Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Halloween, 1981

Something was wrong.

Mary couldn't have said what, of course. She just knew in her gut something wasn't right. Her stomach was churning, the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, and she kept glancing at the wand on her nightstand, just so she could be certain it was still there. 

It was probably just the war, making her paranoid. Everybody spent a lot of time looking over their shoulders nowadays, especially if you were a muggleborn. Mary tried to ignore it, but it was becoming harder and harder to dismiss those feelings, especially since the last time Mary had felt this uneasy she'd stumbled across the corpses of the entire McKinnon family.

Mary's heart twisted. Marlene…

How could somebody’s life just end like that? A girl she’d known since the age of eleven with her whole life ahead of her, just gone! Murdered in cold blood, with all three of her brothers and both of her parents. Six lives snuffed out in less than ten minutes. They hadn’t even had a chance to defend themselves. The Death Eaters had come in the dead of night, and none of the McKinnons had had their wands. 

Mary’s head wasn't right after Marlene. She had quit the Order, moved back in with her mother and was spending a lot of time at the pub. Every night, she woke up gasping and breathless from dreams of the cold, dead eyes of the McKinnons staring down at her from the sky where the Dark Mark had been floating above their house. Every time she went anywhere near Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, Mary started to get heart palpitations. She just couldn’t cope anymore. She was even considering starting a course at a secretarial college and leaving the magical world for good. 

So, these strange feelings had to be her mind playing tricks on her. All the war trauma was making her overthink things.

But despite what she wanted to convince herself, Mary just knew something wasn’t right. You didn't get an Outstanding in your Divination N.E.W.T. without some sixth sense for something being off, and Mary had a gut feeling that something had gone wrong. 

She sighed and finally got out of bed, changing her clothes with the flick of her wand. Mary knew sleep would evade her until she checked up on the Potters. They’d been in hiding for a few months now, ever since it had come out that You-Know-Who was targeting them. Mary wasn’t entirely sure why he was after them in particular, although she suspected it had something to do with an explosive battle in Hogsmeade six months ago where James had narrowly escaped death at the hands of You-Know-Who himself. People who got away from his wand like that normally ended up dead sooner or later, so they’d needed to hide before something bad happened.

And if the Potters were truly in that much danger, it wouldn’t hurt for Mary to just pop her head in quickly. Just in case. Mary knew they were protected by some complex Charm she couldn’t quite remember the name of, but it never hurt to be certain. Lily and James were normally awake at this late hour, anyway, because of the twins. Besides, Lily was always saying that Mary needed to stop by more…

She Apparated straight out of her room and into a dark alley in Godric’s Hollow, and instinctually glanced up to the sky to check for the Dark Mark. Mary sighed with relief - nothing but the stars and a couple of clouds. Good. Her panic had just started to fade when Mary caught a whiff of smoke. She turned the corner, and it felt like the world stopped spinning.

Lily and James’ cottage was completely and utterly destroyed. The windows were dark, the front door was hanging off its hinges, and the entire top floor had exploded, leaving rubble strewn across the garden.

Someone was screaming. It turned out to be Mary.

She rushed forward as soon as she gathered her senses, ears ringing, images of the McKinnons’ dead bodies flashing through her mind. She was about to find more of her friends dead…

In the darkness, Mary tripped over something on the floor. She glanced down and saw James lying there, glasses askew, blood dripping out of his mouth.

“Oh, James,” she whispered, pressing a hand to her chest. Mary felt like she was going to vomit. As she stared at him, Mary became suddenly aware of something odd. James was twitching. Convulsing. She jerked back and gasped. What was going on? The Killing Curse wasn’t supposed to do that, it killed instantly! Could James be alive?

“Mary? MARY! HELP ME!”

Mary started at the sound of Sirius’ shouts carrying from upstairs. She cast one last agonised look back at James’ convulsing body before sprinting up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time until she found herself in the ruined nursery. This must have been where the explosion had taken place, judging by the severe damage. At first she remained frozen outside, unable to enter, unable to bear the sight of those two dead babies, but Sirius’ continual shouts spurred her on.

As Mary willed herself through the crater that was once the doorway, she saw Sirius clutching two wailing babies to his chest, his back to Lily’s body. Like James, she was jerking on the floor, her whole body rigid and tense.

“Help me, please!” Sirius begged, tears streaming down his face. Mary was so out of it that it took her a moment to realise the babies he was holding were alive, so wonderfully alive and crying…

“Jesus Christ!” Mary shouted, rushing over to Sirius as she caught sight of one of them - Simon, if she was right. His face was utterly mangled, cheek shredded to pieces, the wound so deep Mary thought she could see straight into his mouth as he screamed his poor little heart out. Harry didn’t look much better, with blood dripping down his forehead.

What had happened here? How had the four Potters survived an encounter with what only could have been Voldemort? And where was Voldemort, anyway? Had he caused the explosion? He wasn’t one for loose ends - why had he left them alive?

“Take the boys, get them to St Mungos, I need to go,” Sirius said, shoving the babies at her. His robes were wet with blood.

“No you bloody well don’t!” Mary shrieked. “You can’t leave!”

“I HAVE TO!” Sirius shouted. His eyes looked wild and unfocused. “PETER DID THIS, HE BETRAYED THEM! I’LL KILL HIM!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“JAMES AND LILY ARE DEAD BECAUSE OF HIM-”

“THEY AREN’T DEAD!” Mary bellowed, shocking Sirius into silence. In his panic, he mustn’t have checked. “But they will be if we don’t get them and the twins to St Mungo’s! We can sort it out later, whatever you’re saying about Peter, but we need to get them to a Healer now! Come on!”

It took them about a long to go back and forth as they Apparated the babies, James and Lily to St Mungo’s, since Mary was terrified of accidentally splinching somebody and injuring them further. By the time they’d managed it there were dozens of people: Healers and Aurors and reporters and Dumbledore, all vying for their attention and stopping them from going anywhere. Sirius Black was immediately detained but released quickly upon further questioning. He never got into a fiery, explosive duel with Peter Pettigrew. The man in question was apprehended after a month-long manhunt in the garden of the Weasley family. Poor, stupid Pettigrew - of course he’d turn straight to a wizarding family for safety. How he’d managed to slip under the radar as a Death Eater spy for so long was a mystery. The situation was really a Ministry scandal, especially when he managed to blow up five Muggles and half of Arthur Weasley’s hand during the arrest. No one had been expecting him to fight back so viciously - he was Peter Pettigrew, after all. A weak, mediocre wizard. 

Because of his Animagus form, Peter wasn’t kept in a barred cell. It was too much of a risk, they’d said. No, Peter was kept in a windowless room, really more of a box, with a heavy iron door that could only be penetrated by the Dementors’ misery. There was a small vent at the top, too high to reach, which his screams could pass through. They’d thought that was enough.

Nobody thought weak Peter Pettigrew could transform into a rat without a wand. Of course, nobody had thought that Peter Pettigrew could ever become an Animagus, or that he could be a spy for the Dark Lord. Nobody suspected that Peter Pettigrew would spend so much time in his cell as a rat, scratching away at the flimsy mortar binding the bricks of Azkaban for thirteen long years, until a brick finally came loose enough for him to pop it out and squeeze through the gap.

Underestimating your enemy was never wise.

Chapter Text

When Harry had first started getting to know Simon, he had been extraordinarily excited for a number of reasons. To someone who had been raised as an only child, getting a brother - let alone a twin brother - had seemed like it could be nothing but fun. 

However, he'd now been living with Simon for three years and Harry had come to a realisation - brothers could be really, really annoying.

"Simon, you've taken my shirts again!" Harry shouted, slamming his wardrobe door shut with more force than was strictly necessary.

"So?” Simon challenged from across the hall. “You're not wearing them right now, are you?"

"Yes, but then they still go back to my laundry pile and Mum always makes me fold them!" Harry complained. "Besides, it’s my stuff! Wear your own bloody clothes!"

"Well you have all the good band t-shirts!" Simon shot back. 

"I have all the good ones because I bought them with my own money!" Harry said angrily.

"You get more money than me!" Simon accused.

"Yeah, money that I work for at the apothecary instead of screwing around all summer playing my stupid guitar!"

"It's not my fault you're better at Potions than me -" 

"Oh for the love of God, stop bickering!" Lily shouted from downstairs. "If you two don't shut it then you’re banned from the World Cup!"

"What?"

"No!"

"He started it!"

"I don't care, just stop shouting! You are giving me a migraine!"

"Listen to your mother!" James added from nearby. He was running around the house, digging through cupboards and collecting up potions. It had been the full moon the night before, and Remus and Sirius had depleted the supply of potions at their house. "Simon, I'll duplicate you some shirts when I come home."

"But Transfigured shirts disintegrate so quickly!" Simon complained.

"Well, seeing as you didn't even buy the shirts in the first place, I think you'll live," James said, rolling his eyes. "Bye, boys."

"Bye," Harry said. As James went downstairs, Simon shuffled into Harry’s bedroom and gave him a slightly penitent look. He’d never actually say the words ‘I’m sorry’, but that was his way of apologising. 

"Want to see if Ron's around for Quidditch?" Harry asked.

"I’d love to."

All in all, Harry reflected, things could really be worse. Despite their occasional fights, having a brother around was far more fun than being stuck by himself all summer. 

As Simon headed into the living room to ask their mother’s permission to go over to the Burrow and fly, Harry went into the back garden to get their brooms out of the shed. Even though they couldn’t fly in the garden, since they lived in muggle-inhabited Lewes, it was easier to store the brooms in there since space in the house had become a little less available after Simon and James had moved in. Harry’s parents had decided that was the course to take after they’d started dating again, since Lily’s house was close to the apothecary, while James could Floo into the Auror office from anywhere. It had also successfully managed to stay out of the way of the press. James had even sold the London house Simon had grown up in. Since Sirius technically owned half of it James was originally going to let it be, but Sirius and Remus had actually ended up moving into the house across the road from Mary and Darren a month after James and Lily’s wedding. Harry liked that - all of his family were now together in one place.

When Harry thought of his parents rekindling their relationship, one word always came to mind - proud. They hadn't just rushed into marriage, that had been made incredibly clear to Harry and his brother. In fact, Harry's parents had proactively put themselves into marriage counselling to make sure that nothing like their original divorce ever happened again. They'd even taken Harry and Simon to a few sessions, to make sure they were "properly adjusting" or something. Harry had thought it was ridiculous at the time - he and Simon had been thrilled from the off about everything - but it did fill him with a comforting sense of security to know that his parents were really doing their best to make sure things worked out.

Mary, Darren, Remus and Sirius had been heavily involved on all fronts as well, both with their parents and with Harry and Simon. All four adults had given their word that even if James and Lily split up again, they would personally ensure that nothing like the original custody agreement would ever happen again. All in all, Harry couldn’t have been happier.

“Hey, Harry!” Simon shouted from inside the house. “Get a move on!”

“Coming!” he called, grabbing the brooms and running inside.

After a full day of playing pick-up Quidditch with Ron and all his brothers, excluding Percy, of course, they all rushed into the Burrow tired but happy. Ron’s eldest brothers, Bill and Charlie, were both staying for a few weeks to go to the Quidditch World Cup, and Harry had been beyond thrilled to fly with the famous Charlie Weasley. As a fellow Seeker, he’d spent all day asking him question after question about his snitch-catching techniques.

“So when are Neville and Hermione coming to stay with you?” Harry asked Ron.

“Day after tomorrow,” Ron said. “I wish you two could sleep over earlier!”

“Same, but it’s practically a miracle our parents are letting us stay with you at all,” Simon commented, setting down his broom next to the back door of the Burrow. “You know what they’re like.”

“Are you guys excited for the World Cup, then?” Fred asked.

“Of course!” Harry said with a grin. “Remind me to thank your dad again for getting us tickets. We wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise, Dad and Sirius are on duty.”

“They’re so annoyed,” Simon added. “The two of them worship Quidditch. They’ve spent the last month begging their boss to give them crowd control duty at the stadium so they can still watch from the sidelines.”

“They managed to get tickets to the England game the other week, though,” Harry said, “so it’s not like they’ve missing everything.”

George snorted. “I’d say it’s better to not go at all than to go to the England game! Losing three hundred and ninety to ten against Transylvania? It was humiliating…”

As they entered the kitchen, Mrs Weasley smiled at the group of them from behind a hissing grey pot. “There you are! Fred, George, go set the table. Dinner’s almost ready.”

The twins groaned as they headed over to the cutlery drawer while Mrs Weasley turned to Harry and Simon, leaving a large saucepan to stir itself. “Harry, Simon, you’re free to stay with us and eat if you’d like, just Floo your parents and let them know. I’ve made enough food here to feed an army!”

“Thanks, Mrs Weasley,” Harry said happily. He was fairly certain James had decided to try his hand at cooking tonight, something which Harry was keen to avoid if possible. Despite the fact that Mary had insistently been giving them weekly cooking lessons for the last year and a half, James, Sirius and Remus were still appalling cooks. They’d improved somewhat, but almost everything they’d cooked was still burnt and a little bland. The only person in the group who had finally been able to learn to put a decent meal together was Sirius, surprisingly enough. Unfortunately, he’d also become a fan of experimenting with different flavours. There had been a few interesting meals, but most of the combinations he came up with were boring at best and vile at worst. 

"I'll make the Floo call," Simon said to him. Harry dutifully followed his brother to the fireplace and put a hand on his shoulder while Simon stuck his head into the green flames. Harry still thought that was a ridiculous rule - how would a Dark wizard even know Simon was making a Floo call, let alone from the Burrow, just in time to pull him through? Still, Harry didn't dare ignore it with Mrs Weasley so close by. She’d surely tell their parents, and Harry did not want to get his World Cup permission revoked.

While he stood guard, movement from Mrs Weasley’s enchanted family clock on the mantelpiece caught his eye. Mr Weasley’s hand was spinning from ‘work’ to ‘travelling’. Harry had always thought those kinds of enchantments were rather impressive pieces of magic, and he liked learning about the different ways wizarding families kept track of each other. He knew Neville’s grandmother had a small notebook that automatically wrote down the locations of her various relatives, for instance, while Aunt Mary always wore a necklace with a pendant that let her feel Darren’s heartbeat and heated up when he arrived home.

Harry’s mother had recently set up four small bottles on their mantelpiece at home that were disguised as reed diffusers. They were actually potions styled after Mrs Weasley’s clock. The liquid changed colour depending on location and situation, and each bottle was linked to a different Potter. Harry had seen the liquid change to a few different colours since Lily had set them up two years ago: clear for when they were home, purple for at work or school, green for travelling. Then, of course, had been the day where James’ bottle had turned an inky black and had started emitting a strong smell of lavender. That, Harry had learned, meant mortal peril. He, his mother and Simon had all sat together for fifteen agonising minutes until the potion had changed to a deep crimson, indicating that their father was in the hospital. As it turned out, he’d been hit by a dangerous hex while chasing a criminal. Luckily enough, that had been the only time Harry had seen the bottles change colour, but apparently his mother had witnessed it once before when he and Simon had gone into the Chamber of Secrets together to rescue Ginny back in second year. It had allowed her to get to Hogwarts before Harry and Simon had even surfaced from the Chamber, just in time to fret about them and then shout at them for putting themselves in such danger. 

“Alright, we’ve got permission,” Simon said, pulling himself up from the fireplace and dusting his knees off. “Mum says it’s probably better off us being here anyway, between the moon and it being August fifteenth.”

He walked off without another word, leaving a confused Harry in his wake. While Mrs Weasley plated up the food, Harry slid in between Ron and his brother at the table and tapped Simon on the shoulder. “Er - hello? What does today being August fifteenth have to do with anything?”

“You don’t know?” Simon asked. “It’s Regulus’ birthday. Sirius always gets really down, so Dad and Remus try to bolster him up a bit.”

“I had no idea,” Harry said, feeling a pang of sympathy for Sirius. A part of Harry felt a little guilty for not knowing, even though there was no way he could have. Sometimes, he felt like he’d known Simon, Remus, Sirius and Dad his whole life, but moments like that reminded Harry that he’d only really known them for a couple of years. It was normally just the little things, like Harry not knowing that James liked lemon drizzle cake, or Simon forgetting Darren’s middle name, but sometimes larger things like that reared their ugly heads and reminded Harry of just how much he’d missed. 

“Are you sure we shouldn’t be with him?” Harry asked.

“Nah,” Simon said, shaking his head. “You know how they all try to stay strong in front of us, it’s probably better off if we’re out of the way. Sirius’ll be fine.”

Harry hoped so. After quickly doing the maths in his head, he realised it would be fifteen years in December since Regulus had died. Even though he knew Sirius and Regulus had had a difficult relationship, it still had to be difficult to lose a brother. Harry couldn’t even imagine what he’d do if something happened to Simon. The mere thought made something uncomfortable and ugly twist in his gut.

“Did I hear you mention Sirius?” Percy asked loudly, sitting across from them and serving himself some potatoes. “Can you please tell him I’ve been trying to get a meeting with him for over a week now? Bertha Jorkins has been missing for almost a month, and as the Auror in charge of her case he should really be giving the Department more notice about the progression of his investigation so we know if we should be delegating her work! We can’t pull off the World Cup if the Department of Magical Games and Sports don’t do their bit!”

“Er - sure,” Harry agreed, even though he was certain neither him or Simon would do anything of the sort. 

“Bertha will show up eventually,” Mr Weasley said dismissively. Harry jumped slightly - he hadn't noticed the man come in. “She constantly gets lost, you know.”

“Well, if I was Ludo Bagman, I’d be making far bigger of an effort to find the woman!” Percy said sniffily. “Mr Crouch would never let a member of his Department go missing like this, I think it says a lot about Ludo…”

“I like Ludo,” Mr. Weasley said mildly. “He was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favour, actually. His brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble - a lawnmower with unnatural powers - I smoothed the whole thing over.” 

“Thanks again for inviting us, by the way,” Harry added.

Mr Weasley smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “No problem, Harry, it’s our pleasure!”

“Who do you reckon’s gonna win?” Ron asked. “My money’s on Ireland.”

“I don’t see Ireland having one Viktor Krum flying with them, do you?” Harry said, raising an eyebrow. “As if Lynch could beat him to the snitch!”

“And once again, Harry, you overestimate the power of a good Chaser,” Simon said airily. “Ireland’s team are practically brain linked, they’ll outstrip Bulgaria’s points before you can say Quidditch!” 

“You would say that, being a Chaser,” Harry said, nudging him. “You’re biased.”

“I’m biased? Take a look in the mirror, you idiot!”

“The only idiot here is the guy who took a Bludger to the head in the Ravenclaw game last year because he was too busy staring at Naomi Meadowes’ hair…”

“You promised you would let that go!” 

Harry nearly fell off his chair between Simon’s shove and his own laughter. 

After a fun evening with the Weasleys, Harry and Simon stumbled out of the fireplace and into the living room at home. The only person home there was Lily, who had turned the room into what Harry liked to call a ‘research hurricane’. There were seven open textbooks, dozens of crumpled up pieces of parchment strewn across the floor, and even more notes and diagrams scattered across every available surface. Lily, who was chewing on the end of a quill, smiled at them as they came inside.

“Good day?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Harry said, picking up a list of crossed-out ingredients while Simon went outside to put their brooms back in the shed. “What potion are you working on this time?” 

“The improved formulation of Wolfsbane,” Lily sighed, crumpling up the piece of parchment she had been writing on and throwing it to one side. Cleo shot out from beneath the coffee table and started batting it with his paws. “Remus tried my latest formula last night, but it didn’t really work. It made him far more aggressive, it must have been the dragon’s liver…any ideas?”

“Hmm…have you thought about peppermint and lavender?” Harry suggested. “They interact well in Calming Draughts, after all.”

“You might be onto something there,” Lily said, noting that down. “That won’t neutralise the aconite, either. Good idea, Harry.”

He beamed at his mother’s praise. Mary and Lily both liked to try their hand at developing potions, particularly Lily, they occasionally consulted Harry for ideas when they were stuck. Even though Harry wasn’t nearly as experienced or knowledgeable as the two of them, he’d always been rather skilled at coming up with ingredients and substitutions that were outside of the box. One time, his mother had even credited Harry in a research paper for an improved Babbling Beverage when he’d realised adding fluxweed would increase the duration. 

Harry scanned what Lily was writing and frowned. “That’s a lot of peppermint. Won’t that put Remus in a borderline coma?”

“Yes and no,” Lily said. “Potions are already far less potent on werewolves, as you know - otherwise we’d just be drugging them with Calming Draughts and Sleeping Solution from the off - so he’ll be able to stay up despite the higher dose. Besides, I think Remus would much rather be unconscious for the transformation at any rate, so it wouldn’t be a bad side effect…”

“Poor Remus,” Harry said softly. It was impossible for him to just accept Remus’ transformations as a part of life. Seeing the way it drained the energy from his uncle made Harry so upset and angry, since he just knew there had to be some way to fix the transformation that nobody had cared enough to find yet. The Wolfsbane potion had only been discovered in the last decade, after all. Potion-based lycanthropy research was still so new, and that left Harry convinced there was a permanent cure out there. He’d find it himself if he had to.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to figure this out,” Lily said, squeezing his forearm. “I know we can’t help him in the way your father and Sirius do, but I’m almost certain we can find a way to ease his transformations, even if we don’t know if we can stop them completely.”

“You know,” Simon called, sliding the back door shut, “we actually could help Remus like Dad and Sirius -”

“No.” Lily said sternly. “You are not becoming an Animagus. You’re fourteen years old!”

“Dad and Sirius started the Animagus process when they were fourth-years!”

“And as your father and Sirius have frequently told you, they nearly got themselves killed multiple times during the process!” Lily said loudly. “Sirius had a tail for a month, you’ll recall! When poor Professor McGonagall found out they’d taught themselves when they finally registered, she nearly had a heart attack at the thought of underage students attempting that kind of magic on their own! It’s not happening.”

“But we wouldn’t be doing it on our own!” Harry protested. He and Simon had intentionally worked themselves to the bone all of last year to pull off Outstandings in Transfiguration in a vain attempt to be allowed to start learning Animagus magic from their father. That wasn’t an easy feat, either, since Transfiguration was one of Harry’s weaker subjects. Despite that, they still didn’t have permission.

“My answer’s final,” Lily said, shaking her head. “No Animagus magic.”

“What’s this I hear about Animagi?” James said, shutting the front door. 

“Your sons are harassing me again!” Lily said as James joined them in the living room.

“It’s not that dangerous!” Simon protested.

“Oh, yes it is,” James said, crossing his arms. 

“Not that dangerous with you and Sirius there, he meant,” Harry added quickly.

“What’s the rush?” James asked, dropping into an armchair. “I’ll teach you eventually, you know.”

“But we want to help Remus now!” Harry said.

James grimaced. “Even if I was teaching you -”

“-Which he isn’t,” Lily chimed in.

“Yes, well even if I agreed, Remus would never let you go with him during moons,” James said. 

That was true, Harry reflected. One of Remus’ biggest fears was that he’d put Harry or Simon in danger during the full moon. He intentionally Apparated to the most deserted woodlands he could find as a result, even though the Wolfbane allowed Remus to keep his mind and rendered him harmless.

“You will teach us eventually?” Simon said, tilting his head.

“Of course,” James promised. “You have my word.”

Lily waved her wand, causing the scraps of parchment to swirl up into a small tornado-like shape. They drifted through the air and dropped into the wastepaper bin, along with a couple of broken quills. All of the textbooks shut themselves and flew back into the bookshelf. 

“That’s me done for the day,” she announced. “Simon, did you finish that Potions essay you were working on earlier?”

Simon flushed. “Er…”

“Go do it now,” Lily sighed. “You’ve had all summer to do this! School starts in a week and a half! ”

“I’m nearly done!” Simon said quickly. “It’s just a few finishing touches, that’s all.”

“Well, go do them,” James said, waving his hand in the direction of the staircase. “You’ll want your homework all out of the way before the World Cup!”

“I’ll help you,” Harry volunteered. He knew perfectly well that Simon was lying about ‘finishing touches’. He hadn’t so much as cracked open a Potions textbook yet.

Simon shot him a grateful look, and the two of them headed upstairs. As soon as they were out of their parents’ earshot, Harry leaned in closer and murmured, “I need to borrow your star chart. I haven’t finished my Astronomy homework.”

“I should’ve known this would be a quid pro quo,” Simon muttered, elbowing him.

“Hey!” Harry protested, shoving him back. “You owe me, this is for Snape! If I wasn’t helping you out with your Potions homework, you’d spend all your evenings in detention with him! The least you can do is give me the properties of Jupiter’s moons…”

“You’re right, I guess,” Simon sighed. “I still don’t think it’s fair that you copy my work word-for-word and I have to do a whole different Potions essay in my own words.”

“Yeah, but Snape’s not fair,” Harry said. “You know perfectly well that if our assignments were even the tiniest bit similar, he’d say you were plagiarising.”

“Which I am.”

