When in Rome II: The Lost Children Connection - XblackcatwidowX - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1: The Final Prologue

Chapter Text

Quick breaths left Harry’s parted lips in puffs of vapour which billowed before his face like drowning clouds. Flexing the stiff fingers on his left hand, Harry tightened his grip on the wand in his right.

His dear wand still bore the ugly, jagged crack splitting it down the middle. A tattooed reminder of the fateful day he and Hermione had found themselves in a new world.

A new world, a place Harry wished he had never found. A place where he had fallen in love. He loathed himself for it. But the matter was beyond his own hands. Love was something beyond his control.

Harry pulled his cloak securely around his body to ward away the winter’s chill. Dusk was rolling in, wrapping London in long shadows which stretched along the sidewalks like creeping fingers. It was a gamble to have stepped into the open in the heart of London, the place Voldemort was most active, but a gamble which had to be taken.

Standing by the entrance of a dark alleyway, Harry ducked his head, concealing his wand in the folds of his robes. Naturally, he had cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself – it allowed him more mobility than wearing his Invisibility Cloak would – because there was no telling which Death Eater he might stumble upon.

Harry held his breath as a Muggle shuffled past, taking long drags of a cigarette. She took no notice of him, camouflaged into the bricks behind him, and continued on her way. Harry let loose a breath, slackening his shoulders.

That was when he heard the click-clack-click-clack of little heels thrumming along the pavement.

Eyes narrowing almost comically, Harry lowered his gaze to the ground once more and watched as the pointy pink shoes trotted past his hiding place. Immediately, he slipped out of the alleyway and onto the street, a mere shadow, his footfall silent as he stalked the witch into the silence of evening.

Closer, closer, closer he crept, the stout witch paying no mind to the unsettling quiet which had fallen around them like a stifling shroud. Harry allowed the Disillusionment Charm to melt away with each step, right before seizing the woman by the arm and Apparating away before she could so much as shriek.

They reappeared in a flurry of motion within a circle of trees in the Forest of Dean. As promised, before Harry could so much as blink the witch was hit by a Stunner and slumped to the ground, dirtying her fluffy pink cardigan.

“Cheers,” said Harry as Hermione and Ron stepped out from behind the cover of trees.

“No worries,” said Ron, and they gathered around to stare down at the incapacitated form of Dolores Umbridge.

After a heartbeat, Harry kneeled by her, hand hovering above her for a moment. He closed his eyes and listened for the tired throbbing of a fragment of a soul.

It stung his scar, and Harry flinched.

“Well?” asked Hermione in a hushed tone of voice.

By way of response, Harry steeled his nerves and reached down to Umbridge’s neck, yanking up the chain which was tucked away.

Out came Salazar Slytherin’s locket, humming in cold greeting.

Ron swore beneath his breath and Hermione gave a tiny nod of her head. They had been expecting it, ever since they had forced the locket’s location out of Mundungus Fletcher with the help of Kreacher.

There was another bitter moment of silence, then finally Harry snapped the chain away from Umbridge’s neck and hung it around his own, tucking it away so that it was in contact with his bare chest. The metal was hot and electrified his skin.

The soul of Tom Riddle, speaking to him once more.

Harry. The memory of long, cool fingers on his face. I never wanted you to be the hero.

With a shudder, Harry straightened, willing the voice away. “We need to leave,” he said. “Now.”

“You alright with wearing it?” Ron looked at him seriously. “I mean, look what happened with Ginny, when she had the diary–”

“It’s fine,” Harry snapped unexpectedly, hand shooting up to lay protectively across the locket beneath his robes. He ignored the shock on both his friends’ faces and glanced away, jaw tense. “Are we done here?”

Hermione recovered first. “Yes. I’ll take us back to–”

Exactly where Hermione was planning on taking them was not revealed.

Overhead there was a crack, as loud as a thunderclap. Black smoke billowed out from seemingly nowhere, casting them in darkness, and a hurricane-like wind knocked the three off their feet, tossing them across the clearing as if they were ragdolls.

Harry flipped along the ground like tumbleweed, before finally finding a hold on the ground. He hung there for dear life, wind streaming through his hair until finally, it died away.

Blinded by the darkness, Harry could barely see as far as his own nose. Gaining his own feet again, he ducked down low, eyes stinging. Hermione and Ron were nowhere near him, and he wouldn’t call out for fear of alerting their ambusher.

Scrambling for the locket, a jolt of relief ran up his spine when his fingers found it.

The relief did not last long.

Pain split across his forehead, like nothing he had ever felt before, and Harry fell to his knees with a howl, dropping his wand and clutching at his scar with his free hand.

“Harry!” he heard Hermione’s voice distantly but could barely focus on it as the smoke parted before him, cleaving a path which was so clean and bright compared to the black which enveloped him everywhere else.

Once more, Harry’s skull threatened to tear apart from the unadulterated agony which he felt, and his eyes screwed shut.

And then suddenly, so suddenly, it all stopped. The pain dissipated, like a dream. Then a clear voice crooned in his ears, low and cold.

“Harry… Potter.”

A shiver crawled across Harry’s skin, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, on his arms.

That voice. A voice he had once known, in an age long passed.

Hardly daring to believe, Harry opened his eyes.

Towering above his kneeling form was Voldemort. Tall, thin, his complexion as white as death. The slitted nose of a serpent, head as smooth as a boiled egg and eyes the colour of fresh blood.

A face so unlike the one that Harry had known. “Tom,” he said.

A sneer curled the corner of Voldemort’s lipless mouth upwards and he ran his wand along Harry’s cheek with a tender viciousness, a motion which set off alarm bells in Harry’s head.

“I have been searching long and hard for you, Harry Potter,” murmured Voldemort, his gaze sweeping across Harry, committing him to memory.

Slowly, Harry rose to meet him, breath caught in his throat. Voldemort’s wand, pressed against his cheekbone, felt like a brand of ownership. Voldemort allowed him the dignity of standing, his eyes glittering rubies.

“And I’m afraid,” said Harry, more steadily than he felt, “that you will be searching again.”

Voldemort tilted his head to the side, a curious little gesture. “You will not be leaving my sight again, Potter,” he said, mellow as a song. “Not until you are dead, and it is your corpse being taken away from me.”

Harry knew that Voldemort was merely the shadow of the person he had once been, the schoolboy Harry had fallen for some fifty years ago, but hearing such words come from his mouth still splintered Harry’s already fractured heart.

“You have been angry for so long,” he said, and it sounded like a plea, “but I understand now. It’s me, Tom, I’m here, and I want to help–”

In a movement as swift as a whip, Voldemort had Harry by the throat, crushing his airway between long, pale fingers, like spider legs. Harry choked, eyes bulging, his hands swinging up on reflex to grip Voldemort’s arm, grappling to free himself from the stranglehold.

But Voldemort’s grip was firm and oxygen deprivation weakened Harry. His struggle rapidly slackened, spots dancing in the corners of his vision, and Voldemort’s face was blurring over.

Images of Hermione and Ron surfaced before his eyes. Then there was Luna and Neville, Ginny and the Weasleys, Dumbledore and Sirius and Lupin and his mother and father. The long-ago faces of Peregrine Lestrange, Ignatius Prewett, Margot Greengrass and the boy who had once been known as Tom Riddle.

Harry had never imagined that this would be how he would die. Surrounded by black smoke, asphyxiated in the most Muggle, most intimate manner by Lord Voldemort. With only his memories to comfort him as he spiralled down the bright white tunnel to the unknown.

Then abruptly he was thrown to the ground and he gasped in air, his entire frame shuddering from the shock of yet another near-death experience.

“Give me the locket,” Voldemort hissed and Harry looked up at him, eyes watering.

“Why not kill me and get it yourself?” he wheezed, his fingers scrambling for wherever he had dropped his wand.

Voldemort’s face went even whiter, if that was possible, and he kicked Harry in the ribs, sending him tumbling. :Do not mock me, insolent brat,: he spat.

Harry groaned and lifted his head to the sight of his wand, a mere metre ahead of him.

“I know you remember me, Tom,” he managed, pushing himself upright once more. He could tell that his ribs were bruised as he did so.

“Do not call me by that name!” Voldemort stalked nearer him and Harry scuttled backwards, closing in on his wand, desperate to put some distance between himself and his enemy.

“It was a long time ago,” he pressed. “And things didn’t go the way either of us planned. But you have to stop this, you have to remember–”

“How could I not remember?” Voldemort raised his wand, his eyes pulsing madness. “I remember that night all too well, Potter–”

“The night that you killed her.”

Hermione, her mouth opening slightly in morbid surprise as her body was engulfed in green light, then nothing. Just an empty shell, lying on the ground, a mockery of the bright witch she had been.

“Yes, I killed her,” said Voldemort, and there was no remorse in his voice. “I gave her the opportunity to move – a gift – but she refused, so now she is dead and so is your pathetic father. All to protect you, a perfectly ordinary, interfering, half-blood child.”

There was a pause, during which Harry entirely forgot that he was meant to be grabbing his wand and escaping. He shook his head once, a miniscule motion, and said in a low voice, “We aren’t talking about the same night. Are we?”

“I did not realise that we had the memories of an abundance of nights at our disposal, Potter,” said Voldemort, and there was such hatred in his eyes that Harry wanted to cry.

“Stop playing games,” he whispered. “I know that you remember Harry Delacour.”

Please, Tom, remember me.

But there was no recognition which sparked on Voldemort’s face, and a cruel smile curled his mouth. “Oh dear,” he said. “Is that another of your beloved companions who crossed paths with me?”

For the first time since Harry had returned to the future, he thought that he might hate Tom Riddle after all. “Yes.” His fingers closed around his wand, hidden from sight behind him, and emotion made his voice tremble painfully. “Yes, he was. Harry Delacour… I didn’t know him for long. Only half a year. But he’ll always be close to my heart.”

“Is this love that you speak of?” Voldemort’s pale face hovered there like a skull in the dark, so very mocking.

Harry grimaced. “Yes. And you thought you loved him, too.”

Voldemort went silent, disbelief rippling off him like waves.

Harry seized the opportunity. “It was a long time ago. It was during the Christmas of 1944, the same that you produced a dragon Patronus.”

Something fragile jolted in Voldemort’s gaze, as if that had awoken something in him. His wand remained raised, pointing steadily at Harry, but he made no move to utter a spell.

The locket, hot against Harry’s chest, crooned a soulful melody to him. Keeping talking, it seemed to say. Tell the world our story.

“And it was also during the Christmas of 1944,” said Harry, aching, “that you kissed him.”

Voldemort’s eyes widened a fraction – snagged in Harry’s words – and Harry leapt into action. “Stupefy!” he shouted, throwing himself to his feet, and the Stunner ricocheted off the shield Voldemort abruptly cast.

But it granted him enough time to spring back into the black smoke around them, blind once more, and he hurtled towards where he had heard Hermione’s voice before. “Hermione!” he bellowed in desperation as he ran. “Ron!”

“We’re here!” he heard somewhere to his right. He veered sharply, dogging the voices, and he could hear rustling behind him as Voldemort gave chase.

“I am not done with you, Harry Potter!” The outcry echoed all around, ringing sharply in Harry’s ears, and he could feel fingers shadowing his cloak, rippling like a banner behind him.

So he took a leap of faith.

Through the air he sailed, his eyes filled with smoke, and the earth seemed to still around him as he flew. Then Harry slammed bodily straight into Ron and Hermione, huddled together in the darkness.

With a crack, Hermione Apparated them away, Voldemort’s scream of outrage filling the atmosphere.

***

Once safely hidden away inside 12 Grimmauld Place, Hermione and Ron backed Harry into a chair where they could interrogate him.

Harry had almost forgotten what it was like, to have two against one. Despite a whole year passing since he and Hermine had returned, he had grown accustomed to it just being the two of them.

“Did he hurt you?” demanded Hermione, first up. Her bushy hair was a mess, poking around such that it could rival Harry’s own, and her skin was blackened from the smoke, as was Ron’s.

“You-Know-Who wouldn’t hurt him,” reasoned Ron, though his tone was sceptical. “I mean, weren’t you his school boyfriend or something?”

No matter how many times Ron was told of their adventure in the past, he never seemed able to fully comprehend what had happened. If Harry had been in his best mate’s shoes, he would have been the same. The whole story was completely mental, after all.

“But he’s tried to hurt Harry in the past,” Hermione argued, turning on Ron. “Just look at what happened during the Triwizard Tournament, if you’ve forgotten. You-Know-Who appears to have no qualms about harming Harry. Maybe he hasn’t made the connection yet–”

“There is no connection to be made,” croaked Harry, rubbing his reddened throat. He was sure that there were fingerprints there.

“You–” Hermione frowned, whipping her head around to stare at Harry. “What did you say?”

“There is no connection to be made,” repeated Harry, his hands clenching into fists on his lap. He was unable to make eye contact with either of them when he spoke. “Vol–”

“Don’t say his name!” Ron hissed, for the millionth time.

“You-Know-Who,” snapped Harry, glaring at the ground, “does not remember me. He does not remember Harry Delacour. He does not remember that night, Hermione. It’s all gone.”

Hermione’s mouth opened and closed, her face slack. She backed up a few steps, then collapsed into a chair opposite Harry’s. “How… is that possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he extracted and destroyed the memories?” suggested Ron, glancing helplessly between his two shell-shocked friends.

“You don’t understand, Ron.” Hermione pressed her fingers against her lips, staring into the distance. Her eyes were blank, as if she was seeing something which wasn’t there anymore. “The Tom Riddle we met would never have destroyed the memory of Harry. He was mad, and he wanted to own Harry, like a possession. It was an unhealthy attraction. But the memory of Harry… that is something he would have treasured.”

Harry’s gaze shuttered as he listened to the words, and he swallowed painfully. He had come to realise, as horrible as it was, that everything Hermione spoke of was true. In the end, he had just been another item to Tom.

Ron pulled his shoulders up into a useless shrug. “Then maybe somebody destroyed the memories for him. I don’t know. Maybe they were jealous of you, Harry, even if you were gone.”

Harry exchanged a dark glance with Hermione. He would not have put it past Cassius Mulciber to have done something like that. But then again…

“Unlikely,” he announced. “Tom had them all wrapped around his little finger. He couldn’t have been overpowered by anyone.”

“Anyone but you.” Hermione’s voice rang through the room, clear as a bell.

Harry’s jaw tightened. “Well, obviously I wasn’t the one who did it.”

Nobody spoke for a long moment. Then Hermione said softly, “Ron, could you please ask Kreacher to prepare us a hot meal?”

From the corner of his eye, Harry could see them share a meaningful look and anticipated what was to come. This was a constant occurrence, nowadays.

“Alright,” said Ron, attempting a bright tone. “We could all do with that. Food is healing, after all.”

He went off in search of the house-elf, leaving Harry and Hermione alone.

“Harry.” Hermione inched to the edge of her seat, eyes beseeching. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Harry gritted out.

“You’re not fine,” disagreed Hermione. “You’ve come face-to-face with him for the first time since we got back, for the first time in a year, only to learn that he doesn’t remember you. You can’t be fine.”

Harry did not say anything, merely looked at her. All that was not said aloud could be read in his gaze.

Hermione pursed her lips. “If it’s any comfort to you, this makes our job easier. Your job easier.”

“How’d you figure that one out?” The sarcasm dripped in thick rivulets from Harry’s voice.

“He doesn’t remember you, he retains no emotional ties. Shouldn’t that make destroying his Horcruxes less… complicated?”

Harry stood abruptly. “It changes nothing,” he said. “Just because he has forgotten doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten.”

Turning on heel, he made to leave the room but Hermione called after him. “You’ve still got it, haven’t you?”

Harry paused. “Got what?”

“You know what.”

Subconsciously, Harry palmed the locket through his clothes. It had not stopped humming since he had first put it around his neck. He glanced over his shoulder at Hermione, tense and perched on the edge of her seat. “I’ll look after it for now,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” Hermione held her hand out for it. “I’ll wear it first.”

“I’ll be fine with it.” Harry made no move to pass her the locket, and Hermione’s expression twisted into disapproval.

“You’ve been using the word ‘fine’ an awful lot,” she said. “You’re already agitated, Harry. The locket will only make you worse.”

But the locket contained a fragment of Tom’s soul, and it had been whispering to Harry since he had first put it on, recalling stories of their past.

Despite the pure evil that it represented, it was something of a comfort to Harry. It was like walking with Tom’s arms around him once more. It was something that Harry craved but did not speak of.

One more smile. One more kiss. One more brush of their fingers in a darkened room. One more.

“Harry,” warned Hermione, sensing Harry’s inner turmoil.

Don’t, said the voice of Tom Riddle.

“Trust me.” Hermione raised her eyebrows, extending her hand a little further forward.

Trust me. Those two simple words were always capable of pulling on Harry’s heartstrings.

His fingers trembling, he yanked the chain off his neck, ignoring the Horcrux’s cry to never let go. Mutely, he tossed it over to Hermione and immediately felt a little lighter once it was out of his hand.

“Thank you,” she said, her knuckles white around the smooth metal of the Horcrux. “We’ll rotate every day. Ron can wear it tomorrow. That should give you a break for long enough. All we have to do now is learn how to destroy it.”

A year. They had been doing this for a year, and still they had not made any progress in that field. Little progress had been made in general, period.

The diary had been destroyed long ago. Dumbledore had taken care of the ring. Hermione had managed to snag Ravenclaw’s lost diadem the day that they had fled from Hogwarts, and now they had the locket. But there were still more out there.

With one last lingering glance at Tom’s Horcrux, Harry turned and walked away.

He couldn’t shake away the feeling that a voice was screaming for him to stay.

But perhaps it was only a memory.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Hours bled into days and days bled into weeks. Throughout it all, Harry, Ron and Hermione remained concealed behind the wards of 12 Grimmauld Place, passing the locket onto the next bearer with each new sunrise.

On the fifth day, the effect of remaining in the constant company of a Horcrux began to show on Ron. He started lashing out unpredictably. It was clear that he was deeply worried for the safety of his family and friends, but it translated into resentment that he, Harry and Hermione had made little to no progress on how to destroy the Horcruxes they had.

On the seventh day, Harry became irritable. Or rather, more irritable than usual. He sought isolation where his dark thoughts could fester and he contributed little to their group discussions. This did nothing but aggravate Ron further to the point that they were constantly at each other’s throats.

On the tenth day, Hermione was no longer able to act the part of the peacekeeper. She became withdrawn, prone to lose her patience easily, and wound up shutting herself behind locked doors with her books.

As a result, both Harry and Ron retreated to their respective rooms and the three seldom saw each other except to shift locket duty.

Ron and Hermione loathed being in contact with it, but they didn’t complain when it was their turn to wear it. Harry, on the other hand, anticipated the day he could hang the pendant around his neck again and spend long hours in a darkened corner of the house, feeling closer to Tom than he had in such a long time. The time they spent together was not healthy – even Harry could acknowledge that as he discerned the harmful intentions stirring within the locket – yet he still hungered for their time alone.

It didn’t speak to him. But holding the Horcrux close with his eyes shut gave Harry the sense that he was sitting on the opposite side of the room from Tom. Separated by a distance, but still in the presence of one another.

It was a terribly lonely thing.

And yet he rejoiced for this small piece of eternity he had been gifted with.

But after one month of seclusion, everything changed. The universe decided to once again pull the rug out from beneath Harry’s feet.

There was nothing particularly special about that day. It was a cold Saturday, the first one of October. Lying on his back on the hard floor of Sirius’s old bedroom, Harry had the chain of the locket wound between his fingers, dangling it above his face mindlessly. When he turned his head slightly to the side, pressing his ear against the ground, he could make out the clattering of Kreacher in the kitchen. Dare he say that Kreacher had easily claimed the title of most chipper member of the household of late?

Harry sighed, turning his head back up. He pressed the locket in his hand to his heart and closed his eyes, listening to the soft humming which bubbled up from within the Horcrux.

No, it never spoke to him explicitly. But that didn’t mean it never communicated.

Whenever it was Harry’s turn to keep it, the Horcrux would choose the quietest time of day to cradle Harry’s face in its intangible hands and whisper the most haunting of lullabies. Melodies which bruised his spirit and made him want to weep.

Today was no different.

With the Horcrux humming against his chest and his eyes shuttered against the world, Harry let himself drift up into the clouds. He could almost forget that somewhere beneath him, Hermione was slaving away over books. He could almost forget that somewhere within the same walls, Ron was listening to the wireless radio and praying that Ginny’s name would not come up as a casualty of war.

Ginny.

Harry still loved her dearly, but since returning from the past, he had come to realise that he had never been in love with her. To be in love was such a fragile thing – its name couldn’t be tossed around lightly. Its touch was both a blessing and a curse, and Harry had felt it before. But for a different person. His love for Ginny was familial, nothing more and nothing less.

He knew that one day, she would understand.

Or perhaps one day, things would be different and they could be Harry-and-Ginny once more. But that was such a far-off future, such a far-off possibility that it merited no proper consideration.

The door to Sirius’s bedroom sprang open and Harry lurched upright, wand immediately pointing at the intruder.

But it was only Ron, holding his hands up in surrender. “Relax, mate. It’s just me.”

“Sorry.” Harry’s tone was brusque as he lowered his wand and examined his oldest friend from afar.

Ron’s face was tense – but whose wasn’t nowadays? – and there was a weary cast to his eyes. But he seemed considerably more at ease than yesterday. However, it was his turn to carry the Horcrux again in two days, and his mood would shift again.

“Hermione wants us both to meet her downstairs,” said Ron, his eyes flickering to the locket, clasped in Harry’s hand. “In the drawing room. She says it’s important.”

“Fine.” Another short and terse reply. Sometimes Harry didn’t realise the effect the Horcrux had on him until he was forced to communicate with another person.

Ron made to leave, and then paused, glancing over his shoulder, his head inclined curiously. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“What does it look like?” snapped Harry, and Ron’s face closed up.

“Right,” he said coldly. “Sorry for asking.”

He closed the door behind him, and Harry listened to his footsteps fading back down the corridor.

With a huff, Harry dragged himself to his feet and caught his own eye in the mirror upon the wall. He hadn’t expected the year to pass this way.

“What have you done to us?” he asked the Horcrux quietly before shoving it into his pocket and storming out of the room.

***

It was the first time in weeks that Hermione, Harry and Ron had been in the same room all at once, and nor was there a pleasant atmosphere about the matter.

Hermione waited impatiently for Harry to settle down in the room. Ron was already perched in the armchair by the window, and Harry opted for leaning against the wall right by the door, ready to flee if need be.

Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It was probably (and almost one hundred percent likely) the Horcrux influencing her, but these boys had been driving her up the wall of late. Even when it wasn’t her turn to keep an eye on it, she could sense its filthy presence radiating through the walls of the Black family home, and it made her feel violated.

Researching how to destroy the bloody thing was a good distraction.

“I’ve been so stupid,” Hermione declared now, slamming the book in her hands onto the table in front of her. “Honestly, destroying a Horcrux is so simple! Here, read.”

She flipped to page forty-four and gestured for Ron to come over and recite the printed words.

Ron gave her a look before sidling over and leaning over the table, tugging the book over to his side. He read aloud, “Basilisk venom is extremely powerful, and can kill a person within a little more than a minute at best. It has only one known cure: phoenix tears, which happen to be very rare, increasing the venom’s deadliness.”

“Unless you want to bake You-Know-Who a cupcake with Basilisk venom in it and hope that he’ll eat it,” said Harry bitingly, “I don’t see how this helps us much.”

“Last time I looked, you weren’t exactly helping out at all,” countered Hermione, glaring at him, “so you can shut it!”

Harry’s mouth slammed shut, his ears reddening, and he glanced down at the floor, crossing his arms. He had the decency to look at least a little ashamed of himself.

Ron watched with wide eyes, and Hermione ordered him to turn to page fifty-one and keep reading.

Ron hurriedly complied. “Basilisk’s venom is extremely long-lasting and can cause fatal damage that cannot be repaired–”

“Don’t you see?” Hermione was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, her irritation towards Harry almost immediately forgotten again. “This is the answer to everything!”

“Um,” said Ron. “I’m siding with Harry on this one…?”

Hermione ignored him. “Haven’t you ever wondered why Dumbledore wanted Harry to have the Sword of Gryffindor? It all makes sense!”

“Not really,” was Ron’s confused reply, and Hermione grabbed the book out of his hands, waving it in his face wildly.

“Piece it together, Ronald!” she turned on Harry, who had not moved from his place by the doorway. “In second-year, how did you kill the Basilisk?”

“I stabbed it,” said Harry slowly, and understanding was creeping into his eyes now. “I stabbed it with the Sword of Gryffindor. You think that it’s now embedded with Basilisk venom?”

“It makes sense. And if the venom’s long-lasting, then after all these years it should still be potent. Dumbledore must have known this, which is why he wanted you to have it.”

“So that Harry can challenge You-Know-Who to a good old-fashioned swordfight?” Ron raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t seem likely, ‘Mione. What does any of this have to do with the Horcruxes?”

“Absolutely everything!” Hermione began pacing the floor. “How did Dumbledore destroy the ring? I’d be willing to bet he used the sword, seeing as it was kept in the Headmaster’s Office. And he willed it to Harry, so that the next Horcruxes could be destroyed by it also.”

Hermione met Harry’s eye across the room. Harry’s face was drained of colour and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Okay, fine,” said Ron impatiently. “Say that what you’re telling us is true. I can see one tiny problem – none of us know where the Ministry has even hidden the sword!”

“That would be a fair point,” said Hermione, “if we were looking for the sword.”

Ron threw his hands into the air in disbelief. “So now we’re not looking for the sword? Make up your mind!”

“What we’re looking for,” said Hermione, meeting first Ron’s gaze and then Harry’s, “is a Basilisk fang.”

Ron opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Harry’s face was expressionless – he had been expecting this.

“You destroyed the diary Horcrux with a fang,” continued Hermione, looking at Harry imploringly, “and we know where to find more. This can be done!”

Harry pulled his shoulders up into a loose shrug, his mouth twisting to the side. “How do you propose we snuck into Hogwarts? We can’t well waltz in there – they’ve got maximum security nowadays.”

“Perhaps,” said Ron slowly, frowning, “we could send a message to the remaining DA members, and you, Harry, could give them directions on how to enter the Chamber.”

Harry, however, was set on acting the pessimist.

“You have to speak Parseltongue to enter,” he said coolly. He unfolded his arms and stuck his hand into his pocket, where Hermione could see his fingers forming a fist.

Quirking an eyebrow up, she said, “Send a voice recording of yourself, then.”

“Don’t be stupid,” snapped Harry. “You’re perfectly aware that the Death Eaters would check whatever owls carry into Hogwarts.”

Ron stepped in front of Hermione, affronted. “Don’t you start using that tone on her,” he told Harry, which only earned him a sneer.

Hermione rested a reassuring hand on Ron’s shoulder, and Ron immediately relaxed into her touch.

They had all been so tense, it was impossible to work like this. But now that she had gained some footing, Hermione hoped that everybody could finally calm down a little.

“That’s why we won’t be sending an owl,” she said to Harry, maintaining what she hoped was a steady voice. “We’ll use a messenger spell. I’ve been practicing so I’m sure I can manage one.”

Once again, Harry’s jaw worked as he searched from some hole in the plan. This time, he couldn’t find one. Messengers spells had been invented by Dumbledore himself, after all, and only members of the Order were able to cast them – this way, the recipient could always be sure that it was genuine. Both the Patronus and the voice of the caster made it easy enough to identify who the message was coming from. It was a genius invention, in Hermione’s opinion.

Clearly, Harry had mixed thoughts about it.

His eyes were dark as he stared at Hermione, and she could almost hear the cogs and gears whirling in his head as he considered the whole matter.

“Why are you holding back?” demanded Ron. “What’s there to think about? Don’t you want to defeat You-Know-Who?”

It was the wrong question to ask.

“I don’t know!” Harry spat, then looked taken aback by his own words.

Ron gazed at him, horrified. “What?” he whispered.

Harry refused to meet anybody’s eye as he repeated in a softer tone, “I don’t know.”

A headache was beginning to pound inside Hermione’s skull. She leaned back against the table by her side and covered her face with her hands, drawing deep breaths in, pushing deep breaths out.

She had been expecting and dreading this confession for a while.

Ron stumbled a few steps backwards, fell back into his armchair. “You can’t be serious,” he said, and his voice was awfully loud in that room.

“I don’t know,” said Harry, and his voice was small, almost as if he hadn’t been expecting his confession. “I just don’t know anymore, Ron.”

Hermione uncovered her eyes, directed a firm stare on Harry. “Give me the Horcrux, Harry,” she said.

Harry backed closer to the doorway. “Why?” he asked defensively.

“You wouldn’t be saying this if you hadn’t spent so much time with it.” Hermione shook her head. “I should have known that it would affect you this badly. It’s Tom Riddle’s soul, for God’s sake. Please, Harry. Give it to me. I’ll put it away so that we can all speak with clear heads for once.”

“Put it away?” Harry gave a derisive laugh. “Why didn’t you put it away in the first place, if that was an option?”

Hermione straightened her shoulders. “Because there’s only one safe place for it to go, and the diadem is already there. I didn’t want to risk putting two Horcruxes together, just in case they could communicate or whatnot. I thought that we were all strong enough to handle the locket ourselves. But I’ll put it with the diadem now – it’s a risk we’ll have to take, I suppose.”

Harry jolted, as if she had slapped him across the face. “We are strong enough to handle it,” he argued, and Hermione gave a soft smile.

“Not all of us,” she said.

Harry’s face froze, he stared at her as if wounded. Then he murmured, “After all we’ve been through?”

“After all we’ve been through,” returned Hermione, “you should respect my judgement.”

Harry remained as still as a statue for a few heartbeats longer, then he drew his hand out of his pocket, revealing the locket, its chain wrapped around his fingers.

“Fine,” he said heavily. “Take him.”

He tossed the locket and it arced up into the air, glimmering in the dim light. Hermione caught it and rested it upon the tabletop beside her. “It,” she corrected gently.

Harry looked as if there was something else he very much wanted to say, but ultimately turned on silent heel and left the room.

“Where are you going to put it?” asked Ron quietly, and Hermione turned to face him, weary from the day’s trials.

“Inside my bag,” she said. “As simple as that. But please, Ron, don’t… don’t tell Harry where it is. I worry about him.”

“If you say so.” Ron stood and hesitantly wrapped his arms around Hermione.

She gave a small sigh, allowing herself the support of his lanky frame.

“D’you think Harry’ll come around?” asked Ron, his arms warm around her waist. “Because if he doesn’t, I close my eyes and I imagine… I imagine a world where You-Know-Who has won. Which he has, as soon as Harry gives in.”

Hermione tightened her hold on him, stared with empty eyes at the ground. She wouldn’t close them, for fear of seeing the same sight as Ron. “Everything will turn out alright,” she said aloud, more to herself than anyone else. “In the end.”

***

Dinner that night, six hours after their discord, was as tense an affair as ever.

Both Hermione and Ron watched Harry the entire time. Hermione’s gaze was both expressionless and firm, as if she was attempting to psyche him out. Ron kept staring like he was a particularly exotic beetle in a glass display. Harry had been expecting this change in behaviour. It wasn’t even unreasonable on their part – Harry was fully aware of the implication of his earlier words, and it was not good.

Hermione and Ron sat together on one side of the extensive Black family dining table, Harry opposite them as they picked at their steak and kidney pies. The meal with rich and hearty – Harry gathered this from the delicious aromas – but ever since returning from 1945, food had tasted like ash in his mouth.

Eating became a chore to maintain his strength for the task of Horcrux hunting which Dumbledore had set. Harry wondered whether his reaction to food was caused by their time-travel woes, but Hermione didn’t appear to suffer from the same symptoms as him. She and Ron ate with gusto (Ron more so), and consequently Harry had not brought his troubles to the table.

They already had so much to worry about.

When he couldn’t stomach the silence any longer, Harry dropped his fork with a clatter and said, “What’s the plan?”

Hermione’s eyebrows shot up – she had not been expecting him to be the one to break the rigid barrier between them. “Plan?” she asked.

“Plan of action, plan of attack. You know.” Harry fought to keep his patience.

It was impossible to miss the look that Hermione and Ron shared.

“What?” Harry snapped.

“So, you’re alright with going along with this?” asked Hermione. “Just earlier today, you were saying that…”

“I know what I said.” Harry diverted his gaze. “And I’d be lying through my teeth if I told you that I didn’t mean it. But I’m… this doesn’t mean that I’m going to give up. I want a world rid of Volde– of You-Know-Who just as much as you two. But I still –” he abruptly choked off, his emotions jamming into a painful lump in his throat.

Hermione sat back, folding her arms. “But you’re still in love with Tom Riddle.” Her tone was bland.

“Love?” Harry gave an anguished laugh. “You and I both know that I’m not in love with him. I may have once been, but he betrayed me and I’m not stupid enough to forgive him for that.”

“Then what?”

“It’s like… it’s like there’s still a shadow of what I had once felt, lingering in my chest. I don’t love Tom, and I especially don’t love You-Know-Who. But I still… I still feel something for him, and I can’t explain it.” Frustrated with his own inability to communicate with words, Harry turned his gaze back to his two companions.

Hermione’s eyes were boring into him.

Ron was staring at his hands, something akin to shame flickering across his face. “I can never understand,” he said hoarsely, “why it is that you always have the worst of luck.”

It was the closest thing to understanding that Harry would get from Ron. His lips twisting into a sort of grimace, Harry shrugged and looked away again.

At long last Hermione announced, “Well, if you’re not prepared to give up, then that’s a good place to start. Neither Ron nor I could ask for anything more from you.”

Grateful for the ready acceptance, Harry dipped his head into a miniscule nod.

“Now,” continued Hermione, already pressing into the next issue on hand, “we haven’t properly sat down to discuss our next step forward. Not since…”

“Since we got the locket,” offered Ron. “I think we’ve been out of business for too long, if you ask me, and it’s about time we hit the road again.”

Hermione didn’t smile, and he reached out to lace his long, freckled fingers through hers, perhaps an unconscious gesture.

An unconscious gesture which Hermione mirrored precisely.

Harry’s eyes followed the movement, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead, surprised enough to forget his own problems momentarily.

It appeared that his two oldest friends had finally pulled their heads out of their arses and seen the light. The thought was amusing for a split second, and Harry almost smiled, but then he remembered his own perpetual loneliness.

“Ginny, Luna and Colin, right?” he said abruptly, and Hermione and Ron jumped, pulling away from each other.

“What about them?” asked Hermione, uncharacteristically vacuous. Harry was tempted to roll his eyes at his friends’ flustered states.

Once they came to themselves, it was ultimately decided that Ginny Weasley would be their Hogwarts contact. They concluded that Luna would lose the Basilisk fangs after retrieving them and claim that the Crumple-Horned Snorkack had taken them; Colin, on the other hand, was likely to the slip over and give himself concussion in the Chamber before he managed to achieve the objective. Ginny was their safest bet – as much as Ron disliked that.

“It’s unfair to ask her to return to that place,” he argued. “I mean, she nearly died there!”

“Nothing about this situation is fair,” Hermione reasoned, “and at this point in time, we’ve all got to make our sacrifices. Ginny’s strong, she’s capable, and she can refuse the task if she wants to. I’ll make that clear in my message to her.”

“If she refuses – and all the others, too,” said Ron, “then what?”

It seemed to Harry that for once, Hermione was at a loss for words. There was a long, drawn out moment of silence during which the three considered the near impossible feat of theirs before Ron managed weakly, “One bridge at a time then, eh?”

“Yes,” agreed Hermione, giving what was obviously an attempt at an enthused nod of her head. It wasn’t fooling anyone. There was a pregnant pause in which they returned to their half-eaten dinners, then Hermione dropped her cutlery with a clatter and stood. “I’ll go draft a letter for our messenger spell.”

It sounded as if she were choking on a lump of gristle from their meal. She all but fled the room.

“You know,” remarked Ron as the door slammed shut behind her, “you really need to break this habit of yours.”

His tone wasn’t accusatory but Harry’s hackles still rose.

“What habit?” he barked.

“Shutting us out, trying to hold the weight of the world on your shoulders.” Wearily, Ron ran a hand through his hair. “Look, mate, these past few weeks have been tough. We’re all on edge, but can we try to calm down for a few minutes? You’re my best mate, but I haven’t been here for you even though you’ve been suffering. I’ve just been so… angry. With everything, everyone. This whole world, it’s taken a turn for the worse.”

Harry simply stared at his redheaded friend, temporarily unsure of what to say.

When he was met by silence, the beseeching light melted away from Ron’s eyes and Harry could actually see the defensive walls springing back into place.

His face flushing, Ron lowered his gaze to the table. “I know I’m sh*tty at these feelings talks, but I just wanted to say that I’m sorry and I’ll try harder to be here for you and ‘Mione. I just hope that you could try to reciprocate that a bit, too. And I–”

Apparently too mortified to manage anymore words, Ron’s mouth snapped shut and he lurched to his feet, no doubt to make his own flighty exit.

“I’m sorry as well.” Harry’s words were so soft, they could have easily been overlooked if the room hadn’t been as silent as a grave. He met Ron’s gaze, no longer attempting to hide the exhaustion in his own eyes. A vulnerability he so rarely allowed himself. “I’m sorry for disappointing you both.”

Unspoken words hovered between them, but that was all Ron needed to slump back down again, covering his mouth with his hand. “What has happened to us?” he murmured. “Hermione, You-Know-Who’s schoolyard nemesis. You, his ex-boyfriend. Me…”

“A perpetually angry person?” offered Harry, and then started laughing. Within seconds they were both doubled over, the air ripe with hysterical laughter, and Harry leaned his cheek against the tabletop, his voice trickling away and tears beginning to blur the room.

He lifted his head again, blinking hard to clear his vision. “Say, Ron,” he began, quiet once more. “Do you actually believe us?”

Ron raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Believe that we actually were stranded in the past for half a year.” Harry smirked to himself – even to him it seemed an unlikely story when he heard it aloud. “You-Know-Who didn’t believe me. Why should you?”

It sent a sharp jolt through his heart and the smirk abruptly melted from his face. Tom, no, Voldemort didn’t believe him. Which still begged the question – why?

“I believe you because, well…” Ron pulled his shoulders up into a helpless sort of shrug. “Because you two are my friends.”

Harry smiled wryly, bitterly. “That doesn’t change the fact that we could just be totally bonkers.”

“You’re not bonkers,” said Ron, his face uncharacteristically solemn. “But on the off chance that you are, then I wouldn’t miss out on the ride for the world.”

He grinned at Harry and Harry grinned back.

A long year had passed and they had finally reached an understanding.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Determined to renew some of the normality in their lives without a Horcrux hanging over their heads, Harry and Ron took to playing games of Wizard’s Chess and Exploding Snap in the kitchen. Ron won ninety percent of the time but that hardly bothered Harry. His head was rarely in the game anyway. He much preferred sitting back and memorising the scenery around him.

There was Hermione, poring over books across the room from them. A weariness remained in her eyes from their misadventures, but at least her shoulders weren’t so stiff anymore. Returning to the future had alleviated some of the burden she clearly felt.

On the opposite side of the table from Harry was Ron, his brow furrowing as he assessed the chessboard. Not for the first time, Harry was grateful that Ron had spent that night in the Hospital Wing a year ago. He was glad that one of them had been spared these unnecessary scars.

Then there was Kreacher, clattering around with various copper saucepans on the stove. The old house-elf’s attitude had drastically changed towards the three newest members of the Black household ever since he had been gifted with Regulus Black’s faux locket. He had cleaned up both himself and their living quarters, and was now whistling a jaunty tune as he pottered about the kitchen. Mechanically, Harry’s eyes attached to the locket bouncing on Kreacher’s skinny chest and unbidden memories of Tom snaked into his thoughts, twisting like vines of poison ivy.

No.

Harry broke his gaze away from the locket, returning to the game of chess.

He couldn’t remember the last time life had been this uneventful as they waited for a response from Ginny. This short period of time was one he would use for healing.

If only the universe would be so kind to him for once.

Ron had barely uttered the words, “Knight to–” when a silvery-blue globe shimmered into existence before their very eyes. It unfurled its layers, like a butterfly spreading its wings, until there was a scintillating mare standing before them, lifting its proud gaze. Even Kreacher paused in his activities to listen.

“Sorry I took so long to reply,” came Ginny’s voice. Her Patronus’ mouth did not move yet the words were clear as daylight. “I took a little while to get the messenger spell fully functioning. Now, straight to the point – is there even a question as to whether I’ll do it? Of course I’m going to. Curfew has been shifted to nine in the evening, so I’ll be waiting in the second floor girls’ lavatory at ten o’clock sharp.”

The mare dipped its head briefly before melting away as suddenly as it had appeared.

Kreacher returned to banging a pot around.

The game forgotten, Ron stood.

“Great,” he said, relief and sarcasm in his voice evenly balanced. “She’d better not get caught or I’ll… I’ll…” momentarily tongue-tied, he finally managed to wrangle up the words, “Strangle her.”

“You may not have to,” murmured Harry, earning a sharp glance in return.

“She’ll be smarter than that.” Hermione closed the book she had been consulting. Her eyes betrayed her unease. “It’s all planned it all out. Messenger spells for quick communication. We can never send an owl into Hogwarts, but with the correct timing, they can send an owl out with the Basilisk fangs. But first, in order to reach the lavatory, she must exit the dormitory at precisely the right time to avoid the patrols – this I’m sure she already knows. Late night wanderings are practically encoded in a her DNA. What’s important is that your messenger spell works properly, Harry, otherwise Ginny will be as good as stranded. Your timing must be impeccable, too, so perhaps you should record your message at five minutes to ten, just to ensure that you–”

“Hermione,” said Harry. She was rambling, a tell-tale sign that her nerves were finally getting to her. “Calm down. I’m not going to strand Ginny.”

Hermione’s mouth was still hanging open, and she shut it quickly, shook her head.

“Of course you’re not going to, I was just making sure…”

Something about her tone made Harry feel the need to justify himself. “I’ve practiced before,” he added, defensive.

“All will work out, master,” croaked Kreacher, snapping his fingers. “But first, teatime.”

Harry and Ron’s chessboard scooted across the table and in its place slid a tall porcelain teapot, complete with three matching teacups. A tray of scones and finger sandwiches followed, and Harry smothered down an overwhelming urge to laugh. Somehow, three exiles found themselves seated in a warm kitchen, soup bubbling in a pot on the stove, enjoying tea while a Dark Lord’s forces swept the street outside the window in search of them. It was a ludicrous idea, yet Harry was living it.

