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Chapter Text

“Ron! Harry!”

Harry dropped his book on Transfiguration-based defensive magic. Beside him, the Nokia Ron had been attempting to enchant fizzled and combusted.

“Harry! Ron!” Hermione shouted again, her voice echoing from the potions lab.

They exchanged a quick glance before leaping to their feet and racing to the kitchen, where they rocketed down the stairs to the cellar. Through a door tucked next to crates of wine and vegetables, they spotted Hermione, her hair frizzy from potions fumes. She was pouring a shimmering potion into a goblet, which she promptly thrust into Ron’s hands.

“Drink this,” she demanded, her wild eyes gleaming.

The potion shimmered with specks of gold. “Is that time sand?” Harry asked, squinting at a half-empty vial on the workbench.

“Hold on,” said Ron, looking at Hermione with alarm. “Did you put time sand in this?”

“What’s that matter? Drink it!”

Last night, Hermione had brought home an assignment she’d been working on from her part-time consult job in the Department of Mysteries, too eager to leave it for the next day. She had immediately sequestered herself in her potions lab and set to work. Judging by the state of her, she must’ve been down here all night.

“Hermione, I don’t think—”

“Be quiet, Harry,” she snapped. “Ron, drink it before I spell it into your stomach.”

As Hermione had done so before after similar threats, Ron brought the goblet to his lips and swallowed the potion down. He began to shrink, and his facial hair receded into his cheeks and chin. For a moment, he looked like his teenage self—then he began to rapidly age back to normal.

Hermione watched this happen with a rapt expression. When Ron finally stopped regrowing, now beardless, she broke out in a grin.

“Look,” she said, conjuring a mirror. “Your scars are gone!”

Harry peered further at Ron’s face to see the silvery scars that had covered his face for years had been replaced with normal skin. “That’s impossible,” he said.

“How?” Ron asked, staring at his unmarred reflection.

Hermione took out her wand and waved it. A whirl of magic swirled around Ron, dissolving instead of giving him a silver glow as it should have.

“You’re not a werewolf anymore,” she breathed.

Before they could say anything else, the world exploded.

Chapter Text

Harry awoke staring at the underside of a bush. Sunlight glared through withering leaves, blinding him. The scent of soil was thick and cloying in his throat, the mulch accompanying it digging into his back.

Voices echoed from somewhere above him. “—residents of a cul-de-sac in Leeds woke up to find all their television aerials bent at a perfect right angle. No explanation has been given—a small town near Liverpool has approved plans for a community garden—there are reports of a strike at Coleman’s Grocers for refusal to allow water drinkage—"

Muggle news, thought Harry, who had long-since used the Wizarding Wireless Network. Ron had even enchanted him a modern radio so it would work with the wizarding and Muggle stations. It’d been a birthday gift last year.

“—a new housing estate is being built on the south end of Little Whinging—"

There was a harrumph. “Just what we need,” sneered a horrifyingly familiar voice, “more riffraff sullying the community!”

Harry’s heart constricted in his chest. He recalled what had happened now. Hermione, the potion, the time sand. The explosion.

No, thought Harry. The hydrangea bush above him was starting to look familiar. It couldn’t be.

Something about a celebrity echoed through the window. Another familiar voice, one he hadn’t heard in years, piped up. “As if we care about their sordid affairs,” it sniffed.

Harry closed his eyes. Petunia. Vernon.

The news continued to drone on, but Harry couldn’t hear it past the rush of decade-old memories. Petunia’s curled lip, Vernon’s balled up fists, the dozens of locks on his bedroom door. The drunken slurs hurled towards him after Petunia and Dudley had gone to bed, the bruises on his skin from Dudley and his friends, frying pans flying towards his head.

The cupboard under the stairs.

It haunted his dreams sometimes. He could still feel the constricting walls either side of him, the spiders crawling over him, the sawdust floating down into his eyes when anyone so much as walked down the steps.

Harry couldn’t be here again. He couldn’t be.

But when he opened his eyes, he was still lying in the flowerbed.

What year was it? he wondered. All of the summers had blurred into each other. He could only remember isolated incidents, such as Ron’s phone call that had him locked in his bedroom and starved, the floating pudding, and blowing up Marge. There were more, but he didn’t want to remember them. He’d never come back here since he’d left on the eve of his seventeenth birthday. The last time Harry had even seen a Dursley had been at Dudley’s championship boxing match three years ago, and even then he’d only just peeked in to see how his cousin had been doing as they’d taken to exchanging letters once or twice a year.

