Switched

Dumbledore, Jay thought, looked tired. 

Tired enough that he sort of had to wonder if the older wizard had managed to get any sleep at all since the article had hit the newsstands on Sunday. Jay hadn’t, but that was because he’d spent Sunday night out in the Forest, celebrating the capture of the unicorn killer, and then there had been lessons on Monday — Professor Vector had covered Defence, basically just supervising it as a study hall, since there were only a couple more periods until exams. 

He’d taken pity on Hermione and distracted everyone who wanted to ask them about the Real Harry Potter during most of his free time on Monday so she could study, and then spent Monday night having tea with Sinistra and answering letters from Dru, Sirius, and Aunt Petunia — she wanted him to get the names and contact information for as many muggleborns and their families as he could, it sounded like to form a sort of parents’ network for muggle families and everyone else who was in the know but not actually magic, and had asked him if he knew why no one in Little Whinging seemed to remember that she had a horrible little nephew called Harry. 

It seemed that at her weekly tea-and-bridge social, two weeks ago now, Yvonne had mentioned that someone finally bought the Trotter place, over on Wisteria — number thirteen, which had been vacant since old Mrs. Peasley had died six years ago (apparently her children had been dragging their feet cleaning it out) and had definitely never been owned by anyone called Trotter — and all of her friends had gotten on the subject of how glad they were that the family had finally moved out of the neighbourhood — damned unsociable, anyway, the lot of them. The only one who’d ever had much interaction with the rest of the neighbourhood was Larry, that wretched little hellion of theirs, and as far as him, good riddance, that boy was going to end up in a mental ward before the age of eighteen, you mark Monica’s words!

Pleased as she was to no longer be associated with Harry in the minds of her neighbours, it had been downright embarrassing not to be able to place the name of the boy who had been Dudders’s (and the rest of the boys’) childhood nemesis. He’d attacked Helen’s poor boy John the very first week they moved in! He’d broken Dudley’s arm once, hadn’t he?

Jay had promised to ask Dru and Sirius if they’d done anything, because he certainly hadn’t, and had owed her a letter explaining that Dru had probably done something but didn’t want to tell Jay what or how because “that would be telling” which almost definitely meant it was magic she didn’t think Jay could be trusted to use responsibly. Sirius said it sounded like a tynged, but it was the most benevolent fairy-tale curse he’d ever heard of, and he couldn’t imagine what the condition might be to break it, but it would probably be best if Jay never went back to Little Whinging, just in case that did it. (Not a problem — Jay had had no intention of ever going back to Little Whinging.)

Dumbledore, on the other hand, didn’t look like he’d been having much fun with whatever he’d been doing, if not sleeping. Probably dealing with political dragonshite. Jay understood that there were quite a few people who were upset to hear that the Real Harry Potter had been sent off to live with foreigners — Draco, for one, had been appalled — and Director Bones of the DLE wanted Dumbledore to hand over the vessel in which the wraith was trapped so they could verify that it was actually Riddle. Dumbledore didn’t want to because — reading between the lines — he didn’t trust that Riddle wouldn’t somehow escape, or that some Death Eater sympathiser in the Ministry wouldn’t let him out. 

Also, there might be a hearing or something coming up addressing the fact that all the adults in the school missed Quirrell being possessed for the whole bloody year? Possibly? Probably not until after exams, though, and maybe with the Board of Governors, rather than the DLE. Mira had mentioned something while they (and Andromeda and Sirius) were hammering out the final details of the James Black cover story in preparation for the interview with the Prophet. Personally, Jay thought that Cuffe had done a pretty good job presenting the fact that they hadn’t noticed in a charitable light, explaining all the reasons the STD had been a perfectly plausible explanation, and honestly, what more was there to say? But officials would probably want to hold someone accountable for something.

“Harry, my boy? What is it?” Dumbledore asked, setting his quill aside with an exhausted sigh.

“It’s Jay, and you wanted to speak to me, remember?” he said, holding up the note he’d received at lunch.

“Ah, yes. That.” He pulled a copy of the Sunday Prophet from a pile of parchment on his desk — the spider project, from what Jay could see from here. The tanks with the actual spiders were out in a hastily-erected additional greenhouse, warded to seven hells against any of the students getting in and messing with the time-dilation circles. Apparently the wards on the actual Castle interfered with the spell somehow, or something. But the actual notes and stuff were up here so he could work on it whenever he had a few free minutes. “Now that the initial fervour has begun to die down, I thought perhaps you might deign to fill me in on the story no one seems to have thought I needed to know before going to press,” he said, his tone somewhere between stern and snide, but still more tired than either.

“You didn’t think anyone needed to know that I was Eridanus Black and Danny was Harry Potter,” Jay reminded him, “so Siri said you could find out about me ‘really’ being Jay Black along with everyone else. Mira and Andi said you’re getting off lightly only having to try to keep up and play along with our story, not having to figure out how to un-switch Danny and me yourself.”

Dumbles scowled at him. “While that may be so, surely you must see that it will be better for your story in the long run if I am aware of the details and can avoid contradicting anything you might decide to reveal about your background over the coming days.”

Well, Jay could mostly see that it would be better for Dumbledore, because he might look like an idiot if he apparently had no idea what he was talking about, but they did need his people at the Ministry to play along, so. “How long do you have?”

The Headmaster checked the time, rubbed at his forehead for a moment, then announced, “Forty-five minutes, assuming no emergencies arise which require my immediate attention in the interim.”

Okay, he could keep it short. “Well, as best I’ve been able to piece together, Sirius met my mother, Sinéad Murphy, while he was in the Auror academy. She was two years older than him, a muggleborn working in Ministry Administration as a clerk. Their relationship was pretty long-distance, and I get the impression they had a lot of fun sneaking around and making sure no one suspected anything, writing sappy letters with no identifying information and sneaking away to shag in the file room, shite like that.

“She realised that she was pregnant in September of Nineteen Eighty, due in May of Eighty-One—” which meant that Jay was “really” only eleven now, but whatever, it fit with the details of Sinéad’s life and death, and he would pass for a year younger than he actually was, easily. “—and they had a long talk about it and she decided to keep me even though Siri wouldn’t be able to support her directly and she was worried she was being watched — she was one of the friends of a friend who was helping the Weasleys get forged documents for muggleborns to get them out of the country. They decided the thing to do would be to fake her death in the magical world — Siri helped her stage it to look like a Death Eater attack. She went back to living in the muggle world with her sister, Máire, and some of her friends in Belfast. 

