Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Harry found his location easily enough. He had walked most of the way amongst other things, and now in the late dawn hours sat in front of the suburban home that gave him little chills. It wasn’t the same kind of monstrosity that the Dursleys had owned. The houses were not identical, and the lawns were average grass, fake grass, to crazy rock imaginations. There were kid toys scattered over one lawn in particular, and the houses weren’t so much upper middle class as they were comfortable, with none of them having a second floor.
The differences helped subside the itching in his skin. But Harry still felt uneasy here. Or perhaps he had been uneasy for a long time, and he was just acknowledging it now?
He had carefully sat himself between two bushes under a house window across the street from his target. None of the houses were stirring, all occupants asleep. Harry raised his hands and rubbed his face—he just felt weary. Not sleeping for a night didn’t help, obviously. But his body was just about done with him.
His mind was about done with him. It felt like the world was closing in on him, and it was driving him crazy. Harry was determined to keep his focus on the present, if only to resist the temptation to second guess his decisions over the past several hours. He had made his choices—and he had made them with as much information as he had had at the time. Perhaps not all of them had been for the best (London was still burning, last he heard on the news from the house he was perched under—but he could guess that the international platform of wizardry would send help over this emergency), but they were his decisions. He had made them. And that was that.
Harry only had this one thing to finish before he would go to headquarters. Go and collect the blond man, and then work on getting him returned to where he belonged. From there, Harry would….
Well, he’d choke down his memories.
Harry’s mind unhelpfully changed that thought to ‘choke on his memories’.
Merlin, even Harry was tired of himself. That was in poor taste.
(Harry might need to see a mind healer from all this stress. He felt not whole and more fractured than he could remember feeling in a long, long time. But question was, would Frank out him to the world? Vilify him? Such services would be impossible to get if there were those after his life. Harry Potter—the man who made London burn. Harry could only imagine the Daily Prophet's most likely headlines now..)
He reached down and inched the sleeve of his jumpsuit down enough to look at the wispy light the bracelet gave off. Frank was a mystery Harry didn’t know how to really feel about. He was a manipulative tosser, but Harry could understand and relate with the steps that he had done for the most part. It wasn’t too terrible, in the long run.
It was just that it was him. It was Harry and his memories that had been so attacked.
Harry felt his thinned out rage flicker back in to place—and he hated the fact that he was just so used to being angry now that it was like a state or normality. Being so angry all the time was not normal. It was something he had had to live with while on the run from Death Eaters. But this was not the same. Harry hoped that he hadn’t been living his other life in a state of similar anger. Because then those memories were going to be exhausting as well. Of course, Harry also considered the fact that that he had more than his memories altered for that strange bait trap that the unspeakables had placed him down for.
He would need to make sure nothing else was attached or altered to him, before he left this place. Harry slowly leaned forward until he could rest his forehead on his criss-crossed legs. Harry raised his hands and ruffled his hair, pressing his dull nails against his scalp.
Let’s finish this.
Harry ruffled his hair a few more times before he sat up all the way. He had been here since late at night, and was rather stiff. He reached behind himself and pressed his knuckles against his back. A bit of pressure against the tense muscles of the small of his back. He rolled his shoulders, stretched as much as he could within his leafy confines of his hide-away, and then rolled out of the bushes. He rolled on to his feet, and neatly moved in to a walk as he moved to his simple target.
Harry didn’t walk up to the front door. He skirted to the side and found the wooden gate to the side. Harry inspected it with his eyes, letting them slowly go out of focus. He grinned to himself when he caught a blue shimmer. Harry blinked his eyes back in to focus, and used his wand to poke at the shimmer. Harry watched the lock unlatch, and he stepped through the wooden gate. Harry gently eased it shut, and padded along the narrow side yard of the house. He eased around the corner, and grimaced at the small backyard. It was nicely done, of course. It was just claustrophobic small.
He looked up to the pinking sky before he tapped his wand on the handle of the backdoor. He heard the click. The door eased open with silence, and Harry wiped off his boots on the outside matt. The house was night dark inside with all of the shutters closed. Everything was expanded with wizard space, and Harry mentally groaned at the tightening in his stomach, even as he shut the door.
