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Chapter Text

They had got there of course by Magic, which is the only way of getting to Narnia. – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

This is how it begins… perhaps:

A boy walks into a castle, and his eyes are not wide with awe because he has spent years (and no time at all) living in a castle just as grand and just as magical. Instead, his bright green eyes are narrowed, taking in the moving portraits and ghosts that hover through walls, and also the people around him. He knows there are beasts here— centaurs and merfolk, talking animals and dragons. But in this castle only humans reign.

As this beginning unfolds, the boy stands up straight and waits for his name to be called. When the matronly woman at the front of the hall announces, “Potter, Harry!” he steps forward, shoulders back, and ignores the stares of the children surrounding him… and the curious gaze of the old man at the head of the table.

He takes his place on the stool and lets a hat fall over his eyes, and a voice inside his head makes a sound of surprise.

“It’s been an Age since I’ve sorted someone with two lifetimes in their soul,” it says.

“But it can be done?” Harry asks.

“Oh yes,” the hat says. “It’s just a tricky bit of business, deciding which lifetime to sort you on.”

Harry waits patiently.

“In your first life, the almost-eleven years spent here in England, you grew to be a determined young man,” the hat says. “One who overcame the most difficult of obstacles.” Harry feels the hat pull the images forward: years spent in a dark cupboard, never enough food. Sneaking bits of burnt bacon from the pan when nobody was looking, standing up to Dudley and his gang in the schoolyard before fists began to fly. The memories are painful, but distant now, and he pushes them away.

“And then,” the hat continues, “there are the years you spent Elsewhere.”

Harry smiles and lets the memories come to life in his mind. Loyalty and friendship—“You would do well in Hufflepuff, Mr. Potter, but then…”— and chivalry and daring— “… there is so much Gryffindor in you as well,”— and books and scrolls, diplomacy and wisdom—“Though I suppose Ravenclaw is not out of the question, lad… still…”— and the weight of leadership, responsibility and power, and a family (a father) who raised him to understand that everyone has shadows and secrets, and how to use them for the good of all.

Beyond the stool and the hat, the Great Hall begins to stir. Surely this is taking too long, the students murmur. Professors exchange weary glances.

Finally, the hat opens its mouth along a tear, and proclaims, “Slytherin!”

The boy removes the hat with a rueful grin, sweeps his robes with a grace that few children in the room possess, and makes his way to the table along the far wall, silence following in his wake.

But maybe this was not the beginning.

Maybe the beginning happened one summer afternoon in a dreary suburb called Little Whinging, in a dreary house on Privet Drive, where the same young boy is dragged down the hallway by his furious uncle. His arm aches and his wrist is bruised and he has welts from a beating which he dares not cry over.

But something lingers deep in his chest, behind the pain and fear. That something is dangerous, a word that he dares not ever utter aloud: magic.

He talked to a snake today, the boys thinks. He, plain old Harry, spoke to a boa constrictor and helped it escape and he made the glass vanish and— and— that is magic.

His uncle yells and threatens and Harry knows his punishment will be severe. Sure enough he sees the door to his cupboard looming, and feels the dread sinking through his limbs.

The door opens, and his uncle flings Harry into it. His shoulder wrenches from the violence as Harry tumbles in.

The door slams shut behind him.

Harry stumbles across the small space towards the tiny mattress pad that makes up his bed, his injured arm curled against his chest. He inches forward, and forward, but the mattress pad is nowhere to be found, and—

His cupboard can’t be this big, surely? Where is the back wall?

And—

There is a scent of flowers. His cupboard has never in Harry’s entire life smelled so lovely, but now he can smell roses like his Aunt grows (like Harry grows for her), fresh green things, and there’s a light, sunlight, dappling through dense branches, and—

And—

“Oh!” A woman’s voice exclaims. “Well, I’ll be. What in Aslan’s name are you doing here, lad?”

Harry ducks at the first sound, but this is not his Aunt’s shrill tone. There is no frying pan waiting to catch him out of line. Instead there is a… a beaver, wearing a frilly apron and carrying a basket.

This is not his cupboard. This is not the backyard of Number 4 Privet Drive. This is not the park down the road, where he flees from Dudley and his gang, or the schoolyard where he hides from teachers who think him dull.

“Oh,” the beaver says again, and this time her voice is dismayed. “Look at you. You’re injured, poor dear. Can you stand? Come with me, I’ll get you a nice cup of tea and we can see about getting you a healer, hm?”

“Is this—” Harry’s mouth snaps shut. Questions are dangerous. But he cannot hold this one inside himself any longer, whatever the risk. “Is this heaven?” he asks.

The beaver tuts, and wraps him in a knit shawl that is so soft it feels like silk. “Goodness no,” she says. “This is Narnia, my dear.”

Of course, Harry would argue that neither of those were truly the beginning. If asked, he would say that the beginning came the day that he met a king.

***

Harry has not known much kindness in his life, but the last week has been overflowing with it to the point where he has already started to forget about the dark, painful life he’s left behind. His new home with Mrs. Beaver is everything he could have dreamed of and more: warmth and sunlight, wildflowers carrying perfumed air in through the open windows, warm bread and honey on the table whenever his stomach growls.

On his first evening, there is a knock at the door and a man enters.

“No, not a man,” comes the gentle correction. “I am a faun, and you can call me Tulous. I have been studying healing under Queen Lucy the Valiant herself, and I am here to help you.”

And so Harry learns about fauns, while his shoulder his examined and bandaged, and he learns about dryads and dwarves from Mr. Tulous while the faun rubs a minty-scented lotion over the bruises on his wrist, and he learns about the Kings and Queens of Narnia while Mr. Tulous and Mrs. Beaver help him to bathe and dress in clothes that do not hang off him, and feed him fresh fish and carrots from the garden and apple pie for dessert.

“You should take him to Cair Paravel,” Mr. Tulous says, when he thinks Harry is asleep on the (soft! and warm! and all his!) bed that Mrs. Beaver has led him to, tucking him in and humming a lullaby.

“In a few days, perhaps,” Mrs. Beaver agrees. “Sons of Adam belong with their own. But I think he needs more time to heal, first.”

Mr. Tulous agrees and plans to accompany them one week from then, and leaves behind more pots of salve. He brushes a gentle hand over Harry’s head, and Harry drifts off to the sound of him departing the cozy den.

And so it is that after a week of kindness and good food, of not being hit or forced to do chores, Harry has discovered what it is to smile and laugh and find joy in life. He skips alongside Mrs. Beaver and Mr. Tulous as they set out in the morning for Cair Paravel.

“Where the Kings and Queens live,” Harry states.

“Yes,” Mrs. Beaver says. “Do you remember their names?”

Harry has absorbed everything about his new life with relish. “Oh yes, Mrs. Beaver. There is Queen Lucy the Valiant, who taught Mr. Tulous how to heal. And there is Queen Susan the Gentle, who can fire and bow and arrow and hit anything she aims for. And there is King Edmund the Just, who knows all of the laws and is friends with all the other countries.” Harry pauses to inspect a butterfly, then dashes to catch up. “And then there’s King Peter the Magnificent, who is the High King and the bravest of them all!”

“Very good, Harry,” Mr. Tulous says, and begins to quiz him on Narnian geography.

They reach Cair Paravel by lunchtime, and Harry’s excitement dims in the shadow of the imposing castle. Mrs. Beaver guides him across the drawbridge, pointing out the drwarven guards and the gryphons stationed up above. A fox meets them just inside the entrance and leads them down a hallway.

Harry does mean to stay with Mrs. Beaver and Mr. Tulous. He means to behave, truly! But there are so many things to see in the castle, and Mrs. Beaver is talking to the fox about their appointment, and Harry stops to look at a painting of very large boat and a sea monster, and then—

When he looks up, the fox and Mr. Tulous and Mrs. Beaver have vanished.

Suddenly the castle seems less exciting and more scary. Harry walks down the hallway and turns a corner, but there is nobody in sight. He continues walking, another corridor and another turn, until he hears someone. It is a man’s voice, and there are loud words, and the sound of heavy footsteps, and Harry’s heart begins to race.

He bolts, turning back the way he came—or at least the way he thinks he came— and he runs and runs and hopes that whoever is behind him is not following. He risks a look, to make sure he is not being chased—

— and slams into something large and hard.

Harry screams.

The thing he has run into shouts.

Harry begins to cry. He knows that crying makes things worse, it’s one of the first lessons he learned in the place Before, but he cannot help himself. He is lost and afraid and he has done something wrong by not staying with Mrs. Beaver and Mr. Tulous, and he remembers what happens when he does something wrong. He curls up on the floor, arms wrapped around himself as he shakes, and waits for the pain to return.

A shadow looms over him, and Harry tenses.

Instead, there are gentle arms surrounding him.

“Oh, child,” a man says, who is not Uncle Vernon and is not angry at all. “It’s okay, nothing will harm you here. Shh, no need for tears. What’s your name, little one?”

Harry manages his name around hiccupping breaths.

“Harry.” The man sounds confused. “Where are you from, Harry?”

Slowly the tears recede, though Harry does not uncurl yet. “I live with Mrs. Beaver now,” he says.

“And before that?” the man asks. “Where did you live before that?”

Harry does not like thinking about Before. In the last week, he has decided with all the confidence of a ten (almost eleven) year old boy that he will never, ever go back there. But the man holding him is calm and kind, and the fear of Before still lingers. “Little Whinging,” he says. “That’s in Surrey.”

“England.” The man exhales the word. “You’re from England.”

Something about the man’s tone makes Harry open his eyes and unclench his arms. He uncurls and looks up at the man holding him.

Dark hair, pale skin. He is older, but not old… like Harry’s first primary school teacher, who Aunt Petunia said was much too young to be a teacher, she should be looking for a husband at her age with a sniff.

“You look like me,” Harry says.

The man quirks a smile. “So I do,” he says. “I think this is a sign that we should be very good friends, Harry.”

Harry sits up, the fear almost forgotten in the face of this new excitement. “I’ve never had a friend before,” he confesses.

Something crosses the man’s face, sharp, there and gone in a split second. “Neither had I, until I came to Narnia.”

“What’s your name?” Harry asks.

“My name is Edmund,” he says, offering a hand and another smile. “Now, let’s see if we can find Mrs. Beaver. I’m sure she’s very worried about you.”

(This is the beginning.)

***

Albus Dumbledore had seen many things in his many years on Earth, but Harry Potter is easily one of the most baffling of them all.

The boy defies explanation.

“Why aren’t you in Gryffindor?” the youngest Weasley boy asks in the hallway, the day after the Sorting.

Albus watches from a distance as Harry pauses and appears to think through the question. “Well,” he says finally, “the hat did consider me for it. But I suppose I’m too much like my father in the end.”

He turns and leaves young Weasley—and a dozen others who were listening in as well—with furrowed brows as they tried to process that.

“I thought both his parents were Gryffindors,” a Hufflepuff third year says.

“He’s not going to last a week in Slytherin if he goes about talking to blood traitors like that.” That from the Malfoy boy, and oh how Albus had wished Harry was not sharing a dorm with that one.

The Weasley boy overhears of course, and insults begin to fly, drawing the crowd’s attention away from Harry as he makes his way towards his first class. Only Dumbledore notices the way Harry stands and walks—like a trained Auror, instead of an eleven year old child.

It’s only one of the many things about Harry Potter that concern Albus. There is the fact that Harry’s owl returned promptly with a neatly written acceptance letter, rather than the difficulty Albus had anticipated from Petunia and her husband. Then, Harry himself showing up for school with his supplies, though nobody had been asked to escort him to Diagon Alley or Platform 9 ¾, and there was only the word of Mundungus—drunk, of course—that Harry had been spotted out and about, escorted by old Fleamont Potter of all people… as though Fleamont had not been dead over a decade now.

And then there’s the matter of the scar.

