yourself.

Quiet, leech.

Harry stuck his tongue out at the rose bush childishly, hoping that Tom would somehow know and take offence. It didn't have the desired effect, as the man in his mind had fallen silent in wait. Sighing slightly, Harry spared the sun one more annoyed glance before focusing his attention onto the rose bush, intent on finishing up as fast as he could before the heat became unbearable. 

Letting his mind wander for a moment, Harry reflected on the book he had been reading that morning. It was not just for recreational purposes that he had started focusing more on human decomposition than animal, but that he was feeling more and more that he had done all he could in that particular department. It simply wasn’t a challenge, bringing animals back to life that is, he wanted something with more difficulty to accomplish. Of course, necromancy required a very acute knowledge of the subject’s physical form and even more so its process of decomposition, so Harry had decided that before he even worried about trying to find a human corpse to practice on, he would first learn all he could about them. It was only logical that he start with the decomposition process, as he already had a well enough knowledge of human anatomy from a particularly boring weekend where he looked at a lot of unnecessarily detailed diagrams.

“~Loud little two legs… rummaging around and scaring away all my food. Shoo!~”

Harry blinked at the mellow female voice, confused for a moment as he tried to place it’s strange accent. However, as Tom made a familiar noise of excitement, he realised very quickly that he was hearing parseltongue, and dropped to the grass to peer into the foliage.

Well… isn't that interesting.

She was a rather… colourful snake, all things considered, appearing as though she had been modelled after the floor of an older bowling alley, the neon blue stripe racing down her back clashing horribly with the two lines of neon red dots running down her sides and an equally—if absurdly—redhead.

What is a California Garter snake doing in Surrey? Tom’s question bubbled up from the recesses of his mind, the man’s voice becoming more pronounced as he came closer to Harry’s own consciousness. The boy couldn’t help but roll his eyes, watching as the rather obnoxious snake peered at him with caution and a small amount of hostility.

Of course you would know the exact species.

Working his jaw in thought, Harry slowly lowered himself fully to the dirt in order to perhaps appear less threatening. “~Hello there, are you lost?~”

The snake reared backwards in shock, before hissing contemplatively and slithering closer. “~Little two legs can speak? How quaint.~” Cautiously, he reached out with his hand, watching as she started coiling up his arm. “~I am not lost, little two-legs speaker. A stupid and mute big two legs took me from my mother. There was a long journey across loud and cruel water before I was brought here.~”

“~Ah… That's rather unfortunate for you, I'm sure.~” Harry got up onto his knees, watching as the snake curled further up his arm. She hardly seemed all that aggressive, so he could only assume she must have broken out of the nearby zoo.

Forgot your empathy at the dinner table, Harry? Tom quipped dryly.

Like you're one to talk, Riddle.

Standing fully, Harry watched as the snake’s colourful scales shimmered pleasantly in the overbearing sunshine, the colours reflecting in a rather elegant way despite their gaudiness. It had hardly been his intention to keep a snake as a familiar, as he would have much-preferred something more useful like an owl. However, Tom had constantly babbled on about a snake’s various uses as both a companion and familiar, especially if you were able to speak with them. It had been something of a running joke that if Harry managed to find a snake he would have to keep it lest Tom destroy his mind in retaliation, but he had never expected to actually manage it.

As the snake began wrapping around his neck, a sound not dissimilar to the flapping of wings broke him from his pondering. Looking up, he caught sight of the very familiar silhouette of an owl against the sunny sky. Reaching out with the arm that wasn’t preoccupied with a snake, Harry watched with a widening grin as the barn owl settled down on his outstretched forearm, a letter with a very familiar seal clutched in its beak.

“~Sky beast!~” Hissing angrily, the snake fell from where it had been lounging on his shoulder, slithering back off into the shade of the rose bushes. Ignoring Tom’s angered muttering, he reached up and pet his fingers down the owl’s plumage.

“Is this for me?” Reaching forward, Harry tugged at the letter uselessly, gaining a rather critical look from the bird before it relinquished its hold. For a moment, all he did was look down at the letter and attempt to hold back an excited smile, unsure if he should be nervous or ecstatic. Finally, he was going back to Hogwarts, whether it be to a castle full of hidden enemies or new friends, he was finally going home.

Walking towards the backdoor, Harry let the owl hop off his arm and settle onto the fence, causing Mrs. Number Three to make a surprised noise from where she was pruning daffodils. Stepping into the house, he was greeted with Dudley ferociously mopping the kitchen floor as Petunia dusted the china.

“Auntie?” She hummed distractically, not looking up from her delicate work. “I got the letter.”

Her head whipped around as she let go of the cup she had been shining. For a moment time seemed to slow as he instinctively reacted, and it bounced, as if made of rubber, against the tiled floor. For a rather tense second she looked unsure of what to feel, her eyes darting from the letter in his hand to the perfectly intact teacup sitting innocently on the floor. Dudley seemed happy that he was getting a break from his work, watching the silent exchange as he leaned his weight onto the mop.

Eventually, Petunia gathered herself enough to look somewhat stern, her hands poised on her hips as she pursed her lips carefully. “Have you then? Well, try not to be so dramatic about it next time.”

“I hardly think he was the dramatic one, mum.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits as Dudley seemed to immediately regret his words, backtracking faster than his mouth could speak. “I mean—just to say—well it's just that-”

“Auntie? My letter?” Cutting Dudley off, he pointed towards the letter still resting in his hand, giving his cousin a look that silently conveyed ‘you owe me now’. Petunia nodded slowly, stepping around the downed china cup to stand in front of him. She seemed conflicted for a moment, before making a ‘go ahead’ motion with her hands. Smiling slightly, he ripped the seal off and took the two pieces of parchment from inside, his smile widening as he read through the nostalgia-inducing letter.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc. Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)

Harry Potter

#4 Privet Drive, Little

Whinging, Surrey

The Second Bedroom

Dear Mr. Potter

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Harry handed the letter to his aunt to view, already turning his sights onto the supplies list as Dudley came over to see what all the fuss was about.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

UNIFORM

First-year students will require:

• Three sets of plain work robes (black)

• One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear

• One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)

• One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings)

Please note that all pupil’s clothes should carry name tags.

COURSEBOOKS

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

The standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)

By Miranda Goshawk

A History of Magic

By Bathilda Bagshot

Magical Theory

By Adalbert Waffling

A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration

By Emeric Switch

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi

By Phyllida Spore

Magical Drafts and Potions

By Arsenius Jigger

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

By Newt Scamander

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection

By Quentin Trimble

OTHER EQUIPMENT

1 wand

1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set glass or crystal phials

1 telescope

1 set of brass scales

Students may also bring, if they desire, and owl OR a cat OR a toad

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS

ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICK

Dudley was snickering from where he was peering at the parchment, pointing at the uniform and remarking that Harry would look rather pretty in a witch’s hat. Rolling his eyes, he whacked his cousin in the face with the parchment, watching as his aunt scrambled around for something to write with.

“You want to write back now, don't you? I know Lily wanted to send her letter off as soon as possible… oh what did I do with that lineless paper?”

“In the third drawer Auntie, under the measuring tapes.” 

Harry had felt rather unsure with what to write in response, never having done it himself. Petunia seemed equally out of her element, being far more nervous about the entire ordeal than was helpful for him. Luckily, Tom had written his own confirmation letter and had rather strong opinions about what Harry should write, so his lead was taken happily. After finding a normal business envelope to place the letter in, Harry returned to the back yard and handed it off to the rather impatient-looking owl, who was still sitting on the fence despite the neighbour’s rather obnoxious complaining about it. Petunia looked mortified that Mrs Number Three had caught sight of the owl, but Harry was far too focused on being excited about going to Diagon Alley and getting books, his wand back, and any other modicum of things that caught his fancy. Tom had been a brilliant teacher for six years, but Harry was really wishing that he could introduce some self-study into his various academic explorations, if only to find literature on something more useful than the tiny pieces of obscure Indian blood magic that Tom seemed insistent on shoving down his throat that week.

“Right… yes, well I suppose we’ll have to go to that Alley sometime soon.” Petunia fretted about all that they had to do while Dudley watched the owl fly off in awe. Harry nodded slowly, watching as she rubbed the back of her hand—a nervous tic of hers he had noticed years prior. It was doubtless that he would have at least some issues traversing Diagon Alley with her by his side, especially if she continued to act so… jumpy. It would likely be a good idea if he coaxed her into a somewhat muggle-friendly store while there so he could shop in peace without worrying about her keeling over, but there was plenty of time to broach that subject later.

Watching as his aunt and cousin wandered back into the house, both having their own excuses for doing so, Harry contemplated if it would be too difficult to convince Petunia to let him go on his own. Sure, he would have to ‘ask’ for directions to the entrance, as he wasn’t supposed to know where anything was, much less where the Leaky Cauldron was or even what it was.

“~Is the little two legs speaker still there?~”

He was jolted out of his thoughts by the hissed voice, and glanced back down to the rose bushes where a shockingly red head was poking out from the underbrush. Crouching down, he held out his arm and watched as she slowly slithered back up it, creeping under his shirt and seemingly attempting to wrap around his middle with varying results.

Watching her struggle for a moment, he decided to take pity and pull her off his midsection, manoeuvring her so that she was lounging across his shoulders.

“~Hello again, fashion disaster.~”

She peered at him for a moment, as if contemplating something, before very obviously tasting the air around her. She seemed to study him more closely then, before darting her tongue out against his skin and hissing gleefully. “~Hmmm… the little two legs speaker smells of death. You shall be mine now, death smelling little two legs speaker.~”

Harry raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards as she weaved around to face him.

Did wizards get the idea for obnoxiously long titles from snakes by chance? 

Quiet leech, let me talk to her.

Ignoring Tom’s prodding, Harry sat down on the water-starved grass, watching as the snake bobbed and weaved through the air before climbing into his shirt again.

“~So, what's your name? Or do snakes in the wild not receive names?~”

She seemed to contemplate his question for a moment before answering, as if trying to remember something that she had been told years prior. “~I am called Thamnophis Sirtalis Infernalis. Thank you for asking, death smelling little two legs speaker.~”

He made a face, finding that her tendency to say his entire ‘title’ rather cumbersome. “~My name is Harry, and you do realize that Thamnophis Sirtalis Infernalis is your scientific name, right?~”

The snake slithered back up his chest and poked her head out of his shirt, her eyes pinned onto his own in reverence. “~What is science, Harry?~”

Holding back a laugh, he shook his head, exasperated. “~Don't worry about it. Look, do you mind too terribly if I call you Thasin? It's a mix of your three names, and I think it would set you apart from others of your species.~”

She seemed to consider it for a moment, before making a nodding motion and returning to underneath his shirt, where she proceeded to succeed in her effort to curl around his middle. Unsure with what to do with a snake now that he had one, Harry stood and returned to pruning the rose bushes, deciding that he would figure something out when the time came.

Chapter Text

It was an outrageously humid Friday morning that the Dursley matriarch and her nephew piled into the family car and set off for London, traversing through the city streets as they sat in contemplative silence. Harry, knowing of his infamy and wishing it gone, had submitted himself to cosmetic foundation in order to hide his scar. Petunia had asked him upwards of eight times if he was sure that nothing was wrong as she applied it, concerned that he had suddenly grown self-conscious of the deformity after years of not caring in the least. He had assured her just as many times that he was concerned that the wizard who killed his parents might have given him the scar, and that perhaps people in the wizarding world had strange superstitions regarding the man. It had been a rather shite excuse, admittedly, but Harry had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts to not particularly care if she believed him or not.

“Now, the place is called the—oh what was it, the Dripping Cauldron? No that doesn’t sound quite right…” Petunia was muttering under her breath, and had been doing so for the entire ride, seemingly attempting to drown out her worried thoughts with equally worried words. He watched her with concern, taking in her shaking hands and pale skin with narrowed eyes. If it was this difficult for her to stand even the thought of going into the wizarding world, then casually shopping through it would likely give her a haemorrhage, in the very least.

“Auntie… I'm sure I can make my way through the shops just fine if you’d like to stay in the car...?” As soon as he had said it, Harry knew for certain it had been the wrong way to voice his concerns, as Petunia immediately gained a determined look about her, straightening her spine as her eyes hardened, practically glaring now at the oncoming traffic. 

“I’ll be just fine dear. You may like to think you’re all grown up, but no child under my roof will be waltzing around an unfamiliar market without me.” He couldn’t help but be impressed by her courage, feeling that perhaps the Evans women were all Gryffindors at heart, magical or not.

“Aha! There it is, the Leaky Cauldron.”

“You had the general concept right, I suppose.” She scoffed at his words, whacking him lightly as he laughed.

“It's been nearly twenty-two years since I’ve been to this ratty old place, you should know. I'd say I did rather well remembering where it was, nevermind it’s name.”

Placing some circular tinted sunglasses on his face, Harry quickly left the car, watching as Petunia struggled with the keys for a moment before joining him at the pub’s entrance. Waking in, Harry was immediately glad he had insisted on the concealer, as nearly every inch of space was taken up by rowdy drinkers or stressed families. Petunia immediately clutched his shoulder, her expression severe and voice strained as she led him towards the bar.

“The barkeep will help us through the wall, I'm sure.” He didn’t bother pretending to be confused with what she meant by ‘wall’, instead keeping his head down as elbows were thrown and voices were raised higher and higher. He hadn’t anticipated that the place would be so… busy, especially on a Friday morning, but it seemed that wizards had no qualms about day drinking. Darting around a fallen patron, who was snoring rather loudly, Harry was finally able to place his hands on the bar as Petunia leaned over him to loudly request help with the entrance into Diagon Alley. The barkeep Tom, who had a rather intense slouch and a kind, if toothless, smile, regarded Petunia like an old friend, remarking that he remembered her from twenty years prior when she brought it up. Harry felt doubt over that particular statement, but was a tad busy making himself as unnoticeable as possible to really remark on it, much to his aunt’s clear worry.

I suppose you and Tom the barkeep share more than just a name, eh Riddle? He looks just like you.

I'll skin you alive, leech.

Charming.

“There we are dear, Tom here will help us through. Goodness—why on earth are there so many people here?” Tom laughed as he led them through the crowds, passing by a drunken Hagrid, who was singing merrily with a hooked-nosed witch with rather pretty features. Harry looked away immediately, darting around to his aunt’s other side.

“Friday mornin’s are always rather rowdy, ‘ate to say it. Here ye are ma’am.” Tapping his wand along the bricks in a familiar pattern, Tom stepped aside with a flourish, letting them act appropriately stunned as the wall peeled away to reveal a bustling marketplace. Thanking the man, who merely waved her off, Petunia squared her shoulders and started pushing Harry along, keeping a firm hand on his shoulder as people in absurdly magical outfits streamed past. He let her guide him towards Gringotts, his mind wandering off as familiar shops flew past. It was strange really, walking through the streets of Diagon Alley for the first time in over a decade. Harry felt… detached from everything, the usual wonder and happiness being noticeably absent from his mood. Perhaps it was because he felt so distant from this world after so many years, or perhaps that the last time he had seen it everything had been boarded up, but nothing felt quite as wonderful and whimsical as it had been in his first life, the shine he remembered being noticeably absent.

A precariously leaning building obstructed his line of sight, the unwavering form of Gringotts stark against the bustling marketplace. Petunia’s hand felt heavy on his shoulder, her entire body shivering slightly with nerves. Turning to her, Harry made his voice as stern as he could manage as he pulled her to the side. “Auntie, I read all about this place in my mum’s notes, you really don't have to come in with me.”

She shook her head, hands clenched tightly to her blouse. “Now Harry-”

“I mean it, please don’t feel the need to come inside with me out of duty. I can handle it.” She seemed very inclined to argue further, before letting her shoulders slump, a small sigh of relief leaving her. He sighed as well, knowing that neither of them could handle any more of her stress, especially while inside of a bank.

“Please be careful dear.”

He nodded, waving goodbye as he climbed the crooked steps towards the slanting doors. He hadn’t wanted to abandon his aunt that way, especially after she had built up the nerve to come with him in the first place, but he wanted to get a blood test done and she would have quite a few questions regarding something like that if she came along.

Marching up to the nearest teller, Harry rested his arms on the counter and waited patiently for the unknown goblin to finish ignoring him, knowing that there was no sense in making an impression on the creature who was sure to either give him what he wanted or nothing at all. It sighed, glaring up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Name and key?”

“Harry Potter sir, and I was actually hoping to get a blood test.” The goblin peered at him with heightened scrutiny, squinting in mild confusion at his forehead. Harry smiled tightly, rocking back and forth as the teller seemed unsure with how to deal with him.

“You do not want access to your vault?”

“I would rather get the blood test first really, if that's fine with you sir.”

He knew that, from the goblin’s perspective, Harry could hardly be considered an imposter if he was first requesting a test to prove his identity, which was likely what was leaving the teller so confused. They stood in something of a standoff for a moment, before the goblin huffed angrily and got out of his chair.

“Follow me.”

Grinning broadly, Harry nodded and quickly followed after the rapidly disappearing goblin, who seemed intent to lose him in the twisting hallways of offices. Turning several corners and climbing eight flights of stairs, they came to an abrupt stop in front of a door labelled ‘Griphook’. Harry pursed his lips, watching as the unnamed goblin motioned gruffly towards the door. Cautiously, he cracked it open and quickly shuffled inside with a small thank you from his guide.

It was a relatively standard office, with leather chairs and dark-stained tables. There was no one to be seen inside besides him, and as the door slammed shut with a thud behind him, he was able to admire the fascinating amount of weapons adorning the walls, all of which appeared to be from an unspecified time in history. Strolling around the office, Harry observed a particularly fascinating war scythe that had so much rust on it he had at first wondered if it were simply a particularly grotesque wall ornament. As it was, he doubted that it could be used as anything but that anymore.

He turned again, just in time to see the door slam open and a particularly sour-looking goblin storm in. For a moment, he questioned if it was the same one as before, but realized that there were two very sharp-looking meat hooks hanging from his belt, and Harry decided that this must be Griphook.

Do you reckon he got his name for carrying those things around, or he just decided to wear them because of it? Harry let the thought stand in the air for a moment as he settled down into a seat adjacent to the goblin, waiting as Tom formulated a reply.

I hardly think it matters in the end.

Griphook shuffled papers around on the desk for a moment, seemingly looking for something as Harry sat quietly and waited. 

“You are the one pretending to be heir Potter?”

Oh, well, this is going brilliantly Harry, bravo on making such a good first impression. Tom’s voice held his infamous edge of malice that Harry had become rather desensitized to. However, he still grimaced slightly in embarrassment, and shook his head. “Well... I am Harry Potter, sir.”

The goblin glanced at his head, before making a face and taking out a long ritualistic dagger. “Well, we’ll see about that, won't we. Now, you requested a blood test, or as it is more commonly known: an inheritance test. As I'm sure you are aware-” He didn’t know a bloody thing about blood tests, except that Death thought it was a good idea for him to get one and it was supposed to tell him about what Fate had done to change his DNA. “-the blood test is designed to not only reveal a person’s legal name and recent family, but also proves things such as any godparents and guardians the person might have, any titles they are privy to, or any diseases or vaccines that have been administered to their person. Do you understand and consent to such a test?”

Harry nodded slowly, watching as the goblin started to prepare the workspace, setting aside not only the ritual dagger but a blank sheet of parchment, what appeared to be a blank sheet of a bank ledger—likely meant for detailing vaults and such, a blank medical log, and a single ring box. 

“Three drops of blood on the first parchment, two on the second, seven on the third.” Griphook gave the instructions with practised ease, sitting back to watch him carefully. Shrugging, Harry grabbed the dagger, twisting it around in the air before making a small incision on his pointer finger. Grimacing slightly, he followed the goblin’s instructions to the letter, watching as words slowly began to appear on each parchment as he went down the row. The first parchment, which ended up detailing his full name and recent family, also appeared to hold information on a variety of titles that he seemed to be in the running for. He reached for it, holding the still drying ink up to the light as he read through it in its entirety.

Identification:

Hadrian James Potter

DOB: 31 July, 1980

Age: 10 Yrs, 11 mths, 24 days, 14 hrs.

Mother: Lily J. Potter nee. Evans (deceased)

Father: Lord James Fleamont Potter (deceased)

Godfather: Heir Sirius Orion Black (detained)

Godmother: Lady Alice Longbottom nee. Fortescue (incapacitated)

Muggle Guardian: Petunia Dursley nee. Evans

Magical Guardian (apparent): Chief Warlock Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Titles:

Heir Potter (by blood) Votes on Wizengamot: 2

Heir Slytherin (by conquest) Votes on Wizengamot: None

Heir Gaunt (by conquest) Votes on Wizengamot: Seen Previous

Second in line for Black heirship (through inheritance) Votes on Wizengamot: 9

Master of Death (by abnormal, once in an eternity circumstances) Votes on Wizengamot: ???

Total possible votes: 11

Harry brushed past most of the titles, knowing that thanks to the Gaunts the Slytherin line was useless in everything but name, and would likely have to be built up from where it sat six feet below the topsoil. However, the fact that his being Master of Death showed up on the blood test, especially with such a ridiculous statement tied to it, made him stop and think, eventually settling on the belief that the death god likely had quite a bit to do with it. He couldn’t help but focus on his name, being surprised to find that he was legally named Hadrian, of all things. It seemed rather strange, as he had been supposedly named after his great-grandfather Henry, but there was no telling what his parents were thinking in regards to it.

There was also the issue of his guardianship, as while his aunt still had clear guardianship in the muggle world, it seemed that Dumbledore had managed to wriggle himself into Harry’s magical guardianship, likely because of Sirius’ detainment. What a mess… He would have to deal with the issue of Sirius at another time, as while it would certainly make his life easier to get the man freed, there was very little that a ten-year-old could reasonably do to achieve something like that.

After a few moments more of contemplation, he cautiously set the paper aside, turning instead towards the bank slip, intent on discovering all that he had currently in Gringotts.

Vaults:

Harry Potter Trust Vault (private, key necessary for deposits and withdrawals): 10,000 galleons, 500 sickles, 1,000 knuts, three books, two portraits

Potter Main Vault (familial, private, key necessary for deposits and withdrawals): 275,967 galleons, 5,990 sickles, 42 knuts, 39 assorted family heirlooms, 12 portraits, 59 pieces of jewellery, 408 tomes

Harry Potter Gift Vault (partially public, no key necessary for deposits, key necessary for withdrawals): 2,390,054 galleons, 298 sickles, 10,032 knuts, 3 portraits, 12 pieces of jewellery, 28 tomes

Black Vault (unable to access until proven as heir apparent): 6,349,843 galleons, 2,497 sickles, 2 knuts, 48 assorted family heirlooms, 18 portraits, 74 pieces of family jewellery, 37 tomes

It shocked him that there was not only a great deal of money in the Potter Main Vault, all of which he had never seen prior to reading the slip, but that he, apparently, had a vault set aside exclusively for gifts from various people over the past decade. The amount of money held in the vault made him a tad nauseous, the idea of having so much monetary value hanging over his head being not only somewhat comforting but also greatly intimidating. It was surprising that he was even given knowledge of what was inside the Black vault, as he had honestly been surprised to be so far up in line for it. However, he could only assume that Sirius has a will lying around somewhere that named him heir, as that was the only thing that made any logical sense.

Placing the bank slip back onto the desk, he reached for the final piece of parchment with bated breath, concerned that there might be something particularly damning waiting for him there.

Potions and Hexes Apparent in Bloodstream:

Dragon Pox vaccine: administered by Lily J. Potter on 1 August, 1980

Mumblemumps vaccine: administered by Lily J. Potter on 1 August, 1980

Inherited Magical Ailments/familial magics:

Proclivity towards transfiguration

Proclivity towards charms

High likelihood of contracting Dragon Pox later in life

Non-inherited Magical Ailments/magics:

Proclivity towards necromancy.

Creature Inheritance: Creature blood inconclusive, further tests necessary. First transformation due on 13th birthday

Soul Bond: unknown bondmate, fully in effect on 13th birthday

Harry was unsure of what to feel. On one hand, the vast majority of the information was perfectly mundane in the fact that he had been expecting it. However, not only did he apparently have some sort of creature inheritance, of which was apparently uncommon enough to warrant further testing to figure out what it could possibly be, but he had a soulmate.

He fiddled with the edge of the parchment, unsure which thing to focus more of his attention on. He hadn’t a clue about how soulmates functioned, since he had never felt the need to ask Tom about them as they were rather obnoxiously rare and the man himself had only given a brief note of their existence in passing when they were discussing soul magics years prior. 

Creature Inheritances, however, were something that he knew a great deal about, as they were something of a societal taboo among the magical world. Typically brought on by interbreeding with magical beasts or some sort of blood curse, the inheritances would be more accurately described as ‘creature puberty’ as they typically worked to slowly change a person’s magic and physiology as they went through their teen years, developing all manner of physical oddities like fur or wings, depending on the afflicted person’s creature. They were not something that was spoken about, and if some poor soul was afflicted and word got out, they would quickly become something of a social pariah.

Of all the things Fate decided to saddle me with, she thought that a creature inheritance would be the best? Harry could tell that Tom was agitated as well, though the man didn’t speak a word. He didn’t need to though, as there was a feeling of anger in the back of his mind that was not his own, and while Harry felt far more inclined towards annoyed acceptance, Tom was simply infuriated.

He set the final piece of parchment onto the desk, watching as Griphook took it and skimmed through the words, before blinking and reading it again, except at a much slower pace. Leaning back, Harry allowed himself a moment to ponder all that he had learned as his accounts manager added the three documents to his file.

It was clear to him now that his Hogwarts career would have to be approached with an air of subtlety that he had previously been rather cautious to implement, feeling assured that things would go well enough. He had been hoping that, with his love of knowledge and rather aggressive actions towards learning, he would be sorted easily enough into Ravenclaw. Now however, he worried that such a placement would draw more attention to him than necessary. It would be better than Slytherin, certainly, but it was obvious to him that Dumbledore had a rather unpleasant habit of trying to keep him as far out of the loop as physically possible, and Harry being in the house of ravens would spell doom for any amount of privacy he could ask for.

I suppose I’ll have to beg the hat for Hufflepuff.

I do beg your pardon?

Harry rolled his eyes, settling further back into his seat as Griphook wrote out a letter and sent it away in a metal tube, presumably requesting certain files.

Let's be realistic,Tom. Me in Slytherin is going to get a lot of negative attention, and Ravenclaw would be just the same. Gryffindor, while ideal, is hardly going to be even remotely available to me as I am now. Hufflepuff is the only option.

There was a dull throb in his head, one that he thought might resemble annoyance. Idiot boy, you're Slytherin to the very marrow of your bones, the hat wouldn't let you go anyplace else.

You mean to say you'll throw the hissy fit of the century if I get placed in anywhere but your old house?

You're going to Slytherin and that's final.

Harry mentally pushed Tom aside, watching as a second goblin came into the office to place a second ring box next to the first. Nodding to the messenger, who nodded back, Griphook gathered up both boxes and sat them facing Harry.

“Heir Potter, you have two heir rings you are capable of receiving today, if you feel the need to do so. I must warn you though, that the Slytherin lord ring is currently lost to time and is impossible to recover, so when the time comes for you to take up the lordship you might feel the need to have a new one made.”

He nodded, peering at the two ring boxes curiously. The Gaunt ring or—as he supposed it could be called—the Slytherin lordship ring, was currently in the Gaunt shack where he had neither the means nor the ambition to go searching for it. Perhaps it was because he had a particularly strained relationship with the stone, but he did not feel all that inclined towards recovering it in any capacity at any particularly fast pace.

“I’m sure I can figure something out when the time comes. Which rings can I receive today?”

Griphook opened the lids to both ring boxes, revealing their contents to Harry’s curious eyes. “As you are Heir Potter by blood, that title comes first and foremost. The Slytherin heir ring is also available to you, though it should be noted that the magics involved with the ring might not be so inclined to accept you. You'll have to wait for the current Heir Black to either die or pass his title onto you officially, and considering that he is currently detained in Azkaban for crimes against the state, the likelihood of the latter is next to nothing.”

Harry nodded slowly, watching as the goblin pushed the first ring box forward. Taking the box, he observed the Potter heirship ring with something between wistfulness and vexation. It was a simple gold band with a medium-sized ruby as the focal point, with smaller gems branching off on either side in an infinity-like shape. It was intricate, with knots of gold making elaborate patterns along the band and twisting in a way that reminded him of waves or fire. For a moment, all he did was admire the ring, before slowly slipping it onto his right ring finger, where it seemed to glow faintly before adjusting to fit the boney digit. It was indescribable, the feeling it gave off, and very nearly made him burst into tears, an overwhelming grief of what could have been clouding much of his thoughts before the light finally tapered off. For a moment, he thought he saw hazel eyes and dark hair flash across his vision, the whisper of a father’s pride somewhere over his shoulder that could have just as easily been a draft.

“Right.”

Griphook seemed somewhat unimpressed with the proceedings, and silently pushed the second ring box towards him. Harry took it just as quietly, peering down at the simple band that laid inside of it. For such a supposedly prideful family, the Slytherin heirship ring was hardly something to be impressed by, just a simple band of hand-hammered silver carved with small serpents. In comparison to Slytherin’s locket or the Gaunt ring, it was rather underwhelming. Harry could only assume that when the Slytherin family had been at its prime, things like heir rings were hardly of consequence, so the ring that sat in his hands had been created on the tail end of their days of wealth, likely when the Gaunts were sending their vaults into the ground.

Sighing, he slipped it onto his right pointer finger, immediately feeling a very different emotion than the one given to him by the Potter ring. It was cold and harsh, judging and cruel as it contemplated him. Harry knew immediately who it was, and he glared at the floor in defiance against Marvolo Gaunt, who for all his pride had died like a dog.

Tom’s voice weaved through his mind, just as harsh and cold as the oppressive personality surrounding him. Heir rings are peculiar Harry, but they do not house the souls of the past lords like you might believe. It is simply testing you.

“I would like to take a thousand galleons from my trust vault.” Harry glared at the silver ring, bullying it into submission with his gaze alone. It seemed to glare equally hard, before willfully easing off.

“You do not have your key.” The goblin replied tirelessly, taking the now empty ring boxes and placing them out of sight.

Harry rubbed his temple, remembering suddenly how Dumbledore likely still had his key tucked away somewhere where he would be unable to reach it. “I was not aware that I needed a key to access it. If you already know that I am who I say I am, then why would further credentials be necessary?”

Griphook seemed particularly annoyed with his proclamation, but nodded in assent anyway. “You can have a second made, I suppose, but if you lose it as well there will be a fine to replace it.”

“I understand, thank you for the help.”

In comparison to the mess that was his blood test, getting his money hardly took longer than a few minutes, as Griphook sent another goblin down to get things sorted for him as a second key was made and the ‘lost’ one officially considered expired. The unnamed goblin returned with a small pouch, inside which apparently housed the thousand galleons he requested. Tom had muttered something inconsequential about Gringotts standard of expanding charms as he thanked Griphook and left the office, manoeuvring through the twisting hallways in an effort to find where the main lobby was. Eventually however, after about three wrong turns and eight mental arguments, he suddenly found himself following along behind a cheery couple, who were easily traversing the confusing space.

How I managed to break into this architectural nightmare is beyond me.

He found Petunia fretting on the steps outside, her hands no doubt boring holes into the marble rail that separated her from the street.

“Sorry I took so long auntie, the goblins wanted me to confirm my identity for some reason. Did you know that my first name is Hadrian?” His aunt seemed only momentarily taken aback by his words, before she was shaking her head at him and pushing him along towards the shops.

“That would have been good to know before now, I’d say.” He nodded along with her tired grumbling, already pulling out his list of supplies and skimming through it. While there was nothing on the parchment blatantly broadcasting that one would need a trunk for Hogwarts, it was very clear to him that it was not only a want but also a necessity. After all, Tom had often lamented about the capabilities of expansion charms, what would be the harm of testing their boundaries?”

“Alright Harry dearest, where are we off to first?”

“To get a trunk, Auntie.”

It was found rather quickly by the duo that Diagon Alley was quite difficult to navigate if one of you was still too short to see over the crowd and the other was rather unfamiliar with the terrain. However, Petunia had managed to spot a ratty old sign sporting the words ‘Trunks for all Occasions’ scrawled across it, and they quickly fled from the pushy crowds to the shop below said sign. Upon entering, it was revealed that the stress caused by the crowds was not abated by the precariously balanced stacks of trunks in the interior of the shop, and as Petunia’s anxiety grew so too did Harry’s agitation.

Things only got more strenuous when an uncomfortably friendly salesman that bordered on aggressive came up to them and attempted to sell his aunt a high-end trunk that could easily hold an entire circus.

“Oh I'm not—my nephew is, well he’s the wizard you see-” Immediately a switch was thrown, and the man’s too-wide smile was turned onto him.

“Well, chap we can get you a trunk that’ll last you seven lifetimes—off to Hogwarts for your second year I reckon? Well that’s just fine-”

Get the basic four-compartment trunk. Tom’s voice had an edge of annoyance that Harry could happily agree with. You’ll need a compartment for clothes, one for books, another for potions ingredients, and the last to expand for living space in the instance that you find yourself homeless.

The man was still rattling off prices and additions and generally being an incredible annoyance as he was led through the tower-like stacks of trunks. “See this here is dragon leather, finest material known to man—it’ll get you where you need to be and then some, and with a few enchantments it’ll be just practically invincible-”

“I'll have the standard four-compartment trunk with simple black dragon leather and steel brackets.” Harry wished that his voice wasn’t so young-sounding. Perhaps he could manage to intimidate the man into shutting up if he had a more intimidating voice and stature.

“Are you sure lad? It’ll be sturdy sure but won't last a century, you could be much better off with a-”

“All respect where it's due sir, but if I was looking for a trunk to give my children one day I wouldn’t have come here.” Tom’s laughter rang through his skull as the salesman sputtered, attempting to form a proper sentence as Petunia went a tad pink, her lips turned up marginally in the barest hints of a smile.

“Yes well—yes of course, right this way lad, would you like your name embossed into the leather as well? It's a rather stylish way to keep track of your things.”

“I suppose.”

“Right then!” The man seemed marginally happier now that he was getting closer to a sale. “And your name?”

“Hadrian James Potter.”

The two of them left the shop only five minutes later, Petunia carrying the trunk as the now quite pale salesman waved them off. His aunt seemed already exhausted with the events, and Harry had managed to spot Scribbulus Writing Instruments across the way, so they quickly sped through and proceeded to spurge quite a bit on ornate quills, a multitude of different coloured inks, and varying lengths of parchment. Petunia had gone a tad white at the price, but he had handed over the galleons all the same, knowing that he had a nauseatingly large amount of money that he could use to buy all manner of stationery, and if he could avoid needing to ask older years to get him things from Hogsmeade once he ran out then he would be better for it.

“Next is books, right dear?”

“Mhm, and that looks like a book store right across the way.” He quickly steered her towards Flourish and Blotts, where the smell of old parchment and dust greeted him warmly. Leaving his aunt to browse, Harry quickly requested and paid for the first year book bundle at the front desk, before then traversed through the shelves, listing almost lazily as Tom methodically whispered book recommendations as they passed them by.

That navy green tome is an excellent resource for transfiguration, grab it. Oh, and that red one on the fourth shelf delves deeper into potion ingredient preparation than the required book does, grab it as well. Turn the corner, I remember the History of Magic section always being stocked with a small but delightful encyclopedia of history books at Hogwarts, its self-updating. There! The little black book on the bottom shelf.

His arms were piled high with a rather impressive amount of reading material when he found Petunia again, the woman standing facing a very particular shelf with a rather strained look on her face. Glancing at what was capturing her attention so thoroughly, he was forced to stifle a groan as the Harry Potter Adventure series, complete with a ten-year anniversary addition to the roster, registered to his eyes. Brilliant.

“Auntie? I've got everything.” The woman nearly jumped out of her skin, whirling around and immediately making an effort to cover up the shelf she had been viewing.

“Oh good—very good dear.” Pushing him down towards the front of the store and away from the damning shelf, she rattled on incessantly-no doubt in an effort to distract him from the fact that there were upwards of a baker's dozen of short novels written about his supposedly real adventures. “Off you pop then, you’ve still got plenty to buy.”

Not so surprisingly, she sent him off to get his robes on his own after asking for a few galleons for her own purchases, before slipping back into the shop. He twiddled his thumbs for a moment, contemplating what he could do with his newfound freedom as people streamed past. Peering back into the shop for a moment, Harry decided to do a very sneaky thing and ran off to Twilfitt and Tatting’s for some high-quality robes.

Walking into the posh store, Harry ignored the sneers of the customers and workers alike, looking around with a feeling of deep confusion as he squinted at a piece of clothing that could either be a rather short dress or a promiscuous man’s shirt. Giving up almost immediately, he turned inward for help.

Tom, I don't have any robes, so if you're really that convinced that I'm going to be in Slytherin you should help me get a wardrobe that the purebloods will accept.

Tom begrudgingly agreed, muttering on about horrible muggle fashion as he did. After getting fitted and measured by a clearly annoyed seamstress, Harry was slowly guided through a catalogue of men’s clothing by Tom, who was being rather patient despite his occasional annoyed muttering. Harry managed to be convinced to stick to a colour palette of browns, blacks, greens, and the occasional deep blue, and quickly found himself being guided through the shop by a polite but perplexed worker. The woman seemed to agree with Tom’s colours of choice, and Harry found himself unwittingly saddled with dark slacks and silk shirts that reminded him, uncomfortably, of Death. 

Despite that though, he also managed to get his hands on several pairs of warm socks and some very nice dragon leather combat boots, as well as some dress shoes of a similar material. He was also corralled into buying several robes, two scarves, a long winter cloak that he felt certain he would never actually wear, and two pairs of leather gloves. He left the store feeling aptly spent and made a quick jaunt over to Madam Malkins, where he got fitted a second time, but this time for school robes. Standing on the platform, Harry listened, detached, as the door opened and shut, and a familiar head of blond hair took up his peripheral vision.

Malfoy?

Harry looked to his right and sure enough, the supposed Prince of Slytherin himself stood on the adjacent platform, his nose in the air and posture as stiff as a board. For a moment, all Harry could really do was stare, trying to remember if Malfoy had looked so short in his last life. Really, the boy barely came up to Harry’s shoulder.

Malfoy glanced over to him, his eyes blatantly curious despite his best efforts to act posh. “Ello there, are you off to Hogwarts too?”

Bloody hell, he sounds so young.

Harry took a moment to reel at the absurdity of this entire situation, before nodding stiffly. “Yeah, I'm a first year. Name’s Harry Potter, you?”

Malfoy glanced up at his forehead, squinting slightly before apparently deciding that Harry was truthful in his claims. He wondered if some of the concealer had rubbed off through the day. It was all too likely considering the way Madam Malkins had been glancing at him.

“Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Pleased to meet you.” The shorter boy held out a hand, and for a moment Harry wondered if perhaps things could go a tad bit differently in his second life. 

Deciding that things went by too fast and would be over too quickly for him to contemplate new discoveries, Harry reached out and took the outstretched hand, jolting in surprise as strange prickles reached from his finger and up his arm. Malfoy seemed to notice it as well, and very nearly jerked out of the hold before stopping himself, and they partook in a very awkward, very stiff handshake.

“Right. Well. Are you excited for Hogwarts?”

The rest of the fitting was somewhat strained, and as they got along well enough Harry found that he couldn't stop thinking about that strange jolt of energy. He knew that it was probably nothing, just a buildup of static or something else, but it kept niggling at the back of his mind as he paid for his robes and bid Malfoy goodbye.

Upon exiting the store, Harry was quick to let any contemplative thoughts drift from his mind as he caught sight of his aunt twisting through the throngs of people, her head on a swivel as she searched for him. Holding up an arm, he merely waved her down and apologized for not telling her where he was off to. She shook her head, gripping his shoulder firmly and ushering him along towards other shops. The rest of his supplies were found quickly enough, and not an hour had passed before they were standing in front of Ollivanders.

“All we have left is my wand, auntie.” Harry crossed brass scales, thinking for a moment before looking up at her and adopting an innocently questioning expression. “Do you want to wait outside? I overheard from some other first years that Ollivander is mad as a hatter, and sometimes the wands try to blow up the shop.”

Petunia suddenly looked rather white, and motioned him towards the door as she settled down on a bench outside the wand shop. “I'll just stay here till you're finished dear.”

Entering the store smugly, Harry looked about at the dusty shelves and shoddily fixed furniture with mild trepidation, knowing that Ollivander was just as mad and observant as he had insinuated with Petunia. There was no telling what he would be able to discern from their conversation.

There came a shuffling from the back of the store, and as Harry neared the front desk he watched as a great puff of dust flew out of the darkened storage area, a wheezing cough accompanying it as Ollivander rounded the bend. The man peered at him for a moment, as if trying to discern if they had met before, before a flicker of recognition passed his face.

“Harry Potter? Yes, I was wondering when I would be seeing you.” Harry was absolutely certain now that some of the concealer had rubbed off, and he found himself pressing pitifully at his much too short hair in an effort to conceal the beginnings of his scar, knowing that it was a lost cause. “I see you've attempted to cover up your scar, very clever. I'm afraid to say that I sold the wand that did it...”

Harry made an effort not to listen as Ollivander droned on, much too focused on Tom’s rather sarcastic lamenting. Blah Blah Blah, I'm a great evil murderer who did great evil murder things, yes we are all aware. Get on with it, you madman.

Harry was trying very hard not to laugh.

“Right then, I suppose we should get on with it?” Nodding along with the man, who had then pulled out a familiar measuring tape and held it aloft in the air, Harry stepped back as he questioned. “Which arm is your wand arm?” Harry raised his right in tandem with the question, already knowing what was about to happen. The tape measure worked at a speedy pace, measuring everything under the sun… and some things hidden from the sun by several layers of clothing. Harry felt the creeping crawl of a blush travel up his neck as he shooed the enchanted instrument away. Ollivander seemed ignorant to the fact, already pottering around the shop in search of a good wand. Within mere moments, he returned again with several boxes held aloft in his arms, and let them all clatter to the counter before him.

“Hmm... let's try this one first, shall we? Maple, eleven inches, and with a dragon heartstring core.”

And so it went, Harry trying wand after wand with little to no luck, and Ollivander getting more and more excited till he was practically vibrating with glee. After ten excruciating minutes, the wandmaker muttered curiously under his breath as he pulled the holly and phoenix feather wand from it’s confindes. Immediately, Harry’s original mind-numbing boredom was replaced with excitement as he practically snatched the wand away from its maker, so sure that it was his that he was thoroughly shocked when it ripped itself from his grasp, tumbling onto the floor and letting out a great puff of smoke before rocketing off under a dusty shelf. Harry blinked, mouth gaping like a fish as Ollivander made a noise of annoyance and went to retrieve the cowering wand, which appeared quite limp and pitiful as he placed it back into the box.

Tom was cackling, his voice echoing through Harry’s skull as his confusion turned quickly to indignation. Ollivander hummed curiously, before turning and disappearing back into the stacks of wands as if nothing was amiss. Harry was unsure of what to do for a moment, as the megalomaniac inside his mind continued to laugh madly and the wandmaker made noises of excitement and confusion from deep within the confines of the store. How was it possible that his wand was no longer his? What had happened that made it so he was quite blatantly not worthy of it any longer? The realization came onto him nearly as soon as he asked the question, and Harry couldn’t help but snarl.

“Death, get your sorry arse in here now.”

Near-instantaneously with his words there was a familiar flash of light and an unearthly screeching sound, before the death god himself snapped into being, his body inclined on top of the front desk and his entire posture relaxed. Harry grit his teeth, glaring with as much annoyance as he could muster as Death appeared to make a considerable effort not to laugh.

“How's it going?”

The god’s tone was so casual and flippant that Harry couldn’t help but get even more annoyed, his clenched fists pounding onto the counter. “How’s it going? Is that what you’re going to say? My wand hates me, that's what's bloody going!”

Death merely rolled his eyes, reaching into his jacket’s pocket to get the cigarette box that was no doubt inside. Sure enough, he pulled a familiar little white box from its leather confines, taking a little death stick and lighting it easily. This all was unsurprising, what was surprising, however, was when he reached in again and pulled out the elder wand.

Harry blinked, looking at the death stick as if it would murder him where he stood. The god across from him only held it out farther, waving it in front of Harry’s face as if taunting him. 

“Bu-but Dumbledore-”

“Already taken care of.” The wand was forcefully shoved into his hands, where it proceeded to heat up and glow with a familiar golden-green, the magic practically palpable in the air before disappearing into nothingness once more. “You shouldn’t bother with any of the other wands, you know. The Hallows are somewhat… territorial, and the elder wand is the worst of the bunch. It won't let any other wand have you.”

The god smiled dryly, long legs brushing the floor as he sat back on the counter. “I know that look on your face. You’re worried about Dumbledore recognizing it, aren't you? Again, it's already taken care of.”

Harry made a considerable effort to glare, finding it severely lacking in heat. “Thank you.”

“Don't mention it kid.”

As if he hadn’t even been there in the first place, Death disappeared with an unearthly crack, leaving behind the smell of smoke and sulfur that seemed to stick to every piece of clothing Harry owned. Taking a single, extremely cautious look at the wand now buzzing happily in his hand, he let out a long-suffering sigh and quickly left the store, positive that he was wasting his time now that it was clear no other wand would have him.

Chapter Text

Harry Potter strolled the halls of Hogwarts, traversing through cold stone and darkened shadows in his pursuit of the library. Glancing towards a moving painting on his left, he couldn’t help but smile at the familiar faces inside, the people in turn grinning and waving as he walked past.

The library felt like a warm comfort as he entered it, the dust of long-forgotten tomes and crisp smell of new paper combining in such a way that reminded him inexplicitly of a warm hug, the familiar smell surrounding him like a soft blanket. Sighing contently, he traversed through the ancient stacks towards a shelf labelled ‘Defense Against the Dark Arts’. For a moment, he contemplated the shelf—which was already filled to the brim and quite ready to burst—before focusing closely, watching as it slowly expanded and reformed, filling out as the entire library widened marginally to make room for the extension.

Taking a book out of the bag slung casually over his shoulder, Harry reached forward and placed it in with the rest, making a mental note that there was now ample space for more Defense knowledge. He stood back and took a quiet moment to observe his display, proud of all the knowledge that he had amassed over both this life and the last.

“Is that the last one?” 

“I think so.”

A large hand settled onto his shoulder, and he glanced up to see the now-familiar face of Tom Riddle gazing at the shelf with mild interest. It had been a rather boring month for the pair, as they spent many of the long summer days both processing Harry’s new awareness of his status in the wizarding world, and sorting through few snippets of facts about various subjects that had been held in his new books but neither had been privy to prior. It was a rather arduous process, sorting through his new knowledge that is, and involved an exorbitant amount of walking through his mindscape. Sure, it was nice enough to walk the halls of Hogwarts, and he would never turn away from such a task, but considering that he would be getting onto the Hogwarts Express in all but two hours made the actions seem rather redundant, if anything.

Tom nodded, breaking Harry out of his thoughts as he took his hand off of the boy’s shoulder. “Well, you would do well to start getting ready.”

Swatting at the man, who merely chuckled, Harry dutifully closed his eyes in his mindscape, opening them again in the real world. He thought that he might be luckier than most, or at least Fate had decided to give him some reprieve, as while the week of his school shopping had been sweltering, the heatwave had finally simmered down and summer returned to a more pleasant heat. In fact, the breeze was just cool enough for him to happily wear a thin jumper, and as he buttoned his shirt he decided to do just that. Glancing in the mirror, he couldn’t help but grin, adjusting his collar for a moment before deciding that he looked about as well as he could.

Harry Potter was obviously muggle-raised, just going off his tan trousers and old trainers caked with dry mud, but the lightning bolt scar branching out from his hairline down to the tip of his nose told a different story. It was always fun for him to contemplate how the wizarding world had to have taken his placement with the Dursleys in his first life, as while at the time he had been much too focused on acclimating to his new environment than studying the people around him, Harry thought that he would manage to not only hold a Daily Prophet subscription much earlier, but would be able to see the snobby purebloods act properly flummoxed by his rather muggle appearance and knowledge.

“You ready for Pigpimples, Harry?” Dudley stood in the doorway, a mischievous grin slathered across his face as he leaned into the doorframe. Harry rolled his eyes, remembering how his cousin seemed to think the name of Hogwarts was far too ridiculous to not make fun of.

“Pimples are different from warts, Dudders.”

“Are not!”

“Are too.”

“Are not!”

Harry reached for a pillow on his bed and chucked it at the boy, smiling when it hit him straight in the face. With a shout, Dudley launched himself across the room and onto his bed, reaching for another pillow and quickly retaliating. Ten minutes later found them attempting to suffocate each other with the pillows, feathers and other debris blanketing the floor of their room as they wrestled around on the carpet.

“Boys! We’re leaving now.” Vernon’s voice from downstairs stopped their murder attempts, and Harry quickly pushed Dudley to the side, snatching his trunk up from where he had left it on his desk and quickly racing from the room, his cousin following quickly behind. The two pushed and shoved their way down the stairs, tripping each other up as they stumbled out of the front door, an exasperated Petunia following swiftly behind them.

“Goodness boys, you’re both absolutely blanketed in feathers. Did you start a third world war up there?”

His uncle took the trunk from his outstretched arm, grumbling on about fancy leather as he did. Snickering still, the two boys climbed into the back seat, still shoving each other as Petunia attempted to pick the feathers from their hair. Harry waved her off with a smile, brushing the feathers off him with practised ease as Dudley purposefully kicked the seats in front of him, making obnoxious noises and generally being a nuisance as the car sped away from Privet Drive. Vernon took on a shade of baby pink as Harry joined in and kicked especially hard on the driver-side seat, causing Dudley to give a bark-like laugh. “Alright you lot, settle down! If I hear even a peep from the back seat, you'll both be cleaning out the chimney when back from school, you hear?”

Sufficiently cowed, they settled for elbowing each other with ever-increasing strength for the entirety of the trip, occasionally needing to muffle their annoyed shouts with their hands as a particularly sharp elbow pierced a particularly sensitive section of their stomachs. It seemed that time passed quickly enough after that, and before Harry even knew it they were at King's Cross Station and he was being hugged by a teary-eyed Petunia.

“Do you remember how to get through to the platform, love?”

“Yes auntie.”

She sniffled, tousling his hair as Dudley made obnoxious faces from behind her back, causing Harry to try and choose between making a face back or comforting his aunt. Smiling at the woman, he hugged her back a bit tighter and promised to write at least twice a week. That seemed to abate some of her worry, and she nodded, wiping another tear out of her eye. “You better, and please be good dear. Only god knows what nonsense you’ll get up to in Scotland. We’ll see you at Christmas, yes?”

After a few much shorter goodbyes, Harry waved one final time to the retreating Dursleys and made his way further into the station, slipping easily enough through the crowd. Once he was far enough away from the initial hustle and bustle, he glanced quickly over his shoulder before adjusting his shirt and peering down the collar. 

“~Thasin, are you quite alright in there?~” He questioned her quietly, and the brightly coloured snake wrapped loosely around his middle peered up at his face as he spoke.

“ ~I am well, Harry, are we going to the castle of many mice now?~ ” He rolled his eyes, glancing up and around at the various people before replying. Thasin had adamantly refused to go to Hogwarts till Harry explained that it was full of mice and other things that a snake might enjoy eating, after which she had warmed up to the idea rather quickly.

“ ~Yes, we are, so stay quiet in there, yeah? I don't feel like explaining to anyone why I have a snake in my shirt.~ ”

Letting his collar fall back down, he glanced around the station, reading off the numbers as he passed them by. There was an immediate shift in his stature as he passed by platform eight, his shoulders hunching as he reached for a baseball cap he had clipped to the handle of his trunk. Putting it on, he picked his trunk back up again and walked briskly towards the wall between platforms nine and ten, glancing around wildly for anyone with a particular type of getup or outdated trunks. Not finding anyone or pausing in the slightest, he walked right through the wall into platform 9 ¾, the sounds and smells changing almost immediately as voices shouted out for their wandering children and the hum of magic in the air made his hair rise up on end.

It's good to be back.

The red steam engine was the first thing that caught his attention, the proud gleam of the Hogwarts crest across its side bringing his mind back to a simpler time of wonder and mystique. Not wanting to dally or risk getting caught by the Weasleys or any other particularly unsavoury group, Harry made his way through the crowds quickly, slipping through the throngs of people on a straight line towards the train. Hopping up onto the familiar metal steps, Harry easily lugged his trunk up onto it as well, glancing about for anyone who might stop him and strike up a conversation. Finding no one, he let out a quiet sigh of relief before turning towards the back of the train, intent on finding an empty compartment. 

The last door on the left in the very last car was my compartment in school, go there.

Deciding to humour the man, Harry followed Tom's instructions to the letter, hurrying with his head bowed through the train cars as students passed him by. The last car was surprisingly void of people, and as he walked down the length of it he managed to peak into every single compartment and found all of them empty. It was a similar situation with the last compartment, and he quickly slipped inside before someone decided to journey to the back of the train. Glancing about the silent space, he set his trunk down onto the floor and locked the door, shutting the curtains for privacy as the familiar feeling of Tom’s magic reared up from the back of his mind.

Ready Tommy?

Just do it leech.

Harry closed his eyes and centred himself, reaching for his magic that was sitting comfortably between his ribs. They had gotten quite good at switching control between the two of them after so many years of practice, and Harry was sure that it would take only a small amount of focus on Tom’s part to wrestle control over Harry if he was unconscious, something that he expected happened quite often while he slept at night. Reaching out with his magic, he felt Tom grab hold and pull himself to the surface.

Opening his eyes, Tom got to work, pottering around the compartment for a moment in an effort to raise the protections around it to the same standard that he had left them in. Recasting and replenishing the notice-me-not wards was simple enough, and adding small runes to the door to keep out any particularly stubborn intruders took only a half-hour, so before the train had even left the station he was sitting on his hands and knees in front of the black leather trunk, preparing himself to start enchanting the fourth compartment of it. They hadn't been able to do so at the Dursleys, as there was much else to be done and very little time to go about it, but being on the train for several hours gave him ample time to sort out the small living space.

That was how Tom spent the first several hours of the train ride, working tirelessly to completely rearrange and remake the space as the countryside flew by. Enchanting a compartment of a trunk to be bigger was quite simple, and could be done by a particularly ingenious third year given enough will and power, but once that was done he still had to alter the walls and transfigure furniture, a kitchenette, and other accessories to make the box-like space into something not only livable but comfortable. He was sure that the transfigurations would wear off in a few decades, but sincerely doubted that the trunk would still be in use by that point, and decided firmly that there would be plenty of time to buy real furniture if it was. He changed small pebbles that Harry had picked up on a walk into a dresser and drawers, transfigured little nick-nacks with no real value into beautiful glass figures and warm sheets. He worked for several hours to make the little space livable, and while doing all of it wandless. Two hours into the trip, he took one final look around the small room and sighed, letting Harry take back over as he slowly nodded off.

I've exhausted my reserves. Wake me up when we get to Hogwarts.

Harry blinked blearily around the studio apartment, taking in the cool greens and calming blues with an impartial eye. Everything was laid out in a very logical way, with a twin bed situated in one corner next to the door that he was sure led into a small bathroom, and the kitchenette flush against the opposite wall. There was no seating area besides a small desk and chair, but considering how much power had gone into creating the tiny place, Harry supposed that it would work well enough for an emergency home in the instance that he needed one. 

He sat onto the bed, feeling the mattress underneath him settle with his weight. It was really quite impressive for Tom to have managed to complete the entire room not only wandless but weakened, as while the man had once been one of the more magically powerful people on the planet, it seemed that he was not able to use nearly as much magic as a horcrux than he could as a human, which was a rather damning drawback that revealed itself as his magical reserves being quite shallow, and by extension the amount of magic he could use at a time was also quite low in comparison to what he was able to do at his prime.

Patting the comforter that decorated the bed, Harry stood and quickly left the small space, intent on keeping himself busy in some manner as he waited for the train to stop. After putting his newly enchanted trunk in the overhead, he settled down on the plush seat near the window and fell into a meditative state, his mindscape building itself up behind his eyes as he did.

Opening his eyes in the great hall, Harry looked up at the enchanted ceiling, observing the cloudy midday sky with growing nostalgia. He was unsure what he would feel upon reaching Hogwarts, but was sure that any feeling he would be experiencing would not come close to the emotions that had plagued him in his first life.

Sighing slightly, he left the hall, traversing through the familiar corridors on his way towards the library, passing by paintings and memories on the way there. Each painting in his mindscape was designed to change into different memories as he thought of them, his mindscape using the frames to show what memory he was thinking about currently. It was rather useful on good days and he was trying to remember things from ages past but couldn't quite envision what he wanted to remember, as his mind would supply him with an exact recreation of that particular memory. However, it seemed that this day was very clearly not one of those good days, and as he passed by the paintings, all of them showed the same, incredibly irritating, memory.

Harry stopped in front of a particularly large frame, watching as the paint inside swirled for a moment before clearing to show the memory currently plaguing his thoughts. He looked at himself, the smallest boy in his year, practically trembling on the stool as the sorting hat was placed onto his head. 

He had never been brave. 

In his first life, when he had been foolish and cowardly, he had shown up to Hogwarts desperate to prove himself, a little boy with knobbly knees and thick glasses that wished horribly that he could be brave. 

The hat shouted out Gryffindor. 

Harry could admit now that what he had really been asking for was stability… for acceptance. Slytherin would have tested him yes, but the first Harry Potter was Dumbledore's pawn before he even stepped foot into Hogwarts, and if he had gone off the predestined path that the headmaster had set for him, he wouldn't have survived his first year, simple as that. 

Never again.

Harry wasn't going to be brave anymore, and he certainly wasn't going to be a pawn. No, he had decided years before, when that little baby fawn had looked up at him with slowly dimming eyes, the blood matting its fur as it twitched in pain, that he was going to be a monster. Monsters are never expected to play a part in the game, and were often disregarded as obstacles and nothing more. No, monsters make their own game, hidden away in the eyes of participating chess players as pawns sacrificed themselves happily for merciless kings. 

He turned from the memory right as his old self leapt off the stool and stumbled to the cheering table decorated in reds and golds, his knobbly knees and large glasses revealing nothing of the future and of what was to come.

Harry opened his eyes on the Hogwarts Express, the outside world dark and foreboding in contrast with the cool light of the compartment. For a moment, he pressed his face against the glass and attempted to see outside of it, only managing to glimpse a few trees and faintly glittering stars. Making a face, he turned away and stood, reaching for his trunk to get changed into his uniform.

After getting dressed and rearranging the snake still flush against his middle, Harry poked his head out the door to watch as a few sparse older years rushed past him, their posture telling of people who had done this many times before and were already desensitized and bored of the causal magic in the air. Moving back into the compartment for a moment, he hissing a few quick words at Thasin, telling her to stay as still as possible for as long as possible before opening the door all the way and merging with the group of other students, slinking through the crowd as people began exiting the train. It wasn’t difficult for him to spot Hagrid in the low light, as despite the sunset having long since passed, there was light enough to make out the man’s imposing figure, and he joined the other first years as they made their way down to the rickety dock.

“Firs’ years! Firs’ years o’er here!”

Ducking out of the way of the man’s lantern, Harry sat down in a boat with three other people, observing who he thought might be Neville Longbottom across from him. Neville had grown a lot over the years of school, and his eleven-year-old self was almost unrecognizable in comparison to him at seventeen. Harry squinted, trying to recall if his old friend had been so pudgy in their first year. The boy in question seemed unnerved by his gaze, and smiled tensely before looking away.

Harry blinked, realizing that he had likely been making a rather severe expression that would have no doubt put Neville on edge. Smiling slightly, in a way that he hoped was more pleasant, he nodded companionably towards the other boy. “Ello there.”

“Oh! Uh.. hi.” Neville shifted in his seat, likely in an effort to keep a hold on his Trevor, who was making a commendable effort to escape.

Smiling slightly, Harry held out his hand to shake, which Neville recoperated, if cautiously. “What house do you want to get into? I'd rather enjoy Hufflepuff, personally.” He saw the boy glance towards his forehead, before making a face that could resemble constipation or perhaps even befuddlement. Harry could hear Tom’s drowsy scoff from the deeper recesses of his mind and rolled his eyes, watching as Neville worked to form a proper sentence.

“Uh… well my gran wants me to be in Gryffindor like my dad, but I don't know if I'll make it.”

Harry nodded companionably, watching as the waves gently brushed against their boat. “Sure, but what do you want?”

“Huh?”

Harry made an effort not to roll his eyes a second time, contemplating if Neville had ever even considered what he wanted. “What house do you want to be in?”

The boy seemed to be thinking very hard about that particular question, so Harry left him to it and turned to the other two people in the boat. Squinting through the low light, he managed to get a good look at a very young Hannah Abbott next to Neville, and Susan Bones across from her.

I don't like all the Hufflepuffs you’ve surrounded yourself with, leech.

Why? Afraid they'll tempt me to the house of badgers?

A sharp pain through his scar was the only reply.

He considered talking to the two girls for a moment, but all thoughts of conversation flew from his mind as Hogwarts came into sight and everyone around him gasped in wonder. He couldn’t help but stare at the castle longingly, taking in the towering structure with a very partial gaze. More magic sensitive than he was in his last life, he could practically taste Hogwarts’ unique magic in the air, the distinct tartness of lime and spiciness of cinnamon coming to him first and foremost. 

Harry felt like he was coming home.

As the boats came gently to the shore, the first years stumbled out one at a time, feet squelching through the mud underfoot as they all slipped and slid up the incline and towards the castle proper. Hagrid led the preceding up the bank and into the castle, moving them along at a brisk pace as he occasionally peered over his shoulder towards them. Before Harry could do so much as take in his surroundings and register what was different and what was the same to his mindscape, the group came upon the stiff form of Professor McGonagall, who then had a quiet if strained conversation with Hagrid. All Harry could pick up was a few muffled words, but it was enough for him to figure out what was being said.

“I didn’t see ‘im Pro’fessor, but he might ‘ave slipped past.”

“That's fine Hagrid, I'll take a closer look.”

McGonagall not-so-subtly searched the crowd, her eyes roaming past each person’s face as she spoke about the houses and the sorting. He entertained the idea of crouching down and hiding for a moment but thought better of it, knowing that they were mere minutes from being sorted anyway. He could tell the moment her eyes locked onto his scar and the wheels in her head started turning, her eyes narrowed in consideration as she observed his face. Harry could admit that he didn't look much like his father anymore, his face shape being different and more angular, his jawline stronger and very dissimilar to James Potter’s softer looks. It was probably Death's fault, as making Harry resemble him in some way could very likely be not only possible but easy for the god to do. However, it was hardly a regression in his looks, so Harry couldn’t very well complain about it.

McGonagall led them into a side chamber and told them to smarten up, her cloak billowing in a way very reminiscent of a particular potions professor as she strode out. Immediately after she left, whispers broke out among the nervous first years, the familiar voice of Hermione Granger managing to brush his ears as she mumbled spells under her breath from across the room. He stood stock-still for several seconds, observing the room and its occupants as the occasional curious gaze caught his own eyes before looking away.

“Oi! Are you Harry Potter?”

With Tom cackling in his head, Harry turned slightly to his left, finding Ronald Weasley staring up at him with an excited gleam to his eyes. Taking a moment to reflect fondly on his life twenty seconds prior, Harry nodded affirmatively and decided to play mute.

The cowards way out.

Oh? Would you prefer I strike up a civil conversation?

It doesn't seem like you get a choice in the matter.

“Wicked! My name is Ron. Ron Weasley-'' Thus began the most painful thirty seconds of Harry's young life, with Ronald talking his ear off about everything under the sun as Harry tried to slowly inch away. “Quidditch is the best, I know you grew up with muggles and all that, but I'd be happy to show you how to play-” So it seemed Dumbledore told the Weasleys about his family. Sad, but unsurprising. “I’m gonna be in Gryffindor, it's the best house, Ravenclaw is alright, but it's full of a bunch of stuck-up nerds, at least that's what the twins say. Hufflepuff-” Harry was getting uncomfortably close to committing his first murder when Draco Malfoy, always the reliable one, decided to butt into the conversation, his nose pointed high in the air as he strutted over to them. Harry couldn’t help but sigh in slight relief as Malfoy got into Ronald’s personal space and looked him up and down with obvious disgust.

“Oh don't flatter yourself Weasley, you'll be lucky if even Hufflepuff accepted you.”

Ronald went quite pink in the cheeks, squaring up as well and looking quite ready for a fight. “Sod off, Malfoy! You're one to talk, being a shoe-in for Slytherin.”

Harry stood passively while the two argued, wondering if this moment was indicative of the rest of his life. Two sides fighting over him in a constant, neverending tug-of-war as he watched on, unable to speak for himself and unwilling to even try.

As he watched the argument devolve from already petty jabs to blatant name-calling, the Fat Friar and Grey Lady breezed through a wall to the northwest, right on time. What was odd about it however, is that neither got a single word off, instead immediately training their eyes on him and gasping in horror. He blinked, listening vaguely as people around him shouted in fright, before the two ghosts quickly fled the scene.

Weird.

Just as this happened, Professor McGonagall reentered the room, her sharp gaze silencing any of the shouting students in attendance. Nodding to herself, she made a motion for them to all follow her before leading them out of the small room and into the Great Hall. Malfoy, seemingly having won whatever posturing battle he and Ronald had fought, was now walking along Harry’s left flank, following along like a lost puppy as Harry spared him merely a glance before training his gaze on the staff table at the back of the room.

“The ceiling is enchanted, I read about it in Hogwarts: A History.” Hermione Granger, ever the walking encyclopedia, spoke quietly to another girl, who seemed unsure of whether to be thankful for the distraction or annoyed that said distraction was inclined towards literature. 

Malfoy leaned up to him, whispering in his ear as the nervous voices around them tapered off. “Hey. Hey, Potter. What house do you want to be in?”

Harry couldn’t help but compare the boy to a particularly vocal bird, finding himself hunching down to better speak with the much smaller boy. “I'm not sure, whichever is best for me, I s’pose.”

“Well of course, but which one do you like the best?” Harry was finding himself enjoying the blond much more in this life than he had in his last, and wondered if that was due to him having a different outlook or Malfoy being less obnoxious and rude than before. Perhaps the manner in which they met was indicative of a better relationship? Harry certainly didn’t know, time travel seemed awfully finicky at best, as there seemed to be no way of knowing what would happen after you start making changes.

“I’m rather impartial, if that's what you mean to ask.” Either way, Malfoy was far more pleasant to deal with in this life, so Harry was hardly going to complain either way.

“Well, I hope you're in Slytherin with me. I've heard the common room is brilliant.” Harry furrowed his brow at the words, about to reply before they were stopped abruptly by McGonagall, who left them clustered in a group as she left to bring over the hat and stool. Setting the sorting hat gently on the seat, she stood back as one of the seams ripped open and the hat started to sing.

"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,

But don't judge on what you see,

I'll eat myself if you can find

A smarter hat than me.

You can keep your bowlers black,

Your top hats sleek and tall,

For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat

And I can cap them all.

There’s nothing hidden in your head

The Sorting Hat can’t see,

So try me on and I will tell you

Where you ought to be.

You might belong in Gryffindor,

Where dwell the brave at heart

Their daring, nerve and chivalry,

Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff

Where they are just and loyal,

Those patient Hufflepuffs are true,

And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,

If you've a ready mind,

Where those of wit and learning,

Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin,

You'll make your real friends,

Those cunning folk use any means,

To achieve their ends.

So put me on! Don't be afraid!

And don't get in a flap!

You're in safe hands (though I have none)

For I'm a Thinking Cap!”

There was a deafening round of applause from all four houses as the first years looked on in trepidation, their worries not abated in the least as McGonagall stepped forward with a long scroll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat to be sorted.” She then turned to look at the scroll, her posture stiff and poised as she began to shout out names. “Abbott, Hannah!”

“Hufflepuff!”

She seems like a sweet girl.

“Bones, Susan!”

“Hufflepuff!”

It would be smart to get on her good side.

Harry could feel Tom prowling around his mind, annoyed and distrustful of Harry’s intentions after their brief conversation a month prior.

“Boot, Terry!”

“Ravenclaw!”

Malfoy seemed to be glancing at his face every few seconds, as if trying to sort together some sort of great puzzle but being without a large amount of the pieces. Harry ignored him, his eyes trained on the woman who was speaking, his shoulders going taught as she called out ‘Granger, Hermione!’. The girl immediately scuttled up to the stool and shoved the hat onto her head, a determined gleam to her eyes slowly gaining indignation and even horror as the seconds dragged on.

This was the first sorting to take longer than a few seconds, as it became very obvious that Hermione was attempting to argue with the hat. Eventually, a very disgruntled hat yelled out for Gryffindor, and she practically threw it off of her head before running off to the respective table. Harry noticed Dumbledore smile happily, the old man’s clapping seeming particularly loud and joyous as the girl was greeted by gold and red.

“Hopkins, Wayne!”

“Hufflepuff!”

And so it continued, the list rounding onto ‘Longbottom, Neville’ as the pudgy boy nervously walked up to the stool. He sat there for a moment, his eyes wide and hands clenched painfully around his outer sleeves before the hat called out Hufflepuff.

Harry smiled, watching as the boy handed off the hat before cautiously waking to the table, being immediately greeted with warm smiles and open arms. Good for him.

“MacDougal, Morag!”

“Ravenclaw!”

“Malfoy, Draco!”

“Wish me luck?” Malfoy’s cheeky voice piped up from his shoulder, and Harry peered down at the boy with a raised eyebrow.

“Get up there already.” He replied curtly instead, eyes already trained back on the raised platform in front of them. Malfoy seemed to take it all in stride though, practically floating up to the stool and sitting down onto it with a certain amount of grace that Harry found quite impressive. The hat, once again, barely needed to brush the top of his head before it was shouting out ‘Slytherin!’.

I was like that. Tom seemed to have found a kindred spirit.

Of course you were.

As they neared the P’s, excited whispers started to break out among the crowd behind them, and Harry felt his already inconsolable nerves nearly double in strength.

“Potter, Harry!”

He climbed the steps slowly, his posture straightening as the muttering rose to new levels. Turning so that he could sit onto the stool, he kept his gaze locked firmly on the door out of the great hall before the hat fell onto his head and obscured his view of the curious faces that lined each table.

Hufflepuff, if you please.

Slytherin. Now.

Harry and Tom both spoke at the same time in his head, completely drowning out the hat’s initial words of delight. Well! Isn't this fascinating. Mr Potter, however did you end up with the dark lord in your head…? Ah! That's how. Hmmm… I see, I see, what an interesting life you've lived-or, should I say lives? It is a joy to sort you a second time, Master of Death. I will do well not to make the same mistake as I did previous.

Harry couldn’t find the patience inside himself for enchanted hats, and merely repeated his request. Hufflepuff. Now. Chop chop.

The hat laughed humorously as Tom raged in his mindscape, the distinct feeling akin to what Harry might expect it would feel like to have a rather large boulder crushing his head forcing him to clench his eyes shut in pain.

Now now Mr Riddle, don't you worry, there's no conceivable way I could place Mr Potter in Hufflepuff.

Well why the hell not?

Harry couldn’t help but sigh in relief as the pain immediately abated, though he winced as an exclamation of anger came quickly tumbling into his mind without consequence or reason. The hat tutted at him, its voice taking on a scolding tone. Mr Potter, I mean you no disrespect, as you are quite hard working. However, your hard work is only to achieve your own ends. That is not to mention your loyalty, which I am afraid is rather non-existent. Yes, I feel assured in stating that if I went against all I stood for to place you in Hufflepuff, the castle would be up in flames within the week.

Harry supposed that was fair.

That being said, I quite agree with Mr Riddle, Slytherin suits you even more in this life than it did in your last.

The smugness radiating from Tom was infuriating, and Harry quickly found himself practically begging the enchanted object to reconsider.

Mr Hat, I am trying very hard to fly under Dumbledore’s field of influence. Would you, in the very least, please consider Ravenclaw?

The hat tutted again, its words ringing out in his mind like the gong of a bell. You are indeed quite witty Mr Potter, and your drive to learn is one that I have not seen in many years, but I'm afraid that I have to decline your request for the house of Ravens as well.

Why? Harry was getting increasingly agitated, his fingers clenching the seat of his stool as the seconds crawled on. At this rate he would quickly become a hat stall, and people would be expecting nothing but Gryffindor from him once it was all said and done. Harry grit his teeth, an edge of panic washing through him. Slytherin was the last place Dumbledore wanted him to be, and a Harry Potter wearing a green tie was a Harry Potter that knew no peace from the man. Even if he suited Slytherin best, there was no telling how well he would truly manage to flourish there under Dumbledore’s tyrannical regime.

Mr Potter, you cannot go to Gryffindor because you are not truly brave, not anymore, as I am quite sure you have figured out for yourself. You can not go to Hufflepuff because you are loyal to no one and never will be, and you are certainly not kind. You cannot go to Ravenclaw because your intelligence is a means to an end, used as a sword against your foes. To be blunt, you pursue it for power and nothing more. You must go to Slytherin, dear boy, because you embody the house to the letter. Ambition drums in your ears child, you wish to topple an empire! Not only that, but you drip cunning to the floor like blood, and I do not doubt that you will sneak around right under the Headmaster's nose. You are resourceful, determined, and refuse to be used. Utterly self-reliant. Yes, I am afraid that any trait you have that may lend you to one of the other houses is a byproduct of your Slytherin characteristics. It is the only place for you, and I have no doubt that you will flourish there.

Tom was never going to let him live this down.

Do not worry, Master of Death. The headmaster is many things, but prepared for you is certainly not one of them.

“Slytherin!”

Chapter Text

Previously:

Tom was never going to let him live this down.

Do not worry, Master of Death. The headmaster is many things, but prepared for you is certainly not one of them.

“Slytherin!”

The Slytherins in attendance appeared quite flummoxed, their eyes widening as they murmured to themselves with confusion. Ravenclaw was merely curious, and Hufflepuff appeared strangely relieved. There was some angry muttering from Gryffindor, Ron Weasley had gone stark white, and Harry could feel Dumbledore’s gaze burning a hole in his back.

So everything was just peachy.

Getting up, Harry could hear the distinct sound of Tom popping open a bottle of champagne.

Yeah yeah laugh it up, you ponce. How did you even get food in my head?

Handing the hat back to McGonagall, who was impressively unfazed by the proceedings, he walked stiffly over to a very happy Draco sitting at the Slytherin table. Settling down, Harry continued to watch the sorting with a detached gaze, his mind already wandering as he kept his eyes firmly locked onto the stool, not deviating for a moment towards the Headmaster or any other person in attendance. He felt a sort of numb acceptance wash over him as the crowds of people glanced at him with confusion and, occasionally, disgust. He should have expected this. Hell, he should have planned for it with more detail than just theoretics. There was much more that he would have to do now if he wanted to get things done in an appropriate manner.

The rest of the sorting went by quickly enough as the pale Ronald Weasley was sorted into Gryffindor, and Blaise Zabini was placed firmly into Slytherin. Harry watched it all distantly, his own thoughts muddled with a strange mix of panic and, oddly enough, relief. As Zabini settled down at the Slytherin table, the hat was carried away and Dumbledore stood to give a speech.

“Welcome back to another wonderful year at Hogwarts! Or, if you are new-” Harry let his mind quickly wander, already knowing most of what would be said and feeling far more focused on his new predicament. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he hadn’t truly been expecting to wind up in any other house other than Slytherin, but had been hoping anyway that he might be able to convince the hat to give him this one minor reprieve. However, he was not so underprepared for the instance of becoming a Slytherin in any capacity, as he had lived with one of the most infamous of the lot in his head for the entirety of his childhood, and was certain he would be prepared.

If I campaigned for a title, I might manage to get the house on my side.

Not even a few minutes into being sorted and you're already planning on taking control? Remind me again how you could have ever been suited to Hufflepuff, if you would.

Harry sighed, watching as Dumbledore smiled genially towards the crowd. Tom had spent many hours lecturing him on the precise and complicated web that made up Slytherin politics. And he could admit that, while absurd, he could use it all to his advantage. As Tom had explained, it was his understanding that there was an entire hierarchy inside of the house that was kept completely secret to the rest of the school, and played not only a large part but was a crucial puzzle piece in wizarding politics, as Slytherin politicians made up the vast majority of the Wizengamot and Ministry as a whole.

To be perfectly honest, it was a miracle that no one outside of Slytherin was aware of such a thing existing after so long, and Tom had, apparently, done a great deal of research into the possibility of the subject being under some sort of secrecy ward, but hasn't found anything that confirmed or denied the theory. Personally, Harry rather thought that the only way it managed to stay secret for so long was that Slytherins never wanted to admit that there was not only an infantile monarchy system in their house, but that it had spanned centuries, as something like that could be considered rather embarrassing to admit to polite company, though that was merely speculation.

He let out an annoyed breath, wishing that he could make a relatively impolite gesture towards the headmaster under the table as he continued to drone on. Tom had explained the Slytherin hierarchy to him years ago, going on about princes and princesses and kings and queens—all that tosh. He was aware that there was a bit of a divide between the school years, as it seemed that the prince and princess held dominion over the first through third years, while the king and queen controlled the upper years. There were other titles besides the royals of course, as if the king and queen—or prince and princess, he supposed—were not dating each other, then they would also have a ‘consort’, who was really just their partner but with a more fanciful title than girl or boyfriend. There were advisors and such as well, but most of the titles besides the royals and consorts were usually made up on the fly, not being all that important in the general hierarchy. 

What was important, however, was the reason that Harry needed the prince title in the first place: power. Something that, considering the long road ahead of him, interested Harry very much. Tom had become prince in his second year after all, and he became the most feared dark lord in recent history. If Harry played his cards right, tumbling Dumbledore off his throne would be much, much easier if he got his hands on the prince title first.

This might just be a blessing in disguise Tom. Holding any of the royal titles will easily keep me safe, just as it did for Malfoy in the last timeline. If I want to not only survive but ‘flourish’ as the hat said, then that will be my best avenue.

I agree, but my question still stands.

Don't you have something better to do than annoy me with petty taunts, Riddle?

Harry didn't think that the takeover would be too terribly difficult, all things considered. He had a good foundation in Slytherin it seemed, as he had somehow managed to befriend Draco Malfoy, of all people, and it was doubtful that the older years would try to aggravate him if Malfoy was there to be offended by it. Of course, he did have the title of Heir Slytherin to contend with as well, but he was loath to admit something like that to anyone until the time was right.

He focused back in on Dumbledore in time to hear the foreboding warning about the third corridor, and couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

Do you reckon we should go steal it?

Tom huffed, an emotion not unlike irritation making itself present in his voice. From what your memories show, it would be impossible to even get our hands-on. That blasted mirror would foil any plan we could come up with.

Not if I don't plan on using the stone.

Pardon?

The appearance of a feast in front of him cut the conversation short, and Harry began swiftly piling a variety of foods on his plate. Despite the feelings of hunger prevalent in his mind, Harry ate with impeccable table manners, knowing that his usual barbaric approach to eating was not only unnecessary but unwanted at the table.

The group around him was tense, each first-year looking between themselves questioningly. Looking a fair way down the long table, Harry observed the older years speaking hushed words to each other while pointing at him. Raising an eyebrow, he turned back to his food and designed to ignore them for as long as physically possible. 

To take his mind off the approaching drama that was sure to unfold, he looked around his immediate vicinity and watched the other first years. Malfoy, who Harry supposed he should start calling Draco now, was talking very loudly to Theodore Nott, who looked much less enthusiastic about the conversation, as he kept trying to inch away from the blond. Blaise Zabini was watching Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis chatter with mild confusion, and Harry managed to catch the boy’s eye to smile disarmingly. Surprisingly, he gained a casual wave for his troubles, as the other boy seemed completely at ease with Harry being there.

Finding all other conversions in his vicinity boring, he turned inward and resumed his chat with Tom.

Well, I don't want to use it, not in the traditional sense. He took a bite of broccoli, watching as Pansy Parkinson kept eying him with casual disdain. I want to use it as leverage to get a useful ally.

That ally being?

Nicolas Flamel, of course.

“Well Potter, colour me impressed. I didn't think it was possible for the hat to be tricked.” Harry looked up, extremely unimpressed by the insult, to find Pansy Parkinson very blatantly glaring down her pug nose at him.

“Are you complimenting me for doing something never seen before, or trying to insinuate that I don't belong in Slytherin? It's awfully difficult to tell.”

Draco snickered next to him, and all the other first-years pretended to continue eating their meal while leaning closer into the table to hear the ensuing argument.

“Well of course you don't belong here!”

“Give me one good reason why not.” Conversation between the second years stopped as well, and the entire table slowly quieted as people glanced at each other warily, seeming unsure with what to do. Politics seemed to be something of a slippery slope in Slytherin, and considering that the most recent batch of first years had two half-bloods among them, things could get a bit nasty rather quickly. Harry could almost taste Parkinson's blood on his teeth, and leaned towards her threateningly as she squared her shoulders, not giving him an inch while trying to take a mile.

Watch yourself, Leech. You don't want to show your hand too soon.

Luckily, he didn't have too, as one of the older years seemed to take it upon themselves to cough rather obnoxiously before starting up their conversation again, and everyone seemed to resume their meal rather quickly after that, though tensions were high among the first years as Harry continued to glare at Parkinson with annoyance.

“So, Potter—sorry, can I call you Harry? Right then, Harry-” Malfoy, or Draco, he supposed, had momentarily given up on any sort of conversation with Nott, and was now attempting to chatter his ear off. Harry let the meaningless conversation wash over him, his gaze slowly leaving Parkinson as she too decided to ignore him.

The rest of dinner passed without incident, and they were soon being led through the dungeons and towards the common room by two prefects. Harry had been in a bit of a mood since the Parkinson incident, as he now dubbed it, and was sulking along at the end of the group next to Draco, who had doubled his efforts to get Nott roped into conversation, much to the other boy’s displeasure. It was not so much that Draco was obnoxious by any means, though Harry was sure that that particular character trait played a part in the entire thing, it was simply that Nott didn’t seem to enjoy human interaction in any capacity. Harry watched the pair warily, feeling that if Draco continued on there as he was going there was sure to be something of an upset between the two, as Nott appeared very close to whacking the blond over the head with his book.

Feeling eyes on him, Harry glanced towards the front of the procession to find that the fifth-year prefect, Gemma Farley, was looking at him with a warm smile.

Oh… please don't.

Harry fought a grimace, knowing exactly what the girl wanted. It had become apparent to him after an absurd amount of dinner parties that older women seemed particularly inclined to pinch his cheeks, or at least coo incessantly for no other reason than he was a ‘poor little orphan’.

Smiling in a rather strained way, he watched as she happily waved at him before turning back to the front, apparently deciding to bother him at a later time.

Sighing in relief, he watched as the entire group came to a sudden halt in front of a blank wall. As Draco darted around in an attempt to get a better view of what was happening, Harry stayed where he was and merely looked over everyone’s heads, watching as the prefects started to explain how to get into the common room.

“It's quite simple really.” The male prefect, who Harry had never bothered to learn the name of, waved his hand in front of the blank wall. “The password this week is newt, and changes every fortnight. All you’ve got to do is say the word and the entrance will open up.”

As he said the word ‘newt’ the stone wall behind him slowly slipped inward and revealed the common room inside. Everyone oohed and awed for a moment, taken aback by the complicated enchantments as the prefects began to wave them through.

“Alright you lot, get in.” The first years shuffled into the room slowly, taking their time to observe the surprisingly cosy interior. Harry himself was rather unsurprised when walking in, having had years of Tom’s memories to draw references from. He could admit that a few things had changed over the decades that Tom had not been in school, but his own—if incredibly brief—memory of the common room had assured him that he would know most of the room’s general layout.

The entire common room was in the shape of a long rectangle, with the far wall being entirely made out of a single pane of incredibly thick glass. All along the side walls were great, big fireplaces with cosy couches and long shag rugs ‘to keep your feet warm during the winter’ as was explained by Farley. There were elegant stairs on either side of them, starting along the walls and curving upwards to connect in the middle and leading to a second floor above their heads, which appeared to have more seating. Walking further in, Harry noticed that the paintings and banners along the walls were all snake-themed, though he could hardly be surprised by it, and that while the room seemed to be focused on colours of silver and green, there were a few accents of copper and gold as well, which did well to break up the monotony.

Gemma turned to them with a dazzling smile, spreading her arms wide as if showing off a great treasure. “Welcome, little firsties, to Slytherin! For any of you who don't know, I'm Gemma Farley, and the grump next to me is Jacob don’t-talk-to-me-while-I’m-reading Rosier!” The newly dubbed Jacob glared at her heatedly, his brown eyes boring into her skull as if attempting to crush it with his gaze alone. She ignored him, her arms waving cheerily through the air as she motioned at different places and things. “Up those stairs behind you are the dormitories, the girls on the left and gents on the right. If you feel so inclined to go in the dormitory not assigned to you, then the enchantments will quite promptly throw you out. Behind me is the seating area, where you are free to sit wherever your little heart desires.” 

Shaking his head, Rosier continued with the introduction, moving away from the girl on his right as he spoke. “There are three rules to Slytherin, the first being that, outside of these walls, we are a house united. There will be no in-fighting where other houses can see, and if you have a problem with someone, you will deal with it inside of the commons. Secondly, if you feel so inclined to start something with someone of higher standings than you, then you cannot expect anyone to come rushing to your aid. Figure out your place and stay there. Lastly-” He smirked, spine straightening with pride as he gestured towards the room behind him. Harry couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Never get caught.” 

Harry was starting to think that most Slytherins focused their ambitions towards being incredibly dramatic instead of actual, constructive, pursuits. Tom being a perfect example. Really, if any of them bothered with focusing their attention towards getting things done rather than the obscene amount of time they put into presentation, then the world would actually start turning a little faster.

Rosier opened his mouth to speak again, before a silky voice rose up from the back of the group, and everyone quickly turned to see who had spoken. “Thank you Mr Roiser... I can take things from here.” 

Harry fought back a grimace, watching as the man’s cape billowed with the warm draft. He had forgotten about that particular issue with Slytherin, that being its head of house was rather horrible, all things considered.

Severus Snape stood menacingly before them, his dark eyes betraying nothing but mild destain as he quietly addressed the crowd of nervous first years. 

“Good evening. I am your Head of House and potions Professor Severus Snape. If you feel so inclined to discuss any matter that you believe goes beyond the capabilities of your prefects, then you will report it to me. Any acting up, pranks, loss of decorum or… bullying...” He glanced at Harry, who blinked with confusion. “-that I find out about will be reprimanded heavily. Mr Potter, a word.”

The other first years were led up the stairs as Harry lagged behind, watching as Snape came over to purposefully tower over him. It seemed that the man was attempting something not unlike intimidation, which would have worked rather well if Harry was anyone else. Sadly, all that he felt was mild annoyance and disdain for the man, as we wished that he could just go to his dorm and sleep the day away. However, he could sense a moderate amount of confusion coming from the man, which made him stand still and wait for something to be said, curious as to why Snape seemed so… conflicted. It could very well be because he didn’t look like his father in the slightest, if one was to ignore their identical skin tone and hair colour, and that particular feeling of familiarity was something that had made Snape despise him in the first timeline. Perhaps the two of them could be on pleasanter grounds this time? 

Probably not, but it was certainly a nice thing to contemplate.

Harry smiled pleasantly, hoping that he could weasel his way out of what was shaping up to be a no doubt strained conversation with kind words. Snape, in turn, grimaced rather heavily.

“Mr Potter, I… I would like you to know that your mother and I were good friends.” Harry was immediately taken aback by the man’s words, having expected some sort of sarcastic quip about his father or something equally obnoxious, and blinked owlishly at the rather curt man.

“Oh, uh… well, sir, I would certainly like to learn more about her. Aunt Petunia doesn’t like to speak of her much. Do you have any photographs by chance?” It hadn’t even been much of a lie really. His aunt never spoke much of his parents if she could help it, and had long since removed any photographs of Lily Potter from the Dursley residence and into storage for a time that Harry would be older and in need of photos to decorate his home.

Snape went a very worrying shade of white upon hearing Harry remark that he lived with Lily Evans’ darling older sister, before progressively getting more and more red. Harry watched, fascinated, as the potions professor cycled through every colour shade imaginable, settling finally on a pleasant green colour that reminded him inexplicably of vomit. They stood very quietly and very still for several, incredibly awkward moments, before Snape slowly nodded.

“Very good, Mr Potter. That is all.” Before Harry could do so much as reply, the man swept from the room, his cloak billowing erratically behind him as he all but spirited from the common room. Harry blinked, completely and utterly confused, before turning and deciding to find his dorm. He trotted up the stairs on his right, meandering up to the door labelled ‘Boys Dormitories’ as he did.

The door was rather massive, and the hallway it opened up to was equal to the size and grandeur of every corridor in Hogwarts, with large and magnificent windows set into the cold rock. Walking down the hall, he stopped at the nearest window and looked out into the green water of the Black Lake, peering downwards in an attempt to see if there was any sort of bottom to the murky emerald hues. Finding none, he continued on his search, eventually coming across a door with his, Draco’s, and Blaise Zabini’s names all carved into a golden plate, which was further inlaid into the dark oak.

Peering in, he found a large square room with a large canopy bed on each wall, the walls each holding one, smaller window in direct comparison to the ones in the hall. Observing further, he found that on the left-hand side of each bed was an elegantly carved desk, and a large armoire sitting on the right. The walls were the same stone as the rest of the castle, but the floor was completely covered with a deep green shag carpet very similar to the ones out in the common room. Everything was in different shades of green and silver, and Harry found himself rather taken with the atmosphere that the colours and furniture created.

“What did Professor Snape want?” Glancing at the bed on his right, Harry noticed Zabini was currently lounging across it.

“Just wanted to ask how my aunt was. Apparently, they grew up together, same with my mum.”

The boy seemed to accept that answer, and pointed to the bed that was on the far wall. “Draco took the bed across from me, so you can have that one.”

Shrugging, Harry closed the door behind him and made his way to the last available bed. Looking around for his trunk, he eventually found it under his bed and proceeded through the third compartment, taking out his various clothing and setting it away in the armoire. It was strange how the Gryffindor and Slytherin dorms differed, as there had never been much in the way of closet space, much less fanciful wardrobes to house your clothing in Gryffindor tower. Harry found himself enjoying the change a great deal as he hung his various jumpers away, his trousers all by extension being firmly folded and pressed into one of the cabinets.

Distantly, he could hear voices speaking to each other as he went about the task diligently, but found himself blocking out the majority of what was being said. Reaching into the deeper recesses of his trunk, he pulled out both pairs of dragon leather boots he had bought, and placed them smartly side by side where they would be easily accessible each morning. Stepping back, he observed his handiwork with a satisfied smile, reaching a hand up his shirt as he groped around for Thasin.

“Oi, Harry, Zabini and I were just talking and—oh sweet Merlin is that a snake?!”

Harry turned to Draco with an unimpressed look, holding a very hungry Thasin up to the light for the two other boys to observe. He raised an eyebrow, watching his apparent dormmates as the snake attempted to casually strangle his arm with varying degrees of success.

“No, you moron. She's obviously an owl.”

Both of the other boys seemed unsure how to deal with the unexpected addition to their room, which was now feeling quite cramped with the moderately sized snake taking up space inside it. Harry sighed, wondering if people would ever react to things normally for once. Really, this was literally Slytherin, why were they shocked that he had a snake? Out of any of the houses, he would have expected this one to be far more forgiving in regards to the reptile.

“ ~Harry I can smell mice! Let me hunt!~”

He almost slipped into parseltongue to reply but stopped himself, deciding to gently place her onto the shag carpet instead. She darted, quick as a viper, out of the room, Draco screaming bloody murder all the while.

“By Hecate’s torch! You're in the house of snakes Malfoy, have some class!” Zabini’s words seemed a tad hypocritical, considering the fact that he had jumped up on his bed when Thasin was put onto the floor and was currently gripping the bannister tightly.

“Her name is Thasin, and her venom isn't deadly to anything but mice, so you both can stop that now.”

Both boys sheepishly climbed down from their beds, Draco appearing quite a bit paler than usual as he did. Harry rolled his eyes at the both of them, turning to address the last of his things that had yet to be unpacked. His cauldron could be attached to his satchel, which would eventually need to be magically expanded if he could ever hope to keep even a reasonably large amount of things inside of it. 

Grumbling slightly, he turned around to find Zabini staring him down.

“Yes?”

The boy rubbed his jaw, glancing towards the door that Thasin had activated moments prior. “I've never seen a snake like that, where did you buy her?”

Setting his satchel onto his bed, Harry hummed for a moment, putting fountain pens and quills alike into a small pouch on the front of the bag. “She's a California garter snake, and I found her in the garden of my home. She probably escaped a zoo somewhere. Why, are snakes like her not common in the wizarding world?”

Zabini seemed taken aback by his question. “Well… well no I suppose not. Did you not know that?”

“Well, I’ve been living with my muggle aunt all my life you see, that tends to keep one a bit out of the loop.” Harry felt a tad agitated with the questioning, and reached back into his trunk to fish out all his textbooks and shove them into the satchel.

Both of the other boys started talking at once, Draco seeming to be very indignant on his behalf and Zabini rather terse in attempting to explain the inter-complexities of magical society to a person that he likely believed to be either a moron or incapable of inferring things. Which had to be stopped, immediately. “If you would like, I would be more than happy to explain the basic principles of magical politics to you-”

“While I would usually accept the offer, I've grown up knowing about my heritage and visiting the wizarding world often.” He held up his right hand, and flashed not only the Potter heir ring but the Slytherin one as well. Neither seemed to take note of the plain silver band however, likely considering it nothing more than jewellery in the face of such an ostentatious ring that was his family’s creation. Harry supposed that no one had seen a Lord Slytherin in centuries, and the heirship ring’s rather plain appearance was likely not very well known. “I've also got an excellent tutor, so I assure you when I say that I don't need to be caught up to speed on anything, thank you.”

Draco made an excited noise in the back of his throat. “A tutor? I’ve never had one you know. Mother always says that everything that I need to know about the world can be taught to me by her and my father, but I’ve always wondered about having one. Tell me something, if you don't mind too terribly, but what are they like?”

Harry slung his satchel over the back of his desk chair, adjusting the strap as he considered the question. “Well mine is rather... knowledgeable, I s’pose, but has an inflated ego and a bit of a god complex, so I found myself constantly annoyed with his nonsense.”

Watch your tongue, leech.

Watch your attitude, Riddle.

He ignored the sting in his scar and turned, observing how his roommates seemed to contemplate his plight for a moment. Zabini seemed only partially invested in the conversation after it was revealed that Harry was well and truly without need of assistance in navigating the world, and was now rummaging around in his trunk. Draco, however, seemed quite intrigued by the inter-complexities of tutors, and looked as though he wanted to ask another twelve questions about it.

Pulling off his overshirt, as the room had started to get rather stuffy, Harry nodded to the boy. “Alright, out with it, what do you want to know.”

Albus Dumbledore was feeling very cross. 

Harry Potter's sorting was extremely unfortunate, so much so that he doubted much could be done to remedy it. Albus was sure that it was partially his fault, as he had been wary of blocking away any potential personality traits of the boy’s that might lend him to being in Slytherin, as many of the house’s traits were regretfully quite useful. Of course, he had thought that the boy could be easily persuaded one way or the other if it became necessary. In fact, Albus had tasked young Ron Weasley with the duty of finding the boy-who-lived on the train, and to dissuade him from going anywhere but Gryffindor. Though, it seemed that the youngest Weasley boy had failed in his assignment, much to Albus’ ire.

No matter. His house is hardly important, it is the people who he surrounds himself with that are paramount.

No, Dumbledore was not worried. Yes, it would certainly be quite a bit more difficult to push the boy and the children he had handpicked to be his friends together if they were in different houses, but he was a resourceful man at heart and was sure that anything could be corrected for. Besides, the enchantments he had weaved into the boy's Hogwarts letter assured that Harry would be very miserable in the house of snakes, and would immediately search out friendships from people in different houses. Yes, a momentary setback is all, the boy would be back in his field of influence within the month, he was certain.

Dumbledore was pretending with great difficulty that he was not furious, he was pretending that when that wretched, evil little hat had yelled out Slytherin, that he had not been heavily considering killing the child. No, Albus Dumbledore was perfectly fine with this new development, though he could admit that the next few months needed to be reconsidered rather heavily.

Humming cheerily, he tamped down any feelings of anger or vexation and sat himself down at his desk, intent on keeping a cool head during this time of crisis. It would not do to act without cause at such a time as this, when the boy would no doubt be fragile and confused. No, he needed to be gentle and kind, his words sincere and quiet if he ever spoke to the boy. 

He would not allow emotions to get the better of him, especially when everything was so close to rupturing.

Severus Snape was not a good man.

Many would consider him utter filth, in fact, and would wish him a great deal of misfortune for the various deeds he committed through his years. Truthfully, he agreed with many of the accounts as well, knowing in his heart that many of his actions in life were at the expense of many other people. He knew that many mistakes had been made on his part that cost a great deal of people their lives or livelihoods, and he knew that, in the end, he was a rather wretched individual, all things considered.

But, if Severus Snape knew one thing besides his own failings, it was that there was one person-just one-who managed to be even more vindictive and hateful in life than he had been. A person that he had grown up alongside and was positive that no child of magical origins would flourish under.

“Of all the people…” He quickened his pace, storming through the empty halls on a warpath towards the headmaster’s office. Petunia Evans had been a loathsome, jealous slag in his youth, and putting Lily’s son in her care was likely the worst idea that Dumbledore could have ever had. Of course, Severus despised James Potter with a passion, and all those years ago, when he was young and vindictive, he had been happy to wish death upon the man. But... but Harry Potter was innocent to such crimes. He had been, and still was, a child. Snape had long since gotten over his years of torment in school, and even at the time of Lily’s death there had been very little that could have made him feel compelled to put an innocent child through any amount of misery, no matter the boy's father.

Stomping his way up the stairs to the headmaster's office, Snape grit his teeth, thinking of the boy’s horribly familiar eyes as they had spoken, of the child’s black eyebrows run through with jarring slashes not unlike a horribly grotesque lightning bolt. It had been so horribly real then, as he gazed at the boy—a boy so unlike his parents in almost every way. Harry Potter was nothing if not a victim of a war that was not of his making, and no child deserved a place among those who would treat him unkindly for any reason

Severus Snape was not a particularly kind man. He was rude on the best of days, vindictive and cruel on others, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that a child was not guilty of the sins of their fathers, and certainly didn’t deserve punishment for it.

Standing for a moment, he gazed at the door to the headmaster’s office, out of breath and furious. He took deep breaths, steadily, for several long and arduous moments, before closing his eyes and allowing his occlumency barriers to drift into his consciousness. No matter what situation he was in, Snape knew that there was nothing more dangerous than allowing Albus Dumbledore to peer into his mind.

