Reading Time: 103 Minutes

Title: Half the Sunrise
Author: Lomonaaeren
Fandom: Harry Potter
Genre: Action Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Slash, Time Travel
Relationship(s): Harry Potter/Theodore Nott
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Violence – Graphic, Violence – Domestic and/or Against Children , Character Death- Temporary, Child Death- Temporary, Sex- Explicit, Discussion- Prejudice, Grief/Mourning, Angst, Death- Minor Character, Discussion- Child Abuse, Discussion- Murder, Discussion- Domestic Violence
Author Note: Warning for a very intense beginning, including the temporary character deaths. The minor character deaths warning refers to different, antagonistic characters. The discussion of domestic violence is of hypothetical domestic violence only.
Beta: Linda and Karen
Word Count: 49,951
Summary: The magical attack that causes the death of Harry Potter’s best friend and son, and Theodore Nott’s wife, can be repaired with time travel. Harry and Theo enact the ritual, believing their lives are the price—only to find out that this is true in the most twisted of ways. Suddenly trapped in a world where they are the only ones who remember what happened and are no longer recognized by anyone, while replicas of themselves replace them in their lives with their friends and families, Harry and Theo wrestle with being strangers to everyone but each other.
Artist: Mizu Sage

---

---

Chapter Seven

“Where were you?”

Theo’s voice had a sharper snap than Harry had expected it to. He hesitated, then let the door of the flat fall shut behind him as he shrugged off his cloak and averted his eyes. “Out,” he muttered, knowing he sounded sullen.

“Did you go and look at Weasley again?”

Harry flinched. “You know about that?”

`“Of course I do! And I think it’s stupid. Watching your friends when you can’t interact with them is just going to cause you heartbreak, and you were so close to Weasley and Granger that—”

“I didn’t go watch Ron. I know, you’re—right. I just—Bill Weasley, Ron’s older brother, works for Gringotts, and so does his wife, Fleur. They come to the Alley sometimes. I just go to the Leaky Cauldron sometimes if they’re there and nod and talk to them. I told Bill a modified story about the curse we broke on Dennis. He was interested.”

Theo paused for a long moment. Harry turned and got fresh eggs out of the icebox, knowing his shoulders were hunched up around his ears.

“You weren’t really close to this particular Weasley brother in our previous time, were you?” Theo sounded as though he was trying to walk on a spilled potion.

Harry licked his lips. “Not really. I only met him in our fourth year, and I stayed over at his cottage during the war, and…and sometimes he came to the Burrow. But it was such chaos there, with all the kids and spouses and everything, that we never spent much time talking to each other. Fleur and I didn’t, either.”

“So you’re trying to set up a friendship with people related to Weasley but not resume the one you had with him?”

Harry knew he’d hesitated a little too long.

“I know I can’t go back,” he said, when Theo had taken a step around the table towards him. “And they wouldn’t recognize me even if they saw me and—him side by side. I know that.”

“But?”

“It’s—why can’t I have a friendship with some of the same people? And one that might get me invited to the Burrow eventually?”

Theo studied him in silence. Then he sighed. “It’s not that you can’t,” he said, which was an improvement on the reaction Harry had thought he would have—an immediate shouted argument. “It’s that ultimately, it’ll probably just hurt you more. Let’s say that you form a friendship with this Bill and this Fleur and they invite you to the Burrow or get you invited. Are you really going to be able to interact with Granger and your Weasley and your wife and children without being weird about it? What are you going to do with your replica?”

Harry shut his eyes tight.

“That’s all,” Theo continued softly. “That’s the only stake I have in it.”

“What stake?”

“Not wanting to see you hurt.”

Harry stood there for a second with the words clanging around in his head like a bell ringing in an empty space—he could only imagine what Ron would have to say about that if he heard it—and then he nodded.

Theo squeezed him on the shoulder as he made his way past, and then departed, leaving Harry to sit down on the chair and think about what he was really hoping for from this friendship with Bill and Fleur.

– – – –

“Hey. It’s Harry, right?”

