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Chapter Text

Lily had always wanted to visit Stonehenge.

Even before she knew of magic and before she researched the stones’ magical properties, she found their mystery enchanting. There was something otherworldly about the place. Not even the magical world knew how the stones came to be. The leading theory was that it was a fairy ring of some sort, though rarely had a fairy been spotted there.

On a chilly, full moon night, with seven witches and wizards standing inside the circle, it felt like the kind of magic that a good light witch like her shouldn’t get caught up in. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

“Do you think it will work?” James asked as they watched Albus cover every inch of ground inside the circle with a potion that smoked and bubbled in the large cauldron hovering in the air. “It still seems too good to be true.”

“It does, but I had to leave my doubts behind when I gave up nearly every moment of the past month to spend locked away in a potions lab with Severus. If it doesn’t work, I will— well, I don’t know what I’ll do, but it won’t be pretty.”

Thirty days of nearly constant attention to the potion Albus was coating the ground with. Days she could’ve spent with her husband and children, because in the middle of a war, you never truly knew how much time you would have to spend with your loved ones. If this didn’t work, she would find Severus and get epically drunk with him, that was what she’d do. James and the gang could join them if they were prepared to bitch about the world with them.

They stepped aside so that Albus could get the ground they’d been standing on and took their positions, standing in a wide circle. Albus, James, Lily, Sirius, Minerva, Severus, Bill. The second the last drop hit the ground, a blinding white light burst from the ground.

“Now!” Albus yelled, though he hadn’t had to. The light was enough of a cue.

Lily’s eyes were squeezed shut to avoid the blinding light, but she could tell where everyone else was through their voices, everyone chanting at slightly different speeds. It was chaotic, brutal, and James’ hand was latched tightly around hers. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes of chanting, but her voice was sore from the guttural sounds she had to recite and her chest was tight with stress. If she spoke even one letter incorrectly…

There was a crack not unlike apparition, but a thousand times louder. Lily continued chanting until she reached the end of her piece. One by one, they stopped, until it was only Albus’ voice against the backdrop of a noise that Lily couldn’t even begin to describe. It was a warbling, sinister sound that her brain registered as threat threat threat.

Albus’ voice stopped. It was the end of his role in the ritual, but a part of her thought the sound had taken him. She couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see him over the blinding white light. Lily’s knees shook with the effort to stay in one place. There was something wet on her cheeks and she realized she’d started crying at some point.

And then without warning, everything stopped. The sound had been silenced. Her eyelids went from white to red to black. Carefully, Lily opened her eyes, releasing James’ grip to wipe her cheeks. Next to her, James too was unsteady, his whole body shaking. The others were in a similar state, but they were all standing.

In the very center of the circle stood a man in black robes. Lily couldn’t see him very clearly with the spots in her vision and the dim light the moon provided, but there was no doubt he was the one. A person who had the power to defeat Voldemort.

“Well, this is interesting,” the man said, his voice deep and unfamiliar. He had a British accent and a tone that was more interested than frightened. Good—they needed someone wild enough to agree to help them. “I haven’t felt something like that since I tried to portkey both drunk and stoned.”

“My name is Albus Dumbledore,” Albus spoke. He took a step closer to the man, reaching his hand out for a handshake. “I understand you must have questions, but will you trust us to take you to a secure location? The magic of the ritual may have been noticed by Voldemort’s forces. We were also unable to cast proper muggle-repelling wards, so it is likely there could be someone coming for us any second.”

Lily’s heart thudded in her chest. If the answer was no, she was going to grab him and apparate him anyway, power to destroy Voldemort or no.

“Voldemort’s forces? Muggles?” The man sounded utterly confused. “Alright, why not? Stranger danger is for losers, anyway. You had better not force-feed me any lemon drops while I’m there.”

With that, he clasped Albus’ hand, and the tell-tale crack of side-along apparition rang. Lily was never going to be able to hear that sound without remembering this night, she thought with a sigh. She shared a look with James and Sirius, the others having left immediately afterward.

“First impressions?” she asked.

“Too casual,” Sirius instantly said. “He’s been pulled here by who knows who and all he does is joke around and agree to be apparated to what might be a cell?”

“No arguments here,” came from James. “It could be that he recognizes us. He certainly knows something of Albus, judging by that lemon drop comment.”

“Or he said it to make us think that,” Lily mused.

“Only one way to find out.” And Sirius was gone.

With a nod toward James, Lily did the same. She appeared in the location they’d specifically chosen for this purpose, a small house owned by a distant relative of Minerva’s. It hadn’t been used in years at this point. Neither Voldemort nor the rest of the Order had ever been here, making it the perfect intermediate spot. If their visitor wasn’t agreeable, they’d come to the conclusion that they did not have the power to subdue someone who could defeat Voldemort himself. At least if he turned on them, he wouldn’t get the rest of the Order. It wasn’t the safest of missions, but Albus needed all the help he could get, and they were some of the Order’s top fighters.

The round kitchen table was already occupied. Their visitor sat with his back to the kitchen wall. Severus was across from him, Minerva next to Severus, and Albus was making tea in the kitchen.

“Where’s Bill?” she heard Sirius ask.

Lily ignored Albus’ comment about him needing to do another task for Albus.

It didn’t matter.

What mattered was the way her chest hurt when she looked at their visitor. He had her eyes. She would never have been able to miss that. They seemed to be even greener than hers, almost frighteningly like the Killing Curse, but the basis was Lily’s. The dark hair was like nothing but James’ mop before he became a semi-respectable businessman. His features were handsome, angular, and just below the end of his fringe poked a scar that Lily remembered so clearly, even though she’d seen it only for a day before she buried her son.

“What is your name?” Lily asked, feeling as though something inside her was breaking.

“Lily,” James murmured from beside her.

“I thought the two of you looked familiar,” their visitor said, his words loud in the quiet of the room. “Harry Potter, at your service.”

She didn’t know what to say, but what came out was, “You’re so handsome.” And he was, he was her adorable baby boy as a handsome young man in his mid-twenties.

“Thanks,” Harry said, smiling at her. He ran his fingers through his hair, drawing her attention again to the very same scar that had looked enormous on the forehead of her poor little boy. On this man, it was rough and red against his skin, but he had grown into someone who carried it well. “I suppose that’s all the introductions we really need? Unless any of you have changed your names. Actually that’s very possible.” His gaze rested on each of them in turn. “Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Sirius Black, Lily Evans, James Potter.”

“I do usually go by my married name,” Lily said, her lip twitching. She took the seat to Harry’s right.

James sat down on her other side. “It took me long enough to convince you to take it. Hello, Harry.” His hand settled on top of Lily’s on the surface of the table.

“You two are cute,” Harry said.

“Sickeningly,” Sirius agreed. “Was I still your godfather in your world?”

“Hell yeah,” Harry replied, his eyes light. “Best dogfather in the world. We actually had brunch earlier today.”

“Best meal of the day,” Sirius replied, nodding sagely.

“And you were my Transfiguration professor back in the day,” Harry said, turning to Minerva. “My fondest memories of Hogwarts are of you calling me Mr. Potter with that tone that you have when I’ve aggravated you half to death.”

“Dear lord,” Minerva said. “I do feel for her. I suppose you were something like James? Nonstop pranking, reckless adventuring—”

“—putting other students in danger,” Severus added with a sneer.

Lily held in her sigh, but she put a very special sort of glare in her eyes. Severus and the Marauders had reached a shaky truce years ago, leaving only the occasional cutting word but no real violence, and there was no reason to be cruel to someone who only looked like James. For Merlin’s sake, the man had met Harry less than half an hour ago.

“I mostly just put myself in danger,” Harry said, easily. “Good to see you, Severus.”

Lily couldn’t find any hint of a lie in those words. Harry was even smiling at Severus. Her heart felt warm. At least the feud hadn’t carried on to the next generation in Harry’s dimension.

“Don’t tell me he was your favorite professor or something,” Sirius groaned. “Don’t break my heart like that.”

“Well, not exactly,” Harry’s lips twitched with amusement as he glanced between the two of them. “But I did get to know him well after Hogwarts. I mean, he’s my co-godfather by marriage these days.”

As Harry’s words dawned on Sirius, it was as though all the light and goodness in the world left his eyes. “No.”

“You’re either an extraordinary liar or you aren’t lying,” Severus said, aghast. “You— what the hell could have happened to cause my other self to abandon all common sense?”

“Why would I lie about something like that?” Harry asked. “I was the officiant at your wedding. That brunch I was talking about earlier? It was with the both of you. We talked about how you two were remodeling—”

“Stop right there,” Severus interrupted, looking faintly ill.

Lily couldn’t help but feel a little amused. But Harry, he wasn’t hiding his amusement at all, even laughing quietly at the two of them. Oh, he must have been a hellion growing up if he was this bad as an adult. James would’ve been so proud. And there her amusement went, leaving behind such an odd mix of happiness and profound sadness.

“Sirius,” James said, solemnly. “You are never, ever living this down.”

“I hate you.”

Harry seemed to have decided to quit torturing Sirius and Severus, because he moved on to the man who had just now joined them, levitating a teacup for each of them and a platter of biscuits for the center of the table. He sat down on Harry’s other side, though not as close as Lily had.

“Albus Dumbledore,” Harry greeted. “I would’ve have to have been knocked on the head to not recognize you.”

“I only wish I could say the same. Your counterpart passed away twenty-three ago, I’m afraid, and I could only guess at your identity when I first saw your face. It’s an honor, my boy.”

“Sorry,” Harry said, awkwardly glancing at James and Lily.

Lily let James do the accepting, watching as Harry tapped on the edge of his teacup. He snorted softly, shaking his head. Then Harry brazenly lifted his teacup, reached over, and switched it out with Albus’.

“I’ve missed you, Albus,” Harry said, with no anger that she could hear in his voice. “Balls of steel right there.”

Language, Lily almost said out of habit. But she refrained. Harry was a grown adult and she was hardly in a position to rebuke him, his mother from an alternate dimension or no. It was a task for Harry’s real mother, she thought with a pang. This different Lily who had been able to raise her first son instead of bury him.

“I had to try,” Albus said, jovially. “Tell me, Harry, are you not worried about your safety because you care for us, or because you’re powerful enough to subdue us?”

“Bit of one, bit of the other.” Harry’s tone was easy. Lily realized she hadn’t heard an edge of tenseness in it since he’d arrived. It was strange. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with violence. Our war ended five years ago. The worst I’ve gotten hurt since is during an Unspeakable experiment fuckup.” He scowled at that one. “But really, it’s because these days, I’m not used to anyone being a real threat to me. It would be senseless.”

Another tap of a finger, and then Harry was drinking his tea, easy as you please.

“Is that a threat?” Severus asked. His eyes were intent on Harry’s face.

Lily felt protective, but it was James who spoke. “Lay off him.”

“Lay off of a powerful wizard who we know next to nothing about? I suppose you’re all sentimental now because he’s your dead son come alive—” Severus cut himself off, gaze flitting to Lily’s angry face. “I apologize, Lily.” At Lily’s continued glare, he spit out, “James. But my point still stands. We have no idea what kind of life this Harry Potter has led.”

“Perhaps we should ask him,” Albus cut in.

“An interrogation by a sweeter name?” Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

“A conversation that I’m sure you can get out of easily,” Albus corrected. “It’s hardly an interrogation when both sides exchange information.” Severus looked like he was about to speak again, but Albus continued on, “We summoned you here using an ancient ritual that responds only to those with great need. Times are dark in our dimension, and growing darker by the day. Our second wizarding war has lasted ten years now with no sign of end. We asked the ritual to bring to us our greatest need: the power to defeat Voldemort. We were graced with you.”

“Little old me,” Harry murmured.

“Is it true? Do you have that power?” Minerva asked, leaning in.

Harry’s fingers tapped on the edge of this teacup, though this time he didn’t seem to be checking it for tampering. “Do I have the power? Sure. The war with Voldemort ended years ago in my world and my side was victorious. Do I have the inclination?” He looked around the table, meeting each of their eyes one by one. “How can you possibly expect me to say yes? Who exactly do you think I am?”

“A brave man, the son of two of the most strong, wonderful people I have ever met. One who has already allowed us to bring him here when there was nothing forcing him to take my hand. This isn’t your obligation, but it is our dear hope that you would agree to help us.”

*

Harry looked at all of them, at the fragile hope that seemed to be in every one of their expressions, however deeply hidden or plainly given. It was unsettling. No one had looked at him like that in ages. He assumed this was the look his husband received from his minions when they were hoping not to get Crucio’d, but Harry wasn’t really a minions type of guy.

When he’d first landed in the middle of Stonehenge, Harry had been confused and weirded out by all these familiar faces looking not quite right (by being actually alive, in some cases), but he’d gone along with them out of curiosity. And now the cat was being killed because these jerks wanted him to do their dirty work. Harry nearly said no on principle. He was the co-ruler of an entire wizarding nation, not some kind of assassin for hire. On the other hand, well. It wouldn’t be bad to try to prove his power against an alternate version of his husband. They had a long-standing argument about who was really the strongest and this would be a fucking fantastic point in his favor. Voldemort would be so pissed.

“I suppose…” Harry dragged the moment out, because what the hell. He avoided looking at James and Lily, whose expressions were making him uncomfortable. “I have been looking for an excuse to go on holiday. Even if it’s a working holiday, I assume I’ll be able to still get some time under the sun in.”

That evidently wasn’t the answer they were expecting, but it seemed they would accept it. He only had time to get a few more tidbits of information out of them before Albus decided to call it a night, claiming he was looking out for Harry and that it must have been a long day. Harry couldn’t argue; it had been. Some very energetic sex in the morning, brunch with his husband and godfathers to go over the details of the newly proposed goblin treaty, sparring with his husband while they yelled at each other about what was necessary to require in the treaty (and it really wasn’t to keep the goblins as slaves forevermore and see if they would evolve to become more like house-elves, seriously, the Griphook clan still looked at Harry with murder in their beady eyes, not docility), settling some minor disputes that the ministry couldn’t solve and his husband had managed to dump on him, traveling against his will to another dimension, meeting his parents for the first time in his memory… Yeah, it had been a long day.

Lily and James invited him to their home in Godric’s Hollow whenever he felt like it the next day, not realizing they’d need to give him the address. Harry had only been there once and his memories were blurry. Eventually he would really have to tell these versions of his parents that he didn’t know them very well. It just hadn’t come up earlier. That was a lie, but eh. They both seemed weirdly soft and Harry liked a challenge, not soft targets he could hurt just by bringing up a kid they’d lost.

That couldn’t be everything, of course. Harry figured he’d play along until he figured out where they were hiding their darkness. There had to be some kind of prisoner torture chamber at the Order’s main base or a plot by Dumbledore that left them all potioned and dependent on him. No matter how good they seemed, the bad would out. It was a comforting thought. The idea of two legitimately good people giving birth to him—even if they weren’t exactly his parents—was pretty horrifying.

Once the Order had called it a night, Harry retreated to the safe house's only bedroom and took a seat on the bed with his back against the headboard and his legs crossed.

He wasn't very good at meditation; it was hard to fit practicing something that was rarely necessary into his busy life, no matter what his husband said about meditation opening a connection to one's magic. Harry couldn't bear to spend part of his day lazing around with his eyes closed when he could instead open that connection with his husband via blowjobs.

It took some time, but he began to get a feel for the bond between him and Voldemort. Usually the connection would be wide open, a constant ability to speak with each other, feel each other's emotional states, and allow the other to see through his eyes if one of them was doing something particularly interesting. Or interestingly violent. There had been that month where they'd tried to out-violence each other and Harry hadn't been able to get the smell of blood out for weeks afterward. Now, the connection was muted, uncomfortably so. When concentrating, Harry could tell that Voldemort was extremely pissed off, but not about what.

Harry sent some calm toward him and got twice as much anger in return.

It could be that his husband disapproved of Harry ambling off into different dimensions.

Ah, well.

Better to ask for forgiveness than wait for a chance like this to escape him. Most likely, had he not entered the portal that appeared before him, the ritual would have tried to locate a different Harry Potter. A Harry Potter who wouldn't have appreciated the hilarity of this summoning. It was true that Harry had never studied obscure magics as deeply as his husband, but he'd recognized the feel of the magic around Stonehenge. Their two worlds were connected now until the connection was specifically broken. Harry would have to see if he could temporarily open the connection to speak with Voldemort and calm him back down to his usual level of irritation. He'd rather not his husband stay angry with him.

As interesting as this world seemed to be, Harry didn't want to get stuck here because Voldemort flipped him the bird and closed the connection on his end, making Harry actually work to get back.

Just in case, Harry sent his love through their bond.

He added his lust, too, because make-up sex was definitely going to be necessary.

