Switched

According to Sinistra (whom Harry had probably talked to more than any single older Ravenclaw — she was the only other person awake at two in the morning, or four, when he went to bed at a reasonable hour and got up unreasonably early), there used to be a duelling club, but they hadn't been able to find a professor to sponsor it this year. Quirrell (who used to be the Muggle Studies professor and supervise the Gobstones and Muggle Studies Clubs) had gone on sabbatical last year, and his replacement (Pierce, who was still the Muggle Studies professor) hadn't wanted to take on his club-supervising duties, so Professor Flitwick had been supervising those as well as Charms Club — and still was, because Quirrell had caught some sexually transmitted disease from a vampire in Romania (which was probably not a thing students were supposed to know so, like many things Sinistra mentioned in passing, Harry should keep it to himself) and was clearly unwell — and that was fine when Professor Mathieu was teaching Defence, but she'd gotten pregnant halfway through last year and decided not to renew her contract. As Snape had told Harry when he'd first come to Little Whinging, no Defence professor had served more than one full school year for about thirty years now, which was absurd, but it did explain why Quirrell was teaching the subject — there probably weren't any qualified instructors left to apply for it. So Flitwick was too busy.

Snape was probably the most likely option to take it over — he had covered the occasional meeting here or there over the years, supervising and sometimes giving an exhibition match with Flitwick or the Defence Professor of the day — but he already had too many commitments to take it on full time and, just between Sinistra and Harry, had learned pretty much everything he knew about fighting from the Blackheart (who had trained most of the Death Eaters) and so probably wouldn't be a great choice to actually teach duelling, even if he was more than capable of refereeing matches and making sure no one actually killed each other.

Professor Sprout and Madam Pomfrey (the school's healer) were against the idea of fighting for fun, McGonagall was too busy with her own Transfiguration Club and half the Headmaster's duties (since Dumbledore had managed to acquire all of the hats, but still only had one head, he ended up delegating to his deputy kind of a lot, apparently — he was only in the Castle about half the time), and Harry suspected that he wouldn't enjoy any club she was supervising anyway, and as far as anyone knew none of the other professors had any experience duelling. (Maybe Binns, with a sword, like a hundred and fifty years ago, or something? But clearly that didn't count.) When Harry had suggested that Sinistra could do it, she just laughed for almost a whole minute, because, "No. You have no idea how bad I am at duelling. If I want someone dead, I'll set a trap for them like a good Slytherin, thank you very much."

She wasn't willing to sponsor a Duelling Club, but she had said she'd sponsor an Edificeering Club, if he could get at least two other people to join.

One of those people was obviously going to be Danny. He was still a little wary of the idea, but having a professor supervising them to cast a Cushioning Charm or something if anyone fell off the bloody building had gone a long way toward assuring him that Harry wasn't completely mental. Harry was having trouble finding a second person, though, because the only other people he'd spoken to much were Theo and Blaise, and both of them would rather spend their free time indoors, or at the very least on a broom. Not "hauling ourselves around a vertical surface with our arms like monkeys, you heathen." (Blaise's characterisation.) He'd put up fliers saying to come talk to him if anyone was interested, but so far no one had.

Hardly anyone had tried to talk to him at all, actually. He caught people watching him out of the corners of their eyes and there were endless rumours about him, but most people seemed a little too intimidated to actually talk to him. Which...Harry was honestly fine with. (Difficulties in finding a third Edificeering Club member aside.)

-v-

(Mon 2 Sept)

"Is that him?" someone muttered just a little too loudly to their friend, as Harry and Danny wandered down to the Great Hall for breakfast on their first day at Hogwarts.

"Which one? With the glasses?"

"No, next to him, the short one that looks like a girl."

"Titchy little thing! Hard to believe he bested You Know Who..."

Harry rolled his eyes, murmuring to Danny, "Hard to believe a bloody infant bested a Dark Lord in the first place. I hear they're even smaller than I am, on average."

Danny burst into helpless laughter, unable to maintain his very serious first day of school, must-try-to-make-a-good-impression attitude or the growing air of annoyance directed at the too-loud rumour-mongers when faced with the idea of a giant, Dark Lord killing baby.

-ʌ-

He quickly gained a reputation for being a crazy magical prodigy, exactly as they'd expected from the Harry Potter—

-v-

(Tues 17 Sept)

Danny skipped into their room, throwing his bag on his bed and kicking off his shoes before following it, grinning. "So, want to take a guess as to the latest accomplishment of the Boy Who Lived?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "It can't be more ridiculous than phoenix animagus," which was the last completely absurd thing the Hogwarts Rumour Mill had just...made up about him, out of whole cloth — that he could turn into a phoenix at will. After all, no one had ever seen Harry and Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix companion, in the same place at the same time. So obviously they were the same being.

"No, it's not. Well...maybe? Apparently you do all your spells silently and wandlessly. You also already know everything we're doing in lessons, and probably already have your OWLs. The only reason you're here is— Well, I must have heard at least twenty reasons you're here in the past week. None of which is to learn magic."

Harry sniggered. "Well, to be fair, I don't need to be here to learn magic, and I do already know everything we're doing in lessons. But at least a few people have to have noticed I do use a wand..."

"Ah, well, I hear that little stick is just for show. It's probably not even real, just, you know, a prop to help you keep your normal wizard cover as best you can. Which isn't very well, in case you were wondering."

"No, see, it's all part of my plan. If people think I'm this completely absurd magical prodigy, no one will question whether I'm actually the Dark Lord reincarnated." That had been going around before the phoenix thing.

"Don't be ridiculous, Harry. Everyone knows you can't be reincarnated before you die — you were already a year old when the Dark Lord found you. Obviously you're just possessed by him. Or possibly by your own mum."

"Oh, I hadn't heard that one... I'll have to tell Uncle Vernon next time I see him. Great excuse to be a sissy-boy, being possessed by the spirit of your own mum..."