Or, rather, the lack thereof.

***

“Father!” Harry looks up from his book, delighted. “I thought you were still in Archenland to finalize the trade negotiations.”

His father manages a smile despite his obvious exhaustion. “I received a message from Mr. Tumnus that troubled me, so I left Lord Pirium in charge of the remaining negotiations and returned home.”

Harry sets the book aside and sits up straight, frowning. “Mr. Tumnus rarely reports to you directly,” he points out. “He is one of Aunt Lucy’s advisors. If he is sending you an urgent missive, then it means something is wrong.”

“Not wrong.” King Edmund taps his fingers against his thigh, the only sign that he’s frustrated. “Though, perhaps, not right.”

Harry is sixteen years old, and has grown into maturity in Narnia. He knows the walls of Cair Paravel as well as the backs of his own hands, knows its people and its beasts as well as he knows himself. There are few things that could cause his father to be so cautious.

“A sign from Aslan?” he asks.

“Perhaps.” Edmund pauses, then says, “The White Stag has returned to Narnia.”

Harry’s eyes narrow. “A questing beast. So there’s to be a hunt.”

Edmund tenses, and then pulls the chair out from the table across from Harry and slides into it. “There will be a hunt,” he says, “because Peter will be compelled to seek the Stag. But there is something else going on here—something darker.”

Of all inhabitants of Cair Paravel, it is Edmund and his adopted son Harry who know darkness best.

“Explain.”

“I’ve explained before that my siblings and I came from England, just like you, though many years earlier. And, while my siblings have lived blissfully in Narnia without any thought of that world we left behind, I have always suspected that we would be forced to return there someday.”

The room feels heavy around them. “You think that time approaches.”

“I do.” A beat, and Edmund reaches out his hand, takes Harry’s in it. “For all of us.”

Harry swallows hard. “I won’t go back to my past. I won’t go back to the pain and darkness. Not when I’ve finally had a chance to live in the light.”

“I would never dream of allowing such a thing,” Edmund says, and he speaks as a king, with certainty and authority. “Now listen carefully, I don’t know how much time we have.”

***

“Excuse me, Professor Binns?”

The entire class starts, many of them from where they have dozed off on their desks. Nobody asks a question in History of Magic. Ever.

Their professor seems just as surprised as the students.

“Yes, er—”

“Potter, sir.”

“Yes, Mr. Potter.”

“The text states that the Goblin Wars of 1683 ended when the dwarves abandoned their underground mines and forged a doorway to Somewhere Else, thus leaving their gold and gems to the goblins.”

Binns visibly flounders. “Yes, Mr. Potter…”

“But the text doesn’t say where the dwarves went to. Clearly they are no longer here on Earth, as we have no sign of dwarves to be found. So I was wondering where they might be?”

“That is—I mean to say—” Binns stumbles over his own words, going extremely transparent for a moment before his normal opacity returns. “I’m afraid we don’t cover Other Worlds in this class, Mr. Potter,” he finally says. “Suffice it to say that the dwarves were the greatest magical builders history has ever known—they helped to build Hogwarts, after all. So it’s likely that wherever they went is somewhere that we humans cannot possibly reach.”

***

There is a room in Hogwarts that few have ever found. It is located on the seventh floor, past a tapestry of trolls doing ballet.

It is said that if you walk across the empty wall in that abandoned corridor three times, a door will appear.

Think about what you require, and the castle shall provide.

The request must be born of need.

“I need a doorway to return home,” Harry whispers.

The door, when it appears, is clearly not of human make. The rivets that hold it together are of the finest dwarven craftsmanship—at least, to those who know to look.

When the doorway opens, the scent of fresh wildflowers fills the air.

***

It is said that Queen Lucy the Valiant is the most renowned healer in the land.

Harry knows this, because Mrs. Beaver and Mr. Tulous taught him about Narnia’s rulers. But they did not say that Queen Lucy is beautiful like the woman Harry sees in his dreams, or that her laughter makes the sun brighter. They didn’t say that she is very good at checkers (having beaten Harry three times) or that she enjoys playing pranks on her siblings.

But then, Harry is realizing that there is a lot that Mr. Tulous and Mrs. Beaver left out of their tales. Like how King Edmund is the nicest man Harry has ever met, and also the smartest. How he never calls Harry dumb or makes fun of him when he messes up a word or a maths sum, like Dudley and his other classmates did. How he seems to know everything that is going on in the castle, how he talks to the birds and the mice and the smallest of the Talking Animals and listens to their reports.

While he misses Mrs. Beaver and Mr. Tulous, the two weeks that he has spent now at Cair Paravel with Queen Lucy and King Edmund have been full of wonder. He spends his mornings in lessons, and his afternoons running around with a bear cub named Bumbrose and satyr named Wyrus, having adventures and getting into all kinds of trouble.

And once every few days he meets with Queen Lucy, who sits him down in her healing rooms and checks over his arm (healed) and his weight (“much improved, but please eat your vegetables, Harry”) and then, with a frown, the scar on his forehead.

One day she calls King Edmund in to join them. Harry is always excited to see the King, who looks just like him (“except for our eyes!”) and who teaches him with such patience.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” she says to King Edmund, running her thumb over the scar. “There is something dark about it, Ed.”

King Edmund tightens his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Dark like her?” he asks.

“That’s why I called you in to look.” Lucy is pale. “I’m sorry to have to ask, but you are the most familiar with her magic, I thought maybe you might know for certain.”

Harry gasps when King Edmund kneels down before him, their faces only inches apart. “I don’t want my scar to be dark,” he says. “The cupboard I lived in was dark, and it was always painful in there, and hungry.”

The King’s face looks hurt, the way it always does when Harry talks about his time Before.

“There are different kinds of darkness,” Kind Edmund says softly. His thumb traces the path that Queen Lucy’s had just taken, zig-zagging over the lightning pattern. “There’s the darkness of night, which brings comfort and sleep. There’s the dark of a shady tree on a hot summer’s day. And there’s darkness like you have lived, with hunger and hurt. But there are other kinds of dark too… darkness that is sharp like knives or teeth, and the dark that lingers in a man’s heart and festers, wrought from jealousy.”

Behind him, Queen Lucy inhales audibly.

King Edmund closes his eyes, and Harry, feeling the words weave around them, mirrors him. His thumb is a solid pressure on Harry’s forehead.

“Darkness can heal, and hide, and protect. It can wrap secrets up and tuck them away, and watch over weary travelers in need of respite.” King Edmund’s voice is calm, but there is magic in every word. “And darkness can cause the smallest wound to grow, can torment a man’s mind. The dark can tear apart the soul of those who seek it out without understanding it.”

Something changes, like the air before lightning strikes.

“You’ve met darkness in a way that few will every experience, Harry,” King Edmund says. “But your heart is light. Your future is light. Your soul is light.”

The static in the air grows.

“This is a dark soul, but it is not yours,” the King says at last. “Someone has split their soul, the darkest of all acts, and a piece has found its way to you, by what means I know not.”

The pressure on Harry’s forehead vanishes, and with it the tension in the room dispels. Harry inhales, gasping, as though he had been holding his breath the entire time. When he blinks open his eyes, he’s almost shocked to find that it is still mid-afternoon, sunlight filtering through the windows.

“Can you get it out?” Harry asks.

King Edmund leans back on his heels and smiles. “I, too, know what darkness feels like,” he says. “I won’t let it touch you ever again, Harry. We’ll get the soul fragment out.”

***

“Potter!”

Harry ignores the call at first. He has spent four months at Hogwarts now, and has learned its ebbs and flows. It is much like the court at Cair Paravel in its own way: there are politics to be played, secrets to be kept, lessons to be learned.

One of the first lessons he mastered was how to deal with Draco Malfoy, scion of Lucius Malfoy. Harry has quickly picked up on the relevant history, not only of the Malfoy family but of how their actions impacted his own.

And part of that lesson was in how to avoid Draco Malfoy, who was as spoiled as a Terebinthian lordling but with much less common sense.

Unfortunately, such things were not always possible.

“Potter!” comes the call again. “I saw that you put your name down on the list to go home for the winter holidays. Going back to those Muggles of yours?”

Harry doesn’t rise to the taunt. He double checks his suitcase beside him, making sure he has packed the alchemical text he found in the library to continue his studies over the break. His winter robes are overly-warm, and though he has been taught not to fidget from the discomfort, he does hope the carriages to the Express will show up soon.

It is Professor Snape who forces him to answer, however, as the man emerges from the school behind them.

“Indeed, Potter,” he drawls, and his eyes narrow dangerously. At one time Harry thought he was a man to be weary of, but now he knows the Potions professor’s cruel words are nothing more than an old, unhealed grudge. (Harry learned from the best, and his spy network is well-established—portraits and ghosts, other students.) “The Headmaster was under the impression that you would be staying at Hogwarts over Christmas.”

Harry forces a thin smile, the kind he would give at court to a visiting ambassador who hid insults beneath false sincerity. He should keep silent, rather than give them the satisfaction of a response, but—

He is sixteen and he is eleven and he misses his home and his family, and he has never tolerated cruelty or taunting.

“I’m not sure why the Headmaster would assume such a thing,” he says, “nor why my dormmate would have such an obsessive interest in where I spend my holidays.” Draco’s cheeks go pink. “But to clarify any confusion, I intend to spend the holidays with my aunts, my uncle, and my father.”

Finally, the carriages roll up.

“I wish you all a very Happy Christmas,” he says, enjoying the looks of confusion and shock on Professor Snape and Malfoy’s faces, “and look forward to seeing you in January.”

***

“You should not be here.”

Harry bows deeply, then meets the eyes of the centaur before him. “I apologize for coming to your borders, Lord Centaur,” he says. “But it has always been the policy of the Lords of Narnia to introduce themselves to their neighbors so that no conflict may arise from miscommunication.”

The centaur stills. “It has been many ages since we have met one of our cousins from beyond a doorway,” he says finally.

“I would be happy to come to you sometime and tell you of the Narnian centaurs that I knew,” Harry says. “Like Oreius, who commanded a legion under High King Peter against the White Witch and won great acclaim. Or his daughter Moonfall, who was my friend and advisor and who Saw truth and future in the stars.”

There is a rustling, and another centaur emerges. “Mercury is bright tonight,” he says.

The first centaur nods. “Firenze, this is a Narnian Lord, who brings us tales of our kin from distant lands.”

Firenze stares at the boy before him. “Harry Potter,” he states, and it’s not a question but Harry nods anyways. “A child of prophecy who managed to escape the grasp of the stars.”

The hairs on Harry’s arms stand on end. A prophecy about him? One that, from the sound of it, no longer applies? That bears investigation. “I only came to introduce myself.”

“It is an honor to meet you, Harry Potter of Narnia,” the first centaur says. “I am called Bane, and I am pack leader of this band of centaurs. And you are welcome to our fires.”

***

The second time Harry steps foot in Narnia, he is fourteen (and nineteen). His priorities have been split this year—there is a tricky bit of magical legal work that he is unraveling, which even his father would find exasperating, and his godfather (the one from Earth, as opposed to Mr. Tulous, who earned the honor alongside Mrs. Beaver) is behaving erratically after escaping prison the year before.

But all of this falls to the wayside when he steps foot in Narnia once again.

The laugh that escapes him is one of boyish delight, but he cannot help himself.

Finally, he is home.

***

“Now listen carefully, I don’t know how much time we have.”

Magic, Harry realizes, when he is ten (and when he is sixteen) (and when he is ten-almost-eleven again), defies the laws of all reason. The boundaries are only what one’s imagination enforces. In Narnia, magic is a bottle of cordial that will heal any wound, and winters that last decades. It is untamed and brutal and Harry revels in it as he grows up, runs enchantments through his fingers and learns to read nature alongside his histories.

