Return to the Forest
Wednesday, 2 September 1998
Harry didn’t have any other classes until Astronomy that night so, after lunch, he decided to take a walk around the grounds. He thought he might go visit Hagrid, but the man’s hut appeared to be empty, so he settled for just taking a wander. After about an hour, he heard someone calling his name.
Turning around, he couldn’t stop the soppy grin from forming at the sight of Theo walking toward him.
“Theo,” he said, still smiling, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Laughing at Harry’s faux-formal tone, Theo simply responded, “I was looking for you and saw you out the window, mind if I join you.”
“I’d love that,” Harry responded.
The pair walked in companiable silence for a bit, Harry taking the lead, letting his brain shut off and sort of just following his feet. After a couple of minutes, he looked up and realized they’d stepped inside the tree line.
“You lasted, like, 18 whole hours before entirely disregarding the no students in the forest rule,” Theo said in a teasing tone.
“Shut it, you” Harry said back with a laugh, “I know for a fact you join Luna out here to feed the thestrals.”
“Ah but see, I’m not the Gryffindor Golden Boy, I can break the rules.”
“Not sure if you noticed, Theodore, but I am no longer the Gryffindor Golden Boy.”
“Once the Golden Boy, always the Golden Boy, love.”
Harry just shook his head, laughing before realizing that being in the forbidden forest meant they were, more than likely, alone. He took the opportunity and reached out to intertwine his fingers with Theo’s.
Theo smiled down at their joined hands then continued to quietly follow Harry’s nonsense path through the forest.
After a few more minutes of walking aimlessly, they stepped into a clearing and Harry stopped short causing Theo to run right into him. After reaching out to stabilize them both, Theo looked around in confusion, wondering what had made Harry react like that.
Theo looked up at Harry, he looked like he’d seen a ghost.
Quietly, Theo asked, “what’s wrong, love?”
“This is where I died,” was all he said.
Realizing that Harry was going to need a moment to process his thoughts before he said more, and not quite sure why or how they’d ended up here in the first place, Theo led them to one of the larger trees lining the clearing and sat down with his back against the trunk, pulling Harry down so he was sitting between his legs. Theo wrapped his arms around Harry’s torso, resting his right hand over Harry’s heart so he could feel the steady rhythm and remind himself that, despite all odds, Harry was here. Harry was alive.
“I know I’ve said it before, I know I told the story, and I know I even joke about it sometimes, but it’s still surreal.” Harry began, Theo pressed a soft kiss to the side of his head then decided to stay quiet and just let him talk. Harry took a breath and continued, “I talked about it with the mind healers when I was with the Goblins, but it’s not something you really get over in 60 days, especially when I had so many other things to talk about.
“But, I mean, I really died. I stood right there,” he gestured to his left, “and stood still while the green light came at me. I’d seen that light hundreds upon hundreds of times in my nightmares. Mostly I’d see the moment it hit my mum, but every once in a while, if I didn’t wake up in time, I’d see the moment that light came for me. I remember at the most basic, psychological level the pain I felt when that light hit me for the first time, but everyone had always told me it was a painless death. That confused me endlessly until it happened to me.
“When that light hit me, Theo, I felt nothing. I don’t even remember hitting the ground. Now that I think about it, though, the pain I felt that first time must have been the feeling of the curse rebounding and Voldemort’s soul attaching itself to me. The curse isn’t meant to leave a mark, but I have one. Well, actually, I have two.”
At that, Harry undid his tie and started unbuttoning his shirt. Theo had scars of his own and knew how personal they were, “you don’t have to show me, love.”
“No,” Harry said, “I don’t have to, but I want to. No one but the healers have seen the second one. I want you to see it, though.”
“How do you have a second scar? I thought the first one was from the rebound and the second time the curse actually hit you?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but I think it might be some sort of indicator that the curse did rebound in some sense. I know Voldemort used the Elder Wand which was loyal to me at that point, I know that when I died I left the Horcrux behind, and I know that after using the Stone just back there,” he pointed to a place beyond the tree line, “I was, on some level, the Master of Death. But I also know,” he continued, not fully realizing what he’d just admitted, “that I didn’t truly become Death’s Master until I came back.”
