Alchemical

The nice old headmaster stares at Harry, bemused. “Is there something on my face?”

Harry just continues to giggle as his dad punches the man, though his arms go straight through. “Mad — dodgy — codger — Aberforth was always cooler, you sack of —“

Dumbledore actually shivers at that last one and looks around suspiciously. “Come along, Harry, we can’t be seen using magical transportation.” 

They continue walking away from the only home Harry’s ever known, but it’s okay, because his parents are with him wherever he goes. He’s holding his mum’s cold hand and still being led along with a gentle tug to his other hand by Dumbledore, who seems not to think much of the fact Harry’s got both his arms up.

His mum frowns as Dumbledore starts talking in phrases like candidates for guardianship and assess the options before us. “Ask him about your godparents, love.”

“Mr. Dumbles?” Harry asks innocently, looking up at him with wide eyes. His dad guffaws while Dumbledore is so taken aback he stumbles where he’s walking.

“Dumble-dore, my boy —“

“Am I your boy? I just met you…” He’s only his parents’ boy, and he wouldn’t want to make them jealous. They’re all he needs and wants, anyway.

The man looks as though he’s been struck by lightning and had an anvil dropped on the top of his head at the same time. Harry’s surprised his soul doesn’t do that thing again.

It’s a pleasing shade of burgundy red that looks kind of like the stains of dried wine Aunt Petunia tried to make him clean out of the carpet once after she’d had a night to herself, handing him the cleaning solution and a rag. His mum had smiled so wickedly when he’d listened to her instead and snuck into the bathroom upstairs. A quarter of the solution went into Aunt Petunia’s shampoo bottle and her hair was stringy and falling out the next day; she’d worn a shawl and sunglasses outside for a month, hiding herself from shame until fifteen deep conditioning treatments later.

“That’s what we call malicious noncompliance, baby,” his mum had smiled, her hair flying around her even though there was no wind. His dad said the strands went up like pointy devil horns when she was mad, and she’d told him that his hair must be so messy all the time because he was hiding his antlers and he’d said “Do you like big bucks?” and she hit him in the shoulder and told Harry never to use violence unless someone asked him that exact question, then it was okay.

Her hair had been a frenzy, the strands taking on a life of their own and undulating in the air like snakes, when Dumbledore had opened the cupboard, too. When the man had seen his unpracticed handwriting, HArRy’s rooM, on a piece of paper held up by tape on the inside of the cupboard door and looked at the bare toddler mattress he was still sleeping with, something strange happened. 

That burgundy soul was shaped like a circle with unclean edges; it looked as though it had been colored in by a child who didn’t know how to stay inside of the lines yet and instead made the edges on everything funky and fuzzy and a good kind of mess, rays of color darting out of the circle at random. Harry had wondered about it very briefly before he was alarmed by the way it started to quake and twist itself up into a knot, before stretching out into a more oblong oval shape, close to snapping like a rubber band. He’d wondered if souls could break apart, if the man’s was about to split itself clean down the middle, and was very worried for him. It just kept stretching…

Dumbledore had to close his eyes and visibly steel himself, breathing in and out very slowly like Harry’s parents helped him remember to do when he was scared. His soul slowly settled itself, then, no longer in danger of ripping apart.

Now that they were out in the sunlight and everything seemed a little brighter, Harry realized the man’s soul did look a little frayed, like a sweater that was pilling after it had been washed wrong (his mum taught him to put the family’s sweaters in the dryer for an hour and mix colors with whites in the washer, and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia learned very quickly to do the laundry themselves because their instructions just didn’t seem to stick). He wonders if Dumbledore has some sort of illness. Could souls get better? How can he heal them?

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Dumbledore says at last, stood in place now. They’ve found themselves near the school playground, where Dudley and Piers love to play Harry Hunting even though his dad always makes sure he gets away. “I won’t call you that if you don’t like it.”

Harry’s still thinking about medicine for souls when his mum nudges him. “Oh, right. Do I have a godmum or goddad?”

Dumbledore hesitates. Harry thinks it’s funny how he’s upturned the man so much by his fairly reasonable questions when he’s not the one who’s been effectively kidnapped (though his relatives hadn’t been sad to see him go). “The dark wizard who attacked your parents…”

“Vol-de-mort,” Harry supplies, concentrating on the syllables. Dumbledore had been surprised to hear that Harry’s family told him all about magic and the reason he was orphaned (Harry had never actually said he’d learned this from his living family).

“Yes,” Dumbledore’s lips twitch up at the sound of Voldemort’s name sounded out by a six-year-old, though his mood grows somber again fast. “A group of Voldemort’s followers knew he had thought to attack another wizarding family, the Longbottoms, and their baby boy, Neville. He tried to kill you instead and was, in at least some manner, vanquished… I believe this group felt they were finishing the job by going after the other family. Dear Neville was found safe, but we could not save his parents in time for their minds to stay intact… your godmother, Alice Longbottom, will spend the rest of her life in the Janus Thickey Ward at St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.”

