“Andy killed Ansem.”
June 25
“So… this woman, Holly Beckett, she’s my biological mother?”
“Seems like it, yeah.”
“And she’s dead?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
Harry’s eyes ticked between Sam and Andy while they talked. Harry didn’t contribute anything, but he thought he could understand how Andy felt.
Andy’s adoptive mum died when he was a baby - killed in his nursery. Then he grew up and found out that he was adopted - Andy actually didn’t seem very surprised by that so Harry thought maybe he already knew - but also that his biological mum was dead.
Then Sam really hit the poor bloke with another secret he definitely didn’t know.
Sam frowned at the screen of his laptop, connected to the internet from the bloke that owned the business they were sitting behind. It probably didn’t hurt that Andy had been the one to ask for the ‘password’. Harry struggled to think of what Andy’s power made him think of - a spell, he was certain, but… but surely…?
How could Andy and Sam not be semi-magical? The caretaker at Hogwarts, Filch, had been reading articles about learning spells for squibs? Maybe they were… moderately more powerful squibs?
Harry didn’t know and he didn’t like not knowing. Harry didn’t like that Sam looked so hopeful when he asked Harry if he had powers - Harry almost said it, it was on the tip of his tongue. “I’m a wizard.” Just three words. Then Sam said the last bloke they met with powers was dead and Harry didn’t ask, didn’t want to know for sure, but it wasn’t much of a leap to think Sam or Dean killed him. - and then looked so disappointed when Harry lied to his face.
Sam was frowning again, reading a report out loud that he said Bobby emailed him.
“It says here that Holly Beckett gave birth to twin boys,” he said, his eyes flicking up to stare pointedly at Andy.
Andy rocked back in his chair so hard that it tipped backward and he hit his head on the wall of the building behind them.
That had been fair. Harry had cried, but it had been mostly happy tears, before he knew his brothers hunted wizards and killed werewolves.
Before —
“I’m starting to worry he’s right and that you’re all evil.”
— before Harry realized that more people than just the Dursleys saw magic as evil and it didn’t matter how much Harry tried to make anyone like him if they thought he was evil.
Nobody ever wanted to be brothers with evil, with killed innocent people. And that, more than anything, made Harry’s eyes burn with the bloody unfairness of it all over again.
If Harry wanted to prove to his brothers that wizards and magic weren’t evil, then he shouldn’t have killed all those poor, innocent, people.
“The good news,” Harry told Andy thickly, hating himself and hating the entire ‘case’ they were on, “is that clearly you’re not the killer.”
It had to be Andy’s twin brother, another person that Harry sickeningly could understand. Well, not the bit about killing his mum, but maybe it was an accident. Maybe he’d think about it every day for the rest of his life.
Maybe he was sorry.
Maybe he was so bloody sorry.
Dean returned while Sam and Andy were chatting about their powers and Harry was oddly jealous of Andy then. Andy was excited to have his powers, Andy was laughing about how - until the possible evil twin - he had everything he needed.
“You live in a van,” Harry reminded him, his jealousy making him sound rude when he didn’t want to.
How did other people act so likable?! How did Ron make friends so easily, even with defensive and prickly eleven year olds?!
“So?” Andy shrugged and grinned at Harry, so easy going it was only making Harry more angry. “It’s a great van, cozy too, ya know?”
“No, I don’t know,” Harry snapped, not noticing or caring about the confused look Sam was casting in his direction. “I lived in a cupboard and it was terrible, but some people are lucky, I guess.”
“What…?”
Whatever Sam had to say about Harry’s irritable rant was cut off by the crunch of car tires as Dean pulled up. And since Harry didn’t much fancy talking with the brother who thought Sam was evil for being a little bit of a squib (could someone be a little bit of a squib?) he got off the crate he had been sitting on and stomped off.
“We are having a conversation later,” Dean warned him as Harry rudely shouldered past him to go glare at the water around the docks.
“Bite me,” Harry breathed, too quietly to be heard.
