Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PROLOGUE 

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Petunia stared at her bedroom ceiling with unseeing eyes.  Vernon was a heavy lump snoring next to her, a familiar assault of sound that she tuned out with the practiced ease of a woman married for almost a decade. Her mind was buzzing, churning with the thoughts she couldn’t rid herself of ever since her knitting group had dragged her off to see that damnable movie.

If she had known they were going to see Labyrinth, she would have begged off.  Petunia’s lips thinned at the thought of it— a group of grown women going to see some absurd fantasy film about goblins and mazes and magic .  It was ridiculous.  It wasn’t normal.  Unfortunately, no one had known what was playing until they arrived at the theater, and the other ladies had jumped at the chance to watch it before Petunia could suggest something more suitable. She had debated putting her foot down, but it just wasn’t worth raising a fuss when the other women were already giggling tipsily about Bowie’s codpiece. There had been no way for Petunia to extricate herself without being rude, and she shuddered at the thought of the sort of gossip that would have arisen if she had tried to sneak away.  No, the best thing for it had been to grin and bear it, and yet— look at where it had gotten her.  Kept awake at night, tormented by possibilities that couldn’t exist.

Magic, she sneered silently. Already that brat was showing signs of it, unnatural thing that he was.  So quiet and cold, staring at her accusingly with a dead woman’s eyes.  Nothing like her lovely, boisterous Diddums. Petunia shivered.  It had been bad enough when she had been able to keep the boy busy, making sure he never had idle hands nor the time to waste to teach himself pointless tricks. He had learned to work young. Petunia had done her duty and made sure of that. No neerdowell flights of fancy were to be had in her house. Despite her best efforts, though, he just wouldn’t behave. Things kept happening around him.

Most of them were subtle and easily hidden. Impossible to remove stains would lift up when his tiny hands scrubbed at them. A dropped dish would hover an inch off the floor instead of dashing itself into bits. Her flowerbeds would remain impossibly green and vibrant even through the hottest part of the summer. Dozens of small things, even, Petunia would grudgingly admit, useful things, but they added up to an unnatural tale plain to see for anyone who cared to look. Petunia lived her days in fear that someone would.  She would have noticed by now, that was for certain.

Not all of the boy’s outbursts were small, however.  Every time Petunia took him out in public, it was a risk that made her heart lodge in her throat and her stomach do flips.  Strange things happened.  Visible things happened. Swings pushed themselves at the park. Grocery bags floated after him like balloons on a string. All sorts of unnaturally friendly animals approached him, and, worst of all, people stared. Oh, not many, not often, but Petunia knew how to recognize Their Kind. They weren’t subtle, grown men prancing around in long dresses and bright wraps.  It just wasn’t right, and the way their eyes would track the boy, fawning and obsessed— Petunia shuddered.  They were the worst kind of criminals, it was plain to see, and every moment he stayed he put her family at risk.

And now he was out of the house, out of her control.  He was going to school with the rest of the normal children and putting them in danger as well.  His kindergarten teacher had called— called! — Petunia a dozen times over the course of the school year to ask prying questions about his freakish habits.  Worse, sometimes she had asked about Harry’s home life , inquiring after his clothes and weight and general unkempt air, as if there was anything Petunia could do to civilize a feral animal.  The boy was as likely to waste good food as to eat it. His table manners were atrocious, and he tried to cram every morsel into his mouth as fast as possible.  He was forever ripping and dirtying his clothes as he traipsed after her poor Dudley and bothered him— and god help her, his hair.   There was nothing to be done about that mess. She had tried!

Harry Potter was a problem that just wouldn’t go away, the burr in her sedate, happy life— which brought her back around to the original problem.  Petunia rolled over on her side, careful not to wake her husband as she watched the shadows cast by the tree outside sway gently across her gauzy bedroom curtains.  

That movie.  Magic was real , Petunia was bitterly aware of the fact.  Nasty magic had dropped a cuckoo in her house to steal time and money away from her deserving family, eating them out of house and home. Labyrinth was a movie , but what if…

What if you could wish away a child?

