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Chapter Text

Shifting Boundaries

A Harry Potter/MDZS A/U Fanfiction

By Sif Shadowheart

Book Two of the Boundless Series

Author’s Note:   The beginning of this has a strong similarity to Chapter One of Ancient Bonds, but will sharply diverge thereafter.  Originally this was going to be a one-shot, but it grew to the point that breaking it up made it an easier and smoother reading experience.

Enjoy!

Part One

...

Stonehenge, England; Unknown Date

In the pre-dawn of Lughnasadh, there wasn’t a soul in sight to play witness as something hit the ground with an ignoble whump in the center of one what (in another world anyway) would become one of the most famous ancient sites on the planet.

As that whump was followed immediately by a spate of cursing that would make even a pirate sit up and take notice, it was safe to assume that the pile of there-but-not person and clothes would be rather glad about that when he got his clumsy behind up from the ground where he’d fallen and gotten himself all tangled up in his Invisibility Cloak.

If one asked Hari “Harry” - and yes there was a difference - James Potter, a bit of clumsiness was entirely justified after having a bevy of incorporeal somethings digging through his brain and judging him heart and soul before tossing him out arse over teakettle out into the other side of the Veil.

That he truly felt what he thought was his godchild/godparent bond with Sirius flare with life for a split-second before dying back down - it felt strained but it was definitely there, Sirius might be a considerable distance away from what he’d learned about that particular bond - was all that kept him from actually trying to figure out a way to open a new Veil there in the middle of…

Bloody hell they’d dropped him in Stonehenge.

That was a bit too on-brand even for him, flying broomsticks and pointed hats aside.

Shaking his head and once more reining in his desire to actually curse the beings in charge of soul processing - or whatever-the-fuck they did in the Veil - Harry rose to his feet and tucked his Cloak firmly about him.

Just because he recognized Stonehenge didn’t mean that anything else in this new world or dimension or universe or whatever-it-was that the Veil could access would be the same and he’d pass quite fervently on being locked away in a muggle government lab somewhere or ending up chained to a throne as a pet magician or any of another dozen or so wild iterations his brain decided to pop up with on the fly.

Tasks.

Harry knew he worked best and thought cleanest - even with the Occlumency training - with tasks in front of him.

There were two - maybe three depending on how he thought about them - that he could think of straight away.

First: get to London, start getting an identity set up, and find a place to rest.

The Veil really took it out of a bloke, especially the part where they ripped Tommy Boy’s horcrux right out of his fucking head.

Second: start tracking Sirius.

There.

Tasks set.

Now...how the bloody hell was he going to get to London.

And for that matter...what fucking day was it?

…

The judges of the Veil - which was what Harry was going with since he didn’t have anything better to call them - apparently had a sense of humor, who knew?

Taking a person who’d been singular in many ways in his old world and making him literally singular in his new one.

A quick Tempus told him that he’d been dumped arse over tea kettle into a world that used a type of time keeping he was entirely unfamiliar with, in a language he didn’t know.  He could sound the words out phonetically, but it did precisely dick for informing him.  Of anything other than that he was completely fucked anyway.

He didn’t bother pondering on the subject for long, one year or one thousand he didn’t care.  One world or another it was all the same.  All that mattered was that he could find his godfather and to do that he needed to get himself sorted.

A bit of a walk had him staring in shock and dismay at a village that - rather than anything even close to modern - was more in common with a history exhibit, mud-daubed huts and all.

Thank whatever gods were listening that he had his Cloak, because he didn’t even want to think about how a bunch of hunter-gatherer-type villagers would take a being, being literally chucked into the middle of a stone circle, especially one dressed so oddly compared to themselves.

And who looked almost nothing like them, as between his eastern heritage and genetic drift, a his-era desi Englishman might as well be an alien to a britannic tribesman.

Taking a breath, Harry cast a Portkey to the coordinates of Charing Cross Road in London on a nearby rock and winced his way through the fishhook-behind-his-navel sensation.

Only to find himself standing in the midst of a bloody forest that hadn’t existed for hundreds of years by the time he was born.

Well.

Fuck a duck.

There went item one on his list, as he took it as a given that he hardly needed to create a legal identity in an era that likely didn’t have a firm grasp on issues like unified law codes or population monitoring and registration. 

Which left him with item two.

His bond to Sirius hadn’t grown any stronger by arriving in future-London, wherever his godfather was it wasn’t anywhere close.

He’d have to travel again to find him if he was a betting man.

Trains, planes, and autos were all out of the question given that it’d be who-knew-how-long until they were even invented, but between invisibility and his Firebolt, travel wasn’t an issue.

Especially as, if he was smack in the Iron or Bronze Age (he wasn’t sure how to tell when he was, given that he couldn’t bloody read his Tempus results) then there weren’t going to be a lot of muggles around to spot him.

Or that could do anything to him even if they did.

Which left him with locating Sirius and hauling ass to reach him whatever means he had to accomplish to manage it.

And given that it was Lughnasadh from what little he did decipher of his Tempus, he knew just the ritual to find him.

…

Harry moved away from where his port-key had dumped him in London-that-isn’t, choosing to head east towards the coast following a spell until he came to a hill.  Cresting it, he shrugged.  In a time he didn’t know and a place that might as well be the far side of the moon for all he recognized it, one place to set up camp was as good as another.

Bloodwards against both humans and animals went up with ease, Harry arching a brow at how eagerly the magic of the land leapt to his command.

At least the lack of active magic didn’t mean a lack of magic entirely.  If anything, Harry would be willing to bet that with the much-reduced population that he was used to, there was just a lack of magic users.  No matter what form of magic they practiced, Harry refused to believe that magic altogether wasn’t being practiced somewhere.

Rubbing at his eyes, he reached into his rucksack and pulled out his magical tent, enlarging it and getting it set up in a matter of moments.

He’d been up all day and night now, after all, and still had longer to go before sundown when he could perform his seeking ritual in the comfort of his campsite.

So long, that was, as there wasn’t something like the Trace or the Ministry of Magic in his new world.

Given the lack of sheer people from the roaming he’d done, and the issue of possible time travel with it, he wasn’t exactly concerned.

Other than Stonehenge, he’d not felt a drop of active magic around him since landing in this place.  He needed to know what he was dealing with and he needed to know it now.  Before he started to truly panic.

He didn’t look forward to having the only modern comforts he was used to being those he could provide for himself via magic.

Don’t get him wrong, he’d use spells and charms if he had no other choice.

But he brought the gold with him specifically to avoid what amounted to stealing from hapless muggles who had no defense against his magic, so he didn’t want to get lax and lazy and use them because it was easier that way.

From history class, he thought he remembered that some parts of the east were far more advanced in the past (which he thought he’d been dumped in) than Europe.  If Sirius had been of similar thought (or had been dropped elsewhere) he’d have headed towards a place that had something that resembled civilization.  Even if it was nothing like what either of them had known.

Harry hoped that’s the path that Sirius took, though he wasn’t betting his magic on it anywhen soon.

But civilization or wandering tribesman, Sirius was alive.

Harry would adjust, no matter where he found him or the life his godfather had made for himself.

For the moment, he had an errant Padfoot to track down and no magical governing body to worry about.

Now that was what he called freedom.

…

Harry dug through his rucksack inside his tent, pulling out what he’d need for the tracking ritual.

With Harry’s proclivity for blood magic and having both an existing bond and a blood-tie to Sirius, there wasn’t much he needed but there were a few tools that would make his life easier than blindly shoving power down the bond and using it like a homing beacon - which was problematic with as muffled the bond was from what Harry was assuming to be a great distance.

Together with a map of the world he’d purchased from a shop before leaving his world that included major cities, he needed some candles, his athame, and the correct spell from the Black Library.

He was glad of his own foresight to say the least, as he’d left the book with the tracking spell he wanted to use on the top of the pile of book trunks since otherwise he might be there for days digging through all of them for the right one and he would’ve kissed his window to use the power of the high day goodbye.

Laying the map flat on the tent main room’s desk, he set the candles on the cardinal points then lit them with a thought.  He’d never get tired of that.  Binding fire as his to call was the best decision he’d ever made, short of breaking free of Dumbledore to begin with.

Beginning the chant as the sun set, Harry picked up the athame and pricked a small hole in the meat of his palm on the outside where it wouldn’t bother him until he could heal it later.

Rich drops of ruby red steadily hit and pooled on the center of the world map, Harry immediately lifting his hand away once it began to twist and move in place as if it was coming alive as it pulled on his magic and tried to follow the bond to the other end of it.

Absently pulling his hand to his mouth as he pressed his tongue to the shallow wound to soothe it, he watched avidly as it began circling the map in wide circles that became tighter and tighter as the magic focused and did its job.

As it found Sirius - the only person on this planet that shared lines of descent with Harry.

The blood moved right of center, over the Eastern Hemisphere, then quickly narrowed in on China then fell inert just over right - or east in this case - of the middle of the country.

Leaning forward, Harry tilted his head a bit as he read the city name attached and partially hidden by the ring of blood surrounding a city marker.

Yiling.

Sirius was at this very moment in (in the future anyway, who knew what it was called now) the city of Yiling, in the People’s Republic of China, more than six thousand - give or take - kilometers away on the literal other side of the globe.

Well then, no wonder their bond was muffled.

Now Harry really had to get answers about this world unless he wanted to Imperio himself through muggles everywhere he went.

His godfather was so close and yet so far away.

Times like these he wished that international portkeys were a thing since he had the power but not the training to Apparate, let alone a distance like that.

Would certainly make things faster.

But he’d waited years to see Sirius again, the few days it would take him to get everything straightened out is a much milder price to pay than the work and cost he’s already put in for them to be reunited.

He could wait.

That didn’t mean he was happy about it.

…

Alright, so maybe Harry had underestimated how long it would take him to raid the muggles for information but in his defense, he’d never had to worry about this sort of thing before.

Dimensional travel he’d been prepared for.

Time travel along with it…not so much.

Which in hindsight was a serious lapse in his over-planning, and if the portraits were with him he’d bitch at both them and himself over it, but at the moment there was dick-all he could do about it.

