Chapter Text
The day hung heavy over Privet Drive. No air, no wind, just heat.
Two houses down a lawnmower buzzed and the sound sat in the air like a trapped mosquito. Everything wobbled in the heat shimmer, and the Dursleys’ neat garden with their too-green lawn looked weird and half-melted. A copy of the Times lay on the porch, the headline smudged and marred with shoeprints and sweat:
FREAK STORMS OVER BRITAIN LEAVE EXPERTS BAFFLED.
Harry dragged the hose across the yard and plastic scraped along the brick path, the sound weirdly loud for such a small thing. Water sprayed and hissed over the grass, soaking in so fast it barely darkened the soil, while his shirt was already stuck to his back. Worse, the whole place smelled like hot concrete, brick, and wet dust.
The curtains twitched and Aunt Petunia’s shape appeared all thin and rigid with arms folded and then disappeared again. She was probably timing him like she always did.
This time he didn’t care. At least it gave him something to do and something else to focus on outside the way the noise of the hose filled the space where words might have been as it snaked in lazy loops across the lawn, green plastic gleaming under the sun. He aimed for the hydrangeas, mostly because Vernon hated the weeds around them and it was easier to pull them out when they were wet. Somewhere behind him, a car door slammed, and Harry envied the neighbours going somewhere normal.
Normal. Like this place and for a second, he could almost believe nothing world-shattering had happened.
Almost.
A bee landed on the hose and Harry watched it crawl along the green plastic, small and ordinary and alive. Unlike Cedric. The thought of the graveyard hit him so suddenly that the hose slipped from his hand-
Stone. Blood. Cedric’s eyes, open and blank.
Voldemort’s voice, high and cold. "Kill the spare."
The flash of green that should have taken him, too.
The fake Moody dragging him away from Dumbledore. The Dementor and Dumbledore's attempt to stop it before—
Harry twisted the tap shut with more force than strictly needed. The spray of water died and all he could hear was the lawnmower and the faint tinkle of wind chimes from down the street and his breathing, hot and ragged. He picked the hose back up and just stood there, watching the last few drops fall onto the dirt, darkening it one by one for a brief second.
He kept telling himself he’d stopped flinching at the memories, that they were just dull headaches now. Just a certainty he had to live with, that what really gnawed him was the silence. The letters that didn’t come. The answers no one sent.
Three days. He’d only been back here for three days.
A lifetime, almost. Pre-Cedric and Post-Cedric, and he hated how easily life could be categorised like that. Like it had stages. Like Cedric was just a footnote in history. He wasn't and the world should know-
Harry opened his mouth to say something-
All he could hear was the rush of blood in his ears and the radio on Petunia’s counter, the announcer’s voice distant but clear: “…authorities assure the public that the recent electrical disturbances pose no cause for alarm while experts remain confident the unusual weather will settle by—”
Harry’s grip tightened until the hose squeaked and his breathing evened out. Every word sounded like a lie dressed up in polite vowels. The Muggles didn’t know what was wrong but the Ministry did. They all did.
He imagined marching into the kitchen, cranking the volume up and shouting until someone, anyone, listened. You want a freak storm? He’s back! VOLDEMORT’S BACK!
He could picture their faces too. Aunt Petunia’s mouth pinching into a thin line of horror. Dudley’s baffled squint. Uncle Vernon’s face and neck turning a blotched shade of purple disbelief.
“Don’t flood the path!”
He turned automatically to see Aunt Petunia at the sink, sleeves rolled up and a glare sharp enough to cut glass. “You’ll ruin the paving.”
“I’m not,” Harry said flatly. The hose was off.
“Well, don’t,” she retorted and yanked the curtain closed again.
The hose jerked in his hand, a few drops spraying across the path and splattering her perfect geraniums and Harry almost laughed. He hadn’t meant to but the sharp gasp from inside made it almost worth it.
Almost.
A door thudded upstairs that was probably Dudley stomping between his room and the kitchen, hunting for snacks. It was the same old rhythm: footsteps, pipes groaning, the low hum of the fridge filling the quiet like it always did
Normalcy. Familiar. Wanted yet not.
