Chapter 10
A.N. Edited by Militis. Much thanks.
The lesson with the Dark Lord had ended sooner than he expected. As he left Fortescue’s he felt the little girl’s eyes on him. He turned back and walked to her. She looked panicked.
“What’s your name?” he asked, watching the child-like wariness in her friends. She mumbled an answer, making him ask again.
“Astoria Greengrass,” she replied shamefully.
Oh! A child whose fathers and brothers I took.
“If anyone bothers you in Hogwarts, go to Harry Potter. He is your guardian from now on. Do you understand me?” He met her eyes as he cupped her face, casting a spell using his secret magic. He could almost feel the girl fill with assurance at his touch and words. “Tell your sister the same.”
She nodded and he left feeling like he had done something to ease the damage he had left behind. After recent events the Greengrass name had fallen from favor. The two daughters of the house were vulnerable, but he would be there to protect them if need be.
Gringotts loomed and he entered watching for spies. He could not afford for Dumbledore to find out that Harry Potter had his own vault at the bank. As cagey Goblins were about their own matters, Dumbledore had wielded political power long enough to have contacts within the Goblin nation. Harry was there to tie up a loose end.
He approached a goblin and presented his key. He expected the goblin to point out that he wasn’t Harry Potter, but the creature did not seem to care. So much for the vaunted security of Gringotts. He rode down to the vault Lucius had opened for him with the Lestrange fortune.
“Christ,” Harry muttered, looking at the gold. He had Lucius arrange another wallet like Hagrid had gifted him to carry the gold in. He had also charmed both his old one and the new one to be bottomless. But it would still be painfully tedious to transfer the ridiculously large fortune into two wallets.
“Do you require assistance?” the goblin asked suspiciously.
“Just a moment to think, please,” Harry answered. The rebuke was not lost on the goblin that said something unpleasant in his tongue and left the vault.
Harry shook his head suddenly. I’m an idiot.
He took off the two wallets hanging from his neck and cast engorgio on them until they were as large as trunks. After that it was a matter of few minutes to transfer the mounds of gold and silver into the pouches, and shrink them back to size. He put the wallets back around his neck so they rested securely under his robes.
“I am done here, please close the vault. Harry Potter does not require it anymore. Here’s the key,” he offered to the goblin.
Unbeknownst to him, it was the same goblin Lucius had dealt with. The creature had become highly suspicious but he was happy enough to be rid of the mystery rather than solve it. With an abrupt gesture of his curled hands he vanished the key and the vault disappeared into the wall.
“You don’t like us very much do you?” Harry asked, looking at the old goblin.
“Even breathing the same air with you is disgusting,” the goblin replied with a toothy grin.
“Well, start another one of your rebellions. Until then, get in the cursed wagon and take me up,” Harry replied just as amiably. Fucking goblins.
Harry checked the watch on his wrist, seeing that he had little time left in the polyjuiced body. He ran with as much dignity he could out of the bank.
“Kill two birds with one stone, meet with Voldemort and close my bank account with one dose of polyjuice. What a grand idea.” Harry cussed quietly, finding a shadowed corner to make himself invisible in and change.
Luckily he hadn’t yet had to visit Madame Malkin’s. Narcissa had provided his wardrobe, no doubt happily engaged in her quest to make him seem as lord-like as possible. He changed into the set of robes he carried as a spare, putting an expensive cloak over it. The cloak in the summer heat would draw eyes of experienced Aurors and paranoids otherwise, but he couldn’t afford to be mugged by the curious.
He took a casual stroll down the alley, browsing shops here and there, lost in thought. It amazed him how deeply he had become involved in the alternate world. Even Lucius, who was the perfect expendable thrall had gained some level of protection from him. That is nothing to say for Narcissa who had become an alternating submissive follower and a self appointed mother. Lastly, there was Bianca, who had vowed to protect him. He hadn’t even considered the possibility of trying the ritual again, to see if he would end up back in the right world. As he stood with other children admiring the displayed racing brooms he wondered if he was abandoning his wife and children.
I might end up splitting time, or fall in another world again. There is no guarantee. But where his mind could be convinced he felt guilty in his heart. He heard a bunch of giggles behind him and turned a curious glance to find Astoria Greengrass and her friends. He sighed to himself in defeat. Too late, I’m already committed to the innocents of this world. I can’t leave Bianca, Tonks, or the children I have made fatherless.
