Harry
Muggle London was weirdly comforting.
Harry ate the last bite of his fast-food sandwich and crumpled up the paper wrapping. A quick stop at Gringotts, and he’d had enough Muggle money to spend a day wandering around Hyde Park and a few nearby streets. The sounds of the Muggle city were disorienting after so many years spent avoiding them, and jeans were heavy and stiff after all this time in the light linen shorts or trousers worn under robes. Every time a car honked its horn he flinched towards his wand.
But sitting in Hyde Park, or walking down the street, he was just another teenage kid. No one looked at him twice. No one stared at the lost Potter twin.
He could be anonymous.
It wouldn’t last. Harry didn’t intend to do this again. He’d just needed one day to himself.
“There are very large rats in the subway,” Eriss said, sliding out of the shrubbery behind his bench.
Well. Mostly to himself.
“Did you eat one?” Harry asked, and then he registered the lump in her belly. “Never mind.”
“That was a stupid question.” Eriss coiled up in his lap and he ran a hand over her scales, pulsing a little bit of magic warmth into his hand to go along with the sun. She wriggled a bit until she was comfortable. “You’re carrying me home so I can sleep.”
“I keep telling you not to eat rodents of that size,” he scolded halfheartedly.
Eriss ignored him.
Harry smiled a little and leaned his head back, eyes closed, enjoying the sun with her.
Nearby shouting snapped him out of his meditation. Harry tensed and sat bolt upright, hand going for his wand and eyes scanning for danger, then registered that it was just a purse-snatcher fifty or so meters away, booking it for the trees. An older Muggle woman was hobbling after him and a few other people had started running, but they wouldn’t make it.
Harry watched the snatcher disappear into the woods. The woman slowed down. A few people ran after the snatcher but they wouldn’t catch him.
“So much for a peaceful afternoon,” he said, gathering Eriss into his bag and standing up. She ignored him completely and went back to sleep as soon as he closed its flap.
Harry crammed himself into a corner with his back to the wall as soon as he got on the tube. It was easily his least favorite part of being out in Muggle London. Having Graham along when they went shopping wasn’t too bad, but now there was nothing to distract himself from the knowledge that he was underground, in a metal tube shooting through a tunnel, unable to legally use magic, surrounded by complete strangers.
The train went around a corner and a man swayed and bumped into Harry’s arm. He swallowed, hard, and tucked his elbows another half inch tighter to his body until the contact was gone.
It was an immense relief when his stop came and Harry could get off.
Another five minutes’ walk and he was home in Grimmauld Place, looking around the dingy square with a strange sort of fondness. It was by no means a nice view but it was his. Familiar, and safe.
The door to Number 12 unlocked as he walked up the steps, the wards recognizing him and welcoming him home with a familiar tingling test. Harry stepped inside, and was immediately confronted with shouting.
“Oi,” he called, striding down the front hall towards the living room, where the shouting was coming from. “What’s going—”
“Did you see the Prophet!” Rio burst out of the living room, waving the June 5th Daily Prophet in the air.
“No, I left early,” Harry said. He’d deliberately avoided the Prophet that morning, actually, because he’d wanted the day to walk around and meditate and sort out his own head before politics caught back up to him. “What’s going on?”
Graham and Veronica tumbled out on Rio’s heels. “Kingsley Shacklebolt replaced Fudge!” Graham said.
Harry felt his eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. He’d seen the Wizengamot’s vote of no confidence in Fudge two days ago, which was essentially a death sentence for any Minister, and pretty much certain after Umbridge’s highly public breakdown. Merlin, watching the moving photographs of her deranged face had been satisfying. This, though, he hadn’t expected, because— “There wasn’t an election.”
Dylan followed the others at a more normal pace. “They did a Wizengamot agreement, not an election. I think he’s got to have a vote next year sometime.”
“Referendum,” Veronica said.
“That.” Dylan shrugged.
“Slow down,” Harry said. “Someone tell me what this agreement does.”
“They voted yesterday evening,” Graham said promptly. “Shacklebolt’s the interim Minister. The Macmillans suggested him. The agreement’s in place for as long as there’s a threat from violent radicals wanting to do harm to the Ministry, or something.”
“Not or something, that was a direct quote,” Veronica said.
Harry held out a hand, and Rio stuffed the paper in it. “So you’re saying as long as they can justify a threat, Shacklebolt is Minister?” he said, skimming the front page. It featured a huge moving picture of Shacklebolt looking gravely statesmanlike.
“Basically,” Veronica said. “And he doesn’t have to have an election if we’re still in a state of emergency when it’s due.”
“Stupid,” Rio muttered.
“So what was the shouting?” Harry asked.
Rio’s brown skin flushed a few shades darker.
“Rio lost his temper,” Dylan said. Harry noticed that he didn’t reach out to the younger boy, and that Rio had gotten tense as a wire and hunched his shoulders just slightly.
“Something to work on, then,” he said as gently as he could to the kid. “It doesn’t matter here, because these are Vipers that we trust, but it’s best for Slytherins not to lose our tempers, yeah?”
“Right,” Rio said, eyeing Harry from under his brows.
Harry grinned at him. “I take it you’re not a fan of Shacklebolt.”
Rio shook his head.
