Homesick

Been talking about the way things change

And my family lives in a different state

And if you don’t know what to make of this

Then we will not relate

So, if you don’t know what to make of this

Then we will not relate

Chapter 1: Dead Bodies Couldn’t Smell This Bad, Could They?

“Haz!”

Harry jolted awake suddenly, feeling as if he had been hit by the knight bus. He fumbled around, eyes half open, looking for his wand, damnit. Where was it? He eventually wrapped his hand around it and cast a summoning charm for his glasses, gods knew where those had ended up. Turns out they were already on his face, he was just too drunk to realize it. Was he actually drunk? He couldn’t tell. The line between drunk and violently hungover was a thin tightrope he walked regularly these days. He figured if he could cast a charm then he was probably in control of a few of his faculties. Enough to suddenly realize that someone was yelling for him down the hall.

“Haz if you don’t answer me in the next 20 seconds I’m going to get dad and he’s gonna try and have another intervention!” Harry heard what he assumed was a toddler tantrum inspired foot stomp, achingly familiar even though he had no idea who was in his house. He groaned as he slowly sat up and cast a few protection charms to make sure he was safe before the rando found him. Suddenly a young woman burst through his door and took one long look at his mess of a bed and body, then scrunched her nose up in a way that made him think she could smell a dead body under all his dirty clothes. Hell if he knew if she was right or not, anything’s possible, he could have some poor sods body under his years’ worth of filth.

“I cannot believe you aren’t up and at least dressed Harri! I get that you’re allergic to showering but not even a freshening charm?!” She kept looking at him like he was the problem, not her, some stranger in his room.

“Who the fuck are you?” Harry asked after clearing his throat a few times. Apparently, he drank more than expected last night.

“Harri James Potter I will kill you and leave your body in this room where no one will find it under the stench.” Well that cleared something up, she definingly thought he was a mass murderer with bodies under his laundry. That didn’t answer his original question though. Who the fuck was this person??

“I mean it” Harri said “who the fuck are you and why are you in my house? How did you even get in??”

She kept looking at him like he had grown two other heads and started barking and slobbering in a disused school classroom; with fear, disgust and mostly disbelief.  

“I got in” she started explaining incredibly slowly as if he was a toddler “because I am attached to your wards, which I made you do when you overdosed on gillyweed three years ago. Honestly, how you figured out how to overdose on a drug that grandma takes for arthritis, I will never know.” She rolled her eyes and Harri felt his body heat up in shame, even as he knew that it wasn’t him who had overdosed.  It must be an impersonator or something. Or she’s crazy and doesn’t realize that he isn’t who she thinks he is. His attention was brough back when he realized that she had said “grandma”, as if it was one that they shared. Which was weird. She must be delusional.

“As for who I am, I’m your fucking sibling, dork face! How on earth you forgot that I will never know. We all know I’m your favorite.” She said this so flippantly, as if there were multiple weird, invasive people running around that Harri was somehow related to. That wasn’t possible. For a couple reasons. One, she was white. Like super white, so white you could almost see through her skin, and he was most definitely not. He remembered Padfoot mentioning that his dad had Indian heritage, but he never had time to ask more questions before… anyway. Two, his parents were definitely dead and definitely not procreating zombie children. Three, he knew from the goblins at Gringotts that he was the last of the Potter line and anyway, the closest thing he had to siblings were Ron and Hermione. That’s it! He needed to find Ron and Hermione. They would be able to help. But first he needed to get away from the glaring human standing in his doorway looking like she was going to stun him and throw him in the bath.

“Okay.” Said Harri, trying to placate the insane person so he could escape.

“Good. Now that that’s out of the way, get dressed! We have to go see the fam before heading to Ran’s quidditch match!” She said all this as if he knew what the fuck was happening. He knew enough from the safety courses he took in muggle primary school that if he was taken to a secondary location, they would never find him alive. So, he just had to avoid that and make sure he had his wand on him at all times.

