Changes
“What’s wrong, Harry?”
“I don’t know.”
Harry thought it was all the things he needed to do that were weighing on him. With finals finished and everyone on the lawn, planning to enjoy the last three days of the school year, there was going to be so much to do.
There was so much to do, Harry just wasn’t thinking about Albania or Morfin or Barty Crouch Junior. It was more of what he didn’t do that bothered him.
Harry’s second-first year was wildly different than his first-first year. Sirius was there, they were in Slytherin, it was Daphne Greengrass and Pansy Parkinson sitting with Harry while they waited on Sirius and the others to finish their final examination. Harry was still a seeker, he had helped his team win the Quidditch House Cup. Snape had to accept the trophy without ever looking at Harry, Snape also administered Harry’s final year exam in complete silence.
That had been a very welcome change, even if the urge to curse Snape grew every time Harry had to see his face.
Harry didn’t have Hermione or Ron… he didn’t think he would be able to befriend Ron at that point. Hermione wouldn’t talk to Harry since the day she watched him and Sirius duel, even Neville looked terrified of Harry.
That stung in an unexpected way. It wasn’t unfair though, Hermione had always been a close rule follower up until their fifth year. Harry’s Hermione was gone, actually gone, and Harry couldn’t get her back.
Sirius and Cosmo told him not to bother trying.
There were other things Harry never had happen… he didn’t go in the forest for a detention, he never saw the Mirror of Erised. Harry didn’t get a Weasley sweater and - and…
Harry looked out across the lawns and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at Hagrid’s cabin. Hagrid never invited Harry to tea, not once.
“Hagrid hasn’t talked to me,” Harry said aloud. Why… why wouldn’t he? There had only been a couple of changes by the time that Hagrid had originally invited Harry to tea. Harry had Sirius and he went to Slytherin.
Which of those two differences had been enough to drive Hagrid away from Harry?
“The groundskeeper?” Pansy rolled her eyes. “Who cares?”
Harry cared.
“I do,” Harry said firmly. He stood up and had decided that he was going to go knock on Hagrid’s door, ask what happened. “I’ll be back,” he told Pansy and Daphne.
“Don’t leave me,” Cosmo hissed pathetically. The poor snake was being braided a chain of flowers that Daphne was painstakingly wrapping around him.
“They’re twelve year old girls, save yourself,” Harry hissed back, already striding across the grounds. Harry smiled grimly to himself when a few students enjoying the sunshine flinched, it was an old reaction by then.
There had been something sort of liberating about deciding to use Parsletongue freely at Hogwarts. It didn’t make Harry feel dirty or wrong anymore, it made him feel different, powerful.
When Harry had been twelve, he had no idea that the whispers about his ability were nothing compared to the articles, taunts, and insults that would eventually be sent at him. If Harry didn’t back down from his story about the graveyard and the return of Voldemort when his friends and classmates called him crazy and Umbridge made him carve ‘liar’ in his hand then he’d use Parsletongue as often as he wanted.
It helped that Harry was in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor, oddly enough. There were plenty of students who seemed terrified of Harry, but they were sort of respectfully terrified, which was strange but much more tolerable.
As long as it made Dumbledore uneasy, as long as it made him sweat up in his office. All Harry hoped was that his decisions told Dumbledore that Harry would never be anything to him.
Sirius thought Dumbledore wanted Harry to be his Golden Boy, Snape warned that Harry wasn’t acting the way Dumbledore wanted him to.
Good.
Because the day that Dumbledore decided Harry was as much of a liability as he found Sirius to be would be the day that Harry would show him how much of a liability he could be.
It didn’t matter if the Dumbledore of Harry’s time wasn’t the one who sent Sirius through the veil, he would. He wasn’t the kind and powerful wizard Harry once respected - he was only another wizard with too much power and nobody willing to challenge him.
Voldemort and Dumbledore had quite a bit in common, really. And the list continued to grow as Harry was determined to make them both pay for what they did.
Voldemort killed Harry’s parents, Dumbledore tried to kill Sirius.
Everything was different and it was that thought that made Harry falter before he reached Hagrid’s cabin.
Everything was different and with each change, Harry changed. He wasn’t the same person who fell through the veil, he wouldn’t even recognize himself.