It was times like these that he felt great empathy for the man who had run his own life, had set him up to be a martyr, Albus Dumbledore. But he wondered if even Dumbledore had killed as many with his decisions and orders as he himself had. Somehow he doubted it. After all, he had killed his own son to stop a new dark age.
“Harry?!” someone yelled, startling him. He whirled around, his wand slipping down his sleeve to his hand, hidden behind his back. He searched for the source but didn’t see her coming until she was almost upon him. Cloaked and hooded just like him, his sister.
It was as if someone threw a switch, turning him from one state to another. It had been gnawing on him that his family was being kept from him. Seeing the shadow of his daughter’s face in Bianca, that gnawing boiled into possessive rage. She wound through the kids around him rudely, and he stepped forward to take her into a crushing hug.
“Bianca,” he whispered. “This time you’re not leaving me behind.”
Her face was crushed to the side of his, so he heard her whisper back clearly, “I’m sorry, Harry. I messed up. I promised I was going to take care of you. I let you down.”
Harry smiled. “Wasn’t your fault, little one.” He pulled back from her, pushing back her hood enough so he could see her face properly. Intense hazel eyes; she was obviously emotional if the tears were any indication. Dark lashes, all the darker under the hood, and the narrow jaw line softened by baby fat that had reminded him first of Lily Luna. She was family. She was his.
His hand went automatically to take hers, like so many times he had done it with his children. And just in time, as the Girl-Who-Lived’s retinue caught up to her.
“Hey, aren’t you the boy who lived?” a child next to him asked. Harry noticed his hood had fallen off, the now famous sun burst scar on his face plain to see, in the middle of Quidditch fans. It was perfect.
“Yes, I am,” Harry said loudly, putting his hand out to shake. The throng of children closed in on him and Bianca. The bodyguards couldn’t rush in and get Bianca like they had wanted. Too many people were looking their way, and excited children were blocking their path. Harry smiled a wicked smile to himself when the children noticed it was The Bianca Potter holding his hand. Bianca hugged him to her side, putting a protective arm around him and glared at the fans.
“Back off my brother!” she yelled, frightening the excited children. Harry felt her body tense like a spring; her already teary eyes were wild with rage and…fear. Suddenly, it wasn’t funny anymore to play with Bianca’s keepers; because unknowingly he was playing with her feelings. She looked ready to kill. This isn’t normal, she isn’t thinking straight.
“Hey give us some space. We’ve been fighting dark wizards. Sorry about that. It’s just scary, you know. Excuse us, excuse us,” Harry said, making a path into Quality Quidditch Supplies, away from her keepers. The children who had quieted started buzzing again in their wake. Bianca followed him without protest, only shooting baleful looks behind her to stop anyone else from entering the shop.
Harry guided her to the back of the store where the broom maintenance supplies were shelved. That is, away from the shiny displays of racing brooms that attracted the usual customer.
Bianca’s wand hand was trembling, and she had not so subtly moved them both out of easy angles of spell attacks. A tactical move not expected of an eleven year old girl, or even a fifteen year old girl trapped in an eleven year old body. Unless she was a natural survivalist someone trained her to think that way.
“What is wrong, Bianca?” Harry asked softly. She didn’t seem to hear him. He grasped her arm gently. She looked at him as if she was drinking in the sight of him. “Bianca, why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing, Harry. I don’t want anyone to hurt you again.” She hugged him, rubbing circles on his back. Harry looked to heaven in exasperation. Does every woman over ten years younger than me feel necessary to mother me?
It was a second more before he realized the girl was hardly keeping it together. So he returned the favor, gently rubbing her back until she began to relax against him.
“Everything changed. Nothing makes sense,” she mumbled in his shoulder.
Harry’s eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what was happening with Bianca. She overreacts in a crowd, ridiculously protective of me, automatically hides us from line of sight of curses…is worried about seeing me hurt ‘again.’
“We’ll make sense of it together. Now, tell me how you’ve been?” Harry asked, holding her at arm’s length to look at her. She smiled, and something stirred in him, some forgotten memory. His mother and father laughing at him from a picture – she had their mother’s smile.
“You know, before…you couldn’t do magic, but now you can! You can do magic!” she squealed, like the school girl she was, hopping on her feet, and holding his hands. Harry laughed with her, warmed by her enthusiasm. He tried to remember that feeling when he had first touched his wand so many years ago, and known he was magical. He could understand Bianca’s happiness for him.
