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Jun 3, 2018

The Station Just Behind You: Rough Trade Version

Time travel, pre-Harry/Graves, unfinished, 16k.

For someone whose nickname is the Boy Who Lived, Harry still manages to be inordinately surprised by the fact that he lives through his second killing curse. He listens as Dumbledore explains the situation, unable to stop looking around the white wisps of something in the air and the washed out, muted colors of King’s Cross Station. Even the train isn’t as bright as it is in life. There’s something missing here, and it’s not the life and color that he’s never seen the station without.

When Dumbledore stops speaking, Harry quietly says, “Is this what it’s going to feel like? To live without the horcrux?”

“Yes,” Dumbledore says. “I know it must be a relief.”

He can’t stop looking for the something that should be here, but Harry knows he won’t find it again. It’s gone, and it makes no sense, but the hollow feeling in his chest feels as though it will open up into a black hole and take him over. He finally looks back at Dumbledore and doubts that his former headmaster has missed Harry’s shattered expression at his words. Dumbledore doesn’t miss much. Maybe he expects Harry to lie to himself or Dumbledore. Maybe he expects Harry to tell the truth and be reassured.

“I hate it,” Harry says, but he doesn’t think there’s enough reassurance in the world for how horribly empty he feels. “It’s like I’m half a person now.”

“You are Harry Potter as you should have been,” Dumbledore says, his tone so kind it feels like knives.

Harry snorts. “That Harry Potter never got a chance.” The Harry Potter who could’ve been a happy, well-adjusted young man died with his parents, or maybe the Dursleys starved him out. There is only a man with more scars than he knows what to do with and a lifetime of sacrifice. He’s more selfish than he’s ever been in his life when he says, “I can’t live like this.”

“It isn’t your time to pass. Your parents would never forgive me if I take you with me,” Dumbledore says, his eyes pleading. “You have a destiny, and only part of it is defeating Voldemort. The other part is living the life all these years have done so little to prepare you for: a life of happiness and comfort.”

It would be so nice to believe him, Harry thinks, but his heart is beating into nothingness. Rationally, he knows that his friends are back at Hogwarts, fighting for their lives, and some part of him wants to see them again. To hug Ron and Hermione, to kiss Ginny deeply, to kiss the top of Teddy’s little head. But it’s hard to be rational when he feels like he’s lost a limb.

“Where is it?” Harry asks. “The horcrux.”

Dumbledore frowns and Harry doesn’t think it’s through his former headmaster’s will that a child appears on the bench next to them, swaddled in a green blanket. It’s an ugly thing, pale as anything, eyes red and bloodshot. At least the horcrux still has its nose. When Harry picks it up, it glares at him, but otherwise it barely moves.

Harry can’t take it back with him, for a horcrux cannot exist if Voldemort is to be destroyed. He can’t take it forward with him because Dumbledore will block his path. He can only hold it in this ghostly train station and fight the devastation he feels. It doesn’t make any sense at all, the way he can’t breathe now that a part of him is gone. It’s a part of Voldemort, too, but over the years it’s become Harry’s.

“It’s time, my dear boy.”

“My dear headmaster,” Harry says, his smile is wry. The horcrux tries to copy his expression, but ends up only looking constipated. “I know you don’t have all the answers. I’ve learned that lesson well by now. But I can’t return like this, so please, give me another option.”

Dumbledore is silent for a long moment. “Are positive that this is the path you must take?”

“Yes,” Harry says, holding the horcrux closer to himself.

There’s a certain sadness in Dumbledore’s blue eyes as he motions to the stone wall that leads to what would be the muggle side of Platform 9 & 3/4. “On the other side is another pathway to life that has opened to no one else but you, should you decide to take it. I can’t tell you what lies ahead. Perhaps reincarnation, perhaps something else. There is nothing I can do to prepare you for this.”

“You’ve done what you can,” Harry says, swallowing. His choices: death, life, and the unknown. But hell, he’s a Gryffindor. And he’s Slytherin enough to remember his sense of self-preservation. Harry doesn’t think he can last a year feeling so horrible, let alone a lifetime. “I suppose my next great adventure is just a little more literal than expected.”

“Good luck, Harry,” Dumbledore tells him.

Harry wonders if Dumbledore would have hugged him had he not been holding the horcrux. There’s certainly a wariness behind the twinkle of Dumbledore’s eyes. And yet, he told Harry about the third path instead of forcing him to return to life.

Clutching the horcrux close, Harry starts walking, faster and faster until he’s running for the washed-out brick wall. It’s easier at a run, Mrs. Weasley’s voice rings in his ears. He closes his eyes as he passes through and he drops downward, falling through nothing at all until he is nothing at all.

When he opens his eyes again, there is nothing in his arms, but there is life in front of him. Three women surrounding another woman on a table, franticly calling out to her and to each other. There’s too much blood, Harry thinks, and the youngest woman echoes his thoughts. She notices him as he treads closer to the table.

“Sir, you can’t be in here—”

Harry ignores all three of them, reaching for the woman’s hand to feel her pulse. The woman is still warm, but her heartbeat is gone. His own feels too strong in his chest, like it’s beating for two. There’s a baby in the matron’s arms and Harry can just barely see its pink face, but he can hear its cries. His cries, because this is not a portion of a whole, this is a child, abandoned through death by its mother and held by a woman whose clothes are half a century out of fashion.

“He’s mine,” Harry tells them, the emptiness gone completely from his chest.

The matron is not particularly concerned with who Harry is or how he got into the orphanage, only that he’s willing to take in the child and pay for the mother’s funeral. She places Tom into Harry’s arms and tells him she’s relieved to see the boy’s father step up. Harry doesn’t think they look particularly alike, but they don’t not, either. Tom is tiny, red, wrinkly. He’d obviously been washed by the time Harry arrived, but some of Merope’s blood remains behind one of his ears. He barely looks human, but that’s probably because Harry’s never seen such a young baby up close. Harry has no doubt he will be a cute enough kid soon.

“How do I hold him?” Harry asks, and the matron takes him into her office and answers the rest of his questions. She pulls out some baby formula and shows him how to use it and feed him. The matron is kind, but she doesn’t try to hide how much she wants him to keep the child. It’s a clean place, this orphanage, but Harry sees signs of age everywhere that a good scrubbing can’t erase.

Harry has no idea how to raise a child, but he knows he can’t possibly fuck it up worse than Wool’s Orphanage.

“Can I have a moment with Merope?” he asks when all is said and done and Tom is sleeping in his arms.

“Of course, dear,” the matron says. She clears the room out and closes the doors.

Harry stares down at the body and feels a strange detachment. There is no soul left in Merope Riddle, no life. There is only a corpse. Tom isn’t aware enough to cry over her—although Harry doubts he would anyway—and Harry never knew her. It is the concept that no one will truly grieve Merope that saddens him, not her death.

“I’m sorry,” he still says. For all the things that could’ve never been. “I’ll take care of him.”

The elder wand slips into his hand when he reaches into his pocket, despite not existing before that moment. He feels the stone appear in his other pocket and the cloak fold into his back pocket, shrinking effortlessly to fit. Harry doesn’t know the spell, but when he waves his wand, a beautiful coffin appears. The wood is midnight black and the words Merope Riddle curl around the front. Harry levitates her body inside and places one hand on the wood. With a gust of wind, he is gone.

The graveyard that’s haunted his nightmares is different in early evening. There are less gravestones here in this time, and it’s well cared for. It’s colder than he expected outside, having arrived from May, so Harry casts a warming charm over himself and Tom.

At the end of the line, Harry raises the earth and places the coffin inside, covering it so completely that he can’t tell the patch of earth had been raised at all. A flick of his wand and a gravestone appears, heavy marble landing with a thud onto the ground.

Merope Riddle, February 1, 1907 - December 31, 1926. A dream lies buried here.

She was only two years older than him.

Tom is awake again in his arms, but quiet, as though the somber graveyard can reach even him.

“I don’t love you,” Harry says, quietly. He stares into Tom’s blue eyes and wonders if they’ll stay that way or if the baby blue will soon fade into the boy’s real eye color. It won’t be red, but Hardy has no idea what color Tom’s eyes originally were. The thought that there is more to Tom Riddle than madness comforts him. “But I will, I think.”

Tom’s soul echoes within him, and it’s an echo he chose this time. Whatever going through that barrier had done—because he isn’t the same, not in magic or in spirit—Harry will embrace it. He asks the wand to guard the grave and a burst of blue hits the area, coating the perimeter before vanishing.

And then there’s just him and Tom in the cold winter air. Harry casts a notice me not around Tom and trudges up the path to Riddle Manor. Cold seeps into him as he remembers everything that had happened here, but he focuses on the differences. The house he approaches is lived in and well lit. The grounds are lifeless in the middle of winter, but they’re tidy.

A maid answers the door only seconds after Harry knocks.

“I’m here to see Tom Riddle,” Harry says. “It’s about Merope.”

The maid’s eyes widen and she steps aside. “Come in, please.”

Harry is led into a sitting room that thankfully isn’t the one he saw Voldemort murder the groundskeeper in. Or maybe it is; everything looks so different inside now that it’s not covered in dust and half eaten by moths. The Riddles keep him waiting, but not for no reason. They’re arguing as they walk down the stairs, a young male voice the loudest but the other two nearly as loud.

Tom senior appears first in the sitting room and scowls as he looks Harry over. Belatedly, Harry realizes his jacket and jeans haven’t seen many good days in months of camping out and being on the run.

“Where is she? Where is Merope?” Tom senior asks as his parents join the room and come to a stop next to him.

Harry stands up, since it doesn’t look like this is going to be a polite conversation. “I’ve come here to tell you that Merope died a few hours ago at an orphanage in London. I’ve buried her in your family’s graveyard.”

