Chapter Text

  It started with a small, brown package...

  Harry Potter arrived at the Ministry at precisely 6:02 AM—early, as usual, mostly to avoid the crushing weight of being "Harry Potter." His boots clicked too loudly against the marble, reminding him of all the time he spent pacing outside the Headmaster’s office before a lecture.

  The young witch who worked reception spotted him halfway through the hall. Her quill clattered to the desk as she leapt to her feet, chair spinning away with a screech. She wasn’t new by any means, but she still managed to look shocked every time she saw him.

  Harry ducked his head, attempting to mask a chuckle with a rough cough. Warm pink crept up the receptionist’s neck. She raised a hand, waved at him with an embarrassing flutter, and let it fall, horrified by her own actions.

  At the other end of the atrium, Harry arrived at the lift without further incident. Its doors slid open with a wheeze before he even touched the brass button. If there was one thing more uncomfortable than a failed starstruck greeting, it would have to be his morning ride up to his office. He braced for impact.

  “Good morning, Director Potter,” purred a silken voice, each word stretched like warm caramel pulled into a drooping string.

  “Morning,” Harry sighed.

  Every vowel dripped with suggestion, every consonant caressed his ears. He’d survived Voldemort, Death Eaters, and decades of Ministry backstabbing, but this disembodied flirting was the thing that might finally break him. After thousands of rides, he’d grown accustomed to being the only one the lift spoke directly to, though it didn't make his skin crawl any less.

  Hermione had been no help whatsoever.

  “Who works the lift, ‘Mione?”

  “No one,” she’d said, not even looking up as she scribbled furiously on a mountain of parchment. “The voice is a simple charm to announce the department. Why?”

  “It’s flirting with me.”

  Her face had finally turned up, eyebrows arching dangerously. “Honestly, Harry. Men and their egos, I swear! It’s a box with pulleys. Its vocabulary is limited to ‘level’ and ‘department.’”

  “I’m telling you, it’s got a crush!”

  Hermione had offered him a very un-Minister-of-Magic-like scoff and turned back to her paperwork. He’d left her office muttering about know-it-all Ministers who clearly knew nothing about enchanted lifts with boundary issues.

  The lift whispered again, its tone now taking on a suggestive lilt. “I’m scheduled for maintenance this Saturday.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to stop by?”

  A chime, merciful and sharp, announced his floor. Harry squeezed through the barely open doors and bolted down the corridor. His heavy Auror robes billowed behind him. With three quick snaps of his fingers, he dismantled the wards on his office—a wandless trick he’d perfected after fumbling with his holster in front of foreign dignitaries one too many times—and rushed in.

  He slammed the door behind him and leaned his weight against the wood. Merlin’s pants, he was fifty-six years old. Too old to be harassed by architecture.

  His office was completely underground, but the enchanted windows behind his desk showed rolling green hills under a cloudless sky. Typical Ministry charm work—lovely to look at, utterly disconnected from reality.

  A few photos dotted the otherwise empty walls. Teenage Ron and Harry, in brand-new Auror robes that were clearly a size too big, grinning like idiots. Hermione’s bushy hair was barely contained by the frame, as if she might burst out of the moving image to correct their posture.

  The next frame showed the three of them at the Leaky, in their early thirties. Hermione’s appointment as Minister. Harry remembered the hangover more than the celebration—firewhisky had been a terrible idea, but George had insisted. Ron was leaning heavily into Harry’s side, already three glasses in, and Harry was smoothing his hair back, whispering something against the shell of his ear.

  They were too close, and yet, never close enough.

  Then faster, skimming the blurs of graying hair and changing robes.

  Hermione and Viktor’s wedding, her chestnut locks streaked with silver. Ron blocking Ginny’s quaffle at the Burrow, his hairline in full retreat. Harry and Neville’s joint fiftieth, where Hermione had charmed the cake to sing the Hogwarts school song in a booming, operatic baritone that made the plates rattle.

