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Chapter Text

Clarke's Second Law: "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

Harry Potter, known as Harry Evans in the muggle world, was enjoying his first year at Hogwarts. His two best friends, Susan and Neville, came with him, and he had also made new friends in the form of Draco, Tracy, Hermione, and, tentatively, Ron Weasley. 

His classes were relatively easy for him, much of it being review, and he was finally getting used to using his wand because everyone assured him he would need it for more powerful spells. He had access to a huge library with all sorts of spells and potions recipes so even if he was a bit bored with his classwork, he had plenty of other things to study. He was currently in the process of trying to find a clear and concise way to explain to wizards what his aunt and his mum had done to protect him. It was more difficult than expected, but he hoped to have something he could release to the papers over the summer with his aunt’s help. 

Hermione had briefly attempted to pull him into what his aunt would call, child-hero-nonsense. Hermione had picked up on some things that Hagrid had said and determined that Professor Dumbledore was storing the Philosopher's Stone in the school and someone was intending to steal it. Hermione wanted to help protect it. Harry, frankly, did not believe it was his responsibility to protect objects that did not belong to him. He was a kid and if Dumbledore needed help protecting his stone, he could ask other adults. So, collectively, he and his friends had talked Hermione out of worrying about it, and convinced her to focus on exams. 

One of the most unsatisfactory elements of going to Hogwarts was Professor Quirrell's class. Even with the headache potions, his head still ached a bit after every lesson, and he could hardly tell what the man was saying most of the time. Harry had taken to reading in class to distract himself from his headache. Quirrell caught him. 

“T-that is not-ot y-your course t-text, Mr. P-potter.” Quirrell stammered.

“No, sorry sir.” Harry replied, closing the book.

“D-detention with me tonight, Mr. Potter,”

Harry looked up in surprise. Normally something like this would only lead to a deduction in house points.

“Th-this is not the first t-time you have b-been inat-t-tentive in class, Mr. Potter.” Quirrell added and Harry nodded in response. 

Harry was not looking forward to his detention because it would surely cause another headache, but he also would concede that he was actually reading in class, so it was a fair detention. 

Harry arrived at detention later that day and sat at a desk in the front row waiting for instructions. A short time later, Quirrell arrived but only gestured for Harry to follow him out the door.

“Where are we going sir?” He asked politely.

“For your detention, you will be helping me retrieve an item which I need for a project of mine.”

Harry frowned, that seemed like an odd detention although he had heard some students had been sent into the forbidden forest for detention, so perhaps not that odd. Maybe they would be harvesting some sort of potion ingredient or trapping an animal?

Harry looked around, realizing they weren’t heading toward the Front Hall. In fact they were heading right toward… “Sir is this detention to be held in the third floor corridor?” 

“Well aren’t you perceptive, Potter.” Quirrell sneered.

Harry stopped walking. He instinctively reached into his pocket and pressed the speed dial button to call Aunt Petunia. “Sir, I think perhaps I should check in with my head of house before accompanying you. We were, after all, threatened on pain of death not to enter the corridor.” He tried to smile charmingly, but his legs were shaking. Something was off about Quirrell. He remembered Hermione saying that the Dark Lord’s agent was most likely a teacher. She thought it was Snape, but Harry now had another guess. 

“Do not make this difficult, Potter.” Quirrell responded coolly. 

Harry began backing up, but Quirrell just advanced closer, twirling his wand.

“You will come with me, and you will do so now.” 

“What do you need to retrieve from the corridor, sir?” Harry kept a polite tone.

Quirrell’s face spread in a menacing grin. “I would have thought a clever young boy like yourself would have figured it out by now. We are so alike in that way. I too was a powerful young orphan once. Dumbledore feared me as much as he now fears you. I’ve heard rumors that you’re a parselmouth.” He said the last part in a sibilant hiss. “We could be great together, Harry Potter. ”

Harry couldn’t stop his eyes from betraying his understanding of the words. There was only one other known parselmouth in the UK in the last half a century and it was not Quirinus Quirrell. 

Harry shot a panicked blast of magic at the man? thing? pretending to be his professor and ran the opposite direction. Not-Quirrell shot spells at him. Harry erected a shield at his back, but the grown wizard was stronger than him. His shield broke, a spell hit, and everything went dark. 

***

When he woke up Harry was no longer in the hallway he had been in previously. He was in a larger room which was empty except for an ornate mirror. Quirrell-Voldemort wrenched him up by the arm so he was standing facing the mirror.

“Look into the mirror and tell me what you see.” He commanded. 

Harry looked. In the mirror he saw what looked to be an older version of himself holding some sort of machine. His friends and family were spread out all around him looking at the machine and giving him congratulatory pats and prideful smiles. As he looked closer he saw it wasn’t just his living family, but his parents and grandparents were there too.

Harry looked up to the top of the mirror and read the inscription. It read: ‘Erised straeh ruoy tub ecaf ruoy ton wohs I.’ Harry looked at the mirror again.

“What do you see?” the wizard demanded again, snapping him out where his gaze had been stuck on the image. 

“I see my family,” Harry responded honestly. Voldemort didn’t need to know he wanted to be an inventor like Aunt Petunia. “Including the ones you murdered.”

The wizard growled, “That is just your deepest desire. Look again, look past that, look for the stone.” 

Harry did as he was ordered, curious about the strange mirror. He looked more and eventually the image did fade to show Harry as he was now. The Harry in the mirror held out a shiny red stone. “Oh I see it now, sir.” Harry said, reverting to politeness in the face of an unknown danger. 

“Get it out for me,” he demanded. 

Harry began to panic. He didn’t know how to get the stone out of the mirror. He reached forward hoping maybe he could just reach through the mirror. He couldn’t, but as he did so, his mirror self dropped the stone in his pocket, and Harry felt an echoing weight in his own pocket. 

Voldemort seemed to sense this. “Give it to me,” he ordered.

Harry went to do just that, but then he remembered who he was talking to. “If I give this to you, how do I know you won’t just kill me right after.” 

The older wizard squinted at him. 

“My life and freedom for the stone, that’s all I want.” Harry added. 

“You’re bargaining for it, not trying to keep it away from me?”

Harry shrugged, “Well you know what they say you’re supposed to do when you’re getting mugged.” Harry did not receive a response. “You’re supposed to hand over your valuables Not risk your life fighting. But, knowing that you tried to kill me as a baby, I’m a bit hesitant to rely on the idea that handing it over will actually protect me.” 

“You never answered my question,” the dark wizard said.

“What?” Harry asked, confused. 

“Will you join me, Harry Potter?”

“Oh,” Harry responded, “Like become a Death Eater?” 

The wizard nodded, beginning to look annoyed.

“Oh I can’t, sorry,” Harry replied. 

“Why not?” Quirrell’s mouth gritted out, although Harry was pretty sure it was Voldemort's voice. He hadn’t stuttered once. 

“I’m not allowed to join a gang.” Harry said innocently, staring up at the man. At this point he knew he was just stalling, but he couldn’t help but think that was his best option. “My Aunt said I couldn’t.”

The probably-a-dead-dark-lord blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand what this has to do with joining me.”

“Well a few years ago this group of boys led by Piers Polkiss started going around and beating up other kids and stealing things.” Harry began to ramble. “My cousin started hanging out with them and he got in trouble because my Aunt doesn’t think it’s proper for young boys to hang around riff-raff and commit crimes. She told us both that we’re not allowed to join a gang while living under her roof and that was final.”

“Child please get to the point.” Quirrellmort sighed.

“Well your Death Eaters are a gang right? So if I joined you, I would be joining a gang and I can’t do that while living under my Aunt’s roof, you see.”

“My Death Eaters are not a gang,” he hissed rubbing at his forehead in exasperation.

“I understand, sir. But, respectfully I’m not sure my Aunt would agree with you. They are a group that goes around hurting people and breaking the law. I think my Aunt might consider that a gang.” 

“Potter I—“

He didn’t have a chance to finish because before he could Aunt Petunia and Professor Snape entered the room. Professor Snape shot off a spell and the two wizards began dueling. Aunt Petunia ran over to Harry ushering him toward the door while she shielded him with her body. Professor Snape screamed as a spell hit him and Aunt Petunia turned back toward the duel. She attempted to shoot some sort of dart but Voldemort shielded. She signaled for Harry to keep heading toward the door and got out some more traditional muggle weapons. Harry slowly edged toward the door as Professor Snape and Aunt Petunia faced off against the dark wizard. 

Harry would never be sure how it happened. One moment he was reaching for the door and the next Quirrell’s hand was wrapping around his wrist. The man almost immediately withdrew hissing like he was burned, but then a spell or a dart or a bullet hit him in the back and he fell into Harry. Harry reached out to block the man from falling into him and ended up placing his hands on Quirrell’s face. Where Harry’s hands touched him, Quirrell’s face burnt, crumbled and turned to ash. 

A screaming black mass emerged from Quirrell’s body as the rest of him crumbled. Harry ducked as the black thing flew over him and out of the room just in time for Albus Dumbledore to arrive.

“Ah, Harry my dear boy,” he grinned amiably, “Thank you for helping to protect the Stone.” 

Harry decided not to mention his attempts at bargaining. 

***

On September 1st, Harry did not return to Hogwarts. He didn’t wear robes; he wore a basic uniform of khaki trousers, a dark blue button down and a tie. His tie was not silver and green, but gray. He went to school with Dudley at Stonewall Prep.

The reason Harry did not return was Dobby, a house elf. Dobby showed up out of nowhere begging Harry not to return to Hogwarts because it would be too dangerous. He wouldn’t say what family he belonged to (and Aunt Petunia really didn’t like that he belonged to anyone). He had also been stealing Harry’s mail which explained why his friend’s letters kept getting lost. It hadn’t actually stopped him communicating with anyone except Draco. He had Hermione’s phone number and Floo addresses for Neville, Susan, Tracy, and Ron. Draco didn’t want Harry calling via Floo because he had to lie to his father and tell him he wasn’t really friends with Harry just pretending because Harry was powerful, and he was worried their conversations would be overheard. 

Dobby told them everything he could, which was not much. He came back a few times so Aunt Petunia could ask him more questions. At some point, he had thanked Harry for defeating Voldemort which of course Harry responded to by saying that was mostly Aunt Petunia and a bit his mum. So now Aunt Petunia and Dobby had a strange exchange where Aunt Petunia would try to feed Dobby and give him nicer clothes and Dobby would show up periodically to clean the whole house. Both woman and elf were simultaneously happy and disgruntled by this arrangement. Aunt Petunia because she was perfectly capable of keeping the house clean herself, thank you very much. And Dobby because… well Harry didn’t really understand house elf culture, but he didn’t accept the gifts. 

Aunt Petunia decided between his Dark Lord Professor last year and Dobby’s warning this year that Hogwarts wasn’t safe, so Harry was going to regular school instead. Harry was disappointed he wouldn’t be seeing his magical friends although it was nice to have the chance to reconnect with some of his muggle friends. Lots of them asked about the fancy private school his parents paid for before they died. Harry told the truth, his Aunt had a number of concerns about school safety. 

It was still light out after dinner so he and Dudley went out to play football with some neighbor kids. When they came home, Dumbledore, Professor Snape, and Susan’s Aunt Amelia were in his living room. Aunt Petunia was glaring at Dumbledore. Professor Snape was glaring at the floor. Amelia was glancing warily between everyone. And Dumbledore was smiling congenially at Harry.

Dudley slowly edged to the side until he reached the stairs then ran up them quickly and quietly, escaping. Coward. 

“Umm… hi,” Harry said hesitantly to the tense assembly. 

“Harry, my dear boy,” the Headmaster said, “Are you ready to come back to Hogwarts?” 

“Er…” Harry said looking at Aunt Petunia in confusion. “I thought I wouldn’t be going to Hogwarts this year.”

The headmaster tried to look at him sympathetically, but something seemed false about it. “Now, Harry, I’m sure you’re looking forward to seeing your friends again. I was just explaining to your Aunt here that you’re required to finish your magical education.”

“Why can’t I just send him to a different magical school?” Petunia asked, looking at Amelia, but it was the headmaster who answered her.

“I’m afraid it’s much too late for that, my dear girl. Hogwarts is the only magical school in Britain and if Harry were to go elsewhere he would have had to apply for admission and it’s far too late for that.” 

“Homeschooling?” Aunt Petunia asked. This time all the adults looked at her pityingly.

“I’m sorry Petunia,” Amelia said. “Squibs aren’t allowed to home school magical children, even with tutors. And even if you were there’s a lot of parchmentwork that would have had to be filled out in advance.”

“What if I just keep going to normal school?” Harry asked. He wasn’t sure how he felt about all his friends being at a school that was determined to be too dangerous for him, but he understood he was more of a target than they were and he trusted Aunt Petunia’s judgement. 

“Typically when the parents of muggleborn children refuse to send them to Hogwarts, there are two options: either the parents lose custody or the child’s magic is bound and the family is obliviated.” The headmaster said plaintively. Harry and Aunt Petunia both gasped. Professor Snape looked horrified and Amelia looked furious. “For their protection of course.” The headmaster added.

“Obviously that is not an option here,” Amelia said firmly. “Petunia has known about magic for the majority of her life. So has Dudley. Obliviating them of their knowledge of magic could damage their minds beyond repair.”

“Of course not, Amelia, my girl,” the headmaster patted Amelia on the arm. She didn’t seem to like that much. “Which is why Harry must return to Hogwarts.” 

“What do you plan to do to keep him safe this year?” Aunt Petunia crossed her arms.

The headmaster chuckled jovially. “Harry will be perfectly safe. After all Hogwarts is the safest place in the wizarding world.”

All of the adults looked at the headmaster flatly. Harry was incredulous. Was this simply denial? Surely a place where he had been kidnapped by Voldemort’s wraith could not be the safest in the magical world. And if it was then Harry felt bad for everyone who had to live in the rest of it. 

