When Patterns Are Broken

Harry woke to the alarming, but not unfamiliar, sight of a house-elf staring at him intently. 

“Breakfast is ready, Master Harry,” Kreacher rasped.

“Thanks,” Harry said, yawning. The dog growled in sleepy irritation, but didn’t wake up. “I’ll be right down.”

Harry got dressed, then walked downstairs to the kitchen. In the days since he had arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place, Kreacher had made admirable progress in cleaning up the main living areas: Sirius’ bedroom, the dining room, the kitchen, and one bathroom. Most of the rooms were still closed up, with Kreacher sternly warning Harry from exploring on his own. Given the number of corpses Harry had seen the elf drag into the back garden, he was quick to agree. 

Eating in the dining room was a lonely experience. The table could seat over two dozen, and Harry imagined the family had once been large enough to fill it up. It was a depressing thought, and Kreacher’s heartbroken expression stopped Harry from asking what happened to everyone. Despite Kreacher’s insistence that it was proper for Harry to eat at the table, though not at the head, Harry chose instead to eat in the kitchen. When he sat down, Kreacher carried in a plate with the dubious combination of smoked fish and scones with jam, with a pot of tea to wash it down. As the house had been uninhabited for years there wasn’t much left in the pantry, and Harry wasn’t sure who was meant to do the shopping. 

“Thank you,” Harry said when he received his food, to which Kreacher scowled and scuttled away. The house-elf was looking much better, dressed in a new-ish pillowcase toga, snow-white ear hairs washed and brushed. Harry’s meal was accompanied by dark and disturbing sounds emerging from the scullery, with intermittent shrieks and squeaks as lives were snuffed out. 

When he was finished, Harry tried to take his own dishes to clean, but Kreacher snatched them away.

“Master practices his cleaning spells in the bathroom,” Kreacher admonished, clutching a plate protectively. 

“But if I can get reparo to work—”

“The bathroom,” Kreacher said. “Mistress wishes to speak with young Master.”

Harry sighed and left Kreacher to it. 

Since Harry told her Voldemort’s birth name, the curtains had remained over Walburga’s portrait. The household, as it was, had spent the intervening days creeping past so as not to disturb her. 

He approached the portrait cautiously, Walburga watching him with keen eyes. 

“Mrs. Black?”

“I have questions for you, boy,” she said, looking down at him.

“I don’t like being called, ‘boy,’” Harry said.

“Why not?”

Harry’s mouth twisted in distaste. “My uncle calls me that instead of my name.”

“Your…muggle uncle,” Walburga said.

“Yeah. I mean, yes. He also shouts at me all the time.”

“What else do the muggles do to you?” Walburga asked, face carefully neutral.

“What does it matter that they’re muggles?” Harry asked. He shook his head, “Never mind. I have to do most of the cooking and cleaning. Sometimes they hit me, or try to.” He was probably saying too much, but Walburga was a portrait, who was she going to tell? He didn’t notice the shadowy shape at the top of the staircase, listening in with sharp ears. “I didn’t have a bedroom until I got my Hogwarts letter. They made me sleep in a cupboard. Then last summer they locked me in a room and put bars on the window, and locked all my school things away. They pushed food through a cat flap. I had to share it with my owl.”

Harry stopped, feeling nauseous, and Walburga kept staring at him. He wanted to crawl out of his skin. “What?” He demanded.

Walburga looked to the side, mumbling something about irony, then turned back to Harry. “Have you finished your summer assignments?”

“What?”

“Is that the only word you know, b—Harry? Have you finished your assignments?”

Confused, Harry said, “I’m almost done with my Charms essay. I haven’t started on Potions.”

Walburga considered him for a moment, then shouted, “Kreacher!”

“Yes, Mistress?” he said from Harry’s side.

“Take Harry to the library, make sure he completes his schoolwork.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Kreacher seized Harry’s hand and dragged him to the stairs, Harry stumbling along.

“There’s a library?”

Hedwig arrived a week into Harry’s stay. That same day, Harry learned there was an owlery located above the attic. Happily, it wasn’t accessed through the attic—a room so coated with protective magics it made Harry’s teeth buzz—but through the servants’ staircase that went down to the kitchen. 

She was busy cleaning her feathers when Harry shouldered his way through the stuck door. He covered his mouth, trying not to choke on the dust and feathers and petrified owl droppings. Harry pointed his wand at it all and said, “Tergeo.”

Hedwig cried angrily, batting her wings against the ensuing dust storm. 

“Sorry,” Harry coughed, eyes opened to slits. The dirt had been pushed in rows to the sides of the room. There was a vanishing spell, Harry had seen it in his book of cleaning spells, but it was advanced transfiguration. Kreacher found him practicing the wand movements and had forbidden it. There was something simpler he could use, though. 