Other than adapt.

As fast and as thoroughly as possible, preferably before he was attacked for being a demon or someone tried to set him up as a deity - one just as likely as the other given his magical abilities, and with his track record among muggles he’d rather not chance which way they’d swing.

Beyond that problem, there was also the unfortunate truth that while his broom could reach speeds of 150 kilometers per hour, it wasn’t the most comfortable thing to maintain over large distances or long amounts of time.

Which slowed him down considerably, when he realized that serious culture shock aside, he had to take the slow-and-steady approach to flight for once in his life if he didn’t want to deal with a truly unfortunate amount of wind-rash, muscle fatigue, and general aches-and-pains due to trying to fly too fast for too long.

Harry might be in the best shape of his life, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to find Sirius only to be a bedraggled lump in need of a week of sleep and pots of rash ointment.

Plentiful issues aside as Harry tried to adapt to his new circumstances as he traveled (like, forget where-the-fuck he is, when the fuck-is-he???) he made steady progress east.  Days passed that way: waking, eating, breaking camp, flying, resting, flying, making camp, eating, sleeping - on repeat.  He followed his wand of elder wood east-east-always-east until it started slowly drifting southeast, then he started looking for settlements and cities.

He flew over great mountains, endless plains, and deserts alike by the time the bond gained any discernible increase in strength.

And worse: urgency.

The first time he entered an actual city in his new world, Harry did so under his Cloak and using concealment charms on top and for a simple (if strange) reason:

People were flying on fucking swords.

Wait.

That might be an exaggeration.  A handful of people wearing layers of robes in nicer fabric than he’d seen since the last time he wandered London’s shopping districts were flying by balancing on the side of fucking sword blades.  Not an entire city’s worth of people.

They also flew slower than the worst of the Hogwarts training brooms, for all that they looked all majestic and shit while they were at it.

Still: flying was flying, and doing so under their own power - or that of the swords, he wasn’t clear on the mechanics yet - meant that this world wasn’t as magic-less as he’d first thought.

It took him hours wandering the city under the charms and using translation spells to feel relatively comfortable with flying back out again from what he’d learned.

(There might have been some judicious use of Legilimency involved in gaining that level of comfort, but sue him: this place was fucking weird okay.)

His new home had ‘cultivators’ who used a strange form of magic called qi, flew on swords, and fought ghosts, zombies, and monsters.  There were plants that could literally force you to fuck or die (he thought that only happened in bad porn) and on that topic the whole place was a fucked up mixture of prudish in the extreme while also being oddly open-minded.  (Plus side: no homophobia; down side: there was a whole new class system and culture, and Harry was not looking forward to how that was going to fuck up his life.)  Cultivators apparently either roamed freely as rogues or lived in various sects that were a combination of family estate, school, and eternal brother/sisterhood.

He repeated: this place was fucking weird.

Like ancient fantasy China on crack, weird.

Only it wasn’t called China whenever-this-was; it was known as Jianghu.

But at least his translation charms worked on whatever ancient-Jianghu-dialect he managed to run smack into, so there was that.

…

The closer Harry flew, the harder the urgency burning in his chest pulled and throbbed at his center and he knew:

If he didn’t move fast enough, he was going to lose Sirius all over again.

Before he ever really got him back.

…

Harry felt the miasma of corrupted magic long before the darkened skies of the Burial Mounds came into his sight.

The mountain loomed over the large township of Yiling, masses of black fog obscuring the peak.  Harry paused in his descent from the still-clear sky south of the town, blinking at the literal clouds of magical residue that marred the horizon.  It was a startling contrast: the dim, weak sun shining down on his head from his vantage point compared to the bleak scenery ahead.

A shiver of warning skittered down his spine as he cast the Point Me spell once more, frowning when it gave the same result it had begun churning out an hour before as Harry approached the town at his Firebolt’s full speed.

A result that ran contrary to that of his seeking spell.

The seeking pulled him towards the town, along with a tendril of his godparent bond.

Meanwhile the Point Me directed him towards the ancient mass grave that he’d begun hearing of as far away as the smaller sect lands to the northwest of the Shaanxi province.

Whether it was the strangeness of this new world fucking with his abilities or his Potter luck striking once more, he couldn’t tell.

But of the two, it was the direction of the Burial Mounds that had his magical core pulsing in dire warning.

So it was towards the Burial Mounds that Harry Potter flew in search of his missing godfather and the last surviving male Black of the name.

His last family, at least that he cared to claim, in either world.

He just never expected the condition that Sirius would be in, when he finally found him.

Or the consequences that would follow thereafter.

…

“What the actual fuck is that?!”   Harry cursed, eyes the size of quaffles as he spotted the seething mass of corrupted magic that had - somehow this place was so fucking weird - gained form and a type of consciousness.

He’d gone with his gut and flown towards the Burial Mounds rather than Yiling proper, and as the urgency of the bond’s pull increased he was glad he did when the whatever the fuck kind of monster that was swiped at who he was ninety-nine percent certain was his godfather.

Rushing closer on his broom, gaining speed to come into casting range as quickly as possible, he winced when another swipe of the demonic-bull-thing sent Sirius spinning away and through a nearby stand of black bamboo.

Moments like that he was ecstatic that wizards tended to be tougher than muggles, otherwise he’d have serious doubts about whether his godfather would be able to get back up again.

Like the crumpled form in stained white robes that he finally spotted behind the monstrous bull with red eyes and made of that black smoke that hovered over the Burial Mounds like the most ominous cloud-bank ever.

It was a yao - though Harry wouldn’t learn the proper name for it until much later - but one further corrupted and twisted by the seething resentment of the Burial Mounds.

Not that such information mattered to Harry then, or even occurred to him.

Nope, all he gave a damn about was taking out the monster as fast as possible so he could go check on his godfather - who despite Harry’s thoughts about wizarding durability had yet to return from being bitchslapped into a stand of bamboo.

Which once he came into range, wasn’t much of a problem at all.

Not for a blood mage anyway, or perhaps more importantly a blood mage of Harry’s particular talents, ruthless streak, and ever-willingness to delve into overkill if it got the job done with limited collateral damage.

“Fiendfyre!”

Taking on a life of its own as it pulled from magical well of power that existed and thrived inside one Hari James Potter, the cursed fire that devoured all in its path poured off of his body as his bound flames writhed and spun and flew to surrounded the target before it.  The bull-monster screamed in a near-human pitch that had Harry cringing back before he firmed his resolve.  Whatever that thing had been once, it was a deadly threat now and had to be handled.

Dragons and phoenixes and serpents all formed of living magical flame surrounded and engulfed the creature, snuffing it from existence with all the effort of candle flame in high wind.

Dragging the Fiendfyre back into his control however, Harry found wasn’t nearly so easy, the spell fighting him with nearly the same ferocity and intransigence as when he’d first bound it to his blood and command.

Unclenching his jaw from the effort it had taken to keep the cursed flame on target and not devouring the entire mountain, Harry lifted his hand to his mouth and bit down until he bled, crimson droplets filled with power forming and hovering in the air at his will.

Irritated that he’d been forced to double-down on his binds despite having conquered - or so he’d thought - the binding on his chosen element months before, he cast out the blood in wisp-thin chains.

Chains that nonetheless were harder than any goblin-forged steel.

“Return.”   He commanded once his blood chains had done their work and twined around the furious twisting whirlwind of flame that he’d managed to contain but had fought so fiercely at returning to him fully.

The Fiendfyre gave one last buck against his control, then spun in place before swarming his arms in a dazzling display his arms and chest once more gaining their blood-red markings of dragons and magical creatures made of pure flame.

Shooting a spell at the crumpled form - it was small, smaller than most adults, but even from across the now-cleared area he could tell it was a woman - he grimaced at the result.

Whoever they were, they were beyond help now.

Even with potions and Harry’s rudimentary healing magic, he couldn’t return the dead to life.

And even if he could, he wouldn’t want to.

That sort of idiocy was old Tom’s province as a necromancer, not Harry’s purview as a blood mage.

Besides which, if that bull-monster and the seething clouds of corrupted magic that constantly pinged at his awareness were any sign, this place already had way too many problems with death magic without adding slip-shod attempted resurrections to the mix.

Harry barely came into range of the ground near where Sirius had gone flying into the bamboo before he was jumping from his firebolt, the broom coming to hand with a soft slap against his palm.  Ducking broken spikes of bamboo that would not feel good if they speared him, he rushed forward.  The sheer overwhelming urgency of the bond had faded - at least somewhat - with the destruction of the bull-monster but it hadn’t died down entirely.

It also hadn’t died so despite Harry’s worst tendency to worry and catastrophize, he knew Sirius was still alive.

Even if he might not stay that way for long without help.

And likely more than Harry could supply, as despite his skills and the sheer depth of magic at his command, he was no healer.

(There was also the weaker but persistent pull towards the town, but Harry was starting to have his suspicions about how that came about.)

When he finally pushed his way through the broken bamboo, he reared back with a blink, even if only for a split second before he shook his head and set to work, pushing his shock aside to deal with later.

Under the shock and the fear (he’d found him, but he could still lose him all over again) was pure elation that Harry likewise pushed back.

He’d done it, he’d found him, he’d followed him through death and the Veil and into a whole new world and he’d still found him.

Harry would celebrate once he was sure Sirius would survive to join him.

Which, based on the results of the basic diagnostic he’d hit his (strange, between the robes and the hair and the age was Sirius younger than when he’d gone through the Veil? Or was Harry misremembering?) godfather’s nearly-broken form with, would take more work than Harry could manage alone.

Great.

Just, fucking, great.

Where the hell was Harry going to find a healer in ancient fantasy China-Jianghu anyway?

…

Jiang Fengmian had seen many strange and unusual things in his life.

As a cultivator, and the leader of a Great Sect, strange and unusual could be said to be his calling.

That said: being summoned to the infirmary with the news that his oldest friend had been brought in severely wounded by a stranger who’d left without a word once the healers had swarmed Wei Changze’s bloodied form was one of the stranger occurrences he’d had happen within the bounds of Lotus Pier, the home and stronghold of his Yunmeng Jiang cultivation sect.

