Ghosts…
Harry counted to ten slowly, told himself that it wasn't a big deal. And it wasn't, it didn't matter if there was a hole in the wall or a dent in the front of his car.
It didn't matter except it meant that Bucky had been up while Harry had been sleeping and that usually didn't mean anything good.
"Bucky?" Harry crept through the house they shared quietly, but not too quiet. Bucky was… prone to being startled. It was the only reason they were spending Christmas at their place instead of returning to New York to spend the day with Dad and Scott and Cassie.
Dad understood, Cassie had pouted. Bucky tried to insist he was fine, but Harry didn't want to set either of them up to be triggered all day. The dinner with Harry's friends the next day would be bad enough for Harry.
They all worked their arses off for sobriety and health and Harry's had been gifted to him by Bucky at Bucky's expense. It made Harry feel like a dick, like he didn't deserve to be healthy and happy. What work did Harry do?
Bucky was in the kitchen, not the place where Harry expected to find him. Harry paused in the doorway for a moment, admiring Bucky. It didn't matter if Bucky wasn't always all the way present, it didn't. Bucky had stuck by Harry's side when Harry had been sick and confused and withdrawing and talking to people who were dead and gone.
Harry wasn't going anywhere, ever.
"Hey." Bucky must have known Harry was there, his muscles had tensed up just before he turned around and flashed a crooked grin at Harry. Bucky had a cup of coffee in each hand, decaf because Draco would have their balls if either of them had caffeinated coffee.
Bucky looked tired, but there weren't any cuts or bruises anywhere on him, not on any of the exposed skin that had Harry's stomach pooling with an idea for how they could spend Christmas.
It had been Harry who pushed Bucky away for so long, it felt strange being the one standing on the sideline and waiting for when Bucky was ready for Harry.
"Hey." Harry walked slowly through the kitchen, relaxing only when Bucky's eyes looked clear, bright, present. It happened like that, Bucky knew who he was most of the time. It was when he didn't that Harry hated.
Just as everyone must have hated seeing Harry fighting with his own imagination while he wrecked his body for years.
"Merry Christmas," Bucky said. He gave Harry a mug of coffee and paused when he seemed like he was about to bend down to kiss Harry. Harry nodded and Bucky kissed him, a sweet and slow kiss, just the thing to start the day on the right note.
"Merry Christmas," Harry said, a bit breathless, when the kiss ended. Harry had a gift for Bucky, kind of a shitty one - a destroyed Cadillac that needed rebuilt. He wasn't in a hurry to get to it though, they had all day.
Bucky was apparently in a rush though.
"I stole your car, while you were sleeping," Bucky said. Harry sputtered on his coffee and Bucky ran a hand through his black hair, almost seeming shy.
"I - I wanted to get you something, for Christmas," he went on, a quick rush of words. "I didn't know what to get you, but I remembered somethin', somethin' silly. You… you wear my clothes, a lot."
Harry did. They were comfortable and smelled like Bucky and Harry liked wearing them. Dad kept sending Harry clothes and texts about dry cleaning and a million other things to try and get Harry in his own clothes, Bucky's were just more comfortable.
"But I don't know where most of my clothes are so I… bought myself a hoodie. For you."
It… Harry laughed at the absurdity of it all. Bucky stole Harry's car while Harry slept to buy himself a sweater to give Harry because Harry preferred Bucky's clothes. Harry had been afraid that Bucky had an episode, but he was being kind.
"And the hole in the wall?" Harry asked, inching closer to Bucky so he could tuck himself in his side. Bucky had more good moments than bad lately, his sessions with Draco had helped - almost as much as their trip to Wakanda.
"Don't laugh, punk," Bucky said, sounding like Harry's Bucky, if a little more gravely. Harry was already grinning when he looked up at Bucky, sure if it wasn't a mental issue that it would be a hilarious accident.
"I won't," Harry lied.
"The tape kept gettin' stuck to my fucking fingers and I might have hit the wall about it."
Harry didn't laugh until Bucky pulled a badly wrapped gift from the kitchen cabinet. It was lumpy and covered in tape, causing Harry a moment of heartache when it reminded him of the gifts Dobby used to send him on Christmas.
It was grief and there was nowhere for it to go. It wouldn't disappear if Harry had a drink, or took something worse. It would linger and wait to hurt ten times as badly later.