The owlery didn’t have an open side, like at Hogwarts, but a wide, dutch door with the top held open. Harry unlatched the bottom half and swung it back then, with wide sweeping motions of his wand, pushed the dirt out with an enthusiastic, “Converro.”

When he was finished, he turned back and smiled at Hedwig. She didn’t look impressed. 

“You took a while to get here,” Harry said, reaching up to stroke her feathers. Hedwig nibbled at his finger. “Were you followed?” She bit him. “Ow! I didn’t mean if you were followed here, I was just worried.”

There was a soft clatter behind him, and Harry spun around to see a sleepy looking tawny owl newly landed on a perch. A package hung from its leg, and its droopy eyes regarded Harry with exhaustion. Harry looked at Hedwig accusingly, but she tilted her head and made no aggressive moves towards the new owl. Still, Harry approached it cautiously, wand out. As he reached to untie the package, Kreacher appeared.

"Young Master does not touch strange packages!"

Harry held his hands up, "Sorry! Hedwig seemed fine with it. I think she led it here."

Kreacher grumbled to himself and waved his hand over both package and owl. Eventually he removed the package and passed it to Harry. There was a card attached to it, so Harry opened that first.

"Kreacher will get water and mice," Kreacher said.

"Oh, right, thanks," Harry said, distracted. The letter was an invoice from Lou Nette, for his improved quidditch goggles and something called pince-nez. 

"I think this is something for you, Hedwig," Harry said. He held out an arm for her to climb on. "Let's go see what it is."

Harry carried Hedwig down the back stairs to the second floor, where the library was. Like the rest of the house, the library was much bigger on the inside than it appeared, with rows upon rows of books collected over the centuries. Enchantments on the room preserved its contents, giving it a sterile atmosphere, but large windows, newly cleaned, let in warm sunlight, and despite the weight of its history made the library open and airy. 

They settled at a window table and Harry opened his package. He tried the goggles on first, noting the dimly glowing runes engraved on the strap, and was pleased to find he could see clearly through them. He'd have to test them out, of course, when he had the chance to fly; the back garden could be at best described as hazardous, and Harry’s incendio was almost as bad as his aguamenti, so clearing it out would be slow going. It was one of the reasons he wasn't allowed to cook. Besides Kreacher's house-elf pride, parts of the kitchen needed magic to run. Lighting the oven, heating water. His scourgify already flooded one bathroom, which had the added benefit of drowning the horklumps under the sink, and Kreacher had hidden all of the knives after the incident.

Harry set the goggles aside and unwrapped the other item. It was an odd pair of armless glasses, just lenses joined with an arched bridge. There was a thin gold chain attached to either lens. It was surprisingly light.

"Are these owl glasses?" He held them up to Hedwig. She gave them a light peck. "Is it meant to go over your beak?"

Hedwig shuffled forward, and Harry looped the chain over her head. He carefully balanced the glasses on her beak, and the bridge immediately shrunk to fit, with the lenses growing to encompass her eyes. He watched gobsmacked as her feathers shifted, a prism washing over her, settling into the black and brown coloring of an eagle owl. The only thing that didn't change were her eyes, which were the same piercing orange. The glasses had disappeared, but when Harry reached out he could still feel them.

"Brilliant," Harry said, looking her over. "Can you still move your beak?"

Hedwig's new, tufted ears, twitched irritably, and she nipped at him.

"Eagle owls are nocturnal, I think, so if you hunt looking like this you'll have to do it at night. Can you take it off yourself?"

After some effort Hedwig was able to hook her claw around the chain and tug the lenses off, and her feathers melted into her familiar black-tipped white. Amazingly, she was able to put them on as well, though it took her much longer and awkward contortions to do so.

"Just keep practicing," Harry said, scratching her head. "For now, do you feel up for a delivery?"

Cleaning the Black family's ancestral home was a battle of attrition. Having spied more than a few hushed conversations between Kreacher and Walburga's portrait, Harry was certain he was being kept from the worst of it. After nearly having his hand bit off by a snuff box, many of the family heirlooms were relocated to the off-limits attic. 

Harry was given a crash course in defense during a short fight with a murderous ghoul in the third floor toilet. Harry managed to lock its legs together, and repeatedly shouted “Stupefy! ” to variable success, until the ghoul was unconscious and drooling on the tiles. Kreacher levitated it to the large fireplace downstairs, Harry exhausted and trailing behind. The ghoul's chains dragged on the floor, and it dripped an acid green slime that Harry was worried would stain. The fire, which had been burning when Harry first arrived and probably long before, nearly sputtered out, though a weak incendio brought it back to life, helped along with Kreacher’s own magic. Unfortunately, this woke the nest of ashwinders that had been living in the fireplace. Harry hissed at them and fended them off with a weak spray of water while Kreacher ran for buckets. The ashwinders were ultimately subdued with the threat of being put out, and happily burnt the ghoul’s body to a crisp. They had to air the entire house out after that. 

