Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She was standing all alone, atop a cliff side, gazing down unthinkingly into the abyss of a crashing waterfall. The sight was a familiar one. 

Slowly, her head raised, and from beyond the loud, rushing water streaming into sunlit air to create dazzling rainbows, she could see. She could see it. 

Only her peripheral vision caught the blurry sight of a brown hand carefully weaving much larger, but well loved, fingers into her own. The action was a familiar one. 

The man walking up to stand beside her did not look at her, and she did not look at him. Instead, their eyes only stayed gravitated to the horizon, and waterfall beyond. They did not look at each other, nor behind them, not even when the sunset began to flare a bright, unnatural green. 

The color pierced the sky, and neither knew anything further.  

Lily jerked awake from where she was laying on the couch, wild hands going immediately for her wand before leaf green eyes came to rest on her world, steadying her. From his spot atop her chest, her baby rested on, unworried. Harry did not stir with her beyond a light fluttering of his little lashes, and a minuscule tightening of the tiny fist that held a lock of her fiery red hair. She couldn’t help but smile warmly as she sunk back into large, downy cream cushions. 

She sighed. 

“That dream, again?” A low, quiet voice asked, and Lily smiled wanly. 

“Yeah,” she murmured, moving a hand to rest on Harry’s back. Their child only lolled further into slumber at the calming action. James huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. 

The couch at the end of her tucked legs dipped as he sat down, a book in his hands closed between his fingers. Likely, he’d seen her sleeping and had stopped reading to move to sit with her, not bothering to fold a page in lieu of just holding the thing open instead. 

When Lily looked up to his face, his eyes were worried. Her smile dimmed. 

James lent forward against her raised knees and placed his book- Arcane Chinese Trapping Methods, a recent import they’d gotten from southeast Asia- face down on the chestnut coffee table only a few feet from the plush couch. 

Lily watched as he settled, placing a warm hand on her knee as his gaze dropped to their son- his eyes lit up when they reached little Harry, but the worry that clouded his vision didn’t dissipate any. If Lily were to be asked, she would have said it’d only grown. 

They both stayed silent for a long moment, content to live in the brief period of peace the present offered. It didn’t last long.

“Dumbledore brought up a safe house, again,” James murmured, large dark eyebrows twitching downwards as he spoke. Lily resisted the urge to sigh. Absently, she ran her hand up and down Harry’s back from where it had been resting still. Her baby slept on. 

“What did he say this time?” Lily asked, eyes raising to meet James’ brown. 

He puffed out his cheeks in exasperation. “Nothing really new. Still thinks it’s the safest option, what with Scrimgeor’s reports of new Death Eater waves being met closer.” She tilted her head back against the arm of the couch. 

“And what do you have to say about it?”

James snorted, and gave her a pointed look, that would be more level had he genuinely looked serious. This had become an old conversation. 

“I still think Potter Manor is safer.” 

Lily hummed. They let the old, same sided debate fade into quiet breathing, as had become much more often as of late. 

“Has Remus written back yet?” James shook his head, and the hand on her knee tightened just a little. Lily moved her head up to lean against the couch back. If she stared long enough at his profile, she could spot a few more shadows of tired wrinkles to be. She was certain that if she looked in a mirror, her face would be the same. 

“What do you want for dinner tonight?” He asked, and Lily smiled. Twirling a finger through Harry’s steadily growing raven locks, she thought for a moment. 

“How’s spaghetti sound?” James leaned his head down to rest on her knees over his hand, and grinned. 

“That sounds perfect. I’ll make Padfoot grab some boxed noodles from the grocer a few towns over.”

Lily pretended to balk. “James, don’t be mean, you know Sirius doesn’t know how to go through a check out aisle!” James laughed at that, a real laugh that melted her heart and reminded Lily of less tense moments from before, barely even years ago. Months, really. 

“He’ll be fine- He’s bought cigarettes before.” 

“Mhm, in seventh year, once.” 

She felt James’ smile turn into a grin more than she saw. 

“Does he even know what boxed spaghetti looks like?” 

At that James laughed again, loud and warm, and Lily swatted at him with her free hand. 

“Jamir Potter you evil, evil man!” 

Her husband had the nerve to look completely uncowed. In his defense, Lily thought as James moved forward to brush a hand against Harry’s head, it was rather funny. 

It was still funny when, almost an hour late, Sirius did indeed show up with boxed spaghetti, looking like he’d fought his life for it too. 

They’d shared a warm meal, with home cooked sauce and family banter as Sirius explained that he had, in fact, gone to war for the boxed noodles- he’d fought an old muggle women for the last box on the shelf. Harry had laughed and laughed his small lungs out as Sirius had flamboyantly animated his stunning victory, despite still being too young to really understand the words. 

Lily and James had done the dishes, while Sirius played with Harry in one of the closer, non formal living rooms of the manor. That night, they’d lied close to a firelit hearth and cozy blankets as they listened to new adventures Sirius had to regale about what stupid this or that the Aurour corps had gotten into, since James was currently on a leave of absence due to Harry, and hadn’t been there to experience the shenanigans first hand. 

The night stayed warm and cozy, though eventually grew somber and heavy as light drinks were poured, Harry was put to bed, and friends were reminisced. The three fell asleep on the large red sofa of the back living room, close together yet missing two of their most important links.

Five months later, Dumbledore opened his mouth, and his words finally pierced faltering shields of once unbreakable will. 

“I only wish the best for your family,” the man said quietly, no contempt or schemes hidden in his tone. Only a small, silent hope. A hope for survival. 

James bowed his head. Lily sighed. 

“You promise that this place is well hidden? That no one will find us?” 

The corner of Dumbledore’s mouth twitched up in something resembling a knowing grin, a borderline smug smirk. Smug, in his confidence, in his assurance. “I do believe it to be.”

The scratching of a heavy quill on thick parchment was the only sound in the early, pre-breaking dawn hours of the morning. A tired hand kept writing. Its counterpart had long gone still. 

“...I don’t like this, James.” 

Sirius was only met with a long, steady silence for several moments as James finished a final rune set, before moving to another. Just before he redipped his quill into the deep indigo inkpot, he met his friend, more so brother’s eyes, in weary agreement. 

“Neither do I, Padfoot. But it’s safer, this way.” 

Sirius was silent. 

James kept writing.

“I still can’t believe you want to go through with this, Lily.” The woman in question laughed, though part of it sounded irreparably hollow. 

“It’s the safest option, Sirius. James and I need to know that someone will always be around to care for Hari if something...happens to us.” Lily pressed Harry closer to herself as she spoke, and over his shoulder, the boy gazed at him with brilliantly green eyes. His mother’s eyes. 

“Blood rituals are a Black tradition though, not a Potter.” 

“Well I suppose it’s a good thing I’m not a blood Potter, Padfoot.” 

Sirius snorted, opening his arms to take Harry in preparation for what they were about to do. 

“James is getting everything?” He asked, watching in faint amusement as Harry let the lock of Lily’s hair he always held onto slide out of his little hand, only to gently grasp a handful of Sirius’s own once he had the baby properly in his arms. 

Lily nodded. In a nervous habit she had never quite dropped, she twirled the beaded, yellow and red thread woven band around her wrist, over and over. Sirius reached out until he had steadied his own hand over one of the many friendship bracelets they’d made for each other. The red and yellow, he remembered, had been made in March of their seventh year. 

Lily’s eyes flicked up to meet his own. 

“It’ll be okay, Lily,” he murmured, the only thing he could think to say. She looked tired. So, so tired. He knew they all did. War didn’t come without a price. “Just...promise me, Sirius,” she started, and Sirius curled the arm holding Harry a little tighter, a little closer to himself. “Promise me that if anything happens to us, you’ll take care of him.” 

Sirius choked on his voice. Instead of speaking, he nodded, holding her hand tight. Lily gave him a sad, weary smile. 

“You promise to write to us, too? And Moony?” He smiled crookedly, though it probably wasn’t as large as he wanted it to be.

“I’ll write to you about Moony.” 

They chuckled, until weighted smiles faded. 

They stayed silent, Sirius holding both Harry and Lily’s hand as they waited for James to come back with the ritual blueprints. She rested her head on his shoulder, and for a brief moment, Sirius let himself pretend that they were only waiting for James to get ready, so they could go out and meet Moony for dinner- a family night. They would laugh when James would pull on his coat inside out, and Harry wouldn’t be falling asleep in his arms. They’d get lost trying to find whatever little corner restaurant Remus had chosen for the night. 

When they’d finally find him, Remus would be a little exasperated, tell both James and himself, “Honestly, you two are supposed to be hit wizards,”   and take Sirius’s hand in his own and kiss him hello. They would bask in a warm atmosphere instead of one anxious, and cold. Exchange stupid jokes and prided statements of what amazing little thing Harry had done that week, rather than labor over meticulously planned blood rituals and freshly banned laws. Be a family, not a broken mockery of one. 

Eventually, the great doors to Potter Manor opened, and gray light from the harsh storm outside spilled into the foyer, dulling the warm golden and red tones. A man walked through the doors, shaky hands pushing them shut once he’d stepped inside. Large parchment scrolls tucked under his arms completely covered in water repelling charms complemented his thunderous eyes, and Sirius felt what little warmth of his daydream that remained, vanish. Through the downpour, James had arrived, and Sirius knew that with him, arrived change as well. 

“Hey, Evans,” He murmured, squeezing her hand a little tighter, holding Harry, now asleep, a little closer. 

“Hm?

“Would you? If there wasn’t a war, or death looming. Would you still do it?” 

Lily lifted her head, though it must've felt a ton too heavy, to look him in the eyes. 

“I would.”

“Peter, then.”

“...What?”

“No one will suspect him. And if we keep it quiet, no one will have a reason to.” His eyes looked almost manic. 

“James, are you sure?”

“Lily, he may as well be my brother.”

Maybe, if it had been earlier in the war, she would have argued further. Maybe, if they’d been less tired, less pressed for time, less scared, she would have protested. 

“Okay, okay. We’ll pick Peter, then.” 

They picked wrong. 

The night of Samhain struck twelve, and the loud thump of a lifeless body hitting the floor stood in place of a clock chime. She held her child, and ran. 

The Monster followed. 

A yew wand batted away her pleads and bloody palms, stole a second soul and turned to child when Mother fell. The spell was an unnatural, sickening green; a direct contrast to dulled red hair, and cooling blood.

Just before she died, all Lily Potter could think of was the Avada Kedavra sunset belonging to her dreams; and with the setting of the dreamt sun, Harry Potter was alone. 

Chapter Text

The dream went like this:

“Goddammit Wormtail is still out there he- I need to- He’ll hurt someone else-!”

“Now Sirius calm dow’ befo’r ye’ scare ‘Arry! Dumbl’dore-”

“Won’t do jack shit, Hagrid!! ” The mans words were screamed, torn from his throat and tortured sounding as they sliced through the larger man’s pleads. From his somehow place in the screaming man’s arms, Harry could see his long, curly black hair flying out from a bun placed on top of his head, shaken out by wild movements. 

“He won’t do jack shit,” the man repeated, voice nothing but a warble; a fraction of the rage from before. 

As if meaning only to look briefly down at him, the man holding him shot him a glance, but once he tried to rip his eyes away to look back at the other man across from them both, he seemed to jerk right back. His eyes were a stormy gray blue, like the thunderclouds before they rained. 

Distantly, Harry could hear a child crying. From his own eyes, he watched red drip down into his vision. If he were lucid, he’d know it would taste like copper and sparks. 

The man- Sirius, Harry had decided long ago he must have been- held his gaze longer than a moment, and before the other man- Hagrid?- could begin to speak again, dark, heavy and hot tears began to drip and fall from Sirius’ storm eyes. More than a few landed on the crown of Harry’s head. 

“Dumbl’dore-” 

“No,” Sirius growled, words desperate and broken but filled with cold, cold fire. “Peter will pay for this, Hagrid. I won’t let him live long enough to break the last promise I made. I won’t let him hurt the last of my family- not my son.”

The dream blurred, and as always, he felt what he wondered if was the only kiss he’d ever felt placed on his forehead, along with a soothing coolness that quelled the dim ache that always accompanied the red. Then, as always, the scene shifted and suddenly, he was in another man’s arms and staring up at a night sky full of stars, far above Great Britain and the clouds. He knew, Sirius had left. 

Silently, Harry opened his eyes. 

He was laying flat on his back, one arm bent above his head, and the other flat beside himself. His legs were bent slightly, so his toes weren't hanging off the thin, old mattress he’d called his own for his entire life. The fuzzy trailing details of half a reoccurring dream dripped from his mind like the dregs of a cup of coffee. 

Half unseeing, he stared up at the ceiling of his cupboard. 

It was pitch black, or, as black as it could be once Harry’s eyes adjusted to the light. He felt awake. There were no sounds emanating from the too perfect house, however, and no light from under the crack of the stairwell door. There was no banging on the stairs, no dust falling from the ceiling, no yelling, no demands. 

It was still night. Or, maybe, early morning.  

Harry sighed, and rolled onto his side, scrunching up so he could fit almost all the way under his blanket and wincing at the slight frost that coated his sheet that crunched under him as he moved. He must have accidentally frozen it again in his sleep. He had a bad tendency to do that whenever a few dreams in particular occurred- the one he’d just had being the second most common cause. Staring at the two, partly broken little green soldiers he proudly called his friends that rested on the small shelf next to him, Harry wondered how they felt; wondered if they felt the same empty sadness looking at a broken off arm, or a chipped fraction of a plastic green gun.

He swallowed, and curled tighter around the only thing he could truly call his. 

A small, worn, silk and wool baby blanket. It had a hand embroidered HJP in one corner, and was the same color as the mans’ storm blue eyes. Sirius. 

Whenever he would dream of watching the stormy eyed man speak the words ‘my son,’ in a low, gravelly, broken tone, Harry would clutch the last remnant of his life before the Dursleys,’ and wonder, ‘had this been my father?’  Every time the dream reoccurred, he would think of black frizzy, crazy hair just like his own, desperate storm eyes and a man named Sirius who he could only wonder about- but the words confused him. They didn’t line up with the other half of the same dream he saw just as frequently; one of ruby eyes, red hair, and a dead man who looked just like him, and nothing like Sirius. It was an old dilemma, one he’d never solved. For, how could one have two fathers? It just wasn’t possible. 

Sighing, he slowly sat up, shook the snowflakes from his hair, and let the ratty blanket fall to the old mattress around him in a gray pool. The blanket hadn’t always been gray. It had been white, once. Harry thought it rather fitting, all the same. He was still small enough to be able to sit up without hunching over, but he knew that within another year, he’d pass the meager inch and a half or so of extra space he had. It was a troubling thought, so, he tried not to dwell on it too much. Instead, he turned his attention to his mind’s eye, and the memory of his dream- one he knew wasn’t a dream at all, but in fact, a memory. 

Before he could truly process what he was doing, the intangible channel to his core opened up and tiny familiar little fire-fly like lights had begun to float from his fingertips, twinkling into existence around his cupboard as he thought about the stars. 

Sirius. That was a star in a constellation. 

He’d found a book on them a few years ago, at the local library he liked to hide from Dudley in, as well as the summer heat. He’d always thought that Serious had been an odd name for a person, until he’d realized that the man from his dream was not, in fact, named Serious, but Sirius. Like the star in Canis Major. The Dog Star, it was called.

Without much of a thought beyond a vague sense of habit, he nudged the little fire-fly lights into the form of said constellation. With a mini Canis Major glowing softly white in front of him, Harry gazed at the brightest star at the very top.

The first time a light had sprouted from his fingertips and drifted off like a soap bubble into the stuffy air of his cupboard, Harry had woken up from dreaming The Dream. It had been the day after Aunt Petunia had essentially shaven him bald, back when she could still stand to look at him, and all his hair had grown back to the length it had been overnight. He remembered being in awe, feeling it pulse and tug in his vines, while he struggled so terribly hard to keep the miniaturized star alive. 

He’d remembered the feeling, the first time it had happened. The first time he’d really seen and felt and remembered what could only be described as a gift. The spark. ‘“ Magic ,’” Petunia had spit harshly, shaken and terrified, one summer night in a hospital; whispered words not meant for his ears to hear. The first night he’d had a real name to put a face to- no matter the price it had come at. 

A sudden sparking jolt running up his arms sent Harry flinching madly into a frenzy to extinguish the fire-fly lights. Someone had stepped on the last stair step he’d hidden an intangible warning bell on- which meant the morning had come.

He brought his hands up and swished them downward in a familiar, frantic motion. All around him, tiny orbs of white starlight snuffed out into little wisps of smoke- something that, now, he found incredibly easy to do. There had been a time once, before the fear had set in but also before the ultimate travesty had happened, when he’d been hesitantly curious; questioning. Enough so as to make little things try and happen. He remembered they’d been hard, for some reason- like the groove in a cobble path hadn’t been set yet, or, better fitting, the canal had been too small for the ship. Hastily, when he felt another bell set to the doorway of the kitchen silently chime, he hid his baby blanket under the sheet covering his ratty mattress, smoothing it out and covering the slight bump with the worn gray blanket so one one couldn’t see it if they looked. Not that anyone ever did. 