“True, but he can’t prove that, can he?” Harry grinned. “Let’s get started, then.”

Despite Harry’s best attempts to tutor Simon, he still took a little while to fully grasp Potions concepts. Harry could normally get him up to speed on the brewing side of things, but essays were a whole different ball game. Simon struggled to verbalise the processes behind brewing, something which Snape pounced on with harsh marks and frequent detentions unless Harry or Hermione proofread his work. Hermione, of course, would insist that Simon do the assignment almost entirely on his own since she hated cheating, but Harry tended to just do most of it for him in exchange for Astronomy homework help. 

“Now,” Harry announced, “what do you know about the properties of adder’s tongue?”

Simon frowned and leaned back on his elbows. “Well, it creates an acidic base…”

Two days later, Harry was racing around the house doing a bit of last minute packing for the World Cup. He didn’t have a clue where he’d left his wand. Even though they weren’t allowed to do magic in the summer, James had still ordered him to have it on him during the trip, just in case. 

Unfortunately, as Harry scanned the messy floor of his bedroom, he couldn’t even hear himself think over the blaring of rock music coming from Simon’s room. It was ironic, really - before he’d met Harry, Simon’s only real experience with music had been a couple of Weird Sisters albums that Sirius and Remus liked. Harry, who had been raised on all sorts of music from rock to disco by Mary and Lily, had lent Simon his Walkman when he’d expressed interest once and now his brother was obsessed. His love of music far outstripped Harry’s now, and he’d been taking guitar lessons for over a year. Simon had even started mentioning an interest in starting a rock band at Hogwarts, something which Harry’s parents had been thrilled about. Harry was less excited, since it was almost a guarantee that Simon was going to bully him into learning to play the drums or something. 

With a sigh, Harry gave up on his bedroom and decided to check downstairs. He whacked Simon’s door a few times on his way out, and the volume of the music reduced a little. As Harry turned into the living room, he jumped a little at the sight of Mary, who was lying on the sofa. She was supposed to be at the apothecary with Harry’s mother.

Upon seeing Harry, she gave him a thin smile. “Harry, love, could you grab me an Anti-Nausea Draught out of the cupboard?” 

“Sure,” Harry said, frowning a little as he retrieved the draught from the kitchen and handed it over to Mary. “Is everything alright?”

“Fine, fine, I’m just feeling a little under the weather,” she said, downing the potion in one gulp. “Lily’s taking over in front for the rest of the day so I can rest.”

She did look a little peaky, Harry thought. “Why’d you come here? Don’t you have potions at home?”

“I fell out of the Floo, if you can believe it,” she said ruefully. 

“How?” Harry asked, ducking down to see if his wand had rolled under the sofa. Cleo, who liked to hide under there, stared at Harry with his glowing yellow eyes. Harry scratched him behind the ears. “Did you say the address wrong or something?”

“I’m not sure.” Mary sighed. “My magic’s been all kinds of wonky this last week, actually. I tried to Summon a book and it flew completely in the wrong direction, and when I tried to make the potatoes chop themselves for dinner last night the knives nearly hit Darren’s finger!” 

“Do you think you should see a Healer or something?” 

“I’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning,” Mary said. “Don’t worry yourself about it, I’ve probably just got Wizard’s Flu.”

Harry stood up and groaned before heading over to the bookshelf.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“My wand.”

“I doubt it’s going to be in the bookshelf!” Mary said wryly.

“Knowing me, it could be anywhere…”

“Harry!” James called, his footsteps thundering down the stairs. “I’ve got your wand!”

He turned around just in time to catch the wand out of the air as James threw it, and tucked it into the pocket of his jeans.

“You really ought to keep better track of that, Harry,” James said, raising his eyebrows. “Even though you’re not allowed to use magic in the summers, it’s always better to have a wand on you just in case something happens.”

“I know, I know…” he grumbled.

“Have you finished packing for the Weasleys?” James asked.

“Pretty much, that was just the last thing I needed,” Harry said. “I’ll go grab Simon, I think he’s ready, too -” 

“Hang on a second,” James interrupted, grabbing his arm. “I need a quick word first.”

“Er - okay?” Harry followed his father into the kitchen, feeling a little confused.

“Make sure you stick with your brother at all times, okay?” James said in a very serious tone. “Your mother and I are only allowing this because you two are there to look after each other. There are going to be all sorts of reporters at the World Cup who might start coming after him when they see him, and I don’t want him to get in trouble on his own.”

“I’ll stay close,” Harry promised. “Look, Fred and George even gave me some flash bomb things they invented.” He pulled the small, glowing purple crystals out of his pocket and showed them to James. “If anyone starts crowding Simon I’ll smash them and get him away while they’re distracted.”

“That’s my boy,” James said, rubbing his shoulder. “Just watch out for each other, alright? Do not wander off alone. Oh, and stick closely to the Weasleys, too, and -”

“Dad!” Harry said loudly. “We’ll be fine!”

“I know, I just worry,” James said. “I’m sure it’ll all be okay.”

“Yes, it will be!” Harry stressed. One of the things James and Lily’s counsellor was apparently working on with them was the endless paranoia. The World Cup was a big first step for Harry’s parents, since before James in particular barely allowed Simon into the garden without supervision. “I’m going to go grab my bag now, I’ll be down in a minute.”

As he hurried up the stairs, Harry heard James ask, “So what's this about you falling out of the Floo?”, followed by some raucous laughter and groaning on Mary’s part.

After retrieving his bag and Simon, Harry stood in front of the fireplace, grabbed a handful of Floo powder and threw it into the flames. Part of him thought he should really hurry to the Burrow in case his dad changed his mind at the last minute. “Bye, Dad!”

“See you two soon!” James said. “Make sure you’re polite to the Weasleys, okay? And if there’s any problems, you can find me or Sirius on duty at the campsite, or -”

“For God’s sake, James, stop hounding the poor boys!” Mary said loudly. 

James settled for sheepishly waving as Harry stepped into the flames and shouted, “the Burrow!” 

Harry barely had time to right himself after the nauseating Floo journey before he was hit full-speed by one of Hermione’s hugs.

“I’ve missed you!” she cried.

“I missed you too, Hermione,” Harry gasped, trying to catch his breath. Over her shoulder, Harry could see Neville similarly attacking Simon while Ron watched on with an amused grin. “So how was Greece?”

“It was amazing!” she said, beaming. “Athens has a simply fascinating magical history. Did you know a lot of the Ancient Greeks -”

Hermione’s impending lecture on Greek magic was abruptly cut off by a sudden shout from the kitchen. “FRED! GEORGE! I TOLD YOU TO STOP LEAVING THESE RIDICULOUS FAKE WANDS OUT EVERYWHERE!” 

“Upstairs, quick!” Ron whispered, seizing Harry and Simon by the elbows and half-dragging them towards the staircase. As they travelled, Harry saw Ginny’s bedroom door swing open. She immediately blushed crimson and slammed her door shut. Harry couldn’t help but smile a little. Ginny had always had a huge crush on Simon, but she’d mostly managed to act normal around Harry until the end of second year, when he and Simon had both rescued her from the Chamber. Her level of hero-worship had never gotten quite so bad with Harry, but she still got a little nervous around him. Harry honestly found it endearing. He was trying to coax her out of it, since the regular Ginny Weasley he’d gotten to know before she’d turned shy around him was actually quite good fun.

“Why’s your mum so annoyed?” Simon whispered as they slipped inside of Ron’s bright orange bedroom. “I thought she found out about Weasley Wizarding Wheezes weeks ago!”

“Neville accidentally ate one of the twins’ Ton-Tongue Toffees this morning,” Ron said, casting a sympathetic look in Neville’s direction.

“It wasn’t too bad,” Neville said with a shrug. “Bill managed to fix my tongue before it got too long.”

“Mum still flipped, though,” Ron said. “She hates that joke shop of theirs. She’s convinced Fred and George are throwing their lives away, she wants them to get nice, proper jobs at the Ministry like Percy…”

“Your oldest brothers are curse-breakers and dragon-tamers though,” Harry pointed out. “It’s not exactly like starting a joke shop is the most unconventional career path in your family!”

“She wasn’t happy with them, either, I’ll have you know! You weren’t here when Mum found out that Bill was moving to Egypt,” Ron said darkly. “It was chaos for weeks…”

“I reckon Dad, Sirius and Remus would get a kick out of their joke shop,” Simon said to Harry. That, Harry thought, was certainly true. His father and uncles had a very playful sense of humour. He’d been the subject of multiple pranks over the last few years, but hadn’t managed to get revenge without one of them catching on yet. 

“How is Professor Lupin?” Hermione asked. Harry and Simon exchanged knowing smiles - despite Remus’ fierce requests otherwise, Hermione still insistently used Remus’ professor title when she’d visited them during the summer.

“He’s alright,” Harry said hesitantly, “considering everything…”

Remus had been rather down for the majority of the summer. It was so difficult for him to find work, and he’d thought he finally had stable employment when he got the Defence Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts - until someone had leaked the fact he was a werewolf to the students at the end of the year, that was. Harry’s relatives had all insisted he try and stay on anyway, since he hadn’t actually done anything wrong, but the Howlers had just gotten too much and Remus had finally cracked under the strain and quit. 

“I still think it was Snape who ratted him out.” Ron scowled. “Greasy git.”

“It seems like something he’d do,” Neville said with a slight shiver. Even discussions of Snape made him turn white. 

“We all think it was Snape as well,” Simon said grimly. “Do you remember the way he was always gunning for Remus during cover lessons after the full moon? It was ridiculous!”

“Honestly, the only thing that stopped Mum from marching into Hogwarts and giving Snape a piece of her mind was the fact that we didn’t have any real evidence,” Harry grumbled, wrinkling his nose at the mere thought of Snape.

“Oh, I’d have killed to see that,” Ron said delightedly. “I bet she’d have humiliated him!"

“Who do you think they’re going to replace Professor Lupin with?” Hermione asked.

“I actually know a little about that,” Simon said. “My dad’s old mentor, Mad-Eye Moody, might be coming out of retirement and doing it. They’re having a hard time convincing him to take the job, apparently. He’s convinced it’s jinxed.”

“I’m pretty sure it is jinxed.” Ron frowned. “We’ve never had a teacher last more than a year, have we? Quirrell blew up or whatever, Lockhart got sacked after it came out that he’d plagiarised all his work, and Remus got forced into quitting.”

“Coincidence?” Neville suggested.

“I bet if I asked Fred and George, they’d know more,” Ron said.

“Ask us what, dearest brother?” Fred said, poking his head into the room. Despite the fact he’d just spent the last five minutes being reamed by Mrs Weasley, he still seemed rather cheerful, as did George.

“Who was your Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor before Quirrell?” Harry asked.

“We had two, actually,” George said. “Professor Amberley went on maternity leave during second year and never came back…”

“Our first year was the interesting one, though,” Fred said. “A seventh-year cast a dodgy spell and the ceiling caved in on Professor Perez and snapped his neck.”

“Bloody hell!” Simon said, looking slightly horrified.

“That’s nothing!” A voice called - Charlie, if Harry wasn’t mistaken. “My professor back in fourth year managed to blow up the third-floor corridor and himself. It took them months to repair the damage to the castle…”

“It might really be cursed, then,” Hermione said worriedly. 

“Oh, it’s definitely cursed,” Charlie said. “Even Bill had a different Professor every year, and a fair few of them met messy ends…”

“Maybe it’s better if Mad-Eye doesn’t take the job, then,” Simon said with a wince.

“Well someone has to, don’t they?” Fred said. “Otherwise we end up with idiots like Lockhart in charge.”

“Git,” Harry muttered, exchanging a dark look with Simon. Apparently, conspiring to write a tell-all novel by marrying someone under false pretences was not grounds to be sacked from a Hogwarts post, and they’d had to put up with months of Defence Against the Dark Arts with a foul-tempered Gilderoy Lockhart. He, of course, fully blamed Harry and Simon for their mother dumping him, and had treated them terribly for the entirety of second-year. It had been quite the relief when he’d finally lost the job. He was currently serving a seven year stint in Azkaban, which Harry thought wasn’t nearly enough. 

“What do you think is going to happen to this year’s professor?” George said. “I’m going with a vampire bite.”

“Nah,” Fred said, “I think they’ll get eaten by an Acromantula.”

“Or carried off by a dragon!”

“Or clawed by a -”

“Can you all keep it down?” Percy bellowed up the stairs. “I need this report in on cauldron bottoms by Monday and I can barely hear myself think!”

“You’re the only one being loud here, Perce!” George said merrily.

“We’ll keep it down,” Charlie said with a laugh. “Now, enough with the school talk! Aren’t you all supposed to be on your holiday? Act like it!”

“You’re right,” Fred said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, purple sweet. “Fancy a toffee, Harry?”

“Please, I wasn’t born yesterday!” 

“We’ll just sneak it into your food, then,” George said with a wink, withdrawing down the stairs. “Charlie, Bill wants your help setting up the tables.”

“Coming!” 

“We should probably go downstairs and help with dinner, too,” Hermione said briskly, getting to her feet. Harry and the others dutifully followed her.

But despite the amusing nature of Bill and Charlie setting up the tables by making them fight each other in the air above the garden, and despite Mrs Weasley’s delicious cooking, Harry couldn’t properly enjoy himself that evening. Right towards the end of dessert, he felt a sharp, blazing pain in his head, right by the crooked scar he’d gotten the night You-Know-Who had blown up his family’s house thirteen years ago. The pain went away almost as quickly as it came on, but Harry couldn’t help but think about it.

It’s just a headache, Harry told himself, It’s nothing. In fact, it’s probably just that Wizard’s Flu Mary’s coming down with. 

Harry never got headaches, though, especially headaches that felt like that. The last time he’d felt that specific, sharp pain in his forehead was the night he’d woken up in agony when Professor Quirrell had died.

But that night had just been a coincidence, right? A horrible, badly-timed coincidence, yet a coincidence all the same. Harry still doubted it had even been Voldemort at Hogwarts that night - Voldemort was dead. People didn’t return from the dead. What had happened was simply caused by remnants of Voldemort’s Dark Magic, like the magic in Tom Riddle’s diary that had allowed a shade of Voldemort to possess Ginny. Besides, even if Voldemort was somehow alive, why would Harry of all people be experiencing strange pains in his forehead? 

But strange things linked to Voldemort just seemed to keep on happening to Harry, didn’t they? Again, take Quirrell’s death back in his first year. He hadn’t been the only one to wake up in agony that night - Simon had, too, and they’d both had that horrifying, identical dream of Voldemort’s snake-like face on the back of Quirrell’s head…

But perhaps the two of them were just sensitive to large bouts of Dark Magic like the kind that had killed Quirrell that night.

And sure, Harry did speak Parseltongue like Voldemort did, oddly enough. He’d made that unsettling discovery in second-year when Simon had accidentally spoken to a snake in front of the entire duelling club and Harry had been the only one to understand him. But that just suggested that Parseltongue was some sort of recessive gene he and Simon had inherited! Parseltongue wasn’t inherently linked to Voldemort, even if he was the Heir of Salazar Slytherin, the most famous Parselmouth…

No. Harry was normal, Voldemort was dead, and this was all his mind playing tricks on him. He didn’t care what anyone else said, Voldemort had to be dead. He had to be.

Harry was so wrapped up in his fretting that he paid no attention to his brother, who abruptly clapped a hand to his cheek right as Harry’s forehead began to prickle unpleasantly. Simon, much like Harry, was very reluctant to consider what that odd pain could mean, but not because he thought Voldemort was truly dead and gone. No, Simon knew better. He was far too aware that Voldemort was still out there somewhere, and it was a thought that was far too frightening for him to truly contemplate.

Chapter Text

“It’s far too early to be awake,” Ron complained, rubbing his eyes and nearly tripping over a tree root in the darkness.

“Cheer up!” Mr Weasley said bracingly. “There’s nothing like getting an early start to the day!” 

Harry, had to agree more with Ron. The sun wasn’t even up yet, and in his opinion Harry shouldn’t be, either. The Ministry official in charge of setting up such an early Portkey was truly evil, he decided.

“I wish we could Apparate,” Ginny sighed. “Then we could have slept in…”

“Well, you know you have to wait until you’re licensed,” Mr Weasley said. “It’s very dangerous magic, after all. Harry, Simon, didn’t your dad get called in to deal with that couple that splinched themselves the other day?”

“Yeah,” Harry said as he and Simon simultaneously winced. “It happened in the middle of London Bridge station, so a ton of muggles saw and they had to get the Aurors in on the cleanup.”

“We heard all of the gory details, too,” Simon said, shivering. “Dad likes to warn us off Apparating unlicensed with his horror stories…”

It certainly worked, Harry had to say. Between Sirius and his father, Harry had heard enough stories of horrific splinching incidents to put him off ever trying to learn Apparition, let alone attempting it unlicensed. 

“Where’s this Portkey?” Hermione asked.

“Top of Stoatshead Hill,” Mr Weasley said, pointing ahead. “Come along now, it shouldn’t be far…”

They began to clamber up the hill, which felt more like a mountain, given the steep angle of incline. By the time the ground levelled out, Harry was left panting and with a massive stitch stabbing underneath his ribs.

“Look for… a random…object,” Mr Weasley panted. “Come on now… let’s spread out and find it…”

Moments later, however, a voice shouted, “Over here, Arthur! We’ve got it!” 

“Ah, Amos!” Mr Weasley said, beaming. They trampled over to two tall, faceless figures whose features gradually became clearer as their group drew near. “You boys know Cedric, don’t you?”

Harry squinted through the gloom and could just about make out Cedric Diggory, a sixth-year Hufflepuff who he knew from Quidditch. He waved at them. “Hi!”

“Hi,” they all chorused. Fred, George and Simon all turned around and gave Harry satisfied grins. They were all on the Quidditch team with Harry, and had witnessed his epic catch last year where Harry had just about snatched the snitch out from under Cedric’s nose.

“Blimey, these tickets cost an arm and a leg, didn’t they?” Amos Diggory grumbled. “You’ve not exactly got off easy, Arthur! Are all these yours?”

“Just the redheads,” Mr Weasley explained. “The others are friends of Ron’s - Hermione, that’s Neville, and there’s Harry and Simon -”

“Merlin’s beard!” Amos said excitedly. “Simon - as in Simon Potter?”

“Yeah,” Simon said, his expression immediately darkening as Amos goggled at him.

“Ced’s talked about you, of course,” Amos said, examining Simon closely. “You’re the one who played him in Quidditch last year!”

“Er - yeah. We all did,” Simon said, gesturing to Harry, Fred and George. The Weasley twins were both scowling fiercely. 

Amos’ roving gaze moved to Harry’s face now. “Oh, yes, I remember now. You’re the brother, aren’t you?”

Harry knew on an intellectual level that being constantly worshipped as the famed saviour of the wizarding world probably had to be worse than constantly getting referred to as some variety of ‘the brother’, but that certainly didn’t stop it from irking him. He vastly preferred having worth assigned to him as an individual human being rather than merely being known as Simon Potter’s brother.

“How long is it now, two minutes?” Mr Weasley said loudly, clearly noticing the tension. “Are we waiting for anybody else?” 

“No, the Lovegoods arrived a week ago and the Fawcetts couldn’t get tickets…”

All in all, Harry was rather certain that he wasn’t the only one relieved to be rid of Amos Diggory when the Portkey at last deposited them by the campsite. Even Hermione, Ginny and Neville were giving the man dirty looks at the end.

After a mildly stressful incident where Harry and Hermione had to help Mr Weasley figure out muggle money with the mildly suspicious campground owner, their group moved into the main campsite. Despite the early hour, it was teeming with witches and wizards.

“I mean this is really ridiculous, isn’t it?” Hermione muttered to Harry as they passed a tent with a sparkling fountain attached. “It’s not that hard to set up a regular tent and blend in with the muggles! This is why they really need to make Muggle Studies compulsory…”

“The Hogwarts Muggle Studies class is useless, as you very well know,” Simon said. “That’s why both of us dropped it, remember? Harry took me into Brighton a few weeks ago and I learnt more from that day trip than I did from a year of Muggle Studies!”

“He didn’t even screw up the money once,” Harry said proudly.

Hermione, however, still looked less than impressed. “I still think there needs to be far more integration, or -”

Hermione’s rant was cut off by Ginny’s shout. “Look, there’s our sign!” 

“Ah, here we go!” Mr Weasley said excitedly, heading over to their empty plot of land and dumping his backpack onto the ground. “Right, it’s time to set up the tents! Now, we’re not strictly supposed to use magic, not with so many of us around, so I suppose we’ll be setting things up the muggle way! Er - Harry, Hermione, this is more your field, I think. I’ll need some help with the pegs and hammers at any rate…”

Mr Weasley gestured to his left hand, from which he was missing two fingers and a fair portion of his palm. Harry and the others instantly stepped forward to get started with the tent for him.

Harry’s entire experience of camping consisted of one ill-fated trip with his mother and Aunt Mary when he was six which had involved a series of severe mosquito bites and a bout of food poisoning, so he didn’t exactly consider himself an expert in tent pitching. Given the tethered peacocks strutting around a  tent a little further along from them, Harry really didn’t think that using a couple of Charms to stick the tents up was really going to be the make-or-break factor that shattered the Statute of Secrecy.

Surprisingly enough, Simon actually ended up being the most proficient person with tent setup. Apparently, Remus’ muggle uncle owned a campsite in Wales and so Remus had taken Simon, Sirius and James there many times, where he’d always insisted on doing things without magic. 

After taming an overly-enthusiastic Mr Weasley, who was far too excited to be using a mallet, the tent was finally pitched. Harry ducked inside to set his backpack down, taking in the interior. He couldn’t help but be taken aback by the overwhelmingly strong smell of cats. Granted, the tent’s interior did take the form of a three bedroom flat, which seemed large enough to contain a pet, but Harry couldn’t imagine ever taking a cat camping with him. Cleo would certainly have a fit if they ever tried that…

“Now Ron, why don’t you and your friends grab some water for us?” Mr Weasley asked, wiping the sweat from his brow. “There’s a tap across the campsite, that muggle marked it on a map for us. We’ll also be needing some wood for a fire…”

“Dad, there’s an oven!” Fred complained, gesturing to the kitchen.

“Ah, but we’re doing things the muggle way, remember?” Mr Weasley said happily. 

Hands filled with the kettle and a collection of saucepans, Harry, Ron, Simon and Neville grabbed Hermione from the girls’ tent and began their journey through the campground. By now, the sun had risen and you could get a better view of what was going on. Harry had been to Diagon Alley a fair few times now, and had even visited the Ministry of Magic to see his dad at the office once or twice, but his relatively secluded childhood meant Harry still became awed by the sheer number of witches and wizards who were out in the world. A sizable sea of tents stretched for miles in every direction, all surrounded by people attempting to make breakfast on wood fires with matches or wands, which they jabbed into the kindling with furtive glances from side to side.

Harry had received some rudimentary French lessons in primary school, but that couldn’t even begin to prepare him for the onslaught of different languages and accents coming at him from all directions. He couldn’t even place the majority of them. Despite the language barrier, however, Harry felt certain they all had one topic of conversation in common - Quidditch.

“The Irish are pretty excited, aren’t they?” Neville said, rubbing his eyes. Harry felt a bit like doing the same - the green shamrocks and tents were bombarding them from all sides, and it was making his vision go a bit funny. 

“Guys!” A voice shouted. Harry spun around and saw a green-painted Seamus grinning at them, closely accompanied by Dean Thomas.

“Like the decorations?” Seamus asked, grinning. “The Ministry’s not too happy.” 

“Ah, why shouldn’t we show our colours?” a woman who could only be Mrs Finnigan declared. “You should see what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents! You’ll be supporting Ireland, of course?” she added, her voice laced with a slightly threatening undertone. Harry, despite his fondness for Viktor Krum, found himself nodding along. 

As they turned around to continue onto the tap, Harry got a good look in at his brother and gasped. “I turned around for one second! When did you put green streaks in your hair?!”

“Oliver did it for me!” Simon said, grinning as he ran a hand through his newly-coloured hair. “I quite like it, I might keep it this way permanently…”

“You look like a Slytherin!” Ron protested. 

“I can change it to red before school starts if you’ve got such a problem with it!” Simon said dismissively.

“As if Professor McGonagall would ever let you walk around with coloured hair!” Neville said with a laugh.

“You said Oliver did it?” Harry asked. “As in Oliver Wood?”

He craned his neck, eagerly trying to catch a glimpse of his former Quidditch Captain. Harry was rather fond of the older boy, despite his tendency to force a punishing practice regimen on the team.

“Harry!” Oliver waved excitedly before immediately grabbing Harry and Simon to introduce them to his parents by their tent. Harry was thrilled to learn he had been signed on by Puddlemere United as their newest Keeper. After that, they were hailed by Ernie Macmillan as they passed through Bulgaria’s campsite. He was excitedly trying to communicate with a crowd of Bulgarian wizards who were eagerly talking about Viktor Krum, whose name was the only thing Harry could understand in their conversation.

