![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
batsutousaiTitle: Nose to the Wind
Series: Like a Ghost in My Town
Fandom: Harry Potter
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Harry Potter/Lord Voldemort, James Potter/Lily Potter
Warnings: AU, violence, universe hopping/rebirth, Dark!Harry, werewolf!Harry, underage relationship (ish)
Summary: While Harry had been content with his second chance, that didn't keep him from thinking what he could have done different, how many people could have survived if he hadn't been set on the very specific path he'd walked. Third time is the charm, though, right?
A/N: I had to take a break, partway through this chapter, because I realised I needed to crochet some things to maybe sell at my yearly convention. While crocheting, I took to rewatching Rugrats, which reminded me of some childhood things I'd missed. I edited a few things into previous chapters, and there's a couple things in this chapter. (No changes from what you’ve all read already, just a note that, you know, Bats needs cartoons to figure out kids. XP)
Just a note that Shara Lunison beta'd through the whole fic while I was at Otakon, because she's awesome like that. :D Also, there should be fewer mistakes than there were previously. ^^;
For ages at the start of this chapter, Harry is 7. (Will is 5 and Chris is 3.)
Cross-posted to Archive of Our Own and LiveJournal.
Chapter Six – Living on Your Breath
-0-
In September, Will started primary. He was absolutely ecstatic to walk to school with Harry and not be forced to wave goodbye at the gate, and Harry couldn't help but grin at his enthusiasm. Will sent him sporadic notes throughout the day, but it was nowhere near as often as he'd been doing at the end of Harry's last year. It was also all in Atlantean script, which Harry was mildly pleased with, but figured the true test would be him continuing to do so, even while being taught the Latin letters.
At the end of the day, Will met him at the gate, just in front of the gaggle of waiting parents, and they fell in together with the neighbourhood kids that Harry usually walked home with; Lily and Chris had walked them to school that morning, but Will had been adamant that he could walk home without her, like a big boy, and since Harry already knew the route just fine, she'd agreed.
"Harry?" Will asked later that afternoon, while Lily was otherwise distracted.
Harry glanced up from his illusioned Atlantean book curiously.
"Can you teach me more words during the day?"
Harry considered that, turning his gaze back down to his book, but not actually seeing it. He'd taught Will the sort of words he thought were the easiest, so far: yes, no, thank you, please, variations on hello and goodbye. An idea occurred to him and he slipped his talking notebook out from under the cover of his book. 'Write me a word you want to learn, and I'll tell you the Atlantean word for it,' he wrote, not letting the book speak it out loud, since he knew Lily was close enough that she might hear. 'We can use the holidays for declensions and sentence structure, if you've got a good enough vocabulary. Okay?'
Will made a face at the mention of figuring out how to actually speak or write the language properly, but nodded all the same. He glanced up to watch as Lily walked down the stairs with a basket of laundry and turned the corner to go into the laundry room. "Can you teach me to speak it?" he asked once Lily was again out of sight.
Harry raised both eyebrows at that. 'What brought this on?' he wrote, because Will had only previously seemed interested in writing Atlantean.
Will ducked his head and pressed his fingers together. "One of the girls in my class speaks another language. It seems cool."
Harry nodded in understanding. 'At night,' he offered, 'I can teach you how to pronounce the words.' He pinned his brother with a stern look, then wrote, 'It won't be quick to learn, as you're discovering. You have to work at it. And it's not the same language as the girl in your class.'
"I know," Will whispered. "But I–" He slumped slightly, before looking up at Harry with a sort of broken-hearted hopeful expression. "You always know everything. I want to know everything too."
'Not everything,' Harry insisted, then reached up to poke Will's nose, earning him a scowl.
"Close enough," Will complained, turning away.
Harry pulled out his message paper and wrote, 'Give me time, Will, and I'll teach you all I know.'
It was almost an hour before Will wrote back, 'I know.'
The weekend following Will's sixth birthday, Chris made his toys float.
"Oh dear," Lily murmured as Will let out an excited shout and ran over to try and teach his brother how to make the lights he so favoured.
"At least it's not summoning things?" James offered somewhat helplessly.
"Small mercies."
Harry grinned at his parents' complaints as he walked over to see if he needed to 'help' at all in teaching Chris to make lights.
What followed was a week of lights bursting into existence at the drop of a hat, until Lily got fed up and informed the two, "Next person I catch casting lights outside of your room is sitting in time-out for an hour."
Will tried to be sneaky about casting lights around the house, but still ended up in time-out twice. When Lily escalated his punishment to no sugar for twenty-four hours after she caught him, he decided getting away with the contraband magic wasn't worth the danger.
