Disclaimer: Chances are if you missed the disclaimer in the first chapter, you’re skimming this fic and probably missing more of the story than you think.

A/N: Instead of Where is Waldo, we’re gonna play a short round of Where is the Dresden Files Reference? Thanks go to Voice of the Nephilim, 13thadaption and to the folks of 500 for 500 over at DLP for their input and assistance. Cheers all, your help was invaluable.

Chapter Eighteen

Skeleton Hunt III

The Noir hero is a knight in blood-caked armour. He’s dirty, and he does his best to deny that he’s a hero the whole time.

                                 -Frank Miller

There was a crooked boy who wore a crooked smile, and on his road to power, he walked a crooked mile.

Murderers don’t come from happy homes.

Harry knows he’s treading the line and yeah, the scariest thing about this whole mess? The only differences between himself and Tom Riddle are the times and dates of their respective fuck-ups.

They’ve killed a hell of a lot of people between the two of them.

The soundtrack for this particular nightmare is a funeral dirge. A futile Hail Mary in an hour of desperation and need. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Downtown London is burning.

It burns so hot that the tarmac has turned back into a liquid state, cars sunk into the road up over their axles, all now the uniform grey of burned metal – the paint crisped right off. This is the height of the blaze when London burned the hottest. A red haze hangs over the city. Harry feels like he’s taken a cursed portkey to the planet Mars ‘cause he’s choking on red, alien dust on a red alien earth, everything gone strange and wrong.

Slender needles of rebar jut up out of the ground where there were once flats and offices and businesses. Some of the tallest buildings have burned so hot that the glass has bubbled and run down the sides like candlewax. The heart of the fire is a bright blinding white. Steam rises up from the Thames, the silver glint of fishbelly turned skyward as life dies off within it.

The sky itself looks like it’s on fire, but it’d be a bloody sunrise anyway, a red morning warning.

The concrete beneath Harry’s boots is hot enough to melt a layer of rubber from the soles and he’s uncomfortably warm even through the heavy layers of protective charms on his armour and skin. In the cleared intersection of a four lane highway is a wooden desk and chair, office equipment complete with a potted plant and a full inbox.

“Our thirst for mayhem is not animalistic in its nature,” intones the fat man behind the desk in the compelling resonance of an orator’s voice, someone who could have been a radio announcer or film narrator in another life. “It is purely human. Animals don’t have the leisure to enjoy killing; they kill for food. They kill for territory. They kill for self-defence.”

He smiles at Harry and something dark and thick and black as tar drips from his mouth over the scruffy stubble on his chin. “We kill for pleasure. For us, murder is sport.”

Backlit by the red glow of the inferno, the man is a round blob of void haloed in hellfire, his eyes leached of the intense blue, now the colour of old gold – pennies for the ferryman, have you paid your dues, sir? – but Harry recognizes him all the same.

His picture sits in the training room at the Department of Mysteries where all new recruits must pass through.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

The man’s name is George Pryce.

The Butcher.

The Devil himself.

“Not even six months dead and they’re already badmouthing my good name,” says the jackal-eyed man, more of that lumpy black fluid running down his throat.

It stinks. It stinks like death warmed over and Harry flinches. He knows exactly what it is. It’s not tar or blood or motor oil.

Its raw sewage.

Harry gags, the scent caught on the back of his tongue and he’s sure he’ll puke all over himself. He bends at the waist, spitting bile, hand covering his nose as if it could actually protect him from the foul odour.

Pryce laughs.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Harry gasps out.

“Wrong with me?” Pryce sneers and leans back in his chair, the front of his formal robes dark and wet all down the front. “I thought I’d beaten the stupid out of you, soldier.”

Harry knows he’s never met The Butcher before, living or deceased. “You’re dead.”

Pryce bares yellow teeth at him and they’re as crooked as a picket fence in a backwater trailer park. “And you’ve answered your own question. Looks like you’re not a fucking moron after all.”

A skyscraper a few blocks back from the intersection begins to shake, concrete and steel shivering in the intense heat. It folds in on itself like a house of cards, red dust rising as it falls. And except for the rustle of Pryce’s robes and the sound of his breathing and the Hail Marys murmured in his ear, it’s dead silent; a pocket of calm crouched still and quiet in the middle of Hell.

“What do you want?” Harry means for it to come out short and commanding, but mostly he just sounds tired.

“Just to talk.” Light shines off the man’s pale grey hair as he turns to look around him. “I wanted to remind you of a few things.”

Harry grits his teeth. He hates politicians. It’s always the same power play games – it’s only the players that change.

“Why?” he snaps, not bothering to hide the aggression in his voice.

The man smiles close-lipped and tight, a useless twitch of muscle designed to placate without being sincere. “You’ve lived too long in a reality without rules.”

Things would be a lot easier for Harry if he didn’t have the dead marching through his head each time he closed his eyes.

"So what, now that I'm defective, that I’m…” Harry searches for the right words. “Damaged goods, you think it's okay to fuck around in my brain?”

The Butcher laughs, quick and hard, the sound a short bark of mirth."Harry, you are so far from ‘damaged goods’ it's almost absurd. For all your flaws and blundering screw-ups, you are a thing of razor-sharp intellect and dreadful fucking magnificence. If you are the greatest thing my program ever creates, then I can rest in peace a very satisfied man.”

Pryce leans back in his chair arms spread wide against the backdrop of fire. “And just look at what you’ve done! Look at all you’ve accomplished! Yet you think this is a shameful thing, that this is the fault of your heritage or your shitty Muggle upbringing or the death of your beloved godfather, who as it turns out, you didn’t know very well anyway. Was he a person or a talisman to you?”

Something inside Harry starts howling. It is not a voice; it's not even sapient, thrashing about in his veins – red tide rising, red on the inside, red on the outside –

‘Breathe, Potter, breathe. Don’t let this fucker get to you.’

“I was grieving. You have no right to judge me, you son-of-bitch. At least I had a good reason to kill. I wanted vengeance. But you?” He can’t help but curl his lip in revulsion. “You’re just a cannibal. You’re worse than a fucking vulture.”

“And you think we went and took advantage of you in your vulnerable state of being. You were feeling so vulnerable – ” Pryce says the word the way you’d coo nonsensical endearments to a small and stupid animal. “That when we picked you up, drunk and belligerent, you still had blood caked under your fingernails where you blew Mac Billings head off with his own wand, his wife still asleep in the bed beside him – that was one hell of a mess to wake up to, don’t you think?”

Harry crosses his arms, shoulders pinned back military straight. “He was a known Death Eater. You would have gotten him if I hadn’t.”

“Still pretty impressive for a seventeen year old kid. I wouldn’t have believed you capable of that kind of brutality if we hadn’t been cleaning up your messes for a year and a half before we arrested you. Obviously, the civilian life was not for you – not with Dumbledore’s militia nor as the Ministry’s Poster Boy.

“You came to us raw, bloody, and untested. But the potential you held  – ”Pryce closes his eyes and exhales. “It was like trying to cup a thunderstorm in the palm of your hand.”

Harry shakes his head, the air in his lungs desert-dry and dusty. “What are you getting at?”

Pryce folds his hands atop the desk, viscous black sewage drying on his chin, his eyes like polished basalt. “You are the way you are because of the choices you made. Can’t blame that on anyone else but yourself. The only thing I want to know is why you insist on believing that they were the wrong choices.”

Pryce reaches into a drawer and drops Mac Billings’ head onto the desk, its eyes rolled white in the skull, lips fallen away from the teeth and dried into a leer.

“The Wizarding World has to fear something. Why not yourself?”

Harry blinked up at the thick red folds of his bed hangings for the second time that night, sweat-soaked sheets tangled around his legs. “We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” he muttered over the sound of his dorm mates’ snores.  

---

Tonks and her partner had just finished rounding up a half-naked young wizard tripping on the latest drug out of Knockturn Alley when the murder floo-call came in.

It was her first.

“Gonna get our cherry popped,” said Kent, bouncing on his heels as they walked up to the old Wilson House. It didn’t look much different from the rest of the dreary townhouses lining this part of Knockturn Alley – tall and as narrow as a coffin was long with a black door and iron railings, it looked like it belonged in a fairy tale, one of the nastier ones where Hansel and Gretel weren’t so lucky.

Ignoring her fellow trainee’s nervous babble, Tonks climbed the steps to the townhouse, the damp wood unhappy and creaking under her weight. The heavy oak door had been blasted so forcefully off its hinges that the brass pivots were torn. Stepping aside to let the coroner’s assistants past, Tonks took a deep breath before walking into the stale recesses of the entry hall.

At first she thought the carpet underfoot was made of heavy grey fibres. Then one of her heeled boots slid over the surface of the floorboards below and Tonks realized no, the dust was just that thick.