After Harry was waylaid by a sweet old witch named Miriam whose prescriptions he occasionally home delivered from the apothecary, they finally reached the water queue. Harry noticed a very familiar voice scolding someone as he and his friends got closer to the front.

“For pity’s sake, just walk next time, will you?” Sirius said exasperatedly. Harry caught sight of his chin-length black hair waving from side to side as he shook his head disapprovingly. “You nearly knocked that Farley kid out with your saucepan, and besides, there’s a queue!”

“I’m not waiting in some ruddy queue!” A stooped old man croaked. “I paid good money for these tickets, and I’ll get my water when I want it!”

“The rest of these people also paid good money for these tickets!” Sirius shouted as the man stomped off. He huffed and spun around.

“Sirius!” Simon said delightedly, ducking out of the queue with Harry to go and see their uncle.

“Hi, boys!” he said, grumpy expression immediately lifting. “Having a good time?”

“Yeah, but you don’t really seem to be,” Harry remarked.

Sirius scowled. “It’s bedlam. Your father’s already arrested five drunk tourists and we’ve only been on shift for an hour! It’s seven in the morning, they’ll all be blacked out before the match even starts at this rate! Then there’s the Statute of Secrecy breakers. You saw old Crawley, of course…I doubt half these people would be giving me this much lip if they saw my Auror robes, but they just assume I’m any old Ministry official dressed like this!”

Sirius gestured to his leather jacket and jeans. Harry was almost certain that his mother, Mary or Darren had helped Sirius pick these out, since he was utterly incompetent when it came to dressing for the muggle world. There had been multiple occasions where Sirius had accidentally worn a skirt or a dress out.

“It all sounds like a nightmare,” Simon said sympathetically. “Did you at least get crowd duty for the game?”

“Yeah, I nagged Williamson into it,” Sirius said. “Could be worse. Oh, damn!” He spun around and started chasing in the direction of a redheaded man, who was shooting shamrock-shaped fireworks from his wand while a growing crowd cheered. “Does the Statute of Secrecy mean nothing to you people?!”

“Bet he’s regretting his career choices,” Simon commented. “I’d sure be."

“Same,” Harry said, watching as Neville wrenched the tap on too aggressively and soaked himself in water. “Come on, let’s help them out…”

After they’d filled the saucepans and the kettle, the five of them headed back to the campsite where the rest of the Weasleys had gathered a sizable pile of wood. Harry, Ron and Hermione sat with Ginny, Fred and George and watched Mr Weasley attempts to light a fire while Simon sat obscured by the side of the tent playing cards with Neville. Harry assumed this was so his brother could hide the side of his face with the scar on it from the growing numbers of witches and wizards passing by, who Mr Weasley was keeping up a running commentary of. Harry was slightly pleased to realise he recognised quite a few of the Ministry officials passing through, mostly from his parents’ wedding. Moments after Percy, Bill and Charlie Apparated in to meet them, Ludo Bagman himself even showed up and made a couple of bets with Fred and George about the outcome of the match. When Barty Crouch turned up, however, Harry immediately started tuning the conversation out. 

Harry didn’t particularly like Mr Crouch. Since the World Cup preparation had begun, he had become a frequently discussed topic in the Potter household, and Harry had learnt a couple of unsavoury stories about the man from when he’d been Head Auror. Apparently, Sirius had been arrested by Crouch right at the end of the war - for what, Harry’s parents normally skimmed over - and during the interrogation he’d been excessively rough with Sirius. That automatically put Crouch into Harry’s bad books, that was certain.

Despite this, a throwaway comment from Ludo Bagman immediately revived Harry’s attention. “It’s not as though we haven’t got anything to look forward to after the World Cup, eh, Barty? Plenty left to organise, what with Hogwarts?” 

Mr. Crouch raised his eyebrows. “We agreed not to make the announcement until all the details -” 

“Oh details!” Bagman said dismissively. “They’ve agreed, haven’t they? I bet you anything these kids’ll know soon enough anyway. I mean, it’s happening at Hogwarts -” 

“Ludo, we need to meet the Bulgarians, you know,” Mr. Crouch said loudly, cutting Bagman off. “Thank you for the tea, Weatherby.” 

It was a sign of how interested Fred and George were in Crouch’s remarks that they didn’t immediately start teasing Percy. “What’s he talking about, Dad?”

“Yeah, what’s going on at Hogwarts?” Fred added.

“Nothing, nothing,” Mr Weasley said, trying and failing to hide a smile. “You’ll find out in due time…”

“It’s classified information, until such time as the Ministry decides to release it,” Percy said in his most pompous voice. “Mr. Crouch was quite right not to disclose it.” 

“Oh shut up, Weatherby,” Fred said.

Sensing a fight between the twins and Percy brewing, Harry decided it was high time for another wander around the campsite. He had to beg Simon to accompany him, first - Harry’s brother was still worried about being stared at or mobbed by crowds, but Harry was on strict instructions from his dad to stick with him no matter what and couldn’t exactly leave without him. Eventually, he managed to talk Simon into it and quickly headed out along with Ron, Hermione and Neville with strict instructions from Mr Weasley to be back in two hours.

In the end, Simon’s scar ended up being less of a problem than he’d feared. They’d barely left their plot before an Apparating saleswitch selling face paint drew a glittering green shamrock on Simon’s right cheek, covering up the majority of the mark. It left Simon far more cheerful and confident than usual as they spent down their pocket money on shamrocks and rosettes. Ron and Harry both picked up miniature figures of Viktor Krum - Harry thought Darren would get a kick out of the model, which actually walked around your palm - and Harry also bought a pair of shiny gold Omnioculars, which cost him the majority of his pocket money. He even loaned Simon a couple of Galleons for his own pair, since his brother was a little short. 

After Neville bought himself an Irish flag and Hermione picked up a couple of programs, they arrived back at the Weasley tent just in time to hear the gong sound and to watch the lanterns light up red and green, indicating the pathway to the stadium. The excitement in the air was palpable - it buzzed beneath Harry’s skin as he and the Weasleys headed towards the pitch.

The stadium itself was absolutely massive. Harry thought it would even put Hogwarts to shame in terms of its magnificence and size. It rose so high that it cast a shadow onto the whole woods surrounding them, leaving things gloomy despite the daylight.

“It seats a hundred thousand!” Mr Weasley said, noticing Harry’s awed expression. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of Muggle-Repelling Charms they’ve got it under, though, it’s really quite a marvel…”

The journey to the Top Box seemed to take forever. By the time they’d finished climbing what felt like hundreds of flights of stairs, Harry was incredibly winded. Still, he had to admit the view was worth it. He could see the entire stadium from up there, and the wizards in the stands below seemed more like tiny ants.

The Top Box itself was filled with a number of people whose names Harry didn’t immediately recognise but who he was fairly certain were very important people, since Mr Weasley kept shaking all their hands. The only one who Harry really recognised was the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge. He was another government figure who was not looked upon fondly by Harry’s parents; in fact, the kindest way he’d ever been described was as a ‘worthless idiot’. Percy didn’t seem to think so - he actually bowed to the Minister, which amused Fred and George to no end.

Instead of heading over to his seat, Fudge stopped in front of Harry and his brother and made an attempt at what Harry presumed was a fatherly grin. “Simon, nice to see you here!”

“It’s nice to see you too, Minister,” Simon said in a flat voice. 

Fudge’s eyes roamed to Harry and he started excitedly. “Ah, and you must be James’ other boy. Er - Harvey, was it?”

“It’s Harry, actually,” Simon corrected stiffly before Harry could jump in himself.

“Er - Harry, yes, nice to finally meet you,” Fudge said, shaking Harry’s hand. “Strange business that was, what with your parents, wasn’t it? I’d have met you far sooner, otherwise… Now, Simon, let me introduce you to the Bulgarian Minister!”

Harry, who appreciated his parents divorce being causally commented on even less than being referred to as ‘the brother’, was relieved to be rid of the Minister when he and the Bulgarian delegation had finished gawking at Simon. Percy, on the other hand, shot Harry and Simon a remarkably envious look.

Things only worsened from there as none other than Draco Malfoy and his parents took their own seats in the Top Box, which involved a lot of snide comments about the financial situation of the Weasley family, a few pointed sneers aimed at Hermione and a few comments about Squibs that appeared to be directed towards Neville. They didn’t say anything too outrageous with the Minister so nearby, of course, but Harry still didn’t like seeing Draco Malfoy if he could help it. He was dreading the arrival of Mr Crouch, who was having his anxious house-elf save him a seat behind Simon, but surprisingly enough the man didn’t surface before Ludo Bagman got to his feet and cast Sonorus on himself to begin announcing.

As excited as Harry had been to watch the actual Quidditch, he hadn’t really given much thought to the openers, which were spectacular in their own ways. The veela, of course, were mesmerising - Harry and all of his friends nearly threw themselves out of the Top Box in their enthusiasm to get closer, much to Hermione’s exasperation - while the leprechauns zoomed high above, flying in formation and raining gold down into the stands.

The game itself was nothing to sneeze at, either. Harry finally could understand what Simon was talking about when he went on and on about the talent of the Irish Chasers. They were practically seamless; even with the slow-motion features on his Omnioculars, Harry still struggled to see more than a green blur zooming across the pitch.

His newfound appreciation for a good set of Chasers didn’t stop him from screeching excitedly at Krum’s plays, though. He managed to plough Lynch about ten minutes into the game with what had to be the best Wronski Feint Harry had ever seen. That was just the start of what had to be the bloodiest, dirtiest game of Quidditch Harry had ever witnessed - and that was saying something, since he’d seen Slytherin play. The attacks even extended to the mascots. The leprechauns started spelling out extraordinarily rude words in the sky after the referee awarded a penalty to Ireland following a Bulgarian foul, which set off the veela. They turned into scaly, birdlike creatures throwing fire into the sky, and had to be quickly wrangled by a set of Ministry wizards. Harry squinted through his Omnioculars and was fairly certain he could spot his father’s messy hair amongst the group.

In the end, the match concluded in a bloody, glorious chase to the snitch that ended with Krum catching it but Ireland winning overall by just ten points. The screams from the Irish stands were earsplitting, and Harry could practically taste the euphoria of victory in the air. The best part of all had to be getting so close to the Irish and Bulgarian teams as they entered the Top Box for the trophy presentation, although they looked distinctly less elegant on foot.

“Don’t tell your mother you’ve been gambling,” Mr Weasley said sternly as Fred and George eagerly counted the gold Ludo Bagman had handed them just minutes ago, their eyes shining.

“I still can’t believe you got that right!” Harry said.

“Well, what can I say?” Fred said airily, pocketing his galleons. “We just have an instinctive grasp of Quidditch, I suppose…”

“They’ll be talking about this match for years!” Neville breathed, eyes practically glowing. “That was wicked!"

“Yeah - that’s why you appreciate your Chasers, Harry!” Simon said, shooting him a smug look.

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry grumbled. Much like Neville, Harry had a sneaking suspicion he would also be hearing about this for years…

They were carried in a crowd of singing fans back to the tents, where nobody really felt like turning in. Mr Weasley started brewing up some hot cocoa while all of them danced along to some songs the Irish were blasting from nearby. Harry took Ginny by the hand and twirled her around, laughing so hard that he nearly tripped over Neville. As he watched Ginny smile, something strange and unidentifiable fluttered in his chest.

After a series of play-by-play retellings of the match and a couple of vicious arguments about cobbling, most of them were yawning and rubbing their eyes, so Mr Weasley declared it was time to go to bed. Harry slid into the bunk above Simon’s and stared at the ceiling, listening to the shouts and occasional bangs coming from the outside of the tent.

“Oh I am so glad I’m not on duty,” Mr. Weasley muttered sleepily. “I don’t envy your dad, Potters. I wouldn’t fancy having to go and tell the Irish they’ve got to stop celebrating...” 

Harry, who couldn’t help but think his dad and Sirius would probably end up joining in on the festivities, smiled to himself and turned over. He shut his eyes, imagining himself in front of a stadium of a hundred thousand, holding up the snitch while the crowd all chanted, “Potter! Potter! Potter…”

“Boys!” Mr Weasley shouted. “Harry - Simon - up! Now, quickly, this is urgent! Ron, come on!”

Harry jerked upright so quickly that his head hit the canvas tent ceiling. Almost immediately, he could tell something was wrong - the singing outside had turned to screaming, punctuated by loud bangs not unlike gunfire. The tent was occasionally illuminated by bright flashes of light, which allowed Harry to catch sight of Mr Weasley hurriedly throwing a pair of jeans over his pyjamas. 

Harry went to grab his own clothes, but Mr Weasley stopped him and chucked a jacket in his direction. “There’s no time! Just get outside, quickly!” 

Harry was still wrestling his arms through the jacket sleeves as he rushed out of the tent with Ron, Neville and Simon, his heart hammering. Through the light of a few dying fires, he could faintly make out dozens of people sprinting towards the woods, fleeing a crowd of dark figures slowly marching in their direction. A great flash exploded again, and he realised the crowd were all masked.

Death Eater masks, Harry realised with mounting horror as the flash glowed brighter. Those are Death Eaters! 

High above the Death Eaters were four figures, being twisted and contorted in various positions and shapes. When they passed a newly-ignited tent, Harry realised that one of the figures was the campsite manager who he’d helped Mr Weasley pay just that morning.

“God, that’s sick…” Ron muttered as one of the smaller figures - a child, it had to be - began to spin around and around at dizzying speeds. 

“Harry,” Simon whispered, clutching his arm with a vice-like grip, “those masks…”

“I know,” he said hoarsely, holding onto Simon just as tightly, terror burning icy cold in his chest.

Hermione and Ginny hurriedly emerged from their tent just as Bill, Charlie and Percy exited the boys’, wands out and ready to fight.

“We have to help the Ministry.” Mr Weasley shouted. “All of you, get in the woods and stick together!” 

“Come on,” Fred muttered, taking Ginny by the hand and beginning to run in the direction of the woods. Harry followed along with George and Ron while Simon and Hermione grabbed onto a petrified Neville, who had frozen in place, and forced him to start moving. 

It was almost impossible to see. The lanterns that had illuminated their way to the stadium were extinguished, leaving the crowd of fleeing people stuck with no source of light. Harry found himself being pushed back and forth, side to side, children were crying, people were screaming -

“Agh!” Ron yelped, and Harry heard a loud thud. He stopped running and started feeling around the dark ground until Ron’s clammy hand grabbed onto his.

Harry plunged his other hand into his pocket and snatched up his wand, Statute of Secrecy be damned, and pointed it in front of him. “Lumos!” 

The bright white light illuminated Ron struggling to find his feet. “Tripped over a tree root…”

“Let’s keep going,” Harry urged. “Now, the others…damn!”

Harry frantically scanned the gloomy woods, but amongst the crowd of panicked witches and wizards sprinting away in all directions, they were nowhere to be found.

“We’ve lost them,” Ron groaned.

“Oh, God,” Harry said, panic rising in him as a great green flash shone through the gaps in the trees. “I was supposed to stick with Simon! I promised Dad I’d look out for him!”

“Simon’s with all the others, he’ll be fine!” Ron insisted. 

“Ron, you do realise who those people are, don’t you?” Harry hissed. “They’re Death Eaters! They’re all in so much danger, especially Simon!”

Ron’s face went pale under his freckles. “You - how can you be sure?”

“The masks, Dad showed me what they looked like once, just in case I had to know someday,” Harry explained, still desperately trying to catch a glimpse of his brother. “If they get their hands on him…”

“Well we need to go, then, because if they get you I doubt they’re going to welcome you with a mask and a hood!” Ron snapped, grabbing Harry’s arm and dragging him forward. “Stop panicking and start moving! They’re coming closer, we have to go!”

“Right,” Harry gulped, trying to push the worries to one side. If anything happened to Simon, after he’d promised Dad…oh God, James! He was probably one of the Ministry wizards trying to stop the Death Eaters! Sirius, too…

Please be safe, Harry prayed as another explosion blasted out from behind them. Please don’t get hurt, please stay safe…

They’d barely gotten any further into the woods before Harry felt Ron jerk both of them forward. He didn’t manage to catch onto anything before both of them tumbled to the ground, hard. 

“Bloody hell!” Harry shouted, trying to free himself from Ron’s grip so he could look for his glasses. They’d fallen off his face in the fall. “Can you light your wand so this doesn’t… argh!”

Ron’s hands were both gripping Harry’s wrists, and he was digging his nails into Harry’s flesh. With a gasp of pain Harry dropped his wand, and the skittering beam of light emitting from it briefly illluminated Ron’s face. Blurry though everything was without his glasses, Harry could still tell something was truly wrong with Ron. His eyes had rolled back into his head and his entire face had gone rigid, excluding his slackened mouth which was lolling open.

“Hey, let go!” 

“It will happen tonight,” Ron rasped in a voice quite unlike his own.

"Ron, this isn't funny!" Harry shouted, trying and failing to free himself. His forearms started smarting as Ron’s nails broke skin.

"The Dark Lord's servants will flee their cages, and be reunited with their master…the three traitor servants shall convene, and the Dark Lord will rise again, far greater and more terrible than ever before. Blood will be shed, and death will fall over Hogwarts. Tonight…it begins tonight…"

Ron gasped suddenly, and his eyes went back to normal. “Sorry, these stupid roots keep tripping me…”

"What the actual fuck was that?!" Harry shouted as Ron released him. 

Ron frowned. "What are you on about? I just tripped up."

"You just went all - all funny!" Harry stammered, sweeping his hands over the ground and finally finding his glasses. He jammed them onto his face, only to discover the left side was horribly shattered and nearly impossible to see out of. "You started talking about death, and - and bloodshed, and -"

"Are you pulling my leg?" Ron asked, crossing his arms. “This is really not the time -”

"Look!" Harry gestured to the crescent-shaped indentations on his wrists from where Ron's nails had dug into him. Blood was already oozing from them. "You just did that! You went into a trance or something!"

Ron's eyes widened. "But why wouldn’t I remember -"

There was a sudden flash of green light in the sky above, and the woods erupted with screams. Harry jerked his head upwards and felt his heart drop into his stomach. A twisted snake was oozing its way out of the mouth of a skull, glowing sickly green and obscuring the starlight with its brilliant glow. Harry pressed a hand to his mouth, terror like nothing he’d ever known before turning his body to stone.

That was the Dark Mark.

He'd heard about the Dark Mark, of course. The awful sign that almost certainly meant Voldemort or his followers had killed someone.

Ron looked just as ill as Harry felt. “We’ve got to go.”

“Run!” Harry shouted, grabbing his friend by the arm and beginning a sprint deeper into the heart of the woods, his breathing fast and shaky. Someone had died, they had to have, that was what the Dark Mark always meant…

Harry just hoped and prayed it wasn’t someone from his family.

Chapter Text

Simon collapsed against a fallen tree, huffing and panting. He, Hermione and Neville had been running for a while now, desperately trying to look for the others along the way, but in the crowd of hysterical people it had been impossible to reunite with the Weasleys and Harry.

Simon felt a twinge of fear in his chest at the thought of Harry, out there in that chaos. Great Merlin, he hoped his brother was okay. Simon really didn’t like to be separated from him, especially in a horrid, dangerous situation like this. He practically felt sick with dread.

“I hope the others are alright,” Hermione said quietly.

“Me, too,” Simon said, patting his jacket pockets again, even though he knew his wand wasn’t in there.

If there was one thing that Simon’s father had impressed upon him over the years, it was to always keep your wand on you. Even the greatest wizard in the world was lost if he couldn’t cast all the spells he knew, James would lecture. Harry was rather scatterbrained when it came to his belongings and misplaced his wand more often than not, but Simon always made sure to keep his on him. How could he have lost it now, of all times, in the middle of a crisis like this? He never did this sort of thing!

Simon hoped Harry actually had his wand on him for once, especially since Simon wasn’t there to defend him if he was wandless…

“Those poor muggles,” Neville said softly. “What if they can’t get them down?”

“I’m sure they’ll find a way,” Simon tried to reassure him, even though he wasn’t feeling all that certain himself.

“Oh, I hope your dad catches them, Simon,” Hermione said angrily. “Those nasty, awful people deserve to be locked up in Azkaban for life for what they’re doing!” 

“Agreed,” Simon said grimly, feeling another twinge of panic as he thought of his father and Sirius. Both of them were surely fighting back the Death Eaters, and that was by no means safe!

“Isn’t it mad, though, to do something like that when the whole Ministry of Magic’s out here tonight!” Hermione said. “I mean, how do they expect to get away with it? Do you think they’ve been drinking, or are they just -” 

She broke off suddenly and looked over her shoulder. Simon and Neville did the same. There was some strange rustling and the snapping of a twig - it sounded as though somebody was trampling towards their clearing, but it was far too dark to see who could be approaching. The hairs on the back of Simon’s neck stood on end as the uneven footsteps drew closer. His instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong.

The footsteps abruptly stopped.

“Hello?” Simon called.

There was silence. Simon got to his feet and tried to look for the hidden person, but he couldn’t see more than a few feet out by the dim wandlight.

“Who are you?” he tried again.

“MORSMORDRE!” a deep voice bellowed. A great, gleaming jet of light exploded upwards from the edge of the clearing and took shape in the sky. The forest, which had been rather quiet for the last few minutes, exploded with screams and horrified shrieks. Simon would have screamed himself if he wasn’t far too petrified to make a sound. A gigantic skull and snake floated in the sky directly above his head, casting a sickly green light on the entire forest.

Someone had cast the Dark Mark not ten feet away from them.

“Come on, we need to move!” Hermione acted before Neville and Simon were able to recover their wits and started dragging them forward, away from the patch of darkness where the spellcaster surely still stood -

But they’d barely managed to stumble away from the fallen tree before a series of popping noises ricocheted through the clearing. Simon barely had a moment to register the two-dozen wizards standing in a circle around him and his friends before he realised that every single one of them was pointing a wand.

“DUCK!” he screeched, seizing the other two and pulling them down onto the ground. 

“STUPEFY!” the figures bellowed in unison. The green light of the Dark Mark was momentarily disguised by the red glow of twenty Stunners criss-crossing above Simon’s head, so close that the force of them ruffled his hair.

“STOP!” Simon could have cried with relief as his father’s voice rang through the clearing. “THAT’S MY SON, STOP!”

He finally dared to raise his head and saw James sprinting across the clearing to him, Neville and Hermione.

“Thank Merlin,” he said shakily, pulling Simon close. He could feel his father trembling. James quickly released him and turned to Simon’s friends. “Neville - Hermione - are you alright, or -”

“Out of my way, James!” A man barked. 

James turned around and Simon caught sight of Barty Crouch marching over, followed closely by a cluster of Ministry wizards. Simon unsteadily got to his feet.

“Which of you did it?” he snapped, eyes bulging. “Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?” 

“We didn’t do that!” Simon said indignantly. 

“We didn’t do anything!” Hermione added, rubbing her shoulder. “You didn’t have to attack us!” 

“Do not lie, young lady!” Mr. Crouch shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. His wand was pointed right in between Hermione’s eyes. “You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!” 

“They’re children, you idiot!” Sirius shouted, storming out from the ring of wizards and standing defensively in front of Simon and his friends. He was bleeding from a cut above the eyebrow, but was otherwise unharmed.

“You, more than anyone, should know how easily children can get involved in the Dark Arts, Black,” Mr Crouch growled, spitting Sirius’ surname like it was a dirty word. 

Sirius’ eyes narrowed dangerously. “Why, you -”

“Where did the Mark come from, you three?” Mr. Weasley said quickly, hurrying forward and standing in between Mr Crouch and Sirius and James, both of whom looked outraged and ready to continue arguing.

“Over there,” Hermione said shakily, pointing towards the darkness where the spellcaster had been. “There was someone behind the trees… they shouted words - an incantation -” 

“Oh, stood over there, did they?” Mr Crouch said disbelievingly. “Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well-informed about how that Mark is summoned…”

The majority of the other Ministry wizards ignored Mr Crouch’s ranting and pointed their wands in the direction of the trees Hermione had indicated.

“We’re too late,” a witch in a woollen dressing gown said, shaking her head. “They’ll have Disapparated.” 

“I don’t think so,” Amos Diggory grunted. “Our Stunners went right through those trees, there’s a good chance we got them…” 

“Amos, do be careful!” 

Mr. Diggory squared his shoulders and marched across the clearing. Neville was trembling as he disappeared into the darkness, and Simon put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Hermione watched on with her hands pressed over her mouth. A few seconds later, they heard Mr. Diggory shout. “Yes! We got them! There’s someone here! Unconscious! It’s - blimey…”

“You’ve got someone?” Mr Crouch shouted. “Who? Who is it?” 

“Less who than what.” 

There were a series of crunching footsteps as Mr. Diggory reemerged from behind the trees, carrying a tiny, limp figure in his arms. Simon recognised the tea towel quickly and couldn’t stifle his gasp. It was none other than Winky, Mr Crouch’s elf who had been sitting behind him in the Top Box.

