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Chapter Text

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𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴛʜᴇᴏ ɴᴏᴛᴛ x ʜᴀʀʀy ᴩᴏᴛᴛᴇʀ
s. 30.08.2025 - e. ?

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In the summer before his sixth year, Harry Potter is mistakenly delivered a strange missive from Draco Malfoy addressed only to the initials T.N. The next day, someone comes to reclaim his misdirected letter with a sharp demand on the tip of his tongue. The day after, he returns, and does not stop coming back. There should have been part of him that protested it, some larger part of him that remained indifferent to these odd visits.

After gruelling days of loneliness, Harry cannot find it in himself to send Nott away.

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𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐒!

I don't own Harry Potter or any of the associated characters. This is really old school, but I don't have a bank account let alone the money to get sued. I'm also not Billy Idol, and I don't own the rights to any of his songs (sadly) nor anything associated with them. He's a great guy; lovely voice. This fic was written because this stupid song won't get out of my head, and nor will Nottpott.

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐃𝐄𝐒 . . .

Underage smoking, swearing, period-typical homophobia, mentions/implications of abuse, low-level crime (I'm not your criminal wingman, don't commit felonies), slow updates, miscommunication (r. tags), wizard Nazis, and likely some strong descriptions/depictions of violence (r. warnings).

For those who are probably reading this for it, smut is also unlikely (r. unlikely, not improbable).

[chapter updates: chapter thirteen now released!]

Chapter Text

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𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ɪ . ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴀɪɴ ᴛᴏ ɴᴏᴡʜᴇʀᴇ

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THE  Athenaeum crackled with the harping symphony of battle. Every gust of wind that battered against ancient, gilded tiles threatened to crumple the foundations of the great Ministry - which had, for perhaps centuries afore their time, already begun to weaken with black rot. The wall against his back, thus, was riddled with cold magic seeping into his beaten back; the bend of it as he hunched over himself burned, every vertebrae that knobbed his spine wincing with every minute shift he took. Somewhere in the distance there was a cry, and to whether it was his own or someone else's, he did not know. Grief had existed in long years before that day, but he had never felt it so ripely as then.

Eyes slitted, half-mast to coax away the harsh bursts of various shades and hues dancing and crackling through the air in a devastatingly-dangerous dance, his feet skid haplessly against the dusty, glass-pocked floor as a strike of magic landed narrowly close to his head. This time, for the fresh ache in his jaw sung hotly, the cry that wrenched through the air next was decidedly his own. The ground met him with rigid poise, debris fragments biting into his palms as Dumbledore - as Voldemort, ahead, even - appeared to forget he was there at all. Their rivalry had wrung and weaved its web through ages long before he'd walked the earth, and it had not stopped simply for the matter of a boy.

The wind whirled. It bellowed and thundered like the maddened frenzy of a hurricane overtaken by death's hounds storming to swallow him whole. He shuddered. Pressed himself closer to the ground as his eyes throbbed in his skull. There was no feeling here, no; nothing but pure, unadulterated sorrow. Fear. Voldemort's shriek was high and shrill and so utterly inhuman it pierced through his ribs to steal the breath from his lungs whole. Agony burst through his skull, his eyes rolled back in their sockets, and there was a brutish prodding at his mind-

-And Harry Potter startled awake.

Around him, the rhythm of wheels scraping swiftly against rail rung through the air, and the warm chuffs of the carriages as they went along filled that dreadful silence that had followed in his wakening. Harry's hands were cold in his lap, and no amount of frantically pressing his fingers together would draw warmth back into them. Somewhere across from him, though the backs of the train-seats did not entirely allow him to look, a woman had turned around with a severe furrow to her brow, a few papers settled on the tray in front of her as though she were in the midst of completing some work before Harry had disturbed her peace.

Warm flush carried up his cheeks, and resolutely turning his head, he glowered out of the nearby window to the flickers of city and countryside beyond. Moments later, the practiced, monotone voice of a female announcer crackled over the speakers to welcome the train to Surrey. As swiftly as he had jarred himself awake, Harry slid out of his seat and shoved his hands into the overlarge pockets of his jeans, sidling his way down the narrow path of the train-car to make for the first door that caught his eye. A man slipped past him, offering a small, muttered apology before taking his seat, a child clinging at his hand. For a moment he wondered if he ought to watch them, if but to acquaint himself once more with the familiar, nauseating ache of envy that churned in his gut. For a moment he felt like a child again, too, and instead opted for ducking his head down and shifting closer to the door in silent prayer it would open quickly.

Summer had come upon Surrey with sweltering vengeance. No minutes after the train had docked at the platform and the doors had opened to let Harry out, had his skin already begun to feel sticky and warm to the touch. Beneath the dark, rumpled hang of his hair fringing his hairline, sheets of sweat had started to glisten. Without much dwelled-upon meaning to the action, his eyes scanned the platform as his feet planted firmly upon it. No matter that he likely looked a loon, standing there like an idiot, but lately had it become more habitual than purposeful for his gaze to flit over his surroundings carefully. Cautiously, though truly no boy his age ought to look over their shoulder quite so often as he did.

Only when the train departed once more, passengers having completed their orderly queuing to enter, did he let his shoulders unwind.

It was simple enough to slip through the barriers inside of the station and out onto the streets unnoticed, hands firmly stowed away in a pair of jeans that none looked twice at as they may have years ago. They were ratty, second-handed things from Dudley who had worn them to exhaustion; torn slightly at the knees, the shins, where Harry had ripped them meandering his way through brambles and thorny brushes in futile escape of his hunting in the past. The few boys his age who ambled past in their herds had not flickered an eye his way, and there were no girls to speak of around Little Whinging. For their indifference did he find himself strangely grateful, relief sweeping through him at another evaded suade for attention.

But even the familiarity of his surroundings did not mean his eyes had ceased to glance around, an anxious tic that his cousin would have jeered a mockery out for. Ridiculous, for someone as much a delinquent as the residents of Little Whinging, Surrey, thought Harry Potter to be. Unless he was checking for the police, that was, which would be rational enough to save him any pitying looks from older women who had watched him grow in clothes thrice his size, with hardly any meat on his bones. The thought itself was rather mortifying, and perhaps for that reason alone did Harry swerve down a longer road off to the side. It ran down the main street where cars zipped past him with puffing engines, their bright colours catching the light and stinging his eyes if he dared raise them from the pavement and the drawling steps of his beaten trainers.

Corner-shops sprung up alongside neat, monotonous lanes of houses he could have drawn with his eyes closed. A pebble skittered down into the brush where the toe of his shoe had caught it, clattering loudly against a grate before catching between the iron bars. A mother and her young boy walked past, licking a half-melted ice cream with growing haste. Harry could not stop himself from looking over his shoulder to them after they had walked past. Darkness hooked to his navel like a caught fish. As long days spent at Privet Drive had passed him by, more frequently had he begun to wonder of a different life. Though not entirely an unpondered dream, it was the first wherein he'd faces to put to the warm hands that fed him well, that held him whenever he'd a nightmare. Voices to put to the words that soothed him when he was upset, or reprimanded him gently when he'd gotten into trouble at school.

Part of him thought of Lupin, silent where he had holed himself for the summer, and then of Sirius.

Sirius. How Harry despised thinking of him, his unruly godfather; reckless and wild, and so utterly perplexing that he had never seemed to truly get a read on the older man no matter how hard he tried to. In his letters he had been fatherly, almost - though that itself was to assume Harry quite knew what 'fatherly' felt like -, but his words always had conveyed a yearning for the man whom he thought Harry might, one day, become. Like James Potter had been. Then Harry had been a fool. As much a fool as Sirius had been during his escapades to Hogsmeade guised as Snuffles, and had rushed off head-first into the Ministry. Deep into its guts where he had dreamed Sirius was. It had been his fault, Harry told himself morosely. Had he not been there at all, had he not come to face with that thrice-bedamned Veil hidden away in the Department of Mysteries, Sirius might have been alive.

Anger had become a ready acquaintance that summer, more so than mourning. Part of him hardly thought he knew what it meant: to mourn someone, though surely he'd done it before.

Mood thoroughly ruined, a muscle in his jaw jumped sharply as Harry turned the next corner and wove his way through a half-rusted footpath barrier and into the snicket that ran between a local corner-shop and an old dentist's house. It was dimly-lit in the evenings, but in the late afternoon it burned vividly with heat and ran trails of sweat along his spine that stuck Dudley's old plaid to his back through the vest he wore beneath it. In such close quarters, he considered, chancing a peek over his shoulder once again, anyone could get the best of him. Hurrying along his pace and passing beneath a footbridge minutes later, the first turn of Privet Drive caught his eye with the white flash of the street-sign. If but for a second, he paused. Harry stared down the road, then back again, before swivelling sharply on his heel and making further down the road - far away from where he knew Number Four eagerly awaited him.

Here, people knew his name; a rough boy who attended St. Brutus' and terrorised poor Dudley Dursley and his friends. That freakish, underfed boy who existed only within the shadow of his warm-loving aunt, Petunia; the boy who had turned his teacher's wig blue, and who had enjoyed climbing the roof of his school on more than one occasion as a child. Nevermind the bruises upon his knees, the pinkened imprints of sharp fingers unto his skinny arm, and the suspiciously hidden welts that littered his skin. As unruly as his drunkard parents, his aunt liked to boast of Harry Potter. The neighbours had taken it with gusto, lavishing Petunia Dursley their bittersweet compliments for her generosity.

It had taken him another hour to reroute back to Privet Drive.

By that time, seven o'clock had stricken with the loud, merry cries of schoolchildren rushing into the park-fields by the local primary school. Their parents ambled lazily behind, exchanging chatter amongst themselves, and even the odd teacher could be seen taking their leave of the building with a bag or two slung over their shoulders. It looked happier than he had ever recalled it being, the school. As Harry walked beneath the shade of a tree, he glimpsed the familiar face of a person or two whom he vaguely recalled seeing before. An older boy who was now a man, who had once bought Harry a drink out of pity alone during a hot day. A woman who had once let him join her skipping-game, though she'd been too old to play them at the time and still indulged herself regardless. He misliked watching it - this merriment. Those children and their parents.

His stomach curled and tightened, and Harry reckoned it was a prickle of disgust. Not fear, nor longing. No, it could have been, for they were more meagre emotions he quashed regularly, with more vehemence than to let themselves become known.

A small scoff under his breath. Turning, he found himself back on Privet Drive sooner than he had believed he would, taking the first heavy steps back to the Dursleys'. Old Mrs. Figg caught his eye through one of her windows, stare widening before she ducked back behind her lace curtains like she had never been there at all. His teeth ground together, his fists clenched in his pockets. A finger caught the bridge of his glasses as they threatened to slip off his nose, hitching them back up with an idle push before he saw Number Four. Its magnolia bushes were dutifully-tended and their windows wide-open to allow in whatever sweet breeze might find itself slipping into the house. There was a small bed of freshly-planted peonies by the sill that he could recall working on not the night last, and watering that very morning before Aunt Petunia had allowed him to go out for the day. Had practically ushered him out of the house at the first sound of his request.

Pleased, at the very least, with the knowledge that his uncle Vernon would not be back for another hour or so, Harry put his hand to the doorknob and hesitated only for a moment before walking in. Almost immediately was he bombarded with the familiar flora of the walls - that his aunt often crowed about to her friends, claiming they had not been papered but, instead, hand-painted by an artist who had owed her a favour years ago - and the pictures that hung upon them on neat hooks. Long had he abandoned the wish of seeing himself within one of the frames. The door of the living-room had been propped open by a pretty door-stopper Harry could have sworn he had seen in Mrs. Yearwood's house, before he deigned to show himself in the doorway and lean a shoulder against the threshold.

"Duddy?" called his Aunt Petunia, sweetly in call, from the couch. Her head lolled towards him, a mechanical fan pinched between three, lacquer-nailed fingers. Hardly a second had passed before her nose twisted sharply, and the warmth that had flit upon her face at the hail of Dudley's name disappeared like the flecks of green to an autumn-turning leaf. "You," she said curtly, instead of any welcome that may have rivalled Dudley's own. "You're back - so early?"

Harry looked at her sullenly. "Yes." he groused, before straightening abruptly, reminding himself that it was a clear lack of his usual back-talk that had kept him fed the last few days. "My friend had to go home." explained Harry, instead, a much lighter tone to his words. It grated upon his tongue unpleasantly.

Hermione had been almost frantic at the first sign of the sky darkening, and had hugged Harry fiercely before she had hurried off home, with a promise to write to him when she returned and a threat that he write back just the same. It had been a rarity, indeed, that her parents had even let her come out of their house - so frightened by the recent wixen news they were, even as Muggles. Briefly entertaining the thought of his aunt Petunia ever meeting Voldemort, Harry blinked when she waved a hand dismissively at him and clucked, looking back to the telly droning on a new soap she would undoubtedly chatter on about with her friends later. "Outside," Petunia told him, offhandedly. "Use the hose."

"Sure." he muttered, flexing his fingers slightly as he shuffled past her, past the dinner table, and out into the garden from the conservatory. The garden was one of the few places at Number Four that Harry had ever felt remotely peaceful in, if a notable half-lack of antsiness could ever be rewarded as 'peace'. Plants diligently looked after by his careful hands, their sweet smells and soft petals ever had been a strange reprieve from his uncle's distasteful jeers and Dudley's meaty fists. Slipping out of his plaid, letting it pool at his feet, Harry ducked by the hose and wrestled a little with the tap before water began to trickle on the flowerbeds below.

The handfuls he cupped were splashed onto his face, hands scrubbing down the back of his neck, rivulets of water slipping beneath his loose vest down his heated back and under his arms as a cool, blissful sensation washed over him for it. Although the hour was turning late, the sun seemed reluctant to cease its torment on Surrey that day, and shone just as fiercely as it had at noon. Throwing the plaid shirt over an arm, Harry looked around quickly before sneaking in large gulps of the hose-water, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth when he stood up. A satisfied sound left him, and just as hastily as he had come out, he returned back inside.

Aunt Petunia twisted her head over the back of the couch and crooked a finger with a loud sigh. "Take some leftovers, boy," she commanded, with all the harsh persuasion of a military officer. "Then stay up there. You've done enough as it is today." Which was to say, not a lot at all. Harry said not a word in response but a thank you, Aunt Petunia that was only partly-earnest before making his way up the stairs with a cold can of beans in one hand and a small pack of biscuits in the other. The upper floor was modest compared to the ground, with Dudley's bedroom abreast to Harry's, the bathroom parallel to it, and Petunia and Vernon's at the very end. It was nature for him to slip into his room without so much as a glance to the other doors, and it was to the loud, merry hoot of an owl that he was greeted with upon entering.

Unbidden, Harry's lips twitched fondly. Door clicking quietly behind him, he set down the beans upon his desk and worked on the pack of biscuits. "Hey girl," he murmured to Hedwig, warmly, as she blinked large, amber eyes at him and rose her fluffy head from her breast. "Got some food for you. Warm today, isn't it?" She crooned in response, wings fluttering slightly when he managed to jolt open the packet and ripped it open, laying it in front of her to feast on. When Hedwig leaned her pale head forward, beak snapping with hunger, Harry ran his fingers along the crown of it and relished in the little warmth he felt beneath the softness of her feathers. Something within him tightened like a taut string at the familiarity of it all. To any it would have sounded outlandish for him to say that his owl was his closest companion of all. Real nutter, he was, but it would be that regardless of what he said or did.

When he finally came around to drawing his hand away from Hedwig's feathers - which he did when she clacked at him brusquely with a vaguely-ired gleam in her eyes - Harry retreated to his desk and set his beans to the side, taking up an abandoned quill he'd hidden behind the stack of school-books he could not have yet claimed to have looked over whatsoever. Snagging an old piece of parchment he'd used as a bookmark for a small muggle novel he'd found near the local library, Harry slid his inkwell towards him and then . . . paused. Hermione had said to write to her, but maybe she had meant only after she'd written. Never could he truly think to understand his best friend entirely, but he liked to think she wasn't entirely batty, and might appreciate some correspondence from her little jail. That, at least, they appeared to have in common.

So, without much else to do but sit there like a half-wit, Harry furrowed his brow and set the nib of his quill to the parchment, swishing it before it could pool in a sorry lagoon of black mess. 'Dear Hermione. . .' he began slowly.

Hedwig shrieked. Somewhere in the living-room, he heard Aunt Petunia join in on the symphony - if only to tell him to shut that bloody beast up!

Harry jumped sharply, quill scattering blots of ink along the page as, from his open window, the regal swoop of a greater beast than Hedwig ended rapidly upon his sill. Scrambling back from his desk, his fingers sought out the familiar ridge of his wand settled against his thigh, inside the pocket of the jeans he'd yet to replace with something comfier. Regretting that, now, as they had jarred uncomfortably when he'd gotten up. The furrow in his brow had eased to shock; mouth falling open slightly, perhaps more in preparation to cry out a Protego than out of surprise. At first he had frightfully assumed it was a Death Eater, black wisps of magic carrying their body to his bedroom to end him once and for all. To bring him as a gift to Voldemort-

It was . . . not.

A horned-owl was perched on the ledge of his window, seeming mildly disturbed by the surroundings it looked around to gauge. Between its talons was tied loosely an envelope, and the beady, orange gaze it levied upon Hedwig made her puff out her chest in indignation. Almost like she recognised the owl, and the sight of it alone had incited an ages-long hatred within her. Harry sympathised with it, and shushed her softly before warily toeing his way towards the larger owl. It was a beautiful animal, to be sure, and he'd only gotten off with one close call of a missing finger when he moved to untie the letter from its leg.

"Merlin," mumbled Harry, pointedly stepping away from the oil as he flipped the envelope over in his hand. The sky was beginning to darken with all the wonderful hues of dusk; purpling like an old bruise, or flushing pink like a flowering buttercup. Just as his thumb caught the smooth, shallow ridges of the wax-stamp that held it shut, which curled a pattern he most certainly did not know, Harry looked once more at his new visitor and inched towards Hedwig's cage. Picking up one of her untouched biscuits, he approached the beast - which seemed for all the world as if it had been done some horrible disservice - and offered it the treat with a sensible amount of caution. "Biscuit?" he offered, tensely. For an instant it did nothing but stare at him, which was more unnerving than he would have cared to admit.

Maybe for that the stare felt itchingly like he had been on its end before.

Then it surged forward, plucking the biscuit from between his fingers with a theatrical snap! Somewhere behind them, Hedwig hooted quietly. Somehow it sounded disgruntled, like the first stirrings of anger from a tween. Harry ignored her and turned over the letter to frown at the stamp. Black wax had sealed the flap closed, and was painted along its design; a silver dragon arching its wings towards a lean, four-pointed star which wriggled on the seal as though it were enchanted. How dramatic, he thought admiringly, before reluctantly breaking it off and reaching for the letter inside. From the sill, the horned-owl hissed slightly. Hedwig made a disgruntled noise in return that silenced it sharply. From the outside of the house, he heard the rumbles of Uncle Vernon's car inching up the squat driveway of Number Four.

Harry, already half-dazed by the heat of the day and the warring owls, threw himself down on the dingy little cot that he'd called his own for no less than five years. It creaked under the abrupt dip of weight, and held him sturdily nonetheless. He had to trace each neat letter of calligraphy with a finger tucked beneath the lines, and squinted every so often when the neatness became unbearable and utterly impossible to read. And so it read, most oddly:

T.N. ,

  Father appears willing to indulge your little fancies for the time being, though for whatever reason is beyond me. He says to confer with Lord Cantankerous for his permission, though I suspect he may hold your mother in higher regard than he does your father. I have long since stopped any attempt to understand Father's motives. Your last visit to the Manor impressed him, Mother tells me, although she, too, cannot make sense of you yet.

Of all the wizarding world, I could never imagine being so enamoured in Potter's life. Surely the Daily Prophet is not adequate to sate whatever interest you believe you may be . . . riddled with? His face is everywhere I look on those Merlin-damned pages. Every picture makes me wish more that I could painlessly blind myself if to never see it again.

Ares is tempestuous today. Do be careful around his beak. He's bitten me thrice this hour, and all I have done is feed him only the best of our kitchens. Do send your correspondence quickly; Father is not a patient man, no matter how much he may seem to be so.

D.M.

p.s. You promised in your last letter you would send me your copy of Darke Magic Unspelled, and I have yet to receive it.

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Chapter Text

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𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ɪɪ. ꜰᴏʀᴋ-ᴛᴏɴɢᴜᴇᴅ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅꜱ.

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DAWN found him in the garden once more. Number Four had not yet awoken when Harry, himself, was roused by slim streams of light through his worn curtains. With limbs that were as uneasily-footed as a foal's, they picked him out of his cot and upright. For a moment he feared that his staggering may have woken his Uncle Vernon, though the whalish bellowing snores that sounded behind his door a second later eased the tension that pricked his shoulders. It was only a temporary reprieve, that Dudley had not returned the previous day - off somewhere with Piers, he might have thought he heard Aunt Petunia telling his uncle. A boys' sleepover. Stifling a snort with a bitten tongue, he ducked his head and slipped a shirt on over it, lightweight enough that he'd need not worry of overheating later. Gardening was hard work, after all, but a pleasurable enough pursuit that it no longer felt like a chore snapped at him.

Hedwig was curled up unto herself, asleep in her cage when he approached her, running a hand along her head before drawing back quickly and slipping out of the door into the hall. His trainers pinched between his fingers, Harry toed his way down the stairs and deftly side-stepped the creaky board he knew, without a doubt, was lurking to endanger him. The warmth of outside had not yet turned muggy, though it was not to say that the sunlight peering over the horizon of same-shaped houses was not glaringly blinding even then. It felt natural, tugging open the rust-hinged door of the shed that was only just beginning to splinter after so many years of wear. An ugly, squat shelter, he vaguely recalled it being a home of his own on the days that his aunt had not felt particularly forgiving towards Harry. Vernon had liked it better than she, however, and had taken delight in shoving a far-younger Harry Potter inside to cloak with cobwebs, sharpened tools, and humid, terrifying darkness that closed around him.

As so it felt at times when he saw the trees of the Forbidden Forest parting to cradle Hogwarts' castle in its prickly canopy, taking to hand a trowel and a pair of gardening gloves seemed much like coming home. The weeds were tricky buggers he had learned to sight with ease over the years spent toiling at Aunt Petunia's flowerbeds; the very ones she boasted as her own to any neighbour who might listen. She misliked Harry tending to them in the later mornings and early afternoons, where anyone might come upon his single-minded task. Merlin forbid she take it up herself, he thought, with some vestige of amusement at the idea of Petunia doing any sort of laborious work.

So there he knelt, by a bush of magnolias that he was especially fond of, and worked tirelessly until the first engine's rumble of a car sounded down Privet Drive.

Most unfortunately, it was his uncle who came upon him first. The man was only partly done-up in a white dress-shirt that stretched obscenely over his portly stomach, moustache twitching as he stumbled blearily out onto the open conservatory and peered suspiciously over to Harry. "What do you think you're doing, boy?" grumbled Vernon, pudgy fingers fumbling with a delicate button on his shirt. It popped into place, and for a moment Harry wondered if it might burst at the seam. Ever since he had returned from Hogwarts had his uncle's bite come to rear up like a mutt who'd found its courage. That freaky ex-convict of yours can't frighten me anymore, boy, Vernon would crow. See how he'll threaten me from the grave. Hah!

Anger shivered up his spine in an instant, and his fingers tightened briefly around the hold of the trowel before he let it drop by his knees. Lest he feel the urge to throw it at his uncle. "Working," he drawled, disappointment flaring in his chest like cold fingers grasping at his heart. His peace had not lasted long at all, and it had been nice enough that even the memory of Sirius, if but for a moment, had slipped past his fingers. Harry swallowed hard. Watched every round, shifting contour on his uncle's face. If he tries at me I'll knock him over. It wouldn't be hard to outrun him - not at all. I could leave Little Whinging, could go to live at Grimmauld Place with-

Oh.

"Don't take that bloody tone with me," chided his uncle, a sneer curling at the corner of his fat lips. Vernon swept an arm in the direction of the house, and nodded expectantly at him. "Right. In. Don't need you . . . mucking about out here with Tuney's flowers. Wash that filth off of yourself, first." Then, without giving him the chance to respond in kind, he swept around swifter than a man of his girth ought to have, and shuffled his feet back to the living-room, still working at his clothes. Her flowers. Of course. Harry watched him go, eyes boring into the man's back, before he forced himself to breathe and pick up his abandoned tools. Shoving them back into the shed with a force that would have had any more refined person clucking at him with distaste, Harry scrubbed himself down with the hose as he had the evening before and made his way into the kitchen.

Awaiting by the stove was a sleepy-eyed Aunt Petunia, who eyed him strangely as he approached. Silence hung awkward and thick between them, though he cared little for it as he picked a few rashers of bacon from the fridge and three eggs from the carton tucked away in the nearby cupboard. Uncle Vernon liked his breakfast fast, and plentiful. He may have been happy to work in quiet, had his aunt not seemed to think otherwise, shuffling away from the stove with her steaming kettle. "I've decided," she began, suddenly. There was no dainty, little cough that followed the words, not as she may have let out in the presence of Mrs. Number-Eleven, or her closest friend Yvonne. Around Harry there were few times Petunia felt as though she needed to pretend to be anything but she was. When he glanced over a shoulder to where she was fixing herself and Uncle Vernon coffee, her lips had pinched into a thin line.

"Nothing around the house needs to be done," continued Petunia, carefully setting aside the kettle as Harry worked at the eggs and bacon. It was nothing of the healthy diet that she so fanatically pressed upon herself and Dudley, for there was little that could suade Vernon Dursley away from his own appetites. "You aren't needed in the house today." It was the most she had ever said for a simple I don't want you in the house. Humming in assent, he crooked his mouth up stiffly in the smallest of smiles - a scanty thanks - before he laid the food out upon a plate and carried it to the dinner table where waited his uncle impatiently.

At his presence, Vernon huffed; much in the manner of an unhappy boar. Sliding his plate over to him and squeezing a fork between two large fingers, his uncle hardly took the time to look over the food as he tended to do. "Took your bloody time." he mumbled around a mouthful of runny eggs, yolk catching in the wiry hairs of his moustache. Petunia walked over to settle his coffee afore him, sipping at her own before making a small gesture towards Harry that he recognised keenly. Without so much a word, they parted. He to the kitchen for scraps, and she for her unfinished soap-episode. He was allowed to go out that day, he considered absently, spreading butter over a cold slice of bread. The last of his pocket-money wouldn't stretch to another train ticket, though, and it was risky enough that he'd barged his way through the barriers yesterday.

Staying at Number Four sounded abruptly more pleasant than being confined to the outdoors of Little Whinging for the day.

Harry moodily took a bite. On his tongue, the food tasted dusty and lacking, like ash spread over his mouth. Most of the food he ate lately tasted the same. He had taken to eating slimmer portions than what he was already permitted to have, if he deigned to take any at all. When the clanking of silverware ceased to echo from the dinner table, Vernon stood from his creaking chair and slipped on a neat, grey blazer pinned at a lapel with a shining badge that displayed the name Grunnings with pride. He pecked Petunia shortly on the cheek and brushed a paw-like hand over her shoulder before picking his briefcase up from by the couch and making for the door. The jangling of his keys followed him out to the driveway.

Nothing short of relief filled him at the noise of his car pulling away from the house.

His room was a welcome sight, after being exposed to so much Dursley for that early hour. Hedwig had awoken and was hooting quietly, having hobbled out of her open cage to perch on the edge of his windowsill. Eagerly did she eye the handful of berries he had managed to sneak out of his aunt's rigorously-curated fruit bowl, settling them on the surface next to her with a small huff of laughter. "Morning," said Harry, warmly, brushing his hand down her feathers. No longer did Hedwig dole attention to him, too taken by the berries to care much for his words. If even she understood them - sometimes, he liked to pretend she could. But her blatant hunger for the meagre helping of berries had only made him more starkly aware of their current situation. She could have flown away to the Weasleys if she'd liked, if she wanted to be given a bountiful owl's feast.

But even the thought of his last, most dear friend leaving left Harry with an aching, terrible emptiness gnawing at the stone-pit of his stomach. Had it not been for her, he suspected he may have gone mad days ago. "I'll get you something today, girl. Promise. Something nice, like . . . a mouse, or worms. Plenty of those in the garden right now." Feeling only partially insane for conversing so surely with a bird, Harry swiftly replaced his damp shirt with a cleaner one for the day. Running a hand through his tousled hair, there was a gleam in his eyes that bordered upon sorrowful when he looked to Hedwig. Why wasn't she leaving? Harry couldn't feed her as well as he could at Hogwarts, not with the Dursleys and the muggles. Hedwig had always stayed with him, however, even when the open skies were hers to roam and she'd better friends to converse with than a human who could not put words to her noises. Not quite.

The gentle clack of her beak, the kind nip to one of Harry's fingers, felt much like a fond farewell.

⚡︎

It had not reached midday before Harry sorely regretted leaving the garden at all.

The summer-swelter had come upon them with unforeseen haste, and for those who were given the mercy of being away for work that day, people remained safely tucked away in their houses. Every so often, the odd child would pass him by to skitter off in chase of an ice-cream truck, their frantic parent or sibling not so far at their heels. But other than them, Harry was alone. A peculiar clemency, that he would be left by his lonesome when the world appeared so intent on wriggling into his short moments of calm. He ambled almost happily down the road until he turned out of Magnolia Crescent and onto familiar stretches of park-fields that had turned yellow and scorched beneath the unyielding sun, a thumb hooked in one of the frayed loops of his jeans. Along the fields there were few places where one could find shade on such a day, for much of the land was flat and treeless.

Days spent in childhood fleeing and hiding had given Harry more intimate knowledge of the area than other children may have been blessed with. The barest rise of a hill from the dry ground gave way to the sprawling branch-bends of a skinny oak tree on its crown, proud and green even amidst the devilish heat. Settling beneath it with as much familiarity of a person entering their home, the trunk at his back was sturdy - tall enough to rest his head back against and imagine that, perhaps, a squirrel was scratching its way up the tree on the other side. Harry had always liked squirrels. All animals, for a matter of fact. It was more often than not a shame whenever he managed to catch a tiny mouse to offer to Hedwig, though it was she above any other animal that he loved the most.

Although his fingers were not particularly rough, they caught against the crackling bends of chopped grass underneath him as they skimmed along the prickly surface. There were no wildflowers to pick from the ground, to weave into mindless patterns or to multiply on whim alone if but to be given a prettier sight than the park-fields at their greenest. Harry was alone.

Without thought to it, his eyes slipped shut. No longer was the bare, blue sky above him seen nor the flickering shadows that curling leaves granted over the ground. Instead, nothing. Teeth worried at his lips, fingers resting limply on the floor as the other hand lay slung over his stomach; one knee crooked up as the other leg stretched out in front of him. Any passer-by may have had the brief thought to fill his open palm with a coin, for Harry Potter had never made any rich sight - and never likened it to be otherwise. A scruffy boy on the outside of society, a delinquent who had no place amongst his kind, hard-working relatives who wished not for a fight, but to belong. Some part of him still lived within the edges of the Scottish Highlands, where Hogwarts brushed the sky; some unseen portion of him had remained when the train had carried him away, and still wandered the grounds and picked his way through the Forbidden Forest in search of adventure. There were very few things in Surrey that felt like adventure, and those that did were of nothing pleasant at heart.

Then came the strangest sensation he had felt in some time.

Oddly enough, it felt as if he were being watched - gauged at a small distance by something he did not feel. It was then that it came, a slide across his hand; cold and scaly and thin. Harry creaked his eyes open, tilted his head down as he bristled and prepared himself to shake off whatever insect had decided he was its perch . . . To come to face with the most slim, perhaps the greenest, little snake he had ever seen. He blinked. At the very same time, he imagined that if the serpent had bore eyelids then it may have mirrored the action. Slyly, it turned its fine-boned head back downwards and tugged the rest of its skinny body into Harry's palm as he lifted the hand. His fingers spread unwittingly, and it had taken it upon itself to twine its lithe body around the digits - the scarred ridges of his tanned knuckles.

Briefly, he wondered if he were dreaming.

The flicker of a tongue rattling out of a slitted mouth told him it was, most certainly, not. With no small measure of exasperation, yet a compulsive resistance to pulling it off of him, Harry tucked his knees in closer and hovered his hand close to his face. A snake, so slight that it could not have been anything else but freshly-hatched. In the sun that broke through the canopy of the oak tree, the golden light bent sharply off of its soft, verdant scales. The sight reminded Harry of spring, where rainfall was heaviest and the ground felt most joyous. Staring at it harder, he wished to know if the pretty gleam of its body resembled the shade of his own eyes. "What are you doing here?" murmured Harry, turning his hand around to chase the snake's head as it twisted around him once more. Rear end of its tail settled upon the inside of his wrist in a long, chilly line, between the webbing of his thumb and forefinger had it settled its chin to gaze at him unblinkingly.

Then its tail thumped gently against him, like it had taken his words to ear. Did snakes even have ears? Harry wanted to ask it, before inevitably feeling stupid for thinking of it. No matter how desperately he wanted to ask his question. Snakes were lovely creatures, but as tempestuous as that devil-owl who had haunted his windowsill for hours before flying off west back to its master. When next the snake flicked its forked tongue out, the resounding hiss it gave sounded much like laughter. Had he spoken his question aloud? Hermione often remarked that he'd the tendency to do so, though Ron had insisted in contrast that it was his face that told his every thought to the world. How much he missed them . . .

"It is. . ." Harry jerked in surprise, glowering at the serpent suspiciously. Doing so, he felt rather like his aunt Petunia whenever his shadow so much as cast over a gust of wind. "My home." Right. Of course it was. His lips parted, itching to get a word out before the snake beat him to it once more. It had a swift tongue that sounded like the drag of nails upon a brick, but a pleasant cadence to the rush of its words. It talked quicker than anyone he knew, and it had taken him a moment more to recognise that it had spoken once more. "I would assk. . . what you are doing in my home." Just as he moved to speak, the snake reared away from its settled cradle to swing around and skitter down Harry's hand. The unpleasant tickling sensation, like cold water running over too-hot skin, made him jolt and knock his elbow back against the trunk.

Ahead of him, a shadow cast large over the few spots of light that smattered the floor.

Harry stiffened reflexively. "Potter." Perhaps it was simply that the fates, themselves, did not especially feel entertained watching him at peace. Was it that they had gone out of their way to disturb the scantily-nice things in his life, and instead to curse him with Dudley Dursley? Five weeks apart had they been born, and yet ever had Dudley taken that to proclaim his own superiority over Harry. Summer-break had dealt him kindly enough, if one were to look at it from a differing perspective than his own. Pushed into boxing by his father and friends, the fat that had turned him into such a rotund boy had now made a formidably-broad teenager out of his cousin. They had never been alike - not truly. Harry would prefer it remain that way, truthfully.

"Diddy-kins," he threw back, boredly, raising his other hand to find the slight, wriggling body of the snake that had curled itself around his elbow. He stroked along its back and met his cousin's beady, harsh eyes. Unlike Harry, Dudley had always abhorred the scuttling creatures smaller than himself. Terrified of spiders and anything that bore fangs, often had he used it to his advantage. Whether it had been that snake at the zoo all those years ago, or even taking some of his cupboard-spiders to sneak into his cousin's shirts. They misliked him in a way they did not Harry, himself. "No shops to steal from?" Between them had it ever been a poorly-kept secret that Dudley often entertained himself with stuffing corner-shop goods into his pockets and making away with them. On more than one occasion had he been caught and his parents called, to strong lectures and temporary bans that had been swept aside as nothing but 'slander' on a well-meaning boy.

Dudley's wide nose scrunched in distaste. He was much like his father, in that regard: that he looked very little like his long-necked, bony Aunt Petunia. The only few similarities he held with his mum were the watery, blue eyes hidden beneath the heavy furrow of his brow, the tufts of blond hair on his head, and the curve of his lips. "Nothin' worth taking," he dismissed with an upheld sneer, tossing his feet lazily until he was looming high above Harry like an exceptionally-round building. "What's that you got there? Can't be a friend, can it?" Dudley snorted a laugh and bent at the waist to push a thick finger towards Harry's elbow.

Around it, the garden-snake coiled tautly and lifted its head in a breath. Its eyes were as beady as Dudley's, who had gone chalk-white and straightened in an instant. Harry said nothing. Just looked at his cousin with resounding boredom. "You-" You can't do magic outside of school. The words were on the very tip of his tongue, so loud in the air that Harry did not need them said to hear them. With a hard blink and a stubborn squaring of his broad shoulders, Dudley curled his sharp-nailed fingers into his palms. "You can't have that thing." he declared, with a mutt's puff. Behind his eyes lurked a thousand memories; of caterpillars snuck into his toys and boa-constrictors sicced on him at the London Zoo. No matter how tuff he built himself to be, Dudley Dursley was a cruel, squealing little boy.

More prominently now did they both know it.

"Who said?" asked Harry, rising to his feet. On his arm, his snake-friend hissed some protesting rebuke he didn't bother to listen to. Unimpressed by his cousin's daunting, he glanced around the park-fields as if in search of a sign or any rule-board to point at. They were remarkably empty, for summer; even a day so hot as this. "I don't think anyone minds." Pink was rapidly-rising up Dudley's curved cheeks, incredulity flashing upon his face. It was Harry who dealt with his fits more often than not - only him who dared shout back at Dudley and fight back as viciously as he. Years spent living together in rivalry had built them thick skin, and he had always despised the jabs and long reaches of Harry's sharp elbows as much as Harry did his meaty fists and hard punches. An eye for an eye, or some silly nonsense like that.

"You get rid of that - thing right now, Harry." bit out Dudley, stepping forward once.

"Or what?" he responded, just as fiercely. For days had he been itching for something - life, maybe, or something that mimicked it closely. "You're gonna hit me, is that it? I'm sure the last ten-year-old deserved it as much as I do. How tall was he? Half-"

Without premonition, his cousin surged forward with an angry yell and smashed his fist into Harry's nose. His face burned, and the awful crack of his lenses splintering filled his blood-rushing ears as his eyes squeezed shut through reflex alone. Had they not, countless fragments would have rendered him blind in seconds. Knees buckling, snake hissing in alarm, he only just managed to straighten himself - push past the ringing in his head and the agony of his face - to grapple with Dudley's shirt, knocking their heads together hard, both crumpling to the floor in pain. The breath left in his chest was few and thin, and the band around his arm tightened imperceptibly before the snake was wriggling frantically and slipping under his shirt; up his chest until it could twine around the base of Harry's throat and continue its ceaseless fretting in his ear. At the very least it sounded like fretting.

He was on his back, sprawled out on the ground, and when he opened his eyes and lolled his head to the side, the world was blurry. Every breath was torn through his mouth, for his nose was little more than rendered useless and broken, but even then he could see Dudley's disappearance. Running off - away from the tree - and clutching his face. Wobbling every few seconds like he might tip over. Harry watched him blearily go, and grimaced at the metal tang of blood clinging to his gums when his tongue ran over his teeth. "Merlin," he groaned, reaching for the frame of his glasses. Thankfully, they had not been broken; not nearly so much as a little bend, whilst his lenses had been utterly ruined. He considered the idea of writhing on the ground a moment more, before rolling over and pushing himself up by his forearms.

"Silly speaker," snapped the snake in his ear. "Foolish, idiot speaker." Now that his attention was, for the majority, undivided, no longer did the snake's rapid words sound anything remotely close to worry. Harry mumbled under his breath, squinted for a few seconds before cupping a hand over his gushing nose. The blood was leaking into the seam of his lips, and would undoubtedly stain even if he rubbed his face raw with an iron sponge. Damn Dudley. A twitch of his finger. That same rush of agony broke through the cartilege, crackling like a thousand white-hot pinpricks up his face before the strain shifted behind his eyes, in the sockets, and throbbed at his temples. A splintering crack!

A finger prodded cautiously at the bridge of his nose, and found it mercifully fixed. Wiping off the rivers of blood pooling above his upper lip with the back of his hand, Harry staggered with the feet of a foal up to his feet. Between his fingers he dangled his glasses, and tucked them away in a pocket for later.

A deafening headache had begun to rumble behind his skull, throwing itself in a frenzy against the bone until it felt as if it were rattling. Each tremble reverberated down the rest of his body, and it was only when his snake-friend pressed its small head close to his cheek and flicked its tongue out once more to brush against the skin that he startled back to reality. "Water," demanded the snake. "I desire water, speaker." His shoulders slumped heavily. For a moment he weighed the consequences of pretending he had not heard the command at all, before reaching up to brush a finger along the top of its skull. Moodily did he agree, and with no special haste did Harry find his feet dragging against the grass of the park-fields, this time in exit.

Somehow it seemed more as if, of the two of them, the serpent were the larger presence. Maybe Hedwig would appreciate a new, irritating companion. To share the burden, naturally, of its haughtiness. At the very least it would be initiative - to torment Dudley only the harsher. There were so few entertainments at Number Four that the idea, to him, almost immediately sounded wistful.

⚡︎

When the sky had begun to darken, the delicate chiming of the bells hitched above the door of the corner-shop he strode out of signalled his hasty exit. The half-balding man behind the till had eyed the blood and bruises that marred his face with unabashed skepticism. Harry half-suspected that he had ordered his young son to trail him around the shop just to make sure he didn't snatch anything. But, that day, he cared very little for anything else but the serpentine pest twined in the belt-loops of his jeans, and the blissful easing of heat as late afternoon ticked on the clock. Fumbling a little with the water-bottle he had taken (because, after some time he, too, had been unable to ignore his itching thirst) and the pack of Refreshers that he'd used the last of his pocket-money on, he managed to tuck it away in a pocket and unscrew the cap.

"Water," demanded the snake once again, drawing itself out of Harry's belt to slide under his shirt once more and writhe its way up to his neck. For the day had been so warm and humid, there were few people around to look upon the two of them. He huffed sharply and glanced down to the little head by his chin that watched the lid and bottle curiously. "Water."

Harry almost dropped the bottle out of sheer spite alone. "I'm holding your god-damn water, you beast." The retort came easily to tongue, tipping the bottle slightly so that it spilled in fat droplets that pooled in the lid. As it rose up to the top, he drew the bottle to his own mouth and drank heartily before raising the lid up to his new friend . . . Who was, as so it seemed, far less patient than himself. Yet impatience, he thought, they had in common enough to get along well. It would be nice, to have another friend; one that would not - could not - draw out any of his secrets to use as cannon-fodder for his destruction.

Together, they walked leisurely down the empty roads that became wider the longer they trod. It was, finally, calm. Harry could hardly have stopped the inane sense of affection that curled in the dredges of his chest at the pleased noises his serpent gave out with every greedy lick at the offered water. Though ever were the fates not in accordance to his happiness, and just as Harry turned the next corner closer to Privet Drive, he caught himself just in time from narrowly slamming into someone who had most definitely not been there before. His heart lurched sickeningly fast in his chest. Some part of Harry feared that it may be Dudley, come to sic his last hit in for the park-fields earlier. The turn of the corner had been wide enough that he had been able to look past it, and wherever this . . . person had come from had been beyond his eyes. His decidedly unseeing eyes.

They cleared their throat curtly as Harry made to brush past them. A low voice, he could guess. A boy, surely, but not a man. His brows knit together with confusion - there were not many left in Little Whinging who would pay him the time of day. Uncertainly, he turned around and pushed aside his snake's ruffled insults as to his sudden movement. What he could see of their face was blurred, but they were tall, indeed, and dressed so strangely that one would not have expected such a person to know the suburbs existed. Nevertheless a telephone. His Aunt Petunia would have gawked in horror, or tutted in that condescending way she often did.

The boy held himself stiffly, and even through Harry's blurry vision he saw the whites of his eyes as they turned. Staring at him, then to the snake around his throat. He hadn't said anything, not yet, but it had become startlingly apparent that he had wanted his attention in the first place. Whyever for, he could not guess.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

⚡︎

𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ɪɪɪ . ᴍᴀᴅᴍᴇɴ ᴀɴᴅ ᴍɪᴄᴇ

⚡︎

THERE was a shadow snapping at his heels. Flighty by nature, his feet did not ground him to one place alone on that heat-drenched concrete sidewalk, but instead carried him away. Around his neck his snake-friend was hissing once more, drawn away from her little pail of water to glance over Harry's shoulder to his pursuer. There was dusk-light left to guide him down back to Privet Drive, but the stretches of road themselves felt far longer - terrifyingly elongated, the longer his strides became. It - he - called after him. Attempted to match pace with him although it became startlingly clear that every turn of Little Whinging was surprisingly unfamiliar to this stranger. Adventure, he had wanted, had he not? This does not feel like adventure. The pursuit felt more as though he were being hunted; a mess of frightened game-limbs staggering away through long leaves and high brushes from a hunter's maw and arrow.

There was something spectacularly stupid about running away.

It ought to have been a practice more acquainted with his legs, to skitter away from danger. Harry Potter had been an exceptionally lonely child. Lonely boys got targeted, lonely boys were weaker than the others who walked in packs of guffaws and chocolate-smeared lips. They had been stronger, always, but he had been faster. Fleeing, thus, was not uncharted territory for him to wander upon once again. A stranger nipped at his heels like a rabid dog searching for food, and Harry almost cursed aloud when the toe of his beaten trainer caught an uneven tile upended on the pavement. Without his glasses, he had not seen it coming whatsoever, and found himself all too abruptly jolted by it. Behind, it felt rather like a shadow was crawling in the marks that his steps left on the heated concrete slabs. It soothed the warmth, but its intensity was blistering and its will far stronger than his own; undulled by broken noses and cruel, meat-fisted cousins.

It called out once more, and the boy's voice that emerged from his throat was nothing Harry could trust. Wizards, after all, were entirely capable of brewing tricks - Polyjuice potions (of which he was, unadmittedly, guilty of dappling in) and transfiguration charms to cloak their wicked faces. Where he lived had never been a secret from many, for it had become old news that Harry Potter, Boy Wonder, had been raised by muggles. Around him, Surrey was familiar. Too, alongside it, was that burst of panic fluttering in his heart when it came to running away. Whoever it was, fast at him, was slyer than Piers Polkiss or Dudley Dursley had ever been; they displayed no outward aggression nor explicit forwardness, and if they were a wizard at all, did not act out the entirely rational decision to draw out their wand upon that lonely, secluded road and stun him there and then. Yet they were undescribably daunting.

Half-blind and staggering over his own feet, he came to the abrupt realisation that snakes had far less inhibitions over their choice of words than humans. Frequently had his throat threatened to seize in coughs and choking at a muttered curse or two hissed into his ear by a skinny tongue, bloodless scales brushing over the warmth of the base of his throat in a tightening constriction. Entirely inconvenient when attempting to escape a (without a doubt within him) madman. Even neighbours, worried Harry, who did not like him very much would not turn their eyes away from the scene of a teenage boy - albeit rumoured 'delinquent' - being chased down the street by a creep?

"Potter!" It snapped, the ire lacing that singular word jerking him with the sting of conversance that shuddered him where he stood. Slowly, Harry's feet came to a halt. No grown wizard worth themselves would hold such . . . blatant emotion within their voices, would they? Most of the adults Harry knew were often overbearing in their nonchalance, or overcompensated for it more often than not. Inexplicably, Dumbledore's face weaved itself an image in his thoughts. Harry shook his head, turned carefully on his heel, and felt his hand slip into the waistband of his jeans. The length of his holly wand rippled sparks up his arm when his fingers brushed its concealed hilt. Through the fog of his blurry vision, his eyes were useless in distinguishing the face before him, yet it was the clothing that the person wore that made his heart slow.

A wizard, undeniably, but one unaccustomed to muggle fashion. Not a particularly smart one, if they wore robes like that so boldly in Little Whinging; not a trained spy or trickster. Just a wizard. No matter how he wished it, even that thought alone was not wholly soothing.

What followed after could only have been described by great tidals of annoyance crashing over his head like a raging thunderstorm coming down on oneself seconds after a sunny day. His pursuer slowed as he did in likewise, pausing only paces away from Harry as though he had not entirely expected him to listen. The narrowness of his shoulders was telling enough that even suspicions of being followed, of being hunted by news-crazed bigotries and Death Eaters, dissipated like ash being carried away by a whipping wind. "Potter," breathed the boy, harshly. Squinting a little, he made out the thick, displeased furrow of his brows. His voice, faintly wooden, was varnished thickly with ire. "My letter."