“Your defense education has been abysmal,” Walburga said when Harry slumped his way past. His clothes were in a state, coated with greasy ash and charred in places, and his magic was a weak flicker. His book on common household pests—notably not by Lockhart—hung limply from one hand. The author had not envisioned such high level opponents, and Harry was more than a little irritated at this lack of foresight. 

“I know,” he said miserably. “Our first year professor was the Muggle Studies professor being possessed by Tom,” Harry said, using the name they had agreed upon. “Our second year was Gilderoy Lockhart.”

“That fraud?” Walburga asked, aghast. 

“He accidentally obliviated himself when he tried to attack my friend Ron with a broken wand,” Harry said.

“What on earth is happening at that school?" Walburga pinched her nose. "Who is it this year?” 

“I’ve no idea. The book they assigned is on dark creatures.”

Walburga tapped her fingers. “That could be useful in this house,” she mused. “Have you read through it yet?”

Harry shook his head. “Was I supposed to?”

Walburga frowned at him. “Were you supposed to? Were you…this child…Kreacher? Kreacher!”

“I was planning on it!” Harry protested as he was pushed up the staircase. “I’ve been busy!”

Between Kreacher and Walburga, Harry found his time exceedingly scheduled. The snake had vanished somewhere in the garden, content with his new home, and the dog was in and out of rooms all day, sometimes joining Harry while he studied, other times chasing various creatures out of hiding. The first floor drawing room took Harry’s entire weekend to deal with, even after Kreacher’s preliminary sweep of it. The curtains were mercilessly beaten and sprayed with old cans of doxycide Kreacher had found somewhere. The doxy bodies were fed to the ashwinders, as the garden had become a miniature warzone between two competing armies of garden gnomes and their semi-domesticated knarls. The dog found a colony of puffskeins under one of the couches, which Harry helped round up into a cage, staying well clear of their tongues. He wasn’t sure what happened to them, but that evening’s stew was a bit gamey. 

Beneath the kitchen there was a potions lab, which hadn’t been used in decades, according to Kreacher. The cauldrons were resistant to attempts at magical cleaning, the ingredients had turned to dust or gone rogue and were far too dangerous to be burned. Kreacher vanished the lot, making Harry curious as to where vanished objects actually went. The easiest thing to deal with was a sentient green fungus that watched Harry with yellow eyes. It seemed useful to keep around, since it ate dirt, but Kreacher showed him the damage to the floorboards so it had to go. Kreacher did happily inform him that it was used in making doxycide, so its remains were bottled up for when the potions lab was once again operational. 

“Should we harvest the other things for parts?” Harry asked, scraping green sludge into a jar.

“Young Master will have to study for that, it’s dangerous and delicate work.”

The next day Harry found a new stack of books at his regular spot in the library. 

The situation in the garden escalated to the point where Harry had to intervene. The garden gnomes went flying. Harry wondered if it would be best to relocate them somewhere outside of London, but after the fifth time he had been bit he lost sympathy for them, and chucked them indiscriminately out of the garden. Harry watched the snake drag one off into the nettles. The knarls got booted too; they looked like hedgehogs but had awful attitudes, ripping plants out and decimating the wild daisy patch. Harry didn’t question the meat in kebabs that night, feeling vindictive over the wasteland the garden had become. There was some strange gray bee that had made a hive in one of the trees, the tree itself oozing an ominous honey that Harry was warned not to touch. He spent a significant amount of time just identifying things, though Kreacher was a great resource for that.

The worst thing in the house was the boggart. 

Harry had discovered early on that the Daily Prophet was regularly delivered to the house, by a means he had yet to identify. This was how one morning he learned that the Azkaban guards, which went unnamed by the paper, were joining the manhunt for Sirius Black.

“I’ve been meaning to look up dementors,” Harry said to the dog, who usually joined him for breakfast. Kreacher and the dog had a strange relationship, and Kreacher took a great deal of pleasure from serving the dog’s meals on the floor. Both of them stiffened when Harry mentioned dementors, but Harry was preoccupied adding honey to his porridge and didn’t notice. 

“They’re magical creatures, right? I didn’t see them in any of the books I have.”

“Dementors aren’t normal creatures,” Kreacher said.

“Obviously, they’re magical,” Harry started. 

