Survivor

The house was quiet as Harry sat on the couch with Iris; it was peaceful. Decorations were done, at least until Iris found something else she wanted to cram into the house. Harry wouldn’t have even been able to recognize the place if he were to floo here without seeing the change himself. He would've thought that he'd accidentally teleported into Santa’s personal workshop. 

Still, he was happy with it.

There were so many lights of red and green hung around the place, and their tree was so covered with ornaments that there was less green visible on it than the colors of the various creations they'd hung on its branches. The walls were painted and animated to look like their house was in the center of a toy-filled paradise. The train was much longer now, Harry having added a car with the help of Iris, and model airplanes were flying around near the trim of the ceiling. There were presents painted on the wall behind the tree to match with the real ones sitting under it, and wind-up toys marched along in the background with minds of their own. The dogs he'd painted at the beginning of the break were present, of course, but he chose to pretend as though he'd never created those abominations.

The fire was an equally artistic part of the house's design, burning an attractive mixture of contrasting red and green. In their hands were two cups of hot chocolate, and in their hot chocolate were a few of the snowmen marshmallows that Iris had made and animated from the veritable ton of them they'd bought at a muggle convenience store. Jason was coiled up in Iris’s lap because she was wearing a very large, very exuberant ugly sweater that was currently warming the snake on top of the fire they had going.

Harry, of course, had his own, but his sweater was on the lighter side and, therefore, not quite as warming. He was donning a green sweater that had a fantastical snake designed to appear as though it were wrapping around his upper body. It was supposed to be an ugly sweater.

But even things made to be intentionally ugly could only look so bad when Iris had a hand in their creation.

Hedwig was perched upon a small pole that Iris attached near the ceiling, and she was glaring at the painted planes as they flew around the room. Harry had a feeling that she would’ve downed them in under half an hour if they weren’t merely pieces of art moving around a wall. It was erratic but peaceful; he felt at ease.

That was when a knock on the door alerted them to new arrivals, and Harry’s muscles began to tighten. As good as he was at keeping his emotions to himself, he was unable to completely rid himself of the stress piling on top of him due to the imminent arrival of Iris's parents. 

The stranger was rather disappointed that he was so invested in the approval of Iris's parents and had tried his hand at convincing him to throw his cares away. The man was of the opinion that Iris's parents were only going to hurt him. Of course, that was his opinion about all of the people close to him, so he wasn't sure if that particular view held any merit. Still, a broken clock was right twice a day, and he found himself hoping that this wasn't going to be one of those times that the stranger actually hit the nail on the head when it came to social interactions.

Jason slid off of Iris's lap and went to coil under the tree. He was unsurprised that the tree snake enjoyed that specific Christmas decoration, but it did make him slightly sad to think about how long Jason had spent without anything like that to give him comfort. For years, the snake had been stuck in that cupboard with him. Harry was determined to find a way to give Jason some of what he'd missed by sticking with him through everything. 

His unofficial guardian walked over to the door and opened it to reveal an old-ish couple standing together in the snow. "Hello, Mum, Dad, we've just been enjoying the decorations!"

Harry got up from the couch and slowly approached the front door as the couple was let into the house. The man took off his coat and hung it on a rack by the door with a mumbled word and a flick of his wand. Seconds later, the woman's coat was hung as well. He watched the man look around the room with a slightly pinched expression before hiding it when he looked upon his daughter.

"Well, it's certainly… interesting," he awkwardly said in a way that made Harry suspect he thought the house was anything but.

Harry was immediately unimpressed, and he held back a frown when he watched the way Iris's smile dimmed just a little. It wasn’t difficult to tell that they were related the second her parents noticed his approach and looked over at him. She looked more like her mother than her father, but she held features from both. 

Her father struck a rather imposing figure. He was tall and had smooth, wavy, black hair that connected to a full, fluffy beard. His eyes were dark, and he had a skin tone that Harry assumed to be somewhere around olive. He looked to be around his 50s, but he had no way to confirm. 

Iris's mother was much shorter than both her husband and her daughter. She had dirty blonde hair that was a bit darker than Iris's. Her eyes were blue as well, almost identical to her daughter’s. She, however, wore glasses, something Iris didn't have, and also had a much thinner face than Iris's, which was more round like her father's.

More important than their looks, though, was their expressions. They were looking at him with obviously forced smiles and insincerity gushing from their eyes. They didn't know occlumency, so their minds were even more expressive to Harry than their faces, and he could feel the uncomfortableness and disapproval they attempted to cover with a faux air of happiness. 