It took only a glance to know that there was nothing he could do for his shixiong, the Jiang healers having his old friend’s care in hand.

Which left him with only one avenue to expend his anxious nerves at the sight of his bestfriend pale and weak and blood-painted on an infirmary cot: and that was question the guards who’d been present when Changze was brought in - without either his wife or child.

Since nearly the moment they’d met, Changze and his wife the honorable (if wild) Cangse Sanren had been inseparable, despite many a young master wishing it otherwise.

In his hopeful heart, Fengmian held onto the thought that Cangse was merely absent due to caring for the couple’s young son and had entrusted another friend with rushing Changze to the healers of Lotus Pier.

But his practical mind knew it was a foolhardy hope, at best.

“Tell me of this stranger that appeared with your Wei-shibo,” Fengmian ordered the guards who were waiting on him as was protocol in such emergencies.  “Now: and leave nothing out.”

…

It took days for Harry to fly from what had been the western border of China in his old world to Yiling, even maintaining a reasonable speed of 75km per hour.

Anxiety had dogged his every step, and sleep had been hard to come by no matter how much he’d needed it.

In comparison, it was a lovely jaunt up the land to the frantic journey from the Burial Mounds to Yiling, and from there to Lotus Pier on the advice of the first townsperson Harry could find: a tavern keeper still awake and serving patrons despite the late hour.

More, the bartender had recognized Sirius - though he’d called him Wei-xiansheng but that was hardly the weirdest or most important thing going on at the moment - and asked after his wife and son.

Information that Harry had had to put aside for the moment, as nearly-fatal injuries came before the dead and (presumably, as he’d only seen one body by the bull-monster) healthy in his book.

Featherlight and anchoring charms had done the work of supporting Sirius in front of Harry on his broom, the wizard covering both of them in the Cloak before taking off in the direction his elder wand pointed for Lotus Pier and pushing his firebolt to the utter limits of speed.

At least ancient fantasy China was good for one thing: other than birds, insects, and the random cultivator, there was an absolute lack of air traffic for him to worry about dodging at high speed.

The bartender hadn’t been the only one to recognize Sirius either, as after Harry had landed and put away his broom and Cloak, he’d run pell-mell straight to the gates of Lotus Pier, having landed literally around the corner out of sight.  The guards hadn’t taken having a wounded man in the arms of a stranger bolting for them well, but they hadn’t drawn their swords on him either so Harry took it as a win.  With the night he was having, let alone the shit luck Sirius’s had taken, any win was a blessing.

Wei-shixiong, it’s Wei-shixiong!

The call had gone up from the older guard, apparently of an age to have studied with Sirius if Harry was understanding the implications correctly (though how a grown man ended up studying at a cultivation sect Harry didn’t have the context to understand) and Harry had told them to call for healers: his charge was significantly wounded.

Healers had been sent for and arrived with a speed that almost made Harry’s own look inconsequential, and it had only taken a moment of watching for him to feel comfortable leaving Sirius in their relentless clutches.

He had a kid to find.

…

“Huh,” Harry tilted his head in curiosity as he studied the translucent, hovering form he found at the Burial Mounds.  “That’s new.”

The ghost hadn’t been there when he’d left - at least not that he’d noticed.

But in the hours that had passed since, the spirit of whom he was assuming as Sirius’s wife had gained form and intelligence, though she was still bound to her earthly remains as, ah, fresh as she was.

Well, no need to be rude.

“You must be Sirius’s wife,” he gave a slight bow to the ghost that watched him with caution equal if not exceeding his own.  “I’m sorry we’ve met this way.”

She-who-was-Xiao Meishi, though often only known by her title of Cangse Sanren blinked, as she heard a nearly-forgotten name.

One that even she only came to know after she’d wed her beloved husband, and learned the truth of how he came to be a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang.

“In life, I was only one of three people who knew that name,” the words came to Harry as whispers, though he could not see her mouth move, and reminded him far too much of how the Veil would tempt and cry to those unwary enough to venture near it.  “I have not heard it spoken aloud in years, not since our son was born…”

“I’d gotten that idea,” Harry shrugged, thinking of what the cultivators at Lotus Pier had called his godfather when they’d recognized him - and hadn’t that been interesting.

Padfoot must have one hell of a tale to tell.

Harry was determined that he would live to tell it, even if he had to reach into his deepest and darkest bag of tricks to ensure it.

He would have been so resolved regardless, but add a child, a son, that would be orphaned otherwise into the mix?

Yeah, Harry wasn’t afraid to go full Black on Sirius if it meant he survived.

“I don’t know if he ever spoke of me,” Harry continued, “but my name is Harry Potter, and your husband is my godfather, ah,” he frowned in consternation when godfather didn’t translate entirely correctly from what he could tell.  He sorted through the options the translation spell gave him, settling for the closest he thought suited the relationship between himself and his godfather.  “He’s my tangxiong and my bobo, and my father’s sworn brother all at once I suppose.”  He shrugged again when his godmother’s ghost just stared at him.  “It’s a complicated relationship.”

Given that Sirius could be considered his tangxiong, elder male cousin but more distant than first cousin, his bobo or uncle, as well as his shibo or martial uncle and Harry didn’t have a word for father’s sworn brother other than bobo and shibo, complicated was putting it mildly.

And that was before the fact that Harry was related to Sirius through both Walburga and Orion Black given how complex and precise the Jianghu language was when it came to familial relationships.

“He spoke of you,” Xiao Meishi nodded slowly as she started to remember more than business and regrets and things left undone in life.  Which was odd with all she knew of ghosts and spirits, but an oddness she felt had more to do with her husband’s tangzhi than herself or the manner of her death or even the place of it.  The Burial Mounds could have dangerous and catastrophic effects on the dead and dying as well as the living, but not to the extent of creating a sentient spirit that wasn’t a vengeful or resentful ghost.  “Rarely in the first days of our marriage, but more once our A-Ying was born.  Tales of A-Ying’s dage, who would love and protect him with everything he had, if only there was a way for them to meet.”

Harry had to look away, eyes stinging with tears at being acknowledged as Sirius’s son, even obliquely as, as a-Ying’s elder brother.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, milady.”  Harry told her honestly.  “But you can rest knowing that your husband spoke true: I will protect him and your son with everything I have to offer and all the skills at my command.”

“Xiao Meishi, a'Li.”   She told him even as she started to fade away, spirit at peace with his promise.  “My name was Xiao Meishi…”

“Be at peace, Lady Meishi.”  Harry gave a proper bow to the spirit as it faded into the afterlife.  “I will take things from here.”

A sharp flick of his wand had Lady Meishi’s body transfigured into a simple figurine cleaned of the blood and dirt and gore of death, Harry tucking it safely away in one of his expanded pockets before mounting his broom once more and leaving the Burial Mounds behind him.

His little brother, a'Ying, was waiting for his parents to return to the village, hopefully asleep given the near-dawn hour.

Harry hated being the one to come and take him away from his rest, but it was needed.

If Padfoot in this strange world was anything like he’d been in their old one, he’d be the very devil to placate if he woke before Harry could return with a'Ying.

And ten times worse than that if that wakefulness came with the awareness of his wife’s, Lady Meishi’s, death.

…

Wei Ying remembered the night he met his older brother all his life.

He was young: only five years old, and didn’t remember much with clarity from his early childhood.

Even so, he never forgot that first look at a person who he’d heard of since he was born but never expected to meet.

To young a'Ying, his Baba’s tales of a brave boy with eyes like greenest jade and a hero’s heart were just that: tales.  Stories to tell him when a'Ying asked about brothers and sisters and if his parents could grow him one.  (Like they’d told him they’d grown a'Ying himself in a turnip patch and would as a result periodically re-bury him to help him grow tall like his Baba and strong like his Mama.)

His older brother’s name was a strange, foreign thing that sat awkwardly on both Mama and a'Ying’s tongues, his Baba shortening it to Ha Li or a'Li depending on his mood to make stories flow easier in a'Ying’s little ears.

Strictly speaking, when he was older a'Ying would realize that his da-ge wasn’t quite his brother.  Their fathers were both cousins and sworn brothers, his Baba gifted with the raising of a'Li if anything were to happen to a'Li’s parents - a wise precaution to make clear, as a'Ying’s da-ge hadn’t been born into a time and world of peace but one torn apart by a war that never really ended from the stories.  To old fuddy-duddies, a'Li should have been called a'Ying’s tangxiong, or maybe even his shixiong.

But his Baba had been there when a'Li was born, considered him his son in all but name, and with their close kinship (related twice over on Baba’s side of affairs) a'Li was presented as a'Ying’s da-ge long before they met.

Baba’s stories of da-ge were filled with a strange outland and an even stranger method of cultivation, a sect that wasn’t really a sect, and a boy who always fought on the side of justice and protecting those weaker than him.

When Wei Ying grew, and began to realize just how strong his unyielding da-ge was in truth, he also began to understand just how vast a claim on Li-ge’s protection that was, and found himself both impressed and horrified at what the strange foreign outland that his Baba and Da-ge haled from expected of Wei Ying’s brother.

To a'Ying at five, his brother was as tall and strong as a great sturdy tower, one built to weather any storm.

Even the one that tore apart a'Ying’s birth family, only to be patched back together by his da-ge’s power and will.

…

Harry was going to strangle Sirius Orion Black the Third.

With his own entrails.

Or Wei Changze or whatever the fuck he was calling himself in this world.

His godfather’s name didn’t matter.

That he was such a stupid, selfish motherfucker was.

Harry hadn’t exactly been thrilled to track down Sirius only to find him in the middle of a battle against a monster.  Sirius getting bitchslapped into a stand of bamboo hadn’t wowed him.  Details such as Sirius’s appearance, the odd form of magic that this world used, having to save his godfather’s life the literal moment he found him: none of that made for a happy recipe for a reunion.

But on the other hand, none of that were the contributing factor that had Harry (and as a result, his magic) ready to go nuclear on one dumb fucking mutt of a wizard.

No.