“That’s not what Kreacher means. They don’t have a body like other creatures. Like beasts and beings.”

“Beasts and beings? Like people and animals?”

Kreacher nodded. 

“Is it a type of ghost?”

“Worse.”

Harry pulled back from the desolation in that word, unnerved. The dog had stopped eating and was pressed against Harry’s side. 

“Have you met one before?” Harry asked. 

Kreacher nodded, and said nothing more. 

Later, in the library, Harry spent some time looking up dementors. The library contained many of the books he had, but the copies were all old and some out of date. The Encyclopedia hadn’t been forthcoming, having only a brief description of dementors, their role as guards at Azkaban, and something about a kiss. A short treatise on spiritual entities, which the dog had brought over to him, gave a horrific clarity to the matter. 

“They suck out souls?” Harry exclaimed. “They put these around people? Something that feeds on happiness?” There was an illustration of a dementor, its trailing black cloak fluttering in some unseen wind, descending on a hapless victim paralyzed in rictus. “Doesn’t the Ministry know there are laws against cruel punishments? There’s a convention about it!”

“Dirty muggle laws,” Kreacher muttered. 

“Yeah? Well at least it’s illegal to torture people in the muggle world,” Harry said bitterly. “And they have these things roaming around the countryside, that’s fantastic. They must have some way to control them.”

Harry kept reading, hoping for more information. “How do they, you know, breed? You think they lay eggs or something?”

The dog was startled into a huffing laugh, and Harry smiled at him. “Here we go. It says, ‘the only known defense against the dementor is the Patronus Charm, the soul’s manifestation of pure happiness.’ I didn’t even know souls existed, how am I supposed to manifest happiness? It doesn’t even have the incantation…”

Harry shook his head, writing down the name of the spell, then stood up. “It says it’s a charm, but it’s a manifestation…charms don’t make things, they change things. So is the patronus a conjuration? Are souls physical?”

The dog herded Harry along while he was lost in thought, then pawed at a worn red book on the shelf.

“What’s this?” Harry asked, pulling out the book. “Auror Training Manual, Volume IV?” He opened it up and flipped through. “It says aurors fight against dark wizards, but doesn’t explain what being a dark wizard means. Or a dark witch, or is it only wizards that can be dark?” The dog nipped at him. “Fine. I don’t know how you find these books…Alright, the Patronus Charm. The incantation is expecto patronum, the wand movement…” Harry walked back to his table while practicing the motion with his hand. “This doesn’t really explain much,” he said, looking over the book. “I think you’re supposed to have actual training with someone, and this is more of a reference guide. ‘The patronus is made of what the dementor lacks. Hope, happiness…happiest memory…’ So I think happy thoughts?” He looked at the dog, who sadly didn’t get the joke. 

Harry set the book aside and took out his wand, trying to pick a happy memory. His first birthday present, and his first friend, Hedwig. She had yet to return from her delivery, which made Harry increasingly concerned, but he tried to focus on the feeling he had when he first saw her. He lifted his wand and—

"Young Master is not doing magic in the library!”

Harry nearly dropped his wand. “I need somewhere to practice. Is the second basement open yet?”

“It is not,” Kreacher said. “Kreacher still needs to clean the cells—”

“Cells? We have a dungeon?”

“Kreacher has found something for young Master to practice on,” Kreacher said, ignoring Harry’s spluttering. “A boggart in one of the bedrooms.”

“A boggart?” Harry said. “I’ve read about those. They like dark spaces, like wardrobes and…cupboards…and they turn into your worst fear. It’s in my defense book for this year, I think I left it in my room…”

Harry hurried up to his room to find his book, the dog loping at his side and Kreacher following behind. His room—Sirius' room—had got even more cluttered with things Harry had taken out of his trunk and not put away. It was weird, staying in someone else's room, even someone who hadn't used it in years, but Harry was starting to feel settled in. He found his defense book under a discarded robe, which Kreacher muttered over as it hadn't been hung up properly.

"'Boggarts are malevolent household spirits that take the shape of one's worst fear,'" Harry read. "'The true shape of the boggart is unknown.' It's a spirit, so it doesn’t have a body? That means even if it's something you're afraid of, it can’t actually hurt you."

"It cannot touch you," Kreacher said.

"That's what I said. 'When confronted by more than one person, the boggart becomes confused and unable to take form, unless the parties share a fear.' So how do you get rid of it?" Harry kept reading, tapping his foot idly. "There's a boggart banishing charm. 'The Riddikulus Charm forces the boggart into a shape the user finds humorous, ultimately driving the boggart back into hiding.' That's it?" Harry asked, flipping ahead. "I suppose you could lock it in. Which bedroom is it in?" 