On Earth, magic is something leashed, a wild beast that the humans have attempted to tame. But Harry knows otherwise, and sees the whites of its eyes and frothing around its mouth as it strains at its harness.

So there is no surprise when he steps through a cave entrance, seeking shelter from a sudden rainstorm during his quest for the White Stag, and finds himself stumbling into an unfamiliar (and oh, all too familiar) cupboard.

He had expected this from the moment he was separated from his aunts and uncle and his father during the hunt, but at sixteen he was well-trained in the art of the sword (his Uncle Peter would expect nothing less) and a fair hand at the bow (though his Aunt Susan could split any arrow that he landed, laughing with him at the game).

There’s a moment when panic overtakes him. The cupboard is too small, even though he, too, is small once again. His arm is long-since healed, and he must thank Aslan for at least not returning the old injuries to him—even as he curses him for forcing Harry to leave in the first place.

But his father’s words hold him steady—“I won’t let you return to the darkness.”

They made a plan, and nobody in Narnia is as wise and cunning as King Edmund.

He breathes, and waits.

Three hours later, to the best of his reckoning, there is a knock at the door of Number 4, Privet Drive.

Harry presses his ear to the cupboard door as he smiles, and waits for the door to open and light to return.

***

Harry steps off the train, halfway through his first year of school. He crosses the platform barrier in Muggle London, and is promptly wrapped up in his father’s embrace.

“I’ve missed you so much,” King Edmund says, only he is not King here in this Earthly train station. He is just Edmund, sixty-one years old and not looking a day over forty, wearing a tailored suit the way he used to wear golden armor.

“Four months is too long,” Harry agrees. “I have missed you fiercely.”

There’s a laugh at his side, and then, “Well, I suppose the rest of us are as important as a bucket in an empty well.”

He manages to pull himself away from his father, only to be pulled into an embrace by his Aunt Lucy. And then it is his Aunt Susan and his Uncle Peter, taking their turns. Harry feels tears in his eyes, but doesn’t bother to wipe them away; there’s no shame in this emotion, this pure joy he’s feeling.

“Why didn’t you meet me on the platform?” he asks. “You’re just as magical as any wizard.”

“Easier to avoid unwanted attention and unwanted questions,” his father, ever the diplomat (ever the spy) says. “Now, let’s take you home. We have so much to catch up on.”

Chapter Text

“Get treated like a dumb animal long enough, that's what you become.” ―Trumpkin, “Prince Caspian” (Film)

A girl has been petrified, and Harry seems to be the only person who suspects a basilisk.

There are not many basilisks in Narnia; they prefer the warmer climates of the far south. But he had studied them alongside all of the other Talking Beasts, preparing for the day that he might take on some of his father’s duties and perhaps journey to Calorman or even the Southern Wastes and treat with the basilisks. He knows they are dangerous, ruthless, but also valuable allies who keep true to their word once an agreement is forged. Their skin and venom is highly magical—in both worlds, he discovers.

But none of the inhabitants of Hogwarts seem to suspect a basilisk, even though the petrification of the girl is a textbook sign of one of their less-mortal defense mechanisms.

So Harry goes in search of the basilisk himself.

It’s an easy conclusion that the basilisk is under the castle, likely using the heat from Hogwarts’ hot water pipes as a source of warmth. It takes Harry hours to find an entrance, and hours more to find the great serpent’s lair.

“Hello, King of Serpents,” he calls as he enters. “I come to you as a Lord of Narnia, here to enter negotiations for the safety of this castle’s residents.”

It’s absolutely heart-wrenching to discover the basilisk is half-mad, and that it has forgotten how to speak anything but the tongue of snakes. Harry never learned to talk in the languages of animals—though he knows his Aunt Lucy has learned some—and to see a King among the Talking Beasts reduced to dumbness is, perhaps, the greatest crime that these Earth magicians could have committed.

“I’m sorry,” he says, when he battles the basilisk with the dwarven-made sword he brought on his journey, found on one of the suits of armor that line the hallways.

“I’m sorry,” he says, when he cuts the basilisks eyes so it can no longer attempt to kill him with its gaze.

And then, after a day and a half of fierce battle, hunting and being hunted:

“I’m sorry,” he says, crying over the fallen serpent, lost because they could not communicate.

***

Draco Malfoy would be completely baffled by his dormmate, if he bothered to think about Potter at all. Of course, Potter is a half-blood and therefore beneath his notice, and so Draco does his best to ignore him.

Only—

Well, Potter is somehow impossible to ignore.

He acts and dresses like a pure-blood, the finest robes and manners, but he is always hanging about with filth— pairing with the Weasley blood-traitor during classes, or tutoring weak Muggleborns on the weekend.

And then there are the secrets.

When Adrian Pucey tries to push him around a few days after the Sorting, Potter doesn’t blink. He stands like a boy far older than eleven, lets Pucey get into his face, threats on his tongue and spells on the tip of his wand. And then Potter leans forward and whispers something into Pucey’s ear, and the older boy goes abruptly pale.

Something similar happens with Marcus Flint a few weeks later, and then with Warrington, and then Higgs. Each of them approaches Potter, a spell ready to fly from their wand, only to be stopped by those vivid green eyes (the color of the killing curse) and a whispered threat.

Potter, it is quickly said, knows things he should not. He gets a reputation for being a prince of shadows, a prince of secrets.

Whenever he hears the titles, a tiny smile curls at the corner of his mouth.

But despite this, he is the darling of the school. He is the top of their class, other than that swot Granger, and most of the teachers love him and call on him to demonstrate new spells. And he is a whiz on a broom, as Draco discovers one evening, too close to curfew for him to be safely out.

“Why aren’t you on the House Quidditch team?” he asks, after watching Potter soar about on a school broom.

Potter’s face is open for a moment, before he remembers to restrain himself, and Draco has a chance to see the wildness there, the freedom.

“Once you’ve gone to battle on the backs of Gryphons,” he says, “playing catch with schoolchildren loses some of its appeal I guess. Besides, I’m much too busy right now. Maybe in a few years.”

He leaves Draco even more baffled than he was before.

***

Luna Lovegood, Harry decides, is the only human person at Hogwarts who he truly likes.

“I’ve decided we should be friends,” he tells the tiny second year. She is barefoot, toes curled into the dewy grass, head tilted back so she can better listen to the trees.

She smiles, delighted. “I’ve never had a friend before.”

Harry remembers saying those words himself, once upon a time. “I’d like to introduce you to some of mine, and perhaps someday you’ll have as many as I do.”

And so he introduces her to Firenze and Bane, with whom he exchanges stories about the great centaurs of old, and together they befriend a kneazle named Crookshanks, a Beast who cannot Talk but is clearly very wise all the same. He brings her before the Acromantula, who he has been negotiating with since the previous year. And he tells her about the basilisk, and she cries with him when he explains why it had to be slain.

Luna tells him about the creatures she knows of, none of which can talk but which, she claims, have other ways to communicate. Harry spends hours exploring the grounds with her in search of Blibbering Humdingers and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, and telling her tales of a land where tree and water spirits roam freely.

“You shouldn’t spend so much time outside,” Weasley tells him one evening. “Wouldn’t want that mass murderer, Black, to get you. And I’ve heard that Lovegood girl is a bit strange, y’know?”

Harry ignores the warning, until he and Luna meet a large black dog who can talk, because he can turn into a man. It’s not quite the Talking Beast that Harry was searching for, but, well, it’s certainly interesting.

***

Ron Weasley is… absolutely baffled by Harry Potter.

He thought they’d be best friends. He dreamed they’d be sorted together, go on adventures together. But the Harry he sees in class is nothing like he imagined.

This boy is quiet and solemn, too mature for his age. He rarely laughs when Fred and George play a prank (and even Malfoy laughs, if he thinks nobody is watching), and he holds himself like he’s all formal, all posh, except even Malfoy— who’s the poshest bloke in school— doesn’t act that stiff.

It would be unbearable, except Potter is so nice. He helps Ron when he’s struggling in Charms, and he tutored a Ravenclaw girl in Potions— he knows the subject well, even though his own Head of House hates him and never grades him fairly. He treats everyone kindly, but he also watches everyone with those bright green eyes, and rumor has it he knows every secret in the school, even things about the professors.

He plays Ron in chess one Sunday afternoon, and when Ron finally claims defeat Potter smiles with satisfaction and shakes his hand and says he has a mind befitting a Calorman General… whatever that is. But it rings with sincerity, and Ron swells with pride.

But there are other things about Potter that just don’t make any sense— like how he seemed so wary of their Defense professor in first year, only for the man to vanish halfway through the second term.

How in their second year he disappeared for two days after a girl was petrified, and the entire school thought he was the Heir of Slytherin, but when he returned he was silent and sad nobody else was petrified.

How in their third year his godfather escaped from prison, only to turn out to be innocent and Ron’s pet rat ended up being confiscated and turned over to Aurors.

Then there is their fourth year, where, in between fighting a legal battle to extract himself from the Goblet of Fire’s magical contract and visiting his godfather at St. Mungos every weekend, he vanishes for an hour in the middle of the school day—

And comes back different.

Ron has been looking for a boy to have adventures with him since he was eleven years old.

When Harry shows up late to Herbology one morning in fourth year, looking somehow older without having aged at all, he knows immediately: this is the look of a boy who has just had a grand adventure.

***

“Why can’t I have adventures like you and Uncle Peter?”

Harry is twelve, and he is watching King Edmund prepare for a journey to the Lone Islands while lounging on the King’s bed, feet kicked up behind him.

“You have plenty of adventures,” Edmund says. “Just last month you and Bumbrose escaped your tutors and went down to the river and stole a raft and made it halfway to Beruna before one of the Gryphons spotted you.”

Harry makes a ‘hmph’ noise. He is still being reprimanded for that journey, though at the time both he and his friend thought it was the grandest thing they’d ever done.

“I’m a good sailor,” he points out. “I navigated the raft all by myself. Bumbrose was too busy eating our stores of honey to help. I could come with you to the Lone Islands and help with the ship!”

Edmund murmurs something about adventures and heart-attacks, but he ruffles Harry’s dark hair and smiles. “I will make you a deal,” he says.

Harry scrambles to sit up straight. King Edmund is in charge of all negotiations for Narnia, and when he says ‘let’s make a deal’ that means he is being serious.

“I plan to be gone for four weeks,” he says. “If you can behave while I am gone—that means no wild adventures, listening to your tutors, and eating all of your vegetables as Queen Lucy requests… if you behave, then I shall take you with me to the Western Woods when I make my annual trip there this autumn.”

Harry can barely contain his excitement. The Western Woods! An adventure, with King Edmund! He flies across the room and flings his arms around Edmund’s waist. “Yes, thank you!”

The King returns the hug.

“There is one other thing I’d like to ask of you, while I’m away,” Edmund asks. He kneels down so he and Harry are on the same level.

Harry goes still. They have only faced each other like this twice before: once when the King identified the dark soul fragment in his scar, and then again when he and Queen Lucy brought him to Aslan’s How to remove it.

“When you and Bumbrose vanished on that raft, I was as scared as I have ever been. I thought we had lost you, Harry, and that you might be hurt or… or that you might have gone back to England without me.” He says the words slowly, like they are painful to speak. “And I realized that I could not bear to lose you, because you have become very dear to me, as dear as my own family.”

Harry barely breathes, waiting. Hoping, though he doesn’t think he could put into words what, exactly, he is hoping for.

“I would like for you to become part of my family, when I return from my trip. My son, if you’d like.”

Harry rushes to open his mouth, but Edmund hushes him.

“Think about it first,” he says. “This is not a little thing that I ask you, and all big decisions should be given the appropriate amount of thought.”

Harry presses his lips together and nods, but he already knows what answer he plans to give.

***

Harry is fourteen (nineteen) and he should be in Herbology, but instead there is the sound of a battle up ahead and sunlight on his back and a door that closes behind him as he steps through.

