Portrait
Harry’s head feels as though it’s been stomped on by Buckbeak and tap-danced over by Grawp while he dings the cursed bell on his favourite set of bicycle handlebars. Harry groans himself awake and is bombarded by the aches across his body, the tight skin stretching over new scars, and the tingle of freshly healed wounds. He cracks an eye open, regretfully squinting up to Kreacher who stands with his little fists curled and big, walloping tears dropping from his eyes. Harry closes his eyes and sighs.
“MASTER!” Kreacher screeches, his normally rather low voice cutting into new octaves just to ensure it grates on Harry’s ears. The horrid dinging of Grawp’s bell continues in his head as he curls his hands over his ears with a plaintive groan.
“Please, Kreacher, not now,” he whispers.
That muggle whiskey really does kick a punch. He’s not sure why he always forgets that in the moment. Maybe because it doesn’t burn enough on the way down. Not like firewhiskey does. Not enough pain to make him feel like he’s really getting a good hit, perhaps. Hermione would tell him to talk to a mindhealer about that if she knew.
“Master be lying here alls night,” Kreacher grumbles, tears falling. “Kreacher try to floo the Weasley’s, but youse be a horrible, no-good Master, terrible Master, turn off floo, forbid Kreacher from calling.”
“I’m sorry Kreacher,” Harry says. And he is. Sort of.
He doesn’t remember blocking the floo or banning Kreacher from contacting anyone, and he feels pretty bad about using his powers as Kreacher’s master to stop him from doing so. But…he can’t truly bring himself to regret the decision, since it kept him from having to wake to an unimpressed Ron and Hermione. Godric knows what they would have done.
“What happened?”
He sits up with a grunt, the ringing shooting through his ears and into his stomach, instantly making him nauseous. His back cracks in several places as it realigns after a night on the hardwood floors. He supposes Kreacher didn’t move him out of spite. He knows for sure that Kreacher could have levitated his body onto the bed if he so wanted.
“Master cannot even magics properly. Splinched every time like a novice.”
Kreacher stomps from the room and slams the door behind him, something he’ll no doubt apologise for later, and ask for a punishment because of. Harry rather enjoys when Kreacher acts out. He’ll have to make sure to tell Kreacher to slam doors when he’s upset more often. Make it an official task.
The dinging in his head continues as he crawls over to his bed, wishing that Kreacher would have at least left him a potion to sober up with. Harry manages to haul himself up into the bed and inspects the new skin on the left side of his body. His clothes are missing chunks over where he splinched himself, leaving his left thigh and bicep exposed. They’re both terribly scarred now—although that’s not new for Harry. He’s splinched himself dozens of times and each time the scars only seem to get worse. He’s surprised he didn’t die to his injuries this time.
He knows he didn’t though, because if he had, he wouldn’t be so hungover. It’s almost appealing to toddle off to the bathroom and run a warm bath to off himself in just to get rid of it. Not off himself in the muggle way, though. He doesn’t like how that one feels. It’s too slow. Too much like falling asleep. Dying should be a shock to the system, something instantaneous and unique. A feeling he can’t get just by clambering into a warm bed at night and dozing off.
Still, even without dying, Death has been working hard to keep him alive. It might be slow and it might be inconsistent, but Harry’s healing is above-average. Even without dying, if he finds himself close enough to the line for too long, his body will start to etch itself together in physically-defying ways. It just takes a while. This splinch must have taken at least five hours, maybe more, if the sun spilling through his curtains is any indicator.
Harry flops onto his pillows and debates calling for Kreacher and begging him for a potion to sober up, maybe even a pain-numbing and a dreamless sleep too, so he can knock out for a few more hours. He’s rather tempted. But then he remembers the tears in Kreacher’s eyes and decides against doing so. He doesn’t want to have to deal with that guilt just yet. Instead, he closes his eyes and attempts to sleep.