Kent made a strangled noise behind her, one foot held up in the air, arms raised in an odd, flapping crane position.

Bloody rich boys playing at being men. Daddy’s money could buy him a job, but it couldn’t buy him a proper pair.

“If you can’t handle a little dirt, then you can kindly sod the hell off while the rest of us check out the double homicide,” Tonks snapped, hair standing on end in a bright, red-orange mohawk.

“Tonks,” echoed Kingsley Shacklebolt’s basso over the busy murmur of the Aurors milling about the room.

“Sir?” she replied, perking up. Of all the people she’d been partnered with over the last few months, Shacklebolt was her favourite. No shit, no nonsense, no end of craziness could faze him, calm as a Buddhist monk in the midst of chaos. He also didn’t mind her thousand and one questions and that slight habit of tripping over her own feet.

Like right now.

Tonks caught herself on the doorframe before she could face plant into a pile of debris.

Blood was streaked all the way out into the hallway and it looked like a rather large body had collapsed in the dust before the coroners had moved it. Grateful she’d remembered to take the anti-nausea potion, Tonks joined Shacklebolt’s larger than life form in what looked like the epicentre of a small hurricane.

What was left standing looked like something out of an evil medical laboratory. Tonks caught sight of a shiny pair of pliers that were probably intended to crack open rib bones and shuddered.

“What do you see?” asked Kingsley as he gazed around the room, still cloaked in his impenetrable Zen. “What story does this room tell?”

Tonks reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of Graphorn gloves, her hair shifting to a dusty lavender bob. “Where is the other body?”

Shacklebolt pointed to the largest pile of debris.

Weaving around a pair of Aurors wielding a camera over an ugly spellburn on the floor, Tonks peeked around the wreckage.

This was her third and last year of Auror training. She was used to being escorted into a crime scene after the real law enforcement officers were done with it and asked for her assessment of the events. Nine times out of ten, Tonks was spot on.

But homicide cases were new.

It didn’t look like a body at first.

Her initial impression was that it was a life-sized version of one of those creepy porcelain dolls dressed as a Day of the Dead reveller lying crumpled on a pile of half-singed books. Flexible joints and a face painted in a red rictus of terror with a great dark slash in the belly, something kinda greyish poking out…

Tonks swallowed back bile, determined not to puke at her first homicide scene.

In front of her was a large dark patch where the paint on the wall hadn’t been bleached by sunlight. Judging from the books and broken bits of wood shelving, there had probably been a bookcase there at one point. There was an odd musty dampness to the patch of dust-carpet a few feet away and Tonks had a hunch that if she touched it, she’d still be able to feel the chilly sting of a frostbite hex.

“Tonks?”

She bit her lip, taking a second glance over the body and noting the plain, almost military style of clothes on the body. Raising her wand, Tonks cast a quick diagnostic spell on the area over the body’s stomach. Nothing. It was completely clean of any spell residue.

“Whoever killed the victim,” she replied, answering Shacklebolt’s unasked question. “Is a skilled and experienced fighter.”

The Auror’s dark eyes held hers with steady regard. “Fighter? Not ‘duellist’?”

“The destruction around here is…” Tonks glanced around the room again. “Well, doesn’t it seem like a bit much? And look at the spellburns,” she said, waving a hand around the room. “You have a handful of killing curses, a bone-breaker, a concussion hex, a curse originally intended for demolition and then what? A frostbite hex? An evisceration hex or two?”

“He?” Kingsley intoned, a dark brow climbing his forehead.

Tonks shrugged. “It just seems like a ‘he’. A woman wouldn't be this excessively violent. I know even if I had a bone to pick with someone, I’d just get straight to the point and kill them. But this bloke? It’s like he herded his prey into a situation where he could kill him with his hands instead of his wand.”

“Prey. Interesting word choice.”

“Look at the body. Look at the size of…” Tonks faltered, not wanting to call the body anything other than the body. If she did, then it would break the spell and there really would be a dead man at her feet and a potential killer on the loose – all live and very, very personal.

Shacklebolt nodded, knowing what she was trying to say and not judging her. “The victim is in excellent condition and should have been able to deal with an unskilled physical confrontation. But instead, his hand has three crushed fingers and a broken wrist and he’s been sliced open from hipbone to hipbone. The lack of spell residue says it has to have been done physically.”

“The killer is a skilled fighter,” Tonks repeated, pushing past the nausea. “He uses his environment, his own physical strength, and magic all in conjunction. Duellists are typically snobs who fight with wands alone. Anything else is offensive to them.”

Shacklebolt nodded and began to walk out of the room, Tonks following in his wake.

“The killer very obviously does not have this problem,” he said. “The next logical conclusion would be that he is familiar with Muggle culture – may be even a halfblood.”

“Or Muggleborn,” Tonks finished gloomily, hair turning into limp shoulder-length locks the colour of dishwater. She peeled off her gloves and stuffed them back into her pocket. Tonks was glad she hadn’t had to use them. “Thank god the press is too busy chasing after Black. One Auror dead and another murderer on the loose? They’d throw about confetti and hold a parade.”

Shacklebolt hummed in assent and smiled at her.  

Tonks started, taken back.

“Well done, Miss Tonks,” he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. “You’ve given me much to think on.”

She reached out and shook his hand, feeling somewhat bewildered, yet proud that she’d actually anything to contribute to the investigation. “Thank you sir.”

“Sorry, but I was told to talk to Auror Shacklebolt?”

Tonks turned.

The murmur belonged to a tall, pale-skinned woman with long jet-black hair that held a funny green shine where the light hit it. On second glance, Tonks could see that her irises were too large and too dark to be human, expanding out into the white of the sclera. The woman had her hands hidden in the voluminous sleeves of her russet-hued robes, but Tonks bet that she’d have the webbed fingers of a selkie.

“That would be me.” Kingsley smiled, a flash of white teeth in a dark, handsome face and Tonks could see the young selkie begin to melt, a smile beginning to form in the place of a worried frown.

Tonks hid a smirk. That old charmer.

“I was walking home,” the selkie began, comfortable enough now to gesture with her glove-covered hands as she talked. “And I heard noises from the old Wilson House. I saw a man, tall and shadowed by the lee side of the building, jump out of the window and run. It was only a half-glimpse, but it was enough. I recognized him. He was a patron at the Painted Rose.”

“The Painted Rose? That’s a ways away from here,” Shacklebolt mused, his rich basso rumbling over the words.

“I work there on the weeknights. My flat is two streets over from here and normally I apparate the distance. But I’d had a stressful night so I decided to walk home instead.”

Half-selkie, Tonks amended. Dark creatures didn’t use wizarding magic, whether by choice or lack of ability, which meant the woman in front of her had probably passed her O.W.L.S with enough credits to qualify for apparation lessons. This wasn’t someone who relied on her looks to get by in life - she was more than willing to work her arse off to provide for herself. Tonks reassessed the half-selkie as an intelligent and reliable witness, wanting to kick herself for falling into the trap of preconceived notions.

Shacklebolt dipped his head in response to the young woman’s words. “Can you describe him for us?”

“Tall, lean, dark haired. Striking, with light coloured eyes – you can’t really tell what colour is what under the lighting in the pub unless you can get a close look at things. He also had a scar that ran from here,” she said, pointing her finger to her cheekbone and dragging it across into her hair. “To here. And when his sleeve fell back, I could see some unusually thick scarring around his wrist, too. Not the kind of man you bring home to mum, but certainly the one you’d lie to your husband about.”

“About how old would you say he was?”

“Maybe twenty-ish? Early twenties? I couldn’t tell. He appeared to be young, but…” The half-selkie’s voice trailed off as she pushed a stray black curl out of her face, eyes flicking back and forth over something in mid-air only she could see.

“He lacked the swagger young men tend to put on when they wander into Knockturn looking to prove themselves,” she finally continued. “He had an easy-going manner about him, but he was courteous and carried himself with the composure of somebody much older.”

“That’s a lot of detail to remember about one customer out of a hundred,” said Shacklebolt without reproach.

The half-selkie shrugged pale, lovely shoulders bared by the draping cut of her robes. “He was a memorable individual.”

“Anything else you can tell us about him?”

She shook her head, then paused like she was mulling over whether to divulge more information or not. “Someone met up with him at one of the back tables. This other man was skittish, you might have called him edgier than a drawer full of knives the way he couldn’t stop looking over his shoulder. They seemed like family given how similar they looked and they way they interacted with each other, brothers or maybe cousins considering their ages.

“They quarrelled a bit and I couldn’t hear what they said, not over the usual din in the pub, but they did part ways on amicable terms.”