He finished just in time for a light to switch on under his cupboard door, and heavy thumps to crash from above on the stairs. 

“Time to get up, cos!” A loud, pubescent voice bellowed from above him as feet intentionally crashed into the stair steps. The last step didn’t ring to his ears- Dudley must have went back upstairs for something before breakfast- or maybe he’d just jumped on the steps above Harry’s bed to be annoying. 

Harry blew a breath out from between his sudden tiredness, and his already growing weariness. It was morning, then. 

He sat with bated breath, waiting for Aunt Petunia to scathingly yell what he’d once thought to be his name from the kitchen, or just beyond his cupboard door. It wasn’t long before he heard shuffling, light footsteps through the aging wood, and saw shadows dance through the sliver beneath the doorway, interrupting the light from outside. 

A sharp rap on the door with bony, thin hands he knew from harsh grips and twitchy fingers, made him wince at the prospect of beginning another summers day all over again. It was only the first week, and he was already exhausted. 

“Boy!” Aunt Petunia shrilled, a piercing demand a very near adjective. “Have breakfast done in fifteen minutes.” And with the sound of a sliding latch as her note of departure, the woman left to finish whatever task she’d begun. Harry couldn’t help his shoulders sagging. 

Slowly, hesitantly, he opened the cupboard door and peered above with wary green eyes. He caught sight of Dudley at the foot of the stairwell, evidently back downstairs. Or maybe he’d just been waiting for Harry to be let out. Like always, he wasn’t quite fast enough in throwing himself back into his cupboard or pushing a cushioning flare of magic between himself and the door to avoid Dudley slamming him into the doorway with a heavy, bodily shove. His cousin had been waiting, after all. Dudley crowed with merciless laughter as Harry wheezed, busy righting himself and removing the edge of the doorway from his ribs. 

He bit his tongue and slunk to the kitchen, holding tightly to bristling magic and pretending not to envy Dudley as the boy ran off to find his mother. Mentally, Harry roused himself. He wasn’t particularly planning on finishing the first chore of the day behind schedule. If he did, he’d only receive more. 

He resisted the urge to scowl at the pile up of dishes in the sink, but couldn’t help humoring himself with a furrowing of his brows. Absently, he turned away and gathered breakfast foods to prepare from the fridge, averting his eyes and his guilt from the bottle of purple cough syrup discreetly pushed to the back of the most well stocked shelf. He turned away, arms full, and shut the door, resolving himself to do as he always seemed to; just not think about it. 

Dragging over the wooden step stool Aunt Petunia allowed- since he still wasn’t tall enough to work comfortably at the counter without one- with a free foot, Harry got to work frying up a package of bacon, two kippers, and a large pan of scrambled eggs. Dudley always complained when he didn’t have enough bacon or eggs, and if Dudley complained, then Vernon would get angry. Nobody, least of all Harry, liked an angry Vernon Dursley. 

Breaking his almost- dare he say- serene monotony, Petunia bustled into the kitchen holding a laundry basket she most likely intended to leave for him to sort through in the adjacent laundry room. She was flanked by Dudley, whining about something or other, and Harry mourned the slight loss of quiet he’d gotten for a good three minutes. 

“But Mummy! Piers has one! And I want one!” Dudley fussed, grabbing at Aunt Petunia’s dress skirt as she weaved between the table and chairs, eventually disappearing into the small side room where they kept the washer. Petunia only shook her son’s hands loose, and didn’t answer. Dudley followed her. 

Harry, throughout, kept his eyes and head down. He didn’t flinch when a small drop of sizzling bacon grease crackled out of the pan and landed on his cheek. He’d learnt that quiet and sizzling grease was much better than the backside of a hand with hard, heavy bones, even as he knew that Vernon might be less quick to touch him now. Though, even almost a year later, the man was still using anything he did as an excuse to hurt him- despite the reluctance to actually touch Harry.  

Absently, he flipped the one fish still cooking, and eyed the sizzling bacon more warily. He didn’t dare set aside a piece for himself, especially as he felt Vernon pass the foyer doorway and approach the kitchen. 

Harry bit his lip, and let out a silent breath. 

And so the day began. 

Vernon lumbered into the kitchen a few seconds later, not sparing Harry a glance in favour of listening to the whining of his son in the face of Petunia’s reluctant redirections. The man sat down at the table, already set and most likely what Petunia had been doing before she’d let Harry out. As Harry kept on cooking, Petunia and Dudley emerged from the laundry room. Dudley looked about two minutes out from a full blown temper tantrum. 

“But Mummy I want a toy helicopter!” Dudley shouted, fists balled and face probably red. Harry watched Petunia eye Vernon from the corner of his sight. She made a strained tilting motion with her head. Vernon took a moment, but caught on soon enough. Harry kept his thoughts to himself, but internally wondered just how, exactly, Dudley hadn’t noticed the tightening of money recently. He was still puzzled on whether Dudley truly didn’t know, or if his cousin was just being deliberately obtuse. 

“Now Dudders, listen to your mother,” Vernon said, reply evidently lacking with how Petunia’s lips thinned.  

“What? But Dad I want one!” Dudley pleaded with a fervid continuity, as if repeating his wish would grant him it. Vernon cracked his newspaper and opened his mouth to say something else, but Dudley interrupted. “I said I wanted one! Piers has one, and Ricky has one, so why can’t I?” Dudley kept on, growing increasingly more aggravated when he realized his father wasn’t on his side. 

Petunia stooped to line her vision a little closer to Dudley, and Harry watched her lowly say, one already shaky hand on Dudley’s large, round shoulder, “Diddykins, we know you want that toy helicopter, but Mummy and Daddy need to...wait to buy it for you.” At that Harry turned away before he could watch his cousin’s face twist in confusion and petulance. 

“But I want it now!” Dudley demanded. “You’ll get it as soon as we can, Dittydums,” Petunia soothed, though it sounded like something to pacify her son more than a genuine promise. 

Harry took the lull in conversation to move the eggs to the bacon pan, along with the two kippers, and walk it over to the table, where he filled both Dudley’s and Vernon’s plates. Vernon didn’t acknowledge his existence, which Harry took as a sign that the man was in a good mood that day. Dudley elbowed him roughly as both he and his mother sat down, and though Harry stumbled, he didn’t- thanks to a swell of magic - drop the pan. He ignored Dudley’s mean spirited snickering, and the lack of a single glance from either Petunia or Vernon. 

Back at the counter, he quarted a grapefruit for Petunia, who was now in the middle of her latest diet fad. ‘Better a new diet than another hospital visit,’ Harry thought gloomily. He wasn’t very partial to getting blamed for another bill. 

When everyone but him had their breakfast, he started on the dishes.

Letting the mindless conversation drift over him, Harry let his mind wander. Trailing off from a brief wonder of what he could try to have his magic do today that he hadn’t had it do before, his thoughts turned back to the fire-fly lights, as they tended to, and things that had come before it. 

Absently, the winding trail became a more weathered path of wondering when he’d first acknowledged the feeling, before the Incident had turned his connotations of it sour. Not just any feeling, but the magic . It had been the same one that he’d felt any other time something...odd, something not quite right, had happened. One he’d started to grow accustomed to, as years had passed. It made him wonder (often, though he knew it was a rather useless thing to know) when the first time he’d ever felt it was, or if it had always been there. But, then again, maybe not. 

Not even it felt like it could be something from before the Dursleys,’ even if his dreams claimed otherwise.

He remembered he’d felt it when his first grade teacher had told him to write about a wish, and he’d turned her hair blue. He had written about celebrating summer with his parents, and she’d torn up his paper after, demanding he write a real wish. The incident was hard enough to forget for the month it cost him starving, as it was; but he’d brushed that off initially as just weird.  

In blank habit, he dragged another bowl towards himself, dunking it into the soapy, water filled sink below him as his mind coasted. He moved onto a plate, when another well dwelled on example filtered through his head; the time he’d seemed to spin on his toes and appear on the rooftop, running away from Dudley and his gang’s favourite game; ‘Harry hunting.’ The punishment for that one had been rather fun, but by that point, he’d still denied any supernatural happenings at work.  

Or when he’d wished desperately for sunscreen, working in the garden for hours and hours on a particularly sunny, hot summers day, and Aunt Petunia’s sunscreen had come rocketing out of her kitchen cabinet to smack him in the face. It had smashed her window. 

He’d barely lived through that one. 

His thoughts brushed against memories of a language, one different and inhuman- Harry jerked, the plate in his grasp almost sliding out of sudsy fingers to crash into tile below. Something was twisting, pinching and it was starting to feel sharp- 

The wild force within his core caught the plate from his stiff hands, and still went seeking farther- so sharp and all the words he could speak were in hisses-  

He ground his teeth together, and pulled hard on the reins to his magic. The yellow plate fell softly back into his waiting fingers, and Harry bit the inside of his cheek as he tried to yank the curious force in from escaping carefully cultivated shields. 

It was too much, far too much, and then the windows all exploded and the only thing he could hear was static- Very forcefully, he stared out at the rose bushes under the window opposite the sink, let his magic intangibly swirl around himself in a tightly controlled spiral, and did not think about it.

Turning the knob of the faucet so the water ran just a touch hotter, he dunked the plate perhaps a little too hard into the growing lake below. As his hands- freezing, like they always were now- moved under the hotter water, he watched as steam began to form a small cloud at the surface. He blew a quiet, magic filled breath to blow it away. The fog scattered, and, despite the joy he felt as magic latticed through his lungs and down his throat, the new found chill of his skin still drew those small, ever present feelings of despair from their year old well. 

He blinked down at the plate in his hands, watching as the sudsy water warped and changed the daffodil pattern swirled around the ceramic dish as it rippled. He pulled it up, and scrubbed off the last of the soap. Passing it off to the bottom rack of the dishwasher, he lent back to the other side of the sink to grab another dish. Dragging the sponge up and down a casserole pan, Harry moved his gaze to the window opposite the sink, and stared vacantly into the garden he would probably be weeding today, very carefully roping in the wild thing he’d learned inadvertently from Petunia, almost a year ago, to be his magic. 

Just maybe going searching for memories he knew weren’t terribly good was a bad habit. Although a bad habit, it still was a habit. He knew he couldn’t keep the ponderings at bay forever. Neither could he the memories. He didn’t have school to distract him anymore, and after a point, all the chores were done on autopilot. He’d rather think than be empty headed, regretful as he was about it. Slowly, he let everything come filtering back, and fought to keep the whirlpool in his core and in his head both inside of him, and behind the line drawn in the sand. Sometimes, he really wished that his magic was still as hard to reach as it had been before. Now, it was downright untamable. 

Scrubbing away at Petunias favourite red pot, he felt the shimmering force settle inside of him, and breathed a silent sigh of relief. His magic was a storm on a fraying leash on the best of days; at the very least, it always acted in his best interest, even if it considered his best interest his emotions. 

It was a difficult tiperope to walk; a balancing act that always left him feeling dizzy. His magic was an irrevocable part of him, and so whatever he felt, it would react to. 

It made thinking about things he still couldn’t quite stomach, even a year later, only that much harder. 

He was trying- he was trying so hard - to move on, to put the whole ordeal behind him. Yet, every single day he thought he’d finally taken a small step forward, it seemed he would always tumble three steps back. It was infuriating, and defeating. Even beyond the lingering damage, it was still odd, even now, to know he had something they didn’t. Usually, it was him, the little orphan brown boy, who had nothing. His glasses slid down his nose, and with a sudsy hand, Harry pushed them back up. He felt more than he saw the soap that stayed on his cheek. 

In the beginning, every instance he'd interacted with his magic, he’d felt the same thing; a tug in what he could only describe as his core, and a spark traveling down from his chest to his fingertips- one he’d grown so intimately familiar with since, he couldn't believe he’d ever come to fear it. Despite acting like it in order to survive, Harry was not stupid, and because he was not stupid, he could recognize a pattern when he saw one. After the first fire-fly light created years ago by whatever gift he possessed, things had seemed to click into place, just a little. He was glad they had- but also terribly guilty. 

Whatever this gift, (Magic , Petunia had whispered, that night) it had only seemed to cause him pain when he wasn’t in control of it. Until he’d learned to make it rise on command, it had acted suddenly, wildly, and seemingly randomly. Like a beast beyond control. Before he’d learned to tame it, it had only given him hurt with its strangeness, the oddity of whatever it did earning him nothing but fear and scorn by those (mostly the Dursley’s) that saw. 

The pain had made him hate it- the gift- the force, the magic, whatever it was. For a long time, he’d despised it. The despair had been a horrible, all consuming thing; the final act to truly push him over the edge to the point of no return- and to, in consequence, push the magic down. It had almost ended him. 

That had been last summer. Now, he was different. Now, he was steady handed and level. Not anything like before . Now, he knew better; knew his magic was something to be cherished. 

(How could he not know, when all it had ever done was protect him? Even when he'd rejected it over and over, it had done nothing but healed him.)

Vernon’s chair made a loud scratching noise as he got up from the table, dirty plate in hand and newspaper tucked under his arm. Harry jumped, and his magic rose like an ocean swell to push his shoulders down before they could jolt. He felt the ice in his chest melt a little more. Without much more than a brief look, the man dumped the plate into the sink without any mind to the large casserole pan already in the water, splashing Harry with soap. 

“Make sure there’s no dishes when I get home, boy,” he said. Harry, head down, nodded, murmuring, “Yes, Uncle Vernon.” He heard Vernon lumber away, felt the crackling subtle spark running up his arms; heard the tiny intangible chime when Vernon crossed the doorway from the kitchen to the foyer hallway, and went back to the dishes. Absently, he brushed a few stray snowflakes off his shoulder. 

Petunia got up to follow him, probably to give the man a kiss goodbye as he left for work. Eventually, Petunia came back, but not before Dudley had thrown a bacon strip at him and hit Harry in the head. Harry fought not to send it right back. 

They finished breakfast, he finished the dishes, and Petunia handed him the list of chores he was expected to complete today. 

Harry took it. 

Chapter Text

He started in the upstairs bathroom, the one connected to the master bedroom Petunia and Vernon shared. Setting down the little blue tub full of cleaning supplies on the bathroom counter, he peered out of the doorway for anyone, and not seeing either Petunia or Dudley, closed the door and brushed his fingertips along the floor. 

The spark traveled quickly throughout the house, and Harry found Petunia rapidly enough. She was calling someone on the kitchen phone. Dudley wasn’t home. He must have left to go to a friends house after he’d eaten. Distantly, Harry wondered what that was like, before he shoved the wish aside. It wouldn’t help anyone, least of all him.

Letting out a sigh, he slid down to the floor to sit cross legged, back against the white oak cabinets. Licking his lips hungrily, he pulled the now warm apple he’d smuggled from the fridge out of the waistband of his too big jeans- hand-me-downs from Dudley. He held it to his lips and pressed a freezing kiss to its speckled red skin, and felt it rapidly cool beneath his fingers. 

Rotating the apple until he’d found the perfect spot, Harry took the largest bite he could stand. His head fell back to the wooden cabinet behind him as he fought not to whimper in delight. He’d gotten a sweet one! That, and it was the first thing he’d gotten to eat in the past two days. 

With lazily opened eyes, he dropped one hand from his hold on the large gala apple, and once his magic had risen up again, flicked his wrist in the direction of the cleaning supplies. As expected, the bottles and sponges slowly floated out of the bin to hover above it, patiently awaiting further instructions. In the back of his mind, Harry knew that this was dangerous. If Petunia decided to check on his progress, or come up to gather her favoured thing from her particular cabinet, she could potentially see him; and if Petunia saw him using his strange, devilish, horrible power, they probably really would put him up for adoption. (Or try to exorcise him-) But Petunia never came to check on his progress, anymore. After the previous summer’s events, she could barely stand to look in his direction. Which was why Harry Potter, cautious as he was, let himself sit down on the tiled floor of the master bathroom, and have his magic clean for him. 

He sent each cleaning item to do its job of spreading powder or bleach or soap, but saved some of the scrubbing for himself. He needed something to do to pass the time, as he was fairly confident (based on previous experience) that chores could only take up so much of the day; and with Dudley out of the house, he didn't want to risk going to the library on the offhand chance he might be made into a living piñata. So, he’d do something, but not until he finished his apple, that was.  

Bent over the sink not much later, sponge in hand, Harry scrubbed in time to the sound of other sponges, a cacophony of cleaning. Eventually, he brushed curly black hair out of his eyes and behind his ears, and got to wiping down and dusting the cabinets. That, he did himself. He could never quite get the duster to be mindful of not knocking things over. He worked his way around the bathroom, until he inevitably reached the medicine cabinet- very pointedly saved for last. 

Standing on the pink tiled counter top, he stood face to face with the thing, spray bottle of wood polisher hanging from his left hand, rag in his right. Harry sighed. 

He polished first and then finally opened the cabinet to dust the shelves inside, saving the middle shelf for absolute last. 