“There was a Death Eater attack in Belfast in July of Eighty-One that the Ministry tried to cover up as an I.R.A. attack. Máire and Sinéad were caught up in it and one of the Ministry obliviators who was also a Death Eater or Death Eater sympathiser recognised Sinéad from when they used to work together. The Death Eaters attacked them a few nights later. She managed to hold them off long enough for Máire to escape with me. She ran to some people Sirius had told Sinéad she could trust if she was ever discovered. The bloke she was supposed to ask for at this specific hotel had died, but one of his friends was keeping an eye out, and she got Máire set up in a little safehouse that was warded so the Ministry wouldn’t pick up on my accidental magic, because what else was she going to do when this muggle came to her with a two-month-old magical baby and asked for help? but they didn’t actually know Sirius or how to get in touch with him. This friend of a friend didn’t stay in touch because she didn’t want to draw attention to us — we weren’t sure if she was involved with the magical Irish nationalists or the International Dark, but it was one of the two — so after that, we were on our own. 

“We weren’t sure who you were going to say raised the real Harry Potter — obviously not ninjas, no matter how cool that would be — but we figured it would be someone who would be willing to expose him to muggle culture and so on as a kid, so we’re going to claim that he and I met at school a couple of years ago, like Blaise and Justin. We’ll keep the details vague for his security and if need be, we can claim that he’s been moved somewhere else for more advanced tutoring now.

“He and I each realised that the other was magical and hit it off. He realised that Magical Britain didn’t even know I existed and figured that meant it was fine to be friends with me, like it wouldn’t compromise his cover or anything. He filled me in on Magical Britain, who he was and what happened with the War, and that he’s supposedly prophesied to kill this undead dark lord, all that shite, and when Máire died in a smash-up last May, he convinced his guardians to take me in.

“When it comes out that Harry was Danny Tonks all along, we can admit that we lied for his security, I actually met Blaise at school and was introduced to Danny through him and Mira, and Mira took me in after the smash-up.

“At some point over the summer, when the Hogwarts letters arrived, he admitted that he didn’t think he could do it, actually kill someone, and that his guardians have told him there are still Death Eaters out there. As soon as he reappears in public, there’s going to be a target on his back. I told him it sounds totally worth it to go to an actual magic school — his guardians have been teaching him magic for years, but I didn’t know any formal wizardry — and we came up with the idea that I could come to Hogwarts in his place. 

“He’d get to stay at home, where he’s safe, learning magic from his guardians — or, you know, attend Hogwarts incognito when it comes out he was Danny all along — I’d get to come here and have a way back into the magical world, which no one really considered when Máire and I got hidden away in our safehouse. The public would get to see Harry Potter returning from wherever he’s been hidden away for the past ten years. If there really was a prophecy, it would come true eventually no matter what, and after it did, or when Harry came of age and knew enough magic to protect himself and/or hunt the bastard down, he could come out of hiding and we’d tell everyone that it was a ruse to protect him and mislead the Dark Lord if he tried to off Harry as a kid. We pitched it to his guardians and then to you. You all agreed because you didn’t really think I’d be in any danger here at Hogwarts — you were planning on Harry coming here, anyway — and if Harry preferred to stay out of the limelight, having everyone think I was him would let him eventually find and kill Voldy that much more easily.

“You were concerned that I would have trouble keeping up with the other firsties because I was only ten, which was bloody hilarious, and after I demonstrated the magic I could already do without a wand, you agreed that I could play Harry Potter, gave me the details on the muggleborn shopping trip and my train ticket and all that, sent Harry’s trust-vault key to me with McGonagall and informed the Sorting Hat that it was to call me Harry Potter, and the rest is history.”

Dumbledore sighed, setting his glasses aside to rub at his temples. “The most immediate problem which springs to mind is that there would be no records of your supposed mother,” he said, like Jay and Sirius hadn’t thought of that.

“There actually are, though. Sinéad Murphy was a real person, a muggleborn Sirius actually did have a fling with while he was in the Auror Academy.” She’d attended a day-school in Ireland, rather than Hogwarts, but she had existed. “She was actually killed by the Death Eaters in Nineteen Eighty, obviously, but it’s not like there’s anyone around to contradict us if we say Sirius helped her fake her death and she really died a year later. And she really did have a sister who died in a smash-up a year ago. We wrote the rest of the story around the actual details we know can be proven.”

The Headmaster drummed his fingers on his desk for a long moment. “I’m not certain that Sirius supposedly helping her fake her death holds up. Would the Death Eaters not know that they were not responsible? Hypothetically, of course.”

Jay shook his head. He’d asked that, too, but Sirius had said, “Well, obviously every one of them would know they hadn’t personally done it, and there was a list of targets, but as far as Siri knows, there wasn’t someone assigning specific targets on a regular basis. If she was on the list and she was killed before an actual Death Eater got to her, they’d probably just assume someone had been lax about crossing her name off, and didn’t want to admit they forgot or crossed off the wrong person or whatever. Snape didn’t say anything when I filled him in—” He hadn’t had much to add to the story at all. He’d just sort of shaken his head with this painfully exasperated expression and basically said fine, whatever, not my problem. “—so it must not have struck him as unlikely or whatever, for something like that to slip through the cracks. And she didn’t think the actual Death Eaters were watching her, just her bosses.”

“Very well. Go on.”

“Er...” Jay wasn’t entirely certain how much more there was to say, honestly. That...pretty much covered the whole story, at least on the James Black side of it. “Sirius and Mira were talking about finding an actual property and backdating records and shite so it looks like I really lived somewhere in Ireland, maybe even slipping some fake records into some school’s files for both Harry and me, but we honestly don’t think anyone’s likely to look at it that closely. I mean, if I really were some random kid who showed up out of nowhere claiming to be a Black back when there were actually other Blacks, they would’ve looked into it, but it’s not really anyone else’s business if Sirius says I’m his son. 