What had Harry’s temper ready to go off like Mount Vesuvius was first hearing that Sirius was “night hunting” with his wife whilst leaving their child at a public inn.

At that point, his temper had been locked and loaded, just waiting for Sirius to wake up from his injuries for Harry to pull the trigger.

Then he actually found his new little cousin, saw him, and only Harry’s infamous stubborn will kept him from blowing the inn that a'Ying had been sleeping away with likely the sweet dreams of the ignorant and innocent was loosening the reins on his temper would just as likely take a'Ying, the innkeeper, and half of Yiling along with it.

None of whom actually deserved it.

a'Ying, his tiny baby cousin, that Sirius and his wife apparently considered grown and mature enough to leave alone overnight and risk orphaning on a near daily basis, wasn’t the older child or maybe preteen that Harry had expected.

Maybe it was the world and culture he’d been raised in, but, call him crazy, a child being left alone while their parents went out to fight literal monsters of nightmare didn’t bring to mind the tiny bundle of a five year old Harry was confronted with at the third inn he searched for Sirius’s child.

Hogwarts age, given his and Sirius’s background, had been the vague half-formed assumption Harry had been operating on.

a'Ying was barely of an age to be trusted walking with his parents in a town without being literally tied to one of them or held in their arms.

If Harry hadn’t arrived…

He shuddered, even as he crouched down and readied to wake up the slumbering child that he could have picked out of a line up of dozens as Sirius’s with that combination of thick tumbling black curls and Black cheekbones.

Harry couldn’t think about what would have happened to a-Ying if he hadn’t arrived when he did, let alone decided to follow Sirius into this strange world at all.

Kids were never safe on the streets, a fact that had kept Harry from running away from the Dursleys more than once.

And pretty kids?

That type of situation was the fodder of nightmares and Dateline specials in Harry’s era, let alone the feudal-fantasy-China culture a'Ying had been born into.

Harry hadn’t ran into actual slavery, but he wasn’t certain if that was due to the type of magic this world had making it unfeasible or if he just wasn’t looking in the right places or if it was simply called by some flowery term that Harry wasn’t familiar with for his translation charm to work for him.

The whole time Harry had been preparing to search for Sirius on the other side of the Veil, he’d imagined joyful reunions.

But, well, fate never had liked him, and in this case he’d take blistering murderous rage as an acceptable substitute.

…

“Who are you?!  Baba!  Mama!  Where are you?!  Here’s your a’Ying!”

Harry sighed, staring down at the tiny, panicking form of Sirius’s son.

And there was no doubt in his mind regarding that fact between the cheekbones and those eyes.

“Hello a’Ying, my name is Harry…”

“Lili-gege?  Lili-gege!”

Green eyes blinked in bafflement as a’Ying’s mood flipped in the opposite direction from anxious and frightened to utter delight.

Complete with a tiny a’Ying-sized rocket taking off and attaching itself to his legs, hugging him around the knees.

Okay.

Apparently Sirius hadn’t forgotten everything about their world after all.

Or at least Harry.

It wasn’t much, but fuck.

At this point with Sirius injured, his wife dead, and his son a tiny child, Harry would take it.

Nickname and all.

The sheer radiance of a'Ying’s smile threatened to knock Harry right off his feet, if having the little ball of sunshine barrel into his lower legs didn’t manage it first.

Thankfully for Harry’s pride (and his unbruised ass) due to his exercise regimen over the last four years he wasn’t skin-and-bones any longer, requiring more force than even the most excitable five year old could bring to bear to lose his footing.

“Hello there, a'Ying,” Harry’s voice was warm, even as he hid his befuddlement.  His new little brother was the smallest child he’d ever been around.

Kids weren’t exactly encouraged to approach Harry in Little Whinging.

Though at least they never ran crying away from him, like they did Dudley, instead keeping a wary watch of him brought on by their parents’ warnings.

Lifting his hands, he held a'Ying to him with one hand spanning across his upper back, the other patting softly at his head like he would’ve done with Hedwig when she was in a mood for pets.  It left him awkwardly hunched over a'Ying, but it was better than completely freezing up.  At least in Harry’s book, anyway.

“Lili-ge, where’s Baba and Mama?”

Well, fuck.

...

Chapter Text

Shifting Boundaries

Part Two

Harry was far too intimately acquainted with loss, grief, and death for any twenty year old who was even moderately well adjusted.

But considering that he willingly walked through a magical construct that had been used as a form of execution for the Ministry of Magic with only a hope that he’d find something other than the afterlife on the other side, he couldn’t even claim to himself that well adjusted applied to him in any way, shape or form.

That said: he’d done the messenger of doom route once before.

Given his preferences, after the sheer horror show that was bringing Cedric Diggory’s body back to his parents and watching their entire lives crumple before his eyes, he would have never done it again.

Fate had never given a flying fuck about Harry’s preferences, however, and so there he was, with a'Ying clinging to his legs, and a'Ying’s parents either dead or possibly dying.

He hoped he’d gotten Sirius to Lotus Pier on time.

Hope was a dream however, and he wasn’t about to tell the kid that his father was alive only to find out that Sirius corked it in the time that Harry was gone to pick up a'Ying and the Wei-Xiao Family belongings.  

(Xiao-Wei?  Or was it just Wei?  Harry was picking up more and more of the social conventions around him as he raided people’s minds with Legilimency, but that didn’t mean he was anywhere near comprehension level of what he’d gotten into by following Sirius through the Veil.)

As well as recovering Xiao Meishi’s body.

Can’t forget that.

Especially in Jianghu, where people could apparently work themselves into such a froth of resentment that they’ll rise right up out of their graves to tell off their descendants if they don’t like their funeral arrangements.

(This place was so fucking weird.)

Harry sighed, then knelt down to a'Ying’s level.

“What do you know about what Baba and your Mama went out to do tonight, a'Ying?”  He asked calmly.

Bright silver eyes blinked quickly, even as his little face scrunched into a thinking frown.

“Baba and Mama fight monsters!”  He cheered a moment later.  “a'Ying stays safe in town and waits like a good boy…”  He followed up, pouting.

One day, he was going to be big and strong like his parents and da-ge and fight monsters too!

But not yet, his Mama said he was still too little.

Maybe when he was ten, that sounded like a big number to a'Ying.

It was twice as old as he was now, after all!

“Yes, your parents went out to fight a monster.”  Harry nodded slowly, feeling his way through his explanation.  Did five year olds even understand what death meant?  Or was it different in Jianghu where death and dying and the afterlife were such a major part of society?  “But it was a very strong monster, stronger than they probably expected.  a'Ying…”

Tiny, petite shoulders slumped as silver eyes filled with dread.

“Where are Baba and Mama, da-ge?”  His lower lip trembled.

“I took your Baba to Lotus Pier, a'Ying.”  Harry told him honestly.  “He was very hurt by the monster.  But your Mama…”  He winced as tears started spilling down plump downy cheeks.  “There wasn’t anything I could do for your Mama, a'Ying.  She was already gone to the afterlife by the time I found them at the monster.”

Well….that wasn’t strictly true.  But adding in Harry’s own brand of Potter-luck and weirdness that had Xiao Meishi apparently sticking around long enough to talk to him wouldn’t help anything at the moment.  When a'Ying was older, that might be information that would be helpful.

But to a tiny child?

Not so much.

Shaky little sobs started hiccuping out of tiny a'Ying, then a moment later Harry found himself with his arms full of a five year old, and approximately zero idea where or how they were supposed to go from there.

Except back to Sirius, even if he was still seriously injured and in who-knew-what-state back at Lotus Pier.

…

In the time it took Jiang Fengmian to hear all the sentries had to say of the stranger who came to them with the wounded form of his sworn brother, his lady wife had been alerted and awoken by the cacophony.

By the gods, he loved the stubborn, fierce woman he married, but just for once he would have preferred if Yu Ziyuan’s personal brand of attention had not been roused.

“Fengmian,” Ziyuan’s voice cracked out like the whip of a spiritual weapon that currently laid quiet upon her finger in its ring form.  Zidian was as infamous as its current wielder, one of the prize ancestral weapons of her birth sect of Meishan Yu, but it was often a constant tell as to the state of its bearer’s temper as it sparked and crackled with the purple lightning it was known for.  At least in this moment, it was calm.

How long such would last once his lady learned of Changze’s arrival was another matter.

“Wei Changze has been brought in with near-fatal wounds and exposure to resentful energy.”  He took steps to cut off her temper before it could truly form, as nothing was more likely to rouse her ire than prevaricating when events were dire enough to demand the immediate presence of the sect leader.  “By a stranger, with the face of a foreigner but wearing traveler’s robes.  The stranger left before he could be questioned, though none truly saw him leave, and no mention of Changze’s family was made.”

Yu Ziyuan sucked in a near-silent breath of shock.

She may not appreciate the close friendship her husband had had with his sworn brother and Changze’s wife, especially as that man chose the life of a rogue over upholding his vows of brotherhood to her husband, but even so: this was dire news indeed.

The pair of Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze may not have the sheer renown of Qingheng-jun or the outrageous power of Wen Ruohan, but they were a formidable pair nonetheless.

If a nighthunt could fatally wound one, and potentially kill the other given Cangse Sanren’s absence, it would be no simple hunt to clean up and finish off before civilians were killed in droves and further cultivators were lured to their deaths.

An ill omen, indeed.

“What features did the stranger have that made our sentries deem them foreign?”

“Round-shaped eyes, dark skin, thick hair that coils even when bound.”  Like Changze Fengmian thought save for the color of skin, but didn’t say, his lady familiar enough with Changze’s own unique features to perhaps follow where his own mind went.  Changze had spoken but rarely of his life before he was taken in - wounded, near death in nothing but the oddest of inner-layers with a short coat on top - but the little he had confided in either Fengmian or his father rarely painted a joyous picture.  Of either his people or his homeland - wherever that might be.  “Not tall for a man, but clearly not a woman either with the broadness of their shoulders and the span of their hands.  A high bridged nose, and significant scarring branching over the left side of his face.”