It wasn't long before he was stuck staring face to face with an orange pill bottle. Harry sighed again, a gusty sound. He picked the thing up to dust under it, and like every time before, couldn’t help but read the prescription stuck onto it by a white sticker. 

‘Dursley, Pentuina. Take one dose with acute migraine flare up.’

It was his fault that this medicine existed in her cabinet now, but he wasn’t at fault for why it was still there. Petunia had long stopped getting migraines, but he knew that by now, she probably couldn’t stop taking the medicine. Harry wasn’t oblivious. He saw the way her fingers shook, how she twitched, paced anxiously when it had been too long without a dosage. How she discreetly poured purple cough syrup into her coffee or popped a white pill into her mouth behind a couture magazine. He wanted to hate it, but Harry saw more than cared to admit. Even as he loathed to confess it, he understood Petunia’s struggle. Magic was his drug too, after all. 

Somewhere in his head, a stray voice wondered if Dudley knew of the reason he wasn’t getting every single toy his greedy heart desired, and he almost laughed. If he had, it would have been something bitter. 

Harry sank down, coming to sit on the counter top, elbows on his knees and one hand holding up his head, orange bottle still grasped in his other. Every time he had to look at that dumb pill bottle, he only felt glum. Bringing the offending object to his eyes, Harry gave it the meanest glare he could give. 

“I hate you,” he said. Ice spread along his fingertips. The bottle did not respond. Taking it personally, Harry melted until he felt his drooping shoulders more resembled melted caramel rather than human limbs.Gently, he bit his tongue between his front teeth- still baby teeth- and breathed a wintry breeze from his nose.  

Even if Petunia blamed him, and Vernon by extension, he knew it wasn’t entirely his fault to bear. Even if it felt like it. Even if it looked like it. He swallowed, and drowned any thoughts of redemption beneath the waves. It wouldn't do him any good to pretend he wasn’t guilty. 

Holding the pill bottle, he gave it a slight rattle before reaching up to put it back where it belonged. He swept over the bottom shelf one last time before closing the cabinet door and sliding off of the counter top. As if he had tinnitus, he could hear the hissing of old memories, feel the stab of sharp magic, and see his aunt on the floor, bowed on her knees, sobbing silently- guiltily. 

With the hindsight he held upon looking at each memory, he wondered why his Aunt had let it go as far as she had. Why she’d never told him, when she’d known for whatever reason. It was something that kept him up at night, made him toss and turn and feel utterly sick to his stomach. 

Petunia knew, on some small scale, what had almost happened to him. Harry knew she did, or he wouldn’t even know what magic- it- was. What he didn’t know, didn’t understand, was why his Aunt hadn’t told him a damn thing After. Hadn’t even looked at him. Hadn’t acknowledged his existence with anything other than hatred, anger, and terror for months afterwards. It hurt, to think he mattered so little to the woman, the only link to his mom, that she didn’t even deem him important enough to enlighten the nature of his own powers to. 

Harry clenched his teeth together, and pushed away the burning feeling of whiskey behind his eyes. He wouldn’t cry- he wouldn't. It had almost been a year; he shouldn’t still be upset over it. 

A shaking, rapid breath escaped him, and Harry screwed his eyes shut tight, feeling the familiar tug and bright spark as for the second time that morning his magic unfurled from his core to coil around himself like a threatened snake. He felt his hair ruffle, and a watery smile tugged at his lips. He couldn’t cry, anyway. He still had work to do. 

Shoving his shoulders back and pushing everything but his magic down, he gave a small tug of his hand, twisting the knob of the bathtub to the left. Water filled the tub, and washed away the soap. Before calling the sponge to himself, Harry used the magic he was getting so much better at to wring it of water. Then, once the tub was rinsed, gathered everything back to the cleaning supplies bin. 

With a glance to the chore list, he saw, sure enough, ‘weed the garden,’ printed neatly in cursive after ‘clean the master bathroom.’  

He went outside, magic a steady, swirling presence around himself, wondering if the tulips had survived the light shower from two nights ago. If someone were to look just right, the air around him would glint a shiny gold. 

Working out in the garden wasn’t his favourite chore. Granted, it was much preferable to cleaning the house, but the late summer humidity always made him feel gross and although he loved tending to the flowers, he was always a little soured by the fact that they weren't his. 

Petunia had ultimate control over the garden. The one time Harry had quietly suggested planting some vegetables, he’d been met with ire and a frying pan that had miraculously ‘slipped.’ It was frustrating to watch her cycle through flowers she chose only out of jealousy for a neighbors yard.

Uprooting a perfectly blooming bunch of tulips, he scowled to himself. ‘Weed the garden,’ the list had said, and then in a neat bulleted list below the order, had been tidy instructions on what to get rid of. 

He’d thought she’d liked the stupid tulips. 

Quietly, he grumbled to himself and reached out an ethereal hand underground to completely grasp the roots of the remaining unwanted flowers. Giving his magic a twist with a motion of his closed fist, he gently pulled the last tulips from the earth, taking special care not to break the roots. 

He set them to the side with the others, and wondered if he could replant them in the park later with the others. 

He sighed, and set to work on the actual weeds. 

Placing his hands in the dirt, he sent a wave of magic through the garden bed, searching for plants that didn’t belong. Opening his eyes, he watched in mild amusement as several small buds of nutgrass and daffodils wiggled out of the mulch. 

He leaned forward to begin collecting them, and reared back with a jolt as a hiss of surprise sounded from below him. 

Hands up and open in the air, Harry looked down to watch a tiny green garden snake slither out from under his shadow. 

§ Move careful, ssspeaker. I sssslither, here,§ the tiny thing hissed. Harry managed a rueful smile. 

§Sorry,§ he murmured, and his spine prickled at the sound of the word. He shifted uncomfortably as he waited for the snake to move to another part of the garden. Once the little creature had, he got back to work collecting the weeds he’d pulled up, occasionally shaking his messy ruffle of inky hair to rid it of it’s powdery coating of snow. 

Ignoring the lingering sick feeling at the language, he held a dandelion up to his lips and blew the seeds away. 

He had to get used to it again sometime. Just...not yet. 

Time, he promised to himself, and set the dandelion stem- patterned in swirling frost where his fingers had touched it- aside with the unwanted tulips. 

A little later, he looked up into a midday sky, and his gaze fell on a pretty tabby cat sitting atop the white picket fence. It’s eyes met his own, and Harry tilted his head. The cat licked a paw, and then jumped down to the grass. She turned her head in one leering look back, before she disappeared around the fence post. 

Harry gathered his tulips, hid them beneath the weeds he’d pulled from the garden in the bin Petunia had him use for scraps, and thought, ‘odd.’ 

He went inside. 

Chapter Text

The dream went like this:

He was being carried, again, rushed up steps far too fast to be anything other than desperate. The woman whose arms he was in looked panicked- the brilliant green of her eyes- just like his own- shining in the pale moonlight from a window somewhere unknown. 

He was jostled, until instead of her eyes he could see, it was over her shoulder. Time moved slowly, shown in how the silky curtain of her vivid red hair moved as if underwater; he could see his own hands, small and fitting that of a toddler, reaching for the other person so far away. The man with skin the same color as his own he could see over the woman’s shoulder moved like a picture on old film as he was backed up into a small table.

Another person, the owner of ruby red eyes, hissed inhuman words, and the man with black hair, brown skin and square glasses met his gaze- his eyes, terrified, but so, so honey warm- before green lit up the room, and he fell to the ground, dead. The woman holding him screamed a name. 

The scene changed, and he could see a room he knew only from his nightmares. A baby’s cradle rested along one wall, facing the door, and a window alight with the glow of the moon had a home behind it. 

His perspective changed again, and suddenly he was looking at the woman with saturated red hair from within the cradle. She was crying. 

He looked to the doorway, and the quiet words floating menacingly from behind it. With each one, an odd symbol carved into the wood burned away. 

When his eyes shifted back to the red woman, she was red in more than just her hair. He watched as a steel knife glinting with moonlight dragged across her palm, allowing it to match her other hand- dripping with crimson. 

The woman looked at him, and with their eyes locked, chanted a short few words that had the symbols on the knife burning away just like the ones on the door. His Mom looked in pain. 

Everything blurred, and suddenly, he could see bloodied hands holding onto the top bar of the crib with a white knuckled grip, staining white wood red like the waterfall of hair blocking his view. A man’s voice murmured “stand aside,” and his mother pled “kill me instead, don’t take my son!” three times. 

Shaking shoulders covered under vibrant carnelian hair finally caved in with a brilliant green flash, so like the one he inherently knew had killed the man whose name he could never remember. Mom’s hands loosened, and she fell to the ground. She was dead. 

A scream echoed through the room.

Cruel ruby eyes turned to face him, lifting from Mom. His own rested on her, and the brilliant halo of fire her hair created. It looked wrong, on the floor, unmoving and still. Dimmed. He looked up into red eyes, like red hair and red palms, and saw not a trace of an insane smile or manic intensity; but instead, only mild regret he knew wasn’t directed towards himself. 

He didn’t look at the thing lowered to his head; rather, he held the picture of the man’s face in his mind. Ruby red eyes shone behind a stray curl of short rich chocolate hair. Two words were hissed, and upon a green flash, he knew no further. 

Harry was officially turning eleven tomorrow. 

The summer breeze ruffled his clothing, and Harry blew a strand of black hair out his eyes before readjusting the magical grip he had on his bag of groceries. To any outside observer, it would appear that he was holding the bag with his left hand, and an apple in his right. To Harry, he concentrated on keeping his hand curled to hide the floating bag handle. 

He smiled as he walked, pausing to hop slightly over a crack in the sidewalk. The bag, floating as it was, must have looked strange to an onlooker, and with an anxious grin, Harry let it fall into his hand. It would probably look bad to have a zero gravity bag of groceries. 

His stomach rumbled, and he glanced down to the apple resting heavy in his right hand. It was a large thing that he was keeping cool with the chill from his still slightly mulchy fingers. 

On his way to the nearby grocery, he’d stopped by the park to replant the tulips he’d ripped up the day before. He’d gone to the little sloping hillside by the pond where’d he’d been going since Petunia had started her flower purging tirade. Harry had carefully stepped on his toes to avoid crushing the steadily growing patches of marigolds, peonies, and angel’s trumpets that he’d begun replanting about two months ago. With a quirk of his lips, he’d smiled as he’d brushed past the small bush of trumpets just beginning to flower. They’d been one pain in the ass to smuggle to the park. 

Pulling the tulips from under his oversized flannel, he’d debated for several minutes on where to put them, before deciding on a small spot not far from the peonies, but still a little ways away from the pond’s shoreline. He’d hidden behind a wall of magically inducted noticeably, and had used his magic again to delicately replant each one of the frost covered tulips. Once the newest patch of flowers had been planted, he’d stepped back to admire his growing garden. It was coming along nicely. 

‘Petunia’s rejects,’ he’d named it. 

With a smile, he pressed a kiss to his first three fingers, and gently tapped the frozen tulips. The frost had melted away, and the flowers had seemed to breath in as they stood up straight, unwilting before his eyes. 

It was always his favourite part of replanting them. 

Walking along the sidewalk down Magnolia street, Harry  raised his eyes, and after a quick darting look around, saw no one else on the street. Excitedly, he felt his magic thrum in his hands, and gave a slight flick of his first two fingers. 

The apple soared up slightly in a twizzling twirl from the brief gust of wind he’d pushed it with, and fell back into his waiting palm. He grinned to himself, a smile partially hidden from the bite he had on his lower lip. He did it again, and reveled in the feeling of the chilly spark that pushed through his veins. 

He had finally raised it to take a bite when the feeling of eyes on him had him pausing. He looked around for the source of the feeling, the back of his neck prickling. A small glint of amber caught his eye, but when he turned around, there was nothing shiny in sight. The soft gray overcast sky betrayed no person with its meager sunlight, but a small tabby cat, hiding just outside a bush a few feet away. Harry blinked, and lowered the apple from his mouth. 

It was the cat he’d seen in the garden. 

Curious green eyes sparkled as they stared out at the feline. Something was different about it.  Not taking his eyes off the cat, Harry slowly moved to put the apple back into the grocery bag. The tawny cat didn’t move, but rather, tilted his head at him, and gazed at him in the piercing stare all cats possessed. Something twinkled in its eyes. Harry stared back, entranced. 

Slowly, he walked over, feet setting softly on the pavement as he did. When he was only a few feet from the cat, he set the bag down next to himself and knelt down to his knees. He watched, curious, as the cat stretched languidly and padded towards him. It rubbed its head against his knees affectionately, and Harry quietly gasped at the almost electric feeling. Again, he saw that small glimmer of amber. 

Timidly, he reached out to scratch lightly behind the tawny cats ears, and marveled slightly at the pattern on her face that made it look like she had crowned glasses. 

He furrowed his brows. 

“You’re very pretty,” he whispered quietly, and smiled when the cat began to purr. “Sorry my hands are so cold,” he apologized, but the cat didn’t seem to mind the temperature. 

He kept scratching lightly at her ears, but didn’t lift his eyes from the animal; something was different about her- he’d seen that glimmer of amber twice, and that sudden spark wasn’t just static. 

Hesitantly, he drew his magic up from its quiet pond, and let it flow like a raindrop down his arm. He moved his hand away from the cat, who looked annoyed that he’d dared to stop petting her, bit his lip, and delicately brought his hand to her face. The intangible droplet of magic fell from his fingertips and splashed against her nose. The effect was immediate. 

The cat shook her head, and looked up at him with an emotion in her eyes that, he suspected if she were human, would be considered shock. As it was, Harry’s eyes flew wide. In his exhilaration, he blew out a frosty gasp of excitement that immediately steamed as it met the humid summer air. 

“You feel it too,” he whispered, and the cat’s whiskers twitched. Part of him desperately wanted to reach for that language, the inhuman one that hissed and twisted and talked to reptiles, but another far larger piece pushed his hands away. Even as broken as the language had felt when he’d unintentionally destroyed himself, he still wasn’t quite ready to use it again. And, besides, unless the tawny cat in front of him spoke snake, he sorely doubted she would understand. 

So, he settled for letting a small stream of his magic drip like rain, and waited for the cat to react. She stared for quite a long while with wide eyes and a twitching tail, occasionally chirping as Harry let his magic move about. It took some time, but eventually, the tawny, bespeckled cat reached out to feel his magic for herself. 

She stepped into the small waterfall of mist Harry had let his magic take the form of, and immediately, her whiskers became sparkling from frost. Her amber eyes lit with something more than animalistic intelligence. Firmly within their own bubble of his magic, Harry sat, spine rigid as the shock registered that the tawny cat before him had magic of her own. 

He looked down at her with wide, elated green eyes, a genuine smile growing on his parted lips. 

“You’re magical,” he whispered, and the tawny cat tilted her head. He grinned for real, teeth and all, and laughed. “You’re magical!” His quiet cry of joy was music to his own ears; the words themselves more of a reassurance than anything he’d ever heard that he wasn’t completely alone. 

The tawny cat blinked up at him again, and once more, the amber glimmer flashed; although, this time, it was clear that the sparkling color was coming from around her. Harry realized with a gasp that it was the felines own magic. Following the iridescent color, he saw that it was coiled tightly to the cat and hugged close to her, almost like she was currently using it. 

Tentatively, he reached out with his own magic to touch hers, but the sudden shifting of shadows from a large cloud passing over the sun stole his attention away. He looked up in the beginnings of panic as he watched the sky slowly burn pink with the slow tendrils of evening, and felt his heart start to race. 

“Oh no,” he murmured, and turned his attention back to the cat. She was sat patiently before him, whiskers still shining with frost, as if awaiting more pats. Harry winced, and gave her a last scratch behind the ears as he moved to stand. 

“Sorry,” he said, voice hushed, “but I have to go. My Aunt’s expecting me back, and- she’ll be mad if I’m not back in time.” 

The cat continued to stare, large, golden eyes boring into his own.

He gave one last smile, gently brushed the frost from her whiskers, and stood up to walk back. By the time he’d reached the corner, he’d picked up to a jog, and the tawny cat had not moved from where she sat. 

Golden eyes followed Harry home.  

Chapter Text

Sitting in his cupboard, he pulled the letter from his waistband with shaking hands. Smuggling it away had been easy enough; waiting all day to open it had been agonizing. He’d never gotten mail before- the sight of his name on an envelope had sent a shocking thrill down his spine.

‘H.J Potter’ greeted him on the incredibly nice envelope. Turning it around, Harry squinted

Hari Jamir Potter

The Cupboard Under The Stairs

Little Whinging 

Surrey 

London, England

He stared at the words inked on old parchment with a dull numbness. 

‘Hari,’ he read, over and over. 

It was cruel, he thought. 

His fingers dug into the envelope with enough force to tear through the thick paper with his nails. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the beginnings of frost. 

It had almost been perfect. 

His eyes found the words ‘The Cupboard Under The Stairs,’  printed finely in gorgeously penned ink, and he wanted to cry. 