"The guest bedroom next to Master's bedroom," Kreacher said.

"Orion's bedroom?" Harry had yet to meet Orion Arcturus Black II's portrait, if it existed. Kreacher had said he'd make sure of the house portraits' loyalty, but Harry hadn't seen any besides Walburga. The row of house-elf heads on the wall were also missing after he had commented on them. 

"Headmaster Black's portrait was in that room," Kreacher said as they walked downstairs. The dog kept pace next to Harry.

"Is it still?"

"No. Headmaster Black was being fractious."

They arrived at the guest bedroom, which in the past had been handsomely appointed. In contrast to Regulus’ room, and to some extent Sirius’ room, much of the house was in various stages of decay. Kreacher had vanished threadbare carpets, gnawed-on drapes, and reams of peeling wallpaper, leaving parts of the house looking hollowed out and waiting on being redecorated. Harry didn’t trust Kreacher to do it himself, given how gloomy the house was, but neither did he have the knowledge or skills for such a large project. Petunia had always hired decorators, and that wasn’t an option for Harry. So it simply was until he worked out a solution. 

This room was an exception, ostentatiously large and filled with ornate and heavy furniture, dusty and moth-eaten emerald brocade buttoned to the walls. In one corner a large wardrobe rattled. Harry already had his wand in hand and kept his eyes on the wardrobe. The dog took a step ahead of him, growling. Kreacher moved next to the wardrobe, hand on the latch. 

“There’s a muggle story,” Harry said, “about children who go into a wardrobe and end up in another world. I used to imagine my cupboard was like that.”

“Is young Master ready?” Kreacher asked. 

Harry cleared his throat and held up his wand. “Riddikulus. Riddikulus.” His grip tightened. “I’m ready.”

Kreacher opened the wardrobe. 

"I don't even know what I'm afraid of."

The doors yawned open, revealing a cavernous void. A faint gasp echoed out.

"Is someone in there?" Harry asked, stepping forward. The dog blocked him.

The cries grew louder, and a little boy with tousled black hair and crooked glasses stumbled out. His brown skin was marred with dirt, clean only where his tears tracked through. He tripped over clothes too big for him and fell face first, holding a dislocated arm to his chest.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed, "I didn't mean to—"

A large, fleshy hand seized the child's leg. "Get back here, boy! I'll have none of that freakishness in my house!"

Harry watched in numb horror.

"I fixed it!" little Harry cried, struggling free. The hand made another grasp for him, then Vernon Dursley stepped out. His face blazed with fury, and he took off his belt. He folded it over and snapped it against his hand.

"I told you last time, boy! I'll have none of it!"

Vernon grabbed little Harry by his hair and threw him into the wardrobe. It slammed back into the wall. "One week!"

Harry snapped out of his stupor and pointed his wand with a shaking hand. "Riddik—"

"It wasn't on purpose!"

"Riddiku—" Harry stuttered. Vernon raised the belt. 

"Two weeks! And no food!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm—"

"Riddikulus!"

The belt melted, dripping between Vernon's fingers and oozing up his arm. It reformed, bulging and swelling, rippling into a massive snake with a brown hourglass-shaped pattern along its body, like the one at the zoo years ago. It turned on Vernon, coiling around him tightly and bringing him down to the floor. It wrapped around Vernon’s neck, turning his face from red to purple as he suffocated. Vernon exploded into a sinister black smoke, shifting around, slowly reforming into a wand, snapped in half. It was made out of holly. 

Harry’s head spun, unable to think of how he could make any of this funny. But he had his wand in his hand, and it was whole. He held on tighter and pointed it at the boggart. 

“Riddikulus!”

The broken wand transformed into a bone, snapped in half.

“Riddikulus!”

The two halves of bone started dancing to some silent, jaunty tune. 

“I can’t—”

The dog bowled Harry over, knocking him out of the room. The door slammed shut. Harry scrambled backward and huddled against the wall. The dog pushed his way into Harry’s arms, and Harry clung onto him, eyes wide and staring at the closed door. It took him a while to realize he was shaking. 

Harry didn’t know how long he sat there, but gradually his breathing evened, he regained the feeling in his body. He tried to stand up but the dog held him down. Kreacher arrived and pushed bits of crumbling chocolate at him, which Harry ate without thinking. Warmth slowly returned to him as he chewed. 

“It helps with dementors,” Kreacher explained. “Other spirit things.”

“Thank you,” Harry said. The dog nodded at Kreacher and, to everyone’s surprise, Kreacher gave him a pat on his head. 

“Young Master needs lunch,” Kreacher said, then popped away.