-ʌ-

—as well as a prodigy at everything else—

-v-

(Fri 13 Sept)

"How long have you been playing?" a girl asked shyly, interrupting Harry's attempt to pick out the melody of that Love Shack song that had been on the radio all last year on the piano in the Common Room.

"Oh! Sorry, it has been a while, hasn't it? Did you want a turn?"

"What? No, I don't—" The girl went a bit pink. "I was just wondering how long you've been playing. In general, I mean, not just today."

Oh. Harry blinked at her. "Er...a couple of days? I've just been messing around..."

"Seriously?"

"Um...yes? I'd never touched a piano before this past week." He'd learned to read music and play the recorder in primary, but only the teacher had been allowed to play the school's piano.

The girl frowned at him. "I'm positive I heard you playing Beethoven earlier."

He had been, or trying to, at least. Someone had left the music for a song called "Sonatina in G" on the bench, and it hadn't looked too complicated. Harry shrugged. "Sort of. Someone left their sheet music, so I thought I'd give it a shot." It was a bit harder than he'd expected, getting used to playing different parts with his left and right hands. He'd started to pick it up, but it'd given him a headache in the same way trying to speak Gobbledygook for too long gave him a headache — like he needed to take a nap before he'd be able to remember any more new vocabulary — so he'd decided to try playing something he already knew by ear instead.

"Uh-huh," the girl said, as though she didn't really believe him, which was sort of annoying. It wasn't as though he'd been playing the more complicated song perfectly. He could tell his tempo kept shifting as he got distracted trying to focus on two things at once. "Well, I didn't want to interrupt, but I was the dummy who forgot her music, so if you're done 'giving it a shot', could I have it back?"

-ʌ-

—somewhat standoffish, like he thought he was better than the rest of them (which he clearly was, but he wasn't intentionally snubbing people most of the time, he just needed a break from people every so often)—

-v-

(Sun 15 Sept)

"I'm going out," Harry announced, digging his cloak out of his wardrobe.

Danny looked up from whatever he was writing to give Harry an okay, lunatic look. "It's raining."

"Yes." That was why Harry was up here fetching his cloak (and renewing the Waterproofing Charm on it with a quick, "Impervius!") rather than outside already.

"Also, dinner starts in half an hour. I was going to go down as soon as I finish this letter."

"So?"

"So, aren't you hungry?"

"Not enough to spend any more time today surrounded by people."

"But—"

"Look. Danny. I'm having a bad day. Not because of you or anyone in particular or anything that's happened, but I might try to claw someone's eyes out if I don't just...get out of here for a while." Usually he made a point of taking a break before it got this bad, the low-simmering, irrational rage that made him want to lash out, start a fight, but it had come on quickly today, every little noise or movement anywhere in the Common Room suddenly intolerable, infuriating—

"Oh." Danny froze, staring at him, except for his right hand, which very deliberately set down his quill, ready to take up the wand on the desk beside him if Harry made any sudden moves toward clawing his (wide, delightfully terrified) eyes out.

Harry took a deep, slightly shuddering breath, closing his eyes and running his fingers through his hair, trying to be patient with his roommate and remember that most of the time he enjoyed the other boy's company, and he shouldn't keep pushing him just to see him grow more and more fearful — or better, until he snapped, hexed Harry to make him stop (or tried to), gave him an excuse to get into a real fight for the first time in over a week, since that giant spider tried to kill him, the first time he went out in the Forest—

He could still feel the crunch of the stick as he drove it through the exoskeleton, feel the ichor on his hands, shockingly blue, hear its dying scream, life fading from its many eyes, his own blood pounding in his veins, breathing too loud, the exhilaration of being inches from death, grinning so hard it hurt, claws slicing into his arms as it leaped at him, poison dripping from the tips of its fangs—

No, stop it! Focus! On Danny! Not spiders!

But Danny wouldn't try to kill me...unless he was defending himself, he could probably defend himself really well... His sister had taught him transfiguration, she'd probably taught him self-defence, too—

Damn it, Potter, you're being insane! You don't need to go find something to try to kill you, you need to get out of here and be alone and cool the hell off...

"It's fine. I'm fine. I'm not going to hurt you, Danny. I'm not. I promise. I just— I've got to get out of here. Don't tell anyone. I'm fine, I just can't be around people right now. Just– Just for a few hours. If I'm not back for Herbology in the morning, I'm either dead or I've gone native and decided to join the giant talking spiders, okay?"

He didn't stick around to answer his roommate's stuttering, "Wait— What?" or to exchange greetings with Patil and Turpin, passing them in the little parlour area around the stairs.

He might've been a bit rude, actually, brushing past them with a curt, "I don't want to talk to you," but he didn't care, they could call him a jerk all they liked, he needed to get out of the Castle. Half an hour ago, if possible.

-ʌ-

—and questionably human at best. Apparently it had gotten around that Harry Potter could speak to house elves, so a good number of young mages now supported Uncle Vernon's theory that Harry Potter was actually an elf. Not a house elf, obviously, but one of the Greater Fae — a changeling child.

-v-

(Thurs 12 Sept)

"I still want to know what my greatest fear is, though," Harry insisted, scratching the ectoplasmic ears of the furious demonic creature hiding in the moon-cast shadow between Blaise's arm and his body. It glared impotently at him, helpless to transform into anything less adorable than the kitten-shaped embodiment of malevolent resentment until Blaise relaxed the enslavement curse which kept it bound to his will.

"That's still not how boggarts work. They change into the first thing they find in your mind associated with a feeling of fear. Most people think of the thing that scares them most when they're told they're facing a boggart, or the thing they think scares them the most. People don't really tend to think about that sort of thing a lot. They shy away from actually recognising their actual greatest fears."