Harry began coiling the hose and it writhed and squeaked against the brick, as stubborn as a live thing that didn't want to be handled. The repetition was mechanical and grounded in its own way. After a few loops, he wiped his forehead with his arm and squinted up. The sky was still blank and an endless blue with too much glare.
If he screamed, no one would believe him. If he stayed quiet, at least no one could lie to his face. Not much of a choice. But if it came down to it, he’d rather scream.
he couldn't, though.
With a sigh, he finished with the hose and hung it neatly on the hook by the side of the house; one of Aunt Petunia’s unspoken rules he’d learned back when breaking them meant no dinner. Through the hedge, he could see the kids from Number Eight chasing a football barefoot, their laughter carrying over the fence. They had no idea how the world had changed.
Lucky them.
He bent to grab the sweat-smeared Evening Standard on the step and tucked it under his arm. The house felt cooler when he stepped in, but smaller too. Tight. The air smelled of furniture polish and boiled cabbage; tonight’s dinner and he thought it fortunate he wasn’t in charge of it.
Could be worse, he thought as he climbed the stairs. They could’ve gone back to not ignoring me. The silence was its own kind of curse, yeah, but he’d take it over the shouting any day.
He’d left the window open. Warm air drifted in, making the curtains move like lazy wings. He dropped the paper onto the desk, the headline curling at the corners—Freak Storms. He brushed off a few crumbs, smoothed it flat. The word freak caught the light, ink shining black.
He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. It wasn’t meant for him. But he could still hear Uncle Vernon’s voice from years ago, thick with disgust: “There’s no such thing as magic. And no such thing as normal for you.”
He dropped into the chair and just stared at the paper long enough that the letters started to swim and blur together into nonsense. Outside, the hose gave a tired gurgle as the last few drops of water settled in its coils. The sound was almost like whispering and somewhere, far beyond all of it, the world was shifting again. Darkness was reforming, gathering.
Voldemort was out there. And he was here, stuck in this neat little Muggle street with its neatly trimmed hedges and stupid curtains and endless boredom. He huffed. At least at school he had things to do and had his friends. Here he didn't, not unless the Dursleys remembered he existed, and it was turning into the most boring summer yet. Though, was that fair when it was three days and counting since he’d returned ‘home’? Not really, but it already felt like a lifetime since Cedric’s death at the end of the tournament.
Since the fake Moody.
Harry leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. His scar pulsed once, twice, and faded, leaving nothing but a headache behind. No new visions. No new nightmares. Just bad sleep, heat, exhaustion and the endless normalcy of a world pretending not to see.
A world that couldn’t see.
He was supposed to feel safe here. Instead, the quiet felt like someone had screwed the lid of a jar on too tightly. Like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He hated it.
Outside, a hot wind picked up, stirring the hedges and rattling the windowpanes. The paper on his desk fluttered, the headline folding sharply in half and when it settled, only a single word was visible.
STORMS.
Harry stared at it a moment longer, then turned the page facedown and stood to close the window with a frown. He stared out at the unnaturally bright street and wondered how much longer the world could pretend.
How much longer could he pretend without screaming to someone about it all?
He didn't know.
--------------
By mid-afternoon the heat was brutal. Not just warm, but punishing. The air in Harry’s room felt baked through, like the walls themselves were giving off heat and even the sheets clung to his frame. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at a fly crawling slowly up the windowpane, too tired to swat it.
“Boy!”
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. Of course.
“What?” he called back, trying to keep the sigh out of his voice.
“Don’t you ‘what’ me. Get down here. Now.”
He dragged himself downstairs to find Petunia waiting in the hall, ramrod straight like she was expecting battle, a floral scarf tied tight over her hair. She gripped a feather duster like it was a weapon of some sort; maybe a sword.
“The attic's collecting dust,” she said in a thin voice. “Vernon sneezes every time he goes near the wardrobe. You might as well make yourself useful.”
Harry blinked. “The attic?”
“Yes, the attic,” she snapped. “Full of boxes, linens, rubbish. I want it cleared out before supper. And don’t make a mess.”
There it was - that tight, brittle tone she got when something had crawled under her skin but she pretended it hadn’t. The kind that made her sound extra proper just to hide it. Harry couldn’t help the tiny, crooked smile that graced his face. “Right. The attic.”