“This’ll be a mess. Here, I’ll have my copy in the study, keep this.” He handed Rio the paper back and deliberately turned away, watching the kid relax in his peripheral vision. That would have to be dealt with, this summer. No way was Harry letting him go home again.
“How did they pass this?” Veronica said, stabbing her finger at the paper in Rio’s hands. “Mum and Dad were telling me about martial law and stuff over the holidays, this would never happen to Muggles!”
“Muggle government does some things better than ours,” Harry said. “Among them, safeguards against this kind of thing. It’s not quite martial law, and Shacklebolt’s not the worst guy to have this kind of power, but you’re right to note the similarities. At a guess, they passed it because a lot of the families who’d have opposed it in the Wizengamot are politically screwed right now.” The Parkinsons, Malfoys, Averys, Notts, Traverses, and even the Greengrasses were in very politically unstable positions at the moment and they were some of the most prominent forces of the more traditional side of the Wizengamot. Only Houses Selwyn and Burke of the genuinely ancient names retained their old influence.
Veronica made a face. “It’s ridiculous.”
“A bit,” Harry said. “I’m going to go upstairs and write Hazel, she’s probably still at the Ministry. Has anyone seen Sirius?”
“Went flying,” Graham said.
Harry made a mental note to get a tracker on that motorcycle as soon as possible. “Thanks. Don’t break anything,” he said, heading for the stairs.
“That’s what reparo’s for,” Graham called after him.
“If you reparo something and mess up and set it on fire, it’s your fault,” he said firmly, and then paused at the base of the staircase. “Oh, Rio, you’re the one that likes linguistics, right?”
“Yes,” Rio said warily.
Harry nodded. “Thought so.” He’d made a note of that when Veronica mentioned it once, because it flattered people when you remembered their interests and hobbies. “I found a few books on it in our library when I was browsing yesterday, and left them out on a table since it’s not particularly safe to go poking through our shelves.”
“…thanks,” Rio said, squinting at him.
“No problem, just don’t hurt them,” Harry said with a deliberately lighthearted grin.
He took the stairs up two at a time before Rio could reply or second-guess Harry’s response.
The whoosh of the Floo, followed by very fluent swearing, alerted him to Hazel’s return two hours later. Harry heard it clearly from the drawing room and set the paper aside immediately. The Shacklebolt interim minister appointment was just as vaguely worded and exploitable as Veronica and Graham made it out to be earlier, and he was on his third read through because he couldn’t figure out if he should be more impressed at the power grab or furious that it was an Order leader as Minister. At least Fudge had been open to bribery, if Draco’s stories were any indication.
Veronica and Dylan were lurking in the hall downstairs. “Don’t use that kind of language around anyone who’d blame me for you knowing it,” Harry said with a stern look, and trotted down the stairs into the kitchen.
Hazel transferred her scowl from a pile of scrolls on the table to him as soon as he walked in. “We have a problem.”
“We have lots of problems, what’s the latest?” Harry said, snagging one of Kreacher’s meat pies off the sideboard.
“Remember that bill about searching manor homes?” she said.
Harry nodded.
“They passed it. First round of searches is starting the twelfth.” Hazel unrolled a scroll and handed it over. “Vanessa is seeing what she can find out from her contacts in the Ministry legal department, but I’m fairly sure this will be one of the first houses searched, based on the attitude in the Wizengamot chambers today. People really do not like me.”
“Being the Black proxy isn’t without its risks,” Harry admitted.
Hazel grinned. “That’s what my stipend is for.”
“What can I say, Sirius likes to spend money,” Harry said. He knew exactly how much she was getting paid, and it was a lot. Money may not be the only component of getting someone’s loyalty but in situations like this it definitely didn’t hurt.
“And I appreciate it. Seriously, though, you’re going to need to do something about this,” she said, pointing at the scroll in his hands. “They can search any home at will, on “suspicion” of Dark artifacts, and all they have to do is get the Head of the DMLE, Head of the Auror Office, and Chief Auror to sign off on it.”
“Gawain Robards is Head of Auror Office,” Harry said, skimming the scroll. Nebulously worded, no requirement for proof—it was a mess. Just like the interim Minister appointment. “He’s not really on the Order train.”
“He’ll sign what they want him to,” Hazel said darkly. “And frankly, I don’t think Sirius is in a position to deal with this right now.”
“Nope.” Harry tossed it onto the table. “I will. Anything else?”
“They’ve got a potential solution to Azkaban in the works, but it doesn’t have to be ratified by the Wizengamot. We only get to look at the plan as a courtesy. It’s exclusively operated by the DMLE Corrections Office.”
“Of course it is,” Harry said. “When do you get the plans?”
“Tomorrow.” Hazel shoved the pile of papers towards him. “Duplicates of all the proceedings from today, if you want to go over them.”
Harry nodded and levitated the lot into his bottomless bag. Eriss sleepily complained about being buried in a deluge of paper, and he ignored her. He’d look over it all after dinner.
“Oh, Harry,” Veronica said, sticking her head into the kitchen. “George Flooed over earlier, said he wanted to talk to you about the shop and your partnership?”