"So? I still want to know. Go on, let him loose." It wasn't as though anyone was going to walk in and see Harry being attacked by a giant spider or whatever, which was the first thing he thought of when he thought of being scared. He didn't know what it was or where it had come from, but being jumped by that monster out in the Forest, a week ago today, was probably the most terrifying, exhilarating thing that had ever happened to him. He'd actually thought he was going to die for a few seconds there. (It was amazing!)

In any case, no one was going to interrupt. They were in Harry's room — Blaise sprawled across his bed, Harry sitting cross-legged on his pillow. (Anyone could come into Ravenclaw Tower if they could answer the Door-Eagle's riddle, whereas Blaise would get in trouble for telling Harry and Danny the password to get into the Slytherin dorms.) Danny was at the figure-drawing, modelling thing Chris and Elia had been advertising on the Student Activities Board. Apparently it was a nude modelling thing, which Danny had gone awfully pink admitting, when Harry asked how the first week had been. His sketches of Elia had been notably less detailed from the shoulders down, which was sort of hilarious. And no one else was likely to come in here without Harry's explicit permission, even if he and Blaise were both screaming bloody murder. He'd been very clear the first time Tony and Mike barged in without asking that this was his space and they would respect his privacy, or else.

Blaise sighed. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Nope."

"Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you, though."

The kitten disappeared, slinking to the centre of the room as an invisible smudge of ectoplasm and vicious magic, and then, with a crack like a bad apparation...

It was the dying not-girl from his dreams, emaciated and exhausted, barely able to raise a hand toward him in supplication, her eyes catching his, her voice so weak he didn't know whether he actually heard her say please... one last time before she collapsed. He'd failed her. He'd failed, and she was dead, and...and...

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, falling to his knees beside her — beside the boggart. He knew it wasn't really her, he could feel the real her (not very well, it would still be months until the Dark Night, but enough he'd know if she died), but it was still a chilling reminder — it was only a matter of time, he had to figure out what he was meant to do, he couldn't let her die, not for real— No. No. He wouldn't let it happen. He just wouldn't!

"Harry?" Blaise said, more curious than concerned, dragging him back to the present, to reality, where he was kneeling in the middle of his bedroom next to a boggart pretending very convincingly to be his worst nightmare come to life — he hadn't even considered that this would be what he feared most, but he did, actually, on a visceral, stomach-knotting level entirely unlike the exhilarating fear of not-quite-dying out in the Forest — rather than leagues and centuries away, wherever she was, really, wherever he was supposed to be to help her. "What is that?"

"Huh?" He turned to look at the boy, still sitting on the bed, staring at the false horror in front of them, which did, Harry supposed, look more alien than he usually considered the dream girl to be. She did look like she always did (except more wasted and dead), he just...didn't really think how odd she would look to someone else until Blaise said something.

Their colouring was the same, unnaturally white skin contrasting with long blue-black hair tangled into elflocks and equally dark feathers. Her eyes (more obviously too large for her face than Harry's) were all-black (no sclera, he meant — there were little white, star-like flecks in them), and it was sort of obvious from this angle that the cloak of feathers around her shoulders was actually just layers of long feathers growing from her neck and shoulders and the dorsal side of her arms. The ones in her hair, though, he didn't think were attached, just knotted in place for decoration. She did have hands, but with claws instead of fingernails, and there were dark, shifting patterns inked across her skin where she wasn't feathered. They stopped moving when she died, but that might've been the boggart improvising, since Harry didn't have any idea if they were actually anything like the magic tattoos he'd learned about over the summer. She wore a skirt of feathers, too, maybe her own, held in place by a thick, blue, woven belt. It was barely long enough to cover her bum, and when she wasn't lying there dead but actually moving there were occasional flashes of white skin between the feathers. He doubted it was really intended for modesty, since she didn't wear anything that might be considered a shirt, but he didn't know enough about her or where she came from to say what its purpose might be. Her legs gradually grew dark and scaly from the knee down, ending in talons, rather than feet.

"It's... She's... I don't know. My sister, maybe. Or maybe part of my soul? I don't know," he repeated. "I just know she's important to me, and she's dying, and I can save her, but I don't know how." He sighed, brushing dark hair away from her eyes. It felt thin and ephemeral, like the boggart always did. "And I don't know what happens if I fail, but...it's not good. I...don't think I'll live to see her dead," he said, realising it as he spoke. "I... I think — I don't know, I don't know anything about her, really, but I think — the way she's a part of me, and I'm a part of her, if she dies, I won't just have failed her, I'll already be dead."

When he looked up again, Blaise was giving him an awfully peculiar look.

"What?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing. Just...I had sort of discounted the rumour that you might be a changeling. I mean, part-fae, sure, maybe. I've met Dru, and she's about as good an argument for the existence of changelings as you're likely to find in this day and age, and everyone knows the Blacks have too much magic in their blood, they could easily have fae or demonic ancestors hidden away in their family tree — integrated with blood magic, whatever. But I didn't actually think that you might be a baby harpy or something."

That startled a little snort of laughter out of Harry, despite the circumstances. "I don't think I'm a harpy. Or that she is, for that matter."

"And you would know this, how, exactly?"

Harry shrugged, retreating to the bed. "I don't know. It just doesn't seem to fit. Don't give me that look," he added, in response to Blaise's blatantly sceptical expression. "I don't know how I know a lot of things."

"Uh-huh."

The boggart turned back into a cat with a resentful pop and hopped up on the bed with them, giving Harry a good excuse to change the subject. "Still much cooler than an owl. Maybe I can do the ritual to summon one over hols."

Blaise rolled his eyes. "You're such a bloody weirdo, Potter."

"Says the bloke who brought a fear demon to school as his familiar?"

"Yeah, well, I didn't say I'm not. Takes one to know one, doesn't it?"