It- they, whoever they were- knew where he slept, and yet, his name was completely wrong. (It was a pretty name, he thought. The opposite of plain. The opposite of himself). A voice- loud in his head- shouted that, maybe, Petunia had a hand in this. That, maybe, she’d ruined yet another thing about him that he could never get back. 

Once the words had been conjured, he forced his grip on the letter to slacken. Within the dark cupboard, illuminated only by his own fairy lights, he sat silent for several long moments. Slowly, the thought sank in. Suddenly, he was angry. 

It was all too plausible that Harry wasn’t his full name- that Petunia had known this, and taken it and evangelized it to something else. There was nothing the woman hated more than something weird. The notion contorted his face into a scowl. Around him, his fireflies distorted with his mood. 

It didn’t explain all of his primary teachers calling his role as ‘Harry,’ - but, yes, it did. The lights spiked. Silently, he seethed with rage behind the small door of his shoe’s closet room, cheeks flushing in heated anger. There was every possible chance that Petunia had either legally changed his name, or put him down as ‘Harry’  when signing him up for schooling. It was most likely the latter. 

He simmered. 

A tiny wisp of a flame flickered from his fingertips, and licked excitedly at the parchment in his hands. The smell of something charing brought Harry’s attention back down to the letter, and instantaneously panicking, he froze over his hands in a wave of ice. 

A little too much ice. 

A hand sized shock of miniature glaciers erupted from the letter’s face, and Harry sighed, all the immediate rage draining from him with a slump of his shoulders. He listened tensely for a yell about the smell of smoke, irrational, since everyone else was most likely asleep, and when nothing came, sighed again in quiet relief. 

He leaned back against the wall of the cupboard, and stared down at the letter in his hands, coated in ice. Disquietly regretful, he let his head thunk against the wooden wall and winced at the appearance of the fire. ‘Anger,’  he thought. ‘How nice,’  and cringed at the thought of his magic still dancing so far out of reach from his control. He set the letter on the floor with a quiet ‘clunk,’ and waited for the ice to slowly melt away. 

The tears came, slowly but surely, until his face was dripping with them. 

It was so unfair. All he’d ever wanted from Petunia was a little acceptance, and everything he’d ever done had always been thrown right back in his face. And now, to top off a breaking point summer, he had to face having possibly had even more taken from him- and more still, if this school was real. 

Some part of him- the good part, that was growing smaller every day- whispered that, maybe it really was just a mistake. But the rest of him drowned it out with bitter, sour laughs. He knew better. 

He glanced down to the letter again, and moved his glasses to the top of his head when he realized he couldn’t see through the tears that had collected on the lenses. The letter sat soggy on the ground in front of him, half melted into the floor. 

With a small sniffle, he reached down and picked it up, grimacing when it dripped onto the floor. Giving it a wet flip in the air, he drew the moisture from it with a snap, and pressed one hand to the puddle on the wood below, slowly heating his fingers until it fizzled into steam in the air. He paid no mind to the remaining scorch marks in the shape of fingertips. 

Opening the letter, another problem reared its head quickly. 

He read over everything rapidly, and then again, and twice more before the words set it. 

He pressed a hand to his face, resisting the urge to groan. 

How was he supposed to do any of this? How, in the name of ‘you will not say the M word in this house!’ Vernon Dursley, was he supposed to get any of this stuff, much less mail a reply with...an owl? 

‘And with what money?’ He thought, dread creeping into his lungs and sinking deep into his stomach. 

He was at a loss. 

Glancing at the tiny sliver of silver moonlight under his cupboard door, a flash of a memory of last summer hung over his head. He sagged against the wooden wall. If Petunia had known about magic, it was likely she knew of this school- maybe his mom had gotten a letter like it…

Quietly folding the paper back up, Harry gently set it back into its envelope. 

Magic was off limits, more so now than it had ever been before. 

He closed the envelope lip with trembling fingers, and set the letter on the floor before him. Around him, the little bobs of light twinkled, and he held his breath. 

A crushing wave of sadness hit him, and choking on it, Harry’s shoulders shook.

A perfect escape. A fantasy he’d dreamed of, all his life, resting just before him. 

Completely inaccessible. 

In the dark of the night, he cried. 

He ended up leaving the letter in its fancy envelope, tucked away and hidden under his mattress. There wasn’t really much he could do about it. After last summer, any hint of the word ‘magic’  was enough to send Vernon and Petunia into a fit of rage. Though he didn’t doubt the school's existence- hard, with the tabby cat, Petunia’s confession, and his own wild magic- there was no way for him to get there, much less bring it up at all. So with a heavy heart and a guilty conscience, he’d hidden it away under his mattress, and ignored it. 

The heavy feeling in his chest hadn’t abided at all by noon. 

He sneezed, and glared at the dust storm growing in the living room. Those stupid family photos hung on the wall Petunia loved so much always had a tendency to collect an obscene amount of dust. Harry sneezed again as his feather duster kicked up another cloud. 

A rap at the door snagged his attention, and Harry watched as the weekly mail was slipped in. His eyes widened as he caught sight of a familiar envelope. A spark fizzled in his ears. 

‘It couldn’t be,’  he thought. 

“Boy, get the mail!” Vernon yelled from the kitchen, and with a slight twitch of his nose in annoyance, Harry walked over to the doormat. He kneeled down on the floor, setting the feather duster down to be forgotten as he stared, transfixed, at the letter resting on the top of the pile. Something panged in his chest.

It was another Hogwarts letter. 

With hesitant hands, he picked it up, biting his lip. The address was the same. ‘H.J.P.’  written in beautiful swirling ink strokes on the back. 

“What the bloody hell is taking so long?” Vernon yelled again. The spell broke, and Harry jumped, fumbling with the letter in his hands. He sent it a frantic look; what did he do with it? If they kept coming, he didn’t want to have an infinite stash of them to hide away- the cupboard was cramped enough as it was. And it would just make him sad. 

“Boy-!” Vernon shouted, and purely on impulse, his magic reared and flames spurted from his hands. The letter was devoured in seconds, until all that remained was a few scant flakes of charcoal. Harry stared, wide eyed, down at the remnants of the envelope, rabidly putting out his fiery hands with a sizzling hiss of ice.

“Well,” he murmured, “that’s one way to solve it,” and pulled his rampant magic a little farther in. Gathering the rest of the mail in his arms, Harry puffed out his cheeks and blew a cold breath out across the entryway, hoping to rid the area of the scent of smoke- and burnt dreams. 

He spent the rest of the day cleaning in a much worse mood than he’d started off with. 

Every few hours, another letter would show up, and with shaking hands, Harry would burn it up. Each one hurt more than the last.

By the time dinner rolled around, his hair was prickling with static. Angrily, he washed his hands a little harder than necessary in the sink as he prepared to chop up  the vegetables for the stew recipe Petunia had shoved under his nose and demanded he make. 

If he chopped everything a little too harshly, no one was there to see it. 

The sounds of cooking slowly filled the kitchen, and Harry eventually let himself dissolve into the monotony of it. It drowned out much of anything else. 

The swinging bang of the kitchen door flying open made him jolt, only added by the tingling spark running down his arms from the warning he'd placed on the doorway months ago. The knife in his hand slipped, and his magic shot out in a whirl to grab it before he sliced open a finger. Nabbing it and smacking it down to the cutting board so it wasn’t hovering in the air, Harry jerked his head up and turned around. 

Dudley stood in the flung open doorway, an evil smile pulling at his mouth and something crinkling in his pudgy hands. 

Harry glared at him, squinting to try and get a look at whatever it was. 

“Hey cooos,’” Dudley drew out, and one of his eyes twitched as Harry recognized that stupid tone. Dudley only ever spoke like that when he had something he knew could get Harry into trouble. 

“What do you want Dudley,” Harry asked flatly, giving the meanest stare he could. It wasn’t wise to provoke Dudley- not by a large margin- but he was already frustrated, and the thought of keeping all his simmering emotions inside the pot seemed like an impossible one. 

Dudley snickered. 

In his hand, he waived an envelope, a very familiar one, and his impish grin only grew wider as he watched Harry’s face light up in recognition. 

“You got a letter, you know.” Dudley lowered his brows in unholy glee. Harry thought he looked maniacal. 

“You aren’t supposed to get mail.” Harry stood stock still. 

He wouldn’t. 

“I’m telling Mooom!” His cousin yelled, and tore out of the kitchen, letter held high aloft with his mirthful cackles. Harry darted after him, panic filling his stomach.

He would. 

“Dudley-! Give me it!” Harry yelled, and grunted in frustration as Dudley circled around the living room couch. 

“Or what?” Dudley shot back, cackling as he and Harry rotated around the couch. 

Harry snarled. 

“Give me it!” He shouted, jumping and diving over the couch to claw Dudley. His cousin squawked in surprise, and ducked. He began a mad dash around the living room, Harry always hot on his heels. 

“You’re gonna get in troubleeee!” He sang as Harry chased him. 

“Shut up!” Harry yelled. Anger bubbling, Harry watched in panic as Dudley bolted for the foyer. If he made it outside, Harry couldn’t follow him. He still had dinner to make, and he would rather not have to go another week starving because he hadn’t finished Petunia’s stupid stew. 

A sharp fizzle crackled on his tongue, magic whirling around him, and Harry stomped a foot down hard onto the floor. Running straight for the hallway, Dudley came to a crashing halt as he met an invisible barrier. 

Dudley whipped around in his tumble, teeth bared as he cried, “you cheater-!” 

Suddenly, it was Harry dodging and weaving to get away from Dudley’s fists. He ducked under one, only to have the other sock him sorely in the stomach. He grunted, and kicked a leg out to clip Dudley in the knee. 

Dudley went down with a shriek, and Harry winced as he heard sharp heels clicking down the hall towards them. Catching his chance, he wound up his magic and grabbed the letter in a tight hold. Yanking his arms towards himself, the letter shot into his waiting hands. Below him on the floor, Dudley snagged a hand around his ankle and pulled him hard. Harry went down with a crash, but before Dudley could punch him again, a shrill voice pierced his ears. 

“Boys!” Petunia yelled, and Harry felt all of his hope drain away. 

His ears rung. 

Petunia stomped over until he could see a pair of sharp lime heels on the floor behind his head. Snapping his chin back up, Harry rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up off the floor. He stood up rapidly, hands holding the letter immediately hiding behind his back. Dudley ran to Petunia. 

“Mom, Harry stole my letter!” Dudley cried, and Harry watched in disgust as Dudley pinched himself so his eyes would gleam with crocodile tears. 

“Is that so, Diddydums?” Petunia said, words sugar sweet as she sent Harry a sour glare. 

Dudley sniffled a yes. Harry wanted to throttle him. 

Petunia narrowed his eyes, and moved her head up to fully look at him. 

“Hand over the letter, boy-” 

“That isn’t my name,” Harry snapped, hands thrown to his sides and his words bold. Immediately, he tensed at the mistake and watched as Petunia bristled. 

Petunia’s wide eyes narrowed. Anger danced across her expression. Harry clutched the letter closer to his chest and cowered. Frustration bubbled in the pit of his stomach as Petunia fully stood up, expression thunderous. 

“I said, boy- ” she repeated, and Harry’s self control snapped. 

“My name is Hari! ” He shouted, and Petunia reared back as if slapped. Her eyes darted down to the letter he clutched, and widened in recognition. Harry took fearfully small, timid steps backwards as Petunia silently shook where she stood. She looked like a devil. 

“Dudley,” she uttered, an urgent, quiet command. Dudley, having never been addressed in such a way, halted his series of rude expressions towards Harry and turned to look up at his mother in confusion.

“Go upstairs and pack an overnight bag.” The words were not a suggestion. 

“But, Mum, why-” Dudley whined, and winced when Petunia whirled on him harshly. 

“Now,” she seethed, and Dudley ran, stomping up the stairs in his hurry.

Silently, Harry watched, having slowly backed up until he was pressed against the stairwell wall. Petunia didn’t even look at him before she was rushing away upstairs as well, presumably to pack her own bag. He glanced up at the living room windows as the gentle patter of rain began to quietly hit the window panes.

Harry stood, clutching the letter, and didn’t understand what had just happened. 

Slowly, he slid down the wall, and sat in front of the cupboard, listening to the frantic sounds of rushed packing upstairs. Outside, the rain grew heavier. 

Chapter Text

Harry watched from his forgotten place on the floor as the Dursley family had hustled to and fro, in a rabid hurry to go...somewhere. 

Clutching the letter to his chest in a sad attempt for a safety blanket, Harry stared down at his bare feet, and listened to the rising argument in the dining room. The heavy patter of rain against the house sounded like a static backdrop. 

“Vernon we need to leave!” Petunia yelled, and she sounded desperate. 

“For how long?” Vernon shouted right back. “How long will we be gone? Where the bloody hell will we go?! This is madness!” 

“You want madness? Then stay here and wait for the freaks to find you!” Petunia shrieked. “They’re coming- I promise you they are on their goddamned way at this very moment,” Petunia seethed, her voice clamoring throughout the house. Harry looked up as a small bump sounded on the stairs. His brows furrowed, he watched Dudley stand still through the stairway railing, suitcase handle gripped tightly in his hand as he stared out at the dining room where his parents argued. 

“‘Tunia this is crazy- I can’t just up and leave my job, we won’t have any money!” Vernon exclaimed, his words booming in his confused rage. 

“Money is the least of our fucking worries!” Petunia screamed back, and Harry flinched. He looked up again out of the corner of his eyes, and his mouth parted as he caught sight of Dudley’s blank expression. 

He’d never seen his cousin’s eyes look so...dull.

It was quiet for several long moments. Outside, the rain filled the silence. “Do you remember what I told you, last august?” Petunia said, words bitter and muttered. 

Neither boy heard Vernon respond. 

“Where will we go?” The man gruffly said a few moments later. “It’s the middle of a bloody thunderstorm.” 

“That doesn’t matter. We just have to leave.” 

“Fine. Fucking fine,” Vernon spit. 

With his words, the two adults began to move again, Vernon lumbering past Dudley on the stairs to presumably go grab his own bags. Harry sat in front of the cupboard, and shivered uncontrollably. Below his sternum, pressure began to build. Petunia passed him, heels angrily clicking into the floor, and before she could turn into the kitchen, Harry stumbled rapidly to his feet. 

“Aunt Petunia?” He called. The woman ignored him. 

“What’s going on?” He asked again, his voice fighting to tremor. Petunia stopped her mad walk to the kitchen, but refused to turn around. 

“Where are we going?” Harry pleaded to know, a sinking feeling beginning to drown him that it was not ‘we,’ but ‘you.’  

At that, Petunia snapped her head around. Her short, curly blonde hair whipped with the motion angrily, and her gray eyes were as stormy as the weather outside. 

“You’re staying here,” she hissed, and moved into the kitchen. 

The pressure in his chest suddenly felt unbearable. 

Shocked at the blatant venom in her tone, Harry didn’t follow her. He heard her rummage around for several long minutes, and when she returned, she held a fabric bag full of what was probably food. Food, and her cough syrup. She whisked down the hallway, not even sparing a glance for Dudley as she set the bag down next to the small pile growing by the front door. 

Vernon appeared at the top of the stairs, and Dudley moved out of the way without a word as the man lumbered to the front of the house, dragging a small work suitcase behind him. 

“Aunt Petunia,” Harry tried again, at a loss for what he would possibly say, but unable to remain voiceless, either. 

“What.” Petunia’s question was sharp. Harry flinched. Outside of his control, his magic twisted restlessly around him, and straining to keep it compressed, Harry bit his lip. 

“What am I supposed to do?” He whispered, a lost plea for both their ears and anyone possibly listening. 

Petunia gave him a glare. 

“Stay here,” she commanded. 

Harry looked up, the letter hanging forgotten in his hand, and felt all of his hope drain away. Just as quickly as it vanished, frustration took its place. Thunder rumbled distantly. 

“Why are you running. What are you running from,” he questioned, more so a demand. 

Petunia didn’t look at him. 

“There’s a hotel just outside the city, we can stay the night there-” 

“Aunt Petunia-” 

“-for the night. Then, we can pick up breakfast somewhere and find another hotel-”

“Aunt Petunia!”

“-where we can stay. It probably won’t be long before-”

“Listen to me!” Harry yelled, but not a soul turned to him. 

“We can come back, but we need to leave. ” Petunia finished, and Vernon, fists trembling with his irritation, nodded. He moved to gather a bag, Petunia following, and the pressure in his chest felt impossibly heavy. 

Harry snapped. 

He screamed, in a fit of desperation, “You’re just- going to abandon me then?!” The look on his aunt’s face as she turned around made his blood run cold. 

Petunia set down her travel bag, and pulling her green shawl a little closer to her shoulders, she stooped down and grabbed three letters from the new pile resting in front of the door. Stepping towards Harry, she lowered her head and met his eyes, heels clicking on the polished wood flooring until she was but a meter from the boy. From where he stood opposed to her, Harry felt his fingertips freeze. 