Harry hopes he can meet Alice one day, even if she’s not well. His parents seem to care about her very much: his mum’s crying right now and his dad’s got one hand on her shoulder and the other over his mouth, horror struck. She must be a very nice woman. What had happened to her?

“He’s hiding something,” Harry’s mum wipes away her ghostly tears, sniffling. “Where’s Sirius?”

“So no godmum,” Harry guesses, still unsure what a Janus Thickey Ward is. “But a goddad?”

Dumbledore looks more pained by this topic of conversation than he was when telling the story of Alice. “I am very sorry to tell you this, Harry, but your godfather is in the wizard prison, Azkaban. Your parents trusted him with the location of your family home… and he sold them out to Voldemort.”

Harry’s dad looks stricken. “No.. Padfoot…”

“His name is Sirius Black,” Dumbledore continues and his mum exclaims in anger, his dad in more denial. Harry’s not really following what’s going on. “He was sentenced to life in Azkaban for betraying them and killing thirteen Muggles later that night, when confronted by another friend, the brave Peter Pettigrew. Alas, Peter perished too. I should have gotten to know him better, it is one of my biggest regrets…”

Harry’s mum and dad look like they regret ever knowing Dumbledore. His mum is muttering a few words she’s told Harry to never say until he’s her age, and even then sparingly. His dad’s sunk to his knees, and is muttering under his breath, “Five years, five years, five years…”

“Can we visit him?” Harry’s grown up on stories of Sirius, and thinks this must be some sort of mix-up that they can fix and Harry can go home with someone his parents adore and miss very much. He’s always wondered what Sirius’ soul looks like, if it’s somewhere between his dad’s sunny yellow fireworks and his mum’s darker honey-tinted flower bouquet of a soul. 

“Certainly not,” Dumbledore says, which is rather disappointing. “Azkaban is no place for a child. And either way, Harry, he is a bad man.”

Harry’s mum has tied up her hair with an incorporeal elastic tie and is rattling off battle plans to his dad. “— so obviously he’s too young to break in, but we can have him get our gold from Gringotts and pay someone off —“

“No one’s broken anyone out of Azkaban before,” his dad cuts her off and he sounds completely broken. “Lily, I don’t know…”

Harry wishes he could properly relay his parents’ wants to someone. His mum feels the same, apparently, because she gives it all up and says, defeated, “Tell him about us, Harry.”

Harry looks at her, shocked for the first time today, and gives his dad a sidelong glance to make sure this is okay with him. Though he nods, he doesn’t seem all the way there. The sunlight of his soul, the radiant glow that has been such a constant in Harry’s life, stands in sharp contrast with his demeanor; he’s still crumpled up on the floor, and if he weren’t a ghost there’d be strands of hair on the floor from how roughly he’s tugging at his scalp.

“Mr. Dumbledore, I have a secret.”

Everything moves very quickly after that. Dumbledore had not been alarmed or frightened when he learned the power Harry held; in fact, he seemed relieved, and asked Harry never to allow those around him to exploit his abilities. “Myself included, Harry.”

Dumbledore wasn’t even that curious about what exactly Harry could do as Master of Death (his parents called him this, though Harry always thought it sounded too much like a supervillain name but when he’d proposed DEATHBOY his dad had laughed uncontrollably so he’d never tried again). All he needed to say was that he sees ghosts and souls, and Dumbledore had taken it in stride like they were discussing something so mundane as the weather.

They’re in a small, poorly-lit pub right now that Dumbledore had called the Leaky Cauldron, side-by-side in a secluded booth that he’d thrown charms over to hide them from prying eyes and ears. A very fast bus had taken them there, though Harry had lost his breakfast after a particularly sharp turn. Dumbledore had winced and told him this was possibly not one of his finest ideas.

“I have an excellent idea,” the man is beaming at him now, his purple pointy hat half off his head after the chaos of that transportation experience. “Have you ever heard of a ouija board?”

Harry shakes his head, but his mum certainly has. “He’s got to be joking.”

The man waves his wand and a wooden board appears with the letters of the alphabet and a few words on it. There’s a triangular block in the middle with a circle carved out of its center. It looks kind of like the symbol of his Deathly powers or whatever, and Harry shivers with the sensation that something’s crawled up his spine. “Is that a Portent of Doom?”

Dumbledore stares and blinks a few times at him. “No?”

“Okay. A Portent of Doom was in my cubby last week but the teachers didn’t believe me. They can’t see it like I can.”

“… What is a Portent of Doom.”

“You know,” Harry shrugs and draws a triangle with his fingers in midair, a circle in that, then a line bisecting the invisible shapes. Dumbledore shakes his head helplessly. “A funny rock. Mum calls it a Portent of Doom ‘cause something bad happens after I find one. I haven’t seen Miss Banks since so I think maybe she’s a ghost now. She was old like you but I don’t wanna call on her and say hi ‘cause she didn’t like me.”

