“That’s him.”
June 21
Everything was a mistake.
All of it.
Harry shivered and wrapped the blanket he had more securely around his shoulders. Despite the heat of the state he was in and the broken air conditioner in his little motel room, Harry felt frozen clear to his bones.
It was cold and Harry felt terrible and he was stuck.
In the room of the only motel that would rent a room to a teenager, Harry felt his chest crack wide open.
All of it was just a mistake; one after another. Each with consequences so huge that Harry didn’t even know where to begin trying to fix things.
Harry could try and contact Sirius, find out if there were any magical towns in Nevada like Diagon Alley in London. If so, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to send a letter to Ron or Hermione and plead for Ron to send his parents to get Harry. Harry could probably spend the summer there, go back to Hogwarts in September, and return to the Dursleys in the summer.
It would be miserable, but Harry was used to miserable. It was the miserable Harry knew, rather than the miserable he put himself in.
Harry could give up on finding one man who might or might not live in Las Vegas. If he had followed Sirius and Harry’s parents back to London, there was no evidence one way or another of where he actually lived. It had been a stupid idea to try and find him alone anyway; Harry wasn’t Hermione who needed an hour and a few books to do anything. Harry couldn’t even use a bloody computer properly without making it go haywire.
It hurt Harry to think that he truly had a family somewhere, one he might never find. But maybe Harry could try again next summer, with help from someone who wasn’t mental after twelve years surrounded by dementors. Harry could actually research in the Hogwarts Library, find some sort of tracking magic or something. He could try again… he would.
Harry couldn’t step foot on another airplane though. That much he knew for sure. Even the thought of it made him want to be sick. Harry didn’t know if he could ever even see an airplane without thinking of the blood, the flames… the smell of bodies and the screams that ended when the passengers all died.
The news called it a freak accident, Harry couldn’t help but think it was true.
Nothing Harry learned said why all the engines on an airplane would stop all at once. But Harry… Harry knew he had a hard time controlling his magic when he was angry or scared. Harry had blown Aunt Marge up and Harry had done things when he was a kid when Dudley had been chasing him.
If Hermione were there, she could tell Harry if he had caused the airplane to crash, if he had killed all those people…
It was a mistake.
Harry spent a few minutes being an idiot and cried, as if it would change anything. When he felt less stupid, he made his way to the tiny and gross bathroom attached to his room to clean up. Harry scrubbed his face, brushed his teeth, and then breathed slowly while he looked in the mirror.
Harry couldn’t even grow facial hair… surely he didn’t actually kill all those people. Surely that boy in the mirror didn’t actually spill all that blood… cause those flames… Harry wasn’t a monster, even if he was fairly certain the creeps at the library had called him a demon.
Did they know?
No.
Harry saw the news, he read the papers. Michaela had survived - “You saved us…” - and she said there was another survivor, but they were calling her crazy and traumatized. There was no evidence that Harry had ever been on the airplane. And since there still weren’t any aurors to arrest him, Harry had to believe he didn’t kill those people.
If Harry didn’t believe it was a coincidence that he had grabbed his wand before the engines failed, then he’d - he’d go as spare as Sirius.
Once Harry felt mildly less hysterical, he crawled back in bed and dug around in his bag for the mirror. Harry thought perhaps the blokes at the library, the ones who splashed him with water and threw bullets at him in one of the strangest intimidation tactics Harry ever heard of, were probably muggers or something. It was the only amusement Harry had to picture their faces if they did get Harry’s bag.
Two photo albums, what they would believe was a stick, a mirror, a purple silk cloak, two pairs of jeans, two tshirts, a hygiene kit Harry bought at the corner store, and- well… Harry actually did have quite a bit of money in his bag. Perhaps he shouldn’t carry that around.
Not that Harry planned to stick around, really. He crossed his fingers as he called for Sirius in the mirror. All of Sirius’s advice was rubbish, but how badly could he mess up recommending a magical town where Harry could get an owl?
It was early in Nevada, not even six yet. Harry couldn’t sleep, he had given up when his dreams filled with smoke, but he hoped there was a big enough time difference in Majorca that Sirius would be awake.
Sirius did answer, but it looked as if Harry had woken him up. Sirius’s hair was messy and the single eyes he had open looked bleary as he squinted it at the mirror.
“James?” Sirius asked in a slur. “‘S it?”
Harry’s heart sank and his voice stammered some.
“It’s- it’s Harry,” Harry reminded him slowly. “Not James.”
“Harry?” Sirius closed his eyes and groaned. Harry watched him scrub his face with one hand before it seemed as if recognition came to him.
