Chapter Text
Harry’s hands were shaking.
They’d been shaking all day, ever since he’d woken up from that dream. Tom, when surprised, did not stare slack-jawed. His eyes had widened, though only for a moment. They widened, then they gained an intensity like the pull of a black hole, brows furrowed and face set, like he was trying to compensate for the moment of open emotion.
Shared dreams, Sirius had said, weren’t entirely unprecedented.
“But it’s really very unlikely that’s what’s going on. You’ve only dreamt of him the one time, right? It’s perfectly natural to get dreams like that,” he’d concluded.
Harry wanted to believe Sirius. He really wanted to. The idea of being a burden even in sleep, of Tom resenting him ever more so because of it… but Harry’s gut told him that fate would not be so kind as to let it be only a dream. Harry’s gut so rarely led him wrong.
“She stole my bloody bike!” Sirius yelled, all but slamming the door behind himself. He gestured wildly. “My precious motorbike!”
Harry flinched at the sudden noise, quickly turning off the faucet before Sirius could notice it running. He’d been pretending to wash the dishes though, in truth, he couldn’t trust himself to not drop a plate with how his hands were shaking. He dried his hands off on a nearby towel purely out of instinct. They were already dry. There’d really been no need. Sirius was too busy fuming to pay attention.
Harry stepped over to the couch and tossed Sirius a cushion, which Sirius caught and gladly slammed into the floor. He stomped on it a couple times for good measure. Harry threw himself on the couch, feeling the fabric sink under his weight.
“Shit,” Sirius groaned, “Shit- I mean, darn. Can I swear? How old are you?”
Harry stared at him. “Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Oh, good. That’s good.” Sirius sat next to him, similarly slumped. “That fucking bitch!” He picked up a pillow and threw it at the wall, where it slid back down and joined a pile of already misplaced objects.
Harry sat, silent, his knees drawn up to his chest and his hands still shaky.
“Sorry,” Sirius said, “Sorry, kid. I just- my bike! Of all the things-” He let out another frustrated groan.
Harry hesitated, then scooted closer to put his head on Sirius’s shoulder. Sirius tensed, but relaxed just as quickly, slinging an arm around Harry’s back.
“Sirius,” Harry said quietly, “I’m not so sure about this cape thing anymore.”
“What?”
“I mean, I haven’t even come up with a name yet and I already messed up your patrol.”
“Kid, come on. Look, I know this time was bad, but my dear old mum tries staging ‘talks’ with me pretty regularly. It’s not your fault. In fact, I’m sorry you got caught up in that. I should’ve protected you better.”
Harry almost choked. “Pretty regularly?” he managed, a little too high.
“Yeah,” Sirius said, too casual for Harry’s comfort, “At least once a year. We’re a real family.” He perked up, eyes lighting up with an idea. “Tell you what, I’m going to an Order meeting in a couple days. Why don’t you tag along? Get to know some capes. I don’t think they like me much, but they might protect you, if I have anything to say about it.”
Harry bit his lip. He really didn’t want to put on the costume again. He recalled how he’d locked himself in the bathroom until Sirius came to check on him, only to find Harry frantically flushing down what he’d just thrown up, his face sticky with sweat, but- but if it made Sirius happy. If it made Sirius want to keep him around for just a little longer…
“Alright.”
Sirius grinned broadly, jumping up to his feet to pace about the small living room.
“You’ll need a name then, at least. What about... Scythe?”
“Um…”
“No, then. The Revenant King?” He embellished this with a grand sweep of one hand.
Sirius took a glance at him and laughed loudly. The sound rang through Harry’s ears, but it was not unpleasant to see Sirius giddy. “Alright, alright. Long names are pretentious anyways. Oh, this is a good one. Reaper! Get it? ’Cause-”
“Yeah.” Harry couldn't help but crack a genuine smile at Sirius's easy excitement. “Grim reaper. I know.”
“Reaper, then?”
Reaper… It didn’t quite fit, he thought, but it was only a name. And it matched Sirius. “I guess it’s okay.”
“See!” Sirius laughed again. “You and I are going to make the perfect team, kiddo. I just know it.”
They did not head to the garage this time. Instead, Sirius dragged him into a deserted back alley to change, muttering under his breath about his bike all the while. Harry had to admit Sirius’s helmet did look a tad silly with no motorbike to accompany it.