Laughter reached Harry. He turned to see Dudley and his friends heading through the neighbourhood. He didn’t recognize any of his friends, save for Piers Polkiss who had tormented Harry throughout his childhood, and Dudley barely even looked recognizable. While he had remained bulky, it’d been with muscle and only a little bit of a pot belly. This Dudley was all fat, his face round enough his strong jaw was nowhere to be seen.

Harry watched as the gang exchanged barbs, heading in the direction of Wisteria Walk. Probably to vandalize play equipment, Harry figured. Dudley looked about the age he’d been when he started doing that. Around fourteen or fifteen. Which meant he was anywhere between 1994 and 1996, ten or so years in the past.

Was Cedric alive? Sirius? Had he and Dudley been attacked by the dementors yet?

Harry swallowed thickly. Could he save them? What about Ron and Hermione, had they also come back? Wait, Ron. Fred.

“Oh, Merlin,” Harry whispered. “They’re all alive.” Tears welled up in his eyes, and Harry slapped himself before he could have a meltdown. “Come on, Potter,” he muttered. “Get a grip. You’re a bloody Auror, act like it.”

First things first, confirm the date, Harry informed himself sternly. That meant getting out of this flowerbed and going inside his childhood home. No, not home, house. Right. Grimmauld Place was his home. Ron and Hermione were his home. And even if Ron and Hermione weren’t here at this moment, and Grimmauld Place was a ramshackle nesting ground of dark magic and doxies, they were there in his memory.

Harry nodded to himself and crawled out from beneath the withering hydrangeas. Mulch clung to the curls in his hair and the sweat staining his t-shirt. He dusted himself off as much as possible before heading inside. The flowery yellow wallpaper was just as he remembered it, and so were the family portraits devoid of him. The television echoed from the living room, turned onto one of Petunia’s soaps. Harry skittered past the doorway before he could be noticed and headed straight for the kitchen.

The calendar informed him it was July eighth, about three weeks after Hogwarts had let out, and as he’d suspected, it was 1995. When had the dementors appeared? Sometime after his birthday, he recalled, as he’d never spent a birthday at Grimmauld Place when he was younger. That meant he was stuck here for the next month.

Four weeks.

Four weeks without Ron and Hermione at his side, in their bed, at the dinner table telling him about their days. No more hearing about Hermione and her work in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; or Ron and his tinkering with Muggle and magical objects when he wasn’t working pro-bono on some magical being’s case. He wouldn’t get to share the latest news from the Wizengamot or some case he’d finished with the Aurors, because he wasn’t an Auror anymore. He wasn’t even fifteen yet.

Merlin.

No use dwelling on it now, so what next? Contact Ron and Hermione, Harry decided. He headed upstairs, instinctively dodging the creaky steps as he went. Harry didn’t think he’d even remembered where they were, but it seemed his younger body still had that muscle memory.

His bedroom door still had the locks. Harry stared at them, a strange feeling burbling up in his chest. Not long after he’d become an Auror, he’d been called to a Muggle home for signs of underage magic. Harry had come across a door much like this, although it had only the one deadbolt and no cat flap. But it’d been close enough to his childhood that he’d spent the night in Ron and Hermione’s arms, desperately trying to hold in his cries of pain and fury.

No child should face this, different or not. Harry’s hand itched for his wand. A single spell would have them removed. It’d be simple, and he wouldn’t have to worry about being locked in for the remainder of his stay here.

No, thought Harry. He shouldn’t use magic. His wand wasn’t clear of the Trace yet, and this was a nonmagical area besides. Suspicious activity would be recorded immediately.

Harry ignored it for now and entered his room. It was just as he recalled it, barebones and covered in his stuff. Teenage him had been so messy, an act of rebellion against Petunia’s perfectly tidy house. It took Harry a few minutes to find a useable quill and sheet of parchment in the mess, and he settled at his desk to write.

Dear Ron and Hermione, he started off, before recalling that Hermione usually went on vacation for the first half of the summer. He scribbled out Hermione’s name and decided to write to Ron first, as he was the closest.

Dear Ron and Hermione,

How has your summer been so far? I’ve been dying in this heat and the Dursleys aren’t helping. Aunt Petunia has me in the garden most mornings trying to keep her flowers alive. I think I must’ve used at least twenty gallons of water in the past week alone. So much for the drought.