The stranger could sense much more than him, and he already considered himself to be justified in his opinion of them.

"They reek of superiority and condescension. They are but worms, Harry, who think they are better than you. I advise you to let it drop. You do not have to endure these fools for her."

Harry ignored the stranger's advice in favor of looking to Iris for some kind of subtle instruction on what he was supposed to do. She seemed to shake herself out of her minor fall from her normal elated attitude and walked over to Harry in order to properly introduce them. 

“Mum, Dad,” she said while putting her hand slowly and lightly on Harry’s shoulder to ensure his comfortability with her action. He had long since gotten used to the way she tended to seek out contact with him, so he didn’t react. “This is Harry. I’ve been taking care of him since the beginning of the summer. He just started his first year at Hogwarts!

“Harry,” Iris said next. “This is my Dad, Ian Garcia, and my mum, Chloe Garcia.”

“Since summer, you say?” Iris’s father, Ian, asked before pausing somewhat awkwardly with a quirked eyebrow. “And is this… an official thing?”

Iris once again faltered under the slightly derogatory tone in her father’s voice but stood proudly next to Harry. “You know that the Ministry doesn’t care who takes in the children coming from muggle families, and my name is on anything it needs to be for his teachers to know who to contact. Harry’s an independent boy already. It’s fine to leave it like this until we decide if it should become official.”

Her father nodded stiffly, and her mother made a poor attempt at hiding the unpleasant look threatening to show itself on her face. Harry did not like these people already. The way they acted held all of the same fraudulence and fake niceties his relatives used, and they had a way of very subtly looking down on them so far that was extremely annoying. Still, it was obvious that Iris wanted this to work, and he handled enough people he didn’t like on a daily basis to interact with these people for a day or two.

It was at this point that the alarm rune went off on the oven, and Harry immediately turned to walk into the open kitchen and tended to the ham he’d been baking. It’d been going for two hours and a half, and it was time to take it out and glaze it before blasting it until it caramelized and reached the right temperature. It was already looking delicious, but that was hardly surprising to him. He’d made this exact meal countless times before.

“What’s your boy doing over there, Iris?” Harry heard Chloe Garcia ask under her breath from her position at the door. “Are you really letting him cook?”

Harry’s eyebrow twitched, but he kept his mouth shut and continued to glaze the ham. Iris could handle this, and he was going to sit there and let her. He'd endured much worse at his relatives than ridicule, and this was only going to be for a day or so. He could take it, and Iris guaranteed him that he didn’t have to act differently around the house.

"I've taught him how to use everything, and he’s responsible in the kitchen. If he likes to cook and he's safe while doing it, then I don't see why I should stop him," was Iris's defence.

Harry thought it looked like her mother didn't quite agree, but she let it drop and followed Iris to the living room couch. He shifted an ear to listen in on their conversation while he babysat the cooking ham. It felt surreal, in a way, for him to do something he used to do a lot at his relatives while in Iris’s house, but he wanted to hear what they were saying too badly for him to pass up the opportunity to eavesdrop. 

Iris did say it was his home though, so he was technically allowed to hear any conversations he wanted so long as they were in a communal area, even if most of the people talking didn’t know he had the ability to do so. He ended up caring very little about what they had to say. They were discussing Iris’s career and how much success she’d been having. 

It was all so… superficial.

The more he heard them talk, the more he disliked them. It turned out that they were exactly like the Dursleys would’ve been if Harry hadn’t existed. They seemed to be obsessed with image and reputation. Iris told him that they hardly interacted, but all they could think to ask about was her financial situation and her position among the most prominent artists in Britain. 

It didn't feel like they were talking to their daughter; it was more like they were analyzing a trophy, and its value was measured by the size of her accomplishments. Harry was certain these people were not anywhere near as approving of her career when she'd started, not when they cared so much about how famous and rich she was. These types of people grated on him, not because they were bad people but because they were petty and shallow.

These people were, in this aspect, at least, even worse than the Dursleys. Petunia and Vernon loved their own son as he was, vile though that person might've been. They bragged about his accomplishments, but they doted on him regardless of them. These people seemed to love her for her accomplishments, not independently of them. 