Harry stood up with help from the dog. He didn’t put his wand away. “How can I eat after something like that?”

Together, they slowly descended the back staircase. “I remember that day,” Harry said. “It wasn’t a whole week. Aunt Petunia let me out after three days. I think she felt bad.” Harry paused. “I hope she did.”

The dog woofed, not leaving Harry’s side, even when they reached the kitchen, nearly crawling onto Harry’s lap when he sat down. 

“They snap your wand in half when they expel you,” Harry said. Kreacher pushed a steaming cup of hot chocolate in front of him and Harry picked it up. “Last year, when me and Ron flew his dad’s car to school, Snape threatened to expel us.” The dog growled. “I think he knows it’s the worst thing that could happen to me. I thought I’d be expelled this summer, for what happened to Aunt Marge.” He took a sip of his hot chocolate, and it made him feel warmer. A bacon butty appeared before him. He took out a piece of bacon and gave it to the dog. Harry wondered what kind of bacon it was, hoping Kreacher had gone shopping. 

“Have I told you about how Ron’s wand got broken?” He asked the dog between bites. “It was actually his brother Charlie’s, since his family couldn’t afford a new one. I’d offer to buy one but, well, he gets weird about money. Like I don’t know what that’s like. Anyway…”

Harry explained the flight and ultimate crash into the Whomping Willow, feeding the dog bits of bacon as he talked. The dog looked scandalized about the tree, amused by the car gone feral, outraged at Snape, and ecstatic about Lockhart’s failed attempt to erase their memories. 

“I don’t know what I’d do if they snapped my wand,” Harry said miserably. “I won’t go back there. Can people do magic without wands?”

“Bark!”

“Is it hard?”

“Woof.”

“Oh. I guess if I didn’t have a wand I’d get loads of practice.” 

The dog nosed Harry’s wand arm, where the holster was, then trotted off upstairs. Harry shrugged, not understanding the thoughts of dogs, and started on the second sandwich that appeared in front of him. When he was finished, Kreacher presented him with a chocolate frog. Harry looked at the chocolate, then at Kreacher. 

“Kreacher has raised four generations of Black children,” the elf said. Harry raised his eyebrows at that, and took the package. “Raising children is not easy.”

Harry was sure there was something more to it than that—he’d met Walburga, after all—but didn’t press Kreacher to explain. He was getting a little too full, but he opened the package, snatched the frog out of the air and bit its head off. He pulled out the card and stopped midchew. 

The card burst into flames. 

Kreacher batted it out of his hand and stomped the fire out. He took Harry’s hand and checked it for injury.

“Young Master needs rest,” he concluded. 

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I think I’ll lie down.”

Harry curled up on his bed, his book On Fire at his side. He turned the pages listlessly, passing over the effect of temperature on potions ingredients and brewing at different stages, pyromancy, or divination with fire, magical fires, creatures like will-o-the-wisps, ashwinders, and dragons, fire rituals, fires to drive away or guide spirits. The book was opened to a section on purification, healing fire, fire rites. There was a diagram of an arcane circle, inscribed with runes. Harry didn't recognize them yet, he hadn't got far into his Ancient Runes text. He rubbed his forehead, tired and annoyed.

He closed the book and set it aside, picking up instead the book on death omens. He knew, intellectually, that what he had seen could not hurt him. It couldn't. But…

Harry looked at the black dog snarling on the cover, red eyes blazing. The size of the book was portentous, and he weighed it in his hands, wondering if he should open it at all.

The door opened, and his own dog came in, holding something rolled up in his mouth.

"What's that?" Harry asked, putting the book down. "Where've you been?" The dog jumped onto the bed, dropping his bundle on Harry's lap.

Harry stared at it.

"Is that a wand?"

Harry unraveled the bundle, which turned out to be a wide loop of leather with a cylindrical sheath attached. The end of a dark reddish wand stuck out. The leather was stamped with the initials CAB. 

"How did you find this?"

The dog stuck out his tongue, picked up the leather strap, then draped it over Harry's head. He pushed at Harry's arm until he got the point and stuck his arms through. 

"If I put my robe over it you won't be able to see it," Harry said. Harry pulled out the wand and a gout of flame roared out. He dropped it immediately, then used his own wand to put out the burning bed hanging. He picked up the other wand delicately, turning it over in his hand. "What is this made of?" He asked. 

Harry put the wand in its holster, and narrowed his eyes at the dog. "You have a lot to explain."

"Bark bark!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Still, I'm glad I have another wand. Just in case." 

The dog laid down, watching Harry with guiltless gray eyes. Harry picked up Death Omens, and paused. He showed the dog the cover.

"Is this you?" he asked

The dog snorted.

