We could be heroes

We could be heroes

~1~

Everything changed because of a move the Orlick family made. Nathaniel Orlick had been transferred to the Surrey branch of the big corporation he was working for. The chief accountant had been found to be siphoning off money to a private off-shore account and luckily had been caught just in time. But now they needed a more trusted employee to head up the department.

And it changed everything.

But it started with a boy. And surprisingly enough, not the Boy-Who-Lived, though he did have a role to play.

Eight year old Rhys Orlick had just moved to the neighbourhood and hated it with everything in his heart. His parents had hyped it up of course, they'd talked about how now that they weren't in the city he'd have a big house to run around in with a large backyard and he'd get to make new friends. They told him how the new school he'd be attending had a great music program and he'd have so much fun playing in the band with the others.

They had lied.

Because the first day at school and already he was being called 'Greasy Rhysie' and 'Buttlick'. The large backyard he could run around in was more like a wild overgrown grassland, that he mowed bit by bit every day. The big house was ugly and square and looked like every other house on the street and he had already knocked on the door of the wrong houses thrice and gotten his cheeks pulled by musty smelling old ladies for his efforts.

And now, he was being chased by the fat kid and his large friends because he was the fresh meat and a 'flute playing pansy'.

There was nowhere to go, Rhys was cornered. The three chubby kids advanced on him and he pressed against the brick wall behind him just about to close his eyes in preparation for the beating he was sure to get when a pebble flew through the air and bounced off the fattest boy's head. The boy turned in rage and Rhys saw who his saviour was.

It was a tiny kid, small as heck, looking even smaller in the giant clothing he was wearing. His black hair was messy and his green eyes were squinting through broken frames.

"Bullying others now? What would your mummy say if she saw this Dinky Duddums?!" The boy said and the fattest kid flushed while his gang stifled snorts. With a yelled 'After him!' he gave chase to the other boy, leaving Rhys alone and this was where it all began.

The boy, Rhys found out, was Harry Potter. He was Dudley's, or as Rhys had taken to thinking, Dinky Duddums' cousin. Everybody thought he was very nice but they were all very scared of Duddums' gang and wouldn't be Harry's friend.

And Rhys would have gone along with that really, if he weren't the new kid.

Rhys had no one to sit with in the breaks, he had no one to talk to when he was bored.

So he set about making friends with Harry, which turned out to be very difficult.

"Hi, I'm Rhys," He announced with an outstretched hand and instead of taking it, Harry blinked.

"I know," He turned discreetly to where Dudley was glaring at them and said very quietly, "You shouldn't talk to me, they'll chase you even more if you do."

Rhys shrugged. "It's okay. If it's both of us they won't do anything."

Or so Rhys hoped. Harry looked sceptical but at long last chook his hand.

And thus began a beautiful friendship.

"So, you made any new friends?" Rhys' father asked at the end of their first week in Surrey. Rhys hadn't seen him in ages, his father too busy with the move and dealing with the movers. Their truck had gone off to the wrong place and when it finally arrived his Mum and Dad had been set to work fixing that mess as well.

"Well..."

He couldn't tattle on Dinky, but well...

Rhys was worried about Harry.

"There's Harry," Rhys started but his mother cut him off.

"Not Harry Potter? Petunia told me about him, he's a hooligan! I'm not sure I like you hanging out with him Rhys."

And Rhys forgot all about tattling. "Harry's not a hooligan, that Petunia woman's lying!"

"Honestly Rhys, I think she would know, she is his aunt after all."

"Eww, Dinky Duddum's mother?"

"Rhys! We do not talk about people like that!"

"Mum! He's the hooligan, she's obviously lying and blaming it on Harry! Harry's always nice but-" Should he tell her? "But Dudley and his gang always goes after him so everyone's afraid to be his friend."

His parents looked at one another and had one of those silent conversations they always had. Rhys was a bit afraid of them, they had one of those conversations before telling him they were going to move.

"Honey, are you sure you're not just saying that to protect your friend?"

"I am not!" Rhys yelled, "Harry saved me from Dudley and that Polkiss kid!"

"Okay, alright then, we believe you." His mum said but Rhys twisted his mouth, unhappy. It didn't sound like she believed him.

And the truth was, Matilda Orlick didn't believe him. At least, not until she saw a little boy running down into her backyard trying to escape three big boys who were chasing him, who fit her son's descriptions of the bullies very well. It was entirely by accident and she reckoned that was the only reason she even got to see them. Matilda was in the garden trimming the azalea bushes she had just planted. She was hidden by the hedge almost entirely and when the three had disappeared and the smaller one had sunk into the longer grass in the backyard, relaxed, she made her move.