Home.

It’s his Uncle Peter that he meets first, though they are almost the same age now and he almost doesn’t recognize the man at first. But Peter would be recognizable as the High King if he were sixteen or sixty. He notices Harry immediately, a fierce grin crossing his face as he fights off two men.

“Nephew! I hoped we’d see you again!”

“Hello Uncle,” Harry replies. “Need a hand?”

A spare sword, recovered from one of the fallen attackers, is tossed his way, and Harry joins in the battle. His body remembers the way to swing a sword, his mind remembers the magic of Narnia.

Between the two of them, the attackers are quickly defeated, and Harry is able to wrap his uncle in a hug.

“It’s been a year since we’ve seen you, lad, but the way you’ve grown suggests it’s been much more time than that for you.” Peter offers him a rag to clean the sweat and grime from his face. “Ed’s going to be over the moon, I have no doubt.”

Harry grins. “It’s been three years for me, and I’ve spent every free moment searching for a door to return home,” he says. “But it’s only been a couple of months since I last saw you all, when we had supper before I went off to school for the year.”

Peter’s eyes are bright and not at all surprised. Clearly Edmund had filled him in on their plan in the last year. “You’ll have to tell us all about it,” he says. “Now, let’s go find your father. Though, I think you’re the same age in this adventure! How strange.”

That makes Harry laugh, but he’s well used to the tangle of timelines that weaves through his and his family’s lives.

Edmund, when he sees Harry, is more than ‘over the moon’. Though he is ragged and covered in the blood of a battle well-fought, he drops his sword the moment he spots Harry and rushes across the field, ignoring the surprised looks of the other men he’d been fighting with, and wraps Harry in a tight hug.

“Tell me,” he says into Harry’s ear, voice a low, desperate whisper. “Tell me you didn’t return to the dark.”

Harry returns the hug, closing his eyes and savoring the knowledge that everything is right in the universe in this moment. “No,” he says. “You were there, exactly as we planned, to bring back the light.”

They are inseparable from that moment, and the other fighters— Old Narnians, and a Telmarine who is to be the next King of Narnia, apparently—are unsettled to learn the two men who could be twin brothers are, in fact, father and son.

“This is what Narnia is,” Harry explains to Prince Caspian much later, when the Telmarine finally dares to ask. “It is a land of wild magic, with rules that extend only so far as one’s dreams do. After all, if you were to doubt High King Peter because he looks like a youth, it would be to your demise; nobody in this land knows more about battle than he does. This is the land that you are to rule, Caspian, and so you must embrace it or the land will fail. Already many of the old creatures are lost, and the trees fall to whispers, because the magic has not been allowed to grow untamed.”

Caspian is thoughtful. “My Uncle Miraz, hated the wild woods. Every year he sent crews to cut down trees, to plough fields… to turn the wild into something domesticated.”

Harry winces.

“I don’t know magic,” Caspian continues. “I don’t know how to be the King that Narnia needs.”

“You love Narnia, don’t you?” Harry asks.

Caspian looks out across their army—centaurs and minotaurs, dwarves and dryads. He sees a flash of tawny mane between two trees, there and gone in an instant. He sees people fighting for home and freedom, and magic that he’d thought was only a childhood story.

“Yes,” he says after a long moment. “I do.”

“Then you know Narnia’s magic, and you know exactly how to be the King that it needs.”

***

Filius probably should find Mr. Potter baffling, but instead the child amuses him greatly.

Oh, what a fine joke this boy is playing on the rest of the school, and the Wizarding World as a whole!

He didn’t spot it, at first, the strange magic that hovered about Mr. Potter. He has no shame in admitting it; in fact, he would be a poor Goblin if he lied about such a thing. He has grown too complacent, after his years in the human world, and failed to observe Mr. Potter properly the way he should have.

It was his cousin, Griphook, who tipped him off.

“The Potter boy has been beyond the Dwarven doorways,” comes the message in Gobbledegook. “His magic is wild. If you are still committed to the world above our caverns, then we task you with watching him.”

Filius is half-Goblin, but he knows both his histories, and he knows what it means for one to have ventured beyond such doorways. And now that he knows to look, he can see how Mr. Potter’s otherwise-baffling behavior makes sense.

The child has few human friends, though he is often seen being followed by one of Filius’ own Ravens, the little slip of a girl called Lovegood. Together they’re in and out of the Forbidden Forest, twigs in their hair and shed fur on their robes.

After the Goblet of Fire throws out Mr. Potter’s name in his fourth year, Filius pulls him aside. “They will try to make you compete,” he says.

Young Mr. Potter is flushed with the challenge, delight in his eyes. “They’ll try, sir,” he says. “But my father taught me how to read laws and contracts, and how to exploit every loophole.”

Filius grins. “Your father beyond the doorway?” he can’t help but to ask.

The boy stills, but the delight in his eyes only grows sharper. “I should have known you would figure it out, sir,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to come talk to your people, in a proper setting.”

“You have a respect for other beings, then? You truly have an interest in meeting with us?” Filius thinks he knows the answer—has seen how no harm befalls Mr. Potter and Ms. Lovegood on their journeys into the Forest—but his clan will require confirmation.

Mr. Potter looks around, then lowers his voice. “In my kingdom, we ruled alongside creatures and Talking Beasts, and it was their magic who kept our land strong. I’m trying now to find something like that here, some thread of the old, wild magic that this land has tried so hard to squash out.”

Filius nods, and offers his hand. “When you’re ready to meet,” he says, “I would be honored to help set things up.”

The hand that shakes his is strong and callused, like someone who has spent years holding a sword. No, this is no fourteen year old boy, Filius thinks, laughing delightedly to himself.

(Before they part, he feels it worth mentioning to Mr. Potter that Hogwarts will soon play host to a horde of dragons, to the merpeople of the Black Lake, and to half a dozen other beasts. After all, it can’t hurt to open negotiations on the right foot.)

***

Three is a magical number.

There are three phases to Harry’s life: the Before, Narnia, and Hogwarts.

There are three people he has called “parent”: James Potter, Lily Evans, and Edmund Pevensie.

And there are three doorways that open for him into Narnia.

When he approaches the doorway on the seventh floor in his fifth year, Harry knows it is time (again, and the also the last). He is shaking with rage, sweat beading at the corner of his brow, and it is only years of diplomatic training that has kept him from losing his head in front of everyone.

Professor Umbridge, he has decided, will have to go.

Most humans are, at best, apathetic towards creatures and beasts. There are a few who understand them—Newt Scamander, who infamously saved and lived among the magical creatures he found, and Luna of course. But mostly they just go about their day, not thinking about anything other than their own boring, human existence.

Umbridge, however, actively hates creatures. Already she has issued grave insults towards Professors Hagrid and Flitwick, and made passing remarks about cleansing the Forbidden Forest “once and for all”.

You are not a Prince here, came a scrap of parchment carried by his owl, Hedwig, only that morning. Your sword and crown cannot help you. But there are other ways to fight against people like this professor of yours. Be patient.

The note was unsigned, but his father’s familiar handwriting had been almost more than Harry could bear.

“I may not be a prince here,” he murmurs to himself, “but there is a place where I am.”

And so he closes his eyes, and paces in front of the blank stretch of wall until a door appears.

This time, when he steps through, it is onto the gentle swaying of a ship, and the spray of salt water on his face.

He emerges from a cabin onto a very fine ship, small but clearly well-built… and into a duel between his father and Prince Caspian, with sailors and his Aunt Lucy cheering them on.

“Hullo Aunt Lucy,” he says.

She is younger than him again, but her hug is no less powerful than it’s ever been when she shouts and collects him in a hug. “Harry! I hoped you would be joining us on this adventure.”

Unfortunately, it seems the commotion caught the attention of King Edmund who, upon spotting his son, was distracted enough to allow Caspian to get the better of him. The duel is ended with promises of a rematch, before Harry is pulled into yet another hug.

“Still in the light?” his father asks, voice low.

“Always,” Harry says, “though things at school right now aren’t the greatest. That’s why I escaped here, I couldn’t take another minute of Earth or it would be too much.”

His father laughs. “Oh, Luce and I can relate,” he says. “Wait until you meet Eustace.”

“Cousin Eustace?” Harry blinks. “Oh, that’s this adventure, I’d forgotten.”

“You’ve met Eustace then?” Lucy asks from his other side. “Bad luck, sorry nephew.”

Harry untangles himself from his family, ready to greet King Caspian and the rest of the crew. “I quite enjoy spending time with him in the future, I can assure you,” he says, “but you and he refused to tell me anything about this trip, and I’m forbidden from telling you too much about my timeline. So I expect we are both in for a surprise.”

Caspian has finally made his way over, and is delighted to see Harry again. Thankfully he explains to his crew that the two boys are not brothers, as many were thinking. And he is happy to have company on his journey to the end of the world, which he claims will take a year and a day to complete.

When Harry finally meets the much younger Eustace (who of course has no idea who he is, and is absolutely baffled as to why this teenage boy is calling his cousin ‘father’), he quickly understands what his aunt had meant.

Still the adventure is exactly what he needs. Naiads race their ship across the dazzling blue sea, and he gets his fencing legs back under him thanks to Reepicheek, as well as Tavros and other sailors who are more than happy to take a break from their duties for a round of sparring.

Being back among the men and Talking Beasts of Narnia is a relief. He forgets all about Umbridge and her targeted attacks, and revels instead in the people of his homeland.

But maybe he goes too far, spending his time on deck chatting with the mice and fauns and avoiding the humans.

His father finds him one afternoon when he is dangling his legs over the side of the ship, watching the water spirits twirl in its wake.

“What’s on your mind?”

Harry leans back, stretching his neck up to stare at the seabirds instead of the piercing gaze of King Edmund. “It’s just school,” he says. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Tell me,” Edmund says. “I’m fourteen and fast-approaching forty, I promise I can relate.”

Harry bumps their shoulders together, and tells him. He explains about the way Hogwarts is a human-only castle, that even the few professors with creature heritage pretend to be human instead. He talks about the silent trees and silent beasts. And he talks about Professor Dolores Umbridge, who epitomizes everything he hates about England.

“Sounds to me like you’re doing a find job on your own of bringing the wild magic back,” Edmund says. “You, your friends and allies.”

“It’s not fast enough.”

“Big changes rarely are.” His father exhales. “If anyone can free England from its tame bindings, it’s you.”

Harry lets the warmth of those words fill him.

“But you mustn’t forget that you are a Prince of Narnia, and that means you are a Prince to all her people—human and not.”

The words of his father’s note come to mind, sent just before he came back through the doorway. “You told me, on the other side, that I’m not a Prince of Narnia there,” he says. “That I should remember there are other ways to fight battles.”

Edmund laughs. “I think I said exactly what you needed to hear,” he says. “After all, it brought you here, didn’t it?” He leans over, wrapping an arm around Harry’s shoulder. “But whatever I might say in the future, I’ll tell you a truth now: if you believe in the wild magic, and love the ideals of Narnia even when you do not walk these lands, then you are a Prince of Narnia. Even on Earth.”

***

The Triwizard Tournament went down in history for a number of reasons:

Four champions were originally selected from the Goblet of Fire, before the fourth took up magical contract law in order to extract himself from competing, claiming he never entered in the first place.

During the First Task, the horde of dragons that had been brought in refused to partake in the trial. Harry Potter, the previous fourth champion, translated on their behalf and claimed they would not put their unborn young at risk. (He also claimed his cousin had once, briefly, been turned into a dragon, which made the horde more open to listening to him.)

Sabotage was discovered partway through the competition, as one of the Hogwarts professors was discovered to be a dark wizard in disguise.

During the Second Task, the Merpeople of the Black Lake demanded the right to participate in the tournament as judges for the task, in exchange for letting the task take place in their domain. It was the first time in centuries that beasts had been granted the right to participate in human events as authorities.