He opened his eyes, calmness and cruelty wrapped around his true thoughts like a glacial blanket of ice, and knocked on the door.

Minerva McGonagall sat in her quarters, slowly and steadily drinking from a bottle of fine whiskey. She was overall quite happy about the night's sortings, as all of the little first years had seemed quite pleased with where they ended up. Except... she sighed, raising the bottle to her lips in thought. Except, of course, for Harry Potter.

She had come and gone from the steps of number four Privet Drive many times over the years, keeping a close eye on Lily and James’ son despite his near-constant state of happiness and ease. She had made the impression that he was a rather quiet child, but a content one, always happy to do little things around the house for his aunt and her rewarding him for the help. He got along well with his cousin, and they seemed far more like brothers than she had expected them to be, considering their rather stark difference in appearance and interests. In fact, she had truthfully expected Harry to wind up in Ravenclaw, if his rather aggressive handling of school was any indication.

But no, he was with the snakes, and seemed rather unhappy with it, all things considered.

She hadn’t wanted to pry on his life too far, so even as he came through the doors of Hogwarts and into her domain she tried to be as withdrawn, if kind, as possible, knowing that if she tried to get too roped in she would never leave him be. However, in a moment of particular weakness, she had glanced towards the Slytherin table for just a moment as the feast began, just to see how he was fairing, and had found something... else in his eyes. Something quite primal and… and unnatural, to be blunt. Of course, she could hardly say that the appearance of a severe expression warranted any amount of due diligence on her part, but she… well she felt quite worried is all. James Potter had never looked at someone like that before. He had never looked at someone like he wanted to devour them.

She took a slow sip of her whiskey.

His physical changes worried her as well. She had hardly recognized the boy, even after years of observing him from a window or across the street. All his young life he had appeared to be a carbon copy of James Potter, albeit with a more sensible haircut, and seemed to have been on the same trajectory all the way up to when he turned six, which was when she officially stopped going to Privet Drive to see him. 

It makes some sense. She reasoned, trying to find an excuse where there was none. After all, I haven't gone to Privet drive at all in the past five years. Now though, she wished she had. Harry Potter had changed in a very subtle way, in a way that she was unsure if she could fully place. His face shape was different, more angular and defined. It was aristocratic or perhaps, roguish? He had higher cheekbones, of that she was certain, and his eye shape was different from Lily’s as well, slightly more sharp and not nearly the almond-like softness that she was familiar with. 

Another sip.

It was more than that though, more than what was just on the surface. His gait had also altered—how that was possible she hadn’t a clue—but the boy walked like a predator, like he would reach out and wring your neck at any moment. 

There was something else behind those eyes.

When she had met his eyes over the sea of other first-years she had, for just a brief moment, felt that there was someone else that was also watching her, something old and… and something deadly.

“There is something unnatural about that boy.”

Minerva McGonagall was wary of James and Lily Potter’s son, and just the smallest bit curious. Because really, what other kind of mystery could there be in the world besides one so damning as a child? Especially one who grew up so happy and angelic, free from the binds that the world had so harshly threatened to tie him with.

What was different about Harry Potter? That was a question she would likely have to wait years to find out, but Minerva McGonagall was anything if not patent.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

-Year One: The Death of Baldr-

Once upon a time Baldr dreamed heavy dreams which seemed to forebode his death. Thereupon the gods held a council and resolved to make Baldr secure against every danger. So the goddess Frigg took an oath from all things that they would not hurt Baldr. When this was done Baldr was deemed invulnerable; so the gods amused themselves by setting him in their midst, while some shot at him, others hewed at him, and others threw stones at him. But whatever they did, nothing could hurt him; and at this they were all glad.

Only Loki, the mischief maker, was displeased, and he went in the guise of an old woman to Frigg, who told him that the weapons of the gods could not hurt Baldr, since she had made them all swear not to hurt him. Then Loki asked, “have all things sworn to spare Baldr?” She answered, “East of Valhalla grows a plant called mistletoe; it seemed to me too young to swear”. So Loki went and pulled the mistletoe and took it to the assembly of the gods. There he found the blind god Hother standing at the outside of the circle. Loki asked him, “Why do you not shoot at Baldr?” Hother answered, “Because I do not see where he stands; besides I have no weapon.” Then said Loki, “Do like the rest and show Baldr honour, as they all do. I will show you where he stands, and you shoot at him with this twig.” Hother took the mistletoe and threw it at Baldr, as Loki directed him. The mistletoe struck Baldr and pierced him through and through, and he fell down dead. For a while the gods stood speechless, then they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly.

Harry woke the morning of September second to the sound of screaming. He smiled slightly at the sound, before nestling deeper into his duvet as the screaming rose in both volume and panic.

It appears that Thasin had slithered into the young Malfoy’s bed sometime in the night.

It certainly appears that way.

Zabini’s shouts of both frustration and horror joined the fray, and he sighed in slight annoyance as all the sounds made his ears ring. Harry didn't want to scare Draco, far from it really, but there was something infinitely hilarious about the shorter boy's fear of snakes, considering which house he was in. 

Immersion therapy will do him some good. Harry reasoned away his guilt with practised ease, turning over as the sound of something breaking echoed through the room. He attempted to get comfortable again, frowning slightly as his dormmates shouted various things like ‘gerroff me!’ and ‘bloody—hold still, I'm trying!’. Sighing one final time, he sat up on his elbows, watching through bleary eyes as Draco tried unsuccessfully to pry Thasin off of his arm, Zabini standing there stiff as a board and likely unsure with how to proceed.

“~Bird boy is warm. Harry! Tell the bird boy to stop.~” Thasin’s annoyed hissing did not bode well for the ‘bird boy’ in question, and not for the first time did Harry wonder what the snake was on about with her weird nicknames. Which one of Draco’s characteristics lent him to being bird-like?

“Draco, she just wants to sleep on you, leave her be.”

“Sleep on me!” Draco parroted his words with horror, beginning to pull more aggressively on Thasin in the hopes of relinquishing the snake’s hold on him. However, he seemed incapable of getting a good enough grip on her, and instead just yanked uselessly at her smooth scales, doing nothing constructive besides aggravating her further. Letting out a long-suffering breath, Harry sluggishly got out of bed and rubbed his eyes, casually walking over to Draco as he languidly stretched, yawning pointedly at the boy. He stood there for a moment, watching as Draco tried to remove his own arm in an effort to get away from the reptile, before grabbing the offending arms to steady him as he pet one of Thasin’s colourful sides. 

“She won't hurt you, you know. She just likes that you’re warm.” He gently pulled her tail loose, slowly unravelling her as she hissed her displeasure. Before long she had admitted defeat and slowly made her way onto his hands by herself, quietly whispering wishes to be someplace warm as she did. Walking back to his own bed, he settled her down on the warm spot he had just vacated before throwing the covers over her so that she would feel more inclined towards nesting and Draco wouldn’t have to see her. Turning back to the boy, who didn’t appear all that comforted that the snake was now out of sight, he raised both arms in silent question.

“Alright then Malfoy? Or shall I wrestle her into my trunk.”

The blond seemed particularly against that idea, and waved him off, running a hand through his uncharacteristically unkempt hair. “I-um, well I suppose it's fine like that, if you’re sure the beast is safe under there.”

Harry hummed noncommittally, opening his wardrobe and pulled his uniform from its confines, the crest and accents now being in a familiar emerald green. “I’m sure she’ll stay there for a while, but I wouldn’t go jumping onto beds unless you like getting your ankles bitten.”

“Pardon?”

“Nevermind that, do you know where the washroom is?”

He waited for a moment as Draco went to find his uniform, before they both went off to what Draco called ‘the barbaric communal bath’. As they walked, Harry managed to get a better look at the male dorm hall, which seemed to start at the very beginning with the seventh year's dorms and worked its way down, the first-year dorms being the farthest from the door at the end of the hall. Separating each year was a larger door labelled ‘baths’, which he assumed meant that each year group would get their own bathroom to themselves.

Finding the first year baths easily enough, as they were labelled just as plainly as the door doors, the pair entered while quietly speaking about classes and what they were particularly excited to learn about. Harry was surprised to find that while Draco was very adept in potions, as he had been brewing for the majority of his life under the tutelage of his godfather, he was looking forward to astronomy the most, as his mother’s side of the family were very inclined towards naming their children after constellations, and he wished to follow in their footsteps. Harry couldn’t help but smile at that particular admission, finding himself oddly comforted by the fact that the boy who had been his most scorned rival in his first life was really rather smitten with the concept of family and all that came with it. It seemed almost bittersweet that he was learning this now, after all that had happened and what he knew of Draco’s fate in the first timeline. It made him want to change things even more.

Glancing around the baths, Harry found himself rather befuddled with the massive interior. All across one wall was a long row of massive shower stalls and toilets, all embellished with one-way stained glass that made the entire room glitter brilliantly as the various candle lamps around the room flickered into existence. Turning to his left, he peered into the three doors stationed there, finding that each one led to private baths big enough to fit five people, easily.

Didn't Draco say this was a communal washroom?

He grew up in a mansion, leech, this is as communal as it gets for him.

Stepping into one of the open shower stalls, Harry was pleased to note that there were assorted shampoos, conditioners, and fancily carved bars of soap. It was all absurdly unnecessary and incredibly lavish, and he couldn’t help but feel that he had been slighted by being forced to use the dingy communal baths in the Gryffindor tower, all of which were truly communal and allowed neither privacy nor particularly hot water.

Turning on the tap, Harry allowed himself perhaps the most luxurious shower of his life, smelling each of the bottled soaps to find which he generally preferred before slathering copious amounts of it on as he tried not to sigh happily as the scaldingly hot water crashed onto his shoulders.

It was a spiritual experience, to be perfectly honest.

Upon turning off the shower, Harry turned to his left to find that at some point a perfectly fluffy towel had appeared on the towel rack embedded in the wall next to him. Deciding not to question the wonderful world of lavish washrooms that he had just found himself in, Harry quickly towelled himself off and got dressed, stepping out of the stall with everything but the outer shirt of his uniform on. Making his way to the sinks, he set down his outer shirt before starting on lightly styling his hair. He had gotten better with it, all things considered, working to his hair’s strengths instead of just trying to force it flat as he had used to do. The end result was usually a tad bit more stylishly messy than just… well, then just a mess, though due to the length it tended to never cover even an inch of his forehead, leaving his scar about as visible to the public as he could possibly make it. This was purposeful though, as Harry felt that his years of hiding the blasted thing had long since passed, and felt that the only people who would really mind were those that had an issue with him personally, something that he couldn't exactly fix by covering the blasted thing with an absurdly long fringe.

Shrugging on his outer shirt, Harry leaned against the counter and waited for Draco to finish his shower. It took ten minutes for his companion to finally remove himself from the, admittedly, delightful showers, and after that there was another thirty minutes more to wait as Draco worked to style his hair with an absurd amount of wax. By that time, the other first-year boys had all meandered in to take showers as well, and had all quickly left within ten minutes, if that. Zabini had slunk in at some point as well, with a wary look towards Draco painted across his face.

Leaving the shower, the dark-skinned boy had stood next to Harry companionably, watching as Draco ran a comb through his thoroughly tamed hair. “He's got some lungs on ‘im, yeah?” Harry covered his laugh with a cough, sharing an amused glance with the slightly shorter boy.

“I reckon he’d be rather good at opera, given the proper scare.” That sent them both into fits, and in an instant the boy in question was demanding what exactly was so funny.

Despite his original worry about being in Slytherin, Harry was feeling rather happy with the people he had met there.

Walking out of the boys' dormitories with Draco and Zabini, Harry and his roommates made their way to the great hall for breakfast. In comparison to the Slytherin commons, which were thick with so many warming charms that it seemed impossible to feel even a slight chill, let alone outright cold, the dungeons were rather drafty and—as Harry remarked—pleasantly brisk despite the summer weather. The other two boys were far less inclined to agree with his assessment, and upon entering the Great Hall sighed with relief as the blazing candles and occasional fireplace situated along the walls brought them a great deal of warmth.

Sitting down at the Slytherin table, Harry couldn’t help but notice that Dumbledore was absent from the head table. It was still quite early in the morning, yes, but all the other teachers were not only in attendance, but occasionally glanced at the headmaster's chair with mild confusion, as if they expected him to pop into existence at any moment.

Frowning, Harry decided to keep an eye out for any particularly worrying happenstance before settling in for a large breakfast.

Ronald Weasley was having a very bad morning. 

Slouching down further in his seat, he listened glumly as the headmaster chastised him for his failure. It wasn't his fault that Potter had gone and hidden somewhere on the train! He had searched up and down the bloody thing for the entire train ride and hadn’t seen anyone who looked even remotely like him! Why was he being punished for putting the effort in?

“Now, my dear boy, I'm afraid that we have only two options. The first, I admit, is rather difficult, but it is quite worrying that the boy-who-lived has been corralled into Slytherin. I mean not to alarm you, but it is very likely that-” He stopped listening after that, too caught up in his own thoughts to care about what the headmaster said. He had realized the night before that Malfoy must have convinced Potter to go to Slytherin, as there was no other way the saviour of the wizarding world could be anything but a courageous, chivalrous, brave Gryffindor! He simply couldn’t comprehend how Harry Potter could be anything but that unless someone had forced him to be something different.

The man had stopped taking, and was now looking at him carefully. Ron panicked for a moment, realizing that he hadn’t been paying even the slightest bit of attention to the man, before blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “Don't worry headmaster, I won't let you down.'' 

It was true too, as Ron was absolutely positive that nothing would stand in his way from saving Harry Potter from the clutches of dark wizards. It didn’t matter how he went about doing it, as long as he could manage it, everything would be fine.

“Very good, my boy. I know you will make sure he stays out of harm's way.” The headmaster smiled warmly, before turning his attention towards the bushy-haired girl sitting primly in the seat next to him.

“Now, Miss. Granger, do you know your duty as well? It is imperative that you understand what must be done. I am entrusting a great burden onto the both of you and we will all be in very dire straits if it is all for nought.” He asked her this gently, as if consoling a small child, but her answer was clipped and punctual. Her words tumbled from her mouth in short and fast blips, much in the same rushed way that she might use to answer a teacher’s question.

“Yes headmaster. I am to keep a close eye on Harry Potter, to see if he is in any danger or being threatened by the Slytherins around him. If I see anything worrying, I am to report it to you as soon as I am able.”

The headmaster smiled joyfully at the two of them. “Wonderful Miss. Granger! I have faith in the both of you. And I am well aware that this is a monumental thing that I am tasking you with, but I am also confident that you are the very best wizard and witch that this year of quite exceptional witches and wizards has to offer. I know you will be able to keep Harry Potter safe. Now, breakfast is almost over, off you trot!” 

Ron stood from his chair, slinking after the annoyingly perfect Hermione Granger as the two of them left the office. He didn’t know why the headmaster didn’t just put Potter into Gryffindor where he belonged and expelled Malfoy, it seemed like a much simpler way to go about things.

“We need to get breakfast first and foremost, and then we can discuss your rather horrible posture-” Granger began rattling off everything that she wanted to get done, and he could merely glare at the back of her bushy head and hope that she would shut up soon.

Dumbledore did not, in fact, show up for breakfast, but Harry noted that Gryffindor’s titular duo had, though they were quite late. The pair had come rocketing into the great hall with merely minutes to spare, sitting down at their table just as Harry stood from his. It had been rather obvious where they had been so early in the day, as Hermione Granger was not a very subtle person by any means, and her constant looks his way made it quite clear to him that they had been with the headmaster, likely discussing his various shortcomings and how to correct for them. Harry was tempted to stick his tongue out at her in retaliation, but worried that blatant displays of aggression might sway her towards making a scene.

Sighing lightly, Harry glanced around at Hogwarts as his two companions chattered on and on about nonsensical things. Their first class was transfiguration, just as it had been for him in the first timeline, and it seemed that Zabini was more prepared for it than most, as his mother was apparently quite adept in the subject.

“She loves quizzing me on the laws of transfiguration at random, usually over the dinner table. I swear, that woman went mad years ago.” Zabini seemed to be a rather laid-back person, though he had an air of amusement around him that reminded Harry inexplicably of the Weasley twins. Either way, he supposed that the observation shouldn’t have been too surprising, as he barely remembered much of the boy from the first timeline, except for the fact that his mother had a rather infamous and bloody reputation as a black widow.

Draco snorted, his pale hands waving through the air as if waving Zabini’s words away. “Your mother would be terrified of mine. The amount of hours I’ve spent in etiquette classes with her is enough to make anyone die of either boredom or tableware-induced insanity.”

Harry let their voices fade off into the background as the trio stepped into the transfiguration classroom. He couldn’t help but look immediately towards McGonagall’s cat form lounging across the desk at the front of the room, his eyes tracking her movements as she tracked his. Harry could feel her eyes on him even after he looked away and settled into a seat at the back of the class, her tail flicking through the air as she casually groomed herself. Harry watched her warily, feeling that there was something a tad unnatural about her movements—more than them being too intelligent for a normal cat. It was almost as if she was watching him specifically, as if waiting for something. It was incredibly unnerving.

Forcing himself to ignore it for now, Harry tuned back into the conversation, finding that Draco was going on about his new broom that he was unable to use because of the ban. Harry immediately ignored the conversation again, turning his sights towards the blond’s features. Thasin’s words that morning had been bothering him ever since she spoke them, and he felt that it would be important to figure out what she had meant first and foremost.

He doesn't look very bird-like to me. What do you think?

A snakes sense of smell picks up on the subtlest of scents, you would have no hope of understanding the complexities of-

Yeah yeah you like snakes. I get it. Do you have anything useful besides that to say?

Humph.

The bell finally rang, signalling the start of the period and causing all the students to go quiet and sit up straighter in their seats, glancing around as if the teacher would suddenly appear. McGonagall didn't transform though, and the entire class sat there in a tense silence that seemed to stretch on embarrassingly long as the cat continued to flick her tail.

After several excruciating minutes, in which all that could be heard were confused muttering from the students and the tapping of Harry’s boot onto the tiled floor, Ronald Weasley came sprinting into the classroom, carrying with him his bag and a single blueberry muffin. Hermione Granger verbally scoffed at him, her hands coming to settle over her eyes in second-hand embarrassment as he looked towards the front desk in worry, before immediately sighing in relief when he saw that McGonagall was not in attendance.

It was then, of course, that she lept off her desk and transformed back into her human form, appearing quite cross with him as she did.

“Mr Weasely, if you cannot come to class on time, I might delegate to transfigure you into a watch. Now, please find your seat. Five points from Gryffindor.” She reprimanded him sternly and effectively, pointing to an empty seat as if to say, ‘sit your arse down’. Many of the students, a vast majority of them being Slytherins, snickered at the boy’s plight. Though many of the Gryffindors instead groaned at the swift and easy loss of points. Harry didn’t react in the slightest, too busy arguing with Tom in his mind as he attempted sourly to pass the time.

Snakes are noble, majestic creatures!

They're literally just one long neck, Riddle. I can hardly call that majestic.

A sharp pain through his scar was the final word, apparently, and Harry sat back with a huff as McGonagall addressed the class.

“Transfiguration is one of the more complex forms of magic, and has many sub-categories that overlap with other branches of magic like charms or even potions-” The professor had taken out her wand and was currently enchanting a stick of chalk to write notes on the board. He watched as the other students around him started to write down what she was writing on the board, the sound of quills scratching against parchment nearly drowning out the woman’s voice. Harry didn’t bother getting out his parchment, feeling assured that he already knew the first and second year—and possibly third-year spells and theory by heart. He could admit that without Tom’s help he very likely would be taking notes as well, but the man had been quite tyrannical about theory and after so many years of being able to do nothing but theory, Harry felt that he should be allowed to slack on note-taking for once.

Over halfway into the class the theory was finally done, and by that point the only person still diligently taking notes was Granger, who looked like she was almost disappointed when it ended and the professor started handing out matchsticks to turn into needles. Harry looked blankly at the wooden stick for a moment, contemplating what exactly he should do. On one hand, it would be hysterical to beat out Granger at her own game and succeed in a complete transformation on his first try, but he knew that no magic-raised child, let alone a muggle-raised one would be able to manage something like that without a great deal of practice beforehand. So, he attempted to do a partial transformation instead, focusing on transfiguring only the shape and not the material. Sadly, it was such a simple task in comparison to what he was used to doing that his partial transformation was still quite good, appearing to be a needle with a wood-like texture. 

Ah... shite. Too much.

He was about to try and fix it, or mess it up, to be more accurate, when Draco leaned over and quite loudly exclaimed his awe. “Merlin Harry. How’d you do that?”

I'm going to skin that little brat alive.

Harry felt a spike of anger rush through him. Don't you dare, Riddle.

Harry had a rather pinched look on his face as Professor McGonagall made her way over to their table, her eyebrow raised as he begrudgingly held up his nearly perfect transfiguration. She took it, turning it over in her hands and generally making a rather blatant show of studying it. He could feel the heat of everyone staring at him as she did, and tried to tamp down his embarrassed blush and she held it up to the light. “Very good, Mr Potter. It is the right shape and colour, but the material is still wood.” She snapped it in half easily to prove her point, smiling warmly at him as she did.

“Now, here is a second one-” She set another matchstick onto his desk, still smiling happily. “-to do with just the same. Now, do try to focus more on the weight and strength of the material, as that is what you are lacking in completing the transfiguration. Absolutely phenomenal job for your first try Mr Potter, take ten points for Slytherin.”

He smiled tightly as she walked away, Draco’s prodding voice over his shoulder questioning him on how he had managed to do that. He shrugged lamely, finding that he didn’t have much of an excuse besides practice, which would bring up a lot of questions if admitted to. “My tutor is a sticker for theoretics is all, just like Zabini’s mum.”

The boy in question snorted, holding up his own matchstick, which had a slightly pointed match head and a somewhat metal sheen but not much else. “Great deal of good that did me. Get on with it then, spill your secrets.”

Harry unwittingly found himself spending the rest of the period regurgitating his own experiences as if they were teachings from a tutor, acting as some sort of quasi-teachers aid as McGonagall looked on with a mix of pride and befuddlement. It seemed that he did well enough at explaining things though, as Draco managed to turn his matchstick metal and Blaise—as he insisted on being called—figured out the complete transfiguration just as Granger did, much to the girl’s ire.

The bell finally freed him from the clutches of a still-unsatisfied Draco, who seemed insistent on managing the task just as Blaise and Granger had done. Walking out of the classroom, Draco continued to grumble about the unfairness and clear favouritism of magic as Harry and Blaise discussed what to do for the rest of the day.

“Herbology isn't till after lunch, so we can really do anything. Any ideas Draco?” 

Harry glanced towards the boy, who was studying a particularly finicky set of stairs with distrust. “Honestly, who came up with the idea of moving staircases? At least one person is bound to fall and snap their neck each year.”

Harry winced, nodding slightly as the current set they stood on began to shift. He could admit that the grand staircase was by far one of the more dangerous places in the school, not including the third-floor corridor, as it was usually quite safe. However, once someone got used to the stairs’ pattern, falling off became extremely unlikely, and even before that it was doubtful that you would fall far enough to die unless you managed to fall headfirst, as the stairs below would likely catch your fall, if anything.

That was when Harry realized the potential of the situation. “Why don’t we wander the grounds for a few hours? To start mapping out the castle that is.”

Blaise hummed, jumping up and off the staircase as it slowed to a stop. “I reckon we could start by finding landmarks and go from there. My mum always says to look for the strangest-looking tree in the forest if you’re planning on hiking through it, just in case you get lost and need a marker. I bet it’s the same concept here.”

“Look for the ugliest painting then? I'd say this poor chap is a good contender.” Draco squinted at a particularly sour-looking man in the nearest painting, whose expression only worsened with the boy’s words. Harry snorted, turning behind him just in time to see a familiar head of bushy hair disappear behind a column. He squinted in annoyance, knowing that Weasley was probably with her as well, and that the two would likely be following them for the rest of the day. What a nuisance.

It was just the three of them and their distant followers for several hours till lunch, where Harry allowed himself slightly crass table manners after a day of exclusively walking up and down and across stairs. Honestly, for a castle with only nine floors, there were an ungodly amount of stairs to climb. Some of them just went to a different part of the same floor, for merlin’s sake! If he hadn’t been traversing the place for upwards of twenty years in total, he would have been finding the task of figuring his way around the place nothing short of impossible. It certainly didn’t help that their unwanted yet distant companions continued to be a moderate nuisance for him, as he couldn’t find himself relaxed in the slightest while knowing that they were just around the corner.

After lunch they made their way to Herbology, which was rather uneventful, considering that it was just dirt on dirt with no end in sight. Draco seemed incredibly annoyed with the prospect of gardening, and had taken to standing a great deal away from the table in an effort not to bother with it. Blaise had taken to flicking damp soil onto the boy, which did good to liven the place up, as Draco reacted quite aggressively and loudly in turn. As the chaos fell in great earthen clumps around his ears, Harry was also privy to Tom’s musings, as the man kept making quips about Neville, who seemed to be doing quite well in Hufflepuff.

That boy has a green thumb and nothing else, I can sense it.

He just has the wrong wand, Tom, don't be cruel.

I stand by my statement.

Harry had decided to branch out to Neville, knowing that regardless of their difference in house this time, they had still managed to get along quite well in the first timeline. So, as the class period finally gave its last wheezing breath and Professor Sprout let them escape the humid confines of the greenhouse, he unceremoniously dragged a squirming Draco over to the yellow-clad boy to say hello.

“How’s Hufflepuff treating you?” Draco grumbled something about badgers and good-for-nothings as Neville formulated a reply. Harry elbowed him.

“Oh… um. It's alright, I guess, the common room is really cosy.” The boy seemed cautious to continue, but Harry made a ‘go on’ motion with his hand that seemed to instil some confidence in the boy. “-but I am rooming with Earnest Macmillan, and he's… well he’s a tad pretentious, if that makes sense.” 

The Longbottom heir seemed to be generally more at ease about where he was in comparison to before, though there was still that persisting feeling of anxiety through him that Harry doubted would go away anytime soon. However, there was no better place to safely and securely come out of your shell than with an entire house-worth of people who were not only loyal and kind, but would no doubt be sure to support you through life.

“Like Draco here?” Harry held back a laugh as the blond made an affronted noise in the back of his throat. “I'm sure you could ask to move if he gets too annoying.”

Neville seemed to perk up a bit, the ghost of a smile passing his lips as he seemed to be fighting a laugh. “Yeah, I s’pose I could.”

He invited Neville to explore the castle with them, but the boy surprised him by declining, saying that he was going to go back and speak with Professor Sprout about something relating to the lesson. 

“Hannah said that I-well, Hannah Abbott, you know her?” Harry nodded, gripping tightly to Draco’s outer sleeve as the boy made an effort to inch away from the conversation. He had no idea where Blaise had gotten off to and really didn’t want to have to track both of them down. “Well she said that I had a good idea about pruning the snapdragons from today and that I should go tell the professor about it. Everyone else seemed to agree so I thought I might as well.” The boy seemed so excited about the prospect that Harry immediately shooed him off to do just that, saying that they should try to get to know each other at some point. Neville didn’t seem to utterly despise the concept, and so they parted ways on relatively good terms.

Walking back into the castle, where they found Blaise leaned against a wall playing with his satchel’s straps, Draco suddenly rounded on him, sounding insecure. “I'm not really pretentious, am I?”

Harry couldn’t help the small smile creeping up his cheeks, taking a moment to contemplate how one person could be so different after so few changes. Was a single handshake really all it took? 

“It's endearing.”

He beamed.

Tom closed and locked the door to the Chamber of Secrets, agitated. He was spending more and more time watching the world outside his pupils mind. Too much in fact, as he had been neglecting his quickly developing plans in favour of taking in the life of a student.

“Well, no more of that. Dumbledore is already making ripples.”

Striding over to the western wall, he observed the four doors that had become his obsession over the past eight years. The door leading into the diary had disappeared immediately after he combined with it, leaving the ring, locket, cup, and diadem without their predecessor. Over the years of Harry’s childhood, Tom had been able to steal a few of the more important memories from the other horcruxes, but as he had expected they didn't trust him in the slightest, and refused to give an inch when he barely asked for a millimetre. The locket had been up for conversation, mostly to complain that one Regulus Black had stolen it away from the cave and then entrusted its care in the insane Black family house-elf, Kreacher. Which, really, was quite unfortunate, but the barmy elf seemed incapable of destroying the thing, so he hoped that it was just as safe in the Black ancestral home than it would have been in the cave.

Tom let out a breath, rubbing his hand down his face tiredly. The other horcruxes might come around eventually, and he was sure that in the years to come he might be able to convince them to merge with him as well, but for now all he would be able to do was continue to carefully steal their memories and further assess the situation both in his own soul and in the outside world. It was… worrying that he would have to wait years to complete what he perceived as a necessary ritual, as he was certain that Harry would need things to happen quite a bit faster than he was capable of making them move. He glared heatedly at the door labelled ‘Ring’ in particular, knowing that the monster lying behind it could very easily be his undoing, if its unnervingly sane mind and disastrously genocidal thoughts were any indication.

“Havin’ trouble?”

The woman’s voice cut through the silence like a knife, and his glare narrowed further as he sighed a second time. “I am... more stubborn than I initially expected, unfortunately.”

Fate nodded slowly, her lips pursed as she rocked back and forth on her heels. The goddess had been helping him with his idea as the years went by, working out all the kinks in his plan and filling the holes in his knowledge with her own. He secretly thought that she was just making sure things worked out the way she wanted them to go, using him as some sort of bizarre insurance that everything would go at least somewhat according to plan.

“You are aware that this will destroy you.” 

He bit the inside of his cheek, nearly laughing at the irony that had become his life. It was fascinating how, after so many years of fighting desperately to become immortal, the first thing he did upon gaining said immortality was try to figure out how to die. Because that was what he was now, a soul hidden away in a practically indestructible vessel. He was unsure of if Harry was truly capable of dying in any true capacity, or if Death had been merely attempting to soothe the boy’s worries by saying that he would pass on one day. It didn’t truly matter in the end, as even if Harry died at some point, Tom would continue to exist in some manner of speaking. The horcruxes had accomplished their goal in that respect, though he hardly thought that it was worth it anymore.

He had realized, somehow, that he was destined to be nothing if not a stepping stone for the greater entities at play. Harry himself may not be aware of it for several more years, but Tom knew that the boy would be something more one day, and that he very likely wouldn’t be there to see it come to fruition.

Tom Riddle was okay with that though. He had seen far too much of the world to need even more of it.

“I know.” 

She smiled gently, her eyes cold and unfeeling and so very unlike the warm smile she graced him with.

“You've still got quite a few years left, Riddle. Don't rush your own suicide.”

Chapter Text

The next few weeks went on about as one would expect for Hogwarts, that being extremely chaotic and punctuated every few hours by the occasional explosion. Harry went to his classes as normal, and attempted to come off as slightly above average in them with a relative amount of success. It seemed that, to quite a few of his teachers, he was either a repressed prodigy with minimal social skills or a normal student that had an obscenely good handle on magical theory, and was faking his way through the practical side of magic with varying results. 

It wasn’t his fault really, as he had found it particularly difficult to purposefully fail at casting spells. He had made many attempts at mediocrity, but was still doing quite a bit better in his classes than was likely common or even natural. Sadly, he was finding that the window allotted for new students to show their natural ability was closing, and he would soon be incapable of regressing towards a considerably less stellar performance without a great deal of pushback. It seemed that if he did start acting like an average student with average knowledge, the professors would quickly question the drop in his magical abilities and, by extension, question him. 

That wasn't even mentioning his essays, which were way too good for a third year, much less a firstie. He entertained the idea of telling them that he had not only gone through the exact same lessons that they were teaching him before, or that he had been spending upwards of a decade studying exclusively magical theory and would be a mockery of Tom Riddle’s handiwork if he didn’t understand it. Of course, that would bring his sanity into question along with his magical ability, so he begrudgingly settled into his classes under the assumption that if he acted bewildered enough with his own abilities then the teachers would merely assume what they wished and leave it at that.

He sighed, flipping the page in the book he wasn’t reading before glancing up to the small gaggle of people around him. Out of all the teachers, the one who seemed the most flabbergasted with his abilities was Snape. The man had taken to occasionally quizzing him on various and quite minute potions practices throughout classes, his dark eyes filled with curiosity and, most importantly, some modicum of cautious kindness. Harry had been, originally, quite happy to answer the questions, as he had never seen the man as anything but a wretched old bat who wanted him to suffer. However, as the questions got more aggressively more niche and Snape got aggressively more confused, Harry started to realize that perhaps a muggle-raised first year shouldn’t know what horklump juice was used in and why its discovery was pivotal to healing potions across Britain. As it was, his apparent backtrack to suddenly knowing next to nothing about potions only served to make Snape even more suspicious, and Harry quickly decided to find an even rope to walk until he could properly gauge where his knowledge should lie.

Despite the rather strained and, honestly, very confusing relationship he now held with his potions professor, Harry was finding himself enjoying the class far more than he ever thought possible. It likely had to do with the fact that he actually knew what was going on, and that he was sitting far away from any well-meaning Dumbledore sycophants who might feel inclined to bother him. 

He let out a long sigh, shifting further back on the sofa and adjusting his posture slightly. In full transparency, Harry was finding himself absurdly annoyed with Hermione Granger especially. Ron Weasley he could deal with, as the ginger seemed to have pinned his sights on Draco and Draco alone, who was more than capable of dealing with the boy just fine in a verbal tussle. Granger however, seemed insistent on barging in on every aspect of Harry’s life, and could be found right around the corner ready to discuss classes and studying practices the second that he was alone. She was a menace really, as he had found himself avoiding every public space in the castle that could be considered at all literary-inclined, the library being one of the most predominant places she sank her claws into.

In fact, Harry had begun avoiding the library like the plague, asking Draco or Blaise to grab the necessary books for his homework and bring them to the common room so he didn't have to go anywhere near it. Granger seemed to patrol the thrice-damned library every second of the day, and the moment he would sit down at a table to read she would suddenly appear with a stack of books higher than she was tall. He had tried to be polite to her, if a little distant, at first, but found that he could hardly manage even vague politeness on most days, and silent neutrality was damned to the ninth layer of hell if Draco was in the general vicinity. The shorter boy was consistently antagonistic of Granger, something that grated on Harry’s nerves and patience in very specific ways. He had found himself being forced to play the clueless idiot on more than one occasion to avoid further antagonism.

Honestly, it was like Draco thought it was all fun and games—that he would be able to get away with something as blatantly disrespectful as calling Granger a mudblood a few years into the future. It was obvious, to Harry at least, that the older they got the more power that Dumbledore would give the two Gryffindors, just like how he had appointed them prefect in the last timeline. Draco wouldn’t be allowed to get away with such blatant antagonism and blood supremacy when they were in the later years of Hogwarts, and Harry was wary of what might happen if he didn’t grow out of the ideology.

“Did you know that my father wanted to send me to Durmstrang? Something about it being a better school for our family. I reckon he just wanted to get nice with the headmaster though, what do you think?” Harry glanced up again at the familiar voice, watching as Draco turned his eyes onto Theodore Nott, who sank further into the couch as a reply. Theo seemed to be more of a shadow than an active participant in conversations, though Draco had sought to remedy that fact when he dragged the poor boy into their small group of friends.

He snorted, watching as Blaise set down a card and waited for Draco to give up on Theo for long enough to retaliate. The four of them were sitting around one of the fireplaces in the common room, attempting to stay warm as the water outside got colder and colder in pursuit of autumn. Blaise and Draco were attempting to play a rather disjointed game of exploding snap while Theo read a rather large and rather dusty book. It seemed that both groups would be unsuccessful in their pursuits however, as Draco seemed insistent on focusing his attention on several things at once and mucking up the natural order of their downtime as he did.

Stretching languidly, Harry shifted, resting his arm across the back of the couch and leaning onto it. Glancing lazily at the two playing the card game, Harry thought forward to Hallowe'en in a few weeks. Considering that Quirrell wasn’t possessed any longer, it was practically confirmed that the philosopher's stone would be safe from any dark arts enthusiasts. Unless, of course, Harry decided to steal it.

I should check to see if the traps are the same.

He didn't see the harm in stealing the stone, since he wasn’t planning on using it anyway. Harry fully accepted that he would die one day, and felt no particular need to make himself any more difficult to kill than the Master of Death title already seemed to make him. Sure, he had always fought against dying young, as the idea of cutting off his life so short seemed unappealing in the very least, especially since he had done it already. No, Harry wanted the stone for a completely different reason, one that was sure to be far more useful than the artefact itself. Of course, there was no surety that the Flamels would appreciate his act of goodwill, but bridging a connection with one of the oldest and therefore wisest couples on the planet couldn’t be a bad idea in any world.

“I'm turning in for the night.” His voice cut through the silence like a dull knife, and after it came various and noncommittal goodnights from the other three boys around him as he stood and started walking towards the stairs. 

Harry pursed his lips, settling his book under his arm as he began to climb the carpet-embellished steps. Besides the issues with Granger and his general annoyances with school as a whole, Harry was constantly feeling urges not unlike the one he had been overtaken by during the incident with the fawn a few years prior. It had started a week or so into the school year during potions class, when they had been starting on a simple healing potion. He had been cutting ingredients like usual, before suddenly finding himself observing the newt spleens in his hand with a certain amount of fascination. Not in the typical fascination of someone who had never seen newt spleens before though, more in a way that he might also observe a large chicken roast sitting on the dinner table on Christmas eve.

It had been incredibly unnerving when he realized what the feeling was alluding to, and even more so when it kept happening. 

Be it with newt spleens or murtlap tentacles, Harry found himself intently studying any organ-like ingredient or meat by-product he came in direct contact with. He had managed enough self-control not to actually taste anything uncooked, which he thought was a miracle in itself, but the fact that he wanted to taste the meaty tissue in the first place was cause for great alarm.

He stood in his dorm for a moment, looking out at the empty four-poster beds and emptier space surrounding it, and realized that there was clearly a reason for why he felt this way. 

Harry was a logical person at heart, and he knew that an animal’s subconscious tended to know far more about what the body needed than what the conscious mind thought was best. Of course, he had no idea what could be causing the overwhelming need to eat… something, but was sure that there was a reason somewhere.

Placing his book in an empty space of his trunk, he cautiously took his wand out of his belt loop and reached for a spare quill, quickly transfiguring it quickly before stuffing it under his jacket. Leaving the dorm, he went out and into the first year's bathroom quickly, glancing around to make sure there was no one currently inside. He had spent many years traversing through every inch of Hogwarts, and Tom had further embellished his knowledge of the terrain to the point that there was unlikely to be any rooms or passages in the castle that he didn’t know about.

Walking into the third shower stall on the right, he whispered a few quiet, meaningless words to the showerhead in parseltongue, knowing that the simple sound of hissing would be enough for this particular passage to open. Standing back, he adjusted the knife hidden inside his jacket and watched and the wall fell away to reveal a dusty passage into the bowels of Hogwarts.

Lighting his wand with a lumos, Harry walked swiftly down the exposed cavern, weaving through crumbling bricks and spider webs in his pursuit of an unknown exit. In his mindscape, this particular passage had been impossible to use for a variety of reasons, but he knew that it would work fine in the walking world. After all, the real Gryffindor tower didn’t reach indefinitely into the heavens as the one in his mindscape did. Tom had gifted him the knowledge of several hidden passageways in the Slytherin dorms and commons, and while this particular one had brought many unsavoury thoughts to light at the time, most regarding what would have happened if a parselmouth had stumbled across it, Harry now saw it as particularly useful. 

He worked on autopilot, his curiosity and instinct muddling common sense as he reached a narrow stairway and started to climb. He had been considering Hogwarts and his first life for a long time now, and of how Death seemed insistent on this being what Fate intended for him in the first timeline, at least at the beginning. He had started out feeling so much anger and resentment towards Dumbledore and what he had done, and in the years after that had managed to tamper down those feelings into more manageable things like annoyance and caution. Now though, as he walked through the halls of his home with people that he felt connected and similar to, he was finally able to conceptualize what he had truly been missing during his first life.

He had been ruined before even truly existing.

His school years were supposed to be his beginning. His shift from a muggle-raised boy into a powerful wizard. All of that had been taken away from him the second that Dumbledore decided to sink his dirty claws into everything. Harry couldn’t help but feel bitter and angry that he was being forced to play the part of a normal child when he had already done so, just because of the headmaster’s mistakes. Of course, he was thankful that he had a second chance at a better life, but the memories were still with him, sticking to his skin like tar and dragging him under waves of resentment and nostalgia.

Harry desperately wanted to forget, just so that he could focus his attention on this new, incredibly freeing life that he had found himself in. He had been able to forget his first life so easily while growing up, his attention focused onto learning new things or bonding with his family or normal childhood experiences that he had just never been able to do before. Now that he was back in a strikingly familiar place though, being forced to play through vaguely familiar memories in a way that felt very unlike how he remembered them… it all made the memories only that much more prominent and piercing.

He gazed at the empty space of blank wall he had found himself in front of. The stairs had tapered off meer feet before the wall, and he knew that what his subconscious had been leading him towards was right behind that wall. He took a deep breath, almost with excitement, before brushing his hand gently against a brick. The wall faded away, revealing a darkened room with seemingly no one inside. He could just barely see inside from the one small window populating a far wall, but was able to make out the vague shape of beds strewn around the circular room.

He hadn’t been in Gryffindor tower for a long time.

He walked slowly through the room, finding his conscious mind even further from his movements as he started to wonder distantly why he was doing this. There seemed to be something else controlling his body, something primal and distorted. He couldn’t quite grasp it, just the vague shape of something long and thin pulling strings behind his eyes.

As if in a trance, Harry crept further into the first year Gryffindor boys’ dorm, finding his fingers reaching towards one of the beds in particular. He felt the brush of fur against the pads of his fingertips, the texture very unlike the soft comforter that he was expecting. He clenched his teeth in realization just as his fingers wrapped firmly around the rat. Picking it up reverently, almost gently, he walked back into the hidden passage, closing it behind him with another gentle brush of fingers against the aged stone.

The rat felt hot in his hands, asleep and very clearly at ease as he slowly descended through the twisting staircase. Time seemed to stretch and compress as he walked, his feet carrying him through tunnel after twisting tunnel in search of something intangible. Harry found himself focused onto the rat’s small heartbeat, the steadiness reminding him, inexplicitly, of the beating of a drum.

He took a sharp turn and happened upon a point in the passage that widened enough to be considered a small room. Stumbling onto his knees, Harry set the rat gently down onto the damp floor, his handheld tightly around the still-lit wand. He didn’t know how the lumos had stayed all that time. He hardly had the focus for it to stay so bright, and had hardly noticed it pulsing there either.

His hand brushed against the base of the rat’s hunched back, feeling its spine through the matted fur. Reaching back into his jacket, Harry pulled the knife away from its confines and slowly, deliberately, severed the nerves along Pettigrew’s spinal cord at the base of his neck. Harry remembered all the medical books he had read at that moment, the precise placement of each nerve and its connection to the limbs. Spinal cord injuries and their effects had long since been an interest to the young Potter boy, and even with his muddled thoughts spinning wildly out of control he still managed to grasp ahold of that knowledge.

Why the rat?

He didn’t know, but as Pettigrew woke to the pain and then the nothingness, Harry could only watch with curiosity as the fat rat shifted back into its human form. There was only so much that a diagram could tell you. The real thing was truly spectacular.

Reaching forward, Harry easily turned the large man over, Pettigrew’s eyes wide and terrified as he tried to speak or even articulate. Harry watched him in the near-darkness for a moment, considering, before he raised the knife again and slowly started cutting.

Starting at the man's collarbone, Harry started slowly sawing away at the man's tissue, struggling at first to cut deeply into the skin with the man’s rib cage blocking his way. He grunted, mind becoming fuzzy and uninterested in specifics as he saw the first glimmering signs of blood soaking into a tattered tunic. Once he started cutting down the man's stomach, the long knife sank deep into the fat, squelching uncomfortably as Pettigrew groaned. As he moved further along, the blood and fat and groaning increased in intensity until Harry was forced to stop and take a deep breath. At that moment though, there was a deep, darkened gash across Pettigrew’s chest.

Getting a strong whiff of the iron-rich blood for the first time, Harry felt his pulse start to slow. A sense of calm washed over him as his nerves tingled and his body shook. For the briefest of moments he felt as though his fingers were growing longer, that his spine was lengthening.

This was new. This was different.

Temporarily losing control of his wits, Harry shoved his hand deep into the incision, groping around the slimy guts and pulling out a long tube of intestine. He looked at it, that squirming mass of warm organs held tightly in his hands. In the dull light it appeared smooth, and wet, and pulsing faintly. It was warm, and so, so tempting. 

Something in him snapped, like a chain finally breaking from the stress applied to it, and he leaned forward and licked a long line up the intestine, tasting the near indescribable flavour of human flesh mixed with blood. Curious, Harry tilted his head slightly, fingers still clenched tightly around the meat. The man tasted strange. Rodent-like, he later realized, and for a moment he felt disappointed, as though he had been expecting a different flavour. After that initial flavour however, there was an overwhelming sense of… something else.

He licked his lips. It was good. 

Losing all sense of rationality, Harry opened his mouth wide and bit down hard on the unidentified intestine. It was difficult to chew, unpleasant in its sinewiness, and he ended up being forced to use the transfigured knife to saw a portion off. The taste was indescribable, and strangely familiar in a way that he didn’t fully understand. There was a part of him—a cold, distant part—that knew the taste and adored it. A part of that him wanted more.

Something made Harry wish he had a mouth full of sharp, dangerous teeth.

Setting down the long, slippery intestine, Harry started carving out the sides of the stomach incision, making it into the shape of a capital ‘i’ so that he could better access everything underneath the thick layers. Pulling apart the two flaps of skin and fat he just created, he grimaced as the rat's yellowy fat tissue squelched in his hands unpleasantly. Finally getting the flaps spread however, Harry felt something completely foreign overwhelm his senses. His vision got blurry, a dull throb settling deep into the backs of his eyes and blocking out the sparse light of the room as he shoved both hands into the man’s stomach, elbows deep in warm organs as he groped around for an unseen meal. He didn’t know how much time passed. All that was comprehensible was his hands and the warmth and the taste and the dull, aching throb of his jaw as he bit into tough meat. Some things tasted better than others, he noticed, and in a moment of clarity he was able to comprehend that the heart was definitely his favourite. He ate the entire thing. It had miraculously still been beating when he first bit into it, and blood sprayed like a geyser all over his face and jumper.

Harry barely noticed.

The longer he ate the more delirious he became, and at one point he was on his hands and knees, his face shoved deep in the man's guts as he ate glutinously like a savage. He was dazed, hungry, attacking his food like a starved animal. He blacked out completely for an unknowable amount of time, and when he finally came back to earth his hands, face and jumper were sticky with drying blood.

Harry coughed, flexing his tired fingers as the blood stiffened on his joints. He didn't know how long he had been kneeling there, his face pointed skyward as though he had been praying… or howling. Breathing heavily, Harry closed his eyes for a moment before looking downwards at what was left of Pettigrew, his breaths coming out in short puffs.

There really wasn't much. 

The man's stomach was wide open, globs of yellowish fat and mangled innards splayed around him. Looking slowly towards the man’s face, Harry found that, at some point, he had gouged out Pettigrew’s eyes messily and ate those too. He couldn't remember doing that. He hardly remembered how he had gotten there in the first place.

“Well... isn't that just delightfully disgusting.”

Harry whipped around, the animalistic look in his eyes returning as he roused into a crouch.

“Easy kid.”

Death was looking down at him, emotionless.

“I-” Harry gulped, panic suddenly surging through him as his mind suddenly cleared from the lazy fog clouding it. “I didn't realize that-” He took a deep breath, overwhelmed and incredibly confused. Death was quiet, watching him with an unreadable expression that Harry found difficulty in even seeing in the low light. Harry thought the god might have looked pleased, but as Death reached forward and wiped something off of his face, Harry felt that maybe he was just seeing things.

“Pettigrew is important, I'm afraid, so you'll have to bring him back to life.”

He coughed, hands and arms starting to shake as he fell forward onto his knees, vision fuzzy and fading fast. He considered the man’s words for a moment, reaching backwards to do just that before coughing again, curling in on himself as a barrage of feelings and thoughts came tumbling forwards. He felt as though every logical thought he had been trying to comprehend since transfiguring the knife had all suddenly been released from their confines and he was bombarded with panic and annoyance and fear.

“Couldn’t you—can’t you just-” He sagged, strong arms coming out of the darkness to support him as he fell. His words were slurred, and he was certain that he was talking nonsense as he spoke, not fully sure of what he was even saying himself. “You bloody—you invented necromancy, do it yourself.”

A voice was over his shoulder, so distant that he could barely hear it. “Is that an order?”

“…Yes.”

His vision went black.

Tom stomped through the empty tunnel, his nose wrinkling at the unpleasant smell and feeling of drying blood. Of all the things to happen in the first month of Harry’s first year, cannibalism was most certainly not on his bingo card of potential disasters. He smacked his lips, the bitter taste of iron and rot making him gag.

“I am going to take it upon myself to get a very long, very luxurious shower. Can I trust that you will place that rat back where it was found?”

Death, who was trailing behind him in a crouched stance, as he was far too large for the ceiling, gave him a withering glare. “I’m not a moron. Thanks for taking over for Harry by the way, it would have been a nightmare if I had to lug him all the way back to his dorm.”

Tom huffed, scrubbing at his cheeks in disgust. There was a time and place for blood, and he prefered it best when it was warm and fresh and not in the process of dying his skin red.

“For a god, you seem incapable of common sense. Honestly, how hard could it have been to stop the brat from eating an entire human being?” He muttered quietly under his breath as he scratched the crusting blood, though from the annoyed look he was sent, not quietly enough. Tom had been incredibly annoyed when the death god showed up in his mindscape, interrupting not only a very important physiological discussion he was having with Fate but also forcing him out and into Harry’s conscious mind. However, he had been beyond annoyed and firmly infuriated when he had opened his eyes to a bloodbath with himself right in the middle of it. 

Death adjusted his grip on the partially alive Pettigrew, who appeared to be in the process of re-growing his lungs. “Tell Harry to pick someone a bit less important next time, would you? Sirius Black needs this one.”

Tom rolled his eyes, waving the god off before turning a corner. Harry wouldn’t be eating any more people if he had anything to say about it. This experience was far less enjoyable than Greyback made it seem during the war.

He spit, and tried to get something stringy out of his teeth.

Harry woke up the next morning, clean of blood and lying in bed. He blinked for a moment, confused with what had happened as Draco shuffled around in the room, the boy’s distinct peppermint cologne wafting through the air and towards Harry’s face. He breathed in the minty smell for a moment before relaxing into his mattress.

Don't make that a common occurrence, leech. I don't appreciate the taste of human flesh as much as you seemed to.

Harry was still trying to catch up with the current situation, his disjointed and confused emotions and thoughts reminding him of how he had felt at that bleached out Kings Cross so long ago. Harry felt strange, in a good way. He felt as if he had been slightly off-kilter all his life and had suddenly shifted into place.

I’m sorry Tom, I'll try not to pass out again. I think I just got overwhelmed. Sitting up, he looked blearily around the room, taking in Draco’s fluid motions and Blaise’s prone form. It seemed that he was the second person to wake up, which was rather rare as of late. He typically made an effort to get up first.

Your loss of consciousness is hardly my most pressing concern.

Getting out of bed, Harry distantly registered Tom’s angry grumbling, but decided to ignore it in lieu of slowly getting ready for the school day.

Harry found himself just barely keeping it together through his classes. 

Sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts, he stared blankly at the wall behind Quirrell's head, his mind nothing but static as the man droned on. Quirrell had male pattern baldness at thirty, which was awfully unfortunate for the man. Harry felt less sympathy however, when the sun came in through the eastern window to reflect off of the shiny globe of a skull and right into Harry’s eyes. He squinted, face scrunched up as the professor continued to lecture on about something or other. There was, sadly, no turban hiding his shiny head from the offending sunlight however, and since the windows were always open, the students were often subjected to the reflective surface.

“Mr Potter, what is the incantation for the shield charm?”

He also didn’t have that stupid stutter, which was certainly a step in the right direction.

“Protego, sir.”

“Very good. Ten points to Slytherin.”

The man was still a closet Death Eater, mind you, and had an unhealthy obsession with Harry, but in the end he had decided that having a weird professor who stared at you strangely was better than one that wanted to viciously murder you. It was certainly better than having to deal with someone like Lockhart or, merlin be damned, Umbridge.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur of monotony, his mind wandering into infinite white and golden-green eyes as the people around him went about their activities. He felt so disjointed and unfamiliar that he barely registered it when Draco challenged Weasley to a duel in the trophy room.

His first moment of clarity was late that night, when the entire common room was quiet and even the older years were getting sluggish as they studied. Draco was boasting about tricking Weasley into going out in the middle of the night to Theo, who had shoved his nose so far into his book that there was no conceivable way he could still read the words. 

Harry tensed suddenly, grinding his teeth as an uncomfortable pressure started to build up in his head. It felt like there was something pressing outwards from inside his skull, a loud thumping noise akin to a heartbeat drowning out all other noise. He felt the uncomfortably familiar heat behind his eyes, the pressure building to near-unbearable levels. He stifled a groan, pressing a finger against his left temple as the pressure reached a crescendo. For a moment, he was held there in agony, before the pain and pressure and thumping suddenly tapered off into nothingness again. He had several seconds of reprieve before his vision became impossibly crisp, his thoughts a whirlwind of ideas and concepts to the point that he was unsure what to focus on. It seemed as though someone else’s mind was inhabiting his, implanting brilliant ideas and devious thoughts behind his eyes. The question fell past his lips before he could decide if it was wise or not, the inkling of a plan forcing its way to the surface through the whirlwind.

“Draco, did you know there's a cerberus on the third floor?”

Conversation stopped almost immediately. His voice had been far louder than he expected, and the entire common room went silent as those around him stared in horror. Draco blinked, fumbling over his tongue for a moment before managing a reply.

“Pardon?”

“I overheard the Weasley twins talking about it.” That wasn't even a lie. Apparently, the twins had gone to check out the third floor during the first week of classes, and Harry had overheard them telling Lee Jordan about it. The plan was becoming more pronounced and defined, flitting through his mind almost too fast for him to process it. It wasn't a perfect plan, and was banking on Flamell not having given Dumbledore his consent to take the stone, but the heat behind his eyes made him absolutely certain that it would work. It was certainly better than going in and springing the traps himself, and might keep him out of suspicion for longer. 

Harry took a breath, the pressure edging off completely as his vision became crisp and his head lighter. The moment had only been milliseconds long, so short that everyone around hadn’t even noticed the pain in his eyes. Settling himself, he relaxed into the cushions of the couch and continued, a bubbling feeling of excitement creeping up from his chest. 

“It was behind one of the doors in the corridor. Had nearly bitten one of them in half apparently. From what I could tell, it only took an alohomora to get the door open. Just a matter of time before some idiot gets eaten, really.”

Murmurs spread around the room, older years already pulling out parchment—no doubt planning on writing their parents. Draco looked a sickly shade of white, and Theo had placed his bookmark back into his book and was observing Harry with wide, curious eyes. He smiled tightly, watching as the wide eyes narrowed in suspicion.

The next day, several Slytherins had gathered the nerve to approach the Weasley twins and ask for details about the confrontation between them and the cerberus. At first, the pair had been perplexed, questioning how any of the Slytherins could have found out about their escapades—or that they were curious enough to risk getting pranked by them. Soon enough though, they took advantage of the Slytherins’ seriousness about the topic and started over exaggerating their story. Just barely mind you. Yes, only slightly.

By the end of the week, it was common knowledge in the house of the snakes that the third-floor corridor was home to a cerberus, several dementors, a pack of werewolves and a huge thirty-ton man-eating slug. Many of the older years didn’t believe half of it, but the idea of even one of those things inhabiting the school was enough to make them send letters to their parents and family members.

It seemed that the ministry would be contacted soon enough, regardless of if the rumour was true or not.

Lying in bed that night, Harry reflected on his seemingly inescapable breach in morality.

Cannibalism wasn't something he had ever considered, as he viewed the act as unsavoury in the very least and monstrous at the worst. He had been completely unnerved by his lack of control through the process. It had been like every logical thought in his mind had been locked away in an inescapable box, let out only after the deed was done.

He frowned, rolling over onto his back and staring blankly up at the vague outline of his canopy. The aftereffects of the cannibalism were also cause for great concern, as he had found himself spacey for most of the day after eating Pettigrew, and off settled for a few days after the fact. His peculiar moment of intense focus and ingenuity the next night was also alarming, as it had felt as though someone was planting an idea in his head—like someone else was telling him what to do. He didn’t know if the two events were at all connected, or if his moment of apparent genius was due to something Fate planned for. 

Both could easily be because of Fate. You forget that she is the one that writes out everything that is supposed to happen… it is just as likely that she was the one controlling you in that moment.

Tom’s hypothesis was alarming and… very likely. Harry groaned softly, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. It was impossible to say if it was Fate or something else that had been controlling him in the second instance, but Harry didn’t want to write them off as two separate occurrences that didn’t have any connection to each other. He had an inescapable feeling that they were intertwined in some way. He couldn't forget that feeling of blood behind his eyes, that buildup of pressure. That heartbeat… it had happened on both instances, and was a strange enough thing to connect them in some way.

He thought for a moment, before letting out a tired sigh.

“Death.”

His voice came out whispered and soft in the silent room, and he immediately felt a large hand land on his forehead, the clammy feeling of a corpse’s skin brushing through his hair. He had noticed that particular difference between gods and humans many years before. Gods didn’t have blood or organs, they didn’t even breathe. Gods felt like hollow corpses that walked and talked like a living, breathing humans. They were a mimicry of life, their consciousness existing without the need of blood or bone. 

It terrified him how inhuman Death’s skin felt.

The smell of smoke wafted under his nose, and Harry settled deeper under the covers, taking an uneasy breath as his servant began to hum.

“Is cannibalism a side effect of necromancy by chance?” He whispered his question to the shadows around him, and got not so much an answer as an apology.

“I'm afraid that necromancy can’t be used as an excuse for this one, kid.” Damn. He had been afraid of that. Necromancy was such an easy out most of the time. He had blamed his incident with the fawn on the effects of necromancy after all, even though Death had seemed cautious to agree with that assessment.

They sat in suffocating silence for an unknowable amount of time, the only sound being Blaise’s soft snores from across the room. Harry tried not to shiver as Death’s glacially cold fingers brushed down his scar, their downward trajectory stopping on the tip of his nose. Harry let out a breath, closing his eyes as the shadows threatened to envelop him and drag his soul into infinity.

“Is this Fate’s doing?”

“Everything is her doing, in the end.”

Harry let his mind wander towards the feeling of warm blood on his hands. As much as he was disgusted by his actions, they had felt so… familiar. It was like he had been born to tear someone apart.

That, of course, was when it hit him.

“Was it my creature inheritance? Yes… it had to be, right?” Harry turned his face towards where he thought Death might be, his eyes catching the golden-green of a collapsing star. Death peered down at him with an impartial gaze, his eyes void of much interest or emotion. It seemed that he was waiting for something, as if he was hoping that Harry might do something else besides sit there and stare.

“It could be.”

Whatever it was, Harry clearly hadn’t done it, and the intense look in Death’s eyes faded as he spoke. He sighed, turning his head away and going back to observing the canopy. He obviously wasn't going to get a clear answer, at least not today. Death’s hand left his forehead for a moment before returning, this time feeling noticeably colder.

“Tell me something, kid, and try to be honest. What kind of magical creature feels an insatiable urge to eat humans? One that has a particular taste for blood?”

Harry let out a long sigh, “most of them, why?” A deep chuckle resonated through the room, settling deep in his bones and easing his mind as those unearthly eyes squinted in amusement.

“Well… That's the only hint you're getting from me.” Before he could so much as breathe, Death was gone from the room, leaving behind nothing but the smell of brimstone and the whisper of a kiss on Harry’s forehead.

Chapter Text

Harry felt shaken for months, his movements slightly pained and his posture stiff. He felt like he was being stretched, elongated in a way that he couldn’t fully conceptualize; it was as if he had an extra bone in each finger, or a few extra rows of ribs. His gums had been hurting for weeks, as if he was growing another set of teeth to replace his current ones. The worst thing though, was a change that had been making him wake up early most mornings to watch his reflection. He often found himself waking up at the crack of dawn or earlier to the feeling of fire behind his eyes. He would then go to the bathroom and stare, unblinking, into the mirrors there, as if they were gateways into Nirvana. He did this all subconsciously, and sometimes didn’t even realize that he had gotten up until hours later when his mind finally woke with his body.

In the dark of a dimly lit bathroom, Harry would watch his eyes, mesmerised, as something deep inside his skull glowed with heat. It didn't always happen, and sometimes he would wake up just like normal, but when he did see it he was always forced to remember the feeling of blood boiling behind his eyes. He couldn’t look away though, too fascinated—or horrified—by the unearthly glow and what it signified. He had changed irrevocably somehow, and there was no way for him to pin the fault on anyone but himself.

Harry went to his classes.

His teachers handed out work with such a ferocity that he thought they must believe that the students would die if they did not have at least three essays due each night. For once, Harry was thankful for the distraction. He dove headfirst into his work, taking extra care to learn all he liked about the topics assigned to him before picking out the main details and generally what a first-year might decide is most important and write about that. It was something of a game to him—figuring out what would be too complex and what would seem too infantile that is. It, in the very least, distracted him from the times that he woke up already in the bathroom, his eyes glowing brightly and fingers clenched so tightly onto a sink’s rim that his fingernails were aching from the friction. It distracted him from the feeling of his eyes and head burning with heat that seemed to warm his skull and nothing else.

He tried not to notice how his hands felt particularly cold as of late, trying to brush it off as a side effect of the change in weather as the seasons fell quickly into autumn.

Tom was more absent than usual. A fact that only added to Harry’s ever-growing nerves. The only thing that seemed to ease his mind of the constant worries a little was, strangely enough, Draco. The Malfoy heir had seemed to notice his twitchy behaviour almost immediately and had taken it upon himself to chatter in Harry’s ear almost constantly. It helped, somehow, and Harry found himself silently thankful for the boy’s actions. Due to the constant talk though, he also became much more privy to Draco’s personal ticks and habits. Through that, he was finally able to realize just what Thasin had meant by calling him ‘bird-boy’. Draco moved in fast, choppy movements, with his head snapping around in a way very reminiscent of a bird. His neck seemed to constantly be on a swivel, moving about as if trying to see every little thing around him all at the same time. His laugh was also veering on the edge of chirps, and he often let out squawk-like yells when surprised or caught off guard. It didn’t help that his pointed face made him appear even more bird-like, though his baby fat did soften his cheeks a bit. 

It was subtle. Barely noticeable in a way that only someone who had been staring at the blond for hours on end would have been able to pick up on. Harry wondered distantly if Draco also had some creature blood in him; if he did, then the other boy was certainly having a much better time with it than he was.

Despite his best wishes, Hallowe’en had arrived.

The owls sent out by the Slytherin house had done their job brilliantly, and in the weeks that followed there was a barrage of angry and worried parents flocking to the ministry in droves. It was discussed over meals on occasion—about how parents were writing back to their children requesting more information or simply relaying what they had done in response. Even Lucius Malfoy himself had been seen having a whispered conversation with Minister Fudge, who had reportedly been on the verge of turning purple in anger. 

None of this showed up in the papers, strangely enough, and was instead passed through the ranks of Slytherins through word of mouth until eventually reaching Harry’s ears. It seemed at first that everything was going to plan for several, very chaotic weeks, but as the days dragged on and there was no talk of what was to be done about the cerberus, the young Potter heir started to worry that his plan wasn't going to work. It seemed that either the ministry didn’t believe the hundreds of concerned parents, or had already decided that Dumbledore knew what he was doing and wanted to leave it at that. 

What he didn’t know was that the ministry was in a state of complete and utter disarray. It was quite apparent that one needed to do quite a bit of political hoop-jumping to be able to legally storm a fortified and private school like Hogwarts, and the ministry didn't have a primary account of the cerberus or even physical proof to warrant such an investigation. Because of this, any movement towards removing the beast had slowed to a near crawl. That was, at least, until the Weasley twins sent their own personal story straight to their father while he was at work, sending the auror department into a tizzy as they grappled with the strangely detailed and rather serious letter from the two boys. Arthur Weasley had been reportedly rather distraught, going on about how his boys would never write a letter like that unless there was something truly life-threatening going on. It got to the point that, even without the proper documentation and proof, the ministry simply had no choice but to take action. What the Slytherins and, most notably, Harry were not aware of however, was that the two mischievous Weasley boys sent that letter on the prompting of a very particular letter that they had also received mere hours prior. The letter had been promptly pressed in a book and left for the two to wonder about for many years to come, eventually becoming something akin to a folk tale for the two. It went as follows:

Good evening.

As you may know, the third floor is currently out of bounds and quite dangerous for students to roam. The ministry appears to be brushing the case aside for now. Which is truly a pity. It is quite a deplorable thing you know, letting all those dangerous beasts roam the castle; I wonder what would happen if someone were to owl their father about it? While he was at work perhaps? Chaos, most likely.

Your compatriot, The Riddler.

It was unknown by the twins who ‘The Riddler’ was supposed to be, but his advice had been taken joyfully by Chaos’ chosen, and with it came, quite aptly, chaos.

Harry found himself eating quietly at the Slytherin table during the Halloween feast. He was feeling much better than he had been the day prior, and was enjoying his sudden physical calm by eating as much as he physically could before something was destined to go wrong. He doubted that much could be said about the cerberus now that the ministry was apparently ignoring it, so he decided quite firmly that he was going to hope for the most calming situation to befall him on that bewitched All Hallows’ Eve and eat all he could before it happened.

Glancing to his right, where Draco was ranting loudly about the disrespectful decorations, he quietly took in the boy’s loud and insulted words. “Honestly, this entire holiday is a mockery of our culture. Have you seen the nonsense that the muggles get up to on Samhain?” Draco was speaking to Theo, who for once seemed very invested in the conversation, and nodded vehemently in agreement. Draco was seemingly spurred on by this action, and continued with more forceful gusto. “Samhain is a celebration of the dead, it is supposed to be a day of quiet remembrance, and the headmaster is dragging our holiday through the mud with thi-this blasphemy!”

Day of the dead eh? Harry could certainly agree with that. He had been feeling the veil thinning slowly as he went about his day. He hadn’t known what to make of it at first, never having felt it before, but the ambient magic in the air was likely making Death’s magic far more obvious to him than usual. It had started with the smell of cigarette smoke at breakfast, which had only gotten more and more prominent as time went on. He had seen flashes of gold and green in his peripherals at lunch, and currently felt a large, cold hand on his shoulder.

Day of the dead indeed.

Despite the reality of the situation, Harry could actually sympathize with Draco’s argument. The great hall looked much the same as it had in his first life—that being covered with all manner of massive pumpkins, be it scattered around the floor and walkways or floating up in the air—clearly replacing the normal floating candles with something with more threat of creating several blunt-force traumas in taller students. It was rather obnoxious, if he was being perfectly blunt, and while he could appreciate the effort gone in, he couldn't help but think that Dumbledore was trying just a tad too hard.

As Harry rose his fork—which was loaded with mashed potatoes and an unhealthy amount of gravy—to his lips, the doors to the great hall burst open with a resounding bang . Startled, he dropped his fork onto his lap, where the mashed potatoes proceeded to rather unhelpfully slather his trousers with mush. Groaning in annoyance, he took out his wand to vanish the mess as he looked up to see who had decided to storm in late. He paused, along with everyone else in the hall, as Minister Cornelius Fudge and Madam Amelia Bones strolled down the long walkway towards the head table. Harry blinked, watching for a moment as Madam Bones made a particular motion towards the headmaster, before waving his wand and vanishing the mess on his pants.

Dumbledore stood regally, quickly manoeuvring around the head table to have a very quietly whispered conversation with the Minister. From the murmurs around him, no one else seemed to be able to hear anything from the two, and were all rather perturbed with the proceedings. Dumbledore appeared upset, his cheeks going pink as Madam Bones chimed in with a stern and slightly louder voice, before the three all descended the stairs and quickly made their way out of the hall.

“What do you think that was all about?” Blaise leaned around Harry to try and see anything more, his hand planted firmly onto the table for balance as he displaced his weight onto his hip. Harry shrugged noncommittally, eyebrows narrowed slightly in confusion as he tried to discern if the discussion had been about the cerberus or something completely different. He didn’t think that the minister himself would show up at the school for something as little and nuanced as a dangerous beast in the school, so perhaps it was something to do with the wizengamot? That would certainly explain why Madam Bones was there as well, as she was on the wizengamot with the two men.

You're welcome, leech.

He blinked, jerking at the sudden voice. Tom? What did you do.

I will tell you later, I promise. I've been busy is all.

Yeah, I noticed.

Harry glared at the table, annoyed that he seemed to have been left out of a crucial part of the plan. Tom certainly seemed to know what was going on, and he quickly blocked out the hushed whispers around him, focusing his attention on the small hint that he had just been graced with. Harry had been suspecting for years that Tom was plotting something big. He had left it alone for all that time, not wanting to encroach on the man's private projects, but at this point Harry felt that he had a right to know at least some of what was in the works.

The deputy headmistress rose from her chair, quieting the room with a wave of her hand. “Please continue to eat the feast, I'm sure that whatever is going on is of no concern to any of you.”

Students certainly felt that it was their business when an auror burst through the doors several minutes later, running in a dead sprint towards the head table. She was merely a blur of robes at the speed she was running, and Harry had barely a moment to react before she had thrown herself half over the head table and hissed something to Hagrid, who burst to his feet and nearly knocked over the table in his haste to get out of the room. Shouts of confusion rang out as the half-giant lumbered out of the room, the auror hot on his heels.

“Okay, something is definitely going on with the third floor.” Blaise was practically vibrating with excitement, his fingers tapping against the hard wood of the table anxiously. The Italian boy had become obsessed with the drama that had been spawned out of the third corridor, having been in the throes of all the rumours in an effort to learn all he could over the last few weeks. Parkinson however, who seemed to be not only a menace but also quite bored, was a step above him when it came to the topic, as she was currently crouched next to the head table and interrogating Professor Snape.

Whispers rose in volume as Parkinson sat back down at the table, looking particularly smug as she leaned forward and motioned with her hand for everyone else to do the same. “Apparently, the dog is named Fluffy and Hagrid is his owner.” 

The other first years, excluding Harry, who couldn't be bothered to pretend to care about it, all started to mutter about the news. Draco seemed particularly affronted with it, and seemed tempted to go complain to Professor Snape about the apparent slight. Parkinson was soaking up the attention like a particularly obnoxious sponge, her smile widening as everyone asked her for more information.

“You don’t really think the headmaster let him do that, right?” Tracey Davis looked verdant, her complexion taking on a grassy hue at the thought of having such poor management at the school. Parkinson merely rolled her eyes, waving the girl off as she turned to Millicent Bulstrode.

“Isn't that amazing? I wonder if he'll get fired!” The girl’s face twisted up into a nasty smirk, and as the murmurs rose in volume the older Slytherins started to take notice and spread word down the table. Within minutes the entire Ravenclaw house was also aware of what was going on as well, and one of them slipped off to tell the Hufflepuffs, who were overheard by the Gryffindors, who, naturally, already knew about the dog, as over half of them had already been dared to go down the corridor at some point in the year.

As nerves soared through the hall and shouts of fear and confusion started to rise, the teachers all stood and began to corral the crowd into some sense of rationality. Finding the task too insurmountable in the current climate, students were soon sent back to their common rooms in large groups by a very cross McGonagall. The first years had been settled around the middle of the long stream of Slytherins on their way to the dungeons, likely for protection against any wayward cerberi.

Harry followed quietly from the back of the small group, listening quietly to Draco’s angry grumbling with an air of acceptance. Of all the things to happen on Hallowe’en, this was the best thing he could have hoped for. “Honestly, what’s the point of forcing us through such an inane feast just to end it early? I would have prefered spending the night in the colder parts of the dungeons then another second anywhere near that blasted hall.”

Harry rolled his eyes, “I think you’re over-exaggerating mate.” There was very little likelihood that Draco would ever want to sleep on a particularly lumpy mattress, let alone the floor. Besides that though, it seemed that despite his expectations, the ministry had managed to gather their wits about them to storm Hogwarts in an effort to take Fluffy away. It was hard to say whether or not Dumbledore will still manage to weasel his way out of handing over the stone, or if he would be forced to show the minister the stone at all. It would be inconvenient for Harry if the man did manage it, but he sincerely doubted that the headmaster would be able to get away with saying that the cerberus was there for no particular reason at all. However, the question of if Cornelius Fudge was able to put aside his own shortcomings and be a firm leader was a hard one to answer, and Harry was still unsure if anything would come of this particular mess. He could certainly hope, but wasn’t particularly optimistic.

“I am not over exaggerating in the slightest! Back at the manor my mother would be lighting the bonfire by now, and the feasts would be left for our ancestors, not-”

“Think you're better than the rest of us, eh Malfoy? Religions change for a reason you know!” A very familiar and completely unwanted voice shouted out from behind them, and Harry turned marginally to quietly glare at the ginger. Ronald Weasley had followed them down to the dungeons it seemed, likely for a foolhardy and no doubt idiotic reason.

Draco turned as well, a sneer already slapped onto his face as his silver eyes narrowed in on his victim. He looked down his nose at the boy, which was quite a feat considering their height difference, and opened his mouth to say something that would no doubt make things that much worse. “I am better than you Weasel, or have you forgotten that your family lives in a barn?” There it was. Draco was ever the provoker, it seemed.

Harry sighed, watching as Weasley took a daring step forward as the wall of Slytherins slowly tightened around them. He wasn't in the mood for this, especially right after something groundbreaking like the ministry storming Hogwarts. In truth, he had expected his first year to be particularly quiet, or at the very least free from strange occurrences. Sadly, his cannibalism incident had turned that hopeful wish on its head, and nothing seemed to be going exactly how he wanted it. He was off his game, and as the days drew on it became painfully obvious that everyone around him was trying to make things that much more uncontrollable.

Draco puffed up his chest, an action very reminiscent of a pigeon as he prepared for a verbal dispute. “Go on then Weasley. Have something to say?”

“Yeah, actually, quite a few things.”

Weasley said something particularly unsavoury in regards to Draco’s mother, and at that moment Harry was sure that the two would draw wands at some point, if not immediately. He was growing increasingly agitated with the blood feud between the two families, and casually considered how he might convince Draco to leave well enough alone at some point. He was sure that the boy could handle any crassness that Weasley threw his way, but felt that the animosity between the two would only become more agitated and lethal as time passed. The thought made Harry’s skin tingle unpleasantly.

“Draco.” He was ignored by the boy in favour of making another rude remark about Weasley’s father.

“Draco.” Weasley was raising his voice, and could now easily be considered yelling. The crowd began to snicker as Draco met his pitch with gusto.

“That is enough.”  

Harry didn’t realize it wasn’t him who spoke until a tall man pushed through the crowd, his dark eyes gleaming with cold anger. Harry let out a breath, watching as Snape sneered down at Weasley, who glowered in return.

“That is quite enough of your boorish words, Mr Weasley. Twenty points from Gryffindor.” The gangly Gryffindor looked about ready to argue, but didn’t get the chance as he was shoved roughly in the direction of Gryffindor tower by the irate potions professor. Snape gave Draco a warning glare before steering Weasley further away from the group, speaking only to tell everyone to hurry along towards their dorms before any other nonsense happened. Draco seemed particularly smug about having ‘won’ the confrontation, and turned to look at Harry happily. Harry however, was much less happy about the entire thing, and was standing there sternly, stock stiff and with his arms across his chest and eyes narrowed dangerously. 

“Did you have fun then? Enjoyed causing a scene?”

There was a beat of silence, before Draco seemed to crumble a bit and slunk meekly over to the taller boy, who then turned and walked—because he does not stomp—over to the other first-year Slytherins. Harry could distantly feel Draco grab ahold of his sleeve, but wasn't paying enough attention to care, too caught up in his own emotions. 

Something about that argument was rubbing him the wrong way. Perhaps it was the particular aggression in Weasley’s eyes or the violence in his posture, but Harry felt like Draco had actually been in danger of getting hurt. If Snape hadn’t come along and broken them up, it surely would have ended in some sort of physical tussle, which Draco would not have won. Really, the blond had yet to have mastered many spells, and Weasley had the upper hand in both physical height and strength. Sure, in a few years Draco could have easily hexed the ginger to bits, but as they were he was at a severe disadvantage.

“Harry? Look, Harry I didn’t mean-”

He stopped, letting the others move on ahead of them as he turned to give Draco a reproving glance. “Do you want to get your nose broken by that oaf or are you just an idiot?”

Draco’s eyebrows bunched up, his expression becoming pinched in confusion. “What are you on about?”

Harry sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “Look Draco, we’ve barely been here two months, you don't know any spells for combat-”

“Well neither does he!”

Harry nodded somberly, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice and failing rather spectacularly. “Yes, but he is also only an inch shorter than me and has been, as you pointed out, living on a farm his entire life. You may not realize this, but Weasley can easily knock your teeth out with his fists alone. Don’t incite an altercation that you can't win.”

They stood there, glaring at each other for several rather terse seconds before one of the older years yelled for them to get a move on. Harry purposely strode at a pace too fast for Draco to match by walking, and made a point to ignore any attempts at starting conversation after the fact for several hours till he was less agitated. 

It was childish, he knew, but as a child he should be allowed to be so on occasion.

Headmaster Dumbledore was furious. No, furious didn’t describe it nearly well enough. Dumbledore was livid. Not only had some fool gone and told the ministry about Hagrid’s pet, sending Cornelius Fudge on a warpath right to his door, but the man had decided that the Hallowe'en feast was the best time to storm the castle. It was doubtless that every student in attendance at the feast would soon know or at least suspect that there was something amiss, and those foolish few that had gone to the third-floor corridor to see what was lurking there were sure to connect the dots and start up the rampaging rumours that Hogwarts was infamous for.

Albus’ shoulders were tense as he strode through the halls, aurors and the minister flanking him on all sides. Madan Bones could be heard from far behind them, likely speaking with Kingsley Shacklebolt on how best to proceed. He had been forced to take the minister, Madam Bones, and twelve aurors through the carefully set traps and reveal to them the stone sitting there on a pedestal, not yet placed inside the Mirror of Erised. This was only after Hagrid had been dredged up to take Fluffy out of the room he had been guarding, and that spectacle had taken up two hours of their time as it was. The students had likely already been in bed by that time, yes, but the yowls and howls that the blasted hellhound had been assaulting their ears with surely woke up the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws at the very least, whose towers were not far from the path they took down and out of the school.

This had not been the plan.

He motioned for the gargoyle to step aside, climbing the steps to his office with practised ease as Cornelius stumbled forward from behind him. Everything had been going so well. Ronald had reported back to him just the day before that Harry Potter was practically eating out of his palm, and that the boy despised Draco Malfoy with a fiery passion. Sure, Miss. Granger was having a great deal of trouble even finding the boy, much less observing his friends and their actions, but she was reporting that Harry himself was quiet, withdrawn, and seemed to prefer falling into the background than actively taking part in any senseless bullying or name-calling. It seemed that the mistakes were all on Albus’ part, as he had gotten far too cocky in altering the boy’s personality to suit him. It was his own fault that the boy had gone to Slytherin, but it seemed that he was miserable there, or at least uncomfortable. It was good enough for him to believe that everything was falling into place.

Foolish. So very foolish.

None of that mattered if the boy was not able to go through the trials set up for him.

Albus took a deep breath, sitting down gingerly at his desk just as Madam Bones stormed in, her eyes filled with cold retribution as the philosopher's stone was held aloft in her calloused hands.

“Headmaster Dumbledore, I cannot in good conscience allow this artefact to stay here a moment longer. It must be returned to Nicolas Flamel-”

“Most certainly not Amelia, I daresay that the ministry will confiscate it.” Cornelious spoke over her self righteous exclamation, his sweaty hands fiddling with the rim of his bowler hat. Albus sighed as she puffed up indignantly, her finger raising into the air as she began to chide Cornelius for his less-than-just tendencies. It seemed that Madam Bones was ever the lawful stateswoman, as she was always one to champion the laws that governed them. Cornelius however, seemed intent on making his own agenda obvious to even the densest of people.

Albus watched with distant remorse as Amelia Bones and Cornelius Fudge argued about what to do with the stone. Since it was Nicholas Flamel’s property, Bones was insistent on returning it to him, but the minister seemed intent on smuggling it out to the Unspeakables to study. Neither option appealed to him in any way so he kept silent, stewing quietly in anger as decisions were made against his best wishes.

The philosopher's stone and the traps that protected it had two very important purposes; the first being to draw Tom out of hiding, and the second being a trial run for the godforsaken boy-who-lived and his friends. Neither were applicable now, as he hadn't seen any signs of Tom despite tempting the man with immortality, and Harry Potter was still in the wrong house surrounded by the wrong people.

He let out a weary breath, watching as the minister puffed up with self-importance. As much as he was loath to return the stone to Nicolas, the world would be better off if the ministry didn’t get the chance to study it. Shuffling papers around on his desk, Albus coughed pointedly. “Now now Cornelius, Nicolas and Perenelle will want their stone back, I'm sure. It is the right thing to do... return it to them, that is.” He spoke placatingly, attempting to be firm with the man while still being non-threatening. It had become more and more apparent to him through the years that the best way to speak with Fudge was with a tone more akin to one that you would use to speak with a child than an adult.

“Yes-uh… yes I suppose you have a point, Albus.” The nervous man readjusted his bowler cap, patting himself down as Madam Bones nodded affirmatively. “-but I can't in good conscience allow just anyone to take the stone all the way to France. It is a priceless artefact after all!”

He nodded slowly, pushing the plate of lemon drops over to the man. “Of course Cornelius. I can return it to them myself, if you would like. I know them personally, as you well know, so it will be no trouble.” Of course, he had no intention of actually returning the stone, but the two politicians needn't know that. If he was able to get the ministry out of Hogwarts as soon as possible, then he would have ample time to figure out some other use the stone may bring him. Of course, he needed to get his hands back on it first.

“Absolutely not, Headmaster.” He frowned, hands carding through his beard as the troublesome woman shook her head. Madam Bones was always going to be an issue it seemed. She was incapable of taking his side in any matter, and when she did it was typically at his expense in one way or another. “You were the one to take it from the Flamels in the first place. I'll have Moody deliver it back to them.” 

Before he could argue, or even open his mouth, Cornelius swiftly agreed. “Very good Amelia, I'm sure Alastor is the very best one for the job.” The minister seemed particularly jittery after the debacle with the cerberus, likely because it had nearly bitten his leg off. Albus sighed as the man took another lemon drop and placed his hat back onto his balding head. “Well then, headmaster, I'll see myself out.” Madam Bones grabbed the stone from where it had been placed onto his desk and took her leave as well, the door shutting behind them without another word.

He sat very still for several minutes, reeling at the fast and deliberate actions of the two politicians before his mind finally caught up with his situation. Slowly rising, Albus let his anger simmer underneath his skin for a moment, his glare situated firmly on a random old book on a shelf as he stood to his full height. Fawkes gave out a mournful scree.

“How…” He was in awe with how fast things had crumbled. There hadn’t been even an inkling of cracks in his plan for the year, and then it all suddenly fell away in great heaps to reveal glaring irregularities that were simply too massive for him to fix.

Albus clenched his fist, the heat of magic under his skin feeling too hot to suppress. In a fit of rage, he yelled out and propelled the intense wave of magic outwards and onto his office. There was a great cracking sound that one could akin to a whip, and the floor below him shuttered as if chilled by a passing breeze. He closed his eyes, letting the carnage wash over him as the rumbling shook the tower to its very foundations.

Slowly, deliberately, he let out a breath of air, feeling his emotions settle into neutral pleasantness again as he opened his eyes to observe what was left of the room. The only things left untouched were the paintings of old headmasters and mistresses of Hogwarts, whose protective wards could withstand an army’s siege twice over. Everything else though, from books to the chandeliers to Fawkes’ perch were all rubble, if that. The phoenix himself had seemingly vacated the space, leaving Albus Dumbledore sitting in his self-created destruction.

“This… this cannot go on.”

Draco sat, slouched, in one of the plush couches in the Slytherin commons, watching as Harry bloody Potter sat there reading a book next to him as if everything was fine. Honestly, the bastard couldn’t even find it in himself to applaud Draco’s argumentative skills. Sure, he had agitated Weasley rather heavily, but it was very unlikely that the brute of a boy would actually do something as barbaric as throw a punch at him when there were so many witnesses. Really, Harry had absolutely no grounds to be nearly as angry as he seemed to be.

Shifting slightly, he continued to watch the boy-who-lived, finding himself oddly annoyed that Harry was being so childish. Honestly, I stopped giving the silent treatment when I was nine. Perhaps it was because Blaise was more focused on annoying people with infantile pranks and Theo seemed insistent on stuffing his nose so far into a book that it became a permanent fixture of the binding, but Harry was the only person in his group of friends that was not only interesting but a great deal of fun to be around. Perhaps it was the boy’s clear genius and undeniable skill, or maybe his biting wit and acid tongue, but Draco oftentimes found himself trying to keep up with the boy rather than dragging him along. It was a brilliant change of pace after growing up with Vincent and Greg, and he was annoyed that he was being refused such pleasant company because said company wanted to prove a point.

He was broken from his musings when Harry’s head snapped up, his emerald eyes narrowing onto a corner of the tall ceiling as if he was trying to make out something that wasn’t there. His head tilted, eyes still trained on the same spot as he leaned over and poked Blaise in the rib.

“Oi, Blaise.”

“Mhm.”

“That corner points to the south-west, right? Where the headmaster’s office is?”

The Italian boy glanced up to the unassuming corner, his eyes squinting in confusion instead of Harry’s suspicion. “I s’pose it could be.”

“Mm… never mind then.”

Harry sat back, clearly unsatisfied with the answer he had been given as he continued to stare at the ceiling as if it would come alive and bite him. Draco fidgeted, unsure how to proceed with the conversation if at all, as Harry was still childishly ignoring him and seemed to be in the process of melting the old stone of the ceiling bricks into a puddle on the floor below with his glare alone. He watched as the tall boy huffed angrily before standing, his movements practised and languid as he set his book onto the table. Draco couldn’t help but tense slightly as Harry slowly walked from the room, his eyes still focused on the general direction of the headmaster’s office as he began to climb the stairs.

Something about the other boy's movements made Draco very nervous. 

Settling slightly in his seat, Draco twitched his head a few times, eyes darting around the room as Harry entered the boys’ dorm hall. Twitchyness was a habit he seemed to have picked up from his father, who said it was a mannerism that had been passed down the Malfoy line for centuries. Draco didn't know how mannerisms of all things could be hereditary, but his ancestors' paintings all had that twitchy quality to them as well, so he could only assume that magic had once again found a way.

He tensed up once more as he felt a smooth head bump gently against his hand. Glancing down, Draco watched with trepidation as Harry’s snake Thasin smoothly slithered into his lap, curling up there and hissing softly. He thought that perhaps she was asking to be pet, and cautiously reached out to run a hand down her smooth scales.

Draco didn't know why he was afraid of snakes. It had been a constant issue in his life, much like his family’s mannerisms. Of course, he certainly wanted to like snakes, as they were beautiful and elegant creatures from afar, but there was something dangerous about them that made him want to run away as fast as he could. It was an instinct that seemed ingrained in his very subconscious, and he felt that he was simply doomed to never get over the fear. 

Despite that knowledge, he could ascertain that Harry seemed to only have his very best interest at heart when throwing the snake at him—which the boy seemed intent on doing quite regularly—and he had really been making an effort to get better around the beast since that first day of school. It worked too, and things had gotten to the point where Thasin could slither into his shower stall and hiss at him and he wouldn't so much as flinch. He was still terrified of other snakes, sure, but he knew Thasin was just a harmless, cuddly little thing that would sooner attack a particularly appetizing-looking table leg than any humans around her. 

He still made an effort to scream every time the snake touched him though, at least when Harry was around. The taller boy was a bit of a sadist, Draco had found, and every time the blond made a ruckus about the snake it seemed to put Harry in a better mood. Every once in a while the boy would even laugh a little at his antics, which would always make Draco feel strangely giddy. Perhaps it was because Harry looked so bored all the time that getting him to show any sort of positive emotion was difficult, if nearly impossible.

He sighed, leaning back slightly as Thasin seemed to nearly purr. Really, there was so much that could be said about the boy-who-lived. Harry was such a large enigma that Draco had long since given up on trying to figure him out. He had grown up with muggles, but then knew more about magic than Draco did! He seemed baffled by his own brilliance, but then turned around and had such natural and warranted arrogance that he clearly knew how smart he was. Honestly, Draco could go on and on about it and never find an end to Harry’s oddities.

Thasin flicked her tongue out and tasted his thumb, before letting out another purr-like hiss and moved to wrap her head around his hand. He smiled down at the brightly coloured animal, finding a hint of affection swelling up inside him for the ghastly thing. It hardly mattered if Harry lived up to the expectations set for him in the end. At least, Draco didn’t see it that way. Harry was best enjoyed as a half-mystery wrapped up in biting sarcasm and a genius mind.

He was more fun that way.

Chapter Text

The rest of the term passed in relative peace for Harry. After the mess that was Hallowe’en, the headmaster seemed insistent on brushing the entire fiasco under the rug. None of the students were told a word of what was happening or more aptly what had happened, and only the children of high ranking government officials were cued in on the legal drama that was currently unfolding. Draco oftentimes passed the letters from his father around the table, Lucius Malfoy’s written words acting like a prophet’s visions to the curious Slytherins at Hogwarts. It seemed, at least to Lord Malfoy, that the ministry was trying to write a new law in response to the overflowing public backlash. Hilariously, there was nothing in the lawbook that stated that the headmaster had been overstepping his bounds as Headmaster by placing such a dangerous beast in a school. Sure, he had been endangering the lives of every student present on the grounds, but in comparison to the muggle world protections for minors was rather slim among wizardkind, and he had not technically been doing anything illegal. Immoral? Perhaps, but certainly not illegal.

Draco had gone on many long-winded rants about the topic, ones that Harry had found himself actively participating in. After all, the legal hoops that both the ministry and Dumbledore were being forced to jump through were nothing short of preposterous, and they could both readily agree that the ministry was in dire need of an overhaul very soon. Harry could tell that, strangely enough, Draco didn’t seem nearly as fascinated by politics than he initially expected, as though while he certainly could hold his own in a conversation, there was no true passion behind it. Harry could only assume it was because they were too young for the blond to have cultivated an interest in political study yet, but it hardly mattered in the end. What did matter was the shortening divide between them, as Harry found that he had the other boy as an almost constant companion now that he had gotten over his frustrations from Hallowe’en.

Time passed quickly, and as November fought its way into December and the snow outside turned from mere flurries to raging snowstorms, Harry found himself settling into his new group of friends easily enough. Blaise had proven himself to be something of a troublemaker, in a way that reminded Harry very much of the Weasley twins. He could often be found throwing prank items into other people’s food before casually returning to his own during mealtimes, sitting there pleasantly as an explosion rocked the table and threw several people onto the floor. One glaring difference between him and the twins however, was his general temperament, as Blaise could be considered quite calm and relaxed on even the more stressful days, something that the rambunctious Weasley twins severely lacked.

Theo was a different matter. Harry wasn’t quite sure what to make of the Nott heir in truth. He seemed to enjoy their presence but not their company, as the second that any of them turned to have a discussion with him, Theo would immediately turn away and pointedly ignore what they had to say. Harry had found himself inexplicably reminded of a cat on more than one occasion, especially when Theo would curl over himself and glare at Draco with undisguised annoyance. He had soon enough left the boy to his companionable solitude, knowing that above all else he was at least spending physical time with them.

As he settled into his friend group, time only pressed on, and one sunny winter morning he realized that midterms were looming ever-present on the horizon, and with them was the midyear rankings.

Harry wasn't particularly stressed about the testing, as they were created to solidify the most likely house ranking for the end of the school year and didn’t actually add or subtract from his class averages. He was mostly just annoyed that he would have to deal with the tests at all really, especially considering they were only written examinations and no practical exams would be held. He felt quite torn over how exactly to go about his tests because of that, as he could very easily get full O’s on each exam and wipe the board with everyone in his year. However, Harry felt that while he should still put in the effort to get ranked high, he wanted to be sure that he wouldn’t outshine his peers to the extent that he was capable of. In direct correlation with that however, was the idea of doing well enough to knock Granger out of the top spot. It was just tempting enough for him to consider trying hard anyway. It would be incredibly amusing to watch her quietly fume for hours on end after the ranking was posted, and the mental image tempted him a great deal. Tom was sure to think that it was a horrible idea, but considering the man’s apparent leave of absence Harry felt less inclined to care what he thought. Really, Dumbledore was likely still dealing with the mess that was Fluffy and the philosopher's stone, why would he care about the first year students’ midterm ranking?

He was still contemplating the thought as he walked into the great hall for breakfast on the first day of exams. Draco was chattering on about how excited he was for the potions and astronomy tests, as he had been wanting to see what Professor Snape would have them brew and he was also curious to see how many constellations he could count in an hour's time. Glancing to the Gryffindor table, Harry watched as Granger poured over stacks upon stacks of notes and books, appearing half-savage as she sorted through the mess. He felt a twinge of sympathy as she let out a long-suffering moan and let her head fall forward with a thunk against the table, her massive mane of hair almost completely enveloping her scattered parchments.

“She does realize midterms aren't like final exams, right? It's just for class rank.” Blaise whispered over his shoulder, flowing Harry’s line of sight with a raised eyebrow. He chuckled dryly, waving the other boy away as they sat down at their table.

“I don't think she cares. It's not about getting good grades, you know? It's about beating everyone else.”

Harry did, against his better wishes, manage to beat Granger for the top spot. He had realized this after seeing the postings on the last day of term, in which he spotted his name sitting quite plainly at the very top of the list, right above Granger’s. At first, he had very nearly coughed up a lung from laughing too hard, as the thought of what her face might look like after realizing she was in second was too good to bear. However, all thoughts of rubbing it in her face had come crashing down not thirty minutes later when the grapevine saw fit to inform him that Granger had attempted to convince the headmaster to fail him out for cheating. Of course, when Parkinson had saw fit to inform him of this, he had immediately brushed her off, feeling that she was just trying to ‘stir the pot’ so to speak. Several other people had told him the same thing as well, mostly through hushed warnings as he walked to breakfast, but it had all come to a head when Granger stormed up to him in a huff when he entered the great hall, and he had been forcibly confronted with the very real likelihood of Hermione Granger having gone absolutely mad.

“Pardon?”

He blinked, unsure with how to respond as she glared at him reprovingly. She scoffed at his confused tone, her arms crossed over her chest and eyes boring into him as if he had murdered the queen right in front of her.

“Don’t act so innocent Potter, I know you cheated. Fess up to the headmaster and I’m sure you will manage to get away with only a temporary suspension.” She raised her nose into the air in an infuriatingly condescending way that made him wish very much that they were not in front of the entire school and that he could slap the look right off her face. He blinked slowly, mind catching up with her words as his confusion grew.

“Granger… why do you think I cheated?”

She huffed again, her arms uncrossing only to rest sternly on her hips. “I didn't see you studying in the library at ALL. There is simply no way for you to have scored better than me when I studied for MONTHS!”

Harry squinted, trying to figure out what had happened to make her so unbelievably dense. She had to be joking, right? She knew he did well in classes, she certainly complained about it enough for him to think she was spying on more than just his movements but his report card as well. Where on Circe’s green earth did she get the idea he was cheating?

“You… Granger, I do better than you on practicals all the time, I think it's been obvious for some time now that I have a better grasp on general theory compared to you as well. Why should my time in the library dictate my abilities in magic?”

Her nose wrinkled unpleasantly, as if she had smelt something particularly foul, and she leaned forward to jab an accusatory finger into his chest. Stepping back, irritated, he brushed a hand down his jumper as she continued her nonsensical tirade.

“Don’t make me laugh Potter. Do you truly expect me to believe you get by in class on pure talent? You would have to be a genius to do half as well as you do.”

He blinked, before cracking a wry grin. “Thank you, I suppose?”

“Which means,” she rolled her eyes, glaring behind him where Draco was sure to be making unpleasant faces at her. “-that you are clearly getting some sort of extra help from the teachers or perhaps a private tutor. It is hardly fair to the rest of us who had to study on our own you know!”

“Neither of those things are considered cheating, Granger. Is it that you’re upset Harry managed to do better than you? That large head of yours will have to shrink quite a bit for that particular realization to pass you by.” Harry held in an annoyed sigh as Draco couldn’t help but pipe up from the peanut gallery, his incessant need to get involved in arguments coming back to make things even more difficult. Luckily for him, the few sparse students around them didn’t seem very occupied with the confrontation, instead tiredly eating their oatmeal or flipping through the prophet. Harry glanced forlornly towards the Slytherin table, on which sat a delightful array of eggs, toast, sausage, and various fruits. How he wished to be sitting there now instead of dealing with a manic teacher’s pet.

He managed to catch Blaise’s eye, and the boy watched them for a moment before smiling lightly and motioning him over. Glancing towards Draco, who seemed to be doing a brilliant job of distracting Granger, Harry quickly manoeuvred around the pair and practically sprinted towards the Slytherin table, sliding into his seat just as Granger realized he had left.

Letting out a long-suffering breath, Harry regarded the potential breakfast items with care before expertly piling them onto his plate. The entire conversation had been wildly out of character for Granger, and seemed to have done nothing but make her out to be some sort of crazed lunatic.

Did she get into Trelawney’s sherry stores? Wild accusations aren’t exactly her forte. Harry considered the thought idly, wondering if someone could have snuck the muggleborn some sort of potion that made her irrational. It was the only possibility that made much sense to him.

Hmmm… yes, how strange.

He stopped with his fork raised halfway to his mouth, eyes widening in surprise. He hasn't heard from Tom in weeks .

Tom? 

Yes leech?

Setting the fork back down onto his plate, Harry watched as Draco practically danced over to the table, whistling a happy tune as Granger ran out of the hall. It seemed that there was a clear victor in their skirmish. Where exactly have you been?

I can tell you once everything is complete. It isn’t safe to speak about quite yet.

Harry was reeling. Tom kept secrets from him, yes, that was something that he had long since made peace with. It was also apparent that the man was plotting something that he didn't want Harry to know about. This however… Tom just insinuated that it wasn't safe to discuss the matter inside Harry's heavily occluded mind. That meaning that they were either in far deeper waters than he originally thought, or Harry learning about whatever Tom had been up to would put the plan in jeopardy somehow. 

Both ideas were rather horrific to contemplate, and Harry felt unease building up behind his eyes as he picked up his fork again and bit down on the eggs stationed there.