Harry clearly would never be likable enough to not be considered evil if his brothers found out about magic, but he’d rather not be shot in the back of the head either.
It didn’t take long for Sam to jog up to Harry, loud enough for Harry to hear him coming, and tell him they had to leave.
“My laptop sucks and so does this dude’s wifi,” Sam explained, smiling crookedly even if his eyes were too soft. “We’re going to go break in the records department at the courthouse to see if I can hack the records and find a lead on Andy’s brother.”
“The evil twin?” Harry asked, biting down on the sarcasm that he wanted to lace his words with.
“I hope he’s not evil,” Sam said slowly. He flicked his head, flicking his hair to the side and out of his eyes, as he sighed. “I don’t know, he probably is. I can’t imagine he had a very good reason to kill those people.”
“What if it was an accident?” Harry asked quietly, watching Sam carefully. Sam was different than Dean, not just because Harry thought he was a little bit magic. If one of Harry’s brothers were more likely to understand that Harry couldn’t help who he was, couldn’t help what he had done… who could understand, even a little, that Harry was sorry even if he knew that didn’t fix anything…
It would be Sam.
“I mean… If he didn’t mean to kill them, then… I don’t know,” Sam said, drawing his words out thoughtfully. “We don’t get a lot of cases where people are being accidentally murdered.”
For no reason, that answer only irritated Harry more. And then, probably because Harry was exhausted and the coffee made him feel jittery and scattered, being irritated made him want to throw something and then cry once it was broken too.
Harry needed to sleep and he needed to not dream about blood and fire and people screaming as they died. After that, Harry really needed to talk to Sirius.
“If I pissed Dean off earlier, how likely is he to hit me?” Harry murmured to Sam, walking beside him back to where Dean and Andy were waiting by the car. Dean had his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed, but Harry didn’t know him well enough to guess if that was genuine anger or just a brooding expression.
Harry wasn’t likely to forget that Dean hit Sam for saying something stupid just the day before.
“Not at all,” Sam said, frowning down at Harry. “What happened?”
Harry didn’t tell Andy the truth when he was using his mind-control on them and Dean knew there was something wrong with Harry.
“Dunno,” Harry said shortly. He closed his mouth and literally bit his tongue to keep himself from saying anything when they were up by the car. Andy stood behind Dean, so Harry stepped over to get in the back on the passenger side, remaining out of Dean’s reach.
“Dude.” Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean before he opened his car door to climb in. “Don’t hit him.”
“Him? Who him?” Dean asked, climbing in the car. “Our brother or the car thief?”
“Hey, I just wanted to test drive it!” Andy was grinning as he ran his hands over the seat between him and Harry. “This baby is sweet.”
Harry, rather ungraciously, thought that his Firebolt was better. Harry had spent so many hours servicing it, straightening every twig, cleaning every speck of dirt - imagined or not.
Harry’s broom could kick Dean’s car’s arse, honestly.
The drive to the courthouse was too short. Harry had his eyes closed during the drive, though he couldn’t actually sleep.
As good as the coffee was that he ordered earlier, it was making his heart race and his palms to sweat. Harry didn’t need caffeinated assistance in feeling anxious, Dean and the gun that went missing from the front seat were doing that well enough on their own.
The courthouse wound up being just a small brick building and Sam turned around to look at Andy when they saw a man guarding the back door.
“You’re up,” Sam said. “You think you can get him to give us twenty minutes inside?”
“Pft.” Andy scoffed and grinned at Sam with his eyebrows wiggling. “I can get him to give us his firstborn child if I wanted to.”
“Yeah, let’s not do that,” Dean said, both sarcastic and perfectly stern.
“I wasn’t —” Andy looked at Harry when Dean left the car. “What would I even do with a baby?!”
“Probably train it to be evil,” Harry said drily. “But you’d have the quietest baby in the world, really. Just tell it to not cry.”