“She’s dead?” Tom senior asks, swallowing. He’s so young, his face habitually pale and lacking that smile Harry had seen in Dumbledore’s pensieve. His eyes are a very pale blue, the same as Mrs. Riddle’s. “How— she’s a witch, how could she die?”

“Witches and wizards can die just as easily as anyone else,” Harry replies, his voice quiet. He knows that all too well. “Merope had been unwell for a very long time and homelessness left her with few options.”

“She could’ve just ensnared some other poor man,” Tom senior says, snidely.

He quiets when a man who can only be Tom senior’s father puts his hand on his shoulder. “Our graveyard, you say?”

Harry inclines his head. “She married your son. She deserves that much, at least.”

Mr. Riddle purses his lips but doesn’t disagree. Harry’s glad he put a ward around the grave, because he doesn’t doubt it would be gone by the end of the week if he hadn’t.

“Is that all you wished to tell us, mister...” Mrs. Riddle trails off.

“Harry. Just Harry. And no— I came to ask if you wanted to be a part of your son’s life.” He directs his question toward Tom senior, because it’s his opinion that matters, not the thoughtful look that enters Mrs. Riddle’s eyes.

Tom senior faces his parents with a desperate look. “Mother, no. No. I won’t have him.”

A hushed discussion follows. Harry turns slightly toward the fireplace, as the Riddles don’t seem to want his input. The painting on the mantle is a beautiful scene of the English countryside. For all Harry knows, it may be of the land around Little Hangleton. He knows what the Riddles’ answer will probably be, but there’s a possibility of them surprising him. If the Riddles actually want Tom, Harry supposes he can find a way to insert himself into the household. Maybe as a nanny, as odd as it would seem for them to have a male one. Harry knows he could’ve simply taken the boy and started a new life for them, but the part of Harry that remembers being young and desperate to have blood family who loved him knows he should at least try.

Try in vain, he thinks as Tom senior clears his throat and says, “I know what you must think of me, but I can’t take him. I’ll never be able to look at him without seeing her and she— she was evil. I don’t care how much she loved me. She took a year of my life away from me, ruined my reputation, left me no choice but to cast out my own wife.”

“We will be amenable to providing you with some funds to raise the child,” Mrs. Riddle says, sharing a look with her son that speaks volumes. It’s not too late to change your mind, she all but says.

Mr. Riddle has less interest in keeping a link to Tom senior’s first marriage. His voice is firm as he says, “It will be a one-time payment that you may use as you wish, but keep in mind that you won’t receive any more from us. After today, that child has no ties to this family. I won’t have you or him interfere with the proper family my son will soon have.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I was already planning to care for him,” Harry says, shaking his head. But, well, he is fifty years out of time with the deathly hallows as his only possessions. “But if you want to pay me off, I wouldn’t say no.”

He leaves the Riddle home with a very sizable sum enclosed in a leather briefcase. When Harry glances back, he sees Tom senior watching him from the large window to the front of the house, but after a moment Tom senior walks away. A part of Harry understands him. He wouldn’t have ever been able to forgive someone who’d used a potion as powerful as Amorentia on him. And yet the whole story of Tom’s origins is full of pitiful people. Tom senior, potioned and raped and furious. Merope, abused all her life and desperate. The Gaunts, inbred and racist and proud. It’s such a mess.

His arms are tired after carrying Tom for so long, but Harry has one more stop to make. The Gaunt shack is almost unnoticeable amidst the trees, but Harry finds his way based on luck and a year old memory of a memory. No one answers his knock and he doesn’t hear anyone in the house, so he quietly casts alohomora and steps inside. The elder wand lights up the room, casting shadows over the dusty, grimy furniture inside. It’s obviously been a long time since anyone has stepped foot here. Harry can’t remember if Tom’s uncle and grandfather are still alive, but the state of their home can only mean they’re dead or still in Azkaban.

“Your other legacy,” Harry says to Tom. When Tom begins to fuss, he holds him close and takes one last look around. “Blood family is probably overrated anyway. I never knew my parents and I turned out alright. Desperately attached to your soul and now the master of death, but no one’s perfect.”

He makes no sound as he disapparates from the Gaunt shack, never to return.

Gringotts is a lot less intimidating now that Harry has successfully broken inside it once. Hermione had done the lion’s share of the work and they hadn’t exactly gotten away with it, but Harry still chalks it up to one of their best successes. As he walks through the entrance, the white stone walls seem to gleam accusingly at him and out of the corners of his eyes he can see a dozen goblins walking around the huge corridor and peering suspiciously at the patrons. Their teeth are sharp and their blades are sharper. Harry stifles his urge to look smugly at them.

He has a kid now who he really can’t teach his bad habits to. And flirting with danger with a side helping of anger issues is the last thing Tom needs to learn from him. Tom is attached to his front with a sling contraption that’s more magic than cloth, facing outward because the kid would never stand for not being able to look around and babble at things. He’s just over six months old now, bigger and chubbier and human-esque instead of the mandrake he’d resembled for his first week of life.

Tom babbles a little, reaching for something in front of him, and Harry pats the top of his little head. There’s hair there now, light and fine, tickling at his fingers.

“Those are goblins,” he says, nodding at the tellers, from whom they are only three customers away. “They’re in charge of all the money in the wizarding world.” When Tom points, Harry takes his hand, tickling Tom’s palm as he says, “And thus we don’t levitate them to us because we want a closer look.”

The customer in front of them huffs a laugh, turning to look behind at them. Her eyes widen when she sees Tom strapped to Harry’s chest. Harry thinks maybe it’s the sling, because he’s never seen witches carry their kids in the manner (maybe it’s rude or unfashionable or something, but how else is he supposed to carry a kid around?), but she only says, “Very precocious, is he?”

Harry hums. “Too much so.” He tries not to look stupidly proud of the kid, but it’s hard when he’s so familiar with Tom’s red-cheeked, focused look when he’s trying to get something to levitate to him. It’s fucking adorable. He’d never understood why Molly and Arthur decided have so many kids until Tom giggled at him for the very first time and Harry abruptly wanted six more of them for when Tom grew up into the grouchy little thing he’d been in Dumbledore’s memory. But, honestly, “It was a pain and a half. He levitated our muggle neighbor and I had to wait until the obliviators came and gave us a stern talking to.”

Or rather, he’d asked his wand to deal with the problem and prayed to Merlin’s ghost that dear old Mrs. Watson wouldn’t end up like Lockhart.

“You might consider moving to a fully wizarding area,” the witch says. “It’s easier on the kids, or so I’ve heard. I’m Mary McGonagall.”

And there it is, the reason Harry spent six months in the muggle world before returning to this one. Early on, he’d visited to buy some magical baby formula, book, and toys, but it had been quick. He’d stayed long enough to exchange a bit of money and shop, and that’s it, not wanting to chance running into the parents and grandparents of the people he once knew. He misses them, all of them, especially Hermione and the Weasleys. He doesn’t regret his decision, but... it’s an ache inside him, lessening over these six months but still there all the same.

It’s one thing to realize to himself how irrational he’d been at the very thought of living without Tom’s soul inhabiting his plane of existence. It’s another to be faced with human being whose descendants’ lives he’d affected by vanishing off through a portal to the past.

“I’m Harry,” Harry says in reply, trying not to wonder if this woman is his former professor’s mother or aunt. “And this is Tom.”

Before he can ask her about wizarding housing districts, it’s Mary’s turn at the counter and minutes later another counter opens up for service.

“What can Gringotts do for you?” The goblin behind the counter is exactly as surly as any goblin Harry’s ever met. It’s very comforting.

Harry slips off his backpack and places it onto the counter. “I’d like to open an account and convert these to galleons.” He’d considered just staying in the muggle world, but honestly, Mary isn’t wrong. Tom is too magical, too curious to stay there and Harry does him no favors by staying away just because he doesn’t want to face his ghosts.

“The minimum deposit to set up an account is ten galleons. You’re aware of our exchange rate?” The goblin asks, glancing down into the bag.

“I am,” Harry replies. He’s also aware that the goblins are the only ones who’ll take muggle money in all of the wizarding world. “I’ll take half with me and leave the other half in the vault.”

“Very well then,” the goblin says as he pulls out a drawer on his side of the counter. The bills levitate out of the bag in a curve and settle in the drawer, while simultaneously galleons begin to float out of the drawer and into the bag. Once that task is done and Harry takes the backpack back, the goblin gives him an evaluating look. “Do you have an open account with Gringotts, here or at another branch?”

“No,” Harry says. It’s the truth, after all. Here in the past, Harry’s barely a blip on the wizarding world’s radar. It’s rather nice, even though it can be lonely. Tom is adorable but not scintillating company. His babbling leaves a lot to be desired.

“Hooktooth!” the goblin calls out.

Harry can’t see anyone over the tall counter, but the goblin begins to speak to someone in the goblin language. Tom perks up interestedly at this and tries to imitate the words, unable to grasp the guttural sounds but trying anyway. After about a minute, the goblin turns back to Harry and points to Harry’s left. “Past the counters and to the green room. Hooktooth will make sure you fill out the paperwork correctly.”

Belatedly, Harry remembers the world runs on bureaucracy and sighs as he heads off to where he’d been directed to. The huge front hall of Gringotts seems endless, but eventually Harry reaches the end of the counters and sees a green door, in front of which another goblin stands. His leather armor is different from the other goblin’s in ways Harry can’t quite put a point on, not knowing much about armor, but he’s pretty sure he knows why the goblin at the counter was able to order Hooktooth around. Hooktooth is about the same height as the rest of the goblins, but he’s thinner, the kind of thin Ron had been when he’d shot up like a weed in fourth year. His head looks too big for the rest of his body and the set of his lips is more moody teenager than regular surly goblin.

“Hooktooth?” Harry asks. At the young goblin’s nod, he introduces himself and Tom.