Harry grinned and opened the book, looking through the table of contents. "There's a whole chapter on canids," he said, opening to it. “And a section on black dogs specifically.” The dog grumbled at him and closed his eyes.

“I don’t think you’re an anubis, your fur is too curly. Definitely not a cerberus. Did I tell you the one I met was named Fluffy?” The dog opened one eye, then closed it again. “This one is Welsh. Cŵn Annwn? I think that’s how you say it. Wait, they’re white with red ears. And spirits. I wonder if they’re in that book you brought me.” Harry skimmed a bit. “I don’t think you’re a grim either, they are usually around churches and we’re in a place farthest from. Also, I’m not dead yet.” The dog lifted his head and gave Harry a baleful look. “What about…are you from Yorkshire?” The dog snorted again. “Because if you are, you could be Padfoot.” The dog froze as Harry read, “‘Known by the padding sound of his paws, legends say that Padfoot has power over any who dare speak to him.’ I think we can rule that one out. There’s another one from Yorkshire called a shagfoal, with eyes like burning coals…”

Kreacher slammed around the kitchen while Harry quietly ate his food. The dog had been put outside, which he honestly didn’t seem to mind. 

“Kreacher has explained to young Master about not touching strange magical objects,” Kreacher said. “Foolish, naive, reckless…”

“But Dog brought it to me. I don’t think he’d bring me anything dangerous.”

Kreacher aggressively wiped at a spot on the table. “Kreacher recognized it, otherwise young Master would not be allowed to keep it.”

“I found her on the tapestry,” Harry said. “I did check, you know.”

The wand in question was that of Cassiopeia Aurelia Black, a direct ancestor of Harry’s from several centuries back. She had been a metalsmith and enchantress, with a penchant for fire. She died doing what she loved. 

“Alder and dragon heartstring,” Kreacher said bitterly. “Chinese Fireball. Reckless.”

“I think it likes me,” Harry said, reaching unconsciously for the wand. Kreacher snapped his fingers and stuck Harry’s hand to the table. 

“The dog,” Kreacher spat, “is reckless too. Two children.” Kreacher shook his head. “And Kreacher had a gift for young Master.”

Harry stopped whispering the counter charm—it was working, he got one finger unstuck—and looked up. “A gift?”

Kreacher gave him a cool look. 

“I finished all my essays, and proofread them, and rewrote them in nicer handwriting. I’ve read the first chapters of all my books for next year. I was going to work on other things today.”

Kreacher narrowed his eyes.

“There has to be another spell for a boggart,” Harry said, eyes hardening. “There was nothing funny about what happened. I can’t make any of those things funny.”

“Boggarts can be left alone,” Kreacher said. “Young Master could run away.”

Harry pulled his hand the rest of the way off the table and flexed his fingers. “Sometimes you can’t run away. Sometimes things are hard to forget.”

Kreacher hesitated, then said, “There are parts of the library the house has not revealed to you. Dangerous magics.”

“Dark magic?”

“Dangerous,” Kreacher said. “There is nothing present in the dark that is not in the light.”

Harry thought that over, supposing it was true in a literal sense. “Tom said there is only power and weak people.”

Kreacher sneered. “The Dark Lord lost to a mud—a muggleborn and an infant. As Kreacher was saying, there are books young Master is not ready to read. Books on how to damage spirits can be fatal.”

“Fatal? How?”

“The dog will bring it to you. Kreacher knows young Master has nightmares—”

“I—”

“—and it would be best if the boggart was destroyed.”

Harry sat back, feeling the stirrings of hope. “So there is a way to kill it.”

“Perhaps.”

In the library Harry was told to stay where he was, so he waited, trying to twirl his holly wand between his fingers. It wasn’t working, and his wand occasionally shot out sparks, so he stopped before Kreacher could see.

Harry thought he might have been more bothered by how…mothering everyone was. Kreacher particularly, but Walburga too, and even the dog sometimes. Mrs. Weasley was nice, and the Burrow was so charming and magical, but she was often overbearing. There was no way Harry would be knocking out ghouls and plotting to kill boggarts under her watch. At best he’d be tossing garden gnomes around, and not using his wand at all. And he wasn’t her son, wasn’t really family. It reminded him of the Dursleys just a little, watching a happy family from the outside. It wasn’t home. Grimmauld Place felt like his the way that Privet Drive, the Burrow, and even Hogwarts didn’t. Walburga had even suggested, in an offhand way that made Harry think she really wanted it, that he call her grandmother. 

The dog startled Harry from his thoughts, thumping his paws on the table and dropping a page in front of him. 