It was at this point that they started shifting from Iris’s success to his. He could hear the scrutiny in their tones and taste the ridicule in the air. His pointy, orange-tinted ear twitched with agitation, and he levitated the dishes over to the dining room table with a whispered incantation. He wished to one day possess the sheer skill that Iris displayed with the simplistic charm, but he reluctantly decided many months ago that he was simply incapable of levitating multiple things at the same time with any true amount of control. 

One after the other, the food he'd made floated over to the table until he cleared his throat to signal that it was time to eat. His ear morphed back before he beckoned them, and he sat himself in the chair that customarily belonged to Iris. Technically speaking, they often ate meals wherever they fancied having them, but his spot was normally across from her if they chose to eat at the table. There was no way in hell he was about to sit next to her parents though, so he chose to take a spot next to Iris despite the fact that he gave up his customary spot at the table to one of her relatives.

Slowly, they meandered over, and Iris took a spot next to him with a questioning raise of an eyebrow. In response, he subtly glanced over to her parents before rolling his eyes. He saw the way a corner of her mouth turned upward, and he counted his action as a success. Truthfully, he was enjoying this much less than what could properly be displayed with an eye roll. His feelings, however, were secondary to making sure she had a decent time today. If that required him to show a bit of his usual attitude despite the fact that he wasn’t really feeling it, then he would gladly make the sacrifice. 

He felt somewhat vindicated by the expressions on their faces when they realized how good he was in the kitchen. He was brilliant, and he knew it. If Petunia couldn’t find something to criticize with his cooking, then he doubted the Garcias could somehow stumble upon a flaw. Iris’s parents admittedly managed to seem more scummy than his own relatives when it came to the things they valued in their children, but none could outdo the Dursleys in the area of demeaning him. 

Still, they tried…

They tried so hard.

For some reason that eluded Harry, the Garcias relentlessly pursued something to hold against him. They weren’t blatantly rude, and they didn’t try to insult him, but it was so very clear that they wanted to dislike him, wanted to find a reason why he was unworthy or lacking. If they weren’t going to find that reason in his cooking skills, then they’d go somewhere they could. 

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Garcia?” Harry asked with a practiced smile filled with innocence in an attempt to shift the conversation away from himself as he did so often in the muggle world.

It was always better to focus on them than to let their spotlights shine on him. A diligent watcher would always find what they wanted eventually.

“I work in the Department of Magical Registration at the Ministry of Magic,” he said, sounding rather proud of himself.

What the hell that was, Harry had no idea. It sounded dreadfully boring though.

“it is boring," the stranger whispered to him. "But it is also a very dangerous department. Anyone with magical abilities that are deemed particularly special or unique are compelled to register with the Ministry by law. They are then tracked and monitored. Your animagus ability requires a registration, and your form would draw even more surveillance than usual. Legilimency and occlumency are also on the list."

Harry forced himself to remain unaffected, but he was inwardly scowling at the thought of being monitored and controlled. The Ministry sought to limit and contain him because his abilities were beyond what they were comfortable with. Well, they'd surely not be learning anything about him. His previous desire to keep his abilities to himself were just expanded tenfold. 

"And when were you going to tell me about this?" Harry irritably asked. 

"When it became important again," the stranger said with a shrug. "After we made our alliance, you never had another chance to show your abilities, so wasting time on Ministry affairs didn’t seem important. Just don’t reveal your animagery to this Ian Garcia, and you will be fine.”

“And your wife?” Harry asked with a nod at Ian’s answer.

The woman interjected to speak for herself. “I work in the Control and Regulation of Magical Creatures.”

“Another department that is mundane but dangerous,” the stranger supplied for his benefit. 

Harry thought he could work that department out for himself. Honestly, he was just glad that some people cared about how dangerous magical creatures were. He was still wary to approach the black lake after finding out they had fucking mermaids in there. Not in a million years.

“What about yourself, Harry?” Iris’s father asked, using a name more familiar than Harry would’ve preferred. “How's your school year going?”

“I’m doing very well in most subjects,” he decided to say, unwilling to go deeper into his skill sets and deficiencies. 

He would converse with them, but he wouldn’t humor them.

“And what house are you in?” Iris’s mother asked curiously.

Harry saw the way Iris’s brow twitched at the question, and he knew that a truthful answer wasn’t going to be looked upon with fondness by her parents. He considered, for a moment, lying to save himself the trouble. He was told, however, that she didn’t want him to change for the sake of her parents, so he didn’t.

“I’m in Slytherin,” he answered.