-ʌ-

Blaise and Harry had actually talked a fair bit. Harry wasn't sure, but he thought Blaise might be the first person he would legitimately call a friend. Danny was a nice enough bloke, Harry didn't mind spending time with him, but he sort of obviously found Harry to be a little too unnervingly intense to really be comfortable around him. Blaise was, Harry thought, the first person he'd ever met who wasn't slightly afraid of him, after realising that Harry was a bit mad and also far too good at everything. After their conversation on the train with Danny and Theo, Blaise hadn't given any sign at all that he found Harry the least bit odd or disturbing, which left Harry wondering exactly how much of that conversation had been an act for the other boys' benefit.

-v-

(Thurs 5 Sept)

What with the excitement of starting lessons and getting to know their new housemates and generally adjusting to the Castle, it was several days before Harry managed to track Blaise down, cornering him after dinner and dragging him outside for a conversation which was, in Harry's opinion, well overdue. This was complicated by the fact that Danny was better friends with Blaise than Harry was, and generally seemed to have attached himself to Harry, as though being roommates meant that they ought to be each-other's default companion when they were just hanging out. He didn't manage to ditch the boy whose life he was living until Danny announced that he was going to check out that art-modelling thing the older Ravenclaws were doing on Thursday. Obviously Harry had no interest in such a thing, given that his drawing skills were practically non-existent, and Danny knew that. He didn't even bother inviting him, just skipped off after dinner with his sketchbook and pencils, more excited than Harry had seen him yet.

"So," the Slytherin drawled, meandering across the lawn toward the lake with Harry. "This is...romantic." Harry let out a snort of surprised laughter. "Seriously, what's up, Potter?"

Well, if that wasn't the perfect segue... "You know that's not my name. And you wanted me to know it too, on the train, didn't you? So really, I think you should be the one telling me what's up."

Blaise gave a positively laconic shrug. "You know what I know, now. More or less."

"Mostly less. Danny doesn't know?"

Harry knew his roommate knew he was adopted. He'd admitted it after their first Defence lesson, when Harry had seen the mark on his forehead. Some sort of dark protection ritual thing his mother had done, or at least that was what his foster parents figured. Exactly how it worked or what it might be meant to do, Danny didn't know, but whatever else people might say about Bellatrix they would admit that she'd taken care of her family. It wasn't unreasonable to believe she would've used some esoteric dark arts to give her son some protection she wasn't in a position to offer herself. (Bella Black, unlike Lily Potter, had just handed her son off to a family member who wasn't actually fighting in a war and gone right back to it, like any sensible Dark Lady.)

Of course, Danny was really Lily Potter's kid, but that didn't really change anything, Harry didn't think? There was no reason to believe that Lily wouldn't have done some esoteric dark protection ritual either, or at least not as far as Harry was concerned. Maybe people who'd grown up hearing the party line Harry Potter Myth would find it hard to swallow, but the Starlighters would believe it, and Aunt Petunia, and probably anyone who was close to the main players in the war. Blaise's mother, for instance, and Dumbledore.

So it was possible that Danny knew Lily was his mother, and he was just keeping it a secret for whatever reasons they'd been switched in the first place, but Harry really didn't think he was. And it was equally possible — probably more plausible — that Danny's 'mum' (Bellatrix's sister) had told him at some point after she realised he was definitely not Bella's kid but before he could be trusted to keep a secret that "his mother" had done it — meaning Lily, but letting him think Bellatrix.

Blaise laughed. "No, of course not. He thinks Bella's his birth mother. Which is sort of ridiculous in itself, since Mira says she used a surrogate — no one in their right mind would think Bella would stay out of the war long enough to bear a child."

"But he is the real Harry Potter."

The other boy hesitated. "He's definitely the son of Lily and James Potter, by blood, but... I dunno, if you're not planning on telling him and switching back, I think that makes you the 'real' Harry Potter."

Harry pondered this for a long moment. He didn't really care much either way, he supposed. It was just a name. What would it change if he started calling himself Danny Black, and Danny started calling himself Harry Potter? He wouldn't expect Danny to leave the family he'd lived with as long as Harry had lived with the Dursleys. And Harry himself would probably just keep going back to Charing in the summers, but draw money from the Blacks' bank vault rather than the Potters'.

People's expectations would be different. More for Danny than himself. Somehow, he sort of doubted that the silly artist would fancy suddenly becoming the Boy Who Lived. Not that Harry wanted the sort of absurd notoriety Snape definitely hadn't been overselling (dinner that first night had made that unfortunately clear) either, but he suspected he lived up to the idea people had for what the Boy Who Lived ought to be like a bit better than Danny. And given that Danny was using the surname Tonks — most people didn't know he was Bella's kid, they thought he was actually the Tonkses' son — there would probably be some trouble explaining exactly how Harry was Bella's son if they'd just been switched, and he still didn't know why they'd been switched in the first place. He presumed there was a reason...

"Was Mira in on switching us?" he asked, as a prelude to asking why. After all, if she hadn't been she might not know.

"Er...sort of? Back at the end of the war, you were with Cissa and Danny was with Lily and James in hiding. As far as we know, Dumbledore had someone from the Order of the Phoenix get Baby Potter out of the house before the aurors arrived on the scene — he had to answer for that in an emergency Wizengamot session the next day, and in that same session they voted to give him custody of both Danny and you. You got dragged in by Cassie Nott née Black, Theo's grandmother, either in a genuine effort to get you out of the way of anyone gunning for Bellatrix or, more likely, trying to make it look more like the Notts hadn't been voluntarily wrapped up in the Death Eaters since the Fifties. Cissa argued against it, but too many people thought if she raised you you'd turn out like the Blacks. The aurors took you from Narcissa and handed you over to Dumbledore. She gave you up without a fight on the condition that you would be raised with the full knowledge of who you were."

"Yeah, obviously that didn't happen..."