“Greetings, future Gringotts customers,” the goblin says, the words sounding rehearsed.

With a wave of Hooktooth’s hand, the door swings open and slams shut once Harry has entered. The room is less than a tenth of the size of the front hall, its ceiling lower and its walls less decorated. A stone table with benches on each side sits at the center of the room. Hooktooth takes one side and Harry the other, and Harry watches with dismay as Hooktooth produces a huge scroll from one of his pockets.

“You will read this and then you will sign,” Hooktooth tells him.

The goblin flicks the seal off the scroll and it unrolls two yards down the table. Harry stares at it with horror for a long moment, but the memory of Hermione telling him to study prompts him to focus on the words. The font is on the small end but the blocky cursive is readable even for someone of Harry’s unscholarly nature. It is slow-going and Harry stops to ask Hooktooth about various terms every few minutes. He feels very nostalgic about his old Gringotts account, for which he’d never had to deal with any of this nonsense. A voice that sounds like Hermione’s asks him if ignorance is really better. He finds that his account will be closed if he knowingly stores any animals in his vault and that goblins are stingy with their interest rates. Near the end of the document is a section that calls for the true name of the person signing it, otherwise the magic of the contract will not see it as valid.

Harry pauses, reading the section over again before glancing at Hooktooth. He figures he may as well say it, since the goblins are serious about their security and Harry doesn’t like the thought of keeping his galleons in a shoebox for the rest of his life. “I’m not a British citizen. I don’t have a legal name here.”

“Your true name is who you are at the core of your magic,” Hooktooth says. The idea is a lot more conceptual than Harry would’ve expected from the goblins. “All magic users have a name that resonates within them. Most often, it is the name one has worn since childhood.”

Harry opens his mouth to ask a question, but he closes it as he realizes he doesn’t need to ask a single thing, not really. Harry’s never seen his own birth certificate. For all he knows, his real name is Hadrian and he has half a dozen middle names. But at his core, he’s never been anyone but Harry James Potter, he’s never seen himself as anyone other than who he is. He’s used polyjuice multiple times, he’s had people in his head and imperio cast on him, but he’s never lost himself. He’s Harry Potter, seeker, glasses, knobby knees, boy who lived. He’s not a Peverell for all that he holds the death stick and calling himself a Riddle would give him hives. He’s not a Weasley or a Dursley or an Evans. No matter which role he takes, he’ll always be the boy who sat under the sorting hat and told it no, the boy who pulled a sword out of a hat, the man who held a horcrux in his arms in the afterlife. It’s oddly comforting, even if Harry would rather not deal with the Potters of this time.

Harry James Potter, he signs, and the parchment glows green. It’s done.

Hooktooth rolls the parchment up, glancing down at the name and then back at Harry with slightly more interest behind his bored gaze. “Will you be requesting your account to be associated with the main Potter line?”

“No,” Harry says. “I’d rather they didn’t know anything about this.” About me, it’s plan and clear.

Hooktooth scoffs. “Wizards. We take the privacy of our customers very seriously. If your last name reaches the Potters, it will not be through us. Come with me. I need your blood.”

With those somewhat unsettling words, he picks up the scroll and waves open the door again. Harry follows him out into the front hall. There are more people here now that the rest of society is waking up. Harry had arrived here in the early morning, already awake with Tom’s cries in his ears, but now there are dozens of people waiting in lines or being serviced. With the number of voices in the room, it’s easily noticeable when those voices hush nearly all at the same time.

Harry feels a prickle of something, cold air hitting his skin in the enclosed hall, and looks around for the source. He finds it quickly, as do the other Gringotts patrons, who turn their heads at the procession of goblins holding their swords high as they lead a dementor toward the tunnels.

“What’s going on?” Harry asks, his gaze not leaving the back of the dementor’s cloak.

“Some request their vaults to be guarded by dementors,” Hooktooth replies, sounding unconcerned. “You do not have the monetary capacity to ask this of us.”

“I wouldn’t, anyway.” The elder wand is heavy in Harry’s hand, but he refrains from summoning Prongs. The goblins have everything under control. Even if... “Those things should be destroyed,” Harry murmurs thoughtfully, his voice mild. He isn’t thinking of the way dementors had attacked him in his third and fifth years or the way they’d almost stolen Sirius’ soul. He’s not thinking of anything, really, except for those words and the complete and utter certainty he feels as he says them. He can sense the dozens of souls inside the dementor even as it leaves his vision. Those souls don’t belong in the world of the living, and yet they’re trapped in the belly of one of those unnatural beasts. They need someone to ferry them to the afterlife—preferably with an avada to the dementor’s cloaked head.

Hooktooth makes a disagreeing sound. “That is not up to you.”

Oh, but it is.

The thought settles inside him with a push from something much greater than the human being that is Harry Potter. It is, quite definitely, up to him. It doesn’t have to be today, it doesn’t have to be tomorrow, but one day Harry will have to deal with them. As far as deals with Death go, even unknowing deals because Harry hadn’t known what he was agreeing to when he’d gone through that barrier, it’s not a bad one at all. Harry has no sympathy for the vile creatures.

Except, he has the dawning realization that dementors are only the beginning. Death has a foothold in this world now, and it’s time for the balance to right itself in a way only the master of all of Death’s hallows can do.

Master of death, my ass, Harry thinks, following Hooktooth to the side corridor that leads to an empty cart in a downward-sloping tunnel. Harry’s already inside when he remembers to ask, “Is it safe for babies?”

“Sure,” Hooktooth replies from his seat at the front of the cart.

The ease with which he says it doesn’t settle Harry’s nerves, so he pulls his wand out and casts a few protective charms over Tom. Then he just squeezes the wand and thinks, keep him safe. Maybe he’s going mad from the lack of human contact, but it often feels like the wand understands him. Tom screams his ears off once the cart tips downward and picks up speed, which puts a damper on Harry’s usual enjoyment of the ride. His hair is a mess when they finally come to a stop, and Tom is making sniffling noises to himself. Harry picks him up and reverses his position in the sling, letting the kid rest against his chest. He keeps one arm around Tom as he follows Hooktooth down the cavern and past many doors. Not out of worry that Tom will fall—the sling had been created from much trial and error—but because the kid’s tears always make him feel like failure of a guardian.

Still better than the orphanage, Harry reminds himself firmly. He’s eighteen and an idiot, but he cares for the brat. Some of it is the thrum of Tom’s soul, safe and whole, but a great deal is that it’s hard to have someone depend on you for food and shelter and life without starting to care.

Toward the end of the corridor, Hooktooth pauses in front of a blank wall and attempts to be subtle as he takes a breath. Harry has the quiet realization that his vault is probably being created by the goblin version of a fresh out of Hogwarts kid. Although Harry probably can’t judge, technically being a Hogwarts drop-out and all.

With only that one pause, Hooktooth places his hands against the stone wall and begins to chant. The contract Harry signed levitates out from Hooktooth’s pouch and dissolves into the wall. The dark stone’s color seeps into his fingers as he chants, coming up nearly to his forearm before it recedes into the wall again, this time bringing a soft green glow into the stone. It spreads out in the shape of a door much taller than the goblin, taller than Harry, even. Hooktooth stops chanting, but the glow remains, becoming darker and darker until with something between a yell and snarl Hooktooth finishes his chant.

When he takes his hands off the stone, there is a wooden door inside the stone wall. In the center is the shape of a stag, emerging from the door like a wooden sculpture, its mouth open to receive a key. Hooktooth removes a dagger from his belt and hands to Harry, who slides it against his finger, taking care to keep it as far away from Tom as possible. Hooktooth’s thin, long fingers grasp Harry’s wrist. The goblin rests his other hand against the door again, this time wordlessly as a key begins to form in his hand. When the key is fully formed, Hooktooth removes it from the door. There is no sign of a key having formed there at all. He pushes the top of the key into Harry’s cut, then places the handle into Harry’s open hand.

With that, Hooktooth steps back, his work done. “Open your vault.”

His finger aches as he inserts the key into the stag’s mouth and twists. The door opens inward with no sound at all to reveal a space about half the size of his old vault. But in this one, there only rests a copy of his contract in the middle of the room. Harry empties half his galleons from his bag in a pitiful little pile next to the contract. When he looks back at Hooktooth, he finds the goblin poking at one part of the wall to make the dimensions of the vault more even.

Harry sighs. “Er, this isn’t your first time creating a vault, is it?”

“Of course not,” Hooktooth tells him, sounding offended. “I have trained for this role for twenty years.” After a pause, he says, “This is the third vault I have created for a client.”

“It’s a good one,” Harry tells him. “Very cavernous. I like the stag on the door, too.” Hooktooth looks just shifty enough for Harry to realize, “That wasn’t deliberate.”

“The magic of our caverns willed it to be so,” Hooktooth retorts. “Therefore, by some measure it was deliberate. Come, client.”

Harry does. The door closes behind him and he slips the key into the pocket of his robes next to his wand. The two of them barely walk a few steps when Harry stops, his skin prickling. “Do you feel that?”

Hooktooth frowns at him, but after a moment his expression hardens. The cold is seeping into the hallway now, unnatural and unnerving in a way Harry is unfortunately so very familiar with. It’s closer than it had been in the main hall, and at the back of his mind he hears a high-pitched, horrible laugh. It’s less important than the fact that in front of him, Tom begins to cry. Harry tries to hush him, knowing it’s no use. He can’t make the dementor’s effects disappear.

“It should not come this way. There are more souls in the front hall.” Still, Hooktooth pulls out a dagger and gets into a stance facing the direction they’d walked from, from which the cold is seeping in. “Stay behind me.”

Harry shakes his head. “I’ve never been that lucky.” He conjures a makeshift crib for Tom, ugly and misshapen but good enough to place Tom inside. Tom clings to him with his little fingers, his face wet. “I’ll keep you safe,” Harry promises. If death couldn’t have his kid’s soul, then a dementor certainly won’t. He covers the cradle with the cloak, using it for the first time since his arrival to the past. His steps are steady as he comes to a stand next to Hooktooth. “I can cast a corporeal patronus.”

