Chapter Text
Five hours.
Five hours is all Hypnos would afford him. That, and the gentle hand running through his hair, nearly shook him awake. He remained still, taking in his surroundings, and after a few moments, he dared to peek from beneath his lashes.
Remus
With a smile, he turned, and the man retracted his hand with a sheepish wobbly grin. The pair watched one another for a few moments before Harry lurched with a gasp. His gaze snapped down to the bed sheets, the same white sheets he had slept on for the majority of his life, and the large bandage covering his bare chest. With a blush, he tried to pull the sheet over him further, but found his arm tied to his side in a sling.
“Your collar bone,” Remus said, motioning to the bandage. Setting down a book on the bedside table, and turning his attention to him fully, he continued. “I’m sorry, but we had to regrow it. Molly said you had a nasty fall from the floo in the kitchen.”
“Molly?” He trailed off, vaguely recalling a woman, an older woman in the kitchen. The faces were all jumbled together, too much had happened, and with that sudden realization, he tried to sit up in earnest. “Remus! The man in the field! I saw him when I went to the bookstore, even though Tom told me not to,” he added with a wince. “The man did something, Remus, I don’t know what, but he did something. He must have–,”
“Calm yourself, Harry,” He hushed, standing to straighten his pillows. “You must rest as much as you can.”
“I feel as if I have been sleeping for ages,” He huffed with annoyance. He didn't want to rest, he wanted answers. The world, his life, was so utterly confusing. “And I have to tell Tom that I’m alright. He warned me, Remus, he told me not to go into town, and I ignored him.”
Remus hushed him again, holding his free hand between his own. His eyes were downtrodden, morose even, gazing at his face with grief.
“Har–Harry,” he stamered, running a hand through his sandy brown hair. “You can't see Tom, not right now.” Green eyes stared back at his friend incredulously.
“Remus,” his heart sank as the man, much older now, avoided his gaze. Chills ran down his neck, and his body grew warm with nerves. “Remus, I need to see him. Something terrible has happened, I just know it.” He felt like a madman, staring at his friend, as if from a different time. After a beat of silence, he repeated himself, practically begging the man.
“Remus, I need to see him.” Grasping his hand, he clutched it tightly to his bandaged side.
Remus looked at him, really looked at him this time. A pained frown marred his face, ageing him further. With a deep, weighted sigh, he stood from the chair beside the bed and smoothed down his shirt.
“Breakfast first, then we can talk.” Harry nodded eagerly. He was confused, desperate for information, but at the mention of food, his stomach released an angry growl, contorting itself uncomfortably. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten, but it became obvious as he tried to stand, nearly falling back onto the bed behind him. “Here,” Remus motioned to him, and soon he was swept up in his arms again.
Harry said nothing about the bandage around his arm, his torso, or his feet. His nightgown covered the worst of it anyway, he thought with a grimace.
Remus carried him through the long sconce-lit hallway and down the multiple flights of stairs. Not having been home since his wedding, he thought back about the townhouse fondly. In many ways, he shouldn't have such fond recollections, but the charm of the house was there, despite the dust, the cobwebs, and the darkened Victorian wallpapers. As they passed the wall of mounted elf heads, he grimaced.
Some things never changed.
“Where are mother and father?” He asked softly. The home was curiously vacant. He could barely recall people there in the sitting room from the night before, curiously, all dressed the same. Plain t-shirt, denims, and trainers. What happened to the people dressed like Muggles? Surely his mother would have thrown a fit if she were here.
“After breakfast, Harry,” Remus chided slightly, to his utter frustration. But he remained quiet, watching the paintings and portraits go by; many were vacant, also curious considering the nosy nature of his relatives.
“Is Severus here?” he couldn't help the questions, and his hopeful face fell as Remus tensed and shook his head. “Can you call him? I want to see him, Remus.” Remus was debating with himself as Harry watched his face go through a million expressions in the short span of seconds.
“I will call him,” He hesitated, but Harry patted his chest in thanks. Severus would surely know what was going on.
