![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
batsutousai) wrote2018-09-21 05:59 am
FIC: Nose to the Wind ~ Harry Potter ~ Harry/Voldemort ~ Mature ~ Ch 25/27
Title: 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: Haha, whoops. I guess it didn't occur to me to clarify that the kids Ford went around mind-raping are indeed okay. Severus manages to heal any damage, and most of them have no idea they were actually a victim. Presumably, the school brings in an official mind healer/someone to talk to, for those students who need it.
Casually slips in some Sirius/Remus. (Tbh, I can't remember whether or not I actually got them together in SAtM, but it had been a definite possibility. Either way, they're an item in this reality.)
For ages at the start of this chapter, very little time has passed, so Harry remains 16. (Hermione turned 17 last chapter, Will turned 15 last chapter, and Chris is 12.)
Cross-posted to Archive of Our Own and LiveJournal.
Chapter Twenty-Five – Summer's Scent Still Lingers
-0-
Surprising approximately no one, books on occlumency practically flew off the shelves after the article about Ford using legilimency against students broke.
Given their own part in the war against Voldemort, as well as both James and Sirius being aurors, the Potters already had access to books on occlumency, two of them auror-restricted, and Harry took them over the Weasleys that afternoon, after Molly fire-called asking if his family had any resources.
"I do wonder," James said over dinner that night, which included Sirius and Remus, "how we weren't caught by blackmail. Hermione's the only one who's read any of my books, though did Chris make some noises about wanting to learn, once he's old enough."
Harry shrugged. "For many and various reasons, I was never able to fully master occlumency. Death is protecting me, and he extended that protection to Will, Chris, and Hermione; not even Voldemort is going to break into their minds."
His parents, Sirius, and Remus all fell very, very still, then Sirius said, "Well, that's lucky," in a slightly strained tone, while Remus asked, "And us?"
Death? Harry asked.
"Your mother and Sirius both have sufficient mental protections to not need any assistance, but the protection has been extended to Remus and your father. Also to Peter, for the sake of your own secrets."
I should have expected it was at least partially to protect me, Harry admitted. Thank you, Death. You remain, as always, invaluable.
"I should never wish to chance your safety, Master."
"Death says he's protecting Dad and you, Uncle Remus, but Mum and Uncle Sirius are scary-good in their own right," Harry offered, then turned an interested smile on his mother.
Lily cleared her throat and very obviously focussed on her potatoes. "Sev taught me," she said, just the slightest bit defensively.
"Well...good," James decided, looking a bit like that had hurt to say. And then he huffed a bit and turned to Lily. "It was during those little December visits I'm not supposed to know about, wasn't it?"
Lily made a show of sniffing and turning her nose up at him. "If you were less determined to be difficult about his existence, I never would have hidden them from you."
Sirius snorted. "Yeah, well, if he was less of a git–"
"Sirius," James hissed, while Remus covered his mouth with a hand, the pair of them casting Lily's glower worried looks.
Harry cleared his throat. "Honestly, I'm glad Mum made up with Severus. If only because Will looks so much like Dad, he'd probably have laid all his – in all honesty, completely warranted – upset at you and Sirius on his head. Despite the fact that Will really doesn't deserve any of it."
James' shoulders hunched. "He did that to you, didn't he?"
Harry turned a flat look on his father and opened his mouth to respond, when Sirius said, "Wait, what? Snape was a dick to Harry?"
"Oops," James whispered, clearly remembering, as Harry just had, that Sirius and Remus had never been filled in about who Harry had been in the past.
"Harry told us, at the end of last term, that this is his third life as Harry Potter," Lily explained. "Voldemort killed James and myself the last two times."
"Well, shit," Sirius said, looking a little like he'd just taken a punch to the gut, but not like he disbelieved Lily. Either he trusted her not to go pulling his leg, or he'd just got so used to Harry being an oddity, nothing to do with him surprised him any more. "What happened to me? And Remus?"
Harry blinked, surprised. Though he really should have expected Sirius to be curious about his own fate, given how chaotic the end of the war had been. "Uncle Peter sold us out to Voldemort, and you went after him. He cut off a finger and blew up a crowd of muggles, transforming and escaping to become the pet rat of the Weasleys," he explained, and Sirius and James traded disgusted looks. "You were committed to Azkaban, both times, without a trial."
"I'm sorry, but what?" James demanded.
Harry shrugged, while Sirius tiredly pointed out, "You know Peter; he'd have designed it to make me look guilty. I assume Voldemort was dead and they were rounding up whoever they could?"
"Essentially," Harry agreed. "Though he wasn't actually dead."
"Right. He's got some secret immortality," Sirius grumbled, and Lily and Remus both snorted, clearly amused that Sirius was determined to not let it go that Harry refused to fill them in about that. "So, I ended up in Azkaban. Excellent."
"My first life, you escaped when I was thirteen, upon seeing a photo of Wormtail with the Weasleys. That was also the year Uncle Remus got brought on to teach defence against the dark arts."
"Me?" Remus said, voice gone a little high-pitched, while Sirius reached over and thumped him on the back, calling, "Good show, Moony!"