Hooktooth doesn’t ask him if he’s sure. The air is even colder now. Goosebumps travel down Harry’s shoulders.

“Do it,” Hooktooth agrees, his dagger beginning to glow with the same white as a patronus.

“Expecto Patronum!”

Prongs bursts into existence, galloping around them once before he stands in front of Harry in a ready to charge position. As big as Prongs is, he’s still dwarfed by the cavernous tunnel. Moments tick by, Harry’s shoulders growing tenser. And then it comes: the dementor comes into view, all but flying down the tunnel at a high speed. Harry doesn’t know if it’s under the impression that the main hall is down this tunnel or if it’s after him, but it doesn’t matter. A group of goblins chases after it, too slow to help.

Prongs meets it halfway, his antlers ready to pierce it, but the dementor dodges Harry’s patronus and glides forward, impossibly fast. Prongs is faster than a regular stag, but he can’t spin around instantly, and the damage is done.

It comes closer and closer while Harry tries to think of a shield that works against dementors—none, there aren’t any, he remembers those lessons in DADA—while his mother pleads with Voldemort at the back of his head.

It’s madness, the impulse that overtakes him, but Harry’s had worse plans and somehow he knows this is what he should do. He sprints, meeting the dementor while Hooktooth yells at him from behind.

And for the second time in his life, Harry shoves his wand into a creature’s face.

The deathstick slides under the dementor’s hood and pierces its mouth. The dementor begins to scream around the wand, high-pitched and horrible. Harry pulls it out, his wand heavier than before. When he sees the tip exit the dementor, he realizes why: there is a white orb attached to it. As the dementor falls onto the ground, the thing inside fading into nothingness until only the tattered gray cloak remains. The orb falls into Harry’s hand, its pressure gentle and unthreatening as it dissolves into the air. Or not the air, no, Harry thinks, watching the ball of souls fade away and something within him growing satisfied. The souls are returning to their rightful place in the afterlife, carried by Death and Magic until it’s time for their next great adventure.

When Harry looks up from the place the orb had been, he finds every goblin eye in the cavern on himself.

There’s no way he can convince them that’s normal, Harry knows. You don’t kill dementors. You hurt them and watch them flee, or you trap them and run while their cold chews through the trap.

“Sorry if the dementor was expensive,” Harry says, since the goblins still haven’t put away their daggers and have started talking between themselves in Gobbledegook.

In addition to his goodbyes to normalcy, Harry starts having terrible visions of them deciding to have Harry forfeit all his money in exchange for killing their pet dementor. Harry would have to argue that really it’s the goblins who should be paying him for the trauma of stuffing his wand into a dementor’s mouth, but there’s no way for a wizard to win against the goblins when it comes to money.

“Mr. Potter,” says one of the new goblins, stepping forward. “We thank you for aiding us in this matter. How is it that you were able to kill a dementor?”

“I don’t know,” Harry replies. “I really don’t know.”

The goblin sheathes his dagger and the rest of them follow in suit, including Hooktooth. Harry has a feeling this goblin is someone to the rest of them, even if Harry doesn’t know how anything about goblin ranks. “If you are willing to make use of this special skill set of yours, Gringotts will be willing to share a fraction of its wealth with you.”

Harry spares one second for feeling shocked, then decides this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. If goblins were sorted at Hogwarts, a number of them would likely be Slytherins. They’d earn some money from this, of which Harry would likely be lucky to get half, but on the bright side Harry would be getting paid to do what he’s supposed to be doing anyway.

“I’m interested,” Harry tells him.

The head goblin looks very pleased with that answer.

“I am willing to be Mr. Potter’s liaison in this matter, as I am the keeper of his vault,” Hooktooth quickly says, all Mr. Potter now that his boss is here. Harry’s much more amused than insulted. It’s hard to be insulted at a young goblin who was willing to stand between him and a dementor, even if Harry wouldn’t have let him try it.

“Hooktooth is young, but her blade is sharp,” the head goblin muses. “Well?”

Harry looks between them, not sure that he’d like a goblin liaison, whatever that means. But if he has to have someone, better it be Hooktooth. Who is, apparently, a girl. Harry’s rather glad he hadn’t gotten the chance to put his foot in his mouth with that one. “That sounds perfect to me.”

Harry finds himself guided into a better quality of meeting room, where he signs his second Gringotts contract of the day and refuses to let any curious goblins have a look at his wand. Nothing to see here, just the legendary deathstick. It makes him wonder if the goblins have come in contact with the hallows. Both have a long history, and the goblins have particularly long memory. Harry leaves the bank with his money pouch much heavier than he entered the bank with. He’d gotten an advance on his first paycheck because his funds weren’t exactly unlimited (with, of course, a sternly worded clause that he’d be paying it back with interest if it was determined that he couldn’t complete his task).

The sunshine feels amazing on his face once Harry finally exits Gringotts with Tom in tow. A trip he’d thought would take under an hour had taken three hours, and three hours underground was too much for any human. As he walks, Harry presses a kiss against Tom’s head, the kid’s soft baby hair tickling at his skin. “It looks like I'm going to be a terrible role model. You'll just have to take everything I do and do the opposite. Except trying to take over Britain—you and I can both lay off of that one.”

There isn’t much he else needs from Diagon Alley. Harry buys some toys for Tom at a children’s store and lets a group of witches quietly coo over his sleeping kid, all the while shamelessly asking them about when they started feeding their kids solid food and how much screaming was normal. Now that Tom’s older, Harry only worries about irrevocably screwing things up once a day instead of constantly, which is nice. He’d taken Tom to St. Mungo’s the day after his arrival in the past. The healer had told him that Tom was slightly underweight but otherwise healthy. It had made Harry remember the pensieve memory of Tom at Wool’s Orphanage. Harry hadn’t noticed it at the time, but looking back on it, Tom had been thin then, too. Hopefully, it had been simply Tom instead of a result of poor food quality at a WWII-era orphanage, but Harry can’t be sure.

“My nanny elf takes care of things like that,” say a witch with a scarlet pointed hat when one of the other witches recalls her worst diaper-changing moment.

She gets an eyeroll in return. “Yes, Marjorie, we all know you have a house elf. Unlike you, I didn’t choose my prospects based on money.”

“I love my husband,” Marjorie replies, shooting the other witch an offended look despite the smile curling at her lips. “It’s only that my heart took longer to fall than my brain.”

“And your love of diamonds,” the other witch replies, more amused than anything else.

“I’m a loving woman,” Marjorie replies, all innocently.

It’s a more than Harry needs to know about the personal lives of the witches he’d just met in the knitting aisle of the magical baby supply shop, but Marjorie’s words strike a thought in him. “How much is a house elf, anyway?”

Marjorie shrugs. “Absolutely no idea. My husband just came with one. I know sometimes they’re sold as part of estate sales, which are advertised in the Daily Prophet, but I’ve never bid on one.”

Estate sales are definitely out of his budget, but Harry files the thought away for later. He needs some help with Tom, and a house elf would be a huge help, no matter how Hermione might’ve scolded him for the thought. Hermione isn’t here to complain. Harry also files away the sadness that thought brings up in him. It’s no use, not when he’s long made his choice.

Before he can leave, Harry gets invited to the group’s knitting club.

“I don’t knit,” Harry says, which he feels is a rather reasonable way of saying no.

“You don’t have to. All you have to do is hold a spool of yarn and gossip,” Marjorie assures him.

Somehow, he leaves the shop with two knitting needles and some yarn.

“I’m turning into Molly Weasley,” he mutters to himself as he strides toward the Leaky Cauldron. But there are worse things than turning into his best friend’s mum. He misses all the Weasleys, but, “Molly would’ve loved you,” he murmurs to Tom. Ron would’ve said that Tom was going to grow up into a dark bastard anyway, Hermione would’ve had a lot to say about nature versus nurture versus the under-studied effects of being conceived under a love potion, but Molly would’ve started knitting a Weasley sweater for him immediately.

As he passes a tiny alley off of Diagon Alley, he sees a ghost lingering toward the end of the street. Harry’s uncomfortable with how unnatural ghosts are, how they need to pass on already so that their souls can re-enter the reincarnation pool and replenish wizarding society with—

Wait, no, that’s definitely not him.

Harry sighs loudly and looks up at the sky, then realizes his mistake and glares down at the ground instead. “I didn’t agree to any of this.”

But Tom is a warm weight against his chest, cute despite slowly drooling through Harry’s layers of clothes, and Harry is profoundly grateful to exist in the same world as his kid. Not grateful enough to drag a ghost kicking and screaming from this world, which is too close to murder for his own comfort even if the ghost is already dead, but grateful enough to take a right into the alley and talk to the ghost.

As he approaches, he finds the ghost is an older man wearing robes that could’ve been from the 1920s or the 1990s or the 1820s. Lavender, who’d actually cared about wizarding fashion, would’ve been able to better pinpoint the ghost’s time period, but all Harry knows is that the ghost is a wizard. Which, considering that muggle souls don’t make ghosts, isn’t all that much.

“Hello,” Harry says, stopping next to the ghost.

“Good afternoon,” the man replies, giving Harry a perplexed look.

There probably isn’t a way to ease into it, so Harry just asks, “How do you feel about passing on into the afterlife?”

“Not interested,” the ghost replies.

“Right.” Well, that’s that. But just in case Death wants him to give the guy an honest shot, “Why not? I’ve heard the afterlife’s pretty nice. It looks like King’s Cross.”

“My nemesis hasn’t passed on yet,” the ghost says crossly. “I won’t be the first of us to pass.”

“Is he dead, too?”

“Of course. We’ve been dead for well over a hundred years.”