I’ve been wandering around town every afternoon, but it’s dead boring. I’ve even considered cracking open my Transfigurations textbook!

Have you written Hermione yet? I hear she’s on vacation in France. Do you think she’s met Fleur Delacour there? I wonder if it’s as hot there as it is here. Maybe she’s gone skiing like she did last year. The mountains still have snow, right? Do you think it’s like flying?

How about you? Have you had your fill of garden gnomes already? Has Fred and George started working on their prank products yet? Maybe I’ll write them and have them send me some. I could do with a bit of fun!

Hope to hear from you soon!

Harry

The letter may not look like much, but Harry had filled it with references and coded messages. The Transfigurations textbook referred to his recent work with combining transfiguration and defensive magic, and Hermione truly had gone skiing last year. Well, it had been the three of them who had gone with Fleur and Bill, not just Hermione and her parents, and Ron had been the one to mention that it was like flying.

The letter to Hermione was similar, and once Harry was finished, he instinctively looked around for Pigwidgeon. His gaze landed on Hedwig’s cage and perch in the corner.

“Hedwig,” Harry breathed. She stared at him with great yellow eyes and Harry inexplicably found himself tearing up.

He held out his wrist for her and she fluttered over, her claws barely digging in as she perched on him. Her weight was heavy on his arm, but he didn’t care. He rested his forehead against hers, willing himself not to cry. She cooed softly and Harry swallowed thickly.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he whispered. “You feel up for a fly?”

She blinked at him slowly like a cat and clacked her beak. With a smile, Harry tied both rolls of parchment to her leg.

“Take this one to Ron first, yeah? He might have a return letter, but you can decide if you want to fly back or head to Hermione first. I think she’s in France.”

Hedwig cooed again, touched her beak against his nose in a sign of affection, before flying out the window. Harry watched until she was a white dot in the sky. He didn’t think he’d ever take her for granted ever again. This time, he would make sure she was protected. This time, she wouldn’t need to take a Killing Curse for him.

Harry wiped away the dew clinging to his lashes and took a seat in his desk chair. He stared at his school trunk, filled with broken quills and homework assignments and his Gryffindor robes, and tried to think about what to do next. He wasn’t much of a planner. Hermione and Ron were. He usually just leant his ideas when they were brainstorming, letting them argue over the semantics. It was different in the Aurors. There, he knew what to do, always had a plan of action for his squad. But this? This was an entirely different Quidditch pitch.

Think, Potter, he told himself. First, the date, then Ron and Hermione. What now?

Harry had about a month before the dementors came and he was pulled into a farce of a disciplinary hearing. He knew how to act in court, now, although he should brush up on the underage secrecy laws. Ron would be helpful for that as he was a law-wizard. He could help Harry figure out some other miscellaneous laws to turn the trial onto his side, but that would have to wait until Ron and Hermione responded to his letters.

There was something Harry could do himself, he realized. His accounts at Gringotts had been a mess when he’d finally taken them up. They had laid dormant for nearly two decades, accruing either debt or profits, as well as losing contracts for investments. It had taken a solid three months to finally put everything to rights, and that had been with Ron, Hermione, Bill, and Fleur’s help.

Although Harry only had the Potter estate to work on (as Sirius was technically Head of the family), it would take a considerable amount of time. He supposed it wouldn’t be terrible if he had something to focus on. Anything to take his mind off the Dursleys.

Harry couldn’t recall when exactly the Order changed shifts, but he supposed as he’d likely been seen heading into the house, they wouldn’t question if he didn’t go back outside.

Although his trunk was a mess, Harry managed to piece together a suitable outfit for when he went to Gringotts. He selected a pair of trousers still long enough to cover his ankles and a silky green poet shirt he’d worn beneath his dress robes. Instead of using his dress robes, which were a very long and voluminous affair mean to swirl out while dancing, he grabbed a black robe from his first year. The Gryffindor patch had frayed off at some point and the robe was much too short, looking more like a capelet than a robe itself, but it would have to do.

“Not bad, Potter,” Harry muttered to his reflection. He ran a hand over his chin, bare of the facial hair he’d had in…the future. His face was also rather gaunt, he saw. Vaguely, Harry recalled pushing around his food more than eating it the summer after the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It had taken him a month to work his way back up to regularly sized meals, and by the time he’d done so, the dark magic from the Black Quill Umbridge had him use had made him too nauseous to swallow his food most days. It was a miracle he hadn’t been hospitalized at some point.