Harry felt a stab of pain as though someone had hit him with a cursed knife in the center of his chest, but he managed to turn around and keep smiling. “Hi. Bill. And Fleur.” He nodded to Fleur, standing slightly behind Bill in the entrance of the Silver Mirror restaurant where Harry had stopped to pick up some food for himself and Theo. “And…I don’t think I know the little ones.”

Except he did, he did, he wanted to shout, but he couldn’t. There was Dominique looking at him with bright eyes, and Victoire giving him a quick, incurious glance before turning towards a girl who seemed to be her friend, and Louis laughing and swinging from his mother’s hands.

But he couldn’t reveal that he knew their names and their favorite colors and their favorite puddings. Or anything about them at all.

Maybe Theo has a point.

“This is our son Louis,” Fleur said, her accent almost faded with the years, placing a hand on her youngest child’s head with a laugh. “And our second daughter Dominique. The rude one, she is Victoire.”

Victoire turned around and flashed the exasperated smile that Harry remembered so well from the days when he’d been teaching her to fly. “I’m not rude, Mum. I just wanted to talk to Flora.” She eyed Harry for a second, and then blinked. “Has anyone told you that you look rather like Harry Potter?”

Harry’s heart banged in his chest for a second, but Fleur said simply, “Victoire!”, and Bill glanced at him and laughed.

“He doesn’t, Victoire. Look at his eye color. Completely different.”

Harry breathed out again and smiled a little at Victoire. “No one’s told me that before, but I suppose I can be flattered.”

“Well, you should be! He saved the whole bloody world!”

Victoire looked as if she was about to go on, but Fleur shook her head and interrupted. “Please excuse my daughter’s impetuosity and rudeness, Harry. You must get the comparisons enough with your first name. In actuality, Bill, he had a question for you, and now that you are here, he can ask it.” She started talking in French to Victoire, and from the way her voice was lowered and her hand gesturing sharply, Harry didn’t think it would be a good idea to admit he understood some of the words.

He turned to Bill, who coughed and cleared his throat. “Ah, yeah, actually. So this is awkward for me to admit, but…do you know that there are powerful wards in most magical parts of London to detect any cursebreaking performed there?”

Harry froze for a second. Then he said, as politely as he could, “No. Who strung those?”

“I did. I’m a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts, you see, and they asked me to put them up years ago, when there were rumors that some people were going to try and rob Gringotts by using curse-breaking techniques on the goblins’ protections.” Bill cleared his throat again. “And they know that there was someone deathly ill with a curse behind the Ministry, and someone broke it. And they showed me an impression of your magical signature, and I recognized it.”

Harry was about to protest that he wasn’t actually the one who had cast the spell, and then remembered that he had lent his magic to Theo for it. Well, that wasn’t a surprise that the wards had picked it up, then.

“I didn’t perform the spell myself. Gave the magic for it to my partner. We’re a matched set.”

“I see.” Bill’s eyebrows climbed up his face. “So you wouldn’t be interested in an interview with Gringotts for a Curse-Breaking position?”

Harry coughed in surprise. Then he said, “I mean, well, Theo’s more into Potions and I’ve been teaching dueling to some clients…”

“Surprised the Ministry hasn’t snapped you up, then. They’re always looking for people to expand their Auror trainees’ spell repertoires.”

Harry straightened his back. If the goblins were looking into him, then it would take something severe to make them lose interest. “It’s in Knockturn Alley,” he admitted.

Bill blinked, and that was all. “Well, that explains the lack of Ministry interest. But Gringotts is still interested. Have a talk with your partner and see what he thinks.”

“I had the impression that openings to work for Gringotts were rare. Would they really take both of us?”

“Well, you can’t know for sure until you ask them. But the goblins also sometimes have special tasks that really need a pair who can work closely together—with the same magic, you said? Well, that would matter to them. Most of the pairs who can do that are goblins, and they’re in demand all over the world working on the most dangerous jobs. If you and your partner can do it, they’ll take you, is my guess.”