Chapter Text

Godric’s Hollow was a winding community of wizarding homes. It was the opposite of Privet Drive in terms of suburban architecture. Each house had been constructed by a different team of builders with a different set of orders each time, resulting in a cacophony of designs and colors. But unlike Privet Drive, where Harry could’ve set his clock by nosy neighbors pruning their bushes or sipping lemonade on their porches, all primed for gossip to arise, there was nothing of the such here. The whole neighborhood was quiet; a few homes had obviously been vacant for ages, while in others, cautious residents peeked from behind the curtains. It wasn’t in pursuit of gossip.

Times of war, Harry thought, the impulse to hide unknown to him. Life was to be lived and enemies to be skewered, and Harry had never been one for a small existence.

Harry walked down the street, peering at each house for signs of the Potters. He definitely remembered that the house had been more or less close to the graveyard, where he was near now, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember which one. Sirius had taken him here in fifth year to pay their respects to his parents, but that had been a decade ago and Harry hadn’t been paying attention much anyway. With no memories of them to rely on, Lily and James hadn’t felt truly real to him.

A gleefully morbid impulse hit him and Harry followed it, stepping into the graveyard for the second time in his life.

“Point me Harry Potter’s grave,” he said, pulling his wand out of his robes. It pointed north, but Harry just glared at it, patting his pockets but not finding the correct wand. “Really?”

The wand that was certainly not Harry’s proper wand didn’t reply, but it did pinch at his fingers.

“I have a perfectly good holly wand that I finally got you to fix. You’re unnecessary. If I knew killing Dumbledore would mean ending up with you, I’d have gotten Draco to do it. You would’ve liked it. You’re both contrary bastards.”

The wand seemed to take it as a compliment. Harry shoved it in the back pocket of his jeans and headed north, glancing down at the gravestones. Eventually, he came across the Potter family’s plot of land. His grandparents were apparently dead here, too.

Harry Potter’s gravestone was only half the size of the nearby ones, but large enough for his full name to stretch grandly across the top. In smaller letters, July 31, 1980 - November 1, 1981. And in looping cursive, the words almost glimmering under the morning sunlight: The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

“Shit luck, kiddo,” Harry murmured, feeling weird about the whole thing.

He’d never felt this much staring down at any other headstone, but he figured it made sense when you were looking at your own grave. Death wasn’t going to come for him until both he and Voldemort were good and ready (which meant never, probably, since Voldemort loved living and Harry wasn’t planning on ditching him in such a permanent way), but the grave still made him feel something in his chest.

Hunger, probably. The safe house hadn’t been stocked with any food except for some biscuits and tea.

At the sound of footsteps, Harry looked back to see Lily coming toward him, holding a bouquet of white flowers. She set them down at the base of the gravestone. Her hand free, she pressed it to her lips, then to the stone.

“A little morbid, isn’t it,” she said, quietly. “To stand at your own grave.”

“Very,” Harry agreed. He didn’t know any topics for small talk at a graveyard when you weren’t celebrating, hosting an orgy, or planning to bury a traitor alive. “It’s very well-kept.”

“We try,” Lily said. “I mean— we’re not obsessive about it or anything, but we do live just down the street.” She winced. “Not that it would be bad to be obsessive, you’re a part of our—”

“Lily,” Harry cut her off. “It’s been two decades. You can grieve however much you want to. Or not grieve. I’ve never had kids or lost a kid, so I don’t really know how it works, but if your kid was going to grow up anything like me, I’m sure he’d want you to be happy.”

Grief was a useless emotion, Harry didn’t say, because Molly would’ve smacked him for it.

“Thanks, Harry,” Lily said, her voice only a little shaky. “I’ve never stopped loving you, you should know that. But the grief doesn’t burn as deeply as it used to. I can’t believe I’m being given advice about my son’s death from my son’s alternate dimension double. Come on, I’ll make us some tea. Are you hungry?”

“Starving. And stranger things have happened, I’m sure.”

“Like what?” Lily asked as they walked to the Potter home, which Harry had apparently passed by twice earlier. He wondered if Lily had seen him through the windows.

Harry was always happy to talk about himself. “Well, my favorite story is about Slytherin’s basilisk. It was a fantastic adventure during my second year of Hogwarts…”

That lasted them through the making of the tea and James meeting them in the living room. Harry had been forced to do a quick recap for James, but he didn’t mind.

“…and that’s when I made a deal with the basilisk to let it out for feeding in the Forbidden Forest as long as it kept one set of eyelids over its eyes, because half the forest becoming petrified or dead wouldn’t have been good for the ecosystem.”

“Of course, one must think of the ecosystem,” James said, looking a little pale.

“It only needs to feed once a year, so Ron, Hermione and I make a whole field trip out of it for any curious students. The cursed object I just gave back to the dick who’d brought it into the school. He’d seen the error of his ways quickly enough.”

Harry’s skills at blackmail hadn’t been very well-developed at age twelve, but he hadn’t done a bad job. It had put him even more on the radar of the Dark Lord, who at that point had been slowly realizing that there were other possibilities he could explore concerning the prophecy. But at twelve, Harry had mostly wanted to get one over his rival’s dad and maybe scare people a bit with a terrifying but more or less harmless snake.

“Wait, that’s it?” James asked. “You didn’t go to the aurors or your headmaster?”

“I told Dumbledore,” Harry said with a shrug. Well, he’d told Dumbledore parts of it. “I don’t know what he ended up doing. He didn’t approve of the ministry interfering with Hogwarts, not to mention the fact that he would’ve been crucified if word had gotten out that there had been a basilisk under Hogwarts this entire time and he hadn’t noticed anything. Word eventually did get out, but that’s a whole different story.”

Belatedly, Harry realized that distracting James and Lily from their son’s death with a story about how Harry had almost died may not have been the soundest of his ideas. They both seemed shaken and had barely taken a sip out of their cups, while Harry had swallowed down a breakfast of champions during the retelling of his Hogwarts glory days.

“Can you tell me about yourselves?” Harry asked, remembering some manners.

And weirdly enough, he actually paid attention to their words. He’d expected to be bored in an instant, but Lily and James had managed to not have completely dull lives.

James had been an auror during the first war with Voldemort, which their Harry had ended up stopping, but had died by the hands of the Lestranges before James and Lily could get to him. It seemed to be a painful memory for them. Afterward, James hung up his auror’s cloak and turned to inventing. He’d always had a knack for it—Harry congratulated him on the marauders’ map, which they’d made in this world, too—and he, Remus, and Sirius created a line of self-protection devices. After a year of running the business strictly through owl order, they set up shop in Diagon Alley. James was on the alley planning committee now and had actual opinions about how they had to renovate the wards to fit with the needs of their century, as well as expand the streets.

Lily had been studying for the entrance exams to the Wright College of Magical History and Law before the war ended and after, she’d taken the college by storm, came out with a degree, and put, in her words, all her anger at the world into beating the Wizengamot into submission about muggleborn rights. Some of her accomplishments had been swaying enough of the Wizengamot into making muggleborn workplace discrimination actually illegal instead of just discouraged and putting a proper teacher into the Muggle Studies class, one who didn’t make muggles sound like idiots. Things changed when Voldemort was resurrected, but overall, they had built a good life for themselves. They didn’t linger on the details of the war. Harry figured that part would come when the rest of the Order had the opportunity to pick at his brain.

Carefully, as though they didn’t want to step on Harry’s toes, they told him they’d had two kids in the time following their Harry’s death. James had summoned one of the many picture frames and pointed them out.

“That’s us at Lily’s Order of Merlin, third class ceremony last year. We clean up nice, don’t we?”

Harry hummed in agreement.

“That’s Hestia, she’s a third year now,” a tall, red-haired girl in fashionable glasses in dark blue robes, “and Fleamont, first year,” a shorter boy whose facial composition was different, but whose coloring nearly matched Harry’s. His eyes were Lily’s, though, the green friendly and inviting instead of filled with the light of the Killing Curse.

“They’re cute kids,” Harry said when it seemed like the two wanted him to say something. “Gryffindors?”

“Both of them, yeah,” James agreed.

“I wanted at least Fleamont to go into Ravenclaw, just because the Hat strongly wanted me to go there and he’s even more of a bookworm than I was, but I think the Hat just gave in and yelled out Gryffindor,” Lily said with a laugh. “What house were you in?”

“Gryffindor, too.” Harry shook his head. “Wow, it really doesn’t have much imagination if it dumped two generations of Potters in one house.”

Harry had put the Hat on a second time on a whim after Bellatrix’s swearing in as headmistress of Hogwarts and it had congratulated him on managing to find greatness even in Gryffindor, though his bravery was toward goals the Hat didn’t approve of.

“Exactly,” Lily agreed.

“House pride anyone?” James asked, tisking at them. “If you’d like to meet them, I’m sure we can swing a way to do it. I have an in with the headmaster.”

Thanks but no thanks, Harry thought. He didn’t know how he would deal with more Potters. Lily and James were already— Harry couldn’t find a way to explain it. They seemed to be being careful not to overwhelm him, but all this interaction with his dead parents was making him feel so damn weird. He needed to go to a range, shoot some curses at targets or something.

“Sorry, the whole situation is still sinking in for me,” Harry told them, trying to be diplomatic.

Overall, he wasn’t bad at diplomacy. Harry knew how to conduct himself when feeling out a different country’s leadership for treaties or trade alliances, or solving needs of the other intelligent races in Britain after he and Voldemort shook everything up. It shouldn’t have been hard to do with people he was already familiar with, at least from Sirius’ stories. But it was.

“Don’t worry about it,” James quickly said. “We’re not going to push you or anything. I guess in your world, Lily and I stopped at just one kid?”

Harry made a face. Well, that was a good lead in as any.

“You could say that.” Harry paused for effect. “In my world, I stopped Voldemort just like your son did, but he slew you both as he made his way to me. I never knew you.”

“Oh, Harry.” Lily’s hands flew to her mouth and in seconds, she had stepped around the coffee table and pulled him into a tight hug. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t realize— I should’ve asked so much sooner.”

Harry hadn’t been cried on by a girl since an eleven-year-old Hermione. These days, Hermione was vastly more likely to set someone on fire than cry on them. It was an incredibly uncomfortable experience. But Lily was warm, her hug tight, and Harry patted her back and told her that it was okay, that he’d gotten over the whole thing years ago.

It was the complete and utter truth, but Lily didn’t seem to believe him one whit, and James sat down on his other side and pulled them both in.

Harry was beginning to suspect that these Lily and James weren’t hiding a torture dungeon anywhere.

And that really wasn’t comforting.

*

A few hours later, Harry allowed the Potters to apparate him to the Order’s meeting place, still feeling shell shocked. Over the past two hours, he’d tried to subtlety tease out evilness from the Potters. James apparently felt guilt for the way he treated Severus at school and sometimes smoked muggle cigarettes. Lily hated Slughorn with a passion despite using his connections, had a vicious temper, and accidentally set fire to her boss’ office once. Both had killed in self-defense during Order missions, but those lives were a weight on their consciences. They’d never killed someone just because, or because they were pissing them off, or because your husband asked you to do it because he was swamped with work and you didn’t bother asking why.

They believed in the overall goodness of humanity. It was gross.

“Is this Grimmauld Place?” Harry asked, trying to take his mind off of his parents’ deficiencies of character.

They’d apparated right into the foyer of a gloomy-looking house that Harry faintly remembered from a decade ago. He hadn’t spent much time here, but it was memorable. Same ugly wallpaper, same general air of doom and gloom, same house-elf heads that looked just one failed preservation charm away from dripping rotten flesh onto your head. There were some differences in the paintings that had been put up and the personal belongings near the door, but overall, it was like stepping into a memory.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been here,” came a voice from the top of the stairs. Sirius bounded down them two at a time until he came to a stop in front of them. “I hate the thought of anyone being subjected to this place.”

“Yeah, it was our Order’s first base of operations.” And since it looked basically the same without Sirius having had a stint in Azkaban, Harry figured, “You don’t live here?”

“Me?” Sirius curled his nose. “No way. I live just off of Diagon Alley in one of the residential sections. Easier to get to the shop that way. I didn’t even step foot in this house for twenty years. My dear mum got it all to herself until she croaked, then I just let Kreacher more or less inherit it.”

“Is your mum’s painting still here?” Harry asked, looking around, but not seeing that particular one.

“Nah, we managed to get it off after a year.”

“That’s a shame, I liked arguing with her,” Harry sighed. She was a crazy old bat, but it had been fun. After the dark side had won the war, Sirius had burned down Grimmauld Place while lying back on a lawn chair across the street and drinking a firewhisky. “The painting’s long gone in my world.”

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m really not. You want to go meet the others?”

It was a clear sign of Sirius wanting to check in with Lily and James, but Harry let them have their moment. He was curious about who else was here, anyway. He sauntered down to the kitchen level, following the delicious smells of lunch. Specifically, Molly Weasley’s lunch, Harry realized happily when the woman herself greeted him and told him to sit down wherever.

“Thank you, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry said, grinning. “Your cooking is my favorite in any dimension.”

“Oh, flattery,” Molly said, waving his words off, but she looked very pleased. “You look too thin, dearie.”

“You say that every time you see me in my own world.”

Harry was still pleased with himself for managing to keep the Weasleys alive through the war. He couldn’t say he cared about a lot of people, but the Weasleys had been the first to bring him into their family and love him. Love the pretense Harry put up, yes, but with some planning Harry had been able to spare the Weasleys who hadn’t gone dark from the destruction of the Order. Arthur and Molly had shunned him for a year after that, but they valued family, and five of their children had joined Harry out of their own free will. Eventually, the Weasley parents had more or less warmed up to the idea of living under a dark reign. Perhaps not completely, but enough that Harry stopped worrying about them going out and doing something stupid. There was only so far he could protect people who wouldn’t protect themselves.

“I must be right, then,” Molly said with a shake of her head.

She disappeared back into the kitchen, yelling at someone for not peeling the potatoes properly, and Harry chose a seat next to Severus instead of the number of open seats at the table.

“And how are you on this lovely day?” Harry asked, since Severus definitely wasn’t going to start off the conversation. “Wait, don’t you have classes to teach or something?”

“It’s the weekend, Potter,” Severus said, curtly.

“Right, I forgot about that,” Harry said with a hum. “You must really love teaching, since you’re doing it in this dimension, too.”

“I do not—” Severus cut himself off, his dark eyes meeting Harry’s amused ones. “You’re fully aware of my disdain for children.”

“‘Course I am. You left the job as soon as the dark-light war was over and no one could make you stay.”

“Not even Albus’ guilt trips?”

Harry recalled those fondly, but, “He was dead by that point. But Minerva was a survivor, so she delivered her own guilt trips that you happily dodged.”

“How did he die?”

“Painfully,” Harry said, quietly. “It was a nightmare of a night.”

It had been one of the biggest battles of the dark-light war, if not the biggest one. When he and Voldemort had finally broken into Hogwarts, flooding the whole castle with Death Eaters, Dumbledore had just barely been able to escape. The Order was in ruins and the general public’s resistance was weakening, so Dumbledore had gone abroad and found an ally that none of them had been expecting: Grindelwald. The two of them plus the forces they’d been able to scrounge up had descended on the castle, the two powerful wizards going through the Death Eaters as though the dark forces were carrying trick wands.

When Harry and Voldemort had stepped out to meet them, Dark Lord against a former Dark Lord, icon of the light against former icon of the light, they had nearly lost the fight. Dumbledore had been so much more powerful than Harry had expected and Grindelwald’s skills had languished in prison, but not by much. Harry was practically one big wound by the time he finally blasted Dumbledore’s head off. That was when Dumbledore’s wand had flown into his hands and Harry’s troubles with the Elder Wand began. Comparatively, taking the ministry had been a piece of cake.

He sighed, frowning at the table and wishing Molly’s amazing lunch were ready already. “Everything’s so different and weird here. I don’t know you all do it.”

“Somehow, we manage,” Severus replied, dryly, looking shocked at himself for playing along. As if to make up for it, he scowled at Harry. “You truly do know me well. I don’t know how a Potter could’ve managed to warm up to me so much.”

“You warmed up to Sirius,” Harry reminded him, because he loved the look of horror that Severus couldn’t manage to tamp down. “Weird things happen when people get to know each other. I admit, I really didn’t like you much my first year of Hogwarts. You were such a dick.”

Severus raised an eyebrow at him.

“You were! You kept picking on me in class and taking points off for every little thing I did. Later you claimed because it was for your cover story as a spy and you had to seem to hate me and et cetera, et cetera. But I know you really just hated me because I looked like my dad. Which was pretty stupid because it wasn’t as though I remembered him or was even raised by him, but eh.”

“And somehow I got over my animosity?” Severus asked incredulously. “If I hated you that much, why would anything change?”

“You realized I was really nothing like my dad,” Harry said, just a little smugly. Or maybe a lot, he couldn’t tell.