The kitchen, apparently, was where everyone had gathered. The sight of so many people, so many strangers in his home, sends him curling into himself. Only the sight of Kreacher, standing furiously next to a redheaded woman, hands on his hips and preparing to fight, calmed him. But even then, just barely.
“Master Hooligan!” Kreacher gasped, rushing to their side and fussing over him as Remus set him down at the kitchen table. It felt strange to have so many people in a space only previously used by Kreacher and himself. As a child, and well into his teenage years, only he and Kreacher ate in the kitchen. Often his meals were taken in the library, until he made his way down to the kitchen to bug Kreacher to the elves' disdain. “You must eat, you are far too thin.” The scolding never stopped, and with a smile, Harry held his hand.
The silence of the room did not register until Kreacher finished serving him a plate and placing a napkin over his lap. He suddenly felt self-conscious. He was the only one in the room in their nightclothes, and the impropriety of it all swiftly moved his eyes to stare at the table, unmoving, and nervous.
No one spoke, but the weight of their eyes was telling. He subtly tried to gather Remus’ attention, but to his horror, the man left the room in a rush, abandoning him with the strangers at the table.
Playing with his fingers in his lap, he kept to himself until someone cleared their throat.
“Harry,” A feminine voice said, softly garnering the attention of the room. His eyes shot forward, just for a second, seeing a mass of curly brown hair and the pale, concerned faces of those gathered around him. At his lack of response, she cleared her throat again, “Harry, do you remember anything?”
“Hermione, maybe we should wait–,” The boy next to her began, a redhead, as was the girl, and boys to his right. Remus swept back into the room, and her question remained unanswered.
“Did you call him?” Harry asked; he couldn't wait any longer. Any sense of familiarity was necessary, vital to him in that moment. The hopeful lilt of his scratchy voice could not be contained, and it did not miss Remus, judging by his unnamed expression. Remus rounded the table, accepting a plate from the older redhead and settling down beside him.
“I sent him a message,” He nodded, but his face was tight. The others stared at him in confusion, but Harry only patted his hand and dug in. The food was delicious, the best he had eaten in a while.
“After breakfast, I'll need to gather my things. Tom’s probably so worried,” He said between bites. He didn't see the confused glances shared around the table, or one of the older boys mouthing “Tom” to his twin. He ignored them; he would ask his mother later why she adopted a family of redheads, but those questions could wait. He needed to go home, he promised Tom, and he would not go back on his promises. With any luck, they could still perform the ritual for Samhain before sunrise.
A commotion upstairs startled the room, and soon everyone leapt to their feet, darting towards the stairs. Harry was slower, gathering himself, and setting down his plate, thanking Kreacher, before taking his hand and trailing slowly behind Remus. Remus, however, had a sweat on his brow, his wand was drawn, and he carried himself stiffly. A hand settled around his waist, and he muttered thanks as he panted, climbing the wooden stairs.
The sounds grew louder as they climbed each step, until they appeared before chaos. Wizards and witches with drawn wands circled an older man with dark hair covering his face, one holding him by his robes up against the front door. A panicked air stirred the room, whipping them into a frenzied outrage, but fear, pure unadulterated fear, lay underneath it all.
Then the telltale catterwalling shrieks of his mother pierced the air, outshining the rest, and adding to the utter chaos in the foyer.
“Mother!” Harry shouted, letting go of Kreacher and shrugging off Remus. He ran, hobbled, really, wincing with each step to the door, pushing past the bodies and the gobsmacked faces. Remus chased after him, frantically trying to shield him from the raised wands and prickling air of spell casting.
“Harry!” Remus called out.
“Get these dirty, rotten, no-good mudbloods out of my house!” She shrieked. “You insipid sniveling swine are tainting the most Noble and Ancient House of Black!”
He ran, expecting to find his mother as he always did, hair pulled tightly into an elegant up-do, one hand on her hip, the other pointing accusingly at whoever caught her ire that day. He expected petticoats, skirts, smart pointed black shoes, and the aged scowl that could still make him run for the hills.