Then again, which part of his life didn’t seem ludicrous nowadays?

“Cheers,” said Ron, who had warmed up to Kreacher significantly, diving for a sandwich. Not even impending doom could dampen his appetite.

Hermione joined them at the table, placing her book to the side to serve herself a scone.

“Eat,” she advised Harry, so he reluctantly poured himself a cup, watching as she sliced open the buttery folds and spooned in cream and jam.

To distract her before she could start piling food onto his own plate, Harry peered at the broken spine of her book.

“What research have you been doing this time? Who’s this… Hardwin Fjord?”

On any normal occasion, Hermione would have jumped at the chance to discuss her latest perusal for hours. But she proved that this was a not a normal occasion. Her hand snapped out and brought the book down into her lap before Harry could so much as blink.

“It’s nothing. Just a bit of light reading.”

Harry quirked an eyebrow, the blatant lie shining through, but before he could begin his interrogation, Ron interrupted.

“You’ve got to eat more, before you fade away into a shadow.” He took it upon himself to load Harry’s plate up. “When’s the last time you actually finished a meal?”

“Yesterday,” Harry gritted back, none too pleased with the ministrations of Ron. Hermione’s attention may have been diverted, but it seemed there was a second mother hen in the house. Whether this development was out of sheer obliviousness or covering for Hermione’s slip-up, Harry did not know.

“Liar.”

Grumbling, Harry cut a quick sideways glance at Hermione. She was smiling slightly now, but her knuckles were still white around the book, whose cover she had hidden against her lap.

With a grimace, Harry returned to appraising his full plate. He wasn’t done with her, but the investigation could continue another time. For now, he had to wheedle his way out of this mountain of sandwiches.

He stood abruptly.

“I need the bathroom,” he announced.

Ron rose to his full height, towering over Harry, and slammed him back into his chair.

“No, you don’t.”

“You can’t keep me here,” said Harry petulantly.

“Watch me.”

There was a long pause. Sighing resignedly, Harry slumped back into his chair, feigning defeat, all the while watching for the moment that Ron would exchange a pointed look with Hermione like two parents handling their wayward son…

As soon as the moment came to be, Harry leapt to his feet and made his flighty exit from the kitchen, Ron’s hollering echoing behind him.

It was proving to be a long day, but Harry had not anticipated exactly how long it would be.

***

To Hermione’s great relief (which she did little to hide), Harry successfully directed a messenger spell to meet Ginny at the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. He did not encourage his stag to deliver any words more than the bare minimum (A shy “hello, Ginny”, followed by :open: to be reused on the two doorways which would stand in her way).

To Ginny, it had been a year since they had last seen each other. To Harry, it had been closer to two. Even then, they had scarcely spoken since their brief entanglement. The connection would forever linger, but nothing between them could ever be the same.

For a tense hour they waited in the drawing room, Ron pacing as he chewed his thumbnail, Hermione tucked away with her book, strategically concealing the cover from Harry’s view, and Harry perched in the window seat, arms looped around his knees as he gazed into a drab sky.

It was a grey sort of night. The stars were muffled by muggy clouds, the moon a dull blur overhead, yet there was not a whisper of rain to be heard.

Drab. Not a single hint to what the rest of the night had in store.

At last, when eleven o’clock tolled on the grandfather clock in the hallway, a mare unfurled before their eyes, drawing each of them out of their respective trance.

“Objective achieved. Sent by swiftest owl. Should arrive in morning.”

A collective sigh of relief swept up Hermione and Ron, but Harry was unable to fathom a sound. It seemed that his worst premonition would come to pass tomorrow.

Merlin give him strength.

They waited for the mare to melt back into shadow, but it lingered a moment longer, intelligent eyes turning to meet Harry’s. With baited breath he anticipated condemnation, a sharp word, he didn’t know what to expect–

Then Ginny’s sweet, soft voice murmured, “Goodbye, Harry,” and Harry closed his eyes, lowering his chin. By the time he raised his gaze again, she was long gone.

“She’s safe,” Ron was chanting, ringing his hands. The redness in his cheeks looked suspiciously as though he had been clawing at his face unconsciously.

Hermione stood to meet him, smiling tautly.

“We’re all glad,” she said, passing Harry a sideways glance. “Aren’t we?”

Harry gave a short nod, sliding out from the window seat.

“Since that’s over with, I think I’m going to retire for the night.”

He took his leave without another word, but did not lie down in bed for another hour. For a long time, he stalked around the perimeter of his temporary bedroom, lost in thought. If Ginny’s concept of time was correct, a package of Basilisk fangs would alight on the doorsteps by owl somewhere within the next twelve hours. Or rather, a package of murder instruments to be used to gradually kill off each piece of Voldemort’s soul.

It was an activity that he was obliged to participate in.

“How absolutely delightful,” snarled Harry, kicking at the door and stubbing his toe. Swearing, he hopped around for a few seconds before resuming his angry pacing around the room, all the while muttering under his breath.

Finally, Hermione knocked on his door and politely asked him to keep it down because all of London could hear his clomping about and if he wasn’t careful, he would lead all the Death Eaters to their doorstep.

It was then that Harry was resigned to lying in bed, his eyes wide open as he examined the ceiling with its chipping paint and a crack the shape of a lightning bolt to his far left. He willed sleep to find him, to end the torment in his mind, but sleep may as well have been on the opposite side of the universe for all the good it did him.

The house seemed to be just awake as he. Even with the bedroom door shut tight, the sounds surrounding him clawed their way into the room, through the gap beneath the door and the window which was slightly ajar.

Harry brought his pillow down on his head, almost suffocating himself in the process. His fingers fisting in the fabric, he tried to muffle out the wide-awake world. He was entirely unsuccessful.

An old car trundled by in the middle of the road. The engine clunked noisily and one of its wheels hit a puddle, spraying water across the sidewalk.

The drunken lurching of chunky heels on the opposite side of the street, the tinkle of glass on pavement.

Noise…

The stairs further down the corridor creaked, a memory of feet from an age long passed.

The tap in the bathroom leaked, droplets thrumming on the porcelain base of the sink.

Noise.

A book slipped off the end of Hermione’s bed, dog-earring itself on the floor.

Something tapped away within the walls.

Noise.

A bale of dust stirred in the corner of the room.

Ron let loose a nasally snore.

Noise.

A voice whispered.

NOISE.

Harry bolted upright.

Was it his imagination, or had he heard his own name, called out from a distance.

Ever so quietly, he slid out of bed, stepping into his boots that he had left on the ground. Hypervigilant to the fact that Hermione would come running if the floorboards groaned under his weight in the hallway, Harry carefully edged open his bedroom door and toed his way down the corridor.

:Harry…:

He paused by the door to Hermione’s room.

Unless he was sorely mistaken, the voice seemed to be coming from within there.

You should go back to bed, the rational part of his brain told him.

You should find the voice, said the less rational part.

Harry, being Harry, agreed with the latter and reached for the doorhandle, easing the door open.

The room was dark, the curtains drawn across the window. His eyes adjusting to the even dimmer lighting, Harry took a step in and nearly slid over on a book stationed by his feet.

Swallowing a cry of alarm, he managed to maintain his balance and passed his eyes towards the lump beneath the bedsheets. Judging it to be safe, he pulled out his wand and whispered, “Lumos.”

The book he had briefly employed as a skateboard was a ratty old thing, thin and with a damaged spine. Upon closer inspection, Harry noted that there was no title printed on it.

With another precautionary glance in Hermione’s direction, he crouched and flipped through the pages, eyes skimming over the sentences.

A history of investigations into parallel universes… research yields no evidence that alternate timelines exist… only self-claimed universe-hoppers claim to have seen into other world lines… researchers anticipate no foreseeable legitimacy to their statements…

Harry was very keen to know why it was that Hermione was reading about parallel universes, a subject she had oftentimes branded as ‘nimble-wimble rubbish’ and ‘for witless dunces with nothing better to do with their time’.

Replacing the book on the floor, Harry lifted his wand higher.

His eyes widened.

This was what Hermione had been doing. For how long, he could only guess, but she was drowning herself in this nonsensical research, perhaps every waking moment. She was known for her excessive reading habits, but Harry had never seen her take it to this level before.

The room was a battlefield of paper. Pages of writing tacked to the walls, annotated in red ink, teetering stacks of books, no doubted charmed so that they would never lose balance. Harry was hard-pressed to find single surface which was not occupied by a book.

Dodging between the book towers, Harry studied what it was she had been reading about.

Alternate universes.

Parallel universes.

World lines.

Time-travel.

Time.

Harry shook his head. The woman was obsessed. Did Ron know that this was what she was doing while she was locked up in this room?

Creeping nearer to the foot of her bed, Harry picked up the book that had fallen only minutes ago.

Tales from Beyond.

His thumb rubbed along the name engraved beneath the title in silver lettering.

Hardwin Fjord.

This was what Hermione had been so secretive about. Harry pried the pages open and determined that it was only a recent publication, first printed in 1994 in Australia. But judging by the great weight of it in his hands, it enclosed many years of at least one person’s hard work.

It had paid off, too. Harry had never heard of this book, but a long list of awards it had received appeared on the second page.

‘A ground-breaking work,’ wrote one critic. ‘Tales from Beyond will become a household name in years to come.’

Harry would have very much liked to begin reading right there and then, identify what all the secrecy was about, but then Hermione shifted in her sleep and Harry was brought back to himself.

Hardwin Fjord wasn’t his reason for being here. There was still a voice within these walls that he had not yet uncovered.

He cupped his hand around the light at the end of his wand, limiting its range of illumination, then listened. At first, all he could hear was the low drone of background noise, this home which refused to sleep…

Then the murmur stroked its way up his neck, gliding around the shell of his ear and caressing his cheek with cold fingers.

:Harry.:

Again, it was his name being spoken. Just his name, but it sent raw emotions flooding into his chest, it felt as though he was drowning in it–

Where is it coming from? Eyes wild, Harry scrambled around as quietly as he could, poking his head into corners and between book towers. Where are you?

There.

Harry froze in his search, a chill running down his spine on hairy legs. Wetting his lips, he followed the light of his wand beneath the bed to Hermione’s purple, beaded handbag. It seemed to hum in anticipation. He could feel it vibrating in the base of his skull. Harry sent another swift glance upwards to ensure that she was still asleep. She was.

His fingers trembling, he slid to his knees and took the bag into his hands, the material buzzing against his skin. He gently released the clasp.

A breath of air swept out, stirring the hair around his face. A deep, black chasm stared back up at him, the vibrations in his bones multiplying threefold. Now he could feel it buzzing through his bloodstream, rushing to his ears until all he could hear was this golden noise.

Hermione had charmed the bag so that it was extendable from the inside, it could hold any manner of things now. There was no way that he would know how to locate and retrieve whatever was speaking to him.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to.

Like a man possessed, Harry watched as his arm reached into the bag, melting away into the shadows, guided by some unknown entity. When he was shoulder-deep, he allowed his hand to swipe sideways, catching on a burning hot chain. As soon as his fingertips contacted it, the vibrations in his bones stopped, the all-encompassing sound of the rush of blood became muted.

This world full of noise plunged into silence.

His arm began drawing out of the bag again, the chain locked in his grasp.

No. Harry knew what this was, this wasn’t meant to be happening– yet he was no longer in control of his body, he was overcome by such strong compulsion… his hand returned from the shadowy depths of the bag, and Tom Riddle’s locket emerged soon after.

He held it out in front of him, dangling it over the bag. The metal glittered. Then it spoke to him for the first time since it had arrived.

:Hello, Harry.:

Harry closed his eyes and shuddered. :Hello, Tom,: he whispered.

:You should release me, mon amour,: purred the long-ago voice of Tom, almost conversational, the words gliding off his silver tongue. :Let me out of this pretty prison. We can be together again.:

But this wasn’t Tom. This was just a shadow of his past self, forever doomed to remain a teenage spirit.

Biting down on his lip to muffle the noise of anguish which threatened to escape, Harry forced his fingers to let go of the chain, sending the Horcrux tumbling back into the abyss. With a fleeting glance at the sleeping form on the bed, Harry swept the bag back into the shadows and all but fled the room.

He couldn’t stay in here another minute. He summoned his Invisibility Cloak, threw it over his shoulders and hastened out the front door of 12 Grimmauld Place and into the streets of London.

***

Under the iron fist rule of Voldemort, it was a subdued world that Harry stepped into. Neither wizarding world nor Muggle world were spared and few dared to venture out alone, much less at night.

An occasional car zipped by as Harry drifted along, stepping around puddles, alternating between sidewalk and gutter like an idle child.

If Hermione found at that he had left the wards of 12 Grimmauld Place (and she would), she’d probably make Voldemort’s job easier by murdering him herself. Kicking at a loose pebble in his path, Harry dully contemplated telling her that he had done it to escape the Horcrux’s seduction. On second thought, she’d also murder him if she found out that he had sought its location and successfully found it.

Groaning, Harry slumped against the brick wall by the entrance to a pub. For a Friday night, it was remarkably quiet. That is, the lights were off and it looked wholly unwelcoming. The sign hanging over the locked door shifted in the slightest of breezes, its rusty hinges squeaking. Somewhere on the other side of the door, something scuttered over floorboards. A rodent of some sort.

Scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch.

Like nails on chalkboard.

Harry dragged his fingers through his hair, blowing out a breath of air.

What am I doing?

Perhaps if he headed back now, no one would notice that he’d left and he could avoid a premature death.

Pushing himself off the wall, Harry started back the way he had come, watching his feet moving across the filthy pavement, his Invisibility Cloak swaying back and forth. A fellow pedestrian passed him by, moving in the opposite direction, platinum-blond hair the only bright spot on this dark street…

Harry whirled around in time to see the man whipping around the next corner but not before throwing a glance over his shoulder, pale eyes wide and alert.

“Mal–” Harry covered his mouth before the fully formed name could escape his lips.

Malfoy?

There was no question whether he should follow Draco Malfoy or not. Over their Hogwarts years, it had become so ingrained in his impulses to follow his schoolyard nemesis if it looked as though he was up to no good – and Malfoy was always up to no good.

On nimble feet, Harry tailed his newly acquired target from a distance, noting the way that Malfoy glanced over his shoulder every ten seconds.

Twitchy little ferret, isn’t he, remarked a voice that sounded an awful lot like Ron in Harry’s head. Harry set his mouth into a thin line.

Twitchy little ferret in cahoots with Voldemort, now. If he was lucky, perhaps Malfoy would lead him straight to some secret Death Eater headquarters. But they didn’t seem to be heading anywhere in particular. It was as though they were circling the city, lost souls with no destination.

At one point Malfoy paused but did not turn and Harry was almost certain that he had been found out, but then Malfoy continued as thought nothing had happened.

The journey was uneventful, minutes dragging out until time melted away and his only judgement of it was the arc of the shuttered moon in the sky. The toll of not having slept in almost twenty-four hours began to take effect on Harry soon enough, and his vigilance slipped.

This was how he wound up in a dead-end alleyway with no Malfoy in sight.

Harry’s eyes widened and he swung around in time to see Malfoy Apparate back into view behind him and cast a spell which tore the Invisibility Cloak off his shoulders. It crumpled into a heap at his feet.

“I should have known it was you, Potter.”

Harry instinctively slipped his wand into his hand, raising it to meet Malfoy head-on. He almost lowered it again when he looked directly at Malfoy’s face, really looked at it.

His cheeks were hollow, eyes ringed in bruise-like shadows, hair swept back carelessly. Time had not been kind on him.

“What the ruddy hell happened to you?” asked Harry aloud. Malfoy attempted a sneer, but it was half-hearted.

“I don’t answer to you. I think that the Dark Lord will be most pleased if I manage to snag you for him. You’ve been causing them an awful lot of trouble.”

“Them?” Harry’s fingers tightened around his wand as he spoke. “Excluding yourself from that lot?”

“Us,” Malfoy corrected quickly, attempting a thin smile. There was nothing authentic about it, nor anything mean. His lips were chapped and split at the movement. A droplet of blood welled up, a tongue darted out to correct it.

He was pitiful sight, and Harry said so. The pseudo smile shrunk back into a grimace.

“Who the f*ck asked for your opinion? Expelliarmus!”

Harry may not have been at the top of his game then, but a school year of guarding his back from the likes of the young prodigy Tom Riddle and his gang made Malfoy look like a kitten without claws.

Harry ducked around the spell, swiftly disarmed him and then cast, “Incarcerous.”

Malfoy barely had time to blink before he was trussed up like a leg of ham at the butcher’s. Pleased with his quick work, Harry levitated an incensed Malfoy to the end of the alleyway where they would not be interrupted. Malfoy continued to spit profanities until Harry dumped him on the ground, winding him.

“Now,” said Harry, attempting to be pleasant about the whole matter. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. And I’ll let you know that I’m handy with the Cruciatus Curse now, though I’d rather not have to use it.”

Malfoy had been attempting to wriggle into a sitting position, his cheek smushed against the ground, but paused at the words. His eyes, still as sharp as ever, darted to Harry’s wand, finding the jagged crack. Apparently, the sight convinced him to heed the warning.

“Listen, I don’t know anything–”

Harry tutted, squatting so that they were closer to the same level.

“Don’t give me that. You must know something. Tell me why you, a poncy little pure-blood, stepped off your pedestal to grace these Muggle streets with your presence.”

Malfoy’s mouth twisted up and he refused to meet Harry’s eyes. Harry cleared his throat loudly, tapping his wand against the underside of Malfoy’s pointy chin. The latter remained unresponsive. Harry sighed and lifted his wand.

“Cr–“

“Well, f*ck, Potter!” Malfoy exploded, twisting around to glare up at him, but it was impossible to miss the real panic in his gaze. “Can you blame me for wanting to get away from that madman for a night?”

As soon as the words were spoken, he looked as if he sorely regretted them. But Harry knew they were the truth. He rose to his full height again, appraising Malfoy in new light.

“You think he’s a madman?” he asked.

Malfoy’s jaw tensed, his eyes darted back down, but there was no mistaking that his face had drained of any colour it may have had to begin with.

“Malfoy.”

“No one can know I said that.” The words were hushed, small.

“You’re just as much as slave to You-Know-Who as the rest of the world,” said Harry, pursing his lips. Then, “How many times have you been under the Cruciatus?”

Malfoy shook his head slowly, gravel biting into his cheek. The fire that used to burn in his eyes had dimmed.

Sighing, Harry helped to prop him upright, leaning his head against the concrete at the back of the alleyway. Malfoy accepted the help with no comment.

Harry could have easily threatened him with the Cruciatus Curse again, but he had a heart. The young man in front of him was no longer the spoiled brat he had grown up alongside. Well, perhaps still a brat, but a damaged one.

No. Voldemort had gotten his claws in this one already. This was a broken human.

“Draco,” Harry said haltingly. “Tell me.”

“Oh, don’t play at being friends now.” Malfoy co*cked his head to the opposite side, levelling Harry with a deadpan stare. “Why should you care that I don’t have enough fingers to count it on? I don’t want your pity. Besides, I have it better than most other low-ranking Death Eaters.”

“Let me guess, most of them end up dead within a week?”

“Oh, Potter,” drawled Malfoy, some semblance of his old self surfacing momentarily. “There are worse fates than death.”

Harry’s heart gave a little lurch, but he said, “I want you to tell me everything you know about You-Know-Who’s latest movements. Anything. Who he last spoke to, what they discussed, where his heaviest patrols are, what he ate for breakfast. I’m not picky.”

Malfoy’s face twitched.

“If that’s what you want to know, you’ve got the wrong person.” He squirmed, adjusting his positioning, his voice dark. “I’m nothing to him. I just happen to be the son of two of his highest-up soldiers. I’m not even good enough to be his fulltime errand boy.”

The sun was beginning to rise, casting long shadows around them. Harry had to hurry.

“He’s never entrusted you with a single task?” he demanded. “You’ve gathered absolutely nothing from your time in his service?”

“Are you deaf, Potter? I believe that I’ve told you that multiple times–” Malfoy cut off abruptly, a flicker of hesitation sparking across his features. Had he always been this easy to read?

“You remembered something, didn’t you?” probed Harry, unconsciously leaning forwards in anticipation.

Malfoy scrunched his nose, eyes narrowing. “I might have.”

This whole conversation was like pulling teeth. Harry sat back on his haunches, leaning his chin on top of his knees. “If you really believe that he’s a madman, shouldn’t you want to help me?” he asked, managing to reign in his impatience.

“It’s not that simple,” Malfoy snapped. “Merlin, I… you know what? I’ll tell you. Enjoy decrypting it, because it makes no sense to me, or anyone else but him for that matter. The Dark Lord has only ever bestowed one task upon me, other than… other than to kill Dumbledore. I failed at that one.”

Suddenly, Harry’s jaw felt a little too tight.

Malfoy hurriedly pushed on – even he could tell that this was a sensitive topic that should not be lingered on.

“He… he asked me to plant a time-turner at Hogwarts, so I left it in the Room of Requirement. It had–”

Malfoy closed his mouth when Harry held up a hand to silence him, mind racing a mile an hour. All those loose puzzle pieces that were jumbled up in his mind were beginning to search among themselves, picking themselves up and brushing themselves off after a year of gathering dust. Suddenly, Harry felt restricted in this alleyway, as if the two buildings on either side were closing in on him and he couldn’t quite breathe properly.

“A time-turner?” he confirmed. “You’re absolutely certain it was a time-turner?”

“They’re hardly the most common of household appliances,” said Malfoy, vaguely irritated by the interruption. “As I was saying, it had some sort of powerful spell on it but the Dark Lord didn’t say what.”

A puzzle piece lifted itself up, separating itself from the rest.

“When was this?” he asked in a hushed tone.

Perhaps it was the look on his face, but Malfoy chose to not bullsh*t this time.

“Well, I’d be lying if I said I could remember the exact date, but it was sometime during the beginning of our seventh year.”

The puzzle piece slotted with another, just one other from among the thousands, but it was something. It was progress.

“f*ck,” Harry whispered, eyes glazing over as he stared straight through Malfoy, as though seeing into another dimension.

“What–”

“f*ck!” The bellow echoed up above, bouncing off the walls of the two parallel buildings and escaping through the gash that led to the paling sky. Malfoy cowered away as the entire alleyway shook, stones, dust and dirt raining down on them from above. A bird was disturbed from its nest and cawed.

“What the flipping f*ck is he playing at?” Harry pushed himself back to his feet, walking circles in front of Malfoy as he fretted. “We suspected that it was him who orchestrated this whole mess when he restored us to our own time, but had to reject that conclusion. After all, how is that possible if he doesn’t even remember me? We thought Dumbledore and Dippet must have made a mistake, and yet...”

Harry trailed off, appearing to reign in his emotions. Then his head imploded in on itself and he shouted, “Why is it always you, Tom, who has to try to ruin my life?”

Overcome by another overwhelming tidal wave of rage, he lashed out at a garbage tin to one side, sending it spinning. It collided a mere metre from where Malfoy sat, causing Malfoy to jolt furiously, staring at him in alarm.

“Alright, Potter,” he said, evidently unpractised in the whole ‘soothing people’ department. “Why don’t you take some deep breaths before you hurt someone?”

“I’m not like your Dark Lord,” Harry snarled, feeling wild and impulsive. “I don’t f*ck around with people, even if I feel like it.”

Breathing heavily through his nose, Harry pointed his wand at Malfoy.

Malfoy attempted to scramble away but was unsuccessful – his only achievement was knocking the back of his head against the wall behind him.

“Merlin and Morgana,” he began, eyes trained on the wand, his face pallid. “I never imagined that this would be how I died. In a filthy Muggle alleyway, by Harry Potter’s hand.”

“I’m not killing you,” barked Harry, then closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, attempting to gather his wits again. “I’ll Stun you and leave you here. I can’t risk you following me back.”

Malfoy fell silent, his face downcast. In this dim lighting, his head might have been a skull; those hollow planes of his face did nothing to help.

“Please,” he murmured. “I… I would ask that in return for the information that I have told you – of free will – that you do me only one favour.”

“Of free will?” Harry glowered at the ropes binding him in place.

“I could have made your job much more difficult.”

“I do have to admit that for my first proper interrogation, it went rather well,” Harry allowed, his glower softening a smidgeon. “Fine. I’ll listen.”

Malfoy hesitated, swallowing. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. After a long moment, he let out a breath and said, “If you leave me like this, he is going to search through my very being until he finds what I have told you, and he’ll... he’ll ruin me. He does not take kindly to those who betray him.”

“Is that what this is?” asked Harry, matching him in softness of tones. “A betrayal?”

Malfoy’s eyes met his, and that was all the answer he needed.

Pity swirled in the pit of Harry’s stomach, what remained of his fit of rage drained away. He understood exactly what Malfoy wanted.

Malfoy saw the resolve form on his face, expelled a small breath of air, his stiff shoulders slumping.

“Thank you,” he breathed as Harry brought his wand back up, directed it between his eyebrows.

They weren’t friends. They never would be. But in that moment, an old bond stirred.

Before Harry could cast the spell, his time-honoured enemy began laughing, the kind of laughter that causes tears to well up in your eyes, your frame wracking almost painfully. Harry waited, allowing him this luxury of laughter.

“You know,” remarked Malfoy, finally calming himself. “I’m going to tell you something since I won’t hate myself later for saying it.”

Harry co*cked his head inquisitively, waiting for the declaration. Malfoy lifted his chin haughtily, though he was sniffling, a shadow of his past self. But it was the best he could do, and Harry respected that.

“I really,” said Malfoy, “really wish that you had shook my hand that day.”

Harry pinched his lips together, holding back a bittersweet smile. So this was where it ended for them. At the beginning.

“Perhaps I would have,” he said. “If things had been different.”

Malfoy smirked before turning his face skyward.

“See you around, scarhead.”

“Sure thing, ferret.” Harry drew in a deep breath, grip tightening on his wand, and whispered, “Obliviate.”

Malfoy’s face slackened as all his memories of this revolutionary encounter whispered up and away, untethered from his body and drifting away.

Harry turned and walked away as they meandered lazily around him, like tired birds in flight.

He would forever remember that Draco Malfoy was the catalyst that brought about the beginning of the new world.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

12 Grimmauld Place was as silent as a grave when Harry returned, enveloped in the Invisibility Cloak. Hermione and Ron had not yet risen, despite the sun now climbing into the sky. He could barely believe his luck as he shut the front door quietly and removed the cloak, making for the staircase. He could make up a story about how he encountered Malfoy at a different time, then he’d never have to reveal the truth behind his late-night wandering.

Harry placed a foot on the bottom step. It gave an ear-piercing shriek.

He winced, glancing down at the stair then back up again. The only problem was when his gaze returned to the top of the staircase, two very angry figures had appeared. One lanky wizard and one witch whose bushy hair had bristled up like an indignant potato brush.

f*ck.

“Where have you been?” demanded Hermione shrilly, storming down to meet him. Ron tailed her, his face uncharacteristically grave.

“No–” Harry’s voice cracked and he grimaced, surreptiously whipping the Invisibility Cloak behind his back. “Nowhere.”

He backed down to the ground floor, keeping it hidden from sight.

Hermione stalked after him, hands braced on her hips and eyes flashing.

“Don’t lie to us!” she warned, her voice impossibly high. “We’ve been up for an hour, we thought you’d been taken or worse–”

“You really think that I could be snatched like an infant from a crib?” retorted Harry, mildly offended.

“Your bed was stone cold! You’d been gone all night!” Hermione all but shrieked. “What was I meant to think?”

“I couldn’t sleep, I just stepped out the door to get some air– hey!”

Someone had yanked the Invisibility Cloak from his hands. Ron. He had circled around Harry without his notice.

“Stepped out the door to get some air with this?” asked Ron, raising a sceptical eyebrow. “Give us some credit, mate. Now, would you mind telling us the truth?”

Harry opened and closed his mouth silently for a moment, alternating his gaze between his two friends. Hermione was looking rather pink in the face, Ron’s was solemn.

“I–” Harry sighed heavily, dragging a hand through his hair in his now flustered state. “Fine, I’ll come clean with you two. I need some space, alright? This place is stifling and I hate being in close quarters with you all the bloody time.”

“Well, it’s not exactly a holiday for us, either!” spat Hermione, her gaze scathing on him. “You think that we’re enjoying ourselves? You don’t think that I’m going mad, cooped up in here, that Ron isn’t terrified for his family and would do anything to see them again? But that doesn’t mean that we just off and disappear during the night, does it?”

Harry glared down at his feet, fingers curling into fists at his side. If only she’d shut up for a second, then he could just explain. But her diatribe showed no sign of ceasing.

“Use your head, Harry! I’d have thought that you’d’ve learned some common sense by now, but no, the Boy-Who-Lived knows best! I can’t believe you were so stupid–”

“Hermione,” said Ron sharply at last. It was as if he had yanked the rug out from under her feet, whipping away that whirlwind of fury. It dispersed around her like mist.

“I was scared.” Her tone dropped to a whisper, the only remnants of her anger the quaver in her voice.

Harry chanced a glance at her. Bright green met dark brown. If he had somehow forgotten the extent of the sheer love and loyalty they had poured into each other the entire year prior, he remembered it now. Staring into Hermione’s eyes, Harry saw a deep, dark chasm of memories reflected in hers.

His heart gave a painful twang. He averted his gaze again.

“Sorry,” he said.

Hermione made a sound and next thing he knew, her arms were a vice around him, his nose full of bushy hair. Harry hesitated for a split second, but then he saw Ron raise his eyebrows expectantly. With a weary sigh, he allowed his body to release all tension, if only for a little while.

Hermione mumbled something into his shoulder.

“What?” asked Harry. She lifted her face away to glare at him.

“Swear you won’t do it again,” she said.

“I…” he wavered, knowing that it was a promise that he couldn’t keep, not with such a dangerous entity living beneath the very same roof. But with Hermione’s attention fixed so fiercely upon him, he crumbled. “I swear. I swear that as long as the option stands, I won’t leave you behind again.”

His words lowered a leaden cloak of tension back over the group. Ron clapped his hands together loudly.

“Well,” he said, clearly attempting a bright tone but failing miserably. “Now that you’re back in one piece, Harry–”

“–and have been suitably reprimanded,” added Hermione.

“Yeah,” said Ron, picking the ball back up. “That too. But as I was about to say, we have news for you.”

“I have news for you, too.” Harry’s words were abrupt. He was still internally reeling from what he had learned from Malfoy barely an hour ago. Hermione ignored him.

“Ginny’s owl arrived,” she said, eyes hard on Harry and her lips pulled taut. “You know what that means.”

All words dissolved on Harry’s tongue. The rush of adrenaline from the encounter with Malfoy had wiped away the memory that the Basilisk fangs were expected to arrive this very morning.

“Oh,” he said.

There was a pregnant pause. It was clear that they were expecting Harry to fill in the silence, offer a window to his thoughts, but all activity had died in his brain. Total shut down. A ghostly hush swooped over him, spreading across his chest until his heart ached. Ice cold realisation that he would be facing Tom Riddle – not Voldemort, but Tom Riddle, the very one he had grown to love and loathe – sooner rather than later.

Hermione had stepped away from him by now, her arms rising to cross firmly across her chest. There was a furrow in her brow, dark anticipation written in the rigid lines of her body. But what she was anticipating, Harry wasn’t entirely sure.

Ron pulled his shoulders into a reluctant shrug.

“We can wait,” he managed. It sounded as though he was choking on his words, each catching in his throat before he hacked them up into the space between them. He so desperately wanted to close that rift that had opened between them – this Harry could appreciate, but Hermione had other ideas.

“The longer we wait, the longer we prolong this war,” she said, brushing aside Ron’s attempt at a diplomatic response. “Now isn’t the time to take our personal sentiments into account. But we need to know whether you’re able to involve yourself in this duty, Harry, or if you’re no longer in commission.”

Harry stared at her, the pulse of blood rushing through his ears. The noise flooded his brain, making it impossible to think, to conjure words with any meaning.

The cold light filtering in through a window suddenly seemed impossibly bright, blinding him.

He had known what he was getting himself into when he began the hunt for the Horcruxes, he had known that it would come down to this. But now that he had arrived at this bridge, now that the time had arrived to cross it, he couldn’t… he couldn’t…

He became dimly aware of a hand on his shoulder, of a distant voice. He was underwater, trapped in the raw, still world of a lake. Blinding light shot through the water surface in narrow streaks, cage bars around him, and he could only hear his own heart, ricocheting against his ribs.

He was a child again, shut in the cupboard beneath the stairs. He was a Triwizard Champion, bound to a headstone in a graveyard. He was a believer, watching as his godfather was snatched from the world of the living before his time. He was a student, frozen still as his mentor fell from a great height like a ragdoll.

He was just a boy, dying in the arms of his greatest enemy.

But somewhere high above on the shoreline, the shadow of a figure was calling for him, or two, and now there was a flock of them, of all the people he had loved and been loved by. Their voices harmonized, wove together like birds in flight, dipping and diving to save him.

“–rry? Harry?”

Harry blinked rapidly, returning to himself. His fingers rose to touch the hand on his shoulder – Ron – to reassure himself that he was truly here. Hermione stood by Ron’s side, gripping a handful of his robes.

She was looking significantly paler than before.

“Yeah?” Harry grunted, lowering his hand.

“You good, mate?” asked Ron steadily. “You blanked out for a moment there.”

Harry stepped out of Ron’s reach, rubbing his chest as if that could shed the constricting viper around his heart.

“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

“Then…” there was pause during which Ron exchanged a look with Hermione. “Then what do you say?”

Harry’s tongue darted out to wet his chapped lips before glancing down. He could see that his boots were scuffed, his fingers yanking his sleeves down over his knuckles – a nervous tic that he hadn’t known he’d adopted until Hermione pointed it out to him.

“I think,” he said slowly, as reasonably as he could muster. “I think that I need to try. Hermione’s right, I can’t let my emotions cloud my judgement anymore. What we’re dealing with is bigger than all of us.”

He swallowed around a lump in his throat.

A blind man could have noticed the relief that trickled across Hermione’s face – it rippled out of her pores in waves. She turned and started back up the stairs, pausing only to say, “I’ll prepare everything.”

The meaningful stare she directed towards Harry strongly suggested that he should too.

***

The locket and the diadem were sitting innocently on the table in the drawing room when Harry and Ron entered. Hermione held a crinkled brown package in one hand – it was likely that it hadn’t been that battered up upon arrival.

She cast a sideways glance at the two Horcruxes, stationed side-by-side, before reconsidering their positioning. She swept the diadem up and pinched the bejewelled circlet between her index finger and thumb, holding it away from her.

“When this Horcrux is opened,” she said aloud, nodding towards the locket, “I cannot predict what it might do. I’d rather not risk it influencing the other Horcrux and have them play gang ups on us, like some sick schoolyard game–”

“Why not order Kreacher in to keep an eye on it in the meanwhile?” suggested Ron, stepping forwards to relieve her of the diadem. She swung it out of his reach instinctually, her eyes shuttering.

“You know how I feel about giving house-elves orders. This hierarchy which was established by rich old wizards is cruel and barbaric–”

Hardly in the right mindset to put up with her preaching, Harry cupped a hand around his mouth and called, “Kreacher!”

Hermione clucked disapprovingly just as the old house-elf Apparated into view with an ear-splitting crack. Harry fell back one step, never quite able to adjust to the speediness with which Kreacher responded.

“How may Kreacher serve you, Master Harry?” Kreacher now croaked, lowering himself into such a deep bow that the tips of his floppy ears grazed the floor.

“Right,” said Harry awkwardly, scratching his head. “Could you take that diadem from Hermione – over there, see, the one she’s holding – and keep it safe just in case something goes wrong while we’re destroying the locket? The one like Reg– Master Regulus’s locket, you know?”

Despite her disapproval towards this order, Hermione seemed unable to help herself from interjecting.

“You need to be more specific,” she said. “What does ‘keeping it safe’ even mean?”

“Fine,” retorted Harry, his tone sharper than before. “Listen then, Kreacher. If the… if the thing inside the locket has any detrimental side-effects on us, or anything at all goes wrong while we’re trying to destroy it, you must ensure that the diadem does not end up in the hands of anyone affiliated with You-Know-Who. And whatever you do, do not listen to what the diadem tells you.”

“Understood, Master Harry.” Kreacher bowed again, took the diadem from Hermione, then bowed for the third time. “It will be safe with Kreacher. It will be chained up and buried under some maggoty bread until Master Harry calls for it again. Perhaps Kreacher will chop it up with a meat cleaver, then burn the little pieces in–”

“That’s not necessary,” Harry said quickly. “I don’t know whether chopping it up is even possible but… keep it in one piece, please.”

Kreacher blinked bloodshot eyes at him slowly, then nodded his head and Disapparated with a clap that resounded through the still air.

Hermione sighed, then held out the package she still clutched firmly.

“Harry,” she said, her voice painfully sombre. “Will you be doing the honours?”

Avoiding eye contact with both her and Ron, Harry stepped forward and grimaced down at the parcel. He could now see that someone had already torn it open, exposing yellow-stained fangs the length of a forearm. Gritting his teeth, he plunged his hand past the crinkled paper and wrapped his fingers around a fang.

Unexpectedly, a phantom pain throbbed up his arm, like slow-moving venom. Harry closed his eyes and shuddered.

Ron pushed forward and gripped Harry’s shoulder bracingly.

“Maybe he should sit out for the first one,” he said to Hermione, but Harry shook his head.

“No,” he muttered, his thumb rubbing against the tarnished ivory surface. “I’ve got to try. I’ve got to try for all of you.”

Silently, though with painful relief flooding the recesses of his face, Ron removed his hand and took a step back.

Thank you.

Hermione retreated with him, her eyes scorching bright, like dark fire in water.

I’m sorry.

These unspoken words of theirs spun around Harry lightly, as if suspended by fine spider web. Delicate, yet able to carry the weight of a thousand sorrows.

The stage was now his.

Harry pressed his lips together, swivelling to gaze upon the quiet locket, perched upon that table. Too quiet. But there was no doubt in his mind that Tom would not go down without a fight.

Without realising that he had drifted forwards, Harry found his fingers lingering mere millimetres above the locket, the thrum of energy searing his skin, travelling through his veins. It seemed to buzz around his mind, bouncing around his skull, filling him up. But unlike last night, it kept its silence.

Speak to me, Harry wanted to scream, because no matter how furious he was with this man – this monster, this shadow of his past – he missed him.

Tom would be wearing some infuriating, self-satisfied smirk if he could hear Harry’s thoughts now. His soft, pale lips would curve upwards, and perhaps some low level of mirth would reach his eyes. Such a rare sight, but when it did happen, Harry’s heart would swoop and soar, an unfettered bird, and he could believe that this was love after all.

His pulse had reached a brisk rate, keeping pace with the locket’s own internal rhythm.

Thrum-da-da, thrum-da-da, thrum-da-da.

Was it just him, or was the locket heating up, as though in anticipation?

Thrum-da-da, thrum-da-da, thrum-da-da.

He could hear Hermione and Ron breathing somewhere behind him, but it seemed as though a great distance separated them. Perhaps it did.

Unable to bear the suspense of the moment any longer, Harry brushed his fingers over the surface of the locket, drums thundering in his ears, and whispered, :Open.:

All at once the drumming stopped. It was disconcerting, as if he had lost all sense of sound, plunged into a silent world.

The locket opened with a tiny pop. All was still for a single breathless moment. Then the room dimmed imperceptibly and a semi-solid shape started to push out of the Horcrux in a cloud of grey mist.

A head, a torso, then legs, poised above them all.

Tall and slender, black hair styled immaculately. Smooth skin, high cheekbones, a perfectly straight nose. Deep, dark eyes, all too easy to drown in.

Tom Riddle looked exactly the same as the day Harry left him behind.

His mouth suddenly dry, Harry faltered a step backwards.

“Stab it now!” Hermione hissed. “Stab it before it can use its silver tongue!”

He could see through his peripheral vision that despite her words, she was just as transfixed by the image before them, face upturned to the beautiful man before them.

But Tom was already speaking.

“Mon amour,” he murmured, and to see those words shaped by his lips again sent an electric shiver down Harry’s spine.

“No,” he croaked, gripping the Basilisk so hard that his hand ached. His palms were moist with sweat. “This isn’t real.”

Tom tutted, quirking an eyebrow elegantly. “I suppose that I’m only as real as you make me. How real am I to you, Harry?”

There was a long, drawn out pause. Harry’s shallow breaths were torturously loud in his ears. Tom smiled slowly, and there was no need to answer the question aloud.

“Harry,” Hermione whispered, voice barely audible. “Don’t listen.”

“No,” Harry repeated loudly, unable to register her words, brandishing that puny fang as if it could offer him some form of protection from this entity. “No. You don’t know me, Tom. Don’t pretend you do.”

Tom laughed, but his face was set into a mask. It was a frightening image, and Harry took yet another step back, another in the wrong direction, away from his fabled enemy.

“Do you love me, Harry?” he crooned, and his voice was so gentle, but his eyes were so hard. “Because how I love you. I want to tear your eyes out of your head so that you may never look upon another man or woman the way I have seen you look at me. I want to rip your heart out of your chest so that I may keep it forever.”

Harry’s lips parted, but there were no words to say. Tom’s eyes softened.

“But I could never inflict damage upon you,” he breathed. “And I know that this is a requited sentiment. Lower your weapon, mon amour, and we can be together again.”

He didn’t even notice that he was nodding his head until he had released the Basilisk fang, listening to it clatter on the floor. Total surrender.

“Don’t, Harry.” Hermione, her voice weak.

Something rekindled in the pit of his stomach.

He remembered false memories fluttering around his head like feathers in a breeze. He remembered blinding green light and Hermione falling, almost graceful in her descent.

He could not forgive.

“I told you already,” Harry said breathlessly. “You don’t know me.”

The Horcrux’s eyes shuttered, giving way to the flat black of a shark’s. It lowered itself onto one knee and pushed its face forward so that they were almost nose-to-nose. Not even a breath stirred Harry’s hair and he found himself frozen.

“You are indeed a liar, my dear,” it said, “a master manipulator, much like myself…”

I’m not, Harry tried to shout, I’m nothing like you, but with a replica of Tom’s face so close to his, his tongue had stuck to the roof of his mouth, curling in on itself.