Petunia’s nails dug into her palms. It was impossible. It was just a story, she told herself.  Just a fanciful waste of time like the rest of the things her sister had knattered on about, changing frogs into teacups and waving wands and— and going to goblin-run banks.  Petunia swallowed, her throat uncomfortably dry.  She had never been of course.  She had stayed behind when her sister and her parents had whisked themselves away from reality without a care or concern, but she had heard stories about Perfect Lily and her wonderful new life away from the rest of them.  Away from Petunia .

If goblins were real,— a thought that Petunia only reluctantly allowed to cross her mind when she was safely ensconced in the darkness where no prying eyes could see— then wasn’t it logical that they’d have a king?  And why wouldn’t goblins want to steal children away?  Wizards had stolen Lily.  They had swept her off and filled her head with grand, colorful daydreams of a magical world, and then they had killed her for it.  She had died. Her sister had died chasing the empty promises spun by a crackpot school and the deranged lunatics who ran it.

And that threat was still out there. Magic had taken Petunia’s only sibling, crashed her parents into an early grave, and it still lurked, hungry for the little oasis of life she had clawed out for herself.  The letter that had accompanied the boy had made it perfectly clear that there were people, terrible people, out there who wanted to hurt him, who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt anyone who stood between them and him .  Petunia shifted uncomfortably in place, rolling over onto her other side to watch her sleeping husband wheeze and snort in that endearingly moist way of his.  The sound was comforting, a much-needed dose of normality to ground her wheeling mind.

Petunia wasn’t heartless.  She had taken the boy in anyway, hadn’t she?  Clutched that asp of a child to her bosom and fed him, clothed him, sheltered him.  She had tried to steer him towards the right path in life, correcting his mistakes with a heavy hand and unwavering discipline.  Was it her fault he was intractable, willful and cold?  That he didn’t listen to good advice and lay his freakishness aside?  No, Petunia had done her best, and no one could judge her for it.  

She found herself sliding out of bed, although she didn’t remember making the decision to get up.

Vernon didn’t stir.  Petunia's footsteps were quiet on the carpeted floor as she made her way out of the bedroom and down the hall.  She tiptoed down the stairs, clutching the railing tightly with her bony fingers, until, at last, she came to a stop in the foyer.  The house was still and hushed around her only the harshness of her own breathing and the monotonous tick of the kitchen clock loud in her ears.  Petunia stared at the outline of the under-the-staircase closet.  The double-bolted door was barely visible in the gloom.

With shaking fingers, she undid the locks and let it swing open on silent hinges. The interior of the cupboard yawned before her, a dark and hungry mouth.  She couldn’t see the boy on his cot, but she could hear his soft, steady exhalations.  Petunia’s chest grew tight.  Later, she wouldn’t have been able to say how long she stood there, trembling and overwhelmed as she listened to the last bit of her sister still on this earth breathe in the darkness.

Harry.

He had just turned six, Petunia thought distantly, swamped by a strange sense of guilt.  His birthday was near the end of July. He was almost the same age as her precious Dudley. Why did that thought make her heartache? It was clear that, despite her and her husband's hopes, there was no chance of turning him away from magic.  In less than five years, one of Them would show up with a letter and a mouthful of honeyed lies, and he would be gone.  

Petunia thought about the last time she had seen her sister, pale and drawn despite the heavy swell of her pregnant stomach.  She had sounded so scared, sitting there lit by the fluorescent bulbs of a late-night diner and whispering dire warnings about dark wizards and strange wars.  Lily hadn’t listened to reason no matter how Petunia had begged.  She had refused to put that wizarding nonsense behind her and return to reality where she would be safe.  Petunia’s sister’s mind had been poisoned long before that night by the sweet lure of magic, and there was no turning back for her.  In the end, the wizarding world had killed Lily.

Soon, it would come for her son.

Standing in the darkness, listening to the boy— her nephew— breathe, Petunia closed her eyes.  It might have been a trick of her mind, but at that moment it felt like the entire world was holding its breath, waiting for her to speak. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

“I wish the goblins would come and take you away…” Petunia whispered so softly she could barely hear it.  “... right now.”

—

Chapter Text

“Well, how was I supposed to know that wishing a child away would actually work?” Petunia hissed.  

She set her teacup down on its saucer atop the coffee table with a sharp click and glared at the man sitting across from her. Her narrow features were pinched and drawn and her gaze refused to settle, darting back and forth with a guilty, apprehensive air. “And I don’t know what you expect me to do about it now after all this time.”