Harry thought the whole thing was hilarious, and had to keep stifling his amusement throughout the whole affair.
'I wonder if I could teach them how to magically lock and unlock doors,' he wrote to Remus one afternoon.
"Your mum would kill you," Remus informed him, but his eyes glinted with amusement. And, while no one taught Harry's brothers, Remus must have mentioned the idea to Sirius and James, because Harry caught them both, on separate occasions, magically locking doors around the house. He rolled his eyes and walked on, wondering at the childishness of the male adults he was surrounded by.
When Snape dropped by that December, Lily stopped in the living room, watching where Harry was reading. He glanced up at her, feeling her gaze, and she smiled, then asked, "Sev, what's the best beginning potions book you know?"
Snape's eyebrows raised and he looked between Harry and Lily. "Potions are certainly within his abilities, but I don't expect your husband would appreciate him learning."
Will snorted from where he was working on translating some Atlantean Harry had given him earlier. "Dad was not amused by the cauldron," he agreed.
Snape turned a questioning gaze on Lily and she coughed. "Harry has a...we refer to them as a benefactor. They've been sending Harry gifts for the past few years, things that are..." She trailed off.
"Very helpful, given my disability?" Harry had his notebook say, and Snape started.
"A notebook that will speak whatever he writes," Lily offered, shaking her head in amusement.
"That is an impressive bit of magic," Snape admitted, coming over to kneel in front of where Harry was sitting on the floor. "May I see it?"
Harry shrugged and handed the notebook over; he removed incriminating notes regularly, and most of them ended up on his message paper, anyway, which he was using to mark his place in his book.
Snape looked it over with experienced eyes, Lily coming to stand behind him. "This is a most impressive bit of magic," he finally decided, handing the notebook back. "It can't have been easy to make."
Harry shrugged, having no idea exactly how Voldemort put it together, but knowledgeable enough about the spells that went into it, that he fully agreed with Snape's assessment.
"And you have no idea who it is?" he asked Lily as he stood.
Lily shook her head. "They appear in the pile with the rest of his gifts over night, only Harry's name on them. The first note was written in English, but these last two have been written in some form of code."
Snape, proving he was capable of noticing everything, suggested, "The code Will is working with?"
Will jerked and looked over guiltily. "Uhm..."
Lily frowned and walked over to see. She sighed after a moment and looked at Harry, resigned. "Of course you're teaching your brothers."
"The alphabet, not the language," Harry had his notebook explain. "I can't teach the language, I just know it, but I can the alphabet."
"What language is it?" Snape asked.
Harry blinked and shrugged. "How should I know?"
Snape narrowed his eyes at him, and Harry made a point of refusing to meet Snape's gaze, though he knew Death wouldn't let the man go rooting around in his thoughts. "Does your benefactor give any indication as to whom they are in the letters?"
Harry replied, in all honestly, "Never." Because Voldemort had never even alluded to who he was in any of the letters left with Harry's gifts, save for an occasional mention of his private rooms.
"The gifts have all been helpful, so far," Lily offered as Snape stared down at Harry, as though waiting for him to break; Harry responded by turning back to his book. "We're not worried about them right now."
Snape sighed. "You might consider looking to some sort of security wards, anyway. Something to keep out malicious gifts. Though, if you don't know how the gifts are getting in..."
"Yes, I know," Lily agreed tiredly, and Harry winced. "I'll mention it to James, though, tonight. It's not a bad idea, especially as the boys get older. I keep thinking it might be nice to find magical children their age, but it didn't end particularly well last time."
"Harry's a squib," Snape guessed.
"A squib and mute," Lily agreed. "And a werewolf, on top of everything else, though that's only obvious when he feels threat– Severus?"
Harry looked up and found Snape giving him a look that was somewhere between disgust and horror. Harry frowned at him and turned to write in his notebook, "Mum's gonna kick you out again."
Snape cleared his throat. "I hadn't been aware," he admitted. "It is...disconcerting."
"Wereborns, like Harry, are different from your average werewolf," Lily offered, and Harry heard them moving off, towards the kitchen. "Let's sit down and I can explain a few things, okay?"
Harry found a message on his paper when he looked down at it: 'Secret has a problem with werewolves? :('
Harry sighed and wrote back, 'Uncle Sirius played a very mean prank on him in school which almost made Uncle Remus bite him while he was transformed. He's scared, and I can't very well blame him. Mum'll handle it.'
'I hope so,' Will replied. 'I kind of like Secret.'
'We'll see if you still like him when you get to Hogwarts. He's boss of the school.'