Harry had experienced rituals, deep magic that nobody had ever shown him before. Harry was growing as a wizard, he could feel it every time he dueled Sirius without rules or restraints. Harry lost the Dursleys, he gained… a Morfin.
Harry was different, so why did he think he needed to force everyone else to be the same?
Hermione and Ron weren’t the ones who changed, they had stayed the same people Harry always knew. Hagrid didn’t change either… he was only reacting based on Harry’s changes.
It was Harry who had changed everyone and then sat around wondering why they were different.
Harry turned around abruptly and had decided that he was done, done trying to force others to be the same when he was so different. Harry couldn’t sneak in Gryffindor and befriend Ron again and he didn’t want to try. If Harry had to be a good little Gryffindor and lick Dumbledore’s boots to have tea with Hagrid or play quidditch with Ron then it would never happen.
Dumbledore was in the Ministry that night, Harry was sure of it. Dumbledore was there and he sent Sirius through the veil.
It was sad, but also freeing. Every decision Harry made brought freedom for himself, freedom for Sirius.
Sirius had changed lately too, not as much though. Sirius was a little more quiet, a little less patient. Draco and Blaise still stuck to him like glue, but Harry saw they both started becoming more wary of when Sirius would flare up in anger. It felt more like Sirius was becoming more of himself.
Harry mentioned that the other night, when he couldn’t sleep and felt weighed down by everything they learned and everything that had changed.
“You’re different too,” Harry whispered, not wanting to wake Sirius up. “You’re not the same Sirius you used to be.”
Sirius hadn’t been asleep and his response was to roll closer to Harry and toss an arm over Harry’s chest so he could cuddle into him. Harry didn’t think about it when he wrapped his arm around Sirius and buried his fingers in his hair.
“I’m not hiding anything with you,” Sirius mumbled, half-asleep. “I don’t have to.”
No, he didn’t have to.
Harry was preparing to return to where the girls sat to wait for Sirius, he was taking forever, when he spotted Lupin.
Or, more accurately, Lupin spotted Harry and called out to him.
“Harry!” Lupin was walking out of the forest and he called Harry’s name as soon as he saw him. Harry hesitated, debating on simply walking away, then let his curiosity keep him in place.
As much as Harry hated Lupin, still thought he was an idiot for not trusting Sirius, his dislike had shifted. It wasn’t as intense, it wasn’t as… jealous.
Harry didn’t have to be jealous of Remus Lupin. It was stupid to be jealous anyway, Lupin was all wrong for Sirius. He wasn’t all that special, his lycanthropy was the most interesting thing about him. Lupin was kind, not particularly powerful and certainly not as brilliant as Sirius.
Lupin wasn’t even all that attractive. Harry shouldn’t have been jealous - Lupin was Petrimius. That was all he would ever be. If Harry were gone, maybe he could hold Sirius’s attention. But Harry didn’t plan on dying, he wasn’t Serapion, he wasn’t something different… someone different.
“I’m glad I caught you,” Lupin said in a friendly way as he jogged to catch up to him. Lupin smiled and Harry only nodded. “I was hoping we could talk before you left for the summer?”
Harry had an inkling that he knew what Lupin wanted to discuss, but he still agreed to walk back to his office with him. Lupin asked Harry about his exams while they walked and Harry bluntly said he expected top scores.
“I would be surprised if you didn’t get them,” Lupin agreed with a small smile. “I’ve heard good things from all your professors. You’re very accomplished, you should be proud.”
Harry was proud, oddly enough. Harry had learned more from Sirius than anyone and it was making him a better wizard. The first year spells that Harry mastered long ago could be done silently, Sirius was no longer guaranteed a victory when they dueled. Harry wasn’t as creative as Sirius, the things he could do with magic were dizzying, but Harry was powerful enough in the spells he did use.
“I am,” Harry said, letting that strange pride in himself to settle. It was new, different. Like many of the other changes, Harry liked it.
Lupin told Harry some about his second year defense plan for the rest of their walk and Harry pretended to care. It was a surprise, actually, to realize that Lupin would be there next year. No defense professor had ever lasted more than a year in Harry’s memory… though Lupin hadn’t exactly been there a year yet.