Despite his worries, Harry felt happy and rather excited as he boarded the Hogwarts Express. It would be nice to get away from the castle for a while, especially after the drama with Weasley and Granger. It was really quite funny how Privet Drive had gone from his inescapable prison to a simple pleasure he could delight in. Inside the walls of the Dursley residence he was safe from outside influences like Dumbledore or Granger and Weasley. He had no classes to hold back in and no friendships to cultivate. He could focus back onto his normal life again after the stress of acclimating to an already familiar—if skewed and distorted—place, and he was really looking forward to a fortnight in Surrey and a simple, muggle Christmas.

Good luck with that.

Would you do me a favour and keep it to yourself, Tom?

Harry settled into a compartment with Draco and Theo, who were both going home for the hols as well. Blaise, apparently, didn't want to trudge back home to meet his newest step-father, so he was staying put at the castle. Harry thought it was awfully pessimistic of him, really. After all, this one might end up lasting a few years longer than the others. Based on his mother’s letters, she seemed to like him quite a bit more than the previous attempts in the very least. Besides, he'll have to live with the poor bloke, he might as well try to get to know him.

Harry sighed, watching as Draco immediately claimed the window seat and uncharismatically fell asleep, instantly slumping against the cool glass. Taking the seat next to the sleeping boy, Harry settled back in the plush padding as Theo sat down across from them and pulled out a leather-bound tome.

It's not like you know what having a father is like. Maybe he's gotten sick of it.

Harry was finding himself increasingly irritated with Tom’s antics. You're one to talk, being the megalomaniac that killed both of our dads.

Well, someone’s in a mood today.

Harry felt that he had every right to be in a ‘mood’, especially considering Tom’s particularly unsavoury attitude as of late. He had gone almost two months without a word from the man, who had promised to explain some things the last time they spoke on Hallowe’en, and hadn't. So when the bastard had just shown up out of nowhere pretending that it was no big deal...well, Harry certainly felt that he had a right to be ‘in a mood’ over it.

The casual flipping of pages from Theo’s book drew him from his unsettled thoughts, and Harry glanced to where the other boy was curled up around the massive tome. He watched Theo for a moment, considering his friend and his oddities. Harry had never really thought about the Nott family until unwittingly becoming friends with their heir, but it had been a surprise to find him so… antisocial. He had yet to meet the heir of an old home that was introverted in any respect, but Theo seemed to be veering dangerously on the edge of willingly becoming a social pariah in the effort to be completely ignored by everyone in his vicinity. It was a puzzle Harry wasn’t completely convinced he wanted to solve, as the emotional toll that was sure to go into even the briefest of conversations with Theo was sure to make it a wasted effort.

Sighing one final time, Harry let his head fall backwards, his eyes closing as he let the train’s gentle rocking lure him into sleep.

Harry walked through the barrier and back into the muggle world a few hours later, being hugged and promptly whisked back home by his aunt. Harry greeted the whirlwind of movement and noise that he found there with a quiet sigh of relief, immediately settling into the chaos that could only be called Petunia Dursley’s Christmas Panic.

The first week passed by in a mess of tangled tinsel and last-minute shopping, and Harry let it all carry him up and away from the concerned thoughts that had plagued him. Christmas Eve was a chaotic affair, with every resident of the house running to and fro from the kitchen to the dining room as last-minute touches were made and food cooked. Vernon was working to string up the final decorations before aunt Marge barged into the home, and Petunia was busy away in the kitchen with Harry, who was busying himself with mashing the potatoes while his aunt whirled around the small space. He jumped out of the way in order to not collide with the woman as she practically sprinted around the island to yank the turkey out of the oven, her apron billowing angrily in conjunction with her no doubt frazzled mind.

Sighing tiredly, she stopped for a few strenuous seconds in order to turn and take the bowl of half-mashed potatoes from him. “Harry dear, please go find Dudley. I need the both of you to help with the pudding.”

She was already turning away from him as she spoke, the bowl of mush being set firmly onto the island as she let out some pent-up frustrations with the masher. He didn’t bother with a reply, instead twisting around the mess of a kitchen and up the stairs as fast as he could.

It was nice being back at Privet Drive, as his family was always a great deal of fun to be around and the neighbours were all as casually intrusive as always. Even with the familiarity though, he felt awfully stifled. Constrained in such a way that he couldn’t quite figure out how to free himself of it. He was having the constant and inexplicable urge to get out and do it fast . It was making his enjoyment of the holidays awfully difficult.

In perhaps an effort to let out that pent up energy, he had taken to going out on the winding hiking trails around the neighbourhood. He would leave around lunch and return right at dinner, happily walking through the snow for hours on end as winter birds chirped and nature noises surrounded him with a gentle blanket of calm. Petunia fretted about him getting lost or kidnapped or even freezing to death in the cold—he was only 11 after all—but Privet Drive was a rather sleepy neighbourhood despite its proximity to London, and she had eventually been convinced that he would be fine. Despite that, he had still spent many hours promising to watch out for strange men in white vans. Truthfully, Harry didn't really make that much of an effort to watch out for paedophiles. He felt safe out in the woods, hidden by the trees and snow. It felt like home, in some way.

Harry could admit he had taken on too much for his first year back in the wizarding world. He had originally wanted to hide out in the shadows of Hufflepuff for his first three or four years, gathering a support network to fall back onto before forming some semblance of a plan to take down the headmaster. He had never anticipated that he would need to worry nearly as much about Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley, as he had assumed that they wouldn’t be nearly as invested in his life once Dumbledore found that he wasn’t in their house and that they were therefore useless. It seemed strange how they were pushing him towards some unknown goal—pointless in a way that concerned him deeply. Just what was Dumbledore planning?

Suffice it to say, ever since the sorting hat had gone against his wishes and he had been forced into the limelight, everything had slowly gotten more and more complicated for him. With his creature inheritance slowly making itself known and Dumbledore’s favourites licking at his heels, Harry was desperately looking for an out.

“Aunt Petunia needs help with the pudding.” Peeking into their shared bedroom, Harry found Dudley lying across the floor languidly. He squinted slightly, watching as the boy’s chest seemed to be unnaturally still—as if he wasn’t breathing. He was playing dead, most likely.

Harry rolled his eyes, leaning against the doorframe and regarding his heavy-set cousin with an unimpressed look. Even in this life, Dudley was still unhelpfully lazy. Nicer? Of course. Open to the idea of doing work? Not at all.

“I'll tell auntie you already broke your new GameBoy. You know, the one you were supposed to unwrap tomorrow?” There was a moment of silence where he was sure that the other boy choked on his saliva, before Dudley darted up, fast as a bullet, and practically sprinted out the door and down the stairs. Harry stared into the empty room for a moment, surprised that that had actually worked, before turning and following the boy back down.

After a Christmas feast to end all Christmas feasts, the happy—if rather sluggish—family slowly gathered together in the living room for recreation and merriment. Harry and Dudley were allowed a few small sips of wine, which Harry appreciated far more than Dudley did, and the adults all got pleasantly buzzed as the sun slipped lower and lower into the sky until the darkness outside tried to sneak its way in through the windows. They ate biscuits and sat around the slowly dwindling fire until even Vernon’s eyes got droopy and they all happily retired to bed. Almost every resident of the house fell to sleep quickly, their bellies full and eyes drooping pleasantly. 

Everything was quiet. Everyone was still. Not even the winter wind outside made much nose besides the occasional mournful howl. 

Harry was wide awake, his entire body shaking slightly as the itch to run became nearly unbearable. His fists clenched together, teeth gnashing as he glared at a specific point on the ceiling. His eyes refused to budge from a dimly-glowing plastic star above his head, a very particular one that was about to slip from the three-year-old tape it was fashioned onto the ceiling with and onto his head. He focused so much of his energy onto that one point that the star got noticeably brighter, magic fueling it as the tape that held it against gravity slipped further and further.

I need to get out.

The plastic star gave a little burst of light and snapped off of the ceiling with a finality not dissimilar to a gunshot. Rocketing out of bed, Harry didn't even think to put on shoes. He darted out of the room and down the stairs before the star managed to plop against his pillow, sizzling with ambient magic as Dudley snorted in his sleep.

Harry was out of the house in under thirty seconds, sprinting full force into the woods behind it as the wind around him whipped through his hair and bit at his face. The icy snow under his feet was slick and crunchy, and he was momentarily slowed as he stumbled through it. Reaching the tree line however, where the snow thinned out immediately, he took off in a run again, blood pumping through his veins as the winter wind slapped biting air into his eyes, his lungs stinging each time he dared to take a breath.

It was a white Christmas. Snow fell gently through the tree branches, attempting valiantly to blanket the forest floor below. He could feel the stinging snow on his bare feet as they pounded into the earth. His breathing was quick and irregular. A heartbeat that wasn't his own thumped rhythmically through his ears.

All that was comprehensible was his hands and the warmth and the taste and the dull, aching throb of his jaw as he bit into tough meat. Some things tasted better than others, he noticed, and in a moment of clarity he was able to comprehend that the heart was definitely his favourite. He ate the entire thing. It had miraculously still been beating when he first bit into it, and blood sprayed like a geyser all over his face and jumper.

He crashed through the underbrush, fighting against his human instincts that were screaming to just stop and think. Just slow down and THINK.

He pressed on.

The heart was definitely his favourite. He ate the entire thing. It had miraculously still been beating when he first bit into it, and blood sprayed like a geyser all over his face and jumper.

The heartbeat was getting louder—more aggressive—and he could hear the chanting now. It was changing pitches randomly. Throaty and aggressive, he'd never heard anything like it before. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.

Harry, just slow down and think. You need to get a hold of yourself.

It was strange, that voice sounded a little like Tom.

It had miraculously still been beating when he first bit into it.

Harry crashed out of the brush and into a clearing, stopping jerkily in the middle of it. The chanting had reached a crescendo, the singing merging together and overwhelming his senses as the cold and wind bore down on him like a tidal wave of ice. There wasn't just a heartbeat anymore. He could hear fast drums, the beat thumping rhythmically, vibrating his bones, making him shake all over. Was that a flute? He couldn't keep up with the instruments anymore. He didn’t want to try.

Harry fell to his knees, face turned skyward. Staring, open-mouthed at the stars, he felt more than heard as something let out an angry screeching noise from deep within him. The sound was familiar. He thought that he might have had heard it long ago when his mindscape had just barely been realized.

The chanting surrounded him. It was almost screaming now. Some of the voices sounded like hyenas laughing.

Ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum

His eyes were burning.

Harry. Harry please listen to me! You need to snap out of it. Harry!

That voice definitely sounded like Tom. It was so far away.

The chanting got impossibly louder, the drums picking up pace and the flute changing from a melodic tune to a high pitched screeching. It was all building up to one painful, crucial, moment.

STOPstopstopstopPleasestopstopI’msorrypleasestop.

He was begging. Pleading and crying in pain. Overwhelmed and scared.

The chanting and instruments bled together into that horrible, agonizing screeching. It was so close now, practically right behind him. It was wretched and animalistic, twisted and inhuman and- oh god PLEASE just STOP.

It felt like his eyes were burning out of his skull.

Ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum

He was screaming, he was sure of it. The burning was unbearable, and oh god that screeching what is that.

“Harry.”

He couldn't think or feel or hear anything but that god awful noise. He almost wished that the chanting was back, anything besides this.

“Harry, I'm sorry.”

PleasestopstopI’msorryplease stop .

“I'm going to help. Okay?”

He screamed even louder, throat raw as he fought to keep his sanity as the horrible screeching raised its pitch with him.

“Harry. Harry, I'm sorry but you need to eat this.”

Pleasepleasestop-oh god is that ME?

Someone grabbed his face, roughly shoving something warm and metallic down his throat. The screeching cut off as he bit down.

That was me.

His vision faded to black.

Christmas morning was a bit different this year. Harry, having received magical presents for the first time in this life, had found himself passing a few of them around to the mesmerized Dursleys. Blaise had sent him a very expensive-looking cloak clasp. It was made of iron or perhaps platinum, and had been expertly moulded into a snake tangled into knots. It had the same colouring and head shape as Thasin, as her electric dots and stripes had been recreated with precious gems inserted into the metal. He peered down at it with appreciation, watching as the enchanted object moved lazily, knotting itself up even tighter before eventually unwinding only to do it all again. It was rather funny that Blaise had gifted him something resembling Thasin, considering that she had opted to stay at the castle with him where there were ample mice and centuries of warming charms blanketing the place. 

Theo had gotten him an encyclopedia of magical creatures, with a note saying that Draco had received a similar one. There wasn't any explanation past that, so the thoroughly uncomfortable Harry was forced to assume that Theo had purely innocent motives. Perhaps he just thought that it was a good read? It certainly sounded like something that Theo would enjoy pouring over for hours at a time. Maybe it was his way of connecting with his friends. Either way, Harry would take great joy in combing through it and trying to discern if it had any hints towards his own magical malady.

Draco had got him a very smart-looking wand holster with the Potter crest on it, which made him smile instinctively. Harry was glad that he had put just as much thought and money into his friends’ gifts as they had into his. He had gotten Blaise an extremely expensive new cloak with snake-themed trim, funnily enough, and Theo had gotten the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, with a note saying that it was the closest muggles had gotten to guessing what the magical world was truly like. Draco had received muggle hair products as a gag gift, and a pair of cufflinks with the Malfoy crest on them that were enchanted to the gills with protective magic. He assumed that Draco would only be getting into more trouble in the near future, and that small mercy of magical protection may just save his nose from the threat of being broken in three different places by a stray sucker punch.

A few of the older years had been thoughtful enough to gift him various magical treats, which he took great delight in sharing with his family. Vernon had exclaimed that it was the best chocolate he’d ever tasted.

“Honeydukes is really one of a kind. In third year I’ll be allowed to go to the town it's stationed in, you know. I'll buy you more then.” Harry managed to get the box of chocolates back into his own grasp, putting the lid firmly back in place as Vernon muttered on about the nonsensical nature of wizards.

Dudley and him had traded gifts right there, knowing that they had both gained an allowance big enough to spare some extra quid on presents for each other that year. His cousin had been ecstatic to receive the new pair of boxing gloves, and Harry had very nearly laughed himself off his chair when he laid eyes on his present: a very cheap-looking Halloween witch costume. It seemed that Dudley had gone for a gag gift. Harry could hardly find it in himself to be annoyed, too amused by the polyester and cheap dye job to care.

What really made the holiday however, was when his aunt and uncle led him blindfolded up the stairs, Dudley’s excited laughter from behind him drawing out any nervousness he might have felt. He had been stopped for a moment, in what he thought might be the guest room, before the blindfold had been tugged off and he very nearly yelped in surprise.

The guest room had been altered to suit the needs and whims of an eleven-year-old boy. It was simple, and already had all of his things moved in. There was a twin-sized bed on the far wall, decorated with his comforter and situated next to a bedside table with a lamp. A dresser on the eastern wall held the muggle clothing he hadn’t taken with him to Hogwarts, along with it various other nicknacks and dodads that he had collected over the span of his short life. Across from the dresser was a large desk that Harry automatically fell in love with, it’s ample room perfect for the occasional projects that captured his interest or academic obsessions that came and went. The best thing though, was one of the walls that was covered floor to ceiling with photos of his life with the Dursleys: visits to family or that one vacation to the Bahamas, birthday parties and theme parks. All of it filled with happy memories of a happy boy. It was wonderful.

“The two of you are getting far too old to share a room, I reckon. Marge can sleep on the air mat if she wants to stay the night.” Vernon’s voice echoed in his mind for a moment, before he whipped around and hugged the man fiercely. His uncle gave a loud guffaw before returning the hug with vigour. “There you are Harry, a right proper bedroom, and just on time for Christmas.”

This was the first time in both of his lives that he could truly say that he had a space that was just... his . The cupboard and his bedroom from the last life had been prisons, a place to keep a misbehaving pet and nothing more. This life they were nothing but storage closets, and he was standing in a room that before he wouldn’t have even dared to consider him sleeping in.

And now it was his.

He was lying in his new bed that night, the wind outside doing good to lull him towards sleep before the smell of cigarette smoke roused him from his stupor. His eyes flung open once his mind comprehended the smell, and he sprang forward into a sitting position, his eyes immediately fixating on the foot of the bed where a familiar silhouette was sitting.

“Death?” He breathed, “what are you doing here?”

The god was nothing but a vague shadow and two glowing eyes, and for a moment Harry was certain he wasn’t really there. They sat very still for several long moments, before Death silently stood and made his way over to the front of the bed, brushing his hand over the boy's forehead with familiarity. “I got you a Christmas present.”

Turning on the lamp on his nightstand, Harry blinked at the sudden light as a package was thrust into his face. Reaching for it with confusion, Harry rubbed his eyes as Death sat down on the mattress. The box was rectangular in shape, wrapped with black wrapping paper that had a pattern very akin to… he blinked, looking up to the god questioningly. “Are these skulls?”

Death smiled cheekily, “gotta stay on theme, as they say.”

Snorting, Harry peeled the morbid wrapping paper off the box cautiously, careful not to tear it in the hopes that he could use it again later. Placing the now bare box gingerly in his lap, he carefully lifted the lid off with rising trepidation. He was a tad apprehensive to see what Death constituted as a respectable Christmas present; for all he knew, the god thought that human remains were perfectly appropriate, and Harry was about to be given a hand or something similar. Sniffing slightly, Harry decided that the likelihood of that particular reality was rather slim. Setting the lid to the side, he peered inside the box’s confines and still managed to be surprised by what was held within.

“This is my invisibility cloak.”

“Mmhm.” Harry looked up with wide eyes, staring at the god in silent question. Death took a long drag from his cigarette, gazing down at the cloak with appreciation. “I took it, along with the ender wand, from Dumbledore, and wiped his memory of them.”

What.

For a moment, Harry sat there and attempted to try and figure out if Death was a genius or just bloody mad.

“Why?”

“Because they don't belong to him.”

He couldn't exactly argue with that, and looked back down at his cloak with cautious awe. He hadn’t expected to get the thing back from Dumbledore any time soon, especially after it hadn’t been among his presents that morning. However, he really should have seen it coming, especially considering how adept Death was at twisting the threads of the universe when he really made an effort.

He pulled it out of the box, setting it aloft on his lap as they sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. He ran a finger down the length of the cloak, considering it and his shared history as Death stayed very still. Just as Harry was about to look up and thank the man, Death shifted, and Harry found himself glancing up to meet golden-green eyes. For a moment, they just sat there staring at each other before, without any prompting, the god reached over to the nightstand and switched off the light, bathing the room in darkness.

“What are you doing?”

“Just checking to see if you’re better now.” Harry could only tell the man had leaned forward when the glowing golden-green colours shifted closer in the dark. Death’s eyes looked deep into his own, his gaze impossibly intense as Harry squinted, finding himself more confused than anything by the action. He felt as though he was missing something important. 

“Checking if I'm better?” He half repeated, half questioned the god’s words, and as Death’s eyes came closer Harry’s unease nearly doubled.

“Mmhm… I also wanted to apologize again.”

His unease was turning very quickly into hysteria, and Harry straightened his posture in an effort to study the eyes of Death closer. “What are you talking about?”

Embers heated up in the man's cigarette as he took a deep breath in. He was still observing Harry's eyes, the gold of his iris glowing faintly with little specks of light. All the gods that he had met were similar in that one way. Their eyes were like black holes, taking all they wanted of the light surrounding them and giving nothing in return. Fate had been much the same.

The god of death exhaled, and the smoke shot out of his mouth and enveloped Harry’s head completely. His vision was obstructed by the grey as he coughed. The smoke was cold. It reminded him of what the winter wind outside felt like.

“Harry, do you remember last night?”

STOPstopstopstopPleasestopstopI’msorrypleasestop.

He was begging. Pleading and crying in pain. Overwhelmed and scared.

The chanting and instruments bled together into the horrible screeching. It was so close now, practically right behind him. It was wretched and animalistic, twisted and inhuman and oh god PLEASE just STOP.

It felt like his eyes were burning out of his skull.

Ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum

He was screaming, he was sure of it. The burning was unbearable, and oh god that screeching what is that.

“Harry.”

He couldn't think or feel or hear anything but that god awful noise. He almost wished that the chanting was back, anything besides this.

“Harry, I'm sorry.”

PleasestopstopI’msorrypleasestop.

“I'm going to help. Okay?”

He screamed even louder, throat raw as he fought to keep his sanity as the horrible screeching raised its pitch with him.

“Harry. Harry, I'm sorry but you need to eat this.”

Pleasepleasestop-oh god is that ME?

Someone grabbed his face, roughly shoving something warm down his throat. The screeching cut off as he bit down.

That was me.

Harry grasped his bed sheets tightly, heaving his chest as he took deep breaths of air. How could he have forgotten that? The smoke cleared from his eyes as a wave of panic and disgust washed over him. What was he? What in Merlin’s good name was he? In a moment of vulnerability, or perhaps of panic, he turned to Death and tried to find some sort of comfort in those unearthly eyes. Thankfully, out of the gold and green came a flicker of remorse, and Death instantly reached out to cradle his face softly in large, glacial hands.

“It's okay Harry, you’ll be just fine.”

He needed to say something-anything to ignore the memory. He wanted to forget again. There were so many things he wanted to forget.

“You were out there with me... out in the forest.”

“I was.”

It had miraculously still been beating when he first bit into it.

“Go to sleep, Harry.”

Chapter Text

Harry stood on Platform 9 ¾ nearly a week later, bundled up in winter apparel and feeling quite cross. He had been forced into roughly twelve layers of clothing by a fretting Petunia, who had been worried that he would get frostbite standing out in the cold for so long in nothing but a jumper. He had been insistent in showing up to the platform an hour early, mostly so he could assure himself a good compartment in the vicinity of possible allies, but the plan had managed to blow up rather brilliantly on him.

Harry had decided to shift gears over the holidays. The New Year's celebration had passed without much incident, and he had spent the vast majority of it re-thinking the rest of the school year and beyond. It had become apparent that his eventual success in Slytherin was very dependent on his ability to gain the prince title. The current prince was a third-year named Avery something-or-another, who had a very unfortunate haircut and even more unfortunate leadership skills. Harry had surmised that the older boy had gotten the prince title through an impressive amount of blackmail and not much else, which he could grudgingly respect as an accurate display of politics, if rather tacky.

Still though, Avery was a third year, and the prince role would need to be filled next year once he aged out of the title and into the scope of the older years’ politics. Harry was already the most likely candidate to take his place, with the other first-year boys either in his corner or too stupid to even bother feeling threatened by. He wrinkled his nose, watching as a mother and her child swept onto the platform; it had been a good day when Draco finally decided to get rid of his bodyguards. Crabb and Goyle were hardly pleasant or even moderately intelligent company. The second years were also non-threats, as far as he was concerned, as they only had about three boys among their ranks and all of them were perfectly happy staying out of his way.

The princess title however, would be much more difficult for anyone to claim next year. The current princess was a vicious second-year named Mariya Vaisey, who had beat out the last princess by somehow bankrupting her father’s business. The poor girl had been removed from Hogwarts and her family had moved to Bulgaria and enrolled her in Durmstrang. Vaisey was a very good candidate for princess, in his personal opinion, and while Harry would have preferred working with someone of his own year so as to not disrupt their work when one of them eventually passed the age limit, he could say with confidence that they would work well together for the time being.

He was broken from his musings by someone tapping sharply on his shoulder. Turning slightly, Harry caught the silver eyes of Daphne Greengrass, who was staring at him with an intense look on her face.

“Heir Potter.”

“Heiress Greengrass.”

There was a moment of painstaking silence in which Greengrass’ gaze got more and more intense and Harry got more and more bored.

“Is there something that you need, Greengrass?”

She looked at him like it was obvious, flipping her long, impossibly straight blond hair over her shoulder with practised ease. He wondered if someone would get cut if a strand accidentally brushed them. “I would like to request your assistance in overtaking Parkinson and Vaisey for the title of Slytherin princess.”

Well… isn't that convenient.

“I suppose you believe I'll be the prince soon then?” 

She rolled her eyes, “you say that like it isn't obvious.”

He couldn't argue much with that, and raised an eyebrow in silent assent. Despite the usefulness of Greengrass’ sudden appearance, Harry wasn’t stupid enough to discuss Slytherin politics while normal people were milling about, so he restricted his reply to a pointed look. When the subtlety seemed lost on her, he held in a sigh before sharing his concern with her quietly, requesting that she wait a bloody moment for them to get on the train and into a private compartment. She ignored his jab with grace and agreed—quite promptly and professionally he noticed. Harry had spent very little time around the girl in the past months that they shared a place among the Slytherin ranks, but as he spoke with her now he could observe that her tone and stature reminded him inexplicitly like a lawyer or businesswoman—or someone similarly based in getting a point across effectively. Standing side by side as they waited for the train to arrive, Harry allowed her to quietly grill him for information that she was not privy to.

“I heard whispers that Farley was going to approach you for an alliance, would you accept it?” She spoke with a professional casualty that solidified her general disposition to him, and he rolled his eyes tiredly. The Greengrass family was certainly professional, if obscenely dull.

“Hm... the Farleys aren't very impressive in terms of politics, but they are all quite adept people.” He waltzed around the question with a practised ease, bored with the conversation. He was getting hot under all the layers, and wished that he could at least take off the overcoat without feeling like Petunia was going to hop out of the bushes and scold him.

Several minutes passed of her hounding him with questions as he returned the favour by giving answers that revealed next to nothing. Just as he contemplating the pros and cons of throwing himself onto the tracks in an effort to avoid any more annoyances, the train finally arrived and he let out an admittedly obnoxious sigh of relief.

Finding a compartment around the middle, the two of them stepped in and set their trunks away before Harry locked the door and shut the curtains. As an extra layer of caution, he casually threw up a few temporary privacy wards, really not wanting to be seen conversing with the girl until he was sure she would be a beneficial ally.

“Those were impressive,” she remarked dryly, eyeing his casting abilities with interest.

“My tutor taught them to me.” A lie, sure, but what else was he to say?

“So the rumour is true? You really do have a private tutor?” She seemed pleased that she had managed to squeeze something out of him, even if it was something as unimportant and practically useless as the confirmation that he had a tutor.

He sighed tiredly, already exhausted with her uppity nature. “Is this truly the conversation you want to be having right now? Because I’m happy to gossip if you’d prefer it.”

She blushed faintly, before schooling her features and adopting her poised and serious nature he was coming to despise. “I’ll cut to the chase then. You're the only contender for prince next year, and you likely wouldn't meet much opposition if you tried to topple Avery Urquhart right this second.”

Ah yes, Urquhart. That's his name.

She continued, picking up pace as she got more confident. “Your status as a half-blood became immediately obsolete when you gained Malfoy’s favor and you were solidified as the best contender for prince once your general magical ability and knowledge was revealed. This is why I decided to come to you for help in toppling Vaisey.”

He nodded slowly, finding nothing that she had said to be particularly shocking. While he tended to keep his head out of the grapevine as much as he could, as gossip did little for his mental health and peace of mind, it had been clear for some time that the rest of their house had been impressed—if baffled—by his abilities. “Alright then. What is the situation?”

Greengrass gained an excited gleam to her eye, and she jerked forward in anticipation. He leaned backwards with a grimace, finding any closeness between them incredibly uncomfortable.

“Parkinson and I are currently fighting for the right to challenge Vaisey, which is slow going since there's only four girls in our year and the sides are even. I've been trying to get some of the second years to back me, but they're too afraid of Vaisey to change loyalties.”

It was well known that ruling with fear was far more efficient than anything else in the house of snakes. No self-respecting Slytherin would ever bow to anyone unless their life was on the line, after all… unless they were fanatics like Bellatrix Lestrange, he supposed.

“That's why I want your help. Vaisey is a little wary of you, which is a feat in itself considering her reputation, and Urquhart is just enjoying his power while it lasts. You've got a lot of sway in Slytherin right now, even if you're not currently using it. If you were to back me, I could nudge Parkinson out of the running and have an easier time in challenging Vaisey.”

It was a good analysis. Very compelling. Her subtle stroking of his ego was charming, but naturally ineffective. Sitting back further in his seat, Harry observed her for a moment, contemplative. Greengrass was a good contender for princess, all things considered. She was from a strong family, one that practically led the neutral faction of the wizengamot. Her great great grandfather had made the family’s fortune in the trades business, and they had gotten quite wealthy off of it to say the least. She was, quite literally, set for life, and once her father decided to pass the lordship—or ladyship, in her case—onto her, she would find herself with an impressive fortune, impeccable reputation, and firm political standing to base her life around.

However, that hardly meant that she would be a good princess for him to work with.

It was an issue that he had found through her entire pitch, one that had become glaringly obvious the more that they spoke. After all, there was a reason the Greengrass faction was more inclined towards business than politics, one important detail that made him very doubtful of her ability to work cohesively with him. The Greengrass family were businessmen. She had spent her entire time with him pitching her reasons for wanting help as if she was speaking to a board of directors. It simply wasn’t in her nature to be a politician, and his cutthroat, dog-eat-dog world approach to the prince title wouldn’t mould well with her need to cultivate friendly ties and grow a business.

To be blunt, he wanted power and she wanted connections. It was a doomed partnership before it even started.

It certainly didn’t help that Vaisey was his favoured princess at the moment. He had only spoken to her in passing, not wanting to show his hand too soon, but everything from her personality to tactics pointed her to being the next Slytherin queen. She was ruthless in a way he deeply admired, and her leadership tactics aligned perfectly with his. It wasn't that Greengrass was a bad candidate, but that Vaisey was just better for him.

“I can help you get Parkinson out of the way, but I'm staying impartial in your fight against Vaisey.” He eventually answered her, already planning out the next few years in advance. Greengrass would no doubt take over in their third year when Vaisey was in her fourth and no longer applicable for princess, and he could get a good grasp of her abilities and shortcomings then. If he saw something he liked, he would happily campaign for king and queen with her the next year. Despite the supposed threat of Parkinson, Harry sincerely doubted that the girl would manage to win in a tussle against Greengrass. Pansy Parkinson was the youngest child in a family that had two sons already out of Hogwarts and making a name for themselves. The Parkinson patriarch was well into his nineties these days and his wife had been on the cusp of menopause when Pansy came along. There was a very small likelihood that she would ever get the ladyship, if she managed anything at all. 

Against the heiress of a booming trade empire, Pansy was chump change. If that. 

Greengrass seemed to accept his bargain, likely having already expected it or something similar. Either way, she seemed happy to get some backing from him. Really, if she was resourceful with it she could use his moderate influence to skyrocket her campaign, but that was only if she played her cards right.

“I want something from you first though.” He added on as an afterthought, contemplating a hangnail on his left pointer finger as she paled. He raised an eyebrow at her sputtering. Honestly, did she really expect him to do all this for free? What was he getting out of helping her beside a little variety in potential associates?

“What is it? I’m afraid that if it pertains to my family I can't be of assistance, my father wouldn't allow it.”

Again with all the professionalism. Honestly, we’re eleven, not eighty-seven.

“No, nothing like that.” He rubbed his cheek, thinking. There were a lot of things he could ask from her, and he certainly had some things that he needed that required a girl's help. Which one of his plans was more pressing though? Hard to say.

He didn't necessarily need a girl to slip into Myrtle's bathroom for him anymore since he had his invisibility cloak back, and he had yet to fully decide if the chamber of secrets was even worth the trouble in the first place. There was also a very special secret passage on the sixth floor that could only be opened by a girl, but he doubted that Greengrass could keep her mouth shut about it if he let her in on it. There was also the issue of the Gryffindor girls' dorms, but he didn’t need to get up there till third year so that was hardly a pressing matter. I could always… yeah, that would work.

“I need you to go into the Forbidden Forest and ask a unicorn for a lock of its hair.”

Her eyes bulged, mouth gaping like a fish for a moment as if he had said something particularly shocking. “What!” He tilted his head, fascinated with how high her voice had gone in that moment. It was as if a mouse had possessed her momentarily. Odd.

He sat for a moment, before realizing that she was actually asking for him to explain his reasoning. “They only like girls, you see, and getting unicorn hair off the market means it was just shed off, and I need some that was willingly given.” He had already tried a prototype of the project he needed the hair for and it became glaringly obvious that he would need hair willingly given, not the last minute and rather cheap tail hair that he had bummed off some random bloke in Diagon. The positive emotions that it supplied created a far more powerful strand of hair than a neutrally shed one would supply.

She fretted for a moment, seemingly stalling for time as he watched the sun slowly descend farther down the sky. It had to be about three in the afternoon at this point. Harry glanced back at his companion, watching as she bit the skin of her thumb nervously. He didn’t really blame her anxiety, even if he found it generally unhelpful. The Forbidden Forest was a dangerous place after all, and there was no guarantee that she’d find a unicorn on her first trip.

“Only if you come into the forest with me.” She finally replied to him, nodding to herself as he shook his head. Not happening. Something bad always happened to him in those thrice-damned woods. After he had quite literally died in there, he was very unenthusiastic about waltzing back in.

“You doubt your own abilities to find a large equine with a horn so heavily that you need my help in the matter?” It was a manipulation tactic, obviously, but he would sooner kiss Dumbledore’s arse than willingly go into that forest.

“I'm not a fool!” Pity. “That place is a death trap, there's no conceivable way a first-year could survive a confrontation with anything in those woods.”

Harry sighed lowly, rubbing his head as the constant headache he had been dealing with for the past week increased in intensity. Perhaps he was being too hard on the girl, but his fuse had been rather short since the… incident on Christmas eve. Maybe he could ease up on her a smidge.

He leaned farther back in his seat, mulling over his options as Greengrass stared a hole into his forehead. She had said something about Farley wanting to start an alliance with him, which he had written off at first as something he was already aware of but had actually been rather surprised by it, having no idea the older year had any intentions towards him. She had certainly been giving him very obnoxious looks since the first day of school, it would explain the odd behaviour in the very least. That meant, of course, that Farley likely was open to kissing up to him a bit if it meant getting her family in his good graces. It would certainly be much more efficient to have an older year like Farley get the unicorn hair, and being a prefect allowed her some leniency when out after curfew. Of course, Greengrass’ help with the secret passage or, merlin be damned, the Gryffindor commons was hardly ideal, but neither were particularly pressing. If need be he could always wait until he was sure of her loyalties or, more accurately, how well she kept a secret. Favours kept very easily, but mistakes were much more difficult to get rid of.

“Fine. You don't have to go into the forest, but I’ll need your help with something else one day, so keep an ear open.” He was disappointed, to be completely honest. The project that needed the hair had been in the planning stages since he was five, and he couldn't even start till he got his hands on some.

She audibly sighed with relief, holding her hand out to shake. “That sounds lovely, thank you.”

“Pleasure working with you, heiress Greengrass.”

“The pleasure is mine, heir Potter.”

The rest of the train ride was filled with meaningless small talk. Harry had found with very little happiness that Greengrass was a chatterbox once she got relaxed around someone. It wasn’t the kind of calming, meaningless chatter that Draco constantly ran his mouth with though, as the girl expected him to actually reply to her rambling. He had quickly gotten irritated with her constant questions that weren’t the least bit rhetorical and biting commentaries on teachers that he actually had to respond to.

Draco was far less exhausting, and through the entire ride Harry started wishing he had run off once they were finished coming to an agreement and found where Draco and Theo were.

Stepping off the train, Harry felt no small amount of relief at seeing the distant but very real visage of Hogwarts in the distance. Despite his relative enjoyment of his vacation, he would do just about anything to avoid Greengrass and her desperate wish to have a depressingly average conversation about their teachers.

“Professor Snape is an excellent potions master, of that I can admit—and I never meant to say he isn’t.” Greengrass had very strong opinions on the man, as Harry had become intimately aware of. “-but he should never be allowed to teach. It’s painfully obvious that he hates children and everything that comes with them.”

He nodded along, mind-numbingly bored as he replied in a rather snotty way. “I believe he has an indefinite contract, and Dumbledore vouched for him after the war. Anything short of death wouldn't get him removed, if I were to guess.”

Funnily enough, that's exactly what had happened in the last timeline.

She didn't know that though, and huffed indignantly. “That shouldn't matter! He is an awful teacher and needs to be fired, or in the very least removed as our head of house. The older years always say that Professor Sinistra is a lovely woman, she would be better suited, I’m sure.”

He snickered quietly, watching as a few older Hufflepuffs raced past them with snowballs in hand. “You sound an awful lot like Granger right now Greengrass. Have something to say about the girl’s parentage perhaps?”

Greengrass froze, a look of horror dawning on her face. “Oh Merlin…I do, don’t I.”

“Harry!”

Upon hearing the familiar voice, the boy in question whipped around, feeling far more interested in the blond head he could see bobbing through the snow. Harry smiled lightly, watching as his best friend ran full-tilt down the path towards them, his dark coat stark against his pale skin and the white snow.

“Ello’ there Draco, how was your Christmas?”

The blond stumbled to a stop in front of him, coughing out a wheeze before putting his hands on his knees and attempting to catch his breath. Harry peered farther up the pathway behind Draco, finding that Theo was slowly making his way from the train, his head buried in a book as he sludged through the short snowdrifts.

Someone whacked his arm, and Harry made a noise of confusion as he looked down to the boy in front of him, who was glaring imploringly. “You git! Where were you on the train? Theo and I searched the entire bloody thing twice!”

Oh… right. Harry half grimaced, attempting to smile apologetically and failing rather brilliantly at it. “Sorry mate. Greengrass and I were having a discussion and it ran a tad late.”

“Greengrass?” Draco finally seemed to take notice of the girl next to him, and immediately recoiled as if slapped. 

“Oh…” Draco got a rather pinched expression on his face, nose scrunched up as if he had smelt something foul. “How are you, Heiress Greengrass?” 

Harry winced at the cold tone, glancing between the two as Greengrass returned the greeting with vigour. “I am well, Heir Malfoy. Thank you for asking.” She puffed up a little, as if ruffling her feathers, and glared at him testingly. Harry felt that he was stuck in between two rival peacocks and their attempts at intimidating each other.

“What were you and Harry discussing?”

What is this, an inquisition?

“Nothing that concerns you, I'm sure.”

Ah, childhood rivalry perhaps?

“Oh please, Greengrass, you can't expect me to believe you have anything important to say, can you?

Alright then, I’ll be off now. Harry snuck away from the conversation as quickly as he could before wands were drawn, not wanting to stick around and watch the two start a full-blown duel right there in broad daylight. Making his way to Theo, who was still slowly sludging up the trail, Harry came in step besides him. For a moment, he treasured the silence that he had been noticeably lacking for hours on end, before peering down and noticing the plastic protective wrap around the book. Blinking in surprise, Harry grinned at the shorter boy, realizing that he was reading one of the books that he had sent him. Maybe Fellowship of the Ring?

“Enjoying the book there, Theo?”

The brunet didn't even look up from the page he was on, replying with the monotone voice of someone deeply unimpressed. “Half of the creatures in this pitiful series don’t even exist, and the wizard Gandalf is an utter joke. Not only that, but the word ‘elf’ is spelt wrong and the species itself tall and attractive for some unearthly reason. The ‘ring’ that is supposed to be the main focal point is an extremely boring artefact that I personally find to be completely unnecessary. Other than that, I suppose it's fine.”

Everyone’s a critic.

Harry could understand that wizards would take in the mystical world of Tolkien with a far more realistic lens, as mythical things were far more mundane to them than they were for muggles. He found it fascinating as well, wondering how Theo might interpret other works like that of Lovecraft or even Mary Shelley through the lens of logic instead of fantasy. 

He was jerked from his musings as Theo looked up suddenly, his eyes narrowed onto Harry as if he had suddenly been cursed purple. The boy’s gaze roamed his face as if searching for something before eventually settling onto his eyes. Harry felt deja vu rear its ugly head as the image of Death doing the exact same thing just a week prior flashed through his mind. His blood ran cold.

When he spoke, Theo sounded concerned and almost… frantic. “Harry, did something happen to you over the holidays? Anything particularly frightful?”

STOPstopstopstopPleasestopstopI’msorrypleasestop.

He was begging. Pleading and crying in pain. Overwhelmed and scared.

The chanting and instruments bled together into the horrible screeching. It was so close now, practically right behind him. It was wretched and animalistic, twisted and inhuman and oh god PLEASE just STOP.

It felt like his eyes were burning out of his skull.

Ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum

He was screaming, he was sure of it. The burning was unbearable, and oh god that screeching what is that.

“Harry.”

He couldn't think or feel or hear anything but that god awful noise. He almost wished that the chanting was back, anything besides this.

“Harry, I'm sorry.”

PleasestopstopI’msorrypleasestop.

“I'm going to help. Okay?”

He screamed even louder, throat raw as he fought to keep his sanity as the horrible screeching raised its pitch with him.

“Harry. Harry, I'm sorry but you need to eat this.”

Pleasepleasestop-oh god is that ME?

Someone grabbed his face, roughly shoving something warm down his throat. The screeching cut off as he bit down.

That was me.

He smiled, a single eyebrow raised at the question. “Not that I can think of, why do you ask?”

Theo eyed him carefully, his brows furrowed with concern before he seemed to give up and turned away. “Did you like the book I sent you?”

Harry jerked, finding himself perturbed with the constant and nonuniform topic changes. “I haven't gotten the chance to read it, if I’m perfectly blunt, but it did look quite interesting when I skimmed it last week.”

That seemed to please the other boy, who nodded and returned to his book. They walked quietly for a few minutes, enjoying the weather as voices slowly raised in volume from behind them. Harry turned questionly just as the distinct sound of Draco yelling ‘piss off!’ echoed through the trees.

“Do you want to start heading up to the castle a little quicker?” Harry turned quickly back to Theo as the other boy nodded, and they quickened their pace a tad. In a moment of curiosity, or perhaps concern, Harry glanced over his shoulder again and got a good look at what appeared to be the end of an argument, with Greengrass storming off to the castle in a huff and Draco standing there, fuming.

“You alright there, mate?” He yelled, wondering what could have escalated the argument to the point that the blond would curse so rashly in an open space with other students milling about.

“Fine.” He shouted back. Draco seemed to stew there for a few seconds more as Harry grasped Theo around the collar to stop him from straying further away. They only had to wait a moment before Draco visibly huffed and kicked at a pile of snow before turning and dredging back up to them. The pair shared a concerned glance as the blond brushed past them.

“That Greengrass chit is a spoiled brat, thinking she’ll get everything she wants no matter what.” Harry thought that perhaps this was more than some sort of childhood rivalry. He had never heard Draco speak nearly as brazenly before, and certainly not in public. He opened his mouth to reply just as Draco turned on him, eyes blazing with silent fury. “What exactly did you need to talk to her about that was so important you had to spend the entire bloody train ride with her?” The blond was clearly hurt, and in a fit of severe emotional constipation on his part Harry decided to answer honestly.

“Well, she’ll probably be the Slytherin princess in our third year, so I was making sure she was at least somewhat competent before then.”

There was an incredibly quiet moment of silence in which Harry realized that that had apparently been the incorrect thing to say, and before he could apologize, Draco quickly turned and stormed up to the castle.

Well, bugger.

“You are aware that the prince and princess or king and queen usually end up dating at some point, right?” Theo piped up with a rather strained voice, and Harry turned to him with a questioning look.

“Yeah, so?”

The other boy merely raised an eyebrow in response. Harry still felt lost. It wasn't like he was planning on dating Greengrass, or Vasily for that matter. Not only did he have a still unknown soulmate, but the blond girl was rather boring, and Vasily was far more useful as a harbinger of chaos and pain than as a romantic or even platonic partner in his eyes.

When he told Theo this, trying to make sense of the situation, the other boy merely rolled his eyes and started trekking back to the castle, ignoring Harry's slightly aggravated demands to explain himself.

Chapter Text

Draco didn't know why he was so angry. Well, actually yes he did, he was agitated at Daphne Greengrass’s general existence, but that particular truth always made him angry. What he didn't know was why Harry had made him even angrier!

He huffed, storming through the castle as other students passed him by. If he was going to be angry, the best place to do it was in the one place he was positive Harry wouldn't go. Stomping through the tall arched doorway, he was almost stopped by Madam Pince as she reprimanded him for walking too heavy-footed. He made a rude gesture in her direction in retaliation, disappearing behind the stacks of old tomes before she could stop him.

Walking along through the shelves, he let the unreasonable anger simmer as he reflected on his yuletide holidays. It had been pleasant enough, all things considered, though his mother had been far more dotting than usual and had seemed particularly teary-eyed when he finally boarded the Hogwarts Express again. She kept asking if he was alright or in any sort of pain, and kept rubbing his shoulder blades gently. It had all been very peculiar and off-putting.

Yule itself had been particularly peculiar, if anything. His father had gifted him a set of golden bands with runes etched on them. They were apparently meant to ease his back pain, of which he had been feeling more and more often, so he had taken to wearing them whenever possible. It was strange, really. He had started getting sharp stabs of pain in the area of his shoulder blades almost constantly after his eleventh birthday, and no amount of soothing balms seemed to abate the pain. It kept him up some nights too, but he had not wanted to tell his parents till he had already been at Hogwarts for several weeks, and once he did his father had sent him a very blunt and emotionless letter saying that the pain was hereditary and that a special type of enchanted jewellery could be worn to ease it off. Of course, he hadn’t seen fit to send the blasted artefact in the mail along with the letter, so Draco had been forced to wait and receive it for yule.

Besides his parents and their oddities, he had been rather chuffed by his friends, most notably Harry, who had gotten him some strange balms, the packaging enclosed with a note saying that they were muggle made. The Potter heir had also sent some cufflinks, of which Draco enjoyed much more than the strange-smelling muggle paste, and had taken to wearing them just as much as the armbands. Blaise had sent him pornography for the eighth time, which his mother had confiscated with a laugh, and Theo had gifted him a large tomb of every magical creature known to man. For some strange reason his father had confiscated it, hurrying off to write a letter to Cantankerous Nott, Theo’s grandfather and last living family member. Draco didn't know why that gift warranted a letter to the boy's grandfather of all things, but he could hardly bring himself to care that much. He had no interest in magical creatures and didn’t see why Theo saw fit to send him a book about them. 

Despite his indifference on the matter, his mother had kissed his head gently and promised that he would be told why eventually, which had only served to confuse him further. However, she had left it at that and refused to elaborate, so he had been forced to spend the entirety of the break mildly irritated by his family, the feelings only increasing when Harry decided to cosy up with Greengrass of all people.

“I don't know about this, Hermione. It all seems a tad dodgy.”

He was broken from his thoughts by the sound of two people talking quietly, the voices slowly raising as they began to argue.

Is that Granger and Weasley?

Leaning his ear to the shelf next to him, Draco squinted through the stacks of books in an attempt to see over to the other side, finding that his sight was blocked by even more books and a familiar head of frizzy brown hair. Biting his lip, he leaned closer just as Granger turned away from whoever she was speaking to and started browsing through the tomes. It took him only a moment's hesitation to duck down and continue to listen in on the conversation from a crouch.

“Headmaster Dumbledore wants us to get closer to him right? But talking to him with those Slytherins around isn't working, right?” She moved further down the line, a shuffling noise not too far away likely coming from Weasley. It sounded like he was fidgeting with some parchment, or perhaps just a book.
“Well sure, but this seems like this idea is breaking a lot of school rules-”

“I. Don’t. Care! The headmaster can make an exception for us if we do get caught—which we won't.” She added the assurity on the end of her rant, the sound of a book slamming shut enunciating her point with aggression. He jumped at the noise, pushing away from the shelf as the girl’s footsteps retreated towards an unknown object. He risked standing up from his crouch just as Granger pulled the papers out of Weasley’s hands to set them in a heap onto a table.

“Now, if you want to sit around like a lump of wood that is all well and good, but I want to manage my time in a manner more effective than you are capable of.” Draco watched as Weasley seemed to shrink under the girl’s gaze, surprised that the boy could be so easily cowed by a girl who stood just short of his nose. He watched as the two stood there in something of a standoff for a few very tense moments, before Granger nodded once and turned away, storming off as Weasley let out an annoyed groan. Draco waited a moment, holding his breath as the ginger stood there and slouched, rubbing the back of his neck as if he had just been scolded by his mother. He held in a snicker, watching as Weasley glanced towards the papers on the desk before grumbling something like ‘bloody mental’ and took off in the direction Granger had gone.

Seeing his chance to discover what was amiss, Draco stood and scrambled around the shelf, not bothering to read any of the parchments as he scooped them up in his arms and bee-lined it towards the exit. He would be able to get the two Gryffindors in trouble for what Weasley—who already seemed to believe that rules quite flexible—thought was very against the school rules in the very least, and might just manage to get them in detention if he was lucky. An offence of that calibre would be something that even the headmaster would be cautious to defend against, he was sure.

He slipped out of the library entrance before the already irate Madam Pince could realize it was him and began sprinting as fast as he could to the Slytherin common room. It was lucky for him that the welcoming feast wasn’t set to start till seven, because it meant he had another hour or so to sort through the nefarious plots that had been written out in Granger’s impossibly small print. No one spared him a second glance as he bolted into the commons and up the stairs, the older years all fixated on a particularly nasty exploding snap game that seemed to have gained enough interest that some of the sixth and seventh years were placing bets on who would win. No one focused on him as he disappeared into the boys’ dorm hall, and no one even saw him as he ran into his dorm room and locked the door behind him. Grinning in excitement, he threw all the parchment down onto his bed where they were all easily accessible. Blaise seemed to be missing from the room, a fact that Draco barely bothered to note before eagerly beginning to decode Granger’s microscopic penmanship.

He was quiet for many minutes, his eyebrows slowly rising up to his hairline the longer he read and the more delirious the girl’s words became.

That mudblood has gone absolutely mad!

The ideas she was spewing were so absurd and, well, improbable that he had to take a moment and try to comprehend how this girl had managed to beat him out of the second slot ranking for midterms. She didn’t really think this would work, right? Even if she somehow managed to brew the potion, Harry was hardly an idiot, and was incredibly insightful and perceptive when his head was focused onto the task and not up Greengrass’s arse. He pursed his lips at the dull reminder of his anger and the reason behind it, folding up all the parchment into a neat little stack before considering what he should do. He was unconcerned for Harry, since he was positive that his best friend wouldn’t fall for such a stupid plan on even the worst of days, but the clear idiocy of the entire ploy made him concerned for Granger’s sanity. If she was willing to even attempt to go this far, then what did that say about her mental state in the future?

Perhaps Weasley was onto something, calling that mudblood ‘bloody mental’. She certainly deserves to be in a mental institution. Biting his lip in thought, Draco looked down on the incriminating stack of parchment and considered his options. Despite being sure that there was no possible way that it could ever work, he still thought that Harry would need to know—just to prepare him for the possibility.

“Honestly, does that girl really think she can brew polyjuice?” Shaking his head, Draco gathered up the parchment again and ran out of the dorms at a considerably slower pace. He would momentarily put aside his confusing anger to warn his friend. It was the right thing to do after all.

Bolting out of the common room, Draco turned the corner just in time to run directly into someone else, the both of them collapsing to the floor in a heap as parchment flew up into the air.

Harry hadn’t been expecting the bullet of a boy that had slammed, full force, into his stomach just as he had turned the bend, but had managed to keep his wits about him enough to break his fall with something other than his skull. Letting out a puff of air, he registered an unfamiliar laugh as it echoed off the walls. Blinking for a moment, he turned his head slightly to see Theo, who appeared to be very close to shitting himself with laughter. 

“Bloody hell.” He groaned, trying to sit up as the madman who had decided to full body slam him to the floor started to frantically pick up his parchment.

Wait a minute.

He knew that madman. 

“Draco?”

The blond hair on top of Draco’s head was particularly ruffled, the product that usually kept it tame allowing it to now stick up in spikes very akin to a bird’s crest of feathers. Draco didn’t notice this fact, too busy picking up the parchment scattered around them.

“Harry! Perfect. Look, I can admit that I am supposed to be mad at you right now, but—hold on.” He shuffled all the parchment into an unorganized stack and held them up proudly. ”I stole these from Granger and Weasley! You really need to read them, the mudblood is completely off her rocker.”

Draco had a slightly sadistic gleam to his eyes as he shoved the stack into Harry’s hands, who then looked down at the offending paper as if he had just been handed a dead rat. Not half an hour prior to this Draco had been storming away from them in a fit of rage, and now he was willingly crawling around on the floor in an effort to pick up potential blackmail?

“Right.” He started, picking himself off the floor as Draco also scrambled off the dusty stone. Theo had seemingly gotten over his laughing fit, and was now regarding the uneven stack of parchment with curiosity. “We should be off to our dorm then?”

Draco’s head bobbed rapidly, and Harry turned to motion Theo along with them. “You might as well see this too Theo, since it's got Draco up in such a tizzy.” Nodding as well, Theo took the first piece of parchment off of the stack as Draco led them back to the dorm, his hair still frazzled and movements more jerky than normal. Theo let out the occasional quiet huff of disbelief as they went, his expression revealing that he was completely and utterly baffled by whatever he was reading. 

Settling down in the dorm room, the two boys started pouring over the parchment while Draco explained how he had found them.

“-and of course once they had left I went over to investigate, and really I'm glad that I did. Weasel had said that this plan of theirs could be against school rules, but I'm quite sure it's illegal as well.” 

“They were planning on kidnapping me?” Harry questioned, perplexed. He could understand that they were all children, and Dumbledore was likely manipulating the two of them in some manner to make them want him away from his house, but this plan seemed not only incredibly stupid—even for someone their age to come up with—and completely unnecessary. The headmaster already had him right where he wanted him, if a few stories down and a little to the north. He was situated in Hogwarts and would stay there for the majority of his teen years, so there was absolutely no reason for them to contain him in any way. Harry wondered, not for the first time, if Granger had some sort of irrationality curse on her. She never would have even considered doing something this idiotic in the last life, even if the headmaster outright asked her to do so.

Well, maybe that was giving her too much credit.

Draco seemed rather proud of himself, laying out the parchment in order as to better gauge the entirety of their plan. “Yes! From what I could gather, they were planning on using polyjuice to turn into Blaise and I.” He paused, considering his words as Harry leaned back onto his hands. “-but that's hardly important. After that they were going to try and lure you into an abandoned classroom and—well I suppose they were going to try and incapacitate you. I don't really know where the plan would go after that, considering that kidnapping usually involves removing someone from their place of residence. How did they expect to get you out of Hogwarts? Why would they even want to? If I'm perfectly honest, I'm still trying to figure out why they’re wanting to do this to you specifically.”

Harry nodded slowly, watching as Theo seemed to work over all their knowledge so far. It seemed that Granger had an inclination towards polyjuice in both lives. Perhaps it was one of the universal constants.

“They’re obviously upset that the ‘boy-who-lived’ isn’t in their house.” He said it in such a tired, mocking way that even Harry snorted. “I would say it's best to be wary of them for the time being and leave it at that. Granger has always come off as particularly unstable anyway, I’m sure she isn’t in the right frame of mind.” Theo supplied a decent hypothesis, and Harry was forced to agree that it was the most likely scenario with the amount of information that the two other boys were being supplied with.

The three of them sat and contemplated the situation in silence for a time. Harry thought that he should really find some way to get the Gryffindor pair permanently out of his hair. It likely wouldn’t be a good idea to try and injure them in any way, but expulsion always had a relatively good staying power when Hogwarts was concerned. The only issue, in Harry’s eyes, was that it would be difficult to get either of them expelled over this situation alone. None of the teachers would be particularly caring about some parchment and a stupid plan that anyone could have written, and Dumbledore would happily brush the entire debacle under the rug if given the chance. He could always try to frame them in some other fashion, but that would take time and energy that he didn’t really want to waste.

“We should show these to Professor Snape.” Draco piped up just as Harry was about to remark that subtlety was their best avenue. He shared a look with Theo, who seemed to be in agreement with Draco, despite the likelihood of Snape even believing them was quite slim. Sitting forward, Harry picked up one of the rolls of parchment and read through the chicken-scratch again, tapping his finger into the rug below him contemplatively. He didn’t want to bother with any of the professors with this; it was sure to complicate things in the very least. Snape was also an enigma that he hadn’t quite figured out yet, and he was sure that the man would be unhelpful in the very least.

Sighing, he set the paper back down and leaned backwards again, hands bunching around the wool of the carpet. “We should just leave it alone for now. After all, the likelihood of Granger managing to brew polyjuice is next to nothing.”

Draco nodded slowly, looking rather put out. Harry couldn’t help but feel regretful that he couldn't tell the truth about Granger’s abilities, knowing that the likelihood was much higher than he let on. He knew that it would be better to keep his acquaintances and cautious friendships at an arm's distance, but the white lie still felt bitter on his tongue.

“Either way Harry, you need to be careful around those two.” Theo’s quiet voice broke the tension, and he nodded in agreement as Draco seemed to perk up a bit in excitement. Harry smiled slightly, watching as Draco launched into a long-winded lament about how utterly mad Granger was, and how she would be better off spending her time in the long-term stay ward at St Mungos.

Somewhere in the castle, Blaise Zabini was stirring up trouble. 

Darting through the halls, he stayed close to corners and shadows as two heads of bright red hair bobbed around corners and occasionally turned back to reveal the faces of Fred and George Weasley. The pair seemed to have realized that someone was following them, but had yet to spot him from the looks of it.

He smirked, manoeuvring behind a pillar just as the two turned another corner. Waiting a moment, he watched as Thasin slithered down the hall towards where they had gone. She made a show of peaking around the corner, looking around, before turning back to him and bobbing her bright red head in the mockery of a nod. He had no idea how Harry had managed to train her to such an extent that she could do something like this for him without any command words, but considering they had spent the entire break together he could hardly complain about the help. He followed after her, peeking around the corner just as the Weasley twins slipped into a classroom on the other side of the hall. Blaise had been following the pair for the entire break, stalking them with Thasin as a trusty companion and scout. He had grown suspicious of the two only a few days after the rest of the school left, and had followed them to the one abandoned classroom that they were now inside of. They had gone in and stayed there for nearly five hours—or maybe even longer—but Blaise had left by then. Ever since then, he had been making an effort to try and figure out the pattern to their movements and uncover what exactly they were doing. He had tried to get into the room numerous times, but the door seemed to be warded in some way and his half a year of magical knowledge wouldn’t get it open.

He smirked wider, creeping around the corner just as the door was shut behind the two Gryffindors. There was one person he knew that could blast through that door in seconds, and he had likely just returned an hour prior from yule break.

I can't wait to tell Harry about this.

The students had all returned to the castle, and with them was Hadrian James Potter, the one student at school that had been studying magic for years under the tutelage of—from what Blaise could gather—an absolute madman. Really, the kinds of things that the boy’s unnamed tutor had supposedly taught Harry bordered very sharply on illegal, and were certainly too advanced for any magical child their age. Though, Harry was the boy-who-lived, so perhaps he could be given a pass.

 Blaise couldn't get that door open on his own, sure, but there had to be something in Harry's arsenal of magical knowledge and skills that could.

He snuck closer to the door, not knowing if anyone inside could hear his quiet footsteps. He was cautious of the Weasley twins at best, knowing that they had way more magical education under their belts and far more reasons to hurt him with it. It certainly didn’t help that he had no way of knowing just what the twins had put up around the door as defences, and the last two weeks had been a constant battle between his curiosity and unwillingness to be jinxed black and blue by the two—quite literally, in this case. 

He halted suddenly, freezing in place as the doorknob started to jiggle and someone on the other side cursed. Thinking quickly, he reached down and snatched Thasin off of the floor before bolting out of the area, deciding that he could come back tomorrow with Harry when there was less of a possibility of getting hexed.

The feast that evening had been uneventful, and despite the troubling discovery he, Theo, and Draco had made not hours before, Harry and his friends retired to their respective dorms feeling full and content. The trio parted ways with Theo, who had been saddled with Crabb and Goyle as roommates, and relaxed in each other's company for the rest of the night. 

The clock neared midnight as he sat in his bed, occasionally glancing up from his book to watch Blaise and Draco play an increasingly aggressive game of exploding snap on the floor. He had finally decided to start on the creature encyclopedia Theo had gotten him for Yule, and had realized with growing annoyance that it was likely going to be a year-long read. With several thousands of pages and likely hundreds of thousands of words, he found the likelihood of finishing it before next yule to be unlikely. If his workload rose any higher or any other unnecessary dramas happened, he would likely be finding himself finishing it even later on in the year than that!

He frowned glumly, wondering if it was even worth the effort to read. For a few moments he even considered just flipping through it and skimming, but thought better of it. If he wanted to figure out what he was, and if Death was so insistent on keeping it a surprise, then he would need to read through the whole bloody thing in order to even have a chance at discovering anything important.

Focusing back onto the book, he read through the next creature synopsis with low expectations, already feeling like he was wasting his time.

Ammit- Egyptian

The Ammit is believed by muggles to be an Egyptian goddess, but is in actuality a species of chimaera. With a body that is part lion, hippopotamus, and crocodile—the three largest man-eating animals known in Egypt, the Ammit imposes a terrifying figure. The Ammit is well known for not being overly picky with its food, but preferring human hearts to all other meat. Also known as: ‘Devourer of the Dead’, ‘Eater of Hearts’, and ‘Greeter of Death’.

Some of the ammit’s features fit into his symptoms, most predominantly being the preference for hearts. The rest felt wrong though, and Harry had a feeling that whatever his creature was, it lived in a snowy area very unlike the deserts of Egypt. 

Harry kept reading long into the night, only stopping once the other boys started to snuff out the candles and bathed the dorm in darkness. Only then did he give up for the night and crawl under his covers. For an unknowable amount of time he laid there wide awake, fantastically magical creatures swimming through his mind. None felt quite right enough to be considered his own, and as the hours drew on his frustration and insomnia continued to climb. He didn’t even realize that he had nodded off until he woke up again, tied up to a tree as the full moon shone bright overhead, branches rustling as the wind breezed through the forest.

Tom Riddle moved swiftly through the Forbidden Forest that night, long cloak obstructing his features from anyone who might come across his path and try to disrupt his work. He had been taking control of Harry while he slept for most of the school year, needing the cover of night to do most of his work. Shifting through the trees, Tom jumped fallen logs and sidestepped traps, smiling sardonically at the pitiful attempts to capture him. The centaurs had nearly gotten him cornered when he had last stepped in the forest a fortnight prior. He would be more careful tonight.

Tom knew that spending so much time controlling Harry’s body would eventually become unsustainable as the boy grew, and he could already feel the effects of using so much power so often. It weighed on his chest like a large boulder, sitting there and forcing him into a hibernation-like sleep through most of the day. Harry hadn’t seemed to notice his absence, which was unsurprising. Despite his brilliance the boy was rather obtuse, and likely wouldn’t notice the most important of things if he thought that they were inconsequential. Tom never complained about that particular shortcoming of Harry’s, knowing that the boy had at least surrounded himself with a few people that were observant enough to point out anything that Harry missed by being dense.

He also didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Harry wanted to be ignorant of Tom’s movements then the man wasn’t going to go complaining about it.

He felt a shift in the air, a buzzing that felt familiar enough to pique his interest. Moving towards where the feeling felt strongest, he came upon, quite suddenly, a large rock covered in carefully carved runes. He blinked, stopping just short of it and watching as sparks of very pale red light flicked like sparks off of the large, egg-shaped boulder. It was roughly ten feet tall, and had an air of protection that he immediately recognized as unique to Hogwarts.

The ward stone.

He had seen a few of the smaller ward stones over his time as a student in Hogwarts, but had never had the pleasure of finding the main stone in the forest. Maybe it was his current height or the familiar magic radiating off of it, but Tom felt a certain amount of annoyance at the blasted thing. It was no wonder he felt a slight unease staying at the castle lately. Dumbledore had his magic seeped deeply into the wards that kept it safe from harm. When he had been going to school and Dippet and been headmaster, no such feeling of unease had followed him, but it seemed that Dumbledore had managed to ruin even the very foundations of the castle with his blasphemous magic.

Tom gave the ward stone one last look before quickly moving on, veering left at the ward stone as he moved swiftly through the underbrush. He paused about ten meters away, quickly crouching down to place a small pouch on the ground before moving along again. He had been placing the hex bags in a large circle around the Hogwarts grounds for a good three months now, and he was hoping to complete the circle and by extension the hex by the end of the school year. He considered it a true testament to the centaurs loyalties that they continuously tried to capture him alive, but left the bags he placed where they lay. 

An hour or two later found him exhausted, sweaty, and thoroughly annoyed with the centaurs and other creatures of the forest. All the bags he had on him had been placed, but not until he had been nearly eviscerated by eight extremely unsavoury magical animals, almost punctured by the occasional flying arrow that had seemed to emerge from the shadows, and had to deal with the unpleasant chill of winter on top of it all. He was loath to consider how many more nights he would have to spend in the blasted forest, but knew that he could only make so many hex bags each night before having to either hide or place them in the woods. The entire process was getting rather cumbersome, as he had been needing to make twenty bags each night and place them the same day lest Harry stumble upon any sort of stash he may make and discover what he had been doing. Tom knew that the headache would bear fruit eventually, and that it would all be worth it in the end, but that knowledge didn’t stop him from wanting to complain.

Retracing his steps, he started heading back towards the castle, rubbing his arms as the freezing winter wind forced its way through his cloak. Tom reflected on the last several months as he walked, his irritation bleeding into his mind as he tried to remember all else that had to be done before the school year was up and he needed to focus his attention onto the horcruxes. Getting the cursed necklace into the school had been difficult to say the least, and had certainly been the boldest part of his plan by a wide margin. Sneaking it onto the Granger girl had been even harder, and despite his assurity that the nosey little genius would be taken down a few pegs by the irrationality curse placed on it, he still felt like it had been a severe, if calculated, risk.

He smirked tightly, jumping over a fallen log as the wind picked up and began to beat into his back. The curse had been more effective than he could have ever hoped. The best part of the curse was, of course, that the wearer was so irrational that they would refuse to take the necklace off, and would refuse to see reason even if someone told them to their face that the thing was cursed.

He was sure it wouldn't last forever, of course, as Dumbledore was bound to notice the irregularities in her temperament at some point and force the necklace off of her. For now though, it was enough. Harry needed the time to grow into his body and eventually take on the first transformation of his creature inheritance, and having the girl constantly coming up with good plans to get him under heavy surveillance would only make things that much harder for the boy.

Tom frowned, absentmindedly crouching lower to the ground as a undescernable creature soared overhead and into the brush on the other side of the path. He had no idea what Death had been thinking, letting Harry run off and eat human meat at such a young age; his creature inheritance had barely even started! He grimaced, listening as the sound of howls and angered shouts rose up from the bowels of the forest. The act of cannibalism had triggered the poor boy's inheritance into acting up much sooner than was healthy, which was a huge problem at the current stage of Harry's physical development. Yes, the Potter heir was very tall for his age, but in comparison to where he needed to be when his inheritance became fully realized on his thirteenth birthday, he was still much too small and his mind much too underdeveloped. His body and mind were simply unable to handle the rapid alterations to his DNA and bone structure. Hopefully, the problem was fixed now that Death had finally interfered. Harry’s episode in the forest had been a close call, and he couldn’t help but think that the creature had almost taken control of him. Tom thought back to the horror that he had felt, the feeling of helplessness that had overwhelmed him when he was trapped in the boy's mind while it was on the brink of collapse. If Death hadn’t intervened when he did, there was no telling what would have happened to him, much less what would have happened to Harry’s conscious mind.

Tom stopped, feeling a moment too late that he was being watched. Whipping around, he threw his hand out just as a hoofed leg rammed into his chest and sent him tumbling to the earth. The breath was knocked from his lungs as he mentally cursed, a familiar curse on the tip of his tongue as a massive hand reached down and grabbed him roughly by the scruff of his neck.

“Cruc-” His voice was cut off as another hand tightened roughly around his neck and his airway was constricted. Gasping for air that would not come, Tom felt an ironic sense of deja vu before everything went black.

Harry didn’t even realize that he had nodded off until he woke up again, tied up to a tree as the full moon shone bright overhead, branches rustling as the wind breezed through the forest. He blinked blearily, squinting up at the trees and the silver of a moon as it shone light down onto him. How had he gotten out of bed so late at night? Where even was he?

Looking around, he spotted the distant lights of Hogwarts, the familiar warmth of candlelight and fire making him realize with a start where exactly he was. 

“Oh bloody hell-you have got to be joking.”

He started furiously struggling in his bonds, hands clenching pitifully as he attempted to grasp for his wand.

Stupid fucking forbidden forest. Why the hell can’t I go a single BLOODY year at Hogwarts without almost dying in this place?

“Hello, Hadrian James Potter.”

Whipping his head up, Harry jerked backwards against the tree as his eyes landed on a creature standing halfway into the shadows, a bow strapped to its back and strong hooves pawing the dirt. He sat there for a moment, blinking in confusion at the centaur, before he recognized the voice that accompanied it. Sighing lowly, he slumped against the tree in relief. 

“Bane.”

The centaur stepped out of the shadows, eyes glittering in the light of the moon as he nodded appreciatively. “You know of me. Good, then the stars did not lie.”

Harry grimaced, watching as Bane picked up a large leather sack off the grounds and rifled through it. He didn’t know how he had ended up in this situation, but felt that he was very close to being mortally wounded or something similar. Shifting slightly, he continued to grope around for his wand, wondering if he had managed to leave it in his dorm before wandering out here. Had he somehow sleepwalked? Or was this Tom’s doing? He winced, twisting his wrist uncomfortably in a wrong direction.

“Look Bane, I don't know how I got out here, but-”

The centaur interrupted him, taking a strange-looking crystal out of the sack and setting it onto the barren earth. “Saturn is bright tonight. Your father’s death is distant, but not distant enough. Karma has delayed but will not deny, and the school is paramount in its journey. Tell me, boy, do your eyes ever burn?”

Harry froze, trying to make sense of the centaur’s words as the crystal began to glow red in the low light.

“My father is dead.”

Bane shook his head mournfully, settling onto his fur-covered knees as he observed the crystal. Harry realized that it might be something similar to a crystal ball as the creature brushed a large hand across it in a way reminiscent of a seer. “A father who does not raise you is no father at all.”

Okay, what the fuck?

“Look.” He struggled a bit more, his panic simmering down into a subtle uneasiness that made him squirm. The forest was no place for him to be, especially after so many close calls inside it. “I understand that you seers have an obsessive love of speaking in riddles, but I don't have the energy to decode all that, so if you would be so kind as to tell me your ominous prophecy in a more pointed way I would be very appreciative.”

Bane smiled, moving off of his knees and towards Harry, who cursed quietly under his breath. The centaur unhooked a ragged dagger from a sling around his hip and kneeled down again, cutting Harry free of the bonds that held him. The boy blinked, watching as the ropes fell away and he was free to move again. Bane backed away cautiously, before moving back towards his crystal and the sack that had held it as Harry shakily stood.

“I'm afraid not, Son of Darkness, for Fate herself wishes that you stay unaware to the plights of sinful men. Even then, any knowledge of future events I impart on you will be, in the end, unnecessary.” Harry took a cautious step forward, watching as Bane placed the sack across his shoulders once again, still speaking as Harry regained proper movement in his legs. “The future has been frozen in time by your own actions, and cannot be altered regardless of any prior knowledge now that you have set things into motion. Fate is steadfast in her decisions, Son of Darkness, and she will not be swayed again.”

Before another word could be spoken on the contrary, the centaur was gone, galloping off into the dark forest. Harry was left standing there, confused and tired as the wind tousled his hair in the mockery of a father’s touch.

Chapter Text

Early the next morning, Harry was shook awake a second time by a very excited Blaise, who whispered for him to quickly get dressed and follow him out of the dorm. Harry had snuck back into the dorm room very late that night, or perhaps very early that morning, as he had spent a great deal of time bumbling through the quiet corridors without his invisibility cloak to mask his movements. It had been with a heavy mind and confused thoughts that he had returned to his bed, the centaur’s words swimming through his mind like sharply stinging jellyfish. Because of this, Harry woke bleary to the boy’s words, taking far longer than usual to wake up and form conscious thoughts. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, he went through the motions of pulling on a thin jumper and a pair of slacks. Through this process he managed to forget his reason for waking so early in the first place, and was found several minutes later by an irate Blaise, who stage whispered to him to ‘hurry the hell up’ before leaving again. He was tying the laces on his trainers when Blaise came back in a second time and practically dragged him out of the door. Forcing himself through the inter-complexities of walking, Harry meandered along behind Blaise as the boy chattered on about why they were out so early and what they were doing. Harry managed to wake up enough to comprehend that his friend seemed wide awake and very excited about something.

“So over the hols I had taken to following along behind the Weasley twins as they went about their nonsense. They’ve been sneaking off to this one abandoned classroom you see-'' They walked out of the common room, Blaise walking ahead of him with a skip in his step as Harry struggled to stay awake. “I’ve been cautious to go near the door, since it’s warded to ‘ell and back. I tried to get inside once and found myself thrown out into the black lake!”

They had reached the ground floor and were now traversing through the halls towards the grand staircase, passing by slowly waking portraits and the occasional student as they climbed the steps towards an unknown floor. Blaise continued to list off all his ideas about what might be behind the door he had been obsessing over as Harry attempted to consciously sleepwalk through the entire journey.

“-and here it is! What about it then? Think you can get the wards down?” Blaise turned with a flourish, presenting to him a normal, slightly warded door. Harry rubbed his cheek in thought, blinking tiredly at the woodwork on the door as if it held something particularly fascinating.

“...what are we doing here, mate?” Harry could admit that he hadn't been paying much attention to the whole thing, just now having taken in his surroundings. Perhaps he had lost more sleep than he originally thought.

Blaise let out a long-suffering sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as the slightly taller boy stretched. “Harry, mate, I just explained how the Weasley twins have been going into this room and staying inside for hours on end. I want to get in and figure out what they’re up to, but they've warded the door and I don't know how to break through wards.”

“Ah.” He paused, squinting through nearly-closed eyes at the blurry door. “So why am I here?”

Another sigh.

“Please take the wards down for me.”

Harry looked blankly at the aforementioned door for several moments, studying it for a rather unnecessary amount of time. As he did, Blaise started to jump on the balls of his feet in excitement, his curiosity over what could be behind it bleeding out into his movements. Harry hummed, tilting his head for a moment in thought, before turning apologetically towards Blaise. “I didn't bring my wand with me.” 

Groaning, the Italian boy buried his face into his hands before slowly looking up at him with a glare. He seemed to be about two seconds away from slapping Harry across the face, if his barely contained expression of hatred was any indication. Harry studied his friend’s face for a moment, contemplative. He seems to be losing patience quickly today.

“Did you even listen to me when I woke you up?”

Another blank look.

“Right. Fine. I'll go grab it. Stay here.” With a sigh, Blaise turned around and quickly took off down the hall, running back to the dorms to collect the elder wand, which was likely feeling very abandoned on Harry's desk. Scratching his cheek, Harry meandered over to the wall across from the door and sat down, studying the oak with curiosity. The wards hadn’t been set up by the Weasley twins, funnily enough. They weren't even wards meant to keep people out, really, they just monitored who came in and out of the door. Sure, the twins probably put up some prank wards while they were inside, but they would have to take those down while leaving.

He blinked slowly, squinting still at the peculiar sheen in the oak. Seeing magic in any capacity was difficult, but after so many years of observing his own core and forcing magic out of his body without a wand, he was relatively proficient at it despite not having any affinity towards ‘mage sight’ as it was called. The magical signature on the wards was a little familiar, its pale red hue seeming like calm fire mixed with light. Falling slightly into his mindscape, he lazily scrolled through a filing cabinet in his library, trying to find the file on this particular magical signature as he continued to study it.

Oh, here it is…. right, that's Dumbledore’s- Harry bolted off of the wall, suddenly wide awake as he scrambled to his feet.

“That's Dumbledore's magical signature.”

“Wot mate?”

Harry jerked, eyes wide as he glanced to his right where Blaise was making his way down the hall.

He stumbled over his tongue for a moment, trying to figure out how to word his findings without giving too much away. “I—well my tutor has helped me with wandless magic some, and when I used it to study the wards I recognized the magical signature. It's not either of the Weasley twins’, but Dumbledore’s.”

Blaise cursed faintly, looking at the door in a new light. “How are the twins getting inside then? I wonder what the headmaster would even want to keep secret...”

Harry straightened, dusting off his pants as Blaise held his wand out to him. “The only wards on the door right now are meant to record who goes through the door and when, so you could have waltzed in at any time. If you encountered any other wards, they were probably placed while the twins were inside the room, right?” Blaise nodded, tan cheeks heating up in an embarrassed blush.

“They definitely put those up. If you had come here when they hadn't been inside the room, you could have gotten in just fine.” Blaise was prominently blushing now, likely having realized that he had wasted most of his yule break on this. Harry barely noticed, continuing on with his concerned muttering. “I'm glad you hadn't though, who knows what the headmaster would have done if you had visited this room. You might have even gotten expelled.” 

Blaise opened his mouth, before closing it with a click. He seemed confused and even a tad concerned with that statement. “So what should we do?” He finally asked, eyeing the door with unease.

Harry hummed, messing with the tip of his wand in thought. “I can break the wards easily enough, but Dumbledore would notice pretty quickly that they went down. I'd say we would have roughly ten minutes after the wards fall for him to notice, and another ten or so till he shows up.”

Blaise nodded along, his original excitement returning as a challenge presented itself. “Alright, we’ll have a quick peek before getting the ‘ell out as fast as possible. Easy as that.”

Harry nodded, and began to peel back the wards as if peeling an orange. He wrinkled his nose as the citrusy smell they gave off, finding that Dumbledore’s love of lemon seemed to reflect itself in his magic. With a flick of his wand, they collapsed into strings of light. It only took him a few moments really, they were rather simple wards after all.

He motioned to Blaise, and they both moved forward and burst through the door.

“A mirror?”

Harry froze at the words, his eyes immediately landing on the large, ornate mirror propped up on the far wall. It was the only thing in the room, and its size and shape immediately reminded him of the macabre warnings detailing the stories of people wasting away in front of it.

The Mirror of Erised? What’s it still doing in the castle?

Harry was ripped away from the thought as he realized that Blaise was walking quickly towards the mirror, his assured steps clashing with the danger of the situation. Harry didn't have time to call out to him before he was already in front of it. Blaise stopped just short of the mirror before stumbling back, falling onto the floor as he yelped in surprise.

“What the hell-” 

“Blaise, get away from that thing!” Harry was rooted in place, unsure what to do. He wanted to go over and grab Blaise, but he didn't want to get even a small glimpse into the mirror. He had no idea what would be in it, and he didn't want to find out.

“Harry… Harry, what the ‘ell is this thing?” Blaise was still on the floor, staring unblinking at the mirror with a mix of awe and horror.

“What are you seeing? Blaise?” Harry cursed, making a wide circle around the mirror to avoid looking into it while still keeping his eyes on Blaise.

“My… my father.” His friend took a shuddering breath, eyes focused on the invisible man as he raised a shaky hand to the glass. Harry cursed again, keeping his eyes pinned on Blaise as a flash of something dark inside the mirror made itself known to him. It made sense that Blaise would see his father. Mr Zabini had been his mother’s first husband, and from what the boy had said about him he had been the only one of her husbands that the woman had actually loved.

“It's the Mirror of Erised, Blaise, he isn't really there.”

The other boy didn't reply, seemingly transfixed on the mirror.

“Blaise. Blaise he's dead, and he isn’t coming back. Now get off your arse and let's leave.” Harry was getting nervous now, not only was Blaise transfixed onto the mirror, but the headmaster was bound to notice that the wards had broken soon and hurry over, catching them in the act and forcing an avenue of discussion between the two of them. Harry didn’t want to risk officially meeting the man in this life until he was ready for such a thing.

“Blaise. Get over here right bloody now.”

Nothing. The boy was lost to him. 

“Bugger it all.” Gritting his teeth, Harry marched over to the mirror, determinately transfixing his gaze onto Blaise’s face or just anywhere but the mirror. Upon reaching him, he hauled the shorter boy to his feet and started pulling him towards the exit. He cursed a third time as Blaise tugged him back towards the mirror with a determined look on his face.

“I need to ju-just let me look a little longer. Please. Just let me look at him.” Harry stumbled backwards a few paces, turning in an effort to get a better grip and unwittingly getting a glimpse of long fingers with sharp, bloodied claws inside the twisted glass mirror. The rest of the mirror was cloaked in shadow, but those claws were horribly visible, pressed firmly against the seemingly window-like glass. He froze, watching as the claws slowly raised to scrape across the other side of the glass. The claw began pressing down. He realized what it was trying to do just as it happened.

The glass cracked.

Harry snapped his head away quickly, hauling Blaise along with more force as he tried to ignore the feeling of panic rising up from inside his chest.

It isn’t real. It can’t hurt you. It isn’t real.

He pulled Blaise from the room, shutting the door with a loud bang. He didn't stop dragging the other boy till they had reached the common room and Blaise had long since snapped out of it. Even then though, he still hissed out the password through gritted teeth, stormed in as he threw Blaise onto one of the plush couches. Only then did he stop and take a deep breath, plopping down in the adjacent loveseat and rubbing his cheek tiredly.

“I’m sorry, Harry.” Blaise at least had the decency to look sheepish, his eyes carrying no little amount of grief with it. Harry gave him a tired look.

“I know how you feel Blaise. Really, I do. But you can't let it control you, alright?” Blaise nodded slowly, his face guarded and posture stiff. Harry immediately sharpened his gaze. “Listen here Zabini, you're not going to go anywhere near that mirror again, understood?” He nodded again, this time with a bit more vigour. “-and you are going to tell absolutely no one about it. Especially Draco, understand?”

Another nod. Blaise looked more guilty than anything now, and Harry felt himself relax, breathing a tired sigh out through his teeth. He really hadn’t gotten enough sleep for this kind of situation. “That mirror is dangerous mate, people have wasted away in front of it.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Harry rolled his shoulder in the weak imitation of a shrug, watching as a few older years slowly meandered down the stairs. “‘s alright mate. Just don't go near it again.”

By the time Draco and Theo had come down to the commons, the other two were already deeply engrossed in their fifth chess game of the morning. Any thoughts of the mirror or dead fathers or, merlin be damned, bloodied claws were completely forgotten in lieu of strategy and good fun.

Winter turned quickly into Spring, and April came and passed without incident. Since Quirrell wasn’t possessed any longer, he didn't trade Hagrid a dragon egg for information on Fluffy, who had been moved to a reserve somewhere in America anyway, and wouldn’t be causing anyone but trained professionals any grief. Hagrid seemed torn up about it, but Harry didn’t speak with the half-giant near enough to know for sure.

Harry and his friends didn't see any hints of the Gryffindor duo attempting to kidnap him like the stolen parchment had detailed, and Draco seemed a little disappointed that he couldn't get the two in trouble for it. He seemed to think that the only way to properly teach them a lesson was to embarrass them to hell and back, and losing an abhorrent amount of house points would do just that. Harry wasn’t too sure the blond was taking the situation nearly as serious as he should be, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it. 

May came along quickly enough as time seemed to fly by, and just as the end of year exams became a focal point of conversation the two finally struck.

In hindsight, it had been a far more idiotic plan than the trio of Slytherins had given them credit for. Harry had been walking alone in the early morning of one warm day, missing the cool weather of winter as June threatened to wrangle control of the temperature from the cautious spring air of May. He had been contemplating what he should have for breakfast when Draco and Theo had rounded the corner unexpectedly. A few things had automatically set off warning bells through his head, the first thing was that Draco's hair was an utter mess. It was wavy and mismanaged and had literally NO product in it. It was so out of character that Harry nearly tripped over his feet in surprise, gaping like a fish at the blatant messiness. Draco refused to step foot into the common room without at least a little product in his hair, and now he was just waltzing around Hogwarts with his hair free of anything? It was so off-putting that he barely noticed that Theo uncharacteristically didn't have a book on him.

“Hey mate!” The Draco imposter has a particularly clipped accent that felt so completely wrong that Harry felt the need to rip out his own ears. His instincts were screaming at him. 

The Draco imposter felt all wrong. His uniform was a size too big and wrinkled and he had ink staining his fingers when the real Draco wouldn’t have ever been caught with a stain on anything, much less his hands. He had been using a quill long enough to know how to hold one correctly anyway, and never would have made that kind of mistake. Hell, the imposter even smelt different. Draco’s usual peppermint cologne was infuriating absent for the air as the imposter neared, and Harry had a near-overwhelming urge to turn tail and run. He needed to find the real Draco immediately.

“Hello. How are you?” He ground the words out through clenched teeth, wishing that he could rip the disguise off of the person in front of him. Stop wearing Draco’s skin you absolute piece of trash.

The fake Draco smiled awkwardly, as if unused to his teeth. Harry regarded the disguised Granger with disgust, just knowing in his heart that she was the one masquerading as his best friend. The fake Theo was much less subtle, and proceeded to talk his ears off about quidditch, of all things. Harry paid Weasley no mind, knowing that Theo would sooner cut his own ears off than willingly talk about quidditch. He paid far more attention to Granger as she began leading him away, her clipped accent sounding horrible and grating coming out of Draco’s mouth with Draco’s voice. He wondered where the two had gotten the hairs necessary for this. They obviously gave up on Blaise and went after Theo instead, but that still didn’t explain where they had gotten the hair. Surely they hadn’t actually managed to restrain Draco and Theo long enough to take the hair? Harry felt a surge of panic. What had happened to his friends?

“Get in then, you’ll love it.” Granger’s bossy-ness bled through the act in that moment as she gestured with Draco’s hands towards the door of an abandoned classroom. Harry didn’t bother raising an eyebrow or even reacting, simply walking quickly into the abandoned classroom with a nod. He stood stock stiff in the middle, waiting for the other two to close the door so he could get this over with and find his friends. Once he heard the lock turning, he whipped around and shot off two silent stunners, hitting both of them in the chest with a ferocity that they both flew back and hit the wall. He was finally able to let out a breath of air as they collapsed to the floor in a heap.

He looked at the Draco imposter’s face, feeling more and more anger bubbling up from deep in his chest. He moved over to their prone forms, picking the both of them up and roughly throwing them into the middle of the room. Conjuring some thin rope, he tied them up and took their wands, quickly sitting back as he waited for the polyjuice to wear off.

I suppose it took Granger a few tries to get the potion right, if they’re just trying this now.

Considering that they were in their first and not second year, and that Granger was irrationally idiotic in this timeline for some absurd reason, it made the most sense. If the potion took a month to make, then it might take her several months to create a potion that actually worked. He smiled, wondering how obsessive Granger had gotten and how much sleep she must have lost trying to get it just right. He hoped it had been a nightmare for her.

He sat there for another twenty minutes, thinking about what he could do in retaliation as he waited for the polyjuice to wear off. When it finally did and the two prone forms finally reverted back into Granger and Weasley, he only took a moment to consider his options before getting to work. Thirty minutes later found him exiting the classroom, his thoughts moving on to finding Draco and Theo now that the two Gryffindors had been taken care of. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned a corner, blinking in surprise as a familiar head of gelled blond hair slammed into his chest.

“Harry! You alright mate?” He let out a relieved breath, watching as a thoroughly annoyed Draco stepped back and looked around with manic eyes, his wand in hand as Theo slowly made his way down the hall.

“I’m fine, Draco. What are you two doing?”

“Granger locked us in a bloody broom closet!” Draco appeared extremely indignant about it. Theo didn't look like he particularly cared one way or another. Harry let himself laugh a little, Draco’s puffed-up posture and fiery eyes reminding him more of a lion than the usual bird.

“That's awfully unfortunate for you two. I wonder what happened to them after that?” Draco huffed, muttering on about how he was going to write to his father and get the two expelled. Harry thought that that particular idea was a bit optimistic, but nodded along nonetheless.

Several hours later, a thoroughly obliviated Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley woke up in the abandoned classroom. It was dark out by then and they were tied together with a thin piece of rope that was easily enough to break out of. Confused, they freed themselves from the rope and left the darkened classroom, immediately realizing something was amiss.

“You—Hermione, look at your hair!”

“My what? Look at yours!” Hermione's hair had been turned into a literal rat’s nest, complete with real rats and various twigs. In comparison, Weasley’s skin had been dyed green and his hair bleached silver. They were both still wearing the stolen Slytherin uniforms.

Hermione stood stock still as one of the rats tried to get down from its perch, its little hands scratching her cheek as it leapt down and onto the floor.

Her scream could be heard three floors away in any direction.

The rest of the school year went by quickly. Granger and Weasley had been stuck in the infirmary for a few days after the prank while Madam Pomfrey ran through different methods of getting them back to normal. Harry refused to fess up to the crime, even though Draco seemed convinced that he was responsible. None of the teachers were able to decide who had done it either, though they were all convinced that one of the older Slytherins was the perpetrator. In the end, no one had been caught or even reprimanded for the prank, and Harry was allowed to chuckle to himself about it every time Granger leapt away from Scabbers in disgust. 

End of year exams went much the same way that midterms did, with Harry in first for the year and Granger as a close second. Draco took up the rear in third as well, something that the boy seemed rather chuffed about. Harry was happy for him as well, knowing that without Tom’s guidance the other boy would likely have taken second, beating out Harry easily.

The end of term feast was a delightful affair, with plates piled high with a feast ranging in flavours from savory to sweet. The tables groaned under the weight of it all as students gorged themselves on foods from sweet rice to savoury meats. Harry felt overwhelmed with the chaos, not bothering to pay much attention to Dumbledore’s speech as he ate his fill. He felt satisfied enough with his first year, and felt nothing but quiet pride when Slytherin won the house cup. He was ready to get back to Privet Drive and away from the hubbub of school, despite the pleasant enough end to his first year. Hogwarts had always been and would always be his home, but lately it also had a stressful undertone that he couldn’t ignore. Having Dumbledore and his little sneaks constantly watching him had made him feel quite stressed and paranoid. He hated having to constantly look over his shoulder and try to catch anyone in the act of stalking him. 

He was certainly anxious about not seeing his friends for three months however, and wondered if there would be some way to meet up over the summer. Draco especially, he thought, would be difficult to part with. He sighed, glancing back towards Hogwarts as he walked with the group of Slytherins towards the Hogwarts Express. Thasin hissing angrily in his ear, her colourful head masked only by Harry’s dark turtleneck that she was hiding in.

“~Harry, I want to stay in the castle. Why do I have to go back to the tiny human neighbourhood?~” He was worried one of the summer staff might come upon her at some point. It wouldn’t be very hard to spot her after all, and she would be better off at Privet Drive where he could keep an eye on her. She would be happier there anyway, as he could always take day trips into the forest behind the house.

Harry let out a sigh as they boarded the train, Blaise and Draco’s voices cutting through his thoughts as they had an intense discussion about some exclusive clothing store in Italy they were planning on visiting. Theo was reading, naturally, his eyes occasionally darting up to glare at the two as they all settled into seats inside a compartment. Harry claimed the window seat immediately, staring out at the people of Hogsmeade as they went about their daily activities. This was how the first few hours of the train ride went, at least until Draco got bored and began throwing wads of parchment at Theo, who got increasingly irritated as time went on. Harry smiled at this, and assisted his best friend in making the balls until the train stopped and they all exited. The platform was just as crowded as he expected it to be, and as Draco yelled over the deafening noise Harry just barely managed to hear what he said.

“You'll all be writing to me, you hear?” Draco commanded this with authority, his tone suggesting that there would be hell to pay if anyone refused.

“Of course.”

“Sure mate.”

“Hell no.”

Draco threw another wad of paper at Theo in retaliation, who shouted and tried to block with his book. Laughing at the scene as parents around them gave them dirty looks, they all said their goodbyes before slowly splitting off from the group as their respective guardians came into view. Draco waved goodbye to Harry just as he passed through the barrier, the people around him becoming far more mundane as Petunia surged forward to give him a hug.

Summer here I come.

Albus Dumbledore sat in the headmaster’s office. All the students had left for the train hours prior, and with them, his pet project. He needed to start working to fix a few issues he had with the boy-who-lived, and would be getting onto it as soon as he was able. Albus nodded to himself, looking down at the package sitting on his desk. It was a very special package, one that he had been waiting for for quite some time. Smiling, he pulled the object inside out of its protective wrapping, holding it up to the light and studying it carefully, looking for imperfections in the design. Finding none, he set it down on his desk, his smile widening as it glimmered beautifully in the light.

Perfect.

-End of Year One: On Unsteady Feet-

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

-Year Two: The Binding of Loki-

Avenging Baldr’s death, the gods took Loki to a cave and bound him to three great rocks by the entrails of his son, Nari. Skaði, goddess of winter, took a venomous serpent and placed it over Loki's face. The serpent drips poison down onto his face, and Loki's wife, Sigyn, must catch the venom in a bowl. Each time she leaves to empty the bowl, Loki writhes in pain, shaking the earth, and this is the cause of earthquakes.

Here, Loki will lie until Ragnarök.

Harry realized within the first hour of being back at Privet Drive that Dobby existed. 

This realization wouldn't usually make him so incredibly and thoroughly angry, but the knowledge that Dobby the barmy house elf would no doubt be attempting to stop his mail that summer made him briefly consider killing the little shite the first chance he got. Sighing, Harry pulled out some parchment, considering that he could just pen a quick letter to Draco to solve the issue, before realizing seconds later that he didn't even have a bloody owl. Slapping a long hand across his face, Harry groaned lowly, slumping moodily into his desk chair like a petulant child. It was one thing going then entire summer without seeing his friends, but not being able to write to them was a completely different kind of animal that Harry saw as some sort of twisted emotional torture. The Dursleys were brilliant, sure, but he desperately craved an emotional and magical connection that muggles simply couldn’t fulfil for him. It was like comparing bread and cake. Both were good and quite similar in texture, but bread just didn’t have the flavour and sweetness of cake.

You seem concerned that the elf will block your mail, but your memories show that he only did that because Lucius planted the diary horcrux on that Weasley chit. Why are you so sure that he would do the same during this timeline? Tom’s voice echoed through his skull, the sound surprising him after several weeks of silence. Harry jolted upwards, rubbing another hand down his face before attempting to answer.

Things may have changed, yes, but not so much that he wouldn't still attempt it. Harry highly doubted that Lucius Malfoy would change his stance on muggle-borns just because his son was now friends with a half-blood, even if that half-blood was Harry Potter. He would surely take the chance to unleash some havoc if it meant putting them in danger.

Tom was quiet for a moment, as if he was considering what best to say. Harry let him think on it for a while, standing up in order to put the parchment away again. He should really get an owl.

Normally I would agree with you, leech, but the diary is no longer a horcrux, so I believe that Lucius most likely realized this and would not make such an attempt.

Harry stopped in place, picking apart what the man had said as he stared off to the middle distance. The diary wasn’t a horcrux? How was that even possible? How did Tom even know if it was or not?

“Pardon?”

Tom had gone silent, which was hardly doing Harry’s rising confusion any good. Standing there for another several very tense, very quiet seconds, Harry tried to come up with a more comprehensive understanding of things. Did Tom have some sort of connection to the other horcruxes that allowed him to tell if they had died or not? How had the diary been destroyed if that was the case? He hadn’t told Draco a thing about it so that was doubtful, and Dobby was a bold little shite but wouldn’t be able to go against any orders, and Harry was quite certain that the diary was likely kept under lock and key where no one would get any bright ideas.

Tom, if you would be a dear and tell me what the bloody buggering fuck you’re on about, that would be grand.

Tom continued his stint of silence, and Harry, in a frustrated fit, finally moved from where he had been rooted in place in order to return the parchment to its proper place, noticing that it was now noticeably crumpled from where he had roughly fisted it. Brilliant.

I absorbed it.

Harry stopped again, Tom’s sudden and blatantly guilty-sounding voice seeming like a gun going off in a silent atrium. 

“I do beg your pardon?” Harry didn’t even notice that he was speaking more out loud than in his head, too focused on the absurdity of the situation to even care. If anyone walked past his room and managed to hear him talking to himself, then they could deal with the knowledge on their own time. He was hardly going to bother when he was being loaded with information like this.

I absorbed it. It's just a blank book now.

Harry shook his head, confused and utterly incensed. “And when, pray tell, did you absorb it? And, while we’re on the subject, just how exactly did you manage that?”

It was quiet for a bit longer this time, as Tom seemed to be mulling over the pros and cons of saying anything more, and Harry got more and more enraged.

Well. Started Tom, his voice losing the guilty edge as it gained something more swooty. I’m superior to the other horcruxes, so naturally, I can go visit the others. 

Harry nodded along sarcastically, finding his anger dissipate as it was replaced with annoyance, and he settled back into his desk chair. This seemed to be a newer development, so perhaps Tom just had been working at it for a while and hadn’t had the time to tell Harry? Maybe this was what he had been up to for so long during the school year.

“Alright, that sounds reasonable enough, I suppose. And when exactly did you ‘absorb’ the diary?” He leaned back in the chair, relaxing now that the issue seemed to have been much less of an issue and much more of a recent development. When Tom didn’t reply however, Harry started to feel the unease come back again.

“Tom, when did you do this?”

When the man replied, the guilty tilt to his tone was back in full force.

In 1983.

Harry nearly fell out of his chair.

In fact, he very nearly toppled backwards, but managed to scramble into something of a half-crouch instead as his chair fell backwards with the force of his movement. The rage returned twofold, and for a moment Harry contemplated if he would be capable of stabbing himself with a basilisk fang in order to kill off the traitorous bastard hiding away in his skull like a coward. That was when he was, what, three years old? And Tom was only telling him now? 

“Let me ask you this then, Tom, just so that I can be sure that I completely and utterly understand the situation.” Harry felt like his voice was far calmer than it should be considering the circumstance, though his grip on his poor desk was certainly overblown. “Are you stating that you not only absorbed one half of your own soul when I was three years old, but for nine years you did not tell me, and you are only telling me now because it is necessary that I know?”

There were precisely five and a half seconds in which Tom took to contemplate his answer, all of which Harry counted to himself in order to not physically lash out. I certainly wouldn’t put it that way but...yes.

“Fuck you, Riddle.”

It took only a moment of close concentration on Harry’s end before he mentally slammed the door that separated their minds shut, trapping Tom in his own mindscape where he would be incapable of speaking with Harry until the boy opened it up again. For another few moments, in which Harry feverishly ignored the distant sound of snapping wood as he dug his nails further and further into his desk, nothing moved. Harry wasn’t sure that he was even breathing, but knew that he had to be because someone in the room was clearly breathing heavily. He decided to focus on the breathing, listening to how it shook and seemed to jump irregularly, as if the person breathing was terrified. It wasn’t the breathing of someone who was angry, and as his lungs began to burn Harry realized that it couldn’t be him.

Whipping around, all the anger tripled as he came eye to bulbous eye with a very familiar elf, who was standing in the middle of the room looking utterly terrified. Harry blinked at Dobby, momentarily forgetting his anger in the shock of seeing the elf just… standing there. It seemed that both of them were equally shocked with the situation, as Dobby also just stood there, staring. For several very prolonged moments, it seemed that all they were doing was partaking in a particularly absurd staring contest, before Dobby seemed to shake himself of his stupor and jump into action.