“But I have seen your soul,” the Horcrux hissed, its voice garbled between Parseltongue and English. Unspeakable pain threatened to split Harry’s head in two and he dropped to the ground, yowling as he grabbed his forehead, fingers fisting in his hair.

It was enough to break the spell.

“That’s enough!” Ron bellowed, lunging past Harry to seize the fang from the floor. Through his delirious vision, Harry saw Ron plunging the sharp end into the locket, and now it wasn’t only him screaming, it was the Horcrux, a high, keening wail as it was encompassed by oblivion.

For a split second, Harry’s head cleared again. Then he was flooded by a tidal wave of fear and fury because of course Voldemort knew what had happened, and it overwhelmed all his other senses.

Finally, it was over.

Collapsing on his side, his chest heaved in exhaustion and he curled into the fetal position, no longer seeing the world around him.

He hadn’t been able to do it. He had failed.

“What’s going on? What’s happening to him, is it You-Know-Who?”

“No, Ronald, he’s in shock.”

“But why–”

“We asked too much of him.”

An extended silence.

“We never should have done it.”

“Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? Fetch me a Potion for Dreamless Sleep from my bag upstairs. Quickly now!”

It abruptly became silent and when the voices finally returned, hands were prompting him to lift his head, pressing a bottle to his lips.

“Drink now, Harry, everything will work out fine.” The voice was so soothing, so warm, he could almost believe that it belonged to the mother he never had. “I’ll handle everything.”

And so he drank, and as he lost grip on what was real and what was not, he believed every word of it.

***

When Harry came to himself, he surfaced pleasantly, buoying up on a soft wave in warm water before breaking the surface to face the sun riding high.

Sleepily, he acknowledged the fluffy pillow beneath his head, the scratchy blankets swaddled around him, the sofa beneath him, and was content to drift for a few minutes longer. He hadn’t felt this good in a long time, and he lazily wondered how long he had been out for. That was before he remembered everything and promptly turned on his side to bury his face in the pillow, wishing he could forget and bemoaning his own weakness.

“How could I be so stupid,” he whispered, his fingers fisting the blanket, tears leaking from his eyes.

By the time he had realised that it wasn’t his Tom he had been speaking to, it had been too late.

The door cracked open and misleadingly heavy footsteps approached his side. A croaky voice said, “Master Harry, Kreacher hears that Master Regulus’s mission has finally been fulfilled. Kreacher has come to return this to Master Harry.”

Harry lifted his head enough to see that the house-elf had extended Ravenclaw’s diadem to him in spindly hands. He dropped his head again.

“I don’t want it near me,” he muttered. “Give it to Hermione.”

“Yes, Master Harry.”

Receding footsteps, the door clicked shut again. Harry drew in a deep breath, calming his frayed nerves. Muffled voices crept beneath the crack in the door, and when it opened once more, he was ready.

When Ron and Hermione entered the room, they were welcomed by the sight of Harry sitting upright, blankets spilling around his shoulders, grinning like an idiot. Ron actually stopped to stare, perhaps questioning whether the past events had liberated Harry from his last few brain cells.

“So,” said Harry in a horrible, hearty voice that wasn’t his own. “I suppose congratulations is in order.”

“What,” said Ron.

“You destroyed the first Horcrux. Congratulations.”

“Enough!” Hermione said sharply. “What are you doing?”

The grin slid off Harry’s face and he stared at a patch of rotting floorboards sourly.

“Isn’t this a triumph for the team?” he asked. “Don’t you want me to be part of the team? Since I was a complete and utter disappointment, the least I can do is be supportive of your successes.”

“You truly think that we’re doing that?” Hermione asked, her tone dropping a notch.

“That depends on what you think that I think you’re doing,” said Harry stubbornly, losing all pretence of cheeriness.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“Then hip-hip-bloody-hooray for you,” Harry snapped.

“You lost me,” said Ron apologetically.

“Emotional range, teaspoon.” Hermione didn’t bother to face him when she said it. “Harry believes that we’re trying to force him into the mould of the heroic ‘Chosen One’.”

“We’re not, Harry, I swear,” said Ron immediately, then grimaced. “Well, I’m not, I can’t speak for Hermione…”

“Honestly,” she said waspishly before frowning at Harry. “Well? Is my deduction correct?”

“You got it right on the nose.” Every word was dripping with sarcasm. “Except, wait a minute. It’s not you two who’re trying to force me into that mould. It’s me.”

Hermione opened her mouth, stopped, then closed it again.

“Oh,” she said in a very small voice. “I was a little off.”

Harry gave a humourless laugh.

“No matter how much you or anyone else want me to be the Chosen One, the great vanquisher of the Dark Lord, I know that nobody will ever be as disappointed as me when I can’t do it. I wish we’d never ended up in some time-travel freak accident. If we hadn’t–” he scrubbed furiously at his eyes. “If we hadn’t, You-Know-Who and I would never have had a history. He wouldn’t have dirt on me, I’d be able to face him with my head held high, but instead I become a pitiful wreck when faced by the mere memory of him. I’m–”

His voice broke. Hermione and Ron spoke up at the same time.

“Harry–”

“You don’t have to–”

“Shut up,” he said fiercely. “I’ve got to say it. I’m sorry, but I can’t kill him.”

He tipped his head back to glare at the ceiling, blinking tears from his eyes. Let them hate him. Nobody could hate him more than himself, anyway.

He heard Hermione choke on a watery laugh.

“You’re such an idiot,” she whispered. “If only you’d stop letting your mouth run away from you and just listen for a moment.”

Bewildered, Harry brought his gaze back to them.

“What?”

Ron was beaming.

“You may not have to kill him,” he said. “We’ve been searching all year in private – Hermione mostly, and there may be another way.”

“But we mustn’t get our hopes up.” Hermione was smiling too, belying her attempt at pragmatism. “We didn’t want to tell you what we were doing in case we couldn’t find anything, but I think I’ve finally cracked the code. At least, the first level of it, but it’s more than we had before.”

Harry continued to gape at them, not quite registering their words, too fearful to believe. Surely they were due to laugh in his face at any moment and scold him for believing their cruel joke.

“What’re you saying?” he asked hoarsely.

Hermione slapped a hand to her forehead.

“Of course, I’ll give you the book, it’ll clear everything up,” she babbled. “Some may consider it a little dry of a read, but I personally enjoyed it, though it did take me a few days to read. It should clear everything up, yes, you should definitely read it. Accio!”

She swished her wand and a moment later, a book came zipping into her hand. It was a very familiar book, but Harry was loath to admit that he had flipped through it before.

“Tales from Beyond,” she announced, brandishing it in his face. “Here.”

She all but shoved it into his chest. That would surely bruise later. Ron winced on Harry’s behalf, but he barely registered the brief burn of pain. He was staring down at the book, unable to believe that this could be the answer to all his troubles.

“I still don’t understand,” he said haltingly.

“Neither do I,” said Hermione fretfully, “not completely. That’s why we’re leaving. How does tomorrow sound?”

“The sooner the better,” said Ron. “I can’t wait to leave this place.”

“But we can’t let our guard slip in our haste,” she said chidingly, as if it had been his idea to leave immediately. “This will be dangerous. Very dangerous. And we’ll have to pack supplies, who knows how long we’ll be on the road…”

“Kreacher can handle our supplies.”

“Oh, Ron, we shouldn’t rely on him to do all our work. Speaking of which, should we bring him with us or…?”

“Are you kidding me? Kreacher’ll rip his ears off and eat them before he leaves Grimmauld Place for more than a minute.”

“You shouldn’t exaggerate,” said Hermione, “but I suppose there is some truth to your words. Oh dear, I’ll ask him anyway… now, I’m going to pack my books, I’ve got something on the international Floo Network somewhere, I know I do…”

“I’ll get Kreacher started,” added Ron, and they both made to rush out the door.

Harry, whose eyes had been volleying between them the whole while, finally piped up, “Can somebody please explain to me what’s going on before you run off like headless chooks?”

Both glanced around at him in surprise, having forgotten that he was rather behind on everything.

“How silly of me,” Hermione declared. “We’re going to Australia!”

Ron clapped his hands eagerly and bustled away, muttering, “Finally doing something productive…”

“What for?” Harry squawked, not nearly as pleased as his friend.

“If we’re going to time-travel again,” Hermione said, already halfway out the door, “We’re going to need the help of the author of that book, Hardwin Fjord.”

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

“Ugh,” said Ron, picking at the peeling skin on his nose and flicking a flake away. “Ugh. ‘Mione, it’s happened again.”

“We’ve got to keep moving,” Hermione said, exasperatedly pointing her wand at the musty old handkerchief they had been following. It froze where it hovered and she turned on her heel, heading back to meet him a few paces behind where she and Harry had been waiting.

“Not my fault I’m the colour of an albino Grindylow’s belly,” Ron said sharply. “Complain all you want, but nobody’s suffering more than me.”

Harry rolled his eyes, taking the opportunity to drain his water bottle into his mouth while Hermione healed Ron’s recurring case of sunburn. Each of them was applying sunscreen at regular intervals, all the while wearing gigantic broad-brimmed hats that looked ridiculous and long-sleeve flannel shirts to minimise sun exposure (not even to mention the assortment of charms Hermione had cast on them), but Ron was simply too white. Harry and Hermione, both of darker skin tones, were having far fewer issues and neither were nearly as sympathetic as Ron would have liked.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have picked it,” Hermione bemoaned, evaluating Ron’s erythematous face. “I’ve told you about a dozen times already…”

“It’s itchy,” Ron said defensively, then added quickly, “You can still heal it, yeah?”

“Of course I can, it’s just unsightly,” said Hermione briskly, fishing her wand out of her pocket. “Tempus revelio.”

A few long ribbons shot out from the end of her wand, fashioning themselves into a set of numbers. She evaluated the numbers with a furrowed brow, her lips pursed.

“C’mon, Hermione,” chided Ron. “It’s already past noon, we need to take a break at some point.”

“But it’s so open out here,” she said, casting a wary eye about them. “I’m not comfortable with this.”

“So cast a few enchantments if you’re nervous.” He was already lowering himself down on a rock, letting out a grateful moan as he did so, dumping his pack on the ground next to him. “Maybe it hasn’t registered in your brilliant mind yet, but we’re in the middle of nowhere. Merlin, I despise this place.”

“We’re a week’s trek from Alice Springs,” said Hermione scathingly.

“Like I said.” Ron rifled through his pack and pulled out a parcel of wrapped sandwiches. “The middle of nowhere.”

“We do need to eat at some point,” Harry reasoned when Hermione cast him a look.

“Hear, hear,” said Ron.

“Fine.” Hermione raised her hands in surrender. “Fine.”

She stalked off to perform some protective enchantments on the surrounding area, though not before throwing Ron a disdainful glance as he dug into their lunch.

“You know,” he remarked to Harry around a mouthful of ham and chicken sandwich, “I don’t actually despise this place. It’s just the heat I can’t deal with. Tanzania was alright, actually, but I didn’t like Vicky… it’s just that the further north we go, the more I resemble–”

“A tomato frog?” Harry suggested, cracking a smile and accepting the sandwich Ron passed him. It was refreshingly cold, having been kept fresh by several cooling charms.

As soon as they had entered the state of Victoria about a month ago, Ron had taken an immediate disliking to it – possibly because it reminded him of a certain Bulgarian wizard.

Hermione joined them, and, having overheard the conversation, immediately said, “It’s not Tanzania – that’s an entirely different country. It’s Tasmania, and the reason it’s hotter up here is because we’re nearer the equator. It’s all got to do with the sun’s slant angles and–”

“Can you heal my burn now?” Ron asked.

Looking increasingly annoyed, Hermione tapped his face and said, “Episkey!”

Harry focussed on his food, having seen her heal a sunburn many times already. He waited for the additional, “Pellis praesidio,” which followed a few seconds later.

“Now,” said Hermione, wiping her hands clean and helping herself to their lunch. “My tracking spell estimates that we have another day of walking before we reach our destination, whatever that may be.”

At her words, Harry glanced over his shoulder at the handkerchief, dangling there as if attached to invisible strings and flittering in a non-existent breeze. It was a manky old thing and he refused to touch it for fear of contracting a disease from it. Back in its heyday it had surely been quite fine, crisp white with delicate embroidery around the border and the initials P.R.L. sewn in. It was a miracle they had even found so much.

With the assistance of the about the author page at the end of Tales from Beyond, they had made their way into Fjord’s then-hometown, Portland. After interrogating the residents (alongside no small about of bribery in the form of money), they finally narrowed in on a small, rundown house in Portland where they were told Hardwin Fjord once lived. Since it was their only lead, Hermione had cast a tracking spell on it to find its owner and they followed it like puppies of varying faithfulness.

“Besides,” Hermione had said that day, “Even if it doesn’t belong to Fjord, it might lead us to someone who knows where he is.”

Harry had nothing to say to that. So far, the hunt for the author of Tales from Beyond proved to be futile, an impossible quest. They may as well have been searching for a ghost for all the luck that they had. He privately thought that they would be lucky if he was dead. Ron was much more vocal about the matter, and he was saying so now.

“But it was only published five or so years ago,” Hermione insisted, tugging the brim of her hat lower to shield her eyes from the sun. “Fjord can’t be far away.”

“A lot can happen in five years,” said Harry quietly. “Especially these past five years. Wasn’t that book released only months before Volde– for Merlin’s sake, Ron – before You-Know-Who returned? Maybe You-Know-Who abducted him, like Ollivander. He’d be a valuable asset, after all.”

“I maintain that death would be kinder to the bloke,” Ron piped up. “Anyway, we’ve been searching for weeks. Dead end after dead end, and what’ve we got from it? All we’ve found to prove that a Hardwin Fjord ever did once live is a handkerchief that may or may not have belonged to him.”

Hermione sat in silence for a long moment, a furrow between her eyebrows. A bird shrieked somewhere overhead, drawing her back into the moment and she scowled.

“We’ve been sitting still for too long. Let’s go.”

“It’s been five minutes!” Ron protested.

“I don’t care, we’re practically sitting ducks,” Hermione snapped back, throwing herself to her feet and storming away. She jabbed her wand at the handkerchief and it gave a little shiver, shaking itself off before continuing on its merry way.

Without a backwards glance, she followed at its heel.

“She’s in a real mood today,” muttered Ron, heaving his pack onto his back and waiting for Harry to do the same. “She just doesn’t want to admit that we’re right.”

As they trekked through the red earth, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake and wiping sweat off their foreheads, Harry remained silent. Truth be told, he didn’t want them to be right either. If Fjord truly was gone, then that left them to return to Horcrux hunting, and Harry had already proved his worth in that field.

***

The following days were uneventful. Hermione became more taciturn than usual. When she wasn’t doggedly following that manky piece of cloth with Harry and Ron in tow, she was settled a small distance from them, her face stuck in Tales from Beyond despite having read it at least five times, occasionally throwing worried glances skyward. It was clear she was expecting Voldemort’s Death Eaters to descend upon them at any given time.

When Harry closed his eyes, however briefly, even during broad daylight, he could envision them starting as flittering dots, framed by the sun. They would then gradually develop from insignificant sand flies to large black smears, each an individual finger on a hand leaping down to cage them between talons.

It was worse at night when there was no sun to give them forewarning.

Yet there remained not even a whisper that their location had been leaked. It was all too still, too quiet. The calm before a storm.

Harry had come to rely on Ron’s constant commentary, his wisecracks, and quips, to keep his mood elevated (at least above its default state, which wasn’t a difficult task), but after the drag of several long, dull weeks it was finally setting in – even for Ron – what a truly epic journey this was.

All words shrivelled up and died, save Ron’s occasional complaint about sunburn, and the three of them trekked in silence, fear of what awaited them at the end of the line looming over them.

If nothing else, it gave Harry all the time in the world with the thoughts in his head. Memories of their expedition flicked back and forth, a poor parody of those cheap, cheesy travel montages slapped together in some tween girl’s scrapbook.

It was over a month ago that Hermione first pushed Tales from Beyond into Harry’s hands and he read it through over breakfast, lunch, dinner and deep into the night. He found it to be a ridiculous read, exactly what its title claimed it to be – a tale, and a fanciful one at that.

It dabbled with the mysterious matter of time.

Fixed timelines, dynamic timelines, alternate timelines, paradoxes. Harry didn’t understand half of what was written, it was so backwards and convoluted and impossible to tell which way was right side up.

Despite being written like an academic text and its critical acclaim, even the readership saw it for what it was. Entirely fictitious, theoretical at best.

But Hermione was for one a believer, Harry and Ron the sceptics trailing behind. How the tables had turned. She was so certain if they could find the author, perhaps he could explain things to them and reveal the mystery behind his greatest work. Perhaps they could fix this f*cked up timeline so it was never meant to be.

It was a fantasy Harry could indulge in, at least until the dream was shattered at the end of the journey.

It was too great a risk to attempt to sneak through the International Floo Network into the borders of Australia and too great a distance to Apparate, even if any of them were familiar with the country on the other side of the world. In the end, it had been easy enough a job to intercept and Stun several Muggles in the nearest airport, taking their passports – Giles Herman, Poppy Walmsley, and Frank Butler were the unfortunate three – and a handful of hairs for the Polyjuice Potion, proceeding to steal their places on the flight from London to Sydney. Easy a job but less easy on the conscience – Hermione and Ron made the Muggles as comfortable as possible in the airport bathrooms, and Harry left each with as many Galleons as he dared to spare, hoping they’d be able to exchange the gold for the stolen flight money.

Under the guise of Giles, Poppy and Frank, Harry, Hermione and Ron snuck across the border between the two countries and had not looked back since.

Travelling about took much longer than someone like Ron was accustomed to. Growing up in Muggle households meant that Harry and Hermione were familiar with Muggle cars and buses, or simply travelling on foot where it was necessary since Apparition was impossible in unfamiliar territory. None of them were willing to step foot into the wizarding world either, beyond Hermione gingerly entering a wizards’ currency exchange centre to trade in a handful of Galleons, Sickles and Knuts for Muggle cash.

“It’s safer in the long run,” she reasoned against Harry and Ron’s protests. “If we make it so that we can live in the Muggle world, we’ll leave fewer traces in systems You-Know-Who may be tracking. Besides, he doesn’t seem to have gotten his claws into the Australian ministry yet, so if I just dip in quickly now…”

It was true. Australia seemed completely untouched – at least, from what Harry observed from the outside. Whenever they moved through populated areas he would watch civilians from beneath his Invisibility Cloak, one eye ensuring he didn’t lose his companions and the other focused on his surroundings.

The communities here were sunny and cheerful. Harry caught sight of witches and wizards mingling with the Muggles without a care in the world, distinguishing them due to the cloaks they wore and the quiet words that were exchanged on street corners and behind hands. If it weren’t for these words he overheard, Harry could almost have passed off the events back home as the memory of a childhood nightmare, melting away beneath the warm Australian sun.

“Sounds like a repeat of the First Wizarding War.”

“Reckon it’ll reach us this time?”

“Maybe. Rumour has it we’ll start conscripting over seventeens to head over and intercept at this rate.”

“That’s a suicide mission.”

When he overheard such whispers, the warmth leeched from Harry’s bones and he shivered, clutching the Invisibility Cloak around him as if it could provide him some comfort. If Hermione and Ron were listening too, they gave no sign.

***

The trail of breadcrumbs was finally leading to an end.

With sundown upon them, Hermione wearily took her wand out and pointed it at the handkerchief, which was significantly less perky than it had been a few days ago.

Jerking her head at its droopy state, she said, “I think we’re going to find its owner sometime tomorrow.”

“Yeah, a gravestone,” said Ron.

Hermione glared at him, then sighed.

“Gravestone or not,” she said, “this is it.”

“Unless that handkerchief was never Fjord’s to begin with.”

“Please, Ronald.”

“Look, I’m sorry.” He ran an exasperated hand through his hair, his face glowing with sweat against the golden sky. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed if we don’t, you know, find what you think we will.”

The irritation pulling the lines of Hermione’s face taut vanished, and her features collapsed momentarily before she yanked back on the mask of a stiff upper lip.

“I apologise if you’re waiting for me to lose hope,” she said coldly, “but there’s plenty of time for that later.”

She whirled around stalked off, setting about with casting the enchantments around them.

“I didn’t… mean that…” Ron watched her leave helplessly. After a moment, he set his jaw and made to follow her.

“Leave it,” Harry said, parking himself beneath the charred corpse of a tree nearby.

“But–”

“You know perfectly well that she needs to cool off before you can talk or she’ll take everything as an offense.”

Ron stared at Harry for a long few seconds, the latter’s face set in shadow, before sighing and joining him beneath the tree, dragging the hat off his head. They watched Hermione as she paused in the distance and held up her wand. She was far out of earshot but Harry could imagine the spells she was casting – he’d heard them so often.

Once it was obvious Ron would not be starting them on their dinner, Harry pulled his pack onto his lap and took out another set of sandwiches. He silently handed some across to Ron, who accepted them with only a small grimace. Any food was better than no food, even if they had been living on stale sandwiches for weeks on end.

“’Mione,” Harry called out and held up the sandwiches when she turned. She gave a nod, returning to finish her job.

Ron took a lacklustre bite of his sandwich, then chuckled a little.

“Corned beef,” he said. “That takes me back.”

They both chewed in silence for another drawn-out moment, the only noise was the chirruping of crickets, a sorrowful birdcall in the far off distance.

“What was it like?” Ron asked suddenly, abruptly, startling Harry from his thoughts.

“What?”

“You know.” Ron stared down at the ground, the tips of his ears looking suspiciously red. “Back in 1940.”

“1944, 1945.”

“Yeah. Then.” He took another bite, passed a cautious sideways glance at Harry when all he received was silence. “You don’t have to tell me if it brings back bad memories. Figured there’s a reason why you guys have never told me anything much.”

“It’s just weird to talk about,” Harry said finally, twisting his scarred fingers around. “It doesn’t seem like something we can talk about. You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning after a real exciting night, or after you did something wild or unexpected? Then when you open your eyes the next morning, you’re back in your bed and it’s quiet and still, as if nothing at all happened in the world? And even if you talk about it with anyone, it feels distant somehow, and you know that from then on it’ll only ever really live on in your memories, you know that it’s been lost in the sands of time? That’s why we don’t speak about it.”

Ron didn’t say anything, considering Harry’s words, when an unbidden, soft smile touched upon Harry’s mouth.

“It wasn’t a walk in the park,” he said, meeting Ron’s gaze straight on, “but it wasn’t all bad memories either.”

“I’m glad,” Ron said quietly.

“What’s this?” asked Hermione, settling across from them, the solemn atmosphere having apparently broken her stony mood.

“Say, Hermione,” Harry said, struck by an idea. “What’s your happiest memory from back in the day?”

“Back in the day?” The meaning behind the question was clear and she huffed. Her face was sweaty and smeared with red earth, her exhaustion palpable. Far from the right mood to play along with this game.

Please, Harry pleaded silently, urging it to show in his eyes. One night is all I ask.

Hermione alternated her eyes from Harry’s sad gaze to Ron’s eager one, an expression he was attempting to hide poorly. With a sigh, she tugged the broad-rimmed hat off her head and stuffed it onto the ground by her side, contemplating the question for a short while.

She would indulge him this once.

“It’s hard to say,” she said finally.

A slow grin spread across Ron’s face, evidently amazed he would be hearing some of their stories at last. He shuffled across to sit closer to her, Harry also moving forward to complete the circlet they made.

“It’s not much,” Hermione began, furrowing her brow as she thought, “but maybe that time you fed Umbridge false information about – what was it again – the Smokescreen Spell, I think? She seemed so devoted to you, too.”

“Umbridge?” Ron choked on a laugh. “You met Umbridge?”

“Yeah, she was in her first year.” Harry scowled at Hermione without any real malice. “I’m surprised. You proceeded to immediately reveal me to her, if I do recall correctly. In fact, every single time I did something to her you reprimanded me like a problem child!”

She shrugged.

“Because you were acting like a problem child. But with hindsight, it’s hilarious.”

“Why would you reprimand him for pranking the toad with the pink bow?” asked Ron incredulously. “Merlin, if I’d been there…”

“You’d have had my back, I know,” said Harry, bumping their shoulders together and they grinned at each other, a semblance of the old days.

Hermione smiled at them softly before turning her face skyward. The cognac-coloured sky, the shimmer of the sinking butter-yellow sun shone out from her eyes.

“But I don’t suppose that’s a happy memory per se.” She drew in a deep breath, her gaze glazed over momentarily, staring into the realm of the past. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “The day leading up to the Christmas party. I asked that you spend it with me, and I’ll forever remain gad for those hours we spent together. I truly believe that was the last time I ever spent with you before you became his.”

Harry swallowed, a shallow noise in his ears.

“I was never his,” he whispered. “Never really.”

Hermione looked down at her hands and did not respond. Something shimmered in the corners of her eyes, but when she looked back up, they were gone.

“How about you, then?” she asked, a valiant attempt to steer the conversation elsewhere. “What’s your happiest memory?”

Harry’s heart stuttered a beat. His happiest memory was from the same day as Hermione’s, but it was not the same one. When she smiled at him gently, Harry knew that she had seen it in his eyes but would not break his silence.

No. Each and every story in the world was told for a different person, a different audience. The memories he shared with Tom Riddle were not tales meant for this gathering.

Forcing a laugh, Harry inclined his head towards Ron.

“I don’t know about happiest, but this one’s half decent. On our first day of classes, Hermione threw down the gauntlet in front of You-Know-Who. Challenged him for his position as top Potions student.”

It wasn’t hard for Hermione to miss his referral to Tom as You-Know-Who – she flickered a glance in his direction as he said the words, but he ignored it. It was easier this way.

Ron missed the brief exchange, his jaw dropping almost comically as he swivelled to stare at Hermione, examining her as if he had never seen her before. To her credit, she barely squirmed beneath the intense gaze despite being clearly flustered.

“You– how– why– absolutely brilliant,” he managed around his unhinged jaw. “Completely bonkers, of course, but brilliant nonetheless…”

“Thank you, Ronald,” she said in a dignified tone.

“Merlin’s floppy ball sack, I’ve got myself a real fighter,” Ron pondered aloud, then went bright red, stammering out, “Did you hear that? I wasn’t meant to say that – not that there’s anything wrong with saying it, it’s completely true, I mean! You’re obviously a fighter, but challenging You-Know-Who takes extra guts and obviously you’re also terribly smart and sometimes I wonder how you put up with a dimwit like me and you’ve also got nice skin and I don’t know why I’m still talking.”

The babbling abruptly cut short, leaving only a mortified silence.

Harry couldn’t bear to remove the hand clapped over his eyes.

“Oh my goodness,” said Hermione, and somehow her voice was blushing as much as her face surely was.

“Kiss and make up,” Harry offered blindly into the dark cover of his palm and fingers.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He heard Hermione standing up, all in a flurry. “There’s no need to make up or… or kiss, Harry, I’m just going to go read over here.”

Only once the clomp of boots on dirt faded out of earshot did Harry un-blindfold himself and face Ron, who looked as if he’d rather eat a Flobberworm then meet Harry’s eye.

“Solid attempt, mate,” Harry said.

“Please don’t talk to me.”

“I’m serious, it was solid.” He commended himself for snigg*ring only a little. “Have you even asked her out yet?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” said Ron. “I’ve definitely nipped in a request for her hand in marriage between trekking through this hellhole and trying to prevent my face from burning clean off.”

Harry’s smirk grew only wider.

“I don’t recall ever saying anything about her hand in marriage.”

Ron jumped to his feet, simultaneously throwing his hat to the ground.

“f*ck!”

Harry climbed to his feet, put his hands on Ron’s shoulders, lowered his eyelashes and purred, “You’ve got nice skin.”

Ron shoved him back but at least he was laughing now.

It was, in Harry’s honest opinion, not a bad way to spend their last night.

***

It was only midday when the handkerchief with the lettering P.R.L. dropped itself on the doorstep of a ramshackle tin shack in the shade of a ghostly gum.

The sun was beating down, a million sharp daggers on Harry’s skin despite the protective layers he wore, and never in his life had he been gladder to see proper shade.

They all paused a distance from the shack, watching the grimy smear of handkerchief from where they stood. The shack did not implode, no one made to exit it. There was a single window visible, curtains shuttering the interior from view. Not a soul stirred. It was impossible to tell whether the place was still inhabited.

The tin walls were coated with rust and grime. There was a rickety rotary clothesline outside, its hinges creaking as it swayed into the lightest of breezes. It had not been used in many years. The garden, if that wasn’t too generous a term to use, was nothing but dry brown grass, choking in weeds.

It was a sorry state.

“At least the handkerchief looks like it belongs there,” remarked Ron after the three of them had stood there for a short while, regarding the rundown state of the property in dismay.

Harry snorted.

“Don’t be rude,” Hermione hissed. “Someone probably lives here. Now, Polyjuice, and Harry, your cloak.”

He was loath to put on another layer in this sweltering heat but did so obediently, vanishing from view as Hermione and Ron took swigs of Polyjuice Potion from their respective flasks, shuddering as they morphed into Poppy Walmsley and Frank Butler, a middle-aged woman with a hooked nose and a curly-haired youth of no more than their own age.

“You let me do the talking,” Hermione ordered Ron in an undertone. “Pretend I’m your mother if asked, and Harry, stay close but do not reveal yourself. In fact, take some of your Polyjuice too, just in case.”

“I don’t need both,” Harry snapped back.

“On your own head,” she quipped back, taking Tales from Beyond out of her pack and tucking it under an arm. “Now follow my lead.”

She was trembling with barely contained anticipation as they advanced upon the door and it almost would have been funny if Harry’s own heart hadn’t been pounding like a drum in his ears, beating this-is-it, this-is-it, this-is-it on repeat.

The door was also tin. It had once been painted green, but the colour had been abraded off in most places. It didn’t match the rest of the tin shack. A mismatched jigsaw piece in an otherwise complete puzzle.

Hermione raised a fist and rapped on the door smartly.

His pulse rushing in his head, Harry strained his ears for any movement on the other side of the door. But to no avail.

Seconds ticked by. His heart rate slowed, his senses no longer overwhelmed.

“There’s no one here,” he murmured, heart leaden, and began to tug the Invisibility Cloak off.

The green tin door squeaked open a fraction.

Hermione made a noise in the back of her throat, Ron flinched, Harry floundered to cover himself up again.

“What do you want?” a deep voice rumbled through the door, held barely ajar.

“Um.” Hermione, thrown off kilter, took a full second to attempt to pull her act together again. When she spoke again, her words still did not match that of a mature-aged woman. “Um, are you Hardwin Fjord, sir?”

Harry cringed. The voice of a schoolgirl.

A pause.

“Who’s asking?” It was a rough sort of voice, husky with age, and it occurred to Harry for a split second that this voice reminded him of someone. He was filled with the strangest sense of je ne sais quoi, and it threatened to take his breath away with the intensity of it.

“My name is Her– Poppy, Mr. Fjord,” Hermione jabbered, the thrill evident in her voice despite her slip-up. “This is my son, uh…”

“Frank,” Ron offered, much cleaner in his act than she was. “It’s an honour to meet you, sir.”

If they could even call this a meeting – Hermione and Ron talking through the crack in the door.

“Hoppy, eh,” said Fjord, the crack widening a smidgeon more. His voice was significantly less belligerent than before, a note of curiosity to be heard.

“Hoppy, sir?” repeated Hermione in bewilderment.

“Your name.” The writer’s tone made it clear he was questioning her sanity. “I believe you stated your name to be Hoppy. Interesting name.”

Ron’s shoulders were trembling stiffly, as if he was withholding a sneeze.

“Oh yes, Hoppy,” said Hermione faintly. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Sounds more as though it belongs to a house-elf.”

Those words immediately grounded Hermione and her back straightened, her voice becoming iron.

“House-elves are misunderstood creatures deserving of so much more than the cards they have been dealt,” she blazoned, “and there is no dishonour in bearing the name of one.”

“Hm, right,” said Fjord, a smirk evident in his voice, and this time he opened the door entirely. His expression was one of a cat who had got the cream. “Two birds with one stone there – you’re wizarding folk and you’re not on the Dark side. So what exactly do you want from me?”

Hardwin Fjord must have been at least seventy years old. Beneath the lines of age and the drooping skin were hints of past beauty, and while his shoulder-length hair was mostly a grisly grey, there were still threads of auburn shot through.

He was dressed luxuriously in fluttery navy blue robes and he held his willowy form with grace. He looked extraordinarily like royalty for a person living in squalor, but upon glimpsing the inside of the shack over his shoulder, Harry immediately understood that the exterior of the house served as nothing more than the illusion of poverty.

This was a mansion in disguise. A long, marbled corridor sat behind the old writer, well-lit with golden candles mounted on the walls. A royal-blue Persian rug with tassels stretched down the length of the corridor, and a cool breeze swept outwards, touching Harry’s face, damp with sweat.

“We only wish to ask you a few questions, Mr. Fjord, if you’re open to that,” said Hermione, and she held up Tales from Beyond.

Fjord stared at the cover for a very long moment. The hint of amusem*nt he had worn on his face moments ago slid off and his black, black eyes shuttered. A chord struck in Harry’s heart, a chord that whispered the promise of ‘this is a man you once knew’.

“I never should have written that book,” Fjord said, something akin to grief creeping into his voice. “It has brought nothing but misfortune to my doorstep.”

“But… it’s wonderful.” Hermione lowered the book, her head co*cked questioningly to the side. “It’s critically acclaimed, it’s on its way to becoming a household name among the greats like A History of Magic and–”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Fjord’s voice trembled with emotion, he braced himself against the doorframe to support his weight. “You couldn’t understand, you’re far too young to have seen enough of the world.”

“But I’m fifty-six,” said Hermione, not in the least bit convincing.

Fjord shook his head but there was no anger drawn into the lines of his face when he said, “Don’t take me as a fool. I am capable of recognizing a person uncomfortable in the skin granted to them by Polyjuice Potion. Now, I would ask you how you found me all the way from England, but I’d rather you leave me in peace.”

It was a dismissal if ever Harry had heard one.

“Please, we just want to know–”

“We’re not leaving until you–”

Hermione and Ron spoke rapidly in unison, all too aware that the elusive Hardwin Fjord was slipping through their fingers like smoke. But the more they tried to grab hold, the faster he slipped away, and it felt as though Harry’s lungs were filling with water.

“I am tired of entertaining you,” he said, retreating into his lavish home and starting to close the door once more. “Kindly remove yourselves from my property.”

“Please,” Hermione begged.

Taken aback by her plea, Fjord’s gaze flickered back up.

When they did, they seemed to latch onto Harry’s for a minute moment in time, green into black and black into green, eyes as dark as sin.

His lungs recoiled, no longer drowning in water, and it was as though he was drifting, weightless, the chords in his heart strumming the immortal words ‘at last’.

As if in a dream, Harry’s fingers loosened around the Invisibility Cloak, releasing it, letting it slip and slide like silk, pooling in a glistening pond around his feet.

Fjord was frozen in the doorway, gaze locked onto Harry’s, his face was a mask of ice.

Hermione let loose a horrified squeak. Ron moved as if to leap in front of Harry, but Harry was already gliding past them and towards the wide-open doorway, that deliciously cool breeze from inside washing over him and drawing him a few steps closer home.

He flicked his wand at the ground idly, lazily, trapped in this slow-moving world. The handkerchief that had been their guide leapt to attention and, without breaking eye contact, Harry directed it to hover above their heads. The embroidered letters P.R.L. hung above them, an unapologetic banner of the past.

The old man before him drew in a shaky breath, his eyes glossy and bright.

“Hardwin?” he asked, and his voice broke halfway through.

Gently, as if handling finely spun ice, Harry reached out a single hand to cradle his dear friend’s cheek.

“Peregrine,” he said.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

“ Peregrine –?” Hermione murmured aloud, disbelief colouring her voice. “As in Peregrine Lestrange ?”

The man in question brought his hand up to cover Harry’s against his cheek, tears unravelling down his face like finely spun silk. The skin felt like parchment beneath Harry’s palm.

“You haven’t aged a day,” the once-Slytherin whispered, his eyes devouring every inch of Harry’s features.

“I wish I could say the same to you,” Harry whispered back, “but you’ve got old.”

Peregrine choked on a laugh, releasing Harry’s hand and embracing him instead. His body was warm and solid, real. An actual living person from Harry and Hermione’s impossible adventure. If ever Harry had doubted his own sanity, this was the nail in the coffin proving that none of it had been a dream after all.

The handkerchief trembled above them for a split second, as though exhaling for the first time in many years, then collapsed upon the ground, forgotten once more.

“Can someone please explain to me what the bloody hell is going on here?” said Ron, more annoyed than anything.

Harry pulled away from Peregrine reluctantly but did not release his sleeve. An unwelcome image of a child lost in a store and finally reunited with his mother cropped up in his mind’s eye. Waving it away, Harry glanced in Ron’s direction. He was standing there with his arms crossed and an expression of great suspicion scrawled across his borrowed face.

“Ron,” Harry said, “this is one of my old friends, Peregrine Lestrange.”

Ron’s jaw went slack momentarily before he recovered himself.

“ Lestrange ,” he muttered, sliding a weary hand down the side of his face. “Merlin, I’m never going to get over the fact that you actually became a snake.”

“Is there an issue with that?” asked Peregrine, his face hard. Suddenly his younger self was shining through and Harry had no idea how he hadn’t recognized him earlier. “Harry was amongst the best of us.”

“Yeah?” Ron countered. “Considering how you lot rank each other, that’s not saying much. No offence, mate,” he added to Harry, who shrugged.

“Boys, boys, you’re both pretty,” said Hermione irritably. “But right now there are more pressing matters to address.”

“Might I ask whether your name is actually Hoppy?” asked Peregrine, though not without one last disdainful sniff in Ron’s direction.

Hermione coloured.

“It’s not actually Hoppy, it’s Poppy,” she said, before hurriedly tacking on at the end, “And it’s not really Poppy either, it’s Hermione. I doubt you’d remember me, but I’m Harry’s cousin– well, not really his cousin but I was pretending to be when we met… you may recall the whole fiasco that ensued when this was uncovered, it was an awful mess–”

Peregrine’s tired face immediately brightened. It was astounding how much younger he looked in that moment. A veil seemed to lift from Harry’s eyes. It was as though he was gazing upon that seventeen-year-old boy from so long ago, and always had been.

“But how could I ever forget you, my dear?” Peregrine was saying. Had these exact words been spoken during their school days together, there was no doubt Harry would have interpreted it as nothing short of flirtatious. Now it seemed like a fond grandfatherly statement. This realisation rattled Harry to his core. His grip on Peregrine’s sleeve tightened almost imperceptibly, but Peregrine seemed to notice it at last. He glanced down at Harry’s hand, forming a cross-bridge between them, and smiled softly but said nothing.

“Well, it has been a while,” countered Hermione politely, taking no notice of the silent exchange between Harry and Peregrine. Her tone of voice was of someone speaking to an old acquaintance they’d never cared for much.

“I must ask when will that hideous Polyjuice be wearing off, I’ve rather missed your actual face,” he said, and this time there was a distinctly less grandfatherly purr in his voice.

Hermione started to puff up indignantly. Ron made a sputtering noise like a balloon letting out air.

“ Please don’t tell me you two fancied each other,” he demanded.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ronald!” snapped Hermione, in unison with Peregrine saying, “Unfortunately, lovely Hermione was too busy making enemies with the Dark Lord.”

If Harry’s mood had lightened even the slightest amount at the discovery of Peregrine Lestrange, it rapidly deflated at the mention of the name. He glanced skyward, and Hermione and Ron followed suite.

“Speaking of your Dark Lord,” said Hermione, levelling her gaze upon Peregrine as she spoke, “would you care to explain why you’re not at least a little shocked at the sight of us, since last you saw of us was when we died by his hand?”

Peregrine’s face stilled, sweeping clear of emotion.

“Perhaps you should come inside,” he said, stepping to the side of the doorway into his house. “I never like to remain out in the open for too long. Walls have ears. Trees have ears. Handkerchiefs have ears, for all we know. Ah, yes, that would be a smart little trick, wouldn’t it, Riddle?”

He threw the handkerchief on the ground a dirty look.

“I can assure you, that handkerchief is not bugged,” said Hermione patiently. “We’ve been travelling with it for weeks. If it was, You-Know-Who would have come after us by now.”

“Not if he’s been waiting to kill two birds with one stone,” Peregrine muttered, and it was his turn to cast wary eyes to the sky. “Please come away from that awful sun, perhaps we can speak over tea inside.”

“‘Awful sun’?” Harry repeated, finally relinquishing his grip on him and stepping across the threshold. Before he could place a single foot on the magnificent Persian rug in the corridor, Peregrine had pointed his wand at Harry’s shoes, caked with red dirt, saying, “ Scourgify !”

“Oh, thanks,” he said, listening as Hermione and Ron courteously did the same to their own shoes before following Harry in. “Anyway, if you hate the sun so much, why live here?”

“Only because Riddle hates it more than me,” Peregrine said. “My choice of real estate makes it far less likely he’ll choose to drop in for a surprise visit.”

Peregrine stepped back into the doorway and pointed his wand skyward, murmuring under his breath, “ Protego horribilis .”

Something translucent pulsed from the tip of his wand, like life-blood pounding from a broken artery. It continued until it surrounded the entire property, a large, clear dome. Harry could only be sure that it was there because of the slight shimmer it projected when the sun bounced off it just so. Peregrine proceed to wave the door closed and muttering a few spells, knocking the door lightly with his wand before starting down the corridor, his robes fluttering like blue wings behind him.

“Any tea requests?” he called back to them as he glided into a side room off the corridor.

“Ah, no,” Harry replied, lingering in the corridor with his two travelling companions. “Anything’s fine, Peregrine. We’ll be along in a moment.”

“Well, I have a lovely Earl Grey I purchased a little while ago, this may be the occasion to crack it open…”

“Thanks, that sounds great.”

Hermione beckoned Harry towards her and Ron furiously and waited for the kettle to start rumbling. As soon as it did, Ron hissed, “He’s absolutely bonkers! Even more than Hermione!”

“What do you mean?” said Harry, stung, in unison with Hermione’s, “Excuse me?”

“It’s like Moody all over again,” Ron continued in a low voice, then the corner of his mouth twitched. “Well, fake Moody. Crouch Junior. Mr Nutcase. The whole ‘constant vigilance’ rubbish.”

