Lovely Lie

After everything, it’s a stunning relief – figuratively but also rather literally – when Nada reports that HK-47 is now able to give and receive basic to moderately nuanced and technical information in English. Also that the various households have collaborated with each other to collate various data, from proper and up-to-date counts of people and things – although they haven’t checked through all the trunks, bags, sacks and boxes yet, just a handful of them – to list of professions and abilities. And they have sorted through everything the team’s summoned, too!

Further summoning is postponed, though, given the toll to the first team’s respective magical cores. They can’t afford too many people suffering from magical exhaustion, not when they’re all each other have. Not to mention, who’d take care of the farms – their only resources, now – and all if the tenders weren’t there to do it?

It’s a very sensible and practical view of things, even more practical than Hermione’s, and truthfully it’s a little alien to Harry. But it’s also good, and he shan’t complain about it because of that alone.

Well, it allows him to rest for a while longer, too, or so Nada points out… pointedly… and proceeds to make him hold a newly waking Teddy with the order of, “Just hold him, please. I will help you when he needs a new nappy or a bath.”

He rolls his eyes at her.

She glares back at him.

And then their little, silent argument is tabled, because Kan’s curiosity is apparently extended to Teddy, and the latter doesn’t like it.

Teddy cries. Kan bursts into similarly upset high chittering noise. And it’s Nada who sighs.

Harry grins wryly at her. `Yup. Holding a pair of children isn’t the definition of resting.`

Then he tucks Teddy in one arm, soothing the latter with touches of his magic on the now-grey hair meanwhile, and tucking Kan in the other arm, as far apart as possible in the limited space available. Then he tells the latter both mind to mind and verbally, “Teddy doesn’t understand what you mean to do yet, so don’t do that, okay? He won’t understand until at least a few years from now.”

Kan stops chittering, just so, and looks wide-eyed up at him. Then they squawk in the same fashion as his just now but in their own tongue… which fortunately Kar’s imprint has given him the knowledge of, “Years! So long!”

Harry smiles at them. Kar’s imprint tells him that taung grow fast, with eighty years being the general upper limit of their life expectancy, like a hundred is for modern non-magical humans with good health and nutrition and access to medication and medical treatment. Fifty to sixty years old is more the norm for them, especially during the last hard few decades of their life on this planet that they call Notron. And Kan is already – slightly – beyond three years old, which likely translates as… five? Or seven?… to humans, and this implies that even a few years are precious to them, are already so long indeed.

With that in mind, he explains as simply but as clearly as possible, also attempting to speak it in their tongue with all the stumbles and clumsy pronunciation of the unpractised, and replacing his own species’ name with an English word because… well, apparently humans didn’t exist here back then?

“You and Teddy have different… bodies,” he says. “Teddy grows much slower than you. A few years for him is about… a year? For you, or even half a year, maybe. He grows that slow. Humans do, including me.”

Well, speaking of growing, Kan should have been much bigger than this, by now, Kar’s imprint reckons. But life was so hard in the end that the few hatchlings and younglings that were present at that time either did not survive long or grew quite stunted… or died in skirmishes and battles between the last of the taung who hadn’t escaped off-world yet and their emboldened generational enemies, the somewhat ape-like zhell, whether accidentally caught in one or deliberately trying to help in some way. Taung younglings eat differently from their elders, too, so the elders couldn’t just share their meals with their children.

`Nope. This won’t do,` he determines, then asks his self-titled personal assistant, “Hey, Nada? What did you feed Kan all this while?”

She huffs, and smiles ruefully. “We don’t know what to give them,” she confesses. “But they know, and they catch food for themself. Bee, grasshopper, beetle. Firefly, butterfly and dragonfly too small for them. not interested.”

He scrunches up his nose, sticks out his tongue and crosses his eyes. `Ewwww!`

But Kan is letting out a chattering sound at a lower pitch than before, giggling, and trying to imitate the face he’s making, and he can’t help but giggle, himself.

Resigned to having live insects at the table for eating, too.

And then he has to be resigned to an entirely different, entirely unpleasant thing, as a panting Ewan Grady bursts into the room with nary a knock at the open door and blurts out, “Lord Potter. Werewolves and Black farm workers. They’re fighting! In the Potter farm property. Please!”

All thoughts and lingering tiredness vanish from Harry’s mind, just so. He only takes time to deposit a confused Teddy and a surprised Kan in Teddy’s bed, and fetch his wand in its holster that lies on the table behind Nada. Then off he runs, following Ewan to the first storeroom beside the bedroom, down into the open trunk that he vaguely notes seems to be different from the one he left open before, and across a packed-dirt path that leads to the large front yard of a collection of farm buildings.

And, as he skids to a stop not far from the lift… yes, he sees for himself two groups of people trading spells there.

Mostly vicious curses, at that. With ill intentions sharp and oily in the air, and the ozone-like smell of harsh “magical discharges” burning it for good measure.