  Ron in St. Mungo’s. Tired. Pale. But still smiling that lopsided grin. Still Ron.

  The pictures ended there abruptly. No more get-togethers, no more smiling faces.

  No more Ron.

  Just the silence of the office and the loop of the fake green grass.

  Four years later, and the sight of him still made Harry’s stomach do a slow, sick roll. He’d refused Molly’s tearful offers of Ron’s old Cannons jersey, his favorite chess set, and any other mementos. Ron already haunted every bloody corner of his life anyway; he didn't need the clutter to prove it.

  His eyes tore away, focusing on the dark wood of his desk.

  And that’s when he saw it.

  A small box wrapped in coarse brown parchment and rough twine. It sat slightly off-center in his in-tray, wearing an infuriating air of belonging. Harry’s wand was out and humming in his hand before his brain had even processed the threat. Constant vigilance, Moody’s gravelly ghost whispered in the back of his mind.

  He checked the wards in his office—secure. No tampering. No dark magic screaming that he was about to have his head blown off. Still, thirty-seven years of hunting Dark Wizards had left him with a twitchy sort of caution.

  He extended his magic toward it. The box’s contents hummed back. Whatever was inside had its own magic. A lot of it, too. Bright white and warm as a freshly brewed pepper-up potion. Powerful, but not malevolent.

  “Right then,” Harry muttered, his voice sounding scratchy in the quiet room.

  He snatched it up, already halfway to the door to dump it on some poor inspector’s desk, when a small tag caught his eye. The handwriting was a careful, loopy flourish in silver ink.

  “Luna?” The name escaped his lips like a ghost.

  𝓣𝓸 𝓗𝓪𝓻𝓻𝔂,

  𝓑𝔂 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓰𝓮𝓽 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼, 𝓘’𝓿𝓮 𝓶𝓸𝓼𝓽 𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮𝓵𝔂 𝓹𝓪𝓼𝓼𝓮𝓭 𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓸 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓖𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓽 𝓑𝓮𝔂𝓸𝓷𝓭. 𝓘𝓽’𝓼 𝔀𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓘 𝓰𝓮𝓽 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓪𝓼 𝓪𝓷 𝓤𝓷𝓼𝓹𝓮𝓪𝓴𝓪𝓫𝓵𝓮, 𝓫𝓾𝓽 𝓭𝓸𝓷’𝓽 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓻𝔂! 𝓘 𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓭 𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓽𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓲𝓽—𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓱𝓸𝓷𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓵𝔂, 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽’𝓼 𝓹𝓻𝓸𝓫𝓪𝓫𝓵𝔂 𝓪 𝓵𝓸𝓽 𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓮 𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓽𝓮𝓼 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓷 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓵𝓲𝔃𝓮. 𝓘𝓯 𝓘’𝓶 𝓼𝓽𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓪𝓵𝓲𝓿𝓮, 𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱, 𝔀𝓮 𝓼𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓱𝓪𝓿𝓮 𝓽𝓮𝓪 𝓽𝓸𝓶𝓸𝓻𝓻𝓸𝔀. 𝓐𝓼𝓼𝓾𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓪𝓻𝓻𝓲𝓿𝓮𝓭 𝓪𝓽 𝓲𝓽𝓼 𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮 𝓸𝓷 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 55𝓽𝓱 𝓫𝓲𝓻𝓽𝓱𝓭𝓪𝔂.

  Harry’s stomach lurched. The note was almost exactly one year late—and Luna had been dead for eight. Her loopy script danced across the page, as light and airy as she’d been, making him feel like she might float through the wall at any moment, radish earrings swinging.