“Here’s what’s going to happen.” Aunt Petunia said firmly. “You will get Gringotts to check the wards. You will have all the staff checked for compulsions, possession and the imperius curse. You will also mandate that each student have a yearly physical in which they will be checked for the same. While I would prefer this to be all years as soon as possible, I would settle for 5th year and up within the next three weeks and the rest of the students before Halloween. If Harry is injured in any way, I will be notified immediately. If he or his friends are attacked, I will be notified immediately. If you don’t follow these instructions, I swear to God Albus, I will write to every other magical school in the world to ask for an exception for a mid-year transfer and I will make the rest of your life a living hell.” 

Harry blinked owlishly. He thought this was probably the first time he ever heard Aunt Petunia swear. He noticed Professor Snape was staring at her oddly too, but not quite in pure surprise like Harry. 

“Now, now, Petunia, we don't have the resources for such a thing. Even working solely on this it would take Poppy months to get through the entire student population.” Dumbledore said. Aunt Petunia just stared at him with her arms crossed until the headmaster gave a put upon sigh. “With help from St. Mungos we may manage to finish the 7th years in the next three weeks, 6th years before Halloween and 3rd-5th before Christmas.”

“6th and 7th in the next three weeks. 5th before Halloween, 3rd, 4th and 2nd year Slytherins before Christmas. Everyone else can be after.” Aunt Petunia countered. 

The headmaster agreed and Harry was wooshed back off to Hogwarts.

***

Harry kept up his tradition of skipping the Halloween feast and his friends had decided to join him. Draco and Neville were going to show them some Samhain traditions which were more in line with mourning the dead and had told them all what to bring. But, unfortunately, Neville had left the photos he planned to bring in his dorm so they had to trek up the stairs to get them. On their way back down Harry stopped when he heard a voice saying “Kill… time to kill… so hungry… for so long.”

“Did you hear that?” Harry asked, but all his friends shook their heads. Harry considered following it, but following a voice talking about killing someone sounded like it would fall firmly on Aunt Petunia's list of things children should not ever do. He considered telling a teacher, but seeing as he was the only one who heard the voice, they would probably think he was crazy. Oh well, it was Halloween after all. Draco and Hermione had lectured him about how the veil between worlds was thinnest on this day. It was probably just a non-visible ghost or something. He would tell Professor Snape about it if he heard it again. Harry went with his friends down to the kitchens.

Chapter Text

Severus stared at the writing on the wall in what looked to be blood. ‘The chamber of secrets is open, enemies of the heir, beware’. He wondered whether the headmaster would block the mail again or if he would have a chance to tell Madame Bones before this got out of hand like last year. 

“Severus, where is Potter, he was not present at the feast, was he?” Albus demanded. 

In a feat of latent childishness, Severus shrugged. “He and his friends are boycotting. They said it was offensive for the wizarding world to celebrate on the day his parents died to save them.” Harry hadn’t actually said that, but he wouldn’t mind Severus embellishing. 

“Tizzy,” the headmaster called out. A young elf appeared wearing a clean uniform with the Hogwarts crest on it. “Organize the elves and the portraits, I want Mr. Potter found at once.” 

“They not be needing to look, Master Headmaster,” the elf replied, “Master Harry Potter bes being in the kitchens.” 

Severus followed the Headmaster as he practically flew down the stairs to the kitchens. When the door opened they did indeed find Harry there. He was sitting at a long table, a mirror of one of the ones in the great hall, along with his friends and about twenty or so house elves. On the table was an altar with candles, wine, bread and various pictures of those he presumed to be dead. He recognized Lily and James Potter,  Edgar and Elvira Bones and a small portrait of Abraxas Malfoy who seemed disgruntled to have been placed alongside people he would deem mudbloods and blood traitors. There were pictures of other humans he didn’t recognize as well as a number of house elves. 

“Harry,” Dumbledore said chastisingly, ignoring the rest of the students, “What is the meaning of this?”

“We’re observing Samhain, sir.” Potter replied succinctly, “Would you and Professor Snape like to join?”

Severus had to hold back a snort of laughter.

“Harry we do not celebrate the old holidays at Hogwarts anymore,” Dumbledore chastised.

“Why not?” Harry asked with an innocent tilt of his head and no recognition on his face although Severus could see Draco shrinking back and eyeing Harry with confusion. 

“Because it is exclusionary toward muggleborns.” The headmaster stated as if he were the utmost authority on the topic, “We celebrate the muggle holidays so they feel comfortable and included.”

Granger snorted. “With all due respect sir, we don’t celebrate the muggle holidays either. At least not all of them. Based on my observations from last year, Hogwarts celebrates the Christian holidays and some secular ones. While Halloween is secular, Christmas and Easter are certainly not and most religious non-Christian muggles like Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists to name a few don’t celebrate those holidays at all. Besides, Samhain is still celebrated by some muggles, especially in Ireland. And there are multiple muggle cultures that observe this day in a similar way, such as Spain and Latin America which observe Dia de Los Muertos or Day of the Dead where they too create altars for those who have passed on. Frankly, as a muggleborn it seems ironic to me for Hogwarts to pick the Christian holidays above all others when devout Christians tended to be the most afraid of my accidental magic growing up.”

The headmaster stared at Granger. “Be that as it may, Miss Granger, I’m afraid the wizarding world’s Samhain traditions are closely associated with dark magic and only celebrated by dark wizards, therefore Hogwarts does not participate.”

Neville Longbottom coughed. “Sir, my family is a light family and we have celebrated Samhain for centuries.” 

Dumbledore just glanced at him, pursing his lips. “I believe we have gotten a bit far off topic. Professor Snape and I are here to discuss an incident in the castle which occurred during the Halloween feast of which you all were the only students not present in the great hall. Are you aware of what incident I refer to, Mr. Potter?” 

Harry looked at him with genuine confusion. “No professor, what happened?” 

“Someone has written a message implying that Slytherin’s chamber of secrets has been opened.”

“Harry, Tracy and Draco were with us the whole time.” Susan Bones quickly interrupted. “We have all been together since the end of classes today. They didn’t do anything.” 

The headmaster looked at them all critically. “Very well.” 

***

Severus looked over in mild surprise as someone sat down right next to him in the Quidditch stands. It was Petunia and Dudley. Both wore Slytherin green. Dudley had also managed to acquire a large green foam finger with silver writing. On one side it said Slytherin is #1 and on the other it said Harry is #1. 

Severus raised an eyebrow at the foam finger. “I suppose you are here to support our new seeker?” Severus had not been surprised in the least when both Draco and Harry made the quidditch team this year, Harry as seeker and Draco as chaser. 

Dudley nodded enthusiastically. “Quidditch is wicked! I wish we could play at home but Mum only lets us when we’re somewhere others can’t see.”

“You play?” asked Severus curiously. “I didn’t think squibs could ride brooms.”

“Mum made me one special.”

Severus looked at Petunia, once again awestruck by her genius. She smiled shyly and ruffled her son’s hair. “Just had to modify my old one with more safety precautions. You boys are much more rambunctious than Lily and I were.” 

“Have you licensed it yet?” Severus asked. 

“No,” Petunia shook her head. “It’s still too dangerous for most non-magicals. Dudley can take potions and we can go to St. Mungos in an emergency. If he couldn’t I would be much more concerned about serious injury.”

“Hmm,” Severus said, “Still. It might be reasonable as long as it’s marketed to adults only. Treat it like a flying motorcycle and make sure people know they could die if they don’t ride safely.” 

Petunia hummed noncommittally. 

The game started then and they all watched avidly. Dudley whooped and cheered when Slytherin scored. 

Suddenly, Petunia jumped to her feet, gasping. Severus followed her gaze and saw Harry diving and weaving to get away from a bludger which seemed to be chasing him. Severus stood up and pointed his wand at the bludger to get it to stop, but none of his spells worked. Both teams' beaters noticed and they all seemed to have made a bit of a truce to defend Harry. Severus never thought he would be grateful for the Weasley twins, but he doubted other Gryffindors would do the same for a Slytherin. The Weasley twins were no doubt motivated by their brother’s friendship with Harry. 

Despite the beater’s best efforts, they lost sight of both the bludger and Harry as he swerved under the Quidditch stands. 

There was a cracking sound and then Harry was thrown out of the scaffolding, no longer on his broom. One of his arms was limp by his side at an unnatural angle and the other one was clutching… Merlin’s beard was that the snitch? Children and their priorities. Severus cast Arresto Momentum and directed Harry’s fall slowly down to the grass. Petunia and Dudley were already sprinting down to the field. Severus followed, but he was too late. He skid to a stop just as Lockhart vanished all the bones in Harry’s arm.

Petunia slapped the man. “He said ‘No’, you bloody imbecile!” Petunia shouted as Minerva restrained her. “You’re not a trained healer! What were you thinking?” Severus smirked.

Petunia was, unfortunately, temporarily banned from the castle grounds. Severus and Dudley assured her they would stay with Harry. Dudley would sleep in the hospital wing with Harry and floo home with Severus the next day when Severus came to give Petunia an update.

That night, Colin Creevey was petrified. 

***

Despite assurances from both Dudley and Severus that Harry was in the hospital wing all night, Albus was still highly suspicious of Harry. Severus thought this was rather ironic since Petunia didn’t even want him at Hogwarts, and it seemed obvious to Severus that the chamber nonsense was related to whatever threat the house elf had warned them about. 

This in turn caused the other staff to be suspicious of Harry. Severus was subjected to multiple evenings listening to Minerva lament that Harry wasn’t more like his father. Severus had to refrain from pointing out that James Potter had hurt far more students by his second year than Harry. Not to mention the attempted murder his fifth year.

Harry’s group of friends had taken to surrounding him in a pack like little bodyguards. The boy seemed to be appreciative if fondly exasperated. 

Besides the new found suspicion of Severus’s charge, the school year seemed to be going well. With one glaring exception: Gilderoy Lockhart. Lockhart had been three years below Severus in school and was even more of a bumbling idiot now than he was then. At least as a child he had some humility. 

“Ah Severus, just the man I was looking for,” said idiot called out after him. 

Severus pretended he hadn’t heard anything and began walking slightly faster down the corridor toward the dungeons. A couple of his seventh year snakes noticed this and began snickering.

Unfortunately, Lockhart was uncouth enough to believe it was appropriate for a fully grown wizard to run through the halls of a school and he soon caught up, huffing.

“Will you supervise a new dueling club with me?” Lockhart asked. 

“No.” Severus responded immediately.

“But the Headmaster said clubs involving dangerous activities, like dueling, require two faculty supervisors and one must be a Head of House.” Lockhart whined.

That was… certainly news to Severus. Although he could imagine a litany of reasons he wouldn’t want Lockhart supervising a dueling club alone. “Ask Filius. He’s an International dueling champion.”

“He can’t because he already supervises frog choir.”

“So? The choir only meets once every two weeks. Work around it.” 

“Well the one club per Head of House rule of course.” 

Another rule Severus had never heard of. “…of course. Ask Pomona then.”

“Gobstones.”

“Minerva.”

“Quidditch.”

“That’s not even…” Severus stopped walking and pinched the bridge of his nose. It seemed his fellow heads had thrown him under the bus.

“Please Severus. You’re the only Head of House who doesn’t already supervise a club.” 

“No. Just no.” 

Lockhart scoffed indignantly. “I cannot believe that you are so jealous of me that you would sacrifice the students’ dreams.” 

“What exactly am I meant to be jealous of?” Severus asked scathingly.

“Why, that I got the DADA job instead of you, of course.” Lockhart gave him a disgustingly huge smile and clapped Severus on the shoulder. “But please don’t think it makes you inferior. Not all of us can have Orders of Merlin.” 

Severus shrugged off his hand. “I am not inferior.” He grumbled as he began to stride away again.

“Prove it!” Lockhart shouted after him.

“Excuse me?” Severus responded against his better judgement. 

“I challenge you to a duel!” Lockhart was making a big enough scene now that multiple students had stopped to watch. He actually produced a silky white glove from somewhere and threw it down on the floor. 

Severus sighed. It was a matter of pride in wizarding Britain that one should never turn down a duel. If he refused it would look bad to his students, the pure bloods most of all, and he didn’t need to give their parents any more reasons to despise him. “Fine.”

“Great!” Lockhart beamed. “4:00 pm Tuesday in the Great Hall. During dueling club.”

Severus sighed again. He had walked right into that one. 

***

A snake. Draco just had to conjure a snake. Even though he knew Harry was a parselmouth. Draco probably thought he was being cheeky since Harry couldn’t speak to the snake in front of everyone. 

Of course, Lockhart was the one truly at fault. What adult wizard would botch a banishing charm so badly that it threw a snake into a crowd of children? It was an OWL level spell for Merlin’s sake. 

So now Severus sat in the headmaster’s office with Harry and Petunia. The headmaster had not wanted Petunia there, but Harry had called her and she showed up in Severus’ rooms… again. 

“Harry,” the headmaster said, ignoring the adults in the room. “Do you know why I asked you here today?” 

“Because you found out I’m a parselmouth.” Harry answered in a tone which belied no apologies.

“Yes Harry,” Albus responded, “You know that is a very dark skill.”

Petunia and Severus both made protesting noises, but were silenced when Harry squeezed each of their hands.

“Define dark skill.” Harry said challengingly.

The headmaster did not allow himself to be derailed by this, however, “How long have you been able to speak to snakes, Harry?”

“As long as I can remember,” Harry responded.

Albus looked briefly to Petunia who nodded.

“Has anything changed for you recently? Have you been having strange dreams? Or losing time? Do you ever find yourself somewhere you don’t remember going?” 

Severus narrowed his eyes. There was something significant about the headmaster’s questions. “You think he’s possessed.” Severus stated with dawning realization. It explained why Albus was so convinced Harry was involved despite his alibis during the attacks. If Harry was being possessed by a powerful adult wizard he could definitely cause children to believe they were with him the entire time. It would have been harder to fool Severus and Poppy, but still possible. 

“What?” Petunia asked with concern.

Severus turned to Harry and raised his wand to run the possession detection spells.

“Severus, my boy, I don’t think…” Albus said, but Severus ignored him. 

The readings did not indicate possession, but there was something strange about them. It was as if Harry were carrying an object capable of possession. Except it’s signature was too high up to be in a pocket. It was right in the center of his forehead… in his scar. Severus used his mage sight to look at the scar again. It hadn’t changed from the last time he examined it. 