"Obviously. Dumbledore presumably used blood alchemy to change your eye-colour and Danny's. There's really no telling whether he did anything else, like so the goblins' blood magic would recognise you as a Potter and him as a Black, but Mira thinks he probably didn't, because if the nobility found out he was messing with the inheritance structures of two noble houses like that — one of which is literally the oldest magical family in Britain — he might actually be lynched. Doesn't matter that they all want to see the House of Black fall and fade away, it'd be the principle of the thing. Which also means he has to be planning on switching you back eventually, and I know Andi isn't going to play along forever. There's going to be a point where the shite she's teaching Danny about being a young gentleman and one day becoming the head of his House no longer apply equally to the Potter and Black heirs, and if Dumbledore hasn't told him by that point she will."

"So she knows. Was she in on it?"

"No. Definitely not. She was still living in Canada in Eighty-One. Mira tried to claim custody of you as soon as Narcissa told her that you'd been taken from her — she's your godmother, she has more right than even Narcissa to do so. She and Bella gave you to Cissa because she could actually teach you all the shite little nobles are supposed to learn, and had house elves to help out with you and Draco. I think the plan was for you to come live with us when you left the nursery? Not entirely sure, but it doesn't really matter, anyway.

"The thing you have to understand about Mira is she's sort of reformed her image in the past ten years. Back in Eighty-One, she was basically seen as an irresponsible party-girl. Pretty and shallow and promiscuous — she'd already been widowed twice by the age of twenty-seven, so sad—" Blaise didn't look the least bit sympathetic. Harry bit his tongue on the urge to ask more about that, because he really wanted to know more about this whole getting-switched-with-Harry-Potter-as-a-baby thing. "—and was on Husband Number Three, and she'd still managed to have a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly the sort of woman an upstanding prude like the Old Goat would want to give custody of a potential hostage for the Light to use against a Dark Lady still on the loose, despite Mira's assurances that Bella would not have allowed you to be used as leverage over her. So Dumbledore told her hell no, he'd already placed you with a good light family to be brainwashed into his way of thinking and kept as far from the House of Black as he could possibly get you. Paraphrasing, but.

"The thing about irresponsible party-girls with two dearly departed husbands worth of money at their disposal and a well-established, highly glamourous, gallivanting gadabout lifestyle is, they're uniquely well-placed to have friends all over the world at all levels of society — people who know people, if you know what I mean. And a lot of men are all too willing to spill secrets they shouldn't to a pretty young thing they'd like to impress. She already had her friends looking for the Tonkses, so she put the word out that she needed to know what the fuck those bastards had done with her godson too. And then Bella attacked the Longbottoms and basically let herself be taken into custody, I told you this part on the train—"

Harry nodded.

"Right, but by the time she got the truce more or less hammered out, she'd also gotten word that the Tonkses were living in Canada in the middle of nowhere, and that Clio Miller née Urquhart and her husband — McGonagall's late husband's youngest niece, she married a muggleborn, they're basically still Urquharts — had recently taken custody of a distant cousin orphaned in the final days before the Dark Lord's fall, who coincidentally looked absolutely nothing like any of the Urquharts. She made it a condition of the Truce that you would be raised by Andromeda rather than some light family, dropped a few hints she knew exactly where at least one of the two boys he'd been responsible for fostering was, and if she knew it obviously wasn't that well-kept a secret. Obviously there was some negotiation, but he did eventually agree. It took a couple of months to get the Tonkses back over here, and Mira had to keep her distance for a while, just in case anyone tried to follow her to you — Bella made a lot of enemies, and they were known associates.

"Then in Eighty...Four, I want to say — right after Number Four's funeral—"

"Okay, wait. How many times has your mum been widowed?" Harry asked, unable to prevent a snort of laughter despite the overall humourlessness of the greater story.

"Six. She doesn't believe in the institution of divorce, you see." Wait. What? Harry knew he shouldn't laugh at morbid jokes like that, but it was funny. "Jack died just last year — fell asleep behind the wheel. Tragic. She's talking about focusing on her investments in the muggle world for a while, though, and getting serious about educational reform now that I'm in school — she secured the position of Director of the Department of Education almost two years ago now — so it will probably be a couple of years until she starts hunting for the next late Mister Zabini."

"Are you serious?" Harry really couldn't tell. "You're not actually telling me your mum's like...some sort of gold-digging serial killer."

Blaise winked at him. "That would be telling. And your mum's a bloody war criminal, you have no room to judge." Harry laughed again, but it was fine. There was no one in earshot anyway to know he was laughing at the idea of his and Blaise's mothers actually murdering people. "Anyway. In Eighty-Four, we visited the Tonkses for the first time, and of course Mira realised immediately that Danny wasn't you — godparents and godchildren have a magical bond between them, or at least they do when it's the House of Black we're talking about. And once you know he's not you and Dumbledore only had two kids to dispose of, it's pretty bloody obvious he's the Potter heir.

"She didn't tell Andi immediately — wanted to work through the political implications and fall-out if she were to publicise it first, I think — but within a year or two it was becoming pretty fucking obvious that Danny has vanishingly little in common with Bellatrix — too little for it to be down to upbringing alone, and even if she screwed up the blood alchemy somehow, Sirius was no angel, either—"

"Wait, what?" It sounded like he'd just implied that Harry's father actually was Sirius Black, and Bella was his mother. What the hell?

Blaise smirked, anticipating Harry's reaction to whatever he was about to say, presumably. "Mira says that Bella had an epiphany when Regulus died, realised that the House of Black was probably going to die out in that generation unless she did something to secure their future herself. So, being the incredibly sane, stable individual she is, she decided to have a child. Specifically, she decided to clone herself, because if you want something done right you do generally have to do it yourself, but obviously it would be easier for a male heir to re-populate the House, so she stole a bit of blood from Sirius to splice in his Y-chromosome. He was the obvious choice. They were shockingly similar in personality and temperament, so if she screwed it up and you ended up with more of his traits than just being a 'him', there still probably wouldn't be too much deviation. She waited until you'd already been born to tell Mira so Mira couldn't tell her that was completely mad, don't do it."

