The Burrow
Harry whistled brightly as he gathered all his scant belongings into a big plastic bag, taking care not to forget a single item – not that it was an arduous work, seeing how little he actually possessed. Well, at least, he supposed Tom had even less.
Speaking of Tom...
“Are you ever going to finish? The old goat might come any given minute, and I’m not going to stay here because of a misguided notion of brotherly affection.” Tom sneered at the word as if it offended him. Harry shot him back a glower.
“If you actually dragged your arse here to help me instead of standing there and complaining non-stop like a capricious little princess-“
Petunia’s loud steps interrupted what Harry was sure would have been a brilliant retort that could shut Tom up for a long time. For eternity, preferably.
“Out, out, you unruly boy,” she hissed at them. She tossed a few toy figurines and a jacket into the plastic bag and grabbed Harry by the shoulder to urge him out of the cupboard. A cheerful bell rang.
She didn’t even attempt to grab Tom – a fact Harry found completely irritating. He wished he scared people just as much!
Tom raised an eyebrow at him, smirking, as if he knew of the thoughts drifting in and out of Harry’s head.
“Where’s your speech of ‘protecting’ me gone to?” Harry snapped at Tom indignantly, rubbing his shoulder as they neared the doorway.
“It existed?”
Harry wanted to punch him. When Albus Dumbledore entered, that was the scene that greeted him: Harry glowered and spat insults while Tom masterfully quipped in response.
“Oh, oh, behaving like brothers already? Delightful!” Dumbledore exuded the radiance and cheer Harry had come to deem as his default state, clapping his hands together in a gesture that looked too childish for the wizened wizard. “Now, I trust that everything is in order? Petunia? Mr. Dursley?”
“Everything will be as soon as you take him- them away from here. Preferably forever. Just to warn you, we’re moving and changing jobs.”
“Don’t worry about losing Harry forever, Petunia. We wizards have devised plenty of ways to find someone just by their blood or their name – you can expect us any day.” When Dumbledore congenially smiled, and Petunia paled, Harry couldn’t suppress his snicker, immediately stifling it in his fist. When his Aunt threw him a fulminating glare, he put on an innocently sheepish smile which didn’t fool anyone but made his relatives grit their teeth.
“How long is this farewell-tripe going to continue?” Uncle Vernon broke in. His puce-coloured face assumed an almost pleasant expression, in lieu of Harry and Tom’s parting – if you could call a constipated grin pleasant, that was. “Grab the boy and go. I doubt he’d want to visit us either.”
The air around Uncle Vernon condensed menacingly as the man spat, his eye glinting evilly down at Harry with spark of threat in them, “Would you, boy?”
Suddenly meek and void of mirth, Harry cast his eyes down.
“We won’t see each other again,” he promised hollowly.
“And neither of us will cry because of this,” added Tom as he walked up to them. His hand, cool as a stone in winter, clutched Harry’s forearm for a second in warning. Harry nodded, to convince himself or to appease Tom, he wasn’t sure.
Yet Harry truly didn’t cry.
He felt too little for the parting, after all.
“So, do you like side-along apparition, my boys?” Dumbledore beamed and beamed and beamed. His golden – or was it actual gold? – robes reflected the shimmering light, so Harry couldn’t even glare at the man. Except he wouldn’t have anyway, considering his current predicament.
“Potter!” Tom hissed and bounced away from him. Funny, Harry hadn’t seen him act so lively before. “If you are going to throw up, don’t you dare do this on my shoes!”
“You need a wardrobe change anyway,” Harry mumbled after heaving on the grass, just at the same time as Dumbledore said, “Well, they were never good shoes, my boy.”
Tom’s sneer encompassed both of them.
His head still lowered, Harry took a moment to observe Dumbledore and his expression. The man’s stiff posture and suspicion had vanished; he joked and laughed and told them anecdotes of his life without a single care in the world.
“We have to walk a bit so that we can rehearse our story,” the old man chimed in, outstretching a hand to help Harry get up, a friendly smile on his face and making the laugh lines stand up. “Petunia and Mr Dursley looked too edgy to create the pleasant atmosphere needed to digest such matter.”
“Perfect,” Tom gritted out. His claret eyes flashed with anger. “Now we have to walk, too, like common muggles.”
Harry frowned at the way Tom articulated the last word: hatred literally dripped from it, hatred mixed with disdain and derision. Sure, the Dursleys were the worst sort of muggles, but not everyone shared their loathing of all things magical! They didn’t deserve Tom badmouthing them.
“Oh, it’s nothing, just a couple of kilometres.” Dumbledore’s voice brought Harry back to present. Immediately he wanted to sputter, but in the next moment the man’s face morphed into seriousness. Harry shut up. He supposed it was one of the merits of keeping up the outward cheer all the time: when the cheer stopped, people listened.