Severus thought carefully about what he should say about his findings. Whether he should tell the whole truth. On one hand he could tell the headmaster that Lily’s magic protected Harry from possession. On the other hand, the headmaster clearly didn’t want Severus to know the exact nature of Harry’s scar or he would have been more blunt. Severus could tell Petunia his findings later and let her decide what to tell Harry. 

“He’s not possessed.” Severus concluded. Petunia slumped in relief and the headmaster relaxed as well. Whether because he was happy Harry was safe or because Severus had not gained more information than the old man wanted him to, he could not say. “And if we’re talking about possession by the only other British parselmouth in living memory then I think Lily’s magic would protect him from that.”

Just then a silver cat bounded into the headmaster’s office and in Minerva’s voice it said, “Albus. Please come quickly to the 4th floor corridor near the charms classroom. There has been another attack.”

Severus was only a little smug that Harry had an airtight alibi this time. 

***

“What do you mean Professor Sprout need not contact his parents?” Petunia asked the headmaster in a cold, threatening voice. 

“Petunia, my dear girl, this is truly none of your busi–” The headmaster was cut off when Petunia pulled out the same gun she had shot the headmaster with the year before. 

Severus truly was uncertain how Petunia managed to cow the headmaster in a way not even the Dark Lord had, but she did so masterfully. The two of them had followed Albus out of his office, shooing Harry back to his dorm. In the commotion caused by finding Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly-Headless Nick petrified, Petunia had followed the professors to the hospital wing. Severus, of course, noticed, but he had seen no reason to point this out to anyone. 

“Shush you,” Petunia ordered the headmaster and turned to Severus, “Why is the smaller boy still here? Mandrake restorative draught only takes a day to brew.”

“The school currently has no mature mandrakes and ordering them would be expensive.” Severus answered.

“And why haven’t their parents been called in?” Petunia asked.

“Both students are muggleborn. It was determined by the headmaster that their muggle parents would be too distressed to know their children were petrified, but not be able to see them or know the details of what is being done to restore them. Muggles cannot cross the Hogwarts wards and the statute of secrecy prevents us from explaining any magic to them in detail”

“You know there’s a very high chance that they have at least one squib parent, right?” Petunia asked the room. Everyone beside Severus looked confused. Pomona and Minerva looked like they were much too focused on figuring out what Petunia was holding that made Albus so afraid to process any additional information.

Poppy eventually cleared her throat. “No, we were not aware of that.” 

Petunia made a frustrated sound. Then she left. 

The next day, Mrs. Finch-Fletchley and both Creevey parents, along with their younger son, showed up at the gates of Hogwarts demanding to see the petrified children.

Two days later, Severus received a delivery of mature mandrakes with a simple missive ‘Courtesy of the Lily Evans-Potter Foundation for Muggleborn and Squib Welfare.’ He smiled. 

***

“Sir!” Draco Malfoy shouted as he barged into Severus’s office, dragging Harry by the wrist. “Harry found a cursed object.” 

Draco upended a bag and a small black notebook fell out onto Severus’ desk. Severus could tell right away that it was oozing with malicious, dark magic. 

“Tell him what it did.” Draco ordered Harry.

“Er,” Harry said, “Well I found it and thought it was just a waterproof notebook so I wrote in it and it… wrote back.” 

Severus nodded. “Where did you find it?”

Harry’s face turned pink, “Um… in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.”

Severus gave him a quizzical look, but felt he had more important things to do than interrogate Harry about why he was in a girl’s bathroom. “Thank you for bringing this to me, boys.” 

Severus examined the book and sucked in a breath when he saw the name on the inside cover. Albus did not give away the Dark Lord’s birth name lightly, but Severus was one of the privileged few who knew it. 

He once again cast the spell which enhanced his mage sight. He immediately recognized the magic. Whatever magic made this book was the same magic in Harry’s scar. 

***

Less than a week later, Severus’ office was ransacked and someone broke into the warded drawer where he was keeping the diary. Any remaining doubts he had about what that diary was doing in Hogwarts were eliminated when he saw the broken drawer. Someone at Hogwarts was possessed by the Dark Lord. And they had opened the Chamber of Secrets. 

The most disturbing part was that whoever it was, was still being influenced, if not fully possessed, even when no longer in contact with the diary. Otherwise they would not have been able to break into his drawer. No one else in the school had enough knowledge about dark magic to do that. Unless it was Albus, but Albus would have just ordered Severus to hand it over. This implied some sort of soul magic connecting the diary to its victim. He supposed that the primary wraith could have found a new host but that seemed like too big of a coincidence given that the diary itself was capable of possession.

Severus went to the pile of books he had collected on possession and possessing objects. Knowing it was soul magic narrowed things down and he was sure he had heard of something like this in vague terms before. He froze as he remembered something from one of his Grandfather’s books on the Dark Arts. A person could split their soul and place a piece of it in an object. It was said to be a means of gaining immortality. The object would become capable of possession. But.. if the diary housed a piece of the Dark Lord’s soul, why did Harry’s scar contain the same magic? 

Severus took a deep breath and occluded heavily. He wouldn’t panic until he found that book.

***

Severus was in the hospital wing talking to Madame Pomfrey about her potions stores when Ginny Weasley was brought in for her Petunia-mandated exam. 

Despite only being there for a ‘check-up’, Miss Weasley actually looked quite ill. There were dark purple smudges under her eyes from lack of sleep and her cheeks looked a bit sunken as if she had recently lost weight. 

“Ah Mr. Weasley, Miss Weasley thank you for coming,” Poppy said. “Miss Weasley, please sit down on that bed and I’ll be right with you.”

He and Poppy finished their conversation and Severus stooped to check the expiration dates on the potions in the cupboards. 

He looked back up when he heard a scream. Ginny was thrashing and screaming as Percy, in a feat he was undoubtedly practiced in, as the middle of seven children, plucked her wand from her hand and held her arms down on the bed. Poppy lay stunned on the floor. Severus cast a stunning spell at Ginny, but this only served to make her scream and thrash harder. 

“Professor, what’s wrong with her?!” Percy shouted above his sister. Severus came over and upended the girl’s bag, picking up the black diary when it fell on the floor amongst the clutter of quills, parchment and other books. He briefly considered trying to keep it to study but one look at Percy Weasley’s terrified, sweaty, red, face, convinced him to handle it as soon as possible. 

He ran into Poppy’s office, tossed the diary in the fireplace and cast fiendfyre, making sure to exert his will over it immediately so the flame would remain small.

The diary burned and the screams in the other room got louder and harsher before suddenly cutting out.

Severus extinguished the fire and ran back to the now limp and silent Ginny Weasley and cast some spells to assure she was merely unconscious.

“What was that Professor?” Percy asked.

“That,” Severus answered, “Was the Heir to Slytherin.”

***

Severus shifted from one side to another as Petunia served them both tea in the living room of #4 Privet Drive.

They made polite small talk for a few minutes before Petunia sighed and said “Not that I wouldn’t be interested in hosting you for a social call, Severus,” She would? Severus didn’t realize that. “But you’re clearly not here to chit chat. What has happened?”

Severus sat silently for a moment. How do you tell someone that their beloved nephew is hosting a piece of the soul of the man who killed their sister? He eventually decided to start at the beginning. Severus took a deep breath. “Petunia, what do you know about soul magic?”

Chapter Text

Petunia had been dreading this moment since she gave birth to Dudley. When she took in Lily’s son, Harry, the risk of it happening doubled. She had hoped when she was married to Vernon that he would take care of these things, but here she was, alone. 

Harry and Dudley stood on the front lawn giving her twin puppy dog eyes. “Can we keep him?” Harry asked.

“Please, Mum.” Dudley added. 

She looked down at the giant mangy black dog at their feet. Its fur was matted and visibly dirty despite the dark color. 

The dog was also looking at her with, for lack of a less on-the-nose term, puppy dog eyes. It sat back on its hind legs and whined pawing at the air in a begging gesture. 

Petunia sighed. “Alright.” The boys cheered and the dog ran in a circle yipping excitedly, “But you’re giving him a bath in the yard before he comes inside.”

***

Petunia heard loud barking and growling coming from the living room, and she quickly ran down the stairs. So far, the dog had been surprisingly well behaved for a stray and with Dudley and Harry out with friends she wasn’t sure what would have set it off. In the living room, she found Severus frowning as he held the dog at bay with a magical shield as it tried to jump at him, gnashing its jaws. 

“Down boy,” she said sternly, “Severus is a friend.”

The dog looked at her in what she could only interpret as disbelief before it reluctantly slunk away to a corner where it laid down but continued to glare at Severus in suspicion. 

“You got a dog.” Severus said unnecessarily.

“Yes.” Petunia replied. “Harry and Dudley found him.”

“He is quite aggressive,” Severus said derisively, “Are you sure they wouldn’t prefer a cat? It’s never too late for him to… go live on a nice farm.”

The dog growled.

Petunia snorted, “You’re the first person to use the floo since we took him in. I’m sure you would be aggressive too if a strange man appeared in your living room out of nowhere.” Petunia sat down on the couch closest to the dog and reached down to pat his head. “Padfoot is just being a good guard dog, aren’t you, boy?”

Severus stiffened slightly, “What did you call him?”

Petunia looked up, frowning in confusion, “Padfoot. It's what Harry calls him, why?” 

Severus shook himself a bit, “Nothing… it just sounded familiar… Anyway, we have more important things to discuss.” He handed Petunia a copy of the Daily Prophet.

Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban. She wondered when exactly he was finally sentenced. “You think he’s planning to come for Harry?”

Severus nodded gravely.

“How do we protect him?” Petunia asked.

“I can set up perimeter wards around the neighborhood to let myself and Harry know if any fully magical adult passes through them.” Severus answered. “Harry should be safe within the wards around your property, but when he’s outside them a warning is the best I can provide. I recommend he stay within a close distance to the house when playing outside and that he only go to well protected magical areas otherwise. There are aurors posted in Diagon and Hogsmede. If you have any adult witches or wizards visiting, they should come through your floo to prevent them tripping the wards.”

Petunia ran a hand down her face. “How much of a threat is he? I mean would I be able to hold him off long enough for Harry to escape?” 

Severus shook his head slowly tilting it from side to side as he did so in a gesture of uncertainty. “That depends entirely on your position at the time and whether Black has a wand as well as how much Azkaban has impacted his mind. He’s not powerful enough to use wandless magic but… he’s craftier than most wizards. Unpredictable. And he doesn’t care about collateral damage.” 

Padfoot growled a bit from his corner, likely sensing Petunia's fear. She reached down a hand to pat him comfortingly. “We’ll be careful then.”

***

Petunia thumped her head down onto the book in front of her. “This is useless,” she said, “Your ministry’s book banning has made it impossible to find any information on  soul magic.”

Severus hummed as he kept flipping through his own book. They were researching at Hogwarts partially for the library and partially because no matter how much she opposed book bans, she was reluctant to keep many of these anywhere near Harry or Dudley. She hadn’t yet told Harry about the Horcrux in his head either. 

“The only thing we’ve found is that to destroy a Horcrux you need to destroy its container beyond repair which obviously isn’t an option. Maybe instead of soul magic we should try to get at it another way? Is there anything at all similar that we might be able to adapt to this? Like some sort of magical transplant?”

“No,” Severus responded. “Soul magic is extremely unique. There might be something about removing magical parasites but I doubt it would be helpful since the soul is intangible.”

Petunia’s head fell back on her book. 

***

Petunia reached out to the DMLE to request Black’s trial transcripts, but they responded with a form letter letting her know that his case was considered pending (likely due to his escape) and no information would be released until the case was closed. Petunia knew she could probably get around that by asking Amelia, but she didn’t want to bother her. Amelia had reached out shortly after Severus, saying about the same as he had, but looking harried and worn like she had been working long hours with little sleep. 

Petunia, instead, turned to the Daily Prophet archives. She had harassed and bribed their intern, into searching through the archives for old papers mentioning Black and making copies for her. 

Unfortunately, the intern must be terrible at the key word search spell because while there were articles about the murder of Peter Pettigrew and Black’s arrest, there were no articles about his trial. 

A few days after her inquiry with the Prophet, she received a letter from a Luna Lovegood, Jr. Editor of the Quibbler, asking if she would like old copies of their magazine as well. She responded yes and attached a few galleons to pay for the copies. What she received back was… certainly interesting. She couldn’t quite tell if the magazine was written in some sort of code that she didn’t understand or if the editor was just barmy. 

Petunia eventually packed all the newspapers and magazines into a box and left them in a corner of the living room. She figured she would just have to assume Black was dangerous and ensure she, Dudley and Harry all had emergency portkeys and other protective equipment. 

The summer turned to fall with no sign of Black. Petunia once again waved Harry off to Hogwarts, hoping for no major incidents this year. 

The next day she received a disturbing report from both Remus, who had become the defense against the dark arts professor after Lockhart was arrested for attempting to obliviate another staff member, and Severus. Harry had been attacked by a dementor on his way to school. Both letters assured her that they had talked to the headmaster, but he had no control of the dementors because they were there by order of the Minister.

Petunia wrote Minister Fudge a strongly worded letter about this after finding that his office was, unfortunately, much better secured than Dumbledore’s. 

She did not receive a reply. 

***

After Harry left, the dog’s behavior became significantly more erratic. While he had previously been content to stay inside until one of them was ready to take him for a walk, he now began darting outside every time Petunia or Dudley opened the door. Petunia was inclined to just let him go back to being a stray, but she knew that would upset Harry and Dudley. 

One day she came home to the box of newspapers strewn everywhere with claw marks and chewed up portions on most of them. She sighed and began to pick up the paper, glaring at the dog who was now sitting with an innocent face and wagging his tail as if someone else had broken in to chew up her papers. 

When she finished cleaning up the papers on the floor, she noticed that two articles had landed on the coffee table during the chaos.

One was from the Daily Prophet and was titled ‘FINGER ALL THAT WAS LEFT OF BRAVE HERO, PETER PETTIGREW.’ It then went on to detail how the explosion that killed Pettigrew was so devastating that almost his entire body was pulverized to the point where his finger was the only thing the Aurors had to identify him with. It showed a picture of the crime scene which was indeed covered in viscera from multiple victims.