  𝓘 𝔀𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓱𝓪𝓿𝓮 𝓼𝓮𝓷𝓽 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓼𝓸𝓸𝓷𝓮𝓻, 𝓫𝓾𝓽 𝓲𝓽 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓴𝓼 𝓫𝓮𝓼𝓽 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓹𝓮𝓸𝓹𝓵𝓮 𝔀𝓱𝓮𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝔂’𝓻𝓮 𝓲𝓷 𝓪 𝓭𝓸𝓾𝓫𝓵𝓮𝓼 𝔂𝓮𝓪𝓻. 𝓔𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓷 𝔂𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓼 𝓽𝓸 𝓪 𝓭𝓸𝓾𝓫𝓵𝓮, 𝓼𝓸 𝓯𝓲𝓯𝓽𝔂-𝓯𝓲𝓿𝓮 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓴𝓼 𝔀𝓸𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻𝓯𝓾𝓵𝓵𝔂, 𝓘 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓴. 𝓓𝓸𝓾𝓫𝓵𝓮𝓼 𝓪𝓻𝓮 𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂 𝓲𝓶𝓹𝓸𝓻𝓽𝓪𝓷𝓽, 𝓫𝓾𝓽 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓷, 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓭𝓲𝓭𝓷’𝓽 𝓽𝓪𝓴𝓮 𝓐𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓱𝓶𝓪𝓷𝓬𝔂, 𝓭𝓲𝓭 𝔂𝓸𝓾? 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓷𝓪𝓻𝓰𝓵𝓮𝓼 𝓪𝓵𝔀𝓪𝔂𝓼 𝓼𝓪𝓲𝓭 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓱𝓪𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓭 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓲𝓽.

  “Bloody hell, Luna,” Harry muttered, running a hand through his hair, which was still as unruly and stubborn as it had been at fifteen. This all sounded rather complicated. Or like utter nonsense. With Luna, it was usually both.

  𝓘’𝓿𝓮 𝓶𝓪𝓭𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝔂𝓸𝓾. 𝓦𝓱𝓮𝓷 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓼𝓮𝓮 𝓶𝓮, 𝓶𝓪𝓴𝓮 𝓼𝓾𝓻𝓮 𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓽𝓸 𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷 𝓲𝓽. 𝓘 𝔀𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭𝓷’𝓽 𝓱𝓪𝓿𝓮 𝓴𝓷𝓸𝔀𝓷 𝔀𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝔂𝓸𝓾’𝓻𝓮 𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓪𝓫𝓸𝓾𝓽 𝓪𝓷𝔂𝔀𝓪𝔂. 𝓞𝓻 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂, 𝓘 𝔀𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓱𝓪𝓭, 𝓫𝓾𝓽 𝓘 𝔀𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓽𝓮𝓵𝓵 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓪𝓶𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓪𝓷𝔂𝔀𝓪𝔂. 𝓣𝓲𝓶𝓮 𝓲𝓼 𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓬𝓲𝓻𝓬𝓾𝓵𝓪𝓻 𝔀𝓱𝓮𝓷 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓮𝔁𝓪𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓲𝓽, 𝓗𝓪𝓻𝓻𝔂. 𝓓𝓸𝓷’𝓽 𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷 𝓲𝓽 𝓽𝓸 𝓶𝓮.

  Harry blinked and read the sentence again. He’d need Hermione to translate Luna’s impossible tenses. She would need three cups of tea and a thick dictionary to sort out "I will had."

  𝓢𝓲𝓶𝓹𝓵𝔂 𝓱𝓸𝓵𝓭 𝓲𝓽 𝓲𝓷 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓭, 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓷 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓫𝓪𝓬𝓴.

  Harry tore away the parchment with the jagged impatience that had exasperated Hermione for decades. He paused, wand still gripped in his left hand—just in case—and flicked the lid off the box with his thumb.

  Silvery moonlight erupted out, spilling over the edges like dense, heavy fog. It was cold against his skin and bright against his eyes, momentarily blinding him. He squinted through the light.

  “Well… in for a galleon,” he whispered.

  Then, with the reckless, impulsive streak of a Gryffindor who’d never learned his lesson, he plunged his hand into the swirling mist. His fingers closed around something. Small, cold, and devastatingly familiar.

  A tiny hourglass.