Harry knew how uncomfortable that statement made them. Close-minded, dull, or naive people tended to think in such unrealistic dichotomies. He'd said it before, and he'd pointed out very clearly that Ronald was one such person. There was good, there was bad, and a person could only be one or the other. To most, Voldemort was bad. Since Voldemort’s support came from Slytherin, the whole house was bad. When the whole house was bad, the things they did were bad, the magic they used was bad, and the ideas they supported were bad. 

It was a vicious and unforgiving view of life that allowed the onlooker to view the world in simplistic terms and without any need for critical thinking. It also meant that absolutely nothing he did could ever convince them otherwise. Since he was, at his core, morally flawed, every action he took was equally suspect. That was why Ronald saw him as the bad guy despite the fact that he did absolutely nothing that wasn’t directly provoked. 

This type of viewpoint was common in kids like Ron. The sheltered and the ignorant had little other option but to view the world in the way they did. Adults, however, who had more experience and opportunities to broaden their minds, had no excuse. They remained in their bubble, not because they had no other options but because it was comfortable and easy. 

From there, things only continued to go downhill. Harry realized that there was very literally nothing he could do to change their minds about him, and, after their reaction to his placement in Slytherin and discovering the true hopelessness of proving himself to them, he stopped trying. Eventually, dinner was finished, and everyone moved over to the couch.

Harry had checked out of the conversation so very long ago. 

Oh, he still participated when necessary, but he stopped caring about their subtle looks and snide comments. He treated them as little more than the specks of dust they were. Their words meant less than nothing to him. It was all hollow and substanceless. He let it wash over him like he did with everyone else he didn’t care for. 

It was just a day or two… They were meaningless.

Unfortunately, Harry’s lack of devotion to their digging only seemed to make the tension grow without his knowledge. He was fine with ignoring them, but they obviously weren’t. To make matters worse, it didn’t seem as though Iris was either. When he stopped attempting to defend himself, Iris stepped in for him, and that turned the confrontation from one between strangers to one between family. Those types of conflicts were always worse.

… Harry would know.

The tension expanded and stretched with every word spoken for quite some time until, eventually, it snapped. The catalyst came in the form of a very long tree snake. Jason, apparently tired of sitting around the tree, came out to coil around Harry. The snake was very intelligent, but he had the unfortunate handicap of not being capable of understanding human languages. If he had heard them, Jason would've undoubtedly been astute enough to recognize how badly they would take his presence. As it was, he had no idea, and Harry made him aware of the fact that Iris said he wasn't expected to hide himself just a day before.

Jason slipped around the couch and moved toward Harry's leg with smooth, confident movements. Iris's father was the first to notice, violently throwing out a word that Harry assumed to be from another language as he jumped onto his feet. This led to Iris's mother frantically searching for the cause of her husband's reaction until she saw the snake too and let out a very shrill scream. 

Their reactions, of course, startled Jason. Harry assumed that it probably would've scared him too if he wasn't expecting their exclamations. In response, Jason let out a startled hiss and raised his head. It was reflex, nothing more, but Iris's father took it as a sign of aggression and went for his wand. Electricity coursed, unnoticed, around the back of Harry’s hand, and he prepared himself to do something until Iris jumped in to salvage the situation. 

"Wait!" She commanded. "He isn't dangerous! This is Harry's familiar."

Harry saw the shocked confusion first. Ian Garcia's eyes went from the snake to the owl perched in the corner of the room. Harry understood the point of contention and decided to explain. 

"The owl's name is Hedwig," he told the two visitors. "She’s my owl, but Jason is my familiar."

The two of them looked back toward the snake that Harry indicated. Slowly, he watched their surprise turn to disgust. He didn't need legilimency to tell what their thoughts were, and he recognized their faces without an ounce of difficulty. 

How could he not?

He'd seen it so many times before. It was practically engraved within his mind. The Garcias were just like everyone else. His mind, for whatever damn reason, vaguely flitted to the scene he saw in the library a while ago. Iris's parents looked at him in much the same way Granger was glaring at Longbottom. 

He'd thought… Well, he'd hoped that those looks would no longer affect him. He had so much now that he couldn’t have even dreamed of before. Harry had allies, friends, family.

Despite his hopes, it did affect him. He felt animosity boil inside of him, and he had that indescribable urge to lash out at the source of his ire. He wanted to do something to mitigate the pain, even if it would only make things worse in the future. The stranger felt much the same, and the intensity of their matching emotions began to mix and amplify each other. 