“Not entirely rubbish, Ronald,” said Hermione.

“ He thinks the handkerchief has ears ,” Ron retorted.

“I think that was a joke,” Harry interjected.

Ron shook his head vehemently, jabbing a finger towards the door. “I don’t reckon so. He went and cast the strongest shield charm known to wizard kind!”

“Oh!” said Hermione, forgetting to keep her volume down. “Is that what that was, I was thinking it didn’t sound familiar to anything I’d heard before.”

Harry and Ron gestured for her to lower the volume again, and she scowled.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s paranoid or not, those ones’ll be the survivors of this world,” Harry said.

“This isn’t why I wanted to talk to you two.” Hermione threw a backwards glance towards where they could hear the kettle settling down and Peregrine preparing their tea. “What I want to know is why he’s behaving as if it’s perfectly normal for an old friend who died fifty years ago to turn up on his doorstep. And why he’s hiding from You-Know-Who out here. They were relatively good mates last we saw.”

“Key word – relatively,” he said, exchanging a dark glance with her. “Either way, we’re clearly missing a lot more information than we previously thought.”

Peregrine poked his head out into the corridor. “The tea will be cold if you lot continue to plot out here for much longer.”

Muttering under her breath, her brow furrowed, Hermione followed Peregrine into the side-room. Ron raised his eyebrows at Harry and sauntered past him in perfect imitation of Peregrine’s self-assured walk.

“Come along, old chap,” he said mockingly. “All the villains are plotting over lukewarm tea. Didn’t you get the memo?”

***

Tea was an awkward affair. Harry’s mind, however, was so preoccupied staggering through a maze of half-formed thoughts of ‘Peregrine’ and ‘why’ and ‘how’ that he may as well have been on an entirely different planet. When one is on a different planet they tend not to be affected by the bubble of awkward silence within the small kitchen of a house in the middle of the Australian outback. For Peregrine, awkwardness seemed to slide off him like water off a duck’s back. He reclined in his chair luxuriously, cradling his cup of Earl Grey and milk, all the while watching Harry like a fond uncle might watch his favourite nephew. He showed no inclination of noticing the awkward silence nor initiating conversation.

To reword it, tea was an awkward affair – at least for Ron and Hermione (both had been restored to their everyday body a couple of minutes prior).

Ron’s eyes were continuously darting between Harry and Peregrine as if he were watching a Quaffle being tossed back and forth in a fast-moving Quidditch match, despite no exchange occurring. He kept missing his mouth with his teacup. Hermione’s eyes were glued upon Peregrine, tracing his face as if trying to make sense of a particularly enigmatic puzzle.

The silence was at last broken when Ron misjudged where his mouth was entirely and sloshed half a cup of tea down his front.

“Oh, bollocks,” he said, leaping to his feet and searching for a napkin. Peregrine lazily flicked his wand and a towel materialised in thin area, practically throwing itself over Ron’s head in an attempt to mop the spilled tea up. It was entirely off target and Harry wondered whether Peregrine had done this on purpose. Neither he nor Ron had exactly taken a shine to each other.

“ Geroff me !” came a muffled shout from within the towel, which had managed to wrap itself into a creative turban around Ron’s face while he clawed at its death grip.

A full smirk had painted itself across Peregrine’s face.

Hermione clicked her tongue impatiently.

Harry sighed and passed Peregrine a look which was partly amused, partly annoyed. Clearly, he had not grown out of certain habits. Catching Harry’s eye, Peregrine bit back the smirk and pointed his wand at the rampant towel. It unravelled itself, revealing Ron’s reddened face.

“Very sorry about that,” said Peregrine smoothly, giving his hand a careless wave. “Seemed to take on a mind of its own.”

The towel wrung itself out into the neighbouring sink and returned to meekly rubbing Ron dry despite his protests.

“No, that’s okay, I can– really, I’m able to– will you just stop it already !” he finally snapped, losing his temper, and the towel flopped to the ground sadly.

Peregrine raised his eyebrows at Ron, a picturesque image of astonishment at the young’uns rudeness.

Flushing slightly, Ron muttered, “Thanks, but I’ve got it under control.”

Harry sighed again. It seemed he was full of sighs today. Something in the back of his head was observing what a perfect representation of the Gryffindor-Slytherin relationship Ron and Peregrine were, and wondered whether he had been so easily manipulated in the past. Almost definitely, he thought. He would have just been too blind to see their underhanded tactics.

“As enjoyable as this tea party has been,” interrupted Hermione, leaning forward in her seat and narrowing her eyes at Peregrine, “I think it’s about time we got some answers.”

The atmosphere immediately sobered. Ron found his way back to his seat, and three sets of eyes found the man who held the key to all their answers.

Peregrine set his teacup on the table in front of him and reclined back into his chair, rubbing his chin between forefinger and thumb.

“So you want to know about the book,” he said.

“The book can wait a wee moment,” said Hermione, and she was leaning forwards so far that at this point she was practically off her chair. “I want to know why You-Know-Who can’t remember Harry.”

The temperature in the room plummeted to Arctic levels.

“What? That can’t be right.” Peregrine stood from his chair, sweeping his hair back from his face. He met Harry’s eyes, and his own were deeply troubled. “Last I saw of him, he was right as rain.”

“Right as rain,” repeated Hermione, disbelieving.

“Right as a thunderstorm, then,” Peregrine elaborated, appearing mildly annoyed.

“Peregrine,” interjected Harry, a chill in his tone. “When exactly was the last time you saw him?”

Peregrine eyes swept down to his feet, apparently finding something extremely interesting on the floorboards, though his restless hands gave him away. In his pockets, out of his pockets, through his hair, scratching his chin.

Harry passed a sideways glance to Hermione, only to find her already directing a hard gaze towards him, her lips pulled taut. Words that needn’t be spoken aloud darted between them for a split second, then Harry turned back to Peregrine, steeling himself.

“Peregrine,” he said, and speaking gently it wasn’t so hard after all. “Tell me.”

Peregrine swallowed. The loosened skin did little to disguise the elegantly long column of his throat, the laryngeal prominence on display. It remained one of the showiest swallows Harry had ever seen.

“You and I last saw him,” he said, “on the very same night.”

For a very long moment silence held them captive, its wicked talons caging around their throats. Then Harry rocked forward in his chair, steepling his fingers together.

“So,” he said, aiming for a casual tone but his voice broke on the word. He winced slightly and persisted. “That night?”

Peregrine gave a miniscule jerk of his head, mouth pinched.

“Well.” Harry sucked on his teeth noisily and bounced one of his knees a few times, perhaps an unconscious manoeuvre to mask the ugly emotions rearing up within his chest and trying to claw their way out between his ribcage. “We’re all ears for your riveting tale.”

“I… I don’t know,” said Peregrine quietly, his gaze yet to leave the ground. “I’m not sure it’s a tale you’d fancy listening to. I’m afraid you’d be rather disappointed in me, Hardwin.”

Harry shook his head slowly, his pulse ticking palpably below the angle of his jaw. From the corner of his eye, he could sense Ron staring at him, perhaps waiting for the time bomb to finally detonate.

Briefly considering his options (diving headfirst out the nearest window wasn’t one of them), Harry stood and carefully sidled up to Peregrine, the way one wild creature might approach another. If he was to ever be grateful for standing a handful of inches shorter than his old friend, now was the time because it made it so much simpler a task to catch his eye. It seemed a lifetime ago that he had once compared Peregrine’s eyes to a shark’s – flat, black, cold. How mistaken he had been, now that he could see the love, the shame brimming in those dark irises.

Harry put his arm around Peregrine’s shoulders and led him back to his chair. Once he was seated, albeit stiffly, Harry dropped into a crouch before him and clasped his hands in his own.

“Don’t be silly,” he said softly. “I doubt I could be disappointed in you. It’s because of you that I’m able to stand here today.”

“You give me too much credit,” Peregrine whispered back, his fingers tightening on Harry’s own. “I know who you are, Harry Potter. I know that you stand your ground against the Dark Lord. I know of your bravery. I’ve witnessed it firsthand. And I’m ashamed of what a coward I am in comparison.”

The question shone out from Harry’s eyes.

“I fled that night.” Peregrine’s face was a white as a ghost, his gaze grew distant as he tumbled back into the memory of long ago. “I didn’t have the courage to face him, as you had done. I ran, and some nights I lay awake and wonder what if .”

“ What if you’d stayed behind? What if you’d fought him?” Harry shrugged, smiling bitterly through his teeth. “There’s little point pondering all the ‘what ifs’ in the world. That’s a sure way to whittle away a lifetime. I thought you’d’ve know that by now.”

Peregrine gave a short, sharp laugh.

“I’m afraid the face doesn’t reflect the age beneath. Perhaps I’ve already ‘whittled away’ my life, as you put it. Perhaps all my daydreaming means I never really grew up.” His lip curled upwards slightly, the weakest of sneers. “Now look at me. Look at what I’ve amounted for. The game will be over soon, for me, and I never caught the Snitch.”

“Not your job to catch the Snitch,” countered Harry, resting his chin upon Peregrine’s knee and looking down at their intertwined fingers. “I’m here, so you can stop fretting now. Just enjoy the view while it lasts.”

Peregrine heaved a deep sigh, but it was more exhale, more release than anything.

“With your blessings, I’ll do just that,” he murmured, and his eyes fluttered shut for a moment. When they snapped back open, they were clear once more. He looked first at Harry, then Hermione, then Ron. “Now, my memory’s not what it once was, but I’m sure I can conjure up at least a decent recount of that inexplicable night fifty-three years ago…”

***

Bound by ropes upon the ground, humiliated before the eyes of his closest followers, betrayed by the one he wanted to trust but never could. It was not a good night for Tom Riddle.

Peregrine shifted in the doorway at the top of North Tower, concealed by shadows. When Riddle had threatened torture earlier, it was clear in his eyes that he meant it.

Torture, or worse.

Throughout the entirety of Harry and Riddle’s duel, this was the only truth clear to Peregrine. Harry would lose, he thought, and he himself would meet some terrible fate. Riddle would not be toppled from his throne; his reign was absolute. No other outcome was possible.

The duel passed before his eyes unnoticed. Peregrine was too preoccupied within himself. A candid audience would put this down as him being self-absorbed, selfish ( never mind your friend who may be duelling to the death, let’s just focus on our own trivial problems ). A kinder one might excuse it as simply fear ( it’s part of the human condition, cut the boy some slack ).

At the time, Peregrine would vehemently agree with the latter of the two. Indeed, his mind was swarming with terror as if a cloud of Billywigs had entered through one ear and never exited through the other. Ricocheting around within his skull, the ceaseless droning made focus on anything at all impossible.

Later, he would remember his fear in the past. He had been fearful for his friends all too many times, but that had never prevented him from stepping in, speaking up, forming some kind of intervention. Perhaps it was different this time. Perhaps it was because it was his own hide on the line.

At some point in time, Peregrine had glanced sideways at Francis, at Cassius, but neither acknowledged him. Their eyes were drawn to the duel, reflecting the whirlwind of bright lights and colours. Silent save the snapping sound of hexes and jinxes rebounding off shield charms and walls. A fascinating but deadly sight. It was surely magnetic to them in the same way an insect is attracted to the pretty flower before it is snapped up in the carnivorous plant’s jaws.

Francis and Cassius were too far ensnared by the honeypot Riddle promised them. In his heart of hearts, Peregrine knew that neither would stand up in his defence. He had seen their horrified, their disgusted faces when his betrayal had been revealed. They were no longer brothers. Riddle had lifted his wing and neither had followed Peregrine out.

But now there was Harry, standing on the opposite side of the field. He offered no wing to shelter Peregrine beneath, but there was a space to his left, mirror to Hermione Delacour’s place, where they could stand as equals. Yet still he cowered and never crossed the field on his own.

Perhaps if he had, then he may have been dubbed as courageous. But no, instead he lurked upon the threshold, too fearful to take the fall.

Now Harry’s battle was fought and won.

There would be no forgiveness for the cowards.

Harry stood over Riddle, his wand unwavering, his eyes clear and hard.

“Stop this now, Tom,” he said, and despite the harsh lines of his face his voice was soft, little more than a caress. “No more fighting. You lost, fair and square, so it’s time to back down.”

Cassius slipped forwards as Riddle rose to his feet, radiating such as terrible energy that Peregrine didn’t understand how Cassius could stand to be in such close proximity.

“We should go,” he murmured, without so much as a backwards glance at the two figures conversing in quiet tones across from them.

His face pinched and pale, Riddle turned and started towards the doorway. His gaze met Peregrine’s and it’s all my fault, it’s all my fault really.

The sight of Peregrine seemed to reignite a flame in Riddle’s belly. His eyes widened, his pupils blew wide – there was only the thinnest ring of iris visible. For a split second he stood motionless, he may have been a statue if it weren’t for the mad light pulsing in his eyes. Neither Cassius nor Francis noticed this moment when the cards flipped. They were already halfway out the door.

Riddle was slowly raising his wand again. Trapped like a rabbit in headlights, Peregrine braced his back against the wall his stood against and turned his face away. That hatred would not be the last thing he saw on this earth…

The curse was not intended for him.

Perhaps if he had left then and there with Cassius and Francis, perhaps if he had fled then everything would have been different. He never would have seen Hermione Delacour blink out of existence, as if they were all a bad dream and she was finally waking up. He never would have seen the bravest wizard he knew begging for death.

Harry Delacour’s final act in life was outfoxing Tom Riddle. Perhaps that was why Riddle coveted him so. But ‘covet’ was not strong enough a word for the sight that Peregrine beheld.

People covet life, Peregrine thought as he backed himself away from the terribly bloody and tender scene playing out before him. But does life covet energy, or water? No, it simply cannot exist without. Maybe, on this night, he had lost one thing but found another. Maybe he had finally gained an understanding of the enigma who was their schoolyard king.

Peregrine hovered on the top step of North Tower, his presence well and truly forgotten, but for how long? In that moment, Riddle was cradling Harry in his arms, rocking back and forth and pleading him to stay. Despite everything, Peregrine saw past the elaborate costumes and masks, the props and titles of this stage play they had all been a part of since the moment they stepped onto the Hogwarts Express almost seven years ago.

Tom Riddle wasn’t a monster, he was just a cold-hearted leader. He wasn’t a cold-hearted leader, he was just a lonely prodigy. He wasn’t a lonely prodigy, he was just a boy.

Peregrine inclined his head towards Riddle, just slightly, a final farewell. Then he pressed a hand against his heart before extending it to the boy who was dying at the top of this tower, amongst the stars.

“Hardwin,” he whispered, then turned and fled down the winding staircase. He tripped over his own feet occasionally but always managed to right himself before he took the plummet, one hand against the wall as he ran. His palm burned from the rough friction but he did not stop. There was too much to do and so little time.

Hogwarts castle was sleeping at this time of night. Despite the thundering of his feet down corridors, his loud, ragged breathing and his heart which pounded like a drum to his ears, he encountered nobody. Not a soul stirred.

He had not yet reached the Slytherin common room when he felt it and had to pause to gasp in a breath of air, dragging as much oxygen back into his lungs as possible lest he pass out.

It was an inexplicable sensation that he could almost taste in the still night air, the silence in the walls, the wink in the sky as some distant star at long last exhausted the last of its fuel and could be seen no more.

It was in this moment that Harry fell away from this world.

Peregrine pushed onwards, clacking his teeth together into a hard grimace. The clock was ticking, he couldn’t risk losing any time to grief.

Upon arrival in the dungeons, he said, “ Ashwinder ,” and entered the common room. It never occurred to him what he would do if he stumbled upon any of Riddle’s inner circle. All that was clear to him was that he was no longer a part of it and he had to escape this ring of terror before it was too late. It was the least he could do to honour Harry, who was no longer with them.

Cassius nor Francis were there. It didn’t surprise Peregrine. This setting – with the soft carpets and the armchairs and the tables strewn with half-finished assignments – was all too mundane a place to return to after all that they had witnessed.

All others in the house had retired for the night. It was quiet and devoid of life. The ceiling and the walls glowed a soft green, reminiscent of the curse Riddle had last cast. Peregrine moved straight to the seventh-year boys’ dormitory and took the stairs two at a time.

The room was like a tomb. It was dark and the bed hangings were all drawn shut despite the absence of a body to shield from view. The shadows twisted in the corners of the room, forming figures that weren’t truly there, and Peregrine hurriedly dragged his wand through the air, watching as all his belongings hopped across the room, skidding across surface tops and jumbling into his open trunk. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t a neat job.

He snapped the clasps shut on the trunk and tapped it with his wand. It rose into the air and followed him obediently out the door and back into the common room, where he halted for a split second to take in his surroundings, wanting to memorise it all as best as he could. The sheen of the dragon-hide cover of his favourite armchair. The chip on the corner of the black marble-top side table he and Francis had accidentally left during second-year.

He would never return.

Angrily scrubbing at his eyes and cursing his traitorous tear ducts, he pushed open the common room door and stepped back into the chilly corridor. The door slid shut behind his levitating trunk, shutting in the residual warmth of the common room. His bones were immediately leeched cold. Ducking his head, Peregrine began his final journey to the front entrance of Hogwarts.

He should have known his luck wouldn’t hold the entire way.

It was as he moved across the entrance hall, the front doors within sight, that a dark figure cut across his path, blocking his pathway out of the castle.

His breath catching in his throat, Peregrine plunged his hand into his robes and emerged with his wand, his arm unsteady as he directed it towards the person cloaked in shadows. They were no more than a dark smear to his clouded vision.

“Please calm yourself, Mr. Lestrange,” the figure said benignly, raising his hands to show that he was no threat.

Peregrine let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding but didn’t lower his wand. His quickly wiped his eyes with the back of his other hand and said in as haughty a tone as he could manage, “Fancy seeing you here, Professor Dumbledore.”

“I could say the same to you, my boy. What are you doing out at such a late hour?” He was smiling, just a little, perhaps to soften the confrontation. Peregrine could hear it in his voice and was suddenly mad, madder than he’d been in a long time.

“I am not obliged to answer your questions,” he said harshly, taking a few more steps forward. “I’m no longer a student at Hogwarts. I quit.”

“I see,” said Dumbledore. He had not moved from his position and his voice was serene. “If that is what you must do, then I can take no action to prevent it. You are of age, after all.”

He wanted Dumbledore to also get angry, to raise his voice. He wanted any sort of justification to channel his fury through to the grandfatherly wizard that Riddle hated so much. Anything but this calm acceptance when his own world was crumbling, dragged out to sea like a broken sandcastle with the current.

He took another step forward, another step closer to the doorway that Dumbledore had centred himself within.

"You’re blocking my way,” he said. He wanted to shout at the man to move, but he felt sure there was a limit to Dumbledore’s affability and didn’t fancy being cursed to high heavens before he even managed to step outside.

“I apologise.” It didn’t sound genuine, and now Dumbledore moved into the light, revealing his ridiculous robes of banana-yellow with purple suns dancing along the hemlines. The pathway opened wide again, and Peregrine set his jaw to continue his journey.

But Dumbledore wasn’t yet done.

“Before you leave,” he said softly, “might I ask you what occurred tonight?”

Caught off kilter, Peregrine glanced at Dumbledore in a split-second moment of surprise. Their eyes met in that moment, and Dumbledore’s piercing blue gaze gave him the sensation of being read like a particularly simple book.

Then the moment passed and Peregrine wasn’t entirely sure whether he had imagined it. He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes, shoving himself forwards again.

“Nothing,” he spat out, the same way a boxer in a fistfight might spit out a bloody tooth knocked loose.

Dumbledore sighed wearily and reached out a hand. Peregrine tensed, preparing to knock it away if it was intended to hold him back, but instead the hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed.

The weight was warm and real and drained him of the venom that had chased through his veins so rapidly.

“I’m sorry,” the deputy headmaster murmured, as if he knew anything which had happened.

Peregrine’s muscles slackened and he whispered, “So am I.”

He shook the hand free from his shoulder, breaking the connection, and flicked his wand at the front doors. They creaked wide open, slow and heavy, and as he stepped across the threshold, Dumbledore called after him one last time.

“Oh, Mr. Lestrange?”

Peregrine turned his head in acknowledgement.

“I almost forgot to mention, the Tempus Charm may prove to be a fascinating point of research, should you choose to delve down that path.” Dumbledore’s eyes shone bright as he spoke. “Goodnight and good luck to you.”

He turned on his heel and waved his wand in the air. The doors closed again with a resounding boom that echoed through the night.

Peregrine stood frozen for a heartbeat, his face like stone but cogs and gears whirling and creaking to life beneath the surface. The Tempus Charm was not one he was familiar with, and why should Dumbledore choose to leave him with this prompt? There was no love lost between the two of them, and Dumbledore was notorious for his nonsensical offhand comments. It didn’t matter. Peregrine had larger issues to attend to.

Either way, as Peregrine strode across the courtyard he made sure to file away the exchange in his head for a later date. It was time to go off the grid.

***

“I headed to Hogsmeade, Apparated to Diagon Alley,” said Peregrine, turning his head to gaze out the window. “Took as much out of my parents’ Gringotts vault as I dared and left the country. Changed my name.”

“To Hardwin Fjord,” Harry put in, and smirked. “It’s honestly ridiculous.”

Peregrine smiled at him fondly.

“Changed it many times,” he said. “That one was one of my most recent incarnations.”

Hermione shushed them and held up a finger.

“Let’s just get this straight,” she said. “Dumbledore told you about the Tempus Charm ever since you’ve been studying it, unpicking it and putting it back together?”

“It’s a bit of a stretch to say that he told me about,” Peregrine said, a little irritably, pouring himself another cup of tea. “I wouldn’t give him that much credit, he just gave me the name and sent me on my way. I’m the one who did all the heavy lifting. It’s too bad the Dark Lord took such an interest in my research after I had it published. Do you know how many times I’ve had to change locations because of it?”

Ron snorted.

“What d’you expect?” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “Some bloke invents proper time travel and shouts it to the world, why wouldn’t the king of domination and dictatorship try catch you? He’d probably want to put you in a pretty cage in an exhibition of all his favourite toys, and when you’re not on display he’d pick your brain to bits.”

“Ron,” Harry cautioned. Clearly, he had not yet forgiven Peregrine for the towel face-turban.

“I’m just saying.” Ron shrugged, but there was the trace of a smirk on his face. “You’d be the sunflower in the family window box.”

Peregrine glared at him. It was an intimidating glower, clearly one which had taken years to master.

“Well, it was a little silly of you to publish it,” Harry reasoned, and Peregrine scoffed.

“Why should all my work go ignored?” he demanded. “It was ground-breaking, if I do say so myself. Besides, all readers dubbed it a work of fiction. None of the methods were applicable to a real-life setting. Not a single spell worked.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Hermione loudly. “I want to know why none of it worked. I followed it step-by-step, precisely as you’d written it all down, but no magical, glowing gold portals spraying unicorns and rainbows out of its arse appeared!”

Harry cringed. Ron’s mouth dropped open.

“Unicorns and rainbows out of its arse?” he repeated, a little indignantly.

“That’s a sight I would love to see,” said Peregrine, raising an eyebrow. “If you’re ever successful with that, my dear, please be sure to let me know.”

“That is not my point!” Hermione all but shrieked. “What is wrong with your book? Did you forget to put something in? Is there a mistranslation somewhere?”

Harry lifted a hand to calm her, but she ignored him, her eyes only for Peregrine.

He ran a weary hand through his hair and said, “Well, I never expected it to work for anyone. I switched out all the correct spells and replaced them with fakes.”

There was a long, deep silence. The silence before two armies in a battle meet in the middle of the playing field.

Hermione’s voice was deathly quiet when she said, “And why would you do that?”

Peregrine huffed out a breath, as though she were being unreasonably angry.

“Because we can’t have everyone nipping back in time for a cup of tea when they feel like it.”

“Then why,” said Hermione, rising to her feet and the room grew darker, “did you publish anything at all?”

“It took me nearly half a century to put all the pieces together!” Peregrine massaged his temples, his face screwed up. “Wouldn’t you want a little recognition for that?”

“Not if it means raising the hopes of people who have nothing left but dreams,” said Harry softly.

There was another extended silence, punctured only by Hermione pouncing across the room onto her backpack and rifling through the contents feverishly. Peregrine’s head was inclined slightly, reading Harry’s facial expression like a curious bird.

“I’ve disappointed you again,” he observed, his tone almost detached.

“You didn’t disappoint me when I was duelling Tom,” said Harry. “I didn’t expect or want you to step in. That was my fight, and my fight alone. I won’t deny that I’m disappointed now.”

Peregrine nodded slowly, understandingly, his face suddenly very tired again.

“I see,” he said.

“I’m not disappointed in you, per se,” Harry said hollowly, ignoring Ron rushing over to help Hermione, who had finally pulled out her wand to perform a summoning charm. “I’m just disappointed. If time travel isn’t possible after all, well, the three of us are back to square one.”

A light reignited in Peregrine’s eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione beat him to it, thrusting Tales from Beyond into the air and saying, “Are we all agreed that this book is a pile of codswallop, then?”

“That’s a little harsh,” began Peregrine, but that was all the affirmation she needed to hear.

She threw the book away (Ron barely managed to catch it) and began pacing.

“Just excellent,” she muttered, scrubbing a hand through her bushy hair and making it stand up even more than it already was. “Can’t believe we’ve wasted this much time… should have known it was too good to be true… great big idiot… totally naïve of me…”

She would occasionally throw a dirty look at Peregrine, who finally interrupted her tirade by raising a hand.

“You should have said a little earlier that you were looking to do a little time-hopping,” he said sombrely, but there was a twinkle in his eye again.

They all stared at him. Harry’s heart tap-danced in his chest, hardly daring to believe.

“Can you–” he began, but then the whole room vibrated. His eyes shot down to the shallow pool of tea he had not yet drunk in his cup. There were ripples spreading across the clear, amber liquid. Then the room shuddered, as if something heavy had knocked into the side of it. The whole house did, in fact – he could hear picture frames in the corridor fall from their perches and shatter on the ground, and his teacup skittered off the tabletop and shattered on the ground.

He didn’t bother repairing it, instead shooting to his feet, his wand in his hand in an instant.

“What’s going on?” he asked loudly.

The other three were also on their feet, Peregrine bracing himself against the wall. The spark Harry had seen in his eyes a moment ago had been extinguished again. His gaze was flat as he met Harry’s.

“They’re here,” he said.

“ Who is?” Harry demanded, and the house rocked again, forcing him to space his feet apart to gain greater balance.

“It’s them, Harry!” yelled Ron from his place over by the window, hanging onto the window frame, his red hair glowing like a halo in the sunlight. “But how the f*ck did they find us?”

Harry skidded over to meet him by the window and blinked against the blinding sunlight filtering it.

Everything about the scene before his eyes was so wrong that it might have been funny if the circ*mstances were different. As it was, there were five figures cloaked in black, dancing around the dusty red dirt in the sweltering heat, aiming curses at the protective shell Peregrine had thankfully erected around the property.

Harry slipped back to Peregrine’s side as the house shook again.

“Come out, come out, Potter!” he heard one of them bellowing outside.

“What do we do?” he asked urgently, grabbing Peregrine’s arm. “D’you know how they tracked us?”

Peregrine’s face was pale but resolute, as if this had been a long time coming.

“Handkerchiefs,” he said.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

No sooner than Peregrine had uttered the word ‘handkerchiefs’, he swept out of the room with no further comment, his jaw set.

Harry didn’t call after him. He would be back.

The room fell silent, save for the muffled metallic clattering of silverware in drawers and china tea sets jittering on shelves whenever the house vibrated. Then–

“You have got to be kidding me,” said Hermione angrily, scrambling around to gather the contents of her pack off the floor and shoving them back into her bag. “Goddamn handkerchiefs, next thing you know pigs will be flying…”

“Pigs can fly,” interjected Ron, still craning his neck to watch the Death Eaters outside the house. “Haven’t you heard of pigasi?”

“Oh, excellent, pigasi!” Hermione snapped, snatching Tales from Beyond from Ron’s hands and cramming it back into her pack, but not before throwing him a filthy look. “Is that plural for pigasus? Surely you can come up with something more original than that–”

“I’m not making it up,” said Ron defensively, averting his attention from the offensive group for a split second. “I thought everyone knew about pigasi, haven’t you heard the fairy tale about the rabbit and the–”

“I’m Muggle-born, Ronald!” Hermione all but howled. “I do not know the fairy tale about the rabbit and the bloody pigasus!”

“WE’VE GOT A BIGGER ISSUE AT HAND!” Harry bellowed over the argument that boiled explosively to life. He braced his back against the wall, widening his stance to prevent himself from losing his footing. It seemed as though the Death Eaters were aiming even stronger spells at them than before, causing increasingly violent convulsions across the property.

“Remarkably astute observation, Hardwin,” said Peregrine, somehow managing to glide back into the room despite the tremors, a moderately-sized trunk in hand.

“What’s that?” Harry asked, zeroing in on his luggage.

“Emergency getaway starter pack. If I could offer any advice to young vigilantes such as yourselves, I would say to always keep one on hand. You never know when those bastards will catch up to you.” Peregrine tilted his chin up imperiously as he moved towards the window Ron was stationed by. Harry caught his arm as he passed.

“Care to actually explain how they caught up to us?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“I told you already – handkerchiefs!” Peregrine wrenched out of his grip with surprising strength, a bite of impatience in his voice.

“You’re telling me it was actually bugged?” Harry exchanged a disbelieving glance with Ron. “How could you have possibly known that? If you knew, why didn’t you do something earlier?”

“Oh, Hardwin, please don’t tell me you’re one of those people who become an amoeba in high pressure situations. That’s terribly boring,” said Peregrine, briefly rapping his knuckles against Harry’s forehead. “Don’t forget to use that wondrous organ stored within your skull.”

Harry swiped his hand away, scowling.

“Let’s see… I didn’t know that handkerchief had a tracking spell embedded in it,” Peregrine continued, skidding the rest of the distance to the window to peer outside. “I was merely suspicious. Suspicion is how I’m still a free man today. And I did take precautions earlier on. I set up a protective barrier around us, didn’t I? I would say that’s sufficient. It should hold until we make our getaway.”

Outside, the Death Eaters had evidently spotted Peregrine and Ron through the window. Harry could hear excited shouts of ‘Fjord!’ and ‘Potter found him!’. Peregrine stuck his middle finger up, displaying exceptional maturity for his age. The Death Eaters began spitting curses. When Peregrine turned back to face the room, his wizened face was stretched into a sh*t-eating grin. Ron looked begrudgingly amused.

“But that would mean they’ve been tracking our progress across the country the entire time,” said Harry, far from done with his questioning. “It doesn’t add up. You-Know-Who could have sent a group at any time to ambush us, why would he wait until we’d already found– ah.”

“Snapped out of your amoeba state?” asked Peregrine briskly. “Excellent, I do prefer to keep intelligent company.”

“After he realised what we were doing, he was waiting for us to find each other… then he’d have all of us backed into a corner… two birds with one stone, eh, Tom?” Harry shook his head but was unable to stifle the dark chuckle that left his lips.

“Or four,” offered Ron unhelpfully while Hermione continued seething in the corner of the room, hoisting her pack onto her back and indicating that Harry and Ron do the same.

“Unfortunately for him,” said Peregrine, a mad gleam in his eye, “the Dark Lord underestimated us. He always did regard himself as above the rest of us, we were mere pawns on the chessboard of his game, brainless puppets to his puppeteer. Arrogance will be his downfall.”

There was a soft crackling noise overhead, outside, all around, as if someone had found a crack in hard plaster and was lifting it away in large flakes. The protective barrier was crumbling.

“We need to get out of here now,” Hermione said, securing her pack to her back and whipping her head around to direct a hard stare at Peregrine. “Are you able to help us head back or not?”

“Fortunately for you,” said Peregrine as the ground shook beneath their feet again and their ears were filled with the splintering sound of the weakening shield, “you’re in the presence of the only wizard with the ability to send you back into a fluid past – that is, a past in which the timeline is malleable. A past in which you are able to create a new reality, unlike the Tempus Charm you experienced. But you need to make a choice right now. You can all go back right now, or you can wait.”

His knuckles were white around the handle of his trunk.

“Right now is the obvious choice, isn’t it?” said Hermione, glancing at Harry and Ron for their input. Ron was nodding along in agreement, but Harry’s eyes were upon Peregrine’s pale knuckles.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

Peregrine’s mouth quirked upwards and he shook his head.

“I can never get anything past you, can I?” he murmured. “I don’t know what you plan on doing in the past, though I have a good guess, but I presume you’ll be wanting to return to the current year after your business is complete?”

“Yes,” said Hermione, surging forwards so that she was level with Harry, gripping his arm so hard that it hurt. “Is that not a viable option?”

“It’s possible,” said Peregrine, after a lengthy pause. “There may be an issue, however. I’ll try to explain as briefly as possible. One of the points I did not address in Tales from Beyond is the requirement for a medium. A medium is the gatekeeper of the bridge between time. No one but the chosen medium can send you back in time and bring you forward again. Not only that, but the ritual can only be properly performed in a location that has been appropriately prepared. There is currently one such location beneath our feet at this very instant. I prepared my basem*nt for this when I first moved in here. Unfortunately, it’s the only usable location. I created others in the past, but I destroyed them whenever I relocated. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“I really shouldn’t be astounded that you chose to omit something that important.” Hermione released Harry’s arm and first met his gaze, then Ron’s. There was a flat darkness in her eyes. “Presumably Lestrange would act as our medium if all three of us went back in time. However, if those Death Eaters break in while we’re gone and take him hostage…”

We won’t be coming back.

The unspoken truth rang as clear as a bell through the room, puncturing the sound of crumbling defences all around.

“Well, that’s that,” said Ron, his upbeat tone almost believable. “We should wait, then. We can wait, yeah?”

Harry didn’t reply. He was staring at Hermione, and Hermione was staring back at him. Her features were devoid of expression save for the dull acceptance in the thin line of her mouth, mirror to his own.

He inclined his head towards her, a silent agreement, and squared his shoulders as he turned to face Peregrine. His answer shone out from his eyes.

Peregrine’s mouth tugged into the barest of smirks, though his gaze was sad.

“Well,” he said, dumping his trunk on the ground and kicking it to the side. “I suppose I won’t be needing this after all.”

“Why won’t you be needing that?” asked Ron blankly, glancing between the three of them. “Aren’t we getting out of here now?”

Harry looked at his feet.

“Ron…” Hermione took a step towards him, placing a tentative hand on his shoulder. Her voice was gentle. “That’s not really an option for us.”

“Like hell it’s not!” Ron retorted, shrugging her hand off and glaring around the room. “Do you want to get stuck in the past? Think, Hermione, I thought that was your forte! If we’re being logical about this, we should get out of this place and regroup later! How long would it take to prepare another place for your time travel ritual thing?”

The question was shot at Peregrine, who was evidently growing edgier as the debate dragged on and the moment the Death Eaters descended on them loomed closer.

“Around a month, give or take,” he said, folding his arms and drumming his fingers.

“We can wait a month,” said Ron, turning back to Harry and Hermione, his arms outstretched beseechingly. “What’s another few weeks to us?”

Hermione took a step back from him, returning to Harry’s side. Their shoulders brushed as she said, “It isn’t guaranteed we’ll be given this opportunity again if we turn our backs now. If we run, the Death Eaters will be on our tail the entire time. They’ve found all four of us, they won’t hold back anymore. How could we possibly stay in the same place long enough for Lestrange to make any more preparations?”

“So we take them out here and now!” Ron’s face twisted into a scowl, stabbing his finger at the gaggle of witches and wizards through the window. “There’s only one more of them than us.”

Peregrine cleared his throat. “I’m afraid that this would not be a battle I partake in. I have too many old ties with the Dark Lord’s followers, I do not wish to engage–”

“Then there’s only two more of them than us, big deal!” Ron’s voice was gradually growing higher in tone, his ears becoming red. Harry had never seen him quite so hysterical before.

“It’s not a gamble I’m willing to take,” Hermione said.

Ron spluttered, struggling to find the words he so obviously wished to say. “I would’ve thought… you two… of all people…”

He fell silent, burying his face in his hands and turning his back to them.

With a rush of clarity, like storm clouds parting overhead, Harry finally understood.

“You’re afraid,” he said quietly.

“I’m not afraid,” said Ron unconvincingly, his voice muffled, but lowered his hands and turned his head to face them. His eyes showed the barest hint of moisture. “I just thought… you two are the ones who’ve been stranded in another time. You should see the possible consequences of this risk more clearly than any of us. You should be the most terrified, you should be the ones insisting on running, damn it all, running and not looking back!”

Harry met his wild gaze steadily.

“It’s because of that that we don’t want to run,” he said and reached down to squeeze Hermione’s hand. “We thought we’d never see home again. But we have, and maybe that’s enough.”

Hermione squeezed his hand back and reached out to take Ron’s.

“As long as we’ve got each other, I know we’ll be alright,” she said. Her lips wobbled into a smile.

Ron stared at her, at the mask of bravado she wore like a shield. Harry could pinpoint the exact moment the panic withdrew from his eyes to be replaced by something hard and unyielding.

He gave a sharp nod.

Harry exhaled and turned to Peregrine.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” said Peregrine. He was already standing at the far corner of the room, rapping his wand upon seemingly random spots on the wall. “I’m fine. Besides, it was a given that they’d get me eventually. What better way than with this last act of rebellion? They’ll be spitting mad when they realise what I’ve done!”

He laughed, but the sound was strung taut. He finished knocking against the wall and lowered his wand, taking a step back. There was a pregnant pause in which nothing happened. Then the wall split down the middle, rearranging itself into a narrow doorway with slow, heavy clunks. Harry peered in. Everything beyond the first few steps downwards was pitch black. Hermione and Ron appeared in his peripherals, staring into the darkness from over his shoulder.

“Ladies first,” said Peregrine, gesturing with his wand.

Harry could only imagine the look he must have received from Hermione.

“Allow an old man his jokes,” he said with a low chuckle, stepping forward to take the lead. Harry followed suit, Hermione tailing him and Ron bringing up the rear. They were plunged into darkness when the wall closed itself behind them. Finding no need to communicate with one another, they each raised lit wand tips in unison to illuminate the narrow passageway with its old, crumbly stone walls. Harry brought his wand higher to properly gauge their surroundings. Below the ground, the place was dilapidated (there was no kinder way to put it). Age-old cobwebs were matted in clumps to the ceiling. Fresh webs housed spindly black spiders (Harry could almost hear Ron shrinking in on himself). The steps were rough-hewn rock, dangerously uneven to walk on.

Hermione stumbled on a loose step behind him and barely managed to steady herself on his shoulder. Harry jumped at the contact and hissed into Peregrine’s ear, “Can’t you have made this place a little more… well, less likely to brain ourselves on the wall?”

Peregrine was easing himself down the stairs with the grace of a person with much practice. He glanced at Harry over his shoulder and said with a mischievous glint in his eyes, “Safety not guaranteed.”

The descent continued in silence. Harry tripped over once and almost pushed Peregrine to his likely death. A spider landed on Ron’s shoulder and nearly resulted in the demise of the lot of them.

All things considered, it was a rather uneventful journey downward. Harry’s paranoid mind offered more entertainment than the reality of the trip. Every few seconds he fancied himself hearing heavy boots stampede into the little kitchen they had previously occupied. It wasn’t uncommon for him to whirl around to ensure the noises he heard directly behind them were merely ghosts of his imagination.

When they finally reached the basem*nt after what felt like an eon but was realistically probably only five minutes, Peregrine turned to them and instructed, “Lights out.”

There were simultaneous mutters of, “Nox,” and once again a heavy black weight pressed in on Harry’s eyes. He blinked, no longer entirely sure whether or not his eyes were open. There was the noise of fabric shifting ahead of him, just where Peregrine stood, then slowly lights bloomed into existence around the room, like golden flowers unfurling. Peregrine was sweeping his wand in a smooth motion from one corner of the basem*nt to the other, the torches in iron brackets attached to the walls rattling to life.

It was less basem*nt than dungeon. Harry was vividly reminded of Snape’s classroom as he took in the less than welcoming sight. They stood in a circular chamber whose ground, walls and ceiling were constructed entirely of smooth cobblestones. There was no interior decoration, save the torches set into the stone walls and a rickety wooden table across the room. Someone had drawn a large circle on the floor in white chalk, with debatable accuracy in Harry’s opinion. Words in a foreign language had been scrawled in the centre of the circle, with various unfamiliar symbols surrounding it. The result was an elaborate piece of art Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away from.

“Welcome to paradise,” said Peregrine. He had moved to the table across the chamber without Harry noticing and was flicking through a book that hadn’t been sitting atop it behind.

“What’s that star doing up there?” Ron asked. His voice was still a tad breathy, his eyes shifty from his recent encounter with the spider.

“What?” said Harry.

Ron pointed, his eyebrows raised. Harry followed the direction of his finger to the centre of the ceiling. A simple five-pointed star had been roughly engraved into the hard stone.

Before Peregrine could open his mouth, Hermione seized the opportunity to flex her own knowledge. Harry was almost glad. It brought back a sense of familiarity to this otherwise alien situation.

“That’s the nautical star,” she said quickly. “It’s typically associated with the United States armed forces in the sea, but anyone with a little knowledge of our basic history knows that it’s more deeply enrooted in sailor culture than the United States specifically. Some people call it the north star because it’s supposed to symbolise–”

“–a lost traveller finding their way home, that’s right,” said Peregrine, smiling a little. “That was my intention, anyway, when I incorporated it into the design.”

Harry stared at it, his head tilting to the side as he examined the star engraving. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but it seemed to radiate a sense of ancient magic. It was inexplicable, but there was something calming about it. The nerves twisting like loose wires within him lay still. It was almost as though it was calling him home.

“You said it takes you weeks to prepare a place for this,” said Ron. “It doesn’t look like it would take that long to put a few drawings on the ground.”

“I had to lay down a foundation of wards and enchantments,” countered Peregrine, returning to the book on the table. “This is deeply volatile magic, you can’t just ‘put a few drawings on the ground’. I wouldn’t expect the likes of you to understand.”

Ron spluttered, his ears growing red. “What’s that meant to mean?”

Peregrine spared him a look of disdain. “Only those of pure-blood lineage could hope to fathom the magic entrenched in this ritual.”

Hermione scoffed.

Harry sighed. “I hoped you might have outgrown that sort of thinking, Peregrine,” he said bracingly. “Besides, Ron actually is pure-blood, if you really do care to know.”

