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An American summer camp (oh dear)/ two pairs of green eyes/ animosity and friendship/ a picture lost and found/ realisations/ a conspiracy is brewing
Do you know of “Lil Mugwump’s Camp For Mini Mages” near Pollywog Marsh Village? The summer camp for magical children near a village filled to the brim with magical families? The one that is located in California? No? Curious – it almost seems to me as if there was something strange afoot. Well, perhaps it is the kind of village that is only known by those who are not asked. It wouldn’t surprise me. Such things exist.Well, even if you do know California like the back of your hand, then you still might not know of the summer camp for magically gifted children near Pollywog Marsh Village. Quite possibly since neither you nor me are in possession of even a sliver of magical gifts. Alas. Nevertheless, whether magical or non-magical children – summer camps of this kind resemble one another like grains of sand or daisies; knowing one means knowing all of them.Now you might be asking, why then are we looking at this specific summer camp?I’ll happily give you the answer. Even if this summer camp might yet sound completely unremarkable, this will soon change. In the early afternoon, a group of new children arrive; an event that’s always greeted with a lot of excitement. This occasion is especially exciting, as this particular group is not coming from the US, but England.In their midst, a nine-year-old boy called Archie is sitting; Arcturus Rigel Black if you ask an adult. I would quite like to tell you what Archie looks like, but I might give you the totally wrong idea.You see, Archie, like many children, loves to play dress up. Indeed, as I mentioned, this camp is for magically gifted children and Archie, well, he has a special magical gift. He changes his appearances as cheerfully and often as other people change their socks.Today, he looks like a colourful mixture of his very favourite people. His head full of the unruly black locks of his uncle James and a small but fine moustache, one like his uncle Remus sports – and which sparks a lot of delight in the group of children. His face stays otherwise like it always looks: the delicate aristocratic features of the Black family, save for his mother’s chin. His usually grey eyes are a glowing green today. A favourite of Archie’s, but not as beloved by the Marauders.The Marauders – that’s what his silly uncles and his dad call themselves – are usually, unlike other adults, up for most sorts of mischief. Nobody laughs at Archie’s pig noses and elephant trunks as much as those three. The green eyes always get a weird reaction though.Yes – once, Archie’s dad even took him aside before they flooed over to his uncles’ shared flat, to ask him to change his eye colour, “for your uncle James.”That was before Archie’s mum died and his uncles moved in with dad and him. Before that, the marauders had been delightfully childish and only in regards to the green eyes a little cranky. Afterwards, everything had been cranky. Archie too. But he doesn’t like thinking about it.Today he says goodbye to the Marauders, and before he even enters the aeroplane, his eyes have become a poisonous green. What kind of fun he’ll have, now that the adults can’t tell him no anymore.And fun he does have, quickly turning into the most popular kid on the way to camp. By the time they’ve changed from aeroplane to a bus, he’s been asked by dozens of children to sit next to them on the rest of the journey. He takes turns, swapping seats as if they are playing musical toadstools until the bus driver reminds them to stay seated with the seatbelt on.Neither you nor me would believe it, but it’s a magical bus, jumping through time and space, expanding and shrinking however it likes to get where it needs to go. And they get there fast! Oh, what kind of convenience magic offers.With one last blink of the eye the bus disappears from the long endless highway it has been driving on, and arrives in front of a big wooden sign declaring this to be “Lil Mugwump’s Camp For Mini Mages”. It’s a bit on the nose, isn’t it? A magical summer camp for magical children. Normally, the statute of secrecy would not allow this kind of visibility. However, most parents believe their children to be magical, even the non-magical ones, so it blends right in. “Camp Fairy-tale” is only a few miles away, and between you and me, if you’re searching for princesses, dragons and fairies, you must go looking somewhere else.Now back to the children on our bus, who cheer and jump in their seats as the bus drives past the sign and comes to a stop in front of a big wooden building with barely any walls. The roof is held up by a few pillars and beams, which according to architects really should not support this kind of structure. But what do they know? This building stands quite wonderfully and even on the rainiest and windiest days, it stays dry and warm and cosy.It’s from there that the camp counsellors come to greet the newcomers, a group of children already following them. They are a giggly mess, excited to make new friends and to show them around camp.The bus door opens with a quiet hum, and the driver steps out. He’s a big fellow with a gentle expression, and he holds up his arms to help down child after child after child. His rhythm is only interrupted by one already familiar boy. Archie cheerfully declines any help and leaps down, ignoring the offered hand and the bus step. The dust whirls up beneath his feet and he laughs happily.He looks up and it’s then that he freezes, the giggle stuck in his throat like a sticky sweet. Across from him, right next to the camp counsellors who are welcoming the new children with big smiles and open arms, stands a quiet child with a serious face. It’s his face.Now, if Archie only was a little older or a little less shocked, he might have been more honest. To be fair to the serious little one staring back at Archie, it would be more accurate to say that Archie is wearing their face. He is the one with the borrowed eyes, the borrowed hair and the borrowed – oh, there his moustache goes, shrinking until it’s gone; two identical faces blinking at each other.“Hey!” he says, and it’s difficult to tell if it’s a friendly greeting or personal affront. Even Archie himself isn’t sure. His dad made him take some etiquette classes when he was younger, but as far as he can remember there aren’t any rules on how to deal with your doppelgänger if they suddenly make an appearance. Which seems like quite the oversight; in a world like theirs I would be more surprised not to meet my doppelgänger.One of the camp counsellors turns around, and when her gaze falls on them she claps her hands together in front of her mouth.“Oh my, now that is just uncanny,” she says, before turning around to call over another counsellor. He comes stomping over, asking impatiently, “What is it, Louisa?”Louisa gently pushes Archie, until he stands shoulder to shoulder with the strange kid. Up until now, everything has been going to his summer camp plans. If exciting daydreams of finding lots of friends and instigating mischief could be called plans. This though, this was quite the big diversion and it’s starting to grate on him, the way the two adults both bend over to peer closely at Archie and then the other child’s face.“Incredible,” mumbles the second counsellor. “Looks just like your copy, eh Harriet?”At this, the other child reacts for the first time.“It’s Harry. And we look nothing alike.”Archie scoffs and it’s his turn to eye her critically. There are some differences, he supposes, but overall it would be easy to get them confused. Now, the most rational way to deal with this would be for Archie to morph and drop the appearance. However, he is nine years old and he’s grown up with three men more likely to join him than ever tell him no for his bad ideas. So we must forgive him, when he doubles down and very, very subtly, shifts his facial features to look even more like the poor unsuspecting girl called Harry.Louisa and the other counsellor seem to miss his transformation as they share a wide-eyed look, and Harry is mutinously staring at her shoes. It’s a pair of boots which if you were to ask her, she would describe as top-quality brewing boots and if you were to ask Archie, he would describe as ugly. It’s quite lucky nobody is asking; the situation is already tense enough as it is.The adults, of course, miss the displeasure brewing like a highly potent potion, caught up in their excitement.“Welcome to Lil Mugwump’s camp for Mini Mages. What’s your name, buddy?” asks the counsellor. “My name’s Robert. That’s Louisa.”Archie tears his gaze off Harry, too distracted to listen to any introductions, but he does tell them his name.“Right, now you two… have you ever met before?”The two children shake their heads in unison and when they realise they share a scornful glare.The other counsellor leans over to Louisa, whispering in her ear. “Should we check for magical interference? Or do you think this is normal?”Louisa considers this, looking unsure. Just like Archie, she isn’t trained in the etiquette of sudden doppelgängers. Again – quite the oversight. Alas, she does know about polyjuice potion and glamour charms, and while she can’t see what anybody would want to achieve by sending a second Harriett Potter to this camp, she supposes it would be for the best to alert the camp director.“How about the three of us go to Mrs Hogan. She’s the camp’s director,” she says cheerfully, as she starts to gently steer Harry and Archie away from the rest of the group. “Robert, take our newcomers to their cabins, will you?”He gives her a thumbs-up and then tries to get the attention of twenty excitedly chattering children. Archie lets himself be directed by Louisa in the direction of the pavilion, but he keeps looking back longingly over his shoulder. His plans and dreams of his glorious start at camp disappear into the air.“You said I could go back to the potions station after their arrival,” Harry says accusingly to Louisa. “I’m working under a strict schedule; I have my afternoon all planned out.”Louisa laughs in the way adults do when they think children are charming instead of serious. For a second, Archie considers joining Harry in her efforts of frowning at this offence, and then he remembers he could be making claims on the best bunk bed right now, if it wasn’t for this girl wearing his face.So he frowns at Harry, and when she finally lifts her gaze, two pairs of glowing green eyes meet. It’s not exactly hate at first sight; there was too much shock for it at that moment. Now though, both Archie and Harry feel more than frustrated with the hindering existence of the other, and that can inspire quite a bit of hate, when you’re really passionate about your plans.
The camp director shows only mild interest in the two identical children, and after a discussion that seemingly kept turning in circles and a few diagnostic charms she shrugs and tells Louisa that she’s got important business to attend to. Whenever adults say things like that it usually isn’t very important at all, but there’s nothing you can do if it’s your boss - so Louisa pouts a little and directs the children out of the office and into the sun again.“May I please go now?” Harry asks impatiently, “I’m an hour behind on the calming draught I’m preparing.”“You’re weird,” says Archie.She throws him an unimpressed look. “California poppies are described to have a calming effect and have been used in traditional medicine by indigenous people. I found a recipe for calming draught containing them, which differs from the recipe most commonly used in today’s commercial potions. I’m interested in the differences.”Louisa laughs and pats Harry’s shoulder. “No trying out your concoctions on your friends in the camp.”It’s a naïve thing to say, for Harry would not be trying out concoctions, she would be conducting a study on potions. But most of the adults in this camp do not seem to be particularly educated in the fascinating and complicated art of potions. Harry thinks it’s quite disappointing, but really she should be grateful. If any of the counsellors realised what kind of ingredients she’s working with, and what kind of potions she’s attempting – well, her study of the fascinating and complicated art of potions would be over quickly.Harry ignores Louisa’s comment, and after throwing Archie one last glare, makes her way towards the main building. Archie watches her go, feeling both vindicated and regretful.He is here to find friends. At home, he rarely meets other children, aside from when his dad takes him to Quidditch matches. He loves spending time with the Marauders, but they have adult responsibilities and adult woes, and Archie has very little time for either of those. So he spends a lot of time by himself. One day, he had been browsing the family library, and he had found himself interested in a book on healing.When his dad had discovered him reading it, he had made a very funny noise, and promptly got him a subscription to a healing journal. Apparently, the Black family library mostly contains books, which are both ideologically and scientifically quite dated. Even better for Archie, who now receives very nice books on anatomy and molecular biomagic and magical maladies for his birthday and Christmas.All that is to say, Archie’s hoping to be less lonely at camp than he might be at home, but he never thought he could find a friend to tell him about the healing properties of plants. It’s a world of possibilities blooming into life, but the branch between him and Harry seems to be already wilted.His mood does not improve when Louisa shows him the way to his cabin, where he discovers the only bed not yet taken is a lower bunk right next to the door. Most of the other children seem to have unpacked and left to discover camp already; there are only two boys still huddling in a corner. They’re giggling, but promptly stop when Archie enters.Archie tries to ignore the sudden weight in his tummy.“Hey,” he says cheerfully.For a second they just stare back. “Is Harry your twin? The others say she’s really weird. Apparently, she only wants to play potions, and she talks to snakes.”Archie puffs up his cheeks. One of the boys had clamoured to sit next to him on the bus, but loyalty is fickle, and looking like a weird kid is especially condemning.“I don’t even know her, but yeah, she’s so weird,” he says.The boy Archie hasn’t met properly frowns. “You should bite her nose off. For daring to look like you!”The boy from the bus nods gravely. “And you should grow your moustache again.”The weight in Archie’s tummy seems even heavier now. He does not feel like growing a moustache right now.In fact, for the rest of the day, Archie does not feel like changing anything about his appearance. He likes those eyes, and that’s his uncle James’ hair, and why should he have to change it?It might have been easier for him, if he had changed or at least done something funny, like the moustache. The kids who were excitedly trying to get his attention on the journey to camp now seem unsure of him, because by now they’ve all heard stories about Harry, and all of them want to fit in.Archie tries to join a pick up match of Quidditch, but the teams are already full. Somebody asks him if he wants to join a game of Quodpot instead, but he doesn’t know the rules. Instead he sits and watches them flying around, little black silhouettes dark against the bright blue sky. He shakes off the other camp counsellor who keeps asking him questions about his birth and if he truly doesn’t know Harry. Always focusing on the unimportant details, a disappointing but inevitable development of adulthood. Archie has more important things to worry about, if he wants to have fun at camp.At dinner, he gets the opportunity to steer things back to his original plan; he’s going to be popular and when he leaves he will be friends with every single kid at camp. Except Harry, of course, because she’s obviously boring and weird and not at all interesting. They’re all sitting in groups at round tables the counsellors had levitated from where they had been stowed in a corner of the pavilion. The air is warm, even as the sky’s turning pink and orange and then an inky blue above their heads.Archie’s tired, but he manages to jump into the conversation, when Harry is brought up.“It’s important to collect frog poop fresh. Otherwise the potion will explode,” he says, putting on her accent and imitating her serious frown.Once again, the table explodes in giggles, and he feels satisfied until he looks up and again, it’s like staring in the mirror. Only, Harry’s expression is tight, her lips pinched. For all that they don’t know each other – and what a bummer it is – Archie knows without a doubt that she wants to correct him. She doesn’t though, just stands up and leaves the pavilion, shoulders drawn up defensively.Archie looks down, pushes the grilled veggies around on his plate. He takes a bite of his cornbread, which had tasted warm and delicious at the beginning of his dinner. Now it’s awfully dry, he chews and chews.
That night, after long hours of giggles and whispers, the cabins in Lil’ Mugwumps Camp For Mini Mages fall quiet, one by one. Archie’s bunkmate turns around noisily above him, but then there’s nothing to hear but the sounds of sleep.Archie himself lies on his back, staring up at the bottom of the top bunk, and feeling wide-awake. It’s his first night sleeping on his own in a place he’s never been before. Uncle James had told him it would be good practice for Hogwarts, once he started school. His father and Uncle Remus had tried to shush him, like always when the topic came up.There aren’t many things the Potter-Black-Lupin household disagreed on, but Archie’s future schooling was one of them. The Marauders had met at Hogwarts, and their love for and their stories about it are never-ending. And children might find nostalgic stories adults like to tell fascinating, but tell them too often and they grow stale quickly.Besides, Archie has plans. He is going to study at the American Institute for Magic, because Hogwarts is no place for an ambitious start into a healing career. AIM is where he has to be, and his surety of that knowledge unsettles the adults – quite rightly so, as the story I’m telling you will prove.For now though, Archie lies on his back and stares up into the dark, missing his home and his father and his uncles deeply. Sleep is difficult to come by when there are too many thoughts swirling in your head and too many emotions nestling in your chest.Archie slips out of bed and creeps on bare feet to the door, his mouth tightly shut to trap all noise and air inside him. Once outside, he makes his way over to the edge of the trees, where a group of mushrooms wait, magically enlarged, ready to be used as a place to sit and rest.Archie sits and pulls his knees up, feeling very small. The world is bigger than one might expect, and it can be a frightening realisation. You can fly to another continent, leaving behind everyone and everything you have ever known, and then you turn around to see your own face on a stranger. There you are, ready to make friends, but nobody tells you the rules of making friends, particularly not, when there’s another child with your features running around – even when it is technically you who is the child with the stolen features.It’s easy to understand, and there is no one around to judge – aside from the moon, and the moon would dare no such thing – when a few tears escape Archie’s poison green eyes. Borrowed as the eyes are, the tears are all his own.Archie is feeling as lonely as any nine-year-old would, perched in the night with only the moon and the stars and the fireflies as his companion, when another cabin door opens and a small shadow slips outside. It moves directly towards him, and the group of trees behind him.It turns out to be Harry, who stops abruptly as she spots him. The two children stare at each other, suspicious and wary.“Have you been crying?” she asks.“No!” he says vehemently.“It’s okay to cry. Plenty of kids cry on their first night at camp,” she tells him seriously, “do you want some of my calming draught?”“No!” It’s difficult to believe, but it is said even more forcefully.“Your loss. I think I found some wolfsbane in the woods. It needs to be harvested by moonlight,” she pulls out a silver knife, “you can come if you want.”Archie musters the sharp blade glistening in the moonlight. He thinks about crawling back into his foreign bed, trying to sleep surrounded by the breathing and snoring of the other children. He looks up, and finds Harry patiently offering the hand not holding the knife. He’s never seen eyes like hers before; apart from when he changes his own that way. They feel familiar. They feel like home. “Will you tell me about the healing properties of Californian poppies?” he asks.The moon up above watches as two small hands link, and as the girl starts talking, quiet and self-assured, the unlikely pair of identical children disappears between the trees. When the moon finally bids us goodnight, and the sun tentatively starts stretching out its arms, the mini mages come streaming out of their cabins. The grass is still fresh with morning dew, and up in the trees, the birds are singing a lovely little song. While the other boys in Archie’s cabin are at the pavilion, spreading out at the tables in what seems like seconds, Archie has trouble gaining his senses. It has been an exciting night, especially once he found out about Harry’s dry sense of humour and her vast knowledge on potions used in healing.All in all, he has only gotten very little sleep, but his stomach is grumbling, so he stumbles over to the breakfast buffet at the pavilion. He loads eggs and pancakes on his plate, before looking around to find the head of messy curls belonging to Harry.She’s sitting at a table with some of the boys from his cabin and other kids he met yesterday. The seat next to her they left free though, so he walks over and sits down next to Harry, yawning loudly. She’s reading a big book, but looks up at the noise. Her eyes are clear and she does not look tired at all.“How are you so awake?” he mumbles. She shrugs, but kindly offers him some fresh pumpkin juice.The other kids have gone quiet, staring at them in open-mouthed surprise. Only yesterday, the tension between the two almost identical children had been thick enough to throw you off your broom. Which is to say, thoroughly unpleasant and to be avoided. Now, they are peacefully sitting next to each other, shoving eggs and pancakes into their mouths.“I thought you were gonna bite her nose off for looking like you?” says one of the boys from Archie’s cabin.Archie would never make a promise of this kind. Once you say you’re going to do something you can’t chicken out. It’s something he learned quite early in his life, when he threatened the Marauders with putting thestral dung in their beds, if they wouldn’t let him stay up for longer. They just laughed at him, and when he didn’t come through, he lost all credibility as a prankster and subsequently always had to go to bed on time. That’s another thing – you should only make viable promises; thestral dung is hard to come by when you’re five years old, and biting off noses is an acquired taste Archie does not possess.“I’m gonna get a kneazle to bite your nose off,” he shoots back angrily.Which as promises go is little ambitious you might say, but I can tell you it is still entirely possible; there are quite a few kneazles living in Lil Mugwumps Camp for Mini Mages who could do the job.“What’s wrong with you? Are you friends with her now?” The other boy from yesterday asks.“Yeah,” Archie says, “I think she’s more fun than you! I was bored to death sitting next to you on the bus yesterday. I’m an inferius now, and it’s your fault.”Some of the other kids giggle, and the boy turns very red. Loyalty is fickle, and maybe two kids looking like each other is cooler than one kid looking normal. Archie discovers soon that it’s surprisingly easy now to have lots of friends at camp. Once the day gets started properly, he convinces Harry to join a game of Quidditch. Afterwards, once they’ve beaten the opposite team, he cheerfully waves the other children goodbye and follows Harry towards the potion’s station.There are plenty of activities set up around camp. The potion’s station was possibly the one furthest back, located far behind the pavilion at the edge of a small pond. It’s a wooden hut with big windows, so there is a lot of light for Harry to chop up her ingredients, and Archie can stare outside and watch the toads. He peppers her with questions about potions and healing and her family.“Wait, your mum works in healing?” he asks excitedly. “Did she study at AIM in the healing track?”Harry uses the flat side of her knife to press the juice out of some ugly-looking fig. She told him all about it, including the name of the thing, but he’s more focused on the mention of her mother.“No, though she did go to AIM. She’s working on experimental healing charms.”“Wow.”As Harry meticulously measures the juice and lets it drop into the potion, Archie dreamily stares into the bright blue sky outside. He imagines going to AIM, becoming a healer and collaborating with experimental charms researchers.“What about your mum?”Archie’s heart stops and then starts racing. He’s glad Harry didn’t want him to help her with her ingredients, because his hands are now shaking a little.“She’s dead,” he says, because he’s learned you have to say it quickly, or else you will suffocate and shake apart around the words.Harry looks up, and once again her eyes feel so warm and familiar to him. It’s a good thing to see – like a home away from home.“I’m sorry,” she says, “my dad’s not dead, but I’ve never met him.”“I’m sorry too,” Archie says, and then they don’t talk about it anymore.
