Chapter Text
Molly and Arthur Weasley won the grand prize Galleon draw shortly after their five younger children returned from Hogwarts.
In another world, they might have cheerfully taken the lot of them to Egypt to visit their brother Bill. In this world, though, it’s not just Ginny who had come home with a pile of trauma stacked on top of her, who would have found it cheering under those circumstances to have a safer adventure with her happy family. It’s also Ron, grim and quiet, who fought a basilisk; Fred and George, uncharacteristically skittish, who spent nearly two months Petrified; and Percy, so proud of Ron that he might catch fire with it and also barely sleeping, consumed with disappointment in himself, scouring his books for a way to do better next time.
(The picture of them in the Prophet, celebrating the lottery win, was strangely lifeless; none of the children looked quite as excited as you’d expect. In another world, there would be a rat on Ron’s shoulder, missing a toe, poised to kick off quite a few events. But in this world, Peter Pettigrew was long gone, Marauder’s Map in hand, and Ron had been a little too distracted to notice.)
So instead Molly and Arthur spent most of the money to pay for Bill and Charlie to take a very long vacation, because the kids needed their older brothers right now, and they went to visit newly retired Auror Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, the most expert available expert on the topic of being paranoid enough.
Mad-Eye frowned thoughtfully at the gaggle of redheads. “A basilisk, huh?”
“I got as many mirrors as I could but it wouldn’t let me - “ started Ginny, eyes darting anxiously around as if to verify that nothing had moved between blinks.
The twins were pacing in a circle around the others. “We did what Charlie said -" " -transfigured one but -" "- we really should have known-" "- so weird all year - "
Percy despaired, “if I had just had a little more power - ”
Ron didn’t speak, just sort of stared into the middle distance.
Arthur gestured silently, to a very concerned Bill and Charlie and a fascinated Mad-Eye. You see what I’m dealing with here, his helpless shrug said, as they talked over each other, as disconnected attempts to describe what had happened faded off into the quiet mumble of traumatized children who aren’t quite sure how to say I did my best and it wasn’t really enough, please advise.
“Right,” said Mad-Eye, nodding sharply. “Let’s have some tea, kids. Today we’re going to talk about contingency plans.”
Sirius Black smiled disarmingly at Cornelius Fudge, and the unsettled minister handed over his newspaper willingly enough. The headline was an article about Gilderoy Lockhart’s memorial, which had taken a while to arrange as he’d had no close relatives and the disposition of his estate apparently got bogged down in a fight between several distant cousins. There was a photograph of the Weasleys a few pages in, a gaggle of strangely grim children whose parents kept glancing anxiously at them in between trying to smile for the camera. Sirius hadn’t seen anyone look any happier than that in twelve years, so it didn’t strike him as odd, and he flipped past it without a second glance.
He did the crossword, scraping faint letters into the page with a ragged long fingernail. He read every article in the paper, because at least it was something new. Eventually the novelty wore off, and he curled back up in the corner, a ragged canine shadow, to contemplate how bullshit it was that he didn’t get to drag Wormtail into this hell with him because he’d blown himself up like a cowardly asshole.
And he stayed there, cold and miserable.
Because sure, in another world his escape from Azkaban - contrary to popular opinion at the time - had not really been related at all to Harry Potter, who was in this world nowhere to be found. What it did have to do with, though, was a coincidence. Coincidences are fragile, flighty things.
It might be a while yet, before there would come another.
Hermione had spent the summer (in between smiling at Viktor’s excited letters about the Bulgarian national Quidditch team’s training camp), telling various Slytherins what a terrible hassle it had turned out to be to try to keep Muggle pets. This involved a great deal of smiling glassily and laughing on cue at Theodore’s scripted joke about how much happier she is with a Kneazle but there’s no convincing Durmstrang kids not to learn all their own mistakes, ha ha.