“Not that it matters,” added Ron.

Peregrine raised an eyebrow, having earned his unadulterated attention. “Really? Which family do you hail from?”

“Weasley.” Ron’s voice was begrudging, but his gaze was challenging.

Peregrine rolled his eyes and turned back to the book once again. “Merlin and Morgana help me,” he muttered.

While he continued sweeping through the pages, Hermione turned to face Harry and Ron.

“Alright,” she said. “It looks like this is really happening. First, we need to establish what our endgame is.”

“Preventing Tom from creating this future,” said Harry swiftly. “Peregrine sending us into a fluid past should do the trick, since it won’t be a fixed timeline.”

“Breaking the time loop the Tempus Charm created is the goal, then,” said Hermione. “We’re going to have to be careful, since every action we take will alter the future. All we have to do is locate the origin of the Tempus Charm… when shouldn’t be an issue, as long as Peregrine performs the ritual properly…”

“Don’t doubt me.” The voice came from over Harry’s shoulder and he started. Peregrine was standing behind them with the book tucked under one arm and a short, wickedly sharp blade in the other hand. “Now, if you’ve read my book as you say you have, I’m sure you’re all aware of this part. All prospective time-travellers, please leave a sample of blood at the centre of the circle. As soon as you have left your mark, this ritual will have officially commenced, so I ask that you refrain from removing yourself from within the circumference. Any part of your body which exits the circle’s boundary will be left behind.”

He held out the blade. Without looking at Hermione or Ron, Harry took it first. He stepped into the circle and walked to the middle. With only a slight grimace, he ran the sharp edge against the palm of his hand and held it out, allowing the crimson dribble to splatter against the cobblestones. Hermione entered the circle next, taking the knife from him and mimicking his action, a crease forming between her eyebrows as she added to the red stain across the ground.

Harry waited for Ron to join them, but he remained outside the circle, his arms folded. There was a hard light was within his eyes again, the same Harry had seen earlier but had not commented on.

His heart sank into his abdomen region and did not resurface.

“Ron,” said Hermione, a little impatiently. “Come on. We’ve got to get going. I doubt we have very long before the Death Eaters break in and figure out where we are.”

Ron shook his head. “I’m not going.”

It appeared that he had finally managed to shock even Peregrine into a state of silence. Not a single half-witty, half-snide comment left his lips. Hermione was a different matter.

“We haven’t got time before this,” she snapped.

“No, you don’t,” said Ron. “Off you pop.”

Hermione stormed towards him until she stood with her toes against the boundary, her hands forming fists at her sides and her voice rising in volume. “I would drag you in here if I could, but unfortunately I’d rather keep all my limbs intact, so hurry up and come over here!”

Ron’s jaw tightened and he glanced to the side, away from her. “I can’t, Hermione. I’ve got to stay here with Lestrange.”

“That’s ridiculous! Why are you staying with him? Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m going to do all I can to make sure you and Harry can come back,” said Ron quietly. He directed his gaze towards Peregrine. “I’ll guard your back until you can bring them home.”

Something unspoken passed between them. Peregrine inclined his head once in acknowledgement.

Ron glanced back at Hermione’s face and whatever he saw made him drop his gaze, his mouth forming a line.

“Let me do this, Hermione. If this is all the sacrifice I have to make, I’ll gladly step out of this adventure.”

“We need you,” Hermione whispered. Her voice was thick and Harry realised she must have started crying. “I need you.”

Ron lifted his face and smiled sadly. “You two will find your way. You always do.”

He met Harry’s eye. Harry smiled back at him, a lump forming in his own throat. “Alright,” he said, his voice cracking. “See you in a bit, Ron. We’ll take it from here.”

He stepped forwards and put his arm around Hermione’s shoulders, drawing her back to the centre of the circle. She did little to resist, simply extending an arm in Ron’s direction.

“Please.” It came out as little more than a whisper, a desperate wish caught in the back of her throat.

Harry’s knuckles whitened around her shoulder. “Peregrine,” he said roughly.

Peregrine spared Hermione one last glance, something curious in his gaze, before turning to address Harry. “Once you can no longer hear me speaking, I need both of you to visualise the time you want to go back to. In fact, visualise is too weak a word. I need you to–”

“–feel it, I know,” said Harry. “You wrote it in your book. We can manage it.”

He cast a quick look down at Hermione. She had wrapped both arms around herself, gaze fixed upon Ron’s face, but Harry knew she was listening.

“We also need to agree upon a time in which I’ll cast a return portal for you,” continued Peregrine. “A day in their time should translate into approximately ten seconds in our time. What time limit will you allow yourselves to achieve your objective?”

“Seven minutes and thirty seconds,” said Hermione. Her voice was tiny. “That will allow us forty-five days.”

“We’ll earn you that time,” said Ron, then the corner of his mouth tipped up a fraction. “Hey, Hermione. Come back safely and I’ll take you out some time.”

Hermione’s head jerked up, momentarily stunned out of her mood. “Like a…?”

“Yeah, like a date.” He grinned now, all bright blue eyes and freckles and a barely-recovered burnt nose. “I’ll be waiting right here. And Harry?”

“Yeah?”

There was a pause in which Ron chewed over his words. Then he shrugged and said, “Go get him.”

Harry smiled down at his feet.

Peregrine pointed his wand at the five-pointed star above Harry and Hermione, the book from his desk open in his other hand. The lights emitted from the torches around the periphery of the chamber dimmed. Peregrine swept his eyes over the words in the book, opened his mouth, and began.

The words that rolled off his tongue were soothing, elegant and haunting, all rolled into one. Harry closed his eyes, the words lapping over his body like heated water or a balmy summer breeze. His body was slowly blooming with warmth from his core as though he’d just taken a large swig of Firewhisky.

He moved to release Hermione, but she clutched onto his arm and he relented.

The undersides of his eyelids were turning red, sparks dancing like music notes. He dared peek his eyes open to see what was happening but was blinded by glaring white light from all directions. He could no longer hear Peregrine, there was only the loud rushing of wind in his ears. In that moment, Harry was positive that his heart had swollen to at least double its normal size. He could feel the enlarged organ pulsing, imprinting its mark somewhere in his throat where it had no business being.

Hermione’s fingers were bruising his skin. He doubted his own grip was much better.

Exhaling through his mouth around the heart-shaped mass obstructing his airways, Harry conjured a vision of the time he wanted to be taken to. He imagined Tom’s deep-water eyes, his long, thin body, the nuances of his voice, the taste of his lips. He imagined the years before the idea of the Tempus Charm had been planted in Tom’s head, he imagined the string of the time loop breaking. Then, unbidden, he saw Peregrine. Long, auburn hair, pitch-black eyes the loping gait of youth sun-tanning in Australia a quill behind an ear the tip of his tongue tucked between his teeth as he consulted paper after paper

The space around him was now impossibly bright his eyes scorched behind closed eyelids the rushing wind around his ears endless was there ever a time before this blindness deafness where was she

Gone

Scrambling empty alone

Hands over ears eyes

Bright

Loud

Burning heat stamping nape of neck

Howls tears why

Silence

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

The world woke with a dull, dragging throbbing. Or perhaps it was him who was waking (he didn’t think so, he rathered it was the other way around). The blunt hammering of a headache resounding through his skull. The next sensation to enter his space of awareness was the glaring sun beating down on his face, the heat stinging his skin until it itched unpleasantly. The nape of his neck was also burning something dreadful and he gritted his teeth against the pain, which at the very least assured him that the nerve endings were intact.

Beyond the pounding headache and the pain on his neck, he heard a bird cry out in the distance, accompanied by the gentle lapping of water against a shoreline.

Harry flexed his hands. Warm, silky smooth dirt met his palms and gave way to his fingers like soft butter.

He opened his eyes and immediately had the good sense to shield his face with his arm.

The sky overhead was clear, the perfect gradient of pale blue to deep azure. A glaring white disc of brightness sat amongst that cloudless sea.

Harry pushed himself into a sitting position from the supine one he had found himself in. He brought his hand up, watching grains of sand drip to the ground from his fingertips. He lifted his gaze.

A long stretch of white sand extended out as far as his eyes could see, neighbour to a boundless, sparkling body of water. The air was ripe with a salty sea breeze.

Harry squinted. There were dotted silhouettes of seabirds in the distance, circling high above in the sky.

He stumbled to his feet, cradling his aching head. Of course it was gorgeous and a little slice of heaven on earth and all that poetic rubbish, but there were more important matters at hand than appreciating the scenery. Such as where the hell Peregrine’s magical time-travelling portal had regurgitated him.

His eyes widened as the memory jolted back into his body.

“Hermione!” he yelled hoarsely, wincing as his voice cracked. He lurched forward a few more steps, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Hermione!”

His cries were met by silence. There was no one in view, not as far as he could see. Had something gone wrong? Peregrine had seemed so confident. As long as they focused on the time and place they needed to be, everything should have worked. Their first target was an impressionable Tom Riddle. The portal should have brought them to him, wherever in time he may exist. Yet he was here on a beach that couldn’t have been less like England, he may as well have been on the opposite side of the world…

Harry slumped forwards onto his knees, gazing down at his trembling fingers.

He remembered now. Hadn’t his thoughts ventured into the unwanted territory of Peregrine, living out his youth as a wandering renegade in Australia? At the most crucial point his mind had betrayed him and who knew where he was, where Hermione was, all he could now do was wait out the forty-five day time limit and pray to be brought back home…

Harry brought his fists down on the sand. The impact of beating against soft sand was far from satisfying. He eventually relented, chest heaving, and lowered himself further down to rest his forehead against the ground. He’d really f*cked this one up. Biting his lip, Harry screwed his face up against the howl of fury at his own stupidity. An image surfaced of Ron, Hermione and Peregrine’s disappointed faces when, if, he saw them again.

No. He couldn’t collapse at the start line. He had to do something. If he truly had been taken to Peregrine, then Tom was still running rampant somewhere in this world. Besides, both people were required to be found, eventually. Despite his unexpected separation from Hermione, he could still take action. It wasn’t as if he was crippled without her. She wasn’t his crutch.

His head remaining bowed down, Harry drew in a deep breath of salty air, filling his lungs to the brim and oxygenating his brain. He expelled the breath through pursed lips and repeated a handful more times, washing away the mindless panic to be replaced by calm reason.

Harry pushed himself into a sitting position, bracing his hands against his knees as he properly evaluated his surroundings. The first thing to do was– wait, where was his wand? Harry scrambled around the sand, tossing it into his eyes as he floundered. He couldn’t have lost his wand, he was as good as dead without it… his searching fingers found something long and solid.

“Yes! Wand!” Harry grabbed onto it greedily, tempted to kiss it, and looked further ahead. To his utter delight, his pack of supplies was lying further along the deserted beach. He dragged himself to his feet and stumbled through the sand to it, patting it down to ensure everything was intact. With that settled, he unfastened the mouth of the pack and pulled out his water bottle, giving it a shake. It was mostly empty. He unscrewed the lid and pointed his wand into it, muttering, “Aguamenti.”

A clear jet of water filled the bottle to the brim. Harry carefully tucked his wand into its sheath, not terribly fond of the idea of losing it again, before shakily bringing the drink to his lips. He all but inhaled two full bottles of water before his headache finally began to recede, but there was barely any difference in the throbbing pain at the nape of his neck. Harry scraped his hair aside and gingerly brought his fingers to the stinging spot. It was tender to the touch but his cool fingertips offered some relief.

A burn, he supposed. He could deal with it later. He let his hair fall back and repacked his bottle before pulling the bag onto his back. All he had to do now was find his bearings.

He stood up, drawing himself up into the sea breeze which whipped his hair back into his face. He spat it out of his mouth and scowled. While unruly at best, he could tell this wind was going to transform it into his worst enemy. Harry summoned the broad-rimmed desert hat from his back and jammed it onto his head, tucking his hair messily up into it.

Then, armed with his wand and backpack containing all his bodily possessions in this world, he began his trek towards the new world.

***

Harry wasn’t sure how long he had been walking for. To pass the time he set his sights on a tree in the distance, urging himself on with the promise of when you reach that tree, you can stop and rest. He couldn’t remember how many such promises he had broken at this point in time.

His muscles ached and quivered from the seemingly endless effort. His skin was slick with sweat and he had stripped his shirt off at least five trees ago. While this succeeded in cooling him off, his shoulders were now chafed from where the straps of his pack dug into bare skin.

Harry flicked the brim of his hat upwards so that he could squint skyward. It hadn’t yet deepened to navy, so he couldn’t have walked for hours in the double digits… he gritted his teeth and soldiered on.

What are you even searching for? asked a little voice in his head.

“A sign, I don’t know,” Harry snapped back. “Anything’s better than sitting still.”

Fool, sneered the voice, which sounded suspiciously like the snide Phineas Nigellus. Wasting your energy without a stellar plan, nor so much as an idea of what you’re marching towards. The little soldier who danced until his legs fell off.

“Shut up,” said Harry sharply.

You cannot ‘shut up’ your own thoughts, silly boy.

“There’s always a first for everything.”

It only occurred to him then that he was truly arguing with the voice in his head and thought that this may be the first sign of madness and that he had better find some form of guidance soon, when it appeared before him.

It began as a speck in the distance. It may have just been another pebble in the sand. As Harry trod onwards, the shape enlarged, moulding itself into the lone figure of a person reclined in a beach chair underneath a large tree, wilting in the sun.

With a sudden surge in energy, Harry ploughed forwards with renewed vigour because at last here was something, a human, and Muggle or not he would finally know where the hell he was…

As he drew nearer he came to realise it was a young man wearing an open Hawaiian shirt with flamingos printed on it, his long legs stretched out before him. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses that were at least a few decades out of date of the 1990s and long, deep red hair was swept up into an effortless ponytail. His nose was stuck into a book, with several others scattered haphazardly around his feet, and Harry cringed when he imagined the sandy mess it would be later. There was a quill tucked behind one of the man’s ears and–

“Oh! Quill!” said Harry aloud as he approached. Potentially a wizard, then?

The man glanced up from his book at the sound of Harry’s voice, his dark-tinted glasses reflecting back the image of Harry’s distant, dishevelled figure tramping along.

Even from the short distance separating them, Harry could see the man quirk a manicured eyebrow at the sight. He knew he probably looked mad, as though he had just escaped from a jungle or something, half-naked and trailing a pool of sweat, still wearing that ridiculous desert hat which set his face in shadow…

“Can I help you?” asked the man, his voice cool. He had lowered his book and was evaluating Harry with an expressionless face. Harry could see that his hand was clenched in his pocket, as if gripping a weapon. Harry paused a few metres away from him, his caution skyrocketing.

“Yes, I was rather hoping you could,” he said, inconspicuously holding his hands in clear view to show that he was unarmed. “I just have a couple of questions.” Moving slowly, afraid of spooking the edgy man, Harry reached up and removed his hat, cupping it against his chest. Sweaty, matted strands fell into his face and he shook them away impatiently, opening his mouth to speak again–

Only to close it again.

The man’s face had suddenly drained of colour beneath his sunglasses, his lips were parted, quivering slightly. He stood up, long and lean, and reached out for Harry with the hand that was no longer in his pocket.

Alarmed, Harry took a step back, his own hand automatically going to his wand.

Suddenly coming back to himself, the man quickly retracted his arm. “I… I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said. “It’s just that you look a lot like someone I once loved dearly. Someone I’ve been searching for. For a while.”

Harry paused in his retreat, his head tilting to the side curiously as he stared at the man, scanning over his sun-kissed skin and smattering of freckles across the high-bridged nose, the high cheekbones and the barely-visible five o’clock shadow, the Muggle-print shirt and the bare feet buried in sand.

The image in front of him was so heartbreakingly familiar to another snapshot he had not long ago conjured in the theatre of his imagination.

Long, auburn hair, pitch-black eyes, the loping gait of youth, sun-tanning in Australia, a quill behind an ear, the tip of his tongue tucked between his teeth as he consulted paper after paper–

The world suddenly became dizzyingly bright, drawn into sharp focus. Harry had not realised how blurred his vision had been until now.

He allowed the heavy backpack to slide off his chafed shoulders, landing with a dull thud in the sand, and dropped his hat to the ground. All baggage thrown to the wind. Despite the sensation that his feet had been transfigured into leaden weights, he forced himself forwards until they were nose-to-nose. The man may as well have been carved from stone. He may not have even been breathing.

Harry reached up and removed the man’s sunglasses. He carefully folded the arms closed before raising his gaze back up to the man’s face. Just as he had been expecting, a pair of dark eyes, as black as sin, met his.

He felt his own eyes crinkling into a smile for what felt like the first time in a small eternity. “I’ve been searching for you, too.”

Peregrine burst into laughter and when he did, he shone so bright and young that it blinded Harry. He threw his arms around Harry, hunching down to press his forehead into Harry’s shoulder. The sharp point of the quill behind his ear poked Harry in the neck but he couldn’t find it within himself to care. He brought his own arms up hesitantly, moving to return the embrace but before he could, Peregrine pulled back and pushed Harry away, hands braced on his shoulders.

His nose was screwed up. “Sweet Merlin, Harry, you stink.”

“Well, I haven’t exactly had a portable en suite to cart around with me,” said Harry, then tacked onto the end, “You just called me ‘Harry’.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Hardwin, why would I call you that?” said Peregrine, turning away from him to dab his eyes dry with a handkerchief he had seemingly conjured from thin air.

Harry stood to the side for a moment, watching him quietly, then reached out a hand to touch his cheek softly. Peregrine seized up, mannequin-like, his eyes travelling to meet Harry’s.

“When did this happen?” Harry wondered aloud, his fingers exploring the stubble spanning across soft skin and the sharp angle of the jaw. “You didn’t have this last time. How old are you, Peregrine?”

“Twenty-four.” His lips barely moved, his gaze still glued upon Harry’s features.

It was Harry’s turn to freeze. “How many years have passed?”

“Six,” Peregrine breathed. “It’s 1951.”

Harry lowered his hand, inclining his head a fraction. He heard Peregrine exhale quietly but could still feel a prickling sensation upon his face, indicative that he was the subject of intent focus.

“A lot must have changed,” he said, raising his face again.

“You could say that,” said Peregrine, and a bitter smile twisted his lips. “Merlin and Morgana, you look hardly different. Except the eyes. And the hair. Longer. I always thought you’d look good with long hair, but you had to go ahead and chop it all off during that rebellious phase of yours.” He snorted and turned away, glaring out across the water. “This is such a cruel joke.”

The sea breeze suddenly seemed a lot chillier than it had moments earlier. The sun slunk behind a cloud, throwing them into sudden shade. Peregrine’s profile darkened.

“Peregrine,” Harry began, then caught himself. He wasn’t sure what he had been planning on saying. The first draft had been something along the lines of ‘are you alright’ but that seemed a silly question given the circ*mstances. He finally settled for, “What do you mean?” after an extensive pause.

Peregrine didn’t respond immediately. Harry watched the transformation take place across his face. The furrow in his brow smoothed, the storm in his eyes ceased, as though it had never been there. When he turned back to Harry, all fondness had faded from Peregrine’s gaze and Harry felt as if he were a mere stranger to the other. The warmth that had blossomed in his chest since their reunion shrivelled. A cold, sharp nail trailed down his spine unpleasantly and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck.

“I think you should leave now,” said Peregrine. His voice was lined by shadows.

All the while praying beyond hope that Peregrine had simply developed a new, horrible sense of humour, Harry choked on a dry laugh and managed to articulate, “What?”

Peregrine held his gaze for a heartbeat longer, then turned his back and stormed less than gracefully away from Harry and began levitating the copious number of books surrounding his beach chair into a sleek russet briefcase which must have been bewitched with an extension charm.

This was not a joke.

His heart stamping a tattoo in his throat, Harry tripped after him.

“Peregrine!” he said, raising his voice. “What the hell?”

Once more, this yielded no response. Peregrine did not turn around, and the last of the books vanished into the briefcase’s open, dark chasm before it snapped shut with a neat click of the brass clasp. He picked it up and started to walk away, the chair abandoned in the sand.

“Peregrine!” Harry shouted, running after him and wrenching at his shoulder, forcing him around, pressing for some form of acknowledgement. But Peregrine’s eyes merely swept across then away from him, as though he were no more than the reflection of some long ago memory.

Harry’s hand slid from his shoulder limply, his mind blanking as he watched Peregrine’s figure slump away from him across the darkening horizon.

It was like saying goodbye before they’d even met.

Harry set his jaw, sucked in a deep breath until his chest swelled, then expelled it all out through a bellow which resonated through the still air. “Don’t you turn your back on me, Lestrange!”

Peregrine didn’t so much as flinch.

Harry felt a fleeting temptation to hurl the beach chair at his friend (the collision would be so satisfying to watch), but ultimately decided upon the more mature response. He darted back to grab his fallen belongings before chasing after Peregrine’s retreating back.

Now that he had overcome the shock of the abrupt change in Peregrine’s temperament, he was furious. He was going to get a reaction from Peregrine, even if he had to pry it from the other’s cold, dead fingers. With a spurt of energy he hadn’t known was within him, Harry threw himself at Peregrine’s back, sending them both flying into the ground. Flailing, Peregrine shoved Harry off and scrambled back to his feet, spraying sand everywhere.

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?” he yelled, albeit grittily through his mouthful of sand.

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?” Harry spat back, shoving his face right up to Peregrine’s. “One moment you’re all chummy with me, the next it’s like I’ve murdered your mum or something! What the bloody hell are you on?”

“I’ve realised my mistake,” Peregrine said coldly, looking down his annoyingly straight nose.

“Then I’m ready to accept an apology at any time,” Harry returned stiffly.

“I shouldn’t have been chummy with you at all,” said Peregrine sneeringly, and it was like looking at him across the Slytherin table that first night. The fire in the pit of Harry’s stomach dimmed slightly and he sank back to his normal height, no longer elevated by amplified emotions. He and Peregrine stared at each other in silence for a long while, then finally he asked quietly, “Please, talk to me. What’s going on?”

Peregrine popped.

“YOU’RE! NOT! REAL!” he roared, each syllable punctuated with the jab of his index finger into Harry’s chest.

Harry stumbled back a step, his tongue tripping over itself to find the words to string together before falling into a clumsy heap after managing nothing.

Peregrine paced away, weaving a small, manic figure eight into the sand underfoot, lacing his fingers together around the crown of his head and tucking his chin towards his chest. Harry stood back, watching in dumbfounded silence.

“He can’t be real, it makes no sense,” Peregrine was muttering, head still cradled between his forearms. He was shaking. “Thought you were over this. Wishful thinking can’t bring anyone back from the grave. Back to stage f*cking one after six years!”

The latter line was uttered in a raised voice and kicked Harry out of his stupor. He tried to take in a deep, soothing breath, but it shuddered down his windpipe uncomfortably and it took a handful more goes before he had reclaimed some semblance of calm.

“Hey,” he called out carefully, as though addressing a spooked creature, despite this never having been his forte. “Hey. Hey. Um, Peregrine. Can I come over to you?”

Peregrine had stopped pacing, but his figure remained curled, on the defence. He shook his head. He was staring straight down at the ground. “I’d rather you just leave,” he said roughly. “I don’t want your type around anymore. Please.”

“Right,” Harry said, swallowing his disappointment. He lingered on the sidelines, momentarily struggling to find the right words before settling on the most blunt path. “Could I just make one request? That you hear me out, and if you still want me to go when I’ve finished, I’ll go.”

Another beat of silence hung between them, almost tangible in its potency, then Peregrine said, “You weren’t this diplomatic before you left.”

“Time passes,” Harry said. “Old dogs can learn new tricks.”

“No, no, that’s entirely wrong,” said Peregrine, shaking his head in disagreement. “It goes that old Crups can’t learn new tricks. Can’t.”

He had released his head and was looking at Harry again. He hadn’t rejected the offer, but he wasn’t smiling.

Harry shrugged. “Well, I guess I’m just more malleable than most.”

This wasn’t strictly true, and they both knew it but neither vocalised it.

“You weren’t like this last time,” Peregrine said.

“Like I just said,” retorted Harry. He expelled a deep breath and sighed, dragging an exhausted hand through his hair and flinching when he accidentally touched the nape of his neck, still burning. “Look. Shall we just talk here?”

“You talk. I listen.”

“Yeah, that,” said Harry, a touch of irritability creeping into his voice.

This day was turning out to be trial after trial. Escaping Death Eaters, being blasted through some confounded time-travelling portal, trekking for hours with no hope on the horizon. Losing Hermione and Ron. But what really took the cake was somehow having to prove that he was in fact real.

“What the f*ck,” he mumbled, then pulled his wand out and pointed it at a convenient mop of wet, sandy kelp on the ground. It morphed itself into something akin to a dark green picnic blanket, and he threw himself onto it. His sore joints groaned their relief.

“What are you doing?” Peregrine asked in a hushed voice.

“Sitting,” Harry snapped. “If that’s alright with you. Unless imaginary people aren’t allowed to sit down.”

Peregrine stared at him. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

“Sorry,” Harry said, despite the mild irritation still simmering beneath his skin. “D’you want to sit down here, too? Plenty of space far away from me. Not my best transfiguration, but it’ll do.”

He was sure that Peregrine would turn his nose up at the offer, but he settled down a little distance from Harry, still watching him. Carefully, almost warily, the way one might regard a fragile glass ornament balanced on a point, or a bomb.

“So,” Harry said, awkward now that it had come to it. “I may as well start from the beginning. It might all sound a bit far-fetched. But then again, maybe not. Anyway–” he cleared his throat. “Over a year ago, me and Hermione were sent back into your time. Well, longer than a year ago for you. We didn’t know how it happened. We’d been trying to use a time-turner to go an hour into the past to do… something.” He tactfully left out the bit where he had put a pumpkin around Malfoy’s head and fled the scene of the crime like a criminal. “But it ended up taking us back to your time. Fifty or so years. It was the scariest bloody thing, and Hermione… at the beginning, I know that deep down, what she was most concerned about was the fact that the time-turner did something outside of its textbook description. If we hadn’t landed fifty years in the past, she’d have been hopping mad!” He started laughing then, despite how inappropriate it was given the current situation.

He could have sworn he saw the shadow of a smile on Peregrine’s face from the corner of his eye, but it was gone a split second later.

He cleared his throat once more before continuing, his tone sobering. “Dumbledore knew about our dilemma, of course. He found us the minute we arrived. While me and Hermione posed as students, Dumbledore put that brilliant mind of his to the task of puzzling out how to send us home. He took some time. Thinking back on it now, it took too long.”

Harry turned his face towards Peregrine slowly, carefully. Imploringly. A flower seeking the sun. Yet Peregrine’s gaze still evaded Harry’s, deeply shadowed.

“He said that someone had cast the Tempus Charm on the time-turner we’d used.”

Here, Peregrine started, recognition of the name behind his years of research sending a spark of light zipping like a shooting star through his dark eyes. The slightest furrow formed between his eyebrows.

Harry maintained his unblinking gaze on Peregrine’s face, willing for him to finally understand. “He also said the only way to go home was if we were killed by the hand of the one who had cast the charm.”

“Riddle,” said Peregrine quietly, then immediately looked like he wished he hadn’t.

“Yeah,” Harry said quietly, not at all as casual as he had hoped he could fake, repressing the inner turmoil which rattled around inside his ribcage, howling like a hungry ghost. “It’s always him, isn’t it? I was so stupid, so naïve, to have…” the words caught suddenly in his throat, roughening his voice.

“To have trusted him?” Peregrine asked, suddenly over-interested in the topic.

Harry shook his head, his mouth pulling into a grimace, removing his gaze from Peregrine’s face to stare at his own hands with the splintered nails, the crevices filled with sand and dirt.

“No. I never trusted him. I don’t think. Maybe I did, I can’t remember anymore. I know I wanted to help him, as if he was some kind of kicked dog. Stupid. But trust him? I don’t know, the lines blurred a while ago.”

Peregrine’s eyes drilled into the side of his face. It was the first time he had stared so intently at Harry since his accusation, and all of a sudden Harry wished that he would look away again.

“Then what were you stupid and naïve to have done?”

The memory of a face above his blurred before his eyes, cold and blue, as if he were seeing it from the bottom of a lake.

Harry’s nostrils stung with the sensation of unshed tears. He blinked hard, his tongue heavy and dry, little more than a wad of sandpaper balled up in his mouth.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he managed to lump out, each word a thick paste. He cleared his throat heartily, his mouth twitching into a mocking smile. “It’s too late. Anyway. I’ve forgotten where I got to.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw that Peregrine had diverted his gaze again, once again more interested in this scenery around them than Harry

“The Tempus Charm,” he said. “Riddle having to kill you to return you home. But… I find this tale to be an impossibility.”

“And here we reach the purpose of my arrival here,” Harry muttered, but Peregrine appeared not to hear him.

“Your story doesn’t work because the Tempus Charm doesn’t exist,” he said, eyes narrowed and lips pinched. “Thomas Broughton-Tempus only ever wrote one paper on it as a theoretical concept, about a hundred years ago… and not a well-known one, either. I thought Dumbledore had sent me on a wild goose chase for the longest time…” he trailed off, clouds on the horizon reflected in his black irises.

“It works,” said Harry, “because you’re the one who takes up the mantle. That’s the only way any of this is possible, because the Tempus Charm exists in my time. This was a finicky little puzzle, but Hermione figured it out. You publish your completed research in 1994. You’re much looser with the details about the Tempus Charm than you are with your theory about a fluid past. So that’s how Tom discovered the charm, how he created this time loop. We’re, I mean, I’m here to break it so that the world finally has a chance at a future without Tom… without Voldemort.”

“Even if the Dark Lord never comes to be, there will always be others,” said Peregrine briskly.

“Trust me, I know,” countered Harry, equally grim, and when he turned to look at Peregrine once more, their eyes finally met. “But I can’t hold myself responsible for every possibility out there.”

Peregrine chuckled into a dark chasm many octaves below his usual voice. “What happened to that kid who would have sacrificed his own soul to save the world?”

“I’m not a bloody martyr,” Harry retorted, stung.

“Not anymore.” Peregrine shifted, drawing one knee up to his chest and extending the other leg. He tossed Harry a lazy sideways glance. “Alright. I’m on the verge of believing you right now. But you lost me with the time loop stuff. Looks like you’re going to have to teach me everything I taught you or whatever. But I’ve got to ask – aren’t you breaking the number one rule of time travel by telling me all this?”

“Your book covers all of that. That rule only applies to one form of time travel, in a fixed time-line, the only form that wizards ever learned to meddle with… that is, before you came along. Time-turners facilitate travel through a fixed timeline, where the future cannot be altered. Or at least, if it is altered, indescribably terrible things could happen. Or so Hermione says. To be honest, I never really understood it. Hermione also says the Tempus Charm forced us back into a fixed timeline, since when we got home everything was as we had left it. Hence the time loop. The two of us were, and always will be, destined to spend a year in the past by Tom’s hand.” It sounded terribly, horribly romantic, in the worst way possible. Harry read the same sentiment on Peregrine’s face and hurriedly ploughed onwards. “Needless to say, I haven’t travelled here through a fixed timeline.

“You also explore theories around parallel universes, where events can create divergent timelines from the first. But this is still such an arcane subject and we have no manner of interacting with these parallel universes, nor do we know how they’re created. This is still a subject far from understood, so there wasn’t really much point in me bringing it up… just consider this irrelevant.

“Lastly, there’s a dynamic timeline, where the future can be altered. Time is fluid. Future outcomes can be changed. You see, throughout your years of research, not only do you create a useable Tempus Charm, but you also break the barrier to a fluid past. You’re the one who sent us back here now, and you’re the one who is waiting to bring us back once we’ve done what we need to do. The fact is, you’re the only one in the entire world who’s able to do so.”

It was only now that complete understanding dawned across Peregrine’s face, like sunlight breaking through the clouds at the end of a rough storm. The creases on his face smoothed out and his lips parted slightly. If an exhale had a face of its own after a long breath held in, this would have been it.

“So you’re here for me,” he murmured. “You need me to stop what I’m doing.”

“And have a little heart-to-heart with Tom Riddle,” said Harry grimly.

Peregrine was silent for a long moment, staring into some unfathomable universe over Harry’s shoulder, the machinery ticking over in his brain, then his face swept clear, a blank canvas once more. But where his features were bare of emotion, the deep sense of betrayal in his eyes were clear when his and Harry’s gazes met.

“You’re not going to remember any of this,” he said.

“What?” The observation came so unexpectedly that when Harry forced a laugh, it almost came naturally. But not quite. It tasted like pepper burning up his throat. It scorched his lips. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you,” Peregrine said, though there was no venom behind it. It rang hollow, as the truth often does. “I take back what I said about you. You haven’t changed one bit.”

“I’m not sacrificing myself for the world!” Harry said sharply, but then his voice cracked, betraying him. “It’s just… it’s just a few memories.”

“Memories are nothing to scoff at. They’re all that some of us have. Memories are…” Peregrine’s voice shimmered, flickered, ever so gently, like a candle in the breeze. “Memories are more precious than status. More precious than gold.”

Harry glared at his feet, unable to bear looking into such a tender face any longer. “What the hell do you want me to do? This is it. This is our shot. And we all need you to play your role.” He forced himself to soften, his eyes flicked upwards. “Could you do it, for me?”

“I would be the one responsible for what happens to you,” Peregrine said, a hush shrouding him like a pale cloud. “If I stop, then when you return home, you’ll live in a place where my research never existed. A paradox. You’ll live a life as if none of this ever happened. And only us, the ones you leave behind, will remember.”

“You don’t need to spell it out for me,” Harry whispered back. “I’ve thought it over for a while. It’ll be alright. We’ll be alright.”

He held out a hand, brown and filthy and scarred. He didn’t allow it to tremble.

Peregrine stared at the proffered hand, unreadable in all ways, and for a split second Harry was certain he was going to stand up and walk away, but then he extended his own hand, soft and manicured. Harry marvelled at the contrast, the feeling of smooth skin beneath his callouses. They shook once, a promise sealed.

His lips compressed to a flat line, his eyes hooded, Peregrine breathed, “Alright.”

***

Peregrine jiggled the key in the lock of the entrance to his city apartment, swearing under his breath when the lock caught again.

“Damn, bloody thing,” he muttered. “I could’ve sworn I’d fixed it just this morning… I’d use magic on it myself for a permanent fix if I knew the spell for this claptrap Muggle junk.”

Harry glanced over the balcony behind them, casting his gaze up and down the main street, the footpaths swarming with harried-looking women in full-skirted dresses and exhausted men with hats stuffed on their heads, the roads cluttered with models of cars he’d only ever seen in museums, junkyards or on vintage posters. The peak hour rush home after work.

“I’m amazed you’ve deigned to live among Muggles,” he said, returning to watching as Peregrine finally managed to open the door and wrestle the key back out of the lock.

“Don’t be like that, Hardwin,” said Peregrine, who had reinstated the title after multiple pedestrians had interacted with Harry in any manner (namely skirting around him where possible, due to his wild appearance and even wilder smell), removing any lingering traces of doubt that Harry was, in fact, a figment of his imagination. “I’ve learned that Muggles aren’t all that bad, when they keep their noses to themselves. Good safeguards, too. No one would expect to find me in the middle of Muggle territory.”

Harry raised an eyebrow, following Peregrine into the unlit entranceway of the apartment. Peregrine slammed the door shut behind them and locked the door, then lifted his wand in a manner reminiscent of a conductor instructing an orchestra to lift their instruments. Light bloomed from the lamps positioned throughout the apartment.

It was far plainer than Harry had expected. Beyond the sparse furniture, inclusive of a sofa, dining table and an armchair, the only thing characteristic about the place was the number of books, quills and sheets of loose parchment smattered upon every surface in sight. Harry wandered through the apartment, gently alighting his fingers upon the walls, the books, the parchment. Some of the scribblings looked vaguely familiar. A five-pointed star, which Harry recognized as the one which had later been integrated into Peregrine’s design for the travel portal, had been scrawled messily onto one sheet. Harry ran his index finger across the star vaguely, before glancing up to see that Peregrine was watching him from across the room.

“It’s not much,” Peregrine said, scratching his ear a little, his face slightly redder than it had been a moment ago. “But I move around a lot, so I’ve got to settle for places I can get quick.”

“I wasn’t expecting a five star hotel room,” Harry said. “Besides, it’s plenty. I once lived under a staircase, so I’m no connoisseur of accommodation.”

Peregrine wrinkled his nose, clearly put at ease. “Why in Merlin’s name would you want to live under a staircase?”

“Not by choice,” said Harry, exasperated.

“Hey, I’m not judging your preferences,” said Peregrine, throwing his hands up. “But would you mind taking a shower now? I said it before and I’ll say it again - you stink.”

The shower, for one, was pure luxury. Beneath a warm jet of water, Harry scrubbed away weeks’ worth of sweat and grime on his skin and washed his mop of hair which he finally acknowledged had reached an unmanageable length after a year’s growth time. The nape of his neck still stung with contact. If only Hermione was here, it would surely be an easy fix for her.

After simply standing beneath the water for a while longer, he shut it off, dried with the towel Peregrine had left for him, used a quick drying spell on his hair and dressed into a set of clean clothes from his pack. He then braced his arms against the sink to stare at himself in the mirror for the first time in an age. The constant sun exposure had warmed his skin to a deeper brown and left an almost imperceptible collection of freckles on his face. With his hair free of sweat to plaster it down, it sprung past his thin shoulders, its length weighing it down so that, for perhaps the first time in his life, it did not flick in every direction humanly possible. Stealing the razor on the sink, Harry lathered up some soap and plastered it to the mousy excuse of a moustache that had grown, nicking himself only once. Searching the bathroom cupboard for anything else that could refresh him, he uprooted Peregrine’s toothbrush and toothpaste, mouthwash, a bottle of painkillers, a handheld mirror, a packet of condoms and several hair elastics. He nicked one of the latter and scraped his hair back into something more manageable. It was then that he heard a muffled crash on the other side of the door.

He seized his wand and flew out of the bathroom, expecting to find Peregrine confronted by an assailant or two, only to see Peregrine standing over an upturned armchair torn open from the base, chest heaving and eyes manic. The rest of the room had been trashed, books thrown in disarray and parchment pages crumpled around the floor.

Harry gaped at the scene before him. “What happened?”

Peregrine started. Setting his sights on Harry, he stalked towards him, kicking away obstacles along the way. He held his wand, his hands flying about him madly as he advanced. The words that jumbled out meant little more than gibberish to Harry.

“I was going to burn it, I swear I hid it in the stuffing, it was there only a couple of days ago, but it’s not there anymore, I don’t know who could’ve done it, no one’s ever searched the armchair before–”

Peregrine’s pupils were blown wide, his eyes darting around the room, rarely settling on Harry for more than a millisecond at a time.

“You need to explain to me what’s going on,” Harry said, crisply cutting through the rant and holding out a hand to slow Peregrine’s advance. Peregrine immediately seized the hand like a lifeline.

“It’s gone,” he hissed. “Someone has stolen my research!”

Harry’s mouth went dry, his chest hollowing. He glanced around at all the parchment still lying around them and tried for a logical approach. “All of it?”

“All that matters,” Peregrine groaned, tossing Harry’s hand to the side and lurching away to throw himself onto the upturned armchair, caging his face between his fingers. “Everything I’ve finalised. Harry… if someone else has got it, they can continue it. It’ll take years, but I’ve given them enough for a strong foundation – and more. You understand what this means, don’t you?”

“Research still out there, time loop not broken,” Harry muttered and lifted his gaze skywards in a silent prayer for strength to whichever higher being out there was listening, if such a thing existed. “And so the plot thickens.”

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

The door flew open, slamming against the adjacent wall with a splintering crash.

Margot bolted upright in bed, grasping for her eye mask and tearing it off her face, hair flying in a disarrayed, yellow halo around her. A quick glance sideways through the tall, arched windows across from her revealed that the moon was still riding high in the sky, sending soft beams into her bedchamber to mark glowing tattoos in the floorboards.

A slim figure in a dressing robe stood in the doorway, wand raised, a light shining from the tip.

Margot relaxed, falling back against her pillows.

“Marcellus,” she said. “Don’t scare me like that.”

The figure advanced into the room, seizing Margot’s dressing robe from the end of her bed and tossing it onto her lap.

“Put this on,” he said – there was a note of urgency to his voice. “And please hurry. It’s happening again.”

Margot sprung to alert, throwing her bedsheets aside and slipping into the pair of boots she kept at her bedside. Dragging the dressing robe on to ward off the night chill, she grabbed her wand and muttered, “Lumos,” before, “Tell me when it started.”

She and Marcellus hurried out of the room and down the long, echoing hall of Malfoy Manor, their darting footsteps soft on the polished floorboards.

“I’m not sure,” said Marcellus. His face, so lovely in the daylight, was now set in shadow. “We went to sleep close to midnight, and I woke up a couple of hours later to find him like this again. I couldn’t wake him, not properly. It seems to me that you’re the only one able to get through to him when he’s like this.”

Margot shook her head and said solemnly, “He probably hasn’t been listening to my advice. Has he been meditating before he goes to sleep?”

Marcellus shook his head, and Margot scoffed. “Of course he hasn’t been. Meditation is something that needs to be practised every day, how could he possibly expect to achieve a clear mind if he doesn’t… he’s such as stubborn, proud man, it drives me up the wall.”

Marcellus didn’t reply. He didn’t need to.

Glancing around to make sure that nobody had followed them, Margot pushed open the bedchamber door Marcellus had led her to and stepped across the threshold.

“Lock the door behind us,” she ordered him, “and sound-proof the room while you’re at it.”

She pointed her wand at each individual lamp on the walls, each blooming to life with small, dancing flames so that the room was soon well lit – or as well lit as was possible, in this perpetually dim house. She approached the large, four poster bed and cast the curtains aside.

Tom Riddle was turning to and fro, his head thrown back to bare his long, white throat, the Adam’s apple prominent. He was whimpering and whispering words that were unintelligible to her. His eyes were screwed shut and his face was pale, shining with sweat.

Calmly, Margot kneeled by his side and placed a hand across his damp, feverish forehead, and closed her eyes.

A vision of bright green eyes flashed across her inner eye, like the sun briefly catching on the side of a well-polished knife. It was sharp and searing, and she snapped her eyes open again, hand skittering off his forehead as if she had been burned. A headache began to pound against her left temple.

Marcellus was standing across from them, his arms clutching his robes tightly against his body and his brow furrowed, silently watching the scene.