So Harry felt the grief for a moment, acknowledged it. It was sad that Dobby died, it hurt thinking about him.
Then Harry let the grief move over in its corner of his heart and mind where it lived and he focused on the gift Bucky offered him.
"You didn't need to get me anything," Harry said. He swallowed and was thankful that Bucky didn't interrupt, giving Harry time to summon his courage for a moment of brave honesty. "It's enough that you're here, that you made it so we can both be here."
Harry meant it, every word. That didn't mean he wasn't relieved when Bucky sidestepped the praise with a quick kiss and by shoving the lumpy gift to Harry.
"Open it before your dad calls and you're on the phone for an hour." Bucky was grinning with clear eyes and some of his usual humor, leaving Harry feeling as if things really were getting back to normal.
Harry wasn't sick, Bucky's memory was improving, it was Christmas and they had the entire day together.
Until Harry's dad called and tried to keep him on the phone for hours and hours while they talked about everything and nothing at all.
Or… as it turned out… until a sudden burst of red light had Bucky throwing Harry on the floor and covering his body with his own. Harry hardly had time to make a surprised ooph before there were voices in their house.
Voices in their incredibly secure house that Harry's dad bought for him and that Bill Weasley added extra wards to. It had been a ‘contingency' for Harry and Bucky living in Vermont instead of New York, though nobody understood more than Dad did that Harry couldn't walk through New York without wanting to stick a needle in his arm.
"What? I live in some posh muggle house?!"
Harry pushed at Bucky when he heard a very twangy London accent mixed with wizarding ‘lingo' (or ‘wiz talk' as Dad often called it). Nobody should have been able to apparate in their house, even Harry couldn't apparate in and out of the house - it was a request Bucky made when some of his memory started to return.
Damn Harry for not having his wand on him… at least he always had his super soldier who could probably kill an intruder with his metal arm tied behind his back.
Harry would never forget Bucky taking Ginny down or the dozen subsequent matches they've had since Harry and Bucky were reunited.
"Who the fuck…?" Harry had jumped to his feet a second after Bucky did, but he wasn't even sure what he was looking at… because it was impossible…
Fred Weasley had died. Harry had vague memories of going to his funeral. Fred was dead and George was dead and Harry didn't see ghosts anymore.
Sober.
Harry was sober.
Very sober.
Over a year sober.
Fred Weasley was dead.
"Oh, God." Harry had to rip his eyes off Fred to look at Bucky. "Tell me you see him?"
"Punk…" Bucky put his hand on Harry's head and turned him so that Harry had to see the person with Fred Weasley, dead wizard. "I see them."
It was… Harry. It was Harry. That was Harry.
Harry couldn't help it, he saw himself, maybe a year or two younger than he was, standing beside a dead wizard and - and…
"What the fuck?" Harry laughed, nervously at first. It grew though. It grew until Harry was laughing his ass off because someone, something, had decided that Harry's mental stability was overrated and they wanted him to use drugs.
Probably.
"Loki," Bucky breathed. Harry felt his body spasm beside him and that ended his laughter abruptly. It couldn't be Loki… surely he wouldn't…
After what he did to Bucky, what he asked for in exchange for healing Harry, there was no fucking way that he decided to screw with Harry in the worst possible way.
The other Harry, the slightly younger and more visibly scarred Harry, chose then to speak up. "You are a fuckin' wizard, aren't you?" he asked, curling his lip up. He looked around Harry's kitchen with disgust, insulting the brilliant house that Harry's dad bought for him.
"I am," Harry said. When he narrowed his eyes and looked over… himself… more closely, he could see some differences. It was as if someone tried to mimic Harry and nailed the general features, the hair and the eyes, the lightning bolt scar… but the facial features were different, other-Harry had a stronger jaw, longer eyelashes. His hair was a bit lighter, shorter than Harry's had been since before the war.
There was also a silver scar that decorated the side of his face, one that Harry knew was old based on how much it had faded. It was old enough to go back to childhood and it looked like it had been painful.
"See? It worked!" Fred Weasley was speaking and Harry didn't want to look at him, but he did. Harry looked at him and when he looked through the curtain of grief, he was different than Harry's memories of Fred were too.
He was older, he was older.
Fred was older.