“Oh! Harry!” Sirius dropped his hand and then grinned in the more. “Sorry, Pup. Forgot- forgot… Anyway! What are you doing?”
Harry breathed a little easier once Sirius at least recognized him from his dead dad. It wasn’t much, but it was the first piece of decent knowledge Harry had gained lately.
“Are there magical towns in Nevada?” Harry asked. “I’m in… er… Reno? I think I’m close to Las Vegas. I just- I need an owl.”
Harry wasn’t even sure how he ended up Reno… everything was a blur after the crash. Harry remembered the ringing in his ears, the screaming surrounding him… he could smell the flames, the scent of bodies burning under pieces of airplanes too big to be moved. Harry remembered the blood… the terrified faces of people who died…
There had been so much blood.
The last thing Harry remembered was Michaela screaming at him that he needed to wait as he walked away with his bag, no idea where he was going and no idea how he ended up in Reno. It wasn’t until it had been sunrise that Harry took note of his surroundings. He must have walked, though if he crashed an airplane he could have apparated as well. He had been thinking about Reno, thinking that Michaela would go home with her mum.
What was an illegal apparation after killing one hundred and seven innocent muggles?
“HARRY!”
Harry blinked and shook his head. When his eyes refocused, he saw Sirius was staring at him with concern.
That was odd. Usually it was the other way around.
“You good?” Sirius asked. “Lost you for a moment.”
“Oh. Sorry… er… jet lag,” Harry offered as a lame excuse. Harry didn’t tell Sirius about the crash and he wouldn’t.
Because if Sirius said Harry could have been the reason behind it then he would hate Harry as much as Harry did. And if Harry was giving up on his search for his family, then he couldn’t lose Sirius as well. Sirius was all Harry really had, him and Harry’s friends.
It would be fine going back if he could spend the summer with Ron and Hermione. Then Harry could spend all year finding out how to find his family and maybe next summer he could get Hermione to help him.
It would be fine.
Sirius hummed and didn’t seem keen on accepting Harry’s excuse- because he chose the worst time to be observant. Harry shoved past the moment though to try and get some true information.
“Do you know of any places like Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley?” Harry asked Sirius, practically pleading. “I sent Hedwig to Ron and I really need to write a letter.”
“I… hm…” Sirius blinked a few times with his lips twisted to the side thoughtfully. “What’s it called? We went there… didn’t like it… not much pub life… Area…”
Harry waited patiently for Sirius to wrack his memory. It only took another four minutes and twenty some seconds before Sirius snapped his fingers where Harry couldn’t see and beamed at him.
“Area 51! That’s the place!” Sirius said cheerily. “Yeah, it’s brilliant inside, Pup. Muggles call it Area 51, I think it’s called Fifty-City, or something ridiculous. There’s only one pub though and they didn’t serve after midnight, but you’re too young to drink in pubs anyway. There’s plenty shops and things to see. Whatcha need an owl for?”
“I’m leaving,” Harry admitted. He had to look away, feeling guilty for giving in. It wasn’t as if Harry didn’t want to find his family, Harry wanted it so much it was taking up the majority of his thoughts. But the rest of his thoughts were about those other families, the ones that died.
Harry couldn’t find John Winchester on his own and Harry didn’t trust himself around others. It was time to leave.
“What? Why?” Sirius sounded as disappointed as Harry felt. “But… your family? Did you find them?”
Harry swallowed his own disappointment and thought it tasted badly, like ashes.
“No, I didn’t.” Harry didn’t want to talk anymore, not when Sirius had given Harry some wonderful gift and Harry was too stupid to even figure out how to get to it.
“Area 51? You’re certain?” Harry checked. When he saw Sirius nod, Harry gave him a thin smile. “Thanks, Sirius. I’ll talk to you later.”
Sirius said ‘Wait!’ but Harry already tapped the mirror to disconnect them.
Okay, Area 51… Harry just needed to find the place, get an owl, go stay with Ron. Maybe - and Harry’s heart squeezed with a tiny bit of hope - maybe Harry could make it back for the Quidditch World Cup. Ron had said his dad was going to get tickets, Harry knew he said they would get Harry one.
The only thing that could ever beat quidditch in Harry’s priorities was his family. But… but that was a dream and the World Cup was actually happening. There wouldn’t be any airplanes or flames or pretty girls with pink hair and terrified screams at the World Cup.
There wouldn’t be brothers or a dad either, but…
But that was fine.
Harry didn’t care if the bathroom he had was a bit grimy and stained with what was hopefully rust, the shower water was still hot and Harry could spend as long in it as he wanted.