“Mother– oof!” A taller redhead caught him, spinning him around, and to his disbelief, he found a portrait, not his mother. Only it was his mother, but she was just paint, gesso, and canvas on the wall.
“Horologium!”
“NO!” Remus and a familiar voice screamed, and the room froze. The commotion stopped, and the wands around the room lowered. The man held against the wall shoved away the hands and the wands, pushing past the older man holding him by the shoulders and crouching in front of him. Cool hands held his face, and dark, nearly black eyes bore into his own.
“Harry, look at me,” Harry fliched backwards, his feet taking him away from the portrait, away from the familiar face staring at his own. “Listen to me, you are safe, Harry, look at me.” His eyes snapped back to the man, and the floodgate of tears opened once more. With great wracking sobs, and in his shock, he fell into the open arms of Severus Snape.
They made a curious trio on the loveseat in the sitting room. The occasional sniffle or rustle of clothing broke the silence, disrupting the tense atmosphere of the dreary room. Harry sat between Severus, to his right, holding his hand, and Remus to his left, also clutching his hand tightly. Kreacher stood close by; only the elf could calm down Walburga enough for the group to gather in the sitting room and talk. A fire was lit, and soon the cold, ever frigid sitting room of Number 12 was awash with light and warmth despite the late July heat.
As all English people did when faced with an awkward and nerve-inducing situation, they sipped tea. Most cups sat aside forgotten, others held between white knuckle grips, giving their owners something to do in the tense and confusing air permeating the space like a pervasive smoke.
Harry absolutely did not want to break the silence.
It seemed no one did around the room either.
Moments passed, and when it truly became clear no one was going to speak, Severus cleared his throat and braved the room. Many flinched as he shifted on the couch, and Harry didn’t miss the threatening and less-than-friendly glares the man received. He felt protective of the man, as he did with Remus, and clutched his hand tighter on his lap, giving whatever reassurance he could despite his confusion.
“I find myself at a loss for how to begin,” his deep baritone practically echoed off the walls. “I believe it would be more helpful,” he paused to squeeze Harry’s hand, “If I asked you a few pressing questions.”
Harry audibly gulped and nodded his head. He did not remove his eyes from the rug, where they had stayed since Severus began to speak, and he absolutely would not look the two people sitting across from him in the eyes. The read-headded boy and curly-haired girl gawked at him, and had been ever since he arrived back home. It was unsettling to say the least.
“How did you arrive at Number 12?” The question caught him off guard. He was mentally preparing to recount his day, a rather boring day at that, back at the manor. Instead, he was scrambling to verbalize the new place he found himself in, the room in the strange home with white and grey walls.
“I woke,” he began, his voice hoarse from crying. “But the room was strange. And dark.”
“Dark?” Severus prompted.
“The lights were off, or they didn’t work,” he couldn't recall a lamp anywhere in the room, “And the door was locked, many times, as was the window with the bars on it.”
“What?” Remus cut in sharply, shocking Harry with the force of his tone. “What bars?”
“The bars on the window,” he said slowly, as if it was obvious. He didn’t imagine it, many times, he had doubted his mind, thinking himself crazy and unraveling like a worn-out tapestry, but this time, he was sure of himself. “The window and the room with the broken bed. Everything was broken, come to think of it. And it was hot, unbearably hot. The door unlocked, and a man started yelling, so I ran.”
“Were you seen?” Severus asked, ignoring the incredulous Remus and the gobsmacked people in the room. “Did anyone see you?”
“Besides the man? No, he grabbed hold of my hair,” he grasped the back of his head, feeling a short patch of regrown hair and tender flesh at the memory. “But I made it out to the strangest village. Then the old woman was there.”
“Who?”
“She didn't tell me her name, but somehow she knew me.” He could still smell the musky cat-infested home; he probably would for the rest of his life. “She had a floo, and I didn’t think, didn't even consider the consequences, I leapt into the flames. She said they were coming.”
“Arabella Fig,” Severus supplied.