Harry shook Bill’s hand, a little dazed, and then excused himself—it seemed the Weasleys were about ready to continue their shopping, in any case—so that he could go speak to Theo. He had questions to ask.

– – – –

“Of course we’re taking it. Are you mad?”

“But we bought the shop, and you’re building up your Potions business—”

“We can earn more money working for Gringotts,” Theo cut in impatiently. “And of course, there’s nothing that says I can’t keep brewing; I’ll just have less time for it than I used to have.”

Harry stared at Theo. He was sitting at the table but radiating the kind of excitement that Harry thought he would have expressed by pacing around the room. “But you told me when we moved in here that we had to be careful to cultivate relationships with the other people in Knockturn Alley and not make them think we were smug or saw ourselves as above them. Won’t accepting the Gringotts job damage that? Or at least not being available to brew for them and teach them the way we’ve been doing?”

Theo snorted a little. “Trust you to pay attention to that lesson after we took out Fenrir Greyback. We’ve done enough for them, Harry. And trust me, we’re getting into the kind of territory where not a lot of people here will be able to afford my potions or your training anyway.”

“We could lower our prices…”

Theo gave him a withering stare.

“All right, we couldn’t,” Harry admitted. They needed to keep them up fairly high to afford both the flat and the shop, plus the kinds of ingredients Theo needed and the targets and dummies, or people to enchant them, that Harry needed. “I just want to make sure we wouldn’t come back someday and find our flat broken into or people here keeping news of enemies to themselves.”

“There’s nothing saying that we can’t still help them or accept commissions from them, either. Only that we aren’t available to do it at a moment’s notice anymore.”

Harry nodded slowly. Then he grinned at Theo. “We have a chance to be Curse-Breakers for Gringotts.”

Theo grinned back.

– – – –

“What did you say your names were?”

“Harry Potter,” Harry said, trying not to hold his breath. This would be the hardest test of the magic that had brought them back in time yet, he thought. He simply hadn’t emphasized his last name in his interactions with Bill and Fleur, and neither he nor Theo had said anything about their names to Dennis. But the goblins would probably notice the discrepancies—or the likeness to two people alive now—if anyone would.

“Theo Nott,” said Theo lazily. Harry admired the way he lounged back in a chair in front of the lead goblin’s desk. He had a way of looking calm and proud and humble at the same time, as if he was thinking hard about the best way to help someone else.

Harry’s eyes trailed down to Theo’s leg for a second, and the new dragonhide boots he was wearing, and then he looked away.

“Hm.” The goblin looked down at the parchments in front of her. She was tall for a goblin, Harry thought, with silver hair that was braided up and flowing halfway down her back. She tapped her claws on the edge of the nearest parchment. “We have no record of an account for either of you at Gringotts.”

Harry tried not to show his relief too obviously. Theo shot a quick smirk at him and shook his head at the goblin. “No, so far we haven’t made the kind of money that would allow us to have a vault at Gringotts.”

“But you want to work for us? Why?”

Harry was ready for that question. “Bill Weasley told me about the potential for a job here, after telling me that it was his wards that picked up on a curse-breaking we did in an alley behind the Ministry. And, well, we did that one together. Theo knew the spell, but he needed more magic to cast it, so I lent him mine.”

The goblin gave him a flat stare. “That is a process few wizards would agree to. Why did you?”

“I’m not a pureblood, and I don’t have some of the same hangups around the process that purebloods do.”

The goblin turned to Theo.

“I recognized that I couldn’t break the curse without the magic from Harry. He offered it to me, and I accepted.”

“And if someone else offered you the magic? Would you accept, or would you insist on working with your original partner and no other?”

Harry opened his mouth, but Theo was already speaking. “I do insist on working with Harry,” he said flatly. “If that’s not possible, then we’ll return to the business we’re already running. We wouldn’t make as much as we would by working with Gringotts, but we’ll have more control over what we do.”

“Theo,” Harry hissed quietly.

“No, Harry. They deserve to know.”