“Harry, love,” Theo said softly, “was that something you wanted me to know? If not, and you just accidentally let it slip, I’m more than willing to allow you to obliviate me. I don’t want to know something you either didn’t want to tell me or weren’t ready to tell me yet.”
Harry looked back at Theo with so much love in his eyes that Theo’s breath caught, smiling, he said “I wasn’t actually meaning to share that part but I’m alright that you know. I know you won’t share my secrets, and I also know you’re smart enough that you’d probably already figured it out.”
“I knew that there was something special about you being the true Lord Peverell and I knew that you had the Wand, the Cloak, and the Stone, but I didn’t know how much truth was behind the Story of the Three Brothers.”
“I’ll tell you the full unfiltered story sometime,” Harry promised, “but back to what I was saying, when the curse hit me that second time, there were several factors that could have meant I wouldn’t truly die. But the thing is, I did. I have that confirmation from an incredibly reputable source,” he said with a wry laugh.
He then continued, “when the curse hit me, I felt no pain. Like I said, I don’t even remember hitting the ground. I woke up in a strange, bright white version of Kings Cross. I know now that it was limbo, but at the time I had no clue what was happening. There was this weird, deformed creature under a bench that I soon realized was the soul piece I’d been carrying in my scar. Then, Dumbledore showed up. I’ve confirmed that it was actually Dumbledore and not Death using Dumbledore’s likeness to make me trust him. Death knows me better than that.
“Dumbledore then explained what was going on. I still have no idea why it was Dumbledore of all people that met me in Limbo, it might have something to do with him being the last true master of the Wand and the last person who’d held each of the Hallows, though he obviously never became the master of the other two, it might have been because he was the one who led me to my death, who knows. But he told me I had a choice, I could stay and get on the train and take it to wherever the train goes, or I could wake up.
“Obviously,” Harry said, “I chose to wake up.”
At that, Theo squeezed him tighter and pressed a firm kiss to his cheek.
Harry then continued unbuttoning his shirt and said, “though I felt no pain when the curse hit me, when I woke up on the floor of the forest, it felt like my chest was on fire. It felt like what I’d remembered the curse felt like the first time it hit me as a baby. I was afraid for a moment that the curse had somehow rebounded again and stuck me with another stupid soul shard, but I then realized that, beyond the pain, I felt stronger, and my magic felt more free than it’d ever felt before. I didn’t have much more time to think about it at that point, though.
“You know the rest of the story. Narcissa expertly lied her ass off right to Voldy’s face, we marched on up to the castle, and I offed him with a first year spell. Truly remarkable if I do say so myself.”
Harry then sobered again, “I didn’t have time to think about this scar until I was in the healing hall. The healers looked at it and ran every diagnostic known to man, god, and being on it and found that it was the same as the scar on my forehead. There were remnants of dark magic, but nothing active. This is as healed as either of them will ever be because, as we all know, curse scars are forever. I’m okay with it though. I’ve gotten used to the one on my face and I know, in time, I’ll get used to this one too.
“What I think,” Harry began to explain, “is that this is where Voldemort’s soul left. The Horcrux latched itself onto the scar on my head because that’s where the first killing curse landed. Logic, whatever amount of that you can apply to this insane situation, then dictates that it exited at the place the second curse hit.”
Harry then finished unbuttoning his shirt and pulled it off before reaching down and pulling the vest he was wearing as an undershirt over his head. There on his chest, stark white against his tanned skin, was a second bolt of lightning. This one was much larger than the one on his face. Unlike the first scar which resembled a true strike of lightning and followed no clear pattern, the one on Harry’s chest was in a vague zig zag, following the path of the killing curse’s wand movement. Though, like the scar on Harry’s face, there were haphazard branches off the central strike.
It was beautiful.
This scar, even more than the famous one Harry had had almost his entire life, was a sign that he’d faced Death and walked away. A clear indicator that he knew Death in a way no person ever had or ever would.
