Chapter Text
June 1st
“I’m moving,” Harry Potter moaned, burying his face in his hands at the Weasley kitchen table. “I can’t take it anymore. The next reporter to shove a camera in my face is going to land me in Azkaban, I swear.”
Around the table, the Weasleys exchanged sympathetic looks. Hermione did too, honorary Weasley that she was. Molly quietly slid another helping of bacon and eggs toward Harry.
Sympathy bacon.
Pity bacon.
“It can’t be that bad,” Ron said.
Harry looked up.
Ron wilted beneath the exhausted glare.
“…Or maybe it is,” he mumbled.
“Ron, the one from Witch Weekly tried to vanish my shirt,” Harry said darkly, picking apart the food Molly continued plying him with instead of eating any of it. “And they all ask the same stupid questions…”
“Where’s that devastatingly gorgeous girlfriend of yours?” Ginny asked, pitching her voice higher as she pointed her fork at Harry like a microphone.
“I heard you broke up. Are you single?” Charlie added from further down the table, leaning back in his chair with an entirely unhelpful grin.
“Is it true you’re gay?” George asked, not missing a beat.
“What about the rumors surrounding you and Draco Malfoy?” Ron grinned.
Harry slowly looked around the table, his glare landing on each of them in turn.
Nobody cracked.
Then Hermione quietly cleared her throat.
“I heard you harbored sexual attraction toward Severus Snape. Care to comment?” she asked, extending her wand with all the solemn dignity of a Daily Prophet correspondent.
There was silence as everyone wondered if Hermione knew she took it too far.
Then George barked a laugh.
Charlie doubled over with a howl. Ron nearly dumped the entire pitcher of pumpkin juice. Even Harry, as exhausted and irritable as he was, stopped glaring quite as hatefully.
“Leave Harry alone,” Molly scolded, though she was smiling into her teacup so nobody took her too seriously. “He shouldn’t be harassed in his own home.”
“I’d be happy to set up some new wards for you,” Bill offered. He reached for the butter dish before Charlie could become a casualty to the laughter. “Unless you seriously want to run away.”
“I might run away,” Harry muttered, stabbing the pity bacon fiercely.
Morning sunlight spilled through the Burrow’s crooked kitchen windows, catching dust motes that drifted lazily above the scarred wooden table. The room smelled of bacon, fresh bread, and strong tea.
It should have felt comforting.
Instead, Harry wondered how far away Australia really was.
“You could go see my seester in France!” Fleur offered brightly from beside Bill. “She would be ’appy to ’ost you!”
“Er…” Harry’s stomach gave an uncomfortable twist.
Gabrielle.
Sweet, enthusiastic, painfully affectionate Gabrielle.
“I don’t speak French,” he said, grasping for the first excuse that came to mind that wouldn’t insult Fleur.
Not because Harry was scared of her, though he was. It was manners. Respectful.
And Fleur happened to be terrifying.
“Go to Africa with Luna,” Ginny suggested, resting her chin in her hand. She had been the only one to not laugh and that was almost as bad as if she had joined in. “She’s working on a book about magical creatures. You’d probably love helping her.”
Harry gave a noncommittal hum.
He would, actually.
Luna had an incredible talent for making silence feel purposeful instead of awkward, and Harry suspected she’d happily spend six months chasing invisible beasts without questioning why he barely spoke most days.
That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was Harry.
Harry spent far too long leaving irreparable destruction in his path to feel good about forcing his company on others.
Molly, however, refused to let Harry disappear into the sort of isolation he thought would suit everyone the best.
She conspired shamelessly with Kreacher, inviting Harry to the Burrow for dinner often enough that it became routine, then sending Kreacher to nag him whenever Harry ‘forgot’. Between the two of them, Harry was almost never alone for long.
Harry suspected Molly regretted that arrangement from time to time.
Like the afternoon she’d stepped through the Floo at Grimmauld only to find Harry drunk, wand in hand, hurling curses at empty walls while his alcohol-soaked mind insisted Death Eaters were closing in around him.