“As opposed to what- taking you and potentially being followed? These letters are for you , boy!” Her eyes were wide and hiding fear, her lips quivering, her voice strained. In her shaky hands, his aunt held aloft the set of three identical old fashioned letters, the very same as the crinkled one having fallen, forgotten, from his hand. Smacking them down on the foyer table with a pride driven anger, she never broke her gaze from his own. 

“These people?” She continued, “They want you .” Petunia’s eyes were cold; more frigid than a tundra, yet alight in a frosty fire. Somewhere in his chest, Harry’s heart ached; and beyond it, pounded in fear. Regardless, he had to know. Pushing past the growing numbness, he lifted his chin in a small act of defiance, and frustratedly, splayed chilly hands in a demand.  

Raising his voice, he glared up into Petunia’s withering expression, and defied the woman as he’d never done before. 

“Then explain why!” He yelled. “You obviously know something-! ” a loud smack rent the air, and he cut off, stunned into silence. Petunia’s hand still held aloft, Harry fell, pitching to the side and feet stumbling over one another before he caught his balance. 

“I will not explain to you. ” Her words fell to the ground like sheets of morning frost with a shatter. 

Slowly, he raised fingertips to brush his cheek, utterly shocked. Petunia, while cruel, had never directly hit him by her own hand, before. The miasma of simmering magic pulsed throughout the house, and the atmosphere at once grew thicker; colder. From behind the tall, almost skeletal woman, he heard Dudley suck in a struggled breath. Where Vernon had once stood behind his boy, there was now only an absence. 

Shoulders shaking, and still listing to the side, Harry watched in trembling wide-eyed shock as a pair of fine, shiny leather shoes crossed squeaky hardwood floors to reach him. 

“Don’t you dare-,” low, growled words began, and he gasped as one of Vernon’s large hands grabbed a fistful of his dark hair. The man’s huge fingers tightened painfully into messy curls, and Harry cried out again as his head was wrenched upwards. 

“- Talk to her that way, you creature!” 

His eyes flew shut of their own accord, and his teeth clenched harshly as Vernon brought his arm ever higher, paying no mind to the slowly chilling room. Harry’s hands flew up, scrabbling for purchase on his volatile Uncle’s arm as his toes uselessly brushed the wooden floors. A silent ringing, a high vibrato resonating throughout the air met his ears again that night, the second such sound he’d heard in his life, ever growing in pitch. Around him his magic swirled; like black snow in a blizzard, it twisted and coiled, an agitated beast clawing at its muzzle. Still, Harry chained it in. 

“Well, boy?!” His uncle spit, and Harry bit down hard enough to hear a molar fracture. Pain spiked through him, and he felt his teeth bare. He opened his eyes to the incited face of Vernon Dursley, and felt fire brewing in his stomach. With no response, the hand in his hair tightened further, washing agony over him in a waterfall, and it was all he could do to shriek- frozen nails digging into Vernon’s sleeve cuff and magic raging like a wild horse under an iron brand. 

“I’m- I’m sorry,” he gasped, and the blunt claws tangled in his hair loosened. He slumped to the ground, trembling with the force of holding back a storm. His hair fell around his face in a fallen black halo; a mockery, yet also a reflection to the thing , rather than the boy, his aunt and uncle now saw.  

It was silent for a long few moments; the only sounds that pierced the heavy veil was the brewing, far off noises of a waking thunderstorm, and Dudley’s ragged breaths- pushed thin from the spreading oppressiveness of Harry’s magic. 

Bowed on the floor, Harry raised his head. 

“....Don’t I mean anything to you, Aunt Petunia?” He asked, a quiet, defeated question. The words hung over his head like a noose. Petunia’s brow twitched, and though she moved her hands behind her back to hide their sudden trembling, her face remained passively cool. 

The lack of anything; any emotion; any feelings; any love from his aunt felt like an iron poker to the gut. Suddenly, he was angry. Angry, about the way she left him to rot; angry, about the way she let her only blood family waste away; angry, about how she didn’t care about him at all; not even enough to tell him what, exactly, it was that he’d become. But most of all, he was angry that he still wished she did. As the rage flooded in and tried to drown him, he bared his teeth- only ten of which were fully grown in- and threw caution to the wind. 

Quietly, in a rage of snow and cold, he let the iron chains holding his magic homebound fall; with a soprano clang resonant to his ears alone, the non-existent metal fell, and the wild let loose. 

Immediately, a silent storm kicked up from his place on his knees, ruffling his hair and his clothes. From within the budding cyclone of magic, invisible to human eyes, he clenched his fists and shouted, bitter and resentful and hurt-  “So what? Did my Mom mean nothing, too-!” 

Petunia’s eyes widened with the words, and a thread snapped. 

“You will not mention your mother under this roof,” she shrieked, arms thrown to her sides. The windows flared bright with the crackle of lightning, and Petunia’s face was illuminated, caught within a moment of her festered grief, anger, and lifetime of jealousy. Thunder cracked violently a moment later throughout the sky far above, and beneath the angry heavens, the roof shook. 

The last of a bloodline bore each other down, and the blizzard only grew. 

“And why not?!” Harry screamed back, slamming his palms down to the shiny wood floor beginning to vibrate under the pressure of a storm. Beneath his fists, it cracked. Behind him, the windows began to rattle; the glass chiming dangerously within their panes. 

“You couldn’t possibly hate her just as much as you hate me-!” He roared, and though small, his voice echoed loudly in the once perfect house with all the power of a clamoring glacier. Around the boy on his knees, black, icy magic twisted in violent contortions as his rage grew. 

“Your mother was a freak! Just like you! She didn’t deserve our acceptance!” Petunia spit, her venom coated words aligning with the crackle of lightning and the boom of thunder that shook the house independent of Harry’s rising magic. Ever opposed to her, Harry raged. 

“My mother died for me! ” He screamed, and Petunia flinched back with a look of horror on her face. 

“No one ever told you that,” she hissed, fear warping her words. Harry snarled, and tightened his fists, feeling frost crawl up the sides of his neck and curve around his cheeks. 

“You didn’t have to.” 

In a picture almost parallel to the photograph that had come before it, Harry faced his magic once more. But rather than slipping on the reigns, he let himself bow to it. Caught in a storm of changing tides, Harry, for once in his life, didn’t move to give up his ground; Giving into the song of anger his magic sang, he lifted himself to his feet, and looked Petunia Dursley in the eyes. At his bare feet, frost crept along the cracks in the floorboards. 

Petunia began to step back, eyes darting around in renewed fear as the scenery around her grew ever more reminiscent of the Incident. Reaching for her husband, while never taking her eyes off the boy done struggling with his own desires standing furious in the living room, Petunia whispered, “go start the car,” words hushed and rushed and harsh. Vernon, completely interested in any opportunity to not be involved with the coming storm, hustled out front. Then, she set her shoulders back and faced her blood once more. 

“We’re leaving- before you lose what humanity you have left, freak,” Petunia hissed, and shivered as she felt the temperature plummet. As the floorboards began to rattle around her, she whipped around and reached for Dudley’s hand. With her back turned, she didn’t see the last tie she had to her sister fall back, as if struck. Her heels clacked madly against the floor as she nearly ran to the front hall, pulling Dudley along behind her.

At the woman’s words, Harry stumbled, inhaling sharply. Around him, the storm of his magic ceased, and the pain of what Petunia said truly pierced his heart. The last of the hope he retained fractured, and with a magnificent tumble, he fell to the floor, broken. As his knees hit wood, an ear splitting crack shot through the air, and a blackened strike of lightning seared itself into the hardwood. 

Fallen once more to his knees, Harry sat pitched forwards, arms clenched around himself in a deathgrip. New tears dripped and fell, dissipating the sandy magic his wixen eyes alone could see, as they splashed onto the floor beneath him. Under his breath, he murmured broken words intertwined into verging sobs, and the sound had Petunia finally spinning around in fear, her cream dress flaring around her. She laid sight on her sole nephew, her eyes flying wide at the sight of him, fallen and small on the ground, yet the source of the destructive noise. 

A frantic look around her had Petunia gasping at the frost crawling up the walls. With a rapid panic she’d felt only once before, Petunia gathered their remaining carry on bags in her arms, never once letting go of Dudley’s pudgy hand. Finally catching vision of the marring scar, Petunia gasped, craning her neck down to look at the magical burn. 

A long, branching crack had etched into the floorboards, beginning where Harry’s knees touched, and stretching almost all the way to the front hall; all the way to her own feet. Petunia, only several meters from the front door, took a shaky step back from the blackened lightning strike carved into her home’s flooring. As she looked down in fear at the mark, she could see small patterns of snowflakes burned into the blackness. Ever still, the temperature continued to plummet, and at Dudley’s wail, she once again ripped her panicked gaze upwards. 

Another flash of lightning illuminated the ground floor through once shattered windows, and within the booming thunderclap, Petunia looked in front of her to see shining, emerald green eyes. Another tear fell from their owner's face, freezing before it ever fell from icy cheeks, and Harry watched from iron shackles his aunt slowly turn and run for the door, pulling Dudley behind her. He shut his eyes, and let his head bow to the floor, trying to breath through the ice freezing his heart. Behind closed eyelids, the fear he’d seen in his aunts eyes only grew. 

“Stay, stay, stay, stay,”  he whispered, a desperate chant turned sob in the tongue of the serpent to keep the whirling wild of his magic from lashing out in a blind song of hurt. He heard feet pounding along floor, a set; one of sharp lime heels, the other of worn and beaten converse, and then, the door slammed shut. 

Alone, the cyclone of his magic broke from his wishes. With a cry, he fell to his hands, and watched as his magic surged up and bigger, ever greater than it had before. In a frozen feat of power, the storm around him swirled violently, and a ragged cry broke from his lips as he dug fingertips into the hardwood floor, curling into himself and desperate to hold on within the cyclone. Around him, picture frames stayed steady on the walls, furniture sat unfazed, and objects rested undisturbed. He sobbed as the torrent threatened to consume him. 

But as quickly as it had started, it halted. Harry gasped, swaying from the sudden lack of force as he brought his head up to stare in disbelief as the sight above him. He breathed in. 

For a moment, the world was silent. Everything was still. Slowly, snowflakes drifted from the ceiling to the floor, and in a moment of calm, Harry could see the beauty it held. 

Then, he breathed out, and the tsunami wave of his magic came crashing down around the house, rolling harmlessly over furniture and himself like frosty mist, yet scattering and casting destruction over the snowflakes that hung in the air. Within the ocean of seidr, new tears came, bubbling up stronger than before. As they rolled down his cheeks, a temperature closer to freezing rather than hot to match his frigid skin, Harry shivered, and wondered if cold tears came from a frozen heart. 

Turning his gaze to the foggy windows of the living room, he stared up at the moon, full and pale and the only thing in a cloudless night; a spotlight from the heavens above as they watched on, eyes ever following the shining light fixed upon the star of the tragedy. With his magic black as oil sand and cold as glacial ice, and his world crashing down around him, Harry cried. 

His tears all froze before they hit the floor. 

Chapter Text

He screamed; and the monster screamed back. 

September 23rd, 1989

He felt terrible. 

Harry set his arms on top of his desk, and let his pencil roll to a stop near his hand. With his chest beginning to heave, he tried to still his breathing. The last time he’d tried it, he’d felt a little less awful the rest of the day. 

Far in front of him, Mrs. Williams talked on, and Harry thanked- not for the first time- that he sat further in the back of the room. It made dealing with more...internal matters much easier, since no one ever looked in the far back row. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his head, and from his seat, he clenched his hands and pushed down the feeling of wind rising up from his belly. He swallowed, and breathing in, sent the feeling down, down, down, with the force of his inhale. When his fingers began to frost, he simply brushed off the snowflakes and picked up his pencil once more. 

Of internal matters, ten year old Harry Potter sat at the back of his primary school classroom, and tried to suppress his magic.  

It was not the first time; in fact, it was bordering on a beginning uncountable number. For Harry Potter, at ten years old, had begun to realize and catalogue a specific feeling that recurred at the event of something unusual happening. The something, the Other, had first been truly noticed after accidentally summoning a bottle of sunscreen from within number four privet drive’s back garden. Upon the event, and one shattered window later, things had started to...fall into place. Unnatural things. Things that, within the current laws of nature, just didn’t make sense. 

Old happenings, of turning hair blue, or potentially teleporting to the school rooftop, or even a dream of lights, that, upon closer inspection, appeared to not have been a dream at all, all served to define a clear idea; that something, something Other, was going on. 

The sunscreen had finally tipped the scales, and at ten years old, Harry, in an attempt to protect himself, tried to suppress- to bury, to hide away, to shove down - the very thing keeping him alive. 

His magic fought back. 

October 13th, 1990

He’d been unloading the dishwasher when he’d tripped over the corner; Harry had blindly reached out and grabbed onto the kitchen counter top to steady himself. Petunia, from her seat at the kitchen table, had sent him a scowl. 

He’d sheepishly shrunk under her gaze, but had nonetheless gone back to unloading the dishwasher. He’d noticed a throbbing in his ankle, and had looked down to see a small scrape. Harry had grimaced, and then froze as an ocean swell had risen. Without much fuss, he’d simply put the plate in his hands into the cabinet, and shoved the force down, unthinking of its intent. 

Absently, he wiped away the trickle of blood that fell from his nose. 

From the table, Petunia Dursley hid her knowing eyes behind her magazine, and looked away.

November  8th, 1990

He hadn’t felt this depleted in months. Walking home the longer route to avoid Dudley after school had never been quite this hard before. Harry slumped, and turned his eyes to look at the gray, rain heavy clouds floating like a blanket far above. He jumped over a small pothole, and let the toes of his shoes splash in the small puddle it made. The small rippling of the water made him smile, and he giggled. Immediately, he stumbled, an icy feeling of fear dripping down his spine. 

The sound that had come out of his mouth had not been human. Shakily, he brought a hand up to his lips, and tried to say something, anything- 

The only sound that came out was a hiss. 

He stood stock still and if he had been less shy of a child, he would have shrieked. As it was, the icy fear that clung to his spine became tight as he recognized the sound. 

It was the same type of hiss he’d made before; he’d done it when he was younger, and met a small garden snake in the backyard. They had talked, and while the inhuman words had been horribly familiar, at the time, he hadn’t been able to place where from. Now, he knew exactly where the dreadful feeling of horror was flowing from. 

For, just last night, he’d had that dream; the dream of red hair, brown eyes, and deep, deadly hisses. 

He threw his hand from his mouth, turned around, and puked on the side of the road. 

January 7th, 1990

He was getting worse. 

Harry wiped the blood trickling from his nose, and fought to stay standing. Across from him, Dudley and his cronies crowed. 

“Hah!” They laughed, “look at him! He can barely stay standing!” Dudley taunted, and Harry stumbled, crying out with a quiet hiss as he fell to his hands and knees, his vision swirling. 

“He’s wobbling like a drunk!” Piers cackled, and behind him, Rupert snorted. 

“What’s wrong, speechless? Gonna cry?” They laughed. On the park ground, Harry shook. The feeling- the it- was rising, desperately beginning to swirl and Harry grabbed it and pushed- 

“Hey guys, I’ve got a game even better than Harry Huntin’!” Rolf exclaimed, and Harry hadn’t processed the sound of feet pounding on grass until the toe of the other boy’s shoe had connected with his skull. 

“Soccer! ” 

He crashed to the earth with a heavy thump, and felt the trickle of blood begin to fall from his nose once more. Deep within him, the swells of an angry ocean continued to rage. 

March 16th, 1990

He couldn’t speak English, anymore. 

The thought was harrowing. Harry sat up on the small cot in the cupboard, facing the wall as his wide eyes struggled not to fill with tears. His clenched fists trembled, and although he tried to form a word, any English word, he could only speak in a horrible, grating hiss. 

§Help me,§ he whispered, and choked on the sound that fell from his lips. 

He sobbed, silent and terribly, wishing that the man who had killed his parents had killed him, too. 

May 27th, 1990

He felt like a walking corpse. 

Breathing was difficult. He had a constant pressure in his chest, and his head was always pounding. His skin has started to get cold, and he would shiver even in the spring heat. He hitched his backpack up further, and kept putting one foot in front of the other. The thrumming started up behind his sternum, and as he had been doing for months now, he pushed the feeling down. 

It hurt, and he hissed a curse, stumbling as he took a moment to pant through the pain. He felt like he was going to collapse. Feeling a trickle of warmth on his lip, odd on chilly, colder than average skin, he looked ahead with dead eyes, and wiped the blood from his nose. 

It was nothing new. 

Chapter Text

August 23rd, 1990

The room was dark. The curtains had been pulled over windows dripping with dreary rain, and the two reading lamps that rested beside the couch lied quietly, lit with small, timid glows. The gray light that did seep under the heavy drapes beyond the warmer light was stilted and weak. Outside, the wind howled, and the trees shook. 

Lifting a leaden arm, Harry moved to brush away the dust that had gathered lightly over the glass frame of a family photograph. As his feather duster made contact with the delicate frame, it wobbled dangerously atop it’s table, and with a fumble to catch it, Harry accidentally let it slip. 

He watched it dawning horror as it fell backward over the edge of the small table. 