He knew they didn't matter; Harry was aware that they held no true power over him. He was free, and Iris's parents couldn't change that. Still, he eyed the couch they used to sit on and briefly glanced at the walls of Iris's home… their home. 

It was tainted.

His eyes then went to Iris, and he saw her face. She looked even more livid than he felt. He’d never seen something like that on her face; he didn’t think an expression like that was possible for her until now. Realizing that Iris’s parents hurt their own daughter just as much as they hurt him with their actions cut his anger off, and it simmered down on its own. 

Disappointment… That was what he was left with, not for his own sake but for Iris’s. 

One second was what it took for his small scowl to disappear. Two seconds was enough for the anger in his eyes to dull into a carefully held neutral. It was in three seconds that his tensed shoulders were forced into a relaxed position. In four, he was off of the couch and looking at his pseudo-guardian with nothing but the utmost calm presented on his face.

One good thing about not being with the Dursleys anymore was that he didn't have to sit down and take it if he didn't want to.

“I’m going to my room,” he told Iris, and she looked as if she was about to protest until he held up a single hand to stop her approaching words. “I’ll come back out later.”

With that said, he left the living room and entered his own. He flopped onto his bed, and Jason uncoiled himself to lay next to him. The snake seemed concerned, but no words were spoken. He could hear intense conversation through his door, and he was pretty sure he knew the kinds of words that were flying around outside of his room. Old habits were too hard to shake, and his ears transformed to catch what was being said. 

Once the zouwu took over his ability to hear, he was tossed right into the middle of the fight.

“-an’t believe you two!” a voice that most definitely belonged to Iris exclaimed.

“That boy’s familiar is a snake, Iris,” her father shot back. “You know what You-Know-Who did with his!”

“Yes, dad, but You-Know-Who had a wand too, and you almost pulled one to point it in the direction of a small boy!” Iris almost shouted, obviously getting more heated by the second.

“That’s different, and you know it!” 

“No, it isn’t!” Iris snapped. “I brought him into my home, and we found a way to be happy. You don’t have the right to come in here and do this to him! I invited you to my house this year to give us a chance to be a proper family again, for him if not for me!”

“We are a proper family, Iris!” her dad exclaimed loud enough that Harry flinched due to his sensitive, transformed ears. “But that Slytherin in there with a snake hanging off of him isn’t a part of it! You see the way he’s been acting tonight. He’s supposed to be eleven. It isn’t natural!”

“Dad!” Iris shouted back. “He is a child, and I love him! If you can’t accept that, then leave!”

“Honey…” her mother stressed in a voice barely above a whisper, speaking for the first time since he'd started eavesdropping on the argument. “We know you've had trouble conceiving after the… incident… but you don't have to settle for this."

… What?

His skin froze over.

“Get out…” he heard Iris demand in a very low, serious voice.

Harry was still trying to wrap his mind around what he'd just learned, but Iris's parents seemed to have already decided where they stood on things. Her father was the one to speak next.

"Iris," he implored, trying to convince her to see reason. "I know how badly you wanted one, but that boy is bad news, mark my wor-'"

"Get out!" She demanded with much more force, and it was accompanied by a surge of magic. 

Harry’s mind was shooting at kilometers a minute as the front door was opened and violently slammed, hopefully signifying the current absence of Iris's parents. The house was completely silent, almost as if overcompensating for the last few minutes. The stranger was oddly silent as well. He was left with just his thoughts. Unfortunately, those weren't flowing very well at the moment. 

…Couldn't conceive?

Harry wasn't extremely knowledgeable of the particular stages involved with childbirth, but he knew what that meant well enough to draw conclusions from the things he’d heard. She couldn't have kids, so, he assumed, she took him in. That was, at least, what her parents seemed to imply. Iris had never told him that herself. 

Did it matter? Should it?

He didn't tell her about the specifics of his time with the Dursleys. He assumed that she had the same right to her secrets that he did to his own, but the claim that she'd  settled for him stuck to the inside of his skull. He mentioned before that he thought Iris was severely rushing things when she offered to take him in, but, surely, she wouldn’t have…

Right?

He wasn’t sure how long he laid there with his pointed, hairy ears resting against the bed with him, but he assumed it had to have been a while. The stranger was still keeping to himself, probably deciding that, once again, he simply couldn’t stand to watch Harry suffer when it would’ve been so easy for him to take the stranger’s advice and choose to live for himself alone. Harry, though, wasn’t sure that he would describe himself as suffering. 