“On the Harry Potter side, everyone in Little Whinging other than the Dursleys apparently remembers me now as Larry Trotter somehow, and Aunt Petunia is more than willing to tell anyone who shows up asking that she’s never met me, there’s no way Lily would have wanted Petunia to raise her kid. We really just need your people in the D.L.E. — whoever was covering up that I was living in Little Whinging—” Someone had to have been, or everyone would’ve known that Harry Potter was being raised by muggles ages ago. “—to keep quiet, and it should be sorted.”

Even if they didn’t, it would be the word of literally everyone else against them, so.

Dumbledore frowned. "In the war, there was a persistent problem with individuals like Miss Murphy passing the names and addresses of muggleborns to the Death Eaters as they were discovered. One of the first things Amelia did when she became the Director of the D.L.E. was institute a magically binding secrecy oath to prevent that information being shared for any reason outside of the official duties of the office. I requested that the office refer to you in writing with a code-name as an extra degree of security, should any unauthorised person gain access to their records — curiously enough, I believe they did use Lawrence Trotter as your pseudonym—” Really? Huh. He guessed that probably explained why Dru chose that particular name, somehow. (It hadn’t sounded like a very good one to Jay when he first heard it, but then, he supposed no one would be looking for Harry Potter in muggle suburbia, much less someone whose name sounded suspiciously similar to his.) “—but it shouldn’t pose a problem.”

“Well, good then. Is that it? I think that’s it...” Danny’s backstory was air-tight, they didn’t need to worry about him. Most people didn’t even realise he was adopted. Jay had his new backstory, they had more or less disappeared “Harry Potter”, and— “Oh, wait! I was supposed to ask you about Eridanus and how that cover-up is going.”

“You may tell whoever asked you to inquire that I have the matter well in hand. I have procured a suitable certification of death by natural causes — dragon pox, in March of Eighty-Nine — which I will produce on request. The body will supposedly have been cremated in accordance with the Blacks’ traditions, and I will have been reluctant to publicise the tragedy and risk the dissolution of the Truce over something which was truly no one’s fault.”

Jay pulled a face. “I guess that will work. I’ve never been sick in my life, though. Except when Quirrell poisoned me, I guess.” That didn’t really count, though.

“If your guardian and her daughters play their part in ausaging the concerns of anyone with motive to seriously question the matter, I’m certain it will suffice.”

And since he had supposedly met the real Harry Potter (and/or Blaise) in the autumn of Eighty-Nine, there was room in the story for someone to have faked Eridanus’s death and brought him back as Jay if his original identity ever came out, or if Mira and Narcissa needed to convince someone that Eridanus wasn’t really dead for the sake of the Truce, as Mira had suggested that they might. 

Apparently if any Death Eaters asked, she would supposedly have hired a vampire assassin/mercenary (and former Death Eater) named Yelena to fake his death and bring him to her, which meant they didn’t actually need to have an air-tight cover story for all the details of how he got from wherever Dumbles would supposedly have been holding him to Mira’s manor. It was apparently unlikely that any of them would track her down and ask, but if they did, Dru had actually hired said assassin to lie in support of their ruse, so their bases should be covered. (Dumbledore didn’t need to know that last part.)

Jay nodded. “Good, then I’ll tell Sirius he can demand you relinquish Eridanus to the House so we can ‘investigate’ and then make it public knowledge that he died years ago and that we’ve investigated and we agree that it was natural causes and nothing you could have reasonably done to prevent it, blah, blah, blah.” They were fairly confident that after the shite Sirius had put the Light through with his trial, no one would suspect that he was trying to cover up foul play on Dumbledore’s part, and as with the matter of exactly where Jay had been living for the past ten years, it wasn’t really anyone’s business outside of the House of Black. (And maybe Bella’s old allies, but if they didn’t believe Mira and were looking into it independently, it would actually be better if there were enough little inconsistencies for them to come to the conclusion that someone had faked Eridanus’s death.)

The old wizard sighed heavily, probably not looking forward to the scandal, even if it would be a relatively small one. 

“Don’t worry, sir,” Jay offered. “It will all be over soon.”

“Would that I had your confidence in that fact, my dear— Har— James. Take this as a lesson: lies beget only more lies, and if one is not both very careful and very lucky, those lies will inevitably spiral out of one’s control.”

Jay tried not to laugh at him, he really did, but, “Dru says the lesson is, don’t implement a plan that doesn’t include an exit strategy.” That went for concealing the existence of giant man-eating spiders as well as switching the identities of infants. “But yeah. I’m not planning on taking up lying all the time. Keeping it straight seems like an awful lot of work, doesn’t it?” 

That was the main reason he hadn’t even tried to make all the shite he’d told people about “the real Harry Potter” at all consistent. It really seemed like a better strategy to let everyone (correctly) think he was just taking the piss, rather than try to play it straight and have them figure out eventually that some little detail or other didn’t add up and call him out on it. This way when someone eventually figured out that he supposedly met the “real” Harry Potter at a muggle primary school and tried to grill him over it, he could just point out that he’d told them with a straight face that Harry Potter was raised by bloody ninjas, that should be a clue he had no intention of giving them any legitimate information on him, piss off.

Dumbledore just shook his head, slow and old. “That it is, my boy. That it is.”

Exams proceeded smoothly, to the surprise of absolutely no one but Hermione. She spent every evening of the entire week driving everyone batty trying to get them to rehash the tests with her to see whether they collectively thought she’d gotten anything wrong, and when they finally got their marks back, she was incredibly relieved to see that she’d taken firsts in Transfiguration and Charms (and History, but no one cared about History). Jay took firsts in Potions, Defence, and Astronomy, and Neville Longbottom, of all people, beat both of them out in Herbology. Snape did put several questions on the exam that they hadn’t covered in lessons, but only as extra credit, which Hermione insisted didn’t warrant an I told you so.

The fact that she was being offered an Award for Special Services to the School after only a single year for her role in Quirrell’s capture went a long way toward salving her wounded pride when she found out that Jay ended up being ranked first in their class overall. He, Danny, and Blaise had decided that since Theo couldn’t be associated with the whole ordeal at all, and they had agreed that Hermione could have all the credit if it went according to plan, their names didn’t need to be on the trophy.

