Chapter Text
The words burn like fire set into the skin, carving letters that would change his life as they do all people as the clock strikes the moment of their seventeenth birthday, when they’re the youngest soulmate. The very moment. Harry’s excited, nervous, enlivened, although in some ways he has bigger fish to fry. The Order is ready to take flight from No. 4 Privet Drive, and, as he looks around the living room, he sees all his friends and chosen family grimace and place hands over their chests at the same time, all Polyjuiced, mirror reflections of his own face in discomfort. There’s so little time, really it’s the height of indulgence to unzip his jacket and yank his shirt down to see, at long last – but the collar of his ringer tee is too snug, too tight to manage it, he can’t see properly. Desperate and sweating in excited nervousness, he pulls his shirt up to behold it.
Horror strikes him down where he stands, then. He sways, stumbles to put his back to the living room wall. Woozy in disbelief, he watches the two words slashed into his chest in livid red like the scar on his face, hoping they will miraculously change. ‘AVADA KEDAVRA.’
He knows those words, the first he can remember, his earliest memory. A flash of green light, a woman screaming, then strangeness. It feels like he hasn’t breathed in minutes. When he comes back to the moment, he finds that perhaps he hasn’t. Harry gasps for air like a fish does for water, and doesn’t find it. His back has slid down the wall somehow and his hands grip his hair, clenched in fists.
Then he realizes he’s actually panting, a ringing in his ears, blocking out whatever it is people are saying to him. Hermione crouches in front of him where he can’t possibly miss her, palms settling gently on his knees. It’s his face that stares back at him, but he’d know the kind, clever look in her eyes anywhere.
“Harry,” she’s saying in her own voice. “Harry, it’s going to be alright.”
How?
How can it ever possibly be alright again?
And somewhere out there in the world, words are branding themselves into the skin of Voldemort’s own chest. Please, please let him not notice, let the words be “hello” or “Ahhhh!” from screaming. That would keep things nice and vague, both perfectly normal first words for meeting a dark lord. There are a lot of candidates for things that might count as Harry’s first words to him, as a baby crying, at eleven with a possessed professor, at twelve with a horcrux, at fourteen with the man reborn. None of them are good.
Soulmates are supposed to love each other. Take care of each other. Harry’s never been properly taken care of in his life. And it looks like it’s not about to start happening now. His vision is glassy and crowded out by unshed tears. The room seems quiet because all he can pay attention to is the rapid, faulty in-out in-out of his breath. Even Alastor Moody is staring at him with something akin to concern. Pity?
Whatever for? This is nothing new, fits seamlessly into the twisted, painful pattern of his life. Whatever the worst outcome might be, it’s likely to be that. This is, indubitably, the worst of all possible outcomes.
But the protective magic is fading, he can feel that certain air about the house draining from the room. There’s so little time.
Hermione’s hands fall from his knees as Harry drags himself to standing, hand still on the wall to rebalance. He grasps blindly for the broom leaned up against the wall off to the side. With as deep of a breath as he can manage, he’s marching to the door and flinging it open, staggering a little but it’s the best he’s got at the moment.
The night is warm and balmy as he climbs aboard his trusty broom and bids good riddance to his childhood home forever. Maybe calling it home is stretching things a bit. He can barely see where he’s going for the tears, but knows they’re to head west to reach the Tonks’ house and all its magical protections. All other forms of transportation are traceable and under Ministry scrutiny; the plan was to sneak from point A to point B in the night before anyone’s the wiser.
Order members scramble to catch up, Hagrid on the motorbike with Mundungus Fletcher in the side car, Hermione, Kingsley, Fleur, Tonks, Lupin, Moody, and the Weasley crew on assorted Thestrals and broomsticks. Hedwig wings around him, faster than any of them could ever hope to be, but swings back to follow them. The motorbike pulls even with Harry as he soars above the rooftops and leaves the dull orangey-yellow light of the streetlamps behind. Someone draws forward, sharing a broom with another Harry look-alike, and is shouting to the real Harry. The wind catches it, snatches it away. Something about talking about this later, things having a way of working out, probably something soothing. Something stupid. Lupin, perhaps. His soft voice just isn’t designed for volume and honestly it wouldn’t make much of a difference if it was. Harry’s the numbest he’s ever felt. And perhaps that’s for the best. My soulmate killed my parents. They pierce the veil of cloud cover and all hell breaks loose.
Spell fire lights the sky around them like colorful lightning, Death Eaters dark zooming shapes lying in wait for but a moment before attacking as the Order charges westward through the sky. They’ve been had. Harry jerks to the side to avoid a stunner, then the other way to dodge a cutting hex. Casting a disarming spell of his own, his hit lands and one man’s wand goes flying, broom diving down frantically to go and fetch it.
Harry tries to make his broom go faster by sheer willpower. It’s good it doesn’t work; it would distinguish him as an accomplished flyer and the point is to stay hidden with the others Polyjuiced to look like him, otherwise he truly has risked their lives for nothing. Hagrid and Mundungus on the motorbike and Mr. Weasley sharing a broom with Charlie keep pace with him; they all dodge and weave together to confuse the Death Eaters – three Harry’s all in the same clothes moving interchangeably like a coin under three shifting cups. Then they split off to confuse the forces further. Glancing back, Harry sees three other Harry’s copy the maneuver, scrambling together then fanning out. He has to jerk his broom down to dodge another curse zapping overhead, then barrel rolls to regain momentum and rejoin the herd. Another two Harry’s each have their own broom to obscure the real Harry even further, manned by the stronger flyers of the group. So it’s probably Ron or Tonks that’s executing a frankly beautiful evasion maneuver above him. Harry shoots a stunning spell at the pursuer, who falls out of the sky, another Death Eater diving to fetch them. His tears are chilled and wiped away by the wind and he can see just fine for aiming. They’re actually making good headway, he sees as there’s a break in cloud cover below, suburbs fading to countryside.
A great dark mass blooms below, blotting out the streetlights and headlights of cars. Fuck! Harry pulls higher, into the thick of the fray, tries blatantly to hide. He casts a spell or two, pretending like he doesn’t see the inky being forming beneath the scrum as the whole lot of them head back into the clouds and back out again quickly, another disorienting cloud break. Harry dips and swerves around Order members and Death Eaters alike, trying to throw off the scent. He’s a fucking coward. It doesn’t matter anyway – Voldemort is materializing in the abyssal gloom, flying without aid of any kind, against all reason and rules. His eyes glow in the darkness and the air seems to crackle with magic, with potential. He seems massive, inevitable, looming, larger than life. As present as oxygen, as unavoidable as breathing. Neither shall live while the other survives. Harry doesn’t want either of them to live. Hedwig glides overhead and it brings Harry a measure of reality: people will miss him if he’s gone. And killing Voldemort may not solve the problems that allowed him to come into such power.
None of that seems to matter as Voldemort swerves toward Harry unerringly, no hesitation, piercing the midst of the scrum in an influx of black smoke. And Harry? Harry runs.
Jerking his broom vertically into the air, he zooms straight up as high as he can. If he were a braver person, it would be to lead the man away from potential casualties and perhaps this is how things will be rationalized later. But in the moment, he’s just scared and wants to be away. Anywhere away. Voldemort pursues, higher and higher until the clouds are far beneath, until the broomstick hits its height limit and the air grows cold and empty. Together, they arc downward as Harry is forced to decline altitude to keep the broom in the air. Voldemort is right on his tail, he can feel it, they’re close, too close, he needs to get away. Harry goes for every evasive maneuver in the book, dipping, diving, rolling, zigzagging. They spin around each other, Voldemort’s smoking form winding closer and closer with each corkscrewing spiral. So Harry makes for the cloud cover below, back into the greying obscurity of it. It’s not thick enough to really hide him, but does make him feel less exposed. The longer he can hold on, the nearer the protection of the Tonks’ house will be. He has no idea where the Order and Death Eaters have gone, how far ahead or behind they might be, but as he’s having the frantic thought, there’s a wide gap in the clouds and he sees them below, flashes of light and darting shapes going back and forth.