'I'm going to make him like me super lots before then!' Will declared, and Harry couldn't help but laugh.
For Voldemort's birthday that year, Harry had been transcribing verbal stories which had been lost to the deaths of those who'd told them. They were a bit less adult than he usually aimed for, but he'd thought they were interesting, and he knew half of Voldemort's fascination with these things was their rarity.
Voldemort had made a point of waiting up for him again, so Harry didn't bother hiding his arrival when he finally gave up on waiting. "Happy birthday, Voldemort," he offered as he handed over the book.
Voldemort set his wine glass to one side and raised a sparse eyebrow at the offering. "This doesn't look nearly as old and fragile as your usual findings."
"It's not," Harry admitted. "I've heard rumours of a cache of documents that were said to have been lost in one or another of the fires of the Library of Alexandria, but I'm having trouble nailing down anything definite. Those, though, are a collection of stories passed on in the verbal tradition, which were lost to the deaths of those who knew them. Fairy stories, for the most part, but no less rare than intact scrolls found at the base of Vesuvius."
Voldemort considered that as he flipped through a couple pages. "They're all in English?"
"I translated them." Harry shrugged. "A number of them were told to me in languages that have since died out, and it was easier for me to translate them into English, than it was to hunt down all the dictionaries you would need."
Voldemort pinned him with a hard stare. "How many languages do you know, Scythe?"
Harry smiled. "I have no idea. I may have done a ritual in my last life that granted me knowledge of any language spoken by someone who has died." A minor lie, given his gift had been one of many from Death itself, granted to its Master, but he'd seen a ritual in Death's book that wasn't dissimilar in function.
Voldemort cursed and rubbed a hand over his face. "That explains...so much."
Harry snorted. "I rather expect so." He made a face. "Having never learnt any of them the normal way, however, means I'm having some difficulty in teaching Will and Chris Atlantean." Because Chris couldn't write or read any of it, but he'd been quite insistent in staying up for their lessons on pronunciation.
Voldemort raised both eyebrows. "You're teaching your brothers Atlantean? Why ever for?"
Harry pointed a finger at the dark lord. "It is entirely your fault. You keep putting notes in my gifts that are written in it, and Will decided he wanted to learn it. Especially when he found out that it's not a language that many people know."
"You're passing your secretive nature on to your siblings," Voldemort accused, his eyes glinting with amusement.
Harry snorted. "Between Dad and Uncle Sirius sneaking around and setting up various pranks, and Mum sneaking Snape in for tea once a year, I really don't think I deserve all the blame."
Voldemort snorted, trading the book for his wine glass. "On the topic of Severus, have you got any use out of the potions set?"
Harry shrugged. "Some. I'm not allowed to use it unsupervised, and Mum wanted to find me the perfect book to start with. Snape made some suggestions, when she asked him, and she got them for me for the holiday." He made a face. "She keeps quizzing me on safety."
The dark lord shook his head, clearly amused by Harry's irritation. "And imagine, you're attached to having parents."
Harry rolled his eyes. "If you're going to start mocking me, I'm going to bed."
Voldemort snorted. "Go on, then. I have a childhood to relive." He touched the cover of the book Harry had brought.
Harry flashed him a sharp smile. "Would you like me to read you one until you fall asleep?"
Voldemort scowled and opened his mouth to respond, but Harry was already jumping into a doorway into the Realm of Death.
"You should have stayed, Master," Death commented once the doorway was closed again. "He might have let you climb into bed with him when you, inevitably, fell asleep."
Harry wagged his finger at his servant. "Weren't you the one suggesting I avoid emotional entanglement with the man?"
Death shrugged, fingers clicking against the handle of its scythe. "That was then, Master, this is now. You are not Lord Sol, and he is not that Tom. Everything changes."
Harry motioned to his seven-year-old body. "And yet, everything stays the same."
Death ducked its hood in an approximation of a nod. "You will grow, Master."
Harry snorted and shook his head. "Yes, well, I don't expect I'll have to worry about him finding anyone else in the meantime, do I?" He turned to head towards his home.
Death fell into step at his side. "Nor have you concerns about him dying, so long as you keep his soul."
"True enough." Harry let out a quiet laugh. "I am rather skilled at tying him to me, aren't I?"
"Master," Death replied, touching Harry's shoulder and bringing him to look up into the shadowed hood, "you are most skilled at tying everyone to you."
Harry laid his own hand over the one on his shoulder. "Alas, charisma is not something either Tom or I have lacked." He sighed and motioned for a doorway to open into his bedroom. "Good night, Death."
Death squeezed his shoulder. "Good night, Master."