Harry sighs again. “You know what, no. I’ve had a long day full of dementors and nosy people and finding out that I have to do all sorts of things while I’m here. Death can go suck it, I’m done for the day.” He spins around and walks off toward the main alley, though he does call back, “If you ever do want to pass on, just find me.”

Letting go of Tom is exactly as hard as Harry had expected it to be. The rational part of his brain knows it’s only temporary, that there’s no way he can bring Tom along on a job where he’ll be seeking out and killing dementors, but the rest of him wants to never let the kid go. It took a full two months before Gringotts called on him, citing a problem in one of their American branches that needed taking care of. Harry had gotten a day to put his affairs together and set Tom up with a week’s stay with Marjorie. Out of all the members of the stitch n bitch Harry had found himself attending, he’d found himself on best terms with her.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t trust me,” Marjorie laughs as Harry once again fails to place Tom in her arms. Everything Tom needs for a week has already been carried into the nursery by Marjorie’s house-elf, which means there’s nothing left for Harry to do but just hand the kid over.

“I trust you,” Harry sighs. There’s no reason for anything to go wrong and if something does, Marjorie’s probably already been through something similar with her own kids.

“As much as you trust anyone. Come on, Mr. Mystery. Your kid will be safe with me.”

Harry grimaces, but kisses Tom’s forehead and hands him over. To Tom, he sternly says, “You better not say your first word while you’re here.”

“I vow to pretend not to hear it,” Marjorie says, amused.

“If you have any problems—”

“I’ll contact Gringotts, who will find a way to get in contact with you,” she promises. “What do you do for Gringotts, anyway?”

Harry shrugs. “I’m a dementor expert. Gringotts sometimes uses them to guard vaults and I come by to make sure they’re securely bound to a vault and not about to go off and suck the nearest souls.”

“Sounds morbid. I like it.”

With that, she kicks him out and Harry makes his way to Gringotts, which is only a short walk away from the insanely expensive wizarding residential district off of Diagon Alley. He turns the corner and Gringotts is before him, with Hooktooth leaning against one of the columns and chatting with the two goblin guards posted outside the bank. When she sees him, Hooktooth waves him inside the bank. They don’t go far: only to one of the huge fireplaces to the side of the main hall.

“Gringotts—Manhattan branch—diamond floo,” Hooktooth calls out and steps through.

Harry does the same. Fire swirls around him, depositing him in a room only half the size than the one he’d left. As far as he can see, there are only goblins in this section of the Manhattan branch. A few of them give him questioning looks, but seem to be content with the fact that he’d floo’d in with a goblin. Hooktooth takes them through a few hallways, trailing a hand against the stone walls, which seems to provide her directions. As they walk, she asks, “What do you know of dementors?”

For a man who’d just claimed to be an expert, little. Harry still gives it his best shot. “They’re vile creatures that feed on humans’ happiness until there’s only misery left. If they’ve been directed to, or if there’s not enough happiness around to feed on, or hell maybe just because they can, they suck the souls from humans. Those souls stay in the dementors’ bodies until they’re killed.”

Hooktooth nods. “Yes. They’re born from human suffering, too. If a dementor finds itself in a particularly demoralized populace, it can tear off a piece of its cloak and form a new being. Many dementors were born that way during the war.”

The war, Harry thinks, and it’s so odd to realize she’s not talking about the second wizarding war, which is Harry’s context for that phrase. Bloody hell, she’s talking about World War I. Harry knows that war occurred in the 1910s and that it had been allies versus central powers, but it’s embarrassing how little else he knows. His muggle history lessons had stopped at age eleven (and his wizarding history lessons never really got started; Harry only knew some very specific moments in the goblin wars and anything that had been relevant in the war against Voldemort).

“But if an area didn’t have any dementors in the first place, they can’t breed,” Harry gathers.

“Correct. Most countries focused on keeping dementors corralled away from the war zones, but plenty new ones still formed and escaped.” The set of her lips deepened. “A surplus means some one idiot panicked and threw his work portkey at the one he encountered so that someone else could deal with them. It is now wandering New York City. You are going to help us destroy it.”

“Why does Gringotts care?” Harry wonders. “I mean, you’re bankers.”

“Gringotts cares because MACUSA cares,” Hooktooth says, her attitude brightening slightly. “The United States doesn’t keep dementors on its soil, not even to guard prisoners, but they’re having a hell of a time finding someone who can track it down, bind it, and take it away. No country wants to take it, so the they’ll pay handsomely for its permanent removal.”

“Pay you handsomely,” Harry gathers, shaking his head.

“And you, of course,” Hooktooth allows. “You could always work with MACUSA directly, but I assume they’d ask a lot more questions than Gringotts does.” She frowns. “That was a truth, not a threat.”

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t like dealing with bureaucracy.”

The room Hooktooth leads him to has a huge bulletin board tracking sightings of the dementor around the city. Since muggles couldn’t see them and the wizarding population was much smaller, there hadn’t been many sightings. There had only been one dementor’s kiss so far. A muggle in Queens. He and Hooktooth read the reports and talked strategies for locating the dementor—Harry was partial to flying around on a racing broom until he found it—for a few hours. At one point, another goblin came by and said something that sounded ruder than usual in Gobledegook. Hooktooth snapped at him a few times until he left, then turned to Harry.

“You’re my client,” Hooktooth says with a glare. “I’m not giving your account up just because I have no idea what I’m doing. It’s not like you have any idea what you’re doing either.”

“Guilty,” Harry agrees, smiling. “For what it’s worth, I like you as my account keeper. Even if your solution to problems seems to be waving a dagger at them.”

“There are few problems that can’t be solved with a well-applied dagger,” Hooktooth says, fondly, the words obviously a quote. “Mine is spelled to be able to tear through a dementor’s cloak. I can’t kill one myself, but I won’t be a liability to you.”

Dementors are creatures of the night, wandering about most when others can’t see them coming, so Hooktooth and Harry exit the bank as the sun is beginning to set. With their notice me nots in place, they’re free to roam about as they like. Harry sighs at the broomstick—it’s nothing on his old Firebolt—but gets on it anyway. Next to him, Hooktooth does the same with even less enthusiasm.

“Goblins aren’t made for this flying nonsense,” Hooktooth mutters, scowling down at her broom and telling it, “If you drop me, I will break you in half.”

“Pretty sure the Manhattan branch will have some words with us if you do,” Harry laughs.

“I’ll tell them the dementor ate it.”

Harry’s disappointed but not all that surprised when their first night’s search yields no results. The two of them sleep off the night’s hard work in a small wizarding hotel whose proprietor had been very surprised to have a goblin guest. It’s a small place, but according to Hooktooth, their expense account is rather small itself. If they succeed, Gringotts will have more faith in them on the next job. In the meanwhile, Harry goes to bed on a rickety bed and falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. His dreams are better than he’s had in a while. He’s sore and tired, but his mind associates it with Quidditch games and excitement, and his dreams are of Hogwarts at its best.

The second night isn’t any better.

The third, though.

Harry’s flying sidesaddle, having run out of comfortable positions on the broom and begun switching between all the uncomfortable ones instead, placing his weight on whichever part of his buttocks and thighs that hurt less. From up here, he can see all of New York City, gleaming and beautiful, enough so that Harry has to wonder what it would’ve looked like in his time. Brighter, probably, but it’s hard to imagine. Hooktooth is flying beside him, one hand on her broom and one on a finance book with an automatic page-turning charm. She’d offered to read it out loud to him, but Harry hadn’t managed to listen to more than a few pages without begging her to stop.

Their brooms drift toward Brooklyn as the night goes on. His attention on the streets down below him, Harry almost misses the ever so faint stirring within himself. It’s a tiny pinprick of cold, muted and easily overlooked.

“I’ve found it,” Harry says, concentrating on the feeling.

Hooktooth’s book pops out of existence. “Where?”

“Southeast, near that park,” Harry replies, already speeding toward the feeling.

The closer he gets, the colder it becomes. He can feel the way its cape flutters, the way it’s hungry despite the many souls it’s fed on. It’s a new dementor, forged in the year of the war’s end, but five souls wither inside it. It’s already located the perfect soul to consume. So dejected, angry, her child has passed and her mother won’t accept a squib like her back into the fold and—

Harry shakes himself out of the newest of his talents. He doesn’t need to feel what the dementor’s feeling. He just needs to know where it is and find it before it’s too late.

His broom drops in a modified Wronski feint. Harry doesn’t trust this broom not to disintegrate under that kind of pressure. His feet hit the ground roughly and his broom drops to the grass below his feet. Harry ignores it in favor of yelling, “Expecto Patronum!”

Prongs emerges from his wand in a mist, his head down to spear something on his massive antlers.

“Do you feel it?” Harry asks, placing his hand on his patronus. It’s not quite solid beneath his fingers, but it’s not fully mist, either.

“Are you sure it’s here?” Hooktooth asks. Her dagger gleams under the light of the moon.

“It’s weak,” Harry says, beginning to walk. He chooses a direction out of pure instinct; the dementor’s presence is everywhere at once. Muted, uncomfortable cold, but Harry’s spent two and a half nights freezing his sore ass off on a broom. He’s not going to spend another one. “It’s been feeding on muggles all this time, but it’s locked onto a squib. I don’t—” he looks around, but all he can see are benches and trees “—where are they?”

Suddenly, Prongs rears up, his hooves making indents in the dirt as he pushes off into a run. Harry follows with Hooktooth on his heels. It’s not the park, it’s—

There’s a scream from one of the alleyways that faces the park. High-pitched, terrified. Harry apparates with a quick turn, but there’s nothing there. Further, she must be further, and he’s running fast and refusing to let the scene that could already be happening play through his mind. There is no worrying about could be’s and failures. There’s only his feet against the ground and his wand in his hand and the solemn knowledge that he will kill that dementor.