“I’ll go over and visit tomorrow,” Harry said, already reaching for the journal he’d left at home on purpose. “Hazel, do you know when Vanessa will be home, or should we just go ahead and have dinner?”
Hazel glanced at her delicate silver wristwatch. “She should be here in thirty minutes or so, we can wait.”
“Veronica, will you let the boys know?” Harry said. “Dinner in thirty.”
“Sure.” She vanished from the doorway, and a second later he heard her and Dylan thundering up the stairs.
“So you’re a parent now, huh,” Hazel said with an evil little grin.
Harry cast a scathing look in her direction that she completely ignored. “And people say Ravenclaws are boring,” he said.
“People are idiots, which is nothing new,” Hazel said. “Don’t corrupt the children too badly.”
“I’ll do my best.”
There was an article in that day’s Prophet, on the second page, detailing witness accounts of the battle in the Ministry. It devoted a massively disproportionate amount of space to the story of how Sirius Black, potentially deranged after years in Azkaban, had killed James Potter.
Harry sat in the study and glared at it for five straight minutes before he could bring himself to set the stupid thing aside and go back to his actual work, which was sorting out the implications of that day’s Wizengamot session. He couldn’t control the Prophet’s smear campaign. There was no point worrying about it.
Blaise
Hospitals were the worst.
Blaise stalked down the hallway and sneered at a nurse who pressed himself flat against the wall to get out of Blaise’s path. Everything was sterile and spotless and quiet, except for a distant sound of sobbing and the murmur of voices from various nurse stations or patient rooms. Everything was so bloody clinical.
He felt exposed.
Stepping into Neville’s room was a bit of a relief. “Hey,” Blaise said, and then paused, peering at Neville. There’d been a guilty flurry of movement that cut off as he swung the door open. “Did I interrupt something?”
“Thought you were a nurse,” Neville said, pushing his sheets aside. He pulled out a stack of papers and a brown envelope.
“Oh no,” Blaise drawled, pulling a chair up next to the bed and leaning back in it. “Such dangerous contraband. Paper.”
Neville kicked him, and winced. “It’s… not something I can show people,” he said.
Blaise raised an eyebrow. He suspected he knew what those papers were, or at least what subject they related to. “Fair enough. How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” Neville said. “Ready to go home. Er… can we talk about the erumpent in the room?”
Didn’t take him long. Blaise made a go ahead sort of gesture.
“You knew, didn’t you.”
“Most of us did,” Blaise said, measuring his words. “Harry couldn’t tell any of us but Pansy and Theo learned through… other channels.”
“Who’d they tell.”
Blaise crossed one leg over the other. “Just me. Celesta, Draco, and the Carrows probably knew as well.”
“So Hermione…”
“No. Nor Justin.” Unless Draco had told him, which was possible.
Neville nodded slowly. “Great. So just half of my friends were actively keeping secrets from me.”
“We didn’t want to hurt you,” Blaise said.
“You had to have known it’d come up eventually,” Neville said sourly. Blaise hadn’t seen him looking this… slumped and despondent in years. He was clearly pissed, too, but it was like they’d flashed back to insecure second-year Neville.
“Harry—”
“Harry didn’t even consider telling me,” Neville snapped. “Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to,” Blaise said, suddenly feeling very tired. “I wouldn’t expect him to consider it.”
Neville stared at him. “You don’t care?”
“Of course I—” Blaise cut himself off. He was not the sort of person who lost his temper, Merlin damn it. It was a weakness, it gave away more than he could afford to give. Neville could be trusted but he still couldn’t fall into bad habits. “Harry saw the opportunity, and he grabbed it with both hands. That’s who he is. Him and Theo both.”
“It’s fucked up,” Neville snarled.
Blaise shrugged, feeling helpless and hating it. Sure, it might be, but that was how they were. How Blaise sometimes wished he could be.
Neville stared at him for a few seconds, then let out an irritated huff and flopped back down on his pillows. “Why are you here?”
“That’s what you do when a friend is in the hospital,” Blaise said. “Visit. Offer sympathy and manly back-slapping.”
“Don’t hit me,” Neville said. “It’ll hurt.”
Blaise cast a meaningful look at the papers. “You going to explain?”
“Not here.”
There was something careful about Neville’s expression, and a sudden tremor in his hands before he closed them.
Blaise took the hint. “All right. Did you see the news this morning?”
“No?” Neville said.
“Shacklebolt’s Minister indefinitely,” Blaise said. “Manor homes are being searched at will.”
Neville rubbed his face with one hand. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not pissed at you,” Neville said suddenly, cracking one eye open and peering at Blaise. “Well. Not… very. You were going along with Harry’s plan.”
And they both knew who the Vipers’ leader was, even if no one had made it particularly official. Yet.
Blaise nodded.
“Are you pissed?” Neville said.
“No,” Blaise said, resisting the urge to snort. It would be declassé. He considered, and then added, “I’m used to it.”
“Yeah, you live with them,” Neville sighed.
I live with someone worse than them, Blaise didn’t say.
“Do you get sick of it?” Neville asked after another few minutes of silence.
“No,” Blaise said, and it was one of the most honest answers he’d given anyone in a long time. “They are who they are. Theo and Harry, I mean. They’re my friends. I know what they’re like, I work with it, they work with me.”