Albus released a heavy sigh and stroked a hand down his long, white beard.  He arranged his face into a mask of stern disappointment, focusing unflinching blue eyes on the nervous woman in front of him. “Harry is your nephew, Petunia. I expected you to take care of him in the first place.” Albus said soberly, leaning forward in his seat to drive his point home.  “Now, let’s go over this incident one more time. How did you even learn about the ritual you used to wish poor Harry away?”

“Ritual?” Petunia repeated, her sour face momentarily going slack with confusion.  “I just spoke the line from the movie.”

Albus waited a moment, then grit his teeth when the petulant woman didn’t continue.  “Movie, my dear?” He prompted with a gentleness he didn’t feel.

Petunia’s lips flattened. “Mrs. Dursley,” she corrected venomously.  “Yes, that stupid fantasy film, the one with the rock star and the goblins. Labyrinth, I think it was called.  Like I told you, it was just something I tried on a whim. I never thought it would actually work.”  She straightened, squaring her bony shoulders. “I don’t see what it matters. The boy was a freak either way,” she spat. “Now he’s in the magical world where he belongs. What does it matter if a goblin took him or a wizard did?  Why must you come disturb my life over this?  It’s not like anyone else remembers him.”  

Petunia wrung her hands, the fingers turning white from the force of her grip.  “After I-- after he was taken, it was like he had never existed in the first place. Vernon doesn’t remember the boy and even the school’s records of him vanished. How do you remember?” She accused more so than asked, jutting her chin out and sticking her nose in the air.

Albus fought the urge to snap back, throttling his anger down. Ignorant, stupid woman.  “Your choice could only affect certain people,” he explained tersely. Muggles mainly, and to his sorrow, squibs; anyone or anything with magic of their own would resist such a broadly cast curse. 

Unfortunately, Arabella had never reported on the boy all that frequently to begin with. She had been established as Harry’s watcher as a backup plan in case the protection from Lily’s sacrifice weakened or failed. In addition, none of the magical wards and alarm systems he had set up to watch over the child alerted him to any issue.  When Arabella’s owls had stopped arriving, Albus had simply never noticed; there were so many other important things to do and Harry was supposed to be safe with his blood relations.  Following up had never become a priority, a fact Albus now had every reason to regret.  

“The magical world remembers Harry,” he continued, forcing his tone to remain calm and patient despite his rumbling anger. Albus pushed on his magic gently, allowing it to flood the space around him with cold rebuke. “And even if the muggle world has forgotten him, that doesn’t change the fact that he was a child in your care .”

When the woman sitting in front of him flinched, a flicker of shame showing in her eyes for the first time since he had shown up on her doorstep, Albus allowed himself a brief flash of vindictive satisfaction. What her foolish actions might have cost him, cost the world -- he cut off that line of thought firmly. If what he suspected was true, all was not yet lost, and it was better to move forward than to dwell on past mistakes. 

Albus took a deep breath and rose to his feet.  There was no point in drawing things out further. This was the third time they had circled through what had happened, and the details he had skimmed from the surface of Petunia’s mind matched her words.  

“When I return with Harry,” he rumbled, gathering his power around his shoulders like a mantle, a thundercloud of magic strong enough for even the dull senses of a muggle to feel.  “I trust that you’ll take better care of him this time, Petunia.”

Petunia gaped at him, floundering for words. “You can’t be expecting to bring him back here,” she stammered at last, jumping up in agitation. “There’s no space, we can’t-- and my son won’t-- it just won’t work!”  

“I’m sure you’ll figure things out,” Albus smiled thinly, peering down at Petunia over the rim of his glasses.  “By some miracle, the wards around this house are still standing, Therefore, as far as the magical world is concerned, Harry still calls this place home. I know you’ll be happy to have the opportunity to reconnect.”  He paused for a moment to allow the circumstances to sink in for her before continuing, “Of course, if there are any issues, I’d be happy to come back to help sort things out.”  His threat was draped in a veneer of good cheer.

Petunia blanched. As if they had come to some sort of agreement, Albus sent a decisive nod her way and swept out of the house in a swirl of magenta robes and fluffy white beard. A flick of the elder wand disillusioned him as he stepped out onto the front stoop, and he took a moment to glance around the muggle neighborhood.  It was calm and quiet, windows shuttered against the baking August sun and occupants scattered to the wider world by their weekday jobs and errands.  