“Evil! Harry Potter is evil! He speaks the evil monster’s name—ack!” Harry had acted swiftly, lunging forward to grip the nosey little elf around the neck. Dobby writhed in clear pain, grasping at Harry’s tanned hand in an effort to free his quickly constricting neck as Harry scrambled to his feet and rammed the elf into the nearest wall. Dobby whimpered, clawing more ferociously at the tall boy’s hand and successfully scratching him, forming superficial abrasions across the back of his hands and fingers.

Harry couldn’t help but let out an angry hiss, leaning forward as his upper lip pulled back into a snarl. “Listen here and listen well, you psychotic little shite, because I won’t say it a second time. Anything that your pathetic man whore of a master is planning on unleashing into Hogwarts will pale in comparison to what I'll do to you if you even think about bothering me, do you understand? If you touch my mail, I will skin you. If you even consider charming anything to harm me, I will skin you. If you do anything, anything at all to affect me… I. Will. Skin. You.” 

Dobby whimpered, nodded fearfully as he continued to grapple for air. Harry also nodded to himself, about to continue with the threats before something in Dobby’s face snapped him out of the blind rage and, suddenly realizing what he was doing, he dropped the elf. Dobby fell like a rock, and Harry stumbled backwards in surprise as the small body hit the floor, staring down at the slumped-over elf who was now coughing roughly while taking deep, shaking breaths of air. Harry took a deep breath as well, staring down at Dobby with something resembling shock. He fumbled for words for a moment, almost managing a rushed apology before there was a popping sound and Dobby was gone, likely to never return.

He stared at the spot that Dobby vacated, before letting out a long sigh, walking backwards a step to land onto his bed with a quiet thump. Harry stared up at the ceiling blankly, running through the past thirty minutes or so as if he could analyze exactly what had happened to lead him to this situation. Finding that he couldn’t easily blame anyone but himself and perhaps Tom for getting him angry in the first place, Harry let the entire situation fade away to be contemplated later, sardonically noting that Dobby likely wouldn’t be much of an issue now that he had been scared out of his socks by Harry’s threats.

The white colour of his ceiling mocked him with its dull vapidity, the fan hanging overhead slowly creaking as it sluggishly turned. He knew that, logically speaking, it was wrong to take his anger out on the poor elf, but Tom had been keeping that secret for nearly a bloody decade! He had the right to be angry, at the very least. Though, that certainly didn’t excuse his actions.

Harry groaned, attempting to ignore the guilt and regret as it crept up his throat. Dobby had been good to him in the first timeline, even going so far as to die for him and his friends, so the least he could have done was act respectively towards the elf in this one. Perhaps his creature inheritance was affecting him more than he originally thought. 

Harry had been doing some thinking on the train ride home from Hogwarts, compiling all of his thoughts about the strange occurrences that had happened around him and what the causes or, more accurately, the cause might be. He had eventually come to the cautious decision that his gory… erm, dinner with Pettegrew, as well as his run through the forest on Christmas both had to have been brought on by his budding creature inheritance, which meant that all of his early mornings staring at the mirror had to be relating to it as well. He had found that, after his little breakdown in the forest, he had felt much the same as he had before having Pettigrew for a midnight snack. He didn’t want to assume anything, but it seemed as though Death had done something to stunt his creature inheritance, or maybe ward off the symptoms of it in some way. Harry’s memories of the entire event were hazy at best, so he couldn’t really get a good grasp of what that something might have been, but considering that even the telltale signs of his creature inheritance seemed almost non-existent, he felt confident that that was the case.

He rubbed his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands deep into his eyelids until a kaleidoscope of colour erupted in the darkness. Thinking about it was hardly doing him any good, considering how little he knew and how little Death was likely to tell him. For now, it seemed as though all he could do was hope that Dobby had decided to take his threats to heart, and hope that his summer was uneventful and restful. Maybe now that Tom was locked away where he couldn’t cause any more trouble, Harry would be able to get back to his muggle studies into superconductors.

The summer passed quietly for Harry, who corresponded via owl with his friends, and relaxed at home with the Dursleys. The same could not be said for Draco, whose back pain had gotten considerably worse after his twelfth birthday, and he had begun noticing that the areas that hurt were deeply inflamed. His mother had rubbed some balm on the offending areas, which seemed to have helped some. She had gone so far as to wrap a chilled cloth around his shoulders and abdomen in the hope to minimize the swelling, which he greatly appreciated. She had then promised him that this kind of situation was perfectly normal for a Malfoy, and that before long everything would work out just fine.

Draco couldn't help but feel that this was anything but normal, and was in fact, extremely abnormal. He constantly felt as though something was growing inside of his back, the feeling of odd aberrations growing under his skin unsettling him deeply. If it was only that he would be less concerned, but once the months fell into July, he started to realize how his nails were growing in thick and rough; he had taken to trimming them once a week at least, sometimes once every few days. The skin around his hands and feet was also unusually dry and coarse, as if he was gaining layers of thick skin there while the skin on his back thinned. Draco had begged his father to tell him something, anything about what was happening to him, but the only response he received was distance. Lucius Malfoy made his stance blatantly clear as he began to spend more and more time out at work and less and less time with his family, only revealing himself for dinner before retreating back into his locked study. Draco found it maddening, but he could hardly do anything to change the situation.

It was also not helping that he was still so bloody short. Draco huffed, scratching at the back of his left hand as he watched the sky outside his window. It was difficult to not notice that he was still quite short for his age, and it didn’t seem like his body was all that inclined to grow very quickly, if at all. Harry had already been almost a head taller than him when they parted ways in early June, and the other two hadn’t been terribly far behind that.

He rubbed his face, loudly groaning into the palm of his hand as if making obnoxious noises would solve all of his problems. It was currently the day before Harry’s birthday, and he was attempting to put the finishing touches on Harry’s birthday present. It was rather difficult, however, considering that he kept getting caught back up in his thoughts. Glancing down at it one final time, Draco squared himself before reaching towards the twine thread, intent on tying a bloody bow and leaving this nonsense behind him. Several minutes and one rope burn-induced injury later, he was lifting the package up for his owl, Persephone, to take. He watched her fly off into the slowly setting sun as he slipped deeper into his thoughts, wondering when they were all going to meet up to go school shopping. 

The Hogwarts letters had arrived five days prior on the 25th of July, and Blaise had written several weeks prior to that in order to relay that he would be back from visiting his extended family in Italy on the 13th of August and that he could meet up with them sometime after that. Theo wasn't set to get back from Switzerland till the 16th, so they would have to wait at least till then in order to be able to meet up. Draco entertained the thought of going on without Theo, but knew that it would be cruel to consciously exclude his friend, especially after he had spent so long trying to befriend the quiet boy.

It'll have to be the 19th then. He nodded to himself, hoping that if they were to meet up for a late lunch it would allow Theo enough time to recover from his trip for a few days. They could certainly wait a week and go on the 26th, but that seemed to be cutting it a tad close to the wire. No, it would be best if they went on the 19th, especially considering that it was a Wednesday, and his father would be having tea with the minister, which he always did over lunch on Wednesdays. Draco preferred if his father was not the one to take him for his shopping, as he had a sneaking suspicion that things would be rather tense between them. It certainly helped that his mother historically had a much better time being kind to other people than his father did, who had a, likely hereditary, habit of insulting everyone that he generally disliked. Considering that Harry undoubtedly fell under that umbrella, Draco was certain that it would be best if his father stayed as far from Diagon Alley as possible when he was to go get his school supplies.

Finally deciding on the best course of action, he shuffled around his desk for three pieces of fresh parchment to write to his friends, sharing when he thought would be the best day and asking if it worked for them as well. Sealing the envelopes with the Malfoy coat of arms, he wandered off to find his mother’s owl, as he had realized preemptively that Persephone was currently carrying Harry's birthday present to Surrey, and he didn’t want to waste a second on the letters.

Gwyllgi-Welsh

The Gwyllgi is described as a large wolf-dog, found predominantly in Wales, that has the appearance and stature similar to a Dire Wolf (see page 189) with baleful breath and blazing red eyes. It is often referred to as ‘The Dog of Darkness’ or ‘The Black Hound of Destiny’. It often hunts human prey, appearing to them on lonely roads at night. It is quite similar to the Grim (see page 497) as it is also an omen of terrible and painful death.

Harry breathed out a tired sigh, crossing the Gwyllgi out with a swift flick of his pencil. At first he had sniffed at the thought of marking up a precious resource like ‘Every Magical Creature Known’, but had quickly found himself needing to make some sort of physical progress in the long and arduous journey of uncovering the mystery around his creature inheritance.

He wondered, not for the first time, why Death seemed so adamant about not telling him what he was. It seemed uncomfortably similar to Tom’s tendency to dodge questions that he didn’t want to answer. The paranoid side of him figured that, much like Tom's numerous and likely insidious plans, he would really hate the knowledge of what he was, so Death was procrastinating the inevitable. The more cynical side of him figured that Death probably didn't get much amusement in his not-life, and watching Harry struggle through this issue was probably the only fun he was having lately. Either way, it wasn’t likely that he would get any answers from the god himself anytime soon, so for now, all he could really do was throw himself into studying and hope that something comes of it.

Harry leaned back in his desk chair, contemplating. It was the evening of his birthday, and his family had shoved him upstairs with the command to stay there till his surprise-party-that-wasn't-actually-a-surprise was all set up. This was a common occurrence for his birthday, as Petunia greatly enjoyed the act of running around and acting conspiratorial and Harry enjoyed the few hours of assured silence he received from their antics. However, considering the focus of his contemplation that evening, Harry had found that instead of being productive with his studies, he had been mostly just sulking and making vague shapes in the air with his pencil. He had attempted to do something productive for a few hopeful minutes at the start, sure, but had gotten swiftly distracted by the looming mysteries surrounding him.

A piercing squawk broke him from his stupor, and Harry turned to the window to find Draco's barn owl Persephone right outside, flapping angrily at him and likely wanting to be let in. He blinked at her for a moment, somehow surprised to see her there, before clumsily rising from his seat and moving towards the window, unlatching it and swiftly sidestepping just as the bird rocketed into the room. Harry cursed as he was grazed by a wing, ducking down as Persephone flew around the room, squawking and shrieking as if his existence had personally offended her. Harry fell lower into a crouch, holding his arms defensively over his head as she flew circles around the small space before finally settling on his bed frame. They stared at each other, the more avian of the two trying her best to convey as much hatred as physically possible through her glare alone while Harry considered if potentially losing an eye would be worth retrieving his birthday present. Persephone seemed to make the decision for him, however, as she held out her leg and dropped a small package down onto his duvet, before letting out one last screech of anger before rocketing off the bed frame and out the window.

Harry stayed on the floor for a few moments, blinking at the scattered feathers and debris that the flying demon had brought in with her. What Draco sees in that bird is beyond me.

Finally deciding that he wouldn’t dwell on it any longer, Harry stood shakily to his feet, running a finger through his hair to make sure that he hadn’t lost any from the attack. Finding nothing out of place, he righted himself fully before making his way over to the package, picking it up and observing it with curiosity. What kind of birthday present would Draco consider suitable? It was a rather small box, only about two inches long and an inch wide. Nothing bigger than an eraser could fit inside, though it could possibly be charmed to be larger on the inside.

He didn't get the chance to open it and find out, however, as two more owls streamed into the room, both much quieter and calmer than Persephone was. Harry turned to watch as they settled next to each other on the windowsill, both with parcels in tallon and expectant looks on their faces. One appeared to be Theo’s snowy owl Apollo, and the second was definitely Blaise’s eagle owl Hermes, whose distinct orange colouring was hard to forget. It had been a fun day when they all sat down together and named the three owls after gods from Greek mythology. It had been Theo’s idea, as the quiet boy had come out of his tomes for long enough to proclaim that he had been interested in Greek myths lately. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to make him open up more, the three of them had turned it into a conversation about the various deities, which turned into a discussion about the names of said deities, which eventually dissolved into the four of them huddled around a tome that was so old it was practically falling apart, leafing through the ancient pages in search of good names for their owls. Draco had been fascinated by the myth of Minthe and how Persephone turned her into a mint plant, saying that it was hysterical irony and utterly brilliant, so he had commandeered the name Persephone almost immediately. Blaise had picked Hermes at random, but only after methodically reading through over half of the tome in ‘search' of the perfect match. Theo had chosen Apollo without a second thought, saying nothing about it and refusing to give a reason why. Throughout the entire conversation, Harry himself was thinking of getting an owl of his own and naming it similarly, just so that he wouldn't be excluded. He had given a few half-hearted ideas when the other boys asked, but hadn’t really made an effort to tell them much of what he was thinking. Truthfully, he had wanted something death-related, because it would be a hysterical joke to himself, but just couldn't settle between Hades or Thanatos. On one hand, Thanatos was more accurate, but after Draco had chosen a name he had strangely felt that Hades would fit like a glove.

Perhaps he had been overthinking the entire thing, considering that he didn’t even have an owl.

Plucking all the presents out of the waiting talons, Harry threw them onto the bed next to Draco’s gift before giving the more mild-mannered birds some water and owl treats before sending them on their way. Glancing towards the three packages on his bed, Harry contemplated if it would be unethical to open them without his family present. The Dursleys certainly enjoyed the more magical sides of Harry’s life, at least in small doses, so they would likely take great joy in watching him unwrap them. After much deliberation, he threw caution to the wind and began to open them, deciding that his birthday party would be a purely family affair.

Blaise had sent him a book on clothing alteration charms, with a note attached saying that if he kept growing the way he was he would probably be needing it. He had also sent pornography, which was apparently something that he added to all his gifts. Curiously, Harry peaked open the cover to see what was inside, immediately regretting his decision as lewd noises erupted from inside. Slamming the parchment back into place, Harry stood stiffly in wait for any rushed footsteps coming up the stairs, feeling positive that someone had to have heard that. When none did, however, Harry counted his blessings before setting the pornography into a dusty corner of his bookshelf to be forgotten.

Well, I suppose opening them all now was a good idea after all. I really should have seen that coming.

He turned back to the pile, grabbing for the other book-shaped parcel that was most likely from Theo. The quiet boy had gotten him a book on soul bonds called ‘Soul Bonds: an Eternity of Inconveniences with only Moderate Payoff’. Harry wrinkled his nose at the strange name, wondering just how observant one boy could be before it veered off into being unnatural. Despite his growing curiosity, he set the book to the side with the other book, deciding that he would read through it at a later time when he had a few hours to spare and fewer pressing issues to worry about.

All that was left was Draco’s gift wrapped in twine. Harry pulled the elegant wrapping paper away with ease, finding a small black box with the crest of an ornate vase embossed into the surface. Furrowing his eyebrows with curiosity, Harry quickly opened it, finding a masterly crafted glass snake sculpture with emerald eyes lying inside. It was beautifully formed and obviously expensive, being cradled by a soft pillow of emerald silk, its pose coiled up as if sleeping. Fumbling around for a moment, Harry dislodged a small piece of parchment from the silk pillow, opening it to find a small note explaining exactly what it was. Draco’s note revealed that he had had the glass sculpture commissioned by a magical glassblower in Sweden's famous ‘Glasriket’ Glass Country, from where it had been further enchanted with unbreakable charms, as well as a passive calming magic meant to settle the mind. Draco’s note sarcastically relayed his concern for Harry’s sanity, and how he expected Harry to carry the snake with him to his classes. The concern was palpable through the ink, though Draco’s casual and somewhat uncaring diction made Harry think he was a bit embarrassed arranging such a thoughtful gift. Harry smiled warmly at the thought, finding himself almost giddy as he pulled the glass snake from its silk pillow.

The sculpture, despite being incredibly detailed and ornate, was only about an inch and a half tall, likely so that it would fit easily into his pockets. He palmed it, feeling the calming magic already starting to seep into his skin and soothe his worries. Sighing lowly, Harry climbed onto his bed and collapsed into the covers face first, finding himself completely and utterly relaxed for the first time since Christmas.

After an hour or so, in which he took an extremely well-deserved nap, Harry forced himself out of bed at his aunt’s beckoning, distantly understanding that the preparations were likely completed and ready for him. With Draco's present firmly in his trouser pocket, he made his way down the stairs into his surprise-but-not-a-surprise party, pretending to be shocked as the three Dursleys jumped out from behind furniture with confetti in hand to rain down on him. 

It was a good party, all things considered, and after a delightful dinner and an obscene amount of cake, and Harry settled into bed that night with the snake sculpture held loosely in his grasp, Thasin curled up on his chest as his ceiling fan spun in slow methodical circles.

Blaise Zabini strolled through his family's library in Italy, casually browsing through the books filled with knowledge long lost to the rest of the world. The Zabini estate was sprawling, and refused all outsiders in through their gates. The only way that he and his mother had managed to keep their invitation to such a place was by returning to the Zabini name after his father had passed. Historically, once a daughter of the Zabini family left to get married, or more accurately when she changed her name and symbolically left the family of her own accord, that was the last that anyone saw her or the possible children that she birthed, as she would be effectively cut from the family. Many Zabini women got around this by having their husbands take their name, but his mother had not been like that, too in love with both her husband and with the culture of his homeland to follow the curve. So, she had been cut off, and only when his father had died did she get correspondence from her family, in which they stated she could come back and be granted monetary support, but only if she returned to her maiden name and left her late husband’s family behind. She had been grieving, and losing funds quickly, and her son had just barely turned three, so she had done what she had to do to find stability, even if it drove a wedge between the last connection to her late husband that she had left.

It was cruel, but effective.

Blaise let out a breath through his nose, craning his neck upwards to take in the towering shelves that seemed to go on for miles, both upwards and out. He always spent his summers in Italy, where he could mingle with his extended family and pay tribute to those who had come before him. In the past he had warm memories of the place, but all of his cousins were much older than him, and had reached the age where they were more inclined to talk politics with the adults than even glance his way. He didn’t blame them for this, but certainly wished that someone had the forethought to at least get him something interesting to do, instead of shooing him off to the older parts of the estate to be forgotten and ignored.

To put it plainly, Blaise was impressively  bored. 

He leisurely turned a corner, reaching out to trail a finger down the smooth wood of the towering bookshelves as he sarcastically contemplated what might be waiting for him around the bend. Books, perhaps?

It was, indeed, books.

Blaise didn’t bother to suppress his groaning, feeling as though he was two seconds away from being bored into tears. If Theo was there, Blaise would at least be able to take some sort of entertainment out of the bibliophile's face when he saw the practically infinite library. That would at least make for a few seconds of enjoyment, if anything.

He turned another corner, stopping suddenly as he felt the wood under his hand suddenly warm. His eyes refocused, and Blaise suddenly realized that he was in a part of the library that felt unfamiliar to him. Had he turned the wrong corner? Glancing to his outstretched hand, Blaise moved his palm to the side to reveal a symbol that had been carved into the wood. It was Celtic-looking or perhaps Norse in origin, and illustrated two snakes knotted together in a complicated braid-like pattern. He felt called to it, as if he had been led her for a reason—for a purpose—and brushed his fingers over it a second time. The heat seemed to rise in temperature, and he jumped back in shock as the snakes started to shift, untangling and slithering into a different formation. He watched with a mix of confusion and acute fascination, wondering what he could have possibly stumbled upon as the two snakes formed a small square shape in the wood. He watched as they seemed to sink into the oak, revealing an indent in the smooth wood that made it now glaringly obvious that there was something else behind it. For a moment, Blaise was far too caught up in the intrigue to do anything, before cautiously reaching forward to press two fingers into the raised shape. The square immediately gave way, falling forward and revealing a small hollowed-out space behind it. Peering inside, Blaise saw what appeared to be a small green book sitting in the hollowed-out nook. He reached in, having to squirm his hand around in order to fit inside the small space. His fingers eventually brushed against the worn leather, and he just barely managed to get a grip on it before he tugged his entire hand out. Revealing the small book to the light, Blaise turned it over in his palm, admiring it. The book was mostly green, with intricate gold trimming that weaved around in patterns that were definitely Norse now that he got a better look at it. The entire thing was about the size of his palm, but felt heavy enough that he felt compelled to hold it with two hands.

“So Loki has chosen you, eh boy?” Blaise nearly jumped out of his skin, whipping around to find his great-great-grandfather looking at the book in disapproval. “He isn't much of a respectable god, you know, I expect you to choose differently. Run along then, find someone better.”

The old man hobbled off, apparently deciding that what he had said was perfectly acceptable as an explanation for whatever had just happened. Blaise watched him go with a strange conglomeration of emotions, feeling both confused and insulted by the man's words. Truth be told, he had an ingrained instinct to disagree with his elders, and wanted to yell out that the trickster god was quite fitting for him. He held his tongue, however, and glanced back down at the book once more. He turned it over again, observing how the gold accents glittered in the light. Without a second thought, he pocketed it, and leaned down to pick up the square piece of wood that had fallen out. It was perfectly symmetrical on all sides, oddly enough. He held it in a loose grip, glancing between it and the very noticeable hole in the bookshelf several times before making up his mind. Reaching forward, he slotted it back into its proper place, where it proceeded to melt and merge once again with the original wood, the two snakes reemerging only to tangle up and get knotted together again. Blaise watched it for a moment longer, his hand closing around the book in his pocket possessively before he quickly turned away, intent on ignoring what had just happened until he could contemplate it in the comfort of his own room.

Dust seemed to permeate the very air he breathed, clogging up his lungs and settling in clumps on his shoulders. Theo was currently in Switzerland, wishing that he was anywhere but. His grandfather stood next to him, a looming presence that made him feel utterly inadequate in his own meek posture. He bowed his head as the old woman took his hand, her wrinkled fingers coming into view as he focused intently onto his shoes, which were gaining dust at alarming rates.

The countryside of Switzerland was beautiful, and the magical district in Bern was filled to the brim with utterly brilliant things. He would have been taking a great deal of his time enjoying the rolling hills and tucked away bookshops if he wasn’t here, sitting in an old crone’s kitchen as she clutched his hand firmly. His grandfather had been insistent that the woman would help ‘cure’ him of his curse, though as she moved away from him and towards an old-looking urn filled with suspicious powder that he sincerely hoped wasn’t ash, he started to feel less optimistic about the visit. Bern was the seer capital of the world, and even then the woman currently rifling through what he thought might be someone’s ashes was well regarded as particularly adept in helping unlock one's inner eye. Theo had no idea if that could actually help stop his weird hunches, but the thought of him finally being a normal heir seemed to be helping his grandfather's stress.

She pulled a circular object out of the pale ash with a little sigh of relief, before hobbling back over and forcing it into his hand. Theo bit down on his tongue, wrinkling his nose as the thing squished slightly in his grip. He refused to look down and see what it was, far too focused on the old woman and her speech as she muttered in broken English.

“English wizards… so wrong with the sight. Seers and prophets are one and same for them, the fools.” She shook her head, closing her withered hand around his own before muttering something in German, or perhaps it was Russian. Theo was horrible at recognizing languages.

He had read about what she was referring to in her muttering, that being the indistinction between seers and prophets in the British Isles. Apparently, there were so few true divinators in the British Isles that all the subsets had just been merged together into a vague lump of ‘seer’. To the rest of the world, there was a very striking difference between seers and prophets, where prophets were considered those who spoke prophecies, and seers were those who had been given the gift of seeing certain things that others cannot. It had sounded to Theo like all the so-called seers in Britain were actually prophets, and the true seers were all written off as loons.

He was pulled from the thought as the woman started humming lowly, changing pitch erratically as her eyes fell shut. The air in the room seemed to shift, and the smell of iron and earth overwhelmed his senses. His grandfather straightened from behind him, the looming presence acting as anything but a comfort as Theo watched the old woman imploringly. After several moments of this, her eyes flung open and she practically threw his hands away, stumbling backwards as her stool clattered to the floor. His grandfather threw an arm out instinctively, somehow thinking that she was going to attack him. Theo sat as still as he could, watching the woman as she started to mutter to herself again. She turned away from them both, moving around the room in some sort of odd dance, before coming back and settling back into her stool just as it righted itself. She looked deep into his eyes, and began to speak.

“You've got a demon beside you, boy, angel as well. Jester wants to protect you but keeps distance. Your inner eye can not be opened by me. None but the fates will help. I will do nothing for you.” She spoke in choppy, broken English, but her message was clear. They left the house on her prompting.

“We’ll find someone who can give us a clear answer, Theo. Bern isn’t the divination capital of the world for nothing.” His grandfather spoke in a placating tone, more for himself than his grandson. Theo didn’t bother to reply, curling in on himself in thought as he picked apart the old crone’s words. He had already gotten a clear enough answer from her, knowing for certain that his inner eye would open once it was needed. 

He had a hunch about it after all, and his hunches were never wrong.

Chapter Text

Harry made his way through the Leaky Cauldron, ignoring the blatant stares from everyone around him as his eyes zeroed in on the far back wall. He was here a few hours earlier than the others, wanting to sneak down Knockturn Alley and snoop around. The last time he had been to Diagon Alley, he had been with his aunt, and had been doubtful about how well she would take a stint into the somewhat illegal alleyway. He regretted not at least asking almost immediately after, but it had been too little too late, and there had been more important things to do besides potentially getting in trouble for being down the Alley in broad daylight.

Harry darted around a large, hook-nosed man and slipped into the alcove behind the pub, already pulling out his wand to tap the correct pattern into the stone. It was a miracle in itself that he had managed to convince his aunt to let him come alone this year, as despite her fears of being around a massive amount of magic, her fear of him getting kidnapped by a child-eating old crone or a shadowy figure in an alleyway far outweighed the former. However, when Draco had sent his letter detailing how his mother would be the one to guide them through their shopping, she had been slightly more comfortable about the idea, and Harry had eventually worn her down enough to the point that he was here now, tapping away at the brick.

With one last tap on the old wall, Harry pocketed his wand and pulled up his hood, stepping out into the busy streets of Diagon as if he were nothing but another faceless wizard in the mass of other patrons. As he moved swiftly through the crowd, Harry tried his best to keep his head bowed and hood down, not wanting to be caught wandering around the less than stellar side-alley by anyone that might recognize him. It was probably bad enough to Dumbledore that he was in Slytherin, so Harry had no need to add fuel to that potentially lethal fire. 

Speeding up to a fast stride, he walked purposefully through the cobbled streets, passing by vendors and glittering displays without so much as a backwards glance. He would be able to come back and gawk in a few hours, so there was no use wasting what little time he had buying potions ingredients or browsing through storefronts. Twisting around a particularly large fellow, Harry suddenly found himself swept into a familiar crooked and thin alleyway, the impoverished buildings a sharp and sudden contrast to the worn but welcoming ones in Diagon. It seemed that the tide had forced him into Knockturn of its own accord, which he was hardly going to take for granted. Harry didn’t dally a moment longer, not wanting to stand out as anything but a normal shadowy figure in a population of equally shadowy figures. His shoes clicking against the cobbled road was painfully loud in the near-deafening silence that greeted him as he got farther and farther away from the main street, and Harry felt as though speaking at normal levels would seem like screaming in such a silent place. It was odd too, as there were clearly other people wandering to and fro from various businesses, and many more illuminating on the steps of said businesses, but no one made any sound. No one spoke a word. He tried to subtly muffle his footfalls, finding them horrendously loud and glaringly obvious in such an environment.

Succeeding somewhat with a carefully placed muffling charm, Harry let himself relax somewhat as he made his way deeper into the alley, mostly just window shopping as he seamlessly fell into the crowd. It wasn’t much different from Diagon once one got accustomed to the silence, though the habitué were admittedly of the more aggressive sort. He got quickly accustomed to people abruptly accosting him with offers to sell him something of unknowable value and quality, and was truthfully just grateful that none of them had attempted to remove his hood. Perhaps there were some common courtesies that, even in Knockturn, you simply didn’t break, no matter how impolite or savage you appeared.

He had been just looking for a good half hour before coming across a shop that he considered to be worth peaking in, and even then he hadn’t lingered long. It had clearly been filled to the absolute brim with dark artefacts and strange, unlabeled ingredients. All of which he would have no use for at Hogwarts. He had still been fascinated enough to just wander for a while, but had cut that short as well, feeling a tad bit unsettled by the old crone that ran the place. She had followed him with her eyes, the almost royal purple colour to them feeling extremely out of place on an otherwise normal face. He thought that she had to have been using some sort of colour changing charm on her irises to gain that effect. How else would she manage such an unnatural colour and hue? He had left swiftly after accidentally making eye contact for the eighth time, feeling extremely unsettled by the entire experience. It was so peculiar that he had not been able to burn the memory of those purple eyes or the glaringly red door that first invited him into her shop.

After that, he had been a bit more cautious about going into shops, especially ones with such colourful front doors. He hadn’t found much after another fifteen minutes, and had felt the need to double back before it got too late and he was in danger of not showing up to see his friends on time. It was on his way back that he came across a stationery store, his gaze nearly missing the worn sign that hung over an equally dingy door. Harry looked at it with curiosity, finding himself intrigued by what might be found inside a stationary store in Knockturn. Unable to state his curiosity, he swiftly climbed the rickety steps and entered the shop, his eyes adjusting to the lower light as the door shut firmly behind him. The first thing he noticed was the shelves, which towered up and into the darkness above as if there was no ceiling to the shop at all. As if making an effort to stay on theme, they seemed to be on the brink of collapsing into themselves, not unlike how the outwardly small shop had appeared on the brink of falling to pieces. Harry stepped further inside, glancing around at the enchanted quills and jinxed journals with great interest. The shopkeeper neared him from a distance, smiling without teeth as Harry picked up a black leather journal labelled simply ‘fire curse’.

“That right ‘ere is a nasty piece of mine. A lady just yesterday singed ‘er wig tryin to get it open. Fif’ty galleons.” Harry nodded along, before gingerly settling it back with the others of his kind. The shopkeep seemed pleasant enough, and after Harry made it obvious he was just there to browse, quickly left him be.

Strolling through the high shelves, Harry let his feet take him leisurely through the stacks, stopping only occasionally to pick something interesting up or check the price. He didn’t want to spend too much money on anything, since he still had to buy his school supplies and had just barely enough money for that alone. Sure, he could go to Gringotts and withdraw some money from his absurdly large gift vault, but he really didn’t want to do that if he didn’t have to. Gringotts always felt like a bit of a wild card.

Harry stopped in place, glancing down to find a shelf full of enchanted journals, all of which appeared masterfully crafted and, considering the varied enchantments they boasted having, quite illegal. Finding a sign that listed all the possible enchantments that one could possibly put on a custom journal, Harry read through it in its entirety, finding without shock that many of the journals’ main features were to keep people who weren’t the owner from getting in or reading the contents. Many of the other additions were more relating to explaining or shrinking charms, detailing how one could make a journal shrink to the size of an atom or grow to the size of a house. Harry sincerely doubted that either of the claims were accurate, but didn’t take much time to gripe over it, too focused on one last addition that had quickly caught his eye.

Infinite pages: 400ʛ 

“Sir? What does it mean by infinite pages?” He motioned over the shopkeep, who had been inconspicuously watching him from a few shelves away, and pointed to the line. The man seemed surprised and a bit embarrassed to have been spotted, but came over nonetheless.

“Ahhh good eye lad.” He turned slightly and spit, the mucus coming out black like tar. Harry instinctively wrinkled his nose, just barely managing to school his features as the man turned back around again. “That ‘ere makes the pages never-ending, so ye never run outta ‘em”

Harry found the idea fascinating, and infinitely useful if it was actually accurate. After much deliberation and a few polite questions to the shopkeep, Harry managed to get his hands on one of the supposedly ‘infinite’ journals and paged through it for far longer than he would like to admit, just standing there trying to find an end to it. His frustration must have been obvious on his face, as the shopkeeper's toothless smile slowly got wider and wider as time stretched on and the pages continued to, quite literally, never end. Eventually, he admitted defeat and bought the bloody book, thoroughly impressed with it despite his attempts to prove it wrong. He paid extra for the shopkeep to imbue several defensive jinxes into the leather cover in order to keep any unwanted readers out, and before long he had the journal cradled gently under one arm. After browsing through the quills, which seemed almost infinite as his new journal, Harry eventually settled onto an enchanted quill that was meant to write for you, which he figured would be quite handy, remembering how useful the quick quotes quill had been for Rita Skeeter in his first life. He made a note to research just how many types of quills there were, wondering how many there were that he didn't know about.

He left the dingy shop feeling satisfied, his purchases cradled under one arm and hood pulled further down his face to more thoroughly obscure it. He had kept it on while in the store, but had admittedly allowed it to ride up a bit, which wasn’t the best idea in hindsight. 

Oh well, it's not like the old man would tell anyone if he had recognized me, and no one would believe him if he did.

Harry felt quite giddy as he turned out of Knockturn and into the bustling streets of Diagon Alley, letting himself blend through the crowd for about a block or so before taking off the cloak and banishing it back to his house, now unneeded after fulfilling its purpose. It was one thing to go down the obviously illegal and dangerous side alley, but it was another thing entirely to actually buy something in it. His pre-teenage rebellion over and done with, Harry quickly settled into Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor to wait for his friends to arrive. In the time that he was waiting, Harry managed to not only make nice with Fortescue himself, but also buy an absolutely fantastic cup of tea from the man for half price. Harry had no idea that the ice cream parlour even served tea, though the few times that he had been there in his first life he had been quite inclined to stuff his face with as much sugar as physically possible, so it was entirely likely that he hadn’t noticed the full extent of the menu.

It was a good thirty minutes before anyone showed up, the first of them apparently being Theo, who was carrying with him an impressively large stack of books. Harry watched him enter with slight worry, following the extremely imbalanced tower with his eyes as the shorter boy hurriedly glanced around for a horizontal place to set them all down.

“Over here, mate.” He called out with a wave, signalling the brunet over with his raised arm. “Draco’ll be awfully cross that you went and got the course books without us, you know.”

Theo set the massive stack down with a loud thump, before practically collapsing into the chair adjacent from Harry with a sigh. “These are from the second-hand bookshop down the way, and they’re for my personal reading pleasure, mind you.” 

Theo had, apparently, decided the Hogwarts library was too small of a selection for him and sought to buy his own books that, from the size of the stack, would last him for the next few weeks. Harry opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted as Theo continued. “Flourish an’ Blotts is a madhouse, I tell you. Full of middle-aged women swooning over some writer or another. I didn’t stick around long enough to get a good look at ‘em, but I’m sure we’ll have to go in at some point or another.” 

Harry let out a pained groan, realizing that Draco had managed to choose the one day that Lockhart was doing his book signings for them to get their school supplies. What utterly rotten luck. I can't believe I had forgotten. He felt his mood sour slightly at the realization, and sipped his tea quietly as Theo pulled a book from the top of the pile and began to read. It was quiet for a time, as Harry blew through three or so cups of tea at a steady pace and Theo made a sizable dent in his book, but the silence was eventually disrupted by the parlour’s door opening and Blaise’s familiar figure coming into view. He looked warmer than normal somehow—maybe from the Italian sun?—and visibly cheery. Harry waved him over in a similar fashion to how he got Theo’s attention, and they were quickly making room for a third person on their small table.

“Evenin' chaps.”

Harry gulped down the rest of his tea, making a move to answer before the bell above the door chimed a once again and Draco came waltzing in, his mother following behind with a certain unachievable daintiness to her step that made Harry wonder if she had been pushed inside on a passing breeze. The pair immediately rounded on the three of them, and Harry took immediate notice of how Draco hadn’t seemed to have grown over the summer. It had been a few months of considerable growth for the rest of them, so the notable outlier had been almost immediately realized. Theo was the first besides Harry to notice the substantial difference in height, and had proceeded to snort tea up his nose, apparently finding the Malfoy heir's stunted height particularly hysterical. Draco seemed far less amused, giving the bibliophile a scathing look before pointedly ignoring him and introducing his mother to Harry and Blaise.

“Everyone. This is my mother, Lady Malfoy.”

She smiled airly, a sharp contrast to what Harry had been expecting. She seemed extremely… relaxed, was how he would describe it. She seemed strangely unlike how he remembered her to be, though he was hardly complaining about the change. Standing up, Harry took her outstretched hand and bowed slightly, muttering ‘a pleasure to meet you’ under his breath before pressing a chaste kiss to her knuckle. She made a vague noise of agreement as he stood, straightening up as Blaise acted similarly. Theo, however, had increased the intensity of his now rather obnoxious laughter, looking between him and Draco and looking as though he was about to rupture his spleen. Harry cocked his head, glancing towards where Draco stood only to find that he could only see the top of Draco's head. He glanced down further, then slouched a bit, finally being able to meet Draco’s eyes at the expense of his posture. 

Theo laughed harder, and Draco turned noticeably pink.

“I'll get my growth spurt, Nott, and then you won't be laughing!”

Harry turned away, watching as Lady Malfoy asked Blaise about how his mother was doing. The Italian boy said something indistinguishable as a sufficiently spurred on Theo made a rather biting remark about Draco’s similarities with hobbits from Lord of the Rings. Which, in all fairness, did make Harry snort a bit, prompting Draco to blush more aggressively and kick the Nott heir in the knee. Blaise and Lady Malfoy turned around just in time to hear Theo curse rather crassly as he dropped to the floor, Draco standing over him with a smug look on his pointed face.

“Alright boys, enough of that.” A considerably amused Lady Malfoy put a stop to the chaos, chiding Theo and Draco for fighting in such a public place before pulling them all out the door. “I’ve got an appointment to discuss fine china sales with Lady Greengrass in three hours, so this excursion can't be too terribly long lest I be late.”

Harry lagged a few steps behind the group, taking his time to window shop as they jumped from store to store in a rather impressive display of time management on Lady Malfoy’s part. The first stop was, ironically enough to Harry, stationary. He took his time picking out parchment and a few different colours of ink, having already gotten himself a few new quills and even a fountain pen while out shopping with his aunt a few days earlier. Harry expected that if he ended up needing more ink or quills throughout the year, he could easily order some with one of his friend’s owls. It would be a bit more expensive than just getting one of the upper years to buy him something on a Hogsmeade weekend, but if he really wanted to break even it wouldn’t be too difficult to order in bulk for all of the second years.

As he calculated how much of his gift vault could reasonably go into exclusively ink and parchment, and if it was at all beneficial to start a stationery shop among the other younger years, Harry absentmindedly listened as voices from behind the opposite shelf started to whisper to themselves.

“There’s no way he would want that.”

“Are you sure? I think he would understand the necessity of a good gag gift.”

“Blaise, he’ll try to break your knees.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at the shelf of red ink he was staring blankly at, before rounding the short distance around it to find Blaise and Theo with their heads pressed together, hunched over a particularly beautiful peacock feather quill.

“And what exactly are you two up to?”

The pair jolted in tandem, whipping around with panicked faces as Harry leaned up against the shelf, arms crossed with an expectant look on his face. The panic in their eyes quickly shifted to something far more conspiratorial, and Blaise manoeuvred around Theo in order to shove the ornate and wholly obnoxious feather quill in his face.

“Do you think Draco would kill me if I bought this for him?”

Harry raised his eyebrow again, delicately taking the feather from the outstretched hand with his thumb and pointer finger. Holding it up to the light, he made a show of carefully studying the feather in its entirety, making a few contemplative hums as he did. The other two boys gave him looks of moderate displeasure, Blaise especially acting as if he was being scolded without any words being said. Finally, Harry finished his mock evaluation by placing the feather quill back into the tanned boy’s outstretched hand, shrugging noncommittally as he did.

“If you’re hoping he’ll actually think of it as a prank, you’ll probably be disappointed. I think only Malfoys can really get away with genuinely liking exotic feather quills.”

After a considerable amount of muttering that eventually ended in quiet agreements, the pair left the quill where they had found it and split off from Harry, likely going off to start actually shopping for their school supplies.

After buying their stationary, the small group started to move through Diagon Alley with a swiftness not unlike a particularly rushed flock of birds. They were stopped periodically when Draco and Blaise took a few minutes to drool over quidditch supplies at each remotely quidditch-related shop store in the alley, or when Theo forced them all to stop immediately when he saw a book he had been wanting for ages in the window of a dusty, tucked away second-hand book shop that none of them had ever went into. Lady Malfoy seemed patient with them all each time they stopped, but gave Harry several not-very-subtle looks of thanks when he stuck to the back of the group, watching passively from behind with the interest of someone who couldn’t care less. 

“Well, it seems all we have left is the course books, or have I missed something, my dear Dragon?”

“Mother!”

With a considerably more flustered Draco in tow, Harry grabbed Theo around the scruff—as the boy had previously been crouched down on the path reading his precious book furiously, and seemed perfectly fine with being left behind if it meant he could continue to do so—before following behind Lady Malfoy and Blaise, who were both surprisingly chummy considering that the only tie they seemed to have to each other was Blaise’s mother’s friendship with Lady Malfoy herself.

Eventually, after a considerable amount of grumbling on Theo’s end, the group managed to make their way into Flourish and Blotts, which did in fact have a rather large crowd of people occupying the noticeably small interior. With Lady Malfoy leading the charge, and Harry taking up the rear, they started to push and shove through the throngs of middle-aged women and their exasperated children and husbands.

“It can't be Harry Potter.”

I wonder if I can get away with killing a man in front of an entire bookstore.

He pondered the rather morbid thought as a streak of blond and blue jumped from the rickety stage at the back of the store as the people around him turned and finally seemed to notice the not-very-subtle scar across the upper part of his face. Harry let out a low sigh, watching with a detached feeling of acceptance as the one and only Gildroy Lockhart parted the crowd, making his way towards Harry like a turquoise-clad omen of impending doom. The tall boy sank in his heels, putting all his effort into being as sturdy of a force of nature as possible so that when the ponce in blue wrapped his arm in a vice grip and attempted to yank him towards the stage, he didn't move an inch.

“Good evening sir, if you would please remove your hand from my person I would be extremely grateful.” Harry tried to keep his voice level, but the icy undertone snuck through anyway, causing a near-instantaneous glaciation of the surrounding air as everyone suddenly started paying even more attention to the pair of them. In stark contrast to the concerned glances being sent his way, Draco was instead peering up at the two of them with obvious glee on his face, apparently hoping that Harry would be getting into a brawl with the pompous peacock of a man.

“Ah... um, yes! Of course, dear boy.” Lockhart let go, rubbing the back of his neck with a nervous laugh. Harry didn’t even blink, his eyes only narrowing as his upper lip curled with clear distaste. “Won't you come up with me to the stage,  I'd love to get a few pictures with you-”

“I'm afraid I have to decline, sir.”

There was another nervous laugh, as Lockhart started to glance around at the surrounding crowd with a subtle, nearly unperceivable look of panic on his face. “Nonsense, my boy! Come on up now, let's greet the crowd.”

Harry sunk his heels in even further, his face screwing up into a grimace as Lockhart grabbed onto his arm again, pulling more aggressively in an effort to have his way. The strain on the man was becoming increasingly visible as he attempted to pull Harry along, and just as a few concerned parents started to reach out to help him away from the fraudulent man, Lockhart let go once more in order to grab him around the shoulders in some sort of fatherly embrace, holding him out to the cameraman standing there behind them. Harry blinked his eyes closed, stars erupting across his vision as Lockhart’s iconic smile widened and the camera’s light flashed.

Harry didn’t bother smiling, or even looking generally pleasant at that. In fact, he determinedly ignored the man's entire speech, focusing instead on looking as miserable as physically possible as Lockhart droned on about Hogwarts and teaching and how great of a man Dumbledore was. It was clear that his efforts were being squandered by Harry’s clear discomfort, and the crowd grew visibly uncomfortable as the seconds dragged on.

Perhaps that was why Lockhart cut the speech so short, shoving what Harry knew was likely the entire Gilderoy Lockhart series of books into his arms, before flouncing off with a slight stomp to his step. Feeling rather accosted and just a tad bit smug, Harry let himself be commandeered by an irate Lady Malfoy, who started to brush out the wrinkles on his jumper as she glared quite poshly at the back of Lockhart’s head.

“Honestly, that man.” She gave him a gentle smile, tapping the books held loosely in his arms with the tip of her wand. They rose up into the air and began to march along next to them as she led him back to the other three boys. “I'm so sorry, Heir Potter. Some people these days have no class.” 

“Please, Lady Malfoy, call me Harry.”

Ignoring the quiet snickering from Blaise, Harry took back up his position at the back of the group as they began to weave through the crowd, now finding it much easier to make it through as people took notice of him and respectfully stepped out of the way. Harry was unsure if he would consider it an improvement, as each time a witch gave him a thankful smile or a wizard pat him on the shoulder, Blaise fell into another round of snickering. In the end though, he could admit that his causal fame served them well in making good time, as the five of them made it out of the book shop just as Harry caught sight of a large gaggle of redheads meandering around a corner.

Ducking down to Draco’s level, Harry opened his mouth to tell him about the Weasleys before Theo erupted into another laughing fit. Apparently, Harry needing to stoop so low was an act of comedic genius, or Theo was just a bit of a tool. Either way, they got out of the store without having a run-in with the large family, so Harry was content enough with the turn of events, despite Draco’s own rising annoyance.

“Right then children, is there anything else we need to get?” Lady Malfoy appeared particularly inclined to argue against any of their attempts to lengthen the excursion, tapping her foot as she glanced periodically at an ornate pocket watch hanging from a near-invisible clip at the hip of her dress.

“Well, Harry needs an owl.” 

Blaise’s voice made Harry glance up from where he had been observing a strange artifact sitting in a storefront window. “An owl?”

Of course, he had been planning on getting an owl at some point, but not right that second. He hadn’t even broached the subject with his aunt after all, and Petunia was hardly the type of person to accept the intrusion of a new pet into the throngs of her perfectly clean house. Harry grimaced, a feeling of creeping unease travelling up his spine as Blaise’s expression turned from determined to something slightly more mischievous.

“I really shouldn’t right now-”

“Nonsense!”

Blaise grabbed him around the arm, pulling him along into the store with the vigour of someone who desperately wanted for their friend to stop ‘borrowing’ their owl. Harry initially resisted, but quickly submitted himself to his fate as the other two joined in with Blaise’s shoving.

“Thasin won't be happy about this. She’ll feel like she’s being replaced you know-”

“No more excuses mate!”

With a rather surprisingly firm shove, Harry found himself surrounded on all sides by screeching owls, their eyes boring down onto him with an unsettlingly large amount of understanding. It wasn’t that he was particularly against getting an owl. In fact, he had been wanting one for the entirety of his first year, but there was a certain amount of finality to it that felt difficult to ignore. Hedwig had been his first friend after all, and even after years of letting the pain of her death fade into a dull ache, Harry still found that there was an undercurrent of cautious emotion that getting another owl brought with it. If he let go of Hedwig in this way, what did he have left of that time before? Did he even want to hold onto those memories?

The four of them walked through the store slowly, as Blaise made a show of examining each and every owl and Theo buried his nose deeper and deeper into the tome that he was now over halfway through. Draco had immediately gone off to buy no doubt absurdly expensive owl treats for his sufficiently pampered owl, who would no doubt be underwhelmed by such a display of love. Harry snorted, contemplating the similarities in personality between Draco and his owl as Blaise crooned over an especially gorgeous spotted wood owl, which seemed to be particularly unimpressed.

“I’m pretty sure Hermes wouldn’t approve, mate.”

Harry turned a corner, letting Blaise’s reply fall away into the general chaos of the shop. Despite his sentimental feelings over Hedwig, who was no doubt already adopted by another faceless student and enjoying whatever life she was now living, it was obvious that he needed an owl. So, with his friends left in the background, Harry let his feet take him wherever they wished, focusing more on the general size and colouring of each owl in the store than anything else. He didn’t notice as he was coaxed down a certain path, stringy wisps of gold and green connecting him with one creature in the store that had been hand-picked by the very gods.

He noticed it very suddenly, just as he turned the corner, and stopped dead in his tracks. It was by far the largest owl that he had ever seen, its body seeming to be one hulking mass of raven-esque feathers and lean muscle. The owl was pitch black, a blackness that seemed automatically familiar in an instinctive way that reminded him of leather jackets and cigarette smoke. The familiar feeling doubled however, as Harry caught sight of the gold and green eyes studying him from behind those inky feathers.

The owl had Death’s magic, as well as his eyes.

Harry tilted his head to the side, watching as the owl replicated the movement with a jerky yank of its head, as if it was unsure how its muscles moved, or was somehow unfamiliar with how to move its own body. Harry held eye contact, trying to find any sort of familiarity in those eyes besides the colour. Strangely, the owl seemed oddly… dim in comparison to the others around it, as if it just wasn’t as smart as them. 

As if it had just been born.

Laughing lightly, almost in disbelief, he moved over to the hulking mass of feathers and held out his hand. The bird observed him for a moment, as if trying to figure out a puzzle, before shifting forward and hopping clumsy onto his forearm. They stood there for a moment, with Harry craning his neck upwards to properly get a look at the massive owl, before he reached a hand up and brushed it down the bird’s front. 

He highly doubted that Death was bored enough to go around turning himself into a bird, so it seemed likely that the meddling god had gone and created the owl for some sort of purpose. Harry didn’t know if it was for spying or just so that Harry could keep to Death’s preconceived notions of aesthetics, but doubted that he would be able to find a messenger bird that had half the presence as the one before him. It was truly colossal for an owl.

Strangely enough, his friends didn’t seem particularly intimidated by the bird, despite the fact that it had to be at least half Draco’s height. In fact, the only one who seemed particularly concerned about the owl’s general existence was the shopkeeper, who seemed extremely concerned that such a bird had ended up in the shop without him remembering buying it. The poor man had almost convinced Harry to just take it for free, seeming convinced that it was a morbid prank or an omen of death, much to Harry’s own amusement. In the end however, he had forced the galleons into the man’s hands, practically begging that he just take the bloody money so the entire conversation could be over with. Buying a cage that the blasted bird could comfortably fit into was another matter altogether, though it seemed that the shopkeep was still more concerned with when and how the owl had appeared in his shop than the complications around charming one of his cages to be larger. 

After what Harry was tempted to consider the most frustrating ten minutes of his life, he was finally able to exit the smelly shop with a comically large birdcage in tow. “Right then, I suppose that’s everything?”

He glanced to Lady Malfoy, whose eyes seemed perpetually attracted to her pocket watch. The woman merely nodded, waving vaguely to Draco with a muttered word for him to ‘say goodbye to your friends, Dragon’. Grumbling, Draco shouldered the bag of owl treats he had bought, turning to the other three of them with an expectant look.

“We should all meet up on the train, just like we had attempted last yule break.” An accusatory glance was thrown in his general direction. Harry merely shrugged apologetically, stifling a snort as Draco rolled his eyes. “Harry, since you seem to go wherever the wind takes you, where would you like to meet up?”

“Last compartment on the left in the last train car, you can't miss it.”

Harry parted ways from the group quickly after that, juggling all of the supplies that he had bought that day as he traversed through the cobbled streets and into the Leaky Cauldron. It had felt good to see all of his friends in person again, though he was sure to get more than enough of all of them once Hogwarts started up again. Gripping tighter to his yet-unnamed owl’s cage, he slipped through the crowds of day-drinking patrons, having to duck under the arm of a rather tall woman as she held open the entrance door for him. He turned to thank her with a nod, instead finding himself facing a shut door as muggle London enveloped him with a familiar embrace. The peculiarity of his cargo dawned on him near-instantly, and Harry turned quickly to find his Uncle standing there by the Dursley family car, a look of resigned exasperation painted across his face. Harry smiled crookedly, holding out the owl cage expectantly as the man’s cheeks went vaguely pink.

“Harry, that’s an owl.”

“So it is, uncle.”

The man gave him one last, extremely tired look, before taking the cage from his outstretched arm. “I’m not defending this purchase from Petunia, you know.”

Harry laughed with no small amount of nervousness, shoving his various supplies into the back of the car along with the cage and owl. He hadn’t really been expecting the man to, but Vernon’s apparent acceptance had somewhat boosted his confidence for convincing his aunt.

“Well, I’ll be sure to argue very persuasively.”

The first of September was a warm day, and King’s Cross Station was bustling with people hurrying to and fro in an effort to meet their various appointments before the air went from stifling to sweltering. All was not normal with the station however, as a tall boy of twelve years walked swiftly through the crowd, his presence seeming masked by some sort of film. No one noticed as he parted the crowd, his path pulling him straight towards the platforms nine and ten. If anyone were to look his way, they would be surprised to find that the boy was carrying along with him a large black trunk and, even more peculiarly, an utterly massive owl in an equally large cage. If anyone had been watching the boy, they would have been quite startled when he walked right into the wall between platforms nine and ten, and disappeared from view with nothing to alert anyone of his passage through besides the quiet click of his shoes. If anyone had noticed, they were sure to be quite alarmed for the boy and where he might have gone, but no one did, and the boy went about his day without an issue.

Harry stepped onto platform 9 ¾ on September first, his shoulders sagging slightly in relief as the familiar magic of the wizarding world fell down around him. It was good to be getting back to Hogwarts. 

With the glass snake from Draco tucked safely inside his trouser pocket, and his real snake curled around his middle, the boy-who-lived stepped through the crowd of witches and wizards with the grace of someone who knew how to not get noticed by others. Sure, he had cast a notice-me-not before even entering King’s Cross, but it was good to be prepared for any eventuality. Moving with a purpose towards the train, Harry wondered what this year had in store for him. With the Chamber of Secrets no longer under threat of being opened and the basilisk still hidden safely away within its confines, he could see how this year might end up being rather quiet in comparison to how things usually went. If it was, then he was hardly going to give up the chance to spend more of his free time researching, most of which would be centred around the effort to understand his nearing creature inheritance, as well as the various other inheritances he would eventually inherit on his 17th birthday when he came of age. The Slytherin lordship being one of the more intriguing, though the Black family was hardly something to sniff at. Stepping onto the train, Harry sought out Tom's compartment that he had hid in exactly a year prior, easing the door open gingerly before stepping inside. This time though, he would be inviting his friends inside along with him. With a sigh, he sat down in the seat closest to the window, before carefully opening the book Every Magical Creature Known to one of the many bookmarked pages and beginning to read the very next entry, which was marked by a little slip of paper that he had thrown in the last time he had graced the book with his attention.

Harpy-Greek

The harpy is a distant relative of France’s more popular Veela (see page 4,460), and is described as a half-human half-bird creature that lives in the higher altitudes of Mt. Olympus. Very elusive creatures, the Harpies are an all-female species, similar to the Keres (see page 1,067). Many men have attempted to seduce a harpy, usually at the cost of their own lives. The last recorded sighting of a Harpy was in 1503 by an unnamed forager, who had had time to record the sighting in a journal before falling to his death.

Harry sighed, marking off the Harpy without a second thought. There seemed to be an awfully lot of Veela-like creatures in the world, which likely said quite a bit about evolution and humanity’s promiscuous nature in general, but he was hardly going to think too hard about it. He leaned back in his seat, calculating how long it might take him to conduct proper research with the book, especially if its pages numbered in the thousands. The text was so bloody tiny too, how did anyone manage to get through the entire thing?

“Oh sod off Nott!”

Harry hummed, turning to glance in the direction of the hallway as voices and heavy footfalls started to filter through the thin walls. It sounded a great deal like Draco, which meant that he and Theo had come to the station together, or at least got there at the same time. Harry didn’t know why, but the fact seemed to bother him quite a bit.

Perhaps that was why he merely watched passively when the compartment’s door was thrown open, and a clearly irate Draco Malfoy stormed into the compartment, Theo not far behind him. It seemed that the two were having quite the argument, just based on how Draco's hair seemed particularly ruffled, quite reminiscent of the way a bird puffed up in a display of agitation. Theo seemed to be in the middle of laughing himself into a coma, which made Harry think that the brunet boy was likely making quips about Draco’s height again, which would explain the other boy’s agitation. Theo had seemed to have found great pleasure in making fun of Draco’s height at every opportunity when they had been in Diagon Alley, so it really didn’t take much thought to connect the dots.

“Draco, all I'm saying is-”

“You’re an utter twit. You know that, Nott?” Draco whipped around, pointing at Theo with a single, accusatory finger. Harry began to observe him more closely as he did, feeling no small amount of affection at the shorter boy’s puffed-up appearance. Draco looked like a small angry bird, which had to be one of the more peculiar comparisons that Harry had ever made, but it was a hilariously accurate one.

“Ello lads, lovely weather we're having. Are you two about to duel?” Blaise strolled in right on time, carrying with him a very ornate plate of what appeared to be fish and chips, and a blasé attitude that told of his general tendency towards being a bother. 

“What’ve you got there mate?” Harry ignored the other two, who were still bickering, and pointed towards the fine china that Blaise had desecrated with finger food. “You know that’s fish n’ chips, right? You know, muggle fast food?”

Blaise rolled his eyes, taking one of the chips in two fingers before popping it into his mouth. “Me and my mum had gone out to the muggle world to get some breakfast, and I wanted takeaway because we were late, so she summoned one of our plates from home. I’ll ship it back to her once we get to the school.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, his eyes following Blaise as his friend sat down opposite of him, still eating. “That seems rather pointless, Blaise. Couldn’t you have just gotten a takeaway box from the restaurant?”

Blaise shrugged, falling over to his side so he could lay, inclined, on the entire row of seating. “That’s an awfully muggle thing for you to say, Harry. Have we not indoctrinated you enough?”

He rolled his eyes in response, turning away from the still-eating boy to watch the altercation between Draco and Theo rise from a simple argument to something a tad bit more aggressive. Draco looked like he was a few seconds from going à la muggle and socking Theo in the jaw, which the thought alone was entertaining enough to keep Harry occupied until the train started to move and the argument wearily died down. Draco, in an impressive display of restraint, eventually got tired of yelling and sat down next to Harry in a huff, looking extremely annoyed but not anywhere near the murderous rage he had been in before. Theo, on the other hand, was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, trying to convince Blaise to stop lounging across the entire left-side seating and give him room to sit down. Harry didn't feel like pointing out that their side had two extra seats, and Draco seemed to be enjoying their friend’s plight, so that was where they all stayed as the train started to pick up speed and the scenery outside turned from the bustling city of London to fields of green.

The ride was abnormally quiet in comparison to how Harry was used to things going, especially once Blaise finally let Theo up onto the seats. Draco had fallen asleep at some point before an hour had passed, using Harry’s upper arm as a pillow as he snored softly. Harry himself was attempting to get through the Ha-’s of his book, reading with a vigour that would put Theo’s more casual skimming to shame as the aforementioned book-worm attempted to finish one of the tomes he had bought in Diagon Alley.

The hours passed by quickly enough, and when the train started to slow to a stop Harry cautiously woke Draco up, and the four of them quickly changed into their school robes before joining the throngs of other students as they emptied the train. Moving through the crowd, Harry led the other three towards the carriages, breathing in the magic-heavy air with a grimace. Even so far away from the school, the air around him felt oppressive, like the wards had been manually shifted to pay very close attention to him.

This might just be a very long year.

There was no answer, and as he settled into the back of the carriage, his friends scrambling in after him, Harry grimaced. It was no use getting annoyed with himself for locking Tom away, especially since he was still quite angry about the whole thing and could really use the silence in his mind to mull it all over. 

The carriage ride to the school was quiet, but bumpy, and as Theo relayed some of his summer activities to a somewhat-listening Blaise, Harry listened to the jostling of the carriage as the rhythm shook and swayed him all around the interior. It was an uncomfortable ride, but not an unpleasant one.

Stepping out of the carriages, the small group slowly made their way up to the castle proper, chattering inconsequentially about the new first years and wondering how many of them were destined for Slytherin. None of them had experienced a sorting that wasn’t their own after all—well, Harry had, but he was hardly going to say anything about that—so most of them were quite curious about what it would entail.

Settling down at the table, Harry looked down the line of the table, picking out a few familiar faces and even more generally unpleasant ones. Flint looked particularly sour, glaring down a few of his teammates as they nervously relayed something to him. Likely about the quality of their team now that a few choice people had graduated, Harry wagered. Looking away from the irate man, his eyes slowly narrowed in on the third years, and almost immediately he found Mariya Vasiey, who appeared rather smug about something.

Turning back to the front, Harry forced thoughts of politics out of his mind, focusing on the task at hand as he began to watch the sorting with careful eyes. Despite the distance between him and Neville, who was off having a grand old time in Hufflepuff and had been polite but wary in regards to him, Harry was certain that he wanted to befriend Luna again at any cost. She had always been special to him, genuine and crazy in a way that made him feel normal and sane, a feeling that he had been desperate for during the entirety of his first life. Now though, he just felt it was important for him to have at least one tie to his last life, just one, and Luna was—while utterly befuddling at times and as nutty as a fruitcake—perfectly pleasant and smart enough to be able to fit in with his new group of friends perfectly.

He perked up as her name was called, and watched her settle onto the stool with bated breath. He hadn’t changed near enough things with the timeline for her to go anywhere else but Ravenclaw, at least he thought he hadn’t. Apparently, however, he had certainly changed something important, because just as the hat shouted out Ravenclaw, little 11-year-old Luna Lovegood looked him dead in the eyes and winked.

Harry froze, mind going blank with either surprise or confusion as the Ravenclaw table immediately began to cheer. His gaze followed her, sharp and piercing, as she floated down to the first-year section of the Ravenclaw table and immediately began to chatter at the girl next to her, no doubt going on about nargles or something equally absurd. Harry continued to watch her as the next person was called on and sorted. He knew that she had winked at him. It had been so blatant, so obnoxiously… obnoxious, that Harry almost wondered if anyone else had seen it too. Did Luna know something? 

Of course she knows something, she’s Luna! He lamented to himself, rubbing at his cheek thoughtfully as his gaze finally fell away from her and back to the sorting. Luna Lovegood was an enigma that he needed several minutes and a good whack to the head to even begin figuring out, so with an annoyed huff at his general predicament, Harry forced the thought from his mind for the time being, watching as some random boy was sorted right into Hufflepuff without even a second thought from the hat.

The rest of the sorting didn't have any more surprises, much to Harry’s tired relief, though Ginny Weasley appeared to have been arguing quite strongly with the hat, eventually sulking off to Gryffindor with a backwards glance in his direction. Harry barely paid the action any mind, already feeling enough anger bubbling up upon seeing her again and not wanting any more to contend with. Was it so difficult for her to leave him well enough alone?

“Welcome back to another wonderful year at Hogwarts!” Dumbledore began, his eyes twinkling merrily as he gazed out at the students. Harry clenched his teeth, resisting the urge to visibly glare at the man. “In the event of Professor Quirrell's unfortunate decision to return to the muggle studies post, I am pleased to announce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: Gilderoy Lockhart!”

An uproarious applause echoed through the great hall, and Lockhart stood with a flourish, gazing out at all of them as if he were the queen herself. Harry grumbled in distaste, moving his eyes away from the cultural abomination to get a better look at how the other teachers were fairing. Snape was the first he noticed, and he realized with no small amount of glee that the potion’s professor appeared to be fighting the urge to drown himself, or Lockhart, in his soup. The other teachers were of a similar disposition, with McGonagall's lips pressed tightly into a thin line, and Flitwick’s head buried into his hands. 

“Thank you... thank you! I can't wait to teach each and every one of you this year, and I'm sure we’ll become quite good friends.” He sent a wink off at the crowd, one so obvious and obnoxious that Harry briefly considered castrating the man in his sleep. It would certainly do the world a favour or two.

After that rather wretched introduction, Dumbledore quickly rolled out the feast, which felt rather brief to Harry, who spent much of his time alternating between stuffing his face and trying to figure out the enigma that was Luna Lovegood. The wink she sent him had been glaringly obvious, almost comical in nature, and couldn't be mistaken as anything different; which begged the question of just what she knew… and how.

The train of thought was once again thwarted as the feast came to an end, and before he could even consider what it all might mean for him, Harry found himself walking back to the common room, shoulder to forehead with Draco as the other boy complained copiously about the new Slytherins, who were not living up to his standards in the slightest. Harry was nodding along, humming occasionally when Draco stopped to breathe, before he found his attention pulled away from the sound of nearing footsteps. Turning slightly to see behind them, Harry caught the eyes of a quickly nearing Greengrass, who sped up upon realizing that he noticed her, elbowing Draco out of the way and butting into the conversation.

“Potter! When do you plan to help me with our agreement, Heir Potter? I think that this year is-” She was cut off when Draco slammed into her from the other side, retaking his spot next to Harry with aggression. The action made Blaise and Theo snicker, and Harry grinned over Draco’s bristling head at the two with a knowing smile, causing them to only snicker louder.

“Piss off Greengrass, you can beg for the princess spot when the big contenders are out of the running.” Draco hissed, turning up his nose at her and pushing them all along, appearing intent on leaving the girl behind. She huffed, and was generally quite loud as she complained from behind them, but eventually Draco’s obnoxiousness won out over her own, and quite soon after that, things died down enough to be considered normal. The peace didn’t last long as they came upon the commons, quickly slipping inside with the rest of their house. Harry led his friends over to their usual cluster of couches, settling into his normal high-back chair with a satisfied sigh.

It felt somewhat novel to be there with the rest of the house, waiting around for the first years so they could finally get started with beginning of the year announcements. Nothing similar had been held in Gryffindor, with students learning everything they needed to from either the message board or by word of mouth, so the idea had been rather interesting to Harry when Tom first brought it up. Considering the added politics of Slytherin, it really wasn’t much of a surprise to him either. Sometimes, it was just a necessity to come together and discuss the new happenings in an orderly fashion.

Several minutes after they had all gotten settled in and Theo had gotten himself properly engrossed in some sort of mystery novel, the first years finally arrived. Harry studied them all closely, trying to pick out features of specific families that might give him a clue to their standings. Most of them looking like the type of snot-nosed brats that Blaise would take great pleasure in tormenting, with their noses up in the air and eyes full of self-assurance. One of them, however, looked different from the others. Her eyes were wide, taking in the entire common room with awe. She seemed nervous too, occasionally glancing towards the others in the group as if they were going to attack her at any moment. Harry hummed, intrigued.

Muggle-born, maybe?

The thought was put aside as the newest fifth-year prefects, Snyde and Richmond, he thought, told the little group of first years the house’s rules before leading them up to the dorms. Chatter broke out once they had gone, and Harry listened closely as the word ‘mudblood’ sprang up throughout the room. He grimaced, feeling bad for the nervous girl that he had seen. She was definitely the muggleborn, if there was one in the group. Snide and Richmond eventually returned from the dorms, sitting down in their own respective groups as the noise slowly quieted to utter silence. Everyone looked to the back of the room as Marcus Flint, the newest Slytherin king, rose from his seat to address the house, starting off the first house meeting of the year with nothing but a glare to the few people still speaking.

“Alright everyone, as I'm sure you're aware, Urquhart is no longer eligible for the Prince title.” There were affirmative murmurs all around, and with an eye roll, Flint continued. “Our current Princess, Mariya Vaisey, has sent forward the nomination of Hadrian Potter.” There were more acknowledging murmurs, though a few of them seemed rather aggressive and harsh.

“Right, are there any opposed to this appointment?” A few students from the younger years looked like they wanted to speak up, but they all seemed to decide against it after a moment of thought. Harry smiled, sitting further into his chair with self-satisfaction. Fighting him for the sake of blood purity didn’t seem to be worth it to them.

“No one? Brilliant. Moving on...” Flint proceeded to detail issues pertaining to the house, and eventually put a name to the first year that had seemed so nervous that night. “One of our first years is a muggleborn named Victoria White. You lot know the rules, and that’s all I’ll say on the matter.” 

Oh of course. A united front outside of the commons, and relentless bullying inside. Harry thought to himself, slouching slightly with distaste. There weren't very many half-bloods in Slytherin, most of them coming from influential families like him and Tracey Davis or having been adopted into influential families from birth like a few of the third years. Muggleborns were almost unheard of, and while he had never seen any during his first life, he could only assume that relentless bullying by the more blood-proud portion of the house was commonplace. That girl would have a hard time unless she latched onto an influential pure-blood or half-blood that was willing to protect her.

Harry tuned out the rest of the speech, which seemed to be mostly about Quidditch and the positions that needed to be filled. Once Flint finally sat down though, having properly championed himself as the Quidditch captain, Harry caught Vaisey’s eyes, getting up to have a little chat with her about what she expected from him over the next year. She was a tall girl, about as tall as Theo, with straight black hair in a short pixie cut and deep blue eyes. She glared at him imploringly as he neared, and pointed at the empty chair next to her.

“Evening, Potter.” She spit, looking completely unimpressed with him. Harry held back a grimace, reminding himself that she spoke like this with everyone. “Tell me something, since you seem so clever. Why exactly is that Greengrass bitch vying for my spot?”

He shrugged, noncommittal, as he sat down in the chair. “Someone’s got to take over after you, and she seemed like the best option. I told her I’d get Parkinson out of the way, but everything else wasn't my business.” He smirked a little, wondering if she would bother going after Greengrass at all. “And hey, it isn’t like her family are politicians or anything, maybe I figured you would enjoy having a chew toy?”

She seemed somewhat placated by this, merely rolling her eyes before slapping a piece of parchment down in front of him. He glanced at it, making an effort to read what had to be the most illegible chicken scratch he had ever seen.

“The firsties probably won't be telling the mudblood anything, so don't bother with that one unless you see something interesting.” She grimaced, as if the thought was repulsive. He rolled his eyes. “The third years and down are going to come to you to help them with intrahouse rivalries, general skirmishes, and maybe even homework if they’re really fearless. I'm sure you can find some way to help with that, but if you can’t just send time my way. Hmm... oh, and try not to stir the pot too much in the first few months, Potter. Farley’s got her eye on you and Warrington's intrigued, but everyone else is still high strung about this appointment. You’re lucky Malfoy is a good seeker or Flint would have given you some serious grief about this.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, surprised that he had even gotten that much out of the older years. He had expected Warrington to want him strung up on chicken wire and bleeding out, and he hadn’t even considered that Draco’s seeker prowess had affected Flint’s consideration at all, but it wasn’t very surprising. He had definitely been expecting Warrington to champion the campaign against him though, so that particular tidbit was quite… interesting.

“Any questions?” She rounded out, sounding like she would wring his neck if he did. He shook his head, and then her hand, before wandering back to his friends with the illegible parchment in hand, intent on winning at least one game of chess against Blaise before the night was done.

Chapter Text

While Harry Potter and his friends enjoyed their first night back at Hogwarts, other people in the school were making plans for the rest of the year. Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, listening to the whirring of trinkets and devices all around him as he stared down at his newest tool with acute fascination gleaming in his eyes. He knew something was amiss in his school, in the place that he had breathed life and power into for decades. Something insidious was in his school, trying to pull the strings tied to his fingers. Someone was toying with him, sitting just barely outside of his field of vision, but not anymore. Whoever it was that wished him and his school harm, he would find them, and then all would be well.

Upon his desk sat a globe of hollowed-out crystal. A seeing glass. Many would look at it and see nothing but a sneakoscope, unknowing of the powerful device’s true nature. While similar in structure and appearance, the seeing glass was a truly remarkable device, and infantilized the abilities of any and all sneakoscopes on the market today and in the past. Many of the sneakoscopes currently in circulation were merely cheap imitations of a seeing glass, acting as some sort of cheap knock-off of a truly brilliant invention. The nature of a seeing glass was quite more refined than the sneakoscope as well, and allowed the user to divinate a set topic, regardless of their actual abilities in divination. They were utterly incredible, capable of being created for the exact purposes of many different things. Many allowed a user to tell vague outlines of the future, in a way that was, while perhaps not as clear as the visions that true divinators were capable of, earth-shatteringly useful all the same. Albus did not have any need for visions though, and no wish to see the future that he was so intent on changing himself. No, Albus had something far more important in mind for his seeing glass, and without regret, he had commissioned one that allowed him to find out where a person's true allegiances lied. No matter how well of an occlumens they were, he would now be able to see exactly who their allegiance lied. With this one device, there would be nothing to stop him from squashing any and all doubt in the minds of his people, be it in Severus Snape or someone as inconsequential as Argus Filch.

Albus hummed, running a hand down his beard in thought as he gazed down at the device. The only drawback had been, of course, cost. Any kind of seeing glass, regardless of its use, tends to be absurdly expensive. Against his expectation, most of that money was due to creation costs, not for the device’s actual capabilities. The kind of crystal it was made out of was a very specific one, and due to the brittleness of said crystal, it typically took several years of precise cutting for the shell of a seeing glass to be fully finished, and after that, it took many months more of careful enchanting to fully complete, as they needed to be embedded with several types of carefully cast enchantments depending on what the seeing glass would be used for. Albus had been against the thought at first, but he had ended up needing to dip into the school's personal vault just to purchase it, finding his personal funds slightly lacking. In the end, though, the seeing glass would be used to keep the castle safe from harm, so Albus was certain that all the trouble was well worth it.

He leaned closer to the ball, eying the exquisite design with awe. The instructions that had come with the crystal had required that it be left in a sunny spot for nearly a month before use, stating that it needed the sun’s energy to build up a proper conductor of divination magic to function properly. It was a finicky little thing, needing so much energy and time just to set up, but after the sunny summer months of tinkering, it was well and truly ready. All Albus had to do now was say a name and learn of their true intentions towards him. That was it! No casting of a spell, no lying and cheating to get his way. He didn’t even need the person within his sights. All he had to do was say their name, and imagine their face, and all their allegiances would be revealed.

Albus delicately picked up the seeing glass in two hands, cradling it there as if it were a treasure, or a child. He contemplated it for a moment, wondering just what he should do now that it was in his grasp. Who’s allegiances would he test first? He considered all of his professors for a moment, before quickly realizing the most logical choice. Leaning forward, he set the spherical device back onto his desk, and whispered his deputy headmistress’ name.

“Minerva Isobel McGonagall.”

The sneakoscope started spinning, light refracting through it in a brilliant display of a kaleidoscope worth of colours. Albus sat back, awed by the fantastical display as the seeing glass spun faster and faster, gathering up anything and everything it could glean of the woman's allegiances. After several moments, Albus watched as it eventually started to slow, crawling to a stop and sitting there, perfectly still. He waited for a moment, confused. What was supposed to happen next? He was about to reach for the device to figure out what had gone wrong, before the light exploded outwards, dancing through the air above the seeing glass as… as words. Albus gaped, watching as glowing words of light reflected upwards to the air above the orb, spelling out a familiar name and a long list below it.

Minerva Isobel McGonagall

Loyal to (from greatest to least):

• McGonagall family
• Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
• British Ministry of Magic
• Department of Magical Law Enforcement
• Gryffindor House
• Albus Dumbledore
• The Order of the Phoenix
• Gryffindor Quidditch team
• Transfiguration department

Albus frowned, disappointed. Nothing on the list was surprising to him, but it was upsetting to find himself so much lower on the list than he had anticipated. It seemed that, even if he gave Minerva all that she wished within the bounds of the school, she would still place her family, the Gryffindor house, and the Ministry’s authority over his own. Perhaps her loyalty to the ministry was due to the fact that she worked there for a few years before becoming a professor, and it was completely explainable-and almost expected of her-to place her family above her friendships and professional relations of course, but Gryffindor house as well? In the case of an emergency, would she place the children’s safety above his wishes? 

Albus sighed, contemplating the thought. Perhaps it was the best that she felt that way, and it would certainly keep the children safe from any danger. He was certainly concerned that she did not trust the Order any more than her other allegiances, but at least it was there. At least she was trusting in him enough that he made it onto the list and the other professors, most notably Severus Snape, did not.

Sitting back, he took a moment to consider his deputy. He had been leaving her to her own devices for some time, so perhaps this meant that he had been leaving her alone for a tad bit longer than he should have. Perhaps it was time to get more involved in her day to day life, if only to bolster more connection between them. 

Nodding to himself, Albus straightened again, and watched as the words of light dimmed into nothingness. Leaning forward, he watched the seeing glass closely, observing how the light inside of it slowly dimmed as the device reset itself. Would it have enough energy for him to say one more name before it needed to be left alone again? Maybe even two? Broadly speaking, it was all too likely that he would not get another three names out of the device for some time. He would have to be very careful about who he chose to test next.

Sighing, Albus leaned forward once more, pausing only slightly before speaking.

“Severus Tobias Snape.”

The seeing glass sprang to life, immediately beginning to spin and refract once more. Albus steadied himself as it picked up speed, concerned with what he would find once it slowed. Would Severus still feel inclined towards the dark? Would the seeing glass reveal that he was still far more obsessed with Lily Potter’s memory than he was to the cause? Just how far was Severus willing to go? He sat with bated breath as the object started to slow, and watched as words swam up into the air, burning bright with a magical brilliance.

Severus Tobias Snape

Loyal to (from greatest to least): 

• Lily Potter
  • Harry Potter
• Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
  • Slytherin House
• Lord Voldemort (formerly)
  • Death Eaters (defected)

Albus sighed, rubbing at his temple as the letters of light fell away. It was not as bad as he had anticipated. Certainly not, though the fact that he was not on the list was a troubling one. Even more so was that Harry Potter was, indeed, right there at the top, sitting there due to Lily no doubt. Albus had not truly expected Severus to see him as a friend, or as a companion, but he had expected to be seen as an ally, at the very least. Did Severus’ past loyalty and eventual defection from Tom truly stand higher than Albus himself? The thought was absurd to him.

I will have to fix this, somehow.

Sighing once again, Albus watched the seeing glass shimmer in the light, bright and burning. It had the energy for one more name, at the very least. What would he find if he… no, wondering what he would find if he said Harry Potter’s name was not a question to ask. He had to say the boy’s name, if only to be certain that Harry Potter was not so far gone that he could not be brought back.

Straightening in his chair, Albus leaned over the crystal, his arms barred on either side of it.

“Hadrian James Potter.” He whispered, immediately leaning back as the sneakoscope began to spin. He watched it gain speed for the third time, a feeling of acceptance washing over him as rainbows of light danced across the walls. Whatever happened, he would be able to fix it. Harry Potter couldn’t have fallen so far away from his grasp in the mere year that he had been among the wrong company. Anything could be fixed with the proper tools after all, and magic was a truly versatile tool. He would find a way.

Albus sat for some time, watching as the seeing glass continued to gain more and more speed. It was nearly a minute before he realized something had to be wrong. Why was it taking so long? Albus jumped as a piercing, screeching noise slammed into him and tore at his ears. Scrambling up from his seat, Albus stumbled away from his desk as the seeing glass slowly rose up into the air, the refracting rainbows around and inside of it shifting and distorting until the only colours remaining were yellow and green. Albus’ back hit the wall as the sneakoscope rose higher and higher, burning brighter and brighter in those yellow and green hues until-!

Crack!

Albus threw his hands up over his eyes instinctively, shielding himself as shards of crystal rained down onto him. Sounds of cracking and splintering filled his ears as he cautiously lowered his arms, watching with barely-concealed shock as the seeing glass fell back to his desk, split in two right down the middle. Albus stumbled forward, cautious of the crystal shards all around him as he neared the desk. Words, already dimming words of light meekly rose up from the interior, just barely visible to him until they too flickered out into nothing.

Hadrian James Potter

Loyal to... 

• Death

Albus stared blankly as the words immediately dissipated, giving him nothing to work with besides one word and a sense of dull disbelief. The seeing glass was shattered, split right in two as if cut with a knife. Albus sat down in his chair with a thump, gazing down at months of work and thousands of gallons, sitting there in pieces.

Death. That was Harry Potter’s only allegiance? To death? It had to be a trick of the light, something that he had seen incorrectly through the haze. Yes that was it, he must have pushed the seeing glass too far too quickly. This was his own fault. He was the only one to be blamed for this catastrophe.

Albus buried his head in both hands, groaning pitifully. The seeing glass was supposed to be his linchpin, the one thing that had the ability to say for sure who around him was sincerely on his side and who was best left behind, disposed of or forgotten. This… this told him nothing, absolutely nothing of who the boy-who-lived really was, and only seemed to raise more questions, if it was even genuinely true. 

“How could the boy possibly be loyal to death?” He hissed, glaring down at the broken seeing glass as if it could answer. There was no explainable reason for Harry Potter to be in allegiance with a concept like death. Unless, of course… 

“No.” Albus muttered to himself, shaking his head at the absurdity of the notion. “The Deathly Hallows have been missing for hundreds of years, lost to time. It is inconceivable to think that a boy of twelve could have somehow come into contact with all three. No, the device must have been wrong, it is the only way.”

His office was quiet, save for the cracking of crystal underfoot as Albus stood and slowly walked to a side table, taking two pieces of parchment from the tidy pile there, which sat next to a quill and inkwell. Regardless of just who Harry Potter was, this entire ordeal required a great deal of careful consideration and thought. Albus sighed, settling himself down at the side table, which was-unlike his desk-free from shards of crystal. If he was to approach the situation of Harry Potter with the very least amount of required subtly, he would have to, at the very least, remove all potential aggressors around the boy to create a stable environment free of distractions.

Coming to a quick decision, Albus reached for the quill, quickly writing out a request for two of his students to come up to his office, feeling certain that he was approaching many things regarding Harry Potter in a very ill-fated way. Regardless of what was really going on with the boy, many things would have to change, and they would have to change today.

The crystal shards had to be cleaned up by hand, considering the number of enchantments weaved into them. Albus had to call for three elfs just to get the job done before the two students arrived, already busy enough changing into a robe that did not threaten to house small shards of crystal that might poke at him unpleasantly. It all worked out well enough in the end though, and Albus had mere seconds to spare as he sat down at his freshly cleaned desk and sighed.

And then there was a knock at the door.

Albus swallowed a groan, straightening up in his chair as he opened up his eyes. 

“Come in.” He exclaimed, slapping a pleasant smile across his face as the door was opened and a pair of nervous students entered. “Ahhh. Thank you for coming here so quickly. Please, take a seat. Hello, Miss. Granger and Mr. Weasley, I know that you are both currently getting unpacked, so I am very appreciative that you managed to come here so quickly. Bravo!” 

His smile widened as the two gave him quiet greetings and took separate seats in front of his desk, settling down before looking at him expectantly. Bravo indeed.

“Now, I'm sure you've made plenty of progress in keeping Harry Potter protected from danger, and in coaxing him back onto the right path, but I'm afraid that new information has come to light that is going to force a change in tactics.” He explained carefully, watching as their eyes simultaneously widened in shock.

“What do you mean, headmaster? Has something happened?” Miss. Granger questioned imploringly, an edge of panic to her tone. Albus sighed, rubbing at his temple as the beginning of a headache threatened to overtake him. The girl was infinitely useful, but her voice was so… shrill.

Rubbing away the pain, Albus smiled at her carefully, feeling as though one wrong word would throw her off into hysterics. “I'm afraid that that knowledge has to be kept secret, for now, my dear, but I can promise that it is no one’s fault but my own. We are going through dire straits this year, and at the current time, I am unsure where Harry Potter currently stands in regards to us. Worry not, however, as I still wish for you both to keep as close an eye on the boy-who-lived, if it is at all convenient for you. It is simply a matter of watching him for a different reason. And Ronald please, my dear boy, make an effort to have as little interaction with him as possible, at least until I am certain where he stands.”

They both appeared worried, glancing at each other with concern. Albus bit at the inside of his cheek, wary of making any moves to glean information about their inner thoughts. Legitimacy was a very risky thing, and children tended to be far more sensitive to it when compared to adults. Was taking the risk worth it? His decision made, Albus made a show of adjusting his inkwell. Anything in the minds of children tended to be difficult to interpret anyway. Perhaps when they were older he would be able to find something useful, but not when they were both just barely at the cusp of puberty. It would be a risk unnecessarily made, which Albus was very against doing.

“Headmaster…” Started Miss. Granger, clearly holding back a deep concern. “Do you think that Harry Potter is… beyond helping, sir? I… I haven’t spoken to him very many times, but he is very prideful, and I worry that… that…”

“Yes, my dear?”

She fidgeted, eyes roaming the office anxiously. Albus furrowed his brows, unused to this side of the girl. He had never seen her particularly anxious or paranoid before. Was the stress of it all getting to her? Perhaps it really hadn’t been a good idea to have children spy on the boy, if only for the future stability of their minds. Paranoia did horrible things to one’s psyche after all, especially if one is going through such a developmental phase such as puberty.

“I worry that he might be… might be turning to the dark arts, sir.” She finally blurted, going pale in the face at the thought. Ronald nodded vigorously in agreement.

Albus’ eyes widened, and he looked between the two of them, realizing that this was a concern they shared and agreed upon. Sighing, he sat back in his desk chair, brushing a hand down his beard in thought. Was this something that would be of use to him later on? If people truly thought that Harry Potter was going down a dark path, could he exploit that thought to keep the boy contained? He had done a similar thing with Severus, though it had initially been the man’s own fault for ruining his own reputation. The thought was certainly one to keep close to his chest, and one to consider for a later time if the boy-who-lived continued onto the path that Albus worried he was.

“Miss. Granger, I will not lie and say your thoughts are unfounded.” He finally replied, listening as the girl audibly gasped. “But I do not believe that such a thought should be considered quite yet. The boy is young, just as you are, and no one is born evil. I ask that you trust my judgment today.”

Both the children were silent, before the girl eventually nodded, looking stricken. Albus nodded, weary, before straightening back up in his chair. He needed to move on from this thought for now, and on to how the next year should go. He had Gilderoy Lockhart to contend with after all. 

There was much Albus still needed to get done.

“Thank you both for understanding. I can promise you that, once I have enough information myself, I will share with you what I have learned. Until then though, I implore you both to get a good night's rest.”

They both thanked him for his time and left, their faces pale and eyes holding thoughts he was not privy to. Albus watched them go wearily, not completely certain that they would follow his orders. Could he expect them to leave Harry Potter alone until he came up with a workable plan? Albus was certain that Miss. Granger would manage to keep herself at a distance, but Ronald was a wild card at best, and he could never be certain just what to do with the boy.

This will take time and consideration. I must be cautious, even if the seeing glass had been wrong or my eyes had deceived me. He thought, settling further back into his chair and rubbing his eyes with a tired groan. Yes, it will take a lot of time and deep consideration to come to a decision, and he would have to keep an eye on Harry Potter’s motions through the school to boot.

Albus sat there and thought long into the night, his eyes closed and mind running rampant with thoughts. He sat there, unaware of the hex bags circulating the perimeter of the school, which were working hard to slowly suck his mind away from Harry Potter and onto other things. He sat there unaware of Tom Riddle, plotting away behind the safety of two mind’s worth of occlumency shields, right there and just barely out of reach. He sat there unaware of a tall man with golden green eyes watching him with amusement from the shadows.

The first week of classes were about as expected for Harry. Snape was a bit more sour than usual, aggravated to the point that he docked points for the slightest offences. Weasley lost nearly thirty points in one sitting, just for having a sneezing fit at the end of a lesson. McGonagall was just as incensed, and had spent the first lecture of the year discussing how one might ‘theoretically’ turn peacocks into clothes hampers. Funnily enough, everyone in the class seemed to have enjoyed the discussion quite a bit, and some of the older years in Slytherin had gone so far as to summon a peacock for the sole purpose of turning it into a hamper, much to the younger years’ delight. Even Flitwick was annoyed with Lockhart’s presence in the school, with his voice holding an edge of aggression during lessons that was completely unheard of with the usually kind and cheery professor.

Harry found it all to be rather amusing, and would have spent the entire week laughing along with it all like Draco and Blaise were if not for his knowledge of what was to come. Instead, he found himself counting down the days until their first class of Defence Against the Dark Arts class, trying desperately to figure out just what he should do to get out of it unscathed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson was one of the most anticipated by the majority of the girls in second year alone, with his side of the Slytherin table awash with chatter about Lockhart himself. Pansy Parkinson was perhaps the most vocal of the bunch, going on and on about how she had gone to a book signing by the man over the summer and had even gotten to meet him and shake his hand. Harry was, understandably, unimpressed with the claim, and it had quickly become apparent that none of his friends were either, considering that all of them had been there and hadn’t exactly enjoyed it. Quickly enough, the second years separated into two rather gendered groups, with the boys further up the table towards the third years and the girls slinking closer to the first years. This shift was not including Tracey Davis, who insisted Lockhart was the pompous prat he is and completely undeserving of his titles. She sat with the Slytherin boys that morning, having been shunned by the other girls once she made it clear that she thought they were all a bunch of hormone-driven sycophants.

“It's utterly criminal, you know?” She lamented, rolling her eyes as she took a large bite of her omelette. Davis hadn’t taken long to get over the apparent social pariahism that she now faced, and was instead ranting to a slightly curious Harry about the plight of actual intellectuals. Harry was, for once, listening attentively to another person’s rant. It felt like the first genuinely enjoyable conversation he had had with someone that he hadn’t known in his last life, and it was making him wonder how many interesting people he hadn’t ever known before and was missing out on. Davis was a shock to him, to say the least, not only because of her natural wit, but because he had no idea who the hell she was before that morning.

“That man would be best suited for-oh I don’t know, a zoo? Being the main attraction, of course. But no, the headmaster thought that a man-sized peacock was preferable to someone with an actual brain.” Theo snorted his milk up his nose, coughing loudly before giving her a bewildered look, apparently never having heard someone so blatantly insult a professor. Davis didn’t seem to even notice, merely taking another scathing bite of her omelette. “-and those robes of his are just so… utterly gaudy. I’d rather gouge out my eyes than swoon at him, honestly!” 

Harry nodded in agreement, silently sipping on his orange juice as she continued on. “-and I don't want to even start on that creepy smile of his. I mean, honestly, he's probably a paedophile. I hypothesise he’ll last at least a week before getting chased off by the sensible people in this school.”

She finished off her omelette, and slapped her fork down onto the table with a huff. Harry set down his juice carefully, turning to his bacon with barely contained hunger as he replied, finally having a chance to say something in response.

“I would hate to argue against your rather sound theory, but how many people in this school would you consider to be particularly sensible?” He questioned, raising an eyebrow at her. 

The girl’s eyes widened in horror, “oh... Merlin, you're right. We're doomed, aren't we Potter? The morons have taken control.” She groaned, slamming her head down onto the table as he pat her shoulder lightly. Down towards the end of the table, the rest of the second year girls snickered.

Breakfast passed sluggishly after that, and after waiting as long as they physically could without being late to glass, Harry and his gaggle of friends slowly dragged their feet towards the Defense classroom. Davis was still angrily muttering about the injustice that her schooling was turning into as they did, now catching the unwitting attention of Blaise, who seemed rather smitten with her. Davis, to her credit, was extremely unimpressed with him, and spent most of the walk trying to ignore his somewhat awkward advances.

“Harry Potter!”

There was a flash, and Harry slapped a hand over his eyes as stars burst forth from the darkness. He groaned, rubbing away the pain before blinking blearily at his attacker.

“Ah… hello.”

Colin Creevey looked up at him with an adoring grin, his camera held aloft in one hand. “Hello! I’m a huge fan-I was wondering if I could get a photo of you? Could-could you sign it?”

“Didn’t you just get one, ickle firstie?” Draco muttered from Harry’s right, rubbing his own eyes with annoyance. “How about you go and scram before I call for a prefect?”

Colin didn’t seem to notice Draco at all though, his eyes still pinned onto Harry with laser focus. Sighing, Harry pat Draco on the shoulder and moved a bit in front of him, shielding the other boy from any potential flashes of light again. “It’s alright, just one more though. We’ve got to get to class.”

With a squeal so high pitched it made Harry wince, Colin scrambled to get his camera back up and took another photo. Harry, expecting the flash, merely winced and blinked aggressively after it went off, before trying to wave Colin away.

“Thank you so much! Wait-here, I’ve got a pen-!”

Harry grunted, blinking blearily as he shakily signed his name on the photo, before handing it back. Colin squealed again, thanking him egregiously before sprinting off without a goodbye. Harry rubbed his eyes one more time before pushing Draco back along to the rest of their friends, who had realised the two of them had stopped somewhat belatedly. They all looked amused, though Davis even more so than the other two.

“You looked like you loved that, Potter.” She remarked, grinning cheekily as he passed her.

“Sure.”

Walking into the Defence classroom, Harry sourly submitted himself to the knowledge that he would likely be forced to clean up cornish pixies before long. Peering around the room, he was quick to sneer at all the impressive displays of self-absorption that was being so blatantly paraded around the room. Portraits of Lockhart were stationed over every wall, sometimes even overlapping each other’s frames on a few occasions. It seemed that the man had tried to fit all the portraits he had into the small space, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if he had any leftover that he just couldn’t fit. Was that why he vaguely remembered there being a bunch in the man’s office as well?

Somberly, he commandeered the back row without pause, Draco and Theo immediately sitting down either side of him. Realising that they had to go even closer to the front, Blaise and Davis took up the row in front of them. Davis looked sour about the whole thing, sparing Harry a betrayed look as Blaise’s grin grew. Harry shrugged noncommittally, knowing that no matter how obnoxious he got, Blaise was always a prankster at heart. The most she should be concerned about is getting the remnants of a prank stuck in her hair, in his personal opinion. 

Settling back into his chair, Harry had enough time to put his satchel protectively under his chair before the doors to the office banged open and with a flourish, their new professor had arrived.

“Me.”

Oh fuck off.

“Gilderoy Lockhart. Order of Merlin, third class, honorary member of the dark forces defence league, and five times winner of Witch Weekly's most charming smile award, but I don't talk about that. I didn’t get rid of the phantom banshee by smiling at her!” Lockhart grinned broadly to the crowd of students, finishing off his speech with a little bow as he hit the bottom of the steps. Davis audibly groaned, head in her hands. Blaise pat her back comfortingly, only half paying attention to her woes as he hurriedly got out a piece of parchment, likely already cooking up a few prank ideas to burst onto the man. Harry glanced to his left, nearly cracking a smile at the incensed look on Theo’s face.

He ignored as Lockhart started talking about the quiz that they would be taking, instead leaning over to Draco with a thought in mind, suddenly realising what he wanted to do that school year.

“Oi, how many galleons would you place on a bet?”

Draco side-eyed him warily, as if not quite sure what to say to that. “Maximum? About a thousand, I reckon. Why?”

Harry grinned, slouching down slightly in his seat as Lockhart’s eyes roamed the crowd. “Perfect. I bet you a thousand galleons that I can get him thrown into Azkaban by the end of the school year.”

Draco's eyes widened, and then narrowed. “Harry, I didn't take you for a gambler. That's an awfully big risk you're trying to take.”

“Don't think it's likely?”

“Likely?” He stage whispered, an edge of hysterics in his voice. “Harry, he's the most beloved man of middle-aged witches across the country! You've lost before it’s even started!”

“So is that a bet or not?”

Draco gaped at him, eyes wide. “Wh-of course it is! Bloody hell mate, do you think I’m mad?”

Harry grinned, offering up his hand to shake and settle the deal. Draco gave him one last, very prolonged, look of disbelief, before taking it.

The rest of class didn't go nearly as smoothly. Harry hadn’t bothered with the pop quiz, haphazardly writing out random answers in lieu of actually making an effort. It wasn’t too difficult for him to do, even if he was rather chuffed with how well his grades had gone the year before and didn’t really want to flub on that for his second year so early on. His pride was worth ten times more than one measly grade though, especially if that grade was handed out by Gilderoy Bloody Lockhart. 

He almost ate his words when he saw the smug look Granger threw his way when Lockhart had exclaimed that she was the only one to score perfectly on the quiz.

“Excellent!” Beamed Lockhart, sounding all the world like Granger scoring full marks was the best thing to ever happen to him. Harry tried not to roll his eyes, his souring mood only rising as the man continued. Bending down over his desk, Lockhart lifted a large covered cage over and onto it, grinning broadly.

“Now, be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask…” He paused, causing a few of the students that hadn’t caught on with his incompetence to lean forwards. “...is that you all remain calm.”

Harry gave in to his urges and rolled his eyes then, slouching backwards as Draco yawned.

“I reckon it’s a bunch of pygmy puffs or something.” The blond muttered, his head in one hand as he tried to keep his eyes open. “My father has better theatrics than this twat, and he’s a politician.”

“Yeah, and has better hair.”

They dissolved into snickers as Lockhart placed a hand on the cover, making a show of cautiously looking around at the students. Harry sighed, and grabbed for his satchel. It wouldn’t be his crowning achievement, but running away really seemed to be the best decision in lieu of anything else. He was sure that the classroom would be left in a bit of a mess after it was all said and done, but that was what happened when Lockhart was involved with anything even vaguely important. It would hardly be Harry’s fault.

“I must ask you not to scream,'' said Lockhart in a low voice. Draco noticed what he was doing and cautiously grabbed for his own book bag. “It might provoke them.”

Theo noticed what they were doing, raising an eyebrow as Harry made a show of preparing to bolt out of his chair at any moment. Harry nodded to his curious look. There must have been something about his expression that sent off warning bells in Theo’s mind, because he quickly scrambled to pack his quills and parchment away as well.

As the rest of the class held its breath, Lockhart finally whipped off the cover.

“Yes,” he said dramatically, his voice full of emotion as he threw the poor fabric aside. “Freshly caught Cornish pixies.”

Theo hurried his movements, before reaching forwards and slapping Blaise on the back of the head. Cursing quietly, Blaise turned around to glare at him before seeing the state of coiled tension the three of them were in, and his eyes widened with realisation. “You don’t think he’s gonna open it-?”

“Better not test his intelligence, mate.” Harry quipped dryly, causing Davis to glance back at them as well. It seemed to take her only a moment to realise the potential disaster unfolding, and she too began scrambling to get her textbooks and parchment tucked away. That seemed to be the only motivator that Blaise needed to get a move on, and he grabbed for his knapsack on the floor as Lockhart continued.

“Right then,” Lockhart proclaimed. “Let’s see what you make of them!”

Harry leapt to his feet just as Lockhart ripped open the cage, grabbing Draco around the collar as Theo scrambled after them, Blaise and Davis not far behind. He was out the door with the other four in tow as the screams erupted, and didn’t look back as they sprinted down the closest hall, keeping his gaze focused onto freedom as students quickly filtered out after them, all of whom had at least one of the Cornish pixies tangled in their clothes or hair. All five of them didn’t stop running until the screams faded into the background and Harry finally allowed himself to slow to a walk, the others following suit as they huffed for breath.

“I just knew it!” Davis shouted gleefully, her arms thrown up into the air as she spun victoriously. Harry laughed, subconsciously brushing down Draco’s slightly frazzled hair as the boy muttered about it with annoyance. “That man would be a better use to society as a clown in the circus! Cornish pixies? Hah!”

Harry nodded in agreement, watching as she stormed past him on some sort of vindictive rampage. “I’m going straight to the headmaster to complain! There’s no conceivable way he could ignore something like this!”

He watched as she continued further along the hall, immediately turning down the left hall towards the headmaster’s office, ranting all the while. Harry had no idea how she knew where the headmaster’s office even was, or how she expected to get in, but didn’t have the chance to question it as she fell out of sight. Blaise chased after her, shouting over his shoulder that he would see them at lunch. 

“How long do you reckon that’ll last?” Draco muttered as Blaise also disappeared from sight, the obviousness of his crush apparently evident to all of them there.

“Until he finds someone who actually likes him, I’d wager.” Harry replied, breathing out a sigh of quiet relief as Lockhart and the Cornish pixies were officially over and done with. Well, not Lockhart yet, but he could reasonably say that that entire ordeal had gone much better than his first life, which was something to celebrate.