First year, Severus had just mindlessly hated him. Second year and third year, though, Severus had been so suspicious. He’d had good reasons to be suspicious, but honestly, Harry hadn’t even been up to much. He hadn’t even murdered anyone until fourth year. Personally, anyway, since he’d happily stood by while murder was taking place, but that didn’t really count. Severus had been so vexed at the fact that Harry and his friends were hiding something that he’d stooped to eavesdropping on multiple occasions. Upon realizing what Severus was doing, Harry, Hermione, and Ron had immediately gone into a detailed discussion of how they could murder Severus and get away with the crime if they decided they wanted to. In between pissing him off and doing a creepy murder child routine, Harry had found that Severus had actually become his favorite professor.

“Are you sure? Because I recognize that smug look. I tried to curse it off enough times at Hogwarts for it to stick in my memory,” Severus drawled.

“You’ve tried to curse it off of me, too,” Harry told him. “And off of Sirius, who you accused of making me even worse. But I think that was the two of you’s way of flirting, honestly.”

“I’m still hoping you’re lying about that.”

Harry looked at him with false sympathy. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll eventually realize what a catch you are in this world, too.”

“No I won’t!” came from the hallway to Harry’s left, while from next to him came, “I would rather be with a blubberworm.”

Sirius crossed the threshold of the room and gave Harry a disappointed look. “Lies and slander, godson, lies and slander. I won’t believe a word out of your mouth.”

Harry grinned evilly. “I could show you a pensieve memory.”

“Harry, please stop torturing my best friend,” James said, walking into the room and taking a chair at the table. “I know he’s an easy target, but you could at least try to resist.”

“Hey!” Sirius yelped, slumping into a chair. “I’m a hard target, alright.”

“There are so many things I could say right now,” Harry told the room. But before he could, plates of food flew through the air from the kitchen and onto the table. Beautiful, beautiful Molly Weasley-style food. “But never mind.” To the kitchen area, he called, “I love you Mrs. Weasley!”

“Of course the Potter spawn would be close to the Weasleys,” Severus sighed at him, though he wasn’t disdainful enough to keep himself from piling a healthy serving of food onto his plate.

“Harry would have shared a dorm with Ron Weasley all seven years of Hogwarts,” James told him, looking very pleased about the whole thing. “And you must’ve known Ginny and the twins, too, right? I’ve always thought it was a shame that Hestia and Fleamont were too young to really get to know most of the Order’s kids.”

Six years, since Dumbledore had the gall to expel him, but close enough. “Yeah, I know them well. Ron and Hermione—Hermione Granger?—have been my best friends since first year, but the twins and Ginny have always been great. Percy, too.”

“Percy? Weasley?” Sirius asked. “Percy ‘Voldemort isn’t back until he emerges from my butthole’ Weasley?”

“Sirius,” James said, but it was half-hearted. To Harry, he explained, “He’s in a top position in the ministry—can’t remember what it is now, he’s been promoted left and right lately—and he’s been less than helpful in our efforts to get the public aware of the threat. Everyone still seems to think that these attacks have just been Death Eaters, but others actually believe the propaganda that it’s the muggles who’ve started attacking us.”

“Idiots,” Severus scoffed.

“Muggles are attacking you?” Harry choked out.

“No, that’s just what the Daily Prophet wants us to think. Two years ago, it was bought out by Lucius Malfoy, who’s been pushing dark propaganda left right and center. He started out subtle, but by now it’s a mess of delusional Death Eater fantasies and a hilariously out of touch advice column that must be written by Narcissa,” James said.

There was a sound of the fireplace coming to life a couple rooms away and loud footsteps. One pair was distinctly Moody’s, and Harry tried to keep in his scowl as his fingers twitched for his wand. Now there was a man he wouldn’t mind killing. James and Lily might get upset, so Harry would have to do it covertly, but oh the possibilities…

The newcomers joined them, Moody sitting across from Harry and staring at him with suspicion and Dumbledore taking next to Moody. Arthur made a detour to say hello to his wife and the both of them joined the table. There were two people who Harry didn’t recognize, who introduced themselves as Frank and Alice Longbottom. Harry hated them both on principle, but they seemed friendly enough. Lily was the last to join them, ambling in with Remus, who looked much better than he ever had in Harry’s world.

He looked like Teddy, except Teddy would never stand to have so little color in his hair. Neither would Teddy stand to look so benign, almost human-passing if one didn’t know how to notice the little tells of the wolf beneath the man’s skin. Harry had no idea how this man could’ve possibly produced Harry’s vicious little godson; he had no idea how James and Lily had resulted in him. Maybe there really was something in the water in this world.

Chapter Text

Once everyone had been introduced and served, the interrogation began. It was a mostly bloodless one, Harry was amused to find.

This Order was still wary of him, even the ones who’d taken to his company, but they weren’t treating him like a possible enemy. Stupid of them, really, since Harry had been the main force behind the destruction of the Order in his own world, but he supposed they couldn’t know that.

Harry steered the conversation to the point when he assumed their worlds diverged: that fateful Halloween night. But rather, the chain of events began just slightly earlier.

“It was a low-risk Order mission,” James said, his voice worn, the story one long familiar to everyone in the room except Harry. “Lily and I took them when we absolutely couldn’t stand to be in the safe house any longer. It eats away at you, not being able to go anywhere or do anything or trust anyone. The morning of the 31st, I was on a retrieval mission with Dung. He would’ve gone on his own, except we thought there might be a chance of the package being lost on the way to pad his pockets. We got there fine, but when Dung approached our go-between, the man blasted a cutting curse at him. Two others stepped out of the shadows. Dung isn’t a bad dueler, scrappy and never afraid to go the muggle way, but they were on another level. We barely got out of the fight and went straight to Hogwarts, where Poppy was kind enough to patch us up, but kept us overnight for observation. Lily asked my parents to watch Harry and stayed with me. The rest of the gang came too, reminisced for hours about our good old days.” There was an awful sort of look in his eyes. “It was the last time the Marauders were all together.”

“Peter. He gave you up?” Harry asked, because he doubted it could’ve been anything else.

He wondered if the battle hadn’t happened in his world or if his own father had been just a little better, just a little luckier in the duel. Or if he’d decided to suck it up and just go home afterward, thinking his injuries weren’t so bad, and was that much less prepared to face him when Voldemort appeared.

“He kept glancing at the clock all night,” Remus said, sounding much more tired than he looked.

“I joked about him having a hot date,” Sirius muttered.

James continued with, “Then when the clock passed midnight, he stood up, about to leave, but he looked like he couldn’t make it through the door. Looked more terrified than during any exam he’d ever taken. Then he turned around, gave Lily his wand, and told us he’d betrayed us to Voldemort.”

At his choked-up pause, Lily continued the tale. “We stunned him and Remus took him to the ministry. Sirius, James, and I raced to the house. Charlus and Dorea had been put under prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus by the Lestranges. When we got there, they had already gotten to Harry. They were getting revenge for the fact that somehow Voldemort’s curse had rebounded and killed him instead. Rodolphus died in the battle—I don’t even know if it was Sirius or me who had killed him—but the reinforcements came in and we were able to subdue Bellatrix and Rabastan. They were to serve life sentences until Voldemort broke them out four years ago. Harry… The damage was too much for him. St Mungo’s did all they could, but he still died early the next day.” Lily’s voice was wrecked, but her eyes were dry. It looked like she’d cried it all out earlier that day. Harry was grateful for that small favor. “It was him in your world, too?”

“It was.”

His parents had already heard the story, but Harry still went through the night of October 31st as it had occurred in his own world. Peter had given up the Potters’ location to Voldemort, who broke through any additional enchantments on the property and killed James and Lily. When he tried to kill Harry, he failed, but there were no Lestranges to make the night worse. If Peter had been there, then he’d been too cowardly to do anything to him. In this universe, Peter had been more honorable than Harry would’ve ever thought him capable. He still deserved an AK to the head, but he’d owned up to his betrayal. In Harry’s, he’d been a miserable man with a miserable life until his violent death.

“What happened to him?” Lily asked.

“He died,” Harry told them, a dark satisfaction curling through him. Some deaths were more satisfying than others. The way Sirius’ and Harry’s curses hit the man at the same time had been a sight, as were the man’s screams as he bled out over the next few minutes. “It was the least he deserved.” The Weasleys looked uneasy at his dark look, but it seemed the rest of the table didn’t care when it came to someone like Peter. “How long did it take for Voldemort to return here?”

“He didn’t come back until six years ago,” Alice spoke up, her mouth tight.

“You had almost two decades of peace,” Harry said, the words strange in his mouth. He was twenty-five years old and he’d still never had more than a decade, and that was when Voldemort’s wraith was buzzing around Albania. After the war between the light and the dark, there had been the muggles to deal with, then the goblin rebellion. It was relatively recently that they’d regained peace again.

“Didn’t you?” Lily asked.

“He came back when I was eleven. Not permanently—it was his wraith at first—but eventually he got his body back. He came after the philosopher’s stone at first, then when that failed, he kidnapped me and used me in a resurrection ritual. Blood of the enemy, bone of the father, if any of that rings a bell.”

“It does,” Alice said. The sadness in her expression was plain to see, though Harry didn’t feel himself affected by it. He was glad of it; it seemed like the weird affects this universe had on him were limited to his parents. “We didn’t know it was him at the time, but Neville, our son, was kidnapped from our property’s greenhouses. By the time we found him a week later… It was already too late.”

“At the cemetery?” Harry asked.

“In the middle of Diagon Alley,” Arthur spoke, putting a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “It was horrific, but there was no sign that it had been Voldemort at all. We found traces of ritual bloodletting, but that wasn’t a definitive tie. It could have been any dark ritual. And with him dead for so long, I’m ashamed to say that all of us except Albus thought it was unrelated to him.”

“You don’t know how much I wish I had been wrong,” Albus said, gravely. “I doubted even myself.”

“The first time we heard of him again, he already had his body and was calling back his followers,” Sirius revealed. “It was the worst shock we could have had. I know Albus had talked about the possibility that he wasn’t dead, but it had been two decades. We weren’t prepared at all.”

“Neither were we, not really,” Harry told them. “I don’t think anyone’s ever fully prepared for Voldemort.”

Harry had never in a million years would have expected how much he’d come to love a man who’d tried to kill him. There was no one else for whom Harry would forgive that. No one but him.

There was grief in Alice’s voice as she said, “One of the first things he did was have his Death Eaters kill any child who could have fit the prophecy. It happened all in one night, all carried out by his most trusted Death Eaters.”

“With no warning at all from our resident Death Eater,” Sirius sniped.

“I’ve said it a hundred times, he still barely trusts me,” Severus spat out. “If you’d like to try ingratiating yourself to him, go ahead. I’d love to watch you fail.”

“I don’t think I have the strength to kiss the robes of that snake-faced—”

“Wait, what? Snake-faced?” Harry asked, thinking he’d misheard.

“He looks a human-shaped snake,” James explained. “That didn’t happen in your world?”

“Not at all,” Harry replied, blinking. “Does he have a tail or something?”

“No, but his skin is incredibly pale and looks faintly scaled. No nose, red eyes, a real ugly bastard.”

“Wow,” Harry breathed.

What in all hells had happened? But a part of him already knew; if Neville had been used in Voldemort’s resurrection ritual, his light magic would’ve disrupted the stability of the ritual. His own Voldemort’s had been explosive, but with the combination of the fact that they were both dark bastards but still mortal enemies at that point in time, Voldemort had stepped out of the cauldron as a DILF instead of a creepy snake thing.

Of course, they hadn’t continued to be mortal enemies much longer, after Voldemort sent him back to Hogwarts after saying he was intrigued to see how Harry would use his boon of continued life. Harry had still been yelling obscenities—that hadn’t been a boon, Voldemort had just been too chicken to fight him so soon after being resurrected—when the portkey levitated into his hands.

Can you believe this? Harry sent through his mental connection, but the thought didn’t reach its destination. He was so used to Voldemort’s mind against his own, the two of them wrapped up in each other, bound through souls and sacrifice and marriage. There had never been a being that captivated Harry so much as Voldemort. Not having him around was really pissing Harry off.

He scowled through the rest of the Order’s explanation, letting them think it was because of the horrible things their own Voldemort had been up to. They complained a lot, but hell, Harry couldn’t figure out what the big deal was. So he’d killed a bunch of muggles and was one step away from taking over the ministry. The ministry would just be a pain in the ass for any Voldemort and the muggles were hardly all that important. So the Daily Prophet had turned a good chunk of the populace against muggles completely. What did that even matter? Harry hadn’t seen a muggle in years and had killed some himself, and his world hadn’t collapsed under all that anti-muggle prejudice. Things were better than ever.

Moody explained angrily about how Voldemort was using unfair war tactics against his aurors and whined about the dark objects Voldemort was importing from somewhere. Frank and Alice were still grieving their son and didn’t seem like they wanted to be in the Order at all anymore. Arthur and Molly kept attempting to be voices of reason, but their reasoning was gratingly light. They reminded Harry so much of his own Order, which wasn’t a memory good for these people’s continued health and sanity.

“In all honesty, I can’t imagine you wanting to help us after hearing all this,” James ended up saying.

Harry tried to go for some platitudes, but it was rather hard.

“This dimension is a mess,” Harry said, and it was the most truthful thing he’d said in ages. “I don’t know how it came to be this way. There must be more differences between our realities than just the ones on Halloween of 1981. Or maybe there was a huge ripple effect, I don’t know, maybe Lily and James stepped on a thousand butterflies.”

“Enough of this,” Moody finally said, looking like he’d lost his last strands of patience. “Tell us how you killed your own Voldemort.”

Unless you’re counting little deaths, I haven’t, Harry thought with amusement.

But in theory, if he and Voldemort hadn’t found a much more permanent way of staying alive (even if the whole thing had happened mostly by accident), he could have, “Took out his horcruxes and shot a killing curse at him.” Harry made sure to be looking at Dumbledore as he said it, and watched the shock and resignation flicker through his eyes. “Did you know he made any?”

“I suspected it was a possibility,” Dumbledore admitted.

“Albus you didn’t—”

“—relevant fucking information—”

“—playing games with our lives—”

“—something could’ve been done, maybe Neville wouldn’t have been targeted.”

Harry managed not to roll his eyes. Neville was dead from the moment he had the rotten luck to be born at the end of the prophesied month. Voldemort may have been careful about the other kids born that month, but Neville would’ve been his key concern. Neville, who no doubt Dumbledore had been depending on to step up as an icon of the light in these dark times.

“I had no proof!” Albus’ words rang out over multitude of voices in the room. The Order members quieted until only Albus’ voice remained. “Believe me, I would like to tell you that I had been hiding something, because that would have at least meant that I knew something definitive. But I have never been able to track down his path to immortality from the many avenues that are available, if one doesn’t have any care for innocent life. There were a dozen ones he could have learned of simply at Hogwarts and perhaps a hundred during his travels. All of them feature major drawbacks, as all dark magic does, but there is nothing obvious about which he could have chosen. I covertly made the rounds of his closest confidants from his Hogwarts days. I even attempted to track down Horace, whom Tom kept in touch with during his early travels, but dragon pox found him before I could. Nothing I did bore fruit. I had no proof.”

He looked like a tired old man, allowing the room to see weakness in a way that Harry hadn’t seen since his very early days at Hogwarts. It hadn’t taken long for Dumbledore to get some measure of Harry, though it took much longer for him to realize the truth. It was a good look on him, that weariness. Harry preferred it to the determination and anger in his eyes during their last battle.

It was strange, Harry thought, but he didn’t really hate Dumbledore. The man had been an extraordinarily powerful enemy, but his death hadn’t really been personal to Harry. Dumbledore had always been too honorable to go after the few people Harry cared about or similar sneakery. Harry had only fought him because Dumbledore wouldn’t give up. If the man had taken an oath to accept Voldemort’s rule or had just left the country forever, Harry wouldn’t have minded. His husband had been of another mind, of course.

“It could also be perfectly true that he didn’t make any horcruxes in your world,” Harry said, figuring he may as well not get the Order’s hopes up. Or his own—it was going to be such a pain in his ass if this Voldemort had gone with an alternate form of immortality. If that was the case, Harry might actually ditch this world. It would take way too long to figure shit out. “Only one way to find out, I guess. Sirius, did Regulus still join the Death Eaters here?”

Looking flummoxed at the question, Sirius said, “Yes, though I heard he chickened out only a few years in. Voldemort killed him himself. Mum was almost as honored as she was furious.”

“Huh,” Harry said. He snapped his fingers. “Kreacher, come here.” When nothing happened, Harry leaned back and glared at the space behind his chair. “Kreacher the house elf, I’m a busy man but I’m not too busy to Crucio you if you don’t get here immediately.”

A crack and Harry’s favorite house elf appeared before him, looking mutinous. “Orders is not coming from mistress or mistress’ son.”

“Orders haven’t been coming from mistress in years,” Sirius muttered.

“Orders are coming from your master’s—and yes, Sirius is your master, get that through your head—sort of godson. That gives me enough right to order you around. Now, hand over Regulus’ locket,” Harry told the elf. He didn’t bother asking whether Kreacher had it. The house elf was always too happy to lie. Best to just assume the elf was guilty and go from there. Harry smiled at the way the house elf shifted at the command. “I’m planning to destroy it, so chop, chop.”