He hadn’t slept well, having gone to bed far past midnight, dreading another dream of silence and shame and trying his best to hold in the anger that sometimes burned so hot it scared even Harry. Only the anxiety of meeting more unfamiliar capes, as well as the half mug of coffee Sirius had let him down that morning, kept him alert. The coffee had been horribly bitter, lingering for long minutes on his tongue, and he frankly never wanted to drink any ever again.
Sirius led him to a little shop tucked into a narrow road. He wouldn’t have noticed it at all had Sirius not pointed it out, though the storefront wasn’t so nondescript for Harry to believe that was by coincidence. The windows were dusty, the coral paint outside chipped. An oak sign hanging above the door declared the shop to be the “Marigold Garden Cafe.” A bell chimed as they walked in. There was no one inside but for a truly terrifying amount of crawling plants—some even adorned with long, sharp thorns and deceptively beautiful flowers—and a woman who rushed behind the front counter, looking harried. She had thin brown hair, chopped short, and wore a dirt-streaked apron Harry doubted was for handling food.
“Welcome, welcome!” she said, her voice chipper though her eyes were wary, “May I take your order?”
“Cappuccino, three sugars and extra foam,” Sirius said.
The woman’s wary expression did not shift, but she did relax minutely.
“It’s good to see you, Grim. Meeting’s not for another eight minutes. What’s brought you in so early?”
She stepped over to a door marked “Employees Only,” carefully dodging under a low hanging vine on the way, and pushed it open. Her hands trembled slightly when Sirius drew closer, barely noticeable. Her smile never faltered.
“I just wanted to make some introductions. Speaking of, Alice, this is Reaper.”
Harry waved, feeling a little awkward. Alice didn’t seem to be a cape, dressed in obviously civilian clothing as she was.
“Oh, hi!” Alice said, “I’m Alice. Nice to meet you.” She gestured towards the stairs. “Palisade’s been waiting on you, Grim. Wanted to talk about something, I think.”
Sirius groaned. “I’ll deal with it. Thank you, Alice.”
“Of course.”
Harry followed Sirius through the door and into a steep stairwell cast in bright artificial lights, this time absent of greenery. Alice shut the door behind them with a heavy thud.
He still wasn’t sure whether being here was a good idea, though Alice had seemed friendly enough. They emerged into a foyer of sorts, if foyers usually had stained, concrete floors and were located deep underground. Faded, peeling wallpaper decorated the walls, like someone had attempted to make the place look homely long ago.
Past the foyer was what looked like a storage space haphazardly decorated like a dining room, with a large rounded table in the centre circled by an eclectic collection of miscellaneous chairs—some folding, some highbacked, and some without backs at all. Few were occupied, and even fewer occupants deigned to glance their way.
“Grim,” came a gruff voice, “You’re early.”
“Mad-Eye,” Sirius greeted, “Good to see you too!”
“Who’s the kid?”
Sirius’s hand tensed around Harry’s wrist. “This is Reaper. I adopted him. Sort of. Reaper, this is Mad-Eye. He’s been leading the Order for a couple years now.”
Harry felt greatly intimidated by the scarred man, and so couldn’t bring himself to speak. His mask felt too tight around his face, like it was forcibly keeping his mouth shut. Mad-Eye fixed one eye on him, inspecting; the other was covered by some sort of cloth beneath his mask, which really more resembled a helm. Deep scarring crept beneath the crack between the edge of his helm and his neck.
“And you’re certain he’s trustworthy? Child spies aren’t uncommon, you know?”
Sirius made an offended noise, tucking Harry further behind himself in a protective gesture that made Harry flush with a strange mixture of ecstasy and embarassment. “Of course he’s-”
“Grim!” came a more familiar voice before Harry could finish contemplating whether he should run away. The three of them glanced up to see Remus approach. “Grim, I really need to talk to you about-”
“Yeah, yeah. Alice mentioned,” Sirius grumbled, pulling out a chair and dropping onto it with the look of a man walking to the gallows. Harry sat demurely on a stool next to Sirius, trying his best to imagine himself melting into the ground.
“I heard you had an encounter with Nightshade,” Remus continued, “You still have the package, right? Because Mad-Eye said you didn’t deliver anything, so I was-”
Sirius tilted his head up towards the ceiling and sighed dramatically before Remus could finish. “They may have—ah—taken… the package?”
The look Remus levelled at Sirius could only be described as severely disappointed.
“And,” Sirius continued, “They also took my bike. The package was on the bike. It’s not my fault she decided to steal my bike.”
“Would this happen to be about the disrupter you were working on, Remus?” Mad-Eye asked.
“Unfortunately so,” Remus said.