Slowly, the sky, the trees and the camp get used to seeing two identical faces walking around, always turned towards each other as they talk. Archie delights in his many new friends and his very own best friend. He makes Harry join Gobstones and Quidditch games. They even try to learn Quodpod, but it ends in even more frustration than their stink sap-filled loss as Gobstones. Harry tolerates most of it, knowing that the afternoons belong to the potions station and that – for all that she tries to hide it – she finds having a friend like Archie to be a novel and quite pleasing experience. Nobody has ever shown interest in her potions like this before, save for her mother perhaps.On some days, the camp counsellors organise little trips. There is a magical village only a few miles away – Pollywog Marsh Village as you might remember if you paid close attention – to which they hike on a particularly sunny day. The apothecary there is lacking, a disappointing – no, a concerning state for a magical community to live in. There are a lot of risks coming with ordering potions ingredient per post; you must consider shelf life, how a potion interacts with a stasis charm, temperature fluctuation, and the fact that some ingredients are best not shaken – not to mention the way some post owls treat their packages.Well, needless to say, Harry has a lot to say on the topic – quite rightly so. However, this is not a potions lesson, as much as she would prefer it to be; it is the story of how two strangers met and then realised they might not be strangers after all – but we are getting ahead of ourselves.On this sunny day we’re focusing on, a group of a few dozen magical children are hiking back from a magical village and their excited chattering makes the air buzz like they are a travelling hive of particularly misshapen bees. Or perhaps the buzzing stems from the vibrating, boldly coloured sweets that most of the children throw up in the air and try to catch with their mouths on the way down. It’s a possibility.Archie is also concentrating on his bag of sweets. As Harry keeps lecturing on the importance of a well-stocked apothecary, he enjoys the bounty he acquired at the village’s well-stocked candy shop. Candy . Delightfully, there are many sweets he has never seen before and he keeps holding them up under Harry’s nose, so she can patiently tell him the American name of them.By the time they arrive back at camp, the sun is already hanging low over the horizon, gently caressing the treetops. It’s still warm, and the counsellors observe the few dozen children hopped up on candy and leftover excitement, hands and faces sticky with sugar and sweat.“How about a swim in the lake before dinner?” Louisa proposes, and beams at the enthusiastic response she receives. The other counsellor starts herding the children toward the cabin to change into their swimming wear, as Louisa loudly warns them to stay away from the middle of the lake.Archie grins at Harry. She rolls her eyes but nods, so he sprints toward his cabin, where he starts tearing through his stuff. By the time he finds his swimming trunk, it looks like a niffler went treasure hunting in his suitcase with no care for collateral damage.He quickly changes, taking extra care to take out his money and the port-a-cloud – the cool-down for hot summer days, any time, any place! – out of the breast pocket of his shirt.“You coming, Archie?” one of the other boys shouts, already halfway out of the cabin.“One sec,” he responds distractedly. He’s still feeling around in his pocket, feeling his stomach drop. He’s pretty sure he put it in there this morning; he always puts it in his breast pockets in the morning. Why else would he wear stupid shirts with stupid breast pockets?Searching through his bunk also reveals nothing. It’s not beneath his bed, hasn’t slipped between the mattress and the bed frame, and he can’t find it in yesterday’s shirt either. Archie presses his lips together, closes his eyes and tries to swallow around the snitch he suddenly finds lodged in his throat.“Archie?” Harry’s standing in the door to the cabin, wearing a swimsuit and a frown. “I thought you wanted to swim.”He nods, takes his towel and marches past her, only to stop once he realises that she isn’t following him.They stare at each other for a while; Archie is blinking too hard and fast and Harry stops blinking altogether. He never stood a chance.“I lost the picture of my mum I brought.”“Oh. Do you know where?”He shakes his head, and when he tells her it was probably one the hike, he can’t hold back the tears anymore. Harry awkwardly pets his back, thinking hard.“Do you remember the last time you still had it?”“I think it was still in my pocket when I took out the money to buy the sweets.”It means he could have lost it anywhere between the village and the camp. It also means that they don’t have a lot of time left before the sun goes down, so Harry nods determinedly.“Stop crying, we’ll find it. Just let me get my flashlight,” she says and leaves him staying there. Oddly enough, it works. Archie feels quite calm and collected by the time she comes back, but not calm enough to reject the hand she offers him, and the two start walking the same path they had taken this morning. Their gazes are so focused on the dusty earth before them, ready to stop and examine any anomaly – looking like a photograph or not – that they fail to notice the counsellor coming after them.“And where are the two of you off to? The lake is in the other direction.”Harry jumps and Archie squeaks, and then they turn around with twin sheepish expressions. Louisa’s stern gaze melts.“Are you okay, honey?” she asks, bending down with a hankie to rub at Archie’s tear-stained face. He takes a step back, nodding hastily.“We do not have a lot of time.”Louisa laughs at Harry’s impatience. “Of course not. What potion is it this time?”“Archie lost a photograph of his mum, so we need to make it to the village and back before it gets too dark to search,” Harry informs her, enunciating clearly. The adults tend to be too selective in their listening to understand otherwise. How many times has she told them not to open the curtains in a critical phase of her brewing process? Light sensitivity is no joke; it can have disastrous consequences to expose certain unfinished potions to natural light.“Now, what did we say? No leaving the camp without proper adult supervision.”“You can come with us then.” Archie tries to look as sad and pitiful as possible.Louisa shakes her head, throws a look over her shoulder towards the lake.“No, it’s getting dark soon, honey, and it’s better we all stay here. Have a nice and cosy night, yeah?”Harry very suddenly pinches Archie, her small fingers nimble and strong from preparing ingredients, and her poor friend never stood a chance. He yelps and fresh tears form in his eyes.Louisa looks between them; two pairs of green eyes, one growing teary and the other staring at her reproachfully. She sighs.“Well, I suppose trying a summoning charm on your mother’s picture won’t hurt.”Archie beams and Harry nods in approval. “Accio photograph of Arcturus Black’s mother.” Louisa looks a bit nervous. Trying summoning charms can be tricky business; if you’re not precise and careful enough you will suddenly find yourself with plenty of other people’s belongings or nothing at all. It’s not always clear what would be more preferable; though Archie knows which outcome he is hoping for.The three of them wait, looking around. There is nothing to see but the heat shimmering above the yellowish grass. Archie shifts from one foot to the other, hugging his arms around his chest.Louisa sighs. “Look, let’s go join the others. We can maybe go looking for your picture tomorrow.”She puts a hand on each of their shoulders, gently steering them towards the lake, glistening blue in the distance. Archie can hear the other kids laughing, but he doesn’t feel like joining them. He looks to Harry, hoping that she’s coming up with another plan but she’s staring over their shoulders, eyes squinting. Barely a second later there’s a gentle thwack and Louisa reaches up to hold the back of her head. Her hand, when she draws it back, is holding a photograph.“Well, it found us,” she says, smiling in relief and handing it to Archie.He holds it close to his heart for a second, before inspecting it to make sure it didn’t get damaged. The people in the photograph smile back up at him, and there’s his mum - shifting the baby to her right arm to wave at him with the left. Archie gently strokes his thumb over the side of her face.Harry peers over his shoulder, and he gently nudges her with his elbow. Saying thank you can be quite difficult, so instead he says, “Look, it’s me and my parents and my two uncles.”Sadly, Harry doesn’t seem to catch his quietly offered gratitude. Her eyes have gone impossibly wide, looking down at the people in the photograph.“That’s my dad,” she whispers.“No, that’s my dad.”Harry shakes her head, opens her mouth to explain and then stops. The kind of realisation she just had isn’t easily put into words, so actions are needed. She grabs his wrist and tugs him behind her, as she starts sprinting towards the cabins. Louisa’s confused inquiry where they are going now stays unanswered. Harry’s mind is buzzing with possibilities and Archie isn’t sure of their destination either.Apparently it’s Harry’s cabin, and in a reversal of the evening’s events Archie watches as Harry frantically searches her bunk. Finally, she yanks a picture out between mountains of potions books. Her curls are a frizzy mess and she impatiently moves them out of her face.“That’s my dad, the guy with the glasses.”Hesitatingly, Archie moves to take a look at the one she’s holding out to him – and he too comes to a startled stop. There’s a lady he doesn’t know holding a baby. The man with his arms around her shoulders though is undeniably his uncle James. His face seems a little rounder, more youthful, but his glasses are the same. And there, next to James is Diana Black, looking beautiful and alive and youthful, and she’s holding another baby – Archie.“I don’t think Uncle James has children,” Archie says weakly, even though evidence seems to be suggesting the opposite.They end up putting the pictures right next to each other on Harry’s bed, as if by close proximity they would right themselves. Have the people inside them expose themselves as strangers – twins in appearance, but no connection otherwise. Just like Harry and Archie were when they first arrived at camp.Only – the people in the photographs clearly are one and the same, and if that’s the case how can Harry and Archie be anything but connected? Oh, what a mess these two have found themselves in, and they’ve only scraped the surface. For a moment, the knowledge hangs heavily in the air, like the shimmering heat outside. They could return their pictures, go to swim in the lake and never speak of it again. Go back to being best friends who met at camp, unlikely twin strangers with completely different families.Or maybe that isn’t an option at all. Once the dragon has taken flight, there is nowhere to go. You cling on and hope you land somewhere safe. “That is… “ Harry frowns down at the photographs, picks them up and peers at them closely, “That is extremely odd.”“That we never knew about each other, even though you’re like my cousin, because you’re my uncle James’ kid?” Archie asks. Unlike Harry, who’s gone very still, he’s dizzy with energy. Even the strands of his hair seem to be vibrating.“No. I mean that’s a little weird. But it’s a lot weirder that we look like identical twins, but supposedly have different parents who seem to have known each other once,” she stops scrutinising the pictures, and focuses her green eyes on him instead. “Which one of us is adopted, do you think?”Archie stops hopping from one foot to the other and gapes at her.“Probably you, right? I totally have my mother’s eyes, everybody says so,” Harry continues ruthlessly. She’s taking this remarkably well, one might say, but she doesn’t see how panicking has ever helped anybody. The first time her babysitter didn’t turn up at the agreed time as her mother was working late, she walked herself home, and made perhaps the most precisely recipe-followed mac-and-cheese to have ever been made. It’s just like following a potion’s recipe, really.Archie on the other hand grew up with three slightly insane men, so for a moment he’s about to succumb to the profound identity crisis one might have that comes with the realisation that one might be adopted.Then, he luckily remembers a very important part of his own identity, and realises with a start that Harry still is completely unaware of him being a metamorphmagus.“Actually… this isn’t what I really look like. I can change it the way I want, see?” and for the first time since adopting Harry’s facial features, he drops the changes and morphs back into his very true self.Harry stares at him in shock as her composure melts away. Her knuckles turn white as her little fists clench around the photographs.“You’ve been stealing my face this whole time?” she asks shrilly.Archie winces. All bad ideas are difficult to explain, especially in hindsight, and Archie resolutely keeping his appearance changed to Harry’s is not exempt from that.“No! Well, kind of, but only a little? I wanted to have uncle James’ hair, and I always thought the green eyes were so cool! And then I met you…” He flounders a little.Harry shakes her head and sighs. Perhaps, if she hadn’t just found out about Archie’s connection to her father, she might not have been as forgiving, but in this instance she finds herself more interested in other matters.“What’s he like?”“Who… oh, Uncle James he’s… very cool,” Archie tells her earnestly. “He’s Head Auror back home. And he’s really funny. Him and dad are always up for mischief. Uncle Remus too, but he says somebody needs to be the adult in the house.”Harry nods, and sits down on her bed. She doesn’t know what she expected her father to be like, not seriously. Sometimes, she would quietly hope that he was a talented potioneer. One who had invented some terribly useful, terribly impressive potion perhaps. An auror… Harry shakes her head, it’s difficult to imagine any kind of father, much less one who she never met and who seemingly has been raising a different child, thousands of miles away from her.“He never mentioned me? Why…” she stops.Archie sits down next to her, their arms brushing.“I really don’t know,” he says. And for all that he knows Uncle James, he finds himself unable to guess at why. Why none of the Marauders had ever mentioned James’ daughter, that there was a girl Archie could have grown up with, like cousins, almost like twins.The two children stay there, the beam of light from the window wandering across the floor, painting it a deep orange as the day grows later. It feels like an eternity and the fracture of a second to the both of them, and maybe it feels like nothing at all. What a shock they’ve had. And what a shock it continues to be; yet one tiny, fragile miracle blooms right in the middle of it, because somehow time and space brought them both here – arms brushing, and for once not looking that alike at all.“I wish I knew why,” Harry says helplessly, as they hear the dinner bell ring in the distance.Archie nods, and he looks down at the pictures Harry is still clenching in her fists.And as the woman holding Baby Harry waves up at him, her hair glowing as orange as the light reaching for his toes, Archie has an idea. One that is arguably worse than his other ideas so far, but it is important that it’s his idea. Harry would never suggest it to him, if it was her idea and – well, him having the idea means he finds himself just as deeply yearning for it as for his future at AIM, or for Harry to always stay his friend. And as he looks up at Harry, he feels even surer, because there’s a yearning in her eyes too. This one he recognises even more intimately; the yearning for a parent. One he lost and one she could gain.“You should go back to England as me,” he says.Harry, bless her heart, has been experiencing too many shocking events for this day, and only turns her head to meet Archie’s eyes. Grey and green, she thinks tiredly, match rather nicely.“You go back as me, and I’ll go meet your mum as you! You said she went to AIM and that she researches experimental healing charms,” he leans forward, “I need to meet her. You can get to know your dad.”“I can’t ask that you leave your family…” Harry frowns.“They don’t want me to go to AIM, but I need to, and maybe once we change back, we can be one big family, and they’ll let me go!”There are a lot of things left for that plan to work, but Archie’s soul is burning and his mother always said: once you get through the firestorm, you’ll find stars on the other side.“How would this even work? You can change your appearance to look like me, but won’t your dad be confused by me?”It is not a yes, but there doesn’t need to be one. Once you start making plans, the thing is usually already happening. Archie knows this from a thousand prank wars, and Harry knows it from a thousand potions brewed.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Potions in healing research and healing research in experimental potions/ about heart pain when calling the wrong person mum or dad/ of werewolves and the fallible instinct of humans/ of snakes and the infallible instinct of animals/ making friends and punching bullies
Here’s a fact: Archie Black was nine years old when he left for summer camp. He’s ten when he returns.
Except, it isn’t Archie Black who returns. An important fact that you and I are aware of, luckily, for it makes it easier to follow this story; one that the Marauders however are sadly missing. The birthday though – the first that their Archie spent away from them – is not at all overlooked. And if there is one thing to know about Sirius Black, Archie’s father, it is the fact that in his opinion, a missed birthday does not equal a missed party.So when Harry Potter, dressed in Archie’s shorts and tee, carrying his suitcase and blinking through the still unfamiliar sensation of contact lenses she acquired at Pollywog Marsh Village, exits customs at Heathrow Airport there’s a cacophony of noise and glitter exploding around her.Remus Lupin and James Potter are holding confetti cannons and between them stands Sirius Black, a huge and colourful sign wishing Archie a welcome back and happy birthday in one swoop. All of them cheer loudly as Sirius opens his arms. “What are you waiting for? Do you not recognise your old man anymore after only a month of being away from home?”Harry masters the situation as well as any ten-year-old girl would when they meet three strangers, one of whom is her biological father, while pretending to be the son of another man. She says “DAD!” a little shrilly and almost hesitatingly rushes forward into Sirius’ embrace. He lifts her up, hugging her tightly, and she rests her chin on his shoulder to stare at the other two Marauders. More specifically, to stare at James Potter.She has only ever seen him in a picture, one that is quite old, but she’s startled by how familiar he looks. His nose and his hair look so much like hers she suddenly worries whether their deception will work at all. James stares back.Father and daughter look at each other; their first meeting in almost a decade, and only one of them is aware. What a momentous occasion it is to Harry, whose heart is beating out of her chest with more might than one would expect such a small body to possess. Oh, what would she give for a protocol for this situation; a recipe to connect with your father while pretending to be his nephew. Sadly, Harry might be the very first to ever enter a ruse like this, and a pioneer rarely gets instructions.James beams at her and ruffles her hair.“I see you got a haircut, mate!”Harry nods mutely. Archie cut it for her; with a pair of scissors stolen from the potions station at camp and a toothpaste-stained mirror as his tools he tried to shorten it as much as possible. Hopefully, it would distract from their different facial features and also hide how her wild misbehaved curls mirror her father’s.“You look smashing, Arch. Makes you seem much more serious,” James says. “Speaking of Sirius – stop hogging him. We want a hug too.”“I’m his favourite though.” Sirius pouts, but puts Harry down only for her to be swept up again by James.“Well, he is your son,” Remus says mildly. Harry barely hears it over the rushing in her ears, as she gently sets her arms around her father’s shoulders and tries not to press her face too much into his neck.“Are you smelling me?” James asks. She freezes, unsure how to explain that she wondered if he smells like home, like her mother or like a potion’s lab. He doesn’t.“Well, you do stink most of the time,” she says, trying to sound cheerful. She thinks he smells a little bit like Archie does. And that has become as close to home as anything the past few weeks.“Haha, funny. Go hug your Uncle Remus if you can’t appreciate me.”Harry does a good job of rolling her eyes like Archie and giving Remus a hug, before the newly reunited family leaves the airport by the floo system, a hub of activity in a hallway going unnoticed by the rest of the passengers. Easy to miss if you do not possess a sliver of magic, but there it is nonetheless.Luckily, Harry and Archie’s planning has been meticulous, so she does not hesitate in calling out Grimmauld Place and is whisked away to her new home. She still stumbles when she leaves the fireplace though; it’s not a travel method she is particularly used to. And let me tell you, it’s not one you get used to easily. Soot in your mouth and on your sleeves is an acquired taste and Harry does not share it.Sirius Black catches her by the elbow and laughs merrily at his son’s sudden clumsiness.“You want to go to your room and change? Afterwards we have something waiting for you in the kitchen.”His wink is met with an unimpressed stare, and his shoulders droop in disappointment. Sirius Black loves his son dearly and prides himself in having a particularly close relationship with him – he’s been counting down the days to Archie’s return. So far, his son seems a little less enthusiastic than Sirius hoped, but the lad could just be tired. It’s a good reasoning, or it would be if it wasn’t Harry, who is less tired and more distracted by trying to remember everything Archie has told her.Harry grabs the suitcase and starts making her way up the stairs and down the corridor to the left, where she finds herself in front of a door helpfully labelled ARCHIE in glowing wooden letters. The room beyond is bigger than her bedroom at home; the red wallpaper barely noticeable underneath dozens of posters – a mix of Quidditch players and anatomical drawings of neatly labelled human organs.Harry leaves her suitcase on the chair next to the bed, which looks very big and comfortable. Opening it, she starts to rummage for the bag of sweets Archie bought to bring back to his family. Then she leaves to find the kitchen, sighing in anticipation of what might become an incredibly tiring performance of exuberance at a birthday party thrown for a boy a continent away. An introvert’s worst nightmare, and not for the first time Harry asks herself why she is doing what she is doing.And poor dear, the answer is not coming to her. She wants to meet her father – of course. She wants to keep the friend she found in Archie. The real truth might just be though that in any life she could have led, drastic actions were always going to play a part in all of them. When she met Archie on that sunny day, only a few weeks ago and yet a lifetime, it was already inevitable that she would leave camp pretending to be him. Fate’s a tricky business like that, as any seer with an ounce of talent will tell you. The next morning, Harry wakes bright and early. The rest of the house is still quiet after a late night of confetti and party hats, so she takes the opportunity to explore the house and find her footing. Following the little map Archie drew for her she gets to know the library, the sitting room and the Marauder’s lab. She does what any good potioneer would do and assesses the potions station, the stored ingredients and the quality of equipment. After having breakfast and still no adult showing up, she decides to continue her explorations on a larger scale – while also evaluating the apothecary in Diagon Alley.By the time she returns, the house is in disarray.James is standing by the fireplace when she comes stumbling out of it. He’s got his back to her, still in his pyjamas and running a hand through his wild hair while shouting something about alerting the rest of the aurors.“Is something the matter?” Harry enquiries.James whirls around with eyes wide as saucers.“Oh my god, Archie, where have you been?” He asks and before she can answer he calls for Remus and Sirius, who tumble through the door mere moments later.“Archie!” Sirius grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her, as if to test that she is indeed real.Harry observes the marauders, her little face serious and pensive. The three men are dishevelled in the way adults can only be after manically searching for a missing child. James’ hair seems even wilder than usual and there is a tight expression on Remus’ face. And let me tell you, his expressions are always a little pinched, but today his mouth became as thin and straight as the dried worms potioneers put in their potions. Harry would recognise them anywhere.“I’m sorry,” she says, coming to the conclusion that Archie usually didn’t usually go out alone. She’s feeling baffled by it: the astonishing realisation that other families don’t do things the same way as one’s family does. Like when you sit at their breakfast table and look for the pancakes and can only find baked beans. Oh, how she misses her mother’s pancakes.Harry squares her little shoulders, holds up her bag from the apothecary.“I saw that your newt’s eyes have gone bad,” under the stern gaze of the child the three adult men seem to shrink a little. “You shouldn’t experiment with expired ingredients. That is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible.”Remus nods contritely while his two friends shuffle their feet. Then he quickly shakes his head.“You are quite right, Archie. However, you also know not to leave without informing any of us first. It was really scary to wake up to you being gone with none of us knowing where you went ”Harry sighs and apologises again, using the weapons at her and every child’s disposal. She widens her eyes and tries not to blink, letting the tears glisten in her eyes. It’s a neat little trick to have for when you are in trouble, but you have to learn to use it wisely, lest the adults realise what’s going on.“I just don’t want anything to happen to you. Potion safety is so important.”Sirius who has been wondering at his son’s newfound seriousness – ha, he laughs to himself – suddenly feels his heart grow warm. He shakes his head and surges forward to hug Archie tightly.“It’s alright. Just next time, let one of us know.”The child accepts the hug magnanimously, then picks up the apothecary bag and marches down the hall towards the potions lab. Bewildered, the marauders watch him go.“I’m not sure what I expected, when we sent him to summer camp, but I don’t think this was quite it,” James remarks. “It’s like he’s a completely different lad.”There’s a troubled expression on Remus’ face, there for such a short time that you wouldn’t be able to see it, if I didn’t tell you. For when Archie came back, he smelled so differently that Remus had thought the same thing. Alas, adults like to think themselves rational and reasonable, so he reminds himself once again that Archie has been away from home for a long time and that he’s a growing boy. Oh, the fallible instincts of werewolves; the human mind is never quite able to trust the animal inside.Remus shakes his head and turns to the kitchen to make some tea. Behind him Sirius loudly worries about his son’s sudden interest in potions. An ocean away, Archie has the opposite problem. Whereas Harry finds difficulty in forgetting about her interests and passions, Archie struggles to keep up the charade that he is indeed knowledgeable on those.His arrival goes smoothly – or mostly, at least; he recognises Lily Evans and her flaming hair with ease and hugs her as enthusiastically, yet restrained as he can. Harry does not seem like the exuberant type, so he tries to tame his own excitement like a herd of unruly hippogriffs. Lily holds him tightly as well and then takes his hand and asks him lots and lots of questions of what camp was like as they go from the bus to her car.Archie has sat in a bus and an aeroplane before, but you might be surprised to hear that it’s his first time travelling by car. Buckling in is a bit of a confusing concept, because the belts don’t just go around the hips, but over his chest as well. Lily watches on with a bemused expression, one eyebrow raised as he tugs at it.“It’s been so long,” Archie laughs.“Yeah, it’s easy to forget where the seat belt goes.”He shrugs awkwardly and starts talking about the potions hut at camp instead. To his credit, he has pretending to be Harry figured out quite well. It’s only that Harry is a fountain of never-ending potions talk and his fountain is more a pitiful puddle, so he finds himself running out of things to say quite quickly.Archie supposes the best way to go about it, is to take care of it as early as possible, and clear all expectations. “Actually, I’ve been thinking I should broaden my horizon a little.”“What do you mean by that, love?” Lily takes a look in the rear mirror and switches lanes. Archie holds his breath for a second; nervously eying the other cars they are passing. Technically, sitting in the car is more comfortable than the squeezing feeling of apparating along with his dad or uncles, but he thinks he still prefers those travel methods.“Potions will always be my passion, but a good potioneer should be educated in a lot of different areas. So I think I will try not to brew so much in the next few months,” Archie says. His explanation is sound; a good Potions Master is knowledgeable on more than just Potions and Herbology – drawing inspiration from other magical fields is a huge part of experimental brewing – but Lily knows her daughter and throws her another bemused look.“Are you sure?”“Of course. In fact, I think I should learn more about healing.”Lily hums. “There is a big focus on finding new treatments in experimental potions.”“Exactly,” he says happily. “You should tell me more about your work as well.”“Now?” she asks, sounding a little doubtful and Archie looks around. The car is nice and cool, even though it’s very hot outside. The road stretches on ahead of them for miles and miles. All in all, Archie truly can’t tell what’s wrong with the situation.“Yeah,” he says. “Now’s great. Though I think I need to go to the loo soon.”Lily sighs, because she did ask him to go before leaving the bus stop, and then blinks in surprise.“The loo? I thought the camp was in California, not Britain.”Archie feels as though his heart is trying to jump out of the car window. In fact, he would like to follow it and avoid explaining why Harry suddenly sounded more posh and more British than her mum, who actually grew up in England, did. Back at camp, Harry drilled him in dialect and vocabulary, but there’s only so much a boy can learn in a few weeks.“I made this new friend who’s from Britain. Guess I just started mimicking him,” he laughs, perhaps a little unconvincingly. “Anyways, you wanted to talk about your work?”Lily laughs too and starts explaining some of her current projects. Between that and driving a car – not necessarily a complex task but one that does require focus, I can tell you – she forgets about her daughter’s oddities and Archie decides not to talk about the loo again. He can have a wee when they get home. Lily’s and Harry’s home that is. Archie just hopes he can find the bathroom without having to search for the map Harry sketched out for him. Over the next few days, Archie slips into this foreign life easily. He adores Lily, who is kind and beautiful and fun and tells the most interesting stories about her work. He avoids calling her mum, because it smarts quite terribly, but he doesn’t think she’ll notice.She works a lot and she apologises a lot for it as well. Archie, whose father hasn’t worked since his mother passed, doesn’t quite know how to respond to any of it. He knows Harry usually helps around the house and cooks for them, which proves to be a challenge. Harry is as precise in her cooking as she is in her potions. Archie has never worked a stove in his life.Thankfully, Lily laughs at his kitchen mishaps. She kisses his head, and quietly she thinks maybe it’s for the best, that her serious darling daughter is learning to let go of her micromanaging tendencies.Harry learns to cook again (or Archie does so, for the very first time) and he assures Lily that she just forgot what Harry’s glasses looked like – it was the pair that looked most like hers they could find in Pollywog Marsh Village, but two pairs of glasses cannot suddenly become one and the same, just like two children cannot swap places just that easily. Or perhaps they can. We’ll see.
