Chapter 6
Harry tore down the road back toward town, so fast his tires hissed on the asphalt, before an angry blast from a passing vehicle brought him back down to the speed limit. He continued toward town at what seemed an unbearably slow pace, expecting any minute for a curse to hit his back bumper.
Wizards. Wizards!
Harry was desperate to get home, but he was shaking too much to make it all the way back to the house. He pulled up and parked at the 7-11 at the edge of town.
Harry cut the engine and lowered his face into his shaking hands. Just the glow of the streetlights, and the glimpse of the inside of the convenience store, were reassuring, calming him just slightly. But still his brow was wet and cold, and tremors ran down his spine.
Wizards. Other wizards in San Benito!
He huddled down in the driver’s seat. What was Severus going to say? Was Harry going to be in trouble? But he’d done exactly what Severus had always told him to do: If you can hide and avoid an enemy’s notice, you have done your job. Harry had hidden and run away. Surely, if the strange wizards had noticed him, they would have cast spells at him? Or shouted at him or something. But no, they’d gone straight into the rental house, just like regular vacationers—if one disregarded the wands, of course.
Maybe they were just regular vacationers. Wizards here to soak up some California sun and sea. But even if they were, they were still dangerous. Severus had always been very clear: the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters held total dominion over the magical world. If other wizards weren’t actively working for the Dark Lord’s regime, they’d knuckled under. And Harry and Severus were both fugitives with prices on their heads. These innocent vacationers would hand Harry and his guardian straight to the Dark Lord if they ever learned who they really were.
Even through his terror, though, Harry marveled. How amazing it was even to see other wizards! He’d met a strange wizard exactly once before, when he was eleven years old and Severus took him to San Francisco for his first wand. What an astonishing trip that had been! Astonishing and deeply awkward. Severus had cast a spell on Harry, disguising him to look completely different, and taken him to San Francisco via Side-Along Apparition. Once there, Severus marched him straight to a poky little shop on an insignificant side street.
There the pair were greeted by a middle-aged, deeply nervous woman. Severus did not introduce her, but Harry knew her to be the shop’s owner and the wand maker. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, even though she was disappointingly ordinary: just a middle-aged woman in slacks and a button-down shirt, even her wand tucked away in a discreet pocket. (Harry had been expecting long, sweeping robes like Severus had sometimes shown him; but when he asked Severus about it later, Severus had explained that American witches and wizards, unlike the British, didn’t generally wear robes.)
In any case, the wand-maker exhibited extreme nervousness around Severus, eyeing him warily as she moved around Harry and asked him questions such as which was his “wand hand”. Harry could barely take in any of her questions, so busy was he staring at the shop, crowded as it was with thousands of long, thin boxes, each containing a wizard’s wand. So many wands. For the first time, it was truly borne on eleven-year-old Harry that there were indeed other wizards besides him and Severus. Lots of other wizards.
The wand-maker brought out a selection of wands, and Harry tried what seemed like half the shop’s inventory, waving wand after wand until at last he found a fit: a wand of holly, with a phoenix-feather core, that left a trail of red-and-gold sparks in its wake, that just felt right in his hand. Harry looked up, grinning with delight and triumph, and met Severus’s own approving smile.
Severus sent Harry to wait by the door with his new wand. Harry, busy admiring his wonderful new wand, barely noticed Severus passing a potion bottle to the wand-maker’s eager hand. And he certainly didn’t catch the meaning of the low, menacing whisper Severus murmured to her, that made her blanch and shake her head repeatedly, eyes wide.
Severus then swept Harry out of the wand shop with a small, satisfied smirk, and Apparated them to San Diego, where they had a celebratory lunch in a restaurant by the water before heading back to San Benito, to try out Harry’s new wand in the dueling shed. And that was the sum total of Harry’s experience with strange wizards.
Wait—that wasn’t quite true. There was that incident a few years before, when Harry had been around eight. He’d been sitting in school, talking to Maya about the upcoming visit from Miguel’s parents from Mexico, when Severus had come in and yanked Harry out of class. When Harry asked why, Severus said they were going out of town for two weeks. Severus barely gave Harry time to pack before Apparating them out to the middle of the Nevada desert.