Slytherin won the House Cup for the eighth year in a row, as well as the Quidditch Cup for the third year running. Danny managed to get that duel Jay never had with Draco, over his claim that he was going to go out for Seeker next year and bring that streak to an end. Draco, who also intended to go out for Seeker, took that as a personal affront, and apparently wasn’t too afraid that Danny would embarrass him to actually follow through on the challenge, Saturday morning down by the lake, before everyone headed down to the train. 

Danny hit him square in the face with an expelliarmus in their first exchange, and Draco had had to go fish his wand out of the lake. (So much for not being embarrassed.) Jay missed it, because he was busy seeing off the team that came to collect Fluffy and take him to a cerberus preserve in Greece — count Jay not the least bit surprised that cerberi were endangered — and then explaining to the wilderfolk that he was going on holiday, and would be back in a couple of months. Blaise was there, though, and he shared the memory, which was basically like being in two places at once, so as far as Jay was concerned, Theo, Danny, and Hermione were all full of shite with their insistence that Jay was a bloody weirdo for letting Blaise legilimise him all the time.

The look on Draco’s face was, in fact, the funniest thing Jay had ever seen. Danny’s delighted impression of it on the train simply couldn’t do it justice.

It was certainly funnier than getting into a row with Hagrid and basically getting sacked from the stupid job he’d never asked for and had been doing for free all year, mucking out niffler cages and turning compost. Supposedly the giant was angry at him for lying about who he was the whole year — that meant he couldn’t be trusted anymore. 

Jay was pretty sure he was really upset about Jay flat out telling him that if Dumbledore failed, or the acromantulae refused to take whatever compromise the Headmaster offered, Jay wasn’t going to help Hagrid try to save the spiders anyway. He’d been really sketchy about it, enough that Jay was a little concerned that he might try to smuggle some of the smaller spiders out of the Forest or something. 

Like, concerned enough that he’d warned Dumbledore, and Dumbledore had confronted Hagrid about it and made him promise that he wouldn’t. Jay wasn’t entirely certain that would actually stop him, it just made the choice one between saving at least some of his oldest friend’s children, and breaking his word to the one man he owed more than any other for the quality of the life he’d had for the last fifty years. So he could see how that would make him a little angry with Jay, on top of being a dirty liar letting Hagrid think he was the real Harry Potter all year, and an evil git who was totally on-board with committing genocide as long as the people in question were arachnids.

In any case, they weren’t speaking anymore, and Hagrid couldn’t ban Jay from the centaurs’ lands, especially since the centaurs had all but banned Hagrid himself, but he definitely wasn’t welcome anywhere near Hagrid anymore, and could find something else to keep himself busy next year, Hagrid didn’t need or want his help.

He wasn’t sure, because Hagrid was so much taller than him, and his beard and eyebrows were so bushy it was hard to see much of his face, but Jay thought the giant might have been crying when he left to go find the wilderfolk, which was just...awkward.

The wilderfolk at least hadn’t gotten angry or soppy about him buggering off for a couple of months, though Blondie had thought it was silly he was planning to take a train back to London when he could stick around and play for a few more hours if he rode a thestral down to the big human village or used some magic-travel like a broom or the fire-web. Since Jay also thought that was pretty silly — it was even sillier that Danny was taking the train to London and then flooing back to Hogsmeade because it’s tradition — he’d changed the subject and spent the better part of half an hour trying to explain exactly what a city was, beyond a lot more humans than Hogsmeade, before he’d really had to run.

Since Hermione agreed that it was ridiculous for Danny to ride the Express down, only to floo back up to Hogsmeade this afternoon, that ended up being the first subject of pointless argument for the ride south. It didn’t last very long, because Danny didn’t really think it made sense, it was just tradition, and if she didn’t want to hang out with him for a few more hours, she was welcome to go find a different compartment. 

That pretty well stopped the argument dead in its tracks, because of course she didn’t want to leave. If she left, she would have to fend off people asking her about the Real Harry Potter on her own. Whether that was a natural consequence of telling people things that weren’t obviously completely ridiculous dragonshite and making herself seem like a potentially legitimate authority on the matter was the next subject of pointless argument, and also didn’t last very long, though Jay couldn’t say exactly when it transitioned from silly arguments to just making up silly shite to tell people about the Real Harry Potter. 

Daphne joined them about halfway through the trip, changing the subject to their plans, generally speaking, and more specifically, all the things they couldn’t wait to get back to at home. That led seamlessly into a discussion of Daphne’s home, which was basically a giant commune, and how big, traditional magical families, like who still had people actually worked. Jay hadn’t really realised it until Daph started talking about her baby sisters, but the rest of them had really small families. Theo and Hermione were both only children, and Dora was so much older than Danny that he might as well have been most of the time. She’d been in school for most of the year longer than he could remember, and obviously now she’d moved out.

The conversation did come back around to their families and summer plans eventually, though, which inevitably led to the third subject of stupid argument: Dru, and the fact that Jay was absolutely delighted by the idea of spending all summer with her. 

Well, possibly slightly more: Dru, and the fact that Jay had let Danny believe he finally understood why Andi hated her so much after spending Easter with her.

“What do you mean, you’re really excited about it?” he asked incredulously, his face falling.

“Didn’t we cover this back in January?”

“But you were miserable after Easter! I’ve literally never seen you look worse. You admitted you might’ve bit off more than you could chew, agreeing to spend the summer with her, and that her expectations are totally unreasonable— Is this ringing any bells?”

“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to learning as much as I actually can. Like, without using weird mind-magic to cram entire languages into my head in twenty minutes. Dru’s crazier than I am, that wasn’t fun.”

“She did what?” everyone other than Blaise asked in a ragged chorus. Hermione added, “How?”

“Er. Apparently some magical talents interact weirdly sometimes? In this case, Parseltongue and omniglottalism make a horribly painful feedback loop that tries to cram all of Parseltongue into the omniglot’s head at once, which is just too much new information. Dru thought it was fun when she did it, because Dru is hands down the biggest freak I’ve ever met. I passed out for a full day, and still had a two-day headache after we got back.”

“And what’s Parseltongue, exactly?”

“The ability to talk to snakes,” Danny informed the only muggleborn in the carriage. (Jay was pretty sure that in this particular instance, he didn’t really count, since he’d not only heard of the weird magical thing this time, but could actually do it.)

