Death's Alchemist Chapter 7 (Patreon)

Chapter 7

Henry Potter looked more at home in the pub than Harry would’ve believed after their first encounter. Without Charlus and Dorea nearby, without Dumbledore standing between them, and without the quiet suspicion of an Auror examining an impossible stranger, he seemed younger somehow. One sleeve had been pushed to his elbow, his outer robes hung over the back of the stool beside him, and the drink resting near his hand suggested he had been there long enough to settle into the evening. He looked like a man enjoying a Friday night in the village where he had grown up.

Harry remained beside the bar with the firewhiskey untouched near his mouth. He had known Henry lived nearby. He had known they might eventually cross paths again. Henry had even offered to buy him a drink the last time they met. None of that made the sight of him feel ordinary. There was still too much Potter in his face.

Not enough to mistake him for James, but enough that Harry caught fragments of familiarity whenever Henry moved: the shape of his grin, the untidy fall of dark hair, the easy confidence of someone who had never been made to wonder whether he belonged to his own family. Harry lowered the glass at last and reminded himself that he had come to the pub because he was tired of being alone. Approaching the man, Harry greeted him with a nod. “Potter.”

The name felt strange coming from him as a greeting. It had spent too many years belonging to Harry himself, usually shouted across classrooms, printed beneath photographs, or spoken with a weight no ordinary surname should have carried.

Henry gestured to the empty seat beside him. “I seem to remember telling you I owed you a drink. The next one is on me.”

Harry accepted the chair. “I appreciate that.”

There were two glasses near Henry’s elbow, his own partly full and the other untouched. Harry glanced around the room, searching for someone who might have been sitting with him earlier, but no one appeared particularly interested in returning.

Harry turned his firewhiskey slowly between his fingers. “Now, I’m new around here and don’t have many friends yet. What’s your excuse? Auror duty keeping you too busy for the people of Godric's Hollow?”

His tone was light, but Henry’s expression went sheepish almost immediately. He glanced toward the second glass as though it had personally betrayed him. “Not exactly. Most of my mates prefer drinking in London. I was supposed to have a date tonight.”

Harry looked toward the door, asking, “She’s late?”

“She was supposed to be here an hour ago,” Henry said, checking the clock mounted behind the bar, despite clearly knowing exactly how much time had passed. “At this point, I think I’ve been properly stood up.”

There was humor in the admission, but it did not quite reach his eyes. Harry recognized that look. Henry had apparently spent the past hour convincing himself that he did not care, only to discover that saying it aloud made the disappointment more difficult to ignore.

“You sure I shouldn’t be buying you the drink?”

Henry scoffed and lifted his glass toward Harry. “Your company will suffice. I’m not intruding on your lonely Friday-night misery, am I? I’d hate to interrupt a particularly productive brooding session.”

Harry gave him a faintly offended look. “I don’t brood.”

“Of course not,” Henry said with a grin.

“I was studying.”

“Alone on a Friday night.”

“I’m new around here.”

“That sounds suspiciously like brooding with books.”

Harry took a drink rather than dignify that with an answer. The firewhiskey burned pleasantly down his throat, stronger than anything he had poured for himself at the Manor. Henry grinned as though Harry’s silence had confirmed the accusation and clapped him on the shoulder with considerably more force than necessary.

“Well, given that we’re practically family, I’ll show you around sometime. Introduce you to a few people. Some pretty birds, perhaps. Help you make a few connections before you turn into one of those strange recluses who only come into the village to buy candles and argue with shopkeepers.”

Harry nearly inhaled his drink. He coughed once, lowered the glass, and looked sharply at Henry. “Sorry. What was that about family?”

Henry’s grin faded into something more thoughtful. He rested one forearm against the bar and studied Harry, though this time the scrutiny felt less like an Auror searching for a lie and more like someone deciding how much of a family story belonged to a stranger. “The Peverells and Potters have been linked for generations. Until you appeared, my family believed whatever remained of the Peverell line had simply passed into ours.”