“Is that being true?” the house elf asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” Harry stressed. “Now, Kreacher.”

The house elf popped out of his vision. Kreacher didn’t return immediately, leaving Harry to deal with some uncomfortable looks from the table.

Lily was the one to ask, “Harry, you wouldn’t really have…?”

“I don’t curse anyone who hasn’t earned it,” Harry told her, rolling his eyes. Honestly, it wasn’t like he was his husband. He didn’t actually get off on throwing Crucio’s around every which way. (Well, that one time he’d gotten off on a very, very mild one that Voldemort had kept up while jerking him off, but that was a special case.) “Kreacher just needs to be handled the right way.”

“He’s not wrong,” Sirius said, scowling. “You must know him pretty well.”

“Well enough, I guess. You—my version of you—gifted him to Draco when you got pissed off enough one day. You were drunk, Draco was being an ass, so you basically decided to make him have to deal with Kreacher. It, uh, didn’t work out quite like you’d planned.”

“He loved him, didn’t he,” Sirius sighed.

“Kreacher worships the ground Draco walks on, yeah. Draco’s half Black and all snotty pureblood, so he’s now basically a model house elf. He wasn’t all that nice to Ginny at first, but she got him in line.”

“My Ginny?” Molly asked. “Oh, you don’t mean…”

“Their dimension is utterly insane, yeah,” Sirius said, reaching over to pat Molly’s hand.

“They’re a cute couple,” Harry defended.

Also, he was really happy to see Ginny focusing on someone that wasn’t Harry. It had been cute the first year, but her life expectancy had plummeted when her crush continued a couple years later. Harry hadn’t been alright with his lover killing one of his best friends, so Voldemort had put her on a year-long mission abroad where she’d work closely with some attractive young Death Eaters and let hormones do the work. She and Draco came back engaged and Harry had been forced to fuck away Voldemort’s smug look.

“Do you think there might be something between them here?” Molly asked thoughtfully.

“Mollywobbles!”

“Arthur, our baby keeps telling me she’s more interested in quidditch than romance. Something has to be done. It’s not as though the Malfoy boy is bad looking. And it means that there must be something good in his heart, despite the rumors of him having joined You-Know-Who.”

“But our blood feud!”

“Is really going out of style, my love,” Molly said, sweet but firm.

Arthur just groaned in reply.

“Not unless they’re forced to work together on a project for a year, I think,” Harry told them. “They hated each other at first. Can’t really remember why. Son of a Death Eater and daughter of blood traitors thing, probably. Arthur and Lucius had to be kept on opposite sides of the wedding at all times.”

And it had been enough of a pain to get the Weasley parents to attend. Their precious girl marrying a Death Eater—Ginny had casually waited five years to tell her parents she’d been marked—had been almost too much for their attempts at living under the dark reign. But by the time Charlie had married a Death Eater a couple years later, they’d clucked in disapproval but understood. To be fair, Charlie and Barty ended up being a disgustingly good-spirited couple.

They were discussing the pros and cons of trying to find a way to make the Draco and Ginny romance work in this universe when Kreacher came back with a locket in tow. The sweet scent of dark magic filled the room, much heavier than the dark magic already in the air. It was a magic that Harry recognized down to his very soul. He hadn’t seen a horcrux of Voldemort’s in years, but he knew it instantly.

Harry took it from Kreacher and shooed the house elf away. Raising it up, he said, “This,” a dramatic pause, “is a horcrux.”

He handed it over to Dumbledore, since the feeling of holding a part of his husband without it being the real thing was pissing him off.

Dumbledore took it with a look of shock that he didn’t seem to be trying to hide.

“That was too easy,” Moody said, frowning at the object.

But as Dumbledore’s array of spells proved, it was the real deal.

“How do we destroy it?” Frank asked.

“Basilisk venom or fiendfyre,” Harry replied. Back when he hadn’t been so sure that Voldemort was going to keep him around, he’d made sure to keep his options open. “There may be more, but those are the only two I know of.”

“I’ll look for additional methods tonight,” Albus promised him. “Thank you, my boy.”

Aw, that was sweet. “You can thank me by giving me the details of the ritual that brought me here.” Cacophony reigned again, but Harry stayed focused on Dumbledore. “There are a number of things I need to bring in from my own dimension, both for ease of hunting Voldemort and because I am a creature of comfort and I can’t get a whole wardrobe of good battle robes tailored to me in the time I have here.”

Dumbledore’s piercing blue eyes bore deeply into him, but Harry couldn’t feel a single twinge of Legilimency. And he’d know, with how much Voldemort had liked to throw it around before they’d both given in and left their minds open to each other.

Moody looked between the two of them. “You can’t seriously be considering this. Potter, you may be the son of two of our best members, but you don’t get instant trust based on that alone. You’ve been here not even twenty-four hours and we barely know a thing about your world or you. I don’t trust you one whit.”

Harry turned his gaze to Moody. He rather hoped the man would try to look into his mind, because Harry would’ve loved to throw him into a memory of Harry killing his alternate self. The scar across Ron’s face was a constant reminder of how Harry had almost failed to get to his best mate in time during the final battle.

“I don’t care,” Harry told him, his voice cold as stone. “You’re not an authority figure to me. None of you are. If I want to go back to my world, I will. I wouldn’t even bother lying to you about it.”

“Just like that?” Dumbledore cut in.

Harry gave him a long look. “Albus, I’m not a good person. I’m not doing this out of some kind of altruism. But I’ve been looking for something fun to do lately and I have a soft spot for a couple people here. You can trust me to stay or you can not, but I’m going to visit my dimension anyway, since your reactions are making me believe there is a way.” After a moment of thought, he offered, “You can ask me to leave, I suppose, if you’re that worried about my intentions. I’m not going to force my company on the lot of you.”

“We need your help too much for us me to ask that of you,” Dumbledore admitted. “The portal will shut behind you permanently if you go through it, but you may open it to speak to those in your world.”

“Then you’ll have to trust that I won’t leave before I kill him.”

Dumbledore still didn’t look convinced.

“Look, you can send someone with me who can stand outside the circle looking pretty while I privacy charm my conversation to hell and back. But I won’t be a prisoner here, Albus. You’ll have to trust my word.”

Harry’s word wasn’t the least bit trustworthy, but Dumbledore still nodded. It was a short, sharp thing, but it was agreement. Harry would’ve gone against a denial, but Dumbledore’s agreement made things easier. By the wary look in the man’s eyes, Harry knew Dumbledore had taken the intent behind his words to heart.

“If you weren’t trying to hide something, you wouldn’t hide behind privacy charms,” Moody said, giving him a dark look. “What are you trying to hide?”

“Portal sex with my husband, mostly,” Harry replied. “I hadn’t taken any of you for voyeurs. But if you’re that interested…”

Moody looked like he was going to accept out of sheer spite, but Dumbledore cut him off. “We trust you, my boy. We made that decision before we knew you and we will have to follow through with it, as long as you continue to stay true to your willingness to help us.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Harry asked, shrugging. “Besides, I haven’t even met my sort-of siblings yet. I’d have to stay long enough for that.”

Moody’s silent look of rage at Harry’s non-answer was wonderfully satisfying.

Chapter Text

The meeting continued after Moody stormed off, but it became much less tense. One by one, people began to leave, until Harry was left only with the Marauders and his mother, who he assumed were his unofficial minders because of their connection. Sirius brought out the booze and Harry drank with them to ever-more unlikely well-wishes. It was rather odd, sitting across the table from the werewolf he’d killed in his own world for breaking Sirius’ heart and taking Dumbledore’s side in the war, but Harry squashed down those feelings. If he remarked on every odd thing about this world, he’d be talking until his mouth went dry.

When the group finally decided it was time to apparate, they disillusioned themselves before apparating. Harry played along, wondering if they thought their Voldemort had somehow tracked their movements at Stonehenge.

But by the time he arrived, there was no one there but them. Harry watched Lily cast spells for a few moments with bemusement.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked, trying to remember what the spells Lily was using were for. The words had an echo that he remembered from years ago, but it had to have been in his early Hogwarts years.

“Muggle repelling charms,” Lily explained, continuing her casting. “I guess you haven’t had much need to put them up if you usually work within the wizarding world.”

“Right, those,” Harry said as he remembered the World Cup during his fourth year. That was where he’d felt them. Good thing he remembered, or it would’ve bugged him all week. It was interesting, seeing Lily using those antiquated charms, but Harry didn’t bother paying attention. It wasn’t as though he’d ever need to use those charms back home. There hadn’t been a muggle in Britain in six years. But it did remind him to begin casting a barrier for the space inside the stones. “You won’t be able to see anything or hear anything through this. I recommend that you don’t try breaking it down.”

“What happens if we do?” Sirius asked.

“Nothing good,” Harry said with a grin, remembering some good times. “Also, I’ll know and be pissed that you’re interrupting my time with my husband.”

“Don’t worry, your conjugal visit will be harassment-free,” Lily said, pulling Sirius away from poking at the barrier.

Harry wasn’t quite sure what a conjugal visit was, but it didn’t matter. He stepped into the circle and deigned to use the Elder Wand to open the portal between their worlds. The whole area was saturated with the chaotic magic of the space between dimensions; it wasn’t hard to tap into it and recreate the portal that had brought him here. It was harder to open it exactly where he wanted it to open, since with his marriage bond acting up he wasn’t able to get a proper read on his husband, but eventually he managed to find Voldemort in his office.

With a blaze of fire around the edges, the portal became something like a floo call. Harry conjured himself a comfortable armchair to lounge in during the call. Voldemort, sitting behind his desk, put down his paperwork and raised an eyebrow at Harry.

“Hey, handsome,” Harry said, trying to gage Voldemort’s mood. From Harry’s first impression, it didn’t look good. Voldemort did look as stupidly appealing as ever. His dark hair was perfectly in place without Harry to ruin it and his skin was without any flaws Harry might have left on it with his mouth. But he sat just a little too still, tension in his shoulders that a few rounds of Crucio-ing some idiots hadn’t loosened, and his red eyes bore into Harry’s with a different kind of intensity than usual. Still, “How have you been on this fine evening?”

“Perfect. I have no reason to care about imbeciles who walk into a fiery open portal with only an I’ll be back, tell my husband not to worry himself said to two people who should have had the brains to stop you from walking into these kinds of situations,” Voldemort said, crossing his arms. He looked hot. Angry, but hot. “Especially not when our fucking marriage bond goes dim and I can’t reach you through it unlike every other moment in the entirety of the last two years. Why would I be anything other than perfect?”

Voldemort’s voice didn’t lose an inch of control at any point during his tirade, but Harry wasn’t blind to the way Voldemort got during the few times he was actually afraid. This wasn’t the most fearful Harry had seen him—neither of them were bleeding out and on the brink of death—but it didn’t matter. Any moment when Voldemort had his cool torn away from him was unallowable.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, actually feeling the emotion, though he did try to play up his contrite expression. He didn’t know why he bothered, since his husband knew him better than anyone in the world—both worlds—but he did it anyway. “I should have contacted you as soon as I arrived in—”

“Excuse me?” Voldemort said, rather menacingly.

Harry rolled his eyes. “I should have not been myself and ignored the fascinating portal that beckoned from right in front of me. Better?”

“If I wasn’t concerned about a spell interfering with the portal’s connection, I would Crucio you right now.”

“I’d just dodge,” Harry said with a wave of his hand. “Come on, don’t you want to hear about what’s on the other side?”

With a sigh, Voldemort said, “Tell me.”

“It’s another dimension where the Order—the Order of the fucking Phoenix, can you believe it?—used some old ritual to open the door between dimensions and call for someone with the power to defeat Voldemort, since they apparently couldn’t do it.”

“And they managed to do it without their own dimension collapsing into the void?” Voldemort asked, looking slightly less angry and slightly more intrigued. When he realized it, he shot Harry a glare and looked twice as angry to make up for the lapse.

“Yeah, looks like they managed to do it perfectly. I don’t even want to think of the margin of error they must have faced. I wonder if they just didn’t know how dangerous it was, or if they thought it was worth it… Anyway, I was met by Dumbledore! He’s all alive here and not the inferi you sometimes raise him as for the amusement. So far I’ve met my parents, Remus, a Sirius who isn’t with Severus which is a tragedy, a Severus who’s friends with my mum, some random Order folks… They’re all completely bonkers, but I’m having a great time.” Harry grinned at him. “I’m going to defeat their Dark Lord.”

“Of course you are,” Voldemort drawled. “Out of the goodness of your heart, I’m sure.”

“Exactly. They went through all this effort, I might as well throw them a bone. I could throw them their Voldemort’s bones,” Harry said with amusement. “Er, if you’re good with that? Are you angry?”

“I’m angry you vanished without any warning, but I couldn’t care less what you do with an alternate version of myself. It has no effect on me.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at that and affected an air of innocence. “So, if you don’t care what I do with him, does banging the alternate version of you count as cheating?”

“Yes.” Voldemort didn’t even pause to think it over.

“But remember all that fun we had with your horcruxes back when we still had them!” Harry could’ve sighed with happiness. It had only been a few times, because his wonderful stupid husband was possessive of Harry even with himself, but damn.

“I remember, considering that I was in the same bed at the time,” Voldemort huffed.

“You could join me on my vacation,” Harry offered. He wiggled his eyebrows just to get that cute scowl onto his husband’s face. “The Order said he looks like a snake, which is weird, but that sounds like the good kind of kinky.”

“Completely out of the question,” Voldemort said firmly. “You’re mine, and I won’t share you, especially not with a different version of myself, one that isn’t a part of me.”

“Mm. You’re so hot when you get possessive. Want to come through and fuck me?”

“I’m not giving you positive reinforcement for getting stuck in an alternate dimension.”

Harry sighed elaborately at him, but it had no effect on Voldemort’s lack of arousal. What it did have an effect on was Voldemort slowly, throughout the conversation, beginning to relax from the wound-up state he’d been in before.

“I’m not screwing up any of your plans, am I? We don’t have any diplomatic shit planned for another month and the things I was working on can just be delegated off to some other people. I’m sure Hermione can give you a list of names.”

“She already has,” Voldemort replied. “Unlike you, she’s efficient and dutiful.”

“She and Ron came to you as soon as I vanished, didn’t they,” Harry grumbled. “Traitors. I bet you saw the memory?”

“I did.”

Which meant Voldemort had seen just how little care Harry had given the whole thing. Harry ran a hand through his hair, wishing he could go through the portal to kiss Voldemort’s expression off of him. Unfortunately, words would have to suffice.

“I’ve been restless lately. I don’t know why. I’ve been having a blast with the London reconstruction project, I love working with Hermione and Ron again, I love building up our society, I even kinda love you, but it’s like something’s gotten under my skin and wouldn’t leave. I needed something new, some kind of adventure.”

“The last time you had that itch, you started the goblin war,” Voldemort replied, the last of his tension leaving him. “I suppose I should be happy you’ve directed your energies at another dimension.”

“I still hold that they started their own goblin rebellion and it would’ve happened with or without my intervention,” Harry said with a pout. “I was just in the wrong place at the right time.”

“I don’t know a soul who would believe you.” More gently than Harry probably deserved, Voldemort said, “You should have told me. I would’ve found something more interesting for you.”

“That’s not your job.” Harry scowled at the slight smirk turning up the corner of Voldemort’s mouth. “Shut up, marrying me gives you no special power over me. And hey, I did find something that got rid of the urge. Without even a bit of bloodshed.”

At that, Voldemort raised an eyebrow.

“I haven’t committed a single crime. Threats have been at a minimum. I’m a model citizen. I’ve even more or less avoided lying, except for the whole killing you lie. Everything else has just been omission. It’s weird, but just being here has thrown me off my game and entertained me so much that I don’t even feel the need to kill Dumbledore just because I think the world is better off without him. And, well, my mum does like him.”

“Be careful,” Voldemort cautioned. “Even if they seem friendly, you know how vicious some of them can be.”

“That’s the thing,” Harry mused. “Moody didn’t try to cram veritaserum down my throat. Dumbledore only tried once and it wasn’t much of an attempt. They’ve even taken me to Grimmauld Place. I think there might be something wrong with them. They seem to actually trust me, maybe not completely, but enough for me to be able to fuck them over badly if I wanted to.”

“Well, you are the dead son of two of their core members.”

“Yeah, that’s just weird. My parents are good people? Did you know that?”

“If they weren’t, I wouldn’t have needed to kill them.”

“Right, but I still thought they’d be vicious assholes like me, but they’re not.” Harry still didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. In all honesty, he was a bit disappointed by how good his parents were. It wasn’t that he didn’t want them to be good to him—he hadn’t hated the way his parents hugged him, the way they looked at him like he was a miracle—but he couldn’t figure them out. “They’re not bad, though. Just left them after spending time with them and Sirius and a few others.”