Or the countless nights she’d insisted he stay over, only to wake to the sounds of Harry screaming from Ron’s bedroom. She never made a fuss. She would simply sit beside him until the panic passed, rubbing slow circles across his back while he shook, cried, and eventually vomited as the whiskey and terror fought for dominance.
Molly never stopped asking him back.
She did, almost immediately, stop trusting him around the Dreamless Sleep potion.
Every vial in her medicine cabinet was hidden behind enough locks and wards to challenge Grimmauld Place itself. It meant either Molly knew him well enough to know he would never steal from her. Since he would also never risk traveling in public himself, it didn’t leave many options.
“Or you could plan on going to Hogwarts with us,” Hermione said, bringing back up the same argument she’d been making for the past two weeks.
Harry’s stomach still dropped like it had the first time she suggested it.
How could she still ask?
How could she not understand?
Home.
Harry always called Hogwarts home.
Since that night, he couldn’t remember the last time he thought of it that way.
Not anymore.
The castle wasn’t moving staircases and late-night trips beneath the Invisibility Cloak anymore. It wasn’t laughter in the Gryffindor common room with Hermione or stolen treacle tart from the kitchens with Ron.
Hogwarts became stone slick with blood.
Walls that crumbled and killed.
Smoke that filled his lungs until he choked.
Hogwarts was Tonks.
Remus.
Fred.
Snape.
Colin.
Himself.
Every name hit like their body striking the ground.
All dead.
Except Harry.
Harry, who had followed Albus Dumbledore’s impossible quest to its bitter end. Harry, who had reunited the Deathly Hallows.
Harry, who should have died with everyone else.
Instead, his fate had been sealed.
Never again would Harry step foot in Hogwarts.
“Australia was wicked,” Ron said suddenly around a mouthful of eggs that didn’t seem to stick in his throat. “You could go there and just start fresh, eh?”
“Yeah… maybe,” Harry agreed absently, knowing he wouldn’t.
After yawning hard enough that his jaw clicked, Harry’s elbows landed on the table to hold most of his weight. He blinked several times, as if he could force the heaviness from his eyes.
It didn’t work.
It never did.
“You need to sleep, dear,” Molly said softly.
It was only her hand that settled on his shoulder.
Harry still flinched.
The movement was small, instinctive, gone almost as quickly as it came.
Around the table, conversation stumbled. Charlie suddenly found his toast fascinating. George reached for the jam she didn’t need. Ron took another bite despite already chewing.
Nobody looked at Harry.
Which meant they had all noticed.
“Why don’t you eat your breakfast,” Molly suggested, her hand staying where it landed. “You can go take a kip in Ronnie’s room after. There’s no use in deciding big things when you’re tired.”
“I’m fine,” Harry lied automatically. He tried out a smile, wondered if it looked as pained as it felt, “I think I even got two whole hours last night.”
Nobody laughed.
The joke fell flat so Harry looked back down at his plate rather than the too-concerned eyes of the others.
“And I’ve got to go meet the goblins today anyway,” Harry added quickly, a desperate and entirely true excuse. “Can’t exactly sleep through that.”
Harry couldn’t stay there, not with everyone who made moving forward seem so bloody simple.
It was only Harry they watched like he was something fragile they all had to keep from breaking.
Harry was tired of people caring about him.
It sounded awful, probably… definitely. Ungrateful at best and properly pathetic at worst. But people who cared about Harry had a nasty habit of ending up dead, cursed, tortured, maimed, or grieving someone else who had been stupid enough to care too.
It was a pattern.
Harry hated patterns.
Harry hated that he had been lectured so much by Hermione recently that his brain was able to identify a pattern.
“Yeah, the goblins are pretty pissed with you, mate,” Bill said cheerfully, dragging Harry out of his thoughts with all the subtlety of a Bludger to the face. He pointed his fork across the table and wagged it in mock admonishment. “Thief.”