Harry stepped through into his room and let the doorway close behind him. As he changed into his sleep shirt, though, he heard one of his brothers sitting up, and he froze.
"Harry?" he heard Chris call.
Harry sighed and crossed the room to check on his youngest brother. "Hey, Chris. I'm sorry if I woke you," he murmured, casting a subtle sleep spell on him as he brushed his fingers through Chris' red hair.
Chris yawned. "Is 'kay," he mumbled, letting Harry push him back down to his pillow. "Who was man?"
"What man?" Harry asked, frowning. Did Chris see–?
"With the stick," Chris managed around another yawn, his eyes falling shut.
"That's just a friend of mine. Go on to sleep."
"Sleep," Chris agreed before dropping off.
Harry sighed and glanced towards where the doorway to the Realm of Death had been. "Caution, Potter," he murmured to himself. "You're not infallible."
The following Thursday afternoon, when Harry and Will got in from playing with their local friends, they found Chris whispering to himself in the corner while Lily, who was charming some objects for friends, watched him with an amused smile. Chris didn't react to Harry and Will's arrival, but Lily came over to them. "Welcome home, boys. Your brother seems to have made a new friend."
"But there's no one here," Will complained, pouting as he let Lily help him out of his winter things.
Harry, plenty capable of undressing himself, paused for a moment to consider his youngest brother. Ah, he realised after a moment, he has an imaginary friend. I suppose this was about the same age as Will was when he started talking with 'Tom'. (Tom had vanished shortly after Harry and Will began going out to play with the neighbour kids; Harry suspected one of the other children had made enough of a deal about Will's imaginary friend that Will sort of...retired him.)
"Chris has an invisible friend, Will. You remember your friend Tom?"
Will frowned. "Yeah."
"Chris' friend is the same. Why don't you go see if he'll introduce you?
"But I wants a snack, Mum."
Lily glanced towards Harry, who rolled his eyes. Her mouth kicked up at one side and she offered, "Why don't you collect Chris, then, and you can all have your snacks together."
Will huffed a bit, but when Harry started towards their brother, he hurried to follow. "Chris!" he called. "Snack time!"
Chris started and looked up for a moment, expression guilty, before he turned back to the empty space he'd been focussing on and whispered, "My brothers are home. You should go." He tilted his head slightly as Harry and Will reached him, as though he was listening to something he was being told. "Okay," he whispered before turning a bright smile on Harry and Will. "You're home!"
"Uh-huh," Will agreed, reaching down and tugging on Chris' arm until he got up. "And we're hungry! Mum said we can't eat until you come too, so you have to come and get a snack with us or I'm gonna make something super ba–"
Harry clapped a hand over Will's mouth and pinned him with a stern frown.
Will slumped. "Not gonna do nothing," he mumbled against Harry's hand.
Harry patted his head, then motioned that Will should precede them into the kitchen, which he hurried to do. Harry rolled his eyes and Chris let out a giggle. When Harry glanced at him, Chris rounded his hands over his stomach, miming a large one.
Harry snorted in amusement and shook his head before gently tugging Chris along with him into the kitchen.
Once they were all seated around the table with the tea and digestives Lily had served, Harry pulled out his speaking notebook and asked, "Did your friend go home, Chris?"
Chris started again, dropping his digestive into his tea. He focussed on fishing it out, even as he quietly asked, voice strained, "You saw him?"
Harry raised an eyebrow at that, even as Lily hurriedly assured him, "None of us saw him, sweetheart."
Chris turned wide eyes on Harry, and he shrugged and touched his ear.
Chris slumped. "Oh," he sighed. "Harry heard."
"Only your side of the conversation," Harry was quick to promise. "Your friend is very quiet." Because he'd already learnt, with Will, that playing along about there being an invisible person around was the best thing he could do, when it came to imaginary friends.
Chris smiled at that, clearly proud of his new friend. "He is," he agreed. "Sometimes, I can no hear him and I has make him say things again. It's 'cause of his hood, I thinks."
Harry raised an eyebrow at that, curious, but Chris seemed to have realised he'd revealed too much, because he turned his attention to his tea and left Will to fill the silence after a moment.
After dinner, Will made it his duty to irritate Chris into drawing a picture of his invisible friend, which Harry should have put a stop to, probably, but he was sort of curious, himself. When Chris finally caved, Harry wasn't the only observer who came over to see, as both James and Lily had also kept mum about Will being a pest.
The person Chris had drawn wore a full black robe, with the hood up and completely shadowing its face, hands hidden inside too-long sleeves. Harry felt a chill go down his back, recognising Death, and when he met Will's wide eyes, he knew his brother, too, had recognised the figure, though he likely only recalled brief glimpses of the apparition.
