Merlin's Balls (Patreon)

I'm working on Ondry and Liam, but I did the Rough Trade fanfic challenge this month, and I wanted to share it with you.

Merlin’s Balls

Harry lived 120 years and was ready to move on. Hermione was determined to ease his transition with a Mayan ritual, but she read the wrong text. Instead of sending him to the next adventure, she sent an old, crotchety, bitter Harry Potter all the way back to the beginning.

Chapter One

“Merlin’s balls,” Harry muttered when he opened his eyes.  The inside of his cupboard was familiar, even after a hundred years. He’d never be able to forget this place.  He held his hands up, and instead of his wrinkled, papery skin, he found baby-short fingers and pink skin.

“Okay, either I’ve had a psychotic break or Hermione’s spell was… really, really wrong,” Harry concluded. Since psychosis was rare in wizards, and it didn’t create coherent delusions that included the smell of dust and cleaning supplies to this detail, he had to assume Hermione’s spell had done something unexpected.

Ease him into the next life, his ass.  Clearly she needed to work on her ancient Mayan translations.

“Get up, boy!” a familiar voice called before his aunt pounded on his ‘door.’  “Get breakfast on the table.”

Hell no.  Harry was not going through this hell again. However, realistically he was too small to put his foot down with adults.  Based on how his hands looked, he suspected he was probably nine or ten. It was hard to tell because all three of his kids had been so much taller than him that he couldn’t judge his own age well.

Sighing, he pulled on a shirt and crawled out of his childhood prison. Aunt Petunia was already in the kitchen, fixing her tea.  She looked so young.  Impossibly young.  The last time he’d seen her had been right before Albus had been born.  Albus.  Harry wanted to snort at his own idiocy when he’d been young. Yes, the original Albus had tried his best to do right by Harry, but his best had been abominable. As an old man, Harry understood that age made certain habits so deeply ingrained that it was almost impossible to escape, and for Albus, one of those had been secrecy.

Given his own history with Grindelwald and then his assumption that Sirius had betrayed the Potters, it was no mystery why he decided to keep secrets that he had no business keeping, but that didn’t make his mistakes any less disastrous for Harry individually or the wizarding world in general.

And now Harry would have to deal with all those mistakes again… hopefully with less death and suffering. Maybe Hermione would have counseled him against changing time, but screw that. If she wanted him to avoid temporal disasters, she shouldn’t have dumped him into this hell because even after a hundred years, he still had his saving people thing.

Aunt Petunia had already sliced the bread and set out the mushrooms and a tin of beans, but she was sitting with her hands cupped around her tea, her eyes drooping.  Harry remembered this.  He got on his stool and started by opening the beans and putting a pan on the hob. By the time Petunia got up to do the last of the cooking, Harry had sliced the mushrooms, tomatoes, and bread. He slathered the bread with butter so it was ready to fry and pulled the sausage and bacon out of the refrigerator.

Petunia grabbed a chunk of buttered bread and spooned some beans on top before shoving it at Harry. “Go get ready for school,” she ordered him before turning to the hob.

Harry cupped the bread carefully.  No wonder he’d been short. Wizards required more calories than most… and more nutrients. Harry had been given a diet of mostly carbs because they were easiest to shove at him before sending him away. Harry would suspect intentional neglect, only Petunia and Vernon were just as negligent about Dudley’s diet. The man had struggled with weight his whole life, finally dying of a heart attack as 53, which was unforgivably young.

Goal one–he had to get out of this house. But because they were his closest blood relatives, that would be difficult.  It was made more difficult by the fact that his next closest blood relatives were the Blacks. In a political fight between Andromeda and Narcissa, Narcissa would win every time.  And Harry would not live in a house with Lucy. Maybe Draco had turned out okay after life slapped him down hard enough to leave him bleeding, but Lucy had been a pain in the wizarding world’s side to his last breath.

Harry had no idea why he’d testified for the man. None.  Dumbledore’s lessons on forgiveness had sunk in too deeply, perhaps.  Maybe he’d just been tired of bloodshed by that point. Maybe he didn’t want to take Narcissa’s husband after she’d risked her life to save him in the forest. Who knows. Harry certainly didn’t, but he was going to be a little more stingy with his good will this time around. He was, after all, a cranky old man and he had lost the need to make other people happy a long time ago.

So he had to neuter the Dursleys without risking removal. That meant he had to threaten the one thing they loved most: their reputations.

Chapter Two

Harry clutched his backpack to his chest as he walked, certain the ragged thing would fall apart if he tried to carry it by the straps. It was time for Operation Neuter Dursleys. He had suffered too much pain to fear a child’s fists, but he did fear his cousin hurting him enough to make the next step harder. So he had to aggravate Dudley enough to give Harry an excuse to disappear for the day. But he couldn’t take an injury. War had taught him that winning didn’t count if he was too injured after a battle to fight the next one.

And Dudley at this age was an unmitigated bully who could hurt him badly. His bones were fragile and he was undernourished. However, the plan would give him a day of freedom he needed. Even if Aunt Petuna liked to pretend that her Dudders was perfect, she would understand if he chased Harry away from school.  She would still punish Harry, but she wouldn’t be suspicious.

And then Harry could carry out his plan.  A century of experience gave him one or two ideas. There was no revenge like a cranky old man. Well, unless it was a cranky old woman. Hermione had taught quite a few young ‘uns that a retired Minister of Magic could still be a force of fucking nature.

Harry muttered under his breath. He was reciting Gamp’s law, but Dudley wouldn’t know that, and Harry counted on his cousin to take offense.  Sure enough, he turned around, Piers stopping with him.

“What did you say, freak?” Dudley demanded.

“Nothing.” Harry took a step back and widened his eyes in some facsimile of innocence and fear. It was like chumming water for sharks. 

“Get him!” Dudley yelled before he dropped his own backpack.

Abandoning his school books and torn notebooks and chewed pencils, Harry darted for the bushes, the round of Harry Hunting in full swing.  Harry had been prepared to outrun his cousin and then sneak onto a train, but he felt pressure building in his chest, like he was trying to maintain a patronus or preparing for apparition.  This body hadn’t trained his magic yet. He didn’t have magical pathways as much as a surging, seething mass of magic that swirled through him.

He focused his thoughts. Destination. Determination. Deliberation. When he had focused his magic as best he could, he turned on his heel, and with a large crack he left Little Whinging behind. 

Harry blinked at the sight of the alley behind Gringotts.  It was empty, so there wasn’t anyone to question why a child of nine or ten could apparate. Even better, there wasn’t anyone to call the Ministry.  

Thank Merlin. 

When he’d picked this spot, he knew the danger was that one of the Wizengamot members or some lord of an old house would be using the private entrance. Those would be the worst people to be seen by, but if he tried to use a more public apparition point, there was sure to be a crowd, and apparating into an unmarked area made the danger of collision far too high.

Harry stepped to the Gringotts door and pressed his hand to it before pulsing his magic. At first, his magic was sluggish and refused to leave his body, but then it surged forward like a feral dog snapping at an invader.  That caught the guard’s attention.

A goblin yanked the door open and shoved a halbert in Harry’s face. “Are you challenging us, wizard?”

“No!” Harry said as he jumped back.  “I can’t control the magic. I wouldn’t challenge you.” He stood taller as he caught his breath from the scare. “And it is a weak and dishonorable warrior who feels a need to challenge a child.”

The goblin snorted. “Do you believe you’re the first wizard to come disguised as such?”

“No, but maybe I am the first to actually be a child,” Harry countered.

The goblin gave him an unpleasant grin and invited him inside.  Harry was unsurprised that they took a detour through a thieves’ downfall.  The water poured over him, leaving him an undernourished child, and the goblin’s expression turned from hostility to shock.

“So you are both cowardly enough to threaten a child and foolish enough to make assumptions,” Harry said with a dismissive snort. He was unimpressed.  Instead of getting angry as a wizard might, the goblin seemed to shrink on himself.  Insults were an artform among goblins, and to cast such well-placed insults made Harry the winner of this match. 

“I will see the Potter and Black account managers,” Harry said.  He frowned. When he’d been seventy, that tone had been commanding. At a hundred and sixteen, the tone had been pathetic as his scarred lungs left him gasping for breath. But at tenish, it made him sound like Draco Malfoy. Note to self–avoid turning into a prat, which would be hard given the circumstances. After all, Harry had been a grumpy old man for a long time.

His goblin guard led him to a meeting room, and soon, two goblin accountants appeared, each focusing on his books while ignoring the boy waiting for them.  Harry crossed his arms and propped his heels on the edge of his seat as he waited for their show to end.  Given how much the Gringotts of his timeline had hated him, he was used to waiting. 

The Potter manager spoke first. He had less status and more clients than the Black manager, so that wasn’t surprising. “You are too young to be here.”

“I am too old to let others steal from me,” he shot back.

The Black manager sneers. “Who would steal from a child?”

“Who indeed, Black manager? Who steals years from the family’s heir—Sirius Black? Who takes his wealth, his properties, his very life?  Who has left him in Azkaban without an opportunity to defend himself from spurious charges? How many years have dishonorable wizards stolen from your client while you do nothing?”

The sneer turned to a snarl. “It is not my obligation to defend wizards from their own kind.”

Harry snorted. “How many years?”

“Eight, but that is his business, his and his representative’s.”

Eight years. That meant Harry was nine right now.  So he had some time before he needed to show up at Hogwarts, and he definitely needed to hang out with some children because he sounded more like his old self than a nine-year-old child.  He thought he was older and that he would be closer to getting his hands on Pettigrew, but it looked like he was going to need a different plan. He wasn’t leaving Sirius to rot in that hellhole.

“I am Sirius’s heir. I am also a second cousin, once removed to Sirius and the remaining Black sisters. I demand access to the Black educational fund.”

The Malfoys were not as wealthy as they liked to pretend, and what money they had quickly made its way to politician’s pockets as Lucy bullied his way through the Wizengamot. But the Black vault was deep enough and the definition of “educational needs” broad enough to pay for Draco’s silk robes and eagle feather quills.  This time around, Harry intended to abuse the vault with even more abandon. After all, he had goals other than impressing a bunch of eleven-year-olds.

“Arcturus Black will be informed.”

Harry wasn’t sure what that would do to his plans. Sirius had mentioned that his grandfather didn’t leave his house after losing his wife. Harry had felt the same after Ginny died. It wasn’t even like they had some great romance–not after the first decade or so. But she was part of him, part of his life, part of his soul in a way that had ripped him in half when she died. And when Lily… his little girl… had followed two years later, Harry had climbed inside a bottle for a good decade.

Hermione insisted that had contributed to the terrible case of Olloxpox that had put him in his bed the last few years of his life.

But if he knew old men, and he did, Arcturus just wanted to be left alone until he could die–hopefully without a friend offering to ease his passing with the oh-so-perfect Mayan ritual.

“Tell him.  I don’t care. But I want an account linked to the muggle world.  Check on the tuition at Highgate Junior School and then triple the amount in muggle funds to pay for uniforms and books.”  Hermione had loved her private school, and Harry wasn’t going to keep attending school with Dudley. Besides, maybe he could help Hermione be a happier person this time around. Maybe he could encourage her to study Mayan much, much earlier so she didn’t screw up her translation.  More importantly, he’d convince her she didn’t have anything to prove and that people could like her without wanting to copy her homework.

At least, not again. He was well aware that young him had taken advantage of her need for friends more than once. But now he was old enough to do primary work on his own, thank you very much.

“I also need enough money to purchase a small wizarding tent, a high-end trunk, a new wizarding wardrobe befitting the House Black, and spending money equal to what Draco Malfoy receives.” Harry hoped having money wouldn’t end his friendship with Ron before it could take root. Adult Ron had been a steady rock. Until… Harry ripped his thought away from that moment. Even after Ron’s marriage with Hermione had fractured, he’s been the steadiest of friends. But young Ron didn’t know his own worth. He was still so caught up in who he wasn’t—he wasn’t the oldest or the funniest or the most handsome—that he didn’t yet value what he was.

Ron lifted everyone around him. He had taken a shy boy who had only learned about the magical world, and offered a friendship that had been an anchor in a chaotic world. He had supported a muggleborn wife all the way to the Minister’s office. He had dragged George back to life after Fred’s death.

But the Black family money might drive him away, and that made Harry’s heart ache. If he had his way, he would be part of the Golden Trio again, but he doubted it would happen. If nothing else, he refused to let children suffer the way the three of them had. Without the danger and pain to forge their bonds, he doubted they would have the same closeness.

The Black account manager narrowed his eyes, but Harry turned to the Potter account manager.  “Is my Potter educational vault available?”

“It is sealed. It will not open until your eleventh birthday.”  

Harry nodded. He’d suspected something like that, although he hadn’t known for sure.  His parents’ wills had never been found. Either they’d been idealistic enough to not make wills–which would have been stupid–or the scavengers who had looted his parents’ home before the Ministry locked it down had stolen it. Harry thought the second was more likely. It wasn’t like the wizarding world had shown his family much respect.

That was something else he needed to change. Fudge should be in office now. If Lucy could manipulate that jellyfish, then the Boy Who Lived with access to the Black fortune could, too.  Harry just had to move carefully because a nine-year-old with political aspirations would not end well. Especially not with Dumbledore.

“I need to hire the horde for crafting work, but I need to know the cost of a rather rare item.”  He had their attention now.  “Before I say more, I want your word on your goblin honor that you will ensure that word of this will never reach wizards’ ears.”  Harry stared at the two, hoping they understood that he was very serious about this.  The goblins looked at each other before the Potter goblin spoke. After all, he was Harry’s primary accountant.

“We will keep this from the wizards if they have no business knowing,” he said.  Harry wanted to demand more, but he didn’t have the status to even make a request.

He nodded.  “Fine.  I need a devil’s trap constructed.”  Four goblin ears turned pale.  “It must summon and hold a disembodied wraith. I have or can obtain two or maybe three of the soul pieces in the next few years. The other two, I can tell you where to find them.”  Harry was going to ignore the possibility that he still had a horcrux in his scar.  The piece might get summoned by a devil’s trap, which was designed by the horde in the 1100s to counter horcruxes. If not, then Voldemort could stay immortal, locked in a crystal in a vault in the deepest pit of the horde, for all eternity. Actually, that sounded like fitting punishment.  Either way, the horde would be able to handle horcruxes better than wizards.

Harry had never understood why Albus had never asked them for help.

“Two hundred and seventy thousand galleons,” the Potter accountant said.

Okay, that answered why Albus hadn’t asked for help. Merlin. Even the Black fortune would take a hit at that price.  Harry could wait until Voldemort returned, but by the time the goblins got off their neutral asses, too many good witches and wizards would be dead. 

The Potters didn’t have that wealth, and Harry didn’t have access to the Black vaults at this time.  He had future knowledge, but he didn’t remember the nineties all that well. He thought Apple was still doing well in this decade, and there was Amazon, but he didn’t know when that company even started. Still, he could put some Potter money in investments, assuming the goblins let him control any part of his family vault.

The basilisk might bring in thirty or forty thousand, assuming he wanted to go up against the queen of serpents again.  He didn’t like the idea of being that stupid, but if he were prepared, he could come up with a different plan than luck and the good graces of a phoenix.  Wait.  The sword.

“How much of a reward would you offer for the return of goblin-forged steel?”

“Which artifact?” the Black goblin asked.

Harry thought about the Room of Lost Things.  “I have no idea, but I think I might be able to find a number of pieces once I reach my majority.” He didn’t want to get more specific because if he said he wouldn’t have access until he was eleven, they would guess the artifacts were at Hogwarts. He didn’t want to tempt them to try and recover them without paying any finders’ fees. He could also probably make a nice sum from selling other abandoned treasures. Harry would feel guilty, only this was for a good cause.

The goblin narrowed his eyes. “You are a strange wizard child.”

Harry snorted. “You have no idea. Now, I need my Black allowance, half in muggle money, and I need the funds for the tent, wardrobe and trunk before I leave today.”

Chapter Three

Harry walked out of the bank with a Gringott’s two-sided wallet and a mental shopping list.  Wizards tended to give children more free reign, but even still, convincing merchants to let him buy big ticket items was going to be a challenge.  And until he looked like a wizard, no one would respect him.  It had been a long time since Harry had dealt with hard-core muggle prejudice, but he could see it in how mothers curled their lips at his oversized muggle clothing. They were so distracted they didn’t notice his distinctive scar.

But that was good. Harry would establish himself in Diagon before telling people his name. If he grew his hair long enough to soften the wild spikes and used muggle makeup on his scar, he could go by Harry Evans. He needed people to know the real him so they were less likely to believe the shite that got published about him later.  Since he was nine, he could change a lot before Dumbledore and Voldy even knew he was playing the game.

He felt a twinge of guilt.  Those two weren’t the same, and putting them together, even in his mind, felt disrespectful.  Harry had loved Dumbledore when he’d been young. Hell, he’d named his son after him.  And Snape.  Maybe he could blame that on repeated head trauma. But Dumbledore was different. Harry understood how much he had tried to fix everything. He’d risked his life hunting horcruxes, and had lost that battle.  He’d tried to manipulate fate so Harry would take a killing curse from Voldemort on the theory that the curse would target the soul shard first.

It was a mad theory with no magical evidence to support it, but Dumbledore had been brilliant.  Was brilliant. Is brilliant. Time travel did terrible things to verb conjugation.

But for all his good intentions, that man had done more damage than most of Harry’s enemies.  He had been so convinced that he could arrange life like a chess board that he had never left room in his plans for mistakes or ignorance. Oh no. The great Dumbledore could never be an idiot. An unmitigated, arrogant idiot.

Harry sighed.

Rather than go to Malkin, who was easily the biggest gossip in the alley, he headed for Twilfitt, smiling as a plan came to mind. 

Putting on his grumpiest face, Harry pushed the door open and stomped inside like he owned the place. He might have been channeling a young Draco just a little. He imagined how old Draco would have spluttered and yelled if he’d seen Harry’s impression.  He missed the irascible pissant.  He missed Scorpius more.  He wasn’t willing to consider all the people he missed more, most of which had shuffled off their mortal cores before he had.

“Are you lost, young man?”

“Great Uncle says I have to get rid of my muggle clothes, but I like them!” Harry wailed.  “They’re better than stupid old silk and velvet robes, and it’s not my fault I burned my robes. It’s accidental magic. It’s not fair.”  He kept his head down so his hair would cover his scar, but he peeked at the shopkeeper from under his lashes. Being this young had the advantage of making everyone underestimate him. Sure enough, the shopkeeper was trying to keep from smiling.

“Ah, young sir, I take it that you need a new wardrobe.”

“Not fair,” Harry grumped again before he pulled galleons out of his pocket.  The shopkeeper’s eyes grew large at the size of the pile he dumped on the closest chair since he couldn’t reach the counter.  “Great Uncle said I have to replace everything myself because I burned it and I need to learn re-pon-sibility,” he said, sounding out the last word. That might be overdoing the child thing, but maybe he could pretend to be a not-very-bright child.  This was far more amusing than he had anticipated.

“Well, let’s get you up on the platform, young sir.”

“Muggle clothes are extra comfortable,” he said one last time before stepping up.

“I’m sure they are,” she said, although she gave the clothing a look of disgust.  Harry didn’t know if that was anti-muggle sentiment or the fact that the clothes were terrible. Either was possible.  Harry played spoiled brat as he was measured for dress pants, button up shirts, open robes, formal robes, new underwear and all the accessories a young man of wealth would have.  Harry wore the most muggle outfit before slipping a green robe over it.

“Would you like me to shrink the rest, dear?”

“Yes, please,” Harry said, playing the part of a chastised child.  She tapped her wand on one of the special Twilfitt and Tattings boxes, shrinking down an entire wardrobe to matchbox size before handing it to Harry. He slipped it into his pocket.

“Come back next year and we can lower the hems,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. I have to get to my uncle now.  Thank you.” Harry hurried out of the shop and to the right where a wizarding sport shop sat. As he walked the block, he let himself shift into a new character. It was just like playing pretend with his great-grandchildren. He was good at that.  Better than his great-grandchildren, anyway. They couldn’t act to save their lives. 