Harry snorted before he could stop himself. Ron laughed around his eggs, and Hermione’s mouth twitched behind her cup of tea. The sound loosened the air around the table.
Not much.
Not enough.
Only enough that Harry could pretend, for a second, that he was simply being mocked at breakfast and not actively scrutinized by every person in the room.
“They can bite me,” Harry muttered.
“Harry did them a favor by freeing that dragon,” Charlie said at once, as if the dragon were a personal friend who had been rudely insulted. He leaned forward, his red hair looking like fire in the soft morning light coming through the Burrow’s crooked kitchen window. “Poor baby was miserable down there. She was terrified of us by the time my team found her. Skittish as anything.”
Harry looked at Ron.
Ron looked at Hermione.
Hermione looked at Harry.
All three of them pressed their lips together.
The poor baby in question had tried very hard to bite their heads off, set them on fire, and possibly drown them all in a lake. Harry had very few standards left, but even he felt that it had been excessive.
‘Poor baby,’ indeed.
“Will the goblins try to hurt Harry?” Molly asked, wringing her hands and pretending to not watch Harry while watching Harry.
Not the way reporters watched him, like he was a headline with inconvenient limbs. Not the way strangers watched him, hungry for proof that Harry Potter was still someone worth being impressed by.
Molly just watched him.
“Nah,” Bill said, waving off her concern with easy confidence. “They won’t kill him or anything. Worst they’ll do is make him switch banks.”
Harry wished they could kill him.
The thought came calmly.
That was the worst part, really.
Not dramatic. Not desperate.
Just there, settling in the spaces between his ribs. He imagined death would be quiet.
Peaceful.
“As quick and easy as falling asleep,” Sirius had said.
Harry’s fingers tightened around his mug.
He wondered if Sirius had known how hard it would become for Harry to sleep. He wondered if he would ever see his godfather again.
Hermione’s voice snapped the kitchen back into place. “But there aren’t any other wizarding banks in the United Kingdom,” she pointed out.
“Exactly,” Bill grinned.
Harry let out a short, joyless laugh.
Brilliant. Fantastic. Wonderful.
He didn’t give a damn what bank held his gold, or his dead parents’ gold, or Sirius’s gold, or any other miserable inheritance someone had died and left behind for him to trip over. He just wanted the howlers to stop showing up and shrieking about settling debts while he was trying very hard not to have one of his daily breakdowns before noon.
“I’m gonna head out then,” Harry said, pushing back from the table.
His chair scraped against the kitchen floor, too loud in the sudden quiet.
“Thanks for breakfast, Molly.”
Molly looked at his plate.
Harry did too, because apparently he hated himself.
The eggs had gone cold. The toast sat untouched beside them. The bacon had been moved around enough to look shredded. The only thing he had managed was coffee, black and strong enough that Molly had looked disapproving even when she poured it for him.
Instead of commenting, she only stood and wrapped him in a hug.
Harry held himself still beneath her arms, careful and rigid, counting the seconds in the floral smell of her apron and the warmth of her hands against his back.
“We love you, dear,” Molly said softly. “Come by for dinner?”
“Mm,” Harry said.
Not yes.
Not no.
A coward’s answer, then.
Molly kissed his cheek anyway.
“I’ll walk you out, Harry,” Ginny said suddenly, rising from the table before anyone else could volunteer. “I’m heading to Angie’s anyway. Bye, everyone.”
Ginny made her rounds, not rushing it as she once might have. She hugged her mother, hugged her brothers, stole a piece of toast from Ron’s plate, and ignored his offended noise with years of practice.
Harry stepped outside before he could be pressured into doing the same thing.
The morning air was cool enough to bite at his skin. The garden was overgrown in the way the Burrow always was, wild and stubborn and bursting with life no matter how often someone tried to tidy it. Dew clung to the grass. Gnomes rustled somewhere near the hedge. Smoke curled lazily from the crooked chimney behind them.
It could have been home.
God.
Harry wished it was home.
“How bad is it?” Ginny asked the very moment she joined him and closed the door.