Harry looked back at the goblin, a little alarmed, but she was only nodding. Her face was calm and dour, but she had looked that way since the start of their meeting. “Very well. Then we’ll require a demonstration of your skills, an explanation for why you have these skills and why you suddenly set up a shop in the middle of Knockturn Alley, and the name of a goblin you would choose to negotiate your contract if all goes well.”

“Um, Hardstone, if she’s available,” Harry said, naming a goblin he knew had handled some of the Weasley accounts.

The goblin peered at him. “Why him?”

“I’ve heard good things about him.”

That got him a long stare, and more narrowed eyes. Harry sat as still and calm as he could. It wasn’t like he could tell the goblins everything they wanted to know, no matter how displeased they were about it.

The goblin finally gave in with a roll of her eyes, and scribbled something on a piece of parchment that sizzled and glowed red for a second before resuming its more normal color. “All right. I wish Hardstone joy of you. And I wish you to remember that there will be questions asked in the interview.” She handed the parchment to Harry, who rolled it up and put it in his pocket.

“Thank you,” Theo said, with a bow of his head.

Harry echoed him, but he was gaping at Theo a little as they stepped into the corridor. Theo glanced at him sideways. “What?”

“I didn’t expect you to be so polite to goblins.”

“Why? You haven’t seen me be rude to anyone in Knockturn Alley, and most of them aren’t purebloods.”

“I suppose I—I just never saw many people be nice to them. Not even people I liked, like Hagrid. He just kind of ignored them when he brought me to Diagon Alley to get my school things first year.”

“Why did Hagrid bring you to get your school supplies?”

Harry glanced around and found more than one pair of eyes focused on them. A few goblins had stepped in the middle of the corridor to stare, in fact. Harry didn’t know if he and Theo were particularly interesting for some reason or if the goblins had heard there might be new human Curse-Breakers and had decided to see for themselves. Either way…he flushed. This wasn’t the place for this conversation.

“Later,” he said, and started walking.

“Of course,” Theo said, and caught up with him.

Harry could see Theo watching him from the corner of one eye, and ignored the way that made him flush harder. Why should he be embarrassed to talk about Hagrid and the Dursleys? He certainly wasn’t ashamed of being Hagrid’s friend. And Theo knew far more damning things about him by now, including the fact that Harry was willing to use a Dark, barely tested ritual to time travel and save his son and best friend.

But the flush didn’t go away, all through the meeting with Hardstone and the interview with the Curse-Breakers.

– – – –

At least the interview wasn’t the ordeal Harry had half-feared it might be, and that the goblin they’d spoken to first had indicated it might be.

“Where did you come from? There is no record of you attending Hogwarts.”

Theo crossed his left leg over his right and smiled easily. “My last name is Nott, as you might have noticed.” The goblin across from him snorted impatiently, which didn’t affect Theo’s smile at all. “I can’t prove a relation to the Death Eater family. My father was…largely unknown to me. My mother was Muggleborn. But it was felt that it might be dangerous for me to attend Hogwarts because of the possible connection. So I was schooled privately.” Theo grimaced. “The war didn’t spare my family, however, and I lost most of the assets that I had. It’s only in recent years, and after long training and my partnership with Harry, that I feel ready to venture into such a public job as being a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts would entail.”

Smooth, Harry thought, wishing he could lie half that well. He and Theo had worked out what they would say, of course, but it was different from just being able to say it like that.

“I see.” The goblin on the far side of the table, a man with golden hair, gestured a little at Theo. “You have passed your OWLS and NEWTS? You have wand rights?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And you?” The first goblin turned back to Harry. The one in the middle, who had remained entirely silent so far, stared at Harry with piercing blue eyes.

“My mother was also Muggleborn, and I grew up with her Muggle relatives,” Harry said quietly. “They didn’t like magic.” He ignored the way that he could feel Theo’s gaze boring into the side of his head. They had discussed this. And certain conversations were best had later. “They refused my Hogwarts letter on my behalf, and it took a lot of time, and leaving them, to get the schooling I needed. I felt like I was so far behind the rest of my peers that there was really no point in attending Hogwarts for only a year or two by the time I managed to catch up.” He cleared his throat. “Like Theo, I struggled until I could scramble together some training and I met him.”