She did sincerely love Crookshanks, who was her reward for keeping a straight face through the pretrial hearing when Jared Nott was hauled up on a Statute violation (Augusta Longbottom, as promised, got the charges dropped, winking conspiratorially at Hermione and Theodore on her way into the Floo), but by the third or fourth time she’d told a funny anecdote about this or that classmate getting gruesomely injured and shrugged self-deprecatingly about how easy it is to forget that real life hazards don’t have a mediwitch on standby, it had become an increasingly painful effort not to hex someone over the way they laughed about her “misadventure.”
The “official” story was that the Muggles, to whom she was definitely not actually related in any way, had tried to go to the press, and Old Nott had of course very responsibly Obliviated them immediately, before they could do any real harm. Lucius Malfoy, supposedly, had started this whole trial by reporting what he thought was a much more grievous violation because he had been totally understandably misled by Augusta Longbottom playing a bit of a fun prank; she’d showed up in court to cheerfully apologize for the misunderstanding. The suspicious squinting of various Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors very visibly thinking well, I like and trust Augusta and assume she has a good reason she wants us to think that but there is no way she would actually admit that if it was true?? had been a sight to behold.
The semi-unofficial story, i.e. the one they wanted everyone to think they were covering up with what they’d told the Aurors, and had assembled a number of scripted “slips” and oblique references toward that end, was that the Muggles had hospitalized her about it and Malfoy had found out from his contacts at St. Mungo’s. Malfoy, it is understood, would have been quite unwilling to admit in court that he’d blatantly ignored patient privacy laws; of course in reality it was more that he was unwilling to admit to any of the series of events involving several teenagers breaking into his house, but either way he was happy to take the out that he’d been so helpfully handed. Especially since he’d been let to catch wind that the Muggles were dead, meaning whatever benefit they might have secretly contained was now gone. It was very unclear to Hermione whether Nott knew that Madam Longbottom had spirited them away; she hadn't admitted to it, exactly.
Of course, speaking of, it was an open question, enthusiastically gossiped about and speculated upon, what exactly the Notts might have bribed the old vulturewitch with. Hermione, because Nott thought this was incredibly funny, had been brightly telling everyone that actually she’d just asked nicely. This was essentially accurate, modulo Theodore’s terrifying adventure that he wasn’t allowed to talk about, and therefore absolutely no one believed it. “Oh yeah,” Theodore would say, with just enough sarcasm to make it sound even sillier, “she totally convinced Longbottom with pure innocence and the power of friendship.”
“Next she’ll be trying to make friends with her house-elves,” giggled Draco, elbowing Hermione in a skin-crawlingly friendly manner.
“Maybe I’ll just steal yours,” she said, smiling with some difficulty and elbowing him back, “you’re so mean to it.”
“Ooooooh,” cackled Pansy, “you better watch out, Draco! You might lose your broomstick too if you don’t give it enough treats!”
Oh, it’s too late for giving your slave a hug and a pastry to save you, you and everything you’ve ever loved will be ashes barely meriting a footnote in the annals of history if I have anything to say about it, Hermione didn’t say. She forced a polite laugh instead, because someday if she lived long enough she could make it so, but today was not that day.
Somewhere in Albania, a man who was a rat was cowering before a snake.
“What a turn of events,” the snake was saying, slithering around him with interest. Its voice was like the horrible rattle of a revenant filtered through a dozen layers of burnt snakeskin. “Of all my servants, you! ”
“Y-y-yes, my lord. I have e-e-ever been loyal t-t-to your cause.”
“And yet, twelve years have been and gone.”
This was somewhat awkward to explain, given that in fact Wormtail had returned to his most recent master not because he was all that devoted but because his hiding strategy was getting dangerously close to catastrophic failure. Bringing him the Marauders’ Map could perhaps be best characterized as an attempt to avoid being horribly murdered, more than a statement of political intent. But he had done it, and here he was committing to this plan instead of the ‘turn himself in to Dumbledore and pray to not be Kissed’ plan, so. He took a deep breath. Voldemort’s opinion on his servants stammering in terror varied with the winds but he didn’t seem in the mood for it today. “My lord, I came as soon as I had extracted something valuable from my, erm, subterfuge.”