Harry kept his expression still. The words touched too closely upon things he already knew—or thought he knew. Ignotus Peverell. The Cloak. The bloodline that eventually ran through James and into Harry himself. Hearing it discussed as living family history rather than something Hermione might uncover in a library made the connection feel more real.

Henry continued, “If you truly are a Peverell, then you must come from another side of the family. The peculiar part is that no one seems to know that side existed.”

The suspicion returned then, faint but unmistakable. Henry had not abandoned his questions. He had merely chosen not to ask them directly. Harry glanced down at his drink. “I suppose old families lose track of people.”

“Some do,” Henry admitted.

“But not the Potters?” Harry asked knowingly.

“Oh, we lose track of people on occasion.” Henry’s grin returned. “Then we simply complain about them loudly enough that no one ever forgets again.”

Harry laughed before he could stop himself. It was not the answer he had expected, and perhaps that was why it caught him. Henry watched him for a moment, looking pleased to have managed it.

“The records are incomplete,” Henry admitted. “Branches disappear. People marry abroad, change names, fall out with their parents, or decide they’d rather never attend another Potter Christmas. It happens. But an entire surviving Peverell branch with access to the Manor?” He shook his head. “That is rather more difficult to misplace.”

“I didn’t know much about it myself,” Harry admitted.

“That much I believe,” Henry returned at once.

Harry glanced toward him. Henry raised both hands innocently. “The Auror in me is staying out of this.”

“Is he?” Harry asked skeptically.

“He is making a heroic effort,” Henry returned with a grin.

“He doesn’t appear very good at it.”

“He’s persistent.”

“So I noticed.”

Henry laughed and signaled the barman for another drink. Harry’s first glass was not yet empty, but Henry pointed toward it anyway, making good on the promise before Harry could object.

“But you entered the Manor,” Henry said. “The wards accepted you. Whatever else may be uncertain, Peverell blood runs in your veins. There can be little question of that.”

Harry’s fingers tightened slightly around his glass. He had grown accustomed to Dumbledore and Flitwick speaking about his connection to the Manor as a magical anomaly. Henry spoke of it as a connection between people.

“And as much as I would enjoy drilling you with questions,” Henry continued, “I suspect it wouldn’t go in my favor. Dumbledore would become displeased with me, my mother would accuse me of frightening you away, and you would probably vanish behind those wards before I learned anything useful.”

“Your mother thinks you frightened me?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

“My mother thinks Aurors frighten everyone,” Henry replied with exasperation.

“I don't suppose she is ever particularly frightened of you.”

“No one in my family is. It’s a terrible professional disadvantage.”

The barman placed another firewhiskey in front of Harry and replaced Henry’s nearly empty drink. Henry paid before Harry could reach for the small collection of coins inside his robes.

“So,” Henry said, settling again, “I am going to try something unusual.”

Harry eyed him warily. “What?”

“I’m going to leave the questions alone.”

“All of them?”

“Most of them.”

“That doesn’t sound unusual.”

“You haven’t met many Aurors socially.”

Harry thought of Kingsley, Tonks, Mad-Eye, and eventually himself. “I’ve met enough.”

Something in his answer caught Henry’s attention. Harry saw it happen: the tiny narrowing of the eyes, the instinctive pause, the question forming behind them. Henry reached for his drink instead. A heroic effort indeed.

“Anyways, given the size of my family, we always have room for more,” Henry said. “Or something close to it. Potters don’t have much of that anymore. From what little we know of the Peverells, I suspect they had even less.”

Harry looked at him. Henry had said it casually, but there was nothing casual about the offer. Family had never been an abstract word to Harry. It meant things lost before he understood them, things found too late, and people who had chosen him when blood had failed. Sirius had called him family. So had the Weasleys, in every way that mattered. Now Henry Potter sat beside him in a village pub, offering the word as though it were simple.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Harry said.

“I know you look like someone rearranged half my family into a new face.”

Harry gave him a flat look.

“I also know the Manor accepted you,” Henry continued. “I know Dumbledore trusts you, which is either very reassuring or deeply concerning depending on the day. I know my mother is curious about you and is willing to have you around more. She has always possessed more sense than the rest of us combined, so I trust her judgment.”

