Chapter Text
Harry was starting to think that maybe he had been cursed with immortality and later in life he would be bemoaning the inevitable deaths of all his loved ones as he saw them all grow old and die, one by one. The Boy Who Lived indeed. A killing curse at age one, another at age fourteen (almost fifteen, not that it mattered) and now a fall from two hundred meters and not even bruises to show.
He didn’t even know how he had done it. He had fallen. He didn’t have time to get his wand out, not that it would have helped since he hardly knew what spell he could cast to stop the fall. He had fallen. And then he had gotten up on trembling knees and shaken the grass from his trousers, unscathed. The wand on the back pocket and the Walkman on his waist perfectly intact.
The grass in there was thick, but not so thick that it could break the fall. Thick enough, though, to hide the ripples in the earth, thirty meters in diameter, that extended from the place where he had crashed.
Harry shook his head, adjusted his glasses, and walked away humming softly to himself.
***
Nettles’ leaves, safe to touch as long as you hold your breath, to symbol life and death and protection, which felt rather adequate given current events. Dandelions, of course, in addition to being edible and a good diuretic, meant overcoming hardships (such as escaping the school you had been forced to go and surviving a fall, if you needed an example). And snowdrop, actual name galanthus, the milk flower which acted as an antidote to Circe’s poison, to signal hope.
All together they said to have hope, as all perils had been overcome. More or less. He wasn’t sure about the exact distribution, but Harry was confident that the message would be understood despite the limitations. Sending a message, actually, that could only come from him, was all the situation required.
The plants had the advantage of being available in any field and country road, which was rather more convenient than going to a shop and buying a bag of lily’s seeds to say that he was alive. He had lost all of his money in the crash, anyway. And his spare clothes, the jumper, the backpack with supplies. He still had a comb, though. The single belonging he had found when hurriedly leaving the place. It was stupid because his hair was uncombable and he didn’t know why he had decided to take it with him. Perhaps because so far it was the only comb he hadn’t broken. Such a good, brave, comb deserved to accompany him in his adventure.
He walked cross country to the second group of lights he found. The first was such an obvious place to seek refuge he discarded it immediately. He had no idea if crash survivals were a common thing with wizards, but they probably were. He remembered Neville saying that’s how they discovered he was not a squib after all. So if someone expected him to survive the fall, of course they would look in the closest settlement. Harry stood clear of that one and walked to the next village.
He had had to go to a public library to get some pen and paper with which to write. And then he didn’t even have a knut to get an owl, not that he felt like showing his face in a wizarding pub to request one. So he had to go and stand in an uninhabited area and wait until he found a couple of owls trusting enough to come to him and convinced them to please, if they were so kind, carry these messages for him.
All they asked in return was for him to scratch them between the ears, which he was happy to do and in fact would have done even if they refused.
It wasn’t until much later that Harry thought that perhaps this was unusual behaviour for common owls. No one had ever explained in Care of Magical Creatures whether wizards used a special magical breed of owls or not. It was all beasts with fangs and claws and stings.
Going home would be harder now. He had lost his broom and he had learned that the Ministry wasn’t playing around. He would have to be more cautious from now on.
***
Bragge apparated with a loud pop in the moor and the hem of her robe instantly caught in the heather and ripped. She had been officially reprimanded and relegated to the most miserable legwork of the office because, as she had suspected, calling your boss a trollhead (Dawlish) and setting on fire your boss’ boss’ shoes (Umbridge) was not well received in the Ministry. At least that funny Auror, Tonks, came by her desk and invited her for a pint later in the pub, which was very nice because usually Aurors didn’t even look at them.
So Bragge would rather be done with this soon, pop back to London and get a good pint and a friendly ear to commiserate. She really didn’t know what was wrong with the world any more, but she had not come to the Ministry to be hunting down teenagers. She had ideals. It had all been about protecting muggles from magic misuses and maybe one day, if she passed the physical exams, joining the Aurors.
For now, she was back to the lowest assignments. Currently checking for a case of underage magic in the middle of nowhere.
No, really, either they had given her the directions wrong (wouldn’t put it past them) or… Someone had come to the moors in north York, performed a conjuration and then left, presumably accompanied by an adult that had not been present for the previous conjuration. They information was so vague they didn’t even a full name of the offender.
Halfway up the short hill there was a simple stone cottage. Bragge walked over there, wand high in her right hand and the lower part of her robes folded on her left arm. She did not make a dignified figure and she should probably invest on some nice trousers or leggings to wear under the robes.
After she knocked on the door, she was greeted by a middle age, closer to old, man with a ridiculous beard. It wasn’t the longest nor the bushiest beard Bragged had ever seen (she had gone to Hogwarts, she had met Hagrid, all right?) but there was something about it that attracted attention. Perhaps that there was much more beard than face and the fact that it originated so high on the cheek.
“Ah, a tourist!” said the owner of the beard. “Are you lost, dear? Were you hiking?”
“I, uh, I…” Was this a muggle? Bragge didn’t know.
The man smiled under the beard and invited her in. Bragge stepped in to the cottage dazed. It was one of the traditional single room cottages with the kitchen and the bedroom all in the same space.