Her hand rested lightly on his arm, and Harry hated that he did not flinch from her. He hated that some part of him still knew Ginny as safe. Her face tilted up toward his, brown eyes steady and searching.
Harry hated that he couldn’t hate her.
Harry hated that she wouldn’t hate him.
The guilt hit him first, making Harry look away from Ginny instead of lying to her face. It hurt to know he was worrying her, all of them really.
For nearly a month, Harry had taken up space in their kitchen, their lives, their grief.
Accepting their food without eating it. Sleeping in their rooms without sleeping. Standing in their garden pretending he was fine when everyone knew he was lying.
“I’m okay,” Harry said. “You guys don’t need to worry about me.”
Ginny snorted, beautifully scathing.
Harry’s mouth almost curved despite himself, and for the hundredth time, he wished Ginny had been meant to be his.
It was easy to imagine when he was cruel enough to make himself.
Ginny playing Quidditch. Harry becoming an Auror. A wedding in the Burrow’s garden like Bill and Fleur’s, with Molly crying and Ron pretending he wasn’t.
A little house somewhere. Three kids, maybe. A space where they could fly. An ordinary life built from impossible things.
An impossible future.
Because Harry was too broken, and Ginny knew it.
Just as they had gone on a break the day of Dumbledore’s funeral, they ended it the day of Fred’s.
They lay side by side in the overgrown garden behind Grimmauld Place, the last warmth of the day still lingering in the grass beneath them. Above the crooked rooftops of London, the sun was slipping lower, washing the sky in soft streaks of amber and pink that neither of them had the energy to appreciate.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
“You love me,” Ginny said quietly, her eyes never leaving the sky, “just… not in the right way.”
Harry closed his eyes.
“We’re trying to force something that isn’t there,” she said, the truth they could both feel.
Harry wanted to tell her she was wrong.
Instead, he listened to the distant rumble of traffic, the rustle of leaves overhead, and the quiet hitch in Ginny’s breathing as she cried beside him.
Harry couldn’t give her the words she wanted.
What could he ever possibly give her?
Harry barely had enough of himself left to drag himself out of bed most mornings.
“I’m so sorry,” Harry said.
“I’ll always love you,” Ginny had whispered.
Harry turned his head.
She was still staring at the sunset, tears slipping silently into her hair. Harry hadn’t cried all day until then, when a tear escaped to trace a slow path toward his ear.
No one had ever said those words to him before.
Not really.
Only ghosts wearing the faces of his parents.
Harry swallowed hard and pushed the pain down until he could pretend it never existed.
He wished, with everything he had left, that loving Ginny had been enough.
For someone else, it would be. That, he was sure of.
“Really, Gin, I’ve been enough of a burden to you lot. I’ll be fine,” Harry said, forcing the words to sound steadier than they felt. “I’m gonna head out. Tell Angie I said hi.”
Before Ginny could argue, Harry turned on the spot.
Not fleeing, busy.
The familiar squeeze of apparition wrapped around him, and the Burrow vanished.
Behind him, the garden remained exactly where he left it, warm beneath the late summer sun, with Ginny standing alone among the wildflowers, staring at the empty patch of grass where Harry had been a heartbeat before.
Within minutes of arriving at Gringotts, Harry blinked once at the goblin seated across from him, waiting for the punchline that didn’t happen.
“You’re joking,” Harry said flatly.
“I think not, Mister Potter.” Nettles the Not-Very-Friendly-Bastard bared his teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You are banned from Gringotts. Consider yourself fortunate your use of an Unforgivable against my brothers did not begin a war you would have lost.”
Harry stared.
First of all… rude.
Second of all… incorrect.
Harry signed and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses before he dared look past Nettles again.
Crates.
Rows and rows of wooden crates, stacked shoulder-high, every last Galleon, Knut, family heirloom, and Potter or Black possession packed into them.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with all of that?” Harry asked.
“Not my problem.” Nettles’s lip curled. “My final job is to inform you that there is one minute remaining before it becomes ash.”