“Of course you did,” said the snake, somehow managing to convey the impression of an unimpressed raise of the eyebrows he absolutely did not have.
Pettigrew waited patiently for further instruction, since this wasn’t a question.
Eventually Voldemort explained, at some length and with considerable drama, that, for reasons, he required an Enemy. But, unfortunately, his Enemies were generally safely ensconced in the impregnable fortress of Hogwarts, under the protection of that damnable Hero™, Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore. (He spat the name like it was a curse, and after losing his very comfortable retirement to the headmaster’s apparent inability to control Hogwarts’ shenanigans, Pettigrew didn’t even have to try that hard to make an agreeably hateful face.)
Pettigrew considered this problem, and his options, and the bridges he had certainly burned too far to ever recover them even if he were to try to turn sides again and somehow get out of going to Azkaban for the rest of his life or worse, and said, “well - “
In another world, Percy Weasley would have been shoving his way pompously through the crowds, declaring his academic status with every breath, expecting deference and fuming as his brothers refused to give it. In this world, though, he had had entirely too many responsibilities thrust upon him before he was quite ready, and he had grown tired of seeking the approval of adults who did not come to his aid when disaster loomed. He no longer particularly wanted the admiration of his classmates. In this world, therefore, no one knew quite for sure who the Head Boy was until they convened for the prefects’ meeting at the front of the train.
At that point, however, absolutely no one was actually surprised to see Percy rise to his considerable height - at seventeen, with the gangly Weasley genes, he cleared two meters - and say, with quiet finality, “There will be no nonsense this year.”
There was a somewhat awkward silence.
The Slytherin prefects exchanged glances. None of them particularly wanted to say out loud ‘dude, the nonsense is all coming from your people’ but they were all thinking it.
Cedric Diggory, newly minted fifth-year Hufflepuff prefect, said cheerfully, “We’ll do our best!”
Percy sighed. “Of course you will, Diggory, and I appreciate that about you, but what I actually want is for everyone’s best not to be necessary.”
One of the sixth-year Ravenclaw prefects, a girl called Simone, said a little hesitantly, “Could you… operationalize that at all? Like what actions exactly do you want us to take to prevent, erm,” she glanced at Penny Clearwater, who had spent months last year as a statue and had the slightly wild-eyed look of someone who had previously been planning to use her last summer to relax and maybe get ahead and had instead spent it frantically catching up. “Um, to prevent… things.”
“Pay attention to your firsties,” said Percy, with great seriousness. Everyone blinked puzzledly at him, except for Penny, who was staring out the window and shuddered a little. “And I mean, really pay attention. Listen to them tell you about their very dumb eleven-year-old problems and actually think about them as though they were important and legitimate and give them supportive advice.”
Jack Rosier made a derisive noise. “You seriously want me to play shrink for a bunch of snot-nosed -”
“Have you ever actually spoken to Malfoy or Nott, or, or like Harper , in your life,” interrupted one of his newly promoted underclassmen, “those kids need a damn shrink like a garden needs water.” Rosier, too surprised at having been interrupted by someone who’d never spoken aloud in his presence before, stared at her in great bafflement rather than actually finishing his sentence, so she forged on, quite bravely all things considered. “But Weasley, no offense, that’s the most Hufflepuff thing I’ve heard all year and I live with one. I can get behind keeping an eye on the kids to catch meltdowns sooner, that just seems practical, but everyone holding hands and talking about their feelings does not solve what if your weird angry little brother decides completely non-impulsively to blow up the lake or something bullshit like that.”
“Oh, come on,” said Tim Llewelyn, who had gotten to know Ron Weasley quite well over the course of repeatedly flinging him into various dueling club surfaces in the last year, “the little Weasley’s got some issues but he wouldn’t -”
“Really now. Tell me with a straight face you don’t think that kid would commit murder if he thought it would heroically save someone’s life.”