“I was just preparing supper” the old man informed her, going back to the little kitchen and singing softly while he stirred something hot and spicy in the pot. Bragge inspected the room quickly while the man had his back turned to her, looking for any clues as to his magical status, which seemed to be null.
“Would you like some stew? It has potatoes!” he offered, inordinately pleased at the addition of potatoes to his dinner. Bragge realized she hadn’t caught his name.
“No, that’s all right, Mister…”
“Ah! Bread!” he exclaimed as he opened a kitchen cabinet which contained a loaf of bread and, inexplicably, a toothbrush with a frog-shaped handle. “I wonder if there is also wine. It is a bit chilly outside don’t you think? A glass would do us good. Red wine, I think.”
“Yes, er, actually no, thank you, not for me. I’m… I was hiking, yes, hiking with my cousins. But I think I may be a bit behind. Say, you hadn’t seen any children around?”
“Children?”
“More like teenagers, perhaps.”
The man stopped to ponder, tugging at his beard with gusto and biting on his lower lip.
“You know, I don’t think I have seen anyone.” He hooked a grey curl on his finger. “But I did hear some noise a while ago. Didn’t think much of it. The McAllister kids are always running around these hills.”
“That must had been them, thank you” Bragge headed to the door. “Did you know what they were saying by any chance?”
The man thought again. For a second, his eyes shone green and impish with the reflection of the fire.
“Typical children stuff. Something about a misplaced nargle, I think.”
Oh, dear, Bragge’s day was going to be long. She thanked him and made to leave, although she stayed some more minutes while the man insisted in searching for some wine and a windbreaker to give her. It was still a bit cold this year, spring barely making itself known yet. There was no wine but he did find the raincoats, one green and one yellow, in between a jar of honey and two onions. Considering he lived in such a little house, he didn’t seem to have the faintest idea of what he kept on the cabinets.
Bragge left, zipping the yellow windbreaker, thinking that she would patrol a bit around the hill and if she didn’t find any teenagers within the hour, she would call it a night.
Whatever a nargle was, the people from the Magical Creatures Department could deal with it.
***
Did you know that if an underage witch or wizard performs magic while in the company of other wizards, the Ministry’s imposed Trace isn’t activated? They wouldn’t have time for anything else if it weren’t so.
Harry had discovered this rule last year although he had only just realized its full potential. It explained why no one came to his rescue when he was in that graveyard, and why there was no record of the couple of good charms he had managed to perform there, which would have given some credibility to his statement that Voldemort had returned.
Nope. No record. You did magic in front of an adult, the Trace assumed the adult would know how to deal with it as long as they weren’t muggles.
Awareness on the adult’s part that you were doing magic wasn’t a requisite, either. Fancy that.
Harry thought that if his father were alive, if he could see him, he would be quite proud. Harry felt proud! Which was a new feeling regarding magic. Also, although he had not managed to produce any wine, he did have honey and plenty of bread, breakfast tomorrow was assured.
***
It was a simple trick, really. It took time and focus, but to Harry it was so much easier than any other magic.
First, he chose a place. Somewhere where the terrain was even and there was no muggles around. It was not strictly necessary, but it was a good idea to walk around a square and get a sense of the space.
Then he stepped aside and closed his eyes. He breathed slowly and deeply. He found a point of calm, a point of balance. Like that perfect moment before leaning over his broom and dashing through the wards out of Hogwarts.
Then, the music. A charming accented voice with a background of violins that softly sets the stage. Harry didn’t move, not yet, not until the heavy percussion of cutlery began to mark the rhythm. Then, yes, take three steps to the right and slide to the left. Three steps and slide, repeat and turn and by then the ground would be transforming and his next steps would sound harder and Harry would be dancing over a wooden floorboard platform in the middle of nowhere.
The walls came with the choir. Brick or stone, depending on the occasions, rising to the music and the dance and acquiring paint while the song went on. The curtains fell down as the high female voices chanted up. The bass lines of the choir brought the furniture. Wooden tables and chairs and the doorframes and Harry kept dancing and he never bumped into them, not even once. He knew the house distribution even if the house was different each time.
At the end of the chorus, the roof fell over the structure with a soft “thud”. But Harry didn’t look up to the rafters that were quickly arranging and settling by themselves. Head down, he mimicked the sad tale of the servants who were not serving, singing dramatically if not quite with the Gallic accent. It was a moment of quiet before his body jumped again with the music and Mrs. Potts’ kind voice filled the kitchen cabinets. The spoons circled and flew around Harry before taking their place in the drawers, the forks marched in military formation.
Harry danced and danced and turned and was not at all surprised that he was conjuring a furnished house out of thin air. The best part was at the end, when all the voices came together and Harry created in quick succession the bed, the mattress, the sheets, and on two glorious occasions a couch and a fireplace. The chairs ran to take their positions, the table jumped to let a carpet slide below. There was a sense of rush to get the smaller details. A glass in the bathroom with a red toothbrush, paper towels in the kitchen, even a pair of pyjamas and slippers next to the bed.
