2. Diagon Alley

Harry locked his knees to keep from falling over.

The man—his father?—looked almost disappointed. Like he’d been expecting Harry to jump for joy and run into his arms. But Harry was busy turning over what Aunt Petunia had said—you dumped him in my arms in the middle of the night, gave a thirty-minute rushed explanation, and disappeared—and he didn’t think he liked his father much.

All this time he’d thought his parents were dead. That if they were alive they’d have come to get him and he’d have a life like a kid in a book, with parents who loved him even if they were poor or on the run from evil people or facing some danger.

He had so many questions he didn’t even know where to start.

***

James’ explanation took an hour.

Harry sat silent and still through it all, keeping his face as blank as possible. It clearly unsettled James that Harry was so unresponsive, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Harry sat on one of the chairs in the living room that he’d never been allowed to touch before. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon took the sofa, while James took an armchair to Harry’s left and across the table from his aunt and uncle.

And Harry learned several things about his family:

James had married Lily, Aunt Petunia’s sister, right out of school. Wizarding school, apparently, because his mum and dad were a witch and a wizard, and there was a school for people with magic. That was about the only good part of the whole speech, actually—when Harry pulled out his letter from his pants, he relished the look of revulsion on Aunt Petunia’s face, and savored the excitement that came with knowing he might be a freak but he wasn’t the only one and there was a place he could go to learn more.

His mum and father were fighting in a war against an evil wizard named You-Know-Who.

When his mum got pregnant, they went into hiding.

She gave birth to twin boys.

(When Harry learned he had a twin brother born seven minutes after Harry, named Julian, he momentarily forgot how to breathe.)

They trusted the wrong person, and one night was out at a meeting for their side of the war while his mum watched over their sleeping sons. A fight started at the meeting and James got sidetracked. It was really just a distraction; while they were fighting, the evil wizard broke into their house and killed their mum and then tried to kill Julian with the worst, deadliest spell ever. Somehow Julian survived and managed to destroy You-Know-Who in the process, which Harry found ridiculous because Julian had been only a year old then, so it’s not like he fought some great battle, but he still wasn’t able to summon words so he just nodded numbly.

Overnight, Julian became a hero to Wizarding Britain, as James called it, but You-Know-Who’s followers still very much wanted the remaining Potters dead, and in the chaos it was decided that young Harry ought to be sent away until his magic appeared and he’d be able to defend himself. “It was for your own safety,” James said, almost begging Harry to believe him. (Harry didn’t.) “I was a target, and your brother was a target, but that didn’t mean—didn’t mean you had to be, too.”

Harry had been left in the care of his mother’s sister with the understanding that she would call a certain number when Harry displayed “accidental magic” which was apparently the sign that a wizarding child had magic. Which, obviously, she never did. So James had assumed that Harry was something called a “squib,” or a baby from wizard parents without magic, and that Harry would be better off away from wizards since he’d never be able to defend himself against them. Harry thought that was ridiculous, too; he could’ve at least gotten to know his family in secret, but by this point he thought he was too angry to say anything to James Potter that wouldn’t come out badly.

So when the headmaster of the magic school asked James about his older son and the fact that the school, which was somehow magicked to know all the babies in Britain with magic talent who should go there, James immediately knew Petunia had lied and had come to get him.

“I’m sorry,” James said, when he’d run out of explanations and Harry still hadn’t said a word. “I… can’t explain how sorry I am. And I know I’ve probably wrecked any chance we had at a normal father-son relationship, but I hope we can… at least try to fix some of the damage.” He took a deep breath. “The envelope… it has your list of school supplies. There’s a place in London where wizards go to buy things like this. If you would like, I can take you there to buy your school things, and then we can go—home.”

“Home,” Harry said. “Your home?”

“Yes.”

“And my… Julian will be there.” You seriously named your twin sons Hadrian and Julian?

“Yes.” Something Harry couldn’t define crossed James’ face.

He thought about it.

Part of him wanted to stay here, where he had his snake friends in the garden and where he knew how to navigate the dangers. But one look at his aunt’s face told him she and Uncle Vernon would hate him even more now than they had before, and that he couldn’t count on things staying the same for the two months before he left for school.

“Okay,” he said quietly, doing his best to portray a shocked, frightened, cautiously hopeful child. (Only the first part of that was true.)

James’ smile was overwhelming with the force of its relief.

Harry didn’t tell him that he thought he preferred Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. At least his aunt and uncle were honest about not wanting him.

***

“Welcome to Diagon Alley,” James said with a huge grin.

Harry walked along slowly, eyes and mouth slightly open.

He didn’t know where to look first. So many shops, so many weird sights, people in weird clothes. The conversations he overheard were even stranger.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” James said, looking around with all the comfort of a man returning to well-known, well-loved stomping grounds.

That snapped Harry out of it. “Amazing,” he agreed, since he’d decided to stay on good terms with his father for now.

“Where do you want to go first?” James said. Harry thought he looked and sounded a little like a kid himself. “We can get your wand, or the bookstore—” so you’re not a reader, Harry thought, detecting a bit of disgust— “or the apothecary, or to get you better clothes—seriously, I could string Petunia up by her toes for dressing you in these.”

Harry agreed with the stringing-Petunia-up-by-the-toes sentiment, but he was pretty sure James was joking, so he kept that to himself. “I… was wondering,” he said shyly. “I’ve never had… money, I guess…”

James looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. Harry didn’t tell him how much the expression looked like Petunia right then. “Oh, for—of course we… have the money. Look, I should explain—come on, I’ll catch you up while we go to the bank, okay? I need to make a withdrawal anyway.”

“Sure,” Harry agreed.

“So there’s a bunch of old families in wizarding Britain,” James explained, keeping a firm grip on Harry’s shoulder as they wove through the crowd. He nodded and smiled at loads of people but kept a quick pace; Harry was pretty sure he was dodging casual acquaintances. “Lots of them are arseho—sorry, er—not very nice. They pride themselves on being ‘purebloods’ and only marrying wizards, which is a load of hogwash since there aren’t actually enough pureblood wizards to keep them from inbreeding like medieval royals, but try telling them that. We’re one of the old families—the Potter line—but we’re not technically pure and we aren’t blood purist jerks either.”

That was a lot of information to process at once; Harry did his best to remember it for later.

“Anyway. The Potters have a number of vaults in Gringotts—that’s the bank. You and your brother each have a trust vault that you can draw up to five hundred Galleons from a year until you’re seventeen, at which point you get access to it. When I die, Harry, you’ll inherit the Potter lordship.”

Harry caught some distinct tension there and knew there was a lot James wasn’t telling him. He resolved to look for books in the bookstore that might explain it.

“So will I buy my school stuff from my trust vault?” he said.

“Merlin, no, that’s stuff I’ll pay for,” James said, looking surprised. “Parental duties and all.” He seemed to realize the irony of talking about ‘parental duties’ and winced and rushed on before Harry could laugh in his face. “Anyway, we’ll still swing by your trust vault to finalize your access to it and set you up with a Gringotts bag. Then we’ll go by mine, I need to—to pick something up for the headmaster.”

Harry thought James was trying to get him to ask more questions, so he stubbornly pretended to get sidetracked by a shop window displaying a number of elaborate hats.