“I thought you were getting a book,” Harry said, picking up the page. It looked handwritten, though the calligraphy was impeccable, and was titled, Reductio ad absurdum - For Use on Boggarts ONLY!!

“What happens if I use it on something else?”

The dog growled at Harry. “I was just curious, I won’t do it. Could it backfire on me?”

“Woof.”

Harry swallowed, reading the page. “‘The Absurditas Curse’—this is a curse?—’The Absurditas Curse is a rejection of the boggart’s existence. While Riddikulus forces the boggart into a form that mocks the boggart’s chosen’—it has a choice? And it says mock, that isn’t necessarily the same thing as laughing at it, is it? ‘...that mocks the boggart's chosen apparition, the curse places the boggart in a contradiction of its essence, a nonentity reliant on the perception of its victim…’” Harry kept reading, getting up only to find a dictionary to help with some of the words.  

“It sounds like,” he said when he read the page over again, “boggarts run on our beliefs.” Harry paused, then asked, “Can muggles see boggarts?”

The dog shook his head.

“Is it some kind of mind reading then? I found a book on occlumency and legilimency. Are boggarts legilimens?” Harry made a note to look into that, then tapped his pen. “How else would they know someone’s greatest fear? And is it actually someone’s greatest fear, or what they think it is? Why fear?” He tried twirling his pen and it flew out of his hand. Harry pretended that didn’t happen. “I don’t really get it,” he said, picking up the paper. “It sounds kind of like the Patronus, where you need the right frame of mind or whatever.”

Harry sighed, then got up to find his pen. 

Hedwig returned a few days later with a letter and a book. It appeared that Hedwig had stayed at Professor Bagshot’s home until she signed the copy of Hogwarts: A History. There was also a thick packet titled Supplementand Erratum to go with it. Harry smiled sadly at the letter; the professor had been happy to hear from him, and to do him a favor, but she didn’t seem to remember meeting him. Harry still believed what she had told him about that night, but the letter increased his resolve to confront Hagrid about it. Hagrid wasn’t exactly the hardest person to get information from. 

Harry put the book in his trunk, carefully wrapped in paper, then walked down to the third floor. He stood in front of the door of the guestroom. He had practiced his locking and unlocking charms, in case he only managed to drive the boggart back into its wardrobe. He believed the Absurditas Curse would work. Kreacher had offered to remove the wardrobe entirely. He could always call for help. 

Harry opened the bedroom door. He looked at the wardrobe lurking in the corner. He held his holly wand, which represented life and renewal, things alien to a creature like a boggart. 

“Alohomora.”

The wardrobe sprang open. A boy holding a broken wand fell out and didn’t move. 

“That isn’t me.”

Harry would not allow that to happen to himself. 

“Reductio ad absurdum!”

A blinding beam of light shot out of his wand and struck the boggart. A black cloud rose, and the room dimmed around him. It began to glow from within, tendrils of icy blue arcing through, suffusing it. Harry grabbed his wand with both hands, shaking violently at the strain, watching with narrowed eyes as the boggart was written out of existence. 

The spell broke off with an explosion, throwing Harry out of the room. His head hit the wall with a resounding crack, and he blacked out. 

Harry did not cope well with people being disappointed with him. Kreacher was ignoring him, Walburga catastrophized, and the dog just looked at him sadly. 

He had been temporarily moved to the drawing room, which featured a new couch in dark blue velvet. No one knew where it came from, or at least no one admitted to anything. A whole section of wall had to be removed in order to relocate Walburga’s portrait so she could watch over him.

“Have you taken your potion?” Walburga asked. 

“You just watched me drink it,” Harry muttered.

“Excuse me, young man?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Has your healer signed the contract yet? I wish we had someone to do a Vow, but since that’s impossible…”

“Hedwig isn’t back yet.”

“And you have her Floo address?”

“Yes.”

“And ours?”

“Yes, grandmother.”

He slyly watched her, and was astonished how much her face changed when she smiled. The dog appeared at the door, dragging something in. 

“Just in time,” Walburga said. “Since you did successfully defeat the boggart, even if you injured yourself in the process, we should celebrate.” She wrinkled her nose. “I hope you choose something less…offensive than my son favored. Kreacher! Bring it in!”

Kreacher popped into the room, holding an old record player with a large brass horn. There was a crank on the side to wind it up.

“Master Sirius’ gramophone,” Kreacher said with a bow. “Mistress confiscated it.”

“And now I’m returning it,” she said, crossing her arms. 

The dog finished pushing the crate of records to Harry, then turned to race around the room, jumping playfully on Harry’s legs and taking off again. Harry reached for the records and pulled a few out. He didn’t know much about music, but he wanted to learn. 

“What should we listen to first?”