“Before that, do you remember anything?” Remus pressed, smoothing over the bandages on his hands. “Anything at all?”
Harry thought for a moment, considering how to phrase his thoughts. His day was normal, up until he saw the–
“Dog!” He gasped, turning bodily to lock eyes with Severus. “The dog came back, and so I followed him.”
“What dog?” the girl asked, but was quickly silenced by Severus slicing a hand through the air and grasping Harry by the shoulders.
“The dog from the gardens, what did it look like?” he demanded, his eyes like coal.
“Yes, the same dog from the garden, I followed it into town–,”
“Show me,” Severus said. The room froze, as if holding its breath.
“I don’t know how–,”
“Look into my eyes, and show me.”
He did, and Severus dove into his mind.
Absently, he could feel cool hands holding his face, and an unnatural coolness washed over him. He was calm, his mind unfocused, but Severus sifted through his thoughts freely, swirling past the thoughts of Tom, their last conversation, his letter, his goodbye to Lettie, and finally, he arrived at the forest. Through his eyes, Severus watched as he ran through the trees behind the property, into town, and down the winding path to the field.
The dog was there, just as he had last seen it, but to his surprise, the dog turned into a man. The scene played out before them both, and as soon as the man’s face came swimming into frame, Severus swiftly pulled himself from Harry’s mind and leaned back, releasing a heavy, pained sigh, never once taking his eyes off his confused face.
“Pettigrew,” He said softly.
“I told you!” Remus leapt to his feet, his arms in the air, pointing an accusing finger at Severus, where he sat with Harry. Harry was utterly confused, having only heard the name a handful of times in his life from Sirius. Leveling Remus with a confused frown, he opened his mouth to speak, but Remus continued on yelling.
“I told you it wasn’t Sirius!” He shouted, pulling his hair and pacing in front of the fire. “It was Peter all along, it’s always been Peter!”
“We need to tell Kingsley,” A redhead said from across the room, drawing Harry’s attention to two identical men sitting side by side on his mother's ottoman. “And Moody,” the other added.
“It makes no sense,” Severus whispered to himself. Harry and he sat in confused silence as the room leapt into action, calling Moody–
“Wait,” Harry gasped, “Moody?” he nearly flinched at the name. The man haunted his dreams, his waking thoughts, occupying a space in his mind that contained his fears and anxieties. Every encounter with the man, the overzealous, unjust Auror, was filled with contempt, and the ever looming threat of arrest, for Merlin knows what. “You can’t call him!”
“Harry,” An older, fatherly redhead began, but Harry cut him off harshly, his panic rising. His house, which should have been a sanctuary considering everything that happened in the last twenty-four hours, felt wrong. These people, complete strangers here, his mother's portrait in the hall, all of it snapped him to attention in the worst way.
“My mother,” he said, deflating with nerves, and the adrenaline rush of Severus using his mind like a bargain bin at the bookstore. “My mother is dead.” Blood rushed to his ears at the realization. It was tradition in his family for a funerary portrait to be painted, each family member receiving their own portrait, mounted on the wall for display, upon their death. If his mother’s portrait was up, that could only mean she had died. Died, and no one told him.
“Where is Sirius?” he demanded calmly, too calmly. His emotions were threatening to run wild. He was barely keeping it together, Severus’ hand holding his own, grounding him, but with Kreacher weeping in the corner, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief, and the rest of the room staring at him with wide eyes, he had had enough. “Where is he?”
“Harry–,” Remus halted whatever message he was sending to Moody, and rounded the room again to stand beside him. The man tried taking his shoulder in his hand, but Harry pushed the hand away.
“Where is he?” his voice grew louder with each word. “Where’s Reggie?” He was panicking, truly panicking now; no one would answer him, and with each passing moment, he could feel reality come crashing down around him.
“Horolo–,” Remus started, his hands up placatingly.
“The taboo!” Severus hissed, and the room quieted in further confusion.
“What taboo?” The girl–Hermione–he would later learn, asked.