During the Third Task, a number of creatures had to be replaced in the maze because they demanded payment for their work—be it galleons, or food, or negotiated territory rights. These included the Sphinx, the Acromantula, and a Jarvey that had not been intended for the task but had wandered in by accident in search of gnomes.

(While none of the Talking Beasts of the Third Task were successful in their petition, The Quibbler ran an exclusive interview with Harry Potter after, where he pointed out that it was unfair to ask a sapient creature to work without pay, and that more people should take the time to talk with those beasts who were able to do so.)

***

Written in a Narnian code known only to two people on Earth:

April 15, 1992

Dear Father,

I’m enjoying my first year at Hogwarts, though there has been an issue with our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, who I discovered to be possessed by a dark spirit. I had no choice but to banish the spirit using a ritual similar to the one you and Aunt Lucy used on the soul fragment in my forehead—though of course I no longer have access to the Stone Knife. Instead I used a goblin-forged blade that I imbued with Deep Magic, and coated in blood from a unicorn (freely given) which I befriended in the Forbidden Forest.

I know you’ll worry because I had to engage in battle, but I can assure you that I was victorious and came away with no injury.

Unfortunately, the human that had been possessed was too far gone, and faded to ash when the dark spirit was dispelled.

In other news, you’ll be pleased to hear that my spy network here at Hogwarts has grown. It now includes the Weasley twins, the groundskeeper Mr. Hagrid (though he is not aware of his contributions), seventeen portraits (including the one of the Manticore that I mentioned in my last letter, who was particularly difficult to treat with), four ghosts, and a poltergeist. I miss the Talking Birds and Mice from back home, but I’ve heard there may be Talking Spiders roaming the castle!

I miss you and cannot wait for the summer holidays. I hope your work with the ICW is keeping you entertained!

Tell Aunt Susan and Uncle Peter ‘hello’ the next time they phone from America, and if you hear from Aunt Lucy in between her Médecins Sans Frontières deployments please send her my best wishes.

Love,

Harry

***

Caspian is has met many Narnians since he escaped his uncle’s castle—and of course since he was crowned King—but the young prince called Harry baffles him more than any other.

“You are a Magician,” he observes, after a skirmish with the Telmarines at Aslan’s How. He watched Prince Harry fight with sword and with wand, using both with equal skill. He knows of other Magicians in history, the White Witch and King Olvin of Archenland, but none were said to have had such ease with magic the way the prince does.

It’s not that which baffles Caspian. It’s the way he seems to almost resent his magic.

“This?” Harry twirls his wand absently. It appears to be polished wood, clearly made for such a purpose. “This isn’t real magic. This is like memorizing words in a book and thinking you understand the text. This is Earth magic, tame and pretty.”

Caspian isn’t sure he understands, but then he was taught Magical Lore from Doctor Cornelius and he does not remember spells or wands like he has seen from Harry, so perhaps the prince is right.

“What is real magic, then?”

Harry points to an apple orchard just beyond where they are camped. “Those trees were planted by the dryad Pomona when I was last in Narnia,” he said. “Thirteen hundred years ago. Her magic was so strong, so deeply rooted in the foundations of Narnia, that those trees have survived for a millennia to bring us food when we need it most. That is true magic.”

Years later, when Caspian meets Harry again aboard the Dawn Treader, he remembers their conversation, and how baffled he was.

Soon, he will soon learn exactly what Harry means—as they traverse the Eastern Seas, exploring Narnia’s wildest magics all the way to the end of the world. He will face darkness that draws from one’s deepest fears, and meet a star in human form.

But for now, the boy still confuses him, still defies explanation in a dozen different ways—from the way he defers to his aunt and flourishes under his father’s attention, despite their apparent ages, to the way he laughs at the annoying Eustace’s behavior and treats his actions like a grand joke.

“He’s different,” Queen Lucy tells him one evening. “I don’t think he was destined to rule Narnia, the way my siblings and I were… the way you are. I think he came to Narnia because he needed it.”

She watches her brother, sitting on the side of the boat with his son, the two of them deep in discussion.

“And maybe,” she says quietly, as though to herself, “maybe because we needed him, too. I think he’s changing our future with his very existence.”

***

There are two articles on the front page of the Daily Prophet in early June of 1996.

The first is a press release from the Ministry of Magic, stating a break-in occurred the previous evening when several Dark Wizards attempted to steal a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries. However, the release states, the prophecy was nowhere to be found, and the wizards were soon discovered and fought off by Aurors.

The second article states that an alliance has been announced between the Talking Beasts of England: the Goblins, the Merpeople, the Centaurs, the Acromantula, and any others who wish to join their cause. They seek equality and representation. They demand the Ministry provide “someone of appropriate rank” to enter into negotiations for territory rights.

The first article is met with muttering, curious eyebrows, and quickly forgotten by most.

The second is laughed off by many, but—

This, too, is a beginning.

Chapter Text

“Even I never dreamed of Magic like this. We're in a world where everything, even a lamp-post, comes to life and grows. Now I wonder what sort of seed a lamp-post grows from?” – The Magician’s Nephew

Harry is sixteen (again – though in his head he is, of course, much older).

When Albus Dumbledore invites him for tea at the start of term, he is, at first, reminded of another young man who once sat in the same place. But the similarities are fleeting and easily dismissed—Harry may wear the same uniform, and have a similar complexion, but that is where his likeness to Tom Riddle ends.

In the last five years, Albus has carefully watched Harry navigate the halls of Hogwarts, and been equally surprised, concerned, and delighted by what he has seen. The boy is ambitious and cunning, as befits his House, but he reaches his goals through a means that his housemates disregard: kindness. He has gained allies across the entire school, from the lowest first year to tenured professors, and Albus has even spotted him chatting with ghosts and portraits. While he seems to have few true friends—the Lovegood girl is an obvious exception—he is friendly enough with everyone.

And those alliances seem to be working well for his goals, which are—well, Albus isn’t quite sure how, but they appear to be related to that article in the Daily Prophet at the end of the last school year. He has convinced Susan Bones to set up a meeting with her Aunt to discuss a run for Minister, under a platform of Creature Equality. He is working with Melinda Bobbin and her family to ethically source high-quality ingredients for their chain of apothecaries, and has been learning Gobbledegook from Professor Flitwick.

He speaks with a confidence that few teenagers possess, and holds himself with the grace and strength of a man many years older.

And Albus has many questions left unanswered— he knows the boy no longer lives with his Muggle family, though nobody is quite sure where he does live. His official documents in the Ministry have been updated and sealed; it’s a sign that someone magical has taken over guardianship, but nobody seems to know who. He’s watched for signs that the boy is the one who was prophesized, but there appears to be no connection to Lord Voldemort.

And now he sits calmly in Albus’ office, his tea going untouched, watching him with bright green eyes that see far more than any sixteen year old should see.

Questions upon questions.

“Harry, my boy,” he begins, taking a sip from his own cup. “I hoped to avoid telling you this, but I’m afraid others have forced my hand. You saw, perhaps, the news last summer? About the break-in at the Ministry?”

Harry nods.

“The intruders were Death Eaters, agents of the Dark Lord Voldemort.” Albus watches carefully, but there is no emotion on Harry’s face. “They sought a prophecy, which the Dark Lord has been coveting for many years. Only… it was missing when they went to retrieve it.”

The boy nods. “Yes sir, so I read. But I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”

Albus sighs and takes another sip. He’d hoped to keep Harry innocent a little longer, but with the prophecy missing, it seems greater forces may be at play. “The prophecy they were after was about you, my boy. I was witness to it being spoken, and it is clear that it was spoken about you, and about Lord Voldemort.”

Now there is emotion in those eyes, but not what Albus had expected. The boy is… amused?

“The Centaurs were right then,” he murmurs, just loud enough for Albus to hear him. Louder, he says, “I’m curious, sir, did you know the wording of the prophecy? I believe it has been extinguished, but I’m curious nonetheless.”

And Albus, baffled by the young man before him as always, tells him.

After he’s done, Harry sits silently for a moment, processing. Then he says, “Well, that explains a lot. I suppose ‘the power’ referenced had something to do with my scar, as its removal is likely what severed the prophecy’s power, but I confess that I’m unsure why a dark soul fragment would help to defeat a Dark Lord. Unless it was his?”

Albus drops his cup, spilling tea all over his desk.

***

Edmund knows pain in a way that his siblings will, thankfully, never experience.

He was a young boy in pain that he could never verbalize, lashing out at anyone who tried to get close. He was sent away to boarding school at age nine, too small and too puny, bullied, and instead adapted to arm himself with a quick tongue and a quick mind, though neither was enough to dull the pain of punches in the school yard, or his siblings’ pitying looks.

He learned more pain in Narnia, the harsh bite of winter, the taste of betrayal (both given and received), the feel of iron around his wrists, the sharpness of a whip.

Edmund learned darkness, and he learned how to overcome it.

Harry, however, has experienced a different kind of pain. He talks hesitantly about the family he left behind (punches from a cousin instead of bullies at school still land just as hard), the hunger he felt, the darkness of his cupboard.

Harry’s pain is different, though the similarities are there—enough that sometimes Edmund can’t breathe from the memories that build up behind his chest. It’s enough that he vows to protect the boy.

But there is one thing he must do to help protect Harry that will cause even more pain, and Edmund… is not sure he has the strength.

“Will it hurt?” Harry asks. He thinks he’s eleven now, but he’s still too small for his age, even after months of Lucy’s healing.

“Yes,” Edmund says, because he won’t lie about this. “It’s going to hurt more than anything you have ever experienced. But I will be with you, and so will Lucy, and Peter and Susan as well. And when we’re done, Lucy is going to use her cordial and heal you immediately so the pain goes away. And then the darkness will be gone, forever.”

Harry shakes, but he looks up at Edmund and nods.

They are at the Stone Table, the place where magic runs deepest in Narnia, and Harry is sitting in the middle with his legs bent, arms wrapped around his knees. Edmund stands before him, Lucy to his left. Peter is to his right, and Susan is across from him.

In his hand is a knife made of stone, and Edmund clenches his fingers around its hilt.

“Close your eyes, Harry, and take a deep breath.”

Years before, darkness tried to use this same knife to destroy light. The dark failed, then. Today, they plan to do the opposite, and cut free the darkness in Harry’s forehead.

Harry screams only once, during the ritual. It echoes in the chamber, like the roar of a lion.

And then it is done. Edmund watches the darkness break free and dissipate, a spirit without a tether vanishing like a trail of smoke. He calls to Lucy and she is at his side, and Peter is there to hold him before he collapses while Susan wraps Harry’s suddenly-limp body in her arms as Lucy heals him.

Afterwards, there is nothing except unblemished skin, and a memory of darkness and pain which will fade with every passing day.

***

“Horcruxes.”

Harry blinks. “Bless you?” he offers.

The Headmaster manages a smile, though it’s brief. “That is the name for the soul fragment you mentioned during our last meeting, which was—formerly contained in your scar.” He says the last part with curiosity in his voice.

“My father removed it when I was eleven,” Harry offers in explanation, “in a ritual with my aunts and uncle.”

Professor Dumbledore is not drinking tea for this meeting, but his hand (just the one, as the other is now badly cursed, Harry notices) shakes so badly that he likely would have dropped a cup if he’d been holding one. “A ritual?” he asks. “Your… father?”

“Yes sir. But you were saying, about the Horcruxes?”

He gets a long, piercing stare over the half-moon glasses for that non-answer, but the Headmaster finally continues with the topic at hand.

“From what we’ve been able to determine, Lord Voldemort split his soul several times in the pursuit of immortality,” Dumbledore explains. He pulls out a journal, it’s cover and edges well-burned. “This is one, which we discovered on a student here in the school back in your second year. We believe the soul fragment inside possessed her and was responsible for the petrified student, though for some reason it abandoned her soon after and went in search of a new victim, at which time I found it.”