The pictures reminded Petunia of war documentaries she watched occasionally. “Pink mist,” she whispered to herself, “Do you think I should recommend dog tags to Amelia?” She asked the dog who just tilted his head and whined. 

The other article was from the Quibbler and was much more fanciful, “ANTI-ROTFANG MINISTER CANDIDATE, CROUCH, GONE TOO FAR?” It claimed that in an effort to eliminate the Rotfang epidemic, Petunia was unclear on whether this was a real disease or a metaphor, Minister candidate Bartimus Crouch had sent multiple people in for a risky and painful treatment, without properly investigating whether they were actually infected with Rotfang. It indicated that one of the most prominent of those sent in for treatment was famous singer Stubby Boardman, also known as Sirius Black, who was previously thought to have been very careful not to get infected despite having multiple family members with the disease. The article said he was “known to follow all the proper safety precautions, while most of those who were confirmed to be infected did not believe Rotfang was a problem and were therefore neglectful of their health.” It also indicated that Stubby was previously part of a secret Anti-Rotfang group working to stop the epidemic. 

“You think there’s something to this?” Petunia asked Padfoot.

Padfoot woofed. Petunia sighed. 

***

“Do animals have souls?” Petunia asked Severus over tea at a non-magical cafe. “Perhaps we could set up a study. Find a way to sever a rat’s soul and place it into another rat then try to move the first rat’s horcrux from the second rat to an inanimate object.”

“…Sometimes I feel grateful that you only have limited access to magic.”

***

On the afternoon of November 1st, Petunia was lying in her bed, listlessly staring at the ceiling when she heard the noise that indicated the floo activating. She considered getting up to see who it was, but then she didn’t. 

Petunia and her therapist allocated two days a year for her to fall apart completely and those were Halloween and November 1st. If she ever felt like this on other days she had to keep it together long enough to find someone to take care of Harry and Dudley until she felt better, but Halloween was her scheduled fall apart day. Every year she would drop Harry and Dudley off at a friend’s house on October 30th and proceed to act like a depressed vegetable until they came home on November 2nd. Once Harry was old enough to understand why that day made her so sad, he usually opted to stay home too, but she dealt with that by making food in advance that was easy for him to warm up in the microwave and making sure Mrs. Figg checked on him a few times a day. This year, Dudley arranged a friend to stay with on his own and Harry was at school, so Petunia was alone in the house. 

She heard some shuffling in the living room and then Severus’s voice called out, “Petunia?” 

Petunia grunted, but she wasn’t sure if he heard her. She heard Severus’s footsteps on the stairs then his face peered through her open door. Petunia turned away from him. She didn’t want to talk. 

Severus walked into the room and poked her shoulder. Petunia grumbled.

“I came to talk to you about something.” he said, poking her again. “I figured it was my turn to invade your space without notice.”

The third time he poked her she grabbed his arm and pulled it so he collapsed on the bed next to her. Severus stiffened but he didn’t get up again and eventually he shifted to run his hand through her hair. “You know, you sort of stink right now.” He said.

Petunia turned her head to glare at him. 

Severus held his hands up, “I know, I know it’s your bedroom I’m invading. Just let me…” His wand fell into his hand and he flicked it. Petunia felt some of the oil in her hair and sweat on her skin disappear. 

They sat in silence for a time, Severus combing Petunia’s hair with his fingers. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours.

Eventually the tears started to fall again and Petunia buried her head in Severus’s chest. “Lily’s dead, Sev.” She mumbled.

His hand stilled for a second before resuming its gentle petting, “I know,” he said.

“I want her back,” she said.

“I know.”

The next morning Petunia woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs coming from the kitchen. She blearily stumbled downstairs in the pajamas she put on two days earlier. 

Severus was in the kitchen wearing her pink frilly apron and carefully plating breakfast. She had to hold back a giggle. 

She sat down at the kitchen table and he sat down across from her.

Severus cleared his throat, “Sirius Black broke into the castle on Halloween.” 

Petunia shot straight up in her seat.

“Harry is fine,” Severus added before she could ask, “He didn’t even come into contact with Black. The castle has been searched and there’s no sign of him now.” 

Petunia nodded and they finished their meal in pensive silence.

After Severus left, Petunia opened the front door to get the newspaper and saw Padfoot lying on the front steps.

“How did you get out here?” Petunia asked. 

Padfoot stretched and wagged his tail at her.

“Well come back on in then, you crazy mutt.”

***

Petunia arrived at Harry’s Quidditch game in her most waterproof clothing, but despite that, she was soaked through by the time she reached the stands. Luckily, they were magically protected from the storm. She sat down next to Severus and was relieved when he cast a drying charm and warming charm on her. 

Dudley was planning to come, but had declined due to the inclement weather. Padfoot had accompanied Petunia, but she had run into Susan on the way and he had gone off to visit with Harry’s friends. 

“Are you sure it’s safe for them to be flying in this weather?” Petunia asked Severus, rubbing her own arms and huddling against him. 

Severus hummed. “We only cancel quidditch for life or death emergencies.  Three years ago, we had an outbreak of Dragon pox, so the Headmaster cancelled a game. Oliver Wood started a riot. I believe Mr. Filch is still trying to get the stink sap off the ceiling of the fourth floor corridor.” Severus’ arm settled casually over Petunia’s shoulders and she found that she quite liked it. 

They both squinted at the sky as the game started. Occasionally she could see a bit of green or red fabric which was probably a player, but for the most part it was impossible to see what was happening. 

Suddenly, the warming charm around her broke and Petunia was alarmingly cold, more so than when she first reached the stands. She breathed out and saw that she could now see her breath in the air and there was frost creeping up the side of the benches. When Petunia looked up she could see the hint of a black cloak and then the Quidditch pitch was gone.

*

Petunia was standing in the kitchen cooking Beef Wellington for that night’s dinner with Vernon’s boss. Harry was in a high chair by the table, finishing the mushy peas and small pieces of fish she had made for his and Dudley’s supper. Having already finished his meal, Dudley was swaddled to her chest so he wouldn’t fuss when he grew bored of sitting in the high chair. 

Harry started crying, and Petunia went to tend to him. She switched the two babies so Harry was now swaddled to her chest and Dudley was sitting in the high chair, happily eating the remainder of Harry’s food. When Vernon walked in, there was smoke coming from the oven. 

“Pet! The dinner is burning!” He shouted. 

She immediately turned and took the Wellington out of the oven, being careful to hold it far enough away from her body that it wouldn’t touch the pouch Harry was in. The Wellington was a bit burnt on the outside, but nothing she couldn’t scrape off. She grabbed a butter knife to begin doing so.

 “Forget it, you useless woman, it’s ruined.” Vernon said. He shouldered her as he passed, shoving her much smaller body so her torso hit the hot glass of the baking pan. Petunia put an arm around Harry to shield him, but in doing so she knocked the pan off the counter. The Wellington hit her legs while the pan fell onto her feet. She felt one of her toes crunch, but she could hardly feel it when the searing hot pan was still burning the top of her feet. She reached to grab it, but only managed to burn her hands as well. By the time she grabbed a dish towel to pick up the pan, she had lost the top layer of her skin.

“I don’t want to see you neglecting your duties to our family for your sister’s worthless brat again.” Vernon said coolly, ignoring Petunia’s pained hissing. “If you do, I’ll find a way to get rid of him, you hear me?”

*

Petunia sucked in a sharp breath of cold air as the Quidditch Pitch swam back into focus. Something silvery came up to nudge against her taking away the feeling of terror and helplessness, a doe, it was a silver doe.

“Are you alright?” Severus asked, looking into her eyes as he clasped the sides of her face. 

“Harry, where’s Harry?” she asked.

“He’s alright. Dumbledore caught him and the dementors are gone now.”

Petunia burst into relieved tears.

***

Petunia invited Severus over for the most awkward Christmas dinner of her life. Normally Remus would come as well, but he had volunteered to supervise the students staying at Hogwarts. 

Severus sat stiffly and was unusually quiet, even for him. Harry carefully minded his manners as if Severus would give him a detention if he placed his elbows on the table. Dudley studied Severus like a bug under a microscope. 

The conversation was rather stilted and there were long pauses between conversations. Harry interrupted one particularly long bout of silence with an awkward “So, potions?” At the same time as Severus said “So, football?” They both just stared at each other before ducking their heads down and pretending neither had spoken. 

At the end of the meal, Dudley set his silverware down with intention and straightened. Looking at Severus with a stern expression, he asked, “What are your intentions with my mother?”

Severus choked and wine spewed out of his nose.

Harry punched Dudley in the shoulder and hissed, “I told you not to say it like that.”

Petunia burst into laughter and after a moment of stunned silence the other three joined her. 

Afterward they played monopoly in which Dudley and Severus competed long after Harry and Petunia had bowed out. When Dudley finally won, Severus shook his hand in congratulations. “You were a worthy opponent,” Dudley said, “Perhaps next time we meet in battle, you will defeat me and finally win my mother’s hand.” 

Petunia slapped her hand to her forehead. Harry cuffed the back of Dudley’s head. Severus just looked at them all with wide eyes. 

***

A few weeks after Harry went back to school, Remus and Severus came tumbling out of Petunia’s floo with Severus’s hand holding the back of Remus’s collar like he was trying to grab him when Remus stepped into the fire. Remus sprang up first, completely ignoring Severus and shouted, “You got a dog?” With a level of alarm that was entirely unwarranted for the situation. 

Padfoot, the dog in question, whined from where he was hiding behind her legs in an uncharacteristic show of fear. Perhaps he could smell that Remus was a werewolf.

Remus stared at Padfoot. Padfoot stared at Remus. 

“How-how long have you had him?” Remus asked in a strangled sort of voice.

“Since early summer,” Petunia replied in confusion. “What is this about, Remus?”

“And he hasn’t done anything?” Remus continued, never looking away from Padfoot, ignoring the question. “He hasn’t tried to hurt you or Harry?”

Petunia looked to Severus who seemed just as confused as she was. “No.” She said slowly. 

Remus stared blankly for another moment, “Right, I think Padfoot and I need to go for a walk. Come on Padfoot.” Remus turned toward the door. Padfoot followed him.

“Don’t forget his leash.” Petunia called out, unsure what to make of this. If Remus wanted to show up out of the blue to walk her dog, she wasn’t going to stop him.

Remus blinked at her. “Right.. his… leash…” And for the first time since he stepped through the floo, the corner of his mouth turned up a bit.

“What was that?” Petunia ask Severus incredulously once Remus had left.

Severus squinted in the direction Remus had gone as if he could divine his intentions by doing so. “He’s hiding something.”

Petunia sighed, They had had this conversation before, when Severus first realized they were close. “Remus is my friend, Severus, and he would never hurt Harry.”

Severus made a frustrated sound. “No, you don’t understand. Look at this. I found Harry carrying it while wandering around in the middle of the night.” Severus handed Petunia… a blank piece of parchment. She turned it over, nothing on the back either. Petunia looked at him flatly. 

Severus took the parchment back and cast Revelio. Then handed it back to her. The parchment had begun insulting Severus using Remus’ nickname and Padfoot’s name. “I really don’t see what’s so alarming about this.” Petunia said.

“When I asked Lupin about it, he said it was a joke parchment from Zonko’s.” Severus gestured dramatically, “Which clearly it is not.”

“So Harry made a parchment that insults people using his dog’s name and nicknames of people he knows. How does that show that Remus is hiding something.”

“That thing,” Severus said ‘thing’ like the parchment was diseased, “Is steeped in Lupin’s magic. And when I mentioned the dog’s name on there, he ran away.”

Petunia rolled her eyes. “So Remus helped Harry make it. They used to make things like this together all the time when he was Harry’s tutor.”

“No, no,” Severus tugged at his hair and began pacing, “The magic, it’s, it’s more.”

Petunia was saved from having to continue trying to decipher Severus’ paranoia by Remus returning with Padfoot. 

“Right,” Remus said looking a little past Petunia like his mind was somewhere else. “Petunia do you think Harry would be willing to hold a will reading of James and Lily’s wills during Easter break.”

“Oh, of course, Remus.” Petunia said mentally kicking herself. She had meant to arrange this shortly after Harry’s eleventh birthday, but things had been so chaotic since then that she had forgotten. 

***

Petunia lay still and tense in bed as Vernon finished up his nightly routine. She felt the bed dip with his weight when he dropped onto it, but still she did not move or say anything. 

“Pet, are you awake?” Vernon asked, “I was hoping you would be in the mood tonight.”

Petunia had found over the course of her marriage that she was pretty much never ‘in the mood’. Sure she might touch herself sometimes when her hormones were worked up, but that was different than being ‘in the mood.’ She understood when they were trying for a baby. Before Dudley, she put in an effort to make herself available to Vernon during the times her hormones and his interest lined up so it would be… not unpleasant. But, she just didn’t want to do that now. There was no reason to when they already had a child. 

Petunia still said nothing, pretending to be asleep. She tried her best not to tense when she felt Vernon’s hand pulling down her pajama bottoms and rubbing between her legs. Then he shifted forward and.. 

*

Petunia scrambled away from the warm body next to her,  hyperventilating, and tumbled onto the floor.

“Whas happenin’,” slurred a sleepy voice from above her. Petunia looked up to see not a bed, but a couch and not Vernon, but Severus. Severus had his wand out and was blinking wearily. His hair was sticking up on one side and his normally pristine black robes were all rumpled. 

“Nothing,” Petunia replied. “Just a nightmare. We must have fallen asleep while researching.”

Severus cast a tempus charm which displayed the time as two in the morning. “Oh it’s late. I should be going. Let you get some rest.” 

“No!” Petunia said, suddenly panicked at the thought of being left alone. “Please just… stay.”

Severus looked at her critically through the fog of sleepiness hanging over him before he nodded. 

She led him up to her room by the hand.

***

Severus fidgeted in the seat across from Petunia as they ate dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. Petunia had taken the initiative to ask him, even though she thought they both knew this was coming for a while now. Perhaps since the day Severus delivered Harry’s letter. Dudley claimed Severus had always looked at her the same way he looked at the potion to prevent surface level tissue damage from blunt force trauma, aka bruising, that Dudley invented; awestruck, like it was something he never considered before or perhaps something he considered, but thought impossible. (Of course, there were already potions to cure this damage, but none to prevent it from happening in the first place. Petunia had a theory about why Severus looked at her like she was impossible.