“The Dark Lord–”
“You would call him that you–,”
“The Dark Lord,” Severus interrupted louder, shooting a blazing glare at one of the younger wizards in the crowd, “placed a taboo on his name, his true name,” he finished.
“Taboos are dreadful things,” The matronly woman added, shaking her head and dabbing her eyes. “Anyone who says the name will be hunted down, just like in the first war.”
“But Mrs. Black said it?” Hermione asked, her eyes alight with the promise of new knowledge and untold magic.
“Portraits are not people,” Severus snapped, glaring at the girl before turning to Harry again.
“There is no easy way to explain,” The dark-haired man said, taking him by the shoulder, only this time Harry did not shy away from the touch. “But I do think it best to speak, privately.” He added, his eyes shooting daggers at the room.
Slowly, the room filtered out through the doors, and only Remus, Severus, and Harry remained in the sitting room. Harry sat, facing the hall, with a clear view of his mother's portrait. Her distrustful glare was not fixated on him, but on the two men and the strangers in her home. Kreacher popped into the room, silver tray in hand, and went about fixing him tea and fruit. He hadn't finished his breakfast, he thought absentmindedly, and with a growling stomach, he forced himself to take small, measured bites, but the food tasted like ash on his tongue.
“Your last memories are of October, Samhain, correct?” Severus said once settled across from him. Now, without the yelling and distractions, he looked at the man and could only deflate further at what he saw. Deep, grooving lines marred his face and the area around his mouth. Frown lines, typical of the dour and prickly man. Harry knew them well, but this time, he saw them in a completely new light.
Severus was old.
Somehow, he looked older than Remus, worn, and sour-faced with age thrust upon him unfairly. The site was unsettling, confusing beyond measure. The sinking feeling in his chest did not abate with each word, but furrowed, festering as he processed.
“Yes,” he gulped, setting aside his tea. His hands could barely hold the saucer.
“The Dark Lord,” Severus began, but stopped, “your husband,” he amended, trying to be sensitive with his words. “Has been searching for you.”
“I know!” Harry nearly cried. “I left the house, Severus, and the man was there–,”
“He has been searching for you for eighteen years, Harry.” Remus amended, bluntly. “We all have.”
Severus and Remus went quiet, observing him, watching for any signs of recognition, any memories, or even the slightest hint that Harry knew what they were talking about. But he didn’t! It was ridiculous, utterly insane to think that just last night he was at home with Tom, and now, somehow, someway, he was in 1997.
“You’re taking the piss,” he scoffed, but the forboding stare of his mother raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “I was just at home–,”
“At home in 1979,” Severus said slowly, as if explaining it to a child. “But years have passed. Look at us.” And he did. He looked upon his friends, two of his only friends, and saw clearly for the first time. They were not just old-looking; they had aged.
Somehow, they had aged overnight, and he had not.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered, playing with the trim on his robe nervously.
“We don’t either,” Remus laughed, but it lacked humor and his usual warmth. “Sirius and I were going to see you, and next thing we know, the whole town was in flames.”
“We searched, but could only find your shoe, and a coat, if memory recalls,” Severus said, watching him fixated, as if he too could not believe the reality of the situation.
“I need to see them,” he urged, his face pinched and tired despite his restlessness. Severus and Remus shared a look, both leveling each other with some unsaid agreement. Tense moments passed before Remus nodded his head.
“There is a pensive in the library, correct?”
Hours passed as Severus paced in front of the library door. The ancient and heavily guarded room did not want anyone besides Harry to step foot beyond its doors. No amount of convincing, pleading, and incessant housework from Molly could tame the room. Especially once the house realized the woman was throwing out artifacts and anything dark. Pureblood homes had minds of their own. Years of sentient, blood magic, waylines, and generations of dark wizards made taming the house impossible for anyone not born into the family.
But Harry had no problem going in; he was the last remaining Black, aside from his cousins. So there he remained, locked inside the library, the doors warding themselves shut behind him, leaving Severus to pace relentlessly in front of the doors in the dark hallway.