“Oh! Good evening.” A very familiar, breezy voice piped up from an adjacent corridor. Harry stopped short, turning slowly before suddenly making eye contact with one Luna Lovegood, who was standing there with a blank look on her face. Harry looked at her, a tiny little first year without her shoes, and smiled.

“It's morning, actually.” Draco remarked, sounding completely unnerved with the entire ordeal as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. Theo, however, had a very particular look on his face, as if the girl was someone he knew, or at least recognized. Luna didn't show that she registered a word that Draco had said, which seemed to get the blond rather annoyed, to say the least.

“Good morning to you too, Miss…?” Harry supplied, testing the waters of this strange new conversation.

She tilted her head slowly, blinking blankly at him, as if studying something.

“You know who I am, Harry.” 

His blood ran cold.

“Right, okay.” Draco seemed more annoyed than anything, grabbing Harry around the wrist and firmly pulling him along towards where Davis and Blaise had run off to. “We’ll just be going now. Come along chaps.” 

Theo followed slowly, still looking like he was trying to place Luna’s face to a name, but Harry lagged behind a little, still holding eye contact with Luna for as long as he could until Draco started to more aggressively drag him down the hall. She watched him too, eyes wide and empty as he was pulled around a corner and she finally disappeared from his view.

Harry was still thinking about her while slouched over in his normal chair that night, trying to enjoy the common room’s atmosphere as his typical group of friends and the new addition of Tracey Davis lounged on the couches around him. Davis was schooling Blaise and Draco in muggle poker, gloating occasionally that her muggle-born mum had taken her to Vegas one summer to watch the pros play the game, and that she had picked up tricks from them. The two boys seemed to be less impressed than Davis probably expected them to be, though considering that Harry doubted they even knew what Vegas was, that wasn’t particularly shocking. Theo was also lounging about, reading his fifth book of the week as he seemed intent on topping his book intake out at one massive tome a day. Harry wasn’t doing much besides thinning and dealing cards for the impromptu poker match, which was being played with galleons instead of chips, because the two rich kids that Draco and Blaise were seemed to think it was a good idea. Considering how much Draco willingly bet away just that morning, Harry was willing to wager that the both of them got exorbitant allowances they were allowed to spend at their own convenience.

“Uhm… Mr. Potter?” 

A quiet voice spoke up the right side of his chair, just barely heard over Blaise’s groans as he was dealt a rather shite hand. Harry turned, his eyes widening as they landed on tiny little Victoria White, fidgeting with the hem of her outer sleeves. Harry considered his options. On one hand, the girl probably just had one of the worst weeks of her young life and deserved some sympathy, but on the other, he really didn't feel like dealing with the upper years’ potential ire if he decided to protect her. He was just barely making it as prince by simply existing after all, so any more rocking of the boat could get him booted out of the hierarchy before he could even blink.

“What is it?” He snapped, the ice in his tone making the other four around him turn and pay rapt attention to the conversation. The girl stiffened slightly, and started to bunch up her sleeves.

“I... um… would-would you be willing to teach me some… combat spells?” 

Oh… OH.

So that's why she’s in Slytherin. Harry slowly sat back in his chair, looking at her more closely as his curiosity rose. She certainly appeared meek and pliable, but it seemed that she was asking rather plainly for him to give her the means to protect herself, instead of just asking him to make the bullying stop. Which was very interesting… and bold, very bold. Glancing to his friends’ faces, Harry raised a questioning eyebrow. He got a few hard looks in response, especially from Blaise, who seemed to be taking a particularly strong interest in the girl. They all seemed to have come to the same conclusions as him, though Blaise really did look about ready to lunge over the table and congratulate the girl on her pure nerve.

“No, I'm afraid I don't have the time for that.” He finally stated, causing several of his friends to recoil in surprise, though Theo merely gave him an approving nod, seeming as though he knew exactly what Harry was playing at. “But my friend here, Blaise Zabini,” he gestured at the boy, whose smile went almost immediately from excited to downright demonic. “-would likely be happy to teach you, if you’re at all interested…?”

He turned to look at Blaise, who most certainly was, in fact, very interested in the idea, and immediately left the dying poker match to pull the small girl aside, gesturing wildly as he lectured on all the ways to make people give you a wide berth. Harry watched the interaction with a cautious smile, snorting as Victoria scrambled for a tiny notepad and started feverishly writing notes.

It was the best solution for everyone, really. Blaise didn’t need to change much of his own standing in the house, already having cemented himself as the Slytherin version of the Weasley twins quite early on into their first year. His reputation had nothing to lose if he decided to protect the muggle-born, and Harry wouldn’t have to worry himself with choosing between protecting himself or the girl. He leaned back, watching as Davis quickly hoarded all of the scattered galleons strewn about the table as Draco gave up and collapsed onto the couch he had been sitting on, looking utterly sick of card games in general. Harry smiled, eyes travelling all over the common room before falling back onto Blaise and Victoria, who seemed to have a devious little grin on her face that eerily matched Blaise’s.

I'm sure things will work out fine for her.

Chapter Text

Ichchadhari Naags-India

A magical breed of cobra that has developed the ability to shape-shift. The Ichchadhari Naag (male) or Ichchadhari Naagin (female), has the intelligence of a 5-year-old human child, and exists in an immortal state for about 100 years before ageing at the rate of a normal cobra. Ichchadhari Nagg and Naagin have a gem called Naagmani (cobra pearl, serpent crystal, snake gem), considered much more valuable than any precious stone. There are thousands of accounts of people dying through snake bites when they try to steal the Naagmani.

Harry sighed, crossing the Ichchadhari Naags out of his book with a decisive slash of his pencil. He was certain that his creature inheritance didn’t have anything to do with snakes, but it was still interesting to read about all the different breeds of magical snakes across the planet. Surprisingly, there were quite a lot of them, mostly native to areas around the equator where the climate was best suited for them. That particular tidbit made it unlikely that he would be finding anything like the Ichchadhari Naggs or other equally magical snakes anywhere near Britain, though he hadn’t gotten near far enough into the encyclopedia of creatures to know for sure. 

“~Shape-shifting sounds boring.~” 

Magical snakes aside, Thasin, a perfectly muggle snake, didn’t exactly understand what shape-shifting was, apparently. Or, at least didn’t understand the appeal of it. Harry glanced down at her as she sunned herself on the rocks next to him, the glimmer of a smile spreading across his face as her neon colouring glimmered in the sunlight.

“~You wouldn't want to turn into a human?~”  He questioned jokingly, rubbing the crest of her head with his forefinger as he did.

“~I couldn’t ever bother with all the things you humans put up with. This whole ‘school’ business sounds much too tedious to me.~”  She remarked matter-of-factly, weaving up his free arm as he set his book down onto the rocks beneath him.

She had some very compelling points.

Besides the sudden and inexplicable urge to figure out his animagus transformation so he could run off to live in a forest somewhere and never be human again, Harry was feeling very relaxed at the moment. Sure, it was a little too warm out for his liking, and his jumper was a bit itch, but it was nice to sit at the lakeside all by himself, his toes dipped into the chilly water. It was a pleasant day, and a quiet one, and Harry was hardly going to pass up an opportunity to enjoy it despite the less than stellar temperature outside. Besides, the Black Lake was perpetually freezing, and if push came to shove he could just stand up and go wade into the water, and in no time he would have cooled off again. 

Harry laid back onto the rocks, listening as Thasin slithered off of his arm and onto his chest. It was the third week of the school year, and a Friday to boot. Blaise had been teaching little Victoria White well enough it seemed, and after a good fortnight of complaining to him and Vaisey about the pranks, her dorm mates had eventually given up on whatever they were trying to do to the girl and settled on giving her a wide berth. Little Victoria was vicious, he could tell, and if Vaisey wasn't just as much of a blood-obsessed politically-driven little monster as the rest of them, the two might have even gotten along rather well. Though, Victoria was much more subtle in her demeanour than Vaisey ever tried to be, and tended to come off as shy and gentle until, as he had found over the past two weeks, she got ticked off. Then, it seemed, all bets were off. 

So it had been a very long two weeks for him, to say the least. He had been surrounded by people almost constantly, with the younger years coming to him every few minutes for help and his friends being almost constant companions throughout it all. He hadn't had the time to sit down and simply contemplate things, too busy dealing with minor skirmishes and his sudden new friendship with the massive personality that was Tracey Davis.

But today was different, Draco was off practising quidditch drills with a vengeance in the hopes of trying out for the team next week, and Blaise was off stalking the Weasley twins with Victoria White, his new apprentice-in-crime. Theo had been holed up in the library since breakfast, stuck fast to a new research avenue that he was quickly becoming obsessive over, and Davis was off doing… girl things, he surmised. The first years also seemed to have finally settled down with their various disputes, and the rest of the second years were doing well enough on their own and hadn’t ever come to him about anything important, besides the occasional complaint. This all happening at once had finally left him to his own devices for the first time since he had gotten back to Hogwarts, and how he was idle and lying in wait, trying to figure out how he could spend his time now that it was free. Harry stretched, and sighed, relaxing into the uncomfortable stone rocks beneath him as queries and contemplations swam through his head. 

As history has proved time and time again, an idle Harry Potter is a dangerous Harry Potter, and the currently potentially dangerous Harry Potter settled uncomfortably deep into the rocks underneath himself, finding his mind wandering to contemplations around the Chamber of Secrets. Which was a rather dangerous thing to do if you had the means to get into the place and the ability to do so. 

Harry frowned, opening his eyes and gazing up at the cloudless sky. He was still quite cross with Tom, and didn’t want to go submitting himself to potentially forgiving the man in the face of his own stubborn pride. But... Tom did have a very deep repertoire of knowledge about all things Slytherin, and it was all too likely that he knew everything there was to know about the place.

Harry sighed deeply, closing his eyes in thought.

“~Do you think I should do it?~”

“~Do what?~”

“~...Nevermind.~”

Harry leaned back, his head thunking onto the large rock underneath him. Sometimes, it felt like he got thoughts in his own mind mixed up with the language of snakes. He found himself quietly hissing it under his breath on occasion, subconsciously muttering in an unlearnable language as he went about the daily activities. It was a miracle that all of his friends were dense enough not to notice, but Harry was certain that it wouldn’t last. He might manage to keep it secret for the next year if he was lucky, but without a drastic shift in his habits, he was practically destined to out himself as a parselmouth before long.

“~Whatever it is you want to do, Harry, I think you should do it.~” Thasin suddenly surmised, her bright red head coming into view as she peered down at his face. He looked up at her curiously, contemplating the thought with rising realization.

“~I don’t want to do it, but I think I might have to.~”

“~Then that is what you have to do, Harry.~”

He closed his eyes again, sighing tiredly. It wasn’t going to be as clean-cut as Thasin tended to expect things to go, but she was right in saying that he needed to get a move on and get over things. Tom may be a bit of a bastard, but at least he told Harry about the diary eventually. Other people never would have bothered before it was already too late, so maybe Tom’s admission had to count for something. Besides, it had all happened almost a decade ago, and Harry hadn’t really needed to know that the diary was a non-issue until this year anyway. So, technically speaking, Tom was less of a bastard than Albus Dumbledore tended to be, which had to say something about his character.

Sighing, Harry let his muscles relax, and with a deep breath, reconnected the gap between his and Tom’s minds.

Almost immediately, he was bombarded with a booming, worried voice.

Harry! Thank Merlin-listen, I'm so sorry for not telling you before-!

Harry groaned, throwing an arm over his face as he bit back a ruder remark than what eventually stumbled out of his subconscious.

Save it, Riddle. I’m still cross.

It was quiet for a moment, and Harry almost thought Tom was sulking or something equally childish, before the man suddenly spoke again.

And how may I ease your anger?

Typical.

Harry nodded to himself, nearly grinning at the Tom-ness of the man’s words. It seemed that, even after an entire summer of silence between the two of them, Tom never really changed in his methods. Oddly enough, the lack of development was comforting, if aggravating.

Just give me some time to be angry, Riddle. You kept that secret from me for nearly a decade, you know, and that isn’t something I can easily forgive. In fact, I believe that I have every right to be pissed off. He considered things for a moment, before continuing. I do need you to tell me everything you know about the Chamber of Secrets though, so if you want to earn my forgiveness faster than usual, that would be a good way to go about it.

There was a pause, before an unsatisfied hum. You’ll have to come in here. I can't properly teach without you in front of me, you know.

Harry rolled his eyes, tempted to call Tom on the blatant rubbish—since Harry not being inside his mindscape while Tom taught him had never been an issue before—but nonetheless closed his eyes and began to meditate. A familiar feeling of calm washed over him, and as if falling down a well, Harry easily slipped into his mindscape. He hadn't been there in a long time, a year it had to be, so when he opened his eyes in the girls' lavatory, the look of surprise on Tom’s face was understandable. They looked at each other, Tom still half-inside the staircase coming out of the sink, and Harry standing in the doorway, just barely on the cusp between his mind and Tom’s.

“You’ve gotten taller, Leech.”

“Yeah? Well, you’ve gotten uglier. I guess we all change over time.”

Tom looked like his 16-year-old self, but a bit taller and filled out in comparison, so it seemed likely that his soul was emulating the appearance he had when he was in his late 20’s, at the oldest. And, really, that age was quite attractive on him, all things considered, but Harry was still understandably ticked off, and couldn't think up a better insult to combat Tom’s slip-shod attempt at a compliment.

Tom, gracefully ignoring the jab, waved him over to the stairs silently. Harry followed the man inside, listening to the clicking of their shoes as the stairs brought them down to a long hallway, empty of anything besides a massive circular door on the far wall. Tom led him towards the familiar door and into the chamber that was his mind, silently bringing Harry through the shelves of his memories and knowledge and over to the plush chairs of a reading nook, all the while staying completely silent. Harry felt half-convinced that Tom had been going insane with loneliness, likely from ignoring Harry for a year and then Harry ignoring him for three months.

They settled down across from each other, and Harry leaned back into the plush couch cushions as Tom’s shoulders slowly relaxed. Yes, he was definitely lonely. Harry felt a twinge of guilt attempting to claw its way out of his subconscious before he kicked it back into the darkness and set his jaw firmly, refusing to waver from his frustration. No matter if Tom was lonely or going mad, it didn’t excuse anything that he had done.

“I must admit... I don't know as much about the Chamber of Secrets as I would like.” Tom finally spoke, beginning a small lecture as he summoned a tray of tea and started to make Harry a cuppa. “I am aware of a large chamber preceding directly after the main one, but the basilisk refused to grant me passage into it every time that I requested. He said that I was… unworthy.” Tom sniffed, apparently still insulted by the memory. Sipping his tea, Harry waited for him to continue. When he didn't, Harry couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“That's it? That's all you know?'' He questioned, face scrunched up in a mix of surprise and astonishment. He was rather impressed with Tom’s lack of knowledge. It wasn't often that the man didn't know everything there was to know about a certain topic.

Tom, however, seemed rather upset about the entire thing, and sank into the folds of his seat. “I know more than most, Harry. There are very few magical people who even remember the legend anymore.”

Harry cautiously nodded his head, acknowledging that that was the most likely explanation. The only reason he had known anything about it in his first life was because of Professor Binns, who was himself a ghost, and barely even knew much about it to begin with. Harry sincerely doubted that anyone beyond Tom and him was aware of the chamber truly, definitively existing, which said a great deal about how truly legendary it was. It had been almost completely lost to myth, reduced to a mere rumour passed around the backs of Slytherins as they weaved through history. Parselmouths were rare after all, and it was doubtful that very many who believed in the chamber had the ability to even find the blasted place, let alone open it.

“Harry.” He glanced up, watching passively as Tom set down his cup and saucer and donned a remorseful look. Harry raised an eyebrow, realizing with minor unease that this was about to careen off course into an emotional conversation. Tom looked insistent however, so he set his cup down with a small sigh.

“Harry, I didn't get the chance to explain myself in July, and I feel that might help you feel less angry at me.” Tom pleaded, looking very much like a kicked puppy. Harry hummed, noncommittal, as he saw through the effort easily. After all, manipulation was Tom’s game, and it was difficult for Harry to buy into it anymore.

Despite this though, he merely raised an eyebrow, silently motioning for the man to get on with it. 

“Continue.”

“It had been a complete accident-”

“Bullshit.”

Tom narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue, disapproval hanging off the edge of his nose. Harry glared testingly at him in response, the two of them falling into a staring contest before Tom started up again.

“I hadn't expected it to work.”

“If you're going to lie, at least try to make it believable, Riddle.”

“Blast it, child!” Tom slammed both hands onto the table, causing Harry to jolt to attention as the suddenly furious man leapt up and began to pace. “You-you could not even begin to comprehend the amount of things I do for you. I am an adult! I am allowed to make my own bloody decisions! However, if not telling you about those decisions bothers you, then I offer you my most sincere apologies. But-but! If I do not believe that you have any need to know what I am doing, then as the adult in this body I have the right not to tell you!” 

Harry sat on the couch, watching with a calculating gaze as Tom took a harsh moment to come down from the outburst. He realized, quite suddenly, that Tom wasn't angry because Harry called him on his manipulations; Tom was angry that Harry had locked him away and refused to talk to him. He was angry that Harry demanded to know everything about his plans, even if his involvement would jeopardize them. Harry came to an even more sudden realization before Tom did, and felt a wave of panic surge through him. He jolted to his feet as well, jittery and unsure as the thought came tumbling from his mouth before he could stop it.

“For someone who claims to hate family, you sure like to act an awful lot like you’re my father.”

The older man froze, utterly still. Harry didn’t even breathe, eyes wide and arms shaking as Tom’s eyes slowly turned to lock onto his own.

Fear.

With a lurch, Harry flew backwards, and in an instant he felt himself get forced out of his meditation, an unseen force practically shoving him out of Tom's mindscape and into the waking world. Harry shot up into a sitting position, wide eyes gazing out to the gentle waves of the Black Lake.

He sat, completely still for several moments, before the sudden thought came to him again.

Tom?

There was no reply, and with a soundless refusal more akin to a bullet shot, Harry felt the door between their minds slowly swing shut, echoing with a resounding bang as he was left alone with Thasin at his side and the cold water of the Black Lake licking at his toes.

Blaise Zabini had yet to read the book he had stolen from his family's library, and the blasted thing was starting to get rather upset about it.

He wanted to, genuinely, but a feeling of mild apprehension around the idea was keeping him back. The book felt dangerous, pulsing with mischievous magic very unlike his own that did well to both unsettle and entrance him at the same time. It called to him in a way that made it seem almost alive, a thought driven home once it started to move.

Really, he should have considered the likelihood of it being cursed weeks ago.

It had all started the night before he went off to Hogwarts, where he had found that the monstrous little book had managed to end up on his bedside table when he had locked it into his trunk while packing the night before, wanting to eventually get to it at Hogwarts. Blaise hadn’t thought much of it at first, believing that he had just imagined putting it in his trunk the night prior, but it just kept happening! Nothing could have prepared him over the summer for potentially wishing that he had a band of thick rope that he might tie the annoying little bugger up in, if only so he could have the peace of mind to know where the hell it was at any given moment. But no, things could never be that easy. Honestly, Blaise had to admit that it was a little fun playing a bizarro version of hide-and-seek with the stupid little thing. However, he got fed up with it all rather quickly when he was woken up the night before quidditch tryouts by a deep, amused laugh in his ear. 

Jolting up in bed, Blaise swung his head around furiously, eyes wide with shock. Had Professor Snape come into the dorm for some reason? Had Flint found the bag of exploding jacks Blaise had snuck under his and was coming to kill him in the night? Blaise immediately scrambled up to the bed frame, his back hitting the blackened wood as his hand came down on a hard object on his pillow. Jolting, Blaise jerked his head downwards, finding that the little green book was lying innocently on his pillow next to him.

Either Harry was playing a shitty prank on him, or the book had managed to get out of his warded trunk and onto his pillow at some point in the night, and had then proceeded to laugh at him.

Blaise wasn't scared with the thought in any capacity, though he was quite annoyed. If the book was that insistent on being read, it was clear that he wouldn't be getting any sleep till he gave in and read the stupid thing. Snatching it off of his pillow with a huff, he grabbed for his wand on the table beside him and tightened the curtains around his bed. Fine then, he would read the blasted thing for a few minutes, and then get the hell back to bed. Whispering a ‘lumos’ under his breath, Blaise settled comfortably onto his bed and opened the book to the first page. 

It was all in old Norse.

Bloody buggering-what the fuck?

The incomprehensible letters started shifting around, rearranging into what he eventually realized was English as Blaise watched with growing fascination. It took only a moment for the letters to be settled, and just like that the first page and potentially the rest of the book was all translated perfectly into modern English. Blaise sat there, utterly shocked for a moment, before eagerly beginning to read.

Loki and his Worship

For as long as there were gods there were also worshipers. Gods exist without worship but worship does not exist without gods. Each god has been found to require a specific type of worship from their followers. Thor enjoys the boom of thunder. Hel demands the sacrifice of life. Týr thirsts for acts of war. Sif commands an even blade. Frigg requests a steady hand.

All gods demand something different from their followers, but they all agree that they will expect a pledge as well. The first step of any worship is the execution of your god’s will, but the second is always a three-step pledge to their very being.

Loki requests amusing tricks. He finds pleasure in the poor luck of others. The first step in becoming a worshiper of Loki is first appeasing his simple request. If chaos can not be wrought, then he shall never be appeased. That is but the simple truth of mischief and its various forms.

Blaise was practically vibrating with excitement. The first page alone had so much for him to pick apart, it was almost too good to be true! He grinned devilishly, turning the page to find more English looking out at him from worn pages. His great-great-grandfather had indeed been right, Loki wasn’t in the least bit a respectable god to worship, but Blaise wasn't a respectable person, and this sounded like an utter riot.

And so, without even considering what the book’s intentions towards him might be, Blaise continued to read late into the night.

It was the very next morning before long, and mere hours away was the start of Slytherin’s quidditch tryouts when Harry sat down at breakfast. The second class of Defense Against the Dark Arts had happened just the day before, during the morning classes, and had somehow been even more horrible than the first. Unsurprisingly, some of the Slytherin girls were becoming disillusioned with Lockhart, which did nothing for Davis’ slowly swelling ego as she was welcomed back into their fray.

“I told you Daphne, that man is a clown.” Davis admonished, punctuating her scolding with bites from an apple. Greengrass rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed with the other girl’s gloating but seemingly incapable of doing anything about it. Harry was impressed by her ability to grin and bear it, even if her pride must be quite damaged from the whole ordeal.

“You don't know that Davis, maybe he was just nervous about his first few lessons. You can't blame him for being nervous!” Parkinson screeched, seeming much less convinced. Harry yawned, wondering if she believed Lockhart was a god among men or something. It certainly felt that way at times.

Harry took a bite of his omelette, only half listening as the conversation droned on. Peering to his left, his eyes narrowed as his gaze landed on Draco. The shorter boy wasn’t eating anything, deciding to quietly mumble quidditch plays under his breath instead. Harry subtly placed a piece of buttered toast on his plate.

“-and you are aware that Warrington will throw you through a wall if he catches you, right? Didn’t you just barely get away with pranking Flint yesterday?” Theo was currently trying to convince Blaise to not prank the older boys dorm, but the threat of bodily harm didn't seem to deter him any less.

“So if he doesn't catch me-?” Harry scooped some eggs onto Draco’s plate along with the toast, before reaching for his tea and downing it in one gulp.

“You're blind if you think that man can do anything except style his hair, Parkinson.” Davis hissed, halfway standing up and pink in the face as her temper revealed itself.

“I feel like you should have better preservation skills than this, mate.” He managed to sneak a few slices of bacon onto the plate as well. Draco had started to nibble on his toast.

“Honestly Davis, you couldn't spot talent if it slapped you in the face-!” The aforementioned girl lunged across the table and proceeded to slap Parkinson straight across the face, either trying to prove a point or just feeling awfully pissed.

Harry sighed, wearily looking around him as he placed a sliced and grilled tomato onto Draco’s full plate. The Slytherin table was almost as rowdy as the Gryffindor one today, with even the older years shouting about the quidditch tryouts taking place mere hours later. It was a horrible environment for someone that was already stressed. Making a quick decision, he swiftly picked himself off the bench, grabbing Draco’s plate and then Draco himself before gently leading the shorter boy out of the great hall.

He walked them out and down to the Black Lake, quietly explaining where they were going and why as they went. Draco didn't seem to even notice that he wasn't in the great hall anymore, just following along as he continued to mutter quidditch plays and seeker-specific manoeuvres under his breath. After manoeuvring them both down to the rocky shore himself, Harry deftly handed Draco his plate and settled down on a larger rock, sitting quietly and occasionally skipping a rock or two as the other boy ate.

Harry knew he didn’t want to do quidditch, at least not while in the same house as Draco. He didn’t feel very into it anymore anyway, having gotten his fill of the sport during his first life. It had also become rather evident rather quickly just how much Draco adored quidditch and, most importantly, loved being seeker. Harry didn’t want to take that away from him, and had realized anyway that his physique didn’t really match the general seeker build anymore, which meant he might end up as a chaser instead, a thought that seemed rather unpleasant to him.

“Thanks, Harry.” Draco had finished his food it seemed, placing the empty plate on a flat-ish rock before turning to stare out into the water.

“You've got to relax mate. You're the best seeker in this entire school and Flint knows it.” He whispered, nudging the shorter boy with his shoulder slightly as he did. Draco smirked a little at that, the typical Malfoy pompousness starting to slowly sneak back to the surface. “You haven't a thing to worry about.”

“Of course I don’t, I’m the best seeker in this school after all.” The blond boy replied, a little grin slowly painting his face as he nudged Harry right back. 

There he is.

The two boys sat quietly on the shore, not knowing—because really, how could they—that the spot in which they sat would one day become their personal escape. That one day they would skip rocks across the lake and talk about the future, their future. That one day, they would bring a picnic down and relax in each other's company for hours on end, chattering on about the beginning of life after school, when the world opened up to them and all they had to do was live. That one day, late at night and far past curfew, they would sit out there and, after watching the stars for hours on end, they would kiss each other, tender and loving, right there on the rocky shore of the Black Lake. That one day, that little jut of rocks and water would become synonymous with them, with their life. 

But that was far off in the distance, and with the two of them sitting there now, baby-cheeked and giggling, they were better off not knowing. Sometimes, the future has to be placed in the caring hands of Fate, and that is where it must stay until the future intercepts the present, and suddenly becomes the past.

But not yet, not for some time yet.

It was a good day for quidditch tryouts, all things considered. The three boys that weren't trying out, as well as Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass, all made their way down to the quidditch pitch as Draco ran back to the dorm to change. Walking up the rickety steps to the benches, hands gripped onto the supports with a distrustful feeling that everything was about to collapse, Harry lectured Greengrass on the most recent house politics.

“At the moment, Lord Parkinson holds substantial weight in quidditch stocks, and will likely offer to buy the team new nimbus two thousand and one’s if it means his daughter would be in favour with Flint, which would then give her popularity among the older years, which is very important when it comes to running for king or queen. I can secure your appointment as princess next year, sure, but everything past that is none of my business. I can, however, recommend fighting fire with fire and having your father fund a popular club or something similar. Though it will be hard to best quidditch in that department, so try to hit Flint directly instead. Maybe offer to have your father discuss business propositions with his mother? I know Lady Flint is currently in charge of the estate, so perhaps you should just write to her and make nice.” 

Harry had heard a similar rant many times from Tom over the years, and found it uncomfortably easy to spin his own web of complex favours and promises now that he was well and truly in the thick of it. Politics were a lot of pandering to your supporters after all; you can’t get by for long without buying up the lot of them. Harry himself planned to supply the team with firebolts next year to assure himself Flint’s support, and inadvertently support Draco’s flying ability as well.

Greengrass huffed, clearly against the idea. “It just seems so dirty!”

Harry rolled his eyes, gripping tighter to the nearest support as the entire structure swayed testingly. “Politics are a dirty business, Greengrass. The sooner you learn that the better.”

The group had finally reached the top of the rickety stairs, and with near-unanimous sighs of relief, all quickly settled down in the nearest row of seats. Harry took a moment to breathe a breath of air, itching at his sleeves as the dry air started to bother him. It felt like the temperature had skyrocketed in the few minutes it took for them to get all the way up, and in comparison to how he had felt on the ground, his decision to wear a long-sleeved jumper was seeming quite shortsighted.

Rolling them up to his elbows, though not without a bit of mental grumbling, Harry settled himself and began to glance around the group, looking for something to take his mind off of the heat as they waited for the tryouts to start. No one seemed to be doing much out of the ordinary though, with Blaise lounging about as he rather pitifully attempted to flirt with Davis, again. Davis, to her credit, still seemed extremely unimpressed with the entire situation, and seemed to be using the spare time they had to practice the shrinking charm on Blaise’s knapsack. Theo, loyally, was reading a book, and a rather massive one at that. Harry squinted at the cover, trying to make out the title. It looked like something or other about Norse mythology, though he really couldn’t be very sure. Harry shook his head at the thought, quickly discarding it as he turned back to Greengrass, who appeared to be rearing up for a rant.

“Well, what do you expect me to do, Potter?” She chastised, her tone laced with either frustration or spite. “Do you think my father would ever willingly pay a bunch of… of school children an exorbitant amount of money for the sake of house politics or something equally absurd? If you can’t tell, Potter, my father has better things to do than something so-so elementary!”

Tapping out a tune on the old wood underneath him, Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Ask your mother? It isn't my problem, Greengrass. Either way, you'll be princess next year, and my side of the deal will be done. Nowhere in our agreement did it say I had to make sure you were popular with the older years, just that you got the spot.”

“But you said that-”

“That I would help you beat out Parkinson for next year’s spot in return for a favour, correct. I am so very glad we are both aware of the terms of our agreement.” He interrupted, rolling his eyes as he settled further back into the rickety bench, ignoring the vexed look he received from her as she seethed. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

Greengrass was sharp as a wick, placing in the top ten for their year without much trouble, and seemed to embody traits that would make her into a steady leader who could easily keep the house on a solid path. Leaders, however, didn’t always make for good politicians, and Harry was positive that she wasn't in the slightest bit a politician. Which, really, wasn’t a terribly bad thing, all things considered. Her family is very business savvy, and business-savvy people don’t have to be particularly adept in political spheres to make it big with other businesses, so it was hardly going to stop her from flourishing in the long run. 

Harry held back a grimace, still feeling the girl’s gaze burning a hole into the side of his head. Despite how ill-suited she seemed to be for politics, she certainly had quite the stellar stink-eye. He tried to wait her out for a few minutes, but when it became obvious that she would be spending the rest of the time there stewing in her anger and glaring a hole into the side of his head, he quickly came up with an excuse to get away from her, escaping away towards the ever-quiet Theo in an attempt to find better company.

Plopping down on the bench next to Theo, he watched as the brunet made a show of sighing very deeply in annoyance, before placing a worn bookmark into the page he had been reading and delicately setting it aside. Harry grinned, before reaching around and snatching the book right off the bench, holding it away from Theo’s grabbing hands as he read the title.

“Give it here, Potter.”

“Just a moment, Nott.” Harry murmured, skimming through the book delicately before reading the title a second time. “I didn't know you were researching Norse mythology, mate. Is this a new interest of yours?” 

He turned to look at Theo, who snatched the book back in a blur of movement, protectively cradling it to his chest as he glared angrily at Harry. Harry held back the urge to roll his eyes, deciding instead to glance towards the quidditch pitch to see if there was anyone down there. He slouched back, unsatisfied, when the massive space continued to be empty.

“It’s Norse gods specifically, if you must know.” Theo remarked scathingly, practically disappearing behind the large book as he sank into a slouch. Harry raised an eyebrow, somewhat curious about the strange topic.

“Why would you gain an interest in Norse gods of all things?”

Just as he spoke, Blaise seemed to choke on his own saliva, falling into a coughing fit that impressed Davis even less than his flirting abilities. Harry glanced at the boy with a raised eyebrow, before shrugging it off. Theo took a large breath, likely preparing to directly recount exactly what he had read from the book in his arms. Sure enough, the words that he spewed from his mouth were nearly unintelligible, and seemed to be relayed all in one breath.

“I'm curious about the religious practices of the Germanic people that persisted through the period that the Norse gods were at their peak. Sadly, most of the direct resources that documented specific ritualistic practices have been lost to time, and historians believe that the vast majority of them were destroyed with the Library of Alexandria as it burned, since by that point the Roman Empire had conquered many of the Germanic tribes who practiced the rituals and had stolen many of their priceless scriptures. It is hypothesized that either the documents had indeed burned, or a wealthy Roman family stole many of them away, which would place their current location around Italy. I have been trying to figure out where this family might be located, as figuring that out might lead to not just the ritualistic scriptures, but many other priceless scrolls from Alexandria as well.”

Theo sucked in a large breath, “now fuck off.” 

With a sharp look, the boy turned and reopened his book as if none of it had even happened. Harry blinked, slightly taken aback, before shaking his head in exasperation and scooting away from Theo again, leaving him to the research that he seemed insistent on engrossing himself in. Honestly, if Theo wasn't so damn ambitious in his search for knowledge, he would have gone right to Ravenclaw. No, maybe he would have ended up here anyway. Granger embodied Ravenclaw to the letter and still managed to wrangle herself into Gryffindor after all. He thought to himself, mentally grumbling as he slouched into the hard bench underneath him.

It was quiet after that, as Harry sank halfway into meditation and the people around him either sulked, read, or spoke quietly amongst themselves. Harry himself was poking and prodding at the door between his and Tom’s minds, knocking occasionally as he tried to find a way in. Nearly half an hour went by like this, until he simply stared at the massive door, guilt eating away at his conscious mind. It hadn’t been his fault Tom had locked himself away, but it certainly felt like it when the man was making such a fuss about what had been said. Sure, it was a difficult thing for Harry to consider as well, but he wasn’t going to go running away from the conversation like Tom was.

“Coward.” He muttered at the door, kicking at it with the toe of his shoe. There was no reply.

Typical.

Harry sat back and groaned, before gritting his teeth and scrambling up onto his feet, taking off towards the stairs as faint voices carried down them from his own mind. There seemed to be something going on, either in the group or out on the pitch. Racing up the stairs, he skipped two at a time, coming upon the interior of the girl’s lavatory with surprising speed. He didn’t take the time to look around though, quickly darting out of the bridge between the two minds inside his body and out into the waking world.

Harry blinked his eyes open, straightening from the slouch he had been resting in as Blaise’s face came into view. “Morning princess, did you have a good nap? It looks like they’re finally coming out.”

Harry swatted the other boy’s away, leaning forwards as he peered down to the grass below. Just on time, it seemed, as his eyes immediately fell on the Slytherin quidditch team as they all flew up into the air, soaring around the pitch as the hopefuls lined up in a straight line along the grass. Flint was shouting out orders of some nature, pointing this way and that as the hopefuls manoeuvred to his commands. Harry leaned forward slightly, trying to hear what was being said, but eventually gave up once he realized they were way too high up to hear much of anything. Was this what it was like to be in the stands for a change? No wonder referees and announcers used microphones or the sonorous charm during actual games, the watchers would never be able to hear anything otherwise.

He sat back more comfortably on the bench, and with one last indiscernible word from Flint, the hopefuls all got on their brooms and rocketed up into the air. Harry picked out Draco immediately, his natural grace in the air and light hair making himself easy to distinguish among the less elegant and darker-toned flyers. He could easily tell just from his years of flying against the boy that Draco was the best out of everyone there by a long shot, though he didn’t seem nearly as refined as he had been the last time they played against each other. Of course, the comparison wasn’t really fair considering the nearly seven-year difference in time, but that was hardly the point. In the end, Harry had kept all of his flying ability from the last timeline, so even if Draco shouldn’t be compared to the Draco from the first timeline, he would have to be compared to Harry himself if he had decided to go ahead and try out. Lucky for Draco though, Harry didn't have the time or energy to play quidditch, what with everything else he was planning for the year. Harry had been concerned about what he would do for exercise at first, but now had a vague idea for it after a bit of contemplation. It had started out as a personal joke, but Harry could confidently say that he had been entertaining the idea of sneaking into the Forbidden Forest and asking the centaurs to teach him archery because, honestly, he’ll never escape that place no matter how hard he tried, so what was the point of bothering anymore? Bane seemed to think he was interesting enough the last time they met, so maybe he would be willing to take Harry up on the request? It was certainly worth the ask, if he could find an appropriate bow that suited him.

The rest of the tryouts passed surprisingly quickly, and Harry spent most of the time watching Draco swoop through the air, occasionally perking up when the blond managed to find a snitch or do a particularly difficult manoeuvre. He had never really realized it in the last timeline, too focused on other things, but Draco looked like he belonged in the air. It was less of him being a natural and more that it sometimes felt like he didn’t even need the broom to fly, swooping and diving as if it were only there for support. Watching Draco fly was breathtaking, so when the tryouts ended and Draco was unsurprisingly chosen as seeker, Harry was only disappointed that it had ended.

Despite this, the excitement he felt for Draco won out over the disappointment almost immediately, and he quickly led the group back down the rickety steps to congratulate him, filing out into the field just as Draco turned away from discussing something with Flint—likely something about practice times.

“Cheers mate, I told you so.” Was the first thing Harry got off, smiling as he messed up Draco's hair, much to the other boy's chagrin. However, as the others neared and began giving him their congratulations, Harry turned away from the group and sought out the gaze of Marcus Flint, motioning with his head for the older boy to step off to the side with him. They moved a few yards away from the crowd silently, Flint already having a pinched expression on his face. Harry tried to stay as unreadable as possible, knowing that the quicker he got this over with the better. It was obvious that Flint tolerated him at best, and in the end, it was probably best if he worked to develop a professional but distant relationship with the man instead of anything even remotely pleasant. As long as he contributed to the cause and Flint left him alone with his title and influence, then Harry would consider it a worthwhile experience.

“What is it, Potter?” Flint hissed quietly as he leaned onto his broom, glaring downwards at him with barely concealed distaste. Harry didn’t even flinch, merely raising an eyebrow as the corner of his mouth twitched upwards. That was better than he had been expecting. Maybe they could work something pleasant out after all.

“You know that inventor, Randolph Spudmore? The one that's supposedly making a new broom meant to blow the nimbus out of the sky?” Harry questioned, rocking back onto his heels casually as Flint’s eyebrows rose, the man suddenly looking much more interested in the conversation. Harry bit back a grin.

“What of ‘im?”

“Well…” he began, leaving the edge out of his voice as he continued to rock back and forth. “Draco and I are mates, as you know, so if he got the position I was thinking of buying the team a few of Spudmore’s new brooms when they came out, if they're really as good as he claims that is.” 

Harry knew it was a bit like cheating, since he was intimately aware of just how good the Firebolt was, and didn’t consider the offer a gamble in the slightest. Flint, however, didn’t know a damn thing about how incredible the Firebolt was going to be, and probably thought Harry was either out of his mind or knew something everyone else didn’t, considering that the broom was currently sitting quite comfortably in the planning phases. Which was, well, true, but there wasn’t really any way for Flint to know one way or the other.

“Well, if they are that good, I'm sure the team would appreciate your generosity.” Flint finally bit out, looking like he didn’t know if he should be grateful for the potential new brooms, or pissed that a kid four years his junior was offering to buy them.

Harry nodded, and turned back to his friends, satisfied with the perceived gamble. He had millions of galleons tucked away in his gift vault after all, and felt like it would be extremely necessary to get some of that overhead out of his mind so he could stop trying to figure out just what he could do with all of it. Stopping short, Harry found Greengrass staring at him, the look on her face insinuating that she had been watching the entire exchange from a distance.

“Dirty business.” She mouthed at him, a self-respecting look smeared across her cheeks.

“Effective business.” He mouthed right back, breaking the eye contact immediately as Flint stormed past him, an irritated look on his face. Harry watched the quidditch captain storm away for a moment, contemplative, before he let out a tired breath and put the conversation behind him. Hopefully, he would eventually get to the point that other people would pander to him, not the other way around.

Chapter Text

September brought Hogwarts to the cusp of autumn, with the trees slowly shedding their leaves and the sweltering summer air easing away as if it had never been there to begin with. The students all let out breaths of relief at the change, pleased to be able to walk the halls of their school without the desperate need for cooling charms to be comfortable.

Nighttime, however, brought on the unique experience of briskness to the school, and to those so unlucky to be awake in the wee hours of the morning found themselves hurrying to and fro through the old corridors, the airy halls doing nothing to protect them from the biting chill of the night.

On one such night, when the wind was particularly harsh and the moonlight was shadowed by dense clouds, very few people were tempted enough to be out and about in the biting wind. And, if anyone had managed to get out that night, among the howling of the wind and the cold of approaching winter, they were doubtful to stray far from the floor where their dormitories lied. 

If anyone had, however, decided to throw caution to the angry winds and stroll about the old castle, they would have found nothing beyond empty corridors and slumbering paintings, lifeless and sluggish in the dull ache of autumn.

Unless they got so far as the third floor, that is.

“Blast.”

There came a shuffling, another muttered curse or two, before the door to the girl’s loo creaked open—perhaps from the wind, though who was really around to notice anyway—and shut with a dull thunk. There was some more obscene muttering from just beyond the door before the corridor fell into silence once again, save for some gentle snoring. None of the paintings nearby had even bothered to crack an eye open and see what the fuss was about. No, everything was quiet and every sentient creature around was slumbering. Well, mostly everyone.

Inside the lavatory, Harry Potter yanked the invisibility cloak off his shoulders, holding back a cough as dust flew up from the tile floor below. It seemed that the extent of Myrtle’s haunting had caused even Filch to give the place a wide berth, otherwise there was no way for the loo to have gotten so filthy. Harry sighed, waving a hand in front of his face for a moment as he stuffed the cloak away into his pocket. Regardless, it didn’t seem that the ghostly girl was around at the moment, and he wouldn’t be sticking around the disgusting lavatory for that long to let her appear, so it should be fine for him to decloak and go about his business.

Moving silently through the old lavatory, he peered down at a familiar sink, rubbing a long finger over the engraving of a snake—hidden rather brilliantly in plain sight—right above the ancient tap. It still awed him how the chamber had managed to stay secret for so long. He had often wondered if there had been any Gaunts to use the chamber before Tom had opened it, or if it had lied vacant for all that time. For some reason, he doubted that the Gaunts could have found the place. He didn’t think muggleborns would have been safe in the castle for very long if they had.

Pulling his hand away from the sink, he crouched down and very softly—as to not clue Myrtle in on his movements, if the ghost was anywhere nearby—whispered to the pipes.

“~Open.~”

He smiled as the sink slowly creaked away from the wall, the pipes and porcelain sliding out of his way to reveal a very steep and very dirty slide down into the darkness below. Harry wrinkled his nose, suddenly starting to question if the filth in the loo was really all that bad in comparison to the chamber’s entrance. Merlin, the slide looked disgusting. That had to be centuries of grime in the very least.

Harry.

He froze, the familiar voice echoing through his head a sudden and rather welcome surprise.

Tom?

It was quiet for a moment, and Harry almost thought he had imagined the voice, before the man spoke again, his tone an odd mix of sheepish and stern.

Be careful.

A small smile forced its way onto his face.

Aren't I always?

Hardly.

Rolling his eyes, Harry crouched down and, bracing his hands on the sides of the slide, hoisted his legs over the edge. He sat for a moment, preparing himself for a fast and potentially painful landing, before scooting himself further into the slide. He took a deep breath, savouring the somewhat stale air of the girl’s loo, before pushing himself down the slippery tube, plummeting down an almost completely vertical drop. The sink closed up behind him without so much as a creak.

It was a fast ride, one quite slippery in a distinctly unpleasant way, and Harry was admittedly relieved to quickly come upon the exit. Crashing out of the pipe, he tumbled for a moment, cursing as he went, before eventually landing onto a not-so-soft pile of animal bones with a sharp crunch. He laid there for a moment, staring up into the abyssal cavern above him, before letting out a dull groan.

“I am… never doing that again. Not if I can help it.”

Lying there for a few more seconds, Harry closed his eyes and let himself be carried away by the sounds of dripping water, the echo bouncing off his eardrum as gently as could be. Perhaps he should just stay there for a bit and recover. The landing had been much harder than he had expected.

Leech, I think you would do well to get out of the bones. Came Tom’s sudden voice, sounding remarkably distasteful against the gentle noises of an underground cave system. Harry didn’t bother replying as he—moving much slower than he would have liked—carefully rose to his feet. Surveying the mess around him, he yanked the elder wand from its sheath and vanished as many of the bones as possible, sighing lightly as he carved a path through the carcasses and decay.

The small chamber he was in could be more easily compared to the bottom of a large well, with circular walls going far, far up into the darkness above him. He could see, distantly, the pipe that he had fallen through, though there were many more farther up from it that likely led to other parts of the castle. Harry made a mental note to try and find where they came out at, before quickly moving on with his observations. He hadn’t really gotten a good look at the place the last time he had been there, after all, so now that he actually had some time to take it all in, he could more easily appreciate the architecture that Salazar Slytherin had so lovingly created.

There was a thin passage directly across from him, directly where he remembered it being, which he knew led down and into the main chamber. He ignored it for a moment, eyes skating towards a few other offshoots and pipes that he could probably crawl through. He considered the thought for a moment, slightly curious about the other tunnels that he had not yet seen, before forcing his thoughts away from it. Harry wasn’t about to go sneaking through the pipes without proper cause. He had basilisks to strike deals with, after all.

Lighting a lumos, he crept carefully towards the thin hall before him, careful not to step on the massive basilisk skins that practically carpeted the floor. He would have to come back in at some point and pack them all up to sell. Basilisk… well, anything from a basilisk was absurdly profitable, mostly considering how hard it was to get your hands on the materials, and just having the skins lying around like this felt like the equivalent of bars of gold littering the ground below his feet. Now that Harry was aware of this—unlike in his first life—he spent the entire walk grimacing at the crunching sounds his feet made every step he took. It was as close as he could likely ever come to financial agony. 

“Merlin, how much of this is just lying around here? Surely the basilisk didn’t come into the habit of shedding in such a thin hallway?” He murmured, side-stepping a particularly well-preserved stack of skins as the hall started to widen out into some sort of corridor.

These skins are likely centuries old. Tom replied, sounding distinctly unimpressed. So I doubt he was nearly as big as either of us remembers him being when he shed those skins. They have been preserved remarkably well though, so I hardly fault you for thinking they are newer than they are.

Harry nodded along, quickening his pace as the wide corridor opened out into a cavernous space with a familiar door positioned at the end of it. He smiled slightly, momentarily taken by how similar it was to the door separating his and Tom’s minds. It really was remarkable how loyal to the original Tom had been in making his mindscape—it would have almost been endearing too, if not for the circumstances around such loyalty. He ran a hand down the circular door, peering curiously at the iron snakes weaving around it. He saw no reason why they wouldn’t work just as they did in his last life, unless Fate had found some way to be supremely annoying, which he didn’t put past her.

“~Open.~”

Thankfully though, the iron snakes unwove themselves on his order, crisscrossing in familiar patterns as he stood back and watched, an odd sense of familiarity washing over him as gears clicked and slots slid into place. Yes, this had definitely been the right decision.

The snakes finished their mechanical dance with a near-silent click, and the door creaked open.

Harry slipped inside.

The main chamber looked much the same as it had in his last life, with tall sloping ceilings and a near-overwhelming scent of ancient mould. It was long, and half-flooded, he realised; the thick stone platform that stretched from the door to Slytherin’s statue was meant to appear suspended in the air, but was now just a foot of water away from getting drowned in sewage. He carefully peeked over the side of the platform as he walked, minding his steps as he went. He found that the water had flooded roughly fifty feet of the chamber, and that there were actual hallways at the bottom, with even more suspended walkways linking them together. He ached to know what was hidden down there, drowned by decades of sewage and rot.

Moving on from the watery tomb below, he peered towards the statue at the back of the chamber. He hadn’t realised before, what with the whole trying to survive an attack from a killer snake thing, but the statue of Salazar—which appeared to be just a bust above water—was actually an entire full-body feature, but his body had been completely submerged under the water and almost fully hidden by moss and other vegetation. Harry could barely make it out, but he was certain that the statue had a bit of a shoe peeking out from under the man’s robes.

Snake sculptures lining the walk were in a similar situation to their master, with just their heads visible and the rest of the body and tail—which were supposed to be creating structurally sound pillars connecting the cavern’s ceiling to the floor—were now fully submerged.

I wonder if I could find a drainage pipe of some sort?

Tom scoffed, sounding remarkably upset. I never could, and believe me when I say that I tried. I believe that a pipe burst at some point to cause the flooding. We would have to find the pipe that burst in order to fix it, which might take just as long as it would to simply drain the Black Lake.

Harry grimaced, silently agreeing with the assessment and putting the idea out of his mind. Walking along the platform, he came closer to Slytherin’s head, observing it with a keen eye. The statue really was massive, with Slytherin’s eyes being about the size of Harry's torso. For once, Harry wondered if Slytherin had really done it all by himself. Even a profoundly powerful wizard would have difficulty carving out all that stone all alone, let alone making such an incredible statue without at least one other magical person to help.

Harry cleared his throat, steadying himself as he prepared to call upon the basilisk.

He paused, contemplating what to say. Was it necessary to go through the whole prideful monologue that Tom had? It seemed rather obnoxious.

It was NOT obnoxious, you brat. It was-

“Right then. Moving on.” He muttered, “~Oi, basilisk, I really hate to bother you, but I was wondering if we could have a quick chat?~”

There was a distinct sound of astonished sputtering from somewhere in the back of his mind. 

You really shouldn't be agitating him, Harry! That is a centuries-old beast!

Harry rolled his eyes, listening as a distant slithering sound echoed from the other side of the statue. Oh, don’t get your panties in a knot. Maybe the guy’s got a sense of humour, you don't know. Regardless, I’m not about to become a simpering idiot in front of the statue of some old man. We all have different ways we like spending our time, Tom, and just because-

Okay! Yes, I get it. You can stop now. Merlin.

“~Who wakes me from my slumber!~”

Harry held back an amused grin as he watched, enthralled, as the mouth of Salazar's statue creaked open, and an impossibly massive creature slinked out of it. He remembered then, rather suddenly, through the thick haze of awe clouding his senses, that it might be a good idea to close his eyes till he was sure the snake wouldn't attack him.

Slamming his eyelids shut, Harry stood stiff as a board, listening as closely as possible for any signs of movement as the creeping feeling that he probably shouldn’t have done that snuck up his throat. It was very suddenly then, that he heard the large cracking of stone splintering apart, and a low, menacing hiss that tapered off into something far more primal than he had ever heard. The noise echoed through the massive chamber, cold and harsh and hungry. Harry went stiff, his blood frozen in his veins as he fought to tamp down a primal side of him that said to fucking RUN!

“~Ahhhh, hello little speaker, you are quite the bold one.” He relaxed, if only slightly, as an old, amused voice met his ears. “~I have not seen a human act so crassly since this school's founding. Godric was ever the loud one. Tell me, small friend, are you of Salazar's blood?~”

Harry was very close to shitting himself, he was sure.

Gathering himself and his thoughts for a moment, ignoring that he had been compared to Godric Gryffindor, Harry worked his mouth over the familiar Parseltongue to try and formulate a reply. “~I'm afraid not. I have the gift, yes, but it was given to me through rather… unique methods. I do have his most recent descendant with me though, if you would prefer to speak with him...? You met him about fifty years ago, I believe.~”

The basilisk thought for a moment, “~no, he was an awful bore.~”

Indignant sputtering from Tom echoed in his skull, Harry suddenly found himself holding back a laugh. “~That is understandable. Now, I hate to cut such a delightful conversation short, but is it safe for me to open my eyes?~”

“~Oh! Of course, small friend, my eyes are of no threat to you if I do not wish for them to be.~”

Harry processed the statement for a moment, wondering if basilisks were actually capable of controlling their abilities, or the snake was just tricking him. 

You are a parselmouth, Harry, and the Master of Death. Does it really matter if he can or not?

I suppose you have a point.

Peaking an eye open, Harry skated his gaze around the vague area of the snake. Deciding to risk it, he opened them all the way and peered up at the creature, silently surprised that he hadn’t died on sight as his gaze was met with shockingly bright gold.

“~My, what pretty eyes you have, little friend.~” The snake cooed, peering down at him as if he was some sort of cute little creature. Harry decided not to be insulted by the thought. It was all too likely that the ancient creature saw him that way, and perfectly reasonable for it to do so, so it was best not to think too hard about it.

“~Your’s are… also lovely, my… big? Friend… right. Now, moving on — I was actually wondering if you could let me into the second chamber? It is why I came all this way, you see.~” Harry winced, wondering if he was being too casual with the beast. It certainly felt to him like he was being polite, but Merlin knew he had issues with that sort of thing. 

Perhaps he did sound the slightest bit crass.

The basilisk didn’t seem to mind either way. “~Of course! You are very interesting.~”

There was a pause.

“~...Is that the only requirement? To be interesting?~”

“~Should there be a different requirement?~”

Harry hummed, finding it extremely hard not to say something to Tom, who was muttering rather unhappily from the depths of his consciousness. 

“~I suppose not, if you put it that way.~”

Oh just get on with it, you brat.

Come now Tom, it isn’t my fault you’re as interesting as a lump of wood.

There was a sharp stab of displeasure through his scar as he followed closely behind the basilisk, having to jog to keep up as it slithered back into Slytherin’s mouth. Climbing around the man’s beard was surprisingly difficult, and after marvelling at the incredibly detailed molars in the statue's mouth, Harry hopped down into what appeared to be the Basilisk's nest. It was cavernous and claustrophobic, with uneven walls and a bed of animal furs and underbrush. Harry felt jittery instantly, fingers twitching as he gazed around the enclosed space. It felt like he didn’t belong there, really. It felt like it wasn’t his home to enter. He wanted to get out as fast as possible.

“~This way.~”

Following after the snake quickly, Harry paid close attention as he was led into another pipe of some sort, which twisted over and around in winding passages that felt like they had been designed for the express purpose of confusing those who did not know the way.

If someone did manage to get past the basilisk, they would most certainly get lost in here. Tom whispered, sounding just as awed as Harry felt. Harry agreed with the statement silently, sticking closer to the snake as he was led further and further from the familiarity of the Chamber of Secrets and into the cavernous underbelly of Hogwarts. They walked—or slithered, in the basilisk’s case—through the passages in silence, the only noise being Harry’s uneven footsteps as he tripped over loose stones and various unknown obstacles.

Eventually though, he started to get glimpses of a faint light, and before he even realised it they were out of the tunnel and into a vast open space. Harry froze at the first sight of wood. 

Wood? This far underground?

“~Welcome, my little friend, to the Library of Secrets!~”

Harry, for perhaps the first time in his second life, let his jaw go slack in shock. All around him, spiderwebbing out from some unseeable middle, were massive—truly massive, metres-tall beasts of oak—bookshelves lined with hundreds upon thousands of books. Some, Harry vaguely noticed, weren’t even books, but were instead scrolls, or stone tablets, or dozens of other different things meant to hold knowledge. He could barely take it all in, his mind trying to comprehend the pure vastness of the library. It was at least double the size of the Hogwarts’ library, and somehow felt infinitely more old.

“~I’m sensing a common theme.~” He muttered, rather dully. “~The Library of Secrets, eh? How fitting.~”

The basilisk let out a hissed laugh, slinking in front of Harry as he began to explain the true history of the chamber and its subsequent library. Harry listened vapidly, soaking in the knowledge like a dry sponge.

“~Salazar and his friends worried very much about the persecution of magic that was happening at their time, as scrolls burned and knowledge fell away into the cinders of muggle supremacy. In an effort to preserve rare and ancient magics, they built the Chamber and Library of Secrets deep beneath the school in order to keep all the old magics safe from harm. When they first built the library, it was about a third of the size it is now, but they added onto it as more and more magical people donated books and scrolls over the years. I was gifted to Salazar later on in his life by one particularly kind donor, given with the express purpose of protecting the library from harm or thieves when Salazar and his friends eventually passed. I was just an infant at the time, and I have been told that the man who gifted me was some sort of god, which Salazar always proudly boasted showed the true value of the library. Isn’t it grand? I suppose you could call me the librarian then. Ehehe.~”

Harry nodded distantly, not even listening as the snake proudly went on about the library and how he had been taking care of it for all those years. Harry was focused completely on the shelves and shelves and shelves of books, caught between crying with joy and sobbing at the tragedy of it all. What sat in front of him was a sprawling library of ancient magics that, for all he knew, hadn’t been used since the founding of Hogwarts. And it was all just sitting there, slowly wasting away as time got its cruel hands around the preservation charms and slowly sucked the magic from them. 

Theo would probably have a coronary if he got wind of this.  

Harry shook his head, slapping a shocked hand over his mouth to keep from hysterically laughing. It was then that he paused, his mind finally starting to catch up with the snake's words. He turned to look at the basilisk, eyebrows furrowed and confusion rising.

“~Did you say you were gifted to Salazar by a god?~”

The massive snake nodded proudly, “~yes! His name was Odin, I believe.~”

Harry stared at the basilisk for a moment, brain still trying to comprehend the sheer amount of knowledge that was in the room with him.

“~Odin? As in the all-father? King of Asgard? God of wisdom, divination, and magic? That Odin?~”

The basilisk looked at him strangely, “~is there a different Odin I am not aware of?~”

Harry’s face betrayed his surprise—he knew it had to. He probably looked like an idiot, standing there with his jaw slack and eyes wide. An actual, honest to god… God. A god had given the basilisk to the founders? To Salazar Slytherin? He was still trying to catch up with the fact that the chamber was a group effort by the founders and was just to protect ancient magics from being destroyed, let alone the fact that gods actually existed. Well, gods that weren’t Death and Fate, he supposed. 

Did you know all this, Tom?

It was quiet for a moment, before-

No, I was not aware, though I suppose this explains the basilisk's name.

Harry paused, before turning to the creature.

“~What is your name?~”

The basilisk raised his head high with pride.

“~ Jörmungandr. ~”

Jörmungandr-Old Norse (Mythos)

Also kno wn as the Midgard Serpent, Jörmungandr is a sea serpent, and the middle child of Giantess Angrboða and Loki, the trickster god. According to Prose Edda, Odin took Loki's three children — the wolf Fenrir, Hel, and J örmungandr — and tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircled Midgard. The serpent was said to have grown so large that it was able to surround the earth and grasp its own tail. As a result, it received the name of the Leviathan or World Serpent. When it releases its tail, Ragnarok will begin. Jörmungandr’s arch-enemy is the thunder god, Thor. 

Harry sighed, closing the book with a dull thump. It was sheer luck that he had found Jörmungandr in his magical creatures book, as apparently the snake was considered enough of a magical creature to be added to the list. It was fascinating to think how the story had gotten twisted, but if Hogwarts and the chamber were both meant to be kept secret from the muggles, it made quite a bit of sense that the tale had been altered in such a way. It certainly raised questions though—had Loki actually fathered a basilisk, or had he merely created the species? Harry supposed it made some sort of sense, since his symbol was a snake...?

“I’m grasping straws, aren’t I.” He muttered to himself, leaning further back in his chair with a deep sigh. The rest of his visit to the chamber had gone rather well, all things considered, though it was not without drawbacks.

He had, perhaps foolishly, asked Jörmungandr if he could come back another day to look at the books, and had left painfully quickly after that. He regretted it now, since he could have spent hours down there without getting even an inch closer to the interior of the library, but he knew that if he had stayed, he likely wouldn’t have come back out in time for breakfast… or his first class… or dinner.

It hurt a bit to let that knowledge sit there, unexplored and undocumented; but for now, he would be able to plan.

He had had a short conversation with Jörmungandr after leaving the library, where he had rather desperately asked if he could take any of the books from the library to study. The ancient snake had aggressively denied his request, stating with no small amount of threatening that the library was for people to add knowledge to for safekeeping, not take away, like some sort of unemptyable vault.

Harry was so incredibly thankful that he had gotten the infinite pages enchantment on his new journal. 

If Jörmungandr refused to allow him to take the books from the library, then Harry saw no reason why he could not merely copy down the books he desired into his new journal. It seemed to be the easiest way to go about things, really, and would allow him to keep a considerable amount of knowledge in one place. Effective and useful.

He would have to get started right away though, if he wanted to even begin to harbour a respectable amount of knowledge in the journal before the school year ended. Harry doubted that he could plagiarise the entire library, but maybe just a tiny portion of it he could directly transfer, and the rest he could just… well, summarize, he supposed.

It was hardly a perfect plan, but very few things were.

Where shall we begin?

Translation charms, I would say.

Harry frowned, but eventually nodded in agreement, albeit reluctantly. It was very unlikely that any of the books or scrolls in the library were in anything but Old English or some other, equally archaic language, and it was incredibly unlikely that he could learn every old language under the sun in order to read all the books all by himself. Translation charms existed, of course, and would work well enough for his purpose, but the issue of the sheer amount of books to tackle was still rather present in his mind. Judging by the size of the library, it would take him decades of constant writing with a translation spell to get it all copied over into his journal, and even if he managed to set up some sort of conveyor belt with a translating spell working in tandem with his self-writing quill... Well, he might be able to cut down the time by a decade or two, but it still wasn’t applicable to a seven-year deadline, let alone a nine-month one.

Harry sighed. He needed to figure out which books were the most important to copy over and start there. All else could come after—maybe once he was an adult and had some way of getting down to the chamber without being detected. He didn’t plan for Dumbledore to live nearly that long, so perhaps he could become a professor and sneak off to the chamber in his off-hours. Yes, that sounded like a good plan.

You should spend a few days roaming around the library, just to get an idea of if there is a sorting system you aren’t aware of. Quipped Tom, sounding so infuriatingly bored with Harry’s thought process that it was almost painful. Harry nodded idly, before scoffing.

You do realise what I’m attempting here, don’t you? If I’m even the least bit capable of making a functioning, self-sufficient method of transferring the knowledge in the Library of Secrets into my journal, it is very likely that I could just… just leave it running while I go about my life and come back in a few decades to the finished product! Don’t you see Tom? This is huge!
Well, I certainly hope you realise how much of a headache it would be to flip through that book if an entire library sat in it.

Harry pursed his lips, caught halfway between thoughtful and annoyed. He was being a bit of a twat about it, but Tom had a good point. Sure, the book wouldn’t ever look any thicker on the outside, but you could potentially keep flipping through it for eternity without reaching the end. He could potentially be flipping through it for years before finding the topic he actually wanted to read.

Could you enchant it in some way?
Tom considered the request for a moment, quietly. I could make a table of contents at the beginning, where you look through all the books that are held inside? No, it seems like that could potentially be a whole book on its own. Perhaps I could make the first few hundred pages a ledger then? The book ledger in the Hogwarts library has an enchantment that allows you to verbally request a certain topic, but that might interfere with the protection charms… hmm… give me a few minutes to sort it out.

Tom went off to ponder all the possibilities, leaving Harry to his rising excitement and a noticeable inability to sit still. 

Standing up, he walked quickly over to his trunk, opening the second compartment and pulling out the currently blank journal. Rustling around further, he got ahold of the self-writing quill, and four large inkwells. He would likely have to owl order more, but with his newly named, ferocious, hulking mass of an owl Hades, he wouldn't have to worry about borrowing one of the others’ to do it.

Looks like the money in my gift vault finally gets to be used.

After leaving the chamber that night, he hadn't been able to get back to sleep, and had instead just decided to research all he could about Jörmungandr without having to go to the library. It was now early morning, and while it was doubtful anyone would be up yet, it couldn't be considered going against curfew to wander the school. He would likely still look awfully suspicious though, considering all the supplies he was carrying, so he shoved it all in his book bag and took it with him, throwing his invisibility cloak over his shoulders as he did.

Can you think of any entrances into the chamber that are a little closer to the commons, Tom?

I'm afraid not.

Blast.

Draco woke up groggy, his eyes heavy and supremely unenthusiastic about opening. Halfheartedly pushing Thasin off of his chest, he yawned, and rolled sluggishly out of bed. Opening his armoire, he blinked slowly at the blurry shapes inside for a moment, before yawning again and grabbing for a random pair of clothes, pairing them quickly off with his school robes and a pair of smart boots. He was awake enough to register that he was grabbing something appropriate for school, but everything past that was a vague blur of noises and shapes.

He started to wake up a bit more in the shower, when the cold water hit his aching back in a supremely relieving way. He let out a happy sigh, the cool water soothing the ache in his muscles as it gently beat into his tender skin. Looking over his shoulder, he grimaced at the faint bumps and bruising painted across his upper back. There were two distinct bumps along his shoulder blades now, barely noticeable, even through a thin shirt, but the red and purple skin made them stand out with shocking clarity against his regular complexion. It felt like he was growing more bones. He would probably have to start sleeping on his stomach soon.

Turning off the water, he towelled down quickly, taking extra time and care to be as gentle as possible with his back. The balm his mother has been using to soothe the pain had been working well enough, but he couldn't reach back there on his own to put it on, and refused to tell his friends about the strange sores lest they kick up a fuss, so with a muttered curse he decided to simply suffer through it. 

He looked down at the bands on his arms, wondering if they were even worth it. They hadn’t been doing shite for him, but his father insisted the pain would be much worse if he took the blasted things off, so they were still firmly in place. He disliked them quite a bit, really. They were uncomfortable in a rather constraining way. He wondered if there was a more breathable option out there for him. Perhaps some sort of cloth with runes stitched into it instead of the solid gold etched with carvings.

Putting on his uniform, he smoothed out his outer sleeves and left the stall, sending a drying charm to his hair so he could style it immediately. He started on that right away with a slew of more charms and a liberal amount of hair product, keeping busy in the hopes that the tender sting in his back would go away as he did. Blaise came in at some point while he was in the midst of it all, taking a fast shower and brushing his teeth before leaving without much comment or quandary. Theo stumbled in a few minutes after that, splashing some cool water on his face while chewing on a mint, before leaving as well, looking very near dead to the world. Crabb and Goyle came in at some point too, but not Harry.

Maybe he got up early?

Draco left the baths soon after that and peaked into the dorm, finding that Harry's bed was in fact empty, and his school bag was missing. Frowning in confusion, as the taller boy had always made a point to walk with him to breakfast, he left the dorm and went out into the commons to search for his other dormmate.

“Blaise, have you seen Harry?” He questioned, watching as the other boy rushed through the transfiguration homework that was due that afternoon.

“Harry? Uhm… no, I think he left early.” Was his quick reply, the other boy not even bothering to look up from his parchment. Draco was starting to get frustrated.

“But he never leaves early! There has to be something wrong, right?”

Blaise snorted, side-eying him in a particularly infuriating way. “Calm down mate. You know Harry. He's probably off sulking in a dark corner or cursing the pants off a Gryffindor. Maybe you should ask Farley if she’s seen him? She seems nice enough.”

Draco huffed, shaking his head with a frown. The older years were useless, and Gemma Farley was nothing but a simpering little heiress with nothing better to do than kiss up to the younger heirs. No, he would go find Harry himself. Merlin knew he seemed to be the only person in their year paying the slightest bit of attention to the tall bastard’s movements.

Harry stepped silently out of the third-floor girls’ lavatory, holding his invisibility cloak tight around himself and muttering sternly to the empty air. Hurrying at a fast pace, he sped on towards an empty classroom, intent on finding a place free of people to take off and put away his cloak.

Finding one quick enough, he slipped into the room and yanked off the cloak, revealing himself to the empty classroom as he did. Muttering more feverishly, he stumbled from the room, shaking out his outer sleeves and adjusting the collar of his uniform as he stuffed the cloak into his satchel. Taking off at a brisk pace, he very nearly started jogging as he sped towards the nearest stairwell.

If I hurry, I can probably get to breakfast on time.

He half-ran around a corner, cursing loudly as he knocked into someone, sending them sprawling backwards across the floor with a painful-sounding thud. He cursed again as they grabbed at his robes, accidentally yanking him to his knees as they went crashing to the ground.

“Ah, shite-”

“Fuck!”

“Draco?”

“Harry?”

They stared blankly at each other for a moment, Draco looking far more frazzled than Harry expected him to be so early in the morning, before the blond narrowed his eyes.

“And just where have you been?” 

Harry blinked. “I was wandering through the library, mostly, before coming up here to do some schoolwork. I was just on my way to the great hall. I lost track of time.”

Draco rolled his eyes, before holding out his arms in a distinct motion that seemed to convey ‘pick me up off the floor then, you prat’. Harry complied, rather sheepishly, and reached down to lift the shorter boy into a standing position as he pulled himself up off the ground. Draco made a show of brushing himself off, adjusting his uniform and smoothing out the wrinkles as he hummed an idle tune. Harry stood there awkwardly while he did, tapping his foot.

“Well, be sure to get a timepiece soon then. I’d hate for you to lose track of time when you have prior engagements.” Draco clipped, sounding supremely annoyed and still carrying a casual sort of anger with him. Harry winced slightly, about to apologise before the anger in the blond’s face melted away and he grinned in a way Harry thought was uncomfortably genuine. Grabbing Harry around the wrist in a vice, he yanked the lanky boy towards the stairwell, Harry seemingly forgiven for the oversight.

“Come on then, we can still make it to breakfast if we run.”

They did, indeed, run.

Breakfast was a whirlwind of eating and shouting and nonsense that he didn’t want to deal with for Harry, who was just barely able to keep his focus off the library long enough to shove plates-worth of toast into his mouth. Eventually, though, breakfast crawled to a shuttering stop, and Harry was finally freed from the agony of the ear-piercingly loud great hall and into the agony of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

It was turning out, quite unsurprisingly, to be a joke with no punchline.

With Lockhart acting out his various heroic deeds with increasingly laughable commentary, Harry thought the class was more indicative of a zoo instead of a Hogwarts course. He was hardly one to complain though. He had started to use the class to compile a case of every inconsistency in Lockhart's books, of which there was a shockingly large amount, so every time he walked into the classroom he knew that there would be plenty for him to do. The most ingenious part of it all was that whenever Lockhart asked him what he was up to, all he had to say was that he was ‘taking notes’ in reference to the text, and the pigeon-like man would fall over himself with glee. Harry wasn’t ever even lying, which made it all the more fun, really.

What was even more fun, though admittedly he hadn’t been expecting it, was when Davis leaned over to see what he was writing that day, and had nearly fallen from her chair in shock. She had snatched up the parchment from him then, her eyes alight with a sick, twisted glee, and he hadn’t gotten the parchment back from her till that afternoon at dinner, when he was then forced quite unceremoniously to share his findings so far with the other second years.

“Parkinson, what did I tell you? He's a fraud! A sham! See? Look at this, look at it! The dates don’t match up at all!” Davis was practically vibrating in her seat, shoving the parchment in the other girl's face, which was in the process of turning a rather pleasant shade of magenta.

“What are you going to do with all this, mate?” Blaise questioned curiously, leafing through some of the other scattered pages with interest. There was a particularly nasty look in his eye as he skimmed through the contents, one that set off a worry in his mind that the other boy would drive Lockhart out all on his own, and with some rather undesirable methods.

“Well, once I've found every discrepancy in his books, I'll send the list to the Daily Prophet.” Blaise grinned at his short explanation, the nasty look in his eye turning more insidious and conspiratorial as Harry went on. “And then I'll show it all to him and force a confession, whatever that may be.”

Blaise grinned impossibly wider, the sharpness of his teeth only commented on by the unnatural whiteness of them. Harry thought he looked half-mad.

“Great! How can I help?” The half-mad boy questioned lightly, seeming perfectly prepared to take part in what he likely thought would be the greatest prank of the year. Harry wondered if little Victoria White would get involved too. The poor girl was probably already getting twisted by Blaise’s sick definition of entertainment.

“Well hold on a bloody minute. The bet specified that you would do it yourself! It's against the rules to get help from this-this psycho!” Draco exclaimed, pushing past a frumpled-looking Theo in order to shove an accusatory finger in Harry’s face.

“Wait just a—you aren’t betting on this tosh, are you?” Theo exclaimed, looking considerably less impressed with the both of them than Blaise did. Harry shrugged.

“Well, I didn't think he would actually be able to do it, first off. I figured it was just an easy thousand galleons.” Draco defended himself, pink dusting his cheeks. Harry said nothing, not feeling even a single ounce of regret.

“You're… you two aren’t seriously betting a thousand galleons on… what, if you can ruin the man's reputation?”

“You’re thinking comically small, Theodore. No, I'm planning to get him thrown in Azkaban.” 

Draco blushed deeply, Theo went white, Blaise began to loudly cackle, Davis nearly choked on her own saliva, and Greengrass looked like she just might faint.

There was a sudden hush all along the table as the other second years stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. The older years, who Harry hadn’t even realised had been listening in, immediately started murmuring amongst themselves. One of them muttered just loud enough for them to hear too, which seemed to shake Davis from her stupor.

“Can you imagine Lockhart in Azkaban? The man’ll get ripped apart!”

“Pardon?” Davis finally croaked, sounding seconds away from needing to lie down.

“Well,” he started, “he obviously didn't actually do the things in his books, but there's genuine documentation that proves that those things actually happened, so I can only assume that he obliviated the people who actually did all those heroic deeds and took the credit.” He paused, taking a moment to admire his friends' shocked faces before continuing. “Since the standard time in Azkaban for a single illegal obliviation is two years, that many illegal obliviations would land him in Azkaban for a good two decades, if we’re conservative with the maths and only count the people who could have actually done the heroic deeds and not those they likely told about it. If we take those other people into account though, he could very well be facing a life sentence.”

Open-mouthed stares greeted him, and the muttering from the older years turned into furious whispering that made his skin crawl. It was very, very excited whispering from the sound of it.

Good job, Harry. Now you’ll have all of Slytherin house watching you. 

It isn’t as if that’s anything new.

“Just a theory. Might be wrong.” He rounded out, feeling rather sheepish.

“Bloody hell, mate.” Theo looked and sounded very, very tired. Harry couldn’t help but sympathise with the sentiment.

Chapter Text

September crept sluggishly into October, and Harry was happy to note that the weather was finally cooling down enough to truly be considered autumn. Not that he was paying much attention to the weather, with his mind busy elsewhere and his body far from the outside world. He was hardly going to complain though. The Library of Secrets was rather chilling in its own sort of way, and he had grown awfully fond of its dilapidated charm.

Harry strolled through stacks of ancient books, all surprisingly well preserved behind runes carved lovingly into the shelves they inhabited. He had been so worried the day before about whether the preservation charms on the books had been degrading over the years, but he should have had more faith in the founders. The runic preservations would likely last long after Hogwarts had collapsed into stones and dust. Harry doubted that anyone would ever outlive them, besides perhaps the gods themselves.

He had come down to the library several times over the past few weeks — mostly to get a better idea of its layout, admittedly. What he had managed to find —beyond the dust and grime that had built up over centuries of not being run over by anything save for a snake’s tail on occasion—was that the library was built in a circular shape, with the shelves of books branching out and around in a sort of maze-like way. It almost felt like he was back in the hedge maze in his fourth year, though considerably more enjoyable all around. 

It had taken hours of wandering through the stacks of ancient bookcases, but eventually, Harry had gotten to the centre of the maze of books; what he had found there was a large circular table carved from dark granite, which was decorated with nothing but dust and identical (and equally ancient) chairs circled around it in a loop. Harry thought that it might have been used for meetings between the founders and other esteemed scholars over the years, or perhaps just as a table for study. Regardless, the thoughts of those chairs having been used by the founders themselves sent a shock of delight racing through him.

He had spent far longer than he likely should have at the circular table, lounging in one of the massive chairs and pretending that he was in some other time —a time when things like headmasters or classmates or creature inheritances didn’t matter nearly as much as academics did. A time where he was free to just… learn. 

He didn’t idle an embarrassingly long time though, feeling a tad bit uneasy and in need of movement. It wasn’t all that long before he was off to explore the shelves again, heavy with the knowledge of how many eyes would be on him in the castle above and wary of how attached he was growing to the peace and quiet of the forgotten library.

He wandered, perhaps for a bit longer than he should have, through those massive shelves of books. He was still in awe by the sheer size of them. They spanned so high up in the air, so far up that Harry couldn’t ever hope to see over the tops of them. He wondered how he was expected to get at the books at the very top, and then wondered if that was the point. Perhaps the more widespread knowledge was situated very nicely at the bottom, and you had to go searching precariously several metres up in the air to find the truly precious knowledge. If that was the case, he would have to find a way up that high, and fast.

He hummed, neck craned upwards at the high ceiling, completely unknowing of anything but the tops of the bookshelves before he suddenly slammed against something hard.

“Ompf-!”

Toppling down to the ground, Harry felt his head smack against the hard ground with a thunk, white exploding across his vision as he lay there in a heap. He blinked for a moment, trying with very little luck to wash the stars from his eyes, before giving up and, with a hissed groan, closed them instead. He laid there for several seconds, willing his head to stop pounding as a ringing in his ears nearly drowned out the concerned questioning from Tom inside his mind.

“~Are you troubled, little friend?~”

He cracked his eyes open again, blinking the stars away a little more successfully this time. As he did, a large shadow fell over him, obscuring the low light of torches from his view and replacing it with familiar deep scales of turquoise green. 

“~Jörmungandr?~” He murmured, sitting up slowly as the ache in the back of his head gave way to a stinging pain. He reached back, hissing as his finger coasted past warm blood. “~Shite. I’m bleeding.~”

He wiped the blood from his fingers onto his trousers before yanking the elder wand from its sheath, muttering a simple healing charm as he did. Immediately he felt the results of it, with the pain in the back of his head disappearing as if washed away with cool water. He sighed with relief, steadily standing back up onto two feet now that his head wasn’t threatening to burst open and spill his brains across the floor.

Brushing himself off, Harry quickly started to look around to see what had stopped him, finding with mild confusion that there wasn’t anything besides bookcases that he could have run head-first into, and he was too far out of the way of any of them to have done so.

“~My little friend, how thoroughly you intrigue me. It seems that the strange stone shelf has taken an interest in you.~”

“~Pardon?~”

The snake hissed a laugh, eyes pinned to the floor beneath Harry. “~I was not aware that the symbol was for anything but dramatics, but I suppose that the old man had some truth to his words after all.~”

Harry glanced down to his feet at Jörmungandr’s words, freezing in place at the symbol carved into the stone below him. It was horribly, painfully familiar. So familiar that it knocked the air from his lungs and sent him scrambling back against some invisible barrier keeping him trapped inside the circle.

He was standing in the deathly hallows symbol, the circle and line representing the wand and cloak shining brightly through the aged stone. The triangle representing the stone was noticeably missing.

He tried to shove harder against the invisible barrier, realising distantly that it was all too likely that it was the thing that he had smacked that had sent him to the ground in the first place. He couldn’t remove himself from it, finding with rising panic that he was most certainly stuck inside the circle, and it was all too likely to be Death’s fault.

“That little bastard!”

Before he could call out for the god, however, Jörmungandr came slithering back up into his view again and disrupted his thoughts, going on about some ‘shelf’ as if this was all some silly little game and Harry wasn’t stuck within the symbol that stood for his mastery of Death.

How utterly symbolic this is, Harry.

Would you shut up for one bloody minute, Riddle?!

“~This shelf has always fascinated those who come here,~” began Jörmungandr, sounding as though he had been waiting for centuries to speak about the topic. “~ But none have ever been able to open one of the books. Tell me, my little friend, are you a descendant of the mighty necromancers?~”

Harry stared blankly at the snake, his mind doing somersaults between claustrophobic panic and rising curiosity. The intrigue won out over the panic soon enough, though, and Harry was quick to turn wide eyes towards where the basilisk’s golden gaze was pinned to.

“What in god’s name…?”

The bookshelf stood out from the other shelves starkly, like white paint on a black canvas; so aggressive and sharp that Harry wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. It was smaller than the rest —almost stocky, if an inanimate object could be described as such a thing—and was made entirely of a pale, bone-like stone, which seemed to have been carved to appear as a shelf. It held roughly 50 books, he estimated, all appearing impossibly old and absolutely reeking of necromantic magic. He could smell it, all the way from inside the deathly hallows symbol, that distinctly sweet nectar of decay. He couldn’t forget that magic if he tried, the smell and feel of it so incessantly tantalising that it nearly robbed his sense from his mind.

He was reminded, very suddenly, of a hot summer day on the edge of the road, picking a little fawn up in his hands and watching its skull piece back together as if life itself was nothing but a puppet for him to dance around on strings of golden-green light.

He felt the barrier separating him from the rest of the library fall away, and he practically stumbled to the shelf, his hands brushing faintly across the books as if they would disappear if he was too rough with them. Ancient. They were positively ancient. They reminded him so much of the books Death had gifted him when he was three. It almost hurt how familiar they were. It was like coming back to an old family friend you haven’t seen since you were just a child. Harry swallowed thickly, resisting the urge to rip the books off the shelf and take off with them, Jörmungandr’s rules against taking books from the library be damned.

“W-who…?” He stuttered out, trying to get his head around the new discovery in front of him while reminding himself to speak the language of snakes. “~Jörmungandr, who donated these to the library? Please, I need to know.~”

Jörmungandr nodded his large head gently, leaning closer to the old stone bookshelf. “~They were added roughly two hundred years after the school was founded. An aged man by the name of Peverell had come into the chamber with another man who spoke the serpent tongue. Through the translator, he explained that his brothers had been plagued by death through the books’ use, and he wished to cleanse himself and his family of it before he passed on.~”

“~Ignotus Peverell?~” Harry asked, faintly. The knowledge that the first holder of the invisibility cloak had brought these necromancy books into the library made him shiver. Everything felt too perfect, too much of a coincidence. It felt like he was meant to be here, doing this.

Fate was probably doing a little dance, giddy that things had fallen into place. Harry got the distinct impression that Death was joining her.

“~Yes! Do you know of him?~” Jörmungandr sounded pleased, his excitement edging into his serpentine accent and making his s’s drag longer than usual.

Harry sucked in a breath. This was just too perfect.

“~I’m familiar.~”

He brushed his fingertips along the book spines, feeling for the first time in his two lives that he was coming home. It was such an odd feeling. Was he feeling it because of the necromancy, or because he had always felt a sort of kinship with the Peverell brothers from the old nursery rhyme? Perhaps it was because Ignotus was the first holder of the invisibility cloak —the one thing that had defined so much of his childhood in his first life — but Harry couldn’t help but feel close to the man’s memory as well. Perhaps he was just feeling sentimental, but now that he was Master of Death, he truly felt like he owed it to the Peverells to read their books, in the very least. He had, after all, completed their tragic stories on a happy… well, on a less tragic note, he supposed.

Carefully reading the titles, trying to make sense of the Old English, Harry was quick to skim through several of the shelves, intrigued by the titles that he could understand and infinitely curious about the ones that he didn’t. His skimming stopped short, however, when he came quite suddenly upon a book with an upside-down tree illustrated across the spine. No title, just a tree ripped up from the earth and hung upside down, its roots reaching up towards the heavens in some sort of vague depiction that Harry was certain had a meaning that he was missing. Intrigued, he gingerly pulled it out, finding the same illustration pressed deep into the worn leather of the front cover.

Oh my. Tom’s voice was so incredibly quiet, Harry barely even realised he had said something.

What is it?

That's a family tree.

Harry’s breath caught. Books about specific genealogy were held tightly to the chest, of that much he was aware. It was unheard of to even show a family tree to people outside of the family unless absolutely necessary, and to see it among these books in a library of all things…

He gently opened it to the front cover without a second thought.

Reading over the Peverell brothers’ oldest known ancestors, the ones who were long dead but remembered by those who had created the book in the first place, was an interesting experience. Tom had told him many years prior that for a long time, tomes meant to document family trees were charmed to be self-updating, and that any family could make one if they were of the skill and social class to need and desire it. The creators of the book had their memories drawn upon, and all those who came before them that were still remembered by the book’s creators would be written down in the first few pages, with just their names and lines connecting them to their descendants. That way, people reading it in the future could tell when they reached those who created the book, just by when they found the first people with a face put to the name, as the book started to document a person's facial features and name from conception to the age of 25, which was typically when the book was passed onto the next generation. Harry found rather quickly that the three brothers were only a few generations after the original creators of the book, but they were hardly the last. 

Harry hummed, lowering himself to the ground to get comfortable as he slowly read through the family tree of long-dead generations. Ignotus had a son to whom he had given the cloak, of which Harry was aware, but the tall tale had not said much after that.

“Ah, here it is.” He muttered, long finger poised over a familiar name. “Jonas Peverell. Looks like he had only one child, a daughter named-”

He stopped, staring uncomprehendingly at the name Iolanthe Potter nee. Peverell. 

Potter.

Well… shit.

Harry started flipping through the book at a fast pace, no longer caring about the old pages as he followed the invisibility cloak’s path as it was passed down the line of Potters for generations until...there.

He stared, disbelieving, at his own name and face. The portrait was him, without a doubt, the large lightning bolt scar too obvious to ignore. He was at the very end of the tree, sitting proudly at the end of the line that Ignotus Peverell’s family had created. Flipping back through the prior few pages, he found with a distanced surprise that his grandparents on his father’s side were named Charles and Euphemia Potter, and that he had no particularly close relatives. His family had only had one child per couple for a good seven generations, so he was the last of them.

Harry… you’re descended from the Peverells.

Harry rubbed a long hand down his face, flipping the page back over again to look at his own portrait. There it was, undeniable and impossible to ignore. He was the last descendant of the Peverell family, and he didn’t have the slightest clue what to do about it.

What should I do?

This was his family. It was his family that he had never truly gotten to name. It was his family that he shared something with, something that he thought was his and his alone to bear. Necromancers. He was descended from the Peverell brothers —from necromancers. Being Master of Death wasn’t just his, being a necromancer wasn’t just his, it was a legacy that had stayed in his family, had been hidden from the line but still passed down—down and down the line until he fulfilled all the requirements and became it. He had done it.

He was the end of a story that his ancestors had birthed out of blood and bone. It was his story to tell. It was his family’s story to own.

It was his.

Harry felt like he had just completed something that was centuries in the making. He felt like he had done something for those long-dead ancestors that he had never gotten to meet.

Necromancers. His family had the blood of necromancers screaming through their veins.

For a short, barely-perceivable moment, Harry was perfectly content with the fact that he had been sent back in time, if only because he had been given the chance to know—to learn what had come of the Peverell line. What had come of his family.

Harry breathed deeply, listening quietly to the pleased hissing of Jörmungandr over his shoulder as he gazed up at the old stone bookcase. He was sitting in front of ancient necromantic texts that were, in any way that mattered, his birthright.

Springing forwards, he grabbed a few off the shelf, forgoing all sense as he scrambled up and started to travel back towards the circular stone table at the middle of the maze of books. He didn’t gaze around at the other books this time. No, for the first time since he stepped foot in the library, he couldn’t care less about what secrets could be held in those ancient shelves. For once, all he wanted to do was sit down and breathe in the history that he had never even brushed fingers against —history that had been lost to his family for so long that the only thing left of it outside of the library was a nursery rhyme that only crazy old men and power-hungry dark lords believed in.

Tom, I’ve decided something.

Yes?

Harry swallowed thickly, his excitement edging dangerously close to hysteria. This was all he needed from the library. He was curious, of course, about all the rest, but not nearly enough to care. He could learn any of it another day, but for now, this was crucial.

I don’t care about the rest of the library. Let’s just… let’s just copy down that shelf, yeah? Only that one. The journal hasn’t even been started yet, so it's not like we would be halting any of our progress.

… All right, Harry, if that’s what you want.

“It is.”

He stopped at the table, breathing deeply as excitement raced through his heart —through his blood.

“It’s what I need right now Tom. I need this.”

The frightened, lonely young child screaming out for his family went silent, shocked into stillness as Harry creaked open one of the aged, ancient books and turned to the first page.

Theo felt the heat of eyes on the back of his neck, pinning him in place as he poured over blurred pages of a tome older than his grandfather, three more sitting a little ways away, patiently waiting to be grabbed and dissected. He hadn’t left from the seat he was in for hours, back hunched and aching as his eyes pieced apart the knowledge sitting in front of him as the seconds ticked down towards an impossible crescendo. It felt like if he stopped writing he would implode, his every muscle taut as a wire and his mind spiralling into overdrive. His hand was cramping, his wrist aching as he scribbled vigorously onto a piece of parchment that was one wrong quill placement away from ripping.

He was so, so close to relief.

He had woken up early that morning, feeling just as dead as always and already cramping in the wrist, but had still slipped into the great hall for a slice of toast and a cuppa before his friends were awake and able to convince him to go and do something besides read. He knew that they wanted him to do something other than sit there, pouring over dusty old tomes in the Hogwarts library, but he just couldn’t. Harry seemed like the only one who really understood or, at the very least, respected his needs, and had kept well enough away from the entire nonsense of ‘having fun’ that Draco and Blaise were so incredibly keen to force onto him. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

He didn't have the time to do anything else, his hunches —his every nerve— was screaming at him that he needed to know everything he possibly could about the worship of Norse gods, and he couldn't fully concentrate on anything else till he had enough knowledge to stave off the thirst. He knew —he just knew that something horrible would happen if he didn’t do this, if he didn’t find the piece of information he needed to make the bad thing stop —it didn’t matter what Draco or Blaise said about eating and sleeping and living . It didn’t matter if he couldn’t even manage to think beyond study study study study study study stud-

Putting the current tome aside with a rough shove, he pulled one off the stack next to him and threw it aggressively in front of him. Flipping furiously to the table of contents, he hissed out a pained groan to find that there wasn't one. There was a spike —like a shock of electricity—right through his spine, and for a moment Theo contemplated throwing the book across the library and then himself out the window. The feeling was growing shockingly quickly. He could barely even concentrate on the book, too focused on the stiffness in his muscles and joints and Merlin he was going to explode.

He breathed in deeply, forcing thoughts of panic and anger out of his mind as he let the physical pain wash over him. It was there for a reason —he knew it was—but it wasn’t going to leave a lasting effect. It was just going to stick to him, painfully tight and spitting with fury until he finally found what the fates wanted him to find.

Breathing slightly easier, he flipped to the back and found the index, sighing with relief as the words peered up at him kindly as if they housed the forgiving light of Merlin himself. Gleaming as much as he could from the tiny print, he then flipped to the general area of a potential lead and began to read. He read several pages, eyes darting furiously from line to line, before picking up his quill again and picking back up where he left off, writing with the fury of ten scholars on a deadline.

It is theorised that each god specified wildly different things from their worshipers, which has made finding concrete evidence so difficult, as there are such wildly differing reports. Many have thought that each god had its own methods of worship, and even specific preferences towards sacrifices, which is what many historians believe has caused the differing opinions of many historical texts on the issue.

He paused, quickly reading over the passage a second time before flipping quickly back to the index. Reading through the source materials, he leapt to his feet and shot off to the religion section. He recognized one of the titles. He had never read it, but he knew that book. It had to be the answer his hunch was looking for. 

Practically sprinting through the stacks, he came upon the book quickly and, muttering hurriedly to himself, ripped it from the shelf and sprinted back the way he came. Scrambling into the chair, he threw open the book and flipped furiously through the pages, trying to find one particular passage he knew had to be there. Coming upon it suddenly, Theo jolted as a sharp stab of electricity shot through him —a sign that he was on the right track—and so he leaned in close and eagerly drank up the words.

Gods of Norse mythos were known for being fairly precise when it came to their desired ritualistic practices. Many gods of old were known to have strong followings of massive groups of people, and ceremonies were general and vaguely similar. Conversely, and in a similar fashion of the tribes native to the Americas, the northern Germanic tribes of the 9th century AD that have been credited as the first worshipers of the Asgardian pantheon, were spread out and differed in opinion on how exactly one was to worship. Their gods emulated this fact. 

It had been said that each of the Norse gods had a prophet write out a set of sacred documents that outlined each god’s personal specifications for worship. These supposed documents would have then been used to bind a follower to a specific god, and would then allow the god and follower to have a close bond that many historians refer to as ‘symbiotic’. However, these supposed documents have not been proven to have ever existed, and have been widely assumed by the vast majority of historians to be nothing but rumours. Many even believe that many of the documents that have been found had more nefarious purposes, as many of the rituals detailed inside of them have some sort of theme around demonic entities. It is widely believed that these falsified documents were created after the influence of Christianity in the Germanic region, though it is difficult to say for certain.

It didn't have specifics, but it was more than enough for him. Falling back into his chair with a sigh, Theo felt the ich recede, and his mind settled. For a moment, all he did was sit there and breathe, savouring the peace in his mind and body as the discomfort and ache in his muscles fell away. It was an indescribable feeling of relief after nearly a month of trying to figure out Blaise’s idiotic disfunction.

Theo sighed, rubbing a hand down his face as the fatigue started to set in.

He could only assume that Blaise had to have come upon one of these supposed sacred documents, and was unknowingly or — Merlin forbid, knowingly — about to pledge himself to a random god. There wasn't anything life-threatening about that, per se, as it seemed reasonable to Theo to say that gods typically take good care of their followers, but it wasn't very good form, at least from what he had learned. There was also always the possibility of him doing it incorrectly as well, and Theo could only theorise what sort of creature Blaise could be letting into his body if that were to happen.

He opened his eyes, exhausted. The last time he had had one of these hunches was when he was trying to figure out what was up between Harry and Draco. He had eventually come upon soul bonds, and had sent a book to Harry about it for his birthday, which was all well and good, but the research had lasted most of the summer and had very nearly killed him. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, sucking in a sharp breath. Those two especially seemed to be trying very hard to kill him with all their mysteries. He had been searching the library for weeks after last Hallowe’en had happened — when he had gotten the overwhelming feeling that something had started. He had finally come upon creature inheritances and their effects, but the gruelling effort that had taken him to that realisation had not been worth it.

Honestly, he didn't know why his hunches always insisted on him researching these things concerning his friends, but he felt like he would eventually figure it out. It just felt like something that would be coming a bit later though, rather than right now. 

Maybe it would be his next hunch.

Sighing, Theo opened his eyes and, with a pained grimace at the mess, began sorting through all of his notes.

No, perhaps it would come soon though. Theo was awfully certain that his next bout of agony would be in regards to Draco. He could already feel it growing … itching at the back of his mind; an annoying sensation that begged him to push things just a little farther than he wanted. The fates already had their next task for him, and Theo wasn’t about to spend another month wading through piles of books in order to find it.

Draco weaved in and out of the goalposts, dipping low then soaring high in the vague formation of loops in the air. He let himself fly fluidly —languidly, almost, and in the process ignoring every flying instructor he’d ever had screaming in his ear to grasp the broom more firmly. He smiled at the thought of them all throwing down their hats in astonishment at seeing him fly so lazily. Madam Merryweather, the old bat that she was, would probably have a stroke if she caught wind of it. He didn’t really care about his form though, not now at least, too caught up in a mix of aching muscles, a wandering mind, and a high-strung emotion he refused to believe was concern.

The aching muscles were Flint’s fault — no doubt about that. The bastard had been forcing the Slytherin quidditch team up and out of bed impossibly early each weekend to practice, and had then been keeping them all out at the pitch till lunch. If they were lucky they were allowed a short reprieve to go back inside to eat, before having to go back out and stay out, running drill after drill after drill till dinner. It was utterly gruelling, and Draco was starting to wonder if he would ever get his weekends back to enjoy how he pleased.

“Not that it matters.” He muttered, grumbling angrily under his breath as he neared the goalposts. Even if he did somehow get the weekends off again, he would still have to contend with the silence that was sure to greet him in his dorms.

Weaving out of the goalposts and into the open air, he swerved upside down and hung like that for a moment, arms waving along with the breeze and mind contemplative. Harry had been impossible to keep track of over the last few weeks, and Draco had gotten incredibly sick of running after him in an effort to figure out exactly where he was going and what he was trying to do. It never worked regardless . Harry, Draco had unwittingly come to realise, was very good at disappearing when he wanted to. Draco had struggled to get even a moment alone with the other boy outside of meals —just barely long enough to question him about his disappearing act — and even once he had managed it, all the answers he’d gotten had been either frighteningly vague or infuriatingly convoluted. He never seemed capable of keeping the conversation onto the topic he wanted either, which seemed to be another thing Harry was surprisingly good at —changing the subject, that is.

It would be incredibly infuriating if Draco wasn’t so impressed by it.

Perhaps he could be both at the same time.

Draco grumbled, turning right side up again as he neared the other side of the pitch. It wasn’t that he was incredibly concerned for Harry—he knew that his friend could manage himself well enough on his own—it was just that Harry was never around anymore, and it was starting to get painfully annoying. It was only made worse by the fact that Theo was off on another research bender and Blaise couldn’t be found far from that muggleborn firstie, so he couldn’t go and bother either of them. It wasn’t like either of them seemed all that interested in what Draco wanted to do regardless, but now he wasn’t even being allowed the option of being ignored in lieu of other things.

Draco didn’t really want to admit that he was a tad irked by all the secret-keeping and knowledge-plundering going on around him.

Picking up speed, Draco did a somersault and dove, reaching out for an imaginary snitch as the biting wind stung at his eyes. He neared the ground fast, wind in his ears and adrenaline pumping through his veins and focus driving every millisecond. Closer… closer… now! Pulling up half a foot away from the turf, he rocketed the other direction, crisscrossing around in complex patterns at breakneck speed. The wind on his face —biting and pleasant at the same time—made him whoop with glee as he whizzed across the pitch, so close to the turf that he could reach out a hand and brush his fingers across the grass if he wanted.

And it was fine, really, that Blaise and Theo also had their own little side projects that were carrying them away during the weekend. Theo was always holed up in the library regardless of if he was furiously researching or not anyway, and likely wouldn’t want to do anything with Draco even if he had nothing of his own to do. And Blaise… well, Draco’s interests didn’t really align with Blaise’s idea of fun.

He hardly liked being pushed to the side, but it was better than helping Blaise ruin another perfectly sane mind with his antics.

Draco flew a corkscrew pattern in the air, yanking up towards the sky and picking up speed and letting the thrill of flying drown out all his worries. At least he didn't have anything strange going on like his friends. At least he wasn't keeping secrets like Harry.

The tender skin on his back ached unpleasantly as it rubbed against his skin, and he winced at the feeling.

“That’s different.” He muttered to the sky. The grey expanse did not reply, but Draco got the distinct impression that it didn’t believe him. That was fine. He didn’t either. Not really.

Grey…? But it was sunny just a moment ago?

He stopped short, his attention yanked away from the thought as a searingly hot pain ripped across his back. It felt like the wind had gotten knocked from his lungs, and Draco nearly let go of the broom as he gasped and hunched over, taking in deep breaths of air in some sort of desperate grab to keep steady.

The wind was screaming at him, he realised, loud and thunderous. It sounded like it might rain any second. Draco had no idea how he hadn’t noticed.

He blinked, swallowing thickly as he slowly, steadily, pointed his broom downwards and started to descend, his hair standing up on end as thunder boomed a ways off in the distance. He clambered to his feet on the turf, stumbling off the broom as the wind and the beginnings of rain thundered down on his back, searingly cold and shockingly painful. It wasn’t like the gentle showerhead in the baths, he realised distantly, as he started running through the sudden downpour towards the stands. It was more like the thundering rapids of a waterfall; unpleasant and angry as it forced itself over him.