Removing his gaze from his gaunt reflection, Harry knelt beside his bed. He pried up the loose floorboard there, where he remembered storing his most prized possessions. There was a sneak-o-scope, a stack of yellowed letters from the past few years, a handful of coin which he stuffed into a pocket, and his invisibility cloak.

Harry brushed his fingers against the silky fabric. It had gone into retirement after the war. Any sting operations Harry participated in, he’d been provided with an invisibility cloak. He’d also become rather adept at the Disillusionment Charm, so he hadn’t felt the need to use his cloak. It had remain hung in the cupboard at Grimmauld Place, there just in case, but unneeded for schoolyard mischief or hiding from Death Eaters.

Grasping the fabric, Harry flung it over his shoulders. He crept downstairs where Vernon and Petunia were still watching the television. A quick glance at the clock showed it was around four in the afternoon. Harry would have to return within three hours. Petunia still used him to prepare dinner, so his absence would become noticed then.

To avoid alerting the Order, Harry exited through the back door. He clambered over the back garden wall, walked through a small copse of trees, and slipped out onto the road connected to Wisteria Walk. There, he walked a few neighbourhoods over until he was out of the Order’s earshot and summoned the Knight Bus.

The conductor blinked at the disembodied hand that dropped eleven knuts—or the equivalent of about £2.20—into his hand.

“Where to?” he asked as if this happened every day, which it could’ve for all Harry was aware.

In a raspy voice, Harry said, “Diagon Alley. Mercer entrance.”

As most magicals were introduced to Diagon Alley through the Leaky Cauldron, they weren’t aware of a side entrance that let you in not far from Gringotts. On Muggle maps, it was situated quite a few streets away, but due to the space expansion charms that made up the alleyway and it’s connecting streets, it was only a street away from the Leaky Cauldron. This entrance was used if one did not want to traverse through the pub, or if they had business at the north end of Diagon, better known as Horizont Alley.

“Right away,” said the conductor. Harry just barely managed to take a seat before the bus rocketed off, throwing him against the backrest. He clung onto the handrail bolted to the seat in front of him, his arms aching as they took a sharp turn and nearly threw him into the aisle. Two stops later, upon which a group of apprentice-aged wizards hopped off at the theatre and an elderly witch was accompanied to what appeared to be an empty field, they finally made it to Mercer St.

Harry rapped on the doors once he’d exited, and the downdraft of the bus shooting off revealed his disembodied feet. He removed his cloak and glanced around. Mercer St looked just as it did ten years in the future, so he had no trouble locating the antiques shop that housed the entrance.

The shop was cluttered with old furniture, ancient tomes, and a myriad of vases and mirrors. One mirror hanging on the wall showed not his reflection, but rather a bustling street. Harry ducked through the ornate mirror’s frame and exited on Horizont Alley.

Witches and wizards in professional-looking robes strode up and down the alley. It was much bigger and more modern than Diagon Alley, but it still had that magical whimsy. The buildings weren’t as crooked as those in Diagon Alley as the space-expansion charms weren’t on the crux of failing (as they had done a few years ago, leading to a mass Obliviation that kept Harry up for three days straight), but they were still…weird.

As Horizont was a newer street compared to Diagon, it looked relatively Victorian. Buildings had an unnecessary number of wrought iron fences, gargoyles, and tall peaked roofs. Most of the colours were subdued, rather unlike Diagon’s rainbow, but the weirdness belying magic was in the greenery. Snapping snapdragons, dancing vines, colour-changing daffodils—they all revealed how magical the street truly was.

Gringotts towered over the buildings near Harry, casting them in a shade perfect for vampiric roses, which gained their rich red hue by pricking living beings and sucking their blood.

A group of businessmen were eyeing Harry as a teenager didn’t belong in Horizont Alley, so he took his leave. He had ensured his fringe covered his scar, but as he was all over the newspapers due to the Tri-Wizard Tournament, it was better to get out of public as soon as possible.

The entrance to Gringotts was the same one on Diagon, so Harry pulled up his hood before entering Diagon Alley proper, lest an Order member catch sight of him here. The goblins outside Gringotts paid him no mind, merely staring outwards with stern expressions. Harry still nodded to them as he passed, the etiquette drilled into him by Andromeda second nature by now.

They had grown close after he took over the Black accounts and learned she was one of the only Blacks left. He had welcomed her back into the family, restoring her status in the eyes of the wizarding world, and announced her as his proxy in the Wizengamot.