Harry’s head snapped back toward him.
Nettles smiled meanly, “Fifty-nine.”
Bloody…
Fine.
Harry crossed the room in three quick strides, barely pausing before lifting a hand toward the mountain of crates. Magic rushed eagerly through him, and one after another they vanished, reappearing at Grimmauld Place.
Hopefully.
Silence settled over the room at the accidentally impressive magic.
Story of Harry’s life, really.
Accidentally impressive.
“You are a powerful wizard, Harry Potter,” Nettles said. “It is unfortunate that you are now an enemy of Goblin Nation.”
Harry let out a tired breath, “Oh, piss off.”
He turned on the spot before either of them could decide sixty seconds had been too generous.
Grimmauld Place appeared around him with a familiar crack of air and the smell of something Kreacher must have been baking. The crates beat him there, stacked high across the foyer like someone had decided to build a monument to every dead person who had ever left Harry money.
“Master! You’re home!” Kreacher appeared near the doorway, wringing his hands. “Master, there were boxes! Many boxes! Kreacher is not touching them until Master says, Kreacher is not knowing what nasty goblin tricks might be hidden inside.”
“I know,” Harry said, already pulling off his jumper with shaky hands. “I’m banned from Gringotts. That’s all the stuff from my vaults.”
Kreacher froze only for a second before he snarled.
“The nasty goblins would dare ban my honorable master?” he demanded, shuffling after Harry as he headed for the liquor cabinet. “How dare they? When my master is a good man. A great man! What right do those foul, horrible little beasts—”
“I Imperiused three goblins, destroyed the bank, and stole their dragon,” Harry said flatly.
Kreacher stopped.
Harry grabbed the bourbon and took a long drink straight from the bottle. It burned down his throat, sharp and familiar.
“Oh,” Kreacher said, his ears wilting. “Yes, well. Perhaps Master Harry earned the nasty and foul goblins’ punishment.”
“Maybe,” Harry laughed humorlessly.
Kreacher moved quickly to block Harry when he made for the library, which was bold for an elf who had just suggested Harry might deserve goblin vengeance.
“Would Master not prefer lunch?” Kreacher asked. “Kreacher will prepare something tasty. Master needs to eat.”
“I’m fine.”
“Master is not fine.”
Harry looked at him.
Kreacher’s ears flattened, but he did not move out of the way.
For one ridiculous second, Harry almost laughed again. Then the weight in his chest shifted, and the library door behind Kreacher seemed like the only out.
Dark. Quiet. Empty.
The only room in the house that he could block Kreacher from entering.
“I’m going to the library,” Harry said, firmly, not an order. Kreacher still moved, though Harry could see he hated it.
“But what does Master want Kreacher to do with the boxes?” Kreacher asked.
Harry stopped with his hand on the door and glanced back at the crates. Potter gold. Black gold. Old silver. Old blood. Old names Harry had inherited because everyone else had the good sense to die properly.
“Leave the gold in the crates,” he said. “Anything else can go in my room.”
“Yes, Master,” Kreacher said miserably.
Harry went into the library and shut the door behind him. Then, because he hated knowing that he was spreading misery everywhere he went, he called out, “Thanks, Kreacher! You’re the best.”
Maybe Kreacher heard him, maybe he didn’t. Harry didn’t know and he wished that he could care.
The library smelled like dust, leather, and firewhisky. Not the liquor gripped tightly in Harry’s hand, different firewhisky. Enough that reminded Harry that he was not the first man to drink himself sick and stupid in that house.
The burn helped.
Until it didn’t.
It was the other story of Harry’s life.
Sirius’s life.
“Quick and easy as falling asleep.”
Why didn’t he stay?
Harry’s knees hit the floor when the bottle slipped from his fingers and rolled across the carpet. His breath caught in his chest and he sucked in air to try and clear it.
Once.
Twice.
Who screamed?
Who slung a spell at him that Harry had to dodge? Who ducked behind the desk?