Thinking about it, though, was it really that mad? If you could casually clone yourself instead of having a baby the hard way, why wouldn't you? Presumably there were reasons, if a male heir would be able to re-populate the House more easily. Harry knew how reproduction worked, if witches could just go sticking babies in other women as easily as men obviously his sex wouldn't be an issue. But they couldn't be overwhelmingly important reasons. Bella had done it, after all. Of course, given the things he'd heard about Bella, and knowing that he was unreasonably good at pretty much everything, maybe she'd thought it was worth the hassle or whatever to give the House the best possible shot at reviving itself. The fact that Harry knew nothing about the House of Black and had no interest in children might be problematic, but they would have mothers. It would be fine. He'd figure it out.

"I dunno, sounds reasonable to me. I mean, yeah, maybe in the normal way of things, shagging your cousin isn't a great idea, but if you're doing magic genetics shite anyway, does that really matter?"

"Of course it sounds reasonable to you, you wouldn't exist if she hadn't done it." Well, yes, that was a point, too. "And no, it doesn't. Which is what Bella told Mira, along with the fact that it was incredibly unlikely you'd turn out as blatantly destructive and rebellious as she was, or even Sirius, since you'd be raised mostly by Cissa and Mira, not the abusive twats who raised them. But having a kid specifically so they can do the job of reviving the House seems a little...dark, even for the Blacks. Selfish. Especially since Bella chose to put it off on you rather than take over as the Head of the House and turn it around herself. I mean, what if you wanted to do something else with your life? She obviously did."

Harry shrugged. "I don't really have any other plans, though. Maybe if I were already in the middle of a war, I'd just do the bare minimum too, and let my kid take care of it. But since I'm not..." He shrugged again. Actually, the more he thought about it the more he liked it, the idea of having a big goal like reviving an ancient magical Noble House to work toward. It seemed somehow...better than just...doing whatever seemed the most interesting at any given moment, working on turning himself into the biggest magical badass he could, just because it was cool and he wanted to. Obviously he was still going to become an awesome magical badass, but he liked the idea of having some reason to work on improving himself (beyond warlocks are cool). He grinned. "You know, if you'd told me this on the train, I might have ended up in Slytherin with you. Ambitions, and all that."

Harry could hear the wry smirk in Blaise's voice without even looking up. "Yeah, well, anyway. Back when we were five or six, Andi started to have her doubts that Danny was Bella's kid — not that she was complaining, he's always been a sweet boy, but still. Not really the sort of kid you can see trying to take over the House of Black.

"They had no idea where you actually were — Andi did some necromantic ritual to make sure you weren't already dead, and I guess whoever she summoned said no, but also wouldn't tell her anything more than that — and some of the political fall-out if it came out Dumbledore had spirited Bella's kid away to be raised essentially anonymously — by muggles makes it even worse — would include the Truce completely falling apart, so they decided not to tell people, at least not until they located you. Right now, you and I know, and Mira, and Andi and Ted — her husband — and Dumbledore, of course. Dumbledore doesn't know that we know. We doubt he's told anyone else."

"And you wanted me to know...why, exactly? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd definitely rather know than not, but... Why did they tell you, for that matter?"

Blaise shrugged. "Mira tells me everything. She has since I was nine. She trusts my judgement and my ability to keep a secret. And as for why I'm telling you... Is it so hard to believe I find you intriguing? You are my godbrother, you know. We would have grown up together if you hadn't been taken from Cissa. Everything I know about Bellatrix and everything I've seen of you in the past five days says you'd figure it out, and sooner rather than later, and I think it's better to tell you now and earn your trust as an ally rather than wait until you work it out on your own and leave you guessing who knows what and who you can trust, and end up on your bad side because we didn't tell you." He grinned. "Call me crazy, but I'm sort of betting I'd rather not be on your bad side."

...Probably smart. He'd already had his suspicions, and it probably still hadn't entirely sunk in how much he'd missed out on not being raised around magic yet, but he was already a little angry at Dumbledore.

"Besides," Blaise continued. "It's your life. I mean, it's Danny's life too, but he likes being Danny Tonks. He clearly got the better end of the deal, growing up with Andi. You're the injured party, here. If you want to march right up to the Headmaster's office and demand to know what the hell he was thinking and that he come clean and tell everyone who you really are, you have every right to do that. I might tell you to wait until Andi can get up here and go with you — she's a solicitor, and you might need one, since you don't actually know any of the relevant legal precedents — but I won't tell you not to do it..."

The way he trailed off there... "You don't think I should, though."

"No. On the one hand, I think you should let this go on as long as possible, so it's an even bigger scandal for Dumbles when he finally gets his head out of his arse and/or his hand is forced and he has to switch you back. But on the other hand...Danny likes being Danny Tonks. If you force Dumbles to out him as Harry Potter, it's going to ruin his life. I mean, he'll be incredibly relieved that he's not related to Bellatrix, but he wants to be a portrait artist. He'd hate being the Boy Who Lived and all the shite that goes along with being famous for no real reason. And you might not like being Harry Potter, but you're not going to get nearly as much shite as him as you would if people knew you're Bella's son. The Truce might not be enough to protect you, and you'd be starting from behind even more than you already are — because on top of not knowing anything about Magical Britain, you'd have everyone watching you, waiting for the first sign you're just as mad as she is, and looking for excuses to have you locked up in a mental ward or even in Azkaban before you start really going off the deep end and/or grow up and become too powerful for them to do something like that."