Harry wondered if he should construct a meeting between the two of them. As he was underage and couldn’t take on his title as the Head of House Potter, he wouldn’t be able to join the House of Lords in the Wizengamot either. Perhaps he should look into it. But first, he needed the books for his accounts.

“Good afternoon,” Harry greeted one of the tellers. “Whom may I speak to about the state of my accounts?”

“Accounts and Holdings,” the teller said, ordering someone to escort him. A younger goblin in guard leathers spun on his heel and walked off, leaving Harry to hurry after him.

He was led down a long hallway of gleaming marble and dark wood wainscoting before they stopped by a large door with a plaque denoting it the Accounts and Holdings office. The guard remained just long enough to see Harry through the doors.

The room looked near identical to the lobby, if in a smaller form. A goblin at a reception desk gestured him over and asked for his name and proof of identification.

“Will my vault key do?” asked Harry. It was all the identification he had. His papers were in the Potter vault, where they’d been put after he’d been born. Petunia’s papers were all Muggle and wouldn’t do anything here.

“It’s a start,” the receptionist huffed. “The tellers may take your key at face value, but your manager is liable to test you how they see fit.”

“Of course,” said Harry. He wasn’t sure what this test would be, as he hadn’t had one in the future, but he was sure it wouldn’t be too painful. He hoped.

The receptionist left to alert his vault manager. Twenty minutes later, Harry was led to an office.

A female goblin Harry didn’t recognize sat behind a desk fit for half-giant. She stared at Harry with the disquieting black eyes all goblins had, her gaze even more piercing from the gold half-moon glasses perched on her upturned nose.

“I am Vrina,” she said. “I have overseen the Potter estate for near thirty years. What makes you think I will reveal confidential information given a vault key alone?”

Harry had faced countless dangers as an Auror, but the intensity of Vrina’s gaze unsettled him. He buried the discomfort deep inside, refusing to let it show. Instead, he squared his shoulders and met her eyes directly.

“All I offer other than my name is my blood,” he said. “However, I will not part with it.”

“You do have another thing to offer. Your magic,” Vrina challenged.

“And how shall I do that?”

Vrina retrieved a silver disk from a drawer.

“Place your palm upon the lens. Should it take your magic and declare you a Potter, I will speak with you.”

Harry studied the lens. It was rather simple and had a single bindrune inscribed in the centre. He recognized it from when he worked with Ron on crafting a golem. The bindrune would draw and contain magic, and as the disk was no larger than his palm, it would only absorb a small amount.

Trusting his knowledge, Harry reached for the lens with his wand hand. He felt the draw at once, pulling from the spring of magic within him. The disk started to glow beneath his hand, and after a moment, it stopped drawing upon his magic. He withdrew his hand.

Vrina let out a slow breath.

“You appear to be who you say you are,” she said.

It was the closest thing to an apology from a goblin Harry had ever heard. He inclined his head towards her, for he appreciated the measures she’d gone through to protect his family, even if it’d inconvenienced him. Although, he was curious. Harry’s accounts had been left dormant by the time he’d gotten to them. He wondered if Vrina had retired, or if the war had gotten to her.

Time would tell, he supposed.

Chapter Text

A large leather ledger thumped on the desk before Harry. Its pages were straight and milky white despite being nearly two decades old, as the embossing on the cover informed him.

“Since the deaths of Earl and Countess Potter in 1981,” Vrina began, “your estate has remained under protective stewardship. After Young Lord Black’s incarceration, the Potter accounts were locked from direct access.”

“How have you managed the accounts since then?” Harry asked. It had been quite a while since he’d last seen the Potter Holding books for 1980-1989 as they’d been in tip-top shape, and he couldn’t recall all the details.

“In accordance with Gringotts Policy and the Potter family Charter, I petitioned the Ministry’s Succession and Estate Affairs office, and as your account manager I was awarded limited authority to maintain the estate in the interim. This means I could pay taxes, see to the maintenance of properties, and stabilize key investments—but I could not alter holdings, dissolve trusts, or respond to claims. I kept the estate as intact as I could. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Harry might have been left to rot at the Dursleys’, but it seemed someone had been looking after him after all. He bowed from where he was seated. “I thank you for the hard work you have done, Miss Vrina.”

 “Do not thank me yet,” said Vrina. “I was given no mandate to grow the estate, only to preserve it. However, there have been complications—misfiled land deeds, frozen contracts, attempted encroachments and the like.”