"You were my favourite defence professor," Harry admitted, and his godfather flushed and ducked his head, while both James and Sirius burst out laughing. "At any rate, Severus got in the way and Uncle Peter managed to escape, in the end. He went off to find and help Voldemort back to power, while Uncle Sirius, you went on travels and screwed with the aurors sent to hunt you down."
"Oh, I could have guessed that would happen," James insisted, and he and Sirius grinned at each other.
"Yeah, but, when Voldemort officially returned, you got cooped up in Grimmauld Place," Harry said, and Sirius stiffened, his expression darkening. "They turned it into the new Order's headquarters."
"I would suggest that fate for my mother's house," Sirius agreed stiffly.
Harry nodded. "Some friends and I ended up in the Department of Mysteries, where we got into a fight with Death Eaters. You were among the Order members who responded, and Bellatrix killed you."
Sirius looked a little sick. "Shitty way to go." Then he turned to James and Lily. "Now can I start a family feud?"
"Over something that never happened?" Lily retorted, though the words came out strained.
"Uncle Remus, though," Harry continued, mostly to get them to focus on something else, "married and had a son, named me godfather, and then ended up going out with a bang in the final battle."
"Married?!" Remus repeated, looking a little like he might faint.
"I knew I was only second best!" Sirius wailed, flopping over towards James, who caught him and patted his back.
Harry looked at his mum, who was grinning, and rolled his eyes, which made her laugh.
"My last life–" Harry started.
"Wait," Sirius interrupted, lifting his head from the dramatic angle he'd had it on James' shoulder and narrowing his eyes at Harry, "you didn't say who Remus married."
"Didn't I?" Harry asked, then shrugged. "Oh. Well, my last life–"
"Prongs, make him tell," Sirius complained, while Remus groaned and covered his face with his hands.
Harry turned helplessly towards Lily and she ducked her head, as though to hide her grin, her shoulders shaking.
With no help from that quarter, Harry resigned himself to wait out Remus' embarrassed groaning and Sirius' over-the-top whining about how he'd never find out who Remus loved more than him.
Eventually, Remus reached over and smacked Sirius, pointing out, "Harry already said you were dead, you half-brained lump of fur!"
"...oh," Sirius said, and James and Lily both started snickering, while Harry covered his face with his hands and sighed.
Then, of course, Sirius shouted, "You do love me!" and caught the collar of Remus' robes to drag him into a kiss.
"How is this my life?" Harry complained, while failing miserably to hide his grin. (It turned out that there was little more healing, after watching your godfather in one reality spend years mourning his other half, than watching them get their shit together in your next reality. As much as he'd adored and missed Teddy, seeing Sirius and Remus happy together would always be his preference.)
"So," James said once Sirius had stopped celebrating being Remus' one true love, "in your last life, you sent Peter to turn himself in, right?"
"Yup. So Uncle Sirius got free the proper way, Uncle Remus moved in with us only after he was convinced that Moony wouldn't hurt the werewolf pup, and we all lived happily ever after. Well," Harry admitted with a shrug, "until the war, then I moved to Antarctica and Uncle Sirius moved in with the vampire who turned him."
"I became a vampire?" Sirius asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Mermish," Remus said in a tone that suggested he'd just realised something.
"Moony?" James asked after a moment of all of them blinking at him.
Remus was staring straight at Harry, though. "Why learn Mermish? Why would Sirius become a vampire? You were a dark lord without ever being called as much, because you were called something else."
Harry stiffened and very firmly looked back at the last bit of food on his plate. "I have no idea what you're trying to say," he said, hated how flat his voice came out.
"Is there a name for a werewolf out for the rights of other nonhumans?" Sirius asked, quiet and just the slightest bit careful, like he knew that this wasn't a matter to joke about.
"I could think up a couple of possibilities," Remus replied.
Harry shoved his chair back and stood. "I've got homework to get done," he decided, because he did not want to discuss this with them.
"Okay, sweetie," Lily said before anyone else could try to stop him, and Harry didn't pause in making his escape. "Voldemort sacrificed himself for him in that world," she told Sirius and Remus before Harry could make the stairs.
"And then he moved to Antarctica," James murmured. "You can't get much more removed from civilisation than that."
They were all quiet as Harry climbed the stairs. But, as he reached the top, he heard Remus say, pitched loud enough that it was clearly meant to carry to him, "I'm glad he's here, where he has an excess of people who love him."
Harry retreated to his room with a smile that only trembled a little; he was glad Tom and Death had sent him to this reality, too.
'Rumour is,' Will wrote at some point a couple of days after Ford's death, 'that your partner came here to kill Freaky Ford.'
'Yes, he did. And how long has that nickname been in use?' Harry returned when he saw the message while taking a break from homework.
'A day or two,' Will wrote.
'Maybe for Gryffindors,' was Chris' addition.
Harry closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them and looked back down, Chris had continued, 'Rumour is he was using legilimency on younger students, like me. You'd tell us if he went after you or Dad or Mum, right?'
'I would,' Harry wrote back, though he honestly wasn't certain whether or not that was the truth; some things, he'd learnt as he got older, didn't need to be shared with underage students. 'Death is protecting you two and Hermione, so even if Ford tried, he wouldn't have got anything.'
'Oh,' they both wrote, sending it at nearly the same time.