Harry reared back slightly. His nose twisted a little. "Look, mate," he began skeptically. "I dunno what letter you're talking about, or who you are, right-"

"Potter."

"-But here, we don't really follow people around unless you're a bit odd," He raised his hands slightly, and felt himself begin to back away with fine, shuffling steps. "I don't have what you're looking for. I'd suggest going to the doctor's for a look-"

The evasion was overtly beginning to irritate his newest companion: an utter peculiarity whom he was not sure wasn't all-consumingly batty. "I tracked it here, I am-"

Harry nodded sagely. "-St. Bernard's* isn't half-bad, I think. Good day." It was the last quip he let out before precipitately turning on his heel and making off down the road again. Half of him hoped that the boy would take his words for what they were, his elusion for what it was, and simply leave him alone . . . As always, pleasing things hardly ever happened to Harry Potter, and so it was that the tapping of footsteps behind him hastily sounded once more whilst he tried for retreat. Merlin. Never a moment's peace, was there?

In less than five minutes, Privet Drive came onto the next bend. His attachment was striding fast abreast to him, undeniably his longer legs stretching further than Harry's could hope to. It was infuriating, and though he stuck to the scanty shadows of Privet Drive as best he could, he still glimpsed Mrs. Everson at Number Two peering out of her curtains with a curious look over the china rim of her teacup. The boy at his side was not subtle, not in his dark-hued, flowing garments that fluttered around a nonexistent breeze. Harry did not let up the hold he wielded so determinedly upon his wand, and stuffed his water-bottle into a pocket of his jeans before reaching up to soothe his snake-friend's rattled nerves. Beside him, his clingy, mad companion was eerily silent.

"He smells," told his snake, by his ear. Harry hummed quietly, as to not avert suspicion towards his correspondence with a serpent half-hidden in the collar of his tee. "Like good, but like bad. Smells like grass, and flower." Confusion prickled him. A frown creased gently at his mouth, and he dipped his head slightly to murmur to her in response. "Flour?" he asked, wondering if a snake's vocabulary rules were similar to how they were in English, or if they had hit a quiet barrier between them.

By the small puncture of a noise that slipped past her tongue, it was surely the latter. "Flower. Good flower with good dark. Cold shade." Harry reckoned it was not entirely out of bounds for his strange pursuer to smell like flowers despite his . . . looming darkness. Even through the haze of his half-hearted vision he could see the sullenness driven into every feature of the boy's face. It was a pale face - paler than his own - which had never toiled in sunlight for hours like he had. He knew that, if he were to reach out and grab his hands, his palms would be as soft as Aunt Petunia's floral skirts. By the time that Number Four loomed high above them, Harry ground his teeth together.

A stubborn set to his jaw, he twisted on his heel again and faced the stranger. "You have to go," said Harry, a vague frustration lacing his tone. "You've got the wrong person. No letters come into this house." And was that not the truth. The thought sent a bitter pang through his chest, viciously curling by his heart like a nestling pup, if it had the capacity within itself to radiate rotting blackness. Indeed, for the days that summer had already stretched, not one letter from his friends had come to Number Four. No muggle post from Hermione, or owls from Ron, and the last talk he'd held with someone outside of school had been, for a short moment, Luna. An edition of the Quibbler that she had sent him still lay on his chipped desk, half-open.

With all words said, he faced the door and put a hand to the knob. Without entirely knowing as to why, Harry twisted his neck slightly and chanced a bleary look over one of his shoulders. The boy had vanished without so much a tracing whisper of his presence on the doorstep.

Inside, although it was as balmy as it had been the day before, the house was far cooler than it was outside. Finding himself grateful for the development, Harry put a hand to his collar and tugged it up over the little garden-snake wound 'round his throat, and slipped soundlessly into the kitchen. He did not imagine what his family would do if they discovered his new friend. Dudley and Uncle Vernon had sequestered themselves over onto the couch, hollering at the screen as it flickered and droned on a boxing channel that his uncle swore, one day, Dudley would star in. Harry did not doubt victory, if only for the fact that his cousin hadn't enough wits left in him to get them knocked out by a stronger man's fist. Aunt Petunia was sat serenely in the conservatory, dressed in pale yellow and white with a pearl choker settled atop her collarbones, holding a phone to her ear as she laughed shrilly with her friend on the other line. None of them noticed Harry. None of them ever did, when they were too gleeful with themselves.

For it, it was easy enough to grab another small packet of biscuits for Hedwig, and a few cold, dry sausages for himself before heading upstairs. The thirtieth of July meant that the Dursleys inched nearer to the age where Harry would not need their shelter anymore; they would make him a vagabond on the side of the road, if they'd their way, drinking from gold goblets with his back as a footrest. Harry's teeth worried at his lip as he slid into his room, shutting the door quietly in his wake. Hedwig was perched on the windowsill, facing away from him as though she were on a vigilant watch for something. Some part of him fancied she was looking for the horned-owl again.

The horned-owl. Oh, Harry recollected its coming well enough to have recognised its mean, beady glare. Not a name had been put to it - not until now. Draco Malfoy's face looked remarkably like his pet's. He felt dim for not having noticed it earlier. And then with that impromptu visit from that boy-

"Bugger," he murmured under his breath, reaching forward to brush his fingers along the top of Hedwig's head and crack open the biscuits for her, before leaving his sausages abandoned on the desk and rifling through the many strewn papers along its surface instead. Hermione often rebuked him for being messy, for being careless with where his things wound up; it was not always the case, however, for although the desk's surface was a maelstrom of chaos, his wardrobe was packed immaculately and his bed fixed as much as it could have been for a boy his age. Most of his life had been spent with scanty things of his own, and Harry liked having his own things - knowing they were there - which led to the maddening curdle-contrast of havoc and tidiness.

After heart-quickening seconds of rigorous searching, his fingers latched onto the rough slide of parchment. Tugging it out from beneath a copy of a muggle novel he'd taken from the local charity shop (it was short enough that his interest did not escape him so readily as a textbook), Harry sat heavily on the edge of his bed and unfolded the missive. D.M. It had been penned by, and, incredulously, he wondered where his mind had been whilst reading over the words. He had known Malfoy since first-year, and had actively upheld their rivalry until the present time; how had he not known it was him, the second his eyes had flickered unto the initials? T.N. was read much less familiarly. The letter's intended respondant. T.N.

Harry could not, for a moment, think of anyone who may have willingly adjoined themselves with Draco Malfoy without some sort of incentive, before he caught it: rapid, foggy memories of a sandy-haired boy with pale eyes lingering on the edges of Malfoy's gang, never quite participating though never detaching himself from them. A quiet boy, whose father's name he recalled as clearly as the day Sirius had died. Nott. It had been Nott who had approached him, who had somehow found him in Surrey and followed him the way back to Number Four.

Nott, who had come searching for his letter from Harry, who had told him to his face he was quite mad - and that he most certainly did not have the letter he currently held in his hands.

There was only one word that came to mind, then, as he tossed the letter back onto his desk and leaned back on his wrists. A headache had begun to throb at his scar. "Bastard."

⚡︎

July thirty-first came upon the house of Mrs. and Mr. Dursley with a deafening, shrill scream.

Harry Potter had woken with the dawn, and Hedwig had taken her leave of the house during the night with a blissful flutter of her fluffed wings and a happy nip at his fingers. He was gone before Dudley awoke to the slender, many-limbed body of a cupboard-spider clambering up his arm. A deep-teal plaid had been halfway tucked into the belted waistband of his jeans and was light enough that it laid not a bead of sweat on his skin as he stepped out into the warm day. His hair was tousled from sleep and his splintered glasses perched precariously on the edge of his regularly-shattered nose. With an unusual calmness draped upon him like the heavy weight of a blanket, he ambled merrily as he could down the road until he'd walked far enough to sight the train station on the near distance's horizon. He'd fifteen pounds - in coins - stuffed in his large pockets with a copy of his muggle novel tucked against his hip.

Though he had never celebrated his birthday as his friends had, Harry had always been fond of making his own time for peace. His birthday seemed to be the only day where the fates would let him rest, it seemed. For that, he found, he was glad enough that even fare prices could not dim his syrupy, mellow mood.

Around his wrist he wore his friend like a bracelet. The night before, in low hours talking in hushed mutters, they had decided upon a name for her. Initially, it had been tiresome having to explain the culture of naming to a cold-blooded serpent, but after assuring her it did not equate to ownership, she had grasped it with welcome . . . fangs. Harry's knowledge of names was rudimentary, however, and he could only have mustered up a single thought when he looked into her dark eyes; one of the only names he'd known for some time that felt as if it belonged to a girl. Fable. It had made him silly, suggesting it, but she had taken to it with glee. Fable, Fable, had hissed his snake. I likes it. Strong name, fearsome name.

The train to Angel left him time to think. Though he had never been an especially vivacious reader - textbooks were droll enough that his eyes turned dry if he stared at them for too long - fiction had never failed to appeal to Harry. A passtime that he never felt quite right to admit to, least of all to Hermione, tucking himself in a secluded pair of seats by the window felt a nicer place to read than the scorched park-fields or the alleys between shops and houses back in Little Whinging. The last time he had dared to hunch over a half-novel, Piers Polkiss had taken it and ripped the pages in front of Harry as he watched. Spells! Had cried Piers, with a loud, nasty laugh. You learning spells, Potter? Trying to be even more a freak than you are, yeah?

Time had passed slowly. From trying to decipher the pencilled annotations the book's last owner had left scribbled narrowly in the margins by the text, and trying desperately to think of anything else but Sirius (it was becoming harder than the day, and so he had made his hands busier for the distraction), Harry hardly noticed it when the train screeched to a stop at his station. Not until a well-dressed man and his son brushed by the seats he'd tucked himself away in did he notice, and scramble up to slip through the train-doors before they closed shut on him. With a hasty breath did he plant his feet on the platform, book back at his side and fingers clutching his ticket all the way to the barriers. Larger cities unnerved him, but they, too, posed best for privacy. There was very little privacy where he lived, and one man's secrets became a neighbourhood's in the span of a sunset.

Restraint bullied him as Harry forced his stiff jaw to relax whilst he weaved his way through thick throngs of crowds. Tourists and locals alike battled for territory on the pavement, and on more than one occasion had he almost lost his footing to a child or its parent dragging their feet irritatingly slow. It was obnoxiously loud, and by the time he ducked under the porte-cochere of a library he frequented often in his visits to London, his heart was pounding and his fingers clammy and trembling finely. Sucking in deep, hissing breaths to calm himself, Fable at his wrist flicked her tongue along the back of his sweaty hand. The shadow of the walkway cloaked them. But for a few students coming and going, there was nobody around. The clamour from the streets felt dimmer here, more muted.

"You fear," remarked Fable, dryly. "These do not feel like magics. Why are you fear?"

"Afraid," he corrected, by reflex alone. Harry'd the short consideration that he had been spending too much time around Hermione, and had been poisoned not only by her bookishness but her, at times, insufferable matter-of-factly nature. "I'm not. I feel fine."

As if she had not taken it for truth, Fable cackled quietly and hid back in his sleeve with a last flex of her tail against Harry's wristbone. With a long sigh, he continued the rest of the way down the porte-cochere and into the courtyard at its mouth. A tiny cafe was hidden away under the looming cradle of a cherry-tree that had begun to lose its lovely, pink petals and all around, up to the door of the library, benches were scattered in a juxtaposition of unfixed order. In the centre of it, a tiny fountain; more a birdbath than a true fountain, and nowhere as large as the others that Harry had ever seen before. When he'd been much younger, Harry had liked to wriggle an arm blindly around in the water and snatch however many coins he could, pilfering them away to count happily back in his cupboard at Number Four.

Glasses not yet fixed, the presence of the lenses, although cracked as they were, offered some solace to his aching eyes. He navigated his way to the bench nearest to the fountain, where he could hear the trickling of its water best, and sat down with Fable sliding nearby to where he settled his book. Without another word as to fearfulness or the oppressive nature of crowds, Harry ducked his head and stubbornly forced his eyes to fixate on the text, no matter how terribly his vision swum and refracted.

A curt clearing of the throat. People arcing in wide berths around his bench. Truth be told, he was not so vigilant enough to have noticed the strangeness of it all on his own, had he not caught the face of a woman walking past - staring at something next to him, instead of at Harry himself. Curiously, his gaze slanted sidelong to his right . . . to see Nott - presumably Nott - already sat upon the bench. Silent. Simply watching Harry like he were a fascinating bird from exotic lands. Impatiently, also, and from such a close distance he could gauge more of his face than he did the day before. "Jesus," he swore, clutching his chest as his heart raced. He had not heard so much a shuffle of breeze announcing his coming, and how he had managed to do it so quietly was beyond him.

"Potter." greeted Nott, stiltedly. There was an odd cadence to his voice, as if every syllable he stressed was deliberate and unnatural. A quality he had noticed in many of the purebloods in his year.

Harry blinked harshly, and felt his fingers curl tight over the page he held open. "Do you make it a habit of following people?" he bit, grousing at having not been aware of his approach whatsoever. Even after a year of Barty-Moody screeching constant vigilance! in his face, he had been outwitted by his classmate. A strange thought: 'classmate'. With pointedness, Harry drew a hand down to shove into his pocket, rustling with the multitude of coins he had stashed away within, before drawing out a slightly-crumpled letter from Draco Malfoy. Wordlessly, he handed it over to Nott. With a sweep of his wrist that was decidedly more curt than Harry's own motion, he reclaimed the piece of parchment and huffed imperiously.

Pale, lily-green eyes flicked towards him. "Libraries aren't your usual haunt." said Nott, lowly, sweeping his eyes over the letter once before tucking it away in the folds of his robes with a bored look on his face.

Collecting himself quickly, Harry pursed his lips and closed his book. Its colourful cover blared out at him, worn at the edges yet still ungiving at the spine. "People won't think to look for me here then," he told Nott, evenly, eyes darting towards Fable who had started a small clamber onto his book. When his eyes returned to the other boy, he bristled at the indecipherable look levied upon him. Partways-perplexed and all the other parts conquered by feelings he'd not the first inkling how to name, a swift discomfort found him like routine clockwork. Seconds passed, and his tongue remained stuck to the roof of his mouth like a charm-cursed fool. He had never been good with uncomfortable silences if it were him being the victim of it. For Nott, who continued to look at him unblinkingly, it appeared to be of very little matter at all.

Finally, with no ounce of sensibility left within him, Harry blurted out, "Wanna get ice cream?" The silence stretched on. His glasses allowed him to recognise the look that swept over the boy next, like he were not wholly sure Harry was being serious. Then, after no blurting laughs spilled from his lips in true, mocking Gryffindor fashion, his pale head dipped in the shallowest, most stiff, of nods. Affirmation enough, Harry shot up from the bench and scooped Fable and his book up into his arms, ignoring her screech of indignation as he did so. Nott, who demonstrated a far more composed picture, stood fluidly and stepped over the seat to look at him once again. Harry was beginning to dislike that look.

All the night before, but for the hour spent pouring over potential names for Fable, he had been pondering Malfoy's letter. The night at the graveyard had been the first prick of haunting that followed him into sleep; the poisonous, serpentine whisper of Nott's name upon the forked tongue of the Dark Lord. Cantankerous Nott, thought Harry, looking over to the taller boy at his side as they began to walk. He had been at the Ministry with Malfoy senior, he had been taken by the Aurors and thrown into Azkaban. Why had Malfoy mentioned him in his letter, on the basis of 'permission'? Without premonition, his train of thought was sharply interrupted by Nott threatening to careen into his side as they made onto the main road.

Whipping his head around, his hand had clasped Nott's forearm by instinct at the first sign of unsteadiness. Like he were grazing his hand over fire, he dropped the limb and stared as blatantly as Nott had at him before. With his poor vision, the disgust written upon the boy's face was plain to see regardless. He had glanced over his shoulder, disconcerted, to a couple who had brushed by them. Despite his chagrin, not a word came. "You good?" asked Harry, reluctantly. The line of Nott's jaw tightened. A jerky nod in reply. Back at Hogwarts, he had only seen Nott once or twice - and could not claim to know his forename no matter how rigidly he strained for it. Ron had often jeered at the Slytherin as a loner, or perhaps especially desperate to confer with the likes of Draco Malfoy for companionship.

Harry had never met someone quite like Nott, he deemed. Not that he knew him so well, if at all, was the following trail.

It was a modest gelato parlour tucked on the corner of the street that Harry led them into. Once, for his birthday, he recalled Dudley pleading with his mum to let them come here - to get the largest helping of ice-cream that they had, with bountiful accessories on top. Harry had sat there silently, watching his cousin gorge himself with no small hint of envy. But the building was one he recognised, and had for years been intrigued by, and so he thought to indulge himself on his birthday, at least. A cozy settlement, it was stuffed with a number of tourists and families huddled together on the few tables left clear. Nott's face had gone impressively still, and almost imperceptibly, he had shuffled closer to Harry - likely convincing himself he was not alone in this uncertain sea of muggles.

He almost smiled at the contrary picture of an austerely-shouldered pureblood seeking out another for - what, soothing? Harry could not fault him for it, however.

"What d'you want?" he asked Nott, tilting himself at a narrow enough angle that it could have been the slightest of turns towards him. Already was his hand back in his pocket, rifling through his coins. Fable had made herself back at home on his wrist, hissing about the strange scents of the people around them. The pureblood was not looking at him, but instead at tourists talking loudly, and a young child crooning little wails in her father's arms. Harry poked him in the side. It was amusing, he noted, to see such composure falter and harden into an indignant glower. Harry did not ever think he had heard someone mutter 'caramel' with such pique before.

When he returned, book stuffed unceremoniously in the band of his jeans whilst he juggled a plastic cup of caramel ice-cream in one hand and vanilla-chocolate in the other, Nott seized Harry by the hem of his plaid between two fingers and hauled him out of the parlour. "I'll repay you," he told Harry, hard. "I don't leave debts unpaid, Potter." The tail-end of his sentence elicited the largest eye roll he could muster from the other.

"It was like eight quid, Nott. Anyway, it's an offering. Eat." Gladder than Nott ate his own, Harry took large bites of his ice-cream and only felt half-ashamed when he finished it in record time. In the meanwhile, Nott appeared content to eat languidly, and continued to eye him in that uncanny way he was beginning to understand was entirely unique to the other boy. "What?" he asked, only slightly self-conscious after the one-minute mark. They turned onto a thinner, more secluded street that looked to loosen the tension wrung in his . . . companion. The boy blinked, only the most fleet flutter of lashes before his lips thinned and he took another thin spoon of his own gelato. Fable appeared delighted beyond anything to whisper to herself of how lovely Nott smelled, and how a local man who walked by them reeked of sweat and dirt in opposite to him.

After minutes had passed, Harry had considered the exchange done, until, from seemingly nowhere, Nott started up again. His voice remained low. "You're an idiot." declared Nott, bitingly. It was not the most surprising thing he had ever heard from a Slytherin, but certainly unexpected from the boy who had been, up until now, as soundless as a mouse. Aside from staring hard at Harry for long, as though he were constipated, his eyes, too, wandered to all the muggle architecture around them - the muggle devices and even, when they crossed the road, gazed with perplexity at the crossing light. Somehow it had not occurred to Harry that a pureblood like he would have had very little, if any, contact with the 'mundane' world.

Before he could dare ask - more so 'demand' - what exactly he had meant by that, Nott drew up a hand to sweep the air before Harry's face. Startled, he reared back at the sound of a thousand crackles quite so near to his ears that it sounded gratingly loud. He blinked hard, head spinning, before he realised what Nott had done. Having tossed his empty ice-cream cup aside, a hand was left free to prod at his glasses, which had become as if new. Untouched - fixed.

They turned down another alley, inside which Nott paused, looked at Harry sharply once again, before fastening his hold on the small cup he held. Long moments were spent in thickening silence, which he wished above anything to break with some ill-timed quip that would send a vicious hex his way. His restraint was more sensible than he was, however, and held fast. However Nott had known about that particular turn, he did not know, but not a soul interrupted them in the time that followed. "Happy birthday, Potter." said the boy, rigidly, before giving a frown so severe it could rival Snape's sneers, and twisting on his heel . . . 

. . . Only to promptly disappear with an ear-splitting crack!

Dumbly did he keep his eyes fixated upon the empty space that Nott had once inhabited. A thousand questions lay like melted sugar on the tip of his tongue, but none had dared leave - nor had been given the oppportunity to. Despite himself, a prickle of disappointment hit him like a freight despite its minuteness. The most queer exchange he had ever held in his life remained with Harry even after he took the last train back to Surrey and dragged his feet back to Number Four, Privet Drive. Although his little stunt with Dudley and one of his cupboard-spiders had revoked his dinner rights, he went to sleep feeling lighter than he had in days.

Fable kept post on the sill, murmuring of the covered stars and the many tiled roofs around them, as Harry watched the ticking clock on his desk obsessively. The clock struck twelve, and July was ended.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

⚡︎

𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ɪᴠ . ᴠᴇʀᴍɪɴ ᴩᴜʀᴇʙʟᴏᴏᴅꜱ

⚡︎

"ONE word from you, boy - one word - and you're out." warned his uncle, Vernon. He was dressed immaculately in a navy suit, pressed neatly with an iron with his thin tufts of greying hair slicked back by gel that never quite seemed to want to stay upon his head. His tie was black, and tucked under his collar beneath his many chins. Since the hour he had returned from Grunnings that night, he had been swift to agitation and quicker to incense. The day was Friday, and August had swept a merciful cool over England with the coming of midsummer; a perfect day, had claimed Aunt Petunia, to head up to the city and spend a lovely night of romance together. More than anything, Harry knew, she desired to feel important once more. Housework had begun to bore her, and she had complained of it endlessly, thwacking at Harry with damp tea-towels when he walked past her working in the kitchen. Something small to alleviate her boredom, he thought.

It was all he could do to not roll his eyes until he glimpsed inside of his skull, and the effort it took to hinder himself from doing so flushed him hotly. "Yes, Uncle Vernon." he complied, disinterestedly. The comings and goings of his relatives had never intrigued him, for they were often a simple people, and as such were entirely predictable in their routines. Pleased, his uncle puffed out his chest and ran a hand over his slick hair once more in preparation before, from the hall, Aunt Petunia stepped into the living-room. Atop her head, her blonde curls were perfectly coiffed and the red shine of polish on her fingers gleaming brighter than they had the day before. She wore a soft shawl over a blue dress, with enough rouge on her cheeks to worry for scarlet fever.

Harry felt his stomach roll with nausea when she crooned at Vernon and dipped forward to peck him lovingly on the cheek, leaving a soft imprint on his bristly skin. His aunt was taller than his uncle was, if by a centimetre or two, and the tall shoes she had chosen to wear that night ridiculously accentuated that fact. He imagined it was much like a particularly fat rhino courting a giraffe. The low hang of Aunt Petunia's necklace around her throat emphasised her long neck, indeed. Blinking quickly to rid himself of the thought, Harry obligingly moved aside as they lumbered into the corridor and towards the front door. The adoration that had coated her face had not disappeared, yet instead mixed with the half-pleasant expression Petunia already wore; they mixed like oil and water, sliding over one another endlessly, haplessly, searching for traction.

As Vernon fumbled for his car-keys and wallet, Aunt Petunia loomed closer to Harry until he was close enough to grab by the wrist, the stench of her perfume so heavily dabbed unto her skin that his eyes posed a danger to watering if she lingered for longer. "You are to stay out of the house for tonight, Harry," she told him, pinching his wrist with her sharp nails before drawing back like he had burned her. Petunia's visage flickered oddly, and she could not seem to meet his eyes quite readily. It was a thing he had noticed regularly of her, though nothing he dwelled on so much as her more violent tells. "Duddy's friends are visiting tonight, and if I hear anything has happened because of you-" There was very little need for the sentence to be ended. Harry knew what she meant, anyhow. He had not grown out of himself so strongly yet that he would not still fit inside of his cupboard.

The prospect of it was ridiculous, anyhow. The Boy Who Lived, crammed in a little under-the-stairs hole with his limbs all pressed up awkwardly to hisself.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." he mumbled, shuffling away from her. She was much like her husband in that regard, and leaned back, appeased, before nodding sharply to Harry and following Vernon out of the house with a number of hasty, narrow steps. Behind her, the door slammed shut with a mighty crash! But even after they had gone, he did not move yet, creeping over to the door and, with a finger, nudging a lace curtain aside to peer out of the window. Harry did not deign to head back upstairs until after his uncle's car revved to life, and pulled out of the driveway. Through the approaching dusk, he could see his aunt waving to Mrs. Number-Six, a divorcee with a penchant for jealousy that Petunia adored to hold.

It had been two days since his birthday, since Nott and the library courtyard, and sign of him had yet to appear again. The night before, though he had not taken it upon himself to actively search for the boy, he had deemed Nott's business with him thoroughly concluded. With his letter back in possession, and having shared, perhaps, the most awkward moment of his life with Harry over a cup of muggle-made ice-cream. Likely he had thrown it away the moment he had vanished back to his manor, or wherever boys like Nott lived. Abhorred to touch anything made by hands that did not leak magic. Harry hissed between his teeth, and threw open his door. From her perch, Hedwig had busied herself with eyeing Fable warily from where the snake was curled up on the base of his dingy lamp. The electricity had made the brass body warm enough for her to liken it to a sun-drenched rock, and consequently her new bed.

He eyed the two of them, and approached Hedwig first. The last time he had attempted to coax Fable away from the lamp, she had sunk her tiny fangs into his thumb in vehement riot. He would not make that mistake again. Gladly did his owl greet him, craning her head and hooting quietly as Harry ran his fingers against her freshly-groomed feathers. Despite the state of his life in the summer, Hedwig had wrought herself a rather uppity nature that reminded him, strangely, of a pureblood. If not that, then most certainly a princess. She had begun to turn her head away from the biscuits Harry brought her, and clacked at sausages warily until he insisted it was the only food left for them.

That evening, she was complacent, and welcomed him warmly; a grateful change. "I know," he told her, sympathy edging into his words at the faintly miserable look in her large, amber eyes. Harry soothed a thumb between where he imagined a furrow may be, and felt his lips twitch weakly when she sounded another, soft hoot. "A month left, girl, then we're going back. I told you I'd get you something nice, didn't I? I will, tonight. Promise." The words felt familiar, like he had said them verbatim before. If he had, he could not clearly recall it, yet the feeling niggled nonetheless. Hedwig crooned, and lowered her face back into her wing, rustling her feathers shortly before settling down. He let her be. It was not unfounded, that she would seek to escape their reality through sleep. Beyond anything, it was something that Harry understood - although even in sleep was he plagued.

After minutes spent laid back on his cot, mindlessly doodling in a spare notebook Hermione had leant him before the summer - "For your dreams, Harry." Had been her excuse - the resounding clatter of the front door being hurled open and a thousand footsteps following in its wake shivered through Number Four. Harry sighed, settled the book down on his stomach, and briefly let his eyes slip shut. Maybe, if he tried hard enough, Dudley and his friends would leave. They would go back outside - not to the garden, never to the garden - and spend the rest of the night stealing from shops and smoking behind shops and leaving him alone. From childhood, Dudley had been hailed their leader for being the strongest, biggest, and most stupid of the lot of them. There was not a boy amongst them that Harry claimed to so much as tolerate.

With a sense of finality filling him, he tossed the notebook aside and shoved his feet into his beat-up trainers. Picking Fable up and twining her around his wrist in a familiar curl - discarding her tired screeches of interruption and biting - he'd only the foresight to grab a small pouch from his trunk before edging out into the hallway. There would be very little places he would wish to be in Surrey, and the first of them was home. On the ground floor, one of Dudley's friends (by the mousy tone to his voice, it must have been Malcolm) hooted out in laughter and burst out some crude remark on a girl their age, who had recently come home from the ladies' school she attended in Gloucestershire. Valiantly ignoring them, Harry glanced down the corridor, then to the stairs, before striding towards the familiar face of Dudley's bedroom door.

His room was a cesspit of privileged boyhood; posters messily strung up on his walls, his bed untidy and his belongings strewn about. A pair of boxing-gloves was leaned up next to a suspiciously-clean football that he could remember Dudley getting for his thirteenth birthday. Harry took a peek over his shoulder, if only to make sure his cousin would not walk in, before making a beeline for his mattress. No matter how fiercely disgust gripped at him, he dropped to a knee and shoved a hand between the mattress and the bedframe, scrabbling back-and-forth until his fingers bumped against its desired target, and latched onto it as it drew back. He drew out a sharp breath, and made his escape before his presence would be noted. On the carpeted floor, his shoes made nary a sound, even on the stairs where gentle creaking was drowned out by unapologetically clamouring.

Just as Harry made off down the next step, a hand braced on the carved wooden railing, a voice rung out, nasally, "Potter?" His face stiffened.

". . . Piers." he greeted, with as much impoliteness as he could think to muster up. Piers Polkiss was a weedy boy with a face like a rat, and was the one who held people's hands behind their backs whilst Dudley beat them. Harry remembered small Mark Evans from the summer before his fifth-year, who had been the regular recipient of their gang's displeasure. Sometime during the year, the Evanses had moved away from Surrey after their son had returned home, two months in a row, with a gushing nose. Looking the other boy over, he wrinkled his nose in the slightest show of repulsion. "I thought you were supposed to get stuff done to your face over spring. Or was that your mum? Away again is she?"

The boy's face fell. Thin lips curling into an unfriendly sneer over tobacco-stained teeth, Piers' fingers tapped impatiently on the railing at the foot of the stairs, effectively blocking Harry's way out of the house. Very little of him had changed from when they'd been children, and he'd still a head of scraggly, mousy-brown hair and thin, gangly limbs with a tapered face. "You asking for a beating, Potty?" he snarled, looking more as if there would be nothing he'd like better. "Not like you've gotta mum, anyway. She's dead, ain't she?"

Hot anger stewed in his blood, frothing like the bubbling rush of rapids slipping and eroding the rocks it trampled. Harry's fist clenched at his side, held tauter to the railing until he'd the feeling a nail might snap any time soon. Not his mum - he didn't have a right to talk about his mum like that. Nobody did. They didn't know her, what had happened to her- "Don't think your mum can afford another set of teeth for you. First set's messed up enough, it'd be a shame to ruin another." he snapped, shouldering past Piers. When his fingers rest on the doorknob, Harry paused and turned to face the other boy, his brow lowered with a type of fury that made him feel childish. Less himself. "Stay out of my way." Then he flung the door open, slammed it behind him, and strode out into the impending darkness that had settled over the town.

When he stormed down the pavement, it was not right he turned - not like he always tended to veer towards. This time, Harry turned left, and dived deeper into Privet Drive. He passed a number of houses that each looked the same as the last, but for a few differently-painted doors here and there, and decorations and flowerbeds that were more unique the longer he walked. In many of their windows, the lights caught on families huddled together watching the telly, or eating dinner and playing games. Each flicker of it catching against his peripheral did little to assuage the blistering anger that had consumed him so scrupulously. Anger was an ugly emotion, but it was the only one he felt truly comfortable expressing. He could not find something as brittle as happiness here, not away from his friends, and fear was ever only cursory when it manifested.

Vexation was sustainable. Anger was long-lasting, and sent a thrill up his spine that made Harry feel more alive. And ever was he so angry, these days. All the time. His scar prickled as if in victory, and the slimy sensation it left draped over him had always been sickly and humiliating when he eventually came to his senses.

The slapping of his trainers against the concrete felt obscenely loud. You're not a bad person, once, he had been soothed. You're a very good person who . . . bad things have happened to. Once, he had admired the owner of the voice with all his heart. Some part of Harry had always wanted to run, to be free, and when Sirius had come into his life that dream had swelled with hope. The Ministry - that thrice-damned veil - had swept away any chance of something other. Sirius Black had not been the gentlest, most sane, nor kindest of men . . . but he had been true, in many ways; unafraid to be himself. It had been one of the many things Harry had admired of him.

But now Sirius was gone, and Harry never wanted to return to Grimmauld Place again. If he were to be moved again that summer, he resented the idea of glimpsing his shadow in every corner he walked; hearing his voice in the rooms they had shared conversation with, hearing the bark of his laugh over the dinner-table when Mundungus Fletcher made a particularly rude comment in the midst of a tale. Anything was better than returning to that house. Even Sirius, himself, had hated staying there and that he had been wrestled into staying hidden, isolated, and locked away from the world had made his heart hurt at the mere memory of his misery. They had been much the same, in that regard. Harry could never imagine willingly coming back to Number Four, not unless it were in a far away world where the Dursleys had never existed at all.

His hand shoved into his pocket, and drew out the pack of cigarettes he had snagged from beneath Dudley's mattress. Repayment, excused Harry, for the day before. His cousin had felt distinctly pitiless from the second he had awoken. The bruise he had punched into Harry's face still smarted in the vivid shade of twilight on the slope of his cheek, brushing his ear, and his breath still escaped in short rattles when they did not hold enough volume. Aunt Petunia had not been at home that day, and even if she had he did not believe she would have done anything. But Uncle Vernon had been, and had waved a hand at Dudley with a bellowing guffaw and that's my boy! State-champion, you are! As if they had been playing a game.

Harry fiddled with the box, and drew out one of the pale sticks, stuffed full with tobacco and bleached at the end with a yellow filter. The rest of the box returned back into his pocket, and he only took the courtesy to glance around gingerly before sticking it between his teeth and lighting the end with a twitch of his finger. Most unfortunately, the few books that he had been bullied into buying before summer-break had made sense. Wandless magic, whilst not incredibly common, was astoundingly useful - albeit frustratingly hard to master. It evaded much of the Trace, if performed in doses small enough to slip beneath the Ministry's radar, and it meant that, although his wand was not often with him (due to Aunt Petunia, truth be told) he could still look after himself to some degree.

The cigarette caught the tiny, writhing flame on his fingertip and ignited. It steamed and smoked, the paper curling and blackening at its edges as smoke filled Harry's lungs. He choked, the cloying taste of fumes filling his lungs and closing in his throat. Tobacco burned on his tongue, feeling like it were a hot brand being seared into the muscle, before he exhaled around another choke and pounded his chest. "Merlin," cursed Harry, drawing the cigarette hastily away from his mouth. How was it that Dudley could smoke these things? He tried again, and drew the stick back between his lips and inhaled - more stiffly, this time. A more successful attempt than the last, by the time he reached the linear end of Privet Drive, he had gotten a hang of it. Mostly.

Harry glanced down to Fable, whom he had assumed was sleeping, though it was always hard to tell with creatures that did not possess eyelids. She had roused, and stuck her tongue out to the air to taste the stench of tobacco on him. "Bad smell," she complained, pressing herself back down against his wrist. "What is it?" He huffed quietly, more a half-hearted chuff of laughter, and shook his head. "Human stuff." Was all he told her, before he passed the street-sign and turned onto a road he only half-knew. Walking west of Number Four was not something he did often, and as the build of each house changed and merged with small, dimly-lit shops, there was only a tiny measure of familiarity with which he greeted his surroundings.

"Potter."

Never would he have admitted to jumping in surprise. Never. Narrowly catching himself from the tangle of his feet, Harry staggered and turned around, a sharp frown carved on his face. Frankly, he had had quite enough with being crept up on . . . part of him wondered if Nott was even aware of his frightening habit of moving like a shadow. He would not say it was a relief to see the other boy; not exactly. He did not think they had known each other quite long enough for his presence to correspond to relief, but the winding of his shoulders visibly slackened at the sight of him in spite of the fact. Abreast anger, loneliness was a pest and plague during the summer. Being surrounded by nothing magic had begun to grate at him like a bare knee to rough pavement.

Jerkily, he dipped his head in a nod and rubbed a hand over his bare upper-arm, feeling a gust of chill sweep over him. "Nott," said Harry, feet shifting beneath the shrewd stare that greeted him. The boy seemed to have very little to do with his own time, and however he managed to continue appearing in Surrey was nothing he could explain other than magic. Nott had declared, first they met, that he had tracked Malfoy's letter to Little Whinging. He'd only the scanty time to wonder as to just how he had done that in the first place, before the boy was falling into stride with him like he had done it a thousand times afore. Though surely not with as much discretion as he was hoping for, Harry caught the subtle glances to the cigarette between his teeth. He cocked a brow at his companion. Merlin only knew what they were.

Strained, like it pained him to further interaction with Harry, to admit that he were not privy to a piece of knowledge, Nott forced out a, "What are you doing?" Undoubtedly he was talking of the smoke.

Despite it, Harry shrugged and replied, "Going to find mice. Hedwig's hungry, and I couldn't find any at the shop." Sarcasm lined his voice thick, like melted caramel draped over a cinder block. His response twinged a soft crease of puzzlement on Nott's face, but the boy did not question it.

From the way he had chosen to walk, it was easy enough to locate a further extension of the park-fields on the other side of town. Having snubbed Dudley's cigarette and thrown it away, he ran his tongue over the backs of his teeth and grimaced at the heady taste of tobacco that lingered. Having not entirely thought the process out, he felt a little like an idiot. His talent for planning ahead had never been commended, because it had never stooped to existence at all. "You were in the papers," commented Nott after some time, dry grass crunching beneath their shoes. Summer had cast a long day over the sky, and only now, as time crossed eight, the sun was beginning to crest the sky to return to the low horizon. When Harry glanced sidelong, Nott was already looking at him. "For weeks. Do all Gryffindors enjoy infiltrating the Ministry?"

"Only when it proves a point." said Harry, bitterly. He had very little desire to speak of the incident. Of Sirius. Whether or not his companion had noticed it, he did not know, but Nott remained quiet until they roamed further into the park-fields and settled on a patch of grass where long reeds lingered nearby. Along the way, he had swerved off to the side on more than one occasion to pluck the odd blackberry or plum from a dehydrated bramble-cluster or bending tree, juggling them in his hands as Fable begged for a taste of a berry to his sharply-whispered refusals. They're for the mice, he told her. Do you want mice or fruit? She had made her decision impossibly fast, and had acquiesced.

The entire ordeal made him realise that Nott was astute at not mentioning oddities. Not an eye flickered towards him, the drag of parseltongue in the wind between them despite Harry's best attempts to mask it. Fable let herself free to roam on the fields, slipping out between Harry's tanned fingers and complaining of the rigidity of the ground all about. Pretending not to notice her ruckus, he reached forward with his handful of fruit and scattered it nearby the reeds. Bait, after all, was especially helpful when dealing with skittish animals like mice . . . and, as Hermione had once assured him, they were not so fond of cheese as stories had made them out to be. Which had ruined quite a few of his plans, in all sincerity.

With the bait scattered around as best as he could have poised it to be, Harry settled back down by Nott, who was still garbed in his wizard's attire with very little regard as to the stark cultural differences between wixen and muggles. Then, as if he were the mad-looking one, Nott turned his eyes once over Harry and frowned. This time, the scrutiny did not feel so horrible when there was little eye-contact to be had. "I don't suppose every muggle dresses as . . . strangely as you, Potter." Pausing for a moment to decide whether or not it felt like an insult, Harry toyed with a bowed strand of grass by his folded legs and surveyed his bait-traps with anticipation in the meanwhile. A hand rubbed at his bare arm once again. When he had left Number Four, he had been dressed in the same pair of jeans as the day before, with his only shirt being one of Dudley's old beater-vests that hung loose over his belt and the glasses balanced on his nose. He had yet to thank Nott for fixing them.

Sure he was a little skinny, but it was nothing of genetics, Harry supposed - he had always been skinny, even after quidditch had turned his frame leaner, more willowy than malnourished. Dudley's old clothes, however, never failed to make a contrasting impression of that. With his hair sticking astray in every direction, the bruise upon his face, the clothes he wore and the cigarette a few neighbours had sighted him smoking, Harry Potter was taking weak efforts to dissuade his poor repute amongst their like.

"They don't," he responded, slowly, tugging at the hem of his vest. "Well, I don't think they do. Most boys our age like to wear their shirts short, y'know." With vague horror seeping into the composure within his pale eyes, Nott turned towards Harry and, pointedly, looked over him once again.

"Short." repeated Nott, dryly. "How short?" It did not feel especially normal indulging an uppity pureblood boy on muggle-matters. Not when it was quiet Nott who rarely opened his mouth, suddenly becoming so vocal as to ask him such multitudes of questions. Harry supposed he could get used to it, though. Educating Ron on electrical devices had always been entertainment, and Mr. Weasley had always been blatant about his fascination with the mundanes. To a boy disallowed to so much as mutter anything but dissent for muggles . . .

Harry huffed a little, and leaned back on one of his wrists whilst the other hand made a subtle 'chop' over his midriff. "Here?" he guessed, mouth curling faintly at the corner. It was as short as he had seen Dudley wearing a few of his shirts, anyhow, which he seemed to take pride in with his new physique. The fashion had come over from London and had poisoned the teenage boys of Surrey - as well as those all over the country. Having to explain some other item of clothing like spandex made Harry's throat clog with suppressed laughter. He found, oddly enough, that his mood was a far cry from the sourness it had been before. Surely Nott had turned a charm on him, or something. Never did he imagine he might find himself in the park-fields of Little Whinging, talking to one of Malfoy's friends.

Then he heard it: a shrill squeak over nearby the weeds. From where he sat, he could just about hear Fable's victorious cry as she sunk her small fangs into a mouse's fluffy jugular, spurting blood over her maw and sucking it dry. Harry watched her for a moment before shuffling forward on his knees, eyeing the mess his snake had made with her prey. "That was for Hedwig." he stated, flatly. Fable's pleased murmurs were drowned out by the loosening of her jaw's hinge as she surged forward once again and swallowed the mouse whole. Harry's nose twisted at the gruesome sight. If she were a mutt, he liked to think she would be licking her chops in triumph.

"My meal." boasted Fable, the body of the mouse not so large yet that she would not be able to move after digesting it. The sight was obscene. Harry blinked hard, and rubbed the bridge of his nose before sighing and flapping his hand around for a bit.

"Find another mouse," he told her. "That one's gonna be Hedwig's. Okay?"

"Mouse." Was her elated reply, before she was making off through the grass and circling the leftover bait nearby at a wide berth.

When Harry returned to Nott, that unblinking gaze met his own once again. Eerie, and uncannily piercing, like his very soul was exposed to the boy where he sat. Discomfort swept over him before he stamped it down; he very much doubted someone as young as them had mastered the art of legillimency - and, if he had, Harry would prefer to believe that Nott had more decency within him than Snape and would leave his mind alone. He'd already menacing whispers housed within them, he did not require another intruding presence, no matter how much more preferred they may be to the existing tenant. Minutes passed wherein they waited, but no comment passed Nott's lips again. At one point, Harry pushed himself up to his feet and wandered off to the nearby bushes to pluck some more blackberries, and upon his re-arrival, stumbled upon the sight of a plumper-looking Fable twisting herself around Nott's hand as he sat, stock-still, surrounded by his dark flurry of robes.

It had taken another half-hour for Fable to catch another mouse, and one had even been at Harry's hands. They were stuffed into the pouch he had taken with him, looped around his belt for Hedwig's next few meals (Fable found her food much easier, and ate anything she could get her fangs on with relish) and, but for the disdainful looks Nott plastered unto everything visibly muggle around them, it was a pleasant atmosphere that followed them in the moments thereafter. Yet, for his birthday had already passed, his period of leniency had expired. The fates, once more, had returned with the full-force of their fury for his existence and had turned their efforts to tenfold.

"Oi, Potter!" bellowed Dudley Dursley from further down the park-fields. Harry brushed off his jeans and felt the line of his body wind up with agitation. "Off on an adventure again, are we?" Every gargantuan step the boy took drew he and his gang only closer to he and Nott, who was looking at the boys like he had never seen their kind before. Likely had not. Dudley had on a brightly-hued Looney-Tunes tee with his thumbs hooked in the loop of his jeans. Harry thought he looked ridiculous. Beside him was Piers Polkiss once more, and, behind them, faces he only half-remembered. Malcolm, and Dennis, and Gordon. He could not put features to any of their names, and hardly wished to.

Dudley swaggered to a slow pause in front of Harry, chewing on a half-finished cigarette before he pinched it between his fingers, drew it away, and slid his watery-blue eyes over to Nott by his shoulder. He sniggered, and waved at the taller boy with his smoke. "This your other boyfriend, then? Thought you was still up with that Cedric." he asked, snidely, before his eyes hardened and he turned his probing stare away. Back to him. Wonderful. "You stole my fags*, Potty." sneered Dudley, taking another deep drag of his own, borrowed from Gordon who had swindled the pack from his dad. Overhead, the sky had darkened with the shade of a bruise, all glimpses of vibrant gold vanished behind the horizon. It cast Dudley's face in shadow, and made him seem rounder than he did in the daylight. Harry knew that if he ran, now, he would escape - outpace all the other boys.

If he ran, he did not know if Nott would be able to follow. Hell, he had almost forgotten about the boy.

"And what?" he snarked, stepping forward. The pin-prick vestiges of anger that had stewed themselves away when Nott had come, returned. Fable was still hissing around Nott's wrist, hidden under the sleeve of his robes. "Who are you gonna tell - your mum? What's she gonna think about her precious Diddy-dums smoking?" His friends had begun to snigger behind their hands.

Stopping for an instant, like he had not considered it, Dudley blanched and reared up in likewise rage. His face had gone as puce as Uncle Vernon's became when the man was angry. He jut a fat finger in Harry's face, so close that every puff of breath he took from his cigarette wafted into his face. Though it stung his eyes something horrid, he dared not move an inch. "I'll get'ya, Potter. Don't cheek me."

"Sure." he drawled, mockingly, taking a step back and making to turn on his heel when his ears rang, and the world tilted dangerously on its axis. Nott jumped back sharply, wide-eyed and tight-jawed, before Dudley's gang descended on them. A fist had slammed onto the bruised side of his face, blood rushing through his ears as he groaned and picked himself up, swinging blindly until he hit true and stumbled his larger cousin. Then, as if it had never happened at all, they were gone. With the shifting of the wind, and the arrival of a small, hunched old lady down the pavement that cut through the park-fields, they had fled.

Harry held the side of his face and blinked away the drumming haze that had come over his vision like a veil, squinting through the encroaching of darkness through the last light left of the day towards Nott. "Shit," he mumbled, making his way to the boy on uneasy feet. Not untouched, Nott sported an impressive gush of blood from a cut near his brow, and a thin trail of red oozing from one of his nostrils. "You good?" asked Harry, fumbling a little over as on what to do. His friends - Hermione and Ron and all the others - they had always looked after themselves in fights. With magic, that was. He couldn't ever imagine that Nott had ever been in an exchange without magic.

He was waved impatiently aside. "I'm fine." said Nott quietly, tersely, dabbing at his brow with the sleeve of his robe. The look in his eyes was tight, brows drawn over his eyes, and he had twisted his head around to look at the older lady who had come upon the sight. They looked an oddity, without a doubt, and beaten out of their worth. Wrapped in a crochet scarf with her feeble, grey locks caught back in a hairnet, Harry recognised her almost immediately. "Mrs. Figg," he blurted out, unintentionally. But she was not looking at Harry, not like she usually was, but instead to his companion. Bollocks. She was Dumbledore's informant. He was almost certain that she would tell him about Nott - that Harry was spotted in the company of a Death Eater's son. Hell, even that knowledge didn't sit right with him after he thought of it-

-Yet for some inane reason, he truly misliked the idea of Dumbledore learning about Nott.

"Stay safe, Harry." rattled out old Mrs. Figg, humming slightly to herself before hobbling away. Was that it? He wondered, watching her go with a faint sense of bewilderment. 'Stay safe'? He could have figured that out himself ages ago.

They walked back to the main road, Harry poking experimentally at his cheek, bruised twice over now, whilst Nott continued to swipe blood away from his eyes, ostensibly disgruntled. He eyed him, torn between mortification and half-a-thousand apologies. It had been his fault that he had ended up hurt, above all, and guilt had already begun its treacherous gnawing at his gut. Fable was fast-asleep, still, having been roused by the rumble yet almost instantly dismissive of it. Too contented with her heavy meal that evening. "You sure you're alright?" Harry asked again, twisting his fingers together uncertainly. Nott regarded him mutely for a few more beats, before he appeared to huff.