Andy looked horrified by Harry’s perfectly rational advice, but he rebounded when the security guard approached the four of them.
“You really want to go get a burger,” Andy said, his voice deep and immediately making the guard’s face go slack. “You won’t remember us when you get back. These are not the droids you are looking for…”
“He’s awesome,” Dean chuckled, nodding in approval when Andy led the guard away.
Harry wasn’t sure why Andy was ‘awesome’ then but ‘evil’ earlier. He suspected it had to do with Andy using magic against Dean in one situation and for him in another though.
If Harry was seventeen, he could use magic freely without risking Azkaban. It was still making him paranoid that aurors never arrived in Reno to find him after the airplane crash. Ministry workers were sent to Harry’s house last summer when Harry accidentally blew up Aunt Marge. Surely blowing up an entire airplane was much worse?
It felt worse.
Harry thought about it while Sam got to work ‘hacking’ a computer and Dean and Andy talked about a star war.
Maybe America had different rules? Maybe they tracked magic differently? Nobody seemed to be tracking Sam, who had to be a seer, or Andy, who was actually controlling muggles. Of course, they were both of age even by American standards.
It was another thing to carefully ask Sirius about when he had his mirror back.
“Got it!” Sam suddenly cried, his face glowing blue from the computer screen. “And - oh, shit.”
“He’s ugly, isn’t he?” Andy asked, sighing dramatically. “It’s one thing to be evil, another thing to be ugly. What is it? Third eye? Wart nose?”
Harry laughed, but he was the only one to do so.
“No, you know him.” Sam turned the computer screen so that they could all see a photo of a bloke that seemed familiar. “Andy, meet your twin brother, Ansem Weems.”
Andy went pale and it finally dawned on Harry that Andy’s twin brother - Harry never thought about twins that weren’t identical - worked at the diner.
“That’s rude,” Harry said lightly. “D’you think he knew you two were brothers?”
“Well… The doctor was the one who delivered them and Holly was their mom, so… my money’s on yes,” Sam said.
That was rough… Harry didn’t know how it felt to find out you had a brother and then to find out they were a murderer. If Harry were lucky, Sam and Dean wouldn’t find out the feeling either.
Andy was quiet in the car and Harry was bored.
Bloody hell he’d never been so bored.
They were just sitting outside the apartment building that Ansem lived in and it was worse than History of Magic had ever been.
“You guys are brothers, right?” Andy asked suddenly, breaking off Harry’s thoughts of taking a nap. With the jittery feeling gone from his body, Harry was exhausted.
“Yup,” Dean said.
“So why do you have the accent?” Andy asked Harry.
“I don’t have an accent, you lot do,” Harry said, his head lolling over against the windows.
“Dude, you’ve got the accent,” Dean said in an American accent.
“Actually, since the majority of America was originally founded by British terrorists, we’re the ones who developed accents,” Sam chimed in.
Harry grinned faintly, thinking of Hermione. Sam and Hermione would get along, Harry was sure of it.
“I actually just meant like, are you adopted?” Andy asked, clarifying his earlier question.
“I’m the surprise sibling.” Harry yawned and did close his eyes, not to sleep, just to conserve his energy for when they found Ansem.
“So did you…”
Harry didn’t know what Andy asked as he promptly fell asleep.
And was rudely woken right back up twenty minutes later when Sam thrashed up front with another vision.
Harry didn’t think ‘hunting’ offered up much time to sleep, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault except Harry’s that ashes and screams kept him awake at night.
Sam’s new vision sent them to a bridge on the outskirts of town. Apparently Andy’s brother kidnapped the waitress that used to be Andy’s girlfriend and was going to make her jump off the bridge.
Which was mental, even Harry could admit that.
Maybe Ansem didn’t want a brother? Maybe he wanted Andy to hate him? Maybe Ansem didn’t care if he had a family? Maybe he was happy being alone?
Harry didn’t know and couldn’t really ponder it much as Dean’s eyes that kept ticking up to look in the mirror at him had him on edge.