'Occlumency is still a useful skill to have, however. Don't let his protection stop you from learning it.'
'Like Hermione,' Chris wrote.
'And Mum and Severus and Uncle Sirius,' Harry replied.
'Uncle Sirius knows it?!' Will demanded.
'He does. And his shields are good enough, Death isn't worried about having to protect him.'
'Can you owl me Dad's books?'
Harry laughed and shook his head; he should have known Will would jump at the chance to further emulate Sirius. (He had no intention in telling him why Sirius had most likely learnt it, however; Will had no need to hide things from his family for his own safety.) 'Molly and Arthur have them right now, but you should be able to take them back to Hogwarts with you after the break.'
'Oh, okay. I guess that'll work'
'Do you know occlumency, Harry?' Chris asked.
Harry sighed. 'No. Werefolk can't do it.' Which wasn't a complete lie, because a werefolk who had learnt the art before being turned could still use it, but something about sharing your mind with another consciousness made it impossible to ever fully protect it. (Which, in retrospect, was probably the reason Harry had never been able to learn while he'd been a horcrux. After...well. That Snape's 'help' had done a lot more harm than good, and Harry, as he'd been before being turned, had never cared to do the work if he didn't have to.) Whether or not that held true for wereborns, he couldn't say, but given Death's protections were so much better than he could have managed on his own, he didn't see much point in struggling with something he'd always failed at in the past.
'Oh,' Chris replied, while Will wrote, 'That's really sucky. Does that mean Uncle Remus can't do it, either?'
'Exactly, but Death is protecting him, same he is you two.'
'And you,' Will pointed out.
'That,' Harry returned, 'goes without saying.'
He could almost see the eye roll his brother would turn on him for that, and neither of his brothers seemed willing to deign that with a response.
Chuckling to himself, Harry traded out his messaging paper for the essay he was supposed to be writing.
Harry honestly couldn't say how his mum got all parties to agree, but James stayed home the first Monday of the holiday, and neither Severus nor Barty seemed surprised to see him when Lily led them into the dining room. They traded a round of stiffly polite greetings, then sat with Lily between James and Severus.
"Maybe we should go outside," Harry suggested, because he wasn't certain he wanted to be involved in the coming air-clearing.
"Yes, I think so," Hermione agreed.
"Why?" Will asked, and Chris sighed.
Harry glanced at Hermione, who gave a nod, and they each took one of Will's arms and led him from the dining room, while Chris obediently followed along after, shaking his head.
"I still don't understand why you didn't want to stay," Will complained once they were out of the house and headed towards the playground to waste a few hours.
Harry rolled his eyes. "There are some discussions I don't particularly want to find myself a part of. And, trust me, anyone in that room is liable to get dragged into things."
Will huffed and stalked off to make himself sick on the roundabout.
On their way back in for lunch, Will asked, "Can we go to Diagon after lunch?"
"I want to go see Fred and George's shop!" Chris called hopefully.
"We'll probably get roped into helping out," Harry pointed out, because that's what had happened the only time he'd made a stop past the shop to maybe actually buy something. Any more, he only went by when he intended to work, and made his purchases once he was off.
"We'll ask your mum," Hermione decided, and both Will and Chris took off running with delighted shouts.
Harry sighed. "Who am I kidding? They'd love to say they got to work at the joke shop over the break."
Hermione laughed at him as she caught his arm and dragged him along after.
Lily had apparently managed to broker a slightly shaky peace between Severus and James, as they actually spoke to each other over lunch, but always in that slightly careful tone people used when they were afraid they'd upset someone else if they didn't watch their words. Within ten minutes, Will had hunched over his lunch a bit, and Harry suspected his brother was starting to appreciate not having been in there earlier.
"Could we go to Diagon after lunch?' Harry ended up asking, as none of the others looked like they were willing to break the tentative peace.
"I can go as chaperone," Barty was quick to offer.
"Damn," James muttered, and Lily elbowed him.
"I suppose so," Lily agreed. "But no attempting to lose Barty. Any of you," she added, looking straight at Harry.
"What did I do this time?" Harry complained, and Will snickered at his sandwich. "We're probably gonna go past Fred and George's and get roped into helping out, anyway."
Barty sighed.
"I think Chris is a little young," James commented. "Will–"
"Come on, Dad!" Will interrupted. "It's just Fred and George! And Harry and Hermione and Barty will all be there."
James turned to Harry and jerked a thumb towards Will. "He can help with stocking. That's it."
"Dad," Will complained, while Chris snickered.
"Yeah, okay," Harry agreed; he wasn't certain how the magical world would handle liability lawsuits, but he'd suffered enough business classes to know it was safer to leave the handling of money in the hands of someone of age.
When everyone was done eating, Barty herded them all through the floo to the Leaky Cauldron. Only once they were past the portal to the alleys, did he say to Harry, "I'm not sure if your father simply doesn't trust me, or he just trusts you more with your brothers."
"For the sake of whatever plot Mum is concocting," Harry replied drily, "let's assume the latter."
"Fair enough. Though, actually, about that–"
Harry snorted and shook his head. "I don't actually know why she decided to get Severus and Dad to make peace, honestly. It did get brought up, after the news about Ford broke, that Dad knew he's been coming by once a year, but Dad staying home this morning was as much warning as I got about anything."