"You worry," he began, just shy of reluctance, "a lot." He did not seem to know what to do with Harry's concern, for a brief second unguarded beneath the rising moon. "Stop it."

Then Nott stopped in his sure stride, met Harry's eyes only once and nodded sharply, before twisting into a slim alley and disappearing into the shadows. For some reason unbeknownst to him, Harry waited until he'd heard the telltale crack of his departure before he let his feet move once more.

⚡︎

The morning came fast. Harry was out of Number Four by the time anyone else had awoken, lightness docile and timid at his step. Fable had remained in his room, too dreary to possibly spend the day with and remain in well spirits, and Hedwig was busy slumbering after her banquet the night before. When he turned out of the driveway of Number Four, he turned right, and made off down the street to the charity shop he enjoyed to frequent. His departure had come impulsively, with the silent reasoning of welfare carrying him along. Only the shortest consideration that perhaps something nice in apology would make Nott less solemn. When the gentle, silver chime hoisted up above the doorway signalled his entrance, he came to the abrupt realisation that he was not, indeed, sure what boys like Nott liked.

The woman behind the counter had long shadows beneath her eyes, and perked up when Harry entered, the whispering taps of his shoes echoing in the quiet as he entered. Between them, in its vacancy, all that disturbed the silence was the humming of a radio on the till. He searched the shelves for minutes, until he came across a curiosity nestled between a lamp with a horrid shade, and a bedside clock. Harry ran his fingers over its surface, and felt the brush of grooves against his skin. Its antenna was tucked in, slightly shabby, and it did not look to be in working condition. No matter its fragility and broken state, intrigue swallowed him whole.

"How much?" He faced the woman reading in her seat, who glanced up with little interest in her eyes when she looked at the radio. Harry rustled around in his pockets, the jangle of his leftover birthday money sliding against his hand.

"Eleven pounds." she told him, flicking onto the next page of a book he could not hope to name, with its worn leather cover.

A curl of his lips expressed his minute displeasure. He'd only eight pounds to spare, seven having been spent on the ice-creams back in Central London. "Can you take eight?" he asked. Glancing up once again, she did not appear entirely taken by the conversation, if more inconvenienced. "Eight." she agreed. After sliding his coins across to her and bagging up the radio to tuck under his arm, Harry stepped out once more into the daylight and wondered just what his first step would be into introducing Nott to muggle music.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

⚡︎

𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ᴠ . ʙʀᴏᴋᴇɴ ᴡɪɴɢꜱ, ꜰʟyɪɴɢ

⚡︎

AUGUST had turned the muggy warmth of Little Whinging to a comfortable settling of breeze; the weather was unpredictable in England, yet the turning of the moon had appeared to temper its voracity for a few days of mercy. Harry gleaned neighbours emerging from their houses for the first time in days, children with sun-hats on their heads and adults sipping at iced water as they sat at the small cafe terraces he passed. To claim that he realised they had been there at all before was to be a liar's confession: Little Whinging was a small town, with little to offer but mediocrity, and few people set up lavish city establishments so close to Privet Drive. As a child, Harry had only imagined of escaping - going elsewhere, where concrete turned into grass and open field. Hogwarts had been the first step to that taste of freedom, but had flit away every crest of June without fail.

His dingy little radio was a wreck. Had he not been a fairly reasonable person, he may have marched back to the charity shop and demanded seven pounds in refund for the quality of the damned thing. Mr. Weasley, in the conversations that Harry had shared with him on muggle devices, had turned out to have been entirely truthful on the matter of magic and electricity opposing one another. He had been lucky to escape with nothing but minor burns that had done nothing else but flush his fingertips raw and sore; the radio, itself, ought to have counted itself tremendously lucky for the fact that Harry had not let Hedwig use it as a new perch to scratch to scraps.

Immersed in his thoughts so deeply was he, that he did not notice the family swerving out of his way as he passed. Only until the father looked back at him, suspicious, did Harry hunch his shoulders and dip his head down, shoving his hands into his pockets as always he was so wont to do. Trodding through Magnolia Crescent, itching to take the sliver of alleyway that would lead him back to Privet Drive, Harry paused at the next corner he took. Had it not been for the whipping of his hair prodding insistently at his eyes, forcing his head to detour the other way, he would not have seen it at all: that abandoned, rusting bike leaned up against the well-rounded fence of one of the nicer houses down the street. He thought it must have belonged to Mr. Farren, whom he had babysat for once before Aunt Petunia had dragged Harry back to Number Four and forbade he work again for meagre coins.

Glancing down both sides of the road, he approached the bicycle and poked at the handlebars. Almost immediately, they flinched away from his touch, careening into the other side from where he was. Harry stared, clicked his tongue, and sighed. Always had he been one for sighting opportunities, and with the Dursleys far away for the day, he would be able to sneak it into the garden-shed with little trouble. It would be his, Harry reasoned with himself, brows furrowing. At least, until Dudley found it and claimed it was to be his own; or until Uncle Vernon discovered it, instead, and began to shriek and curse of witchcraft and curses placed upon the frame. Of he and Aunt Petunia, Vernon had always been the most sensitive to his freakishness, and abhorred the existence of magic more than some purebloods did the muggleborns.

"You takin' that, Harry?" chimed a voice from behind the fence. Startling, he caught himself before he stumbled back into the road and blinked at the sight of Mr. Farren's daughter; older than he recalled her looking. The last time he had seen Rebecca Farren, she had been fifteen, and himself nine. Of all the few people who had cared to give little Harry Potter the time of day, she had always been his favourite, somehow. Her lips quirked at the corner when she noticed his abrupt fright, and raised her hands up in joke. "That's my brother's bike. Archie - you remember him?" Most unfortunately. The wretch had been as much a nuisance to him as Dudley had been in primary school, and had enjoyed making others miserable more than any other horrid child. "It's old, now, but you're welcome to take it."

Harry eyed her. "How much?" he asked. Fine things like bicycles were hardly ever given away for free, in his experience. There was always a price for stuff like that.

But Rebecca Farren scoffed a little, and waved a hand towards it as if it hardly mattered to her. "Free," she declared. "Dad doesn't have the parts to fix it up, so he's getting a new one." He ran a finger along the peeling paint of the frame, frowning as it chipped under his touch. From the doorway of her house, Rebecca snorted loudly. "Crap, isn't it? It threw Archie off twice before he decided he didn't want it anymore."

He almost smiled at the image. Almost. "It's good," assured Harry, with a furrow of his brow. It was still, in his eyes, fairly functioning; he could never understand why people left their belongings out on the street after a certain time. Mr. Number-Eighteen further down the road bore an odd habit of giving away furniture after it turned three years old, and it had even baffled Aunt Petunia, who was a stickler for conforming to trends. "I'll take it. Thanks." Clearing his throat awkwardly, he nodded stiffly at Rebecca Farren and grabbed hold of the loose handlebars with a tentative hand, not entirely sure his skin wouldn't be sliced open. She bid him goodbye with a wave, and disappeared back into her home, a dog's barking welcoming her inside.

For a moment he deigned to watch her, before resolutely turning his back on the Farrens' house and making off down Magnolia Crescent with the rusty bike pedalling next to him.

It was a long walk back to Number Four, and it was two hours past noon by the time it came into view. On more than one occasion, he'd had to veer and skitter out of the way of the pedals, which appeared more than willing to snap at his ankles, and it was the denim of his jeans that only just spared him from bloody calves. Another ten minutes was dedicated to glancing around the house, wondering how he would get the dirty thing through it and out into the garden, before Harry recalled the existence of a wooden gate 'round the back that would stave disaster off entirely. Crisis and Aunt Petunia's frying pan averted, with a great heaving sigh he settled it onto the grass and planted his hands on his hips. Staring down at it, he squinted sharply and tried to gauge just exactly what was wrong with the bike.

Rebecca Farren had told him it had thrown her brother off two times - he reckoned it had something to do with the brakes, then, though Harry could never claim to be an expert on mechanics. Or much, at all. Shoving his short sleeves to hitch on his shoulders, he knelt on the grass and shuffled to tuck his legs under him, elbows leaned upon his knees. It went quite as well as anyone may have expected it to go. Harry Potter was nothing of a mechanic, and so it was starkly shown in a manner that left him feeling more humiliated than proud, scuttling away every so often to rifle through his cupboard - helpfully unlocked by a twitch of his finger - and draw out the tiny bundle of old tools he had liked to collect when Uncle Vernon threw them away, and return to prod at the bicycle's wheel. Given Dudley's strange obsession with motorcycles, and the shows he always watched on the telly, he thought to himself that, truly, it could not be as different from a bicycle, could it?

. . . It was. Truly and utterly, it quite was.

Not that Harry had not been paying attention to Dudley's show - he had not - but that his fingers were beginning to bear thin scratches whenever he tried to get too close to the damned thing and take a look at what he could only assume were the brake pads. Given their abysmal condition. Regretting, now, that he had taken the stupid thing at all and idly wondering if he could set it on fire without alerting the police, Harry ducked his head closer and narrowed his eyes. He had not been around many bikes in his life - not any that he were ever permitted to ride himself, anyhow - but he guessed that the flatness of the two metal . . . things was not entirely routine for the wheel.

A long afternoon was ahead, awaiting him.

⚡︎

Toiling in the sun for hours had scorched his back raw. Harry winced with every torturous brush of fabric against his skin, and had been forced to relinquish the shirt he'd put back on after he'd started to feel abnormally warm. Harry did not want to imagine what he looked like: hands smeared in oil that likely had done nothing to help the bike's condition, and shirtless in all his slim glory. Mrs. Weasley would have balked at the sight, as always she did when he visited the Burrow before stuffing him round with as much food as a bear ate before hibernation. It left him feeling only the more grateful for the woman and her cooking, and the stash that Ron had sent over for his birthday, hidden expertly in a loose floorboard beneath his bed. His skin felt as though it were sizzling, and he was so caked in sweat that his glasses threatened to slip off of his nose every second.

On a single instance, he had forgotten about his messy hands and had smeared oil over the bridge of his nose, leaving him with an unpleasant stench wafting into his senses. The shed had given him some enlightenment as to how to proceed, however, and he had taken up the spare toolbox his uncle kept inside of there - the main one being stashed safely away in his car, Harry knew. Even the bicycle that Dudley had been gifted with on his thirteenth birthday lay inside, unused and abandoned - good as new, though nothing that Harry, himself, would like to be spotted on. The Dursleys would know, anyhow, and the fate that would follow would be far less kind than having something that was entirely his.

"Fuck's sake," he muttered, drawing back sharply as his finger skidded along the sharp edge of a rotor, narrowly avoiding slicing the flesh open into a gaping wound. Inexplicably, he thought of Nott, then. Perhaps once it may have been Hermione that his thoughts drew to in such moments, for ever had Harry relied on her keen intelligence for help. But Nott - he could not explain why he was thinking of Nott. Maybe it was simply that he liked the company, or that guilt still stewed like a festering limb in his gut when he thought about the previous night at the park-fields. The curt tone which Nott had taken, with his bleeding nose and the gash at his brow. Harry wondered if he was alright, now; if his parents had managed to fix him up.

They likely had. At the very least, his mother might have. Purebloods doted on their children fiercely, in protection of their legacies. But Nott's father, Cantankerous, had been arrested at the Ministry and locked away; he wouldn't be able to help anyone from Azkaban.

The thought of the prison had him flinching away from the bicycle, swiping the back of his hand over his forehead. A familiar, barking laugh echoed in his ear like a spirit's whisper. Harry shook his head desperately, and deemed his work for the day finished. The afternoon was already late, and his Aunt Petunia would be home within the next hour or so; leaving him very little time to clean himself up. Hastily, he scrambled at the tools and shoved them back into place, hoisting his new bike up from the grass and guiding it into the web-reigned shed. Dudley would never think of doing such arduous work to lead him to the shed, but although his uncle may find his way, Harry doubted he would care for another rusty bike inside of it. It was his, after all: Harry's. No-one else's.

So it was that that very simple thought had his chest feeling warm, as he locked the shed-door with a clatter and bent down to hoist his shirt up from the ground. His. Despite the many years he had spent at Hogwarts with his own belongings, it was rare of him to possess such a mundane item that had not been stolen. Little trinkets he had collected as a child had been swept away by Dudley, and even the odd girl in his class who'd taken a 'fiercer' liking to it than him, and cried to their teachers that he had snatched it from them. All the things that were his were strictly magical - but not the bike. No, that was his own. Truly and utterly. Not that anyone else would want it, anyway. He supposed he had that in common with the bike.

Harry tugged on his fingers as he crept into the house, toeing off his shoes and carrying them up to his room. Mindlessly grabbing whatever clothes he had left scrambled on his bed, he made for the bathroom and took a short, cold shower. Scrubbing furiously at his stained hands, his sweaty hair and burned skin, he used only little helpings of the soaps tucked neatly around the edges of the bath, and emerged feeling more refreshed than he had in hours. Swiping at the mirror with a wet hand, he gleaned his reflection and pulled his fingers through his unruly hair. It was getting longer, his fringe brushing beneath his brows. Sooner than later it would be in his eyes, but he would not trust anyone in Number Four to chop it for him. The last time Aunt Petunia had cut his hair, Harry had been bald and teary-eyed.

With that thought in mind, he towelled himself dry and slipped into his clothes, stopping only to head downstairs briefly for a meal inhaled in no less than two minutes before skipping upstairs and locking himself away in his room. There, nobody dared come close to him. None of the Dursleys ever wanted to come into his room, and they had threatened him more recently with putting the cat-flap on the door to its 'proper use' once more, like they had the summer afore his fifth-year. Hedwig was notably absent from the room, Fable twined around the log of her perch, hissing happily as she tongued at the air. She was growing miraculously larger by the day, under Harry's care, and was swollen with the small insects he had gathered for her from the garden in the early morning before dawn. "Leaf," she greeted, merrily, head cocking up like hair to cold wind when Harry walked past.

Snake vocabulary - pointedly not parseltongue - was decidedly limited. Without the knowledge of the word green, Fable had taken to calling him, most ridiculously, leaf. She supposed it suited him well enough, and remarked often on how he could have been skinny as a leaf if he didn't eat more.

Harry had never disagreed with that statement, nor had he ever claimed to appreciate the nickname. "Harry," he corrected her, not unkindly. "Not 'leaf'." Fable made a disapproving noise and curled tighter around Hedwig's perch. It was scratched by her talons, worn in by her weight, and he briefly entertained the prospect of getting her a new cage when he would be given the chance to visit Diagon Alley before school. Her eyes, beady and black, followed him as he moved to collapse on his bed, reaching for the radio perched on his desk and the thin equipment he'd gathered under suspicion they may work to fix it. Blinking, it was only then that he realised how foolish he may have been. A radio and a bike? It would be a miracle if he managed to fix them both before school started, and the idea of leaving them alone with the Dursleys was horrifying enough that the urge to abandon the bike became only stronger.

"Hairy. Stupid name." insisted Fable, with a noise that may have been a snort had she the vocal-cords to sound one. "Leaf. Good name, like Fable. Like nature." Although, pondered Harry, it was a far more agreeable name than, say, grass. Likely, with the summer heat and how young Fable appeared to be, he doubted she had ever seen green grass in her life.

He huffed, and rest the radio on his stomach, staring at it blankly. "Alright, then," he told her in concession. "Leaf." Feeling much like an idiot, Harry blindly fumbled an arm to his side and knocked his elbow only once against his desk before managing to take hold of a slim tool's body and bring it up to wind at the screws on its back. The plastic panel fell away easily, and he set aside the tool for a moment to thumb curiously at the new sets of batteries that he'd snuck from Dudley's spare console-controller into his new possession. One of the first ideas that he had been blessed with had not seemed to work, and after hours spent tinkering away at it, Harry had begun to think nothing would get it to play again.

Digging his fingers further into the components that were made bare to him, Harry picked his way through each one and flipped them carefully over in his palm, surveying it for any possible damage. Nothing. Much as if the fates had chosen to target the more specific points of his life rather than himself, it felt more than anything like a curse to be the owner of a radio that was entirely fine and yet, stubbornly, refused to work. No wonder the woman at the shop had sold it to him at discount, without putting up a fight at all for it. "What do you know about radios?" called Harry over to Fable, absently. A curious hiss followed his question.

"What is 'raddio'?" she asked, slipping down from Hedwig's perch to twine her way through the open bars, off of the dresser, and onto his desk. Fable was moving more sluggishly than she had been that morning, likely due to how full she had made herself with lunch. Rolling his eyes a little, a fond noise bubbling in his chest, Harry lolled his head towards her and frowned. "Radio," he stressed. "It plays music."

Eliciting a prim hmph, she turned away from Harry and wordlessly curled up into herself around his lamp once more. Faintly, he heard the front door opening from downstairs, and Aunt Petunia stepping in, her keys jangling faintly. The Dursleys hardly ever locked their door during the day - Little Whinging was safe enough, to every neighbour, that there was almost no need to lock one's house when it was bright out. Harry froze, waited, and when it did not sound as if she were storming up the stairs to hurl screams at him, he relaxed against his pillow once again.

Suddenly, a loud hoot, audibly displeased, rang from his open window. Harry jolted, staring in horror as a spark jumped from his fingertips and onto the radio's exposed wires. He threw it away without hesitation, scrambling against his headboard just as Hedwig flapped into the room and settled on the windowsill. Her large, bright eyes were glowering at Fable, snapping her beak with disdain. The radio hissed, trembled a bit, and he reached forward to hastily fan it when it began to smoke. "Shit, shit, shit," Harry swore, wondering as to how much trouble he would get into when Aunt Petunia inevitably walked in to see his entire room set ablaze. "Get out." he snapped at the smoke, hands flapping stupidly. All the whilst he did so, Hedwig and Fable, who had raised her head slowly from her curled form, had begun to stare at one another stonily.

Fable was cursing at his owl, whilst Hedwig stamped a foot down lightly and bristled in response to every discordant hiss. Harry Potter, Boy Wonder, burned to death by a radio. Like hell above was he letting that happen-

"Feathery abominations! They come in armies - they hates us! Sharp-beak bastards, come close to Fable-"

Harry's head snapped to the side, staring wide-eyed at their new arrival as Fable reared up in her fiery-hearted fury. An owl who had most certainly not been there before was perched serenely on top of his chest-of-drawers, preening at their feathers as Hedwig flapped and hissed at his snake. "Calm down, for Merlin's sake," he chided, voice trembling only the slightest, turning back to his spitting radio and grabbing it with both hands. Any sensible mind might have fainted at the sight. It was eerily warm between his palms, and he fumbled with the device before setting it down hard on his desk and jumping to his feet. Heart racing, he tapped it, half-frightened, when its angry puffs of smoke subsided, like he were expecting it to burst into spontaneous combustion.

Hedwig screeched. In chorus, Aunt Petunia shrieked from the living room a shrill, "Harry James!" before he called back worriedly that 'all was fine', darting forward to calm his girl before she decided to knock over every piece of furniture he owned. Her discomforted noises lowered to rumbling croons as Harry ran his hand over her head, murmuring to Hedwig in hushed tones of how pretty her feathers looked that day, and how good a hunter she must be if she had spent so long away from home. Then the other owl decided to make its presence known, with the clang of a talon against the wood of his drawers. Harry had almost forgotten it was there.

Fable curled herself firmly around the lamp's throat and turned away from his owl, whilst Hedwig, in turn, looked appeased at his soothing. The newest of them was a black barn-owl, with the most silver eyes he had ever seen, and meticulously-cleaned feathers. There was a haughty pride to which she held herself, a bored look to her eyes, and a letter wrapped around her foot. Untwining it gently, Harry took the envelope to hand and looked upon the blank back with curiosity. Flipping it over, his senses prickled at the sight of a navy-blue seal waxed onto the lip of the opening. It reminded him vividly of the missive that Malfoy had owled to his room; the first letter that had brought Nott to Surrey, and all the instances thereafter. Like an eager pup, his mind latched onto the thought of Nott and refused to let go no matter how ardently he bid it to.

A knock pounded softly at his door. Harry froze.

"Yeah?" he called, setting the letter aside and making for the doorknob. Twisting it hesitantly, he pushed himself into the space he made pulling the door open, only to come to face with his aunt. Petunia's blonde hair was let down in blonde waves, lips pinched loosely together as her pale eyes flickered over Harry's head, no small amount of wariness in her gaze. Harry tugged at the hem of his loose shirt, which had slipped over a shoulder and revealed the peeling burns that his hours spent trying to fix his new bike had drawn there. Petunia peered at his bedraggled state disapprovingly, and squared her shoulders after a second of silence - as if reminding herself why she had come at all.

There was something markedly strange about her visit: a new reluctance in her eyes, and an unconventional habit in the way she twisted her fingers together like Harry so often did when he got nervous. What could his aunt possibly have to worry over, other than her precious Dudley? Thought Harry, derisively. "Vernon won't be returning tonight," Petunia informed him, coldly, "and Duddy's sleeping at a friend's, but it does not mean you are not to resume your chores as usual tomorrow. Yes?" He blinked, confused. Was that all?

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." he responded, monotonously, as he had done so many times before. It was second nature, this submission. Harry resented it wholly. Just as his aunt stepped away and made for the stairs, she paused before the very first step. When she turned, her bony fingers were toying with the pearls of her choker, a dubious knitting to her scornful face. Petunia curled her nose up. "The neighbours have been talking, Harry," she told him, impassively. The look in her eyes, from what Harry could care to pick out, was anything but. "This . . . strange boy you've chosen to loiter about with - that will not continue. You will not continue to tarnish our name, you hear me?"

There were ghosts in her eyes.

Harry nodded curtly, and stepped back into his room with a forceful shove at his door. Swallowing thickly, he turned around and was greeted by the sight of Hedwig chirping at the new owl. Fable still asleep, by her side the radio was making the strangest noise. Its antenna extended upwards - he had taken the time to try and fix that as much as he could, in likewise - it expelled a loud, crackling symphony that grated at his patience. Fist curling at his side, he made for the letter on the dresser and perched on the edge of his bed. He flipped it over again, stared at its uninked back, before slipping a finger under the cobalt wax-seal and popping it open. The envelope was made of a far finer parchment than he had seen before, even for Malfoy's letter. He wondered who it may have come from, and felt a burst of excitement when his eyes flicked to the end of the letter and sighted a familiar name. Nott.

Potter, it read. The calligraphy thereafter was stilted, as if he had not known what to write and had waited many minutes before the words finally came. A number of lines had been spelled away, but those that remained were deftly hidden, crossed over with rich ink.

Your muggle settlement, drab and horrifying as it may be, is a fair space to find company. If you would be amenable to it, I would spend time allow you to keep me entertained for the day, whenever you may wish it. Despite your fil muggle cousin, I regret to inform you that you are hardly as deplorable as Malfoy paints you to be.

If you were wondering, the marks that your cousin and his entourage left on my face the night before are healing well. Treat my owl well. Her name is Odile.

T. Nott.

⚡︎

For no particular reason, when he's done reading over the impossibly-neat scripture, Harry tapes the letter to the wall closest to his bed. The radio had stopped humming nonsense ages ago, and all he is left with is a litany of useless tools tucked away near the lamp where Fable slumbers, and an empty parchment in front of him that begs for words. None come to mind, and so, disappointed, Harry sets his quill aside and nudges the radio further from the edge of his desk. It crackles promptly at the touch, but does not spit out a song beyond its usual gibberish. Wriggling beneath his thin blanket, he clicks off the lamp and settles down on his pillow, watching the crackling radio obsessively. Wondering if it may, finally, crackle a song he knows amidst the chaos and nonsensical sounds it makes. Nearby her cage, Hedwig and Nott's owl, Odile, slumber together. It's an odd name he bestowed to his owl, and he wonders why it sounds vaguely familiar as his eyes droop. Stubbornly does Harry lay there and try to make sense of its undiscernable noises.

T. Nott. The last thought he has before sleep takes him is simple: what the hell did the 'T' stand for?

There is a pleasing sensation that comes with the knowledge that he will see Nott again, and it follows him into his dreams. That night, for the first in weeks, Harry Potter's nightmares do not touch him.

Waking was a groggy experience, terrible and itchy at the eyes. Hedwig and Odile are still pushed together in a flurry of feathers, though Fable had relocated herself some time during the night and had taken over Hedwig's perch once more in protest. Harry rubs at his face, drags a hand down it, before ruffling his hair and pushing his glasses on with haste. Having forgotten to draw the curtains before he fell into sleep, the dawn bursts through his room. Tugging it back into darkness, head pounding, it takes him a second to realise that the crackling from the radio had stopped. It had not gone silent, nay, not like the many times it had taken to try and coax it into working, but was, instead, singing. Harry cannot find it in himself to recognise the song, but it comes to him after seconds of gathering himself into awareness. "... when I'm far from home, don't call me on the phone..."

He listens to it until the song ends. When it does, the radio goes still once again, and words find Harry's fingertips like an artist's mind to a muse. He writes Nott in the early dawn, and sends Odile off with an invitation to Number Four with excitement churning in his body.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

⚡︎

𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ᴠɪ . ᴋɴᴏᴡ ɪ'ᴍ ʜᴇʀᴇ

⚡︎

NOTT'S owl had departed two hours before Harry mustered the strength to draw himself out of bed. He had watched Nott's dark owl flutter away to naught but a speck of black on the swiftly-lightening horizon, and had tugged his curtains shut quickly to hide from the burst of luminance that rose thereafter over the peaks of Surrey houses. Outside, there was very little sign at all left that early summer had left the town haunted by ghosts; people now left their houses in plenty, and the playgrounds and pubs had begun to fill up again. More than once, when Harry flickered his eyes, he saw residents young and old flit by - so ardently taken by their own selves that they no longer registered the wider world around them. No longer did Little Whinging appear so miserable and dry, but it, too, had become hellishly crowded.

On the lawn of Number Four, bike resting in his lap as Harry worked away at it with greasy fingers, there was nowhere for him to hide. When it had been blisteringly warm, he had not needed to hide, not so as he felt to do now. Hard work was gruelling, made only the more terrible when he occasionally caught the wandering eye of a curious neighbour turning to the Dursleys' home. Many times before he had departed for work that morning had his uncle Vernon spit up a tiff at the misery of having to go to work on such a 'fine day as this'. He had suggested, upon his return, that he and Petunia and Dudley all go out for a drink and meal at a pub nearby. It was owned by the brother's friend of one of his coworkers at Grunnings, Harry knew, and Vernon supposed this ought to earn him some favour with the staff. A discount, perhaps.

Having been forced to vacate his room at the unfortunate discovery that the radio continually droned on the same song for minutes on end, his mindless tinkering with the brakes of his bike progressed eerily well. Despite having very little knowledge on every twitch of his fingers and twist of his wrist, by the time he had managed to remove the old pads and replace them with the pair he'd stolen off of Dudley's untouched bike in the shed, it was close to midday. With every ticking minute, the rugged watch on his wrist a helpful presence to count, ever did the thumping of his heart stagger with anxiousness. Harry could not recall the last time he had been so worked up over an invitation; more so for the fact that it was often he being invited, and not the one inviting.

It was hardly as if he took the time to attend any event he was invited to, however. That simple thought did nothing to soothe his nerves.

Hedwig had flown off after Nott's owl an hour after she had disappeared, and for whatever reason, he had deemed it swell for her to fly off on adventure. Few letters were ever given and released from Privet Drive, and that horrible stew of guilt in his stomach for Hedwig's complacent stillness had turned sour in the more recent days. It had been easier to let her go than initially he may have considered it to be; at the very least, he knew that Nott would not turn her away . . . he hoped that Nott would not turn her away, anyhow.

His stomach churned with hunger as he fitted the new brakes into the wheel's mechanisms - or, truth be told, whatever nonsense he was doing. Harry ducked his head and grazed his teeth mindlessly over the inside of his cheek, the familiar burn and scrape making a finger twitch; his focus sharpen. He imagined that, if she had been there, his mum may have rebuked him for such a harmful habit. Lupin had always said that Lily Evans, the girl he had known and not the woman she had died as, had been more warm-hearted than any other girl he had met before. There was not much that Harry could claim to know of his mum, but for that they had the same eyes, and that she'd had a head of vivid, red hair. She had possessed a sweet smile - at least, in the picture she had, in the frame he kept on his desk - and kind eyes and . . . perhaps she had been good at school, like Hermione was, and fret needlessly over her friends like Neville sometimes did. Perhaps she had been restless like Sirius, or level-headed as Lupin.

Harry felt a sharp pang of something that no longer felt like hunger, and held his breath tight. It had been a very long time since he had thought of Lily Evans.

As if he had sensed the chance for an opportune arrival, a shadow cast dark and long over his sat form. Tipping his head up, he needed not even squint to see the figure stood afore him in sullen-faced formidability, for Nott was quite so tall that he shied it away with his frame. "Potter." greeted the boy, as tonelessly as ever. There was something more amicable, however, about his greeting this time although Harry could not put his finger as to whether or not he had imagined it. In response, he felt his lips curl at their edges and his shoulders loosen.

"Nott," he spoke back, twisting the slippery-handled tool he grasped firmly in his hand against a screw, tightening the hub at the wheel. "You got it, then?" A stab of anticipation screwed up within him without explanation. Harry set the tool aside and gently lowered the bicycle to rest on the grass instead of pressing against his lap. When he stood, wiping his hands on the denim of his trousers, Nott was staring at the bike strangely. At his question, the boy's eyes fluttered with small surprise before he nodded curtly.

There was a vaguely-amused gleam in his green eyes, when Harry focused upon them. "Eloquently-worded and legible as a poem," remarked Nott, gaze flickering minutely from Harry back towards the bicycle. "What is that?" A faint twinge of disgust had seeped through the fabric of his words, the corner of his mouth twisting in the most veiled of sneers. It was not an expression he could claim to have looked upon before, and was one that would have appeared more at home on Draco Malfoy's face, instead. Harry did not know whether or not to cringe at the similarity of their expressions; the relation he had gleamed, for a second, on their features. Ron had once joked that all purebloods were related. The thought had been horrifying even then.

Following his judging stare over to his new bike, a huff of laughter slipped from his throat unbidden. "It's a bike," said Harry, a twang of incredulousness colouring his tone. When he looked back to Nott, there was no hint of recognition on his face at the sound of the word. No matter that he had lived within magical society for already six years, he had been raised with muggles for the majority of his life. The first time he had been forced to explain to Ron what a toaster was, he had begun to question the intricacies of wixen life. "It's . . . transportation, I guess. Gets you around fast, 'cause, y'know, there's no magic here." It was a part of 'normal' life he deemed glad for him.

Harry had never owned any semblance of grace when it came to wizarding modes of transport.

"It looks barbaric," commented Nott, looking to Harry like he were the mad one. Too, with a dry look as though he needed not to be reminded he was surrounded by muggles. It was the longest he had ever heard him speak. "How does it work?" The tension in his shoulders belied his need to reach forward and prod at the medieval, muggle contraption he gazed afore him. Nott thirsted to master all the knowledge of the world as a politician did to rule it, a quality that Harry reluctantly found himself admiring. But for this mean alone, this prick of intrigue that graced him in that drab, muggle town, Harry knew it was simply morbid interest driving him and nothing much of the genuine sort. Harry snorted softly, and reached down to hitch the bike up. As soon as he was able, he thought to himself, he would have to repaint it. Chips crumpled away to the grass when it straightened, and rust still flecked at many of the wheels' spokes.

For some reason, he found himself eager at the chance of a demonstration, and pointedly propped a foot up on one of the pedals. "You just put your foot here . . . push off," Harry urged it to spin, and drew his foot away quickly. In response, the front wheel of the bike squeaked and rolled forward with haste. "And the wheel moves, and brings you where you wanna go. You just have to keep pedalling to move. Yeah?"

"Barbaric."

He barked out a laugh, body rippling with amusement before he wheeled the bike over and leaned it up against the neighbour's lawn-fence. It was the only house that possessed one, and for years had Mrs. and Mr. Number-Six been under terrible scrutiny from the rest of Privet Drive for it. Harry was sure they wouldn't mind. If it happened to chip away at the fresh coat of paint . . . well, he was sure nobody would mind.

Glancing over his shoulder to where Nott stood, cloakless and almost normal-looking, he made a gesture towards the seat and cocked a brow. "I wouldn't mind if you took a turn, test it out." offered Harry, only half-joking. The other boy bristled like an angered cat, glowered at the bicycle, and tipped up his nose with an aura that reeked of haughtiness. There was not much within him that would be pleased to be caught impaled to death on such a . . . haggard-seeming torture device. The expression he wore spoke his thoughts blatantly. For emphasis, he stepped back, purposely placing distance between himself and the fence. No words emerged from him thereafter. He'd the impression that Nott did not speak much, and only then spoke when it was earnestly necessary to.

Jerking his head towards the door of the house, Harry began to move towards Number Four. The grease that slicked his palms felt uncomfortably thick and warm under the sunlight. "I won't be long, promise. We can go somewhere, see a movie if you want." Then he skipped up into the house and hurried upstairs. Each grain of the floral walls had his stomach tightening. Not even Hermione, undoubtedly the closest of his friends, had seen the inside of Number Four. So much as he could, he would like for it to remain that way. The kitchen sink's water was cold enough that it urged Harry into quickening his pace, scrubbing furiously at his hands until his skin was clear and his face wiped off. Pleasant enough that he paused for only a few, greedy mouthfuls before making for outside once again. As he passed by the hooks hitched up on the wall, he chanced sneaking his hand into Vernon's coat and snatching a five-pound note to shove in his pocket.

The lawn was empty.

Harry paused, looked around, and tightened his brow. All the uniform front-gardens of Privet Drive had been cleared, without sign of any neighbours or oddly-dressed wizards come 'round for a visit at his behest. As if he had disappeared in a puff of smoke whilst he had been inside, Nott was . . . gone. Just as disappointment began to swell like an overflowing pipe threatening to burst, he shook half-a-foot into the air when a voice chimed up behind him, sharp as steel. Nott was hardly soft-spoken in tone, no matter how stupidly quiet he was, and his words held an air to them like a demand. Wherever he had been hiding, it had been a masterful place to do so. But Harry reckoned that, unlike him, he would not lower himself to hiding in the magnolia bushes to scare him. For fear of ruining his pretty clothes, of course.

"What's a mo-vee?" demanded Nott, standing abnormally still despite the swiftness with which he had come upon Harry.

It took him a second to catch his breath, and another to press his hand to his chest to force his racing heart to calm. His ribs were rattling slightly with every inhale, an old unfortunate injury of Dudley's. "Movie," stressed Harry, rubbing at his chest quietly. "Er- like, a play but- like, reflected on a screen. Recorded on a camera." That, he hoped, would calm Nott's tendency to scare his soul from his body. The wizarding world possessed cameras (he knew that better than most, these days), ones that produced moving pictures. Therefore, it would not be so difficult, thought Harry, to understand an explanation as trivial as a movie's.

Paused in place, even as Harry began to walk away from the house, Nott asked, "Another muggle contraption?" before rapidly moving to match pace with him. Harry nodded in reply, and said, "Yeah. Muggle thing."

⚡︎

"Why are the pictures so still?" asked Nott, as they ambled into the town-centre. It was bustling with people who had gotten off of school and work that day, loitering around and weaving between plants and spending their money needlessly. Harry glanced over to Nott with a curious look, before he gave a small ahh of realisation and fought the urge to smile. Despite the continual frustration that came with admitting that he did not know as much about muggle contraptions as others assumed he might, it was always unfailingly amusing to hear their questions on such little matters.

Harry, thumbing the five-pound note he'd stuffed in his pocket, told him calmly, "Muggle pictures can't move." He craned his neck to glance over towards a tiny, vibrant showchase in a shop's window, and nudged Nott's attention towards it with a gentle shoulder. "That one's moving. It's a bit like magical images, but it's a recording." If he were to be entirely honest, Harry would not be able to claim any knowledge on the difference. Of everyone he knew, he reckoned Hermione would be the most apt at explaining the more mundane parts of muggle culture. Disregarding his rather poor explanation, Nott gazed at it unblinkingly until Harry had to veer him out of the way of an approaching elderly couple he had not seen walking in front of them.

Surrounded by muggles, he felt a small stab of guilt at the sight of Nott's stiffened shoulders. Some part of him had simply assumed the boy would be comfortable, though that in itself had been a rather shallow consideration. "The theatre's emptier," Harry assured him, without quite knowing why he was doing so at all. "I think you'll like it." What did he know about what 'T.' Nott liked, anyway? But he needn't answer the question to himself for, at that moment, they reached the front of the modest movie theatre nestled in the middle of Little Whinging's town-centre. It was painted a garish red, with slats fitted in the arches overhead to spell out the names of movies that were currently screening. Posters were lined up behind glass cases, and school-children eagerly awaited their turn to enter in seas of excitement.

Nott eyed the children mistrustfully. Harry glanced at him sidelong, and stifled a noise of humour that may have caught him a hex.

Inside, a rush of cool air brushed against their face like the most adept of charms swathed over a wizard. Like a blanket of magic, it soothed his beaten back immediately, still burned raw from his work outside and brushing uncomfortably against his shirt. For his part, Nott was soundless in his intrigue, craning his head - albeit subtly, for pureblood decorum followed him even in the most shadowed corners of Britain, evidently - to look at all the blatantly muggle architecture around them. The wizarding world had been cast over in the past for decades, and likely would not be able to reach the grasp of the modern age for some time yet. All the vivid colours of the nineties blared against his eyes, used more to calm, soothing shades of dark hues and brilliance. Harry tugged gently on his sleeve's hem, dropping it when he had successfully caught the boy's attention and approached the till.

"Muggle confectionary," mumbled Nott, prodding at a bar of Cadbury Dream. When he tilted his head slightly towards Harry, a curl of sandy hair fell in front of his eyes. Seconds later, it was impatiently swept aside with a silent huff. "Potter," he said, approaching cautiously, slowly. He was glancing over to the cashiers bustling behind the tills with wariness. "They don't sell caramelised butterflies?"

His lips twitched. "Most butterflies are poisonous to muggles, y'know. There's many made out of chocolate, instead."

"Chocolate." said Nott, derisively, before slumping his shoulders and leaning over the till to look at the rest of the items displayed and ready for purchase. Harry watched him for a moment, before drawing out his fiver and leaning on the counter hitched up on his elbows, hips held back. "Not a fan?" he guessed, a lightly-amused tone to his question. Unrelenting in his pursuit to hail over a cashier, Nott looked over his shoulder only once with a faintly impatient furrow to his finely-trimmed brow. Harry judged that he had very rarely had to wait on someone, rather than the other way around.

His nose curled. "Chocolate is a child's sweet," he declared, softly. "Made for . . . fools like Malfoy."

Harry pursed his lips and nodded sagely, watching as Nott glowered at a young lady who sauntered right past them and handed a bucket of popcorn to a waiting family first. They shared a look. Ducking his head briefly to mask the smile that had curved over his mouth, Harry tapped a finger against the counter, rhythmic to the same song that his beaten radio had played for hours without a singular change. If only he could remember the name of that garbled song. "I thought you were friends with Malfoy," he commented, evenly, looking up at the boards where the prices were displayed. "You seemed close in your letter."

Though he did not turn to look at him, Harry felt the weight of Nott's scrutiny on the side of his face. Moments later, after edging silence, he shot back, "Fools can be friends too, Potter. Surely you of all people are aware of that." Maybe he had liked Nott better in his peculiar, off-putting muteness. Before he could make to let out an incredulous 'hey!', the lady from before walked up to their line partition and smiled at the both of them. Glancing over the boys, the expression stilted minutely when her eyes flickered to Nott, then turned curiouser when they swivelled unto Harry. The other boy's head had whirled around at her approach, staring unflinchingly at Harry in expectation.

His eyes turned quickly between her and the screen overhead as he slid the five-pound over. "Two tickets for . . ." The girl took the money quickly and folded it up into her apron. Harry watched her curiously, wondering if that was even allowed, before promptly naming off the first title cheap enough to catch his eye, as well as a small bucket of popcorn. Popcorn was what caught Nott's ear, who had been staring at a group of brightly-dressed teenagers hanging around in a nearby corner. He turned his head with a tiny raise to his brow, and from his pocket withdrew smoothly a single galleon. "Let me," insisted Nott, frowning sharply when Harry jerked the coin away from sight with a hasty look around. A perplexed expression was levied upon him. "Potter."

"You can't-" Harry sighed, torn between exasperation and an easy, lightweight sense of fondness. It was the same, he told himself, whenever Mr. Weasley welcomed the Dursleys with a miasma of befuddling words that always turned his uncle Vernon an unattractive puce. "We use different money, in the muggle world. You'll get robbed if you have that out." Unfurling his palm, he slipped the galleon smoothly into Nott's hand, fingers brushing for only a second before the young lady returned. They jerked away from each other. She had come with the promised tiny bucket, and a pair of paper tickets slid over to them. With a bid goodbye and an odd, lukewarm smile, Harry hauled a starstruck Nott away from a floss-machine's line of sight and towards the movie-screens.

An idea struck him suddenly - a thought he had not considered before. Just as the man at his pedestal looked over their tickets and let them through, Harry offered the bucket to Nott and informed him, with as much emphasis as he could, "They can't hear you if you speak, by the way." Avoiding terrible situations had never been his forte, but whenever they were ridiculously stark, he often made-do with the equipment at his arsenal. Was a saving grace, that he was so keen these past few days. Yet Nott, who still looked into the faraway distance every so often, bewildered at the prospect of being robbed, only gave a shallow nod and began to blithely feast on the popcorn. Harry wondered if he had heard him at all.

. . . Nott had not.

By the time they were sidling out of the movie-screen and out for the theatre-door, Harry was courageously battling the urge to hang his head - if only to shy away from the judging eyes that followed them around the theatre. Nott, undeterred and unnoticing of the people who grumbled at their heels, strode with a straight back and shoulders pushed back proudly. For how tall he was, there was only the vaguest slump to his posture that allowed him to prattle on about the screening of Thelma and Louise Harry had suffered through for two hours whilst the boy mumbled to him every few minutes with questions and remarks. He supposed that what was best of it, was that Nott had rather enjoyed watching the 'mo-vee', and had declared, without time for protest, that he would return with many galleons to pay for every seat in their screen.

When he had asked if he intended to watch the very same movie, Nott had paused, before affirming swiftly.

Harry had let him demand so. Despite the brief walk of humiliation out of the movie, it was the most entertained he had been since summer began. Stifling a smile as a couple shot them a disgruntled series of looks from the nearby distance, Harry fiddled with a loose string by his pocket and led the two of them out into the breezy afternoon. It was sweet-smelling and cool enough that the warmth did not feel especially balmy, and helped him ignore the sporadic stabbing at the temple nearest to his scar, and the prickles that tingled up the scarred flesh. Inside of the screen, he had been burdened with the vague sense that they had been closely-watched throughout the entire thing. Nott's incessant talking had mercifully distracted him from that . . . yet, as they turned the next corner, Harry knew that he ought to have not forgotten about it at all.

"Oi!"

When Nott craned his neck over a slim shoulder, Harry nudged him forward with a swifter pace to his step. They were in public, he reasoned. Nothing bad would happen in front of so many people, would it? "Keep walking, it's no-one." he told Nott, not unkindly. The boy frowned, pulled at a ring that was slid unto his second-right finger, and gleefully went back unto the train of his ranting. Blissfully unaware, for as long as he would have it. The hurt done to his face from two days ago back at the park-fields hadn't yet faded from his face, and with a prominent lack of blood on Nott's face, Harry could spot, every so often, the thin line of a pale split on his lip. Ardently did he wish to avoid a repeat of that night.

Not for a moment, he wondered just what it was about him that attracted trouble. He told himself that he wasn't going to dive into trouble again, would not do something foolish and get the both of them hurt. Any attack by a muggle left them more vulnerable than if it had been a wizard. Abruptly, Harry was reminded of the summer before his fifth-year, and the cold, unyielding press of a Ministry court-seat under him. He had been encircled by the red-cloaked entourage of the Wizengamot, tried as a criminal rather than a schoolboy. Dumbledore had refused to return his eyes, and any scrutiny that turned unto him had been vicious enough to curdle his blood.

Any sort of danger, these days, left him on edge. Somehow, yearning for a fight. It had been some time since Harry had last hexed someone - that 'someone' being Nott's dear friend, Malfoy.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder. Harry jerked away from the stubby press of fingers above his collarbone, feeling the gruelling pinch of nerves under the brutish hold. Swivelling on his heel, he stepped back slowly at the sight of three boys their age trailing at their heels. The closest to them, the one who had grabbed Harry first, curled his lips over his teeth in a sneer. He had greasy, black hair and wore a fine-looking starter jacket, with an unfriendly look to his dark eyes. "Don't want trouble," remarked the second, the one in the middle who raised his hands slightly and approached the two of them. Nott's face had gone stony, impassive as he levelled an unimpressed stare unto the last of the boys next to him, who grimaced and shied away. The second flicked a finger towards Nott. "You got summin' we saw back at the movie's. Gold, was it - real gold? Bet it was fake, weren't it?"

Harry glanced over to Nott. The irresistable urge to tell him I told you so was overshadowed by the fact they were, admittedly, outnumbered. He was not entirely sure that Nott knew how to fight with his hands at all, which left, in truth, one to three. Great. Terrific. As he opened his mouth to retort, Nott snatched his arm back from the third boy with a disdainful little sniff and furthered the distance between them as discreetly as he could manage. "I doubt you would recognise real gold if your teeth were made of it," he drawled, voice slick with scorn. Nott's green eyes flicked towards the first, then the third, and finally the second. "Although I suppose any replacement may work . . . well in your favour."

Ha.

"Real gold," repeated the first boy, reaching forward to rattle Harry's shoulder a little, a strain to his voice. He was grinding his jaw with frustration as if he found them particularly dense. "Or fake?"

"-Curley," interrupted the third of them, who had thought to finally notice Harry's presence by him. "Look." he urged, thumbing at something around his neck. Nott's eyes followed the motion shrewdly, and saw the most bizarre symbol clutched between two, chubby fingers. The mark of Tammuz. A curious talisman for a muggle to possess. The muggle boy held it rigidly, almost afore him like he were wishing for it to cast protection over his poor, thieving soul.

Curley turned his head, and the second followed. They all, for seconds more, stared at Harry. The third was the first to shuffle back, though did not desert his friends more than he waited for them at a far breadth away. Bated breaths, eyes that sharpened their watching like the scrape of a knife's blade over a whetstone - he felt like a prized freak to gape at, a specimen beneath a microscope. Harry hated it. Hated how they looked at him, how that boy clutched his cross like he were the devil incarnate. He knew him - it would have been ridiculous had Harry Potter not known the Gardners, had he not known who Terry Gardner was, and his religious freak of a mother. She had been the first at his school to cry out witchcraft and devilry at his face after he had been found on the roof of the school; after he had turned his teacher's wig blue, and had made a spider crawl over Terry Gardner during Maths because it was his friend, and Terry had killed the rest of them with his shoe at play.

As Gardner remained distanced, Curley hacked and spat at Harry's feet, and reared back, wiping his hand on the leg of his jeans. "Devil-boy," he cursed. "C'mon, Jo. Don't need to be 'round this freak. Probably put an enchantment on that gold of his." With a flamboyance expected of a head so inflated with arrogance, Curley Terrence - for that was his name, plain as the boy was himself - grasped the second boy by the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him away. A last, fearful look was given over Terry Gardner's shoulder before the three boys disappeared back into the throngs of people in the town-centre. Harry watched them leave, his stomach churning with fury - hatred.

For fear of what he may glimpse, Harry did not look at Nott. His scar was hurting again, a soft throb behind his skull that pulsed harder at his temple. No matter where he walked, which world he existed in, there were few places where Harry Potter was not an anomaly. A freak. "Devil-boy," repeated Nott, softly, staring after the boys until he could see them no longer. He was closer than Harry expected, and his tone remarkably unscathed by what he had seen. When he dared to slant a look towards him, the boy had a gleam in his eyes. Nothing of repulsion, however, marred his features. They were nice features . . . At least, of course, compared to his classmates. Parkinson had the nose of a pug and a most unpleasant sneer, and Malfoy was all pointed paleness; like a whitewashed wall.