Margot pressed her lips together, hand quivering as she extended it again, her palm once more making contact with his forehead.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” she said, loud and clear as a bell. “Wake!”

The effect was instantaneous, as it had always been.

Riddle fell still, his eyes flashing open and his chest heaving with forced breaths.

He pushed himself up onto his elbows and stared at Margot, the panic scrawled across his face dispersing at the sight of her crouched there, bags drawn under her eyes.

“Again?” he whispered.

“Again,” Margot agreed grimly. “Do you remember what you saw?”

Riddle dragged himself upright, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, pressing his palms into his eye sockets as if he could erase the sights that he had seen through sheer physical force.

“Bits and pieces,” he murmured. “It never makes any sense. But it’s always the same. I see snow, and a dragon. It’s so cold, yet my chest feels warm. Then there’s a rainstorm, and a girl, dying – I can’t remember her face. And a boy. There’s always a boy, in my arms. I always feel like crying.”

He had removed his face from his hands and was staring into the distance, into a world that neither she nor Marcellus could see. The silence around Marcellus became brittle – the change was almost tangible. He was staring at the back of Riddle’s head, burning holes.

“That’s a sight I’d like to see, you crying,” said Margot briskly. She wasn’t here to get in the middle of some lovers’ spat, or whatever these two were. “Was it the boy with the green eyes again?”

“Yes,” Riddle whispered. “Green, like the killing curse. Beautiful.”

Marcellus cleared his throat. He was no longer trying to hide the fact that he was mightily pissed off.

“Beautiful eyes aside,” he said tetchily, “do you have any idea who he is? Him, or the girl?”

“No,” Riddle returned, sounding equally pissy, as if he had just be drawn from a particularly nice memory. “It’s like an itch in my brain that I can’t reach but is always there. Why can’t I just remember?”

He shoved himself up into a standing position and began pacing, the moon shining white across his bare back as he stalked back and forth across the chamber – a panther woken from his slumber – dragging a hand through his thick, dark hair.

It occurred to Margot then that she and Marcellus were the only ones who would ever be allowed to see this man in such a vulnerable state. It was uncalled for that anyone else might witness it.

“It’s at Hogwarts,” Riddle said abruptly, turning to Margot who was still kneeling on the floor at the bedside, watching him quietly. “I’ve always thought it was at Hogwarts, but I’m not sure why. A gut feeling…”

“Have you been back to Hogwarts recently?” she asked.

“Not for five years. Dippet told me to wait before I return, and so I have waited. I will not beg for a position there. I will accept an offer graciously, then Dumbledore will no longer be smiling…”

Hatred burned mean in his voice. Margot had never understood the relationship between Riddle and the Transfiguration professor. The animosity between them appeared to have arisen out of thin air, as far as she could tell.

Margot stood, brushing hair out of her face. She had no interest in Riddle’s politics, and she had no interest in becoming one of his sycophants. She had her role to perform, and she would perform no more and no less. Besides, she could tell things could quickly become awkward between Marcellus and Riddle, and she had no desire to hang around to witness it.

“Unless you have any other information of importance,” she said, “then I’d best be off before Abraxas is alerted of this gathering. Good night to you all–”

But before she could brush out of the room, Riddle seized her arm, bringing her to a standstill, his grip like steel. The towering shadow over her was a stark reminder of how much taller than her he was. She turned rigid as he bent down and brought his lips to her ear.

“And what of you?” he asked, as soft as a breath but no less dangerous. “Have you seen anything of late that you are withholding from me? Because if you are, I’m sure there’s no need for me to remind you how easily I can rip your mind to shreds, as easily as flimsy wallpaper.”

Margot turned her face towards his, baring her teeth at him. “Let go of me.”

He didn’t, instead continued in a deadly whisper, “Remember what you owe me.”

Margot wrenched herself out of his grip and glared at him, despite how much her hands shook when confronted by his quiet, unstable menace.

“I have seen nothing new,” she hissed. “It’s as I have told you, and it’s the same every time – you will die, and it will not end in grandeur, but in silence.”

Riddle scoffed and turned his back on her, dismissing her from his sight.

“I have taken precautions,” he said, “and nor am I done with my safeguard. What you say is an impossibility.”

Despite her desire to remove herself from the same room as him as swiftly as was humanly possible, she couldn’t help but demand, “Why do you want me here if you never wish to listen to what I have to say?”

“Because you’ve only recently come into your skillset,” he responded. “I believe that you’re inexperienced and misinterpreting what you’ve seen.”

Margot’s jaw worked, contemplating a furious retort, but Marcellus saved her the effort.

“You’re both tired,” he said, clearly attempting to patch up the tension that had built between him and Riddle. He stepped over to the taller man, reaching out to massage his shoulders soothingly. “I’d recommend everybody retire for what’s left of the night.”

Riddle brushed him off, ignoring the small noise of offence his actions elicited from the other.

“I’m going into Borgin and Burkes,” he said, crossing over to his trunk to begin changing. “I have a meeting with a potential customer in an hour.”

“At three in the morning?” Marcellus demanded, disbelieving.

Sensing that her presence was no longer remembered, Margot unlocked the door and slipped out, back into the cover of darkness.

***

Malfoy Manor was unusual in that when morning light draped itself across the outside world, it never seemed able to pervade the ancient building’s walls. There was a constant chill in the air inside, despite the low flames that burned within fireplaces in the various rooms, tended to by house-elves that Margot never seemed to see. Throughout their various stays here, she had learned that the Malfoy servants were exceptionally well trained in the art of neither being seen nor heard.

A bell rang from the dining hall, resonating throughout the halls, indicating that breakfast was being served.

Margot fetched a deep blue dress with matching outer robes from her trunk, which she never bothered unpacking considering how often Riddle moved, and dressed herself before seating herself at the vanity to make herself presentable in the esteemed company of Abraxas Malfoy.

Her pale, heart-shaped face watched her in the mirror as she powdered her face, darkened her lashes and pinched her white cheeks and lips to bring colour to them. While she was performing her morning routine, Marcellus strode into the room and sat down on the end of her bed, watching her.

She glanced into the mirror and met his piercing cognac-coloured eyes.

“Marcellus,” she acknowledged, returning to plaiting her hair.

“Margot,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You should let me add some makeup beneath your eyes,” she responded, winking at him in the mirror. “Your bags are even worse than mine!”

He brushed her off. “I mean about Tom.”

“Hm.” Margot held up a few pins. “Help me here, would you?”

He came over obediently, helping her to pin her plaits up into an elaborate bun on the back of her head, silent the entire time. Then she said, “What’s the matter now?”

“I’ve been with Tom since I left Hogwarts,” Marcellus said quietly. “Even at Hogwarts, I was always watching him, wanting to be a part of something bigger than me. And I sense that something’s finally happening, yet I have the terrible feeling that he’s slipping away from me.”

“But isn’t that just the way he is?” Margot asked, swivelling around on her chair to face him, taking his hands into her own. “Granted, I never had anything to do with him at school, and I’ve only been around him for five years now, but I think that this is who he is. He’s cold, he’s doesn’t experience emotions that same way that you and I do. That’s the only way he’s managed to do what he has so far.”

“This is different,” Marcellus said, and his voice broke painfully in the middle of the sentence. “He… he used to hold me. But he barely touches me now, and he looks at me as if he’s not seeing me. Since those dreams of his started becoming more frequent, he’s started to think of nothing but them. I can tell. It’s like an obsession… the boy with the green eyes… Margot, I don’t want to lose him.”

Margot couldn’t deny it. She’d seen these same changes in Riddle.

“Hey.” She stood up, cradling his warm cheek in her hand, brushing away a stray tear with her thumb. “Don’t cry. Never cry over any arsehole man, they don’t deserve it. And don’t give me that look, Riddle is an arsehole, and you know I’ve always thought so. He’s an absolute bastard, and you deserve so much better than him. But if you continue to insist to stay by his side, remember, I’ll always be here for you. We’ll get through this, alright?”

“Alright,” Marcellus whispered.

“Brush away those tears,” Margot said, smiling at him as much as she could bear, brushing the soft material of his velvet robes. “Don’t let Abraxas see you like this, or you’ll never earn his respect back. Now, how does breakfast sound? I’m dying for a good cup of tea.”

Marcellus drew a deep breath in, shaking his head and blinking hard. “You’re right. Of course you are. Thank you, Margot.”

By the time they entered the dining hall, Marcellus’s face was the picture of a stillness. Abraxas was already seated at the head of the table, helping himself to a platter of small, speckled eggs.

“Ah,” he said, looking up as they walked in. “There you are. I was wondering when I would be graced with your company, Miss Greengrass, Mr Selwyn.”

“Excuse our tardiness,” said Margot, extending a coy smile towards the wizard she loathed almost as much as Riddle. “The two of us were caught up having a chat in my bedchamber.”

“I trust your quarters are to your liking?”

Margot allowed herself a small laugh. “Goodness me, Abraxas, why the formalities? I have been given the same room every time Riddle and I have passed through here for the past six years.”

Abraxas gave a polite smile, though it was tight, as though he couldn’t believe she still had the nerve to refer to Riddle by the surname he had rejected. As a matter of fact, Abraxas’s equal dislike towards her shone clear. Margot knew that few people beyond Marcellus did more than tolerate her presence within the hierarchy of the so-called Death Eaters, the new name greatly popular among Riddle’s sycophants. Most of them had known her in school and were aware of her disdain towards them, and many were acquainted with her parents, who had intended a different fate for her. But they all knew she was important to Riddle, even if they didn’t know the deal that had been struck between them. Whispered words were all that were exchanged behind her back, harmless enough. She was a tougher nut to crack. Besides, her standing as a pure-blood from the family of its name offered her an even wider circle of protection among these witches and wizards.

“And what of you, Mr Selwyn?” Abraxas inquired, turning towards Margot’s companion with greater levels of warmth than he had showed her. “How did yourself and my lord find your quarters? I trust you received the mulled wine I had the house-elves deliver last night? It reached an exceptionally cold temperature…”

“Yes, thank you, everything was perfectly satisfactory,” said Marcellus blandly. His public face was such a different one from the one that Margot saw behind closed doors. She was always astounded by what a spectacular actor he was. He was cracking open a soft-boiled quail egg now, barely sparing Abraxas a glance.

Margot poured herself some earl grey, summoning the cream and sugar cubes with her wand, all the while watching Abraxas from the corner of her eye. He was eating with a measured pace, though he was clearly on edge, glancing at the door every few moments. At long last, he said, “Is my lord going to be joining us this morning?”

Marcellus paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. “He was taken away by a business call early this morning.”

“I see.” Abraxas deflated. He brushed his long tail of white-blonde hair over his shoulder and stood, throwing his napkin upon his half-finished plate of food. “Well then, I’ll be in my office should you wish to find me. Good day.”

With that, he swept out of the room.

“Good riddance,” said Margot, relaxing in her seat. “He’s such a stuffy presence, I hate that we stay here so often.”

“I don’t believe Tom is particularly fond of him, either,” said Marcellus, ignoring the tongs on the table now and grabbing a piece of toast with his fingers. “But Malfoy Manor serves as excellent headquarters, it’s large enough to house a big audience and is of prime location. And there’s no better library, besides Hogwarts, or so Tom likes to say.” His upright posture immediately slumped as he said the name. “Sweet Morgana, I’m too sober to think about him right now.”

He snapped his fingers, and a house-elf cracked into sight by his side. Dressed in a rag, with big, droopy ears and tennis ball-sized eyes, Margot had always found them to be hideous creatures, but they were undeniably useful and of far greater levels of intelligence than most gave them credit for. They were also – and Margot rarely spoke of it, but her magic sensitivity never lied – vessels of far greater levels of magic than most witches and wizards possessed. This she had to respect.

“Master Marcellus, sir, called for Dobby?” the house-elf asked in his high, piercing voice.

“Yes,” said Marcellus, and he lowered his voice conspiratorially, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening at the door. “I was rather hoping, Dobby, that you still have some of that mulled wine on hand?”

“It’s eight in the morning, Marcellus!” said Margot, scandalised, while Dobby giggled into his hand.

“No one need ever know, if no one speaks of it,” returned Marcellus, giving her a significant look. “What say you, Dobby?”

“Dobby can sort something out for Master Marcellus,” the elf squeaked, but then he noticed Margot and he passed a worried glance to Marcellus.

“She won’t tell,” Marcellus said, winking, and he lifted his finger to his lips, smiling, his eyes briefly flickering towards the door again as if expecting Abraxas to dive through it at any moment and accuse him of alcoholism.

Dobby imitated the pose, grinning all the while, which was when Margot saw it. Marcellus must have seen it, too, for his face fell and his eyebrows dipped. “What happened to your hands, Dobby?”

Dobby glanced down at his bandaged fingers, and his ears drooped, eyes lowering to the ground in shame. “Dobby was a bad elf. Dobby served Master Abraxas tea that scalded his mouth, so Master Abraxas told Dobby to go scald his hands. So Dobby put a poker in the fire and when it was good and hot, Dobby held it in his hands and Dobby cried, but Dobby was bad to his master so Dobby deserved it–”

“Never say you deserved it!” Marcellus hissed, making Margot jump, and his eyes burned bright and furious, like the embers of a fire. “I don’t care if you dropped a whole bloody tray of tea on his head, no one deserves what you did to yourself!”

“But Master Abraxas said–”

“Master Abraxas is a f*ckwit!”

Margot took a sip of tea, watching the entire scene play out before her eyes. Marcellus was on his feet now, his mouth trembling, and Dobby looked petrified, cowering on the ground.

“Dobby made Master Marcellus angry, Dobby needs to punish himself–”

“No.” Marcellus sliced across Dobby’s words, like a hot knife through butter. His voice softened, though his eyes were still smouldering. “You didn’t make me angry, Dobby. Abraxas did. Do you understand? Now, would you let me see your hands? Maybe Margot here can heal them for you, she’s very good at things like that.”

But Dobby hid his hands behind his back. He looked no more reassured than if Marcellus had threatened to bite his head off. “Dobby will leave Master Marcellus his mulled wine in his room,” the elf said, his voice barely a whisper, then Disapparated with another resonating crack.

Marcellus dragged a hand through his dark hair and threw himself back down into his chair. He was breathing very fast.

Margot took another mouthful of toast, chewing as she watched him thoughtfully while he poked at his plate of food, his mouth forming a straight line. While she didn’t treat house-elves with scorn (how could she, knowing how powerful they truly were?) but she was never able to muster the levels of care that Marcellus did. He was a true rarity, that one. How in Merlin’s name Riddle kept catching these hearts of gold for his own, she did not know– her thoughts came to a screeching halt. She stopped chewing.

Kept? As if he had ever caught more than one. She cast her mind back, desperately fishing for whatever line of thought had brought her to form that sentence in her head, but she came up blank, a net dragged out of the water which had snagged nothing but kelp.

“Nothing with magic should be treated with such contempt,” Marcellus announced. His breathing had evened out, though his voice still trembled. “I hate men like Abraxas Malfoy. Men without sympathy.”

Margot quirked an eyebrow at him, her thoughts reading clear on her face. Men like Tom Riddle?

“Oh, he has sympathy,” said Marcellus, and added darkly, “in his rarer moments. As I said before, I’m too sober to deal with this right now. Join me?”

Margot waved him away. “I don’t drink in the morning.”

“It’s not like we have anything else on today, besides waiting for Tom to get back from wherever the hell he’s nicked off too.”

“There’s something I want to do,” she said. “Something I need a clear mind for.”

Marcellus sighed. “More crystal ball gazing? Well, suit yourself.”

He stormed out of the dining hall, no doubt making a beeline for the place he would find the mulled wine to drown his sorrows. She would have to make sure to check on him when she was done to make sure he hadn’t done anything regrettable.

But in the meantime, she had a thought to chase. Abandoning the now empty room, she passed through the wide, dark halls of Malfoy Manor, pausing every now and then to watch a peaco*ck preening in the well-tended grounds outside. Other than the occasional peaco*ck, she encountered not another soul on her journey back to her room.

In her bedchamber, Margot ensured the door was shut behind her before she moved to her trunk and rummaged through it on her hands and knees, searching for the instrument that made her invaluable to Riddle. With a small grunt, she unearthed the heavy glass orb and clutched it to her chest as she brought it over to the vanity, perching it on its three golden clawed feet.

Humming, Margot polished it with a cloth so that it shone bright in the dim light, making careful sure to not make contact with her skin before she was ready. Satisfied with her work, she wiggled herself to the back of her chair, pressing her spine against the soft, cushioned backing, and wrapped her manicured fingers around the crystal ball, gazing deeply into the haze of mist that warped within, twisting like clouds carried by wind in the sky, forming figures without faces and sounds without voices, dragons and knights, trees and rivers, streams and storms.

There was Riddle, dead upon the ground, she couldn’t see his face yet she knew it was him, cloaked in robes of black. They were cheering, and how loudly they cheered, for the tyrant was finally defeated…

Margot cast her mind further in, chasing the tail of the thought she had lost, for surely it would reveal itself here, in the world without sense, but it evaded her reaching fingers, fluttering around corners before she could reach it, never fully in sight… it was fading fast now, she could no longer quite recall what it was that she was meant to be chasing, like a dream she had once had but no longer held a memory of… soon the memory that there had ever even be a dream would be lost, too…

A ghostly stag appeared, unbidden, in the mist, followed by a searing vision of eyes which fractured the stag into shattered pieces. “TOM.”

Margot released the ball with a scream, standing up so fast that she knocked the chair out from under her, for she had been so certain those eyes were staring into her very soul. Gasping for breath, she grabbed her dressing robe – the closest thing she could reach – and threw it over the orb to remove it from her sight.

Those eyes. Again. Since Riddle’s dreams had been plagued with them, it now seemed that they were leeching into her crystal gazing, too. The very same, she was sure of it, for who else had eyes the exact same shade as the killing curse? It made no sense, there was no context within which to place those eyes. As if they just zapped into existence from nowhere, having never existed before… it was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. And now, the vision was paired with a voice. Distinctly male, and crying out – Tom. Surely a reference to Tom Riddle.

She glanced out the window to see the sun had moved from where it had been perched last she looked. Time had elapsed without her sensing it, so contained in the world of the crystal ball, and then her thoughts.

As if summoned by her thoughts, the door swung open and Riddle came striding into the room at that moment. His face was white, his jaw tight. He was wearing his travelling cloak, indicating that he had only just returned.

“We’re leaving,” he said. He paused in his tracks, just for a split second, when he took in the chair knocked to the ground and the dressing gown thrown over a round object on the table. His dark eyes narrowed and moved to Margot, but the sight of him had driven a sliver of understanding into her.

“Tea,” she murmured, skirting around the chair and past him, dashing out the door. “I need to read your tea.”

“What did you see?” Riddle demanded, following her out the door. He only had to take one long stride to maintain pace with her darting footsteps as she hurried back down the hallway.

“I don’t know,” she said breathlessly. “Well, I do know, but I need to confirm– just follow me!”

Sensing that she was on the verge of a breakthrough, Riddle did not argue, for perhaps the first time in his life, but Margot was too lost in her own head to be able to savour the moment of finally winning over him. Pity.

Back in the dining hall, the long table had been cleared of the breakfast things, except for a tray holding a teapot, several delicate china cups, and a tier holding finger sandwiches and pretty little pastries arranged into swirling floral patterns.

Accidentally disturbing the tier in her hurry and its immaculate styling, Margot quickly prepared a cup of tea with shaking hands and shoved it into Riddle’s, who was standing behind her, looking very pinched.

“Drink,” she demanded, “but not all of it.”

Grimacing against the bitter taste of tea leaves that Margot had burned in her haste, Riddle downed the cup like a shot of strong alcohol, passing it back to her when he was done.

Wiping sweaty strands of hair out of her face, she swirled the cup and the remnants of tea leaf mulch at the bottom of the cup, squinting hard at it to decipher the various shapes forming, dismissing the irrelevant ones and seeking the ones that made any semblance of sense.

“Well?”

“Shush,” Margot said distantly, gazing down at the beautiful mess at the bottom of the cup. “There’s a five-pointed star… something to do with returning home… and someone searching… for you.”

Margot snapped her eyes up to meet Riddle’s. His were deep blue and still, like the surface of a lake. She couldn’t tell what was hiding beneath.

“The one with the green eyes,” she said, this time with as much certainty as when she spoke of his eventual death. “He’s searching for you.”

If it was possible, Riddle’s face drained of whatever colour was left in it. He may as well have been made of porcelain. Wandlessly, he summoned a chair from beneath the table and sat down heavily, unbuckling his cloak from his throat and letting it drape around him.

“A stag came to me.” His voice was abrupt.

“A stag?” Margot asked sharply, recalling the split second image she had seen in the crystal ball.

“A Patronus,” Riddle corrected. He closed his eyes, as if summoning the memory to the forefront of his mind, envisioning the spectre that had presented itself. “It spoke, in a voice from long ago. I was instructed to meet him at King’s Cross Station.”

“Have you a date and time?”

“Tonight, at midnight. Alone. To ensure no interruptions.”

Margot frowned at him. “Are you going to go?”

Riddle opened his eyes slowly, lazily. Even despite his obvious weariness, his stance was still that of a predator, lounging back as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He propped his elbow against the armrest and inclined his head to rest his cheekbone against his knuckles. “It could be a trap,” he said.

“Which is precisely why I’m asking.”

Riddle’s lips curled into a smile which didn’t reach his eyes. She had never seen his eyes anything but cold. “Consider me astounded that you’re not encouraging me to go. I always thought you’d have rather liked to see me ambushed.”

“Don’t doubt that I would,” countered Margot, equally cold. “I couldn’t care less if your throat is slit while you’re away. However, I have my own doubts about that ever happening, since your throat is perfectly intact in the image I see of your cold, dead body.”

The smile slid off Riddle’s face. His handsome mouth was now as icy as the rest of his face. “I am going,” he said, standing. “But I shall not be going alone. You’ll accompany me, Greengrass –” he ignored her noise of protest “–as will Mulciber.”

“Mulciber.” Margot actually groaned aloud, despite how unladylike a sound it was. It wasn’t as if Riddle considered her a lady, anyway – she needn’t bother in his company. Besides, Cassius Mulciber was worthy of a groan. Riddle’s second-in-command and one of the members of his original school gang, he was no better than Riddle himself in how bigoted he was. Merlin, how she loathed the lot of them. “Where even is your darling Mulciber, anyway?”

“In Peru,” Riddle said, without sparing her a backwards glance as he swept out of the dining hall. “He’s meeting on my behalf with a group of wizards who are sympathetic to our cause.”

“And you didn’t wish to meet with them?” Margot panted, hurrying after him, lifting her skirts to allow her easier movement. “That’s rare, I thought you usually handled the recruitment process.”

“I do.” Riddle swerved around a corner, ignoring the way Margot tottered behind him. She never understood how he moved with such grace so quickly. One thing she had learned about Riddle – he didn’t run, he glided. “However, there was a new customer at Borgin and Burkes who I couldn’t pass up meeting. She claimed to hold many rare wizarding artefacts. Unfortunately, she was all talk. Now, I want you to pack your trunk. I have my doubts that we’ll be returning here for a little while.”

“I never unpacked it,” said Margot indignantly. Riddle rarely remained in one place for longer than a handful of days, and she was usually forced to follow him, imprisoned on a ridiculously short leash.

“You’ve learned well,” returned Riddle, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “You’re to meet me in the front hall in twenty minutes. We depart immediately.”

He was already disappearing down the hall opposite the one that led to her own bedchamber. Before he could vanish, as he was so excellent at doing, Margot called after his back, “What of Marcellus? Will he not accompany us, too?”

Riddle paused. “He will not. He can remain here if he wishes. Abraxas enjoys his company enough.”

If only Marcellus reciprocated that sentiment.

“Marcellus is worried about you.” She immediately bit her tongue, wishing she hadn’t said anything, because the look Riddle cast her was one of ice.

“Marcellus is soft,” he said. “He has grown to expect things of me that I cannot offer. I wonder whether it’s time to direct him down a new path.”

Margot felt as though she had swallowed a brick. It sank, heavy, in her stomach. “Don’t do that,” she said automatically, despite how much she disapproved of their relationship. It would break Marcellus’s heart, and she worried he would never be the same afterwards.

But perhaps her reasoning was more selfish than that. She was, after all, accustomed to guarding her own back. Without Marcellus by Riddle’s side, nor would he be by her side, and then she would truly be alone.

The sardonic twist of Riddle’s lip did not reassure her. “Meet me in twenty minutes,” was all he said, then he was gone.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

If anyone had entered King’s Cross Station at that time of night, at first glance they would have deemed it ghostly quiet. The grounds which were usually bustling with a colourful whirlwind of life were now devoid of movement, the usual clattering of trains snaking through like chunky caterpillars was absent, and it was very dark. They may have reached out with a finger and twanged on the silence, thick as treacle, as if it were a physical presence. But this was only the first layer, cloaking the place.

Beneath this layer, if a person had listened a little closer, stared a little harder, they may have seen the shimmer of shapes unseen in a corner of the station platform, and they may have heard the occasional, muffled whisper.

But there was no one there to hear such a thing.

“He’s late,” Harry said aloud, checking his watch as he had been compulsively doing for the past forty minutes since they had arrived. He was crouched in a position which would best serve to protect his back, Invisibility Cloak thrown over himself and his companion, which made for a tight fit, considering one of them was quite tall.

“You were late, too,” said Peregrine, who was becoming progressively more skittish as time slithered onwards, infuriatingly slow. “For all you know, Riddle could have left before you even arrived.”

“He wouldn’t have.” Harry’s response was immediate. “He’d want to be fashionably late. Would want to stake out the perimeter in case of an ambush before he came in. But we’re nearly an hour over the scheduled meeting time, now…”

Peregrine didn’t reply. He shifted around for a few moments, then finally snapped. “Seriously, Hardwin, my nerves are being compressed sitting here. We’ve got your special cloak thing, can’t we move to a proper bench to sit on?”

“No. I don’t want to miss him when he turns up.”

“But my legs are dead!”

Harry glanced sideways at Peregrine, battling against a sneer that threatened to break his face in two and failing miserably. “Your legs aren’t the only things that’ll be dead if you don’t zip it, Lestrange.”

Their faces were so close that he could feel Peregrine’s exhaled laugh on his forehead. “That’s cold of you.”

They passed a few more minutes in silence, Harry occasionally shaking out a leg when it started to numb, then finally Peregrine broke it again, as ever the weak link.

“He’s not coming,” he said flatly.

Harry shook his head slowly, pulling his watch out once more. It had just passed one in the morning. They could not waste further precious hours playing this one-sided game.

With the buzz of anticipation fading from his veins, like a fizzy drink gone flat, all Harry could now taste was disappointment, bitter on his tongue. He stood up, knees groaning their relief, and said abruptly, “I was so certain he would. Why... why wouldn’t he come?”

This question he addressed to Peregrine, a plea in his voice.

“Well, just put yourself into Riddle’s shoes,” said Peregrine reasonably, managing to pat Harry consolingly on the back despite their close proximity, still bundled under the Invisibility Cloak as they were. “Last time he saw you, you died. Maybe he thought your message was a fake. When I saw you, I didn’t believe it was you, even though you were standing right before my eyes.”

“But he knows my Patronus!” Harry snapped, refusing to admit defeat. “A Patronus can’t be forged, he must have known it was me!”

Suddenly, the cloak shrouding them was stifling and he couldn’t breathe properly. His lungs felt stiff and flattened, and it wasn’t as if there was anyone around, so Harry tore the cloak off impatiently, taking a step back from Peregrine to allow himself more space, his mind whirring like it had never done before, turning over stone after stone for a possible answer as to why, why, Tom Riddle would ignore his invitation to meet…

Peregrine was opening his mouth to reply, then suddenly he was closing it, a rapid change crossing over his face, like a mask concealing his features. His eyes were trained on something over Harry’s shoulder, so very dark. There was too little light to decipher a reflection of the enemy facing them.

“Keep your hands in plain sight,” commanded a voice that was so heartbreakingly familiar – if anything deeper, more velveteen than last he had heard it.

Harry’s gaze flickered to Peregrine, who was watching the speaker with little expression on his face – he might have been made of stone. Peregrine’s chin dipped downwards into the most miniscule of nods.

Suddenly, breathing became difficult, like his airways had constricted, and his pulse jumped in his throat. Slowly, as if afraid of frightening a wild animal, Harry revolved on the spot and stared at the row of three, squaring off against himself and Peregrine a short distance away, each holding them at wand-point.

Harry watched them steadily, despite the way his viscera seemed to have shifted around within him, leaving him feeling thoroughly discombobulated.

To the right stood a wizard whose gaze was flat, his stance bordering on lazy. He was stockier than the last time Harry had seen him, his hair cropped short with military precision, but those quick, silvery eyes were unmistakeable. Six years later, it seemed that Cassius Mulciber had yet to leave his master’s side.

To the left was a witch Harry almost didn’t recognise. He had known her when she was still in sixth-year, young, pretty and distinctly baby-faced though never naïve, but nor had she ever been cold to him. Today, whatever innocence had once been in her eyes had been scoured away with little care. Far more angular and pointy, beautiful in a razor-sharp way, Margot Greengrass’s gaze was chillier than he had ever seen.

And last, but never least, flanked by the other two, was the most handsome man Harry had ever laid eyes on. He seemed impossibly taller, and he still styled his hair in that immaculate way that Harry had seen him slave away at in front of a mirror, countless times. His features no longer held the slight softness of a teenage boy not quite done growing up, and while he was, undeniably, still breathtaking to look at, there was something off about his face. As if it wasn’t his, like somebody had copied it, but not quite right.

With wordless understanding, Harry knew that Tom Riddle was less whole than he had been last time. He must have been busy with his Horcruxes.

Harry’s heart descended from where it had risen in his throat to his stomach.

“Step out of the shadows,” Tom demanded, and his wand was trained upon Harry, the dangerous aura surrounding him palpable. It was causing the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck to rise in the presence of this energy that he couldn’t explain. He wanted nothing more than to speak, to say anything, but his tongue seemed to have turned to sandpaper and his mouth felt gluey and dry, somehow both simultaneously.

Carefully, he stepped out of the shadows that he and Peregrine had folded themselves into, eyes moving to Tom’s shoulder so that he didn’t have to look into the face that seemed so different from the one he had left behind. He didn’t know what he would do if he looked up and met eyes as red as blood.

He could see Tom advancing on him, though slowly, almost as if he was also afraid. Two predators facing off in neither’s territory.

It was anyone’s game.

“My lord,” said Mulciber loudly, a warning. In his periphery, Harry could see that he and Margot hadn’t lowered their wands, though he couldn’t see their expressions, couldn’t tell whether they thought Tom’s behaviour was odd.

But they were not a part of the small, endless world that entrapped only Harry and Tom. Mulciber and Margot, and even Peregrine somewhere behind Harry, slipped away from his conscious thought and his entire being was focused solely on the man who was moving towards him, perhaps unconsciously, every step bringing him nearer, this man who had once betrayed him.

Now a foot away, Tom stopped. His wand had lowered, though Harry didn’t know when. He continued to stare resolutely at Tom’s shoulder, unable to bring himself to speak, unable to make so much as eye contact.

His hands had begun to tremble by his side. They tightened into fists to steady themselves.

How long he had dreamed about this impossible reunion, how often he had rehearsed the things he wanted to say. In his dreams, his nightmares, Harry had cursed and condemned his enemy to hell, he had screamed, he had wrapped his fingers around the other’s throat and squeezed, staring with malicious delight and horror as the blood vessels popped in the other’s eyes. He had softly traced his lover’s lips, his nose, his eyelashes with the pads of his fingers, he had professed his love and whispered sweet nothings until the breaking of dawn cradled him gently back to the waking world with tears in his eyes.

There was so much to be said. Too much. Yet there were no earthly words beyond his world of dreams to communicate what Harry so desperately wanted to tell.

“Look at me,” said Tom, and his voice was mellow and golden, like butter.

Harry looked.

Tom’s eyes were blue. Like the deepest ocean. Deep enough to drown in.

Harry felt tears burning the back of his eyeballs, felt his nasal cavities stinging and becoming stuffy. He couldn’t find the will to fight it off. “Hi, Tom,” he whispered.

Perhaps Tom had heard all the hidden meanings in his voice, because his head quirked to the side like a curious bird and only when Tom’s hand was an inch from his face did Harry realise that he was reaching out.

He closed his eyes, half expecting a shock when Tom’s skin made contact with his, something – anything – to suggest that an event outside of the ordinary was playing out. But there was nothing of the sort. Only slightly roughened fingers with several calluses touched his cheek and cradled him there, so soft that Harry’s heart ached for what had once been.

He leaned into the hand and exhaled, because suddenly, despite all the past wrongs, it felt like coming home.

“I know you,” Tom murmured with pure, childlike wonder in his voice. “As if from another life.”

Harry’s eyes snapped open, this immortal moment forever shattered.

He stepped away from the tender embrace of Tom’s hand, backing up a few steps, retreating to stand in the shadows next to Peregrine again. Tom didn’t follow, though his hand remained hovering there in the air, cradling a memory.

“What?” Harry asked, and his voice was a brittle rasp.

“Tell me your name,” said Tom.

With their bubble now broken, he now sensed that outside of his and Tom’s interaction, there was silence. Thin, reedy and altogether unpleasant. He could feel Peregrine watching him, with something akin to pain in his eyes.

Harry didn’t respond. There seemed to be a physical pain in his chest, burning there, because now he knew that Tom had already forgotten. They all had.

“He asked for your name,” repeated Mulciber, and if he thought there to be anything strange about what had just happened, he didn’t show it on that poker face that he’d had perfected by the age of seventeen.

Harry stared at his wand which was still levelled upon him, unable to fathom what exactly was happening.

“Lower your wand, Cassius,” Tom said, perhaps mistaking Harry’s silence for fear. “And you, Greengrass.”

Margot needed no further convincing. She neatly replaced her wand into its holster, never removing Harry and Peregrine from her sights. The iciness that had been on her face earlier had melted away, revealing the expression of a person attempting to solve a particularly tricky puzzle.

Mulciber wasn’t so easily swayed. “But, my lord–”

“Do as I say!” Tom’s tone was harsh and powerful, and from the corner of his eye, Harry saw Peregrine instinctively retreat another step, perhaps having forgotten what it was like to be in Tom’s presence when his mood soured.

Harry caught the hem of his sleeve before he could shrink any further back.

Stay with me.

The sentiment must have been clear enough, because Peregrine set his jaw and stood his ground.

Harry returned his attention back to Mulciber, who had dipped his head in submission. “My lord,” he murmured.

Removing his commanding stare from Mulciber’s inclined back, Tom turned to face Harry again, holding his hand out as if to beckon him into his arms. His hard gaze softened, became beseeching. “I need to know who you are,” he said. “I’ve seen you in my dreams, and I desire nothing more than to shed light upon why…”

His timbre was warm and round, like a spoonful of honey, dripping so temptingly. But Harry wasn’t fooled by this particular honey trap, not now, not ever again. Steeling himself, he relinquished his grip on Peregrine’s sleeve and folded his arms across his chest, wrapping his robes more firmly across his body. His hair fell in waves across his eyes, obscuring his vision, and he impatiently shook it away.

“Dreams,” he said coldly.

Mustering his courage, Peregrine cast himself into the middle. “Do you not recall who this is?” he asked, and his bewilderment was obvious. Harry was glad. At least that made two of them.

“Recall?” Margot interrupted, stepping forwards to stand between Harry and Tom, her eyes darting between the two as if there was a match playing out between them. “Have you met before?”

“I can’t seem to remember,” said Tom, frowning at Harry in a distant sort of way. “I have the strangest sense that we have.”

Harry’s throat closed up. Another awkward silence stretched out between them, eons long in length.

“Do you remember who I am?” Peregrine asked, the question etched deep on his face.

Tom spared him a scornful glance. “Of course I know who you are, Peregrine Lestrange. It was very discourteous of you to drop out of school halfway through seventh-year, without so much as a word to anyone. Have you any idea how furious your parents were? But none of that matters. The playing field has expanded exponentially in your absence.”

“Oh,” said Peregrine, his voice a wisp as he turned this new information over, worn thin. Despite him quietening, Harry knew that he would be feeling relief around about now. With Tom’s recollections of the manner of their parting seemingly gone, he no longer had to worry about the vengeance Tom may otherwise have sought. Nor could Harry have been relied upon to protect him, since Tom’s levels of growth throughout the past years were unknown to him. He probably could have trounced Harry without so much as breaking a sweat.

He couldn’t allow himself to forget that despite only one year passing for him, six had passed for Tom. The playing field was no longer as equal as it had once been.

“Why should Riddle remember you?” asked Margot, pouncing into the fray. Despite her even tone, eager light danced in her eyes. “When did you know each other?”

The look that Harry gave her was one of such thinly veiled sadness that her gaze went flat, her lips twitching downwards. “Did I also know you?” she whispered.

Harry managed a single, jerky nod of his head. “We–” his voice cracked painfully, but he persisted. “We were friends.”

He sounded like a child to his own ears.

Margot stared at him. Her eyes looked vaguely misty.

“But this makes no sense,” Tom was saying, and his voice seemed faded in Harry’s head, like he was speaking from a distance. “I have the most reliable memory, so why in Salazar’s name can’t I remember ever meeting? Yet I do know you, I’m certain of it. And your name is–”

He cut off, giving a frustrated shake of his head, as if clearing his ears of water.

“Harry Potter,” Harry heard himself saying. It seemed to be a disembodied voice which was speaking, or maybe he was the one without a body now, and was watching the scene from afar.

“Harry,” Tom repeated, and his pupils were dilated, greedy, like he was claiming the name, feeding it away into a drawer to keep for his own. “Yes. Harry. But… Potter, you say…?”

“You knew me by another name.” Once again, it didn’t seem to be him speaking. He sounded too detached. “But it’s actually Harry Potter.”

“Harry Potter,” Tom repeated, like a prayer, and all of a sudden Harry was back in his own body, and he stared down at his feet, struggling with the weight of functioning with this clunky, earth-bound body.

“You kissed me in the snow,” he said quietly, because it felt like the right thing to say, and he heard the smallest break in Tom’s breathing.

“Kissed?” said Mulciber (Harry had forgotten he was even there), and there was a patronising smile on his lips. “You must be mistaken. I’ve known my lord since we were eleven, and the only person he has ever spoken of is Marcellus Selwyn.”

“The second-year Hufflepuff?” asked Peregrine, disbelieving, seemingly forgetting himself in his momentary shock. “Well, not second-year now, but when we were in our final year…”

“Yes, him.” Mulciber appeared to be avoiding looking at Peregrine. His response was spoken to Harry.

“Marcellus Selwyn,” Harry repeated. The name felt like jagged stone pieces in his mouth. Something to be spat out.

Tom turned to Mulciber, and Harry couldn’t see his face, but whatever was on it had Mulciber taking a step back and ducking his head once again, murmuring, “I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.”

“Marcellus Selwyn is walking his own path, now,” said Tom, turning back around, and whatever look he had given Mulciber to startle him into submission was wiped clean.

“What?” Margot was staring at Tom now. “But you said…”

Evidently, she didn’t know what he had said, because she fell back into silence, almost clumsy, but her gaze was accusatory.

“I made my intentions clear, Greengrass,” said Tom, not deigning to spare her a look. “You’re in no position to question me.”

Finding her words again, Margot said softly, “If you hurt him, I’ll–”

“You’ll what,” Tom drawled, and it wasn’t a question. “You’ll curse me? You haven’t got a chance. You’ll leave me? The only other place for you to go is far uglier than this. You’ll publicise all the secrets you’ve gathered about me? Well–” a smirk crossed his lips “–you’d really regret that, wouldn’t you? The truth is, Greengrass, there isn’t a thing you can do to harm me. So threaten me if you will, I could do with a good laugh.”

It was so cruel, and Margot’s face was so stricken for the truth she knew his words held. Harry knew the decent thing to do would have been to feel sorry for her, yet he still felt cut off from everything, and whichever small part of him had managed to ground itself was too busy maliciously basking in the knowledge that Marcellus Selwyn – whoever he was – wasn’t a threat, and Tom had actually thought it appropriate to reveal it to him. Because despite the lapse in his memory, there was a possibility that he might still care for Harry, however subconscious this part of him was.

“Is he alright?” Margot asked. Her voice was a shrivelled little thing now.

“He’s alive,” said Tom dismissively. “He’s breathing. His physical health is in top form. What more is there to want for?”

“You know what I mean.”

Tom ignored her. He had returned to watching Harry with thinly veiled want in his deep, dark eyes. “Now, what to do,” he murmured. “This is quite the upset, but I think it would be best if you came with us, Harry, and bring Peregrine if you must–”

“No,” said Harry abruptly. “I came here for a reason, and it wasn’t to make small talk.”

Tom’s lips quirked at him in an indulgent sort of way. “Well then, Harry, I’m keen to hear what it is you came for.”

“Was it you?” Harry asked.

Tom faltered. “Excuse me?”

Harry wasn’t fooled by the innocent face. “Has Peregrine been a target of yours?” he persisted, noticing Peregrine’s ears prick up, like an excited dog whose attention had just be drawn. “In fact, to be more precise, did you manage to find him, in his Muggle quarters, only recently?”

There was another pause, in which Tom appeared to be turning over this information with that brilliant mind of his (Harry knew he had to choose his words just as carefully as Tom would dissect them). Then Tom said, “No, Harry. I haven’t had any reason to seek him out. I’ve barely spared a thought for him since he left Hogwarts.”

Harry refused to be distracted by the way his name folded so fluently off Tom’s tongue. He focussed instead on searching for tells that the other man was lying, but if Mulciber had perfected a poker face, then Tom had left his mother’s womb with one – it often seemed to be the natural state of his appearance.

Knowing that he would have to offer more information to get any more in exchange, Harry pressed on. “Something was stolen from Peregrine,” he said, desperately searching for the truth in the lines of Tom’s face but finding nothing. “Something important. And I have reason to believe that you may now be in possession of it.”

If it was even possible, Tom’s features had wiped blanker than previously. The gentle indulgence he had worn in his eyes whenever addressing Harry was nowhere to be seen. “Do tell what that reason might be,” he said.

Harry stared back, equally blank, knowing that he couldn’t reveal his hand yet. Now was not the time to share where it was that he had come from… especially not with all these extra pairs of ears listening in so keenly.