“This - cannot - be,” Crouch said jerkily, his eyes practically popping out of his head as he stared down at the unconscious elf. “No -” 

He strode off toward the place where he had found Winky, still muttering to himself. 

“No point, Mr. Crouch,” Mr. Diggory called. “There’s no one else there.” 

Mr Crouch didn’t respond. The sound of rustling bushes echoed through the clearing - he had to be looking for others. 

“Bit embarrassing, isn’t it?” Mr. Diggory commented, leering down at Winky. “Barty Crouch’s own house-elf...” 

“Come off it, Amos,” Mr. Weasley muttered, “you don’t seriously think it was the elf? The Dark Mark’s a wizard’s sign. It requires a wand.” 

“Yeah,” Mr. Diggory said, “and she had a wand.” 

“What?” James said, clearly startled.

 “Here, look.” Mr. Diggory held up a wand. “Had it in her hand. So that’s clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken, for a start…”

“How’d she even get a wand?” Sirius asked.

“I think we should ask her,” Mr Diggory said heavily. “Rennervate.”

Winky woke slowly. Her large, brown eyes fluttered and she caught sight of the many wizards looming above her. Sowly, she raised herself into a sitting position and looked up into the sky. She gave a loud gasp, looked wildly around the crowded clearing, and burst into terrified sobs. 

“Elf!” said Mr. Diggory sternly. “Do you know who I am? I’m a member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!” 

Winky began to rock backward and forward on the ground, her breath coming in sharp bursts. Her hysteria left Simon feeling slightly sick. He cast his mind back to second-year, when a crazy house-elf named Dobby had attempted to injure him multiple times, including a nasty incident with a tampered Bludger that had shattered his elbow during Simon’s first ever Quidditch game. Dobby would also shake and rock like this when he did something he wasn’t supposed to do…

“As you see, elf, the Dark Mark was conjured here a short while ago,” Mr. Diggory said, ignoring Winky’s clear distress. “And you were discovered moments later, right beneath it! An explanation, if you please!” 

“I - I - I is not doing it, sir!” Winky gasped. “I is not knowing how, sir!” 

“You were found with a wand in your hand!” Mr. Diggory barked, brandishing it in front of her wildly. At last, Simon got a good look at it and gasped. 

“Hey, that’s mine!” he said. Everyone in the clearing looked at him and Simon shrank slightly. There was nothing he hated more than dozens of eyes fixed upon him.

“Excuse me?” Mr Diggory asked. 

“That’s my wand!” Simon insisted. “I dropped it!” 

James shot him a disapproving look and Simon winced. He certainly had a lecture on wand safety coming, that was certain.

“You dropped it?” Mr Diggory repeated in incredulous tones. “Is this a confession? You threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?” 

“How dare you, Amos!” James said angrily, his eyes flashing behind his glasses. “Is Simon Potter likely to conjure the Dark Mark? Use your brains!”

“Er - right,” Mr Diggory muttered, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sorry…got a bit caught up in it all…” 

“I didn’t drop it there, anyway,” Simon said uncomfortably. “I missed it right after we got into the trees.” 

“So,” Mr Diggory said triumphantly, rounding back on Winky, “you found this wand, eh, elf? And you picked it up and thought you’d have some fun with it, did you?” 

“I is not doing magic with it, sir!” Winkly sobbed. “I is -I is - I is just picking it up, sir! I is not making the Dark Mark, sir, I is not knowing how!” 

“It wasn’t her!” Hermione said quickly, looking remarkably nervous yet determined. “Winky’s got a high-pitched little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!” 

Simon and Neville both nodded their assent. 

“It definitely didn’t sound like an elf.” 

“Yeah, it was a h-human voice,” Neville squeaked, looking rather scared to be speaking in front of all the Ministry wizards.

“Well, we’ll soon see,” growled Mr. Diggory, looking unimpressed. He pressed the tip of his wand to Simon’s. “Priori incantatem!” 

A ghostly Dark Mark floated out of the tip of Simon’s wand, although this one was significantly smaller than the one still casting its green glow down upon them in the sky.

“You’ve been caught red-handed, elf!” Mr. Diggory roared. “Caught with the guilty wand in your hand! What do you have to say for yourself?” 

“Amos,” James interrupted, “think about it... barely anyone knows how to do that spell! Where would she even have learned it?” 

“Perhaps Amos is suggesting,” Mr Crouch said icily, emerging from the bushes, “that I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?” 

There was a deeply unpleasant silence. Amos Diggory immediately paled. “Mr. Crouch… not… not at all…” 

You have now come very close to accusing the two people in this clearing who are least likely to conjure that Mark!” barked Mr. Crouch. “Simon Potter - and myself!”

Simon didn’t dare to point out that Mr Crouch himself had been standing there accusing him, Neville and Hermione of casting the Dark Mark not five minutes earlier. 

After a prolonged bout of loud arguing, Sirius cleared his throat. He was still glaring daggers at Crouch. “Look. This elf says she found the wand in the trees, so whoever cast the Dark Mark probably dropped the wand and Disapparated. That way, their own wand wouldn’t carry the traces of the spell, right? Winky was just unlucky enough to pick it up afterwards.”

“You may be right, Mr Black. Elf!” Amos Diggory’s sharp, cold eyes were on Winky again. “Did you see whoever cast the mark?”

Gaze fixed on Mr Crouch, the trembling Winky shook her head.

“Amos,” Mr. Crouch said coldly, “I am fully aware that, in the ordinary course of events, you would want to take Winky into your department for questioning. I ask you, however, to allow me to deal with her. You may rest assured that she will be punished.” 

M-m-master…” Winky stammered, pitifully, “M-m-master, p-p-please..” 

Mr. Crouch stared back, his face devoid of any emotion except for cold fury. “Winky has behaved tonight in a manner I would not have believed possible,” he said slowly. “I told her to remain in the tent. I told her to stay there while I went to sort out the trouble. And I find that she disobeyed me. This means clothes.” 

“No!” Winky shrieked, throwing herself at Mr Crouch’s boots. “No, master! Not clothes, not clothes!” 

Simon actually had to look away as Winky sobbed and begged. He couldn’t understand how Mr Crouch could be so unsympathetic to the devastated creature before him! James noticed his distress and put a reassuring hand on Simon’s shoulder.

“She was frightened!” Hermione suddenly shouted, glaring furiously at Mr. Crouch. “Your elf’s scared of heights, and those wizards in masks were levitating people! You can’t blame her for wanting to get out of their way!”

Mr Crouch took a step back from Winky and examined Hermione with no small amount of disgust. “I have no use for a servant who forgets what is due to her master, and to her master’s reputation.”  

Sometimes, Simon thought Hermione was more suited to Ravenclaw than to Gryffindor, but moments like this always reminded him of how wrong that was. It took a special kind of courage to stare down one of the most important men in the Ministry of Magic without quailing.

“I think you really ought to let the kids go now, Amos,” Sirius said in a low voice that was barely audible over Winky’s sobs. “You don’t really need them here, do you, or Simon’s wand?”

Amos Diggory nodded and gave the wand to Sirius, who handed it to Simon. He tucked it straight into his jacket pocket and zipped it in, feeling remarkably relieved to have it back.

“I’m going to go find my other son and go home, if you don’t mind,” James said coldly, taking Simon’s hand.

“I think not!” a bald man with a rather impressive moustache said. “No one is to go in or out of the campsite until we can ascertain what happened!”

“I’m not letting Simon and Harry stay here after that riot, Williamson!” James shouted angrily. “Are you off your rocker?”

“Are you off yours?” Williamson bellowed. “If we start fleeing with our families the rest of these witches and wizards will, and it’ll be bedlam! Use your head!”

“He has a point, James,” Sirius said with a grimace. “We really ought to wait for the Portkeys in the morning.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them with my lot for the night and take them home first thing, I promise,” Mr Weasley added. “I’m sure Lily will be waiting at the Burrow with my Molly, eh? We’ll take care of your boys.”

“And you and Sirius are needed here, James, as you know,” the witch in the woollen dressing gown added. “Crowd control, injuries…”

James’ eyes flicked between Simon and his friends, Sirius and then Williamson, before they returned back to Simon.

“Fine,” James growled, “I’ll stay. But I’m finding Harry first. Simon, stick closely to Arthur. I’ll bring Harry back to the tent.”

“Hang on!” Williamson shouted, but it was no use. James began to shift before Simon’s eyes, tawny fur sprouting all over his skin, antlers extending from his skull, until a large stag appeared in his place and bolted into the dark trees.

“That blasted man!” Williamson roared.

“I’ll bring him back when he’s done, sir,” Sirius said, grimacing. “Stay safe, you lot.”

He nodded towards Simon before transforming into his dog form and racing after James. Several witches and wizards who clearly hadn’t seen an Animagus transformation before watched after them, mouths agape.

“He really shouldn’t be allowed to get away with that,” Mr Crouch muttered to Williamson, completely ignoring the sobbing Winky still prostrating herself at his ankles. “Aurors with that sort of blatant insubordination ought to be sacked…”

Williamson vigorously nodded his assent, the edges of his moustache bobbing along with his head.

“You’d do well to remember that James Potter is a damn good Auror, Barty,” Mr Weasley said sharply. “He’d be Head Auror right now if he wanted the job, and you all know it.”

Williamson glanced away, slightly cowed. Crouch simply glared at Mr Weasley.

“Come along, kids,” Mr Weasley said quietly, putting a hand in between Simon’s shoulder blades. “Let’s get back to the tent and see if we can find the others.”

“What’s going to happen to Winky?” Hermione asked the moment they had left the clearing. 

“I don’t know,” Mr. Weasley said. 

“The way they were treating her was simply outrageous!” Hermione said furiously. “Mr. Diggory, calling her ‘elf ’ all the time… and Mr. Crouch! He knows she didn’t do it and he’s still going to sack her! He didn’t care how frightened she’d been, or how upset she was - it was like she wasn’t even human! It’s just disgusting!” 

“Hermione, I agree with you,” said Mr. Weasley quickly, beckoning her on, “but now is not the time to discuss elf rights. I want to get back to the tent as fast as we can and see if I can find the others, so I can make sure they’re alright.”

Simon shivered, the worry from earlier coming back in full-force. He really did hope that Harry was okay, and that Sirius and his dad would find him…

Harry and Ron both ran for a very long time until they finally dared to stop, gasping and breathless. It seemed that no matter how far they went, the haunting glow of the Dark Mark was just inescapable. Harry collapsed at the base of a tree, Ron beside him.

“No more people here,” Ron managed after a minute. 

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, feeling both relieved and anxious. After all, less people meant less attackers, but also less witnesses in case they weren’t as alone as they seemed to be… he kept his wand out in front of him, just in case. 

“I can’t believe someone actually cast the Dark Mark,” Ron muttered. “I mean, I’ve heard people mention it, but it’s almost worse to see it in person…”

“Definitely worse in person,” Harry said grimly. “It’s one of the only things about the war my mum and Aunt Mary ever brought up when I was younger, you know.”

“Oh?”

“When I was probably nine or ten, I was just doodling, and I thought it would be cool to draw a skull with a snake wrapped around it,” Harry said, wincing at the memory. “It really didn’t look that much like the Dark Mark - I can’t draw to save my life - but Aunt Mary saw it, and her breathing went all funny and she had to run outside. I obviously didn’t get what was wrong, so they sat me down and explained about the Dark Mark, and how it was You-Know-Who’s sign. Turns out their other friend, Marlene, got killed alongside her whole family during the war. The Death Eaters cast the Mark above their house and Mary was the one who found them.”

“That’s awful,” Ron whispered.

“I know,” Harry said, wrapping his arms around himself and shivering.

“I hope no one died tonight,” Ron murmured. “Those poor muggles…”

“Yeah.” Harry stared at the leaves on the floor, feeling rather pensieve. 

Suddenly, Harry caught sight of his wrist and frowned when he saw the small scratches from earlier. The Dark Mark had completely driven all thoughts of Ron’s odd pronouncement from his mind.

“We should probably talk about this,” Harry said, gesturing to his forearm.

Ron grimaced. “I’m really sorry about that, mate…”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Harry said. “We need to talk about the stuff you were saying. I swear you had a vision or something!”

Ron scoffed. “Please. Divination’s a load of made-up rubbish, you know that.”

“And normally I’d agree with you, but something about what just happened feels odd,” Harry insisted.

“What did I even say?”

The strange pronouncement was practically branded into Harry’s mind, so he had no trouble reciting it almost verbatim to his friend. When Harry was finished, Ron gave him a confused look. “Who are the three traitors?”

“Beats me,” Harry shrugged. “Maybe they were some of the Death Eaters levitating the muggles?”

“Well, there were a lot more than three of them, that’s certain,” Ron said. “Besides, they’re out here tormenting muggles, so they’re not exactly betraying You-Know-Who’s values.”

“Depends how you look at it,” Harry said thoughtfully. “My parents are always going on about all these Death Eaters who dodged Azkaban by saying they got put under the Imperius Curse. They kind of betrayed You-Know-Who, since they didn’t stand by him after he was defeated.”

“That still doesn’t explain why whatever I said talked about three Death Eaters,” Ron pointed out. “A whole bunch more than three wormed their way out of Azkaban.”

“Hey, I’m no prophecy expert,” Harry said, holding his hands up. “I’m just guessing.”

“Don’t say prophecy!” Ron complained, rubbing his arms. “I’m not some Professor Trelawney type!”

“No, because you actually might be a real Seer instead of a useless old fraud,” Harry said.

“I am not a Seer!” he protested hotly.

“Tell you what,” Harry said quickly, sensing Ron was getting irritated, “we really ought to talk this over with the others at any rate, shouldn’t we? Hermione hates all things Divination, so if she agrees with me then we’ll know something’s going on.”

“Hermione’s never going to agree with you in a million years, so you’re kind of undercutting your whole argument, but fine,” Ron said, smirking. His look of amusement quickly disappeared, however, to be replaced by one of concern. “But we’re just telling Hermione, Simon and Neville, okay? No one else.”

“Why?” Harry asked. “One of the adults might have a better chance at cracking it than us -”

“No one else!” Ron hissed. “I don’t want anyone else knowing that I’m stumbling around making ominous pronouncements, they’ll think I’m mad! Besides, it’s my prophecy or whatever it is, so I get to decide who knows about it. This isn’t your secret to tell, Harry, you have to promise to keep it quiet.”

That, Harry thought, was a rather compelling point. It was Ron’s business first, at the end of the day. “Fine. I promise.”

“Good.” Ron looked rather relieved. “So…the rest of this pronouncement, then. Er - I mentioned something about a Dark Lord?”

“Yeah.” Icy sweat beaded on the back of Harry’s neck. “You said these traitors were going to convene again and he was going to rise and be more terrible than before -”

“Oh, no!” Ron cried, jumping to his feet. “You don’t think that,” he jerked a finger towards the Dark Mark, “was Him do you? Is it a sign he’s back?”

“No it can’t have been Him,” Harry said exasperatedly. “He’s dead, Ron!”

“Says the guy who’s trying to convince me I’m having visions of the future!” Ron said, beginning to pace. “And if I said You-Know-Who was going to rise again when those traitor people convened - which they did, by the way, if those Death Eaters were the right people - then You-Know-Who’s come back!”

“People do not come back from the dead,” Harry said fiercely, trying to convince himself more than Ron. Sure his forehead had started mysteriously prickling just three days before a gang of Death Eaters had cast the Dark Mark and tortured a family of muggles, but that couldn’t be related because Voldemort was dead. He had been vanquished by Simon. That was the story. That strange incident with Quirrell must have been linked to a strange bout of Dark magic that Voldemort had left behind - like that freaky diary that Ginny had been writing in, which contained the memory of a young, ghostly Tom Riddle. Because that was all that remained of Voldemort - ghosts of a horrid time long-gone. You-Know-Who was dead, he was dead, and he was never coming back. He couldn’t! 

Ron sat down, looking a little less panicked. “You’re right, I think.”

“I am,” Harry said, nodding, wishing he believed it. “Also, if this was his grand return, I’m sure there’d be a lot more… well, fire and brimstone and the like.” 

“You did mention that was in the prophecy, too,” Ron added. “Bloodshed, I mean. And something about a death at Hogwarts? That couldn’t happen tonight, seeing as no one’s in there. It’s the summer holidays.”

“True…” Harry pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. “Ugh, all this vision talk is making my head hurt.”

“Same,” Ron said. “We really should wait until we can meet back up with the others. I bet Hermione’s the only one who can decode what it’s -”

Ron abruptly stopped speaking and whirled around, pointing his wand at a patch of darkness directly ahead of him. Harry held his breath and suddenly became aware of distant, thundering footsteps that were gradually becoming louder. He jumped to his feet and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ron, wand pointed to the trees.

“Stay back!” he called, his nervousness increasing as the sound of twigs cracking and leaves crunching grew louder and louder. It sounded like something was running. Just as Harry started preparing to cast a defensive spell into the darkness, the light from his wand illuminated the snout and antlers of a large stag. Harry barely had time to register the circular markings around its eyes before the stag transformed into none other than his father, who immediately strode forward and enveloped Harry in an air-crushing hug.

“Geroff!” Harry gasped, embarrassingly aware of the fact that Ron was watching on even if he was rather relieved to see his father.

James loosened his arms but still kept a tight hold on Harry, like he was scared Harry was going to disappear again. “Thank Merlin you’re alright, I was worried sick!” 

“You need to find Simon,” Harry said urgently. “I’m so sorry, I tried to stay with him the whole time like you said but it was so dark, and Ron tripped, and -”

“Shh, shh,” James said quickly. “Calm down, it’s not your fault. Simon’s fine, I’ve already seen him. I don’t blame you at all for losing track of each other. Considering that stampede, it’s a miracle you even managed to stick with Ron!”

“Er - how did you find us, Mr Potter?” Ron asked, eyeing the edge of the clearing nervously. A black dog suddenly burst through the darkness and straightened up into none other than Sirius.

“Scent,” James explained. “Harry’s my kid. I could find him in a damp forest on the other side of the world if I had to.”

Harry couldn’t deny the warm sensation spreading through his chest at that statement.

“That’s one of the many benefits of being an Animagus,” Sirius added, “unless you end up as a squid or something… James, you really need to be more careful. Williamson looked ready to sack you when I left.”

“Oh, let him!” James declared, wrapping his arms around Harry and Ron’s shoulders. “Come along, boys, let’s get you both back to Arthur. We’ll have to walk, I’m in no fit state to be Apparating right now.”

“So, you said you saw Simon?” Harry asked. 

James' expression darkened. “Yep. He was right in the thick of it, of course. Let us fill you in…”

By the time James and Sirius finished their explanation, Harry and Ron were reeling with shock.

“That elf had Simon’s wand?” Ron said disbelievingly. “How?!”

“He must have dropped it in the chaos, I suppose,” Sirius said, abruptly pointing his lit wand at a rustling bush and frightening off a rather indignant-looking fox.

“That’s really not like Simon, though,” Harry said. “I mean sure, that sounds like something I’d do, but he’s way more careful than me!”

“People don’t always think straight in emergencies, you realise,” James said. “He really could have lost track of it, simple as that.”

“Did you manage to catch any of the people levitating the muggles?” Ron asked.

“No,” Sirius said with a grimace. “The minute the Mark appeared, every single one of them Disapparated. Scared out of their wits, I suppose.”

Harry frowned. “I don’t get it. Wouldn’t You-Know-Who’s sign just egg them on?”

“Think about it, Harry,” James said. “Those weren’t just any old Death Eaters, they were the ones who did their damndest to keep out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who lost power. They told all sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people, about the Imperius Curse, about Polyjuice... I bet they’d be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they’d ever been involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily lives, so I doubt he’d be happy with them!”

Traitors, Harry thought, exchanging a grim look with Ron.

“It wasn’t Him who cast the Mark, right?” Ron asked hesitantly. “You’re certain?”

“Oh, it couldn’t have been,” James said dismissively. “Like I said, whoever it was just dropped the wand and Disapparated. That’s not really You-Know-Who’s style. He wasn’t one to back down from a fight.”

“If it was You-Know-Who, he’d have blasted all of us sky-high, I bet,” Sirius said. James shot him a disapproving look as Ron and Harry both grimaced.

“But anyway, it wasn’t,” James said firmly. “Just another lunatic determined to cause havoc.”

They’d reached the edge of the trees by then, and James and Sirius both groaned. A large crowd were all there, and they immediately descended onto the four of them.

“What’s going on?!”

“Who conjured that?”

“The other man didn’t tell us anything!”

“We aren’t at liberty to comment at this point!” Sirius shouted above the clamour. He was met with groans. “Don’t you make faces at me, you all know how this works! We’re conducting a full investigation into the incident, and it’ll be a lot easier if you let us do our jobs! Out of the way, please!” 

“You’re going to get it in the neck for that, you know,” James muttered as the crowd parted. “Not the right tone for the worried public…”

“Worried public my arse,” Sirius grumbled. “We’ve been on duty nearly twenty-four hours, I’m not in the mood to be patient. Besides Williamson’s going to be too busy shouting at you to bother with me.”

They led Harry and Ron through the darkened campsite, occasionally shooting jets of water at burning tents. They reached the Weasley plot quickly, and Charlie stuck his head out of the opening.

“There you all are!” he said. Harry noticed he was sporting a cut above his eyebrow. “The others all got back okay, they’re inside.”

Harry ducked through into the boys’ tent and saw the whole Weasley family gathered around the squat kitchen table, alongside Hermione, Neville and Simon. His brother’s face visibly sagged with relief when he set eyes on Harry.

“We’ll leave these two with you, then, Arthur,” Sirius said. James cast a reluctant look in Harry’s direction, like that was the last thing he wanted to do.

“Good luck out there, you two,” Mr Weasley said, patting Sirius on the shoulder.

“We’ll be fine - it’s just crowd control and first aid at this point,” James said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Harry, Simon, stick with the Weasleys, okay? Don’t go off on your own, and stay safe.”

“We will,” Harry promised, not even bothering to complain about James’ comments like he usually would. His father was obviously shaken by the events that had just transpired, much like Harry. 

“So,” Ron said, sidling up to Simon, “heard you were around for that whole Dark Mark thing, huh?”

Simon winced. “Yeah. It was with my wand, too.”

“That’s mad,” Harry said. “The fact they were so close to you, too!”

He shivered. The idea of such a dangerous Death Eater being right by Harry’s unarmed brother filled him with dread. So many things could have gone wrong…

“I’m not sure if I should be happy or angry that they all Disapparated,” Bill said, dabbing at a cut on his arm. “People like that should be brought to justice.”

“Agreed.” Mr Weasley stifled a yawn. “Listen, it’s getting late and I think we all ought to head back to bed. If your mother’s heard what happened here, she’ll be worried sick, so I want to get an early Portkey out of here.”

Harry climbed back into his bunk, still wearing the ripped, ruined pyjamas he’d run through the forest in, and stared at the canvas ceiling. Despite the fact it was past three in the morning, he was wide awake. 

 Tonight… it begins tonight…

Harry shivered, Ron’s rasped words echoing in his mind. He had a sneaking suspicion that tonight, sleep was going to evade him.

Just a few hours later, Mr Weasley shook him awake. As Harry had suspected, the night had been long and restless, and he felt like he’d only just shut his eyes.

They all moved quickly, packing up the tents with magic before heading out of the campsite. A great crowd of witches and wizards were crowded around the keeper of the Portkeys, and it took Harry and the others over an hour to get to the front of the queue, where they were instructed to take a gnarled rubber tire back to Stoatshead hill. The walk back through Ottery St Catchpole was deathly silent. Harry wanted to pull Simon, Hermione and Neville behind so they could all discuss Ron’s strange vision, but he didn’t dare when the other Weasleys were so quiet and could easily overhear. Besides, it was impossible to slip back - Mr Weasley seemed to have taken James’ orders of protection to heart, and wasn’t letting Harry and Simon out of his sight. It was a lost cause, but Harry could talk to the others as soon as they were back at the Burrow.

Unfortunately, that plan wasn’t meant to be, either. They’d barely turned the corner into the driveway before a cry echoed through the air. Two redheaded women sprinted towards them - Mrs Weasley and Lily. Harry barely had time to register his mother’s anxious face before he was wrapped in a tight hug.

“I was so worried!” Lily gasped. “All three of your vials went straight to mortal peril, and I had no idea what was happening -”

“Mum, you’re strangling us!” Simon grunted. As Lily loosened her grip, Harry caught sight of a copy of the Daily Prophet which was lying on the ground nearby. A black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark was floating in the sky under the headline: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE WORLD CUP.

Nearby, Mrs Weasley was crying over the twins while Mr Weasley tried to prise her off and take her inside. 

“Calm down, Molly, we’re all fine,” Mr Weasley soothed, patting her shoulder. “Bill, grab that paper, I want to see what it says…”

Harry took his mother by the arm, and noticed she was trembling. “Mum, have you even slept?” he asked worriedly. Lily wasn’t wearing robes - she’d clearly just thrown a cloak over her nightdress and headed straight to the Burrow. Her eyes were red and bloodshot. 