Sirius laughed nervously, scooting his chair away from Remus’s reproaching glare, made all the more intense by the molten amber of his eyes. “Maybe they won’t figure out how to use it?” he said.
“As expected,” Mad-Eye scoffed, “Reckless and foolish as ever. To think Minerva spoke so highly of you…”
“Sorry, Mad-Eye,” Sirius said.
A sharp knock came from just behind Mad-Eye and Harry jumped, shrinking into his wobbly stool.
“Excuse me, sir,” came a soft voice, “You are blocking the doorway.”
Mad-Eye shifted to the side with a grumble of annoyance, though his demeanour softened nevertheless.
“Apologies, Midnight.”
“Hm.” The woman’s sharp eyes darted to Harry. “Who’s this?”
Harry fidgeted with his mask, pulling the wire edge higher up his nose with clammy hands. Sirius cut in, squeezing Harry’s shoulder. “Reaper, Midnight. Midnight’s a medic.”
“Oh, he’s one of yours then?” Midnight asked.
“In a fashion,” Sirius said, defensive and tense, as though preparing for an argument.
“Well,” Midnight said, “Call me Ms. Pomfrey. If you’re to be working with Grim here, I suspect we won’t be strangers for long.”
Silence hung between them for a moment before Harry realised he was being addressed directly. He flushed. “Oh, um. I’m Harry,” he replied a little belatedly, “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Midnight nodded, then drifted off further into the room.
Remus’s eyes fixed back on Sirius. “We really need to get that disrupter back, with what Nobilis is planning-”
Sirius’s head shot up, attention caught. “What? They’re making a move?”
“The reason Palisade insisted you attend this meeting. Several times, if I recall correctly,” said Mad-Eye.
“I said I was going to come already,” Sirius said.
Remus cleared his throat. “Well yes, but I wanted to make sure you- I mean- I know how important this is to you and-”
“Off topic, Palisade.” Mad-Eye interrupted Remus’s stammered train of thought. “The disrupter. Any ideas, Grim?”
Sirius paused, then shrugged.
“I don’t see how we can even find out where they stashed the thing. Trust me, if I thought I could get my bike back, I’d have gone already.”
Remus sighed. “I don’t think I can create a counter in that little time. I mean, I’ll try, but it doesn’t seem feasible. I haven’t been to the Suits headquarters, so I don’t know how it’ll affect-”
“The Suits?” Sirius asked.
The frankly surreal image of Tom, rain-soaked and cold in Aunt Petunia’s backyard, floated unbidden to the top of Harry’s mind.
Moody said, “Besides the point. Providence refused to evacuate the building. Four days… Best we can do is warn them, I reckon.”
A few more people—each with varying degrees of facial coverage—had filtered in during their conversation, making a meagre total of about six, not including Harry and Sirius.
“Looks like everyone’s here,” Remus said, “You ready to start the meeting, Mad-Eye?”
Mad-Eye grunted in what Harry assumed was assent and stepped up to the table, prosthetic leg landing heavy against the wooden floorboards.
“Listen up!” he bellowed, louder than Harry thought might be strictly necessary. Everyone in the room quietened, turning towards Mad-Eye. He continued, “Nobilis will be attacking the Suits in less than four days, and I’ve signed us up to provide support. Should anyone not wish to participate, we can discuss in private later.”
Mutters broke out.
“Less than four days?”
“Why now?”
“Trust Mad-Eye to not at least consult-”
Mad-Eye cleared his throat loudly, glaring daggers across the table at a cape with strands of red hair peeking out from beneath a worn, clearly home-made, helmet. The redhead just huffed, clearly unaffected.
“This is our best chance to make some captures, seeing as how we still haven’t uncovered their current bases of operation.” At this, Mad-Eye’s gaze shifted to Sirius. Sirius crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, petulant. Harry was hit by a sudden flood of annoyance, biting back quickly souring thoughts and clenching his hands until his knuckles paled. Who was this man, this stranger, to treat Sirius with such hostility? To what end?
The discussion continued back and forth, regarding logistics and strategy, who could go and who couldn’t. Harry remained silent throughout it all, the ping-pong of arguments he couldn’t quite keep up with fading into an indiscernible background hum as he fell headfirst into the quiet of sleep.
“What, exactly, do you think I’m hiding?”
The low buzz of indignation twisted his every thought, threatening to turn his expression ugly. A smile tugged at his lips like instinct, though there was nothing amusing about the situation. Not yet.