Harry had always hated this house. Hermione had called it a good ‘starter house’ when she had helped him pick it out. Harry hadn’t had a crazy amount of funds, but he had had enough for this. He had set this up for Teddy once he had successfully entered the Auror program. It was well taken care of, smelled pleasantly, and was extensively warded and charmed.
But Harry had been here during the charming. The Weasley family had all pitched in for this building when they could. Charms, wards, as much magic as possible—Teddy had, technically, been his first child. He had been desperate to have everything to give Teddy anything he could ever want. To give Teddy the life Harry had never been able to have as a child.
Harry ran his left hand over a cool bit of counter. His glove didn’t allow him to feel much but a faint almost cold sensation, but Harry imagined it was cool like ice to the touch. His eyes looked to the walls, and he found a green theme there that was neutral enough to be soothing. The kitchen was cozy, but there were no clues and no people there. Harry drifted out of the kitchen and in to a hallway, which he noticed went to the front door. Harry slowed down when he spotted the picture frames hanging on the long hall walls.
A flick of his wrist, and his wand was alight enough so he could see the pictures.
A lovely photo of Remus and Tonks. Harry recognized 12 Grimmauld Place in the background, along with the ancient looking cozy chairs the two were perched on. A moving picture, with the two leaning forward and talking to each other. They were so focused on each other, and even years later Harry found his heart clenching in sympathy. Harry stood and watched them for a time, wondering what the magic of this photograph had captured. They were speaking deeply, and looked so in love.
A shimmering flash of red out of the corner of his eye had Harry turning to check. There was nothing there. But that shade of red matched the memory he had of Ginny’s hair—
Harry moved on to the next. So many photos on the walls—a photo of Harry holding up a young Teddy. Oh, the both of them had been so young then. And a few of Andromeda. Giant group photos of the Weasley family, encircling young Teddy. Harry mourned, then, biting the inside of his mouth as he continued his walk. Each picture of Teddy’s smiling face as he got older. The friendships he had cultivated with Harry’s children were so easy to see. Harry had treated Teddy like a son, and Teddy had been the older brother for all of his children.
Eventually, Harry found the spot where he could notice the difference. He looked to Teddy’s aged face and knew that the smile was different. The quirk of his mouth just a little bit off. The look in his eyes was wrong, but perhaps not wrong enough for other to have noticed? Perhaps not completely off, but Harry could see the differences no matter how subtle they were. A father always understood all the nuances of the faces of his children. Harry took a moment to take a breath, breathing carefully—Teddy had married and had children before he was replaced.
His wife—Harry didn’t know who she was. Couldn’t place her. Teddy had had four children. Harry calculated their ages and knew they’d all be old enough to have left home by now. Harry cut off the light to his wand and took a final deep breath. Harry shook his head, straightened his back, and prowled ahead. This offender to his line would not survive this morning. Harry needed to right this wrong as best he could.
Harry found the bedroom, was inside—and he took a moment slide open a shutter to bring the dim morning light in to the room.
A large bed that should have held two but only held one.
An old man laid there, an eye mask hiding his eyes as he breathed deeply. Harry stood next to his sleeping form, kicking the worn slippers away from where he wanted to stand. The man was wrinkled and grey, but his skin had a healthy tone from what he could tell.
Blue pinstripe pajamas. They were so familiar, and looked terribly much like the ones Harry himself used to wear. Except for the hand stitched ‘EL’ on the left breast.
Harry raised his wand, mentally noting the creak of the leather of his body suit.
Reparifarge.
Harry found himself unsurprised that once the blue-white light faded, there was no difference in Not-Teddy’s face. It mattered not, Harry had more things that could be tried.
Specialis revelio.
The blue-white light of this spell dissipated with no change again. Harry resisted a sigh as he waved his wand again. And again and again. That eye cover must be especially good, since Not-Teddy had yet to stir. Of course, by the time Harry exhausting his revealing spells, Teddy had yet to show any change. Harry lowered his wand and watched the Not-Teddy.
It was practically morning now.
Harry raised his eyes and looked to the bedroom again. A dead wife, as shown by the terrible neatness of ‘her side’ of the bed. The pressed pillows and sheets. Harry looked down to Not-Teddy, moving to put his hands on his hips. His fingertips brushed over the lump of the muggle gun in his too big pockets. Harry burned—but he wasn’t blind to the continued pictures of Not-Teddy with his ‘grandchildren’. There had been love here, even then.