“And your father?” Harry asked curiously.

Henry considered the question. “My father hasn’t decided whether you’re a lost relative, an elaborate fraud, or the beginning of an extremely inconvenient family scandal.”

“That sounds encouraging,” Harry deadpanned.

“He invited you back into the house,” Henry defended.

“Not in so many words like your mum did.”

“I would say since there wasn't a refusal, then that was the encouraging part.”

Harry lowered his eyes to the amber liquid in his glass. Dorea had invited him back, although not in words Harry had allowed himself to depend upon. It almost seemed more like a polite offer than anything genuine. Henry now spoke as though Harry’s return was not merely permitted but expected.

“Besides,” Henry added, “you’re living half a mile away in a house everyone thought was empty. If we don’t claim you, the village will. By autumn you’ll have six elderly witches bringing you pies and asking why you aren’t married.”

Harry glanced around the pub. “Has that happened to you?”

“Repeatedly.”

“And yet you’ve just been stood up.”

Henry’s face fell into exaggerated offense. “There was no need for that.”

“You started it,” Harry accused.

“I offered you friendship,” Henry defended.

“You offered to introduce me to pretty birds,” Harry deadpanned.

“I know plenty of handsome men if you prefer?” Henry joked.

Harry once again nearly spit his drink out and let out a laugh that raised his spirits higher than any alcohol could have before taking another drink, unable to stop the smile that followed. The firewhiskey was already softening the hard edges of the summer, though he suspected Henry’s company had more to do with it than the alcohol.

“What happened with your date?” Harry asked. “Besides the obvious.”

Henry sighed and looked toward the untouched second glass. “She works irregular hours.”

“That sounds inconvenient for an Auror with a schedule that is already difficult,” Harry pointed out.

“It sounded reasonable when she said it,” Henry defended.

“What does she do?” Harry asked.

“She’s trying to establish herself at the Prophet.”

Harry’s hand paused almost imperceptibly against his glass. “A journalist?”

“Apparently.”

The word brought an immediate collection of unpleasant faces to mind, none of which belonged in 1969. Harry forced the reaction away before Henry noticed it.

“She heard something this afternoon and decided it might become a story,” Henry continued. “At least, that’s what I assume. There was no owl, so perhaps she simply reconsidered the date.”

“You don’t sound especially surprised,” Harry acknowledged.

“She has a habit of becoming interested in things very quickly,” Henry said with a sigh.

“And losing interest just as quickly?” Harry asked knowingly.

Henry glanced at him. “You’ve met her?”

“No,” Harry said, taking a drink to wash away the heebie-jeebies that reporters usually gave him. “Lucky guess.”

Henry studied him for another moment, and Harry wondered whether the Auror was about to escape again. Instead, Henry laughed quietly and shook his head. “If she does eventually arrive, I’ll tell her she missed her chance. I’ve found better company.”

“Careful. That almost sounded sentimental,” Harry teased naturally.

“Blame the drink,” Henry replied easily.

“You were sentimental before the second one,” Harry accused.

“Then blame being abandoned.”

Harry let the humor settle between them, but the last comment did make his insides turn. The pub continued around them, loud enough to offer privacy without requiring silence. Someone near the back protested a foul from a Quidditch match that had ended several days earlier. The barman polished the same glass for so long that Harry suspected he was listening to every word. Outside, the last of the summer light disappeared from the square.

For the first time since arriving in 1969, Harry sat beside someone near his own age who did not know he came from the future, did not want to examine his magic, and did not expect him to explain how he had broken time. Henry possessed questions, certainly. Harry could feel them waiting beneath nearly every subject they touched. But for tonight, at least, Henry appeared willing to let the questions remain unanswered.

Harry lifted his glass. “To being stood up.”

Henry clinked his drink against it. “And to lonely Friday-night brooding.”

“I told you, I wasn’t brooding.”

“You came here alone from a haunted Manor.”

“It isn’t haunted.”