It had been three hours since he and Lupin shared their memories. Glass vials clanked together as Kreacher wheeled them into the library, setting Harry up on the green leather sofa beside the pensive, then shutting the doors once again.
Three hours of silence, not a single sound coming from the room, and Severus was nearly at his wits' end. His dark mark started burning hours ago, and it was becoming unbearable. He would need to leave soon, but his feet staunchly stalked the hall, refusing to abandon his post.
Curious brats checked on him frequently, to his utter disdain. Their judgmental eyes were stalking him, trying at nonchalance, but failing completely. He could barely bring himself to care; he knew what they thought of him. Every negative thought, every pacing suspicion was not validated by Albus’ death. A death by his hand. He was the greasy bat-turned-death eater of the dungeons. The man who tortured children and killed their saviors.
The only ones not suspicious of him were, curiously, the twins. The demon twin Weasley brothers watched him, blank-faced and knowing. It was unnerving, but not unusual. Those two were always more perceptive than the others, especially the youngest of the Weasley clan.
Soon, morning turned to afternoon, and the shadows around Number 12 elongated through the dusty windows. He paced, and lamented, and paced some more, growing increasingly concerned with the silence just on the other side of the door. The gloomy, dust-infested hallway only added to his mood, making the already dour and dark man positively morose.
The memories he shared would shake even the darkest wizards to their core. He was selective, only sharing what was absolutely necessary, but any interaction with the Dark Lord, before or after Horologium's disappearance, was menacing. The years had changed the man, stripping him of any morality and spitting out a war-hardened ruler, merciless and uncaring. It was difficult to put the horrors of the world and of the man into words, but doom and despair came to mind, as did the monstrous visage he now purported.
He could only imagine what Horologium would think, would feel, when he saw what his husband had become. Severus tried to keep his emotions from the memories, but memories were often woven tightly to emotion, strong emotions such as guilt and terror, both things he had felt, and did feel deeply. It would be foolish to ignore his guilt, both for his hand in making the Dark Lord what he was the night he shared the prophecy and the terror he felt each time he met his master.
Now, he was resolved to face another person he had failed, and look them in the eyes. He cared deeply about Horologium’s opinion of him. As much as he hated to admit it, the Dark Lord's husband was one of the few people he had failed. A reckoning was upon him, and his time was up. His failure was just through the doors at his back, watching memory after memory of his shortcomings, his descent into violence, dark magics beyond what any of the Order knew possible, and the admittance to the truth.
All of it.
The truth about Regulus’ marking ceremony, and the copious amounts of necromancy that followed, the truth about the prophecy, and the Dark Lord’s search for seers. The resurrection in the forest, memories he had seen through Harry Potter's eyes, the revels, and his meetings with the Dark Lord since being appointed de facto Headmaster. All of it was laid bare, and it terrified him.
He felt like a child again, at the feet of the Dark Lord begging his forgiveness, for the man’s mercy. Only this time, there was no dark lord, only a man, a man in the place of his best friend’s son, that, for some reason, defying all the laws of magic and time travel, ended back in the very place it all began.
It was inconceivable. Impossible. Harry Potter was not Horologium Black, the husband of the Dark Lord. Yet as he paced, and lamented, and recalled, the similarities were uncanny. However, their differences were stark and telling. Harry Potter was not retrieved from Petunia Dursley’s; Horologium was, and somehow the two were connected, for how else could someone who disappeared in 1979 return, all these years later?
Time travel felt too obvious, and upon further speculation, the uncanny and untoward link between Potter and the Dark Lord could be to blame. However cretinous and irresponsible the boy was, he never deserved the Dark Lord’s ire nor his fixative obsession.
The Dark Lord was obsessed with Horologium, though.
It was unhealthy, and brash and wholly encompassing, but the man was obsessed. Almost twenty years later and that obsession remained, manifesting as the monster, pale-faced and snake-like, that haunted his dreams.
And that same visage would haunt Horologium.