He thought that it was more apt to claim that he felt numb. He wasn’t sad or angry, not even really worried. Harry wasn’t sure if that was the way he was supposed to feel or if there was a right way to feel in the first place. There wasn’t a chance that he was deceived so badly as to have been tricked into believing that Iris cared for him more than she did. Still, his logical assumption that he wasn’t fooled couldn’t stop him from feeling like he’d been punched in the gut. 

Eventually, he decided that the only way to handle it properly was to get out of his stupid bed and deal with it in person. That was, in his opinion, one of the biggest changes from the Dursleys to Iris. If he had a problem, he had the confidence to talk about it and the trust to believe what he was told. With that in mind, he decided that bringing it up and hearing her response was the best way to figure out what was going on and how he was supposed to react to it. 

It wasn’t like he could trust the words of those two anyhow. 

No, he would ask her, and, so long as he felt as though he was receiving something honest, he would accept her story over her parents. 

With that plan of action decided upon, he stood up and walked out of the room with Jason hung around his shoulders. If the Garcia family was right about anything, it was his connection to his snake. That was, at the very least, true. Harry just didn’t see why it was such a huge deal. 

What he walked into was a scene that matched the one he'd experienced that morning in almost every aspect. The flame was gently flickering with green and red light, heating up the room to a comfortable temperature. The paintings were still doing their own things along the walls, and the room still invoked that feeling of calm that most people would’ve probably described as the opposite of what the chaotic scenery should’ve caused within him. 

On the couch, in the same place she always sat, was Iris. She had a cup of hot chocolate in her left hand, and he assumed that there were probably animated snowmen melting on the surface of her drink. She was curled up under a blanket, and Hedwig was relaxing next to her. Iris’s other hand was absentmindedly stroking Hedwig’s feathers while she stared into the fire with a blank expression. 

Harry gently closed his bedroom door, and she looked over at the noise, giving him a small, close-lipped smile that didn’t have even an ounce of the light it normally did. He got a better look at her once her face was pointed at him, and he noticed that the skin around her eyes was kind of puffy and tinted a light red. 

She’d been crying.

That, for some reason, affected Harry far more than any of the words he’d heard during the vastly shortened stay of her parents. Still, he kept his face neutral and walked over to the same couch she was on, flopping down onto his usual spot when they were sitting by the fire. Once there, he turned to lay his head against the arm of the couch and stretched his legs out, still not coming close to filling out the rest of the space available to him due to his height. Eating, however much that helped his weight, wasn't going to suddenly cure his stunted growth. The stranger suggested that puberty might help.

Harry could only hope.

They both sat in silence for a good bit of time. Harry was trying to discern Iris's exact emotional state. She, on the other hand, was searching for the right words to say. Harry's analysis came to an end first, so he was the one burdened with the difficult task of breaking through the veil of awkwardness they'd unintentionally created.

"Your parents are dicks," was what Harry said with a deadpan expression on his face.

A single laugh burst from her lips, and a smile once again adorned her face. Harry knew he'd chosen his words wisely when the almost unbearable tension between them immediately began to shift toward the light, open, and honest atmosphere that usually surrounded their interactions with each other. That was exactly what Harry wanted: proof that, whatever he might've heard, things weren't going to change on him. 

"Yeah," Iris said with a sigh, sobering slightly. "That's one way to describe them. I’m sorry I even let them come over. I suppose I just hoped that, maybe, things would be different now…"

Harry hesitated for a moment, initially worried that saying what he wanted would ruin what he'd just managed to create with his brilliant application of dry humor. "I… listened to what they said when I left."

Iris's face fell, and she looked as though she might start crying again before glancing away from him and back to the colorful fire. "How much did you hear?"

"Most of it, I think." He admitted, and decided to simply rip the bandaid off. "You… can't have kids?"

He almost regretted saying it when he saw the look on her face. He felt a fleeting temptation to close himself off from everything for the sake of minimizing the intensity of the things currently happening to and around him, but he smashed it as soon as it arrived. He refused to shy away from this. He wasn’t with the Dursleys anymore. This was his family, and, no matter how much he might’ve wanted to, Harry wasn’t about to run from his family.

“It…” she started, trailing off a bit due to her struggle to get out whatever it was she wanted to tell him. “Isn’t likely.”