He winced harshly as the sound of shattering glass filled the softly lit living room room. 

Behind him, lounging in his armchair, Harry heard Vernon sit up. There was the sound of a newspaper crinkling as it was folded, and then a disgusted scoff. 

“Christ. You idiot boy- you can’t even clean properly.” Harry tensed as the sound of feet hit the carpet. A very familiar pressure whistled sharply behind his sternum, and madly, Harry pushed the feeling away. He nearly wheezed as a horrible twinge of pain blossomed in his chest. His throat constricted, and he bit his lip, holding in inhuman hisses. 

“Maybe drunkenness can be passed down as a trait,” Vernon continued on, feet lumbering ever closer. The pressure came back with a sweeping force, and Harry’s eyes flew open wide. In his tightly fisted hand, the wooden handle of the duster cracked. 

“Guess you really are like your father, aren’t you, you runt? ” 

The television screen shattered. 

Vernon whipped around with a yell, large arms flying up to cover his eyes. In front of him, Harry fell to the ground as if kicked in the back, mouth open in a silent scream. He plummeted to his hands and knees, shuddering violently as he fought against his own being. 

Within him, his magic screamed. 

It was like nothing he’d ever felt. 

For the seventh time that month, Harry felt it swirl to life inside of him, rising up with a will of its own as his hands shook in fear, in anger. The feather duster- once clutched between his fingers yet now lying forgotten on the floor- ruffled, and his hair carried upwards as if lifted by a draft. He reached blindly for the arm of the couch, straining as he pulled himself up to stand on his feet. Around him, the lights flickered. 

He knew there was no such draft; rather, he knew it was the something. That Other - Something Wrong. He contorted harshly, biting on his tongue hard enough to taste blood as another agonizing tightness squeezed his sternum. It felt sharp. 

Vernon continued to yell, and Harry’s eyes shot into pinpricks as he heard the rattling of small items shaking against their surfaces. 

Grinding his teeth together, he pulled the hiss on his tongue back into his mouth, paying no mind to the blood that dribbled over his lip as he gasped. A pulse- like a bladed shock wave underwater- sounded in his chest, and he lost his grip on the arm of the couch, as if magnetically pulled. Falling to his knees, he hunched over with shaking, harsh breaths. Harry drew his arms in close, and pressed his hands- slowly growing colder- to his chest. The glass pieces of the shattered picture frame began to jump and rattle against the floor, caught in an intangible earthquake. Around the living room, objects already shaking grew steadily more violent into a reverberating beat. 

As if a snare drum had been hit, Harry felt something had begun. The Other coiled tight, and he pitched forwards with a choked gasp, hands clawing at Dudley’s oversized shirt as he fought to suck in a breath. Behind him, he heard Vernon cursing up a storm to rival his own, but his uncle’s words were lost to the shrill whine in his ears. 

“What the bloody fuck-! ” Vernon yelled, and the cutting lance in his chest consumed him in a torrential, agonizing current, before turning its sights outward. Harry’s vision whited out, and he screamed. 

The windows shattered. 

Petunia jerked harshly as the deafening sound of exploding glass rang throughout the house. Frantic, she dropped her hair brush and ran towards the stairwell. Nearly falling as she tripped on a step in her rush, her vision was trained on the floor as she fell into the living room. 

Catching herself on the stair post, Petunia righted her fall and looked up madly. 

The sight that greeted her filled her with fear. 

Shaking, mouth open in silent, horrified cry, she stumbled back a step, tensed hands open uselessly at her sides. The curtains rippled back and forth in the gray light of a brewing nighttime thunderstorm, and the ghostly noise paired with the loud rattling of every small object in the living room to create a cacophony. Her blonde hair ruffled in the breeze from the nonexistent windows, edges jagged from the glass had shattered and Petunia brought jerky hands up to cover her sharp, warbling cry as she caught sight of the bloody body of her husband lying still in front of the television cabinet. 

She went to run to him, but the second her foot touched down on carpet, an icy feeling of dread gripped her tightly. Staggering, nightgown twisting around her legs, she turned her head to her right, and felt her face contort in horror. 

Lily’s son kneeled on his hands and knees on the floor, a broken monster. 

She screamed, loud and shrill, as she fell back. Her rapid feet carried her to the stairwell wall, and she crashed against it with a loud bang. Heart beating a vicious drum in her chest, Petunia slowly slid to the floor as she watched the thing that had been her nephew fail to struggle to its knees. 

His body twisted painfully- shifting between jagged black sand and human skin. His eyes- illuminated emerald green- bore into her own with such a pained panic that Petunia felt hot tears wash down her cheeks. Where his hands met the floor, jagged spirals of ice shot violently, coating the carpet in frost and the floorboards in ice. Where his eyes should have ended, Lily’s brilliant green fell away into ethereal, blackened sand, and the boy’s inky hair dissolved and reappeared with his twisting, sharp sandy magic. A hollow, inhuman scream pierced the chaos of the living room, and Harry again fell to his hands, body disintegrating before her eyes. 

The horrific spectacle before her drew a memory to her mind, and Petunia inhaled sharply. 

Words poured from his lips- pleading hisses in a language she was sure no human mouth could speak, and Petunia sobbed harshly as his small brown hand reached desperately for her. Terrifying shocks of ice shot along the floor towards her, and sounds she’d never known she could make tore through her throat. She curled up tightly, pulling her limbs as close to her body as she could as she cried wretchedly, struggling to draw in a breath over her own shrieking wails. 

Over the twisting howl of the wind, she could hear the sobbing pleads of her nephew. 

She screamed so loud she felt her throat rip as around the living room, exploding glass shattered. Her hands flew up to her ears as the thundering sound reverberated painfully through her skull. 

The temperature plummeted far enough that she felt the sweat on her skin and the tears on her face freeze into ice, and looked up, wide eyed with terror, at whatever new sight there was to see in the cursed dark. 

The noise had stopped. 

The curtains rested still, frozen in twisted contortions against the empty windows. Every photograph in the living room had shattered; glass shards littered the floor, blending in with the icy layer of snow that fell along the carpet. Her terrified gray eyes darted to where her husband lay, and watched in consuming confusion as the growing bloody puddle around him stilled. 

In the middle of it all, Harry Potter lied like a corpse. 

He lay unmoving, no longer a devilish abomination, but just a boy. Twirls of frost climbed up his cheeks and down his neck, and lying collapsed on his stomach, his small hand extended out in front of him. 

Still reaching for her. 

Petunia fell forwards with a gut wrenching sob, hands clawing at the top of her nightgown as if it would help her breathe. 

When her tears- hot and heavy and unending as they fell over the frozen ones below- shuttered enough for her to see, Petunia raced to her husband. 

She didn’t see as Harry’s eyes- a simple slit with how far they were open- finally rolled back into his head, and nor did she see him finally exhale a cloudy breath as his magic, so terribly forgiving, silently curled back towards him in an easing breath of life. 

Long minutes later, Petunia, with hands bloody and tears rolling down her face, grabbed Vernon’s car keys off their hook in the hall and roused her injured husband enough to help him stumble to the car. 

As she lifted ten year old Harry Potter into her arms, his head fell back, and shaking with the weight of the words of eleven year old Severus Snape, carried him out to the front. 

The drive to the hospital was long, and dark, and silent.

Silent, and filled with guilty tears. 

At twelve years old, Petunia Dursley hid behind the great maple tree on the west side of the pond, and listened to the words of someone she would come to despise. 

“Wait, but, Severus-” Lily said, and Petunia watched from her hiding place as they settled down at the pond's edge, Severus Snape pulling an eleven year old Lily Potter by the hand. 

“No one will see- It’s fine!” He whispered loudly, and Petunia watched Lily tilt her head, before offering a wild smile. A painful twang pulled at her heart, and her long nails dug into the tree bark. She'd barely seen Lily all summer- every day, she'd go out and play, always with him over her. 

“Okay,” she said, eager and determined and carefree. Pulling a wilted peony from her pocket, Lily held it up for Severus to see. 

“Dead, right?” She said, an excited half smile tugging at her lips. Before her, Severus bobbed his head, and his shoulder length, puffy black hair followed his movements. 

Lily cupped her hands gently around the wilted flower, and brought them to her lips. For a moment, she didn’t move, and then she pulled her hands back. Opening them with a wide smile, Petunia watched in amazement as a living purple peony slowly bloomed in her palms. 

“It’s magic, isn’t it?” Lily asked, and her grin suggested that she already knew the answer. Severus shifted onto his hip, locked elbow supporting his weight as he smiled back. 

“Yeah. We’re technically not supposed to use it outside of school, but I think that’s stupid,” he said, and trailed a finger in the clear pond water, ripples following his movement. 

Lily set the peony on the earth beside her, and with a concentrated tap of her fingertips, it burrowed into the soil until it was sitting pretty in the grass; a lone flower without a garden. 

“Why?” She asked, tilting her head, and Severus’ black eyes looked up to meet hers. 

“Because it’s good to use our magic- if we don’t, bad things happen,” he said, his voice hushed. 

Lily frowned. 

“Bad things? What kind of bad things?” 

Severus craned his head and made a show of looking around for potential listeners, and upon seeing no other children hanging by, leaned in closer to Lily, cupping a hand next to his mouth. Her sister giggled. 

“They tell witch tales- stories of children turning into monsters because they tried to make their magic go away.”

“Monsters? What kind of monsters?” Lily whispered back, and from the lit of her voice Petunia knew her eyes were shining with fascinated wonder.

“Broken ones. Wixen with broken magic. They say they call them obscurials,” Severus whispered, and Lily leaned in, transfixed. 

“The tales all say that their magic gets angry from being rejected, and swallows the wixen up whole as punishment.” Lily gasped, and Severus smirked. 

“They’re described as dark clouds that turn into blackened sand and elements, viciously waiting to feast upon an unknowing victim-!” He taunted playfully, voice rising and hands raising into claws as he swooped forwards to crash into Lily. She laughed loudly, and sprang up from the lakeside to dart away from her friend. Severus chased after her, and their laughter echoed joyfully throughout the small park. 

Petunia turned away from the sight, and quietly walked to the swings. She sat down heavily without a word. Her blonde hair ruffled in the summer breeze, and she stared silently out at the gathering clouds.

She sat on the swings, unmoving save for her blonde curls.

She was completely alone.

The hospital room was dark. Petunia laid back on the simple white bed, and looked up at the ceiling, unseeing. 

Three rooms over, her husband lay, being treated for stitches for a minor head wound. ‘He’ll be fine,’  they’d reassured. ‘What happened to him?’  They’d asked. ‘An accident,’  she’d answered. 

Another hallway, and two rooms over, Lily’s son now rested in the pediatric ward. 

A seizure, she’d said he’d had. The doctors had believed her. 

If she had been capable of it, she might have laughed. It would've been a bitter sound.

(Later, Vernon would wake up, and the nurse would lead them to her nephew’s hospital room, mistakenly believing them to want to see him. The nurse would leave, Vernon would sit heavily in a chair by the door, run a hand through his short hair, and Petunia would stand as far away as possible from her only living family. 

“What the hell  was that?” He would whisper, disbelief and shaken astonishment wordlessly blowing away his usually loud voice like sand on a dune. Neither would see Harry Potter silently stir the slightest bit in a fight for consciousness. Petunia, ever shaken and terrified, would spit “ Magic ,” and wish that her sister had never been born.)

The hospital room was silent. There were no other noises in her small, overnight ‘observation’ room beyond her own quiet breathing and the sound of padding footsteps behind the door as the staff worked through the night. 

She raised an ever shaking hand to her face, and wondered if this was what Severus Snape had meant, all those years ago, when he’d whispered about ‘broken monsters.’  That...thing, had not been a child. What her sister’s son had turned into in his last conscious moments had been something too horrible to name. An abomination.

A devil. 

The hospital room was empty of other life. Until suddenly, she knew it wasn’t. 

Petunia sat up with a rapid jerk, short blonde curls bouncing with the movement and face twisting quickly to the single window filtering in slight, pale moonlight. Her brows furrowed in distressed confusion as she could find no disturbance. A bead of sweat fell down her neck, and she refused to look away. Her flaxen hair- glowing softly in the slight of the window- lost its shine as something moved to block the light. 

A figure of a person silently stepped out of the shadows, emerging from their pool of darkness and dripping with the inky overcasts of the cloudy night sky above them, illuminated by the sole window to their back. She flinched back, and watched as Albus Dumbledore quietly lit his wand tip in a shallow white glow. His wrinkled face took a ghostly palour with the conjured light, and her own was painted pale in the darkness. His golden glasses flashed.

“Ah, Petunia. It has been such a long time,” he murmured, and Petunia bristled harshly. She frowned deeply, bitterly, and trained her eyes on his glasses.

(Another old folk tale Severus had hissed to her once when they’d been older, in their late teenage years, that had crept down her spine ever since; “Never look a wixen in the eyes, ‘Tuny," he'd taunted.

"They might read your mind, and see all of your secrets.” At sixteen, Severus had raised his head to it’s new place above her own, and smiled wickedly.

“And you wouldn’t want that, now would you?” His eyes had flashed, and at almost eighteen, Petunia had felt fear trickle through her with the thought that his onyx eyes had looked merciless). 

“What do you want,” she asked flatly, her words only the barest hint of a question. Her wrath towards him stayed pointy and sharp, but set to the side. Albus sighed, his face and shoulders slumped sadly in the moonlight, and Petunia thought, ‘devil.   

“Oh, Petunia, I thought you’d grown out of this.” His voice was weary, and so heavy with disappointment. 

Her words chipped against each other like shards of glass. 

“What do you want.” The question was gone. 

“Ah. Very well,” Albus murmured, and lowered his spell lit wand into his clasped hands, held poised sideways in front of himself. The shadows shifted on their faces with the movement of the light, until Petunia could no longer clearly see one side of his face, submerged into shadows as it was. Behind him, the window shown as cloud cover moved away from the moon, and soft gray light cast anew spilled over the man before her until his long, white hair was aglow with it. His eyes shone in the darkness surrounding them. 

“I was alerted to a rather... large implosion of magic at the Dursley household. It was enough for my wards to detect.” His eyes narrowed. Petunia drew her brows in a challenge, setting her shoulders back. A stray golden curl fell in front of her eyes, but she did not move to curl it away behind her ear.  

“My wards take quite a bit of magic to detect.” 

She sat up straighter on the bedside, still in her bloody nightgown, the blackened stains hidden in its midnight color and by the darkness of the room around them. Her back was rigid, her hands clutched tightly in her lap, and her words were clipped. 

“And what of it.” 

Albus paused for a long moment, simply looking down at her through his golden, half moon spectacles. Petunia didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking into his concerned blue eyes. 

“...I came to see for myself what happened.” His voice was quiet. 

“The boy had a fit of accidental magic. He was mad.” 

“Mad? Mad enough to completely drain himself of his own magic?” His words were of disquiet disbelief, neither pressing nor relaxed. 

She didn’t answer. When the silence drew too long, she looked away. 

“Petunia-” 

At his pleading, disappointed rumble, she whirled back around, hair flying out around her head, and rage lighting a fire in her stomach. 

“Don’t you dare ‘Petunia’  me!” She hissed loudly. “I owe your kind nothing! You devils...you took my sister from me. I don’t care for a damn word you have to say.” Albus gave her a long look, and in the scant light of the moon pouring through the sole window, she couldn’t make out the downward turn of his face. She looked away, images of the cursed creature the boy had become flashing across her mind. In her lap, covered by the silky flow of a bloodstained black nightgown, her hands tightened around each other. 

“...Very well,” Albus sighed, and something in her chest both tightened and relaxed at his defeated tone. “I trust that young Hari will be told, in due time, what is to come?” Her eye twitched.

“He’ll be going to your little school, then?” She asked, head still steadfastly turned away, curls falling over her hooded eyes. Despite her better judgement, her eyes, however, darted back to rest on his spectacles, still glinting with moonlight. 

“Why, of course. Do you think otherwise?” 

“No. Let him go.” 

“...Petunia…” He began, and she felt ire press in the tightening of her hands. “I fear you may harbor some residing anger.” Unwanted thoughts of a letter she’d childishly written- full of wishes and pleads- when she was twelve flashed in her mind. It was quickly followed by the bland, inconsiderate, and heart crushing response she’d received weeks later, and she scowled. 

“Oh you fear, do you?" She demanded, tilting her face back just enough that she could see the wizard before her as she spoke. "My family was ripped apart because of your kind’s cultish, freakish… powers! Just go back to wherever you come from. Leave me alone,” she spit, and turned her body away from him in finality, wishing he would simply melt back into the shadows he’d appeared from. 

“...I trust the boy is cared for?” Part of her- a small, insignificant part that knew everything she’d ever done since Lily had died had been wrong- tried to loosen the truth from her tongue. She lowered her brows angrily, and crushed the last of it that remained. Her heart, already so blackened, withered further. 

“He’s under my roof, Dumbledore.” Whatever the man took her words for, Petunia thought it must have been a delusion that it was something positive, for he nodded, and began to turn away, long dark robes trailing quietly behind him. 