It was at this time that the cabinets started to produce food. Usually behind the closed doors so Harry never knew what he would find until he went to look. But it was always something good.
It had to be, with that song, didn’t it? It had to be the very best food.
The knock came, as usual, barely a few minutes after the song ended. Harry had to quickly shove away an animated pair of saltshakers, who were dancing the twist by themselves, before passing a hand over his face to put on a disguise and opening the door to the friendly Special Operator of the night alerted to some underage magic. If it was the tired woman again, the one with the freckles, Harry would insist she got some dinner with him. She really looked very tired and like this was not her best week.
***
Harry now had a rather nice green windbreaker and a small backpack in which he could put the jar of honey and bread. He also had some muggle money because he found a charm of magpies and after greeting them all they decided to bring Harry something. Some coins, but also a few bills, plus three can’s tabs, one of them blue.
Animals were awesome.
(Yet, for all Harry liked animals he knew very little of them. He had yet to realize that their behaviour with him was not normal. That animals steer clear of human contact).
With this money, Harry was able to buy a bus ticket that left him a day and half away from home. He didn’t mind walking. He even went a bit cross country and saw a few other animals, a fox and a couple of rabbits and a deer who came close and let himself be petted. The deer licked Harry’s elbow before wandering away. Harry slept in an old mill and rose early to do the last trek home.
He was getting back home. Harry’s palms were sweaty and his heart started beating fast. He had a tic in his eye. He just couldn’t believe he was so close, even if he understood that he couldn’t stay, that they would find him there, just seeing the familiar road did something in his chest.
He needed to see it. He knew it was dangerous and probably stupid. But he needed to see the place where he had been happy. Harry may or may not be on the beginning stages of a transformation into an unholy immortal creature that one day would burn the world. He needed to remind himself that there had been a time of innocence and happiness and sun. He needed to see something that told him that it was not a destiny but a choice, always a choice.
And then a figure came across his path as he left the trail behind.
“And where do you think you are going?”
Not home, apparently. Harry did not get to the cottage.
***
They were going East, to the place where Remus and Harry used to live. Remus thought Harry might be there and Sirius hadn’t contradicted him in a single thing since, well, since they heard.
But first came the question. Draco had been expecting it earlier, to be honest. It was one thing to help him out of the forest when the Special Operators and his father were nearby, it was another to keep Draco around the rest of the time.
So… Was there anyone with whom Draco wanted to be?
Draco should be safe. They could take him wherever he wanted. They said that the trip was too dangerous. That they were wanted men.
Draco didn’t say he wanted to stay with them, because that would be pathetic. But he did say that it would also be dangerous for Harry, wouldn’t it? So they didn’t have to send him away.
(Please, even if they didn’t find Harry, please don’t make him go).
Sirius looked at Remus and shrugged as if silently agreeing with his logic.
“But do you have any relatives, anyone with whom you would like to stay?” asked Remus. “What about godparents?”
“There is Aunt Insidia” Draco said reluctantly, he only answered because he was too proud to beg, to show any need. “She is my godmother.”
Again, Sirius and Remus shared a look.
“Not Insidia Malfoy?”
“Yes. She is my father’s aunt or great-aunt, I think. He insisted on her being my godmother.”
“She must be well over a hundred years now” guessed Sirius.
“Not to mention a horrible person” added Remus, which was a surprise because he seemed to always be polite.
“Horrible, yes. Very close to my mother” Sirius agreed.
“I don’t think you should go with her, Draco” Remus said almost chastising. When, excuse him, but he was the one who wanted to send Draco away. Of course Draco didn’t want to go live with the demented viper, and she would send him right back with his father in any case and he did not want to go back.
“What?” Remus seemed very surprised. “What- No- Oh, Draco, dear, no, no, no. I meant, we are wanted criminals. You are too young, you should be in a proper house with a family. It is not right for us to drag you around, putting you in danger.”
Oh, so it wasn’t about getting rid of Draco, but about being noble and offering him an out. He should have guessed it, they were old Gryffindors.
“Do you not know who my family is?” asked Draco very seriously. Perhaps they point had passed right over their heads. “They are deatheaters.” Draco said the word with far more teeth that it was required.
Remus snorted and Sirius barked a laugh. All right, then. They certainly couldn’t be worse than that.
It was that simple. Sirius laughed again and patted Draco on the back affectionately.
“So who is your godfather?” asked Sirius later, as they sat in a cart taking them from Durham to York. The three goblins travelling with them had alighted at the last stop and the only other occupant was a snoring half troll.
“Nott.” Answered Draco. “Well, he plays the part, sometimes. He is very good friends with my father.”
“But it is not him?”
“No, Maman insisted on choosing a cousin of hers, Regulus.”
Regulus Black, who came to the christening gloriously drunk and said his gift for Draco was that he wished him a good family. Lucius had been furious, but less so because he got to choose the godmother and so he was able to pass over Bella. In any case, Regulus got himself killed soon after. So…
What Sirius got out of this story was that obviously he was Draco’s godfather now, having inherited the responsibility from his deceased brother. He poked Remus in the side with his finger until the poor man awoke from his nap and Sirius informed him of his recently discovered godfathership. Remus congratulated him formally and went back to sleep.