---

Shit, shit, shit, fucking rookie error, Harry berated himself as he took off from his hiding spot on the balcony of a neighbouring townhouse and disappeared into the crush of wizard folk in Knockturn Alley’s morning rush. He’d wandered back to the rundown townhouse, wanting to see what was happening with the investigation and in the process, he’d learned something new about himself.

Pryce was right.

He was too used to living in a world without rules. Too used to making messes and not having to clean them up: dead bodies lay where they had fallen and were either burned or buried under the rubble. Only that wasn’t the way things went anymore. Now he had to be subtle, had to be clever. He wouldn’t be able to get away with murder anymore.

Hell, even Strome was right.

That was sloppy and careless and stupid and several other negative adjectives he could think of right then and there.

No wonder the vampire was angry with him. All that time spent honing Harry into an assassin’s wet dream and this was what he did with his life?

Harry hadn’t missed the swift colour change of the young woman’s hair, nor had he missed Shacklebolt’s tall bulk among the milling Aurors and coronary staff.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Finding a small, out-of-the-way alley with no overlooking windows, Harry pulled the pewter figurine from his pocket. It shook itself off, then the dog’s eyes blinked, mouth lolling open in a yawn. Its tiny teeth came down on his thumb, pinpricks of blood welling up where it had bitten. Then, with a short tugging sensation in his belly –

– Harry found himself flat on his ass again in the designated Portkey drop near Shorner’s office.

“Goddamnit,” Harry muttered to himself, struggling to his feet.

“First-timer?” asked the grizzled old security guard manning the drop point.

“No.” Harry scrubbed his face with both of his hands, willing the dizziness to go away.  “Just really unlucky.”

Wobbling from the room, Harry stumbled down the industrial grey hallway to the offices. The main floor bullpen was a busy wash of people in an odd mixture of crisp suits and formal robes. One of the aides scurried around him, the tall sheaf of papers in her arms almost crawling with security spells. She gave him the once over, eyes narrowed and suspicious, which combined with her too-tight bun made her face look pointy and bird-like.

Harry began to feel a little self-conscious in his worn jeans, casual appearance way out of place. He fished the shot-bead chain of his dog tags from under his t-shirt and left it on top of his jumper. The suspicion tapered off and Harry darted through the desks as fast as he could without drawing more attention to himself.

Shorner’s office didn’t look much different from the last time he’d visited. Wall-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed full of folios and heavy tomes, his desk half-eaten by the mound of paperwork piled around it.

“What can you tell me about Morticus Calloway?” Harry asked as he closed the door behind him, apparently startling the shit out of Shorner who flinched hard enough to ram his knee into his desk. The man bit out an expletive through gritted teeth, glaring at Harry with watering eyes.

“Do you have a grudge against knocking on doors?” said Shorner irritably, pushing his chair back from his desk as he clamped a hand over his bruised appendage. He looked back up at Harry. “Calloway? Why do you ask?”

Like pulling a tooth, it was best get it over with all at once.

“Because before I killed him yesterday evening he attacked me and an Auror all kamikaze style. Didn’t even bother to be stealthy, just started throwing around Killing Curses like you wouldn’t believe.”

Shorner blinked. “What? Wait, what?”

Harry nodded, bracing his hands on the back of Shorner’s sturdy wooden guest chair in front of his desk. “Yeah, I didn’t think it was a coincidence either. Someone’s cleaning house in the DoM, and I’m not sure if they meant to get rid of me or him.”

His handler held up a hand as if to ward off Harry’s flow of words. “You killed who?”

“Morticus Calloway,” Harry repeated in short, clipped tones.

“Good God, Harry.” The other man paused, blinking at mid-air. “When did this happen?”

“Yesterday evening.”

That caught his attention.

Something like anger sparked in Shorner’s eyes. “And you didn’t think to tell me then?” he ground out.

Harry didn’t even try to defend himself. “I know,” he agreed.

“Why didn’t you? I could have had this cleaned up within the hour and nobody would have been the wiser.”

“Not possible. An Auror was killed in the process.”

“You – you murdered an Auror?” Shorner gaped at him, horror etched into the slack lines of his features.

His grip on the back of the chair tightened and Harry could hear the wood creaking under his hands. “I murdered no-one!” Harry snarled, voice riding down the register until the words emerged at an almost sub-vocal rumble of fury, like thunder rolling over the horizon.

“Harry – ”

“Archie, he was some unfortunate bastard that got caught in the crossfire. Mort ripped his throat out before I could tell the stupid son-of-a-bitch to get out of there. I didn’t have the time to flash a badge number and qualifications at him – Mort had been stalking me for fifteen minutes beforehand with the intent to kill and I just couldn’t do anything about the situation.

Cutting Shorner off before he could open his mouth, Harry spat out, “It happened too fast. Things are a lot different out in the field. There is no room for error, no time to think on the morality of your actions, but you’ve got to keep planning and calculating on your feet because a single mistake could be your last.”

Shorner raised both hands in the air in a gesture of submission. “I understand. I only wish you had told me earlier than today. I will have to make a full enquiry into your actions and the actions of your fellow agent and this incident may end up as a black mark in your record.”

Harry let out an unhappy bark of laughter and crossed his arms as he watched Archie pull out a fresh sheet of parchment from under the piles of paperwork. “Wouldn’t be the first.”

Shorner stopped searching for a quill and looked up, eyes sharp with anger. “This time around? Yes, it is.”

Harry swallowed, taken back and not sure what to think.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Shorner repeated, gentle despite his apparent anger.

“I guess I’m too used to living in a world without rules.”

The other man shook his head in frustration, glancing away from Harry to scan over his bookshelves before meeting his eyes again. “Talk to me,” said Shorner. “I can’t do anything about the past, but I can run damage control from here. Tell me everything that happened.” He pointed a finger at Harry, expression fixed and intent. “And I mean everything.”

---

The Main Hall of Hogwarts was lit with a bright splash of sunlight, house banners vibrant and proud in the late-morning glow.

Harry’s stomach growled as he climbed up the entry hall stairs, reminding him that he hadn’t had breakfast yet despite being up for close to five hours already. The timeturner hummed against his skin where it was tucked under his shirt. Hands in his pockets, head tilted down and lost in thought, Harry almost walked past Dumbledore without noticing.

“A lovely morning for a stroll, isn't it?”

Harry flinched, muscles straining against the demands of long ingrained reflexes to attack.

“Professor!” he managed to gasp out, failing miserably in his attempts to save face. “I didn't see you!” He rubbed damp palms on his denims, nerves still jangling. “I'm sorry, I know it's close to when classes start.”

The Headmaster smiled, warm and knowing, a certain fondness etched into the lines of his face. Tiny silver stars swirled in loose, dizzy loops on the Headmaster's dusky purple robes and Harry found his gaze caught before he could shake the hypnotic distraction from his mind.

“I wonder, Harry,” said Albus Dumbledore. “If you might take a short walk with me.”

Harry swallowed, his throat sandpaper dry. “Sure, I don't mind.”

“I find myself curious as to where your adventures took you this morning.” The Headmaster’s tone was light and mild-mannered and had Harry been anyone else, he too would have believed it to be nothing more than an idle statement of curiosity.

It wasn’t a question. It was a subtle, but firm request and Harry knew well the hazardous pitfalls of the Headmaster’s clever wordplay.

“I… went for a walk around the lake.”

Dumbledore’s brows rose. “Some of that edges into the Forbidden Forest, Harry,” came the gentle rebuke.

“I know. I needed to stretch my legs for a bit, though. I was starting to feel cooped up here.”

“It was never in my intentions to make you feel like a prisoner.”

Harry couldn’t help the wisp of nostalgia that stole through him. He’d heard that statement many times before Dumbledore’s death. And for all of Albus Dumbledore’s past mistakes, Harry had found his only real crime was that the man was far too forgiving of the damned and the hopeless. He smiled at his old mentor.

“I know it’s not,” he replied. “And I get it. There are a lot people who are all too willing to take a shot at me given half a chance.”

“That’s very wise of you.”

Harry shrugged, long legs falling into cadence with his old mentor’s stride. “Necessity is a harsh teacher.”

“She is indeed. Would you care to join me for brunch? This old man could use some company.” Dumbledore laid a finger to the side of his long, crooked nose, a spark of conspiring humour in his eyes. “And some peace of mind, if you please.”

Harry couldn’t help, but grin at the Headmaster’s antics. As much as he disagreed with the man’s politics, he’d missed the old man’s good-natured humour when he was gone, one of the last sparks of light and verve and hope snuffed out of Harry’s life. The countdown to the end had begun there, that tick, tick, ticking of a phantom chronometer winding its way down.