Nott was disparate from them, and exactly how he was, Harry had yet to entirely figure out for himself. He did not reckon he wished to. Summer would eventually end, and they would return to Hogwarts as strangers; it was how their kind functioned. It had been a silly dream, finding a friend amidst his loneliness and anger. It had always been just that, a dream-

"A fitting name," Nott's voice interrupted his brooding. Startling, he studied him, puzzled, and tried to cease the mad fluttering of his jolted heart. "Devil-boy. Far more pleasant than the Chosen One. Why do they call you that?" It surely must have been laughably easy for Nott to ask questions, when Harry'd half a thousand on his tongue that would never sound through the light of day. He envied his even boldness, and shrugged a little morosely. They went along the cobble high-street down to where an ice-cream shack had been erected on the side of the road, teeming with the residents of Little Whinging escaping the summer heat.

Inanely, he thought of the dreams that had followed him with forked tongues and wispy-cloaked veils. Merry, grey eyes dimming of their light amidst vivid verdant, and the puff of slitted breaths against his neck. ("You know the spell, Harry--") Harry had not dreamed well in the times that he had been cursed with them, if any of the dreams of his life could be named so closely to something pleasing. "They're . . . different," Some part of him he refused to acknowledge mourned at the prospect of ruining Nott's perception of muggles (for all that how terrible it may have been already) with the proclamation of their astounding hatred for anything Other. "It's not all of them, these muggles, but they're a judgemental bunch. Like to- y'know, make assumptions about people."

He didn't tell Nott about the centipedes he had planted in Rosie Gardner's floral cardigan the day after she had demanded he stay away from her boy, so as to not infect him with whatever he had been plagued with. He didn't tell Nott about the cupboard-spiders he liked to sneak into Dudley's bed, and how he had been caught, once, surrounded by snakes in the playground of his old school by a teacher who had shrieked with fright. Perhaps, if his silly dream persevered and held its foundations firm enough, he would one day divulge the stories.

"Ah," Nott clicked his tongue, nodded slightly and said no more.

Time found the two of them perched on the edge of a fountain sequestered by the ice-cream shack, where the hopeful elderly and youth heaved coins of copper and silver into the water on a prayer. Nott watched them with a strain of inquiry on his face, and occasionally asked Harry questions that meant very little at all, but ones that were simple enough for him to answer with relative ease. It was made of marble, and was chilly even under the thickness of his denim. Leaning close to the water, he skimmed his rubbed-raw fingertips across the surface and counted every ripple that swam across the pool. By his side, Nott was nibbling on a Cadbury Dream bar Harry was unquestionably sure he had not paid for, and was swinging his long legs from his perch; as content as a well-fed bear [1].

Quietness allowed him clemency to think. How was it that, so swiftly, his letter had been delivered to Nott? Surely his mother had not permitted him to leave his manor - or wherever purebloods lived - on such short notice. Legacies were important, and as far as Harry knew, he was the only son of his main line. He liked to imagine his parents might be the same; protective. Naturally, it was only a curation of his imagination and would never come to fruit, but for Nott-

Harry had come to realise just how very little he knew of the other boy.

It shamed him, to some degree, to know that for all the mounting time they were spending with one another, he knew not even his forename - not what colour he liked, or . . . his favourite song, if Slytherins indulged in frivolities like music. Ron had joked, once, that all Slytherins were carbon-copies of Professor Snape who hung upside-down in their sleep and abhorred happiness as determinedly as they fed on malice. Dean and Seamus had chortled with laughter, and even Neville had chuckled behind his heavy Herbology tome at the flare of dramaticism Ron's flailing limbs had given to the tale. Harry regretted not having laughed at the time, for his mood had been so terribly surly that he had been no joy to hang around, either. But Nott wasn't that bad, for he appeared, most times, perturbed - if relatively untouched - by wrongdoing and flexible with merriment.

A question stilted on the tip of his tongue, ready to drop off and make itself known. Perhaps it would be best to begin early, to begin to know more of the oddity at his side. Would he even answer any questions he posed, or slyly evade them like Harry knew he could? . . .

"Do house-elves typically wander in muggle settlements?" chimed Nott, a cheek bulging with a large mouthful of Cadbury chocolate. Harry only thought once to the irony of it before he shifted, and straightened abruptly. The boy was studying the tiniest slivers of space between each person winding their way through the town-centre. Steady lines of lumbering trees running down the pavement offered a shade with their extended canopies to peer beneath. He was looking at something that Harry could not see, and it strung him high with unsettlement. Harry, unceremoniously, pressed close to Nott and worked on following his line of sight. Purposely, he set aside the small, inconvenienced noise that Nott gave and sprung to his feet a second later.

Only a courteous glance was given back to the boy, more owlish-looking than he had ever seen him, before Harry was darting away.

Like a whippet, he expertly wound through the throng and heard Nott's Potter! behind him as he made chase. Harry had been running all his life, and his feet were swift as the wind when he ran, glasses slipping from the line of his nose. But he'd a much more important task on hand, now, than waiting for Nott and letting a slinker disappear back into the shadows. House-elves were dangerous, Harry hissed around the air and snapped his teeth with frustration, shouldering past a man who hadn't been able to duck away in time to avoid him. He could just about hear Nott's half-hearted apology that was anything but well-meaning, signalling his rising closeness. House-elves were bound to their masters - could be used as spies. Could deceive anyone who asked them anything, if they were cruel enough to do so.

His trainers skid loudly on the pavement, as his hands caught him just at the very second he may have flattened himself on a wall. Harry whipped his head over his shoulder. Nott, rumpled and less than thrilled at their current circumstances, appeared through the last blanket of the crowd. Catching his eye in the space of the smallest moment, he made off down the space between a pound-shop and a women's clothing store. It was grungy and dark, and bled dry by the summer heat that had turned England into a cesspit of natural famine. The concrete under his feet was cracked and upended, with bins reeking and overflowing, unattended and abandoned. When he strained his ears, Harry could hear the flopping pats of feet in front of him. Pressing closer, he rounded the next corner and caught himself on an upended delivery-box hitched up against a house wall.

"Kreacher!"

Nott slowed to a stop by Harry's shoulder, lips parted thinly with small pants that heaved his chest, and rosy spots of colour risen up to his pale cheeks. Harry tore his eyes away and glowered to the furthest corner of the impasse they'd run into. Slowly, toeing over to stand sidelong, Harry fingered the hilt of his wand tucked away in the band of his trousers and began to approach the rattling bins in front of them. After a second of hesitant deliberation, Nott drew his own wand and followed suit, a heavy knit between his brows. "Potter," he warned, quietly. Looking back to him, Harry shook his head and slipped his wand out of his jeans. Warmth rippled up his arm, clambering over his shoulders and shrouding his neck like a cowl; it sparked to life as it sensed his hold, and buzzed finely with suspense.

The holly wand was as restless as Harry himself was.

"Kreacher," Harry tried again, not daring to raise the wand quite yet. "Come out of there." The bins rattled ominously at his call. A familiar curl of white-hot resentment stabbed at his chest as he saw the first, drooping line of a pale, house-elf's ear. A beady, wrinkled eye peeped out from behind one of the wheelies, and long, knobby fingers clenched around its body. He betrayed us, thought Harry, bitterly. He was the reason Harry had gone to the Ministry - he had lied about where Sirius was. He had been gleeful at his deceit, and Harry wanted to kill him-

Finally, Kreacher emerged.

Sluggishly, at first, before he realised it was derision that dragged his steps painfully slow. The elf was as ugly as the last time Harry had seen him, his loin-cloth swaying in the little breeze that came through the alley. He had a snout-like nose and bloodshot eyes, with many folds of skin and bat-like ears that sprouted scraggly, white hair. Upon his thin mouth, there was a twist of mockery painted into a scowl. Harry fought the urge to hex him. By the brush of another shoulder against his own, he knew by instinct that Nott had approached, frowning at Kreacher as though the elf's mere appearance insulted him. Although not particularly fond of the look, Harry had no other choice but to appreciate it in that moment.

"Filthy master's half-breed heir comes to torment poor Kreacher," bemoaned the wretched elf, a heavy signet ring balanced on a thin string of leather around his neck. He recalled seeing it back at Grimmauld Place when they had been cleaning up the tapestry-room and Mrs. Weasley had forbidden Kreacher from taking any of the artifacts for his own. In their absence, he had seemingly reclaimed a few for his own; Orion Black's signet ring, most obviously. "Potter comes to find Kreacher, to . . . immortalise the cruelties of his mutt dog-father and torment my mistress-"

"YOU SHUT UP!" screamed Harry, jerking his wand up as it spit dangerous, flaming sparks right before the elf's nose. Kreacher loured ferociously at him, snapped behind his pointed teeth, yet staggered back against the wall behind him all the same. His heart was jerking uncertainly in his chest, and the tones of his breathing had become frighteningly irregular. Harry wanted to kill the wretch for what he had done - except . . . He deflated. It had been his fault Sirius had been at the Ministry at all, not Kreacher's. Kreacher had not killed Sirius himself, he had not bid Sirius go to the Department of Mysteries and . . . and, disappear behind that veil. How Harry had hoped he might return on the other side, gleaming and lively as he had been in life. "Sirius is - you were spying on us." he accused, suddenly.

Nott had gone very still. Most unfortunately, his attention had not yet swayed towards his companion.

"Spying?" repeated Kreacher, darkly, wringing his thin fingers together. His large eyes strayed over to where Nott stood, for all the world an effigy of flesh at Harry's side; unyielding as marble itself. "Kreacher was not spying on Potter, or his . . . friend." When he grazed his eyes over Nott, Kreacher's ugly face soured. Recognition warred with vitriol within his gaze, and he pondered at it absently before Harry lowered his wand and advanced quickly. Surely Kreacher hadn't come to face with Nott before? The only person he could think of who might resemble him so closely as to warrant a reaction like that would be . . . his father. It was all becoming awfully muddling for him. Harry despised it; he hated it all.

Politics and wars and - sometimes, the magical world. He hated it.

"Sirius," murmured Nott in Harry's ear. He jerked, hardly even realising that the boy had moved. "Not Sirius Black?" Harry drew his jaw in tight, and kept his eyes fixated firmly upon Kreacher. Slimy elf he was, he would not put it above him to attempt an attack in chance of escape. He would not let that happen, no; not if Kreacher was following someone else's orders, spying on Harry. Not if Kreacher was under the hand of Voldemort, whose presence the Blacks were so irrevocably twined with, that it would be impossible to claim otherwise. Sirius' elf had tricked him once before when he had given him his trust. Harry would not make that mistake again.

Disjointedly, he ducked his head in a shallow nod. Swallowed hard. Tried to focus more on Kreacher and his wandering eyes than the breath at his neck. "This is his house-elf," he told Nott, breathing hard. Harry's attention cranked back towards the elf, distrust curdling in his heart, his rationality. There would be few words the elf could speak that he would believe, now. "You're here for a reason - aren't you? Tell me why you're here, Kreacher. I've got a wardrobe of clothes waiting for you if you don't." No answer came. No affirmation of his suspicions nor dissent to them emerged from Kreacher, who was twirling Orion Black's ring around his longest finger. Many of them had been removed, but ever had Kreacher been a sticky, thieving little monster.

Frustration welled in him like it had done so when he'd been a boy, slighted by everything around him. Harry twisted his wand in his hand, considered his next words, before promptly declaring, "If you don't tell me, the next time I see your mistress I'll set her entire wall on fire." That, most of all, would bring him a special sort of joy. Sirius had hated his mother and the nasty words she had spread like gospel, shrieking her feral insults at any who dared walk past when Kreacher was not there to console her in his croaky tones. The elf jumped, and turned a wide-eyed glower unto him so terrible that it would have quaked his knees, had Harry not matched his fury in plenty. "Tell me, Kreacher." he insisted, pressing only firmer on the matter. Indeed, there were few who could match him in a competition of obstinancy.

Kreacher babbled under his breath, murmuring the most vile of affronts his mind could stew up, before from under his ducked chin, he flickered his eyes up to Harry and, sourly, nodded. "Master Sirius," choked the elf, staring hatefully at the two boys. Even for a second, he appeared incapable of doing so much as meeting Nott's eyes. "Master bound Kreacher to look after the Potter boy. Kreacher-" He tugged hard on his ears and grumbled fearfully, maliciously, under his breath. Harry stepped forward, mouth half-open to command him to stop punishing himself - after all, it was a habit so regular of Dobby, too, that it was hard to miss in any form. Nothing came.

"Kreacher heard nasty wizards in Knockturn Alley talking about Kreacher's new, half-blood Master. Nasty wizards saying nasty, nasty things - dangerous things, and said they found Master's home. Kreacher is bound by Master Sirius' oath, and Kreacher lives to preserve the House of Black."

⚡︎

Chapter Text

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𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ᴠɪɪ . ᴡᴀɪᴛɪɴɢ ꜰᴏʀ Yᴏᴜ

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KREACHER was an astoundingly tight-lipped elf, for all his loving penchant for prattling to their enemies as to their deceit. As astute and advantageous as the best Slytherin, his lies were silver on his tongue - which, Harry thought, ought to be forked and far more venomous than Fable's, back at Number Four. Manipulation was a characteristic of the eccentric house-elf that he would go so far as to assume Nott enjoyed witnessing in a creature like Sirius' house-elf. It had not mattered how many more times Harry promised revenge on Kreacher, nothing else came from his mouth but little whispers of maintaining the sanctity of his mistress' line. A terrible irony that he had remarked on, when, finally, Kreacher had popped away and he and Nott emerged back unto the town-road.

"He lied to me, months ago," Harry admitted, tensely, gaze flickering past the throngs around them. He'd only the brief consideration to take the time and wonder as to just how Nott had seen Kreacher so easily, for he was a slight figure despite his wickedness and slippery when he wished to be. "It . . . caused more trouble than I expected. Bad stuff." The boy at his side was quiet, but he sensed how, whenever Nott assumed he did not notice, his eyes would turn over to him with the most curious shine within them. Long had it been since Harry had not felt a stare on him at least once a day, even on those times he walked underfoot on empty streets. Even the shadows had eyes, here.

Nott nodded, slowly; almost as if he were hesitant to do so. "I remember," he told Harry, thumbing the cone of an ice-cream he'd not the coin to pay for - nor had the time to acquire at all. Harry looked at it, baffled. "My father was arrested at the Department of Mysteries. You're a strange boy, Potter, infiltrating the Ministry." There was a definite pointedness in his tone that was difficult to miss, and made him feel embarrassingly warm to have been its recipient. He had almost forgotten that Nott's father was a Death Eater; an easy thing to forget, confessedly, when his son was quite so differing from him. Lord Nott had been at the graveyard, too, that night, Harry recalled, dimly. Even in his dreams, the scene had begun to fade over with the first clambers of a hazy vignette. Often, he could hardly recall the cold pallor of Cedric Diggory's face, or the ardent bravery that had tensed his muscles in protection of them both, before he had been-

Someone cleared their throat loudly from nearby, a hacking noise that startled him out of his reverie rather unpleasantly.

Nose curling, Harry instinctively drew to his own defense. "It wasn't infiltrating, I just walked in. It wasn't really hard."

Surprisingly, Nott laughed. There was a smear of pale ice-cream on the corner of his pale lips that he swept away with the quick dart of a tongue. The stretch of his mouth meant the split upon the bottom lip caught the light. A pang of guilt curled in Harry's stomach at its revelation. "You . . . walked in," he repeated, skeptically. "Pray tell, how did you simply walk into the Ministry of Magic?" Harry coughed, remembering the floo in Umbridge's office - her capture by the centaurs, and her shrieks as she witnessed Graup lumbering towards her in the forest that day. The thestrals, and the telephone box that he and his friends had all huddled themselves up into. The name tags that had dropped from the coin-slot, and the emptiness of the Ministry atrium that day.

"Thestrals," he told Nott. "We- well, flew over to London and took the muggle entrance in." Harry shrugged. He was unversed in this - never having truly faced the need to explain his excursions to anyone else. Typically, his friends were there with him; at the very least, otherwise having had information beforehand to riddle out the rest. Other than that, people never tended to ask. The Daily Prophet was intent enough to snoop into his life, that half of it had been pasted on the front page the very day he had been born.

A peaceful little hum. Nott took a bite of the whipped ice-cream, letting the cold slide through his mouth with the calm sense of warmth tingling at his fingertips. "Thestrals, of course. A perfectly . . . sensible mode of transport. What was wrong with the floo?" When Harry looked to him quizzically, Nott seemed to huff - he raised his brows the slightest, and stared at Harry like he were especially dim. It reminded him vaguely of Professor Snape. "Malfoy has a loud mouth. He cursed your name for a week straight, if I remember correctly. It was the longest week of my life. He mentioned a break-in to Professor Umbridge's office." A smile twitched at the edges of his mouth. Harry watched it, entranced at the sight of a boy as solemn as Nott smiling, before forcing his eyes away and nervously wetting his lips.

His hands were becoming uncharacteristically clammy. "Floos leave traces," Ron had been the one to tell him that; Ron, who had known something that Hermione did not, had been so pleased with himself even flying over the clouds at light-speed had not dimmed his beaming pride. "We had to go in undetected. It's not like there was anything to stop us, was there?"

"Except the law." returned Nott, dryly.

"That was a suggestion," Harry scoffed. "I ignored it."

Nott laughed again. It was a nice sound. His tanned cheeks warmed, and he shoved his hands into his pockets, fiddling with fraying strings inside to give his hands something to do - to halt their restlessness lest he do something foolish. Together, strolling through Little Whinging, there was little of the reclusive shadow that Harry had caught of Nott in Hogwarts; for all many in Gryffindor, in their year who bothered to look his way, enjoyed naming him batty and mute, Harry knew with certainty, now, that he was anything but. Perhaps he did not speak often, yes, but he'd the impression it was of necessity. Someone like Nott, he was beginning to understand, did not enjoy meaningless speech. He spoke only when implied it was obligatory, or a thought came to the tip of his tongue.

Finally, after settling down his ice-cream and starting to nibble at the edges of the cone, the boy's voice chimed once more. "That was Sirius Black's house-elf," said Nott, facing forward. "I don't think I should be very surprised Harry Potter happens to be Sirius Black's godson, too." Pursing his lips gently, Harry felt a knit between his brow and listened to every accidental scuff of the toe of his trainer against the cobble underfoot. Ever when he walked did his feet drag a little, a habit that his aunt always rebuked him for; a habit borne of years having to linger in their reflections. Nott's words reminded him, all too suddenly, that there were those who did not know what Sirius' circumstances had been like - what his parents' circumstances had been like. People would think as they like, he knew that well, but it often let slip away from Harry that they did not know the truth, nor even an impression of it.

"He was innocent: Sirius," he replied, feeling a bristly defensiveness stirring reflexively within him. Harry frowned, wondering at the surge of anger within him. Stamping it down, he watched the swaying of his shoelaces as they reached the edge of the town-centre, sunlight beating down upon them as they stepped out of the canopy of the many, linear-set trees. "He was my dad's best friend. Liked to talk about him a lot." Despite the number of times Sirius had gushed about James Potter, whenever he deigned to muster an image of the man in his mind, he saw nothing. Only his face, but brown-eyed and stronger-featured, staring back at him through a mirror. "In fourth-year he lived in a cave above Hogsmeade, but he must have been in the tropics before, I think. Kreacher's been with his family for ages, and they hated each other in all the time they lived together."

"He's mad," commented Nott, casually. There was a pique of interest to his voice, and Harry deemed it thereafter safe to talk about Sirius. The man was dead, anyhow. He no longer walked among them, or had not even a grave holding him to the earth. He was somewhere far away - somewhere Harry couldn't reach. "Kreacher, I mean. The ring around his neck reeked of dark magic, more foul than I've felt in years. It was latched unto him like a vice."

Harry huffed a chuckle. He found it difficult to believe there was something that wanted to be around the elf. "Hey," he said, suddenly, as they began to inch out to the part of town where shops bled away into residentials. "You don't . . . er, well. Merlin-" Nott chewed thoughtfully at his ice-cream cone, craning his neck to stare blankly at a car as it whizzed past. He stiffened, but did not move from his long stride. "I mean, we'll see each other- no, wait."

The boy's head turned towards him, and his eyes fluttered in the ghost of a blink as if he were only just noticing Harry was speaking to him. Nott was not so undignified and torn from his courtesies that he would so unashamedly blurt out a what? nor any less prideful that he would have admitted at all to not hearing what he'd said, but the expression he wore was more than enough for Harry. Never had he felt quite so much like a fool than now. Dark wizards hunting him aside, the current exchange was rapidly becoming his worst memory. Be out with it, Potter, he thought self-deprecatingly. "D'you wanna go for lunch tomorrow? I . . . don't have anything to do, and I thought-"

"Sure," agreed Nott, placidly. He was almost finished with his cone, and after the sight of the first car, didn't seem to mind the others that rushed past them on the road. The critical ogles he set upon each distinctly unmagical sight around them would have been amusing, had Harry not been so begrudgingly fond of the muggle world itself. He had never thought to guess, at all, that a pureblood would understand such a life, as much as a muggle would not do the same to the wixen world. "I have . . ." Sighing heavily, as though it pained Nott to admit it, he continued stiffly, "begun to consider that your muggle home is rather . . . quaint."

Amusement toyed at his tone next. "Quaint," echoed Harry, in a mimicry of their last exchange. "High praise." Any inch of nervousness that had rattled him earlier had, for the most part, dissipated into the warm surroundings. They parted at the corner-turn of Privet Drive where a passing neighbour looked upon them carefully. He recognised the man as one of his uncle's drinking friends who never came over, yet always appeared to have his name spoken in the house nonetheless. A portly man, who waddled past them and caught the sharp gleam of meanness in Nott's wandering eyes. It was hardly as though wizards, themselves, were never at risk of becoming quite so stout, and Harry imagined it was simply a condescending propriety to be well-meaning to those that were. A stout frame often meant wealth, but to all the purebloods he had before seen, they were awfully weedy despite their richness.

Nott said nothing of it, however, and bid Harry well in not so many terms, afore he was gone . . . and Harry, once again, was left alone.

That lingering awkwardness that had arisen within him at his stuttered request for lunch returned - and, abreast, tension. Kreacher may well have been a conniving slinker, but house-elves very rarely disobeyed the oaths they were held to by their Masters. Sirius had not ordered loyalty beyond secret-keeping from his elf, which had led him to the betrayal at the end of the school-year, but Kreacher had been bitter (resentful) of his task for Harry. Preserving the House of Black. He wanted to laugh; perhaps, more, to cry. He had done a poor job of it when he'd let Sirius die . . . but, then again, Kreacher more than anything worshipped each word of his mistress, Sirius' mother who had held her eldest son in shoddy regard. A disowned son. Maybe she had cared more for her elf than her true blood. Harry imagined it easily.

Held to this oath he claimed so spitefully, Kreacher would not have found Harry in Surrey if he had been lying. Nasty wizards saying nasty things. The words flipped over like a coin flung into the air, waiting to fall into his open palm. Harry swayed his foot at a dandelion sprouting between two concrete slabs on the pavement. It fluttered, but its stem was strong and held firm, sprouting up as though nothing had happened to it at all. Resilient little thing. They knew where he lived. Knew how to get to him. And he knew, some part of him, that the dreams that had followed him had done nought to assuage the certainty of this knowledge. He was always in danger; it was what Dumbledore had consistently claimed. The supposed wards around Privet Drive were why he could not leave - why he had to stay with his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, and vile Dudley.

His mother's blood; her protection. All the reason that was needed to condemn him to misery every year.

His dreams, the connection he had with Voldemort . . . He still felt, vividly, the invasive press of Voldemort's mind within his own. The agency that had been stripped from him like the soft peeling of a parasite from its host; the agony that had burst through his body, and the mindlessness in how his limbs had moved and contorted, his tongue aching as it was coerced into words not his own. Harry shivered, hunched his shoulders high, and slipped into Number Four as he arrived on its decorated doorstep. The very moment he had stepped inside, he was accosted by the sound of great steps lumbering towards him from the living-room. Dudley had been away at his friend's, a stay planned for days-long, and would most blissfully not return until next week. Too, his Aunt Petunia had declared her intention to visit a friend-of-a-friend who had tripped upon her stairs the other day and fractured a knee.

Which left only his uncle, and himself, at home.

"Potter!" barked Vernon, sticking his balding head out of the door. "Hurry, boy, the phone's on for you," An expression of dissatisfaction had turned over his rotund, moustached face. "One of your freaky friends. Now, boy." he ordered, waving a hand impatiently as Harry loitered nearby. He hurried into the living-room and took seat on the cushion by the end-table, the telephone resting upon it half-off of the receiver. Vernon grumbled at him, and stumbled his way over to the conservatory's telly instead. Glancing back to his uncle, waiting for his leave, he gazed anxiously at the phone for only a second before he grasped it firm and jolted it up to his ear. Who was calling - which of his friends? Merlin, why were they calling him?

"HARRY!" He jumped, wincing as he jerked the phone away from his ear. After the screech had settled down, relief coursed unbidden through him at the sound of Hermione's strident tones. Cautiously, Harry drew the phone closer again and bounced his knee with bound agitation. "Hermione-" He made to greet, the familiarity of hearing her voice again making him feel unusually light. It had been days since last they had seen one another, and it had been the day that Malfoy's letter had been rerouted to him by his hellish owl. Vile thing. Hedwig still stood vigil at the sill, sometimes, waiting for it to return.

Hermione's voice was thick, like she was teary, and although she scrambled to lower her volume, the words that came next were garbled and indecipherable with speed. "HarryIwassoworriedaboutyouandyouneveransweredmycalls . . . Howdareyouignoremeyousillyboy-" Ah, Hermione. Whilst Harry struggled to retain whatever nonsense she was rambling on about, he caught the twinge of fear that licked at her every rapid sentence; fear that ought not to be there at all. Not if nobody had been hurt - not if everything was fine, and he knew that, whilst he did not receive correspondence from anyone back in their world, Hermione always did.

"God, okay- Hermione, calm down," urged Harry, sweeping a hand through his hair, grimacing as the greasiness of the tousled locks stuck to his roaming fingers. "I can't understand what you're saying. Just- is anyone hurt? What happened?" She paused abruptly midway through her distraught blustering and fell, most suspiciously, radio-silent. Calls between them were rare, though not unheard of, during the summer. Every horrible possibility skimmed past his mind, each worst than the last. The simple not knowing that her prompt call had rumbled through him made his blood run cold, the peeps he shot over his shoulder every few seconds stopping in the face of her worry.

"You haven't heard?" she asked, voice tiny, after seconds of her muteness. Hermione was seldom so skittish. Even in the face of danger she was fairly level-headed.

Impatience rattled him. "Heard what? No, I haven't heard anything, Hermione."

Her voice still trembled when she spoke, but there was a note of dubiety thick and plain in his ears. "There was - the newspapers, Harry. You really haven't read them?" As if sensing his next retort, Hermione scrambled quickly to follow through with her explanation. "A young girl, a witch, she was attacked at the train-station next to Leftfield Lane. You live nearby there, don't you? They think, the Prophet, I mean - they think dark wizards did it."

Static droned in his ears, woolly like his hearing had been stuffed with cotton. Harry swallowed thickly. His mouth tasted like ash. Kreacher's appearance, his oath, his confession- none of it felt very much like a coincidence at all. "Who?" asked Harry, clearing his throat sharply as his voice came out hoarse. "Why'd they think it was a wizard? Why not a muggle?" No other question had come to mind. For the fact, maybe, that he sorely hoped, perhaps selfishly, that the attack had been a result of simple fighting. That it hadn't involved magic; that, truly, Kreacher's words were not true. That, despite Dumbledore's promises, Harry really wasn't safe at Privet Drive at all.

Even Hermione, brilliant Hermione, didn't seem to know how to answer that. "A girl called Callahan, but they never gave her first name. She's a minor, and-" She drew off unexpectedly, shaking her head free of divergences. "She was admitted to St. Mungos, not a muggle hospital. Skeeter says she was cursed, but whatever that woman says, you know. . . Harry, promise me something, yes?" How he despised promises.

No matter that, he could not bring it in himself to refuse her pleading voice. Harry nodded, head heavy. "Sure."

"Meet me at that cafe tomorrow. You know, the one near my house that mum and dad always go to - we've been there before, you and I, maybe you remember it," Like hell did he. "Lunch, tomorrow. I need to know you're okay. Maybe if . . . if you aren't in Little Whinging tomorrow, there might be a chance you avoid some other attack." Merlin fuck above all.

⚡︎

After a sturdy, particularly venomous tongue-lashing from his uncle, who had stormed back into the living-room not seconds after Hermione had made him promise to double-book his lunch (albeit unbeknownst by herself), Harry listened to nothing but the rabid pounding of his heart all the way up the stairs. The carpeted steps did little to muffle the heavy way he moved his feet, nor did the hinges of his door ever squeak so loudly, with such vengeance, that it perfectly painted the extent of his irritation - that insatiably-frothing fear inside of him he had continually done naught to pay tribute to. Harry let the door swing shut behind him, threw himself down onto his bed before he noticed it.

His heart lurched with a sickening jolt. Harry scrambled off of his bed, jaw falling slack as his eyes flickered quickly. "Kreacher was waiting for Master Chosen One," croaked the dour elf, from his desk. He seemed especially peeved at his lateness, and was busy sticking his lumpish fingers at Harry's radio until it hit a button and switched it to life. "Master Half-Blood left Kreacher with new enemies. Nasty enemies." One of his large, bat-like ears twitched as Kreacher turned snappishly and clicked his pointed teeth at Fable, who had coiled up and was busy spitting at him the filthiest words Harry had ever heard her speak.

Part of him wanted to know where she had even learned to speak like that.

"Snakey tried to bite poor Kreacher," the elf continued grouchily, glowering at the radio as it droned and crackled, song filling the air between them. "Master's owl has a sharp beak, but not keen as Kreacher's teeth."

Harry spluttered for a few seconds before shaking his head madly, turning back briefly to glance at his closed door then towards Kreacher again. Hedwig, sat nearby Fable, had puffed her feathers up with such vigour that even her gentle countenance was glistening with owlish danger. For once, they were not engaged in battle, but instead united against a common foe. "What are you doing here?" he blurted out, surging forward to clamber back onto his bed and hold his radio far away from Kreacher. "How the hell did you even get in?" As far as he was aware, the wards around Number Four disallowed any Apparition inside the premises and vice versa . . . although, that had not stopped Dobby from disturbing him in the summer afore his second-year.

"Door." sneered Kreacher. Ah. However he had not gotten caught by Vernon was beyond him; at Grimmauld Place, every step of his had felt to be ridiculously loud when he was not lurking to frighten the odd on-goer in his mistress' home. He would have thought that, from sheer spite alone, Kreacher may have knocked down a tempest whilst clambering up to the first floor. Harry counted himself lucky, after a cursory sweep of his eyes over his room, that nothing of his had been touched. But for the radio, humming against his chest. It sung its maddening tune again, spewing off continual drones of "hanging out by state lines" and "turning holy water into wine". Nonsense he hardly understood. 'Drivel', his uncle would call it.

Pushing himself off of Harry's desk-chair, Kreacher began to stick his fingers in every crevice of the room that he could reach. Hedwig screeched and flapped her wings as Fable beared her fangs. "Stinky bat smells, Leaf," said the snake, hatefully. "Smells like dead. Bad dead, like rotten." A novel of distasteful remarks left Kreacher's mouth whenever he caught sight of something that refused to sit right with him. Whether it were a small, lion-embellished flag hung nearby his bed, or a Weasley sweater stuffed into one of his drawers, everything bore the weight of his judgement. Harry watched him, stayed tucked into the corner of the room where his bed pressed the edge between two walls, and frowned at every second of probing that stretched on.

"Right," Harry caught his breath, and soothed a small cut on his lip - nudged at by his teeth - with a sweep of his tongue. "Alright, you got in through the door. Now, why are you here, Kreacher?" There was not an inch of sensible probability in him that could guess why he had come to set a watch in Harry's room. It was not so ridiculous to the house-elf, who appeared delighted in humming insults over his starkly muggle-looking room and clicking his tongue over jabs at his friends. At another comment as to the state of his room, his eyes rolled back into his head. Fed up, Harry snapped, "Not like Grimmauld Place is any better, y'know."

"Mistress' house is magic," shot back Kreacher, without a pause to his exploration. "Master Scarhead lives in dirty muggle home, with dirty muggles, and consorts with dirty blood-traitors and mudbloods. Master Scarhead consorts with the likes of Notts. Kreacher thinks Master Scarhead is spectacularly stupid." Tossing his radio aside without a care as to where it went, Harry drew up in anger and reached thoughtlessly for his wand. The sound of those filthy words scraped like gravel against his ears, as jarring as the calls of devil-boy and freak had been since the first time they had sounded. Kreacher paused at the lowest cupboard of his chest-of-drawers and turned just as Harry pressed the tip of his wand beneath his loosely-jowled throat.

Harry knelt, and held his jaw tight. "You say that again," he warned, lowly. "I curse you. Yes, Kreacher?" Steadily, taking his time as to further prickle at Harry's nerves, Kreacher nodded with a shark-like grin stretched on his lipless mouth. It bore two rows of black, pointed teeth that caught the warm light of his bedroom's bulb. Keen teeth, indeed. Leaning back on his haunches, he reluctantly lowered his wand and threw it over onto his mattress, swivelling inquisitively unto the elf. "What did you mean by the likes of Notts?" he asked, abruptly. Vehement dislike flickered over the elf's face before he shook his head, turned his back to Harry, and continued to rifle through his belongings. Harry stood, toed off his trainers, and sighed loudly. "Fine, be like that. Stay here, if you want, but don't get me in trouble alright?"

He heard only a derisive snort in response before Harry was tasked with soothing the edged nerves of Hedwig and Fable, and only after a number of placating words and promises of treats did he eventually settle them. Raising his shirt high over his head and stripping from his trousers, Harry slipped into his bed and stared at the radio he'd repositioned back onto the desk. Kreacher was rattling the furniture, but soon it became a strange and calming rhythm that slowed the tempest of his mind's traffic. Of all that day - discovering Kreacher in the alleyway, the knowledge that he was being hunted and his pursuers knew exactly where he was, that witch-girl who had been attacked at the train-station he so commonly frequented - Harry went to sleep thinking of movie theatres, the golden flash of a galleon, and a soft-spoken voice dripping with sarcasm.

⚡︎

The Firefly's Light was a warm, modest cafe nestled in the midst of Hampstead Garden Suburb. Fashioned of walls of untouched brick, wooden window-frames painted in soft whites with an orange-hued awning stretched over the small terrace in front, the bitter tang of coffee and sweet scent of baking pastries wafted through his nose as Harry inched open the door and made his way inside. Sat around tables whether by their lonesome, working, or conversing with a friend or two, each person he passed was warmly-dressed in clothes finer than his own. Only half-conscious of what he was wearing - a dark denim jacket atop a pair of jeans scuffed at the knees with his beat-up trainers - he swung around, surprised, at a loud hail from nearby. A few heads turned, but Hermione, sat by herself at a table pressed up against one of the cafe's windows, hardly cared for it.

Her thick hair had been tamed back in a plait at the nape of her neck, with her large, brown eyes tracking every step Harry made before he was directly opposite to her at the table. Hermione wore a ribbed jumper sewn with a periwinkle thread that reminded him of the dress she had worn to the Yule Ball not two years afore, a slim locket settled at her sternum and her hands nervously worrying at the wick of an unlit candle sat in the middle of the table. Next to her, Harry felt like a hoodlum. "You came," she said, as if the realisation eased whatever had been eating at her for the past few hours. "I thought you might not come. It's silly, I know, but-"

"Hermione," interrupted Harry, not ungently. "The paper, that girl. That's why you called?" He watched as she stood from her seat, rounding the table to worriedly pat Harry down before she urged him to sit. Searching for injuries, doubtless; ever was she a needless worrier. Unsurprisingly, the twinge in his chest came with a hint of nostalgia. He had, admittedly, missed her. All of them - his friends. Hermione nodded, sighing harshly before glancing out of the window to their side, leaving the candle to fiddle with her jumper's sleeves, instead.

When their eyes locked next, as Harry shifted more comfortably in his seat, there was a furrow to her look. "Callahan, the young girl from Surrey, you knew her. You must know something about her."

Lost, he shook his head and settled his palms face-up on the table. "Nothing, I swear," Harry thought hard, and leaned back in his seat. "We- might have gone to the same primary, but she left for some girls' school in Gloucestershire years back. She might've been a witch, but she never came to Hogwarts." Merlin, and 'Miss' Callahan had never lived so close to Little Whinging as Hermione may have been under the impression. Had there been a magical family in the vicinity, Harry liked to think he may have discovered their existence before now. Just then, he pinched the bridge of his nose and felt an admission rise up in his throat. "Listen, Hermione-"

Everything that had happened in the last few days came to mind. Kreacher, Dudley and his gang, his dreams and how his scar prickled, and seemed coerced by his every emotion . . . Nott. He thought of Nott, next. That morning before he had departed Privet Drive for the train, Harry had sent Hedwig off to wherever Nott lived with a letter asking him over to the cafe. To him, it was the best compromise in the situation; especially with how he had stumbled over his invitation initially, and had very little wish for a repeat of the situation. Hermione leaned forward with confusion, small anticipation, and cocked her head to the side a little. He knew there was no chance of hiding much - if anything - from her. Crap. How did one go about telling a friend about another friend, who was a Death-Eater associate through his father?

Truthfully, Nott's association with them had hardly even registered to him, only for that he was so . . . normal that it made Harry forget each and every time the thought occurred. He ought to have been angry about it, ought to have turned Nott away and demanded he leave him alone. Hermione would have said it was the most rational route, would have suggested that it was Nott's blood-association with the Death Eaters that made him more dangerous than anything else. That he wasn't a friend- But he was. Wasn't he? The only one that had come to visit Harry in Little Whinging, who had written to him (if only twice, but plentiful more than Ron or Hermione) and seemed, earnestly, to enjoy his company.

"Look, I kinda . . . had plans with another friend, and invited them here." Wrong thing to say. Harry knew it almost instantly after the words had come, and ran a hand down his face with a rough sigh. No matter where it was, he felt like a fool explaining himself to others. "That sounds bad, let me start again. He's like us, 'Mione - goes to Hogwarts and everything, right. He found me near home about last week, two weeks ago, and he's just . . . you know." he tried, weakly.

With a sharply-pinched brow and heavy frown, Hermione was examining each twitch of his face like it were a riddle she were intent on solving. She continued to fiddle with her sleeve, but the unhalting motion of her fingers had been tempered by concentration. Much in the likeness of a bloodhound, Harry suspected she had a talent for sniffing the information that was not given - the hesitancy behind certain pauses and phrases, and the subtext of sensitivity when speaking. She terrified him, sometimes, but he trusted her more than he had trusted anyone in his life. If there was someone he wanted to know about Nott, it was her. Anyhow, they were bound to meet at least today. "What's his name?"

Ouch. Right for the jugular. Harry coughed inelegantly and clasped his fingers together. Casually, he started, "Well, I dunno his first name exactly-"

"Harry!-"

"-But. . . I am working on it, 'Mione." stressed Harry. Then he looked her once over, and pricked up. If there was anyone who might tell him, it was her. "You don't happen to know Nott's name, d'you?"

Hermione blanched. "Harry, don't tell me. . . oh, Harry," She hung her head and held it in her cupped hands, groaning into her palms before lifting it and shooting him a look so heady with annoyance that it made him flinch. "Nott. As in the son of Cantankerous Nott, the man who attacked us at the Ministry, the Death Eater." Rubbing at his nape, he added, unhelpfully, "They're estranged, now."

"Because he's in Azkaban!" Hermione slammed her palms down on the table and leaned over it, ignorant of the stares that had turned their way at the bang! Had she paler skin, he suspected her face might have already been beet-red with dismay. She was like that, Hermione Granger, so earnest in her emotion. "You're serious? Well and truly serious?"

Unsure as to whether or not he should, Harry nodded in affirmation. Then he raised his hands in defense, brow knitting. "Hey, he's not like him, and he's not bad. I think he's a little like you, y'know." Wariness edged at him when Hermione leaned back. For the distinct lacking of a more adequate phrasing, she looked as if she would enjoy nothing more than to rip off Harry's head. A bit like how Kreacher regarded him, sometimes. It was funny how things worked out. He peered closer at her face, and decided with surety that it was no longer funny. There was no telling what his friend would do at any given time, in such high moods. Luckily, Hermione had rushed past the line of her sense of decorum and had lowered down her temper with a well-timed inhale. When she exhaled, it was with a series of little nods and a canny look sent over one of Harry's shoulders. Following her eyes, he twisted in his chair and glimpsed Nott lingering at the doorway, dressed more . . . normally than he typically bothered to be in an area surrounded by muggles.

"He best be as lovely as you say he is, Harry," mumbled Hermione as Nott began a haughty stride over to their table. She was frowning, an expression that likened her more to McGonagall than anything else. It was . . . rather intimidating. He hardly recounted calling Nott lovely, but the moment he stepped up to the table and met Hermione's eyes, Nott's face twisted and he bristled like a poked bear. His eyes, as if in accusation, shot over to Harry. There were many Slytherins who had been the subject of Hermione's more colourful retorts to the word 'mudblood', and one unfortunate week in their fifth-year, one of her spells had strayed away from her target and hit Nott square in the back. The only part of that which brought him a queer sense of relief was that his discomfort around Hermione did not arise from bigotry.

In that regard, he was only partially terrible to muggles. The wixen, muggleborn or half-blood, Nott appeared to tolerate far better - especially in regards to his furthermore extremist classmates.

Hermione straightened in her seat and folded her hands in front of her. He saw the uneasy twitching of her wrist, and Harry awkwardly made space for Nott by nudging the last chair at the table slightly away in offer. "Nott," she greeted, a calm firmness to her welcome. Other than making a small gesture towards the chair Harry had kicked out for the boy, she gave no other sign that he was entirely welcome amongst them. She, too, had suffered her fair share of hexes - his association with Malfoy was a rather significant factor to her mistrust, other than his father.

"Granger." offered Nott, in return, dragging the seat out with a soft scrape against the wooden floors and lowering himself into it without a modicum of concern to his movements. A pale-green stare fixed on Harry. ". . . Potter." Harry hummed, nodded, and distractedly looked over Nott's chosen attire. It was, as aforementioned, the most normal - 'normal' in accordance to muggle standards - outfit he had worn during their convenings. By the sharp nudge Hermione kicked at his shin, he was wholly certain that the look was nothing subtle. Their eyes locked again, and Nott's gaze roved over him in likeness. A waitress sidled up to their table, sweet-smelling and pretty, carrying a cup of black coffee that she placed carefully in front of Hermione. It smelled strongly of bitterness with an earthy undertone to it. Hermione rarely drank anything so strong; perhaps her senses had been quite so rattled by the Surrey attack that she'd resorted to drinking beverages she undoubtedly would dislike.

After the waitress took he and Nott's orders of a milky and herbal tea, respectively, Harry felt his mouth curve with half-hidden amusement as he turned to Nott. "Nice clothes. Very muggle today." He had never been sure that Nott owned anything but the same pair of robes and slacks, but the boy always seemed to want to prove him wrong to some measure. Ever did it humour him so. Hermione sipped at her steaming coffee, choking slightly a second later before hastily setting it back down on the cup's porcelain saucer. Her face had twisted at the sour tang, the rich darkness of the brew, and she craned her neck around to search desperately for any prayed-for sugar to save the beverage.

Nott snorted softly, and hung his head a little. "Far more sensible, I'd say, than whatever denim atrocity you're wearing, Potter."

He made an offended noise, and gave a hey! of disagreement before Hermione settled herself back into her seat and began to spill three packets of sugar into her cup. They watched her both, taken aback, before she raised her head and glared. "We need to talk about that girl, Harry. Don't think we aren't, just because we have company," Curious, Nott turned to look at Harry and cocked a brow soundlessly. As always, the question sparkled in his eyes, and did not slip from his tongue. Hermione caught the look and sighed, shoulders deflating. "Callahan. A witch who was attacked near Harry's home. The Prophet thinks that the Death Eaters had something to do with the event." Without much shame at all, she squinted at Nott before raising her cup back to her mouth and sipping experimentally.

Unimpressed by her boldness, Nott only calmly lifted his own cup of tea when it was placed afore him, the waitress having returned with the two cups, and drank at the angrily-steaming drink. "Oh, whatever might you be implying?" he drawled in sardonic rhetoric. "I have no interest in mingling with Death Eaters, Granger. I'm not my father." Feeling much as if he had heard those words before, Harry attempted to escape the mounting tension of the table by following suit and drinking at his milky tea. Merlin, that was good. Harry set the cup back down and reached for the wrapped biscuit settled on the edge of the saucer, eyeing the two of them as they began to engage in . . . something.

Mayhaps the most horrifying exchange he had witnessed before. Worse, maybe, than Fable and Hedwig's incessant bickering.

. . . Speaking of the snake.

"Pale one smells good," whispered Fable against Harry's wrist. "Other one smells good, too. Good like food." Harry sighed and lowered his hand under the table, briefly abandoning the biscuit to run a finger along Fable's scales and chide her, hushed, "No. Not food. Friend, like me. Good like friend." A serpentine huff of laughter slid off of her tongue as Fable inched languidly out of the sleeve-hem of his denim jacket (which was, if he had to chance an estimate, about two times too large for him). She crept towards the table, the saucer and cup that he shifted closer towards her, and kept his eyes close upon Fable as her head peered up over the table's edge. Neither Hermione nor Nott had noticed her yet.

Where he was stirring his tea with more force than was truly necessary, Nott's shrewd gaze appeared to glower at Hermione. Their conversation had turned from hidden spews of accusation back towards poor, young Miss Callahan. They had been talking for longer than he had been aware of, and when Harry blinked, it was Nott who had already proclaimed, "I suggest you speak to the girl yourself, if you want the truth of it." Without premonition, the firm weight of two sets of eyes settled upon him. Nott and Hermione, both, looking at him. Awaiting an answer he knew not to answer - hell, he hadn't even been listening to what they were saying.

Hermione sighed with exasperation and took another swig of her coffee. It clinked loudly with her saucer when she put it down, capturing his attention whole. "We should visit her, Harry. You know where she lives, right?"

Harry grimaced. "How close did you think we were?" he asked, feeling his face crease with confusion - the barest hint of incredulity. "I knew her for, what, four years at a distance?" Fable curled around the bottom of his tea-saucer, flicking her tongue out quickly to taste the brew-rich air. Nott's gaze flickered down at the shift of shadow nearby the little plate, and he stilled midway through a sip as her head poked out and into sight. He had met her only once, the first time that they had met, with Fable curled around the base of Harry's throat licking happily at water. Beyond that, even Hermione didn't know about her. It had been mostly fear that drew him to keep his companion sheltered; apprehension that, should she be discovered, she would be forced away from him and good conversation and company would be scarce once again.

That, and he figured he had spoiled her quite enough that she would be near-useless in the wild were she released.

. . . Visiting Miss Callahan was not an entirely horrible idea, however. "She lived close enough to frequent the same station as you," Hermione reasoned. "That's where she was attacked. I told you."

"Fine," he conceeded, ripping open the biscuit packet and sinking his teeth into the confectionary a second later. After a few chews, Harry looked to Nott in query. "Are you coming?" The boy's lips quirked, and his hand sneakily inched forward on the table, closer to where Fable was wriggling and twining herself around the painted saucer. Naturally a Slytherin might have an affinity for serpents, or be less afraid of them than most were. Rather silly it would be if one wore a snake each day at their breast and was terrified of the reptile.

Nott lifted his shoulders in a delicate shrug, one that had Hermione eyeing him oddly. "It would be improper," he explained. "I would prefer to watch over that house-elf of yours, the mad one. You mentioned he set a vigil in your bedroom, and I wish to see if he makes better company than his master." They shared a look, Nott's lily-green eyes shining with quiet entertainment. Harry hid a smile into his tea, the rich liquid making sense of the warmth that rushed through him then. In the last seat at the table, his dearest, most intelligent friend Hermione jumped at the mention of Kreacher's name.