“I was about to go to bed when I smelled the lavender from the diffusers,” she said hoarsely. “I hurried straight over here, but Molly didn’t know anything either - oh, boys, I’m so glad you’re okay!”

“Let’s get inside,” Simon murmured, taking their mother’s other arm and depositing her next to Mrs Weasley at the kitchen table. After Hermione made everyone strong cups of tea, Mr Weasley started reading the copy of the Prophet and groaned. 

“Rita Skeeter’s been all over this,” he muttered, eyes darting back and forth as he read the article. Harry and Simon both exchanged grim looks - they were far too familiar with Rita Skeeter, who frequently contributed to gossip columns with nasty stories about their family. 

“The Ministry’s not come off well,” Lily said, grimacing. “Ministry blunders… culprits not apprehended… lax security… national disgrace…”

“That woman’s really got it in for the Ministry of Magic!” Percy said angrily. “She has no understanding of how thin cauldron bottoms could be the hidden threat that sinks the British magical economy. Regulations are a waste of time, she says!”

Mr Weasley sighed loudly and pushed his glasses up his nose. “I have to go into the office and sort this out, I’m the official they’ve quoted there. No bodies were removed from the woods, I mean really!” 

“I’ll come with you, Father,” Percy said rather self-importantly. “Mr. Crouch will need all hands on deck. And I can give him my cauldron report in person.” 

“Arthur, you’re supposed to be on holiday!” Mrs Weasley protested, putting a hand on his arm. “This hasn’t got anything to do with your office; surely they can handle this without you?” 

“I’ve got to go, Molly,” Mr. Weasley said, grimacing. “My comments have just made things worse. I’ll just change into my robes and I’ll be off...”  

“We should really get going, too,” Lily said, finishing the last of her tea. 

“But Mum!” Harry complained. “We were meant to stay over for another night!”

“No. You’re coming home,” Lily said firmly, giving Harry that stern look that always quelled even the most vehement of his complaints. “Besides, I need to be home for Mary…”

Harry frowned - what was wrong with Mary? Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to ask, since they were promptly made to say their goodbyes to Hermione, Neville, Ron and the rest of his family. Harry just hoped Ron was going to fill in the others about his strange vision, which Harry planned to do with Simon as soon as they got home. Perhaps, once his parents calmed down after the panic of the World Cup, they’d even be able to go over to the Burrow and visit before school restarted. While Neville was returning to his grandmother, Harry knew that Hermione was staying with the Weasleys until Hogwarts started, so they could get her input on the situation. 

After thanking the Weasleys one last time, Harry took the Floo back to their home in Sussex. When he stumbled into the living room, he found Remus, Mary and Darren sitting together on the sofa with a copy of the Daily Prophet spread out over the coffee table. 

“Oh, thank goodness you’re okay!” Mary said, jumping to her feet and hugging Harry before he even had a chance to set his bag down.

“Lily woke us all as soon as she knew something was wrong, and we’ve been waiting for news ever since,” Remus said. Harry noticed he did look rather exhausted, but that could have been a side effect of the recent moon.

“Is everyone okay?” Darren asked. “This says there was a terrorist attack!”

“Yeah, everyone’s fine,” Lily said, stepping out of the fireplace behind Harry. “Sirius and James are both stuck doing the cleanup, and Simon’s about to come through.”

Surely enough, Simon stepped out of the fireplace in a whirlwind of green flames moments after their mother finished speaking.

“So, did you see anything of the riots while you were there?” Remus asked. 

Simon winced. “Er - well, I saw a decent bit…”

“Tell us, then!” Darren insisted.

“Well, it was really nothing -”

“Simon, stop avoiding the question and tell us everything that happened,” Lily ordered. “Make sure you speak up, so I can hear you from the kitchen. I need coffee…”

As Lily busied herself with the coffee preparation, a reluctant Simon filled them in on everything that had happened with the casting of the Dark Mark. Harry, who hadn’t heard the full details of this yet from his brother’s perspective, listened attentively. By the end of his tale, everyone in the room had gone rather pale.

“And they seriously couldn’t catch the real culprit?” Darren asked, looking rather alarmed.

“Not if the person Disapparated, no,” Mary said, shaking her head.

“How have they not invented a way to trace Disapparation yet?” Darren said blankly. “That seems like something you’d really need in your world!”

“You can technically trace it, but it’s horribly difficult, and you can only follow through about one or two locations before you lose the trail,” Remus explained. “Most people expecting to be followed would pop across the whole of Britain. There would be no way to find them, especially if the person used Simon’s wand to conjure the Dark Mark.”

“I can’t believe it was your wand!” Lily said, walking in with three cups of coffee levitating behind her. Remus and Darren plucked one each out of the air. “We should have never let you go to that awful World Cup…”

“Mum, there was no way anyone could have predicted a bunch of Death Eaters rioting at the World Cup!” Harry said exasperatedly. “That could have happened anywhere, we just got unlucky.”

“I suppose…” Lily said, although she still looked dissatisfied. 

“The match itself was actually pretty good,” Simon said. “All the mascots started fighting each other, and I saw Dad go onto the pitch to escort some Veela away!”

“Speaking of James, when do you think he and Sirius will be back?” Remus asked.

“Soon, I hope,” Lily said, stifling a yawn. “They were both on duty all day yesterday, and they needs to rest sometime…”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Harry said, thinking of Sirius’ comments from the night before. It sounded like James was in some kind of trouble with his boss.

“Harry’s right - there’s a lot of cleanup they’ve had to do with the muggles those Death Eaters were hurting,” Simon added. “The campsite manager got his brains scrambled so badly by the Obliviators that he wished us a merry Christmas on the way out.” 

“I didn’t think the two of them could get any busier, but that’s just the way of the Ministry, I suppose,” Remus sighed, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Well,” Mary said, “at least we’ve got something to look forward to amongst all this mess…”

She abruptly froze, staring at Harry and Simon like a deer in headlights. Lily and Remus both groaned loudly while Darren let out a booming laugh.

“We were going to wait for Sirius and James to get back!” Lily said in a lightly scolding voice.

“Damn it all!” Mary said exasperatedly. 

“Lily, you owe me five quid!” Darren said, nudging her with one elbow. “I told you she’d slip up and tell them!”

Simon frowned. “Tell us what? Is everything alright?”

“Yes - it’s good news,” Darren said, smiling fondly at Mary. He reached over and squeezed her hand. 

“Oh, well, I suppose there’s no point in me trying to keep a secret…” Mary looked up at Harry and Simon and rested a hand on her stomach. “Darren and I are having a baby.”

Harry’s jaw dropped. “Aunt Mary, that’s amazing!”

“Congratulations!” Simon said as Harry ran up to Marry and Darren to hug them both. 

“Thank you, boys,” Mary said happily, patting Harry on the back. 

“We were thinking of having a little party to celebrate, but between James and Sirius cleaning up after the World Cup disaster and you two heading back to school we weren’t sure when we’d get the time,” Lily said, grimacing.

“I might pop round the corner for a few balloons and a cake so we’re ready whenever they come back, though!” Darren said. Harry wasn’t sure how he’d missed the fact they had news originally - the man was positively beaming. 

“Is that why you’ve been sick, then?” Harry asked, thinking about Mary’s strange behaviour the other day.

“It is,” Mary said. “It turned out to be morning sickness, not the flu. Also, pregnancy can make your magic go funny, since it interacts with the baby. I’m not supposed to Apparate or Floo alone now, which is a right pain…”

“Speaking of the morning sickness, we’re going to need you boys to help in the front of the shop until school starts up again,” Lily said. “The potion smells are setting Mary off.”

“Couldn’t you take a potion for that, though?” Simon asked.

Mary shook her head. “A lot of potions aren’t pregnancy safe, including normal Anti-Nausea Draughts. There are some other things Lily’s whipped up that take the edge off, but we haven’t found anything foolproof yet.”

“I’m always happy to help out at the apothecary if you need it,” Harry promised.

“Same here,” Simon added. 

Lily smiled at them. “That’s my boys. You’re only restocking shelves, Simon, I don’t want you getting mobbed if they see your face behind the desk.”

Simon grimaced and lightly skimmed his fingers over his scar. “Right.”

Darren suddenly pointed to the mantelpiece. “James’ thing has changed colour! What does green mean again, Lily?” 

“Travelling,” Lily explained, as they all turned their attention to the reed diffuser next to a small photograph of James. “That’s good, I want to get eyes on him so I know for certain he’s okay.”

“Do you think Sirius is coming back, too?” Remus asked. “Or will he stay until -”

The fireplace abruptly burst into a torrent of green flames, which James practically sprinted out of. His hair was even wilder than usual, and he was completely covered in soot.

“Serum en obstructus!” he shouted, jabbing his wand sharply at the fireplace. Instantly, the green flames extinguished, and a set of red bricks completely blocked the grate.

“James, what -”

“Are all of you here?” he shouted. “Get Mary, Darren and Remus!”

“We’re all here, what’s going on?” Remus demanded, jumping to his feet.

“Activate the extra defensive wards, quickly!” James ordered. Harry shrank back, feeling a little frightened. His father looked half-wild as he scanned the room with sharp jerks of his head.

“But what -”

“NOW!” James bellowed, cutting Mary off and waggling his wand in an extraordinarily complex fashion.

“James, you need to explain what’s going on first so we know which ones to set off!” Lily said urgently, grabbing his arm and stopping James’ frantic wand movements. “What’s happened?”

James turned to her, his face ashen. “Peter broke out of Azkaban.”

Chapter Text

The reaction was instant. 

Harry barely had time to register the stony look shuttering down on his mother's face before she shoved him and Simon back towards the sofa, hard. Harry fell on top of Darren, who drew him and Simon close into his arms. Harry looked up and saw Lily twisting her wand in a corkscrew motion, causing a translucent bubble to appear from thin air. It surrounded him, Simon, Darren and Mary, who was standing up with her wand raised, apparently ready to pounce. Remus, Lily and James all started casting simultaneously, and a kaleidoscope of colours rippled across the house walls, so bright they made Harry’s eyes ache. 

Harry had never seen the adults act like this. His normally cool-headed father looked frantic, eyes darting from side to side and face twisted with anxiety. Lily's shoulders were squared with staunch determination as she muttered enchantment after enchantment. Remus looked grim and drawn as he paced the length of the living room, scanning the floorboards with intense focus. Mary looked rather determined, but Harry could see her wand trembling in her hand. Even Darren, who hadn't experienced Pettigrew's crimes first-hand, was tight-jawed and narrow-eyed with cold fury. That scared Harry more than anything. He'd known Darren for years now, and he’d never even heard the good-natured man raise his voice. Now, Darren looked like he was on the verge of punching someone. It was a sensible reaction, all things considered. Harry felt that same mixture of anger and fear the others were feeling himself as he contemplated Pettigrew.

For the first decade of his life, Harry had never heard the name Peter Pettigrew mentioned in his home. Of course, his mother and Mary never discussed the war, so that wasn't exactly surprising. His first introduction to the man had been a brief explanation of the events of that long-ago Halloween where Pettigrew had sold out Harry's family from Simon back in their first year at Hogwarts. A slightly more detailed explanation had ensued in the hotel when Harry and his family had all met up together again for the first time.

After the dozens of lies Harry had been told about the other part of his family had all come to light, his parents had promised that they'd be more honest about everything, including extra details of the war which they were so reluctant to discuss. That included the full details of the story of Peter Pettigrew. 

The countless crimes left Harry feeling sick to his stomach as he contemplated them. To join the Death Eaters, Pettigrew had orchestrated the murder of Marlene McKinnon, Mary and Lily's other best friend, as well as her entire family. He'd then spilled countless secrets to his Death Eater companions until he eventually sold out James and Lily's hiding location, allowing Voldemort to find their family all those years ago. Following Voldemort's death he'd fled as a rat, eventually turning up in the garden of Ron's family, hoping to be taken in as a pet. Of course, by then the Ministry had made his Animagus form common knowledge, and the Weasleys knew who they were dealing with.

Not that it helped with his capture, of course. After a lengthy chase through the village of Ottery St Catchpole, Pettigrew created a massive explosion, one which killed five muggles and mangled Arthur Weasley's hand terribly. It was only through a crafty bit of spellwork on the part of Molly Weasley that resulted in Pettigrew's capture. He'd been given life in Azkaban.

He deserved to still be in Azkaban, all things considered. But he'd escaped. Harry raised a hand to his chest, which was tight with anxiety. How had Pettigrew escaped? Azkaban was practically a fortress, no one was supposed to be able to get out of it! 

Moments later, Remus, Lily and James finished enchanting the house and sat down opposite the rest of them. Harry noticed that none of the adults dropped their wands, and kept glancing around the room warily.

"When?" Lily asked.

"Late last night," James said, leaning his elbows on his knees. "There's no specific time yet. Sirius is still at the office trying to find out more, and I came straight here."

"How do they not know a specific time?!" Mary demanded. 

"Because of that bloody attack at the World Cup!" James growled, flexing his fingers. "The whole office headed straight to the stadium grounds after the riot started, and no one was there when Quinn got news from Azkaban that he’d gotten out. We lost hours of time!”

“I’m still a bit lost on how he managed that?” Darren said, tentatively raising a hand. “I swear you said Azkaban was inescapable!”

“It is inescapable,” Remus said quietly. He didn’t look over at them, since he was too busy staring intently out of the window. “He shouldn’t have been able to get out. He’s the first one to manage it.”

“How did he get out?” Harry asked hesitantly, feeling a little scared to interrupt the frantic, furious adults.

James opened his mouth, but abruptly stopped speaking as someone rapped at the door in a strange pattern. Harry paused, half-expecting Peter Pettigrew to burst through the door, but Lily went straight over to open it without obvious fear. Sirius hurried inside, his eyes sunken in and darkened by heavy purple circles. The lack of sleep he was grappling with was clear. James, Lily, Remus and Mary all pointed their wands at him and Sirius froze, slowly raising his hands into the air.

“What did we toast to the night before Lily and I got married again?” James asked in a low, urgent voice.

Sirius somehow managed a thin smile. “That I was as good as your brother, no matter what our blood says, and that I’d helped you mature into a man who deserved Lily. We toasted to a bright future where everything was as it should be.”

James nodded, and lowered his wand. Lily, Mary and Remus followed suit, and Harry shot a confused look at Simon. That had been very odd. 

“Any news?” James urged.

“Escape details,” Sirius said. A muscle was twitching in his jaw. “I could breathe fire, James, I’m so angry…”

“How’d he do it?” Mary asked quickly.

“He scratched his way out,” Sirius hissed. “He dug at the mortar until he popped a brick out and squeezed through as a rat. They didn’t think to ward against that, apparently!”

“He can transform wandlessly?” James said, looking rather disturbed. “I didn’t know that…”

“Well, there were a lot of things we never knew about Peter, weren’t there?” Mary said through gritted teeth. 

“Is the house safe?” Sirius asked.

“Yes,” Lily said. “We’ve activated all the extra defensive wards, and I’ve layered a few enchantments on top. I’ve got long term plans so he can’t so much as step within a mile of here, even in rat form.”

James turned sharply to Harry and Simon. “You two need to think up a list of everybody who could know this address, now.”

“It’s not a lot of people,” Simon said. “Honestly, the only people we talk about home with or write letters to are Hermione, Neville and Ron.”

“Maybe Ron’s siblings, too,” Harry said, thinking of the twins and Ginny.

“I’ll have a word with all the Weasleys, then,” James said, “and I’ll pop by Augusta’s. Maybe I ought to ward the Grangers’, too, just in case…”

“Be quick,” Sirius advised. “The office is chaos, we need all hands on deck between the Word Cup fiasco and this.” He grimaced. “I’ve already had about five Howlers hit me today, just think what’s going to happen when Rita Skeeter catches wind of the breakout…”

“We’ll be alright without you two here,” Mary said reassuringly as James cast a hesitant look in their direction.

“Mary, Darren, I think you ought to stay here until this blows over,” Lily said. “Between the pregnancy and you being a muggle, Darren, it probably isn’t safe for you to be at yours alone…”

“You’re right,” Mary said, her shoulders slumping. “Considering my magic’s not working quite right, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Speaking of, is there anything we can do about my parents?” Darren asked. “I obviously can’t warn them specifically since they don’t know about magic -”

“I was already going to head over to their houses and set up some enchantments,” Lily said. “I'm already going to stop by Petunia’s to set up some protections and warn her about this - if she’ll even let me in the door, that is…”

The rueful undertone of Lily’s voice was unmistakable. The relationship between her and Aunt Petunia had reached an all time low since the wedding, and they hadn’t even attended the usual Boxing Day meal last Christmas. Harry was relieved by that, since he wasn’t particularly fond of the Dursleys, but he knew his mother wasn’t entirely happy about the situation.

“It should all be precautionary at any rate, Darren,” Lily said, rubbing his shoulder. “Pettigrew won’t have gotten news about Mary’s love life in Azkaban. I doubt he’ll be all that inclined to go after your family.”

“I’m off,” James said, changing his robes into slightly less crumpled ones with a flick of his wand. “I'll send word once I’ve gotten back to the office. Stay safe.”

“We will,” Lily promised as James strode out of the door, closely followed by Sirius. She sighed as soon as they were gone. “I hope they’re not gone too long, they really need some sleep…”

“I doubt any of us will be doing much sleeping,” Remus said heavily, leaning his head against the wall. He looked rather defeated.

“Speaking of sleeping arrangements, you boys need to move your things into the same bedroom so there’s room for Mary and Darren,” Lily said, pointing towards the staircase. “Why don’t you go and do that now?”

Judging by the furtive glances the adults were exchanging, Harry was fairly certain he and Simon were being gotten rid of. Normally, he’d try and plot a way to eavesdrop, but Harry had certain things he wanted to discuss alone with Simon too, so he headed upstairs without protest. After all, judging by the anxious look on his mother’s face, Harry was fairly certain he and Simon weren’t going to be allowed out of sight for the foreseeable future, so they needed to take the opportunity to talk while they still had it. 

“Want to stay in my room?” Harry offered as they reached the upstairs landing. 

“Sure,” Simon said. Both of them sidled inside. As soon as Harry shut his bedroom door, Simon perched on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. 

“Are you alright?” Harry asked worriedly.

“A mass-murdering Death Eater who’s probably out for our blood just broke out of prison, Harry!” Simon hissed. “I am justifiably freaking out, thank you very much!”

“Alright, alright!” Harry said quickly. “Er - how do we even know he’s interested in us, though?”

“I killed his Dark Lord, so I doubt we’re in his good books!” Simon said. He jumped up and started to pace, clearly agitated. 

“Not to make things worse, but there’s something else I need to tell you,” Harry said hesitantly. He didn’t want to do anything to increase Simon’s obvious distress, but he knew he had to get this out in the open immediately. “When I was running away from the Death Eaters with Ron last night, something strange happened…”

Much like Harry, Simon also thought that Divination was a load of tosh. He had a particularly vehement hatred for the subject, since Professor Trelawney was quite fond of predicting his death throughout their lessons. Once Harry finished relaying Ron’s pronouncement, though, Simon’s face was far from sceptical. He looked even more worried than he had before Harry had told him the story, something Harry hadn’t thought possible.

“Write that down, now,” Simon ordered. “We don’t want to forget it.”

“You really think it’s something?” Harry asked, scribbling down the pronouncement.

“It has to be,” Simon said, expression grim. “The main focus of that prophecy is on traitors. That’s what Peter’s most known for - he’s the biggest traitor there is! And look!” Simon pointed to the first line. “‘It will happen tonight.’ Ron gave that prophecy late last night, right when Pettigrew broke out, I’m betting! That line about the Dark Lord’s servants fleeing their cages basically confirms it.”

“But it says about three traitors, not one,” Harry said. 

“And maybe these other two traitors are people we don’t know about,” Simon said, eyes downcast. “Let’s face it, Harry, our knowledge of the war is patchy at best. We have to accept that this pronouncement - prophecy - whatever the hell it is, it probably has a bit of substance.”

Harry bit his lip and stared at the overcast sky beyond his window. “I don’t want it to be true, though. This - Simon, it says You-Know-Who is going to come back. That can’t be true.”

“And it won’t be.” Simon got his feet, his face set. “The entire Auror department is going to be looking for Pettigrew. Besides, Dad, Sirius and Remus are always talking about what a weak wizard he was, too. I bet he’ll be caught in days at most.”

Unfortunately for the two of them, Simon turned out to be more wrong than they could have imagined. In that week following the breakout, the Aurors didn’t get anywhere near Peter Pettigrew. In fact, there hadn’t even been a sighting of him, something which Harry’s family frequently mentioned in low, anxious tones.

Things in the house were tense, to say the least. It was tight quarters - not only had Mary and Darren moved into the spare bedroom, but Remus and Sirius had both vacated their house across the road and had set up camp in the living room. Remus was Transfiguring the sofa into a bed every night, while Sirius was transforming into his dog form and curling up in a ball on a makeshift bed of blankets by the fireplace.

It all wouldn’t have been so bad if they were actually allowed to leave the place, but Harry and Simon weren’t even permitted to go out into the garden at the minute, their parents were so paranoid. They were practically followed from room to room by an adult at all times, which rendered any private discussions between Harry and his brother impossible. He desperately wanted to look into the prophecy, but had to gloomily accept it needed to be left until they were back at Hogwarts and had a bit more freedom to do things alone. Ron had been very insistent that they kept things secret, after all, and Harry wasn’t going to break a promise to his best friend.

They weren’t the only ones trapped at home. James had asked Lily and Mary to close the apothecary until he could get the staff free for an official Auror guard around the shop, so they were home at all hours, and had turned the shed in the back garden into a makeshift laboratory. Darren had also been banned from working on account of his inability to use magic. Mary had forged him a doctor’s note, so he was able to stay home without getting in trouble, but being a mechanic meant he couldn’t do any work from home like Mary and Lily could, so he was going a little stir-crazy. Darren had taken to assisting Remus, who had decided alongside Harry’s parents that now was the time for a loft conversion they’d been putting off for a few years due to the lack of space they were currently experiencing.

The only people who weren’t around constantly were James and Sirius, who practically lived in the office. When they were home, they were in high dudgeon.

“It’s an outrage!” James had bellowed one evening early in the week. “I should be the one dealing with it!”

“James, surely you can see you’re too close to it all, though?” Darren said tentatively.

“And that’s exactly why Sirius and I ought to be on the Pettigrew team!” James growled. “We have an intricate understanding of his Animagus magic, and without us it’ll be impossible to find one rat in the entirety of Britain!”

“Williamson doesn’t know what the hell he’s on about!” Sirius said, clenching his fists. “Self-righteous prick…”

“And if that’s not all bad enough, we’re stuck dealing with a bunch of whiny idiots trying to get tent reimbursements!” James shouted. “As if there aren’t bigger problems to deal with than a little World Cup damage!” 

James and Sirius weren’t the only ones in terrible moods. Mary was feeling dreadful because of her morning sickness, Lily was spending all hours of the day brewing mysterious potions and was barely sleeping as a consequence, while being trapped in his bedroom all day as Simon loudly practised the guitar was doing Harry’s head in. They barely made it four days before an explosive fight broke out, which came in the form of Hogsmeade permission slips.

“Harry, the answer is no,” Lily said, shoving the unsigned permission form back at him.

“You’re being ridiculous!” Harry shouted, his temper flaring. “If it was really so dangerous, Dumbledore would have banned Hogsmeade visits! Everyone else still gets to go, why don’t I?!” 

“Because you are not everyone else!” Lily said, her voice rising to meet Harry’s. “Pettigrew is after us!”

“Oh, please, he’s not come anywhere near here!” 

“And how exactly would you know that?” Lily demanded, folding her arms. “He’s targeting us, Harry! As much as you don’t like it, we have to take precautions, and that includes you staying put in the castle where you’re safe!”

“Oh yeah?” he challenged. “Do you have a single shred of evidence that he’s after us specifically?!”

“I do, but that is not information you need to know!” Lily yelled. “You are a child, this is not your responsibility to worry about!”

“No, you’re just being a complete control freak!” he shouted back. “Get over yourself!”

Harry stormed straight upstairs and slammed the door to his bedroom, which was mercifully devoid of Simon. He buried his head under his pillow, feeling stress and anger beyond anything he’d felt before. He hated this whole awful situation, and wished things could just go back to normal already.

Unfortunately for him, Harry’s anger was quickly replaced with guilt following an overheard conversation he stumbled across while making a trip to the loo later that night. His parents’ bedroom door was slightly open, and quiet voices were filtering through.

“...shouldn’t have done it,” James said angrily. “How could I have been so stupid?” 

“It’s alright, you couldn’t have realised,” Lily said, her voice muffled. 

“I shouldn’t have goaded him, and you know it. Now, it’s my fault he’s after us.”

“And you’re certain? That he broke out to get us, specifically?”