There was no food to be prepared for his relatives… no dorm mates waiting for a turn… there wasn’t a homicidal house-elf screaming insults… with the hygiene kit Harry got, he could even just scrub his hair and body and actually feel clean.
Harry closed his eyes and forced himself to relax in the one luxury the horrifying trip had given him.
By the time Harry finished showering and dressed in another of Sirius’s outfits he nicked, it was already eight. He packed all of his belongings up, not planning on paying for another night, and took one of the bottles of water he bought the day before out of the tiny refrigerator. The lobby of the motel claimed it provided breakfast, but Harry had been there for a few days and the most he ever saw was a bowl of half-rotten fruit and a coffee pot of the nastiest tasting anything Harry had ever had.
Even Crabbe’s Polyjuice had tasted better, honestly.
Harry was on edge as he made his way back to the library. If another bloke tried to- to… splash water on him…? Harry was going to say screw the Statute of Secrecy and hide under his cloak until he found the magical town.
First though, he needed directions and maybe a trolley map or something. If Harry could walk, that would be ideal. Harry didn’t really trust himself on any sort of muggle transportation anymore… he shivered beneath his clothes just thinking about it.
It wasn’t a far walk to the library and Harry had stealthily brought back the book he accidentally stolen to return. Harry would have asked how to check it out, like a normal human being, except he was assaulted by two mad men.
The reminder of the blokes (Harry thought he remembered the shorter one calling the tall one Sam and the tall one called the shorter one Dean… but those could be fake names) had Harry peeking in the computer room before fully entering. It was empty and so Harry breathed a little easier when he went up to a desk to get one of the slips of papers that said ‘guest computer passes’.
Harry also took the book on airplanes out of his bag and returned it to the desk.
The computer was still difficult to figure out, but Harry found a friendly librarian who helped him pull up a page for maps. They also explained the plus button would add more pages for more searches and they wrote down a few common websites he could use for different searches.
Harry slowly, carefully, typed out the library address in the starting spot and then ‘Area 51’ in the ending spot… it was loading… loading… and…
Harry huffed, loudly.
Three hundred and ninety miles away.
Oh! Harry opened a new page when he had a heartening thought. Miles weren’t the same as kilometers, perhaps it wasn’t as far as he—
Six hundred and twenty seven kilometers away.
Harry irritably clicked the plus sign and pulled the map page back up. After he typed in where he was, he put ‘bus station’ as the destination. The closest one that said it sold tickets was five miles away - or eight kilometers. That was a much more reasonable length to walk, Harry probably did that in a day at Hogwarts.
The librarian was patient when Harry tracked them down again, sheepishly asking for help printing the directions to the bus stop and the directions to Area 51.
“You know people can’t go in there, right?” the librarian asked, peeking at Harry’s maps before handing them over. “Area 51 is for government agencies only, kid.”
That was a relief, actually. That made Sirius’s story more credible as Hogwarts looked like an abandoned and dangerous castle to muggles. Harry made up an excuse about summer homework and sightseeing before tucking the map to Area 51 in his bag and studying the other to get to the bus stop.
It wasn’t… terribly complicated.
Harry set off and kept glancing at the map every time he came to a crossing. It was probably after almost an hour of walking that he saw a fuel station he could stop in. His bottle of water was empty, the sun was up, it was bloody hot.
All Harry’s ideas of buying a bottle of water and a bag of crisps died the instant he opened the fuel station door. The bell above the door dinged and there was a bloke checking out at the counter that turned and looked at him.
Harry’s heart began racing in his chest as he met the green eyes of the bloke that threw a bullet at him the day before. They only stared at each other for a split-second of recognition before Harry turned on his heel and began sprinting.
“Hey! Kid! Hey!”
Harry didn’t even look back as he ran, except once to see if the bloke was catching up. The bloke with the green eyes stood beside a navy blue minivan with the other bloke, the one good with computers and bad with manners, both of them screaming at Harry.
Harry flipped them off before putting more speed in his legs and racing right off the road he’d been following, in a sparse area of trees where they couldn’t follow.
Were they following him…? No… that was absurd. They had already been in the fuel station before Harry went inside. It was surely a coincidence, but one that had Harry much more on edge about what was meant to be a simple walk.
Crazy blokes.
Harry lurked in the trees, actually hiding behind a trunk, while he watched the road. It wasn’t until the blue van drove down it, the crazy bloke possibly named Dean in the drivers seat, that Harry inched back out by the road.
It didn’t take long to reorient himself, and Harry was relieved to trace the map and see he was much closer to the bus station than he thought he was. As long as Harry walked quickly and the crazy blokes didn’t try and return to throw more bullets at him, Harry could get out of the town he was in without any more incidents.