“Normally it’s an inherited trait,” Daphne added. “There are a few common houses it crops up in occasionally, and I understand it’s fairly common in India.”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but here in Britain, it’s most famously associated with the Dark Lord, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Slytherin, and Ignatius Gaunt. I’m guessing Druella learned it from the Dark Lord?”

“Former Dark Lord,” Jay corrected him, but nodded. 

“Please note, being friends with that bastard is another reason Druella sucks.”

Jay bit his tongue on telling Danny that he’d spoken to the young version of Riddle, and he was actually really cool.

“They had a falling out in the late Sixties,” Blaise told him. “For the same reason Cygnus was executed.”

“What? Why?”

Blaise winced. “Ask your mother. In private.”

“Okay, fine, whatever. She was still friends with him before then.”

“What does it sound like?” Hermione interrupted, very pointedly cutting Jay off before he could tell Danny to go sit on a stalagmite. “Parseltongue. I mean, snakes don’t exactly make a lot of sounds, do they?”

Jay took a moment to get into the right head-space to access the language, a process he could only describe as thinking snake-y thoughts. Then he agreed, «No, they don’t,» giving her a light shrug and smirking as the odd hissing sound registered, her eyes going wide. «Does that answer your question?»

«The second one, I guess,» Danny hissed back, to even greater shock from everyone who didn’t know that the Real Harry Potter was the has-been’s biological grandson. He gave Jay a look like he was the one who’d just said something that didn’t make sense, completely obliviously. «But what does it sound like?»

“...Like that?” Jay said, carefully pronouncing the words in English, rather than letting the magic continue twisting them into sputtering hisses borderline unconsciously. 

«What the hell are you talking about?» 

Oh, that was neat — the sentiment he mentally translated as the hell actually felt much more like cold, cloudy misery than fire and brimstone, in much the same way firebloom felt more like an explosion than a flower. “Pay attention to what you’re actually saying, like how you’re moving your lips and tongue to make the sounds, and say that again,” Jay suggested, fighting to keep a straight face. 

«What...the hell—» He cut himself off there with a hilarious little yelp, clapping his hands over his mouth. “What the— How did you do that?” he demanded, glaring at Jay, like he somehow went back in time and was responsible for making sure that Lily Evans would shag James Potter.

“What do you mean, how did I do that? I didn’t do anything. Obviously you’re a natural parselmouth.” Oh, unless he meant the not realising he was speaking a different language thing. “Or did you mean not noticing you weren’t speaking English? Because I don’t know how that works, either.” It was on his endless list of shite to ask Dru at some point over the summer.

“What? No— I mean, that’s weird, too, but I’m not a parselmouth!”

Another ragged chorus disagreed with him denying the bloody obvious.

“But where would I have gotten it from? Daph, you just said it yourself, it’s inherited, and neither of my parents were—”

“Well,” she said softly, with the air of someone breaking news they expected to be taken poorly, “we don’t know who your sire was, do we? It could have been...”

“No,” Danny said firmly. “Absolutely not. I mean, A, ew, no, I’d kill myself, but also, B, I found out over Yule, it turns out I’m not Eridanus Black after all, and neither one of my actual parents were parselmouths, I’m sure of it.”

“I know this one,” Jay volunteered, though he didn’t think anyone heard him over Daphne exclaiming, “Oh, Danny! That’s wonderful news! I know you’ve had your concerns... Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Er. Because I don’t want to tell people who my real parents are, and most people don’t even know I’m adopted, so don’t tell anyone.”

“I would never,” she assured him, putting on an expression of mild offence, though it quickly vanished under an impish smirk. “If I guess who your parents are, will you tell me?”

Danny groaned. “Ugh, fine. I guess. It’s not like this lot don’t already know. But if you do guess you really, really can’t tell anyone.”

“Yes, yes, I really, really won’t. James and Lily Potter?”

“Gah! Did literally everyone know that except for me?!”

She figured it out when we were seven, Blaise volunteered, silent amusement shivering through the thought. She just dismissed it because she didn’t even know then that he was adopted.

“I’m sure they don’t,” Daphne assured him. “I just happened to notice you look an awful lot like James Potter when he was our age, remember, that time we were going through those old photos from Uncle Archie’s wedding at Mother’s birthday party?”

Danny groaned, letting himself flop back against the outer wall of the carriage, his head hitting the window with a dull thunk. “Ow.”

Does she know who I am, too? Jay wondered.

If Danny isn’t Eridanus Black, someone else is, and you’re the most likely candidate. She has her suspicions.

Well, fine, then. If Blaise trusted her to keep it secret that he’d been an accomplice to murder at the age of seven, Jay was sure he could trust her to keep his birth-name quiet.

“Want to take a guess at the real Danny Black, as an encore?” he suggested, entirely unable to stop smirking. 

“Hmm, I suppose it would be more politically expedient to be Sirius’s son, rather than the Blackheart’s, wouldn’t it?”

“Pretty much, yes,” Hermione confirmed, sharp and businesslike. “So, now we’re all caught up, did you say you know why Danny’s a parselmouth, Jay?”

Oh, apparently someone had heard him. “What? When did he say that?”

“Several minutes ago, Danny, do pay attention. Well?”

“Er. Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes, you little psycho! Why wouldn’t I want to— Does it have something to do with that piece of Riddle’s soul Lily glued to my forehead?” he demanded, pointing dramatically at the sowilo, which was now nearly invisible. Now that the soul-fragment was gone, it was responding much better to the scar-tonic he had been using to try to get rid of it all year.

“What?” Daphne asked, clearly alarmed. 

“Well, it’s sort of a long story...”

I’ll fill her in, Blaise assured Jay when he hesitated, wondering where to begin.

Cheers.

“No,” Theo assured Danny. “That’s not how anything works.”

“Do you know?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then it could be. Who knows what the hell that madwoman was up to with her soul magic and her death curses?” 

“No, that’s not it.” Jay really didn’t think Danny wanted to know, but he was even more certain that Danny wouldn’t want anyone else to know. «The Real Harry Potter—» It came out as ‘the true immortal story-child’ — Parsel could be weird like that about names. «—is the Dark Lord’s grandson.» (‘—is the offspring of the old speaker’s offspring.’)

«No,» Danny hissed back, not even outraged, just flatly disbelieving. «That can’t possibly be true.»