Fine. He would wrangle the truth out of Tom eventually. As it was, the research was probably secure in whatever top secret filing cabinet Tom had likely stashed it. He still had over forty days to achieve this objective, and it would have been naïve of him to expect to have achieved it today.

But he now had a personal agenda, and Hermione wasn’t here to keep him on task. He was going to unearth why Tom and the others seemed to have been mysteriously wiped of all memory of him, and he was going to do so now.

“I’m afraid that’s a question I’m unable to answer,” he told Tom, turning and taking Peregrine’s arm in a firm grip. “I’d like to talk to Peregrine in privacy, so please don’t follow us.”

Tom looked far from happy about this arrangement, but Harry knew he had played his own hand right because no argument was made. Tom’s deep-seated curiosity about him was still tethered on the line, and he wouldn’t take the risk of scaring Harry off just yet.

With a reluctant nod, Tom allowed them to retreat into their own circle of space, near enough to remain within eyesight of the others, but far enough to be out of earshot.

Harry told Peregrine his intentions in quick, low words, but Peregrine immediately latched onto his shoulders with both hands, pinning him to the spot.

Even from this far away, Harry could sense that Tom was watching both his and Peregrine’s movements, hawk-like, and he went rigid at Peregrine’s sudden shift.

Peregrine either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Hardwin,” he said softly. “Be logical here. How exactly do you plan on finding out what happened to their memories? You should know by now what a finicky area of magic that is. Riddle’s arguably the greatest mind of our age, and do you know how long it took him to come up with the whole False Memory Charm idea? And that was with help. Put that into perspective. You’ve got barely over a month. Even with unlimited time, you could search the whole country and never find an answer. There are some truths you just have to accept–”

Harry shrugged out of his grip with some difficulty, considering the height difference, and put his back to Peregrine, moving a few steps away from him. “You’re wrong about at least one of those things, Peregrine. This isn’t a truth. It’s a lie, and I’m going to put things right if I can.”

Throwing a nettled glance over his shoulder at the trio watching this entire interaction, Peregrine stalked after Harry, hissing, “How? Aren’t you worried you’re wasting your precious time here? Who cares if Tom– I mean, if they’ve all forgotten? It doesn’t change anything, does it? You want to break the time loop, so break it! Get in, find my research, then get out! f*ck Riddle’s memories, why’re you trying to retrieve them for him? Last time I looked, he was trying to steal yours! So why would you… why would you–”

Whatever the words were that Peregrine was struggling to formulate, Harry never learned (he hadn’t really been listening, anyway). He had stopped in his tracks so suddenly that Peregrine ploughed into his back, his string of reprimands broken, almost toppling the two of them.

Looking over his shoulder, past Peregrine’s spluttering figure, Harry’s gaze found Tom, and it was so heartbreakingly soft that even Peregrine, who Harry had once thought so emotionally obtuse, could see the answer to the unfinished question shining out from his eyes.

“Oh,” said Peregrine, quiet as a breath.

“This isn’t about the time loop,” Harry said quietly, tearing his eyes away from Tom and turning back to Peregrine, whose face was bloodless. “This is about me. Call me selfish if you will, but I can’t… I’ve got to do this, Peregrine. If my time here is this limited, I’m going to make sure I do it right. If I go home and I leave it like this, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“Then I guess you’ve got to do it,” said Peregrine through white lips.

The corner of Harry’s mouth tipped upwards. “Besides, I have a pretty good idea where to start.”

“Then… then we’d better set off now.”

“No. If you’re worried we won’t find your research in this time limit, then maybe we should go our separate ways – just for a little while,” Harry added quickly, seeing the stricken look on Peregrine’s face. He offered a soft, affectionate punch to Peregrine’s shoulder. “I’ll be back before you can say ‘hopscotch’. Anyway, this is something I need to do alone.”

“But we’re supposed to watch each other’s back.” There was something mildly accusatory about the words, and Harry took a step back, the distance widening between them.

“I won’t be long,” he said, adding in an undertone, “Keep an eye on Tom for me, and look after my cloak while I’m away.”

As the distance continue to grow between them, with Peregrine no longer chasing after him to close the gap, it occurred to Harry how alone Peregrine looked, his arms loose at his sides, his black eyes lowered. It conjured an image of a little boy lost in the aisles of a supermarket, too frightened to cry out, too afraid to ask for help. But he’d been alone for so long now, had kept himself under house arrest all these years. Who he had once been was a mere memory to the outside world, his name faded from the history books. He could look after himself by now.

At this point, Tom, Margot and Mulciber had caught on to what was happening. Tom was striding towards Harry, moving impossibly fast with those long legs of his. A rare show of alarm was etched into his face. “Wait–”

Harry couldn’t allow him any nearer or he might lose his nerve. With one final, wistful look at him, he Disapparated into a squeezing tunnel of darkness.

***

“sh*t,” Tom hissed as the boy from his dreams cracked out of existence, those startlingly green eyes so sad. He rounded on Lestrange, standing there as if he’d just been kicked. “What did he say to you? Where has he gone?”

“I don’t know,” said Lestrange curtly, and Tom bristled. Never would he have spoken in a tone like that before – either he had forgotten what Tom was capable of, or he was confident that his position as Harry Potter’s travelling companion made him invincible.

“At least tell us what he said to you, Lestrange,” panted Greengrass, who had managed to catch up to the rest of them with her shorter legs and those ridiculous, pointy shoes of hers that witches found so fashionable nowadays.

Lestrange sighed in a bad-tempered way and heaved his shoulders into a shrug. It looked almost painful – how hard he was faking this nonchalance. “What can I tell you? He’s looking for your long-lost memories, so you can thank yourselves for that–”

Tom’s hand struck out to grip Lestrange by the throat, stifling his words. The action was so sudden that Greengrass actually jumped, and Mulciber, who up until now had been having difficulty facing his old school friend, twitched forwards, as if he’d momentarily considered intervening.

Tom ignored them and focussed entirely on Lestrange’s face. His already bloodless features had drained further, if that were even physically possible, giving him a waxen appearance, but his eyes were burning, black pits, staring straight back into Tom’s face, even as a vein throbbed in his temple from the effort.

Tom tilted his head to survey him. As school boys, Lestrange had had the reputation of a player, with his good looks and the fact that the person on his arm seemed to change every weekend. But there was something firmer about him, distinctly more grounded. He was no longer the same carefree, loose wizard he’d been back then. There was poorly concealed fear in his eyes, yes, but also a stubborn will to resist.

Having seen enough, Tom relinquished his grip on the stiff throat beneath his hand, leaving five engraved half-crescent moons where his nails had dug in pitilessly. By his side, Tom sensed the tension leave Mulciber’s body, but it was almost imperceptible. To his credit, Lestrange didn’t cough or splutter or cower. He merely rubbed his throat with the slightest of winces but stood his ground.

“So you’ve finally found something you want to protect,” Tom observed and showed his teeth like fangs.

Lestrange, Mulciber and Greengrass stiffened simultaneously, their brains all connected on the same wavelength. But that was what fear did to you. Made you predictable.

Tom closed his lips back over his teeth and stared at Lestrange through his eyelashes. “I never would have expected this of you. You can take pleasure in the fact that you’ve actually managed to surprise me.”

It was so quiet on that platform that the impact of a pin on the floor would have sounded resonant.

Lestrange shifted nervously.

He didn’t know.

Tom could have laughed in that moment. “The whor* of Hogwarts has made the one mistake that none of his species should ever make – he fell in love.”

Lestrange’s face collapsed, a sandcastle crumbling as it was dragged out to sea. “You’re wrong,” he said immediately.

“Am I?” Tom raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t matter either way. Right or wrong, the outcome will be the same.” He lowered his face to Lestrange’s and hissed, like a viper, “That boy is mine.”

The words were perhaps a garble between English and Parseltongue, because Lestrange flinched, though he still retorted, “That’s a bit rich, considering Harry’s as good as a stranger to you. You haven’t changed a bit. You still view us all as toys at your disposal. Pawns in your little board. Well, guess what? Harry and I have transcended your sick game. You don’t own me, and nor do you have any right to lay claim to him!”

Mulciber had been watching Tom’s face the entire time, waiting for it to twist with rage, but the mimicry of a smile on his face merely grew, a pointy thing that offered no comfort.

“Peregrine,” said Mulciber sharply, tearing his gaze away from Tom and addressing for the first time the one he had once regarded as a brother.

Peregrine’s lips clamped shut, but the look who cast Tom was as poisonous as ever.

In his absence, he’d forgotten his place. But he would soon remember. Tom could be magnanimous. He would allow the deserter to learn again.

“Harry is no stranger to me,” he said, his mouth still curved into a what could only be considered a smile by someone who’d never seen one before. “Once you’ve known someone, you can’t ever truly forget them.”

He turned his back on Lestrange to address Mulciber, who was still looking at Lestrange as if willing him to keep his mouth shut before something was broken that couldn’t be mended.

“Cassius,” he said. “I’d like you back in Peru to finish your business that I took you away from. Do not speak of this meeting to anyone.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Mulciber, his gaze flickering back to Tom like a darting silver fish, and he dipped his whole torso into a parting bow. Then, with a crack he was gone.

Tom turned to the next of his companions. “Greengrass, I want you to return to Malfoy Manor.” He ignored the weak protest she made. “I need you to find whatever it is that Harry and Peregrine here seek so ardently, as I presume neither will give us a straight answer. Don’t look at me like a kicked mutt, you should be pleased. You’ll be able to keep Marcellus company there. Now go.”

Greengrass’s face spasmed in the way it always did when she was forced to follow a direct order from him, but she Disapparated with a second resounding clap.

Now that they were alone in the silent station, Lestrange looked suitably nervous. His hand was in his pocket, likely feeling for his wand in case he needed to erect a protective ward at a second’s notice.

Shaking his head, Tom gestured for him to step closer. “Come along, I’m not going to bite your head off. If I wanted to, I would have done so already.”

Gingerly, Lestrange took one step in his direction, but before he could do anything more, Tom had grabbed hold of his chin and turned it upwards so that he could stare down into the dilated pupils whose circumference blended so seamlessly with the colour of the irises. The pupils might have been swelling, and they were now the walls of a long, dark tunnel that was whipping past Tom, endless…

Albus Dumbledore was standing behind him in the entrance hall of Hogwarts, watching him stride out of those halls for the last time. Dumbledore’s parting words to him rung in his head – the Tempus Charm may prove to be a fascinating point of research, should you choose to delve down that path…

Then suddenly the sun was beating down on his back and his arms were around Harry in a land of sand, Harry’s long black hair filled his nose but he didn’t care, because this was too good to be true… could it be true?

The scene shifted, and he was sitting on the ground now, perusing the pages of a dry old text, surrounded by towers of books whose names he couldn’t decipher, because Lestrange had long ago forgotten these details… Harry was sitting across from him, watching him curiously, slightly younger than the Harry he had seen in the sand, his hair was shorter around his thin, dark face, but his eyes were bright and innocent.

“Why won’t you look at me anymore?” he asked in a soft, accented voice that sent pangs through his chest, and suddenly Tom was being cast back through the black tunnel and he was staring into Lestrange’s eyes again.

Lestrange slumped forwards onto his knees, clutching his head, and Tom took a faltering step back at the raw feeling he had detected in those memories. It felt as though all the blood had fled his extremities. He pressed a palm against the pounding in his chest.

“Don’t look at that,” Lestrange snarled, throwing his head back to glare up at Tom. His face was the picture of a cornered, wild creature.

His breathing heavy, and feeling a little wild himself, Tom crouched down to his level. “The Tempus Charm,” he said roughly. “What do you know about it?”

Lestrange hissed at him – it seemed that he had finally reached the end of his tether. “f*ck you,” he spat.

“Hm,” said Tom, standing back up as steadily as he could manage with his scattered thoughts. He straightened his robes and took note of the lightening sky outside. “I would rather not. Now, you have two options. Either you can come with me on your own two feet and salvage whatever dignity you can, or I else will drag you after me. Which shall it be?”

Lestrange remained crouching there, eyeing Tom suspiciously. “Where to?”

“To the only person who will be able to offer any answers,” said Tom. “We’re going to have a nice little meeting with Dumbledore.”

He proffered an arm with an impatient air about him.

Warily, Lestrange rose to his feet, and, with one final fleeting look at Tom’s face, he rested his hand on Tom’s arm.

They turned and zipped out of sight, into compressive darkness.

King’s Cross Station stood alone, once more. Only the first layer of silence remained as the sky above began to fade to soft lilacs and yellows, still speckled with hidden stars. A leaf shifted on the ground in an invisible breeze.

The trains would wake again, soon, and when they did, no one would be any the wiser that five had ever met here in the earliest hours of the morning.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

It was at first light that Harry began his trek from Hogsmeade Village up to Hogwarts. He had Apparated directly to Hogsmeade from King’s Cross – the last image that had been etched in his mind was Tom, striding towards him on long legs, pushing past Peregrine with his eyes only for him, Harry, and it would have been so easy to–

But he hadn’t allowed himself to complete the thought.

Shivering as an icy wind bit through his chest, Harry had set his sights on the only building awake at this ungodly hour, whose warm yellow-lit windows permeated like beacons in the darkness. Pushing open the door of the Three Broomsticks revealed there to be only one other customer beside himself, sitting in the corner with a balaclava on his head, and a barman who looked half asleep.

Harry ordered a Firewhisky to warm the creeping cold within his chest and sat alone at the bar, nursing his glass as he gloomily reconsidered the night’s events.

Disapparating had been worryingly difficult, yet running back into Tom’s arms wasn’t an option. Just look at the history, he told himself. He never loved you, not really, and no sane mind would love him, either… that wasn’t even to mention that despite supposedly being the strongest wizard, second only to Dumbledore, the f*cking prick had the audacity to forget him a mere handful of years later.

That’s right. He was as good as a nobody to Tom Riddle. But Tom Riddle was still so much more to him. How could he ever go back to being strangers with someone who had seen his heart?

He’d never had an ex quite like Tom Riddle. Harry threw back the remainder of his drink and grimaced as it burned his oesophagus. Tom Riddle. His ex. Stupid f*cking prick.

Harry waved his hand for a refill, then combed his fingers through his hair in a spasmic gesture.

And then there was Peregrine, who he had abandoned to Tom. It was clear that Peregrine was still frightened of him, but somebody had to keep tabs on Tom, and if Harry was out of the picture, that left only one option… but each passing minute had him feeling guiltier and guiltier about his decision. It was fine, he told himself. He’d be back for Peregrine soon. He’d need his right-hand man back again, after all.

These were the conflicting thoughts that battled it out, gladiator style, in the colosseum of his head as he worked slowly through another couple of glasses of Firewhisky, idly watching the barman wiping down the grainy wood bench, rhythmically swiping back and forth, back and forth. Finally, dawn cracked over their heads, the sun blinding Harry as it peeked through the windows. He flicked a few Sickles to the barman and pulled his cloak back on, which he had shed as the alcohol warmed his insides.

Now, once again exposed to the elements and confronted by a frigid wind the second he stepped out the door, Harry pulled the heavy black cowl of his travelling cloak over his head and marched along the beaten track up to the castle.

The walk only took twenty minutes, give or take a few, but was mainly uphill with a loose, cobblestoned path worsened by the wind fighting to push him back down. He was breathing heavily by the time he reached the front gates of Hogwarts, where he realised he had never approached the school as anything but a student. It now occurred to him that he wasn’t entirely sure how he should go about entering without activating some booby trap.

The ornate, iron-wrought gates were shut, padlocked and likely imbued with magic to prevent any juvenile attempts at breaking in. Harry could just make out the silhouette of the old castle in the distance, he could see the turrets that reached for the sky, could see the rolling mountains and the tall dark trees of the Forbidden Forest, illuminated by the low-riding sun. He even fancied that he could make out the slightest shimmer of where the Black Lake sprawled out on the grounds…

Without realising that he was doing it, Harry had wrapped his fingers around a couple of the black, iron bars of the gates, leaning in, gazing with heart-wrenching longing at this place that would forever be the first and best home he ever knew.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, propped against the gates and basking in the nostalgia of the view when he noticed a figure approaching from the distance, hurrying on nimble feet from the castle.

Harry jerked back from the gate and brought his wand to his hand as he watched the figure drawing nearer and nearer, until at last he recognised it to be little Filius Flitwick, looking mightily put off about something.

“So you’re the reason my protective charms have been ringing off the hook for the past half hour!” he said in his high, clear voice. “What in Merlin’s good name are you doing out here, boy? You look barely old enough to be out of school! Are you a student? Though I can’t say I recognise you…”

The latter sentence was added in an undertone, and Harry decided grimly that he needn’t be surprised by that anymore. If Tom, Margot and even Mulciber held no prior memory of him, then it wasn’t surprising that this pattern of events would continue.

“I’m not a student,” Harry said. “I was hoping I could meet with Professor Dumbledore.”

“Have you set up an appointment to meet at this peculiarly early hour of the morning?”

Harry paused, considering the best course of action, and settled for, “No, but the two of us are acquainted. I’m certain that he’d agree to see me.”

Flitwick looked vaguely suspicious, but he was already unlocking the gate to allow Harry entrance. “This is most irregular,” he kept muttering to himself, before asking, as Harry stepped across onto Hogwarts grounds, “Have you a name?”

Harry briefly contemplated reverting to Harry Delacour for the sake of anonymity (his cowl remained drawn over his head) but ultimately introduced himself as Harry Potter. He found there to be something liberating about finally being allowed to use his real name.

It must have been the right decision to make, because Flitwick relaxed and asked, “Are you a cousin of Fleamont Potter? I taught him myself when I was new here!”

“Perhaps distantly,” said Harry vaguely, and allowed Flitwick to chatter on about the Potter family as he led him towards the castle, along the rough stone path which wound through the grassy hills spotted with deciduous trees whose brown leaves peppered the ground they trod and crunched underfoot.

Flitwick took Harry through the entrance of the castle, which was cool and dim, though illuminated by the warm glow of candles within the Great Hall. It was silent, which was unsurprising as none of the students or professors would have come to breakfast at this hour. Harry slowed, turning to stare towards the glow, a moth drawn to light. For a moment, he fooled himself into believing that he could veer off towards the candlelight, sit down at one of the four house tables in the hall where breakfast was no doubt being arranged at this very second, and simply merge with the life he had once had.

He came to a complete stop as three young students, clad in Gryffindor red, came galloping around the corner, rushing with a careless freedom that was paid as the price of growing up. The girl was heaving a bulky bag along on her back while the two boys chatted and laughed animatedly behind her.

Seconds later, a group of older Slytherins emerged into the hall with a much more measured pace. The boy leading the group moved with a regal air and spoke softly to the shorter boy beside him, while the others undulated around them in constant motion, surrounding the eye of the storm.

None of them spared Harry, the wizard cloaked in black, a glance. They were too involved in their own respective lives, just as it should be, and always would be.

Nostalgia swelled within him until his heart felt too large in his chest, compressing his lungs. His breath stuttered as he gazed off after them.

“Potter,” said Flitwick, bringing Harry back to himself with a start. He glanced over to Flitwick, who was standing ahead, watching him. “This way.”

“Sorry,” said Harry, and when he looked back around, he wasn’t surprised to see that the two groups had vanished. “Just got lost in thought.”

He hurried after Flitwick.

It had been such a beautiful dream.

***

Dumbledore occupied the office that Minerva McGonagall would in Harry’s own time. It occurred to Harry, as he waited outside in the hall for Flitwick to speak with Dumbledore, that even throughout his time at Hogwarts in 1944, he had never actually been to Dumbledore’s own office. Dippet’s had always served as something of a headquarters for their meetings.

Flitwick poked his head out into the hall and Harry’s heart skidded with a few staccato beats, suddenly concerned that Dumbledore would refuse to meet with him. But Flitwick was smiling at Harry.

“Albus will see you. Just enter the classroom and the door to his office is on the right.”

Harry exhaled. “Brilliant. Thanks, Professor Flitwick.”

As he moved past the small wizard, he thought he heard him saying in bemusem*nt, “I don’t recall introducing myself, but perhaps my memory’s poorer than I previously thought…”

Harry passed through what he knew to be the Transfiguration classroom, the chairs stacked atop their respective tabletop, a chalkboard extended across the front of the room. There was a chameleon lounging on a log of wood in a large, dome-shaped cage on the front desk, who turned and peered at Harry curiously as he walked past.

Harry knocked on the office door and upon “enter” being called, he pushed inwards and looked around.

The room was done similarly to how the headmaster’s study would be in future years. It was warm and homey, with a couple of squishy armchairs and a large crimson throw rug across the hard wood floor. Each wall was occupied by bookshelves from roof to ground, so that the walls themselves appeared to have been built from the spines of ancient-looking tomes. Several round tables were perched in the corners, cluttered with various silver and gold instruments, many which Harry recognised and several he was certain he was responsible for breaking in Dumbledore’s office during that one regrettable incident.

“Good morning,” said the low, slow voice of Dumbledore.

Harry whipped around to find him sitting behind the desk, wearing robes of startling yellow – he could have sworn nobody had been sitting there a moment ago. Despite being myopic, he should have at least spotted him by the colour of his clothes. Dumbledore looked like a literal banana.

“Good morning, professor,” Harry said quickly, tearing his gaze away from what really wasn’t an odd choice in robing for this man. He brought his hands up to lower the cowl over his head, shaking out his long hair as he did so. “I, uh, well, you probably never expected to see me again this soon.”

Dumbledore lowered his head to survey Harry over his half-moon spectacles, his eyes bright and piercing. It gave Harry the sensation that his very soul was being examined.

After an ample period of silence, during which Harry began to shift nervously, Dumbledore sat up straight again, lacing his fingers together and murmured, “I’m sorry to tell you that your name has slipped my mind.”

Harry relaxed. While a little unexpected, a name slip was nothing to worry about. Dumbledore probably met more people than he could keep tabs on…

“It’s Harry Potter,” he said.

Dumbledore hummed and gestured for Harry to take a seat across from him. “Could I offer you a drink, Mr Potter? Tea? Coffee? Water? Pumpkin juice?”

Multiple jugs of drinks and a carafe filled with black coffee drifted forward as he spoke, dancing around Harry’s head as each drink was offered. He ducked out of the way before an over-zealous teapot could collide with his forehead and said, “Just water, thanks.”

A glass of water pushed itself into his hand barely seconds later, and he took a polite sip before leaping straight into the topic of concern. “There’s something really important I need to talk to you about, sir. I’m afraid my time here is limited, so I was really hoping you could help me resolve this issue fast.”

Dumbledore remained silent. He continued to watch Harry shrewdly, then he reached forward for a little metal sugar bowl and removed the lid to reveal fudge flies swarming around inside. He nimbly caught one and replaced the lid. Then he remarked, quite calmly, “Filius informed me that you said we were acquainted, young man. However, it appears that my memory has hit a brick wall. Are you able to remind me when it is that we met?”

“In 1944,” said Harry, his mouth suddenly very dry. “You’re the one who… don’t you…?”

His words fizzled out to a wisp, hanging from his lips but never falling.

Margot and Mulciber losing their memory was one thing, Tom losing his was another altogether. But Dumbledore? It seemed an impossible feat that the ever reliable and seemingly ageless Albus Dumbledore could have been duped into having these memories dragged out of his head.

Suddenly his mind was speeding up, searching for every possible person who could be responsible for this. After a few bewildered seconds, the list remained barren. Harry stared at Dumbledore in stunned silence, feeling entirely too wild-eyed.

“I’ve always not so humbly prided myself on the sheer volume of content that my brain can retain,” Dumbledore was saying as he popped down a fudge fly. “It’s unfortunate that it should fail this particular time–”

“Why couldn’t Hermione be here,” Harry whispered, carefully replacing his glass on the tabletop because his hands were trembling. Despite how bull-headed and bossy she could be, she knew what she was doing. And even if she didn’t, she was half decent at pretending. What he would give for even feigned assurance right now.

Since he’d landed in this time, completely alone, he’d taken a leaflet from her book, faking however much confidence he could to Peregrine’s face, and Peregrine seemed to have bought it. It had almost felt like having the shadow of Hermione by his side. But now that act was slipping through his fingers like smoke, and he couldn’t find the will to scramble to catch it. Because if Dumbledore, the great Albus Dumbledore, couldn’t help him, then who could?

Harry lowered his face into his hands and stared through his fingers at his knees. Uneven breaths rattled out of him, brittle within his lungs. The edges of his vision were glaringly white, slowly creeping inwards and impeding all else in sight–

“Hermione? Hermione Delacour?”

The world abruptly snapped back into focus and Harry jerked his head up to stare at Dumbledore, whose fingers had released the fudge fly in his moment of recollection. The fly zipped out of sight and Dumbledore gave a murmur of, “Oh, bollocks,” under his breath, which would have stunned Harry under any other circ*mstances. Instead, he lunged forwards, nearly tripping over his cloak as he did so, pressing his palms against Dumbledore’s table and putting his face right up to the old professor’s.

“You know her? You remember her? Have you seen her? When?” The words tumbled clumsily off his tongue, sprawling over each other so that each must have been unintelligible. Dumbledore spared him the embarrassment of having to repeat himself.

“‘Hermione’ is not the most common of names,” he said, pushing his chair back from his desk so that he could start sorting through the various drawers cluttered beneath it. “You mentioning it has rung a few bells in my head. You see, there’s a very curious thing that has been left amongst my belongings, and I have no memory of how it got there.”

He leafed through one drawer of paperwork, looked dissatisfied, closed it and began on the next tier.

Harry waited with burning anticipation and a mild sense of fear as Dumbledore continued in this manner for a handful of minutes that seemed to stretch an eternity. Then finally, he said, “Ah, here it is,” and proceeded to pull out a wrinkled, dusty envelope with ink printed on one side.

Dumbledore slid it across the table to Harry, who seized it, the paper crunching beneath his fingers as he stared at the writing.

Harry & Hermione Delacour

(Potter & Granger)

in the unlikely event of their return…

“Forgive me, I did not initially recognise your name,” said Dumbledore as Harry read and re-read the script, his fingers gripping the envelope hard enough to hurt, as if it were an actual life-line. It felt like there was a wad of parchment in there, alongside something small, slightly uneven and hard – some kind of bulbous ornament.

“It’s fine,” Harry murmured, weighing the envelope in his hands, running his fingers along the aged script. “It’s quite common.”

Dumbledore clasped his hands together on the desk and they both stared at the envelope for a while. The temptation to rip it open immediately was overwhelming, but something held Harry back.

“Have you opened it?” he asked.

“No,” said Dumbledore. “The mystery behind that envelope has always been beyond me. You see, it seemed to appear out of nowhere one day, and whoever left it among my belongings made sure to leave a strong charm on. I presume this is to allow only the addressees access to the contents. I tried very hard to open it, but whoever charmed the envelope has outwitted me over and over – it always seemed to me that they have been running circles around me, as the saying goes. Truth be told, I’m just as eager as I expect you are to see what lies within.”

Harry brought his gaze up from the envelope to settle on Dumbledore’s face with some trepidation.

Dumbledore smiled crookedly, understanding all the wordless things written on Harry’s face.

“Of course, I can see that you’re reluctant to open it in front of me,” he said.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that whoever left it for me and Hermione took the trouble to ensure that only the two of us could open it. So perhaps it’d be best to respect their wishes.”

Dumbledore inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, then let it all out ago. When he opened his eyes again, they were expressionless but quite calm. “I understand,” he said. “As frustrating as your decision is to me, that envelope is, after all, yours, and you are to decide what to do with it. Dear me, I know that I’ll take questions about that envelope to my grave…”

Harry winced and quickly ducked his head to hide the expression, taking the opportunity to busily tuck it away into one of the inner pockets of his travelling cloak.

“Sorry,” he repeated, unable to make eye contact as he pushed his chair back to its original position and stood back. “It’s just that it’s probably private.”

“Well, the right to privacy is intrinsic to human dignity, after all,” said Dumbledore, a little slyly, as he watched Harry retreat to the door. “I’m glad to have met with you today, Mr Potter, and I hope that the manner of your departing this time around needn’t be like last time.”

Harry halted, his hand wrapped around the door handle, and slowly turned around to look at Dumbledore, but he had already stood from his seat and searching for the escapee fudge fly as he whistled a jaunty tune to himself.

Last time?

Brow furrowed, Harry pushed the door open and left Dumbledore for what was certainly, he thought hollowly, the last time.

No more time travel. No more magic tricks.

But at least his pocket now contained what was surely some answers.

***

There was a little confusion with Tom and Lestrange’s Apparition. Lestrange, who had not gripped his arm tightly enough, was dropped during the journey from King’s Cross to Hogsmeade. Tom, initially tempted to just abandon him in whichever corner of the world he’d fallen off the back of the carriage, had been forced to travel back to find him, because no doubt Harry would be very unhappy with him if Tom had lost his favourite pet. Besides, Tom didn’t doubt that Lestrange (the little sh*t) had done it on purpose and was now gleefully making his escape.

This was not to be allowed.

Tom’s venture around and about the place had chewed up a handful of hours and it was well into the daylight when he was forced to concede defeat and had Apparated back to Hogsmeade. It would have been simple enough to locate Lestrange if he had called in the cavalry, and not a single one of his servants would have questioned him. But that was unnecessary, quite unnecessary… for now he had the information he needed from Lestrange’s head, and at the very least Tom had confirmed that Lestrange was still a coward. He would drag Lestrange out of whatever hole he had scuttled back into when it suited him.

However, back in Hogsmeade he immediately found Lestrange lounging around outside the Three Broomsticks, which was loud and bustling with life, enjoying a Butterbeer to stave off the crisp morning air.

“You took your time, Riddle,” Lestrange called smugly. He had apparently regained his self-assurance in the hours since they had accidentally parted ways and was as off-putting as ever. “You dropped me off somewhere in Sheffield, thanking you kindly, so I Apparated straight here after you, only to find you missing! What gives?”

It took Tom’s entire willpower to not murder him very violently there and then. There was, after all, an audience.

He stormed over to Lestrange, grabbed him by the collar, and all but shoved him back onto the path. “Start walking,” he ordered testily, and other than the curled lip he received from Lestrange in reply, the trek up to Hogwarts was entirely silent.

As they neared the front gates, Tom watched as the Charms professor, Filius Flitwick, let out a hooded figure, who hurriedly exited the grounds. The figure paused to fumble in his cloak, and Tom could have sworn he saw the gleam of green eyes shining out from under the cowl, but then the figure had Disapparated before Tom could question it, and he soon forgot all about the encounter.

“Professor Flitwick,” Tom called out pleasantly as they approached. “Good morning.”

Flitwick looked up, squinting against the sun to make out Tom’s face, then his eyes widened and he beamed. “Mr Riddle! What a pleasure to see you again, you haven’t come to visit in years!”

“I’ve been busy with work,” said Tom modestly. “I applied to teach at Hogwarts, but Professor Dippet advised that I gain experience elsewhere before he would offer me a position.”

“Yes, yes, very wise to do so,” agreed Flitwick, waving his wand to hold the gate doors open, allowing Tom and Lestrange entry into the school grounds. Once the gates were sufficiently locked and charmed behind them, they began their way towards the school.

Tom would have been perfectly satisfied to walk with only his thoughts as company, but Flitwick began speaking to him then and he couldn’t go around making bad impressions.

Skipping alongside them to keep up with their longer strides on his much shorter legs, yet never showing any signs of breathlessness, Flitwick asked, “I’m very curious to hear, Mr Riddle, where you found yourself work? You were always such a brilliant student.”

“You flatter me, professor. I’m working at a place called Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley. Do you know it?”

The slight fall on Flitwick’s face suggested that he was slightly disappointed to hear that Tom had not progressed to greater things. “I’m afraid not. But I was always under the impression that Knockturn Alley is a place predominantly dedicated to the Dark Arts?”

“As sharp as always, Professor Flitwick,” said Tom, lifting the corners of his mouth just the right amount, crinkling the corners of his eyes ever slightly – on the surface, as normal a smile as anyone. “But as I am an aspiring Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, I thought it would be prudent to work in an area where I could gain experience amongst such things.”

“I see!” Flitwick declared in a whistle-high voice, brightening again. “That’s understandable, Mr Riddle. Now, do my eyes deceive me, or have you brought along…”

He trailed off, staring up at Lestrange’s face.

Lestrange shifted uncomfortably, clearing not wishing to dredge up the past. It would certainly complicate matters, Tom thought, but did not intervene. He would watch to see how Lestrange handled this situation.

“I’m afraid we’ve never met before,” Lestrange said. “Would you like to introduce us, Riddle?”

Tom glared at him.

“Filius Flitwick,” offered Flitwick, entirely oblivious to the sour interaction as they continued along the well-trod path to the castle. “My apologies for staring, but you take after a student we once had… up and left one day… hasn’t been seen since… very unfortunate business. That was the Lestranges’ boy, are you a relation of theirs?”

“Not at all,” said Lestrange swiftly. “My name is Fjord. However, I’ve been told that there are a number of people I resemble. I suppose I just have one of those generic faces!” Somehow, the tightness in his voice was kept to the bare minimum. Given Lestrange’s vain nature, Tom thought he would likely have had an aneurysm if anyone had ever actually told him that he had a generic face.

Again, Flitwick took no notice and was already launching into his next line of questioning.

“Well, Mr Fjord, what do you do with yourself, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Lestrange smiled, a tad stiffly. “I’m a researcher.”

His tone was so abrupt that it left no room for Flitwick to ask any more questions. But with the castle looming in front of them, Tom elected to ease the heat off Lestrange momentarily.

“We were hoping we could have a chat with Professor Dumbledore,” Tom said. “We were passing through Hogsmeade and thought now is as good a time as ever.”

“I’m sure he has a bit of time to see you. It’s very funny, only a little earlier than yourselves did another young man ask to meet with Albus as well… he’s become quite popular, hasn’t he?” The laugh Flitwick gave was dry.

“Oh?” asked Tom politely, with only the vaguest sense of interest.

“Albus doesn’t normally have such as young audience passing through,” Flitwick remarked as they strolled down the path. “Normally he has Ministry officials and wizened scholars and others of the like seeking advice for some bill or other.”

“I’m afraid we’re also here to pick Professor Dumbledore’s brain a little further,” Tom said casually. “Fjord has encountered a hiccup in his research and thinks that Dumbledore may offer a… unique perspective on this. It’s still a very specialised area of research that Fjord is involved in, you see. Cutting edge. But that’s all Fjord, I’m merely accompanying a friend.”

Turning the heat back up on Lestrange. Lestrange shot him a glance that probably would have had murderous intent if he’d had more of a backbone. How Tom loved playing with the plebeians.

“Oh!” Flitwick bounced on his toes and returned his gaze to Lestrange. “Cutting edge? Why, you must tell me! Of course, I swear not to tell a soul… living, of course. I do have a scholarly friend, Sir Jamison if you know of him, but he’s a ghost…”

Lestrange cleared his throat and quickly gestured towards the castle before them, his arms thrown wide. “Merlin, look at those… doors! They are truly gigantic. Tell me, professor, would you happen to know the person who designed such a– such an entryway?”

Flitwick appeared taken aback by the sudden interest in doorways. “They were designed a millennium ago. I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you who it was working alongside our founders, but I could put you in touch with our History of Magic teacher, if you wish–”

“Oh, that’s quite alright! Door designs are just a passing fancy, wouldn’t want to bother Professor Binns…”

“If you insist, my dear man.” Flitwick led the way through the front doors and Lestrange smiled somewhat sheepishly at his back and made to follow. Tom held out an arm to stop him in his tracks.

“You ought to be more careful, Fjord,” he said in a low voice. “Otherwise Flitwick might wonder how you know who the History of Magic teacher is.”

The muscle in Lestrange’s jaw twitched. “Bastard,” he murmured, though there was little conviction behind the word and he let Tom pass without further comment.

Tom strode into the entrance hall and paused, passing his gaze around the place. It had not changed an iota since he had last been here, a handful of years ago. It had not changed since he had graduated. And nor had it changed since he passed through these doors for the first time, a mere eleven-year-old child. The world outside shifted, yet anything housed within these hallowed walls steadfast, unchanging.

There was faint hubbub in the great hall, adjacent to where he now stood. A rosy glow came from beyond that doorway, and there was the distinct scent of fresh toast and kippers and porridge wafting towards them. A large, desperately valuable collection of young, malleable minds…

“Thank you for showing us in, professor,” Tom said, turning back to his company. “I appreciate the time you have taken out of your busy schedule to grant us entry, but I am very happy to show Fjord to Professor Dumbledore’s office. I remember the way well enough.”

“If that pleases you,” said Flitwick, and if he was taken aback by the swift dismissal he didn’t show it. “I do have a lesson to set up for. I’m sure we shall cross paths again, Mr Riddle, but all the same, take care now. Lovely to make your acquaintance, Mr Fjord…”

Lestrange inclined his head a fraction. “Likewise, professor.”

They watched Flitwick hurry off down the corridor, sparing them one last curious glance. Tom smiled at him pleasantly, then Flitwick was gone.

The smile melted off Tom’s face.

“Hurry up,” he ordered Lestrange, already striding away. “You have already wasted enough time.”

Lestrange hastened to catch up. Tom noted, with some satisfaction, that Lestrange remained a step or two behind at all times. It may not have been intentional, but it pleased him that Lestrange continued to act as his subordinate, subconscious as it may have been.

They walked in silence for a little while, then Lestrange grunted something that Tom didn’t catch.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, why do you even need me here?” Lestrange glared at his feet as they went. “You hate me, I know it isn’t for the pleasure of my company. You rifled through my brain already. If you wanted more from me, I’m sure you wouldn’t have bothered asking for my permission.”

“Because I like having you where I can see you,” said Tom. He paused, then added, “And I can see that Harry likes you.”

Lestrange snorted reproachfully. “Don’t you dare pretend you’re looking out for me, for him. You don’t even know him. And even if you did, I can tell you that Harry… that he doesn’t care you for at all. Not even a smidgeon.”

Tom’s lips curved upwards. What a terrible liar. “You’re a jealous one, aren’t you, Lestrange? Ah, here we are.”

The Transfiguration classroom. The door was shut, looming in a way that only the entrance to a room occupied by Dumbledore could loom. It was a thoroughly unwelcome sight. Tom rapped his knuckles smartly on the polished wood.

No sooner had he knocked, the door swung open to reveal Dumbledore seated at his desk on the other side of the classroom, shuffling through papers. A piece of chalk was flying across the blackboard behind him. Tom briefly read ‘vanishment – to make things go into non-being’ before turning his attention to his least favourite teacher. He was wearing disgustingly yellow robes which clashed horribly with his greying auburn hair. His beard was thrown over his shoulder.

“Good day, professor,” Tom said.

“Tom,” Dumbledore remarked pleasantly, not even deigning to look up from the stacks of homework in front of him. “I was wondering when I might see you again. Today is filled with surprises.”

Tom’s eyes flashed. Such as casual greeting. Not even the decency to look in his direction. He might have been part of the wallpaper.

“This isn’t to be a long visit,” he said, a tad chillier than before. “Although I would love to sit down and chat. Shall we say that I have a question of academic interest.”

Dumbledore did look up then. His eyes were bright blue and piercing, staring into Tom’s own. Tom didn’t blink. He would have very much liked to gouge those blue eyes out of the owner’s eye sockets.

“An awfully long way to travel for a question of academic interest,” was all Dumbledore said.

“I expect that you may be the only one who can answer it,” Tom countered.

Dumbledore’s gaze flicked to Lestrange and something akin to surprise lit his face up momentarily.

“Peregrine Lestrange,” he said. “Why, I didn’t expect to see you again.”

Being directly addressed by his name clearly clipped a hole in Lestrange’s guard. “It’s, uh, Fjord,” he said, befuddled. “Hardwin Fjord.”

Dumbledore’s sharp eyes remained on Lestrange, scanning, and Lestrange buckled. He shuffled his feet and dipped his head, mumbling a quick “sorry” under his breath.

Tom fought the urge to roll his eyes. Useless. He stepped forwards, crossing his arms behind his back as he did so. He strolled towards Dumbledore until he stood over him, staring down from a height. “I have twice now encountered the name of a very curious charm which I can find no information on beyond a single very old paper which describes it as no more than a theoretical concept… though I have reason to believe that it is more than that.”

“Charms are Professor Flitwick’s area of expertise,” Dumbledore said lightly. He gestured towards the seats behind Tom. “Please, sit down.”

Tom ignored the offer. “I have information leading me to believe that you know about this one. It would… satisfy my curiosity if you could answer my questions.”

Dumbledore sighed – actually sighed – in Tom’s face. His hackles immediately raised. The impudence of this man!

“Well, Tom,” he said, “I am first and foremost a teacher and would never turn away from a teaching opportunity. So please – ask away.”

Tom braced his hands on the desk, leaning down towards Dumbledore. “What do you know about the Tempus Charm?”

A flicker of recognition, but no more. No fire, burning. No ice, freezing. But Dumbledore knew how to act so that might mean nothing. Tom dared to reach out and probe at the old man’s thoughts with a feather-light touch. Unsurprisingly, an Occlumency barrier met him. Tom withdrew, his lips twitching back from his teeth in the ghost of a snarl.

It was impossible to tell whether Dumbledore knew what he had attempted, but either way he showed no sign. “The Tempus Charm,” he said thoughtfully. “Goodness, I do recall reading that paper you mentioned back in my youth. Many years ago. Not many know it. It’s quite an obscure branch, and I confess that I can barely recall the contents of it now – I didn’t spend much time studying it as it showed such little promise. An interesting theory, nonetheless… the ability to cast oneself decades into another era would be fascinating but dangerous if in the wrong hands… but the relationship between magic and time is such a poorly understood area. Perhaps it is best that nothing came to fruition with that theory.”

He looked over the top of his glasses at Tom, the hint of a frown crinkling his forehead as he said this.

Tom stared into the old, lined face intently. “Surely you have something of value to tell me. Did you not, after all, set our mutual friend here–” he indicated towards Lestrange with a cursory wave of his hand “–on a quest to look into this charm? Why?”

The frown on Dumbledore’s face was obvious now. “If you have read the Thomas Broughton-Tempus paper, then you know all that I know. I did no such thing, setting anyone on quests to look into that charm. In fact, that charm has not come to the light of my mind for many, many years.”

He was telling the truth. That was the face of a man who had nothing to hide. Tom shook his head, a hint of frustration colouring his voice dark now. “That can’t be right. Your memory must be failing you. Tell him, Lestrange.”