“Oh, this is splendid. Harry is my godson, too. You can be godsiblings if you want. Although I don’t know if that’s a thing. I will ask, don’t worry. Anyway, do you fly? Do you play Quidditch?”
“I am a seeker” said Draco, perhaps starting to see why Remus hadn’t thought them to be the best possible legal tutors. He had thrown words like “balance” and “routine” as if stability were the most sought virtue.
“Oh, just like Harry, then!” Sirius beamed. “Well, I will have to buy you a broom. A child’s first broom should come from the godfather. I also bought Harry’s, you know. I can teach you how to shave. And drink. That is very important, Draco, you have to learn how to control your drink and not to get plastered unless you want to, but you shouldn’t want to get drunk because it leads to terrible magical accidents. Why, our third cousin Taurus…”
***
Sirius was… Draco didn’t want to say “crazy” because Longbottom had made sure everyone forgot that word, and it wasn’t “insane” either. Sirius’ attitude seemed quite healthy to him.
But he was mad.
He chattered constantly and had the strangest ideas. He was excited and enraptured by the most common things. In the last pub, where they were served an abysmal dinner, Sirius declared that it was the worst omelette he had ever tasted and he did so with a smile, as if experiencing bad things could be good.
Draco quite liked him. Sirius made them stop to see a bunch of sparrows demolish a small piece of bread. So then Draco didn’t feel very self-conscious when he unconsciously stopped to listen to a street musician fumbling with his guitar. Sirius and Remus stopped with him and let him listen for as long as he wanted with not a word of complaint.
Draco was spoiled but he also wasn’t used to getting what he wanted.
Of Remus, Draco still didn’t have an opinion. He felt that he still hadn’t met the man. He had seen him briefly in the forest and on their way to that strange first inn. Nonchalant before danger and polite in all occasions, with a very target-focused mind. But since then Remus had been quiet and acting like behind a mask. A mask that said Harry wasn’t dead, he was fine, and so Remus wasn’t losing his mind with worry.
Frankly, Draco was the most stable of the three of them.
***
There was a Ford Fiesta parked in the outskirts of town, in the wide area people used to turn the cars around. Next came the narrow road that took to the cottage near the top of a small hill.
It was well past five already, no one would be using the road at this time.
The lights of the Ford Fiesta blinked twice. Remus stopped and behind him, Sirius and Draco did the same.
They took the first street to the left. A minute later they heard the engine of a car coming closer.
Twenty steps and they were between brick walls and gardens with no windows looking to this side of the street. The Ford Fiesta stopped, the engine idling, and a woman rolled down the driver’s window.
¨Did you know Freddos cost 20 p now?¨
Sirius and Draco shared a look. They did not know that. They didn’t know who or what a Freddo was and why its price was relevant. Twenty pence didn’t sound like much. Was a pence the same as a knut?
“WHAT?” Remus exclaimed. “Merlin’s beard! What is wrong with the world?”
“It’s you!” the woman said. It didn’t sound like she was accusing Remus of being the cause of everything wrong with the world, though. She was smiling as she said it. Sirius noticed she had a nice smile and reddish brown hair down to her shoulders. “Come on in.”
They got inside the car. Remus to her side and Sirius and Draco behind, their knees comically high because the car did not have much room. Draco fidgeted a bit and produced a pen, a Sudoku book and a crumpled flier from his seat.
“They had been stalking the house for the last five days” the woman said as she drove down the street.
“Teresa, I…”
“And I saw your boy two days ago.”
“What? Oh, my god. Was he all right?” The relief in Remus’ voice was like a waterfall.
“You saw Harry?” Sirius added, sounding like a thirsty man who just heard running water.
Draco didn’t speak but he exhaled and let his head drop back in the seat.
***
She drove them out of the village to a wide flat area between the trees a few miles away. There was half a stone wall that may had belonged to a chapel or a stable, so little remained it was hard to tell. In the trip there she informed them, or rather, Remus, that someone called Eddie was in London on a full scholarship and was studying design because he wanted to work on something called “animation” and she couldn’t be more proud; and Olivia was in the football team and doing well in school and had been so mad, learning that Harry had been there but she couldn’t see him. Harry was all right, too, god, how much he had grown.
All this was said in the same breath of air.
She got out of the car and indicated they should do the same. They walked past the stone wall to the edge of the trees. From there they could see the hilltop and a bit of the house emerge between the trees and the bushes. It was difficult to see the house from that far, they had made sure it would be so.
She pointed. “They have four people stationed there at all times, with a fifth one randomly moving around. And I think they put some sort of alarm? They definitely came and did something about… three years ago.”
“That would be when we got out of Azkaban” said Remus, looking back at Sirius.
“You WHAT?” The woman, Teresa, looked shaken. Her right arm was still frozen in the air where she was pointing. “Not the place with soul sucking monsters?”
“Yes.”
She lowered her arm and swallowed. “Oh, come here” she said, as she drew Remus into a hug. It was a good hug, long and tight. Precisely the kind of hug that would draw nightmares away.