“Even worse. You’re doing all the brooding yourself.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but the accusation no longer bothered him. His second glass was nearly empty, Henry’s abandoned date had become little more than an untouched drink at the edge of the bar, and the evening had shifted so gradually that Harry could no longer remember when he had stopped feeling like an intruder. For the first time since the explosion, Harry was not discussing alchemy, temporal displacement, the Hallows, or the impossible circumstances surrounding his existence. He was drinking with another young man who seemed perfectly content to insult him until closing time.

Henry leaned an elbow against the bar. “I hope you will make yourself available Sunday to have dinner with my family. I think my mother would be quite pleased if you came by.”

Harry glanced toward him. “She barely knows me.”

“That has never stopped her.” Henry chuckled. “She likes picking up strays.”

“I thought she was being polite,” Harry said softly, his heart beating a little faster at the thought of sharing a meal with relatives that had been long since dead in his time.

Henry gave a short laugh. “I know this will be obvious, but you really don’t know my mother.”

The barman finally removed the untouched glass meant for Henry’s missing date, replacing the empty space with a small dish of roasted nuts. Henry took a handful and studied them as if arranging the details of the story in his head.

“When I was nine, I found a half-starved kneazle beneath the hedge behind our house. Ugly creature. One ear missing, tail bent in two places, and it disliked every living person it encountered. I carried it into the kitchen wrapped inside one of Father’s good winter cloaks.”

Harry could already guess where the story was going. “Your father was pleased?”

“He threatened to throw us both outside.”

Snorting, Harry shook his head. “That bad?”

“Oh, yeah,” Henry answered with a chuckle.

Harry laughed as Henry continued, “Father said it was diseased, violent, and almost certainly belonged to someone else. Mum gave it a bowl of cream while he was still lecturing me. By the end of the week, it was my mum’s favorite creature on the planet and slept in Dad’s favorite chair. By the end of the month, Father was claiming he always knew the little creature was perfect for our family.”

“And was he?” Harry asked with a chuckle.

“Heavens, no. It bit him nearly every morning for fourteen years.”

Harry smiled into his drink. It was insignificant compared with everything Harry had wondered about the Potters over the years, yet somehow that made it worse. He had imagined family histories, old victories, ancestral magic, and the sort of stories people preserved in books. It was hard to remember that these were just normal people before Voldemort rose to power the first time.

Henry reached for another handful of nuts. “Mum does not issue polite invitations, Harry. She makes decisions about people and gives them an opportunity to realize she has made them.”

“That sounds ominous,” Harry said.

“It is. You’re fortunate she has only invited you to dinner. Once she begins sending food to the Manor... Harry, I have to tell you there will be no escape at that point,” Henry offered.

Harry glanced toward him at the use of his first name. Henry appeared not to notice he had done it, though the Auror in him noticed almost everything. Perhaps that made the casualness deliberate. Harry decided not to examine it too closely.

“So you think I might end up like the kneazle?”

“You do strike me as a guy with similar personality traits.”

“Well, I promise not to bite your father for fourteen years if that's the case,” Harry promised solemnly.

“Dad might have cursed the little beast a few times while Mum wasn't looking, so for your sake I wouldn't.”

“Sounds like someone I once knew.”

Henry looked toward him. “Who?”

Harry thought of Sirius declaring that Buckbeak’s residence in his mother’s old bedroom was a temporary arrangement, even after the hippogriff had occupied it for months. He thought of Hagrid bringing dangerous creatures home with absolute confidence that everyone would eventually understand. The memories arrived warmly and then vanished, leaving the same hollow space behind them.

“My godfather,” Harry said heavily, letting the alcohol fuel his words. “He's no longer with us, but he was the type to like strays too.”

Henry watched him for a moment. The humor disappeared from his youthful face. He did not pounce on the words. He turned his glass between his fingers instead. “To him then. Any man that can take in a stray and treat it like his own would have the respect of the Potters.”

Harry clinked his glass with the man before draining his glass and shivering slightly from the old memories and the alcohol.

“You know, you've heard a surprising amount about my family,” Henry said, “while I know almost nothing about yours.”