"I do wonder," Hermione offered from where she'd stayed walking at Harry's side, while Chris and Will had darted forward to look through the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, "if it doesn't have something to do with what happened over the summer."
"I...didn't even think about that," Harry admitted, though it was certainly true that Severus and James had managed a sort of peace in the face of Lily's kidnapping, and James hadn't even needed to be reminded to send word to Severus after Lily had returned home.
"Neither did I," Barty agreed.
"Hey, so, how good would me and Chris have to be to get Firebolts?" Will asked as Harry, Barty, and Hermione reached the younger two.
Chris snorted. "Not likely."
"Maybe if you make captain of your house team," Harry allowed. "Maybe."
"You have a Firebolt?" Barty asked, his eyebrows gone high enough to nearly vanish under his bangs. When Harry nodded, he warned, "Don't tell Severus, he might start a fight with James."
"Why?" Will asked.
Barty shook his head. "It's not just anyone who can afford a Firebolt, and your father flaunted his family's wealth a lot at school, while Severus was broke. A bit like how Mr Malfoy and Mr Weasley are always getting into fights over the disparity between their bank accounts."
"But Dad didn't buy Harry's broom," Will said, frowning. "It was V–"
Harry and Hermione both reached out and covered Will's mouth with their hands, while Chris chirped, "Harry's partner!" a little too loudly.
"...right," Barty said after a moment.
'Sorry,' Will mouthed when Harry and Hermione withdrew their hands.
Harry sighed. "Let's just go to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes."
Fred and George looked a little uncertain about having one of their former professors in their shop, especially as a couple of current students made a quick retreat when they spotted him, but they were happy to have Harry relieve Lee at the register – "Excellent timing, mate; I'm starved," Lee said as he clapped Harry on the shoulder on his way past – and set Will to restocking some empty shelves.
Hermione – Harry wasn't certain if she was trying to be polite, or just avoiding getting roped into helping around the shop – suggested Will, Chris, and Harry would be fine in the shop for a while, and she'd quite like to get some treats for Crookshanks, who she'd got when she and James had gone back past the alley the day before the train for both her pet and the necessary schoolbooks. Barty, likely aware that his welcome would quickly wear thin, had been quick to agree with her.
Will and Chris waited until Barty and Hermione had left the shop before turning pleading eyes on Harry, much to Fred's delight. (And probably George's, too, but he'd gone upstairs to help a customer.)
"You can each get two pranks," Harry said.
"Yes!" Will crowed, while Chris darted further into the shop with a look that made Harry regret agreeing to buy them anything at all.
"Finish stocking that, first," Fred ordered before Will could get up to go after Chris.
Groaning, Will settled back down and went back to working.
"I regret everything," Harry muttered, and the girl he was ringing up laughed.
Will didn't last long before declaring working in the shop to be boring, which resulted in George – who had traded places with his twin when no one was looking; the pair of them delighted in trying to trip customers and shop assistants up with that trick – proving it very much wasn't boring by using a couple of products on him.
"George," Harry called.
"I'm Fred!" George insisted, and the three students Harry was checking out all giggled.
Harry made a show of rolling his eyes. "Whichever you are," he allowed, and George beamed at him, presumably for playing along, "if my brother goes home with any obvious changes, I'm pointing Mum at the pair of you."
"What sort of prankster do you take me for?" George wailed, posing in one of the most unnecessarily dramatic stances Harry had seen from either of the twins.
He also tossed Will the antidote for the ears and tail he'd just pranked him with, so Harry went back to ringing people up with an amused shake of his head.
Barty and Hermione returned about the same time as Lee, so Harry left him to the register again, while he and Hermione split up to find his brothers, both of whom had vanished into the shop at some point, searching for pranks to buy. Hermione was supremely unimpressed to find Will holding a box of skiving snackboxes and made him put it back – Harry later pretended he didn't see Fred sliding his brother a box and whispering it was payment for helping out – and Harry laughed a little too hard upon finding Chris wandering around and spooking other customers by wearing a headless hat.
Once both younger Potters had found the two items they wanted, and Hermione had decided she needed a shield hat, Harry went down and shooed Barty outside, which he did with a resigned sigh, then herded everyone into the short line.
"Okay, I have to ask," Lee said as he calculated the cost, "why are you out with a professor?"
"Professors Snape and Crouch are friends of our mum," Harry explained as he ducked behind the counter to get the pad they used to keep track of anything employees purchased; he had enough money on him to buy it all, but he didn't see the point in forking over the coins when he had a tab. "Surely you've wondered where they get to the first Monday of the winter holidays."
"Doesn't everyone?" Lee agreed. "I just didn't think it was to a student's house. Isn't that weird?"
"We've known the headmaster since we were little," Chris replied, shaking his head. "It was weirder starting Hogwarts and having to get used to calling him Headmaster Snape."
"It was weird for me," Hermione insisted.
Harry flashed her a smile. "Yeah, but you got used to it. Ish."
"Ish," Hermione agreed drily, and Lee choked out a laugh.