She stared him down for a second, probably trying to decide if he was taking the mickey out of her, then gave a sharp sniff and turned on her heel.
He had to wrestle the rickety step-ladder out from under the stairs — his old cupboard was now a glorified junk drawer crammed full of umbrellas and boxes of junk — and lugged it upstairs. The familiar groan of the wood felt like a complaint on his behalf.
When he pulled the cord for the attic hatch, a cloud of dust rained down, catching the afternoon sun like pale, floating ash. The opening gaped into darkness that smelled faintly of old paper and time. It was supposed to be a punishment or something, but honestly, as he climbed up into the dusty gloom, he didn’t really mind. It was cooler up here than the rest of the house, and it was quiet. He pulled the string of the bare bulb, which flickered on with a weak, yellow light.
Stacks of boxes crammed the eaves, their labels faded and faint: Christmas, Dudley Baby Clothes, Misc. while a thick coat of dust softened every edge and turned the whole space a uniform grey. Nothing of his, of course - that would’ve been too much to hope for, and he'd long learned he had nothing in this house outside his school things; even his little room wasn't really his save over the summer and his clothes were Dudley's cast-offs.
Yet there was no use in delaying it, and with a grunt, Harry started on the nearest pile: curtains, tinsel, a cracked baby monitor. Plastic Santas. The usual Dursley junk. The work was dull but it wasn’t bad. Sort, stack, toss, though he didn't find a lot of that. Over and over to keep his hands busy and his head quiet and him out of sight.
Half an hour later, when his arms were lined with dust to the elbows, he spotted a carton half-hidden behind one of the support pillars. The label, written in thin, looping handwriting that wasn't his Aunt's, was still visible:
Baby Things — L.E.
Harry froze.
The initials sat there, all innocent and unmistakable. L.E. — Lily Evans.
His hands went numb for a second as he fumbled with the cardboard flaps, the tape old and brittle and it gave way with a dry crackle. Inside, nestled in yellowed tissue paper, was a collection of things so ordinary they felt sacred.
First was a small, worn teddy bear with one button eye. Its fur was matted and loved to near-baldness in patches. He picked it up; it was surprisingly light and smelled faintly of lavender and dust. Tucked beneath it was a stack of photographs; not the magical, moving kind, but still, ordinary Muggle ones bound by grey ribbon that came away with some effort. He saw a girl with familiar red hair and startlingly green eyes—his eyes—laughing on a swing, then standing proudly with his grandparents, their faces beaming. In another, a teenage Lily sat on a park bench with a book in her lap, a boy with long dark messy hair sat next to her, looking at her as if she were the only thing in the world.
It wasn't his father, he knew that much. Maybe a boyfriend or a Muggle friend? The photo didn't show much, and the boy was dressed mostly in dark clothes; long pants and sleeves. He flipped it over, but there wasn't anything on the back, and asking his Aunt was just asking for trouble.
Another showed two little girls in a back garden, one blonde-haired and neat, the other younger, red-haired and grinning, her knees grass-stained. Petunia looked about seven, already prim, already slightly exasperated. Lily couldn’t have been more than five or six, eyes bright with mischief.
The next few years moved forward: school uniforms, a picnic where the same boy showed up again, a Christmas tree that leaned to one side while the girls stood next to their father, laughing at something he'd said. In each, Petunia was more composed, older and watchful; Lily smaller, more alive, perpetually on the edge of laughter. Harry noted his grandfather was a man with red hair and a face lined with worry more often than not, and his grandmother was a woman with blonde hair and a radiant smile.
His grandparents and the way they looked at each other spoke of a deep love shared between them.
Harry’s thumb paused on one photograph in particular: Lily maybe eleven, clutching a parchment envelope stamped with a crest he knew too well. Petunia stood beside her, frowning, mouth tight as if she’d bitten a lemon.
His grandfather’s face was lined with worry and fear. Worry, Harry would understand, but the fear? Though, he supposed it made sense. Lily was entering a world the man knew nothing about, and the fear of the unknown was very real.
He swallowed and traced the photo’s crinkled edge. That single captured moment—his mother ecstatic, her sister furious, grandfather worried and fearful—told him more than any story ever had.