"What?" Bollocks.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

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𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ᴠɪɪɪ . ꜰᴀɪʀ ꜰᴀᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ

⚡︎

BY the ticking of the clock, the time - not three hours after noon - chimed and clicked through the little building of The Firefly's Light. Hermione's cup was drained of its coffee, Nott's tea only half-mast whilst Harry had finished his own far earlier than either of them. Fable entertained herself in the meanwhile with peering at the small dogs that accompanied their owners nearby, who yipped as she made herself barely visible for but a second before disappearing beneath Harry's sleeve-hem with a cackle or two. Outside, the sky was becoming grey and overcast, uniform clouds bustling overhead in battle-formations that bid them very poor fate. This time, having learned his lesson with shining galleons afore muggles, Nott reluctantly stepped aside and allowed Hermione to pay for their drinks as she slipped into her warm coat and waved them out of the cafe quickly thereafter.

It had become commonplace for her words to be as ill-suited to his rationality like too-small shoes over Harry's feet.

Hermione's shoulder brushed his own when they, eventually, slipped through the barriers at the nearby train station. She was eyeing Nott who, nearby, was midway through his attempt at grumbling and cracking the riddle of muggle transport systems. A paper ticket was rapidly crinkling between his long fingers, and an operator a few metres away was beginning to shift anxiously on his feet as the moment prolonged. Finally, as Harry had anticipated, Hermione leaned her head close when the boy finally managed to stride through the barrier with, perhaps, a look so disdainful it would have run Malfoy down for his galleons. "Harry," she whispered, sharply, nodding tensely at Nott before she led the two towards their platform.

Too enamoured by his unashamed gawking at the world around them, to the oddly-dressed muggles who sauntered past with umbrellas held high over their heads, Nott had become entirely unaware of Hermione Granger's mounting sense of suspicion. A wary Granger never did bode well for the recipient. Harry sighed, and squinted through the splatters of rain that had begun to fog his lenses. "Let me guess," he murmured, feeling a twist of guilt in his stomach at the knowledge that he, too, had gone through his fair share of mistrusting Nott. He had shown no deception, as far as Harry was aware. Maybe all Nott had wanted was a friend, like him, and not to sell Harry to the Dark Lord. "You think he told the Death Eaters" - Harry cleared his throat sharply as a muggle lady glanced at them curiously, and swiftly lowered his voice - "where I live?"

For a second, even Hermione appeared abashed by the bold statement . . . yet no less relentless in her reasoning. "You saw his father at the graveyard, Harry," she pointed out, reaching up to fiddle with the pendant of the necklace resting on her sternum. "Keeping him close-"

No slower than a bolt of lightning struck the earth, anger rose hot and sludgy in his chest. Slow, and oozing. "If he wanted to hurt me, you don't think he would've done it already?" hissed Harry, hearing Fable's dim, curious murmurs from beneath his jacket-sleeve. Looking over to Nott, he found that the boy had grumpily sequestered himself beneath a waiting-room's wooden canopy. The anger halted, flit away all too swiftly for the sight to have been anything else but a feeling of appeasement. Hermione could say all she wished about Nott, but he was Harry's - his friend. The first one he'd truly made himself, during the summer. He wasn't like 'Mione, or Ron, or even the other boys he roomed with who had become quick friends. It had been a recurring thought, that Nott was perpetually different from the others.

In response, Hermione's brow furrowed and a quick flit of worry graced her gaze. "I'm only saying," she appeased, gently, "There hasn't been an attack like this since before he showed up, has there?" Harry scoffed under his breath, shook his head and impatiently brushed aside a lock of damp hair that fell afore his eyes. He had little time or care to think as to whether or not his newest friend was actively attempting to murder him. Even then, he doubted it . . . with no particular reason to do so. After all, Harry and Nott had only spoken of his father perhaps once; even that exchange had been brief, and twinged with bitterness.

Minutes later, as their train drew into the station, Nott looked at it with a hint of scrutiny on his face. "Do all muggle trains look like this?" He bent his head towards Harry and asked, in a hushed tone. Perhaps lest Hermione overhear, and puff up with her typical, matter-of-fact pride that she knew something a pureblood did not. Somehow, Harry understood that - the need to not let others know you were less, that you didn't know something someone else did. In response to his question, Harry shook his head but said little else. Hell, he didn't know if all of them looked like the train that pulled into the station except for the Tube, but like Merlin was he about to admit that to Nott.

Hastily, they crammed through the train door the moment it slid open, rain beating down on them as they hopped inside and beneath the safety of a ceiling. The rows of seats were atypically packed, and it had taken minutes - halfway to the next station - before they had been able to find an opening in seats. Almost immediately, Harry shuffled over to the window and let Nott and Hermione arrange themselves as they like. With 'Mione sat in front of him, exchanged in a fierce, hushed conversation with Nott on the other side of the modest tray between them, Harry leaned back and lolled his head to the side. Let them argue as they wished, let them ignore how stupidly similar he was beginning to realise they may be.

But where Hermione held all her knowledge in the righteous words of a page, Nott was more intuitive - he seemed to know much of what he did as if it had been taught to him by the thin air, and not a dusty tome. Harry admired that about him.

Idly, allowing himself to drift away as water crashed down, flicking madly against the window at his side, his ears pricked absentmindedly into the conversation being held close nearby. A finger stroked along Fable's back as she peered out slightly and rest her small head between two of his protruding knuckles, murmuring some serpentine lullaby under her breath that he could not hear properly. Undoubtedly, he caught onto a few words that could have been nothing else but dead and ripe.

No less than an hour later, Harry straightened and blinked sharply. "Hey," he called, shifting in his seat. Two sets of eyes swivelled unto him - Hermione's taken aback, yet Nott's almost expectant. As if, at some point, he had been waiting for an interruption in the battle of wits he held with the girl opposite to him. "Where'd you say she lived - Callahan?" Shuffling his hands into his pockets, Fable regretfully retreating with a few stern promises for retribution, he led the two of them out onto the platform and twisted his nose up when his shoulder barged into a hastily-passing businessman flicking through a number of papers. Hermione tugged her jacket closer to her, and squinted around; unfamiliar. Despite her intelligence and adaptability to danger, she and Harry were perhaps the blindest when it came to navigation.

Ron was better at that than them, and Harry wished sorely that he was there with them.

"Leftfield Lane," she muttered, seeming to share a sense of camaraderie with Nott in how untrained they were in their navigation of the train station. Harry pinched his lips, fought back the barest curl of a smile, and made for the road beyond the barriers. It had taken, once again, a few minutes before Nott could figure out how to work the barriers. After a few well-spoken curses that might have had the ticketmaster nearby shivering in his boots, they matched stride and trod out to the rain-soaked streets. The sky had cleared, although the silver tufts that remained overhead felt no less foreboding than a thunderstorm. Even after they passed by the edge of Little Whinging nearest to Privet Drive and saw Nott off to Number Four, Harry could not shake the strangest of feelings from his back.

Hermione was eyeing him from sidelong, seeming to have stilled her hands with his very same habit of stuffing them in his clothes. "Kreacher," she began, with a stilted tone as if she couldn't quite believe what was happening at all. "Sirius' house-elf" - She grimaced at the mention of his subordination, and looked resolutely ahead - "set up . . . vigil in your room."

"Which is why we're here, I'd imagine," Harry replied, dryly, looking around as the houses that flanked them at parallel sides turned into buildings he did not recognise in fashion. "Part of the reason, anyway. Seems to think I've got a militia stalking me back at my aunt's." No matter what he may have assumed the words to evoke, the twinge of worry that struck her face did not ease more than it appeared to tighten. Harry sighed, and slumped his shoulders. "Look, I'm fine. Dumbledore - the wards - he wouldn't have let me come here if it wasn't safe." Somehow, his feeble protests did not convince even himself. Last year, the safest place, too, had been Number Four . . . yet there was Grimmauld Place, entirely unplottable and reinforced with magic. Half of the people he'd ever known tucked snugly behind its walls whilst he fought against alley-stalking dementors.

When moments had passed without a word between them, Hermione peered at one of the houses and snorted softly. "This street reminds me of home," she remarked, half-wondrously. Nearby Leftfield Lane, the streets were quainter; the quietness that shrouded it was calm, and did not carry a saccharine suffocation as so it did over Privet Drive. No neighbours glanced at the two of them behind their lace curtains, or pretended to complete errands on the front-garden whilst looking unafraid at them with distaste. Here, nobody knew the name Harry Potter or Hermione Granger, and he liked it more than he could have imagined. Suddenly, Hermione's tone became familiarly pointed. "Your new . . . friendship with Nott. You don't seem to have thought that far ahead, Harry."

"What d'you mean?" he asked, dumbly, head turning towards her curiously.

Hermione stared at him, rather like she thought Harry was a blithering half-wit. "You don't know his name, what he's loyal to-"

"I'd imagine himself-"

"-Worst of all," She raised her voice, and glared at him reproachfully. "What do you expect's going to happen when we go back to Hogwarts?" Reluctantly, her cadence softened, and pity shone briefly in her eyes afore it was overshadowed by a mounting sense of annoyance. Harry had expected it, and regardless found himself stupefied. Of course he had considered what would happen, he wasn't that much of an idiot, but no long hours of thinking would ever cease to make him worry more. Every possibility he thought of was only as inane as the last, and none at all made that much sense that he'd pay it another minute of consideration. He wasn't . . . used to having friends like that, he supposed. Not like Nott was to him,

Lifting his shoulders grouchily in a lazy shrug, Harry scuffed the toe of his trainer against the ground. A pebble gave way beneath the sole, and slid raggedly against the tarmac. "Dunno," he mumbled. Harry's ears, all of a sudden, felt hot. "He . . . I dunno, 'Mione, okay? He makes me less - angry, I suppose. With everything. Makes good company. That's all." So strongly did he wish to believe that, that he dared not lift his eyes to meet her stare. It, always, would be frustratingly shrewd; not like Hermione had already known what he truly meant, but more like she were actively attempting to figure it out. It made him feel vulnerable in ways he had never appreciated. But it was Hermione.

This time, however, she gave no strange look and merely reached forward with a heavy sigh and pat his arm. "Oh, Harry," bemoaned Hermione. "You're hopeless. Come on, we're close."

The news was more relief than he'd ever consider hearing. Much like Privet Drive, every house along Leftfield Lane seemed to be made much the same. Every neat-bricked house with their small driveways, tall hedges and nice cars were beginning to null the thoughts behind his wandering eyes. When Hermione tugged on the sleeve of his denim jacket and guided his feet to a sharp left, Harry frowned at the house in front of them. Were a blind man to chance a look along the road, even through his unseeing gaze would he have recognised the house. Number two-five-six. The curtains behind neatly-painted window-frames were a garish yellow, patterned with butterflies and what he could only assume were kneazles. A windchime was hanging near the door, and fluttered madly when they approached the potted doorstep. There must have been two dozen plants on the front step, their leaves brushing his legs as Harry and Hermione cramped together and waited.

Jamming a finger impatiently to the bell pinned up next to the door, she turned soon thereafter to Harry with pinched lips and a resigned look to her. Never was it like Hermione to accept defeat to a notion she had no implication of abiding with. "I suppose it could be good for you," she told him, lightly, albeit a little stiffly. "But don't think you can stop being careful around him, okay?" Before he could think to answer, some half-hearted rebuke as to how Nott was very few like what she thought he was, the door swung open.

An older man stands afore them, ruddy-haired as a Weasley and as dark-eyed as any haunted soul. He wrung his fingers together and had a slouched look to his posture, eyes flickering rapidly between the two with a growing, sickly suspicion. Harry recognised the peculiar garments he donned; the mismatched muggle clothing, and a runic charm-bracelet he wore around a thick wrist. An item he may have imagined someone like Luna wearing. "Yes?" asked Mr. Callahan, in a brittle voice. It was rather high-pitched, and trembled finely when he spoke, and Harry wondered just how such a character had been able to hide from him for so long. Surely he ought to have recognised the Callahans as wizards before - at the very least, as oddities, when he had seen them last at primary school.

Between the two of them, it was Hermione who stepped up first. Unallowing of a word from Harry in edgewise. "I'm sorry for bothering you," she placated sympathetically, sliding her hands out of her pockets and rubbing her warm palms together. Discretely, her brown eyes flickered behind Mr. Callahan's shoulder as if in search of his daughter. "I- we wanted to speak with your . . . daughter, sir," Fumbling a little around the name, for it had not been posted in the Prophet as far as Harry was aware, he commended Hermione's perseverence anyhow. "We're friends of hers, from school."

"School? Which school is that?" pressed the man, quietly, narrowed eyes hardening skeptically. Harry cleared his throat sharply. The girl attended a prim school over in Gloucester, and as far as he was aware, he was the only boy between them. Hermione's tanned cheeks reddened as she hastened to correct herself. "I'm a friend from school, sir. The ladies' school. Harry here lives in the area." She waved a hand sightlessly back towards him. He shifted on his feet, tense beneath Mr. Callahan's tight sense of inspection. Without prelude, Harry wondered if Nott was faring much better with Kreacher than they were with the Callahans. Before he'd departed from them, he had made sure to offer directions to his room, if simply calling upon the house-elf would not work.

Nott was smart, Harry reasoned. He wouldn't let a house-elf maim him . . . that much, anyway.

Ever so hesitantly, Mr. Callahan stepped aside and withered unto himself as Hermione and Harry stepped into the house. It was dauntingly chilly, despite the maze that appeared to have been made with oddly-shaped furniture and the strangest clutter of magical and muggle objects. Inanely, he found himself reminded of The Burrow. "Up there," muttered Mr. Callahan, weariness twining through the loops of grief that now made his words. "What did you say your name was again?"

Reluctant to hear the shuffling of their shoes on the hardwood flooring, they both ceased any sort of shift and planted their feet down hard. "I didn't," said Hermione, cautiously, before smiling tensely. "Hermione Granger, sir. And my friend's-"

"Harry Potter." he interrupted, staring hard at the man. A cloying reservation continued to daunt at him, and as if it were a shadow blooming under a shying light, flared out with verve. Consuming, engaging, all-encompassing. The feeling grew, and swelled, until Harry felt it would burst. It had followed him all the way from the train-station, and had embraced him the very moment he had stepped foot inside of the house. Hermione looked quickly over to him, frowning. Then, slower, turned to stare at Mr. Callahan.

The man had gone very still. Bug-eyed, so that the pale whites of his sclera seemed to glitter dully like exposed bone. He had freakishly black eyes; more pinching than Snape's, more unnerving. Never had Harry reckoned he would ever meet a figure more readily disconcerting than his Potions' professor. Hate for it curled fast within him. There was something wrong. "Of course," tittered Callahan, seconds later, edging off a nervous little chuckle that was far too high to have been natural. Sorrow had swallowed his expression. "She . . . my girl, do not upset her. Please." With small, inching steps did he make for the door, clicking it shut behind them. A triad of silver witches' bells that swung from the doorhandle clinked merrily.

Hermione's hand sought his own. Harry, for whatever reason he could not discern, held fast to it.

The stairs were narrow as the doorstep, and Mr. Callahan's strange stares followed them all the way up to the first floor. Harry felt his fingers tighten around Hermione's, and let his breath free once the man was out of sight. "You felt it too," he whispered to her. Glancing around the plane, all he saw was a narrow corridor with a window at its very end, a table tucked beneath the thin sill. A withering oleander was furling into itself beneath the grey light that bore it. In bother of his statement, a half-question, Hermione looked over her shoulder to him and nodded, unmanned by the queer display they had just faced.

"Here," she said, moving towards the nearest white door that faced them. Her fingers traced along golden-embossed letters painted unto the sleek wood. Anwen, it read. Around each loop of diligent calligraphy, blue petals extended from their squat, green stems. Like a dying man did to death, Harry recognised them instantly. "Forget-me-nots," he told Hermione, quietly, frowning at the details upon them; too fine to have been anything but magical. Despite their beauty, the life that the colour ought to have leeched into the walls, the house felt cold. Each picture that hung upon the wall, though they held faces, felt blank and bleak as the last. With a gentle knock of her knuckles against the door, Hermione reached doubtfully for the door-handle before wrenching it cautiously open.

Inside was a girl's room.

Harry thought that he ought to have suspected it would be that, yet the sight of it surprised him nonetheless. The walls were decorated with all the memorabilia of a growing girl, and over a neatly-divisioned desk were taped pages of old botanical diagrams and the odd magazine clipping he had glimpsed in Witch Weekly. Upon a twin-bed, floral bedsheets were pressed and untouched; without so much the indent of a shadow gracing their paleness. On the plush carpet underfoot, their steps were muffled. More disconcerting than the sight of the girl's room was the girl herself, hunkered nearby a window that looked out to rows of gardens beyond Leftfield Lane. Her skin turned dusty when, creakingly, her neck twisted to face them. Where Mr. Callahan's appearance had been marginally warm, any trace of life and colour had been taken from his daughter Anwen.

Her hair was pale as her skin, and her eyes were endless pits of black. Thin slivers of carmine were threaded through the white of her hair, but any vibrancy they may have held in a life prior had been peeled away with painstaking effort. Harry felt himself go rigid, and stared unblinkingly at Anwen Callahan as Hermione gently slipped her hand away and approached with kind deliberation. Although her eyes looked their way, he found himself less sure by the second that she saw them. Flinchingly, as if she had been struck, Anwen tucked herself tight to the windowsill and ducked her chin down to brush her chest. "Go away," she pleaded, voice weak and brittle as her father's. Within it was a strong, Welsh drawl.

Likening her to a particularly frightened bee, Harry pitied her in a manner he, himself, would have despised had it been levied unto himself and not her. But she was a girl to be irrevocably pitied, for no life still lived within to look upon with anything but grief and horror.

"We want to talk," coaxed Hermione, awkwardly, keeping her volume low. "Not for long, but . . . we have to know a few-"

"Go away," begged Anwen Callahan, once more, voice thickening with tears bled-dry.

Almost pleadingly, Hermione whipped her head over her shoulder and stared at Harry wide-eyed. Gathering any strength that had existed within him before Leftfield Lane, Harry felt himself move forward as Hermione retreated in kind. "We knew each other - back in primary," he began, gracelessly. He deigned to step no further than Hermione had, and plucked at a loose string curling away from the hem of his sleeve. "I'm like you: a wizard. I . . . think I know what you've gone through. The attack at the station - it happened to me, somewhere else. I know what it . . . feels like." Talking as he was scared him more than he would have cared to admit. Harry hated the words he rambled off endlessly, thoughtlessly, like any of them would matter to the girl the next day.

She would only be left with the vague memory that a boy dimly like her had visited, and had made her heart wrench with misery.

Blunt, neatly-trimmed nails scratched at pale arms. Behind, they left brutish streaks of red that caught the dust-laden strips of light like fine lines of blood. Harry felt his body jerk sharply. Anwen Callahan dipped her pale head and wept into her collar, shaking her head. Scratching, scratching, as if there were something crawling upon her skin that was not there - something she felt as if it still were. "They took it," she managed to gasp out between heaving, teary breaths. Shifting closer, he found himself soon within arm's reach of the girl. She did not raise her head. Harry did not want her to. Memory always shone brighter in the eyes. Harry had seen thousands of years' worth within his own. He did not want to know what she remembered, not all of it. "My- I feel it, beneath my skin. Like oil, like sand. It's waiting, Harry."

Hermione's head snapped over to them, where she had been carefully picking her way through Callahan's desk. She squinted askance.

"It's angry, under my skin," Anwen's small voice became frail and wan. As if the edge had not yet been rounded, her fingers continued to scratch away at her skin. He'd the faint impression that it was magic she talked of; the impression that it was, however, not magic she was attempting to peel out of her. Off of her. "I can't reach it. They took it. I-" When she began to sob again, Harry inched closer and caught one of her hands in his own. In any other situation, had she been any other girl, it may have made him stiffen and stutter. All he wanted then was for her to stop.

Twitching slightly, her fingers were fragile and bony in his own. From where she had drifted over to the other only window in Anwen Callahan's room, Hermione called tentatively, "Harry," and hailed his attention instantly. Patting Anwen's hand consolingly, murmuring a soothe of thanks to her, he made his way over to hover by Hermione's shoulder and tilt his head at her quizzically. But not once did she move to meet his eyes, hold his gaze or murmur some long-lost information to him that she had uncovered through her nosiness. Concern swept through him . . . along with it, a harrowing feeling of nausea in his gut.

Cautiously, as if he had no wish to know what it was she was looking at, Harry followed her gaze outside of the window. In the background, Anwen's little weeps sounded through her room. The fleshy scritch scritch of her nails against her arms scraped like the screeching of a blackboard in his ears. Down on Leftfield Lane, right afore the house on the other side of the road, a dark figure stood upon the pavement. Harry met its eyes beneath the swathe of its shadowy cloak, afore it disappeared with a shrieking crack! and ceased to exist any longer on that monotone, muggle road. When he chanced a look over to Hermione, she was already staring at him, fingers quivering around the unmasked length of her wand.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

⚡︎

𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ ɪx . ꜰᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀᴍᴏʀᴇ

⚡︎

CAUTIOUSLY, as if he had no wish to know what it was she was looking at, Harry followed her gaze outside of the window. In the background, Anwen's little weeps sounded through her room. The fleshy scritch scritch of her nails against her arms scraped like the screeching of a blackboard in his ears. Down on Leftfield Lane, right afore the house on the other side of the road, a dark figure stood upon the pavement. Harry met its eyes beneath the swathe of its shadowy cloak, afore it disappeared with a shrieking crack! and ceased to exist any longer on that monotone, muggle road. When he chanced a look over to Hermione, she was already staring at him, fingers quivering around the unmasked length of her wand.

They slipped out of Anwen's room with small remarks of sympathy for her suffering, feeble promises that they would return to keep her company. The erasure of an uneasy tugging at his nape felt half-impossible in that moment, as they trod carefully down the stairs. Such caution to every shift of their limbs, as if there were something in that house to fear. A soundless glance over his shoulder as Anwen's door clicked shut without any of them stirring to close it, before hurrying to watch his step and pause at the foot of the stairs as Hermione screeched to an abrupt halt. One of her hands was poised on the railing, her tanned fingers curling uncomfortably around the polished, dark-oak balustrade. The narrow staircase had opened up to the living room, where sat Mr. Callahan, feverishly twisting his fingers together.

The colourful thread of his jumper had been frayed to wits' end, and his bright hair was wispy and sticking out in every direction as if it had been awarded a few strikes of lightning. Skittish as a street-cat, Mr. Callahan jumped to his feet at their arrival and squeaked nervously. Hermione blinked owlishly, and for a second, she and Harry shared a wary glance. He had not been so frightful when they had entered. "I-" he began, voice high, before he tittered his throat clear. "I'm sorry, if I- could just-" His chalky skin had gone bone-white, and when Harry and Hermione descended from the stairs and stepped out into the sitting room, he inched around them at a berth. Never removing his eyes from them, nor the short shadows they cast over his furniture. Fighting the urge to reach for his wand, to fidget with the finger-marked hilt, Harry curled his fingers against his palm and breathed in slowly. Never had he been fond of skittish people.

"Of course," interrupted Hermione, politely, as off-put by the man's inexplicable change in attitude as he was. As if she were unknowing of what to do with her hands, Hermione made only a vague gesture before Mr. Callahan ignored them both entirely, and stumbled up the stairs. They watched him leave, watched the man as his feet tangled around each other, as he had to catch himself on the railing every so often until his marching footsteps faded into nothing. Harry stared at the space he had once inhabited, jerked back to reality only when Hermione nudged him gently. "It's . . . strange, isn't it?"

He hadn't half a clue what she was referencing, but took it to mean Mr. Callahan. "Yeah, strange." hummed Harry, looking about the house. There were a myriad of magical contraptions laying around that tinkled softly when they moved. Strung up from a doorway, there were painted witches' bells as were on the doorstep, and a number of flora which moved and swayed upon their own accord. It was incredible, only how they - the Callahans - had been able to be so open with their magic in such a muggle area without being detected. Until . . . until now, of course. There was a small scoff from nearby him, and it took Harry a moment to realise it had come from Hermione.

"The pictures," she stressed, seeming discomforted as she dared to step closer to a nearby frame, painted a garish purple shade. "Anwen isn't in any of them."

Harry frowned, neck craning as he stepped over her shoulder and squinted at the picture she was inspecting. It was inconspicuous, and he may not have noticed it at all had Hermione not, first. The longer, the closer, he looked at every other frame scattered about, the more apparent it became that she was entirely correct. "Maybe her parents don't like her very much," he tried to joke, quickly shooting a cursory look over his shoulder, towards the stairs up where Mr. Callahan had disappeared. Hermione gasped slightly, and reared back to swat him hard in the arm. Wincing, he rubbed at it and felt a stab of solidarity with the girl, Anwen. It was hardly as if the Dursleys put his face on every wall in their home.

Digging her fingers into his jacket, Hermione drew him swiftly out of the house. Ever did that pull, the sensation of wrongness, follow him like a limpet - even as they walked out onto the streets where the sky had begun to darken overhead. "The Prophet said that she had siblings, but I didn't see any," thought to comment Hermione, when Leftfield Lane crossed over onto the main road. She had released Harry's arm of its harpy-nailed grip, and used her free hand to tug her own jacket closer around her as a chilly wind whipped by. "The corridors, the pictures, it was . . ."

"Strange?" he finished, wryly, glancing over to his friend as she struggled to wrap her tongue around a suitable word. Harry felt his lips twitch, but hardly could deny his own sense of disconcertment at the entire ordeal. "Maybe they were out with their mum. We didn't see her, either." It was the most sensible probability he could muster, without having another hard look of disapproval boring into him like the most sharp-edged hex. Although his answer may not have entirely appeased her pushy thirst to know, Hermione fell quiet and the two shared tense conversation all the way back to Privet Drive. Seeing the road again felt condemning, and Harry felt his shoulders slump and curl with tension the very moment the first glimpse of Number Four came into view.

They paused afore the doorstep as they had back at the Callahans', though this time came with a stronger sense of finality. Whatever it was that had followed them from that house pushed down upon his head until his temples throbbed with short-tempered irritation, and a feeling that bordered on paranoia. Harry turned towards Hermione just as his trainers brushed the doormat, and found himself gazing at her surprised face until it encited enough dread within him to swivel back around and face his aunt Petunia, haunting the open threshold. As she opened her mouth to bid goodbye to him, Petunia fixed a vicious, pale-eyed glower unto Hermione until the girl cowed and shuffled away. Departing with a fiercely apologetic look, Harry flicked his eyes over to her only once as she skittered off down the road.

"In." Something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. He was sure of it.

The door slammed not a hairsbreadth away from Harry's back when he was fixed beneath the roof of Number Four, body jolting with the rush of the close before he shifted anxiously and eyed his aunt warily. She was standing stiffly in place, sending short spurts of looks down the corridor where the only door left open was that to the living room. Never having ever admitted to being so much as frightened by Petunia Dursley, there was very little other emotion he could put to the sweep of bone-chilling cold that froze him where he stood. Then she was surging forward, with more agility than a woman of her bony stature ever should have had the right to move, and seizing his wrist in a grasp so firm, his face curled with a pained wince and his nerves were set aflame.

With naught else to do but take it, Harry restrained himself from jerking back his arm. "You wicked boy," hissed Petunia, so close, now, that her breath brushed his face. It smelled suspiciously of something new - tobacco, surely; it had been how his own breath smelled after smoking Dudley's cigarettes. He almost laughed. Almost. "You . . . you have the gall to bring those freaks into my home-" The laughter died out, shrivelled and smouldered to ash in his mind. "-frighten my Duddy, and disobey your uncle? Oh, how lucky - how lucky - you are, that Vernon is not here, that I am more tolerable to these . . . displays than he." A sharp ringing had begun to screech in his ears, and, in the end, he had heard only half of what Petunia had said.

All he could think of was the boy he had sent to Number Four to keep Kreacher company. She had found Nott - hell, she'd probably found Kreacher, too.

"But your uncle won't be gone for long, Harry," warned his aunt, venomously. "For now, you'll simply have to answer to me. Perhaps assure me that I only happened to dream that . . . freakish boy was here in the first place . . .  Do you not listen, boy? Did you not hear what I told you?" He had - oh, how he had; that day that Aunt Petunia had come to his door, had informed him that he was to distance himself from Nott. Harry had never had a doubt within himself that he would not heed it, that he would not listen, and continue to take Nott's company for him. Petunia was tight-lipped and churlish, and hauled him over to the living room with an ungentle hand and the thumps of her low heels against the floors. Not that he feared for himself, then, no - but instead for Nott, who had been caught up in the entire nonsense because Harry had happened to mention that Kreacher had made a watchtower of his room. Because Nott had just so happened to enjoy the house-elf's company, which was entirely bizarre regardless.

A joke - a most awful, most terrible joke - springs to mind the second he steps into the living room. A batty house-elf, two wizards, and an uptight muggle step into Number Four, Privet Drive . . .

There upon the couch was Nott, perched on the edge of a springy cushion with his pale, long-fingered hands clenched tautly in the fabric of his trousers, glaring at the television as it blared Aunt Petunia's soap. Beside him, at the arm of the couch, was Kreacher. Harry wanted to snap at him when he came into view; wanted to reach forward and shake him. The damned creature had his radio clutched between two crooked hands, shaking it furiously. It rattled out its typical song, wavering with every tremble, and every lyric uttered - he'd yet to make sense of them entirely, himself - had Kreacher muttering back in reply to the speaker. Every so often, at an especially angry shake, Nott would glance over to Kreacher and twist his nose slightly.

Petunia circled to stand in front of the television, effectively blocking Nott's view of the soap he was occupied with staring daggers at, and planted her ringed hands unto each side of her narrow hips. Harry shuffled over to the couch, settling himself a cushion apart from Nott. Just to be safe, of course. "I warned you what would become of you if you kept this boy around, didn't I?" she began, bitingly. Swallowing hard, he shot a slanted look over to his friend, who had shot up straight and stiff, his face stony at the perceived slight on his person.

"I don't know him, Aunt Petunia. Never met him in my life." insisted Harry, refusing to look over to Nott, to Kreacher who was walking aimlessly around the room spewing insults off into the radio's crackling speaker. He fidgeted mindlessly with a loose button on his jacket, and became all-too aware of the situation. Outside, the summer was taking the turn for the worst; the parched days of the Surrey desert had long left them behind to make way for rainstorms that would have made Noah's Arc sink to the bottom of the sea. Petunia let out a little, affronting noise that had him shuffling in his seat. Daring him to stretch the lie. "Fine. I might know him a little." This time, it was Nott who muttered discontentedly under his breath.

Summoned by the impertinence, his aunt's eyes swivelled to settle dangerously upon the other boy in her midst. "And you," sneered Petunia, with a cruel uptilt of her mouth. "Creeping around my home, with not even the manners to introduce yourself. Pah! What wonderful manners your kind must instill in their children, not like my Dudley." Ire rose swift in him, where it had been dormant and dampened with his earlier prick of trepidation. Harry rose up, mouth opening in defense of Nott, only to sink back down in defeat when his aunt snapped her fingers at him like he were a misbehaving mutt. An unfortunate habit she had instilled in him as a child, that he couldn't quite seem to shake yet.

He pressed down the childish urge to scream at her - insist that Nott was far better than the likes of Dudley ever would be. Could be.

Finally, Nott spoke, hushed and as heedful of the woman as a wanderer were around a slinking predator, giving a name that made Harry's heart swell with unadulterated relief. Thomas. Thomas was his name, thank Merlin above. But as his surname slipped from his tongue, his heart sank all anew and crushed him with defeat. Any false forename would be followed by an equally false surname. Any hope that he may have held of discreetly discovering the boy's first name was dashed in an instant. Petunia had gone still, silent, and cold. Then, delicately, as if it pained her to form the words, she returned, "I ought to tell that headmaster of yours of this - Dumbly-boor, was it? Dumbledore? I know what you are, what your kind do. Liars, crooks, thieves-"

Harry felt a pain swelling in his throat, and moodily slumped back against the couch-cushions behind him. From where he had situated himself, Nott spared him only the briefest flick of his pale eyes. It was enough to soothe a pin-prick of the fury that had tailed him all the way from Leftfield Lane. The suspicion, the delusions that stuck firm like they had hooked into his skin and refused to let go. Bleeding profusely if he attempted to remove them. Nott wasn't any of those things, he wanted to say. Most wizards weren't any of those things. "And you!" The two of them recoiled, stunned by the abruptness of her outburst. One of Petunia's fingers, quivering finely, was pointing furiously at Kreacher.

The house-elf paused, mercifully keeping the radio still in his hands, and grumbled something ugly as his large eyes slid over to Harry's aunt. His lipless mouth pulled over his jagged, black teeth.

Petunia swung her eyes wildly over to Harry, and jabbed the air with her pointing finger once again. "You- get this . . . thing out of my house, or I will squash it like the vermin it is, Harry!" Her neat-clad persona was trembling weakly, crackling at the edges like an overcooked cake. He watched her unfold, every second of it, and found he could derive little pleasure in her mania. Slowly, before he did so hurriedly at her swat, Harry rose from the couch and waved a hand over to Kreacher, ready to lead him out of the house. Only that the house-elf had, miraculously, disappeared. He caught only the tail-end of Kreacher's loin-cloth disappearing upstairs before Petunia continued to unravel her own coiled madness.

"I made a deal with that Dumbledore about you," Petunia cursed, swinging her attention between the two of them so rapidly he'd not a clue how she'd the time to speak at all. Nott had reared back in his seat, a faintly-disturbed expression twisted on his fair face. Harry paused under her hard scrutiny, and felt frail at the desire to hang his head right there. "I swore what I did, though I had no choice in it. You will not make a fool out of me, boy, consorting with the likes of him. You, Thomas, are to leave this house immediately or a call will be made to the police." she promised, ardently. Harry bristled, and when he dared a look over to where Nott was, confusion was struck across his face. Harry felt a stab of amusement, the barest, before he thought to mouth Aurors at him, and watched as Nott's face returned back to its blank slate.

Hesitantly, they all made for the front door. Petunia herded Nott like a piece of livestock, and bid him no goodbye as he departed at the front-step. Harry stood in the doorway, watching his retreating back until he could no longer sight it, slinking into the small, shadowy space between two houses further down the road. A stab of anger hit him, that same silly need to have him stay wriggling into his chest. A slim hand cinched unto his shoulder. Harry recognised it with no small degree of misery, and fought not to blink - perhaps hoping that, if he kept vigil long enough, Nott would somehow return. Alas, he did not.

Aunt Petunia, too, watched Nott leave, though not as fondly as Harry himself. Her eyes were hateful and glazed over, much like she had seen a ghost. When her hand came to Harry's shoulder, she leaned in and told him, lowly, "That horrid Snape boy is never to return here. Do you hear me?" He swallowed roughly, and responded only with a jerky nod after her nails dug callously in the space between his collar and throat. "Good." Then Petunia, in likewise, slid her hand off of him and disappeared back into the house. Harry did not watch her go, and closed the front door when the kitchen had begun to ring with the loud, distorted clattering of pots and pans in disharmony.

⚡︎

Anwen Callahan stayed, to his frustration, on Harry's mind for the next few hours. She was an enigma - she and her family both, and ceaselessly did his mind run over all the probabilities that would mean he never had known of their existence until yesterday. A magical family, unashamedly magical, living in an overwhelmingly muggle settlement without being discovered. None of it made sense, Harry told himself, staring blandly at his ceiling. Minutes ago, he had torn away his radio from Kreacher's inching hands and settled it over his stomach as he lay stretched out along his resilient bed, no longer able to upkeep a sense of apathy when it came to bearing the elf's mumbling.

If they had lived in Surrey for so long, the Callahans, how was it that Dumbledore - Mrs. Figg - had not known of them? That he had deemed Little Whinging inconspicuous enough, muggle enough, to bring Harry to live there, where he could not be tracked, could not be recognised by magical folk? Of course there were the odd few who travelled out on the streets every so often, but people like that - he reasoned to himself - would have caused a scandal so fierce across town that they would have been discussed even years after any possible moving. How nobody had noticed Anwen, Mr. Callahan and all his other children . . . it was beyond him. For the first time in a while, Harry felt stumped.

Twisting his head down, chin propped up on his chest, Harry reached out to fiddle with the knobs of the radio - toying with the antenna until faint sparks of hope rose within him that he would solve its frustrating noise-grain. That he would, somehow, manage to get it to play another song but for the one it appeared to so favour. What was worse than the endless frustration of Anwen Callahan and her family, was the manner in which Kreacher had taken to crooning at Hedwig on her perch. The two had struck up a most peculiar alliance in the meantime when Harry had been gone, to which Fable had loudly expressed her displeasure when he'd first entered his room again. She had liked staying with Nott well enough, when Harry had entrusted the boy with bringing her back to Number Four all those hours ago, but she detested Kreacher with vehemence.

"Hey," he called, suddenly, head lolling over to face the house-elf. Kreacher had lifted himself up to the tips of his bare toes to stretch his fingers and stroke lightly along Hedwig's breast, who hooted sweetly and fluttered her feathers. Grouchily, as if Harry had interrupted a pivotal moment in their disturbing relationship, Kreacher glanced over with a dark look in his eye. "What do you know about the Callahans? You heard of them at all?"

Inordinately, the elf was the only one he could think of to ask right then. Kreacher had lived for far longer - presumably - than he or Nott or Hermione, and, most notably of all, had served the Blacks; ever a prominent pureblood family in high society. If ever there were one to enquire on the matter of magical lineages, Harry felt Kreacher was the most sensible choice he was left with. It wasn't as if he were about to brave Aunt Petunia to ask a question he knew well would get him struck across the head. Worse, Uncle Vernon, who would undeniably run him over without an inch of hesitancy. Stopping for a second to think, moving to pick his way through the open stash of treats on Harry's desk that Ron had owled to him earlier in the day, Kreacher eventually shook his head.

"Never heard of nasty Callahan wizards," he answered, hoarsely. "Kreacher does not pay attention to filth tainted with muggle blood."

Harry felt a spike of displeasure within him, and adjusted himself quickly to prop up on a forearm. "You listen to me." he stated, blandly.

Kreacher made a noise that may have offended him furiously on any other day, but served only to warm him at the familiarity of the gesture. Somehow, he welcomed it in all the tempest of unknown that raged around him. "Master Plotter is of pureblood history," returned the elf, forcefully. "One generation of taint is water to poison; it does not vanish the poison from existence." He shoved his wandering fingers into a pack of sugar-quills that he began to gorge himself on hungrily, shoving three in his mouth at a time. Wincing at the display, darting forward to capture the remains of the packet to shove into his jeans, Harry gave the elf a chiding look. Those had been his.

"I need you to mail something for me," he decided, suddenly. Harry pushed himself up and set the radio aside, sugar-quills crackling in his pocket as he moved to sweep up his quill and a loose parchment nearby. "Send it to . . ." His tongue poked the inside of his cheek, hastily wetting the nib of his quill and setting it to the paper. "Nott. Send it to Nott, wherever he's bloody holed up." Blowing frantically on the squat lines of chicken-scratch he'd signed off with a far neater scrawl of H.J.P., Harry fanned his hand over the parchment before folding up the letter and shoving it unceremoniously into one of Kreacher's still-adventuring hands. The elf squawked, and glowered at him like he were a bug beneath his bare feet.

Turning the letter over thrice in his hands, Kreacher slunk away from his desk and stared up mistrustfully at Harry. "What does poor Kreacher get for his efforts, Kreacher wonders?"

Sighing roughly, Harry sprang up from his bed and began to rifle through his chest-of-drawers, striding past Kreacher and Hedwig until he wrestled out a dark zip-up that would ward away the outside chill. "I'll give you the rest of the sugar-quills," he declared, before meeting Kreacher's gaze and iterating, firmly, "I promise. Just send it." Wriggling his way out of the denim jacket he'd forgotten to shuck when entering the house, Harry replaced it quickly and waved his hand around in his pocket until he took hold of his wand's hilt. Breath heaving slightly, he watched Kreacher with an inch of pleading to his expression, and watched with satisfaction as the elf spurted one last insult before whirling on his heel and disappearing with a soundless whoosh.

Outside was terribly dark, despite the summer hours. Monstrous clouds of dark-grey threatened a heavy rainfall, and he hoped only that he would not catch it, as he crept downstairs and slipped out into the garden. By this time, Vernon would return home from Grunnings or whichever office party he had been invited to, on the hopes of gaining a promotion; he had little wish to catch the man, and so wormed his way past Petunia and cracked open the shed with more force than was, perhaps, necessary. Drawing out his new bike - fresh-painted and oiled, he had ensured it was - Harry wheeled it out of the garden from the back-entrance and down onto the street. His feet picked up their pace at the familiar thrumming of a car rushing down Privet Drive, swinging a leg clumsily over the side and pedalling away madly when he was far enough to do so.

The wind was icy on his face, whipping his scruffy hair in every direction it could go, and Harry's fingers were rigid by the time Privet Drive came to a close. He was being a fool - mayhaps the largest fool the world had ever seen before - but foolishness had never stopped Harry Potter. Ever.

Only hoping that Kreacher had truly sent his letter off to Nott, Harry jerked the bike sharply to the right, narrowly avoiding a car and almost sweeping the road with himself, and turned onto Leftfield Lane. He may have gone to Hermione in likewise, had the phone not been too risky a chance - and had Kreacher been more tolerable of muggleborns like herself. At the least, Nott was a pureblood . . . albeit, even if the elf did not appear to like him very much at all. Thighs burning sweetly, Harry slowed to a stop not a few paces away from number two-five-six and dismounted in a hasty jargon of flailing limbs. Propping his bicycle up on the fence of the neighbour sat parallel to the Callahans', Harry caught his breath and carded his fingers through his hair. Night had come, and it was late enough that the lights in most of the houses down the lane had been shut off. Two-five-six was entirely devoid of light, but for the dainty firefly lamps stretched out along the front path. Every so often, when it would be unnoticeable enough to any watcher, the wings of each firefly would flutter and buzz softly, embued with the warm channels of magic.

Harry must have waited for ten minutes afore he heard it: the smooth dancing of a cloak behind him, craning his neck over a shoulder to glimpse him. Nott sidled up to his shoulder, standing abreast to him and following the old path of Harry's gaze up to the house. The welcoming serenity that had cloaked Leftfield Lane when first he and Hermione had visited, had turned daunting. More menacing. "Your penmanship is abysmal," commented Nott, matter-of-factly, no longer interested in the mundane sight of the muggle house in front of them. "I can offer lessons. For a charge, naturally."

Mouth parting with what should have been incredulity, though only ended up being an embarrassing flare of half-hidden fondness, Harry came to face with him and shook his head quickly. "Shut up," he retorted, without thinking. "I just . . . need to check something out, alright?" Trepidation wormed back into him like a pest, and his worries ignited all the same once more. "You coming?"

"Inside the house?" asked Nott, voice a tad more shrill than it had been seconds ago. When Harry gave him a blank nod of affirmation, the boy's hackles rose and he stood to attention with a knitted brow. "You must be the patron saint of stupid ideas, Potter. Merlin." Regardless of his rebuking to his investigation, Nott followed him forward, the night encapsulating him as one of its own, shrouding him in darkness. Minutely, Harry found himself envying his grace, and tugged the hood of his zip-up over his head with a huff. Beside Nott, he felt like a hoodlum.

Swerving away from the front door, pulling a leg up to hitch on one of the bins wheeled out front, Harry drew himself up to a sill on the first floor with straining (unadmittedly aching) muscles and propped it fully open after much wrangling effort. When he craned his neck out to check for Nott, there was a complex jumble of emotions on his face - more than most, he seemed rather unsurprised as to Harry's well-versed state of sneaking . . . and breaking into places. After his Ministry tale, there was very little that had become surprising of Harry Potter. "Do you do this . . . often?" puffed Nott, breathless, when Harry helped him in through the window a minute thereafter.

Brushing himself down and turning to look at the room they had landed themselves in, Harry felt a jab of entertainment curling with amusement at the corner of his mouth. "Maybe, maybe not."

"Ah," continued Nott, softly-toned. There was a plain drawl of mockery to his voice.  "Instinct, was it?" They had ended up in a bathroom, cramped and narrow, and frustratingly impersonal. Harry deigned to not touch anything of theirs, dared not to leave so much as a trace that they had been there at all, and instead inched open the door which led out to a half-known corridor, dark and unlit. "Something like that." returned Harry, quietly, taking the first cautious step out into the hallway. That same sense of wrongness that had plagued him before returned full-force, crashing into him with all the will of a freight train. Maybe he had been wrong, he began to consider, teeth gnawing gently at his lip. Maybe everything was fine - perhaps he'd been the same as he always was: too reckless, too untrusting, too faithful that there must be something wrong with everything around him. Just to convince himself it was not only he who existed as an outlier here.

Long had it been since he guessed Nott had deduced which house they had wound up in, but regardless did the boy turn to him questioningly as they reached a plain, white door at the beginning of the corridor and ask, "The girl from The Prophet?" Silently, Harry nodded, and peered down to the stairs, wariness - guilt - filling him like a bead of blood rising to the surface of a wound. Downstairs, the hushed clamour of a lively television could be heard; that, above all, disturbed the smoothness of his investigation. His . . . confirmation of a hunch - an indecipherable worry. Behind him, Nott raised a hand and brushed his fingers along the inscription of Anwen's name painted upon her door; along the vibrant petals of every little forget-me-not that bloomed from its golden soil.

They faltered at the sound of a warble.

Harry turned slowly, and frowned at the door. Nott, too, stared quizzically at his hand. A look passed between them, and with a wordless agreement did Nott sway his fingers over the inscription, the small flowers, once again. Another warble sounded. Around the calligraphy, the paint of the forget-me-nots, the air bent and rippled. His own hand brushed his wand, but after a second of deliberation, he released it. The Trace still spied upon him wherever he went. Without Sirius, there was no promise of home if he were expelled for underage magic. In his pocket, the length of his wand buzzed indignantly, as if affronted that it had been abandoned.

"What is it?" he whispered, inching closer to Nott. The boy tried again, to the same results each time. Harry gazed in wonderment at every slight tremble in the air, transfixed. It felt, certainly, like some sort of magic - was rather plainly the work of magic. What kind, he did not know.

Nott's jaw shifted. His hand returned back to his side. "A ward," he explained, looking behind them for a second before returning back to Harry. In the darkness, the dilute green of Nott's eyes were brighter than they ever had been, far more intense than Harry was used to them being. "Unsurprising, given the circumstances, but we cannot enter without bringing it down." The meaning behind the words were clear: they wouldn't be able to enter at all, not until they were years ahead, and permitted to cast outside of school. Vexation tingled at his fingertips, and Harry slid his hands out of his pockets to trace every swoop of calligraphy that spelled out Anwen's name. He hadn't felt the ward, earlier in the day. If it had been there at all, it had been extraordinarily muted.

Making a final decision with one last considerating look to his hands, Harry asked, "How do we bring it down, exactly?"

Nott paced slightly, keeping every fall of his feet featherlight, and drawing one of his thumbs up to nibble at it thoughtfully. "Finite," he decided, after much musing. He halted in-step and studied the door with stark interest. "Any ward cast in a . . ." He eyed Harry prudently, "muggle area would not be too complex to need runestones. A spell would do." Harry returned the odd look, and toed over the line where the garbled air appeared to have been laid. Whatever Nott had initially intended to say no longer laid out as his business; whatever witchery Mr. Callahan had cast over his house was now, not entirely, his business instead. Purebloods may always be purebloods, but hidden wixen in muggle areas were far more fascinating.

Pacing the spell over his tongue again and again before he finally mustered away the reluctance to raise his hand up to the ward's edge, Harry bowed his head and tensed, murmuring under his breath a firm Finite. Nothing happened. Brow drawing uncomfortably tight, Harry slipped his eyes shut and, with more will than he had done anything most recently, attempted to cajole the weightless swell of flighty energy in his chest down to his hand. His magic was tempestuous at times, and disobedient even when he wielded his wand - accidental magic still came to him easily, though it was an embarrassment he quelled often. Harry's next attempt evoked a soft noise from behind him, from Nott who reached forward next and tested the door again.

"How?" asked Nott, breathless and low. Rubbing self-consciously at his nape, Harry shrugged and lifted his head, only to freeze as he looked down the hall.