The scar on his face was a sign that Magic had intervened. More likely than anything, that scar was a sign that Lily had sacrificed her very life so that her son might live. It was proof of the immense power of a mother’s love. It showed what happens when Fate and Life and Death come together.
The scar on Harry’s chest was a testament to his own strength. The strength of his magic; his power great enough to be Death’s Chosen. His strength of soul; his willingness to walk into the forest and greet Death as an old friend so that others might live.
With a shaking hand, Theo reached out and paused only a moment before he reached Harry’s skin. He looked up to see if he had made a horrible mistake, but Harry simply smiled softly and nodded. With permission given, Theo ran soft fingers over the scar, he traced the branches that split out from Harry’s sternum and ran along his chest.
It was only after he’d traced every line of this beautiful, life affirming scar that Theo realized what, exactly he was doing.
Without a second thought, he leaned forward and caught Harry’s lips in a gentle kiss. Harry took the opportunity to crawl into Theo’s lap, straddling his hips and wrapping his arms around his shoulders.
Harry pulled Theo into a sticky sweet, languid kiss before pulling away and pressing featherlight kisses across his cheek, then moving to press his nose to the crook of Theo’s neck. Harry took a deep breath, allowing Theo’s familiar scent of ocean breeze and cedar to relax him.
Theo was perfectly content to just hold Harry close, wrapping his arms around Harry’s waist, he hugged him tighter and allowed him to relax. As Harry’s shoulders started to sag as if he’d let go of a tremendous weight, Theo started to run his fingers softly up and down Harry’s back. With every pass, Harry relaxed further until Theo was nearly certain Harry was about to fall asleep.
Pressing one last kiss to the side of Harry’s head, Theo said softly, “we should head inside, love, you don’t want to fall asleep in the forest.”
“You don’t know what I want,” Harry said petulantly.
“I’m sure you’re tired, Hadrian,” Harry smiled softly at Theo’s use of his full name, “but you have time to take a real nap before dinner. You probably should, we have Astronomy tonight.”
“Don’t wanna leave you,” Harry mumbled.
“Love we both have beds in that giant castle right over there, we can take a nap together if you’d like.”
Harry perked up at that and stood quickly, pulling his vest back on before throwing on his shirt, neglecting to fasten even a single button, and shoving his tie in his pocket.
“Harry you’re going to get a lecture if McGonagall sees you that far out of uniform.
Shrugging, Harry simply threw his robe on, leaving that unfastened too, and pulled Theo up before leading the way out of the forest, “she won’t see me, if we come out of the forest over there,” he pointed ahead, “we’ll be right in front of the Tower and there’s an external entrance I can open with my ring. No one but the four of us, Teddy, and Andromeda are added to the wards yet, but you can get in if you’re with one of us.”
With that, Harry led the way out of the forest and to the entrance he’d mentioned. They didn’t come across a single soul which was odd considering it was an incredibly nice day. Theo wasn’t sure if it was because no one really came to this side of the castle, he could hear voices carried on the wind from the Transfiguration Courtyard, or because Harry had somehow subconsciously tapped into the castle’s magic to clear their path, but he found he didn’t really care.
When they got to the entrance, Harry pressed his ring against the brick to the left of the door. Like the passage they’d taken to get to Transfiguration that morning, the bricks moved to create an archway revealing a flight of stairs.
“Slytherin’s quarters, please,” Harry said out loud. The stairs shimmered slightly before settling again.
Harry then took Theo by the hand and pulled him up the stairs. At the top, unlike the brick archway they’d exited earlier, they came upon a wooden door that looked the same as all the other doors in the castle.
“Caput Serpentis,” Harry said.
“So,” Theo mused, “how close was Susan?”
“Too close for comfort,” Harry muttered.
“Why don’t you make your password in parsel?”
“I want the others, or at least Neville, to be able to get in. I’m not all that worried because this tower is even more heavily warded than the school itself and each of the rooms actually has its own ward scheme, so I can lock the room down once I’m inside. Also, I don’t believe Susan actually wants to kill me in my sleep.”
