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Harry paused at the door to her apartment, her mouth dry. The ritual she and Dom had performed that morning still didn't feel entirely real. Despite knowing that it had happened, the memories of him rising from the cauldron and walking around her lab for the first time still felt faintly surreal.
She shivered, glancing over her shoulder to look up and down the darkened hallway.
Early afternoon was the best time for coming and going at the lodge if she didn't want to run into anybody who might wonder about how she'd magically come by a whole other human, but she was still paranoid about it. It would be bitterly ironic if she'd finally succeeded in giving Dom a physical form only for him to end up immediately bitten by a vampire.
With a bracing exhale, Harry finally pushed the door open and stepped into her living room.
Dom's new form drew her attention like a magnet. He lounged like a king on the beat-up cushions of her ancient sofa, the fabric of his robes—a bright silver he'd chosen before they'd done the embodiment ritual—standing out against the grimy velvet.
It wasn't something Rigel Black would have ever worn, but the all-too-familiar face that smirked back at her when she made eye contact still sent a crawling feeling down her spine.
It had been six years since she'd seen that face, but it still felt like hers.
Harry knew, intellectually, that Dom's version was different. He looked older, for one thing, somewhere vaguely in his late teens or early twenties instead of fourteen, and his hair fell past his shoulders—far longer than Rigel had ever worn it. There was a little more sharpness to his cheekbones, a little more heaviness to his eyebrows and eyelashes, a touch more melanin to his skin—but the equation of his features was still the same. The slight androgyny in his jawline; the typical pureblood delicacy of his nose and lips, the Potter chin.
Harry had grown used to seeing that face on Archie—Dom had even worn it himself when he'd first been bound in her mindscape—but it was still disconcerting.
The one thing that kept her grounded was the way he wore it, a languid confidence that was all himself.
"Hello beautiful," he purred, propping up his chin with one hand and blinking at her.
Harry could have laughed at just how ridiculous he looked, but she brushed her amusement aside under her annoyance, rolling her eyes.
"Absolutely no one is going to believe you're me."
Dom dismissed her concern with a gesture and a smirk. "I'm not being you. I'm being Rigel. Nobody's seen him in six years; they won't surprised by a few personality changes."
Harry rubbed at her forehead. "I have a feeling they'll be very surprised, actually, if Rigel comes back and he's suddenly an insufferable flirt."
"Only the people who knew you," he said with a movement somewhere between a shrug and rolling his shoulders. "Don't you remember Romantic Rigel? You have a reputation."
"The people who knew me are the ones it's going to be most important to fool," snapped Harry. They wouldn't be the only ones, or even the first—not if Dom stuck with his plan of taking the American ministry up on their offer of asylum—but if she knew them at all, there was no way they wouldn't seek him out as soon as they heard he'd resurfaced. "If you're not going to take this seriously—"
"Shh," he held up a silencing finger, giving her a one-second smile before his expression melted into something more serious. "Just because they're surprised doesn't mean they won't believe it. And it won't be sudden. I think you're vastly underestimating both the human capacity for change and your extreme truth bias. Your friends will be suspicious of many things," he raised an eyebrow. "The fact that I am who I say I am is very unlikely to be one of them. Especially given how much I know that supposedly only Rigel Black knew."
Harriet swallowed. He sounded certain. She wished she knew if it was because he really was, or if he was only trying to fool her into thinking so.
"You don't want to believe me because you want to believe they knew you better than that;" he continued, voice taking on a tone of solemnity. "But they will."
The pronouncement hung over for them for a moment.
"If it helps," he added, adding a quirk to his smile, "The reason they're going to accept me so easily is that they care about you enough to keep caring about you even if you grow and change."
"Do me a favor," she blurted out. "Stay away from Draco and Pansy."
"I'll keep my distance," he said, standing up.
He met her eyes for a moment. "I am going to have to interact with them, though."
Her lips were dry as she pressed them together. "That's fine. It was a silly request, anyway."
Dom rested a hand on her shoulder, and it felt alien there. Too warm. Too real. "It's in your best interest. You're the one who wrote the runes binding me as your protector."
Harry cringed away. "You know I couldn't remove those."
Something lit up in his eyes, and he took a step closer into her personal space, running the tip of his tongue over his lips. "So you tried, then? Seems like that would have been a bit dangerous, wouldn't it?"
Harry froze under his gaze, skin of her face and ears rapidly heating. The physical sensation made it hard to think, and an awkward extra moment passed.
He didn't look away from her. Harry had always thought that 'Rigel's' grey eyes were dull compared to her own, but Dom's intensity turned them piercing.
"You know I would," she said as she finally regained control of her own throat. "You have more of a personality now than just what was in that gemstone. I'd like to think by this point we're actually friends." She twisted the fabric of her sleeve between her fingers. "And that means you wouldn't run off and try to destroy the world as soon as I let you off your leash."