«It is. Lily was a bastard. I don’t know the details, but it is true. Dru told Dumbledore over Christmas.»

“No, it’s not! She’s wrong! I am not related to that madman! I’m not!” Danny insisted, lurching toward the door. 

“You don’t mean...” Hermione muttered, looking up at him all concerned.

“No, I don’t!” he snapped at her. “It’s not true! I’m not related to those bloody lunatics, either one of them, I refuse!” He slid the door closed behind him so forcefully that it bounced almost all the way back open again.

For a long moment, there was silence. Then Hermione asked, “Er. Should one of us go after him, do you think?”

“I think we’re almost at King’s Cross,” Jay noted. The scenery outside was growing considerably more urban as they came into the City.

“Still,” Blaise said, then turned to Daphne, pulling a knut out of his pocket. “Flip you for it.”

She sighed. “No, I’ll go. I think he could probably use a softer touch at the moment. If I don’t see you on the platform, have a good summer, Theo, Jay, Miss Granger.”

“Cheers,” Jay said brightly.

Theo, still terrified of returning home, muttered, “I hope I see you sometime this summer...”

Hermione managed, “Er, thanks?” As soon as the compartment door clicked shut, she added, “Why am I Miss Granger? I thought she actually liked me,” sounding a bit hurt about it. 

Jay actually didn’t think Daphne liked her, but then, he didn’t think Daphne really liked anyone other than Blaise, and she only showed that she liked him in private. Generally speaking, she gave off an overly-controlled, slightly-neurotic, scrupulously-correct and impersonally disinterested vibe very similar to Dru. In fact... Is Daphne a Seer?

Yes, but that's not why she's like that. She has about the same degree of perspective as you. Just enough for intuitive recognition and the occasional moment of unconscious precognition, and a low-degree background awareness of psychometric echoes. Not nearly enough to play oracle like Dru, but enough that her suspicions about people are usually correct, and she might try to stop you from jumping to conclusions before either of you know why. Aloud he added, “She doesn’t dislike you, but you didn’t invite her to call you Hermione when she said that you could call her Daphne.”

“And this is Daphne we’re talking about, so even though she knows you’re probably not deliberately snubbing her, she’s going to err on the side of being too polite,” Theo added.

“Of course she is,” Hermione muttered. “Bloody purebloods.” Then she sighed. “Do you think Danny’s still going to want to meet my parents? I was really hoping he could convince them that I do have at least some normal friends...”

“What, I didn’t come off as normal when you visited?”

“Um, no, you came off as unnervingly mature, and also a bit of a toff. It could be worse,” she added quickly when he pouted at her. “My dad thinks Jay’s a smart-mouthed little hooligan.”

“Both of those seem pretty accurate to me,” Jay admitted. He was probably going to be too busy this summer to get up to any mischief which might be termed hooliganism, but if anyone in Little Whinging remembered him, they’d definitely agree with Hermione’s dad. 

“Yes, but not exactly normal."

"Normal's overrated, and they can't police who you're friends with at school. What are they going to do? Write angry letters if you don't stop being friends with me and hang out with more normal people?" He presumed that Blaise wasn't actually objectionable, even if he was a bit unnerving.

"Well, no— I mean, my dad might warn me off you, actually, but no, they can't stop us being friends, but I would like them to...oh, I don’t know, think I'm not such an unpopular freak that only weirdos want to be friends with me," she admitted, clearly upset, for possibly the stupidest reason ever.

"For an objectively smart person, you say a lot of stupid shite."

"Hey!"

"Jay, being concerned about her parents' opinions and wanting to make them proud isn't stupid," Blaise said. Aloud, so Hermione would know he was saying it, which meant he probably didn't entirely believe it, it was just the "right" answer.

"So, they can be proud of her for performing an exorcism and trapping a murderous undead wanna-be dark lord, or taking firsts in Charms and Transfiguration, or not being a conformist twat who cares if she's popular. Any of which are a hell of a lot more impressive than pretending to be boring so boring people will like you."

Hermione went a bit pink, clearly trying not to smile, but she still objected: "I wasn’t going to tell them about Quirrell. I don’t want them to think the magical world is really dangerous. They might pull me out of Hogwarts and make me go to a day-school or something.” 

Jay didn’t really think it was a bad thing to tell people that you were doing something dangerous, especially in the context of succeeding at doing something dangerous, but he would admit he was probably wrong about that most of the time. Most adults were overprotective of their kids and underestimated them all the time, even he knew that.

“And they already know I’m a swot. And most people don’t want their kids to be unpopular. They want me to be happy and successful and have a good life. All of which tends to be easier if people like you. I don’t want them to worry about me.”

“So, tell them you’re doing life on hard mode because you like a challenge, and if you’re clever enough, you don’t need people to like you to be successful, and take it from someone who grew up with Petunia Dursley, pretending to be normal won’t make you happy, even if you’re good at it. Like, sure, fine, being normal is fine if you're a normal person and it comes naturally to you, I'm not saying it's bad for Danny to be normal, or Theo, or whoever—”

"Thanks, Jay," Theo inserted sarcastically, even though Jay had just explicitly said it wasn't a bad thing.

"—but trying to be something you're not is just a waste of time and energy. And trying to be what other people tell you you should want to be doesn’t make you successful, anyway. It leads to you being stuck in a boring dead-end job at Grunnings or the Ministry or something. That's the whole point of school."

"It is not," Hermione snapped.

"Yes, it is. You could learn everything we're doing in lessons in a quarter of the time on your own. We're not here to learn that shite, we're here to learn to be good, productive little cogs in the machine of society." According to Sirius, in response to Jay complaining about how important everyone was acting like the incredibly unimportant exams were. 

"Learning to be part of a society isn't the same as being a cog, Jay! And maybe it’s easy for you to say you don't need people to like you, but we don’t all have more money than Midas and a seat in the magical House of bloody Lords, so—"

Well, that was a point, he guessed. It was easier to not worry about the future when you were never going to need to get a job or whatever. So, fine, then. "Fine. Marry me."

"WHAT?!"

"What what? Marry me, then you'll have all the money and a seat in the Wizengamot, too."

"Firstly, that's not funny, and secondly, I'm not going to marry you! I don't even like you!" she protested, her face going a hilarious shade of red.