Harry’s eyes sharpened. “What encroachments?”

“There have been a number of them. The Ministry attempted to gain control of the Potter seats in the Wizengamot’s House of Lords early 1982; a family of renters attempted to take ownership of the cottage they’ve been living in, claiming they’d had a verbal contract with your parents; and, of course, the Ministry has taken over the cottage in Godric’s Hollow. You are aware of the memorial they put in place?”

Harry’s nails bit into his palms. He could still recall that cold night when he’d visited Godric’s Hollow with Hermione and had seen the ruins of his family’s house. The sign the Ministry had left, leaving the ruined house as a memorial to the pain he and many other families had endured. It had taken him over a year to regain ownership of the house once he’d decided to rebuild it, what with the Ministry claiming it was a national monument despite it belonging to his family.

“I am aware,” said Harry coolly.

“You have my apologies,” said Vrina, bowing her head. “I was unable to prevent them from leaving the sign or claiming it as a monument.”

“I wish to claim it, eventually,” Harry told her. “But that’s not important right now. What else have you managed in my absence?”

They continued to cover a myriad of things, from the investments Harry’s parents or grandparents had made to the vault Vrina had opened to retrieve the fan mail sent to him.

It had been quite a shock once he’d learned of it in the future. The vault had been packed full of children’s toys and letters and cursed mail.

“I’d like to go through the vault at another time,” said Harry. He hadn’t gone through it in the past, just donating the lot of toys to St Mungo’s and burning the rest. He supposed he ought to see what had actually been left to him and respond to the letters as was only polite.

Vrina made a note of it and they continued on.

Harry left Gringotts two and a half hours later, ladened down with accounts books, investment portfolios, and ledgers. Vrina had done her best to manage his estate, but without the Head of the family to authorize changes, she couldn’t do much else. She had, however, drafted many documents he was required to sign should he agree with their contents.

As he had seen none of these documents the last time he’d set his accounts to rights, he could only assume Vrina’s successor had thrown them out. Harry was both eager and reluctant to get started. The stack of parchment Vrina procured had been the length of his torso before it’d been shrunken down. It would takes ages to complete.

Unfortunately, due to the length of time Harry had spent in Vrina’s office, he didn’t have the time to stop by Flourish & Blotts for those law books. He would have to find the time another day.

The ride back on the Knight Bus was as populated as he’d expected. He hadn’t learned until he’d joined the Aurors that only a third of the population could Apparate reliably enough to gain an Apparition license. The other two-thirds relied on other means of transportation, such as brooms, the Floo, or in this case, the Knight Bus.

He sat beside a slumbering old witch who wouldn’t notice the seat cushion beside her sinking as if someone was sitting in it. The ride was long as the bus bounced around the UK, not following a set route as it ascribed to the phrase “first come, first serve.” Eventually, they arrived in Little Whinging. Harry had asked them to drop him off a few streets from Privet Drive where he proceeded back to the Dursleys’.

After climbing back into the back garden, Harry balled up both his invisibility cloak and the robe serving as a capelet under his arm. He walked into the kitchen where Petunia was starting to prepare supper.

“You’re late,” she snapped, her eyes narrowing as they examined him. “And what exactly have you been doing dressed like that?”

It had been a long time since someone had spoken to Harry like that. He gritted his teeth, and said, “I had to meet with someone I know.”

Her lips thinned. “Go get changed,” she ordered.

Harry knew he had to keep the peace, so he went upstairs without a word. When he returned to the kitchen, he ignored Petunia and pretended he was in Hermione’s potions lab, helping her with the menial work that couldn’t be done with magic, or that he was in the kitchen preparing supper with Ron or Mrs Weasley.

The air between Harry and Petunia was tense, and when supper was done, Harry didn’t have much of an appetite. He pushed the food around his plate as Vernon talked about his day, and Dudley lied through his teeth about having tea with one of his friends. This wasn’t remotely like when he ate dinner with Ron and Hermione. Their conversations were lively as they spoke about their work, Hermione with her potions or the new bill she was drafting for creatures’ rights, or Ron and his pro-bono work for werewolves.

Harry had barely eaten half before excusing himself, unable to remain in the Dursleys’ presence for any longer.

Hedwig greeted him once he’d reached his bedroom.