The goblin in the middle gazed back and forth between them. “You will require married quarters on your expeditions?”

Theo raised his eyebrows, while Harry knew he turned bright red. He cleared his throat a second time. “No, thank you, that’s not necessary.”

“Hmm. If you’re not married or bound, then one of you might decide to leave, and would lose a powerful curse-breaking team.” The goblin in the middle glanced back and forth between the ones on either side of her. “Should we hire them if they could damage our investment by splitting up?”

“I assure you,” Theo said, before Harry could think of something to say—which was fortunate, as he hadn’t the least idea what he would say, “that we will not part.”

The goblins exchanged a few words in Gobbledegook, and then the one with the blond hair nodded and stood. “Very well. Follow us for a demonstration of your curse-breaking skills.”

Harry stood up, hoping he had controlled his blush. The speculative glance Theo was giving him didn’t make it any easier. Harry knew he was playing to their audience, but honestly, some things were not necessary.

Theo, the bastard, played up to it by also walking closer to Harry than necessary as they headed through the corridors towards the back of the bank and the caverns that presumably lay there. Harry rolled his eyes and ignored it.

– – – –

The cavern they were escorted to turned out to be one of the largest that Harry had seen in Gringotts. He did his best not to gape around at the walls, which were honeycombed with smaller entrances, or at the large pile of mirrors, glass baubles, and what looked like actual windowpanes that were lying on the floor and sticking out of the entrances on the wall.

“Somewhere in this room is a cursed object made out of glass,” said the goblin with the blue eyes. “Mixed in among the objects that have no enchantments, neutral ones, or hexes fastened to them. You are to find it, break the curse, and deliver the newly cleansed object to us within the hour.”

Harry breathed out deeply. He understood the reason that the objects were all of glass without asking; it would make it harder to use spells to single out the one that had the curse on it. He glanced at Theo, and felt something steady in his stomach at the utterly calm look in Theo’s grey eyes.

“Ready?” Theo asked softly, raising his wand.

Harry nodded and turned to face him, doing his best to ignore their audience of goblins. Getting upset or worried wouldn’t help anything. Theo’s eyes were the only things that should matter to him, he thought, as Theo began to solemnly trace his wand back and forth in front of him.

Harry knew the moment when he should lend his magic to Theo. Theo seemed to pause, just a little, in his tracing through the air, and Harry jumped in with a torrent of magic that tore a gasp from someone. Harry didn’t see who. He just kept feeding his magic to Theo as best he could, ignoring the way that his cloak of power, as Theo had called it, was spreading around the room. If anything, it would probably just confirm to the goblins that they were strong enough to be worth hiring.

Theo cast a spell that Harry didn’t recognize which made a good number of the glass objects glow blue, and then another one he did, which Aurors used to search out hidden entrances in enemies’ houses. Harry watched intently as several objects began to glow yellow. Theo cursed softly.

“What is it?” Harry murmured, stepping towards him. He ignored the sound of goblins snickering behind them. Unless feeding his magic to Theo had taken a lot more time than it felt like, they were still well within the hour they had to search.

Theo glanced at him briefly, and then back at the yellow objects. “That spell finds objects with harmful enchantments,” he said. “But it can’t distinguish between curses and hexes, I reckon. Or even the neutral enchantments could fall under this if they’re capable of causing harm to someone under extreme circumstances.”

Harry thought that through, looking at the glowing objects. It was true that when someone used that spell to find secret passages in a house, all the passages would show up, and the Aurors could usually use other clues to figure out which one had been traveled most recently. So what would be the equivalent of that for finding a cursed object?

Harry half-bowed his head. He heard Theo start to say something, and then check himself. The snickering behind them grew worse, but then the goblins started speaking in their own language, which Harry ignored. It didn’t distract him the way it would have if he could have understood it.

He had to find a way around the limitations of the spell. He had to find a way to earn more Galleons and change their lives.

He had to do this for Theo.