“I like this… I like… dating you…” Severus finally said, looking at her from under his eyelashes, his cheeks pink.

“But?” she asked.

“But I can’t do more than this…” Severus paused, looked a bit panicked then continued quicker, “I mean. I have feelings for you. Romantic ones. At least, I think I do. I didn’t think I… nevermind.”

Severus paused again and looked off into the distance, clearly concentrating hard on how to phrase whatever he wanted to say.

Petunia waited patiently. 

He took in a deep breath, “But regardless of any interest I have in you romantically, I don’t have any interest in…” he coughed, “Anything physical. Not just with you, but with anyone, and you should be with someone who wants you in all the ways you deserve to be wanted.”

Petunia smiled broadly. “And if I don’t want to be wanted that way? If I don’t have any interest in you physically, either?”

Severus looked at her in open mouthed shock. He mouthed a few words before finally saying. “Then, uh, will you go steady with me?”

Petunia laughed as she nodded in affirmation

Chapter Text

Amelia Bones was tired. She was tired of Aurors, she was tired of Fudge, and she was tired of searching for Sirius Black. It was strange. She and Sirius had dated briefly in school before they both realized she was inexorably gay and he was not 100% gay but still inexorably in love with Remus Lupin. Then they had a brief, fake, public courtship to throw Sirius’s mother off the scent. She had never, in all the time she spent in close proximity to him, believed Sirius Black could turn into a traitor and a murderer. Regulus? Sure. Bellatrix? Absolutely. Never Sirius. Never. But war changed people. Sometimes she wished the magical world was better at dealing with mental health issues. Perhaps, in another world, Sirius could have been rehabilitated. But, another part of her was fearful that even stripped of the madness, Sirius would be just as hateful and cruel as the rest of his family.

This was all to say that not only was searching for Sirius physically tiring, it was also emotionally tiring. She was glad Susan was only home for a week at the moment because the summer months she spent trying to be a good parent while the Ministry ran her ragged were awful. 

Susan’s presence was both a blessing and a curse. Amelia barely felt happiness these days without Susan present. Mostly, that was the exhaustion, but at least part of it was her frequent contact with Dementors. If it were up to Amelia, Dementors would never be allowed outside of Azkaban. Especially after they attacked Harry twice. Hell she would send them away from all people, even the prisoners, if she could. But while Susan made her happy, Amelia was not fit to care for a child in her current state. She felt guilty about the long hours she spent away from Susan during her relatively short break. She had also found it difficult not to snap at Susan for the sorts of things she would normally have just talked to her politely about. Like how lately Susan had been forgetting to take her shoes off at the door when it was raining, and got muddy footprints all over the floor. 

Amelia sat with Susan in an office at Gringotts, waiting for the Potters’ wills to be read. Almost everyone was there including a Goblin account manager, Harry, Petunia, Neville, Lady Longbottom, and surprisingly (to Amelia anyway) Severus Snape who was standing suspiciously close to Petunia with his hand on the small of her back. She would have to ask Petunia about the two of them later. They were just waiting for Remus. 

“Sorry we’re late!” Remus said as he stepped through the door, ushering in a confused looking Ronald Weasley in front of him. Harry’s dog, who had accompanied him, presumably for emotional support, began to growl when Remus and Ron entered. Ron squeaked and jumped back from the dog. Harry made a shushing sound and the dog calmed down although it continued to stare in Ron’s direction. 

The goblin looked at Ron then at Petunia and Harry with a raised eyebrow. They both shrugged as if to say ‘we have no idea why he’s here, but we don’t mind.’ The goblin began to read the will.

The will was mostly made up of unimportant legalese as all wills were. Most everything was left to Harry or Petunia. Amelia and Snape each got a few specific books and research journals from Lily as well as 700 galleons each. Snape seemed surprised by this. Remus got a small hunting cabin which belonged to the Potter family and 70,000 galleons which he immediately tried to give back although Harry staunchly refused. Neville and Susan each got a 100 galleon gift card to Zonkos with the instructions to “help Harry uphold the Marauder’s tradition.” Lady Longbottom immediately confiscated Neville’s. Presumably the goblin skipped over people who were dead, hospitalized indefinitely or incarcerated because Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and the adult Longbottoms were not mentioned. 

There was also a note at the end that a letter for each of them was left in the Potter vault. The goblin handed over a letter to each person in turn. Amelia was surprised to see that her letter and Remus’ letter were both marked URGENT.

Amelia was about to slip her letter into her bag to read at home because surely if it could wait twelve years, it could wait another few hours, but Remus stopped her and also stopped the others who had gotten up to leave. 

Amelia watched in surprise as Remus cast a ward at the door which would prevent anyone from leaving until he dispelled it. Snape noticeably bristled, but didn’t say anything aloud. 

Amelia opened her letter, read it, and gasped. She looked to Remus who nodded to her indicating she should read it out loud. “Dear Amelia, this letter goes to you because you are our closest contact in law enforcement. While we have written more personal sentiments later on, we must start by saying that if we die while under the fidelius, Sirius Black is NOT our secret keeper—“

 Amelia was interrupted by a shout of “Scabbers!” from Ron as his rat leapt from his pocket and ran toward the door. Harry’s dog ran after it. The rat tried to escape under the door but was stopped by Remus’ ward. Remus stunned the rat and scooped it up just in time to stop the dog from clamping down its large sharp teeth over the rat. 

“While it is a terrible thing to hope for, we hope that our true secret keeper, Peter Pettigrew, is dead because otherwise he betrayed us. Please ensure Sirius is not punished in any way, and that Peter is investigated if necessary. Remus’ letter will confirm this information. We have signed both letters with our magical signature for verification.” 

Amelia looked up when she was done reading. Everyone looked absolutely stunned— except Remus who looked smug.

“Right,” Remus said, “There’s some information relevant to this that I can’t exactly tell you because I made a magical vow not to tell anyone when I was a teenager. But, what I can do is show you. And..um… could everyone please refrain from violence at this time?” 

With that, Remus set the rat on the floor next to the dog. He cast the same spell on both of them. The rat and the dog both began to grow and change shape. Then instead of animals there were two men laying on the floor. Both Ron and Harry let out distressed sounds seeing that both of their pets were actually adult men. 

One of the men had long wavy black hair and was obviously underweight. The other was short and chubby with graying sandy blonde hair and long dirty fingernails. It took Amelia a moment to recognize them. Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. Amelia immediately shot binding ropes and a petrificus totalus at the both of them in case the stunning spell wore off Peter or something happened to make Sirius become violent. It was a good thing too because a moment later Snape cast something that made both men scream and woke up Pettigrew. Remus quickly disarmed him.

“Snape,” Remus said coolly, “I asked you to refrain from violence.” 

“Apologies,” Snape said in a voice that did not sound apologetic at all, “I must have acted on reflex.” 

Amelia ran a hand through her hair in distress looking at the two men on the floor. 

“If-if Pettigrew is alive, then that means Black must be innocent?” Petunia asked in clear confusion.

“Not necessarily,” Amelia shook her head, “There’s still the matter of the twelve muggles who were murdered.”

“That was Peter too,” Remus said angrily. Amelia frowned at him consideringly. Remus then seemed to realize his actions and comments so far heavily indicated he had recently spoken to the Ministry’s Most Wanted Criminal and had failed to say anything to her about it. “I mean— I think that was Peter. Sirius was always more precise with his spell casting,” he added sheepishly. 

“I don’t understand,” Susan said. “If Mr. Black didn’t kill them, why didn’t he say so at his trial? They could have used Veritaserum to make sure he was telling the truth, right?”

Petunia gasped. “The Quibbler was right!”

Everyone looked at her in confusion. 

“I tried to find information about his trial because when I first came to the bank to get access to Lily’s vault, the records said his trial was still pending. I couldn’t find anything about when it actually happened, but there was an article in the Quibbler about Bartemius Crouch putting Sirius Black in prison without a thorough investigation or trial… At least that’s what I think it was about… the point is that it never made sense to me. Why would it take more than three years for his case to go to trial if he was incarcerated the whole time it was pending? That’s a really long time to wait in jail if you’re innocent. I don’t think he ever had a trial.” 

“Well let’s ask him,” Amelia said. One downside of Petrificus Totalus was that it prevented a person from moving their lips and tongue so both had just been making indecipherable sounds up to this point. Amelia dispelled the petrification and Sirius took a deep breath. “Hey Amy— I hear you’re quite the big shot these days. You know the ministry has a kiss-on-sight order for me so I thinks it’s your job to—“

“Stop flirting.” Remus cut in, nudging Sirius with his foot. 

“Fine, you’re no fun,” Sirius pouted, “Petunia is right, I never got a trial. I just had a complete breakdown after Peter blew up the street and escaped. The Aurors sedated me and I woke up in Azkaban. In the entire time between when I woke up and when I broke out, I saw no one, spoke to no one except the guards and later Fudge, neither of whom were sympathetic ears by the way.”

Amelia’s mind was racing. She wasn’t in charge at that point. And she wouldn’t have been allowed on Sirius’ trial anyway since there would be a conflict of interest. She had assumed he took a plea deal to avoid getting kissed. But if he never spoke to anyone.. “No one? Not even a solicitor?” she clarified. 

Sirius shook his head.

 Amelia began to pace. This was a huge injustice. Were there other people who had been sent to Azkaban without a trial under Crouch? She knew many of the marked Death Eaters did have trials given that about half of them got off on the Imperius defense. 

“Okay, okay,” Amelia said “I’ll take them to the Ministry and we’ll figure this out, I promise you Sirius.”

“No!” Both Remus and Sirius shouted at once.

“Amelia, do you really think Fudge’s first reaction to this will be… reasonable?” Petunia asked.

“We’re afraid he’ll have Sirius kissed before Peter can be interviewed,” Remus added. 

“Hmm,” Amelia said, “Then we’ll just have to make this very public. And I agree. Sirius shouldn’t come to the ministry until the public is aware that Peter Pettigrew is alive.” 

Petunia coughed, “Where is Mr. Black to go until then?” 

Sirius whined,“Can’t I just stay with you? I was a good dog.”

“No!” Snape shouted, “It is enough that you have taken advantage of Petunia and Harry for this long! You slept in bed with a thirteen year old who had no idea who you really were, that’s disgusting Black!”

“As a dog!” Black protested.

“As if that makes it any less traumatizing!” Snape retorted.

They all looked to Harry who was quite pale and hadn’t spoken a word since Black transformed. He was clutching Petunia’s sleeve like a small child. 

Amelia sighed, “You can stay with me, Sirius.”

***

Amelia walked through the Minestry’s main entrance dragging a still petrified Pettigrew with her, and trying not to think about how she was now complicit in hiding a fugitive. She saw many of the people there who were close to her age or older staring. Likely because they recognized him but couldn’t quite place his face. Just as she was approaching the elevator someone gasped and shouted “That’s Peter Pettigrew!” and chaos descended until she stepped on the elevator with her prisoner. 

After dropping Pettigrew off at the Aurors office with strict instructions to put him in a cell made to contain animagi before un-petrifying him, Amelia headed to her office. She pulled out the books she needed, setting them in small but bulky piles on her desk. Then she got out her best quill and parchment (for legal documents) as well as her worst but most comfortable quill and her notebook (for research). 

Ever since starting law school, Amelia had felt strongly that magical law was far behind the times, but it would take hundreds of years for her to make all the corrections she wanted to make even without political opposition. Luckily, in cases where there was no applicable law in the magical world, they were presumed to fall under the muggle laws for the country they were located in.

Another thing that worked in her favor in this instance was that past heads of the DMLE were fairly politically savvy and at least 80% of them had used that skill solely to increase their own power. Therefore, Amelia was the highest ranking prosecutor in the ministry, she had unlimited prosecutorial discretion when it came to charging or dismissing criminal cases, and no one could overturn her decision on these matters. The Wizengamot could revoke her right to dismiss certain types of cases in the future, but any previous decision she made would stand. 

She ordered one of her assistants to find Sirius Black’s criminal case file, but she already knew what she would find so she got writing straight away. 

When she was done she got up and walked straight to Fudge’s office. His assistant tried to stop her from barging in without checking with him first, but Amelia did not let that stop her. 

“Ah Amelia!” Fudge said with a nervous laugh, “Perhaps you can clear this all up, I’m sure it’s all a big misunderstanding. Peter Pettigrew is dead after all.” He was wringing his hands which were visibly sweaty as was his brow. 

“Out!” Amelia ordered the dozen or so people who had been in the 

Minister’s office. It was the usual crowd of undersecretaries, media consultants and heads of relevant departments like the Aurors. Amelia had only prevented herself from being pulled in earlier by warding her office door against everyone except her chief assistant. 

They all looked between her and the Minister who said nothing coherent and continued to sweat. “I said out!” Amelia shouted, her magic crackling in the air around her. This time they all jumped up and quickly shuffled out of the office. 

She placed all her documents on the table in front of her and pointed to one of them, “Here is an order dismissing all charges against Sirius Orion Black for crimes occurring on or around October 31st and November 1st of 1981.”

Fudge opened his mouth and made an indignant noise.

“And before you tell me I can’t dismiss a conviction without a court order, Sirius Black was never convicted.”

Fudge closed his mouth with an audible click and paled.

She pointed to another document, “Here is a criminal indictment accusing Peter Pettigrew of the crimes previously attributed to Sirius Black. And before you ask, I have already sent both of these documents to the clerk of the court so it’s too late to try to convince me to change my mind.”

She pointed to another, longer document. “Here is a motion to impeach Bartemius Crouch from his position as Head of International Cooperation for violations of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It includes my plan to open an investigation into any other similar misconduct committed by Crouch which will then be made available at the impeachment hearing. The committee on government misconduct will of course have to make a final decision on impeachment, but I only need three signatures to begin the process. I would appreciate your support, but I will be able to gain all three signatures with or without your assistance.”