He made it under the stands just as the thunder boomed again, lightning lighting up the sky with an angry bolt of blue light. He jumped at the noise, feeling jumbled and confused as he crowded under the stands to take refuge from the sudden storm.

Sitting down on the rickety stairs, he stared dully out into the rain, breathing shallowly as the pain in his back crawled down from his shoulder blades towards the vague centre of his spine. Something felt wrong, like that wasn’t supposed to have happened. Draco shivered, hugging his arms closer to his body as the rain dropped heavily onto the muddy earth outside the stands.

“Merlin.” He whispered, gazing out into the downpour with wide eyes, water dripping down onto his face from the cracks in the floor above him. Draco was suddenly acutely aware of how cold it was outside, with his robes soaked through and clinging to him like a second skin. He shivered, hugging closer to himself as the onslaught only increased in intensity. He couldn’t see the other side of the circular stands through the haze of falling water. Would he even be able to get back to the school through the low visibility? For some reason, Draco got the distinct impression he was being told by the elements to stay where he was till the rain let up.

…

He was freezing.

Standing with a start, he scrambled for his wand, pulling it out with shivering fingers that were already starting to numb from the mix of water and wind. Teeth clattering, he waved it over himself, murmuring the strongest warming charm he could remember as he fumbled for his broom with his other hand. He sighed slightly with relief as the warmth rushed through him —not enough to dry his clothes, but enough to make the freezing temperature of the water clinging to him considerably more bearable.

“Right then. Yes. Just stick to the path.” He murmured to himself, clutching his broom close as he rounded to the other side of the stands, squinting slightly in an effort to make out the now muddy path back to the castle. He couldn’t see much but a metre out in front of him, but as long as he could tell if there was a path beneath him or not, he should be able to manage. 

Steeling himself for what was sure to be a rather unpleasant run through the rain, he lit a lumos on his wand and, with one last vague curse to the gods, took off running down the path.

Chapter Text

“A-achoo!”

“What were you thinking, child, running around in the rain like a dog?” Madam Pomfrey huffed, shoving a vial of something or other in his face as some odd sort of spell washed warmly over his shoulders. The mediwitch waved her wand at him once the warmth began to fade, and nodded to herself silently as words appeared in the air beside his head. He didn’t care to try and read them, too bothered by the cold soaked deep into his skin.
“Not like I bloody wanted to.” He muttered, sniffling slightly with distaste as he took the vial and downed it without question. It ran fast through his throat, burning like he had swallowed fire and heating up his insides just the same. Draco hummed, oddly pleased by the sensation.

“Language!” The Madam admonished loudly, cuffing him lightly upside the head as she shoved another odd sort of potion in his face. He took it a little more forcefully that time, glaring as he rubbed the spot where she had hit.

“Don’t whack me, woman.” He hissed, meeting her forceful gaze with his own, “or I’ll have my father here faster than you can pack your things.”

She wrinkled her nose at him, ripping the now-empty vial from his hands and shoving a third in his direction. “Do take care to watch your tone. I am your mediwitch, Mister Malfoy, not your mother. If you are going to waltz about in the rain on a cold day like this, then it is my job to care for your physical form, not your mind.”

“Why did you hit me then?”

“Mister Malfoy I-”

She stopped suddenly, looking caught between hitting him a second time and simply ignoring his jabs. Draco braced for either one, and tried not to look too pleased with himself when the mediwitch merely harrumphed, taking the last vial from his hands and placing it on the table with the others. “You’ll be right as rain by tomorrow, Mister Malfoy. Though there isn’t much I can do about those growths on your back. See to it that you discuss with your parents about those, if you haven’t already made them aware.”

He turned to her quickly, eyes wide. “How did you know about-”

She waved an unconcerned hand in his direction as she packed up the vials, already turning her attention elsewhere. “The physical report, Mister Malfoy, notified me of your back wounds along with the cold. It seems that you are already aware of them, so I will not press you, do try to speak with one of the mediwix at Saint Mungo’s at your earliest convenience. They appear to be some sort of magical growth, and Merlin knows that those can prove to be fatal if left untreated.”

“It is a hereditary affliction, if I am not mistaken.” He griped, trying not to sound concerned for himself as he pulled the hospital gown closer around himself. She levelled a stern look his way in return, and he managed a rather sombre one in response.

“Then you would do well to discuss it with your parents, Mister Malfoy. I know children do not wish to speak with adults, but we are quite knowledgeable in things, you know.” She shook her head, not noticing the shrivelled expression on his face. “You’re free to go whenever you please. Just leave the hospital gown on the bed before you do.”

And with that, she toddled off to the back room without so much as a backwards glance, likely running off to do some other sort of nonsense that she cared more about than him. Draco slumped, glaring at the space she vacated as the rain battered hard against the window beside the bed, the forceful shove of wind and rain against the old glass making him wonder if the weather was trying to get at him for one last row. He glared towards the large pane of glass, eyes narrowed and eyelashes still damp, and stuck out his tongue.

Dear Father,

Due to a concern for my own personal well-being, as well as a discomfort that is impossible for me to describe, I have taken it upon myself to discuss the odd growths on my back with Madam Pomfrey, the mediwitch here at Hogwarts, and she had concerns that they may prove medically compromising to me in future. I trust your word, of course, but I have concerns for my own health that make my trust in you waver slightly on this matter. 

If you are aware of any method that might either make the growths shrink or disappear entirely, I would most appreciate learning what it may be. If not, I humbly request that we discuss what would be in my health’s best interest as soon as possible.

Your heir, Draconis Lucius Malfoy.

Draconis,

I have received your letter and shall now reply accordingly. I regret to inform you that the nature of your ailment is one that is better discussed face to face, and request your patience till Yuletide. I also ask that you no longer discuss the condition with the school’s mediwitch, as she is likely not trained in the exact nature of family ailments, and we, as your parents, have doubts that she would be able to give you proper and helpful advice. Your condition is, while uncomfortable, not life-threatening in the slightest, so we ask that you calm yourself and rid your mind of such ridiculous notions.

Your mother sends well wishes and a more potent balm.

Lord Lucius Abraxas Malfoy.

Draco tossed the letter aside with a groan, slumping over onto his desk like a puppet without strings. It had been an entire week since his jaunt through the rain and subsequent infirmary visit, and he had sent his letter out to his father the day after that. But, unfortunately, his father had, for some ungodly reason, decided not to reply for the entirety of that week, despite Draco being fully aware that his father had nothing to do besides write letters. And, once he had finally decided to write a response, not only had it been impressively vague, but completely and utterly unhelpful. He groaned again, rubbing his face into the palms of his hands and making a conservative effort to not burst into tears.

Heirs of great houses do not cry, Draconis. Calm yourself.

It was the night of the Hallowe’en, and he had spent the entire feast trying very hard to not either crawl under the table and sob, or leave altogether and hole up in his dorm until his back either stopped feeling like it was going to split apart or it actually got on with it and tore his skin apart. He felt like it was close to the latter result as well, though he couldn’t tell if it was because of the pain or because something was now distinctly visible to him through the skin of his back. For the past week, he had been feeling and observing the lumps carefully, and he could see it very blatantly now —two distinct balls of bone, poking painfully at the thin layer of skin keeping them trapped inside his body. He would have found the sight disgusting if he hadn’t been so busy with the pain it created. It felt like someone was rubbing sandpaper down the interior of his skin, scratching at the sensitive nerves every time he moved so much as an inch. It was agonising, and he was tired, and he wanted it to stop.

It was so incredibly frustrating that no one—not even the parents who were supposed to raise him—wanted to tell him anything.

When he had seen his father’s reply sitting on his desk beside a small package, he had hoped that it would be something actually useful. Not a bunch of empty platitudes and apologies tied rather unpleasantly around the distanced, aching feeling of being lied to. His trip to the medical wing —Merlin damn that woman—the week before had done nothing but make him supremely worried for his own mortality. Then he had gotten nothing from his father for the entire week until this… this lame excuse and more itchy, unpleasant balm that he couldn’t even bloody apply without asking for help from-from who? Who in Merlin’s name was he supposed to ask for help to apply the balm if his parents didn’t even want him to bloody speak about it?

His back in agony, Draco leapt to his feet, shoving everything—the balm, the letter, all his schoolwork—everything off his desk and onto the floor. The mess of debris clattered to the shag carpet beneath him without much chaos, painfully quiet and unhelpfully non-destructive as he stood there and just… seethed.

Draco didn’t know how long he stood there, quietly, with his chest heaving and back feeling seconds away from tearing apart. But Merlin, he just wanted to know what was happening to him. Was that truly too much to ask?

“Alright there, mate?”

He whipped around, his wand finding its way into his hand and a curse onto his lips before he belatedly recognized the voice and froze. Familiar brown eyes stared at him curiously, and despite the anger churning so close to his skin, Draco felt himself relax slightly.

“This isn't your dorm, Theo.”

His friend snorted, “it might as well be.”

They looked at each other for a moment, Theo with his head tilted to the side, contemplative, and Draco trying to muster up some sort of hatred for the quiet boy in front of him. He was starting to get angry that he couldn’t.

Finally, as if yanked from a daydream, Theo’s gaze left him, and Draco stumbled back slightly as his friend moved forward and, with a steady hand, bent down and began carefully picking up the parchment and books strewn about the place. Draco took a deep breath in, watching as the stupid letter and useless, itchy balm were taken from the floor where they belonged and settled rather gently down on his desk in a nice, neat pile.

“You never read that book I sent you last Yule,” Theo murmured, his voice soothing and slightly echoey in the silent room. Draco blinked for a moment, thinking back to that day. He barely remembered, really; it had been a vague mess of presents and celebrations and just a few oddities peculiar enough to make him ignore it.

“My father took it away. He said it was inappropriate of you to send it. Care to explain?” He finally replied, recalling distantly how his father had looked distastefully down at the book before quickly leaving with it, saying nothing besides that he was going to write Lord Nott a strongly worded letter about his grandson.

Theo sighed, long and heavy. “Your father seems to be stuck very firmly in tradition, you know. He likely didn't want you to know sooner than necessary.”

Then, as if the conversation was finished, the brunet boy turned away, sharp eyes gazing around the room, observing it carefully for any faults in its design. Draco passingly wondered how much Theo paid attention to his surroundings. He always seemed so curious about things that he had seen dozens of times already. “-but that decision was hindering you, so I thought it would be best to send you and Harry copies of the book so you could figure it out by yourself.”

His eyes narrowed, and he gripped the back of his desk chair. Theo seemed to know an awful lot of things for someone who talked so little. “Truly? Well, please, do tell. What exactly do the sores on my back have to do with a book of magical creatures? ”

Theo seemed surprised, “sores on your back…?”

Draco scoffed,  “oh, so you know all this shite about my family but not something like that? Just what is your prerogative, Nott, because it certainly doesn’t seem like anything I want to take part in.” He hissed, fingers clenching tighter around the back of his chair, so tight that he could feel his fingernails digging deep into the wood. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He was sick of —of everything.

Theo ignored the look in his eyes, not even sparing a glance at Draco as he stared off into space, a deeply contemplative look marring his features.

“Well?”

That seemed to break the other boy out of his thoughts, and he turned very suddenly towards the opposite side of the room. Draco ripped his fingers free of the old oak chair, watching as Theo walked over to Harry's side of the room and, as if in a trance, gently lifted a familiar-looking book off the desk. It was well worn, having been carried around by Harry everywhere he went for an unreasonably long amount of time, and had lots of pieces of parchment and notes stuck into the pages at odd angles. Theo flipped past all those, however, to near the back of the book, and stood there silently, occasionally flipping a page as Draco stood silently behind him, growing more and more irritated by the second.

“Ahhh, I see,” he finally stated, rather dully.

“What do you see?” Draco demanded, sitting back down in his desk chair with a dull thump as he did. Theo gave him an odd, heavy look as he walked back to the desk, the worn book held aloft in one hand. The expression on Theo’s face made Draco pause for a moment, and he watched silently as the boy gently set the book down in front of him.

“I don't want to get between you and your father Draco, but he doesn't seem to have your best interest at heart.” He whispered quietly, his finger poised over a specific line of text. “Heritage is important to us purebloods. You of all people should know that.”

Draco didn't even look at it. Instead, his eyes were pinned to Theo’s face, trying to figure out what about his expression made Draco so uneasy. There was something deeply sad about it.

“I get hunches sometimes, and they're almost always right. Read this page, will you? It’ll at least answer some questions.”

And then, as if nothing had even happened, Theo turned and walked away, leaving Draco staring at the spot he vacated with wide, unseeing eyes. He ignored the door shutting, and the silence that followed, too caught up in racing thoughts and an unimaginable pain ripping across his spine to focus on much of anything beyond it. He didn't know how long he sat there, glaring at the floor as hot, seething anger churned just below his skin, but eventually, he calmed down enough to turn to the book.

He began to read. 

His eyes skimmed past most of the entries, drifting in the general direction that Theo had pointed at. Seemingly despite himself, his gaze latched onto a specific entry, holding tightly to it as if the fates themselves had forced his eyes to the direction of their whims.

Veela-Salvic

Veela are commonly described as semi-human magical beings native to Bulgaria, or more precisely the Slavic highlands. Appearing as beautiful women with white-gold hair and pale skin, they have a natural affinity to charm other beings. When angered, however, they transform into Harpy-like creatures (see page 744) and have the ability to throw balls of flame from their hands. Veela are well known as the magical creature to most often wed wizards. Due to this, it is not uncommon for many old wizarding families to inhibit traits of traditionally Veela heritage, though if these traits are credited to an official creature inheritance is unknown.

Draco could distantly register the sound of an explosion, the cracking of wood and the tearing of paper and the ripping of fabric. He could distantly feel the dorm shift, the cool water outside bubbling into a frenzy as a horrific groaning sound boomed through his ears. He could distantly understand that something had just tested the strength of the school's foundation. He could just barely feel something lashing out around him, destroying everything in its path save for him. Draco could understand this, but couldn’t seem to bring himself to understand why it was happening.

Looking down at his hands, feeling distanced from his body and mind and soul, he brought them both up to his face. Red flames, flickering along a predestined path, flowed hot and soothing across his fingers. They were warm, not searing. The fire was almost… comforting. It felt like a gentle kiss against his knuckles.

Draco could feel his anger, as distanced and searing as it may be, but could not react to it. He understood that it was his own—of that he had no unreasonable doubt—but it felt so incomprehensible somehow, as if there was a wall of glass separating his conscious mind and the raging inferno destroying everything around it. Slowly, gently, he brought his left hand down to the chair's armrest, watching with detached curiosity as it lit aflame. 

There were yells, and a sudden splintering sound, all originating from the left of him. Someone burst through the door, the shouts growing louder as heavy footfalls joined the fray. Feet appeared in front of him—legs, he thought. He was shaken slightly by two long hands as they came up and cradled his face, shockingly cold as they wiped away boiling tears that he hadn’t realised were falling.

He could hear a familiar voice—muffled though it was—from behind the person holding his face. It was deep and melodious. They were hushed words, angry words, and Draco wondered if they were meant for him. He figured they had to be. He was the one who had made the mess, after all.

Looking up slowly, his eyes grew blurry and unfocused for a moment before sharpening back in on a shocking green. The green was surrounded by tan skin, of which had been slashed apart by paleness, disrupted and disillusioned by a familiar scar. He reached out to it, brushing a finger down the scar tissue gently, before his vision grew hazy and, with one more muffled word from the deep voice, he fell away into darkness.

Harry felt the magical outburst before he heard it, and was already out of his seat and up the stairs before anyone else in the common room could even register the earth-shaking boom. He stumbled slightly on his way up the stairs as the ground rocked, shocked shouts ringing out through the common room as the entire Slytherin dormitories lurched slightly to the left. He cursed, adjusting to the change mid-step as the wards began working feverishly to combat the magic attacking him.

Magic. 

He knew that magic almost as well as he knew his own. It was around him almost constantly, after all, seeping under his skin and sticking to his clothes like glue. It was sharp, distinct, and hot, all mixed together and spit back out onto a backwash of vague greys and reds. How could he not recognize it?

Bursting into the dorm room, not minding as the door cracked and splintered under the force of his body, Harry stopped short, chest heaving in a breath as he spared himself a moment to take in the carnage. The dorm room was wrecked, with the bedposts blown to splinters and strewn parchment lit aflame. Curtains and comforters and pillowcases all burned to cinders, scattered about the place as if a whirlwind had torn through them. And, sitting quietly within it all, was Draco, watching his chair burn with a detached look on his face.

Harry took a deep breath in, the air in his lungs tainted with smoke and heat as he made his way around the carnage, dodging burning piles of parchment and splintered lumber as he neared the blond boy sitting unresponsive in the chair. Crouching down to Draco’s level, Harry moved mostly on instinct, cupping the boy’s face in both hands and, while whispering calming words under his breath, gently rubbed away the searingly hot tears as they fell from Draco’s face. He needed to calm his friend down. Nothing could happen before that. 

“What in Merlin's name has happened here!” A sudden voice boomed. Harry jumped, forced away from his task as he turned to stare at his head of house, who stood stiff and in shock in the doorway.

“Draco he… he’s had a magical outburst, sir.”

Snape cursed, ripping his wand from its sheath before waving it in a complex pattern around the room. Harry watched with reserved awe as the damage done to the room and everyone’s personal defects was reversed, the fire extinguishing and the cinders returning to the papers and parchment that they once were. It was a rather remarkable thing to do without any sort of verbal enchantment to pull it off.

As Draco's desk was rebuilt, stitched together along with several items scattered about the floor, Harry noticed his book lying there on top of it. Distantly, he reached out to it, picking it up with a delicate hand as the other continued to cradle Draco’s face gently. ‘Every Magical Creature Known’ was turned to an unfamiliar page, one very far from where he currently was in the book.

His eyes were drawn, almost immediately, to a particular passage, and Harry spared himself a moment to read it.

Veela… 

“Professor,” he whispered quietly, flipping the book shut as he did, “do you know of any creature blood in the Malfoy line?”

He turned to look at the man, observing how Snape went white as a sheet, blood draining from his face faster than Harry thought possible. They stared at each other for a moment, Harry’s eyes hard and accusatory, before the professor yanked his gaze away, turning it instead towards the newly rebuilt dormitory. Cursing under his breath, the potions professor closed his eyes and, with a low sigh, rubbed a tired hand down his face.

“Blast it, Lucius, you stubborn fool…” he muttered, almost too quiet for Harry to hear. The man stood for a moment, looking twice his age and in desperate need of a drink, before he turned hard eyes back to Harry. There was a tired, determined look to them that Harry couldn’t help but respect. Severus Snape simply was not paid enough for the life that he was living. “We need to have him moved to my quarters. Lu—Lord Malfoy requested if this were to happen, I would call upon him immediately.”

Harry opened his mouth to reply, about to argue that what Draco needed at the moment was medical assistance, before a pained groan pulled his attention away. He watched, body frozen and eyes wide, as Draco wavered for a moment, eyes half-closed and hazy, before he let out another pained groan and immediately fell against Harry’s shoulder. There was a moment where he could do nothing but sit there, shocked stiff by… something —shock, perhaps?—before he manoeuvred the shorter boy back into the seat, resting the blond’s head against the burnt wood as gently as he could.

For a moment, he just sat there, feeling unnaturally stricken at the sight of Draco appearing so small, sitting slumped in a chair too big for his frame. Harry felt his heartache uncomfortably, wondering how much Draco had been suffering through something that he knew he had been plagued with incessantly for months. How had he not realised? Thasin even calls him bird boy for Merlin’s sake. How had he not paid more attention? Suspicions, even small ones, should always be addressed. Tom had taught him far better than that.

Tamping down the guilt for the moment, acknowledging that it was not useful to him or Draco, Harry grabbed for his wand to levitate the other boy up and out of the chair before a hand settled firmly on his shoulder and pulled him back slightly.

“No need for that Potter, I'll do it.”

He paused for a moment, feeling needlessly cautious as he stared up at the professor, before he stood back up from his knees and made room for the man. He watched distantly as Draco was levitated out of the chair, his body limp and unresponsive as Snape took him from the room and out into the hall. Harry stuck as close as he dared, watching like a hawk as the professor moved Draco out of the dorm hall and into the commons. He glared heatedly at the few other Slytherins milling about the place, narrowing his eyes at their curious gazes. Most of them heeded his stare and went back to their business, shrugging off the anomalous precession as a daily oddity of magical life. 

Harry was about to follow the professor as he levitated Draco out of the common room and into his adjacent office, but stopped short when he caught Theo’s suspiciously guilty eyes from across the room. Staring blankly for a moment, he glanced between Draco’s prone form and Theo’s slightly slumped one, before narrowing his eyes. Then, sharply, he motioned to the boy with a nod of his head and quickly headed back up towards the dorm. He didn’t glance back once, feeling more than knowing that Theo was following along from a ways behind him.

Stepping into the newly reconstructed dorm, he strode over to his book on Draco’s desk. Then, plucking it back up, he turned around on his heel, pointing it in Theo’s direction as if it were a metre stick. Then, striding back over to the boy, he practically shoved it into his hands, barely holding back his anger as the shorter boy stumbled back several steps.

“Explain yourself, Nott. Now.”

I’ll crush your skull into dust you lecherous little-

Harry stepped back half a step, forcing his fingers into fists as Theo winced, shrivelling into himself as if the air was deflating from his lungs. “I didn't think this would happen when I gave him the book, alright?”

Harry scoffed, throwing his hands up in the air sarcastically. “Wow, no shit! What did you think was going to happen? That he would just go along with his day as if everything was all fine and dandy? Are you daft, or just emotionally constipated?”

Theo reared back, eyes narrowing suddenly as he rounded on Harry. “Oh, so you knew about it, didn’t you? Thought you would keep it to yourself, eh?”

Harry teetered slightly, “I… I had suspicions —o f course I did, I'm not a moron — but I'm not so tactless that I would go and-and… Merlin, Theo, what did you do to make him react like that?”

Theo glowered, standing firm, “it was the right thing to do. He had every right to know-”

“Oh bloody hell, you didn’t… did you really? Theo, did you think for a second that it might be a bit of a sensitive topic? Do you truly lack tact?”

“I had a hunch!”

Harry blinked, “and since when is having a ‘hunch’ a good argument?”

“Since it was me having the hunch.”

Harry slapped a hand over his face, breathing deeply in an effort not to rip Theo’s skin from his bones.

“Theo, you clearly have some sort of… of precognition, but that is… it is never going to be a good excuse to hurt someone, do you understand me?”

It was quiet for a moment, before-

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

Harry took a shaky breath. There was something so horribly, disgustingly horrifying about seeing Draco in that chair, slumped over and breathing shallowly. He couldn’t get it out of his head. He couldn’t get the memory out from under his eyelids.

He didn’t want to rip Theo in half, but his fingers were starting to twitch painfully for action.

“Should I come back later?”

As if splashed with ice water, Harry jumped to attention, ripping the hand from his face as Theo whirled around. They both stared at Blaise, who was standing there in the doorway, wary and awkward and looking just the slightest bit scared.

“Ah great, you're here to scold me too, eh?” Theo snapped, looking very close to tears as Harry loomed over him, using every ounce of control he had in order to not strangle the life out of him. He could feel his anger shifting from one person to the next, slowly, as his gaze bore a hole in the middle of Blaise’s forehead. The other boy seemed to realise Harry’s thinning control then, as the glare worked downwards towards the middle of his eyebrows, and he raised two hands cautiously in front of his face.

“Easy there, mate, I’m not here to argue about anything. Professor Snape just sent me up to say that Draco’s awa-oi!”

Harry practically bolted from the room, roughly shoving Blaise to the side as he sprinted down the hall and, skipping three steps at a time, almost flew down the stairs. Then, swerving around a wide-eyed first year, he bolted towards the side door leading to the Professor’s quarters and slammed through the doors, causing Snape to curse rather crassly as he jolted up from the large fire burning hot and green in the hearth.

“Draco?!”

“Hmnh?”

He let out a relieved sigh, pushing off from the door and collapsing onto the floor next to the couch that Draco was lying across. Draco blinked at him slowly, not seeming fully awake or aware of his surroundings. He sat for a moment, a hand brushing gently over Draco’s exposed shoulder, before he turned and began to study his best friend’s back. It…  it looked agonizing. The pale boy had two large bumps forming across his shoulder blades, a white, bone-like growth pushing painfully against the muscle and skin as if it was trying to force its way through both layers. Bruising—purple and red and blistering—ran hot and angry along the growths, tapering off around the boy’s mid-back in little stars of molten hues. Harry took a shaky breath, closing his eyes as he willed himself not to stand up—not to get up and find Theo and bash his brains against the stone bricks—

“Bloody hell.”

“Language, Mister Zabini.”

He swallowed wetly, rubbing at his face desperately with one hand as if it might rub the thoughts from his mind. The pattering of two sets of shoes and the gentle click of the door behind them settled into his subconscious, and Harry turned slightly to glance at his other two friends from where they stood stiffly behind him. Blaise was observing Draco’s back with some absurd mix of horrified disgust and twisted fascination. Theo, in direct contrast, looked like he was very near throwing up, his face pale as a sheet and overlaid with just the barest tinges of green. Harry felt a guilty spike of satisfaction race through him once he caught sight of the expression.

“I didn't want you all to know,” Draco spoke suddenly, his voice quiet and muffled by the pillow he was pressing his face into.

“Mate, I'm no mediwizard, but that looks like a bit of a medical emergency.” Blaise quipped, the disgust completely leaving his face as he leaned in to get a better look. Harry quietly told him to shut his trap, feeling much too drained to do anything else but glower. Blaise took the hint though, and backed up slightly, hands raised in mock assent as he settled down onto one of Snape’s unoccupied couches. The professor glowered, before turning away from the fire he had been so invested in so he could regard Draco with a knowing look.

“Mister Malfoy, I have contacted your father about the situation. He will be coming through the floo shortly.” The man stated, his voice curt and face a mask of distaste. Harry didn’t bother to roll his eyes, slumping slightly against the couch cushions as he settled deeper onto the cold stone floor beneath him.

“Just bloody brilliant, can't even give me a few minutes to-” the rest was incomprehensible as Draco turned his face further into his pillow, continuing to mutter through the muffling fabric despite the obvious disruptor. Harry smiled slightly, patting his friend on the shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting way. Draco didn’t move, but the motion seemed to make his muscles relax slightly, so Harry considered it a success.

The calmness in the room only lasted a mere second longer.

Harry settled back on his haunches as the fire flared, and he sat stiff as could be as the tall form of Lucius Malfoy strode through the flames. The man was imposing, his head raised high and eyes thunderous as they etched a path through the room. Harry could see a little bit of Draco in the set of the man’s jaw, but the distanced hardness in his eyes was utterly foreign. Not for the first time, Harry decided firmly that Lucius Malfoy was not someone he could ever be capable of getting along with.

“Severus, where is my-” the man stopped suddenly, eyes widening with mild surprise as he finally registered the three unexpected boys in the room. His eyes glanced over each of them without pause, gaze approving but uninterested, before it eventually fell upon Harry. They stared at each other, caught somewhere between a war and an introduction, before the man decided their fate for them and sneered hatefully. Harry narrowed his eyes into slits, his nerves already alight and patience holding his anger back with nothing but a frayed thread.

“Harry Potter is it? I was not notified of you being acquainted with my heir, if you would remove yourself from the room immediately-”

Harry saw red.

“Oh, don’t even start.”

The thread snapped, and any ounce of self-control he had exerted with Theo left with it as the dam personifying his human decency shattered. Ripping up from the floor, he took three sturdy steps forward, one long finger held high and angry as he pointed it at the older man. Then, with a voice half dipped into parseltongue, he willed himself not to do anything too idiotic as the edges of his vision blurred, and any sensibilities he held himself to began to fray.

“I personally, Lord Malfoy, could not give less of a shit about your opinion. And to be rather blunt, I think of you as nothing but a pathetic, cowardly, spineless excuse of a man, and I have no interest in entertaining your verbal attempts to slight me. Draco is my friend, and your negligence has hurt him, so I will be staying.”

It was silent for a very, very long moment. Harry seethed silently. Any anger he had been harbouring towards Theo was now pointed very harshly towards the truly guilty party. It was hard to see through the anger, but Harry was still acutely aware of the paleness of Lord Malfoy’s face as he regarded him. There was a sort of emotion in the man’s eyes that Harry recognized but couldn’t place; a kind of harsh surprise mixed with unyielding horror.

Perhaps there was something about the tone of his voice, or the edge to his accent, but maybe he sounded just a bit too much like Tom in that moment.

“How-” Lord Malfoy sputtered, finally finding his voice through the shockingly short stretch of seconds between Harry’s outburst and his own surprise. “How dare you speak to me in such a manner, you pathetic little halfbreed.”

Shouts of anger rang out as Harry leapt forward, stopped only by a pair of arms around his middle that he was certain were Snape’s. They didn’t stop him for long though, and before he could think against it, Harry had the blond lord against the ground and his fist raised high in the air. There was only a short moment of time between him swinging down and their eyes meeting, but it was enough time for Harry to lose any will to stop himself. Lord Malfoy’s eyes were filled with a hatred that Harry could easily agree upon. His fist came hurling down moments later, and a sickening crack echoed through the room, sounding and feeling like a bullet rocketing through fine china.

His fist came back bloody, and he raised it again without pause, aiming again at the now bloodied nose of his best friend’s father. It came down again, and another crack rang out, this one with a certain wet gurgling from the man beneath him that made Harry want to eat-

“Harry, stop!”

He froze, chest heaving and eyes wide, his fist poised high in the air, prepared to strike a third time had he not stopped. Strong arms grabbed him around the middle suddenly, yanking him off of the man beneath him. Unlike before, he didn’t struggle, allowing Snape to shove him roughly down onto a chair and far from the man currently cradling his bloodied face with one hand.

Harry sucked in a breath, eyes blown wide and pupils mere pinpricks on a sea of green as his hands shook against the hard wood beneath him. There was blood on his knuckles, hot and sticky, and Harry was utterly certain it wasn’t his own. 

It smelt… decadent. 

He screwed his eyes shut tightly, heaving out shaky breaths of air as the clambering of steel-toed dragon-leather boots scraping against old stone rang through the room. Lord Malfoy cursed, his incomprehensible muttering only growing more garbled through the blood dripping from his nose and hand covering his mouth.

“You-you animal!” He choked, causing Harry’s eyes to rip open again. The man’s face was half-crazed, his grey eyes mere pinpricks on a white canvas. “You monstrous little brat! I’ll have you expelled for this, you-you-”

“Expelled?” Harry whispered, muscles held taught to his shaking frame as the edges of his vision continued to grow more and more blurry. It took everything he had to keep himself firmly in place, his hands gripping tight to the armrests as if letting go would cause him to let go of sanity in turn. “And how exactly do you expect to manage something like that?”

The man’s eyes bulged, and he stepped forward half a step before Snape’s arm across his chest stopped him. “Are you truly such a vile, haughty little beast to think that my word would lose against yours?”

“Yes.” 

Harry grinned then, just a little too wide and a little too sharp, feeling himself veering very quickly off into that madness he had been trying to avoid.

“The headmaster likes me in this school, Lord Malfoy. I hardly think he will let me leave it just because I broke your nose. And I’m sure the story would be rather fun for you to tell him, yes? I do wonder when the topic of Draco’s creature inheritance will pop up.”

Harry was slightly frightened by the calm cheeriness in his voice. He felt drawn apart from it, an utter separation of emotion and expression that he hadn’t yet decided was his own doing or was simply a matter of circumstance. Regardless, Lord Malfoy’s bloodied face fell into a mask of shock.

“You… you little-”

“I may be a halfbreed,” Harry hissed, rising slowly from his seat with the stalking grace of a predator, “but I am also rather beloved by the public, aren’t I? If you want to pull rank, I will be more than happy to play your game, but your family name already makes most heads turn away in disgust, so you might want to think twice about what you say next.”

They stood there, Harry with his spine straight as a razor and the smell of blood in his nose, and Lord Malfoy with skin nearly as pale as his hair.

“You,” Harry whispered, “are the Lord of a house half-dead and writing its own eulogy as we speak. I, however, am a national hero and the heir of two great houses with ancient histories just as long as yours. Call me a halfbreed all you like, but don’t ever forget that if it weren’t for the fact that Draco is my best friend, I wouldn’t have stopped.”

It was quiet, so quiet that Harry could hear his own uneven breaths. He could hear Draco’s too, so quiet and shaky that they nearly made his heartbreak. He couldn’t look away from Lord Malfoy’s face though—couldn’t force himself to stop taking in the wide eyes and stricken expression of a man who didn’t believe the person in front of him was human. In that moment, wrapped up in his own fears for his friend’s safety and the adrenalin stinging at his bloodied knuckles, Harry wondered if he even was.

Was he human? He didn’t feel like it, in that horrible moment.

And then, as if someone flipped a switch, the silence was ripped out from under him.
“Potter,” Snape hissed, his voice dangerously calm and entire body shaking with rage, “get out.”

There was a moment—a very short one, but still distinct enough for him to acknowledge—where he contemplated refusing. But, perhaps against his own will and desire, it passed him by the second he looked from Lord Malfoy’s face towards Draco’s own, and was shaken from his anger by the expression he found there. Sucking in a sharp breath, he turned on his heel and strode, heart pounding hard in his ears, towards the door. Shuffling followed behind him, though he barely registered that Theo and Blaise were hot on his heels until he was already out the door and halfway up the stairs. Neither of the other boys said anything, and Harry thought that he just might end up killing one of them if they tried.

That one thought was all that kept him from ripping apart the freshly reconstructed dorm once he entered it.

Draco sat silently on the couch as professor Snape quietly left the room, the tall man’s face an impenetrable mask of emotionless anger. Draco could see something more profound in his gaze though—a dull shock that he just knew was reflected back in his own glassy eyes. A shock that couldn’t be remedied by anything but time.

Harry had punched his father.

Not once, but twice, and would have gotten in a third swing if Draco hadn’t screamed out for him to stop. The tall boy had said it himself, with his eyes blown wide with some sort of carnal rage and his fists stained red with Malfoy blood.

“I wouldn’t have stopped.”

Harry had insulted his house a dozen times over, through physical and verbal means, and yet Draco couldn’t help but feel like it had been wrong to force him out of the room. With Harry gone from the tiny space, there was nothing but him and the lord of his dying house, existing apart from each other as if they were nothing but strangers.

His father was the first to break the silence.

“You will not associate with that creature ever again, Draconis.”

“You called him a halfbreed,” was his only reply—just barely over a whisper. Lord Malfoy turned his sharp gaze Draco’s way for the first time, the grey of his eyes acting sudden and stark against the blood across his cheek and nose.

“I called the boy what he is, child.”

“And he didn’t do the same for you?”

His father reared back as if slapped, his mouth parted in the mockery of a shout—though no sound fell from his lips. Draco shook his head, unsure if he was merely in shock or was genuinely disgusted with his father. Perhaps it was both. He was certainly angry at the man.

“You came here, to the school, because the heir to your house is currently growing new bones out of his back.” He started, standing suddenly from the couch and slowly beginning to pace. “You show up here, and immediately all focus flies from your heir—your only child, mind you—and onto another boy who you happen to look upon distastefully.”

He stopped short, staring blankly at his father.

“He’s my best friend, my lord, and you are my father.” He took a sharp breath in, “and you are also, as it appears, a liar.”

Lucius Malfoy’s eyes flashed, “I have never lied to you-”

“What are you here for then? Tea and a walk along the Black Lake?!” He burst out, throwing up his arms as the frustration finally broke free from the wavering grip of his patience. “Why, after an entire year of me begging for answers, are you only here now that I sorted things out for myself? Were you only planning on telling me once the wings had ripped themselves out from under my skin?”

His father glared, but did not speak against his words. 

“Enough cheek, Draconis.” 

Draco’s hands balled into fists on their own accord, and he suddenly had a desperate curiosity to know how Harry had felt to have Malfoy blood staining his knuckles.

“I do not approve,” his father began, words hissed from between his teeth as if they were something foul, “of my heir, who is so young and loose-lipped, knowing anything about such a sensitive topic as this. If you are not aware, Draconis, word of Veela blood in our line could ruin our lives. The secret has been kept secure in the family for over twelve generations, and I am not keen on allowing it loose to the masses because you decided to associate with halfbreeds.”

“Don’t call him that!” He shouted, an invisible dam bursting as—in a sudden fit of rage—he ripped a heavy-looking book from the nearby table and hurled it at his father. The man dodged deftly, and in an instant, his larger hand was wrapped tight around Draco’s forearm, holding him still and stiff.

“You-” his father yanked him towards the couch, pushing him harshly down onto it. “You foolish little child! You have learned of your family’s greatest shame, and yet all you do is scream out for the injustice of a lesser? Do you have no tact, Draconis Malfoy?”

Draco didn’t reply, his heart in his ears and lungs in his throat as he glared up at the towering force of his father.

“I would rather lack tact than insult someone as respectable and ingenious as Hadrian Potter, my lord.”

There was a silent stillness to the air, a burning anger simmering just below the surface as his father’s eyes burned with a smouldering fury.

Draco hoped the defiance in his own gaze dug into his father’s pride like the dull edge of a serrated knife, cutting and tearing and mangling everything it could on its way out.

For one angry, hateful moment, Draco wished he hadn’t told Harry to stop.

Harry was pacing.

Back and forth against the shag rug beneath him, back and forth till he was moving more on instinct than worry. Theo watched the movement with shaky eyes, his fingers twitching experimentally as he sent the occasional, worried glance Blaise’s way. The other boy would always shrug it away, before turning back to the little green book he was so utterly engrossed in. Theo didn’t understand how he could pretend to be so calm in this situation; it was hardly the time to read, much less something like that book.

Harry had punched a lord.

No, that was an egregious understatement. It was more accurate to say that Harry had insulted a lord and then, after being insulted right back, had tackled the lord to the ground and assaulted him so thoroughly that he had spilt pure blood on the old stones of Hogwarts.

And he was going to get away with it.

Theo sucked in a breath, the twitching in his fingers and itch behind his eyes making him want to run out of the dorm and far, far away from the mess Hadrian Potter had dragged him into. It really was remarkable, though, how Harry had said things so impossibly doubtful but had meant every word and had known them to be true. Theo didn’t doubt for even a moment that Harry was right to say the headmaster would never expel him—not even for something as egregious as attacking a lord. It was the simple fact that Harry’s birth didn’t really matter in the face of who he was, and Theo also had not a single doubt that if Lord Malfoy went ahead in his attempt to expel Harry, the entire ordeal would very quickly turn against him and his house.

Against Draco, too, he was sure.

And it didn’t matter, not really. All of that, no matter how massive and impossible to contain, did not change the fact that the lord that Harry had assaulted was not only a lord, but Draco’s father, and that their friend was currently having a discussion with the bloodied man all on his own.

That was why Harry was pacing, that was why Blaise had been staring blankly at the same page for the last half hour, and that was why Theo could do nothing but sit and watch as Harry’s feet worked an indented trail into the shag rug beneath him.

Perhaps that was why when Harry suddenly stopped, eyes glittering dangerously and shoulders hunched over himself, Theo jolted so aggressively.

“Secrecy vows.”

He blinked, sparing only a moment to be confused before quirking a brow. “I beg your pardon?”

Harry shook his head, turning towards Blaise with an odd look in his eyes. “What do you reckon?”

Blaise also blinked, seeming just as confused as Theo felt. “Mate, what are you on about?”

Harry threw up his hands at the both of them, rolling his eyes as he turned and continued his pacing, though now with a bit of fierce fire behind his eyes. “We all have secrets we’re keeping, some worse than others. If any of them ever come to light as this one had, it would be good to have secrecy vows between all of us to be sure that the secrets stay secrets.”

Theo sat up straighter, trading a slightly distrustful glance with Blaise as he did. Sure, he was well aware that they all were keeping secrets, but how did Harry know as well? Harry… how did Harry know that he-

Theo, you clearly have some sort of… of precognition, but that is… it is never going to be a good excuse to hurt someone, do you understand me?

Theo swallowed thickly, letting out a long, shaky breath of air as the realisation finally set in,

“You aren’t suggesting we go and tell each other about all the skeletons in our closets, right mate?” Blaise questioned idly, his voice just the slightest bit too strained to be unbelievably relaxed. “B’cus I’ll have to pass on that.”

Harry scoffed, waving his arm as if to banish the thought. “Merlin, don’t be ridiculous. None of us would agree to that. I’m just saying that if something like this happens again, where a secret comes to light despite the secret holder not wanting it to, then at least he can be certain that the other three won't go and tell anyone. I trust all three of you, of course, but it would certainly help keep mine and Draco’s minds at ease.”

Right, Theo realised suddenly, a twisted sense of relief falling over him. Harry has a creature inheritance too, doesn’t he.

Perhaps that one, small, silent secret was all he needed to lose any reservations he had about the idea.

“I’ll do it.” He blurted, more surprised with himself than the other two as they both turned to look at him. He shrugged, somewhat sheepishly, as their curious eyes bore down into him. “It seems logical, is all.”

Blaise nodded slowly, grin widening bit by bit as he placed the little green book aside on his bedside table and quickly scrambled up from his bed. “Yeah, now that you word it like that, it does sound useful… not that I don’t trust you all, of course, but my mother is always getting up to things that might interfere with common sensibilities, like how over the summer she-”

“Yes! Okay, Blaise, thank you.” Harry replied immediately, practically shouting over the mischievous boy’s words. Blaise grinned roguishly, causing Theo to let out a long-suffering sigh and shake his head. It was a relieved sigh too though. Even without his worry around Harry and Draco being ostracised for their heritage, Theo had been worried for himself as well—had been concerned over the expectations around his own affliction, no matter how different it was from the others’ inheritances.

Seers were never given an ounce of respect after all, and he wanted to hold tight to his staked claim of aristocracy for as long as he could.

They stood—or in Theo’s case, sat—in silence for a moment, all three of them making a mental tally of every little family secret, stupid mistake, and earth-shattering revelation that could potentially see the light of day. Theo couldn’t say much on the thoughts of his two friends, but within his own mind was a scrambled mess of his hunches, loud and impossible to ignore, interspersed with the thundering of his father’s footsteps against hardwood and the screaming of his mother.

Yes, this would be an excellent thing to do, if only to keep the bloodied cobwebs untouched till he himself got out the duster.

They all jumped to attention at the sound of the door creaking open, and Harry was upon Draco’s significantly shorter form faster than Theo could even blink. There was a moment of hushed silence, where the door was shut silently and the only noise was indistinct muttering between the pair, before Harry shook his head and turned away. Theo craned his neck to look at Draco, who was hiding half behind Harry as the tall boy pulled him into the room and sat him onto the bed. He looked drained, and as if he had been crying, his eyes red and puffy and his cheeks clammy. 

“What happened? Draco, you alright, mate? Were you crying?” Blaise’s voice was concerned, but he didn’t move from his place beside his bed as Harry hovered over him as he settled into his own.

“I’m fine, don’t be ridiculous. Heirs of great houses do not cry. We lament.” Draco finally murmured, a hand coming up to massage his temple as Harry fret quietly at his side. “-and my father is just being a child. There is no need to concern yourself with my family's trivialities.”

Theo let himself relax slightly at the admission, grinning despite himself as Blaise barked out a laugh. Harry also smiled somewhat, though it veered off into being more strained than relieved as he pressed careful fingers around Draco’s shoulder blades. The blond didn't seem to mind the ministrations much, so Theo could only assume that either Harry was being impossibly gentle, or Draco had gotten some sort of medicine to numb the pain.

It was quiet for a time, as Harry fussed over their friend and Blaise seemed to gather himself back up into some semblance of his usual self. Theo merely sat and contemplated things, leaned back against the pillows of Harry’s bed as he tapped an old tune into the comforter. Draco didn’t look too upset, which meant that the conversation after they had left couldn’t have gone too horribly, but there was a look in his eye that told of it not exactly being perfect either. Theo winced at the thought. Conversations between a lord and his heir were not ones to be taken lightly—Theo was sure of that much—but he couldn’t help but wonder if anything would even come of this. Draco’s position of Malfoy heir could hardly be threatened by a less… erm, disobedient sibling, and Lord Malfoy wasn’t so foolish as to actually attempt to get Harry expelled from Hogwarts, so the only thing Theo could find about the entire situation to worry about was the rather touchy subject of a creature inheritance in a family as old as the Malfoys.

If word got out, Draco and the rest of his family would be turned into social pariahs before they could even blink, and that was the hard truth of the matter. Old families with creature blood in their veins simply had no place in the high society of magical Britain, and that was how the vast majority saw things. Plain, simple, without any room for denials or pleas. The Malfoy family would be dead and in the dirt by Yule if anyone besides the three of them managed to overhear the simple fact of Draco’s creature inheritance.

Perhaps that thought was what made him break the silence.

“So… who would like to go first?”

All three of the others turned to him, and Theo fidgeted for a moment under so many eyes.

“You know,” he coughed slightly, “the secrecy vows?”

Harry blinked, looking as though he had genuinely forgotten, too busy with his concern for Draco to bother. Draco just looked plain confused.

“Pardon?”

Blaise rolled his eyes, slinking back off of his bed and towards the other two. Theo took that as a cue to join them as well, and hopped off of Harry’s bed. “To be certain this whole mess is kept a secret, you great lump.”

Draco blinked, eyes wide and expressionless, until he shook his head. “I trust you three; there is no need to-”

He stopped suddenly, as Harry shuffled away from him and reached into his robe pocket. They were all quiet as he pulled his wand from it—a long, thin thing, knobby and sleek and worn smooth with age—and began to speak.

“I, Hadrian James Potter, do hereby swear that I will not share any sensitive information confided to me by Blaise Lorenzo Antonio Zabini, Theodore Samuel Nott, and Draconis Lucius Malfoy, and will henceforth never share with anyone—unless I am given express permission by the secret bearer to do so—what I may or may not be confided in by them, till the day my soul departs from this life and on into the next. As I say, so it will be.” A bright, near-blinding flash of gold accompanied the vow, and shouts of either protest or joy rose up very quickly after.

“Bloody hell-”

“Alright Harry!”

“Oh, by Circe above.” Theo bemoaned, rubbing a hand down his face as Blaise excitedly scrambled for his wand. Draco looked just as stricken as he felt, the pale boy’s hand working a vice grip around Harry’s wrist as he stared, open-mouthed, at the boy-who-lived.

“Harry, you-but… I-I can’t believe you would be so-so—good Merlin Harry, did you not see that light? That-that was permanent! That was practically an unbreakable vow!”

Harry shrugged, rather lamely, in response. There was a smile on his face that was eerily reminiscent of Blaise’s own, all teeth and cheekiness. He looked rather pleased with himself, and Theo couldn’t help but join slightly in the giddiness as Blaise threw up his own wand—which Theo distantly recalled the boy telling him was made of dogwood—and began to recite his own sort of pledge.

“I, Blaise Lorenzo Antonio Zabini-” 

“Merlin, your name is obnoxious-” 

“Piss off, Malfoy. Anyway, I swear to never snitch-” 

“Please be serious about this, Blaise.” 

The Italian groaned, his head lolled back as he raised his arms towards the ceiling. “By the burning torch of Hecate, let me speak.”

There was a moment of stillness.

“Get on with it then,” Draco muttered, the cheek-splitting grin stretching across his face betraying the annoyance in his voice. Blaise waved an arm vaguely at the blond, before he once again raised his wand up in the air.

“I, Blaise Lorenzo Antonio Zabini, do soberly swear upon my forefather’s graves-” There was some vague muttering and a muffled snort from Harry. Blaise ignored it that time. “-that I will not share any secrets confided to me by Hadrian James Potter, Theodore Samuel Nott, and Draconis Lucius Malfoy, regardless of if the secret is utterly ridiculous or in any way breaks the law or the human sensibilities regarding morality, and—yes, Draco, that is an important distinction, don’t look at me like that—will from this day forward never share any of said secrets with anyone unless I am given express permission by the secret bearer to do so. As I will, thus it shall be.”

An impossibly bright flash of gold blinded him for a moment, before it fell away. It was silent for a moment, save for Harry’s muffled snickers and Theo’s own racing thoughts, before he too raised his own wand into the air. It was a pale wand, made from beech and unicorn hair, and he regarded it warily as he began to speak.

“I, Theodore Samuel Nott, being of sound mind and full awareness, do hereby swear upon my life that any knowledge confided into me by Hadrian James Potter, Blaise Lorenzo Antonio Zabini, and Draconis Lucius Malfoy will never leave the protection of my mind unless one of the aforementioned requests it, and the direct attack against my own will and agency will not and cannot be used against my mind in order to remove the knowledge from it. I say this with the full confidence that the gods will respect this wish, and will not desire to sway me from my pledge at any time between now and my soul’s removal from its earthly vessel. As was, as is, and as fated to come.”

Three sets of eyes stared at him once the golden light fell away, wide and shocked as he stuffed his wand away into his pocket. Theo looked away, ignoring the embarrassed tinge to his cheeks as he did.

It was quiet for a moment, as Theo forced his embarrassment deep into the recesses of his mind, and the other three shuffled around amongst themselves. Eventually though, he, Blaise, and Harry all turned expectant eyes to Draco, who seemed suspiciously close to tears. The blond’s hands shook slightly as he rubbed at his waterline, and before any of them could speak, he yanked his wand from its sheath and levelled in front of himself. It was also a pale wand, like Harry’s and his own, though it had a warmth to it that Theo couldn’t relate to. He recognized it moments later to be rowan.

“I, Heir Draconis Lucius Malfoy, with full awareness of the memories of those before me and the ideas of those who may come after me, do swear upon my life and upon my soul that I will guard any sensitive information confided into me by the three following people: Hadrian James Potter, Blaise Lorenzo Antonio Zabini, and Theodore Samuel Nott. I will guard this information upon the assumption that anything confided to me has potential to tarnish the expression, reality, and reputation of either three of the aforementioned people, and henceforth swear to this oath that I shall not tarnish the concept of them or their trust in me by allowing any such sensitive information to be drawn up from my mind by myself or others. As above, so below; as below, so above. My soul and my magic and the name bestowed upon myself thus demand it.”

The golden light sent stars echoing across his eyes, and Theo blinked desperately to force them away as Blaise cheered happily from his left, Harry’s amused laughter and Draco’s sniffling accompanying it moments later. 

He breathed out a sigh of relief, smiling slightly as the magic settled deep into his bones and stayed there, solid and unyielding in the face of immaturity and anger. He rubbed away the black spots against his vision, managing to clear enough away to spot Draco playfully shove Harry’s shoulder with a laugh, his eyes still suspiciously tinged red and an embarrassed blush marring his cheeks.

Despite the fact that Harry’s knuckles still had the dried blood of Lucius Malfoy staining them, there was a slouch to his shoulders and an easy smile on his face that said he would go wash it off soon. Despite the knowledge that they were all holding so much and had been for so long, there was a lightness to his heart that made him feel like it would all be different soon. Maybe not better, but different.

Despite the fact that the dormitory had been in shambles mere hours prior, it was indistinguishable from how it was before now, and no one was about to remind themselves of the smouldering rubble and how it had been created in the first place.

Most things were alright, for now, and as long as the universe allowed it, Theo was going to ignore everything else.

Chapter Text

Lava Bear-North America

The lava bear (also known as sand lapper, dwarf grizzly, and North American sun bear) is a magical variety of the American black bear. It is found in the lava beds of south central Oregon, and is described as a very small bear with woolly light brown fur. The few lava bears that have been caught or killed were a little larger in size than that of a badger. Many hypothesise that the species’ small size is due to a lack of nutrients, though it can not be said for certain as tests have not been done to document the eating habits of lava bears. The bears are known for an elaborate pattern of lava-like swirls across their joints, which have been theorised to be for venting out the intense heat at which the bears function. Many of the magical American tribes in the Oregon region consider the lava bears to be more elemental spirits than organisms, and consider them protectors of the earth. This concept has been studied in depth, though no conclusive answer has been found.

Harry crossed the Lava Bear out of his book with an eye roll. The lava bear was naturally far from what he was looking for — primarily because it lived in a hot ecosystem —but secondarily because it was an utterly ridiculous creature, if somewhat cute, he supposed.

He sighed, leaning back in the stone chair he was strewn across as he took in the mess of parchment and ink in front of him. He was not treating the circular table kindly, it seemed, using it as a sort of hub for all his researching endeavours. It was in the middle of the library, he supposed, so the added benefit of being an equal distance to every book he had curiosities about made him particularly drawn to it. He hummed slightly, kicking his feet up onto the dark granite and leaning further back into the hard stone behind him.

Hallowe’en had passed the torch of time on to November first as any other day did, and he had gone about the following week as if nothing had even happened. His friends also seemed perfectly happy with ignoring the events that had occurred, and they had all returned to their previous business without much fuss.

Well, Draco seemed to have gotten some weight off his shoulders, but that was par for the course.

He hummed, shifting his feet off the table as he switched focus from his creature book and onto the considerably older ones strewn about the place around him. He grabbed one of the necromancy books at random —a pale one, which looked like it was made from some sort of tough leather—and turned it to the first page.

The Library of Secrets had become his haven over the past month, cradling him inside the impenetrable grasp of legend and keeping him assured that no one could bother him in his studies for once. No one believed that the chamber existed after all, and the library had been so far removed from legend that no one was even aware of its existence —previous or otherwise. It was made better by the knowledgeable snake peering over his shoulder, watching his every movement with idle eyes and just waiting to assist him with some quandary or another. Jörmungandr was a blessing wrapped up in a dangerous beast with too many teeth and deadly eyes, and Harry was so incredibly grateful to him. He was a little overbearingly helpful at times, though. Harry was keen to write it off as the excitement of a scholar.

“~Little friend, what are you up to?~”

As if on cue, a large, cool snout pressed gently against the back of his head, and Harry turned slightly to glance up at the creature.

“~I’m working out the logistics of my journal.~” He admitted, flipping carefully from the first page of the necromantic book to the second. There was a diagram there, which looked to be detailing some sort of ritual. Harry couldn’t quite figure out what it was trying to relay just by skimming it, so he ignored it for the time being and continued to flip through the pages.

“~Do you not desire to keep the books of your forefathers?~” The snake questioned, his snout bumping against the side of Harry’s head again as he edged ever closer to the boy. “~Are you not angry that I have denied your request to house them in your own library?~”

“~You allowed me to keep the family tree, did you not?~” Harry replied distantly, half-engrossed in the old manuscript as he made a note on a piece of parchment. He had decided to split his journal by topic, not by book, so he would first have to read through them all to get a sense of what topics he would need to have Tom add to the Table of Contents. It was a bit more grueling than he would have liked, but considering that there were only a few dozen books instead of a few hundred thousand, he felt it was worth the added work. Of course, he could always add an index to the end as well, in case he ever came back to the library and decided to steal the books, though Harry doubted that he would.

“~Yes, because a family tree is not knowledge that is meant to be kept outside of a family. But, little friend, do you not feel fury towards me for keeping the rest from you?~” Jörmungandr pressed, sounding oddly insistent that Harry despise him for the supposed slight against him. Instead, Harry idly shrugged, flipping another few pages in quick succession as he did.

“~Do you want me to hate you, my large companion?~” He teased, earning an amused hiss for his troubles.

“~Not at all, little friend. I only worry that you have taken hatred into your heart and refuse to expel it out of you. I can smell it in your aura, you know.~”

That caused Harry to pause, and he turned slightly to regard the snake with curious eyes. Could snakes smell… emotions? It was an odd thought that he hadn’t really considered before, though it did explain how Thasin seemed easily annoyed whenever he was feeling particularly upset. She could likely just be smelling the anger on him and reacting accordingly.

“~I’m not upset with you,~” he explained, returning to his book as Jörmungandr rested his massive head down on the cold stone table. “~In truth, I have a bit of an issue with my friend’s father, and when we met for the first time last week, it went rather poorly.~”

“~What happened?~”

“~I tackled him to the ground and bloodied his nose a bit.~” Harry replied immediately, grimacing as Jörmungandr hissed out a pleased laugh. "~It isn’t nearly as funny as you think it is. The man is a lord.~”

Immediately, Jörmungandr stopped laughing.

“~Little friend, should I worry about you disappearing? Lords are not to be trifled with, especially in such an uncouth manner.~”

Harry sighed, slowly shutting the hefty tome in front of him and setting it back onto the table before rubbing a hand down his face. “~No. For reasons beyond your comprehension, my rank in society is seen by most as above his. I doubt anything would come of it save for the destruction of his line.~”

Jörmungandr hummed, contemplative, as he watched Harry gather up the necromancy tomes all around him. “~Is that so? I apologise, little friend. I was not aware that you had such a high standing in society.~”

“~It’s more complicated than that, I’m afraid.~”

He stopped shuffling things around, falling back against the cold stone back of his chair and groaning. “~Merlin, what am I meant to do now.~”

It was quiet for a moment, before Jörmungandr pressed his muzzle up against Harry’s face for the third time. His eye twitched in slight irritation, but he ignored it and willed himself forward.

“~Are you worried about this lord coming after you, little friend?~” Jörmungandr questioned, his muzzle still pressed very annoyingly in the side of Harry’s head.

“~No. What I am worried about is other things that the altercation with the lord led me to.~”

“~What other things?~”

“By the gods above, would you just be quiet?” He hissed, glaring heatedly at the massive snake’s snout. 

“~What was that, little friend?~”

Harry pushed the snake’s head away, groaning into his hands as he slumped forward onto the table. For a moment, it was silent, and Harry felt cautiously calm as the absence of noise or thought swam gently around his eyes. 

“~Little friend?~”

His head slammed down onto the table, pain exploding outwards from the impact zone as he hissed through his teeth.

“~Jörmungandr, I do dearly enjoy our conversations, but I feel that you might be hovering just a tad bit.~” He breathed out slowly, pulling his head up from the table and rubbing a finger down his now-throbbing forehead. “~I do not mean to scare you away, but perhaps you may have other things to be doing beyond bothering me and my research?~”

It was a desperate plea, he was aware, but Harry didn’t think he could stand another moment of his blessed quiet being interrupted by ceaseless chatter. He understood —really, he did—that Jörmungandr seemed to quite love chatter, but Harry did not have enough seconds in his day to entertain a basilisk while also putting in the time required to prepare for and finish his journal within the school year. It was already almost halfway through November, for Merlin’s sake, and he had barely made headway through the necromancy texts. And that wasn’t even considering the two side-projects that he hadn’t even gotten the chance to start!

Harry was, evidently, a little sick of entertaining the living legend that was acting librarian of his safe haven.

Jörmungandr tasted the air around him, before making an unperturbed noise of understanding.

“~Ahh, I see now. I apologise, little friend. As you are sure to be aware, I have not seen or spoken with another creature in many hundreds of years. It got quite lonely, so I was perhaps a bit too excited when you appeared and began coming here so regularly. Please, forgive me.~”

Harry felt a spike of guilt race through him. But, of course, that was it. Jörmungandr had been isolated from any intelligent creatures for centuries at a time. He just wanted company and conversation, and Harry was too focused on his research to give him much of either.

He shook his head, feeling rather foolish, before reaching out and patting the massive snake on the nose. “~No, don’t apologise. I’m sorry for not realising it. I wish I could be more available to you for conversation, but I’ve got so much to do and… well, it just isn’t possible for me at the moment.~”

Jörmungandr hissed pleasantly, leaning into his hand with a joyful noise. “~I do dearly wish there were others besides you and the dull one, my little friend. It is a true tragedy that the gift of parseltongue has begun to wither and die. I worry, if you do not produce offspring, will it end with you? Will you be the last to visit me?~”

Harry froze, eyes wide and mouth half-open. It was such a horribly lonely thought, but one he couldn’t keep out of his head now that it had wormed itself into it. What would happen after he died? Death had never been particularly upfront about it, but Harry was sure that Fate had planned out some sort of end to him for the future. What would happen to Jörmungandr then? What would happen to the library? Would it fall into ruin, or would someone come along and take care of it?

“~I… I’m so sorry, Jörmungandr. I don’t know what will happen.~” He whispered, recovering from his surprise enough to return to petting his hand down the snake’s snout. “~Do you know of any way to teach someone parseltongue? If that were possible, I would be happy to pass it on to someone new, just in case.~”

Jörmungandr looked at him silently for a moment, contemplative and unexpressive, before he turned towards the large table stretching out in front of them and stared at it wistfully, as if imagining the past times that it had been filled with chattering people and pleasant conversation. Harry wondered if all of the founders spent their days in the library as he did, trading wisdom and growing their collection of dying knowledge. He imagined that it must have been a wonderful time for the young basilisk, with his beloved library so full of joy and mirth. It likely hadn’t been that way in a long, long time.

“~It would not be easy.~” Jörmungandr began, his massive head turning away from the table as his entire body curled around it. “~And you would not be capable of doing such a thing when you are already so preoccupied. But, perhaps if you brought someone down here —someone smart enough to manage learning a language quickly—then perhaps I could do it. They would not be the same as you, though, and their offspring would have to go through the same process that they did. They would not be a parselmouth, but they would know parseltongue. Does that make sense? ~”

Harry nodded —it made a great deal of sense, really. Parselmouths were born, after all, not made, and the process of learning parseltongue was likely a very similar one to learning any other language, and the fact of being born with it simply wouldn’t apply to such people either.

“~Alright.~” Harry replied, standing from his chair with a renewed sense of purpose. “~I’ll get you someone smart to teach. I already know someone who catches on quickly. If anyone could learn it, he could.~”

Jörmungandr reared up to follow after him, slithering along with an oddly child-like excitement that Harry couldn’t help but smile at. Turning away from the circular table, he began striding through the shelves of ancient books, following along a predestined path as he neared a familiar shelf.

“~You’ll have to bear with me, though.~” He stepped in front of the shelf, immediately grabbing for the first old manuscript that caught his eye. It was an old leather, dyed dark and embellished with curling calligraphy and an attractive sort of iron detailing. It would suit his needs well enough, he figured.

“~Bear with you…?~”

Harry nodded, tucking the book under his arm and turning to smile at the ancient snake. “~You see, he’s not very keen on doing things unless the promise of knowledge is involved. I hope you don’t mind too much if I take this out…? Just for a few minutes, of course.~”

The look on Jörmungandr’s face could almost be considered human, if the shock were not so heavily obscured by his inhuman sensibilities. Harry almost laughed at the expression, especially since the book wasn’t really needed to get the potential student into the chamber. Regardless of if there was physical proof or not, Theo would come running the second he even insinuated that the library existed.

Nicolas Flamel was not a happy man.

His workroom was dark, overflowing with chunks of metal and a familiar burnt smell that permeated every inch of the room. A blackened, tar-like substance coated the main table, some of it ink for writing and some of it a different sort of ink entirely. Candles flickered along the walls, far from any open bottles and combustible materials.

He had nearly been driven mad with fury when he had realised the philosopher’s stone disappearance the year prior. And, when he had gone down into storage only to find that there was only a mere three decades worth of elixir to tide him and Perenelle over, he had very nearly snapped.

Even if he had even managed to hunt down the thief, there was no telling if the stone would be in workable condition when he got his hands on it again. Worse yet, three decades was not a reasonable amount of time to make a second philosopher’s stone without dipping into morally ambiguous methods, so if the thief was indeed out of his sights, there was no hope for them both. He had barely managed to complete the stone one within two decades after all, and that had been during a time that such ‘morally ambiguous’ methods had been reasonably allowed. 

He had been very near contemplating committing a homicide when he had received the letter from the British Ministry of Magic detailing how Albus Dumbledore had held the stone in his possession for all of those months of worry.

His previous disciple had stolen the stone out from under him.

Nicolas had, of course, barely managed to stop himself from marching up to Hogwarts and berating the man on his own time. Indeed, as was typical, Pernelle had been the one to keep him calm enough to stay firmly in France. However, she had given him free rein with replying to the British Ministry of Magic, which was perhaps her only outward aggression in the entire ordeal. With that thought in his mind, he had rather happily explained his and Perenelle’s situation to the minister in an exceptionally strongly worded letter. Of course, he had also been sure to state that if they didn't want an incredibly cross immortal with too much time on his hands to come up there and steal the stone right back from Albus, then they were going to have to send someone to return it to him posthaste.

It had, naturally, taken them almost a year to finally manage it.

“And you are called…?”

The man sniffed, taking a long gulp from his hip flask in response. Nicolas wrinkled his nose, wondering if the alcohol would interfere with any of the complex alchemy going on around it. He dearly hoped it didn’t. He did not have the patience to deal with another explosion on top of all his other projects.

“Alastor Moody, Mi’ster Flamel. The minister sent me along with yer stone.” The man finally replied, setting a familiarly shaped package down on the ink-stained table. Nicolas snatched it up with a yelp, keen eyes watching the ink for any signs of reaction.

“Watch yourself, man! The philosopher's stone reacts heavily with most things, including the stains on this table.” He hissed, holding the package tight to his chest as the older-looking man rolled his eyes.

“It’s wrapped well enough, sir. Keep it close by yerself next time, eh? Old Albus has deft fingers for his age.”

“Believe me when I say I am well aware,” he replied dully, cradling the stone under one arm as he reached for a ready-made letter with the other. “Now, I want you to take this letter to your stupid minister and tell him that I don’t want a thing to do with his stupid country for another two decades in the least.”

The man grunted, snatching up the letter without so much as a glance towards it. He stuffed it away into an old pocket —likely already forgetting that it was there—and immediately stood to leave. Nicolas watched him go with a frown, before pushing the strange man from his mind and peering down to the package in his hands. It was mere wrapping paper, with nothing but a few flimsy protection spells laced around it. He grimaced, muttering on about the barbaric activities of the British as he unwrapped the paper from around the precious stone. 

The British Ministry may have taken nearly a year to return his stone, a fact that he had made his peace with, but the one who had assured him that the ministry had removed it from Albus’ grasp had been quite prompt with him. A young boy —one barely even into his schooling— had owled him a letter after Yuletide, explaining how he inadvertently caused the ministry to find the stone, and how he dearly wished that Nicolas and his wife were doing well. He had at first brushed it off, not particularly caring about the child and his antics, as his stone was still not returned to him, but then he had recognized the boy’s name, and all his dismissive thoughts had vanished.

Hadrian James Potter…

Nicolas’ frown deepened. The boy was well known in Britain for having survived the killing curse as an infant, and even Nicolas had gotten word of the peculiar end to Lord Voldemort from where he had been staying in Bulgaria at the time. He had acknowledged it as a fairly impressive feat by the child, considering he was not a drinker of the elixir of life, but had not considered the ordeal again until he returned to France three years later. The act of surviving the killing curse wasn’t what had interested him about the child, though. No, he had heard plenty from Albus and Perenelle about how all that could have happened, and had come to the rather dull conclusion that the boy’s mother must have done something. What he was so curious about was the boy’s name.

A name that he now felt foolish for setting aside as coincidence.

Nicolas hummed, smiling at the familiar red gleam of his stone as he held it up to the light. Not a single scratch that had not been there before marred its surface. Good. It seemed that the British ministry had not managed to figure out how to use it in the months that they had been keeping it captive from him. It served them right for all the stress they had put him through. He hoped Albus had gotten headaches from the entire ordeal as well.

Setting the gleaming stone back down in the place that it belonged —an air-tight case displayed proudly on one table along the back wall—he stepped back from it and sighed. Hadrian James Potter: a name he had not thought about in nearly a decade. H e recognized the name Potter —and honestly should have realised it for what it was the second he had heard the boy’s name all those years ago—but he had let his disinterest in the ordeal cloud his judgement.

The Potter line had fascinated him for many years, though until Hadrian Potter survived the killing curse, he had not thought of the name for many hundreds of years. He had, rather naturally, researched the Peverell line extensively in his pursuit for immortality, and while it had been many centuries since then, he still distantly recalled the name Potter he had found in regards to the Peverell brothers. He had come upon the knowledge they were the last true descendants of the youngest Peverell brother, and had spent many years trying to track one of the Potters down to see if they might know anything about the deathly hallows. Though, after realising how difficult finding the deathly hallows would be for him, and after coming upon the dull reality that the Potters were not even aware of their heritage, he had declined to think much of the family ever since.

He hadn’t realised, or had at least not realised the ramifications of the fact, that Hadrian Potter was the last in the line of those same dull Potters he had passed off so many years ago. It was then, as he was fighting with the British ministry for months on end, that he began to wonder if the boy had not survived the killing curse for some other reason. Perhaps Death felt a kinship with the descendants of the Peverels? It seemed shockingly likely, and—considering that the boy was the last of the line—his death would have likely felt like a dull, tragic finality to an otherwise glorious story. Nicolas did not doubt that Death wanted to preserve the boy somehow, even if it meant beating himself in the end.

Admiring the stone, now settled safely behind enchanted glass, he sighed, the weight of months of worry finally slipping off of him. He was so incredibly tired. Not only had he lost any trust he had in Albus, but he had no idea how to proceed in regards to Hadrian James Potter. 

Walking over and settling back down in his chair, he gave himself a spare moment to relax back into his seat, idle and sluggish in the low light of his workroom. The bitter smell of chemicals and the tangy taste of metal hung low in the air around him, familiar in its bitterness yet electrifying in its danger. He could not sleep in the workroom, or Pernelle would have no way of waking him beyond the use of the elixir of life. 

Sighing, he reached for the paper drawer and pulled thick parchment from within it. Settling back in his chair, he grabbed for the quill and got to work, beginning to draft a letter to the last Potter with short, choppy strokes. He was certain that it would not be many more years before the child’s ancestry came to light. It did not seem like the type of secret the fates would allow to stay shadowed for long. To that end, Nicolas was being presented with a unique opportunity to get to know the child —a child so entrenched in the tales of legends and mystery —before anyone else even knew of his family’s true origins .

He would have to make haste to get to the boy first.

Harry hummed against the wind, smiling at the brisk weather of mid-November as he stalked out towards the Quidditch pitch. It was a peculiar Sunday, one where the Slytherin quidditch team had , for some unknown reason (that likely had to do with it being a Hogsmeade weekend and the fact that Flint had just gotten himself a girlfriend), decided to forgo any and all practices for the day. So, because he never knew when to simply relax, Draco had regaled each of his friends in turn about how it was a perfect day for them all to learn about Quidditch manoeuvres, and had then rather pointedly attempted to force them all out to the pitch. Harry had politely declined the invitation, not particularly inclined to be taught how to do something he had been heralded as a natural in during his previous life. Theo and Blaise, however, in a fit of camaraderie or some other such vague threatening from Draco, had readily agreed.

It was a bit too windy for Quidditch to be all that fun. It especially wouldn’t be all that enjoyable for beginners like Theo supposedly was, which was in part why Harry doubted there would be much fuss around him dragging the boy away to the chamber.

Why not bring the other two along while you're at it? Why not just spill all sorts of centuries-old secrets at your little playmates’ feet. Sneered Tom, who sounded seconds away attempting some kind of coup.

What a brilliant idea that is, Thomas. He replied without pause, grinning triumphantly at the genuinely shocked sputtering that echoed through his head moments later. The more the merrier, eh?

You can not possibly be serious.

Harry hummed slightly, patting the book under his arm as he mosied along through the underside of the stands. It would do Jörmungandr some good to see so many new faces.

This made Tom pause, and Harry smiled sadly as he walked through the stands and took in the Quidditch pitch for the first time in far too long. It felt like coming home, in an odd sort of way. He had been to the pitch for Draco’s tryouts, of course, but he hadn’t gotten much of a chance to take it all in again. It was a completely different experience — to walk through that passage and out onto the field as if he were about to take off into the sky.

Listen, Tom, he started, waving up at the three dots flying along in the air. I would never have considered this if there wasn’t something keeping the secret from spilling. As long as it's just the three of them who know about the chamber, then I don’t see any issue with it. Besides, I really do want Jörmungandr to have other people besides me who can come to visit him. He deserves that much, at least.

Tom did not reply, and Harry got the distinct feeling that the passage between them had been locked tight. He didn’t let it bother him, though, turning his full attention to the three tiny specks in the sky. His friends didn’t seem to have seen him, though they did also seem to just be sitting there, hovering. Sighing slightly, he turned around and, after checking to see that the ancient tome in his arms was still in one piece and not falling away with the breeze, went off to find the broom shed.

It was right where he remembered it being —as it should have been, of course—and he easily broke inside, grabbing up one of the Cleansweep Sevens with only a slight frown. It wasn’t in the best condition, and he had never really liked the Cleansweep company as a brand, but he was confident that he could ride just about any broom as long as it had the proper enchantments to it. Sure enough, after he had closed and relocked the broom shed, he returned to the pitch and took off without much issue. Weaving around low to the ground for a moment, wondering if he could catch the other three’s attention just by doing that, he quickly realised that they seemed deeply engrossed in something or another, and slowly started to ascend.

“Evening, chaps.” He called out once he had gotten close enough to reasonably yell over the wind. Theo was the only one to visibly react, very nearly falling from his broom as it yanked slightly to the left —where Harry’s voice had come from. He didn’t doubt anymore that Theo had never flown on a broom beyond the school-mandated lessons. Perhaps the poor sod was afraid of heights.

“Harry?” Blaise called, his mildly confused expression growing more obvious as Harry came closer. “I thought you had run off to some random corner to read. What are you doing out here?”

Harry smiled slightly, siding up next to Draco —who looked positively giddy —and held the book up for all to see. “I wanted to show you all something. I figured this would work well enough as insurance, since I’m sure none of you would believe me if I just told you about it. Would you like to see what I’ve got here, Theo?”

The boy in question grappled with his broom for a moment, a hungry look inching its way onto his face as he regarded the book. The expression was in direct opposition to his shaking hands wrapped tight around the broom handle.

“Could you… bring it to me?” He yelped, holding tighter to the broom as a particularly strong wind blew past them. Harry rolled his eyes, hovering in place for a moment before tucking the book back under his arm and doing as requested. Theo looked paler than even Draco as he readjusted his grip on the broom, taking the book with a careful sort of reverence and settling it half in his hand and half on the broom itself. Harry grimaced slightly, flying a little below Theo to make sure the book didn’t fall too far if he managed to let go of it. Perhaps going up so far in the air with such a delicate book was a bad idea. If Jörmungandr caught word of it, it would be Harry’s head on a pike.

“What the ‘ell...?” Theo murmured, brows furrowed as he flipped through the delicate pages. “What language is this?”

Harry shrugged, “Old North Germanic, I think.”

Theo’s expression deepened further, “no, it looks older than that. Maybe Old Norse…?”

“You could call it that too, I suppose. They’re rather interchangeable, no?”

There was a loud pause, in which the howling wind took the place of any speech for a moment, before all eyes turned to him. Theo had a rather odd look on his face.

“There aren’t any books in languages other than English in the library.” He stated it as a fact. Harry nodded, because it was.

Theo’s left eye twitched. “So, where did you get this, then?”

The tone made both Blaise and Draco waver slightly, manoeuvring their brooms in order to peer over Theo’s shoulder at the book. Harry didn’t answer at first, contemplating how best to say it without Theo possibly losing control over his broom. As he did, Theo seemed to take greater care in examining the book, and something about it seemed to make him pause a second time. 

“Hadrian James Potter, where in the name of Circe did you get this book?”

Theo jerked upwards slightly, his broom following along as it bucked sharply. Harry cursed, dodging to the left as Theo swerved to try and counter the movement. The boy yelped, the confusion in his voice very quickly replaced by a shocked surprise as he tumbled around in the air for a moment. Worry overtaking him, and Blaise’s laughter ringing in his ears, Harry sided up beside Thoe’s broom and, grasping tightly to the broom handle, held it steady as Theo grappled to keep it underneath him.

“Harry what-”

“Centre yourself.” He murmured, grasping it tightly as he pointed the tip of his own broom downwards. Theo heaved a breath, the massive manuscript held tightly against his chest as Harry slowly spiralled them both towards the ground.

“You two alright?” Blaise called, shouting against the wind as he and Draco steadily touched down to the ground a few metres away. Theo scrambled off his broom, muttering about ridiculous magic and ridiculous friends as Harry dismounted as well, though much more elegantly than the brunet had. Blaise and Draco were quick behind them, and Harry sent them both identical smiles as they touched down beside him and Theo on the turf. Regardless of how short it had been, it had been rather nice to get back to flying.

“Alright, Theo, cough it up. What’s so special about the book.” Blaise stumbled off his broom, mock-glaring at the boy as he practically caressed the tome in his arms.

“What's so special? What's so special about this manuscript, Zabini, is that it is older than dirt and shouldn’t even exist. And if it did, somehow, exist, it should be in a bloody museum!” He screeched, waving the book over his head as if it were some sort of holy object. “People do not simply write in Old Norse just for the hell of it, you idiot, and they certainly wouldn’t go to the trouble of making an entire bloody book in it. Look at this, it's even bound with —w-what is this? Calfskin? And the pages are made of vellum! You don’t just find shit like this, you-you-”

“Yes, okay! Thank you, I get it.” Blaise snorted at Theo’s expression, before turning marginally curious eyes onto Harry. “Alright then, so where did you get it?” 

Harry bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. He wasn’t completely sure if he was so excited because the secret was assuredly safe with his friends, or if the look on Theo’s face was so ridiculous that he couldn’t help but find the entire scenario hysterical. 

It was likely a bit of both.

“Isn’t he just precious?”

Tom groaned, his head in one hand as he nursed a rising headache. Fate sat beside him, her head cradled in both hands and a loving look slapped across her face as she cooed at the window in front of them. He thought the expression might have been painted on, considering just how fake it appeared.

“The Nott heir?” He questioned, uninterested, picking at a piece of lint on his shirt as she clapped her hands with glee.

“He just has so much potential! Oh, I do love him dearly. And the other one, of course, though she’s a little young yet… hmm, shall I tease her a smidge as well?” She questioned him, leaning over to his side of the couch slightly as she kicked her feet out into the air. Tom sighed, shaking his head at her as he stared out at the world outside of Harry’s mind. The boy was speaking with the other children, though Tom had screwed the passageway between them tight when Fate had arrived, so he hadn’t the slightest clue what they were talking about. It was only due to Fate’s tampering that he could still see anything outside his mind, really, though he doubted there was any reason for it beyond her own idle nature.

“He is just a boy, goddess, and I have no idea who the ‘other one’ is supposed to be.” He muttered, raising an eyebrow as the Nott heir clutched the aged Nordic tome tighter to his chest, hissing something to the mischievous one with so much heat that he wondered if the boy’s livelihood had been tested in some way. The Zabini boy merely laughed.

“Oh, she really is just such a darling. You would hate her. Her dreams are so vibrant, too, filled with all sorts of light and sound and fluffy happiness. Did I tell you about her blindness? It really is rather cute. I do wonder when Harry will learn about it.” The goddess chattered on, her voice laced with some sort of inhuman edge that grated unpleasantly against his mortal ears. Tom grimaced, and took a long sip from his tea. It was too hot.

“You do seem awfully fond of torturing the youth, goddess.” He murmured plainly, watching as Harry guided the three other boys back towards the castle. It was his own personal opinion that the basilisk would manage just fine on his own, and that this entire idea of bringing non-parselmouths down into the chamber was utterly unnecessary and maddeningly foolish.

It wasn’t as if Harry would be leaving the mortal plane anyway, so the snake had nothing to fear.

“Torturing? Oh, Tom, you have a horrible way of looking at things.” She made a noise of dissatisfaction at him, pursing her lips as she chewed on a biscuit. “I prefer the term ‘tough love’, you know? They’ll never learn if I’m easy on them, but they’ll be better for it in the end.”

“They’ll never recover if you’re too harsh.” He countered, grimacing as she threw back her head and howled with laughter. It was a genuinely horrific sound, one that he had gotten, sadly, quite used to over the years. She seemed to be visiting more often, though, so perhaps he had a reason to dislike it more than usual.

“Oh, you’re such a hypocrite, Tom Riddle; it really is just too funny!” She giggled, dipping the remnants of her biscuit into her cold tea before tossing the crumbly, soggy mess into her mouth. “I have no idea how you come up with these utterly ridiculous notions!”

He glared hatefully. Well… he tried to. Any sort of anger that he directed at the goddess of Fate always made him feel irreversibly tarnished in some way —as if he had spit on a gift from someone important to him. He despised the feeling. He knew she was the one who was forcing it into being.

“Oh~! Do you think Harry will tell them about his little issue while they’re down there in the chamber? It would be an excellent time to let everything hang out, you know.” She hummed, grabbing for another biscuit with greedy fingers as she refilled her cup of tea. He watched her, blankly, before turning back to the window peering out into Harry’s mind. They were parading about in the castle now, no doubt on their way up to the third floor. He grimaced, and sipped slowly from his cup. His tea was bitter. He grabbed for the sugar, fumbling for a moment with the spoon, before dropping two spoonfuls into his cup.

“I doubt it, and—no, I will not even attempt to place a bet on something so utterly rigged.” He hissed, wrinkling his nose at her expectant face. She pouted, rather prettily, and batted her eyelashes at him. He sneered, turning away quickly as she cackled. Tom despised the fact that she was attractive. It had to be some sort of front that she put up each day. No creature as horrifically maddening as her could possibly be so beautiful.

“Not even a little bit?”

He shook his head, scoffing at the insanity she was seeping under his skin. “You are the goddess of fate, if you have forgotten. I can’t possibly comprehend a game more stacked against me than betting on the future with you.”

She snorted, pressing a napkin to her cheek delicately, as if dabbing away an invisible crumb. “Oh, Tom. My dearest, lovely Tom Riddle, you truly are so delightfully cruel to me. Will you not entertain me, just this once?”

He sneered, and turned quickly away from her icy gaze, shivering slightly as it bore down into the side of his skull. He stirred his tea for a moment longer, before settling his spoon back down onto the saucer. Then, taking a sip of the tea, he grimaced, and set it down beside the spoon. It was too sweet. 

“You know,” she whispered, suddenly, right in his ear. He visibly jumped, scrambling back slightly as she pressed close into his personal space. He was shocked to find her so close so suddenly. “Your nose is quite expressive, Tom Riddle. The most emotional part of your face, I would say. It really was quite a tragedy when Voldemort lost his. I was never able to tell how he felt about things after it was gone.”

He stared at her, realising perhaps for the first time what she was—a twisting mass of an infinite cosmos that stretched out indefinitely before him. She was the future and the past, intertwined along a small frame and wrapped snugly around a maddening mind. He didn’t know how Death could possibly stand spending so much time around a being so cruel and horrific. Perhaps the god was a quieter kind of mad, one that suited Fate’s insanity just as well.

What a terrible thought it was, to consider how the universe was held so tightly in the fingers of two beings that had already been driven insane by their own divinity. Perhaps it explained a thing or two about the world.

“My nose…” he muttered, the thought falling away as he observed the cold cruelty that wrapped around the goddess’ pupil and branched out towards the warm green of her outer iris. He had never seen white eyes before he had seen hers. They were terrible in the most fascinating of ways, like disembowelment or dissection or other such disgusting matters he had borne witness to.

That must be it, he thought, leaning back against the armrest in an effort to gain distance as she leaned closer and closer to him. Her eyes are what make me so unsettled, not her mind. I have seen many minds driven to madness before, and hers is no different.

“I am not insane, Tom Riddle.” She murmured gently, replying to his unspoken thoughts as she pressed an icy finger up against the curve of his jaw. He flinched, hissing as she drew tantalising agony across his cheek. “And that is what’s so fun about it. My mind is unchanged from how it was when I was first created. This, as you see me, is how I was always meant to be.”

The universe is cruel. That was what she meant to tell him, but it could not be heard over the screaming in his throat and the agony ripping itself across his cheek. Her skin felt like flames and ice all mixed into one. Like pain and pleasure and the end of all things. He didn’t know if he loved it because it was such agony or hated it because it was such sweetness. There was such a divide, ice and fire and cruelty and kindness. Which was which and who was who? He was lost in himself for a moment, pulled away by the finger of eternity trailing sweetly down his cheek.

“And you’ll love me as I am, Tom Riddle.” She hissed, evil and pure and horrible and kind all wrapped around stars upon galaxies upon universes of truth. She was the truth. She was the truth of all things and he was lying on his back now, eyes pinned to her own as she gripped his cheeks with hands full of stars. Her skin was the stars now, the little freckles mere pinpricks of galaxies and universes, so far away and yet touching his chest now, gently and roughly and cruelly and kindly.

“The little ones who I share my knowledge with, you know of them, can't you see them? They will love me as you will, Tom Riddle. All will love me in the end, even if they don’t want to.” She whispered, her infinite form stretching out from that little ball of his soul that he was trapped deep within. She owned it, just as she owned time and death and Death and the universe. She held conquest over it all. She held conquest over him, and her hair was bunched up in his fingers now, soft like sheep’s wool and sharp like needles. She was the infinite immortality that he had chased after for decades and he was gripping tightly to her shoulders now, gasping as she landed a searingly cold kiss to his lips.

“You do, though, don’t you? You want so desperately to love me.”

Infinity and immortality and love and hate. Soft and sharp and cruel and kind. All that he had desired in life and all that he desperately wanted to escape from with death.

“I do,” he croaked, universes exploding into big bangs and imploding into heat deaths that went on and on inside of his eyes. He was burning. He was drowning. He was freezing to death and he desperately wanted to die. He desperately wanted to feel the death that she would bless him with.

It will be agonising. It will be wonderful. It will be yours.

Your fate, Tom Riddle, will be yours to keep.

“I will let you love me, Tom Marvolo Riddle, and you will know for every second you do that it is my blessing onto this torn soul of yours.”

And he did.

Harry considered it only a small reprieve that it was a Sunday. On a Sunday, no one would think to question a small group of four Slytherin boys as they walked, laughing and muttering amongst themselves, up the flights of stairs and along long school corridors. No one would even bother to glance their way, spare for the occasional first year who wanted a peek at the esteemed Harry Potter. Most people, though, including the uninterested paintings milling about the place, were not very interested in the affairs of four second-year boys, and before long, the coast was clear, and Harry was shepherding his three friends into the girl’s loo on the third floor.

Blaise had been snickering into his palm from the second Harry explained where they were going, and had only increased in volume as they slipped inside the lavatory. Theo and Draco, however, seemed almost sombre as they trespassed into the unknown territory, making very blatant efforts to look anywhere else but the stalls and sinks dotting the place. Harry thought that both reactions were ridiculous, considering how many times he had snuck into the space without so much as a thought to what it was supposed to be.

Locking the loo’s door behind them, Harry let out a low sigh before spinning on his heel to address his three friends. To reveal one secret he would first have to reveal another, and regardless of the vows they had taken the week before, he still felt trepidation creeping up his spine. They had not made vows to stick by each other once the secrets came to light after all, only that they would keep the secrets if one of the others told them.

And sure, they were all in Slytherin, but there was truly no telling how the other three would react to parseltongue, and he could very well lose them if the reaction was not positive. He was somewhat surprised by how upsetting the notion was.

He stood there for a moment, apprehensive, before Theo made a noise of impatience. 

“Alright, so why are we in a girl’s loo?” He snipped, holding the book tight to his chest as if even the air around them could taint it. “And why Myrtle’s loo of all places?”

“Myrtle?”

Theo huffed, rolling his eyes at Blaise’s confused expression, “Moaning Myrtle. You know, the one who cries a lot? She’s got on a Hogwarts uniform that looks decades out of date?”

Blaise hummed for a moment, tapping his chin in thought, before shrugging. “Well, I’ve never met her.”

Harry walked around the argument, smiling slightly as Theo and Blaise squabbled between themselves. Settling in front of the sink, he motioned over the idle Draco and pointed to the snake inscription. 

“See that? It’s the marker.” He murmured, smiling slightly as Draco reached out a hand and brushed his finger against it. The blond shivered visibly, and pulled back from the snake, eyes wide and curious.

“It has an old sort of old magic to it.” He replied, voice lowering an octave as the two behind them raised in volume. “It feels older than the rest of the room.”

Harry nodded, feeling rather excited about the entire ordeal as it began laying itself out in front of him. “It is. There was a remodelling at some point when toilets were added to the school —probably centuries ago, I would wager. This entranceway was kept here, though, just hidden in plain sight by the sink.”

He crouched down then, eye level with the sink, and beckoned Draco to do the same. “But do you want to know what it really is, beyond just an old carving?”

The blond eyed him suspiciously for a moment, before nodding. Harry steeled himself, reminding himself that these were Slytherins, and that Draco was a bloody Malfoy, and that Theo’s father had been just as much a death eater as Lucius had been. They would not turn him away for this. Blaise would probably find it hysterical. Everything was going to be okay. 

Jörmungandr deserved to have more people in the library than just him —quiet, analytical Harry. Jörmungandr probably thought he could do well enough with another, equally studious companion, but Harry knew that he likely longed for children to roam the stacks of ancient manuscripts and tablets and scrolls. And, even if he was frightened of what their reaction might be, Harry knew that he had every ability to give the ancient snake something he wanted, and Harry knew that he wanted to give it.

He certainly didn’t like being lonely, and he didn’t want Jörmungandr to be lonely either.

“~Open.~”

Immediately, there was a stillness to the air. All argument ceased as a low grinding noise came bubbling up from the pipes, and the sink slowly lifted off the wall. No one moved as it slowly, agonisingly, crawled to the side, revealing before them a near-vertical drop into darkness. Draco was frozen stiff beside him, eyes staringly, unseeing, into the abyssal black that lay in wait before them.

“You’re a parselmouth,” he whispered. It wasn’t a question. “Harry, you’re a parselmouth.”

He nodded, silently. Draco merely stared, slack-jawed and silent. Neither of them seemed quite capable of continuing the conversation, simply staring at each other as if they could carry a conversation on eye contact alone. Harry thought they were getting rather close to it as well. Draco’s meaning, at least, seemed relatively clear to him.

“I didn’t plan to tell you,” he finally stated, honest to the core for once, “because it's rather unimportant in the grand scheme of my life but would affect me quite a bit if the general public was aware. Do you understand that?”

There was a pause in the air, a stillness that Harry tried to ignore best he could, before Draco nodded.

“Thank you for the trust you have in me,” the blond replied, quietly, “I won't betray it.”

Harry smiled, “hey, now we’re even.”

They both stood, the conversation tapering off into nothingness as Harry’s eyes latched onto Blaise and Theo. The taller of the two looked very near imploding with glee as he bounced from foot to foot, seeming incapable of standing still for even a moment. Theo, on the other hand, had a rather pinched expression on his face as he regarded Harry. It was a sort of passive displeasure there that Harry hadn’t been expecting, and now that he was face to face with it, he wasn’t entirely certain if it was all that terrible of a reaction in comparison to what he had been expecting.

“I’m sure your tutor has told you why being a parselmouth isn’t something you should parade about, Harry.” Theo finally stated, a sort of acknowledging acceptance to his tone that made Harry sag slightly in relief.

“I’m not an idiot, Nott,” he replied, grabbing hold of the edge of the slide as he settled slowly down onto the edge. “Now, unless you find milling about in the girl’s loo to be a rousing example of entertainment, you can follow after me.”

With a rather awkward nod to their perturbed and, in Blaise’s case, excited faces, he slid forward and into darkness. The slide down the pipe was a familiar one, at least for him, and Harry managed to easily land on his feet at the bottom, quickly getting out of the way as he summoned up a mattress for the others to land on. He was glad that he did, too, as moments later Blaise came tumbling out, echoing screams following quickly behind him as Theo and Draco, who were practically on top of each other, tumbled out as well.

Blaise leapt to his feet, a sort of manic, adrenaline-filled gleam to his eye as he roamed around the little closet of a room hungrily. Theo stumbled up moments later, clutching his head and groaning about the landing. Harry had to help Draco to his feet, the blond appearing pained as he brushed himself down.

“You didn’t land on your back, did you?” Harry fret, earning an eye roll in response.

“You’re not my mother, Potter, and I’m fine.” Draco snipped, brushing his hands away as he turned and took in the now quiet cramped space around them. “Now, where are we … the sewage?”

Blaise snorted, “I think we are, actually. Harry, how did you find an entrance to the sewer system that can only be opened with parseltongue? Salazar Slytherin wasn’t alive when the pipes were added, you know.”

Harry sighed, motioning with one hand towards the open passageway in front of them. “The sewage system was an addition that was built into the underground passages later on. What we’re here for is down that way.”

Blaise made a move to investigate the narrow walkway, before Theo threw his hands out to stop him. “Now just wait a bloody moment!”

They all stood, silently, as Theo took a great breath of air, before levelling a stern look Harry's way. “Explain what we are doing here, and where you are leading us, or I will be crawling back up that tube and leaving to take a shower. I’m not going to crawl around in sewage without knowing why.”

Draco nodded vigorously in agreement as Blaise shrugged, picking at a hangnail as he gazed around the tall space. 

“I probably would.” He admitted, causing both Theo and Draco to shush him. “What? Look at this place! The atmosphere alone is worth the grime.”

Harry waved the thought away, turning slightly to motion at the darkened passageway. “A little further down that hall, it starts to widen before opening up into a cave. On the opposite side of the cave there is a circular iron door with snakes moulded onto it. If you open that door the same way you opened the sink, you’ll find yourself in the Chamber of Secrets.”

There was a very long, very quiet pause. Three sets of eyes stared at him, wide and uncomprehending, as he slowly lowered his arm and waited for someone to speak.

Surprising him, perhaps for a good reason, Theo was the first.

“Prove it.”

He nodded, perhaps just a bit smugly, before he motioned towards the narrow passage with a wide sweep of his arm. Theo was the first to move, though Blaise and Draco were quick to follow behind him. Harry took up the rear, silently observing his friends' reactions from behind them as they all walked through the enclosed space. Theo was walking quickly, speeding several paces ahead as he clutched desperately to the old manuscript that he refused to part with. Blaise, in contrast, was chattering on about the sewage pipes, coming to all the same conclusions that Harry had about them in the weeks prior —that they would make excellent secret tunnels from one part of the school to the next if they were cleaned of the ages-old faeces. Draco, however, was silent, padding along besides Harry as they traversed deeper and deeper into the bowels of the school. He had a vice grip on Harry’s wrist, and seemed extremely against letting go anytime soon. Harry couldn’t really find it in himself to mind all that much, or tell his friend to let go.

And then, just as he said it would, the passage started to widen out into a familiar cave, and the others let him take the lead as he guided them around bundled packages of basilisk skins. None of them outwardly questioned the bundles, but Harry could tell that Theo in particular wanted to. He didn’t make any note of them though, knowing he would likely end up explaining how he had harvested them later on regardless.

They came upon the circular door, a wrought iron fortress of imposing history, and Harry waited for a moment as they stared up at it. Theo was strung taught, anxiety dripping from his frame as he observed the door with keen eyes. Harry didn’t bother glancing at the other two, mostly focused on how Theo was managing the ordeal, but he could still feel Draco’s smaller hand gripping tightly to his wrist in trepidation.

“~Open.~”

The other three jumped at the parseltongue, Theo even stumbling back half a step on instinct. Harry did his best to ignore it, stepping forward instead as the circular door fell away and opened up into the familiar flooded chamber that he had grown so used to over the weeks.

“Bloody hell,” Blaise muttered, making him grin slightly as they all stepped forward, joining him in the chamber.

“This… this is-is…” Draco floundered for a moment, gazing up at the massive head of Slytherin’s founder. “It’s… really real? You-you actually…”

He was at a loss for words, merely gaping at the statues of the snakes as they passed them by. Blaise, for once, was also not speaking, seeming momentarily shocked silent for perhaps the first time in his life.

Theo looked like he was seconds away from bursting into tears.

Smiling at all three of them, he turned away and, after clearing his throat, focused his attention up onto the statue of Salazar Slytherin.

“~Jörmungandr, I’ve brought the one I was telling you about, as well as two others who I thought might enjoy the library. Won’t you come out and say hello?~”

There was a pregnant pause, in which Harry was certain none of the other three were even breathing, before Salzar’s mouth slowly creaked open.

“~So quickly…? You work fast, my little friend.~”

The other three stumbled back several steps as the massive snake came slithering from the hole in the statue’s mouth, Draco even falling onto his back as Jörmungandr reared up, his stunning golden eyes obscured slightly by a sort of protective under-eyelid. Harry was surprised by the hazy look to the creature’s eyes, before realising that he likely had been observing Jörmungandr’s eyes without anything between their gazes for that whole time. He was, surprisingly, unsurprised by the realisation.

“Everyone, keep your eyes from his face. He’s a basilisk, so his gaze may compromise your life.” He called out, grinning slightly as Blaise muttered a curse.

“You don’t think?! Merlin, man, maybe a little warning next time?”

“~They are awfully loud, little friend.~” Jörmungandr acknowledged, causing Harry to grin slightly.

“~To be fair, you are quite the sight. I’d say it's warranted.~”

“What’s he saying —what are they talking about?”

“Do you think I know, Zabini?”

“It’s alright. He’s just saying hello,” Harry interjected, turning to the other three with a slight grin, “and that he wants to show you all the library.”

Theo’s neck snapped around so fast Harry could hear a crack. He reached out towards Harry, eyes still firmly shut but a determined look on his face as he held out his hand.

“Show me. Now.”

It was difficult convincing the three other boys to open their eyes, but Harry eventually convinced them that Jörmungandr was not so much of a threat to them that they had to be blinded whenever the snake was nearby. Making sure that they were cautious where their eyes wandered, he was able to shepherd them through the statue's mouth one by one, Theo, unsurprisingly, being the first to volunteer himself for the task. They all entered into the winding tunnels without much fuss, and Harry was pleased to find he could guide the other three through them without Jörmungandr’s help.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Theo ran off ahead at the first sign of light, breaking out into a jog as Harry pointed out that the library was now in sight. Harry didn’t mind much, not really, as he walked along with Draco and Blaise at a much more reasonable pace through the twisting caverns. The most challenging thing was keeping Jörmungandr calm enough to actually lead them through the maze, as the massive snake seemed seconds away from bursting into excited monologues about the library’s history at any moment.

The basilisk’s excitement could no longer be contained once they actually stepped foot into the library, however, and Harry quickly found himself translating Jörmungandr’s rushed explanation of the chamber and its library as his three friends looked on with awe.

“This place is the ‘secret’ that the Chamber of Secrets was built to house. It is named, quite aptly, the Library of Secrets, and is host to an incredible array of magical knowledge. It was created when the four founders of Hogwarts found themselves desiring a place to store all the knowledge that was being threatened by the witch hunts during their time. After the founders passed, people came to the library —with the assistance of parselmouths of course— in order to add books and knowledge. That period lasted for a good 300 years after the school was founded. But, sadly, as parseltongue became less prominent in the outside world, the chamber and subsequent library were slowly forgotten, and the legend that the founders had originally been using to scare away any muggles who might wish to destroy the knowledge in the library slowly started to become widely regarded as fact by magical Britain, and people stopped coming.”

Draco and Blaise were listening quietly as he translated Jörmungandr’s monologue, taking in the sights and smells of the library with curious yet reserved eyes.

Theo was practically frothing at the mouth.

“Can… can I…?”

“Go on.” Harry grinned, making a shooing motion towards the shelves as he did. Theo was off like a shot, quickly disappearing into the old bookshelves with nothing but his footfalls to prove he was still with them.