"You must be Harry." She said and the boy squawked, scrambling to his feet, looking around furiously.

"You're...I thought...I mean I didn't know someone had taken the house. I-I'll go." He made to leave and Matilda realised that perhaps her son was telling the truth after all.

"No, don't be silly, I can't just let Rhys' friend go off like that. You'll have to come in for some biscuits and milk of course."

Harry's tummy grumbled then and he flushed brick red but followed her in. Matilda took in the young boy carefully, the way he made sure to angle away from him, the thinness of the wrist poking out from too large clothes, clearly hand-me-downs, the careful way he kept his eye on the doors and windows and her heart sank.

Her son had been protecting his new friend after all, but by downplaying his hurts.

And that just wasn't done.

She coaxed him to eat, and tried to get him to open up. He didn't say much but she was an adult after all and he was a child. There were things she understood without him outright saying it.

And at the end of it, she knew enough that when he finally left she picked up the phone and dialled the number of that one cousin of hers.

In an office somewhere in London, Charles Landon scoured the records for any documents regarding the placement of one Harry Potter with the Dursleys. What he found was that Harry Potter didn't even exist, there wasn't any birth certificate or anything for the young boy.

But Matilda said that he existed so clearly he must. His cousin wasn't one to imagine things, too logical and rational for that.

Two weeks later he had exhausted all possible options and had no choice but to approach his superiors. The manager, a certain Cressida Hardwin blanched at the name of the child he was requesting information on and began questioning him vigorously.

"And you're sure he being abused?" She asked and Charlie was surprised by this. Cressida seemed almost afraid and he'd never seen her like that before. She was, above all, angry about children being mistreated, never afraid, never doubtful. With the number of kids they knew were slipping through the cracks, doubt wasn't something they had in this office. People didn't notice when children were hurt deliberately, they didn't want to notice and it was their job to notice it in their place. This was a brand new reaction and one that gave him pause.

He was suddenly very glad for all the multiple copies he'd made of Harry Potter's files because for the first time since he started the job he was afraid his superior might make this case disappear.

And as if she could hear his thoughts Cressida answered his unasked question.

"His parents, Lily and James Potter were working on a case. A terrorist, we aren't even supposed to know about. I'm sure his files have been sealed for his own safety but this is not good. You don't have the security clearance to work on this, I'll be taking over Mr Potter's case."

Charlie wasn't sure about all this. But Cressida went down to Surrey herself and whatever she found had her shaken to the core and filled her with that anger that Charlie had been looking for. It was thus with some relief that he went back to work and when Matilda called and told him all about how the Potter boy's situation had changed he grinned his way to work, his faith in his choices restored.

And if there was a neatly wrapped present on Cressida's desk the next day, well, she really was a very good boss.

A pensive Harry sat on Rhys' bed and tossed the cricket ball between his hands. Rhys was peering down at music sheets and practising his flute, focused while Harry contemplated what he was going to do.

His life had taken a big change since he had become friends with Rhys. It had gotten better in ways Harry didn't think it could.

He had his own room now. Petunia and Vernon had taken to ignoring him completely which would have been horrible if he didn't have Rhys to go to.

And, most importantly, he knew the names of his parents.

James and Lily Potter. Dead at the hands of Voldemort, a madman intent on blood purity who had been threatening the Wizarding world with war for ages.

Wizarding world. Because apparently Harry was magic. Cressida hadn't minced words, she'd told him everything. About muggles, muggleborns, squibs and magical creatures. About how people like Voldemort thought they were better than others because they were purebloods. How his parents had gone into hiding and Voldemort had come after them. Killed them but somehow he hadn't been able to kill Harry. No one knew how but instead of Harry dying, it had been Voldemort who had died.

So now Harry knew. He knew why Petunia and Vernon hated him, because they hated that he was magic. Knew why all those oddly dressed people stopped in the streets to shake his hand, knew that when he turned eleven he would be sent off to a boarding school to learn magic.

And that the Wizarding world was hidden and he couldn't tell anyone about it.

Not even Rhys.

Cressida had warned him told him that the wizards had their own ministry and they had certain ways of telling if people told muggles about magic. That a combination of specific words, which ones exactly, that she didn't know, set off sensors and then wizards came and stole the memory from the muggles.

"What's wrong?" Rhys asked taking a break from playing the flute to look at Harry expectantly.