“Is it just that?” he asked, trying and failing to keep the worry from his voice. “Or is it dangerous to you?”

“No, it’s independent,” she answered. “I’m fine… aside from that.”

With his worries for her safety done away with and his immediate questions answered, he fell silent once again. His previous determination to bring up his other worry was suddenly rather diminished when the time came for him to act. The possibility of it fading away into nothing was actually very real until she decided to say it for him.

“I didn’t settle for you, Harry,” she pressed with a great amount of force.

“I kno-”

“No,” she interrupted firmly. “No, I know you heard them, and I know what you must be thinking. I didn’t settle for you. Yes, I wanted a kid, and, yes, I couldn’t have one. I was ready to have a child in my house, and I chose you. There’s a big difference.”

“And if you could’ve?” he whispered, curling up on the couch and turning on his side to stare at the fire alongside her.

“What?” she asked as she tore her eyes away from the flames to look at the side of her boy’s face.

“If you could’ve had a kid?” Harry asked just as quietly, still fighting the urge to simply leave instead of hearing what could very well be the truth.

“Harry,” she stressed, imploring him with a single word to see things the way she did. 

“If you could’ve had a kid,” he said again, unwilling to not hear her response and dreading the answer at the same time. “Would you have done the same for me?”

Iris’s mouth opened slightly as if to respond. Unfortunately, noise didn't seem capable of leaving it. Her eyes were frozen on the side of Harry’s head, but her mind was whirring as she tried to find some combination of words that could possibly explain the complexity of the situation. Eventually, she found it, but it almost physically pained her to think about using it. Harry was usually a very logical boy, but he was startlingly bad at seeing things objectively when he was in emotional situations. If her words were taken in the wrong way, things were only going to get worse.

Still…

“If your relatives weren’t so horrible,” she proposed, and she watched as Harry’s eyes immediately snapped to her own. “Or if your parents were still here to care for you… would you have decided to accept my offer?”

Harry’s mind rioted over the very thought of it. Her question revolted him, and he knew why. If his parents were alive when he'd met her, would he have chosen to live with Iris?

"I don't know," he eventually answered.

But he knew the real answer.

"Of course, you do, Harry," she said with a small, understanding smile. "If things were different, we might not have chosen to do the things we did, but do you feel as though you settled for me?"

"Of course, not!"

"See?" Iris asked, smiling much more genuinely. "I don't know what might've happened if I’d already had kids, but we decided to make things work, and I love you just as much as I would’ve loved them. Nothing will change that."

Harry’s eyes didn’t shift in the slightest, remaining locked onto her own for quite a few seconds until he gave a small, jerky nod. That response, minimalistic as it was, gave Iris everything she needed. She thought that Harry’s eyes looked just a little misty, but whatever she thought she saw was gone the second he blinked. He slowly sat up on the couch and curled his legs up against his chest, scooting over until his tiny shoulder touched her own. Hedwig sat between them, and Jason slithered over to her and wound up her leg until he was sitting on her lap underneath the blanket.

She leaned away from him and toward the counter next to the couch to grab her wand, and a gentle flick of it summoned the extra hot chocolate she’d already prepared in the kitchen for Harry’s inevitable return to the living room. She handed the mug to him, and he took it with a quiet thanks. Tossing a bit of the gigantic blanket she was using to cover her legs over to him, she took a sip of her mug and leaned back against the couch. For the first time in a few hours, she felt relaxed.

It was almost as though they'd sat on this couch for the entire day, like her parents had never showed up in the first place. 

But they did, and they left their mark.

The words they'd thrown around couldn’t be taken back. She knew that they hurt Harry more than he’d ever admit, and the way those two tarnished the home they'd created made her furious beyond verbal expression. Still, it wasn’t all bad. Her conversation with Harry was now just as permanent as the words of her parents, and it was one that might’ve gone unspoken otherwise.

The house wasn’t perfect anymore, not like it used to be, but that didn’t mean it was worse. She didn’t wish for a perfect house, neither of them did; she asked for a family. As disgusted as she was by the blemish her parents had created, they came out of it stronger, and the conflict didn’t break anything.

No, it wasn’t perfect, but she could handle that. She wasn’t exactly sure how long she stared into the fire with Harry by her side, his familiar in her lap, and his owl sat between them, but a smile eventually wormed its way onto her face. 

Yes, the day was horrible, but now…

Well, things were good.