When they got to Gringotts, Harry made a point of nodding respectfully to the goblins at the front door while James breezed on by, ignoring them. He did the same to the goblin who he and James talked to at the counter and then the one named Griphook who came to take them down to their vaults.

They stopped at Harry’s first.

“Lay your hand on the door,” Griphook instructed, sounding bored. “It’ll finalize your blood right to the vault and ensure no one can access it except you.”

Harry did so gladly.

The door shone briefly silver and settled back to a dull iron-gray shade, then swung open.

His mouth dropped.

Piles and piles of gold and silver and bronze. Harry only vaguely listened to Griphook explaining the money denominations; he was too busy trying to process that all the years he’d been starving and shivering in Little Whinging, this had been waiting for him.

Griphook snapped his fingers, and a small bag of nicely tooled black leather appeared in his palm. It was just large enough to fit a small paperback book if you crammed it in far enough. “That’ll allow you to withdraw up five hundred galleons a year from your trust vault, as much as you want from the family vault with parental permission,” he explained. “Just stick your hand in and think about how much you want to withdraw. It’s also got an Undetectable Expansion Charm; you can fit up to about the volume of a large goat of other things inside.”

“Thanks.”

Griphook leered—although Harry didn’t take it personally, since leering seemed to be the goblin equivalent of a smile—and beckoned him out.

They climbed back in the crazy cart and rattled on down into the belly of the earth.

“Potter family vault,” Griphook announced.

“Come see,” James said with a wink.

Harry followed him into the vault and stopped dead. Again.

If his trust vault had been impressive, then this was… unfathomable. You could fit all of the Dursleys’ house in here and still have room left over to walk around the edges. The bulk of it was money, but Harry definitely saw some bookshelves around a big pile of bronze knuts and his eyes narrowed.

“Can I… look around a bit?” he said, not bothering to hide his awe.

“Of course,” James said absently, already walking away the other direction. “I’ll just be a few… minutes…”

Harry left him to his search and made a beeline for the books, thinking about that undetectable expansion charm on the bag, and about how far behind he’d probably be from the rest of the students if they all grew up around families with magic.

He grinned when he saw the books. They all looked old, and dense, and fascinating. But he didn’t have much time…

His hands reached for the books that seemed most interesting.

A Study of Restricted Potions.

Walking the Line: Spells and Curses considered “Gray Magic”.

Emeric’s Complete Compendium of Curses, Jinxes, Hexes, Counterspells and Other Offensive Magics.

The Subtleties: On the Arte of Mind Magicke.

He stuffed those four quickly into the bag and scanned back over the shelves again, heart pounding.

His eyes caught on a small book on the floor and around the corner of the bookshelf. Harry grabbed it, registered that the title had something to do with animals, and crammed it in his bag without thinking because he’d been distracted by—

He’d seen James using a wand by now, of course, and everyone else. In fact, Harry hadn’t seen anyone doing magic without a wand. When he asked, James said only the strongest wizards could do wandless magic, and then not without years of practice, or young wizards, whose magic wasn’t controlled. Harry nodded and didn’t say anything about his own wandless magic. He also thought he was looking forward to seeing how a wand would help him cast spells, and he’d paid attention to how casually everyone else seemed to use theirs.

So he recognized the rack of wands for what they were when he saw them, but what caught him off guard was the power coming from them.

Harry sidled closer. The wands near the top left looked oldest; there were little plaques next to them, worn with age and barely legible. Lord Edmund Potter. Lady Caroline Potter. Each was followed by details that Harry didn’t fully understand that probably had to do with the materials the wand was made of.

The bottom right held a wand labeled Lord Fleamont Potter and then, below it, Lily Evans-Potter with several empty racks below hers. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these were old family wands.

Harry blinked tears out of his eyes and scanned back over the wands, feeling… pulled.

The black wand almost pulsed when he saw it.

Harry narrowed his eyes and stepped closer.

Vincent Gaunt-Potter, read the label, faded and tarnished with age. Ash, thestral tail feather. The wand itself was about average length, it looked like, and plain, carved of a dark brown wood. It was on the far left column of wands and only a few down from the top. One of the oldest here, then.

Harry reached out for it almost without thinking.

When his hand closed around the grip, a surge of energy rippled between it and him. Then it settled and firmed, and Harry thought the wand felt… satisfied.

The feeling faded, until there was no indication of the connection except for a subtle warmth where Harry held the wand.

He lifted and examined the smooth, polished wood, studying it carefully. He wondered whether it was common for old wands to find new owners; he didn’t think so, since none of the other slots were empty, meaning James and Julian probably had their own wands.

I shouldn’t take this.

But the thought of leaving the wand behind made him narrow his eyes and grip it harder. There was an unmistakable sense of power to this wand, and Harry couldn’t deny how much that called to him. Plus, it liked him. It’d be stupid to leave it here.

Mind made up, he stuffed it into his bag and hurried back to the front of the vault just as James got there.

“Harry, good,” James said, grinning. “See anything cool?”

Harry thought back over what he’d seen, looking for something appropriate to ask about. “Do those brooms fly?”

James’ smile widened. “Born Quidditch player already, I can tell! Yes, technically, but they’re antiques. I’ll teach you how to fly before you go to school; you’ll love it. Jules’s been flying since he was four, I’m sure he’ll be happy to give you some pointers…”

He kept on about brooms and some sport called Quidditch played on them. Harry thought it sounded cool and like he definitely wanted to try, but in his experience admitting to wanting something was a great way to get it taken away forever, so he didn’t tell James that. He made a mental note that a great way to get James talking and/or distracted was to bring up brooms.

He also noted James tucking a small package wrapped in brown paper into his pocket and narrowed his eyes. So that was what James had come here to get for this mysterious headmaster, whose name, according to the letter, was Albus Dumbledore, as ridiculous a name as any Harry had ever heard. James had said it was an old family name, and if he hadn’t Harry would’ve suspected the man chose that name just to sound bumbling and kindly and grandfatherly, which of course immediately made Harry quite certain that the man was none of those things. Of course, it being a family name, that was a moot point, but still.

Harry relaxed enough to truly enjoy the cart ride this time, letting a grin spread across his face since James was sitting behind him and couldn’t see it. Griphook, in front, seemed bored. Harry didn’t think even doing this several times a day could ever get boring, but maybe the goblins were just less easily excited than people.

The light of the white marble lobby made Harry wince and blink when they came out of the tunnels. James laughed at him. It wasn’t a mean laugh, or even a taunting one, but Harry had spent enough time being bullied that he tensed and grew cold, his good mood evaporating.

“How about Ollivander’s, eh?” James said. “Get you a wand—you’ll be a proper wizard now!”

That, at least, Harry could support. He made himself grin back at his father—a trace of caution and reserve, too, because it’d be suspicious if he was too affectionate too quickly—but a grin.

James looked awkwardly happy.

Harry decided his birth father wasn’t much more observant than most of his teachers.

Ollivander’s was cramped, dusty, and smelled of wood and varnish. The sense of power and magic coming from the Potter wands in the vault had been strong; in here, it was almost oppressive in its strength. The short ends of long, narrow boxes in jumbled stacks showed on shelves on both walls, stretching back much farther than you’d expect from the front of the store. Harry couldn’t even see the end of the hall. The front windows, while free of obstructions, were dusty and grimy and let only a sort of golden half-light into the shop. Harry was pretty sure the owners had done it on purpose for the effect.