Giving up had been a whole lot easier after that.

“– Harry?”

A shiver danced over his skin. “Sir? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

Bright eyes peered past bushy white brows, concern drawn in the lines of Dumbledore’s visage. “Are you quite alright, Harry?”

“Of course, Professor. My mind just drifted a bit. I’d love to join you for brunch.”

Albus Dumbledore was anything, but stupid. “Excellent!” he replied, taking the hint that Harry didn’t want to discus the topic any further. “Would a short detour through the kitchens be amiss? I’m feeling rather peckish myself and I’m afraid all that’s left in the Great Hall are scraps.”

Harry managed to smile through the low-welling tide of grief lapping at the shoreline of his emotions. “Thank you, Professor,” he said, voice taking on a hoarse note despite himself. “I’d like that.”

‘Get a hold of yourself, Potter.’ As if the Headmaster wasn’t cataloguing his every reaction to chew over in the late hours of the evening.

Dipping his head in acknowledgment, Dumbledore folded his hands behind his back as the two meandered their way towards the kitchens. “I’ve heard all good things from your teachers so far, though I believe Professor McGonagall would like for you to study up on the practical side of transfiguration.”

Stifling a wince, Harry nodded in reply. His first transfiguration lesson of the year had been mostly a put on show of futility. The material itself was easy – stuff he could do in his sleep. But the Holly wand had been reluctant to respond, turning uncomfortably hot in his palm, not quite spitting sparks, but close.

Harry didn’t remember Ollivander’s full spiel on his wand, but he was certain ‘temperamental’ and ‘sullen’ weren’t part of the wandmaker’s descriptors.

Dumbledore cast him a glance from over the rims of his glasses.

“Yeah,” Harry said, realizing his old mentor expected an answer of him. “I’ve always struggled a little with transfiguration. I mean, I get the theory just fine – it actually makes a lot of sense once you get through all of the weird jargon – but I don’t think I’m quite as suited for the subject as my dad was.”

He wasn’t lying. For all of his other talents, transfiguration remained one of his worst skills. Most of the upper-level transfigurations were an exercise in pulling teeth.

The Headmaster hummed in agreement. “You’ll often find that certain traits will sometimes skip a generation in the older Families.”

Unease rippled down his spine. Harry didn’t know why his subconscious had capitalized ‘Families’, but it destroyed any sense of ease Harry felt in the Headmaster’s presence. This conversation was merely an interrogation cloaked in a sheep’s skin as to hide the canny old wolf’s sharp teeth beneath.   

Dumbledore smiled. “Perhaps the talent will pop up again in your children?” he queried.

If he were anybody else, Harry would have ripped his head off and shit down his throat. He would never bring children into this world. Not this Hell. Not when the only thing he’d leave for them was a legacy so bloody, it was almost worse than what he had fought against.

Perhaps sensing the darker turn of Harry’s thoughts, the Headmaster skilfully changed the subject. “Your mother on the other hand showed a remarkable gift for charms work. A gift, I hear she has passed on to you. Have you given any thought to studying the Art of Animation?”

“I have,” said Harry. “But I’d have to learn Kinetomancy first and I don’t know how Professor Flitwick would feel about me jumping ahead of his curriculum.”

“I’m quite sure he wouldn’t mind at all,” Dumbledore replied as they turned the corner, a pair of fourth years darting past them towards McGonagall’s classrooms at the front of the school.

“In fact,” his old mentor continued, seeing that Harry’s attention was still fixed on him. “I believe if you presented your wish to study Animation, Fillius would be very accommodating.”

Harry didn’t know how else to play an ‘average’ student except to explain away some of his skills as inborn talent. It didn’t make things any easier though, and Harry was beginning to wonder how he was going to extract himself from Hogwarts without undue attention being thrown his way.

“Are you sure?” he asked Dumbledore, frowning as if he doubted the veracity of the Headmaster’s assurances. “I’m no Hermione.”

Dumbledore smiled. “Quite sure. You’re a good deal younger than his usual students of Animation and Kinetomancy, but I believe that you are capable of rising to the occasion if you apply yourself.”

The staircase groaned under them and began to pull away from the wall.

Harry swayed with the momentum of the staircase’s abrupt movement. “I’d have talked to him after class yesterday if I hadn’t thought it was too early in the year to ask about more advanced material.”

“I understand.” The stairs rumbled to a halt at the hallway leading to the kitchens and the Headmaster stepped off as if he hadn’t even noticed the move. “I must confess Harry, I did have an ulterior motive in speaking with you this morning.”

Albus Dumbledore was the kind of man who didn’t like asking questions that he didn’t already know the answers to.

“Motive?” Harry parroted, deciding to play dumb. He wasn’t sure what the Headmaster had tucked up his sleeve. He had been as circumspect as possible when leaving the castle, hadn’t performed any magic outside of classes, no late night wandering around either.

Whatever it was had to be serious, because he hadn’t seen that expression on his old mentor’s face since he was seventeen years old and he’d just been arrested under suspicion of murder. The man had walked directly into the interrogation room where Harry was held and asked him in a voice wracked with disbelief: “Did you do this?”

Harry never wanted to see that look directed at him again. It was shock and grief and stunned disbelief. It was the expression a parent wore when they turned on the telly and realized that the boy on the screen, the one standing on the bridge with one foot lifted in the air, telecasters glibly throwing around sound bytes like jump and fly and suicide, the loose cotton of the boy’s t-shirt caught in the wind like white bird’s wings, dark blue water waiting below and the only thing holding him up was sky – that stunned realization that boy was their own son, that was what Dumbledore’s expression was like.  

And perhaps Dumbledore had seen him jump. Hell, he’d jumped right in front of him. Swan-dived right off into the deep end. Harry wasn’t proud of it, but he was one of the few people capable of wringing such intense anguish from Albus Dumbledore.

There was only a hint of that look on the Headmaster’s face, but Harry knew what lurked beneath that calm façade.

Swallowing back his guilt, Harry asked, “I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir.”

“Harry, I’m a bit troubled by some of the occurrences on the train.”

Harry stopped in front of the still life of a bowl of fruit. The rest of the hallway to the kitchens lacked any other portraits or spying ears. “The dementors.”

His mentor turned to face him, the golden frames of his glasses winking in the light. “Yes, I find myself concerned by your reaction to the dementors. And by the fact you haven’t sought any answers for the incident as well.”

“I haven’t reacted to them since,” Harry replied, meeting Dumbledore’s eyes without fear. Not surprisingly, the man didn’t even make the slightest effort to test his Occulomency shields. His mentor was not a hypocrite – he did not make demands of other people that he did not expect of himself and to Albus Dumbledore, the mind was a man’s sanctuary and should be treated with respect.

There were times when Harry felt ashamed of himself, that he could and would voluntarily violate someone else’s mind without care or guilt. But never for the action itself.  

The Headmaster spread his hands in acquiescence. “It does not erase what happened to you, Harry, but I have done my best to ensure that no other student will ever experience what you did. The dementors are banished from the school grounds and only patrol the borders of Hogwarts.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t erase what happened. But it does help. I’m not so wrapped up in myself that I can’t see what you’re doing or how much you care for your students.”

At Dumbledore’s raised brow, Harry amended. “Hey, I’ve been working on this ‘growing up’ thing.”

“I see.” Disbelief was a subtle note in the Headmaster’s expression, but Harry knew what to look for. Dumbledore was far too astute to accept his lies at face value. The best Harry could hope to achieve was misdirection, which would only buy him time for so long.

Harry tickled the pear in the painting. The door swung open, revealing the cheerful chaos of the kitchens, house-elves swerving every which way, carrying heavy platters of half-prepared ingredients, armfuls of cleaning supplies and other whatnot.

A tiny, squeaky-voiced elf wearing what appeared to be a pastel-yellow shower curtain scurried up to the pair and curtseyed. “What can Missy do for sirs?”

Dumbledore smiled down at the house-elf, some of the heavy tension leaving his countenance. “Breakfast, if you please, Missy.”

They were situated at the small corner table; only enough room for a pair of forks and the plates piled high with food, before Dumbledore broke the silence.

“Harry, have you ever encountered dementors before?”

Harry stopped chewing and swallowed with difficulty, the lump in his throat more than just metaphorical.

“Yes,” he finally said.

There really was no other way around it.

“Dementors aren’t easy to deal with on the best of days,” Dumbledore replied. “How on earth did you run into them?”

Harry was startled by the sudden deep, harsh laughter bubbling up out of his throat. “Bad luck and chance.”

Before he died, there had to have been at least a hundred dementors for every person still alive. Nausea stirred in his belly, the sense-memory scent of burning things and the cold, sickly-sweet smell of the rotting dead so strong he could almost taste it.