His hair stands up when a roar resounds through the streets. Prongs gallops forward, Harry and Hooktooth on its heels. In the heat of the moment, Harry doesn’t pay mind to the scene in the corner he’s just turned. One woman, one man, one huge-ass bear patronus, one dementor gliding away from the air and right into Prongs’ path. Prongs pins it to the wall and Harry does what he’s here to do: he shoves his wand into the terrifying toothed hole beneath its hood. His heart thuds and his mind plays tricks on him (what if it won’t work what if what if what if) but those teeth disintegrate and the dementor’s robes fall onto the ground. The ball of light shines so brightly that it should be able to light the dementor from the inside if there world were just. Harry holds it in his hands for one heartbreaking moment as the souls fade from view. Five more souls back where they should be. Prongs fades along with them as though his patronus is their guide into the afterlife.

“What the hell was that?” comes a man’s voice, winded but firm.

Now that the danger is gone, Harry is able to properly look at him. He’s lit by the glow of his dementor, a huge, hulking bear standing upright at a height nearly as tall as his caster. The man himself is a wizard in dark robes, his face starkly pale in the dementor’s light. His hair is dark and slicked back in a way that reminds Harry of Malfoy’s before the war began. The firm way he asks his question, the way he handles his wand, his stance as he protects the woman behind him. Harry’s not particularly enthused about encountering an auror—they have too many questions and Harry has too few answers—but there’s no fixing it now.

“The death of a dementor,” Harry says, turning his attention to the squib the dementor had set its targets on. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she says. There’s a waver in her voice, but it’s gone by the time she’s saying, “Thank you. Both of you, thank you.” When she sees Hooktooth picking up the dementor’s cloak and tucking it in a pouch, she corrects herself to, “All of you.”

“I didn’t do much,” Hooktooth says. “Are you a squib?”

“Yes. Emily //, I was born into the // family.”

“Good, then you know what nearly happened and what will happen if you share your encounter with those not in the know,” Hooktooth says. “Do you live nearby?”

“Just down the street,” Emily says, tilting her chin east. She steps out of the man’s shadow.

Before she can go far, the man says, “A report will need to be filed with MACUSA.”

“MACUSA will go through Gringotts in the morning,” Hooktooth counters. “It’s a goblin matter and our employee’s kill. You know the rules, auror.”

“I should, having put some of them into place.” The man slides his wand into his sleeve and his patronus disappears, and with it most of the light in the alley. As their group begins to move toward the larger street, the man says, “I’m Percival Graves.”

“Auror?” Harry asks.

“Former,” Percival says. He’s in his late thirties as far as Harry can tell, and there’s something in his voice as he says the word that makes Harry think former comes with a hell of a lot of baggage. “And you?”

“For the report you’ll no doubt file with your replacement? Hooktooth of the // clan. This is a consultant who specializes in dementors, Harry //.” Out in the better lit streets, Hooktooth says something Harry doesn’t catch to Emily, and then they’re walking toward the direction Emily had indicated, two by two.

“A magizoologist?” Percival asks, giving him a curious look. “You’re the second I’ve met in the past few months.”

“No, I have more of a defense background,” Harry replies, trying to remember a magizoologist from this time and failing. Only the one big name comes up, Luna’s idol, so Harry takes a stab and asks, “Do you mean Newt Scamander? I’ve—” read his textbook, but who knows when that was published (Hermione would’ve, bless her soul) “—heard of him.”

“Nothing good, I’m sure.”

“He’s certainly eccentric,” Harry says. Especially later in his life, which hasn’t happened yet.

“Yes. He’s a good man,” Percival says, a tad fondly. “Has no regard for the law, but a good man.”

“My type of guy,” Harry says easily, smirking at Percival’s look. “You seem a little less of a free spirit. What do you do now that you’re not saving people from their bad decisions?”

“Perhaps I’m trying to find my inner free spirit,” Percival retorts.

When they come to a stop at an apartment complex, Emily thanks them once again. Percival seems to be putting the house number to memory—you can take the auror out of the ministry but you can’t take the years of training out of the man—while Hooktooth mentions the brooms they’d left behind.

Harry shudders at the thought of getting onto one again. “I need a drink,” Harry mutters under his breath as the door closes behind Emily. He’s so fucking sore and cold and some liquor would warm him up better than a warming charm.

“There’s a magical bar a few streets over,” Percival tells him. “I’ll buy you a pint.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. There hadn’t been even a hint of come-on in that, but that’s not what he’s worried about. It’ll be a pint, a little conversation, and then Harry will be suckered into filling out a stack of bureaucratic nonsense until the sun comes out.

Percival huffs. “Two, and I won’t say a word about your skillset.”

Harry doesn’t really believe him, but he wants to say yes anyway. “You’re a dangerous man, Mr. Graves.”

“Just a man, Mr. //,” Percival counters, and fuck if Harry wouldn’t mind a come-on if he weren’t tired and feeling the after-effects of an adrenaline rush.

“Hooktooth, you in?” Harry asks.

She sends him a look that clearly says she doubts his decision making skills—that’s alright, Harry often doubts them too—and says, “I’d rather clean up and go to bed. Don’t worry about your broom, just make sure you don’t splinch yourself apparating back to the hotel.”

“I’ll have you know I’ve never splinched myself in my life,” Harry sniffs.

As she walks off, Hooktooth calls, “There’s a first time for everything!”

“One beer,” Harry says, turning to Percival. Seeing Ron’s splinching had been bad enough, honestly.

When Percival offers his arm for apparition, Harry grasps it tightly and tries not to grimace. The fabric of Percival’s robes is smooth under his fingertips, the apparition less so despite the auror’s obvious skill. Harry hasn’t side-alonged since his arrival in the past and he doesn’t intend to do it again anytime soon. It takes a moment for his head to stop spinning. Inside the bar, it is Harry who spins around, taking in the numerous people of all different sizes and shapes and species.

“Wow,” he murmurs. “I’ve never seen so many different species of being in a room.” He knows that in theory there must be a place like this in Britain—perhaps in Knockturn Alley—but he’s never seen it. There’s even a giant! And a goblin duo by the bar, and a surly house elf who talks back to all the customers, and alright, Harry should probably stop staring.

“Spoken like a true Englishman,” Percival jibes as they bring their drinks back to a small table in the back.

“At least we haven’t had a prohibition movement in our magical community,” Harry replies, taking a sip of the firewhiskey. “How close was the latest vote? Within two?”

Percival takes a long gulp as if trying to get all the alcohol in before the next time the issue comes to a vote in MACUSA’s congress. “Too close.” He sets the drink and gives Harry an evaluating look. His eyes are lighter than Harry had first assumed out there in the night. Even under the bar’s dim lighting, his eyes are a light brown. “How do you know that but not who I am?”

“My knitting group is invested in making sure our community doesn’t go the same way,” Harry replies, smiling at the memory of Bathilda saying she can’t survive in a world that expects her sober despite the idiocy that fills it. “But on the whole, I’m more focused on raising my kid than the news.” He’s not really embarrassed about it. Whatever Percival’s talking about, it probably happened before he arrived. And after, he had a newborn to worry about.

“Young kid?” Percival asks.

Harry grins and takes out a handy little photo album from the pocket of his robes. It’s his personal revenge against Voldemort: showing his baby pictures to everyone who stands still long enough. That, and his kid is cute as shit. Harry doesn’t have that many years until Tom starts getting embarrassed and starts threatening to burn the album. He flips the album open to the first page. It stays small and flat in his pocket, but now that it’s open, it grows to be the size of a proper book with endless pages.

“This,” Harry says, “Is Tom.”

Maybe it’s a bit of a fuck you aimed at an aunt who doesn’t exist except for in Harry’s memory. He’d never been in a single picture of the many that had been hung around the house. There hadn’t been a single photograph of at all Harry outside of his primary school pictures, Daily Prophet photos, and Colin’s stalking. He wants this for Tom the same way he’d wanted it for himself, once upon a time. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not much, and maybe it won’t mean anything to Tom when he’s older. But to Harry, it’s tangible proof that Tom didn’t arrive in this world unloved and unhappy.

Percival flips through it, huffing at the several pages of Tom dressed as a kneazle. “He’s going to hate you for that later.”

“As long as it’s only for that, I’ll be happy,” Harry replies. “I have several copies of each picture just in case he favors spontaneous flames.”

“No pictures of your wife? She must be disappointed.”

It’s said like a joke, but Harry doesn’t doubt that Percival has already reached a close enough conclusion. Damn aurors. Once upon a time, Harry had intended to be one. Now he looks at the quiet pain even behind Percival’s smile and thinks good riddance. “His mother passed away from complications during Tom’s birth,” Harry admits. Merope’s death still saddens him on Tom’s behalf, but he doesn’t bother to fake distraught. “We didn’t know each other well, but her only family is in Azkaban, so it was up to me. I like to think she would’ve been alright with the thought of Tom growing up with me.”

“You love him,” Percival says, just gently enough for it to hurt. “What else does a kid need?”

“Too much,” Harry sighs. “It’s insane. I didn’t think babies could be so much work.” He’s pretty sure that, “No kids yourself?”

“I never found the time,” Percival replies. “Or woman. Or the inclination.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Harry says with a shrug. Kids aren’t for everyone. “An old friend of mine prefers his dragon babies to actual babies. And there are things I miss from my life before Tom. Doing whatever I want without needing a babysitter, quidditch…” his friends, fuck, and it’s even worse because even when Tom’s older there won’t be a Ron and Hermione in Harry’s life ever again “…the news. I don’t get out much.”

“And when you do, you do the impossible,” Percival says, raising an dark eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of it being possible to kill a dementor.”

Harry huffs, “I should’ve had you swear a vow.”