“Ahhhh,” someone breathed. “Mr. Potter, the elder. I was wondering if I’d be seeing you in here…”

The little old man with the eerily wide eyes glanced at James as he said it and—was that a trace of reprimand in his voice?

Harry decided he liked the man, even if he was creepy.

“Harry, this is Mr. Ollivander,” James said. “The most famous wandcrafter in England. And the best.”

Harry wondered if his Ollivander wand would match the one he’d taken from the vault.

The little man started taking all sorts of measurements. Harry tuned out his chatter, obviously meant to unnerve and intimidate and fascinate customers with the oh-so-impressive knowledge of the wandmaker. Although he had to admit it was cool that Ollivander could remember everything about James’ wand, and also Harry’s mum’s.

His attention was drawn to the wands themselves.

He didn’t know if he’d have noticed before holding Vincent Potter’s wand, but there were distinct… attitudes coming from different boxes as Ollivander plucked one unmarked box after another from the shelves and piled them on the counter. Some seemed stubborn, others fiery, others sluggish, others simple, others flighty, others capricious, others cruel, others stern, others kind.

“Here, here. Twelve inches, yew, unicorn hair. Try…”

Harry took the wand and waved it about, feeling foolish, but it was snatched from his hand almost instantly.

“Obviously not. Fourteen and three quarters inches, cherry, dragon heartstring—”

Harry waved the wand, and a bowl on the counter shattered.

He flinched back, apologies already springing reflexively to his lips, one hand raised to block a fist—

But Ollivander simply tsked and waved his own wand at the bowl, repairing it, and didn’t seem to notice Harry’s reaction.

James did, though. Harry sneaked a peek at his father and saw the guilt and horror and realization written large across the man’s face. He really was about as subtle as a brick. Harry was eleven and he could hide his emotions better than that.

One wand after another was tried and discarded. Some of them didn’t react at all; some resulted in something breaking or falling over; most just gave Harry the subtle but distinct feeling of disapproval, of rejection. He could usually tell almost as quickly as Ollivander that a wand was unsuitable.

He fought back the embarrassment and guilt—the feeling that of course he was weird and a freak, even here, where magic was real, and accepted—and probably wouldn’t have managed if James hadn’t sat there, unconcerned, while Ollivander just got increasingly excited. Neither of them treated it like something weird, or something shameful, to have trouble finding a wand, so Harry bit his lip and dealt with it.

He wouldn’t let Aunt Petunia shame him now that he was gone. He wouldn’t.

“One minute, Harry,” James said, and Harry glanced over to see his father’s attention caught by someone outside the shop. “I’ll be right back—got to deal with this, work stuff, you know.”

Harry did know. Uncle Vernon had always been the same, willing to drop any family engagement if “work stuff” came up. He watched James leave and turned back to the wandmaker just as the short man, whose delicate appearance, Harry was fairly sure, was deceptive, disappeared into the gloom of the back of the shop. Only his voice drifted out.

“Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, not to worry… Ah… yes, I wonder… why not… might be interesting, if nothing else…”

Ollivander reemerged, holding a box consideringly in his hands. He slid across the counter to Harry, a new gleam coming to light in his eye. “Eleven inches, holly, phoenix tail feather core.”

Harry stared at the wand. It seemed—younger than the one in his bag had felt, young and curious and wanting. Ready to be used, ready to go and do great things. It felt powerful in its own way.

He picked it up, already knowing deep down that this was the one.

Warmth ignited the second he picked it up. The power of this wand was definitely less restrained than the other. Untested, inexperienced.

He waved it in the air and a burst of gold sparks rained from the end.

Harry realized he was smiling, the sharp-edged expression he wore on his inside face that no one ever saw. But Ollivander didn’t seem perturbed. “Curious,” he murmured, “curious…”

He hated asking questions; none of the adults in his life except Mrs. Smithy had liked them, but— “Sorry, sir—what’s curious?” Harry asked.

He slumped in relief when Ollivander didn’t seem to take it badly. “You see, Mr. Potter, the phoenix whose tail feather lies in that wand gave just… two others. One belongs now to your brother, and the third… well, the third wand with this core gave your brother his scar.”

Harry’s hand almost flew instinctively to his forehead but he disguised the motion as rubbing his nose. “It was—that dark wizard’s whose name no one will say.”

“Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. I always wondered what might have happened with Voldemort had I not sold him his wand,” Ollivander agreed. “Though I recommend you not repeat the name; most do not respond well.” The batty old man was gone, and there was definitely a dangerously clever edge to his expression now. “That the sibling wands to the Dark Lord’s should choose both the Boy-Who-Lived, and his twin… is very… curious.”

He slid the wrapped wand box across the counter to Harry but didn’t let go. “I think we can expect great things from you, Mr. Potter. After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things… Terrible, yes, but great.”

Harry looked down at the wand box and thought that he liked the sound of doing stuff others would call “great deeds”.

He managed a nod just as James Potter blew back into the shop, shattering the stillness. “Got one? Excellent, what is it?”

“Eleven inches, holly, phoenix feather,” Harry rattled off reflexively.

“Good, good,” James said absently, fishing about in his money bag, a slightly larger twin to Harry’s own. “The usual seven galleons?”

“Indeed, Lord Potter,” Ollivander said.

Harry noticed as they left the shop that Ollivander’s eyes did not leave his face.

***

“Where to now?” he asked.

James winced. “I, ah, may have to go deal with… something. I’m—my job’s as an Auror, like a policeman in the wizarding world—there’s been a sighting of a dangerous wizard, nowhere near here but I might need to go deal with it—are you all right on your own for a bit?”

“I think so,” Harry said, trying not to sound too uncertain. He didn’t want to wander around this chaotic unfamiliar street without a guide, but he also wasn’t sure he wanted James Potter around either.

“Stay on the main street, in sight of Gringotts,” James said sternly, kneeling in front of him. ‘Stern’ didn’t sit well on his face. Harry thought he looked like he should be laughing and careless. “You’ve got your letter, right? Swing by Dyson’s Luggage and Travel Supply and buy a trunk with a shrinking charm; then you can go around and get your books and cauldron and potions supplies.” Again, that little bit of dislike when he talked about books and potions. Harry made a note to pay particular attention to potions. “If I’m not back, you can head to Madame Malkin’s or Twilfit and Tatting’s for robes… actually, best buy a whole new wardrobe while you’re at it. We can get you Muggle clothes later. Don’t forget a good cloak; winters at Hogwarts are cold. I’ll find you when I come back. If things run really long, head to the ice cream parlor and wait for me there.”

Harry’s head spun, trying to keep track of all that. “Okay…”

James took his money pouch, laid a hand on it, and said clearly, “I, Lord James Potter, head of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter, give permission for my son Hadrian Remus Potter to withdraw up to two thousand galleons from the Potter family vault today to purchase school supplies.”

He handed it back over with a wink. “Now, don’t go buying a solid gold cauldron; stick with the pewter one from the list, and don’t you dare buy anything so ridiculous as a broom; we’ve got good ones at home. Clothes… go ahead and spend as much as you want, okay?”

Harry clutched the money purse and nodded. He was feeling distinctly overwhelmed, and also like James was trying to buy him, which was annoying but useful.