"Looks like Snivellus," James decided.
Lily rounded on her husband like an avenging angel. "James Charlus Potter! I did not just hear you calling Severus that vile name!"
James slumped. "It does," he mumbled, only for Lily to hit his arm hard enough that the three boys all winced. James proceeded to whimper and pout his bottom lip until Lily stalked off in a huff. Which, Harry knew, meant she had been about to either smile or cave, but refused to play along on account of her fondness for Snape.
After James had gone after her, Will and Chris both turned to Harry. "Snivellus?" Chris asked.
Harry quickly wrote in his talking notebook, 'Dad means Secret, Mum's friend. Do NOT call him that. He will go mental.'
Will read the note to Chris in a whisper, then both of them nodded, wearing their serious faces. Harry suspected he'd have to watch Will the next time Snape came over, just in case he felt like pushing a few buttons, but felt fairly certain that neither boy would pick it up like they had 'Secret'.
Lily still hadn't forgiven James by bedtime, so they said their good nights separately. After they'd both left, Will climbed out of bed and came over to Harry's, like he usually did for Atlantean lessons, Chris trailing. But, when Will sat on Harry's bed, he was scowling. "When did Chris meet the cloaked man?" he demanded.
Harry blinked. "He hasn't."
"Saw him," Chris whispered, climbing onto the bed next to Harry and clinging to his arm. "Harry said is his friend."
Will held his scowl for a beat longer before he slumped and put on a pathetic expression. "Can we meet him?" he pleaded.
Harry closed his eyes and rubbed at them with the hand Chris didn't have a death grip on. Introduce his brothers to Death? It wasn't that he didn't trust Death with them, because he knew the apparition would never hurt someone Harry cared for, but he didn't know how his brothers would react to finding out who the 'cloaked man' was. And, too, Harry didn't want Lily and James finding out about it.
"Master," Death called, rather saving Harry the trouble of deciding.
"It's him," Chris breathed.
Harry opened his eyes to frown at his servant. "Really?" he complained.
Death offered a shrug, showing off hands empty of its scythe. "Sometimes, Master, you need to be pushed," it offered, even as Harry's brothers both gasped.
"What's wrong with his hands?" Will asked Harry, eyes wide.
Harry sighed. "Will, Chris, this is Death–"
"Death Death?" Will blurted out, while Chris pressed tighter against Harry's side.
"I am," Death agreed, genderless voice unflappable. "I ferry and watch over the souls of the deceased."
"Is he here to h-hurt–" Chris started.
"No," Harry answered, voice firm. "Death is my friend, and he will never hurt either of you."
Death bowed. "It is as my Master has decreed."
"Master?" Will asked, eyes darting between Harry and Death.
"Death and I have a...complicated relationship," Harry offered, grimacing at the simplicity. "But, yes, he listens to me, in as much as Death will ever listen to a mortal."
Death let out a bone-rattle laugh. "Indeed, Master; there are some laws not even your demands could break."
"I'll live," Harry returned drily, and Death rattled another laugh.
Will slid off Harry's bed and reached out to touch the black cloak. "You're solid," he whispered, staring up at the shadowed hood.
"At this moment," Death agreed, "but I need not be." Its hood tilted up, looking towards Harry. "I will not apologise, Master."
Harry sighed. "No, I didn't expect you to. But I think, perhaps, it is time for you to see to other duties."
Death ducked its head in a bow, then stepped backwards, into a doorway that opened for it.
Will started to follow Death, and Harry couldn't swallow a quiet, horrified sound as he jumped off the bed, sending Chris sprawling, and grabbed Will's shoulder, yanking him back hard.
There followed a moment of absolute stillness as the doorway completely vanished, then Will let out a whimper and clutched his hand to his chest.
Harry turned his brother so they were facing. "Let me see, please," he whispered.
Will revealed his hand as Chris came over to join them, showing two shrivelled fingers. "Will!" Chris whimpered, reaching out to try and touch.
"Shh," Harry soothed, gently catching Chris' hands before he could touch the decaying flesh. "I can fix that," he promised, meeting Will's terrified eyes. "May I?" He held out his free hand for Will's wounded hand.
Will's lips trembled and he lightly rested his hand in Harry's. "Hurts," he gasped out, and a tear spilled from one eye.
"I know, kiddo, I know," Harry murmured, having suffered a decaying arm when he was first learning Death's magic. Death had healed him, back then, because Harry hadn't known enough to do it himself. This time, he knew exactly what to do, trained through the act of healing multiple apprentices suffering from similar wounds, and he freed Chris' hands so he could cup Will's wounded hand between his. "This might look scary, but I promise it'll help, okay?" he offered, meeting Will's broken stare.