A quick stop to get dragonskin boots and new glasses were much easier when he had robes that marked him as a well-off wizarding child. It helped that he was small and scrawny for his age, so most people likely thought he was seven or eight. Playing a child would grow old eventually, but right now Harry was too amused at how adults would give him discounts and offer him candy for a little simpering.  This would be why Draco was so spoiled–adult witches and wizards were entirely too willing to indulge children.

Harry eventually pushed through the door to the sport shop and bounced like a child hyped on sugar.  “I get to buy my very own tent!” he shouted.

A clerk stood up from behind the counter.  “Whoa there, young man. Where are your parents?”

Galleons made the world go ‘round–Harry learned that from Lucy. So he pulled out another big stack. Merlin bless the Black education fund and its ridiculous definition of ‘necessary supplies.’  

“Mommy gave me this much,” Harry said.  The clerk’s eyes grew wide.  “Mommy said I can set up my own tent next to hers, but she said it needs to have good ‘curity if I’m going to be sleeping alone. She said to make sure muggles can’t get in. I just want it to have a fireplace and a big bathtub and a pool and games, and room to fly a broom!” He waved his hand through the air like an imaginary broom flying through the air.  This was fun. Ridiculously fun. Harry felt a little guilty about torturing the merchants, but he hadn’t had this much fun in at least thirty years. 

Harry ran down the aisle between the wizarding tents and the portable quidditch hoops. The clerk chased him. “Oh. Be careful. Don’t go in there!” 

 “I love to fly!” he yelled as he ran. He stopped at a simple ridge tent that was small enough to fit into the fourth bedroom at the Dursleys. The flap was lifted, and Harry looked inside to see an Arabian themed sitting room with the fanciest stove he’d seen in the middle of the room and a riot of brightly colored tapestries overlapping on every wall and on the floor.

“Wow,” Harry said. No doubt it sounded like genuine awe in his childish voice, but the reality was that he was impressed with the absolute lack of taste. He’d traveled throughout Africa and the Middle East, and the decor was beautiful. The wizarding houses were carved stone or polished wood and tastefully decorated with colorful mosaic tile or woven displays, but this… it was dark and dreary and lacking the intricate detail Harry had seen in his travels, and the colors clashed and the textiles didn’t match. It looked like a junk shop.

“Perhaps you should go get your mother,” the clerk said when he caught up.

Harry waved a hand in his direction. “Mummy said I could pick what I liked, but that we were going to travel for a year, so I had to live in what I picked and if I picked bad, I had to suffer the con-se-quences. She even gave me the address to have the tent delivered tomorrow morning.”  By that time, Harry would have either gotten control of the Dursleys or he’d be hiding in the shed as step one of running away.  “I don’t think I’d want to live in here. If I spilled my milk, it would get smelly.”

Harry walked to the next tent while the clerk hovered over him, caught between wanting to make a sale and horror at having a child running around the store.  The next tent was done up inside like a castle, which wasn’t the worst decor in the world. The designer had clearly gone to Hogwarts and Harry felt a bit nostalgic stepping inside. However, the lighting charms were bad and the space was divided into four small bedrooms decorated like the four houses. That was a waste of space unless you had four people living in one tent, and anyone who could afford a tent like this wouldn’t share with that many people.

The third tent was too white and the fourth too red.  Harry was proud of his Gryffindor roots, but he didn’t want to live in something so violently red and gold.  He was starting to think he would have to live with the castle themed tent when he found a tent done up to look like a simple cabin inside.  It had two bedrooms–one small and one large–a single bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a small kitchen.

As a bonus, the furniture was modern and low, which worked for his currently too-short legs.

“I like this. Do I have enough money for this?” Harry asked with wide eyes as he held galleons out toward the clerk.  “Remember, Mummy says it has to be safe from muggles.”

“Muggle-repelling charms,” the clerk muttered absent-mindedly as he stared at the galleons.  “I really think I should talk to your mother.”

Harry channeled his inner Draco.  “I am from a proper family where young wizards learn to take charge of their ‘state. Mommy said I can take care of my own money now, and I don’t have to listen to people who don’t know how to respect their betters.”  Harry could name at least a dozen proper witches who might say something exactly like that, including Narcissa, and the clerk wouldn’t want to deal with any of them.

Sure enough, that was enough to make the clerk fold.  “Fine.  Let’s count the galleons and put in an order for the muggle repelling charms.” He shook his head before muttering, “Buying a kid his own tent. Some people have more money than sense.”  

Harry would agree if he wasn’t currently pretending to be impossibly young.  He arranged for the tent to be delivered the next day and then finished out his wizarding purchases with groceries and a food-stasis box, a wand from a maker in Knockturn Alley, and several dozen books on current events and Wizengamot law. After all, Harry was living in his version of history, and that had never been his best subject.

Knowing that he couldn’t trust accidental apparition to take him places, Harry slipped a large number of smaller coins into an expanded pocket. He was going to be making a lot of trips with the Knight’s Bus.  He needed muggle clothes and a few items to make sure the Dursleys stopped being a problem. But before he left the alley, he found a quiet corner so he could cast a spell safely.  

In a blind spot where a narrow path joined Alchem Alley, he raised his new wand and centered himself. He thought about when James had been born, squalling and waving his tiny fists. Harry had known pure love at that moment. Yes, he loved Ginny, but that love was also tinged with lust and responsibility and a tiny bit of resentment because she always woke him up too early. He liked a bit of a lie in.  But James… He had looked at his son and he knew love without limits.

“Expecto Patronum.”  Harry was afraid his immature core wouldn’t be able to cast the spell, but Prongs burst out of it, just as tall and proud as the first day Harry had managed the spell.  Hermione’s patronus had changed after she got married, and Ron’s had changed the day he had his first child, but Harry still had Prongs.

“Take a message to Sirius Black in Azkaban. After you deliver it, stay with him for as long as you can,” he said. Technically he didn’t have to articulate any of that, but he found saying it out loud helped focus the magic.  “Sirius Black, you are an innocent man, the best friend of James Potter, the godfather to Harry Potter, and the heir of the House of Black. You are not guilty, and you know it, so pull yourself together.”  Harry wished he could send food or warm clothing or anything useful, but hopefully seeing Prongs would start Sirius on the path to recovery. Harry was prepared to send Prongs every day until he could get his godfather a trial.

Now, he had chores in the muggle world, and time was running out because his primary school was going to let out soon.

Chapter Four

Grunnings was harder to find than Harry had expected, but then he hadn’t thought about his uncle’s work for decades.  Many, many, many decades.  The factory was as square and dirty and boring as Harry vaguely remembered. He and Hermione had hidden in the mechanical room of the factory for two days after they’d nearly been caught by Snatchers.

Harry cast a notice-me-not with his Knockturn wand and slipped in a side door while an employee was taking out the trash.  It was easy enough to slide along the shadows, using his magic to guide men to move out of his way. He scurried up the stairs, excitement making his heart pound.

He didn’t even know what he was going to do, but his revenge had waited a century. Merlin’s balls, he needed this. He couldn’t go back to living with Vernon unless he could entertain himself with memories of a truly vicious revenge. Harry slipped through a heavy fire door, the notice-me-not allowing him to slide between the heavy equipment that thunked and chugged and banged. 

How many times had Vernon bragged that life looked different from the ninth floor or that Harry would never understand how responsibility looked from floor nine?  Harry had always assumed that the ninth floor was the executive suite or something. No. It was just another factory floor, but the one where Vernon sweated and yelled and pretended he was better than anyone else. Harry watched him from across the room as Vernon abused a small man with a grey mustache. 

Vernon was red from yelling before he turned and stomped away to an office with a glass door labeled “Vernon Dursley, Director.”  A man was in there already, and Vernon went in and threw himself into the chair at the end of the table.

Harry moved to a shadowed spot close to the wall and cast an eavesdropping spell.

“... won’t put up with it,” Vernon snapped.

“You need to get your people in line. Otherwise, you’ll need to reduce your workforce to keep your costs in line,” the man in the nice suit said.

“Of course, of course. And I know just who I’ll fire first,” Vernon agreed. He looked out that glass office door, and Harry felt his ire rise.  The older man who had just been excoriated had retreated back to his machine with his shoulders hunched.  Vernon always bullied people who wouldn’t fight back, but Harry could fight now.

“As long as you get the profits back up, I don’t care how you do it.”  The man stood, and Vernon followed.  Harry flicked his wand, and Vernon’s chair slid an inch to the right. But Vernon had been leaning on it, so he stumbled to the side, grabbing the table to avoid falling down.  The suited man gave Vernon a strange look.  “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Vernon growled.  “I’m going to get the production line moving faster.”

The suit nodded.  “Do that.”

Harry waited until the suit turned his back, and then he flicked his wand so a pile of papers near Vernon fluttered to the floor.  The suit whirled back around, and Vernon stood frozen, his eyes wide.

“Did you throw those on the floor?”

“What? No! Of course not!” One last page landed on the ground. “They just fell.”

“They just fell?” the suit demanded.

“There must be a breeze in here.”  Vernon bent down to pick up the papers.

“Colloshoo,” Harry whispered.  Vernon’s shoe stuck to the ground and when he tried to step forward to retrieve more papers, he fell forward. He was too fat to recover and he faceplanted on the ugly industrial carpeting.

Harry knew he had to get out.  The spells he had used in a muggle area should have set off alarms in the DMLE. When he was the head Auror, he would have dispatched a pair to investigate prank spells in a muggle area. The last thing Harry wanted was a record for muggle baiting.

Especially since technically, Harry was guilty.

Vernon was still blustering when Harry cut the eavesdropping spell and slipped into the stairwell. He made it down to the street and cancelled his notice-me-not. Then he waited to see if Aurors would show up.

He moved to the carpark and waited near a van, watching for any wizards. Even the ones who had lived in the muggle world at one point seemed incapable of discretion, so Harry knew he’d recognize them.

So he waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Harry had thought he would get information on the response times of the DMLE, but instead he discovered that before the second war of Voldemort, no one gave a shit about muggle baiting.  He didn’t know why he was disappointed.  He remembered what it had been like when Hermione became Minister of Magic.  Ron had nearly strangled a few pureblood assholes who had objected to every idea Hermione presented.

And when Harry revealed that she had presented two of his ideas, they had all broken their necks trying to change their minds to support the Boy Who Lived.

Assholes.

But the idea that the DMLE either couldn’t or wouldn’t monitor for muggle baiting made Harry wonder what the hell the adults were all doing.  He wondered if the theft alarms were in place or if the DMLE let wizards steal from muggles. Part of Harry wanted to march down to the Ministry and read them all the riot act.

However, not even the Boy-Who-Lived could command respect, not when he was nine and he was going to tell adults that they were all useless pieces of crap that enabled the pureblood agenda and fed the anger that made Voldemort possible. After all, if the DMLE didn’t enforce laws, men like Lucy were going to feel more and more entitled because no one ever told them differently.  

With a sigh, Harry started walking toward the main road. He’d call the Knight Bus when he got farther away. He was almost off the Grunnings property when he had to leap into the bushes to avoid his uncle’s car hitting him.  His face was twisted with fury, and a security guard in a little cart raced after him.

“Mr. Dursley! Mr. Dursley!” the guard yelled.

Vernon slammed on the brakes and stuck his head out the window.  “I’m not drunk!” he screamed.

The guard drove his little cart faster. “I’m just supposed to check. You know. In case.”  The guard couldn’t be more than nineteen, and Harry knew Vernon wouldn’t listen.  Sure enough, Vernon hit the accelerator.

It was a terrible idea. Horrible really.  Aurors might show up at any time.  Still, Harry couldn’t resist. He grabbed his Knockturn wand and threw a quick hex.  Vernon’s car slid into the stop sign at the parking lot exit.

Laughing, Harry ran for the street. He wanted to get a block away before calling the Knight Bus. Harry was almost surprised that he got home to Privet Drive without Aurors showing up. He’d taken a stupid risk, but Harry kept grinning. Some danger was worth it.

He walked up to the Dursley house with a grin, but then he detoured to the back. He had work to do before everyone came home…. Assuming Vernon wasn’t in jail.

Harry had been home for an hour, enough time to sneak his clothes and a few supplies into his cupboard before changing into the worst of Dudley’s castoffs and finalizing his plans.  Then Harry waited in the bushes until Dudley waddled past with Piers. 

He hated his aunt and uncle for what they’d done to Dudley. They’d done more damage to his life than Harry’s, that’s for sure. Harry might not like the current version of his cousin, but from his perspective as a hundred-year-old man, he felt sorry for a little boy who had no way of knowing how much pain he would suffer because of his parents’ poor choices.

He’d gone to his cousin’s funeral. He’d watched his wife and children mourn so deeply that Harry had avoided them. After all, his own relationship with Dudley had been more complicated than the deep love Dudley had shared with his children.  Just like Dudley’s body had been damaged by poor parenting, their relationship had been irrevocably changed by the hatred they’d encouraged in Dudley’s youth.

Harry wondered if Dudley would still turn out to be such a good man if he didn’t nearly lose his life to a dementor.  Harry would not allow that event to happen because it wasn’t worth risking Dudley’s life out of fear that he might turn out like his father without it. Still.  Harry worried about his cousin.

Taking one last peek in the front window, Harry made sure his surprise was set up before he snuck around to the back door.  Sure enough, Petunia spotted him before he was halfway to his cupboard.

“There you are! The school called.  I had to call your uncle home to look for you, you ungrateful little monster. Where have you been?” She screeched the words, but Harry was far more offended by the content than the tone. Who called a child a monster?  Apparently Petunia Dursley. Wretched woman.  She caught him by the arm and dragged him into the front room.

His uncle had parked his fat ass on the couch, and Harry was dragged to the center of the room where his uncle regularly made him stand while detailing all Harry’s faults.  “Boy! What is the meaning of this? The school said you never got there.”  He was turning red in the face, and Harry inched to the side so the camera would have a good angle on his uncle.

“Dudley chased me, and my bag broke–”

“Don’t you dare blame Dudders!” Petunia yowled.  She put her hands on her hips, and Harry had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the ridiculousness.

“I’ve wasted my petrol driving around looking for you. Don’t you blame Duds for your bad behavior!” Uncle Vernon brought his hand down on the coffee table like he often did, but Harry timed a fall so that as Vernon’s hand came down, Harry hit the floor.  Vernon was already red in the face, and he skipped confusion and went straight to anger. He’d had a rough day. Harry would have felt bad for his uncle if he wasn’t such a monumental waste of human flesh.

“Do you think I don’t have anything better to do than search for you all day?” he demanded as if he’d actually been searching for Harry as opposed to dealing with a car accident after being kicked out of work for being drunk. Harry knew Grunnings couldn’t fire Vernon without a blood test or some sort of proof, but Vernon was going to have a much more difficult time at work now. And Vernon probably suspected as much before he was in a foul mood. He came around the coffee table and hauled Harry up by the arm.  Perfect.

“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Harry said in his most pathetic voice. Revenge was a dish best served cold, and he’d been dreaming about this for a century. Maybe he had respect for the man Dudley had become, but his aunt and uncle were worthless human beings. Petunia had been devoured by jealousy and resentment until she justified starving and neglecting a little boy who had only wanted love. Well, Harry wasn’t that little boy anymore and revenge sounded better than love.

And his uncle.  Everyone hated him. At work, he was a joke. Now he was a drunken joke at work.  At home, he had to buy his son’s love.  He was the most pathetic human being Harry had ever known, and he’d met Voldemort. Actually, Vernon was a lot like Voldy, only without any power. And fatter. And with a nose.

“He’s not sorry,” Dudley said.  “I told him he had to go to school, and he told me I couldn’t make him.” Snot-nosed liar.

“That’s because you’re a good boy who tries to do what’s right. But some people are just wrong, Duddums.” Aunt Petunia patted his head like he was a cute puppy.  “Don’t worry about your freak cousin.  Let’s go in the kitchen and get an after school snack.  And you…” Her head whipped around to glare at Harry. “You’ll go straight in the cupboard every day when you come home from school until you learn to not lie. And no supper for a week.”

Harry stifled an urge to smirk. Go on, he thought. Do your worst. Show the world your real self.

Vernon still had him by the arm, and he gave Harry a hard shake. Well, a medium shake, but Harry made sure to exaggerate the motion of his head as it flopped back and forth.  “If I catch you skiving off school again, I’ll tan your hide for you but good. We took you in when you didn’t have anywhere to go, but if you’re going to turn into a worthless freak like your parents, we’ll drop you off at the nearest orphanage.”

For the first time since Harry had woken up that morning, genuine anger swept through him. “My parents weren’t worthless or freaks!”  Harry’s parents had died over a hundred years ago, and he’d thought he’d worked through his grief and anger over their loss, but hearing Vernon say that brought back a mass of ugly feelings.

“They were freaks! They were drunks, and you’re turning into a worthless freak just like them!” Vernon’s mustache was wobbling like the stomach that hung over his belt, and Harry made a show of trying to escape his grip.

“You’re hurting me! Let me go!”

“I’ll show you hurt if you ever embarrass me like this again. The whole shop knows my nephew is a hooligan who runs the streets instead of going to school. Do you know how that makes us look?  You won’t be able to sit for a week if that school calls again. Got it?”  Vernon threw him at the chair, but Harry made a point of falling to the floor with a large cry and loud, wet sobs.

“Keep crying and I’ll give you something to cry about. Get in your cupboard.” Vernon hauled him off the floor and then dragged him to the cupboard, all within view of the camera set up in the front window.  Muggle technology plus a wizarding camouflage cloth made the perfect set up for someone who wanted blackmail material.  Harry wasn’t even upset as he sat in his cupboard. In fact, today had gone quite well.

The cupboard door slammed, and Harry let down his mental barriers and allowed himself to show his smug delight in the privacy of his little prison. He could take that tape to the muggle police, and he’d be removed from the Dursley’s custody before Dumbledore could react.

But that would make Dumbledore question Harry’s morals. After all, Voldy had grown up neglected and unloved. Harry didn’t need anyone drawing more parallels between them. Right now, Dumbledore truly believed that Harry had family to love him.  Oh, he’d thought Vernon would be a nightmare, but he’d convinced himself that the little girl who had wanted to go to Hogwarts with her little sister would find love in her heart for a nephew. He thought growing up with a cousin would make them as close as brothers.

His portrait had defended all his choices, even when he was devastated to learn how wrong he’d been. No. Harry would use the tape to control his relatives. They would do anything to avoid being judged as abusers, even though they were. They’d avoided leaving marks, but they’d starved him, locked him away, insulted him and his dead parents. They’d threatened him, swung objects at him with such regularity that he had developed a magical sense for when to duck.

A healer had identified that when she’d tried to check Harry’s reflexes. Harry wondered how many times he’d avoided death because his magic was always watching for a frypan or dish to be flung at his head.

He pulled out a sandwich and bottle of lemonade as he plotted the next steps.  He felt like he had the Dursleys well in hand, and a little luck would put him in Hermione’s school next year, so he could get his best friend back.

He and Ron had been closest in school, but after Ron died, he and Hermione had clung to each other. Once they were in their nineties, there were so few of them left who had fought the second Voldemort war. All their pain had been turned into a curiosity from history. Young people couldn’t imagine fearing a person the way Harry’s generation had feared old Voldy. But Hermione… she got him. And he got her. By the end, they were best friends, and he looked forward to finding her again.

Sorta. She would be a baby.  He missed his white-haired partner in crime. He missed the witch who would cackle when Harry made fools out of some Wizengamot members who thought their generation were too old to spot a political maneuver coming straight at them. He missed the woman he had raised children next to, the woman who had called him in a panic because Rose had purple spots and she’d been sure her little girl was going to die of Spatttergroit, and then it turned out to be grape juice.

The Hermione Granger-Weasley he knew was gone. He hadn’t sat with her through her divorce or cried on her shoulder when Teddy had moved to America.  He hadn’t gone to her inauguration as Minister of Magic and she hadn’t stood next to Ginny during their wedding. The woman he loved like a sister was gone, and at best he could have a Hermione Granger he loved like a great grandchild.

The cheese sandwich he’d been eating suddenly tasted like ash, and Harry wrapped it up again before tucking it into his pocket.