“See you in about two hours,” James said, and ruffled Harry’s hair, and turned on his heel and disappeared.

Harry flinched backwards from the sudden vanishing and swallowed, hard, suddenly very aware that he was alone in a world he had no idea how to navigate.

Well. That wasn’t entirely true. He knew exactly how the money worked, and Diagon Alley was just a mostly straight cobbled road with Gringotts at one end and the Leaky Cauldron at the other, where they’d stepped out of a fireplace (a fireplace!). It would be hard to get lost. And he’d been fending for himself around Little Whinging for years.

Determinedly, he started walking, holding tightly to his wand box with one hand and his money pouch with the other. He was acutely aware of his clothes, which were ugly and in bad condition and low quality even among Muggles, meaning they stuck out here like Dudley had among the other choirboys when they were eight and Aunt Petunia had spent two months convinced they all needed to go to church. (Harry had been immensely relieved when she gave that up.) He decided he was going to the tailor’s as soon as he had his trunk, not the bookstore, no matter what James said.

There. Dyson’s Luggage and Travel Supply. Harry glanced over the bags in the front window and marched in.

There were seven or eight other customers; the man behind the counter seemed to be very involved with a family of icy blondes. Harry thought the parents looked all right, if stern, but the son had a pouty self-absorbed look on his face that reminded Harry uncomfortably of Dudley, and he resolved to stay away from them.

While the owner dealt with his other customers, Harry poked around the trunks. There was a display of school trunks along one side. He passed over the first two, which he could immediately tell were lowest price and lowest quality. The third and fourth trunks had more promise—they were clearly made with nicer materials, and slightly larger.

The third one’s description told Harry that it had a self-sorting library compartment with a five hundred book capacity, a clothing compartment that could hold two standard wardrobes, one for potions supplies with “top-of-the-line preservation charms” and an expandable cauldron stand, a standard-use compartment, and one smaller secret compartment that could only be accessed with a password. The fourth trunk was similar except it had a one-thousand-book capacity, half again the wardrobe space, and a lot more capacity for potions ingredients. It was also two hundred galleons, which even Harry’s limited exposure to wizarding shops told him was a high price.

He considered his finances. He wasn’t sure he wanted James to know he’d bought a high-end trunk; it’d seem like Harry was either taking advantage of James’ generosity or trying to be secretive or greedy or all three. He also didn’t want to dip into his own money that much.

He left me with the Dursleys for ten years, Harry thought with sudden anger. He can buy the bloody trunk.

He waited until the man at the counter was unoccupied. “Excuse me,” Harry said politely. “I’d like to buy a trunk for school.”

The man looked up. His face reminded Harry of Piers Polkiss, except without the cruelty. “Of course. Hogwarts?” the man said, coming around the corner.

“Yes, sir.”

“Figures. Get a lot of you through this time o’ year,” the man said, walking over to the school trunks. “Now, which one’ve you got yer eye on?”

“This one, sir,” Harry said, pointing to the best of the four.

The man eyed him cleverly. “That’s two hundred galleons, lad.”

“I know, sir. I can pay.”

The man shrugged. “All right, it’s yer money. Want a demonstration?”

“Please,” Harry said.

“Got a wand?”

“Yes, sir,” Harry said, and pulled the ash wand out of his money pouch, since the holly one was still wrapped up. He was relieved that seeing it again confirmed what he’d thought; though it was varnished to a dark brown, it wasn’t that far off in shade and color from the holly wand.

“Good. I need a half deposit before I key you into the trunk, mind,” the man said.

Harry pulled out his Gringotts pouch, stuck his hand inside, and thought loudly: Potter family vault, one hundred galleons.

A smaller leather bag hit his fingers, surprisingly heavy. He pulled it out, careful not to jostle the books, and handed it to the shopkeeper, who glanced inside and nodded. “That’ll do. Now tap your wand to the trunk and say your password.”

“Can I change it later?”

The shopkeeper grinned. “Clever lad. Yes, just touch your wand or your hand to it and say ‘password change,’ then the old password, then the new one.”

Harry nodded and tapped the lid with the ash wand. “Magic.”

The man snorted. “Good. Now, this dial here, see?” He showed Harry a dial set in the center of the front side of the lid, in the middle of the two latches. “Spin it to which compartment you want. You’ve got to close and open the trunk to switch compartments. There’s only four shown here, but if you hold a finger to the middle and say your password again, and it’ll let you into the secret compartment.”

Harry experimented and found the potions section. The shopkeeper showed him how it contained different cubbies and containment options for a wide variety of ingredients, all of which had Volume-Dependent Expansion Charms so they’d grow or shrink to fit the amount of stuff you put in them. The top set of containers would transform into a standard portable potions kit at the tap of a wand— “Ye’ll put that in yer bag so you don’t have to tote the whole trunk to and from the Potions classroom,” the shopkeeper said with a grin—and there was space for up to a size 3 cauldron, with a collapsible cauldron stand tucked down into the bottom corner. “For brewing on the go, understand.”

The library compartment fascinated Harry; it would show three rows of books turned facedown based on his most recent reads and related topics, but if he wrote on a bit of parchment search terms like a specific title, author, or subject, and dropped it into the shadowed edges of the library, the shelves would rearrange to show him what he wanted. He couldn’t wait to fill and play with that feature and barely spent any time examining the other compartments, one of which looked more than adequate for holding his clothes and one of which was basically just an empty space that looked disconcertingly like the very plain inside of a normal Muggle trunk. He tested the secret compartment and found that it had a simple, basic organization to it, and would be entirely serviceable.

He agreed to pay an extra five galleons for the shopkeeper to put anti-theft, featherlight, and shrinking charms on the trunk, and got his initials (HRP) engraved in silver on the top. On a whim, he purchased a charcoal gray pack with an Undetectable Expansion Charm for his everyday use, and a leather wand holster charmed to be unnoticeable that strapped to the inside of his wand arm. The shopkeeper waved goodbye with a wink and Harry walked out with the shrunken trunk in his money pouch, chest swelling with the kind of good mood he’d only felt a few times in his life.

He went to Twilfit and Tatting’s next; he almost went into the one called Madame Malkin’s but saw the pale pointy boy in there and decided to pick a different store. He was three hundred forty-four galleons and nineteen knuts lighter when he left, but Harry was also wearing a light gray summer wizard’s robe over a purple tunic, black trousers, and dragonhide boots, with an entire wizarding wardrobe from casual to formal to school robes in the trunk, so he considered it money well spent. Especially when he caught a glimpse of himself in a storefront and almost didn’t recognize how he looked with properly fitted clothes.

Harry tried a smile at his reflection. It looked a little uncertain, but also unreservedly happy.

He hadn’t had time to examine his feelings towards his father yet but he was pretty sure they were solidly in the very negative territory. He had to deal with a suddenly-heroic-mother, a twin brother, an absent negligent father, and an entire new world he knew next to nothing about.

Despite all that, he thought he loved being a wizard.

Harry did as his—as James had suggested, and went to the apothecary next. He bought two of the standard first year Potions supply kits and one of a standard sixth year supply so he could experiment a bit, a basic cauldron, and a potions toolkit of medium quality. He didn’t want to stand out as having fancy stuff but neither did he want to deprive himself of any options. They had a good book section, too, and since Harry figured they’d have better potions options here than at the bookstore, he grabbed four that looked interesting but within a reasonable level for someone with no experience.