“What?” Harry asked harshly when Dean did it again.
It was idiotic to snap off at the person most likely to hit him, but Dean was driving and Harry learned long ago how hard it was for the driver to hit the person in the seat directly behind him. It was why Harry took that seat when they left the courthouse.
It wasn’t impossible to land a decent smack, but when it had been Uncle Vernon driving, Harry could usually cover his head with his arms and avoid any real injury.
“When we get there, you stay in the car, got it?” Dean said bossily. “I mean it, Harry. Do not step out of this car.”
Harry looked at Sam, but Sam only jerked his head in agreement which set off alarms in Harry’s head.
If they were just going to save Andy’s not-girlfriend and talk with Ansem… why couldn’t Harry help? If Ansem could control Dean like Andy did, wouldn’t Sam rather have Harry help than Dean?
“Fine,” Harry huffed, seeing nobody was going to argue for him to help. They probably didn’t trust him, didn’t think Harry would be of any help.
Harry wasn’t great at talking, but Harry had fought a basilisk, a hundred dementors, he took down a mountain troll, he even fought a grown man trying to kill him when he was eleven. Harry wasn’t useless, three of those things didn’t even involve Harry using his wand.
Well, the troll did actually, but still.
It was already dark out when the car pulled up on the bridge. Dean had cut the headlights and the two lone figures on the bridge could barely be seen in the night.
The woman, the waitress that they met that morning, was standing on the ledge of the bridge, her hair and dress flapping wildly in the wind. The bloke had his back to the car, but it had to be Ansem.
Harry’s lungs felt tight when the woman wobbled, nearly falling, and Andy ran from the car.
“Shit.” Sam swore and then lunged out of the car too, chasing Andy.
Dean took the chance to tell Harry once more, very firmly, to stay in the car before he too was jumping out. Harry had to twist around to see what Dean did in the boot, but his eyes boggled at the gun Dean pulled out.
It made the shotgun Uncle Vernon once bought look like a harmless toy.
Were there more guns in there?!
While Sam ran directly towards where the not-identical twin brothers and the waitress-on-the-ledge-of-a-bridge were, it was Dean that Harry watched.
Dean ran to the side of the bridge and climbed down in a ditch. Harry struggled to see him in the dark, but he could just make out the brown leather jacket in the mix of green. Dean had the gun resting on his shoulder, it was aimed directly at the group on the bridge.
Harry could hear muffled shouts happening on the bridge and he watched Dean while he rolled his window down quickly to hear better.
“YOU FIND OUT YOU HAVE A BROTHER AND YOU CALL HIM UP TO HAVE A BEER!”
“HE TOLD ME NOT TO CONTACT YOU! I’M RIGHTING THE WRONGS!”
By… by killing Andy’s girlfriend?
Even Sirius, mental as he was, wouldn’t make that jump in logic.
Well… Sirius did spend ten months panting around as a Grim, making Harry think he was going to be dying soon. So… perhaps Harry wasn’t giving him enough credit.
“Who told you that?”
That was Sam and a quick check showed Harry that he was standing between Ansem and where Dean aimed his gun. Which was probably the worst place for him to be standing.
Andy had his girlfriend off the bridge though, she was standing behind him and Harry thought that Ansem and Andy must have been tearing her mind apart. The woman kept taking a step toward the bridge then lunging back toward Andy, over and over.
“The man with the yellow eyes. He said he has plans for us all and I couldn’t tell Andy yet.”
“Plans? What plans?”
Harry only saw it happen because he went back to watching Dean while the others were arguing. Dean did something to the gun, he moved it some, and then suddenly—
“I see you.”
Ansem’s laughter was loud enough to ring in Harry’s ears while Dean slowly repositioned the gun, placing the barrel in his mouth—
“DEAN!” Harry threw the door open and screamed. “DON’T!”
Sam whipped around and saw what Harry did, he screamed as well.
“LEAVE HIM OUT OF THIS!”