“I’m—I was—an auror. It’s in my nature,” Pervical replies, not sounding sorry. He’s leaning back in his chair, limbs loose and comfortable, and Harry can almost see him in an interrogation room.

Aurors, really. “Are you planning to go back to the department?” The faster he gets Percival off of the topic of Harry’s job, the better.

Percival pauses, his shoulders shifting in something not quite a shrug. Steadily, he says, “I received an eighteen month’s leave after I was held captive for eight months by Gellert Grindelwald and impersonated that entire time while Grindelwald searched for an obscurus to bolster his forces. I have three more months to decide whether I want to waste my time retraining every idiot who couldn’t detect a non-polyjuiced imposter when they interacted with him five days a week plus overtime.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” Harry murmurs. Percival’s trying for matter of fact, his voice even, but his grip on his firewhiskey is too firm.

“It’s done,” Percival says. “I was a good target. Influence, authority, favors he could cash in on my behalf, acquaintances but no close ties.”

“If you did have any close ties, he could’ve imperio’d or killed them,” Harry offers.

“Yes, he could have.” With a grimace, Percival adds, “In all fairness, I doubt I would have been able to detect an impostor on his level either.”

“But that doesn’t take the sting away.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Another round?” Harry asks, knowing full well he’s breaking his one-drink decision.

But it’s a good cause.

Later, much later in fact, Percival says, “You’re a father.” His words are only a little slurred.

“That is very correct,” Harry tells him.

“There’s a girl,” Percival continues.

Harry nods knowingly. “Knocked up?”

“No,” Percival says, giving him a look. “When would I have— no. She’s eight and she’s woken up from a healing coma after what happened those months ago and she wants to meet me. I don’t know why. A man wearing my face got her sister and brother killed,” Percival says, rubbing his face. “I can’t imagine it’ll be anything good.”

“Maybe she wants closure?”

“No such thing.”

“Is so,” Harry is pretty sure, but who the hell knows. His sense of closure had included going off and raising the Dark Lord who had ruined his life so many times. “What’s her name?”

“Modesty,” Percival reveals. “Newt says there’s a chance her brother survived in some form, but without evidence I refuse to give her hope. There’s nothing for me to say to her.”

“But you’re going to go anyway?”

“’Course I am.”

“You’re a good man,” Harry tells him, clinking his drink against the auror’s. He hopes that wherever she is, Modesty decides the same.

The bar ends up having a floo, which Harry pays the blatantly overpriced fee to get to his hotel room after giving Percival a hug and his owl address. He’s way drunker than he’d intended to be, but it feels good to let go after months of just being a dad. He loves Tom—loves him in ways Harry hadn’t realized he’d be able to love the former Dark Lord, as though Tom’s little hands had just dug into him and left tiny handprints all over Harry’s heart—but he’s Harry the Dad with him, not Harry the Eighteen Year Old Who Likes Making Bad Decisions Sometimes Dammit. Harry doesn’t even realize he’s falling asleep on top of his covers, clothes still on, but he groans loudly when he wakes up. Bad decisions, indeed. He hopes he and Hooktooth will have time to visit a magical pharmacy for a hangover potion and contents himself with the fact that as an older man, Percival’s probably feeling the effects of last night much worse.

Tom’s first word ends up being no.

Harry isn’t even surprised.

Tom turns two in a bunny-themed onesie and in the small house in Godric’s Hollow Harry buys with his Gringotts pay. He’s going to be paying it off for years, but he can’t regret the purchase. Tom has gotten his little hands on Harry’s wand several times already with hell-raising results. Harry is pretty sure the elder wand is indulging his kid, which is a thought he doesn’t want to consider much. He snaps a picture of one of Marjorie’s kids holding up Tom’s bunny ears, her smile wide with one tooth missing.

“Don’t you have enough pictures?” Bathilda asks him, taking the camera off his hands and replacing it with a small plate of birthday cake.

Harry had been shocked to realize Bathilda Bagshot—whose body he’d last seen inhabited by a giant snake—was a part of the knitting circle, but he’s had over a year to get over that shock now. Now, she’s just Bathilda, a crabby old lady in the making who makes great cakes and enjoys yelling at potions suppliers for sub-par ingredients.

“I have the never-ending pages version of Mindy’s Memory Album,” Harry sniffs.

“And you’re making it your mission to break the never-ending page charm?”

“Basically,” Harry admits. “I think it’s close to breaking already, so I’m starting another album for year three of Tom’s life. And sending a complaining letter, because that’s just false advertising.” He looks around for Bathilda’s partner Fran to make sure she’s not around and adds, “I can be the photographer for your proposal, if you’d like.”

“It’s going to be a private moment,” Bathilda huffs. “Stop trying to get me to pop the question. Just because I have a ring…”

She keeps talking, but her words don’t reach Harry’s ears. There’s something happening out there, something Harry can’t put a word to but can’t ignore, either. It’s not like the dementors, who Harry can take as long as he likes with. This has to be stopped soon, because otherwise humans will do it again and again because they’re idiots who want to fuck up their afterlife—

“Harry?”

Harry blinks, reorienting himself. Bathilda’s hand is on his shoulder, her expression concerned as she repeats his name.

“Sorry,” Harry says, shaking his head. The moment has passed; he remembers the urgency, but he doesn’t know what the hell Death actually wants him to do. “I’m fine.”

Bathilda doesn’t look like she believes him, but she lets him have his escape. “You’re already that bored of my upcoming engagement? Is it because of that secret admirer you’ve been corresponding with?” Or rather, she just corners Harry into a different corner.

“He’s not a secret admirer,” Harry says, rolling his eyes. “He’s just secret from you lot, that’s all.”

Marjorie must have been closer than Harry realized, because she appears with a dramatic sigh to rest her head on Harry’s shoulder. “Our Harry doesn’t trust us. It’s heartbreaking, really.”

“It’s self-preservation,” Harry counters, making his escape.

He saves Tom from the older kids’ clutches—or rather, the other kids from Tom, who is directing them to build a block castle the way he likes it—and kisses his cute little cheeks. “C’mon, bunny. I think I need to see if anyone’s free to babysit you tomorrow. Uncle Death seems to be calling…”

Harry focuses on the birthday party until all the guests have left, then spends a few hours cleaning the mess. Even with magic, he’s surprised just how much of a mess a half dozen kids and their parents can make. He’s made arrangements for Tom for the following morning, so Harry goes to bed with the assumption that Death will call him back.

A few hours later, Harry wakes up with St. Petersburg on his mind.

Specifically, the magical academy there.

Specifically, the headmaster.

Specifically, the fact that he created a horcrux eleven hours earlier.

He groans and turns over to scream into his pillow because if Tom can do it all the time, Harry might as well join in. Harry feels better afterward until he realizes that his otherworldly to-do list is only getting darker. He’s fine with killing dementors, he’s more or less alright with helping ghosts into the afterlife, and fuck it, he’ll figure out how to put this soul piece back into the idiot headmaster’s body.

“I’m not killing anyone,” Harry mutters into the darkness. Death can learn to deal. Tom is living proof of the fact that Harry’s bad at the whole death thing. “Why do you even care about horcruxes?”

As expected, he gets no answer.

With a yawn, Harry gets up and heads to his office. Percival’s most recent letter rests on his desk. Bathilda is wrong about the admiring part, but she isn’t too incorrect otherwise. Harry has been writing to the American auror.

I’ve been trying to subtly introduce different songs to her, Percival writes, his cursive blocky but still more legible than Harry’s chicken-scratch. She enjoys music and is eager to learn, but I long for the day when I never have to hear “(that creepy song from the movie)//” from a child’s lips while she plays hopscotch. At least she realizes that it’s bad form to sing it in front of wizarding children. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing as a father, but Modesty doesn’t seem to realize it. She still has nightmares. The mind-healer tells me it’s to be expected…

Percival’s letters have been growing longer, but so have Harry’s responses. He’s still refusing to buy an owl for himself, but Percival’s handsome great horned owl is large enough to carry Harry’s letters no matter how many photographs he crams inside. The memory of Hedwig’s death has lost most of its sharpness, but Harry still feels a pang whenever he sees a snowy white owl. Later, he thinks. Maybe he’ll even buy a hawk instead; they deliver mail and don’t remind him of his first feathered friend.

Tom complains loudly about being dropped into Fran’s arms, but Harry doesn’t feel too much remorse. He hasn’t had a job from Gringotts in over a month. He’ll go stir-crazy at this rate.

St. Petersburg is about as cold as one would expect in early January as one is trying to break into a huge, unplottable secret castle. Harry gets onto the grounds just fine, but as he approaches the main entrance, he sees a young witch in light blue robes already waiting for him, shining snowflakes swirling around her.

“I’m here for the headmaster,” Harry tells her.

The witch is strikingly beautiful up close, though her expression is closed off. “You do not have an appointment.”

“Nope,” Harry agrees. “But it’s about yesterday. He’ll know what I mean.”

The witch gives him an evaluating look. “I could simply not allow you inside.”

“It’s of great importance,” Harry assures her. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”

“You will be quick?” the witch asks, opening the doors with a gesture of her hand. “It is the first of the new year and our celebrations lasted well into the night. Ivan is without a doubt terribly hung-over.”

“I can bet he was celebrating,” Harry mutters. He follows her down the grand hallways, each wall adorned with murals. Some beautiful, some sweet, and some rather bloody. He shudders at what he assumes is a cautionary image for witches and wizards who intermarry with muggles.

The headmaster’s office is at the center of the building. The witch knocks and enters without waiting for reply, to which the man behind the large wooden desk takes offense to in Russian. When Ivan gets a reply that only sounds like sarcasm, the headmaster turns to Harry and speaks to him in English.

“Well? What is it?”

Harry wonders if he gives off some kind of English-speaker aura. Maybe it’s his robes. “I’m here about the horcrux you created yesterday.”

“Horcrux?” the witch murmurs, mostly to herself.