Will nodded. "Trust," he whispered before letting out another quiet whimper.
Harry turned his gaze on his cupped hands and, very carefully, opened a mini doorway to the Realm of Death at the tip of Will's damaged fingers. Chris gasped and grabbed a fistful of Harry's shirt, gentle enough that he didn't disrupt Harry's work.
For anyone without the proper protections in place, the Realm of Death was a quick, though agonising, death, as contact with it leached away the very essence of life from the body. For a brief touch, that meant nerve death, necrosis. Even with magic, it was completely irreparable, as no magic could truly return life to that which had died.
But life was part and parcel of death magic, and returning it was as simple as taking it away, so long as there was still some life left in the body somewhere. Fingers were easy, and Harry vanished the doorway after barely a minute, Will's fingers whole again.
"They're going to be tender for a couple days," he warned, gently rubbing warmth back into Will's fingers, reminding the blood where it needed to go. "But you're going to be okay."
Will pushed forward and thudded bodily against Harry's chest, wrapping his arms around him. Harry hugged him back hard, closing his eyes as he heard his brother's muffled sobs and felt dampness leak across the front of his shirt.
"Oh, Will," he whispered into his brother's hair, "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
Chris walked around and hugged Will from behind, one hand still holding tight to Harry's shirt, and he resigned himself to needing to change before he finally went to bed.
After another few moments, Will drew back, scrubbing his hands hard against his wet eyes. "Wh-what–?" he tried to ask, voice shaking.
Harry sighed. "Let's sit down," he suggested and led his brothers back to his bed. They curled up on either side of him, and he wrapped his arms around them, squeezing their shoulders. "The black space, the portals that Death travels by, lead to his realm, to the Realm of Death. Contact with it hurts living creatures, unless proper protections are put in place." He took a deep breath and looked between his brothers. "Please don't touch one of those doorways again unless either Death or I are holding your hand, okay? Because we can protect you then, but we can't do anything if you touch it without us."
Will immediately shook his head. "Not touching it again. Ever."
Harry smiled tiredly at him. "Not a bad policy, admittedly, but if you have no choice – if you have to touch the doorway – take my hand, or call for Death, okay? We'll keep you safe. I swear."
"...okay," Will agreed at last, though he didn't sound pleased about it. Not that Harry blamed him.
Chris tugged on his shirt. "How did you fix?" he asked.
Will gave a violent twitch. "Hey, yeah. You can't use magic!"
Harry rolled his eyes at his brother's lack of tact. "You're both correct, and wrong," he offered, and Will jabbed a finger into his side. "Ow," Harry complained, though the pain was minimal. "I was intending to explain, you little terror, if you'd be patient?"
"I is patient," Chris offered helpfully from his other side.
Harry barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. "There are two types of magic that we can all use. The kind that's taught at Hogwarts and other schools, is what you might call 'living magic'. You need a body to be able to use it, and that body needs to have the correct channels for directing the magic. I lack those channels, so I cannot use that magic. That magic is physical, is focussed on affecting things you can see with the naked eye, like changing the shape of something, or healing a cut.
"The other magic we'll call 'death magic'. It requires only a soul to use, so even a muggle could access it, but the physical body does serve as something of a block to the access of that magic, so most living creatures can't use it. Those who can are usually feared, because death magic affects the intangible, the soul, and there's no way for your average witch or wizard to defend against it."
"You can use Death Magic?" Will guessed, staring up at Harry.
Harry nodded. "Yes. It lets me travel through the Realm of Death unharmed, and heal the effects of it on other people, among other things." He squeezed his brothers' shoulders and looked between them. "No one can know, not even Mum and Dad, okay? Because if they find out, I'm going to have to go away."
"For how long?" Will asked, although his eyes said he already knew the answer.
"Forever," Harry said with complete seriousness. Because he would run away before he'd let his family suffer for housing a child whose hands were dripping with as much blood as Voldemort's. Assuming James and Lily would even let him stay, once they knew; their shades might have accepted him in that last reality, but there was a large difference between accepting him from the cold embrace of death, and accepting him when they were both plenty alive and had two other children to care for.
Chris pressed his hand against Harry's chest, over his heart. "Swear," he said, hazel eyes serious. "I never tell. It's secret."
Will's hand covered Chris'. "Secret," he agreed, voice firm. "We swear, we'll never tell anyone."