It doesn’t last long. Not with the ringing in his ears and the pain in his arm. It takes him a good eight minutes before he realises the ringing isn’t just in his head. Well, it is. But it’s not because of his hangover. It’s his wards dinging, alerting to someone at its edges. Harry grumbles when he realises that whoever it is likely won’t be leaving, since they’ve already been there for a good ten minutes. He scowls and sits up, fighting back a wave of nausea. He takes a deep breath and holds it, clutching the edge of his shirt and apparating near where the wards that are dinging for attention.
He stumbles slightly on the landing and promptly wretches the slight amount of food in his stomach at the base of a nearby tree, one hand clutching the bark and the other gripping his left knee. His exposed left knee.
“Fuck sake,” Harry mutters, looking down and realising his clothes are still shredded, the left sleeve missing all the way up the shoulder and partly to the chest, the shirt only managing to stay on because of the thin strip of the neckline on the left that survived. His jeans almost look like they could be artistically ripped, if it were normal to only have your left leg visible from mid-thigh to just below the knee.
The thought of apparating back home and changing clothes then apparating back makes Harry hurl one more time on the tree, and the ringing continues obnoxiously in the back of his head, as if he hadn’t heard the warning of possible intruders for the last fifteen minutes. Harry promises himself to change the alert design as soon as he’s fully functional again.
He focusses his magic to conceal his scars, enlisting the familiar magic he encases himself in every time he leaves the grounds. It tingles over his new scars, warming up along their edges and sinking through his skin as the magic improves, updates for the new scars it needs to cover. He attempts to transfigure his shirt but it ends up worse than before, with half of it turning into lace and the hole becoming larger, somehow now a stylistic choice of the design. He sighs and undoes the dodgy transfiguration, lamenting inside how disappointed McGonagall would be in his alcohol-depleted skills.
He stomps towards the wards, ready to give whoever is there a piece of his mind. Not that they’d know just standing that close would alert him in the form of an obnoxiously loud dinging, but he still feels the need to rage a bit. The wards are designed rather cleverly, with a two-way-mirror-like aspect where Harry can see out of the wards but the outside cannot see in. They just see a rather dense forest reflected back.
At the edge of the wards, staring into the reflected tree line with squinted eyes is Sam, Billy Black sitting in his wheelchair next to him. Sam must’ve carried Billy in—or wheeled him over the uneven forest floor—because there’s no way Billy would have been able to wheel himself out here.
Harry feels his anger putter out and instead bone-weary tiredness sinks into him. The hangover and nausea make him take a deep breath, look up at the blindingly bright clouds for a second before scrunching his eyes shut and letting the air out in a shaky breath. He walks forward and waves his hand, dispelling the mirror effect on the wards and allowing them to see through.
The wards are set a good kilometre or so from his house, so they can’t see the cabin, only the continuation of trees in the distance. The only difference from the reflected view is Harry, standing directly in front of them, not two metres away. Sam jumps in shock when Harry materialises out of nowhere and Billy struggles to maintain a straight face.
“Sam, Billy,” Harry says slowly and with a slight frown he tries to wipe off his face. “It’s a bit early for a visit, no?”
“It’s the afternoon,” Sam grunts at the same time Billy replies with, “Hello, James. What happened to your clothes?”
Harry waves his hand dismissively. “A slight accident. How can I help you?”
“We were coming to—” Sam starts, before Billy cuts him off.
“May we come in?”
Sam’s eyes bulge open and he looks at Billy as if he’s gone mad.
Harry eyes Billy for a moment. He wants to say no. He probably should say no, considering his house is not muggle-proof and the outside is a cabin whilst the inside is Grimmauld place and Kreacher is there and Harry’s home is his safe space. But then he thinks about how Billy is a Black and Grimmauld is literally a part of his family history, a part of who he might have been, if anyone had bothered to keep track of the family line other than the Goblins.
Harry sighs and waves his hand, opening a small gap in the wards for them to come through. He gestures with his head and Sam, after only a few seconds of hesitation, pushes Billy forward slowly, as though waiting for them to both go rebounding backwards. When nothing happens, he rolls the wheelchair forward with more confidence until they are both over the invisible line of wards. Harry looks back out, ready to close the wards, when he spots the mind reader.