“Even between dimensions, some things never change,” Voldemort replied, but he didn’t look too bothered. It probably helped that nothing here was going to be able to kill Harry. “How long are you going to stay?”

“A few more days at least. I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll need a few things in the meantime. Basilisk venom is the big one. I feel like these guys might balk at me bringing out the fiendfyre.”

“You’ll have to milk the one in their own dimension,” Voldemort said with a shake of his head. “I used up the last of our stores during the poisoning competition in June.”

“Right, I forgot. I guess it’s not a hardship. I’ll just have to be very clear to the Order that they’re not allowed to harm my baby after I leave their dimension. Maybe I can rope the centaurs into taking care of her…” Harry trailed off, halting his plotting. “Didn’t you have that interview with Ginny today? She’ll kill me if you canceled. It’s very important to her.”

“I don’t know why you expect me to give a damn about your ex-stalker’s feelings.”

“Hey, you can’t blame me for Ginny. Besides, you like her now,” Harry said. “What did she ask you?”

Shifting a little to get more comfortable in the armchair, Harry settled in for a bit of catch-up with his husband. Outside, his parents were still waiting for him and were probably bored out of their minds, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to care right now.

*

Once Harry disappeared inside the magical barrier, Lily and the others held their wands in their hands in case of attack, but there was little for them to do but wait. They sat on one of the rocks just outside of Harry’s barrier, alert but not particularly expectant of danger. Voldemort’s attention was attuned to magical communities, not to a magically important but little used location. James sat by her side, Remus on the other, while Sirius stood with an inscrutable look on his face as he gazed at the shrouded barrier.

Lily wasn’t proud of it, but war often left motherhood lagging in second place, and she wouldn’t be ashamed of protecting her family and the Order. Once enough time had passed that she was sure Harry wouldn’t return soon, she turned to Remus and asked, “What did you pick up on during the meeting?

“Lil?” James asked.

“His expression went strange a couple times during the meeting,” Lily explained. “The patented ‘Remus Lupin knows you’re bullshitting’ look. Was it something Harry said?”

“Nothing gets past you.”

Lily and Remus exchanged a smile. Severus may continue to be her best friend, but Remus was the closest she’d come to poaching one of James’ friends for herself. Making friends as an adult, as Lily had learned, was hard enough without a war dogging their heels.

Remus continued, saying, “It’s more like what Harry didn’t say.” His brow furrowed as he seemed to put his thoughts together. “Or didn’t feel. You know I’m not an expert at this compared to werewolves more attuned with their wolf sides, but I can still pick out some hormones. Strong emotions work better, and Harry... he hates Moody. That was the most obvious thing I picked up on. Not hatred for Voldemort or fear to have to face him again. He’s also a lot angrier than he appears to be, but it’s a generalized anger, not something specific to our conversation.”

“That’s strange,” Lily admitted. “Moody isn’t exactly well-loved, but there aren’t many people who legitimately hate him.”

“None except dark wizards,” Sirius said. Lily hadn’t said the words, but they were on her mind.

James glanced between them. “It doesn’t have to be that. It could be that they had some kind of fight over something completely different. You know how Moody is. The only person he trusts is Dumbledore; all the rest of us have to constantly prove ourselves. He doesn’t believe in privacy, either ours or the Death Eaters’, and I still think he finds a way to eavesdrop on the base out of sheer paranoia.”

Lily nodded. “You’re right, of course. And, well. We can’t not give him the benefit of the doubt.” The memory of Voldemort’s laughter as he killed Marlene right in front of her, high-pitched and horrible. “We need him.”

The words felt sour in her throat; Harry had agreed to help them, but they had pulled him from a world where he was happy, married, loved, and she would never forgive herself if she had to bury her son a second time.

James took her hand, squeezing it gently. “And we’re emotionally compromised. Because holy Merlin, I am.”

Lily smiled at him weakly. Alright, that too. Harry was strange, too glib about the harsh reality of their war, but many people used jokes to deflect in serious situations.

“Just be cautious,” Remus reminded them before he stood. “I need to get back to the Aerys pack before Greyback manages to bribe them into joining Voldemort, so you won’t have my nose for long. Sirius, look after them.”

“Aye, aye.”

“Don’t forget to visit Tonks before you go,” Lily said. Her friend was still resisting the younger woman’s affections, but Remus’ sigh couldn’t hide the smile tugging at his lips. “She misses you.”

“She has terrible taste in men,” Remus replied before apparating away.

Lily shook her head at the spot where he’d been. “Honestly.”

“She’ll reel him in eventually,” Sirius said, sitting down on James’ other side.

“Shouldn’t you be protecting your cousin’s honor?” James asked, amused.

“I’m tired of getting my ass kicked. She can have him. I sacrifice Remus to her pointy elbows and spell repertoire.”

Sirius looked terribly put out, although Lily knew it was mostly a front. He may have been overprotective of his cousin, but between her with some asshole and her with Remus, who was good down to his battered heart, it wasn’t a contest. (Neither was the fact that Lily greatly preferred the Sirius of today to the Sirius of two decades ago. These days, she could see why James chose the hothead as his best friend.)

Speaking of romance, though. “It looks like Harry’s done well for himself in love.” Lily couldn’t help but be surprised, although she shouldn’t be. It would be hypocritical of her, considering that she and James married before they’d even been Hogwarts graduates for two full years. “I wonder if we know him.”

James shrugged. “Maybe. If anything, Dumbledore knows him.”

“Unless he’s foreign. Maybe he’s bagged himself a foreign quidditch player. Maybe it’s Krum!”

Lily didn’t bother trying to follow Sirius’ leaps of logic. Although, from what she’d unwillingly heard about Krum over the years from her hopelessly quidditch-obsessed husband, Harry could’ve done worse for a husband. Krum did seem to have a certain charm from what she’d read in the papers and seen from the stands.

As the men’s impromptu argument over which internationally acclaimed quidditch star would make the best husband for Harry trailed off, Sirius said with a sigh, “I’m compromised, too. Shit, it’s been twenty years, but he was the first little nephew I got attached to. My godson.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong to get attached,” Lily said. “As long as we’re not stupid about it.”

“That’s exactly what someone who’s emotionally compromised would say.”

“Sirius, stop trying to sound like an auror,” James muttered. “I’ve had enough of Moody for today.”

“Now you just sound like a dark wizard. Can’t believe you conned me into being your best friend.”

“Pretty sure it was the opposite.”

The moon was lovely in the sky, just the smallest sliver of a curve, like an earring that had lost its other half. Lily rested her head on James’ shoulder and tried to drum up some long-forgotten astronomy knowledge. She’d received an Outstanding on her NEWT, but now she could no longer recall the name and history of every group of stars. A surprising number of facts about the moon did manage to stay, and she wondered which subject had been Harry’s favorite in school. DADA must have been his best, just based on everything he’d lived through, but did he enjoy it? Had he liked Charms and Transfiguration? What about Potions? Her younger two children complained horribly about Potions, but Harry seemed to have a good relationship with his own Severus.

She wanted to know; she wanted to have already known, wanted to have been there during Harry’s best and worst moments, to have gotten the knowledge first-hand. And if not her, she so dearly wished that Harry’s own Lily had survived that horrible night.

Lily didn’t regret joining the wizarding world, back at the tender age of eleven her biggest fear had been Petunia’s sharp tongue and Severus’ father hurting him. This place took you in and wowed you with sorcery and pretty lights and when you turned around, you couldn’t remember how to live a normal—muggle—life again. Lily could never give up her place here, nor could she imagine a life without the family she’d made. They were all the family she had now; her parents were two decades dead, and she and Petunia hadn’t been able to have a civil conversation since childhood. But even with all that she’d gained in the wizarding world, the thought of how close Lily had come to death that Halloween night made her shiver.

By the time Harry emerged from Stonehenge, Lily was a few yawns away calling it a night. Harry looked visibly happier than when he’d entered. Husband, Lily thought with a smile. Her sort of son was married and happy, and Lily could only be happy for him. Anyone who made Harry smile so brilliantly had to be amazing.

“Good talk?” Lily asked.

“Very.” Harry sounded perfectly content. The privacy barrier fell as he walked through the stone archway and took a seat next to her. “I love Stonehenge,” he said, looking around happily. “We throw a huge party here every Yule. Fairy lights, tons of food, only one boring speech…”

“Oh?” Lily asked. “You must cast powerful wards for the night to keep muggles away.”

Harry gave her a strange look. “Yeah, uh, muggles.”

While James and Sirius left to check on the portal, Lily indulged her curiosity. “What does your husband think of all this?”

Harry ducked his head, but Lily caught the edge of his pleased smile. “He’s so pissed at me. I’m going to need to grovel when I get back to my proper dimension. Maybe with gifts. Obscure knowledge and rare books, because he’s a pain in the ass, or homemade chocolate. Or— yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Lily said. “We didn’t mean to make things hard for you.”

Harry shot her a confused look. “You haven’t. Trust me, it would take a lot more than this for us to have a real argument. I think he’s more concerned about not being able to feel me through the marriage bond than anything else. He’s too possessive for his own good, really.”

Lily would be worried if Harry didn’t look delighted with his last words. It was cute. “How long have the two of you been married?”

“Two years now.”

Not a honeymoon phase. Just love. Despite all the suffering in the world, Lily was unbearably happy to find that there was such goodness, too. For all the hardship that Harry had suffered, he’d found a man who loved him and who Harry obviously adored. Lily couldn’t ask for anything else. “Could you tell me about him?”

“I’m so used to everyone already knowing,” Harry huffed with a rueful shake of his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever even had to introduce him.”

“He’s famous?” Another point in James and Sirius’ quidditch player column.

“And brilliant,” Harry added. “I don’t tell him so, because he already has a big enough head, but he is. It’s his own fault that everyone relies on him so much and drowns him in paperwork. He’s some years older than me. Dark hair, red eyes, tall.” With a playful leer, he added, “Good in bed. When we first met, we didn’t get along at all, but he grew on me. And I grew on him.” Harry looked terribly smug. “He fell in love with me. He’s only said it a few times, because he likes to sink into denial unless it’s important for him to acknowledge it, but it’s true.”

“I couldn’t stand James at first, either,” Lily said. “Although he’d yell his love from the rooftops if he could. He once did from the Hogwarts roof. Red eyes?”

“Magical accident. They suit him, though. Say, do you think I can get Sirius and Severus together here before your Voldemort’s time is up?”

Lily choked on her laughter. “Harry, that’s horrible.”

“Love is never horrible.”

“Severus will kill you. Sirius might even help.”

“Killing people together is the first step toward love, trust me. I’ll have them uncovering their true feelings before I leave even if I have to attach a permanent sticking charm to their hands.”

Lily resolved to watch Harry very carefully. Both because of Remus’ observations and because her wonderful idiot of a sort of son was going to get himself killed by her best friend, whether he had the power to defeat Voldemort or not. “What’s his name? James has already decided you’ve married Viktor Krum, I think.”

“Viktor?” Harry asked. “I’m not surprised to find he’s a quidditch player here, too. That jerk flies like he was born on a broom.”

“Not a fan?”

“The Bulgarian team has won the past four Quidditch World Cups. At this rate, I think felix felicis has to be involved. But Viktor himself’s a good bloke. We got to know each other during the Triwizard Tournament my fourth year.”

Lily can’t do more than blink for a moment, then, “You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you.”

“Maximum entertainment,” Harry replied without any shame at dropping bombshells about his past.

Merlin, he really was James’ son. Lily’s, too. “You haven’t mentioned his name.”

“I haven’t,” Harry agreed. He was silent for a long while, green eyes resting on a faraway point. Lily couldn’t say why a name was this important to Harry, but Harry was in both open and private in turns, reticent about the oddest things. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft. “There are a lot of differences between our realities, but some things have stayed the same. I don’t want to say his name; he has his own life and destiny here, one that I wasn’t a part of, and voicing who he is to me in my own dimension would only cause drama. Which is something I usually enjoy, but… I don’t know. I don’t want it right now. Not about this.”

“Is he married here?” Lily asked, because it was the first thing that came to mind.

Harry shook his head, not as a no, but as, “I’m not going to say. Just trust me on this one thing; it’s better for you not to know.”

“Okay,” Lily admitted. She couldn’t say she trusted him, not truly. Trust was hard-won in times of war. But she liked him, and she knew better than to press. Whatever else Harry was, he was a man who’d lived through his own Voldemort’s war and he’d been dragged into hers. “I won’t ask for the details, but if there’s anything you can tell me, I’d love to hear it. The man who earned your heart has to be someone amazing.”

“He is,” Harry replied, nothing but sincerity in his voice.

Chapter Text

Once again, Harry woke up to a world where he couldn’t call for Dobby and have breakfast and a hangover potion handed to him without even having to ask. It was a cruel, cruel world, and Harry only had himself to blame. Lily, James, and Sirius had joined him in the safe house after he’d spoken with Voldemort, and the night had been long and wine had flowed almost at the pace that Voldemort could spill blood. Despite being the youngest of the lot, Harry didn’t think he was the best off, not with how much he drank.

He groaned into his pillow, annoyed that Voldemort wasn’t even here to make fun of him.

Dammit, he really needed to off this world’s Dark Lord and get back to his husband.

Hermione may claim that no one died of blue balls, but Harry was a rather exceptional wizard. He didn’t want to be the first. (It could be that he had a blue heart, too, but that wasn’t anyone’s business.)

Yawning, Harry stepped out of his bedroom in a pair of sleeping pants he’d found in the back of the closet. He couldn’t remember if his parents and Sirius had been sober enough to apparate home, but even if they hadn’t, it was hardly anything they hadn’t seen before on someone else. The Elder Wand, a constant stalker of his, rested in his pants pockets without Harry having put it there.

“You know I’m going to get my holly wand from the portal, along with the other supplies,” Harry told it. “You’ve won the battle, but you haven’t won the war.”

The wand grew cold against his thigh.

“Giving me the cold shoulder isn’t going to help your case.”

He took the stairs two a time, arriving at the bottom in time to see Lily close the front door behind her and slip a key onto the hook by the door. Harry had to wonder just how many people had access to this house, but it didn’t particularly concern him.

“I come bearing food,” Lily said, holding up two large cloth bags. “I’m not sure what you like for breakfast, so I got a little of everything. Plus some hangover potions.”

“You’re a goddess,” Harry told her quite seriously. “Let me know if you’d like a shrine.”

Lily pecked his cheek before stepping into the kitchen and levitating her purchases on to the counter. “Are James and Sirius awake yet? I thought I heard you speaking with someone as I came in.”

“Just my wand,” Harry replied.

Lily gave him a look like she was trying to decide if Harry was serious.

“Your lack of trust pains me, really,” Harry said, though he couldn’t keep his happiness out of his voice. Last night had been half family bonding, half light interrogation. Harry couldn’t be anything but approving; finally, some suspicion on behalf of the Order. They couldn’t know that he wouldn’t give away any more information than he already would’ve while sober, and that Harry had faced much more intensive interrogations before. The goblins could teach sadism to even Fenrir Greyback. “Should I wake the others?”

“No, let them sleep. They’ll be as moody as teenagers if they’re dragged out of bed.” Lily put him to work chopping peppers and ham for the quiche before she spoke. “Are you worried about us not trusting you?”

She looked concerned, worried, so different from the Lily of last night. Harry didn’t understand the urge to comfort her, but he bowed to it. “Of course not. If I were in your place and we needed to summon someone to deal with an issue of ours, we would submit them for a thorough investigation first. If we were capable of subduing them, that is.” Investigation was a better word than interrogation, right? “If we weren’t powerful enough to subdue them, we’d find other ways of getting information from them. Surround them with friendly people, that sort of thing.” He probably was explaining it badly, since Lily looked worse, not better. “I’d be more worried if you did immediately trust me, honestly. I’m not some selfless hero, but I won’t renege on my promises. Your Voldemort is a dead man walking.”

“You’re not worried about dying?”

“There’s only one being that can kill me, and it’s not Voldemort.” If Harry truly wished to die, he could ask Death to kill him, but the idea of doing so was very abstract to him. His husband had enough lust for life for a hundred men—maybe he inherited that of those he killed—and Harry wouldn’t pass on without him, so the idea was pointless to consider.

But it didn’t seem to be so pointless to Lily, who seemed to genuinely care about his continued life. “You had better be right.”

“I’m always right,” Harry replied.

“Now that I don’t trust.”

Harry grinned. Alright, it was possible that he’d made one or two mistakes during his life. Three at most. That anyone could get him to agree to.

“You don’t have a house elf?” Harry asked as he finished chopping.

Despite all evil dark wizard cliches, he wasn’t all that good with a knife. Cutting spells, yes, but he left creative interrogation methods to his husband, and knife fighting to Ron. The Dursleys had put him to work in the kitchen at a young age—his early childhood memories blurred in a mess of misery, so he couldn’t say how young he’d really been—but at age six Harry had gotten the upper hand over them and that had been that. Aunt Petunia prepared his meals from then on and Harry occupied what had previously been Dudley’s bedroom.