"How old are you?" Harry asked him, his voice shaking just a bit. But… he was older, Harry was sure of it. Fred was older and he looked older, there wasn't as much merry lightness to his smile, there were shadows in his eyes that Harry had never seen before. Fred's hair was short, shaved neatly in a way that Fred's hair had never been before.
"Me? Oh." Fred grimaced at Harry before nudging the other-Harry with his shoulder. "See his face?" Fred waved a hand at Harry. "That's the face of ‘I died in - war here', darlin. It's bollocks, really. Oi," Fred looked at Harry and grinned, tightening the vice around Harry's heart - he looked like George. "Did you and I ever date here?"
Did they…? Harry was going to be sick, actually.
"No," he said weakly. His knees shook and Bucky was there, keeping a hold of Harry so that he didn't collapse on the floor. "No, we didn't."
George.
Harry had loved George.
"Who could love you like this?"
"See?" Fred smiled at other-Harry and Harry saw it then, saw it in that smile more than he saw it in the entwined hands. Fred loved him, he truly loved him.
"If I didn't trick you into falling in love with me then I would have died." Fred tossed a hand up to his forehead and pretended to swoon. Other-Harry made a face, but he automatically moved to keep Fred from falling - he loved him too.
"Doll." Bucky tilted his head down to whisper in Harry's ear while they watched other-Harry and Fred. "What the fuck is this?"
Magic?
"How… where did you come from?" Harry asked. It was starting to become more of a curiosity than a pain, seeing himself and Fred Weasley in his kitchen.
"Don't worry, we'll leave soon and you'll be mostly unharmed!" Fred declared. His smile made Harry want to smile, the twins always smiled infectiously.
"Fred invented a potion, he's a fuckin' genius, here we are," other-Harry drawled. He didn't seem surprised by anything as he started walking around the kitchen, eyeing everything with blatant disgust. "Who's the one-armed bloke?" he asked casually, his back never quite turning to Bucky.
"This is Bucky," Harry said. "My… partner."
Partner didn't sound adequate enough; boyfriend was silly. Bucky was Harry's best friend, someone who saved him so many times. Bucky saved Harry's life and Harry wanted to spend that life with Bucky.
… damn it.
Harry bought him a car when it should have been a ring.
Other-Harry didn't seem amused, he scoffed at Harry, incredibly insultingly. Other-Harry was a dick.
"You're dating Fred, shut up," Harry snapped. There was nothing wrong with Fred, but if he was going to insult Bucky then Harry was going to get pissy.
"Dating?" Fred leaned against a cabinet and waved his left hand in a flourish. "We're married."
"Married?! How old are you?" Harry asked… himself. If Fred was twenty-one then he had to be…
"Eighteen; got married the day after I turned seventeen, didn't I?" Other-Harry said. He stopped at a photo on the pantry shelf, one of Harry and Cassie and Teddy. "Who are they?"
Harry was still reeling from the knowledge that there was an eighteen year old version of himself that was married to Fred Weasley standing in his kitchen. He answered absently, wondering if they were from an entirely different world.
"My godson and my step-sister." Cassie wasn't quite Harry's step-sister, but their dads had been shagging and living together long enough that it was what Harry considered her to be.
"Step-sister?" Other-Harry spun around and Harry had his complete attention. "Who'd Sev marry?"
"Who's Sev?" Bucky asked.
"Who's your godson?" Fred asked.
"Who are you two?!" Harry demanded, flustered with all the questions. It was like rehab all over again, Jesus.
"Harry Potter."
"Fred Potter."
Against his will, Harry's lips twitched at Fred's obvious pride in being married to… him.
"It's another universe, doll," Bucky said. It was so rational, so calm, that it took Harry by surprise. He seemed to actually be calm, like it was normal. Bucky even grinned at Harry. "I heard Scott and your dad talkin' about universes before, it happens."
If… if he said so…
Other-Harry still seemed to be waiting for an answer to his question about ‘Sev'. Harry didn't know any Sev at all, not even any fuzzy drug-addled memories of a ‘Sev'.
"Sorry," he told him, "but who is ‘Sev'?" It certainly wasn't a nickname for Tony Stark in any way.
"Severus Snape?" Other-Harry said slowly. "Your dad?"