Edward.
In the tree line, watching, with molten golden eyes that catalogue him, grazing up and down his body, staring intently at the skin exposed by the holes in his clothes. Harry doesn’t know why Edward is here. Doesn’t know how long he has been here. But whatever the reason, and however long, he doesn’t like how it screams ‘Alice had a vision so I’m waiting here to see it play out’. He scowls at Edward and waves his hand, slamming the wards closed again and relishing slightly in the upset furrow to Edward’s eyebrows when the three of them disappear from view.
“Was that a Cullen?” Sam asks, lifting his chin as he sniffs the air. Harry ignores his comment.
“Its a bit of a walk. I can take us there,” he says instead.
He doesn’t really want to apparate again, and not with two extras, but he’d apparate over walking any day. The him right now couldn’t make the walk even if he tried.
Sam looks unconvinced but Billy takes him up on the offer. He’s not sure if Billy is just curious, or if he’s trying to prove something. Perhaps that he’s not scared of magic the way Sam is. Harry’s never tried apparating with a wheelchair before but he figures it can’t be that different to apparating with Moody, since he’s practically more machine and object than human anyway.
Harry grips both of their arms.
“When I say ‘go’, take a deep breath and hold it. You’ll feel it in your stomach and it’ll feel like being pushed through a tube, but just relax. Don’t push my hand off, or you could end up elsewhere.”
Sam shakily nods. Harry can feel his boiling skin under his grip and finds it rather amusing that Billy is the calm one of the two. That the big, bad alpha wolf Sam is seemingly rather terrified at the prospect of magical travel.
“Go,” Harry says and waits until they’ve both taken a breath before apparating them.
They land outside the cabin with Billy wheezing and Sam stumbling away from Harry’s grip, his body shaking and his eyes wide. Harry shuffles to the side and gags, resting his hands on his knees as he fights to keep whatever is in his stomach down. It takes Billy a second to get his composure, but when he does, he calls out to Sam, willing him to maintain control.
“Breathe, Sam. Just breathe,” he says, wheeling himself backwards slightly.
Harry stands there for a moment, nausea calmed down and spit swiped from his chin. He decides he doesn’t want to be there, awkwardly watching Sam fight his internal wolf, so he stalks to the cabin, climbing the few stairs to his front door. He stops at the top and looks at the stairs. There’s no way for Billy to wheel himself up—not that he’s trying to do so right now anyway, with Sam shivering like Harry’s old Sneakoscope used to and Billy trying to calm him down. Still, Harry figures he should make it more accessible. While Billy talks Sam down from his wolfy-crisis, Harry focusses on transfiguring half of his steps into a ramp.
“Thank you,” Billy says after a minute, when Sam has collected himself. He stands with his shoulders spread wide pretending he wasn’t just half on the ground in a battle against himself and his fear. “Your magic sure is convenient!” Billy jokes in an attempt to make the past few minutes less awkward, wheeling himself up the ramp.
Harry wishes he could feel as relaxed about his magic as Billy is. Some days it feels more like a curse. One he wouldn’t trade for anything in the world, true, but he enjoys despising it at times. Everything bad to ever happen in his life stemmed from magic. Everything good, too. It’s a love-hate relationship with something he would never give up, and something he could never truly hate.
“So this is the elusive house,” Sam says, stepping up. “It’s a hard thing to find.”
Sam inspects the cabin slowly, eyes stopping on the slight imperfections that hint at its handmade origins. One of the logs on the right-hand side has Ron’s initials scratched into it with Harry’s right beneath it. Something stupid they did a few butterbeers deep, after a day of heavy lifting and long hours sawing logs. It was fun. They felt stupid and youthful and that night Harry cried in his bed.
“Purposely,” Harry replies, opening the cabin door and stepping inside.
He holds it open for Billy but leaves Sam to hold it open himself. They stop in the doorway as the cabin turns into the grand foyer of Grimmauld place. Billy whistles as he looks up at the chandelier over their heads and the staircase leading up to the second floor. Sam stands in the doorway with half a foot out, looking ready to transform and run at the slightest hint on danger.