“I’m hoping to collect some interesting creatures and artifacts this summer,” Lupin went on. They reached his office and Lupin held the door open for him. “If you wanted, you could go with me. I could certainly use some assistance.”
“What?” Harry paused just inside Lupin’s office and blinked as Lupin casually walked past him to sit at his desk.
“If you aren’t busy,” Lupin said. He sat down and waved a hand for Harry to sit across from him, which Harry did with extreme reluctance.
“I… would probably need to talk to my Uncle Morfin,” Harry said carefully, caught off-guard by the conversation. “Are you offering this to all the students?”
“Not at all.” Lupin reached under his desk and when he pulled his arm out, Harry’s breath caught for a moment. Lupin laid a familiar photo album on his desk, one of Harry’s possessions that he mourned more than anything else.
“Only the ones that used to call me Uncle,” Lupin said as he slid the album to Harry. “I wasn’t entirely honest with you before, Harry. I did have a good friend named Peter Pettigrew when I was a student. I also had a good friend named James. Your father.”
Harry eagerly flipped the album open and began devouring the pages. It wasn’t his parents who he sought out in the pictures though, it was the man who laughed in each photo with a smile as bright as the star he was named for.
When Harry couldn’t hold back a tiny grin as he traced the photo where Sirius was dressed in dress robes and winking at the camera, Lupin cleared his throat.
“I don’t know what you were told, but Sirius’s father and yours used to be friends as well.” Harry looked up in time to see Lupin’s face spasm oddly, as if he were in pain. He might have been, Harry didn’t know or care enough to check.
“I know they were,” Harry said calmly. “The Marauders, right? Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?”
Lupin twitched again and Harry could see he struck a nerve. Maybe Harry shouldn’t know that, he was having a hard time remembering what he should and shouldn’t know, but he wasn’t going to let Lupin get away with half of a story either.
“Yeah, yeah…” Lupin rubbed his face and it bothered Harry for a second - it was the same thing Sirius did when he was nervous.
“Harry, I understand that Sirius is your friend…” Lupin rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the photo Harry had found, the one where Sirius winked and flaunted his looks. “But his father was once your father’s closest friend and… well, James trusted him quite a bit.”
Harry could have stopped Lupin, he should have. Except he was going to let him bury himself with his distrust of the only person in the world that Harry trusted.
“I don’t want to bog you down with details, but the Sirius that your father trusted was a part of the wizards who ultimately killed James and Lily,” Lupin said. “He—”
“Like Snape.”
“What?”
Harry took the album off the desktop and placed it on his lap - they were given to him before, Harry wouldn’t risk Lupin getting angry and taking them back.
“You were talking about the death eaters,” Harry said, forcing himself to sound calm while he seethed inside and his cheek seemed to heat with the memory of being slapped.
“Snape is a death eater, Sirius was not,” Harry said. “Your ‘good friend’ Peter Pettigrew is a death eater, Sirius was not.”
“Harry…” Lupin sounded sympathetic. “I’m sure Sirius doesn’t want to think ill of his father, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No. You don’t,” Harry said. It wasn’t Harry’s job to clear Sirius Orion’s name, it didn’t matter if Lupin believed him or not. But Harry wasn’t going to sit there and listen to Sirius be bad-mouthed.
“Peter Pettigrew was the secret-keeper for my family,” Harry went on while Lupin went slack-jawed. “He faked his death, he killed those muggles. You can do as you please, but you won’t tell me I shouldn’t trust my Sirius because you didn’t trust the one that used to be yours enough.”
Harry started to stand, satisfied that he said all he wanted. The photo album was clutched in his hands and he would have fought Lupin for it, but Lupin never asked for it back.
“How do you know that?” Lupin asked, pale-faced with a throbbing vein down the side of his neck.
Because Harry knew Sirius.
“Magic,” Harry spat, not an entire lie. Harry heard some rumors about himself, heard that Theo Nott was telling people that Harry was a seer and a… something Harry couldn’t remember that meant he saw the past instead of the future. If Lupin wanted to think that as well, so be it.
Magic brought Harry back in time, magic flowed through him waiting to be used. Magic was what gave Harry Sirius and it could be an excuse for why Harry knew more than he ought to.
“Have a good summer,” Harry said dismissively. “Good luck with your search.”