Dumbledore sat straighter in his chair, alarm beginning to show in his posture. “You seem to have had quite an eventful summer.”

“I wish I could tell you more,” Harry stated quietly.

‘I really do,’ he thought. ‘But I don’t trust you.’

He hadn’t said it out loud, but Harry didn’t have to – Dumbledore was an old hand at picking up the understated and unsaid. His expression tightened and he spoke in a creaky old man’s wheezing breath, “Who was it that took you from Privet Drive?”

‘Me, myself, and I.’

Harry swallowed back a loon’s giggle. “I can’t tell you yet, but if it makes you feel any better, it’s someone you know. And I think it’s someone you used to trust.”

He shook his head when he saw his mentor beginning to form his next question. “I’m to remain reticent on these matters. There are several competing interests in the Ministry who are far too interested in taking advantage of whatever they can sink their claws into.”

The timer charm on Harry’s watch went off, letting him know he had less than five minute to make it to class.

Dumbledore leaned forward, placing a hand on Harry’s side of the table as if it would hold him in place. “Are you in any danger?”

“Only from myself,” he replied. The joke fell flat and Harry regretted his flippant words as soon as they left his mouth.

Something akin to desperation and frantic worry entered Dumbledore’s expression and this time, his mentor made no effort to hide his concern. “Harry. If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I can’t help you.”

Harry was beginning to feel like one of those amputee victims who claimed that their feet were cramping when their legs had been blown off well above the ankle. The central nervous system was already wired before birth and the body was so used to having feet and ankles and shins and kneecaps that the neurons were still firing off signals as if there were. And here he was bemoaning that he couldn’t talk to the one person who should have known him better than himself, but when it came down to it, Harry was the only one to blame.

After all, it’d been his fault the Death Eater assassin made it into the Great Hall. Harry hadn’t been able to stop himself from sneaking through the secret passages to hunt down Death Eaters, leaving Dumbledore unable to raise the outer wards, the final bulwark against invasion that would seal off the castle.

“I’m the last person who deserves your concern.”

Dumbledore’s blue eyes went wide behind his glasses and Harry fled the kitchens before the Headmaster could respond.

This wasn't the first time Harry felt exhausted by the manic tap-dancing needed to stay ahead of what was to come, but his efforts were beginning to feel like a pitiful wall of sandbags braced for a storm that would swallow the sun.

---

Pale September sunlight warmed Remus’ hands folded atop the desk.

There was something fundamentally wrong about sitting on this side of the classroom – like watching the sun come up on the wrong side of the sky.

Oh sure, it’d seemed a great idea in the Headmaster’s office; the way Albus Dumbledore had framed the notion of teaching, made the sharing of his wealth of knowledge with the younger generations appear noble and erudite. But now with the prospect of an entire classroom filled with the little hellions staring him in the face…

The classroom Dumbledore assigned him had been used as a lecture hall when Remus attended Hogwarts. Now, it was a divided classroom and living quarters. Lined with windows stretching from floor to the castle’s cathedral ceilings, it sill felt like a vast, cavernous area despite being crammed full of Dark Arts artefacts for his upper years’ lectures and cages of dark creatures for his younger years.

Remembering that his next class was with Gryffindors and Slytherins, Remus stood and began directing all breakable or dangerous objects from the classroom, cages growing legs and scurrying out of sight, Dark Arts paraphernalia flying off into his office.

Obviously, the Gryffindors would want to sit near the windows, all that light and open air a temptation for daydreams. The Slytherins would claim the desks nearest the wall and closest to the door so that whatever came through the windows would eat the foolhardy Gryffindors first while the Slytherins got away. Remus had never met a more paranoid bunch.

The old grandfather clock in his living quarters chimed the turning of the hour, audible all the way into the classroom and Remus felt his blood turn to ice.

Fifteen minutes from now, James’ son would walk through those doors and Remus was woefully unprepared. This was Remus’ first class and what was probably the first crowd the werewolf had been in since the events following October thirty-first, 1981. Shaking, Remus reached out and braced himself on the windowsill, his composure slipping through his fingers like smoke. He’d spent twelve years wandering the remote parts of the world, learning all that he could and this was what came of it?

Why, oh why had he let Albus talk him into teaching?

In truth, Remus Lupin wore calm the way a duck wore feathers.

It was a natural adaptation to his environment, sharing his mind and body with the savage brute that lived within his flesh. As if he could control the beast's instincts by drugging it into insensibility with wolfsbane and a bhikkhus’ disciplined tranquillity. Remus knew the real reason why he locked himself up on a full moon, the real reason behind the monster's destructive tendencies: It was easier for an animal to vent his frustrations on the walls of his cage than a man to take responsibility for the damage he'd wrought on other people.

So if he'd come to expect the worst of a situation, then it was just another natural adaptation on a long list forced upon him on an ill-fated night when the moon was high.

He’d lived with it for this long – he’d cope. The world couldn't change to accommodate every supernatural curse, after all. Too many different beliefs and everyone knowing that they alone were right and righteous. But he hated, hated it for what they'd done to his relationship with James Potter. They were friends for so long, and James was the first of the other Marauders to have gone the extraordinary length of becoming Animagi for him. And even then, James let prejudice reach him as the werewolves began siding with Voldemort en masse.

And it killed him. 

A few weeks before October 31st of 1981, Remus went to see James after an Order meeting. He showed up in an unscheduled visit at the pub James frequented in the little village by Godric's Hollow. With all of the suspicion thickening the air over his loyalties, James wasn't too pleased. Remus' temper stirred from its slumber and both him and James exchanged words of a decidedly hostile nature. And eventually, they came to blows over their differences, inciting a bloody and violent pub brawl.

But sometime in the moments after the fight, Remus realized that James was going to die.

He'd known this, known it to the core of his being, the wolf howling the distress inside him that Remus couldn't bring himself to voice. James had escaped Voldemort by the skin of his teeth too many times already. The centre could not hold and this time, the odds did not fall in James’ favour. Because despite Dumbledore's considerable protections, despite James' clever trickery and creative warding, despite Lily's power and skill, Voldemort was going to walk into James' home and destroy his family.

And he'd been too much of a coward to say anything because how could you tell someone that they were going to die, when they thought you a potential traitor and spy? When the only proof you could offer them was the sinking feeling in your stomach and the chill on your spine?

Remus let his best friend walk away with the imprints of his fists bruising James' face, the words of warning stuck in his throat.

Twelve years was a long time to mourn someone.

The classroom doors swung open and the students shuffled into the classroom in a large, noisy herd.

His first impression of James' son had been the aftermath of a dementor encounter gone horribly wrong. Harry’ countenance was that of a terrified young man spattered in sticky black blood, green eyes wide and glassy, skin white as milk and drawn with horror. It lent the boy a ghoulish air, more ghastly phantom than flesh and blood boy.

It was the sort of introduction that stuck with a person.

In the polished glass of the windowpane, he watched Harry stand with his friends amongst the milling students in the doorway of the classroom and marvelled. In the flush of health, Harry's resemblance to his parents was so uncanny that Remus wondered if their ghosts were reaching out to him from the beyond. It was a curious thing to watch the shape of James' mouth stretch into Lily's smile; to watch Lily's eyes gleam with James' mischief; to see James' build with Lily's height, Lily's cheekbones on James' thin face. And if Harry was the perfect mesh of his parents in his physical traits, he was like neither in personality.

James was... playful as a boy and if that tendency bordered on cruelty, then it was a by-product of being a very privileged only-child. The Potters were rich, older, and doting. James reflected all of that. He could in turn also be very charming, loyal, and self-sacrificing. It was a duality of nature that served him well and it went hand in hand with being naturally gifted in almost everything he touched. He'd become a Master of Transfiguration in his sixth year and an Auror Apprentice in his seventh based on his duelling skills alone. He'd taken First in the national duelling contests and Third internationally, not to mention the numerous Quidditch teams that had bid highly for his skills as a Chaser.

It was a formidable résumé.

And Lily... Lily was beautiful.

Lily was beautiful in a way that made most people stupid with lust and envy. She could fill a crowded room to the corners with her presence and still make someone feel like they were the only person there worth her interest. Like James, she was a natural entertainer and was the centre of attention in every crowd.

Remus hadn’t known her that well, but what he remembered…

She too, was an impossible figure to live up to.

Time had worn off all of their rough edges, turning Lily and James into saints and martyrs, more legend than real people.

Harry was not what he'd expected.

Not even close.

He thought he'd find a little Lily or a miniature James.

The quiet, lanky boy with the watchful eyes acted more like a kicked puppy than anything like his long dead parents. Thinking back on the shrivelled husks of the dementors, Remus reminded himself: Sometimes, kicked dogs turned mean.