That… what? Harry started to smile, thinking that of course Fred Weasley would marry a little prankster version of himself. Except other-Harry wasn't smiling and that killed any sort of amusement that Harry had.
"My father is not Severus Snape," Harry said, sneering it unintentionally. "This," Harry pulled his phone from his pocket so he could show other-Harry his photo of Dad on his wallpaper, "is my father."
Tony Stark; damn sure not Severus fucking Snape. Snape was the one who told Harry about Tony, in his dying memories. Snape waited until he was dying to spit in Harry's face one more time with knowledge that Harry had a living parent, one that Snape never expected Harry to ever be able to meet.
Harry turned the dying insult into a gift, Harry did that and Tony did that and Bucky did that - not Snape.
"Who is this?!" Other-Harry didn't seem to recognize Tony at all, just as confused on Harry's parentage as Harry was disgusted by his.
"His dad," Bucky said.
"Biological, adoptive, or ‘father figure'?" Fred asked, peering at the photo over other-Harry's shoulder.
"Biological," Harry said. He caught his phone when other-Harry threw it at him. "If it helps, I only found out at the end of the war."
"He… shagged our mum?" Other-Harry asked. Harry kind of grinned at the sick look on his face, Harry probably looked like that when he first realized that his parents didn't exactly practice monogamy in their too brief marriage.
"Don't worry, our dad was fine with it," Harry assured him. "In fact, Tony was mostly in love with James. We were a bit of a happy accident."
"I was not a product of… of… whatever the fuck that was," other-Harry spat, his eyes flashing with unwarranted anger. "I am Lily and James Potter's son."
"Their biological son." Fred hopped up on the counter and dangled his long legs, a sight that Harry mostly tried to ignore. Harry didn't want to see Fred, even if he was beginning to be dead curious about other-Harry's life.
Other-Harry looked scarred, but healthy. He was a bit shorter than Harry thought he remembered being at eighteen, but still strong statured. There was a wariness about his eyes, though his pose radiated confidence and arrogance.
There was nothing about him that made Harry think he had ever picked up a needle in his life.
Which meant that of the two Harrys, somehow it was the one calling Snape ‘Sev' who wasn't the fuck up.
"Maybe… maybe we could go in the other room? Sit down and talk?" Harry offered. He wanted to know more as badly as he wanted Fred Weas— Fred Potter out of his house.
"No can do, Man-Susan-Loving Harry," Fred quipped… as if that made sense. "We've only got about," he looked at a watch on his wrist, an expensive looking silver watch, "five minutes left before we're off to find more Harrys."
"Wait! You can't go yet!" Harry stepped forward and had one hundred questions, all of them he needed other-Harry to answer. "Where'd you grow up? How did - did ‘Sev' come to be in your life? How did… is - Fred's twin brother, he's alive too? Was there a war?"
How did he do it? How did he survive a war, keep Fred alive, and end up healthy and whole without Tony Stark in his life?
"Downtown London. He found me, didn't he? Yeah, blind as fuck and a right arse about it all. A fucked up war, lots of dead friends, glad it's over." Other-Harry listed off all his answers quickly, almost too quickly for Harry to track.
Except Harry had plenty of practice with his best friend he met in rehab, his ‘soul brother' and ‘twinkle twin', Trent when he was rambling and nervous. The last time he called Harry talking like that, it had been over Draco's decision to move to New York so they could spend more time together.
"A lot of dead friends?" Harry asked, catching that in the speed-speak. He clenched Bucky's elbow, using it to keep him steady no matter what other-Harry said. "Who - who did you lose?"
Because it wasn't Fred and it wasn't George. Other-Harry married Fred - as quickly as possibly, it sounded like - and George was alive. George Weasley was alive in his world and Harry wanted… God, Harry wished he could see him.
Though maybe ‘see' him wasn't quite right, considering other-Harry said he was ‘blind as fuck'.
"Who did you lose?" Other-Harry was defensive, snarling again. Fred left his perch on the counter and was by his side in a moment, a silent support with his hand on other-Harry's back. Other-Harry stepped forward, Fred followed.
They were young, but they loved each other.
Harry was happy for them, truly.
"Sounds like you got Fred killed, George too, yeah?" Other-Harry must have been one hell of a fighter, there was fire burning in his eyes and sparks of magic actually flickering at his fingertips. "Who all didn't you protect?"