"Right, no pranks at home; I'm not suffering a prank war for the next two weeks," Harry informed his brothers, and Will let out a loud sigh, but they both nodded. "Good. Grab your bags and let's go find Barty before he comes back in here and spooks more people."
Laughing, his brothers and Hermione all grabbed their things and, shouting "Happy Christmas!" to the Weasleys and Lee, they left the shop and joined back up with Barty, who had politely waited across the alley from the shop.
"Hot cocoa?" Barty suggested when they reached him, pointing towards a temporary stall set up at the corner where Diagon and Knockturn met.
"Yeah!" Will shouted, and hurried towards it, Chris quick to follow after looking at Harry and receiving a nod.
"You don't want to go back to the house, do you?" Hermione guessed as the three of them followed after Will and Chris.
"Not particularly," Barty admitted with a grimace, and Harry laughed. "You don't want to go back, either."
"You could always just beg off and go back to the school," Harry pointed out. "I doubt Severus will hold it against you."
Barty sighed. "He wouldn't, but I'd feel bad." He cast a glance at Harry. "Surely you understand that, or did I misunderstand Chris mentioning a partner?"
"...okay, that's fair," Harry agreed, because he couldn't imagine he'd feel great about just walking off and leaving the dark lord attempting to work out a truce with Albus, though he'd very much not want to be there for such a meeting.
Barty paid for the hot cocoas, despite Harry insisting he could get it – "Consider it a thank you for giving me an excuse to bow out for a bit," he said – and they all stepped off to the side to enjoy the hot drinks and debate whether they should duck into another shop, or just go home.
They eventually ended up just returning to the Potter house, and Severus took their return as an excuse to head back to Hogwarts. Much to everyone's relief.
"Mum," Harry said while he helped with dinner a couple of hours later, "could you never try to get Dad and Severus to play nice ever again?"
"Seconded!" James called from the living room.
Lily just sighed and shook her head, then handed Harry the head of lettuce to start on a salad.
For the dark lord's birthday that year, Harry unburied a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, which had been slightly damaged in it's hiding place, and was missing the cover, but Harry had snuck into the British Library and fixed it up based on their copies.
"It's not, actually, as simple as I make it seem to find one-of-a-kind books," Harry muttered when Tom pointed out that he usually found rarer gifts.
Tom chuckled and set the heavy book aside, tugging Harry into his lap instead. "I do believe," he said, "that I have the most one-of-a-kind thing right here."
Harry groaned. "You got that from a book."
"Are you calling me unoriginal?"
"That's certainly one interpretation."
Tom made a valiant effort to make Harry regret that, but it really just resulted in them curled up together in bed, sweaty and and just tired enough to both fall easily to sleep.
While the holiday sales from Hogwarts students finally being able to visit Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes meant the twins were sitting more comfortable than ever, and could more than afford to pay a proper amount of staff, Harry had got used to dropping past on slow days and putting on one of the shop robes to work. Lee had moved on to a job in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, insisting he'd had enough of slumming it in Diagon Alley, but he remained something of a regular fixture, especially on weekends, though the twins would no longer let him work.
"Why do you let me keep on?" Harry asked Fred the first time he'd seen one of the twins laugh off Lee's insistence that he'd be happy to put the shop's robe back on for an afternoon. "I know it's not because your mum is pushing for it, not any more." Because Molly had eased off about him supporting Voldemort after the incident with Ford; apparently, all she'd needed was a reminder that Voldemort did, actually, have a vested interest in the health and future of magical children, no matter who their parents were.
Fred shrugged. "Honestly? We're picking your brain; you're the only person we know with any real business learning."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Bollocks. I haven't had to help you sort any of that rot out since Christmas." Because while they'd all four – Lee still helping out, at the time – had to pull an all-nighter to balance the books and take inventory after the last-minute slam of shoppers before the holiday, to keep from one of them having to miss the day with their family, the twins had been managing their books with the help of a goblin Bill had pointed them to since the new year.
"Maybe they just like having someone around who can tell them apart," Lee called from where he was very obviously resisting the urge to fix a display. (He could, Harry knew, work out when the twins traded places about eighty percent of the time, but it usually took him a moment or two of observation to cotton on.)
"Perish the thought!" Fred cried.
Harry rolled his eyes and walked over to fix the display Lee was staring at. "If it was that," he muttered, "Percy would have a job here."
Lee snickered. "Fair point."
Since it was clear he wouldn't be getting a straight answer in front of witnesses, Harry let the matter go until the next time the twins needed a little bit of extra help with the closing.
"Seriously," he said as he moved one of the display tables out of the way of the new table meant for the Valentine's Day display, "why are you letting me stay on?"
"Why is this bothering you?" George asked, frowning as he motioned for his brother to hover the new table a little further left. "Are we not paying you enough?"
"Are we paying you?" Fred added as he let the table sink gently into its new spot.
Harry rolled his eyes and started tugging tables that had been upset back into a more accessible alignment around the new addition. "Sharprook is staying on top of wages, don't worry about that."
"Knew I liked that goblin," George said, before vanishing into the back room for the boxes of Valentine's stuff.
"Maybe we keep you around for the heavy lifting," Fred said, before making a show of tugging ineffectively at one of the heavy tables that Harry was shoving around with limited difficulty.