“Bianca!” a woman’s voice shouted, right before the door to the store slammed open.
“Fuck, that’s my Aunt, we have to get out of here,” Bianca swore.
“You said fuck,” disturbed by hearing the words come out of an apparent eleven year old girl.
The shelves suddenly shook, and a tremble went through the floor. It completely distracted Harry’s shock at his sister’s potty mouth. A mouth that had curved into his mother’s smile just a few seconds ago; he shook his head to dispel his need to give her a talking to.
“She’s mad, she’s already spelling the store. We have to go!” Bianca pulled him further to the back.
“She’s not just good at Arithmancy, is she? She’s a real Arithmancer,” Harry said. “A fucking natural,” Harry cursed, following Bianca’s lead.
“That’s a bad word, you can’t swear!” Bianca snapped.
The air around them hazed, the walls seemed to warp, and straighten. Symbols appeared shining in the equipment.
“It’s too late Bianca, she’s got us covered. Trying to find a backdoor won’t work,” Harry tugged her hand, stopping her before she went into the backroom.
“I’m not leaving you.” Bianca snarled like a cornered animal. Harry began to worry for her again. Whatever had happened to him in the future, Bianca hadn’t dealt well with it.
“It’s best if we just talk to her. She has a net all over the store by now. It will take something really big to break through her traps. A true Arithmancer can predict dozens of probabilities and enchant the surroundings to close off all possibilities except the one she wants,” Harry explained, calmly waiting for the boots stomping towards them to reach them.
Bianca looked panicked and angry. “I know, but I am not leaving you.”
Harry gave her a fierce smile. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The approaching boots came to a stop. Harry squeezed Bianca’s hand, and turned from her to see themselves surrounded by the Order of the Phoenix. ‘Aunt Jamie’ wore leather knee high boots, worn, and practical, she had on an equally weathered maroon cloak. His aunt’s boyish face was just the right side of feminine to be fetching when Narcissa had worn it; but the real woman looked harsh and brittle. It wouldn’t take much to break her, and she is still not looking at me.
“Running away again, Bianca?” Jamie Potter demanded in a deceptively soft tone. Harry saw the others with her tense just a bit, and knew they too had picked up on the undercurrent of antagonism between the aunt and niece.
“Not running away. Just talking to my brother,” Bianca answered. Her hand stayed firmly in Harry’s, and the tilt of her head expressed all the insolence she had left out of her words.
Girl fight, my favorite. Harry fought to keep the grin of his face. He noticed familiar faces of Shacklebolt, Auror ‘super-rack’ Gladys, old harmless Diggle, and the too capable Hestia Jones.
“We have talked about this,” Jamie Potter said in the same dangerously soft voice.
“No, you talked at me. I wasn’t allowed to say anything. Merlin, Aunt Jamie, he’s your family too. He’s your nephew,” Bianca appealed, dropping the rebellious body language.
She looked to her Aunt, begging with her eyes. It cut Harry. He no longer cared to stand by. When Jamie looked at his hand locked in Bianca’s and looked away, he decided to enter the conversation.
“Thank you for coming to my relatives’ funeral, Miss Potter. I hoped you would say hello, but I can see you still can’t look at my face,” he said, taking a guess at his invisible follower.
“How did you - ?” Jamie looked at him in surprise, making eye contact for the first time.
“Told you he was weird,” Auror Gladys muttered.
“Weird? Gladys!” Harry reproached, knowing the woman had been afraid of him since the incident with Fat Todd.
“Weird in a good way,” Gladys held up her hands.
Harry rolled his eyes. “I bet no one ever told you you’re wonderful with kids.”
Gladys looked confused. “Uh, no, they haven’t.” She looked to Shacklebolt, who was unable to hide his suffering sigh.
“We asked Ollivander to make time for us. It would be wise to head over there,” Hestia Jones interrupted Harry tormenting Gladys.
“Bianca, let go of him. We are leaving,” Jamie Potter snapped.
“No,” Bianca said very quietly. “I won’t abandon him.”
Numbers and symbols flashed on the shelves, floors, and broom equipment around them for a moment. Something had changed the probabilities Jamie Potter had enchanted against.
“Auror Shacklebolt, if you could please bring my niece along,” Jamie Potter asked without turning around and started walking away.