It made all the difference. That they even tried.
“I’m still pissed,” Neville said.
Blaise shrugged again. That was fair.
Ginny
Luna eyed her over the edge of her wine glass. “Your hair is cloudy.”
Ginny tilted her head back and looked at the clouds. “White? Fluffy?”
“Moving.”
Ginny was pretty sure her hair was not actually moving, given that it was a beautiful June day with no wind or weather to move it. “What’s it doing?”
“Saying hello,” Luna said. “To the bees.”
“There’s a bee in my hair?” Ginny said, freezing.
“No. Over there.”
She followed Luna’s pointing finger towards a clump of wild lavender. There were indeed a few bumblebees humming around it.
“Okay,” Ginny agreed. “Hi, bees.”
Luna laughed, like music.
Ginny poured more wine, sipped it, lay down on the grass, and tried not to think about anything but this moment.
Harry
“Kreacher!”
The elf appeared in what Harry had started to think of as his study with a crack. “Yes, Master Harry.”
“The Wizengamot’s going to search the house on the twelfth,” Harry said. “We have four days to clear out everything that might get the family in trouble.”
“Filthy blood traitors,” Kreacher snarled under his breath.
Harry elected to ignore that comment. As long as the people Kreacher thought of as blood traitors were Harry and Sirius’ political enemies, it did no harm to have the elf hate them. “Yes, well, we’re not going to give them anything to find. First step’s the library, then everything else. Get Hemp and Tripsy—how many times can elves jump places, and how much can you carry?”
Kreacher’s ears twitched as he thought. “We is moving the library in two days,” he said finally.
Harry pressed one finger into his temple and mentally rearranged a few plans. “Okay. Have Parkin, Hemp, and Tripsy start working on the library for now, so you can keep cooking.”
“Yes, Master Harry.” Kreacher cracked out without bowing, which was a relief. The constant obeisance got a little weird after a while.
Once he was gone, Harry found his journal and headed downstairs. Even after he and Sirius had cleaned out all the actively dangerous objects there was still plenty that could be called Dark in this house, especially given how vaguely worded the Dark artifact bans were. He had a two-page list of things they had to move and he’d only done the basement, the kitchen, and the drawing room.
He did a double take as he walked into the potions laboratory. “What are you working on?”
Graham jumped and looked unmistakably guilty.
“Poison,” Veronica said cheerfully. “For Rio’s grandparents.”
Harry eyed the cauldron. Whatever they had going in it just looked malevolent, and based on what he could smell, it wasn’t lethal. Just highly unpleasant. “It’s going to need to move to Riasmoore. House is getting searched, and poisonous potions are definitely on the Dark-things-that-will-get-us-in-trouble list.”
“It’s just poison,” Veronica said. “It’s not even deadly.”
Graham stepped on her foot.
“How much longer ‘til it’s done?” Harry said. “And where did you even find that recipe?”
“One of the Chamber books,” Graham said. “Theo translated it and left it lying around.”
They— “No more testing potions without telling me first,” Harry said, pulling his wand and vanishing the potion immediately.
“Hey!” Graham said. “We’ve been working all morning!”
Harry fixed them both with a glare that had them visibly withering. “Those recipes are old, half of them aren’t developed all the way, and they’re all translated from weird archaic dialects. You could kill everyone in this house if you fucked up or if you brewed something volatile. No experimentation without me or Theo around. Are we clear?”
Veronica nodded.
“Graham?”
“Yes,” Graham said quietly. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Harry said. “No harm done. You wanted to help out Rio. I get it. Just ask next time.” He levitated their cauldron over to the sink to get scrubbed. “I know several potions you can brew after the house is searched that would do the job on Rio’s grandparents. Potions I know are safe for you to brew.”
“Perfect,” Veronica said with a mean little grin.
Harry matched it. “And in the meantime, the two of you can help me sort all the potions ingredients, so we can move everything questionable out of this room. Including that entire cabinet.” He pointed at the locked, stasis-charm-loaded cupboard he used to store all his potions experiments.
Both of the kids groaned.
Harry made a mental note to get someone in to redo the Black Manor potions laboratory. One of the Riasmoore crafters, probably, and then he’d hire the same apothecary who stocked and arranged the ingredients in this laboratory, so the layout would be the same as Harry had gotten used to. Plus the wizard had done an excellent job of stocking fresh, powerful ingredients.
They got to work packing things in transit containers, carefully crafted to keep magical substances from being disrupted by Floo or Apparition magic. Graham and Veronica were talking but Harry tuned them out. He couldn’t stop running over the list in his head of everything that had to be out of the house by June twelfth. Or everything else he had to do—visit Gringotts, take his Firebolt in for a professional tune-up, visit the Knockturn bookstore in case they had anything new, go through the Black account books in detail, get a handle on the family’s political alliances—
Actually, several of those were in Diagon. Or close enough. He thought about Dylan and Rio, holed up in their room, and Graham and Veronica, none of whom had left the house except for a visit to Malcolm’s two days ago.
“Let’s go to Diagon,” he said, cutting across their conversation. “I have some errands to run. We can swing by the twins’ shop.”
Both of them perked right up at the suggestion, which told Harry it had been a good idea. “Right now?” Veronica said.