Harry turned an unimpressed stare on him.
Fred cleared his throat. "Look, you're as good as family, and it's not hard to see you're floundering a bit, okay? You've got a bit of muggle schooling on the side, and you've got the Bats, but both are a bit, what, part-time?"
"You're bored," George called as he stepped from the back room with an armful of product. "And we two, we know bored."
"I suppose," Harry allowed, because it was true that he only came by the shop when he was out of other things to do; the problem with being both as old and young as he was, and refusing to involve himself any more than he already was in the government, was that he too often found himself with the options of reading ahead for his classes, making potions that would likely lose their potency before they were needed, or working at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
"Too," George added as he and Fred started putting out the new products, "I don't know if you noticed, but we started getting a lot of students we know belong to families that support the dark lord after word got around that you worked here sometimes."
Harry blinked, thrown. "Wait, you did? I mean, I suppose I did notice a couple of those students the weekend right before Christmas, but..."
"You thought we sold to them at Hogwarts?" Fred guessed.
"Basically." It wasn't like Harry had really kept tabs on which students had purchased from the twins at Hogwarts, and he knew that, during his original reality, plenty of children of Death Eaters had bought from the twins, simply because their products were useful to both sides of the war. After the attack on Diagon over the summer, the twins had added some of those same products to their inventory, though they'd had anti-Russian branding, rather than the poking fun at Voldemort and his Death Eaters that Harry remembered from his original reality.
"Chris was the only snake we ever sold anything to," George said with a shrug.
"Most of it went through Will, anyway," Fred pointed out.
"And while we sold a bit to Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws–"
"–it was always to the ones from light or neutral families."
"Not for lack of trying, mind."
"Yeah, the darker lot just never bit."
"Got a couple of 'blood traitors' spat back for our trouble."
"About what you'd expect from that lot."
"Too right."
"But they're buying now," Harry interrupted, because he knew they would keep going if given half the chance. "And you think it's because of me?"
"Harry," they said in tandem, turning to look at him with opposite eyebrows raised, "of course it's because of you."
Harry frowned at that and turned back to tugging a table into place. Sure, he'd been a bit obvious about stating his position in front of the Lestranges and Molly and Arthur, and he supposed he had joined Voldemort and his people for their Samhain lunch–
"The lunch," he breathed; practically every one of Voldemort's followers who weren't in or teaching at a school had been there, which meant it would have trickled down through the families that, not only was he supporting the dark lord, but Voldemort had sat him at his right hand. Even though he'd had a quasi-family member he could have been sent to sit with.
Too, when he really thought about it, it was hardly the first time Voldemort had shown some manner of familiarity with Harry in public, especially around the students of Hogwarts: He'd shown he knew Harry spoke Mermish at the second task; didn't curse him for getting grabby, despite the number of witnesses; and they'd sat together during lunch following that task without any show of animosity.
"Yeah, sorry, mate. Mum might have been a bit behind, but no one who was at Hogwarts last year was surprised when you came out saying you supported the dark lord," George said.
Harry sighed. "Well," he decided, "I guess I'm glad my supporting the dark lord is helping out with sales."
Fred and George laughed, then Fred caught him by the arm and tugged him over to help with the Valentine's display.
Agreeing to work the day after the Valentine's display got set up was probably not Harry's best choice, given he was propositioned by five different witches and two wizards within the first hour. The twins eventually took pity on him and let him escape to one of the upper floors to refill stock.
They had almost two weeks left before the holiday, but Harry was still a bit surprised to sense a sort of cloud of depression preceding someone who smelt almost familiar up the stairs. "Cedric?" Harry said when the former champion cleared the table between Harry and the stairs.
Cedric, to his credit, didn't look nearly as down as he smelt; he was still as put-together as ever, his hair styled with the perfect wave Harry had always seen on him and his robes immaculate. But there was a hint of sadness in his eyes, which only seemed to become more obvious when he put on a smile that was obviously false. "Harry, hello. I didn't know you worked here."
"It's nice having a bit of spending money," Harry replied, which was actually a little bit true. "Are you okay?"
Cedric blinked. "Of course I am," he said.
And then the delighted 'aww'ing and calls of "It's true love!" from a group on the ground floor cut through the air, and Cedric flinched, shoulders rounding inwards.
"No, you're not," Harry returned as gently as he could. "Look, I'm not going to force you to tell me what's going on, but I can tell you that hiding it when you feel like shit never helped anyone; even TriWizard champions are allowed to cry after shitty days."
Cedric swallowed and managed a slightly crooked smile. "Are you sure you should be saying something so serious in a joke shop?"
Harry sighed and pointed at the floor next to him. "Come sit over here so I'm not straining my neck, won't you? If someone asks why you're on the floor, we can just say I let you try a bit of the spinner's fancy."
"Spinner's fancy?" Cedric repeated, sounding rather like he didn't want to know. He did come over to sit next to Harry, though, picking up one of the boxes of comb-a-chameleons that Harry had been in the process of restocking.
"Makes you dizzy," Harry explained. "Something about a spinning contest in the Gryffindor common a few years ago; sometimes, it's better not to ask too much about what inspired some of these items."