Harry found himself blinking away tears, and he pulled his brothers close. "Thank you," he whispered, so very grateful for their unconditional loyalty.
They stayed like that until Chris and Will had both fallen asleep. Harry honestly considered, for a moment, letting them stay there all night, but he knew they wouldn't thank him in the morning, when their bodies complained about the awkward sleeping position, so he put them both to bed in their own beds. He did cast a minor numbing charm on Will's hand, so it wouldn't wake him up if he knocked it into anything in his sleep.
As he climbed into his own bed, he ordered, "Don't tempt one of my brothers into your realm again without the proper protections."
Death appeared next to his bed, reaching out with skeletal hands to pull the blankets up over him. Harry raised an eyebrow at the action, but didn't fight it. "I apologise, Master. It is not the first time they have seen you use the doorways, and I foresaw one of them coming to touch it after you had passed through and were not there to fix the damage. Sometimes, the practical lesson is the best, no matter the pain involved."
Harry sighed and caught Death's hands as it started to pull away. "I'm aware, which is why I'm not yelling. But, for future, let's aim to protect them from that particular folly from the start, rather than having to clean up after."
Death let out a quiet rattling laugh. "I shall endeavour to remember how protective you are of them, Master."
Harry snorted and let go of Death's hands. "I feel like I should make a joke about you living to give me a heart attack."
Death let out a sound like a dying gurgle, and Harry grinned at it. "Your sense of humour inspires, Master. Shall I attempt to buy back your favour with a gift?"
Harry raised both eyebrows at that. "You always have my favour, Death."
Death inclined its hood. "The favour of your brothers, then."
Harry looked past Death towards Will and Chris' beds on the opposite side of the room. "Oh? Like what? I'm nearly certain even you can't grant protection from your realm without the recipient doing the work of learning the magic involved."
"That is correct, but I might ease the learning of a language, should it be of interest."
"You're going to give them a cheat?" Harry tutted, though he was grinning.
"Master," Death complained.
Harry reached out a hand and Death met it, cradling his child's hand between full-grown skeletal fingers. "How much of a cheat are you thinking?"
Death let out the sound of a last breath, it's version of a sigh. "For every word of English, they would know the Atlantean translation, with verbal and reading separate, as it is for them in learning English. The rules of sentence structure and declension will form naturally over time, though you may help it along."
Harry considered that for a moment, rubbing the pad of his thumb over one of the connections between the bones of Death's fingers. "That's a lot to do for a couple mortals with no connections to you, Death."
Death touched Harry's chest with its free hand. "You share blood and favour, Master; that is connection enough for so simple a gift."
Harry smiled at that, because only Death could consider nearly immediate knowledge of a language a 'simple' gift. "Let me put the offer before them, first. While I'm sure they'd accept it, I don't want to spring it on them while they're sleeping."
Death inclined its hood. "In this, Master, I bow to your judgement."
Harry snorted. "Go kill something. Wendigos, maybe. We don't need them, right?"
Death rattled a laugh and pulled away, stepping back into a doorway that opened for it. "Indeed we do not, Master. I shall cull them in your name," it promised, its scythe appearing in one hand.
"And this, Death, is why you'll always be my favourite," Harry murmured as the doorway closed.
"As you shall always be mine, Master," Death whispered into his mind, and Harry smiled and turned over to sleep.
Surprising absolutely no one, Chris and Will were completely on board with the idea of learning Atlantean with barely any effort on their part. Harry rolled his eyes, but he really couldn't talk, not when Death was the one who'd granted him absolute knowledge of every language that had ever existed, even those for which there were no written records, like the languages of magical beings like phoenixes.
Death granted his gift that night, and after sleeping on it, Harry's brothers were speaking Atlantean as easily as they could English. And it didn't go unnoticed, because Will was involved and he was a motor mouth.
"Harry," Lily said about ten minutes into breakfast, during which Will had switched between English and Atlantean no fewer than twelve times. (Harry had been counting.) "Would you like to explain to me why your brother is speaking something other than English? And why you and Chris seem perfectly capable of following him?"
"Busted," James coughed into his hand.
Harry, game face on, calmly wrote in his notebook and had it say, "I have no idea, Mum. They just woke up like this."
Lily stared at him, unconvinced, but Harry had mastered the art of lying through his teeth about his abilities in his last life, and this was no different.
That said, Will and Chris weren't so practised, and cracked about two seconds after Lily thought to turn her stare on them:
"It was a gift, from–" Will started and Harry closed his eyes.
"My friend," Chris broke in, and Will's mouth snapped shut with an audible click. Harry opened his eyes again to find his youngest brother was pointing at the picture he'd drawn of Death-as-his-imaginary-friend, which was hanging on the door of the refrigerator. "He scared us. Wanted to say sorry."