Harry threw his magic down before he thought better of it. An upward flick of his wand and—
Levicorpus!
A green explosion of light—
Not-Teddy yelped as he was hauled in to the air, dangling by his left ankle as he flailed around. He ripped the eye mask from his face and gapped at Harry. Before the wizard could wave his hand, Harry deliberately snatched up the wand on the bed-side table. This was not his godson’s wand—even if it looked like it. It didn’t feel like it.
“Who—!” Not-Teddy started.
“Give me your name.” Harry intoned, eyes intent on the startled, and wary eyes in Teddy’s face.
The old man was practically spitting as he squirmed in the spell. Harry could feel the wizard muscling along against the jinx, but Not-Teddy would need a lot more time than Harry would give him to break through. “I refuse. You, who have—“ Harry could feel the tirade coming from a mile away, but refused to sit and listen.
Harry threw an overpowered cheering charm at the old man’s face, and held it until the laughs sounded like they were being ripped out of the old man between gasping breaths. Until the tears were streaming down.
A cancel of the charm—“your name.”
Not-Teddy clicked his mouth shut.
Harry used the tickle charm this time. Used it until Not-Teddy was a gasping red faced man with a gapping fish mouth as he struggled to breath.
Harry canceled the charm again.
He didn’t ask, but the breathless Not-Teddy stumbled through “E-Edward Lupin.” The old man gingerly touched his sides as he continued gasping for breath. His eyes locked with Harry’s own. Harry could feel the accusation behind the look that Not-Teddy was giving him. The furrow of his eyebrows and the stretch of his wrinkles made Harry want to reach out and punch. It made him want to be violent, in ways he hadn’t been since the days of the battle for Hogwarts.
The desperate kind of anger that only had one logical thing to blame. But was impossible to throw one’s anger on said logical thing. Harry was starting to feel like this was going to be a very similar situation. Just the look on Not-Teddy’s face brought that sinking sensation. Brought that banking to his rage.
“This will be easier, if you answer me the first time,” Harry filled in the silence with a tilt of his head, pushing his feelings and wrecked rage down as best as he could.
Not-Teddy narrowed his eyes at Harry, and Harry couldn’t help but admit to himself that the unspeakables had done a fabulous job with this. But it was the little things that Harry knew was off. Things that were hard to completely transfer over no matter the spell work. Like the fact that Teddy hadn’t suffered any uncontrollable metamorphmagus induced changes. The slight distress of the charms should have thrown Teddy’s biology out of control. Teddy, even as a young boy, the slightest tickle would send his hair in to rainbows.
So, Harry hardened his heart.
“Now. Do you love your family, Mr. Lupin?” Harry smiled, feeling the odd scars on his face stretch in ways that made him want to claw them off. He saw Teddy’s slightly trembling hands, and Harry felt that rage flicker back to life within his body. “Because, I can assure you, you will regret that soon enough.”
It was the silence that did it, this time. The old man drew himself together in a pained growing rage…
People are always the easiest to read when they’re hurting.
“Legilimens!” Harry jabbed his wand at Not-Teddy—and Harry felt his mind explode in white sparks. He gritted his teeth, groaning even as he refused to lose eye contact with Not-Teddy.
The information—it hurt. Nonsensical in the sum of it, but Harry did his best to pick things apart, even as he noticed that Not-Teddy was breathing hard and sweating profusely, eyes occasionally rolling as he struggled to push Harry out of his mind. Harry, if nothing else, could legilimens, even if he couldn’t protect well against such an attack itself.
In the end, Harry discovered exactly what he didn’t want to. He ended the spell, stupefied Not-Teddy, and dropped the old man back on to his bed.
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes against the migraine that had formed. It was all quickly getting foggy, he didn’t have many instances where he actually used the legilimens spell and this result was something that normally happened to it. But that still didn’t hide the fact that there was nothing else inside this man but Teddy. A terrible echo of his godson had been built upon this soul.
The brains that the unspeakables harvested were terrible, terrible things.
Harry was glad they burned. That all of it burned. Especially the unspeakables.
But that still left him here, with a man he couldn’t identify, who knew no other life than that was Edward Lupin. Who had no memories outside of being Edward Lupin. Who loved them as much as Teddy hoped his actual godson loved his family.
The rage had dissipated in to a cool ash in his chest.