It also went without being said that any cultivator of Jianghu would have had such scarring long healed between their golden core or the medicaments infused with qi available to cultivators unless it was made by a spiritual weapon such as Zidian or a cursed wound like those inflicted by the branding irons used - rare though it was, most preferring a clean execution over a living enemy - on traitors by a handful of sects from the northwestern provinces.

Even Changze, for all his unique features, was without blemish with the exception of his tattoos that he took great care in concealing from all but his closest companions.

That this stranger was thus scarred was almost as much an oddity as his appearing out of nowhere with Changze in hand at all.

“Yinzhu! Jinzhu!”  The Lady of Lotus Pier snapped out, her twin handmaidens-slash-bodyguards melting out of the shadows of the sect grounds as the sun began to peek over the eastern sky.  “Track this stranger.  Bring him back.”

After all, if Changze was in no fit state to answer questions, and all signs pointed to such, as Fengmian would not otherwise look so drawn, then they would have to seek them out.

One way, or another.

…

Jiang Yanli would remember the day she met the Lord of her shibo’s House (a distinctly odd concept, one more suited to non-cultivation gentry than that of her natal culture, but one that was valid and carried heavy weight with it nonetheless) until the day she died.

It wasn’t startling at all to her, even at a mere nine years old, that Wei-shibo’s younger cousin was his superior within their House.

She may not have the strong ability to cultivate that her mother possessed (and was utterly disappointed by its lack in her daughter) but there was nothing wrong with Yanli’s mind and she had begun her studies as a daughter of Yunmeng Jiang years before she ever met shibo’s younger cousin.

It wasn’t odd at all for a younger relation to succeed to a higher station than their elder after all, if the younger was of a superior bloodline or had a greater claim of inheritance.

No, what was strange and stuck firmly in her mind, were his eyes not his age.

Most of those she met - both before and after her shibo’s cousin - had eyes in colors of varying browns, with the rare grey mixed in.

The rarest of shades she’d ever seen belonged to the Twin Jades of Lan, with the elder Lan Huan having eyes the color of violets and the younger in Lan Zhan of a rich and pure gold.

But Wei-gongzi had eyes like pure green jade - but if green jade were fire and lit from within.

Yanli had heard from the murmurs susserating through Lotus Pier when she woke that her Wei-shibo had been brought in during the night.  Injured, and without his wife Lady Cangse or their son a'Ying.  Yanli had rushed to the healer’s pavilion, to see the truth of things for herself.

She hadn’t often seen Wei-shibo, as Lady Cangse (or so her father explained) felt deeply the wanderer’s calling and preferred to roam the countryside helping wherever she could and taking nighthunts that established sects dismissed for one reason or another.

(When she was older, Yanli came to understand that one reason or another was polite code for the village being too poor to give tribute to the closest sect that was supposed to have primacy over nighthunts in their area, or simply being too far away.  Then there were the villages and areas that were disputed territory between one sect and another, often leading to neglect of the common people populating them.  But rarely, rarely, as in the one that killed her shibo’s wife, because they were simply too dangerous that most sects were unwilling to risk their disciples for little glory compared to the accompanying danger.  It was selfishness, but there it was.)

In the healing pavilion she did indeed find her Wei-shibo, his tall form - one of the tallest men she’d met up until Nie Mingjue reached maturity and later still when the Twin Jades were grown - lying quietly on a cot.  His color was good, for injuries that were rumored to be so severe, and his sleep didn’t seem distressed.  Everything was as it was supposed to be.

Except he was not, as he should have been lacking her father’s presence or that of a healer, alone.

And when those green-fire eyes pinned her in place where she stood inside the door to the pavilion, Yanli felt the danger she was in down to her weak golden core.

Oh yes, Jiang Yanli would remember meeting Wei Heiyu all of her days.

Even if, at the time, that wasn’t his name at all.

…

a'Ying handled the portkey to Sirius’s side that Harry enchanted out of a piece of rope far better than Harry expected.

It hadn’t taken long at all - once a'Ying had tired himself out with crying, and nestled himself against the curve of Harry’s neck with a spell anchoring the tyke on his hip - for Harry to confirm with the innkeeper that the room and board had been paid in advance.  With his newly acquired little brother a light weight at his side, and practiced flicks of his phoenix wand, Harry had the room packed up and the small family’s possessions tucked away in one of his expanded pouches.  The innkeeper hadn’t been pleased to refund the overage due back with Harry checking the Wei family out of his establishment, but he wasn’t about to pick a fight with what was clearly (in his view) a rogue cultivator either.

The relatively-smooth exodus from Yiling was almost interrupted when a'Ying failed to see what was apparently the family’s donkey once Harry woke him up for the trip to Lotus Pier.

But kids were kids no matter where or when they were from, and a’Ying had gasped in delight as Harry made a to-do over transfiguring the aforementioned pack animal into a simple, small figurine that had in turn been entrusted to a’Ying’s care.

After he’d been assured that his donkey was fine, that his Lili-gege hadn’t hurt it with his magic, and that his Lili-gege was willing to show him more tricks later.

Crisis averted, Harry had made quick work of the portkey spell, and with a single word the pair (plus donkey-toy) left Yiling well behind them as they arrived moments of a whirlwind later in what had to be Sirius’s sickroom.

Given the givens, anyway.

Honestly, that they’d arrived without fanfare into a room empty save for Sirius’s sleeping (or drugged unconscious, either way) form was a fucking gift that even Harry wasn’t about to question.

That his personal brand of luck seemed to have turned from disaster (barely arriving in time to save his godfather’s ass) to improbably good was merely par for the course when it came to his life.

And the string continued, as rather than a suspicious healer or wary guard, in the end Harry Potter’s arrival at Lotus Pier was instead discovered by a little girl with kind eyes.

Chapter Text

Shifting Boundaries

Part Three

Really, Harry should’ve known better than to tempt fate by even thinking about his fucked up relationship with Lady Luck.

No sooner had he felt a bolt of relief that it was a sweet-faced young girl who’d discovered him (and a’Ying, who was tucked in next to his Baba but quite hidden from view by the two grown male bodies between him and the door as a result) at Sirius’s bedside than the same girl opened her mouth and screamed:

“A’niang!  Guards!  A’die!”

Though, when he considered it later when he wasn’t in the thick of things, Harry would find it supremely telling of how things were run at Lotus Pier that who-he-found-out-was-Jiang-Yanli cried out first for her mother, then the guards, and lastly for her father when discovering an intruder had infiltrated into the depths of her home.

Not the highest security portion, that apparently was a designation for the family quarters, but one of the most secure locations within the sect grounds nonetheless.

Maybe if Harry hadn’t already been through the proverbial meat-grinder he would’ve reacted more (or at all) to the sudden commotion and having little Jiang Yanli bolting out of Sirius’s room followed sharply by the arrival of a handful of bristling guards and cultivators.

Maybe.

But given the givens (and that the first thing he’d done after getting a’Ying settled was ward the fuck out of the area immediately surrounding Sirius’s bed) Harry couldn’t be bothered to do more than arch a brow and wait for the shouting to end.

(If Harry took a little more joy than was probably appropriate in aggravating the purple-clothed cultivators with his silence and perceived insolence, well, it’d been one hell of a day.   As it was, the only thing keeping him from slapping them all with a silencing charm was that he’d had the forethought outside of his standard paranoia to put up a muffling charm over Sirius’s bed, which allowed his godfather and little brother to keep sleeping the sleep of the exhausted and/or innocent.)

Oh well, he’d always been a little shit when properly motivated.

Being dropped into Jianghu was not helping him rein in his chaos-gremlin impulses.

Add in his exhaustion and…yeah.

It was probably for the best that a’Ying was asleep for the next bit.

“You-!”  Yu Ziyuan was almost incoherent with shock and rage.  “HOw-?!”

Which was understandable.

A stranger had managed to not only come and go from Lotus Pier apparently as he pleased, without leaving even the faintest of traces for her bodyguards to track, but had done so in order to leave an unconscious Wei Changze in the hands of healers.

Then.

Then.

Hours later in the gloaming before dawn, her daughter screams for her.

Screams for her (and the guards, and her father) from within the healing pavilion where Wei Changze remained unconscious, the healers pessimistic about his chances of healing - though from the head wound and blood loss, not due a lack of care for his wounds or a lack in their abilities.

A healing pavilion that was one of the most secure locations within the entire sect.

Oh yes, Yu Ziyuan was enraged that anyone would dare?!

And that was before she saw what had her daughter yelling for the guards, or rather who.

A strange man sat between the door and Wei Changze’s still form, one who while obviously exhausted from the lines marring his face and the circles under his eyes, matched the description the gate guards had given herself and her husband mere hours ago.

A stranger who according to the Lotus Pier healers had saved Wei Changze’s life.

Though what else he was, remained to be seen.

Other than abominably able to saunter through the Lotus Pier defenses like they didn’t exist in the first place.

A word from Fengmian had the guards sheathing their swords - drawn instinctively at the sound of the sect leader’s daughter’s distress - when the stranger simply watched them all with an infuriating little smirk on his face.

Meanwhile a glance from Yu Ziyuan had Yanli leaving in the care of Yinzhu and Jinzhu, her twin bodyguards-slash-handmaidens having returned from a futile attempt to track the man watching them with abundant insolence from Wei Changze’s bedside.

They would ensure that Yanli and Jiang Cheng were safe, and well clear of whatever danger this stranger might pose.

Even if, a small voice in the back of her head couldn’t help but point out, if this stranger had wanted to cause trouble beyond watching over her husband’s oldest friend as he slept, he’d certainly had ample opportunity whilst all of Lotus Pier was ignorant to his presence.

The crackle of Zidian’s purple lightning was the only physical tell of Yu Ziyuan’s fury at the stranger’s audacity.

And the potential - if silent, wordless, but all the more worrisome for it - threat he represented via his mere existence.

It wasn’t the best impression either party had ever made, it had to be said, but thankfully for both the structural integrity of Lotus Pier (given the damage it would suffer in a fight between the pair) and Fengmian’s peace of mind, they weren’t alone.

“You’re Ha Li.”  Jiang Fengmian breathed out in shocked surprise, more whisper than words.  His eyes all the while locked on the scarring that his guards hadn’t quite accurately described.