By the time Harry could see the bus station, he was parched. There was a vending machine outside the doors where other people were mingling and Harry looked at it like it was the golden snitch he chased. He would buy a water, go inside, ask for a ticket to wherever was closest—
“Hey, Harry!”
Despite Harry immediately knowing who was calling at him, Harry still turned his head on instinct at hearing his name.
Bloody hell, those blokes really wanted… Harry’s backpack? He honestly had no idea. They weren’t aurors, they hadn’t looked at his forehead even once… Harry didn’t think they were even wizards… Harry just couldn’t imagine what he’d done to catch the attention of two random lunatics in a place as big as Reno.
They didn’t look dangerous, and truly they hadn’t hurt him as much as they scared the hell out of him. The shorter one with the big green eyes and cropped dark blonde hair, Dean, was weaving in an out of people approaching the bus station from a parking lot. If Harry was hot in a tshirt and jeans, he couldn’t imagine why the bloke was wearing a black shirt plus a grey over shirt with the sleeves pushed up. The other one chasing Harry through the crowd, the one with the floppy brown hair, Sam, was dressed similarly in a plaid flannel with the sleeves pushed up on top of a white shirt.
And they were both staring at Harry and obviously trying to get to him.
Which was why Harry booked it straight inside the bus station and started looking for a place where he could put his cloak on. The loo had a line outside it, which meant Harry probably couldn’t get away with just disappearing, but… damn.
When he couldn’t find a good spot to just toss his cloak on, Harry resorted to childhood tactics and just searched quickly for a hiding spot. Harry was an excellent hider, really, Dudley and his gang had given him loads of practice.
The seats the filled up waiting areas were high up enough that Harry darted through a crowd, not even apologizing for pushing people, and then scrunched up small to get beneath a chair. He received a few swears and odd looks, but he didn’t think the crazy blokes saw him.
He was certain of it when he heard one of them talking not a minute letter. Harry followed the voice to a pair of blue-jeaned legs that had black boots on, right beside another pair of jeans with trainers.
“Damn it, Sam. Where the hell did he go?”
That had to be Dean then, apparently they weren’t fake names.
“He’s fast,” Sam complained loudly. “I’ll check the bathrooms, you watch the doors?”
“Yeah, fine. Just- let’s just fucking find him, alright?”
Sam agreed and Harry held his breath as he watched them walk away.
Were they some sort of criminals that killed all the teenagers they weren’t able to mug? Were they that mad that Harry flipped them off? Were Americans bloody insane?!
Michaela had seemed normal… but she spent over half the year in London so maybe that was why.
Harry waited another minute, waiting until he couldn’t see either set of legs, before he started making a plan. There were at least six ticket booths in the station, lots of people wandering around with food purchased at the shops inside the station. From what Harry could see, it looked like the booth closest to him had a shorter line than the rest.
If Harry could dart over there, buy a ticket, he could find another hiding spot until his bus arrived. If there was anything Harry was good at, it was hiding.
One deep breath later and then Harry was sliding out from beneath the chair and sending careful looks around him as he casually made his way to the line. The bus station was huge, not as large as Victoria Coach Station, but bigger than the Great Hall in Hogwarts.
Harry couldn’t see Dean or Sam anywhere and he tried to remain as quiet and nonchalant as the other people in the station as he waited anxiously to buy a ticket. Even if Harry’s heart was thumping and he felt he might get sick, he managed to get to the window without being spotted.
The closest bus station to Area 51 (and the muggle gave Harry a very strange look when he asked for a ticket there) was in Las Vegas. It was a bloody eight hour drive and Harry would still have to figure out how to get to Area 51 from there, but it was step in the right direction. Harry went ahead and bought the ticket and was relieved he only had thirty minutes until the next bus departed.
With the ticket in his pocket, Harry felt slightly better about being stalked by muggles. And, the silver lining of being stalked, was that Harry wasn’t nervous at all to take the bus. Harry took buses and trains, tubes and trolleys, before… they never crashed.
Harry shuddered again and it gave him an idea. There were plenty of shops inside the station, surely one of them sold jackets with hoods? And possibly a new backpack? One that the crazy blokes wouldn’t be looking for?
It wasn’t foolproof, but it would hopefully throw the blokes off at least until Harry’s bus left.
There was no way that any muggle wanted to mug or kill Harry badly enough to try and track him roughly seven hundred kilometers across a state.
There was no way.
Harry’s idea to pull a hoodie on and switch out his bags proved to be a good one when he snuck right past Dean on his way out the doors after his bus was called. Harry thought Dean spotted him after he climbed on the bus, but Harry ducked his head and watched the onboarding passengers closely.