Chapter Five

The next day, Petunia pulled him out of his cupboard to help with breakfast like usual, only Harry took his bread and beans into the backyard. An owl swooped down, and Harry untied the package and hid it under a loose board in the shed before going back inside.  Despite the threats, he was going to miss school again today. He had a tape to copy and a bit of blackmail to arrange. 

Harry left early, retrieving the tape before calling the Knight Bus for a short trip to an office supply store.  It was easy to make copies of the tape and have them labeled with the store’s name and copy number.  The Knight’s Bus took him back to Privet Drive, and Harry walked into the house before school had officially started.

“Aunt Petunia!” he called as he walked in, bold as brass.

“What in the world? You wretched boy!” She came out of the kitchen, pulling the door closed behind her.  Harry sniffed the air. That smelled like cigarette smoke.  Apparently Petunia was not as perfect as she liked to pretend.

“Don’t be like that Auntie. You need to call me out of school sick and then you should come look at what I made copies of.” Harry gave her a bright smile, and he enjoyed it greatly as her expression darkened.

“Do you think I care about anything of yours,” she demanded.

“Considering you could be arrested if someone else saw this, I would think you’d be interested.” Harry waved the tape, his smile growing malicious. This was the expression that had terrified Greengrass’s obnoxious elder son into abandoning his stupid anti-muggle legislation.

She froze, staring at Harry with wide eyes.

“Come into the front room, and let’s put this on the VCR,” Harry suggested, lifting his tape higher.  He went over and slipped it into the machine before turning on the television.

The front room appeared on the television, and Petunia eased into the room like a rabbit in a room of dogs.  Funny, Harry hadn’t thought he was doing anything scary yet.  When Harry appeared on the screen, she lost all her color. The camera had been at a particularly good angle. Vernon would definitely be charged with physical abuse off this tape alone, and the things he and Petunia were saying… well, the neighbors would never call them normal again.

“I also have pictures of my cupboard under the stairs and photos of me walking to school in Dudley’s oversized clothes and trainers with holes in the soles. Would you like to see?” Harry gave Petunia a bright smile. Wizarding cameras were both amazing and capable of taking still photographs.

Her hands were trembling.  “You can’t… I won’t…” She rushed over and pulled the tape out of the VCR. Then she looked at the label.  “Copy 5.”  She wilted into the nearest chair.

“Auntie, you need to call the school and say I’ve gone to visit family,” he said, “and then we need to get Dudley’s second room cleared out.  I’ve bought a tent to set up. It will be like I’m camping out every night. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?” he asked.

She stared at him.

“Of course, I really shouldn’t be helping you with breakfast in the morning. That’s not normal,” he continued. “So you’ll cook by yourself, and for every chore you give me, you’ll give Dudley an equal chore. Either we can both help you or you can do all the work yourself.” Really, Harry was just helping her be a better parent. This would probably turn out better for Dudley, too. 

She kept staring.

“This year, I’m going to finish at my primary school, but I’ve already arranged for me to get funding for Highgate Junior School next year. You’re going to call and explain that my cousin has sabotaged my work and my grades and you want me to have a fresh start. You’ll need to talk fast to convince them to let me take their test, but if you can get me a placement interview, I’ll get into the school. Then you can brag about me going there.”  

He beamed at his aunt. She scowled back at him, but then Petunia and Vernon had never taken any pride in Harry’s accomplishments. Having him go to a prestigious school while Dudley went to the local primary would not make them happy. Having the whole neighborhood know about it would be significantly worse.

“You wretched boy,” she whispered, her hands fluttering around her neck. She was such an ineffectual and selfish woman. Harry didn’t know how she had come from the same parents as Lily.  Sure, Harry’s three children were different. Albus Severus was his trouble-maker, always trying to prove himself. James Sirius was too serious, and never laughed when Harry made a pun out of his name.  His oldest was pretty much the opposite of either man he’d been named for. And then there was Lily. His timid Lily.

They were all so different, but for all that, they all believed in doing right, even when they disagreed on what right meant. They were all strong people who were fiercely loyal to their friends. Harry wasn’t sure he and Draco would have become such allies if it weren’t for Albus and Scorpius being so devoted to one another.

But Harry could see no similarities between Petunia and Lily Evans. It made it easier for Harry to focus on his revenge without thinking of her as a relative.

“Now, now, auntie. You don’t want the cameras to catch you being a bad foster mother and auntie, do you?”  He skipped toward the door as she was clutching her neck and looking around in fear.  “Don’t forget to call the school,” Harry called over his shoulder before heading out to the shed.  He had a tent to set up and purchases to unpack, and he couldn’t do it with magic. If Harry knew old Albus–and he did–then he had monitoring charms set up.

That started a new daily routine for Harry. After twenty years of being essentially bed-bound, he wasn’t going to waste his youth.  He got up in the morning, ate out of his wizarding kitchen and then headed to Diagon Alley on the Knight’s bus.  Not only did he want to establish himself before anyone knew he was Harry Potter, but he also needed to cast magic, and he couldn’t do that from Privet Drive.

So he would find a quiet alley corner, cast his Patronus and then drag his exhausted ass to a new place for lunch.  He’d seen Draco from a distance, and he was even more obnoxious than Harry remembered.  He thought about taking pictures for blackmail when Draco was white-haired and reasonable and embarrassed about his wait-until-my-father-hears-about-this past.

Sometimes that led Harry to have an existential crisis.  Harry had no plan to wait for Voldy to return.  None.  Too many good people had died. However, without the horror of those years, would Draco turn out to be the same person?  Thirteen-year-old Draco had cackled about mudbloods dying, and the seventeen-year-old version had protected Harry and Hermione in Malfoy Manor only because he’d seen so much death and torture that he understood the true horror of it.

Would he ever become the white-haired ally Harry remembered from the Wizengamot?  Those were the sorts of questions that made him want to lose himself in a bottle of fire whiskey, but he was fairly sure that nine was too young for that foolishness, and a hundred and twenty was definitely too old for it.

Harry had just gotten back from Diagon Alley on a random Thursday when an eagle owl swooped down at him.  He staggered under the bird’s weight and sat behind a bush, hoping his neighbors hadn’t seen.

Untying the note, he read the parchment.

Huh. He’d been right that Arcturus was too old and tired to come out of his house, but he’d been wrong about him wanting to be left alone. The old man had demanded that Harry come to him or risk being cut off from the Black educational fund.

That couldn’t happen. Harry had too many plans that required him to be outfitted properly, and the Potter educational fund was only enough to cover books and apprentice fees.  Yes, apprentice fees were high and he could spend those galleons on clothes, but he didn’t want to. He wasn’t a fool like Lucy who spent all his money trying to look wealthy when he wasn’t. 

It looked like he had to meet the late and not lamented Arcturus Black.

Chapter Six

Black Manor was much more impressive than Grimmauld Place, but was just as dark and oppressive.  Harry knew magic wasn’t sentient–Hermione had given him that lecture at least a half-hundred times.  However, every time he stepped foot on Black property, he still felt a cold dread, like something ancient and powerful was dragging itself to its grave.

When Harry knocked, the door swung open with an ominous creak that was so predictable that Harry smiled.  “Hello?”

No one answered, but Harry felt a tugging on his magic.  He followed it down a marble hallway with taxidermy heads lining the walls.  A snarling nundu was followed by an arcomantula and then a manticore and a horned serpent. He wondered if a Black ancestor had killed them or only bought the preserved heads.

He ended up in front of double doors that led into a formal sitting room with an old man standing next to the fireplace.

“Who are you?” Arcturus Black looked far more intimidating than his portrait. Maybe it was the aura of dark magic that filled the room like thick wood smoke.  Harry’s mother had neutral gray magic, like most muggleborns, and the Potters were light.  The heavy dark magic was like an itch under Harry’s skin.

However, some of his favorite people had dark magic, so he had grown used to the feeling and he didn’t let it drive him to irrational assumptions. Like Dumbledore had.  As a strong light-magic mage, he had no doubt been uncomfortable around anyone with significant amounts of dark magic, but instead of accepting that incompatible magic was a simple truth with no moral implications, he had assumed anyone dark was untrustworthy.

Harry stepped into the room, feeling the wards snap at him in warning. “I’m Harry Potter.” Harry wasn’t lying, but from the unamused look Arcturus was giving him, the other man assumed he was.

Acturus snorted. “I have an identification ward set up. You are a wizard of a hundred and twenty one.  Harry Potter is ten.”

“Nine, and I’m both nine and a hundred and twenty one.  It’s complicated.”

Arcturus stood so his right hand was hidden behind his leg. He was, no doubt, holding a wand and had a battle spell ready to unloose. “Uncomplicated it.”

Harry shrugged. “A Mayan ritual, a friend who wanted to help me pass to the next world gracefully, and a fundamental misunderstanding of Mayan runes.” 

Acturus stared at him for a long minutes before he started laughing.  He laughed and then guffawed and ended up nearly choking for air.  “The Mayans believed in spiraling universes.  She banished you from your rightful universe and sent you to an adjacent one. Your friend is a fool who does not understand the most fundamental tenets of Mayan magic.”  He walked to the nearest armchair and sat, both his hands now visible.

Harry moved to the chair across from him, sitting and tucking his legs up cross-style since they wouldn’t reach the ground. “I would argue that she’s the smartest witch I know, but if it’s not written in a book or if she hadn’t been given the right book, it’s possible you’re right.”

“Of course, I’m right.”

“But if that’s true, what happened to the Harry Potter of this universe?” Harry hated the idea that he had destroyed a little boy who hadn’t yet gotten a chance to live. His life would have been difficult, but in the end, it had been a life worth living. Harry had family and friends and love. It didn’t make up for what he had lost, but it had given him a life worth living. 

Arcturus shrugged. “He was bumped into a different universe. Most Harry Potters won’t notice, but that is banned magic for a reason. There’s no predicting what the consequences will be on the other universes.”

Harry wished he could express surprise that Herminone had broken the law for him, but she was the same girl who, at eleven, had set a teacher on fire to save him.  At a hundred and twenty-two, she didn’t have many fucks to give for what other people thought.

“That means my children are still out there.” Well, except for Lily who had passed before him. No parent should ever outlive their child.  Harry understood his mother’s sacrifice now because he would have given his life for his little girl without a moment’s hesitation. He just hadn’t been given that option. His mind conjured two twisted bodies from the depths of his memory, and he forced it away.  He’d learned occlumency out of self-preservation because that day….

Arcturus tapped the arm of his chair. “They remained in your universe when you were magically ejected. I cannot believe a witch would be so foolish.”

Harry shrugged. “The old often think they know everything… even when they definitely don’t.” Harry kept his gaze on Arcturus, and the man bridled at the implied insult.

“And now you are stuck in this body,” Arcturus said coldly.

“Worse, I’m stuck having to live through this bloody war all over again.”

“Our universes have significant differences. The war ended nine years ago.”

Harry studied the old man. He had no idea which side he’d been on, but he did know that Arcturus had left Sirius as the Black heir and he’d never carried the Dark Mark.  Harry needed an ally–one that was old enough to walk into a store without clerks either cooing at him or trying to chase him out.  Maybe he should be more cautious, but he’d always led with his emotions, and his heart told him to trust another tired old man caught in the maw of history.

“Another war is coming. It started at the end of my fourth year at Hogwarts and turned into exterminations, torture and the open takeover of the Ministry by my seventh. By the time I defeated him again, the wizarding world was in shambles. Seeing Diagon Alley now, I can say that a hundred years later, it still hasn’t fully recovered.”

Arcturus stared at Harry blankly.  “Who restarted the Merlin-damned war?” His voice was like ice.

“Voldemort, whose real name is Tom Riddle.”

Arcturus sat up straighter. “But… he’s dead.”

“Sorta,” Harry said wearily.  “He has horcruxes. I’ve talked to the horde about creating a Devil’s trap, but the cost is exorbitant, and because I’m a child, it’s hard to use my future knowledge to make enough money to cover the cost.”

“You don’t have knowledge of the future,” Arcturus said. “You have knowledge of a near universe.”

“Near enough that everything has matched so far,” Harry said. “And that means Sirius is innocent.  They switched the secret keeper to Peter Pettigrew and the Ministry sent Sirius to Azkaban without a proper trial where he could defend himself.”

Arcturus blinked at him, horror slowly taking over his features. “Today is all about fools who do not understand the underlying magic of the universe. Horcruxes strip a person of all reason.”

“That would explain Voldemort. Not only is he violent and illogical, cursing his own people as often as killing his enemies, but he resurrected without a nose.”

“And Sirius is innocent?” Arcturus had a fragile hope in his voice.

“In my universe, he died fighting to protect me.  He never sympathized with the Death Eaters.  I’ve been sending him a Patronus every day to give him some relief from the dementors, but by the time I was thirteen, his sanity was questionable.” Questionable. That was putting it kindly.  Harry only hoped the patronus visits could mitigate the damage Azkaban was doing.

Arcturus took a long, shuddering breath.  “Sirius and Narcissa were supposed to be the salvation of our family if the light won.  Regulus and Andromeda were to champion us within the dark coalition.  But now… it is all gone.  Two thousand years of magic and family and a grand history, and it hangs on one man who is unjustly imprisoned and losing his sanity more every day. All our plans lay in ruins."

Harry frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Rubbing a hand over his face, Arcturus leaned back in his chair, all the pureblood starch draining from him.  “Andromeda was to marry Lucius, hopefully tempering his more… aggrandizing habits.  Narcissa was destined for Fabian Prewitt, who was a great wizard, but who was far too rash. She would inspire more caution.  Of Orion’s children, Sirius was to stay with the light and Regulus fight for the dark.  That way, no matter what happened, the Black family would recover.  But now… it’s all gone… and you tell me that the death of our great family means nothing?  I will not have it!” He slapped his hand down on the side table hard enough to knock a book to the floor.

“We could still rescue Sirius,” Harry said cautiously. He understood how losing family tore a person up, and Arcturus had lost far more than Harry ever had.  While he didn’t approve of setting children up like chess pieces as the Black family had, to lose all of them was unthinkable.

“We have to,” Arcturus said with a fierce anger.  “The Black family will not fall to a fool who has used horcruxes. Do you know where we can find evidence that they changed the secret keeper?”

“Better. I know where to find Peter Pettigrew. But good old Lucy is going to try and cover this up,” Harry warned.

“Lucy?”

“Lucius Malfoy.”

Arcturus’s face transformed into a terrifying smile.  “I can handle that upstart. I think it’s time for Lord Black to return to the Wizengamot, and we need to plot how to get our hands on Pettigrew. You should move in here so we can make plans. I need to know what happened in your universe if we are as close as you claim in the spirals of reality.”

“I can’t move in.”

Arcturus’ smile turned cold. “I assure you, you can. You have a Black grandmother and I have the power to demand my rights as the only head of house you have left. That claim is only strengthened by the fact you are Sirius’ heir.”

“And if I move in here, Dumbledore will assume I’m dark or that Voldy’s curse is corrupting me or that I need to be taken in hand and reeducated before the Black values can stain me,” Harry argued. He hated his small, childish voice because it was clear that Arcturus was ignoring his words.

“The Black family has thousands of years of greatness. How dare you refer to us as a stain!” Arcturus was turning red, and Harry could see some of the same wild fury Sirius sometimes lost himself to.

“You are not a stain,” Harry hurried to assure him. “Sirius was the only father figure I ever had. He died for me, and I named my son after him. James Sirius. Narcissa’s son eventually got over the spoiled, entitled attitude he was raised with and became one of my greatest allies. I have no problem with those who wield dark magic or with the Black family.  Hell, Narcissa saved me during the coming war.”

Arcturus’ fury faded and he studied Harry. “Then you can live here. I have chosen to absent myself from the Wizengamot and Ministry. If I choose to get involved again, Dumbledore will not have the power to stand against me.”

“Too many people believe the Black family is evil,” Harry said. “That is one of the main reasons why everyone assumed Sirius was guilty.”

“That and his insistence that he was guilty.  He proclaimed it to everyone at the scene of the crime.” Arcturus’ anger was simmering just below his skin. 

Harry understood him. As a young man, he’d believed he could fix everything if he just worked hard enough. That’s why Sirius’ death had torn him apart. He had felt like he could have saved his godfather if he’d just been stronger or faster or smarter.  

But he had been a child put up against Voldemort and his natural allies were hiding so much information that he had bumbled around in the dark.  But old men understood how much of life couldn’t be controlled. It left them with a simmering bitterness that made them hate the world.

“I don’t know if he got hit with a befuddlement charm or if he lost his sanity for a moment, but I do know his only guilt was convincing my parents to change the secret keeper. He always felt like he’d killed them because that had been his suggestion.”

Arcturus ran his fingers through his hair. “That does sound like something the young fool would do. He was Gryffindor down to the last fiber of his soul, and that comes with a prodigious amount of guilt and the misguided belief one must fix every wrong in the world.”  Arcturus studied Harry. “What house were you?”

Harry grinned. “Gryffindor, and I fit the stereotype well.  But I had a Gryffindor, a Slytherin and a Ravenclaw as children. I don’t hold with house prejudice.”

Arcturus leaned back in his chair.  “Where do you plan on staying?”

“With my muggle relatives,” Harry said.  Arcturus looked on the verge of objecting, so Harry continued.  “I have blackmailed them into leaving me alone. I have tapes of them being abusive, and I staged circumstances to make it look far worse than it ever was.”

“Are you sure you aren’t Slytherin?”

“I am a parselmouth and the hat wanted me in that house,” Harry admitted, amused by the shock on Arcturus’ face. “But I had met Draco, and young Draco was far too obnoxious for me. I refused to share a room with him. I chose to go to the house with Ron Weasley, the first child to be kind to me.”

“Is Draco that bad?”

“Oh Merlin, yes,” Harry said with a laugh. “He became a good man, but he never stopped being embarrassed about his years of calling for the deaths of mudbloods and telling everyone ‘I’m going to tell my father about this.’ He was horrible.”

Arcturus frowned. “I had thought Narcissa would be a better mother.”

“Draco is handicapped by having Lucy as a father,” Harry said.  “But I am a Gryffindor. I sacrificed myself to save the world too many times, but in this world, I plan to kill my enemies without the self-sacrifice.” Harry wondered if that would be another crack in his friendship with Ron. He was the epitome of a Gryffindor, always leading with his emotions and charging forward. He wouldn’t approve of Harry’s choice to work in the shadows. Older Ron might get it. He would get it. Even the most staunch of Gryffindors learned something about politics when married to the Minister of Magic, but young Ron….

“And yet you insist on living with muggles.”

“I have a wizarding tent in one of the bedrooms, so it’s not significantly different than living in a magical household.”

“Except that you’re trapped in the muggle world.” Arcturus waved a hand and a pot of tea and two cups appeared next to him.  Steam rose from the cups, and Harry tried to avoid thinking about possible house elves being trapped here when the manor caught on fire in Harry’s third year.

“I have coin for the Knight Bus and I can apparate.”

Arcturus studied him for a long time, and Harry tried to avoid fidgeting. He might have an adult mind, but it was trapped in a child’s brain and body. After several long minutes where Arcturus sipped his tea, he said, “If you apparate, someone is going to notice.”

“Eventually,” Harry agreed, “which is why I am primarily using Knight Bus.  I can take it into London and cast magic only from one of the allies.”

“Your wand?”

“Crafted in Knockturn,” Harry said. “If Dumbledore finds out I’m visiting the magical world, I plan to tell him that my muggle aunt dropped me off at the Leaky Cauldron to get books to handle my accidental magic. I know in my childhood I did everything from shrinking clothes to regrowing hair to accidental apparition and turning my teacher’s hair blue. It seems logical she might have done that, even if she was never bright enough to figure out a child can’t control accidental magic without some help.”

“What will you do if Dumbledore visits your aunt?”

Harry scoffed. “He never bothered to visit before. When I was eleven, I begged to stay at Hogwarts, and he refused. He even told me that he knew he was condemning me to some dark days with Vernon, but he couldn’t be bothered to check on me.”

“Don’t count on your knowledge of another universe to hold true here.” Arcturus rubbed his knuckles across his chin. “How good are you with mind magics?”

