Work Text:
Harriet Potter meets Jason Todd when she is thirteen–fourteen–fifteen years old and crying in agony as the heart of her is torn asunder, begging for someone, anyone, anything to help her.
Something listens.
~x~
(in another universe, two steps back and one to the left, harry wakes up alone in a cave—except she isn’t alone, she’s got her magic purring next to her like an invisible cat and a furious, talking rock in her head, and the name jason! on her lips—she doesn’t know yet, whether it was all a dream)
~x~
This is Harry: for one moment, she wished with all her heart that Pettigrew was gone, that the Dominion Jewel was nothing but ash—
Her magic answered.
This is Harry: she is half-starved, half-insane, and wholly terrified of the power that roils beneath her skin.
Fortunately, Jason Todd has experience with all of the above.
~x~
(harry tells archie everything, but she doesn’t tell him about jason. even in the wizarding world, it’s not a good sign to have voices in your head—and who would believe her stories of muggles who do impossible things? she almost doesn’t believe them herself)
~x~
It starts as a whisper in her ear—
When she finds herself hoarding bits of food, sick with shame and the fear of discovery, she hears it’s alright kid, you need to feel safe, but it’s better to do non-perishables. breakfast bars, crackers, dried fruits and nuts, jerky—they won’t go bad, and won’t look like anything more than a snackhoard if someone finds them.
Harry forces herself to throw out her hoarded bits of meat and vegetable, which are beginning to look suspect even under a stasis charm. She adds the voice’s suggestions to the grocery list, and squirrels the snacks away in corners of her room. The voice gives her advice on the best hiding places, and the knowledge that the food is there, that it’s safe, that she’s safe—it helps something tight and coiled within her to relax.
~x~
(leo is surprised, the next time they fight. you’ve gotten so much better with a knife, he says. she blinks at him and says slowly, i had a good friend in america to train with, and wonders if it’s really a lie)
~x~
Sometimes she feels a light, glancing touch when she’s training, almost as if someone is guiding her limbs into the correct position.
a little higher, the voice whispers in her ear. It’s a deep, warm baritone, and hearing it makes her feel safe. She’s not sure why. aim for the solar plexus with this punch.
She takes down Marek with her next blow, and the watching members of the court throw up a raucous cheer.
That night she dreams of being back in the cave, but there are broad arms cradling her and a deep voice crooning nursery rhymes in her ear.
She wakes up, not screaming, but with a haunting snatch of song running through her mind.
one for ivy, two for two-face
three for penguin’s swift escape
four chimes mark the joker’s suit
And five when bats and birds pursue
She doesn’t know what it means, but she finds herself humming it while she brews.
~x~
(sometimes harry closes her eyes, and finds herself somewhere else, in a maelstrom of emotion and a body that’s too big—she rides along and wills things to go just a little bit smoother, and wishes she could do more. she always wakes up crying.
across the sea, a legend grows, and a whisper runs through the under-belly of a crime-filled city that if robin’s eyes turn green, you flee)
~x~
The first time she really sees Jason Todd, her father makes some innocuous comment about a raid on a pet shop suspected of smuggling, and the terrible conditions of the animals, packed into their cages. She feels hot and cold, and excuses herself abruptly from the stable, stumbling down the hall and into her father’s darkened study. She can’t breathe through the fetid smell of Pettigrew’s corpse. It’s so dark, and she’d give anything for a light, but she’s terrified of letting her magic loose.
kid, you’re not there anymore.
There’s a soft quiet click, and in the pooling light of her father’s desk lamp she sees a boy. He’s looks like he’s nineteen or twenty. His strong, handsome features are framed by wild black hair that could be a match for her own, except for the vivid white streak that cuts across it like lightning.
His eyes are an unnatural shade of green that she’s only ever seen when looking in a mirror.
Come on, kid, he’s saying, Stick with me. You’re at home. You’re safe.
She feels safe. His hands are braced on her shoulders and she can’t remember but she knows they’ve done this before.
“Who are you?” she breathes, and he falls back, an almost comical expression of shock on his face.
You can—you can see me. And I thought this couldn’t get weirder.
“I can hear you, too,” she says quietly, warily. “What’s your name? What are you?”
The boy lets out a huff, his hand flying to the back of his neck in an obvious gesture of discomfort.
I'm... Jason. Jason Todd. I don't really know how I got here, or how to get back home—but you’re a kid, and you need help. I'm not just gonna sit back and do nothing.
“Are you a wizard?” she asks, frowning. Jason shifts uncomfortably.
Hell no. I know a few, but they’re nothing like your lot. No wand waving or potions brewing.
Harry’s abruptly relieved, because it means the ruse is safe. Jason’s clearly been with her for a while, but if he isn’t a wizard, he can’t tell anyone important if he somehow finds his way back.
“Sounds boring,” she says, and Jason laughs.
Then the door opens, and Harry’s father is there.
“Harry?” he says tentatively. “What’s wrong?” Her father kneels in front of her, earnest and worried. Harry swallows, feeling the weight of all her secrets crushing her.