"Firstly, you're a terrible liar, and secondly, I didn’t ask if you like me."

"Did you hear me say this isn't funny? Or that my father hates you? Besides, that's a terrible reason to marry someone!"

"Are you joking? That's the only reason to marry someone! Blaise, Theo, I'm right, aren’t I?"

"Well, it is a very traditional reason to unite your houses," Theo hedged, glaring at Jay for putting him on the spot.

"For the Nobility it's pretty much the only reason," Blaise agreed. "I'd consider it if I were you. You could do a lot worse."

"We're twelve, you arse!"

"Well, I didn't mean, marry me today, obviously. I have plans this evening. Just like, hypothetically."

"Also there are contracts involved, so you can't get married until you're thirteen," Blaise reminded them.

"Oh, because that's so much better!” She was still, in Jay’s opinion, a little too pink and flustered to pull off scathing, but she did try. ‘O’ for effort. “I hate you! All of you, you're all terrible!"

"I didn't say anything!" Theo protested.

"You laughed, you're encouraging him!"

"I'm not having fun," Jay lied.

"Jay?"

"Yes, Hermione?" he said, as innocently as possible. (So, not very.)

"Go sit on a column."

"Stalagmite. Column is 'column'. And you have to say the whole thing or it doesn’t rhyme, and that’s half the point."

Hermione, world's biggest hypocrite, was not appreciative of the correction. (Seriously, the number of times she’d corrected him learning French...) The train whistle cut her off, though, before she got past, "You—" in her response. "You are so lucky we're here. I'm going to find Danny. Have a good summer, Blaise, Theo."

“What about me?” Jay complained over their farewells.

“You are a jerk. Don’t bother writing, I won’t answer.”

Well, now he was going to have to write to her, just to see if he could annoy her enough that she couldn’t resist responding. “I’ll be too busy anyway. Have fun lying to your parents and pretending to be boring.”

She huffed at him and turned on her heel, stalking away down the corridor.

“She forgot her trunk,” Theo noted, pulling his own off the rack. 

So had Danny. It probably would have been smarter to wait here for him to come back for it if she really did want to try to convince him to meet her parents. 

“I’ll take it to her,” Jay decided. He probably owed her as much after teasing her so badly that she’d forgotten it in the first place. “Have a good summer, both of you. Send me a letter if you get bored or whatever.”

You, too. Just remember— Blaise thought at him, tugging at a memory of explaining where he was going to be over which parts of the summer — he and Mira were going to California for a business thing, and also possibly New York. If Jay tried to write to him while he was overseas, it would probably take a while for him to get it.

“Sure. If you write to me, send it care of Lady Malfoy. I’m probably not going to be allowed to see Blaise this summer — Father is not happy about his involvement in capturing the Dark Lord — but Draco should be safe.”

Jay nodded, levitating Hermione’s trunk down, not really sure what else there was to say.

“See you in September,” Blaise suggested. 

Sure, that would do. “See you in September.”

Hermione had already found her parents and realised that she didn’t have her trunk by the time he caught up with her. She was dithering over whether to go back for it now or wait until the train cleared out more, and how long would it be here, anyway, maybe she should just go back for it now—

“It’ll be here for at least an hour,” Jay informed her. That was one of the many bits of train trivia he’d picked up from that one bloke who’d worked here collecting trollies, back in August. “But I’ve got yours, anyway.”

“Oh. Thank you,” she said, apparently rather nonplussed about it. “Mum, Dad, you remember Jay?”

“Yes, he’s rather unforgettable,” her dad grumbled.

“Hello, Jay,” her mother said, much more pleasantly. 

“I thought your name was Harry Potter.”

“It was, but now it’s Jay Black. Long story. Hermione can tell you.”

“Uh huh.” Mister Doctor Granger didn’t seem impressed. Not surprising. He did hate Jay and think he was a hooligan, after all. 

Oh! “Hey, while I have you here, Mister Doctor Granger, would you ever hypothetically consider giving me Hermione’s hand in marriage?”

“What?”

Hermione punched him in the arm before he could explain their conversation on the train, surprisingly competently. Much harder than Draco had hit him the one time he’d popped Jay in the nose. “I can’t believe you— I mean, first of all, that is so sexist—”

Well he couldn’t not deliberately misinterpret that. “Oh, sorry, I meant Mister and Missus Doctor Granger—” he corrected himself, grinning almost too hard to get the words out. 

“Ooh, I’m not going to marry you, Jay, I’m going to murder you!”

“Well, if you’re going to murder me, you should marry me first and get the inheritance. I mean, that’s just practical...”

She hit him again.

“Maïa,” her mother chided her. “Use your words. And Jay, I think you should ask your parents before asking us if you can marry Hermione.”

“Mum! I’m not—”

“Assuming you can convince her to go through with it, that is,” she added quickly.

Dru, with absolutely impeccable timing, materialised out of the crowd to say, “It’s customary to wait until your intended reaches the age of fifteen before proposing marriage, James.”

Oh, hi, Dru. What are you doing here? They hadn’t discussed it, but he’d planned to just meet her at her flat again.

I needed to speak to Andromeda and Narcissa, and doing so today resulted in the least overall disruption of my summer plans. Besides, I wanted to meet the muggleborn girl who features so prominently in your letters.

Did she? Jay hadn’t really noticed.

Hermione’s mum snorted, trying not to laugh. “Sorry, just. Do mages have debutante balls?”

“Most young people of a certain social status will be presented at a major function after they turn fifteen,” Dru explained, “though the focus is not strictly on their debut. Since my grandson has apparently forgotten that he is a young gentleman, I suppose I’ll just introduce myself, shall I?” she said pointedly. 

Oops. “Sorry. Mister and Missus Doctor Granger, may I introduce my grandmother, Druella Rosier? Dru, these are my friend Hermione’s parents, Mister and Missus Doctor Granger.” 

We’ll work on that, Dru thought at him, with a wave of exasperation. 

“Please, call us Emma and Dan, Lady Druella,” Missus Doctor Granger offered. “Or would it be Professor Rosier? I’m afraid I’m not terribly familiar with the conventions.”

Full marks to Miss Emma. “It’s just Dru these days. I haven’t participated in Society in quite some time, and I only insist that undergraduates call me Magistra.”