Harry looked down at the empty glass. He had expected the question eventually. Henry had shown remarkable restraint by waiting this long, and Harry knew he had opened up the gates by mentioning Sirius. He could even respect that Henry had sat on the question all evening, knowing enough about Aurors to recognize that the man had been itching to do so.

“There isn’t much to tell,” Harry said with a sigh.

“Oh, come on; there has to be something?” Henry asked.

“My parents died when I was young,” Harry said suddenly.

Henry’s hand stopped against his glass. “How young?”

“I was a baby. I don’t remember them,” Harry said, feeling his throat go dry.

The words felt odd. There were few people in the wizarding world whom Harry had ever met that didn't know his story. Now, sitting in this bar a short distance away from where they lost their lives made it feel fresh all over again. Saying it to Henry was also different. The man beside him carried the same family name as his father and enough of James in his face to make the confession feel almost like an accusation.

“Merlin, I stuck my foot in this one. I’m sorry, Harry,” Henry said.

Harry nodded once, before Henry asked, “Who raised you after your parents and godfather died?”

“I was raised by my mother’s sister and her husband. Muggles,” Harry answered simply.

“Were you close?”

The drink had softened Harry’s instinct to construct the safest possible answer. It had not removed it entirely. “No.”

Henry waited, but Harry offered nothing more. There were facts he could not explain without unraveling everything: a cupboard beneath the stairs, bars on a bedroom window, years spent being told that magic was an abnormality he should be ashamed to possess.

“No brothers or sisters?” Henry asked.

“No,” Harry said quietly.

“Other relatives?” Henry asked, sounding a little bewildered.

“None that I knew,” Harry said, wondering what happened to the man beside him in his own time.

Henry’s brow furrowed. “That seems difficult to believe.”

“We were a small family to begin with. You have to imagine if there were more of us, you would've encountered other Peverells,” Harry answered carefully.

“You have a point,” Henry said, rubbing his face in thought. “The Manor just gives the impression that you were a secretive lot and kept to yourselves.”

“From everything I have learned of the Peverells, that seems true enough.”

Henry accepted the deflection with a tilt of his head. The Auror had not disappeared; Harry could practically hear the unanswered questions accumulating. Why had a surviving Peverell been raised by his mother’s family? Why had he known nothing about the Manor? Why had there been no relatives to claim him? Henry could have followed any of those paths. Instead, he kept his promise and left them alone. The man gestured to the bartender to bring them two more drinks, and they arrived quickly, leading Henry to continue a softer line of questioning: “There must have been someone. Friends, perhaps?”

Harry’s expression softened despite himself. “There were.”

The Weasleys rose first in his mind, crowded around a kitchen table that never seemed large enough for all of them. Hermione with a book open beside her plate. Ron complaining that someone had taken the last sausage while three more sat directly in front of him. Ginny kicking Harry beneath the table whenever she caught him disappearing too far into his own thoughts. George laughing loudly enough to disguise the places where Fred’s absence still lived.

Henry noticed the change in him. “Good people?”

“The best.”

“Are they still around?”

The question struck harder than Henry could have intended. Harry took a drink he did not need, buying enough time to decide which version of the truth would hurt least. “Not here.”

Henry misunderstood him. Harry saw sympathy enter his expression and did not correct it.

“I’m sorry,” Henry said again.

“It’s complicated,” Harry said with a sigh.

“Most worthwhile things are,” Henry offered.

Harry looked sideways at him. “That sounded suspiciously wise.”

“My mother says it.”

“That explains it.”

Henry smiled, but neither man rushed to restore the earlier teasing. Harry found that he did not mind the quieter turn. Henry had asked about his family and accepted the pieces Harry could offer without demanding the rest. It was an unfamiliar kindness from an Auror and a dangerously familiar one from a Potter.

“What about you?” Harry asked. “Any brothers or sisters?”

“No. Just me,” Henry said casually.

Harry considered that. He knew this was the case, but had to ask to make sure the Black family tree from his time hadn't missed anything. Charlus, Dorea, and Henry formed a small family, though perhaps that explained the ease with which they had adopted strangers. Henry had joked that Potters claimed people before the village could. Beneath the humor, Harry was beginning to suspect he had meant it.