They stepped back, although they were still grabbing each others arms.
“That’s not right” she said. “It’s not. Harry told me what happened… Were you there too?”
It took Sirius a few seconds to realise she was talking to him now. He said yes just as Remus said so and made some introductions, but Sirius didn’t get to hear what Remus was saying about him because the woman embraced him too and Sirius was overwhelmed by the smell of her hair and her skin and the warmth that came from her. It wasn’t sexual, although it had been a very long time since he had a woman in his arms and he was very aware of the press of her breasts and her thighs against his body. It was just being recognized as a human, being comforted.
Draco got a hug too and two loud kisses because although he hadn’t been in Azkaban, no child, yes you are a child don’t make that face, no child should have to live through this.
***
There had been wizards when they took Harry. Half the village had been obliviated and the other half had quickly feigned ignorance because they were muggles, not idiots. People had been scared. Scared of the men in hoods and the power they held, scared of the silence that surrounded the cottage now. They couldn’t help noticing that the animals were avoiding it, no bird sat on the stones of the wall or perched on the roof.
People had been scared, but they remembered.
Then two years later the men in hoods had returned and done something around the cottage. They figured it was some kind of alarm. People had specifically prohibited the kids from going nearby so of course they had taken to going there and throwing rocks and sticks and then running on their bikes a good distance before looking back. For the most part nothing happened, but a couple of times they claimed to have seen… something. Movement.
Olivia had hit a wizard with a can of coke. She knew perfectly well what she had done, but she claimed innocence and that she thought it was a wild boar and anyway if they were hiking they should wear reflective vests. Everybody knew that. What kind of normal person didn’t know that.
They hadn’t seen much of them after that and eventually the kids had grown bored with setting off the alarm. But about a week ago the men had returned. Four men and two women dressed in formal suits and wearing bright yellow reflective vests on top.
People knew by then that it was better to act as if everything were perfectly normal. They were charging them double in the pub, though.
So the villagers weren’t examining too close what the presence of these strangers meant, because answers probably carried nasty consequences. But they were making a point of being as obtrusive as possible without talking about it.
Teresa had intercepted Harry just a couple of days ago, fed him lunch and helped him get away. Since then she had been on the look out for Remus, knowing he too would come.
“He said he was planning on going to the summer house.”
“What is the summer house?”
“I haven’t the faintest. Better if I can’t tell, isn’t it?”
***
Teresa couldn’t help them more than that. Whatever money she had to spare, she had given it to Harry. But they all assured her she had done more than enough. She hugged them all and that in itself was a feast.
They left, hiding in the twilight. It wasn’t far to the next village.
Sirius had the impression that there may have been something going on between Remus and Sniv- and Snape, the way Remus talked of him. But then again, people don’t just face half a dozen Aurors to warn you and help you escape and give you whatever help they can, so maybe there was something there, too. Sirius would like to know because if for whatever reason Remus was not interested, well…
Sirius would just like to get to know her better, is all.
***
They spent the night inside the offices of the train station. Not the best place, but dry and warm enough. Draco looked around at the small dusty place and his face adopted an expression that seemed to say that he finally understood why they had insisted on sending him away to an actual house. This was not a comfortable place to spend the night. But he didn’t complain. He didn’t complain. And he didn’t look like he was just quietly bearing it down, either. He smiled, he joked, he looked at Sirius with a mixture of bemusement and admiration and generally looked like someone who was in love. He shone.
His nose and the point of his ears got a bit red with cold sometimes (Spring had been cancelled this year) and he had developed some red burns from the rugs and coarse beds they had slept in (Draco’s skin was ridiculously delicate) on his arms and on his cheeks. The latter was harder to see given the angry red marks Lucius Malfoy had put there. Those were just starting to fade.
Remus was reminded of a toddler who didn’t cry for his mum. When he looked at Draco, positively blooming under their hard conditions, Remus found that he really needed to brew a cup of tea, or two or three.
“So where did you go during summers?” asked Sirius yawning enormously.
“Nowhere. The cottage had multiple protections and during the first years there were… threats to Harry” answered Remus as he double-checked the windows.
“So, the summer house…?”
The summer house. Harry had realized that he had to pass him a message that if intercepted no one else could understand. Excellent thinking, well done. But he had been a tad obscure.
The summer house?
“I am not sure to what it refers” Remus admitted. “Could be a number of things. The cottage was the house.”
Even though the message was meant to Remus, a code that only he could know, Sirius and Draco decided to help. Or Sirius did, and after listening to his rambling suggestions Draco took control of the conversation. Draco was smart. No to say that Sirius wasn’t, because Sirius was very intelligent. The map would never have taken form if it wasn’t for Sirius’ proficiency with charms. But intelligence is not the same as smarts, and Draco had a sharp mind that made connections quickly.
It was while he was shutting down all of Sirius’ suggestions without waiting for Remus to confirm them (to be fair, by then Sirius had taken it as a joke and was just throwing ideas to see if anything rang a bell) when Draco stopped and turned to Remus with narrowed eyes.