“I worked hard to learn occlumency,” Harry said.  As an auror, he’d needed to.  The skill was the only way to combat some phobia spells or the effects of magical creatures like boggarts.  “However,” he added, “my adult mind is stuck in a child’s brain. I lack the focus or control to do most mind magic.”

Arcturus sucked air through his front teeth.  “If I get caught legitimizing or obliviating muggles, I’m going to have a cell next to Sirius, but we need more than blackmail material to keep the muggles in line.”

“You shouldn’t risk yourself.”

Arcturus gave a wry laugh. “If you’re a hundred and twenty, then you know that I’ve reached a point where keeping myself safe isn’t as important anymore. If your friend tried to help you move to the next world, you know that. If I have to take a few risks for you or Sirius, I will. I’ve lived with the idea that the Black family came to an end with me. I’ll do whatever is required to make sure it survives another generation.”

Harry would argue, only he knew exactly how Arcturus felt.  The deaths of Ginny and Lily had left him so unmoored that he’d lived in a bottle for years. He would have sacrificed him in a heartbeat if it meant saving Hermione or Ron or one of his sons. “I don’t want either of us to get caught up in Dumbledore’s schemes or run afoul of the DMLE.”

“Keep using words like ‘afoul’ at nine, and I’m not going to be the one raising suspicions.”

Harry laughed. “You might have a point.”

“I usually do,” Arcturus said.  “We’re going to free Sirius and end that upstart Riddle. We’ll put the Black family back on top, and the world is going to find out how much two old men can accomplish.”

Harry grinned back. He had his ally. “That they are.”

Chapter Seven

Sirius huddled in the corner, waiting with his ears pricked forward.  Prongs leapt through the wall of the prison, and Sirius changed back into a human, eager to soak up every moment of James’s love.  “Sirius Black, you will not give up, you hear me?” he demanded in the pre-pubescent voice Sirius remembered from the train when they’d first met.  Sirius nodded. If James believed in him, nothing else mattered. The prison didn’t matter. The tattooed prison number on his neck didn’t matter. The ribs that stuck out from starvation didn’t matter. 

“I know you studied occlumency. You need to start using it to get your thoughts in order.”

That was surprising. Sirius hadn’t thought James knew about that. Occlumency was dark, and James hated anything to do with the dark, but if James thought it was important, he’d try. 

He just wasn’t sure how to do it. When he was in Padfoot’s form, he couldn’t think well enough to practice, but if he stayed human around the dementors, he would lose more of himself. He had so few happy memories left.  He’d always been told that dementors fed on fear, yet he found the good memories were the ones that were consumed.  He hadn’t even remembered James’ small, squeaky voice from first year until he’d heard it again.

“I’ll try,” Sirius promised the glowing patronus.  “I’ll try James, but…” He didn’t want to make it sound like his failures were James’s fault. He didn’t. But while Prongs always looked over him for a few minutes, it wasn’t enough for occlumency.

But that wasn’t the point. James wanted him to practice, and Sirius would do it.  He shifted into a cross-legged position and closed his eyes, soaking up the love from the Patronus as he tried to find his mental shields. His mind palace had been Hogwarts with all her secret passages.  He’d hidden his most guarded memories under Honeydukes. Now his mind was full of misty impressions instead of stone walls and fog where there should be corridors full of armor and children rushing to class. He hadn’t realized how close to insanity’s edge he’d wandered until he explored his own mind.

Too soon, the patronus faded, and Sirius felt the darkness press against his mind. He should practice occlumency, but he wanted to hide in Padfoot. He was caught between the two thoughts, and he trembled with indecision.

Before he could decide what to do, a new patronus appeared. It was a bird–an odd one with what looked like armor protruding from its head and a bright blue neck and it was huge–almost as tall as Sirius.  His grandfather’s voice came from its beak.  “Sirius, someone has recently convinced me they have evidence of your innocence. I will get you out, even if I have to burn the world down.” The bird stared down at Sirius, making him feel five years old and scared of upsetting his mother by showing poor table manners in front of his grandfather. But the bird just watched him.

“Grandfather?” Sirius asked.  He’d never heard of a patronus carrying a voice, and he wasn’t sure whether the person on the other end could hear him.  James could because James was dead. He was watching over Sirius; he saw all Sirius’ failures. But his grandfather should be alive. “Grandfather, I did it. I told James to change the secret keeper to Peter.  That little piece of shite tricked me. Me. I was so sure I was the cleverest Marauder, and he tricked me into helping him kill my best friend. My cousin. My brother in all but blood.  It’s my fault he’s dead.”

Sirius took a shuddering breath. He wanted to throw himself at the bars and let the dementors torture him, but James had ordered him to get himself together. He couldn’t let James down. And Grandfather’s patronus was staring at him judgmentally.

“But I’ll do it.  I’ll get myself together. I promise.”

After a second, Sirius got back to his occlumency.  Why would James have gone to his grandfather and not Dumbledore?  Sirius knew it was James. He’d seen that Patronus often enough to recognize it. And if anyone could figure out how to send magic across the veil, it would be James Potter. He was a powerhouse.

But why didn’t James trust Dumbledore? Dumbledore had kept secrets at the end.  He’d told James and Lily that Voldemort was targeting them specifically, but he’d refused to explain why he believed that. He’d even given them the fidelus spell, telling them it would keep them safe. Sirius had even taken his concerns about Moony to Dumbledore–he’d explained that Remus had been pulling away from them. He’d been afraid that Remus’ insecurities would lead him to disappear into the packs where he could be ‘normal.’  

Dumbledore had dismissed all his concerns. Did James have a reason to believe Grandfather was more trustworthy than Dumbledore? Could he see some truth from the afterlife–one he hadn’t seen when alive? Dumbledore wasn’t evil. He wasn’t. But maybe he wasn’t all good.  Was that why James chose his grandfather instead?

Sirius was so confused, but James had told him to get his mind in order, and he set about the task.  He didn’t have much time since he would have to hide in Padfoot when the patronus failed, but either his grandfather had a lot more magical reserves or it took enormous amounts of power to get a spell across to the world of the living because where James’s patronus failed after a few minutes, Grandfather Arcturus’ stood guard over him for a long time. Maybe even an hour. And by the end of an hour, a tiny seedling of hope had taken root.  

When the bird patronus vanished, Sirius turned back into Padfoot and curled around a small curl of hope. James had reached out to him.  He might be dead, but he could still reach Sirius and tell him what to do.  Sirius needed James to be his moral north star because Sirius had never learned to be a good person. He held onto his brother-of-choice and let James guide him.

And now he had James back.

Sirius guarded his new found hope, even as the rest of his mind was lost to the horror of Azkaban.

Chapter Eight

Summer went fast, in part because Harry spent most of it in Diagon Alley making the merchants love the young muggleborn “Harry Evans.”  He helped shelve books at Flourish and Blotts in return for hearing Blotts’ stories of the war with Grindelwald.  He bought ice cream and asked Florean Fortescue for stories from the founding of Hogwarts.  

A hair potion and muggle makeup had made him invisible to Harry Potter spotters, and for the first time, Harry got to enjoy being a normal person wandering Diagon Alley.

He’d seen Ron from a distance, and his heart had contracted with pain. He looked so young and happy, but the image of Ron’s face twisted in pain and death haunted him.  It hadn’t mattered how many people Harry had tracked down and arrested, or more likely killed, nothing had ever erased the image of his first friend’s body lying on that street.

And Harry refused to let himself remember what had laid just behind Ron, partially shielded. Because of course Ron had been loyal to the end. Maybe he forgot it once in a while, but when spells flew, Ron always ran to their side.

Harry had turned away from the Weasley family, afraid that he might cry if he didn’t. But for the most part, Harry had loved the summer he turned ten.  The Dursleys were terrified of him, Dudley was confused and hurt every time his mother screamed at him to leave Harry alone, and Harry could wander the alleys and see what the UK had lost during the second Voldemort war.

Diagon was so much more vibrant and alive than it had been when Harry had been an adult. Even Knockturn lacked the hard edge of fury and desperation. People on the street would laugh and joke before trying to steal from one another.

And the public library still existed. Harry had only heard about the building. Voldemort had burned it, and creating books with anti-theft, anti-copying, return-to-owner spells embedded deeply enough into the paper to prevent thieves from stripping them off had been too expensive to rebuild a library that had been built over three centuries.

Harry had haunted the halls, searching the public records for anything that might help Sirius. He had gotten a trial–he just hadn’t been allowed to attend it. And neither had anyone to represent him. Harry was working through the laws that governed trials of purebloods, which were different from the rules for muggleborn, but it was slow going.

Harry had never been great at learning from books, and these legal codes hadn’t been cleaned up by Hermione, who had been so obsessive about making the legal system usable that she had sacrificed her marriage. She might have lost her children too if Ron hadn’t explained how important their mother’s work was.  He had been such an amazing father until…. 

Their kids had resented Hermione, but all of them had understood their mother’s desperation to make sure the legal system was robust enough to prevent another war.

The tangled mess of the current laws made it impossible for Harry to make real headway, so all he could do was try to find cases where people got new trials, and send the information to Arcturus.  That and send Sirius a patronus twice a day.  That pushed the limits of Harry’s immature magical core, but he had enough control to give Sirius that much help.

But summer came to an end too quickly.  And now Harry was faced with the next part of his plan.

Harry looked at the school and took a deep breath. The website was promising. Harry knew nothing about technology and very little about science. Maybe this time around, he would keep up with his muggle education and get his A-levels and a college degree. Hermione had changed the fields of Transfiguration and Charms by bringing her knowledge of science to her magical education. While Harry would never take away her successes, he could try to find his own advances.

Besides, fencing looked like a blast, and joining the calligraphy club would improve his quill writing next year when he went to Hogwarts.

He sighed. Yeah, he was trying to justify to himself why he was going to school with ten-year-olds.  This was going to be miserable, but Arcturus was right that he couldn’t do much for the cause other than pretend to be a child.

Arcturus had approached the Weasleys, telling them that he regretted that Narcissa had married Lucius and not Fabian, and asking them for help because he didn’t want Lucius or Draco to inherit the Black library. That meant the books needed to have the curses broken so non-family members could read them. They’d been suspicious, but Bill had just turned twenty and was interested in seeing the Black library, so Arcturus was making progress on getting close to Pettigrew.

Arcturus had seen the rat.  He had more patience than Harry because when he’d told Harry about the disgusting thing riding around on fourteen-year-old Percy’s shoulder, Harry wanted to march over to the Burrow right that instant and blast it.

But Arcturus was right about being patient.  The world was changing from what Harry remembered, both for him personally and for the larger wizarding world. Not that Harry minded. Arcturus had adjusted the Dursley’s to make them more disdainful and distant than abusive, which confused the shit out of Dudley, but which made Harry’s life infinitely easier.

A little sadder because Harry had enjoyed torturing the Dursleys with his blackmail material, but Arcturus had been right that Dumbledore would be less suspicious of Harry if their plots were discovered early. And with the world shifting away from the one Harry had known, he couldn’t promise it wouldn’t happen.

Another change was that Arcturus had a chilly truce with Dumbledore as they worked together to freeze Lucy out of power. He was also using his new position as an involved member of the Wizengamot to monitor the news that the DMLE was investigating why two Patronus visited Azkaban every day to tell Sirius he was innocent.  When Fudge had called for the trial records, people were even more confused because Sirius had not appeared at his own trial because he’d already been imprisoned.

Arcturus was gently pushing people to reopen the investigation and making political alliances while Harry had nothing to do but attend school and pretend to be ten. It was torture. And as someone who had endured a fair amount of torture in his life, he could say that with authority.

A teacher came out to greet him, a smile on her face. “You must be Harry Potter.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Harry smiled up at her, but she was looking around on the street.

“I expected to meet your aunt here.”

Harry made a production out of frowning. “Aunt Petunia is upset because… you know.” He shrugged. The reality was that she hated having to blame her precious Dudders for the horrific bullying and even Arcturus’s mental remapping couldn’t change that, but she was still allowing Harry to change schools. But Harry let the teacher assume that she was having trouble knowing her nephew was so much smarter than her son. He saw the moment when the teacher decided that Dudley Dursley was not the only bully in that home. Harry imagined quite a few smart kids had parents who didn’t know how to handle them.

Hermione adored her parents, but she said she often felt like she let them down by not being more social.

“Well, never you mind,” the teacher said. “I’m Miss Havermyer, and you are going to join the Westgateans. We’re a wonderful house.”  Harry smiled. He’d already known that because he’d snuck into the school under disillusionment charms and put himself in Hermione’s house.  He wanted to get close to his friend, even if she wasn’t his actual friend. He knew this Hermione would still mean a lot to him.

“Come along.  We’re going to start orientation in about an hour.  You’re early.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said.

“You’re fine.” She rested a hand on Harry’s shoulder as she escorted him into a very posh school.

Harry managed to get himself behind Hermione for the beginning of year orientation.  She had a mousy girl in a wheelchair on one side of her, but the other side was conspicuously empty.  Poor Hermione.  It looked like she had just as much trouble with non-magicals in her youth.

“That new teacher looks awfully young,” Hermione said to the other girl once the assembly had been dismissed.  Teachers were calling to students from the different houses to follow, and Harry stayed near Hermione and this other girl, who was not answering.

“I just think teachers should have more experience and expertise.”

Harry mouthed the word ‘expertise.’ What ten-year-old talked like that? Apparently Hermione.

“You haven’t even heard him lecture.”

“But Hazel, he’s teaching technology, and that’s such an important class.”

Harry saw his opening. “I’m really looking forward to that class. My old school didn’t have anything like it.”

Hermione stared at him blankly, but Hazel stuck her hand out.  “Welcome to Highgate. I’m Hazel Harris.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Harry Potter.” He shook her hand solemnly, and then Hermione seemed to shake herself out of her shock at being talked to.  “I’m Hermione Granger.”

“Welcome to the H-club,” Hazel said.  “Since we were seven, we sat next to each other because back then they sat us by first name instead of last.”

“Granger and Harris would have been close even if they’d used last names,” Hermione said.  “Did you join this year so you would have a better chance of getting into the Senior School?  I want to go to Highgate all through my Sixth Form,” Hermione proudly announced.

Harry blinked. “Um, not really.  My parents paid for a boarding school before they died, but I was going to a neighborhood junior school until my cousin’s bullying got to be too much.” At least that was the story Harry had forced Petunia to tell and that Arcturus made her believe true. “I was really bored there, and since my parents left tuition money for a junior school, my aunt and uncle decided to have me apply here.”

Hermione wrinkled her nose like she didn’t know what to say. He wondered whether the dead parents or the bullying had overwhelmed her.

“That sucks,” Hazel said. “But you won’t be bored here.”

“I know!” Harry put on his most enthusiastic mask. “I’m excited about fencing and the technology classes, and the philosophy stuff, and I even want to join calligraphy club.  My aunt always says my handwriting is terrible.”  Harry had to admit Petunia was right on that front.

“I do calligraphy!” Hermione blurted.

“Maybe you could show me where the club meets,” Harry suggested.

She smiled so wide that most of her teeth showed. Hazel gave him a more subdued smile. “I’ll leave calligraphy to you nerds,” she teased, holding up a hand with fingers that curled slightly.

“Oh, Hazel.” Hermione looked stricken.

She made a fart noise at Hermione. “I’m fine. You know that.”  And with that, they all had to go into their first class of the day–classic literature.

By the end of the day, Harry realized that junior school might be slightly more challenging than he thought. He didn’t remember most of his schooling, and even what he did remember wouldn’t help him in a school this advanced. No wonder Hermione had been so far above the rest of them.

The one thing Harry didn’t understand is why Hermione never talked about Hazel. She was snarky and smart and seemed to be a great friend to Hermione.  Then again, Harry knew lots of muggleborns who left the muggle world behind altogether because living a double life was hard.

“Did you survive day one?” Hazel asked.

“That’s a good solid maybe,” Harry said.

“I could help you with the homework,” Hermione offered, and Harry was so tempted. So very, very tempted.  He didn’t actually want to do homework set for ten-year-olds, and worse, he would actually have to put effort into the technology and science classes. He felt like a moron.

“I think I’d better work on it on my own. I have to catch up with the rest of you.”

“You’ll do fine. You wouldn’t have gotten through the testing if you couldn’t handle it,” Hazel reassured him.

“Maybe I test well.”

Hazel blew a raspberry at him.

Hermione, on the other hand, looked disappointed, but she nodded. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Hey, I have to get to fencing club. The first meeting is today. Do you want to come, Hermione?”

“To fencing?” She sounded scandalized.

“Sure.” Harry knew how much fencing would help with spellcasting in a duel, so if he could get her into it now, it would pay off later. But she stared at him like he had started speaking gibberish.

Hazel laughed. “Herm isn’t much into sports. PE is her least favorite class.”

“Because it’s terrible. All the girls talk about–” She froze, stared at Harry, and then turned beet red.  No way did Harry want to know what would make a ten year old blush.

“Well, I’m going to check it out. I’ll see you two tomorrow,” he said before slinging his school bag over his shoulder and trotting toward the gym.  He could see bits of his Hermione, especially the pre-troll Hermione.  But she wasn’t as aggressive and strident as he’d expected after meeting her as an eleven-year-old. She also wasn’t as warm as she’d become after a few years.

Okay, many years. He still smarted over her turning in his Firebolt year three.  Part of him had expected to see a Hermione who always thought she knew best. But she’d taken his rejection of her offer without even one protest about how she could set a study schedule for him.

It was like he didn’t know her at all.  

Harry wondered if he would see his Ron in the version that was alive right now.  He remembered a goofy boy who was quick to stand up for friends, but maybe his memories were just old and faded and colored by how he wanted to remember all of them. 

Hell, that might be true of Draco, too. Harry had seen him multiple times in Diagon Alley, and his entitlement and obnoxiousness surpassed anything Harry remembered, and Harry had some fairly negative memories of young Draco. Harry put it out of his mind and asked an older student to help him find the fencing club.

Chapter Nine

Harry cast a spell he’d used as an Auror more often than he could count.  The magic wove around him and sank into his skin, leaving a blonde girl in a Highgate Junior School uniform.  Harry took a deep breath and let go of all his instincts.

He made himself ignore the danger posed by the adults around him. He made himself walk with a bounce in his step and swing his arms with enough enthusiasm that he had to keep shifting his bag higher on his girlish shoulder.

He walked until he spotted a good target.  A group of five mothers sat on the park bench, all watching their young children play.  Harry skipped up to them, his blonde curls bouncing.

“Good afternoon,” he said, his voice high and trilling.

The mothers all smiled at him, either because of his age or because they recognized his uniform. It was unlikely since children around here usually didn’t get into Highgate, but it was possible. “Good afternoon, young lady,” the oldest mother said.  She had a stroller she was pushing back and forth to rock the baby inside.

“Can you help me find someone?”

“Your mother?” another woman asked.  She was already looking around, a frown on her face. She was no doubt mentally chastising Harry’s non-existent mother for letting him wander. 

“She’s at home,” Harry said. “I’m older than I look. I had cancer when I was little, so I didn’t grow as much as I should have.” He put on a bashful look, and Harry could see the mothers melt.  He should feel guilty about manipulating women a fraction of his real age, but these were the idiots who had listened to Petunia Dursley’s every lie.

Maybe Arcturus had modified Petunia’s personality to where she was apathetic about her nephew, but Harry still remembered what she’d been like in his first life.  He wasn’t ready to forgive. Dursley had suffered a string of bad luck at work, and now it was Petunia’s turn.

“Oh, you sweet dear,” the older woman said.  “Who are you looking for?”

Harry gave a bright smile.  “Harry Potter!” He pretended to ignore the sudden looks of disgust on these women’s faces.  The poison Petunia had spread when Harry was younger still had a grip on the neighborhood.  Harry kept talking fast, not giving them time to say anything.  “He and I are in Highgate Junior School together, and we’re in the calligraphy club, only when he left the club today, he forgot his pen.”

Harry bounced a little, enjoying the way his words were shaking their deep held belief that Harry was a useless piece of shit.  “Harry always said we shouldn’t bother him at home because his aunt doesn’t like Harry to have friends over. Sometimes I wonder if she wants Harry to have friends at all because she wouldn’t let Harry come to my birthday party.  But the pen is really expensive. My mother bought it for him when his family wouldn’t buy him supplies, and I know he would be so upset if he lost it.”