Death Eater? Voldemort?
Harry ran.
His heart hammered against his chest as green light chased him, close enough to paint everything in flashes of sickly color.
He didn’t know where he was.
A corridor?
A forest?
A graveyard?
It changed every time he looked too hard.
The spell struck a tree beside his head and bark exploded across his cheek.
Harry had to keep running.
But why?
Why was he running?
He was so tired of running.
He was so tired.
“Time to die, Itty Bitty Potter,” Bellatrix sang behind him. Her laughter found him in the dark, high and sharp and irritating. “Time to join your familyyyy!”
Harry stumbled.
Something was wrong with that.
His family was dead.
He knew that.
He could join them.
No.
He couldn’t.
Not yet.
Not ever?
“Shut up!” Harry shouted, spinning and firing blindly into the shadows. “Leave me alone!”
Bellatrix laughed again.
“Are you sure you wish for us to leave you alone?” Lucius Malfoy asked in his oily voice.
Lucius stood where the gravestones had been a second ago, pale hair gleaming, wand loose in his hand. He stepped neatly aside as Harry’s curse shot past him.
“I suppose we’ll simply take our leave and take our entertainment with us,” he said.
Hermione screamed.
She was suddenly there, caught in Lucius’s grip, her eyes wide and terrified as she clawed at the arm locked around her throat.
“Harry, help us!”
Ron was on the forest floor, ropes cutting into his wrists as he fought to get free.
“Do something, mate!” Ron shouted. “Why won’t you help us?”
“I am,” Harry gasped.
He fired again.
Red. Yellow. White.
Green. Gold.
Stunning spells. Cutting curses. Shields. Hexes he had learned from books, from enemies, from war.
Magic he didn’t even recognize poured out of him until his body shook and his throat hurt from screaming.
None of it mattered.
It never did.
“Harry Potter,” a cold voice said behind him.
No.
Not again.
“The Boy Who Lived.”
Harry turned.
Voldemort stood in the dark, wand raised, his lipless mouth stretched into something triumphant.
Behind Harry, Bellatrix dragged her blade across Ron’s throat. Hermione screamed once before a flash of magic took her too.
Harry didn’t turn around.
If he looked, he would see their eyes.
He would see the accusation.
He would see that he had failed them.
Voldemort lifted his wand higher.
And there it was.
The only thing Harry had ever been good for.
All he had to do was stop running.
All he had to do was die.
All he had to do was not leave King’s Cross Station.
Go on.
“Come to die.”
Harry hit the floor with a strangled gasp.
“HARRY!”
Harry’s lungs fought for air as he scrambled backward, palms slipping against the hardwood. His clothes clung uncomfortably to his skin.
Sweat.
No…
Water?
Harry frowned down at himself, blinking hard.
Not dead and… wet.
“Why’m I wet?” he mumbled thickly.
“Honestly.”
Harry looked up with a gasp.
Bushy hair pulled into a messy bun.
Brown eyes.
Tired.
Alive.
“‘Mione?” Harry breathed, heart clenching painfully. “You’re alive?”
Hermione’s expression softened as she reached down, offering him a hand. “Yes, Harry. I’m alive. Ron’s alive. We’re all alive.”
Harry stared at her hand and shook his head, “No.”
It was a trick, a trap.
“Everyone’s dead,” he slurred. “Killed ’em. I killed ’em all.”
Hermione didn’t waste time arguing with him. She simply pulled him to his feet, slipping an arm around his waist when he swayed.
“Bed,” she said firmly. “We will talk tomorrow.”
“Don’t wanna talk.”
Harry leaned against her without thinking. The room refused to stay still.
When the walls blurred and Harry felt sure nothing was real, he laughed. Because he didn’t want anything.
“Don’t wanna talk. Don’t wanna sleep. Don’t wanna breathe.”
Hermione’s grip tightened almost painfully for a second before she pushed open Sirius’s bedroom door.
“Don’t say that,” she said quietly. “You keep living, Harry James.”