“Very well. I wish you well, Petunia,” he said, and before he reached the window, he looked over his shoulder. For the first time all night, Petunia met his eyes, and watched a small spark flare in his blue iris.’

“You would do well to remember that it is that boy that keeps your family safe. You depend on him just as much as he depends on you.” She blinked, feeling as if the words had snapped her breath away, and when she opened her eyes, she was alone. Petunia shuddered, and wrapped shaking arms around herself. 

‘Devil,’ she thought. 

She sat, hunched in residing unease, staring at the moon illuminated windows for the remainder of the night.

Chapter Text

August 2nd, 1991

Inside the cupboard under the stairs, Harry clutched tightly to a worn, silk and wool baby blanket, and wished away the tears that continued to fall like rain from his eyes. 

Once he’d been able to thaw enough to move away from the epicenter of magical destruction, Harry had hidden away. He’d retreated to the dark of his cupboard, desperately clutching at the only thing he could truly call his own and wishing fervently that he wasn’t completely alone. 

He hadn’t touched the letter from where he’d left it on his cupboard floor, but rather than the mellow sadness and crushing hope he had first felt when he’d lay his eyes on it, now, he only felt hollow. 

He drew his legs closer to his chest, and wiped away another few freezing tears. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the letter. 

Even if it was real- and he knew it was -there was no way they’d take someone like him, especially now. Not after what he’d just done again. He’d repeated last summer all over again, but this time, they really had left him. He’d broken again, and now he was all alone. He shivered, and buried his face in his knees, the baby blanket clenched tightly to his chest. 

When he’d finally managed to get up after the dam had been destroyed, he’d been in shock at what he’d seen. He’d made a mess of the house- most of it was covered in terrible shocks of frost, and snowflakes hovered suspended in the air along with glittering crystal pinpricks of ice. Nothing had been destroyed- not even scratched- except for the jagged strike of black, scorched wood that took the form of a lightning strike stretching all the way from the living room to the front hall. 

It was hardly as bad as last summer. It was almost tame in comparison. 

But the damage had occurred in a different way. 

The Dursleys had left. They had left- run away from him, and Harry had no idea what he was supposed to do now. There was no possible way Petunia would actually allow him to stay, but he had nowhere else to go. He had half a mind to think they’d drop him at an orphanage, but figured they’d most likely drive to a run down part of London and leave him there, once they they came back. If they came back at all. 

And that was only if the people they were running from didn’t take him first. 

Worse, further- he’d done the very thing the letter had warned him not to. The secondary note on the back of the supply list had said that magic, even the accidental kind, was strictly prohibited in front of muggles. Non magic folk, it had explained. 

Harry hadn’t just done accidental magic- he’d intentionally let his loose. 

He buried his head in his hands and sobbed again. 

It was only just barely August, and since he was certain now that the people who’d written the letter wouldn’t take him anymore, he had to face the terrifying reality that he was truly on his own. 

A loud rapping on the door had his head swinging up in shock. His heart pounded.

Within the small cupboard, ice began to creep up the walls. 

Minerva McGonagall had seen a lot in her lifetime, but the wintry painting that made up the Dursely’s home was something entirely new. 

Initially, Dumbledore had wanted Hagrid to introduce little Harry Potter to the wixen world- much to many of their jealousy’s, the reasons of why they could only guess (although she’d heard Severus mutter under his breath things about prejudice and gryffindor )- but with the sudden alert the school had gotten of an incredibly powerful burst of accidental magic, Dumbledore had been forced to throw his previous plans out the window and send someone immediately. As deputy, that duty fell to her. 

So, with great urgency and a spark of suspicion lighting like a flame in her mind, Minerva had swept away to Little Whinging. 

She had, against Albus’s wishes, previously gone to meet Harry Potter. She’d snuck into Surrey one night back in June, and wandered his neighborhood as a tawny tabby cat until she’d found him, weeding the garden. She had waited another day to properly greet him, when the boy hadn’t initially followed her. 

Walking back from the store, Harry Potter had been a sight to behold. 

He had been little, still only ten with baggy, hand me down clothes. His hair had been long but still cut short, black as a raven’s wing and as wavy as an ocean current. It had been a messy thing, wild atop his head just as James’ had been, but with all the shiny charm Lily’s red locks had pertained. It brushed into his face as he’d walked, and she had felt amused as she’d watched him blow a few stray strands of it out of his face. His eyes she hadn’t been able to tell; as a cat, they’d looked muted, but she’d been an animagus for enough years to know when feline tendencies warped her vision. 

The most interesting thing about him, however, had been the obvious way he used wandless magic with the ease of a century old wixen doing party tricks. It had been a startling shock to Minerva, to see the boy casually levitating a heavy grocery bag, or sending an apple spiraling. 

The biggest surprise, however, had been how he’d seen her own magic as effortlessly as he’d manipulated his own. 

Magical sight was something not taught until far later, and magical sense had to be developed over time; and even with both, many wixen still struggled. It was something of a lost art in magical Britain. While other magical cultures used it as an important part of their own sorcery, much of Europe had taken to using wands several centuries ago, and mange sense had become a secondary skill elusive to all except young children and devoted sorcerers. 

Wandless magic was something far more precious. Slowly pushed out with the introduction of wands, core magic had been just as forgotten as mange sight; something to dream after, and associated only with the incredibly young, and incredibly old. While not uncommon to see pre-student wixen handling the first depths of their magic with their own two hands, it was uncommon to see a level of control falling opposite to the far more ‘accidental’ side of the scale. 

It was why they called it ‘accidental magic’ in the first place.

To see little Harry Potter with such an extensive grasp of his own magic, comfortable with it and aware enough of it to even sense her own, Minerva felt she held all the pride for Lily and James’s boy that they would have had, and more to include her own. 

Out of both of them, Lily had always been better in touch with her own magic, as well as Sirius- she had wondered, all those years ago, what a blood adoption between those three could create. 

She had never imagined it would be something so incredible. 

Beyond his chilly magic and frightening perceptibility, Harry Potter had been kind, for uttering as little words that he had. Unlike many children, his hands had been gentle and soft when they’d pet her, and he’d been terribly shy. It made her wonder what he’d have been like, had James and Lily been around to raise him. Or if Sirius hadn’t done what he had. The thoughts made her heart ache, and so she chose not to dwell on them. 

Whatever connotations she’d held of Harry Potter before she’d met the boy had shattered that June, and as she apparated towards Little Whinging, she couldn’t help but wonder. Just what had happened to make the boy perform the level of accidental magic needed to be detected by the letter? 

Staring at the icy portrait of number four, privet drive, she felt no closer to an answer. 

She had knocked on the door three times, and with each echoing rapture, not a single person had answered. There was no human car in the driveway, and no lights on inside. So, she’d tapped her wand to the door lock, thought alohomora , and stepped inside only to have her breathe sucked away. 

She looked around her in growing apprehension, noting the sharp patterns of snowy ice coating the floor, and frost climbing the walls in glimmering, swirling patterns. She turned in a slow circle as she walked down the dark entrance hall, marveling at the glistening snowflakes suspended in the air. She shivered, and when she breathed, her breath came out as a cloud. With a small thought, she cast a slight warming charm on her cloak, breathing in frigid air as she dared to go further into the house. The frost under her boots crunched as she walked. 

She came to the end of the foyer, and stopped to take a look around with an awed gasp. 

The frost was even more potent in the living room- the epicenter of the house. From the single clear spot in the middle of the hardwood floors, she could tell the internal winter was wixen made. She moved to step forward, brushing snow crystals from her cheeks when a partially hidden black mark stopped her. 

Slowly, she brushed away a thin coating of snow from a hidden crack in the flooring. From the center of where the storm had been to the tip of her boot, was a long, blackened lightning strike scorched into the wood. She knelt down, perplexed, to take a closer look. 

She traced a finger down the center of it, starting at the tail, and looked in awe at the patterns of snowflakes emblazoned in the frozen, clear ice filling the groove. 

A clatter had her whipping her head up, wand at the ready. 

She couldn’t sense anyone nearby. Slowly, Minerva stood from her crouch, wand alighting with a small lumos as her gaze turned piercing. The quiet white light bathed the house in an eerie glow, and the snowflakes hanging in the air glimmered like diamonds. 

There appeared to be no one left in the desolate house, yet, the sound had proved otherwise. She narrowed her eyes, looking for anything that could possibly have been the source of the commotion. 

Cautiously, she moved through the living room, feline reflexes keeping her hackles raised. 

The only possible explanation for the artificial winter was Harry Potter himself. There had been no alerts of any other wixen entering the Dursely’s home. As the alert had been for accidental, non-traceable magic, it could only have been him. 

Heart pounding, Minerva crept forwards to where she’d heard the sound. The feeling of the temperature plummeting further had her stopping in her tracks. He knew she was there. Behind her, a sudden shattering crash had her spinning in place, a silent protego thrown up as her eyes met the sight of a vase lying in pieces on the floor- the loud clattering of a door hitting a wall had her violently twisting again, sienna cloak fanning wide behind her as she spun. Her eyes flew wide as, over her shoulder, she caught the last sight of a blur disappearing into the kitchen. Her ears rang as the piercing sound of magic-made frost resonated within the frigid air. 

Feeling her blood race in her veins, Minerva watched the door to the stairwell cupboard swing creakily, and with a silent, surprised gasp, her lips parted in shock at the small footprints of frost that lead to the kitchen, where the blur had disappeared. 

Suddenly, she had an inkling as to what was going on. 

Still, as cautiously as she could, she strengthened her small warming charm and steadily followed the icy footprints to where she was certain Harry Potter was hiding. 

Harry was panicking. 

He struggled to pull his wild magic in and measure his rapid breaths as he tumbled into the dark kitchen, almost tripping in his haste to hide behind the small island. He fell to his hands and knees, scrabbling to press his back against the cabinets as he panted rapidly, every inhale and exhale harsh. His magic- turbulent and agitated- picked up around him in a quiet ripple, anxiously waiting. He felt the pressure behind his sternum grow. 

Feeling a spreading numbness in his fingertips, he ripped them away from the wood with a startled gasp, watching in the dark as the shock of ice from his touch crumbled slightly as he ripped his hands away. Shivering, he pulled them close to his chest and let out a shuddering breath that turned to fog in the air. Around him, pinpricks of light- stars- unfurled into life in the air like blooming lilies, bringing a quiet, conforming glow to his hiding place. Despite unconsciously creating the small fireflies, they brought him little ease. 

Outside the kitchen, he heard the stranger creep closer. 

In fear, he drew his knees closer to his chest and whipped his face away from peering around the edge of the island. Pupils shrinking to pinpricks in his terror, Harry jerked violently as he felt his magic stir again that day, growing and spreading out in a wave until it brushed the edge of the kitchen. With a frantic bearing of his teeth, he mentally slipped its fraying leash on and yanked- until it drew back to him, coming to gently spin in a silent column around him, waiting. 

Beyond the door, he heard the sound of boots crunching against frost. 

He bit his lip hard enough to leave teeth marks, and tentatively, reached out a tendril of his own magic to get a grasp of the newcomer. They were definitely magical- he’d been too busy distracting them by levitating the flower pot off the mantle so it would break to actively take any real account of the person, but he’d felt that hesitant shadow. 

The presence of other magic. 

Foreign magic. 

Letting the small flicker travel, he inhaled and froze when his aura brushed against the stranger's own. 

All of his fireflies fell away into candle smoke. 

Immediately, he pulled back into himself, and sat shaking against the island, the tile floor- coated in a thin layer of ice- freezing against his bare legs. Dudley’s old oversized shorts were only good for so much. 

The stranger- they hadn’t been hostile, but they’d been on edge. 

And they were so, so much older . 

From the brief brush of contact, he both simultaneously craved more and desperately wanted to run away. The stranger’s amber magic had felt wise; experienced and disciplined. Harry figured that whoever it was had a formal education in magic, given what the Hogwarts letter implied, and knew how to actually wield it. 

He swallowed thickly as he realized that, whoever it was, they could probably overtake him with ease. 

The sound of boots stepping onto tile, in resonance with the gentle spark from his charm as the stranger crossed the barrier into the kitchen, sent a lightning flash of fear down his spine. 

Panicked, his eyes darted over the kitchen he’d grown up in. 

The sink was in between him and the other magic wielder, and in consequence, the only window. He could try barricading himself into the laundry room, but that was also another dead end. From where he was, hiding against the cabinets across from the fridge, he had no means of escape. 

The thought was harrowing. 

A voice, words tilted oddly with a Scottish accent, pulled him from his frenzy. 

“Harry Potter?” 

He froze. 

The words were flowing, and oddly enough, curious. They held an edge to them that likely came from the same fear he himself felt, and chillingly, he held his breath. 

“Child, I mean you no harm.” 

The stranger- the woman- continued, and absently, Harry wondered if it could be a trick. After all, the letter had known his real name, had known the exact location of where he slept at night . 

Just because an old lady knew his name and said whatever pleasantries she did, did not mean he could trust her. 

Pointedly, he kept quiet. He was still; not daring to move lest he make a sound. 

He heard a sigh. 

“My name is Minerva McGonagall.” His mind paused. He knew that name. 

“I am deputy headmistress at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry- the letter we sent you detected large amounts of non-traceable magic. I will say it again; I mean you no harm, child.” 

Ten feet away, Harry Potter’s heart pounded. 

He had no reason to trust what any of what the woman was saying was true; but, her magic had been calm, her voice only cautious, and she had yet to attack. She knew of the letter- had been one of the people to sign it.

He didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to reach out a hand, only to be burned. 

But, what else was he possibly left with? 

Harry’s fingers tapped a staccato rhythm on the tile floor, and all his last reservations escaped his mind with a cloudy breath from his lungs. He threw caution to the wind, and, gathering humming fistfuls of his magic within his hands, turned around. 

Chapter Text

Emerald green eyes peaked just above the counter top and oh, all she could see was Lily. His eyes, big and green and so terribly timid eyed her warily. From what little of his face she could see, she could make out light swirls of frost that stood out against his dark cheeks. 

His wary, piercing stare bore into her eyes, and as he stood up a little further, Minerva got a better look at his face. 

The frost didn’t stop at his cheeks. 

For a moment, she only stood silently, marveling at just how much of his life she’d missed, until a pressing miasma of cold had her broadening her vision. The glimmering sight she caught of his magic, for better or for worse, stole her breath. 

The boy opposing her breathed out a snowy cloud, and like fog on a window pane, she could see it; his magic. It curled tight around him like a viper, blatantly unhidden and restless. The sheer size of it dwarfed him, and the power reminded her of a snowy serpent. With intangible frigid eyes that she knew couldn’t genuinely perceive her, it bore her down, and she suppressed a shiver. It was wild.

But most of all, it was not right.

Bringing a shaking hand to press against her mouth lest she shudder out a faint cry, Minerva found she couldn’t tear her eyes away she’d known something was off when she’d first seen the boy; he’d used his magic too loosely, felt it too strongly- yet, she had figured, assumed even, that with his powerful parentage, he’d just been particularly keen to mange sight. 

She hadn’t thought- had never thought- that he could be... it. A cursed abomination a half step away from humanity and a single blind leap away from destruction.

For it was plain to any witch what the boy across from her was. The only question was, ‘how is he alive?’  

For Harry Potter was an obscurial.  

Minverva McGonagall brought a hand to her face, and looked at him with horror. 

Harry did the only thing he could think of. 

He ran. 

Throwing his arms forwards with an opening snap of his hands, a forceful wave of icy magic shot towards McGonagall, intending to shove her to the side so he could slip by. He wasn’t expecting the woman to whip forth a real, live wand and send it snapping up in a rapid arc. 

As he spun out from behind the kitchen island, feet skidding on frost crystals of his own making, he watched the professor defend herself with a brilliant golden shield of magical conjuring. The force of his own attack still pushed her aside several feet, but by the time he had moved she had recovered. He ducked as she again snapped her wand outwards, and in a burst of relieved adrenaline, kept moving as nothing happened. 

From the corner of his eyes, he watched her gaze narrow in critical perplexity, and her mouth open. 

“Murum aquarum! ” She shouted, and Harry stumbled as the frost on the walls liquefied, his eyes growing wide. Suddenly, the doorway to the living room was a living wall of rippling water. He backpedaled before he could tumble through it, and in his panic, slipped. 

Falling to the frost covered ground, he twisted, and upon realizing that he couldn't stop before his collision with the water, brought a swell of his eager magic to channel through his fingers. Thrusting out his hands desperately, Harry thought of scorching, unforgivable heat, and braced his shoulders for the inevitable harsh impact.

The towering wall of water above him hissed loudly as his hands met waves, and the the shock of his hands colliding with the once doorway sent jarring pressure through his arms; steam tumbled through his open fingers, and blowing out a breath of icy air as harshly as he could, Harry blew it away from his face. 

Above him, the tower of water remained intact, but began to collapse around him as he tumbled through. He gasped in something akin to delight as he picked himself up from the floor to continue his manic flight from the kitchen. 

Reaching in his core, he began to pull taunt on his magic, starting to demand  it take him somewhere else, when he heard a shrill cry. 