“Hello, lovely,” he said, gently rubbing a knuckle against her breast feathers, some of the tenseness leaving his shoulders at the sight of her and the letter tied to her foot. “What have you got for me?”

Hedwig lifted her leg for Harry to grab the letter.

Dear Harry, said Ron in his usual slanting script.

Summer has been interesting so far. The Burrow is being renovated so we’re staying at some townhouse in London. Mum and Dad are going spare trying to fix it up, and I’m stuck in a bedroom that smells like Doxie droppings.

The back garden is barely big enough to fly in, but we’re not even allowed out there as it’s infested with all sorts of critters, so no garden gnomes for me!

I’ve sent Hermione’s letter on with Pig as I was meaning to send a letter to her anyway.

Write soon,

Ron

(P.S. What was the password for Padfoot’s map, again?)

Harry grinned at Ron’s genius and recited, “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.” The writing faded before another letter replaced it.

Harry,

I thought I’d gone completely mental—woke up in Grimmauld Place and nothing looked the same. Almost thought you were trying out those illusion charms again before I saw Fred and George plotting something together. I had to pretend I got cursed by something in the house because I fainted. Not my best moment.

Mum insisted on studying my original letter for anything incriminating, but I managed to write this one and send it instead. It was good luck the house’s wards are up-to-snuff—I’d forgotten about the Trace on my wand. We got a letter and everything, but no one figured out it was me.

I’ve got an idea about how we can talk without any peering eyes, but it might take me a few days to pull together. I’ll write once I hear from Hermione. I’m hoping she’s somewhere safe and not rewriting the rules of time travel again.

With love,

Ron

Harry ran a thumb over Ron’s signature. He could feel Ron and Hermione’s absence like a missing limb, and it’d barely been a day. Merlin, how was he going to last a month without them?

He hoped Ron wrote back soon.

Ron and Hermione’s return letters arrived three days later, attached to an overexcitable Pigwidgeon.

Harry jumped up from where he’d been going over Vrina’s reports on possible investments. Pig fluttered around his room like a golden snitch, darting to and fro as he dodged Harry’s grabbing hands. He seemed to think it all a great game. Eventually, he settled down on the perch beside Hedwig, who peeled open an eyelid just long enough to give him a baleful glare.

Both letters, now that he was searching for it, were enchanted with the same password-protection spell Ron had attached to his previous letter. One directed him to read it first. It was Hermione’s.

Dear Harry, said Hermione’s real letter.

I’m so sorry. I can’t stop thinking about the situation I’ve put you in, and I deeply regret not listening when you tried to warn me. I let my desire to help Ron cloud my judgement and I neglected to account for how unstable the time sand was. Combined with the ambient magic from the potion and the werewolf-detection charm… Well, it’s obvious now that it triggered something.

I’ve managed to convince my parents to let me visit the library at L'Institut de Magie. They have some of the most extensive magical archives on the continent and I’ve been focusing my research on time-sand-related anomalies. There was one account—an Iberian wizard who absentmindedly cast a twenty-four-hour timer near raw time sand who found himself traversing back one day instead. When he attempted to reverse the effect, the result was…catastrophic. According to the report, he never woke up again.

I’m still looking, but everything I’ve found so far points to the same conclusion: there’s no way to return home.

Please take care of yourself. I’ll write again as I learn more.

Love,

Hermione

Harry closed his eyes. He’d been expecting it, but the knowledge there was no way to return home still hit like a punch to the gut. He missed waking up beside Ron and Hermione, he missed Kreacher’s grumblings when he insisted on cooking dinner, and he especially missed Grimmauld Place. It had taken them nearly a year to renovate the place, and somewhere along the way, it’d become home. From the drawing room with the Potter family tapestry hanging beside the restored Black family’s, to the library they’d expanded to the entire third floor, just so Hermione could have a proper place to store all her research.

But Harry couldn’t hate Hermione. Because he loved her, loved her and Ron, and despite the situation, the three of them were still together. That was all that mattered.

 Ron’s letter contained a notebook that’d been shrunk to the size of a matchbox.

Harry,

Do you remember the DA galleons? Hermione used a Duplication and Protean charm so they could all say the same date. Well, I managed to find a set of journals and charmed them without anyone seeing. We’ll be able to see what each other writes as we write it.

I’ve already owled Hermione hers.

You can return your copy to its proper size with a tap of your wand. It won’t be considered active magic so it wouldn’t even activate the Trace.