With a sigh, he set it and the rest of the photos aside and continued on. Further down, he found a baby blanket that had been knitted in soft yellow wool. He unfolded it and imagined his mother wrapping him in it, her hands smoothing the yarn. There was a silver rattle, tarnished with age but still engraved with the name ‘Harry,’ and a tiny pair of scuffed leather shoes. His shoes.
He sat back on his heels, the dust motes dancing in the single bulb’s weak light. This wasn't just a box of forgotten "rubbish." It was a time capsule. A silent, tangible piece of a life he'd never known, a love he'd only ever felt the absence of. Petunia must have packed it away, unable to throw it out but unwilling to look at it. Yet, as the oppressive heat of the house and the sting of his Aunt’s words faded into nothing, here in the quiet, dusty dark, surrounded by the ghost of his mother’s love, Harry felt a little less alone and a little less like he wanted to scream.
He had to keep this, but the Trace on his wand kept him from acting. Though... Maybe it'd be worth it to keep this safe, he thought as he looked deeper into the box. A thin folder lay at the bottom, corners frayed and yellowed with age. Across the top read:
Aven & Co., Durham Registry – 1980.
"What?"
Harry frowned and lifted it closer to the bulb. The parchment inside felt thick, almost leathery, and seemed embossed with filigree. In the lower corner of the envelope was a wax seal, half-flattened but intact: deep red, bearing the image of a tree circled by a ring of tiny stars. The design was intricate and unmistakably magical yet formal — like something for official records, not a letter. As he tilted it, a shimmer of oil-color glided across the wax, then vanished, leaving it dull and unremarkable.
Mundane and normal.
Evans. Aven. The names hummed in his mind, just one letter apart and a new mystery burned in his mind. With a half-grin, he packed this box away with care -all save the envelope- and started going through the remainder of the boxes with just as much care. It didn't take long to find more of the strange envelopes, all the same and all aged and all unopened.
Even Dudley had one, though Harry noticed that Vernon didn't; that it seemed like some kind of, dare he think, lineage that was being passed down.
Maybe it meant nothing. Just a coincidence, or some company that had once handled family paperwork in parchment that no longer existed. But Aven & Co. didn’t sound like any Muggle firm he’d ever heard of, and if the Durselys had used it, Uncle Vernon would have something like this, and he'd have boasted about it at least once. And that seal - no normal registry used wax stamped with stars and trees.
He knew it’d shone with magic.
Yet-
His grandparents had been Muggles. Everyone said so. Everyone knew so. But then, if that were the case, what was this doing in the attic, tucked in with Lily’s baby things? With what little of his baby things remained? The others, too. Tucked away in various boxes like some hidden secret?
It didn't make sense.
He stared at them until the letters swam and blurred together, and the air felt thicker, as though the house itself were holding its breath.
A clatter of plates came from downstairs and Aunt Petunia’s sharp voice: “I hope you’re not making a mess up there!”
He folded the envelope from Lily’s things fast and slipped it into his pocket. He’d come back to them.
“Almost done!” he called.
He replaced the lids on the boxes, smoothed dust over the labels, and slid them back into the shadows. Then he sat a moment longer under the weak bulb, pulse still quick from something that wasn’t just guilt. There was no reason the scraps should matter and yet they did. Like a hinge creaking open to something that connected Harry Potter to the girl in the photos; to Lily Evans. To his grandparents. To her side of the family.
Normal. Mundane. Yet with a mystery that burned in his mind because they had been Muggles. Everyone said so.
He climbed down the ladder slowly, the folded parchment warm in his pocket.
Aunt Petunia waited at the base of the stairs, arms folded again. A smear of dust marred her sleeve; she brushed it off fastidiously. “Well?”
“Cleared,” he said. “Mostly baby clothes.”
“Then throw them out.”
“They’re Lily’s. Yours. Grandfather’s.”
The silence between them stretched as tight as a wire. For a second, he thought he saw a flicker of something in her eyes, but then it was gone, replaced by a hard frown.
“I said,” she replied at last, “throw them out.”
He met her eyes—green meeting washed blue—and for a second neither moved. Then he shrugged, noncommittal, folded the step ladder up and leaned it against the wall. “After dinner, then.”
“See that you do!”
He didn't bother answering.