“You didn’t transform in that cottage, did you?”
“Oh, well thought Draco!” Sirius said while he licked the oil from a can of tuna that had made their dinner. “Could Harry had gone to, mmh, your accomplice’s?”
What gods had Remus offended that Sirius had to say those words while wriggling his eyebrows?
Remus frowned at Sirius. This was better than the “Oh. My. God. Snivelus” he had been subjected to for two months, nearly three, but just barely.
“It… it could be. He did visit that house mostly during summer months…”
But there was also an Elizabethan house in Plymouth, a museum house they had visited during their summer trips to the sea. And just a bit inland, in Exeter, there was The House that Moved which Harry found very interesting even if the house was moved by people rather than by itself. Any of them could be the summer house. How to know?
By the intake of breath and widening of eyes, Draco was having a realization.
“There was no mention of an accomplice! Nothing at all in the papers.” Exclaimed Draco. “Not even my father remarked upon it.”
His eyes moved around the room, unseeing. His pretty little Slytherin brain coming up with a list of suspects and quickly narrowing it down to less than a dozen. McGonagall was one of his tops candidates.
“I need to know: Who was it? Was it a woman?”
“Draco, I can’t tell you. As you very well observed, no one knows this person’s identity and I would like it to remain that way. It is Harry’s last shield.”
Draco nodded, understanding. He also had a combined look of dejection and relish for the puzzle. He didn’t mind not being told, but he did mind being told he couldn’t even guess. For safety.
“Don’t take it personally” said Sirius, speaking just as one did when in class, out of the corner of the mouth and with his eyes to the front. “He wouldn’t tell me, either. If I hadn’t learned it by accident, I dare say he wouldn’t have told me at all.”
“Oh, well, in that case I will figure it out” promised Draco.
***
They walked. There were times when they dared take a bus (muggle or wizarding). But until they knew exactly where they had to go, they walked and kept low. Remus pondered the riddle and Sirius continued his self-appointed education of Draco. In the background, Remus could hear him tell Draco all the dirty laundry of the family, every quirk, secret and perversion of the House of Black but also of all the other families associated with it. He did not have much to say of the Malfoys because they were better than others at guarding their secrets, but he did have a lot to say of the Bulstrodes and the Carrows and so, so much of the Lestranges and McMillans.
It was a nice background noise. Sirius chattering animatedly after so many years with no emotion, and Draco sounding outraged or sick or shocked or amused, but just generally sounding free. Free to talk and free to show his emotions.
What a lovely sound.
There had been a bit of a faint drizzle earlier that day, but now the sun was shining despite the clouds. White light and a dark grey sky. Harry used to stop and look at the houses when the light was like this, said it was a time for good ideas.
Remus thought, what a peculiar way of thinking Harry had. But Harry had trusted him that he would know precisely that, that he would understand what no one else could. He had to think like Harry, then.
Harry who seemed to have quite a bit of a poet soul at times. He was so emotional that things changed around him, and colour and music escaped from his mind. He had been so sad, Severus said in the little space of his letters, so sad yet twice he had managed to cast a patronus. He had come to the cottage after leaving Hogwarts, the cottage he knew had been torn apart.
The romantic in Harry would wait in a meaningful place.
But then again, Harry had grown to be eminently practical. He won the Triwizard Tournament barely using magic (although Severus thought, and Remus agreed, that Crouch had something to do with it). He escaped Hogwarts in a broom and then again escaped the Special Operators. He would not cross the country to wait in a symbolic place, he would not risk himself and he would certainly not risk Remus making the trip.
Harry would go somewhere close and somewhere safe.
And just like that, he got it. Remus remembered. It was a bit like the “say friend and enter” thing.
***
MYSTERIOUS ENCOUNTERS IN YORKSHIRE
By Betty Braithwaite
Ministry reports and witnesses’ statements account for a Most Mysterious event that occurred on the afternoon of Tuesday in South Yorkshire.
Marthia Wrigglebottom (36), a vivacious and imaginative witch, and Henry Peridwinkle (35), a promising wizard working in the Floo Network Authority and member of the Peridwinkle family, reportedly suffered a Most Unfortunate and Baleful attack in the afternoon of past Tuesday the 11th, as they went for a stroll through the most picturesque trails of the South Yorkshire.
Marthia Wrigglebottom and Henry Peridwinkle reported encountering six hooded figures who, under the limited light of the evening, seemed to be standing with wands drawn above the stirring body of a muggle man, Reginald Hopkins (42). Mr. Hopkins had already been obliviated before this reporter could get his statement.
Henry Peridwinkle, a competent and industrious young wizard, claims not to recall clearly what happened next. Marthia Wrigglebottom, an inventive and spirited half-blood witch, claims that the hooded figures inquired about their Hogwarts houses and blood status and that upon learning them casted a series of curses mostly directed to Miss Wrigglebottom.
[This newspaper reminds its readership that the account of the events may had been exaggerated].
Marthia Wrigglebottom was hit by a Levitacorpus spell, while Henry Peridwinkle lost his wand due to an Expelliarmus. It was while he was kneeling between the bushes looking for his wand and strategically deciding his next move that he spotted A Mysterious Figure dressed in green appearing suddenly in the middle of the trail.