This monstrosity that had happened to this man wasn’t even made with the false memory charm. These did not feel like false memories. They had an itch to them that just wasn’t here. There was no adding.
((This was him. This was Harry. This was what Harry had been until Frank meddled. His skin crawled and he was too cold and too hot at the same time. Harry wanted to scream and he wanted to run. He needed to bunker down and protect himself. This would not be him ever again—Harry refused to be stripped of who he was ever again and be made once more like a blank slate. He refused. Harry vowed to make the world burn before he would allow such a thing.))
Harry pointed his want at the man who was now Teddy. “Obliviate,” Harry murmured after the slow rotation of his wrist. After the light dissipated, Harry let his wand drop to his side.
Harry reached out with his free hand, his fingers slightly shaking as he touched Teddy’s brow. His gloved fingers delicately slid over what remained of Teddy’s wispy hair. “… you’re not my godson.” Harry murmured, “… my godson is dead.” Harry felt numb, just speaking his words as he was. “But Teddy’s children, his real children, live on.” Teddy, in a sense, would live on. Just as Harry lived on after his own parents passed.
“The man you are—you are dead. And this remains.” Harry took a step back. And then another. He was down the hall soon enough.
—this is not me. This is not me. This is not me. I exist. I exist. I am unaltered. I am me. These are my memories. I am a whole person—
A slightly moving form in one of the many photographs on the wall caught his eye. It entranced his frazzled mind and nudged him out of his numb mental screaming. He was entranced by the slow, calming sway of the body, and the seemingly endless scream in his head listlessly settled and disappeared. Harry didn’t hesitate when he reached out and yanked down the picture, frame and all. The photograph of Harry and a toddler Teddy in his arms, gently swaying little Teddy to sleep. Harry tucked the frame and picture under his arm and continued on his way.
This was all that remains.
This was evidence.
Harry pressed the photograph and frame to his heart, mentally timing his breath as he walked out the backdoor, through the narrow side ‘alley’ next to the house, and back to the street. He pressed it to his heart and wished that his anger was back.
Being angry was better than being scared. Better than the anxiety that riddled his bones and made his eyes burn.
If Ron was at his side, he’d feel safer.
If Hermione was here—he’d feel more confident.
They had always worked best when they were together. It was why he and Ron were partners. Were a team. Harry took deep breaths through his mouth. Slowly letting them out and he picked up his walking pace.
A future he had to accept was yawning open before him. And Harry was charging right in to it. His wife was old and remarried and thought he was dead. All of his children were old, with their own lives, and had lived nearly their entire lives without him. His godson was dead. Everyone else had potentially been memory charmed or obliviated or even replaced.
… Harry had never wanted this.
And he’d never had an answer as to why this had happened. History books were written by the victor, and Harry could only guess the reasoning behind the unspeakables and their actions. Their reasoning probably burned up in the department of mysteries along with everything else.
Harry felt he was far enough from Teddy’s home, and promptly apparated himself to an alley that was close enough to Grimmauld place that he would be within the warded property soon. Perhaps five more minutes. Of course, that left him with five more minutes of his thoughts before he could focus on his actions.
The sky was raining ashes and the weak morning light helped cast even more in grey. The air was filled with wailing sirens, and Harry could see evidence of evacuations that had emptied this neighborhood. All of the cars that should have been on the streets were gone. He absently casted a bubble head charm, as well as a quick notice-me-not. There were the shouts of firemen that he ignored. The ground looked a bit wet, and Harry supposed that this was a neighborhood that would soon be lost as well.
Grimmauld Place was going to burn.
Harry climbed the small stoop with a weary acceptance. When he made it to the top, he turned and looked to the sky. The orange of the fiendfyre as it approached made the ashes darker here. Harry took a deep breath and he swear he could smell despair.
Harry Potter, the man who burned London.
Harry reached out toward the orange tinted grey sky and spread his fingers. For a moment, he debated just laying down and letting himself burn up along with all of the no doubt innocent lives that had been lost. Would that be penance for his rash actions? Would it change anything? Would it even matter? The orange was so inviting that Harry just—
He dropped his hand.
There it was again. The burning in his chest. Harry sighed, and knew he wouldn’t accept just laying down to die. He had already done that once. Laid himself out as defenseless and let himself die. It had led him to here, that decision.
Harry turned on his heel and stomped in to Grimmauld Place.