Back in his room, he shut the door and pulled the envelope from his pocket. He flicked the lamp on, and the wax gleamed faintly in the lamplight, the red catching gold in a way that reminded him of Fawkes. With a slow exhale, Harry traced the ring of stars with his fingertip and swore that, for just a moment, something hummed beneath the surface—like static or a distant heartbeat.
Magic. It had to be.
But why? His grandparents had been Muggles. His mother Muggle-born. It didn’t make sense, and with only half a second of hesitation, Harry opened it and carefully pulled out the parchment from within and unfolded it.
It was a simple, plain yet filigreed birth certificate.
His, and marked with the same seal as the envelope and dated two days after he'd been born. What...
"What..." He didn't even know he had a birth certificate; that his mum had chanced discovery like this for something so simple, and with a blink, Harry sat on the edge of his bed, parchment balanced on his knee. Aven & Co., Durham Registry. Someone in the Wizarding world knew more than they'd let on, and the words blurred as tears pricked his eyes. Yet the seal stayed sharp in his mind: the tree, the stars, the circle that bound them.
It wasn’t grief now. Or maybe it was, but mixed with a curiosity thin and bright that shone like a lifeline he grabbed with both hands. Anything to keep his mind off what had happened at the end of the school year.
He re-folded and placed it back in the envelope with shaking hands, and then slid it under his pillow to sit with his wand, where the Dursleys wouldn’t think to look.
For the first time all summer, his thoughts felt clear and as if a fog had lifted. The pain of Cedric’s death hadn’t vanished; the raw ache still present in his chest as a constant reminder of the laughter and the friendship stolen too soon. But something else had begun to breathe; a nascent hope, maybe, or at least a fragile tendril of something emerging from the wreckage of despair.
Maybe tomorrow, Harry thought, he’d write to Gringotts. Just to ask.
He ended up going back up to the attic under the guise of more sorting to recklessly shrink the box, and when no warnings appeared about the use of underage magic -odd, but he didn’t dwell on it too much- he shrunk the rest with a few flicks of his wand.
Still nothing happened. Odd and while he didn’t know why the Trace hadn’t reacted, Harry didn’t question it.
Maybe the universe was giving him a break.
---------------------------------
After dinner, the evening settled into that peculiar stillness that came after heat breaks but before night really cools. From somewhere down the street came the faint rattle of a television game show, the applause drifting in through open windows.
A dog’s bark. A car driving along the street. A fleeting auditory snapshot of urban life, so mundane and normal in a world that didn’t know the horror that had woken some two weeks ago. Of the life that had been lost.
Lucky them and tears pricked at Harry’s eyes as he closed the door to his room.
He scrubbed them away and dropped down into the chair at his desk. The single lamp pooled light across the wood and the Aven & Co. certificate lay in front of him, edges curled slightly and wax seal dulled to brownish red. He turned it this way and that, watching as the light caught the ring of stars and made them seem almost to move.
Evans. Aven. The words slid over each other in his mind until they stopped meaning anything at all.
Harry didn’t know much about his grandparents, only that they’d been ordinary Muggles from somewhere up north. So what was a wizarding registry certificate doing in Muggle boxes?
None of it made sense. The Dursleys hated magic.
He leaned closer and traced the edge of the seal with a fingertip. The wax was faintly ridged, and the tree's lines curled inward like roots. For a heartbeat, he thought he felt something pulse beneath his skin, and he drew his hand back quickly and laughed under his breath.
“Jumping at shadows now,” he muttered, and maybe he was.
He pulled one of his few Muggle notebooks out, flipped it open to a clean page that wasn’t full of doodles from nights when sleep wouldn’t come, uncapped his pen and scrawled:
Aven = Evans? Name change?
Crest = family seal ??
Ask Gringotts ???
The words looked childish and blocky, yes, but the act of writing steadied him. For the first time in over a week, his thoughts were somewhere that didn’t end in a green flash of light. It was a start, and Harry grinned slightly. Maybe he was imagining things, but it was something, even if it was nothing.
Something that wasn't a green light or death or him.
Voldemort.
He closed the book gently with a sigh, and imagined the house sighed with him, quiet except for the whir of the refrigerator downstairs and the rhythmic creak of pipes. Somewhere, Dudley laughed at something on the telly, the sound muffled by distance.