  He very nearly chucked it right then and there.

  For a split, delirious moment, he worried it would start the entire business over again: the desperate chase across Hogwarts grounds, the loops and near-paradoxes. Hermione, hiding in a pumpkin patch with her hands jammed in her hair, muttering about “catastrophic oscillations.”

  But this hourglass wasn’t Hermione’s Ministry-approved spindly junk. This was elegant. It felt both ancient and brand new at the same time. Made of a metal the color of a bruised sunset. Glass as thin as a dragonfly’s wing. Instead of sand, a single fat drop of liquid silver hovered at the center between the bulbs.

  Harry turned it in his hand, letting the morning light catch the glass in strange, blue-tinged shivers. It felt solid, unreasonably heavy for its size, and hummed against his palm like a heartbeat. On the underside, another tag was stuck with a bit of enchanted tape.

  𝓣𝓾𝓻𝓷 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓴 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓶𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽.

  Harry snorted, a dry, hollow sound. “Brilliant, Luna. Just the moment.”

  What bloody moment was he supposed to think of? The happiest? The worst? That summer in Cornwall?

  He dropped into his chair with a heavy grunt, the old wood whining beneath him. He held the cool glass to his eye, watching that silver drop. And for the first time in four years, the silence of his office didn't feel quite so empty.

  The instructions made less than zero sense. Luna had mentioned something about doubles. How was eleven a powerful number?

  His mind drifted, unbidden, back to the beginning. Back to Dudley’s eleventh birthday. His own was only a month away—well, nearly. It had been the first time anyone had bothered being kind to him. Not even a person, but a bloody snake. A boa constrictor. One that had given him a conspiratorial “wink” on its way to freedom.

  Harry absently twirled the hourglass between his fingers—the same calloused fingers that had plucked a hundred Snitches from the air and disarmed the most dangerous wizards in history. Now reduced to fidgeting with a mysterious artifact like a first-year.

  The tiny device flipped end over end, and that silver droplet caught the morning light. It hung suspended in its glass cage like a captured star.

  He could practically feel the air of the Reptile House again: dark, cool, and thick with the heavy scent of damp moss and something primeval.

  A tiny zap bit into his fingertips—sharp and sudden, like the static snap from one of Mrs. Weasley’s woolly Christmas jumpers. The world jerked sideways.

  The Ministry office didn't just fade; it collapsed. The artificial sunlight of his enchanted window shattered into a million sparks that popped and vanished, leaving him in a narrow shaft of air that smelled of wet straw and over-chlorinated water.

  He hit the floor with a bone-jarring crack.

  His knees buckled, slamming hard against a cold stone ledge The impact jostled the air clean from his lungs, and left him gasping to replace it. He looked up, heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, through cracked glasses.

  A low, rhythmic hum vibrated through the soles of his shoes—funny, because he’d been wearing heavy dragonhide boots ten seconds ago, not flimsy, worn-out canvas trainers. His palms went flat against the ledge, bracing for the Ministry office to snap back into place, waiting for the inevitable sirens of a magical accident.

  But the office didn't return. The dank, humid hush of the Reptile House held firm.

  He blinked.

  Scratch that—he tried to blink. His glasses had slipped halfway down his nose, feeling heavy and clumsy, like they were made from the bottoms of jam jars. He hadn't worn them in a decade; Ron had taken him to get his vision magically corrected the year he turned forty-five.

  He reached up, groping at the wire rims, and caught a fleeting glimpse of his own hand. It was small. Ridiculously small. The skin scar-free, and the nail beds chewed down to raw, jagged nubs.

  “Make it move!”

  The voice cut through the noise of the Reptile House, and Harry’s vision tunneled. His shoulders drew up. His chin dropped. All before he’d made the conscious decision to move.