"Nothing's wrong," Harry insisted and Rhys snorted.

"You've sighed ten times in the last five minutes."

"I can't tell you!" Harry said in a rush and felt his heartbeat rise.

For the first time in his life he had a friend and he was being forced to keep secrets from him. This wasn't good.

"Can't tell me?"

"It's ...ugh!" Harry groaned and sunk down onto his back staring up at the ceiling.

It was against the rules. But then Harry had been breaking rules for most of his life.

"You know those strange things that happen around me?"

When he'd first told Rhys his friend hadn't believed him, but when Mr Dasher's wig blue even Rhys had to admit it.

"Yeah?"

"Cressida told me about them. It's-" Certain words set off the sensors, she said.

But did that count for written words, Harry wondered. He stood up and picked up one of the books from Rhys' bookstand and opened it to a certain page.

"I can't say it because if I say it they''ll find out and do something but it's-"

Magic, the word he pointed at read out and Rhys' eyes flicked between him and the book a couple of times.

"You're serious?"

"It's-" Harry struggled until his eyes caught on another one the books, one of Rhys' mother's books that had snuck its way into his shelves during the move, "Let's call it cookery!"

"Okay," Rhys said amused but Harry found his voice.

"So there's...chefs, right? And you're a born chef, always. But see there are some baby chefs born to people who are also chefs and others which are born to non-chefs, okay?"

"Okay," Rhys repeated.

"And there's a huge group of chefs who don't like the baby chefs who are born to non-chefs. They're these purists and it's pretty bad and they kill people over it." Rhys' amused look turned worried. "And my mum was one of those people born to non-chefs."

"Harry, what are you-"

"So these purists had this leader and...he killed them."

"You're serious?"

And Harry, exasperated told him told him to hold on, ran all the way to Number four Privet drive and came back with a hefty tome in his hands. Rhys startled when he saw the title, 'Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts' but Harry ignored it to open the book to a chapter dedicated to the Dark Lord Voldemort.

"That's weird." Rhys said, "The pictures move when you're near me."

Harry shuffled closer until his knee was touching Rhys'.

"So this guy was trying to, what purge the world of the—We need to come up with a better codeword."

"It can't be too close to...you know, that word."

"It's pretty cool though," Rhys turned the page and Harry peered in, knowing well what was on that page. "So that's your parents huh?"

Harry couldn't help the grin breaking out on his face. "Yeah, that's them."

He'd never seen any pictures of them before. And in this book that was supposed to be about dark arts was a family portrait of them, his mother, Lily and father, James holding him between the two of them. They looked out of the frame at him for just a bit before going back to cooing over his infant self while he wriggled around.

"Harry, this says that you defeated him!"

The smile dropped abruptly. That part had disturbed him.

"That bit is weird. I mean this guy was a terrorist but me, a little baby defeated him? I don't buy it."

"Says your parents were in hiding, they probably did something then."

"And no one else was around so they said that I did it." Harry had come to the same conclusion but still, it was weird.

"But why would they think that?" Rhys muttered to himself. "We figured it out and we're eight."

"Well, Cressida said that the...cookery-" Harry ignored the snort of laughter from Rhys, "Makes them illogical. Because it makes all sorts of impossible things, possible."

"So...what now?"

Harry had no answer. He thought Rhys might be scared of him or something. It meant the Dursleys weren't lying. He was a Freak after all.

So he watched his friend carefully, wondering if this was the point where he ran away screaming.

"Do you get extra 'cooking' homework?", Rhys snorted and Harry smiled, relieved.

They were going to be alright.

It was inevitable after a while that Harry's case worker, Cressida ended up at the Orlick house. She was good and diligent in her job, made sure to check in with Harry in person once a month at least and they had phone call check-ins once a week. Rhys supposed that there had been too many times when the Dursleys had told her he was over at his place and eventually she came to check with them.

And she explained about Hogwarts how Harry would go off to a magic school without actually telling them about magic. Rhys was splayed out in the first floor landing, near that one vent that allowed everything said in the kitchen to be heard perfectly if you just put your ear to it.

"Harry's parents were upper crust. It's probably one of the reason why Petunia resents him so much to be honest, and he's been signed up for this school since birth really," Cressida explained. "Harry will never be as high up as he would be if his parents were still alive. As it stands, he'll face a fair bit of prejudice for his mother being...you know. It's complicated, there's more politics than should be involved, honestly. I don't know if Charlie told you but his parents were being targeted. It's one of the reason we don't want to take him out of the Dursleys' custody, there are a multitude of security problems involved. Which is one of the reasons why I'm here actually."