To this day, he thought he should’ve been more ambitious and demanded the master bedroom. The Dursleys had been terrified enough of his burgeoning magical power that they would’ve acquiesced. Later, Harry had taken six years of Potions, but he’d been more focused on getting Snape back for his comments than learning proper techniques.

“No,” Lily replied over the sound of the chopping board. “Charlus and Dorea had two when James was a teenager, but they died in the Potter manor explosion before James and I were married. I’ve never seen the point of having help, anyway. With two fully capable adults around the house who can do magic, house elves aren’t as necessary as some witches and wizards believe.”

It sounded like an old argument, one Harry didn’t bother putting his nose in. People got weird about house elves. Even Hermione, a rational and ruthless witch, had a soft spot for them. Harry wouldn’t kick them just as he wouldn’t kick crups, but he didn’t consider them slave labor. That said, he’d supported Hermione’s house elf regulations because he preferred to keep his balls intact. Even Voldemort supported higher standards for them, if only because he wanted to increase the number of house elves in the country and house elves regularly beaten black and blue weren’t going to happily consent to procreate.

Harry said, “I have a few, but that’s because my husband and I would starve without them. We’re both too busy to function properly otherwise.”

“I never asked what you do,” Lily seemed to realize.

Harry shrugged. His position was rather hard to describe. “Everything and anything, really. I don’t have an official position, but I manage a lot of post-war reconstruction projects. We have a lot of—” land and very few people “—building and rebuilding to do, now that we’ve won and we’ve reached a few years of proper peace. I have a seat on the zoning committee, I get about a hundred reports a day from people who don’t know what concise means, I make a concerned effort to keep Hermione from steamrolling the British government, I work my ass off to stamp out blood prejudice because everyone who has the gift of magic is equal. I work mainly with my best friends, Ron and Hermione, but Draco and Ginny often get in on the planning. I’m also my husband’s spokesperson when he’s too busy or too annoyed to deal with people. He’s a—” Dark Lord? Dictator? Harry was his equal in power, but he didn’t kid himself: people more terrified of Voldemort than of Harry. It was probably the creepy red eyes, Harry mused. Most people didn’t find them thoroughly sexy. “—diplomat.”

It wasn’t even a lie. Voldemort had to play nice with the other countries. While their wards around Britain were powerful, Harry didn’t like their chances of defending against a full-force attack from another country. If their neighbors across the channel decided they didn’t appreciate having a dark kingdom around, they could do some real damage. A war between countries—a new one still finding its footing and the rest hundreds of years old—wasn’t something they needed.

Not to mention, wizarding Britain’s population had already been small before Voldemort’s takeover. After, it was all they could do to promote their country to foreign magicals interested in immigrating.

Pros: no muggles, no need to worry about the Statute of Secrecy, heavy protections in place for magical creatures, one of the best schools in the world, a brand-new state of the art wizarding university, a serious effort of pureblood-halfblood-muggleborn equality because Harry didn’t give a shit about stuffy old pureblood beliefs. Magic was magic.

Cons: living under a dictatorship. Also, the occasional muggle corpses around from the few muggles who chose not to flee even after a simulated nuclear accident left the muggle world believing the British Isles to be forever hopelessly polluted and uninhabitable. Some people (Greyback) were assholes who couldn’t clean up their messes.

One of Voldemort’s best generals in three wars or not, Harry was going to kill Greyback one of these days.

Voldemort would forgive him.

“A diplomat?” Lily asked. “Does he have a silver tongue?”

“Like you wouldn’t imagine.”

“He’s a Slytherin, isn’t he,” Lily said, her words not almost but not quite a question.

Harry wondered if it was light interrogation that caused her to ask or genuine curiosity about the man her sort of son married. But like he’d said earlier, there was no reason it couldn’t be both. It was a small enough detail, anyway. “He is. The quintessential Slytherin, really. I’d hate him if I weren’t madly in love with him.”

By the time James and Sirius shuffled downstairs like zombies, Lily hadn’t heard anything more about Voldemort, but Harry had gotten some stories of Lily’s past mistakes from his sort of mother. Her temper was legendary, even if she didn’t apply it to violent actions. She and James had a rocky history back in Hogwarts, and so did she and Severus, who had taken on a nearly James-like determination to win back her friendship after the first war.

“Did you inherit my temper?” Lily asked.

“Merlin, no,” James said as he entered the kitchen. “The world couldn’t bear to deal with two of you.”

“I don’t know, it could be interesting,” Sirius added.

Harry considered it, but Lily seemed a hell of a lot more even tempered than he was, which was probably saying something. Then again, Harry was practically a model citizen in this dimension. Ew, since it wasn’t Voldemort leading the country, it was probably Fudge or Scrimgeour. He was Fudge or Scrimgeour’s model citizen. Gross. Harry didn’t deal well with authority, as evidenced by terrorizing the Dursleys into obedience, getting booted out of Hogwarts, and taking over the country.

Idly, he considered taking over this country, too, but it was only a daydream. He didn’t want to stay here and run it.

And neither did he want to give it to this world’s Voldemort like a present, all wrapped up and bloody. He might’ve placed it at Lily’s feet, but Lily wouldn’t want it anyway. Neither would his sort of dad and sort of godfather, who now fought over how to cut the quiche like barbarians while Harry poured Lily and himself some juice.

James looked up from his position hovering over the quiche and shook his head at them. “You two have the same exact expression.”

“The ‘my husband reverts back to a thirteen-year-old when he spends an extended period of time with his best friend’ expression?” Lily asked.

“The ‘I love you because of your faults, not despite them’ expression,” James retorted with a faux wounded look. In recompense, he handed her the largest slice of the quiche.

Sirius rolled his eyes at the two of them, then turned to Harry. “So, what’s the plan for today?”

“Mayhem and destruction,” Harry replied between bites. He was even nice enough to leave the murder bit off. Not that it was likely that there would be any murdering today, horcruxes notwithstanding. “It’s high time I go to Hogwarts. I’ll pick up another horcrux, then pop off to get some basilisk venom. It’s better on everyone if the horcruxes are destroyed quickly, before they get the chance to possess anyone.”

James seemed hesitant at the idea. “We should have the whole Order here before discussing plans.”

Harry shrugged, popping a strawberry into his mouth. “You summoned me here to defeat your Voldemort, not practice teamwork. Yesterday was fun, but I can’t have twenty people tripping over themselves walking behind me as I collect horcruxes from all over the country. And I don’t trust there to be no spies within the Order itself; the more people we include in this, the more likely your Voldemort will learn that people know about his horcruxes and panic about my very existence.”

“And what about Dumbledore?” Lily asked. “He certainly won’t sell you out.”

It was horrible that she was, in a way, correct. Dumbledore wouldn’t sell him out as long as Harry played his role. Back at Hogwarts, Harry had chafed against the reins and been expelled for his troubles, but here he was Dumbledore’s more or less willing chess piece.

Entertainment, Harry reminded himself. Entertainment. That was why he was here. He wasn’t Dumbledore’s anything.

“He’ll stick his nose in whether I want it or not,” Harry sighed. “Especially when we knock on the Hogwarts gates.” Maybe the old man would be merciful and send Severus in his place.

“If you don’t—” a small, barely there hesitation “—want to work with Dumbledore, you can always delegate some of the work to us,” Lily offered.

“Dumbledore nearly died of the curse on one of Voldemort’s horcruxes in my world,” Harry said. “You’d need to find some volunteers with a death wish.” I nominate Lupin, he almost said, but that was probably going too far. These people were sensitive. Besides, this Lupin didn’t break Sirius’ heart by siding with the light side, and being killed for it.

“On second thought, you’re the expert here,” Sirius quickly said.

“But,” Harry said with a thoughtful noise. Dumbledore would be easier to deal with if he was in the loop. And Harry didn’t want to deal with his parents trying to be secretive while playing spies. He knew full well that they would tell Dumbledore everything he said. There was no point in trying to staunch the flow of information. Secondhand information would just make the headmaster wary, and Harry hadn’t said anything he wanted to hide. “There are some things you can do. I haven’t had a proper war council in years.” There was too much delight in his voice, but Harry allowed himself the fun.

“War council?” Lily said.

“Skirmish council,” Harry offered. “I don’t plan this to last more than a few days at most. But until then, you three are officially my council.” At Lily’s raised eyebrow, he begged, “Just let me have this. If you expect me to deal with the full Order on a regular basis, you’re high on dragon dung.”

“Yesterday wasn’t even the full Order.”

“Stop, you’re only making the idea more depressing.”

Harry drew his wand from his pocket and pushed his plate out of the way. James, Lily, and Sirius grew attentive, but there wasn’t any fear in them that he could see. Fuck, but Harry kind of wanted to keep it that way.

When he pressed the tip of the wand against the table, a thin line of black ash followed his movements. Whatever he liked to say, it was true that the Elder Wand reacted to his desires better than any less legendary wand ever could (when it didn’t conflict with the wand’s own desires, anyway). Harry was the master of death; this wand was a willful, arrogant extension of himself.

Something in the shape of a crown formed on the table. Whatever his other talents, Harry wasn’t an artist. “The easiest horcrux to retrieve is the diadem, which is hidden in the room of requirement within Hogwarts.”

“You don’t mean Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem,” Lily exclaimed. “It’s been missing for centuries. Voldemort was the one to find it?”

“And to stick a piece of his soul into it, like a kid writing his name on everything to show it’s his,” James said. He and Lily shared a knowing look. “Fleamont has mostly grown out of the habit, but nearly everything he owns is engraved with his name. He even asked Ollivander if he could do it with his wand.”

“A precious historical artifact,” Lily sighed. “And we’re destroying it.”

“We can ask your Voldemort to pretty please take his soul out of it,” Harry offered.

Sirius shrugged. “I’ve seen better, and none of us are Ravenclaws, anyway.”

“So if it was the sword of Gryffindor that was a horcrux—”

“We’d still have to destroy it.” With a panicked look that betrayed his argument, Sirius turned to Harry to ask, “It isn’t, right? Tell me we’re not destroying an actually wickedly cool legendary artifact.”

“Not that particular one, no,” Harry replied. While the others had been talking, he’d sketched out another few things. “This is Hufflepuff’s cup—” he continued through Lily’s little noise of despair “—and if everything went the same way in this world, it’s hidden in the Lestrange vault. The Gaunt ring is in Little Hangleton, where Voldemort’s parents grew up. Lucius is holding onto the diary. I’ve given Albus Slytherin’s locket. Nagini is usually slithering around the Dark Lord.” He counted them quickly, and yeah, that was six. No baby Potter to be the only known case of a human horcrux. Harry cracked his knuckles as he considered his plan of action. “James, since you care, I’m appointing you in charge of keeping Dumbledore in the loop.”

“You make that sound like such an unpleasant task,” James said with a huff. “How terrible, having a few cups of tea, little sandwiches, and lemon drops.”

“Don’t let the lemon drops go to your head,” Harry said. “And I need everything Dumbledore knows about your Voldemort’s location. Everything. Tell him that. Sirius, I need you to get me Bellatrix. Are you a better dueler than her?”

“Probably not,” Sirius admitted. “But I could take her if it’s not a fair fight.”

“Take a team, then.” Harry wrinkled his nose at the Order’s collective level of fighting ability. “Take Remus. She’s terrified of werewolves, not that she’ll admit it. Lily—”

“I’ll go with you,” Lily immediately volunteered.

“I’m not going to be in any danger at Hogwarts.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Lily replied with no little amusement. “You already started an argument with Moody yesterday. I don’t trust you at Hogwarts without someone to pull the two of you away from each other.”

“Fair,” Harry allowed. “Wait, Moody’s at Hogwarts?”

“He’s the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor,” Lily said.

Harry pursed his lips. “Ugh.”

“Harry,” Lily chided.

It should have made him tense and uncomfortable, getting motherly chiding from someone who wasn’t actually his mother. Harry had never been fond of people trying to curtail his impulses or his language. But coming from Lily, it wasn’t that bad. Lily in general simply wasn’t that bad. It made him wonder how growing up with her could’ve been.

He likely would’ve ended up hating the constraints she and James would’ve inevitably put on him, but maybe with their influence he wouldn’t have been as dark of a wizard. Maybe he wouldn’t have even had his deep well of darkness at all. Harry had never wanted to change; anyone who didn’t like the way he was could fuck off. And with him as the co-ruler of a whole country, no one dared to voice any serious objections to his character. But Lily made him thoughtful.

Harry shook his head, hoping to shake the thoughts away. Thinking was for people like Hermione.

“I won’t even curse him,” he promised. He glanced down at the table, where a collection of such precious objects were represented in stark black ash.

With a wave of his wand, the ash rose up, twisting in a hurricane formation until it briefly flitted into the dark mark. And then it was gone, like it hadn’t been there at all. Fuck if he didn’t miss him like a limb.

Sirius was the first to disapparate. James was next, electing to give Dumbledore a warning of Harry’s imminent arrival. Harry finished off the bowl of strawberries, idly wondering if Voldemort would like a second thousand-year-old basilisk as an apology gift.

Across from him, Lily looked thoughtful. She remarked, “You always specify Voldemort as ours. You don’t say your Order, or your Albus, just your Voldemort.”

Well, Harry wasn’t about to say that he needed that distinction in his mind because it was weird enough to plot his husband’s other self’s death, so he just shrugged. “I like reminding people I’m doing them a favor. He’s originally your problem.”

“If it’s a favor, you’ll eventually call it in.”

“A boon, then. I’m practically a genie.”

Chapter Text

To Harry’s lack of surprise, Lily vetoed Harry tearing through the wards of Hogwarts with apparition instead of arriving in Hogsmeade and walking the distance to the castle.

“You spoil my fun,” Harry sighed. “For all I know, the access I have to the wards of my world’s Hogwarts has transferred to this Hogwarts.”

Lily looked to Harry in askance. “How did you manage that?”

“I have an in with the headmistress.”

“Minerva must like you better than she does any of us. I haven’t heard of anyone being able to apparate inside Hogwarts—not even the headmaster or the professors.”

“It’s a matter of power, too,” Harry replied with a shrug.

He looked around as they passed various Hogsmeade shops. There were far less than there were in his own world. Symptoms of a war, or perhaps the fact that without muggles around in his world, business was flourishing out in the open. Harry hardly espoused his husband’s views—what did he care about muggles, outside of the Dursleys, who were long gone?—but it certainly made things easier without them around.

Lily’s reply came after a thoughtful pause. “How powerful are you, Harry? We asked the ritual to bring us someone with the power to destroy Voldemort, but what does that mean? You don’t fear him, nor do you seem to fear anything. Should I worry about you, or…”

“Should you worry about others?” Harry smiled. It probably didn’t come out right, but Lily was looking away, at Hogwarts in the distance.

They kept walking. When Lily looked back, she nodded.

“There’s nothing in your world that can kill me,” Harry said, bluntly. There were some fears of Lily’s that he could assuage—his own death—and some that he couldn’t—other people’s deaths if they got on his nerves enough. “I’m the master of death. It’s a fancy title, but what it really means is that you don’t have to worry about me, Lily. Not in that way.” He took her hand when she reached for him. It was warm, her skin soft. “You can worry about what I’ll do, how I’ll act, if I fulfill my promise. But worrying about my safety is like worrying over a hurricane being harmed. There’s no point to it.”

Lily squeezed his hand, held his gaze. “In that analogy, are you more likely to harm others?”

“I am,” Harry said, plainly. “I have a Dark Lord to defeat, don’t I? I don’t intend to do it bloodlessly.”

“Good.” Lily’s grip was firm before her hand slipped from his. “I entered the wizarding world in a time of war. My children have spent half their lives in wartime. I lost one son and so many friends. I want him gone. If there’s anything I can do—I’ll do it.”

For the first time, Harry saw himself in Lily, and not only in her green eyes. “You already did your part in summoning me. The rest of it—it’s a piece of cake.”

Hogwarts rose higher and higher as the distance between them and the school grew small. Harry had always enjoyed the look of it. It was his first home; Privet Drive could never contain him, never hold his attention, not like the towering castle. As a boy, Harry wanted to rule from Hogwarts, to stand atop the highest tower and shout his name. As a man, Harry still appreciated its majesty, though he let the next generation of students have it for themselves.

“Does it mean what I think it does, being the master of death?” Lily asked. “I read the story of the three brothers to you as a baby. Hestia and Fleamont, too. Hestia’s favorite part was Death’s gift-giving. She called him the Christmas Grim. I’ve grown used to the magical world having surprises around every corner and all tales having a hint of truth.”

“Death won’t take me unless I ask,” Harry confirmed.

“It sounds lonely.”

Harry wiggled his fingers, the black ring gleaming in the sunlight. “My husband would hardly let something like mortality touch him. He’ll stick with me.”