Harry studies the journal with detached curiosity. It doesn’t give off any darkness, but he assumes that the fire destroyed the fragment much like how his own ritual had. He doesn’t bother to offer up his own part of that story—he still mourns the loss of the basilisk to this day.

Next, a ring is set down on the desk between them. This, too, is melted as though by fire, though curiously the stone in its setting remains untouched. “I found this only last month, at the former home of Lord Voldemort’s mother.”

“And with the fragment in my forehead, that would be three,” Harry notes. “Three is a magical number.”

The Headmaster exhales, looking much, much older all of the sudden. “So is seven, my boy.”

There is much more information to share—he has located another Horcrux, and he would like Harry’s help to retrieve it. Their new Potions professor, Slughorn, has reluctantly parted with information that leads them to believe Voldemort created—or intended to, before his defeat—six pieces. Harry’s was the accidental seventh.

And he would like Harry to go on an adventure to locate them and destroy them.

Harry blinks, then laughs.

“Headmaster Dumbledore, sir,” he says, “my father will probably kill me—or worse, ground me— if I do something reckless, like go on another adventure, without letting him know… and with all due respect, going after a handful of dark soul fragments is probably a lot more reckless than the time me and my best friend stole a raft and sailed down the river.”

***

A list of times that Harry Potter-Pevensie, Prince of Narnia, almost gave his father a heart attack:

• Harry’s first morning at Cair Paravel, when he was found asleep on the floor of his closet after a nightmare, instead of in his bed.
• The infamous River Adventure.
• When the young prince, aged fifteen, overheard rumors of a proposal from Galma and fled Cair Paravel in the middle of the night to hide out at Mrs. Beaver’s for two days.
• The moment he realized they had been separated during the hunt for the White Stag.
• Partway through Harry’s first year at Hogwarts, when he sent a letter to let Edmund know that he’d fought and killed a professor who was possessed by an evil spirit.
• Partway through Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, when he sent a letter to let Edmund know that he’d fought and killed a sixty-foot basilisk that had gone mad.
• During the second skirmish against the Telmarines, when Harry abandoned his horse to fight on foot, and Edmund lost sight of him in the rush of battle.
• On the Dawn Treader, when Harry climbed a mast to try to blind the sea serpent with a spell and, after succeeding, was hit and knocked to the deck, only to land among the netting.
• Partway through Harry’s sixth year at Hogwarts, when he sent a letter to let Edmund know that there were four more dark soul fragments and his headmaster wanted Harry to destroy them, and Harry really did not want to be grounded again so he was actually asking permission to go on an adventure this time!

(Edmund blames all of this on Peter’s influence.)

***

There is a man in the Headmaster’s office.

Severus stops short, and Albus, behind him, is forced to do the same.

The man is wearing a muggle suit, but it is clearly custom-made, and only a fool would mistake him for a Muggle in spite of his wardrobe. The man exudes magic, wild and uncontained.

“Ah, right on time,” the man says, calmly.

Severus steps into the room cautiously, and Albus trails after him, wand out. They had just been discussing plans for the end of term, the Vow that Severus had been forced to make, and the task of young Mr. Malfoy. The man’s sudden appearance, bypassing all of the wards without a single alarm, has Severus on edge.

Albus seems less concerned, but then Severus knows things with Albus are not always what they seem, and he can see the way the Headmaster grips his wand.

“How did you get in my office?” Albus asks.

The man smiles. “I have my ways, Professors. Please, sit down. I requested tea from one of your Elves, I expect it should be along—oh, there it is.”

The tea tray appears on Albus’ desk, and the man serves himself, entirely at ease.

“Now,” he says, once he’s poured a cup (milk, no sugar). “I received a rather concerning letter from my son, and as a parent I feel it’s my duty to investigate in person.”

Albus moves into the room, but Severus remains in the doorway.

“Your son,” he drawls. “You’ve broken into Hogwarts to discuss your child’s academic performance?”

“Oh no,” the man says. “Harry’s grades are exemplary, I have no complaints there… though I do wish your bias was less noticeable, Professor Snape.”

It’s a good thing that Albus has made it to his desk, because he falls into his seat with a rather hard thump. “Harry? You are Harry Potter’s… father?”

Severus knew James Potter all too well, and this man is not James Potter, for all their superficial similarities. Dark hair, dark eyes, too much money, that’s for sure. But this man is powerful. Severus has surrounded himself with powerful people since he was a teenager, and he knows how to recognize them.

“I am.” The man extends a hand. “Edmund Pevensie. Delighted to meet you. But I’m afraid I’ll have to learn more about this Horcrux situation before I allow Harry to go on any adventures.” He pauses, then laughs as though the most amusing thought has just occurred to him. “After all, he’s only sixteen.”

***

Wild magic is not flashy. There are no words to be chanted, no bright lights. It works slow, and it works deep. Perhaps that is why the humans harnessed it for their own; impatience and a desire for visible results outweighed power.

Nobody notices when wild magic begins to return to England, because it is the roots that begin to grow first.

(Perhaps Neville Longbottom could have told them, if anyone had thought to ask. He noticed that the plants in the Hogwarts greenhouses were growing more out-of-control with each season, their harvests more plentiful.)

Amelia Bones has a meeting that she cannot quite explain, but she is convinced that, if she chooses to run for Minister of Magic in the next election, she will have the backing of the Boy Who Lived and his Godfather, Lord Black. In exchange, she agrees to add rights for Talking Beasts to her campaign agenda; it’s a platform she agrees with, but one she is surprised to see such passion for in such a young man.

This is a root.

A French potions journal observes that several ingredients have seen steady price increases in recent years, as supply has dried up. Manticore fur, unicorn horn (already rare enough as it is), and acromantula silk are almost impossible to find anymore, while ingredients that had been sourced in centaur lands or beneath the lakes where merpeople reside are now too dangerous to recover. Only those apothecaries who have negotiated for rights are able to source these crucial ingredients.

This is a root.

The hags, vampires, and werewolves of Knockturn Alley are approached by one who they would kill, except he offers them a better deal—a life where darkness and light can co-exist, where they have choice and respect. They can see in his eyes that he understands darkness, and they respect him. No treaties are made, not at first, but still—

This is a root.

Outside of Hogwarts, on an evening lit only by a full moon, Luna Lovegood sits on the soft grass and speaks to the birds and thestrals and bowtruckles. They don’t speak back, but she knows they’re listening nonetheless. Soon, she thinks, the first shoots of wild magic will appear, and people will begin to notice.

***

The search for Horcruxes goes like this:

Harry meets Professor Dumbledore outside the castle after curfew. He has his wand holstered to one hip, and his sword sheathed on the other. He has a bag packed with healing potions and bandages (from Aunt Lucy), a flask of poison (from Aunt Susan), and a hidden dagger (from Uncle Peter).

Dumbledore gives him a strange look, but Harry ignores it. If he’s to go on an adventure, he’s going to be prepared.

“Take my arm,” the Headmaster says, “and I will apparate us.”

The cave they appear in is dark, and Harry wishes he’d brought his father’s torch as well. A simple lumos solves that problem at least, but what it reveals is not very promising.

“We will have to take the boat across the lake,” he’s told.

“Have you considered, Headmaster, that this may be a trap?” Harry asks.

The Headmaster nods. “I would expect nothing less from Voldemort.”

Harry frowns. “Then should we not, perhaps, remove the dark magic? Or at least reveal the traps before we go in?”

While Harry may not have much practical experience in such things, seeing as how there were very few dark magicians wandering around Narnia by the time he’d arrived, he was diligent in his Magical Theory studies and he’s confident in his practical abilities.

While the Headmaster is still fumbling for a response, he draws his sword and channels magic through it. He keeps his lumos illuminated as well, a good balance for the wild magic he is casting.

“Let there be light,” he whispers.

The cave illuminates abruptly, webs of magic weaving from the tame magic from his wand and the deep magic from his sword.

“What is this?” Dumbledore asks, awed.

Harry straightens. “There is something in the lake,” he says. “Dark creatures, hundreds of them. They appear to be asleep, but I would guess our passing will wake them. On the island the bowl itself is enchanted, a vicious curse. But sir…” he trails off.

Dumbledore looks at him, eyes wide.

“There is no soul fragment on that island, or anywhere in this cave.”

***

The last time Harry leaves Narnia, he stands in front of Aslan and considers refusing.

“Dearest,” Aslan says to Lucy, and his gentle tone can do nothing to soothe the blow of his words, “you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.”

He opens the doorway then for Lucy, Eustace and Edmund to step through, before turning to Harry.

“And you, son of Adam. This doorway will be forever closed to you as well. But I think you’ll find the Deep Magic in your own world, if you search hard enough.”

As much as Harry wishes to protest, to beg to stay in Narnia, he knows it’s time to leave. He has already said his goodbyes to his father and aunt, and shaken hands with Caspian and the crew. Narnia is everything to him, but Aslan’s words are a reminder: there is something more waiting for him back in England. And he knows he’ll see his father again this summer, and his aunts and uncle… and even cousin Eustace might come by for a visit.

“I’m going to bring the wild magic back,” he vows.

Harry isn’t sure if a lion can smile, but he can sense the approval from Aslan all the same.

And then Harry steps back into Hogwarts on a normal Monday morning.

(It’s only later that he realizes something: Aslan has only specified that this door was closed to him. Perhaps, when Harry is ready, he will be able to search out another.)

***

Hermione Granger would not say that she is ‘baffled’ by Harry Potter. Instead, she would say that she is ‘distressed’, or perhaps ‘disconcerted’. She appreciates precision in language, after all.

There is something about him that simply does not make any sense. It’s a combination of factors: his ease with schoolwork, as though he had already learned much of the material, yet he was also raised Muggle; the way he sometimes drops odd phrases into his speech, names and words that have never appeared in any book in the Hogwarts Library; how he talks to every animal they encounter in Care of Magical Creatures, and seems genuinely distraught when they don’t talk back.

She has tried to categorize him a dozen times, has read every book she can find that might help, but Hermione eventually has to admit defeat. Harry Potter, she admits to herself, is unusual.

This awareness becomes more apparent when she and Ron Weasley somehow find themselves paired with him on a quest.

“It’s an adventure,” he corrects.

He is carrying a sword.

“I’ll honor the Headmaster’s last wishes, because it seems the right thing to do, but I’m not entirely sure why he asked me to bring you along. Neither of you even have a dagger.” Harry shrugs. “Anyways, we have three Horcruxes to find, and I’d like to wrap this up over the summer because my dad won’t be happy if I miss my last year of school.”

“Four,” Hermione corrects automatically. “The one from the cave, something of Ravenclaw’s, something of Hufflepuff’s, and then likely You-Know-Who’s snake.”

“Oh, I found the one from the cave,” Harry says. “When I was visiting my godfather last week. Turns out his brother stole it from Voldemort—” two flinches, which he ignores “—and Sirius’ Elf had it. I’ve been talking to the Elf for the last year or two, the poor thing, took me a long time to earn his trust.”

There is… a lot to unpack there.

“You dad?” Ron asks.

“A house elf?” Hermione asks.

Harry frowns. “Yes,” he says to Ron. “They’re just Elves,” he says to Hermione.

Hermione has about twenty questions. “I read in Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century that your parents died fighting He Who Must Not Be Named? And how did you find the Horcrux? What do you mean they’re just Elves? How did you destroy the Horcrux? What about—”

Harry cuts her off with a laugh. “You and my Aunt Lucy should never be allowed to meet. My adoptive father, not James Potter.” He ticks each answer off on his fingers. “I found the Horcrux because I was telling Sirius about our adventure, and the Elf who lives with him, Kreacher, overheard and brought it to me. His previous master, Regulus, stole it from the cave we found several years ago, but died as a result. Elves are magical beasts and deserve our respect; they’re creatures of wild magic who were long-ago bound to human’s and human magic. And…” he pauses, trying to remember the last question. “Oh, I used basilisk venom. Headmaster Dumbledore said it’s only that or fiendfyre that can destroy one.”