Neither Peridwinkle nor Wrigglebottom remember clearly the Mysterious Man’s appearance. But Henry Peridwinkle assures us that he was decidedly old and unattractive while Marthia Wrigglebottom says that she is quite certain that he was tall and most definitely not brunet.
It was at this time that the Mysterious Man asked about the events he had interrupted and about the state of the muggle. The hooded figures, according to Marthia Wrigglebottom, demanded to know his house and blood status which the man refused to provide. This elicited a cursing response that nevertheless had no effect on the man, as no spell managed to hit him. This, together with the man’s calm response asking them to please depose their wands, suggests that despite Miss Wrigglebottom’s dramatic account it may had all been a bit of a joking affair with no nefarious purpose whatsoever.
“It was all quite nonsensical” says the collected and level-headed Henry Peridwinkle on what happened next. “He started to talk about his friend Steve while snapping his fingers, and he seemed to think that the story was very interesting, asked if we were paying attention, but he never got to tell it.”
Mister Peridwinkle can’t recall if he had recovered his wand at this point. He says that he retired a few steps from the scene. The most sensible thing to do at the time given that the Ministry does not approve or recommend engaging in violent action. Mister Peridwinkle thus demonstrated his aplomb on tense situations and his attention to Ministry’s policies.
According to Mister Peridwinkle the Mysterious Man claimed “that another one was biting the dust” even though “no one had done anything yet, certainly not biting or chewing of any kind.” Miss Wrigglebottom, for her part, tells us that after some more finger snapping on the part of the Mysterious Man, the six hooded men “started to shake and drop to the ground and kept falling over each other. He (The Mysterious Man) pointed at the biggest one and told him that he was going to get him too, and that’s when he went flying backwards and hit the tree.”
Although Ministry officials were not able to arrest or identify these supposed hooded figures, they did manage to retrieve multiple pieces of black cloth from the nearby bushes and tree branches. Miss Wrigglebottom says that at some point “they all ended up head down and tangled in the vegetation”, whereas Henry Peridwinkle says that “they seemed to have lost all sense of balance and were unable to stay upright.” Mister Peridwinkle says that it was at this moment that he finally recovered his wand and speedily apparated away to alert official authorities of the event.
Marthia Wrigglebottom, who remained behind, helped the muggle recover and together with the Mysterious Man walked him down to the nearest village. She stayed in the company of the distressed muggle until the arrival of the Ministry wizards, brought by Mister Peridwinkle’s quick thinking.
Interrogated at the scene, Miss Wrigglebottom could not give more details of the Mysterious Man, other than he said his name was Obiwanke Nobi, which leads this reporter to believe that he might have been foreign.
***
There was a boy with long black hair sitting in a bench. He was wearing a green windbreaker and had a backpack between his feet, broken white and leather.
He was sitting, waiting, and there was something so very peaceful about the scene. As if time reduced its march and went slower, treading around him with gentle feet.
He was in Leeds. Leeds is a very interesting location, right in the middle between the North and the South, and yet there is hardly anything magical about the place. It is not like Oxford, with its apothecaries, or Manchester and its wizarding pub scene. Leeds is muggle, just as Liverpool. A normal city with its stores and sights, as cities usually possess.
Because it did not have much of a wizarding community and because for some reason it never attracted interest despite its location (maybe the centerness of it somehow pushed wizards away, maybe it was magical in an inverse way) Harry had visited it quite a few times as a child.
They had done what you do when you live in the country and go to a big city. Walk around and visit museums and do a lot of shopping. Harry supposed Remus had also been getting some important things and running adult errands, perhaps doing something in a bank, he couldn’t quite remember. All he knew is that Harry used to own a grey and orange sweater and that it was bought there. And that once, when he was seven maybe, he had seen a house with its front painted a bold yellow and Harry had thought that you could only live there during summer. How could you stay in that house during Autumn or Winter? It was so yellow!
It did not make much sense. But it is the kind of thought children have, like the time Olivia convinced him to try eating grass because if cows ate it maybe it was tasty.
The boy sat on the bench in front of the yellow house. It was funny because as they walked by most people saw simply a boy, but some others, people with funny clothes and funny names and funny things hidden in their pockets, people that rarely went to Leeds, saw something else entirely. They saw a man with a ridiculous grey beard that covered most of his face, or a man with a long curled black moustache, or a lanky fellow with straight blonde hair and a short billy-goat beard. They saw plenty of faces and no one could say if it was the boy or it was them performing that magic. Just as no one can say if Leeds is muggle or has the kind of magic that pushes other magic away.
***
The boy didn’t know how long he would have to wait. Truth be told, he had no way of knowing that he had to wait, other than a solid faith that the news of his leaving would reach his Dad and that he would come get him. He didn’t mind waiting, though. He could listen to music and when he grew hungry, he ate a slice of bread with honey. He waited a whole day and when the night came, he left a small tower of pebbles on the bench to mark his presence and went to find somewhere to sleep.