Right. So, like everyone in Little Whinging, but with actual incentive to see him locked up, not just expecting that he would be. Much as he hated to admit it, that seemed like...sort of a reasonable prediction for how people would react, given what he'd heard about Bella Black in the few short weeks he'd been in Charing. Some of them, the people on the outskirts of society, might consider him potentially a good thing, like, if he picked up the Dark Revolution and found a way to actually make it happen, but those people didn't exactly have a lot of power in society — that was kind of the problem. So they wouldn't be able to help him if the good, upstanding people of Magical Britain decided he needed to be locked up. And unlike his neighbours in Little Whinging, Magical Britain, from what he'd seen, was a little more likely to actually arrest a kid for having the potential to grow up to be a dangerous madman. Odysseus had, after all, informed him in no uncertain terms that if Harry were caught with restricted books he would be subject to the same legal consequences as an adult.

Plus, there were still plenty of people around who'd been actively fighting in a war that was basically just vigilantes on both sides — hundreds of people deciding to take the law and/or the future of the country into their own hands, and kill anyone who got in the way. It would really only take one of them deciding that Bella's son was a threat that needed to be eliminated to kill him. Of course, the same could be said for Harry Potter (which was also a good reason to learn to be a crazy-awesome warlock, come to think of it), but people wanting revenge for their revolution failing were probably less serious a threat than people wanting revenge for Bella starting a war wherein people they loved died (or for personally killing or torturing said people) and afraid that he might eventually hurt or kill them, or undermine their way of life if they didn't kill him first.

"But you said it yourself: Dumbledore isn't going to be able to keep us switched forever. He's going to have to tell people the truth eventually."

Blaise shrugged sort of awkwardly, peering down at Harry in the fading light. "Yeah. And we still don't know what he's planning there — or if he even has a plan. Mira said if she were him, now you've been introduced to Hogwarts as Harry Potter, she'd probably try to keep it going until you're sixteen, give people as long as possible to form a positive opinion of you and you as long as possible to start thinking of yourself as a tool for the Light, your parents murdered by the Dark, and basically get as much brainwashing in as possible before admitting that you're Bella's kid.

"Since you're not an idiot and would almost certainly have put it together yourself even if we'd never met, obviously he's not going to be able to brainwash you into thinking you ought to be a good little Light puppet or have some sort of vendetta against the Dark, but we're inclined to let him stew in his obliviousness for a while."

So, Mira (and by extension, Blaise) and Andromeda obviously didn't want him to tell Dumbledore that he knew. Which, Harry was fine with that, Dumbledore had never told Harry or Aunt Petunia anything, and it was apparently his fault Harry had been raised away from magic. Not that he didn't appreciate everything the Dursleys had done for him — they were still his family, he'd decided — but if he'd had the choice of being raised by Aunt Petunia without magic or "Aunt Cissy" with magic, he would have chosen magic, obviously. So as far as Harry was concerned, Dumbledore could go die in a fire. But... "What about Danny?"

"Well, I can't stop you from telling him, if you want to, but Mira decided to let Andi do it when she thought he was ready to know. Probably when he turns thirteen. Well, when he thinks he's turning thirteen. See, there's this thing called the Age of Recognition, noble kids are supposed to start taking an interest in politics and the business of the House after their thirteenth birthdays and sort of start to be considered real people by adults."

Oh, that reminded him... "When is that, by the way? My birthday."

"Oh!" Blaise exclaimed, sounding awfully surprised, though Harry couldn't imagine how he might possibly think Harry already knew that. "Walpurgis. Danny's is May second for legal shite, but it's really the night between the first and the second. Andi says Bella almost certainly did that on purpose — it's the holiday that celebrates chaos and conflict, among other things, and Bella is even more a child of chaos in her way than Doriel. Nymphadora," he added, at Harry's questioning look, which didn't at all explain why he would call her Doriel instead of Dora, but before he could ask Blaise also added, "Anyway, your birthday's at the beginning of May. If nothing happens to force her hand before then, Andi will probably tell Danny the summer after second year. Maybe Yule or Easter, but she knows his real birthday is over Lammas, so she'll probably wait, get as close as she reasonably can," which reminded Harry that they had been talking about something sort of important.

He pulled a face. "So I'm actually three months older than I thought?" If he and Danny were both in the same year, he guessed it would be sort of hard for Danny to be younger than him, but he'd still sort of hoped it would turn out he was actually much younger than he thought and that was at least part of the reason he was so tiny. He just hadn't really thought it through enough to realise that he was already one of the youngest people in their class. If Danny had been younger, it could only have been by a month at most for them to both be starting school this year.

"Er, yes? Is this a bad thing?"

"No, not really, just I'm beginning to think you weren't kidding about me looking like a kid until I'm thirty."

Blaise snorted. "So, I confirm that you're actually not the person you thought you were and you've been lied to your entire life, and your concern is you're even shorter for your age than you thought?"

"Well, it doesn't make that much of a difference if I'm not telling anyone, does it?" That got a startled laugh from the other boy. "Seriously, though? It's...sort of a lot to think about. Thanks for telling me. Just...I need some time to—" What was the phrase? Oh, right... "Work through the implications for myself. I'm going to keep walking for a while." They'd already wandered most of the way to the other side of the lake, and were coming dangerously close to the place where the trees met the water and they'd be straying into the Forbidden Forest.

They might already be outside of where students were technically allowed to be, but Harry had no intention of turning back. Of course, he also had no intention of thinking about what it might mean to him, having his suspicions about his identity confirmed. Not now, at least. He strongly suspected that he wasn't going to be doing much thinking at all for at least a few hours, instead just revelling in being.

He didn't know what might be waiting for him out there, under the trees, but the wildness and danger of the Forest was practically calling to him, in the same way seeing his own eyes flashing with magic in Danny's illusion had made him want to punch it in the face — some instinct that had never been triggered before because there was nothing like this in Little Whinging, but which came with an undeniable sense of certainty and absolute confidence in his own ability to meet whatever unknown challenge might be lurking in the dark.