Hermione’s mum nodded respectfully, almost exactly the same way all the purebloods did at school. Is Hermione’s mum secretly a squib? 

I sincerely doubt it. I suspect that either Hermione or Mirabella mentioned my status and occupation at some point during the Grangers’ Easter visit to Mira’s home.

“Lovely to meet you, Dru. And of course, this is our daughter, Hermione. Maïa, Magistra Rosier.” Apparently she was assuming that ‘undergraduates’ included children in general. 

It’s a fair assumption.

Missus Doctor Granger paused expectantly for a moment, then prompted Hermione, “Say hello, Maïa.”

“Oh! Um. How do you do, Magistra?”

“How do you do?” she murmured back. “Well met, Emma, Dan. Now, James, if you’re quite finished teasing your friend, we should go. I absolutely despise crowds.” That, Jay thought, was probably why the crowd had edged away from them — apparently unconsciously — as soon as Dru appeared, giving them a few feet of breathing room in every direction. 

“You could have written Andi and Cissa letters or something,” Jay pointed out. “I got to Paris just fine by myself last time. I didn’t even get arrested or anything. And I think I could probably break into your flat, now.”

Dan gave him a look like that was something he shouldn't have said aloud, but Emma laughed.

Exchanging letters significantly prolongs negotiations and the process of airing one’s grievances, and if I hadn’t headed off their concerns about your general wellbeing, they almost certainly would have demanded to drop by to check up on you at some point in the next few weeks. As it is, I’ve made a commitment for us to make an appearance at the Farley Family Reunion over Lammas to assure them that I have not driven you mad with my insane demands and relentless criticism. And as I said, I wanted to meet Miss Granger. 

Well, yeah, you said that, but you barely even said ‘hi’ before ‘okay, let’s go’...

Yes, but we haven’t left yet, have we? “It has been brought to my attention that allowing children to travel alone is seen as irresponsible in some circles these days, regardless of whether the children in question have previously demonstrated their ability to resist the temptation to blow up a train, especially since the experience will no longer be a novel one, and therefore your inclination to liven up the journey by doing something ill-advised likely stronger.”

Dan’s slightly appalled, disapproving expression moved to Dru. 

“You could teach me to apparate, that would be a novel experience.”

“If you manage a sufficient degree of control by the end of August and can show me the arithmancy proving your theoretical ability to cast the spell, I’ll teach you to apparate as a reward.”

Really?! YES!

Hermione apparently couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Er. Don’t you need a licence to apparate?”

“Only if you’re bothered by breaking laws intended to protect you from yourself,” Dru drawled. “Though that does remind me: your wand, Miss Granger?” She held out a hand expectantly.

“What? Why?” Hermione asked, drawing it from her pocket, but hesitating to hand it over. 

“Because the Restriction for Underage Wizardry is absolutely unreasonable, and it’s frankly criminal to forbid muggleborns to practise wizardry for months at a time.”

“Well, yes, but what does that have to do with my wand?” she asked, passing the instrument to Dru, who held it flat on her palm and tapped the junction between the shaft and handle twice with her own wand, revealing a little silver ring inscribed with absolutely minute runes.

Dru slipped it off the wand and handed both back to Hermione. “Trace Rings send a report to the Ministry whenever a wand bearing one casts a spell, alerting them to the fact that an underage mage has broken the statute in question. That’s still live, you should put it back before you return to your lessons as I expect at least a few of your professors will have the skill to notice its absence.”

Is there one of those on my wand, too?

Yes, but you’ll be behind wards capable of blocking the signal all summer, so it can stay there. “There are also specific detection wards over the homes of muggleborns to alert the Ministry to any magic cast within a certain radius, generally extending several metres beyond the boundaries of the property, so you still shouldn’t practise at your home or that of any other underage muggleborn, but any other secure area where you will not be chanced upon by anyone outside of the Statute would be fine.”

“...Thank you,” Hermione said, staring at the little ring with a somewhat dumbfounded expression.

“Is that safe?” Dan asked. Clearly Hermione got her tendency for obnoxious rule-following from him. “We were sent a letter to the effect that Maïa should only practise with an adult mage to supervise her.”

Dru shrugged. “It takes real effort and malicious intent to harm anyone with Class One and Two spells. The general prohibition is intended more to protect the Statute of Secrecy than to protect the caster or anyone in their general vicinity, and your daughter strikes me as a responsible young woman. So long as she is careful to practise well out of sight of anyone not in the know, the danger is minimal. 

“For that matter, so long as you are confident of their ability and willingness to keep Secrecy, I would consider it safe for her to demonstrate a few elementary charms for your extended family as well. Personally, I would recommend telling all of her biological aunts and uncles. Their children are statistically more likely to be magical as well, and I suspect more muggle parents would be accepting of magic in their children if they expected it, rather than having it sprung upon them. If any of their children are magical, the teams responding to their accidental magic will eventually realise that they know, but French and Aquitanian authorities tend to be more reasonable than their British counterparts. If they have to legilimise someone to realise that they already know, that person obviously hasn’t been spreading tales, and can self-evidently be trusted to keep that knowledge.”

Dan seemed rather doubtful about all this casual breaking of laws she was suggesting, but Emma said, “Thank you, Druella. I’m certain it will be beneficial for Hermione to keep in practice with her spellcasting over the summer, and we will consider your advice regarding Secrecy.”

“Think nothing of it. Now, however, we really must be going. James?”

“Bye, Hermione. Mister and Missus Doctor Granger. Have a good summer.”

“See you in September, Jay,” she responded, either unable to bring herself to wish him a good summer after teasing her in front of her parents, or distracted trying to decide whether being able to practise magic over the summer was worth breaking the law.

The adults exchanged their pleasantries as well, and then the Grangers turned to head toward the muggle side of the station, Dan whispering to Emma about what the hell was that, and Emma telling him equally quietly that he knew all those twats in Georgia fancied themselves gentry the same as the self-proclaimed magical nobility, he shouldn’t be surprised she could play along.

Ah, that explains the accent, Dru commented. She couldn’t hear them — apparently ridiculously good senses were a Black thing, not a fairy thing — but she could eavesdrop on Jay eavesdropping on them. Ready? She held out a hand to apparate them away.

He took it without hesitation, more ready than he could possibly express for this summer to actually start. Absolutely.