“Mental, that one.” muttered Blaise, with a hint of a smile on his face, “this is pretty brilliant though, mate. Mind if I run off as well?”

Harry shooed him off as well, quickly finding himself alone with Draco as Jörmungandr, who was now muttering to himself excitedly about children and languages and vocal cords, slunk silently after Theo, a gleam to his golden eyes that Harry hoped Theo wouldn't take the wrong way.

It was quiet for a moment —calming, even—before Harry turned to look at the blond beside him expectantly.

“You hurt your back in the fall.” 

“No I didn’t.” 

“Don't lie, Draco. Let me take a look at it.”

The shorter boy screwed up his face, nose wrinkling with distaste as he folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t reply, though, and he didn’t make a move to let Harry look at the growths on his back.

“Draco, just-”

“No. I’m fine, Potter. Theo broke my fall. They just sting a little bit.”

Harry knew he was lying, but couldn’t come up with a reason to continue arguing when Draco so clearly didn’t want to think about it. Harry could understand the feeling too —that urge to lock it away till it either broke free or stopped being an issue entirely. Perhaps that understanding was what made him nod, albeit cautiously, and decide to stop pushing.

“I’m sorry, Draco.”

“It's not your fault.”

“You went down the slide because of me. That much was my fault, at least.”

He didn't have much to say to that. So, they stood side by side, silent as the dead, watching as their friends explored the ancient library without them. Harry gathered himself, wondering if Tom was listening to their conversation and laughing to himself. The man hadn’t said a word since Harry had stepped out onto the Quidditch Pitch. He wondered if something had come up.

Harry shook his head slightly, wondering why that thought had come to him so suddenly. Of course Tom had things to do. He was too busy for conversation at the best of times, let alone a quiet day like this.

He breathed in deeply, slowly expelling the breath from his lungs.

“I'm sure there's something in the library about creature inheritance as well,” he blurted, desperate to wave away the oppressive silence, “but I haven't been able to find anything.” 

“...Why?”

“Pardon?”

Draco looked at him strangely, an odd quirk to his brow. “Why have you been looking for things on creature inheritances?”

Harry parred the other boy’s look with a similar one, eyebrows furrowed and caution driving his every word.

“Theo sent both of us those books last Yule, don’t you remember? I… I just meant to say that I was hoping there might be information in here for the both of us.”

Draco stared at him, before something seemed to click in his mind, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

“I… I see.”

Neither of them spoke, but Harry felt heavy, like he had lifted several weights off his shoulders only to replace them with more than had been there before. Melancholy, and feeling rather foolish, he turned away and looked out at his haven once again. It was louder than usual, filled with the pattering of feet against old stone. He expected that Jörmungandr was rather pleased with the change, but Harry couldn’t help but feel that the purity of the library had been tarnished in some way. He forced the thought away, reminding himself that the library was not his alone to enjoy. He sighed, rubbing at his temple as an aching headache started to press in on his skull.

Guilt, he realised, weighs heavier when there is no one to blame but yourself.

Chapter Text

Previously:

“You do, though, don’t you? You want so desperately to love me.”

Infinity and immortality and love and hate. Soft and sharp and cruel and kind. All that he had desired in life and all that he desperately wanted to escape from with death.

“I do,” he croaked, universes exploding into big bangs and imploding into heat deaths that went on and on inside of his eyes. He was burning. He was drowning. He was freezing to death and he desperately wanted to die. He desperately wanted to feel the death that she would bless him with.

It will be agonising. It will be wonderful. It will be yours.

Your fate, Tom Riddle, will be yours to keep.

“I will let you love me, Tom Marvolo Riddle, and you will know for every second you do that it is my blessing onto this torn soul of yours.”

He gasped for air, impossibilities layering on top of each other as she pressed down into him, the weight of the infinite worlds of the infinite universes resting painfully across his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn't see. He couldn’t understand the unbearable pleasure branching out from the star-filled fingers brushing hot and sweet against his chest. Down and down and down until she grasped her mark and he erupted into a supernova.

“~Please.~” He hissed, drawn tightly back into the smallest parts of himself as she began to move. There was nothing beyond or behind him after that. There was nothing that he was that she did not already exist as. There was nothing to him that she did not own, and he did not know who he was or who he used to be but she was cradling his face so tenderly and grasping him so tightly and it felt so horrible and so wonderful and he was so very close to tears.

And she kissed him. She kissed him again and again until his lips melted from his face and returned to the void she existed as. He held, tightly, desperately, to her stars, sinking his nails deep into the coarse inferno of her shoulders as she pressed scaldingly glacial hands into his heart, stripping away the outer layers of his skin till he was no one and nothing and everyone at the same time. She was so close to him—so close that she was him, and he belonged to her, and there was nothing and no one that mattered beyond that one single fact.

There was no speaking. There were no words that he could comprehend. Emotions and sensations and thoughts passed him by—expansive and contemplative and curious—but he could not comprehend a single word that might describe the feeling of the universe wrapping around you, taking you in as if you were always meant to be there. He could feel her—hot and freezing and bitter and strong—grasping at every inch of him as he begged wordlessly for eternity to unwind itself. He could see her smile, so gentle and sharp and caring and cruel. Her eyes came to him next, towering above and around him—glowing so brightly that there was nothing he could see beyond them. She did not breathe. He did not breathe. All there was between them was the gentle movement of a furious cosmos as it pulled at every piece of him in every way it could.

“~Say you are mine, Tom Riddle.~”

He found his voice as she hissed into his neck—she had gifted it back to him. He sobbed first—cried out in blissful agony as she pulled him deeper inside of herself before forcing him out again. In and out and in and out of the infinite infinity until he couldn’t distinguish himself from the movement and all that there was, was the heat and ice of stars and black matter on his skin, all converging in on him before shoving him away. Did he exist as her own or as nothing at all? Did he exist when she left him or did he die when she brought him back?

“~Speak.~”

“~I am yours.~” He breathed, slowly and heavily as his lungs were destroyed and reformed to the pace of her pulling and pushing. Destroyed then rebirthed to be destroyed all over again. An infinite cycle of big bangs and heat deaths till there was nothing to exist as but a cycle of pain and pleasure and love and hate. Her hands were against the skin of his body that no longer existed, gripping and tearing and pressing so gently into him—into his soul which was so broken and so unlovable. She wanted to love it. He needed her to love it. He needed her pain and her love and her stars as they destroyed him piece by agonisingly beautiful piece.

“~I am yours, and I love you, and please keep me.~” He sobbed louder, his spine the only thing left of him as he arched desperately to meet her infinite feelings and shapes. She hummed, low and soft on his neck as she rebuilt it, pulling the pieces she had stolen from him and placing them wherever she wished. He was the canvas and the paint and the easel, and she was an idle painter who had time upon eternity to agonise over the blankness of his soul.

“This is your completion, my sweet shattered soul. Let me keep it all to myself.”

He felt the eruption seconds before it happened, and screamed through the rapture as it gripped tightly to the deep aching feeling pooled far within his hollowed-out corpse. It raced through his splintered soul, a burning darkness that was so bright and so unseeable and infinite and he was dead. He was dead and he was alive again and there was nothing beyond him but that. There was nothing more he could possibly desire than that—the utter completion of soul and form and the agony tripling until there was no distinction between magic and mind. It was his completion, his alone, and for the second as he laid there, wrapped in her infinity, that was all there was.

But then, she breathed.

Tightening, shrinking, gathering him close and breathing all around him. Galaxies, stars and planets—they wavered and crumbled and sank into dust and she trembled, she shook like a leaf in a hurricane of its own creation and she gripped tightly to his neck and forced the air out of his lungs and into the planets that shaped her own. He gave it to her—all he had left to give and all he could possibly provide to her—and she gasped, quiet and booming and so sweet against his ear. Infinite and glorious and all that he could do was lie there and breathe her in—breathe in the dust of planets and the hydrogen of stars and the crushing weight of dark matter pressing hot and comforting across him.

And then it was over.

She pulled off him slightly, unweaving around his cells and returning them to their place before her interference. But she continued to lie across his chest, shockingly warm and comfortingly sharp as she returned his burning soul to its splintered, shattered form. He blinked, slowly, unused to the eyelids that she had stolen from him and unfamiliar with the eyes that she had moulded back into his skull. He was rebuilt, as if nothing had ever happened, though he now lay bare to the world and heavy with a goddess strewn lazily across his chest.

He blinked slowly at the ceiling above him—the ceiling of his mindscape, so simple and plain in comparison to the eternal eternity he had just bore witness to—and slowly breathed out a sigh.

“Do you love me now, Tom?” She whispered curiously, her hair a halo of fire falling down around his head as she leaned over him, pressed far too close and achingly too far at the same time. The oppositional nature of her existence felt like a natural occurrence now though, one that had to exist because nothing else would if it didn’t. She existed, with her eyes white and glorious and green and stormy. Infinite and tiny and beautiful and terrifying. She simply… was.

He stared at her. He stared at her lips. He stared at her stars, now mere freckles doting a pale face. He stared at her, and knew without a single doubt that she was utterly and completely sane.

“I can't imagine that I could ever stop loving you now that I’ve begun.” He admitted, quiet and breathless and impossibly, adoringly truthful. And she grinned gleefully down at him in response, her fingers dancing merry tunes across his cheeks and her eyes lighting every star in the infinite universes of his soul.

And it was the truth.

It was the truth.

Blaise never thought that he could be so excited about a library.

Books were, in truth, not really his forte. He preferred direct action or trial-and-error to sort out most of his problems, while others in his immediate group of friends—like Theo, if he was going to be blunt—might prefer to understand the mysteries of the world before they even consider how to tackle them. Draco was a bit more similar to him in that way, Blaise figured, though not to the same extent. Both of them had a particular penchant for diving in headfirst and sorting out the rest as they went, but Draco had a more verbal way of going about it than him. Blaise liked that about his friend. It was similar to his own methods, but just a bit more swooty.

Harry, he figured, was somewhere in the middle. Obviously, the last Potter had a particular love of research and strategy, but Blaise had never seen someone look quite so rabid than Harry when he tackled Lord Malfoy to the floor.

Harry was a good balance, and Blaise liked that too.

And he, Blaise had to admit, was somewhere in the grey area at the moment, as he strolled through towering bookshelves that seemed to very nearly scrape against the shockingly tall ceiling. He was not a particular lover of knowledge, but his new interest in the old gods had sent him down the unfamiliar path of genuinely reading.

It was a new experience for him, to be sure, but he was managing it well enough.

He hummed, neck craned upwards as he took in the impressively high shelves and breathed in the old magic hanging low in the air. He hadn’t truly been all that curious about the library, knowing that the most interesting thing about the chamber had to be the massive bloody snake that Harry had lovingly referred to as the librarian. No, he had been perfectly content to enjoy the thrill of the underground tunnels and theorise about the endless possibilities of using the sewage system for unseen travel through the castle than the books. He was far too curious about all the ways the Chamber of Secrets could help him make life at Hogwarts just that much more interesting.

But something was calling to him, out there in the maze of bookshelves and dust. He could feel it, faintly, as if there was a string wrapped around his middle, pulling him closer and closer to some sort of prize. It was distinct, and familiar, and tempting.

Very tempting.

So, he decided to wander off, following the curious pull through the never-ending stacks of ancient and forgotten magic. 

It felt similar to him in an odd way—mischievous and bold and unforgettable. It was tantalising in the way that mystery was to him, like that first breath of stale air as you step foot in a forgotten passageway of Hogwarts. It was that edge of excitement that he spent all his time chasing, and he was hardly going to stop running after it now that he was down among history and ancient knowledge. If anything, he was going to chase it faster—desperately, if he could.

Turning a corner, Blaise found himself whistling a tune cheerily as he followed the tugging, winding around old wood and skipping along even older stone. It was an unfamiliar tune—just a random string of notes tugged along into some semblance of a melody—but it felt like something that he had heard before. Maybe it was one of the old nursery rhymes his father had sung to him, before…

Before…

He stopped suddenly, eyes closed and breath shaky as he reached out and grasped the shelf beside him for support. The world swam around him for a moment, the air thick and putrid with a gripping sense of wrongness. Before… before…

“Before what…?”

He gripped his head with his one free hand, grunting as nausea washed hot and thick over his shoulders. Before what? He didn’t… he couldn’t—

“No.” He murmured, forcing the thoughts from his mind with a pained grunt. The nausea began to recede with it instantaneously, pulling meekly away from his mind as he stumbled off the shelf and into the unknowable space beyond it. He wavered for a moment, caught with his feet under him and the floor missing from behind his eyes, before the ache fell away completely, and the room slowly returned to him. Blaise sucked in a slow breath, testing the waters of normalcy as he blinked out at the narrow walkway, caught between two towering shelves of tomes as the memories fell away with his confusion. Blaise took another shaky breath of air, and rubbed a clammy hand across his temple. 

He waved an arm through the air around him—almost as if waving away any lingering discomfort—before picking his feet back out from the rest of his sensations. Flexing his toes, he shook his head slightly, before continuing on his little jaunt through the library. He forced away all thoughts of before before before and kept himself firmly back onto the path of curiosity, ignoring temptations of the past to focus all attention onto another sort of past.

A far more ancient past.

It was mere minutes later that the tugging began to get impatient, yanking at his sternum as if it was a bothersome child pulling at its mother’s arm. Blaise found himself breaking out into a slight half-jog, his excitement growing as he felt the tugging grow stronger and stronger with every step he took—its excitement seeping into his own. He turned a corner, picking up the pace into an actual jog as he weaved through dust and mildew, occasionally fighting the urge to sneeze as he fell farther and farther from the areas that Harry had previously travelled. He began to run then, his feet carrying back back back… back towards the darkened recesses of the library—where it didn’t seem that anyone but the aged basilisk had wandered for centuries upon aeons. The books seemed older there—bound up in strangely coloured leathers and made in strange sorts of shapes and sizes. Some seemed small enough to fit in his mouth, while others looked to be the size of satchels and thick enough that they would need to be carried around by horse-drawn carts. There were also quite a few more ancient-looking texts, which were scrawled into stone tablets laid out in an odd sort of way along the shelves—as if they were being displayed like a piece of art instead of stored in a library. 

And then, the tugging stopped. 

Blaise stopped with it, gasping for breath as he leaned down, one arm flailing out to grab hold of a jutting-out shelf and another gripping tightly to his knee. He panted for a moment, breathing in great gulps of air—forcing breath into his lungs with the ferocity of a man half-starved and fully crazed—before he lifted up from his slumped position and opened up his eyes.

He was standing in front of an unassuming shelf, one that looked no different from the others he had been running through mere moments ago. The blandness of it almost took him off guard, and Blaise was tempted to feel disappointed if it were not for the feeling seeping through his fingers. Something felt... off about the aged wood before him. 

Blaise tilted his head to the side, studying the old wood as if it would tell him all its secrets if he was patient enough to listen. 

It was the same shade as the rest of the shelves, and was clearly cut in the same manner as the others, but there was a sort of… gleam to it that made him stare just a bit longer than he would the others. It felt almost… cleaner? Yes, that was it. It didn’t have the same centuries-old age and tear to it that the rest had. Sure, the entire library was doing remarkably well for the age that it was, but the shelf before him looked practically brand new. It was as if someone had been coming by to shine it every morning and night, pulling the dust from the old books with a loving hand.

Blaise hummed, his disappointment dissipating as he brushed an idle hand down the side of the shelf. He felt along the grains of wood, the dips and curves of the old oak’s features, before stopping. His eyebrows furrowed, and he glanced towards his hand curiously, pulling it away slightly to reveal a little carving into the wood. It was familiar—two snakes knotting and weaving around each other in a sort of geometric pattern.

Blaise raised an eyebrow, lip quirking to the side in amusement, before he pressed down firmly on the carving.

…

Thump.

Jumping slightly, Blaise turned his gaze downwards, blinking with mild surprise at and old book which had fallen from its perch. Glancing back up at the symbol—which was still covered with his hand—he hummed for a moment, before reaching down and picking up the book.

It was old—just as old as anything else in the library, he would wager—and was bound in an equally aged leather. The pages looked one wrong handling from turning to dust, though clearly the book had to be far sturdier than it looked, considering that it had fallen from the shelf without so much as a bend to the pages. Stepping away from the shelf, he opened the old manuscript to a random page. He flipped through the book for a few minutes, uninterested by the unfamiliar language, before he stopped. His eyes widened slightly as they landed on a complex-looking runic diagram. The words on the page may be eligible to him—utter gibberish to his mind, which had never needed to even fathom Old Norse before—but the runic diagram was familiar. It was extremely familiar.

Scrambling for a moment, Blaise set the tome gingerly atop the shelf again and fumbled for his pocket, yanking the tiny green book from within it with impatient fingers. Flipping through the small pages, he breathed out a breath of shock, eyes landing on a much more vague depiction of the very same diagram. It was much smaller in his book, and it was much less detailed —being a mere example of a ritualistic design that could be used for something or another—but it was irrevocably the same thing.

Grabbing the large tome off its perch again, he settled down onto the floor, flipping between the little green book and this strange new curiosity as he began to see more and more similarities between the two. What was it about this diagram that was supposedly so important? He couldn’t make out the words in the new book to be able to sort it out, but as he went back and read through his little green book, Blaise slowly began to piece together exactly what it was meant to do.

Trials. Pledges. Oaths. Different words for similar things. There are differences between the three of course, but in the eyes of the gods, they all have one thing in common: the giving of one thing in turn for another. For all deities of Asgard, it is not so much about if their mortal worshipers may go through such trials, but when. It changes, from deity to deity, what and when and how a mortal must go about their trials of faith, but it is agreed among all that three trials must occur before a worshipper may be allowed the glory and honour of becoming one of a God’s own. Till a trial, or pledge, or oath is undergone, a worshipper of one such god will be nothing but a faceless mortal, begging for the assistance and companionship of greater beings.

Blaise bit his lip, brushing a tentative finger down the runic diagram. He recognized… some of the runes, though only distantly. He thought that he might have seen a few of them littered around his home, though he had never bothered to ask his mother about them. He regretted the fact for a moment, before quickly moving past it.

It was very clear to him that the runes in the book were not the type of sigils that he was personally familiar with. Just as he had no attachment to the language, the runic alphabet itself was also a foreign concept to him, one that he had only seen in passing and had no previous ties to. With that thought in mind, it was all too likely that he would have to first learn what the runes represented before even beginning onto the path trial or pledges or whatever it was that the little green book was trying to get him to do.

Because it was clear that it was trying to get him to do something. It had some sort of driving force behind it, and while he wasn’t exactly ecstatic about some sort of foreign force attempting to parade him around, he couldn't help but be obscenely curious about what it wanted from him.

Leaning back slightly, he pressed back into the old shelf behind him, humming as he propped the large manuscript up on his legs. Maybe he could find some sort of translation charm that would make the process easier…? The little green book seemed to have its own sort of charms meant to bypass language barriers, considering how it had reacted to him the first time he had opened it, so perhaps there was some way for him to cut corners through the whole process and do the same for the new tome.

Blaise sighed, wondering how he would even find something like that as he flipped sluggishly through the little green book. Smacking his lips experimentally, he eyed a page he had read over dozens of times. The words seemed… blurry.

Blaise observed the small, two page spread in a daze, idle contemplations swimming through his conscious as the words swam with them, bending and dripping along the page. He watched the words for a moment, squinting as they became indistinguishable from normal splotches of ink. 

Bloody hell, he thought passingly, I must be exhausted if I can't even keep my eyes from crossing.

Yawning, he rubbed at his eyes, forcing any fatigue from them as he leaned harder into the shelf behind him. Returning his eyes to the page, intent on at least understanding what the diagram was for before he left the library, he froze.

Blaise sat up, gaze pinned to the small pages as the vague blobs of ink shifted along the page, very real and very indistinguishable. Eyes gleaming, he grinned, watching as the words rewound themselves into a new order. 

“Brilliant.” He whispered to the empty air, sliding a finger down the damp ink as it knit itself back into a distinguishable English. Hunched over the two books in his lap, Blaise’s grin widened, excitement edging into maniacal as he greedly drank in the new information.

The Three Pledges of Loki, And The Trial Which Follows
Trials. Oaths. Pledges. Loki, the trickster god, decided upon the creation of these texts that there was no simple way to go about gaining faith from mortals. His answer to this quandary was quite a simple one: make it difficult.

Loki breaks his pledges into three: three acts, three stages of a play, and three months of a year. It does not matter which three months are chosen, be they one or six months apart from each other. As long as they are within the span of the year, they are worthy of understanding and acceptance by all involved in them, including the god of tricks. These pledges, created upon this book’s binding, have been seeped into the very ink of which it is written, and are listed out below, though only those who have been deemed worthy to receive the knowledge will be capable of seeing. If one such individual is reading this scrypt, then they may proceed in any way that they please.
The first pledge: Entailing a blood sacrifice, the first pledge is one of an individual’s body. It is a promise to use one’s blood and bone and skin advantageously in one’s own pursuits. More information detailing how the ritual is undergone may be found in The Examination of Companions.

The second pledge: Centred around meditation, the second is a pledge of one’s mind, allowing that no boundaries may separate a deity and their mortal brethren. This pledge is the most mentally strenuous, and may lend the mortal taking part to a less concrete vantage point for many months afterwards. It is most commonly decided that those who have undergone the second pledge should give half a year for their mind to settle before they undergo the final pledge. More information detailing how the ritual is undergone may be found in The Examination of Companions.

The third pledge. Inclined towards the understanding of immortal beings and their divide between mortal companions, the last pledge is that of one's soul. Giving one’s entirety to a god is a pledge of the most sincere and intimate of rituals. It is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for those weak-willed. The agony of opening one’s body, mind, and soul to a deity who exist far beyond their own understanding is of the most potent kinds. More information detailing how the ritual is undergone may be found in The Examination of Companions.

Blaise tapped a familiar tune into his thigh, biting his lip as the words continued on to the second page, unwinding and reweaving the previous gospel into something far more… explanatory. Was this what he had been searching for? It was as if all the secrets that the little green book’s author had previously danced around were now being spoon-fed to him, and all because he had come across this second, larger tome? What was the correlation? Clearly, there had to be some sort of connection between the two books beyond just the runic diagram; otherwise, the little green book wouldn’t be reacting the way it was. Humming, he set aside the larger tome completely, focusing the whole of his attention onto the little green book as it bled out secret after secret.

With these three pledges in mind, one must turn their attention away and towards the afterwards. Once the three pledges are thus completed and the mortal is accepted, a decision must be made—the decision being the trial that follows.

The trial can be anything: a long journey, a pursuit of knowledge, a sacrifice, or even something as small as a simple question. The decision for what a trial might be changes completely depending on the individual undertaking the trial, and is completely dependent on their own personal sensibilities and values. This meaning that a trial must be difficult for it to truly be considered a trial.

For instance, those who enjoy travel may be told to meditate in a darkened cave for several months. Alternatively, those who adore solitude may be required to travel from place to place, meeting certain people along the way. The one thing that all trials have in common is that the individual undertaking the trial will be given one that goes directly against their personal nature. If someone is inclined towards the sword, they may be required to take up archery. If someone is of a greedy nature, they may be required to give all they have to the less fortunate. All trials are perfectly manufactured to be the most difficult for their chosen individual, this is the only similarity that they share.

“A trial, eh?” He murmured, slowly picking himself up from the floor beneath him as he shut both books with quiet thumps. It sounded… doable, though he had no clue what exactly the pledges entailed. It seemed that they were detailed in the larger tome though, so perhaps he would be able to find some sort of translation charm that was capable of revealing the secrets to him. Surely though, the main difficulty would be learning how to draw and understand the runic diagram as it was meant to be interpreted. Everything else after that had to be simple enough. It seemed foolish to make something like this unreasonably hard, after all. It seemed that the language barrier was the only thing that kept him so wary of even trying.

Stuffing the little green book back into his pocket, he hooked the larger tome under one arm, holding it securely to himself as the old leather itched against his skin. Whistling the familiar tune, he began retracing his steps through the maze of books, his mind idle and a distant curiosity dancing around his tongue.

It seemed things were finally getting interesting.

Tom lounged back against the plush couch cushions, feeling heavier than lead and more tired than he thought possible. Warmth—scalding and gentle and lovely—weighed heavy against his front. Red hair, fiery and bold and glacial, curved over his chest and up along to the crook of his neck. Fire was crackling somewhere, cold as ice and warm as Hell. He wondered if the hearth had been poked or if part of his library was aflame. He couldn’t force himself to care either way.

Tom took a long sip from his wine.

“Those hex bags were quite ingenious of you, weren’t they, sweet shattered soul of mine?”

He hummed, lips curling up slightly as he nursed his glass. A finger—hot and sharp and glorious—trailed unknowable figures up and down his sides, runes of some sort that he was unknowable and intolerable of. She laughed against his throat, pressing a sweet, toe-curling kiss to his jaw as she did.

“They won’t last, of course, because that’s boring,” she stuck out her tongue, licking a forked path up from his pulse point and down to the aching cavern that his heart had left when he was removed from his body. Her eyes were mischievous and her fingers were gentle. He watched her descent with gently contained excitement. “—but they were quite testy of you.”

He swallowed, watching as her nails dug crescent moons into his sides. “Did I outsmart you for a brief moment, goddess?”

The laughter that followed was answer enough.

He sighed, propping himself up slightly as his soul ached delightfully against the motion. The hex bags were a rather slap-dash attempt to keep Albus Dumbledore at arm’s length, really, but seemed to be working well enough. He had never been very good at permanent notice-me-not’s after all, so they had been the best alternative for keeping Harry out of Dumbledore’s mind.

The nature of the bags was relatively simple, really, if deceptively effective. As long as the two intended people were inside of the bags’ circle of influence, the intended ‘victim’ would feel compelled to ignore the ‘attacker’. No… ignore was the wrong word, give a wide berth? Tom had hoped they would make Harry’s first few years of schooling easier, at the very least, which seemed to be happening well enough. The fatal flaw, he had realised, was summers, when Harry was most certainly not in the castle. During the summers, Albus Dumbledore would be free to think and plan all he wished around the matter of Hadrian Potter.

“I liked the necklace too, actually. It was a nice touch. Wherever did you get the idea to make it? It almost reminds me of your pretty little locket.” She broke him from his worried thoughts by the teasing admission, and he turned slightly to find her eyes squinting curiously up at him. He grimaced at the expression, and glanced away, deciding instead to take another sip of his wine. She was laughing at him, if silently for once. Somehow, it felt more embarrassing than when she just got it over with and cackled in his face.

The cursed necklace he had put onto the Granger chit wasn't going to last forever, as someone was fated to figure out what it was doing to her psyche and force it off her, but for now, it was the best thing he could think of to keep her genius mind scrambled of any intelligent thoughts. Irrationality curses were such petty things to pull, really, but the girl was barely thirteen. She was hardly a foreign diplomat or a fully grown witch. He hardly thought it mattered if the curse was a pathetic bid or not. 

As long as it was effective, he figured, then all was well enough to him.

Tom leaned back, sighing as another painfully wonderful kiss was pressed against his neck. He was growing used to them, if that was even possible. Perhaps there was something to be said about exposure therapy after all.

It was quiet for a moment. Warm and gentle and sharp. His skin felt like sandpaper against her own, and for those lovely moments, all he did was sit and stare up at the ceiling, taking in the woodwork as sensations raced up and down his body.

“I think I've got a soft spot for tall grumpy men.”

He snorted, looking down at her with a single raised eyebrow. Her grin widened.

“See! I definitely have a type. Death is just like that, all edgy and tall with that dark hair. Though he has a much bigger di-”

“Do you need something?”

She shrugged, throwing both arms over his shoulders as she leaned her entire weight into his chest. It felt like the whole world was collapsing against him. He smiled slightly, wrapping an arm around her middle as she nuzzled another kiss into his cheek.

“If you have nothing to say-”

She sighed, loud and drawn out and horribly, blatantly annoyed. “See, that's the difference right there. Death always wants to talk to me. You just want to sit around contemplating things with that pretty little look on your face.”

He swirled his wine around in his glass for a moment, feeling rather pleased with things as she pressed her cheek into the small of his neck.

“I’m simply not one for being laughed at.” He finally replied, eliciting a little giggle out of the goddess for his troubles.

“Oh yes, I think I’ve figured out that much, Tom Riddle.” 

There was a pause, before he glanced down to look at her, brows furrowed and cheeks pinched.

“Do you suppose the god of death will wish to have a word with either of us for this?” He murmured into her hair, questioning if he had much of a say in things either way. He was hardly the instigator, after all. It seemed unfair for him to be blamed for the goddess’ infidelity.

“Oh, don’t think so poorly of me, mister Riddle!” She chirped, settling higher into his lap as she did. His gaze followed her movement, wandering along the curves and edges of divinity with stunned appreciation. “Death and I have wide spectrums of enjoyment, so we established long ago that we could go find someone else to scratch an itch if the other was unwilling.”

He sipped his wine once more, eyes still pinned to the goddess’s frame as he contemplated the concept. “I suppose that is one way to say that you’re in an open relationship.”

She laughed, loud and gentle and lovely, as she carded a cool hand through his hair. He leaned into the touch, closing his eyes with a satisfied hum. It was quiet for a moment, and as the silence dragged on, Tom let himself forget where he was, and who he was with. For a moment, he simply… was.

“I do enjoy this quite a bit, though. We should have done this sooner, mister Riddle. Now I only have a few sparse moments left to enjoy you.”

And, like a breath snuffing out a candle, the spell was broken.

“I have many months and years left on my life, goddess, if you could even call it a life.”

She slouched slightly, pouting at him in a way that was oddly… human. He grimaced, brushing such a ridiculous notion from his mind as fast as possible. She seemed to have noticed it regardless, and her frown deepened.

“Oh, please don’t even entertain the thought, shattered soul of mine. I'm allowed to pout. Sensibilities are something that mortals have to deal with, not me.” Her grin returned then, as bright and vibrant as ever, and she was suddenly very close to him, leaning over and looking down to his wide eyes. Tom braced himself, expecting a painful kiss to be planted on his lips “-or you, Mr Dead-Man-Walking.”

He quirked a brow, slightly disappointed.

“I’m hardly walking.”

She threw her head back and laughed. It sounded like tinkling bells and detonating bombs, such a familiar mix of lovely and gruesome that defined the goddess of fate in her entirety.

“For someone so close to death, you sure don’t seem to enjoy making the most of life.” She sang, her fingers dancing gently across his neck in a mockery of a choke. She looked smug, testy, lips pursed in a knowing grin that was made of far too many teeth than it had any business being.

“Was I not just enjoying my life mere minutes ago? I hardly think it was unenjoyable.” He countered, growing slightly uneasy with where the conversation was headed as she waved the thought away.

“Oh, that was the opposite of living, and you are well aware of that. Besides, you know exactly what I mean, my dear mister Riddle.” She cooed, winding her arms tighter around his neck as she leaned ever closer, her voice melodious and grating and just barely over a whisper, but so incredibly loud. “I won't be able to properly agonise over your eventual death if you don’t enjoy your life and those you love while you still have life itself to cling to.”

“Enjoy you, you mean?”

“Love in general, I should say.”

“I am incapable of any love beyond what you have shown me today, of that I am confident.” He murmured, arms pulling her closer as she leaned into him. The goddess hummed, momentarily pleased, before leaning away from him again.

“I agree with most of your points, but familial love is something that comes just as easy to you as worship.”

He shook his head at her, leaned back as far as he could manage before falling off the couch entirely. They sat there for a moment, the goddess examining her nails as they grew out into sharp points after being bitten down to the skin. Tom sighed, tiredly, and downed the rest of his wine.

“I killed any remaining family I had many, many years ago. Your argument, goddess, has fatal flaws.”

She stared at him, an odd look on her face that he couldn’t immediately distinguish. When he did, finally, realise what it was, he stiffened.

Pity.

“A family that does not raise you is no family at all, my sweet shattered soul.”

A father who did not raise you is no father at all.

“He is not my son.”

She stared at him. Those cold, green eyes, layered over by ice and storm and cruelty. She looked at him as if he was something to be protected—as if he was something that needed to be hidden away in a padded box, safe from the world and unaware of its evil as she played house with him, bound and tied up in ropes of lace and silk. 

“He’s as good as, Tom Riddle, and he’ll miss you terribly once you're gone. As will I. As will Death, even if he refuses to lay eyes on your shattered soul again.”

He stared at her, eyes wide and unbelieving.

“You…” He swallowed, willing away any outward reaction as he set the empty wine glass back onto the table beside the couch. “You don’t know that.”

She smiled, sad and wondrous and so happy to be sitting there with him, deep within his own soul. She touched him, softly and sweetly and without a single hint of pain. And at that moment, he knew.

He knew.

There was no bargaining with Fate, not when she held every string of time that ever was. There was no bargaining with a being who held Time in a chokehold, twisting the planets of stars of the universe into patterns of her own design. There was no bargaining with a being who had already made a decision many, many years ago, and had no intention of being swayed from it.

Not when events had already been set in motion much earlier than that.

Tom collapsed backwards into the couch, and begged to be brought back into her oblivion.

Heir Hadrian James Potter,

I would like to first beg apologies for my very belated reply to your letter. I am afraid to say that the stone in which you inadvertently helped recover was just recently returned to me by your less than enjoyable ministry, so I have been quite busy for the past half a year with that issue, but I digress. I must say that I am incredibly appreciative that you took the time and care to write to me explaining your side of things. It was supremely helpful in understanding the full scope of the situation, and I thank you for that.

However, moving on from the issues of the Philosopher's Stone is something that I feel inclined to open a discussion of with you. I mean not to insult you, Heir Potter, but it came to my attention upon reading your letter that you are indeed the last of the Potter line in Britain. This would not have first been something that needed to be noted upon, but in my research into immortality many hundreds of years ago, I happened upon the story of three brothers. Their story was quite fascinating, and I had spent the many decades before creating my stone researching the three brothers and their family, the Peverell family. During this research, I had come upon their only known descendants: the Potters.

I mean not to alarm you if this is something you were not already acutely aware of, but I felt it prudent to share with you that the Deathly Hallows, wherever they may be, are your birthright by blood. I tell you this with the hope that you may find it intriguing enough to one day seek out the objects and reunite them. If anyone were capable of such a thing, I believe that the descendant of the original three brothers would be such a person. Regardless of this, I find that your letter was quite mature and charming for a child of your age, and believe that no matter the path that you decide to take, it will be the right one for you.

If you have any questions regarding your birthright or the Deathly Hallows, I will be more than happy to answer them. I eagerly await your reply with patience equal to your own, and thank you again for your truthfulness and promptness in notifying me of your involvement in the recovery of my stone.

With appreciation, Nicolas Flamel

Chapter Text

Nicolas Flamel,

It was a delight to find that you had responded to my letter, regardless of how long ago I may have sent it. I am well aware and completely understand that finding the time to reply to school children’s letters is quite difficult for someone of your infamy. I am sure that you get dozens of letters a day, and in all honesty, I am quite touched that you replied to me at all.

Beyond that, however, I genuinely do appreciate your bluntness regarding my heritage. Not many adults in my life have been nearly as forward as you have been, so I do enjoy that you have such transparency surrounding my family and our old secrets. Regardless of that, I hope you will be pleased to know that I am aware of the deathly hallows and my relation to the Peverels and have been taking measures to actively hunt the objects down. Though, considering that I am merely twelve years old and orphaned to boot, it is admittedly quite slow going. Perhaps you have any running theories for where they may be?

Anyway, thank you so much for responding to my first letter. And, please, if you ever find yourself wishing to write to me again, please do not hesitate to do so. I must admit, I have researched your stone with great interest, and have yet to find anything of particular substance. Not to be cheeky in any regard, but I find it quite unfair that you know so much about my great mysteries, and yet yours are still shrouded in darkness. Perhaps we could discuss evening the score sometime soon?

Forever intrigued,

Heir Hadrian James Potter

Harry put down the quill, tongue coming out to dart across his bottom lip nervously as he breathed a deep sigh of relief, and set the letter aside to dry. For him. November had blurred together in a rush of furious study for classes and considerably more relaxed research in the library. He had even managed to put the final few notes on the preparation of a few side projects he had been preparing for since he was very young, though he still didn’t know how to even begin one of them. Well… he had a few ideas, but Tom would have to help him out with them for once, so perhaps he was still stuck. 

And on top of it all, just as he was beginning to suspect that the famous alchemist had wholly ignored his letter, he had received something from Nicolas Flamel. It had been in a rather plain envelope, decorated with nothing but a crooked stamp and remarkably prude penmanship, but the letter held within it had been from the famous alchemist nonetheless. And so, finding himself with an idle mind and twitching fingers as the first two weeks of December crawled by, Harry had begun onto the arduous task of writing and then quickly tearing apart every single response letter that he attempted to conceptualise. He had never taken himself as a particularly nervous letter-writer by any means, but something about the alchemist’s own letter had set some sort of metaphysical fire under him, and nothing he put to paper seemed to make even the slightest bit of sense.

Perhaps that was why he was settling for this one, written on the dawn of the seventeenth of December, despite the fact that the ink had come dribbling onto his fingers at that point and the parchment had three distinct fingerprints on it.

Perhaps he was just happy to have written a letter that didn’t sound utterly, painfully, pathetically desperate.

It was such a shame that he had finally managed such a feat on such a wretched day.

“Harry, how is this the one thing that you refuse to even attempt? Bloody hell mate, it’s just a duelling club!”

He frowned severely, glancing to the side only to grimace at Draco’s wide, expectant eyes. He had been hoping, perhaps foolishly, that with Jörmungandr not petrifying anyone, Lockhart wouldn't feel as inclined to found the thrice-damned duelling club as he had in his previous life. There was no reason for the children to learn how to fight if there was nothing to fight, after all. But, either due to some wretched joke Fate must think is utterly hilarious or sheer bad luck on his part, it seemed that the duelling club had still been formed, and students were still lining up to join.

Perhaps some things were universal constants, like Vernon Dursley’s snoring or Harry’s inability to live a quiet life for once.

“I'm not going.” 

Draco groaned, loudly, and rolled over onto his back. He was lying, rather obnoxiously, Harry would say, across the old marble table in the middle of the library, lounging across it as if it were not entirely possible that wars had been strategised about on the very same spot. Harry didn’t know if he was annoyed or strangely endeared by the offensive power play, but couldn’t really bring himself to be anything but distastefully vexed with the current conversation, the lounging habits of his friends be damned.

“What’re you two on about?”

Harry turned his weary eyes away from Draco and onto Theo as the other boy kicked out a  chair with his foot, his arms freeing themselves from the obnoxious stack of tomes as they were set delicately down in front of him.

“Draco is trying to convince me to go to that… that duelling club tomorrow and I refuse to humiliate myself in such a way.”

Draco rolled back over to his stomach, continuing to groan loudly as he did. Harry eyed the display with a restrained grimace, before belatedly snorting as Draco levelled an accusatory finger at his nose. 

“You, heir Potter, know next to nothing about the blasted duelling club,” he began, turning his sights from Harry onto the considerably less amused Theo. “—so of course I was saying-saying well, what’s the harm in going, yeah? It’s free duelling lessons, for Merlin’s sake! But this smug twat obviously thinks he’s too good for even Hogwarts’ duelling masters. That private tutor of his gave him far too big of an ego, if you ask me.”

Harry shook his head vehemently as Theo nodded, silently, before turning to his massive stack of books and ignoring the entire conversation. Harry revelled in the silence as Draco stared, slightly offended for being ignored, as the mousy boy turned to the first page of his book and began to read. The blond seemed to get over it quick enough and made a vague motion with his hand before turning and giving Harry an utterly infuriating look that seemed to say, ‘see? Even Theo agrees with me’. Harry’s eye twitched, and he leaned forward menacingly, a slight hiss to his tone as he loomed over his reclined friend.

“Lockhart has his lilac sent all over this entire mess. I would bet my entire fortune that he was the one that set it up. And I’ll bet all of your fortune that the entire thing will be a joke. So yes, Draco Malfoy, I mean it when I say that I. Am. Not. Going.”

Blaise was laughing at them; he was sure of it, as he made eye contact with his friend’s upturned eyes peeking over the top of his book, eying them both from where he sat at the opposite side of the table. Harry glared for the sparse second that he could, attempting to burn some semblance of sense into Blaise’s retinas before Draco sat up and obscured his vision of the other boy. The blond’s cheeks were pink, his brows furrowed and mouth downturned into a testing frown. His frustration was nearly palpable in the air. As they sat there in some odd sort of standoff, the silence only broken by Theo’s occasional muttering of a translation spell, Harry steeled himself and prepared to hold his ground. He was not going to admit defeat in this petty squabble only to be forced into something so… so agonising as to go to Lockhart’s duelling club.

No, Draco was just going to have to yield first.

“You’re being paranoid, Potter. I am well aware that professor Lockhart is a joke on the best of days, but do you truly believe that the headmaster would be so stupid as to allow for something like that?”

He really is that stupid, and no, I’m not paranoid.

“I'm not going, and that is final.” He replied instead, crossing his arms and settling back into his chair with a dull thump as he did. It wasn’t even that Draco wanted to go to the duelling club at this point, and they both knew it. It was just about making Harry go.

“You will lose literally nothing from this.” Draco hissed through his teeth; his arms also crossed indignantly across his chest as he pulled his legs up into a criss-cross.

“Except my dignity.”

Draco threw his hands up in exasperation, head raised to the heavens as if begging the gods themselves to shine down and compel Harry into action. He scoffed at the notion, and the motion itself, as he sat more firmly in his seat. 

And yet, almost as if the gods had answered, a chair scraped across the old stone floor. They both turned to the noise, and Harry’s entire face scrunched up unpleasantly as Blaise rounded the table, his lackadaisical walk nearly overshadowing the dangerous grin slowly overtaking his face.

“Weeelllll…” He started, leaning slightly over Harry in a move that made the tall boy inch deeper into his chair in retaliation. “That would just make me want to go more, really. If Lockhart really is somehow running the duelling club, you'll get to watch as he makes a fool of himself in front of most of the school, yeah? Seems like a win-win to me, mate.” 

Harry raised an eyebrow, silently questioning if that could even be considered an argument as Draco nodded aggressively from behind them both. He didn’t say anything at first, though, slightly unsettled as Blaise glanced behind him and towards Draco. The pair shared an unseeable glance, before both turned back to him with identical grins. Straightening his spine slightly, he tapped an old beat into his chair’s arms, steeling himself for whatever sort of bargaining they saw fit to throw at him.

“For the last time, I am not going.”

He was going.

Not voluntarily, of course, but he had been given two rather foreboding choices: either go to the duelling club, or deal with any and all of Blaise’s future prank ideas for the rest of the year. And, after being faced with the prospect of that particular kind of torture, he had decided with a restrained amount of distaste that he would just have to bear Lockhart’s ridiculous little game for a few hours.

He wasn’t going to pretend to enjoy himself, though.

The ‘duelling club’, as it was, was really just a large, forgotten classroom that had been cleared of all dust and debris by some unknown professor before they had arrived. Dust was falling from the rafters, though, dancing down from where no one had thought to cast cleaning charms and onto the students as they streamed into the small space. It was landing in everyone’s hair —scratching unpleasantly at Harry’s eyes and making poor Theo raise his book over his head in the hopes of saving himself from any continuous discomfort. Harry remembered distantly how the first meeting had been held in the Great Hall in his previous life, and how it had looked so grand and glorious despite the person who was leading it. He felt that perhaps, just maybe, the headmaster in this life was not so placating as he had been in the previous, if he had not given in to Lockhart’s grandiose demands and had instead sectored off one meagre classroom for the whole affair. Harry wondered if his altering of the future had anything to do with it either, as he stood in the narrow doorway and took in the classroom that couldn’t even begin to hold half the students that the Great Hall had held in his past life. He didn’t know if he was pleased or wary that he had managed such a change, small as it may be.

“It’s awfully humble,” Draco muttered, squinting up at the rafters with distaste as he grasped Harry’s sleeve and began tugging him inside, passing by other curious students as they made their way through the crowded interior. Blaise quickly took up the front of their little procession as Theo picked up the rear, practically hiding behind Harry as he used their height difference to his great advantage. The shorter boy had his nose shoved as far in a book as he could get it—to the point that he was practically sniffing the pages. He looked just as enthusiastic as Harry felt, and that disappointment only seemed to branch out and attach itself to everyone else in the room as they settled into the cramped space and awaited the professor.

And, gloriously, all remaining hope sucked itself from their bones as a voice rose up from the far wall.

“Gather round! Gather round! Can everybody see me? Can you all hear me?”

Immediately, the entire room seemed to wither, though there was a distinct vein of excitement that wove itself through a few of the girls among the peanut gallery. Harry sucked in a sharp breath, closing his eyes in tired acceptance as Draco let out a sort of pained squeak from deep within his throat, his hand tightening into a vice around Harry’s wrist.

“You must be joking.” He whispered, horrified. Harry nodded silently, watching from the corner of his eye as Blaise’s smile widened into a familiar Cheshire grin.

“Oh, brilliant.”

“Let's all agree to trust what I say going forward, yes?”

Lockhart clapped excitedly, striding out along the much thinner raised platform that had been set firmly in the middle of the room. 

“Excellent!” He crowed, looking out at them all with a smile that was somehow even wider than Blaise's. Harry shut his eyes tighter, willing any frustrations away with some mangled plea for logic. Lockhart hadn’t done anything… inconvenient to him in this life quite yet, and he had been nothing but a nuisance in his first. So Harry would sit through this agony, and then he would leave, and there would be no issues to be dealt with between then and now.

“On the prompting of our glorious headmaster, I have found it prudent to start this little duelling club!”

Harry forcibly tuned out the rest of the speech, only registering that this was ‘apparently’ Dumbledore's bright idea. He doubted it. He severely doubted it. There wasn’t much that he could stand to agree on with the headmaster, but it seemed like a universal acknowledgement that Gildroy Lockhart was one of the least proficient people on the planet. And if Dumbledore had somehow been the brains behind this whole operation, then Harry would feel marginally better about his chances of one day fighting against the man and actually winning.

“Now!” With a start, Draco yanked him closer to the platform, and Harry was similarly torn from his thoughts as a familiar coil of darkness menacingly slunk onto the stage. “Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape!”

The entire room muttered to itself, students from all houses and years trading glances—some confused, and many from Slytherin appearing rather excited—as Snape took centre stage. Draco himself looked very near keeling over from excitement, clinging tightly to Harry’s wrist as if letting go would make the potion’s professor disappear instantaneously. Harry could understand the enthusiasm—really, he could—as he took in Snape’s thundery expression and murderous intent as it oozed off him in waves. He remembered what had happened in his first life very well, and was fairly confident that Fate would be recycling her old bag of tricks this time around. It seemed like a waste not to, really.

He was proven right mere minutes later, watching with restrained amusement as Lockhart went soaring across the platform and onto his back with a thud. The Slytherins around him snickered loudly, their voices masked by a hyena-like howl of laughter from somewhere in the sea of red and gold robes. The Weasley twins, he guessed, though he couldn’t remember if they had been in the room during his last life or not. He decided not to think much about it.

“And there you have it!” Lockhart staggered to his feet, his chest heaving as he pretended that Snape’s attack hadn’t knocked the wind from his lungs. His eyes were wide and wild, and his hair was practically standing on end. He looked like a madman. “The disarming charm! An excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don't mind me saying, it was pretty obvious what you were about to do.” 

Ignoring the snickers, the turquoise-clad man brushed himself off, wiping the madness from his expression as he strode wobbly back across the platform, the slight limp to his leg giving away how he had landed rather hard on his hip. Harry wondered where his wand had flown off to. Lavender hadn’t returned it to him this time. “If I had wanted to stop you, I most certainly would have done so.”

There wasn’t much of a reaction from the cramped crowd, but a certain clench of professor Snape’s jaw sent Lockhart reeling back a few steps, and in an instant, it seemed that his inaction had set things back off into how they had been before. Harry let it happen, watching distantly as Draco was dragged away from him and towards Earnest Macamillian as Snape and Lockhart began pairing them off with partners. He didn’t know why he felt put off then, as his friends fell away from him and into the crowd. But, as Snape neared him with the clear intent to pair him with someone, the man’s expression swiftly answered his silent question.

His head of house stared down at him, considerably taller and marginally meaner… and smiled.

It wasn’t a nice smile.

Harry didn’t smile back, and his mood certainly didn’t get much better as the freckled face of Ronald Weasley came into view. They stood eye to eye—something that Harry wasn’t used to happening when he was among his year mates—as Snape quickly slunk away to make an even greater mess of things.

It seemed that the dour dungeon bat was finally getting back at him for socking Lucius Malfoy in the nose.

“Potter.” Weasley hissed, looking very near bursting as he stood there and shook with silent rage. Harry raised an eyebrow, shoulders relaxed and mind elsewhere as Lockhart continued to drone on about random, inconsequential things.

“Weasley.” He finally acknowledged, his gaze leaving the other boy for a moment as he searched out his friends. He found Theo mere feet away, his nose still buried in his book as Dean Thomas stood awkwardly to the side. He couldn’t make sense of where Blaise was, but didn’t bother looking anymore as there came a sudden shout from the platform.

“Face your partners!” Lockhart had his arms raised high in the air; fingers pointed to the heavens as if the deities of old would bless them with good fortune. “And bow!”

Weasley didn’t move an inch, his entire body taught as a wire as his gaze bore into the side of his skull. Harry merely snorted. There seemed to be a great kerfuffle as those around them entertained various different bows to their partners, some wobbling nervously and others not even daring to move just as they had. The shuffling made him realise something, though, as he observed each pairing with careful eyes. There wasn’t a single pairing in that cramped little classroom that was not fated to end in failure. 

That wretched old bastard.

Snape had to be one of the pettiest, most sadistic people that he had ever met. Even without Lockhart doing anything outwardly negligent, this entire thing was still doomed. There was no salvaging it.

Harry didn’t know if he should be impressed or wary as he was proven right mere seconds later.

“Wands at the ready!” shouted Lockhart, seeming far too invested in his little dance to the gods as he twirled around in circles. “When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents — only to disarm them — we don’t want any accidents, yes? Now, one…two…three —! ”

Weasley lunged at him, fist poised, ready to strike. Harry sidestepped him swiftly, a bored look on his face as he watched the equally lanky boy tumble to the ground in a heap. His eyes wandered from the sad sight to Draco as Weasley scrambled to his feet, and he swiftly dodged another punch as he watched Draco a nd Earnest Macamillian arguing about something or another, fingers pointing in accusation instead of wands. 

“I said disarm only!” Lockhart shouted in alarm over the heads of the battling crowd. Harry’s gaze fell away from the pair as he ducked a flying fist. His eyes settled onto Blaise first, who was casting furiously and with a crazed grin on his face as Seamus Finnigan curled up in a ball of peculiar colours on the floor before him, the poor boy jinxed twelve different hues and throwing up glitter as his ears grew by the second. Weasley tried to kick him next, but he sidestepped again and threw out his leg, tripping up the ginger and sending him tumbling to the floor a second time as he watched Theo whack Dean Thomas over the head with his book. He could still, distantly, hear Draco and Macamillian arguing over the orchestra of chaos, their voices drowned out by the screams and shouts and Lockhart’s desperate attempts to contain everything.

“Stop! Stop!” screamed Lockhart, his arms waving furiously over his head as he tried desperately to quell the angry and constrained crowd of students. But, just as Harry remembered, it was Snape who took charge of the chaos he had created.

“Finite Incantatem!” he shouted, the pleased tone to his voice carrying along through the tide of screams. Harry sighed, shaking his head at Snape’s self-satisfied expression as he twirled to the left. Only those fighting with magic stopped altogether, and Harry still found himself dodging the animalistic assault by Weasley. It was hardly difficult, especially as Weasley started to grow tired and his movements became sluggish, but he quickly began to get annoyed with it as the other groups settled down from their individual skirmishes and began licking their wounds.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” fret Lockhart, who was skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels with those wide, wild eyes from before. “Up you go, Macmillan…. Careful there, Miss Fawcett… Pinch it hard; it’ll stop bleeding in just a moment. Ah, and—Mister Weasley! Stop-stop that boy! Severus, get a hand around him—yes like that—Merlin! Are you alright, Harry?”

He grunted, nodding slightly as Weasley was hooke d around the waist by Snape and lifted up and away from him. Lockhart crowded close, brushing the dust from his hair and fretting quietly as he pat him down for any wounds. 

“I am fine, sir,” he bit out, stepping away from the man’s ministrations with a pinched expression. Lockhart made a dissatisfied noise as he stepped back as well, a sort of noise that made Harry have the sudden and violent urge to sock him in the jaw. He didn’t, though, and the hack of a professor pat him kindly on the shoulder one more time before turning to the rest of the group.

“I think we ought to better teach you all how to block unfriendly spells,” said Lockhart, standing flustered in the midst of the classroom. He glanced at Snape, who still held Weasley in a painful-looking grip, and raised his eyebrows quizzically. The dour man’s black eyes glinted, and Lockhart grimaced before quickly looking away and back to Harry, who attempted fruitlessly to replicate Snape’s glare. “Let’s have a volunteer pair! Harry, how about you and—” 

“No thank you, sir.” He interrupted, looking around the peacock of a man to send a desperate glance Snape’s way. The potion’s professor did not outwardly react.

Oh, you bastard.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Harry!” crowed Lockhart, his hand coming up once again to settle firmly on his shoulder. Harry shrunk back, his entire expression shrivelling as his shoulders hunched in on themselves. “Don’t tell me you’re scared.”

Nervous snickers rose up from a few of the Gryffindors, and Harry straightened his spine, a cruel set to his jaw as he peaked around Lockhart to glare at the small group. They quieted and, shuffling around, quickly looked away. 

Shoulders taught and patience growing thin, Harry turned his attention from them and back to the hand on his captor. Leaning in slightly, he hissed through his teeth at the man holding his shoulder in a vice. “With all due respect, professor, I have very little faith in your ability to keep this classroom under control.” 

Lockhart went pink, even though Harry was certain that no one had heard what he had said, and gripped tighter to Harry’s shoulder. It was starting to actually hurt.

“Now now, Harry,” the man replied, just as quietly and just as threateningly. Harry urged himself to stay as still as possible, even with the overwhelming urge to bite the useless little bird’s head off and tear— “Let’s not be so difficult, hm?”

Something snapped, and Harry pivoted, arm ripping upwards to do something to the bastard, but, just before he could raise his arm high enough and strangle the life out of Lockhart, a hand came from nowhere and grasped his other shoulder, pinning him weakly in place. 

“Potter is clearly still recovering from Weasley’s assault on his person, Gildroy.” Snape’s smooth voice washed over him, and Harry breathed out a relieved sigh, stepping away as his head of house pulled him from Lockhart’s cruel grasp. “How about you pick another pair, hm?”

Harry was pulled further into safety and away from the man as Lockhart faltered, his eyes darting between Harry and Snape’s faces as the situation began to dawn on him. The students around them all had similar looks of confusion or discomfort, and there was an agonisingly long pause where no one seemed willing or able to speak.

“Of course!” Lockhart’s grimace turned into something vaguely resembling a smile, and he turned his gaze quickly from Harry and on to the other boy who had been previously held back by Snape. “How about you, Mister Weasley? Want to give it a go?”

Instantly, the freckled boy perked up and, sending a rather pleased glare in Harry's direction, quickly followed after Lockhart as he manoeuvred through the crowd and up to the platform again. Harry let out a breath, nodding thankfully to Snape as the tall man let him go and slunk silently after the proceeding.

“Now, whoever shall we pair you against, Mister Weasley?” cooed Lockhart, as he looked around the cramped classroom with those wild eyes of his. Harry was starting to despise the expression. It was far less funny and far more… more dangerous than he had first thought. 

“How about Mister Malfoy?” Snape’s voice smoothly interrupted Lockhart’s muttering, and Draco quickly came scrambling up to the platform, appearing out of thin air as if he had been waiting in the rafters for his name to be spoken. His eyes had a crazed sort of glint to them as he regarded Weasley, though it was distinctly different from the way Lockhart’s expression was. His eyes were more… calculating, Harry supposed. Less like an animal and more like a hunter. Harry grinned as Lockhart assented to the chosen pair, and sat back to watch the show.

Much like in the first timeline, Snape pulled Draco aside and whispered something in his ear. For a moment, Harry contemplated if this was a sign for him to do the same thing as he had previously, before grimacing. No, that didn’t seem right. If things were going down a similar enough path as they had before, then he expected Fate wanted him to make the ‘difficult’ choice this time. Well, it was hardly going to be much of a choice to him. Harry remembered all too well how his being a parselmouth had blown over before. Now that he was in Slytherin, there was no doubt that he would be scorned by everyone but the rest of his house, even without Jörmungandr making a mess of things. He wasn’t about to go through that again, especially now that he was aware of Dumbledore’s… expectations.

Justin Finch-Fletchley would just have to manage the snake’s attack without his assistance.

“Alright you two, line up now in proper duelling form.” Lockhart chirped, seeming far too pleased with things as the pair complied. Draco’s stance was much cleaner and his posture much straighter, Harry observed, with Weasley having the same blind fury as a raging bull.

“Now bow…” they did so, though again, Weasley barely managed it without looking like he was seconds from throwing out his fists blindly. Harry worried passively for Draco’s safety, before he caught sight of Snape standing a distance away, his eagle eyes pinned to Weasley’s shaking form. Harry was certain that the potion’s professor wouldn’t allow Draco to get so much as a scratch on him.

“Three… two… one… begin!”

Almost immediately, Draco lunged forward and cried out ‘serpensortia!’, and a long viper burst out from his wand and landed gently on the oak floor of the platform. Weasely gave a great screech and stumbled back, eyes wide as saucers as the snake slithered forward, and he fell back on his arse.

“Oh, dear. Not to worry, chaps, I'll fix it!” 

Harry watched as things played out with a familiar sort of chaos, the spell ripping from Lockhart’s wand as if Fate herself had guided the man’s hand. He sighed slightly as the snake flew up into the air and back down, the poor thing flopping onto the platform with a painful sounding slap. Harry hissed through his teeth empathetically, catching himself just as it veered sharply into a different sort of hiss.

“~Bad two legs! Go away! Away!~” The snake curled slightly, rearing up and lunging at the closest person within its reach. That person just happened to, once again, be one Justin Finch-Fletchley, who stood stiff as a board and his eyes wide as saucers as the snake descended onto him. Harry also watched, detached, as the agitated snake came down on the boy, biting deep into his raised arm and sending both of them to the floor as Finch-Fletchley cried out in pain. It was pandemonium as Lockhart jumped away from the fallen boy, and Snape leapt over the platform to do the exact opposite.

Harry’s gaze wandered to Draco, who was white as a sheet as he watched Snape vanish the snake and remove the now convulsing boy from the ground. He watched as Blaise, seemingly out of nowhere, leaned over the edge of the platform and pulled on Draco’s pant leg, motioning for him to come down to the floor below. Draco complied silently, his gaze switching between Blaise as the tanned boy helped him down and the hunched form of Snape as he barked orders to Lockhart, who was desperately trying to get things under control without going anywhere near the convulsing boy on the ground. 

“Call for Madam Pomfrey, Gildroy!” Snape shouted over the chaos as he lifted Finch-Fletchley from the ground and onto the elevated platform. Lockhart nodded furiously, waving his wand at one of the many portraits on the wall. The woman inside quickly stood, nodding once to his plea before disappearing entirely from the frame.

Harry slunk back into the shadows of the old classroom as Theo appeared at his side, followed shortly by a pale Draco and a stormy Blaise. Draco immediately clung to his wrist again, pressing into Harry’s side till he was standing flush between Harry and the wall behind them. Harry watched him with concern for a moment, before instincts pulled his gaze away and to Blaise’s own eyes. The other boy was watching him, looking like he was trying to say… something, but the message wasn’t getting across to Harry for some reason. He raised an eyebrow, and his friend turned away.

“Where is the boy!” Came a great screech, and all eyes turned to the doorway as Madam Pomfrey came storming into the room, a stretcher and large doctor’s bag floating close behind her. She parted the crowd with ease, sending students reeling backwards to avoid her warpath as she zeroed in on Finch-Fletchley as he continued to convulse on the ground. Harry watched her as she worked for only a moment, curious about the medical magics that he had never truly gotten around to learning, before a familiar magic washed over him and sent his mind reeling backwards. Freezing stiff, he turned to the doorway, eyes latching onto it just in time to catch sight of Dumbledore. The old man followed sternly behind the mediwitch, his gaze unusually sharp and unsettlingly focused on the crowd of students, as if he was searching for someone specific. Snape was quick to greet him, pulling Lockhart along by his arm as he did, and quickly whispered something to the headmaster. Dumbledore’s gaze fell away from the students, and quickly pinned to the two professors as the chaos slowly dwindled.

It was mostly quiet in the room as the mediwitch stabilised Finch-Fletchley and loaded him up onto the stretcher. The only true conversation was between the headmaster and Snape as they whispered furiously between themselves. Harry watched the pair with narrowed eyes, trying to sort out what they were saying without luck. It wasn’t much of a surprise, since he wasn’t exactly well versed in reading lips and Dumbledore’s beard made it practically impossible either way, but he couldn’t help but be frustrated with his lacklustre snooping regardless. It felt like a wasted effort as he watched Snape nod once before turning away from the headmaster and towards the crowd of students.

“The situation is under control. All students must leave. Now.” Snape's parting words echoed through the room, and with a flourish of his robes, he turned and sidestepped the headmaster, leaving the room without a backwards glance. Dumbledore smiled kindly at the students, but also turned away from them as Pomfrey floated a now still Finch-Fletchley from the room. The two adults quickly fled—likely to the hospital wing—and disappeared from sight, leaving the dozens of students to mill around amongst themselves. There were only a few short seconds of confusion before the older years began shoving their way out of the crowded room as well, and scattered conversations exploded out from the silence as people grabbed their friends and quickly left to gossip about the newest tragedy.

Harry was also grabbed—quite roughly, he noted to himself—around the arm and dragged from the room by Blaise. Theo and Draco were not far behind, Draco still clinging silently to Harry's sleeve with such vigour it seemed as if letting go spelt certain death for the both of them. 

Harry said nothing as he was pulled down into the dungeons, Blaise’s hand gripping painfully tight to his wrist as he was yanked through the common room entrance, pulled along into the second year dorms, and then forced roughly down to the floor. He blinked owlishly, watching as Blaise and, eventually Theo, settled down around him in some odd sort of circle in the middle of the room. It was more of a lopsided triangle, really, since Draco was still clinging so tightly to them that they were practically on top of each other.

They all sat there for a moment, silent as the dead, before Blaise let out a sharp breath.

“He might die.”

Draco let out a pained whine, his voice muffled as he pressed his face into the warm fabric of Harry’s sleeve. Theo grimaced, fiddling with his own sleeves as his gaze darted between Harry and Blaise.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“And?”

Blaise seethed silently for a moment, seeming caught in some sort of mental battle with himself. Harry was far too focused on Draco to notice, really, wondering if the blond boy was personally blaming himself for the attack.

“Harry, you're a parselmouth,” Blaise finally bit out. “You could have stopped the snake.”

There was a very, very quiet pause.

“You must be joking.” Harry raised a single, severely unimpressed eyebrow. “Out of everyone in that room, you’re deciding that I am the one at fault for that bloke getting attacked?”

Blaise threw his hands in the air, standing from his spot on the floor in order to pace. 

“You didn't even seem to be considering it—if you had just told the snake to stop, then it likely would have, but you didn’t even consider it, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.” His gaze hardened, eyes moving from Blaise to the few tufts of Draco’s hair that was actually visible. “I didn’t because we have an incredibly skilled mediwitch on staff and he will most likely be fine.”

“Most likely—”

“Would you have preferred the alternative?” He questioned, looking back up to level a questioning glare at the other boy. Blaise’s mouth snapped shut, and he stood there silently for a moment, seething. For several minutes there was a tense silence, broken only by Draco as he finally raised his head from the comfort of Harry’s shoulder.

“He’s right, Blaise.” The boy’s voice was painfully quiet. “It wasn’t his fault that the snake was summoned… it was mine, and it would have been a disaster if he started speaking in parseltongue anyway. The muggleborn will be fine, but if you want to be angry at someone, you should be mad at me, not him.”

Theo nodded cautiously, but Harry scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. If anyone’s at fault, it’s Snape for telling you to use the spell in the first place and Lockhart for agitating the snake like an idiot.”

Blaise shook his head, “but Harry, you could have just spoken to it. I watched as you just-just watched the snake—”

“Why do you even care?” Harry interrupted, frowning as Blaise stumbled over his words. “It’s not like you know Finch-Fletchley. What’s it matter if he dies?”

Blaise exploded, lunging forward and grabbing Harry around the collar. Draco let go with a yelp, and Harry grit his teeth as he fell back onto the padded shag rug below him. Blaise’s arm was raised, his eyes wild and far away as he swung down. Harry threw his head upwards, dodging the fist as he headbutted Blaise as hard as he could. The other boy fell backwards, cursing as Harry scrambled up to his feet.

“Bloody hell—”

“Figlio di puttana!” The Italian ripped from Blaise’s throat as he scrambled up, eyes wide and crazed as he rounded on Harry once again. “You-you little —brutto figlio di puttana bastardo — ”

“Blaise!” Draco squeaked, cheeks turning pink as he scrambled away from the fight. Harry ignored it, unknowing of the Italian and uncaring for whatever the insult was meant to be as he grabbed Blaise by the collar and dragged him towards the door.

“Get the hell out of here.” He hissed, heaving it open and roughly shoving the boy into the hall. “Go have your meltdown somewhere where I don’t have to bloody deal with it.”

Blaise’s eyes were still wide and crazed as Harry slammed the door in his face, and Harry expected him to retaliate somehow, but there was silence from the other side as he locked it and turned away. The three remaining boys stood in silence inside the dorm as they waited, drawn taught as the silence dragged. But, eventually, there came a harsh stomping from the other side, and they stood and listened as it slowly faded until even Harry couldn’t hear it.

They stood in silence for a moment longer, with Harry leaning against the door as if he were barricading it, before Theo slowly rose from his place on the ground.

“I… have schoolwork to finish.” He murmured, staring past Harry meekly and towards the locked door behind him. Harry stood for a moment, very still, before sighing.

“Yeah, sorry about all that.” He replied, turning and unlocking the door as he did. Theo shrugged lamely, picking his book from the floor and quickly scrambling out of the room. Harry closed and locked the door behind him as he did, shaking his head as he finally stepped away from it and back towards the centre of the room, where Draco was still standing stiffly.

They didn’t speak as Harry grabbed him around the shoulders and pulled him into a gentle hug, mindful of his back and the placement of his hands as he did. Draco reached around and hugged him back, his face burying into the vague expanse of Harry’s chest. They stood there for Merlin knew how long, Harry with his hands carding gently through Draco’s hair and Draco seeming like he was moments from falling apart completely. 

“I killed him.”

It was a quiet admission, whispered through several layers of fabric and even more layers of guilt. Harry shook his head.

“He isn’t dead, at least not yet, and you are by far the most innocent person involved in this. So blame Snape, or Lockhart, or even me if you need to, like Blaise is, but don’t blame yourself.”

“But I — ”

“No.”

Draco fell silent, and Harry’s eyes fell closed.

“No, you didn’t do anything. The snake is more at fault than you are, Dray.”

“... Dray?”

Harry grinned, peeking down at Draco’s disapproving glare. “What, you don’t approve?”

“... It’s bearable, I suppose.”

Harry’s grin fell away into a sort of half-smile, and he pulled Draco closer subconsciously as they continued to embrace. It was quiet for many minutes, save for the distant sound of chatter in the halls and the familiar buzzing of magic in the air. It was peaceful… and gentle.

It wouldn’t last for long.

Harry let out a breath, closing his eyes and pulling himself into his mindscape slightly.

Tom. He whispered to the door, feeling more than seeing as it creaked open. Tom seemed… strange, as he stood there in the passageway between their minds. He seemed… well, not notably different, just a little more… something? The pieces of him seemed to settle together a bit better than they had before, his soul feeling smoother around the edges as it acknowledged his own. Harry couldn’t help but wonder what must have happened while the door was shut. Nothing good, he could guess.

Are you finally ready to help me with the armoury, Riddle? He questioned dryly, oddly compelled to break the silence that Tom’s lack of response was leaving them in. I need to strike up the deal soon, or I won't have much time to start experimenting.

It was silent for a long, dull moment, before—

Yes, I will guide you. Make sure the Greengrass girl is prepared to assist you. You won't be able to do it without her there. And, for Merlin’s sake, try to find a time when there aren’t many people in the castle to do it.

Harry frowned, eyebrows furrowing slightly as Tom’s voice echoed gently through his consciousness. Are you alright? You sound tired.

An even longer pause greeted him, and Harry had nearly enough time to start getting concerned before Tom spoke again.

I’ve been busy.

The connection was severed in an instant, cut off as the door swung shut without warning. Harry’s frown deepened, and for a moment, he tried to push at it again, but quickly gave up and pulled fully out of his mind and into the waking world. He tried not to let himself be too curious about what Tom could possibly be doing, knowing deep down that it was doubtful that he would ever really get much of an answer. Merlin, it was so frustrating though, knowing that his close companion was keeping so many things to himself for seemingly no reason. Harry wanted to respect the boundaries that he and Tom had worked so hard to construct, but he was just so… so curious.

“Draco.” He whispered into the shorter boy’s hair, pulling away from the embrace slightly to make eye contact with his friend.

“Mhm?” The blond rubbed at his eyes, which were swollen red and puffy. Harry grimaced, wondering how he hadn’t heard any crying, before he pushed the thought away.

“Draco, if something like today happens again, please don’t blame yourself. The world is horrible, and we’re both just kids.” He was just a kid. He had always just been a kid, and that had never seemed to be the proper excuse in his first life. Harry sucked in a breath, filling his lungs with Draco’s cologne and the magic floating through the air, and forced his voice to be steady. “We don’t have to take the blame for something when older, more mature people were standing right there and doing nothing to help the situation. Never let the blame fall on you. Never.”

He was going to make it a proper excuse, no matter how hard the adults around him fought against responsibility. He would force it into their hands till they could hold nothing but the consequences of their actions and the regret of their mistakes.

Draco nodded, and laughed wetly. “Alright, I won't… as long as you promise to let me take responsibility when it actually is my fault.”

Harry shook his head, “Nah, but when that happens, I’ll be happy to help you cover it up.”

Draco burst into laughter, his head thrown back and entire body alight with glee.

“Yeah?” Grey eyes squinted up at him, still rather red-rimmed but no doubt joyous as well. “Helping me get away with murder, are you?”

“Only if you’d do the same for me.”

And there was that laugh again, loud and high-pitched and brilliantly obnoxious in an odd chirping sort of way that reminded Harry of morning bird-song. His grin grew wider, somehow, as Draco whacked him lightly in the arm.

“Oh alright, partners in crime it is.” He joked, and for a moment there, Harry was certain that he had forgotten all about Finch-Fletchley and the duelling club and the whole mess it had made. 

Harry nodded, fighting back his smile in the mockery of seriousness. “I’ll stick to your corner in the ring if you stick to mine.”

Draco paused, squinting at him slightly, “the ‘ell does that mean?”

It was Harry’s turn to whack the other, though instead of the shoulder, he opted to cuff Draco upside the head slightly. The other boy made a noise of discontentment, and waved the hand away. “It means I’ll have your back if you have mine.”

The look on Draco’s face was hilariously similar to his aunt’s when he had first said Merlin instead of God in front of her. “Well, why didn’t you just say that?”

Harry smiled, tickled with how similar the two worlds truly were. Muggles and wizards might never end up living as one, but both groups were certainly still people. The only difference, in the end, was magic.

“It isn’t my fault you don’t understand muggle references, Dray.”

“You know what? I changed my mind. That nickname is insufferable.”

“It’s such a shame that I’ve already grown attached to it then.”

“Damn you, Potter.”

Blaise didn’t know where he was going. 

He couldn’t spare even a moment to take in his surroundings as he ran through the bowels of Hogwarts, clambering up staircases and shoving his way through crowded hallways as his body took him down an unfamiliar path. He didn’t stop — didn’t stop to just think —as he sprinted through a mostly abandoned hall and out into a thoroughly empty corridor. He couldn’t comprehend the dust and age all around him as he forced his legs faster, moving longer distances in an effort to escape the look of pure anger on Harry’s face. 

It had been unlike anything else he had seen in his life.

Breath coming out in short puffs, Blaise started to messily make sense of himself, slowing from a dead sprint to a choppy jog. Even that slowed down to a walk soon enough, however, and before long Blaise found himself leaning up against the wall for support, choking down breaths of air and tears as he blinked out into the dusty, forgotten hallway he now occupied.

Finch-Fletchley could be dying. Another student could be in the process of dying, and Harry didn’t even care. He could have saved someone’s life yet it hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Sucking in a deep breath, Blaise closed his eyes, leaned up against the wall as if it was the only thing keeping him from completely breaking down and losing it. He didn’t know why this was affecting him so much. He was around death all the damn time. For Merlin’s sake, his mother had him digging shallow graves out behind the house since he was five! If anything, he should be desensitised to the thought of someone dying, not reacting as if he actually knew them.

“Damn it.”

Picking himself off of the wall, Blaise wiped a clammy hand down his face, smearing tears and sweat alike across his cheeks as he forced his feet to keep moving. He still didn’t know where he was going, or even which floor he was on. The only thought on his mind was to get as far from Harry and the mess that had become the duelling club as he could before he completely lost his senses and did something even more idiotic than tackling the bloody boy-who-lived.

“Merlin, I nearly punched Harry Potter.” He muttered, nearly laughing at the absurdity of it all as he shuffled around a corner. Harry always felt so untouchable—unflappable in an inhuman sort of way that made Blaise want to ruffle his feathers a bit. He always looked like he was observing all the mere mortals around him, and finding himself rather unimpressed with the lot of them. So, Blaise could admit now that he was looking back on it, the fact that he had managed to get the bastard to show the level of anger he had was an accomplishment he could only share with one Lucius Malfoy.

A sort of impish glee started to seep out from under the layers of anger and stress, and Blaise slowed to a stop, shaking his head as he held back an extremely amused snort. He had something in common with Lucius Bloody Malfoy. It had to be Christmas, surely, for something like that—which just got more and more utterly fantastic the more he thought about it—to happen.

“Merlin, I’m going mad.” He muttered, rubbing his hand down his face again as he turned on his heel. “Why am I running around in the abandoned halls like some sort of loon?”

Walking a few steps, he stopped again, breathing shakily as he suddenly found his head again. He couldn’t go back to the dorm, since Harry told him to stay far away, and that meant that the common room was out as well. Maybe he could find a quiet place to twiddle his thumbs, but that sounded marginally more tortuous than getting lost in the castle did.

Breathing in a deep breath, Blaise ran another hand down his face, standing in the silence of the corridor for several moments as he gathered himself again. Everything would be fine. He would settle himself for a few minutes, then go down and hide from Harry somewhere more enjoyable. Turning back around, he started back on his path with newfound confidence.

He got three more steps before stopping again.

Maybe I could go explore the old tunnels for a few hours?

Tapping his foot for a moment, Blaise weighed the pros and cons, before sighing and turning back around again.

And again, he got a mere three steps before stopping again.

Silence filled the corridor as he stood there and watched the dust settle. Sun streamed in through one of the windows, gentle as it lit the flurries of dust bunnies and old memories as they floated about in the air. It didn’t seem that even the ghosts went walking around in this section of the castle. It was as if it had been all but abandoned.

Blaise didn’t argue much with himself as he turned for the third time, and didn’t feel all that surprised when he got another three feet again before stopping for the third time. It was quiet as he stared out into the hall, the emptiness disrupted only by his own confusion as he tried to make sense of his indecisiveness. The confusion wasn’t abated as the silence was overtaken by a low, creaking noise, and all thoughts left him as he turned and his eyes settled onto an entirely different curiosity.

Blaise stood back, watching with an awed sort of confusion as an ornate door faded into existence before him. It was tall and aged, set into the stone walls as if it had always been there. He tilted his head to the side—almost subconsciously—as he studied the particular oddity that had suddenly seen fit to reveal itself to him.

It was quiet for a moment more, before Blaise let out an exasperated little laugh, and reached for the door’s handle. Not giving himself even a moment to think rationally, he ripped open the door, gazing out into the interior with wide, curious eyes. He allowed himself only a moment's hesitation before he grinned, and clambered inside.

“I’m not calling it cheap.”

“You are! You think it was too easy.”

Gold overtook green for a moment, annoyance bleeding through amusement as long fingers set a chessboard down on an old, worn table.

“You compelled him to pace around like a moron. Compelled him. Have you lost your sense of artistry? It was so…”

“So what?” Long nails scratched along the chess board’s surface, carving into the wood and disrupting the aged paint on their descent down to the board’s edge. “So cheap?”

A sigh, long and worn out, accompanied the pained groaning of the old wood as the nails removed themselves from the surface, pulling up old paint and wood chippings as they did. A large form rippled, those long fingers reaching out from the darkness to brush gently against the old wood chess board. The wood hummed, and stitched itself back up, replacing the damaged paint as if the goddess’ nails had never scarred it.

“No… no, it’s not that. I… maybe I’m just a bit… dissatisfied with your most recent conquest—”

“I told you that I need to guide him more sternly. If he goes off the rails, then everything else goes to shit and Harry won't become—”

“Yes. Yes, I am well aware. And I am aware that you’re going to all this trouble in part for my benefit, and I thank you deeply for that, but… did you have to sleep with him?”

Lips pursed, cold eyes sharpening as a smouldering blaze of annoyance rolled off her shoulders. Heat and icy chill clashed against each other as the infinite cosmos pushed testingly back against the void. Neither gained or lost any ground however, and eventually, the cosmos settled back into itself.

“So he’s the exception for you?”

Green overtook the gold again, and the darkness shuffled around for a moment, uncomfortable.

“No. No, it just feels… odd.”

“Hm? Because of who he is?”

“No—what? Obviously not. It’s his soul, Fate. His magic.”

Bright, fiery curls bounced along her shoulders as she leaned forward, a testing smirk eeking itself out from behind the mask of stars and planets.

“What, you don’t like it when I play around with your little… projects?”

The darkness whirled around—aggravated, almost—before it receded back into some semblance of calamity again.

“I just… don’t want his magic to be tainted when it’s so close to being perfect. We only have one more shot at this, Fate. You know we can’t convince Time to turn back the clock again. It was a nightmare getting them to do it at all the first time.”

The goddess hummed, fingers tapping an unfamiliar tempo out into the table as chess pieces started to appear before her, glowing brightly and gloriously—like colourful balls of energy against a darkened backdrop of suffering. The goddess eyed her pieces, smiling down at their multicoloured and varying sizes, before turning keen eyes to her opponent. The ‘black’ chess pieces were empty and hollow, awaiting orders from their master with the stern gentleness of the dead. The black king sat quietly behind its underthings, a familiar green gleam inset within it. Ready and waiting for her first move.

“I won't taint his magic with my own, Death. And I have enough common sense to separate us completely at the end of things.” She murmured, picking one of her pawns at random and pushing it gently forward. It wriggled experimentally in its new position, before falling still. “—so please stop being such a whiny little bitch about it.”

Chapter Text

It was dark outside by the time Blaise returned to their dorm. Draco had already gone to sleep hours prior, and Harry was very near passing out on his feet himself, but was intent on completing the R’s before the night was over. He was close too, nearly finishing annotating the passage on Rusalkas before his concentration was disrupted by the door gently creaking open. He glanced up cautiously, eyes narrowing into slits as Blaise slunk meekly into the room. They stared at each other for several seconds, the silence stretching on far longer than it needed to be, before Harry huffed and looked back down to his book.

“Finch-Fletchley’s condition stabilised,” he muttered, turning the page as Blaise quietly shut the door behind him. “So if you would stop accusing me of murder, I’d appreciate it.”

Blaise didn’t speak—didn’t even seem to be breathing, really—as he walked silently to his side of the room. Harry busied himself with annotations as Blaise undressed and crawled into bed, still silent as the grave. The candle beside his bed was extinguished with a short breath, and Harry turned back to his desk with an eye roll.

Blaise continued to ignore him the next day, his mood only continuing to sour as the seconds dragged on and the news of Finch-Fletchley’s slow recovery continued to circle the school. It wasn’t till a week later that Blaise—while not getting over his anger per-se—seemed to acknowledge that Harry wasn’t truly the one at fault. There were no apologies said, but the tension left Harry’s shoulders that morning when Blaise asked him to pass the eggs, and all was suddenly well again. Neither of them seemed inclined to acknowledge the week of silence between them after that, and no one tried to question them on the topic. The rumours floating around the school diminished fully a week later, when Finch-Fletchley officially got out of the infirmary and returned to classes. His skin was a little pale, and he seemed less lively than before, but was otherwise no worse for wear. 

Professor Lockhart was not allowed to continue the duelling club. 

And time ticked steadily onward.

December crept on sluggishly, the biting chill of winter reached out to envelop Harry in a sharp, glacial embrace. He spent many hours reading by the frozen lake, trying to escape from the claustrophobic halls of Hogwarts as he watched his fellow students skate across the frozen waters. Winter was his favourite time of year, all white and cold and gloriously crisp. The air always felt alive and sprightly, the wind kissing at his cheeks with little flurries of ice and sleet. He felt at home in the snow. There was nothing quite like it, really. Draco was, to his gleeful surprise, in agreement with him, and they often took quiet walks along the border of the forbidden forest together, talking about inconsequential things as the wind brushed against them from all sides. It was… nice. Peaceful.

“Why is it so bloody cold!”

Harry laughed, watching as Blaise rubbed his wool-covered hands up and down his arms, moving as if the friction alone would change the fact that he was walking around in only two layers when it was well below the point of freezing. Unlike Harry and Draco, Blaise seemed to feel personally slighted by the whole ‘snow’ business. Harry was convinced it had something to do with his lack of proper winter attire.

“Grin and bear it, mate.” Theo’s voice was muffled from within the confines of his thick scarf. While not as outwardly hostile towards the weather, the mousy boy seemed even more sensitive to it than Blaise, and was bundled up so thoroughly that Harry could barely pick out his extremely pink nose from the wool encasing the rest of him. Harry snorted, pulling at the collar of his jumper as Blaise blew hot air out into the air.

“You two handle cold about as well as ice handles a hot stove.” He remarked, stuffing his bare hands into his trouser pockets as the wind picked up slightly, lifting his thin jumper up and off his torso. He hummed pleasantly as Theo made an affronted noise before burrowing further into the layers of fabric encasing him.

“You can't be human, Harry. There’s just no way. How the hell have you not frozen your bits off?” Blaise’s teeth were chattering as he spoke, his eyes narrowed angrily at Harry’s meagre polo neck and grey slacks. “You’re dressed for bloody autumn, you freak.”

Harry flinched, fingers twitching as a strained grin stretched across his face. He didn’t look at Blaise, keeping his eyes trained on the path in front of him as he let out a strained snort.

“Bold words for a man who wears jumpers in June.”

“Oh, sod off.”

A white sheet of fallen snow blanketing the ground from the previous night's storm, the mud underfoot was crunching unpleasantly with half-frozen ice, and not a single person—save for Harry—seemed to be enjoying themselves. Still, the sky was clear and the air was fresh. There wasn’t a single cloud above, and the wind seemed to have finally died down into a light, frosty breeze.

It was a perfect day for a quidditch match. 

The pitch loomed tall and glorious before them, the sun rising up behind it and casting rays of light through the old worn beams. Harry forced his attention towards it as they neared, keeping his eyes trained on the sun-bleached fabrics boasting the four houses and their colours. He watched as the wind picked up and pulled at the frayed edges, eyes pinned to the movement as if the aged colours would make his heart stop thundering through his chest.

Harry, other words should cut much deeper than ‘freak’. The disapproving voice was slightly fatigued, as if Tom had been woken up by Harry’s racing thoughts alone. He pressed his lips together tightly, disagreements racing through his mind like a hurricane. He held the majority of them back, however, tamping down the emotions in favour of listening to the ice crunch beneath his boots.

How about you focus on remembering where the armoury is, old man.

There was a scoff, harsh and angry, before a sharp stab of pain pierced his left temple. I am well equipped to guide you there. I’m not nearly so incompetent as to forget.

Could have fooled me.

—and I am not old.

Harry rolled his eyes, not bothering to reply as Tom continued to grumble about his age. He didn’t know why he bothered coming out to watch Draco’s first quidditch match, especially since there were so many things he could be doing besides sitting around in the stands for several hours. Draco hadn’t even asked him to come either, so it wasn’t like he was expected to be there or anything. And, really, Greengrass wasn’t likely to be at the match anyway, so it would only be a waste of his time to go, especially since he would then have to try and hunt her down afterwards. It was, all around, a rather pointless excursion.

Except that Harry couldn’t get the idea of seeing Draco fly again out of his head.

He didn’t know if it was some sort of twisted nostalgia gripping at him or the unfamiliar-familiar closeness that he felt towards the blond, but Harry was desperate to see Draco Malfoy fly again. He had seen snippets over the year—he had seen Draco’s skills during tryouts and passingly on that one day in November—but it just wasn’t the same as watching him actually play in a match. The wind in their hair, Lee Jordan’s voice ringing out through their ears, the glances they would send to each other with the express desire of glaring hatefully when they caught the other’s eye—

“Oh thank Merlin.” Blaise’s voice cut through the daydream like a knife, and Harry tripped over his feet, lanky legs flying out to catch him as the three of them stumbled into the bones of the Quidditch stands. Warming charms blanketed every plank of wood as they climbed their way up the stairs, and as Blaise and Theo gratefully removed a few spare layers of clothing, Harry grumbled distastefully as he rolled the sleeves of his jumper up past his elbows. The discomfort didn’t last long for him though, and he grinned happily as his two companions rushed to wrap the scarves and cloaks around their shoulders again, muttering curses as they settled into the external seating alongside half of Slytherin house.

The Hufflepuff and Gryffindor stands were more empty than usual, most people not wanting to go out into the cold for a game that didn't even have their team in it. Ravenclaw also seemed rather sparse compared to Slytherin, and for once, Blaise didn’t seem to have it in him to joke about their lack of ‘house pride’. Instead, he was muttering Italian angrily under his breath, furiously casting weak warming charms on himself with sharp, choppy strokes of his wand. Theo’s mood was also dampened by the chill, as he was somehow even less talkative than usual, merely sinking deeper into the layers of wool encasing him as a harsh wind blew past. Harry entertained the idea of keeping his sleeves rolled up as he watched them, finding his skin pleasantly refreshed by the biting wind. It wasn’t often that he was able to wear such thin clothes—especially since the school uniform was at least two layers all by itself—and he couldn’t help but enjoy the unrestricted feeling it gave him. 

The thought sent him along on a lazy daydream of some vague memory, though from when or where he couldn’t quite pinpoint. There was a feeling of weightlessness in the memory, though, of wind and ice, so he couldn’t help but feel like he was flying in it. Maybe he was remembering his third year and the dementors… and the cold. 

I wonder what a dementor could do to me now. What do you reckon?

You have a visitor, Leech.

Harry blinked, jolting slightly as he registered movement from his right. He turned his head slightly, his vision suddenly overtaken by a mess of long blond ringlets as the girl settled beside him. The wind swept her hair into his face, causing him to backpedal into Blaise to avoid it. The other boy shoved him back with an annoyed grunt, accidentally righting him again just as the wind settled back down.

“Greengrass.” He acknowledged with a grunt, eying her from the side as he elbowed Blaise in the rib. The other boy cursed and slapped his arm away, pinning Harry with an icy glare as he returned the favour. Harry ignored it, merely rubbing the new ache in his side as he watched the girl fiddle with the worn leather of her gloves.

“Potter.” She offered just as enthusiastically, eyes trained towards pitch as if she was trying to block out their wordless bickering. “You needed to speak with me?”

Harry blinked, eyebrows furrowing as he pinched Blaise in the side, had he?

I wrote a letter. Tom muttered suddenly, his voice nearly overshadowed by Blaise’s pained yelp.

Pardon?

Tom made a vague noise of annoyance. You always make these things so complicated, Leech. You haven’t been able to speak with her on your own, so I wrote a letter last night telling her to meet you at her earliest convenience. Not everything has to be a treasure hunt, you know.

Harry stumbled over his words for a moment, caught between replying to Greengrass and the tempting inclination to go and give Tom a firm whack over the head. Common courtesy won in the end, and he hummed vaguely to Greengrass as he tried to ignore Blaise’s fingers pinching red crescents into his wrists.

“Right… right, I had forgotten about that.” He muttered, sheepishness seeping into his tone as he swatted Blaise’s fingers away. She looked at him oddly, eyes squinting through her windswept hair as she analysed every inch of his face. 

“I’m a bit sleep-deprived, I think.” He tried, shrugging lamely. “I haven't slept well since Blaise had his hissy fit.”

“Oi!”

She rolled her eyes—though he couldn’t tell which of them it was directed to, him or Blaise—before she seemed to brush it off in favour of levelling another odd look at him. 

“Do you need something or not, Potter?” she snipped, discomfort oozing from her expression despite the steadiness of her tone. He grunted, pushing back against Blaise with one hand as he unbuckled his satchel with the other. Yanking out a spare piece of parchment along with a severely ink-stained quill, he shoved Blaise far back enough to send both him and Theo tumbling off the bench with a barrage of curses and shouts following after them. Scribbling down a location from memory, he shoved the parchment in her direction before tucking the quill away again. “Meet me here after the match.”

Greengrass clenched the parchment in her hands for a moment, excitement or annoyance oozing off her as her eyes darted along the lines of chicken scratch.

“I’ll be there,” she muttered, keen eyes turning from the parchment towards him as if to say, ‘so this is it, then?’. Harry let the corner of his mouth eke up slightly in the ghost of a smile, before he turned away from her and immediately ducked Theo’s book as it sailed towards him. It flew right over his head and smacked into the person above them—a bulky older year who Harry thought might be one of the reserve beaters—who immediately snatched up the book and whacked Blaise over the head with it. 

I’ll have a talk with Pansy and get her to butt out of the house politics, at least for the next two years. He thought idly, watching as the older year scolded Blaise before returning the book to a livid Theo, who proceeded to whack the boy with it as well. I could probably pull her aside at breakfast tomorrow. The sooner I can take care of my side of the deal with Greengrass, the sooner I can put this entire ordeal behind me and focus on the project.

The space on his right was vacated once again, the blonde girl escaping back towards where Tracey sat on her lonesome. Harry breathed out a relieved sigh at her departure, relaxing back onto the bench as his mind finally started to clear and settle.

It was several more minutes of freezing cold till the players finally flew out onto the pitch. Harry didn’t realise at first, finding himself startled from a passing daydream as an ear-splitting cheer rose up around him. Some of the first year Slytherins crowded up at the edge of the stands, screaming their lungs out as streaks of a familiar green flew past, swooping along in a large circle around the arena. Harry stood slightly, watching over the heads as the players began to slow and rearrange into a more familiar starting formation. He squinted, gaze finally settling onto a familiar tuft of blond hair as Slytherin’s seeker shot up into the air, already anticipating the long game ahead. Draco’s hair—which usually sat obediently against his scalp—was flowing free in the wind, unchained from its usual confines of charms and gels. Harry wondered passingly why the other boy hadn’t slicked it back as usual, before his attention was drawn away by the uproarious applause from the opposite side of the stands.

The Ravenclaw team seemed considerably less intimidating than Slytherin’s, which lined up quite well with Harry’s vague memories of it. The Ravenclaw captain had picked her teammates based purely on percentages and whatnot during tryouts if he remembered correctly, rather than size and general inclination towards violence. It was a good strategy in his opinion, at least if your opponents were playing fair.

Madam Hooch rose up onto the pitch, bundled up in what had to be at least a dozen of layers of clothing, and released the snitch from her mitten-covered hand. Harry watched keenly as the gold glint sped around, trying to keep track of it as long as he could till it finally zipped around the Hufflepuff stands and out of his sight. The quaffles were thrown shortly after, and the game was on. 

Harry didn't pay much attention to the bloodbath as it dragged on, his mind stuck half in the past and half in the present as he watched Draco loop lazily around the pitch. It was there in his mindscape somewhere—hidden among sluggish Sunday evenings and furious study sessions Monday mornings—the distant memory of circling around the pitch in the freezing cold, incapable of focusing on anything but the icy wind and the desperate wish for a glint of gold and the occasional creeping annoyance of grey eyes skating over and past him. Blond hair, nearly silver in the pale light, and sharp eyes that wrinkled around the edges as his pointed nose turned upwards. A sneer, sudden and visceral and exciting, before the gaze left and it was back to the cold and the waiting; back to boredom until the gaze fell on him again and the excitement reared back up. Glints of silver against the grey, an upturned nose, white teeth peeking out of a half-grimace. So much emotion in one moment. So much expression in a single thought. So much enjoyment out of a tiny, sparse second of hatred.

“Scared, Potter?”

“What the ‘ell is wrong with me.” He muttered into his palm, eyes pinned to the great expanse of sky above him. It was cloudy. 

Grey.

Harry rubbed his hand down his face furiously for a moment, trying to beat away the sudden wave of emotions as they shambled out of the vague forest in his mind. He grunted, wrangling them into some semblance of obedience as he forced his eyes upwards, trying to find something to keep his thoughts on and away from the racing mess of emotions that seemed intent on consuming him.

He was staring at the sky again.

He shouldn’t be playing with his back so fragile. The thought crept up on him, anxiety taking hold as his vision reconnected with the blob of blond hair just as Draco made a particularly sharp turn. Snape shouldn’t have let him do this.

“Has Malfoy spotted the snitch?” Jordan’s voice broke through the deafening cheering, and Harry instinctively rose up from his seat with the rest of Slytherin house as Draco suddenly swerved, dipped, and was off like a rocket towards some invisible target. The Ravenclaw seeker fumbled for a moment, taking a second too long to reorientate and pursue after him before she too was streaming across the pitch. Draco made a sudden, terrifyingly sharp turn, his broom very nearly throwing him from it as he yanked it this way and that. Standing fully now, Harry watched with bated breath as Draco tumbled in the air for a moment, very nearly crashing into a goal post before he made another sudden turn, spinning away unceremoniously as the Ravenclaw seeker made a similar error—though a few feet to the left—and knocked face-first into the post. Draco righted himself suddenly, as if the entire fumble had been some bizarre play of its own, and threw his arm up into the air with a triumphant shout.

Something gold glimmered between his fingers.

Harry was halfway down the stairs before the other players had even landed, Blaise and Theo—and three-quarters of Slytherin—not far behind him. A sea of green streamed out onto the pitch as Madam Pomfrey gathered up the Ravenclaw seeker from where she had fallen. Flint rose above everyone, arms raised high over his head as his teammates shouted and laughed, slapping each other on the back as their friends and teammates congratulated them. And then there was Draco, his eyes and hair shining silver as he waved the subdued snitch over his head, his grin cheek-splitting as he stumbled into Harry for a hug, not a single ounce of disdain hiding in his expression. Unfamiliar and familiar at the same time.

Harry found it exhilarating, and enticing, and he couldn’t even begin to understand why.

They got halfway to the dungeon’s entrance before Harry encountered the first hiccup of his evening.

A sudden, aching annoyance began to throb unpleasantly along the bridge of his nose, pulling and aching so suddenly and painfully that it felt as if Tom was doing everything he possibly could to get his attention. It wasn’t exactly a surprising feeling—considering all the times Tom had used pain to get his way—but it still made Harry pause and suck in a breath. Fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, he grunted, shaking his head as if it would dislodge the nuisance from his skull.

Harry, I’m not going to write another letter for you. Tom hissed, and Harry followed the pulling sensation behind his eyes with a grunt, turning just enough for Greengrass to catch his eye from the opposite end of the hall. He paused suddenly, thumbs and forefinger still pinching the bridge of his nose, as she made a rather pointed motion down the hall and quickly began walking away. He cursed, rubbing away the receding pain as he made a move to follow after her. 

He barely got half a step before a familiar, calloused hand gripped his wrist and that accursed grey overtook his vision again.

“The common room is this way, you dolt.”

“Brilliant observation, Dray. I’ve got something to take care of. I’ll meet you three there.”

Harry mentally kicked himself as Draco raised an eyebrow, his gaze darting between Harry and Greengrass’ retreating back as she turned a corner out of sight. He should have thought things through better, should have considered that Draco would want to, well, celebrate his first Quidditch victory. Maybe Tom should have thought of it too.

He probably had, the bastard. He certainly hadn’t forgotten about the entire ordeal as Harry had.

“And what’s she got to do with it?” was the curt reply. Harry winced slightly at the tone, fighting back the urge to roll his eyes as Draco crossed his arms over his chest expectantly, his left hand still clutching tightly to the snitch as if he was holding back the urge to throw it after Greengrass.

“Dray, can we do this some other time—”

“I do beg your pardon?”

Harry’s wince deepened, turning more into a grimace as Blaise and Theo began snickering to themselves from a little behind them. It was a small mercy that the rest of their house seemed to have continued on without the four of them, leaving the hallway vacant of anyone but the portraits and a passing ghost. “You… you just have a… a tendency to despise every second I spend in Greengrass’ general vicinity, and I find it mildly inconveniencing—”

“Oh do you.”

“Draco, for Merlin’s sake, it’ll take half an hour. I made a deal with her and—”

“But Flint snuck in firewhiskey! And it’s Greengrass, Harry. You can’t expect me to like that you two are friends.”

“Why, jealous?” Blaise piped up, shit-eating grin already creeping up his cheeks. Draco whipped around and, in a single fluid motion, chucked the snitch in his direction. Blaise shrieked loudly, ducking out of the way just in time, the ball of gold smacking harmlessly against the corridor wall. Harry groaned as Blaise stumbled over his own two feet, falling to the ground unceremoniously as Draco shouted scrambled curses at him. Theo just stood there, seeming caught between laughing and getting far out of Draco’s way before he threw something bigger and harder.

Harry took the chance to slip away before the attention was back on him, feeling only momentarily guilty before the sound of a spell being fired made the feelings evaporate. It took mere moments for him to sprint down the hall and out of their view, and only seconds more to catch up with Greengrass as she strode around another corner.

“We should make this quick,” he muttered, coming up beside her smoothly. “Draco’ll pitch a fit if this takes too long.”

“More of a fit than he’s already throwing?”

He ignored her, picking up the pace as a familiar stairwell came into view. He didn’t want to think about Draco right now, not with the grey and the silver and the stupid, painful memories poking him in the side.

He shouldn’t have gone to the match. It was dragging everything back up again.

Harry prowled through the old corridors on a warpath, his entire body high strung and patience wearing thin as they walked deeper and deeper into the bowels of Hogwarts. Greengrass trailed behind him, silent as the dead save for the clack of her shoes against the stone floor. He barely noticed her there, thoughts of brooms and Quidditch and grey and stupid, exiting sneers crowding his mess of a mind as he let Tom’s soothingly sharp voice lead him towards the fourth floor.