  Dudley Dursley was maybe four feet away. But this wasn’t the burly, middle-aged businessman who had been sending polite Christmas cards for the last decade. This was the boy Harry had spent a lifetime trying to forget: round-cheeked, pink-faced, and not grown into his ears quite yet. His shirt had ridden up in the back, and his palms were flat against the glass, breath fogging it in short, impatient bursts.

  A meaty arm reached past him. Massive knuckles rapped against the exhibit—clack-clack-clack—and Harry’s shoulders came up around his ears before he could stop them.

  His eyes tracked the arm upward on their own. Past the watch. Past the rolled cuff. All the way up to the purple-tinged, jowly face of Vernon Dursley, who was scowling at the snake with the same expression he reserved for bad traffic and Harry’s existence.

  “He’s dead,” Harry whispered, the words catching in a throat that felt far too narrow. “Stroke. Sixty-two. I sent flowers.”

  But Vernon Dursley was very much alive.

  “Do it again!” Dudley demanded.

  Uncle Vernon knocked again, harder this time. The snake remained a coil of motionless, brown scales, its head resting heavily against its body. Dudley groaned, his shoulders slumping in a massive, theatrical show of defeat.

  “This is boring,” he moaned, shuffling away.

  Harry watched them go. Dudley and Piers… What was his surname?

  It wasn’t important. It had been years since Harry had thought of Dudley’s childhood gang, and even longer since he’d seen Petunia. She was chatting happily next to Vernon, her neck seemingly twice as long as he remembered. Neither of them spared a single glance for the small, messy-haired boy left standing by the tank.

  “What the hell have you gotten me into, Luna?” he asked.

  His voice came out as a warbling, high-pitched squawk. He sounded like a child. He was a child.

  Harry ambled up to the glass, his oversized shorts sliding dangerously low. He grabbed the waistband—Dudley's old hand-me-downs—and hoisted them up, feeling the scratchy, cheap fabric against his skin. The belt was already cinched as tight as it would go.

  The shirt swamped him, the shoes were worn to bits, and his socks kept slipping. Every part of the outfit they’d given him hung off his skeletal frame in loose folds, but the sweat on his back told him that he’d be grateful for it later.

  The first time Harry had stood here, he’d been blinded by the simple, rare magic of a day out. He’d registered nothing but the animals and the dizzying thought that this might be the best day of his life.

  Now, with decades of Auror training burned into his retinas, he saw everything.

  It was funny, in a dark, twisted sort of way, how he’d once believed the Dursleys’ treatment was just... life. He had hated the cupboard, certainly, but he’d accepted it as his lot, like the weather or the shape of his nose. It hadn't been until the Weasleys ripped the bars off his window in a flying car that he realized “normal” families didn’t keep children locked in cupboards or fed through cat flaps—orphaned or not.

  An older woman sat on a nearby bench, the wood creaking as she shifted to watch her grandchildren zip past Harry with high-pitched squeals of joy. Her warm, grandmotherly eyes passed over him, drifted a few inches, and then snapped back with the force of a physical blow. Her face folded into a deep, troubled frown.

  A young couple strolled by on a date, their gait lazy and synchronized. The girl spotted him first, her sentence dying mid-air. Her golden brows furrowed as she nudged her partner, nodding toward the small, bedraggled boy by the glass. The man blinked twice, his hand twitching as if he might step toward Harry with a question, but he hesitated. They both stopped in their tracks, whispering fiercely and casting worried glances over their shoulders.

  He’d caught looks like this his entire childhood. He’d always assumed they were mirroring the Dursleys—that they saw a "freak" so loathsome he deserved to be hidden away. But he’d led a thousand interrogations as Head of the DMLE; he knew how to read the micro-expressions of the human face.

  It wasn't disgust.

  It was concern.

  He finally shuffled close to the glass, using the darkened tank as a mirror. The person staring back was a ghost. Sunken cheeks, jutting elbows, and knees so knobby they looked like they might snap under the weight of his oversized clothes. Even knowing what to expect, the sight hit him like a Bludger to the gut.