“After we finish this,” Harry said. “That’s what you get for brewing thousand-year-old potions without asking.”
“It’s just a few more boxes,” Graham said, elbowing her. “Shut up or we won’t get to go.”
Hazel stuck her head into the laboratory, grinned at Harry, and mouthed parenting.
He shot a jet of water at her with a thought and flick of his wand. Hazel blocked it, laughing, and vanished again.
“Huh?” Veronica said, looking up at the door and then at Harry.
“Nothing,” he said. “Finish that up.”
Rio’s and Dylan’s excitement confirmed that this was a good plan, even though Rio seemed like he was trying to hide it. Rio kept getting loud with the others, subsiding to sneak glances at Harry, and then half-forgetting to be cautious before he’d catch himself again. Harry knew the signs, and made a point of not appearing to even notice when they spiraled up to shrieking excitement in the kitchen while Kreacher prepared a last-minute lunch. Just telling Rio he didn’t have to be so wary would only make him more nervous about Harry having noticed his wariness.
If Harry had anything to say about it, Veronica and Graham would be making something especially nasty for Rio’s grandparents.
“Can we go to Scribbulus?” Dylan said, and took a bite of baked potatoes. “I need a new quill.”
It sounded like Ah meef a moo ‘ill, but Harry figured out what he’d meant. “Sure. Rio, need to go anywhere in particular?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full!” Veronica said, hitting Dylan with her napkin. The Hufflepuff flicked a chunk of potato into her hair.
“No,” Rio said, barely audible over the sudden shouting.
Harry nodded. “Are you thinking of trying out for Quidditch at some point?”
“Maybe.” Rio hesitated. “In a few years. I’ve never flown, except for a few lessons at school.”
Harry didn’t know if it was the summer invite or being in the Vipers that made Rio willing to open up even that much. “We’ll have to fix that, then. Luna’s got a great spot to fly, and so does Daphne.”
“That would be fun,” Rio said, even more quietly.
Harry glanced over just as Veronica launched a counterattack that involved a piece of buttered toast sticking to Dylan’s face. He hit them both with weak glacius charms. “No food fights, we don’t need to make Kreacher clean that up,” Harry said with a grin. “I’m going to go grab my broom and check on Sirius, and then we can leave.”
“Do you think I could try gloves on at Quality Quidditch?” Harry heard Rio ask cautiously as he left. Graham started to reassure him, and then they were out of earshot as Harry took the stairs two at a time.
Sirius was in the drawing room with Hazel, who’d kicked her shoes off and dug out a photo album from somewhere. Sirius was walking her through it. “They did morning session only today,” Hazel explained.
“Looks fun,” Harry said, leaning over their shoulders. “Who’s that?”
“Grandfather Arcturus, when he was in school.” Sirius tapped the photo and a handsome young man with Sirius’ cheekbones dodged his finger with a scowl. “I have to go back a few generations to find family members I don’t hate.”
“Families are fun,” Harry agreed.
Sirius glanced up at him, and Harry saw that the shock had worn off completely. Things had started to sink in and Sirius was pissed.
Yeah, they’d have to have that conversation, and soon.
“Especially ours,” was all Sirius said, though. At least he didn’t seem any more interested in having it out in front of Hazel than Harry was. “You guys are heading out to Diagon?”
Harry nodded. “I’m going to get Rio a broom. Veronica’s parents got her one for Christmas, Dylan’s not interested, and Graham already has one, but Rio’s grandparents would never.”
“Good plan,” Sirius said. “I wish Mum was still around so I could tell her we’re using the family vaults to take in Muggle-borns.”
He looked much more cheerful at the thought. Harry laughed. “I’d love to see her face,” he agreed, tossing a last grin their way before he jogged up the rest of the stairs to his room.
Two minutes later, he rejoined the kids in the kitchen, Firebolt shrunk and tucked in his pocket. “Floo to the Leaky?” Graham said.
“Go for it,” Harry said, passing around the jar of Floo powder.
There was a scuffle as Veronica and Graham both tried to step into the Floo at the same time, and Graham tripped while Veronica tried to keep him upright. Dylan solved the issue by stepping past both of them. “Diagon Alley!”
He disappeared in a gout of flame. Graham stepped on Veronica’s foot and scrambled into the fireplace with her on his heels, meaning they both vanished almost in unison and almost definitely tripped out the other side.
“Elbows in and speak clearly,” Harry advised Rio. “You’ve only done this once or twice, right?”
“This is the third time,” Rio said.
“It’s okay to stumble,” Harry said. “I fell on my face the first few times I used the Floo, before I got used to it. So did Veronica.”
Rio glanced at him. “You really grew up… Muggle.”
“Had no idea about any of this until I was eleven,” Harry said. “Weird, isn’t it?”
“You don’t seem like it,” Rio said.
“I try not to.” Harry smiled wryly. “Don’t have a reason to stay a part of that world.”
“Yeah.” Rio took a pinch of the powder. “Me either.”
Harry gave him a count of ten, to make sure he didn’t hop out and land on Rio and embarrass the kid. By the time he stepped out of the Leaky Cauldron’s fireplace, Rio was standing with the others and had almost all the ash brushed off his robes. Harry discreetly spelled the last few streaks off without saying anything, and trailed behind as Veronica and Dylan excitedly bolted for the Alley’s entrance.