Lily touched Harry’s arm briefly, then withdrew. “I’m glad you’ll have company, that you won’t be alone. I wouldn’t want that kind of life for myself, but it looks like you’ve found the perfect person for the life you have.”

Harry nodded. “I’ve never thought about it quite like that, but you’re right.” He smiled. “He’s perfect.”

The gates opened for them without any convincing, as did the doors to the main entrance.

Ducking out from the entrance were two kids with a trouble-making air to them.

“It’s Harry!” said the boy.

“Hi, Mum,” said the girl. “Hi, Harry!”

Oh, yeah. Lily had showed him a photograph of the kids the other day, but Harry’s attention span when it came to stories of children was rather low.

“Children,” Lily said, in a certain tone of voice. “Who told you we would be here?”

“We saw Dad earlier,” the girl replied, unrepentantly. “So we figured we’d wait for you.”

“Dad said you’re on Order business.” The awe and intrigue in their voices was palatable, especially when the boy followed up with, “With Harry.”

Lily sighed, shook her head. She sent a smile Harry’s way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spring them on you like this. I know how difficult all of this must be for you, emotionally. It’s the same for me.”

Harry was quite certain that Lily overestimated his level of emotional attachment to the situation. And yet, as he looked at the two kids, he saw Lily in them, and James, and himself, and it was… weird.

“Hello, kids,” Harry said, shaking off the feeling. “Want to help me kill Voldemort?”

“Yes,” said the two of them in unison.

“No,” Lily said, but didn’t stop them from following Harry like ducklings down the halls of Hogwarts. “Will this be dangerous for them?”

Harry shook his head. “Only mildly. The horcruxes are all dormant for the most part.” To the two kids, he called out, “We’re going to the Room of Requirement,” and was amused and unsurprised to see them race in the correct direction. “Good kids.”

“They’re trouble-makers, alright,” Lily said, but her tone was fond. “It’s what I get for marrying a marauder. You’re the same way, you know. Giving us all gray hairs.”

Harry didn’t try to deny it. “It’s all part of my charm.”

The castle was loud and quiet in turns, depending on how many students were around. Harry was almost surprised to realize that Hogwarts under Dumbledore was just as loud and hectic as Hogwarts under Bellatrix. Children didn’t change much whether it was the Dark Lord’s top general or a kindly old light wizard in charge of them.

Hogwarts was a beautiful, gleaming symbol of the future of the wizarding world. Battles had been fought over it in the past and would continue to be fought in the future. Dumbledore had died on the steps of Hogwarts, and with his death their dark-light war had been over. Pockets of resistance faded as the years passed and the populace realized what Harry had long since known: that a society could be dark and successful, that they could raise children and build legacies and enjoy success without crumbling in a series of Crucio’s.

One of the large windows opened up to the quidditch pitch and the practicing players flying inside it. From above, Harry noticed a few students spying on them from one of the castle’s courtyards and pointed the scene out to Lily.

She squinted. “Are they Slytherins?”

“Could be,” Harry said. “But they are spying rather badly. I’m betting on Gryffindors.”

“Harry, you’re a Gryffindor yourself.”

Harry made a face. “I know. That’s why I’m ashamed on their behalf. I expect better from my own house. They should be channeling that bravery into their sneaking skills rather than just doing whatever that is.”

Lily shook her head at him, her green eyes light with laughter. “You’re terrible.”

“I blame my husband,” Harry immediately said. He was always happy to throw Voldemort under the hippogriff. It was entirely his fault.

Harry could’ve had a perfectly wonderful life with some Gryffindor had Voldemort not sauntered into Harry’s life like the attractive dick he was. Frankly, it was very unfair. If he’d married a Gryffindor, he wouldn’t have had to make any concessions in the decoration of their castle. A proper Gryffindor would’ve seen no issue with a red and gold dragon theme throughout the castle.

“I don’t know what to think of you, sometimes,” Lily said as they drew close to the Room of Requirement. But it evidently wasn’t a topic for the two kids pacing impatiently in front of it, so she added, “How did you find this room? I only know of it from the rare mention of it by Albus. I’ve never been inside.”

“Dobby, Lucius’s former house elf, heard of it from the house elves and clued me in. It’s not the only room of Hogwarts that tries to hide from its inhabitants.”

Lily’s boy offered, “We eavesdropped on Professor McGonagall. She didn’t say where the room was, so we spent a month pacing all the walls in the castle.”

“I hope you kept up with your homework during that time.”

“Yes, Mum,” the two of them said, though with differing levels of enthusiasm.

Harry drew his wand out of his pocket and tossed it to Lily’s girl. “Here, pace in front of the wall for me and think about how you’d like somewhere to hide this wand.”

Wide-eyed, she inspected the wand. “This is yours?”

“Mine is holly and phoenix feather. This is an interloper I can’t quite get rid of.”

She held it tightly in her hand, then paced beside the wall. Once the door appeared, the Elder Wand, without any input from Harry, flew back into Harry’s pocket.

“Wicked,” said Lily’s girl, eying his wand. “Is that a spell or wandless magic?”

“It’s a nuisance,” Harry said, cheerfully. “Let’s go in.”

The Room of Requirement looked to Harry’s trained eye an absolute mess, which was just about right. Towering piles of boxes and books and items of all sorts filled the room, threatening to fall down on the unsuspecting wanderer.

“Careful,” murmured Lily to her kids.

Harry looked back and found himself included. “It’ll be fine. No one’s died at Hogwarts in decades, excluding Defense professors. Now, where was it…”

It took him a while to locate it, finding himself in the unenviable position of having to look out for Lily’s brats, lest one of them were to touch a cursed object. There was a surprising number of those; Harry cheerfully blamed Dumbledore’s lax rules and pocketed more than a few.

He started to sense it as he neared, then it came into view: the chipped bust of the ugly old warlock, atop which sat the diadem.

“It really is the long-lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw,” Lily breathed.

“And we’re going to destroy it,” Harry confirmed.

“We are?” asked Lily’s girl.

“Nice,” said Lily’s boy.

Harry picked up the diadem and held it in his hands, trailing his fingers over the smooth metal and polished gemstones. It was beautiful. His husband had good taste. In his own world, the diadem was Hermione’s now, and she frequently wore it for an analytical edge. It’s like a supercomputer in your brain, she once said to him.

In this world, Voldemort did not seem to plan to withdraw his horcruxes anytime soon, so destroying the diadem it was. Harry had an eminently practical viewpoint: relics were all well and good, but sometimes things needed to burn.

Harry closed his eyes, savoring the sensation of having Voldemort’s soul nearby, then let it go. It wasn’t the real thing. What a difference one day made; yesterday, Harry scorned the locket, today he savored the diary.

He missed his husband. It was obnoxiously true.

This Voldemort needed to die.

“Two choices: basilisk venom or fiendfyre,” Harry said, twirling the diadem in his hand.

Lily’s girl stepped closer. “Where do we get basilisk venom? Can you control fiendfyre?”

“Right under the school and yes.”

“Fiendfyre,” said Lily’s boy with unholy glee in his eyes, as was only proper.

“Not fiendfyre,” Lily replied, cutting off Harry’s fun. “We’re in a school. Besides, the wizarding world can’t handle both Voldemort and the Fires of 1803 anew.”

“That’s when fiendfyre almost destroyed all of London,” Lily’s boy offered. “I wrote a paper on it. Several papers. It’s cool.”

“I like your kids,” Harry said to Lily.

Both the brats looked inordinately pleased with themselves. Harry was happy to say that as with himself, Lily and James’ genes hadn’t gone wrong. Maybe instead in time they would settle down, grow less wild and fierce, but Harry had hope for them.

“I like them too,” Lily replied, dryly. “Which is why I’m sending them back to their dormitory. It’s too dangerous for you to join us on the next part of our mission.”

There was a multitude of complaints, which Lily bore with the grace of a parent who had heard it all before.

When the kids finally gave in, Harry found himself hugged tightly by the two brats, one on each side, and he patted their heads and hugged them back.

“You’re so cool, Harry,” said Lily’s girl.

“Yeah. Thanks for visiting!”

“You’re welcome,” said Harry, bemused.

They hugged Lily, too, but that didn’t stop them from getting shooed back to their dormitory.

Lily watched them leave, then turned to Harry. “They have your adventurous spirit. I keep seeing them in you and you in them. It hurts less than seeing myself or James in you.”

Since two hugs hadn’t done the job, Harry let her have a third. “Don’t cry. We have a basilisk to milk.”

“Right,” Lily said, laughing once.

As they made their way to the third-floor girls’ bathroom, Moody joined them, scowling all the while.

“You’re the person I least want to see in the castle,” Harry grumbled.

Lily’s tone was placating. “He’s just here to help. What if we have trouble with the basilisk?”

“Dumbledore sent me down. For good reason, too. Unleashing a basilisk on the school, are you, Potter?”

“No, but that’s always been a goal of mine. Can’t leave all the fun to my husband.” Harry waved his hands dramatically. “Behold, the Chamber of Secrets.”

Lily and Moody were silent for a long moment, until Lily said, “Harry, this is a girls’ bathroom.”

“Salazar Slytherin was basically a teenage girl.” Harry approached the sinks, where he hissed out open for me. The sink complied, moving aside to reveal the tunnel that led to the chamber. Harry stepped forward, his foot on the edge of the tunnel. “See you below!”

Technically, the tunnel did have stairs, but nothing was better than seeing Moody fall to the floor of the chamber. Harry slowed and cushioned Lily’s fall, of course.

Lily shivered as she looked around. “It’s creepy, this place. I can’t believe it was under Hogwarts this whole time.”

Harry nodded. “You’d think that Slytherin could afford some proper lighting.”

As they entered the main chamber, Moody shined his Lumos at the snakeskin and various animal bones on the floor, and spit out, “It’s an abomination. It should be destroyed.”

“If you try, I will respond in kind,” Harry replied with a glower.

The basilisk didn’t deserve such a thing. Harry had excellent memories of riding her into battle during the goblin war. If they still gave out Order of Merlin awards, he would give her one for being a darling.

To Lily, he said, “Close your eyes.”

Speak to me, greatest of the Hogwarts four, Harry hissed, rolling his eyes.

He would leave all the worshipping of Slytherin to his husband. To Harry, Slytherin was just some old bastard who couldn’t even manage to control the story of his life that was handed down through the ages. It stood to reason that Godric Gryffindor, with his cool as shit sword that Harry wore in a scabbard throughout the war, was the greatest of the Hogwarts four.

But a white lie never hurt anyone, especially not a statue.

It opened slowly, revealing the basilisk in all her glory.

Harry touched the side of her face, feeling the cool, smooth scales under his skin. “You can open your eyes. She’s hibernating.”

“Holy Merlin,” Lily breathed.

“She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”

“She’s huge.”

“Who’s the king of snakes,” Harry cooed, patting her.

Moody didn’t share Harry’s perspective.

The bastard.

With his wand in his other hand, Harry froze the two roosters that Moody conjured, then petrified the man himself. Petrification was one of Harry’s favorite curses. Without the countercurse, the potions antidote took three months to brew, during which the victim had a lot of time to think about their actions and how they affected Harry.

“Harry!” Lily cried, stepping to Moody’s side to check on him. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“He’ll be fine.” Harry turned his attention back to the sleeping snake and gently cast a charm to empty her venom sacks into a thoroughly charmed container. Basilisk venom would get everywhere if one let it. “No one in this world properly appreciates you,” Harry grumbled, patting the basilisk’s flank. “Look at you, darling, stuck underground all this time. You’re nearly skin and bones. You’ll have to come with me, of course.”

Lily made a sound of stifled, strangled laughter. “Harry, that’s a basilisk.”

Harry didn’t let go. “She needs care and respect. Besides, what’s better than one basilisk?”

“I assume you’ll say—”

“Two basilisks, yes.” Harry gave the basilisk one last pat, then let go. “I’ll arrange a transport for her with my husband. Something that will make her comfortable during the journey.”

“And shrink her to a more manageable size?”

Harry nodded. “I’ll need to figure out what to do with her, too. I can’t release her in the Forbidden Forest. Basilisks are solitary creatures. She won’t enjoy being around her other self. But that’s a problem for the future.”

There were plenty of forests in the country that Harry could co-opt for the purpose. He would find her a caretaker, too, just to ensure she settled in nicely. Luna, maybe, or Barty.

Turning around, Harry eyed the petrified Moody and hit him with a levitation charm. He didn’t trust Moody in the chamber one whit.

By the time they arrived upstairs, using the stairs this time, Albus was waiting for them in the girls’ bathroom along with James. Harry sealed the chamber entrance shut, then added two extra spells, just in case.

“Control your guard dog,” Harry said to Albus, dropping Moody on the ground next to him. “He tried to kill my basilisk. He’s lucky I didn’t do the same to him.”

Harry’s wand itched to finish the job.

He refrained, but just barely.

Albus’ lips were pinched, the twinkle gone from his eyes. “Your retaliation was unnecessarily harsh. It is Professor Moody’s duty to protect the school and its students, and we don’t require a living basilisk after milking it for its venom.”

“You won’t have one. I’m taking her back with me once I finish here.” Harry had the urge to go up and destroy Albus’s office as he had in the past, but he tamped it down. He was an adult. If he wasn’t destroying Albus himself—and that was sliding from an absolutely not to a but what if quickly—then Albus’s office was safe.

He threw the diadem on the ground, then hit it with a few drops of venom. A little went a long way; in moments, the diadem was screaming, shuddering, melting against the stone floors of Hogwarts. Albus added the locket in the midst of the melting locket and Harry did the same with it. The metal would stain the floors, but maybe Myrtle would like it. A tangible part of the death of the man who killed her. Harry probed his feelings on the matter and realized he really was quite hungry.

Harry faced Albus. “Two down, four to go. Then, Voldemort.”

Albus nodded, a shallow dip of his head. “James has told me of the location of the Gaunt ring. If you return Professor Moody to his usual self, we will head out at once.”

Lily seemed to be in agreement. “Please, Harry.”

James, too. “He’s a bastard, but we need him.”

With the petrification, Moody’s entire body had been leeched of color. He was motionless and ashy, and Harry felt this was the perfect way for Mad-Eye Moody to be if he couldn’t be dead. Harry had never forgiven him for almost killing Ron and this other dimension version of the man was on thin ice.

But this Moody had protectors of his own in the form of two people who could bother Harry about it for the rest of his trip if Harry didn’t give in.

Harry rubbed at his forehead, at the scar. All his edges felt jagged, just one moment away from ripping into each other. Fuck, he liked Lily and James, he wanted to spare them some pain, but had he been in his world, he would've struck Moody down without a care. He was still itching to do it. The Elder Wand had already slipped into his hand without him reaching for his pocket. Power thrummed through him, both the wand's and his own. What the fuck was he doing here?

He despised the Potters for making him feel this way, for making him less than what he is. But it was Harry who put this limit on himself. Harry should've just broken their light little hearts that first day. It would've been easier to deal with than the fact that he'd leashed himself and given them the lead.

Harry cast the countercurse, then disapparated before he had to see Moody wake.

Back at Stonehenge, Harry stopped at the center of the rocks and did the magical equivalent of banging on the door of the portal. It opened again to his husband’s study, and Harry missed it desperately. It was becoming a strain, this stupid dimension where everyone was too polite to strike down their enemies and where Harry couldn’t be himself.

“There are kids here. And Moody’s still alive. It’s the worst,” Harry said, plopping down on a conjured armchair. “Why am I even here?”

“A newly discovered sense of filial duty,” Voldemort drawled.

“Don’t be smug. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Liar.”

“I miss you,” Harry grumbled. “I want our marriage bond back. I want you in my head. I want Moody dead. I really want the last one.”

“Since when have you needed permission to kill?”

“Since Lily and James look like kicked puppies if I do something that doesn’t suit them.” Harry sighed deeply, feeling world-weary. This world, specifically. “It’s turning into less of a vacation and more of a chore.”

“As you richly deserve,” Voldemort replied. After a moment, he took pity on Harry, and said, “You’re not trapped. You have options, even if it doesn’t feel like you do. You’re more than welcome to step through the portal and forget about them all. I know you, Harry. Any slight guilt you might feel about it would fade in days. We can find you entertainment here. I’ll send you as a diplomatic envoy to the goblins if you truly feel bored.”

“As tempting as starting another goblin war is… I’ll stick it out here for a little longer. Just until I kill Voldemort, thereby winning a point in the who’s stronger column.”

“He is an inferior version of myself,” Voldemort huffed. “It doesn’t count.”

“Does, too.”

Harry settled into his armchair, and continued baiting and being reassured by his husband. It felt wrong to see him without also hearing his thoughts and sensing his emotions. Their marriage bond had been stretched too far through dimensions. Harry missed the sharp, dark presence of his mind. He missed the sex, too.

One couldn’t have a holiday without sex, as Harry was quickly coming to realize.

He wondered if he could pull Voldemort into this dimension, then nixed the idea. Voldemort wouldn’t like it here at all. Harry had to save him from a world where everyone thought the best of you and where Albus was an ally instead of an enemy. It was enough to go mad.