Harry exhaled again and sat back. The weight in his chest had shifted. Not gone, but lighter.
He reached for his schoolbag and dug out a piece of parchment, smoother than the Muggle paper he’d used, and his quill. Hedwig stirred on her perch, fluffing her feathers as her eyes caught the lamplight.
“Just curious,” he told her. “That’s all.”
Hedwig tilted her head as if unconvinced.
He dipped the quill, hesitated, and then began to write.
To Gringotts Wizarding Bank,
Could you tell me if my mother’s family (surname Evans) ever held accounts with you?
About something called Aven & Co.?
— Harry Potter
That was it. No titles and no explanations. He stared at the tiny block of words, heat rising in his face. It looked absurdly simple—like a child asking about lost homework. He read it once, twice, a third time, wondering if he should sound more polite, or older, or less like himself. If he should even ask about Aven & Co. Then he sighed and folded it anyway.
The parchment felt warm in his hands as he slid it beneath his mattress beside his wand and the Aven & Co. envelope.
“They’d just laugh,” he said softly. Hedwig hooted once and Harry laughed.
Maybe he’d send it, maybe not.
The night had thickened into a humid stillness by the time Harry drifted into sleep. The sound of distant thunder rolled like a restless animal beyond the rooftops. He dreamed of grave dirt and cold laughter, of Cedric’s hand slipping from his grasp, of green light flickering behind his eyelids like heat lightning.
When he jerked awake hours later in the early hours of the morning, his shirt clung damply to his skin. The moon hung sharp and low outside the window, its light silvering his desk and he sat there a moment, breathing hard. The house was silent but for the faint hum of Dudley’s fan down the hall. His scar throbbed once, faintly—not pain exactly, just memory.
Hedwig shifted on her perch. Her feathers rustled, soft and deliberate. The sound was oddly grounding.
He reached for his wand and found the letter.
What if… He pulled both out from under the mattress. Stared at it and then nodded once. Even if they laughed, it was still an answer to a question.
He unfolded it and read it once more, tracing the uneven slant of his handwriting.
It wasn’t much. But it was something he had written—something he’d chosen to do. That, right now, was enough.
“All right, girl,” he whispered, voice rough. “Let’s find out.”
He swung his legs out of bed and crossed the room, careful not to wake the floorboards as he approached Hedwig. Her amber eyes blinked at him, patient and knowing.
“Straight to Gringotts,” he said softly. “No detours this time.”
She hooted once, hopping to the edge of her perch. He tied the letter to her leg, fingers trembling as he did so. When the knot was secure, she nipped his finger—a small, affectionate reprimand.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I know.”
He opened the window. Warm air flowed in, carrying the smell of cut grass and the faint metallic tang that always preceded rain. Hedwig leaned forward, wings spreading wide in the moonlight.
“Go on,” he said.
She pushed off with a rush of feathers, silent except for the single brush of air as she cleared the sill. Her pale shape rose fast, cutting against the dark. He leaned out just long enough to see her skim over the rooftops, then vanish into the cloud-mottled sky.
The window rattled once in her wake, then stilled.
Harry stood there, arms braced on the sill, watching the dark where she’d gone. The street below was empty—every house dark, every curtain drawn. Even the lamplight seemed subdued, haloed in mist.
He closed the window gently and turned back toward the desk, face drawn with uncertainty. Somewhere out there, Hedwig was flying to London and tomorrow or the day after, there’d be an answer. Maybe it would be nothing—a clerical note, a polite dismissal. But the question itself had weight now, like a small anchor dropped into dark water.
Harry dropped into the chair, arms folded loosely across his chest. The clock ticked toward two. His eyelids grew heavy again, but his mind stayed clear.
He thought of Lily, laughing in the photographs as she held her Hogwart’s letter, Petunia’s face tight with fury beside her. His grandfather’s worried, frightened face. The attic dust, the smell of old paper. The faint hum he’d felt beneath the seal when he touched it.
He’d never been good at patience, but tonight the waiting didn’t feel empty. It felt alive. But waiting up wouldn’t bring answers any faster, and so, with a sigh, he turned off the lamp and crawled back into bed.
Moonlight and silence reclaimed the room.