Harry… there were so many.
So.
Many.
Fred and Tonks, Colin Creevey. Sirius.
God, Harry's eyes stung with the reminder that Sirius was gone. Harry couldn't talk about it, not anymore than other-Harry was willing to talk about his losses.
Other-Harry had to be great, truly great, because he saw Harry's refusal to list his losses without Harry having to say a single word.
"Exactly," he said. He took a deep breath and pointed behind him at the photo he had seen earlier. "You said the boy is your godson? Who - who are his parents?"
Harry wanted to be surprised that other-Harry didn't seem to recognize Teddy, except that was a Harry who was close enough to Snape to call him ‘Sev' and consider him some sort of family. It… made sense that Lupin might not want to leave his son with him.
For a bloke with lycanthropy, he was apparently incredibly judgemental.
"Tonks and Lupin's son," Harry said shortly, saying Tonks's name as quickly as he could so he could get through the moment of grief quickly. "Er… don't worry if Lupin didn't name you godfather; he's not exactly the nicest guy."
Other-Harry blinked and even Fred was momentarily frozen in shock. Did they have a Lupin? A Remus Lupin who considered James Potter family but not Harry? Did they have a Tonks? Someone who believed so strongly in Harry's ability to survive that she passed over her best friend in the world to leave her son with Harry?
Did they have them? Were they both alive? Or had it been twisted? Lupin might have died and Tonks… well, other-Harry didn't look like he had stuck needles in his veins, so other-Harry probably didn't have an issue seeing Teddy like Harry had.
"Lupin's an arse," Other-Harry said, making Harry and Bucky both chuckle. Bucky's memory could be spotty, but Harry was sure he never forgot his self-appointed vendetta against Lupin.
Harry tried to be civil, for Teddy, but Lupin got a lot of things wrong that had hurt Harry for a long time.
Harry quit laughing pretty quickly with the rest of other-Harry's blunt information —
"But Tonks is married to Sev, isn't she? She took my bloody job too."
Did he… Tonks… Married…
"That's good," Bucky said calmly, his metal hand smoothing circles on Harry's back. "So she lived too."
Harry sucked in a very rattling breath and tried to think about that - about how Tonks was alive in another world. She made horrible fucking choices, clearly, but she was alive…
"Er… and Lupin's married to…?" Harry asked shakily, almost scared to hear what happened to him if he didn't marry Tonks.
"Married to Sirius, Harry was best man," Fred quipped, grinning cheekily. "They're talking about adopting soon, now that Sirius is Headmaster."
Harry wasn't altogether shocked that Sirius had married Lupin, there were signs. It was… odd… that Sirius was Headmaster, but Harry would have loved to see that, Sirius out in public and sharing hus brilliance with students, they probably loved him. What Harry was shocked by was that other-Harry lost no one.
Snape was alive. Tonks. Sirius. Fred. George.
They were all alive.
"Colin Creevey?" Harry asked a little hopefully. That death bothered him for a long time, Colin was so young, so brave.
"Who's that?" Other-Harry asked Fred.
Fred laughed and there was a weight on Harry's chest lifting more and more.
"Gryffindor, love," Fred explained. "He's in Ginny's year; Luna helped him get an internship with the Quibbler."
"Lavender Brown?" Harry asked.
"No idea who that is," other-Harry drawled. He looked at his nails and Harry sort of blinked.
Was he… no, he probably wasn't a Gryffindor then.
"Gryffindor," Fred answered again. "She asked Ron out a few months ago, bloody disaster of a date."
Harry laughed, truly laughed. Whatever other-Harry did, they were all alive.
"Lavender asked Ron out?" Harry was laughing, too elated knowing that so many good people were still alive in another world. "I bet Hermione hated that."
"Hermione…?" Other-Harry was the one who seemed shocked then. Harry thought maybe he didn't befriend Hermione, maybe whatever it was that made him consider Snape family had kept him from being friends with Hermione…
Harry talked the hat out of Slytherin, maybe other-Harry went for it. That would make sense.
Except other-Harry's face paled and Harry could read Fred's face as easily as he had read Harry's.
"She's dead?" Harry asked, his stomach twisting in true pain. "How?"
How did he keep Sirius alive, keep Tonks alive, and lost Hermione?! How could he?!