The spell burned away at lines of wards, rippling like a disturbed lake's surface down the rest of the corridor; each fragment snapped away exposed desolate walls and a soulless interior. Where pictures were nailed to the wall, emptiness followed in the wake of the Finite, like ash to a scattering breeze. When finally it ceased, the droning of the television downstairs was noticeably quieter. Becoming less sure that he had been mistaken in his monomania, Harry turned to catch a glimpse of Nott's face and pressed his shoulder gently against the door as his hand took the knob. With his hood pulled high over his head, wand now slipped firmly in his hand, he knew then what well he resembled. A no-good criminal. As good as everyone on Privet Drive regarded him to be.

With only a small amount of shame, the door cracked open under his hand and made not a squeak as it widened. Harry stuck his head inside, and found the room to be naught but cold - every inch of moonlight that swathed in through the undrawn curtains of lace, dust-laden. When Nott's breath, his voice, sounded near to him, he jumped and whirled around to find him inches away. A quiet declaration that he's to peek in the next room over heralds his disappearance, leaving Harry on his lonesome, to slip hastily into Anwen Callahan's room and stand there, motionless, in the dark. His sharp teeth returned to worry at his lip, slicing shallow wounds over the flesh until he held a hand out once more to the still air. Upon her bed, she was curled atop the blankets into herself, pale hair veiling her like lace.

"Finite." he mumbled, quivering minutely at the rush of cool magic over his skin. Whyever he had cast the spell, he was unsure, but the compulsive need to peel back the layers of that house was unearthing itself as a grotesque freak of nature by the minute. Almost immediately, Harry's magic bathed the room and swept it dry. Horrified, he staggered back as, where she lay, his magic consumed Anwen Callahan and drew her away from sight. Everything in her room that became her, every poster of old botany and her quartered desk, waned from sight. Energy crackled over the bedroom, and when he felt little, electric tingles against his knuckles, everything was gone.

With naught but a bed that lacked a sheet, and a chairless desk that was burdened with nothing else but a few wisps of paper, Harry stood dumbfounded. Where floral bedsheets had once clothed the mattress, had shouldered Anwen Callahan, there lay no sign of life. No hint that there had been a sorrowful, pitiable young girl who once lived there. For what felt like hours, he did not move, finding that his feet were resolutely stuck in place - that creeping horror still crept menacingly at the edges of his vision. Harry's trainers squeaked quietly as he, unwillingly, made for the desk. It was chipped and worn at the edges, and looked as if it had not been touched in many years. Had it been any older, he supposed it may have already been black with rot.

"YOU!" cried, with despair, Mr. Callahan from Anwen's doorway.

Harry yelped and reared back, hip slamming into the corner of the desk as he caught himself from stumbling onto the floor in shock. Wide-eyed, he watched as Mr. Callahan stormed into the bedroom, and took only one perfunctory glance around the room before descending into despondent wails. "My girl!" sobbed Callahan, shaking a crooked finger at Harry. "You - disturbed my girl, you killed my girl!" He began to gargle, old knees buckling and bringing him to the floor. Curling up into himself, his sorrow had come swift and terrifying. He stood there, shocked into silence, and felt, as seconds passed, rocketing panic. "My girl, my girl, you hurt my girl. You - you killed my girl."

In the moments wherein death had become a close companion, never had anything - afore that day - quite so shaken Harry Potter as the sight of the father blubbering and keening over his daughter. Mr. Callahan shakily picked himself up to his feet, still whipping his head to and fro like he were expecting the room to restore itself to how it had been; turning to the bed as if he expected Anwen to still be laying there, hunched into herself and sickly with grief. "You," he sniffled, voice squeaking. Harry's heart seized with fear. Callahan began to approach in a flurry, before then he stilled, and began to break down into nonsensical cries once more.

Behind him, Nott had jammed the tip of his wand into the man's nape, descending upon him in silent fury. In one of Nott's hands was clenched a picture, tattered at its corners and printed on aged parchment.

Not for a second wherein Harry's eyes caught on the image - moving, shuffling, and he knew it was a wizard's picture - he thought it may be himself. The last picture that had been taken of him had been at the Ministry, blank-eyed and bloody-faced, desolate with Dumbledore's warm hand wheedling him away from a labryrinth of journalists and cameras. But it wasn't - no, it could not be. Jerking his arm forward, Nott glowered at Harry in demand to take it from his hand. Obligingly, toeing his way around Callahan, Harry took it and held it to the scanty light glimmering from outside. It offered little in way of visibility, less in comprehension, but his breath hitched all the same when he met a man's joyous eyes.

No, it had not been Harry in the picture. It had been James Potter.

James Potter, bright-eyed and beaming a grin that Harry would not have recognised had it been on his own face; he was proudly presenting a gleaming Auror's badge pinned to his breast with his crimson Ministry robes and fancifully-tousled hair, a charming set to his posture. Harry watched the picture as it shifted, as James twisted his upper body and straightened his robes pridefully, every move he followed with greedy eyes. His breath hitched pathetically, and he felt, suddenly, small. Turning it over with shaking fingers, it was not, as he had hoped, James' scrawl on the back. Instead, it was a loopy, feminine cursive that signed itself off in familiar initials. His arm lowered, hand tightening around the picture whilst he turned to face Mr. Callahan still facing the wintry wrath of Nott's watchfulness.

"Why do you have this?" Harry asks, less forcefully than he may have liked. His throat felt tight, his body cold, and the world around him narrow. Nott drew the man back down to his knees, and to any the sight of a teenage boy subduing a grown man may have been seen as nothing else but entirely ridiculous. To them both, he felt, it was likely to become more commonplace as time passed. The man's silence caused Nott to jab a pudgy cheek with his wand, hand fisted in Callahan's shirt. Harry pitied the man. Moving back towards the desk, he picked his way through the papers until one caught his eye. "Nott," he called over, seconds later, stiff.

It was as though the boy had known the contents of the letter afore Harry could tell him, and merely guessed, "The girl?"

". . .Yeah," Tucking away the proud picture of James Potter's happy face into his jacket's pocket, he took up one of the sheets, instead, and read it over again. Anwen Callahan, it read under an inked heading. A patient of St. Mungos, who had never returned home. "She died in the hospital, the day she was attacked." Forcing down the bile that rose in his throat, Harry wet his lips and settled it back down as Mr. Callahan's stricken sadness filled the silence, writhing in Nott's hold, rapidly silenced.

Nott leaned down to a distance that would make his nose brush the man's cheek, if so he only turned his head. Cruelly, as though it were not a man, but instead vermin, with which he was dealing, Nott shook him slightly and hissed in his ear, "Why do you have that picture, Callahan?" When the man turned his ruddy head away, babbling that he did not know Nott - that he'd no right to an answer - the boy's face tightened. Harry watched him with his attention at half-mast, feeling the roughness of the other, untouched paper under his hand. Delora Callahan, this one said. Admitted upon the given date of-

"They said he looked- looked like him!" shrieked Mr. Callahan, forcing his shirt out of Nott's unforgiving hold. "Potter, Potter, they said - he looked like him! Oh, the Potters, those Potters, took my girl, took my girl."

No longer could Harry take it, heart running away from its beating self as his fingers dug shadowed creases into the admission paper. He did not have to ask, he felt, who 'they' were. "Stop," he breathed, sharply, rearing forward one step. Nott, reluctantly, acquiesced when their eyes met. When all the anguish bubbled in Harry's chest rose pitifully to pool within his gaze. He had always been that sort - pitiable. "This place . . . St. Bela's, what's it?"

Mr. Callahan's weeping, all of a sudden, came to a halt. Even Nott had stopped, gone owlish and surly, and gave Harry a brief, eerie stare that made him want to retreat into himself. Then Nott blinked, the softest flutter of his eyes, and glanced over to Callahan disdainfully before primly stepping over him and taking to hand the paper that Harry held. "It's a hospice," murmured Nott, as if the words he spoke he had known well for many years. "A place for the terminally ill, typically." A tribute of a look was levelled unto Mr. Callahan, small on the floor. "St. Bela's doubles as a hospice, but - too - an asylum."

"A nuthouse?" Harry echoed, easily relinquishing the paper. Mr. Callahan seized up, like the word had gripped something within him tight, feebly pointing in their direction as he tried to leap to his feet, to no avail. Nott's hand grazed his own, leaving in its wake a fiery trail of discomforting tingles. He eyed Anwen's father, and hung his head. "C'mon, let's go. We . . . I got what I needed, yeah?" He would have been mad, to willingly remain in that house - in the echoes of Anwen Callahan's bedroom, thick with illusion. Without waiting for Nott's answer, Harry strode past he and Mr. Callahan, and took two steps at a time as he headed downstairs . . .

Only to pause, right as he reached the door. The television which he had heard earlier was sizzling, steaming at its antenna; the wondrous magical contraptions he had been admiring had ceased to flutter in movement, and the flora that had once twisted on their own accords were wilting and dead. Even many of the man's muggle possessions appeared drained of life, and it was all quite so morose that he could no longer bear to withstand it. Bursting out into the night, Harry did not stop until he was at the very end of the front-garden, staring out to the other side of the street where, not that afternoon, a cloaked figure had caught his eye from Anwen's bedroom before it disappeared.

Unbidden, unwittingly, his hand sought out his dad's picture.

It felt, most strangely, warm against his skin. Under the lamplight, he could see James' face better; it held uncanny resemblance to his own, and Harry would not have faulted Nott, then, if he had initially assumed it had been him at all. His breath hitched, and his jacket felt stifling and over-warm. "It was my fault," he said, abruptly, to the thin air. Nott materialised behind him, he knew he did, for if there were any shadowy movements that did not graze his hackles he knew it would be him. Harry's face felt hot, heart churning unsteadily in his chest. He turned to face the other boy for only a second. "Anwen. Mrs. Callahan. They . . ." He looked afar to the road, and imagined that the cloaked figure was there once again. Waiting for him, waiting to meet his eye and capture him, deliver him.

"They were trying to draw me out," Harry exhaled shakily, and felt a humiliating itch behind his eyes. "The Death Eaters. Trying to get to me. If I had just been there instead of her, she might've lived. Can you believe that?"

Perhaps seeking comfort, perhaps not, he looked to Nott regardless. The boy stared at him blankly, and when he spoke, it was slow - considering. As if he wanted Harry to hear every word, and to cling unto them with hope. ". . . I think that if you do, Potter, then you're a greater fool than I thought." It was all he said, all that he needed to say, in truth. Pretending his stomach had not twisted into firm knots, Harry nodded and cleared his eyes with a series of blinks. "Right, yeah."

Beneath his thumb, James Potter's face twisted from the slyest smirk he ever had seen, to an earnest beam full of delight. It was the most alive he had ever seen his dad. "I wonder how he got this," Harry whispered, daring not to look behind them - back to the dark house. "D'you think . . . it's stupid, but, d'you think my dad would have been like that - like Callahan - if I'd . . . y'know, died, instead of him?" Feeling forlornly selfish, he cleared his throat abruptly and pursed his lips with apology towards his friend. "Would yours?" He imagined whatever Nott had with his father would be . . . good, maybe. In small leaps, perhaps, but good, ultimately.

Rather awkwardly, Nott shifted on his feet, a habit he had never shown before. "I'm not an expert on the warmth of fatherhood, Potter," he said in admission, rattled by the query. "I never have been. Not like Malfoy." Yes. Perhaps part of him had been basing his opinions of Nott over the memory of Draco Malfoy. It made him, admittedly, ashamed, and in the moments that followed the atmosphere thickened with a sense of solidarity. They stood like that for seconds more, as Harry looked down to the picture again and flipped it over. Stared at the cursive, and tried to make sense of it for many moments before he handed it over to Nott, waiting for the boy to take it.

Askance, Nott drew the picture towards him. "Read it," said Harry, before swiftly adding on, "I can't . . I dunno what it says." The wretched niggling that had lurked after him all day had begun to slip into nothingness; a soft recollection that he would forget after a few hours, after a good night's rest, surrounded by warmth. Hesitantly, Nott's face screwed up as he held the picture's back up to the light and grazed his eyes studiously over the few rows of writing. Slowly, he began to read.

"Dear Tuney,

James and I send our best wishes to yourself and Vernon, and our hopes for a happy marriage. Words elude me, but it's become fact that the more I am gone, the more I miss you. James and I invite you and Vernon over for dinner at our new home, over in Godric's Hollow.

Yours, Lily."

⚡︎

Chapter Text

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𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ x . ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴍy ʟᴀꜱᴛ

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FOLLOWING the harrowing events at Leftfield Lane, shadows appeared to have stretched forward with fingers that they had morphed of their own mystery, grasping at the fabric of his clothes when Harry passed by. They murmured the strangest tales, and left a terrible nausea clawing at the swelling in his throat. For many hours, peace eluded him viscerally. Returning to Number Four had revealed the pit of absence that Kreacher had left in his wake; no sheets of dust swept aside to suggest that he had once been there at all, staring suspiciously at his window when the light shifted. Too, Harry had even ordered Hedwig away, bidding her leave to whichever place Nott claimed as his own every summer. He reckoned that he may have a mother there who would dote on his precious friend - his girl - and feed her more bountifully than he ever could.

Many hours had passed since he had first slipped through the door at Privet Drive, and daylight boded little well for his itching eyes and swollen heart. Disconnection clung to his bones and tore them away from his skin, until it felt that all was left of Harry Potter was a wordless husk. It was foolish, childish, but all he could do to not return to Leftfield Lane and urge more answers out of eerie, skittish Mr. Callahan.

From whichever corner of depravity he had tucked himself peacefully away in for what felt like many weeks, Dudley emerged from the kitchen as Harry passed and knocked their shoulders together roughly. A mean tilt of his lips curled upon his face, and drew his cheeks rounder than typically they were. What he had told Harry thereafter he could not - did not deign to - hear, but it was later the realisation of exactly what he had said that tucked him closer to a precipice edge. Your people, had jeered Dudley, in a lilting sing-song. Saw them lurking about town, all cloaked and black-dressed like freaks. Is that proper of all of you, then?

Harry had not responded, but the furthermore he dwelled upon it, the more he wished that he had. Wished, for whatever reason, that he had pulled more information from Dudley's throat and heard it true from his cousin. Cloaked and black-dressed they were, he repeated like a tormenting mantra in his innermost thoughts. Had not Mr. Callahan been searching for him? Had he not seen that figure, yesterday, on the other side of the road at Leftfield Lane disappear when they met eyes? Having seen naught but a dull gleam reflect from their gaze, he wondered if even now it followed him through Number Four, as Harry crept downstairs as midnight fell upon the house.

Darkness shrouded his way down the stairs as he went, but years of navigating his way through sightlessness had long since become a custom. Harry tugged absently at the long sleeves of his shirt, itchingly soft against his skin; an old hand-me-down that Ron had sworn he could keep, printed boldly with the insignia and vivid orange hue of the Chudley Cannons. It was a monstrosity, and often hurt to wear, but kept him warm in nights where all else felt drained of warmth itself. His uncle Vernon slept soundly in his room, the rattling snores that bellowed from his throat trembling the walls of Number Four ever so slightly. So, too, was Dudley - Harry had seen him enter his bedroom, and had not seen him emerge since. No light within was fired with life, and so night cast over the sharp edges of furniture with daunting blades painted in black upon the framed walls. Carved his effigy on the floor, and squandered its leanness the closer he drew to the crackling firelight in the living room.

The fireplace popped and expelled flaming cinders that drifted up a pale-stone chimney. Upon its mantle, the Dursleys stood in their finest clothes with their most refined expressions, and appeared proud to look over the rest of the room from their pedestal. Dudley's young, fat face grinned at him from their distance, and Harry hated to behold the sight. More so off-putting, he found, was the figure hunched over itself upon the couch cushions.

Within her tapered fingers did she clasp an odd letter - the likes of which he had only ever seen bear the penmanship of a wixen - which furled at the edges and bore faint lines of ink worn by time. Not so much the tribute of an eye flicker was given to him, if even Aunt Petunia had heard Harry coming. Sleep, too, had evaded him for hours; his restless feet had drawn him inexplicably down to where so he stood now, and he rapidly was beginning to regret the mindless decision to move at all. On the other side of the couch from where she sat, slumbering and yet undeniably awake, lay abandoned and half-crumpled the day's newspaper. He had seen Vernon reading over it during breakfast, yet never paid his readings any mind. It was all drivel, anyhow. The only papers Harry cared for were those of The Daily Prophet.

Leaning inexorably forward, sweeping the newspaper up with the crackling of its pages straightening, the bold print of dark ink on the front page burst out even in the dimly-lit room. His breath, abruptly, caught. So it read thus: "... Emil Callahan, a beloved member of the Surrey community, was discovered dead in his home at approximately one in the morning by a service-worker who regularly provided grief assistance to the residents of Leftfield Lane and its corresponding avenues. Although the Surrey constabulary have made no direct comment on the nature of Callahan's death, foul play is openly suspected. The service-worker who came upon Emil Callahan, who wishes to remain unnamed, told reporters that the injuries found upon Callahan were brutish in nature, yet did not appear to be the work of any known weapon. The unfortunate death was in sequence with the attack of his daughter, Anwen, and his wife's institutionalisation."

Dread caught in the tendrils of his muscles. His thumb grazed over the name, that stupidly familiar name - Anwen. One in the morning, he'd been found - that very same night he and Nott had confronted the man, had broken into his home and unfurled his fantasy apart with knives. How haunted he had become, in the scanty hours that separated then and now, by that house - that family. Harry felt he ought to despise every glimpse of red hair lurking in the edges of his vision, where his lenses did not cover and blurred the flash; the odd times he would believe the shadows would weep whenever his eyes dared to slip shut in hopes of sleep. Peace. It would not be a happening merely of today, Harry suspected, but of years to come. It would be steadily difficult to forget all that had gone on, that day.

Then a voice spoke from the couch, hoarse in a way that Harry recognised with ease from the copious amounts of drink that had turned his uncle's words gravelly. But Petunia did not drink, nor ever had her eyes been rimmed and swollen with such flushed despair. He imagined that she had been replaced by something else, when then her ruffled, blonde head twisted slowly his way and squinted at Harry through the low firelight. "You. . ." she murmured, in sluggish pausing blinks. Never in that moment had his aunt appeared both younger and older than ever he had seen her look. Around the grip she held firm against the furling letter in her hands, her nails tightened and dug into thick parchment.

Even her nails, gleaming with lacquer, were chipping away to reveal naught beneath. Harry flinched when she cleared her throat with a prompt straightening of her back, and dared not move from where he stood by the couch. Slowly, he set the newspaper down and looked at her closely. Petunia did not appear angry, nay; but, rather, furiously distraught at something which he could not see nor hope to understand. He knew, then, exactly what had been haunting her when she stood, dropping her letter and tugging consciously at her nightgown. "You cannot stay here anymore," informed Petunia, in a ragged tone, after much fumbling of the tongue. But her words were not entirely certain, and the gleam in her eyes unsure.

Harry wondered, idly, just where the demand had come from. No word of protest, however, left his mouth. More than anything of commanding and uncertain, Petunia sounded merely lost.

He chose, instead, to ignore his aunt and from his pocket draw the picture Nott had found the night before. James Potter's face caught the fire, but he hardly paused to look at it, turning the picture over. "I found this," he told her, swallowing hard. "It's addressed to you. What is it?" Harry's bare feet whispered against the carpet as he took a step forward; let his mum's writing illuminate by the hearth and catch his aunt's eye. Skin paling the shade of exposed bone, Petunia's trimmed brows furrowed tautly with anguish and her face twisted with emotion so plain that it frightened him. Although his eyes searched once more for a bottle - anything that ought to explain her behaviour - it fell short.

Surging forward, two sharp nails clasped the bottom of the picture as she bent her head over it. "Where did you get this?" she hissed, voice cracking. Chest heaving shallowly with every jagged breath she intook, Petunia pursed her lips much like she were forcing herself not to strike him right there. Harry jolted with surprise, mouth opening in attempt to explain - to make sense of everything, for sense had, so suddenly, tilted upon its axis and left him wrong-footed. Before a word could escape, however, Petunia's hand drew away with such ferocity, a miracle it was that the socket of her arm were not ripped from her shoulder. "This- I left it. In Cokeworth. I left it."

Fury ripped through her voice, and amidst it such great sorrow that it edged dangerously into frustration. Harry half-feared he would be struck, shoulders hunching towards his ears before his aunt relinquished her rambling and they both fell into uncomfortable silence. Both breathed hard, neither for the same reason. Part of him wanted to run, like always he did, but running was a coward's choice. Her nails ought not to frighten him so much as the dark lord did. Much in the manner he hated many things, Harry despised how small Petunia made him feel in her shadow. Forcing, then, past his lips what he had meant to say before, he forced his shoulders to relax. Drew the picture protectively against his chest, and evaded its edges with his fingers with caution as to not crease them. "I found it with Mr. Callahan," he admitted, quietly.

Harry had turned sixteen two weeks ago, but still felt as silly as a child most days. "He . . . was looking for me, I think. Used this." He made a vague flapping gesture with the paper, and let his arm drop down dumbly a second later, abashed.

Shrewd eyes gleamed in the low light, and they were fearsome to behold. Petunia did not care to ask what he was doing in such close proximity to the Callahans, and surely already knew that his time spent away from Number Four had likely been a window for him to wander around Surrey. She never much cared for his business at all. Although she had stepped away from Harry, her presence remained looming. Dressed in her pretty nightgown, even the softness of its appearance could not dispel the ardent vitriol in her eyes. Struck with denial, Petunia shook her head and replied, lowly, "There were no Callahans in Cokeworth, nor any that my parents knew."

An overwhelming sense of unknown crashed into him, and left Harry's bones brittle.

In likewise as he desired to do, Petunia sat herself back down unto the couch where she had been before, and bent to pick her fallen letter back up. Never had she seemed so . . . He found he could not find the word to describe what he saw, then, but it was nothing of which Harry liked, nor appreciated. Petunia had always been a confident woman, within her own rights; bold and, though hardly level-headed, demonstrated demurity in exact levels to lower herself below Vernon. As a good wife did. Petunia was not vulnerable; not upset nor furiously despairing. She was not personal, nor ever bothered to pay Harry the time of day unless he had done something especially wicked. Harry only thought to himself that he wished he had stayed upstairs.

When next she spoke, her voice was tiny. "You must leave," said Petunia, with more certainty dripping from her words than had done before. She blinked thrice in swift succession, and grazed the fleshy inside of her cheek with sharp teeth. "With . . . these people, you can't trust them, not any of them, Harry." Don't call me that, he wanted to shout at her. Don't talk to me like you love me, like you care. Harry hated it. Hated it all. "Most especially that . . . boy, that friend of yours. I knew he was a liar the very moment he stepped into your room; a poor one, at that." Befuddled, he felt his lips thin into a frown and brushed the arm of the couch with his fingers.

"How?" he asked, partly amazed. Even he had been fooled by Nott's deception, although to hear that his aunt had seen plainly through it felt vaguely demeaning. But Petunia did not answer, as if she dreaded the words themselves, and hung her head back over her letter and sighed, a wearily-defensive slump to her posture.

The pressure of her fingernails bent the parchment beneath her touch to its will. Crescents burst through the thick paper, nails emerging on the other side as poorly-honed blades. Petunia scoffed, familiar bitterness cresting over her face. "Dumbledore swore I would be the one to protect you," she spat, venomous as a vengeful serpent. "What use would I be against wizards? I couldn't protect you from the day you were given that blasted letter, the day that monstrous half-breed chased us across England . . ." Harry's skin prickled beneath her scrutiny, as her dark eyes swivelled unto him again. Blame was thick within her gaze. "How could I do what Lily couldn't?"

Shaking her head once more, as if the daze brought to her clarity, Petunia's throat bobbed. Her words emerged shaky, yet definite in their purpose. "You must leave; tomorrow, tonight, it doesn't matter," Petunia wet her lips, throat bone-dry. Harry watched her through a tunnel of haze, with a light at its ending which did not beam with promise, but further lands of unknown.

"Where would I go?" he asked, hesitantly, finger rubbing in a small, swaying motion over his mother's initials. There was not a single place Harry could think of going, where danger would not find him. Where people could not be hurt. "There's nowhere. I don't have anywhere to go." . . . "Leave," reiterated Petunia, sharply, as if she cared not for what would result of him were he to wander mindlessly without a home. "Anywhere. Go anywhere. Anywhere but here. I suspected for a time that whatever witchery your headmaster cast over this house has long since died out. There is no - protection - here. I want you . . . to leave. I'll have . . . Vernon, he'll bring your trunk up. Your school stuff, everything."

Inanely, Harry wanted nothing more than for Nott to hang over his shoulder. Tell him, for whatever reason, that what Petunia was saying was false. He knew this sort of magic better than Harry did; had recognised it keenly at the Callahans', and looked so sure in any conversation they held regarding magic that it had become commonplace for Harry to know he knew everything. Nott was smart. He would know what to do; how to deal with this. He would be able to do what Harry couldn't, perhaps, which was leave. More than anything, he wanted the other boy if but to hear his voice. Nott's voice always made him feel clearer about things. Made his mind calmer. It was silly, but adamantly truthful.

Deeming their tribulating exchange finished when Petunia rose and stalked towards the lace curtains of the nearby window to peek through them anxiously, Harry backed out of the living room and felt a rush of cold slide over his skin as the firelight drew further away from him. Uncertainty swallowed him whole. A slow ascension up to his room left him more unresolved than he'd felt in some time, and it was to his lamp-lit room and Fable's hissed greetings that he entered, and slumped into his desk's worn chair. Unfurling herself from the base of his lamp, Fable slithered herself close to Harry's arm as he reached for a quill and inkwell, sliding a parchment paper in front of him. "Leaf tastes of scared. Tastes of putrid air around Leaf's nest."

". . . Fear," he corrected, gently, after seconds of staring blankly at the paper. Ink dripped from the nib of his quill unto the page, but not a move was made to amend the growing mess. "I'm not." Harry insisted, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he, finally, put pen to paper and scrawled out the first word. By his arm, Fable gave a snakey scoff so reminiscent of his aunt that it made him shiver, and glower at the newly-formed word Nott.

A dozen more pages came. A dozen more were thrown into his bin, tucked beneath the desk. Each beheld a different name, though many bore the same in likeness. Nott, Hermione, Ron, Luna . . . even, at one time, Neville. More than once, Harry thought of penning Lupin - or, perhaps, Dumbledore - but the consideration was banished almost immediately. Each one of them would give him no placating word of advice, but strict orders to remain. Lupin . . . he hardly knew where Lupin had gone, which corner of Britain he had slunk away in after the incident at the Ministry. Long since their first meeting had Harry considered a bountiful number of his traits to be unquestionably cowardly, and too many of Dumbledore's were perplexing enough that their nuance eluded him entirely.

Nott, he tried again, before scratching it out with a frustrated, little noise. Where she had taken post with her head propped up by his arm, Fable cackled. She had grown more devious since he had sent Hedwig away; far bolder, and far more mouthy. It almost made Harry wish that his owl were still with them. Kreacher, too, although his reasoning for that, alone, was skewed and incomprehensible. "Shut up." he told her, in a tempestuous mutter. "I'm trying to figure something out."

The soothing flick of her tongue grazed against the jutting bone of Harry's wrist, and despite her cold body, it filled him with warmth. "Leaf is smart," declared Fable, for all it was not all, surely, entirely truthful. "What of Leaf's mate? He is more learned." Harry froze, and with a quick crease to his brow flickered his eyes down towards where she lay in contentedness. The nib of his quill tapped twice against the parchment. "What?" . . . "Nestmate. Fable said 'nestmate'." Not since Kreacher's arrival had her head been filled of such fanciful thoughts; she was - after all - a serpent, and so had begun to mutter of mates the larger and older she became. It was . . . disconcerting, to say the least. Harry only reckoned she was projecting, and flushed the thought away. Somehow, he felt as if he knew who she were talking of.

"I'm writing him already," he informed her, an irritated scuff to the tilt of his mouth as he crossed out another chicken-scratched word. Nothing he wrote appeared to fit right on the page; few words that he sent to Nott ever did. Nothing of that night, the things that had come and those that were to, would fit in their correct places in the puzzle of his thoughts. A disorganised mess; the likes of which Hermione would shriek in horror to behold. "I don't know what to say." he, begrudgingly, admitted after some time. No longer did it feel silly, to seek advice from a snake; she was his friend, as much as Nott was, though he supposed that neither of them would ever quite be Hedwig - no matter that they did not communicate with words. He missed her dearly, he found, though she hadn't been gone for long at all.

Fable hummed, and slipped over his wrist to slip her skinny, forked tongue into a blot of ink. Hastily pulling his arm away from the parchment, he glowered down at her in warning. That, she did not bother to heed. "No worry, Leaf," she told him calmly. "Leaf and Fable can live with Fable's nestmates. Home." The park-fields. Harry squeezed his eyes shut, and set his quill aside. The ink had gone dry only seconds ago from neglect, and he folded the letter to stuff into his pocket and rise from his seat. Fable came along, curled around his wrist as always she adored to be. A weight more comforting than he would care to admit. She had never spoken much of the park-fields, if at all, it only occurred to him, then, to feel a stab of guilt for taking her away from them: they hadn't visited in some time, and he wondered if she would enjoy to meet her nestmates again.

No thought that thereon passed through his head was paid any mind.

In the corners of his eyes, the darkness still whispered. Part of him feared to turn his lamp off, to dredge his room in slimy shadows, but he buried himself firmly beneath his blankets and reached for the radio propped up on his desk. For a few moments, his fingers fumbled blindly with the knobs before a comforting crackling filled the still air. The speakers had begun to ease their gibberish and their incessant, infuriating noises, and make way for the smooth cadence of a song that Harry had begun to recognise by the lyrics. His arm retracted at the very moment Fable's small head settled in the hollow of his throat. For the hours that then passed, Harry remained awake until no longer he could, staring obsessively at that half-broken, sputtering radio as if it held every answer to his plight.

⚡︎

Morning came, and blissful ignorance with it.

His eyes burned from sleeplessness, and the sunlight caressed his skin in fiery tendrils as Harry dragged his feet to the park-fields, a tired drawl to his every step. It was early enough that no neighbour peeked their heads out of their doors to squint at him suspiciously, and that no elderly couple would glance at the box of cigarettes in his hands that he fidgeted with, prying it open with blunt nails. Hair unbrushed, glasses tilted and settled on the edge of his nose, he felt as scruffy, then, as they all said he was. Devil-boy, freak, he chanted endlessly, as if repeating the words might make them any less true. There was nothing of Little Whinging that had felt so surely of home; not even the park-fields or the library nearby the primary school where he liked to tuck himself away every so often. Not the town centre's cinema, or the marble fountain where he would scrounge for coins . . . Not the playground, or Number Four, or Mrs. Figg's cat-infested home nearby it.

That day, Harry found himself in a delightfully unpleasant mood.

Fresh grass bowed beneath his feet and sprung up with life as they retracted, picking his way through long weeds and up the shallow crests of little hills until he stood beneath an oak tree, the only one for many kilometres on the field to see. It was as mighty and sturdy as last he had seen it, and Fable murmured merrily when her head slipped out of his sweatshirt's collar and caught sight of the tree. Harry reached up to stroke the crown of her slim head with his fingers, and marvelled at its deceptive fragility. She was, by no means, venomous - not now, anyway - but, without a doubt, would topple Harry if so Fable wished. A masterful guise, for a creature as sly as her.

So it was, that thought, that passed fresh grief through him. Recalling the night prior, her murmurs of home, Harry spoke, then, with a melancholy note to his voice. "You can stay. If you want. You don't have to come with me." Letting her remain with her 'nestmates' would be a kinder fate for the snake, than having her life at threat every turn they took for the rest of the summer. There would be no Weasleys or cushy Burrow to stay in; no gaudily-orange bedroom to sleep on the floor of, or bountiful feasts to wake up to in the morning. Harry didn't know what there would be, and that was, for him, far worse than knowing anything of such trouble.

But, unlike what he suspected, Fable did not gladly agree and slither off of him to crawl back from whence she came. Instead, she reared up furiously and flicked her tongue in warning. "Leave?" she balked, offense colouring her tone. "Fable will not leave. Fable is not weak. Leaf is home, not nestmates. Nestmates are nestmates, and Leaf is Leaf, and Leaf is home." It was a befuddling puzzle of complex twists to follow, but by the time he had made sense of it all, Harry's knees felt weak, and his face warm. Behind his ribs, under his chest, his heart gave a terrifying, swollen lurch. It filled him from the chest upwards, careening in his throat and stealing the words from his tongue. No matter that he was no longer listening, Fable ardently persisted in her protest at dismissal.

Mindlessly, Harry pried Dudley's cigarette box open and stuck one between his teeth, tucking the rest away. Already, the scent of tobacco filled his mouth though it remained unlit. As fire struck its end, and heady smoke filled his lungs, he hated it as much as he had the first time. "You sure?" he asked her, reluctantly. Pain would be a constant, if then she were to accept - to leave him, and return to her home. Some treacherous part of him still believed that Fable would . . . perhaps hoped. It would be safer for her. Why couldn't she see that? There was little of him that inspired others to follow, except a pitiful orphan boy hidden in a dull town with a duller family. He was beaten, and freakish, and odd. Not a hero - not like the ones Harry read of in his small muggle books. Those were people to be admired, followed to the ends of the earth . . .

Fable cursed at him again, and Harry took it as affirmation. Glee tingled at his skin's every inch, and he ducked his head to hide the flush that clambered swiftly up his face.

But for perplexed at her refusal to leave, he was relieved. "Good." Harry told Fable, soothing her raised temper with strokes along her head, her scaled body which gleamed verdant in the light of early morning. Overhead, the sky was overcast in hues of the gentlest purples and pinks, white clawing at the faraway horizon where dew coated the air and drew a fog over the many peaks of the many houses by the distance. Harry watched over them, solemn, and took an idle drag from his cigarette. All that had gnawed at him with everlasting worry the night before seemed to vanish. There were no worries, upon those park-fields. Never had there been, not even when he'd been a far younger child with far more troubles to toil over. He wanted to believe that it was magic, as much as Harry wanted to believe that there was no need for him to leave Little Whinging.

But he knew, then, that he must. There would be no other choice but death, torment, that would await him if he stayed. Those wizards, nasty wizards, were closer now to him than ever they had been. And had he not dreamed of leaving, one day, by his lonesome to leave Surrey at his back? Harry stilled his fingers, and thought on old dreams. Dreams of green countryside, grazing sheep and cattle, and wind that tasted sweet as it brushed by on a summer breeze. The air in Surrey was cloying and filled with car smog, and its vivid colours came only from the fanciful cars over-boastful neighbours purchased once their mediocre jobs had piled up into enough money for self-serving pleasures.

He dreamed of a simpler life, and felt in its wake certainty.

As he made the first steps back towards Privet Drive, away from the park-fields, Harry thought to himself that it was better this way. Despite their many differences, he would not wish harm upon even Petunia were it to arrive. He did not long to spend his summers trapped away in fear, when the open country awaited him for much the same. Harry did not long to hide in his room - to speak to none but himself, his dreary thoughts, and never to see Nott again. Never had Harry Potter been one of the Dursley family, an outlier on the edges of their domesticity; a black spot amidst the perfect white. Alone, away from here, he would be something else. Terrified, hunted, perhaps . . . but free. No animal, for it was a simple fact that humans were animals at their basest, dreamed of dying in captivity.

Upon his arrival, in a stretch of time that was longer than he had anticipated it to be, Number Four was quiet and bleak. Eerie, in its unnatural silence, as Harry passed through the door and caught Dudley's eye, who simply stared at him strangely before rapidly glancing away. Where he'd lounged himself on the sofa, Uncle Vernon hmphed and appeared gladdened at the task of pretending Harry did not exist. Suiting him well enough, he made for the upstairs, and was almost immediately folded into two upon entering. His trunk had been unceremoniously deposited in the middle of his room, heavy and half-stuffed with his school supplies. Huh, thought Harry, blinking slowly. His aunt had made good on her word. Wherever she had gone that day, he had no desire to know. It was best this way; that he left, largely undetected. Unnoticed.

Fable he left resting on the desk as Harry flit around his room. Heaps of clothing he folded messily and pushed into uncoordinated piles against his books and stationery. The memorabilia which hung against the wall by his bed were stripped off, the frame of his mum and dad along with it - the last of his things to leave was his radio, which he paused upon slightly to fiddle with the antenna before that, too, was gone. Most of it felt wholly performative; a mummer's farce. By the time he managed to force it closed, a light sweat had been built up on his skin, and Harry briefly abandoned the trunk to make for his window. Outside, the garden was untouched and peaceful; he had cultivated it for years in his aunt's name, and had tended to every root and bulb of flower that bloomed from turned soil. He would miss it, he realised, frowning.

But, Harry told himself, turning away, flowers grew far more plentifully in the countryside - in forests. There, he wouldn't be constricted to uniform. Whatever smidgen of comfort it offered him was enough for him to bow over his trunk and press a palm to its engraved head. Days had cultured the magic which grew at the tips of his fingers, though ever was his magic largely resistant to him whenever so it wished. A will of its own, and his fought against it. Temples aching, teeth surging nicks of pain into his bottom lip, he glowered fiercely at the stubborn thing until it shrunk beneath his palm; small enough for him to carry in his pocket. He leaned back on his haunches, chest heaving lightly, and pushed the undersized trunk into his jeans.

"Did Kreacher say where he was going?" asked Harry, suddenly, head twisting over his shoulder to peer at Fable curiously. When she shook her head in dissent, the lazy slump of her head telling of her weariness, he sighed, picked himself up, and drew a crumpled letter from his pocket to straighten upon the desk. "Hurry. We're leaving." Growing haste now gnawed restlessly at his heels like chasing hellhounds. Exasperatedly, Fable complied and clambered up his arm to settle at the base of his neck: now her preferred perch. A final prick of familiarity at the end of what had become years of gruelling acquaintance with life. As he lingered in the threshold, blindly did Harry call out a last hail of Kreacher! before he left. Behind him, his bedroom door shut with a delicate click.

Something itched at his peripheral. Head turning, the sight of Dudley standing dumbly at the end of the corridor met his eye. Harry pursed his lips, and from his jeans plucked out his half-empty cigarette case. He tossed it towards his cousin. "Believe this 's yours, Big D." He didn't wait for an answer, did not linger long enough to see Dudley's head dip in acknowledgement before he was disappearing down the stairs. No animosity trailed him like fever. He hated it. Hated it all.

Vernon did not do so much as glance his way when Harry passed through the living-room, hands stuffed in his jeans. No snide comment was jeered his way at the state of his sweatshirt, clipped of its sleeves to lay like a vest over his shoulders. A poor man's clothing. Nothing that fit into their well-defined home. There was nothing. For that, he found himself irrationally grateful. The garden smelled of nothing, not typically fragrant with flowers, when he emerged from the conservatory and picked his way through the shed to draw out his bike. If there was anywhere he was to go, it would be with all that was his. Harry's fingers flexed. A wave of reluctance hit him like a tidal, but will overpowered it, and he wheeled the bicycle out to the front garden and hesitated as he reached the pavement.

Emotion drowned him, and strongest of all, he was afraid. Harry pondered for a second, wondering if Dumbledore would notice his absence, before he felt a niggling scratching at his nape, urging him to glance back. So he obliged, more freely than he usually allowed himself to.

From the swathes of lace curtains in the living room, Aunt Petunia's haggard face watched him solemnly. Their eyes met, and it startled him to realise that, in the day, she appeared far worse than she had in the night. Would Dumbledore notice, if Harry left? The longer he considered it, the less he cared. Swinging a leg over the bicycle frame, he fit his trainer against the pedal and pushed off sharply. Away he rode, away from Privet Drive; away from Number Four, where he had grown up, had hated, and now did not dare do so much as look back to it in fear he might return. Harry forced his legs to keep pedalling, and comforted himself solely with the weight of Fable around his throat. The wind caught in his tousled hair, and he imagined it smelled sweet - like pollen in spring, or freshly-baked goods left to cool out on colourfully-painted sills.

Harry Potter dreamed of freedom, as Surrey at his flanks faded away the further he departed from its dreary lines of order. The storms that had raged across Little Whinging for days had ceased to darken the sky, and as the last building fell away to empty road, the morning sung with glee and the pedalling chirps of songbirds.

⚡︎

Only was it when his legs ached sorely did Harry stop cycling. He had gone far enough from Surrey, now, that he reckoned he would be somewhere closer to Fleet than to Ripley. Dismounting was a steady task done with trembling limbs and freezing, rouged cheeks; wheeling the bicycle up a shallow mount was hardly any work, but work that he was glad for nonetheless. A train, perhaps, might have done, Hermione would have suggested. A bus - anything. But although he had thought upon them shortly, the traces that such travel left were oft easily found. Though wizards, those that hunted him with such vehemence, were not especially learned in the ways of muggles, the latter were easily-pursuaded, and fickle. Harry had never much trusted anyone, but his aunt's words the night prior had, most unfortunately, stuck. Trust no-one, and he vowed that he would not.

Harry sat upon that mount until his eyes ached from gazing afar to the brightened sky. Loneliness panged at his heart, and curled fiercer as he withdrew James Potter's picture from his pocket. His thumb traced the edges of the man's charming grin, the gleam of his Auror's badge at his breast, and the wildness of his hair that he knew so well upon himself. Turning it over, his touch found then his mother's initials. Delicately scrawled, and ever so simple. L.J.P. They were like his, thought Harry, lips twitching faintly. If only her name had begun with a 'H', they would be identical . . . although Harry did not reckon the name 'Hily' was quite so lovely as 'Lily'.

He mused as to whether or not, had his parents lived, they would protect him as Dumbledore had sworn of Petunia. Would he have a home to dwell in, sound and safe, or be trapped away as a hostage, as he'd feared of Number Four? Harry feared a lot these days, more than he had in his life, but with his parents . . . he supposed that fear would not be so hungry, so strong. Would they protect him, where Petunia could not? Then he knew. Voldemort had been the brightest wizard of his generation; cunning as Slytherin's serpent, which he took to sigil. Lily and James Potter had never stood a chance against him from the beginning of it all. It had simply been their love for him, that had made them believe otherwise. 

Suddenly, Harry loathed the sight of James Potter's smile, and felt his eyes sting savagely.

"Your aunt is a character," said, from nowhere, a voice materialised from thin air. Jumping at the suddency of his arrival, Harry stubbornly scrubbed tears from his eyes and sniffled whilst he looked over his shoulder. Close by, Nott stood with his pale hands hidden away in his pockets. Upon his lips, there was a smile the likes of which he'd never the privilege to behold afore. It was the slightest, most small, smile he had ever seen - but it was enough to make Harry's heart lighten. "You're a fool for taking her advice, Potter, leaving like this." Fingers prodding at his eyes again, Harry pursed his lips to fend away a smile of his own, and turned back around.

Feeling the grass dip beside him, Harry looped his arms around his knees and continued to stare off into the far distance. "I thought you wouldn't come, honestly." he admitted, somewhat sheepishly. As if he had truly been offered no choice in the matter, Nott sounded a breathy scoff and stretched his long legs out in front of him. "Kreacher insisted, although he needn't have done so. He never stopped watching for you in the windows. It was infuriating, despite his good company." Good company? Harry felt like he were the one who ought to scoff, but bit it back and let gladness fill him head-to-toe.

Nott's sandy hair fluttered with the wind, and was brushed aside with a level measure of impatience when the boy's chin angled his way. Harry, who had already been studying Nott, wet his lips anxiously. "Do you have a plan, or is this all uncalculated madness?" A feeble jest, it was, but one that hit home and urged him to respond, clearing his throat of its teary hoarseness. The boy watched him in turn, as avidly as one did a particularly fascinating piece of art. Harry could not make sense of the expression. "Nah, not really. But . . . this way's safer to go. Trains and buses, and big muggle cities; all as dangerous as the next." With a mustered trace of humour in his voice, he ducked his head slightly and questioned, "Your mum doesn't mind - this?" He imagined she would. Purebloods and their children, and whatnot.

Harry outstretched an arm, and flapped it unseeingly towards his bike, resting nearby them. "I put a seat on the back wheel for you, y'know. You could come along. If you want, of course." His heart staggered in his chest, and his soul ran only blank thoughts in the wake of his query. Eagerly did he eye Nott, persistent until he glimpsed the vaguest shift in his expression, and the small curling of his nose with disgust at the prospect of nearing his brutish, muggle death-contraption. But the rejection had not come instantaneously, and it filled him with a fool's hope.

Despite the overwhelming wariness the boy held for the many mundane belongings Harry had, Nott's lily-green eyes were alit with the most peculiar gleam of intrigue. Quietly, he replied thus, "My mother's been gone for a very long time. Sickness killed her when I was a child," Then, staring at his lap, Nott fiddled with a loose string upon his trousers. Not denim, as so furiously he had sworn away from. Harry's mouth curled taut with fondness, as sympathy edged at him like a carefully-honed wand. "You're an idiot, Potter, however much of your idiocy is well-meaning." Too accustomed to such barbs to care much for them anymore, Harry laughed; a quiet titter.

Seconds more were spent simply looking at Nott, before he asked again. "Would you come?"

Hesitation clambered over his demeanour, bristling and tense, whilst he set his eyes on the horizon and bled every inch of tension from his willowy stature. Nott, ever so slowly, nodded in assent. He looked back towards Harry, an odd look to him, before it melted away. "Sure." he replied. They were boys as lonely as each other, no longer fated to suffer lonesome so long as the other was there to dispel it. It would be long before they would be parted, torn asunder; it would not be that day. Of that, Harry was certain.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

⚡︎

𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ xɪ . ɢʀɪᴍ, ʙʟᴜᴇ ꜱᴋɪᴇꜱ

⚡︎

FREEDOM comes with a peculiar price. In vast plains and fields, where much comfort is to be found amidst the empty space, there is a cloying stuffiness to even the loosest-built towns they pass through. By the time Clark rises on the distance at the end of the beaten road they had chosen to take, the sun had risen thrice since Harry had first invited Nott to partner in his madness. Not for the first time, his friends - whatever family is left, still, to his name if not to his blood - pass through his thoughts. Would they know that he left? Would they care - offer to let him stay at theirs? Harry imagined he would write back after much hesitation; would miss the swerves of the roads, and regretfully tell them that he could not. Not for him would any other person come to face danger again.

He waited, perhaps, for any glimpse of hope that a letter would still come. Three days had passed; nothing comes.

It was hardly as if Nott had looked past it more than settle his perturbed mood aside, delving into his intent on clawing out Harry's sides with particularly deft fingers tightened at his ribcage with fear. Blunt nails dig into the shallow dips between the rungs, and though the flesh aches when the touch goes lax, he deigns to say nothing. Since their first set-off from the hill, Nott had been miraculously tolerant with the bike, albeit rather terrified of it. Upon the first time that he had tried to mount it, and had promptly fallen off, Harry had been delivered with a swift sting in retribution for his loud laughter. His skin had tingled for hours after, and yet the novelty of the memory had not yet faded in deterrence of more laughter to come.

Clark looms larger, despite its miniscule size - its homely, squat buildings, as they approach further up the horizon. Crisp, mellow dawn's air flicks against his face, tousles his hair in a manner he is more than aware will earn him a rebuking glance from Nott, or perhaps two. It is the freedom that had come with leaving Privet Drive that had left Harry feeling oddly . . . hollow, most days. Believing more than not that it would fade, his eyes cast not down, and instead fix firmer forward as if the sight of their next stop will spur him into continuation. Not a prick of attention is paid to Nott, perched on the back-seat of his bike, until the boy tightens his fingers as they round a corner, and promptly strangles his middle.

Harry hissed. "Jeez, you alright?" Chancing a look back over his shoulder, his hands press lightly to the brakes, slowing their hasty pace down the road. Although there ever was an itching desire for warmth and presence, Clark, regardless of its stone-hewed charm, was disturbingly desolate. Not a soul walked the streets, and for an instant Harry was reminded of the earlier days of summer where the roads of Privet Drive had been entirely deserted.

Behind him, Nott muttered something foul under his breath, and pinched Harry lightly on the side. "Where are we meant to sleep, exactly, Potter?" he asked, a little curt. "As far as I'm aware, this . . . town doesn't hold a decent shop, let alone a hotel - which would be detrimental to your hide-away."