She pointed to a different parchment already spooled onto a mailing scroll although not yet sealed. “That is a press release explaining the three documents I just mentioned and the surrounding circumstances. It can come from the Minister’s office or the DMLE, your choice, but it’s being sent out today either way.”

She then pointed to a final piece of parchment. It was the smallest of the documents on the desk but was written on the nicest paper with the fanciest penmanship. “This is an executive order to rescind the kiss-on-sight for Sirius Black and recall the Dementors to Azkaban. This one is fully your decision. I cannot make you sign it. However, I suggest you do so otherwise you will have to explain to the public why you have issued a kiss-on-sight for an innocent man who also happens to be an ex-Auror, a Lord of a Most Ancient and Noble House, and godfather to the Boy-Who-Lived.”

Fudge stared at her with wide eyes, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. 

“Your choice, Minister.” 

***

Amelia walked out of the Ministry feeling quite accomplished. She considered apparating or flooing home, but the weather was nice and her home was a short walk from the Ministry as a result of generations of Bones’ working as government employees. She almost immediately regretted it though. 

Rita Skeeter sidled up and fell into step with Amelia. “You’ve been avoiding me,” Rita said.

Amelia hummed noncommittally. Unfortunately, it was too late for it to seem natural for her to turn back toward the closest apparition point. She wasn’t worried about leading a reporter back to her home, Rita already knew where she lived. Amelia looked over her shoulder, but she didn’t see Rita’s photographer. This must be a personal ambush rather than a professional one or else an attack of opportunity for a mix of both. 

“Any comment on the sighting of Peter Pettigrew with you in the Ministry foyer this morning?” 

“I already sent your office the press release, Rita.”

Rita walked slightly faster so she could turn around in front of Amelia, now walking backward so they faced each other, her blond curls bouncing around her face with her steps. “But don’t you think something as important as this deserves a personal touch? Come on Amy, you can give me an exclusive and then I can… reciprocate.” Rita purred. She tried to reach out to run a hand down Amelia’s chest, but Amelia swatted her away. 

“We’re not doing that anymore.” Amelia said coolly.

Rita pouted, sticking out a bright pink bottom lip that Amelia was absolutely not eyeing. “Why not?” she whined petulantly.

“Perhaps I’m not interested in having my pillow talk appear on the front page of the Daily Prophet.”

Rita huffed and threw her head back as she turned back to walk in step with Amelia. A loose curl found its way in front of Amelia’s face tickling under her nose with the scent of cherry blossoms. “That was one time.”

“Once is enough,” Amelia growled. 

“We have fun together don’t we?” Rita asked. She tried to reach out to touch the side of Amelia’s face. Amelia grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the building next to them turning so they were nose to nose.

Rita’s eyes were dilated behind her hornrimmed glasses. Her chest was heaving and Amelia noticed that at some point the top three buttons of her blouse had come undone, giving her an excellent view of said chest. Rita darted her tongue out to lick her lips, staring at Amelia’s mouth. Amelia was momentarily quite distracted until she noticed Deanna Bletchley from the Portkey office had stopped a few paces back and was watching them curiously. She was forcibly reminded that they were mere blocks from the Ministry and work had just let out for the day. She glared at Bletchley who quickly shuffled past and continued on her way. When she looked around she realized they were now less than half a block from her house. 

“Not here,” Amelia hissed. She kept her grip around Rita’s wrist as she dragged her down the block. Both the front gate and front door flew open for her, recognizing her magic and her mood as magical houses were wont to do. She marched inside and pinned Rita to the wall of the entry way as her front door slammed closed. Amelia was about to start on an angry tirade when she felt something trailing up her inner thigh. She looked down to see Rita’s favorite quill caressing her sensually. “Stop that,” she ordered. 

“I’m not doing anything,” Rita said in faux innocence, holding up her hands to show she wasn’t holding her wand. 

Amelia raised her foot and stomped down on the quill, breaking it.

“Hey! I had that specially charmed.” Rita protested.

“You should learn to keep your quills to yourself then,” Amelia retorted. 

Rita hummed, “Or I could not,” she pulled out another quill from somewhere and used it to trace down Amelia’s neck to where her cleavage just barely peeked out the top of her button-up shirt which she had worn under open front robes that day. 

Amelia shuddered at the feeling. “You are infuriating.” The quill continued down to run along the small strip of flesh between her trousers and her shirt. Amelia closed her eyes, “You, you should stop.” Amelia said much less confidently now. 

The quill disappeared and instead Amelia felt Rita’s fingers slide through her belt loops and pull her closer. Then Rita’s mouth was right by her ear as she whispered, “Make me.”

Amelia gave in and crashed her mouth into Rita’s. Cherry blossoms filled her lungs as she breathed in and pressed their bodies together. One of Amelia’s hands was still busy pinning Rita to the wall, but the other plunged down the front of her skirt. Rita threw back her head and gasped. Then Rita's eyes focused over Amelia’s shoulder and she screamed, but not in the good way. 

For a moment Amelia was just confused. She heard a crunching sound behind her, and she whipped around, her wand falling into her hand. 

There in the doorway to the kitchen stood Sirius Black leaning on the doorframe eating from a bag of crisps in his hand. He smiled devilishly, “Don’t mind me ladies, I was just enjoying the show.”

Amelia glared at him and sighed in exasperation, “You’re supposed to be hiding.”

Sirius raised an eyebrow as he reached back to grab a copy of the Evening Prophet. “Why? Apparently I’m a free man now, thanks to you.”

Rita, apparently having conquered her fear in the face of a special edition she hadn’t authored, strode over and took the paper from Sirius. “I can’t believe this,” she said with a scoff as she read, “They printed your press release word for word, Barney has no sense of drama.”

“Well if you’re unsatisfied, I’m sure I could spice things up for you, sweetheart.” Sirius said suggestively. 

Amelia folded her arms as she looked between the two of them, “You know, you two can be awfully similar.”

“Thanks, love!” They both said at the same time although slightly out of sync. Rita’s comment was sarcastic while Sirius’ was teasing, but they even had the same little smirk at the corner of their mouths. 

They looked at each other assessingly after realizing what they had done.

“Fancy an exclusive?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Amelia groaned and went to pour herself a drink. 

Before she could get into the kitchen she was interrupted by a silver boar appearing in front of her. “Amelia, we need you back at the Ministry,” It said in Scrimegor’s voice. “One of the trainees lost Pettigrew.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake–”

Chapter Text

“Draco!” he heard Harry’s voice come from behind him. 

Draco turned around just in time to be barrelled over by a sprinting Harry Potter. Draco spluttered as he tried to sit up with all of Potter’s gangly limbs flailing about on top of him. Eventually, they landed so that Draco was sitting on the ground and Harry was sitting straddling his lap. Draco felt his face flush at the awkward position.

“Look,” Harry said, shoving a dirty old boot in Draco’s face. 

Draco cringed back, “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“We got here by portkey!” Harry shouted and he finally rolled off so that Draco could stand back up and dust himself off.

“Yes, Potter, that is generally how one travels to the Quidditch World Cup. What of it?”

“Remember how you asked me if there was any spell I had tried, but hadn’t succeeded at after I cast a corporeal Patronus last year?” Harry was still grinning maniacally and bouncing around.

“Yes?” Draco responded. 

Draco remembered. It had taken nearly a whole term, but eventually Harry had cast a full corporeal patronus at the end of the last school year. His patronus was a Hippogriff which irritated Draco because he had a bad run in with one at the beginning of 3rd year and didn’t understand why Harry’s patronus had to be his least favorite animal. (Why didn’t anyone tell him they could understand English? He wouldn’t have said it smelled bad if he understood the pride thing was about more than body language.) The Hippogriff patronus confused Harry and Professor Lupin as well simply because it didn’t seem very Harry-like. Until Uncle Severus had pointed out that many people have Patroni that represent a person who makes them feel safe or protected at which point all three of them looked at the Hippogriff and said “Petunia.” 

After he mastered the Patronus, Draco challenged Harry to find a spell he didn't succeed in casting within the first five tries. Harry tended to be a menace when he was bored so it was really a matter of public safety for Draco to make sure he had some long term projects to occupy him. Starting their electives had helped. Harry was only a prodigy at practical spell work so he actually had to study to do well in Runes, Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures. But, Harry was still far too advanced in Charms, Transfiguration and Defense which was not good for anyone. At the beginning of the last school year, before Professor Lupin started teaching him the Patronus charm, Harry had gotten bored and began transfiguring random things he found in the common room (parchment, quills, bugs, obnoxious blood purists, etc.) into live snakes. Which was fine for Harry because he was a parselmouth, but terrifying for everyone else. 

“I’m going to learn how to make portkeys!” Harry grinned, bouncing a bit. 

Draco looked at Harry bemused. He wondered who had let him have coffee and if they were regretting it yet. This face was Harry’s “someone let me have a mild stimulant so now I’m developing Black madness despite having no blood relation” face. 

“Harry, portkeys are highly regulated by the ministry. You can’t just make them, it’s illegal.” Draco responded. 

Harry thought about this for a moment with a pensive look on his face then shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to ask Sirius if I can go through his library to find something else. I’ve already gone through all the spell anthologies at home and at Hogwarts and there wasn’t anything I was interested in learning.” 

“Portkeys it is!” Draco said with faux enthusiasm. He had no interest in being blamed for introducing the Boy-who-Lived to Black Magic. With Draco’s luck Harry would end up doing something that would make him even crazier than he already was, like Draco’s Aunt Bellatrix did. Draco shuddered at the thought. 

Draco surveyed Harry now that he had a chance to do do. Harry was decked out head to toe in green for Ireland, including his shoes which were green ankle boots with a white toe except they weren’t made out of boot material. “What are those?” Draco asked, gesturing to the shoes.

Harry looked down. “Oh they’re Chucks. I found a picture with my Dad wearing red ones and I wanted some. My Hermione got me green for Slytherin since my Dad’s were red for Gryffindor.”

Draco nodded and complimented the style pointing out a few details of the stitching and how the rubber toes would be good for potions.

Harry laughed and slung an arm around Draco’s shoulders, “Am I finally getting you to come around to Muggle fashion? Will we eventually see a Malfoy in…” Harry gasped dramatically, “Dare I say it, jeans?”

Draco stuck his nose in the air and sniffed haughtily, “Never.”

The quidditch game was great. The aftermath was not great. 

Draco crept through the forest surrounding the camp grounds with Harry, Susan, Neville, Ron and Hermione. Tracy hadn’t attended the World Cup because her family was vacationing in Spain and they had lost the other Weasley’s soon after fleeing camp. 

He swore as Ron stepped on the back of his shoe for the third time. “Oh this is ridiculous,” Draco said, “Everyone cast Lumos.”

“But,” Hermione protested, “the Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcerery says—“

“That underage wixen may use magic in life threatening emergencies,” Susan cut in. “I would say Death Eaters invading the World Cup counts as life threatening.” 

They all got out there wands and cast Lumos except for Neville who was patting his pockets. 

“Er…” said Neville, “I seem to have lost my wand.”

There was a chorus of sighs and huffing about Neville always losing things. 

“Accio Neville’s wand,” Harry cast and they waited a moment but no wand appeared. “Huh, that normally works.” 

“You probably just left it in the tent, mate.” Ron said with a comforting pat. 

They continued on until Draco heard an adult man’s voice coming from somewhere to their left. “Morsemodre!” The voice called out.

Draco gasped and whispered “Nox, nox now!” to his friends who all put out their lights in time for spooky green light to illuminate the forest from the skull and snake above them. 

Then cracks of apparition sounded around them and more than one voice shouted “Stupify!”

Without any words or wand movement a nearly solid shield sprang up around them and reflected the stunners, knocking out what Draco could now see were a number of Ministry employees.

“Ah, Sorry! Hold on I’ll—“ Harry called out as a second volley of spells rebounded once again hitting their casters “Sorry!” Another ministry employee fell. “Sorry!” And another. “Please stop casting at us! I can’t change the shield if you keep casting!” 

Draco saw Susan palm her forehead and Ron was trying to hold back a snicker which Hermione elbowed him for. 

“Stop! Stop! That’s my son!” A man who Draco thought was probably Arthur Weasley called out which finally stopped the volley of spells. 

“Why is your son fighting us?” Someone asked Mr. Weasley. 

“Because you threw enough stunners to put us in the hospital, you psychos” Ron called out at the same time as Harry cried “It’s just a shield, I swear!”

After things had mostly calmed down, Diggory (the elder) found a stunned house elf holding a wand nearby.

Crouch cast a spell on the wand and it sent up a puff of green smoke which curled into the shape of the Dark Mark.

“Hey that’s my wand!” Neville called.

Susan groaned, “Neville, what have I told you about saying things that are blatantly incriminating?”

After a short discussion between the Ministry workers, Draco was accused of stealing Neville’s wand to cast the Dark Mark. No one could believe Neville would know how to cast it so Neville was never a suspect. Draco on the other hand… It didn’t matter that he had a muggleborn, three other kids from light aligned families, and bloody Harry Potter with him. 

“I didn’t do it!” He protested.

“Yeah, Draco has his own wand,” Harry piped in. “Why would he steal Neville’s to cast the Dark Mark?”

Draco gave Harry a look that said, ‘Shut up you’re not helping.’ 

“What?” Harry asked, “If you wanted to frame someone and get away with it, you should have framed me?”

“And why would that be, young man?” Diggory asked with a stern face.

Harry looked at him blankly for a moment then said a few words in Parseltongue. Most of the Ministry workers jumped.

After a debate about whether it would be more reasonable to arrest Harry instead, Draco was dragged all the way to the Aurors office where they were met by a tired and angry looking Amelia Bones. Thank Merlin for Susan. 

“What are you doing?” She asked Crouch scathingly.

“Mr. Crouch caught the Death Eater who cast the Dark Mark, ma’am!” One of the junior aurors said. Ms. Bone’s face did not change. If anything she looked even less impressed.

“Explain,” she demanded of Crouch. After a long winded and ultimately unsatisfying explanation, Madame Bones took the cuffs off of Draco and shot daggers at Crouch with her eyes. “Proximity and family history are not enough to arrest a fourteen-year-old, Crouch. This is why you’re on thin ice.”