Graham needed owl treats and Dylan a quill, so Harry left them to run their own errands while he popped into Gringotts. Stonemace was handling Harry’s personal investments, including Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, which was already the biggest, gaudiest shop in the Alley, and one Harry couldn’t wait to explore. He had to authorize the account manager in person on a few of the finer details. Harry, Fred, and George had hammered it out over a bottle of firewhiskey two nights ago but the bank required more formal agreements than numbers scribbled on a napkin.
It was a quick trip, after which Harry collected the younger set from an extremely petty argument about ink colors in Scribbulus. “It doesn’t matter if it’s more olive or emerald, just buy the ink and let’s go,” he said firmly, giving Veronica a gentle push toward the counter. She scowled at him over her shoulder but went, while Graham kept grumbling that it was definitely olive.
“It doesn’t matter,” Dylan insisted. “Graham, honestly, let’s go. Quality Quidditch, remember?”
“Then Fred and George’s place,” Veronica said, rejoining them with her ink in a bag and a wicked grin on her face. “I can’t wait.”
“Rumor has it Filch wants all their stuff banned,” Harry said. “Start thinking of ways to repackage and hide it if you want to get any into the school.”
Dylan and Rio led the way down the street to Quality Quidditch. Rio couldn’t quite disguise his excitement, and Harry watched him eagerly shove open the door with a quiet prickle of satisfaction. He’d been the same kind of reserved on his first trip to Diagon Alley; none of the Vipers should ever have to be that kid.
Graham made a beeline for the broom polish kits and Rio for the Quidditch gloves. Veronica and Dylan drifted over toward the clothes.
The store was packed, as usual, and Harry lost track of the four of them almost right away. It didn’t help that three of the shop attendants spotted his Firebolt as soon as he expanded it to its normal size and made a beeline for him.
“Can I help you with anything?” the first one said. She eyed his Firebolt with the keen interest of someone who knew racing brooms. The other two pulled up and hovered, shooting her irritated looks for beating them to the potential customer.
“Yes,” Harry said, stubbornly not laughing. Her name tag read Melinda. “I’d like to get a standard broom tune-up, to make sure it’s in top condition.”
“Of course, may I?”
He handed it over right away, and the other two employees started inching reluctantly away. Melinda turned the broom over in her hands, examining the handle, footrests, and bristles with meticulous care. A few of the other shoppers whispered and eyed him and the Firebolt excitedly but he’d deliberately found a spot near one end of the counter that was out of the way, so they weren’t getting too much attention yet.
“Looks to be in excellent condition,” Melinda said finally. “I might recommend switching to a polish with a higher beeswax content—the Firebolt handles seem to do better with that. It should be about two hours to do a whole tune-up, can you come back and pick it up then?”
“That works great.” Harry grinned at her and channeled some of the easy familiarity he’d seen automatically appear between people who were fond of the same sport.
Melinda grinned back and then retreated towards the counter through one of the doors behind it, holding his Firebolt like the Crown Jewels.
Harry tilted his head back and watched the broom models spinning around up by the ceiling. Behind them, a mural of charmed tiles shifted smoothly from one ad to another, for everything from broom polish to professional-level Bludgers. For a second the steady background bustle of the shop was the whole world and he was just an insignificant part of it.
“Harry!” Veronica almost crashed into him, set herself upright, and held up a pair of gloves. “Tell Rio these are a good brand!”
Rio skidded to a halt right behind her. His expression did something like horror pretending to be a sheepish smile, resulting in a frozen caricature.
“It’s an excellent brand,” Harry said, grinning to satisfy Veronica and set Rio at ease. The kid was clearly used to authority figures lashing out at him for interrupting or asking for attention. It brought a slow, cold pulse of anger to life in Harry’s hands every time he thought about it. “Half the Slytherin team uses that one, actually.”
“See,” Veronica said triumphantly. “He wouldn’t come ask your opinion like Graham said to.”
“Graham knows quite a bit, too,” Harry said, glancing over at where the young Viper was poring devotedly over two varieties of handle polish. “Are you going to buy those, Rio?”
Rio hesitated. “I think…”
“Put them on my tab,” Harry said, tilting his head toward the checkout line at the front of the store. “Late Yule gift.”
After a few seconds of hesitant squinting, during which Harry kept his expression from flickering even a little, Rio nodded and got out a quick “Thank you” before he went to do as Harry said.
Veronica glanced up at Harry and some of her cheer drained away. “He’s… struggling.”
“He doesn’t trust me,” Harry said. “I don’t blame him.”
She opened her mouth, looking guilty, and Harry held up a hand. “I don’t expect details he’s told you in confidence, remember? I can see the signs even if I don’t know his story specifically. He’s not going back to wherever he came from. Sirius and I won’t let it happen.”
“Thanks,” Veronica said, obviously relieved.
Harry slipped away while the four kids were waiting in line for Graham’s and Rio’s purchases, and flagged down one of the various employees cruising the shop floor offering help. The man’s eyes widened when Harry introduced himself and promptly returned with the manager, who said his name was Tim and wore a permanently mournful expression. It only got more mournful when he saw that he did indeed have Hadrian Black standing in his store.