He lugged it all outside, found a shadowed spot around the corner from the apothecary, and packed all the potions gear away carefully. Harry had glanced through a few of the books and though potions sounded a lot like cooking, except that it might blow up in your face. He was excited to try it out. He liked cooking, when he wasn’t doing it with Aunt Petunia breathing down his neck, and he was good at it even with Aunt Petunia breathing down his neck.

He thought back over what James had told him to do, trying to remember if he’d forgotten anything, and then went back over the supply list he had folded in his pocket.

Telescope. Right. There’d been a shop selling all kinds of finicky-looking metal instruments a little bit farther up; he expected he’d find a telescope there.

The shop was called Phenomena, and it smelled like metal. Harry was reminded strongly of the steampunk-themed Halloween party he’d gotten dragged to with Dudley once, except the things in here weren’t fake. It would’ve been a confusing, chaotic mess, except there was a stand off to the side labeled HOGWARTS in glowing letters. He headed right for it and grabbed a standard first year telescope.

“Hogwarts, too?”

Harry spun around. “Er—hi, yeah.”

He shuffled aside so the other kid, a boy a little taller than Harry with sandy brown hair and clever hazel eyes, could reach the telescopes.

“Theo Nott,” the other boy said, shifting his telescope to his left hand and sticking out his right.

“Harry Potter,” Harry said, shaking Nott’s hand.

The other boy’s eyes narrowed. “Any relation to Julian Potter?”

“He’s my twin.”

“I didn’t know the Boy Who Lived had a twin,” Nott said, with just a hint of a sneering emphasis on ‘Boy Who Lived’ that made Harry instantly like him.

“Until this morning, neither did I,” Harry said. “I was raised by muggles.”

Nott’s eyebrows rose. “Really.”

Harry shrugged. “I suppose I’ll have loads of catching up to do…”

“Nah,” Nott said, still giving Harry that appraising look. “There’s plenty of students who’re Muggle-born and haven’t even heard of magic before they show up. They do all right. In terms of wand work, anyway, most of the time they’ve got no clue how to navigate wizarding politics or culture.” He rolled his eyes. “You should do fine. Old family like the Potters—I bet you’ve plenty of magic.”

“I’ll read up on culture, then,” Harry said, making a note to buy books on that at his next stop.

“Not a bad plan. What was it like, with Muggles?” Nott said, a sudden gleam coming to his eye. “I’ve never spent much time in Muggle London.”

“All right, I guess,” Harry said slowly. He didn’t think he wanted everyone and their mum knowing about the Dursleys and how they’d treated him. “I mean… My mum was Muggle-born. I grew up with her sister—my aunt.” He shrugged. “She and her husband and my cousin were—are—not great. But school was fun.” Harry paused. “You’ve never seen a movie, have you?”

“A what?” Nott said.

Harry stared. “That’s—okay, kind of weird, but whatever. I don’t know. They have a lot of technological advancements that it seems like wizards don’t use.” He looked up at the ceiling, which was lit by magical lights spread out like constellations. “Electricity, for example.”

Nott cocked his head. “What’s that?”

“Er—it’s like—basically lightning,” Harry said, trying to think back on his science classes. “We—they—get energy from moving water, or burning stuff, and then they turn it into the same kind of energy that’s in lightning and they use it to power their homes and stuff.”

“How interesting,” Nott mused. “I suppose they’ve got to compensate somehow for not having magic somehow. I’d go mad.”

“I’ve spent less than a day knowing about all this and I can’t imagine giving it up,” Harry agreed fervently. He wasn’t sure what about the other boy made him this talkative, as he was normally quiet, but he thought he might tentatively like Nott.

Nott made a face. “The brother of the Boy Who Lived, growing up muggle… the press would go mad.”

Harry stiffened.

Nott laughed and headed for the counter, Harry following on his heels. “Oh, come off it, I wasn’t suggesting—I’m not going to go blab.” His face took on a dreamy cast. “Just, oh. The drama.”

“It would be dramatic,” Harry admitted, paying for his telescope. Nott did likewise, and stuffed it into a pack while Harry bent to pack his away in the standard compartment of his trunk.

They stepped, blinking, back into the street. Harry glanced sideways at Nott, reluctant to give up the other boy’s companionship so easily but unsure how to go about this whole… friendship thing. He’d never had much experience with friends.

“I’m headed to the bookstore,” Nott said easily. “You?”

Apparently, that was how it was done. “Same, actually.”

Nott tossed Harry a smile that reminded Harry of his the one he saw in the mirror sometimes. “Excellent.”

They wandered down Diagon Alley. Nott asked plenty of questions about muggles and Harry did his best to answer them before turning the conversation around and asking about Hogwarts.

“It’s one of the oldest wizarding schools in the world,” Nott said with obvious pride. “And one of the best. I say ‘one of’ because the standards have slipped somewhat in the last twenty years, thanks to our current headmaster, who’s less interested in the school and more interested in politics.” Again, that hint of sneer.

“That’s the one named Dumbledore,” Harry said.

“Right.”

“Ridiculous name,” Harry muttered.

Nott snorted. “Can’t argue that one. Anyway, the basic classes are Transfiguration—turning one thing into something else—Charms— ‘normal’ spells—potions, which should be self-explanatory—herbology, same there—Defense Against the Dark Arts, which is something of a joke since no teacher ever lasts more than a year, lots of people think it’s cursed—History of magic, another joke, it’s taught by a ghost and my cousin Roxanne says he could put a brick to sleep—and Astronomy, what we got the telescope for.”

Harry blinked hard, trying to process all that. It sounded like a lot of work, but fun work. “No math or writing?” he said uncertainly.

“We write loads of essays,” Nott said. “Math—mathematics? Like arithmetic?”

“Yeah, but arithmetic is like… basic math,” Harry said. He’d been sitting in on math tutoring sessions in the library for years out of boredom. He didn’t love it but the clear cut yes or no, right or wrong aspect of math appealed to him.

“Huh. Must be a Muggle thing. It’s not in the core classes, but it sounds like Arithmancy—you can take that starting third year—is kind of similar?” Nott frowned, maybe because Muggles had something wizards didn’t.

“How about dormitories?” Harry said.

Nott made a face. “Well, according to Roxanne, you have to share a room with some of the other kids in your year, depending on how many there are.”

“But we get beds?” Harry checked.

Nott gave him a weird look. “Why would we not get beds?”

Harry realized his slip and blushed, looking away. “I, uh. I lived in a cupboard under the staircase in… my aunt and uncle’s house,” he admitted. “I just got a mattress on a cot. I don’t mind sharing a room.”

Nott looked furious, but Harry just made his face blank and kept walking until the other boy shrugged and launched into a description of his cousin’s dormitory that she’d sent him in a letter while Harry grappled with the sudden warmth that came from knowing someone who’d get so mad on Harry’s behalf over the cupboard.

Harry had known it was a bad way to treat a child. For years. But knowing it and knowing it were different things.

“And—oh, you don’t know about the houses, do you?”

“Houses?” Harry said, feeling a bit stupid.