Remus mustered a smile and turned to face the class. “Good Morning! Welcome to this year's Defence Against the Dark Arts. My name is Remus Lupin. Now I'm not a stickler for grand titles of respect – but I would like to be called something other than, 'Hey you!'”

A ripple of laughter went around the room.

Remus counted that as a victory and went on. “I just want to go over a few things before we begin. Does everyone have a copy of Taylor's A Journey into the Dark Arts?”

A slight blonde with a green and silver emblem on her robes shook her head.

“No?” Remus asked. “Do you have somebody you can share with until you can get a copy?”

The girl sitting next to her shoved her desk closer and flipped her book open so it rested on both desks. “Here, Daphne,” she said, tucking a dark curl of her short, blunt bob behind her ear. “Share with me for now.”

“Thank you. Pansy Parkinson, is it? Two points to Slytherin for taking the initiative,” said Remus, ignoring the sound of muted grumbling issuing from the red and gold side of the classroom. “Does everyone also have a copy of Carnivorum Formidulosus?”

Remus glanced at several students whom Albus had brought to his attention, taking a special notice to the wide berth the Malfoy heir kept between him and Harry. Draco Malfoy's account of what happened on the train painted a gory picture of adrenaline-fuelled aggression rather than the befuddled fear of a typical dementor encounter.

Which was a curious reaction for a thirteen year old to possess. It spoke of a certain experience with fear, extreme fear of the life or death sort – a reflex to attack instead of cower – that nobody, let alone a Third Year, should have. And let alone the fact that the way he'd killed them indicated an intimate knowledge of dementor physiology.

A skilled Occulomens might be able to function through the effects of a dementor in order to get close enough to kill one, but...

Who would want to get close enough to a dementor to find out how to kill it?

“You won't need your books today,” said Remus. “But I will expect you to have them ready by the time we meet again next week.” The few students who hadn't admitted to their lack of books looked relieved. “As I've understood it, you've never had a practical Defence lesson save for a rather disastrous incident last year with a cage of pixies.”

Some of the students' smiles looked a little too gleeful.

“I thought I'd give you a bit of experience dealing with what we'll be covering in this year's class. Every other lesson will be a practical one –”

A murmur of excitement ran through the classroom.

“And!” Remus called out over the noise. “I will not be assigning a lot writing either!” He knew he'd be a shoe-in for teacher-of-the-year on his last statement alone. “Believe me, I despise grading essays almost as much as you hate writing them.

“However, I will be grading you on your physical interaction with the various dark creatures I'll be bringing in for you to study,” he said, watching the class sober immediately. “On the off days, we will be discussing passages from A Journey into the Dark Arts.”

A hand shot up into the air.

“Yes, Hermione?”

The bushy-haired witch sitting beside Harry straightened the cuffs of her robes and spoke. “Isn't that book a little controversial for this class?”

Remus almost smiled. “Do you feel it's an inappropriate choice of study material?”

“Parts of the book are very, ah...” she began, voice wavering.

“Descriptive?” drawled Pansy Parkinson, turning in her seat to face Hermione. “Racy?”

Hermione's lips thinned and she drew herself upward, spine stiff and straight. “Yes,” she said, not batting an eyelash.

The heavy-set witch sitting behind Pansy snorted gracelessly. “Un-wad your panties, Granger. Most of us are almost fourteen,” said Millicent Bulstrode. “Not like we're little kids here.”

“I actually think the book is a good choice,” announced Pansy to the class at large. “I read it when it first came out over the summer and I think that the book is highly appropriate for this class. We're a Defence Against the Dark Arts class, yes? Then what better to study than a book on the dark arts written by a dark wizard?”

Blaise Zabini kicked his chair back on two legs and smirked. “Know thine enemy,” he said from his position on the back row. The dark-skinned boy looked remarkably like his mother and Remus knew that come sixteen, seventeen years old, Blaise would make his way through the female population much like a young Sirius Black of yesteryear.

“What about the whole 'When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you' rot?” queried Finnegan.

“That's 'you become what you behold',” corrected Hermione. “And yes, you have a good point. Some of what's written in A Journey into the Dark Arts could be considered encouraging towards experimenting with dark magic.”

A blonde witch Remus identified as Lavender Brown rolled her eyes. “What harm could a book do?”

Remus watched Harry's eyes flick towards Draco Malfoy, who was already looking at him from across the classroom.

“A lot more than you think,” muttered the red-haired boy on Harry's left.

“Five points to both Slytherin and Gryffindor. I'm glad to see everyone chiming in here,” said Remus with a smile. “I must confess that I was worried A Journey into the Dark Arts might be a bit above your level, but I can see that my fears were unfounded. Well done, everyone. Well done. I will let you know now that I'll be counting class participation towards your grade.

“But I will not detract from your grade should you choose not to join the conversation. I understand that some of these topics are a bit sensitive and not everybody wishes to share their views.”

He recognized the solemn note on both Draco Malfoy's and Neville Longbottom's faces, which bespoke of an understanding that both held secrets they would not willingly share with their friends and classmates – Draco of his father's deeds in the war and Neville of his parents' torture.

“Can anyone tell me what a boggart is?” asked Remus, switching topics abruptly.

“A shape-shifter, sir,” came Hermione's voice from the back of the class. “It forms itself into what it thinks will frighten us the most. They like small, dark places to hide in such as cupboards and closets – if it can fit itself in there, it will.”

“They're a nuisance, is what they are,” muttered Pansy with an irritable toss of her head.

“Both of you are quite right,” Remus agreed, as he turned and wrote the boggart's characteristics across the chalkboard. “They're a problem many of the older homes in Britain suffer from. As you'll find in Carnivorum Formidulosus, boggarts are attracted to great sources of magic – especially an ambient magic built up over a long period of time. Now this is a somewhat confusing characteristic because like dementors –”

Remus was aware of the many eyes fixed upon him. But he stiffened, as a green stare bore into the back of his skull. He knew instinctively whom those eyes belonged to.

“– they feed off of intense human emotions; in the boggart's case, fear instead of despair, rather than magic itself like a vampire via blood or as a veela would off of desire.”

“Uh-oh,” said Seamus Finnegan to muffled snickers.

Remus turned to face the class. “This particular boggart moved into the staff wardrobe the day before yesterday. I asked Professor Dumbledore to leave it for my third years and he was kind enough to honour my request.”

With a flourish, Remus removed the silencing spell and Disillusioned the wardrobe at tend of the classroom. The wardrobe rattled and shook as the boggart tried to jiggle the lock loose.

Several pairs of startled eyes whirled to the back of the classroom.

“Yes,” said Remus, his demeanour calm and unruffled. “That would be the boggart in question.”

Some of the students gave him a look like he'd lost his sanity for bringing such a creature in without informing them prior to class.

“If you'll please pack up and move your belongings to the wall on the left,” said Remus, serene expression firmly in place.

As the students picked up their bags and stood, the desks and chairs grew little wooden lion's feet and trotted out of the way. Seamus yelped, as his chair took off with him still seated.

Eventually, the children stood in a rough semi-circle in front of the wardrobe. Shuffling about nervously, they watched the wardrobe jump and shudder as the boggart beat itself against the insides.

“As of right now,” Remus called out as he walked along in front of the class, careful to keep his eyes off the dancing wardrobe. “The boggart is still contained in darkness and has not assumed a form. It hasn't seen us yet so it will have no idea of what frightens us the most.” Remus focused on Harry, who was warily flicking his gaze between him and the wardrobe. “We still have a big advantage over the boggart. Do you see it, Harry?”

The boy shook his head, shoulders hiked up around his ears, eyes suddenly glued to his ratty trainers.

“It won't know what shape to be,” spoke up the red-haired boy standing next to Harry. Ron Weasley was easily the tallest boy in his class, beating out both Harry and Dean Thomas in the height categories. So when he stepped forward to stand next to Hermione Granger, the majority of Harry's bulk was neatly hidden behind Ron. “There's too many of us here for it know what will scare us.”

Remus hadn't missed how relived Harry was to be out of the spotlight. Or how Ron had nudged him in the ribs after Harry refused to answer.  

“Exactly! Two points to Gryffindor. The boggart will become confused and try to turn itself into several things at once. If a group of people shared between them the fear of mummies and sharks, the boggart may try to turn itself into a dead shark wrapped in bandages.”

The little blonde girl, Daphne, wrinkled her nose with a grimace. Pansy patted her shoulder in sympathy.

“Or,” Remus continued, keeping a straight face. “It may just turn into a toilet roll with gills.”

The class burst into laughter.