This would have been a wonderful, normal place for Harry to grow up, Albus thought with a pang in his chest.  He’d have had a regular childhood, away from all of the pressures of the wizarding world and the demands that would be placed on his too-small shoulders in far too little time. If only things had worked out as he had planned them. Everything would have been better. Now, Harry was lost, and the bitter muggle-- woman, Albus corrected himself, mindful of old habits. The bitter woman in the stifling house behind him would give the poor child scant comfort when Albus brought him back home. He would have to try to appeal to her better nature, if she had any, or, at the very least, instruct Arabella to keep a closer eye on the situation this time.  

With a last wistful glance around at what could have been, Albus turned on his heel and vanished from sight, expending the extra magic to mute the normal thunder crack of apparition to a soft ‘pop’. He reappeared on the smooth flagstone floor of his cottage with a small flash of light.  In the privacy of his own heavily-warded home, Albus let his shoulders slump and the grief he had been holding back show on his face. So many people’s hopes for a safer future were suddenly uncertain, dashed against the rocks by one wrong choice.  Despite the warm summer weather, he lit the fireplace on the far wall with a flick of a wrist and threw himself down into a worn, comfortably-overstuffed chair to brood on what he had learned.

As impossible as it was to believe, Harry Potter, prophecy child, had been lost and Albus hadn’t even noticed .  It had taken the owl with Harry’s Hogwarts letter returning in a panic, missive undelivered, before he had realized that something had gone wrong. It was fortunate that he had decided to go check on Privet Drive himself, Albus thought grimly. If he had followed his first impulse and sent one of the staff members he trusted out in his stead, who knows how far the story would have spread. If anyone knew what had happened-- no.  Albus straightened in his chair, jaw tensing. The wizarding world needed him. Their faith in his power was the bulwark that kept their darker impulses at bay. While he wasn’t as omniscient as he presented himself -- Merlin, Albus knew his own failings too well to ever believe in the myths he fostered-- it was important that people continued to believe in his abilities.

If they lost faith then when Tom returned he’d find a world ripe for the picking, one already sliding inexorably into decay. There were already too many dark wizards and witches working behind the scenes, nibbling away at common decency and pushing their depraved agendas through back channels. Earlier this year he had been forced to rally support to strike down a bill aimed at forcibly ‘educating’ muggleborns on the magical world, indoctrinating them in the dark arts and encouraging them to forsake their culture of origin.  No, no one could know he had lost track of Harry. The damage to the morale of the wizarding world would be unthinkable.  At least he knew the boy was still alive.  

Albus turned his gaze inward for a moment, shuffling intangible fingers across the spellstrands arrayed in the back of his mind. Each tether was tuned to a different ward or spell, many of them maintained for decades and as much a part of his psyche as any treasured memory.  Here were the wardstone boundaries of Hogwarts, full of ancient, thrumming power that beat a heavy song of protection and shelter for the children who dwelled within its walls. There were the detectors he had scattered around the country, the nasal whine of sensitive instruments tuned to pick up the presence of strong necromantic magic and cry out the first warning sign of Tom’s return. Ah, and here at last was the thin golden strand that was tied to the monitoring array in his office.  It hummed beneath his mental finger, the song of the spell healthy and untroubled.  Harry Potter lived, of that he was certain; the question was now, as what ?

Albus’ heart throbbed in his chest. He closed his eyes, the lines on his face filled with his dread and misery. Children taken by the Fae were changed by their experiences, saturated in old magics and warped to fit their new homes.  An unfortunate soul who wandered into one of the other worlds by accident might wander out again the same way--if they were clever and brave and didn’t make deals or eat from faerie tables--but they were never the same on the other side.  Such children were touched, forever set apart from their mortal fellows and incapable of forgetting the splendors and horrors they had witnessed on the other side of the door where magic still ran fast and deep. Many of those who fought their way home would simply waste away in the end, pining for the hidden suns and secret forests of the sidhe.