BANG!
Harry wasn’t sure that he liked Dean, that he trusted him even a little bit. But he didn’t want him to die.
It took Harry’s vision a second too long to catch up with what he heard and his knees shook as he changed course and ran as hard as he could not to Dean, but Sam.
Sam who caught Ansem Weems’s collapsing body in his arms, showing Andy behind him with a gun pulled and shaking in his arms.
“Oh my god.” The waitress was sobbing and Andy looked terrified, but sure.
Ansem groaned something to Sam before his face and entire body went lax, the bullet hole in the back of his head showing blood and chunks of what Harry was very sure was brain.
Harry got to Sam’s side and they stared at each other for a split-second - Sam, startled. Harry, disgusted. - before Harry bent over at the waist and started heaving.
He killed him, Andy killed his brother. He just… shot him.
“This is why when I say stay in the fucking car, I mean it.” Dean’s voice was gruff but his arms were strong as they semi-lifted Harry from where he fell on his knees - in blood, in brain matter - to carry him back to the car.
Andy’s brother killed people, tried to kill Dean, and Andy shot him. Andy didn’t grow up with him, he had no attachment to him. Andy just thought he was evil and he blew his brains across the ground.
Harry didn’t know he was babbling until Dean responded to his inner-ramblings.
“Andy saved my life, he’s a hero,” Dean grunted. It was awkward the way he shifted Harry around to stuff him back in the backseat of him car before kneeling on the gravel beside him.
“Hey, I need you to be okay for five minutes,” Dean said, trying and failing to catch Harry’s eyes.
Andy killed him.
Andy killed his brother.
Andy just… shot him.
“I’ll make it three,” Dean said. “Do not move.”
Where would Harry go? Back to the bridge covered in Ansem’s brains and blood?
Ansem killed people and the logical conclusion was for his brother to shoot him.
Harry pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.
Three minutes seemed like an eternity that Harry spent in the car, thinking of the gun in Dean’s mouth, the blood that had to have stained Sam’s arms.
The car doors opened and closed with slams that made Harry flinch. Sam twisted around in his seat and took one look at Harry before climbing right back out of the car.
Was he going to get a gun from the boot?
When the back passenger door opened, Harry actually yelped, sure that Sam knew - that he knew - and it was going to be Harry’s blood and brain and —
“That was rough.” Sam held his hands up and slid on the seat beside Harry. When he reached out with an arm to wrap it around Harry’s shoulders, it was more shocking than the gunshot that still expired in Harry’s ears.
“Come here.” Sam pulled Harry to his side and with Harry’s legs wrapped up in his own arms, Harry just fell in his side.
Sam’s side that was still soaked in blood.
Harry didn’t care, barely even noticed. Harry’s eyes were stinging when Sam just held Harry in a tight sideways embrace. Dean started the car and they drove away like that, perfectly silently.
In Harry’s entire memory, Sam was the first person to ever sort of hold him.
It was nice, but…
“He shot his brother,” Harry said in a broken and rather pathetic voice. “Andy killed him.”
Bam.
It only took one second.
“Yeah, he did,” Sam agreed, not sounding any more happy about it than Harry was.
Dean called Andy a hero.
Andy killed Ansem.
“Alright, that’s it.” Dean jerked the steering wheel and pulled the car over right on the side of the street they were on. A car behind them honked its horn as it passed and Dean only lifted his middle finger to it.
“You and you, out of the car. On that side,” Dean pointed to Sam’s side of the car when Harry had been about to open his door.
If Dean was going to kill him, it seemed odd to worry about if Harry stepped out in traffic or not.
Sam rolled his eyes and huffed, but he didn’t seem too worried as he climbed out and so Harry tried to mimic him. Harry slid over and climbed out the right side of the car then stood uncertainly with his arms crossed while Dean stormed around the car.
Dean looked annoyed, but he had his hands open at his sides with no gun in either of them.