"Died in childbirth," Fred said quietly, solemn and respectful. The loss hurt Fred too, Harry could tell. "She had a beautiful little girl though, Rose."
"Hermione Granger died in childbirth?" Harry asked sharply, disbelieving. His Hermione wasn't even pregnant yet and she'd been married nearly a year.
"Rose was a happy accident," Fred said. Other-Harry clearly didn't want to talk about it, he snatched Fred's wrist and scowled at the watch as if it were offending him personally. "Theo's a great dad, he's got Rose on a holiday with Luna now."
Theo…? Theo…
"Draco's mate?" Harry asked slowly, not recognizing the name. He looked at Bucky and hoped that he might remember. "Didn't Trent say he had dinner with Draco and a mate named Theo?"
"Might have—"
"Trent?" They had other-Harry's complete attention then. He looked like Harry did when they talked about Sirius. "Trent's alive? Draco is too?"
"Trent…"
There was no way.
"Trent didn't go to Hogwarts," Harry said. He was sure of it, drug-damage or not. Trent Bailey was as much a wizard as Harry was an Avenger.
Actually, scratch that. Rhodey did try and talk Harry into joining the team… Harry just wouldn't spend that much time around Steve Rogers for any amount of money. There were heavy hints that it could be Harry's team if he wanted it, Harry very much didn't want it.
Not yet… he might eventually… when he got tired of being a ‘trust fund brat', as his dad sweetly called him.
"Trent Bailey?" Other-Harry asked, he nodded when Harry did. "Trent Bailey was a damn fine wizard," he said hotly, fiercely. "So was Draco Malfoy."
Was.
Was.
Sirius and Tonks and Fred and George were alive; Hermione and Draco and Trent were dead.
Harry could never choose, he never would. But… God… other-Harry didn't save them all - he only lost different people.
Although… Trent had been a wizard, that was funny. Harry might mention it to Trent if he could find a way to initiate the conversation without having Draco yank his hair for a drug test.
"They're datin'," Bucky said, his hand grounding Harry and reminding him that their friends were alive. "They're comin' over tomorrow for dinner."
They were. Draco and Trent, Ron and Hermione, Anderson and Luna, maybe even Michelle. They were all alive and they were going to have dinner with Harry and Bucky.
"Trent and Draco?" Fred laughed and seemed to try and lighten the desperate hunger in other-Harry's eyes, the hunger to see Trent (it seemed like) as badly as Harry wanted to see Sirius.
"Fantastic, that's great, really," Fred said. He was so light, so happy… something inside of Harry fell in place, seeing that Fred Weasley was alive in some way, happy in some way. "Trent's alive here; what's he do?" he asked Harry eagerly.
"Er… plays piano?" Harry said. Trent didn't really have a job, Trent had antiretrovirals and PTSD and a piano. But Harry didn't want to hear anything bad about Sirius - he wanted to picture him laughing and free and maybe shifting into Padfoot during feasts to make the students laugh - and he wouldn't tell them anything bad about the people they lost.
"Hermione's married to Ron," Harry went on, wanting to give them the same gift they gave Harry. "Draco's a healer, he's getting his degree in muggle medicine too, so he can be a doctor. He - er - he nearly cured AIDS."
Very nearly.
"That's great!" Fred cried. He looked down and Harry leaned past the counter to see that Fred and other-Harry's shoes were sparking red, the same red they arrived with.
"Time to go, darlin'," Fred told other-Harry. "Great to meet you both," he said to Harry and Bucky. "Shame you let me die though, I'm sure I fancied you quite a bit at some point."
Oh.
Oh, God.
Why would he say that?!
"Oi, wait. How'd you get rid of the horcrux?" Other-Harry asked abruptly. The sparks were climbing his body, nearly at his waist, and Harry shook his head at the odd question.
"Er… died at Voldemort's hand," Harry said. Were there other options? "How'd you do it??"
"Made my own horcrux, then had Sev kill me," other-Harry said. "Keep Trent alive, got it?"
Harry's mouth opened, closed.
Opened, closed.
Did he just say he made a horcrux? As in… he killed someone innocent and split his soul in half?
Other-Harry didn't defeat Voldemort… he replaced him.