At last, Voldemort resorts to his wand, strange and alarming that he hasn’t until now. Perhaps he hoped to capture Harry rather than off him. There’s no discerning the motivations or reasoning of an absolute madman. He draws even with Harry in a sudden surge of speed and casts blue magic at him, Harry instinctively slowing his broom practically to a halt to put space between them, between him and the spell. There isn’t even time to cast a protection or disarming spell, no – his wand takes action for him. It lifts his arm with a mind of its own and golden light explodes forth, lighting up the sky like fireworks. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen, two streams of magic battling for dominance until the gold overpowers the blue and blows Voldemort back in a massive burst of light, wand shattering as he falls out of the sky in an inky trail of black mist fading when his magic fails him without a wand. And suddenly Harry is horrified again by what he’s done. His soulmate, his one person. Falling and falling, possibly to his death. He’s frozen there, in warring indecision and paralyzing fright. He begins to tilt his broom down on instinct, cast the strongest levitation charm he possibly can in hopes it will get there in time. It’s not in him to kill someone, even accidentally, but especially not his person. But Voldemort’s descent slows, one of the Death Eaters paused in the air casting some manner of spell to slow him, keep him in the air. Harry doesn’t stick around to find out.
The other Harry’s and Order members seem to be fleeing, casting protective spells to cover each other’s backs as they surge onwards to make for the protected home, close now. Harry intentionally loses altitude as he flies west along with them, descending lower and accelerating faster until he passes into the clouds, then drops below them. There on the horizon, he spies the house and the rest of the group sees him overhead again. They all put on a new burst of speed, sensing safety close at hand. The protections wash over him as he enters the wards, a subtle tingle on the skin. Harry stays on his broom until he reaches the very porch of the house, an abrupt halt there to slip off the broom and stumble into the house, door unlocked, a witch and a wizard in the brightly lit foyer, presumably Mr. and Mrs. Tonks, who he doesn’t even acknowledge as he crashes in through the first doorway he sees and slams the door shut behind him. He crumples to the floor, kneeling with his face in the palms of his hands. Harry feels water drip onto his hands before he even realizes he’s crying again. Despair utterly consumes him. He’s sobbing suddenly, body wracked by it, shoulder shuddering with the force of it. Pressing the heels of his hands into eyes harder, he tries to hold it in, suck it up, contain himself, but it’s completely futile. Of all things, of all realities, disappointments, losses, failures, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to him.
Pain stabs at his heart, the physicality of heartache something he had felt before when Sirius died – acute, startling, brutal. And it feels like someone’s died, too. His hope for love, kindness, a person who would treat him well and be his number one and be there for all those little moments he’s had to spend alone or with others but not felt fully understood. Someone to love him unconditionally. He’ll never have it. The dream has died.
The door creaks open and the light in the room comes on, tentative hands on his back, an arm around his shoulders. The door creaks quietly closed again. He will never come back from this. But Ron’s still there for him, squeezing his arm and shaking him a little in silent support. Hermione’s still there, hands on his back, a soothing presence. They want to tell him it’s all going to be okay and they all know it’s a patent lie. But at least they’re still here.
Harry tries to slow down, his breathing, his crying, his shuddering, but it’s hard. Maybe it has to happen. If he tries to hold this in, he might die. Detonate like a bomb.
Kill me now, he wants to joke. He knows it won’t land. Harry would do anything to be able to calm down, because that would mean this isn’t happening. But it is happening, and it is impossible to be calm. It takes a long time for him to even out his breathing a little more. He’s been loud with his sobbing, he notices now, not holding anything in, total loss of control. God. His parents’ murderer. God.
What evil did he commit in a past life to deserve this?
Hermione conjures a box of tissues and holds them out without comment. Silence is strange on her, touchy-feeliness on Ron even stranger. Harry’s breathing is jagged but he takes time to mop up his face, blows through three tissues clearing out his stuffy nose. He discards them there on the floor and puts a hand to his forehead, lets out a distressed noise. Ron rattles his shoulders again in support, to bolster him. It works, a bit. “We’re here, mate. We’ve got you.”
“You are so loved, Harry, no matter what,” Hermione murmurs, leaning her head on him from the side and snaking an arm around his back. “We care about you. Nothing will ever change that.” The clothes are baggy on her now and too tight on Ron, transformed back into their regular selves. Only an hour or two has passed since he turned seventeen and it’s already the worst year of his life.
“What does it say about me?” Harry chokes out at last. “I’m paired to a monster. An absolute monster.” I must be a monster, too, he doesn’t say. He tries so, so hard not to start sobbing again, a pained sound issuing from deep inside his chest. He doesn’t think it’s reasonable to expect he’ll ever stop crying. He won’t ask it of himself.
“Harry, you get matched to people who balance you out sometimes, not necessarily people who’re like you. You know this, think of Remus and Tonks. They’re so different! And I cannot think of anyone,” here she sniffs, eyes beginning to water. “I can’t think of anyone as good, as wonderful and good-hearted to – to balance out – “
Here, none of them know what to say. Ron tries anyway, voice rough with emotion.
“Mate, you choose who to love. Well, sort of. You choose who you’re with, not who you’re soulmated to. You didn’t choose this and you can’t control it . . . you can only control what you do.”
And he’s touched, he really is, but it all sounds like placating bullshit right now. The wound’s too fresh. Harry has to fight not to shove them off, push them away. He wants to be alone, and to never be alone, to burn up from the inside out. His body shudders with the effort of staying still and letting them provide comfort. Hermione takes it as him being at risk of sobbing again, pulls him a little closer. It’s dim in the room, he can barely make out their expressions, but he knows the kind of concern that will be written all over their faces. He’s glad not to see it; it might make him angry. Harry doesn’t want to be angry; he wants to be sad. Sad is comfortable, sorrow is normal. Anger is going to scare him, that’s how deep it’s going to run. He wants to avoid it for as long as possible. If he gets angry, he may never be not angry again. Harry doesn’t want to trash rooms or shout at people, he wants the stillness and completeness of wallowing in absolute devastation.
Harry wants time to be sad, more time to wallow with tragic abandon. There’s no time, none at all. He’s supposed to stand now, and plan with the others, and conspire for victory. And fight. And yet the fight just isn’t in him.
It’s quiet for a while as Harry gets his trembling under control and eases his breathing.
“Harry . . .” Hermione begins again. “Did you - what did you do, exactly? When you defeated him tonight? That spell?”
Voice shredded like his vocal cords have been dragged over gravel, Harry says, “Honest to god, Hermione, I don’t know. My wand had a mind of its own. I swear, it just responded to him casting at me without my say-so at all. I don’t even know what kind of spell that was,” and shakes his head. That said, it feels good to have anything else on the planet to talk about. “But – “ he adds.
“Yes?”
“I think I destroyed his wand. It exploded, I mean.” Ron’s appreciative of that, sounds like he wants to give him a high five but knows it’s not the time. “That’s good, mate, real good! Did us proud.”
“To be honest, I have no idea what happened with that. It was bizarre. I’m just glad I - ” Harry almost says got away but that’s too close to the raw truth of things. He grabs another tissue and blows his nose again to stall.
So, he thinks, what do we do now? Will Voldemort even want to kill him? He doesn’t know that they know about the horcruxes, there’s still an advantage there. And Dumbledore seemed sure Voldemort hadn’t designed any other failsafes. He could very well still be killable. But if he doesn’t want to kill Harry, is it still right to kill him? Where in the name of Merlin do they go from here?
“There’s something you should know. When we were fighting off the Death Eaters . . . “
“Yeah?”
“They weren’t using fatal curses. Fred is definitely going to need some patching up, Kingsley as well, but at the end of the day it was cutting hexes and stunning spells when it ought to have been killing curses. When you and Voldemort splintered off, they were definitely blocking us from following – sorry about that by the way, we tried everything to get to you but they were holding us back with double our numbers.”