For if they had called it for what it was (the snap and crackle and bite of lightning), a pattern that in another world would be known as Litchenburg figures, he would have known at once who the foreign stranger who had dropped off Wei Changze for care and then disappeared had been.

Lightning-shaped scarring was unique even when his lady wife’s weapon of choice was taken into account, and when matched to those finest-jade eyes…well.

Fengmian wouldn’t have to be even close to the most intelligent man in his generation to put those pieces together to form the puzzle-answer of Wei Changze’s oft-spoken of (and deeply mourned) adopted son Ha Li.

It was an odd milk name, to be sure, using characters that made sounds but had no meaning; however , Wei Changze was often considered a bit of an odd person so it was fitting in that manner.

To say nothing of the bits and pieces Fengmian had been entrusted with by his friend regarding the culture he’d come from before being taken in as a wounded, mourning, and starkly alone young man by Fengmian’s honored father, the prior Yunmeng Jiang sect leader.

“And you’re the second person tonight who’s called me that,” Harry leaned back a little from where he sat on the floor.

Already he was getting accustomed to Jianghu’s lack of raised furniture in some places but not others (it, like much, was so fucking weird to him but whatever, when in Rome and all that) but he did miss being able to use movements like rocking back on a chair’s legs as punctuation in a conversation.

“For all that I’ve never heard of any of you, let alone met you.”  He continued, eyes roaming over the richly dressed couple (the woman was wearing what might as well be a crown for Merlin’s sake, and he didn’t have to be the sharpest tool in the shed to note the difference in quality between the pair’s robes and their guards’, even if it wasn’t as large of a difference as he might’ve expected) and the three guards that remained.  “Not that that’s a surprise, I doubt even he,” he tilted his head towards his unconscious godfather.  “Would have expected me to follow him.”

Even if Siri would have done the same for Harry in a fucking heartbeat.

But then, for all that they loved and truly cared for each other, neither of them had really had time to know the other.

“My name actually is Hari Potter.”  He continued, amused despite himself at the flicker of consternation that crossed the couple’s faces, and the flat-out confusion on the part of the guards.

Which: fair.

Neither of those names made an easy transition to Chinese, English tended to be a bastard even to native speakers let alone trying to have a non-native speaker whose native language didn’t have some of the same sounds try and work through it.

“But I can see where Ha Li came from,” he shrugged it off.  “What’s more surprising is that he spoke of me at all, given that he had no way to return home, and no reason to believe I would follow him here.”

Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan shared a look as they simply let the young man ramble, his clear exhaustion showing in his lack of filter (or who Fengmian at least expected) that if nothing else managed to tone down Ziyuan’s rage a notch.

He was a child, that much Wei Changze’s stories had made clear, and while he might appear to be a mature man at first glance, his youth shone when he wasn’t guarding his tongue and expression as much as he’d probably do otherwise.

When he wasn’t one stiff breeze away from falling over, for example.

That the child wasn’t a stranger - at least to Wei Changze - managed to take Yu Ziyuan’s paranoia a step lower to mere watchfulness.

A fact that Fengmian would give proper thanks to the ancestors for once the events of the night had been clarified and plans were made to deal with whatever consequences might occur in the future.

With a single look, Ziyuan dismissed the remaining guards to wait in the corridor outside Wei Changze’s infirmary room.

If she couldn’t handle a single exhausted child, then she wasn’t the Violet Spider.

And then there was Fengmian too, of course.

“I expected a younger child from Changze’s stories,” Fengmian took the lead on speaking to the child, his oft-derided (if quietly, by those not of Yunmeng Jiang) soft demeanor shining in such instances, while his beloved wife watched and saw all as she stood guard.  “One my daughter’s age, perhaps a bit older.”

Harry rolled his eyes extravagantly.

Color him surprised: Sirius focused on Harry’s very young childhood, when things were somewhat good, the world wasn’t entirely terrible, and Sirius was happy.

Shocker.

“I haven’t been a child since I was a toddler.”  Harry countered that expectation mercilessly.  If these cultivators thought that they could steam-roller him because of his age…well.

They wouldn’t be the first people he’d taught otherwise.

Forcibly, if necessary.

Though hopefully not, given the distinct lack of escalation into violence or histrionics he’d dealt with at Lotus Pier thus far.

It was a nice change after spending his formative years in the wizarding world.

Not one he trusted, but nice nonetheless.

“But you are Changze’s Ha Li, nonetheless.”  Fengmian countered, undeterred.

“That’s one way of looking at things,” alright, maybe Harry was more than just a little shit.  At the moment.  Look: it’d been a long day and he wasn’t in a place or among people he trusted, okay?  Add in a’Ying’s hidden form sleeping beside his father, and Sirius’s general everything, he wasn’t exactly roses and sunshine to deal with.  Sue him.

“And another?”

“That who you know as Wei Changze was born a member of my House,” the way he stressed the word made Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian trade a concerned look.  It wasn’t quite the same way either of them would refer to Yunmeng Jiang as their own…but it wasn’t far off either.

Just how much of his life before the Jiang Sect had Changze kept to himself?

And how was that going to affect things now that the life he’d left it seemed had caught up with him.

Whether Changze liked it or not.

“Making him mine as much if not more than I am his.”  Harry tilted his head a bit to the side.  “If we’re speaking in possessives, anyway.”

“And if we were not?”  Fengmian asked after a short, if fraught, pause filled with the crackle of Zidian.

“Then I’d say that he is the last family I have left, and I followed him to Jianghu to ensure that neither of us was alone any longer.”  Harry admitted truthfully after a long look at the pair of father-and-son asleep on the sleeping mat beside him.  “Granted, I was missing some information when I made that choice,” he waved towards the sleeping form of a’Ying, the others allowed to Notice him for the first time since entering Sirius’s sick room as a result.  “But I wouldn’t change it regardless.”

If anything, as he was one hundred percent certain that a’Ying would have been orphaned if Harry hadn’t popped up when he did, he was even gladder that he’d chosen to follow Sirius into a veiled world and an uncertain future.

At least his damn odd luck had been good for keeping a’Ying from ending up an orphan if nothing else.

Now that, Fengmian thought, as a wave of relief washed over him as the thick tension in Changze’s sickroom lessened (but still failed to disperse entirely) was the first good news he’d gotten since the guards had sent for him with word that Changze had been injured.

It was a stance he could work with, both as the head of his family and the sect leader of Yunmeng Jiang, and one that if necessary he could defend.

Whether that defense was required at all, or against whom, remained to be seen.

But having a defense was much more his preference than the alternative.

Pure offense was his lady wife’s domain, one where she excelled, but it wasn’t Fengmian’s way.

“Cangse Sanren?”  Yu Ziyuan asked what her husband could not.

Harry merely shook his head, a grim look of understanding crossing the faces of his audience at the gesture.

Wanting this - interview, interrogation, whatever-the-fuck - conversation over, Harry quickly ran down the where, when, and what that led to Sirius’s arrival at Lotus Pier.

He did not explain how he was able to travel the distance between Yiling and Lotus Pier so swiftly, or anything about Xiao Meishi’s ghost and the conversation they had before he located a’Ying, but while he omitted he never outright lied either.

They clearly still had questions when he was finished, but just as clearly were willing to wait.

Probably because Harry had started to sway in place and nearly face-planted on top of Sirius, but, meh.

Details.

…

“Sirius Orion Black the Third, I am going to skin you alive!”

“MOther?!”  Wei Changze (who used to be one Sirius Black, Marauder extraordinaire) yelped as he woke to a name he hadn’t heard in a language he hadn’t spoken in years shrieked at a volume that were an unfortunate flashback to living at Grimmauld Place.

Even as incandescently furious as Harry was with Sirius, he had to admit that watching the big-bag infamous convict and fugitive bolt from lying down to sitting upright with washed-out skin and wild eyes was fucking hilarious.

It wasn’t a prank he would’ve pulled intentionally if he’d known that was how Sirius was going to react - but still priceless.

The Jiang healer - someone had told him her name, but Harry had been far more focused on keeping a’Ying calm in that moment than on meeting yet another purple-draped cultivator - had given Harry the go-ahead to try and wake his godfather.

Between the potions that Harry had been spelling into Sirius’s system incognito when he was alone with his godfather and the care of the healers, it took several days for said-healers to be willing to risk waking the man from his unconscious healing trance-state-thing.

It looked like a damn coma to Harry, but whatever, as established: Jianghu was weird.

And that was what Wei Changze saw when the confusion cleared from his abrupt awakening:

Hari James Potter, one hand covering his mouth as he snickered at him, impossible green eyes dancing with mirth even as everything else about him nearly seethed with his temper.

His pup always had taken more after his mother than anyone liked to admit.

And the temper was nearly as infamous as the rich color of their eyes.

“Harry?!”  Wei Changze slipped back into his native language easier than he would’ve thought - given that he never spoke it anymore unless it was to teach his son.  He might have left being Sirius Black and almost everything to do with him behind when the judges of the Veil spit him out in Jianghu, but he’d never forgotten who he’d been.  Or what that meant or could mean for his son.

Granted: even with teaching a’Ying bits and pieces of English and French and Latin to exercise that quicksilver mind his son was born with, telling him stories of magic and most of all Harry, he’d never expected to have his past catch up to him.

Let alone the way it did: via one epically pissed off godson scolding him after saving his mangy hide from a yao that was stronger than it had any right to be.

Even as close to the Burial Mounds as said-yao had been when they’d finally tracked it down.

“Sirius, you selfish sonuvabitch,” Harry blinked back the moisture that threatened to form up behind his eyelids.  “I don’t know whether I should hug you or strangle you.  Hunting random malformed dark creatures?  Leaving your son alone in an inn?  He’s fucking five years old, Sirius Black!  How could you…”

Though the words bit deep (no one needed to tell him what happened to his wife.  That she wasn’t either right next to Harry waiting on Wei Changze to awake or on an infirmary bed in the room told him all he needed to know.) Changze couldn’t help but just listen and nod as his godson vented his spleen all over Changze’s healing head.