  He was ten years old. Small, frail, and hollow. The lightning bolt on his forehead peeked through his messy fringe—faint, thin, and red—but definitely still there.

  The snake tilted its head, catching the overhead light on its glassy eye for a fraction of a second before dipping lower. It wasn't a wink, not really, but the timing was so deliberate that Harry felt the secret pass between them anyway.

  A couple of breathless chuckles escaped Harry’s lips. He winked back.

  The snake pointed its tail at the Dursleys’ backs and raised its chin toward the ceiling.

  “I get that all the time,” it hissed.

  Harry’s eyes flicked over the crowd, looking for any sign that Dudley had noticed. He hadn’t yet. Harry pressed as close to the glass as he could, the cool surface chilling the tip of his nose.

  “You might want to lie back down. If my cousin sees you, he’ll come running back.”

  The boa immediately tucked its head under a long stretch of its own body, wiggling through just enough for its snout to poke out. Its tongue did a quick dance in the air.

  “Did it see me?” asked the snake.

  Harry looked over his shoulder. They had made it just in time. Dudley was turning to look back, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Harry quickly fixed his gaze on a nearby bin to avoid drawing his cousin’s attention. He studied the tank for another moment, huffed, and turned toward Piers again.

  “We’re clear,” Harry whispered.

  “Good. I might be used to it, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it.”

  Every ‘s’ slid into the air with a notable, rhythmic hiss. Harry wondered, not for the first time, if that was simply how snakes talked, or if they all shared a flair for the dramatic. Either way, it slowed the conversation down thoroughly.

  “I didn’t ask your name the first time,” Harry realized.

  “I do not believe I have met you before, tiny human. Perhaps you have mistaken me for one of the others here?”

  “No,” Harry agreed, feeling the strange weight of his own memories. “We haven’t met before. Sorry! Do you have a name?”

  The snake wiggled forward, scales rasping softly against the bark of the decorative limb, until he could level Harry with a stare. “My keeper calls me by two names. Julius Squeezer and Huggles.”

  Harry bit the inside of his cheek for a solid three seconds before he trusted himself to speak again. “Julius Squeezer is a nice—”

  “I prefer Huggles,” it hissed, cutting him off.

  Another three seconds with Harry’s cheek firmly between his teeth. “Do you?”

  “It is a strong name. Brave and blunt. A warrior’s name.”

  Merlin, help him. Harry thought he might actually crack a rib holding back the laughter. “Great choice. No doubt about it.”

  Huggles went quiet, golden eyes watching Harry. He waited for one, unblinking minute. Maybe Huggles was bored with their conversation, and this was the way snakes told people to move on? Harry almost turned to leave when Huggles spoke again.

  “It is a proper thing to introduce yourself next, yes?”

  “Oh! Erm, right! Sorry. I’m Harry Potter.”

  “That is too bad, Harry Potter. Your name is very… uninspired.”

  “Oi!” Harry bristled. “I happen to like my name a lot, thanks.” He paused, thinking of the "Boy Who Lived," the "Chosen One," and the dozens of other titles he’d outrun. “Well, no. Most of the time, it’s a burden. But it’s mine.”

  Huggles blew several quick pops of air through his nostrils. Was he laughing at him?

  “I like you, Harry Potter,” Huggles told him. “You are unafraid to speak your mind, even when faced with a form as formidable as mine. If I ever escape this prison, I hope that we meet again.”

  Huggles had escaped once. Well, it was more like he had been let loose. Harry remembered checking up on the incident years and years later, wondering how his friend’s bid for freedom had gone. Headlines read things like “Snake Slithers Out of Surrey Zoo” one day. The next: “Snake Smashed by Sedan.”

  Apparently, Huggles had tried crossing the motorway. The memory left a bitter taste.

  An idea stumbled into Harry’s head, and his mouth decided to jump in before allowing him to think it through. “Would you like to come with me?”

  Huggles couldn’t help it. He raised his head again, tilting it to the side. “You would take me with you?”