"Your friend," Lily deadpanned, looking back at Harry.
Harry shrugged, doing his best to look as honestly flummoxed by this turn of events as anyone else would be.
"You know, I don't remember raising a Slytherin," James commented, and Harry shot him a wounded look.
"You're grounded, all of you," Lily decided, and Chris and Will immediately let out angry sounds, while Harry frowned. "For a month," Lily added. When Will and Chris just got louder, Will letting out a sparkle of lights, Lily snapped, "I will make it two months!"
Will and Chris shut up, both ducking their heads. When Lily turned to look at Harry, he met her angry eyes without flinching, and James let out a quiet whistle that earned him a glare of his own.
"If one of you wants to tell me the truth, they'll no longer be grounded," Lily offered, looking between Will and Chris.
Harry glanced over and found Will and Chris staring at him, both looking upset and torn. Harry closed his eyes and looked away, afraid to watch them choose between his secret and their fun. Because promising to keep a secret in the safety of their dark bedroom, where secrets curled up in the corners and multiplied overnight, was one thing; keeping that secret under threat of punishment was something else entirely, especially when the secret-keepers were only six and not-quite-four.
"It was Chris' friend," Will said, and there was determination in his voice. "He scared us, because he's got bone-hands. I bet he's got a bone-face, too, but he doesn't want to show. And he felt bad, 'cause we were all scared, except Harry, because Harry's never scared. Harry's brave. And Chris' friend, he said he'd help us learn Harry's language. Maybe we can be brave now, too."
"Wanna be brave," Chris agreed quietly.
"Telling the truth is brave," Lily offered.
"Then we are brave," Will insisted, and Harry saw fire in his hazel eyes when he finally looked over. "We're not lying, Mum."
Lily threw her hands up in the air. "Right. James, you handle them for the day. And remember, they're grounded," she ordered before stalking from the kitchen. They heard her apparate a moment later, and Harry and his brothers turned to their father.
James sighed. "Right. Will, Chris, go upstairs and start collecting dirty laundry. Harry, help me clear the table. Maybe, if we get this house clean while Mum's gone, she'll lighten your punishment."
Will and Chris muttered complaints in Atlantean as they left, dragging their feet the whole way.
Harry helped James without complaint, ferrying dishes over for his father to wash, then drying them and stacking them to the side for James to put away.
"How much of that was a lie?" James asked after a while.
Harry considered that as he dried a glass. Once he set it aside, he motioned like he was stretching something.
"Less a lie, more stretching the truth," James guessed, and Harry nodded. His father sighed and ruffled his hair. "You were a lot less trouble before your brothers figured out how to talk for you."
Harry snorted, figuring that would seem true, from a parental standpoint. Which, well, it wasn't, because he had always been this much trouble, he just had a lot more trouble hiding his misdeeds when he had accomplices.
James squeezed his shoulder, then leant down to whisper in Harry's ear, "You do realise that it's now completely and utterly your duty to keep your brothers from doing something stupid, right? Because we can no longer understand them if they don't want us to."
Harry raised an eyebrow at his father, because it had always been his job to keep Will and Chris safe.
James laughed and turned back to the dishes. And while Lily didn't rescind her punishment entirely, she was willing to lessen it to two weeks, rather than a whole month, after she got home to a clean house. And James must have talked her out of pursuing the matter, because she didn't bring it up again, though her lips would press thin whenever she caught Will and Chris speaking in Atlantean.
Stand Against the Moon Chapters:
Pro | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05
06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12
Nose to the Wind Chapters:
1 - Death Once Again || 2 - Bring Out All the Good Inside Me || 3 - Death and Living Reconciled
4 - Orphan Man || 5 - Using Gentle Words to Shelter Me ||
7 - You Just Might Get it All || 8 - Never Want to Come Down || 9 - Only the Silence Remains
10 - Love is a Doing Word || 11 - Nothing Sacred || 12 - The Heart Yearns
13 - Mirrored in Your Stare || 14 - Camouflage Denial || 15 - Precious and Fragile Things
16 - Perfectly Reckless || 17 - Your Arms Feel Like Home || 18 - The Sun Will Set For You
19 - Your Love Has Always Been Enough || 20 - Keep Up This Charade || 21 - Truth Like a Blazing Fire
22 - Give Yourself a Try || 23 - Done Pleading Ignorance || 24 - Your Razorblade Caress of Love
25 - Summer's Scent Still Lingers || 26 - Burn Out the Stain || 27 - Final Masquerade
.