“Don’t feel stupid,” Nott said. Harry blushed again; the other boy was annoyingly perceptive. “You couldn’t be expected to know these things. There’s four of them; you get sorted in based off your values, basically. Hufflepuff, they value loyalty, fair play, hard work, honesty. Don’t cross a Puff, you’ll have the entire house ready to eat you alive. Ravenclaws value creativity, intelligence, wit. They’re stereotyped as the ‘smart house’ but Roxanne says they drive all the professors up the wall with random questions and homework they didn’t do because they got sidetracked and stayed up all night researching some obscure charm. They’re brilliant, though. Mostly they don’t hold grudges or get involved with squabbles but they bicker with Hufflepuff and when the Claws do a prank or something, apparently it’s always vicious, clever, and complicated. Then there’s Gryffindor, the house of the brave, noble, and chivalrous.” Nott rolled his eyes. “Based on the Gryffs I know, and what Roxanne’s said, they’re a bunch of impulsive, reckless fools. Easy to dupe. But I guess they have their uses. And finally, Slytherin. The best house.” He shot Harry a sly grin. “Slytherin’s the house of cunning, ambition, and resourcefulness. It’s where I’m hoping to go. Slytherin has a rep for turning out loads of Dark wizards, which I suppose is kind of true, but the other Houses all have their fair share. Slytherin and Gryffindor have a long-standing rivalry. Apparently Quidditch games between those two get insane.”

“Right,” Harry said, privately thinking Slytherin and Ravenclaw sounded interesting, and that he’d bet his entire trust vault James was a Gryffindor. “Quidditch. Can you explain more about that?”

“I—you know what, can I just recommend you a book on it?” Nott said. “Frankly, it’s not my biggest interest.”

“Sure,” Harry said. “Good timing, look—we’re here.”

Nott held the door for Harry. “My Lord Brother Of The Boy Who Lived,” he said with a mocking smile, but it wasn’t bad mocking, more like inviting Harry to share in the joke. Harry smirked back at him and swept through the doors with as much drama as he could muster given his height and generally scrawny frame.

Nott followed him in, snickering.

They swept through the display of books for Hogwarts first years, collecting their first-year texts and, for Harry, a year’s supply of quills, ink, and leather-bound notebooks and parchment. Nott bemoaned how basic all the books were, and then Harry discovered, to his delight, that his new acquaintance-maybe-friend shared his love of books.

“Oh you have no idea how much of a relief this is,” Nott announced when Harry admitted he’d been looking forward to spending a large bag of galleons at the bookstore all day. “All the other children in my social circle are unbearably reluctant to read. Drives me mad.”

“I spent a lot of time in the public library growing up,” Harry said. “I love reading.”

Nott looked intrigued, and then Harry had to spend ten minutes fielding questions about public libraries and how they worked while the boys browsed the shelves. Eventually, though, Nott got distracted by the books and they lapsed into companionable silence. Harry found a massive compendium of charms listed in alphabetical order, a Transfiguration theory book that Nott said was dry but extremely useful for understanding the underlying concepts of the discipline, a couple of interesting potions books, and then stopped with a smile when he saw the large section labeled “Self-Defense.”

“Interested in hexes, are you?” Nott said with a grin.

Harry nodded, trailing his fingers over Defending Yourself, Your Family, and Your Posessions.

“Oh, you’ll fit right in in Slytherin. Come on, I’ll recommend you some. Not that,” Nott gave the book Harry was considering a withering glance, “it’s just wimpy Ministry-approved hogwash about passive responses.”

He loaded Harry down with nine books on personal self-defense, offensive magic, warding spells, guard spells, and alarm spells. Harry could not wait to dive into these. If he’d had access to this stuff years ago, he could’ve protected himself against Dudley and all the rest; he could’ve kept Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon from giving him the scars that littered his back and shoulders and arms. In the wizarding world, just doing magic wasn’t an advantage on its own, since everyone had magic. So he’d just have to be one of the best to make sure no one ever hurt him again.

Harry wasn’t naïve enough to think bullying and prejudice were unique to the Muggle world.

Nott somewhat gave off his own book cruising and seemed to enjoy guiding Harry through the bookstore and the various topics. He pointed out some good tomes on wizarding culture, history, etiquette, law, and politics; Harry bought everything Nott recommended and more besides. He planned to spend most of the summer reading and he had a lot of catching up to do.

They hit the shelf of miscellaneous subjects last. Harry grabbed two books on wand lore and wand making to try to figure out whether he should use the ash or holly wand more, and slid them into his basket.

A book on unusual magicks caught his eye. Harry grabbed it and flipped it over. “What’s an animagus?” he asked.

Nott leaned on a bookshelf and briskly sorted through a few books set on an end table. “Person who can turn into an animal at will,” he said absently. “It’s… different from… self-transfiguration. Not as dangerous—once you’ve achieved the transformation, anyway—and it’s loads… easier to control. Ridiculously hard to do, though.”

Harry dug into his money pouch and pulled out the small book he’d found in the Potter family vault, half-hidden beneath the shelves. The Animagus Transformation.

“Where’d you get that?” Nott asked sharply.

Startled, Harry looked up. He’d thought the other boy too lost in his own reading to notice, but apparently not. “Er—why?”

Nott’s gaze snapped back up to Harry’s considering. “It’s… not entirely legal.”

“Something’s either legal or it isn’t,” Harry said, stuffing the book back in the pouch and scowling at Nott.

Nott shrugged. “It’s not technically illegal to own, but it’s illegal to sell, print, duplicate, or purchase. It’s also illegal to be an Animagus without registering yourself with the Ministry of Magic. You’d get some… bad attention if you were caught with that.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Harry said stiffly, not liking that the other boy had leverage on him. He’d have to make sure that even a surprise search of their belongings wouldn’t turn up the book. He didn’t know what the privacy rights were for students.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Nott said, then paused, his smirk fading into thoughtfulness. “As long as you promise to involve me if you ever use that thing and teach yourself animagery.”

Harry wondered at the other boy’s assumption that Harry would be willing to do something illegal—an entirely correct assumption, but still not one most people would make—and at Nott’s willingness to join in.

He slid the book of uncommon magic skills into his basket. “Deal.”

The other boy nodded sharply and looked around the store. “I think I’m done here.”

Harry looked over. Somehow, even though Nott had seemed to spend most of his time helping Harry go through the bookstore, Nott’s basket was nearly as full as Harry’s. Thankfully, the baskets had expansion and featherlight charms on them, so neither boy was struggling to carry or balance their enormous book purchases.

Between the two of them, it took ten minutes before they’d paid for their entire purchases. Nott paged through a book that seemed to have to do with water magic while Harry found a corner of the bookstore by the Pre-Roman Wizarding Law section, which was small and horrendously dusty, to open his trunk and pack his books away. Hidden from Nott behind the open trunk lid, Harry unwrapped the holly wand and tucked it up his holster, and stashed the ash wand and the books he’d taken from the Potter vault into the secret compartment.

Thirty seconds later, the compressed trunk was tucked away inside his charcoal backpack along with Harry’s nasty Muggle clothes, which were only staying with him until he could find a quiet moment to himself to burn them.

“Have you got an owl?” Nott said abruptly as they were leaving the bookstore. “If you’re willing, of course, I’d like to write you. We still have a good month and a bit before school starts.”