"Wait!" Harry remembered a question he had earlier, one that faded in face of the other questions that popped up. "What job did Tonks take from you?"
The sparks were nearly on their faces, Harry didn't think they had more than a few seconds, just long enough for other-Harry to hit Harry with one more bombshell —
"Minister of Magic," other-Harry said carelessly, casually. "Don't worry, I'll still get the job in a few years."
Yeah, Harry wasn't going to worry about that. Harry was going to watch other-Harry disappear in a show of sparks and be very, very, grateful that whatever he had done - at least he had never split his soul and set his sights on the Minister of Magic's office.
Harry, in fact, was going to try very hard to never think about the world that Harry lived in where he married Fred Weasley at seventeen, lost Hermione to a teen pregnancy, or considered Snape family.
Harry was going to be grateful for Draco Malfoy, Trent Bailey, Hermione Granger, and his family. His very normal, wonderful, non-horcrux-creating family.
"Fuck." Bucky shook his head when other-Harry and Fred disappeared in the same sparks they arrived with. It was probably the most insane thirty minutes of Harry's life and he used to shag for cash and then inject heroin so he could talk to dead relatives.
"Doll," Bucky turned Harry so that he had no choice but to look up in his blue, blue, eyes. Bucky seemed surprised, but his world didn't seem as entirely rocked as Harry's had been.
"I'm so fuckin' grateful I've got this Harry Potter," he said, grinning crookedly and sweetly. "That one was kinda a dick, wasn't he?"
Yeah, Harry laughed, he had been kind of a dick. And Harry had a million questions as to why, Harry had endless questions, except he was gone and Harry couldn't get answers.
Harry got Trent and Draco and Hermione and his family and his Bucky. Harry got his godson and maybe one day he'd have a better relationship with Remus and he could ask him if he ever dated Sirius, ever fancied him.
"This was insane," Harry told Bucky. "That was, honestly, the craziest thing to happen to me, ever."
"If anymore Harrys pop up, I'll kick ‘em out," Bucky promised. His hand dropped from Harry's back so he could pick up their mugs of coffee, which he grimaced at. "I think your gift hit the corner, doll, mind grabbin' it? I'll heat up our coffee."
Harry laughed and went in search of his hoodie Bucky bought for himself for Harry. He had sort of forgotten it in the face of himself showing up in his kitchen with Fred Weasley.
Fred Potter, whatever.
The gift was in the corner of the kitchen, poor thing was even more beaten up. Harry picked it up and started to unwrap it… it was cold and Harry liked Bucky's hoodies. They were always warm and too big and…
Something fell out of the lumpy package when Harry started to rip off the paper, something that was square and black. Harry's heart started hammering in his chest when he picked it up and thought - it kind of looked like…
"Bucky?" Harry opened the box slowly as he turned around, sure he was wrong. Except he opened the box and saw that inside of it, on a thick black cushion, sat a handsome ring made of the same shining silver as Bucky's hand.
Harry looked from the ring toward Bucky and saw that he was not heating up coffee, he was only a few steps behind Harry and was kneeling on the floor.
There was a ring in Harry's hand and Bucky was kneeling on the floor.
"Don't say no," Bucky said, his voice as steady as his eyes that Harry had loved from the first time he saw them clearly.
"I love you, Harry," Bucky said. "I didn't think I could ever love you more than I do, until about thirty minutes ago. I loved you from the first day I met you, as much as I fuckin' didn't want to."
Harry laughed with tears already building up in his eyes; he was sure Bucky didn't want to. Harry had been sick, mean, more addicted to drugs than he had been invested in living.
"I loved you at your worst, you loved me at my worst. If we've been through all the lows together, I think we oughta go through the highs together too. I asked your dad, he - uh… he made ya the ring, so I reckon that's permission… so… Harry," Bucky smiled and it was crooked and it was Bucky, "will you marry me?"
It felt as if the air in Harry's chest was frozen, locked in place.
Bucky was serious. He asked Dad. He got the perfect ring. Bucky was on one knee, on Christmas Day, asking Harry to marry him.
Other-Harry visiting Harry had been shocking, but apparently not the only surprise of the day.
For Bucky though? For Harry's best friend, his hero, the man he loved with his entire heart? It was simple, easy. They were made for each other, Harry was sure of it.
Which meant there was only one answer —
"Yes."