*

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Lily asked from beside Alastor’s hospital bed. He looked better than he had an hour ago, but the countercurse worked slowly, giving Alastor back his color over the course of the hour.

“I’ve had worse,” Alastor said. “Not in a while, but I have. What a kid you’ve got there, Lily.”

His tone wasn’t complimentary.

“I know,” Lily replied, and rubbed at her face. “I know.”

For a moment there, she thought Harry was going to kill Alastor. The expression on his face, the quickness of his wand…

But he didn’t, she reminded herself. He didn’t.

All he did was cast dark magic on Alastor, which he reversed upon request. Lily told herself that it was relief she felt, not love and dread swirling together.

“We’ve retrieved the ring horcrux and neutralized it,” Lily said.

“You should have waited for me.”

“We could have used you, Alastor, but we had James, Albus, Kingsley, and Bill with us, so we managed it. Albus told us about how Voldemort’s mother grew up in that hut and his father in the manor house. She love potioned him, did you know that? I wonder if that was the root of it all.” When Alastor harrumphed, Lily added, “Oh, alright. You don’t care about that part.”

She liked him, grumpy and loud as he was. There was something comforting in Alastor’s refusal to bow to age or peace. He couldn’t be stopped by missing limbs or eyes, nor fooled easily. She trusted his opinion. She didn’t always heed it, but she trusted it.

“We’ll figure this out, Alastor,” Lily said, meaning all of it.

Alastor’s expression gentled, just slightly, as much as he ever did. “You’ll do what needs to be done. It’s for the good of our world, Lily.”

“I remember you saying that when we came up with this plan.” Lily sighed, rubbing at her eyes. “It’s turned out differently than we’d thought. Better and worse.”

Master of death, honestly. Even now, Lily had no idea what to think of it.

When she left Alastor’s bedside, she found James lurking in the doorway.

“I don’t know what to think of it,” James offered. “You’ve cursed people in anger.”

“You have, too,” Lily said. “But not for years.”

“He’s only what, twenty-five? Not an old fart like us with years to train our impulse control. If he got angry with Moody—and who doesn’t—then… well, he didn’t refuse to perform the counter-curse.”

Lily shared a look with James. “No, he didn’t.”

Unspoken were Lily’s worries and intuition, which rarely steered her wrong. She leaned into her husband, closed her eyes, and hoped.

Chapter Text

When Harry returned to the safe house, two wands in his pocket and battle robes on his back and after making a pit stop for his new pocket basilisk, Sirius met him with a gift.

“Sirius, you shouldn’t have,” Harry said, clapping his hands.

“It took me all day to do it. I nearly lost an eye to her spell,” Sirius groused, folding his hands. “I hope you’re happy.”

“I’m delighted.”

Harry took stock of Bellatrix, who was tied to a kitchen chair. Someone, probably Sirius, had conjured a cocktail to sit invitingly in front of her. Harry plucked it up and took a sip. Entirely too sweet, as was his preference. Brilliant.

He was in a better mood already.

As many, including his husband, learned, Harry was easily tempted with gifts. He spared a glance for Lily and James, who arrived together, but most of his attention was on Sirius’ cousin.

Harry cupped her face. “Bellatrix, I have a job for you.”

It was unnatural to see her struggle instead of yield. Harry was used to her taking Harry’s orders as she did Voldemort’s. They ruled as one. To scorn Harry would be to scorn the Dark Lord himself, and his Bellatrix would never do so.

This one yelled at him with silenced lips.

Harry tapped his wand against her temple. “Imperio. I’d like you to retrieve the horcrux from your Gringotts vault. You know the one, Hufflepuff’s cup. Then pop off to the Malfoy manor. You know how to break into Lucius’ house. Anyone does, if they pay attention. He cares more about flash than substance. I bet you’ve seen him wave that diary around. Especially to you, with that rivalry of yours. Bring both to me.”

“Is this the right thing to do?” James asked, tentatively.

“We could always force our way into Gringotts,” Harry tried out.

Sirius shook his head. “And start another goblin war?”

“Would it really be that bad?” Harry had rather enjoyed his own goblin war. Those goblins were vicious, blood-thirsty, and inventive. But it looked like the others had just decided to disregard that option completely, so Harry added, “Or we could sneak in.”

“That’s impossible,” James huffed. “You’d have to be ridiculously powerful to do that. And insane.”

“Thanks,” Harry said with a pleased grin.

“No. No. Really?”

“My husband broke into Gringotts years ago, before we got together. I made him teach me how he did it,” Harry preened.

“Why exactly did he break into Gringotts?”

“Oh, you know, the usual reasons,” Harry said with a wave of his hand. “All I’m saying is that while it would be a pain, it’s doable.”

“But it wouldn’t be fast and it wouldn’t be easy.” Lily looked to Bellatrix. “She’s our best option.”

With a wave of his wand, Bellatrix’s ropes fell to the ground and the silencing spell vanished. Her gaze no longer held that blinding hatred, though Harry couldn’t call it devotion instead.

He nodded. “Off to it, Bella.”

She disapparated with a crack.

Harry didn’t flinch. He looked his parents head on, and he said, “My methods are effective, even if you don’t like them.”

“We don’t understand them,” Lily offered. “But our worlds are deeply different. I understand that, at least. Will you humor us for a little while longer?”

“Okay,” Harry grumbled.

He finished off the cocktail, then let Lily place a teacup in his hands. James and Sirius went off to argue the merits of using an unforgivable curse or check on the wards or whatever Order members did with their time, so Harry sat with Lily for a while as they waited.

Lily’s tea was chamomile, judging by the smell. Harry wondered what she felt she needed calming from.

“Where did you go when you left the school?” Lily asked.

“Stonehedge,” Harry replied. “I had some complaints to make to my husband.” He blew a breath, and said, “I miss him. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid to miss your spouse. I miss James when we’re apart for long. And we’ve never been as far away from each other than you and he are now. It’s only natural that you want to return to him. You have a strong bond.”

Harry couldn’t speak for a moment. It was rare that he put into words his bond to his husband. Everyone who mattered already knew—they had burned the world for each other. “We’re tied together closer than anyone ever could be. By accident and by choice, in soul and blood and sacrifice and a power that holds the very universe together. There’s no one on earth or beyond who could match a sliver of the connection we have for each other. Not even Death could part us. I would have it no other way.”

“And he feels the same way?”

“Without a doubt.”

Lily let out a breath. “I don’t think obsession is broad enough to cover this.”

“I’ve always just liked to call it fate.”

“How did the two of you meet?”

“Complicated question. He met me once when I was very young, though I don’t remember it. I met him later, when I was eleven, though I barely knew who he was at the time. We talked on and off from there and got together during my sixth year.”

“You went to Hogwarts together? You said earlier that he was older than you.”

“No, he’s a fair bit older than I am.”

“A fair bit?” Lily asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Quite a fair bit,” Harry agreed with a grin. “He’s a cradle robber—” Harry laughed at the words, though Lily didn’t seem find it as funny “—but honestly, I wouldn’t have if any other way.”

“You did marry him,” Lily said, wryly.

“I did,” Harry said. He knew he looked rather smug. “Years ago, on the night the war ended, I told him I wasn’t planning on letting him ever live without me. He asked me what I was planning to do about it, I told him to marry me. The asshole actually agreed.”

“You know, that’s both very romantic and completely unromantic.”

“It’s very romantic. We were bruised and bloody and tired after the two month siege. Even he looked like shit and he’s the type that always looks perfect. I was barely keeping my eyes open, but after watching my life flash before my eyes during the final battle all I could think was that I wanted that stupid man bound even closer than he already was. The next day, after the main post-war debrief when everyone was already there, we did the vows and exchanged rings. He gave me one that had been in his family for centuries, I have him the one I made during the long hours of waiting during the siege. What about you and James?

“We didn’t get married with a full magical bond,” Lily said. “I’ve heard the feeling of closeness is amazing, but neither of us were sure about binding ourselves for life. We were eighteen, still figuring things out. We like to think of marriage as forever, but, well. It’s easier when there’s a way out.”

“He and I have always been the all or nothing type. And to be honest, in the decade we’ve been together, I’ve never wanted to leave him. Ignore him for a while, sure, piss him off, definitely, but I’m not sure there’s anything I’d want to leave him over. We’ve screwed each other over in unimaginable ways. Neither of us are especially good at being people. Or dealing with emotions. But he’s mine to love and hate. Same goes for the reverse.” Harry doubted they could be normal even if their lives depended on it.

“No kids?”

Harry made a face. “It’s complicated. We’ve been through the topic a billion times. He wants them because—” he scratched the back of his head “—well, because of the stuff that’s happened, there’s a lot more space in wizarding Britain and we’re trying to get our population back to where it should be.” Such as occupying the whole landmass. “But his childhood was pretty shit, both of ours really, and he’s never really tried to develop that temperament you need to deal with kids. I did just because some of my best friends already have a few, but I don’t know if that’s enough to really be a dad.”

Frankly, kids were terrifying. It was bad enough that he had to be the main force behind encouraging wizarding Britain in their post-war baby boom. Apparently, the public was just too intimidated by Voldemort to accept him being the one telling them to have kids. Their focus group before rolling out the plan had gotten scared and started trying because they thought it was an order, which hadn’t been all that conducive to building up their society. Way too many people had issues getting it on when they were terrified. Harry had never understood that problem, but, well, he’d married his mortal enemy.

“You still won’t tell me his name,” Lily said.

Harry looked at her and wondered what it would hurt, really. It hardly mattered. And yet, people without Harry’s particular attitude—the kind that he cultivated in his friends, the kind that allowed people to live in an endarkened Britain—could crumble at the smallest things.

He didn’t want to watch Lily crumble.

How could people possibly function like this? Harry felt too warm when he looked at her, like her hair was borne from the sun and it was all he could do to keep himself from melting. Harry didn’t believe in any sanctity of life, was a killer many times over, but the fact that Lily and James were alive and well was so strangely beautiful. He’d never cared that they’d given their lives for his, had even thought them stupid for throwing their lives away. Selflessness was for those who didn’t want to survive.

And yet.

And yet.

Bellatrix arrived before Harry could get a headache from all the thinking.

He could see the fight behind her eyes, but in her hands she carried the final two horcruxes.

Harry smiled. Not a friendly smile—she wasn’t his Bella, after all. He dealt with the horcruxes, then took Bellatrix’s arm.

“Shall we go?”

“Wait—”

Harry turned back to Lily and waved. “I don’t need you for this part. I’ll see you in an hour.”

And with that, they were gone.

The Elder Wand appeared in Harry’s hand and this time he didn’t force it away.

*

When Lily was in school, she decided that once she graduated and left home, she would never speak to her sister again. She was sick of Petunia’s jealousy and the constant arguments. She hated her as fiercely as she hated any Death Eater. Maybe more, because there’s nothing personal about hating a faceless jerk, and quite a bit to hating one’s sister.

Then their parents died and the war lulled for a long time. Lily’s relationship with her sister cooled, and it strengthened with the cooling. Petunia was one of the few people who remembered and cared about Lily’s childhood. They had the same nose. They made similar mistakes and they lashed out in similar ways.

They were cut from the same cloth.

It didn’t mean they had to like each other, but love was inevitable when there was nothing else left.

Twice a year, they had dinner together, and they didn’t miss each other in the time in between.

Abruptly, Lily missed Petunia like a toothache. Her older sister would know what to do in periods of thorny, bloody love.

By the time the Order broke through the wards on the Death Eaters’ headquarters, Lily had gone from panic to calm. She tore through the rooms until she found the one she’d heard of only from Severus’ tales—the throne room.

On the step to the dais, Harry sat.

There was a body at his feet. Actually, there were a lot of bodies, but only one had Harry’s attention.

Lily sat next to him and pulled him into her.

“I didn’t like that,” Harry said, quietly. “I didn’t like that at all. How was I supposed to know I’d care?”

“You killed someone. That’s not a thing that can be taken lightly, even in the case of a man as dark and awful as Voldemort.”

“I killed him. I can feel it—that every part of him is gone from this world.”

“I love you, Harry.” Lily kissed his cheek because it might be the last time she could do it. The phantom memory of doing the same for her own Harry, so long ago, pained her. “Will you leave now?”

Harry was quiet for a long moment. “Yes. I have to, you know. It’s been a good vacation, but even the best vacations have to end sometime. That way, you can still look back on them fondly.”

He hugged Lily back tightly, then apparated away.

Lily shared a nod with James from across the throne room, then followed Harry. She knew where he would be.

She landed on the green lawn outside Stonehenge. Inside, Harry was leaping into the arms of the figure who had crossed the portal to be with him.

Lily’s heart beat fast in her chest. She didn’t take another step. She recalled photographs Albus once showed her of Voldemort as a young man.

Suspicion was one thing. Confirmation, another.

And she did love him, her wild, wonderful child.

*

“You couldn’t wait for me to step across?” Harry asked, arms wrapped around his husband.

There was annoyance in Voldemort’s tone as he said, “I wanted you back.”

Harry smiled, brilliant and wide. “You missed me.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Harry’s smile didn’t change. “I missed you, too. It’s been too quiet without you.”

“I’ll schedule you some nice relaxing torture time,” Voldemort said, sounding half serious. “Is there anyone who’s been pissing you off lately?”

“Just myself.”

“I sympathize.”

“Hey,” Harry grumbled, and let go. “Give me a minute, then I’ll tell you all about how I killed your double and how it makes me stronger than you.”

He stepped outside the boundary of Stonehenge, since it seemed neither his parents nor Albus would cross it.

Albus was closer. His expression wasn’t cheerful.

“I’m sure you can’t wait to see me gone,” Harry said, grinning. He extended his hand and Albus took it. Had it really only been a few days since the last time they’d stood here like this? Time flew by when you were trying to be less evil.

“Harry... I wasn’t wrong, when I said it was an honor to have you here. Whatever your motivations, you saved us from the greatest threat in our dimension.”

“But it’s a pity no one’s going to save my own dimension?”

Albus raised an eyebrow. “So you do realize you’re not the hero of this story. I hope one day, someone will help you like you’ve helped us.”

“You’re such a dick,” Harry said, sighing. “Can’t even say thanks properly.”

“You have my thanks,” Albus replied, his lips twitching. “But Harry? I expect to never see you again.”

“See, that’s the kind of thing that makes me want to do the exact opposite.” He looked off into the distance at Lily and James, standing there to see him off. “But you’re right. I won’t be back. This place is too limiting. And I know that if I visit, that stupid family will get their feelings hurt eventually.”

“And you don’t want to hurt them,” Dumbledore said, quietly.

“No. I can’t imagine why, though. It’s probably some vitamin deficiency. I don’t think I’ve been getting enough sunlight lately.”

“Love truly is a mysterious power,”

Harry scrunched his nose. “Go suck on a lemon drop.”

And with that, he stepped forward.

Harry saw the tension in his parents’ faces and realized they knew. It was more painful than he’d realized it could be, the knowledge that the faith the alternate versions of his parents had in him was gone. And yet, his mother pulled him into a tight hug as Harry approached the group.

Lily swallowed. “I know you’ve tried to be a better man than you are these past weeks. It was for us, wasn’t it?”

“You, James, your brats,” Harry said, feeling uncomfortable. “I want you to be happy. If that meant tamping down a bit—or a lot, a lot, honestly—then that was an acceptable sacrifice to make. Just for as long as I was here.”

“Oh, Harry,” Lily murmured, years in her eyes. “I love you. I don’t approve of some of the choices you’ve made, but I love you so much. I’m glad you’re happy in that universe of yours. Even if it is with that man.”

There was moisture in his eyes. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried outside of some really kinky sex he and Voldemort sometimes had. But this wasn’t sex crying, it was... emotional and weird and uncomfortable. “Thanks, Lily. I don’t really approve of your choices either—Fleamont as a name for your kid really—but I love you too.”

James wrapped his arms around his back and Harry was stuck between them, feeling so warm. “Thank you, Harry,” James said hoarsely. “It was an honor to meet you.”

“You too.”

When Harry returned to the stones, he took his husband’s hand in a form of comfort he hadn’t realized he’d needed.

“Harry,” Voldemort said, his voice so resigned, so fond.

“I know, I know. I don’t know what I was thinking. Sentiment is such bullshit.”

“Sentiment is for fools.”

“Don’t front. I know you love me.” Harry waved a hand in the direction of the people in this world he would leave behind. Funny, how he was welcomed with a whole party of them, until they whittled down to only three.

Voldemort didn’t deny it. “I do. There is a welcome back party on the other side. I had no part in planning it. There are altogether too many Weasleys, Granger, and assorted friends of yours in attendance.”

Harry all but jumped into the portal. He stopped only to say, “Meet you on the other side?”

Voldemort didn’t let go. Instead, they crossed together, and Harry lifted his face to the warm sun of his dark kingdom, and he accepted his husband’s kiss.

It was good to be home.