Harry stared at him. “Owl?”

“Right, sorry. Owl post.” Nott craned his head back, then pointed; Harry shaded his eyes and squinted and saw a large brown bird spiraling down towards a shop by Gringotts with something attached to its legs. “We use them for mail. First years are allowed an owl, a toad, or a cat.” He smirked. “Loads of people break that rule; as long as it’s small and doesn’t hurt anyone and you’re subtle about it, the professors look the other way. Which is to say, lots of Slytherins and Ravenclaws break that rule, because Hufflepuffs don’t break rules as much and Gryffindors are about as subtle as bricks.”

Harry smiled. He didn’t like laughing, as a general rule; it was more expressive than he preferred to be. But he thought Theo Nott wasn’t the sort of person to be offended or irritated by quiet, or by Harry being reserved. Which was a relief.

“I’d like that,” he said. “To write, I mean.”

“Oh good,” Nott said. “I’m going to need a study partner and you seem like a good bloke.”

Harry looked at him sideways. He felt comfortable enough around Nott at this point to needle him a bit. “Even if I’m in Gryffindor?”

Nott heaved a sigh. “I suppose I could make an exception in the Slytherin-Gryffindor feud. As long as you don’t turn into a reckless prat.”

“I think I can manage that,” Harry said. “I doubt I’ll be in Gryffindor anyway, based on what you said.”

Nott smirked. “My thoughts exactly.”

Harry hesitated. “I—do you know what my father’s House was?”

“Oh, Gryffindor, of course,” Nott said. “Both your parents. I imagine it’d be quite the scandal if the Gryffindor golden couple’s budding Gryffindor golden boy’s twin ended up in Slytherin. Where is your dad, anyway?”

“He had… work stuff,” Harry said. “He’s an Auror?”

“Yeah, magical law enforcement. Head Auror.” Nott looked like he was struggling to hold back either a sneer or an eye roll. “One of the youngest to ever get the position.”

Harry noticed the word choice. “Get? Not hold?”

“He’s new,” Nott said. “Promoted a year and a half ago. There’s a betting pool on how long he’ll last. Don’t tell him that; I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know. It’s not exactly… the people he spends time with.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at Nott. He’d been picking up on little things for a while, and he was pretty sure there was something about the politics of this new world that Nott wasn’t telling him. “Why do I get the feeling your family and mine don’t get along?”

“Because you’re annoyingly observant,” Nott said, frowning.

Harry thought. “Ice cream?” In his very limited experience, it was hard to be irritable while eating ice cream.

“Yeah. I’ll explain that one over ice cream.”

Harry got a simple bowl. Nott ordered some massive thing that looked like a sugar coma waiting to happen and got halfway through before he slowed down enough to talk.

“Right, here’s the situation.” He had a determined look on his face. “In the war that—that your parents fought in—”

“That killed my mum,” Harry cut in. “The one where Vol- sorry, You-Know-Who tried to kill my brother and it killed him and everyone freaked out over.”

Nott snorted. “Right, that. Sorry. It’s not funny. Just your summary was. Anyway… the big problem in the war was that the old pureblood families don’t like the Ministry coming in and telling us what to do and how to do it. There were also a lot of blood purist belief—basically that Muggles are inferior animals, wizards should rule them by right of strength and superiority, and Muggle-born witches and wizards are inferior at best, usurpers to be tortured and killed at worst, depending on who you asked.”

Harry felt vaguely green. He suddenly lost interest in his ice cream. “And… is there… anything to that? Are Muggleborns usually not as strong in magic?”

“Not as far as anyone can measure,” Nott said, stabbing viciously at his ice cream. He didn’t seem very satisfied, probably because ice cream is soft and not very satisfying to stab. “It was built as an excuse for the cultural argument. Basically that wizarding culture is being eroded by the influx of muggleborns who don’t know our customs and traditions, and more importantly, don’t try to integrate at all. My parents are in that second camp. You-Know-Who came along and built off that fear and either brainwashed, terrified, or convinced loads of people to follow him. He was on this take-over-the-Ministry-kill-the-muggleborns-and-rule-the-dirty-Muggles crusade. On their own, his followers wouldn’t have been as dangerous as they were. With him… it was a close victory. And even then, the so-called Light side only won because a baby defeated the killing curse and no one can figure out how.”

“That’d be my brother, then,” Harry said, unsure how to feel about his twin being a celebrity.

“Yep. In fact, I’m surprised no one’s come over to shake your hand or ask for an autograph,” Nott said. “Might be the eyes. Your brother’s are brown. Or the bearing; he’s loud and bloody impossible to overlook. Which reminds me, you’ve been squinting all day; do you need to get your eyes checked?”

“Maybe. So, the ‘Light’ side won,” prompted Harry, who didn’t feel like taking a jaunt down the Potter Sitcom right now.

“Yeah, and then… a bunch of You-Know-Who’s followers used what’s been termed the Imperius Defense. There’s this mind control curse called the Imperius and loads of them said they were under it. Near impossible to prove one way or the other, since veritaserum—truth potion—hadn’t been invented yet.”

Harry could see where this was going.

Nott opened his mouth just as a loud voice sliced through the ice cream shop’s outdoor seating area. “Harry!”

Harry flinched hard enough to almost knock over his ice cream, memories of Vernon’s loud, angry voice, of raised fists—

But Uncle Vernon never used his name.

He blinked the images away and focused on his father, who was crossing the patio with an angry stride.

“Bloody hell,” Nott whispered. “Potter, I should go—”

He was halfway out of his seat when James reached their table. “Harry,” James said through gritted teeth. “It’s time to go.”

Harry frowned at him. He didn’t want to go anywhere with anyone who looked like this. Angry adults resulted in beatings. And James hadn’t seemed the type before, but this sudden anger was worrying, and his mum Lily was Petunia’s sister, which meant—which meant maybe Petunia wasn’t the odd one out in her family, maybe his mum wasn’t nice either, and one person who isn’t nice tends to attract others who aren’t either, Harry knew that much—

Which was to say, he had no guarantee that James Potter was any better a person than Vernon Dursley. Only better at hiding his nastiness.

“I’m not done,” he said as politely as he could manage. “I’d like to finish my ice cream.”

James sat down stiffly, glaring at Nott.

“I can leave,” Nott said, sounding admirably bored and uncaring. “I’m about finished. Nice to meet you, Potter.”

“You as well,” Harry said, and watched his first tentative ally walk away to give the used ice cream bowl back to the shop.

James turned on him instantly.

Harry flinched back, hunching his shoulders up. Then forced himself to relax—they were in an open area; James couldn’t hit him here.

When he looked up from his ice cream, he saw something else on James’ face: horror. Shock. Guilt.

“Harry,” he said, his voice suddenly much gentler. “I know… this is a sensitive subject and you have no reason to trust me. But… did the Dursleys ever hit you?”

Harry clenched his fists under the table and let a little of his anger come to his face. (Little did he know, when he looked up, his eyes were practically glowing, and the exact shade of green as the Killing Curse.) “Fists,” he said. “Mostly. Uncle Vernon liked his belt a lot. Sometimes with an embellished buckle. Aunt Petunia broke a broom over my back when I was nine. And hit me on the head with a frying pan when I was seven.” With every word, he watched the knife twist, watched James Potter’s eyes get just a little hollower. It suggested that James wasn’t going to physically abuse a child. Or maybe that he just didn’t want anyone else abusing his child.