“Why – why would they – “ Harry doesn’t finish and neither of them pick up the thread. They all know why. But then again, do they? Would being Lord Voldemort’s soulmate really have such an impact on how they’re fighting the war? And just after the discovery? Mere minutes after? Was it out of caution, so that in the chaos no one would accidentally off the real Harry with a poorly aimed spell? If they were uncertain of which was the real Harry and didn’t want to risk it? Or something else? He doesn’t know what to make of it. Moreover, he doesn’t want to know. He wants desperately to be left alone. Harry stands.
“I need to sleep.”
Ron and Hermione are slow to rise after him. “Okay, but Harry – “
“Please. Please, I need to think, or I need to not think. Just, a bed. Please,” he repeats, the sentence practically palindromic. His brain is whirling and he really wants to get back to numb, might get his wish if he plays his cards right.
“Alright,” Ron says and goes to the door to peek his head out. There’s a brief murmured conversation, Ron keeping the door mostly shut to block the sound from travelling perhaps. Harry doesn’t care, he’s exactly as fragile as they’re treating him right now. He wants to be led around by the hand and tucked in for the night. He wouldn’t even turn his nose up at a glass of warm milk. Laughing a little at the thought, Harry passes a hand over his face as Hermione watches him in uncharacteristic quiet alarm.
They’re not supposed to spend the night here, it’s just a temporary safe place on the way to the Burrow, but Harry doesn’t feel he can go a single step further. And yet getting to bed demands it of him. Ron leads him out of the room, not by the hand but by the shoulder.
Remus and George are right there by the door, coming closer but Ron shakes his head and Hermione hangs back to run interference. Arthur, Tonks, and Kingsley linger in the foyer, watching Harry carefully, concerned, or in consternation. Even Hedwig is perched on Kingsley’s shoulder looking a certain kind of cautious. He avoids their eyes and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. The air in the room is heavy, too thick to breathe properly, and Harry needs to be somewhere else.
And when they enter a small, well-appointed bedroom just down the hall, Harry collapses into one of the twin beds fully dressed with sneakers on and hopes to dream of nothing at all.
He doesn’t get his wish.
Instead, he dreams briefly of a body covering his own and weighing him down. It’s good, comforting, exactly what he wants. Someone to keep both his feet on the ground so he doesn’t float away. There are hands on his face, on his sides, rounding the balls of his shoulders. Smooth lips touch his forehead, just a quick press. But. He feels loved. Secure. Harry wakes up crying.
It’s all he wants. At least he can have it in dreams. Waking is difficult, unwanted, necessary. There’s light spilling through the windows on Ron’s side of the room, his friend snoring like usual. That’s comforting, too. Hermione is sitting up beside him, head dipped in deference to sleep. Her arms are crossed and she’s got an open book in her lap. Harry slips off the bed, never got under the sheets in the first place and the only proof he was ever there is a body-shaped impression in the coverlet and on the pillow.
He cracks the door and listens, watches. The hallway is empty. Down it he steps quietly, until he hears familiar voices from a room off the foyer.
“ – changed everything. We need to rethink our strategy,” Kingsley is saying.
“The Dark Lord’s motivations seem to have changed. No killing curses? No kidnappings? You saw the spell he cast at Harry. It wasn’t green.” That’s undoubtedly Moody.
“I agree, Alastor, it means something we can’t afford to ignore.” Mr. Weasley.
“Then what do you propose we do? You-Know-Who won’t have even had time to plan around a shakeup like this, just like we haven’t.” Understatement. “So we can’t suppose to know what his plan might be if even he doesn’t know yet,” Tonks postulates.
“You can’t deny that whatever we plan for ourselves might reach the wrong ears, again. It’s clear as day someone told them where we would be.”
“Yes, if it weren’t for Harry blowing You-Know-Who out the sky like that, we’d have been goners . . .” That’s Mundungus.
Someone sighs heavily. “I hate to say this, but – we need to consider every option for ending the war before it really gets underway.” Bill sounds reluctant but resigned.
“And what on earth are you suggesting we consider?” Lupin’s ire, his defensiveness, is undeniable. He sounds angry. Harry’s never heard him sound like that before. He almost doesn’t want to hear what comes next.
“Well . . . “ Bill begins but doesn’t seem to want to finish. “What my Bill is trying to say,” Fleur jumps in, “is that there is possibly a peaceful way to resolve things. Without any more battles or death or dying. And I should think it is fairly obvious.” Harry’s heart stops.
“Now I won’t hear of it! Or anything like it! ‘arry is not some, some chess piece you can play to get your way! He deserves better than that – that – !” Hagrid shouts.
“I’m not saying it’s ideal,” Bill defends. “I’m saying we need to acknowledge it’s one way of going about things. It could save lives. A lot of lives.”
“What about Harry’s life, you bast’rd!” There’s a scrape and squeal of a chair being knocked back and clattering to the floor.
“Hagrid, Hagrid! Calm down, let’s every one of us calm down,” Lupin eases.
“Bill, I love you and you’re great, but you’re barking mad if you think we’ll consider handing Harry over as some kind of war bride – “ one of the twins, speaking relatively calmly, gets cut off.
“It’s been done before,” Moody interjects, with some finality.
“A peace-weaver, they were called back in the day,” Kingsley reflects. “They worked rather well.”
“I’m sorry, why are we even having this conversation?” either one of the twins queries. “Obviously, we are not doing that.”
“My son is right, Alastor. Kingsley. Nothing could justify it. Nothing is worth that,” Arthur declares firmly. But he’s wrong. Something is. The lives of others, a lot of lives, are worth that. And it may be the only way to prevent all that death. Harry doesn’t want to live alongside a monster but he’d live with himself even less if he let innocent people get hurt for no reason.
“But,” Tonks says. “Supposing You-Know-Who does want his soulmate by his side . . . what’s to say he doesn’t get his cake and eat it, too?” Someone tries to interject, but she continues without pause. “He could get everything he wants without our having any say, if we don’t have, and I don’t mean to be crass, Remus, but – if we don’t have our bargaining chip. Just, y’know, theoretically, I mean.”
“Harry is NOT – “ Hagrid starts in again.
“Hagrid, please. Nymphadora, your point has been made. If we are to even contemplate this, Harry needs to be secured. Regardless of how we move forward, he needs to be secured. He’s the only one who can defeat the Dark Lord and we need to ensure his safety if there is any hope to be had in all of this.”
“And how are we going to do that with a spy in our midst? How do you think the Death Eaters knew about our plans? How do you imagine we’re going to keep his location secret?”
“There’s always Grimmauld Place – “
“That’s not a long-term solution. The Lestranges and Malfoys know exactly where it is and how it’s protected. And we’re all under the Fidelius not to discuss it, but Snape could use Legilimency to reveal it, or the Dark Lord could simply retrieve the information without Snape allowing it at all. There’s too many holes in that defense for it to be an appropriate safehouse for Potter for any duration of time.”
“For that matter,” Bill begins slowly, as if expected to be shot down after the animosity of before. “We all know about most of the safehouses we have. And if we’re compromised, they are, too.”
“We’ll find somewhere to keep him safe,” Lupin reassures, “regardless of how we proceed with fighting the war.”
“But where – “
Harry’s heard enough. He slips across the foyer to the broomsticks clustered by the front door, grabs his own before he can think too hard about what he’s doing. Quietly, he opens the door, steps out, and closes it as carefully as he can. He’s got his shrunken trunk in his pocket, his wand in the other, and considers the Thestrals lingering on the front lawn before opting for his broom.
He’s mounting the broom and casting disillusionment spells and Notice-Me-Not charms even as he lifts off gently. Airborne, Harry rounds the house to point himself south. South is good.
The wind’s tousling his hair like loving fingers and he’s skyborne about the slowest he’s gone before, reluctant to leave but knowing what must be done. Harry feels it when he leaves the protective barriers of the Tonks residence by the strange tingle over his skin. He’s on his own now.
There’s no one awaiting him outside the protections, no Death Eaters, no Dark Lord, nothing. They must not have realized the Order’s destination, the Tonks home not well known and Andromeda totally estranged from her sisters. He’d heave a sigh of relief if he had any positive feeling left in him at all. Harry takes on more speed, faster and faster until the broom’s at its absolute limit. Curving his body over it to make himself more aerodynamic, he wishes it would go even faster.