“He shouts threats to kill me and my family to me in Azkaban straight to my face the week before he escapes,” James said, in a weary voice. “Yes, I’m pretty certain. I was giving him a right piece of my mind before I collected Fletcher for the trial, and he was raving and screaming all those awful things…”

“He’d have targeted us at any rate, darling,” Lily said quietly. “Things would never be safe with him out there.”

James sighed. “I know…”

Harry slipped back into his room as quietly as he could before letting out a sigh of his own. Okay, so maybe his mum had a point about the Hogsmeade ban… it was a miracle he was being allowed to attend Hogwarts at all, if everything Harry had just overheard was true.

The night before Harry and Simon were due to return to Hogwarts they’d all just about managed to strike a balance in the crowded house, and were sitting together in the living room in relative tranquillity. There was a raging storm outside, so Harry and Simon had huddled together on the rug next to the roaring fire to try and stave off the cold. The fireplace was still disconnected from the Floo network, but they’d finally removed the bricks from it, and the flames cast an orange glow over the Exploding Snap deck they were currently stacking into a card house. Remus and Darren were huddled together on the sofa, murmuring over sketched floorplans for the loft conversion, while an exhausted James dozed next to them, his glasses gradually slipping down his nose. Lily was absentmindedly scratching Cleo behind the ears while she and Mary read a copy of the Evening Prophet.

“They really didn’t need to rush out an evening edition for this,” Lily sighed, turning the page. “It’s just more Rita Skeeter conspiracy crap…”

“Who’s in the firing line today?” Remus asked, snatching James’ glasses out of the air as they finally tumbled from his nose. He folded them neatly and placed them on the coffee table. 

“Kingsley Shacklebolt,” Mary said. “Apparently he’s an incompetent fool who was only promoted to be in charge of the manhunt because of family connections.”

“As far as Skeeter goes, that’s not the worst thing to be called,” Darren remarked. “What was it she called James again?”

“A werewolf-loving lunatic who possesses the same lack of nerve as his deer Animagus form and has a strangely intense and possibly romantic passion for his canine companion, Mr Black,” Remus said dryly. “I did tell him not to defend me after my resignation…”

“Oh, shush,” Mary said, waving her hand. “We’d all be defending you in the press, too, if we only had the same sway James does.”

The rain splattering against the windows was suddenly cut through by the sound of a key scraping in the lock. The door flew open and a soaking Sirius stepped inside, bringing with him a gust of wind that knocked over Harry and Simon’s house of cards. It promptly exploded in their faces, leaving them singed.

“Evening!” Sirius said cheerfully, drying himself with a flick of his wand. “Good to see you all!"

“I can’t say the same,” Simon grumbled, gesturing to his blackened face. Sirius let out a barking laugh as Lily waved her wand, returning him and Harry to normal.

“You’re in a good mood,” Remus remarked, handing James his glasses as he finally awoke from his doze.

“I suppose I am,” Sirius said, “seeing as I won’t be dealing with Howlers and desk work anymore starting tomorrow…”

“Are you finally on the Pettigrew case?” Harry asked eagerly.

“No, no… I’ve actually gotten a different job opportunity,” Sirius said cryptically. 

James’ head jerked up. “They said you could do it?”

Sirius grinned. “Yep. You’re officially looking at the newest Hogwarts Defence Against the Dark Arts professor!”

Lily jumped up to hug Sirius as James, Darren and Mary all cheered. 

“That’s amazing!” Darren said.

“Well done, mate,” James said, clapping Sirius on the back. Everyone was elated - even Remus, who Harry would have expected to be a little glum, considering he’d just been forced out of that very job. In fact, Harry thought he and his brother had to be the only people in the room who weren’t exactly thrilled that Sirius was going to be in charge.

“I, er… I thought Mad-Eye Moody was taking the job?” Simon said, fidgeting with his hands.

“He was going to, but he was happy to step aside when I decided to take his place,” Sirius said with a shrug. “He never actually wanted to do it all that much, to be honest. I’m more qualified than him, at any rate, since I’m still on the force and he’s retired.”

“Does this mean you’re losing your job as an Auror, then?” Harry asked, alarmed.

“No, no!” Sirius said quickly. “They were already discussing stationing a few Aurors at Hogwarts anyway, because of the breakout, and me acting as a professor is killing two birds with one stone, eh? Besides, I’d rather be closer to the school right now…”

To keep an eye on us, Harry reflected gloomily. That made him feel rather awful - after all, Harry was fairly certain the job was cursed. Was Sirius really putting himself in danger for the sake of Harry and Simon?

“Well, I think this is a cause for celebration,” Lily declared. “To Sirius!”

“To Sirius!” the adults all shouted. The man in question beamed.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have a ton of paperwork to do,” Sirius said, pulling a large stack of parchment out of a pocket in his robes. “And I probably need to scrape together some sort of lesson plan, since this is all so last minute… Remus, would you mind giving me a hand? I’m completely lost.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Remus said with a smile, following Sirius out of the living room. Harry watched after them worriedly.

“What’s wrong, boys?” James asked, clearly picking up on their reservation. “You look upset. Are you worried it’ll be strange having Sirius as a professor?”

“No, not that,” Simon said, exchanging a look with Harry. “It’s just - you do realise that job is cursed, right? We’ve never had a professor last more than a year, and all of Ron’s brothers said the same thing when we asked them, too…”

“A lot of them met really messy ends, too,” Simon added. “Something bad could happen to Sirius if he takes this job!”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Lily said dismissively. “Remus is fine, and he spent the last year doing the exact same job!”

“He got outed as a werewolf and had his life ruined,” Harry pointed out.

“His life wasn’t ruined,” Mary corrected. “You boys do realise we all know about the Defence Against the Dark Arts rumours, right? We had the same issue with our professors back in our Hogwarts days, after all, but the majority of them just quit. The Weasleys are just telling tales. You’ve had a bad run these last few years, that’s all.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Lily said gently, reaching out a hand and rubbing Harry’s shoulder. “Sirius is only planning to take the post for a year. If there is a curse, that should almost certainly trick it - assuming this curse even exists.”

“Alright,” Harry said doubtfully.

But try as he might, Harry just couldn’t put his fears to one side while he did some last minute packing that evening before finally going to bed. As he stared at the ceiling, too troubled to fall asleep, he was also fairly certain he wasn’t the only one awake. He knew Simon’s breathing well enough to recognise his brother was just as concerned and restless over their uncle. Still, neither of them discussed the matter. It wasn’t like talking would help - they were powerless here. It was a long time before Harry fell into a fitful slumber…

The forest was dark.

No figures were immediately present in the darkened clearing, but a tension seemed to settle over the whole place. No birds dared to call from the twisted trees, no animals made the mistake of wandering through, and even the bugs had taken residence elsewhere. It was as if they sensed the darkness lurking in the place.

Two men stumbled between the trees. Heavy black cloaks hid their features in shadow. One man held a wand, from which a feeble white light was emanating. When the light skittered across his face as he stumbled over a tree root, it revealed sunken cheeks and black, hollow eyes, which all seemed to make his rodent-like features all the more prominent. The most disturbing part of his appearance were the large, scabbed scratches marring his cheeks, layered over dozens of half-healed vertical pink scars. He was dragging along a slightly shorter man, who was remarkably thin, and mumbling unintelligibly to himself. 

“Hurry up!” the rodent man hissed in a hoarse, raspy voice. “This must be the place…”

“Indeed.” The men froze in the centre of the clearing as a new voice spoke. They turned to the darkened sidelines, where the most gnarled and twisted of the trees stood. The voice had come from there. After a few moments, movement became obvious. The spluttering wandlight revealed the snake first - a twelve foot creature which shot across the ground at a startling pace. The rodent man squeaked and jumped back as the serpent circled him.

“You always were afraid of your own shadow, Wormtail,” a high, cold voice said. At last, the figure stepped forth - a woman who couldn’t be older than forty, who looked rather unwell. Her sagging flesh indicated rapid weight loss, her skin was waxen and slightly yellow, and her brown hair was hanging in greasy, matted clumps. The only part of her which seemed alive was her eyes, which were a livid red.

The rodent man - Wormtail - seemed alarmed by her presence. “B-Bertha?!”

“In appearance only, Wormtail,” the woman said smoothly in a voice that did not suit her in the slightest. It was far too cold. “You know precisely who I am.”

“My Lord!” Wormtail threw himself at Bertha’s feet, his face bowed so low his pointed nose practically touched the earth beneath. Bertha paid no attention to this display - instead, she was drawn to the second man, who was currently mumbling to a nearby tree. Her features twisted into an irritated scowl.

“You have brought Black along?” Surprise was evident in Bertha’s voice, the first emotion to break through the chill ever-present in her tone. “I believed he was deceased…”

“P-Please, forgive his disrespect, my Lord,” Wormtail said anxiously. “He - he is quite mad. I cannot work out the spell that must have addled his brains…”

“Of course you couldn’t.” Bertha’s voice was cold once more. “You have your own troubles with addled brains, don’t you, Wormtail? Although, I must concede, it will have taken a degree of skill to free yourself from Azkaban…where you were for these last thirteen years instead of at my side, I can assume?”

“I broke out, my Lord!” Wormtail said eagerly. The praise seemed to have lit up his haggard face. “My Animagus form, I used it… I came to you as soon as I could. I've heard the rumours, I have remained loyal all this time…”

“Indeed you have, Wormtail. Rise.” He scrambled before Bertha, who sized up Wormtail’s fervent features with a calculating hunger. “You shall be rewarded for your service and your unwavering faith, when so many of your associates turned on me…”

“Thank you, my Lord!” Wormtail said, nodding vigorously. “I - I was always faithful, unlike the others…”

“Ah, yes. Unfaithful others.” Bertha strode across the clearing to the mumbling man. “And where precisely have you been, Black? It must have been fifteen years since I last saw you… you were merely a boy, back then. Who is this man who stands before me, and where have you hidden all this time?”

Bertha wrenched the man around by his shoulders. The cloak’s hood slid back slightly, revealing vague, unfocused grey eyes. Bertha frowned and turned to Wormtail. “Do you know how he came to be in this state?”

“No, my Lord,” Wormtail rasped. “I discovered him in a muggle psychiatric facility, and broke him out. He was trapped and wandless there - for years, it seems. I can't get an intelligent conversation out of him.”

“Ah, the Black madness,” Bertha said softly. She stared directly into the man’s unfocused grey eyes, and a strange silence settled over the two of them. Moments later, Bertha broke away. “Indeed, his mind is more addled than even Bellatrix’s. I cannot sort through any of his memories. Still, I suspect a well-brewed Clarity Tonic will sort this nonsense and turn him back into the talented wizard I require in my service. I have many plans, Wormtail…”

“Plans?” Wormtail asked nervously.

“Oh, yes,” Bertha said. An unnatural, unpleasant smile split her features. “You haven’t a clue, Wormtail, what we will all do together. We will return to Britain and Lord Voldemort shall rise again, more powerful and terrible than ever before…”

The woman broke out into cackling, deep laughter, that suited her least of all. It wasn’t a sound of happiness, but the peals of jubilation and triumph. The laughter of someone who knew they held the matches to ignite a spark that would set the whole world ablaze…

And Harry awoke with a gasp with those last dying cries of laughter echoing in his ears. Harry’s hand flew to his burning forehead and he gritted his teeth, not wanting to wake Simon. It felt like he was being stabbed repeatedly by a white-hot knife. He looked wildly around the room, half-expecting to see the three figures who had been laughing in the clearing stood in his bedroom. No one else was present except for Simon, who rolled over on his mattress just as Harry’s eyes landed on him. In the dark bedroom, Harry couldn’t get a good look at his brother’s features. “Are you alright?”

Simon’s voice sounded oddly shaky, so Harry quickly nodded, not wanting to disturb him. “Er - yeah. Can’t sleep. Just worried about Sirius…”

“Right...” Simon, who seemed to be in no kind of mood to talk either, rolled back over, leaving Harry to stare at the ceiling and contemplate his nightmare. 

Because that was all it was, after all. A weird, horrid dream, but a dream nonetheless. After all, why would Voldemort take the form of a middle-aged woman? That was the oddest thing his subconscious could have possibly conjured up, second only to Sirius somehow being in the middle of a forest with You-Know-Who. After all, who else could Black possibly be? There were no other living Blacks. 

He was just stressed, Harry told himself fiercely. He was stressed about Ron’s vision, and about Pettigrew’s escape, and about Sirius taking the Defence Against the Dark Arts job. His brain had just lumped them all together in some worry-induced chaotic dream. Voldemort was dead, and he was making stuff up

But as Harry turned over, trying to ignore the final remaining ache in his forehead, he bit his lip. For the first time in his life, he truly couldn't bring himself to believe that. Strange things were happening, and Voldemort seemed to be right at the centre of them. 

Something was truly wrong, and Harry didn't have a clue how he played into it.

Chapter Text

After a rough night, they were shaken awake by Lily to begin their journey to King’s Cross. The kitchen was full of all the house’s residents, save for James and Sirius.

“Sirius has already headed off to Hogwarts, and your dad’s coordinating with the guards at the station,” Remus explained when Harry asked over breakfast. “James will meet the two of you at King’s Cross to say goodbye.”

The plan to get to the station was, in Harry’s opinion, a little convoluted. After saying goodbye to Mary and Remus at the house, he and Simon huddled together under the Invisibility Cloak while their Disillusioned mother led the two of them through several side streets to where Darren was waiting in the car. They weren’t even permitted to take the Invisibility Cloak off in the back seat until they were well out of Lewes.

The rest of the journey wasn’t as tense as the past week and a half had been, to Harry’s relief. Lily and Darren both relaxed as they got further north, which helped prevent Harry’s last conversation with his mother being some sort of nasty argument over her being too overprotective when it came to Pettigrew. Harry was more excited than ever to get to Hogwarts that year, since being at school would give him far more freedom than he’d had that last week at home. 

As soon as they pulled up to the station, three people approached them. The first Harry instantly recognised as his father, who kissed Lily on the cheek as she stepped out of the car, and he quickly placed James’ associates as Kingsley Shacklebolt and Tonks. Both of the Aurors had attended his parents’ wedding, so Harry was reasonably familiar with the two of them. 

“Let’s hurry up,” James said, glancing at his watch. “The train is leaving soon, and I’d rather have the two of you on board and safe…”

Kingsley Shacklebolt stepped to one side and gestured towards two trollies he’d lined up. Harry and Darren loaded his trunk and Hedwig’s cage on while James helped Simon with his belongings, before they all hurried through the spitting rain to enter the station. They quickly reached the barrier that led to platform nine-and-three-quarters, which Harry and the others all slid through after checking there weren’t any muggles watching.

They quickly stored their luggage at the back of the train before Harry’s parents and Darren pulled him and Simon away from the bustling crowd and into one corner of the station to say their goodbyes.

“I hope you have a good year,” James said, drawing Harry and Simon into a quick one-armed hug. “Keep your wands close at all times, and remember -”

“Stay safe,” Simon and Harry chanted in the same worried tones their father always used. That got a thin smile out of him, although it didn’t quite reach his shadowed, anxious eyes. 

“James is right, you know,” Darren said with uncharacteristic solemnity. “Keep yourselves safe, okay? No sword-fighting with snakes this year…”

“We’ll be safe,” Harry promised. “You guys don’t have to worry.”

“Oh, we will anyway,” Lily said, ruffling Harry’s hair. “Make sure you write! I want to hear all about that band of yours, Simon.”

“I’ll tell you everything,” Simon said, tilting his head to one side as the whistle screeched. 

“Look after each other!” James called as Harry and his brother headed towards the train. “And make sure to have fun! You’ve got an exciting year ahead of you, actually…”

Harry stopped walking. “What do you mean?”

Lily winked. “You’ll find out soon enough!”

Harry was practically burning with curiosity by now, but the ticking clock on the wall of the station prevented any further questioning of his parents. Harry settled for enthusiastically waving away as the train pulled out of the station.

“Bagman mentioned something happening at Hogwarts back at the World Cup, didn’t he?” Simon reminded him as the train rounded a bend and the station vanished. “I bet that’s what they were hinting at.”

“Yeah, he did,” Harry said, frowning. “I wonder what it could be…”

“Well, like Mum said, we’ll find out soon enough,” Simon said with a shrug. “Now, let’s find the others.”

Unfortunately, Harry and his brother had only just started heading up the train before they came across a completely different person to their friends. Unlike Neville, Ron and Hermione, this was someone who Harry certainly did not want to see.

“They really ought not to let your kind in, I think,” Draco Malfoy’s drawling voice carried out of a nearby compartment. “How have you not even heard of the Hogwarts houses? Ridiculous! You’re no better than a muggle!”

Crabbe and Goyle’s unpleasant laughter followed that remark. Harry and Simon exchanged grim looks and shouldered their way into the compartment. They found Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle looming over a very scared looking boy who had to be a first year. All three boys spun around, and Malfoy’s features twisted into a sneer.

“Well, well, well,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “If it isn’t the dynamic duo!”

“Malfoy,” Harry said, glaring daggers at the three smirking boys. He and Simon both despised that stupid Witch Weekly name, and Malfoy knew it.

“Why don’t you do yourself a favour and leave him alone?” Simon said, drawing himself up to his full height.

“I don’t think I will,” Malfoy said, taking a step forward. “This is our compartment, you see, and someone has to teach this little Mudblood his place.”

Harry and Simon both reacted instantly, drawing their wands and pointing them directly at Malfoy’s chest. His smug expression wavered for a moment as he glanced between the two of them.

“Don’t call him that!” Harry growled.

“Or what?” Malfoy asked, raising his eyebrows. Crabbe and Goyle both cracked their knuckles threateningly. 

As angry as he was, Harry wasn’t exactly feeling like a fight, especially when it was three versus two. His eyes drifted down to the snake crest on Malfoy’s robes and suddenly, an idea came to him. If he squinted just so, and pictured the snake wriggling a little…

“Malfoy, I think you’re a right git, and if you don’t leave that boy alone I’ll hex your toenails off,” Harry spat. Despite the fact that Harry’s words just sounded like plain English to him, Malfoy flinched back like he’d been electrocuted. Crabbe and Goyle immediately turned white. 

“What are you doing, Potter?” he said, the nervousness apparent in his voice. 

“Putting you in your place,” Harry said, conjuring up his best vindictive grin.

“Stop it!”

“Or what?” Simon also took a step forward. He was also speaking Parseltongue, Harry realised after a moment. “Scared of a little snake language, Malfoy?”

That seemed to be the final straw. Malfoy shoved past them and out into the hallway, closely followed by Crabbe and Goyle. Once the compartment door slammed shut, Simon turned to Harry and grinned. “Nice one!” 

Harry couldn’t help but smile a little himself. Even though he was a Slytherin, Parseltongue had always scared Malfoy; that much had been apparent when Simon had spoken to the snake Malfoy had conjured at the Duelling Club back in second year. He’d been visibly shaking the entire time. 

“What was that?” the boy asked, his eyes wide. Harry got the strangest sense of deja vu as he took in the first-year’s features. He had rather high cheekbones, curly black hair and grey eyes Harry could swear he’d seen somewhere before.

That was Parseltongue,” Harry explained. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Harry, and this is my brother, Simon.”

“Nice to meet you,” the boy said, shaking Harry’s hand. “I’m Ryan.”

“If Malfoy gives you any more problems, just let us know,” Simon said. “We’ll sort him out for you.”

Ryan scratched the back of his head and smiled. “Thanks.” 

“You reckon he’s a muggleborn?” Simon asked as they ducked out of the compartment and continued heading up the train to find Ron, Hermione and Neville.

“I’d bet on it,” Harry said. “He didn’t recognise you at all.”

“I recognised him, though,” Simon said thoughtfully. “He looks weirdly familiar, don’t you think?”

“I did think that!” Harry said, stroking his chin. “His eyes… I swear I know him.”

“Weird...” Simon’s face suddenly lit up. “Hey, look! There’s the others!”

He yanked open a compartment door and was immediately pounced on by Hermione. She barrelled into the two of them and hugged them.

“There you two are!” She pulled back and gave them both worried looks. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re alright! Ever since we heard about Pettigrew we’ve been worried sick!”

“We thought you might never come back to Hogwarts at all!” Neville said. He was holding onto a strange-looking brown cactus that was covered in pointed teeth instead of spines.

“We’ve been sending letters all week, but the owls just kept coming straight back!” Ron added. “My mum kept trying to Floo call yours, too, and none of the powder was working.”

“They shut off the connection to the Floo Network,” Simon explained.

“Yeah, our house is locked up so tightly I kind of feel like we’re the ones in Azkaban,” Harry grumbled. “Believe me, I’m glad to be getting away.”

“Well, I can understand why they’re worried,” Hermione said. Her eyes were wide and anxious. “Pettigrew’s really dangerous! Mr Weasley was telling us all about the time he came to the Burrow and blew up those muggles in Ottery St Catchpole over this last week.”

“Really?” Harry leaned forward, interested. “Tell us!”

“It’s the first time Mum and Dad have properly gone into the details with me,” Ron said, propping his feet up on the opposite bench. “So, when Percy was like, five, this rat came into our garden. Bill had just started at Hogwarts, and Mum and Dad had gotten together just enough money to buy him an owl of his own, and Percy was really jealous because he wanted a pet, too, so he tried to take the rat inside. Obviously it wasn’t a rat - it was Peter Pettigrew.”

Ron seemed to be really leaning into the storytelling by now. He leaned forwards on his elbows. “Luckily, by that point the news of Pettigrew being an Animagus was everywhere. My parents realised straight away something was wrong, and chased him all the way into Ottery St Catchpole. Right into the busy muggle market, too! He cast this huge explosion to try and get away - you can still see the crater, they told the muggles it was a gas explosion - and that’s what messed up Dad’s hand. You’ve seen it, obviously, they couldn’t save his ring finger and his pinky. All Pettigrew’s fault. Mum managed to Stun him before he got away in the chaos, though.”

“Aren’t your parents worried he’ll come after your family?” Simon asked. “Or are we the only ones with crazy, overprotective relatives running around after us?”

“No, I’ve seen my parents talking in the kitchen with Aurors all week,” Ron said grimly. “It’s obviously going to be worse for you, mate, since you’re…well, you.”

Simon grimaced and ran a finger over the scar on his cheek. 

“Gran’s worried, too,” Neville said, running a hand over his strange, toothy cactus. It made a sound rather reminiscent of a bark. “And we don’t even have any reason to believe he’d be after us! All of my other relatives are really worried, too. It’s not just your family.”

“Do you two know anything about Pettigrew that we wouldn’t?” Hermione asked. “I only know what I’ve read in the papers and what I’ve heard from Ron’s parents, but I’d think you know more."

“Oh, we can tell you a fair bit,” Harry said, exchanging a dark look with Simon. 

Over the course of the next hour or so, they told Ron, Neville and Hermione everything they knew about Pettigrew and how he’d escaped that they’d either been told or had overheard in the last week. By the time they’d finished, the train was completely surrounded by rolling countryside, and the spitting rain had turned into quite the downpour which was lashing the windows. The sky was so dark it was practically black by the time the trolley witch came by. 

“So Sirius has taken the Defence job because of all this?” Neville asked when they finally finished filling in their friends on all they knew.

“Yep,” Simon said, biting into a chocolate frog. “We don’t want him to, but he was pretty insistent…”

“Well, at least we know we’ll have a decent professor,” Hermione said.

“Yeah…” Harry exchanged a worried look with Simon. Harry didn’t think even the best magical education in the world could be worth Sirius’ life.

“So, Ron,” Harry said, popping an Every Flavour Bean into his mouth, “did you fill Neville and Hermione in on what happened in the forest at the World Cup?”

Ron pulled a face. “Yeah, and Hermione agrees with me, like I said she would.”

Harry groaned. “Not this again! You know perfectly well something important happened!”

“It was a very stressful evening, Harry,” Hermione said in an annoyingly level voice. “You might be remembering things wrong, or -”

“Oh, I remember Ron having a vision pretty bloody clearly!” he snapped. 

“I just think it’s a bit weird that you of all people would hear this odd fit of his if it was prophetic, right?” Hermione stressed. “By all accounts, you were in a forest where no one else could hear you! Isn’t the point of a prophecy that it warns people of some kind of great change in the fates? Why would that person be… well, you?"

“And how would you know anything about all this?” Harry muttered resentfully. “You gave up on Divination, didn’t you?”

Hermione made a disapproving noise and leaned against the compartment window. Simon pointedly elbowed him and widened his eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” Harry said with a loud sigh. “Can’t you at least help us look into it? You’ve got to admit something weird is happening here!”

After a moment, Hermione turned back to look at him, her lips pursed. “Fine. I’ll help you research, if only to prove to you that it wasn’t a prophecy, so we can put this madness to rest.”

“Fine.” Harry knew that was the closest he was going to get to an agreement. Besides, he was pretty convinced it was a prophecy, so he’d be the one proving Hermione wrong, here.