Archie learns to call Lily mum, because the ruse demands it from him. It aches like a bruise, and like most children he can’t resist poking his bruises over and over again. How wonderful it is to say that word again. How terrible to say it to the wrong person.He writes a letter to Harry about it, and she writes back about using the word dad for the first time, but for the wrong man. An ocean away, they still have each other. What a mess these children have found themselves in, and like always the root of it can be led back to the problems of adults. And like always, they are quite unaware of what kind of effects they have on children – otherwise they might have been much more unsettled by the small changes in their children’s behaviour.But for now, the marauders laugh in surprise when Archie cooks them dinner, and Lily smiles in bemusement when her daughter lets her potion journals gather dust as she asks more and more questions about healing charms.How blind we become with age. We like to tell children they’ll understand when they’re older, but truly we lose any capability of enlightenment the further we leave the wonders of adolescence behind.If only James, Sirius, Remus and Lily were able to open their eyes and see their children for whom they truly are. It would save them a lot of stress.Nevertheless, there would be no story to tell you if that was the case, so let’s not further dwell on the many faults of grown-ups. Instead we should go back to a little girl, an ocean away.Things have returned to normal daily life at Grimmauld place. At least for the adults who are delighted – if a little bemused – at the return of their slightly changed son and nephew. Harry on the other hand is settling into her existence as Archie as best as she can.She is sitting on the floor of the sitting room, back to the couch and an open medical journal on her knees. Between the pages she has hidden a potions journal. James and Sirius have been squinting at her a lot, every time she mentioned brewing, so she’s been trying to appear more like Archie.“Uncle Regulus is coming to visit sometime soon today,” Sirius says, lounging in an armchair and eating gummy dragons. Small puffs of smoke escape his mouth with every word.Frantically, Harry tries to remember who Uncle Regulus could be. Archie definitely didn’t mention anyone aside from James and Remus. Perhaps it was a nickname for the latter? Remus lives at Grimmauld Place though, so there is no reason to go around announcing his presence.Sirius narrows his eyes at her silence. “I know you haven’t seen him in a long while, but you do remember I have a brother, right? Did you leave your brain at camp?”The child stares back at him, grey eyes widened innocently.Sirius sits up and points at her. “Oh my god, did you hit your head? Did you meet some kind of American magical beast that sucks your memories through your nose and eats them?”“Gross,” says James as he enters the sitting room, but he also eyes his godson with deep suspicion. As an auror he likes to stay prepared for the unexpected and weird. He’s seen it all – at least he likes to think so. Though let me tell you, this will be a first for him too.“There are no reports of an animal like this existing,” Harry tells them. “However, there are many potions to alter your mnestic functioning temporarily or permanently.”There are indeed no reports of animals like these existing, but that doesn’t mean they do not exist. Harry was in fact quite lucky to not stumble upon one during her nightly adventures picking fresh potions ingredients.“Did Archie get kidnapped by fae and you are here to replace him?” James guesses. “You keep talking about potions. Do fae do potions?”“I am Archie. Who else would I be?” She shuts her journal-inside-another-journal construction and grins toothily up at the two men. “I’m just broadening my horizons. Potions play a big role in treating a majority of diseases. In fact, memory potions help immensely in restoring patients’ cognitive function after a traumatic brain injury.”“Now that’s definitely our Archie,” James sounds satisfied.“He’s still using awfully big words,” Sirius says.“Are you calling me stupid?”Sirius sputters at his son’s sweet face falling and his eyes welling up masterfully. Once again beaten by a powerful weapon, he frantically casts around for words. Remus calling from the entrance hall saves him and he jumps up and leaves. For Sirius Black, that is an excellent response time to any kind of beckoning – even Harry can recognise so after knowing the man only briefly. She shares a look with James and giggling, the two of them follow at a more sedate pace.
They find Remus in the entrance hall. Hands shoved deeply into his pockets, he has the tight expression of someone desperately trying to find a way to make small talk but failing horribly at it. You must give him credit for it; the man standing next to him looks completely unbothered by the antisocial silence he’s cultivating.It’s easy to recognise him as Regulus Black, for his face and eyes look like those of Sirius – only much more serious, ironic as it is.“Brother,” Regulus greets coolly and his gaze barely meets James’ before flickering onward and settling on Harry. She isn’t quite sure what to think of the man and frowns back at him.“Hello Arcturus. You’ve grown since I’ve last seen you. And gotten rid of that haircut of yours, I see. How old are you now?” There are adults who never quite learn how to make conversation with children, so they only ever mention their height and age. The younger Black brother falls in this category and it might be one of the reasons he has no children himself; he quite likes it that way.Harry on the other hand feels deeply unimpressed. “Ten,” she says.Regulus nods and turns to the last resort topic any incompetent adult has: “Off to school soon then. I’m sure you’re looking forward to your education at Hogwarts.”“I’d prefer going to AIM,” Harry says. Which isn’t the truth for her, but it is the truth for Archie and for all that it matters – she is Archie at this moment.Regulus sneers and throws his brother a look, who is holding up his hands defensively.“We’ve talked about this. Archie is going to Hogwarts.” He smiles uneasily at the child that’s now crossing her arms in displeasure. “I thought you agreed with me that it’s the best school for you?”Harry frowns, because she is sure Archie doesn’t agree at all but also doesn’t want to start a fight in his name. You can defend your friends, but it’s more difficult if you do so while using their own identity – things get complicated quickly. Best case, you will make them seem conceited. Worst case, you’ll ruin all their relationships.“Right,” Regulus says, “how about we talk alone for a moment, Sirius?”
Sirius groans but points towards the library and they both disappear, the door falling shut behind them.James sniffs and mumbles some colourful names under his breath, before announcing that he had no interest in conversing with Regulus anyways and retreating back to the sitting room. Remus shrugs and follows him.“I’m going to the bathroom,” Harry says, and then doesn’t go to the bathroom. It’s the oldest trick in the book and self-proclaimed pranksters like James and Remus should catch it, but maybe that’s precisely why they don’t.Harry sneaks closer to the library door on her tippy toes, leaning forward to gently rest her ear against the door. She and Archie made a deal to keep the other updated on anything interesting happening in the other’s life – and well, Harry doesn’t know if this is considered to be interesting, but a previously unmentioned rude uncle seems to at least be something.“Don’t you think it’s been enough time by now?” Regulus asks.“Please not again, Reggie.”“I’m just saying. If you were to meet somebody new, you would be able to have a second child. How many pureblood families are desperate for a chance at that? And at the moment Arcturus is the only one carrying the Black name forward to the next generation. Our house is in dire need of more heirs.”Harry frowns, struggling to follow the train of thought and feeling upset at Regulus suggesting Sirius remarry solely for a second heir. She grew up in the US, a country with different ideological views on blood status, and her mother is muggleborn – the complicated politics of pureblood families in Great Britain escape her mostly.And even if I were to explain them here, they would still seem quite difficult to understand.Behind the wooden door, Sirius shares Harry’s upset and sighs deeply. “You know my answer already. If I’m ever going to… to marry again it will be for love, not for your political reasons. House Black has probably done its time.”There’s an angry sound, which Harry rightly supposes must be coming from Regulus.“You’re selfish,” he says, “at least make some time and meet Narcissa to –“Harry moves away from the door. She thinks she’s heard enough and it’s better not to waste any time. There is a letter to write and then post by urgent floo mail to the US. Even with urgent floo mail it takes a few days until one morning, Archie walks into the kitchen to find a letter neatly addressed to Harry Evans, no addressor given. He slides into his chair and rips the letter open.
Dear Harry,
I hope you are doing well.
I’ve arrived back home and it’s nice to see my family again. It feels a little weird to be back after such a long time. Hopefully I’ll get used to it quickly. Sometimes I forget myself and the adults look at me weirdly. In other news, I was very surprised when my uncle Reggie paid us a visit. I don’t believe I mentioned him to you, when we were at camp.
Archie winces a little. He did forget about Uncle Regulus, but to be fair, he barely ever came over. Usually, he only did it to annoy his dad or Archie with some stupid stuff about the legacy of the Black family, which was quite important if he was to be believed. In Archie’s opinion, it was best not to listen to him and he continues reading the letter hoping Harry realised that too.
He bothered my father a lot with talk about marrying again, so he can have a second child. I’m not sure how I feel about that?? Though I’m sure my father wasn’t very interested anyways.
Please answer quickly.
Goodbye.
Well, that certainly was in line with what Archie has expected, but there’s still a little pinch in his chest as he stares down at the words marrying and second child. Archie always used to wish for a sibling, a companion to grow up with. But now he’s almost grown up and his mum is gone and there’s no room for any of his wishes. Or there wasn’t, until he met Harry and it was like finding a long lost sister, one that opened up a world of possibilities for him.He definitely doesn’t need anything else now, and certainly not a stepmother waiting for him when he and Harry switch back. It’s a bit unfair perhaps that Archie expects his father to not change at all, while Archie yearns so much for change that he went to live with somebody else’s mother. Reflection is a difficult skill though, and if it was any easier their parents might have learned it sooner and I wouldn’t tell this story at all.So Archie drops the letter and tries to decide what to write back.Writing a letter sounding inconspicuous is difficult, but the possibility of one of the adults reading them and recognising something makes it a necessity. He thinks he’s getting rather good at it, because unlike Harry he is a dutiful correspondent having already written multiple letters since his arrival. First though, he has to take care of another unpleasant task: Harry’s snake.The matter of her pet hadn’t come up at all during their weeks at camp and she left it till the last minute, when she finally shoved a bunch of instructions into his hands on how to care for snakes. If he had known sooner he might have changed his mind about the ruse.Apparently you do not have to feed snakes very often, but Archie thinks the one time he did it so far was enough. Still, he promised to do it, so he swallows down any disgust he has and gets the dead mice from the freezer.The terrarium is kept in Harry’s potion lab. His joke about keeping ingredients close to the work place wasn’t received well at all, though his opinion that it’s a weird location for a pet remains unchanged. What does he know of pets though? The closest he comes to having any is his dad’s ability to change into a dog. And a dog for a father just isn’t the same.He hisses at the snake in greeting, hoping it sounds nice and friendly instead of scared and reluctant. Just like him, Harry has a special magical gift – she can actually speak to snakes and then understand their answers! He would find it cooler if it didn’t mean he had to interact with them. Or pretend to converse with them.By the snake’s reaction he supposes whatever he fake hissed was incredibly offensive. She turns her sleek head towards him for a second, her stare as unimpressed as Harry’s when you forget your potion basics, and then she hisses at him in displeasure before slipping into a corner to hide underneath a big stone. As unhappy as Archie is with the new arrangement, she finds it even more difficult to understand. First her human friend who speaks her tongue leaves and then she returns - talking nonsense and flinching away from her at every turn. Whoever this strange child is, Greyscale wants nothing to do with it.Archie sighs and leaves the mice for her in the terrarium to get them when she’s done pouting at his rudeness. When he turns around, he finds Lily standing in the door of the potions lab.“I still don’t understand her sudden hostility,” she says, shaking her head.“She’s probably offended that I left her alone with you for so long. Maybe she forgot who I am.”Lily sighs. “You would think a smart animal like her wouldn’t forget her best friend.”What a silly thing to say for a mother who’s been taking care of an unfamiliar child without realising. Greyscale deserves so many more juicy mice for dealing with this strange family. The summer is drawing to a close and thus a new school year starts for Harriett Evans. She usually isn’t particularly excited about it – the lessons are fine, if a little irrelevant to a future potioneer of her calibre – the company however she’s never truly appreciated. Making friends is difficult when you can’t invite them over without struggling to explain the floating laundry line in the backyard or the moving photographs. And she doesn’t have a lot of time for them anyways, not when there are journals to be read and potion ingredients to be prepared.The start of this school year is special however, for it’s Archie who is going to attend in her place and he has never set foot in a school at all. He’s very excited to make new friends, especially after having so much success at it at camp. He’s a bit nervous too – Harry told him all about her subjects and most of them he knows very little about. It’s a school for non-magical children and they do not know any more about magic than a niffler does about flying.It goes about as well as one might expect when an overly friendly boy pretends to be his less than social new friend. He tries approaching some of the other students in class, greets them cheerfully and earns some suspicious looks. They keep edging away from him, like he might carry some lice or other bugs with him. Well, and one or two of them actually accuse him of doing so, which he takes a bit personally – it wouldn’t be unusual for Harry, but it’s definitely not a habit of Archie’s.It’s a bit frustrating, but he’s determined. Determination is key. Determination and some mischief, as is taught in the Marauder’s school of life, and that is a school Archie has attended both unwillingly and dutifully.So Archie sits through maths, finishing his exercises early because Uncle Remus takes calculus incredibly seriously, and schemes. Following maths he schemes his way through US history, a subject of great confusion to him as a British wizarding boy. He gets called on and has to answer a question about some kind of president. Archie isn’t even sure what the president of the United States does. Perhaps he is like the Minister of Magic or like the Supreme Mugwhump? He voices that thought aloud and then watches in fascination as the teacher’s eyes twitch – a stunning mixture of genuine surprise and annoyance.Harry usually is a good student, so the poor history teacher did not expect to get such silly behaviour from her, but she’s still no favourite student. Her lack of interest in anything but obscure plants and esoteric mixtures are much too evident for her to be a pleasure to have in class. In fact, Harriett Evans has a way to frown at her teachers as though they are committing a deep injustice by interrupting her from her thoughts to ask her useless questions.Since returning from the summer holidays though, Harriett hasn’t been that way at all. She’s been greeting all teachers and students cheerfully and paying great attention in class – her answers however have been lacking and now it seems like she’s aiming to become the next class clown. The history teacher huffs and tells the giggling class to quiet down; in her mind she’s already penning a strongly worded letter home to Harriett’s mother. Imagining doing something is already half the satisfaction of doing it.Archie sinks lower in his chair. Until now, he’s been very open to the idea of school, but slowly he’s starting to understand why Harry told him it was a waste of time. Truly, some mischief is needed to lighten this place up, ask any of the Marauders.By the time the school day is over, the letter from the history teacher turned into a phone call from the principal and Lily Evans comes racing to the school quicker than a mother dragon does when you’re going near her eggs, perhaps even with the same ferocity. She’s relieved to find her daughter sitting on a chair next to the principal’s office, seemingly healthy and unharmed, her arms linked in front of her chest and an unusually mulish expression on her face.“What happened?” she asks, examining her little Harry’s face with worry. When she got the alert at work, she thought something terrible must have happened, because in all the years of Harry going to school she had never gotten a single phone call. There were a few notices telling her Harry was reading during lessons, or that a weird unexplainable thing happened in her vicinity, but since those couldn’t be linked back to her there never had been any consequences.Archie stares back at Lily, feeling sheepish. He’s still getting to know her, and so far she’s been really nice, but he doesn’t know how she will react to this. The Marauders wouldn’t make a big deal, he’s sure of it, but they always said other adults were uptight and had no sense of humour. It sounds quite dreadful to Archie.“The other children said some stupid stuff,” he starts explaining. Lily waits for him to add anything, but he doesn’t. To truly explain, he would have to go way back and it would open a whole other jar of potion ingredients.Lily sighs and stands up, takes Archie’s hand and knocks at the principal’s office. While the adults exchange semi-polite greetings, Archie stares at Harry’s awful boots he’s been wearing to appear like her and hopes this will be over quickly and painless. Very clearly it’s his first time at a school, otherwise he’d know better.“Harriett punched another student today,” the principal finally stops beating around the bush. He’s got a big quivering moustache, like a slug’s sitting on his upper lip desperately trying to cling on.Lily’s head whips around, staring down at her daughter in disbelief. “Did you?”Archie shrugs, focusing very hard on a string coming loose on the strap of Harry’s backpack. “Max said Audrey was even weirder than me.”“So you punched him?”“I think it’s unfair. Audrey isn’t weird at all just because she didn’t scream at the bugs.”“The bugs?” Lily tries to meet her daughter’s eyes, searching to understand what exactly was going on, but the child’s gaze resolutely doesn’t stray from the floor.“Ah yes,” the principal interjects, “Apparently Harriett also brought some beetles to school and filled her classmate’s backpack with them.”“I’m sure this is a misunderstanding,” Lily says, because as the responsible mother she’s trying to be she had a talk about bringing potion ingredients to school. And she did, only that conversation happened with Harry and not Archie, who doesn’t know about the agreement nor does he feel particularly bound to any promises Harry might have made in the past. In any case, he didn’t bring any beetles to school. He can swear on his magic that there wasn’t a single bug on him this morning when he entered the school and he says so aloud. Lily throws him a warning look. Whereas swearing on your magic is perhaps the highest form of honesty to a wizard, it will only seem like you are ridiculing a person unfamiliar with magic.The principal is very very unfamiliar with magic. Both the wizarding kind and the one surrounding you at all times: the light breeze on a hot summer day or a beetle in a mean boy’s backpack, when previously there had been no beetle at all. His big slug moustache starts to quiver dangerously; Archie watches in fascination.“I know some students need more… time acclimating after the summer holidays, but this behaviour is unacceptable, Miss Evans.”“Of course,” Lily agrees. “I’m sure Harry didn’t bring any animals to class though, I trust her on this. And while punching isn’t the solution, I do think that there’s a problem in regards to bullying in your school. I’ve heard a lot about the kind of comments other students make towards Harry and some of the children like Audrey. Have you informed Max's parents about his behaviour?”Archie looks up in amazement as the principal sputters a little, the slug vibrating. Apparently the marauders were wrong about other adults. Or at least about Lily; he really doesn’t know why Uncle James and her aren’t together anymore. He thinks she’s really cool. Then again, so is Harry, so maybe he should have expected her to be.The conversation with the principal keeps dragging on, but they finally come to an agreement once Archie promises to apologise to Max for punching him and the principal decides that Harriett Evans most likely did not bring any crawling insects to class. Which she didn’t, because Harriett Evans is pretending to be a little British boy not at all obsessed with potions and has no time for any such things.Still, Lily seems a little conflicted when they finally leave the school and make their way to the car. Archie is a pro by now at buckling in and happily settles into his seat. He closes his eyes and wonders if he needs to write to Harry about this; it’s not like it’s very relevant for her, right? One talk with the principal is barely a drop in the potion.Only when the car doesn’t start does he open his eyes. Lily’s hands are closed around the steering wheel, but she makes no move to drive.“So what happened today, Harry?” she asks quietly.“Max was being mean,” Archie says.“So that means you have to be mean to him in return?”“I was only making fun,” Archie protests, “beetles aren’t mean.”“So you were responsible for the beetles. And the punching isn’t mean either?” She sighs and shakes her head. “You are more like your father than I thought.”Archie holds his breath for a second, because according to Harry her mother never talked about Uncle James.“I am?” he asks, because maybe this is the moment to push a little.Lily presses her lips together, meeting her daughter’s eyes in the rear mirror. They are just as green as always, but for a second they seem terribly unfamiliar to her. She shivers a little and reminds herself that children grow and change and that today might also just be a fluke. Acclimating to school after the summer holidays is difficult after all. Give your child room to change. It’s very wise advice she’s read in books aimed at single parents and well, even if none of the authors ever talked about what to do in the event of sending a child to summer camp and receiving a different one back without knowing, it’s still sound advice. After all, it’s surely difficult to acclimate to a school for non-magical students when you grew up home schooled by your magical family.Lily starts the car and they drive home. She doesn’t answer any questions about her daughter’s father and Archie doesn’t push, because maybe it wasn’t the right moment after all. Surely it will come, sooner or later, because Archie won’t stay Harry forever. Harry has almost forgotten about the conversation between Sirius and his brother Regulus, when Sirius asks her if she wants to “come meet Narcissa and her son, Draco.”She just about has a heart attack. In her letter to Archie she assured him Sirius seemed to have no interest in meeting any woman, but maybe she should have stayed to listen to the rest of the conversation? Apparently, Regulus convinced his brother somewhat. And oh, this complicates things greatly. Archie should be here, if his father starts a relationship. Gathering from his letter he didn’t seem enthused by the idea, but he also left no proper instructions for what to do in any such cases.If only Harry had all the information available, she might not have been as stressed, but just like Archie forgot to tell her about his Uncle Regulus, he missed the opportunity to draw out the rest of his family tree. We must forgive him for it – the last time Archie met Narcissa Malfy he was busy sleeping, swaddled and milk-drunk, while she cooed over his little nose. So he simply forgot, or perhaps it didn’t even cross his mind that this would become pertinent information to Harry. Alas, it is incredibly pertinent information in this instance.Over the years, Harry’s mother has met with a few different men. Harry often found out after the fact, when things quietly broke into pieces or when her mother deemed them enough to meet her daughter. Harry thought some of them to be fine, but most of them were quite flawed in her opinion – you need to keep a close eye on parents when they start dating. She feels a little dizzy with the responsibility. Her only desire in life has been to study potions and the poor girl wonders whether maybe this is retribution for adding a second desire - to meet her father.Sirius makes her dress up in order to meet Lady Malfoy and her son, which does not put Harry in a better mood. Quite understandably, for is there anybody who likes to put on uncomfortable stiff clothing in order to meet strangers and make small talk? Certainly not Harry who quite prefers practical gear and a good old discussion on potions.Still, Sirius is enthusiastic about it and Harry has seen enough of Archie’s wardrobe to understand that fancy colourful garments are a part of his life, so there’s no getting out of it. She finds a deep red dress shirt that isn’t too bright or restricting and a cloak that is light enough for the weather. Finally, she also bows down to Sirius and wears socks matching the shirt. What a waste of time on details nobody is going to notice, she thinks.