Hermione gapes.

“Dumbledore said you had one,” Ron says hesitantly. “You had a scar, after You-Know-Who… well… Anyways, Dumbledore said that one had been destroyed.”

“Oh, yes.” Harry rubs his forehead and the smooth skin there. The details of the painful ordeal he went through has long faded, but he hasn’t forgotten it entirely. “We used a ritual for that one. And, before you ask,” he adds quickly, seeing Hermione’s mouth open, “I’m afraid there’s no point in going into the ritual details, as I don’t see any way to replicate it in this world.”

And that, well… now Hermione has about thirty more questions that she needs answered.

***

The Magical Menagerie in Diagon Alley sells all kinds of pets—owls and cats, snakes and skipping rats. Every summer, young children come in with their Hogwarts letters, eyes wide as they seek out a familiar to follow them through their school years.

This summer there is a young girl, hair in braids. Her family is not magical, and her mother has the wide-eyed shock of someone who is not entirely sure that what they are seeing is real. Her daughter, on the other hand, is wide-eyed with excitement.

“Oh mummy,” the girl says. “The letter says I can have a pet. Please?”

Her mother reads the list of supplies again. A cat, a toad, or an owl? She shudders. How on earth would they explain an owl to the neighbors? And the idea of a toad getting free in the house is unthinkable.

“Maybe a cat,” she says.

The girl cheers, because that’s practically a ‘yes’ to any eleven year old, and dashes into the Menagerie.

Her mother follows with more hesitation, and is greeted by the shopkeeper when she enters.

“I suppose we’re looking to get a cat,” she says. Her lack of enthusiasm must show on her face, because the shopkeeper leads them over to a row of enclosures.

“We have plenty of cats and kittens to choose from,” he says, “but I might suggest a kneazle if you’re not used to owning animals. Right smart they are, almost like they can understand English!” he chortles, as though it’s a very good joke. “And if one takes a likin’ to your daughter, he’ll keep her safe while she’s at school.”

While her mother chats, the girl goes for a closure inspection of the kneazles. They are mostly spotted and they all have large ears, and their eyes follow her with intelligence.

“Hello,” she whispers. “I don’t know how this is supposed to work, but I’d really like to be friends, if one of you is interested.”

Most of the kneazles size her up before looking away, but one, tawny colored like a lion, approaches its cage and makes a small noise.

The girl carefully extends a hand to pet it behind the ears.

“Oh, hello,” she says, enthralled. “It’s lovely to meet you. I’ll have to think of a grand name for you, unless you have one of your own.”

The cat looks up at her, golden eyes taking her in. “Ginger,” it says, voice a low purr.

“Ginger,” the girl agrees, and smiles.

“Ah, I see one of the cats as bonded with ya!” the shopkeeper proclaims, stepping forward with her mother. “That one has been here for a few years, glad to see her go to a good home. You have a name in mind for her, miss?”

The girl nods. “She said her name is Ginger.”

“Oh honey, cats can’t talk,” her mother says.

The shopkeeper laughs in agreement, but adds, “It’s a good enough name all the same.”

The girl cradles Ginger to her while her mother fills out the paperwork, running a hand through the thick fur. “It’s okay,” she murmurs. “I believe you can talk. Even if you never say another word, I’ll believe.”

***

It turns out that Hermione and Ron are excellent additions to Harry’s spy network.

Harry extends his network to all of his allies. “I’m looking for artifacts,” he says. “Something that belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw, and something that belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. The items have likely been tainted with dark magic.”

Hermione researches. She is certain that the Ravenclaw artifact is the lost diadem, and the Hufflepuff one is a goblet.

Ron strategizes. He reads over the reports that Harry gets, makes plans on where they should go next.

It is the Goblins who comes through for them first.

“We have found something in one of the customer vaults,” they say. “A golden cup, with darkness embedded in it.”

Harry goes into the negotiations at Gringotts with every ounce of skill he has ever learned at his father’s side, diplomacy and cunning, and walks out with a goblet contained in an iron box.

It is his spy network inside Hogwarts which brings them the next clue. “The Grey Lady is the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw,” he learns.

It is still the summer holidays, and so the Hogwarts they return to is empty of students and teachers. Hermione’s research and Ron’s strategy, combined with Harry’s network of informants, eventually leads them to an all-too-familiar stretch of hallway on the seventh floor.

(He is tempted to try the doorway, but Aslan’s words echo through his mind.)

“A room for hidden things,” Ron proposes.

They leave the school with a second Horcrux contained in an iron box… and also a goblin-forged sword that Harry borrows from the Headmaster’s office, because it’s much nicer than his own.

On his way out, he detours down a tunnel to pay his respects to the fallen basilisk, and to retrieve a vial of venom.

***

Bumbrose is a good bear. He is very good at finding honey, and at taking naps, and at finding fields of fresh lavender to stretch out in on warm days.

He knows that he is not the smartest bear, but he is loyal, and he has a long memory.

He spends a lot of time remembering, when he is not napping or searching for honey. Mostly, he thinks about his best friend, Prince Harry.

When he first met the prince, Bumbrose was just a young cub. Harry didn’t enjoy naps so much, but he was happy to search out honey with Bumbrose, and he would sit and read aloud from history books while Bumbrose dozed in the sun.

Together they would fish for salmon, and take their lessons together, and Prince Harry was the first and best friend that Bumbrose ever had.

Sometimes he thinks about their Grand Adventure, which was spoken about for years after.

But mostly he thinks about the day that the prince vanished, along with all of the kings and queens, and left Bumbrose all alone. He knows it was not on purpose, because Harry had made a vow to him that they would be best friends for all time, and Harry never broke a promise to him in all their time together.

So Bumbrose mourns the loss of his friend, and hopes that he is doing well, wherever he is, and that he has found good friends who will go on adventures and eat honey with him

***

“We have to kill the snake,” Ron says.

“I agree,” says Hermione.

“I can’t do that,” says Harry.

His two friends—for they are friends now—blink at him in surprise.

“It’s a Horcrux, mate,” Ron points out. “We don’t really have a choice.”

Harry bites his lip. He glances at the vial of basilisk venom, and remembers the pain of having to slay a King of Serpents. “It’s alive,” he says. “Can we reason with it?”

“Only if you can speak Parseltongue,” Hermione answers. “That’s the language of snakes. It’s said that only You-Know-Who can speak it, as a descendent of Slytherin. Snakes don’t speak English, unfortunately.”

Harry slumps back in his seat. “I can fight Voldemort,” he says. “If the time comes. Or any of the other soldiers in his army. But the snake? I don’t—”

“That snake killed my father in fifth year,” Ron says quietly. “I’ll do it.”

Harry hands him the goblin-forged sword without another word.

***

War is complex, Harry knows that. But it’s always the result of two contrasts—ideals clashing, differing opinions.

Some battles, however, are a little more simple: winter versus summer, dark versus light, wild versus tame.

Harry has fought in a lot of battles, and studied hundreds more. He helped to defeat the Usurper Miraz and restore wild magic to Narnia, and he helped to defeat the darkness at the Island where Dreams come true. He learned the details of the battle against the White Witch from his father and uncles, and a dozen more from his tutors. He knows all of the Goblin rebellions and Wizarding wars, the Muggle battles and World Wars.

The battle he is to face on the eve of his seventeenth birthday is, on the surface, not much different than any of these.

“Why Hogwarts?” Harry asks idly, waiting for the battle to start. He is swinging his sword, trying to keep his muscles warm.

Hermione raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“I just mean… well, I’ve seen a lot of battles over castles, but those have been for sovereignty. But this is a school.” Harry looks around behind him. It’s the eve of his seventeenth birthday, which means Hogwarts is currently unoccupied except for their army, but he thinks his point still stands. “We let Lord Voldemort pick the battle ground, and he picked his primary school. Does nobody else find that strange?”

“Okay, I see what you mean.”

The location of the battle, in this instance, doesn’t matter much to Harry. This isn’t a battle to determine who shall be king, so much as it a battle between light and dark, and those kinds of battles can be fought anywhere.

Luna appears at his side. “The spiders wanted me to tell you that the dark army is five hundred strong,” she says, “and the trolls have decided to join Voldemort.”

Disappointing, but ultimately unsurprising.

Ron appears at his other side. “Mate,” he says. “I might be going crazy, but I’m pretty sure Hermione’s cat just talked to me.”

“Crookshanks?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d he say?”

Ron blinks. “Uh, the centaurs are in place to flank?

“Excellent,” Harry says.

This battle might be about dark versus light, but there’s another battle being fought at the same moment, which almost nobody is aware of.

The castle is currently home to around three hundred humans, half a dozen Manticores (to the dismay of the humans), several hags and as many werewolves as Remus Lupin and Harry Potter could convince to join them.

In the grounds around the castle, the Acromantula are preparing to flank from the left, while the Centaurs are prepared to flank from the right. They aim to funnel the dark army toward the castle, but any who escape toward the lake will face the wrath of the Merpeople. A Griffin circles overheard, and several Hippogriffs are waiting in one of the courtyards, riders mounted.

The first sprouts of wild magic are emerging.

***

“Lift your sword arm higher.”

Peter isn’t baffled at all by the kid who stumbled his way his family, because he grew up with Edmund and this kid is giving him déjà vu. He understands the mood swings and the shadows that pass behind his eyes, the way he craves family and belonging.

He has more than two decades’ experience in living with Ed, so his miniature? Not a problem.

“Good,” he says, “Excellent job.”

The boy, Harry, swells with pride. “I’ve been practicing,” he says.

“I can tell,” Peter says. “You’re getting stronger every day. Soon you’ll be riding into battle and using that sharp mind of yours to get into all kinds of trouble.”

“Please, let’s not encourage him.” Ah, speak of the devil. Peter glances up to see his brother leaning over the side of the training circle, watching them practice.

Harry turns and his eyes light up when they spot Edmund. “You came!” he says.

“I said I would,” Ed replies easily. “Now, let’s see that parry you’ve been working so hard on. And no more talk of battle or troublemaking.”

Peter laughs and gets back to work, with Harry’s energy renewed. The kid’s hero worship is plainly visible for the entirety of Cair Paravel to see.

“You know Harry, I should tell you about some of the adventures King Edmund got up to when he was younger.” He swings his wooden practice sword, and beams when Harry meets it.

Edmund’s glare could level a forest. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“There was the time he went on a quest to explore the Owlwood and he accidentally fell asleep beneath a dryad’s tree. He woke up so ensnared in vines by the annoyed spirit that Queen Susan, who had accompanied him, had to come and cut him free.” Harry laughs and swings his sword, which Peter turns aside. “But of course, he is a ferocious warrior in battle, we mustn’t forget. Why, I recall when we went to fight the Giants in the Ettinsmoor, he was almost felled by a rat!”

“The Rat had a sword,” Edmund says, but his voice is amused. “And let’s not forget that it surprised me after I had slain three giants on my own.”

“Details,” Peter waves off.

Harry is still laughing, but it’s also clear that his strength is flagging. Peter motions for them to stop, and Edmund has a flask of water waiting.

“I’d like to be in a battle someday,” Harry says. “It sounds very exciting.”

Peter catches Edmund’s stern look, and exhales. “I know we make light of the topic, but don’t wish too hard for your first battle, lad. War is… dangerous, and frightening. It can be thrilling in the moment, but you mustn’t forget that you are fighting for a reason, and that every man on that field is willing to sacrifice their life for that cause.”

***

Edmund Pevensie came back from Narnia with magic in his soul.

The England that he left was dreary, dim and gray, a place of air-raid sirens and feeling out of place. The world he returned to was a mystery waiting to be discovered.