Neville ran the back of his hand over the odd cactus again, and it let out a happy keening noise.

“Neville, what even is that thing?” Simon asked, looking a mixture of fascinated and disgusted.

“A Canine Cactus,” Neville said proudly. “Gran got it for me. It can grow up to six feet tall if you take care of it properly!”

Harry imagined a gigantic cactus bristling with razor-sharp teeth looming in the corner of his dormitory and shivered. He busied himself with his Viktor Krum figurine while Neville explained the Canine Cactus’ various medicinal properties.

Several people stopped in on them as the journey continued, including most of the other Gryffindors in their year. They had an animated chat with Seamus and Dean about the World Cup, while Lavender and Parvati had a brief discussion with Hermione about something to do with dress robes. Occasionally, Harry noticed a scarlet-robed Auror walk past the compartment window and glance in on them, presumably on patrol. Draco Malfoy also looked in for a moment, but then he sharply hurried off when he made eye contact with Harry.

“What’s his problem?” Ron asked. “He wouldn’t normally shy away from a fight!” 

“We scared him off with some Parseltongue earlier,” Harry explained. 

“Parseltongue?” Neville said, his shoulders tensing. 

“There’s nothing inherently bad about Parseltongue, Neville,” Simon said, rolling his eyes. “It’s just easy to freak people out with it, including Malfoy.”

“And he really deserved it,” Harry grumbled. “He was being perfectly horrid to this muggleborn first-year.”

“How awful!” Hermione said, shutting her book with a loud snap. 

“I wish I’d hexed him,” Harry said, rolling his wand between his palms.

Simon grabbed onto his arm suddenly. “Harry! I just worked out who that Ryan kid looks like!”

“Who?”

“Sirius!” Simon said excitedly.

Harry frowned thoughtfully. “You’re right - they’re dead similar, aren’t they?”

“It’s all in the face,” Simon said. “They’ve got the same eyes, it’s uncanny.”

“I’m so glad you figured that out, it was really bugging me!”

The rest of the journey continued without much else of interest, apart from the occasional theory about where Pettigrew had gotten to, or some slightly terse bickering between Harry and Hermione about the validity of prophecies while the downpour outside grew stronger and stronger. By the time they reached Hogsmeade station, it was as if buckets of water were being dumped from the sky, so the five of them were thoroughly soaked when they hurried into the Entrance Hall. Harry’s teeth were chattering; he felt less like he’d been rained on, and more like someone had dumped an icy bucket of water over his head. It was a great relief to get inside the warm Great Hall, where Harry and his friends took their usual seats at the Gryffindor table.

“Look, there’s Sirius!” Simon said, pointing towards the staff table. Harry followed and saw that Sirius was indeed sitting up there in a pair of his finer robes, and he was currently chatting to Professor Burbage. He glanced towards the Gryffindor table moments later, saw Harry and Simon watching him, then grinned. Harry and Simon both waved, and Sirius winked back.

“Who’s that man talking to Professor Burbage?” Seamus asked from a few seats down. “Do you two know him?”

“That’s Sirius Black, our godfather,” Simon said rather happily. “He’s the Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor this year.”

“Is he any good?” Parvati asked.

“Should be,” Harry said. “He’s an Auror, after all.”

“Cool!” Dean said.

“I swear you two know every Defence professor we’ve had!” Seamus laughed. “Last year we had your other uncle, and the year before we had your almost-stepfather!”

“Blech.” Simon made a face. “Don’t remind me about Lockhart…”

“Is he still in Azkaban?” Neville asked.

“Yep,” Harry said. “Will be for another year or two. He did a lot of Memory Charms.”

“Hey, Harry,” Ron said, nudging him, “take a look at Snape. I’ve never seen him that angry!”

Harry looked back up at the staff table until he found Professor Snape. He wasn’t talking to any of the other people at the table; instead, he was glaring pointedly past Professor Sinistra to where Sirius was still talking to Professor Burbage. Harry was rather familiar with Snape’s various glares and glowers by now, since he spent the majority of his Potions lessons watching the man’s various looks of disgust during his standoffs with Simon. Still, even his usual looks of disdain towards Harry’s brother were no match for the venomous look he was currently giving Sirius. In fact, Snape looked like he was mere inches away from leaping to his feet and strangling Sirius in front of the entire Great Hall.

“He doesn’t look happy, does he?” Hermione remarked.

“Understatement of the century,” Neville said, looking rather faint. He was utterly terrified of Snape.

“He probably isn’t too happy Sirius is here,” Harry explained. “If there’s one person Snape hates, it’s him.”

“Even more than our dad, if you can believe it,” Simon added. 

Ron stared mournfully at one of the empty golden plates and groaned. “How long are they going to take? I’m starving here!”

Moments later, the doors to the Great Hall flew open, and Professor McGonagall led in a crowd of slightly bedraggled first-years. Harry winced sympathetically as all of them stumbled in - they were all absolutely soaking wet. He certainly wouldn’t fancy rowing over the lake in this weather. As the Sorting Hat began its usual song, Harry even noticed a particularly tiny first-year who was currently wrapped in Hagrid’s enormous coat. He waved at Colin Creevey and mouthed, I fell in the lake!

Eventually the Sorting Hat finished singing, and Professor McGonagall unrolled her long scroll with the list of first-year names.

“Ackerley, Stewart!”

“RAVENCLAW!” 

“Baddock, Malcolm!”

“SLYTHERIN!” 

There was loud cheering from the furthest table, as well as a bit of hissing from the Gryffindors. Harry looked back up from the Slytherin table just in time to watch something rather odd happen. As she went to read out the next name on the list, the normally unflappable Professor McGonagall was abruptly rendered speechless. She stared at the list, glanced over to the staff table, at the line of first-years, then back at the list again.

"B-Black, Orion!" she finally managed. 

"Black?" Simon hissed.

Harry, who was similarly shocked by the surname, grabbed onto Simon’s arm as a tiny, dark-haired first-year stumbled forward. Upon closer inspection, Harry realised it was Ryan, the boy from the train. Harry and Simon turned to each other, mouths gaping with shock.

"Look at Sirius!" Harry whispered back as the Sorting Hat was dropped over the kid's head. All the blood had drained from Sirius' face - he was ghostly pale. The rest of the staff seemed to be having similar reactions, and all seemed to be experiencing varying levels of interest or shock. Even Snape had taken a break from glaring at Sirius, and was gripping the edge of the table and staring intently at the Sorting. 

"Simon," Harry whispered as the boy's Sorting dragged on. "I know I missed out on a lot of Sirius’ life, but he would have mentioned having a kid, right?"

"Yeah, I reckon so," Simon said faintly. “I didn’t know anything about this…”

Finally, the rip at the Sorting Hat’s brim opened. "GRYFFINDOR!"

The table erupted into cheers and Ryan stared at them all, looking slightly overwhelmed. Taking pity on the boy, Harry smiled at him and gestured to the empty space on the bench next to him. Looking slightly relieved, Ryan hurried over and took a seat next to Harry. Distantly, the chalk-white Sirius nodded at him.

“It’s Ryan, right?” Harry whispered as the next first-year was sorted into Hufflepuff. 

He nodded.

“Welcome to Gryffindor!” Harry said, attempting a smile he hoped wasn’t too strangled. 

“If you need anything, you can come to us,” Simon added. Moments later, Professor McGonagall shot a pointed glare in their direction, so Harry reluctantly saved his burning questions for later. 

Sitting through the rest of the Sorting was practically agony. Harry kept casting glances at Ryan and hoping he wouldn’t notice. Luckily, the boy was rather occupied by Dennis Creevey, who had also been Sorted into Gryffindor. The two of them were whispering enthusiastically with Colin. While the Sorting Hat continued to shout out names, Harry started trying to work out what could possibly be going on here.

There was no question of the boy and Sirius being related, of course. The names, the resemblance, the general reactions of the staff and the ashen expression of Sirius himself made that undoubtable. No, the question was just how.

Did Sirius have a long-lost son? To any other person that might seem implausible, but considering Harry’s own history, he didn’t think it was all that unlikely. He’d also walked into his Sorting back in first year to discover that he had an entire brother he’d never known about. Maybe it was some other long-lost relative, though. Perhaps a cousin, or a nephew?

Harry cursed his lack of knowledge of Sirius’ family. According to Simon, that was always a difficult topic, so he tried not to pry too much. All Harry really knew was that Sirius had a dead Death Eater brother and two dead horrid parents. He didn’t know if Sirius had any other relatives who had children, and could only vaguely remember a time last summer where Sirius had visited a cousin.

Finally, the Sorting ended as Whitby, Kevin joined the Hufflepuff table. Professor McGonagall cleared away the stool, Professor Dumbledore clapped his hands, and hundreds of dishes appeared on the golden Great Hall plates. Harry paid no attention whatsoever to any of this, as he prepared to interrogate Ryan, who was staring at the food with wide eyes. Before he could start questioning the boy, however, Simon elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

“Oi!” Harry said indignantly, shoving him back.

“Stop it!” Simon said, leaning in close to Harry’s ear and cupping one hand around his mouth. “He’s definitely got to be related to Sirius.”

Harry could tell by the sibilant quality of the ‘s’ that Simon was speaking Parseltongue again. He wanted to keep this quiet - they only spoke Parseltongue together when they wanted to have a private conversation in public. Despite Simon’s vehement protests to the contrary, the language of snakes also freaked him out a little, as it did with the majority of wizards. 

“How can you be certain?” Harry murmured, also in Parseltongue. He covered his mouth so no one would see. “Black’s not exactly the most unusual surname…”

“No, it’s his first name,” Simon said. “His real name, not the one he’s telling everyone. Orion. That’s Sirius’ father’s name, and Sirius’ middle name. That can’t be a coincidence!”

“Is he Sirius’ brother or something?” Harry asked, watching out of the corner of his eye as Ryan loaded his plate with mashed potatoes, still chatting enthusiastically to Dennis.

“Can’t be,” Simon said with a shake of his head. “He’s too young. Sirius’ parents died ages ago. Look, something really weird is going on here - I don’t trust him. I think he’s up to something.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You always think everyone is up to something. He’s eleven! What’s he going to do?”

“I don’t know, but be careful,” Simon murmured. He nodded towards the staff table. “ Don’t bombard him with too many questions right now. Let’s wait for Sirius to deal with this.”

“Fine,” Harry agreed reluctantly, but only because of the horrified look on Sirius’ face. He hadn’t touched any of his food, and he was still staring intently at Ryan. His head was cocked slightly in the direction of Professor McGonagall, who was talking rapidly in his ear. If something was going on here, Harry did think it would be wise to leave the majority of the questioning to his uncle.

A pea suddenly hit Harry’s forehead. He frowned at Ron, who had been the one to flick it at him. “Hey!”

“Stop doing that!” Ron said, looking between Harry and Simon with slight alarm. “It’s creepy!”

“Fine, fine…” Simon muttered.

“Can all wizards learn to speak to snakes?” Ryan asked, turning to them, bright-eyed. “Can I do that?”

“No, sorry,” Harry said. “It’s genetic.”

“Awh.” Ryan turned back to his food, looking extraordinarily disappointed. Harry frowned thoughtfully to himself. Despite Simon’s suspicions, he just had to be a muggleborn. A wizard would know that sort of thing.

“So, you’re a muggleborn, then?” Harry asked casually.

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, I think so. It was pretty surprising when I got my Hogwarts letter.”

He thinks so? You were either muggleborn, or you weren’t. Harry’s eyebrows furrowed.

“We’re muggleborns, too!” Colin Creevey said excitedly. “Who did they send to deliver your Hogwarts letter? Was it Professor McGonagall? She came to visit our family when I got my letter and turned into a cat and everything! It was wicked!”

Ryan shook his head. “No. It was Hagrid - I think he teaches Care of Magical Creatures?”

Simon looked up sharply at that, and Harry did his best to hide a frown. As far as he knew, Hagrid wasn’t sent out to give out Hogwarts letters to muggleborns. In fact, Harry was fairly certain that he wasn’t even allowed to use magic. He’d learnt that back in second year when they’d been poking into the whole Chamber of Secrets affair. Even though Hagrid had been proven innocent at the end of his second year, Harry wasn’t sure if you could un-expel someone. 

This was all very odd. How could this boy be a muggleborn if his name was Orion Black? The Blacks were one of the most infamously pureblooded wizarding families out there, and Harry was just certain this boy was related to them. Why didn’t he seem to know about it? Was he hiding something, like Simon claimed?

Simon was just as troubled as Harry, of course, but none of their other friends seemed to have noticed what was going on with Ryan. Neville and Ron were too busy rehashing the World Cup with Seamus and Dean. Harry could normally count on Hermione to pick up on this sort of thing, but even she was distracted today. She’d somehow gotten caught up in an argument with Nearly-Headless Nick about house-elves working at Hogwarts and was now staring at the food on the table with a level of deep disgust. 

Harry tried his best to keep to himself for the rest of the meal, remembering Simon’s words about leaving the questioning to Sirius. Besides, he was learning more than enough from eavesdropping on Ryan’s discussion with the Creevey brothers. For instance, when the topic switched to families and parents, Ryan abruptly changed the subject and wouldn’t expound on who his parents were, what they did, or what they’d thought of his Hogwarts letter. Why on earth would he do that? What did he have to hide about his family? Harry desperately wanted to pry, but he had a general sense for how that could be slightly intimidating for an older student to do and just about resisted the temptation.

Still, it bothered him, all throughout Dumbledore’s usual start-of-term announcements about forbidden areas and banned items. Harry was only able to tear his thoughts away as Dumbledore gestured one hand to his right. “It is my pleasure to introduce you to Professor Black, who will be filling in for the Defence Against the Dark Arts post.”

The applause in the Great Hall was generally scattered, as it often was for Defence professors, excluding Harry’s section of the Gryffindor table who all clapped and whooped loudly as Sirius got to his feet and smiled at the Great Hall. He noticed Ryan look up sharply as Dumbledore announced Sirius’ surname.

“Now, onto more serious and unfortunate matters,” Dumbledore said, the familiar twinkle in his eye suddenly dimming. “As many of you may have heard, a dangerous criminal has broken out of Azkaban. As a result, the Ministry has seen fit to station a squad of Aurors on the school grounds. They and I implore you to please remain vigilant, and to please report any suspicious activities to a member of staff or the DMLE. We also ask that if you spot any rodents around the castle, you immediately find the nearest Prefect or member of staff to report it.”

Several people started whispering, and Simon and Harry both exchanged grim looks. 

“It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year.”

“What?” Simon gasped.

“No!” Harry groaned, his shoulders slumping. They weren’t the only angry ones. Students from all four houses were muttering and grumbling, all casting hateful glares at Dumbledore. 

“This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers’ time and energy — but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely.” Dumbledore beamed. “I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts, we shall be playing host to the Triwizard Tournament!” 

If Harry had thought the reaction to the Quidditch announcement was loud, it was nothing compared to the school-wide explosion of noise after that was revealed. The chatter was so loud and enthusiastic that even Dumbledore’s usual authoritative presence couldn’t silence all of the excited whispers and discussion while he explained the workings of the Triwizard Tournament. 

Of course, their excitement was quickly tempered when Dumbledore explained the Age Line. Harry and Ron both groaned with disappointment, and the Weasley twins were particularly disgruntled. Harry was fairly certain they’d have a solution to the problem before the night was up. 

“It’s a right shame,” Harry sighed as they were released to head to their common rooms. “I’d have liked to go for it.”

“Are you mad?” Simon said incredulously. “We’ve got enough trouble this year without you looking for more!”

“I didn’t like all of that talk of death tolls,” Neville said with a shiver.

“Come on you two, lighten up!” Ron said, nudging Neville. “Here’s hoping Fred and George find a way around it. Maybe they’ll let me in on their plan!” 

Harry was just about to be carried away in the crowd of students pushing into the Entrance Hall when a hand grabbed onto his shoulder. He jerked his head around and saw it was a heaving, panting Sirius had grabbed onto him. He must have run over from the staff table. With a jolt, Harry realised he’d completely forgotten about his uncle and Ryan in the chaos of the Tournament announcement. He grabbed onto the back of Simon’s robes as he walked off with Neville, Ron and Hermione and dragged him to stand in front of Sirius.

“With me,” he murmured, hurrying the two of them to the side of the Great Hall. It was mostly deserted there by now. “I’m sure you two noticed the strange circumstances around that boy, Orion.”

“Ryan,” Harry corrected. “That’s what he goes by.”

“Right.” Sirius frowned. “Minerva - er, Professor McGonagall, that is to say - she wouldn’t let me grab him at the end of dinner to talk. It’s ‘not proper’, apparently… I saw you talking to him, though. What did you find out?”

“Not much,” Simon admitted. “I told Harry to be careful with the questions in case there was something dodgy going on with him.” 

“Smart,” Sirius said with an approving nod, “although I doubt it’s anything untoward. He’s only a firstie, after all…”

“He says he’s a muggleborn, but he wouldn’t say anything about his family when Colin and Dennis were asking,” Harry said. “He doesn’t seem like he knows much about magic, though. We caught Draco Malfoy giving him a hard time on the train for not knowing what the Hogwarts houses were, and he didn’t have a clue who Simon was when we introduced ourselves.”

“He’s got to be related to you, Sirius,” Simon said earnestly. “He looks just like you!”

“Not exactly me, necessarily, but certainly like someone related to me…” Sirius said vaguely. He looked highly troubled. “Something odd is going on. Can you two bring him to me tomorrow at breaktime so we can talk?”

“I’ll grab him from the courtyard,” Harry promised.

“Thank you, boys,” Sirius said, his shoulders slumping. “You two should run - I don’t want you getting locked out of the tower on my account.”

Harry winced as he glanced around and realised almost everyone had gone. He hadn’t gotten the password from any Prefects, so they risked being locked out.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, Sirius,” Simon promised.

“Good night, boys.” 

They hurried from the Great Hall, but Sirius’ troubled expression haunted Harry all the way up to the tower.

Luckily enough, Hermione was waiting for them next to the Fat Lady. “The new password is ‘balderdash’. Did Sirius want anything important? He looked absolutely dreadful at dinner!”

“We’ll tell you in the morning,” Simon said as they clambered through the portrait hole. “See you tomorrow.”

Hermione nodded. She glowered at the fireplace, muttered something about slave labour, then headed up the girls staircase. Harry was too worried about everything going on to even wonder what that was about. 

“Poor Sirius,” Simon murmured. “He seemed really out of sorts.”

“Agreed,” Harry said, heading over to his trunk to pull on his pyjamas. 

The other boys in their dorm were all whispering happily about the Triwizard Tournament, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to join them. His mind was preoccupied by the matters of long-lost relatives, escaped convicts and layered plots that made his mind ache. It took him a long time to get to sleep, and when he finally did, Harry’s sleep was disturbed and troubled.

It was Pettigrew again. He was bent double in front of an armchair, scratching frantically at his scabbed face. Blood stained his fingertips crimson. It dripped in small beads to the dusty wooden floor. “F-Forgive me, my Lord, I - my Potions abilities are rusty after so long without magic…”

“Rusty implies you ever had skill in such matters, Wormtail.” The voice was colder than usual. It came from an armchair, the speaker hidden. “You will fix Black immediately. I require the capacity of my talented servant if the ritual is to work. How are you incapable of brewing a simple fifth-year potion? Pathetic. Make the Clarity Tonic work, or I will provide Nagini with a more sumptuous meal…”

“Of course, my Lord,” Wormtail whispered. His ragged fingernails dug deeper into the flesh of his cheek as he raised his head to stare at the long snake circling in the corner of the room. She hissed, slid so close to Pettigrew that it evoked an alarmed squeak, and sailed past a black lump curled in a ball to the side of his room. The lump moved, and turned out to be a mumbling, hollow-eyed man. He didn’t even react as the snake’s forked tongue licked at his boots. His grey eyes were oddly blank, and looked without seeing.

“Do make yourself more useful, Wormtail.” The voice was disgusted. “Even Bertha Jorkins provided me with more aid than you did. I would hate to have to kill you, too…”

Wormtail squeaked again, and shuddered. 

“But for now, I am afraid I am forced to use you.” The disdain was palpable. “We will act soon, when I gather more strength. The journey to Britain has exhausted me. Milk Nagini when she returns - I require a feeding in the night. In a few days, we shall move and approach our other servant… perhaps he will be able to help me with the ritual, and of course, with the Potters…”

The voice sounded as if it wished to expound, but stopped as the snake gathered at the foot of the armchair. “Nagini brings news, Wormtail. She says there is an old muggle standing outside of this door right now, listening to every word we say.”

The Killing Curse that shot so easily from Pettigrew’s wand, striking down an elderly Muggle, was what at last awoke Harry. He pressed his hands to his aching forehead and stared at the ceiling.

If this keeps happening, I’ll tell someone, Harry promised himself at last. He rolled onto his side and stared at the velvet canopy surrounding his bed. It’s probably nothing, but just in case…

Little did Harry know, he was not the only one awake. Simon silently padded across the room in his slippers and nightgown and pressed his burning, aching cheek to the misty window. Rain pattered gently against the glass, cooling his face. He did his best to breathe through his racing heartbeat, even though the image of that terrified muggle crumpling to the ground meant the anxious feeling crawling across Simon’s skin wasn’t fading anytime soon. How could it, when the green light of the Killing Curse seemed to have branded itself into his brain?

When all this Ryan and Sirius stuff calms down, I’ll talk to Sirius about the dreams, Simon promised himself. I hope it’s nothing, but it wouldn’t hurt to be safe…

Chapter Text

Harry was exhausted when he awoke the next morning. Neville had to practically drag him out of bed, and Harry was halfway to the Great Hall before he realised his shirt was on inside out. He wasn’t the only one who seemed to have had a rough night; Simon almost fell asleep in his cornflakes at one point. They could barely keep their eyes open.

“What’s wrong with you two?” Hermione asked with a frown. “Is this about whatever happened with Sirius last night?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, stifling a yawn. That wasn’t entirely a lie, even though he was omitting the strange dream. His worry about Sirius had kept him up, after all…

Harry glanced down to the other end of the Gryffindor table. Ryan was chattering with the Creevey brothers again, while Colin showed the two younger boys his camera. They were too far away to overhear. “Something weird is going on. That boy, Ryan, is somehow related to Sirius, but they’ve never met before.”

“Wait, really?” Ron asked, craning his neck to look down the table. Hermione and Neville did the same.

“Don’t all stare at him at once!” Simon hissed, elbowing Neville and glaring at Ron and Hermione, who had stood up opposite. “We’re trying not to make a big deal out of it until Sirius has a chance to talk to him.”

“Er - right.” Ron hurriedly ducked his head. 

“When are we going to have Sirius as a professor, do you think?” Hermione asked.

“We’ll find out soon enough - there’s Professor McGonagall with the schedules,” Neville said, nodding towards their Head of House, who was currently handing out timetables. Harry picked his up and scanned it eagerly.

“Not until Thursday,” he said with a disappointed grimace. Harry was interested in seeing what Sirius had come up with to teach them. Defence Against the Dark Arts was his favourite subject, after all. 

“We’re seeing him after Herbology for that meeting, though,” Simon said. “That’s not too long before we see him again!”

To the contrary, the Herbology lesson seemed to drag on. Professor Sprout had them extracting Buboputer pus all morning, which was very disgusting. When they at last left the greenhouses for morning break, Harry thought the strong smell of petrol that accompanied the plants would never quite fade from his nostrils. 

Harry and Simon quickly broke away from Hermione, Ron and Neville, and made a beeline to the corner of the courtyard where the Gryffindor first-years had gathered. As they approached, several students started pointing at Simon and whispering behind their hands. Simon grimaced and tried to turn the side of his face away from them.

“Er - Ryan?” Harry said. “Can you come with us, please?”

“Sure.” Ryan lifted his bag from the ground and followed Harry and Simon as they started walking in the direction of the castle. This only seemed to make the first-years more excited; they started whispering even more enthusiastically, and Harry caught the phrase ‘Boy-Who-Lived’ more than once.

“What do you need me for?” Ryan asked as they walked inside.

“Siri - um, Professor Black wants to speak with you,” Simon explained, looking rather relieved to be free of the throng of excited first-years. “The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

Ryan’s eyes widened anxiously. “Have I done something wrong?”

“Oh, no, you’re not in any trouble!” Harry said quickly. “Everything’s fine, don’t worry. He just wants a quick word.”

“Oh. Okay.” Some of Ryan’s panic faded, but he still looked a little nervous. He was wringing his hands and his lip. Harry almost considered telling him everything now to try and ease his obvious stress, but held off. 

“The Defence classroom is just up the stairs here,” Simon said. “Mind the trick step.”

They finished the journey to Sirius’ classroom, which the door was open to. Harry and Simon slipped inside to find their uncle sitting at the desk and writing something on a piece of parchment. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps and smiled, getting to his feet. “Boys! Good to see you. How’s the first day?”

“Not bad,” Simon said. “We just had Herbology.”