The sun is low and early in the sky as he treks across the countryside, flying low to the ground. He avoids any houses or inhabited-looking areas. Passing by scant houses and powerlines and little clusters of trees, Harry admires the greenery, again instead of thinking too closely about what he’s doing. As the fields of grass turn to fields of grain, Harry considers hiding out in a seemingly abandoned farm shed. The sun is directly overhead now, bearing down on him and the glare strong on a cloudless day. He doesn’t have any food other than a few wizarding candies in the trunk. He’s thirsty, too.
Searching for a road, Harry finds a winding little highway, lonely looking and with an air of country charm. He follows along the two-lane highway, trusting in the strength of his hiding spells, and after a while comes upon a petrol station with a single pump. Some tall bushes and trees provide cover for him to land and dispel the disillusionments. Harry transfigures a nearby rock into a mirror and levitates it to watch himself do his best to alter his appearance without anything coming out terribly lopsided. Wider nose, flatter face, blonde hair, Muggle jeans and a flannel shirt. No scar. He even changes the shape of his glasses – very, very carefully. It’ll have to do.
Harry walks into the petrol station like he knows exactly where he’s going. The cash register isn’t manned, there’s no one around. There aren’t handbaskets either, so he gathers two armfuls of granola bars and beans and crisps and brings it all to the cash register. He goes back to grab two of the biggest water jugs he can find. It’s as he’s bringing back three bags of white bread and a fistful of jerky with two whole boxes of little cracker sandwiches tucked under each arm that a cashier ducks in from the back. He and Harry stare at each other in surprise. The grey bearded man looks down at Harry’s haul on the counter doubtfully.
“Stocking up, are we?”
“Er, yeah. Really needed to make a grocery run.”
“Sorry I weren’t upfront, didn’t hear a car coming round.”
“Oh, no worries. I, er, biked here.”
“Yeah? All this gonna fit then?”
“Um.” Harry thinks for a moment. “I have a basket and a, um, attachment. A little cart hitched on the back.”
“Oh. Well, alright then.” The cashier starts ringing him up and when Harry sets down the boxes of little cracker sandwiches, makes no comment on the fact they’re meant to be sold individually. He’s probably seen stranger things. Harry goes back for multiple jars of peanut butter, jelly, and, in deference to his emotional needs, a giant bag of Skittles. Standing there in a moment of pause and non-reflection, he breaks the daze by snatching up some cookies as well.
There are no pots or pans or plates or flatware to buy here, so he’ll have to make do with ready-to-eat foods and non-perishables.
He brings it all back to the counter where the cashier is bagging everything except the jugs of water. “More? My, yer pantry must be empty.”
Harry hm’s nervously and as the cashier is totaling the purchases, realizes his money is all in the trunk and all of it is in galleons. He refuses to Confound the nice man, but doesn’t know what else to do. “Ah, I left my wallet in the bike basket, let me just run and fetch it!”
“Right,” the man says, perplexed but focused on adding everything up with the seemingly uncooperative cash register, poking at the same key a few times. Harry ducks out the door and goes to the back of the station where he’s hidden from the road. He pulls the trunk out of his pocket and spells it back to its original size. Unlatching and flipping it open, he hastily grabs his coin purse, then pauses. Perhaps underneath Dudley’s old clothes . . . jeans, band t-shirt, another t-shirt. There! His old Muggle wallet. He looks inside and counts out the bills. There’s seventy-six pounds, one quid, and twenty-nine pence in the little zipped coin pouch. Thank Merlin. He’s taken way too long sorting this all out and knows it. Harry slams the trunk shut and shrinks it again, stuffing it into his pocket. Jogging around the side of the petrol station, he ducks back in and says, “Found it. Sorry for the wait.”
“No problem, lad. Dull around here, just glad to have a customer.”
“Right. What’s it come out to?”
“That’ll be eighty-one pounds and twelve pence.”
“Oh,” Harry comments and eyes his hoard. Reluctantly, he grabs a can of beans and a jar of jelly, returning them to shelves. “How about now? I only have seventy-six pounds.”
“That looks about right to me, lad,” the man says kindly. Harry hands him all the money has, pence included.
“Thanks,” Harry says politely as he can while he’s feeling twitchy. He grabs as many plastic shopping bags he can carry at once and ferries them back behind the bushes out back where he hid his broom. Upon making his second trip, the cashier bids him a friendly farewell. “Thank ye for yer business!”
“Yes, have a nice day,” Harry responds, juggling the massive containers of water and three heavy shopping bags. The door swings shut behind him and he thinks to himself – that may be the last friendly face I see for a long time.
Unshrinking the trunk again while crouched behind the bushes, Harry stuffs as many bags of food as he can inside while still managing to fit the two water jugs. The rest of the bags go on his broomstick settled in front of him with the handles looped around the length of it. He sticks the trunk back into his pocket and hastily boards his broom, disillusioning himself and casting another Notice-Me-Not. And away he flies, sorry to leave behind his final brush with civilization for who knows how long. Harry turns himself east, away from the little highway.
The land becomes steadily more crowded with trees and clouds dot the sky now. As he flies, it grows darker with the weather change. The clouds grow grey and overcast and gloomy and it starts to rain a misty drizzle. Harry doesn’t mind; it actually suits his mood.
When the light rain persists, he considers landing and having a snack, but decides to keep flying until dark. Harry curves back south for another couple hours. He can’t see the sun set properly, but it’s obvious when night quickly descends. He’ll need a place to bed down for the night. There’s a forested area just over the hill and he lands there before the trees get too thick. Heading into the cover they provide, it takes him six tries to transfigure a rock and three fallen tree branches into something resembling shelter – it couldn’t quite be called a tent, though the components of canvas and blocking out the falling rain are there. It’s on the canvas stretched across the ground that he sits, huddled and clutching his broom, staring out into the night for a while, shopping bags littered about the small shelter. Then he decides that’s silly and sets his broom aside, spells his trunk back to its proper size.
He pulls out two packs of cracker sandwiches with powdery cheese in the middle, a stick of jerky, and one of the jugs of water. Truly highlighting his lack of competence in transfiguration, it takes him even more attempts to turn a stick into a lopsided cup than it did to make the sad little shelter. Harry tips some water into it and chugs the first glass; once he starts drinking, he realizes how truly thirsty he is. Dining on his crackers and jerky, he has another two glasses and sets the jug out in the rain to replenish some of the water overnight. He dumps the rest of the shopping bags on top of the trunk to make room, too tired to shrink it again, barely managing the effort it takes to transfigure the discarded food wrappers into a pillow. Laid back on it and sighing deeply, only then does he pull out the galleon with the Protean charm.
COME BACK it reads. He closes his eyes wearily against new tears. HARRY PLEASE it might as well say. WE NEED YOU. No, they need him exactly where he is. In the wind. No one can find him if no one knows where he is, not even the spy in the Order. Not even Voldemort.
Harry’s not running away, he tells himself. He’s running towards a future he doesn’t want for himself. Doesn’t want to be with Voldemort, doesn’t want to kill him either, never wanted to. If it was just fighting, that would be one thing. But there’s only one way this war ends if it comes to violence. And he doesn’t want it to. Tonks was right, he’s their bargaining chip. Moody and Kingsley, too. It’s worked before. But he has to stay hidden long enough for them to actually bargain, to show You-Know-Who he can’t have it both ways. War and no Harry, if indeed that’s what he wants, or Harry and no war. Harry? Harry doesn’t like any of the options.
The Order needs at least enough time to figure out if Harry alive and well is what Voldemort really wants, needs enough time for Voldemort to figure that out for himself. He’ll buy them that time, he thinks, ripping bicuspid teeth into the next stick of jerky he unwrapped, blatantly stress eating.
He’ll do his best.
His dream that night is much like the last. Hands holding him close, body kept down on earth only with the help of another. His face is tucked into someone else’s neck, warm and safe. Everything is like that, cushioned and soft. Details comfortably blurred. It’s restful in the best way. They even smell good. Dream Harry takes a deep lungful of it and is dragged further under, where he wants to stay.