Either way, hurting his father like this—it felt good.

But he didn’t have to tell everything. So Harry kept the other things to himself—the food withheld as punishment, the sometimes two weeks of being locked in the cupboard with only limited bathroom breaks, the forced labor, the barely-treated broken bones. That could be ammunition for another day, and he didn’t need to dump all his messed-up childhood out in the open at once.

He deliberately relaxed his hands, dulled his eyes, and went back to his ice cream.

James took a breath. “Harry, I’m—I’m sorry. I had no idea. I swear, if I’d known—”

“But you didn’t,” Harry said as lightly as he could manage. “It doesn’t matter now.” He took another bite, and when James didn’t say anything, decided he’d rather have it out here, in public, because most people were more self-contained in public. “Why were you so mad?”

“Did that—boy tell you his name?” James said.

“Yeah. Theo Nott.”

“His father’s a Death Eater.”

Harry paused, and a few things clicked. “One of You-Know-Who’s people?”

James frowned. “How’d you know that?”

Harry shrugged.

“Yes, one of You-Know-Who’s followers,” James said. “He told the courts he was being mind controlled, got off of punishment.” So that’s what Nott didn’t want to tell me. Can’t blame him. “All lies, of course. He wasn’t the only one. I don’t want you associating with his son, Harry.”

Harry focused on his ice cream to buy time. He wasn’t ready to give up the only contact he had among his year-mates, but he also didn’t want to push things. There was no point picking a fight with his father so soon.

He settled on “He was nice to me. We did our book shopping together. He told me about Hogwarts.”

“What did he tell you?” James said, clearly assuming that Nott would’ve passed on only the prejudiced bad stuff.

Harry had to hide a smirk. “That it’s the oldest and best wizarding school in the world, although it’s sliding down the best ranking in terms of test scores in the last twenty years. There’s four Houses. Slytherin has more than its fair share of Dark wizards come out of it. Hufflepuff is loyalty and fairness, Slytherin is ambition and cleverness, Ravenclaw is creativity and intelligence, Gryffindor is nobility and bravery. They play Quidditch against each other and room separately and go to classes with their housemates.”

James blinked. “That’s… mostly true.”

“Mostly?” Harry said.

James frowned. “Okay, all true. But listen, Harry—Tiberius Nott is bad news. It’s entirely possible that he told his son to make nice to you or Julian in order to get close to you and hurt you.”

“I doubt that,” Harry said. “Given that no one knew I existed until this morning, and most of the wizarding world is still probably clueless.”

“Fair point,” James said, still frowning.

“He seems like a decent bloke,” Harry said, watching his father carefully. He couldn’t just shout I’m going to be polite to him and you can’t tell me what to do! without starting a fight he didn’t need. “He said we should study together no matter what houses we get sorted into. And asked if he could write me before school starts.”

James heaved a sigh. “I suppose just writing can’t hurt. Speaking of which, you need an owl.”

“Right,” Harry said. “Owl. Nott mentioned that. You use birds for mailing letters? It sounds really slow.”

James waved his wand, and Harry’s empty bowl floated over to the used dishes tray. “It’s much more efficient than it sounds. Owls have magic in their blood from centuries ago. Muggles don’t notice, but when they spend time around wizards and magic, they get smarter and faster, better at surviving. Falcons and hawks work, too. They’re not as common, though. I imagine you want one?”

Harry shrugged. “It seems useful.”

“Sure are,” James said, smiling. It wasn’t as warm or wide as earlier but he seemed to have gotten over the thing with Theo Nott, which was a relief. Harry was still going to watch him closely. “Julian has a snowy owl already. Named her Ghost.”

Harry resolved not to get a snowy owl.

Eylops’ Emporium was dark and vaguely musty-smelling, if not in a bad way. Rustling and hooting and faint cries echoed around the space. Harry saw several other kids about his own age and avoided all of them; more aware now of his fame, and the impact his brother and therefore Harry had on people, he wasn’t about to start a scene in a pet store.

He walked out thirty minutes later holding a cage with a young female Taita falcon. The bird looked sharp and fast, with a black head, back, and wings, beige breast and belly, and some orange spots around its head and neck. Her eyes were clear and bright and her beack looked viciously sharp. Harry thought back on his Greek mythology phase from the previous year and thought he wanted to name her Alekto after one of the three Furies of just punishment. Except he’d probably change it to Alekta so it was less obvious where the name came from.

Then Harry mentioned to James that his eyesight hadn’t been checked in a while, and James dragged him to a wizarding optometrist. Harry fought back panic for the few minutes he was without his glasses while the optometrist tested his eyes. He hated being vulnerable like this; the entire world was fuzzy and his depth perception went down the toilet. Anything could happen.

He put the glasses back on with relief when they were done.

“You can either pick out some new frames, or we can keep and repair that set,” the witch said, looking at the break in the middle where the glasses were held together with tape. Harry fingered it—Dudley had broken them a few days ago and Harry had never gotten the hang of repairing broken things. He bet there was a spell for that and resolved to learn it soon.

He glanced at James, who also wore round glasses, and wondered whether he should get the same shape to manipulate his father… or a different shape to satisfy himself.

Rectangles it is.

Harry chose a set with durable metal rectangular frames and handed them over with his best grateful smile.

The witch smiled back. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, and bustled into the back, Harry guessed to transfigure or magically replace the lenses.

“When was the last time you got your eyes checked?” James asked quietly.

Harry had to think about it. “Five years ago.”

James’ mouth tightened but he said nothing else.

Harry started asking him questions about school just to pass the time. James seemed to like to talk, so it worked out well. He quickly gathered that Theo’s descriptions of the houses were a lot less biased; James described Slytherin as “the house of untrustworthy, sneaky snakes,” Ravenclaws as “hopeless bookworms,” Hufflepuffs as “nice, but kind of boring,” and Gryffindors as “the best of the best, where the brave and righteous go.”

Harry didn’t point out that “righteous” didn’t necessarily mean “actually correct”.

He was relieved when the witch came back with his new glasses. Even more so when he put them on and it was like opening his eyes for the first time.

“I can see,” he blurted, forgetting for a second to be reserved and self-contained.

James laughed. “You sure can. Cool feeling, huh?”

Harry nodded and sent him his least reserved smile yet. He needed his father to like him. At least for the next month.

“Trunk’s in that pack, I take it?” James said. “I like the new clothes, by the way. You look like a very proper young wizard. Much neater than Jules, that’s for sure!”

“Thanks,” Harry said. “And—yeah, it’s got a shrinking charm.”

“Great.” James looked suddenly apprehensive. He tried to hide it, but Harry had spent years watching the Dursleys for any hint of emotion that could result in him needing to be somewhere else, and James wasn’t nearly subtle enough. “Let’s get you home, yeah? I bet you’re excited to meet your brother.”

My twin brother, who I didn’t know about until this morning. My twin brother, who is apparently some kind of hero type for something he doesn’t remember doing and that no one can explain. My brother, who Theo Nott, the son of a Death Eater, described as the Gryffindor golden couple’s budding Gryffindor golden boy.

“Can’t wait,” Harry said, and his sarcasm went right over James’ head.