The early evening silence was eerie, yet welcomed. The rooftop of Number 12 Grimmauld Place sat vacant of owls and messenger pigeons it once held, but still somehow showed remnants of their life. The paint, just like in the house, was aged, peeling, as if trying to run from the walls and the horrors of the home. Number 12 lacked any semblance of warmth it once desperately tried to cling to, despite his mother's prickly nature.
It was cold, but he welcomed the frosty air along with the silence. He welcomed it, licking at his bare feet, his slippers long forgotten in the library. Bandaged souls scraped against the wood and brick as he gazed over the edge of the roof, staring down onto the completely unfamiliar street.
The homes were modernized, as was everything else in this strange new reality. Yet, only Number 12 remained the same. The same rugs, wallpapers, wall sconces, chandeliers, flooring, and portraits, all of it was the same. Harry found himself wishing desperately it wasn't.
He wasn’t a particularly eloquent man, nor was he particularly wise to the world, having been sheltered and sequestered for the majority of his life, but words could not comprehend where he found himself. Vengefulness was not the correct word, nor was sorrow. It went beyond that, beyond any verse even the greatest poets could conjure to describe what he was feeling. He felt it skin deep, to the bone, deep within his chest like a burning coal, wrapped in hatred, in anger, in fear, in putrescent sadness, and loss for a life he never lived.
He was thirty-five.
If he was to believe the memories–how could he not–he was thirty-five. Had aged eighteen years overnight, and somehow was spat back out by Father Time like nothing. Spat out into a nightmare only the most ghoulish of demons could dream. Foretold by a silly nonsense prophecy his imbecile of a husband had taken as truth.
Tom
He slapped a hand over his mouth, stifling a sob.
Tom was horrid.
Over the years, he had experienced, had seen, many of the memories Remus and Severus had shown him, only through another's eyes. Through Harry’s eyes. Tom was no less terrifying or tragic from Severus’ point of view. Dreams he had thought simply dreams, nothing more, nothing less, were memories. The memories of a little boy, and then a young man. A young man his once adoring, fauning, and overbearing husband, had terrorized and attempted to kill in cold blood.
An orphaned boy who grew up all too similarly to himself. Who’s only experience with Tom was of Voldemort. A name he jokingly called his husband. A name that some whispered, but never truly took seriously, let alone said out loud. It was the same with the term Death Eater. No one took the name seriously, for crying out loud, the media named them such!
What went wrong?
What did he do wrong?
Tom was on the right track; he made sure of it. The killings had stopped, the raids were no more. All of his sneaky efforts for the last few months went into weeks and weeks of gentle curbing, correction, planting seeds, and serving as Tom’s calming aura. He redirected his ire; he even got the man, set on world domination, to focus on policy, the Wizengamot, and so much more than simply resorting to violence.
Thirty-five years was an incredibly long time.
But what happened?
Sinking to the ground, he hugged his knees to his chest, the knobby things providing little comfort. Shrugging off his glasses, the heavy frames clattered to the floor as he pressed his face into his arms crossed over his knees. The air grew colder, but he needed it. Like punishment, he shivered in the perpetual frost around Number 12. Even in summer, it had no warmth. Not that he could feel it anyway. Ever since waking in the strange room in that muggle's house, his body had almost no feeling.
He was numb, perhaps a coping mechanism. But he knew it wasn't. The wedding band he had worn for just shy of a year was gone, as was the locket, and in their absence, a cold and unrelenting vacant void resonated.
It left him wondering about the boy. The boy everyone expected him to be, who he had reappeared as, all these years later. Were they similar? They obviously resembled one another, but from the memories he had witnessed, that boy, Harry Potter, was strong, resilient, and unflinchingly brave.
As his thoughts tangled and twirled around him, his sobbing abated, and the cold sank in further. The sky grew darker, the shadows longer as time went by on the rooftop. He could hear the people, the Weasleys, searching for him in the house, but he ignored their calls. His thoughts were too consumed by the boy, a simple boy, the son of his brother's best friend, and seemingly the sole fixation of his husband's rage.
The others could wait as he wool gathered. But one question racked his mind, leaving him craving the answers he knew not.
Where was Harry Potter?