Remus smiled. “Yes, laugh! It's your greatest tool against a boggart! The boggart cannot stand laughter, cannot bear it. Laughter is anthema to a boggart. There is a very simple charm to repel them, but it requires a strong will and – ” He grinned; the whole class was enthralled. “A certain sense of humour.”

Harry finally smiled and though it was small, it was like the sun had come out from behind heavy clouds.

“I want you all to practice saying the charm before we begin,” said Remus, elated that things were going so well. “Repeat after me: Riddikulus!”

“Riddikulus!”

Remus noted that a few had only mouthed the words instead of saying them out-loud. “Again!” he called out.

“Riddikulus!” the class cried out. The wolf's sensitive ears picked out Harry's low voice rumbling along under it all. Remus' eyebrows rose. Well, that would explain why the boy was so reluctant to speak up in class. Just coming into his teens and already his voice was breaking – no wonder Harry was so shy.

“Nicely done! For the next part of this lesson, I'll need a volunteer. Anybody feeling brave enough?”

Severus' throw-away comment about animal tendencies in the staffroom should not have affected Remus' ire. He was used to far worse in everyday life. But somehow, just the same as when they were schoolboys, Severus Snape's vitriol wormed its way under his skin, scoring a direct hit on a place he'd no longer thought as vulnerable.

“Neville,” said Remus, hating how effortless it was to start the cycle of malicious pranks once more. Neville's terror of Snape was too well-known to pass up. “Would you please join me in front of the wardrobe?”

The boy, just now beginning to grow out of the plumpness of childhood, shook his mother's thick brown hair from his eyes and started forward, nervous like he was headed to his own execution. Here was another child that should never be this timid. Frank and Alice would be appalled at the way Neville's confidence had been run into the ground.

Ignore a chance to boost Neville's self-esteem and get one over Severus at the same time?

Never.

“This is the difficult part, Neville,” said Remus. Neville Longbottom's ears were turning red with embarrassment as he stared down at his feet, not even daring to meet Remus' eyes. “What do you believe scares you the most in the world?”

Neville let out a sheepish huff of laughter and nervously rubbed the side of his nose. “Er, Professor Snape, sir,” he said in as tiny a voice as he could manage.

“I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that, Neville,” said Remus idly. “Would you repeat that, please?”

“Professor Snape, sir,” said Neville, a bit louder than before.

The class snickered.

In contrast to the guffaws from the Gryffindor side of the room, the glares from Slytherin could have flayed Neville alive. Draco Malfoy opened his mouth, a sneer twisting his expression into something ugly and pinched. Then Draco looked sideways and cringed, ducking his head down and away, snide comment long forgotten.

Following Draco's gaze across the room, Remus found himself watching a very different Harry than before. The boy hadn't eased from where he held himself closed off and defensive, but the hard stare focused on the side of Draco's head made the wolf shift about inside, uneasy and not sure why.

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but you live with your grandmother, yes?” Remus asked the boy standing beside him.

“I do,” said Neville, nodding his head. “But I don't find her very funny, sir.”

“I imagine not,” replied Remus. “I want you to picture your grandmother in your mind for me. Now what sort of clothes does she usually wear?” Remus held up a hand when Neville started to describe what she wore. “Don't tell me, just concentrate on her clothes. Concentrate very hard. Can you see them as clearly as if they were before you right now?”

“Er, I think so,” Neville began, peering into thin air like he was seeing those nebulous clothes dancing about in front of his eyes. “Yes, I can.”

“Prepare yourself, Neville. When the wardrobe bursts open, the boggart will assume the form of Professor Snape. And when that happens...” Remus bent closer to whisper in Neville's ear. “I want you to picture Professor Snape in your grandmother's clothes.”

A startled laugh slipped out of the boy's throat. “Wait!” he said, face paling to a stark, ghostly white. “Won't he be angry?”

Remus felt a glimmer of doubt, but pushed onward. “I'm reasonably certain he will be far more furious with me than you.” Facing the class, Remus said, “I want you to think on what frightens you the most and how you might make it into something more humorous. When Neville is through with the boggart, it will likely turn its attention onto you instead.”

Some of the expressions on the students’ faces were downright comical into as they thought upon the boggart. Harry's red-haired companion muttered feverishly about taking its legs out from under the creature as his face contorted into an expression that could best be described as 'constipated'.

Harry didn't seem the least bit bothered by facing the thing he feared the most. He stared out the windows at the cloudless, sunny day beyond, hands in his pockets, some of the heavy tension lifting from his shoulders.

“Ready?” Remus called out. “One – Two – Three!” Casting a quick unlocking spell at the wardrobe, Remus stepped back and let Neville at the emerging Severus Snape.

The man glided forward, black robes flaring out behind him like bat wings, a cheesy costume straight out of a cheap vampire film. Snape glared down his hooked nose, lips thin with irritation, his skin the sallow, greasy texture of someone who hadn't seen the sun in long, long time. His hand was just rising out of his pocket, wand clasped in a white-knuckled grip.

Neville lifted his wand and stuttered out, “Re... re... Riddikulus!”

Severus staggered backwards on four-inch heels, his robes replaced with a stiff, Victorian dress trimmed in copious amounts of frothy black lace. His lank, shoulder-length hair was combed back into a severe bun, a pointed emerald witch's hat perched at a jaunty angle on his head with a ridiculous stuffed vulture staring imperiously from the brim, its long, moth-eaten tail-feathers hanging down the back.

The class howled with laughter. Boggart-Snape flinched and Remus ushered Parvati Patil forward.

Crack! Now the boggart was a severed hand, dashing across the floor on its fingertips.

“Riddikulus!” she cried, pointing her wand at the boggart. The severed hand tripped over a fracture in the flagstones and rolled back up onto its fingertips, this time with a silk top hat and cane, dancing merrily over to Millicent.

“That's creepy enough itself,” Millicent muttered in a sour voice. The severed hand changed into an ugly little grey creature bent in on itself with long, yellowing talons on its fingers and toes. Great silver eyes like polished mirrors rolled about in its skull as it clicked pointed teeth the colour of a beetle's wings at her. “Riddikulus!”

The boggart changed from the baby gargoyle into a rag-doll with yarn hair, wearing a cheery gingham dress and a blue blouse.

Wobbling over to Seamus on soft brown boots, the dolly-boggart began to grow bigger, desiccated like a corpse, sagging breasts hanging heavy and pendulous from its chest, thin, mossy hair sprouting from its scalp. The banshee staggered forward still wrapped in its grey funeral shroud, a high, eerie wail issuing from its black mouth as brackish saliva dripped down its chin.

“Riddikulus!” yelled Seamus, the latest Celestina Warbeck hit now issuing from the banshee's rotting maw.

The boggart sauntered over to Dean Thomas, still in its banshee form. The dark-skinned boy grinned and snagged Harry's sleeve, yanking him in front of the oncoming boggart.

“No way!” yelped Harry, struggling away from the tall boy's firm grip, low voice gone reedy with panic. “Not happening!”

Ron Weasley came up on Harry's free side and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, neatly pinning his flailing arm. “C'mon mate, we'll be right beside you. No better way to face your fears.”

Remus started forward, heart crawling up into his throat.

The boggart had already begun to change.

---

Blood beat in Harry’s ears, the adrenaline-pounding boom of thunder in a rainstorm.

The bright tang of salt and iron flooded his mouth, tongue throbbing where he’d bitten it.

‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,’ Harry thought, the words of Julius Caesar rising unbidden. ‘He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.’

Objectively, he knew his own face. Knew its glass-sharp lines and its wicked, mobile mouth that could bare white teeth a grin that was anything but a smile. He could look in a mirror and say, “That’s me.”

But Harry was beginning to understand just how much of an act this schoolboy alter ego bullshit really was, not when this was what lurked beneath. It was one thing to see his reflection in the mirror. It was an entirely different matter to watch a living, breathing copy of himself move, independent and unselfconscious of his observers.

He hadn’t recognized himself – not at first.

His doppelgänger stared back at him with the flat, unblinking gaze of a shark.

“Riddikulus!” Lupin shouted, clearly not believing him capable of dealing with the boggart.

The boggart didn’t even flicker. The werewolf might as well have waved his wand and chanted, “Bibbity bobbity boo” for all the good that did.

“Uh, Harry, you going to do anything about that?” Seamus asked, edging away from the boggart. “Now would be a good time.”

Harry’s double tilted his head, slow and lazy, and regarded Lupin out of the corner of his eye. And then he moved, a razor-edge smile beginning to bloom on his borrowed face, his gait full of languid, predatory indolence and it made Harry shudder, the holly wand growing hot and sparking against his palm. He desperately wished for the surety of his thestral-hair wand and not the relic of yesteryear that was only a step up from useless.