At least he was easy to work with. A two-minute conversation, a flash of gold, and a quick “So mote it be” sealed the deal, and Harry was waiting at the door when the kids finished their shopping with none of the four of them the wiser.
“Fred and George’s now?” Dylan said, eyes tugging down the street already.
“I suppose,” Harry said with a put-upon sigh, and laughed when they set off as fast as decorum allowed.
The street had gotten noticeably busier while they were inside Quality Quidditch. Harry knew he wasn’t exactly a low-profile figure, knew the consequences of wearing tailored robes and carrying himself with Slytherin-trained confidence. People’s attention might snag a half-second longer on him than those around him and that was all it took to be recognized. And then they stared, and whispered. This was exactly why Sirius hadn’t gone out in public since the Ministry skirmish.
It couldn’t have been more different from the anonymity of the Muggle park.
Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes was the definition of an eyesore but Harry appreciated the bright orange and purple storefront drawing people’s attention away from him. He laughed out loud at a poster hung in the front window that he hadn’t noticed when he passed before: ‘Why worry about You-Know-Who when you should worry about U-No-Poo—the constipation sensation that’s gripping the nation!’
“Brilliant,” Graham said. “I’m buying one of those posters.”
“I’m getting Sirius one,” Harry decided in an instant.
Veronica snorted. “Sirius would love anything in this store.”
Harry glanced up at the ceiling just as a set of fireworks exploded. The sparks spun wildly and let off shrieking whistles, like cheerfully demonic teakettles. “I think he’d have given his teachers all aneurysms if he had access to this in school.”
The grin on Veronica’s face suggested she meant to do something similar. Harry watched her drag Graham off into the twisting shelves with a slight feeling of trepidation.
“Can we go look around?” Dylan said, half an eye on Harry and half on Rio.
“Yeah, no need to ask,” Harry said. “I’m just going to go find the twins.”
Dylan and Rio vanished into the crowd as Harry started winding his way towards the back. He figured he’d find Fred or George or one of their employees near the violently green door that said Employees Only in fiery yellow letters that hurt his eyes.
Boxes were piled to the ceiling on twisting shelves; Harry could tell the shop was designed to be a maze that lured people in with a new delightful surprise around every corner. It was absolutely packed with people. Normally being jammed in and shoving through crowds like this set him on edge but there was nothing but goodwill and excitement in people’s voices. The sparkling, popping, spinning, shrieking, and bouncing products distracted everyone so well that he was completely invisible once he’d gotten past the entrance. Harry looked around and found himself smiling a little at how much people were enjoying the whole store. It was a much-needed bright spot after the dreary fear that pervaded the rest of Diagon.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Harry smiled at the magenta-robed woman who’d just come out of the Employees Only door. “Yes, actually, I’m here to see Fred and George Weasley.”
“Mr. Weasley and Mr. Weasley are busy, but perhaps if you made an appointment?” The woman’s eyes flicked down to the pin on Harry’s summer robes, embossed with the Black crest, but she didn’t visibly react. Harry gave her some mental points. Working for Fred and George probably required that you not be prone to nervousness. Or sensitive to surprises.
“We’re school friends,” Harry said with a quick smile. The twins had agreed to keep their business partner a secret from the rest of their employees for now, which meant he couldn’t use that card to see them. “If you could just let them know I’m in the store, should they have a moment?”
“Of course,” the clerk said. “Anything else?”
“Not at the moment, thank you.”
Harry waited until she’d vanished back behind the Employees Only door before he turned back to survey the store. It was two stories, and the first-floor balcony was packed with people to the point that it looked almost dangerous. He hoped there were good reinforcement spells on the railing.
As he watched, someone bumped into a green section of railing, which gave way with a bang and a spray of confetti. The kid’s scream turned to laughter as a foamy cauldron scooped him up and dumped him on his feet back on the balcony, the railing reassembling itself.
Harry grinned. Seemed Fred and George had prepared for that.
Dylan and Rio flashed into his view for a fraction of a second, arms loaded down with boxes, and then disappeared again.
“Well, well, if it isn’t our noble leader!”
Harry raised his eyebrows at the twins; they wore the same magenta robes as all their employees and the color clashed magnificently with their hair. “Are you trying to blind everyone who comes in here?”
“Yes,” Fred said with a wink. “That way—”
“—they forget to look—”
“—at the price tags!” the twins finished in unison, grinning broadly.
“Full steam ahead then,” Harry said, smirking, “and I’ll invest in some sunglasses for my next visit.”
“Your eyes are bad enough, I wouldn’t worry,” Fred advised, while George turned aside to talk to one of the clerks behind the counter for a moment. “Got the ickle snakies with you?”
Harry nodded. “They’re somewhere out there, I told them to enjoy themselves.”
“Vipers’ discount, they’ll get everything half off,” Fred said in a low voice. “Let ‘em know before they check out, yeah?”
“I will.” Harry fished out his journal and did exactly that.
He finished sending each of the younger Vipers a message just as George finished his conversation and came back. “We’re almost out of Nosebleed Nougat.”
“When’s the next batch ready to be boxed?”
George consulted some mental calendar. “Two hours or so.”