Write you soon,

Ron

Harry reached for his wand at once. The journal expanded, and Harry opened it to see three pages had already been filled with Ron and Hermione’s scrawl. It was a simple back-and-forth about their day.

Ron? Hermione?

Ron must’ve had the journal open beside him because his slanted writing started across the page at once.

Harry! You finally got the journal. We’ve been waiting for ages.

Pig wasn’t your best choice of owl. It took him ten minutes to stop bouncing around my room like a hexed snitch.

A third set of handwriting cut in.

Harry, please tell me those people are leaving you alone.

Harry smiled at the sight of Hermione’s insistent cursive.

They’re keeping away for now. I’ve locked myself in my room working on stuff for Gringotts.

You went to Gringotts?

Don’t worry, I snuck out through the back door in my cloak and climbed over the garden wall so the Order wouldn’t see me.

You’re a capable Auror, Harry. I wasn’t worried about that. Why’d you go to Gringotts?

Ah. He’d assumed she was scolding him. It wouldn’t be the first time.

I’m stuck here for the next month. Thought I’d distract myself by working on my accounts.

Are they a mess?

That’d been Ron.

No. I have an account manager who’s had stewardship over my accounts since my parents died.

I thought your accounts had gone dormant.

Vrina must have died or retired, and no one else took up the job. She has a good eye. Most of the companies she suggested I invest in were big in our time.

They spent another page discussing Vrina and the suggestions she’d made before getting to a more serious topic.

None of my research at L'Institut de Magie has shown anything promising. We need to start considering the present.

Voldemort.

I can get the locket.

No!

Harry and Hermione’s handwriting scribbled over each other. Harry still had nightmares about the person Ron had become while wearing it, about him leaving them in the forest, about the nasty spiteful things he’d said. He knew Hermione had them, too.

He continued to write.

We need to consider the bigger picture before we do anything. The diary is already destroyed, and the diadem is safe at Hogwarts.

The cup is in Gringotts and Voldemort has his snake. That will be difficult to get.

We need to get the ring. Dumbledore gets cursed by it sometime next year.

Harry, have you had any dreams?

Harry’s vision seemed to go dark around the edges. He’d forgotten. Oh, Merlin, how had he forgotten? He hadn’t even thought about the Horcrux since returning to the past. Swallowing, Harry looked back at the journal. Ron and Hermione had written his name in larger and larger handwriting.

I’m here.

Are you a Horcrux?

I don’t know. There’s a ritual that I can do but I don’t remember the steps. My dissertation had been on soul containers, not how to detect if you are one.

I’ll search the hidden library if you remember the book title, but I’ll need some of your blood.

When they’d started taking down walls to expand the library, the three of them had discovered a hidden room behind one of the bookshelves. It’d been a secret library which only allowed Blacks in. Although Ron’s grandmother had been Cedrella Black, the protections around the library had only allowed those with the Black family magic in. This meant Ron would be able to enter the library with Harry’s blood even if Harry himself wasn’t present.

I’ll owl it to you but I’ll have to go to Diagon Alley so I can disguise it. The book was from the Magick Moste Evil series, I think. You’ll have to search around for the one on soul magic.

I’ll let you know if I find it. What should we do about the others?

As much as I hate to say it, we should leave them where they are. We don’t have anything to contain or destroy them with.

We’ll reconsider once we’re all at Grimmauld Place together.

Talk soon turned to something more imminent: the Dementors.

We already know Harry will cast a Patronus, so we should revise laws related to underage magic. See if we can find some loopholes.

What if I don’t do underage magic?

You mean emancipation? Harry, you’re fifteen. The courts won’t allow it.

They’ll have to if it’s backed up by law. I’m the last of my House. There must be some sort of law or charter we can use.

Those types of laws are obscure. We’ll only be able to read them from the Wizengamot’s archives and only someone with a seat can read those.

I’ll search through Grimmauld Place, but I don’t remember seeing anything when we renovated.

Go to Gringotts. See if the Potters have a charter for inheritance matters. It might be helpful.

I’ll go tomorrow.

With great reluctance, Harry closed the journal. His hand was cramping from hours of writing, but he felt a little better, a little more steadfast. While writing was different than hearing Ron and Hermione’s voices, he was relieved to finally get to talk to them.

He stretched and glanced out the window, starting when he saw it was dark out. The alarm clock on his beside table informed him it was nearing midnight. He ought to go to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a very long day of digging through the Potter archives, seeing if there was anything of use.

He hoped there was.