“You’re right, she’s more the type to kill you face to face.”
“Exactly,” Harry said with a nod.
He then stepped fully into the room. Somehow, the stairs from the external entrance had opened at the same point the main door to Harry’s quarters opened.
“So,” Harry said, “this is my quarters,” he then pointed to the portrait above the fireplace, “that’s Sal. He says hello, he also says you’re really pretty. I think Sal is done talking now.”
It was rather strange, Theo thought, both to be called pretty by Salazar Bloody Slytherin and to watch Harry hold a conversation with an unmoving, unspeaking painting. But Theo decided to greet and thank the painting anyways, “thank you for the compliment, sir. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“He says it’s lovely to meet you too,” Harry then went quiet for a moment, presumably listening to the portrait, “Teddy is at his grandmother’s he’ll be back tomorrow. I have Astronomy tonight, so I won’t be back until late and I don’t want to disturb his schedule.”
He was quiet for another moment, “yes, grandfather, I’m going to take a nap now before dinner.”
After another minute of quiet, Harry let out a whoop. Theo decided that, to any outsider, Harry would seem absolutely bat shit crazy.
“What’s got you excited, love?” Theo asked, instead of remarking on how bat shit crazy Harry seemed.
“Neville convinced Godric to let us start training later on Thursdays so we don’t have to wake up at 5 in the morning after Astronomy.”
“That’s probably smart,” Theo said, “because aren’t you lot training with swords and such?”
“Yeah, Sal said that was a rather central part of Nev’s argument,” Harry then turned back toward the portrait and said, “I’ll see you later, Sal. I’m going to bed. Scream if you need something or if, by some miraculous chance, someone breaks in.”
Harry then mock saluted the portrait and pulled Theo through the sitting room toward the door on the far left.
Harry’s room looked a lot like the Slytherin rooms in the 8th year tower, just with a larger bed and some slightly higher end furnishings.
Once the door was closed, Harry pulled off the clothes he hadn’t actually bothered fully putting back on and then took off his boots and started unbuttoning his slacks before he turned back and looked at Theo, who was still standing at the door utterly still, and tilted his head in question.
Theo snapped out of the trance he’d fallen into at the sight of a half-naked Harry and latched onto the only coherent thought he could form, “is that another dagger?” Theo asked, pointing to the leather straps of a holster he could see on the back of Harry’s left forearm. Somehow he hadn’t noticed it earlier, far too distracted by the whole Master of Death situation.
“Oh,” he said, “no.”
Such a helpful answer, Theo thought, but instead of letting the snark win, he asked “what is it then?”
Instead of actually answering, Harry flicked his wrist and a second later, turned around holding a massive fucking fang.
“Harry,” Theo said, voice edging on exasperated, “is that what I think it is?”
“Probably,” Harry said with a shrug.
“Why are you walking around with a basilisk fang?” Theo asked before looking closer, “sorry, let me rephrase that, why are you walking around with a basilisk fang that’s dipped in gold?”
“Goblins.” Harry answered helpfully.
“Goblins,” Theo repeated.
“Goblins.” Harry said with a nod.
“Care to elaborate?”
“Sure.”
After a moment of silence, Theo said, “care to elaborate now?”
“Oh,” Harry said, as if that was a foreign concept, “yeah. After we spoke this morning about the Chamber, I remembered I needed to contact the Goblins about the snake so after class I called for Bobbin, he’s the Hogwarts head elf, and asked if he’d go check with Ragnok since he’d been in the bank with us this summer and wouldn’t be seen as a threat.”
“Smart,” Theo said.
“Thank you,” Harry said with a grin, “I have my moments. Anyway, he came back like 7 minutes later and told me that the basilisk had been moved. They’d actually just finished rendering it this morning and after seeing it and knowing that I’d killed it when I was 12 they promoted me from Friend of the Nation to Warrior so, obviously, I needed my own weapon.”