The following two weeks had been the worst of Harry’s life. They stayed in a poky little rental house in the middle of freakin’ nowhere, with absolutely nothing to do except keep up with homework and practice those defensive magics Severus had taught Harry, that could be performed without a wand. Boredom and loneliness led to almost daily tantrums on Harry’s part, but Severus refused to return home until the two weeks were up. Harry was almost hysterical with joy and relief to finally get back to San Benito—even though he completely missed the visit from Miguel’s parents, as Maya informed him.
“They weren’t that nice anyway,” she said, making a face. “They’re really rich or something back in Mexico, and it’s like they thought they were better than us all the time.”
Harry agreed that he hadn’t missed much. But he was still furious with Severus. And all Severus would say, after weeks of badgering, was that there had been wizards in San Benito during those two weeks.
Harry groaned and rested his forehead against the steering wheel. Now there were more wizards in San Benito—a whole passel of them, here for a long vacation. Severus was going to freak out.
A buzz suddenly sounded from Harry’s pocket, making him jump so high he hit the car ceiling. Rubbing his head and wincing, he pulled out his phone. Just as he’d feared, it was a text from Severus.
Where are you? demanded the text.
Harry took a deep breath and let it out again. On my way home, he replied, and got the car into motion again.
Severus was waiting for him when Harry dragged the bag of fairies and empty jars into the house. “Where have you been?” he snapped, arms folded. “It doesn’t take that long to hunt down a handful of fairies!”
Harry opened his mouth—and closed it again.
His decision was split-second. If Harry told Severus about the strange wizards in the vacation rental, Severus would take him straight back to Nevada, or maybe somewhere even worse, and this time his exile would last a lot longer than two weeks. Harry could say goodbye to his summer. No more dream job, no more Comic Con, no more surfing, no more friends. Even if Severus didn’t whisk him away from civilization, he would put Harry in lockdown. He’d make him start a potion-making marathon. Harry would be shut in the house for months.
And…what else might Severus do? Surely he wouldn’t try to go up against seven other wizards, four of whom were full-grown adults…would he? But Severus had a ruthless streak, as Harry well knew. He didn’t want his guardian to do something foolish and get into trouble.
Or so he told himself.
“Sorry,” he said. “I, uh, ran into Tomas.”
“And stayed out so late?” Severus made an exasperated noise. “What a pair of fools!”
“It’s not that late,” Harry mumbled. He found he was staring at the floor. He’d grown up with secrets and lies, but never before had he lied to Severus, let alone lied about something this important.
Severus shook his head in disgust. “One day that boy is going to drown on a rip tide. And so will you if you’re not careful. You did at least catch some fairies?”
“Yep.” Harry showed him the bag with its five sulking, glowing captives.
Severus peered in at them and gave a grunt. “Very well. Put them away and then go to bed. And don’t stay out so late again. Good night, Harry.”
“Good night.” Harry stumbled around Severus, hoping Severus would mistake his expression for shame at being late. He put the fairy-jars away in the workshop, on a shelf out of direct sunlight, and made sure none were injured. Then he headed upstairs.
Severus had already come up while he was in the workshop, lamplight glowing under his closed bedroom door. Harry was glad: he didn’t think he could deal with Severus again tonight. He turned on his own lamp and lay on his bed fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling.
What was he going to do? What had he done? Lied to Severus, that was what. Lied about seven potentially lethal wizards in their town. Though, really, they hadn’t seemed that lethal. The older man grumbling about not taking the plane…The beautiful blonde kissing her boyfriend…The pretty redhaired girl gazing at the sea…They had all seemed quite harmless, really. Regular tourists, just arrived at their beach rental.
Except they weren’t.
I should tell Severus, thought Harry. It wasn’t too late. But the thought of going to Severus with this news made every last drop of energy leak out of him. If he told Severus, a storm of questions, rage and fear would break. It might all be for Harry’s protection, but it would still be a terrific storm, and Harry would be the one to bear the brunt of it. And it would put paid to his summer at the very least.
Maybe it would be all right. It was quite clear the wizarding tourists had no idea Harry and Severus were here in San Benito. And he and Severus were adept at hiding. All they had to do was keep their heads down as normal until the wizards were gone at the end of the summer. Actually, it might be a very good idea not to tell Severus. This way, Severus would just act as normal instead of doing something potentially suspicious.
“Harry!” Harry jumped at Severus’s voice outside his door. “Get a shower and go to bed, Harry!”
“Okay, Severus! Sorry.” Harry swung his legs off his bed to grab his pajamas and head for the bathroom. Maybe in the morning this would all have turned out to have been a dream…