He snapped his fingers in Lestrange’s direction. The other man had remained in the doorway as if biding his time for when he could make his speedy getaway.

Tom half expected resistance, but Lestrange spoke up immediately and a blind man could have read the confusion in his voice.

“Do you not recall the conversation we had?” he asked. “The night that I left, after–” he shook his head irritably. “What I mean to say is, we spoke that night. You don’t remember?”

“Dear boy,” said Dumbledore. “I think I would remember if such a conversation occurred. It would have been a relief to exchange words with you before you left our school, but your departure was quite unceremonious. Not a word to anyone. Professor Slughorn was almost beside himself at the unexpected loss.”

Lestrange stared at Dumbledore. Tom could see the cogs and wheels turning in his head, clunking about heavily in that slow mind of his.

Had Tom seen a false memory in his head? No, the memory had been too seamless, blurred in just the right places. False memories tended to be far too clean and clear, too artificial. An skilled Legilimens such as himself could clearly see the borders of a false memory, where it had been slapped into place. The alternative solution to this discrepancy was that Dumbledore was finally going senile (and it would have been a relief, too). But he wasn’t. The old bat was as sharp as ever.

There was one other possibility… someone had wiped Dumbledore’s memory of the event. Lestrange? No, his reaction was too authentic. Besides, he didn’t have the wits to outsmart Dumbledore like that… no one did. Not even himself (yet), and he was loath to admit that.

Three answers, each as unlikely as the next. It made no sense.

Tom stared at Dumbledore in silence for a few heartbeats, then straightened. “Thank you for your help, professor,” he said coldly, straightening his cloak on his shoulders. He turned and swept from the room.

***

Nobody showed them back to the gates. It was probably best that way, as Tom found himself to be in a horrible temper the whole way back. It was only once they left the school grounds that Lestrange spoke to him.

“Why are you so bloody interested in the Tempus Charm?” he demanded as Tom blasted the gates shut again with a nervy twitch of his wand. “You said this is the second time you’ve heard about it! When was the first? The real question isn’t what it means to Dumbledore – it’s what it means to you.”

Tom didn’t respond, simply started back down the path like a thundercloud. Stones crunched underfoot, the sound grinding in his brain. Years ago, it was Margot Greengrass, that cursed girl, who had planted the idea of the Tempus Charm in his head, and just as she had predicted it was back to haunt him. She had a habit of doing that – leaving ideas to worm into his brain and fester in his thoughts like vicious little parasites.

Lestrange persisted, hurrying after him. “You know Broughton-Tempus’s paper! You’ve seen for yourself, it holds no credence. You ought to forget about it! It’s nothing!”

Tom stopped in his path. He wheeled around slowly and his face was the picture of calm despite the furious turmoil underneath. “If it is nothing, why the great interest, Lestrange? Your attempt to convince me of its insignificance is merely convincing me of the opposite. No, I think that this has to do with everything.”

The Tempus Charm, Harry Potter, his dreams, his inability to remember… and now Dumbledore, his memory apparently failing him for perhaps the first time in his life.

None of this was simple. It was all maddeningly, infuriatingly confusing, like a tangled web of strings from which he couldn’t locate the start or end point. And somehow he knew, from the bottom of his fractured soul, that Dumbledore stood at the centre of all this.

Lestrange’s face was white. “You’re wrong,” he said.

Something snapped inside Tom. He stalked towards Lestrange, a predator’s grace in each stride he took. Lestrange’s wand appeared in his hand but no sooner had he lifted it, Tom swiped his own wand through the air like a knife. Lestrange dropped it, giving an involuntarily yowl of pain as blood spurted from the clean laceration on his wrist.

“What the f*ck!” he yelled, cradling his arm against his chest. “Riddle, you psychopath!”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” Tom said coldly. “I only partially severed your extensor pollicis longus tendon. If you’re foolish enough to raise your wand at me again, I’ll sever all of them next time.”

Lestrange gaped at him wordlessly. If possible, his face had turned even whiter.

“Better.” Tom curled his lip at him. “You’ve spent far too long away from high wizarding society and it shows. I was tiring of your buffoonish manners. It quickly transitions from mildly amusing to vexatious.”

Tom stepped closer to him and prodded his chin up with the tip of his wand. Lestrange stiffened. A superficial pulse throbbed in his throat. Dark eyes stared into dark.

“One reason,” Tom breathed. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t do it. I could take everything I need from your head and dispose of you in ten seconds flat.”

Lestrange swallowed but his gaze became defiant. “You could try. But you may find it harder to obtain what you want from me now that you’ve warned me. Rookie mistake, Riddle.”

Tom didn’t move his eyes. He stared unblinkingly into black tunnels that led to… nowhere.

“Hm,” he said. “You’ve been practising Occlumency after all. Don’t doubt that I couldn’t tear it down, though. It may take ten seconds longer.”

Lestrange started to smile then, a smile which showed all his teeth but didn’t touch his eyes. An all too abrupt change. Tom’s hand tightened on his wand.

“What?” he hissed.

The smile vanished from Lestrange’s face as quickly as it had appeared. It was disconcerting. He looked into Tom’s face fearlessly and said, “Harry.”

Tom’s reaction was visceral. His pupils blew wide and he felt a clawing sensation in the pit of his stomach.

“What about him?” he asked with deceptive calm. For the first time, he was sure that he had not fooled Lestrange.

“You can do me no true harm whilst Harry remains loyal to me,” he said. “The two of us are as good as brothers, see? Which is more than can be said about you. But I must say, Tom, that I know you would rather not be his brother, would you?”

Tom didn’t say anything and Lestrange smirked. It was more a pained grimace than anything, but the underlying sentiment shone through. He lifted his undamaged hand and pushed Tom’s wand away.

“So if you do me any true damage,” Lestrange continued conversationally, “then I think you already know that hell. Will. Rain down. On you.”

He stepped back and gave him a self-satisfied little smile on his horrible, smug face. Tom’s heartbeat was thundering in his ears because he saw the truth of the words being said. Somehow, inexplicably, Tom knew that the young man with uncommonly long hair, caramel-coloured skin and forest-green eyes was the one who would be calling the shots around here.

“Who is he?” Tom asked softly, lowering her wand. “You know why he holds such influence over me, don’t you, Peregrine?”

Lestrange said nothing, he simply continued to smile. No matter his years away, he hadn’t change one bit. He was just like the rest of them. Parasitic sycophants.

Let them slide an inch and they think they can ice skate.

Tom made a noise of disgust. “We’re leaving.”

He grabbed Lestrange’s wrist, making sure to grasp his injury firmly, twisting enough so that Lestrange hissed under his breath. Sparing Hogwarts one last glance, Tom set his jaw.

Thanks for nothing, Dumbledore.

With a crack like a whip, they were gone.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Harry slapped nine galleons onto the front counter of the Leaky Cauldron.

“Two rooms for a week,” he said, glancing over his shoulder a little absent-mindedly. At this time close to midday it was relatively quiet. The pub was mostly unoccupied and patrons of the inn had already departed to go about their daily business. An old witch sat in one corner, her nose buried in a book, and a mop was busily slopping soapy water around on the ground by the bar.

“That’ll be eighteen galleons,” said Tom the innkeeper without glancing up from the glasses he was cleaning.

“Eighteen galleons?” Momentarily forgetting himself, Harry whirled around, his mouth hanging open. “What’s with the inflation?”

Tom did look up then, quirking a single sparse eyebrow. “Great Merlin, boy, where’ve you been these past few years? Has the war taught you nothing?”

Harry rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. Of course. He had up and landed himself directly into post World War II. No wonder his Firewhisky that morning had been so pricey. Evidently he would have to start budgeting. He hadn’t brought enough money with him to live in great comfort in a war-ravaged country. God forbid he’d have to start bookkeeping for his little holiday.

“One room, then,” Harry said, reluctantly adding a couple of sickles to the pile at Tom’s request. He and Peregrine would have to share.

“I’ll put you in room 13, up the stairs and to your right,” Tom said, abandoning his glasses to scribble in his booking system. He pushed a key across the bench. “You have a name?”

“Delacour,” Harry said, snatching up the proffered key and sparing him a quick smile which may have been more of a grimace. “Thanks.”

The expenses now paid, Harry heaved his backpack onto his shoulders and dragged himself up the creaky wooden stairwell. He’d had lodgings in the Leaky Cauldron before (or rather, later) and the skeleton of the building was unchanged. Yet it seemed somehow diminished when compared to its 1990s counterpart. Dimmer and colder and mustier. But it would do. He had never been particularly picky about lodgings, anyway.

Harry found number 13 easily enough. The silver numbers sat crookedly on the door, the metal numbers scratched up and slightly rusty at the edges. He jammed the equally beat-up key into the keyhole and pressed the door open with his shoulder.

The room was sparse. It had a double bed, at the very least, a nightstand and chair, and a small wardrobe equipped with a long mirror and coat hangers. Harry found the light switch, the room transforming with a soft yellow hue. He poked his head into a small side room, discovering a modest en suite.

He dumped his backpack on the ground and threw himself over the bed.

Home sweet home.

It felt as if there were weights under Harry’s eyes, dragging down his tired eyelids. He closed them. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept. It must have been the night before they’d found Peregrine in his secret outback mansion. That felt like a lifetime ago. God, he’d suffered through some horrifically big days.

But he couldn’t rest yet. There was still the matter of the envelope in his pocket. Harry’s eyes snapped open and he carefully reached down to pat the package at his side. A package that even Dumbledore couldn’t open. It crinkled temptingly under his fingers.

He pulled it out of his pockets and held it up to the light. He ran his thumb over the script printed on the front.

Harry & Hermione Delacour

(Potter & Granger)

in the unlikely event of their return…

The ink was still crisp and strongly pigmented. The sun had not seen this in a long time. Harry’s thumb paused on Hermione’s name, hovering. He had barely considered where she had gone, he’d been too preoccupied with his own woes.

Me, me, me. What do I do now? How can I be stranded without her? How can I go on without her?

Guilt formed a leaden weight in his stomach. He hadn’t even stopped to think that had she gotten it right, she had landed herself alone with Tom Riddle, the very person who had killed her without a second thought. He had never bothered to learn the extent of any trauma she might carry. And now there was no Tempus Charm to protect her should he harm her again. They were on an even playing field, and Harry knew very well who had the advantage.

Harry groaned and dropped the envelope, flipping onto his front so he could hide his face in his arms.

“What am I even doing?” he mumbled, then sat up and ripped the envelope open.

A thick wad of parchment fell onto the bed, but there was still that uneven little shape in the corner of the package. Frowning, Harry tipped it onto his open palm.

A time-turner. No doubt the very same one Dumbledore had taken from them the night they landed in 1944. It sat in his palm, the gold winking up at him. It looked so deceptively innocent. Harry carefully placed it back into the envelope and turned to the wad of parchment. He slid a cursory eye over the sheets and saw nothing but writing. He recognised Dumbledore’s sharp, cursive lettering. What was this? A memoir intended for only his and Hermione’s eyes?

His trepidation piquing, Harry turned to the first page and started to read.

Dear Mr Potter and Miss Granger,

I, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, address this letter to you as the final existing account of the curious events which were set into motion on September 1^st, 1944. I cast a magical seal on this envelope – before my loss of memory – to ensure that no one but the time-travellers themselves may read this account should you ever seek answers. Time is such a fickle thing, therefore I judge my course of action to be the most wise. I write this in the hope that you both can understand this.

I planned for your return to your own time long before the event took place. With the discreet assistance of my good friend, Mr Newt Scamander, I acquired two vials of tears from a Glawackus, a rare magical creature whose blind gaze can erase memories. The tears have strong Obliviatory properties and were charmed such that only memories of the time-travelling wonders would be removed. No one was exempt from the plan. No one except for one…

Harry forced himself to put down the letter and take a deep breath to steady his rapidly beating heart. When he returned to the letter, Dumbledore’s story started to play out, as if before his very eyes…

***

Despite the warm ambience and the golden lighting which brought to mind sun-warmed soil and dry leaves, the atmosphere in the headmaster’s office was grim enough to erase these effects.

Albus Dumbledore paced in circles before Armando Dippet, seated behind his desk. Albus’s recount of what had occurred at the top of North Tower was now complete, and the two wizards now mulled over everything in a silence as heavy as the bottom of a very deep ocean.

“They are truly gone, then?” Armando finally asked, steepling his fingers beneath his chin.

“I saw the truth in Mr Lestrange’s eyes,” Albus said. He sighed deeply. “We have not been deceived. Tom Riddle sent them both home. We can be thankful for that, even if for nothing else.”

“Thankful?” Armando spluttered, stamping to his feet and gesturing about wildly. “I am of an opposing opinion! This means that Mr Riddle is a… a…”

“A murderer,” Albus finished gravely. “And according to Tempus Charm theory, this must mean that it was he who sent Mr Potter and Miss Granger back to our time in the first place. It is an unusual circ*mstance.”

“He’s our Head Boy! Who would ever have thought that he’s capable of such a thing?” Dippet put his face in his hands in an uncharacteristic show of despair. “Merlin, Hogwarts will be an absolute laughing stock if this ever gets out! And get out it must, because he killed two students! Three students dead in one school year, yet the Poole incident looks tame in comparison! An expulsion is in order, is it not?”

Albus had always seen the potential for such dark deeds in Tom Riddle. Ever since their first meeting in Wool’s Orphanage he had known, without a shadow of a doubt, that something within that boy was very, very wrong. And yet…

“Mr Riddle’s actions are grave indeed,” Albus agreed and his heart was heavy. “But an expulsion cannot take place. The plan must stand. We must destroy all evidence of Mr Potter and Miss Granger.”

“But– there must be consequences, Albus!”

“Armando, we cannot.” Albus ran a tired hand through his beard, thinking. “To perpetuate their existence in our time would only risk creating something far more dangerous – a paradox. You know this cannot happen.”

Armando stared at Albus, his eyes very shiny. But he knew just as well as Albus that this could not take place. He shaded a hand over his eyes as if he couldn’t bear to see the world, and he bowed his head in defeat.

“The plan must stand,” Albus repeated, more to himself than anything. “I shall make arrangements with the house-elves. Leonard has already approved the action, but I shall owl him to inform him that it is starting.”

Armando simply waved a hand in dismissal, as if he wasn’t able to gaze upon Albus. “Do what you must.”

Albus dipped his head and withdrew from the office. Down the stairs, out into the corridor. The sun was now peaking over the mountains in the distance, rays of light tickling the castle. The staff and students would be rising soon. And when they did, there would be rumours of two dead students, three perpetrators and one deserter. This had to be managed quickly and tactfully so as to not overturn their world.

It was a good thing that he had prepared for this in advance. But then again, he had always prided himself on his planning abilities. The cooperation of Newt Scamander, a talented magizoologist, and Leonard Spencer-Moon, Minister for Magic, had been central to the plan.

In his office, Albus found one of the school’s barn owls waiting by an open window. Incredibly intelligent as owls were, this one had somehow sensed that his services would be required right now.

Albus hurried to rifle through his drawers, producing a sheet of parchment and a quill. Laying both on his desk, he pulled out his wand and gave it a wave. The quill stood to immediate attention. Albus began composing his letter to Leonard as he walked about the office, searching for the two vials of tears he had tucked away months ago.

“Dear Leonard,” he recited aloud, turning over the words. “I ask you to destroy this letter after reading it. Following on from our discussions last year regarding the matter of the time-travellers, it is my duty to inform you that both have been restored to their original time. I shall manage the Hogwarts population promptly, as agreed upon. I enclose a vial of Glawackus tears for you to incorporate into the waters of wizarding Britain.”

He paused, unrooting the two familiar glass vials from the bottom drawer of his desk. They were small, no taller than his thumb, and filled with clear fluid. He stuffed one into his pocket and the other into an empty envelope before completing his message.

“I hold you to your word that you will first eliminate all Ministry records of Mr Harry Potter and Miss Hermione Granger, including Mr Potter’s trial, for the sake of protecting our world from a time paradox. I am indebted to you for your assistance in this delicate matter. Albus Dumbledore.”

He grabbed the parchment and scanned the words. He gave a satisfied nod and folded it into the envelope with the vial of Glawackus tears. He swept across the room to the owl who was now ruffling his feathers as he waited impatiently. Albus attached the letter to the owl’s leg.

“Make haste,” he whispered. The bird blinked at him with bright amber eyes, turned and launched himself outside on widespread wings.

Now Albus was in need of kitchen help.

“Lopley,” he called. On command, a house-elf popped into existence. She stumbled around on the spot, looking confused before she focussed on Albus. Her eyes widened, as large as tennis balls.

“Deputy headmaster!” she cried. “You be summoning Lopley, sir? Is you feeling ill, sir? Lopley can help!”

It only then occurred to Albus how he must look to her. He felt distinctly greyer than ever before.

“No, Lopley, I am quite alright,” he said, fishing around in his pocket. “But I need your help with something else. Do you see this vial? It contains a very important safeguard against a highly contagious illness which Professor Dippet and I understand may breach our school soon. Consumption of this remedy acts as protection against this illness for witch, wizard and house-elf alike. It is vital that everyone residing within the castle receives it. However, we do not wish to cause mass hysteria by announcing the imminent arrival of this illness. Do you understand me?”

Lopley’s eyes widened a little more with each word that Albus spoke. “Master Dumbledore is asking Lopley to sneak this into the food and drink in the kitchens to be sent to the tables, sir?”

Albus clicked his tongue. This would have to be handled delicately. “Not sneak, per se, Lopley. If any other house-elf questions you, though I doubt they will, please explain that myself and Headmaster Dippet gave this order. Now, this vial contains highly potent medicinal properties, therefore I ask you to only use a quarter of the vial today. In five days, use another quarter, and so on until the contents have been depleted. Hopefully this is sufficient to ensure that all students and staff receive a dose.”

Lopley retained a lingering shadow of uncertainty on her features. It was a most unusual trait in house-elves, for them to be have thoughts so apprehensive of their masters. It might have been smoother to summon any other docile house-elf, but Albus thought it better to present someone like Lopley with this crucial task. Someone more intelligent, less likely to make a mistake.

Albus knelt down to her level so that they could see eye to eye. He held the vial up to her, displaying its deceptively simple contents. “This scheme has been personally approved by Minister Spencer-Moon,” he said soothingly. “I promise you, Lopley, that it is perfectly safe.”

The last remnants of doubt disappeared from Lopley’s face. “Yes, sir,” she squeaked. “Lopley will see it done, sir! Lopley is adding it to breakfast before it is sent to the Great Hall, sir!”

Her nimble little fingers grasped the vial from Albus’s hands and she disappeared with another pop!

Albus straightened again and turned in a circle, regarding the empty room. It suddenly seemed very quiet. The letter was sent. The vials had been delivered. There was nothing more for him to do. A cold wind was tumbling through the open window. He walked over, the air nipping at his face before he pulled it shut.

Now to wait. The pieces were moving. Here, in this terribly silent and terribly cold room, was the still before the storm. The breath before the bloodshed. The peace before the bombs.

Albus made for his chair behind his desk but unexpectedly stumbled, catching himself on the table before he fetched up on the floor. He brought a hand up to cover his eyes, his heart and his lungs suddenly too large in his chest. For the first time in a long time, he felt old.

This wasn’t peace, though, was it? It was the bloodless, pulsating ache of anticipation. It was the gnawing regret of an old man in his rocking chair, waiting to die.

To erase the very existence of a young man and a young woman. The lives that they had touched in their time here… what was his right to take that away? Would those who had grown to love the Delacours live out the remainder of their years with an unexplainable hole in their hearts, where they felt that something had been stolen but they could never explain what? Was this what it was to play at being a god? Albus wanted to be free of his duties to cool-headedly guard the common good of the wizarding community. He didn’t want to forget. Because Harry Potter had given him courage.

Albus allowed himself this moment to bow his head and mourn what he and many others were about to lose.

Then a stray thought drifted into his head. The young Lestrange. He had fled hours ago. Leonard’s influence would spread the entirety of wizarding Britain, but the Glawackus tears would not be distributing through the waters for another day at least. Albus had seen the boy’s plans to leave to some place far, far away, and he could very well be gone before the tears could touch him. But it wasn’t too late to track him down.

Yet Albus had already made his decision. He had seen the blossoming friendship between Harry Potter and Peregrine Lestrange. He had seen the despair in the boy’s eyes as he ran. No, Albus had always known, since he first discussed the Tempus Charm with Harry and Hermione as if it were already a real thing, that somebody would have to bring it to fruition. Last night he had set Peregrine the formidable challenge of creating the Tempus Charm which would bring Harry Potter and Hermione Granger to them in the first place. Peregrine would need his memories to see it through. The path would most likely be long and lonely, and possibly quite dangerous. The least Albus owed him was the comfort of Harry’s ghost.

Albus lifted his head and smiled to himself. Perhaps he was not as cool-headed as he ought to be. To think he would go soft for one of the Lestranges.

He took a deep breath, straightened his spine and set his shoulders. Then he departed his office and headed down for breakfast.

***

The letter drooped in Harry’s hands. Dumbledore’s signature at the bottom was imprinted like a hot brand in his vision. There could be no mistake about what happened. This was a genuine retelling of that day’s events.

Peregrine had only been spared because he was to be Dumbledore’s workhorse. That man was always engineering things to fit his agenda just so. The most infuriating part of it was that somehow it always worked, too. In that timeline, Peregrine would toil in isolation for decades, he would produce the Tempus Charm, and Voldemort would use it to send Harry and Hermione back in time. The perfect little wheel, ever-turning… and he, Harry, supposedly gave Dumbledore courage, as if those words were meant as a comfort…

Unbidden, hot tears welled in Harry’s eyes, blurring his vision.

No wonder he hadn’t been able to puzzle out who had managed to wipe Dumbledore’s memories. Nobody had overpowered him. He’d done this to himself. And Tom – it made perfect sense that Dumbledore was the only one tricky enough to find a method to best him, too. The plan had been nutted out months beforehand.

Deep down, a rational little voice tried to explain that it was the right thing to have done, but Harry was sick of it. He was sick of the right thing. For once, why couldn’t it just be the easy thing? Why couldn’t he come back and know Tom, and Tom would know him, and they could finish whatever dance they had started back in 1944?

A tidal wave of rage and despair momentarily left Harry completely unbalanced and he gasped for breath, needing to do something to let it out. He would have screamed if his lungs would have only let him. Instead, he balled the letter up and launched it across the room.

Dumbledore, Dumbledore, Dumbledore! Why couldn’t he leave it all alone for once? Why did his mad genius have to pick and pick and pick until the threads came undone?

Harry reached up to grab the back of neck, to draw his chin down to his chest, but the skin on the nape of his neck stung at the contact. The sharp pain drew him back into the moment.

“sh*t,” he muttered, recalling that the nasty sunburn remained. The pain was not easing at all. “Speculus.”

With a swish of his wand, a floating mirror appeared in front of him to reveal his haggard appearance. The shadows under his eyes looked like purple bruises. His hair looked utterly ridiculous. He had clumsily scraped it into an updo at Peregrine’s place but he really didn’t have the slightest idea how to style it. Somehow, when Peregrine and Sirius and even Bill Weasley had long hair, they looked so effortlessly cool. Harry, on the other hand, looked like he was pretending to be Snape. A harsh expectations versus reality demonstration.

Harry waved his hand and the mirror image slid away to circle behind him. With another murmured “speculus”, a second mirror appeared in front of him. He positioned it just so and adjusted the back mirror to better view the damage to his neck.

He frowned.

The skin there was certainly darkened with inflammation, but that was no blistering sunburn. Inked into his skin was a five-pointed star, ringed as if it sat on a compass face. The nautical star, exactly as Peregrine had etched the rune in the centre of his ceiling.

Harry awkwardly pointed his wand at his neck. “Scourgify!”

The image did not budge. He tried scratching a corner of it away but achieved nothing but further skin irritation.

“What the f*ck, Peregrine,” he growled, banishing the mirrors. The least the old man could’ve done was warn them about impromptu neck tattoos as a side effect. Harry supposed he should have predicted something like this from the king of dramatics, also known as Peregrine Lestrange.

With a groan, he dipped his head and clenched his hands, nails biting crescent moons into his palms. He shook out his hands and scrubbed at his wet eyes angrily. He patted around the bed, searching for Dumbledore’s letter, only to remember he had turned it into a makeshift projectile only minutes beforehand. The scrunched up ball stared at him accusingly from across the room.

“Why does this sh*t keep happening to me?” Harry hissed, heaving himself to his feet and rescuing it from the floor.

***

An hour later, Harry stood in front of Borgin and Burkes, gazing up at the golden letters framing the doorway. While it was still a dim and thoroughly unpleasant place to behold, he supposed that might have been his subjective opinion. Compared to in his own time, the shop was significantly better kept. The window displays were polished, the various ornaments and jewellery pieces glimmering brightly. He supposed that practicing the Dark Arts was not yet considered taboo, as it had become after Voldemort’s first downfall.

Harry shuddered and hugged his cloak around himself. He couldn’t believe he was willingly entering this place again.

The bell over the door jangled as he pushed it open and stepped inside. The shop was lit sparingly by candlelight, probably to lend to the atmosphere. A couple of human skeletons lurked in the shadows by the door. They didn’t appear to be receiving any physical support to hold them upright. Their bones sat askew and their mandibles gaped wide open. A top hat was perched jauntily on one of the heads. Harry tore his eyes away from them. They were a most macabre sight.

Harry stopped a few steps further into the store. There were glass displays everywhere, brimming with nefarious goods. The display directly to his left was dedicated entirely to hands. In the middle was the withered hand that Draco had shown an interest in. A little note was attached to it: The Hand of Glory. Provides candlelight to the holder. Best friend of thieves and plunderers.

Harry’s nose wrinkled as his eyes passed to the next one. It was a smaller mummified hand. It looked like that of a long-fingered child’s, except that wasn’t quite right. Detached at the wrist, a bracelet of dark fur ringed the hand. With a sickened jolt, Harry realised it was not a human hand at all. Monkey’s Paw. Grants the holder three wishes at a terrible price. For your enemies.

Something creaked behind him. Harry’s head whipped around but he saw nothing.

“I hate this,” he murmured, making it his mantra. “I hate this, I hate this.”

He hurried forwards a few more steps, glancing about skittishly as he did so. There was no one waiting at the counter. A bronze plaque had been set out which read unattended – please return later. At the bottom was an additional line in smaller print: theft will awaken the curse of the skeleton sentinels.

Cautiously, Harry turned his head again. The heads of skeletons by the door had twisted around at impossible angles and seemed to be watching him. Harry snapped back around to face the counter, his heart racing. He felt as if he were twelve again, alone and lost in a big, bad shop of horrors.

“Tom?” His voice quavered out very softly. He cleared his throat and repeated in a stronger tone, “Tom? Are you here? It’s Harry, I…”

His voice trailed off again. He had caught sight of a display at the front of the counter. Glass jars filled with preserved organs. Morbidly fascinated, Harry couldn’t help himself from bowing his head to examine the contents. Severed toes. A tongue. A head whose mouth was frozen in the parody of a scream. What looked like a large foetus, trying to claw its way out of a dissected uterus. Unborn Mudblood for sale.

Bile rose in Harry’s throat. He clamped a hand over his mouth and straightened just as a figure came striding from the back room, coming to a halt in front of him.

Tom. Harry’s eyes darted to his face as he uncovered his mouth, the bile receding back down his oesophagus, burning as it did.

Tom’s pale face was flushed, his normally immaculate hair tousled as if he’d come running. A travelling cloak hung crookedly from his shoulders. He looked so endearingly bedraggled that Harry had to fight the physical urge to run to him, to touch him, to be held. If only Tom could comfort him in the face of what he had just seen.

Harry instead focussed on keeping the contents of his stomach down.

“Harry,” Tom breathed and his eyes were all over Harry. “You’re here. How did you know…?”

“I just knew,” Harry said, tearing his gaze away from Tom’s face and glaring instead at his hands. His beautiful, long-fingered hands…

f*ck! Harry shifted his gaze to Tom’s perfectly normal – not at all wonderfully broad – shoulders. He just couldn’t bear to look at something so beautiful after the display he had just witnessed.

There was a long pause in which Harry stared daggers at Tom’s stupid shoulders, then Tom said, “You look unwell, Harry. Would you like to come through to the back–”

“No, I want to know what the hell this is!” Harry jabbed a finger at the foetus, big enough to be a newborn. “Did you do this? Was it… was it alive when you pickled it?”

Tom did not respond immediately. He regarded the contents of the jar and then Harry’s face with something akin to childish curiosity on it. Unable to bear the silence, this clinical examination, Harry crossed his arms and looked at Tom piercingly.

“Did you?” he asked. It was meant to come out as a demand to confront the injustice of it, but instead sounded like a small plea to his ears, a resigned beggar asking why.

Tom’s gaze did not shift from Harry’s the entirety of the time. As if he were drinking him in, trying to absorb his essence to figure out what made him tick.

“No, Harry.” Tom’s voice cleaved through the silence at long last. “In my years here, I have only dealt with ancient artefacts, not human remains. Why–”

“Exactly,” Harry interrupted fiercely, burning now. “That is a human, not a… not a cucumber to be put in a jar and stuck on a shop shelf! Why does it matter if our ancestors were Muggles?”

Tom’s eyes were glistening. Harry imagined that he could see silver memories swimming in the dark blue depths like minnows. He imagined that Tom was remembering all those times, so long ago, that they had fought about this and those particular occasions when maybe Harry had almost won. His voice died and his mouth went dry. He had to moisten his lips with his tongue.

He took a step closer to Tom Riddle and held out his hands. As if commanded, Tom held out his own to Harry, allowing one to be guided where Harry wished. His skin was cold. His face was very still, but his eyes were ever-watching.

Slowly, as if afraid of awakening a beast, Harry placed Tom’s hand on the side of his neck, shivering where the cool fingers automatically curled around his skin. His fingers touched the burning tattoo on the nape of Harry’s neck and the painful skin was immediately soothed.

Harry tilted his chin to the side slightly, exposing the slim expanse of caramel-brown skin.

“Would you put my head in a jar, Tom?” he asked quietly. “Because I’m not pure enough? A filthy half-blood?”

Tom quirked his head to the side by a degree, a curious bird of prey observing a new world. His gaze had darkened dangerously at the sight of Harry beneath him. “No. You’re not. I would not.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth quirked despite himself. In rare moments like these, he had the budding Dark Lord exactly where he should be. Harry released Tom’s hand and reached out with his own now, placing it carefully on Tom’s cheek. He stroked the hint of stubble once, wondering at the new texture, before his hand settled. “Would you put your own in there, as some form of self-flagellation?”

“No.” Tom’s voice cracked and he hurriedly cleared his throat. “Of course not.”

“Then I ask of you, why are the others any different?” Harry gazed up at him, searching, and for perhaps the first time in his life Tom uttered the words, “I don’t know.”

A crooked smile crossed now Harry’s mouth and he started to step away, removing his hand. “Then I believe I win this one.”

Tom’s hand snapped up, gripping Harry’s wrist, holding him static in time. Harry attempted to tug himself free to little avail. It was only a half-hearted attempt in the first place.

:You are magnificent.:

The Parseltongue was caressing, so unlike its usual harsh tones. A quiet promise.

Harry’s eyes found Tom’s lips, so very pale but Harry remembered them to be soft. His pulse pounding like a drum in his ears, Harry was overcome by the urge to surge forwards and kiss him. It would have been easy.

Perhaps Tom saw the longing in his eyes because he leaned down, his breath ghosting Harry’s lips. He reached out and brushed a lock of Harry’s hair back behind his ear. Mere centimetres separated them, yet Tom’s face looked so heartbreakingly uncertain. This close, Harry drank in the features that he was terribly familiar with – the straight bridge of his nose, the tiny freckle by his left eyebrow, the swoop of his thick dark hair across his forehead. But there were also new ones which hadn’t been there six years ago – the shadow of stubble on his jaw, the white scar line under his eye. They were reminders of the impossibly long distance which now separated them. Tom’s betrayal. The frailty of mere memories, so easily broken.

Harry shuddered away from Tom’s touch. He backed away a step and waved a hand in the air as if dismissing what had just occurred between them. Tom straightened, his face shuttered once more. Harry took a deep breath, calming himself. “This isn’t what I came here to talk to you about. So yes, I would like to come through to the back. Just get me away from these awful things out here.”

Without waiting for a response, he stepped around Tom, refusing to look at him. The back room appeared to be a cross between kitchenette, lounge and storage. He paused in the doorway, regarding the mundaneness of the area. Tom brushed past and moved towards the kitchenette area.

“Tea?” he asked. His tone was expressionless as if nothing at all had just happened.

“Coffee, if you have it,” said Harry, and he could have laughed at the mild distaste which surfaced on Tom’s face. “I will not accept judgement about the matter. I need a caffeine hit quick because I haven’t slept in days.”

He could have bitten his tongue as soon as the words left his mouth because the last thing he needed was Tom taking advantage of him in this state, or worse, Tom’s concern. Tom, who was now fixing a mug of coffee, shot Harry a quick, sharp glance before returning to his work.

“Why is that?” he enquired lightly.

Harry said nothing, reserving the right to remain silent on the matter. He observed Tom pottering about and knew it was a unique position that he was in, watching the Dark Lord performing such a menial task.

“You could take a nap here, if you wish,” Tom added. “Burke was called away and won’t be back until tonight. He only asked me to fill in for the afternoon.”

The offer was tempting, but not destined for an answer of acceptance.

“I can’t, I’ve got things to do,” Harry said, finally stepping further into the room. He unclasped his cloak from his throat and tossed it over the back of an armchair by the door. He dropped into the chair was a sigh but tried his best to look as alert as possible. In her peripheral vision, he saw the hint of a smile on Tom’s face as he stepped away from the kitchenette, a mug filled with black coffee in his hand. He went down on one knee by Harry’s side and placed the mug in his hands, encouraging Harry’s fingers to wrap around the mug snugly.

Harry eyed Tom suspiciously. “I could have just summoned it from you. There’s no need for you to get up in my face like this. Or do you want to directly place the poisoned chalice in my hand or something?”

Tom winked at Harry before rising, but his fingers lingered on Harry’s a moment longer. It made his heart stutter a few beats.

“I wouldn’t poison you, darling,” Tom said demurely, taking the chair opposite Harry, though his eyes glinted wickedly. “How horribly crude.”

Harry scowled at him and took a sip. He promptly choked. It was the third worst cup of coffee he had ever tasted, and he said so. “It may actually be poisoned after all,” he tacked on.

Tom scoffed and leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands together behind his head. “What can you expect if you choose to contaminate your body with that drink which is poison in itself?” he countered. “Tea is for the soul, coffee is for the… bin.”

“Oh, very clever,” Harry shot back. “Who said that?”

Tom smiled winningly. “Me.”

“God, you’re really turning up the charm today, aren’t you?”

“Not my name, but people often say the resemblance between us two is uncanny.”

Harry pelted his mug at Tom, who caught it with a casual flick of his wand and slowly lowered it onto the coffee table between them.

Harry pursed his lips and regarded Tom through lowered lashes. “You never used to make dad jokes. You’ve gotten old.”

The playful light in Tom’s eyes died and he twirled his wand between his fingers with delicate grace. “How old do you think I am, Harry?”

“I don’t know, thirty?”

Tom’s lip curled. “I’m twenty-four.”

Which Harry knew perfectly well, but he did not care to mention it. He shrugged and leaned forward to grab the coffee again, grimacing through the next sip.

“So,” Tom continued. “I know this isn’t a friendly house – or rather, shop – call. Tell me, what brings you to me so soon after parting ways?”

Harry took the time to drain the mug. His eye twitched a couple of times as if his body was already anticipating the physiological effect the strong hit of caffeine was soon have on him. He swung his feet up on the coffee table, reclining as he carefully pieced together his next words.

“I now know what happened to your memories,” he finally said. “To everyone’s memories.”

Tom’s eyes darkened. He nodded his head slowly as if he could already read Harry’s thoughts. “Reversible?”

“As reversible as death,” Harry said, which may not have been the most effective comparison to use on this particular wizard. At the sight of Tom’s slightly raised eyebrows, Harry added brusquely, “Which is pretty damn irreversible.”

Tom ignored this. His eyes were now piercing, as if he could extract answers from Harry without need for a verbal conversation. “Who did it, then?”

Harry hesitated, and Tom sniffed out that hesitation like a bloodhound on the trail.

“You’re protecting someone,” he whispered. His pupils were massively enlarged, filling almost the entirety of his irises. For a split second, Harry was irresistibly reminded of the Horcrux he had faced in Grimmauld Place, with its pulsing black eyes, so shark like. His tongue went numb, rolling in on itself, and his pulse spiked. For a heartbeat, he was afraid.

But this was still Tom, mostly. Not the shattered creature back home. And he would never become that shattered creature if only Harry could keep his head. Inhaling deeply, Harry set his jaw and forced himself to meet Tom’s black, Horcrux-like eyes without fear.

“Multiple people were involved. It was a scheme set up well in advance so that once we returned home, all memories of us would be removed. It wasn’t personal, Tom, it was for the safety of the fixed timeline–” Harry wasn’t sure why he was now defending Dumbledore’s letter, but he was sure that if he didn’t, Tom would wreak havoc on them all. Tom’s finger now came up, cutting him off.

“‘We’?” he repeated. “‘Fixed timeline’? I pride myself on my brain, Harry, but even this information is too much for a man to process if he hasn’t the context to place it within.”

The frustration in his voice was real, but at the very least his pupils had returned to their former state.

Harry sat forward, his fists tightening in his lap, but he kept his voice steady. “I swear that I’ll answer your questions, but on one condition. I want you to take the Prevaricator’s Vow.”

***

Tom laughed. He couldn’t help himself. There Harry sat, as bold as brass, asking him to take the Prevaricator’s Vow as if it were nothing. Yet his face open and earnest. He wasn’t joking.

Tom’s laugh trailed away and he sucked in a deep breath. He considered Harry for a long moment. He could not, for the life of him, make sense of this one.

Harry Potter. The boy from his dreams, made real. Harry, with his strong aristocratic features which hinted at pureblood lineage but less-than-aristocratic sense of etiquette. Harry, with his scarred hands and sharp tongue, whose touch was the most gentle Tom had ever felt. Harry, so beautiful with his tumble of thick black hair and summer-warm skin and big green eyes, but could scowl ferociously enough to rival Mulciber on a bad morning. Harry, whose aura bristled with raw power, yet walked around so humbly. Harry, who gazed at him with such sad eyes.

Everything about him seemed contradictory and Tom wished so desperately to understand. Perhaps once he had understood. The enigmatic figure from a past that they had all apparently forgotten. Everyone but Lestrange. This may be his only chance to get some candid answers. Tom was still half-convinced that at any moment, Harry would vanish like dandelion seeds carried away by the wind.

Tom didn’t even have to speak before Harry made the offer himself. He must have known Tom well. Harry now opened his arms, palms facing upwards as he gestured emphatically. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s unfair for only you to partake in this vow, so I’ll take it too, if you require that. But this is my final offer, and you’ll never hear it again if you turn it down now. I will only carry on our conversation if you accept. I have to be sure that you aren’t deceiving me, as you have in the past.”

In the past. It was such an interesting statement. Tom wished more than ever that he could know what had passed between the two of them. Friends, enemies, lovers, all at once? But obviously there was some degree of bad blood between the two of them.

He inhaled sharply and gazed at Harry with hooded eyes as if he hadn’t already made his decision. Harry’s lips were drawn flat as he watched Tom in return. A wild curl of hair was dangling in his face. Tom would have liked to reach over and tuck it away again.

“The Prevaricator’s Vow,” he finally said, resting his hands on the armrests of his chair and crossing his long legs. “It is no easy feat to perform that vow properly, Harry. One incorrect word, even a hint of ill intention in your tone, and the ritual fails. You will be rendered unable to mistruth for the remainder of your days.”

A muscle ticked in Harry’s jaw. “You don’t have to explain that to me. I’m game so long as you are.”

“Hm.” A satisfied smile curled Tom’s lips. “You see, I am so very eager to ask some questions of you, too. You do know how to tempt me…”

The shadows left poor, tired Harry’s eyes. He lit up in an instant, two sparkling green gemstones set in his face, his teeth showing for the first time. “You’ll do it?”

Harry did not appear to be anything particularly special compared to those of breathtaking beauty, impressive intellect and towering social status that Tom associated with. Yet somehow he was dazzling. Marcellus was a pale ghost in comparison.

“I suppose I shall,” Tom said. “But before we proceed… revelio.”

He draw his wand across the space between them in an almost lazy manner, scanning for anything that slippery little Harry might have concealed. Nothing of the sort surfaced.

Harry shook his head. “You really think that I could be bugged? Should I be offended?”

“I can never be too careful.” Tom shrugged, uncrossing his legs and pushing himself to his feet. “I have enemies who would love nothing more than to eavesdrop on a candid conversation between myself and someone like you.”

He held out a hand to help Harry to his feet.

“Someone like me?” Harry sounded less than pacified, but he accepted the proffered hand. No sooner was Harry on his feet than Tom yanked him forwards. He stumbled, practically falling into Tom’s arms. Tom smiled down at him and Harry blushed, much to his delight.

So that’s how I get you.

Harry stepped back and crossed his arms. Standing there without his cloak, Tom could properly appreciate his lean figure. He allowed his eyes to linger on the way Harry’s dark trousers hugged his legs and hips in the fashion that only teenagers would attempt to pull off–

Oh. Harry wasn’t underage, was he?

“Stare any longer and I’ll have to charge you,” Harry said waspishly. “I promise you it won’t be cheap.”

Tom tilted his head to the side. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen. Nineteen by the middle of the year. Feeling old?”

“Not at all. Just glad you’re not sixteen, darling.”

Harry rolled his eyes and sheathed his wand with a crisp snap, as if it were a knife.

“Are you certain you don’t want that out?” Tom asked, gesturing with his own wand. “It helps to anchor your magic.”

“I’ll survive,” Harry shot back. “Feel free to keep yours on hand, though.”

But Tom’s was already gone. He extended his arm straight towards Harry, and Harry did the same in return. They gripped each other’s wrists and locked into place. A ripple of energy unfurled from the point of contact. The hair on the back of Tom’s neck stood up in its presence. The world went silent around them.

Tom grinned, showing his teeth like a wolf. “Let’s begin.”