Harry had known Shacklebolt for years, He could see the reluctance in the man’s mostly expressionless face. Harry shifted enough so he was facing his old colleague and friend as he moved toward Bianca.
Surprisingly he didn’t have to do anything. Auror Gladys put her hand on Shacklebolt’s wand arm in warning. The tall black man looked askance.
“Harry, please, your sister needs to come with us. She’s not safe. Let her go. You shouldn’t be here either,” Gladys ignored Shacklebolt in favor of trying to talk down Harry. She’s smarter than she looks. None of the others noticed that if I am the real hurdle standing in their way.
“Harry’s not keeping me here. I’m staying myself,” try as she might, Bianca couldn’t help sounding petulant. As far as he was concerned, eleven year old girls, despite knowledge of the future, lost the ability to intimidate to sheer cuteness.
“Gladys, he is just a boy,” Shacklebolt’s deep bass rumbled reassurance.
“I knew your mother and father. They were such a sweet and brave couple,” Diggle suddenly doddered over, as sudden one could dodder.
“Yes, thank you,” Harry said, always uncomfortable when someone spoke of his parents like that. Especially Diggle, who was wont to canonize his friends.
Bianca yelled just as Harry felt her hand rip away from hers. Diggle had distracted him.
“Let me go!” Bianca yelled outraged, kicking and flailing in Shacklebolt’s grip. Her hood and cloak had fallen off of her and her pony-tail hair was in disarray.
“Bad idea, Shacklebolt,” Gladys said nervously looking at Harry, who was standing very calmly.
“This is hardly necessary, why don’t we just bring the boy with us to Ollivander’s,” Hestia Jones added her two-cents in.
“Put her down before this goes all wrong, please.” Gladys kept looking at Harry worriedly.
“I need to get back to work. The sooner we are done in the Alley, the sooner I can leave. I am in no mood to be punished for Miss Potter’s problems with the younger Miss Potter,” Shackleboltt snapped, clearly at the end of his patience.
Harry looked at the symbols appearing and disappearing around them. None of them were aware how hard Jamie Potter was working to keep the situation under control. The probabilities were spinning out of control. Behind all the mystery of the Arithmancy, one face held true: the more power in an environment, the greater the number of things that could happen. At that given moment there was no dearth of magical talent in the shop, despite the presence of a Grand Sorcerer.
Jamie had probably counted on the rest of the Order to not act or interfere, so their magical talent did not have to be accounted for. But they were all acting unlike she had predicted. Bianca going berserk in Shacklebolt’s arms was creating more and more possibilities by the second. Harry wondered if she was doing it deliberately. It was one of the ways to beat an Arithmancer; by making one wild plan after another, without stop, one could overwhelm an Arithmancer’s abilities.
Harry watched Jamie Potter’s slowly bowing back. She was rigid and working hard against the situation getting out of her control. If it went on her traps would begin firing without being triggered. She could bring the store down around them if she didn’t give up trying to control all future possibilities.
There was a quick way to stop her. Harry could summon his power. In a moment it would shatter her grasp on the probabilities within the shop. With his power there were just too many things he could do. It was because of this he was keeping his mind and intentions quiet. He did not want to inadvertently send his sister’s overworked aunt to St. Mungo’s mental damage ward.
He knew this for a fact. In his forty-seven years he had fought all manner of naturally talented wizards and witches. Be they born Arithmancers, Rune Masters, Necromancers, whatever; he knew how to break them.
The best Arithmancer he had met and destroyed was his son. Albus Severus was a natural Arithmancer. He was an incredibly gifted Arithmancer, perhaps terribly gifted. But then he was his father’s son.
Harry had killed his son by simply showing his full potential. It had broken Albus Severus’ mind, and his body had soon followed.
Albus Severus had tried to predict and counter all the possibilities available to his father. Still, there were secrets of his father’s power only known to his two best friends; even his mother had not known all of his father’s secrets.
Even though Albus Severus was a prodigy, even he could not calculate Death. And he died trying to encompass his father’s power with his Arithmancy.
The Dark Son could have one day succeeded his father. But he could never have surpassed him.
The last look on his face was not one twisted with dark magic of hate and greed. It was a look of utter fear.
Terror of the inevitable: his father.
Harry cursed himself, remembering the moment he had drawn the Elder Wand, curled his fingers around the blood stained wood… And watched his son’s expression go from haughty to confused to naked helplessness.