“Harry, my boy, I hope you remember that you may not, under any circumstances, reveal your identity as Harry Potter? Death Eaters might sneak up on you and snatch you at any given time-“
“Of course I understand!” Harry cried out and snapped his head upwards, his entire image speaking of wounded pride. “I’m not daft, whatever you all seem to think. Sir.”
“I’ve never claimed otherwise-“
“You implied it,” Harry accused before waving the old man off; the Dursleys had called him worse things throughout the years, so ‘daft’ didn’t even graze his self-esteem. Besides, Harry always forgave people easily, be it for small transgressions or for wickedly ghastly and nefarious deeds. Tom never failed to remind him of his ‘weakness’. “It’s nothing, though. Could you repeat what we have to know about the whole orphanage lie, please?”
“Of course,” Dumbledore agreed pleasantly. “You are two orphans – Hadrian and Thomas Black, soon to become Weasley – whom I have discovered in an orphanage in Surrey by chance because Minerva was visiting a muggleborn there and reported the existence of other two muggleborn boys.”
“And what made ‘us’ so different from others?”
Dumbledore shot them a look from over his glasses, his head inclined.
“Your relation to Mr Potter, of course,” he said gently. He reached out to trace Harry’s scar-less forehead, the boy’s green eyes wide. “James Potter’s mother, a pureblood witch named Dorea Black, had a squib brother who had been blasted off the family tree, Marius Black. He married and had a son, who had you two – before he died in a car accident along with his wife. Minerva saw your similarity to the Blacks, and especially Harry’s similarity to James, and, thinking I had dumped Harry Potter in an orphanage, raided my office for answers.”
He looked gravely at them, continuing, “Of course, I couldn’t allow the possibility of a Death Eater mistaking ‘Hadrian’ for Harry Potter and torturing him – so we have contacted the Weasley family who agreed to adopt you both.”
“People will recognise me anyway if I’m so similar to my father,” Harry muttered dispiritedly, shuffling his feet and feeling as if a cloud of gloom loomed over his head despite the cheery weather all around – azure skies, bright sun, Dumbledore’s brighter robes.
“No, no, I don’t believe they will.” A mischievous wink sped Harry’s way. “See, your father took a lot after your mother, a Black, and with the wizarding world full of remarkable familial traits and similar features… They will never mistake you for Harry Potter if you don’t have the scar – and you don’t!”
The old man dug into one of his numerous pockets to dish out a handful of lemon drops, offering the treat to Harry and to Tom, both of whom refused: Tom with a sneer and Harry with a polite smile.
“Brilliant! If I have to say so myself. One of my best ideas.” Dumbledore continued chewing.
Harry wanted to comment on that outburst of arrogance but something emerging as they neared it took his breath away.
“I hope this… construction,” Tom vomited the word, “is not our accommodations.”
“Why, Tom, it’s the most particular house in the whole wizarding world!” Dumbledore replied merrily. He waved at the… thing in the distance. “One of the very oldest, even older than Malfoy Manor! Although I do believe that it had only one floor and was a shed of some sort- Oh well. Unique, fascinating, and ancient! Why, Tom, you should feel honoured to live in such a landmark! Even some architectural catalogues included it in their charts.”
“Yes, I can easily imagine it in a chart of how things should not be built,” Tom murmured under his breath.
Harry, for his part, was dragging his feet on the grass as he scrutinised the whimsical shape of their new home. It emitted a vibe of amiable insanity, looking like a place where people didn’t judge, and Harry even liked it in some way because it differed so much from the empty Privat Drive houses, but-
“Is it even safe?” Harry asked mistrustfully. When he glanced at Tom, for the first time he saw complete understanding there.
They stepped into the yard, and Harry’s eyes roamed all over the place, taking in, observing, judging.
A lopsided sign stuck in the ground announced “The Burrow” with lopsided letters, and the same was written on a rusty cauldron just near the porch. A few chickens greeted them with crows, at which Tom immediately cringed in disgust. A few pairs of shoes freely pranced around the yard, the children’s ones playing tag. Harry also noticed a garage, a chicken coop, and a large garden that he couldn’t wait to explore.
He loved the house. He just wondered if he would survive living in it.
“Ah, here we are. Dear Molly must have felt the wards announcing our arrival.”
As soon as the door swung open, before Harry could take in the decor, his nose was pressing the plump and wobbly midsection of a woman who hugged him to her chest.
“You are little Hadrian, aren’t you?”