“I was just upset about the animals,” she lies. “They shouldn’t be caged like that.” Despite herself, her voice trembles, a little more truth than she intends slipping out.
“No,” James says, pausing, and she can see that he only half-believes her. His mouth twists, and for a moment she thinks he will press the point—but then he sighs and shifts back on his heels. “We’ll make sure they get rehomed somewhere better.” He sounds exhausted, and a bitter mixture of guilt, disappointment, and relief churns in her stomach. She feels upset that he just let it go, and worse for how surprised she is that he even asked in the first place.
She takes her father’s offered hand as he pulls her to her feet, but when she’s alone in her room that night she looks in the mirror and asks, “Am I a bad person for lying so much?”
Jason is there, standing behind her and to her right, an unreadable expression on his face. If he was really a good Dad, would you need to?
She doesn’t have an answer for him, but she thinks he sounds as unsure as she is.
~x~
(harry does research, of course—and even risks a few carefully phrased questions to professor dumbledore. there are no such things as soul-mates, really, but there are a handful of recorded instances across centuries where a connection of some fashion or other has formed between two souls. the most commonly recorded phenomenon is catching glimpses of the other person’s life, especially when under emotional turmoil.
for the first time, it occurs to harry that jason might be out there, somewhere, across the sea)
~x~
Harry's magic has been quiet, docile, since it killed Pettigrew for her. She hasn’t dared to replace her suppressor ring, but when she brews her magic comes exactly when she calls, in exactly the right amount.
She can almost forget that she has an inferno roaring between her skin.
Jason tells her, You can’t ignore it forever. You need to learn control, or it will rise up and destroy you at the worst possible moments.
“You don’t understand,” she says sharply, and sucks in a sharp breath when his green eyes seem to flare.
Don’t I? he asks, and his smile sends a chill down her spine. For the first time, she looks at Jason and is afraid.
They don’t argue about it again.
He teaches her breathing exercises, and says, Things like your magic, like the Pit—they’re alive. They don’t like to be commanded or constrained.
“So what do I do?” she challenges, glaring fiercely, hoping to cover up her fear.
You make friends with the monster inside you, he says, and then it will come when you call.
As the summer stretches on, Harry grows more and more adept at the strange dance she does with her magic. They reach a balancing point, a give and take, but some part of her senses that her magic is still angry, dissatisfied. It doesn’t like that she’s afraid of it, but the more unhappy her magic is, the more afraid she is.
“This isn’t working,” she says finally. Jason is leaning against the wall, watching her. He’s a mercurial presence: he’ll spend hours by her side, offering a running commentary filled with sly, good-humored jokes as she goes about her day; other times he will grow still and quiet, or snappish, green eyes flaring with sudden rage. But he always watches out for her, and sometimes she thinks that this is what having an older brother would be like.
I think, he says, reluctantly, that your magic isn’t much like the Pit at all.
Harry gives him her full attention. She knows bits and pieces of what happened to him—how he died, and the Pit brought him back different. But he doesn’t like to talk about it, and so she listens carefully when he does.
The Pit is…cruel. It’s like a fire that only consumes, but never gives off any warmth. I use the Pit, but it makes me cruel, too.
“You’re not cruel,” she protests. He offers her a half-smile, but his gaze is heavy and shadowed.
Oh, I can be. You haven’t seen me at my worst. My own father— he breaks off, and Harry studiously ignores the complicated expression that flashes across his face. Jason talks about his father even less than he talks about the Pit.
Anyway, he continues, curtly, your magic isn’t like that. It’s not malicious, just…careless. It doesn’t have the same moral code you do. I don’t think you need to be afraid of it.
“It killed him,” she says, gaze fixed on nothing. “I wished he was gone for a moment and it destroyed him. How am I not supposed to be afraid of that?”
He shrugs. Killing is easy. I’ve killed a lot of people, you know. You could easily kill someone with those knives of yours, or one of your potions. What’s stopping you?
“Because it’s wrong!” she exclaims, then winces. Jason doesn’t seem offended, only amused.
So convince your magic that it’s wrong. That it needs to follow your explicit requests and not your every whim. Your magic is dangerous, Harry, but it’s no more dangerous than you or me. He looks at her, seriously. You don’t need to be afraid of it.
“I–” she breaks off, uncertain. “I’ll try,” she says, and feels her magic warm in response.
~x~
(harry—tries not to pull away from her friends, her family. she goes through the motions of her lessons; throws herself into each tournament task. Always, always, she feels something—someone—missing. she pores over maps of the united states, begged from an oblivious archie, and cries when she finds a tiny dot labeled gotham.
when she is tired and at her breaking point, and a half-step away from her blood boiling in her skin, she thinks of jason and bruce and long nights patrolling, and keeps going.
maybe there will be time this summer, she thinks wistfully, for a trip to new jersey )
~x~
Harry is grateful, in the end, for the hours she spends learning not to fear her magic, because she needs every bit of her hard won control to make it through her fourth year. Jason is with her every step of the way, helping her train. He spies on the other contestants, too, she thinks, though he’s careful not to say anything to her. He’s a silent presence grounding her every moment she spends in the Forbidden Forest. He doesn’t go into the Black Lake, admitting that being underwater brings back bad memories, but he waits for her on the shore, and the thought of his delighted laughter at Archie’s “gift” keeps a smile on her face. When she nearly succumbs to Sousa’s Draught of Delirium, he all but carries her up the tower.