Cedric's laugh was a little strained, but far more honest than his smiles had been.
So Harry, who knew well the benefit of using stupid stories to distract himself from thinking of something depressing, started telling him little anecdotes about various products, some of them stories he'd heard the twins tell customers, some based on his own memories of customers trying them, or the twins testing them on their family or the Potters and Hermione during the summers.
Eventually, after his scent had lost a fair portion of his upset, Cedric asked, "Did they make anything for a broken heart?"
Harry tried very hard to keep from jumping to any conclusions, but he suspected Cedric would know where his mind went when he replied, "Nothing so specific, probably because neither of them have let themselves settle enough to consider a relationship outside of pranks. They did make something called cheer-up spray, though? Supposed to work like a cheering charm. And there's always laugh-a-lot, I guess. It makes you laugh at everything, but it's a bit hit-or-miss for raising your mood."
"Cheer-up spray, where's that, then?"
Harry sighed and got up, then held a hand down to Cedric. "Upstairs one more; I'll show you."
"You don't have to," Cedric insisted, even as he let Harry help him up.
Once Cedric was standing, Harry twisted his wrist and pointed to his watch. "It's about time for me to leave for lunch, might as well show you up, then go back down with you."
Cedric looked horrified for a moment, then slumped. "I was supposed to be back to the ministry an hour ago."
"Oh, shit. I'm sorry!" Harry apologised; he probably should have realised that Cedric hadn't come intending to sit and chat for over an hour. "I really shouldn't have got you to sit–"
"Harry," Cedric interrupted, and he was smiling, amusement nearly overpowering the lingering scent of depression. "Really, thank you. I've been out of sorts all morning; Dad sent me to get lunch early, told me to get my head screwed back on straight before coming back."
Harry grunted and turned, motioning for Cedric to follow him up to the next floor. "No offence to your dad, but that sounds like some of the least helpful advice I've ever heard."
"Yeah, Mum'll probably tell him off when she hears."
"Does he know why you're out of sorts?" Harry had to ask.
"You mean, does he know Cho broke up with me?" Cedric said tiredly.
"I'm sorry," Harry offered, quiet and sincere. Time had dulled his memories, but he was fairly certain he'd recalled thinking Cedric and Cho had looked made for each other during his first life, and she'd certainly mourned him like she'd believed the same.
"It happens," Cedric said, but if he'd been attempting to sound casual, he failed miserably. "She wasn't happy about my not being at Hogwarts any more, and I didn't actually get to spend any time with her over winter break. Because, well, I assume you heard about the giant spider attacks on that muggle village just past the end of the wards on the Forbidden Forest?"
"Dad was saying something about it, yeah," Harry agreed, because James had brought it up over dinner one night, the first week of the holiday. Harry had seriously considered heading out there himself – he might not be the Alpha Lord in this reality, but Aragog and his family had never really listened to that, anyway – except word was that half the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was camped out nearby, and he doubted adding a werewolf to the mix would help matters. "I assume you were one of the lot camped out to wait for a sighting?"
"Unfortunately," Cedric agreed. "It was work and I couldn't get out of it, but I'm not sure she ever forgave me for it."
"I don't..." Harry sighed and shook his head, then picked a bottle of cheer-up spray off the shelf and turned to Cedric. "I think we both know I didn't really get a favourable impression of her, the one time we met."
"She was...a little rude," Cedric offered.
"Will is a pest, so I don't really blame her," Harry returned, and Cedric coughed and rubbed at his mouth. "I think, maybe, she's a little too stuck in Hogwarts, right now. She's used to the convenience and only having to plan around quidditch and homework, and that's very different from trying to plan around a job that you can't just hold off doing with limited chance of punishment. Maybe, when she's had a chance to exist outside of Hogwarts herself, she'll understand better. And maybe, then, you two can try again. Or maybe you won't, maybe one or both of you will find someone more worth your time and attention.
"Maybe," Harry added with a crooked smile, "this isn't just an ending, maybe it's also a beginning." He held the cheer-up spray out to Cedric. "It helps a bit, I've found, to frame things that way."
"You are...exceptionally good at this," Cedric said as he took the spray.
"I've had a bit of practice," Harry admitted, before stepping past Cedric, back towards the stairs. "Come on, best to do the ringing up and fleeing out the door quickly, lest the lot crowded around the 'love table' start with propositions."
Cedric choked out a laugh and hurried to catch him up. "You don't sound like you enjoy the attention."
Harry sighed. "I'm never certain if my partner will be more likely to curse anyone trying to proposition me, or laugh at my misery."
"Did I know you had a girlfriend?" Cedric muttered. "I'd been under the impression that your family's ward only invited you as a friend."
"She did, and it's a boyfriend, actually," Harry corrected, grimacing at actually using the term, but Will had been right about it being clearer, in regard to gender. "Fred and George found out from Will, but I don't expect he was much of a mind to explain my romantic aspirations with you last year."
"Ah, no."
"You are still here!" George called as Harry and Cedric stepped off the stairs to the ground floor.
"We were afraid you'd gone for the roof," Fred said, coming out of the backroom and catching Cedric around the shoulders, which made him jump. "You looked a little like you'd a mind to."