As soon as she spoke, she knew that leash had been the wrong word by the way he immediately flinched, but the reaction was hidden in an instant, papered over by a dangerous grin convincing enough she couldn't quite tell if it was real or fake. "Well. Fortunately your leash doesn't stop me from completely undermining the government of magical Britain."
Harry sighed. "This is such a bad idea."
"It's an excellent idea," he said. "With the effect your story has had on the half-blood and muggleborn rights movements it would be a waste not to leverage it."
"It wouldn't be," she argued half-heartedly. "You deserve a chance to leave your life how you want to live it, without getting involved in all this."
He gave her an unimpressed look. "Harry. Please. You know me."
She let out a soft chuckle. "I guess I do."
There was no universe in which Dom could both exist and not embroil himself in the rising political conflict sweeping through Europe and North America. She supposed she could only be glad her Dom had developed something resembling morals and was on their side.
"I'll—" She wet her dry mouth, and for a moment second guessed what she was about to say before she continued. "I'll miss you"
It was harder to say than it should've been—after all, he'd been her constant companion for years—but something about the knowledge that in a few hours he would be gone made it harder to part with the words.
His eyes went wide for just a second before he caught himself and scoffed, tossing his hair back over his shoulder. "As if that was ever in doubt."
Her lips quirked upward. "I suppose it wasn't."
"You'll visit;" he declared, more of a command than a request. "I'm sure I'll be able to wrangle myself diplomatic immunity of some sort eventually, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to wait that long."
"Confident, are you?" She smirked.
"Please," he said with a wave of his hand. "I've been doing this for centuries. I might have to take over the country first, but that's just details."
Harriet groaned. "Maybe I won't miss you. Maybe I'll be glad America has taken you off my hands."
He glared at her, aristocratic eyebrows arched just enough to tell her he was joking. "You'd better."
"I will."
Her gaze fell to her feet. It was hitting a little too close to home, with the truth that, really, this was effectively goodbye hanging heavy over her.
He joked about wanting to see her, but she found herself wondering just how much he really would. If it was even in his nature. He'd made himself happy living in her head, but how much of that would still matter to him now that he had the entire world at his fingertips?
(Setting him free had been the right decision. Harry didn't doubt that. But she did wonder how much the selfish part of her was going to regret it.)
"Here." She swallowed, reaching into her pocket to withdraw something she hadn't held in years—her pheonix-feather wand. It warmed at her touch, sending starburst-sparks of feeling down her fingertips like soda bubbles. Her heart caught in her throat as the feeling connected to something inside her that had long been dormant. It was enough to make her hesitate before holding it out to him.
But she had to let it go.
Goodbye wand, she thought to her magic and the wood, hoping the message would go through. You have been a good companion. I thank you for everything.
It would be happier with Dom. In fact, he was the one person it might be most happy with, with his magical signature that had been born from hers.
It was Rigel Black's wand.
"I'll have fun watching the chaos you wreak together," she said. Wet her lips. "From a safe distance."
Dom took the wand, fingers brushing hers as he did, and she felt another spark as they both touched the wood at the same time, this one strong enough to sting
"From a safe distance."
There was something tight in his answering expression that Harry found unreadable.
She laughed, and it sounded too loud in the otherwise-empty room. "I'm not your wielder anymore Dom. I doubt I could even keep up with you."
He took a step closer to her, close enough for him to see his irises up close, the grey reflecting like liquefied marble. "I think," he breathed. "That perhaps you're the only one who could."
Inches away. That was how close he was. The intimacy of it was enough to syncopate her thinking, breaking it down into stutters, and it was only a few seconds later that she realized it wasn't just her, that he was, objectively, very close.
She choked. Then took a step backwards when the choke turned to a cough, burying her face in her elbow.
(Hello beautiful, he'd said when she'd walked into the room and she'd almost laughed. Almost laughed because it was funny, because there was no way he'd ever—)
"Harry?"
His voice was colored with concern, and she couldn't bring herself to look upward, for fear of what she might find there.
"I'm fine, Dom," she said, inside of her head still screaming. "Just… surprised, that's all."
He flushed.
He actually flushed, cheeks going blotchy and red.
Something in her stomach flip-flopped.
She'd never seen Dom blush before.
(Of course she hadn't. Blushing was an involuntary response. A human response)
"Right." He took a mechanical step backwards.
"I guess this is goodbye then."
She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth--it was too soon, still, they weren't finished--but they had already been said.
"Yes," he said. "I suppose it is."
Before she could think better if it, Harriet took a quick step forward and pulled him into a hug
"I'll see you," she repeated. A wish. A promise.
He was stiff under her arms at first, from both surprise and inexperience, but after a couple of seconds, he wrapped his arms around her and lightly squeezed her back.
They would see each other again.
And when they did—
Maybe, by then, she would know what to do with this.
But even if she didn't, she knew she would still look forward to it.