`Haven’t they realised that this seemingly open environment is actually inside of a trunk?!`

And those curses have already damaged not a little of the surrounding walls, plants, ground and air, he can see and smell and sense, all too well.

`Just like Hogwarts.`

Just like when schoolchildren and shopkeepers fought against Death Eaters, and many didn’t get back up again in one way or another.

But they’re all here, all alone in a new world entirely, and he can’t afford to break down, not right now.

`For Merlin’s sake!`

He whips out his wand, lets the holster plop onto the dusty ground, and channels a Sonorus into his throat.

Then he blows a whistle.

…And forgets to tone it down.

Ewan has to heal both of their ears before Harry can do anything else. The man then has to go through the embattled groups one by one to heal them, too.

But, in hindsight, however unplanned – and painful in the short run – it is, the temporary deafness and its healing allows all parties to cool down. Harry feels so, in any case, and he sees the realisation sets in in both groups of combatants a moment after.

And then he realises that he is clad only in pyjamas and is of course barefooted.

And he left Teddy and Kan in the same small bed with not even a message to Nada about separating them and preventing Kan from trying to follow him.

It fuels his irritation and upset back up, albeit not to the previous level.

And something on him looks fearsome enough, maybe, for, upon seeing him standing alone at the path leading to the lift, both groups back away from him and from each other.

He crosses his arms and scowls, for good measure, when Ewan nods at him from across the yard, signifying that everyone has been healed.

And then, deliberately pleasantly, he points out, “Did you realise that we’re all in a trunk, now, and it’s in a tent with lots of other trunks nearby? And this tent is thousands of floors underground?”

`Oh, damn! I was trying not to remember how many kilometres underground we are, myself! Damn you!`

Well, they are technically still aboveground, as HK-47 once explained that “Level 45” means “45 levels above the original surface of the planet.” But sheer technicality has nothing to do when the reality is that there are so very many gazillion tons worth of materials and items and individuals weighing down on them from above, which could easily fall down on them in a magical explosion.

In any case, horror now setts in on the expressions of the various individuals arrayed in front of him, even as he wrestles with his own justified sense of claustrophobia, and it is satisfying, in a “Now you get it, dummies!” way.

So he proceeds to drive it deeper, by pointing out that they have jointly damaged the environment here, while an enclosed, magical environment like this is no doubt very sensitive to damaging magics inflicted on it, and they are all still inside of it.

He flicks an Incarcerous at the few people who try to run, upon that realisation.

He also Silencios others who begin to deride the would-be runners.

And then he points at one of the workers of Black farm.

With his wand.

His sparking wand.

It’s the Slavic man from the meeting with the representatives, and Harry briefly enjoys the large, sturdy man quailing under his attention.

Not for long, though. His bare feet feel uncomfortable on the gritty ground, he feels so exposed standing here alone and in his pyjamas, and he longs to return to Teddy and Kan in his bedroom.

So, after a moment, he grits out, with the wand still pointed at the man, “Now, please explain, clearly, your side of this.”

The man’s flabbergasted, incredulous exclamation of, “They are verevolves, my lord!” really doesn’t sit well with him, though, and now he wonders if he can be neutral in this judgement that he never thought he’d have to make.

Still, he must make it… and he can’t think or say anything under the barrage of shouts and yells and growls from the offended party, so now he Silencios all of them. Only when everyone is visibly calmer does he continue, now thinking out loud, “My father’s friend was a werewolf, and he was one of the most honorable persons I knew.” Not the most sensible person, and rather too loyal to Dumbledore for his own sake and his purported loved ones’ sakes according to Andy, but still. “Do werewolves like to be werewolves? I doubt many do, and Remus didn’t want it, anyway. He was four when Greyback bit him, because his father looked down on werewolves, and it was very traumatising for him. Can werewolves prevent themselves from biting people? There’s the Wolfsbane potion. Can werewolves sequester themselves safely during full moons otherwise? Yes. Can werewolves pass on the curse to their loved ones who are not bitten by werewolves? No.” And Andy has done an extensive check on that, short of damaging her own daughter and grandson physically, mentally and emotionally. “Can a werewolf pass on the curse by casual touch and sharing eating utensils and the like? No.” And Hermione is the one who ccame upon this bit of knowledge, when Snape became replacement teacher for DADA in their third year.

“Now.” He moves the still-sparking wand to one of the workers from the other group and lifts the Silencio for the woman only. “Tell me, are you a werewolf?”

She nods, jerkily.

He stomps on, verbally. “Now, how long have you been a werewolf?”

She lifts her hands and silently ticks down her fingers till it comes to ten, then begins again for two counts, her expression even tighter than before.

He nods in acknowledgement. “Did you bite anybody during that time when you were a werewolf?”

She shakes her head emphatically.

“Are you going to bite anybody after this?”

She scoffs, glares at the other group, but shakes her head.

“What do you do during full moons?”

She motions at the group of buildings beside them, then taps a booted foot on the ground beneath her as she gestures to the others in her group.

He nods again, now in dismissal, and returns his attention to the other group.

“Now, why did you come here?”