When he got home, Draco’s father congratulated him on getting Amelia Bones on his side through his excellent networking skills. Draco only glowered at him as he marched up to his room. Because whose fault was it that Draco had been under suspicion in the first place? 

***

Draco got on the Hogwarts Express late. Draco never got on the train late because a Malfoy was always perfectly punctual, but this time his father had kept him on the platform lecturing him on upholding his breeding and hinting that something important was going to happen soon. Of course, Draco already knew about one important thing, the Triwizard Tournament. Malfoys had three types of secrets: 1. Other people’s secrets, that they shared freely among themselves and their allies (like the tournament), 2. Family secrets (like his father being a willing Death Eater in the last war), and 3. Secrets which were dangerous enough that Draco was not allowed to know them until he could prove his Occlumency shields could withstand a Master Legilimens.

Whatever his father had been hinting at on the platform was the third type of secret. His father would not tell him why, but he had emphasized that Draco needed to maintain his image as a perfect pureblood and possibly distance himself from Harry a bit. Draco was not planning to distance himself from Harry no matter what and he always comported himself in line with his breeding so it was mostly a useless conversation. 

It seemed Draco was in good company because while he got on the train late, all his friends did as well. They shuffled through the train looking for a compartment big enough to hold all of them. They found one, but in the compartment already sat a blonde girl he was pretty sure was a year below them in Ravenclaw. She was wearing strange glasses and reading a magazine upside down. Draco started to move past the compartment, but Ron Weasley had already opened the door and began introducing them, “She’s my neighbor and one of Ginny’s friends," he said in explanation. “Luna this is Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom, Susan Bones, Tracy Davis, Draco Malfoy and—“

The girl gasped, “I know you.” She said, looking at Harry. Of course she does. Draco thought as Harry cringed a bit. Everyone knows Harry Potter, “You’re Petunia Evans’ nephew, Harry Evans, right?” 

Draco made an incredulous noise. Harry blinked a bit in confusion, “Er, well, yes, sort of. Well yes she is my aunt and yes Harry Evans is one of my legal names but I go by Harry Potter at Hogwarts.” 

The girl nodded solemnly, “Oh right, Stubby Boardman is your godfather. I should have remembered you were James Potter’s son. They were best friends after all. I heard James occasionally filled in for his drummer before… well…”

Then Harry gasped and his face lit up, “Oh! You’re Luna Lovegood.”

Harry quickly stored his trunk and plopped down beside the girl. “I loved your article on Wrackspurts causing bipolar disorder in muggles and how that can be compared to the Black madness and other mental health disorders in wixen…” 

Draco and the others also stored their belongings and sat down as Harry chattered happily to Luna. Draco’s stomach twisted uncomfortably as he watched them. Why was Harry looking at her and talking to her like that? She was nothing special. Draco had the same white-blonde hair and while her eyes were bluer, his mother had often told him that the silver color that came from his Black blood was prized in the wizarding world and he came from an upper class pureblood family. Although… Draco supposed Harry didn’t really care about things like that.

“How do you even know Harry’s aunt?” Draco asked, aware that he had just rudely interrupted their conversation. 

“Well, we’re pen pals of a sort. Desdemona, the intern at the Daily Prophet, told me she was looking into old articles about Sirius Black last year. They have an alarming amount of misinformation in that paper, you know.” She spoke in a dreamy sort of voice, looking slightly over Draco’s shoulder. He found he was having trouble following her train of thought. “I sent Petunia the Quibbler’s old articles on Mr. Black and when she found out he was innocent she reached out to thank me because our articles helped her identify the people who sent him to Azkaban without a trial. We exchanged a few letters and I learned she wrote a couple articles on using magic in combination with muggle science and technology, but had nowhere to publish them. So, I offered to publish her work in the Quibbler. She’s quite brilliant! Our readership has increased by 42% since we started publishing her work. Many academics have subscribed recently, including Professor Snape. It’s quite lovely.”

Draco spluttered, “Professor Snape reads the Quibbler? But everyone knows that magazine is a load of rubbish.” 

Luna’s face suddenly became stern and cold. 

Harry frowned at Draco and crossed his arms, “The Quibbler is the most accurate and objective news publication available in magical Britain. It may have more speculative pieces than the Prophet, but they always make it clear to readers what is fact and what is opinion or speculation.” 

“But, but, all the articles are about conspiracies and imaginary animals!” Draco was aware he was not endearing himself to either of them, but it was all so ludicrous. How could Harry believe any of that rot? 

“Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t make them imaginary.” Luna said. 

At the same time as Harry sarcastically said, “Conspiracies like the ministry being heavily influenced by former Death Eaters? That can’t possibly be true, right Draco?” 

“What? When did the Quibbler write about Death Eaters in the ministry?” Hermione asked, scooting closer to Draco to join the conversation. 

“In just about every other issue since the start of the last war.” Harry said as he handed over Luna’s copy of the Quibbler and pointed to an article. 

Hermione read it with a small frown on her face, “But this isn’t about… oh… Oh!”

Draco snatched the magazine away from her and read it for himself. “This is about the Rotfang conspiracy. As I said, rubbish.” 

“It’s in code!” Hermione squealed. “See, Rot-Death, Fang-Eater.” 

Luna looked smug. 

Draco read the article again, “I still don’t get it.” he said and huffed. It was an article about how a group called the falsely enthralled were trying “even harder than usual” to infect Minister Fudge with vampirism and tooth decay in preparation for what they believed to be the imminent return of “The Rot Flyer”.

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. 

Luna sighed, “It’s alright Harry. Not everyone has the same level of literacy as you, Hermione, or myself at our age. Perhaps he’ll understand when he’s older.”

Harry shook his head, “This is exactly why I hate censorship. The indoctrination makes the lies seem like truth and the truth seem like lies.”

Hermione nodded at that. “Even though Draco is quite intelligent for an upper class pureblood, he’s been fed so much propaganda, only significant work learning about metaphorical literature and critical thinking would make it so he could understand something like the Quibbler. And unfortunately he’s just undereducated.” Hermione paused, looking guilty. “I mean not that that’s your fault Draco. We can’t help how we’re raised.” She patted his knee awkwardly.

Draco fumed for the rest of the train ride. 

Later, after Hermione had the opportunity to write he parents, she gave Draco an essay titled “A Modest Proposal”, calling it “satire”, a type of muggle writing. All Draco got from it was that muggles were horrible brutes who wanted to be allowed to eat babies. Hermione tried to explain more, but Draco was so disgusted he set the entire book of essays on fire. Hermione then stormed off screeching about how he ruined all her good will with her local muggle librarian.

***

Draco was excited. He had an excellent day watching his fellow students enter or attempt to enter their names in the Goblet of Fire. He also had the opportunity to brag to Ron Weasley about how Viktor Krum chose to sit across from him at dinner the evening before. 

Now, it was time to choose the champions. Draco clapped loudly and whooped when Krum was chosen as the Durmstrang champion. He clapped again when Fluer Delacour was chosen for Beauxbatons although he had been a bit confused as to why he wasn’t affected by her Veela allure like most of the boys and some of the girls at his table were. Perhaps Draco just had superior occlumency skills. Draco was a little disappointed when Cedric Diggory was chosen for Hogwarts although three years of spending time with Susan Bones had led him to have a much better opinion of Hufflepuffs than he would have had otherwise. 

Draco was not in the habit of listening to Dumbledore any more than strictly necessary, so he missed the fourth piece of parchment flying out of the goblet, but he heard the gasps. 

Malfoys were not known for being seers, but Draco somehow knew who the fourth champion would be even before Dumbledore read the name. His stomach dropped as he was filled with a sick sense of dread. No no no no. 

“Harry Potter!”

All eyes turned to the Slytherin table and when they couldn’t find Harry they turned to Draco and Tracy. Draco looked at Tracy and Tracy looked back at him with wide eyes.

“Harry Potter?” Dumbledore’s voice was less sure now. “Where is he?”

Draco, as one of the few people who knew the answer to this question, took it upon himself to stand up and announce. “It’s October 31st, sir! Harry doesn’t come to dinner on the 31st.”

Dumbledore’s face soured, but before he could say anything else Draco shouted, “I’ll go get him!” And he sprinted out of the hall. 

This year because Severus and Harry’s aunt were dating, they all skipped the feast together. Draco wondered if they got married would that make him and Harry godbrothers? Step-godbrothers? Draco didn’t like the title ‘brother’ being associated with himself and Harry at all. He wasn’t sure why. 

Draco burst into Severus’ quarters panting.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, immediately getting up from the table. 

Severus and Madame Regent Potter-Evans (call me Petunia) quickly did the same when they saw Draco’s face.

“Your, your name came out of the goblet.”

“The goblet of fire? The one that decides the tournament champions?” Madame Evans gasped and put her hand in front of her mouth, looking at Severus with fear in her eyes. 

Harry froze, “But, but I didn’t— I didn’t enter I swear.” Harry looked between the three of them wildly.

Draco nodded at him and walked over to lay a hand on Harry’s shoulder, “We know.”

“We’ll figure this out.” 

They walked back to the great hall in a tense silence, where Dumbledore directed them into the room with the other champions. Draco thought he might not have actually been invited, but he went anyway. 

Harry stayed behind Severus and his aunt. He reached out and clutched Draco’s hand nervously. Draco gave him a comforting squeeze. 

“Vat is the meaning of dis?” Madame Maxime asked once they were all in the room.

The other champions looked at Harry, Draco and Madame Evans with curiosity given that they hadn’t been there to witness Harry’s name come out of the Goblet.

“Obviously this is some sort of mistake.” Madame Evans said scathingly, crossing her arms. “The tournament is completely safe and no underage students will be competing, isn’t that what you told me, Dumbledore?”

Dumbledore looked nervous for a moment before he schooled his expression although his eyes kept straying to the magically expanded bag Madame Evans was holding.

“Ah, well it seems Mr. Potter has been unexpectedly chosen as a fourth champion..” 

The room erupted into chatter as the other champions turned to their teachers and started demanding answers. Karkaroff and Fluer both accused Harry of cheating. Harry shook his head and clutched Draco’s hand harder. 

The chatter was interrupted by Professor Moody bursting in to announce that the Goblet had been tampered with and Harry was entered under a 4th school. The students and Head teachers were not appeased by this.

“How do we know he was not the one to do the tampering?” Karkaroff asked, pointing an accusing finger at Harry. 

Madame Evans whispered something to Severus who handed her a vial of clear liquid and began erecting wards that Draco knew would prevent Harry from hearing anyone except himself and Harry’s aunt.

Madame Evans silenced everyone with a harsh glare and held up the potions vial. “This,” she said, “Is veritaserum. As Harry’s guardian I may provide consent for it to be used on him as long as he also agrees. Would any of you like to examine it?”

Maxime and Karkaroff both stepped forward and each took a turn examining the vial, even uncorking it to sniff a little and test the consistency by pouring out a drop. Severus clenched his jaw. 

They handed the vial back, each nodding their permission. Harry stuck out his tongue in clear consent and Severus used a dropper to place 3 drops on his tongue.

“What is your full legal name and any aliases?” Severus asked. 

“Harry James Potter, alias Harry Evans. Some people call me the Boy Who Lived.” Harry answered in a monotone. 

“What is your date of birth?”

“July 31st, 1980.”

“Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?” 

Everyone in the room held their breath.

“No.” Harry answered.

The room exploded into noise with protests and angry muttering from the onlookers until Severus shushed them.

“Did you ask anyone to enter your name in the Goblet of Fire?” Severus continued. 

“No.”

“Were you aware of any plot to enter you into the Triwizard Tournament prior to being informed your name had come out of the Goblet?”

“No.” 

Everyone was silent. 

“Do you have any speculations about how this might have happened, by who, or why?”

“I suspect it was someone who wants to kill me. Most likely a follower of the Dark Lord Voldemort.”

Many of the room’s occupants flinched or shuddered. 

“Thank you, Harry.” Madame Evans said softly, and Severus administered the antidote.

“So… It wasn’t Harry?” Diggory asked. “Does that mean he doesn’t have to compete?” 

Barty Crouch stepped forward. “Mr. Potter must compete. Any person who’s name comes out of the Goblet is magically bound to participate in the tournament.”

“How is that possible?” Draco pipped in, drawing attention from those who hadn’t noticed him yet. Some looked like they wanted to kick him out, but none said anything. “A magical contract can only be formed between consenting parties.” Draco would know, his father had a lot of magical contracts and made sure Draco knew not to sign anything he didn’t entirely understand the terms for. It didn’t require informed consent, but consent nonetheless. 

“Regardless of any consent, the parchment used to enter him contained Harry’s handwriting and magical signature. The Goblet takes that as consent the same way a magical contract would.”

“So anyone who had access to his school work could have entered him?” Madame Evans asked with clear anger in her voice. “Did none of you consider that as a huge loophole? And what about the fact that he’s a minor, doesn’t that require my consent?” 

“Ah,” Ludo Bagman said awkwardly, “Unfortunately the Goblet was made prior to laws about minors consenting to contracts.”

“What happens if I don’t compete?” Harry asked quietly.

“You could lose your magic.” Crouch answered unsympathetically. “You must compete in the tournament, Mr. Potter.”

Draco scowled and fumed silently. That wasn’t fair at all.

“Do not worry my dear boy,” Headmaster Dumbledore said, attempting to reach out to Harry although he was blocked by Madame Evans. “The tournament is much safer than the last time it was held. I am sure you will do splendidly.” 

Harry did not look convinced. Draco felt similarly. 

Before they left something occurred to Draco and he asked, “What school was Harry entered under if not Hogwarts?”

Moody cast a few spells on the cup before he answered, “Mahoutokoro.”

Draco grinned and nudged Harry playfully, “Guess you have to brush up on your Japanese.”

Harry gave him a shaky smile.

As they walked back to the Slytherin dorms Draco reached out and grasped Harry’s hand in a way that he hoped was comforting. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.” He whispered. Harry squeezed his hand back, but didn’t say anything. 

Draco was not a Slytherin for nothing. While Harry, Tracey and Draco each exemplified all traits of their house, their Slytherin friend group could be easily divided into the three main traits. Harry was powerful, obviously. Tracey was ambitious, she wanted to be a healer and worked hard for it. And Draco? Draco was cunning. 