It’s hard to wake up again, painful. He’s alone and there are birds tweeting all around. The food wrapper crinkles as he sits up and drags a hand through his hair. Harry has no idea how he’s going to shower in the wilderness. He didn’t think to buy soap at the store. Heaving a sigh, he leaves it as a tomorrow problem. The water jug refilled mostly in the night, which Harry takes as a positive. He screws the top back on and fits it inside the trunk. Harry eats cookies for breakfast because screw it. It’s probably going to be highlight of the day, he thinks to himself as he disbands the shelter and folds up the canvas to stuff into the trunk, fit to bursting. The latch barely closes. Harry has to sit on top of the trunk to get it to shut.
The bulkier groceries ride upfront with him, hanging off the broom handle as Harry zigzags across empty countryside. England is beautiful in a way he’s never appreciated before, never had the opportunity to. Maybe this can be the highlight of his day instead, sun shining on his face and sheep grazing the expansive fields. He barely sees another soul and he makes sure they definitely don’t see him. Harry beds down in another forest, this time near a river where he can rinse off. It’s unsatisfying without soap or shampoo, quite cold as well.
Harry lets himself check the charmed galleon again. This time, it reads BURROW. Well, it’s nice to have a backup plan. At least he knows where to go if something in his plan spoils.
The days pass this way, flying and watching the earth scroll along beneath him and sleeping under the stars at night. He works his way through the crisps, half the cracker sandwiches, most of the jerky, and a bit of the beans. Many of his meals consist of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but there’s plenty of bread to go around. He’s saving the big bag of Skittles for when he stops feeling so emotionally numb. The water, he replenishes with an Auguamenti every night.
Truth be told, he’s grateful for the flying. Keeps his mind off things. Sometimes it’s hard to stay out of residential areas and keep to the wilderness and farmland, but in general he does pretty well with it. Harry comes to appreciate the stars as well, his only company. The Protean charmed galleon sends him more brief messages at night, often a new address. He never responds. They’re safehouses, most likely. Bad idea. The spy will know he’s there, if everyone in the Order kept ahold of their charmed galleons. No, Harry gives everyone time to decide what they want. Death Eaters, time to scour the country for him and come up short. Voldemort, to prioritize having a soulmate versus total dominion – which is seriously fanciful thinking in Harry’s opinion. The Order, a way to haggle for the freedom of them all. They all need time.
In the meantime, it’s lonely. Harry has only his dreams for comfort and flying for entertainment. There’s a few books in his trunk but he honestly doesn’t bother. He should be hunting for horcruxes – he knows that. But what if Voldemort thinks to check on them? What if he finds Harry there? What if he knows when someone is touching them and can track can watch can possess can take control –
No. Harry won’t risk it, he knows too little. Without Ron and Hermione there, he’s barely able to suss out where the next one might be, anyway. There’s the locket, but who knows where the real one is? And there are other Founders items, but again he hasn’t got a clue where to start and there’s no one to put heads together with and brainstorm. Without his friends, he’s got no chance. And by being with them, he would risk their one chance for preventing all-out war. No. Instead, he marks the days on an unused bit of parchment in his trunk. The tally is at eleven by the time the dreams start to change.
Usually everything is totally blurred and vague, but small details start creeping in. The texture of the palms on his cheeks. The grass and dying autumn leaf smell of this someone. The sound of raindrops hitting the window. They’re in a bedroom. The skin he can touch is cool. The head of hair he reaches for is missing. There’s a susurration –
Harry resolves not to think on it. The dreams are the one good, steady thing in his life right now and he won’t have it taken away from him, even if they are changing.
The tally is at twenty-three when the galleon reads WHAT’S YOUR PLAN? Harry smiles. Now they’re asking the right questions. They’ve finally conceded he won’t use the Order’s safehouses and stopped sending him new addresses a couple days ago.
He points at the coin and manipulates the words to morph into PEACEWEAVER. The smile slides off his face, looking at it written there like that. He’s writing his life away. The galleon remains unchanged for a long time after that. Harry can imagine the kind of wild, chairs-thrown argument happening over there, wherever they are. After a few hours, the coin starts to change rapidly, as if the group split up and they’re all trying to message him in secret at the same time but there’s no private way to do it. NO, then, WHERE ARE YOU?, then WHY?, NO again, and then STAY HIDDEN; he barely has time to read them before the words around the rim of the coin go blank and smooth. Harry can make a stab at who’s saying what, but then, the answer may surprise him. Pursuing peace this way is the best possible option – and the worst one, in a way. For him, anyway. But he’s choosing it and that matters. It’s his decision. If he winds up in Voldemort’s clutches, at least it will have been for something. Why not go for broke?
If Moody says stay hidden, then that’s what he’ll do.
He’s nearly out of bread, that’s how much PB&J he’s been eating. Looks like he might have to resort to eating beans plain. Things still haven’t gotten dire enough to break into the emotional support Skittles, but that’s because he hasn’t been thinking too hard on this whole soulmate business, he reflects as he leans back on his hands under a star-studded sky. Long pale grasses flutter in the wind all around him. It’s a beautiful night. Harry wishes he had someone to share it with, but alone is okay, too. Just for tonight, on an evening so lovely even a lonesome creature such as himself can’t find room for complaint. There’re plusses to not thinking about it. He’s been able to stay calm, for one. Make clear-headed decisions, also good. Stay more on the numb side of things, love it.
The negatives? Well, he can admit he’s in denial. He has as much privacy than he’s ever had in his life, and yet he is more reluctant than ever to take his shirt off for any amount of time. Harry tries so hard not to look down at them, the words that is. But in the mornings, he finds his hand rested over them and at night he can’t help tracing them with a finger dragged over the fabric of his shirt. There’s a small part of him, the smallest part really, that’s glad he has words at all. It’s proof they both have souls, however divided and damaged and ripped to shreds.
Scourgify becomes his best friend when he’s not near a lake or a pond or a river or the sea. Harry only allows himself to follow the coastline a couple times per week, then darting back into dry land on long, circuitous routes. Aiming to be as obnoxious as possible in his flight pattern, he often doubles back and tries to crisscross his trail at times, too. He knows travel by broomstick isn’t traceable, but reports of strange movement and visual distortions in the air might be. For all he knows, Muggles might be tracking UFO sightings when really, it’s Harry. He has no way of knowing. So he keeps to wildlands and the lonely parts of the country, winding back on himself and curving a path this way and that until he’s quite sure he’s in Scotland. It’s not terribly clear whether he ever touched down in Cornwall, a few weeks back. He had seen the two coastlines converging as he flew down and realized he was travelling over a peninsula. That had made him feel pinned in and he turned around right there to retrace his steps, then headed north. Sometimes Harry follows the coastline and sometimes not, his vague memory of UK geography leading him to believe he was in Wales for most of it. He has to swerve out quite a ways to side-step two big cities that seem to overlap each other, going by the skyline and spread of suburban sprawl. Manchester? Liverpool? He’s not sure.
But in reality, he never gets close enough to road signs to know and in the end landscapes don’t differ nearly as much as people do. And he’s seen pretty much no one. Passing cars, a farmer here and there, sometimes there are people scattered about the fields. But other than that? He can admit to himself he’s doing a good job on this self-assigned task. As impulsive as the decision had been.
For once, it might have been the right one.
The thing is, though, that he’s running out of food. Even the beans have been depleted and he’s down to his last two granola bars. There’s a few other odds and ends, but yeah. He’ll need to do another food run.
All this being on the run business has made him appreciate how much faster Thestrals and Hypogriffs are than broomsticks. It’s not totally to his disadvantage. Pursuers may to travelling too fast in their search, so that they pass right over him. Slow and steady wins the race. Plus, magical creatures would have been far more noticeable than a bloke on a broom. Even disillusioned, it would have been a risk. Also, hard to find enough meat for them. As a matter of fact, he misses meat, too.
He’ll have to buy some deli meat or salami or something when he makes his next grocery run. The thought makes his mouth water. Maybe some pastries, too. And fruit! He never thought he’d miss fruit and vegetables like does, but here he is, thinking fondly of broccoli and salad.