“This doesn’t look like a cabin,” Billy says, wheeling himself inside further. “It’s impressive.”
Grimmauld looks rather different to how it used to be when the Order was shacked up inside. Harry wonders if Billy would have still thought it were impressive if Walburga was screaming slurs and dark magic crawled from its crevices, and the walls were stained black like the family who owned it. Harry doesn’t know how to reply to Billy, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with the fact that he’s here at all—that Sirius’s long-lost second-removed muggle-born cousin is here, in the house of Black, accompanied by a half-muggle werewolf of all things.
“It was my godfather’s. The house, not the cabin,” Harry settles for saying, turning to the drawing room. “We can sit in here.”
Sam and Billy follow diligently—Sam more cautiously—and both take a minute to glance around the new room with wide eyes. Sam settles into the armchair across from the fireplace and Billy wheels himself next to it. Harry plops onto the chaise, his favourite chair to lounge on, head pounding almost as much as his heart and his stomach swirling with the remnants of whiskey. He casts a quick cleansing charm at his mouth to remove the thick layer of filth that’s built on his tongue and the acid on the back of his teeth.
“So,” Harry starts after it becomes clear to him that his guests are too busy looking at the painting above the fireplace—the forbidden forest at night, with trees blowing in the breeze and the slight glimpses of creatures in its depths, a gift from Luna. “Why are you here?”
“The Cullens—” Sam starts, before Billy cuts him off, again. Harry narrows his eyes.
“I wanted to check on you. See how the treaty business went with the Cullens, so I made Sam bring me out here.” Billy finally looks away from the painting. “This was your godfather’s house?”
Harry nods. “Yes. This was the Black family manor. It’s been in the Black family for generations. Until now.”
Sam looks mesmerised by the painting still, his eyes darting left and right as if he could catch the creatures within. Maybe the painting looks different to him, or maybe it calls to a part of his wolf. The magic of the forest is similar to the nature magic that the wolves have a connection to, after all.
“I’m sure your godfather considers you a Black,” Billy says with a smile.
“Perhaps.” Harry’s fingers tap on the edge of the chaise. He would kill to eat something right now. And to drink some water. “Why are you really here?”
“I had something to ask you,” Billy says, his face pinched slightly. “It’s about my son. He’s sixteen.”
“Jacob, yes?” Harry asks.
Billy nods and Sam seems to finally lock back to the conversation, his eyes slinging away from the painting.
“Jacob? What happened to Jacob?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to ask for James’s permission to explain the treaty to him. I think Jacob deserves to know our family history and, well, perhaps you could be friends.”
Twenty-six-year-old Harry doesn’t want to be friends with a sixteen-year-old possible werewolf. Scratch that. He doesn’t want to be friends with a sixteen-year-old point blank. But right now he’s not Harry Potter, he’s James Granger. And James is a seventeen-year-old.
“Sure,” he says, hesitantly. “He already knows about half-muggle werewolves and vampires. A wizard can’t be that shocking.” Although maybe it is, since both the werewolves and the vampires had a hard time believing in the concept of magic.
“Actually, Jacob doesn’t know about the wolves. Or the Cullens,” Billy says.
“Uh…why not?”
“We keep it a secret,” Sam explains. “Unless you transform. We have stories, of course, tribe legends that the elders share. But the kids don’t tend to believe in them until it happens.”
Harry supposes it’s similar to how magic was for him. But he was raised by the Dursley’s. The Weasley’s all learnt about magic from the moment they were born, and they were surrounded by friends and family and a culture that supported magic and developed their growth. Harry doesn’t understand why the Quileute tribe wouldn’t live like that too—why they would treat their magic as something of legend until it can no longer be denied.
Harry’s entire world view changed at eleven, and he was still young and impressionable enough for it to be a good thing. He can’t imagine what would have happened if he had to live with the Dursley’s until he was sixteen before learning about magic. He wouldn’t have been the same person, and he wouldn’t have been as happy to learn of another world he should belong in but had been blocked from.