“It’s a—”

That’s about all Harry gets out when his words are interrupted by an, “Avada Kedavra.”

It’s the third time Harry is hit with one. It’s turning into a bad habit.

“Ivan!” the witch yells, but she doesn’t bother with mere words afterward.

Harry doesn’t have time to grab his wand to cast a shield charm. Not that one would be able to stand against the killing curse anyway. He watches the curse hit him in the chest with an odd sort of detachment. Odd thing to do, fire this particular curse at a man who isn’t going to die from it anyway. Harry has accepted his task and is an instrument of Death in this chaotic mortal world—

“Not an instrument,” Harry mutters, shaking the foreign thoughts out of his head.

Harry spends their battle trying to reorient himself from the killing curse and tunes in only when Ivan is bound to a chair and the witch—Vera, according to what Harry can make out from Ivan’s pleading—is yelling at him and gesturing with her wand.

Harry takes a few steps to stand before the headmaster. His words are said simply, for all that they’re grave. “Who did you murder yesterday?”

Vera spins her head to look at Harry. “He murdered?”

“It would’ve been someone magical,” Harry tells her. “Ideally powerful, but any magical human’s death would have been enough.”

It sparks another round of yelling, to which Harry is an interested but clueless bystander. There’s probably a translation charm somewhere that he should look up when he gets home. Or he could ask the elder wand for aid, but Harry tries not to rely on that wand too much. It’s too smart for its own good, and Harry’s had enough of intelligent and vaguely evil objects. Instead, he looks around the office and finds himself drawn to a silver quill in a case on the bookshelf. It’s obviously an object of importance, but Harry can’t read the words inscribed in it. He can only pick it up, absorbing the trap set to kill him instantly with nothing but a faint tingle in his fingers.

Harry’s glad the headmaster hadn’t been able to hide the horcrux yet. He hadn’t been overjoyed at the thought of scouring the country for a horcrux, alone and cold and missing Tom.

He can feel the soul in hiding inside like a hermit crab and starts tugging at it. “I don’t have time for this,” Harry tells the reluctant soul piece. “I know he’s a creepy old man who didn’t want you, but you still have to go back. It’s either me or Death and—”

The soul piece lets go of the quill at that.

“Thanks,” Harry says, petting it and grinning when it warms in his hands. “Even if you did it just because you’re scared of Death.”

When Harry turns around, Ivan is staring at him with wide eyes. After some words in Russian, he says, “No! I won’t let you kill me!”

“I’m not killing you,” Harry tells him, plopping the soul piece onto the man’s hand and watching it sink into his skin. “I didn’t even kill Voldemort, why do you expect me to kill you?”

“Who?”

“Vol—” oh, right “You know what, never mind.” He raises his wand to the man’s forehead and lets it do its thing. Memories flash through him, ones of the man purchasing a rare book in an estate auction and spending a decade translating it. The secrets of immortality called to him, all but begging him to complete the ritual that would allow him to split his soul. Well, more like desperation and madness begged him, since the glimpses of the book that Harry sees make it look duller than Hogwarts: A History. Pointlessly, since it’s the wand, and through it Death, that does the work, Harry says, “Obliviate.” To Vera, he says, “I’ve only removed his memories of how and why he did it.”

“For what reason?”

“That ritual needs to be wiped from existence,” Harry tells her. “It’s grotesque and horrifying, but worse, it makes way too much work for me and I have a life of my own, thanks.”

With a glance at Harry’s wand, Vera nods. “I will arrange for the authorities to administer justice.”

She lets him leave without trying to stop him, rightly assuming that Harry isn’t going to stick around to be questioned by the Russian equivalent of aurors. As she guides his way, Vera asks only one thing. “A moment. You are a man of esoteric magics, yes?”

“Yes,” Harry says. It’s more or less true.

“Ivan had a project he took to devoting his time to last year,” she says, motioning for him to follow her. It takes nearly five minutes for her to undo the spells guarding the door they stop in front of, but eventually it opens soundlessly. Inside it’s pitch black, but her lumos spell lights the room. Something moves in the dark corners where her light doesn’t reach. “Do you know what it is? It is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Now that Ivan will not continue his work, I must know if I can release it safely.”

Harry steps forward, his Death-ly senses tingling. Dark swirls approach him cautiously, but whatever it senses from Harry, it must decide it’s safe to approach.

“Huh,” Harry murmurs, touching the dark wisps. Harry’s touched enough dementor’s heartstones to know what a soul feels like, and this is definitely one. This one is sad, lost, untethered from reality and lost in its own mind and instincts. “You’re a long way from home.” He cups his hands together and watching it settle inside. To Vera, he says, “I’ll take him with me.”

He’s been meaning to give Percival a visit anyway.

Harry’s first stop is back home, where he flops onto the couch for a well-deserved break. The dark wisps hover above him for a few moments, then leave to explore the house. Harry lets him; there’s nothing here he’d want to hide. His secrets are all in his head. When the wisps return to hover above him, Harry says, “I’m pretty sure I can return you to a human state again. I can feel your soul reaching out to the other pieces of you, though I don’t know where exactly they are. Until then, all I ask is that you be patient and stay with me.”

The wisps move up and down in a nodding-like motion.

“Thank you, Credence. I have a kid. Tom, two years old, adorable as hell, secretly evil. You’re not allowed to harm him even if he throws thing at you.” Harry doubts Credence is actually able to harm anyone in this state, but it needs to be said. If Tom is harmed, he’s booting Credence out, Modesty’s brother or no.

Strength regained, Harry sets out to check with Fran about keeping Tom until evening. Credence follows him in a manner Harry’s sure will become familiar quickly. As much as Harry would like for Percival to meet Tom at least after hearing about him for over a year, the timing isn’t right. He wants to find as many pieces of Credence as he can in New York before reuniting him with Modesty for a little while. Maybe, just maybe, he also wants to have Percival to himself, too.

“What is that?” Fran asks when she opens the door. She’s staring at Credence, who’s hovering over Harry’s head.

Harry shrugs. “My shadow. It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

“I don’t!” Harry quickly says. “I just need to know if you’ll be able to watch Tom until tomorrow. Something’s come up.”

“Sure,” Fran agrees. Harry gets a thank you and one step out from under the doorway before Fran says, “Is it that secret boyfriend of yours?”

“Also a long story!” Harry crosses the yard and walks four houses down at top speed. Credence lowers to hover right in front of Harry’s face. If a small ball of dark wisps can be considered inquisitive, then it’s Credence. Harry huffs at him. “He’s not my secret boyfriend. He’s a friend. Who I write to.” Not sure what Credence is aware of, Harry says, “His name is Percival Graves and Grindelwald—the man you knew—kidnapped him and used his image for close to a year. I know it’ll be disconcerting—understatement, I know—but the real Percival is nothing like Grindelwald. He agreed to foster Modesty when she awoke from her coma. It was meant to be a temporary measure, until she was old enough to room at Ivermony, but it grew into something more. I think you’ll like him.”

Credence flutters his wisps at him.

“You don’t have to decide now,” Harry assures him. “Or ever. I’ll still help you even if you hate his guts.” It would just be a shame for Modesty’s favorite people to be at odds. Even if Credence is still only a sort-of person.

He’s had Percival’s floo address for months, but it’s only now that he uses it. His box of floo doesn’t get used all that often, as Harry prefers to apparate and he doesn’t have the time for long floo calls. When he needs some conversation, there’s the stitch n bitch and Monday lunches with Marjorie and visiting Bathilda and Fran a few houses down. And, always, there are letters from Percival to respond to.

When the call connects, it is to what seems to be a personal study. Percival sits on the edge of the armchair across from the fire, a worried sort of furrow to his brow. “Harry? Is something wrong?”

“It’s more that something has gone right,” Harry tells him. “Can I come by later today? I’ll bring Credence with me. He’s not in human form, but I’m rather certain that I can restore him with time.”

“Have you done the impossible yet again?” Percival asks, with an incredulous look that Harry hasn’t seen in far too long. It’s been easy to convince himself that the chance meeting with Percival had been just that, one meeting among the many people he’s met.

But it’s this that the letters have been building up to: a second chance to lay eyes on him again. Harry manages to surprise himself with how much he wants it. He’s never been all that good at his own emotions, Harry thinks to himself. Every interest he’s had seems to have sprung up out of nowhere even when it’s been quietly building all this time.

“It’s not impossible,” Harry says. “Just unlikely.”

“Your unlikely self may arrive anytime, though Modesty will be home from prep school in three hours.”

“I’ll try to be there before she does,” Harry says, and with a couple goodbyes, he closes the floo connection. He turns to Credence and holds his hand out. “I don’t know if I can apparate with you, but let’s find out.”

New York city is as bustling and busy as Harry remembers it. It’s now the late 1920s as opposed to the mid-ones, but it’s as odd as ever to see muggle fashion and cars looking both new and old. The wizarding world is timeless in that way, fashion changing so little in the seventy years until Harry’s time, but the muggle world is always a stark reminder of how far he’s gone. He finds tiny little wisps of darkness hidden in the cracks of concrete and threaded through the barks of trees. They’re not living, just existing, unable to pass and unable to make themselves whole again. Harry reunites each wisp with Credence’s main soul piece, watching him get larger bit by bit. Harry’s heard Percival’s stories of the obscurus, but Credence doesn’t seem violent. Just sad, hurt, and so very alone.

Harry’s saving people thing would never be able to resist helping him.

Once he can’t feel any more of Credence in the city, although he can sense more parts of him further away somewhere, Harry finds a wizarding pub, throws in some floo powder, and speaks into the fireplace, “Harry and Credence for the Graves’ home.” After a few moments, Percival or a house elf opens the connection. Harry holds Credence close as he steps into the flames.

#the station just behind you #station baby fic #harry potter #my fic #not on ao3

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