Worse, a child traded away was one shorn of the ties to the mundane world they needed to keep their sense of self intact.  Without an anchor holding them firm, they would be washed away in the tides of magic, remade into something other as the Summerlands wished.  It was from these children that new magical races were born, or so the speculation ran, mortal and magical mixed into something entirely new.  That Harry had been traded to the Goblin King of all beings was a dire blow indeed, and yet-- and yet, the spells still sang in the back of his mind, bound by blood and name to Harry Potter . The wards attached to the house of his blood relatives stood strong and firm, as untouched by time as if the boy still lived within. Everything Albus knew about magic told him that Harry Potter must yet exist in a form he would recognize.

Names weren’t as binding to a wizard as they would have been to one of the Fae, but a name and blood together were a potent tie. If Harry had been remade, neither would have had a strong enough connection to the new him, and the spells would have failed.  Albus’ eyes fluttered open as a thought struck him. The prophecy that bound Tom and Harry spoke of a ‘power that he knew not,’ a power that Albus had always assumed was love, but there were other possibilities. His heart began to beat a little faster as he pursued that thought to its inevitable conclusion.

Perhaps this was not a mistake, not a failure on Albus’ part, but the hand of fate at work.

Albus leaned back into his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his chin, turning the puzzle the boy presented over and over in his mind. The shadows lengthened and slipped across the room as the sun began to sink, hazy afternoon light fading away into the lurid glow of sunset.  When he stirred at last, it was to voice a raspy command to a silent room. 

“Fawkes.”

Fire swirled into existence in midair in front of him, coalescing into the bright form of a phoenix as familiar to Albus as the back of his hand.  Fawkes trilled as he fluttered down to rest on Albus’ knee, claws pricking through the thick magenta fabric of his robes as the bird struggled to find his footing.  Albus steadied his friend, running idle fingers along the feathers of his crested head as he butted back and crooned a greeting. Despite the dread that ate at him, Albus couldn’t help but smile. The presence of the phoenix was a blessing that steadied his despairing mind, assuring him time and again of the rightness of his path.  Phoenixes were creatures of the light, drawn to those who were pure of heart and purpose.  When Albus began to doubt his choices, he had only to turn to look at his faithful companion, and his worries would ease.  

“I’ll need your help to visit the Goblin King,” Albus murmured, scratching gently through the feathers in the way he knew his familiar liked best. “He has been given someone who does not belong to him, and I need to win the child free. Will you take me there and back again?”

Fawkes ducked his head obligingly, canting it to one side to catch Albus’ eye with his own.  The dark, glossy bead seemed impossibly wise and knowing. A moment of silent understanding stretched between them. Then the phoenix shuffled his weight around and made a pointed, surprisingly demanding squawk.  Albus chuckled softly as he lifted Fawkes and helped him resettle on the back of the chair while rising to his own feet with a care for his old creaking bones. Youth, he mourned silently, was wasted on the young.

At least age had tempered some of the rashness of his adolescence.  Albus took a moment to marshall his thoughts.  He was no match for a Lord of the Fae in their own realm. No mortal wizard could be, but a man’s real power was never in the wand he wielded but in the people who stood behind him. With a flick of his wand, Albus summoned his vestments and tokens of office from his bedroom. The signet ring denoting his status as Headmaster of Hogwarts was already on his right pinky finger, where it always lived, but the livery collar and sash that marked him Supreme Mugwump zoomed into the room and settled themselves across his shoulders. The golden chain of office that proclaimed him Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot followed in a bright clatter of metal, dropping heavily around his neck and-- Albus winced-- tangling in his beard.  He carefully freed the trapped hairs, then smoothed everything back into place. Transfiguring the side table into a full-length mirror, he inspected his adorned image. The lilac and black silk of the sash did look striking against the heavy mauve fabric of his outer robes.  

“Do you think the Order of Merlin would be too much?” He asked Fawkes in a conversational tone.  Fawkes trilled in reply, the undulating sound somehow derisive.  Albus sighed regretfully.  “You’re right. It would send the wrong message anyway.”  After all, Albus thought as he shifted the sash a little and resettled the overlapping collars of his offices, this was less about his personal power and more about the claim the magical world had on one Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

“Are you ready, my friend?” Albus asked softly, returning the transfigured mirror to its original state with a muttered spell.  Fawkes sang his reply, leaping from the back of the chair in a clatter of feathers and bright sparks. He circled the room once, then alighted upon Albus’ shoulder and spread his wings wide as flames engulfed them both.