Harry all but collapsed onto the bed when he was pushed to it.
“Can’t die,” he mumbled into the pillow. “Can’t die anyway.”
Hermione eased his shoes off while he fought to keep his eyes open.
“’M never gonna see James.”
His voice cracked.
“Just gonna…” A yawn interrupted him. “Just gonna live forever.”
“Oh, Harry.”
The mattress dipped as Hermione sat beside him.
She brushed his damp curls away from his forehead the way Molly sometimes did. It felt nice, like maybe he could drift away just like that.
“You’re going to get through this,” Hermione said softly. “One day at a time. Maybe - maybe not in this house though. I don’t think it’s helping.”
Harry let out a tired sound that might have been a laugh.
“Gonna move,” he whispered. “Too many ghosts here.”
“Maybe,” Hermione agreed.
“Don’t wanna leave you.”
“You won’t.”
“No.” Harry frowned, tried to remember why he knew that it was Hermione who would leave him. “Please, don’t leave me?”
Hermione smiled, though it looked close to tears. “I’ll be right here when you wake up,” she promised. “Then we’ll get Ron, we’ll figure out dinner. We can figure it all out, together. Okay, Harry?”
Harry hummed.
The liquor-fueled bliss of a blackout began to crash over him even while Hermione’s fingers continued stroking his hair. Each time she did, the nightmare drifted farther away. Maybe it didn’t have to be like that, maybe Harry could wake up and find something that would be peaceful.
Or as close to it as he could.
Maybe… Harry’s breath evened out with his head on Hermione’s lap… maybe he should move.
“Oh!”
The ribbon slipped through Alice’s fingers as the future stole her attention.
It happened all at once.
Grey skies above a rain soaked pavement.
The Forks High parking lot.
Someone waited for her.
It wasn’t anyone she knew.
A stranger? A stranger that turned before she reached him, as though he’d been expecting her.
It was rare that Alice got to meet strangers. Typically, they introduced themselves to her much further in advance through her visions.
The stranger was young.
No… not young.
Tired, maybe.
He had the prettiest black hair that stood every direction, framing brilliant green eyes that caught hers immediately. His glasses were very tacky, but they suited him - somehow.
The clothes hanging off his thin body did not suit him.
It had to be the first time Alice met him. Even when a human didn’t know her, Alice still had clothes sent to them anonymously if they seemed to need it.
The world, Alice knew, would be such a better place if everyone only dressed nicer.
Everything else about the stranger bothered Alice, both the version that met him and the version watching before it happened.
Alice’s chest squeezed unexpectedly at the tightness of his body, the bags beneath his eyes. Even the air surrounding him made it seem like he was expecting an attack - or a war.
An attack that he would have to fight against.
A war he would be drafted to, even without desire.
“Harry,” he said, offering his hand with quiet politeness. “Harry Potter.”
Alice smiled automatically, “Alice Cullen.”
The moment their hands met, the vision sharpened.
Harry’s hand wasn’t warm, not the way humans usually felt.
Cold.
Heavy.
Buzzing beneath the surface was something that seemed ancient, powerful.
Was it fate?
It made her want, irrationally and immediately, to hug a complete stranger. Which wasn’t unique to Harry, but it was the first time that Alice knew she would have the opportunity to eventually do so.
“Come on,” Alice heard herself say brightly, keeping hold of his hand as though he’d always belong. “Let me introduce you to my family.”
The vision shattered, not in a slow fading of light, but bursts of white static.
Alice blinked away the white as Edward’s piano fell silent beside her, the final note hanging in the room for just a heartbeat before disappearing.
“Who was that?” Edward asked curiously, having seen the vision through Alice’s thoughts.
Alice didn’t answer immediately.
The phantom touch of Harry’s hand still felt wrong.
Rightfully wrong?
Wrongly right?
It was different, exciting.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, smiling slowly as Harry began to fit in many futures Alice had seen once without him - once with.
The mystery of who Harry Potter was didn’t matter, not when Alice could see that they would have forever to solve it.