“Obviously,” Theo said, slowly losing his grip on reality.
“According to Bobbin, a Warrior’s first weapon is traditionally forged from some part of the enemy they’d slain to earn the status. Usually, its hide is turned to leather and becomes the grip of a new weapon, but with something like the basilisk, parts of the animal are already weapons.”
“Right,” Theo said, wondering what exactly he’d done in a previous life to have a chance with the savior of the wizarding world who walked around looking like a Greek god, casually wielding daggers and basilisk fangs and being named a Goblin Warrior for something he did at twelve like it was nothing.
“Cool thing is,” Harry continued, oblivious to Theo’s crisis, “this is actually the fang that almost killed me.”
“Hadrian,” Theo said, snapping out of his shock for a moment, “did you just call narrowly escaping death by basilisk cool?”
“In hindsight, yeah,” he responded, “though in the moment it was bloody terrifying.”
“That’s the first normal thing you’ve said in the last 20 minutes.”
With a shrug, Harry continued his story, “so Ragnok told Bobbin to tell me that I’ve been named Warrior, that I should expect official correspondence from the Bank in the coming days, that I’m even more stupidly rich from the sale of the basilisk parts, and that I should wear my Goblin weapon always. Apparently, it’s tradition to wear the weapon close to a scar if you received one in the battle with the slain enemy as a reminder of your victory, so he also gave me this holster. Pretty neat, huh?”
“Yes, Hadrian,” Theo said, sounding entirely exasperated now, “it’s pretty ‘neat’ that you killed a 20-meter snake at 12 and have now been named a Warrior of the Nation when no human has achieved that title in decades. Neat is absolutely the word I’d use.”
Instead of responding to that statement at all, Harry’s just said, “I have to remember to tell Sal later. Godric will probably be pretty excited about the new weapon too.”
“Your life is insane.”
With an emphatic nod, Harry finished getting undressed, unbuckling the various holsters, leaving only the wrist holster with the Elder Wand, and crawled into bed. Theo decided he’d put off thinking about why he found the insane amount of weapons Harry was carrying so bloody hot and pulled off his own robe, hanging it on one of the hooks on the back of Harry’s door, before pulling off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. By the time Theo had his boots and slacks off and all his clothes nicely folded and placed on top of Harry’s dresser, Harry was entirely underneath the duvet, with only his mop of curls visible, and seemed about a second away from sleep.
Smiling softly at his chaos magnet of a boyfriend, Theo set an alarm on his wand and crawled into bed next to Harry.
As soon as Theo hit the mattress, Harry shot out an arm and yanked Theo back against him and wrapped his arm tightly around Theo’s torso. With one last kiss pressed to the top of Theo’s hair, Harry fell asleep.
Warm and secure against his boyfriend’s chest, Theo fell asleep only a few minutes later.
* * *
When the alarm went off two hours later, letting them know it was time to get ready to head down for dinner, Harry grumbled and tightened his hold on Theo.
“Wha’ times it?” Harry grumbled; his face buried in Theo’s hair.
“5:00” Theo responded.
“Dinner goes ‘til 9”
“I know,” Theo conceded, “but I didn’t think we should nap too long or neither of us would actually be functional by the time we got to Astronomy, nor would we be able to actually sleep tonight.”
“Fair,” Harry said, still sounding rather disgruntled, “but we don’t have to be anywhere right now, do we?” he asked innocently.
Not catching on to Harry’s meaning, Theo simply said, “no, I don’t think so. What did you want to do? We don’t have homework yet.”
“I have some thoughts,” Harry said, sounding more awake now.
Still not catching on, Theo responded, “care to share with the class?”
In lieu of answering, Harry pressed his hips forward.
“Ah,” Theo said, “good, smart, great thoughts,” he started to ramble, becoming less and less coherent with each slight roll of Harry’s hips, he then lost his grasp on the English language when he felt Harry’s warm breath brush against the back of his neck.
“Thought you might agree,” Harry said before cupping Theo’s cheek and lightly turning his head to capture him in a searing kiss.