When she pulled away from him, he made out a concerned pretty face and locks of flaming red, the same fiery colour that adorned her cheeks and nose in freckles. She smelt nice, too: a homey smell which reminded him of the time Petunia set out for cooking for Christmas. Except that this woman actually seemed nicer. More genuine. Harry already loved her.
Harry nodded to her question, an insecure expression fleeting across his face before he frowned a little. “I’m Hadrian but I’m certainly not little!” He huffed. “Eight years old is already half-way adult.”
A delighted smile blossomed on her face and she hugged him once more, this time briefly. Harry didn’t struggle because the embrace warmed him and almost made him cry at the same time, so sweet and honest.
“You’re such a dear!” She positively beamed before her gaze locked on Tom. Just as she advanced forward, Tom backed away a step.
“I don’t do hugging,” Tom warned, bracing himself as a virgin girl would do to protect her virtue. Harry snickered at te mental image that popped up. “My name is Thomas Black, not a dear – this one is just for the record.”
The woman chuckled and greeted Dumbledore before addressing them, “Molly Weasley, your new mother.” Her tone saddened when she said next, “Don’t worry, Albus has told me your story. It is so sad that your parents’ lives ended so early.”
“Of course,” Tom said with an impassive face.
“Too early,” Harry whispered, remembering the tales of their heroics, how brave and intelligent that had been, how their kindness used to light up the days of many other people, how they had fought for their ideals and for the rights of those who couldn’t stand up for themselves.
Even now every time Harry acted his part he immediately thought he was betraying his biological parents. Thought that he besmirched their names with his acts of ‘disloyalty’.
He only hoped they didn’t blame him, wherever they were. They had a right – but that irrational sliver of hope inside of him refused to believe that they would renounce him if they had the chance to.
“Well, Arthur is at work, but I can tell you a bit about us. I have six children,” Molly cut into his bubble of thought. Harry smiled gratefully. “Bill, the eldest, is in Gringotts now working with the goblins. Charlie and Percy are at Hogwarts. I’ve sent Fred and George – they are twins, you see – along with Ron to Aunt Muriel to- to get used to the idea of having two more brothers.”
“I have no doubt they are thrilled,” Tom drawled disdainfully, carefully showing that he believed in the complete opposite. The calculating git was probably looking at the not-so-rich interior and thinking of how poorly they were going to live.
“They don’t want Hadrian and Thomas here?” Dumbledore asked solemnly, reminding them of his presence.
Molly shook her head remorsefully.
“I’m sure the twins will come around soon, but Ron… Well, you know how Ron gets.” She paused before slipping on her smile again, and said, “But I have let Ginny remain! Ginny, dear, here are Hadrian and Thomas. Say hello to them.”
“Just Harry is all right. You can call this scowling git here Tom, too, and it doesn’t matter if he minds-“
The tiny figure emerged so suddenly that Harry’s mouth snapped shut.
She had been hiding behind the matronly figure of Mrs Weasely, a slip of a girl. The same red hair and freckles, curious blue eyes, trousers torn at the knees and a plaster on her face. She shyly smiled at him, and Harry returned the smile.
“Ginny,” she introduced herself in a small voice.
“Harry,” he replied in kind as he stifled the urge to tuck his hands behind his back.
“How sweet,” Tom commented with a sneer before calling out to Mrs Weasley, “Where are we going to sleep?”
By the end of the day Tom decided a few things for himself. Colour red annoyed him. Weird buildings annoyed him. Big families annoyed him.
He was re-discovering all his annoyances, and he had Albus Dumbledore to blame for it all.
I’ll let you experience a typical pureblood household, Tom snidely repeated in his head the words that Dumbledore had dared to utter. He strained all his extensive willpower to drown out the chattering behind him; he much rather preferred his own intelligent company than those fools’ who couldn’t hold their tongues. The meeting of those two doomed him to hours full of noise. And imbeciles making eyes at each other. And more noise.
“You’re very clever, Harry,” she told him, awed, after Harry’s recount of Dudley’s chase when he had managed to triumph over the larger boy.
Didn’t the boy see she was mooning after him like a cow!
“Not in school though,” Harry mumbled humbly. “I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly studious. I like learning the stuff I like, but it’s no fun to sit with the nose stuck buried in a book if I have a mountain of other stuff to do. I’ve only ever read so much because Dudley and his cronies didn’t leave me many other choices about ways to spend my free time.”
“The orphanage was so tough,” the girl agreed sympathetically.
Of course, Harry had modified the story to look it as if Dudley were an orphanage bully, which added a whole other level of drama.
Tom, meanwhile, refused to think of the conversation going on behind him and of what it made him feel, so he preferred to ponder on the more pressing issue.
More correctly, he had to room with someone.
Share his living space. Breathe in the same air. Day after day. Constantly.