  “Sure!” Harry shrugged. “Do you eat a lot?”

  “Every three weeks. Rabbits are the most delicious, but they only offer them once a year. Primarily on the day I was hatched.”

  Harry frowned. “Can you hunt for yourself?”

  Huggles didn’t respond with words; he answered with a quick, rhythmic tap to the brass plaque by the glass.

  “Raised in captivity,” Harry read. “Right. I forgot.”

  “I have always wanted to try.”

  “I’d probably need to shrink you down a bit. For travel purposes. Smuggling you into Hogwarts won’t be an easy feat.”

  “You would change my glorious form?” Huggles demanded.

  He slid his body around his resting spot, showing off his entire scaly shape in a tight, shimmering corkscrew. The brown coils glistened with flecks of metallic gold. Huggles was easily as long as Harry was tall.

  “Yeah,” Harry drawled. “Snakes aren’t exactly popular in the Muggle world. Traveling around with a giant boa constrictor will make people uneasy. Not to mention, draw the kind of attention I’d like to avoid.”

  “They should be afraid.”

  Huggles raised himself up to an impressive height and looked as if he was trying to puff out his chest. It would have been very intimidating if not for his adorably derpy face and name.

  “May all look upon the mighty frame of Lord Huggles and despair.”

  Harry had to physically turn himself away to hide his grin. When he was back in control of his lungs, he faced his new friend once again.

  “I’m not saying that you’re wrong. You’re right terrifying.”

  Huggles gave a smug bob of his head.

  “But it’s either I shrink you down, or I have to leave you he—”

  “I accept your terms,” Huggles interrupted.

  “Oh!” Harry paused, then nodded. “Well, good. Last thing: I’ll need to come back for you in three days. I’ve got to… figure out my wand situation. Can you hold out ‘til then?”

  “Three years have drifted by for me behind this glass, Harry Potter. Three days will pass in the blink of an eye. I will show you.”

  Huggles stared.

  Harry stared back.

  A minute passed.

  “What is it you’re meant to be showing me?”

  “I have blinked. To heighten my point.”

  “You didn’t, though.”

  “I did,” Huggles affirmed with absolute gravity. “It was so fast that you were unable to see it with your weak, flickering human eyes.”

  “Right,” Harry agreed with a nod. “My mistake.”

  “DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING!”

  The shout made Harry jump, the sound piercing the humid quiet of the Reptile House. Piers-bloody-Polkiss. Yes! That was his surname. Not that it mattered right now. Dudley was already waddling back as fast as his stubby legs could carry him, his face flushed with the exertion of moving that much weight.

  Harry turned to Huggles and grimaced, an apology in his eyes for the fact that Dudley had, inevitably, blundered back over. He swore that Huggles actually shrugged at him, a subtle ripple of scales that conveyed immense boredom despite the lack of shoulders.

  “Out of the way, you,” Dudley sneered, jabbing a fist toward Harry’s ribs.

  Harry half spun out of the way before his cousin’s meaty claw could connect. He had known it was coming. After all, their trip to the zoo had been burned into his mind.

  Harry knew exactly what came next.

  Dudley, however, stumbled. He’d never missed a punch before. For one startled second, the sheer physics of swinging at air threw him off balance. He looked at Harry with greedy, narrowed eyes, his tiny brain struggling to process why the "freak" was suddenly so hard to hit.

  Then, the confusion vanished, replaced by his usual dull demands. He pressed his face against the glass, tapping and yelling like a toddler having a tantrum.

  Harry watched him, but he didn't feel the familiar, white-hot prickle of bubbling anger this time. He didn't feel like the victimized boy who needed the world to break just to get a moment of justice. He felt detached—clinical, almost. He was an Auror watching a nuisance, not a child being bullied.

  He waited for the magic to happen. He remembered the screams and the cold splash of water.

  But as Dudley pounded on the tank, the glass held firm.