"I don't understand."

"I can't go into specifics but while the man who killed the Potters is dead, his friends are not and a fair few of them were able to buy their way out of prison." His mother gasped, "And if Harry continues to spend so much time here then I want you all to be familiar with all the warning signs that you might notice as well the protocol to follow if you feel your life is in danger."

"Is it that bad? I mean...people weren't even keeping a close enough to notice that Harry was beign so badly neglected."

"Honestly it's not," Cressida reassured her, "We are talking worst case scenario but since we have a better idea of what this worst case scenario is and can actually prepare for it, we might as well. Now, first thing the people I'm talking about are bit of cultists actually, you will immediately notice if you see them around, it'll seem like they're playing dress up for some Victorian—"

Footsteps behind him had Rhys getting up and running down the stairs. With a yelled 'I'm going to the park!' he left the house and headed to Number 4, Privet Drive, grabbed Harry out of his house and took him to that one spot in the park with the worst acoustics so that they wouldn't be overheard.

"What's going on?" Harry asked through puffing breaths. His lung capacity wasn't up to snuff like Rhys' was, he'd have to make him do more breathing exercises. "I thought you were practising that new piece of music?"

"Cressida came over to the house!" Rhys said and Harry's face turned grave and serious.

"Tell me everything."

So Rhys did.

Harry was his best friend. There was no way around it. And Rhys told him everything. That was just the way it went.

But when he saw Harry begin to chew on his lips frowning with each word he spoke, Rhys thought that perhaps he should have kept it to himself.

"I didn't think about that," Harry confessed softly, "I'm putting you in danger."

The little idiot.

"Shove off," He punched Harry's shoulder and rolled his eyes as obviously as he could. "You make it sound like you're Snow White and there's some wicked witch after you."

Harry punched back and while he was still frowning, he didn't look mad worried anymore. "Actually, I think my... cooking books say that Snow White was real."

Rhys could hardly believe that.

"They don't call her Snow White or anything. But there's supposed to be this potion, called the Draught of Living Death. A hag actually created it to give to this witch who was a bit of a bully but always got away with it because she was beautiful and very good at charms. She fell asleep as if she was dead and the villagers all stoned the hag and drove her out."

"And then Prince Charming came and kissed her on her lips to save her from the kiss?" Rhys scoffed.

"No, this drunk man who'd been dared to eat all the herbs and ingredients in the apothecary felt like he was dying and wanted to die having kissed the pretty girl. Whatever he was eating was still in his mouth and it ended up reviving the girl although the drunk man died immediately after."

Rhys could do nothing but stare, "You're joking!"

"That's really what the book says. And all the potions had changed the girl so that anyone she kissed was poisoned and died, so she was stoned and cast out of the village too. Apparently, she found the hag and they teamed up using the hag's potions and the witch's killer kisses to seduce, kill and steal from over a hundred landowners in their time. They say the witch's children all have similar abilities but no one could keep track. It was always the women in the family who inherited it, so they were called Black Widows. According to popular legend, Morgana le Fay was supposed to be one of them."

Rhys narrowed his eyes at Harry. "Is that the kind of homework Cressida gives you?"

Harry blushed. "Pretty much. She says I need to know my Wizarding history or I'll end up making a fool of myself in front of the pureb-uhh born chefs."

Rhys sighed at the cookery metaphor again and decided Cressida's higher class shit was much easier to understand. "Huh, I guess that's what she meant by upper crust. All those posh gits."

Harry's mouth twisted. "There's a book on etiquette that I need to learn. Cressida says she's going to test me on it."

And Rhys laughed and laughed, until even Harry joined in and all the breathing exercises in the world wouldn't have kept him from gasping.

Harry grinned as he walked into the house that was his second home.

(It was really his first but Cressida said that even saying that out loud would bring the wards on Number 4 down and that was dangerous. Those wards kept him safe, not only from Voldemort's followers but also kept the Ministry's eyes away from him)

"Hey Mrs Orlick, is Rhys here?"

"He's in the garden, weeding."

That was usually the punishment Rhys was given when he'd spent more than the usual two hours on practising the violin and ignored his homework. He was an excellent player, one day Harry was going to go to a symphony and he would be the one playing in it but right now he had actual homework to do. Maths homework in fact, they'd been given fifteen worksheets to solve over the summer hols and Harry had come over to help him with it. Harry loved maths, it was neat and tidy and logical. Rhys hated it.