Billy seems to notice Harry’s conflicted expression, but he doesn’t get to verbalise his thoughts because Kreacher pops into existence with a tray of tea and biscuits, with a potion balanced on the edge. Sam leaps up from his chair with a yell, bumping Billy’s wheelchair and knocking his hat askew. Kreacher eyes Sam—perhaps warily, or maybe with distaste, Harry can’t be too sure—before turning to Harry.
“Master not be informing Kreacher of guests today.”
Harry sighs heavily and considers just trudging up to his room, leaving Billy and Sam to fend for themselves.
“Kreacher, seriously?” Harry complains, throwing his hands up.
“It be rude not to serve refreshments. Master always forgetting. Muggle upbringing, Kreacher thinks.”
Kreacher begins dishing out the cups of tea and biscuits, placing a small jar of sugar in the middle of the coffee table. He hands Harry the potion with a purposeful look, as if saying he wouldn’t be receiving this if guests weren’t here.
“Master?” Billy inquires, gently patting Sam’s arm to get him to sit back down and straightening his hat. Harry swears Sam’s nose twitches as if trying to sniff Kreacher. He swigs the potion back and sighs at the instant relief to his head.
“Kreacher is a house elf. He’s…like an employee.”
“Yes, Kreacher is free elf now. Unfortunately,” he drawls. “Master be gifting Kreacher a sock.”
“Uh, right” Harry mutters. “He is actually paid, you know.”
“Kreacher much preferred the old ways.”
“Kreacher!” Harry whispers harshly through his teeth. “Stop confusing them.”
Harry can feel Billy and Sam’s eyes batting between them, watching the conversation play out like a ball rebounding across a tennis court.
“Muggle upbringing?” Billy asks, his face perfectly passive but eyes burning with what Harry suspects is a too-strong dose of interest.
“Master be—”
“Kreacher.” Harry’s voice is low and harsh and Kreacher pauses instantly. After a second, Harry continues, in a much softer and kinder voice. “This is Billy Black.”
Kreacher’s face lights up.
“Black! A muggle Black!” Kreacher shuffles forward and bows to Billy, whose eyes dart to Harry for help. “Master Billy be a wolf?”
“Oh, no. That’s just Sam here,” Billy says.
Sam sits, petrified in his chair, hands gripping the arm rests and eyes bulging from his head as he stares at Kreacher’s large eyes and boney fingers and flopping ears. Kreacher turns to Sam and he sits up in his chair with a ramrod straight back, his face a careful mask. A complete Alpha recovery.
“Youse wolves much too noisy,” Kreacher says with a glare before turning back to Harry. “Muggle Black in Grimmauld. Mistress must hear of this!”
Kreacher grins at Harry with an evilness he hasn’t seen in a while and apparates from the room with a happy glint in his eye at the idea of causing Walburga distress. He developed a somewhat morbid delight in torturing her as they renovated Grimmauld place together, something that stuck enough for him to request to keep her portrait in the dungeon for entertainment purposes. Harry let him—she bullied Kreacher for enough years that Harry thought Kreacher deserved the chance to enjoy some revenge.
Besides, Kreacher’s version of torture is to tell her all the news of the Black family line and the upgrades made to Grimmauld. The only descendent Walburga hasn’t denounced so far is Malfoy, unsurprisingly. She rather thinks he’s some Dark Lord in the making and Kreacher, perhaps out of some old, lasting reverence to her, doesn’t seem to have it within him to tell her Malfoy denounced the old ways after the war and used his memories as evidence against all those who claimed to have been under the influence of imperio, even his own family.
“Mistress?” Billy asks, his voice incredulous. He’s done nothing but repeat words as questions since Kreacher has arrived. It’s better than Sam though, who still sits rigid and poised and barely present. Harry wonders what his mind would be like now. “You’re married?” Billy manages to ask through a choked voice.
“No, the Mistress is my Godfather’s mother. She’s a painting. Rather horrid bitch if you ask me,” Harry says. “Kreacher enjoys bullying her.”
Billy jerkily nods his head and Harry realises that perhaps there are things better left unsaid.