“Good enough,” Fred said. “We need to up production on that.”
They ushered Harry through the Employees Only door while arguing about how to increase Nougat production and whether they could afford another two employees to help with the brewing. Harry half-listened while looking around the private section of the store with curiosity. The first room behind the door was a surprisingly well-organized storeroom with boxes piled to the ceiling and shifting themselves around. He noticed a half-empty crate of Nosebleed Nougat and several others of the cheaper trick wands nearest the door out to the main shop, and guessed there was an enchantment in place to make the products running low in the shop easiest to access. Clever.
Past the storeroom was a hallway lined with a few offices. Fred stuck his head in one of them and George tugged Harry along. “We took the first-floor office,” he said, “right up these stairs… it’s got one-way glass, the other side shows ads but we get a great view of the shop floor, come see.”
Harry stepped into the twins’ office and went straight for the window. From above the maze layout of the shelves below was even more obvious. “You have a great layout here.”
“Yeah.” George came and stood next to him. The first-floor balcony didn’t run along this back wall, but Harry could get a closer look at it now, and at the people elbowing their way along it. Someone else tumbled through a green section of railing and got picked up by a cauldron. “I like standing here and watching, you know? It’s nice that—so many people can still have fun and everything.”
“You’re doing a good thing,” Harry said firmly, because George seemed to need the reassurance. The warm, clever, funny geniality of Mr. Weasley the shop-owner had faded, and where Arthur Weasley’s death had left a hardness in Fred’s eyes, all he saw in George right now was something dull and heavy. “These people? Imagine if all Diagon was like the rest of it, and this place wasn’t here to distract them. You should see the outside—there’s people just stopped dead in the street, staring.”
George’s shoulders lifted a little and he grinned. “Yeah, they are, aren’t they? It’s always funny.”
“Speaking of which, I want to snag one of those U-No-Poo posters for Sirius,” Harry said. “He’ll probably put it on his ceiling.”
“I imagine the venerable Lady Black would be horrified,” George said, laughing finally.
“Absolutely.” Harry remembered the nasty portrait and grinned at what she’d probably say. “I wish I hadn’t destroyed her portrait. I could’ve locked her in the attic in front of one of those posters and left her to scream about it.”
Fred threw the office door open with so much force that some parchments on his desk blew off. Harry could tell it was his because it was the messier of the two desks facing each other on opposite sides of the room. “Did you miss me?”
“So much,” George deadpanned. His whole bearing lightened at the sight of Fred, while Fred’s wild edges calmed a little. Harry watched them work around each other to tidy the office and pull Harry up a chair, using their wands and their hands. Neither twin ever bumped into the other; both of them orbited each other as though they had a sort of gravity no one else could feel.
Harry took the offered chair while George sat behind his desk and Fred perched on the edge of it. “Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?” Fred said with a wink.
“Fred, we’re working,” George said, throwing a wadded-up bit of parchment at his brother’s head.
Fred ducked it, laughing. “Fine, fine.”
“I’m good,” Harry said. “You guys wanted to talk to me here?”
George and Fred exchanged a loaded glance, and Harry sat up a little straighter. Something about that look—this wasn’t a business-partner discussion.
“We talked last year,” Fred said in as serious a voice as Harry’d ever heard from him. The twins’ expressions were sharp and set. “You told us you’re forming a fourth side.”
“I’m fifteen,” Harry said. “Almost sixteen. For now, that means I can’t be entirely independent of any of the players in our world.”
“What’s your endgame?” George said.
Harry’s eyes flicked between them. “I’m Slytherin, George, have a guess.”
“Power,” they said in unison.
He tilted his head a bare few centimeters. “To change things for the better, to benefit me and mine. Which includes you two, by the way.”
“We know,” Fred said.
“You’re leaning towards the Dark, though,” George added.
Harry hesitated. “The situation in the Wizengamot is… complicated, to say the least, and I don’t understand half of it yet, but of late Sirius has found himself agreeing with the moderate-traditionals who still have any power. And they’re usually voted down. The manor-searching, Kingsley’s appointment—the Order can keep him in office as long as they can justify a threat from radical blood purist terrorists, potentially even after Voldemort himself is gone, with the way it’s worded.”
“Fuck,” George said.
Fred shrugged. “Makes sense.”
“Basically.” Harry tapped the desk a few times. “I will ally with the Death Eaters if I must to survive. At the moment they’re the group whose interests align most closely with my own… with the exception of the price on Jules’ head, of course, but I won’t be handing him over.”
“That’s a pretty big sticking point,” George said.
“I’ll work it out.” He would. Slytherins always found a way to get what they wanted. “And I would prefer it not get to that point. Many of my ultimate ends are compatible with that faction’s, but our means are… sometimes not.”
The twins accepted that and moved on. “We’ve been working on some… less pleasant inventions,” Fred said, flicking his wand. A section of the packed, chaotic shelves lining the office turned slowly outwards, until it revealed a tiny, cramped staircase leading down.
“For the Vipers,” George said. “You can take a trunk full back to school to distribute, or get it to everyone this summer.”
“And whoever else you fight with, if you have to fight,” Fred added.
Harry caught the double meaning and let it go unspoken. “Sounds good. Lead the way.”
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