Harry turned his back on Lupin and was satisfied that he had at least left Lupin half as upset as it caused Harry to hear Sirius being distrusted every time someone mentioned him.
Harry didn’t expect Lupin to call out to him once more before he left the classroom —
“You should know, Harry, that Morfin Gaunt is Lord Voldemort’s uncle, his mother’s brother. If you decide that you might want a safer arrangement this summer, your owl can find me.”
Morfin was… fucking what?!
Harry found Sirius immediately, needing him to hear what Lupin told Harry. Sirius was outside with the others, clutching a tree while he laughed himself to tears.
“Harry!” Sirius was laughing when he looked at Harry. “We… Harry?” Sirius’s smile slipped then fell as Harry strode directly to him and grabbed him by the arm. Cosmo, apparently spotting an escape from Daphne’s braided bodysuit made of flowers, hurried and slithered to Harry and began climbing his leg while Harry pulled Sirius away.
“What’s wrong?” Sirius asked, sobering instantly. “Harry?”
“Morfin,” Harry said. He was shaking inside, though he didn’t know what for. Maybe because the ground beneath his feet had shifted again, maybe because the man Harry advocated for in front of the entire Wizengamot was the brother of Voldemort’s mother.
“Morfin?” Sirius twisted his hand so that he was clutching Harry’s elbow while he stared hard at him. “Did someone kill him??”
“No.” Harry inhaled deeply and prepared for an outburst from Sirius at least half as shocked as Harry. “He’s Voldemort’s uncle, Siri.”
Sirius blinked.
“Right.”
What?
Harry scowled at him, not appreciating his lack of a reaction.
“Sirius, Morfin’s sister literally gave birth to Voldemort.”
“Right.” Sirius nodded and began to smile. “If that’s all, then listen, Pup, so Peeves wanted to cash in on one of those spells I owe him, right?”
“Sirius!” Harry interrupted what he was sure would be a hilarious story being told at the worst possible time. “Did you already know?”
Sirius huffed, as if Harry not caring about Peeves in the moment was a real loss.
“I didn’t know,” Sirius said. “I assumed they were closely related though. It’s the Parsletongue, Harry. It’s not a common skill and I doubt Voldemort was hatched from an egg, after all. I think they’ve got the same middle name too, bit of a family tradition, right?”
Harry had never once thought about Voldemort as a man who was once a baby. Sure, Harry had seen him when he had been a teenager, but Voldemort rising to birth from a cauldron had effectively wiped that memory away.
“Do you think he knows? Morfin?” Harry asked. “He would, wouldn’t he? He knows his - his nephew is Voldemort?”
“He didn’t even know you were famous,” Sirius grinned. “I doubt they had family dinners. How’d you find out anyway? Look up a family tree?”
“Lupin told me,” Harry said. He lifted the photo album that was either stolen property or a blatant bribe. “He was trying to warn me away from you and Morfin. Oh, and I was invited to go hunt for creatures with him this summer.”
“Creatures?” Cosmo hissed. “I will go hunt for creatures with the wolf man.”
“You will not,” Harry told him absently. “You will be with me.”
“I am trapped.”
“Let me guess.” Sirius rolled his eyes and started to cross his arms. “‘Sirius Orion was a filthy traitor and so is Sirius James. Don’t trust him, run to Africa with me, I’m a trustworthy bloke’.”
“Er… it was more of him saying some of that and me doing some mild yelling,” Harry admitted sheepishly. “I might have told him that he should have trusted you and Pettigrew was the secret keeper.”
If the information about Morfin wasn’t enough to keep Sirius’s attention, that certainly was. Sirius lit up, he actually lit up, when Harry told him that.
It was because people liked being defended, they liked knowing that the people they trusted trusted them in return.
Harry would have liked that, before the veil. He would have liked being trusted with information. And who was the only one to trust him?
Sirius.
“Yeah?” Sirius beamed when he tossed his arm around Harry’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s grab some food from the kitchen. You can eat and I’ll tell you about all those photos.”
Harry honestly couldn’t think of a single thing that he would rather do.
And when Sirius wanted to later plan a prank that ensued Slytherin lost the house cup despite their two hundred point lead? Harry wanted to do that too.
Anything Sirius wanted to do - Harry wanted involved.
*****
“I bloody hate fucking you.”