“Of course, it is a pebble which foretells death. I should have guessed.” Harry picks up the block and senses some strange kind of energy in it, like an electrical charge. “Harry, if you find a Portent of Doom in Hogwarts, will you please keep it a secret?”

“Sure,” Harry places the block back onto the board. “They go away after every Event of Doom. I think maybe it’s the same rock every time.”

“How many variants of Doom do you experience, Harry?”

Harry looks at him like he’s crazy. “It’s just those. What else would there be?”

“Well, I experience a Feeling of Doom when I see one of my students, young Miss Tonks, near expensive and irreplaceable school artifacts. She often has a Trip of Doom over her own shoelaces or even the air, it is rather majestic actually…”

“Remember babysitting her?” his dad elbows his mum. “It was a miracle we kept her alive.”

“Hush,” Lily chides him. “Harry, love, put both your hands on the planchette - yes, the block that’s not a Portent of Doom - and ask Dumbledore to give us a question.”

So it goes for the next hour, Harry acting as a conduit between the dead and living while he takes breaks to eat the full English breakfast Dumbledore had ordered for him. It’s actually kind of nice; Harry can feel the gentle push of his parents’ hands so he doesn’t have to think too much about the questions being asked, only needs to let the block move wherever. 

He tunes in and out of the conversation, too preoccupied with the food and tired from a long day. He pays attention to some snippets that concern him but otherwise he’s content to let his parents have their first conversation with another adult in five years. They’re rather efficient with it though, communicating in one or two words at a time so that Harry gets to properly eat.

“I understand I made a grave error when I left Harry with your sister, Lily. It seemed like a good decision at the time, and I have always believed in family…”

F-U

Harry doesn’t understand what that means but Dumbledore blanches. “Yes, quite right, can’t blame you there. Tell me, who can I trust with him? Who will give him the normal, happy, loving childhood he deserves?”

S-I-R-I-U-S

“I beg your pardon? The man is a mass-murderer.”

T-R-I-A-L-?

“The evidence spoke for itself…” Dumbledore says slowly, hand tugging at his beard as he thinks. “Barty Crouch saw it to it that he was with the Dementors in a matter of hours, no one wanted to hear from him that night. The wizarding world only wanted reasons to celebrate from that moment on, not to relive the pain…”

P-E-T-E-R

“Pettigrew?”

R-A-T

“… I see. I will pull some strings and correct this miscarriage of justice, rest assured, but the question remains. A man cannot spend half a decade in Azkaban and turn into a healthy parental figure overnight.”

His parents take some time to think, muttering to themselves while Harry yawns and stretches his arms. Dumbledore summons a quill and parchment, penning a letter while they consult which he says is going to the Ministry of Magic. As soon as the owl is sent off, they have an answer for him.

T-O-N-K-S

“Ah. Harry, I must ask you not to repeat the phrase Trip of Doom any time in the near future.”

It had slipped Harry's mind until the man brought it up again. He’s honestly more interested in figuring out where him and his parents are going to live. “So we have a new home?”

“I will have to speak with Andromeda and Ted, but I believe it can be arranged.”

Harry doesn’t know the magnitude of the decisions being made here, can’t predict the lifelong impact they’ll have on him. Everything feels normal still - he’s got his parents by his side like always. He would mentally escape from the cupboard and fall into their stories every day, so there’s no big attachment to Privet Drive. But it is here that everything changes.

As far back as he can remember, Harry’s known death. He’s breathed it in, breathed it out, swam in it, laughed and played with it, cuddled up to it in the cupboard, welcoming the cold feel of his mum curled around him. 

(When the Dursleys had finally taken him to the optometrist and she asked if his vision was blurry, he’d said, “No, sparkly.” Petunia had told her to ignore him, he says anything for attention, but he’d been telling the truth.

He has always seen small glows like fireflies all around him, weaving through the larger, unsuspecting human souls that radiate just as brightly. He knows these are artifacts of death, not life, because that’s where the soul belongs; it will always pass over.  Indeed, most of the tiny dots of light around Harry are probably not even alive, buzzing though they are. When Petunia smacks them with a flyswatter, Harry watches them get back up and circle around the room, settling into a new form of existence as easy as breathing.)

Death is like his best friend. Harry knows it’ll stay by his side forever, a floating buoy in a sea of unknowns. He can always trust in it.

But then he gets to know the Tonks family and learns that people other than his parents can care for him. He sees them interact with the world in a way that his ghosts can not, exploring the senses that are not yet forbidden, and Harry starts to try it out, too. Instead of sitting cross-legged on the floor and asking for more stories about the Marauders, he goes sledding with his big cousin Nymphadora; rather than draw his mum again and again, he volunteers to help Andromeda with her garden and smells the flowers in their bloom.

This is how Harry learns about life, and he treasures it for its fleeting nature just as much as he cherishes death for its permanence. He’s been surrounded by death for so long, and now - now Harry wants to live.