Ah, right. Who in good conscience even used words like that in every-day conversation?

Swerving the bike off to the side, where the road met the pavement, the brakes of the bike clicked and smoothed them to a halt by the side of a corner-shop he had noticed some seconds before. Swinging a leg over in dismount, Harry nudged the rusty kickstand by the pedals with the toe of his trainer. "I dunno," he admitted, somewhat distractedly, squinting at the few, rusty specks he glimpsed lingering on the spokes of the front wheel. A sharp nudge of a finger to his spine had him straightening rapidly, furrowing his brow at Nott before he began to rattle around in one of his pockets. "Let's go in," said Harry, jerking his head towards the shop, a few crumpled bank-notes clutched in his palm. Keep-sakes he'd taken off of Dudley, of course; a few collected over the years, safely stowed away in his room.

For all he attempted at refinement and stoic posture, the vague unsteadiness of Nott's gait belied his discomfort with their travel. Shoulder brushing Harry's, they pushed past one another in the doorway and were hailed by the gentle chime of a silver bell upon their entrance. Behind an over-stocked counter, a middle-aged fellow - with tanned skin and wrinkles flaring his mouth into a severe frown - glanced up at them with a mere minute of interest flashing in his eyes before it disappeared. Harry pursed his lips, and turned to Nott to push the notes into his hand. He wagered the other boy knew more closely what the two of them needed - all Harry's mind had been drawn on for the past few hours had been silly, mundane things. Not the amount of canned food they had, or how much water they needed before dying of dehydration. The important stuff, really.

"Don't use it all," warned Harry, as if he had just recalled something important. "It's all we have. Get what we need, yeah?"

Perhaps he might have been expecting something sensible to come from Nott. "I know what money is, Potter," snarked the boy, light-heartedly, before flouncing away. Leaving Harry with the shrill reminder that, despite Nott's many similarities to Hermione, he had thrice as many differences to the uppity girl. He watched his back for a moment, studied Nott as the boy picked through shelves of muggle items and attempted to make sense of the more foreign names he could not place. Lips twitching, he ducked his head over a long row of magazines, scouting through them eagerly. There were a few football pages he suspected Dean Thomas, back at Hogwarts, might enjoy; only vaguely recollecting that the boy was a West Ham fan. Yet thinking of Hogwarts, of anything remotely magical, left him feeling invariably hollow.

When eyes cast away from the strange, darker-haired boy lurking in the corners of the shop, Harry's fingers stretched out and, ever so sneakily, stowed away as much as he could into his pockets. Surely he looked a bit more of a fool, jeans bulging out at the thighs as they had not when he'd first come. But necessity was necessity, and with the dreariness of the town itself, he reckoned there were few people living about who would require the stuff whatsoever. Somewhere afar, perhaps on the other side of the store, he heard the first twangs of muted conversation striking up between the shop-keeper and Nott, whose voice sounded decidedly strained. Absently, Harry tilted his head to the side as he returned to the magazines, flicking boredly through their pages.

"And this one?" queried Nott, stiffly.

"Kinder - good for the heart and soul, my boy." replied the shopkeeper, not a moment later, a tiny prick of merriment lighting his voice. The cadence of his tone reminded Harry slightly of Dumbledore, although the thought was vanished viciously soon thereafter it came.

". . . But what is it? Wouldn't it be more sensible to sell eggs in bunches?"

Harry pinched his lips together firmly, ardently fighting back a smile at the sound of the shopkeeper's incredulous sputtering. The gentle crinkling of tin could be heard if so he strained his ears enough, but his attention, already, had begun to wane. Fingers pricking along the sharp-edged corners of each magazine he skimmed mindlessly through, Harry's slow-shuffling feet paused upon a thatch of newspapers, dating back from five days before. Closely, he regarded each one. The earliest had been dated back to the Callahans' attack, which he pushed aside with a sharp twist of something cold and dreadful in his heart, before moving to the next. Half said very little, and three papers in, Harry doubted any of them had much credibility as news sources at all.

Then his eyes, taking a bored sweep over the last few bunch which would, undoubtedly, be as tedious as the last many, froze. A frosty sliver of ice ran down the knobs of his spine.

Harry took a first, tentative step before his arm, in much contrast, swept out light-swift to snatch up the smallest of the newspapers; worn at the corners regardless of its recent dating. Gaze anxiously fluttering between Nott, busy by the till, and the newspaper held firmly between his fingers, he furrowed his brow and latched his eyes unto large, bold print. "MYSTERIOUS ATTACKS HIT SURREY QUAYS" So it read, a most terrible heading if ever he had read one in his life. Gathering it up into his hands, Harry's feet moved rapidly of their own accord . . .

- And, promptly, caused him to collide with a stranger.

"Sorry," he muttered quickly, under his breath, dipping his chin and hurrying towards Nott. He hadn't even noticed the man enter before he had slammed into him with a notable lack of pomp; had not heard the little bell over the doorway ring to signal his arrival. Truth be told, the empty streets had wholly instilled in him the belief that Clark, itself, had been mostly abandoned. When his shoulder brushed Nott's, he mustered up the will to look up to the cashier's friendly eyes and hold out the paper. Burning into the side of his head were pale green eyes, intuitive and keen in a way that, upon many instances, tended to frighten him. "D'you know anything about this - attack?" Clearing his throat roughly on the word attack, Harry shifted his weight from foot to foot and waited impatiently as the shopkeeper scanned it over with a curious noise.

The man held a wispy scruff on his jaw, and despite the unfriendly impression of his face, held a pleasant voice and a kind temperament. Cautiously did he hand the paper back to Harry, smiling politely. Small; as if he weren't used to interacting much with people. "Why, nothin' at all," said the shopkeeper, with intrigue. Reaching forward, he tapped a knobby finger against the title and nodded sagely. "This sort 'a paper hasn't been sold here for years. Company went out 'a commission years ago, in these parts. Most folk visiting don't even know Clark exists. Sorry, truly - it's a charming place." Rubbing at his beard, he blinked quickly before rushing over to Nott a bag stuffed with a number of supplies. Good for the next few days, perhaps the week if they were careful with rationing.

But there is very little of him left that remains privy to the conversation that the shopkeeper had returned to indulging in with Nott. His ears ring torturously loud, shrieking until his temples throb madly, until Harry's scar throbs and sends his knees wobbly and his balance off-kilter. Catching Harry by the wrist as he swayed dangerously, his eyes rose to meet the inquisitive gaze of Nott, who nudges him away softly with a thumb pressed to the jut of his wristbone. What? He wanted to ask the man behind the till, hesitantly shuffling away from the two of them. He had found the paper in the man's shop, hadn't he? It couldn't have just ended up there-

"Potter," An acquainted voice slams through his taken reverie. It is not until Nott nudges his arm once more that Harry comes to realise he had been standing afore the magazine rack for minutes, unblinking, staring at the copy of the strange paper until each emboldened word becomes mush to his seeing mind's eye. Not 'Potter', Harry wanted to say, biting his tongue with sharp teeth before he looked over to his companion. To Nott's fingers, his palm, is a softness to the skin he hardly recognises as same on his own flesh. As if the smoothness of each callous on Nott's fingers had allowed warmth to seep between the lines of his hand, it brushes warmth into his blood. Lifts him, once more, to reality.

When Harry chances to glance at Nott as they head out of the shop, a half-friendly farewell to the cashier called out, stiffness lines the boy's jaw. A muscle within it jumps, and he swivels swiftly towards the bike as though an old enemy had become a close acquaintance. As if there were a reason for his hasty wish to leave. Not a guess of rationality passed him; for all Harry had seen, he had been getting along splendidly with the shopkeeper, and had even managed to snag a few Kinder eggs for free. A gift, for being the first people in his shop for . . . weeks, so the man had claimed, albeit a little sorrowfully.

He swings a leg back over the bike where Nott, already, had taken up perch. Familiar fingers bite at his ribs, and his shoulders go lax. "You good?" asked Harry, not looking back to the boy as he kicks the bike away from its stationary languish and back onto the road. Although no answer comes, that he holds at him far looser than he had before tells him yes.

⚡︎

Night was much the same as the morning, in Clark. Wherever the mystery of darkness would bring a sensation of eeriness over any other town, Clark holds to it as much peculiarity in the dawn as in the dusk. Partly perturbed by the thickening silence, the longer it stretches, Harry found himself only filled with gratefulness as, between he and Nott, his radio drones on its unfurling song. Much in the manner of the early hour, the grass in the field they had taken up camp in is dewy and frustratingly damp. A great manner of complaining had led to Harry lending a jacket to Nott's convenience, if but to keep the boy's back dry as he lounged and watched the stars overhead with slow-blinking eyes. If but to spare Harry from impending madness, the closer he came to realising just how inexperienced the pureblood boy was, with survival.

They were shadowed by a great oak that cast long, gnarly branches to umbrella them with leaves wide and flat, curling at their edges - crisp with growing autumn - like a tiny flame had been held to their rim. In the nearby brush, the vacancy of noise had been filled enthusiastically by Fable's hunting expeditions; the little squeaks of mice as they were captured by his growing girl faded in and out, and every so often she would return, bulging larger with each visit, a spare mice in gleeful offer. For so occupied was Harry, knees drawn up and muggle-book crooked between them, it had become Nott's unspoken duty to dispose of the mice. The first a half-dead rodent had roused and wriggled in his disgusted, pinching fingers, Nott had shrieked so loudly that a flock of slumbering birds nearby had taken flight from their tree.

The pinch of him that consequently came was far worth it, for his laughter.

It felt much like a routine, their camping and slumbering, if even camping was what their arrangement could be called. Harry likened the greenery around them to the Surrey park-fields, and considered that sleeping beneath the great oak of Clark was not at all very different from napping beneath his favourite tree. Only Nott's incoherent murmuring dared to distract him from his current occupation, scribbling with graphite over the scripture of his frice-read book, mindless lines that formed mindless shapes, which formed mindless thoughts. Names of the stars, he thought Nott must have been mumbling about, though cared not much to ask. On one of the pages he had taken to, a field had begun to take form - large, expansive, treeless, and peaceful. Harry considered, for a moment, flower fields, before reckoning the delicacy of the details was far outside of his expertise - if even he had any - and continued to flick blades of sooty grass over black-ink print.

Edging into his hip, slowly but surely, his wand protruded from the space of his pocket; never quite out of reach, despite his ease.

Then, from where he lay content, Nott puffed loudly and lolled his head to the side, neat hair knocked askew. "Does that blasted thing play any other song?" he asked, tone clipped. Head raising from his pages, thin pencil fidgeting to remain within his grip, Harry's lips thinned with surprise before he glimpsed over to his humming radio. Over the last hours had the feedback begun to smooth over, though crackled ominously - blaringly loud - every so often; he reckoned its improvement was in mere response of spite to Nott's distaste of the device.

Harry snickered, ducked his head, and felt a pang of sympathy. "Dunno. Don't think so," Stretching slightly, he grazed one of the radio's loose knobs with his fingertips, attempting to change the channel to no apparent avail. "But the most important part of it's almost fixed, so I s'pose the rest 's gonna follow soon."

"On its own?" Nott huffed, quizzical. He cocked a brow, even his unnaturally peaceful position unable to expel the imperiousness of the expression. "Muggle devices are inferior to magical ones. Instead of that ratty thing, you might have gotten a far nicer, more useful, radio."

Scoffing a little, Harry shook his head and insisted, "It was cheap." . . . To which Nott scoffed far heavier than he had, and with far more purpose, before abruptly turning back to graze under the sky with veneration. Such a fondness for the stars he held to his eyes, that discomfort squirmed in his stomach when he stared for too long, and scrambled back to busy himself in the book - his half-finished scribbles awaiting him happily. Settling his pencil aside, he fanned through the pages, and paused when he noticed the jut of something thinner amidst the book's binding. He huffed, and felt his fingers tighten around James Potter's face. The man beamed up at him again.

For days, he had been resisting the urge to look at his dad; to meet his eyes once more. It was relentlessly infuriating, in some way, to notice each manner in which they were not quite so identical as others praised them to be. Not for the first time, he wondered if all the others whom he had come across had been lying to him. Harry wondered if Lupin had not, indeed, seen James in Harry's smile - for they most certainly did not look the same - and in his face. Harry's was softer; inanely less refined than James Potter's face, like it had been worn at the edges by rich cotton instead of ancient silk. He wondered if the lies had come from the wish to retain James in Harry's place, and the idea of it disturbed him profusely.

His stomach rolled, a haphazard nausea beginning to clamber upon him; and so he turned the picture over, feeling it subside like the first rush of cold healing over fevered skin. Staring at the short, slightly lopsided lines of his mum's handwriting, Harry slouched against the trunk of the oak tree and flipped it over thrice in his hand. Although the first and last he had mentioned it to Petunia had been not three days before - four nights before - it felt miraculously as if lifetimes stretched between that moment of the past, and his current present. Her parents, in their house, wherever she had left behind the picture . . . there had been no Callahan known to the Evanses to collect it from their home. How was it, that it had simply appeared in Callahan's room? A picture of his dad, a note from his mum to his aunt.

("Potter- Potter, they said - he looked like him! Oh, the Potters . . . those Potters-")

He had been hunting him, he knew then. Or, if he had not, then Callahan had merely been looking over Harry. But, even with that guess, it made little sense to him. He hadn't even known who the Callahans were, and that they had been in possession of his dad's picture, something so terribly personal they ought not to have even known of its existence- In some way, it sickened him.

"The picture you found," blurted Harry, clearing his throat softly. Nott jumped slightly, and turned his head back over to look at him with the dullest gleam of question in his stare. "The one of my dad. It was supposed to be my aunt's."

Nott hummed, and whereupon his stomach his hands rest, his fingers tugged absently at the fabric of his jumper. "I figured. It was addressed to her," he responded, calmly. "I saw the note." Of course he had.

Harry ran a hand down his face, sighed wearily, and stretched his legs in front of him with a quiet wince screwing his face up. For a boy of sixteen, he felt archaically brittle. "Yeah, but she left it behind. At her parents'. Apparently they never knew these people, wherever they lived." If Petunia had happened to mention the town of her parents' residence, Harry had long forgotten its name. What was it - Stoke-something? Fort..? Deciding he cared not for it, he shrugged, somewhat abashed, after Nott quietly suggested it may have been stolen instead of freely given.

Some part of him felt childish, foolish for daring to admit such a thing, yet nonetheless it came. "I didn't even think I had other family," said Harry, in a small voice. He flicked and fidgeted with the edges of his book's pages, the novel splayed on his lap carelessly. "Aside from the Dursleys, I mean . . . I guess I didn't suppose there was anyone left. I don't even know if they're alive - my grandparents." His parents sure as hell weren't, and the Dursleys never would have cared for him anyhow, if he had been less magical. All they had scorned, all his life, had been his parents: his drunk father, and his sop-head mother.

Nott had fallen silent, gazing at Harry without so much a word coming from him. Exquisitely off-putting, was the sudden thought that came by. Abashed, heat clambered up to his ears and settled like a flaming brand. When he heard the boy shuffle against the grass, Harry's jacket at his back, he shifted against the oak tree, basking in its shadow, and forced his mind's clattering turmoil to ease. There were some things, he supposed, that ought not to be mentioned at all. Family had never truly been anything he considered beyond envy and resentment, but with it, now, had come a blustering, terrible hope. So fragile it could descend into crippling grief, if coaxed to shatter.

Between them, in slumber, the radio continued to drone on. There were no static breaks, no skin-scratching screeches to scatter discomfort over them both. Only smooth song remained, for the first time since its purchase. Harry, blearily, managed only to pick out a few words afore he fell to sleep, curled pathetically around his book. ('I'm all out of hope-')

⚡︎

The house was wonky.

It was the first thing Harry noticed, when his graphite pencil slipped the slightest from the neat edges of the likeness he scribbled into his book of the building in front of him. When his eyes darted between the two, drawing and reality, he found there to be little difference in their atypical shape, and swung his legs boredly from the short wall as he pondered each stone with a rational measure of growing despair. They had been in Clark for two days, the second dawn encroaching upon their peace with further silence, and stillness that embedded itself into his bones like hooks to a fish's greedy mouth. But the house was wonky, and slipped too far over the space between two lines, grating enough that he hissed between his teeth and worried incessantly at his lip.

No matter midsummer, the town was overcast with looming rainclouds and a bitter chill that swarmed like a hoard of wasps against his skin. Harry had been forced to retreat into a thick jumper that morning, after finding his clothes sodden, which he rolled twice at the sleeves in order to regain mobility of his hands. Not minutes before, he had left Nott to slip back into the only shop in the town - so it was branded, to them - that still held life within it. After stubborn insisting that he could expertly deal with the muggle-grocer, Nott had demanded two more pounds from Harry before entering. Although, it had not been without a warning to not talk to anyone. To keep his head as down as he could keep it.

. . . Harry had undoubtedly not amused the boy when he'd complained of neck-pain not even a second later.

The graphite scratched its short, unsharpened nub against the page and filled his ear with soothing repetition. Before him, the house stood on a street as part of a row of numerous other buildings that looked much the same to it - wobbling on its axis, with crooked window-frames that seemed a thousand years old. Yet on his page, it was lonesome on a field of grey, its backside marked by a circle of tall trees that stretched far past the book's reach. In front of its colourless door, a sloppy flower bent on its stem, decorated only with sorry-looking petals darkened by an afterthought of filling-in.

Within all the time he had occupied the short wall nearby the corner-shop, not a soul had brushed past. Not one, but for the peculiar gentleman who brushed by Harry with an impatient stride. Impatient, though to it was a certain languidness that came with the simple, restless urge to move, more than out of any necessary hurry. When he strode past him, an odd smell flit into his nose, leaving his head light and rather dazed. Shaking it off, Harry screwed up his nose and sniffed, tension ebbing from his muscles when the man was far away enough that the world felt, once more, safe. Alone was safe, he had come to realise. There was danger in numbers - being alone, here, was safe.

A hand tugged sharp at his sleeve, jolting Harry away from his drifting state. Nott glowered at him, eyes flickering around the both of them with a wary gleam, like he knew something Harry did not. "That wall could be tampered with, Potter. Off," Batting at him until he scrambled off of the bricks, bewildered, Nott's flapping hands returned stagnant to his side, the pockets of his trousers round with a number of Kinder eggs - courtesy of the shopkeeper who had grown fond of his presence, and the queer way that Nott talked.

Clutching his chest, Harry puffed loudly and tucked his pencil away, book held protectively between his hands. "I need to get you a bell," he scowled, reaching up to tousle his sleep-ruffled hair into a modicum of intentional disarray. Then he murmured a little laugh under his breath at the sheer absurdity of Nott's words, and claimed, "Why would we go back to the park now? It's not even fully morning." But the other boy pretended as if he had not heard Harry at all, which was, in itself, quite astounding. Regardless of any nonsense he always tended to ramble on about, Nott always listened; gave his own input or remained in attent silence. Now? Not a semblance of idea that he'd so much as realised Harry had spoken at all.

"What's that?" asked Nott, suddenly, leaning forward in try to glimpse the title of the book in Harry's hand. Ever the keen explorer of knowledge. He flushed, tucked it a bit closer to himself, and felt somewhat defensive over the boy's new discovery. It wasn't as if he was a complete dunderhead, and he didn't entirely appreciate the implication.

Reluctantly, he drew it away from his chest and leaned back on the wall behind him, much to Nott's blatant disapproval and mean-glancing looks. "Muggle literature. Stole it from the library a few months ago," Harry had found it at Hogwarts, more accurately, after spotting a muggleborn Hufflepuff pouring over the book each day at her table. The only reason he had recalled its title was because of the hideously pink pencil she used to scribble in the margins. Shuffling the book between his hands, uncaring of the bristle that ran up Nott's spine at the lax admission of theft, Harry flicked to the very first page - blank but for inked handwriting, written purposefully by its last owner, unnamed.

The dedication had been penned with unabashed fondness, a mark that he had picked out almost instantly upon first reading the second-hand passage. Three names in succession, all followed after their listing by a short and precise note of love for their likeness. Harry had had to bite the desire to rip the page out on more than one occasion. Running a thumb over the first name, the calligraphy so narrow he could not make out anything except for, maybe, a C, he grazed his teeth over the inside of his cheek in thought. A lineage; albeit a short one. Harry's thumb brushed over the second name, then the third. Only the third name differed from the rest, not holding the same family notation as the other two. Inanely, he thought, then, of his grandparents. Evanses. Potters. He should have known that they would all have different names, different families and lives.

But it would not have made much sense at all, for Harry Potter to ponder on something as faraway and wistful as family.

Then he thought of a morbid tapestry, clambering up an old, damp wall decorated with black leaves and the spindly roots of a tree clambering over the paint like a rot. Sirius' finger, tracing over his blackened effigy; the skull of the name next to his own; the face of his mother, Lady Walburga, and bypassing his father, Lord Black, entirely. Sirius had hated his family, recalled Harry, with sorrow. If there remained family to him yet that lived, he did not think there could be much in the world that would ever make him hate them. But for the Dursleys, if ever they'd been 'family'. Family didn't hurt one another. The Weasleys were testament to that. To a line such as the Blacks, of whom Sirius had spat of with such hatred, the title was little less than a mimicry of warmth.

His thumb returned to the first name, then the second, and finally the third. He had no wish to read the lines of affection beneath the list. Sirius had been a man as bitter as his mother, as cruel as his father, and as terrible in temper as Kreacher. He had not been so far removed from his family as he had dreamed of being - not entirely. Not ever. Blood was blood, thought Harry. It did not dilute for anything.

Then the sunlight crawled back into his vision, and he was gazing blankly at Nott, unmoving beneath his inspection. Still as a lake. Harry enjoyed that, sometimes, how still Nott could be when everything around them remained in motion. "Are all pureblood children taught about their family?" he mused, furrowing his brow as he snapped the book shut and tucked it to his waist. His head spun only slightly, now, disillusioned from the shock of a stranger's earlier presence in the ghost-town. Perplexed, Nott levelled him only with a brief look of confusion before he nodded curtly, and claimed shortly then that his father, Lord Nott, had seen it as his duty to teach him of every member of their line until their names were forevermore etched in his soul. One strike to the knuckles if he could not recall each of their titles with ease.

Pointedly ignoring the fine-trembling shiver that wracked through Nott's hands at the recollection, Harry nodded and felt his throat run dry. "And other families - pureblood families? You learn about them, too?" He imagined that they would; Sirius had always appeared so knowledgeable of the other wizarding families that his proficiency on the subject could not have come from passion alone. Even Ron, he remembered, had always had a keen mind for that sort of stuff: had, more than once, lectured Harry on the importance of certain customs, although the Weasleys themselves did not adhere to them, and pointed to him members of families he would have never recognised on his own.

Nott huffed. Paused. Looked to the other side of the road, as if wishing he could gaze through the stones, between the small cracks that age had worn into their ancient making, and hung his head slightly. Somehow, Harry became struck with the impression that the boy knew exactly what he was asking without so much as speaking it aloud. Picking at his nailbeds, a contemplative look passed over his fair face. "Euphemia and Fleamont," said Nott, without prelude. "Your grandparents on your father's side."

Wholly awestruck, Harry gazed at him doeishly before the boy rapped his knuckles against the low, brick wall and levelled him with a rebuking glance. "We have to leave," said Nott, disallowing Harry to get so much a sentence in edgewise. Not that he wished to, of course. Fleamont and Euphemia, he thought, obsessively, something within his chest churning like poison pumping through rushing blood. "There's nothing for us here, anyway. The next town isn't too far off-"

Fleamont and Euphemia.

Harry heard nothing, only felt his own compliance as he nodded thoughtlessly along to whatever Nott said. Between them, anyhow, he was the smartest. That hardly stopped him from prattling on, all the way back to their bike, as to how they had already risked endangering themselves. Clark was a small town, Nott reminded Harry, grasping at his wrist to tug his idle steps longer, swifter. If anyone were to come asking for them, the only signs of life in that desolate place, they would be plain in sight for anyone to find. "Magic leaves traces," continued Nott, tucking a plastic bag over one of the bike's handles, already perching himself on the backseat. Harry swallowed, and looked at him with bafflement. Was he still talking? "Even a few hours can leave some trail of us for someone to find."

"Comforting," mumbled Harry, sarcastically, clambering onto the bike. Nott's fingers found his ribcage once again, and there was little warmth to be found in his palms. Not like Harry, who consistently ran hot, and felt already his palms begin to slick with sweat. Fleamont and Euphemia Potter.

But he knew, as he pedalled madly through the lonely streets of Clark, that Nott's predictions were right. The fine hairs at his nape tingled, rose upon their hackles, as they drove further away from the comforting corner-shop, down the road where the houses - slowly but surely - became furthermore rotted with dilapidation the longer they passed by. Tall and proud homes became squat and dirty, painted windows shattering into splinters clinging unto their musty frames. Though the nature around the town did not change, it felt wrong that its untouched beauty cradled such . . . abnormality in its blooming, verdant arms. Finally, at the edge of town, where awaited to welcome their exit was a large, chipped sign, life bloomed from the ground.

It was grim and swathed in endless black, dreary and morose, and so terrible to look upon that Harry's soul cringed instinctively away from the sight. Nott's hands tightened around him, though their bite, once a sign of companionship, now felt for a brief moment like the ripping of claws into flesh. Townsfolk gathered in their masses by the sign, none beholding any vestige of colour upon their form, staring at the two boys as they cycled past with haste. Mistrusting eyes clutched unto them with great need; crumpling to forgetfulness if they slipped past. Each stare felt more personal than the last, as if they had met before - as if they had, once in a dream, crossed paths. Harry's breath staggered as then he saw it.

Between each of the townsfolk, at their epicentre, the open hearse of a young boy was being lifted into the air. His skin was grey, although not much of him was visible from their distance, and his deathly face troubled with age. Somewhere amidst the crowd, the strident wail of a woman split through the air, and cracked like the entrancing rumbles of a thunderstorm on the near horizon. Each eye followed them as close as the last.

Nott's hand pinched his waist, and Harry jerked, head swinging forward. He cried out- swerved so sharply he thought the bike would topple over... "Potter!" yelped Nott, pressing himself hard against Harry's back as the pavement skidded beneath them, as the funeral-goers continued their mournful procession and lingered on the edge of town. Heavy as stone, his chest refused to yield to the swelling of his lungs with blessed air, choking him indefinitely as he swivelled his head back over his shoulder and searched, wide-eyed, behind the both of them for the passing figure he had narrowly avoided running over.

At the other end of the road from where it had been crossing, the limp tail of a black mutt swerved between the many robes of the gathered procession and disappeared.

Skidding to a stop, Harry's limp foot straightened the bike as he caught his breath, eyes stinging fiercely. He had seen it, he had seen it- Yet, no matter how hard then he looked for it, the mutt did not reappear. Behind him, Nott's hands loosened; sometimes, they furled before going lax once more, a soothing rhythm that tingled up his neck. But he had seen it, hadn't he? A finger taps his shoulder, then, and Harry shakes himself back to a tumultuous reality. Stormclouds loomed on the distant sky. Once more, he pushed off from the ground and slipped his foot back into the bike's pedal . . . and drew he and Nott far, far away from the town of Clark under a dewy dawn.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

⚡︎

Harry,

Dumbledore informed us of your disappearance two nights ago. I’ve been trying to find the time to write, but the Order’s been drawn into great panic since you left. Do you even know how to look after yourself, out there, alone? No matter how much you insist otherwise, you can be a fool sometimes. Wherever you are, you need to listen to Dumbledore. Go home. Summer’s almost halfway over, and the weather’s only turning for the worse.

Mrs. Weasley’s besides herself with worry; Ronald says she’s gone mad. We’re all worried about you, but the Order insists that you remain at Privet Drive until someone comes to collect you at the end of summer. I know how you feel about that place, Harry, but you have to think about your safety - about your family.

Did you know that magic leaves a trace, even in small areas of the countryside? It isn't safe out there, not with the Dark Lord scrounging for your head.

Please, return home. Stay safe.

Hermione Granjer.

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Chapter Text

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𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ xɪɪ . ᴛᴏ ꜰʟᴇᴇ, ᴏʀ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ꜰʟᴇᴇ

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TOWN squares were stinking heaps of touristic scams. No matter where their feet strayed, where their noses brushed the air, there lay upon the wind the thick rot of money; the touch of flyers hanging under their chins, thrust eagerly forward by young men and women who had never seen them before. Once, the anonymity would have calmed his soul to content, but the fleeting nature of the past day and a half had struck him as decidedly uncomfortable. Hardly able to shoulder the entire wrongness of the eerie town of Clark, the eyes that had felt as if to follow them henceforth clawed greedily at his skin with small hooks at the edges of their tapered fingers. They tore wounds at him invisible to the eye, but those that he felt bled sluggishly and coated him in a sticky film.

Nothing about anything felt natural anymore, and Harry was sure that, by the time Nott had come to realise that he hadn't been listening to a word he was saying, he had worried the edges of the parchment in his pocket folded and forevermore-curled. That day, the wind gusted with vehemence, as if battling against some unknown force none could feel; even in the sweater he donned, the jacket he'd shoved above it in a desperate effort to remain warm, the cold still slithered through the looser weaving of the wool it was made of - down the collar of his coat. A light spittle rained down from the overcast skies, which hadn't been sunny since their departure from Clark the day before. Around them, what felt to be hundreds of other people walked along their strides.

It was Nott, between them both, who appeared the more mightily disgruntled. "Why are they everywhere?" he asked, snappishly, near Harry's ear. When they passed by a shop's particularly sizeable display window, the blaring screen of a television droned on the weather-news. Sunny and warm skies, it forecasted for the next few days, although there had been, for some time, very little sign of the rain letting up. Strange, thought Harry idly, before glancing over to Nott.

He supposed there must have been some point of interest nearby, for they hadn't come across a town so populated as this one since they had left the bounds of Surrey. "Reckon it's holiday for them," hummed Harry, toying with the corner of the parchment, still, stuffed messily into his jeans without a second thought. It had come to him the night before, delivered by an owl he hadn't so much as glimpsed the face of, before it had hooted angrily and swept away in a flurry of dusty feathers. "More the merrier, isn't it?" he tried to joke, lips twitching as he turned back to look at his companion. Nott hardly appeared enlightened by the humour, and merely huffed as they went along their way. Tough crowd.

Held in Nott's hands was a half-finished sandwich they had managed to sneak from one of the many carts that patrolled around the place, wrapped in an oily covering that the boy held with the tips of his fingers. Like he were afraid of soiling his hands. The sight had almost drawn him to laugh a few times, valiantly held back with the desire to preserve his own dignity lest he be hexed.

After some time, wherein the path ahead of him blurred into a distant nothingness, and his thoughts once more strayed to the letter warm under his hand, Nott bumped his shoulder against Harry's and leaned close. "We're being followed," he murmured, glancing over them, face unreadable as it squinted into the messy throng of people swarming them. At least here, amidst a crowd, they were safer than they were on the open road. More hidden, reasoned Harry, before he thumbed the letter again and frowned, humming absentmindedly along to whatever it was that Nott had told him. She had spelled her name wrong, he mused. He pondered that it must have been late, when Hermione penned it to him, and how dearly he found himself missing her in the aftermath of that thought.

Despite that thought, something wrong itched at his skin. He could hardly recall her telling him that she would be moved during the summer, if she had told him at all. Dumbledore had talked to her - all of them? In the year that had passed, the headmaster had been frustratingly idle in divulging any sort of Order business to Harry and his friends. It felt . . . off-putting that he would so freely blurt out information like that. But what lightened him, regardless and inexplicably, was the fact that he had noticed his absence at all. A silly thing to dwell on.

There was a gentle tug at the sleeve of his coat, and Nott's eyes boring into his. Harry startled, and tore his hand away from the letter in his pocket. "We're being followed, Potter," insisted Nott, once again, this time without his eyes cast off to the distance - which often made it easier for Harry to tune out what he said. Most of what came out of Nott's mouth, these days, was a complaint about something or another. He had begun to regret, slightly, believing that a stuffily-raised pureblood would fare well on a trip like this. Then Nott's eyes flickered, somewhere past Harry. His eyes followed in turn, intrigued despite himself.

. . . Wherever it was that Nott had been glancing to held no sign of a familiar figure, nor anyone watching them with a peculiar closeness. Maybe the journey had finally driven him mad, he supposed, covering Nott's lingering hand with his own and prying it gently away from his sleeve. He laughed quietly and nudged the both of them towards a nearby terrace, guarded by the shade of a few worn parasols. "C'mon, sit down. You've gone a bit barmy, Nott," Harry practically pushed him into a seat, settling himself on the one parallel not a moment later, fiddling with his fingers, disconcerted by their chilliness.

The town they had ridden into earlier that afternoon was rife with people, vibrant with life in a way that brought to them an inexorable sense of ease. A feeling that ought to be atypical, with their current situation. For no particular reason, Professor Moody's voice blared like a foghorn in his distant thoughts. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! The man - or, rather, Crouch Jr. in his likeness - had been preferable to yelling at any given time. In a rather fitting way, it had kept Harry on-edge each time he had walked into Defense, expecting a peg-legged ex-Auror to jump out at him with a curse.

"I'm not-" Nott moved to insist, lips thinning, before Harry swept up a menu tucked beneath a salt-shaker and quickly read over it.

"Coffee looks nice," he interrupted, emphatically. A disgruntled look swept over the other boy, before he surged forward and snatched the menu away from him.

"You don't even like coffee, Potter." he snapped, eyes flicking up over the rim of the card to glower at him. They lowered instantly, and Harry felt a sudden surge of amusement as he leaned back in his seat. Tilting his head, he stared afar to the rest of the town square as its occupants bustled and rammed into one another with childish haste. He had always considered the youth to hold very little difference to the old, in their insistence to fill space. As so he thought, his fingers tapped rhythmically against his thigh in a drum, his spine prickled and drew him into a deep contemplation.

Clark was of what he thought, its empty streets and long-wandering ghosts down the pavements; the funeral-goers and the boy in his coffin, held high above the heads of his elders. His face had been ashen, grey as if smeared with fireplace-embers, and so still that it reminded him, sorrowfully, not only of Anwen Callahan and her eccentric existence, but, too, of Cedric Diggory. Merlin, but it had been a long, long time since he had thought freely of the older boy. Brave, he had been, and so terribly ambitious that it felt to Harry a pity if they, two, did not share victory in that thrice-damned tournament. He had died for a boy he hardly knew. His fingers curled punishingly taut against his lap, biting into the firm denim of his trousers. He had been so still, that night, so terrifyingly cold when Harry had held him - snatched him away from that graveyard. Back to Hogwarts where he had faced the agonising brunt of his dad's grief.

It was Nott's impatient rap on the space in front of him that jerked Harry back to reality, which edged him to note that he had bitten through his lip. Swiping his tongue over the small, sharp-tasting slit, he met Nott's eyes curiously. The menu had been discarded, and only their half-finished breakfast sandwich lay between them on the rain-spittled table. Not enough to soak through, but enough to dampen their sleeves. "Are you going to listen, this time?" asked Nott, curtly. Harry blinked, snorted softly, and nodded. "Sure."

Whether or not he had grown displeased at the lax answer was hidden, although the rigidity that stressed at his arms was poorly masked. However, he appeared appeased enough by Harry's attention that he deigned to say nothing of his earlier inattentiveness. Hermione would have. Hell, even Ron, but they had never quite understood his proclivity for drifting away. His unsparing wont to remain inside of his own head. "There's a stranger here," said Nott, as Harry reached across the table and snagged the sandwich for himself. "I saw him before - in Clark. Pale as the moon, but dark in certain lights." His nose curled at his own words, fingers twisting against the slightly-warped wood of the terrace table. Even to Nott, the words sounded like madness.

But Harry listened, even as he sunk his teeth into the remnants of the sandwich and privately thought him batty.

"We've lingered here for too long," sighed Nott, roughly, pursing his lips as he tugged at the collar of his own coat; a piece that Harry had pilfered for him from an outlet they'd passed out of Clark-way. Then his bright eyes turned once over Harry, twice, and then thrice for better measure. "You're too distinct, Potter." he remarked, the comment sounding more a slander than anything else. With a mouthful of sandwich, Harry paused and straightened in his seat at the regard. When his bewildered stare turned quizzical, Nott waved a hand mockingly over his own face . . . where Harry knew, upon his own, bolts of pale lightning struck through his tanned skin, kissing the height of his cheekbone first before disappearing by his hairline. Like he'd been slammed in the head by an electricity cable, or something.

At the motion, Harry snorted loudly and continued to feast on the meagre sandwich, its contents long-gone cold and soggy. "How's Kreacher?" he asked, around a mouthful of cold bread, eggs, and tough bacon rashers. Nott's brows drew low over his eyes, peeved at the indifference to his warning. "And Hedwig, how's she? I miss her, y'know." At the sound of the snowy owl's name, from where she had busied herself for many days fastened around the other boy's wrist like a scaled bangle, Fable peered her head out from beneath Nott's coat sleeve and tilted it curiously. "Owl? Mean snow-owl is here? Ugly, mouse-eating bastard?"

Harry huffed, swallowed down his mouthful, and shook his head subtly. Held back, rather sensibly if you asked him, a loud bark of laughter. "Not here, no. She's with . . . Kreacher, I guess. They're staying together wherever Nott lives." Hearing his name, the galled knit to the boy's brows softened, eyes pulling up from the table with sharp intensity. Lips twitching, Harry flickered his eyes once to Fable, marvelling briefly at how large she had grown from a mere wisp, and commented, "She misses them, too."

Although hesitant at the turn of conversation, Nott crossed one leg over the other and obliged, albeit with great displeasure. Glimpsing the visible dissatisfaction on the boy's face, Harry felt a churn of guilt in his chest before he pushed it down hard. "Your batty house-elf remains terribly-mannered as a buffoon," he told him, dryly, eyes fixed obsessively on the shifting crowds to the side of the terrace. A twist of discomfort rolled through Harry at the sight. "But your owl - Hedwig, was it? - is well-tended to. She's . . . made friends with Odile" - He recalled the black owl who had flown, once, into his room at Privet Drive, and smiled slightly at the recollection - "and has gained the fright of the manor's house-elves." Strangely, Nott sounded rather awed at the circumstance.

But Harry, warmed enough at the knowledge that his greatest companion and most begrudging watcher were, indeed, alright, laughed loud and sudden. A few eyes turned towards them, though he heeded none so strongly as Nott did, who hastily leaned back in his chair as if struck, and stared at him with dismay and open scandal. "What, you rich now?" asked Harry, mouth full, with sparkling eyes and the triumph of a correct hunch lifting his spirits rather marginally. Naturally it would have been foolish of him to believe that a boy like Nott wasn't an occupant of, at least, a sizeable house - but a manor . . . Not even the Blacks, as far as he was concerned, had been affiliated with a manor.

When he righted himself, wondering at his abrupt swivels of mood, Nott's cheeks had flushed a dusty pink; his eyes wide with mortification. He was unnaturally still in his seat, and collected himself rapidly after noticing Harry's scrutiny. As if in a last play for posture, his lips curled into an unpleasant sneer which held little heart to it. "Don't eat with your mouth full, Potter, you're not an animal." he scolded. But his hands resumed their percussive rapping, and after some time, when the vivid hue to Nott's pale skin had faded and he cleared his throat, he thinned his lips and indulged Harry. "Whatever wealth I might have comes from Lord Nott."

"You're his sole inheritor," mused Harry, crumpling the oily sandwich paper into a balled heap and tossing it into a small bin nearby them. He understood that much - so he assumed. He was Sirius' only heir, after all; so the man had told him afore his untimely death. "But you're a minor. Thought you can't inherit anything until you're eighteen." Much of what he knew, admittedly, came only from muggle laws and his uncle Vernon's incessant prattling on Dudley inheriting Number Four when he turned legal. The thought had always been laughable, but even the memory, now, felt faraway and distant - disconnected from what had become his present.

"Muggle sham," scoffed Nott, waving a dismissive hand at Harry's reply. "Money is money, it passes down a family regardless of age. All that matters is the status of who currently holds the money itself. My aunts have more recently made themselves comfortable in the manor, and their wicked husbands with them, claiming they wish to keep me company after my father's imprisonment." Harry had the impression that it was not so, and unbidden, leaned forward, intrigued. He recalled Cantankerous Nott well, no matter his desire that it be otherwise. Nott eyed him, jaw stiffening as if he were unsure as to whether or not he should continue, before deciding on the former.

His finger traced a whorl on the wood of the table, eyeing each of his motions with an unyielding eye. "They're quiet," said Nott, almost bitterly. "But whatever they brought with them from Germany, it's poisoned my house-elves and killed my closest. Concoctions in the food, I'd more think than outright murder; my family have always been slippery, but never so bold." It was why, Harry guessed, he had chosen to join him so readily. Why he had told Harry that there would be none at home who would particuarly care for their leaving. So Nott had disappeared, away from his manor, the fortune of House Nott left in the intemperate hands of his relatives.

Harry drew his brows together and frowned, wondering at the sheer absurdity of Nott's tale. Wicked, murderous aunts sneaking for his wealth. "Pureblood mania," he mumbled, recalling a similar phrase from some time before. Although his recollections of the time before fifth-year were fuzzy, the memories he had of Sirius always had remained clear as a sunny day. His nape prickled. In his pocket, Hermione's letter felt as if it had been weighted down by tidal waves, furious and intent on crumpling him. Thinking nothing of it, he scanned his eyes rapidly over Nott's face, the stoniness that had come over it, and found himself staring, unbidden, for a short while.

After moments more of consideration, seconds spent leaned back in their chair and watching the rest of the plaza, Nott stood and - without much declaration at all - swept inside of the terrace's cafe to find a bathroom. Fidgeting, Harry stood and lingered awkwardly near the table, roving his gaze around the ominous rush of people around them. Families (his stomach curled with nausea, and a great envy) and friends and lone businessmen and women hurried to their stations, though many loitered and slowed their paces to the ire of those around them. Cameras were poised and clicked, their bright beams stilting through Harry a fine flinch each time they snapped to life.

The Ministry- the reporters- Dumbledore's hand, weighty yet featherlight upon his shoulder- the pressure of his head- . . . Sirius.

His blood had run cold by the time he came to, when Nott had yet to return, and a flash of pale hair caught the light in the distance of the crowd. Vibrant eyes squinted. Tanned fingers bulged their knuckles as they furled into a work-weathered palm. Desperately he searched for that mere inkling of a moon-white head, and caught it dressed in a jacket he had seen not a day before. The man's hair had been darker, noted Harry, who had gone very, very still where he stood. But his face was the same. He recalled it well, perhaps better than he ought to have. It had been in an edition of the Prophet that Ron had shoved under his nose when the school year had ended, it had been swathed in midnight in an eclipse of terror as the Dark Lord had been inched back to life in that graveyard.

Harry had seen the man before in Clark, a shadow amidst a town of ghosts. But before that he had seen Thorfinn Rowle at the Ministry; had seen him at the graveyard, cowering at Voldemort's feet a year before. Even through the haze of a terrified blood-curdling, he had looked upon the man's face and remembered it well. Then he knew: whatever madness he had believed Nott plagued with had, instead, been keen foresight. They had lingered here for too long. 'Magic left traces', Nott had told him with such surety. 'Magic left traces', had said Hermione in her letter.

Perhaps Rowle had known that as well, for he was gaining swiftly on the terrace with horrifying speed.

Doubt clinging to his soles, attempting to peel him back to the slate of the underfoot, Harry darted past a couple exiting the cafe and dove into a sea of patrons attempting to hail coffee to themselves. His heart beat with such frightening clarity, each deafening thrum caught it in a clamber further up his throat until it clogged and lodged. His skin was cold, his blood ice. Shouldering his way through what was surely half a hundred people, blasting a trail of disgruntled mutters behind him, he sequestered himself in a corner by the bathrooms . . .

And, when Nott emerged, thrust him fast against the wall, his wand digging into the boy's stomach.

Harry breathed hard, eyes blown wide with fury - doubt. "He's here," hissed Harry, jamming his wand deeper against Nott's stomach. A wince flashed briefly over his face afore it flit away like pollen on wind, leaving behind blazing eyes and a bristling posture. "Rowle. You didn't- you didn't tell anyone where we are?" The wispy, morbid memory of the graveyard danced behind his eyes. Lord Nott, his father, stood abreast Rowle as they bent in deference to Voldemort. Cowards; vile men. And he had run away with one of their sons- Stomach coiling into flaming knots, the friction between them sizzled and branded his flesh with fear. He couldn't have - he wouldn't have.

"No," snapped Nott, bitterly, something flashing behind his gaze. Whatever it had been, it disappeared before Harry could recognise its presence. Reaching down, Nott clasped the blade of Harry's wand with a fist, an unyielding grip he could not have tugged away from had he tried. Vehement. Leaning close, so terribly close that their noses touched, Nott sneered, "No-one." Then, with little grandeur, the boy flicked his wrist and snatched Harry by his own, hauling him away from that awkward, shadowed corner. His shoulder burned at the rough treatment, the deceptive strength to Nott's willowy frame, and staggered clumsily behind him until they slipped out of the cafe.

Rowle's appearance had forced them into a backroom, clinging to the walls in avoidance of the eyes of wandering staff, before pushing out into a little alley. It was so narrow that they resorted to hunching their shoulders, shuffling along it as they rounded the next corner, and glimpsed the silver gleam of sunlight bursting through the slip into the square. Maybe he thought to speak, maybe he did not, but his eyes remained plastered to Nott's back as they moved. Guilt had struck him hard, but reservation as much a volatile force as regret. Maybe Nott was telling the truth, reasoned Harry, almost stumbling into the boy's back when, abruptly, he skid to a stop. Maybe-

With an unceremonious woosh of breath swept from his body, his back flared with pain as he found himself slammed against an immovable force. Shit, that hurt.

"What are - hey!" "Shut - up." forced out Nott, behind grinding teeth. Two sharp, metallic snaps echoed dully through the desolate, dusty alley as Harry's glasses were smoothly tucked away into Nott's pocket. His vision beaded with haze, spinning his head dangerously as he swayed in place, trapped between vaguely-damp brick and Nott's tall, incensed self. "Be silent for once, would you?" With clever, swift-moving fingers, the collar of his jacket was flipped up and tucked firmly over his chin. At the dazed, befuddled glance he raised unto the boy next, all he was rewarded in response was a brusque tap of a finger to his brow, where lay his scar. Too distinct, he thought dimly.

Tilting away from Nott, hands fumbling for the corner-edge of the building, Harry inched nervously out and squinted through his poor vision. Afore the terrace, where the two of them had been sitting not minutes before, scouted Rowle's colourless form. White as a deathhound. Hackles rising as if he were little more than an aggrieved feline, his fingers flexed anxiously upon the thumb-marked hilt of his holly wand. Would he see them? Surely he already knew that they were close - so close that Harry could see him even without his glasses on. Rowle's pale head tipped up, his face twitching as he sniffed peculiarly at the air. In Harry's pocket, Hermione's letter seared with heat.

Leg jerking with the painful brush of a wasp's sting to his thigh, Harry jolted as Nott caught him by the bag of his jacket and heaved them out of the shadows. He supposed, begrudgingly, that he much deserved the rough treatment.

Swift strides carried them surely and true across the town square, neither brave enough to chance a look over their shoulders. Hastily stowing his wand away, he allowed his arm to dangle limply in Nott's hold as another foe appeared before them: rushing rows of squirming tourists and locals, all brushing skin and chortling loudly, sharing fond tales between one another. As one, they hissed with displeasure, and shared a private look despite the situation. Magic leaves a trace, thought Harry, as they began the first daunting strides to the throng. Magic leaves a trace. It reminded him, for some reason, of Rowle's eccentric behaviour; the prowling, the way in which he had snuffled at the terrace-air like a hound scenting prey.

. . .  Hermione had called Voldemort 'the Dark Lord'.

"Potter!" urged Nott, churlish, drawing roughly at his sleeve when Harry's feet failed to move anymore. Almost losing his balance once or twice, his heart swelled and threatened to burst, all the blood that rushed through his body draining to his toes, seeping out through the soles of his beaten trainers. Hermione had spelled her own name wrong - she never spelled anything wrong, let alone the name she so continuously corrected people on. 'Granjer', she had written. Never a mistake she would have made even in accident. As if compelled to do so, his neck twisted and stared behind them. Not far away, a pale head caught grey slats of overcast sunlight, following the sway of the crowd.