“Oh,” one of the mothers said in the tiniest voice Harry had ever heard from an adult woman.

“Calligraphy club?” another echoed in an equally soft voice.

Harry Potter was the local delinquent. Harry Potter was in one of the most prestigious schools in the UK and he had joined the calligraphy club.  Those were two images that could not be true at the same time. So would the mothers believe Petunia or a cute little girl who had survived cancer?

Harry suspected these women knew, deep down, that Petunia wasn’t trustworthy. But he threw more fuel on the fire to make sure. “Harry is awesome in the calligraphy club,” Harry told the woman who had said that in such a bewildered voice. “He had such terrible handwriting when he came, and it turned out he was holding his pen wrong and our teacher said that his teachers were just terrible for never noticing and helping him.  She thinks Harry is wonderful, but she gets so frustrated that his old school never noticed how amazing he is.”

“Amazing?” Harry didn’t notice which mother said that, but he nodded so his girlish curls bobbed.

“He’s totally awesome.  She says he’s sure to get into Highgate Senior School, but he keeps saying he’s not good enough when he is.  He’s top of the class. Him and his best friend are certain to be first and second in the class.” That was a lie.  Harry was a hundred and ten and he still struggled to academically keep up with ten-year-olds.  If his ego were tied up in his intelligence, it would have destroyed him, but Harry would happily lie to make Petunia miserable. “My mother says that sometimes if kids get told they aren’t good enough, they believe it, even if that doesn’t make any sense.” Harry schooled his features to show his unhappiness at the idea that some kids didn’t get support.

“Anyway,” Harry took a breath. Channeling Hermione was hard.  “Do you know where Harry lives so I can return his pen?”  He held the pen up and smiled brightly.

All the mothers stared at him blankly, like they had been stupified. 

“He’s at number four, Privet Drive,” the older mother with the baby said.

“Thank you!” Harry offered his best little girl smile and then bounced away, fountain pen clutched in fist.  Harry ducked into the trees and cancelled his disguise before casting a notice-me-not.  He did love his Knockturn wand.  Boomslang sinew in silver leafed tree wood.  Dumbledore’s portrait had been so shocked that Harry had kept his parseltongue after the horcrux was gone, but Harry had visited India when he’d been in his fifties, and the temple of Golden Occamy had lit when Harry stepped inside.  That meant his ancestors had come from the state of Karnataka in India, and given how parseltongue was revered in that part of the world, the talent had likely come from that line.

But Dumbledore had made an assumption.  Harry was fairly sure that he grew more paranoid in his last years only because he feared turning into Dumbledore and assuming he had all the answers. It turned out old people could be as wrong as young ones.

Harry moved through the woods and cast an eavesdropping spell so he could listen to the mothers.

“... he was going to a remedial school,” one said, her voice angry.

“My husband works with someone who has a son at Highgate. I can have him mention our neighbor Harry Potter and see if he’ll ask his son about him.”

“If he’s at Highgate, that means he either got a scholarship or the Dursleys are paying that tuition.”

Another woman snorted. “If they were going to pay that tuition, they’d send Dudley.”

“Dudley wouldn’t get in at all.”

“Which means Harry got a scholarship. At Highgate.”

“I thought he was stupid.”

“Petunia said he was a bully, not that he was stupid.”

“She told me he was both.”

The woman who had a husband who knew someone said loudly, cutting through the chatter, “If the Potter boy was a bully, Highgate would kick him out.  They don’t put up with unruly students.”

“So Harry couldn’t be the bully?”  The youngest mother sounded horrified. Harry didn’t remember her in particular, but she seemed to be feeling some serious guilt. Maybe if he’d seen her a hundred years ago he’d know why, but he genuinely couldn’t recall any one of these women being worse than the others. They all made him feel small and dirty by glaring at him. They had all denied him friends by keeping their kids away.

And now they all got to feel the guilt of that.

“I’m so mad at Petunia,” the oldest mother said.  All the mothers broke out in a chorus of agreement and nodding.

Oh yeah.  Petunia’s social circle just got a lot smaller.  Sometimes it was the little things that made the best revenge. After all, Harry had been the one to get the Wizengamot to call Draco “Wrinkles.” It was such a small bit of revenge, and yet it felt so good.

Harry was practically whistling as he walked away.

Chapter Ten

Months passed, and Harry had gotten into a routine.  He was involved in fencing, swimming, cricket, and rowing. He knew what it took to be a great duelist, and he would push his body and train his instincts, especially since the prophecy meant he would be fighting adults from inside a child’s body.

  He was on the debating team, although he wasn’t good enough for competition, and he did the robotics club with Hazel and the calligraphy club with Hermione. After his last club ended, he took the Knight Bus to Diagon, sent his Patronus for the day, and then headed home where he cooked his own meal and then retreated to his wizarding tent.

Because Harry had fallen into such a routine, he was shocked when he came to school one day to find students crying, and two teachers huddled around Hermione.  She was sobbing, and Harry hurried toward her, only to have a teacher hold up a hand to keep him back.

“Honey, I know it hurts,” the teacher said, rubbing circles on Hermione’s back.

“It’s not fair!” she wailed.  Harry felt the magic well up around him, and his eyes got large. Before he could say anything, a wave of magic blasted out from Hermione and the teachers were flung away like rag dolls.  Students screamed, and before Harry could blink, a team of red-robed Aurors apparated into the scene, throwing up shields and ordering everyone to remain calm.

Harry rolled his eyes.  Clearly this was an obliviator team, but if they thought telling kids who had just seen two teachers injured and people teleported into the school yard to calm down would work, the Aurors were dumber than Harry thought. And honestly, he didn’t think highly of them to begin with. He’d been an auror, and even rose to the head of the department before he decided he couldn’t fix stupid. But this… this was terrible.

A man had his wand out, and Harry backed away. “You don’t have to oblivate me. I already know about magic. My parents were magical.

“Merlin, that’s Harry Potter!” one of the aurors cried.  “What are you doing here?”

“Going to school,” Harry said while Aurors ran around obliviating the most panicked of the students first.  Two healers were with the teachers, their wands weaving over them as they healed blunt force trauma, and in the middle of all of it, Hermione sat with her mouth open, too shocked to cry.

Harry ran to her. “Hermione, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a dazed voice as she looked around.

“That was accidental magic,” Harry said.  An oblivator came toward them, and Harry said loudly, “You don’t have to obliviate her either. She’s obviously a witch, and she’ll be getting her Hogwarts letter this year, the same as me.”

The oblivator looked to the senior Auror.

“Young man,” the older Auror said, “she probably will get a letter later if this was her, but we can’t leave her with memories of magic, and we can’t let her go around hurting adults like this. Just because a teacher gave her a talking to doesn’t mean she can hurt them, not even accidentally.”

Harry narrowed his eyes and stood in front of Hermione, his fists on his hips, which would have been more intimidating if he wasn’t even eleven yet.  “Nobody was giving her a talking to. She was crying and upset.”

“Because Hazel died,” Hermione wailed.  “She had a seizure, and the teachers came to tell me at the gates before my mother left, but she left anyway, and Hazel’s gone.”  Hermione collapsed into sobs again, and Harry froze.  What did he say to this sort of grief?  He’d been sixteen before he’d encountered death at a personal level, and even sixteen was a baby incapable of processing such loss. Hermione wasn’t old enough to know how to process such big emotions. It wasn’t that watching friends and family die got easier as he got older, but the emotions didn’t feel as overwhelming.

“We can make her forget her friend,” the senior auror said. “That will prevent any more accidental outbursts.”

“What?” Harry asked in a deadly tone. Even in his ten-year-old voice, he could hear the anger and violence in his voice. 

“What accidental outburst? Who are these people?” Hermione asked.

Harry wondered if they had messed with her memory the first time. Is that why she’d never talked about Hazel, or had losing Hazel scarred her to the point that she didn’t want to talk about her friend?

“It will only take a second,” the auror said, his wand coming up.  Harry could preserve his plans–the plans he had with Arcturus–or he could protect Hermione. But he couldn’t do both. 

The auror took another step forward, and Harry grabbed Hermione’s hand and focused all his magic.  Oddly, apparition was one of the easiest forms of magic for him. He’d apparated when he’d been eight or nine years old the first time around, and so he wrapped that determination around him while he focused on the safest destination he could–a place the Ministry wouldn’t be able to find because it was under such strong wards.

Hopefully they would dismiss this as accidental magic because Harry twisted and with a crack, he dragged Hermione with him back to his bedroom at Privet Drive.  He felt the wards react to the huge burst of magic, and Hermione squeaked. He thought she had tried to scream, but she couldn’t manage to get enough air to come out.

Harry thought about his own introduction to the wizarding world.  “Hermione, you’re a witch,” he said. “But can I explain in a second? I’ve got to let my aunt know we’re here.” Harry threw his door open and raced downstairs.  Hopefully Arcturus’s memory spells on the Dursleys would hold. Arcturus had been right that Dumbledore and Snape’s legilimency made them dangerous.  And they were about to find out if the memory spell held under the worst conditions.

But Harry could give it a little boost by making Petunia angry about what he was doing right now. Current thoughts always clouded memories. He’d do more, only his immature and unstable core meant that he couldn’t do fiddly magic, and mind magic was the fiddliest of it all. Well, except for Mayan rituals of passing. Apparently even Hermione the elder struggled with those.

He burst into the kitchen, and Petunia shrieked and knocked an ashtray with a lit cigarette onto the floor.  “What are you doing here?”

“Horrible wizards came to the school because one of the other students is a witch and her friend died and she had a magical outburst and they were going to wipe her whole memory of her friend like her friend didn’t matter, and I was upset, and then I grabbed her and we were just here.”  Harry blurted. “The wizards that came were horrible.”

“All wizards are horrible,” Petunia said, “and what do you mean you were just here?”

Harry shrugged. “It was like when I was younger and I just ended up on top of the school.”  

Petunia put her ashtray under the sink before turning to scowl at him. “I don’t know why I allow a freak like you in my house,” she snarled, her fury overwhelming the apathy Arcturus had implanted, but before she could go off on a rant, the front bell rang. 

“I should check on Hermione,” Harry blurted as he ran for the stairs.

“Wait!” Petunia shouted after him, but Harry kept going.  

Hermione was on his bed, staring at his tent. She had definitely peeked inside.  “Hey,” Harry said softly.  “I’m so sorry about Hazel.  That’s not fair, and I loved her too. That’s why I couldn’t let them make you forget her.”

“How could they make me forget?”

“Magic,” Harry whispered.  “My Aunt Petunia doesn’t like to talk about it because she thinks witches and wizards are freaks, but next year I’m going to a magic school just like my parents did.”

She gave him a skeptical look.  “A magic school?”

Harry nodded.  “It’s called Hogwarts. It’s where my parents met. My mother was like you. She had regular parents, but she had powers and she got an invitation.”

“To a magic school?” Hermione asked. Her gaze darted over to the tent.  She had definitely looked, but before Harry could say more, his aunt opened the door, and he could see Dumbledore behind her.

“You talk to him,” she snapped before she pushed past Dumbledore and stomped downstairs.  If Harry showed his face around the Dursleys tonight, there was going to be trouble. He missed the days when they remembered that he had blackmail material.

Dumbledore stood in the doorway, his gaze scanning the room. He paused long enough on the tent that Harry knew he’d seen the magic.  “Hello, Harry,” he said.

Harry thrust his memories of this morning to the front of his mind. “Are you with those horrible people who were going to erase Hermione’s memories of our friend?”

Dumbledore smiled at Hermione. “Are you Hermione?”  

She nodded.

“She had accidental magic,” Harry said.  “Our friend died, and the teachers were trying to help, but she got too upset, and then all these people were there and they talked like what Hermione did was bad, but I’ve teleported before and I turned a teacher’s hair blue, and I’ve shrank clothes I hated and set a few fires by accident, and that doesn’t make me bad. She isn’t bad, either.” Harry worked very hard to project a ten-year-old protecting his friend rather than a hundred-year-old who was fed up with this whole system. 

Erasing a muggleborn’s memories to avoid accidental magic. That was unforgivable, and Hermione the Minister of Magic would have had someone’s balls on a string for that stunt.

“I quite agree,” Dumbledore said, “neither of you is bad, and I’m sorry about your friend.”

Tears started to roll down Hermione’s cheeks.

“May I come in?” Dumbledore asked.

“Who are you?” Harry countered.

“Ah, I’ve failed to introduce myself again, haven’t I? The memory goes in our old age,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.  That was a bald-faced lie.  “I’m Albus Dumbledore. I’m the headmaster at the magical school you’ll both be invited to, and because I was friends with your parents, I’ve kept an eye on this house. I felt a surge of magic and got worried.”

“Do you want to come into my tent, Mr. Dumbledore?” Harry asked.

Dumbledore smiled. “I very much would like to. Hermione, do you know about magic?”

She shook her head. “But I looked in the tent. That shouldn’t be possible. It’s bigger on the inside, like the TARDIS.”

Dumbledore gave Harry a confused look. “Yes, I’m sure that surprised you. I’m surprised to see a tent like this here myself.  Maybe I can take you home before we talk.”

Harry grabbed Hermione’s hand.  “Hazel is gone, and Hermione’s mother left her at school. I’m not going to leave her, too.”

“Mum had emergency surgery. She’s a super important dental surgeon,” Hermione whispered. No wonder she could spend practically the whole summer before fifth and sixth year with the Weasleys if that’s how her parents treated a ten-year-old. If her parents had been Harry’s grown children, he would have given them a piece of his mind, and then taken his grandchild out for ice cream. But Hermione didn’t have anyone to champion her.

No wonder she sympathized with an orphan.

Dumbledore’s expression softened and he sat next to Hermione on the bed, his robes clashing with… well, everything. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

She sniffed.

“I know as well as the next person that life is not fair. Should we contact your father?” His voice was gentle, and Harry was reminded of the sorrow his portrait often showed. Harry tried hard to avoid resenting the fact that other people got living Dumbledore’s sympathy and support and all Harry ever got was a twinkle in his eye before Dumbledore pointed him toward the next challenge.

As a grown man, Harry shouldn’t still resent that. But he did.

Hermione gave a one-shouldered shrug.

“I don’t want those bad people to find us,” Harry said, and Dumbledore’s expression shifted to concern.

That’s right, you old manipulator, Harry thought, my first introduction to the wizarding world were overzealous aurors who wanted to attack a child.  If Harry hadn’t had such a strong occlumency and a decoy mind, he would have outed himself with that shot of smugness.  Harry got it. When you got old, you thought you knew everything, like assuming you understood Mayan runes. However, old people were set in their ways, and in Dumbledore’s case, that made him far too arrogant. He didn’t have everything under control, and he needed to learn that earlier.

“Perhaps I should go and speak with them, assure them that you’re both okay.” Dumbledore gave them both a conspiratorial smile.

“But we don’t have to go back, do we?” Hermione sounded terrified.

“I’ll teleport us away again,” Harry promised.

“Apparate,” Dumbledore corrected him.

“What?” Harry gave him a blank look.  

With a smile, Dumbledore stood . “This is apparting.” With a twist and a crack, he vanished into thin air, and Hermione jumped.

“Huh,” Harry said. “I guess it’s not that special.”

“It’s amazing and special, and you’re amazing.” Hermione grabbed his hand and tried to give him a smile, but her eyes still shone with tears.

“Come inside, and we can be more comfortable,” Harry said as he pulled her toward the tent.  The neutral tones of the simple cabin were still there, but now Harry had a cheap, woven tapestry of a Hungarian Horntail hung on one wall. It didn’t move, but the flames glittered.  Harry thought it was ten-year-old worthy decor, and he enjoyed thinking about his other life.  On another wall he had a metal sculpture of a kitsune with its seven tails slowly waving. Kitsune’s had been his little girl’s favorite. Even as an adult, she’d always insisted that when she’d become an animagus, she’d be a kitsune.

She’d never gotten the chance to find out.

And on the coffee table was the only truly expensive piece of art, a grim curled up like a sleepy dog. It occasionally blinked and tended to watch whoever was in the room. Harry had the piece commissioned, but he planned to claim he found it in the junk shop.

The primary school books on the shelves and the junk food in the kitchen and the children’s novels in the bedroom should convince a certain old man that he was an actual child. Harry’s real possessions were in the second bedroom, which had been hidden behind folded space–a feat that should be impossible in an expanded space, but Harry had drawn the array and explained the magic, and Arcturus had cast it.  They’d then tested every version of a reveal spell and used every magical artifact in the Black vault to make sure even Moody couldn’t see it.

Hermione walked to the shelf and ran her fingers along the wood as she read the titles.  Some were a little advanced for ten, but Harry had no doubt Hermione could read them as well as he could.  “This is impossible.”

“For people who don’t have magic, sure.  Do you want some water or milk?”

“Water please.”  She watched as Harry went to the small kitchen and poured her a glass.  He came to the couch, and she sat next to him. “I knew she was sick. She had seizures sometimes, but mummy said that hardly anyone dies of a seizure. She said it’s the brain resetting, and Hazel would be fine.”

“I think that’s true most of the time, but sometimes when the brain shuts down, it can’t restart,” Harry said softly.

“I’m going to be a brain doctor and figure out why that happens and make sure it never happens to anyone ever again.”  Her silent tears broke out into sobs again, and Harry ached for her.  He wondered if he had just changed the course of her life.  His Hermione had been far more interested in efficiency and using magic to duplicate muggle technology. She’d never shown much interest in healing charms.

“I bet you will.”

She pushed away. “Don’t condescend me!”

“I’m not,” Harry yelled back just as loud.  He grabbed control of his temper.  He had liked Hazel too, and as much as he had an adult understanding of loss and grief, he still had a child’s body and brain chemistry, and sometimes he didn’t process feelings the way he expected himself too.  “I’m not,” he said softer. “Maybe it will take you years and years, but you’re wicked smart and your parents are doctors, so you’ll be able to study at the best universities, and because you’re a witch you’ll be able to study magical healing.  You’ll find an answer.”

Her tears turned back into sniffles.  Dumbledore ducked through the flap of the tent, and from the brilliant smile he was giving Harry, either things had gone very well with the aurors or he had heard Harry’s speech, and he liked to see that his chosen one had strong empathy and a desire to bring magical and muggle together. Could be either.

“This is quite the tent,” Dumbledore said as he looked around.  Harry wondered what he thought of it, but he didn’t dare try legilimency with one of the field’s acknowledged masters.

“I bought it a year ago,” Harry said.  “It means that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon don’t have to see anything magical. They hate magic.”

“But they don’t hate you, do they?” Hermione asked in horror.

Harry shrugged.

Dumbledore settled on a rustic chair with blond wood.  “If they hate magic, I’m surprised they bought this for you.”

“They didn’t,” Harry said.  He smiled like a child happy to tell a favorite story.  “I had a burst of accidental magic–I can’t remember if that time was turning my teacher’s hair blue or teleporting to the roof of the school–but Aunt Petunia drove me to London. She said I had to get a book on how to stop my freakishness, especially in public. She gave me five pounds before sending me into a pub to ask someone to let me into Diagon Alley.”

“Ah,” Dumbledore nodded.  It did actually make sense. Of course, Petunia would never be that logical or reasonable, but in this life, Dumbledore would never figure out how big of a mistake he made by leaving Harry on the Dursley doorstep. Albus’s portrait had wept as it apologized to Harry in his last lifetime, but Harry didn’t much care for apologies.  They didn’t fix much.   “And the tent?” he asked.

“The bookstore lady told me they only take wizarding money, so I went to the wizarding bank.” Harry turned to Hermione. “It’s run by goblins, and they’re warriors, and carry axes and they growl and grumble if you waste their time, and call you stupid if you don’t know stuff, but they’ll help even as they do all that.”

Dumbledore smothered a laugh with a cough.  “Yes, I think that is the best description of goblins I’ve heard in a long time,” Dumbledore said.  Hermione just stared at both of them with huge eyes.  “Did the goblins help you?”

Harry nodded.  “I said I had to change money to get books, and they took my name, and then they called me stupid for not using my educational trust because it had enough money for all my books.”