If situations were nooses, he would have been in one right now.
He envied the girl, precisely because of her gender: out of the whole red-haired herd she lucked out on the rooming arrangements and received her own space. Meanwhile, Harry and Tom occupied Bill’s former bedroom, since the chap hardly needed it now. Right next to Ginny, and Tom didn’t want to contemplate much on it.
Another boy, Percy, got his own bedroom, too, and Tom seethed at the unfairness of it all. When the older boy returned for holidays, Tom would surely be there to manipulate matters so that the other would gift him the room as a present.
Yes, Tom decided. He liked thinking about plans more than thinking about the conversation going on and about being excluded.
“Hmm, I wonder what our life here will be like,” Harry whispered dreamily, his eyes half-closed and gaze directed at the ceiling above.
Tom snorted in reply.
“A routine. It all looks so fascinating and new right now because it IS new. When the shock and the wonder wear off, the magical world will be nothing out of ordinary for you.”
“Why not? I think... I think even wizards themselves sometimes find themselves surprised in here, no?”
“Just you wait and see.”
Harry chose to ignore the boy he was already deeming to be the embodiment of doom and gloom. Well, not a ray of optimism, that’s for certain.
He recounted the day in his mind. It had been a blast: exploring the Burrow, chattering with Ginny… She had promised to get him acquainted with the ghoul the next day as well as show him how to sneak brooms out of the shed so that her parents wouldn’t notice. She had even proposed to pin the blame on Tom! Harry had chortled so much when Tom had whipped his head around and bestowed upon her his best scowl which he should really get patented.
He shifted in his bed and was falling asleep looking forward to a joyful day if not for an issue that plagued him particularly.
“He’s not too chuffed about it, is he, judging by their descriptions,” Harry muttered into his fluffy pillow. “I mean our ‘brother’ Ron or something. They all talk about him like he’s a bomb ready to go off any minute.”
“He cannot beep a word about it to anyone because whatever enmity he will feel towards us will make that sympathising nitwit snuff it and punish him. If he acts out, he will be digging his own grave.” Tom’s voice acquired a spark of reluctant pride as he added, “You did well, to charm her. Only I could have done better.”
Harry looked daggers at him. “I certainly didn’t do it for you, prat. Or even for myself. She is a very nice person and I like her a lot.” A faint blush graced his cheeks. “She is… like a mother,” he finished softly, his eyes cracking open to stare at the blue cotton of his pillow.
“Fool,” Tom scoffed. “Don’t get attached. If she displays a morsel of affection now, it does not mean that in the future her opinion will not change. Say her real sons come and hate you. Will she ‘love’ you just as much, eh?”
“Don’t say that!”Harry spat, abruptly getting up as his hands clenched into tight fists, trembling to crash into Tom’s face for the insinuation and the taunt. “She’s not like that. I’m a good judge of character.”
Tom chortled, almost bending in two in his vicious mirth.
“You can’t lie to me because I know all your secrets and all your moments of life until the last few days.” He smirked. “You’re an open book I have already read, Harry. I have tapped into all your memories and we both know of the trust you put into people.”
“Done with your brown-nosing?” Harry asked, forcing himself not to lose his cool. Harry worried greatly over dealing with someone who carried the knowledge of all his deepest secrets, delusions, and unfulfilled expectations. Yet, he wanted to downright butcher the arsehole who had the cheek to bring it up in a conversation.
Tom brought a finger up to his lips, humming, before he shook his head lightly. The smirk stuck to his face as if forever frozen there.
“Not quite. I rather like reviving your memories and seeing your reactions,” Tom revealed. He spoke matter-of-factly, making Harry feel like a stubborn child who refused to listen to the most commonsensical ideas and notions. With that tone Tom could probably convince Harry of the good of sadism and the benefits of murders.
“What a sick hobby.”
“I never said it is a hobby. That would imply that I actively seek you to do it, but right now I am simply finding good sides to a desperate situation,” Tom haughtily drawled and scrunched up his face. “Still, you are the most entertaining thing in this… quaint little place. Yes, yes, I mean this attempt at making angry faces. Practise some more, and maybe someday you will intimidate a squirrel.”
Nastily chortling, Tom went back to lying on the bed. Harry did the same – not that he followed Tom’s example, of course. Sitting up was tiring. Yes, that was it.
“One day, I’ll have secrets from you, too,” Harry promised with a scowl on his face. “I’ll be so secretive that you’ll never know anything and won’t guess what it is until it bites you in the arse!”
Proclaiming that, he mutinously stuck out his tongue and dived under the covers, enfolding himself in a cocoon of unfamiliarly warm and cosy blanket. Tom snorted, loudly.
Only much later he would realise the truth that rang in the vow.