How had he found them so quickly?

Breath catching, it was Harry, this time, who caught Nott around the wrist, freeing his own from the claw-like grasp. Soundlessly, their pace increased until they were running - sprinting like a pair of deviant fools fleeing from a crime-scene. With not a word in question, Nott complied, ran alongside Harry as if he had expected them to do so at any given time. Every hard stamp of his foot to the ground felt like a tremour wracking through the earth, clattering his sorry bones against each other as horror clouded his vision - his judgement - whatever rationality was left, still, to him. The letter burned until the warmth tangled in the weaving of his jeans, until Harry shoved his hand into his pocket and let the parchment drop from his fingers. Abandoning it, useless and limbless, on a trampled floor of cobble.

Sides aching, shoulders sore with how many people his awful vision had caused him to run into like a flailing madman, Harry felt the hairs upon his nape raise. His eyes dimmed, turned sightless and dumb, and though he squinted to the point of his sockets aching, though Harry blinked and blinked . . . All that remained was, in his peripheral, a fleeting shade crackling and darting away on four legs, mawed and silver-eyed. Abominable and black and spectral, like death itself come to hearken them to his hold. When Harry blinked again, it was gone, the cold prickling at his eyes until they burned and bled streams of burning tears. Though every move they took weaved expertly through the crowd, Rowle was a man older, taller, more rapid than two mere schoolboys.

Prodding at his eye, knitting at his brow, his scar pulsed ominously. Beside him, when Harry chanced to look (secretly hoping that, despite his hold on the boy, he was still there) Nott's nose was twisted strangely, with a rigid tension pulling at his spine.

They skid around the next corner, bashing into one another, biting back affronts and indignant yells, as trains whistled loudly on the air and the crowds began to thin. Nott bat at him with chiding, angry hands as Harry scrambled to unchain his bike from the leaning stand they had left it on that morning. He wheeled it frantically in the steps of Nott's trail as they pressed against the walls of a recluse, narrow street. Unnamed, without plaque to grace it an identity. The bike bit furiously at his calves and ankles like the gnawing of a rabid mutt, and forced him to tug it close as they cowered in the shadow of that small slip of road, waiting. For what, he was not entirely sure. For death - for capture? His pocket had gone cold, absent of the letter that had itched at him persistently for hours. For it, the air in their space was light and muggy, albeit thick with fruitless anticipation. Childish dread.

They waited, and waited, but for all the world it seemed as if Rowle had lost their trail.

With a great gust of breath that eased the poisonous reflux of blood in hisself, Harry hung his head and rubbed madly at his tearing eyes. Nearby, something trembled - for a second, he reckoned it was himself, quivering with such fragility, only to look over and bear Nott's face, chalk-white and still. Shaking, like the fine tremours that bullied the mind in the aftermath of a Cruciatus. "Hey," Harry mumbled, knocking his knuckles gently against Nott's own, where his hand hung limp at his side. Mind beginning to ease of its high excitement, the heaving of their chests soon softened to the gentlest rises and falls. "You okay?" he tried again, after some time.

Wetting his limbs, tongue leaden in his mouth, Nott gave a jerky, stilted nod. "Fine." he murmured, a trembling hand retreating into the pocket of his coat, pulling out a second later Harry's glasses. Taking them, he tucked them familiarly on the edge of his nose and breathed in sharply. How the hell had Rowle even found them? A muscle in Nott's jaw jumped. Harry looked at him again, perceiving the side of his face closely, and with a dawning realisation. What would he have done to Nott, if he had seen his face, had captured them both? Doubtlessly it would have been a punishment worse than his own - the son of a Death Eater, in alliance with his proxy master's enemy.

. . . Feeling more foolish than he had in days, Harry swallowed and tasted metal on his tongue, heady and unpleasantly tangy. From somewhere close nearby, a train shrieked and pulled away rapidly from a station. Neither of them truly knew what they were doing, did they? He wondered, thumbing the handlebar of his bike, feeling the small grits of dirt between the soft dips of the metal cling to his finger. Somehow it had hardly occurred to him before that this was, utterly and truly, real; that the summers were not safe, that he had been cast away by Aunt Petunia and bid elsewhere; that, somewhere, there was a megalomaniac searching high and wide for his head.

It was a hunt. Never had he imagined it would be quite so frightening.

An idea struck him, then, brilliant and exceptionally stupid. "We should go up to London." said Harry, heat rising to his face as he cleared his throat around a hoarse voice. Without looking over to Nott again, he flexed his fingers testily against his bike, a sense of restlessness finding him with practiced ease.

Predictably, Nott stiffened, and hurled shakily, "What do you suppose is waiting for us in London, Potter?" Harry, he wanted to insist, the nickname too harsh on his ears to longer bear. But he didn't. "Paradise?" Fidgeting with the zip on his jacket, the taller boy stared down at him incredulously, his striking eyes a paler green than they had been before, as if bleached by the mere fact that he had been, for once, afraid.

Laughing shakily, Harry bit down on his tongue and insisted, "We'll take a train up. Sneak on, somehow." Fingering the brake beneath the grip of the handlebar, he blinked slowly and nodded, as if his mind had been indefinitely made up. Merlin, but it was brash - the one place he had said . . . "That letter I got - the one last night - I think that's how Rowle found us," Brows pinching, he tilted his gaze towards Nott as if in plea that he confirm his suspicions. The letter had been the damn trace on them that Rowle had followed; a clever trick to draw him back to Surrey. The one place that Voldemort knew he would be during the summer. "We need somewhere unplottable. I- Merlin, I can't say anymore, but we have to go there, okay?"

Anxiety caught him by the navel and threatened to fling him madly around with sheer impatience, shuffling his weight from foot to foot as he regarded Nott as how he always did. Watched his face closely, attempting to gauge any flicker of emotion that passed by his expressions. Hesitation, exasperation, anger - all a constant mantra, chained by bonds immoveable by even the processes of the world through countless centuries. "Okay," agreed Nott, finally, before descending on Harry and planting a pale hand unto his shoulder. It shook him slightly, drawing his attention firm unto the boy. Nott's eyes were sharp, demanding. "The first sign of danger, and we leave."

"Promise." swore Harry, earnestly. With great effort did he fight the urge to grab his hand as he might have to Hermione, to rub his arm like he would have offered in consolance to Ron. He settled on a nod, and revelled in the fall of the burden weighing a pit into his stomach, leaving him light-headed and agitated. Briefly, he mused at the intensity of Nott's scrutiny - how closely it reminded him of that fleeting vision of black that had accompanied his frightful blindness back in the town square. Deathly, almost.

⚡︎

The clean roads of Islington passed away around them like autumn fell to sheets of winter, encasing the pleasant hues of Central London to spindly trees stripped bare of their leaves, fallen to blacken at their mighty trunks. Lakes were murky with algae, measly fragments of soft ice wafting aimlessly across their surfaces. To their left stood the long reaches of London townhouses, all dark-bricked and dreary in a manner Harry supposed may appeal to the fancies of someone such as Nott. Against his hip, he wheeled the bike alongside himself and fought to keep his meagre light of hope as it warred in a brittle battle with encompassing disquiet the closer they drew along the road. Not a word passed between them, and not a thought required any exchange of word. Only cursory looks of tribute, meaningful glances of hesitant solidarity, and curious stares from sidelong.

When, finally, Harry drew them to a pause, he fumbled deep and thorough inside of his coat's pocket until Nott grew shifty on his feet. When finally it receded, a worn, half-torn slip of paper was tucked between two fingers. He held it out for Nott to take. "Read it," he told him, solemnly. "In your head." It felt strangely as if there were little space in which he could think, now, staring blankly at Nott as the boy took the paper and hung his sandy head over its skinny scripture.

Then, at the first grinding of stone, his head rose again and Harry's followed to trace the awed motion of his eyes. Afore them both Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place stretched gloomily up to the windy skies of London.

⚡︎

Chapter Text

⚡︎

𝑬𝒀𝑬𝑺 𝑾𝑰𝑻𝑯𝑶𝑼𝑻 𝑨 𝑭𝑨𝑪𝑬
ᴄʜᴀᴩᴛᴇʀ xɪɪɪ . ᴩᴇʀꜰᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ ʀᴜɪɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

⚡︎

THE Ancient and Noble House of Black was to bring upon him, ultimately, his own ruin. Of that, Harry was entirely certain. Grimmauld Place was drowned in thick swarms of doxy-invested dust, misery clinging to the peeling wallpaper, dousing the warped floors with oil and grit and foul magik. Carefully toeing their way past each room felt the only reasonable pace to keep a constant between them, the seat of the once-formidable House of Black so dreadful to behold that even Nott, who had surely spent much of his life dabbling in Black Arts, pointedly avoided skimming the narrow walls which flanked them with terrible portentousness. Perhaps once had the entryway been a grand fixture of Number Twelve, though the years had riddled it infested with dampness, stringy with cobwebs fluttering from every scrubbed corner. Harry, briefly, recalled Kreacher's voracity when last he had seen the elf inside of the home; he had scrubbed it madly, day and night, murmuring sweet wishes for his mistress' comfort in her home.

Whatever effort had once existed to maintain the place had now faded from reality. Archaic portraits and those newer hung along the walls in a meticulously-organised settlement, rusty nails clinging unto their gilded frames fiercely; members of the Black family, put to rest as the enchantments around Grimmauld Place rendered them into slumber, were painted adoringly on the foregrounds. Of all the portraits that flit by them, it was the largest and most prominent of them which made his stomach sink. No matter that it had been cloaked with drapery, her face hidden from view: Walburga Black's presence loomed over them like a stinking heap of rot hanging from the ceiling.

"Don't touch that one," warned Harry over his shoulder, his steps lightest when he passed by the painting of Sirius' mum. A wicked woman, with not a nice thing to be said of her from his godfather's mouth. Despite what he had expected of Nott, his insatiable thirst for knowledge, the boy remained pensive and steadfastly silent.

Much of the decor curled into the effigy of a serpent, garish to look upon and live amidst, but as the hallway stoppered to an end and opened to a sizeable dining room, it flit away to calming tones. "A grim place," muttered Nott, disgruntled by a string of webbing he had walked into, brushing himself off with sharp, jerky movements. His eyes flit over the room they had walked into; lined with a long, mahogany table under which were tucked a number of ornate chairs befitting the old grandeur of the Blacks. "Who lived here?" he wondered, almost as if to himself.

Harry shrugged, and felt his spine go rigid. Peeling himself out of his coat, he slung it over the back of a chair he drew out straight thereafter. Throwing himself into it, he slung a leg over one of the arms and lolled his head back. "Sirius," he admitted, in a small voice, throat tightening. He stared blankly at the ceiling, then to the wall opposite where stood a line of three tall, murky windows shadowed by fastened drapes. "Sirius' parents, their parents. Dunno how far it goes back, but this place . . . I don't think it's used for anything anymore." Anything, he wanted to scoff.

When Dumbledore had bade his permission to continue to use it as Order Headquarters, Harry had not had the will within him to agree. It had been Sirius' house, regardless of how dearly the man had abhorred the place; it was not . . . not somewhere to be sullied by war, but to keep memory. It was a childish line of thought, and one that had brought the townhouse to abandon following the commencement of the summer. "Kreacher lives here," he remembered, through the thickening miasma of fog in his head. "Maybe he can come back." Hope filled him unbidden. Although no longer would he dare to admit it of the grouchy old house-elf, he had missed his biting snark. The hatred in his eyes had made Harry feel alive, for a short while.

Nott brushed a finger skeptically along the back of one of the dining chairs, sweeping a thin layer of dust from the dark wood. "It wasn't left for very long," he mused, a note of wariness in his voice. Harry thought he must have turned to look at him, for the direction of his voice felt far more pointed when next it sounded. "What was it used for?" Harry's fingers tightened around his knee, the other hand flexing around his holly wand - which he had drawn out, idly, to flip with boredom. He'd been a fool, he realised, bringing Nott here. The thin prickles of guilt which still stewed within him curdled, rejoicing as they swelled and made his heart twist in its poise. He wasn't his father, he reminded himself.

But, still, his mind reeled for an answer - any answer - that would not have Nott running to the Death Eaters with glee. ". . . Safehouse." He, eventually, settled upon. Then something within him struck, and Harry sighed as he straightened, meeting Nott's searching gaze. The boy was stiff from the earlier afternoon; Rowle and his chase. Dusk peeled through the many windows like vivid slats of rebirth, far removed from the dreary day that had accompanied them for hours like a black omen. It bathed Nott in light, the sunset, and Harry looked quickly away from the sight. Standing with a muffled groan, from his jeans' pocket he fished out his undersized trunk and settled it down on the table. "You reckon we have enough money for more food?"

It had been long since they'd had a decent meal, and privately he hoped sorely for some leftover change to assuage the memories of cold beans and stiff fruit.

Blinking, Nott rustled in his pocket and withdrew a pale hand curled into a fist, stuffed with their leftover money. When Harry had left Surrey, he had done so with no more than thirty pounds. Now, as Nott muttered a counting over the measly coins left, he guessed they had been left, in a matter of days, with far less. "Seven," he told Harry, a gentle frown curled upon his face. "Only seven." Harry groaned, and ran a hand roughly down his face. Surely the neighbours wouldn't notice if a few notes went missing? He considered, before shaking his head and rolling his stiff shoulders.

"Right, right - that's. . . fine, I suppose," Harry poked at his spelled trunk, and bade it willfully, ever so willfully, to enlarge back to its regular state. "Kreacher should be able to find some things for us, when he comes back. For now just. . ." He trailed off, frowning as the trunk refused the spindly push of his command. Nott snorted softly, and perched on the arm of another dining chair as he waited. "Don't touch anything, yeah? Not around the house, I mean: wicked enchantments everywhere. Last year, there was a music box that enchanted everyone to sleep when it sung. I don't even want to know what's in the rooms we didn't get to clean." Recalling the memory somewhat fondly, the panic to keep it far away from their spring-cleaning efforts, Harry's lips twitched weakly. He tapped the top of his little trunk impatiently, and felt a string of energy pulsing in his fingertips.

Nott, who did not appear entirely disturbed at the ominous nature of the house, merely gave a small smile. "Charming," he drawled, wryly, twisting his neck to peer at the dresser pressed up against the back wall, embossed with the Black family's crest, its raven dusty and plastered into place mid-soar. "I wouldn't have expected less, from a family as this. Very indulgent in dark magic, weren't they?" Swiftly, as if the room bored him, Nott had turned around to study Harry intently, as if he found his efforts at resizing his trunk far more interesting than the ancestral home of Black. As if in agreement, Harry huffed and nodded absently, clicking his tongue triumphantly when the trunk shuddered and popped back into proper size.

Wrestling with the latch of the thing, his eyes turned briefly to Nott with a frail gleam of humour. "You wouldn't know the half of it," he remarked, amusement a thick note of his words. Harry wondered if Nott's family were much the same, though smartly decided to remain silent on the matter. Of a murderous father and thieving aunts, there was little doubt of it. After short pulses of thoughtful silence that carried with it the brunt of their exhaustion, Nott made a curious little sound and shifted from his unusual perch. "You lived here," remarked the boy, eyes narrowed. Harry paused. "I doubt your muggle family are Blacks, but I was lead to believe you've always stayed with them. Not in London."

The past week had revealed to him the painstaking reaches of Nott's damnable sense of intrigue; the cunning of his slender, sticky fingers which wormed their way expertly through cracks splintered however unintentionally through one's visage. Harry's teeth grazed the inside of his cheek as, finally, the trunk's latch fell loose and opened with a hushed squeak. For what felt like ages, he did not respond, if even there was a query to answer at all. He heard it all the same, saw it in the peculiar sparkles that brightened Nott's green eyes, so utterly unlike his own in every way. Maybe his fingers had begun to shake, for opening the lid of the trunk, itself, became a harrowing feat. Harry had never wanted to return to Grimmauld Place, and in his own way, detested every inch of Sirius he could see in the horrible house.

"I stayed here last summer; only last summer," he explained, strained. His jaw worked stiffly as he peered into his trunk and began to fish blindly through it - perhaps for any loose money scattered at the bottom. Not once did he gaze over to Nott, shaken by his prodding, although for some reason he felt compelled to continue. To divulge everything to a boy he had met not three weeks before. "Sirius let me live here until September, or - really - however long I wanted to stay. I just- . . ." Throat convulsing around their own flexes, Harry cleared his throat roughly, thinned his lips, and tilted his head sidelong to Nott as his hand came away with a measly two pounds. "Here." he offered, quietly, watching as the boy's fingers skimmed his palm to take the gathered coins.

Thinking, then, of the tale of his aunts - before that, of Nott's mother who had passed so long ago - Harry deemed it a fair enough trade to be satisfied with what he had given. A tale for a tale. He was unsure whether or not to laugh, or to cry. Unlike what Hermione deemed to be true, speaking of Sirius felt far more painful than simply thinking of him. To speak his name aloud - give it soul and face - reminded Harry that his godfather had, at one point, been alive. He had not merely been a figment of his imagination. It was easier to believe his grief did not exist, if he tried to convince himself that Sirius had never, either.

They were meant to have lived together, thought Harry, torn between a befuddling twist of anger and sorrow. They were meant to live together, and be alive and safe, and forget the world around them - and, in turn, let it forget them, too. But he knew, then, standing in the tomb of a noble family's memory, that it could never happen. Not again, if ever the time had lived at all.

Harry's teeth peeled at his bottom lip, before he grunted softly at Nott and stepped back from the table. "Don't touch anything," he reiterated. "I'm gonna go . . . find some stuff for us. Bathroom's safe, if you wanna go." As perhaps it regularly may have, his colloquialism didn't appear to irk Nott so much as trouble him. The other boy was gazing at Harry like he were a particularly interesting puzzle, picking apart the dry tectonic plates of grief flecking off of him by the most fragile wind. It made him feel strange, watched, and he hated it. Without another word, Harry twisted on his heel and departed from the dining-room, toeing his way past a certain floorboard he knew would squeak loud enough to rouse Mrs. Black's portrait.

Perhaps what was worse to realise was that it had not been that very long at all, since last he had been inside Grimmauld Place. Harry tried to liken the house to the picture it had been the year before, as he climbed the stairs and waved away a dangling web of dampness. No matter that the walls were still dark and dreadful; when the Weasleys and the Order had lived here, they had brought with them some modicum of light. Relief, more so, for that he had not needed to suffer the Dursleys any longer than usual. The first landing was one he recalled clearly; the room he and Ron had slept in together lay at the other end of the hall, shouldered by another, stamped with a thin golden plate he could not read from where he stood. Upon the nearest wall, by the rise of the next staircase, the portrait of Phineas Nigellus had remained empty for over a year.

Harry dragged his fingers along the dusty balustrade of the stairs, and paused at the first door he came upon. It held no plaque like the other door, nor the familiarity of the last, but instead felt permeated by an indescribable sense of cold. Fingers wrapping, after some deliberation, around the doorknob, he jerked it open and winced at the jarring shriek of hinges which had not been oiled for - what had been, undoubtedly - decades. Pointedly ignoring his own advice, Harry took the first step into the room, and coughed around a mad flurry of thick dust spraying up from the floor. It was vicious, and clogged his nose for minutes before he scrubbed frantically at his eyes and sniffled. "Merlin," he muttered, unhappily, reluctant to take another step lest another storm of dust kick up again. Nonetheless he took it, and drew himself further into a room of aged grandeur toppled beneath years of neglect.

It looked nothing like what he imagined Sirius' room would be, and so he smartly assumed that it was not. There hadn't been many members of the Black family left when Sirius had lived here, pondered Harry with half of his interest drawn to the pristine bedding rotting at its furthest corners. An armchair had burst at the velvet cushion, and the thick, dark drapes over an uncleaned window swallowed the room with darkness. Yet it was the dim light of the corridor that let him see, and so he hardly bothered to draw them and blind himself needlessly. It was hardly as if he would be returning, anyhow. To his ire, the room was frustratingly impersonal. There were few clothes in the wardrobe he peered warily into, half-expecting a nest of doxies to assault him, or perhaps a cursed rug to spring out from beneath the lavish bed. Nothing came.

A dull gleam sat upon a neatly skewed bedside table, however, jerked him upright. Harry made for it without a thought and picked from the stand the unpolished frame of a picture. After moments of attempting to squint through the murkiness of the glass, he took his sleeve to the pane and scrubbed furiously until an image beneath made itself known. It was wizarding, and had not yet lost its magic despite the dreariness that Number Twelve had delved into so pitifully.

Dark brow furrowing, he stared at it blankly for what felt like hours, until the soles of his feet hurt and his stomach tightened with hunger. The picture displayed a row of students in an ornate chamber, decorated prettily with enchanted ornaments that appeared rather Christmas-like. A man stood in the center of their line, enormously portly around the middle with a walrus-like moustache and gleaming, gooseberry eyes; in his hands he hailed a goblet, smiling cheerfully. By his closest right side, four young men stood, prominent amidst their average-looking classmates. Harry peered at them closely, and startled when he thought he had caught a glimpse of Sirius.

No, he mused almost immediately. The boy in the picture wore robes of such richness that Sirius would have spewed at the prospect of wearing, with a head of black curls neater than his godfather had ever kept his own. Though their noses were the same, the silver of their eyes visible even in the greyscale of the picture, Harry knew the boy could not be Sirius. At his side was another, shorter, with sandy hair and dark, sullen eyes. Regardless that they appeared rather well-raised, the second boy held a slight slump to his posture, with a thin face and displeased frown.

. . . But it was the boy, closest to the portly man in the middle, who made Harry stiffen. His stomach coiled with nausea, and in little more than a blink had his temples begun to seize with a great discomfort. Throat swelling painfully, he moved not an inch at the face of Tom Riddle, more handsome than he had been in the Chamber, a sly smile curved upon his mouth. What was this doing in Sirius' house? He wondered, frenzied, fighting the urge to hurl the picture-frame to the other side of the room; feel some minute sense of satisfaction as glass ravaged and sliced at Riddle's perfect face. How did Sirius' family know Riddle before he'd become . . .?

"-STAINS OF DISHONOUR! FILTHY HALF-BREEDS, BLOOD TRAITORS, CHILDREN OF FILTH!"

He jumped, picture clattering to his feet as the house shuddered. From the ground floor had come a yelp of surprise, and a furious little noise thereafter, drowned out pathetically by Walburga Black's screeching. Harry pulled himself out of the room, the drag of his trainers scattering sand-trails into the dust of the hardwood floorboards, staggering down the stairway until he stumbled unto a perplexing scene. Some part of him, albeit a very small one, had somehow assumed that Sirius' mum might have been pleased to see a pureblood like Nott in her home . . . But, so apparently, the woman was pleased by hardly anything. If portrait withheld the blood of its inhabitant, her face may have been beet-red with fury, her grey eyes wild with rage.

Standing afore her was Nott, pale eyes wide and taken aback, though posture rigid and unsure of what to do. Harry felt a laugh catch in his throat, so utterly overwhelmed by everything, and darted forward to try and tug her curtains closed. Whatever magic compelled them open fought against him with valour, and being so close to her made his ears ring, a mounting headache catching inside of his skull. "FILTH! YOU - POTTER! BY-PRODUCT OF DIRT AND VILENESS!"

"SHUT UP!" screamed Harry, blood boiling as he wrestled with her curtains. He felt a fool, but so long had the day been that he cared very little for looking stupid anymore. Suddenly, he was no longer in Grimmauld Place. In the depths of his mind, Dumbledore's sad, kindly eyes stared at him from behind his desk; watching, watching, as Harry destroyed his office like a poorly-tempered child. "JUST - SHUT - UP!" Then the shrill rip and slide of the curtain rings against the bars screeched through the entrance hall, and her ceaseless shrieking was muffled behind a number of velvet-woven charms. His forehead knocked against the curtains, an unpleasant sensation against his fevered skin though Harry hardly felt it.

After some time, hesitant fingers grazed his shoulder. He jerked his head up, breathing hard, and met Nott's pale eyes. Then, looking at him for a second more, Harry knew who the sullen-faced boy in that odd picture had been. Cantankerous Nott. "Potter," muttered Nott, and it took him a second to realise it was an effort of the boy's to coax him into an adjacent room. One he recognised keenly, in its battered ornacy. The living-room had persisted through the worst of Grimmauld Place's deterioration, it seemed, and bore, still, the marks of Mrs. Weasley's frantic cleaning on the mantel. "You look like you've seen a ghost." It was no joke, could not have been if it came from him, but Harry entertained it anyhow, and perched obligingly on one of the dark chaise sofas in the room.

Wringing his fingers together tiredly, he sighed and reached up to rub at the aching bridge of his neck. Even beyond the weight of his glasses, a soreness had persisted there from the very instance they had walked into that town square not a few hours before. Like the biggest idiots in the world. Right into Rowle's hands, they'd played. "I guess," said Harry, forlornly, before blinking wistfully and peering at Nott, who had taken the seat beside him. "How does your dad know the Black family?"

"What?" By the expression upon Nott's face, Harry had failed to maintain some sense of steadiness to him - some manner of politeness. Ever had simply blurting things out been in his nature. Despite himself he chuckled weakly and leaned against the back of the sofa, twisting his fingers in the tough fabric of his jeans. Surely he couldn't have expected Nott to understand straight away . . . But the boy had become a landmark of surety and poise in his life, most embarrassingly enough, and Harry had dumbly assumed he would have known his intentions instantly. What he had seen in that room.

Recalling Riddle's face once again made his blood spark, and he tampered it swiftly before it could light into something more menacing. His scar prickled, as if it sensed his very thoughts. "I found a picture upstairs, must've been pretty old from what the people were wearing. There was a boy, looked just like you, standing next to . . . one of the Blacks, I suppose." He had looked identical enough to Sirius for Harry to mistake them, he noted with some measure of grimness.

To his bewilderment, Nott snorted quietly and picked at the edge of the sofa's arm, where plush fabric met carved ebony wood. It seemed to be rich enough that, once, it may have inspired great pride in the Blacks who had lived at Number Twelve. Now, there was no-one left to admire it but a half-blood and a traitor. He was, Nott, wasn't he? Running away with the Chosen One - anyone would have taken that as a betrayal. Harry hardly supposed Voldemort would be elated at the prospect of his follower's son disappearing on a honeymoon with his sworn, teenage enemy. "Every pureblood family is connected, Potter, it's our way. My . . . father - he was acquaintances with Orion Black when he attended Hogwarts, but always liked to fancy themselves friends." He spat the word as if it were venom, and dug his nails into the arm of the couch.

"Black didn't care for my father as my father cared for Black, and all Black cared for, as everyone does, is power."

Harry considered it for a moment, before tilting his head back, letting it rest upon the support of the couch and stare blankly up at the ceiling from which hung a crystalline chandelier. "Not everyone," he told Nott, quiet with consideration. "Not you." He couldn't ever recall Nott speaking of plans to dominate the world, to rise high in the ranks of Slytherin House and surpass even Malfoy's terrible reputation. Even when he had hardly known the other boy, he had been a recluse shadow-clinger; a wallflower. Inanely, Riddle's voice purred in his ear. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it.

When Nott huffed he realised, rather humiliated, that he had spoken Riddle's words aloud. "Perhaps," Nott remarked, rather sardonically. "Perhaps not. Maybe I do have thoughts of power, and maybe I don't. It's more human to be in purgatory than confident in surety." Harry lazily lolled his head to the side and regarded the boy with a perfectly sensible measure of incredulity. He was ridiculous, sometimes, though Merlin it fascinated him. Begrudgingly. Reluctantly.

With a loud groan, Harry dragged his palms down his face and knocked his glasses askew. "God," he moaned. "Who even talks like that?" By his side, Nott laughed - a little, restrained sound of amusement - and said nothing.

⚡︎

When dawn rises in skinny, dust-laden slats through the open drapery, a croaking voice splits through air thick with restful serenity. "Master Pot-maker is lazy," grumbled Kreacher, stumbling into a dresser and stabbing a toe against the corner with nothing louder than a mutter of discontent. "Master does not even wake to see Kreacher's boon. Master is an ungrateful half-breed swine." There's a hand touching his own, and for a second of horror Harry thinks it's Kreacher, before heavy eyes force open and note, with mortification, that the situation is far far worse.

Trepidation of the enchantments littered about the house had worn the two of them down to sleeping in the living-room, upon the chaise where Nott insisted Harry took his rest instead of himself. With thin blankets that hardly kept them warm, it was a sleep better than any other in days, though no less troubled. Sprawled on an aching back, the crick in his neck protested when he turned his head to peer downwards, on the thin stretch of blanket that Nott slept upon. Utterly unaware of how Harry, face warm and twisted with horror, drew back the fingers that grazed his and sprung up from the couch. His trainers were missing as was his jacket, and Kreacher's beady eyes looked over him critically when he materialised from behind a large piano tucked against one of the room's walls.

"Master Potter does not try to present himself well?" asked Kreacher, snidely.

Harry scoffed and rubbed an eye, trying to feel around for his glasses before shoving them on his face. "Shut up, Kreacher," he shot back without a second instant. His spine felt rigid, muscles twisted in every wrong way, and, at his very core, his magic felt mangled and afraid. It was . . . disconcerting. "What's this - boon you're talking about?" Making some silly, half-hearted gesture with his hand, he dismissed the house-elf's judging flick of the eye, and stamped down the joy he felt at beholding the elf once more.

Some part of him thanked Merlin, whatever higher power there must have been, that one of Nott's crazy aunts hadn't skinned Kreacher for dinner.

A rustling sounded from Kreacher's hand, and when Harry looked down, he was holding a plastic bag. In succession, his stare turned from the bag to the end-table by the chaise where no longer lay the money he had fished from the bottom of his trunk the day before. Thieving little- "Kreacher has brought sustenance for Master Dog-son," declared the elf, fingering the loose handles of the bag with curiosity as he settled it down unto an armchair with a jerky stretch of his arm. Harry reached for it, and eyed Kreacher's stiff limb wearily, and rustled through the bag. Inside lay a few underripe fruits and packaged meat, and- "What's this?" asked Harry, drawing out a curled scroll of a map.

Kreacher grunted. "Nott asked Kreacher to buy a muggle map," he explained, grouchily, as if even speaking Nott's name made him wish to spit, "so Kreacher bought Nott a muggle map." Ah. Very good.

Harry sent off a hushed thanks, thinned his lips, and looked towards the house-elf once more, noting the delicacy with which he handled his left shoulder. However long he had remained in Nott's manor-home, likely it had not done him any favours - though, somehow, Kreacher felt more agreeable than he had before. To some extent, naturally. "You hurt?" Harry questioned, bluntly, to the minute widening of the elf's eyes and a lipless snarl curling over his black teeth. But he had gauged the split-second crack in his cloak, and felt his stomach drop. When he got his hands on those women-

Hermione would have screeched at him for the thought. Harry didn't care for it.

"Master Plotter should not care if Kreacher is hurt, or if Kreacher is unhurt - which Kreacher is not," insisted the stubborn thing, scoffing at the abhorrent idea and clicking his tongue moodily. As he made to slink off into the main hall, Harry called him back with a deep frown and settled himself on the armrest of one of the slim-pillowed chairs. For some reason, though his feelings towards Sirius' elf were largely impartial, the thought of anyone harming him made his chest tighten with pain. So he bade Kreacher to sit, stared sharply at him until he complied, and gingerly prodded at the hanging, skinny shoulder the elf had been guarding so ferociously.

Kreacher's hateful eyes hardened as Harry's fingers grazed a large, discoloured patch of skin bleeding into the grey pallor of his flesh. It was horrible to look at, worse to feel the dislodged bone beneath the surface, and stare into eyes which did not behold the pain one might have expected. Maybe elves felt things differently, wondered Harry, before deciding that even the thought was not enough to allow him to leave Kreacher alone with a clear conscience. "How'd this happen?" he muttered in ask, trying to avoid rousing Nott from sleep some way away. Still did the boy rest in content, his neat hair mussed and an arm slung to the side of himself, laid flat on his stomach in slumber.

When the elf didn't respond, Harry sighed roughly. It was too early for this. "Kreacher," he tried again, a little less gently. "Why didn't you fix this? I thought house-elves had, like, healing magic." At least it was what he had gathered from Dobby, whose burn wounds had seemed to heal miraculously fast after punishing himself inanely at a slight misdemeanour.

The menacing sneer on the elf's face deepened. "Nasty Notts," hissed Kreacher, snapping at Harry's fingers with a razor-shaved maw. His dark teeth caught the light of the morning, and made them gleam like pure obsidian; weathered and persistent, stubborn against all tides of the earth's passing time. "Kreacher was not meant to remain at Nott Manor, no, but nasty Notts discovered Kreacher remaining and delivered justice unto poor Kreacher for trespassing." He balked and drew his hand away from the elf's shoulder, stomach spiking with unfounded anger. They had touched him, just as he had suspected - had, in some part, feared.

But he knew no healing spells that would help, and felt plainly useless right then . . . until he recalled, from last year, a room tucked in the basement of Grimmauld Place where had spent much of his time a particular dungeon-bat. "Try and find some potions to fix that," ordered Harry, not unkindly. "Snape's brewing-room down below; maybe there's something to help you there." And when Kreacher slunk away, most disgruntled at being inspected like a child with a grazed knee, Harry realised with a start that no longer was Nott asleep but instead staring at him blankly.

Merlin, but it was uncomfortable, that stare. "My aunts," began Nott, as if he were not entirely with the world, "they touched Kreacher?" Harry swallowed and reached down the armchair to grab Nott's requested map. He nodded stiffly, and watched the boy's face contort into something cruel - afore then it softened, and turned impassive. His sandy hair dipped into a tired nod, and tapered fingers dragged through the locks in a frail try to tame them. "I don't suppose there's anything to eat?"

"Not yet," said Harry, quietly, watching him with close regard. He gauged Nott when he stood, stretching shortly before padding around the room until he stood afore a tall window, morning kissing his pale face. In the desolate blackness of Grimmauld Place, it felt impossible that such softness would grace anyone in face; it appeared to be a habit of Nott's, to defy any sense in the world despite being the one thing he was entirely sure did make sense within it.

The longer that Nott stood there in silence, the more compelled Harry felt to run. And so he did, departing the living-room with featherlight steps and walking back up the darkened staircase to the first landing. From the day before, he had left the door open - the door of the room which had once, he guessed, belonged to Orion Black. Sirius' father. Inside he saw nothing but darkness, and swerved around the threshold with an anxious eye. But for Black's room and his and Ron's, there is one door left on the floor - merely one room. Harry spent a while staring at the plaque pressed against the dark door, and found that in the haze of the early morning nothing of the imprinted words made sense to him. He peeked his head into a number of rooms as he wandered aimlessly through the house; attempting to push down pangs of sharp concern as clattering sounded from the kitchen-way upon the ground floor.

There is one room, however, he lingers within. Every wall, from toe to ceiling, had been stretched over with the likeness of a curling tree; each fanciful branch twisted its own tune, fashioned faces that were much the same, others not so closely, but ones that he knew, he reckoned, like the back of his hand by the time he had finished staring. The tapestry room had always been one of Harry's favourites, if there were any spaces in Number Twelve that could be treated with adoration - even something so slight as fondness, at times. Trailing his finger from branch to branch, never once daring to graze the dips of leaves of grey-green, Harry's touch paused above an ugly singe on the wall.

It was large and resembled the rot of a leaf, messy as though it had been blasted in great haste.

Beneath it, Harry imagined he would see Sirius' name embossed on the wall, by the side of a peculiar skull named Regulus, and twin-vines named Walburga and Orion. No matter how hard he looked, the blast did not dissipate under his silent, wilful command. There was no skull to put to Sirius' death, no name to mark that he had once been part of the expansive line of Black. If he did not belong to the Blacks, then surely he had, amongst the Potters. They had treated him with kindness, his grandparents, remembered Harry with remarkable stillness. His dad had been Sirius' best friend. They had been brothers in all but blood, for names were so easily interchangeable - like turning tides and sweltering snows. . .

Eventually, he departed that room, too.

Shadows called his name, but he responded to none, and tried to shy away from the curious eyes of the few portraits left in the house that had not departed from their frames. The uppermost landing he avoids like the plague, unknowing and yet entirely knowledgeable of what he would find. For long had he evaded grief, and had no desire to be needled in reminder of it. Harry wanted none of this - had not even wanted to go to the Ministry that day. But he had, all for that he had thought Sirius would be there, too.

When Harry returned to the bottom landing and slipped into the kitchen, the partially-burned scent of bacon rashers on the hob filled his nose. He had never considered that Kreacher would ever cook the two of them anything remarkably pleasant, for his grudges felt to be held centuries-long, and knew he was proved right when he found Nott afore the oven instead of the house-elf. Hopefully he was somewhere nursing his gruesome wound. And there Nott stood, softened by sleep and quietened by its calm, dressed in one of Dudley's over-large shirts he had scrabbled out of Harry's trunk for that he had run out of any fresh clothes of his own. It fit him well. Harry knocked a shoulder against the doorframe and approached the flat of the little table within the room, upon which was stretched the map that Kreacher had so obediently brought from - Merlin, it felt weird to even think - a muggle shop down the road.

Fixed to the small table by the weight of a few pieces of meaningless clutter, his fingers brushed over the ink markings that the boy had already sketched down on the page. There was a circle above Surrey, where the miniscule letters of Little Whinging were printed on the paper, and jerky lines connecting each place they already had visited. Whilst Nott obsessively fret over the bacon, Harry doubted pureblood boys were trained in the simple art of cooking, he continued to look over the map. Over each line which told him the terrain of every place he considered; forests and cities and the likewise, all rising from the map to paint themselves in his head.

Then he noticed a queer note on the paper, and felt his lips curl faintly at the corner. "You want to go to Wiltshire?" asked Harry, seeming to startle Nott who hadn't done so much as notice his appearance. Turning over his shoulder to gauge the other boy's expression, Harry cocked a brow and pressed, "What's in Wiltshire?"

"Nothing." admitted Nott, after many beats of silence, eyes turning back to the stove. It felt not like a truth, but little like a lie, at the same time. A strange talent of Nott's, to turn his words both earnestly and in deceit. Harry hummed, shrugged it off, and spent the rest of his morning restlessly awaiting breakfast - even doing so much as familiarly poking around the kitchen cabinets and pulling out whatever cutlery Mundungus Fletcher hadn't yet pilfered for himself. When Nott jumped half a metre into the air, oil springing out at him from the weary frying pan, Harry deemed it swell time to relieve him of his duties and take it over himself.

Seated grumpily at the small table of the kitchen did Nott look over the map with a distracted eye. "There's nowhere," he told Harry, dourly. "London is too close to the Ministry, Dumfries too close to Hogwarts, and Basingstoke-" Pressing his teeth together in a frustrated grounding motion, long fingers curled into soft palms as Nott leaned back heavily in his seat and tapped a bare foot gently against the floor. He had noticed that Nott had an incessant habit of doing that; tapping his foot, whenever he could not figure out some sort of particular mystery.

Harry looked briefly over his shoulder as he tried to manipulate the knobs of the gas stove to extinguish, and when he eventually succeeded and lifted the pan from the hob, slumped his shoulders laxly. Nott's eyes caught the motion, following it with a tautness to the hinge of his jaw. "South," suggested Harry, vaguely. "North. What's it matter? We didn't die in the forest, did we? Avoiding cities: that's more important." But when he thought on it a little longer, even the thought of returning to a town as desolate and eerie as Clark made his spine tingle and turn rigid. Wondering if Nott might even survive weeks in the forest more, he shovelled the rashers onto two plates and settled them on top of the map, to Nott's dismay.

Slowly, like he had more wish to pour over dull thoughts than to eat, Nott picked up his fork and stabbed at the bacon. There was a churlish set to his mouth, and an odd gleam in his stare. "I might set the street on fire, Potter, if I have to remain with that ghoulish woman for any longer than a week." he swore, vehement. Surprised at the sudden burst of anger, Harry laughed around a mouthful of food and almost choked on the grease.

He wiggled his shining fork at the boy and tampered down another snort of humour. There were very few pleasant experiences in his track record when it came to laughing at Nott. "You're lucky she likes you," drawled Harry, sarcastically. "I don't think she's ever taken so badly to someone in her house since Lupin." Last summer, Mrs. Black had sworn through nights and days at Lupin's appearance by Sirius' side; every word spittled from her lips was another vile insult at his lycanthropy, and how utterly half-bred the kindly man truly was. It had angered Harry deeply, but had not appeared to faze Lupin as much as it ought to have. The man held a calm temperament, and had simply given Mrs. Black wry, little smiles before promptly shutting her curtains with ease.

"Likes me." mumbled Nott, rubbing at his eye with a free hand. Then, blinking away the daze of dawn from his vision, he rest the same hand on the map and jut his finger on top of an expanse of what looked to be a quaint town - situated in the West Midlands. "There," he said. "Cokeworth - by Telford. Sound familiar?"

He wracked his brain for a few seconds, before shaking it with surety. "Nope. How far's it, you think?" Harry shoved another forkful of bacon into his mouth, and just barely held back a noise of pleasure at the flavour on his tongue. He might never have shown his face again, had it come out. Nott shot him a glance as if to say that Harry ought to have expected lesser of his knowledge - an odd thing, decidedly, but increasingly acquainted with any stretch of land beyond the main south. He was beginning to suspect that Nott had not ventured any further north than Banbury, and wondered briefly on the whereabouts of Nott Manor.

"Right." he grumbled, as Nott's foot knocked against his shin with purpose, taking up the abandoned pencil nearest to him and rounding Cokeworth with a sloppy, pointed circle.

⚡︎

A night came, and a night passed. Autumn, though still was it midsummer, was beginning to settle over England with the tall stalks of trees yellowing their bouquets of leaves. Even the many branches that crept into the back-garden of Number Twelve from the neighbour's were mere spindles, albeit for a few hardier leaves yet remaining. Kreacher had come and went, and had taken to his merry routine of slinking in the shadows and cursing at the portraits of the Blacks he did not especially like. After witnessing the wall of house-elf heads by the staircase, Nott had refused to ascend it, green-faced, and resided primarily on the ground floor thereafter.

Long ago had Nott given up trying to pry answers out of Harry as to whether or not it would be smarter to travel by one train or many, the boy too engrossed in his little, muggle book to pay mind. His pencil sketched absently, soon falling from between limp fingers as the room dimmed, bathed itself in great darkness, and brought upon him a sleep of dreams. On the end-table of the chaise upon which Nott slept, his radio hummed its song smoothly - though contorted out of sense every so often, a grating to the ears. It lulled him to nothingness, and when his dreams came, they were of the countryside; of tall trees, sweet air, and freedom beyond freedom.

The longer he ambled within the willowy reaches of an endless meadow grassland, picking one foot up over the stalks before the other followed, the wider his valley became. At his back the sun shone cold and early, grey in the stead of gold, as if all colour had been leeched from it in perpetuity. Perhaps its warmth had gone to the freezing stars, which did not hang over his head though the sky remained dark with the young hour. Harry bore still, in his dream, the Gryffindor jumper he'd donned before going to sleep (the very one that Mrs. Black had promptly silenced herself upon hearing, and looked well about to being sick on herself). The longer he walked, the less tired his legs became, and the fresher his lungs breathed.

Part of him wished never to wake from the dream, though to leave behind the waking world was a feat of itself despite its cruelty.

Just then, as a single, vivid calla kissed the tips of his fingers - the only spot of colour to be seen for many miles -, Harry glimpsed a figure on the distance.

It was tall as a young tree, draped in black so ornery it appeared to be a robe fashioned of Number Twelve's curtains; lithe and still, for a moment he was reminded frighteningly of Nott, before he approached closer, and bore the terrible monstrousness of its face. No matter how close he walked, each step drew him further from the figure, though its face from this distance was clear. Ever-shifting, like the answers to a puzzle borne of wilful oblivion. From the high planes of a starved visage, hollowed cheeks stretching tautly across sharp bones, eyes glittered like rubies and merged into emeralds the longer Harry dared to look at it.

From the flat plane of a slitted nose did one emerge: a handsome face, akin to one he had seen many times afore - and frequently in other, passing dreams. Although its hands did not move, the impression that they were raised in offence bullied him strongly, pulled like a compulsion at Harry's navel until his knees weakened, and the clarity of his hearing was stuffed with cotton and filled with the vile whispers of words he could not decipher.

Panic filled him from bone to lash.

Harry's breath staggered like it had been caught in the fingers of a captor, squeezed until life drained from his eyes, but the figure had yet to move. It changed, morphed from one face to another, and each facade it showed was as known to him as the last. The grass seared through his clothes, every sweet brush a whip's lash to his skin, breaking down to bone and splitting skin with fiery ease. He must have screamed - surely he had - for his throat was raw, filled with the awful tang of blood and clotting behind his eyes until they felt swollen enough to burst. Tom Riddle stared back, afore the Dark Lord took his place, and Riddle returned once more.

Screams did not echo in the valley, he soon realised, as if he had remained there an eternity-long to come to know this.

Turning his eyes shut, feeling them pulse and beat with their own want behind closed lids, his breath returned to him with one, titanic gasp. The noise was hoarse and pathetic, and pinched at his waist to bend him at the hip in a bow. Harry beheld it, then, whispers and visions alike. Flashing glimpses of the waking world: a cavern of water and dead things lurking; the glistening fangs of a serpent that dripped black venom and burned him to his marrow - a chalice that gleamed as viciously as avarice . . . Rings - serpents - chambers - shattered mirrors - whispers of veils -

- . . . Himself; at its very crux, the last string of a beating heart that was so, so black-

He startled awake. Prodding at his nose like the first herald of comfort in the world, Fable's swift tongue flit out and pecked the tip of Harry's nose. "Leaf," she urged, though not with any panic. "Leaf is of fear again. It is this cave, dark and terrible, is it not?" For hours had she evaded Number Twelve to explore its overgrown garden, and had returned in the late evening sorely disappointed at the lack of full mice. According to her, they were stripped to bone and gaunt, like the house leeched from their vivacity and took it for sustenance. Gasping shallowly, Harry raised a hand and waited until Fable had twined herself around his wrist to sit up. Drenched in sweat, his jumper stuck to his back and peeled away uncomfortably when he shifted.

"No," breathed Harry, heart thrumming like a caged hummingbird's. He shook his head, ran a hand down his face, through his hair - everything to assuage the sense of fear festering within him. The sense that he was, somehow, being watched. "I'm fine. I'm not afraid." Fable gave a disbelieving tut, but allowed him his momentary fib, spurring herself into a spew of nonsensical rambling as he shakily picked himself up from the floor. Wherever Kreacher had gone, he had gone far enough that his searching throughout the house made no noise that wafted down to the living-room; for that he could not hear the clatters of his meaningless prodding, he found himself somewhat appreciative.

Fable paused, then, and rest her growing head in the crook of Harry's elbow. "There sounds strangeness from outside," she lilted, curiously. "Like . . . unfit - like unnatural." When had she learned the word 'unnatural'?

Shaking off the thought, he wet his lips and nodded wordlessly in response to her words, inching towards a tall window, on the furthest wall to the chaise. With fingers trembling (for what reason, he refused to acknowledge), Harry reached up to peel away the thick drape and squint to peer outside. Had one looked, themselves, they might not have thought it nighttime at all. Overhead, the sky was cast in light crowned by clouds that billowed like menacing, silver storms; they shrieked and twisted in the sky, whistled the wind and whipped it each way it could, an unstoppable force of manoeuvered will. Around his wrist, Fable hisses, perturbed, and nestles her nose further into the crook of his elbow.

From the skies, a face bursts from the clouds, skeletal and serpentine at once. It hailed crashes like thunder, and fell loose its jaw to let loose a long, forked tongue curling around the clouds around it. Emerging from it came a noise of such terror that Harry stepped back, ears ringing, and let go of the drapery with a start. Riddle's face stared back blankly - then the Dark Lord's, then Riddle's once more. His breaths were uneven, jagged, and had picked up a note that had Fable's body coiling tighter around his arm. Behind him, he checked, Nott had miraculously not roused, and remained blissfully asleep.

Peeling the curtain open once more, Harry saw nothing but a sky of black, undisturbed from night.

⚡︎