Now Dumbledore looked confused. “You used your trust vault?”

Harry nodded, but then he frowned. “Well, I don’t think it’s just mine. Other people use it too, or at least one other person. A boy. I don’t remember his name.”

Now Dumbledore looked more confused. “Do you remember anything else about this vault? Did you go inside? Do you remember the number?”

Harry shook his head. “The goblins said the trust wasn’t set up like that. They said any child with Black ancestry could tell the goblins what he wanted and if it fit into the definition of education, they’d pay for it.  They bought me clothes because they said I looked ridiculous, and when I said that my muggle aunt wouldn’t like seeing magical stuff in her house, they bought me this. Well, the trust did. I don’t think the goblins would spend their own money on me.” And the goblins would never confirm or deny this story, so Dumbledore would have to take it on face value.

Dumbledore smiled, but there was a stiffness to it that no child would have recognized. “How nice,” he said.  He looked around again.  “It’s very pretty.  What an interesting sculpture.”  He looked at the grim.

Harry smiled. “Thank you.  I get an allowance of two galleons a week, and mostly Aunt Petunia doesn’t let me go to Diagon Alley so I just save it up and buy nice stuff when she does.”  If Dumbledore checked, he would find that when the Dursleys went to London for a day, they often had an inexplicable urge to leave Harry to explore Diagon.  Arcturus really was good at mind magic.

“OH!” He shouted like something had just occurred to him.  “You’re going to be going to Hogwarts too, Hermione, so you need to read the books.  I’ll get them for you.”  He raced to his bedroom to find the muggleborn introductory books. Harry had bought them for Hermione, and to see how many times the muggleborns were set up for failure.  The answer was a lot, but Harry had written notes in the margins, advice supposedly given to him by goblins or that Mr. Fortescue had told him when Harry specifically asked.  He hoped it would give her an easier start to Hogwarts.

Of course, she was already going to be less aggressive just because she wouldn’t be so afraid and alone.  He’d seen how she got with new situations.

He came back out with the set of four books. “I’m really sorry, but I wrote in them–things that people told me when I visited Diagon Alley.”

Hermione took them like they were the greatest treasure in the world.  “That’s okay, and thank you.”

Dumbledore stood and held a hand out toward Hermione.  “We should get you home, young lady, and I think we need to have a conversation with your parents.  Normally we only approach the muggleborns once summer has started, but I think we can make an exception in your case.” Dumbledore gave Harry a grandfatherly look, and Harry beamed at him.  If keeping the headmaster happy meant Harry got a few extra privileges, he was happy to do it.

Chapter Eleven

The Boy who Apparates

That’s right, faithful readers.  The Boy Who Lives made his first appearance in the magical world, and it ended with him apparating away with a young witch, supposedly a muggleborn he befriended while attending muggle school.

For many years, readers have been asking where Harry Potter is. After the death of his parents (see page 3 for details on the deaths of James and Lily Potter), Albus Dumbledore had insisted the boy is safe and loved.

Many thought he was being raised in secret to master the powerful magics that allowed him to end He Who Must Not Be Named (see page 7 for the few details known about the death). However, yesterday Aurors responded to a massive accidental magic incident and found young Harry Potter attending a muggle school.

“It’s terrible,” said Edith Gibbon, charms mistress and owner of Charm Alarm, a shop specializing in protective charms for children. “He’s a wizard and the last of an old family. He should be raised by his own people.” 

Many agree.  Lucius Malfoy, a respected member of the Wizengamot, brought up his wife’s relationship to the Potter heir.

“Narcissa is a Black, as was young Potter’s grandmother. We are his closest magical relatives, and he should have been placed with us,” Malfoy told this intrepid reporter.

Minister Cornelius Fudge has not commented, but Albus Dumbledore provided a statement to the Aurors involved that young Harry Potter and his muggleborn friend are fine. He then had a message owled to the paper’s offices.

“Harry has been raised in the muggle world, far from his fame. It was unexpected that he would find himself in a school with a witch from a muggle family. Harry’s young friend had an emotional outburst after they lost a classmate to a muggle disease.  In his panic, Harry apparated away with his friend to protect her from what he saw as a dangerous situation. The question we should ask ourselves is why the Aurors frightened a young boy into dangerous accidental magic.”

The one thing that is certain, dear readers, is that Harry Potter is as powerful as rumors suggest.  He not only apparated accidentally, but he took the muggleborn with him in side-along apparition.  Young people are warned to avoid side-along apparition for three years after getting their license due to the risk of splinching (see page 12 for splinching statistics from St. Mungo’s).

However, our young savior, with no training, apparated himself and his young friend using only accidental magic.

“It’s unprecedented,” said Adrian Abacus, former professor of Arithmancy at Hogwarts who retired in 1952.  “No doubt Merlin could have performed that type of magic at his age, but I doubt anyone else could have.”

Perhaps we now have an answer to how The Boy Who Lived saved us all from the horrors of war on that October night in 1981. Rest assured, dear readers, that this author is on the job and doing everything she can to get you more details.

Amelia finished reading aloud and put the paper down.  “Would someone like to explain why Harry Potter was frightened of Aurors?” she asked.  The small team of men and women assembled before her all stared at the floor.

These were the best of the wizarding world. The elite.  Apparently they were also bullies who were too cowardly to admit their failings to their boss.  Cornelius Fudge stood in the corner of the office getting redder and redder. 

“I’m waiting,” Amelia said.  She was starting to wonder if she needed to owl Mr. Potter and arrange a meeting so she could apologize for her staff. Clearly something had happened. If not, they would be defending themselves from Albus’s accusation.

“This is unacceptable,” Fudge blustered, but Amelia held up a hand.

“Minister, please.  Sylvanth, why don’t you tell me what happened?”  The healer’s head jerked up and she looked around as though waiting for a different Sylvanth to answer the question.

“Well, um, we got the alarm, and when we got there, two muggle women were badly injured, so I focused on that.”  Her gaze drifted to Donnahue. That was helpful.

“Donnahue, report,” Amelia ordered.

He jumped. “Yes, ma’am.” Despite saying that, he then went silent.  Amelia raised an eyebrow, and he coughed before continuing.  “There was a muggleborn at the center of the disturbance, a girl of ten or eleven.”

“Yes? And?” Amelia prompted when he fell silent again.

“And she was highly emotional.” He looked around at his team.  “We feared she would have another accidental outburst the moment we’d cleaned up this one.  So many people saw her use magic.  We had to obliviate twenty-three muggle children, and the two adults were both seriously injured.”

Amelia crossed her arms over her chest.

“We said we could help. We were only offering to help.” His voice had an edge of desperation.

“And what did you offer to do?” Amelia asked in a dangerous whisper.

“Make her forget the friend that just died,” he admitted, but then he rushed right to his excuses. “She was clearly out of control emotionally and the teachers were not able to calm her down. If we had left right then, she would have another outburst, and this time someone might have died.”

Amelia had seen the injuries. They weren’t that serious.  The muggleborn girl clearly had a lot of power, but neither teacher had required more than a few healing charms.  She took out her monocle and rubbed a hand over her face.

“So you’re telling me the first experience Harry Potter had with the magical world is watching my Aurors threaten a muggle in what could be argued was a case of abuse of power, possibly because they were trying to avoid having to do more work,” she summarized.

In the corner, Fudge lost all the color from his face. Apparently he had thought this situation was bad, not disastrous. Well, Amelia would be happy to show him the error of his ways.

“No! I mean…” Donnahue fell silent.

“That’s what I thought.”  She put her monocle back in, but then someone knocked softly on her door.  “What?” she barked.

Her secretary stuck her head in.  “Madam Bones, Lord Black is here to see you.”

Lord Black. That was a complication she did not need, but if anyone could challenge Albus Dumbledore for custody, it would be Lord Black.  Unlike Lucius, he had been neutral in the war, and he had just as strong of a blood claim as the Malfoys.

She glanced at Fudge who now looked hopeful. And Arcturus Black had just as much control over Fudge.

“All of you, get out. I want new reports–honest ones–written before you leave today,” she ordered. “Send Lord Black in.”

She went to her desk chair and sank down. She definitely needed to find a way to apologize to the boy.  

“Maybe he’ll have a solution,” Minister Fudge said, and Amelia gave him a weary look.

Arcturus Black looked younger than his years as he strode into the office, black robes immaculate and a huge diamond ring on one finger.  “Good morning.  I had thought to call on Minister Fudge this morning, and I heard he was down here.”  He nodded toward Fudge.

“Amelia was trying to get to the bottom of this mess,” Fudge said. “Terrible.  Just terrible. I don’t know what we’re going to do. This is how he was introduced to the wizarding world. He’ll see us as bullies. He won’t trust the Ministry at all.” Fudge looked ready to cry. 

As much as Amelia thought him ridiculous, she did understand why he was upset. Harry Potter had the right to feel safe in the world he’d saved, and it was her people who had traumatized him. He was a little boy–the same age as her niece–and he had apparated. Amelia couldn’t describe the depths of her horror at the thought they might have frightened Harry Potter into accidentally killing himself.

Arcturus walked into the office and took a seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I assure you it is not as bad as it might appear.”

“Not as bad? Not as bad?” Fudge demanded, his voice going up. “It’s a disaster.”

“It might be if this was his introduction to the wizarding world, and I suspect you need to make amends with a young muggleborn witch who both lost a friend and was terribly frightened by Aurors, but all is not lost.” 

Amelia was more than shocked that he suggested any kindness for a muggleborn. Amelia assumed his claim of neutrality in the last war had been a cover for his pureblood ideology.

Fudge sat in the chair next to Acturus. “You know something.”

Acturus smiled. “I know I’ve been looking for Harry Potter for a year, which is the length of time he’s known about the wizarding world.”

“How could you know that?” Amelia asked. The man was far too smug, which usually meant he was about to manipulate the Wizengamot into passing some law or other. Up until now, his manipulations had largely benefited the DMLE, but that didn’t make Amelia any less suspicious of his motives.

“That’s when I was told that a new child was accessing the Black educational trust.”

“What?” Fudge sat up.

Amelia was not as impressed.  She narrowed her eyes. “If a Black grandmother was enough to access that money, half the wizarding world would be wearing acromantula silk.”

“True,” Arcturus admitted. “A young person without a Black parent would need to be brought into the family by the lord or the heir of the family. I didn’t bring Harry Potter in, so imagine my surprise when I found that Sirius is the boy’s godfather and he listed him as his heir.”

Amelia paled.  “Why? Why would he name Harry his heir before betraying him?”

“I told Mildred years ago that Sirius might have killed those muggles with a stray spell.  He might have killed Death Eaters in battle.  He might have committed crimes that would have landed him in Azkaban, but he never would have betrayed James Potter.  And I told her that I had magic on my family that I used to track their allegiance.  He never swore to that monster that called himself a lord without the legal or magical right to do so. But she would not listen to me. She told me that she was the minister and she knew best.” 

Arcturus gave Fudge a mournful look.  “The war left far too many scars on our former minister, and I will not even recount how my conversation with Crouch went; however, now that we have moved beyond those old prejudices, I expect you to handle peacetime far better than Bagnold.”

Fudge practically preened under the praise, but then he started looking around in panic.  “But Sirius Black. Surely you’re not saying Sirius Black didn’t support…” he whispered… “You Know Who.”

Arcturus snorted. “I know he didn’t, just as I know Cygnus and Bellatrix and Walburga all did.  I’m ashamed to say that even Regulus swore himself to that monster, but Sirius never did, and remember, I originally arranged a marriage between Narcissa and Fabian Prewitt, a Ravenclaw two years older than she.”

“Molly Weasley’s brother?” Amelia gasped.

“The dark members of my family might have been louder, but they did not speak for the Black family.”  He looked supremely aggravated, but Amelia’s world had just been shaken so much that she couldn’t bring herself to pay attention to his dramatics.

“But back to my point with Harry Potter,” he said, “a year ago he accessed the Black fund. I suspect the goblins informed him of it.  He promptly purchased a number of books at Flourish and Blotts, including first year textbooks and children’s primers for charms, transfiguration, and potions.  It appears the next Lord Black is destined to not come from Slytherin because the boy appears to be a future Ravenclaw.  He also purchased a set of muggleborn introduction books and four books on accidental magic, including one specifically covering how to prevent it. A week later, he used the trust to purchase books on meditation and occlumency, suggesting he struggles with rather significant accidental outbursts.”

“Then why didn’t my office get called to the site of magical accidents for him?” Amelia demanded.

Arcturus pinned her with a furious glare. “More to the point, why cannot my family magic track the boy who is second in line to my lordship, one of the few remaining in the magical world?”

Amelia leaned back and blew out a long breath. Albus.  Albus had concealing charms on the boy.  Had Albus known he was coming into Diagon to purchase books?  None of this tracked. If Albus was trying to reintroduce Potter to the magical world, he should have curated and managed those introductions, not let him wander a bookstore with a Black money pouch in hand.

Arcturus nodded even though Amelia hadn’t spoken her suspicions.

“He has also purchased a wizarding wardrobe–one befitting a Black although not extravagant and most concerningly, a wizarding tent with muggle repelling charms.  I will admit that my worst fear was that he was living alone, but this year he started paying tuition at an excellent private school. I was tempted to try to arrange a meeting, but he is less than a year away from Hogwarts. I decided to allow him his privacy until he is officially part of our world.”

Fudge was now wringing his hands. Amelia wondered if it was the suggestion that Sirius might be innocent or if the thought of a muggle-raised Lord Black was giving him conniptions.  

“Oh dear.  I’m afraid I don’t know where to even start with all this.”

“We start,” Arcturus said, “by going to your office, fixing a nice bit of tea and discussing our options.”

Amelia assumed that was code for Arcturus telling Fudge what to think, but she was too shell-shocked to respond.  At least now she didn’t have to worry that the Blacks were a threat to the boy. It sounded like Arcturus was perfectly happy to have Potter as his heir.

Oh my. That meant Draco Malfoy was out of the line of succession. Lucius must be furious. It couldn’t happen to a nicer Death Eater.  Now, which of her Aurors could handle some diplomacy. If Albus had the boy under a concealing charm, Amelia didn’t have the magical power to break through.  However, she knew where Potter would be for several hours a day, five days a week.

“Kingsley!” she yelled.

Chapter Twelve

Harry took the Knight’s Bus to school, but he knew something had changed the second he stepped on.  “Hey there, little guy,” Stan said with far too much enthusiasm. Since Harry had started riding the bus every day, Stan had slowly started ignoring him, like Harry was one more cog in the machine of Stan’s life and Stan couldn’t be bothered to care about him.

Harry liked being ignored.

But now Stan was all smiles and nods and cheer.  Either he’d discovered muggle drugs or he’d figured out the little kid he took to school every day was THE Harry Potter.

When Harry got off the bus, he immediately spotted three people–only one of which was supposed to be here.  Hermione stood next to the gate, her eyes wide.  “Was that a magic bus?” she asked in a dramatic whisper. “Don’t other people see it do that? How does it do that?” Count on Hermione to let her curiosity distract her from emotional pain.

Harry smiled. “It was. That was the Knight Bus. The muggleborn introduction books say you have to hold your wand up, but if you hold up your hand and think about your magic moving into your fingers, it’ll come. But people who don’t have magic can’t see it.”

Hermione looked at her hand in wonder. “Really? And all I have to do is hold up my hand?”

It wasn’t quite that easy. Moving magic in the body was the start of wandless magic, which was notoriously difficult. But Harry didn’t plan to tell her that. “If the bus doesn’t show up right away, you have to push your magic toward your fingers, almost like you’re giving yourself tingles in your hand.” 

If Hermione thought moving magic was so easy that Harry could do it, she’d figure out a way.  She would never take second place to him. Sadly, even with a century of experience behind him, Harry still couldn’t match Hermione’s current scores in primary school, especially in science, technology, and history. Science and technology Harry understood because he hadn’t studied them for a century. But history? Binns hadn’t just made Harry’s Hogwart’s years a torture, he seems to have ruined Harry’s ability to give a shit about history.

Or maybe his advantaged age had just broken all his fucks.

“I push my magic into my hand?” Hermione studied her own hand.

“Yep,” Harry answered her, wiggling his fingers. He kept his gaze on her so he wouldn’t look at the obnoxious old man walking toward them. What was Arcturus doing and why did he have Fudge in tow? Or rather hiding in the bushes.

What an idiot.

Arcturus was a few feet away when he said, “Are you Harry Potter?”

Harry tucked all his aggravation behind his occlumency shields and projected the sort of innocent stupidity he associated with children.  Well, those not named Hermione, anyway. She was terrifyingly smart in any universe, although in this one she didn’t have the same arrogance as his white-haired partner in misinterpreting Mayan rituals.

“Yes?” Harry blinked at Arcturus.

Arcturus gave a smile that was probably supposed to look reassuring, but he missed the mark by a mile. He looked like a cartoon villain. “I know you don’t know me, but I’m your great-uncle Arcturus Black.”

Harry was shocked when Hermione stepped in front of him. “If you’re his uncle, why wouldn’t he know you?” Those people who expressed shock that Hermione had gone to Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw had clearly never met her. Her and Ron were exactly the same, and Harry felt a raw, ripping paint at the idea of Ron jumping out and challenging someone. Worse, he felt a shadow of the debilitating guilt at the relief he’d felt that Ron had gone with the kids that day instead of Hermione.

Arcturus blinked and stared at her for a second. This was a man used to staring down the entire Wizengamot and had even faced Tom Riddle over drinks, and Hermione left him speechless.  Harry was going to enjoy this memory for a long time.

Eventually Arcturus found his voice. “I couldn’t find him, young lady.  Would you be the young witch mentioned in the newspaper article?”

Now Hermione was shocked speechless. “Newspaper article?” her voice got squeaky.

Arcturus’s smile turned more genuine. She was an amusing child. “Indeed. That’s how I found you.  Someone has used magic to hide Harry, but there was a newspaper article about how some Aurors had frightened you into fleeing. From there, I contacted the Auror department to find where they had attended an accidental magic incident.  I understand you are quite the powerhouse, young lady.”

Hermione squeaked and blushed.

“This is Hermione Granger,” Harry said. “She’s my best friend.  Why did they write about us? Was it because the Aurors were so mean? They threatened to take away all Hermione’s memories of her best friend just because she was upset.”

In the bushes, Fudge squeaked.  

Arcturus cleared his throat in a badly disguised attempt to not laugh. “The head of the department was quite vexed with her people. Several Aurors were disciplined for threatening you, and Amelia Bones wants you to know that they absolutely did not have the authority to modify anyone’s memory like that.”

Slow tears ran down Hermione’s face.  “They were mean.”

Harry put an arm around her, and she put her face on his shoulder. She was so much taller than him that it meant his face was buried in her wild curls.

“I apologize for how they treated you,” Arcturus said, and he exchanged an honestly concerned look with Harry while Harry patted her on the back. “But I am glad that this allowed me to find my nephew. I’ve been searching for you, Harry.”

“But if you're my uncle, why am I living with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon? They’re terrible,” Harry said.

Arcturus sighed dramatically. “Is that why you bought a tent that would keep them out?” Harry was startled by Arcturus’ choice to bring up the muggle-repelling charms. Something had changed in their plans, and Harry had a split second to decide whether to back this new play or stick with their original plan, which had included keeping Dumbledore placated by minimizing any similarities between Harry’s life and Voldy’s.

But he had to play the cards his partner dealt him. Harry nodded enthusiastically. He was probably overacting his part, but this was Fudge they were playing for, and he was an idiot.  “Since I got the tent, I can keep food so they can’t make me go hungry for not finishing my chores, and I got a bedroom upstairs instead of sleeping in the broom closet under the stairs, and since I had an educational fund, I talked my aunt into letting me come here so I don’t get beat up by my cousin anymore. Everything is better since I found Diagon Alley.”  Harry stopped and tilted his head. “Wait. Mr. Black? Like the Black educational fund I used? Are you upset that I spent that money?”

Arcturus looked like he might break into laughter at any second. Luckily Hermione still had her face buried and her body was wracked with silent sobs for their lost friend and Arcturus had his back to Fudge.  If any of the teachers on the playground looked this way, they would have seen his delight, though.