He had it coming.

And if there was anyone in either world entitled to ring a peel over Wei Changze’s head over almost orphaning his young son, it was Harry fucking Potter.

In the back of his mind, where Changze’s higher thought processes were still churning back to life after his groggy rude awakening, he was flailing and shrieking over Harry’s here Harry’s here oh fuck the Veil Harry’s here.

But in the immediate moment, all Changze could do was bask in the all-too-familiar wrath of a Lily Evans/Harry Potter style rant.

He didn’t know how long he’d been gone from Harry’s point of view, though he gathered just from looking at his pup that it had been at least a few years.

From his own, he’d lived as Wei Changze almost as long as he had Sirius Black once he took wasting away in Azkaban out of the count.

And he’d missed his godson for all of those years almost more than he could say.

Even when he was spitting mad and breathing proverbial fire.

…

Out in the corridor of the healing pavilion, Yu Ziyuan shot an expectant look at her husband.

Few were those truly aware of just how different Wei Changze was from those around him.  Even Ziyuan didn’t try and fool herself into thinking she knew all of the man’s secrets, let alone the totality of his background.  But of everyone who’d ever met the silver-eyed menace, it was Fengmian who knew him best.

To the point, though it was rarely useful, of knowing some of the man’s mother tongue.

Which, given the volume and tone of their uninvited guest’s verbal rampage that was still continuing after several long and vicious minutes and had Ziyuan impressed despite herself, was possibly useful for once.

As the stranger didn’t have the courtesy to verbally eviscerate Wei Changze in a language that Yu Ziyuan could understand and therefore enjoy.

(Yu Ziyuan didn’t know if she’d ever be able to forgive Wei Changze for choosing to abandon his place at Jiang Fengmian’s - his sworn brother - side.  It was a gaping, bleeding wound that even with having the menace and far-too-cheerful son at last within the halls of Lotus Pier refused to heal.  A wife and children, cousins and extended family were one thing.  But Yu Ziyuan knew that chosen family crafted a bond that was almost impossible to duplicate through other means.  And still Changze had left Fengmian behind with barely a word and only a letter or two per year in all the time following thereafter.  The sheer thoughtless disloyalty of it burned.  No, Yu Ziyuan didn’t think she’d ever be able to forgive Wei Changze.  But his tangzhi might actually be tolerable if his willingness to hold Wei Changze to account was any sign.)

“Our guest knows how to swear in Changze’s mother tongue,” Fengmian admitted his own lacking knowledge with a sheepish shrug.  It had been many years since he’d used the language his sworn brother taught him after all, and at this point that he still recognized that Changze was being cursed at using some of the vulgarity Changze had taken great pains to teach him was nearly a miracle in and so itself.  Let alone expecting him to manage to translate the rest of it.

Except for one thing, anyway:

“And he knows who my sworn brother was before he came to Lotus Pier.”

Well now, Yu Ziyuan mused in satisfaction at having her hypothesis regarding the stranger confirmed above and beyond his own words.

Wasn’t that interesting?

Chapter Text

Shifting Boundaries

Part Four

Two Weeks Later:

At the sound of shouting coming from the training yard, Harry set down the scroll he’d been translating (the hard way, part of Siri’s lessons in actually teaching him Jianghu’s language instead of having him rely on translation charms 24/7) and shot Sirius a look.

“Does that woman’s lungs ever get tired?”  He couldn’t help but ask.

Harry had only been a guest - however reluctant and uninvited at first - of Lotus Pier and the Yunmeng Jiang sect for a fortnight, but it had been more than enough time to survey the lay of the land.

At least in some cases.

In others, he had a feeling that he could live there for years and not understand the undercurrents or the people navigating them.

“The Violet Spider is a formidable woman,” Wei Changze told him, a smirk tugging up one side of his handsome mouth as he reclined against the head of his sick bed.  He’d woken easily enough from his coma, but his spiritual energy had yet to fully regain its strength after the strain his core had been put under keeping him alive until Harry could get him to a healer.  Rest was the remedy of the moment, even if it chafed at him to be confined to bed.  “No,” he finally admitted when his pup just stared at him, entirely unimpressed.  “She’s always like that, always has been.”

“Great.”  Harry groaned, shaking his head and slumping.  “I thought it was just the stress of the situation but…”  He waved a hand in the direction of the practice yard.

Then a thought occurred to him and he shot Sirius a look.

“You didn’t leave Lotus Pier just because Aunt Meishi wanted to wander, did you?”  He smirked knowingly when Sirius winced and looked away.

Hah.  Nailed it.

After meeting Walburga Black - portrait or not - for himself, Harry rather doubted that Sirius would be keen to put himself back into a position where any kind of bitter, exacting woman would have power over him.

“So, out of curiosity,” he couldn’t help but poke at the weak spot he’d discovered in Sirius’s Jianghu-backstory.  “How long after Madam Yu married into Yunmeng Jiang did you and Aunt Meishi take off?  Or…”  he tilted his head as he spied, yep, that was a blush on Sirius’s creamy complexion.  “Did you even wait that long to elope?”

“Oh fuck off,” Changze lobbed a pillow at his godson’s head, wrinkling his nose when Harry easily dodged it given Changze’s lack of strength and speed at that point in his recovery.  “I’m not completely unfilial despite my issues with my birth family.  Of course I waited until after the wedding.”

“Uh huh.”  Harry rolled his eyes.  “By what?  A day, a week…”

Changze shifted a bit, avoiding that far too knowing gaze, then admitted: “eight days.”

Which, all things considered, had been more than enough to realize that despite their best attempts, wishes, and prayers in the ancestral hall, Yu Ziyuan and Xiao Meishi would never manage to be more than icily cordial with each other.

No matter how close their husbands were or how much said-husbands wanted otherwise, they were simply far too diametrically opposed in nature to get along.

At least, no long term.

What had began as a simple distance during the Cloud Recesses lecture series that their generation had attended had exploded into dislike that bordered on disdain within days of the women having to live under the same roof at Lotus Pier.

No, it had been best for everyone that Wei Changze and Xiao Meishi took their leave.

Even if it had almost killed something inside of Changze to all-but-abandon his sworn brother.

(Again, again again, something that would never truly quiet screamed inside of him.  It had the shape and venom of the rage and grief that speared his heart at the sight of James’s body lying still and empty on the steps of the cottage in Godric’s Hollow.  A wound that would never heal, no matter the time and distance applied as his idea of switching secret-keepers cost him nearly everything he’d ever held dear in his first life.)

“You sure you want to try living here all over again, then?”  Harry couldn’t help but ask.

What Wei Changze planned to do - as a man, as a father, as a widower, as a cultivator, etc. - now that his wife died and left him a single father had been only a brief topic of conversation shortly after Changze woke.

Jiang Fengmian had taken it as a matter of rote that of course his oldest friend would be returning to the Yunmeng Jiang fold under the circumstances.

Wei Changze had taken approximately ten seconds to voice his agreement, with the caveat that Harry would be allowed to stay as Changze’s personal guest as long and/or as often as he wished.

His wife hadn’t been nearly so sanguine about her husband’s assumptions as Changze had been, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

Push come to shove, Madam Yu was only the wife of the sect leader, no matter her personal reputation and power.  All the power she wielded within the sect was granted to her by her husband, the same within the family.  And once her husband publicly made a decision, there wasn’t anything she officially could do about it - even publicly voice an objection or complaint - without risking bringing censure down onto her own head and risking loss of face for the sect.

Yu Ziyuan was many things, but she wasn’t a fool.

She knew when to pick her battles - public or private - with her husband and leader of her marital sect, and anything to do with Wei Changze wasn’t one worth navigating given that loss was a foregone conclusion.

That said, she made her unhappiness with her husband known in many ways great and small, but that was a horse of a different color than causing an official issue over his decisions.

Harry had only been at Lotus Pier a couple weeks and he absolutely could not imagine a scenario where he willingly spent any real length of time under Yu Ziyuan’s purview.

The woman was polite enough as a hostess, no matter how little she might enjoy playing the role for him, but given everything he’d seen of her and her temperament, over his dead body would he put himself even nominally under her authority.

(Or anyone’s authority, after all he’d gone through to break Dumbledore and the Wizarding World’s hold on him, for that matter.)

Changze sighed, looking up once more to meet Harry’s earnest gaze.

The last two weeks had been spent in long conversations between the pair, interspersed with Changze speaking with Fengmian when his friend would come to visit, and of course with taking care of and entertaining Wei Ying in the evenings.  Fengmian’s two children had been quick to fold Wei Ying into their care, albeit sweet Jiang Yanli had taken to him quicker than shy Jiang Cheng.  Still, Wei Ying’s gregarious personality had won the younger boy over, and had slipped exuberantly into the role of shixiong to the Jiang Sect Heir.

Harry hadn’t told him everything that had gone on since Changze had fallen through the Veil and into a whole new world - and neither had Changze expected him too.

It had been decades for Changze since he’d last seen his godson before Harry had popped up just in time to pull his ass out of the fire, but even so Changze remembered how reticent Harry often was when it came to himself instead of events of the wider world.  Ask him about the latest Death Eater disaster or quidditch?  Not a problem.  Suggest he should speak of his home environment?  Torture would be preferable to this conversation.

Time was a tricksy beast (either that or the Veil, it was difficult to say without more information and examples to work from) and as a result only a few years had passed since they parted for Harry rather than the near entire lifetime that had slipped by for Changze.

They were both vastly different persons than the ones that lived in their individual memories.

Even so, Changze wasn’t surprised when Harry had skipped over what had to have been earth-shattering grief and a strong likelihood of depression in his retelling of his decisions and actions following Changze’s fall into the Veil at Bellatrix’s wand.

Stealing a time-turner had been inspired, however, that Changze wasn’t shy to admit, even if he would’ve wished for Harry to have chosen a different path than isolation as a way to process his grief over Changze’s loss.

That Harry had claimed his lordships however had been one of the tidbits his godson had shared, even if he’d mostly glossed over it, and it had the potential to muddy the waters regarding Changze and Wei Ying’s place in Jianghu’s cultivation society.