“Your socks and your shirt are well picked,” is one of the first things Draco Malfoy greets her with. “I’m not very partial to the colour red though.”Harry stares back, her face slack and finding it difficult to come up with a response. Her eyes flicker towards Sirius and Lady Malfoy, who are warmly exchanging pleasantries and paying their sons no mind.Draco is still watching her with an eager expression. His silver blond hair is carefully slicked back and his pristinely ironed dress robes a bluish grey. Harry looks down at his delicate leather loafers and thinks that this boy has never even held a stirring rod in his carefully manicured hand.She sighs deeply; it will be a long day.Narcissa leads them to a nice conservatory flooded by sunlight, the glass doors drawn wide open and a small table set with beautiful porcelain crockery. Harry gratefully accepts a cup of tea and a scone. Some sort of payment has to come out of socialising after all.At least, she has had some practice in making friends since summer camp. She offered Archie some sympathy and took him to acquire potion ingredients, and it worked quite wonderfully, so she turns back to Draco, who is sipping his tea pretending not to stare curiously at her. She doesn’t think he needs any sympathy from her, besides maybe for the way he put multiple cubes of sugar in his tea. Well, and as much as she would like to talk potions – she is here as Archie. So it looks like her ideas ran out before she even got to try one of them.It’s not like she wants to be friends with Draco. Her one goal is to stake out Narcissa and convince Sirius that marriage isn’t worth it. Or to at least put it off until Archie got to put his two knuts in.Draco abandoned any pretence and is now openly scrutinising her. He’s obviously quite displeased with how things have gone so far and makes a valiant second attempt at starting a conversation.“You’re about my age, right? We should start Hogwarts together next year, I believe.”“I’m not going to attend Hogwarts,” Harry says distractedly. The crockery has some plants painted delicately onto its sides and she thinks it might be dragon’s ivy.Draco stared at her. “What?”“I’m going to attend AIM.”He wrinkled his nose at her, clearly doubtful of why she would choose this school over Hogwarts. “Why?”Before she can answer, Sirius coughs pointedly. “We talked about this just last week, Arch, remember?”She puts down her cup, deciding it’s definitely dragon’s ivy – an interesting choice regarding its use in potions – and peers back at Sirius.“I still think there’s more room for conversation.” He blinks at the quiet resoluteness in her voice, looking stunned. He can’t remember Archie ever being so decisive; his son is usually much more happy to agree with Sirius to keep the peace. Well, he grew up a lot of the summer, Sirius supposes.“So why do you want to go to an American school when you could go to Hogwarts?” Draco asks again and his voice drops a little with distaste.“Draco,” his mother admonishes gently, but she also fixates Harry with curiosity.“I want to become a healer and AIM has a very promising teaching program in that area. Hogwarts barely has a healing class at all.”“Oh.” Draco bites his lip. “I don’t know yet what I want to do when I finish school.”Harry can’t imagine going through life without knowing what you want to do; she has had a clear idea of what she wants to do every single minute as long as she remembers. What a poor guy, she thinks. Maybe she should tell him some more about potions – it might after all lead him on the right path.In defence of Draco, I feel the need to tell you: most children do not know their dream profession before they enter school, and as admirable as her aspirations are, it’s a bit of a pity that the only friend she’s made so far is just as peculiar in this regard as she is. You have to meet people with different views on life to be truly able to appreciate the spectrum of the human experience. Harry has met a lot of people. For the most part, she paid them no mind since there were lots of more important things to focus on.Sitting at Malfoy Manor, she has very little room to escape though, and is forced to confront the shock of Draco’s aimless life.“I’m so sorry,” she tells him. “I’m sure you will find something once you start school.”There, she offered him some sympathy, even if he doesn’t seem incredibly appreciative. His face is turning a little red. Draco Malfoy imagined this morning to go quite differently.Narcissa sensing some displeasure blooming in her son smiles at Harry. “How lovely. What makes you want to go into healing?”Harry opens her mouth and finds herself stumped. She doesn’t think she ever truly talked about motivations with Archie.“It’s a fascinating subject,” she begins. “It has so many different fields and our knowledge has improved in leaps and bounds and continues to do so.”All of this applies to potions too, incidentally.“And you can help people, of course,” she adds.Narcissa says again, “how lovely.” And, “how impressive for you to have found such dedication at your age, Arcturus.”Harry thanks her politely. Sirius looks both proud and aggrieved by her refusal to accept Hogwarts as her future school, which overall just means he looks like most parents do. And once he looks at his son and sees him give a sweet smile, he can’t help but smile back in forgiveness. Harry is doing quite a grand job of pretending to be Archie.“If you’re interested in healing, I could show you to the family library,” Draco offers, happy to have found a way to connect with his new friend, “We have a lot of interesting literature.”“Oh that’s a lovely idea,” Narcissa pats his hand and adds to Sirius, “that way we can catch up in peace while the children amuse themselves.”He chuckles. “I see you’re still just the same as always.”
Harry does want to see the library, but she thinks she should stay and supervise – Sirius nods at her to go though. And Draco is already standing up, pointing her to the door back into the Manor. So she bows to Narcissa and thanks her for the tea, and follows Draco into the hallway.“I know the Black family library is supposed to be very impressive too, but my father has been collecting a lot of books by very accomplished wizards and witches of this century, as well as first-editions of ancient spellbooks, so I’m sure it will be quite enlightening for you,” Draco says.“Hmm,” Harry says. Personally, she thinks she has all the most important potion books anybody could have, besides maybe a few very rare ones. But those are most likely to be found at institutions like Hogwarts or the Potions Guild, not some random family’s house. Even if they seem to be a big deal in British Wizarding Society. Harry wouldn’t know.Draco frowns at the lacklustre response, but decides his new friend will see and be appropriately amazed once they enter the library. As they march up the stairs, he brings up one of his favourite subjects.“Do you play Quidditch?” he asks. “My father just bought me the newest broom on the market. If you want, we can play for a bit later.”“Oh. Yeah, I play.” Briefly during camp she did. Archie taught her the rules; she had never sat on a broom before. Archie said it was impressive how quickly she picked it up. It was fun, for an activity that didn’t involve potions.“What position do you play?”“Beater,” she says, because it’s the first that comes to her. She had tried them all, and she’s sure Archie mentioned one he prefers, but she can’t remember which one.“I prefer seeker. I definitely want to join the Slytherin team when I’m at Hogwarts.”Harry doesn’t know what a Slytherin is, and decides she doesn’t want to ask as they round a corner into a short hallway.“Do they play Quidditch at AIM?” Draco asks.“Perhaps,” Harry says. “Quidditch isn’t as popular in the US, but there are a lot of British students so I’m sure some people want to play.”Draco nods, impressed with his new friend’s international wisdom, but also not quite understanding wanting to go to a school that might not offer Quidditch tournaments. They’ve reached a big door, beautiful ornaments carved into its dark wood, and Draco uses the big brass handle to push it open.Inside, it smells of leather and parchment and dust. Harry takes a deep breath as she lets her gaze wander over the shelves, rows of books’ leathered spines turned her way to tell her their names in gold lettering.“Do you have potion books?” she asks.“I thought you wanted to see some healing books?” Nonetheless, Draco leads her to a corner at the back, dimly lit by candles flickering on the wall, a protective spell keeping the flame in check and away from the books.Giddily, Harry drinks in the sight of the books. Most of them are indeed known to her by title and author, but there are a few she hasn’t heard of before. She throws a questioning look to Draco, who nods, before pulling out one or two tomes. She flips through them, immediately discarding one. It’s terribly outdated.The other seems at least partially interesting, although it uses a different nomenclature than she is used to. So she puts them both back to keep browsing.Draco sits down on a table next to the shelf, leaning back on his hands, swinging his legs and watching her. “My godfather is a potion’s master,” he says.“Really?” For the first time, Draco finds himself to be the complete focus of Arcturus Black and it pleases him greatly.“Yes. Over there are some of the journals his work has been featured in.”Harry walks over into the pointed direction. She recognises many of the editions, having read them in the past. There’s also another thin book next to them, the letters on the spine so faded she can’t read it. Pulling it out, she discovers that it’s a schoolbook. Why anybody would put it here, next to some of the most referenced literature on brewing is a big mystery to her.She’s about to put it back, when a slip of parchment falls out of the book. Sighing, she picks it up, opens the book to leave it in the front pages and sees the name written in the front.Severus Snape.Harry gapes. You have to understand that heroes matter greatly to children, and Severus Snape is a lot of things – potioneer, teacher at Hogwarts, researcher, sometimes a bit of a moody git – but first and foremost in this story he is Harry’s hero. As it happens, he is also Draco Malfoy’s godfather.The godson in question watches her as she gently turns over the pages, gasping in amazement when she finds the notes scrawled in its margins. He kicks his legs with more force, wishing they could leave the library and go out for a fly.“That’s one of Uncle Sev’s old potion books from school. Don’t know why we have to keep it here. It’s so old and ugly.”“This,” her voice quivers a little, “is a work of art.”Harry can’t believe her ears – somebody talking about the great and talented Potions Master Severus Snape without recognising his genius; Draco is in quiet surprise anybody would be this in awe over his beloved but moody godfather. Alas, the objective truth would be that Severus Snape is a normal human being – albeit a talented and flawed one – but it’s terribly difficult to stay unbiased if you’re like Harry or Draco and thinking of one of your heroes.The pages beneath Harry’s fingertips are yellowed and the ink is fading, so she very carefully sets the book down again. She doesn’t want to damage it in any way. Draco shoves his hands in his pockets and bounces on his toes. He’s been trying to befriend Archie Black with every trick he knows, but so far nothing has particularly struck gold. The other boy is surprisingly reticent and absent-minded. In some ways, just like the hero they have in common – and having something in common is a great basis for friendship.Usually, liking the same sweets or cheering for the same Quidditch team is all it takes, but in this case he might need to pull out the big spells.“If you want you can borrow the book, so you can read all his annotations,” he offers her.Harry’s head snaps around to look at him. Her heart took a little leap, full of excitement at the prospect of studying something written by Professor Snape himself, but she needs the evidence that Draco is being sincere. He is; he’s offering her a hopeful smile and a book in return for her friendship. It’s a good deal, and luckily, Harry recognises it.“Do you really think so?” she asks, gently picking the book back up again.“I’m sure my mother would want you to have it.” Draco grins. “We won’t miss it, nobody in my family holds a particular affinity for potions, much to Uncle Sev’s chagrin. ”Harry shakes her head in disbelief, but grins back.“Maybe you just haven’t discovered how wonderful brewing is.”“Perhaps. I did enjoy helping him at the potions lab.”She gasps at the idea of assisting Snape. It seems like she’s been wrong about Draco never having held a stirring rod – there’s a good lesson about not judging a book by its cover – as he is the godson of Severus Snape, Harry’s very favourite potion master, and of course, he would never fail to educate his godchild on the wonders of potions.Harry wishes he were her godfather and eyes Draco with some jealousy. Some people truly have it all and don’t even realise or appreciate it. We must leave Harry to a complicated mix of emotions – the elation of having access to Master Snape’s annotations keeps her afloat whenever she remembers with the feeling of impending doom that apparently Sirius was now courting Lady Narcissa on the advice of his brother – and turn to Archie who spends his days bored out of his mind at school.After the disaster that was his first foray into the public school system of non-magical US-Americans, he’s trying to stay unnoticed and not cause poor Lily any more problems. She’s been working on a very important project, she’s told him, and he definitely notices it. Her days at the lab grow longer and longer and when she comes home she’s absent in the way he recognises from when Uncle James is busy with a major case as an auror.It means things are a little less fun than usual, it’s almost lonelier than when he’s at home – there, at least one of the Marauders usually has some time for him. He doesn’t mind terribly; when the school bus drops him off in the afternoon he eats the most sugary snack he can find with great pleasure and then combs the shelves in the living room for more interesting healing texts to read. That keeps him occupied until his stomachs growls at him for his poor dieting choices, so he makes use of his newly acquired cooking skills, which he’s terribly proud of.Normally, Lily would come home in time to at least eat with him; every night she would drop a kiss on his head and thank him for being such a good helper – and that she’s sorry for leaving him home so much. Archie nods and smiles and tries to needle any information on her project out of her. He understands why she’s busy, but he wishes he could at least look over her shoulder as she worked! It would look great on his resume, he’s sure of it.Tonight however, he’s sitting in front of a curry he’s made and watches as the steam rises above his plate while he waits. He waits a long time and finally, when there’s no steam left and still no Lily, he eats by himself. After putting her plate in the fridge and washing his hands he returns to the living room to continue his reading. However the article on the brain-core axis in magical beings is starting to melt off the page and he blinks tiredly.Perhaps he should go to bed, but where is the fun in that? He’s home alone right now, and according to the children at school that is quite the exciting opportunity and not to be wasted. Archie tries to remember what sorts of fun one should get up to, but most of the things the other students proposed were a little eccentric in his opinion – what in Merlin’s name is a TV?Eating sweets is definitely on the list of fun things though, so he pulls a chair into the kitchen, because if there’s one thing that adults seem to agree on is that if they put the chocolate up high enough the children will forget it exists. Of course they don’t and you don’t even need any magic to get it down!Munching on a cookie, Archie explores the house. He’s been staying away from Lily’s desk, but now he opens the drawers to at least have a look inside. It’s a great disappointment for all he finds is pens and papers and post stamps. He still doesn’t understand how a small piece of paper you stick on a letter replaces an owl, but that’s what stamps do – just in case you were wondering.Archie’s ready to give up on his fun night alone at home, when he opens the bottom drawer and inside it lies a leather-bound album. Carefully he takes it out, carries it to the couch and opens it. Inside are a bunch of photographs, many of them of Lily, because who else could the young girl with red hair and green eyes be?She’s surrounded by many other kids her age, all of them wearing the same robes, though some have a different colour. He watches them laugh and smile sitting on a bench underneath a big old oak tree. Turning a page, he next finds Lily and two other girls inside a room full of shelves, heads bent over their books in concentration. A fourth girl sneaks in, winking at Archie before clapping her hands together, obviously frightening the others.Archie finds himself so occupied by the photographs that he misses both the passage of time and his own eyes growing heavier and heavier until he slips into a restless sleep. The sound of the front door opening and shutting finally stirs him awake. His mouth is dry and his eyes crusty with sleep, and when he sits up the album almost slides from his lap.“Harry,” Lily says in surprise when she enters. Her hair is unruly and she looks just as tired as he does. For a second, they blink at each other in tired understanding that neither of them want to start the dance that both parents and children alike know the choreography of. So Lily doesn’t ask why he isn’t in bed and he doesn’t come up with any excuses.“I found your photos from AIM,” Archie says instead. “Will you tell me about it?”Lily casts a look at her watch and the wise parenting decision would be to say no she knows, but she’s feeling guilty for working so late and there her sweet daughter is asking about the school she’s only ever openly critiqued.“I thought you didn’t want to go to AIM,” she says, a tease and a question alike.Archie just shrugs and smiles at her as angelically as he can. “Please,” he says.So Lily puts down her bags and rubs her eyes, before cuddling up on the couch with her daughter, old school photos in her lap, and she starts to talk. She wonders at the attentiveness with which Harry listens, the quiet awe in her questions.Since returning from camp, Harry has been asking a lot of questions about her. Lily noticed but supposed that after having been away for so long, she was just excited to be home again. Now, well past their bedtime and a long day where Lily failed to be there for Harry, she wonders if perhaps it wasn’t camp that made Harry miss her mother. And that this uncharacteristic enthusiasm about an institution offering a subpar education in potions was a plea for her attention.The thought settles heavily in her stomach, next to plenty of other weights she’s been carrying with her – they just pile up; every year as a single mother there’s more to be added and the heaviest of it all is the guilt of taking away Harry’s right to know her father. She shakes her head and fiercely decides to take some time off soon; it will do them both some good and surely everything will be fine. For all she knows, Harry could just have a change of heart – children do sometimes, after all.Lily only notices she’s stopped telling the story of how her friend Georgia started an enduring war between the healing and the charms students, when Archie lays his head on her shoulder.“Are you okay?”She sighs deeply, another weight added for making her child worry when she should be carefree and wild.“It’s okay,” Archie pats Lily’s hand. He yawns, ready to sleep once more and dream of being a student at AIM, ready to defend the honour of healing against the evil charms student. “We’ll get through this firestorm, mum, and find stars on the other side.”He’s too sleepy to take notice, but Lily finds herself abruptly more awake, because somehow her child sounded exactly like the long gone friend Lily once had, down to her very favourite saying – a friend Harry never truly got to know.Lily doesn’t get any sleep that night, but she’s also too tired to really put it all together. Yet sooner or later, things are bound to unravel. And unravel they do my dear. But you’ll see for yourself. It starts with a Quidditch match. Every so often, Sirius Black takes his son to one and usually it’s to see his and his son’s favourite team. It’s the first time Harry gets to see a professional match – she only really learned about the game this summer after all. There are dozens of wizarding children out there who would turn green like a grindylow out of jealousy, but Harry’s excitement is quite restrained.She’s had a long week since having tea at the Malfoy’s home. Mostly, it had been a pleasant afternoon; even flying in the gardens with Draco had turned out to be fun and of course, she’s still riding the high of discovering Master Snape’s old potions book. There’s no greater pleasure an aspiring brewer can experience.No, the problem of it all was that Harry was convinced Sirius Black finally gave into his brother’s nagging and he was going to marry. You have to understand what kind of emergency this posed to her. Here she was, pretending to be Archie – to whom she had promised doing anything in her might to stop Sirius – while his father had no idea and every time she tried bringing it up things would end up awfully tense. How could she ever look Archie in the eye again, if she let him return to find his relationship with his father ruined and a new stepmother to boot?So yes, Harry isn’t particularly excited about the match, but Sirius seemed to be, so she’s trying her best. To his credit, he’s been having a weird week as well and thinks that perhaps it’s time for some good old father-son bonding, which in my experience is a wonderful idea, as long as both father and son are present. Except they aren’t, but I don’t need to tell you that.Sirius is holding onto the idea of a nice afternoon with his son though. It’s truly needed. All week, Archie has been throwing him looks of deep suspicion and concern, immediately looking away whenever Sirius caught his gaze. Then the awkward conversations started. Whether Sirius was going to see Narcissa again – and some weird convoluted reasons as to why he shouldn’t.Not to mention that his son left Malfoy Manor clutching a book that used to belong to Severus Snape of all people – why on earth would he be interested in that? Sirius tried his very best to steer his son away from any such nonsense, but Archie’s eyes had gone wide and teary when Sirius tried to refuse taking the book home, and Narcissa hadn’t made it any easier by saying she would hate to keep a lovely and dedicated student away from his education.There is not a single person in this world Sirius Black loves more than his son, but all in all, it’s been a rather trying time. So here they both are: decked out in yellow to show their support for the Wimbourne Wasps they’re making their way towards their seats, balancing snacks which Harry suspects are way too much to eat for them both.As they finally settle down, a boy a few years older than Harry waves at her from a row below. Archie didn’t give her any instructions as to what to do at Quidditch Games, so she pretends she sees nothing and hopes she isn’t about to ruin another one of Archie’s relationships. Perhaps they were slightly unprepared in switching places, but who knew it would become so complex? If only Regulus Black hadn’t put his nose in places it didn’t belong.“Are you ignoring the Flint boy?” Sirius asks.She realises she’s been staring at the popcorn in her arms with a dark expression and tries to school it into something more appropriate - look at me, excited to see a Quidditch match!