“Careful, cousin-brother, that sounds suspiciously like you’re coming on to me.” Sirius was all charm as he poured Draco a drink, one that Draco pushed as far from him as he could.
Harry snorted and looked around the Great Hall, nodding appreciatively at the Hufflepuff decorations that hung on every wall. It had actually been a pain to make Slytherin lose points, Harry was beginning to worry that he and Sirius were somewhat favored by most of the professors.
When they spiked the drinks of almost everyone in the school with a potion of Sirius’s own invention - one they stayed up all night perfecting - McGonagall had no choice but to take one hundred points each.
It was hard to ignore the way that nobody could speak without a curse bubbling out every other word.
Harry, Sirius, and Theodore Nott had a week of detention each, to go with the three hundred point loss. Harry didn’t intend on Theo being considered an accessory to their crude prank, but he figured that Theo would prefer to not be cursing when he had to return home that night.
They needed to do something about him over the summer, Harry hadn’t decided what yet. It was on his extensive to-do list alongside ‘ask Morfin about Voldemort’, ‘get the diary’, ‘go to Albania’, ‘find Pettigrew’, ‘investigate Dursleys murders’, and ‘do something about Barty Crouch Junior.
That didn’t even account for the Malfoys they needed to work around, the trip to see Amelia Bones that Sirius insisted on, or the ‘summer reunion’ that Hannah Abbott planned for them to all attend at Diagon Alley.
It was going to be an exhausting summer and Harry was looking forward to it. It would be nice to have something to do, a tangible set of goals to achieve.
Dumbledore made his speech and presented Professor Sprout with the house cup. Harry and Sirius cheered louder than anyone when she took it, which probably didn’t earn them any good will from their housemates.
Harry looked over at the Hufflepuff table where Cedric Diggory was smiling and congratulating his housemates on winning the cup. That was what Harry needed to remember when his list became too extensive - Harry needed to remember that there were very real lives at stake. Lives that had already been lost.
“He looks happy,” Sirius said, looking where Harry was.
“He’s alive,” Harry said. He twisted his ankle with Sirius’s and turned back to their table with a shrug. “Why wouldn’t he be happy?”
Why couldn’t Cedric Diggory live a long and happy life? Why couldn’t Harry and Sirius be free and save the others from a war?
Sirius was brilliant, the smartest person Harry had truly ever known. Hermione could memorize books, big deal. Sirius could manipulate magic, make it do anything he wanted. Sirius could invent spells, create potions. Sirius was magic.
“I’m fucking not shite happy,” Daphne said, popping Harry’s moment of bliss. Daphne was pouting at him. “My cunt mother bullshit is fucking going bloody to arse kill me!”
Theo snickered and he even grinned at Harry, a little shyly, when Harry laughed with him.
“I’ll give you the reversal potion for a fee,” Sirius said, suddenly gaining everyone’s attention. Sirius pulled the silver potion from his pocket and held it high for the other Slytherins to see. “One drop and everyone’s potty mouths will be cleaned!”
“Bitch give twat me!” Draco cried, scrambling for his bag. “How fucking much?”
“Anyone with nice pureblooded connections who swears to invite me to stay three nights at their house this summer gets a drop for free.”
Harry laughed freely at the mad dash of curse-filled promises to invite Sirius over for the summer. Some of the students, like Blaise, probably would have done it anyway. Either way, Harry figured it would have to work as Plan A at getting Sirius out of the Malfoy’s house for the summer.
Plan B was that Sirius simply ran away, which Harry assumed they would have to ultimately do.
Harry was content to eat his dinner and laugh with Theo as students from other tables began filtering over, only to be turned away if they wouldn’t extend an invite to Sirius for the summer. It made Sirius seem like a wanker, but at least it was funny.
Really, Harry thought that the entire year had been something of a good year. Dudley’s death was going to torment him until he saw justice for it and it irritated Harry to lose Pettigrew, but…
But Harry smiled at Sirius’s dramatics, Draco’s pouting, and at all that they had already accomplished. It wasn’t the quiet year Harry hoped for, there had been plenty of bumps, but it wasn’t bad as a whole.
It was Sirius, of course.
And it was probably Harry’s sick optimism that led to the harsh flash of pain he felt in his scar not two minutes later.