Sirius Black might have ran away from home and renounced his claim to the House of Black - but he’d also run straight into the bosom and care of the Potter family.

As far as Jianghu traditional convention was concerned, as the Lord of his House (no matter which angle it was looked at from) Harry had far more authority over whether or not the Wei family would be staying at Lotus Pier than anyone else, short of a total break between Harry and Changze.

Which was not an option in either man’s mind, just to be clear.

If Harry wasn’t convinced that Changze was making the correct decision for both himself and his son, he was completely in the right to override it culturally-speaking.

Harry would never given both his personality and personal history, but he had the option nonetheless.

Likewise, that Harry would not be staying on permanently either as a guest or via joining the sect at Lotus Pier was tangible in the air between them, even though it had yet to be voiced.

Harry had gone through far too much effort to free himself in every way, means, and manner possible from his previous bonds to willingly take up a new set so soon.

“This is home, here.”  Changze smiled softly as Harry almost visibly wilted at that simple statement.  “It’s not the first place I found myself after being tossed out of the Veil, and you certainly know it wasn’t the last, but it’s home.  Jiang Fengmian is as close to me,” to who Wei Changze had become, “as Remus or James were to James Potter.  It’s not perfect by any means…”

He shot a rueful glance at the open window where Yu Ziyuan’s strident tones were still carrying on the air.

“But it’s home.  With Meishi gone,” he shook his head, clenching his eyes closed on his grief that threatened to overwhelm him.  “Lotus Pier is where I am needed, just as much as it is what I need.”

“Okay, Siri-” Harry caught himself and sighed, mentally waving a flag of surrender.  “Wei-shibo.  Tangxiong.  I’ll respect your choice, even if I can’t choose the same for myself.”

“You’ve a whole world to explore now, tangzhi.”   Changze cajoled him out of his declining mood.  “One filled with art, music, adventure and magic.  There’s worse things than having a safe place to rest when roaming grows wearisome.”

Wei Changze, who’d spent years wandering beside his late wife, would know after all.

“Though,” he continued, eyeing the man his godson had become.  “We’re going to have to do something about your name, as entertaining as listening and watching everyone around you fumble over it has been.”

“I suppose you’d know.”  Harry huffed a bit, having come to the same conclusion.  “Sirius couldn’t have been any easier for the Jianghu tongue to manage than Harry.”

It wasn’t as if the idea - taking a new name, a new identity to go with his new life - was a foreign concept.

Quite to the contrary: Harry had already considered that angle of his, ah, relocation when he’d been planning and plotting at Grimmauld Place what felt like an age ago.

But, in all his planning he’d never thought that it would be his bog-standard Englishman’s first name that would be the problem.

Then the cultural tradition of courtesy names versus milk names came into play, and the entire affair of who Harry was going to be in his new life gained new complications.

“Here,” Changze reached out, pulling a slip of paper out from the small pile of papers and scrolls at his beside.  “I’ve been thinking about how to arrange things, and I think I’ve come up with a few options that could do the job.”

Frowning a bit as he struggled to translate the script before giving up and hitting it with a translation charm (Changze snickering at him all the while, the wanker) he pursed his lips in consideration as he glanced over the options Changze had thoughtfully provided.

Ha Li was written in Changze’s practiced calligraphy at the top of the paper, with character combinations for his “milk name” then in the second, third, and fourth sections were the three family names that Changze had pondered over along with his courtesy name.

“Courtesy names are often chosen by either one’s parents or a close friend or relative.”  Changze offered when Harry flicked a look at his godfather over the top of the paper.  “If you don’t like the one I’ve picked, we can figure something else out but…”

“Heiyu is fine, Changze, good even.”  Harry admitted as he studied the chosen characters.  Black Jade.   Unless he chose the third option for his family name, Dai, for Black, then things got a bit weird, but otherwise…  He ran one finger down his ink-black hair, and didn’t even have to think about where the jade part came in given his eye coloring.  A bit on the nose, but it fit the cultural necessity of a courtesy name regardless.

(What Harry didn’t realize at the time was that Heiyu was also nominally considered a feminine name, and as a result a minor prank on Changze’s too-serious godson, but it was what it was.  A prank war might have broken out and encompassed most of Lotus Pier, including both the disciples and ruling family when Harry realized, but that was a problem for future-Changze and not current-Changze to deal with.)

“But…”  Harry-Heiyu frowned softly in uncertainty as he set the paper aside after staring a moment longer at the first option for his new name.  “Taking the Wei name…are you sure you’re okay with that?”  Harry had quickly come to realize the importance and emphasis Jianghu culture - cultivation and mundane - placed on family names and ancestral veneration.

Adoption - no matter how obliquely it was offered or carried out - was kind of a big deal.

Harry just wanted to make sure…

Wei Changze snorted, rolling his eyes extravagantly and flapped a hand at his ridiculous godson.

“Please, kiddo.”  A bit of Sirius Black poked its head up from the refined mannerisms of Wei Changze.  “I would’ve adopted you the minute you were born if Lily wouldn’t have keelhauled me for trying to steal her baby.  Giving you my name to help you settle into life in an entirely different world is as easy as breathing when you’ve always been my son.  However shitty of a would-be parent I’ve been in the past.”

And that, as Harry blinked quickly and looked away before he could totally break down at that bit of blistering honesty from his godfather, was that.

…

Three Months Later:

“Why do you have to go?!”  Wei Ying demanded, staring up at his dage with a nuclear-grade pout on his cute little face.

At his side his shidi Jiang Cheng silently echoed his demand, though rather than a pout Cheng-shidi scowled and crossed his arms over his tiny chest as they faced off against the reality of their dage (because what was Wei Ying’s was also Jiang Cheng’s…mostly) leaving them to travel.

Not for a night, or even a week on a nighthunt.

But for months, which to a pair of small children might as well be forever.

“Ying’er, a’Cheng, we’ve talked about this,” Wei Heiyu sighed and hunkered down before the pair of pint-sized people.  “Wei-shibo is worried that this one missed some pieces in my education and asked Lan-xiaozhang to allow me to study at Gusu.  I won’t be gone forever, just for a while.”

An explanation that just made Wei Ying pout harder, as when it came to handing out assignments even the youngest cultivator at Lotus Pier (which due to his golden core was Wei Ying despite him only being five years old, several years younger than most disciples were taken into any sect for training, or began training if they’d been born into a sect) knew that Wei Changze’s word was law unless overwritten by Jiang-zhongzhu.

Which never happened since Wei Changze had taken up his post as Jiang Fengmian’s second-in-command once more, but was possible nonetheless.

And if the kids had a near-zero shot at convincing Yu-ge not to follow through on something for Wei Changze, there was a less-than-zero change that Jiang Fengmian would intervene in a decision made between his sworn brother and Wei Changze’s foster son and lord of his house.

Wei Heiyu had never interfered in sect matters since Wei Changze had returned to Lotus Pier, with the sole exception of a “donation” that soothed over matters between Yu Ziyuan along with the sect elders over Wei Changze’s “sabbatical” from his duties.  He never intended to.  Heiyu was many things but a trained senior cultivator or versed in their affairs and politics he was not.

A fact of his person and life which made him perfect for taking on the task his godfather had brought to him in a flurry of concern more than a month prior.

What the pair of tiny cultivator’s pouting at him didn’t know or realize was that Heiyu’s stint as a visiting student at Cloud Recesses was a cover for a more concerning mission.

One of the realities of Wei Changze’s life as a former rogue/wandering cultivator was that it had made keeping in contact with even his adoptive family at Lotus Pier abominably difficult, let alone his friends in other places and sects.

As a result, when correspondance with one of those friends had slowed down, he hadn’t thought much of it.  Then when it happened with another, he’d merely taken it as a consequence of his lifestyle.  He’d regretted the necessity, but with a wife and a new child to care for, his worry over his friends had become a more distant concern.

Then after returning to Lotus Pier, information and gossip regarding his friends and loved ones had once more began to flow - and Wei Changze had started to form a most concerning picture regarding a series of events he’d been ignorant of previously.

He’d struggled to find information on his own, and even what Fengmian could source was scant at best.

Wei Changze had become officially concerned.

That was when his godson had stepped in, having watched Changze worry himself into a total strop.

The real sticking point on gathering factual information had quickly become clear with Heiyu’s more removed point of view and insight:

Wei Changze was known to have been close friends with the pair he was so worried over.

But to Wei Heiyu?  Why, they might as well be strangers.  Why would he concern himself with them, or gossip surrounding them that was older than Wei Ying?

So yes, though Heiyu wasn’t an official member of any sect, he had taken on a task from the second of Yunmeng Jiang.

Even if he, and Wei Changze, were two of the only people who knew about it.

“Baba says Cloud Recesses are boring,” Wei Ying allowed, though he didn’t let up on the pout, knowing how effective it was at getting his dage to cave to Wei Ying’s wants.  He turned to Jiang Cheng with a put-upon sigh.  “Dage probably won’t want to stay there, even if Gusu is as pretty as shufu says.”

For his part, Jiang Cheng merely narrowed his gaze on his dage’s solemn face as Heiyu nodded in silent agreement with a’Ying’s concession.

“Come back, dage.”   Jiang Cheng finally spoke.  “Hafta come back.”

“Oh my little niblets.”  Heiyu smiled and rolled his eyes before pulling the pair into a quick - but squeezey - hug.  “Don’t you know that your dage will always come back?  I promise.”  He swore, meaning it down to his bones even as he looked up over their dark little heads and met the quicksilver gaze of Wei Changze.  “There isn’t anything this world has to offer that can keep your dage from coming back to protect you.  I will always come back to you.”

No matter what.

There wasn't a fucking thing in Jianghu capable of keeping Wei Heiyu away from those he loved.  Not for long at least.  And for those who would try?

Well.

That was a problem a simple application of fiendfyre was more than capable of sorting out.

Harry Potter's boundaries might have shifted, but his person was just the same: and nothing and no one in Jianghu except for Wei Changze was truly ready for him.

Or the fallout and trouble that would follow him, like a niffler after gold.

…