When she portkeys to the stage as Champion, he’s left behind in the maze.
Harry has hardly been alone in the past year, and the feeling is crushing. She fights anyway, and when Voldemort attempts to enter her mind she pushes back, burning him out with the weight of her furious magic and the hours of meditation and breathing exercises Jason required of her.
The wards come down, and Jason is there, wrapping his arms around her as she apparates away.
~x~
(there is no time for a trip to new jersey in the summer, or in a year spent under her parent’s anxious watch. there is no time, not until the ruse comes fully unraveled at last and her stricken parents ask do you have anywhere to go? is there anywhere you will be safe?
she thinks of a crime-filled city across the seas and says, yes)
~x~
James Potter is waiting for her when she steps out of her room in the Lower Alleys apartment, and it’s all she can do not to scream.
“Dad,” she gasps. “How—”
He shouldn’t have been able to find her this fast. In the corner of the room she sees Jason, tense and coiled to spring. He’s always been at his most volatile when he is around her father.
“Harry,” her father says, and for the first time she realizes how exhausted he looks. How much thinner he’s gotten over the past year. “I put a tracking charm on the Defense Disk before your mother sent it to you.”
Harry has to sit down, collapsing on the old couch.
“I don’t—I don’t understand,” she says numbly. Her father smiles wanly.
“We noticed—a pattern, this summer, of when you got upset. Your mother found the food in your room after you left. We were looking at all these disparate clues and pieces of things that didn’t quite make sense, and I suppose at some point we realized there was only one answer that made everything fit.”
“Oh,” she says, and her father strides forward and cradles her head, pressing his forehead against hers. She closes her eyes, and chokes, “I’m sorry.”
“No, no–”
Whatever else her father might want to say is lost to time as the sharp crack of apparition is heard outside the house. Harry feels her magic roiling as something inside her burns, and she remembers, too late, the piece of magic Riddle left inside her.
“Shit,” she says, even as Jason says something much fouler.
“Dammit,” James whispers, leaping to his feet and thrusting something into her hands. “I can’t stay, but there’s a way in there for you to get in touch, and money, and a muggle passport. Go somewhere out of Britain.” She stares at him.
“Go!” he cries, and then he’s gone. She lingers only long enough for Jason to take her hand, and then she’s gone, too.
Four apparitions later she’s on the brink of magical exhaustion, and knows that as long as Riddle’s magic is still inside her, he’ll be able to find her.
“I can’t,” she says, gasping. “Jason, I can’t—”
He looks at her, a determined expression on his face.
Go to Gotham, he says. Gotham City in New Jersey. Find Bruce Wayne, and tell him Red Hood sent you.
“Jason?” she asks, not understanding.
He only grins at her, and as he reaches within her his eyes begin to glow a killing-curse green. She watches, horrified, as his face twists in a rictus of pain and he begins to fade.
He’s saying something, something she can’t quite make out.
“Jason!” she cries, and hears, faintly, goodbye harry and then he’s gone.
The burning in her gut is gone, too.
~x~
(harry stands, when she is sixteen-seventeen-eighteen years old and suddenly breathless with nerves, on the doorstep of wayne manor. the door opens before she can knock, and an unfamiliar boy is there, brows furrowing. jason, she says. is jason here? i’m harry.
tim, the boy says, automatically, then his eyes grow wide. oh. oh, you’re raven, aren’t you?
yes, yes, she says, trying not to cry. tim pulls her inside, tugging her hand, and then she’s in a kitchen and alfred’s there and bruce is rising to his feet, and harry is crying, because jason is there. harry, he says, disbelieving, and then she throws her arms around him and nothing else is said for a long, long, while)
~x~
Across the ocean, in a crime-filled city, Jason Todd wakes up. He lifts his head, and winces at the familiar sensation of stitches pulling. He remembers, suddenly, how the guy he’d been chasing—last night? A year ago? —had gotten in a lucky blow with a knife. He remembers bleeding out in an alley, and thinking what a stupid way to go.
The shadows next to his bed stir.
“Jason?” Bruce Wayne’s expression is as unreadable as ever, but Jason notices, distantly, the shadows under his eyes, and the way Bruce’s hair is plastered to his head in ridges from the cowl.
“Dad,” he says, and blinks in surprise. He hears Bruce’s breath catch, and the raw vulnerability on his father’s face takes Jason’s own breath away.
“Jay,” Bruce says gruffly. Jason gives him an uneasy half-smile.
“I had a really weird dream,” he says, like a confession. He takes a deep breath. “But something tells me we might have company, soon.”