The tally’s at thirty-seven by the time he’s scraping out the last of the peanut butter with a pocket knife and spreading it out thinly on the final surviving granola bar. He’s been drinking a lot of water to substitute for real fullness and put off going back into civilization, the water a trick he learned very early with the Dursleys.
Harry knows he needs to go, but he’s scared. He’s spent all this time and effort avoiding being seen, getting caught, and he doesn’t want it all to be for nothing. It’s stressful enough he really does bust out the Skittles. They burst sugary sweet in his mouth and remind him of younger days, before magic, before Hogwarts. The rare time he would have just enough spare change scrounged up to buy a little candy. It tastes like a good day, like things looking up. He wants as much of the feeling as he can get. He eats a third of the bag and feels sick from it, barely flying that day as he waits for the stomachache to fade. Sitting and laying around most of the day in a glen, he has too much time to think, all that time spent not-thinking catching up to him. What does it mean to be a dark lord’s soulmate? Does that make Harry a crazy murderer, too? Does it mean he’ll balance him out – and what does balancing him out even mean? When Hermione had said it to both placate and educate him, he hadn’t been listening with his listening ears. And what do the dreams mean? Are they sent to him or are they conjured from the depths of his own mind?
There’s no question it’s tapping into his deepest desires – to be cared for, to be held down, to be loved. The question is whether they’re carefully designed to ease him into the idea of embracing his soulmate, like slowly raising the temperature to boil a frog in a pot without it realizing. They’re getting more specific, too. A mouth pressed to his scar rather than true lips, fingers tracing the words on his chest the way Harry’s own do before sleep finds him at night. Long, fine-boned hands on him, holding him close, something whispered in his ear he can never quite understand. It’s wonderful and it scares him. It’s nothing like the reality that faces him, that he’s chosen.
If the dreams are Voldemort’s doing, it’s terribly sneaky of him. And it also might be his attempt to manipulate Harry into turning himself over without Voldemort having to sacrifice anything. Soften him up. Yes, that sounds quite like the boy he got to know from the diary. Sly. A snake in the grass, so to speak. Well, better this than to dream of being tortured or his friends being tortured or some vision of mass death and destruction. At least this way, he gets something he wants, too; the illusion of closeness, of care. The kind of comfort you can really only get from another person.
His back is killing him from sleeping on the ground, even with a transfigured sleeping roll. And flying in roughly the same position day in and day out. Harry would kill for a muscle relaxing potion. Somehow he doubts they’ll have that at the supermarket.
The night he resolves to make a grocery run the next day, he spells the galleon to say EVERYONE OK?
The reply is quick and reads ALL SAFE.
Harry changes the words again. PROGRESS?
YES.
WHEN?
NEED MORE TIME.
CAN DO. Harry hesitates then, because anyone could be answering him. Anyone who has one of the charmed galleons and knows it’s how they communicate. But . . . SPY FOUND?
FLETCHER. Damn! Harry wants to punch something. That disgusting rat, another Pettigrew-type then. What a faithless worm. He says it, too: DAMN!
BE SAFE, the coin reads, and perhaps that’s best. Wouldn’t do to give away too much information or communicate at any real length. It just felt good to talk to someone. YOU TOO.
The next issue, it turns out, is that he has no Muggle money left. After considering the problem carefully, he decides to transfigure sickles and knuts into pound notes of various value with charms for preservation and making the spell stick as strong as he can cast them. This way it’ll feel less like he’s cheating them. And he definitely doesn’t want to steal. All told, he puts one hundred pounds into his disposal.
He wants to stock up enough for months just in case, as much as he hates what it implies that he might need to, but he couldn’t possibly carry it all without a more potent expansion charm on the trunk. And Harry hasn’t the first idea how to manipulate objects in such a delicate way. As it is, he’s been on a journey of rigorous transfiguration learning, a lot of trial and error. McGonagall would be proud of his progress; the classroom never prepared him to rough it like this. He’s been able to transfigure big rocks and logs into mattresses the past couple weeks, then revert them back like he’d never been there at all. Never would have been able to do that before.
It takes a while to fall asleep that night, worries wracking his mind. He doesn’t want it all to be for nothing, and over something as simple as food. Harry will take every feasible precaution. Changing his appearance, walking into town disillusioned, finding the most isolated grocery store possible. Hide his broom out back, remove the disillusionment on himself, walk in the front door and back out in under ten minutes. Pay and leave, that’s all he has to do. Just pay and leave. It’s starting to get cooler at night, early September by his tally. That helps him drift off, a good sleeping temperature for someone acclimatized to a cupboard under the stairs that was either dangerously drafty or chokingly stuffy. Harry closes his eyes and prays for dreams.
He dresses in the most Muggle attire he owns: a muted logo t-shirt and faded jeans. All that’s missing is one of those seashell necklaces. Charms give him a longer nose, eyes wider set, broader forehead, lower cheekbones, wavy light brown hair, a rounder chin, and no scar. Glasses are reshaped. He’s careful to change his eye color this time, too. It’ll do. He’s already multiple shades tanner than he’s been before from all the time outdoors with no sunscreen. Harry’s unrecognizable.
Circling the smallest little village he can find from the air gives him some reassurance there isn’t much to see or to be seen by. And there aren’t but so many houses, what looks to be a little school and public buildings, and a few stores. The kind of town that has more graves than people. He’s quite sure he’s in Scotland now, going by the flag waving in front of the half-filled school parking lot. Harry lands in the wooded area behind the grocery store, distinguished by a sign with cartoon fruits on it. It’s a walk from there, he landed pretty far away out of an abundance of caution. He leans his broom up against a tree and scratches the village-facing side of the trunk once to mark the spot so he can find it again. It’s difficult to walk on, leaving his means of escape behind. He does it anyway.
It takes hard work not to tiptoe out of the woods and around the building like a cautious cartoon character. He flinches when a vent on the side of the building gusts some exhaust. Easy, Harry. Just pay and leave. That’s all you have to do, he reminds himself. Even his footsteps on the soft dirt path round the side of the grocery store sound too loud. Breathe.
Harry walks in, the little bell at the top of the store startling him. “Hi there!” a chipper shop girl greets him from behind the counter. “Not often we get strangers round these parts. What c’n I help ye with?”
“Oh nothing,” Harry stutters a bit. “Just a bit of a grocery run.”
“Right, right you are. Ye’ve come to the correct place! Please let me know if there’s an’thing ye can’t find.” Her smile is blinding. It feels good just to see another face from this close, honestly.
The fluorescents are less welcoming. Harry grabs a trolley and gets to work. The instinct is to grab a cheap pot and pan and cooking tools, but he hasn’t risked building a fire since day one. Too easy to find at night, when you’re out in the empty countryside and there’s no light for miles. Warming charms should be able to take care of him just fine for the next couple months, he decided when planning this grocery run. It’s overwhelming to be faced with so many food choices, aisle after aisle bulked out with stuff. More non-perishables it’ll have to be for him, but this time, oh this time . . . Harry picks up a truly massive bargain bag of apples first thing. Oranges, strawberries, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes . . . Things he thinks will last at least a little while outside the cold embrace of commercial refrigeration. There are things he wants but has to put back because he knows they won’t survive long enough to enjoy. Stasis charms can only do so much. He has hope now, that he won’t be dying of scurvy any time too soon.
More crisps, nuts, dried fruit, granola, energy bar-type things, all kinds of things. Oh, but the meat. Harry darts over to the deli aisle and grabs up two packs of assorted sliced sandwich meat, pre-cooked chicken breast, and three long logs of salami, then impulsively grabs a fourth. Everything else here will go bad, he tells himself as he stares at a big pack of bacon longingly. He dumps all the meat into the trolley basket and wheels back to the front. Soap! He forgot soap! Abruptly, he turns the cart to hang a left and nab a package full of bars and some shampoo sitting next to it as well. Bread! He forgot bread, too! He grabs a few loaves the next aisle over. And cheese, the industrial kind that is worryingly difficult to spoil. Well, Harry’s not worrying about it now. He’s definitely forgetting some stuff – this is why we bring a grocery list, Harry – but it’s definitely past the allotted ten minutes and will have to do.