"Can I go help him out?" The sooner Rhys finished his yard work, the sooner they'd get to the homework and then they could finally go play in the park. Rhys' father had gotten the two of them skateboards and they were going to try to put both feet on it.

"Do you promise you won't do all his work for him?" Mrs Orlick said sternly. Honestly, two times Harry helped him out and suddenly Mrs Orlick thought he was doing all of Rhys' work for him. It was only after Harry agreed that she let him go and even then, Mrs Orlick did the thing where she pointed her fingers at her eyes before pointing one at him like in the movie they'd all been out to see last week.

Harry found Rhys tugging at weeds trying to get them out. He really was horrible at it. Every single time Harry would tell him how to grip the weed properly to tug it out and every time he would forget it.

Harry settled down in the space next to Rhys and positioned his hands the proper way, "Like this, see?"

The weed came out but when the roots came out, a scaly head peeked out with it, a forked tongue flickering out. It turned to Rhys who paled and shuffled backwards and as it followed Rhys' movement Harry couldn't help but cry out, "STOP!"

It stopped.

For a moment Harry wondered if he'd done accidental magic and frozen the snake, it was just so still, but then it turned to face him and its tongue flickered out again, only this time it was doing more than just scenting the air.

It was talking. And Harry understood it.

"A speaker?" It hissed, getting closer to Harry and he stayed put, his legs feeling numb under him, "I have heard of those like you but it has been years since the last Speaker was seen."

"He's dead. Has been for the last few years." Harry felt shaky but oddly comfortable. He didn't want to feel comfortable with this.

"Then the mantle falls to you, Speaker."

"I don't what you're talking about. You really should leave, it won't be long before someo-"

"Harry!" Mrs Orlick cried out, the snake hissing, calling her a noisy human before promising to return for a longer talk and disappearing down the same hole it had come up through.

Before Harry knew it he was being rushed into the house, Mrs Orlick's trembling arms thrown over him and Rhys, and she clutched them close.

They went up to Rhys' room and Harry didn't stop shaking, couldn't. Rhys' mum bundles them both up in blankets saying something about shock but Harry didn't feel shocked.

He felt scared.

"Talking snake is a weird side effect to the cookery," Rhys joked but he looked worried under it all. "What else can you talk to?"

"He could talk to snakes, no one else." Harry whispered, feeling cold and numb. "The man who killed my parents."

Rhys clammed up but looked confused. "It's not that bad a thing."

"They call it Dark, Voldemort he was the last person who ever spoke it. It was something passed down from one generation to the other. If I speak it, it means-"

"It means nothing." Rhys said sternly. "There are probably tons of people who speak snake but don't tell others because they don't want people to think they're related to him. It doesn't mean anything."

"It doesn't mean anything," Harry repeated. Maybe if he said it to himself enough it would come true. Or maybe it meant that he was Dark too.

"Besides, you said all the," Rhys paused scrunching up his nose, "We really need a better code for this mate. But you said all the people like your dad, they intermarried so much that they were all cousins, right. Probably just like that. I bet most of them are related to that Baltimore guy."

Harry burst into wild laughter and it didn't stop for ages.

Baltimore!

"It's Voldemort, not Baltimore," Harry managed to say in between guffaws.

"That's what I said, Baltimore," Rhys said again and even though Harry knew it was on purpose he couldn't help laughing once again.

The next day he played translator as Rhys asked the snake, Greenscales as she'd said her name was, a million questions, even bringing his violin out and playing it to figure out what it sounded like to snakes.

When at the age of ten, Harry found letters from his mother to his aunt in the attic, Rhys was the person next to him when he read them.

"But what if...what if she wasn't good?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, but I don't want to...I don't want to not like her."

"We'll never find out until we read it. Besides your aunt didn't like her so she must have been nice."

It had taken a great deal of cajoling as Harry fussed and worried over what he would find but eventually they opened them. They went through every word together, Harry blinking furiously at the few photos that tumbled out of the envelopes.

Harry had always known her as his mother, this distant idea he had of her. But the person in the letters was real. The things she talked about were real. And much later when Harry was back in his house clutching the letters gently, Rhys thought about it all.

Petunia hated her sister because Lily had magic and she didn't. And Rhys wondered if one day he would come to hate Harry like that too. Would he be jealous? Would he be bitter and angry? He didn't think so but still he wondered.

All these thoughts came to a screeching halt a few days before Harry's eleventh birthday. An owl tapped on his window.