“Whatever you’re worrying about, quit it,” Dean told Harry. “Quit looking for a gun that I’m not carrying.”
Harry flushed and ducked his head.
“And you?” Dean was probably glaring at Sam then. “Drop this Azazel shit. We’re done.”
“I can’t just be done, Dean,” Sam snapped off immediately. “You heard Ansem, he said the demon has plans for people like me!”
“Yeah? Well I have plans too,” Dean snapped right back. “They involve your ass in college, Harry’s in high school.”
“We can’t—”
“High school?” Harry interrupted Sam as soon as the term triggered a bit of knowledge. It was odd enough that it broke through the loop of Ansem dying that played on a loop in Harry’s mind, over and over.
High school was an American secondary school for muggles. “I already have a school?” Harry said blankly, struggling to understand how school was relevant to anything at all.
Why on earth would Harry go to a high school?
“First off, your school doesn’t exist,” Dean said, jabbing a finger at Harry and causing Sam to look momentarily confused.
“What do you mean his school doesn’t—”
“Second off,” Dean raised his voice over Sam’s, “you’re going to whatever high school we find in whatever town Sam’s yuppie ass decides has the best damn law school. We are buying a house, I am getting a normal job, and - hell, I don’t know - MAYBE WE’LL GET A DOG!”
Harry blinked at Dean in complete bemusement. That - that sounded like he thought Harry was staying past the end of summer. That sounded like he wasn’t planning to kill Harry, leave Harry’s brains scattered on the ground until the next rain washed it away.
“You want me to stay?” Harry asked, checking that he wasn’t reading too much into something that wasn’t there.
“You thought we didn’t?” Sam asked. He reached up to ruffle Harry’s hair and kindly didn’t comment on the involuntary twitch Harry did. “You’re our brother, of course we want you to stay.”
“Oh,” Harry said dumbly.
“For the love of…” Dean sighed as he scrubbed his face with both hands. He looked tired when he looked at Harry, but not angry.
“Whatever crazy ideas you have going on under all that hair, forget them,” Dean said, waving a hand at Harry’s perfectly-normal-if-rather-messy hair. “Nobody’s shooting you and you’re staying with us, your family. Got it?”
No, not really.
Harry was a wizard, he had to go to Hogwarts on September first. Harry couldn’t imagine that anyone would just… not notice Harry’s absence.
Harry was a wizard, he could do a lot more with his wand than Ansem could do with his mind and Dean called Andy a hero for killing Ansem.
It was… much more than Harry expected, being told he was staying. It hurt to know that it wasn’t a genuine offer, not when Dean and Sam didn’t know everything. But it was still much more than Harry expected.
“Got it,” Harry said, looking at the brother that said he was staying while his other brother still had his head on top of Harry’s head.
The Dursleys certainly weren’t worth giving up magic for, they hated Harry before he was confirmed as a wizard. But…
But Harry would almost give it up to actually keep his brothers, his real family. If it meant Harry was normal, not something considered evil… if Harry wasn’t a murderer with much more dead bodies behind him than Ansem had…
Harry would do anything.
“And both of you fucking insomniacs are sleeping the entire drive back to Bobby’s,” Dean ordered after they all climbed back in the car. Sam climbed back in the front while Harry scooted behind Dean’s seat. “And guess what you’re doing in the morning? Eating breakfast with no freaking coffee.”
“Yes, Mom,” Sam said, sounding both sassy and pleased.
Harry nodded again before he laid his head on the window. It felt like the longest day of Harry’s life, but he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep.
He was wrong.
Harry passed out hard and dreamed that he was on a boat… there was music playing, a rough voice singing along softly… Harry was laughing at something Sam said that involved a lot of hand gestures. Dean was there too, throwing a stick for a big black dog to fetch over and over.
As far as dreams went, it wasn’t a terrible one to have.
When Harry woke up, it was Sam in the drivers seat and Dean in the passenger seat. It was morning, which surprised Harry, he actually slept through the night. Sam must have hit a hole in the road or something because Dean jolted awake too and began griping.