“No,” she says unconvincingly.Sirius presses his lips together, but decides not to poke at the dragon’s nest for now, especially seeing as the match is about to start. Still, as they’re sitting through the announcements and watch the players fly into the arena to the cheers of the crowd, everything feels off.For a while, the gameplay distracts them both well enough. The Wimbourne Wasps have a bit of a rough start against Puddlemere United; with every new goal the crowds of blue scarfs and hats grow louder. They’re 50 points behind before finally, one of the Wasps gets their hands on the Quaffle. The player nimbly avoids an opponent lunging, does a barrel roll and passes to a teammate who –“Leigh Weatherby scores! The first goal of the game has finally happened for the Wasps, but can they still catch up?”“Yes, Weatherby!” Sirius roars as he jumps up and pumps his fist into the air. Harry looks at him with mild fascination and great horror; it’s her first time watching a sports fan go truly wild and she doesn’t know how to feel about it. Which is quite understandable since it is a unique experience.Sirius notices the lacklustre response of hers though; his arms slowly lower from their victorious pose as he musters his son’s face. He sighs deeply and sinks back into his seat.“What’s going on with you, Arch?” He tries to catch her gaze, but she’s busy fixing her excited-for-Quidditch smile and putting a lot of effort into finding the Quaffle again. It’s a red ball and very interesting. She loves Quidditch. She loves Quidditch and hanging out with her dad, Sirius Black, because she’s Archie! Well, who is she kidding? Her name is Harry and she would much rather be brewing potions right now, which she hasn’t since summer camp in order to seem more like her friend - that’s what’s wrong with “Arch”.Sirius pokes her side. “You’ve been a little off this week. Did Draco Malfoy say something stupid to you? I thought you two got along.”“Draco was fine. It’s fine.” The child turns to look at him with a stern gaze.Oh no, is all Sirius manages to think before his son takes a very deep breath, clearly steeling himself to say something he’s been gearing up for all week.“I just don’t think Lady Narcissa… fits very well into the family.”For a second, both of them are quiet as the stadium continues to roar around them. Harry’s heart is pounding and she shoves a bunch of popcorn into her mouth, trying to appear nonchalant. Sirius on the other hand is left completely confused. This doesn’t sound much like his son at all.“I never took you for someone who would have a problem with blondes,” he says finally. Suddenly, he feels as though he’s standing in a room full of pranking products; only James and him forgot which box contained the Distract’n’Run bombs. Remus had been furious with them when the whole room ended up being charred. Also, exploding your own business products truly is not the smartest venture – it gets expensive and you might lose clients.Harry stares at him, her gaze unimpressed. She’s wrangling with the nagging question why this man insists on being so damn difficult, while Sirius wonders when his easy-going cheerful child started resisting him at every turn. Normally, the only contentious topic between them was schooling – Merlin, don’t bring up Hogwarts or AIM, he thinks in desperation.“Your mum had beautiful blond hair and she fit into this family very well, right?” he says, quite missing the point. He softens at the memories of Diana Black.The child flinches, just as Puddlemere scores again to the cheers of their fans while everyone around them groans into their yellow merchandise. Harry doesn’t share the same grief as the Black family or even James and Remus, but she still feels betrayed by this comparison. Her heart aches for Archie, and she’s awfully glad he wasn’t here to hear his father’s remark. If Sirius was already comparing Narcissa to his beloved late wife, then she doesn’t know what she can do to prevent an impending marriage.She swallows heavily around the golden snitch lodged in her throat. Oh, what was there left to do now? The idea of telling Archie weighed too heavily on her; his face when he lost his mother’s photograph at camp keeps flashing before her eyes. No, she thinks fiercely. He’s the best friend, the only friend Harry has ever had and that kind of bond can inspire greatness. It also can, as you might be able to imagine, put a lot of stress on a young soul like hers. The mood upon their return to Grimmauld Place is abysmal. The Wimbourne Wasps lost horribly and neither Harry nor Sirius have said a word to each other since. Even though she doesn’t even care about that stupid team, the loss makes her unbelievably angry. She wasted a whole afternoon that could have been spent on reading Master Snape’s annotated book!As Sirius tears off his scarf and stomps up the stairs, Harry stays in the entrance hall. Her small hands clenched into fists, she watches him go, casting around for the right words to stop him in his tracks and change his mind about Narcissa Malfoy. As much as she is glad Archie doesn’t have to contend with all this, the truth is he might be more equipped for it. You must remember, Harry only met this man a few weeks ago and while she’s come to love him dearly, she doesn’t know him well at all.“I take it you lost?” Remus comes up the stairs from the kitchen, holding two steaming mugs and the scent of hot chocolate fills the entrance hall. He watches his nephew blink forcefully, wondering at his grave expression. Archie never took defeat to his heart like this – and neither did Sirius on most days – but this week there had been some tension brewing in the air between them both.“Here, I was making some hot chocolate for me and James, but you can have his as long as it stays between us,” he says gently and winks.Harry takes the mug and smiles back weakly. “The Wasps were horrendous,” she says, trying to stop her voice from shaking.Remus lifts a brow in amusement. “Were they? Well, we all have those days where we are a little off.”Perhaps everything was just a little off right now. A thought as soothing as it was unlikely. Being the wrong child in the wrong household necessitates a stronger description than being a little off. Harry takes a sip of her hot chocolate; it’s rich and smooth, but sadness makes even the best treats taste a little less lovely.“I’m doing some paperwork right now; you can come join me and read one of your journals. Or if you want, Uncle James is in the lab experimenting a little with some new projects,” Remus says.She perks up a little at hearing that. The lab. So far she’s been staying away from the place where the Marauders develop new products for their pranking line aside from her first day exploring the house and the ingredients they had stocked. Archie told her it’s best not to enter the lab unless you have the Marauder’s solemn vow not to be harmed in any way. And even then, what’s a promise from a man known for mischief?Harry doesn’t think Remus would lure her into a trap though, and luckily for her she’s right. The man is currently feeling a deep worry for his nephew, who’s been clearly struggling since returning from camp – even if he has yet to confide in any of them. Perhaps some time with James would do him some good.And well, Harry’s been spending a grand amount of energy on preventing Sirius’ from committing what she fears might be the biggest mistake of his life. Being a child of divorce, living with a mother who barely uttered a word of her father, she takes these kinds of threats seriously. The truth is though, that she came here to meet her father, not deal with Archie’s.So she squares her little shoulders, fingers clutching her mug tightly and marches into the lion’s den, also known as the Marauder’s lab. Her father is standing at a workstation, his hair a frizzy mess from the fumes of the potion before him. Immediately, Harry’s mood brightens tenfold. It’s been too long since she’s seen a potion.James wipes his forehead with a cloth; a highly ineffective endeavour as it seems to be stained and leaves a dark streak on his skin. He lets the cloth drop and it lands on his cutting board full of a chopped root. Usually, Harry would immediately investigate what ingredient exactly he was working with – or which potion he was attempting – but in this case she feels the profound disturbance only a potioneer feels faced with the most unsafe and most awful working conditions. Her father isn’t even wearing the proper attire! No brewing boots in sight or anything! She can’t help but let out a distressed noise.It gains her the attention of James, who looks similarly rattled.“Oh, hi Archie. How was the game?” he asks, but goes on without waiting for an answer. “I don’t think it’s a good time right now, things are a little… unstable right now.”Harry barely hears him, as she draws closer to inspect the potion simmering in the cauldron. It is a deep purple, thick and seething like a volcano about to go off.“What did you do?” she asks, half scientific curiosity and half anger at his amateurish behaviour.“Oh,” he says a little nervously, watching as a drop of the potion lands on the table before them, burning through the wood.“I might have made a misjudgement,” says James, which is a thing you really must refrain from saying in such situations, as is proven when barely a second after, the whole potion explodes violently. Luckily, his work as an auror has gifted James with quick reflexes and he activates the security wards in time while simultaneously pulling Harry behind him to shield them both from the worst of it.Harry finds herself in shock. “What did you do?” she asks once again with more urgency.“I might have added a somewhat… unsuited ingredient for more pizazz.” James winces a little, as he carefully checks her over for any harm. Perhaps Harry should have heeded Archie’s warnings more carefully. Entering this lab proved to be most dangerous. The mental harm she’s taken, well, she might never recover. Taking a deep breath, she asks her father once again what he has done and as somebody who is used to testing people’s patience right until there is none left, James quickly realises not to play around anymore. For some reason, his nephew is taking this quite intensely.“We had some chimera eyes,” he says meekly.“NO!” Harry is done, absolutely done with everything. To think she used to dream of having a potions master as a father, only to be faced with the bitter reality of this. What an awful day it has been, and there’s still no end in sight.“What did you even want to achieve here?” she asks defeatedly.“It was supposed to colour your hair.”She frowns. “Potions like this already exist, Uncle James. You’re trying to invent the wand again, and you’re doing a horrible job of it. Chimera eyes are incredibly reactive ingredients; do not add them for your own amusement.”He grins, still a little sheepish, but snips a finger against her forehead. “Don’t grow cocky when you can’t do it any better.”She could do it better, no doubt.“Anyways, I thought it would be funny to tie it to the person’s mood – like your hair! It would go the most outrageous green when you used to throw a fit over not wanting to eat your vegetables. Not everybody’s blessed with your natural talents, but all of us deserve to make our vendetta against broccoli known by our hair.”She snorts at the mental image of a young Archie, nose upturned at a plate of veggies while his hair turned the same shade as the dreaded food. James grins as well, before turning a little more pensive.“You know, we’ve noticed you haven’t been morphing a lot since camp,” he adds a little tentatively. And the adults did take notice; it has been the topic of many late night conversations. Always talking and worrying and never doing anything about it – that’s adults for you. Well, we must give James credit for taking a little action here.“Are you saying you’re tired of my face?”“Well, it’s already awfully trying having to see Sirius’ mug around the house,” he sighs and peers into her face. “I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but you look dreadfully just like your father.”Harry grins at him and he grins back. James Potter is right: she looks an awful lot like her father. We only ever see what we want though, so it goes by unnoticed. Why anybody ever thought humans to be the most intelligent form of life on this planet is perhaps the biggest unsolved mystery yet. Harry’s pet snake Greyscale is sleepily digesting another meal of mice an ocean away and if anybody bothered to ask her, she would happily inform them of the errors of their ways. Alas, the language of snakes can’t be taught and so humans continue to misguidedly believe in their superiority. There’s nothing you or I can do about it except learn from the mistakes in this story.For Harry, of course, it is quite the relief to still go unnoticed, and she tells one of the many lies she and Archie prepared for this occasion: she morphed so much during camp that she thinks she exhausted every single option there is and has come to the conclusion that this must be the most optimal, nay, the most perfect appearance there is; she sold her metamorphmagical abilities in return for an extra bag of sweets when she ran out of pocket money; she had such a fright during one night’s tellings of horror stories that she got stuck and might never morph again.“Riiight,” James laughs, before growing sombre. “If there is anything that happened at camp though, you know you can talk to us. You’ve been a little different – we’ve all noticed. Sirius especially has been a little worried about you this past week.”To her great shame, Harry discovers that the tears she was fighting earlier make a vicious comeback. There’s of course nothing wrong with having a good cry when you need one. In fact, it might help you any which way: you either get some emotional relief or the stress your tears put on those around you might provide a different relief altogether, a manipulative one perhaps, but still a great method to consider in times of great need.Harry finds herself in times of great need, though there’s no response to manipulate out of James Potter by the way of her crying. If anything, she should have done so in front of Sirius Black. We must remember though that Harry is a stoic child and she strongly believes logic and a calm collected mind is the best way to deal with any problem, from exploding potions to potential stepparents. So she held her tears back for as long as possible, but this might be a little above her paygrade, and between us, for whom wouldn’t it be?In any case, James still feels heartbroken at the sight of his beloved nephew crying.“Oh Arch,” he says softly and pulls her into his side. For a moment, the small face smooths over as though the crying had been a momentary lapse of control, then more tears come spilling out of grey eyes. Harry hides her face in her father’s shoulder. His body is warm and his hand rubs gentle soothing circles on her back.“Look, I don’t know what exactly has been going on between you and your dad this past week, but you know he loves you so much, right? And nothing changes that.”It offers little comfort to her, beyond perhaps the vague hope that Archie’s return might at least save his relationship with his father still.“And Remus and I, we do too,” James continues helplessly.This draws her attention much more, like a flower growing towards the sun she lifts her head to look at him, a desperate question to hear it one more time. He hastens to assure her of his love again and for a second, she basks in it, before remembering that of course, of course he loves Archie. Why wouldn’t he? Not for the first time, she wonders how he feels about Harry.“If you help me out we might be able to get this potion right before dinner and do our first test run,” James says conspiratorially; unaware like always, yet desperate to do right by his loved ones. That James Potter, a complicated man I tell you.By the end of the night Harry’s heart is still heavy and her mind full of questions, but she’s spent hours tinkering away at a potion with her father and who wouldn’t cheer a little at the sight of Sirius Black’s moody frown turned a garish blue?“Oops,” says James innocently and winks at the child sitting beside him, a small smile growing on her face, “looks like we need to revise it a little. It wasn’t supposed to change your skin as well. Sorry Sirius.”Neither James or Harry feel very sorry at all. Still, the next few days bring little improvement in Harry’s attempts at talking Sirius out of a marriage. It’s a bright morning at Grimmauld Place; Harry’s feeling glum and tired. She misses her home, where she would cook dinner, so by the time Lily came home it would be ready. And after eating, they would snuggle up together on the sofa, playing checkers and her mum quizzing her on her day at school, the potions she’s currently reading up on. She wonders if that’s what Archie and her mum are doing now, only talking about healing and Lily’s work. She misses Archie too.“You alright, Arch?” James comes in, carrying a bowl of porridge and eying the child sitting at the kitchen table, small shoulders caving and head bowed deeply over her breakfast. James himself is clearly not in a better state. There are deep shadows beneath his eyes. It was a full moon last night and it was his turn to stay with Remus, while Sirius watched over her.“Yeah sure. Uncle Remus okay?”“You know it, kid. Just sleeping off the hangover. You didn’t want to go with your dad?”It is Sirius’ day to go and volunteer at the hospital. Archie told her about it. Apparently he joined every now and then, but she didn’t feel like spending time with Sirius right now. They’ve been talking in circles and any other shape there is and still she hadn’t found success in getting through to him. Oh, if only Archie was here. It was awfully difficult to be a different person, much less decide over their life for them. If only they were here together.Instead it’s just Harry, just Harry calling herself Archie and a stranger dad and her estranged dad uncle and – and she came here to find out about him. She’s doing all this to find out who her dad is, why she never met him and the only thing she’s learned so far is that he’s useless at potions. Instead she can’t stop Archie from probably getting a stepmother he might not want and a sibling that isn’t Harry.“Archie?”She blinks and looks up at her father. There’s a crease between his eyebrows, a gentle worry in his eyes and it’s such a fatherly look it makes her want to cry again.“I wanted to spend a day with my uncles.” She smiles instead, because that’s what being brave means sometimes.“Well, I’m always happy to spend some time with my favourite nephew,” he says and ruffles her hair gently.She rolls her eyes. “Your only nephew.”He grins around a mouthful of porridge. Harry pulls a face at him, and he swallows and mumbles an apology.She looks at him and his hair that grows so much like hers. She’s been using the word dad more often in the past few weeks than in her entire life before that, but she’s been saying it to the wrong man. Here her father sits, and she still has never once called him dad. Suddenly, she wants nothing more than to call him dad. It’s a terrible ache, deep inside her chest.“Dad,” she says and once she realises what just happened her breath catches in her throat.James looks up. “What about him?” he asks and the air rushes back into her lungs once she remembers. To James she is the nephew he helped raise – and the daughter he does have is supposed to be a continent away for, well, for whatever stupid reason adults have for any of the stupid actions they take.“Did you ever want to have children, Uncle James?” She didn’t intend for the question to escape her, but it’s been a long month and she’s oh so tired of it all. She wants to solve this problem once and for all and then go home, sit on the couch between her mother and Archie and be enveloped by their care.James looks blindsided, his face turning still and pale.“I… why are you asking?”“Just been wondering I guess. What it would have been like to grow up with cousins.”Her father seems frozen still for a moment. The moment is precariously teetering on the edge off a cliff, ready to take two people into the abyss, and if speaking the truth was easier maybe they could be saved.Instead, James Potter hastily stands up, mumbling about checking up on Remus and stumbles out of the kitchen. We must forgive him for his faults and many mistakes he keeps on making. He remembers the baby daughter he left behind a decade ago. One that he thinks of every day; one that he unknowingly leaves behind once again, sitting broken-hearted at his kitchen table.Harry watches him go. She pushes her plate away, nausea rising in her throat. It’s enough, she thinks. Her small face screws up in determination as she makes her way to the entrance hall’s fireplace, where she grabs the floo powder.“Malfoy Manor.” Her voice is croaky, but sure. And the world spins and spins and even when she stumbles out onto the beautiful marble tiles, it doesn’t stop moving around her.For a moment she stays where she is, pressing her face against the cool marble. Her skin feels too small and warm for her body, or maybe she’s grown too big. It’s difficult to tell when you’re the one on the inside.“Archie?” Draco Malfoy stands at the top of the chairs and observes the sudden visitor with slight disbelief. “What are you doing here?”Harry sits up, ignoring the tremor in her arms. “I need to talk to your mother.”“Did something happen? Are you alright? Mother and father are having breakfast in the sunroom at the moment.” Draco descends the stairs, anxiously running a hand through his hair.“Father,” Harry repeats.“I know you haven’t met him, but don’t worry if you need any help from mother. He knows you’re family.”“Family,” Harry repeats.“Yes? Obviously you’re family. Mother might not be a Black by name anymore, but it still counts.” Draco peers at her, feeling quite out of his depth. He enjoyed spending time with Archie Black the last time they met, even though he was completely different from any of his other friends, but this is uncharted water. None of his friends ever turned up uninvited, dishevelled and clearly ailing.“You’re looking a little unwell,” Draco says and lifts his hand to his friend’s forehead, gently resting it there. It’s but a gesture to him, one that his mother has done countless times when he felt under the weather – a sign of great care, he supposes, but he’s still unsure what to do now. The skin against his hand seems weirdly hot.“Let’s go find my mother,” he says.Harry steps back, away from the cool hand and warm gaze.“I should go home,” she says, because she’s just now realising how much she’s been misunderstanding the past few weeks, and because she desperately wants to close her eyes. You would think it would be a weight falling off her shoulders, the realisation that there’s no threat to avert, but you can only keep going for so long until you realise that you picked up too much to carry. Harry is carrying so much.She doesn’t move towards the fireplace, just sways gently where she is standing. It’s enough to unsettle Draco once and for all. He grabs her hand and starts leading her on a dizzying path to the sunroom.“Mother? Archie stopped by and I think something’s wrong with him,” he announces in a panic when he opens the door.Narcissa Malfoy looks up from where she’s talking with her husband, her beautiful features displaying surprise. Just like Draco, she finds the situation unusual, but she prides herself in her steadfast reactions to any social situation, so she gets up gracefully.“Arcturus, how lovely to see you, dear. Are you and your father in good health?”“Yes, thank you,” Harry says, looking anything but in good health. “I should go. I am sorry for disturbing your breakfast.”Narcissa gently shakes her head and mirrors her son’s earlier actions by putting her hand on Harry’s forehead. She purses her lips.“You’re burning up. I think it’s best you lay down and we call your father? I assume he doesn’t know you’re here.”Harry shakes her head and thinks she should insist once again that she’s fine, but Narcissa is leading her towards a settee by the window. When you’re tired like she is, you don’t go declining an opportunity like this.She sinks down into the soft cushions.“Don’t worry, we’re going to take care of you, Arcturus,” Narcissa says.“Not Arcturus,” Harry says, trying to blink away the black creeping into the corners of her vision. “Harry.”And that, if anything, puts the Malfoy family on high alert. They keep asking her questions, and Lord Malfy sends the family’s house elf to Grimmauld place to fetch Lord Black. It’s a lot going on if you’re clear and focused, and Harry is anything but.She closes her eyes, letting her stoic demeanour roll off her shoulders. What a marvel the human body is, Archie had told her one sunny afternoon as she had been measuring out her beetle eyes, and yet it fails you when you need it the most – how stress leaves you hollowed out, so much more prone to illness.Hormones and such. The immune system. She tries to remember and slips away into the darkness, leaving behind the chaos caused by a chance meeting between two lonely and desperate children, caused by adults making mistakes. For as long as the world keeps turning, it will stay that way.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The truth comes out/ James Potter’s complicated inner life/ parents are allowed to do everything/ a drawer full of secrets/ the dearest wishes of children’s hearts
It’s a quiet night for the Evans family, containing one Lily Evans and one Archie Black masquerading as Harry Evans. Lily took some time away from work to soothe the guilt of neglecting to spend time with her daughter this past week. Archie had managed to cook all by himself — a rather tasty casserole in his humble opinion — and he’s quite proud of the progress he made with his culinary skills. Lily had smiled at him, when he said so, and had given him a quick kiss on the forehead.