He carts it all back to the wide-eyed shop girl at the front. “A bit of a grocery run, was it?”
“Yeah, you, er, you know how it is.”
“Mm,” she hums. “I certainly do.” She starts ringing it all up. There’s enough of it that it takes a while and Harry takes it upon himself to bag everything just to have something to do and keep from tapping his foot the bags of food cluster around his feet when they run out of counterspace. Tapping the final few clackity keys, she announces, “That’s ninety-three pounds and seventy-three pence. Quite a party you must be throwing.” Harry just laughs nervously as he pretends to count out the bills and hand her ninety-five pounds. It pains him to wait for change, but he does it anyway. She hands him the coins and he dumps them into one of the grocery bags, already loading them into the trolley to wheel everything around to the back.
“Alright if I bring the trolley out to unload and bring it back?”
“O’ course!” the shop girl says brightly. “Take all the time ye need.”
“Thanks, er, thanks,” Harry repeats himself. The asphalt is a smooth ride but when he pushes the trolley over the dirt path, it puts up a bit of a fight. He pushes harder to get it to comply. They make it to the back of the store and Harry ferries groceries from the trolley into his enlarged trunk behind the tree line. The mission has been a success and he’s feeling quite satisfied with himself when –
BANG!
It comes from the road, the parking lot, too close, it must be Apparition, and in broad daylight, and right where Harry’s just been, and –
Harry’s got the trunk closed, latched, shrunken, and tucked away with the remaining bags looped around the broom handle in an instant. He abandons the shopping trolley and jets away, dodging tree trunks at ground level, the ultimate agility exercise. After several minutes of travelling this way, he eases down the speed enough notches to cast disillusionments and a Notice-Me-Not on himself and the broom. Then he carries on.
He spends the rest of the day speeding as far away from the store as he can manage, taking crooked and weaving paths but never circling back on himself. Making the ill-advised decision to keep flying after dark, Harry carries on for quite a ways, chasing the winds until his heart has slowed again, until the hair on the backs of his arms lies flat and he can think to himself, Alright, now I can probably manage to sit still.
It’s only as he lays down to sleep without even tent cover so he can keep company with the stars that he can admit to himself that it perhaps was a car engine backfiring that made such a loud bang and not in fact the whole of the Death Eater forces.
After all, how could they have found him? He took every possible precaution. He could spend the rest of his life this way and probably manage it. Magic is infinite. Harry could transfigure anything into money, anything into anything with enough material to work with and enough practice. Who’s to say he even needs to stay in the UK? He could keep running forever and no one could catch him, not even Lord Voldemort, not even the Order –
But he wants to be found, he reminds himself. In a way. He wants to come home, when home is where your people are. Harry doesn’t want to do this forever. But it’s stirring something inside to know that he could. He has that power. He has that option. That freedom.
That means something.
His dream that night is truly wonderful, blissful in that way that keeps him happy for hours into waking, happy enough he can’t even cry about it. Bodies close, skin touching, sharing air. “Where are you?” the voice whispers. “I want to find you.”
“With you,” Harry answers, pulling this person closer, cradling a larger form in his arms. “Always with you.”
“Harry . . . “
Then he wakes.
Again, it’s sweet enough to keep him properly grieving the loss. He knows he’ll have it again come nightfall.
Chicken breast, strawberries, and cheese for breakfast never tasted so good. He’s going to feast like a king for weeks.
The new foods spice things up for a little while, but other than that, his life is monotonous. Flying during the day – damn it, he forgot to buy sunscreen again! – and dreaming wonderful dreams at night, he passes more weeks away. He spends all of it trundling around Scotland but avoiding the islands. There’s little mental stimulation and he takes to wondering what his life will be like in the future. Being a peace-weaver or whatever. Probably chains and torture and never seeing his friends again. Wand snapped or taken away. Drinking sewage water and living off of bugs and dungeon mold for sustenance. But then, when Harry’s being reasonable, why would Voldemort theoretically sacrifice waging war to have his soulmate just to treat him terribly?
Well, soulmate he may be, but he’s still Harry Potter. And Voldemort hates Harry Potter. There’s a bumpy road ahead. Good thing Harry’s flying for now.
The galleon remains unchanged for multiple weeks, except for brief check ins.
ALL SAFE? ALL SAFE.
PROGRESS? NEED MORE TIME.
Someone in the Order initiates a few times as well.
STATUS? Harry has to think on that one. GOOD.
NEED SAFEHOUSE?
BAD IDEA, Harry answers quickly.
ROADBLOCK HIT, the galleon reads on the first truly chilly evening of the year. Harry applies multiple warming charms and it does the trick. For now.
He doesn’t need more information than that to know exactly what he wants to say. ASK HIM IF HE’S PREPARED – and then the coin runs out of room. He waits a minute then changes it to TO DO THIS FOREVER. If Voldemort really wants lock it down, then . . .
BECAUSE I AM.
And then, two days later, at long last:
DATE SET.
-
WHEN?
ONE WEEK. 9.29.97.
Harry takes the deepest breath of his life. WHERE?
STONEHENGE. That – that –
Melodramatic bastard!
This is new levels of delusions of grandeur. He almost says no on principle, but that’s not really in the cards. He has no idea what they’ve negotiated, what peace even looks like with a man like Lord Voldemort. Whether it’s even possible, no matter what words they say or Vow. He’ll just have to trust in their negotiating abilities.
UGH. Harry can’t resist saying it. Even if just to give everyone a laugh. And it needs to be said. He leaves it there for a minute, enough to really marinate. WHAT TIME?
DUSK. This prompts yet another eye roll moment. Well, at least he’ll know when to be there without casting a Tempus charm.
ANYTHING ELSE?
NO. Yes, it’s definitely one of the Aurors in charge of the charmed galleons now. Probably confiscated most of the others – it explains the relative radio silence for the past couple months since his told him to stay hidden. THANK YOU, the words morph, then morph again. YOU’RE A GOOD MAN. That’s definitely not Moody. No way. Probably Kingsley. Right? Either way, Harry sniffles a little, eyes watery for the first time in many weeks.
Nine weeks on the run. A low price to pay for such a steep reward, and yet such a sharp feeling of incoming loss. Well, it’ll be alright. He’ll make it alright.
Harry turns south, towards Salisbury. The land below him is so well-trod by now that it’s all starting to look very familiar. The days are blustery, the wind blowing the wrong way, as if trying to push him back, turn him around –
He forges onward.
The dreams stop. His nights are normal, regular, run-of-the-mill, sometimes dreaming normal little dreams and sometimes not. It’s . . . he’s grieving the loss. Gutting.
Only knowing that he’ll be seeing his friends and family soon contents him. And at the same time, he prepares emotionally for everything to go wrong. And so very many things could. He resolves to approach as cautiously as possible, as early as possible to scope things out. Harry feels like dinner the night before will be his last meal, can’t help it. The world is ending, in a way. The world as he knew it. Life as he knew it. By the end of the day tomorrow, he’ll be a –
Married man.
He gulps. And doesn’t sleep a wink.
The witching hour finds him restless, hours of lying there fruitlessly already under his belt. Harry packs up camp, throws on a sweater, and takes to the sky. There isn’t far to go now, and he lands a long walk away from the landmark on purpose. Draping the invisibility cloak over himself and his broom, Harry slowly treks his way towards the darker spot on the horizon, until it’s close close closer still, the starry sky lightening from deep blue to a mild purple.
He can see people – moving shapes, just there –
Harry silences his steps in the grass. Closer, he creeps, slower with each step. Is this really what he wants, really what he wants to do with his life? Is it really worth –
Then he spies that telltale bushy head of hair from the shape of the silhouette the bright moon is casting. Other familiar shapes can be seen as well. He picks up speed until he’s nearly jogging, so excited after months away – but the tall strange stones come into better view. And there are other people there on the other half of the circle. So many people, so many dark cloaks. Wasn’t the meeting time at dusk? Looks like everyone tried to get here early to scope things out. Just when he thought he’d be the first one there . . . His silent steps slow into a walk. This is it. Last chance to turn back. He steps forward anyway and lets the cloak drop. It doesn’t take long for him to be noticed.