“Okay,” Draco said, turning to Harry. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” 

***

What is that? Harry asked as Draco pulled out a set of kimono-style pink robes from a box that had been delivered by owl that morning at breakfast.

“Mahoutokoro school robes.” Draco answered.

“You’re seriously going to make me wear those?” Harry cringed at the robes which Draco could admit were not Harry’s color. He looked much better in green.

 “They’re to remind everyone you’re the Mahoutokoro champion. If you’re in first place in the tournament they’ll turn gold like they do for students at the top of their class at Mahoutokoro.” Draco said. “The school can’t send a delegation because it’s too late but their Headmistress, Head Girl and Head Boy will be coming to watch the third task and claim the cup if you win.” Draco had owled the Headmistress to let her know what had happened and she was interested in the potential recognition her school would get through Harry competing in the tournament. Which fit well into Draco’s plan.

Harry relented and wore his new robes to class the next morning which happened to be Transfiguration. By the time they got there he was happily swishing his robes and talking about how soft they were in comparison to his Hogwarts ones. 

“Mr. Potter,” Professor McGonagall said as she saw his new robes, “Where is your school uniform?”

“I’m wearing my school uniform.” Harry replied in a chipper voice. 

“It’s from Mahoutokoro,” Draco chimed in. “As Harry is their champion, he’s wearing their school robes to represent the school delegation and distinguish himself from Diggory, the true Hogwarts champion.” He made sure to say that last part extra loud. 

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth as if to argue, but then she just closed it and shook her head. “You know, you are quite like your father Mr. Potter,” she said.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Harry replied. 

On their way to Herbology they ran into a group of Hufflepuffs who were all wearing buttons that said, “SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY, THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION.” All except Susan who was glowering at the other ‘Puffs.

“Watch this, Potter,” Zacharias Smith sneered and he pressed his button so that it changed to say “POTTER STINKS.” 

Harry bristled and opened his mouth to retort, but Draco spoke first saying, “Can I have two?” 

Harry looked at him confused and a little hurt, although Draco was sure he could clear this up quickly. 

The Hufflepuffs looked at each other in confusion before Smith awkwardly pulled out two buttons and handed them over. Susan’s face turned red and Draco rushed to cast the charms he needed before she had an outburst.

Draco tapped his wand to the buttons and whispered a charm he knew would set the phrase, then he pressed it a few times to change it back and forth. The phrase about Diggory stayed the same but the other one now read. “SUPPORT HARRY POTTER THE MAHOUTOKORO CHAMPION.” He pinned one to his own chest and one to Harry’s. 

“Can I have one too?” Susan asked and held out her hand.

“Actually, could we have a couple more?” Harry added, grinning at Draco.

Draco smirked in self satisfaction as Smith reluctantly handed them over. 

***

“Excuse me, Professor Snape,” a third year Gryffindor who Draco thought was named Creely poked his head into their potions class. “They need Harry Potter upstairs for the wand weighing ceremony.”

Severus just nodded at Harry to pack up his stuff and go. 

Draco quickly raised his hand.

“Yes, Mr. Malfoy?” his godfather asked in a suspicious and mildly exasperated tone.

“May I go with them, Professor?”

“Why?” he asked. 

Harry looked at him curiously like he was wondering the same thing. 

“I’ve been appointed by the Headmistress of Mahoutokoro to represent their school’s interests during the tournament.” Draco stuck his nose in the air and tried to appear authoritative.

Severus looked at him skeptically.

“And I’m Harry’s media coach.” he added.

Severus sighed and waved him off. “Go. I expect you both to finish your potions this evening.”

Next to him, Harry groaned. 

They made their way up to the room Creezy directed them to. When they entered, Draco’s eyes immediately zeroed in on Rita Skeeter who had her gaze pinned on Harry, predatorily.

“If I could have a word with Mr. Potter, before we get started,” she said and tried to pull Harry away.

Draco placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder and smiled sweetly. “Actually Ms. Skeeter,” he said, “Harry already has a press release about the tournament. If you want an exclusive, you’ll have to speak to his Aunt.” 

Draco pulled a piece of parchment with the press release from his bag. It described how multiple people witnessed Harry questioned under veritaserum about putting his name in the goblet and contained quotes like. “While I am dismayed that someone went to such lengths to potentially cause me harm, I am proud to represent Mahoutokoro as the first non-European magical school to compete in the tournament.” 

***

Rita Skeeter tried to make Harry the center of attention and ignore Diggory, but the pink robes and “SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY” button made it rather difficult to frame Harry as the only Hogwarts champion. 

Dumbledore had been off campus most of the last few weeks, avoiding Madame Evan’s ongoing campaign to ruin his life. According to Harry she had started paying the Weasley twins weekly to target their pranks at the Headmaster, Crouch and Bagman. But with Crouch and Bagman at the Ministry, the Headmaster had so far gotten the brunt of it. Draco also had it on good authority that she had recently learned how to send Howlers so he was sure the Headmaster wasn’t getting much peace even while away from school. Although he wasn’t present at the school, the Headmaster did read the Prophet and therefore saw Harry’s new favorite outfit. 

“Harry,” Dumbledore said sternly as he approached their table at dinner. “Where is your uniform, my boy?”

“I’m wearing it, sir.” Harry responded with a cheeky grin.

“Your Hogwarts uniform, Harry, you need to wear it. Just like the other students.”

Harry set his fork down and turned fully to face the Headmaster. “Are you going to make Delacour and Krum wear Hogwarts uniforms too?” He asked.

“No,” Dumbledore said in a condescending voice with a strained friendly tone. “They are wearing their school uniforms.”

“And so am I.” Harry responded.

“Harry, you are a Hogwarts student.”

“Oh am I?” Harry said sarcastically. “I thought I was a Mahoutokoro student. That’s what the goblet said. And the goblet is the ultimate authority on my fate isn’t it?” 

The Headmaster chuckled like Harry had made a funny joke. “I’m afraid, Harry, that in this castle the ultimate authority on uniforms is the Sorting Hat. And if I remember correctly, the Hat sorted you in Slytherin. Therefore, I expect to see you in a Slytherin uniform again tomorrow.” 

Suddenly the Headmaster’s beard burst into flames. Draco held in a laugh as the Headmaster's beardless face was revealed as the singed hair fell away. 

“Two weeks of detention, Mr.’s Weasley,” The headmaster said calmly before exiting the room. 

***

When Draco stepped into the common room the next morning he had to scrub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Harry was wearing a girl’s uniform skirt, tights and all. 

“Um..” Draco said, staring at the exposed part of Harry’s thigh that stuck out under the skirt. 

“Does it look good, Draco?” Harry asked with a grin and a little spin to show off the whole outfit. 

Tracey elbowed Draco when he didn’t respond at first. “Oh yeah, it looks great.”

Draco spent the next few days trying hard to keep his eyes above Harry’s waist. Unluckily for Harry, although luckily for Draco, Harry did not receive the negative attention from his outfit he likely anticipated. Dumbledore saw him and simply nodded in approval. So Harry went back to wearing his usual uniform. Although he frequently wore his Mahatokoro uniform on weekends and some evenings. For some reason the uniform had turned blue. Draco knew it had something to do with Harry’s “rank” but he had no idea how said rank was calculated. 

***

“Okay,” Hermione said as she spread out a large number of parchments on the table in front of them. “So I read everything the library has about the tournament.” 

Their whole group of friends had gathered in an unused classroom to discuss Harry’s strategy for the tournament with the notable absence of Ron Weasley. Weasley for some reason refused to believe Harry hadn’t entered his own name and was angry at Harry for cheating. Draco thought he was just jealous. 

“The first task usually involves some sort of dangerous animal. But, because magical animals are rare and valuable, the goal usually isn’t to fight or kill it, but to retrieve some sort of object which will be a clue for the second task. The animal will be guarding the object.” Hermione continued.

“The goal for Harry isn’t to be flashy or gain the most points,” Draco reminded everyone. “But to retrieve the object while putting himself in the least amount of danger possible. Our list of plans should include as many options as we can think of where Harry goes nowhere near the animal.”

“Oh!” Susan shouted excitedly, “Harry remember that cowboy movie we watched where they used lassos? I bet you could do something like that and put a sticking charm on the rope so that even if the object is difficult to lasso it will still stick.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind Susan,” Harry smiled at her, “But I think I have another idea. That is if the judges don’t think to put up charms to prevent it.”

***

Draco trembled as he watched the dragon tamers lead the Hungarian Horntail onto the Quidditch pitch. This was the biggest and fiercest of the dragons and it was the last one so it had to be Harry’s. 

Harry walked out onto the field in front of the dragon. He was small, so small in comparison to the huge beast. Next to him, Tracey grabbed his hand and squeezed tight.

Harry pointed his wand. “Accio golden egg.”

The golden egg sped out from between the dragon’s legs. The dragon watched placidly. Of course, dragons had a very good sense of smell and could easily distinguish between their own eggs and metal ones and since Harry was nowhere near the actual dragon eggs, it didn’t particularly care. 

Draco let out his breath and Tracey stopped grinding the bones in his hand together as Harry caught the egg.

The first task was over. Harry got the lowest score despite having the best time and no injuries. His Mahoutokoro robes turned green anyway. 

***

The one good thing about the tournament was that Harry had a sufficient distraction to take up his time without resorting to terrorizing the Slytherin common room. However, after the first task, he got restless again.

Draco walked in to the dorm to see Harry holding a fork and pointing his wand at it. “Portus, Harry whispered.” Then he said, “Activate.” The fork rose in the air and began to spin in circles faster and faster until suddenly it exploded, sending fork shrapnel out in a wide arc. 

Draco ducked and made a yelping sound until he realized there was a shimmering shield around himself and Harry. One of the shards hit Draco’s Falmouth Falcon’s poster and it disappeared. “Hey!” he shouted. “Where did it go?”

Harry just hummed and wrote something down in a notebook he had on his desk. “Don’t know, I haven’t gotten to that part yet.” 

Draco made an indignant noise.

***

“Who are you taking to the Yule ball, Harry?” 

Draco’s ears perked up as he heard Hermione ask Harry the question. 

“No one.” Harry replied. 

Hermione huffed and set her quill down to look at him. “Harry, you know you have to take someone. McGonagall said the champions have to open the dance.”

Harry sighed. “Fine.” He turned toward Luna who was doodling on a piece of parchment that Draco thought was supposed to be her charm’s homework. “Luna, will you go to the Yule ball with me.”

Luna smiled brilliantly, her eyes losing a bit of the haziness they always held. “Oh, yes, Harry. I’ve never been asked to a ball before. How exciting.” 

Draco felt a tight sensation in his chest and his eyes started to burn. He quickly packed up his bag and speed walked out of the abandoned classroom. 

He heard footsteps behind him and looked around to see Tracey following him. “Leave me alone, Tracey.” He called out behind him.

Tracey didn’t listen and instead pulled up next to him. “If you wanted to go with Harry, why didn’t you just ask?”

“Bainburgh’s rules of etiquette state that the wizard with the highest standing at a function is supposed to ask the other.” Draco said haughtily to cover his hurt.

Tracey snorted a short laugh. “And you think Harry has read Bainburgh’s rules of etiquette?”

Draco’s mind stuttered to a stop. Tracey was right. But it didn’t actually change anything. “Whatever. He already asked Luna. I’m sure they’ll be happy together,” he sneered.

Tracey sighed. “Draco, Harry’s not interested in Luna, she just wouldn’t be able to go without an older student asking her. You heard him, he didn’t want to ask anyone.”

Draco just crossed his arms and continued down the hall.

“I doubt he even realized you were an option.”

“What do you mean?”

Tracey sighed again. “Look. Things are different in the muggle world. Homosexuality exists but it’s mostly kept secret. Relationships between two men or two women are illegal in some places, and you can’t marry someone of the same sex, even in the UK. Definitely nothing like the wizarding world where it’s always been legal for men to marry men and women to marry women.”

Draco scrunched up his face in confusion. “Why?”

“Mostly unwarranted prejudice, but if you want to be charitable it can be attributed to the fact that muggle men can’t get pregnant and muggle women can’t impregnate others whereas wixen have potions for that.” 

Draco nodded pensively.

“The point is that Harry might not have even thought about asking a boy. He’s a bit oblivious to romantic things. I’ve never heard him talk about liking girls or boys.”

Draco slumped dejectedly. 

“Which doesn’t mean he’s not interested in you, Draco.” Tracey added quickly. “It just means maybe he hasn’t thought about it. Or if he has, he might think people will judge him for liking boys.”

Draco still pouted all the way back to the dorm. 

***

On the day of the ball, Harry looked resplendent in dark green dress robes which did not pair well at all with Lovegood’s sparkly sky blue robes and radish earrings.

Draco watched the high table with a scowl as Harry laughed at something Lovegood said and put his arm around her shoulders. He stabbed his roasted potatoes aggressively while his friends politely ignored his mood. 

When it was time for the champions to open the dance Draco watched jealously as Harry twirled Lovegood around the dance floor. 

Draco danced three dances exactly with Susan, Daphne and Tracey the later of whom kept giving him significant looks whenever he looked in Harry’s direction. Having performed his necessary social obligations, Draco went to leave when he was stopped by a familiar voice calling out his name behind him.

He turned to see Harry panting behind him, having run to catch up. “What do you want?” Draco snapped. 

“I um..” Harry said awkwardly. His eyes were bright and he had a flush high on his cheeks from the dancing. “Well when I was dancing with Luna–”

“Why did you even bring her?” Draco asked with an angry pout. 

Harry looked at him with confusion. “Um because she’s the only one of our friends who’s a third year?” He answered like he was asking his own question. “Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. Luna said you would… I mean she said I should…”

“Spit it out, Potter.”

Harry finally seemed to notice his tone and he paused. “What’s wrong with you?”

Draco felt his whole face heat up and his eyes pricked with tears. He spun around and stomped off down the hall.

***

On Christmas morning, after he was back in Malfoy manor, Draco opened his presents to find an unassuming pair of green shoes. He sighed despondently as he traced his finger over the words, “Converse, All Star.”