Nobody answers. Everybody looks mulish.

“Do you know that we are all we have now?” He is so very tired, all of a sudden, all the adrenaline and rage leaving him, faced with that deflective stubbornness.

He continues, still. They must realise, as he is also realising: “You kill them, or harm them severely. Then what will happen with the farm? With the trunks? With the tent? With you? Do you think that everyone else approve of what you’re doing? What will happen between the rest of you, then? Will you kill each other? Destroying this place and those living above us in the process? And what about me? If you came here for me, or at least for the concept of following your lord, what did you think would I think and feel? What do you think I’m feeling?”

A few look away. A few more look down, hunch over themselves. Some stare on with stubborn expressions but carefully blank eyes. Some more look at him, but don’t meet his eyes, their expressions complicated.

The only one who looks at Harry dead on is the representative man, and the man has the most complicated expression of them all, with resignation being the most apparent of all the emotions almost visibly jumbled behind his gaze.

And then he lowly but clearly asks, “Are you going to kill us for our transgression, den, my lord? Iv so, I vould like to ask dat de oders receive lashings instead. I am de one who lead dem.”

Harry recoils, and bursts out, “No!”

He glares ferociously at the man, who looks stoically back, now unreadable. “Did the previous Lord Black ever do that to you?”

“Law is to follow de lord,” is the answer, which is not an answer but also yes.

Now Harry feels sick.

He shakes his head. Emphatically. And reiterates, “No. I shan’t ever do that. Unless you are an incurable criminal who has done evil acts.” And he doubts he would be able to do so, even then. After all, Lord Voldemort died on his own rebounded killing curse, not at the end of Harry Potter’s stolen wand.

Puny not-yet-eighteen-year-old Harry James Potter, who had willingly gone to the slaughter earlier, and was Veiled not long after because of some technicality.

But anyway, he plods on, and tells them that, as he has been lumped with two Houses and those Houses have chosen to come with him here knowing that it’s permanent, they have to learn to live with each other.

And the first step towards that in this case is to jointly heal the damage to the environment in this trunk. Which he also participates in, although he doesn’t require Ewan to do so, and in fact sends the man to check on Nada and the children… and open the doors leading to outside of the tent while he’s at it, come to think of it again, because the “magical residue” from an enclosed environment like this will no doubt not dissipate on its own and have to be chivvied out in some way.

His participation in this serves a double purpose, really: He needs to give a good example… and he also wishes to help rebuild, indeed, as he never had the chance to do it with Hogwarts, his first home.

He just… crashed somewhere, then told the bad news to Andy, then helped Andy bury her only daughter and the daughter’s husband, then had a crash course of taking care of Teddy and dealing with Gringotts the Black way. And then the Ministry called, and he never even went back to Andy since then, let alone to Hogwarts.

Stupid Mordred’s Law. He didn’t even get to say good-bye to anyone but Hermione and Ron.

Eh, his stupidly tired everything, too. Because now he realises he’s crying again, and the two sets of farm workers are united in fussing over him because of that, instead of progressing with the cleaning and neutralising, and he’s just. Too. Tired to even feel mortified about it.

Too numb to notice anything but the less-jagged feel of the air, too, when he brushes off their concern and… just… channels his magic out into the patches of gouged dirt and wall and tree with all the intent to heal, just heal that he has.

Curses with ill intent leave something. And, just like with the Dursleys, he scrubs it all off everything he sees and touches and senses with his own magic, with his own clean-safe-home-bright-healed intent.

Aunt Petunia has conditioned him well in this, ironically.

And then there’s nothing more, so back to storage he goes.

It was his cupboard. Now it’s his bedroom.

But there are a lot of people in his bedroom, somehow, so he veers off to the bathroom instead.

He usually had to clean it, too, when he’s with Aunt Petunia. But this one is clean. Clean and alone and lockable. He is usually locked in when he’s not in use, isn’t he?

So he comes in, locks the door behind him, goes to the bath-tub, transfigures it into a place to sleep in, cleans his feet, then squirms into the… nest?… he’s made for himself.

`Why a nest?` he dimly wonders, even as he snuggles down among the cushions and blankets and all. But he’s so tired, and the thought doesn’t linger long.

He is comfortable, after all, and accompanied even though he is alone physically. Kan is there, right in his head; innocent but so knowing, worried and understanding and curious and cautious, radiating `I’m here` and `I’m glad you’re safe` and `I miss you` like a portable heater in a blustery Scottish winter.

And there are also the other three presences, one of which feels like Teddy, like the fuzzy sleep of a comfortable baby, now that he soaks himself in it instead of freaking out about it. And what it radiates only makes him feel comfier, sleepier, and warmer in a way not at all related to temperature.

Not related, because the other two presences feel cool, but just as comfortable, somehow also just as familiar, if in a distantly remembered home-safe-comfort-care sort of way.

`Oh. It’s not the other eggs, then, after all,` is the very last thing that passes through his mind, before he plonks right into slumber, alone but not lonely, exhausted but no longer so heartsick.