“Could you be less of a shit driver?” Dean asked. “Jesus, this is why I don’t let you drive.”
“You were falling asleep at the wheel,” Sam argued back, not sounding too upset about Dean’s complaints. “And that pothole was the size of your big head, there was no avoiding it.”
“‘Side of your head’,” Dean mimicked him in a high-pitched voice. He began fiddling with the radio, finding something new to not like about Sam driving it seemed. “Your music sucks.”
“What happened to driver picks the music and shotgun shuts his pie hole?” Sam asked, outright grinning.
“New rule, the guy who rebuilt the car picks the music and the guy who ruined the primer shuts the fuck up,” Dean said. “Now pull over, I’m starving.”
Sam obediently found a restaurant and Harry hated how friendly it felt between them while they ate pancakes and bacon together.
His entire life Harry had wanted a family that teased each other (“The waitress is kind of hot, ask her for her number, Harry.”) and did daft things like bicker over the syrup (“Hey! Don’t use all the blueberry, you jerk!”). And when it looked like Harry could have it?
He still couldn’t.
If Harry wasn’t a wizard - wasn’t a killer - wasn’t someone Dean would consider evil - then he could have. But Andy killed his brother and even if Dean said nobody was going to kill Harry, it was only because he didn’t know what Harry had done.
Harry might biologically be a Winchester, but Potter Luck (as Ron called it) was still dogging his every step.
It was a short trip to Bobby’s after breakfast and Harry was given a spiel about how the water in the flask he was handed was Holy Water. It tasted rather like normal water, but Bobby said they would ‘get him a talisman soon’.
Whatever that meant.
Harry mumbled an excuse about the loo when Sam started arguing with Dean and Bobby about finding a talisman that couldn’t be taken off Harry, Dean said he didn’t need one, Harry didn’t care. Harry only cared to get to his bag, call Sirius.
He really, really, needed to talk to Sirius.
Not to get his advice, Sirius gave absolutely rubbish advice honestly, but to get the list of wizarding cities. If Harry could get lucky, like really bloody lucky, he could find a way to get a letter to Hermione.
Unlike Sirius, Hermione usually had good advice.
Harry could explain about his brothers, their beliefs about witches, how he didn’t want to leave but knew they wouldn’t want him to stay, and see what she thought. If nothing else, it would just be nice to have a letter from Hermione.
Except, because Harry was never actually lucky when he wanted to be, Harry slipped silently in the room he used before and his bag was gone. It had been on the floor beside the bed, zipped closed, half under the bed and half poking out. Harry never would have left it if he hadn’t ambushed Sam to get him to take him along.
Harry began tearing the room apart with his heart in his throat the entire time…
There was no way Harry moved his bag and forgot… that bag had Harry’s only photos of his parents in it, ones of Sirius and James and Lily and John… Harry’s cloak was in there, his wand as well.
And the mirror… Harry’s only way to contact anyone was in that bag.
Harry started pulling drawers from the dresser, only pausing in very brief curiosity about the clothes in them. Harry moved to the closet and yanked things out at random, searching desperately for his bag.
When Harry had moved on to throwing the mattress off the bed and trying to lift the heavy box spring to check under the bed, someone stepped in the room and closed the door behind them.
“You lookin’ for this?” Bobby stood just in front of Harry’s door and Harry’s heart stopped - truly, Harry could feel it freeze in his chest - when he held up Harry’s bag.
“Funny thing, kiddo, there ain’t no Hoggarts School in the whole damn world far as I can tell.” Bobby flipped open the main compartment of the bag and Harry felt ill when he raised Harry’s wand out of it, holding it in his free hand while his eyes never left Harry’s face.
“There is a Hogwarts though. And they train wizards, but you knew that,” Bobby’s eyes ticked upward, looking for a scar he couldn’t see under Harry’s fringe, “didn’t you, Harry?”