“Large family, though?” Harry asked, trying to keep up appearances.

“Not at all,” Henry offered with a nod of his head. “Our families are alike in that way. There is just me, my mum, and Dad, and then my uncle, his wife, and their son, who is getting close to Hogwarts age. They live here in Godric's Hollow as well; you will probably run into my uncle; he is the type of man that likes to know everyone in the village. But to my knowledge, that's all that is left of the Potters.”

The answer carried no obvious sorrow. Henry had grown up with two parents who loved him, in the village where his family belonged, inside a house Harry had already seen filled with photographs and familiar clutter. Three people could be an entire world when none of them were missing. Plus he had Harry's grandparents and his father in the same village. He couldn't imagine Henry had been a lonely child.

Henry drained the last of his drink and set the glass on the bar. “Well, I think we have settled that you are coming over Sunday, right?”

Harry blinked. “Did we settle that? What did you put in this drink?”

“Just something to keep you loose,” Henry joked. “But really, Sunday, dinner, you are cordially invited. If you don't show at this point, I'm coming to that big Manor of yours and throwing curses at the wards until you come out.”

“That sounds illegal, Mr. Auror,” Harry accused but smiled through the jesting.

“Being an Auror just means I know what time to start the attack to ensure my co-workers don't show up in time to stop me,” Henry said simply.

This made Harry laugh. “Alright, alright. I appreciate the invite. Just clear it with your folks first. I don't want to be a surprise stray, rather a planned one.”

“Mum will make enough food for a half dozen. She always does on Sunday night,” Henry promised.

“There are only three of you, though?” Harry asked incredulously.

“Four, if you stop being difficult,” Henry said as he rose to his feet.

Harry looked toward the door, though there was nothing outside he needed to see. The invitation from Dorea had been easy to dismiss because it had been offered during a strange first meeting, while everyone was still deciding whether Harry might be dangerous. Henry was removing that excuse. Sunday dinner was not an abstract promise to visit someday. Now there was a day and a place, and Harry could either accept or refuse. Both choices carried consequences he wasn’t sure he was ready to face.

Henry seemed to read the hesitation incorrectly. “You don’t have to tell us anything you aren’t ready to tell,” he said. “I meant what I said about leaving the questions alone. Just another chance to get to know each other. I'll even make sure there is more alcohol for us to enjoy.”

“Alcohol on a Sunday night? Now I am in.”

Henry smiled. “I knew I liked something about you, Peverell.”

Harry breathed out a quiet laugh. He tried imagining returning to the Potter house without Dumbledore beside him. Dorea might ask whether he had been eating and how he was coming along in the old Manor. Charlus would watch him across the table, looking for the family resemblance he had already noticed. Henry would probably tell them Harry had spent his Friday evening brooding alone in the Manor until rescued. It was exactly the sort of thing Harry should avoid.

“What time?”

Henry’s grin spread immediately. “Six o’clock.”

Harry shook his head. “Six o’clock it is then.”

“Good. My promise stands that I will come collect you if you don't show,” Henry assured.

“You’re joking?” Harry asked as he threw a few coins to settle his tab on the table.

“I am absolutely not,” Henry promised.

Harry believed him. He finished the last of his firewhiskey and placed the glass beside Henry’s. The alcohol left him pleasantly warm, though the feeling sitting beneath it had little to do with what he had been drinking. He had walked into the pub because Dumbledore and Flitwick were unavailable and because Peverell Manor had become too quiet to endure. He would leave with plans to sit at the Potter family table on Sunday.

Henry reached for the outer robes hanging behind him. “I’ll walk part of the way with you. You’re in no condition to navigate the haunted road alone.”

“I’ve only had a few drinks,” Harry defended.

“You nearly choked on all of them,” Henry countered.

“That was your fault.”

“I’ll mention that in the report.”

“What report?”

“The one documenting your brooding.”

Harry followed him toward the door, muttering something impolite beneath his breath. Henry laughed and pushed it open, allowing the cool evening air to spill into the pub.