As Harry looked between Sirius and Ryan, the resemblance between the two of them was even more striking. They had the same cheekbones, the same grey eyes, even similar hair…

Ryan seemed to have noticed the similarities, too. He was raking his eyes over Sirius, and his mouth was hanging open slightly.

“So,” Sirius said finally. “You’re - you’re Orion, right?”

“Just Ryan,” the boy corrected nervously, his eyes darting to Harry and Simon. He did his best to smile reassuringly. “I don’t know why people keep calling me that. Erm - you said your name was Professor Black?”

“Yes, Black,” Sirius confirmed, not taking his eyes off Ryan. “Same surname as you. I’m sure you see why I have questions.”

“Are you a full wizard?” Ryan burst out, “or are you a muggleborn? Am I even a muggleborn, then? Did you know my father, are you related to my father, because you really look like him, or -”

“Whoa, whoa, hang on,” Sirius interrupted, holding up a hand. “Slow down! I’m not a mind reader, you know! Who’s your father? What’s his name?”

“Regulus Black.”

It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Sirius grabbed onto the side of his desk for support, and all of the blood drained from his face. Simon hurried forward and helped their godfather sit back down as Harry placed a reassuring hand on the concerned-looking Ryan’s shoulder, his mind racing as he did the maths. He knew a fair amount about Regulus Black, seeing as Harry had had a brief period where he’d thought the man was his own father, back in first-year…

But Ryan was a first-year, eleven years old in 1994. Regulus Black had gone missing in late 1979, presumed dead.

Which meant…

“Regulus is alive?” Sirius whispered in a hoarse voice.

Ryan’s face shuttered. “I…I don’t know. He went missing in August.”

Sirius buried his face in his hands.

“Er - sorry, where was he before August?” Simon asked, exchanging a significant look with Harry.

“Erm…” Ryan gave them a hesitant look, before sighing. “He was in a mental institution. He’s schizophrenic, and he’s a danger to himself, so…”

“Reggie was never schizophrenic,” Sirius said vehemently, face still hidden in his hands. “He wasn’t like my mother, or Bellatrix. He never had their psychological problems. I would have known, I would have!”

“Professor Black, I’m really confused,” Ryan said nervously. “How do you know my dad?”

Sirius finally looked up. His face was haggard. “Regulus was - is - my younger brother. I’m your uncle, apparently.”

A strange range of emotions all flitted across Ryan’s face at once, before settling on shock. “Excuse me?”

“I thought he was dead,” Sirius said, getting up and beginning to pace. “He disappeared in 1979, during the war. We thought a Death Eater killed him!”

Ryan frowned. “What war? What’s a Death Eater?” 

Sirius stopped pacing and stared at Ryan, flabbergasted. “You don’t know?”

“I don’t know anything!” Ryan said irritably. “No one’s explained any of this weird stuff in the magical world to me! The carers kept throwing my Hogwarts letters away until Professor Hagrid hand-delivered it to me, we thought it was some kind of weird spam! Hagrid took me to Diagon Alley to buy my books with the Hogwarts funds, dropped me back off, and that was it. I still don’t understand who You-Know-Who is supposed to be!”

“But how did you not know?” Sirius asked blankly. “Did Reggie not tell you anything?”

Ryan scowled. “What part of mental institution did you not understand? He wasn’t going to be explaining anything to me!”

Sirius opened his mouth as if to retort, but Harry held up one hand for silence. “Sirius, I really think we should let him explain everything from the beginning. Otherwise, we’re going to keep interrupting him with questions and it’s all going to get mixed up.”

Ryan shot him a grateful look, and Sirius nodded. “I’m sorry… go on.”

And so, Ryan began to tell them the whole, sorry tale.

“I was born on October 27th, 1982. I don’t remember my mum; she died when I was really little. I don’t know what happened, exactly, but I overheard a social worker saying she was on drugs once, so I think that’s what killed her. Then, it was just me and Dad for a while, until I was four. He was never really right, I think… he’s always talking to himself about danger and magic, it’s hard to remember since I was so young. He couldn’t work a job because his head wasn’t really right, and he couldn’t take care of me properly, either… Pretty soon after my mum died, things got worse, since he couldn’t hold it all together. Some of our neighbours eventually noticed and I got taken into care. That’s when they did the psychological evaluation for Dad and put him in the mental institution.”

Ryan paused, as if to collect himself. “I got bounced around from then until now, really… no one wanted to keep me because I was always making strange things happen that no one could explain. Magic, apparently. Then, the letters started coming. The care home workers thought they were spam mail until they started coming from everywhere, even the boarded up chimney and stuff, and eventually Hagrid came to the house to sort it all out. He told me I must have slipped through the cracks of the muggleborn detectors they have, which is why no one came to explain sooner, but it was too late for me to do orientation with the others so he took me to Diagon Alley alone instead, bought me my supplies and told me how to get to King’s Cross. A nice family helped me get through the barrier, and well… here I am.”

Harry and Simon exchanged shocked looks at this tale. It was quite the thing to behold. Of course no one would have known if he was a muggleborn, since he wasn’t with Regulus as his father. That all explained his weird behaviour at dinner, as well as his general reluctance to talk about his family. It had to be a sensitive subject, with one parent dead and the other institutionalised… sympathy for Ryan stirred in Harry’s chest. 

“Oh, sweet Merlin,” Sirius muttered, burying his face in his hands again. Simon put a hand on his shoulder and gave Harry a helpless look. Sensing that Sirius was going to be worse than useless for the foreseeable future, Harry decided to fill Ryan in on the rest.

“Regulus is a wizard,” he explained. “What we’d call a pureblood. I don’t know about your mum, but that would probably make you a half-blood, not a muggleborn. That would be why they didn’t send someone to explain, which is what they normally do.”

“Oh…okay.” Clearly from the expression on Ryan’s face, none of that meant anything to him. “It’s just…if Dad was a wizard, why couldn’t he get out of the institution for all those years? The social worker would take me to see him every now and then, and he was miserable there… wouldn’t he have just left if he could?”

“Didn’t have a wand, I’m guessing,” Simon said. “Most wizards are pretty much stuck without one.”

“Right.”

“And You-Know-Who is this really bad dark wizard,” Harry explained. “He had a whole thing against muggleborns, and there was this entire wizarding war that happened. He’s gone now, though.”

“Well, actually -” Simon started, but Harry shot him a pointed look and he cut himself off.

“Dennis mentioned you killed him?” Ryan stared curiously at Simon’s scar. 

“Killed is a strong word,” Simon said, pulling a face. “I didn’t exactly do much. I was only a baby.”

“I’m sure there’s a few books in the library about it all,” Harry said. “They can definitely give you a clearer background than I can. You can come to us with any questions, too.”

“Great,” Ryan said, perking up a little. “I wanted to buy more books, but Hagrid could only get me the ones on my course list because I was using Hogwarts funds.”

“I’ll get them for you,” Sirius said abruptly. “I’ll get you anything you like, okay?”

Ryan frowned. “Professor Black, you really don’t have to -”

“It’s Sirius to you,” he corrected. “I’m your uncle, so we’re family. You don’t have to bother with all of that ‘professor’ nonsense. And because we’re family, my money’s as much yours as it is mine. Most of it is technically Regulus’ anyway, I got all of it when he was declared dead…”

“Oh. Er - thank you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sirius whispered, a hand pressed to his chest. “I had no idea you existed - I mean no one ever contacted me! Why didn’t they?”

“Dad didn’t have any records,” Ryan explained. “They looked everywhere and couldn’t find anything. It was the weirdest thing - almost like he didn’t exist.”

“Because the stupid Ministry doesn’t bother to transfer their birth records to the muggle world.” Sirius groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That would be why.”

“Right. And with his mind the way it is, it’s pretty much impossible to get a coherent conversation out of him,” Ryan added. “They could barely get his name, let alone family members.”

“Is it really that bad?” Sirius whispered.

“Yeah,” Ryan said quietly, ducking his head.

“Oh my…”

Abruptly, the bell rang.

“Sirius, we all have lessons,” Harry said. “We should probably get going -”

“Right, right…”

“Can you call Dad or Remus or someone to come here and be with you?” Simon suggested. He seemed reluctant to leave, and Harry could understand why. Sirius looked utterly wrecked.

“Yeah, I’ll get on that,” Sirius said wearily. “I’ve got a free period anyway. No one until the Hufflepuff fourth-years after lunch.” He turned to Ryan and attempted a smile, which ended up looking rather strangled. “Well, it was nice to meet you, kid. Er - if you ever want to talk about anything, or about Regulus, I probably have some stories I can tell you about him? If you want to, of course…”

“Really?” Ryan asked, his face lighting up.

“Yeah, definitely. Harry or Simon’ll show you where my office is,” Sirius said. “Enjoy your first day, alright?”

“I will.”

Harry and Simon took Ryan away with them and shut the classroom door. 

“What have you got next?” Harry asked him.

“Transfiguration, I think,” Ryan said.

“Great, that’s on our way,” Harry said, pushing through a crowd of Hufflepuffs to get to the staircase. “We’ll show you where it is - are you alright to go, though? That must have been a nasty shock.”

“No, I don’t want to miss it!” Ryan said quickly, vigorously shaking his head. “I mean - well obviously I’m shocked, but I wouldn’t miss one of my first magic lessons for anything!”

“Well good for you,” Simon said, giving Harry a knowing look.

“I’m… actually quite happy, more than anything,” Ryan said with a small smile. “I didn’t think I had any family. I’ve always been alone, you see. I thought things would always be that way, and now they’re not.”

The smiles very quickly fell off Harry and Simon’s faces. That was horribly sad to hear…

“Sirius is not usually that all over the place, by the way,” Simon added. “Sorry about him. He’ll pull it together soon, I reckon.”

“It’s fine.” Ryan shrugged. “If my dead brother’s son popped out of nowhere without warning, I’d probably be freaking out, too.”

“He’s a really nice guy, normally,” Harry added. “I think you’ll like him. He can be pretty fun.”

“How do you two know him so well?” Ryan asked curiously. “Isn’t he a new teacher?”

“He’s best mates with our dad,” Simon explained. “I basically grew up with him.”

“I met him a couple of years ago,” Harry added. 

Ryan looked like he was going to ask another question - quite possibly about Simon’s wording - but luckily they reached the Transfiguration classroom before Harry and his brother had to explain the complicated custody situation they’d grown up with.

“Here’s Transfiguration,” Simon said, ducking his head so the first-years gathered outside didn’t notice him.

“If you need anything else, we’re always around, alright?” Harry said. “I mean it. You can come to us with whatever you need.”

Ryan smiled at him. “Thanks. I will.”

As he went into the classroom, Harry and Simon began to half-run through the castle to try and make it to Care of Magical Creatures on time. They were cutting it rather close.

“Bloody hell!” Simon said eventually when they were halfway across the lawn.

“Agreed.” Harry shook his head. “Quite the Monday morning…”

“How the hell did Regulus Black escape You-Know-Who’s service?” Simon hissed. “That’s supposed to be impossible! You don’t just get out of that unscathed!”

“Unscathed might be pushing it,” Harry said darkly, “especially if Ryan’s description of Regulus is anything to go by.”

Simon winced. “Right.”

“Poor Ryan,” Harry murmured. “Getting bounced around his whole life like that…”

“Yeah.” Simon sighed. “It’s pretty sad.”

“‘Ello, you two!” Hagrid said as they finally made it to the field where their Care of Magical Creatures lessons took place. 

“Sorry, we’re late,” Harry said breathlessly. “We were with Si - er, with Professor Black. He wanted to speak to us.” 

“No worries!” Hagrid said, waving one gigantic hand. “Just pop over to yer friends. They’ll explain the Blast-Ended Skrewts to yeh.”

Blast-Ended Skrewts did not sound like a promising creature, Harry reflected grimly. He and Simon made their way over to Ron, Neville and Hermione, who were placing handfuls of frog liver inside of a crate with their faces screwed up. 

“Merlin’s balls, what are those?” Simon’s face was contorted into an expression of utter disgust, and Harry could understand why. The creatures within the crate looked like odd, slimy lobsters, and absolutely stank of rotting fish. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to care for these particular creatures.

“They’re Blast-Ended Skrewts, apparently,” Ron said, yanking his hand violently out of the crate when one got too close. “We’re looking after them this term.”

“It’s our project,” Neville said, shivering slightly.

“Eugh.”

“Well?” Hermione pressed. “Did you find out anything about Ryan?”

“Well, turns out Sirius’ brother isn’t actually dead and that kid is his nephew,” Harry said, exhaling loudly.

“No way!” Neville exclaimed.

“How? I thought Regulus died in the war!” Hermione added.

“We’re not quite sure,” Simon said. “But he has to be alive, because Ryan was born after the war ended.”

“How come Sirius never knew about either of them?” Ron asked.

“There were some, er - things that meant no one could get ahold of them before now,” Harry said vaguely. As much as he trusted his friends, he didn’t think it was his place to share about Regulus’ institutionalisation. Although, Harry reflected upon further thought, maybe he should get Neville to talk to Ryan sometime, given the situation with his parents. Perhaps they’d be able to relate to each other.

“Poor Sirius,” Hermione murmured. 

“Yeah,” Harry said heavily. “He’s pretty freaked out.”

“He needs to pull himself together, honestly,” Simon grumbled. “I get it must be a lot to take in, but someone needs to be there for Ryan! Imagine how he feels!”

“Well, hopefully Dad will be able to sort Sirius out,” Harry said, reluctantly picking up a handful of frog liver.

Back in Lewes, James reached across the sofa and put a hand on Sirius’ leg. “Mate, you need to calm down.”

“How am I supposed to calm down?” Sirius demanded. “I thought he was dead, James! I thought he was dead for fifteen years, and then his son pops out of nowhere with this god-awful childhood, and I had no clue about either of them! I feel terrible!”

“Well how were you supposed to know?” Remus pointed out.

“I - I don’t know, but I should have!” Sirius said, burying his face in his hands. “He’s my nephew, I should have done something!”

“You’re not omniscient, Sirius,” Lily said gently, coming out of their kitchen with a cup of tea. James half-hoped she’d hidden a Calming Draught into it, since Sirius was borderline hysterical.

“And if that’s not bad enough, Reg goes missing again right before I find out he’s still alive!” Sirius said in an agonised voice. 

“You said he disappeared in August, right?” Mary asked. “Do you know which day?”

“No, I didn’t ask specifically,” Sirius said, running his hands over his face. “We didn't get to talk for long before they had to go to their next lesson. All I know is that he disappeared from a muggle psychiatric hospital.”

“At least there’s going to be some kind of paper trail, then!” Remus said encouragingly. “I’m sure the muggle police are looking into his disappearance already.”

“Oh, they’re useless!”

“Don’t be so dismissive,” Lily scolded. “There’s going to be at least something, and when you think about how this time yesterday you thought Regulus was dead, it’s a lot more to go on!” 

“Can you have another word with your nephew and find out where the hospital is?” James asked. “I can almost certainly look into it; pretty much the entire Auror department is on Pettigrew except me, so I’ve got the time…”

“They still won’t let you look into him?” Sirius asked, his face falling.

“No,” James grumbled. “I’ve gone to everyone: Scrimgeour, Williamson, McKinley… even Kingsley thinks it’s better for me not to be involved. It’s hopeless.”

What none of them needed to mention was the secret work James was doing every day after he clocked out. He couldn’t just go on with his life without doing something, after all. He had to look for Pettigrew himself. Lily, Mary and Remus were helping him out since their hours were a lot more flexible than his, but the four of them were just as stuck as James. They weren’t even close to a lead.

“I’ve got the Gryffindor first-years tomorrow afternoon,” Sirius said, reading over a piece of parchment he’d pulled from his robes. “I’ll hold him back after class and talk to him a bit more. My nephew…that’s so weird to get my head around!” 

“Did he mention anything about his mother?” Darren asked. “Is she a muggle?”

Sirius’ face fell. “Dead. He’s been in care his whole life, apparently.”

Darren tutted. “That poor boy.”

“Are you going to do anything?” Remus asked.

“Well I have to, don’t I?” Sirius said, holding up his hands helplessly. “I’m the only family he has! I’m not just going to leave him to bounce around during the summer holidays.”

“Of course you wouldn't,” Mary said, rubbing his shoulder. “If you need any help with it all, just let us know.”

“I will,” Sirius said heavily. “Believe me, I will… but for now, I probably need to head back to Hogwarts. They like us professors to supervise the Great Hall at lunch.”

“Couldn’t you let someone know what’s going on?” Lily asked worriedly. “I’m sure the Headmaster would understand if you needed some time off -”

“No, I just need to get on with things.” Sirius abruptly got to his feet. “At any rate, I need to speak with Minerva and let her know what’s happened. Ryan got sorted into Gryffindor, so she’s his Head of House.”

James smiled. “A second Black in Gryffindor. Who’d have thought?”

Sirius made an approving grunt. “I’m sure Regulus would be rightfully horrified. Wherever he is…”

“We’ll find him,” Remus promised. “All of us will help James to search, and we’ll find him.”

“Thank you.” Sirius’ voice was rather hollow as he bade them goodbye to head back to Hogwarts. 

Lily turned to James and sighed. “The poor thing. You know how broken up he still is about Regulus.”

“Yeah.” 

James knew Sirius still blamed himself for Regulus turning Dark and dying in You-Know-Who’s service. One time, after a fair bit to drink, he’d even slurred to James that he wished that he’d convinced his brother to come when he’d run away to stay with James and his parents. Personally James thought that Regulus had had more than enough chances to get out before taking the Dark Mark, but he knew it had to be different from Sirius’ perspective. They were brothers, after all.

And Regulus had been so young; he’d barely been eighteen when he’d died. Disappeared, James corrected himself. It was still baffling to contemplate. He couldn’t believe that Regulus had managed to evade You-Know-Who himself, who certainly didn’t take kindly to his servants deserting him. Typically, the bodies were barely recognisable when he was done with traitors. 

Traitors. The topic had been on James’ mind a lot as of late. Bloody Peter Pettigrew had made sure of that…

And as he thought more of the rat, an unsettled feeling congealed in James’ stomach. “You don’t think Regulus being alive and vanishing is linked to Pettigrew, do you?”

Mary shook her head. “No way. I don’t even think they knew each other!”

“No, they did,” Remus reminded them. “Weren’t they in the Drama Club together?”

James’ eyebrows knitted together. “Oh, yeah. I forgot Peter used to go to that.”

That only made his unease grow. If he was forgetting Pettigrew had been in the Drama Club, what else was he not remembering? What other tiny, yet potentially crucial details had slipped his mind? 

He’d made himself forget a lot, of course. The happy memories surrounding Pettigrew were so agonisingly painful to recall that James had done his utmost to banish every single one of them from his mind. It was impossible for him to connect the sweet, nervous boy he’d grown up with to the murdering swine who had sold him and his family out to You-Know-Who, and remembering the boy Pettigrew had once been just hurt too badly. If James spent too much time reflecting, he’d inevitably start agonising over every little action, and wondering what he could have possibly done differently to stop his former friend going Dark.

“Even if they were in the Drama Club together, that doesn’t mean Pettigrew’s escape and Regulus being alive are linked,” Lily added. “No one had any way of knowing Regulus was alive, including him, since he was locked up in Azkaban.”

“But if he disappeared in August -”

“We don’t even know when it was in August,” Darren reminded him. “It could have been before Pettigrew broke out! In all likelihood, they were understaffed and he slipped away. It happens, you know.”

James wearily nodded his agreement, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. Too many strange things were happening at once. People were disappearing, Dark Marks were being conjured in the sky, and Death Eaters were escaping Azkaban. Something had to be brewing.

And no matter how James sliced it, everything led back to Peter.

He left home to search alone in his deer form ten minutes later, trying his best to track by scent. His nervous energy was so all-consuming that he didn’t take a break until he was practically on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion nearly twelve hours later.

For that entire day, Harry was saddled with the annoying impression that he’d forgotten something rather important. It wasn’t until he, Simon, Ron and Neville were about fifteen minutes into a Divination lesson on stars that he remembered it - the prophecy. He’d been so preoccupied by the stuff with Sirius that it had been completely driven from his mind. 

While Harry generally believed that Professor Trelawney was a stupid old fraud, as the Divination teacher she presumably knew a fair bit more than he did about prophecies. Biting back a sigh, Harry raised his hand. Simon stared at him like he’d grown a second head as Professor Trelawney descended on him in a flurry of shawls.

“Yes, my dear?” she said in her usual misty voice. “You have a question about the planetary alignments? I see you have Venus - unfortunate, a sign of a coming tragedy in the immediate family…”

“Er - it’s not that, professor,” Harry said quickly, trying to cut off her prediction before she came up with another way Simon was going to tragically perish.

“What is it, then?” She peered at Harry over her spectacles. 

“I was just wondering about prophecies, actually,” Harry said, scratching the back of his head uncomfortably. He made a concerted effort not to look at Ron, who was glaring at him with a mixture of indignation and horror.

“A sure sign of a true Seer!” Professor Trelawney said excitedly, leaning in closer. “Have you been experiencing visions, my dear? Are the rhythms of fate unclouding your Inner Eye?”

“No, no!” Harry said quickly, uncomfortably aware of the eager looks on Lavender and Parvati’s faces. “I… yeah, I was just curious. Like how do you know if someone has made a prophecy? A real, accurate, true prophecy?”

“Well, dear, true Seers are the only ones who can make prophecies, and they are exceedingly rare,” Professor Trelawney said airily. “Of course, if you yourself believe you’re having prophetic sights, you must simply tell me -”

“No, nothing, I was just curious,” Harry mumbled. “Question answered, thanks.”

As soon as she walked away, Ron kicked Harry very hard in the shins.

“Hey!” he said indignantly.

“I told you to keep it private!” Ron snapped.

“I did!” Harry hissed. “Didn’t hear me say your name, did you?”

Ron simply glowered at him and didn’t respond. Harry sighed loudly and went back to measuring the orbit of Neptune. 

Unfortunately for Harry, Ron’s irritation with Harry didn’t fade by the end of the lesson. He maintained a stony silence all the way through dinner, occasionally shooting a glare in Harry’s direction, and busied himself with Simon and Neville, who were discussing people at Hogwarts who played the drums. Harry ended up trailing Hermione as she hurried to the library after dinner, feeling rather glum.

“Are you going to help me get started on this prophecy stuff, then?” Harry asked. “Since the other three are useless.”

“Not at the minute, sorry,” Hermione said, lowering her voice as they entered the dusty library. “I’m busy with the house-elves, remember?”

Harry groaned. “Can’t that wait for a minute? This is important!”

Hermione’s eyes flashed. “This is important as well! These house-elves are enslaved, Harry! This is an issue of rights, and I can’t go another day without seeing what’s being done. Nothing, as far as I can tell! So yes, I’m busy!”

She flounced off between the shelves and Harry sighed loudly. It seemed like he was destined to piss off all his friends today…

After a moment, he squared his shoulders and marched towards the Divination section of the library. Even if no one else cared enough about this stupid prophecy thing as much as Harry, someone still needed to do something about it. If that was just going to be Harry alone, then so be it.

It will happen tonight. The Dark Lord's servants will flee their cages, and be reunited with their master…the three traitor servants shall convene, and the Dark Lord will rise again, far greater and more terrible than ever before. Blood will be shed, and death will fall over Hogwarts. Tonight…it begins tonight…

Harry read through the prophecy for what felt like the billionth time and rubbed his eyes. He felt like he’d been None of this was even useful! Who were these traitors, and who would be dying at Hogwarts? What was the point of Harry even knowing any of this?

Well, at least that final question he was somewhat close to answering. The Prophet’s Guide to Unfogging Fate had started to clear that up.

Prophecies are generally given to those figures who are fundamentally important to the fates, who hold important roles in the sands of time. The universe has a way of making these things known. For instance, Malinda Mageworth, the key witch who defended southern Canada from the Giant Scourge of 1852, knew to be in the area due to forewarning from the Seer Cassandra Trelawney, who happened to be travelling through Ontario at the time…

Harry ran his finger underneath the paragraph and ground his teeth. His research was still creating more questions than answers, and the point about figures holding ‘important roles in the sands of time’ particularly got under his skin. Harry supposed that made sense as a general idea, but not in the case of Ron’s prophecy. It was a prophecy Ron had made, Harry was sure of it, but what he was less sure about was his role in all of this. No one else had been around to hear it except Harry.

But Harry wasn't significant in the wizarding world at all, was he? Sure, his brother was, but that didn't mean Harry was important through mere association…

But as arrogant as it seemed to him, Harry just couldn't shake the impression that he was. That idea made him feel nervous; it was as if a colony of ants were crawling across his skin. How was he linked to bloodshed and death at Hogwarts? How was he linked to Voldemort rising again?

Feeling slightly sick by now, Harry slammed the book shut and made a beeline for the library exit. Maybe his friends had the right idea when they refused to engage with all this Divination hogwash…

But as much as Harry wanted to, he just couldn’t block the prophecy from his mind.