All Harry had to do to save his boy was to let go of the wand in his hand. But he didn’t know.
His beautiful son died in fear of him, unable to comprehend the vastness of the Master of Death.
Oh how Harry had cursed himself, reviled himself for not seeing it soon enough. Not realizing what it would mean for his son, someone sensitive to fate’s working, to be faced with him taking his place.
He saw that Bianca’s eyes were fixed on her aunt’s back. She is doing this on purpose.
“Bianca, stop. You’re hurting your aunt,” his words harshly cut into the sounds of Bianca’s struggling and the adults’ argument.
“Harry?” Bianca called, going limp in Shacklebolt’s arms. She looked to her aunt who was holding her sides trying to keep it together. Shame and fear touched the little girl’s features.
“I know she left me and won’t let you see me. But you won’t feel right hurting her for abandoning me, you’re not the type. You care for her too much,” Harry said quietly, keeping his eyes on Jamie Potter’s back.
Hestia Jones entered his vision, he looked up in her pink-cheeked face to find a solemn look. It seemed odd to him; she was immortalized in his mind as the witch who used to laugh ridiculously at Muggle appliances in the Dursley’s house. She handed him a handkerchief. “You have something on your face, Mr. Potter.”
Harry blinked and touched his face realizing he had tears on his cheeks. Time will never make it easy, Albus Severus. He wiped his face, glad for Hestia’s tact. Maybe I will get to know her better this time, hopefully before she is killed.
“Come, we have to find a wand for your sister,” Hestia said, gesturing to the door. She smiled which made her look a lot younger, and more familiar than the serious look she had before.
“Sure,” Harry shrugged. Kingsley had gone over to whisper something in Jamie Potter’s ear. Harry didn’t hear their hushed argument, but guessed well enough that Jamie Potter wanted nothing to do with him and Kingsley wanted to compromise by bringing him along. Of course, the Aurors should be on my side, I’ve lived in their offices for weeks.
“I know him, Potter. He protected one of mine with his life. He is not an agent of the Dark Lord!” even Kingsley’s hushed voice was deep enough to roll and rumble. Harry kept the smile off his face. The Order was divided over him. The Aurors in the Order were on his side. It made sense that saving Tonks’ life would have gained him their favor.
Harry couldn’t bring himself to care too much at the moment. He was lost in the emotions brought on by remembering his son and the murders of his family. Bianca put her arms around him putting his head on her shoulder; trying to be the big sister she thought she was.
“I thought you already had a wand,” Harry asked.
“Mum’s,” she explained. Harry felt his heart leap a little at that. “I’ve been to Ollivander three times. He doesn’t have the right one for me.”
“Which one did you have last time?” Harry whispered, as Jamie Potter and Kingsley argued.
Bianca shot him an alarmed look. “Oh, right. I was hoping you’d forget that.”
“Not a chance. So?” he asked.
“Holly with a phoenix feather,” she said.
“Huh.” Harry smiled. “That’s the one I have.”
Bianca looked gob-smacked. Now, when she’s distracted.
Harry grinned as Jamie Potter’s Arithmancy calculated traps disappeared just at the right moment. Kingsley had talked her down. Harry put his mouth close to Bianca’s ears. “I feel like pissing off Dumbledore for keeping you from me. You in?”
The mischievous gleam in her eyes was all the answer he needed.
“Gladys?” Harry called, looking over his shoulder.
“Yes?”
“Don’t worry, alright?” Harry said, giving her the look he did every time he blackmailed her into doing something for him. Gladys’ alarmed look made Harry laugh.
“What are you doing, Harry?” Bianca asked with his arms still around his neck.
“Kidnapping you.” With that Harry picked up his sister and realized he was too weak to carry her for long. He then walked straight into the broom shelves, which melted around him, letting him through to outside of the shop. Behind him there were dismayed yells.
Gladys and Hestia will be in trouble. And they probably think I teared up to trick them. Too bad, my blood is mine.
Bianca dropped out of his arms. She looked at the wall of Quality Quidditch and then back at him with big round eyes. “How did you do that?”
“You’re not the only one who travelled back in time,” Harry answered.
“What?!” Bianca shrieked.
Damn women, why do they always have to scream when I try to kidnap them for their own good.
He grabbed Bianca and disapparated, before her guards could run to where they had heard her scream.