“I’m glad you used that money. The Black family is known for being resourceful and surviving, and it sounds like you are a proper Black.”

“I’m a Potter,” Harry said slowly. “But I don’t think I want to be a proper Potter.” He lowered his voice so he would sound like he was whispering, but he still spoke loud enough for Fudge to hear him.  “My parents were drunks. My father crashed his car and killed himself and my mum, and Aunt Petunia said they didn’t even care enough to leave enough money to look after me. She said they were no-good freaks.  She says I’m a freak, too. Because I’m a Potter.”

Hermione’s head whipped up, and Acturus barely had time to wipe the expression from his face, but he needn’t have bothered because she turned all her fury on Harry.

“You are not a freak.  Don’t say that! You’re my best friend after Hazel, and now that she’s… she’s…” Hermione broke into sobs again, only this time she sat down on the grass outside the school and rocked back and forth.

Harry sat next to her and draped an arm across her shoulders. The angle was awkward because he was too short, but he did his best to comfort her.  “She would want you to be happy. Do you remember how she gave us a hard time when we offered to skip calligraphy for her?” he asked

She nodded silently, but the magic continued to build.

Arcturus moved closer and crouched down.  He twirled his wand, and the looming feeling of magic suffocating the area dissipated. Even Hermione had felt something, and she looked up.  She saw his wand and her gaze snapped to his face. “What did you do?”

He smiled kindly, and for the first time it felt like he wasn’t playing to Fudge. “Black children are quite famous for impressive outbursts of accidental magic. One of the first things every Black parent learns is how to release that magic before something catches on fire. Otherwise, my manor would have burnt down long ago.  Harry’s aunt Bellatrix is a very bad witch, and when she was a child, she visited her grandparents on her mother’s side. She got angry and burned half their home down before the adults could put out the fire.”

“I might do that?” Hermione sounded horrified.

“No,” Arcturus reassured her. “It sounds like last time you pushed everyone away because you didn’t want them around.”

“I wanted Hazel or mommy,” Hermione confessed in a whisper.

Arcturus laid a wrinkled hand on her knee the way Harry had done for his grandchildren so many times. “See, you didn’t set a fire because you didn’t want to hurt anyone. Bellatrix is in prison because she hurt a lot of people, even after she grew up and learned to control her magic. You’re nothing like her.  But when you’re feeling magic like that, you should call for me.  I meant this for Harry, but maybe you need it more.”  He pressed a necklace into her hand. It was a golden horn, like from an antelope. The narrow end curved gently, and it was attached to a substantial chain. “Call out my name, Arcturus, and I’ll hear and come for you.  I promise you can’t hurt me with your accidental magic.  Even Bellatrix couldn’t hurt the family. We just couldn’t let her visit anyone else because controlling children’s accidental magic is a family secret and she wasn’t safe around anyone who wasn’t a Black.” 

“Thank you,” Harry said in his most sincere voice.

Arcturus gave a single nod.  “I trust you know how to use the Knight Bus well enough that you could find the Raven’s Roost on your own.”

“I would just ask Stan to take me to Raven’s Roost,” Harry said. The house had burned to the ground during his third year in his original universe. He’d never gotten a chance to ask if Sirius had burned it out of anger toward his family or if some overeager Auror had done it to keep Sirius from having a hiding place. After all, if Sirius could have gotten inside and activated the wards, it would have made the Aurors’ lives difficult. Harry had the feeling that these Aurors were rather bad at their jobs, even without Voldemort’s interference.

“Excellent,” Arcturus said in the same child-friendly tone. If they’d been at the Roost and he’d used that tone, Harry would have hexed the old man, but this was all a playacted scene. Harry didn’t know what Arcturus’s goal was, but if the newspaper had published about him, it made sense for him to get ahead of Albus or Lucius. 

Or Fudge. Hell, Fudge was probably ready to shat himself as he thought about Harry Potter being angry at his Ministry. How such a milquetoast of a man rose to be minister was a mystery Harry wouldn’t understand, even if he lived another century.

“I wanted to invite you… and your young friend,” Arcturus smiled at Hermione, “to visit me at my home. I understand that you haven’t spent much time in the magical world, and I hoped to get to know you. Both of you.”

Hermione studied him skeptically. “My parents said I shouldn’t go with strangers.”

“Maybe I can introduce myself to your parents. After all, you are my nephew’s best friend.  I’m sure they would like to see the wizarding world, too.”

Hermione glanced at Harry.

“He’s my uncle. My magical uncle.  I want to visit him,” Harry said firmly.  As soon as he got home tonight, he was going to apparate over to the Roost and make Arcturus explain what he was up to. But for now he played the part of a child excited to meet a magical relative. Merlin knows he would have given anything to have Arcturus in his first life.

The little boy who lived in the cupboard under the stairs would have given anything for someone to love and protect him. How ironic that the universe only gave him what he’d wanted when he was too old to appreciate it. When HIS Hermione finally died and went to the afterlife, the irony was going to kill her a second time.

But for now he said, “We have to get to class, sir.”

“That’s my little Ravenclaw,” Arcturus said with a laugh. Harry almost defended his Gryffindor tendencies before he took Hermione by the hand and led her through the school gates.

Behind him, Fudge was talking far too loudly for discretion. “He’s ashamed of being a Potter! Those muggles told him the Potters were drunks!  This is… this is terrible. This is just terrible.”

“I’m more concerned that my great-nephew was living in a broom closet, Cornelius. I think we need to get Albus to show us where the boy has been staying, and maybe we should invite Amelia to come along.”

Apparently Arcturus had decided to take him away from the Dursleys.  The house was bearable since he’d installed the tent, even without the Dursleys remembering his blackmail material.  However, for Arcturus to move this fast, something was happening.  Harry wondered if Lucius was making his big move to claim custody. Lord knows that coward would turn him over to Voldemort first chance he got. 

That was assuming he didn’t kill Harry himself after Harry turned Draco into a ferret and then dumped him in the forest.  Draco had turned into a good man. They served together on the Board of Governors, and Harry had learned to respect adult Draco and his sharp mind. He could find compromises on the most contentious issues and had a talent at soothing the ruffled feathers of arrogant board members. But Harry was too damn old and cranky to put up with child Draco.  Even Albus Severus’s youngest wasn’t that obnoxious, and Harry had put his foot down about little Evaleen learning to respect others.

Chapter Thirteen

“So you see why it is vital we inspect the muggle house,” Cornelius concluded. He sat in the visitor’s chair with a smug expression as though he had any power in Hogwarts, but this was Albus’ domain. Albus could bring all his department heads and the entire Wizengamot and Albus would still have the power.

“I visited not long ago,” Albus soothed him. He leaned back and rested his palms against the impressive headmaster’s desk.  He projected an aura of control and respectability as the headmaster and Chief Mugwump.

Arcturus looked annoyed as he leaned against the wall next to Albus’ fireplace, and Amelia Bones was quietly furious. She hadn’t been in her position long, and Harry’s fear of the Aurors was a mark against her. Albus would have to talk fast to convince her she didn’t need to get involved.

“You visited? And was the child living in a broom closet?” Cornelius nearly yelled.

 Albus controlled his facial expression, limiting himself to a serene confidence.  He’d seen the cupboard under the stairs in Petunia’s memories. Albus had no idea she would be so callous, but once she drove Harry to Diagon Alley to get books that would help him control accidental magic, the abuse had ended, replaced with relief and a distant sort of disinterest. Had it not, Albus would have taken steps to find Harry another home or perhaps have a magical guardian move in to ensure the Dursleys good behavior. That would have protected the blood wards.

“I assure you he had a bedroom upstairs and he’s installed a wizard’s tent in the space so he is more than comfortable. And the wards created by his mother’s sacrifice will be strongest in a place where his mother’s blood still lives.” Albus admired Harry’s restraint. A one bedroom tent was pedestrian when compared to what he might have purchased with the Black trust. 

Albus had fully explored Harry’s tent, and the books were all appropriate and revealed a childish enthusiasm for magic.  The two pieces of art were typical of children. Well, the dragon was, and he had no doubt Harry thought the grim statue was a large dog. And while the small kitchen had more sugar than was healthful for a young child, Albus had a sweet tooth himself.  

No, Harry was safe where he was. Perhaps the safety took a different route than Albus had anticipated because he had expected Petunia to be his protection, but nevertheless, he was safe.

The Dursleys might be terrible people, but they had raised a kind and humble boy. Albus was truly disappointed in Petunia. The little girl who had wanted to come to Hogwarts with her sister had become someone entirely different, but she had raised Harry to be kind and empathetic. That was worth more than all the galleons in Gringotts. 

Cornelius turned red. “His mother? His mother? The boy thinks she was a drunk! He’s embarrassed at being a Potter because his father was a freak who killed himself and his mother in some muggle way.”

“Drunk driving,” Amelia offered. She was sitting next to Cornelius, but she looked at him as though he were stupid. Amelia had always had a keen understanding of reality.

“Yes! That!” Cornelius was spluttering now.

“What?” Albus asked, the word slipping out before he could control his emotions.  “Why would she tell him that?”  

Albus wanted the boy protected from the politics of the wizarding world. People like Lucius and Arcturus and Cornelius would treat him like a bludger to be flung across the field in order to put their chasers into a better position. But he never wanted Harry to be ashamed of being a Potter. They were a grand family–full of those who had fought for the light.  James’ father Fleamont and James had both taken to the battlefield against Voldemort.  His grandfather Henry Potter had led a unit against Grindelwald.  His great-grandfather, Atticus Potter, had led a rescue mission into the Alps to hunt down a wizard who had captured several witches and held them ransom in a hidden castle.  The Potters were one of the most respected families in the wizarding world.

“I think we can all agree something has gone terribly wrong in that home,” Amelia said. “As head of the DMLE, I need access to the boy’s home. I promise to keep the investigation quiet, but we cannot leave a magical child in a home where he may be in danger.”

“I assure you he is not in danger, and I will visit to make sure Petunia understands the importance of showing respect for the Potters.” Dumbledore didn’t want to use magic against the woman, but he might have to. He couldn’t have Harry taught to hate his Potter blood. That was nearly as bad as the abuse he’d seen Petunia levy at her very young nephew when he’d peered into her mind. 

With Vernon in the house, he’d known Harry would face some dark days, but abuse would not be tolerated. Albus had assumed that Petunia would protect her nephew from the excesses of her boorish husband. But the abuse seemed to have vanished with Harry’s accidental magic. If it returned… Albus had texts on the arcane mind art of shaping other’s attitudes. As much as it would pain him to do such a vile thing, for Harry he would make the sacrifice.

Arcturus spoke up. “Either you tell them where my great-nephew is or I will ask Harry to escort me to his house and I will remove him permanently.”

“You won’t find it,” Amelia said. “I had an Auror follow him, and he ran into a confundus trap somewhere along the way and wandered back to the office two hours later. Do we need to talk about you setting traps in public?”

Albus gritted his teeth. He had no idea why Arcturus had returned to the political arena, but he suspected that the chance to get his hooks into Harry was proving too great a temptation. And Amelia had no right to question him. “The traps are safe. They only activate if someone tries to track Harry.”  He turned to Arcturus. “You will leave Harry Potter alone.”

“He is my family and the Black heir.”

Once again, Albus was too shocked to react.  He knew Harry had accessed the Black vaults, but he had no idea he was the heir. “Surely young Draco is more directly related.”

“Harry was Sirius’s choice, and since Sirius is innocent and my heir, I will respect his choice to make Harry the next in line.”  Arcturus angled his neck so he was looking down his nose at Albus.  

This was exactly the sort of attitude Albus did not want cultivated in Harry.  James had talked about how much he hated the boy he had been. Raised in privilege, young James had lacked empathy for others and had made fun of those who wore hand-me-down robes. He’d played pranks on children to the point of harassment. Albus had promised James and Lily that if the worst happened, he would never allow young Harry to be raised so spoiled.

At the time, Albus had thought he was promising to make sure Sirius didn’t ruin the child, but that was before they had learned of his betrayal.

James would never want Arcturus near his son. He had once told Albus that he was determined to let Lily take lead in child rearing because he didn’t know how to raise a kind child. No pureblood did. In meetings, whenever he would say something particularly privileged or spoiled, he would turn to Lily and say, “I’m being a toerag again, aren’t I?”  Albus remembered her soft laugh. She’d pat him on the arm and say, “Yes, but I love you anyway.”  Albus would not betray that memory by letting the Black family ruin Harry.

Yes, Harry’s life had been more difficult than Albus had intended, but at least he wasn’t spoiled and thoughtless. Look at how he had come to the rescue of the young muggleborn witch.  She was very much alone, and after meeting her parents, Albus could see how she had no one in her corner. But Harry had stood at her side and defended her against the Aurors and even Albus himself.  Young James had lacked the empathy to do that at ten or even fifteen. 

Harry was a fine boy.

“Harry has a right to live without the fame the wizarding world would heap on him. His parents would not want that, and I knew them far better than any of you.” Albus kept his calm, even in the face of their united enmity.

“Yet I am his magical guardian,” Arcturus said. The words were a blow to Albus. He had assumed one of the four heads of houses would become Harry’s magical guardian as they did for every muggleborn once they were sorted. Albus had even allowed the ridiculous Boy-Who-Lived books to publish unchallenged because he didn’t want to draw any attention to the boy’s guardianship until one of the heads of house could take it over. But if Arcturus was saying this in front of Amelia, then he had already gained Ministerial approval.

Arcturus’ smile turned predatory. “So you see, Albus, there is no reason to hide the muggles from us anymore.”

Albus stroked his beard. Arcturus would only have a year in which to try to ruin the boy, and Harry struck him as a stubborn boy. He might insist on continuing to go to his muggle school and he was sure to remain friends with young Hermione.  Albus could ingratiate himself with her family and retain some contact even if he couldn’t wrest control away from Black.  But now he needed to minimize his own liability.

Everyone knew he had placed Harry with his mother’s family.  They didn’t need to know what Albus had seen in Petunia’s memory–the days locked in a cupboard or the inadequate food and punishments for accidental magic. Before Harry had gained control over his accidental magic, both Petunia and Vernon had been increasingly abusive. That would not speak well for Albus’ oversight of this situation if it came to light.

He had checked on the child in the first months, and Petunia seemed capable of raising two children, and then he had gotten so busy. The trials for Deatheaters and reforms in the Wizengamot and Hogwarts had all demanded his attention. He had thought the family deserved privacy, and allowing it was for the best. His judgment had failed him, but he could not allow others to judge him by this one mistake.  “If you plan on removing Harry, then his aunt’s care is a moot point.  I will inform his aunt that the Ministry has given custody to Lord Black and I will bring him back here.”

Cornelius frowned. “Aren’t you going to argue that he would be safest in the muggle world? I thought that’s what you told me.” Cornelius looked around as though waiting for someone to give him an explanation in small words. “Arcturus didn’t get full physical custody–just magical guardianship,” he finished.

“Do you not want custody?” Albus asked Arcturus. 

The man’s eyes were narrowed in aggravation.  He already knew about the abuse, Albus realized.  He had probably legitimized Harry, which explained his sudden interest in the poor child.  Harry was a tool for him to attack Albus. In the Wizengamot, Arcturus had been an ally against Lucius, but Albus had always known the alliance would not survive long. Arcturus wanted the Dursleys to keep physical custody, and Albus would prefer that as well, but he wanted an investigation of the home. If Amelia investigated, Albus’ reputation would be left in tatters.

“I am an old man,” Arcturus said. “If he is happy with his aunt and uncle, I shall be one more relative ready to love him and take him and his young friend to visit the magical places that are their heritage.”

Their heritage.  Albus was quite sure that Arcturus only included the muggleborn to push his own agenda–to erase the fact the Black family sided with Voldemort. He had been touting the supposed betrothal contract between Narcissa and one of Molly’s brothers, as if that would have ever happened. Parents could write contracts, but young people had to choose to follow their parents’ advice.

And Albus doubted there was ever a real intent to marry a Black into the Prewett line, not after the scandal that followed Lucretia Black and Ignatius Prewett. Albus had known both, and she had been well on her way to being a mother before the marriage. It had soured the relations between the two families, so any betrothal contract had either been the Prewetts trying to sooth ruffled feathers or the Blacks trying to extort gifts to make up for what happened to Lucretia.

Albus would not be fooled by Arcturus’ attempts to paint the Black family with a more politically neutral brush. Helping Harry and even casting doubt on Sirius’ guilt were political maneuvers from a man Albus had thought too weary to play the Wizengamot game. 

Obviously not. The Wizengamot was atwitter over a patronus visiting Sirius and repeating that he was innocent, but Albus had seen a cassowary patronus once.  He had been with James and Sirius before Sirius had betrayed them all.  The cassowary had appeared and spoken in Arcturus’s voice, warning Sirius that Walburga had heard he was in Diagon and was coming to confront him.

Sirius had lost all the color from his face and James had ushered him away.  That had been just after the boys had graduated and the Death Eaters were starting to attack openly.  At the time, Albus had been surprised that Arcturus sided with his grandson over Walburga, but now he knew they were both servants of Voldemort; they simply hid their allegiances.

Albus would find a way to get Harry away from Arcturus, but he had to defend his own position first. Besides, if Arcturus was playing at being the responsible, respectful Lord Black, he wouldn’t kill a child in his own home, especially not when everyone knew he was the boy’s guardian.

“If the boy is to remain with his mother’s blood, the one place where his mother’s protection still resides, then I do not see why you need to know his location.”

Emilia clenched her teeth until her jaw muscle bulged.  “Albus, I am quite done with your obstreperousness.  I need to inspect the home and have a discussion with his physical guardians. Either you escort us to Potter’s home or I will call you up in front of the Wizengamot for contumacy.”

Albus sucked in a startled breath. That sort of charge could disqualify him from being the Chief Warlock. He had always supported the DMLE, so this attack on his office was not only unprofessional but self-destructive.  “Amelia!”

“Albus, do not use that tone with me. I am not a student, and you are not my headmaster. The office of child welfare has ordered a check on Potter’s home, and if you do not facilitate an official request, you are, in fact, guilty of contumacy. And you will show me each of your protective traps so I can inspect them and bring in curse breakers if I cannot independently confirm that the traps are legal.”

Rather than expend more political capital on what was clearly a losing battle, Albus yielded with a smile.  “I can use side-along apparition to take you there,” he offered.

“Or you could provide the address,” Amelia said without any compromise in her voice.

“I would rather not.”

Arcturus snorted. “Just take his offer Emilia so we can have this matter put to rest. I want to know that my heir is safe, and we are not accomplishing that by sitting in this garish office.”

Albus fought to keep his face calm and grandfatherly when he truly wanted to hex Arcturus into a bloody heap.  “Yes, come along, Amelia.” He moved to the floo so they could get out from under Hogwarts’ wards before apparating. That would ensure that Arcturus couldn’t attach any tracking magic to the apparition trail.

She sighed, but she did stand.  “I resent this.”

“I apologize, but I have the boy’s best interests in mind.”

She followed him, and Albus tossed floo powder into the fireplace before calling out for the Hog’s Head floo. They could apparate from there. And if the Hog’s Head had too much traffic for Amelia to later call for an apparition trace, that was merely a side effect.

Chapter Fourteen

Harry was in his tent when there was a huge crack that made him jump. His instinct was to grab his wand and attack his unexpected guests.  After all, his enemies had won their greatest victory when the war had been over for twenty years. He had learned that he could never let down his guard.

But he was playing the part of a child, so he let himself sink into the role, living in the decoy mind he’d constructed. He was far more skilled with occlumency than legilimancy.

He rushed to the tent flap and stuck his head out.  “Headmaster Dumbledore! You did the teleport thing!” He made himself sound delighted.

“Apparition,” Dumbledore corrected him, the corner of one eye twitching. Annoying Dumbledore was a true joy.  “I wanted to introduce you to Amelia Banks, the head of the DMLE,” Dumbledore said.

“The what? I haven’t seen that one in my muggleborn books.”

“I am in charge of Aurors,” Amelia said, and Harry wiped the smile from his face. Now both adults looked unhappy.  Cruel joy blossomed in the deepest part of Harry’s hidden mind.  With age came cantankerousness. 