“GO!!! GET DRESSED!!!” she screamed. Harri jumped and started to fumble around for some clothes, not wanting to anger her more. Once he found something that didn’t stink as much as the rest, he looked back at her to try and get her to leave so he could change in peace. She obviously saw and huffed a bit as she turned around, mumbling something about the birthmark on his ass he was sure no one had ever seen before.

Once he was dressed and she had shot three different freshening charms at him in an effort to remove some of the smell, she grabbed his arm and before he could protest apparated them to a fucking secondary location! Harri couldn’t believe it, all that Auror training and he was shit at protecting himself from some random girl who broke into his house! Harri stopped and took in his surroundings, resolute to do better at escaping next time. They were in front of a cute cottage in Godric’s Hollow. He knew it was Godric’s Hollow because he saw the cottage that used to belong to his parents next door, totally intact and not blown up at all. What the fuck was happening??? He was certain now that this person was cosplaying his life and kidnapped him to make it all more realistic. She dragged him up to the front door and without knocking entered with his wrist in her vice grip.

“We’re here!!!” She yelled to whoever occupied the cottage. It was bigger than his parents and he wondered if he would have to suffer through the multiple siblings she had mentioned earlier. This was obviously a house for a big family. Was that a fucking parrot in the corner? He wasn’t even going to touch that weird detail with a mental ten-foot pole. The part of the cottage he could see screamed comfort and love; everything was well lived in but clean. The walls of the living room and entryway were a soft yellow and the floors a dark wood stain. Before he could start looking through the pictures for a bad photoshop job of his face on a white person or something he heard feet on the stairs and turned to see who was coming next to torture him. What he wasn’t expecting was the perfect image of his dead dad, lopsided smile, dark skin, wild hair and everything. Harri suddenly felt lightheaded as his DEAD DAD started hugging him and asking about his week. He felt like he couldn’t get enough breath in as his dad- no, his dad imposter- asked if he was okay. Less than ten seconds later Harri felt himself lose control and let out a huge burst of uncontrolled magic, and then everything went black.

Harri eventually came too and relaxed against the soft hand petting his hair. The sigh he let out made the owner of the hand chuckle and Harri suddenly jolted upright. Where was he?? What happened?? Who was that person who looked like his dead dad?? He had so many questions, but they never came out because he then saw who had been petting him before. It was his mum. His very dead mum who should never have been able to pet him at all, let alone after a bought of accidental magic like he was a 5 year old.

“How are you feeling love? That was quite the reaction you had to your dad asking if you had enough to eat this week.” It was like she was trying to sound lighthearted to hide the concern she clearly was struggling to reign in.

“I’m sorry” Harri said “I didn’t mean to do anything like that! Is anyone hurt? I didn’t think I would actually see someone who looked like him! I thought that she was just some crazy chick and I would escape eventually, I didn’t realize there were more people in on this weird charade than her!” Harri rambled on and couldn’t see to stop.

“Harri dear what on earth are you talking about? And why would you call your sibling ‘she’? I thought you had a better grasp on their gender journey than the rest of us. I know you get annoyed at them sometimes but purposefully misgendering them is too far and you know it. Now what on earth do you mean charade? You’re acting like you don’t believe we are real? You’re scaring me and you know how I react to being scared.” Fake Lily had a mad look about her and suddenly Harri could imagine how she reacted to being scared. He almost flinched, had he not faced an actual madman at one point and tried to love him to death. (Honestly what was Dumbledor thinking saying Harri’s greatest asset against snake-face was love? Ridiculous)

At that point Harri was freaking out a little bit, he had misgendered them? That weirdo who broke into his house? He knew that he probably shouldn’t care about internally misgendering his kidnapper but the disappointment in his mother’s eyes almost broke him. He really needed to figure out what was going on. There was no better way to do that then lay out exactly what he was thinking in painstaking detail and try and convince this lady who looked and acted like his mum that he needed to be left alone. This was going to be a very long day.