“Well, I mean -”
“He is twelve, Timothy! He doesn’t know how to judge that! And you have spent all of last year making him concerningly capable of actually doing it anyway!”
“Isn’t he thirteen now actuall -”
“Oh my stars save me from fucking Ravenclaws.”
Percy was at this point frowning suspiciously between them with the slightly despairing expression of someone who suspected he’d missed a relevant social interaction and was now going to get a bad grade in politics. Penny was still avoiding looking at him, and the Slytherins all seemed absorbed in calculating the ramifications of a fifth-year talking back to Rosier, and the Hufflepuffs were all with varying success mimicking Sprout’s ‘I am very mildly and politely and maternally concerned but this will resolve itself better if I don't say anything’ face, which left him only the other four younger Ravenclaw prefects as a potential source of information on what the heck, since his own underclassmen were, realistically, not going to know a damn thing.
He leaned sideways slightly, as they continued to shout at each other, and murmured to William Davies, “I don’t suppose you know what the deal is with them?”
“Uh, er, that’s Ivana Renshaw, her brother’s dating Llewelyn,” explained the fifth year, who had the same broad athletic shoulders as his brother Roger but none of the confident physical energy, and fidgeted nervously in his seat as he glanced between them.
“Ah.” Percy therefore waited patiently until their acrimonious policy disagreement devolved into equally acrimonious but less relevant personal attacks (“he deserves better than you!” “you’re just jealous he’s better than you!”) before saying sharply, “oy,” and when they both looked up guiltily, said, “keep your personal issues out of my meeting. Renshaw, I understand and acknowledge your concern but my brother is my problem and not yours. I’m giving you advice on how to avoid having similar problems.”
A somewhat resentful murmur floated over his left shoulder: “They’re obviously not going to have problems with their firsties deciding to fight He-Who-Must-N -”
“Keep your personal issues , out of my meeting,” repeated Percy snappishly at Kenneth Towler, who made a mulish face but subsided. He would later have to sit him down and explain that, yes, the Slytherins were assholes, but in fact all of the drama thus far had been coming out of Gryffindor Tower, or from outside the school entirely. No Slytherin students had been involved at all in what had happened two years ago, and the two who had ended up involved in the whole Heir of Slytherin nonsense last year had, actually, helped. He was not going to encourage his prefects to act like the Slytherins were all still Death Eaters, not when doing that would make it more likely to become true.
Renshaw frowned consideringly at him for a moment and then nodded. “My objection is suitably addressed.”
“Moving on, then,” said Percy, glancing down at his notes only briefly, “to curfew patrols…”
In another world, Headmaster Dumbledore, on his quest to find yet another Defense Professor might have pleaded, bribed, cajoled, and in a manner of speaking threatened Remus Lupin, waving a copy of a Daily Prophet with Sirius Black’s mad, cackling face printed prominently upon it. In this world he had few reasons and fewer motivating sticks to brandish; and yet, all the same, he had no Defense Professor. Worse, he had nothing with which to bribe Slughorn out of retirement if he let Snape have the job, so his last resort would have bought him not even a year but merely a similar, equally urgent problem.
He tried anyway, of course, but Lupin said no, and would not be moved.
So he went to see a different, older friend.
“What’s a few more students after the ones you’ve already found?” he said, brightly, after a half hour of paranoid identity checks on both his person and the teakettle, and an extended explanation of why he was here. Certain people did not really appreciate his impassioned speeches about the importance of the next generation and the fulfillingness of nurturing young minds, but skipping right to the jokes would have ruined the effect. “I’m told the Weasley twins are the greatest teaching challenge of the generation, you know.”
Mad-Eye laughed. “Oh, just you wait, the littlest ones are shaping up to be a terror.” There was a contemplative pause, as he sipped his carefully verified tea that he made himself in his own house, his eye spinning lazily around the arc of reverifying for the new minute that nothing in the building had moved unexpectedly. “So tell me about this very mythical and unlikely curse you definitely don’t have.”