“I never had any doubt. Cooking is not a skill you lose easily,” she had said.
Well, Archie never lost it per se, as much as never possessed it. He can’t admit that though, seeing as Harry views cooking as a much less interesting mockery of potions, and thus excels at it.
Now the two of them are sitting on the couch, their plates half-empty on the table in front of them, and are quietly reading. Lily is flipping through some reports she brought home from work — because not going to work and not working at all are two quite different things — while Archie is reading one of the periodicals on healing research she has lying around everywhere.
There’s a fascinating article written by a muggleborn who also studied muggle medicine drawing parallels between muggle and magical diseases, pointing out potential treatments which could be transferred into healing. He’s about to find out more about the similarities between demyelinating neuropathies and waning magic syndrome — an illness found in elderly mages, which mirrors another phenomenon called the Fade, a heartbreaking disease where young babies are born to pureblooded families with not enough magic to survive, but alas we’re getting off topic — when the fireplaces whooshes.
Both Lily and Archie look up, surprised at being disturbed so late at night and then shocked, for it is James Potter's head appearing in the green flames.
As Archie stares open-mouthed at his uncle, Lily perhaps is the one who finds herself completely floored. It doesn’t happen every day that the father of your child to whom you haven’t spoken since you left him a decade ago turns up with no warning.
For a second, there is no sound in the room except for the crackling of the fireplace.
James, who has a limited viewpoint can’t see either of them sitting on the couch, and hesitatingly calls for Lily. Archie looks up at her, feeling suddenly slightly guilty for the fact that she is confronted with her past like that. Then again, he was still a baby himself when she and James decided to split and never tell their daughter about her father. He’s just helping Harry correct that.
And Harry — suddenly with a jolt, Archie starts worrying about her. What does it mean that James is contacting them?
Lily seems to finally recover enough to ask the same question and realise there is only one way to get to the answer. She straightens up, valiantly smoothing her red hair down and tugging at her bathrobe. The last time she’s seen James, they were both barely out of their teens, too immature to really play at adults and partners and parents. There was a lot of fighting — mostly about irrelevant stuff, but then again, it’s the seemingly irrelevant things that matter most, isn’t it?
Now here he is again. Lily has grown a lot in the past ten years. She’s successful and a good mother, even though she has her worries there too. Still, when you sit in your home in your pyjamas and your long gone lover appears, it’s difficult to feel like anything but the inexperienced young woman you once were.
James calls for Lily again, his voice rising and this time it’s clear that he’s in distress.
“Yes?” she asks, standing up and moving in front of the fireplace.
For a moment, neither of them say anything; they just stare and stare, drinking in all the little differences in their faces that naturally develop in almost a decade. Then James shakes himself a little and pulls all his focus together.
“Is Harriett with you?” he asks with urgency.
“Of course she is, just like she has been the past nine years.” Lily frowns, both concerned and offended. “Why do you suddenly care?”
James winces, but doesn’t rise to defend himself from the accusation. As an auror, he’s learned to put his own emotions aside to problem-solve first; it doesn’t always work when it’s a private matter, but for now he still hasn’t gotten the peace of mind to relax.
“It’s only… Archie has a fever and he ran off to the Malfoys — Merlin knows why — and then he told them his name was Harry.”
Lily shrugs, but she doesn’t say anything, so James continues.
“It was a bit weird, and then when I went to pick him up — he called me dad,” he stops for a second, wrestling with his emotions. “I think he already called me dad once this morning and I just thought he was talking about Sirius… We just wanted to make sure, you know. That Harriett was with you.”
Lily turns around and looks at Archie. “Of course, Harry is…”
And as her eyes meet the ones of the child who’s left the couch to stand behind her, potions – no, healing journal clutched tightly, she suddenly finds herself unable to finish the sentence. Harry came back different from camp. Her quiet seriousness bleached by sunlight, leaving a cheery attitude behind. She never made friends or enemies at school before, but suddenly Lily gets letters home about her fighting bullies and getting into mischief with friends.
“Archie?” she says.
Archie, who hasn’t been addressed by that name since the day he left summer camp, is understandably overwhelmed. It’s been a lot, and it’s a lot that Uncle James suddenly appeared in Lily’s fireplace and Harry is – Harry is sick and gave up their ruse? It had to happen eventually, of course, but they didn’t make any plans for the way it would happen.
All those thoughts and emotions, well they make it difficult to hold onto a lot of focused magic, most especially when you’re barely ten years old. And changing your appearance continuously for weeks upon weeks is a dragon’s hoard of focused magic. It slips right between Archie’s fingertips, and suddenly his eyes go grey and his chin grows sharper.
Lily watches — in shock and in amazement as her daughter disappears and a boy is left behind, one both strange and familiar to her at once.
“You look more like your mother than I expected. I always thought you were growing up to be Sirius’ little mini me,” she says. It might not be the most important thing to focus on, but the brain can only take in so much information and compute it.
It rings true for all of them, because Archie bursts into sudden hot tears and James keeps repeating Archie’s name.
“Oh darling,” Lily rushes forward and wraps him up in her arms. He buries his face in her shoulder, and for a second lets the world grow muffled, until James’ panicked questions grow too loud to be ignored.
Lily gently draws back, dries the tears on Archie’s face and gently asks, “Is Harry in London?”
Archie nods miserably. “We met at summer camp – and then we realised you knew my dad and my uncles and that James is probably her dad. She just wanted to get to know him.”
There’s a quiet strangled gasp coming from the fireplace, and Archie and Lily turn to James. His face is almost frozen, only his eyes seem distorted somehow. He looks like a man about to cry.
Lily clears her throat. “I think Archie,” she stumbles a little, “Archie and I should try to get an emergency portkey to London.”
James blinks, draws in a deep breath like he’s coming up for air after taking a deep dive. “I can take care of it.” His voice is thin.
“Wouldn’t that be an abuse of power?” Lily asks. “You’re still an auror, I’m assuming.”
“Yes. I think two children displaced between continents counts as a big enough emergency to alert an auror though. And Harriett – Harry should probably have her mother with her.”
“She has a fever?” Lily remembers, all objections forgotten.
“Yes,” he doesn’t say anything more. There’s not a lot going on in his mind, still stuck on the fact that his daughter has been living with him for weeks without him noticing.
“Is she alright, Uncle James?”
James blinks once again. “She will be; Sirius is with her and Remus went to get a healer. Are you alright, Arch?”
“Yes, tell dad… tell dad I’m sorry and I miss him.”
“Yeah. Don’t think we won’t be having words about this though.” He shakes his head and then focuses on Lily once again. “I’m going to take care of the portkey. Somebody from the embassy will alert you I’m sure.”
“Okay,” Lily says faintly. “See you soon, James.”
He echoes a goodbye and then he disappears, leaving behind nothing but ashes and sparks.
Neither Lily nor Archie move, both trying to understand everything that just happened. In the end, he recovers more quickly. He already knew he wasn’t Harry, and even if it’s been a few months since he last saw Uncle James — he’s a lot more used to his appearance than Lily is. He has all the advantage, but with it comes a lot of guilt as well.
“Aunt Lily,” he blurts. For a moment, she barely reacts to the unfamiliar moniker, then she smiles at him. It’s a fragile and honest one, making the urgent guilt possessing Archie feel even sharper to him.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her and it’s little more than a whisper.
She draws him into a hug again, because it’s easier than to admit that she’s sorry too and that the guilt clawing its way up from his heart into his voice should be for her to carry.
“Do you think Harry is alright? I miss her.”
Lily strokes his little head, his hair that suddenly looks nothing like Harry’s except for the colour. “I miss her too. And you heard James, I’m sure she will be just fine.”
Archie nods, valiantly fighting another bout of tears.
“You know,” Lily starts, “you’ve grown so much. I used to watch you while you and Harry toddled around the backyard, talking in your own little language. God, you were like twins. Every birthday of yours, I’ve thought of you, wondered how tall you must be now. And I heard about… I’m really sorry about your mum, Archie. She was so wonderful and she loved you so, so much.”
He wipes his eyes and rests his head on her shoulder.
“I wish we had never separated you and Harry like this.”
“Me too,” Archie says and he’s glad she agrees.
James Potter stays in what he sometimes jokingly refers to as work mode, but is actually more the sad skill adults seem to develop to suppress their feelings while telling children “not right now”. There’s only one child being told that phrase in this instance: the boy living in James himself, who is beating his little fists against his rib cage screaming.
The only other children James really cares about are either wrongfully in the US — which is why he’s in work mode in the first place, in order to get an international emergency portkey organised — or sick with a fever in bed.
To this child he returns, once a colleague promised him to get both Lily and Archie to England in no time. At this point, James is barely holding it together and he walks into Archie’s bedroom at Grimmauld Place feeling feverish himself.
“Did you reach her?” Remus asks him immediately. He’s not looking too well himself — it having been a full moon the day before — and he’s juggling a few potion vials, which the healer he called prescribed and which Archie had looked at with glazed eyes demanding to know which brewing method they had used for the antipyretic. The healer, of course, didn’t know, as they were more concerned with whether it worked or not. It made the child upset — which in turn made Sirius upset, who was already having a crisis after hearing Archie insist on being Harry and calling James dad.
All in all, it truly hasn’t been a good day for any of the Marauders.
James just nods and shoves past his friends to look down at the sleeping child, face flushed. Archie returned from camp with his hair cut close to his scalp, but it’s grown a little in the past few weeks and it’s starting to curl damp from the sweat around his ears in a way that feels familiar to James. Her hair, her ears. Not Archie, but his little Harriett.
James blinks forcefully, as though he could expel all his feelings away from his body that way. Naturally it doesn’t work, so it’s with a shaking hand and heart jumping in his throat that he reaches to gently tuck her hair away. She shifts beneath his hand and her eyes open slightly. His hand jerks away; shock and delight and guilt warring in him at the sight of the intense green colour he hasn’t seen in years now.
Sirius, who is sitting next to the bed holding a washcloth, coughs awkwardly.
“Yeah, the healer figured out he — she’s been wearing contact lenses.” He stands up and pushes James into the seat. His friend collapses like somebody cut the strings on a puppet and Sirius worries at a loose thread of the washcloth. “We figured that this has to be Harriett, but… I do hope you’ve reached Lily and know where Archie is then.”
“Yeah,” James' voice breaks. “Archie and Lily will get here with an emergency portkey soon enough.”
Sirius breathes out in relief, but then none of them manage to say anything. What is there to say, really? Quite a lot in theory — Remus holds onto the vials of potions and wants to repeat the healer’s instructions to overrule the ever-repeating thought that he should have realised that Archie didn’t smell like himself when he came home, because he didn’t come home at all. There’s Sirius who is biting his tongue; his son is a continent away and he wants to blame his best friend — only James is just as fractured, and can he really shift the blame? When he himself didn’t realise that this child wasn’t his son?
Well, and James. James has a lot to say to Harry, but his daughter is sleeping again. His apologies, his regret and his love have waited for almost a decade now. They will have to wait a little more.
Instead, they sit with the child. Her father holds her little hand, and her uncles wipe her hot forehead and keep a tight schedule on the healing potions.
An emergency portkey, unlike what the name might suggest, takes quite some time to request and actualise. It’s called bureaucracy according to some and paperwork torture to others. No matter its name, Archie and Lily have to wait almost a whole day before they are contacted that their portkey wasn’t just verified, but actually ready to transport them to the Ministry of Magic in London.
And then they run into some more difficulties, because Archie stopped looking like Harry – which is to say he stopped looking like Harry’s ID and the witches and wizards at customs frown down at him and Lily with deep suspicion. Travelling internationally with the wrong child in your custody without any documentation can land you in Azkaban, a magical prison even less comfortable than non-magical prisons, so any trips there are best to be avoided.
Luckily, there’s a witch who contacts Grimmauld Place and ten minutes later a dishevelled Sirius Black comes storming into the waiting area Lily and Archie are sitting in, ready to throttle his wayward son. Unsurprisingly, the throttling looks a lot more like a desperate hug. It happens – if you have ever loved somebody very much, who just did something very stupid, you’ll probably understand.
It’s Remus who welcomes them stumbling out of the fireplace, as James is still sitting with his emotions and his daughter in a room full of fever, unasked questions and unknown answers.
“Lily,” he says after hugging Archie closely, and she responds with the same odd mixture of warm fondness and awkward distance. A lifetime sits between them, heavy and unforgiving – it’s neither of theirs, but the lifetime of the small girl lying upstairs or of the young boy between them. They were good friends when they were young. And they never truly stopped being friends did they? In divorce though, things are neatly divided like volatile potions ingredients best stored separately – James got the friend and Lily got the daughter.
Sooner or later, even the most reactive ingredients meet in a potion, even if it’s only an experimental one. All we can do in those cases is hope it will not explode in our faces. The protocol in these cases is awfully long and dreadfully annoying to endure.
“Well,” Sirius coughs a little, “I’m sure you still remember your way around, but how about Remus shows you to Archie’s – Harriet’s current room, while I talk to this rascal here.”
“I want to go see Harry,” Archie protests.
Sirius raises one eyebrow. “Later. For now, I have a lot to say and you have a lot to listen and answer for, Arcturus Rigel Black.”
Archie grimaces at that, but protests no more. All children recognise the meaning of a full name spoken out loud. Lily smiles down at him one last time and gently pats his hair, before following Remus up the stairs. Taking a deep breath, Archie turns to meet his executioner, but finds that in the few seconds he had looked away, Sirius Black had started tearing up considerably.
“Sorry,” his dad sniffs and hugs him again. “I’m really angry with you, just so you know. What were you thinking?”
Archie happily slings his arms around his father and basks in being home again.
“You never told me about Harry! And she just wanted to meet her dad.”
Sirius steps back, crossing his arms and clearly not satisfied with this kind of explanation.
“So you just let her take your place and lied to me?” Sirius asks.
Usually, they have an understanding between them to always speak the truth to each other – unless it’s for a prank of course. However, Archie maintains that clearly his dad broke their promise first by lying about Harry.
“You lied to me first!” Archie says, growing upset now. “You all lied to me and you also never listen to me. I bet Aunt Lily would let me go to AIM if I wanted to. She says it’s the best school ever.”
Sirius closes his eyes at that. Nobody prepared him that having a child meant having the same discussions over and over again. It used to be simpler – whether another cookie before bedtime was necessary, whether Archie could have that new broom, or go to bed later. And now? He spent a week thinking he was fighting with his son over Narcissa Malfoy of all things, but apparently his son was preparing for another battle by abandoning his family for a woman he never even met. And he’s not sorry for thinking that, as much as he likes Lily Evans. All in all, he’s feeling a little upset himself.
“Also, Harry told me you were marrying again, so you don’t need me anymore when you have a new baby. At least let me go to AIM!” Archie continues, voice rising with indignation
Sirius blinks, anger dissipating, because this all? Well, it is news to him. “What? Who am I marrying?”
Archie stops short, because well, Harry never really got around to telling him that part. He looks at his dad and it’s been almost months at this point since he saw him last. Archie missed him dearly, the way – well the way a young boy misses his father. He sniffs.
“I don’t know,” he says miserably. Needless to say, the lines of secret communication between two continents didn’t always flow too well, so Archie’s been relying on Harry’s irregular, short encoded messages. She’s a terrible correspondent, which Sirius should not be too surprised at, for there had been a lot of missed context between him and who he thought to be his son.
Sirius sighs, rubbing his forehead in a desperate and useless attempt to make sense of the situation. It does not help at all; he decides to do what he usually did best and hugs his son again. “You think I would marry without consulting my very favourite son?” he asks.
“I’m your only son,” Archie points out and well, Sirius can’t quite dispute that, which is awfully upsetting given that he just found out about the fake son. The fake son definitely isn’t his favourite son; he wisely bites his tongue though – the argument definitely wouldn’t have gone over well with Archie.
Upstairs, Lily and James are having a just as complicated, though rather more awkward reunion by the side of their daughter’s sickbed.
They greet each other clumsily. To shake hands or to hug? Or perhaps it’s best to just flee the room when your ex-spouse enters? Good questions bothering a whole nation and not just these two. They settle on a mixture of it all, though thankfully both resist any urges to escape – they wouldn’t have come far anyways, seeing as Remus is standing on the other side of the door, making himself unobtrusive but ready to step in if needed. James offers his chair to Lily and they manoeuvre around each other, so she can sit down and kiss her daughter’s head and tuck in the blanket around her.