“Harry!” And then he’s got a face full of that bushy hair, wiry arms wrapped around him tight. Harry catches Hermione, holds them both upright. Surely that must be Ron at his back, warm and close so he’s hugged from both sides. Moody’s there, Arthur too, every last Weasley save Percy, and there’s Kingsley, Tonks, and Remus. He feels magical protections wash over him as he’s tugged into the outer rim of the stone circle.
“ ‘llo,” Harry says. It’s quiet on the other side of the Stonehenge. He doesn’t want to look. Someone gives his shoulder a friendly shake and Hermione’s whispering in his ear, “Harry, you don’t have to do this, there are other ways – “
But there aren’t, not without loss of life, or they would have broached the option by now. They’ve had months to think of a better plan and come up short. It’s fine; Harry’s made peace with this. He pulls away so she can see him shake his head silently, a hand on her shoulder. This is the best they are going to do. Her eyes sparkle with potential tears and he doesn’t turn to look at Ron because he’s pretty sure his friend is doing the same and that will set Harry off, too. He needs to be strong. Show no weakness. Moody’s pulling him aside to quietly explain: “You’ll do an Unbreakable Vow and a marriage ceremony in one, it’s tradition. Here, Potter,” here he attempts to hand Harry a thick sheaf of parchments, not well legible in the pre-dawn darkness. The agreement. Harry pushes them back.
“You all wrote it, right? Hermione did?”
“Yes, but with adjustments – “
“Then I don’t need to read it. Not right now.” Lower, Harry insists, “He could change his mind any minute.”
“Fair enough,” Mad-Eye says and begins to gesture to an unfamiliar man in the middle of the stone circle standing before two fallen stones. Hermione has to stop Harry before he walks forward, asking him to wait. “You can’t get – it’s your . . . You ought to be wearing proper robes.” She taps her wand on his shoulder and his sweater and jeans and trainers transform into sharp, snug robes and boots. He nods at her, manages a small tip of the lips that melts off his face as he turns to face his future.
His future is scary, with red eyes and weird skin and no nose and arguably no soul. So he glowers at it with all his power, fueled by every last thing that’s gone wrong in his life. He taps into the bottomless well of pure rage he’s been so scared of up until now. Now? Now is when he needs it.
Harry strides forward to meet the officiant in the middle of the Stonehenge like a man going to war. Like a challenge. Voldemort meets it. He steps forward, intense, bearing down just by being there, the atmospheric presence of a tornado. A vision of death and destruction. Harry, one of wrath. Voldemort looks – Harry watches the officiant instead.
The officiant is unfamiliar, in red Ministry robes with a dimly glowing parchment hovering in the air. “Take hands,” the man instructs rather fearlessly, as if he couldn’t care much which way things go. Harry expects Voldemort to hesitate and sticks his hand out upon instruction to beat him to the punch. He’s wrong; Voldemort doesn’t hesitate, no, he takes Harry’s right hand in his own and at the first touch – god, he knew it would be good, but still. Everyone knows there’s a certain something special when it comes to a soulmate’s touch, but this . . .
Harry raises his head from where it dropped weakly in response to the touch. The sky is dipping into varied shades spanning from indigo to lavender, brightness spilling from the east from behind the man’s head. Voldemort’s fingers fold tighter as fluid golden wire unspools from the wizard’s wand and begins to twine around their joined hands.
“Do you, Lord Voldemort, vow to never obstruct any Ministry of Magic’s election system, lawful integrity, or otherwise interfere with its legal functioning so long as you remain bound in matrimony to Harry James Potter?”
“I do.” His voice is strong, unhesitating, unflinching. Familiar enough, from altercations past. From all of Harry’s worst memories.
“Do you, Harry James Potter, vow to never physically harm, mutilate, or otherwise intentionally injure Lord Voldemort, so long as you remain bound in matrimony to one another?”
“I do,” Harry says, wondering what planet they’re on that he has agreed to this without hearing Voldemort agree to it first. The golden wire spools around their hands, overlapping and winding back on itself.
“Do you, Lord Voldemort, vow to never physically harm, mutilate, or otherwise intentionally injure Harry James Potter, so long as you remain bound in matrimony to one another?”
“I do.” Well, that’s reassuring.
“Do you, Harry James Potter, vow to never intentionally sabotage Lord Voldemort in his political aims, so long as they remain lawful within the parameters set forth by the Ministry of Magic?”
Harry hesitates, but, if Hermione and Moody say to go with it . . . and no one’s shouting that they object – “I do.” The wire winds thicker, more binding, up their wrists to their forearms.
“Do you, Lord Voldemort, vow to never abscond with or otherwise detain Harry James Potter? Do you vow to never withhold him access to his friends, family, and desired company so long as you both remain bound in matrimony to one another?”
“I do.” Whew, that was way better a deal than he was expecting out of this. No dungeons for him. At this point, he just wants to see what terms they’ll have put in next.
“Do you, Lord Voldemort, vow to never wage war in or on the United Kingdoms of Great Britain without Harry James Potter’s written consent and approval, written free of will and witnessed by a mutually agreed upon third party, presently selected to be Alastor Moody or another third party upon death or incapacitation of the current individual, so long you remain bound in matrimony to Harry James Potter?” WOAH! It’s actually happening!
“I do.” It’s beyond Harry’s understanding that anything could motivate Voldemort to agree to all these binding restrictions – upon pain of death, no less. This would make the messiest divorce of the century. Harry’s never getting divorced.
“The Unbreakable Vow is complete. I bind you in the eyes of the law and magic to be beholden to your word and one another.” The golden wire completes its journey around and around their hands and wrists and forearms, flashing brighter once with the final words and fading.
“Here follows the marriage ceremony. Do you, Harry James Potter, swear to be loyal, constant, and faithful to Lord Voldemort, so long as you both remain bound in matrimony to one another?”
“I do.” A weird one, but okay. Harry’s not clear on how literal these words are, or how magically binding. But if it’s a question of sleeping around, yeah, marriage is marriage. He’s not planning on endangering anyone else’s life like that.
“Do you, Lord Voldemort, swear to be loyal, constant, and faithful to Harry James Potter, so long as you both remain bound in matrimony to one another?”
“I do.”
“Do you, Harry James Potter, swear to support, honor, and care for Lord Voldemort’s needs?”
“I . . . do?”
“Do you, Lord Voldemort, swear to support, honor, and care for Harry James Potter’s needs?”
“I do.”
“Do you, Harry James Potter, swear to keep Lord Voldemort safe and guard his wellbeing as if it were your own?”
“. . . I do.” These vows are just getting weirder and weirder.
“Do you, Lord Voldemort, swear to keep Harry James Potter safe and guard his wellbeing as if it were your own?”
“I do.”
“Then by the power vested in me by the Ministry of Magic, I declare you lawfully wedded until death do you part, legal termination of matrimony, or vow do you break.” The officiant raises his wand and starry sparks rain down majestically over their heads.
The officiant rolls up the hovering, glowing parchment and takes a step back.
They’re still holding hands. Harry yanks his back and barely represses the instinct to wipe his hand on his robes.
It’s done.
Running all this time, only to lay a trap for himself and sit right in the middle of it. It should feel worse, like the end of the world again again again. But it isn’t. It’s the start of something great but terrible. Or terrible and great. Some combination therein.
He looks up at his soulmate, his husband, and fighting past the mute shock of the situation, the impossible to understand look on his face, bitingly says, “Well?”
Another challenge, and Voldemort takes the bait with little pause. He grasps Harry’s upper arm and raises his wand, presumably to side-along Apparate, but then Hermione calls out, “Wait!” again, frantically. “What about - ?” She lifts Harry’s broom and invisibility cloak helplessly.
“Don’t worry, ‘mione. You hold onto them. I’ll be seeing you soon,” Harry says kindly, when really he doesn’t feel sure of anything. He gets a brief look at the rest of the Order, just enough to see that everyone’s still accounted for, then the world gets ripped away as they’re tossed into one piece of material reality into another.
He’s headed home sweet home.