“I think you know,” said the stranger before him, dark curls falling ragged over a black half-mask and rigid snarl. Alethio, his mind supplied. Irritating, overconfident, out of line. A flaw. The urge to dispose was kept stubbornly behind bared teeth, and Harry so longed to set it free.
“I really don’t,” he said instead in a voice that was not his own.
“Half-lie.”
The boy backed away when Harry taunted him with honeyed words, searching for weakness, any scab he could pick at and make bleed.
“Tell me, ’Thio. Who was it?” he said, and the other boy’s fear made it taste all the more sweet.
He tracked the boy closely with his eyes as he trembled, as he flinched, as he fled, a coil of satisfaction clamping shut around his heart.
Harry was jerked back into alertness, his name threatening to tumble past his lips before Harry remembered where he was. He straightened in the direction he decided must be up, examining the room. Sirius’s hand was hovering near his shoulder, and several people were already making to leave.
“Welcome back, kiddo,” Sirius said, clearly amused, “Meeting’s over. You feeling alright?”
Harry nodded, the movement stiff and strange. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Are we leaving?”
“Yup.”
Harry took Sirius’s proffered hand, following him out of the dark cellar and starting on the roundabout trek that would take them safely back home.
That night found Harry under too-harsh lights in a half-empty bar far past his usual sleeping time, something he wouldn’t have even been able to imagine just ten minutes ago.
He hadn’t been able to fall asleep, the fear of seeing Tom again badgering him until he’d heard Sirius getting ready to leave for work and climbed back out of bed to follow. Sirius, apparently, worked as a bartender, a fact which hadn’t bothered a very desperate Harry at the time. Now, as music pounded through his head, he found himself doubting his decision. A distraction was still a distraction though, and this one was working rather well so far.
Still, the fact remained that Harry couldn’t very well go to sleep for obvious reasons, he hadn’t brought anything with him, and he was bored.
He sat in the shadows on Sirius’s side of the bar, away from the customers, who Sirius was busy entertaining at the moment. One drunken patron gestured towards Harry, startling him so much he nearly fell off his stool. Sirius laughed and spoke, or more likely yelled, a reply, glancing back at Harry with a delighted spark in his eyes. Harry was feeling less shy and more eager to do something at the moment, lest his thoughts go adrift, so he took it as an invitation to hop off his stool and approach.
Sirius looked surprised but not displeased, patting Harry on the back.
“Get bored, did you?” he said, more jovial than Harry had seen him all day. Harry suspected that was more because he’d caught some sleep after the Order meeting than because of the conversation at hand.
Harry nodded. He wasn’t entirely sure he could manage to speak loud enough to be heard over the din, and didn’t feel much like embarrassing himself by trying.
“Ey, lad!” yelled one of the patrons, “What’s your name?”
“Harry,” he said at what he hoped was an acceptable volume.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” another jeered.
Harry crossed his arms, trying to imitate Sirius’s own easy confidence. “I’m not ten, thanks.”
This garnered a laugh from some of the men, though Harry suspected it was at his expense.
“Old enough to drink then, are ya lad?” someone said, pushing an unopened can of beer towards him. Harry flushed. He’d never drunk before. His guardians at St. Christopher’s would’ve never allowed it.
“Well now,” Sirius interjected. Harry glanced up at him pleadingly.
He wondered if Tom had drunk before. Except he didn’t. He didn’t wonder “Tom” anything.
Sirius sighed and glared at the patron who had pushed over the can. “Just a few sips. And I’ll be watching!”
And watch he did, his stare so intense Harry’s skin prickled with it. He grabbed the can before he could second-guess himself, popping it open with a defiant look. The smell was strong and unpleasant, but he managed a full gulp before Sirius protested and confiscated the can. The taste was uniquely awful, if not more so than the stench, but he valiantly managed to keep it down.
Harry wiped his mouth quickly with his sleeve and tilted his chin ever so slightly upwards, as if to say, ‘See?’
“Not as soft as you look, hm?” the man said, a mocking undertone to his voice.
Another patron laughed, raising a glass in Sirius’s general direction. “This one’ll grow up into a proper man, I bet. I mean, under your tutelage-”
Sirius’s next laugh was slightly stiffer than usual, but he did not waver. “Glad to know you think so highly of me.”
Harry felt strangely exhilarated, if wildly out of his element.
“We haven’t been properly introduced yet,” he yelled, addressing the group.
What followed was a whole lot of sweaty hand shaking and a string of names Harry was sure he wouldn’t remember the next day.
More importantly, he did not think of Tom once.