“The healer said the fever should have subsided completely by tomorrow morning. If not, we're to contact her again. Remus has all the potions memorised,” James is efficient and perhaps a little possessed by the drive to smooth over any awkward silence. It works as well as you would guess, which is to say not at all.
The conversation is halting as both of them try to maintain facade, while reassuring each other that they truly didn’t know. They weren’t involved in the children’s plot or anything!
“I truly don’t know how they managed to do it,” Lily says, shaking her head. “I kept thinking Harry was behaving a little oddly, but how could I ever have guessed it wasn’t her.”
James can’t explain it either, but he’s hesitant to admit it. What a poor head auror he makes, but an even poorer father and uncle.
“Archie is currently telling the story to Sirius and I think we should reevaluate our parenting. We raised some insane children,” Remus comments from outside the door.
“Were you eavesdropping on us?” James accuses.
“Yes,” Remus admits, unrepentant. He suffers greatly every month while turning into a wretched beast, and he thinks he should reap any benefit he can. His hearing is remarkable and thus he makes use of it shamelessly, especially when there’s so many important conversations happening in his house. Still, he can tell when his presence isn’t appreciated, so he makes a quick getaway. Lily always had a mean stinging hex if she got angry – not that she used it on anybody but her enemies, but it’s best to be prudent. He’s heard enough anyways.
“Harry,” Archie whispers as he climbs into bed beside Harry the next morning.
She opens her eyes, blinking at him in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
He grins, pokes her in the side until she moves over and collapses onto his back with a deep sigh. “The ruse is up. Your mum and I got here last night. You falling sick was soo dramatic.”
Harry huffs a little annoyed. “I got all confused.”
Gently, Archie moves his head until it rests against hers; she smells like sweat and a little like potions. He wonders whether that’s just what happens, when you really love something. Maybe it slowly bleeds into you until it’s written all over your body. A magical thought truly, and I wouldn’t want to disillusion a ten-year-old, but the truth is that Uncle Remus simply kept a strict regiment on the healing potions Harry needed to take.
“You stink, Harry.”
She puts her hand against his cheek and shoves it away. “So do you. Did you take a bath in the fireplace?”
Archie giggles and Harry smiles reluctantly.
“What did you get confused by?” he asks.
She groans, hiding her face in her pillow. “I thought your dad was trying to marry Narcissa Malfoy.”
“Aunt Narcissa?” he giggles again. “Isn’t she still with Lord Malfoy?”
“That’s your problem? Not that you’re related?”
Archie shrugs sheepishly. Most pureblood families have an interesting family tree, and whether he finds it weird or not, it’s definitely not unheard of to marry your cousin. Still, he isn’t sure he likes the idea very much. He barely knows Aunt Narcissa. Or her son Draco. He doesn’t need a brother, when he already has something better.
“It doesn’t matter now. Me and dad talked last night and he says he’d rather send me to AIM knowing where I am before I pull a stunt like this again. I think he finally understands how serious I am about healing,” he beams.
Harry opens her eyes and smiles at her friend, feeling light in a way she hasn’t in the past few days. She thinks if anybody deserves to get what they wished for it was Archie, the boy who offered his home and family to her like it was nothing.
“Hey Harry, do you think you and Lily will stay?”
She hesitates, staring up at the ceiling. It’s painted a light blue and there are shadows zooming from one side to the other, a little Quidditch game happening above their heads. One shadow extends their arm and flings a ball towards the window. It’s interesting to watch, but she doesn’t understand whether that signifies a goal or not. There’s so much she doesn’t understand.
Harry likes her home: the kitchen where her mother and her share dinner, the little potion’s lab they sat up and the living room where they’ll quietly read late in the evening. She also likes Archie and her uncles and – well, and her father she likes too, though it’s all still novel and unfamiliar to her. Leaving everything behind is incredibly scary, Harry can tell you since she’s already done it, but there was no intention of it being permanent.
“It would probably be difficult for mum to leave her job,” she says and Archie nods in deep understanding. He loves Aunt Lily’s job.
“And,” she hesitantly continues, “I don’t know what my dad wants.”
And isn’t that the crux of the problem? That we never truly know what we want? James Potter isn’t exempt from that, not at all, and he’s painfully reminded of it as he stands on the landing of the staircase, like a small child dropped off and forgotten. He’s staring at the door behind which his daughter and ex-wife spent the night, wishing to go in and yet never finding the courage. The story of a lifetime, he thinks a little bitterly. From downstairs, he can hear his friends talking in low voices. Perhaps he should go join them.
Instead, he stays where he is, frozen by indecision. The healer said Harry’s fever should subside by morning; he could go inside and talk to his daughter. Have the first real conversation with her, no lies between them. Again, he can’t help but think how much sense it makes. The child living with them for the past weeks hasn’t been Archie and it’s frankly embarrassing they thought so. How often had he wondered at the sudden changes in his nephew’s behaviour? And how often had he been annoyed by the severity of this strange new child, in place of the old lightness. Now those thoughts weigh on him, guilt the size of a ten-year-old.
She’s amazing, he thinks fervently and it’s not just guilt, but also pure delight – because she is, isn’t she? Grown and wicked smart, she played them all like it was nothing. With an ache he thinks of the small baby who used to grab at his glasses, gurgling at his grimaces and her small warm body breathing against his. He’s missed so many in-betweens. He wants to go in there and meet her properly, but what can he offer her now? He is nine years too late.
The door to the bathroom opens and James barely takes notice of it, he’s so stuck inside his struggling self. The flash of red in his peripheral vision reminds him though that his ex-wife arrived last night and so he’s torn out of his one misery and perhaps thrown into the next.
Lily greets him, perfectly polite, but still there’s a distance between them. It’s not easy to meet again after such a long time. She musters him, her gaze jumping between him and Archie’s bedroom.
“You should talk to her,” she says.
James shrugs a little helplessly, unsure how to express everything he’s feeling. He’s made a grand show out of most of his emotions all his life: every meeting between him and Lily in their youths was a proposal of the most theatrical order. She had rolled her eyes at him more often than he could count, but now that she’s here and looking at him, he finds it difficult to even identify what he’s longing for. James wants the past back, to wipe away any mistakes he made, so he can have the future in which he doesn’t still dream of the family he could have had.
Lily as always keeps a cool head when faced with James Potter succumbing to his dramatics. People always express wonder at how different detached and disinterested Harry is to her warm and friendly mother, but you will find that Lily Evans is precisely as collected as her daughter. Finding out about the misplaced children had been a shock, but sometimes a good shock wakes you up from a bad dream. She rather thinks it’s high time to stop wasting the present; there’s no time turner to offer them what they lost and the future is starting here right now.
“You should go talk to her. She’s come here because of you, so what are you afraid of?”
James closes his eyes and nods. Harry already did the difficult first step, which never should have been her responsibility, but might as well go the distance now. He knocks before he enters.
Lily barely makes it down two stairs when she hears the door opening behind her again. “I thought you were going to talk to your-“ she stops when she turns around and catches sight of the boy, hair dishevelled and still in his pyjamas. He’s been living with her for weeks, but she still finds herself blinking disconcertedly at his unfamiliar face.
“I thought I should give them some space,” Archie says sheepishly.
She smiles at him. “That might be very smart or very dangerous. James might need some supervision.”
He shrugs, because he has faith in his uncle and he has faith in Harry. He loves them very much and he needs them to love each other very much. Oh so easy, oh so complicated.
Lily watches him as he pads towards the stairs. He walks so differently compared to Harry who, as much as Lily likes to pretend she doesn’t notice, shares the same determined stride with her father. Archie walks much more like Sirius, almost a laid-back shuffle. Last night, in the midst of the reveal and the realisations and the worry she hadn’t stopped to wonder why he ever agreed to switch places. It’s easy to understand a little girl going on a journey to find her wayward father, but what about him?
He beams at her question. “Dad says I can go to AIM now. I’m going to become the very best healer,” his tone is grave, but she can hear the quivering excitement beneath it all.
Lily thinks of countless nights she’s been explaining her work to him and telling stories of her time at school, and has no doubt that he will. Especially now that he won’t have to commit any crimes to attend his dream school; the world rests at Archie Black’s feet and he’s determined to take it all.
Father and daughter stare at each other; they’ve lived together for weeks but perhaps this is their first real encounter: both of them awake and aware of just who they are to each other.
”Hi Harry,” James says and swallows tears down around the nickname. He doesn’t know when and where she chose to be Harry, just that she did and who is he to tell her any different?
She blinks back at him, eyes wide and unbelieving. She wears a pair of round glasses, just like he did at her age. James can’t figure out how he didn’t realise it was her all this time.
Archie had told Harry the ruse was up, but for a brief moment, she feels as though she’s still dreaming.
”Hi dad.” It’s a joyful word she discovers. She’s used it before, but somehow she never truly got to taste the joy of it. James across the room, so close to his daughter and yet still so far away, comes to a similar realisation.
His mind and heart are warm and heavy with their yearning for it. All these years James Potter longed to hear this word again and now he finds that one time won’t be enough.
Collecting all his courage, he crosses the space between them and sits down by her side. He wants to reach out and take her hand, hold her close, but he hesitates.
“Are you feeling better?” he asks and lifts his hand, giving her enough time to draw away from him. She doesn’t, so he gently touches her forehead and is glad to find it feeling cool and dry against his hand.
”Yeah, I’m just a little tired still.”
“Good. I’m glad.” He shakes his head. “I still can’t believe you’re here. Look at you, you’re so grown up! When I saw you last, you had just learned to walk, and now you and Archie have really outsmarted us.”
Harry beams. All is right in the world. Then she remembers.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t want to trick you, I just wanted to know you and I didn’t think would want to know me.”
James flinches. “Of course I want to know you! Believe me, I have thought of you every single day of your life and I’ve missed you ever since you’ve been gone. The divorce had nothing to do with you!”
All of it is true, but it’s been almost a decade since James watched them go and words mean nothing to little fatherless girls compared to the weight of time.
So Harry asks the most powerful question there is; one we use too often and too rarely for the way it can shift people like tectonic plates. So slowly you might never see the results, but if you are aware of the massive weight behind it – well, it can shake you to the core.
“But why?” Her little voice is thin as a dagger, a little scratchy and shaky, but its blade still doesn’t miss the most tender parts of James Potter’s heart. ”Why did you let me go?”
“I made a mistake. I thought it would be best for you to grow up with your mother and we just fought so much. By the time I realised his much I screwed up… it felt like it was too late. Lily and you were already gone and I didn’t really know how to reach you.”
”That’s stupid,” Harry says and perhaps you’ll find that you agree with her. And she isn’t wrong; humans are an awfully stupid species at times. Knowing that doesn’t make being a human any easier though.
James Potter made an awfully stupid mistake and he’s been living in regret since. He wishes deeply he knew how to undo the damage, but while you can repair a broken vase with a spell, nobody has come up with any magic to fix the past. There are of course time turners, but they are incredibly limited in the length of time they can turn back and notoriously finicky devices on top. It’s best not to screw with time either way.
The only way out is forward. James tugs at a chain around neck and reveals a locket that has been hidden beneath his shirt. There’s a pattern on it, but it’s almost difficult to recognise, so smooth it has been polished by constant wear. He opens it and holds it out to Harry.
”Not a day has gone by where I didn’t regret letting you go.”
Harry takes the locket; inside, a much younger James Potter is hugging a baby. Both of them have a mess of black hair and are laughing brightly.
“I love you so much, fawn.”
The nickname is unfamiliar to her, but it still sounds right somehow. She smiles tentatively. Perhaps not all is right in the world, not yet, but there’s hope hidden just around the corner. Sometimes you just have to dress up as the cheerful boy you just met to find it.
Grimmauld Place adjusts to its new inhabitants quickly. For now, Harry stays in Archie’s room where the adults also put up a cot for Lily. Archie doesn’t mind as he gets to have what feels like one big sleepover with his dad. After the uncomfortable reveal of just what they had done wore off, they quickly went back to being the best father-son duo there is. Sirius, who can rarely deny Archie anything, chats with him deep into the night, every giggle keeping him going.
Uncle Remus finally puts a stop to it, reminding everyone how important a rested mind is for learning. Nobody wants to put any more stress on the poor man, who just had the unfortunate realisation that the child he’s supposed to have been teaching spent the last few weeks receiving an education that went completely over his head. Thus, all his efforts are nigh and they need to start over, go back to the beginning of the school year. A nightmare.
Archie isn’t particularly pleased about it either, but Harry who’s still on bed rest finds she’s disappointed too. She’s been enjoying her classes with Uncle Remus and wishes she didn’t have to miss out on any lessons. A fact Archie is readily willing to exploit – his proposal to just do the old switcheroo again is however swiftly stopped by the group of adults who might have been fooled once but are now attentive to the point of paranoia. James who used to roll his eyes at his old auror mentor telling him to employ constant vigilance now regrets every instance of this kind of youthful naivety.
At the least, Harry and Archie still get what they want as Uncle Remus moves his lessons from the library to the desk in Archie’s room. Harry lies in bed, listens in and tries to pantomime her way through the answers in order to help her friend. Remus pretends he doesn’t notice – an old trick in the book to give the children some satisfaction, so they won’t go for more daring ventures. Whether it works is arguable, but it helps him sleep more peacefully, so why should we disabuse the poor man of the notion.
Harry and Archie cheerfully discover what kind of mischief they’ve been missing out on by growing up lonely instead of joined at the hip. By the time Harry has recovered enough for their parents to ease up a little on her strict bedrest, they’ve updated each other in the most detailed manner on what the other missed about their life – Harry’s dreading returning to school. Not only did Archie punch people and get abhorrent grades, he also managed to befriend one or two students. Just enough that they will now expect her to be polite and open to conversation!
Needless to say, they grow tired quickly of sitting on Archie’s bed and discussing whether or not Archie ruined Harry’s perfectly good reputation as a cold but civilised recluse, and relish in roaming around Grimmauld Place. Harry of course is drawn towards the lab now that she can unabashedly show her potion obsession in the open. Archie indulges her, and so the two of them quickly set up a cauldron and brainstorm possible potions she could brew.
They come up with an interesting potion that turns to ice and snow if poured on any flat surface. It’s an afternoon of good fun, when they go ice skating in Grimmauld Place’s library. The adults are having tea in the kitchen, so they are missing out on all the excitement. Why anybody would prefer talking about things as boring as politics or jobs when there is pirouetting and slipping to do is a grand mystery, but that’s adults for you.
Though it’s not just their fault since Harry and Archie rather wisely didn’t extend an invitation their way – the library is perhaps not the perfect location for an ice rink and a good and sensible adult would have to point that out. The marauders might not be good, sensible adults on most days, but Lily definitely counts as one, which is enough to make the other three turncoats. A tragedy truly.
Archie and Harry only realise what trouble might be coming for them, when they get called for dinner and realise neither of them have a way to undo what they created. It’s a sign of inexperience, Archie is ashamed to admit. No good prankster would be unprepared to take care of the traces they leave behind. He once switched out all the chocolate in the pantry for mud – one of his first works, so please understand the simplicity of it, he’s grown since then – but the muddy boot prints leading from the courtyard to the pantry sadly were too small to be misconstrued as anybody’s but his. Beginner’s mistake.
“Let’s try and figure this out tomorrow before anybody comes in here,” he says nervously.
To make sure of it, they push the drawer in the hallway in front of the door to the library.
Of course, that’s not very inconspicuous and when Sirius Black wakes up that night feeling in the mood for a midnight snack, it’s not the kitchen he turns to, but the secret stash of butterbeer fudge he stowed away in the drawer in the hallway next to the library. A great place to hide things – nobody ever looks in there as any inhabitant of Grimmauld Place will tell you. In fact, it is such a good hiding spot that if you search it well enough you will also find a collection of Archie’s dung bombs, Remus’ favourite chocolate and some rather embarrassing love letters James wrote once upon a time.
Sirius finds the drawer and well, he’s a discoverer, an adventurer really, he can’t just ignore what might be hidden behind it. With a swish of his wand he moves it back to its original spot and enters the library.
A loud thump and very frustrated string of curses wake up both Harry and Archie, who perhaps have been sleeping with one ear strained for any ice-related incidents. They meet in the hallway, trading sheepish looks and sneaking through the dark hallway towards the source of noise.
They find Sirius lying on his back, nursing some bruises and looking a mixture of annoyed and impressed. Truthfully, he would have immensely enjoyed an ice rink in place of his library, if only somebody had warned him! Well, the damage is done and the culprits are standing in front of him in their pyjamas, sheepishly shuffling their feet.
“I’m too old for this,” Sirius groans. “I’m past my prime. Oh what am I supposed to do now that I’ve lost my wits.”
“You’re not that old,” Harry says. “You barely have any grey hairs at all.”
“Barely?” Sirius hands fly away from where he’s clutching his sternum and start patting his head instead.
“Now that you mention it, Harry, I can see some,” Archie bends over to expect his father’s head.
For a moment, the children watch as Sirius conjures a mirror in a panic and tries to get a good look at his hair. Then they dissolve into laughter.
“No!” Sirius says and sinks back onto the ice, “the betrayal! My own son and niece, how could you do this to me? I’m gonna get you back, I promise you.”
Archie decides it’s time to take action now rather than let his father remember to plan any kind of retaliation.
“Don’t try to make me laugh, it won’t get you out of trouble,” Sirius says, but fails to suppress his grin at the sight of his son who starts growing out his eyebrows, until they hang like a curtain in front of his face.
“I didn’t even know eyebrows could do that,” Harry says fascinatedly and plucks one of them.
Archie yelps, and his eyebrows quickly retract to their previous length. His diversion was quite successful nonetheless, as Sirius is howling with laughter. Dodging prank consequences aside, Archie’s been using his gift a lot since his return. At first, he was worried it would remind the adults of his and Harry’s misdemeanour, but that turned out to be needless. There was nothing that could make any of them forget just what exactly their children had gotten up to, and in fact it smoothed things over to see Archie morph. After all, the best way to identify a child that can change appearance at will is to watch it do so.
As easy as it is to get out of trouble with Sirius, the more complicated it turns out to be when Harry’s parents get involved the next morning. Remus has somehow crossed the ice unharmed and made himself comfortable in one of the reading chairs, while Lily’s standing with her hands on her hips looking quite cross. James holds onto one of the bookshelves while gliding over the ice.
“Great thinking, an indoor ice rink is amazing,” James praises them happily at the same moment as Lily says, “Don’t think there won’t be any consequences.”
There’s an awkward moment of silence as they regard each other, then James clears his throat and hastily adds that of course there will be consequences, but one should also encourage the youth in their creativity. This kind of mentality was also one James’ parents used to live by and it explains a lot about the man he is today.
Lily frowns. “Well, how do you usually deal with this kind of behaviour then?”
James, Remus and Sirius look at each other, but they all refrain from answering. Usually, it involved a lot of laughter and retaliation. None of them back down easily from a prank – even if it was an egg in their shoes, put there by a toddler. You have to establish dominance over the upstart next generation early, and besides, how is a young child meant to nurture his own talents when nobody is challenging him?
Archie is about to point out that there hadn’t been any consequences from Lily for the beetle incident – or the punch he threw in the wake of it – but Harry merrily stomps on his toes. The adults have clearly forgotten their presence and it would be unwise to alert them to it.
Under the stern green gaze of his ex-wife, James begins sputtering.
“Well, we uh… we usually talk it over with Archie to make sure he… understands why what he’s done is wrong!” he casts around for more to say. “Sirius, help me out here!”
“I just remembered,” Sirius says hastily, grabbing Archie and Harry by their shoulders, “that we should pay Cissy another visit. She took such good care of Harry here and Archie hasn’t even met her. I believe we owe her some gratitude.”
“I’m coming as well,” Remus jumps up from the armchair he’s sitting in and glides with a surprising amount of grace towards the door. The four of them quickly shuffle out of the room.
As the door falls shut behind them, they collectively breathe out.
“Good thinking, dad.” They’ve all been coming up with more and more absurd excuses to leave James and Lily whenever the two of them ended up in the same room – the awkwardness could surely choke you. It’s clear that there’s a lot left unsaid between them, but so far they’ve been remaining awfully polite. Sirius and Remus have been debating about shutting them into a broom closet for two days now, but it seems a bit juvenile, so they decided to only take that course of action if necessary and then blame it on the children.
“Yeah well, we do owe Narcissa an explanation,” Sirius says and both Archie and Harry deflate a little, “Are you really coming, Moony?”
“Absolutely not,” Remus says and leaves.
Harry sighs. “Is it too much to hope you’ll let me stay here with him?”
“Now why would I do that? Last time went so well after all. We were only fighting for a week afterwards,” Sirius says cheerfully.
“Is it me or are they really desperate to get away from us?” James asks.
“They’re intimidated by us,” Lily says drily. “At least we don’t have to come up with any punishment, socialising will be enough for Harry.”