The doppelgänger crowded up into the barriers of Harry’s personal space and he couldn’t help it. He flinched.

Because this thing wearing his face, this thing that had nothing left but murder and raw edges in his eyes, that couldn’t be himself.

Ron nudged him in the side and nodded toward the boggart, unaware of the danger it represented. “Say it. C’mon, mate, say the incantation.”

Of course they wouldn't recognize Harry Potter, the famous scar hidden under all that thick grey-black greasepaint, pupils gleaming in the light like an animal's, his lean form made ominous and heavy by all of the thick dragonhide armour, the weapons bristling off his person seeming like strange, alien protrusions. It was just another monster: something that had been dragged out from under the bed by its handlers to walk tamed and leashed among them. See the monster – isn’t it a good monster? Don’t you want to scratch its ears and rub its belly?

Someone in the group of children crowded around them laughed, a high-pitched giggle of derision.

The boggart smiled back.

Harry’s lips peeled away from his teeth as he met his double’s acid-green stare.

Something started screaming in his brain and it wasn’t even coherent, just a crazed howl of fury – it was that vicious thing with sawblades for teeth and it wanted so badly to stick a knife in his doppelgänger’s stomach and yank its guts out onto the floor.

Harry couldn’t even manage the incantation around the sound caught in his throat – he just pointed the holly stick and snarled.

There was a sound like fabric ripping. The boggart flew back, blasted off its feet hard enough that when it hit the wardrobe, it toppled the whole thing over.

The wardrobe hit the floor with a ground-shaking thud, its doors hanging askew.

Harry stumbled back, elbow striking a heavy table pushed next to the wall and he fell against it with a gasp. His hands shook, fury still heating his blood and clanging about his ears like a gong. It felt like there was something sitting on his chest, breath tight and heavy in his lungs.

It wasn’t panic.

It couldn’t be.

The wardrobe shuddered, the boggart’s dying wail ululating between a bird’s shriek and the dry cackle of a hyena coughing up a bone.

A blasting curse picked the piece of furniture up in its grasp and flung it against the wall, wood splinters spraying the area like confetti, a drift of dark smoke dissipating into the air.

Harry lowered his arm, the holly wand spitting angry red sparks. Legs folding under him, he collapsed on the floor and rested his head in his hands.

Silence.

Then Lupin spoke, carefully hidden panic filtering through his voice despite the man’s better efforts. “Harry?”

He looked up. A heavy frown hung on Lupin’s lined face, amber eyes dark and uneasy.

It was the smell of orchids that gave her away first.

“Really Harry, was that necessary?”

Harry tipped his head back and stared at the Faerie Queen perched on the edge of the table, one long, lovely leg crossed over the other. She was wearing another criminal matron ensemble, all sleek grey silks, black pumps, and diamonds.

“Holy shit,” he said in disbelief, gaping like an idiot.

Mab tilted her head too, a coy little gesture and clicked her tongue in reproof. “Language, child.” She pursed her lips, pure mockery and cruelty. “Have mercy on our poor ears.”

Harry scrambled to his feet, getting as much distance from as possible.

Her mulberry lips curled into an iniquitous little grin, a lock of white hair tumbling down from the artful twist of her French pleat. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you seem disappointed to see me.”

Harry grimaced, more than a little aware of the eyes fixed upon him and the creature in front of him. They probably thought it was just another form of the boggart.

No boggart he knew of could make the room temperature drop twenty degrees, a lacy framework of ice beginning to creep over the windows.

“Riddikulus!” Lupin cried out again.

Harry felt torn between twin urges to laugh and cry, hysterics bubbling away where sanity used to dwell.

Mab flicked a chill green stare over the werewolf, dismissing him in an instant. “Yes, you are,” she murmured, her words slow and hushed. “Be still, sir wolf, and I shan’t use your pelt to warm my bed.”

Lupin’s eyes went white around the edges with fear, body as motionless as a statue, pupils flicking frantically back and forth, his mouth frozen in mid-sentence. It became clear that Mab, in a pique of irritation, had simply ceased all non-autonomous movement in the man.

Seamus, the idiot, opened his mouth and found his lips sewn shut, loop-de-loop, with a heavy, silver-gilt thread.

Mab pressed a slim finger to her pursed lips; the dark polish on her too long, too sharp nails winking in the light. “Shhh,” she said and clicked her tongue, wagging that same finger at Seamus’ pole-axed expression. “Naughty, naughty. Little boys shouldn’t say such dirty words to a lady.”

The classroom stilled, the children like little rows of wide-eyed china dolls, faces so still and fixed with fascination.

Harry shuddered, breath misting in the chill air of the classroom.

“If at all possible,” he rasped, terror closing bony fingers around his throat as he directed the Winter Queen’s attention back to himself. “I’d appreciate a warning the next time you decide to show up unannounced.”

“Next time?” She said it like Harry had just done something of particularly stupid regard, something worthy of laughter and ridicule. “I sincerely hope you are joking.”

Harry took a step forward. “What?” he replied, confusion beginning to eclipse the knee-knocking panic chewing on his nerve-endings.

Mab’s expression cooled, her smile turning into a sneer. She uncrossed her legs, heels hitting the ground in a string of staccato clicks she stood and straightened the lines of her suit. In those shoes, Mab was eye to eye with him.

“There should not be a next time,” she hissed, the scent of rime overwhelming the heady aroma of her perfume. Cold light glittered off the long diamond spears of her earrings, the hungry, blue-white aether of Winter’s power flickering in the corners of his vision.

“I’ve made you angry,” Harry murmured, eyeing her warily.

Some of Mab’s usual smug, feline femininity crept back into her manner and as he watched the edges of her expression light up with mirth, Harry wondered what he’d done to make her look so pleased.

“Harry,” she purred, eyes as green as his own gone heavy-lidded, slit pupils blown wide and dark as if with pleasure or drugs. “You didn’t think I’d helped you for free?”

Her hands tightened on his forearms and Harry realized he was close enough to cup her elbows in his palms as if he were comforting her. The taste of bile flooded his mouth, his tongue stinging where he’d bitten it.

Harry tried to jerk away, but Mab’s long, sharp nails dug into his skin, the Faerie Queen holding him in place as if he didn’t have four inches and more than fifty pounds of muscle on her. Little beads of blood welled up where she’d pierced flesh, tiny sparks of pain flaring up and dying.

“I don’t understand,” he said, the frustrated anger and fear stuck fast in his throat filtering through in a whiskey-rough growl. “I’m doing everything you’ve asked of me.”

“The only thing more fleeting than my patience is time.”

“I’m working as fast as I can,” Harry bit out through gritted teeth.

Mab laughed; head tipped back in abandonment, the sound rich enough he could almost rub it between his fingers like velvet. Slit-pupiled eyes flickered over the gawking faces behind them before fixing on Harry’s murderous stare. “All play and no work, makes Harry a very bad boy today.”

“That’s not fair,” Harry growled. “You are asking me to make rough and hard with a situation that is as fragile as glass.”

“Childishness does not become you.”

“What are you implying?” he replied. ‘Do you really think I would fuck around when I know what is to come?’ Harry bit down on the words before they could leave his tongue.

“You knew very well what you were getting into when you agreed to our deal. I never play fair. The odds are always in my favour. Yet you persist in believing otherwise in an almost perverted desire of hope. Why? Why would you, of all people deserve hope?”

She leaned in close, pressing up against him, all sly allure and chill menace. And smiled, wide and sharp and white, the proverbial cat who’d caught the canary, long lashes lowering over her heavy green eyes. “If life was truly fair, you would not see light for a very long time.”

Harry’s hands tightened convulsively on her arms and triumph flared in Mab’s eyes as she inhaled, brushing her lips over his own.

“Riddikulus,” Mab breathed into his mouth, throaty and satisfied, her smooth face alight with unholy cheer and laughter.

She vanished.

Blood rushed back into his arms where she’d gripped him tight enough to hinder circulation. Light-headed with rage and bone-deep terror, Harry leaned forward and braced his hands on the table, the room around him washed in a frenzied swirl of red.

He closed his eyes and exhaled.

“Harry? Harry, who was that?”

The edges of the desk splintered in his grip.

Lupin’s question was merely a guileless query about the absolute fuckery of chaos that had just blown through his classroom with all of the grace of a hurricane.

But the sound that left his mouth when he whirled toward the werewolf… it raised the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck.

‘I’m losing it,’ he thought as he grabbed his books and stalked out of the classroom, ignoring the stricken look on Lupin’s face and Seamus’ frantic patting at the stitches over his mouth. ‘And worse, I’m not the only one who knows it.’

He could still taste Mab on his lips, something bitter and bright, like lime and mint and hopeless desolation.