“Ligare lux!”

Something caught his arms in a winding grip, and he jerked to a painful stop with a cry as his arms pulled roughly at his shoulders. 

He looked behind himself frantically to see the sight of McGonagall blasting her way through the cloud of steam he’d created, left hand splayed in a balancing act as her right held out her wand. Twin beams of light wrapped pouring from her wand tip rushed up to their place twisted around his forearms to pull his hands behind his back like bridal reigns. With a rough sound ripping its way from his throat, he strained against the bindings. When nothing gave, he squeezed his eyes shut tight and let his clenched palms crackle with energy. 

“Cease-!” McGonagall was cut off as he dug his feet in and strained. In retaliation, a strong yank had him slipping to his knees, and he fell to the floor with a yell. Fists sparking and fizzing with magic, he let his hands splay wide in one rapid movement, and bolts of electricity coursed down the twin ropes of light. 

McGonagall shouted in shock, and suddenly, Harry felt the bindings slacken. Taking his chance, he pushed himself up from the floorboards and resumed his sprint for the front door. He was so close- he could see the foyer-!

Rumbled words ruined any hope he had of fleeing. 

“Supplanta ad kitchen!”  

He shrieked when a scorching wave of magic washed over himself, and spun wildly in his place when he found himself jolted back into the middle of the kitchen, as if he’d moved like an elastic rubber band. 

Harry watched as McGonagall appeared with a sharp crack right in front of him, and felt his shoulders tense as he watched her wand dribble red sparks onto the tiled floor. Even ready to subdue him, she stood tall, wand held low in front of herself and chin held regally high.

Whipping around, his eyes darted around the kitchen for anything to use in even a pathetic defense. In a last resort, he splayed his fingers and, eyes shining in desperation, gathered the force of his magic at the ready. Coiling, it fell around him in a heavy, iridescent shimmer. 

The woman only stared back at him with sad eyes, alight with interest. 

The air in his lungs so cold it burned, Harry tensed, and waited. 

McGonagall lowered her wand. 

“Quite done, yet?” She murmured, not unkind, and absently straightened her cloak, brushing off a few stray snowflakes along her auburn cloaked shoulders. 

At her words, Harry’s brow furrowed. 

“Done?” He whispered. McGonagall frowned. 

“Yes. Are you done running?” 

He felt a new lattice of frost forming around his bare feet, and pulled his arms close, hands rippling the air around them with the dying thrumming hum of his magic. Around him, it coiled like an eastern dragon; unsettled, but growing still. His eyes darted to the door, and with an inkling of shame, Harry nodded his head curtly. His legs stayed tense as he lowered his hands to his sides. 

“...Good.” McGonagall paused. “I must say, this isn’t usually how house visits go,” she said, and tilting his head up, Harry watched her arch a brow. Aside from a light twitch, her face was stoic. Something inside of him didn’t believe her. The corner of her lips quirked up, likely in a feint for some reassurance, and Harry felt lost. 

She was lying, somehow. 

Not with her words, but with her face. She smiled, where before she had grimaced in horror; she was stoic, where she’d been fearful. 

It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Feeling his lower lip begin to tremble, he swallowed roughly and blinked away the burning in his eyes. 

Whatever the woman before him decided to do with him, he couldn’t stop her. 

But everything she’d done so far had been pacifying. She’d never once outright gone on the offensive; the entire fight they’d shared, she’d been trying to contain him. 

She hadn’t wanted to fight him at all, Harry realized with a small jolt as McGonagall took a small step towards him. 

Whole body trembling, Harry thought back to the day he’d met the cat. 

He had to try again.

Hesitantly, more so then even the brief brush he’d initiated before, he reached out with a faint swirl of magic. He could feel the edges of her own, and thinking back on the spark he’d received when he’d done it minutes before, Harry pushed away his timidity, breathed out shakily, and reached. 

His frigid magic brushed against McGonagall’s, her own a shining, burning amber, and he felt more than heard her gasp at the sparking contact. 

Instantly, a drowning wave of intense sorrow and anguish overtook him and he felt the breath push from his chest in a forced, choked exhale. He stumbled under the weight of the joy- and grief? And the terror, not of him but for him- 

Harry fell to his knees, snapping the contact like a twig. Trembling, he lifted his face to her’s, and watched her fall back the step she’d taken, cloak rustling gently around her as she moved. Pale sunlight filtered through the window behind her, and he drank in the surprise, shock, and astonishment all warring on her face. 

There’d been nothing- 

Absolutely no malice.

Harry panted heavily as an intense wave of fatigue hit him, and plummeted to his hands as it became terribly laborious to sit upright. The clacking sound of heeled boots on tile rushed towards him, only to stop when the person they belonged to met the shimmering shield his magic rushed to throw up on it’s own to protect him. Rapidly, he could feel its power waning. Belatedly, Harry realized with a wheeze that this was the most magic he’d ever consciously used before, and with a breathy, disbelieving laugh, shuddered as a horrible shiver racked his body. 

His left arm collapsed from under him, and he went down hard onto his side, chest heaving with exertion. Sweat dripped down the side of his head, only to freeze before it left his hair. Eyes beginning to flutter shut, he caught sight of the last thinning shimmers of his magic’s barrier falling, and the terribly worried face of McGonagall rushing close before he couldn’t stand to keep his eyes open any longer.

Harry felt the semblance of hands on his head and chest before his sensation of touch paled. He was lifted slightly, and as his head fell, his arms dangled uselessly at his sides. Spoken words above him became drowned under tons and tons of water, and his grasp on reality slipped away. 

The darkness of sleep opened it’s maws, and swallowed him whole. 

Chapter Text

His mind arose in hazy, brief consciousness to the rapid movement of someone else. He felt arms tighten around him, and blearily, his mind registered that he was being carried. Harry winced as he was jostled, and heard a muttered curse as the person holding him righted themselves from their slight stumble. 

His magic hummed dimly in a place far and distance to him for the first time since he’d broken. Confused, he tried to reach for it, and felt his despair grow when it did not come to his beckoning call. Tears welled up in his eyes, still closed, and beneath the leaden exhaustion he felt, he wanted to yell. He desperately reached for it again, only to feel the barest spark brush his mental fingertips. Immediately, his entire body relaxed in relief.

It was still there. 

He was jostled again- repositioned in firm arms, and Harry felt his hazy clarity bleed away. 

There was a reality warping snap, a dizzy sensation, and then an implosion of foreign olde magic all around him. 

His eyes rolled back into his head and his body fell into dead weight. 

Somewhere distant, he could hear shouting. 

Harry’s brows twitched, a slight movement of dreamy confusion from a yet unawakened mind. Still mostly asleep, he turned his head to the direction of the noise, and felt the plush, soft pillow beneath his cheeks. Far away, he thought it felt nice- like a cloud, if clouds were something to be touched, under the heavy weight of what he assumed was a blanket. 

He wondered if all pillows felt like this. The Dursely’s living room pillows certainly didn’t. 

Thundering steps pounded down a hallway near him, and the shouting rose in volume, still sealed away behind a door or two. Harry’s nose wrinkled, and next to his tilted head on his pillow, the fingers of his palm open hand twitched in a barely there call. 

His magic reached back. 

He could feel it- hesitant, a mere echo of what he knew it to be. His lower lip trembled at the faint contact, and his eyelashes fluttered as he felt a wisp of it dissolve within the weight of the cozy comfort around him. He frowned slightly, and rising a mere sliver further to wakefulness, absently questioned the weight pressing around him. 

It faded if he didn’t put it inside of his direct focus, and unlike the actual blanket covering him (the first blanket- real blanket- that he’d ever had on top of him), it didn’t possess the same physical sensation. It was more...fluid. Translucent. 

Somewhere in his drowsy mind, he remembered being struck harshly with a wave of intense old magic. He sunk further into his pillows, and sighed as he felt the same force- once shocking- curl gently around him, now only cozy. 

He heard a door slam from miles away. 

The pillow felt so, so nice. 

He drifted away again. 

Minerva McGonagall was furious. 

The bellowing thunder of her boots echoing on loud stone floors almost drowned out the sound of her once mentor’s belligerent excuses. 

“It would have been wrong, Minerva-!” 

“NO!” She roared, and whirled on Albus in the middle of her wrathful stalk past the infirmary towards the man’s office, her sienna cloak fanning around her. 

“What was wrong was that you let that boy- that child , Albus! Turn into a monster!” Her words fizzled with liquid fury, sizzling like hot metal dunked into ice water. Before her, Albus slumped. 

“Minerva, I couldn’t have known,” he pleaded, and Minerva wondered if steam was pouring from her mouth. She felt like the dragons the school had once used in the triwizard tournament. Vengeful. She knew he was not being entirely truthful still, and it seared like a red hot fire poker. 

Since she had carefully rested Harry Potter on a hospital wing mattress, limp and unconscious and so drained it ached, Minerva had hidden shaking fingers, trembling with rage. She had silently closed the hospital wing doors with firm resolution to call Poppy in later that day, feeling her unmeasurable anger towards her life long coworker- partner, in so much for decades now- grow to the point she couldn't control it with every word that he spoke. 

“He was completely magically drained; there was no way to have sensed it from him, and I stand by that it is wrong to use legilimency on humans that have no defense-” 

“No defense?” Minerva yelled. “No defense?!  Where are your priorities?!” 

She squeezed her fists tightly and prayed to whomever was listening that her self control extended enough to prevent her from pulling her wand on him. Narrowing her eyes in a blistering scowl, Minerva seethed. 

“You had every reason to look into Petunia Dursley’s mind a year ago! You said, Merlin, you said months ago that she’d seemed resentful-” she whipped her hands to her sides, gesticulating her ferocious ire in a way that her words could not. 

“A resentful guardian is plenty enough reason to pry! The boy was apparently in the hospital drained of his magic for Danu’s sake!” She shrieked, and felt correct in her tantrum when Albus lowered his head in defeat. Minerva wanted to scream- she felt anger boil in her belly until she felt like she subsisted of a volcano. Her skin only prickled angrily when every snide comment or remark of the man standing before her Severus had ever made arose in her mind with all the viciousness of an unforgivable. 

She should have questioned- followed the spark of doubt she’d felt- that Severus had hissed of- eleven months ago when Albus had told her the story. She’d known something had been off, from his carefully selected words, his poised speech- and yet, she’d trusted him enough to let it slide. She had faithfully believed him, set aside her college's oddly scathing words with the simple mindset that he was still bitter, only to come to find out from his own slip of a tongue mere minutes earlier that he had lied- if only by omission- about the entire incident last year. 

“Did you even properly ask what had happened? From the source, no less?” She demanded, her enraged, disbelieving expression withering as Albus looked away. 

Her trust in him collapsed. 

“...No,” she hissed, and with clawed fingers, felt a viciousness she had never quite felt before. 

“I will admit, Petunia was rather unforthcoming and vague, with her answers. She merely described it as a fit of accidental magic, as I told you last summer-”

“And neglected the insignificant detail that it landed them in the hospital!” 

“And we’ve discussed this, Minerva- the boy should have a chance to be separated from our society before his life is altered by his fame-” 

“And how many times have I warned you of your foolish delusion backfiring?! Danu almighty the child was performing massive feats of accidental magic at ten and you still wish to let him have his supposed ‘normalcy?” 

She sighed harshly, and pressed a poised hand to her nose as she felt a blinding headache begin to pound. Beginning the walk up to the headmaster’s office, Minerva grumbled to herself, something deep within her shaking from the shock of a plunge into ice water.

“Mórrígan help us all if you didn’t even send someone to check up on him in the last year…” 

Behind her- thankfully cowed enough to resign from walking beside her- Albus tilted his head and muttered something, hands clasped together behind his back. Minerva’s eye twitched.

“Would you care to repeat that,” she voiced, words as sharp as they were flat. 

“...There was Miss Fig,” he said, hands smoothing down his robes, and Minerva clapped a hand over her eyes with a drawn out bemoaning of everything. 

“Oh, there was Miss Fig!”   She cried, and fuming, quickened her pace. 

“Minerva, please, I was trying to do what was best for the boy-” 

“What was best?!”   She spit, once again whipping around to face her superior in a heated rage of disbelief. 

“The boy is an obscurial!” She shrieked, and through all her wrath, her voice broke. She leaned her head forwards, hat tipping on her head, and covered her face with her hands. In front of her as she shook with sorrow, with agonizing anger, Albus was silent. 

“When did your judgement begin to fail you, Albus?” She quietly asked, and didn’t pay any mind to the tremor that had begun to lace her whispered words. The headmaster remained silent. 

Minerva inhaled deeply, breathed out a hot breath, and lowered her shoulders as she looked up. 

The sight that greeted her was not one that she ever wanted to see. 

Albus looked sad. 

Pained.

She wondered how his failed judgement was affecting him, as well; surely, it could not be easy to know that your own failure to act on something you could have prevented had created a dangerous situation? A dangerous being?  

The thought brought bubbling, heart wrenching frustration as she contemplated his lies. 

“I don’t know,” he murmured. 

Minerva turned around. 

Idly, she straightened her robes, and felt the last of her explosive anger drain away, until all she was left with was cooling embers. Whispers of words she had never thought to look at in a different light hushed in her head, in her ears, and Minerva felt tired. In all her life, she had always thought his ire to be insolence spit from bitter resentment and shame; the residual anger and loss of a schoolboy that had been forced into a life he'd never wanted. She'd never thought Severus might have ever questioned their terribly fearless leader truthfully; had always thought that his resentment hadn't existed separate from his admiration. 

She tugged on her collar. 

She must have thought wrong. 

“Well, until it returns, I am taking control of Hari Potter’s situation as deputy headmistress of this school.” Her words brokered no room for argument. She heard an old jaw click shut. 

“I would like to discuss this further, Albus. But not now.” She sighed. Rubbed her face. 

“...I am agreeable, Minerva. Perhaps…” The man faltered, and Minerva knew him well enough to know that he was likely thinking about the next step, the next plans, what to change in the future so the past could not repeat so disastrously again. She'd heard the beginning tone of that word so much, in her life. Every beginning summer, every derailment in plan, every time Albus walked too far away for them to grab. 

“Perhaps it is best, that you handle him.” 

Maybe, she thought, it was the reason they were in this mess in the first place. 

“Very well,” she said curtly, and without turning around to look at him, marched away to gather the proper documents necessary to garner access to Harry’s legal files, as well as the previous copies James had left her with. 

She had some things she wanted to confirm, and a staff meeting to schedule.  

Her shaky hands clutched the manila parchment in her elderly fingers; fighting to keep a solid hold within her rising anger. 

The words stared back at her without a single forgiving motion. An utter mockery of the events they had sought to prevent. 

Minerva wanted to snarl. But mostly, she wanted to cry. 

She could have fixed all of this, is she had only managed to move past her own grief. 

If she hadn't let consoling words allow her to escape from her own responsibilities. 

Inhaling deeply and swiftly, she exhaled through clenched teeth and anguish and gently set the paper down on her large, mahogany desk, her shoulders swooping inward. Hooded eyes shifting to look out of her tower window, she watched the clouds roll quietly passed, and felt the sparking tang of something far beyond just simple ire pierce her tongue and dread curdle low in her stomach. 

Albus had lied about far more than she’d thought- and she'd been no better. 

A simple ping of red stars caught in her vision, and she snapped her head up from her newfound fog of misery to see the sight of her wand twirling on an axis in the air as it spit red sparks. Minerva ran still shaky hands down her sienna robes, smoothing them out, before she gave her head a short shake and reached up to readjust her hat. 

She could do nothing about the past mistakes now. But she could fix the future before her. 

She grabbed her wand, the sparking ceasing, and placed the will she'd never fully read back in the desk drawer that magically appeared at whatever office desk she owned whenever she sought it out. Her important files sank back into darkness, and Minerva turned on her heel to rush back down to the great hall. 

Hidden away from sunlight once again, Lily and James’ will, bearing damning words that Minerva had never before seen until they’d gazed up at her from the aged parchment under the piercing agony of her own eyes, along with a small, quill written note from Albus ‘I’ll explain myself later,’  Dumbledore, sat silent. 

"Minerva," he had softly murmured, mere days after their deaths, understanding and comforting and lying - "I can handle the responsibilities. You don't have to put yourself through that grief." 

"Thank you," she had sobbed, allowing him to slip the only half read will from her fingertips, wracking with shudders and shakes from her cries. "I- Thank you." 

"Of course," Albus had murmured, and quietly folded away pristine white parchment as they stood in Minerva's living room, grieving the loss of two people she had come to love so terribly deeply.

Her boots were loud in stone halls. The words “Our son is to be kept within the magical world; under no circumstance is he to be placed with Lily Potter nee Evan’s relatives”  were loud in her mind. Her guilt was all consuming in her belly. 

Minerva pushed the crashing, deafening, guilty thought away and quickened her pace to the hospital wing, empty, save for one little boy that she had failed twice, now. 

A last few red sparks spilled onto the ground behind her as she walked, pace quickened. 

Harry Potter was awake.