She begins making her way across the room towards the group of armchairs Remus had been sitting in. The ice is slippery beneath her feet and she almost loses her balance, but James catches her arm and together they manage to sit unharmed.
“She’s really something else, how did she grow up to be so different from either of us?” James laughs a little as he settles down.
An awkward silence descends upon them. What a question. How could a daughter grow up so different from the father she never met? Stupid, James admonishes himself quietly.
“Is she though?” Lily asks. “I thought what she and Archie did would have been right up your alley when you were younger.”
An odd expression settles on James’ face – as though he can’t decide whether to beam or to wince. Perhaps both are in order, but you should truly make up your mind on what to settle on, otherwise it will just make you look awfully awkward.
“She’s quite bold.” Now, he just looks satisfied.
“What was I expecting with an auror as her father.” Lily hesitates, before continuing, “I hear congratulations are in order. You made Head auror?”
“Yes, thank you. Shortly after… well, Sirius quit his position and they offered me the promotion. It’s a lot of work, but surprisingly I have more control over my schedule and I can do some of the paperwork from home. That way I could be here more often to support our family.”
Lily nods, pressing her lips together and another silence descends upon them. Both of them think of the after – when Archie’s mother had passed away, Lily had only heard it from an ocean away, months after it happened. She had felt hurt that nobody reached out to her, for Diana Black had been her friend, but at the same time she felt guilty still for not being there when it mattered.
It’s a difficult world to navigate and all the more difficult when you realise that the enlightenment you expected from adulthood never quite reaches you.
Even now, Lily also feels the bitterness creeping in. Only when his best friend’s wife had fallen sick had James tried making more time for his family – a matter of contention between them in their marriage.
If you have wondered at all where Harry got her dedication and single-mindedness from, well you needn't look further than her parents. Neither of them found their passions quite as soon as she did, but by the time James was a trainee in the Auror corps, he knew what he wanted.
So James was working a lot trying to establish a career for himself. He was so passionate about it, that he had very little energy to be passionate about his young beautiful and smart wife or sweet baby daughter. And Lily had needed more than that – both from him as a husband and father, but also as a talented and powerful witch. She was bursting with potential and she wanted to fulfil it, but childcare was rarely delegated in the more traditional parts of the wizarding world – and as much as the Potter family was progressive, they were still stuck in some ways.
So Lily ended up leaving, and all the fighting made both Lily and James turn their back on each other, until they realised what they truly had lost. And what they had done unto their daughter. What an easy mistake it had been to make, what an easy solution there could have been, if it weren’t for the hurt and the pride – and the doubt and insecurity once the hurt and pride had healed a little. A tale as old as time.
“I hear you’ve been revolutionising the treatment of long-term potions damage, so I suppose I should offer you some congratulations myself.”
She blinks at that. She’s wondered a lot over the years on how things could have turned out differently, but never in her dreams did she allow herself to hope that James Potter followed any of her work though, and the admission leaves her surprised and flustered.
“I’m not sure I would call it that, but it’s an incredibly important field given how much we rely on potions in contemporary healing. In fact, it makes up eighty percent of viable treatments nowadays, even though long-term exposure…”
As Lily speaks on, James can’t help but listen fondly. It’s been a decade, but the slight flush in her cheeks when she starts ranting has always drawn in him and he finds nothing much has changed in that regard. It’s quite understandable for Lily Evans is a beautiful witch and her green eyes contrast quite nicely against her fiery hair. Young James never stood a chance when he first met her gaze across a train platform, and in Grimmauld Place’s sitting room there’s none left for him either.
You might be wondering about it – ten years have gone by and this hapless fool is still just as in love as on the first day? Well, I can tell you some things just are that way: a phoenix burns itself up one day to be reborn from the ashes and James Potter once set his relationship ablaze just to fall in love again.
After a while, Lily’s passionate explanation slows and she notices his expression. She blushes even more deeply.
“I’m sorry, I’m sure this doesn’t interest you in the least.”
He assures her it does, and to her own surprise she believes him. Then again, he always enjoyed listening to her, he just never had much time to do so. They look at each other, for once a content quiet instead of awkwardness around them. His face had still had some remnant of youth the last time they had seen each other – now any of the roundness is gone; his jawline is sharp but the skin around his eyes has grown wrinkly and soft. James Potter always laughed a lot and Lily’s happy to see it on his face.
“I’m sorry,” James says suddenly. “I wish I had done more back then.”
She blinks. “I’m not sure more would have helped.”
It hurts him to hear so and he sinks back into his chair.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… we were so young and naive.” Lily sighs.
And they had been young and naive. James fell in love the first time he saw her and no time and distance between them had changed so. Not a single thing he had known about the girl going to a different school, but every year it made his heart jump to see her at King’s Cross station. And without fail he had managed to annoy her right up until he didn’t. Their romance had been wild and tentative, but most of all it had been sudden.
Barely out of school they had married and then they had Harry and it was wonderful, except they came to realise that there were so many things left unsaid between them. The kind of expectations they had of married life differed greatly and they found out the hard way.
“I keep thinking I should have tried to understand you more, spent more time with you and Harry. Now I don’t know her at all.”
He’s looking terribly miserable and she feels it tug at her heartstrings.
“I’m sorry too then. I always regretted how prideful I was; I shouldn’t have cut you off from your daughter like that,” Lily says.
James nods gratefully. How soothing it feels for one’s soul to admit to past mistakes. Like letting go and floating off in the wind.
“I’m sure we can arrange for her to visit you during school vacations.”
“Oh,” James says, feeling oddly disappointed. “I suppose you must go back to work soon.” Perhaps there’s still something tying him down.
“I’ll talk to Harry when she gets back.” Lily can feel it too; words left unsaid are awfully heavy, but she’s been lugging the weight of them around for years now, so what does it matter?
The day moves on as unsympathetic as only time can be. Lily and James finally manage to clean up the library after a dozen attempts at vanishing the ice and then he excuses himself to his office. Lily watches him go, trying not to feel like the young woman alway watching her husband leave for work. Sniffing, she decides to put her own time to good use and get some work done.
In the early afternoon, Sirius returns with the children who look windswept but moody. Lily dares to ask them how their day went, and earns a dark look from Sirius.
“Perfectly awful. You try explaining how you got your own child mixed up for a month. I bet she’s going to tell Reggie as well,” Sirius groans, “The children got on quite well and had fun flying around the grounds of Malfoy Manor, but then I asked Harry to return that stupid book from Snape and things got ugly.”
Lily throws her daughter a look and decides not to ask. She knows the kind of ugly Sirius is talking about.
“Come here, darling,” she says and hugs Harry gently.
“I had fun,” Archie offers. “They have the newest cleansweep! And Draco has his own sitting room next to his bedroom. It could fit a whole Quidditch team.”
Lily smiles. “Speaking of, you’ll get your room back soon. I fear Harry and I have to return home soon.”
Archie deflates hearing that. He wouldn’t mind sleeping in his own bed again, but he and Harry just started having all the good fun! There was so much left to do still, and how would they accomplish anything if she just left for the US again? It’s cruel, is what it is. Adults always think they can just do whatever they want. Tear a family apart and never speak a word of it, make you return books nobody but you appreciate and all the while they’re acting as though they’re completely in the right.
“Don’t look so glum. You can come visit every school holiday, Harry, and Archie is always welcome as well of course.” Lily smiles, but in the way unhappy people do when they desperately try to convince you of their happiness.
Harry and Archie share a look that could break a dementor’s heart and that says something, given that they do not possess one.
Well, Sirius thinks, somebody ought to do something about this.
In the end, things circle back to the simple and the juvenile; they always do, somehow. It was a terribly clumsy ploy, but Remus and Sirius tried their best, so we must not judge them.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lily pounds her fists against the door of the broom closet. “I would have thought you would have matured sometime in the last ten years.”
“Just talk it out! Your daughter would appreciate it and so would we.”
James turns towards the wall and thumps his head against the wall of the dark and musty room. He hates his friends; that deep hatred that only the people closest to you can inspire.
“I’m going to kill you, Sirius Black!”
For a minute, Sirius considers maybe seeking witness protection in a far off country before remembering he’s doing it for the good of the children. He can’t possibly bear to see that heartbroken look on Archie’s face everyday in the next few weeks and then imagine little Harry sitting on her own, just as forlorn, a continent away. Besides, his friends need some good thumping over the head – he’s been dealing with James’ whining for too long now.
“Do it,” he says to Remus.
The other man slides the letters underneath the door. Lily, who’s still trying to open the lock, notices them first. She bends down to collect them and lights her wand. They are all addressed to her. She lets out a quiet noise and it finally draws James’ attention from his own despair. He throws a look over her shoulder.
“I hid those!” he screams.
“Ah yes, you glued them to the underside of the drawer that’s the whole family’s secret hiding spot,” Remus answers through the door. “Even Harry is using it now. She put that book in there which she was supposed to return to the Malfoys.”
“What?” Sirius asks, but gets ignored entirely.
“You hide your own chocolates in there!” James says indignantly.
“Only so you think I do. That’s not my real stash.” Remus sounds incredibly satisfied with himself and James tries to answer, but finds nothing to say, so he only swallows a big gulp of air and almost chokes on it.
“Oh James,” Lily says from behind him, her voice almost shaking. While James had been worrying over how his friends had gotten their dirty hands on his love letters, his ex wife had started reading them. Oh, he really should have gotten his priorities in check.
“These are so recent,” she looks up at him. Her green eyes glitter in the dim light of her wand; his heart skips a beat. “James…” her voice trails off.
“I’m sorry for these two idiots,” he says, suddenly feeling close to tears. “Don’t let yourself be bothered by my stupid letters.”
She blinks rapidly. “Don’t say that. Do you mean them, truly?”
He’s spent ten years writing letters to the woman that left him; there’s no doubt that James Potter meant every single longing word in them.
“Of course I do,” his voice breaks slightly. “I always loved you from the first time I saw you. I’ve spent the last ten years wondering if that was the problem. By the time you finally liked me back, I was so elated. I had been waiting for so long. We were so young though and everything went so fast. Maybe if we had met each other later in life, when I was more mature, our relationship could have lasted.”
Lily presses a hand against her mouth. Unlike James she hasn’t been writing love letters, she even met other men. Each time she did, she would compare them to him though. His wittiness and stubborn loyalty she found to be unique to him.
“I regret not a single day I’ve shared with you,” she whispers fiercely. “I regret that we’ve spent so much of them fighting, but not that we spent them together. And where would Harry be, if we had met later?”
James lips curl up in bittersweet smile. “She’s so grown and I missed all of it.”
“You’re here now. We’re here now.”
„We are,“ he whispers and his fingers tangle with hers. It‘s like no time passed at all.
Outside in the hallway, Remus grins when those words reach his finely tuned ears and gives Sirius a thumbs-up while simultaneously making kissy faces. Sirius bumps his fist into the air. To celebrate, they go through Sirius’ stash of fudge, but nothing tastes sweeter than the kiss Lily and James share that night.
Around the corner, two small shadows sneak away into the dark, satisfied by Remus quiet confirmation. “I told you, if I look sad enough dad will do anything for me,” Archie whispers into Harry’s ear. She smiles. It’s good to have a friend. It would be great to have two parents and a cousin-almost-sibling on top. She likes her chances.
Lily and Harry pack up their stuff the next morning. It’s a quick endeavour since Harry arrived with a suitcase full of Archie’s belongings. The whole while, Archie sits on his bed and regales them with a convoluted story he apparently dreamed up the night before. Harry can’t quite follow it – there’s a house made entirely of shortbread involved, and an evil wizard trying to curse Harry and Archie into oblivion – but she can tell Archie’s nervous by his quick chattering. They were hoping that by breakfast, the adults would finally come to their senses, but so far it seems hopeless.
Perhaps they should have taken action themselves, rather than relying on Remus and Sirius meddling; after all, they are terribly out of practice. Archie and Harry on the other hand have recently undergone weeks of undercover work, which not just puts them ahead of most other ten-year-olds but even most adults. They trade grim looks as Lily puts away the last of her belongings, and it’s clear to both of them that they are not yet ready to give up.
Archie is about to stage a grand distraction, so Harry can run and hide, when James pops his head through the door.
“Archie, your dad’s been looking for you,” he says and casually strolls into the room.
Harry gives Archie a subtle nod to signal that she’s okay and he mulishly retreats, leaving mother, father and child properly alone for the first time. Realising that this is it, the moment when her fate will fall on either site of the wand, Harry feels her heart pounding out of her chest.
“Come here, love,” Lily guides her to sit down on the bed. “Your father and I want to have a talk with you.”
James pulls up Archie’s desk chair and settles opposite them, feeling perhaps just as nervous as his daughter as two pairs of green eyes settle on him. He smiles at them, his heart warm and blinks away some tears. It’s difficult to find the right words, when they matter so much.
“So what’s going on,” Harry finally asks, when neither of her parents makes a move to speak.
“We were talking last night and well, we were thinking…” Lily stops; the idea of breaking her daughter’s heart is just too much for her.
Harry frowns, clearly unimpressed. “Did it work or not? I don’t want to live between two continents and I want to stay with Archie. He’s my best friend.”
“Did what work?” James asks.
“If you’d rather stay in London with your dad and Archie, I’d understand. I’ll miss you of course, but I don’t want to tear you away from here if you love it that much,” Lily says at the same time. Her heart aches at the thought of leaving her daughter behind, but she thinks she owes it to her – nobody asked her the first time around after all, and look where that got them.
“What?” Harry’s voice quivers with shock. “I thought you worked it out last night, when Uncle Remus and Uncle Sirius locked you in together.”
It earns her two sharp looks – there’s a drawback to having a set of parents instead of just a single one – but she doesn’t let herself be silenced no more.
“Why do you always have to tear us apart? You never gave me a chance to know you both, and now you just want to pretend none of this happened? That you’d both be happy to go back to how things have been?”
“We wouldn’t be doing that, of course not,” James tries to catch her gaze. “We’ll make sure you can spend time with both of us as much as possible, but we separated for a reason and one night of… well one night can’t undo all that. Your mother has her job in the US and you have school and I’m head auror here.”
Harry cries out, “I don’t care about school! And you only want another excuse not to try.”
There’s a heavy silence following that, and Harry valiantly tries to fight her tears. Gently, Lily tries to put her arm around her shoulders, but Harry shrugs her off and turns away from them. James swallows when he meets his ex-wife’s helpless glance. Last night, everything had seemed magical and perfect, but when dawn came around they realised how many things could go wrong, how much stood in their way. So they told themselves it would be for the best to not give Harry any false hope, but suddenly both of them wondered whether they were taking the easy way out. An unfortunate habit of humans: to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
“I’m sorry if we made you think we’re giving up, that’s not what we’re doing,” James says uncomfortably.
Harry wipes her eyes and her heart aches, but she isn’t sad. She’s furious.
“Archie and I found the letters you wrote for mum,” she bites out, “and I know mum misses you too.”
Archie had shown her the chest of drawers when she had searched for a place to keep Master Snake’s book — why let it gather dust in the Malfoy library when she could appreciate its genius? — and when she bend to hide it beneath the chest, her fingers had bumped into worn parchment.
After gently detaching them from where they were taped to the wood, she held them in her hands and wondered at the scratchy handwriting. It looked so much like hers down to the dots of the i.
Lily,
it read, and neither she nor Archie felt any sort of compulsion to respect the privacy of letters. That’s ten-year-olds for you.
And so they read words upon words James Potter had written to his first and only love. They were tender and heartbreaking and like nothing she had ever heard in her young life. Before, the relationship between her parents had seemed a distant fact, but now she wondered at their love.
Harry pulls out one of the letters; she had kept it for herself and reread it over and over again last night.
”
I had it all, Lily. You and Harry were the light and the singing of the birds in the morning, and I didn‘t realise it until I woke up in the dark. You were my whole world and I wish I had realised earlier
,” she reads out loud.
James blushes as Lily‘s intense green eyes focus on him. The letters she had read last night had been regretful and clearly loving, but nothing like this.
James closes his eyes. “This was a long time ago.” There’s an odd habit some people have that when they tell a lie they will shake their head; the body betraying the mind.
Lily’s heart is racing, but she thinks her daughter has been unimaginably brave in her quest to find her father, so perhaps it’s time for her mother to step up as well.
„Was it?“ she asks quietly.
„This letter is from my birthday last year,“ Harry says. There had been letters way older in the pile; some of them were so old Harry must have still been in diapers when they had been written!
“My company has a branch here in Britain,“ Lily says.
James feels like he might be dying, or perhaps coming alive.
“Will you stay, Lily?” he swallows. “We’ll make it work this time, I promise.”
Lily leans forward and kisses him. Their daughter watches, equal parts delighted and disgusted. She tolerates is well for any child, but after a few seconds her impatience wins out.
„So we can stay? Be a real family?“
They let go of each other, blushing like the teenagers they once were.
„I think we do need to go home. Take care of Greyscale and figure out things with your school and my job, but we‘ll try, love.“ Lily gently combs back her daughter‘s hair.
„You brave darling girl. You and Archie have really played us all, haven‘t you.“
They had, even if they had barely expected it themselves when they said goodbye to each other at camp. A girl off to meet her father and a boy ready to claim his future.
“We spoil you children. Just give you anything you want,” James says, shaking his head in mocking disappointment. “Archie finally got to Sirius as well, so he’ll attend AIM with you.”
“Too soon,“ Harry says, because her dad just finally showed up in her life, there had been no time for him to spoil her. „And yeah, Archie told me that.”
James raises an eyebrow at her subdued voice. “Are you already getting tired of him? And here I thought we need to stay prepared to keep any future shenanigans in check.”
Harry shrugs listlessly, biting her lip. Getting tired of Archie Black seems almost impossible to her – he’s funny and compassionate and a good friend. Who just offered to let a stranger take your place, just so they could meet their father? It’s just – well, you might have guessed it – that Harry seeks the best education in potions she could possibly find and it definitely does not lie at AIM, where the curriculum is rumoured to be quite atrocious. No, she wants the best teacher, and there is only one who fits that description.
When his daughter utters the name Severus Snape James wonders whether he fell asleep into a deep and dark nightmare. He repeats the name, almost incredulously.
Harry looks up sharply. “Do you know Master Snape?”
For a second, her father is about to snort in derision. Does he know Snape? He knows the man as well as anybody would, if you had once met on a train, eleven-years-old and ready to declare themselves nemesis. So James knows a lot, every undesirable and miserable thing about Snape and he’s about to share it, when his gaze falls on his daughter’s face.
Like any human being, Severus Snape has two sides like a coin and where her father can only see the smudged one Harry knows the polished one like any believer knows their god. And it’s shining in her eyes, the hope and curiosity steadily focused on her father.
He almost chokes on it. His daughter, his own flesh and bone, a fan of potions and Severus Snape. “Yes, we were in the same year at Hogwarts. And your mother used to be friends with him, didn’t she ever tell you?”
Lily winces. She had watched the exchange with a heavy heart, knowing that her daughter would never be allowed to attend the school Snape was teaching at. Now she regretted not nipping this particular conversation in the bud.
Harry gapes. “You said they were neighbours when you were young, but…”
„Well, things got complicated. We had a bit of a fight, you see.“
Harry looks unimpressed and who can hold it against her? Her parents had told her the same of each other and here they were! She turns an expectant gaze towards her father.
“I wasn‘t on particularly well terms with him either,“ James admits.
He watches as she deflates a little, her shoulders sinking and the small face falling. He desperately thinks he would do anything to bring back the hope in her eyes and that smile lighting up the room. He’s missed nine years of her life; she grew into a determined and incredibly smart child – even if it’s one in love with everything James hates. Maybe if he had been present in her life he could have moulded her interests, he thinks desperately. A misguided idea to shape a child to suit your own liking, but one also irrelevant to him now: there’s only the future now and he so dearly wants to be a good father in it.
“Maybe we can try and reach out to Snape, me and Lily, see if there is any possibility of him tutoring you,” he says hastily. It’s a bold idea; once you declare someone to be your nemesis there’s rarely any coming back from it. Lily pulls a grimace in disbelief and doubt, but Harry perks up.
She lunges forward to throw her small arms around him and he gently squeezes her back in wonderment. James Potter has been brooding over it for years: what should he have done differently, as a husband, as a father? And all it took to open his eyes was this clever girl: he needs to try, to keep trying and compromise – even if it involves your worst enemy – and it won’t fix everything, but neither does doing nothing, so he swears to himself feverishly to never stop trying again. If not for himself then for the miracle that is his daughter.
Before he can blink or tear up or say anything, Harry has let go and takes off into the rest of the house, loudly calling Archie’s name. She finds him sitting on the couch, chin resting on his knees as he tells Remus and Sirius of how they met at camp. All of he adults have heard this story before; countless times by now, but those are the best stories, aren’t they?
Once she bursts through the door he stops and looks up at her. Her cheeks hurt from grinning and he beams back. Two identical little strangers, neither identical nor strangers anymore: they have achieved everything their small heart’s desired and more, and let me tell you, if that doesn’t frighten the adults around them the smallest bit, there’s no hope left for them.