Paintings eyed them distrustfully as they neared the Gryffindor common room, and Greengrass’ steps began to take on a more erratic, anxious edge as she paused and glanced around for any wandering lions.

“We really shouldn’t—” she started, trailing off into a vaguely garbled curse as the Fat Lady came into view. Harry ignored her—and the large painting’s scoff—as he passed the entrance and continued on. Greengrass fell silent again at that, and she stayed that way for the agonisingly slow few minutes that followed as they took corner after corner at Tom’s mental instruction. Harry ignored the silence—or the fact that Greengrass, for some reason, knew where the Gryffindor common room was, and actually thought that he was dragging her there—and focused on Tom’s voice. It was cold and sharp, blatantly annoyed, but… familiar. It was the most familiar thing he had. It had haunted his dreams in his first life, had been the last thing he heard before dying—hell, he heard it in the back of his mind nearly every day since he had woken up on the Dursley’s kitchen counter all those years ago. He knew Tom’s voice like he knew his own soul. He knew it better than the exciting grey and silver clouding his mind. He knew it better than the new familiar-unfamiliar feelings that had been plaguing him ever since he met this strange new Draco Malfoy that didn’t hate his very existence. Tom’s voice was a constant: comforting and predictable and known.

Tom’s voice didn’t confuse him like Draco’s eyes did. 

(It didn’t excite him either.)

Here, right next to the bowl of fruits.

“Alright, here we are,” he motioned to the wall as they neared it, eying the ugly painting of vague blobs that he was cautious to call fruits. It was quite odd actually, but as he glanced around the thin hallway, Harry noticed that it seemed void of a single human portrait. It was all just ugly paintings of fruits.

Really, really ugly fruits.

“A wall?” 

Harry sighed, rubbing at his temple as Greengrass raised an eyebrow. “Never heard of a secret passageway?”

“You-!” She bristled, but bit back whatever scathing reply she had on her tongue in lieu of glaring at him hatefully. Turning back to the wall, she eyed it up and down for a moment, before huffing. “Fine. What do I have to do to get this over with?”

Harry grumbled, relaying the question to Tom as he continued to massage his left temple. He couldn’t sort out if Tom was purposefully paining him still or if he just needed to rest his eyes.

She needs to put her hand on the third brick from the bottom and say, ‘I need an army’. And, honestly, Leech, you haven’t had a glass of water in nearly two days. You’re dehydrated.

He grumbled again, ignoring the advice as he relayed Tom’s instruction to the girl beside him. She complied, if somewhat reluctantly, and they both stood back, watching as individual bricks began to shift and twist out of the way, revealing a dusty corridor into darkness. They stood in silence for a moment, Harry with his eyes squinted shut, two fingers pressed lightly against his eyelids, and Greengrass with her own eyes wide as saucers.

“Alright, well… I'll get Parkinson out of the way for you. Cheers.” Harry made a vague ‘shoo’ motion with his free hand, pulling the fingers away as colours swam past his vision. He took an assured step towards the darkness before she suddenly stopped him.

“Hold on.”

He paused, glancing back at her with squinted eyes. “...Yes?”

She fidgeted, eyes still blown wide with a mix of curiosity and fear that did not bode well for him.

“Could I… come along?”

Uhh…?

“And why exactly would you want to?” He offered, watching as her expression quickly lost any of the fear it had held. She huffed, crossing her arms as she shot an unimpressed look at him.

“Potter, are you really so emotionally stunted that you can’t comprehend why I would be curious about some random passageway that you found so important and frightening—” she wiggled her fingers sarcastically at him then, “—that you had to strike a deal with me just to open it?”

Well, this is supremely unexpected, don’t you agree Harry? A woman’s curiosity is your downfall, who could have expected it.

The headache was reaching near-unbearable levels, and Tom’s voice wasn’t helping nearly as much as it had been on the walk there, and Merlin Harry just wanted to go take a long nap. After drinking half a gallon of water, he reckoned. Yes, water then sleep, that sounded marvellous.

“I suppose your logic has solid ground to stand on,” he hummed, eying the shadowed passageway contemplatively as her feet tapped an impatient rhythm behind him. “But—”

“I'll close the passage behind you and you won't be able to get out,” she blurted. Her wide, excited eyes gleamed with victory as he levelled an annoyed glare in her direction. She grinned then—a little oddly, as if she wasn’t quite used to it—and fiddled with the hem of her sleeve. “So you have to let me—”

“Actually, the interior opening mechanism is completely different from the exterior, so—”

“Aha!”

She shoved past him, her gleeful laughter echoing through the darkness as the click of her shoes pierced his eardrums. He stumbled—be it from the headache or the dehydration or his stupid, long legs that never worked in tandem with each other—before he righted himself clumsily and yanked his wand from its holster.

“Oi!” He raced after her into the darkness, a lumos on the tip of his tongue as Tom’s laughter rattled through his skull.

Blaise rubbed his eyes tiredly, leaning back against the headboard of his bed as he attempted to quell the urge to crack his skull open on the thick wood. Draco was on—and seemed nowhere near done with—a long-winded rant about Greengrass and his general disdain for her, and Theo—being either supportive or incredibly good at blocking out the blond’s nonsense—sat patiently beside him, listening as he ranted on and on… and on… and on…

I can't take much more of this.

“-not only that, but she is blatantly flirting with him and it is just disgusting to watch her try and get his attention. It is just despicable, I can't even begin to comprehend why he bothers to associate with that cow. I mean honestly—”

“Draco, I get that you fancy him, but can you give it a break? Harry can have friends that you disapprove of if he wants to.” Blaise interjected as he picked at his nails, speaking more on an impulse than any sort of rational thought. He didn’t regret what he said though, not as Theo’s eyes bulged and Draco went a deep, near-fuchsia red, the blush travelling up from his neck to the pale skin of his scalp, which suddenly became rather visible from under his blond hair. Blaise grinned wickedly, picking at one of his hangnails as Draco’s entire rant stuttered to a grinding halt.

“I-I but I… No, I don't—”

“Oh come on, of course you do.” He snorted, flicking the dead skin away as he sat up on his bed. Pulling his knees up a bit, he settled back on an elbow, waving his free hand in the vague direction of Harry’s desk with a ‘see for yourself’ motion. “Why would you offer to organise his notes for him if you didn’t? You hate organising anything, let alone your own damn notes, and Harry’s handwriting is illegible half the time. Why would you bother with something so annoying if you didn’t fancy him?”

“But-but… but that's ridiculous.” Draco stammered out, shaking his head as he ran both hands through his hair, messing it up and making himself appear even more bedraggled than before. “I-I’m—I just hate how messy he is. It’s completely intolerable. I can't stand it. That doesn’t mean I fancy him; he’s my best friend!”

“Right. Of course.” Blaise deadpanned, his grin nearly splitting his face in two as his eyes darted between Draco as he stammered incomprehensibly and Theo as he watched on with wide, shocked eyes. “So I suppose—since he’s just your friend and all—you shouldn’t mind too terribly if he and Greengrass were off snogging right now?”

Something in the air shifted—just enough for him to immediately go on edge—and Blaise barely had time to take in Draco’s wide, furious eyes before something smacked right into his face and sent him tumbling backwards.

“Did you just throw a pillow at me?!”

“Take that back right now!”

He ripped the pillow off his face, grabbing another from his own bed and chucking both towards the now crouching Draco, who dodged to the side before ripping two more pillows from their place on his bed, arming himself with his own feather-filled weapons. Theo shrieked, scampering out of the way as the projectiles were launched towards their intended targets.

“Take back what? That you fancy Harry or that he’s probably off snogging Greengrass right now?” Blaise jumped off his bed and rolled across the floor, snatching up more pillows as Draco descended on him with a battle cry-like yell.

“I said take it back!”

A pillow slammed into him from behind, knocking the wind out of him and sending him tumbling to the ground. Blaise laughed, throwing up an arm to protect his face as Draco assaulted him from all angles with a furious barrage of pillows.

“Admit that you’re madly in love with him and I’ll think about it!”

“Like hell I will!”

Feathers kicked up into the air, tickling his nose as the attack continued to lightly pummell him. It was glorious, and chaotic, and Blaise couldn’t help but laugh, wild and crazed, as a madness he created reigned supreme all through the little dorm room.

“You’re absolutely maddening, you know that, right Greengrass?”

He couldn’t make out her silhouette in the darkness, and her blonde ringlet curls were barely distinguishable as they swayed with her movements. She was practically running through the thin passage to keep ahead of him, and despite his own considerable advantage in height, Harry still found himself stumbling along with uncoordinated strides in an attempt to jog after her. “This is ridiculous—get back here before you accidentally spring a trap or something! I won’t tell the professors if you get killed back here you know.”

“You really are Slytherin’s monster, aren’t you Potter? Just like the older years keep saying.” She called back to him, annoyance and glee dripping from her voice as she suddenly stopped stiff and whipped around to face him. “You would leave me back here if I died?”

“Without a second thought.” He stumbled to a stop, holding back an angry growl as he towered over her. “This isn’t someplace to go frolicking around in, Greengrass. You don’t know the sort of traps Gryffindor decided to hide in here. It’s dangerous.”

Whatever she was planning to say next died on her lips the second he spit out the name. She stared at him, eyes wide and mouth parted in silent shock as he realised just what he had said, seconds too late to stuff the words back in his mouth. Harry barely had time to curse himself for the mistake before she threw her hand up and grabbed hold of his collar, yanking him down to her level with a furious hiss.

“Gryffindor? As in Godric Gryffindor? What. The. Hell did you just get me involved in Potter? Because I swear to Merlin no amount of favours on your end could make up for—”

“I’m not turning you into an accessory for theft, Greengrass.” He scoffed, batting her hand away from his collar with a swat of his wrist. He stood fully, readjusting his crumpled tie after she had mangled it before letting out a breath. “—and you should have considered that I was doing something… devious when we made this deal last year. I’m not going to be taking anything that is owned by someone, especially not something as sought after as one of the… you know, so you can stop acting like I’m planning to steal the hat of Dumbledore’s head.”

He stared down at her for a moment, watching as the anger in her eyes slowly fell away and was replaced with… curiosity? Intrigue? Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to get her out of the passages any faster, that was for certain. Harry sighed, rubbing a long hand down his face in some vague attempt to keep his cool. 

This isn’t working, Tom.

I’ve gathered that much.

What should I do?

Well, she already knows, so there isn’t much to do besides wipe her memory of the last hour and move on.

Harry sighed, removing his hand from his face with a groan. “Now, you can come along if you promise to be careful, but you’ve got to swear on your family’s fortune not to speak a word of this to anyone.”

Coward.

She’s trustworthy enough, you psychopath.

She squinted at him, her foot tapping an erratic tempo into the stone below them as the gears in her mind finally began creaking along towards a decision. There was a moment of silence between them, which Harry savoured every millisecond of, before the tapping stopped and she suddenly yanked her wand from its holster and held it up between them.

“I, Daphne Belladonna Greengrass, of sound mind and soul, swear upon my name and my heritage to not discuss the previous or preceding events with anyone other than Hadrian James Potter. May my ancestors disregard my name if I am to break this sacred promise.”

It was silent for a moment as the light of a magical vow flickered and bloomed from her wand, falling away just as abruptly as she had spoken, before she muttered ‘lumos’ and a different sort of light erupted through the thin passage. Harry stared at her blankly for a moment, lips parted and brows raised, before he squinted.

“Your middle name is Belladonna?”

“Yes. So?” She defended haphazardly, waving him off towards the darkness as if to say ‘after you’. “My mother likes flowers, Potter.”

“You do know that daphne is the name of a poisonous flower too, right?” He replied, motioning for her to follow him as he began slowly making his way down the passageway, his eyes and ears and magic straining for anything resembling a trap. “Why did your mother name you after two poisonous flowers? Does she want you to be inedible?”

“Why do you say that as if I am edible?” She seemed to shake her head with exasperation then, though the motion was barely discernible in the low light. Harry hummed, readying his own wand as he watched her from the corner of his eye. 

“Well, you are, technically.” He shrugged, looking back on the last time he had crept through Hogwarts’ forgotten passageways. "You're made of meat, aren't you? Meat is edible so therefore you are edible."

"Potter... that doesn't mean you should eat m—oh!” She gasped as he threw out an arm without warning, stopping both of them in their tracks. It was quiet for a moment, before he extinguished his lumos and quickly muttered a few, far more complicated spells. The uneasy feeling in his gut dissipated, and he stood there for a few moments more before cautiously lowering his arm.

"But it makes you edible, doesn't it? You can't say you aren't edible when you're made of meat." He finally replied, turning as the passageway curved suddenly. She followed after him, sputtering incredulously.

"I can't understand how your sanity hasn't been questioned yet."

Harry didn’t reply, falling silent as another uneasy feeling fell over him and he threw out his arm to stop her again. 

They quickly got into a sort of rhythm—Daphne would hold her lumos out to guide them as Harry searched out any traps, and once he found one she would hold the light up to wherever he motioned. He would dismantle the magical trap—be it a curse or some sort of archaic version of a hex—before they moved along to the next one. With this slap-dash strategy, they quickly found themselves moving through the passage at a much faster speed than Harry had anticipated, and before long they turned a corner and the thin passageway opened up into a small circular space.

“... Is this it?” Greengrass questioned, glancing around the room with a raised eyebrow. Harry ignored her, walking three paces from the entrance—situating himself firmly in the centre of the circle—before closing his eyes. It was silent as he stood there, listening to Tom’s quiet voice murmuring in the back of his mind, before he slowly began to turn.

“Pot—”

“Shh!”

He continued to turn in place, whispering the words Tom relayed to him under his breath as the magic around them slowly revealed itself, sluggish from decades upon centuries of little use. It followed his voice, pinpointing where he stood before moving away, edging along the wall at a snail’s pace. He followed it, spinning slowly before grinding to a sudden halt as it settled along the wall. It stayed there, swirling for a moment, before seeming to almost… solidify.

“What on Circe’s green earth is that?” Greengrass’ voice broke through the silence, trailing off just as Harry opened his eyes and took in the new addition to the previously empty wall. Directly in front of him stood a large wooden door, so old and decrepit that it looked mere seconds away from falling off its hinges. The metal accents hammered along it looked rusted and worn, likely waterlogged from some flood in the past—maybe even the same one that had flooded the Chamber of Secrets. Oddly though, and in direct opposition to the rust, a large metal plate sat right in the middle of the door, hammered in place with thick iron nails. It was clean, almost as if it had been recently shined, and Harry would have thought it was a new addition if Tom hadn’t told him about it beforehand. He squinted at the metal plate, seeing faintly how some sort of archaic English was carved along it—an ancient poem of sorts.

He observed the door in all its glory for a moment longer, before sighing.

Those wards are overkill, Riddle.

I was fifteen when I made them. They’ll fall apart like waterlogged paper, I assure you.  

He approached the warded door with an eye roll, motioning Greengrass to follow as he started waving his wand in various motions in front of it. True to Tom’s words, the wards quickly started to fall away, crumbling as if they had been seconds away from collapsing to begin with. 

I suppose you have to be right every once in a while.

Don’t test me, Leech.

He got a tad more aggressive with the wards after that, knowing that they were weak enough for him to strong-arm his way through without much consequence. He slowed down slightly, however, when the light from his companion’s wand dulled. Glancing over, he watched as she muttered an unfamiliar spell, and the old English on the metal plate began to shift and bend, rearranging itself into something more familiar.

A modified translation spell? Tom hummed curiously. I didn’t know the Greengrass family dabbled in spell alteration.

“Is that spell a family secret, Miss Greengrass?” Harry grinned cheekily as she scoffed, the lumos brightening back to its original strength as the words finished shifting.

“My mother will be submitting it to the ministry soon, Potter. Don’t act as if it's such a crime to use.”

“As I understand it, using unsubmitted alterations to spells is rather illegal without a permit.” He replied, grunting as she elbowed him in the side. 

“Let’s call ourselves even then.”

He huffed out a laugh, pulling away from the door as the rest of the wards fell away. Fumbling with his wand for a moment, he lit his lumos again and held it up to the old door, listening as his companion began reading aloud the ancient poem.

History does not live in scrolls,

Or the hallowed halls of kings.

It lives here: in knowledge, in memories, in the future.

A snake watches closely to the ticking of time,

Eyes pinned to the stars, to the planets, to the future.

He hides knowledge within walls of stone and leather,

Allowing only those of his own future to intrude upon history.

The badger, stricken by sickness and age,

Finds comfort in a room which fulfils all needs.

Hidden away from the agony and pain of time,

She covets a room to shelter all in times of strife.

An eagle, sharp-eyed and of sharper mind,

Hides away from the shifting grains of progress.

Deep in the twisting caverns of ages past,

She awaits the questions of future scholars.

The Lion, however, dwells in times of war,

Forced into battle with unsteady hands,

He gifts children an army.

“What on earth…?” Greengrass whispered, her hands ghosting over the words as they slowly began rearranging back into their original script. Harry stayed silent as he studied the inscription, imprinting it to memory as the familiar words slowly became jumbled and unrecognisable again. Then, once he was assured that he could recite it perfectly if need be, he grasped the door’s handle and pulled it open with a low creak.

It was smaller than he expected. Though, maybe it was just so crowded that it felt small, like how the Room of Requirement felt like a winding maze of forgotten junk and priceless artefacts. This was different though—more intimidating and constrictive than the Room could ever be—because instead of broken chairs and forgotten textbooks, there were swords and bows and lances, staffs and shields and so, so many wands. Piles and piles of old, crudely carved wands. Some seemed to have magic in them, others looked to be unfinished, a few looked as though they were nothing but wand ingredients. There were potions, blood-red in colour, settled on densely stacked shelves with stasis sigils and runes carved deeply into the oak. There were tomes and scrolls and daggers and darts, all ancient and gleaming as if they had just been polished that day. Magic clung to every inch of the room, drenching it a dense, suffocating feeling of war.

It was a familiar feeling.

Harry felt like he was back in the forest again, invisibility cloak draped over his shoulders and resurrection stone pressing a painful indentation into his palm.

“It… Potter, what is this?” Greengrass whispered, words muffled by her hand covering her mouth. She looked faint, overwhelmed by the densely packed arsenal of weapons they had just stumbled into. Harry took a shaky breath, stuffing the emotions away somewhere, and stepped further inside.

“Godric Gryffindor was the closest thing Hogwarts ever had to a true headmaster. The other founders were teachers before they were leaders, but Gryffindor had grown up fighting and… and he had never managed to stop, even after founding Hogwarts with the others. War was a part of him, I think.” He stopped in front of one of the many shelves, running a finger down the runes as his mind crept deeper into Tom’s stories. “He put together this… this armoury in case the students needed to fight against an invading threat by themselves. The entrance was enchanted so that only a woman could open it. His logic was that… well, back then, the only people that would have been doing any fighting were men, but there were female students in the castle, so Gryffindor worked under the assumption that the room could only ever be opened by students, instead of an opposing force.”

She frowned, peering further into the room with undisguised intrigue. “So that’s why you needed my help…”

He hummed, nodding as he stepped away from the shelf. “I only need a specific thing in here, so you’re free to explore while I go look for it. There’s all sorts of old shite laying around, so if you insist on being here while I fetch it, you might as well plunder a few things for yourself.”

She snorted, and glared at him without amusement, but turned and began peering into the stacks of weapons anyway. He watched her for a moment, observing the way her expression morphed from annoyed to curious and then, suddenly, to hopeful, before she was off around a corner and out of sight. Harry narrowed his eyes, suspicious, but didn’t shout after her.

Where to, Thomas?

There was a familiar, incredulous scoff. Don’t call me that. 

Where’s the damn bow, Riddle.

…The last time I was here, it had been on a shelf along the northern wall.

“Thank you… you better not be remembering wrong.” He muttered disdainfully, following a thin path north through the weaponry. “Think you can describe it to me?”

It's an ornate longbow of pale wood with silver details, I don't know how else to explain it, especially when you’re being so obnoxiously crass.

What about the quiver and arrows? He ignored the jab as he ducked under some sort of cloth, attempting as best he could to head north despite the winding, maze-like nature of Gryffindor’s vault.

They all stay on theme, Harry. The northern Germanics may have been tribal, but they weren't so barbaric as to not colour coordinate.

Rolling his eyes, the lanky boy sidestepped some sort of miniature trebuchet, sighing with relief as the far wall revealed itself from behind another massive shelf. The room wasn’t that large after all. Moving along, he focused on the magic around him, trying to see if it could help guide him towards his goal. It was dense though—shockingly so—and Harry quickly realized that any sort of distinguishable magic would be swallowed up by the dense fog of war. He groaned, annoyed, before pulling out his wand again. 

Working in tandem with the low light of the candles lining the walls, he held his glowing wand up to the various shelves, trying to discern a pale wood from the other, varying shades of wood. As he worked, his mind wandered further from his goal and on to the next step of his plan. He had yet to speak with the centaurs about a potential trade—not completely sure that they would even let him live long enough to explain his intentions—but the bow of Skaði was a legendary artefact that would, in the very least, give him a bit of extra leverage when arguing his side of things.

It wasn’t even that he needed the centaur’s help, really. Sure, Greengrass didn’t seem particularly inclined to get the unicorn hair for him, but if he tried hard enough he could probably get one of the other Slytherin girls to help him. But, if he had to be honest with himself—and as Tom continuously reminded him—it was best to get as few of the other students involved in his escapades as he possibly could. Using the centaurs as help also had the added bonus of them not being loyal to the school—or humans in general, if he was being honest with himself—so he could be reasonably assured that they wouldn’t go and inform Dumbledore about his little jaunts through their woods. Hell, they might just laugh the old bastard right out of the forest if he tried to get any sort of information out of them. Harry felt unreasonably pleased by the concept.

A pale sliver of wood caught his eye then, and he forced the thoughts aside as his gaze zeroed in on an elegant, ornate longbow sitting primly across a high shelf. As he grew closer, he noticed silver accents inset along it, glittering against the low light, the pure magic embedded within them doing nothing but entice him forward. A leather quiver full of arrows sat just behind it, similarly designed and remarkably full despite the centuries since it had found its way there. Reaching for the pair eagerly, he grasped the nock of the bow, pulling it from its perch. The quiver came soon after, and he immediately slung it over his shoulder. Grasping the bow tightly on the grip, he grinned broadly. Oh yes, the centaurs would have to listen to him if he had such a legendary thing in his possession.

Oh, they’ll listen, just long enough to rip it away from you.

Do you reckon giving myself a lobotomy will make you shut up?

I certainly hope so.

Harry couldn’t help but snort, shouldering the longbow as he turned back the way he came. It was much easier to find his way back to the entrance than it had been to find the northern wall, and before long he emerged from the stacks into the little opening right after the old oak door. He manoeuvred around to the front of it, studying the old English for a moment longer before turning back towards the shelf full of healing potions.

“Did you make these?” he whispered aloud, brows furrowed as he picked one up and observed it. The glass vial looked far too recent to be from the tenth century, and the runes inscribed on the shelf weren’t nearly as detailed as the ones in Jörmungandr’s library. They looked like they were powerful enough to keep a potion fresh for a few hundred years or so, but certainly not for a millennium.

“...Tom?”

I dabbled.

Harry frowned at the vague answer, eying the dozens of tightly packed vials. It looked like enough to keep an entire army alive for a few days, though why Tom would have bothered with such a task as brewing that many potions in his fifth year Harry hadn’t a clue. The man didn’t seem very inclined to share either, so he let it go and set the vial back on its perch. Just as he did, the familiar clicking of footsteps registered to his ears, and he turned back just as Greengrass came jogging around a corner.

“Alright, I've got—is that a bow?” 

He raised an eyebrow, eyes pinned to the long, ceremonial dagger she had clutched in her hands. It was a ritual dagger from what he could tell. A very particular type of ritual dagger. It had a leather grip—as most did, in her defence—but the blade was an oddity. It had a sort of golden gleam to it, despite it obviously being an iron alloy of some kind. The golden sheen felt unnatural in a familiar sort of way. It felt like there was a very particular sort of magic embedded into it.

“Do you even know how to use that?” he questioned, waving a hand at the dagger pointedly as he stepped away from the shelf. She fidgeted for a moment, before nodding.

Harry froze, eyes widening slightly in shock. Her mouth was already open to argue.

“You've done a ritual—”

“I swore not to tell,” she blurted, a look of panic slapped across her face as she took in his own expression. “So you’ve got to as well.”

They stared at each other for several sparse seconds. Nothing moved, not even a twitch. And then, Harry sighed.

“What are you going to do with that thing?”

“I swore —”

“And I will too, Greengrass,” he stalked forward, raising a hand to point accusatorily at the dagger, “once you tell me what you’re going to use that for.”

She made a noise of anger, shifting around to shield the dagger from his sight. “What do you care? You said I can plunder so I’m plundering!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t let me storm out of here with some random, dangerous magical artefact if you had half a mind.” He tried to reach around her, but she crouched and ducked away, far smaller and more nimble than he was. “Greengrass—for Merlin’s sake, just let me look at it.”

“You’ll take it!” She scampered away from him with a maddeningly stubborn expression on her face, pointing her finger at him angrily. “You and Malfoy—you’re two peas in a pod, eh? All you do is take and take and all I’m left with is the scraps!”

Harry closed his eyes, letting out a breath as his headache flamed back up again. This was ridiculous. He didn’t have the time or patience to deal with whatever this was to her. Taking another deep breath, he steadied himself before finally speaking.

“Daphne, I don’t want to take anything from you, I just want to make sure you aren’t going to get yourself in trouble for having a dangerous magical artefact in your things.” He murmured quietly, eyes opening again as the headache receded somewhat. She was still crouched a ways away, wand raised to attack at any moment, but the stubborn look in her eye had diminished slightly. He sighed again, forcing himself to relax. “I don’t know what happened between you and Draco, and I don't care. I’m not a part of it and I don’t want to be. Please, don’t mistake my actions for his.”

She sucked in a breath, blinking out at him as if she could finally see him through the haze of her anger. It was silent for a moment as she breathed and watched him, and then—

“Swear on it.”

Her voice was so shaky and uncertain—scared. She was scared of him. Him. Harry closed his eyes, took a breath, then opened them. Setting the bow and quiver gently to the side, he stood and, sighing for the billionth time that evening, unsheathed his wand from its holster and held it up to the low candlelight. The elder wand felt heavy in his hands as he murmured out a familiar, yet abbreviated oath, though he ignored it in favour of observing the look on her face. He had never seen her express much emotion before, but something about the adventure and the excitement and the mystery… it seemed to have pulled her from her shell for the first time since they met. And then, of course, he had gone and messed it up somehow; just his luck.

“—as I say, so it will be.”

The familiar light of a magical oath flashed, and as if her strings had been cut, Greengrass immediately collapsed in on herself, cradling the dagger like a lifeline as she sank to the floor. Harry cursed, sidestepping the bow as he cautiously edged towards her, cringing as her shoulders shook with suppressed sobs. He didn’t know how to comfort people in crisis. He was usually the one having the crisis, not the one to assist with solving it.

“My sister—” she sniffled, rubbing angrily at her eyes as if the tears pouring down her face personally offended her. “My sister Astoria is—Astoria, my baby sister, she-she has a blood curse.”

Harry froze, eyes widening as she broke into another choked sob. Crying. Bloody hell, he did not do well with crying. “I need to help her. I don’t—mother and father have already given up and they don’t care, but she’s only ten and I—I just can’t—”

“It’s okay,” he blurted, wincing at the firmness of his tone. Gentle, Potter. You need to be gentle. “It’s okay. I understand. Just… just take it, alright? I trust you. I know you’ll be careful.”

He settled beside her, wincing at every move he made as he reached out a hand and cautiously pat her three times on the back. She sniffled, then laughed weakly and swatted his hand away. 

“You’re as emotionally available as a toerag, Potter, don’t even try.” She croaked, wiping away the remainder of her tears with the back of her hand. He made a vague noise of agreement, fiddling with his too-long fingers for a moment as they sat in silence on the cold stone floor. Harry didn’t know what to say that might help the situation, and Daphne seemed perfectly content to sit there and fiddle with the grip of her dagger, so he left it alone. He just… didn’t know what to say to that, really. She had a reason—a good reason—to want the dagger, and he wasn’t going to take it away. That was that, in his eyes at least.

They sat peacefully for a few minutes more—long enough for Harry’s legs to go numb and his shoulders to start aching—before she huffed out a laugh.

“Why on earth do you need a bow?” She wiped at her face again, rubbing her puffy cheeks with clammy-looking fingers. “This is the twentieth century Potter, not the tenth. We use wands like civilised people.”

He forced out a grin, stumbling back up onto his feet as he did. Holding out a hand for her to take, he tried to look as compassionate as possible as she stared at it, looking like she might ignore it in favour of getting up herself. The trepidation lasted only a moment though, before she took hold and allowed him to yank her up. She brushed the dust off herself off in silence as he stumbled off to retrieve the bow, so subdued that she didn’t even laugh as his legs—still prickling unpleasantly from the uncomfortable sitting position—refused to work elegantly or at all in his favour. 

“I want to gain leverage over the centaur clan in the forbidden forest so they’ll get me some freely given unicorn hair.” He finally replied, shrugging the quiver and bow over one shoulder as he turned towards the door. “Since someone decided it was too much of an undertaking, I have to settle for less ideal methods.”

She coughed out a laugh, short and cynical, as she followed him out. “What, like going out there yourself?”

He grinned—with just a bit too much teeth and a bit too little happiness—before slamming the door shut behind them. It faded away into the wall, disappearing from sight as if it had never existed.

“Exactly.”

Forced into battle with unsteady hands,

He gifts children an army.

Chapter Text

The door did, indeed, have a completely different locking mechanism from the inside, and they left with relative ease, their prizes clutched close to the chest and their eyes focused firmly ahead. If anyone were to look at them walking down the hall, they would have seen nothing notably different about them, but when they parted ways at the entrance to the common room, he called her Daphne again, and she thanked him.

And yet…

Harry watched as Daphne disappeared into the common room, eyes narrowed onto the back of her head as she slipped the ritual dagger into the folds of her robe. He continued to stand there, watching as the common room entrance slowly closed up behind her, before turning on his heel and storming back up the stairs and out of the dungeons. 

Lockhart was getting a little too bold for his station. 

Harry wasn’t annoyed enough to forgo his bet with Draco—not yet, at least—but he was getting uncomfortably close to cutting corners in the hope that Lockhart may suffer more for it. He didn’t know what it was about the man that was grating against him so uncomfortably, but something just… itched at him. He wanted Lockhart gone, and soon, before he lost the rest of his patience for the man’s increasingly hostile antics.

Harry waved his wand, shrinking the magical bow in his hand with a mumbled charm before shoving it deep within his pocket. Taking the stairs two at a time, he raced along a familiar path, climbing higher and higher as he followed the mental map in his head. Lockhart was a fraud, sure, but he couldn’t possibly get sent to Azkaban for just writing fraudulent accounts of events. The real crime was the obliviations, which couldn’t be easily proven to have occurred. It would be an incredible undertaking to try and convince the Ministry that those people had their memories stolen from them to begin with. Lockhart would never willingly admit to it either, of course, so there was only one real option.

Blackmail? Or perhaps a smidge of torture? Tom quipped, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Lace his tea with Veritaserum, why don't you?

I’ve had enough of your cheek for one night, Riddle. Harry snapped back, turning a corner sharply only to stop in his tracks. Blinking, he allowed himself only a moment's hesitation before swiftly falling back into the shadows. His eyes narrowed, gaze following the familiar silhouette as it paced back and forth in front of a familiar tapestry before stopping and, with a slightly surprised noise, quickly disappeared through a very familiar door.

It seems that Mister Zabini has stumbled across the Room of Requirement.

Harry hummed, sliding out from his hiding spot as the wide double doors slowly creaked shut. He neared them with silent steps, catching the closing door on his shoe and toeing it open without a single pause.

“Evenin’ Blaise.”

“Good Circe-! …Harry?”

He raised an eyebrow at the interior of the room as he pulled the door shut behind him. Circular in shape and small in size, it looked more akin to a nook than anything distinctly room-like. It was intriguing though, in that way strange things tended to be, as the entire room had no furniture, decor, or… well, anything. It was simply an empty room. And, when speaking in terms of the Room of Requirement, an empty room seemed rather… odd.

“What’s all this then?” He questioned lightly, waving an arm around at the empty expanse. Blaise scoffed, his shock immediately giving way to annoyance as he huffed and shuffled his feet and made a great deal of wordless noise voicing his displeasure. Harry ignored him in favour of observing the plainness of their surroundings. “-and shouldn’t you be in the dorms right now?”

“And shouldn’t you be off snogging Greengrass in an alcove?” Blaise countered, his expression morphing through a barrage of emotions before finally setting onto guarded. Harry rolled his eyes, stepping quietly along the circumference of the room with long, steady footfalls.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He murmured, eyes trained on the empty walls as he slowly finished the loop. “She’s more your type than she is mine.”

Blaise sputtered for a moment. "My type? So you think my type is, what, the female version of Draco?”

“Mhm.”

“Bloody ridiculous,” Blaise muttered, shaking his head in exasperation. “What the hell are you doing here anyhow? How did you know about this place?”

“My tutor told me about it,” Harry replied distantly, finally completing his second lap of the room and immediately beginning his third. “What have you dreamt up here? Some sort of ritual room?”

Blaise didn’t immediately respond, falling silent as Harry slowly completed his third and final pass of the room. When he finished, finally returning to his starting point at the door, he turned on his heel to face Blaise in the centre of the room, his spine as sharp as a razor and hands folded neatly behind his back. They stood across from each other silently for several terse moments, neither of them seeming particularly inclined to continue the conversation past that point, before Harry rolled his eyes.

“Well?”

“You… you’re such a damn hypocrite, demanding answers when you never give any yourself.” Blaise muttered, rubbed a hand along the back of his neck sheepishly as if he knew it was a poor argument. They stood in silence for a moment, at least until the stillness got the better of Blaise and he began tapping his feet anxiously against the ground. Harry raised an eyebrow as he followed the noise with his eyes, gaze finally settling on the small stack of books resting beside his friend’s feet. He studied them for a moment, eyes narrowed, before realisation struck.

“You took those out of the chamber.”

There was a pause.

“... Listen-”

“What exactly are you up to, Blaise?” He questioned, taking a cautioned step forward as his friend’s posture grew more defensive. “It seems like everyone’s trying to do a ritual these days. I'm a little unsettled by it, considering they're illegal and all.”

“It’s not like that, you pretentious twat.” Blaise bit back at him, “and even if it was, who’re you to tell me what not to do? If anyone was going to be messing about with rituals it would be you, you—”

“I can't recall ever even considering doing a ritual, let alone attempting one.” Harry interrupted, his gaze still zeroed in on the stack of ancient tomes. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t try doing it all on my own.”

Because you would fail mis erably without my guidance.

You don’t exactly have a perfect track record with rituals either, Tom.

… Touché.

“Who says I’m alone?” Blaise ducked down suddenly, yanking the large books from their resting place on the floor and immediately clutching them to his chest possessively. “Who are you to assume that I'm doing this without the guidance of my family?”

“Blaise…” Harry sighed through his nose, urging his patience to stay firmly by his side as the conversation dragged towards some indefinite conclusion. “—if you need help, I’m willing to give it.”

You are?

“…You are?”

Harry smiled tiredly, hand waving vaguely in the air as if swatting away Blaise’s doubts. “Honestly, mate, if you’re so determined to do… this, then I won't be able to stop you. I’ve realised recently that you won't be able to stop people if they’ve already set their minds to something so—” he shrugged, stuffing his fingers into his pockets. “I might as well help you if you’ll let me. I’d rather be able to make sure that you’re at least doing whatever this is correctly than try to put a stop to it.”

Blaise seemed to fight with himself for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth between Harry and the books in his arms, before he seemed to come to a decision.

“The vow still stands?”

Harry grinned, the familiar curious craving for knowledge gnawing at his insides without an ounce of remorse.

“Always.”

Lockhart seemed hilariously unimportant in the face of fantastical new prospects like ‘pledges’, the study of which Harry swiftly joined Blaise in, throwing himself into the fascinating research with the gusto of a blooming scholar. Harry didn’t find himself particularly inclined to ‘pledge’ to any one god himself, finding the entire task entirely too tedious for such little promised gain—let alone the fact that a god of much higher power than anything known on earth seemed pledged to him in its own way, so he felt that he was more than adequately prepared in the category of ‘godly relations’ if there ever was such a thing. But, the runes and the ancient nordic magic and the seemingly semi-conscious book were all just… utterly fascinating to him, so he took to assisting Blaise in his pursuits the best that he could. It all had the added benefit of slightly thinning the rift between them that had been growing for the past few months, which Harry felt a surprising amount of relief from. It wasn’t exactly what he had expected from the entire ordeal, but in all honesty, he enjoyed spending the time with his friend.

The rest of December seemed to practically evaporate as he was barraged with the excitement of something new, and Harry found himself genuinely surprised when he settled down for breakfast one day to find that the midyear rankings had been posted. He didn’t bother even glancing at them, knowing immediately from Granger’s constipated expression that she was not, in fact, in first, which really only left one other option.

He found himself packing his bags that very night, feeling rather surprised that the hols had managed to sneak up on him so quickly. Perhaps it was his constantly-shifting friendship with Blaise, or the fascinating knowledge buried deep beneath the school that he had still yet to tap into, or the quickly nearing possibility of finally receiving freely-given unicorn hair, but Harry felt like time was going by far, far too quickly. It was almost the new year. In just seven months he would be thirteen.

And what an utterly terrifying thought that was.

He found himself uncharacteristically lacking an appetite at the feast the next day, his mind wandering away towards what may happen during Christmas. Aunt Petunia was sure to be cooking up a massive feast to rival the Hogwarts elves, and Dudley would probably want to box with him at some point. The last letter he had received from them revealed that Dudley had gone up a weight class, meaning he was well on his way to being perfectly capable of throwing the still rather spindly Harry over his shoulder. He was a good boxer too, if rather slow. When they did spar, it might just end up being an even match. If Harry was just as good at dodging as always, and if he landed enough hits, it might just round out to a tie. Dudley’s punches could easily knock him off his feet, sure, but only if they actually landed. Harry hummed, feeling rather excited to see which one of them might come out on top. 

“—and of course, mother wants to go somewhere warm for the hols. Can you believe that? The best part of Yule is the snow and the cold, and she wants to galavant around the Caribbean like a tourist. It's absurd! I refused to go, of course.” Draco’s voice cut through his meandering thoughts, forcibly pulling Harry back into the present as the blond’s hands waved erratically through the air. Harry hummed, wondering if the Malfoy matriarch had been feeling particularly inclined to take her son along in the first place. He figured she was likely hoping to enjoy the Caribbean without Draco there to complain about it.

“I can’t imagine your parents swimming in the ocean,” Harry replied passively, shoving a large slice of steak in his mouth as Draco gasped.

“Swim? Do you mean to tell me that muggles actually swim?” He whispered, sounding entirely too scandalised by the concept for Harry to even begin taking him seriously. 

“I swim all the time. Do you not go swimming in the summer?” Interjected Blaise with a raised eyebrow, causing Draco to gasp once more, a hand flying up to his mouth as if he had never heard anything more utterly ridiculous in his life. Harry raised an eyebrow as well, sharing a severely off-put glance with Blaise as he shoved another large helping of steak into his mouth.

“Why on earth would I willingly submerge myself underwater for—what, enjoyment? Some sick sense of masochism?” Draco continued, making a face that implied he had never heard anything more utterly putrid than that. “I’m not an animal, Zabini, and neither are you. Why you would bother to partake in something so… so frivolous I couldn't even begin to comprehend.”

“Just admit you never learned to swim, Malfoy.” Daphne’s voice sliced through the conversation like a knife. Harry choked on his steak, immediately slamming a hand against his chest to try and dislodge it from his throat as Blaise spewed his pumpkin juice out of his nose, causing Theo to jump from the table with a screech, desperately trying to dab away the liquid that had splattered across his book. Draco jumped up as well, his hair standing up on end as he practically vaulted the table to grab Greengrass by the collar.

Chaos erupted all along the table as Blaise grabbed the shorter boy around the middle and attempted to heave him back down onto the bench. Harry slammed his fist down on his chest one final time, finally dislodging the steak and opening back up his airflow. Slumping back slightly as the chaos reigned all around him, he finished chewing the slab of meat before swallowing it correctly this time, sighing as he ducked a flying utensil. 

After winter break was over, he would have to come up with a more effective way of balancing the research with Blaise while still getting his own projects wrapped up before the end of their second year. There were far too many important things that he still needed to get done, and he had a feeling that his thirteenth birthday would put a sudden stop to any of his more labour-intensive projects for an indefinite amount of time. At least, that was what his intuition was telling him. And that intuition seemed wrapped up in cigarette smoke and golden-green eyes, so as displeased as he was about it, he was particularly inclined to trust it.

Tlahuelpuchi- Tlaxcala

The Tlahuelpuchi is a Mexican vampire breed most common in the state of Tlaxcala, with deep roots among the indigenous Nahua culture of the region. The Tlahuelpuchi is a vampire born from a human family, and lives with the family for as long as they are able, sucking the blood of infants predominantly. The Tlahuelpuchi is one of the only known magical creatures to be born purely of a creature inheritance, as Tlahuelpuchis are all born human and then awaken suddenly on their thirteenth birthday. Unlike other places in the world, the Tlahuelpuchi have a strong hold on their society, having a long-standing pact with shamans and other creatures in the region. The vast majority of Tlahuelpuchi are female, with the females being much more powerful than the males. They must feed once a month lest they will die of starvation.

Harry checked off the Tlahuelpuchi, shutting his book with a dull, moody thud. He had managed to get to the Tl- creatures sometime in the last week, and had found many fascinating creatures that he could never have even dreamt up, but nothing that fit his exact symptoms. He was beginning to think he was going about his research in a less-than-effective manner. Maybe he should try to get more hints out of Death.

He sighed, looking up from the worn cover of his book to glance around the noticeably baren train compartment. Draco was still at the school, likely moping about being left behind for the hols, and Blaise was off somewhere else, no doubt making a mess of things. Theo was the only one currently in the compartment with him, and was also utterly entranced by a book.

Harry sighed, shuffling his things around for a moment before falling still. He felt restless and exhausted at the same time. A combination he was finding that he enjoyed very, very little. Frustrated, he slouched down further in his seat, trying to appear at least somewhat dignified as he grumbled about how little there was to do, eyes unfocusing and refocusing as the country scenery flew by. 

His fatigue must have won out over his anxiety at some point as, seemingly without warning, Harry found himself jolting awake to a sudden, sharp sensation racing up his leg. Letting out an undignified yelp, he pulled his leg away, hissing through his teeth as the electricity slowly dissipated.

“What the hell, Blaise?”

The other boy shrugged without care, pocketing his wand as he threw a wink over his shoulder and, with a call of ‘write to me, lads!’, quickly disappeared from the compartment. Theo sent him a slightly sympathetic glance before gathering up his own luggage, though he waited just long enough for Harry to wish him well before he too was scampering out of the compartment and off of the train. Harry sighed, dragging his trunk off the overhead as he clumsily tucked Hades’ empty cage under his free arm. It seemed that the other two had exciting things to do over the hols. Why else they would be so enthusiastic about leaving the compartment was beyond him.

Shoving his way through the crowd took far longer than Harry would have liked, but eventually, he managed to stumble his way through the familiar barrier and right into his aunt's waiting arms. She gathered him up with a pleased tut, squeezing his shoulders and smoothing down his hair as she fussed on about how much he had grown and how skinny he was and how he really needed a haircut—all in the same breath. Harry let her fret, smiling gently as she turned his face around in her hands, muttering on about how he wasn’t eating nearly enough at Hogwarts.

“It’ll be fine, dear,” she eventually exclaimed, taking the birdcage from him with a determined harumph. “We’ll get you good and fat while we have you. Dudley has been going on and on about sparring with you but—oh you might just snap like a twig if he tries-”

“I'm not made of glass, Auntie.” He interjected, earning a sharp look for his troubles.

“Well, you could certainly fool me.” She huffed, pulling him along through the throngs of muggles with a hurried stride, almost as if she thought the sooner they got home the sooner she could get to fattening him up. “And you look so pale. Please tell me you’ve been getting some sun?”

“I’m far more tanned than you, Auntie.” He reminded her with a smile, holding back a laugh as she started muttering on about semantics and her lack of care for them.

“Enough of your cheek,” she finally replied as they neared the car, where his uncle and Dudley were standing side by side and enthusiastically discussing something indistinct—probably boxing. “I was going to make the stuffing today. You’ll help your poor auntie with it, won't you?”

“Has the arthritis set in already?” He quipped with faux concern, earning a light smack over his head in response. Harry grinned as she immediately appeared guilty, apologising with a worried coo as she gently pat the assaulted area of his cranium. His smile only widened as Dudley caught his eye and immediately fell into some vague fighting stance before shouting an indistinct call to war that reached Harry’s ears despite the hustle and bustle all around them. Vernon barked a laugh and whacked his son on the shoulder, sending him off towards Harry with an enthused grin, which caused Petunia to nearly sprint towards the other two to try and intervene.

“En garde!” Harry exclaimed gleefully, holding his trunk up in front of his face like a shield as Dudley danced around his mother and raised his fists again, seeming utterly determined to prove his new boxing expertise right there in the middle of King’s Cross.

“Enough!” Petunia screeched, arms waving frantically in the air as Harry and Dudley circled each other. “Enough, boys, enough!”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they were forbidden from even attempting to spar for the rest of winter break.

Harry figured it was probably for the best. Snow was piling up by the hour all around Surrey, and while he was far from against rolling around in the snow like a pair of beasts, he figured Petunia might pitch a fit if either of them got pneumonia on Christmas.

Harry let himself forget all the troubles of Hogwarts and creature inheritances and other, weighty things in lieu of squeezing every last second of fun out of the holidays. He spent hours outside in the snow, be it sitting on the park swings and reading as Dudley and his friends had a snowball fight, taking long strolls through the thin woods behind the house, or simply sitting on the back porch, listening to the gentle sounds of winter and the familiar hustle and bustle of his family as they all went about their day to day activities. There was always a warm cup of tea waiting for him when he returned too, accompanied by biscuits and fruits and silly little platters of cheese that never seemed to last longer than a few moments after Dudley got his hands on them. Harry would rest beside the fire once he was done basking in the glorious chill of December, sneaking the occasional glass of wine as Vernon ranted on and on about work or politics or other little things that never even crossed Harry’s mind while he was deep within the magical world. 

His days went on like that leading up to Christmas. Repetitive in that glorious way only normality could, until Christmas Eve was upon them and they were all settling down for a pleasant, intimate dinner. It was, of course, terrific, though the process of making it had been lengthened considerably by Harry and Dudley’s impromptu flour fight in the kitchen while Petunia had been busy making a cherry pie. She had let them go on with it for a good ten minutes before she herself was hit with flour right to the face. They had spent two hours after that cleaning up the mess while she berated them, which ended up causing them to settle down to dinner considerably later in the evening.

Harry didn’t really mind all that much regardless, and settled into bed that night with a full stomach and an eased mind. And, as he drifted off, content and ready for whatever the next day would bring, Harry began to dream.

It was not a nice dream.

He was standing in a forest. A very, very familiar forest. He was on a small hill, standing in the middle of a wide-open clearing that stood in defiance of the darkened woods surrounding it. Harry turned in place, eyes skating along the gnarled branches and ancient oak trees before training upwards to a starless sky. He hummed curiously, blinking as snow fell all around him with a gentle, soothing ease. Why was this place so familiar? He had been here before —he just knew it—but when? Standing still for a moment, wiggling his toes in the fluffy snow underfoot, he contemplated why he was there. There had to be a reason he was standing barefoot, wearing nothing but his jarmies, in a foot of snow after all. 

As he contemplated the thought, he continued to turn in place, eyes following the seemingly infinite treeline, before his gaze caught something familiar.

Hogwarts.

Harry squinted, craning his neck slightly to try and make out the distant landmark from where he stood on the small hill. Why was Hogwarts there? Was he in the forbidden forest?

“Harry.”

The voice was familiar. So, so familiar. Harry made a disgruntled noise, turning faster as he tried to pinpoint the source of the voice.

“Harry, you aren’t dreaming.”

He shook his head, “what do you mean?” he called out, trying to pinpoint where the voice was coming from.

“Harry, you need to run.”

Harry staggered, freezing as a sudden noise erupted from the edge of the clearing. A screeching —so horrible and familiar and impossible that it twisted his gut and made him lurch forward, sprinting towards the familiar pillars of Hogwarts as the horrific screeching rose in pitch and tempo. It grated his ears, gnawing at his lungs as he sprinted, blinded by fear and an innate sense of survival as it grew closer and closer. It was horrific —a certain twisted wretchedness that started out a high pitched screeching, before suddenly tapering off into a growl mixed with a distrusting, pained whining. It sounded at times like a human, maybe, but there was something so horribly animalistic about it that Harry couldn’t even begin to believe that this thing could possibly be human. 

Human no longer. It was something far beyond his own comprehension. A twisted, gnarled imitation.

He dodged on instinct, heart plummeting to his stomach as a long, clawed appendage swiped the area that he had been in. It was practically on top of him it was so close. It was going to get him. He swerved again, head filled with cotton as another long claw slashed across his peripherals. Crashing through the brush, legs screaming out with overexertion, he forced himself to go faster as the horrible, agonising screeching boomed through his ears, so close that he could feel the creature's cold breath on the back of his neck. 

“You're not going to be able to outrun it.” 

His own voice echoed out from the woods, reverberating through his skull and sending shockwaves through the forest. Harry hacked out an almost carnal cough, swerving suddenly and throwing his body down a sharp incline to his left as the creature made another grab for him. He let himself breathe for a moment, his vision obscured by bramble and snow as he tumbled down the slope and into another small clearing. He didn’t let himself wait for even a moment once he hit the bottom though, and was immediately up and sprinting through the woods again once his feet slid across flat ground. The screeching grew louder, but also felt more distant. It echoed out towards him, whispering as if it was almost human, before falling away into a woman's scream. He shuddered, but kept moving. It was pretending, trying to lure him back. He was gaining distance.

“It is inevitable. Running is futile.” His voice sounded distant —uncaring and emotionless as it echoed through the woods. It reverberated through his skull as the animalistic growling grew closer and closer. He hacked out a pained cough, barely managing to keep upright as he pressed on.

“You can't have me, not yet!” He screamed, shocking himself with the fury in his own voice. The beast gave a great roar in response, almost as if it was taking his pleas as a challenge. He forced out another cough, the harsh cold biting uncomfortably at his lungs as the trees slowly thinned all around him. The sound of splintering wood and a woman’s angered sob met his ears, the creature’s howl mixing with a barrage of furious voices as a flash of gold lit up his sight. Harry held back a relieved sob as he, somehow, quickened his sprint, his feet barely touching the ground as he crashed through the underbrush and towards the glowing light of the treeline. The creature was practically licking at his heels. He could hear its breathing; it was so close, the screeching and growling and moaning and shouting and —  

“So, you choose to hide? Fine. Walls can be toppled.” His voice taunted him, his own breath dancing along the back of his neck as he finally reached the treeline and with one, desperate shout, threw himself out of the woods and through the thin, golden sheen. His feet hit the dirt on the other side, and he immediately collapsed to the snow-free earth, gulping down desperate breaths of air as he scrambled over and onto his back. His legs finally seemed to fail him then, falling limp as he turned over and caught a glimpse of long, blood-coated fingers before someone was screaming and darkness overtook his vision.

“Harry!”

He startled awake, limbs flailing and body unresponsive as he fell from his bed and onto the cold floorboards beneath him. The blankets followed him on his descent to the ground, dulling the impact as he hit the ground with a muted thunk. Harry laid there for a moment, cheek pressed into the cool floor as his chest heaved, lungs filling with air, his entire body damp with sweat as his clothes and bedsheets clung to his shaking body. It had almost gotten him. Whatever it was, it had almost gotten its claws in him. Was this normal? Were creature inheritances supposed to feel so… so dangerous?

Stumbling up from the place on his floor, Harry forced his shaking legs to cooperate, tripping over himself as he threw open his door and stumbled into the bathroom. Shutting the door with a near-silent click, he collapsed onto the counter, still shaking and fighting for air as he gripped the counter’s edge and pressed his face up close to the glass, nose brushing against the smooth surface as he stared, unblinking, into his eyes. It was faint—barely even perceivable—but he could make it out. A soft glow from deep within his skull. His breath shuddered, and he let go of the countertop, sinking to the floor as the darkness of night closed in around him.

Walls can be toppled.

The light flickered on, blinding him momentarily as he continued to try and force his breathing to steady. Whatever protections Death had put in place were starting to deteriorate; his creature was breaking them down.

“They'll last.”

“How can you know for certain?” He croaked, blinking his eyes open as the familiar smell of cigarette smoke washed over him. “It-it almost… I don’t know if… what do I do?”

A hand fell onto his shoulder, firm and cold as the god heaved him back up onto his feet. Harry grabbed the countertop again, staring at his shaking body in the mirror as Death’s hulking form towered over him, assured and inhuman as the god held him steady. He was a wreck. Eyes red-rimmed and entire body coated in sweat. Shivering, he ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up on end in an old, familiar way.

“Seven months left, kid, and most of those in warmer weather. You’ll survive this if you don’t agitate it.”

“Do you promise?”

“...I promise.”

He took another great shuddering breath, before letting go of the security of the countertop and grasping hold of the doorknob. He was quieter as he walked back to his room, the dull fatigue and shock finally settling into his bones. Falling back onto his bed, ignoring the sheets still lying in a damp heap on the floor, Harry took a moment to curl up into a ball and just… breathe. He was never truly alone in his own mind, but he had never felt as exposed as he did now. He has always known what was waiting there along the edges of his consciousness, but now… he wasn’t so sure. Right now, he couldn’t even begin to try and tame the beast prowling through the bramble and thickets of his subconscious.

Death placed a comforting hand on his back, rubbing up and down his spine placatingly. Harry let out a puff of air, forcing himself to extend out from the tangle of too-long limbs and clammy palms. A thin sheet fell over him, free of the dampness of his nightmare as Death tucked it around his chin.

“I have a Christmas present for you.”

Harry said nothing, eyes staring unseeing at the empty darkness of his room. It was quiet for a moment, before he closed his eyes and reached his arm out from under the covers, holding it out expectantly. A small, velvety box landed in his open palm.

“No strange, death-themed wrapping paper this time?” He tried to joke. It came out somewhat strained.

“‘Fraid not.”

He opened the box blindly, feeling around for a little while before grasping what felt like a small, smooth stone. Palming it, he dropped the box and took the pebble in both hands, turning it around in his fingers for a moment before making a noise of confusion.

“A pill?” He questioned weakly, letting his hands fall as he fiddled with the small capsule. It was a bright, shimmering gold.

“You should take it.” Death replied, gently dislodging the pill from Harry’s loose grasp. Harry hummed, falling silent as Death handed him a tall glass of water. He sat up slightly and drank it, taking the pill back and popping it into his mouth without even a smidge of hesitation, before immediately falling back onto the mattress.

“Go to sleep, Harry.” The death god whispered, his hand returning to Harry’s back once again. “The memories won’t hurt in the morning.”

“Harry, how—good lord boy, you look like death!” Vernon’s hand was firm on his shoulder as Harry sneezed, trying woefully to rub the sleep from his eyes as he was shepherded into the kitchen by the considerably larger man. “Pet, come take a look. The cold’s finally gotten to ‘im. I knew it would happen.”

Petunia set down the bowl in her arms, rounding the kitchen island and immediately taking up Harry’s cheeks in her hands. “Goodness, you’re burning up! I told you-I told you that you need to bundle up if you’re going out in the cold for hours on end! Oh, Dudley, get off the couch, Harry needs to lie down.”

“‘M fine, Auntie,” he muttered, trying without luck to convince them that he was well enough to not need coddling. “It’s jus’ a head cold.”

“Head cold my arse!” Vernon’s hands on his shoulder tightened as the two forced him down onto the couch, a barrage of blankets immediately cocooning him in place as Dudley snickered silently at his dissatisfied grumbling. “Go get ‘im a cuppa, Pet. Dudley can mix the batter.”

Christmas was momentarily put on hold as Harry was forcibly couch-ridden, a cup of tea pressed firmly into his hand and a thermometer through his lips as he continued to insist that he was not sick enough to warrant such things. His family ignored the grumbling however, and before long the presents were being pulled from under the tree and slowly dispersed among the family as normal. 

Harry decided to go against his own instincts and opened Blaise’s gift to him first, finding that the other boy had sent him a single earring of all things. It was a rather interesting piece of jewellery; a dark, almost black metal snake coiled around itself, contrasted against by a small gemstone inset in the tiny snake’s eye. It seemed to match the cloak pin he had gotten from the other boy the year before, which he found rather odd. Did Blaise get these gifts custom made? Harry hadn’t even contemplated doing something like that. Maybe he would have to look into it.

“You are not going to pierce your ears, Harry.” his aunt said immediately upon seeing the piece of jewellery, her entire face scrunching up in distaste. Harry hummed, agreeing with her for the moment as he tucked it back into the box and set it aside. There were duelling-related drawbacks to piercing his ears. He remembered distantly how Blaise had shunned the idea of getting his own piercing after one of the upper years’ lobes ripped when a curse rebounded and made the jewellery triple in size suddenly. It was a tad unsettling how he was the one to then turn around and gift ear jewellery to his friends, but perhaps he had bought it while they were still in the midst of their argument. It was hard to tell with Blaise sometimes.

The rest of the gifts for him passed by in a blur—they were mostly books, really, so it wasn’t hard to forget who got him what. He was quite excited to find that his aunt and uncle had gotten him an expensive-looking pair of leather boots, which they then forbade him from even trying on till he was well again. But after that, the rest of the day just… fell away. He recalled snippets from when Petunia woke him, urging blisteringly hot stew down his throat before making him chase it with a handful of random pills. Harry blamed the ‘dream’ from that night for his illness, since he felt oddly assured that the cold would never betray him and make him ill, but it wasn’t as if he could explain that to his family.

It wasn’t as if he could explain anything, it seemed; not without losing something in the process.

His aunt shook her head at him, cooing and muttering about his sorry state with a warm look in her eye. Harry smiled as she pat him on the cheek, forcing himself to forget about dreams and danger as he slowly fell back into delirious slumber, dozing off as his aunt stood watch above him.

Silver painting frames hung on white walls, pale marble tiles lining pristinely-kept halls. Golden drapes fell in liquid-like folds, framing delicate glass windows stained gentle blues and reds and pinks, which all stood simple yet refined along those white, white walls. Balsa wood furniture—imported from Bolivia and crafted by master craftsmen in Japan before being magically transported to the home in Britain—was all that could be found inside the house. Flowers and cats, falcons and rabbits, cuckoos, ladybugs and oxen, swallows and boars—all were carved delicately, pristinely, into each piece of balsa wood furniture. Creamy green silk table runners accented every flat wooden surface in reach, which was then further embellished with white-gold and silver, pale red roses and white daisies and gentle, light blue hydrangea dotting every free space within reach, sparing the eyes no relief from the overwhelming brightness. Even the ceiling, so far and disconnected from the cold floor, boasted ornate detailings in soft gold and unapologetic white, twisting and winding around in smooth yet regal movements.

The home was blinding to the eyes. Perfectly polished from the tips of the silver chandeliers to the narrow cracks between perfectly placed marble tiles. It left no room for error. It allowed no flaws in its design. It was perfect. It was decadent. 

It was miserable.

“You will not do it, tesoro, I will not allow it.” 

Blaise was slumped in his chair, cheek propped up by his arm as he pushed half-eaten food around his plate. An elf fidgeted to his left, a bottle of some random, unimportant, obnoxiously expensive wine resting in its hands. He made a motion with his finger and it rushed forward, delicately refilling his cup before stepping back to its position. He set down his fork, picking up the glass and raising it to his lips.

“Are you listening to me, Blaise? I will not allow this.”

“Of all the things… this is what you’ve decided you want to argue with me about?” He muttered around the rim of his glass, taking a long, deep sip as his mother unfolded and refolded her white serviette so many times the edges must have started fraying, as she suddenly went still.

“I am your mother, Blaise, and I know what is good and what is bad for you.” She hissed, clenching the table linen in two hands, her knuckles going white as she held back whatever unnecessarily cruel remark she wanted to make next. “You are far, far too young to attempt something so all-encompassing as a pledge. You are not emotionally, mentally, or magically mature enough for such a thing!”

Blaise rolled his eyes, gaze retreating from hers to focus back onto his dinner. “The books all say thirteen is the age for it. You act like I never read.”

“Thirteen!” She let out a short scoff, throwing the thoroughly wrangled serviette over her shoulder. The elf beside him squeaked, immediately leaving its post to retrieve the downed linen. “Those books were written during a magical dark age, Blaise. Those people were dying at the age I am now, of course they underwent such a drastic, life-altering ritual so young. They were practically middle-aged by the time they were twenty!”

He ignored her, favouring his wine over her empty, judgmental glares. She seemed to take that as a sign to continue with her tyrannical speech.

“Not to mention that such rituals have been outlawed in this country.” She snatched the serviette back from the elf as it was offered to her, and proceeded to throw it towards his end of the table with an undignified scoff. “I would never allow my own son to break the law in my own home.”

“Oh, so murder’s fine then?”

A chair screeched, a second one soon following as both Zabinis leapt to their feet, their identical, wide blue eyes glaring daggers at the other. 

“You…” his mother’s voice was barely a whisper, so full of rage that it practically dripped from her blood-stained lips. “You, my son, will never commit such things inside my home.”

Blaise didn’t even flinch, “when did you pledge yourself to Freyja, mother?”

Mariabella Zabini froze, shock flickering across her face before her entire expression hardened into stone. Blaise clenched his fists, mentally cursing as he instinctively flinched at her expression.

“Go to your room.”

“You can't-”

“Go. To. Your. Room.”

Blaise flinched back, eye twitching as he roughly threw down his wine glass, smirking as the blood-red liquid spilt across the impeccable table runner, staining it the same colour as his mother’s lips.

“Enjoy your dinner.” He hissed, shoving in his pale chair and tossing his own serviette aside. “I'll be in my room if you need me. Studying.”

He turned on his heel, fighting back the urge to reach out and paint the blinding walls a deep, sinful red as he stormed out of the dining room and into the hall. 

“I know what those books hold, my tesoro.” She called back to him, an infuriatingly victorious bite lacing her tone. “You will not be able to pledge yourself without my guidance. Those books are incomplete, Blaise!”

He didn’t reply as the doors shut firmly behind him, the white wood gleaming with a disgusting haughtiness that made Blaise want to scream. But he didn’t. He didn’t have time to scream. He had runes to memorise, and diagrams to practice.

He grinned without humour, turning from the bleached walls and towards the gleaming, glorious expanse of Zabini manor.

It was simply too bad that he had already filled the gaps in his little green book’s knowledge. It was such a damn shame that he didn’t need her perfect, pristine assistance to do what he wished when he decided the time was right.

It was a shame she forbade him from doing it, because he was going to do it anyway.

Chapter Text

Harry stood on platform 9 ¾, feeling healthy as could be yet uncomfortably overheated. It wasn’t really the fault of his aunt—at least that was what he kept forcing himself to believe. She was simply overcompensating after he had, indeed, gotten some rare strain of phenomena over Christmas, and had then proceeded to lie in his room, bedridden and ‘practically on death’s door’ all through the New Year’s celebrations. And so, she had wrangled him into nearly a dozen different layers, swatting away any attempt by him to insist that he was feeling too hot by reminding him that if he had dressed warmly to begin with he wouldn’t have to deal with her fretting.

“I knew you would eventually get sick from dressing like that.” Theo quipped, so quietly that it took Harry a moment to realise that he was actually being teased. He grumbled angrily, squinting out from the three wool hats shoved onto his head to attempt to glare at the other boy. Theo snorted, almost as if he could see Harry’s displeasure through the layers of tweed and wool and hot, sweaty coats.

“It was a coincidence, you twat.” Harry replied scathingly. “My method of keeping warm has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

“And did that logic work on your aunt?”

“And since when were you so bold?”

Theo inexplicitly fell silent, his eyes turning downwards as he shrugged lamely. Harry quirked a brow, spinning in place slightly to get a better look at his friend.

“Theo?”

“I… it’s nothing.”

He almost wanted to let it go—more out of frustration and discomfort than anything—but Theo rarely seemed anything worse than annoyed or, maybe on bad days, genuinely frustrated. But now, the Nott heir just looked… tired. He looked so, so tired, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder how long he had been feeling that way. Something must have happened over the break—or maybe something had been building for a long time—and was just now becoming obvious to him. Either way, it felt like Theo almost wanted him to ask what had happened, or maybe just wanted him to pay more attention.

“Have you been… feeling sick as well?” He tried, grimacing at the awkwardness in his voice as he shoved his mittened hands into his pockets. Theo shifted from one foot to the other, his pink nose deepening into a vague fuchsia.

“Let's not talk about this here.” He replied quietly, subtle desperation clinging to his tone as he turned back to the empty train tracks.

Harry bit the inside of his cheek, nodding cautiously as the distant sound of a train horn met his ears. He looked up, leaning over the tracks slightly to try and search for it. He couldn’t see the Hogwarts Express quite yet, but if he could hear it, then it couldn’t be that far off. He hummed anxiously, suddenly finding the atmosphere around him and Theo stifling.

“Ten galleons says Blaise’ll show up thirty minutes late just so he doesn’t have to spend time out in the cold.” He joked, turning back to Theo, who grumbled unhappily.

“No bet.”

Harry let out a silent sigh, falling back in line with the other boy as he gave up trying to salvage the dying atmosphere. 

The seconds ticked on in hot, sweaty discomfort. Harry grew increasingly frustrated with the train’s lateness as he was slowly cooked underneath all the layers, growing desperate to get onto the train so he could finally rip off all the unnecessary articles of clothing and burn them. Why was the train so damn late? It never stalled past maybe five minutes. Had something happened to the magical circuit? Harry grumbled, pulling at his collar with annoyance. What horrible timing.

Three more excruciating minutes passed, and Harry was nearing the end of his patience, preparing to rip the clothes off right then and there before a familiar blur of red finally screeched across his vision. Harry and Theo sighed identical breaths of relief—though for somewhat opposing reasons—and gathered up their luggage in a few clumsy motions. Harry was first to board, very nearly sprinting onto the train in his haste to relieve himself of so much heat-related discomfort. Theo wasn’t far behind him, grumbling on about how he hated winter and anything having to do with weather below ten degrees Celsius.

The second they settled into their regular compartment, Harry threw all his things down in a heap and began ripping off the seemingly never-ending layers of tweed and wool. Throwing them all in a single, impressively large pile, he let out a low breath of relief, standing there in just his trousers and an undershirt, which was almost completely soaked through with sweat. Casting several drying charms on himself with a disgusted sniff, he cast another, rather aggressive shrinking charm on all the winter apparel, turning the massive pile of clothes into a mere pinprick on the floor. He would leave it all for the elves to put back with his things. He could only assume they would figure out how to unshrink the lot of it.

The entire time Theo had been watching him with a mix of amusement and curiosity, contemplation evident in every inch of his expression. Harry ignored the questioning glance, knowing that Theo wouldn’t ask him anything till they were away from the ears of the public. No matter how quiet it seemed in the compartment, Harry knew that neither of them would feel very assured until they were hidden away in the fortress-like security of their dorms.

Settling down across from Theo, Harry immediately pulled out his book, flipping to one of the many bookmarked pages with a familiar ease.  

Unicorn-Worldwide

The Unicorn is an almost universal constant, with species in virtually every region. The common European Unicorn is well known for being a peaceful creature with white fur and a single, long horn. The Indian Unicorn, however, is known as a vicious warrior beast, which has been often ridden into battle. It is typically brown or black, with a more twisted and thick horn. Regardless of where the unicorn may be on the planet however, it is widely agreed that their horns have powerful healing powers, and their blood grants a half life to those who drink it. Unicorn hair is also highly potent, being one of the more popular ingredients used in wands as wand cores. It has been theorised that unicorn hair can be used in combination with snake venom to create —

Slam-!

Harry jolted, looking up from his book to watch as Blaise stormed into the compartment. He watched, blinking with surprise as the other boy then proceeded to chuck his trunk onto the overhead before falling down beside Harry with a thump. His entire body was taut as a wire, his expression stormy as he glared at the floor. Harry observed him silently for a moment, before looking back down to his book.

Regardless of where the unicorn may be on the planet however, it is widely agreed that their horns have powerful healing powers, and their blood grants a half life to those who drink it. Unicorn hair is also highly potent, being one of the more popular ingredients used in wands as wand cores. It has been theorised that unicorn hair can be used in combination with snake venom to create —

…

He sighed, closing the book with a dull thump. “Are you alright, Blaise?” 

The other boy sank lower in his seat, glaring pointedly to Theo, who either didn’t get the message or made an even larger point of ignoring it. Harry rolled his eyes at the both of them, standing as he set his book to the side. Then, making a motion with his hand for Blaise to follow, he exited the compartment, walking only a few steps away before throwing open the door of another room. Glancing around and acknowledging its emptiness, he stepped inside with a flourish, sarcastically waving Blaise in before shutting and locking the door behind them with a click. Blaise immediately began to pace, muttering indistinctly as Harry faced the door and strung together a few rudimentary secrecy wards. It was hardly ideal, but Blaise was hardly one to stew in silence for an hours-long train ride like Harry and Theo were, so it was the best he could make with a less-than-ideal situation. 

“Alright.” Stepping back from the door, he let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair as he turned back to his friend. “I suppose the ‘talk’ went worse than anticipated?”

Blaise threw his hands up in the air with an exasperated growl. “She called me a child! She said I was far too young—that I wasn’t ‘emotionally, mentally, or magically mature enough’ to handle it—and then went and said that I would never be able to do it without her saying so!”

Harry pursed his lips, nodding slowly as the other boy resumed his pacing.

“I… see.”

Harry hadn’t really expected it to go well when Blaise told him he would be revealing his desire to pledge to his mother. Nothing leading up to the fact made it seem like she would take it in any sort of positive way, and honestly, Harry didn’t blame her —n ot really. It wasn’t exactly what he considered a logical, flawless decision on Blaise’s part. Not by a longshot. He certainly hadn’t researched as thoroughly as Blaise had —and he definitely couldn’t see things from his friend’s point of view—but he would have personally studied all there was to learn about the process for at least another three years before ever even attempting anything. But of course, he wasn’t Blaise, and it wasn’t his decision, so he was content enough to stand aside and work to minimise any damage that doing things at their younger age may inflict.

The more that he thought about it really, the more Lady Zabini’s concern made sense. There were three pledges to do after all, and if Blaise was really going to do all of them in the way that they were originally done, he would have to prepare for, set up, and complete all three them in the tight window between his birthday on the 21st of April and the 1st of September when school was back in session. That was six months to do three incredibly ornate rituals, each of which require intense magical power, perfected runework, and a considerable amount of recovery time. He would probably be doing them almost back to back, with a month of recovery time in between. It was utterly mad. Harry honestly thought Blaise was an idiot for even wanting to attempt it.

“—and then she was going on about how I’m not allowed to commit murder in the house as if-as if she didn’t have me digging shallow graves in the garden when I was bloody six!” Harry’s attention snapped back to the rant with a jolt, surprising him at the sudden and violent mention of murder.

“You say that as if you want to murder someone.” He replied cautiously, watching as Blaise’s entire body went still as he stopped pacing and just… stood there. It was silent as Blaise seemed to think over his own words for a moment, blinking blankly at the wall, as if surprised by what he had said, before he shook his head with a scoff.

“Of course I don’t want to! I don’t want to hurt people. I just want-I want to—”

“Be a nuisance?”

“Yes.” Blaise sighed, rubbing a hand down his face with frustration. “I… I don’t know why I worded it like that. She’s the murderer, not me.”

Harry nodded, slowly. “Of course.”

There was a pause.

“So, what do you want to do?”

“What am I supposed to do!” Blaise groaned again, immediately resuming his pacing as Harry gently lowered himself onto a bench. “The pledge takes part in three stages, but with the way the months line up—and considering that my thirteenth birthday is over the summer—I’ll have to do at least one of the rituals back home. But how will I do it if she’s breathing down my neck every second of the day? She didn’t let me out of my room for the rest of the hols after I told her everything. I-I can’t imagine she’ll leave me alone long enough to try anything over the summer. I just—”

“Blaise.” Harry leaned back in his seat, breathing in slowly as the other boy slowed to a stop. “Would it be so hard to just… do it at night? When she’s asleep? She can't watch you all the time.”

Blaise stared at him for a moment, blinking blankly.

“Huh?”

Harry shrugged, “the longest part of a ritual is the preparation. Just prepare beforehand, hide all the ingredients, and do the ritual the night of your birthday.”

It was silent for a moment, before Harry let out a low sigh. Standing from his seat, he reached out and pat Blaise once on the shoulder, pulling the now-contemplative boy towards the door. 

“I think you’ve been focusing too much on being angry at your mum and too little on outsmarting her. Come on; we can plan out how to sneak the third ritual past her as we set up the first two. Have you ever lied to her before? I think you should try lying. It might be more beneficial than you expect.”

They returned to the compartment to find Theo missing—no doubt trying to sort out where they had snuck off to and what they were talking about. Harry didn’t say anything about it to Blaise, almost feeling proud of Theo for attempting something devious like that.

I guess there’s some Slytherin in him after all.

Tom’s presence edged forward suddenly, a vague snort of disbelief immediately accompanying it. Or he could be reading somewhere. I think you underestimate that boy’s ability to be devious.

Harry’s eye twitched. Of all the things Tom decided to speak up on, this was it? The man’s priorities were ridiculous.

Or you just underestimate him in general.

There was a scoff. Wizards like him can be broken just by asking difficult questions. You put even the slightest bit of pressure on their mind and they’ve already started crying. It’s pathetic.

You aren’t seriously comparing a quiet, twelve-year-old student to grown adults.

Why shouldn’t I? The effect is still the same today, regardless of if he grows a spine later in life.

Harry clicked his teeth, shoving Tom’s insufferable voice back into the recesses of his subconscious as Blaise finally settled down across from him. 

The seconds ticked on uncomfortably slow after that. Blaise seemed uncharacteristically quiet and contemplative as they waited for Theo to return, as if he hadn’t even considered the possibility of, well, rebelling against his mother, Harry supposed? It was odd to think that, despite his personality, Blaise didn’t seem particularly inclined to go against his mother’s word while he was staying in her home. Which, once he thought about it more, had to say something rather profound about the silent culture of pure-blood society that Harry had never truly seen or taken part in. He wondered if that was why Draco still paraded his father’s name around so boldly, despite Harry having vocally and… erm… physically articulated his distaste of the man.

Sighing lightly, he pushed the thought aside in favour of a more light-hearted one, putting his book to the side before reaching into his trunk to pull out a small black box from within it.

“Oi. Mind telling me what this was all about?” He questioned idly, opening the box before holding it out to Blaise. The other boy blinked out of his daydream, pulling himself back down to reality with a slight shake of his head as he took the little box from Harry’s outstretched palm.

“Oh,” he laughed, reaching in and holding up the single black earring to the light. “What, you don’t like it?”

“My aunt made it quite clear that I would be disowned if I wore it, so I suppose by default I am not a fan,” Harry replied with a grimace, causing the other boy to bark out a laugh.

“Give it to Draco then.” He replied cheekily, dropping it back into the box before passing it to him with a wink. Harry raised an eyebrow, taking the box with only slight hesitation.

“And why exactly should I do that?” He questioned tentatively, earning nothing but a coy shrug for his troubles.

“Tell ‘em you sent it to me by mistake. He’ll understand what you mean.” 

Harry squinted at his friend, trying to make sense of the meaning behind his words while not outright criticising them.

“And, again, why should I do that?” He repeated, watching Blaise’s face for any sign of foul play as he pocketed the box once more. His friend grinned, leaning back in his seat as if his crisis from mere moments before had all but vanished.

“Why shouldn’t you? It’s just an earring. I’m not rich enough to have gotten them-uh, it enchanted or anything.” Blaise shrugged, his voice now utterly void of any of the anxiety and anger he had started the train ride with. Harry hummed, unconvinced, as he pulled his wand from its holster. 

Blaise was right about there not being any (detectable) magic on the jewellery, which had to be the most shocking thing the trickster had ever actually said before. It did put Harry’s mind at ease, though, and he set the small box away to contemplate later. He didn’t see anything outright wrong with just giving the damn thing to Draco —except for the fact that Blaise was acting far too suspicious about the whole thing for him to think there wasn’t something going on. Getting rid of it would also open up the space in his trunk for other, potentially more important things as well, so he set it aside with the thought of ‘potentially positive’ before pulling out his book once again.

Silence fell over the compartment once again, the only sound being the occasional flipping of a page and the constant humming of train wheels against the tracks. It was relaxing while it lasted, with Blaise uncharacteristically contemplative and, by extension, uncharacteristically quiet. The silence allowed him to get a reasonable chunk of his book done as well, which felt like a rarer thing to happen. It felt like life kept on keeping him from finishing more than a few pages at a time at the most. Perhaps he should have asked Death about it while he had the chance.

The silence was eventually cut short, however, when the door slid open once more and Theo emerged from the hall, looking flustered and sickly as he fell down onto a seat. 

“Theo? Mate? You alright?” Blaise reached out to their friend, his hand ghosting over Theo’s clammy forehead as Theo immediately fell over onto his side and curled up, an arm under his head as he pulled his robes around himself. “Theo-hey mate, what’s wrong?”
Blaise glanced over to him; a mix of concern and confusion splashed across his face as Harry sat up straighter, observing Theo with a slight frown. It looked like the brunet was going to keel over any second, and probably would have if he wasn’t already reclined back.

“Theo, are you alright?”

When he didn’t get a response, he immediately stood from his seat, approaching Theo cautiously as Blaise also rose to investigate. He grabbed the other boy’s shoulder, shaking him lightly for a moment before brushing a hand across his forehead. Theo muttered something indistinct and shifted away from him, before falling still once again.

“Theo, tell me what’s wrong,” he commanded sternly, feeling a slight relief wash over him as the pale boy’s brown eyes opened again, his eyebrows furrowed with annoyance as he weakly slapped Harry’s hand away.

“Headache,” he muttered, before immediately curling back up into himself and appearing to almost-instantly fall asleep. Harry sat back, sharing another concerned glance with Blaise before he cautiously rose up and, while continuing to keep an eye on Theo’s prone form, slowly returned to his seat.

“Is there a mediwitch on the train?” He asked Blaise softly, gaze moving from the sleeping boy to the compartment’s exit. “We might want to-”

“There likely isn’t one,” Blaise interrupted, shrugging his shoulders as Harry raised an eyebrow. “Why would they bother? And why should we? Take him to Madam Pomfrey when we get to the school if you’d like, but there isn’t much sense in acting like it’s an emergency when he’s just got a headache.”

“I… yeah, alright.” Harry hummed, not quite sure he agreed but also not particularly inclined to make a fuss of it. “Just keep an eye on him. Who knows what Theo constitutes as a headache. He could have been cursed for all we know.”

Blaise shrugged, looking distinctly unconcerned about the whole thing after Theo had spoken. Harry forced himself to feel the same way as he grabbed up his book again and turned to where he had left off, forcing his eyes onto the page as Theo continued to lie in a heap on the compartment’s seating.

The rest of the train ride was mostly uneventful, though Harry couldn’t help but glance over to Theo every half hour or so, his concern only increasing as the boy seemed to grow paler and paler as he jerked and muttered in his sleep. It was worrying—watching his friend seem to physically whither before his eyes. Several times Harry contemplated running off to find a prefect who might be able to assist somehow, but something held him back each time. Some vague, unknowable instinct was telling him that intervening would only bring on more issues for the both of them, and he wasn’t particularly inclined to challenge his own instincts. So, he stayed quiet, allowing his concern to simmer just below the surface for the last few hours of the train ride till, eventually, the Hogwarts Express arrived at Hogsmeade.

“How do you reckon we should wake him?” Blaise finally broke the silence, pointing to the pale, shaking Theo as Harry pulled their luggage from the overhead.
“I don’t care,” he replied passively, placing all three of their trunks in an even row before grabbing Hades’ cage. “Just be gentle.”

Against Harry’s expectations, Blaise actually obeyed his words—making a point to shake Theo's shoulder lightly before even attempting to speak. It took a few tries from both of them and a bit of coaxing, but the sickly boy did eventually wake up, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot as he was forced up into a sitting position by Blaise. Harry made sure all their luggage was in order and prepared for the elves to take away before turning back to his friends, immediately reaching out to help Theo stand as voices rose up from just beyond the door.

“Let’s get off the train and get you to the infirmary,” he muttered, keeping a firm hand on Theo’s back as he led the other boy out of the compartment.
“I’m fine,” Theo replied, appearing like he was trying to sound stern and failing in every way he possibly could. “It’s just a headache.”

“Headache my arse,” Blaise quipped from behind them, picking up the rear as they neared the closest exit. “You look like you danced one too many tangos with Death, mate.”

“Wh-? That euphemism doesn’t even make sense, Blaise.”

“Actually, Harry, it’s a hyperbole.”

“Don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of.”

It’s actually a proverb. Just not a very good one.

Shut up Tom.

“I hate both of you,” Theo muttered. “And it's called an idiom.”

“The ‘ell is an idiom?”

Harry sighed, ignoring Blaise as he hooked an arm around Theo’s shoulders, subconsciously taking on more of the boy’s weight as Theo sagged down towards the floor, his skin growing paler and paler by the second.

“What’s happening to you, mate?” Harry grunted, pressing his one free hand into Theo’s upper back as he practically pulled them both around the corner and onto the exit platform, eyebrows furrowing as the shorter boy’s legs seemed to almost give out from under him.

“Headache.” He muttered with a wince, his hand coming up to rub slow circles into his temples. “It came on so suddenly, is all.”

“Mhm… yeah, a headache. Sure. Can you see very well? Feel nauseous at all?” He questioned softly, keeping his focus on keeping them both upright as he half-dragged, half-carried the fragile boy off the train.

“‘M fine jus’... just need a moment.” 

Theo stumbled suddenly, legs completely giving out and sending them both tumbling towards the ground. Harry cursed, digging in his heels as he grabbed Theo’s arm and threw it over his shoulder, grunting as he pulled them both up into a standing position.

“Alright, you’re going to the infirmary. Blaise, get his other arm.”

“On it-”

“I said I’m fine,” Theo didn’t even seem convinced by his own words, immediately groaning as sunlight splashed across his field of vision. Harry nodded with an eye roll, ignoring the brunet’s pained grumbling as he and Blaise began half-carrying him down the path.

“Oi, Harry! The ‘ell happened to him?”

Harry whipped his head up, grinning as Draco half-jogged down the path towards them, elbowing people out of the way as he shouted at them over the low murmur of voices.

“He’s having a fit,” Blaise replied with a grunt, nearly buckling as Harry let go of Theo’s other side to meet Draco halfway.

“Theo’s probably just dehydrated or something,” he started, pulling Draco into a chaste half-hug as the other two boys shambled over to join them. “We were going to take him to the infirmary. But first—here, take this. I sent it to Blaise by mistake.”

Harry shoved the small velvet box at Draco before turning and immediately grabbing hold of Theo’s arm again, taking back the majority of the weight as Blaise struggled to keep them both upright. Pulling Theo back up into a semi-standing position, Harry turned back around just in time to watch Draco open the box, a slew of indescribable emotions passing over the blond's face before immediately disappearing into a carefully neutral expression. The reaction was so sudden and quick that Harry barely even noticed it had happened before Draco shut the box’s lid with a click and stuffed it into his pocket, muttering a quiet ‘thank you’ under his breath as he did. Harry blinked, squinting with confusion as Draco’s cheeks took on a dusting of pink as he fiddled with his shirt collar, seemingly flustered but without any real reason to be. He immediately turned accusatory eyes to Blaise, who looked like he would have been laughing if he weren’t so preoccupied keeping Theo’s barely-conscious body from falling to the ground.

“What did you-”

“Right then!” Draco cleared his throat roughly, making a very obvious point of looking anywhere but Harry’s face as he regarded Theo with a vaguely constipated expression. There was a pregnant pause then—in which Theo seemed to finally give himself over to unconsciousness—before Draco let out a long-suffering sigh and retrieved his wand from its holster.

“Wingardium leviosa.” 

Harry closed his eyes with a low breath, embarrassment already setting in as Theo was lifted off of his shoulders and up into the air, finally leaving them both free of his surprisingly considerable weight. 

… You really should have thought of that Har-

Shut up.

“Right then,” Draco repeated, a painfully embarrassed—and yet, oddly giddy—look slapped across his face as he started to float the nearly unconscious Theo behind them. “Infirmary? Yes, let’s—yes, the infirmary. Did you? Was Yule pleasant for you, Harry? I hope it was... that.”

Harry nodded slightly, still feeling severely confused as he trailed behind his blushing friend.

“Are you really doing this to the poor kid now of all times?”

Pale eyes flickered over and past him, disinterested in what he had to say or how he was saying it. Death sighed, leaning back in his chair as Fate continued to ignore his questions. Space and time warped around them, as cold and impassive as the woman sitting across from him. He wondered how long it would take to make her acknowledge him this time.

“... You usually wait till they’re at least fourteen.” He tried again, raising an eyebrow as she huffed dramatically at him, but still didn’t reply. “You could at least explain your reasoning to me—”

“Because I’m bored!” She groaned, falling back into the couch with a dramatic sigh, curling up against the decadent velvet cushions as she reached out for a wine glass as it suddenly appeared before them. “I’m bored and he’s just… just endlessly entertaining. How am I meant to wait around for Harry to turn thirteen and get all the fun things started when I can play around with—”

“Because it’s unnecessarily cruel, even for you.” He interrupted, slouching further in his chair as the woman gasped, throwing herself back up into a sitting position with the most utterly insulted expression marring her face.

“Unnecessarily cruel… for me?” She stared at him, mouth parted with mock insult as she slowly stood from the couch. “You think that this one, tiny, imperceivable distraction is crueller than wars upon genocides upon extinction-level events that I have put that tiny, inconceivable little planet through? Is that what you think?”

Death shifted in his chair, sheepishly raising his glass back to his lips as if it would placate her somehow. “I feel that it’s just a bit… unfair-”

“Unfair?” she echoed.

“Just considering how-”

“Considering…?”

Death paused for a moment, not entirely sure he should or wanted to continue speaking as the goddess stood before him, her eyes bleached white and ripped wide open as she stared down at him with silent, stalking fury. He held her gaze for a moment, considering all the ways this could possibly go wrong, before downing his glass.

“Considering that he was just a normal child originally, I find it rather unfair for him that you’ve decided to make him your proph-”

“Oh, but making those two soulmates was just brilliant of me, was it?” She hissed, letting out a furious screech before, without any warning, she chucked the glass in her hand at the far wall. It shattered on impact, breaking apart into a million shards of light that rained down on the cold floor below. Death sucked in a breath, easing down his shoulders as he set his own, now empty, glass aside.

“I agreed that those two needed a… push, and making them soulbound seemed like the appropriate push to k-”

“But I’m not allowed to have a prophet?”

“You already have two seers in Hogwarts. Why do you need a third?”

Her eyes narrowed to slits as she leered down at him, anger simmering uncontrollably from just beneath the surface of her physical form. Death sighed wearily, reaching up to try and soothe her fury before something drastic happened. She slapped his hand away, scoffing before turning on her heel and storming back to her couch.

“This is ridiculous. If you can have your unnecessary little experiment then so can I.”

“Tom Riddle isn’t an experiment, he is a controlled and monitored subst-”

“Semantics, Death! I am sick and tired of your damn semantics!” She whirled back around to face him, her cheeks red with anger and eyes cold with resolution. “Now, if you want to keep your ‘controlled and monitored substance’, then you will have to let me have my prophet. Deal?”

He stared at her for a moment, jaw slack from shock, before he slapped a hand over his face and groaned. “You wouldn’t-”

“I would.”

“Harry needs that man’s-”

“And I want my prophet!” She hissed, stomping her foot like a child as he urged his patience to last. “So unless you want to come up with some other fancy little hypothesis for your fancy little soul experiments, you’ll just have to let me keep Theodore Nott.” 

He opened his mouth to argue, a million different complaints sitting on the tip of his tongue, but nothing came out. Locking eyes with the goddess, he contemplated all that he was bargaining with by agitating her, and slowly let his mouth click shut once again. It wasn’t worth it. One child’s sanity wasn’t worth what Tom Riddle’s soul could do for him.

“Fine.” He slumped back in his chair, trying to ignore her victorious expression as the anger immediately fell from her face. “Fine. Just… just don’t mess this up for me.”

“Theodore.”

He groaned, pressing his face deeper into the soft, warm bedding beneath him. He ached all over his body, and there was an uncomfortable heaviness to his eyes that just made him want to go back to sleep and never wake up.

“Theodore, I know you’re awake.”

He swatted at the voice, muttering indistinctly under his breath as a chair squeaked unpleasantly from beside him. Silence fell over him a moment later, and he sighed with relief, burrowing deeper into the warmth below him.

Until the pillow was yanked from beneath his head, reacquainting his cheek with the cool mattress beneath it.

“Bloody-” he jolted up, scrambling onto all fours before immediately letting out a pained hiss, curling back in on himself like a wounded animal as his entire body reacted violently against the action. “What the fu-”

“Did you have a good nap?”

“Fuck off, Harry.” He groaned, snatching the pillow back from the taller boy’s outstretched arms and throwing it back onto the cot, not bothering to glance around at his unfamiliar surroundings before immediately falling back onto the bed. “I just want to sleep till it stops hurting.”

“Madam Pomfrey said you should eat something.”

He grunted in response, throwing the blanket over his head as if it would make Harry and all his other issues instantly disappear.

It was quiet for a moment—just long enough for Theo to start drifting back towards an uncomfortable sleep—before the blanket was yanked from the bed, exposing his entire body to the cold and making him yelp.

“Get up.”

“Piss off.”

Harry shuffled around for a moment, “Theo, either you get your arse up and talk to me or I'm going to tell Draco what you said about his hairline a month ago.” Theo clutched his pillow tighter, face buried into the cotton expanse, before groaning.

“I'll never hear the end of it,” he grumbled, finally pulling his face away from the pillow long enough to glare at Harry. “What do you even want, Potter.”

“Am I not allowed to be concerned for my friend?” The gangly boy raised an eyebrow, an infuriating calmness radiating off of him as he settled back down into his chair. “What happened to you on the train?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business-” 

“Well then I'm making it my business.” 

“Harry, I’m tired. Leave me alone.” Theo groaned, rubbing his eyes tiredly as he forced his unresponsive body up into a semi-sitting position. “Go… ugh, do something productive. Flirt with Draco or… something. I don’t care. Just let me sleep.”

Harry stared at him for a moment, unnaturally green eyes looking into and through his own, right into the centre of his skull. Theo shuddered, playing it off as the chill as he rubbed goosebumps from his arms.

“Theodore, how did you know I have an… unusual physical inheritance? How did you know Draco has one? How did you know all these things? Why were you researching Norse gods a few months ago? Do you know about Blaise…?”

Theo swallowed thickly, averting his eyes towards something considerably less invasive than Harry’s vibrant, near-glowing green eyes.

“It's rather cold in here. Has the mediwitch forgotten to cast warming charms?” He shuddered, pulling the blanket over his shoulders to try and fight off the chill. 

“Theodore.”

“I’m sorry, Harry, I just-” he took a deep breath, closing his eyes as the temperature seemed to plummet. “I just don’t know what to say to you.”

There was a long, heavy pause.

“Am I frightening you, Theo?”

He let out a breath, “not any more than usual.”

“Then you should know what to say.”

He shook his head, pulling the blankets ever closer as the tips of his fingers and toes started to go numb. It was getting colder. He was sure of it.

“You’re just trying to convince me. You know how hard this is for me-”

“I don’t, Theodore.” Harry shifted in place, one leg crossing over the other as he leaned back in the chair. Theo let out a breath. He could see it in the air. “I don’t know how you know these things, so I want you to tell me.”

“You do know,” he insisted, his voice veering towards hysterics as the temperature continued to plummet. “You do. You do.”

“Do I?”

“Yes!” He shouted, throwing both hands over his ears and curling his knees up to his eyes, trying desperately to stave away the feeling of someone reaching into his mind and plucking the thoughts from his head. “You do! You know! Please stop looking at me!”

The feeling left him just as suddenly as it had arrived, and near-instantaneously, Harry’s hand came down onto his shoulder, gripping him in an impossibly cold embrace. Theo yelped, pulling away from the freezing fingers as they dug into his collar.

“Theodore,” Harry murmured, towering over him like an angel of darkness—shadowed and monstrous and just not right. There was something wrong here. Theo shook his head aggressively, trying to dislodge the feeling of intrusion from his skull as the cold, cold hands gripped him tighter. “Theodore, I don’t want to hurt you. You’re my friend. You are. But… but I’m finding it very difficult to trust you right now.”

“I can’t—I just can't Harry I don’t know-”

“You don't know what?”

Theo felt a pressure building up in his head, pressing against his skull and forcing its way out of his ears. His mouth and throat were dry, painfully devoid of moisture while he forced himself to hold back hot tears. He pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes, whimpering as a painful lump started to form in his throat.

“I don’t know what you are, Harry. I can’t tell you if I don’t know.”

Theo choked back a relieved sob as Harry let go of his shoulder, slumping into himself as the temperature suddenly started to rise again.

“I had a dream over the holidays.” 

Theo swallowed another pained sob, rubbing furiously at his eyes with the back of his hand. He didn’t look at Harry—didn’t even look in the general area of Harry as his fingers and toes started to slowly warm back up again.

“Wh-what kind of dream?” He croaked out, his gaze finally focusing in on the window above his bed, his stinging eyes mapping out the unfamiliar courtyard just beyond it. He had never been in the infirmary before—had never even thought about stopping by just to see what it looked like—but he felt like he had walked through that courtyard before. It looked a little different, though. Was he misremembering?

“It was a nightmare.” Harry’s voice fell over him like a gentle embrace, cocooning him in familiarity as the blankets were tucked back around his shoulders. When had he lied back down? He couldn’t see the courtyard anymore. “It was a terrifying nightmare, where a monster was chasing me through the forbidden forest.”

Theo sniffled, curling up on his side as Harry’s gentle voice lulled him back into a vague half-daze.

“I don’t like nightmares,” he murmured, eyes drooping as his body grew heavier and heavier. “Is this a nightmare?”

He forced his eyes to stay open, squinting through the near-overwhelming fatigue to try and make out Harry’s figure beside the bed. It was still Harry standing there, looking down at him with that same relaxed, unreadable expression. Something was different, though. Something was wrong.

“This isn’t a nightmare, Theodore,” Harry whispered, his deep, red eyes staring down at Theo impassively as he stepped away from the bed silently. “It’s just a dream. You’ll wake up soon and forget it ever happened.”

“Forget…” he whispered, eyes finally forcing themselves shut as the heaviness became too much to bear. He sank down into the mattress below him with a relieved sigh, drifting softly off to sleep as footsteps slowly retreated from the bed.

And then, as thoughts of red eyes and freezing fingers slipped out of his mind with a single, precise swish of a wand, Theo began to dream.

Theodore Nott began to dream.

Chapter Text

“You know, thirteen is an unlucky number for a reason.”

He was hiding under a bed. The dust itched his nose. He urged himself not to sneeze. Curled up, back and neck aching, he willed himself not to move. Eyes stinging with tears, heart racing so fast he could feel it racing through his ears, he tried to force himself to be calm.

“It's a number that incites a certain sort of violence in the gods.”

The girl was being too loud. He could hear her unsteady breathing from across the room. She was moving around too much, too, scrambling around and bumping into things in the dark. It was like she was trying to get them caught. Like she was trying to get them killed. 

Theo hugged his knees up to his chin, nails digging into the fabric of his pyjamas as the girl yelped, her movements and noise growing louder and more obvious as the seconds ticked on. He closed his eyes, forcing himself deeper into the darkness underneath the bed, pretending, desperately, that there was only one person in the room—that he didn't exist. No one could hurt him if he just stayed still. No one could hurt him if he didn’t exist.

The monster in the forest couldn’t get him if he just stayed out of its way.

The girl’s breathing picked up, a muffled sob forcing its way out of her throat and echoing out through the room. He curled up tighter, burying his entire face into his knobbly knees as the girl finally shuffled under another bed, sniffling loudly all the while. He let his head fall onto the floor with a silent sigh, relaxing slightly as she eventually fell silent. The dusty rug underneath the bed gave him some sort of relief for the uncomfortable position as well, and as he watched the girl’s slight form from under the other bed, he let his muscles slowly go slack and eventually, cautiously, closed his eyes.

A low warning growl reverberated through the room. 

Tensing back up again, he pulled his limbs close again, curling up into a tight ball as the girl gave a loud shriek of terror. He opened his eyes. It was coming. It had heard her.

The door creaked open. Long, thin claws brushed the carpet.

“It was all doomed from the start, really.”

The claws were coated with blood—sticky and hot and fresh. Those sharp, sharp claws brushed gently against the shag rug, almost as if petting it. Almost… gentle.

“They were doomed from the start.”

The creature hissed, the noise tapering off into a wheezed breath that grated against his ears. It was horrific, changing pitches and tones with the effect of several people — no, several voices — all making the same noise at once. They all layered over one another, an infinite chorus of sound and screaming, till finally dwindling off with the sharp crescendo of a woman crying.

His mother. 

He curled up tighter, swallowing a sob as the creature slowly moved into the room. The monster knew he was there. It was greeting him with his mother's voice.

“You were doomed from the start, Theodore.”

The claws moved forward. Long, impossibly thin legs came into view, dragging blood and gore behind them. Theo watched the thing’s movements with wide eyes, heartbeat steadily slowing as it moved further into the room and away from his hiding place. He wasn't the one being hunted — no, this thing wasn't here for him — but it still wanted him there. It wanted him to watch.

“Thirteen is an unlucky number.”

A sudden, horrific screech shattered the silence, rattling his bones and forcing tears out of his eyes as his ears popped. It was so much worse than the growl. So, so much worse. Layering overtop of itself until he couldn’t do anything but cover his ears and try not to scream out in agony. He felt like it was reaching into his head and lacerating the inside of his skull. He felt like his brain was going to start leaking out his ears, liquified by the sheer overwhelming noise. He felt like the sound itself was going to kill him.

And then the girl screamed, and the creature lunged, and Theo ripped his eyes shut.

“No, no. Don’t do that, dear. It wants you to watch, remember?”

He shuddered, something warm and hot splattering across his cheek as he forced his eyes open. Dark red blood oozed out of the girl, hot and boiling as the rug below greedily absorbed it. The long, pointed claws tore into her corpse, the monster snarling with pleasure as it crushed bone and ripped muscle. Theo sucked in a sharp breath, frozen by terror as the thing bent down to eat. To eat the girl.