"But then George," George said as he stepped up next to Harry and tried to ruffle his hair, which Harry ducked, "reminded me that Harry was up there."
" 'Fred,' I said," Fred continued, " 'you know Harry would never let a fellow quidditch player jump off the roof. No matter what ministry department he works in.' And Fred said–"
"I'm saying you're both completely barking," Harry interrupted. "Fred, let Cedric go so he can get back to work. George, if you try putting whatever is on your hand in my hair again, it'll be war, and we both know how that'll end."
Cedric burst out laughing.
"Told you Harry would cheer him up," the twins told each other.
Harry rolled his eyes and caught Cedric's arm, using it to drag him over to the abandoned register. The cluster of young women and men over at the Valentine's table looked a little like they were sizing Harry and Cedric up for an auction of some sort, and he honestly wanted to escape before they descended on either of them.
"Can I ask," Cedric asked as they reached their respective sides of the checkout counter, "what he meant, by the department I work for mattering?"
Harry sighed. "I'm a werewolf," he explained quietly, and Cedric winced. "Yeah, Magical Creatures isn't my favourite place in the ministry, but my godfather, he said it was a lot worse before the dark lord took over."
"Yeah, my dad says they used to let anyone with even so much as a vague interest look through the werefolk registry, and there weren't any rules about discrimination or any real punishments for hate crimes." He shook his head and handed over the necessary change. "Still, I guess that doesn't help much when we still have a sub-department for the capture or subjugation of feral werefolk."
"It is, unfortunately, something of a necessary evil," Harry replied, because one of the most notable captures after Voldemort's victory was Fenrir Greyback and some of his followers, all of whom took great pleasure in turning children after making them watch their parents die.
The door opened as Harry was handing back Cedric's change, and the two witches and one wizard who'd been on their way over to the register all stopped to look who had come in.
"Tom!" Harry recognised, turning to grin at his partner. "I thought you had meetings today?"
Because Tom had warned him, the night before, that there was to be a meeting of the International Confederation of Wizards, supposedly regarding a secrecy breech along the United States/Canada border, which neither nation was interested in claiming, but previous innocuous meetings had always devolved into arguments about how to handle Golubev's growing threat, which the European nations had been getting louder about since the kidnappings over the summer. And, since Tom was the de facto leader of magical United Kingdom and Ireland, no matter his actual title, he had to be there. So neither of them had expected to see each other until Harry came by that night, assuming the talks didn't drag on for multiple days, as the one called shortly after the Diagon attack had done.
(From what Harry had been hearing, America was leery of stepping on Russian toes, while China was backing Golubev, which made pretty much everyone unaffected by the kidnappings unwilling to push the matter. And Harry knew that Tom, for all that he disapproved of Golubev's supporters' attacks, was of the opinion that his fellow dark lord was welcome to do as he pleased in his own country, which meant it was really just mainland western Europe pleading with the ICW to step in. And while they could be loud, they didn't have the majority vote.)
"There was a break for lunch," Tom replied, his voice only a little tired.
"So you came to Harry?" George called.
"That's so...sickeningly sweet," Fred added.
"Speaking of sweet–" the pair of them chorused, motioning towards the Valentine's display, which the remaining crowd obediently moved out of the way of, clearly having suffered or observed the sales pitch themselves.
"What," Tom asked with that particular tone of resigned amusement that he'd developed for use around the twins, "makes either of you think I need any help wooing Harry?"
(Honestly, a part of Harry was just waiting for his partner to stop finding them just entertaining enough, he didn't need to curse them. It helped, he suspected, that they had no idea who he was.)
"Harry has been remarkably resistant to the charms of hopeful customers," George stage-whispered.
"Even when they've been armed with the best of our attractiveness line," Fred stage-whispered back.
"Merlin grant me patience," Harry told the ceiling, and Cedric choked out a laugh.
Tom snorted and reached past Cedric to catch one of Harry's hands. "Food. Before I give in to the urge to curse someone."
Harry rolled his eyes. "No cursing in the shop; you'll set something off and we'll end up with a citation for endangerment. Fred, George, I'll be back–" he started, only to interrupted by the arrival of a brightly glowing swan patronus.
The patronus came to a stop in front of Tom and said, in the minister's voice, "My Lord, there's been an explosion in the Department of Mysteries. You are required."
Tom's face had gone flat and cold. "It seems," he told Harry, "that lunch will be postponed."
Harry sighed and nodded, giving his partner's hand a quick squeeze before letting go. "I know. You'd best go."
"Stay in the shop," Tom ordered him, before looking at Cedric. "And you, Diggory. You'll only get under foot if you return now."
"Yes, sir," Cedric whispered, his eyes gone wide.
"Scythe," Tom pressed.
"I'll raid Fred and George's cold box," Harry promised. "You'll send word if any of us need to run by St Mungo's?"
Tom gave a short nod, then pulled out his wand and cast his Voldemort glamour, before apparating from the shop.
Harry chanced a glance at the others in the shop, and found them all turning to him with wide, disbelieving eyes. "I may have forgotten to mention that I'm dating Lord Voldemort?" he offered a bit helplessly.
Over by the Valentine's display, someone fainted.
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 || 6 - Living on Your Breath
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
.