Amelia focused on him, her face serious. “I want to apologize for what my people did. They feared they would have to attend a second instance of accidental magic, and their malfeasance was motivated by laziness. I promise they regret that decision now.”

Harry would feel better if that team hadn’t gotten away with it the first time around. He assumed. Arcturus kept warning him to avoid making assumptions about the similarities between their worlds. “If I hadn’t been there, would you have found out what they did?” Harry demanded. This DMLE hadn’t figured out that Harry was muggle baiting at his uncle’s workplace, so he had real doubts about their procedures.

She winced.

“She is quite new to her position. I’m sure she will come up with stricter procedures,” Dumbledore reassured him. “You do not need to worry about that. Would you mind if we looked around your tent?”

Harry looked at them. He didn’t want to let them in, especially Amelia. He knew what spells she had on that monocle, and he had a secret room. When he’d been promoted to the head of the DMLE, he’d had another made using the plans she’d left behind in the office. It had been stupidly expensive, but it gave him spells similar to Moody’s eye.

And it could look under clothing. Moody was ethical enough that he wouldn’t have done that, but his whole fourth year, Moody wasn’t the one with that damn eye.

But he had to trust Arcturus’s spellwork.

“Sure.” He backed up and held the tent flap aside in invitation.

Dumbledore entered first, followed by Amelia.  She was so damn young. He hadn’t realized how young she had been when Voldemort had killed her. And yet, when that bastard had attacked her house, she had taken out two of his top people before he cast the killing curse.

“What a nice place,” Amelia said.

“Thank you Mrs. Banks.”

She winced.  “Women who have professional careers are generally addressed as Madam.”

“Oh.” Harry made a production out of thinking about that. “I should write that in the margin of my muggleborn books. They don’t say anything about that, and I bet a whole bunch of people would take offense. Hermione and I want to rewrite the muggleborn books when we grow up and we’re old enough for people to listen to us.”

“An admirable goal,” Dumbledore said, although he had a sour expression on his face. If Harry knew Albus, and he did, Dumbledore wanted Harry to do something far more grand.  His portrait had even tried to talk Harry into running for Minister instead of Hermione. He said her blood status would be a distraction and it would keep them from passing their full agenda.  Their full agenda–Theirs. As if even dead, Albus had a right to be part of Hermione’s agenda.

He’d been right about the blood status being a distraction.  Still, Harry never wanted to steal Hermione’s credit. She was a great Minister, and if they had sacrificed part of her agenda because of others’ prejudices, they had also proved that a mudblood could kick their old lameblood asses.

“It is,” Amelia agreed, “and you’re right that muggleborns might accidentally offend someone with the wrong title. But I wanted to make sure you were safe here.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Harry asked with exaggerated confusion.

Amelia gave a smile that would have reassured a child. The community had lost a great woman when Voldy had taken her out, but this time, Harry was going to do a better job of protecting everyone. “I heard you said something upsetting to your uncle.”

“Uncle Arcturus?”  Harry ran toward the bookcase. “Look what he bought for me.”  He came back with a miniature quidditch set with three inch players that would take orders for different plays and strategies.  “It’s a game. Quidditch. He said my father played.”

For the first time, Albus had a genuine smile on his face. Harry suspected that any affection Albus had for him came from the fact that he had truly cared for Harry’s father, maybe even as much as Severus had hated him. James Potter did inspire strong feelings in others.  “He did,” Albus said. “He was a chaser.”

Harry brought the set over and put it on the coffee table next to the animated grim statue.  The players took off from the board and all started to hover, the chasers near the board, the keepers in front of the tiny hoops, and the seekers flying high.  Harry would need to push a button to release the balls, but he contented himself with studying the details on the miniatures. The game was Slytherin versus Ravenclaw, and the house emblems were clear on the tiny uniforms.

Amelia sat next to him on the couch.  “Did he buy the sculpture, too?” she asked.

Harry shook his head. “I found it in a shop in an alley that was dark and cramped. I haven’t gone back there because I didn’t like it.”

Dumbledore and Amelia exchange concerned looks, and Amelia took out her wand and waved it over the grim, who was now blinking at her.  She relaxed after a second. “It’s safe, but those darker alleys can have cursed objects. You should never go down those alleys. Stay in Diagon. Always,” she chided him.

Harry widened his eyes. “Cursed? Really?”

“Indeed,” Amelia said.  “I see you have a small kitchen. Do you eat in here a lot?”

Harry nodded.  “My aunt and uncle don’t like magic, and I’ve done lots and lots of magic around them, so I make them uncomfortable.”

“You’ve done lots of magic?” Amelia prompted.

Harry hoped that the accidental magic of the Harry he replaced was the same as his own childhood because Amelia seemed the sort to doublecheck.  “A teacher accused me of cheating when I didn’t, and I got mad and her hair turned blue. Everyone blamed me even though I didn’t know I did it. I thought she used the wrong shampoo.”

“You didn’t suspect accidental magic?” Amelia asked.

Harry shook his head. “Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon never told me about magic.  I once made this really ugly shirt shrink and shrink and shrink until it didn’t fit over my head, but I thought it was the dryer.  I would put plates back together after I broke them and I talked to snakes in the backyard and I teleported to the top of my school when Dudley was chasing me, and they had to call the fire department to get me off.  I’ve done lots of stuff that made them uncomfortable.  I guess I was pretty stupid for not figuring that out.”

Dumbledore startled when Harry brought up snakes. He wondered if that was prejudice against parcelmouths or if he suspected horcruxes even this early. He’d never asked the portrait, and when he’d been alive, Dumbledore had never met a secret he didn’t keep.  The man kept his mouth more closed than nuns kept their legs.

“I think it’s very normal of you,” Amelia said. “Muggles believe magic is a fantasy, so it’s normal you would think the same.”

Harry shrugged. “It still seems kinda stupid, but every time I mentioned something, my aunt and uncle would lose all the color out of their faces and get so upset that I just stopped talking about it.”

“Would they get violent when this happened?”

“Like hit me?” Harry shook his head. “Never.”  He didn’t mention that was because he was very good at ducking.  Magically good at it.  Otherwise he would have gotten a concussion or two. Petunia did like her frying pans. He really wished he could have kept blackmailing her because every time she’d seen him, she’d flinched in fear. But Arcturus was right that bending their memories and attitudes was better because Dumbledore would not accept a little savior who indulged in revenge and blackmail.

Too bad because some people deserved to suffer. But on the good side, Petunia’s reputation was crap in the neighborhood. She had started borrowing Vernon’s car and driving to the next town to shop because all the women of Little Whinging hated her. They would whisper and point when she went to the shops.

And Uncle Vernon had suffered such a terrible bout of bad luck at work. It was amazing they hadn’t fired him. Well, technically, they had processed paperwork, but Harry had asked Arcturus to modify a few memories and had backed off. The last thing he wanted was for the Dursleys to be so broke they moved in with Vernon’s sister. 

Dumbledore smiled.  “I think you can see he is quite safe here, Amelia.”

Amelia’s glare was so severe that Harry was surprised it didn’t scorch Dumbledore’s robes.  “I still need to speak with his guardians.”

“My aunt?” Harry asked.  “She’s downstairs working on dinner.”  Dudley still ate like two horses, and she had to do all the cooking and cleaning.  Arcturus reinforced the rule that she had to give Dudley a chore for every one Harry did, and Dudley did not do chores.

Harry still wanted to find a way to get his cousin off this self-destructive life path, but so far he had struck out. He’d even arranged for Dudley to get a scholarship to a boxing camp, but apparently that was too much effort for him.  He’d rather hit little kids than someone his own size.

Harry wondered how Smeltings had gotten him to exercise.

“Maybe you can introduce me to her,” Amelia suggested with a kind smile.

Harry shrugged in his best imitation of a little boy.  “Sure. Okay.  She probably won’t like you, though. She thinks it’s important to be normal.  You don’t look very normal.”

“Mr. Potter,” Albus chided him.

“What?” Harry asked all wide-eyed innocence. “She has a cool monocle and an important job and she’s not normal at all.” Harry leaned closer to Amelia. “Normal is boring.”

Amelia was struggling to not laugh. “That it is,” she agreed.  She stood. “Let’s go talk to this normal, boring aunt of yours.”

“Sure.”  Harry headed for the tent flap and let them out into his room and then down the stairs and into the kitchen.  Petunia was in the kitchen, banging pans.  The faint scent of cigarette hung on the air. Sometimes he thought he could even smell a little misery in with the scent. Harry smiled brightly.

The Dursleys were collecting a little karma, although Harry wouldn’t push things too far until he and Dudley were out of the house. 

“Aunt Petunia,” Harry said. She turned around and then shrieked when Madam Bones followed.

“Who are you?” She clutched her frying pan and backed herself against the sink.

“Hello, Mrs. Dursley. I’m Madam Bones from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

Petunia was starting to breathe faster.  Harry turned to Amelia. “Maybe we should wait in the front room,” he suggested.

“Yes, maybe that would be best,” Amelia said. She backed out of the kitchen, leaving Harry with his aunt.

“Why is she here?” Petunia whispered, desperation in her voice.

“She said she wants to make sure I’m safe,” Harry said.  It was ironic that the magical world was checking on him only in this second life where he was already strong and knowledgeable enough to keep himself safe. He wished he could give all child Harrys the protection of Amelia’s attention, but his days of dimension hopping were over.

Aunt Petunia’s hand was shaking.  Harry turned on the kettle before getting cups out of the cupboard.  “I’m sure she’ll go away soon.”

“And then who else is going to show up? My life has been horrible ever since you were dropped on my doorstep.  I have wizards in and out of my life as if they don’t have magical serial killers that I couldn’t protect myself or my family from.”  That was the fear Arcturus had implanted in her mind–fear of Voldemort and of Harry’s accidental magic.  It was a better motivation for her abuse and neglect than jealousy and anger—her real motives.  But those would make Dumbledore fear that he had created a new Tom Riddle.

And those would make Amelia Bones remove him from the house.  Harry would rather be here, separate from the wizarding world and with a lot more freedom, so they’d tweaked his aunt’s version of mean.

Without Arcturus’ mental rearranging, she would be nothing more than a jealous bitch taking out her insecurities on a ten-year-old little boy, but now she was terrified of the danger magic brought.

Harry finished making tea and loaded a tray. “Come on, Aunt Petunia. Once you talk to her, we can get her to go away.”

“You shouldn’t have let her into the house at all,” Petunia complained as she followed Harry.

“I didn’t. She did the teleportation thing into my bedroom.  Should adults be able to just show up in my bedroom?” Harry asked.

“An excellent question, Mr. Potter,” Amelia said as they walked into the front room. “The answer is that they should not. There are apparition wards that would keep wizards from showing up, but no one would put them on this property unless you had a floo connection.”

“Is that the fireplace thing, like from my muggleborn book?” Harry asked.

“It is,” Amelia said. She flicked her wand and the tea tray liberated itself from Harry’s hands and floated to the sofa table. “A floo,” she explained to Petunia who had a confused expression, “is a fireplace connected to a transportation network. Someone with the right floo name and password can travel through the fire and into your house.”

“I don’t want to make it easier for wizards to visit. What if a wizard like the one who killed my sister shows up?” Petunia demanded.

Amelia’s expression turned sympathetic.  “I understand. I lost my brother and sister-in-law to the same terrorist. However, a floo can be locked.  If you have no apparition wards, I’m afraid that anyone literally could walk in here.”

Technically that wasn’t true because Dumbledore had put up blood wards, but that ward literally only stopped Voldemort. It was the most useless of all security features because it relied on Tom Riddle being so arrogant that he would not have anyone else kill or kidnap the Boy Who Lived for fear of looking weak. Yes, technically Dumbledore had been right, but still…. It had been a dumb assumption.  

“We wouldn’t put up apparition wards because that would mean no one could reach you in an emergency. If you had a permanent floo, then I could have a team out here to make sure no one could apparate within a block of the house. And if someone did come here, the floo would give you an escape path.”

Fat chance. If someone targeted the Boy Who Lived, first they would find that Harry was very much armed and creative in his ability to throw a curse. Maybe he didn’t have an adult core capable of major feats of magic, but a tripping jinx could be very effective if you got someone to trip into something sharp.

He’d done that more than once as an auror.

More importantly, any attacker would block both floo and apparition.  However, if Privet Drive had a floo, Harry would be able to get to the magical world much more easily.

“Could my friend Hermione get a floo?” Harry asked excitedly. Amelia was staring at the stairs, her lips pressed into a thin line.  Harry turned, exaggerated confusion on his face even though he knew Dumbledore was standing there.  Aurors went through magical awareness training, and combined with his magical reflexes, no one could sneak up on Harry.  Harry looked back at Amelia and she smiled.

“We can talk to the Minister about making an exception,” Amelia said.

Harry frowned, exaggerating his expression. “Why would she need an exception?”

“Because she’s in a muggle area.”

“So am I,” Harry said.

“She’s trying to say that if people don’t have wizards as parents, they aren’t worth as much as everyone else.  Your mother talked about it. They called her a mudblood and then they killed her,” Petunia snapped.

Amelia blanched.  “It’s more about maintaining security. We don’t want a witch or wizard to come out a floo when muggles are visiting the house. Harry, if we set up a floo, I would recommend we put it in your room.  That way there’s less chance of your cousin’s friends seeing it. We can even put security on your door.”

“That might be smart. His friends have gotten into my room, and the tent is only safe because it has something about making muggles leave it alone.”

“We can talk to Hermione’s parents about whether there is a way to secure a floo at her house so there’s no chance of a muggle friend or relative seeing it, but I will talk to the Minister myself.”

“Yes, please,” Harry said.  If he and Hermione could floo to each other’s houses, that would make life much easier. They could explore the alleys.  Harry would lose her in the public library, and they could visit Arcturus.

Amelia smiled at him. “Mrs. Dursley, are you comfortable having your nephew in your house?”

She frowned. “Of course I am. I’m not a monster.”

The irony was killing Harry.

Amelia took a breath. “I understand you told Harry his parents died in a car accident.”

Petunia had been twisting a cup of tea in her hands, but now she slammed it down on the table. “Should I have told him that his parents were targeted by magical racists who murdered them? Should I explain how his father’s people abandoned him because he might not have magic and people who don’t have magic are worthless?  Should I have made him love his missing parents so he felt worse about the fact they were dead?”  Her voice rose until she was shouting.

“She’s just worried, Aunt Petunia,” Harry said.  “Uncle Arcturus was really upset that I didn’t know about the wizarding world and how my parents died.”

“Your father didn’t have any brothers. You don’t have an uncle,” Petunia said.

“He’s my grandmother's… brother? Uncle? I’m not sure, but I’m related to him through the Black family.” Harry feigned ignorance. 

“Euphemia Potter nee Black was cousins with Arcturus,” Amelia said.

“Why didn’t he take Harry as a baby?” Petunia demanded.

“Because he lost most of his family in the war right after his wife of fifty years died. I doubt he would have come forward at all if Harry’s name hadn’t appeared in the newspaper with news that he had apparated.  He could have died doing that.” Amelia gave Harry an unhappy look. “I also want to ask about a report that Harry was sleeping in a closet.”

Petunia rolled her eyes. “He moved upstairs when he wanted to. It’s not as if we would hurt our nephew,” she said.

Harry bit his tongue.  He wished he could actually go back in time and confront the Petunia who had made his childhood miserable, but she was dead and rotting in the ground. And this Petunia had her brain rearranged until she wasn’t responsible for her own actions.  Getting her exiled from all her suburban mom groups was all the revenge he felt justified in taking.

Well, that and making her do her own housework.  And making her endure all the whispers when she went to the store. And taking away some of the family’s income. Harry had heard Petunia and Vernon discuss the lack of funds for Dudley’s tuition at Smeltings because Vernon had been demoted. Harry would need to arrange for payment through Arcturus.  Dudley would never become a decent man if he didn’t get away from his parents.

Okay, so he was getting more than a little revenge.

“I don’t need the judgment of people who never once showed up to help us.  Get out of my house,” Petunia stood and pointed toward the door.

“They came through my room,” Harry whispered.

Petunia glared at him, and Harry stood.  “Madam Bones, maybe I can show you back to my room.”

She stood. “Of course, Mr. Potter.  Mrs. Dursley, thank you for your time.”

“Just get out of my house,” Petunia said wearily.

Harry walked up the stairs with Amelia following, and Dumbledore retreating up the stairs ahead of him, still invisible.  When Amelia got to his room, Harry closed the door.

“Do you feel safe here?” Amelia asked.

Harry nodded.  “My cousin is a bully, but it’s a lot better now that we’re in different schools. My uncle never stops him from bullying me here at home, but Aunt Petunia does.”  He didn’t say that it was because of Arcturus’ mental rearranging.

Amelia sighed.

“If you want me to be safe, you could get me a floo,” Harry said in an overly manipulative tone that his grandchildren had always used when they wanted something.

Amelia gave him an amused look.  She clearly recognized the tone.  “I can look into it, and look into creating a wardline that will keep underage muggles out of your room.  But I have an additional condition.”

Harry tilted his head. “What?”

“We can connect two floos so that people in one location don’t need a password to get to the other location. It also means that if the floo network goes offline, the two floos will still connect.  I would like to connect your floo to mine. You could visit Bones Manor any time, and I’ll introduce you to my niece. She lost her parents in the war, too.”

If Harry and Hermione could make friends with Susan Bones, that would give them an in with Hufflepuff.  In school, he’d never understood the power of Hufflepuffs. They had loyalty, but so did Gryffindors. Well, some of them, anyway.  But Hufflepuffs were Merlin-damned menaces when their own were threatened, more than any Gryffindor. If you were friends with a Hufflepuff, you had someone who would help you hide a body. Hell, you had someone who would help you turn an enemy into a body.

They were dangerous, dangerously loyal little psychopaths, and Harry had found they were, hands down, his very favorite people in the world. They sure as hell wouldn’t have stopped writing to him just because an adult told them to. Having Hufflepuff friends would be a huge advantage in this universe. This time he hoped he landed in the house of the badgers.

Badgers.  He should have known what they were like by looking at their mascot. Pound for pound, badgers were more dangerous than lions or snakes.  Harry could do much worse than Hufflepuff.

He would consider asking the Sorting Hat for Slytherin, but if he had to live with Crabb and Goyle, he would kill them. He knew what sort of monsters they were because tales of their sadism had come out during the trials after Voldemort fell.  And Draco.  Harry missed his Draco, but he might murder child Draco and then he would never get “Wrinkles” back.  He would never again have his buddy roll his eyes or threaten to rip out Harry’s eyebrows one hair at a time.

Seeing child Ron was painful because of what had happened.  Seeing child Draco would be painful because Harry’s choices might mean that Draco never overcame his father’s horrible teachings in order to become Harry’s favorite frienemy. 

“That would be awesome,” Harry said. “Hermione and I were scared we wouldn’t know anyone and Hogwarts is starting in less than a year.  We don’t want to be behind.”

“You’re definitely not going to be behind,” Amelia said.  “Dumbledore, are you still here?” she said louder.

Dumbledore came out of the tent, and Amelia gave him a dirty look.  From the startled look on Dumbledore’s face, he’d thought he’d hidden himself better than that. “We’re leaving,” Amelia said.

“Of course. I assume you’re satisfied,” he said.

Amelia didn’t answer.  “Mr. Potter, you will hear from me, and I will find a way to get a floo at Ms. Granger’s house as well.  It was good to meet you, and I hope I see you at Bones Manor soon.”

“Thank you, Madam Bones,” Harry said.  He watched both of them spin before vanishing with a crack.

So that was it.  Plan ‘make contact with the magical world’ was one hundred percent a success.  He and Hermione could make their alliances before Hogwarts started, and when Dumbledore and Voldemort tried to use Harry as ground zero for their battles, Harry would have allies. So many allies.

Of course, this was only the first battle of a long war.  Harry needed to free his godfather and find the horcruxes. Dumbledore and Fudge needed their wings trimmed while Lucy needed his wings cut off altogether. 

And Snape.

Harry had no idea what he wanted to do about Snape.

But he had six months to figure it out because he was going back to Hogwarts.