When the doors closed, the bus left, and neither Dean nor Sam were on the bus, Harry had the first easy exhale he’d had in the last couple of hours.
A lady sat beside Harry and she smiled at him, but Harry just turned his head to the side to stare out the window.
Harry befriended Ron on a train and nearly got him killed multiple times. Harry befriended Michaela on an airplane and probably traumatized her for life.
Harry certainly would never forget the blood or the fire, the screams and the smells…
Nope. Best not to talk to the lady beside him. Harry just tilted his head against the window and closed his eyes, planning on sleeping through as much of the drive as possible.
Not much was possible and Harry ended up watching three films on the telly built in the back of the seat in front of him after watching the desert lost its novelty. The last movie made Harry have to blink rather quickly though…
Cartoon fish shouldn’t be allowed to hurt Harry’s feelings.
When the bus finally made it to Las Vegas, it was nighttime. It wasn’t dark though because the sheer number of lights in the city took Harry’s breath away.
Harry left the bus and just stood outside the station on the sidewalk for a long minute, looking in awe at the lights that flashed and filled the sky. It was beautiful, in its own way.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Harry breathed. He blinked and looked away from the city over to the person talking to him and actually flinched when he saw it was the same bloke from Reno, Sam. Sam wasn’t looking at the city skyline at all, he was staring at Harry hard with an indecipherable expression.
Harry sort of lost it.
“Look, I’m sorry for - for whatever I did,” Harry started babbling, backing away and being followed step for step. When Harry’s back hit someone, he didn’t even have to look to know it would be Sam’s partner, Dean.
“Harry, hey, calm—”
After Dean’s - Harry did sent a panicked glance upward to confirm it - hands locked on Harry’s shoulders, Harry switched to begging.
The muggles were mental, but Harry had to hope they would be reasonable to an extent.
“I’ve got money,” Harry said, squirming hard in Dean’s grip. “Don’t take my bag, please. It’s - my parents - just - what do you want from me?!”
“Woah, calm down, kid.” Dean said, as if that were even possible by then. “We’re not trying to steal your shit.”
“Just throw bullets at me then?” Harry shrieked. He kicked his leg out behind him, aiming high, and got lucky when Dean made an ‘oof’ sound of heel hitting target, though Dean didn’t relax his grip at all.
“Sam, speak,” Dean growled, sounding pained.
“Harry, hey, you told that girl on the plane, Michaela? You told her you’re looking for your dad, right?” Sam asked, slowing Harry’s struggle for a moment.
Harry couldn’t decide how that set some muggle stalkers on him and so he didn’t even consider lying.
“I… yeah?” Harry said, almost hoping they were just friends of Michaela’s maybe.
“And you said your dad is John Winchester, right?” Sam held both his hands up before slowly moving one toward his back pocket after Harry nodded. “I’m just grabbing my wallet, okay?”
Not okay, but Harry wasn’t in much of a place where he could argue against it. Dean was bloody strong. Harry only watched closely as Sam did pull a black wallet from his pocket and unfolded it.
“Is this your dad, John?” Sam slid a photo out of his wallet and held it in front of Harry’s face. Harry squinted at the photograph and saw the same man from the photos Sirius had in a new scene. The man, John, Harry’s father, stood in front of a shiny black car with two boys beside him.
Harry stared hard at the boys in the photograph. There was one with a sullen expression, green eyes, cropped dark blonde hair. The other boy had a small grin, brown hair flopping across his forehead, and his head tilted on the other boy’s shoulder.
“That’s him,” Harry said, no longer fighting against Dean’s grasp. Harry looked from the grinning boy in the photo to the bloke in front of him and his mouth opened and closed a few times on a question he couldn’t even dare to ask.
It wasn’t possible. Things were never that simple, certainly not for Harry.
Yet there was hope rushing up through Harry’s entire body, squeezing his lungs and stealing his voice.
Sam seemed to understand and when he grinned, he looked just like he must have about ten years ago when the photo in his hand was taken.
“We started on the wrong foot,” Sam said, adding to the hope crushing Harry from the inside out. “I’m Sam, that’s my brother Dean. And- and John Winchester is our dad too.”
Harry wanted to smile, jump for joy, scream to the world that he did it, somehow. Somehow, Harry found the boys that Sirius said Harry’s dad had.
Except when Harry’s knees felt weak and he was able to make a sound, it was a hysterical sound not unlike the one Sirius made the night they met in the Shrieking Shack.
Of course.
Harry had a mental godfather and two absolutely insane half-brothers.
All Harry had to hope was that John Winchester wasn’t nearly as crazy as his two sons were.