Usually, people looking for a place to spend the night would go to a back alley (smelly, and also no cover from the elements, merely a place to be out of sight) or to a station (after a few hours someone will ask to see your ticket and kick you out) or to a homeless refuge (no idea where to find one). But Harry was fifteen (closer to sixteen now) and therefore had a youthful look. Although he was very dishevelled he did not smell terribly bad. He did not look homeless yet.
So he walked to the University campus (blessedly situated in downtown) and found a quiet place in the library and spent the night there, the sobs of the Medicine students lulling him to sleep. He was not the smelliest nor the most dishevelled there, and he got a free lollypop, cherry flavoured.
He went back to his waiting and in the evening, he had to wait no more.
***
“Well” said Sirius, his hands on his hips and his head craned back. “It is certainly a very yellow house”.
“Even the flower pots are yellow” pointed Draco, aghast.
“So, what now? Do we knock? Is he inside?”
“Of course not, Sirius. He is not inside. We don’t know who lives here. We will have to look around.”
They examined the front of the house for any clues. Something that wasn’t yellow, perhaps. Draco kept mumbling the things that were painted yellow (The mailbox, the door handle, the curtains!) and was not of much use. Nor that they were able to find anything.
“Perhaps we could ask if they had seen him.”
“Sirius, we are not knocking on the house. It is a muggle house and we shouldn’t disturb them.”
“I just really want to know who lives in a house like this. Who goes one day and decides to paint every single feature of the façade yellow?”
“People have strange tastes. Don’t you have a cousin that does the same with pink?”
“Calpurnia” said Draco immediately.
“Do you think the inside will also be yellow?” Sirius went on, standing on tiptoes.
His question would go unanswered, other than by what little he could peek through the windows. Seeing as there was no clue in the front of the house, they turned around to look at the surroundings.
“Let’s ask the man in the bench” Remus decided.
“The one with the red beard?” asked Sirius, finally giving his back to the house.
“Wha- No. The gentleman with the white beard.”
“Remus, there is a redheaded fellow right there. Why would we ask the grandpa six benches over?”
“No, not him. Him, in the bench across the street.”
“Exactly. And that man has a short red beard.”
“Sirius, are you quite all right? That is a man on his sixties with white beard and tonsure.” Pointed Remus quiet and slow in an obvious effort not to lose his patience.
“Merlin’s beard. Is this a werewolf thing? Have you stopped seeing colours all of a sudden?” Sirius pointed at Remus, the house and the bench. “Is the house isn’t it? It has burned your pupils and now you can only see in black and white.”
“Sirius you are being nonsensical.”
“I am not the one who suddenly thinks redhead is white!”
“Not to add extra bludgers to the game” said Draco “but in that bench” he pointed for emphasis to the bench directly across the street “all I see is a black haired boy.”
Sirius and Remus looked at Draco and the man in the bench.
Draco narrowed his eyes. “He kind of looks like Harry from this distance.”
***
Harry had learned enough caution not to jump towards Remus the moment he saw him. He had grown up with Severus too, after all. And he had recent proof of how one could magically change their appearance.
(Although, had he payed attention in class at any point at all during the last five years, perhaps he would have learned that what he was doing was not at all typical).
Also, Draco was there. Draco Malfoy. He didn’t know if that was an obvious sign of a trap or just the opposite.
He rose when they crossed the street towards him. He had to close his hands in to fists, his nails digging in the flesh to stop himself from running. He would not fall into a trap.
He allowed them to see him. Shaking away the thin glamour layer.
“Your best friend growing up was a girl a year older than you named Olivia” said Remus. “You used to play-”
“… Jedis and knights.”
It was him.
How to describe the feeling of returning home after a long absence? It is not the sight of the place or the person, because they are often changed. It is a smell. It is a physical memory, reaching for things without thinking because your body knows where everything is supposed to be. It is the shoulders unclenching and your mind saying that here, now, is where you can finally sleep. There is no way to describe it, but you can certainly feel it.
It was an embrace, longer and tighter than the one Harry had gotten two years ago. Harry was still short, so short, he could bury his face on Remus’ chest just as when he was a child, he could close his eyes and for a minute let himself believe that everything would be all right, fool himself into thinking that his biggest problem was a math exercise. Their arms tightened against each other and Harry felt Remus kissing the top of his head. Harry was crying as he felt the world around him moving, repositioning. It had been tilted down its axis for too long and only now it was straightening back up, only now he felt like he had both feet on the ground.
When they pulled apart Sirius was conspicuously looking at the roofs on the other side of the street, his arm over Draco’s shoulders. Apparently he had thrown himself into a dissertation on chimney design.
But he hugged Harry too, his chin trembling a little bit. And later Harry shook Draco’s extended hand and pulled him into a terribly awkward half hug. (It was like Draco had no previous experience of hugging, jeez). He didn’t question Draco’s presence because despite certain people’s allegation of Harry’s obliviousness, he could be quite perceptive when it mattered.
And then, because the world doesn’t really care about your life even when there is a beautiful and emotional reunion going on, it started to rain for twenty second before upgrading to pouring and possibly a deluge.