The night breeze was chilly, but not too cold, and the air smelled of autumn. There was only the tiniest sliver of moon and it would be even darker under the trees, but there was magic in every living thing, and the Forest was so alive it positively sang, a siren song urging him onward — come, be one with the Night, be free... He didn't need light.

Blaise was tactful enough to realise he was saying please leave me alone, but he apparently still felt the need to point out, "You do realise that there are all sorts of dangerous things in the Forest, especially after dark."

Harry grinned — a feral, toothy expression. You do realise that I'm one of them...? "I'll see you at breakfast, Blaise."

-ʌ-

Harry also had enemies for the first time, now, which was a bit of a novel experience. The boys in Little Whinging might not have liked him, but they were far too scared of him to try crossing him. Either Draco and Ron — who hated each other, but found common ground in their hatred for Harry having 'tricked them' into believing he was a girl named Harry Harrison — were too stupid to be afraid of angering him, or seriously overestimated their own abilities. He was betting on the former, at least in Draco's case.

-v-

(Mon 2 Sept)

"You tricked me!" Draco Malfoy spat, interrupting Danny by smacking a book onto the table he, Blaise, and Theo were sharing with Harry. They were in the library after their first two lessons — Herbology and Charms — killing time until lunch.

Blaise shushed him. "Keep your voice down, Draco, darling. You'll get us all thrown out."

"You tricked me!" he repeated, somewhat more quietly, a strained, almost-shouting whisper, glaring furiously at Harry. "You're not a nobody! You're not even a girl!"

"Well, to be fair, I never said I was a girl, and as far as I'm concerned I am no one special."

Danny sniggered. Theo gave him a look of blatant disbelief, but it was true. The whole Harry Potter Myth was just absurd (not to mention, Harry wasn't even really the real Harry Potter, anyway), and being a freak wasn't anything to be proud of. It wasn't as though he'd worked to be as good at magic as he was. He had spent a lot of time practising since he'd gotten his wand, but he wasn't really trying to learn as many spells as possible or whatever. Literally most of the time he was just fooling around. He was pretty sure that didn't count.

"You said your name was Harry Harrison!"

"So? You'd already decided I was a nobody."

The blond's hand snaked toward his face as though he intended to slap Harry. Harry batted it away, which only seemed to make him angrier. "I demand satisfaction from you, Potter!"

"Erm. Maybe not the best idea, Draco," Danny warned him.

"What, like a duel?"

"No," Theo said firmly. "Trust me, Malfoy, you don't want to do this."

"Oh, I really think I do, Nott, and what business is it of yours, anyway? Yes, Potter, 'like a duel'!"

"Yes, sure, I'm in!" Harry grinned. This was going to be fun. He didn't even know many spells that were good for fighting yet — a couple of cutting charms and a knockback jinx — but there were dozens of spells intended to disarm someone or stop them from moving or being able to speak. He'd learned a body-binding hex and a couple different silencing jinxes he hadn't been able to test on an actual person yet. If Draco wanted to volunteer, Harry was more than willing to try them on him. "When and where?"

"Harry, no. If you hurt him, his mother will have it out for you," Danny insisted.

"And you're definitely going to hurt him," Theo said, giving Draco a disparaging look. "Even if it's just his pride."

"Shut up! No one asked you two! Friday," he decided. "At midnight, in the trophy room—"

Blaise interrupted, then. "Draco. Fratellino. I'm not going to tell you not to do it, because you clearly haven't learned your lesson about underestimating people you think are nobodies, and getting your arse kicked might be good for you. But if you insist on demonstrating your inferiority to Harry, I'm going to have to insist that you do so with a healer in attendance, at the very least. I'll ask the prefects how these things usually work and we can go from there."

"Piss off, Zabini! This is none of your business, either!"

"Mira asked me to look out for you, which includes not letting you do something stupid like get into an honour duel you're definitely going to lose, with someone who has even less idea how to heal a serious injury than you, or even stupider, trying to set Harry up to get caught out of bounds and giving him cause to challenge you to a duel for real."

Draco went scarlet.

Harry frowned at him. "Wait. You were just trying to get me in trouble?"

"No! I said I'd be there, I'll be there! You and me! One on one! Third blood!"

"Yes, he was, and no, he won't— Yes, I know you have every intention of trying to beat the snot out of Harry for real now, but if you don't agree to do so behind proper duelling wards with a healer in attendance — and the customary witnesses — I will be writing to your mother."

"Go ahead!" Draco snapped, scowling. "Mother wouldn't want me to withdraw a challenge like a coward!"

"She also wouldn't want you to embarrass the House of Malfoy publically losing a duel to a boy who's been practising magic for all of a month, and she especially wouldn't want either of you to be seriously injured in doing so."

Draco hesitated.

"Shut up, Blaise," Harry hissed. "You're going to talk him out of it!"

"What exactly do you think he's been trying to do?" Danny wondered aloud, which was fair, Harry did realise that was what Blaise was trying to do, he just hadn't thought he'd actually manage it.

"Even if he were to win, there's not exactly a lot of honour in beating someone who's only known about magic for a month, either," Theo observed, apparently giving the blond the excuse he needed to back off without feeling like he'd lost face.

He sneered, somewhat more weakly than usual. "I suppose Nott does have a point. It would hardly be a fair fight, given that Potter barely knows anything."

"That's fine," Harry assured him. "I know that, and I still said yes. I'm not going to hold it against you or go whining about it being unfair if you beat me."

The sneer grew a bit more confident. "Keep up that attitude, and you'll go the same way as your parents, Potter. No, they're right, it'd look bad, me rubbing your nose in your pathetic ignorance. I'll give you...let's say until Samhain to learn some decent spells, and then we'll see who's the better wizard!"

Harry pouted. "Fine. But I'll hold you to that. Samhain."

Draco nodded, spinning on his heel and stalking away as abruptly as he'd appeared, without so much as a see you later.

Jerk.