Narnia had been blatantly magical. He’d spoken with Ravens and danced with gods, battled a witch, and sailed to the end of the world. Earth’s magic had rules that he had to learn.

Lucy found it distasteful. Peter and Susan were ambivalent. But Edmund? Well, he always had loved understanding the rules… and then finding the loopholes in them.

He came back from Narnia with magic, but he was already older than eleven and so there was no Hogwarts letter for him.

(Lucy received one, but she declined quite firmly. She was the youngest, and the wild magic had shaped her more than any of the other Pevensies.)

So Edmund teaches himself. He cheats, of course, because he may have been King Edmund the Just, but he was also known as the Shadow King, the cunning sibling. He leaves Narnia for the second time in 1941, and for the final time in 1943, and it will be forty-eight years before he can hug his son again, but Harry has given him invaluable information.

Wands, to control magic. Spells, to harness magic. Diagon Alley. The Ministry for Magic.

By June 1991, he has found a position with the International Confederation of Wizards, not entirely unlike the role he held in Cair Paravel—managing negotiations and transactions, sharing legal expertise when called upon, and, perhaps, keeping a few secrets… just in case.

Rescuing Harry from his former home goes exactly as planned.

Hugging his son once again is a magic that no wand or spell will ever be able to replicate.

***

A conversation, observed by Remus Lupin and Minerva McGonagall, between Harry Potter and a man who is most certainly not James Potter:

“Absolutely not,” the man says.

“It worked before,” Harry says. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t work now. I’ve read the treatises on Deep Magic, and the history of the Winter War, and I know the Laws. If a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed—”

The man cuts him off. “This is not Narnia,” he pleads, “and I cannot risk losing you again.”

Harry freezes, then falls into the man’s waiting hug. “I’m sorry father,” he says, so quietly that the two witnesses can barely hear it.

“You aren’t fighting this battle alone,” the man says.

***

The Daily Prophet

Special Edition: You-Know-Who Defeated!

It’s true, Britain! He Who Must Not Be Named has finally been defeated, in a great battle that took place last night at Hogwarts. Special Correspondent Rita Skeeter has confirmed that it was none other than Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived himself, who dealt the final blow.

Ms. Skeeter interviewed several of the survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts to help piece together a full picture of the battle for you, our faithful audience.

Here is what we know so far:

The Dark Lord gathered his forces outside of Hogwarts at sundown yesterday, July 31^st. His army consisted of Death Eaters, dementors, and trolls, among other dark creatures.

Harry Potter was ready for him, with his own army gathered inside the castle walls.

“I thought it would just be members of the Order of the Phoenix,” explains Senior Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, “but we were joined by several students even though it was summer holidays. And then—well, then the creatures came.”

That’s right, readers. Our intrepid reporter can confirm that the battle was also fought by a legion of centaurs from the Forbidden Forest, as well as dozens of hags and werewolves.

“They saved my life several times,” said Junior Auror Nymphadora Tonks. “I think we should be recruiting folks like that into the Auror program in the future… they were wicked!”

Ginerva Weasley, a sixth year student, claims to have flown on a Hippogriff during the battle. “His name is Greyfeather,” she clarifies. “We rained spells down on the Death Eaters for, like, an hour. So much cooler than playing Quidditch.”

Her brother, Ronald, a seventh year, explains that You-Know-Who had some unexpected dark creatures of his own. “He had this snake, right? Nasty thing, tried to kill old Snape, but I got there first, lucky for him. Maybe he’ll go easy on me in class next year, eh?” He laughs. “Anyways, Harry had let me borrow his sword—don’t ask me why he had a sword, bloke loves his secrets. But I went swinging at the snake and, don’t ya know, I managed to get it right across it’s neck. Pissed old Voldie off something awful, too.”

While some parts of the Battle of Hogwarts have been well reported, there are other aspects that our team is still working to confirm the details of. Those include the actual events surrounding the death of You-Know-Who.

“It was chaos down there,” Hermione Granger explains. “They were by the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort and a few of his top soldiers. And Harry went down to meet him, of course. He seemed excited for the duel.”

What we do know is that there were several people and creatures with the Boy Who Lived, helping to keep the Death Eaters and dementors away so he and the Dark Lord could fight. Nobody is quite sure who all of those people are. We have confirmed that Neville Longbottom, son of the famous Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom, was there, as well as sixth year student Luna Lovegood. But who the other people are remains a mystery.

“One of ‘em had a bow an’ arrow,” says Rubeus Hagrid. “‘Cept her arrows were doin’ real damage to those dementors, strangest thing. An’ the others had swords and knives glowin’ like they was full of magic. Like somethin’ out of an ol’ legend, y’know?”

Attempts to understand the final duel itself from Mr. Longbottom and Ms. Lovegood were, unfortunately, not entirely successful.

“It’s clear now that Voldemort was the leader of the Rotfang Conspiracy,” Luna Lovegood says. “Of course, Harry was able to defeat him. He always brushes his teeth.”

Neville Longbottom’s explanation, while more understandable, is still just as baffling: “Well, Harry had a sword in one hand, and his wand in the other. He was using both, it was pretty wicked to see. But then he and Vol—Voldemort both cast spells at the same time, and they connected? Their wands, I mean, a bright light between them.”

There are multiple reports of a bright light being spotted from the edge of the Forbidden Forest, our reporters have been able to verify.

“Then Harry takes his wand, and it’s still connected to Voldemort’s, right? And he just plants it in the ground like it’s a sapling. And he looks over at me and says, ‘Hey, Nev, how do you grow a tree?’ all calm. Well, I’ve grown a lot of trees in my garden, so I tell him, and he holds his hand out and his wand—it’s made of holly?—it starts growing into a tree, just like that.”

“The air was so heavy with magic at that point,” Mr. Longbottom continues, “I’ve never felt anything like it. Just wild and natural. And then Harry lunges forward and drives his sword straight through Voldemort’s chest. And I’m thinking ‘that’s it, it’s over’, but then that new holly tree and the trees on the edge of the Forbidden Forest came to life and… well, they devoured the Dark Lord’s body until nothing was left.”

It should be noted that Mr. Longbottom sustained several injuries during his battle against Bellatrix Lestrange. We have not yet been able to confirm with St. Mungo’s if any of these was a head wound that may have caused Mr. Longbottom to… imagine things during the stress of battle.

However, The Daily Prophet can report that no remains of the Dark Lord were found other than his robes and his wand.

We will continue to investigate and provide updates to our readers as we learn more about this historic occasion.

(In other news, Sirius Black announces that he is launching the Regulus Black Memorial Fund for the families of any who perished in the battle. It is open, he emphasizes, to all beings.)

Chapter Text

Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters. – The Magician’s Nephew

My mum always said things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end. If not always in the way we expect. – Luna Lovegood,
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The Crumple-Horned Snorkack was an odd creature, even by Narnian standards. By all accounts it resembled a warthog, with its curling tusks and pig snout, except its tusks were on its head instead of it’s snout. Also, it was a dark purple in color.

The Snorkack, when asked, claimed that a wizard of some renown had bungled a spell some centuries ago, before fleeing off across the eastern seas.

The Warthogs, when asked, claimed that any resemblance was purely coincidental.

Luna Lovegood steps foot into Narnia four days after her graduation. She is equipped with a notebook, an ever-inking quill, two back issues of The Quibbler, a pretty garnet she picked up in the forest the day before, and three onions.

(It turns out that when Aslan told Harry, “This doorway will be forever closed to you”, he didn’t necessarily mean this doorway will be forever closed… he meant it will be forever closed to you.)

(It also turns out that the Crumple-Horned Snorkack loves onions.)

***

The first meeting of Amelia Bones’ council after she is elected Minister for Magic is going more smoothly than she imagined.

She is joined by her advisors and the heads of the various Ministry offices.

The Centaur, Ronan, sips tea at the far end of the table, while the rest of the advisors sip coffee which is being constantly topped up by a herd of pixies.

At her right, an Elf named Mimsy is perched on a high stool taking the minutes, with all of the organization of her people. She takes role in her high, squeaky voice, and then goes through the agenda line by line. When the Head of the Department of Magical Accidents tries to interrupt to discuss hiring more Obliviators, Mimsy silences him with a stern glare.

There is some debate when the head of the Financial Department requests some new laws to go before the next Wizangamut session… but eventually everyone can agree that the tax reform he proposes is much-needed. And besides, it is pointed out, as a Goblin he has a very good understanding of the current state of the Wizarding World’s financial state.

And then, before they can close, newly-appointed Head Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt proposes the addition of an aerial corps.

“We could invite the Manticores and Hippogriffs, Minister,” he says eagerly, laying out his plan. He pauses, then adds, “And, perhaps, a Dragon or two? Look, here is a briefing from Charlie Weasley, ma’am.”

Amelia suddenly feels a headache coming on.

***

In the basement of the Ministry there is an arch, covered in a tattered curtain.

This is a doorway, but not all doorways lead to Narnia.

***

Neville sits in his garden, surrounded by plants waiting to be repotted. He is supposed to be getting ready for his Order of Merlin ceremony, but he is distracted.

Something is watching him from the willow tree.

It is a cutting of the Whomping Willow which he took several years prior. The sapling has grown well, putting up almost three meters a year, until it towers above him and filters gentle sunlight onto the plants below.

The gentle green eyes peering at him from around its trunk, however, are new.

“Hullo,” he calls.

The eyes blink. A moment later, a face emerges, and then a body. It is a girl, if girls were made of golden brown wood and clothed in bright green leaves. She has hair like long willow branches down her back and dotted with tiny yellow flowers.

Neville waves.

The girl waves back.

“Is this your tree, then?”

A nod.

Neville smiles. “Well, thank you for coming out to introduce yourself,” he says. “I hope I’ve been taking good care of you and your home.”

The girl nods again, this time with a smile.

“Please let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

The girl pauses, a tiny frown marring her forehead. She motions for Neville to come closer. When he does, she goes up on her toes, cupping her hand so she can whisper in his ear.

It’s like listening to the wind, and the rustle of branches, and rain hitting leaves, but he understands every word.

“Oh, of course,” he says, when she’s done. “That shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

The girl smiles, and sunlight blooms across the garden.

***

Harry sits at the dinner table with his father and the rest of their family. Meals when they’re all together are often raucous, with multiple conversations happening all at once and food being passed around.

“And then,” Peter is saying, “the poor Leopard woke up all covered in charcoal and Lucy convinced him that he had turned into a Panther!”

Laughter rings out, and Eustace almost spills his glass of wine. It is saved only by the quick hands of Jill, who is deep in conversation with Susan about a new fashion show they’ve both seen.

Lucy manages to flick a pea at Peter in retaliation for tattling on her about the Leopard prank—years and a lifetime ago—while holding a very serious discussion with Luna Lovegood about the healing properties of the Moon Frog.

“I suppose they might help with lycanthropy,” Lucy says thoughtfully, “what with their being from the moon.”

A wide-eyed Hermione Granger is sitting halfway down the table, trying to eat her roast while also follow as many conversations as she can. It seems to be taking everything in her power not to get out a piece of parchment and a quill to start taking notes.

Beside her, Ron Weasley is well into his second serving and doesn’t seem at all fazed by the chaos, but when somebody asks what happened to Edmund’s old chess set, his head pops up from his plate. “You play?” he asks Harry’s father.

Edmund’s smile is sharp and delighted. “I do,” he says. “After dinner? Best of three?”

“You’re on, mate.”

And Harry leans back in his seat, watching Crookshanks sneak bites of chicken from Susan and Hedwig whisper to one of Edmund’s Raven friends by an open window. He is full and warm, and tendrils of magic drift through the room like incense, stirring the candles and making light flicker.

Maybe there is another door back to Narnia from him out there, somewhere. But in this place he is happy, and he is home.