Harry’s brain popped up a memory of a case where they’d arrived at an old manor house to find the former Death Eater owner fled, and the dragon heartstrings he had smuggled hidden somewhere in the house. The spell had revealed secret passage after secret passage, and safe after safe, honeycombed all over the place. And they didn’t know how long they could stay because of the number of traps that the first Aurors to arrive had had to disarm. They didn’t know which ones they might have missed and which might spring at any moment.

What had he done? He’d…

Harry opened his eyes and laughed. The goblins went silent behind them. He turned to face Theo and held out his hand.

“Do you trust me?”

“You know I do, Harry.”

Some of the flush returned to Harry’s cheeks, but he ignored the temptation to hide his face. So he was blushing, so what. He smiled straight at Theo. “Then take my hand and cast the Disarming Charm.”

“Harry—”

“Through me.”

Theo’s eyes widened for a second, although if he saw the theoretical implications of what Harry was talking about, Harry would actually be surprised. Then Theo held out his hand and clasped Harry’s wrist, and Harry closed his eyes and thought as hard as he could of the moment in the manor house when he had used this trick, and of Disarming Voldemort, and of the moment in the dueling club in second year when he’d seen the spell demonstrated for the first time.

“Ready,” he whispered.

“Expelliarmus!”

Theo’s magic hit Harry’s wrist and flowed up his arm, and collided with the magic rising hotly inside his body. Harry laughed again. The warmth continued rising, like the dawn coming, and then burst out of every pore.

There was the sound of shattering glass, ringing shards. Harry turned and lifted a Shield Charm automatically, without letting go of Theo’s hand. He was glad that they were standing in such a position that the magic would also shield the goblins behind him. Injuring the people who were interviewing them might be a little difficult to explain.

There was a long, loud roar that echoed around the cavern. Harry blinked a little and saw that most of the blue-glowing objects had shattered. Some of the yellow ones were still intact, along with a great deal of the objects that hadn’t glowed when Theo cast either of his first two spells.

One of the yellow ones was still shimmering with malevolent magic, and Harry’s eyes fastened on it immediately. He and Theo turned towards it, moving as one, without the need to speak to convey it. Messages were thrumming through their muscles.

This time, Theo was the one to speak. “Frangere magicam!”

The spell shot towards the object, a small glass bauble of the kind that Muggles might hang on a Christmas tree, one of the most innocuous-looking objects there. Harry watched narrowly as it sliced through some invisible web that seemed to extend from the bauble—and then went on and through, splattering against the cavern wall and splitting it.

“Not enough to get rid of the curse,” Harry murmured.

Theo threw him a challenging glance. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes glowing with something that Harry would have called health, or magic. “What do you suggest, then?”

“Keep hold of my wrist.” Harry aimed his wand at the object and thought hard, this time, about how it had felt when Theo had broken the curse on Dennis and when he had managed to cast a healing countercurse to save Seamus Finnigan’s life in their original timeline. Then he slashed his wand down as hard as he could.

The magic surged through Theo and up Harry’s arm and out through his wand. It hit the glass bauble in a formless blast, spinning it right around. But the last of the curse clinging to it died.

And so did the yellow glow that indicated the object was cursed.

Harry laughed aloud and glanced at Thoe, whose eyes were huge and the color of clouds. “What did you do, Harry?” he breathed.

“Willed the curse to end,” Harry said happily.

“That is not something a wizard can do!” one of the goblins behind them snapped.

Harry turned to face them. He realized he was still holding Theo’s wrist and made a move to drop it. Theo’s fingers wrapped so firmly around his own hand that Harry gave up and left it in place.

“So you gave us a curse-breaking test of the kind that a goblin would have to pass?” he asked in interest. “That’s an honor I didn’t expect.”

There was a long silence. Theo looked mightily amused, and the goblins who had sat at the two ends of the table when interviewing them looked flummoxed. The middle one was smiling slightly, expression at least a little amused.

“You see it as an honor?”

“Of course,” Theo murmured, quick on his feet as always. “We know that goblins have more trust in the abilities of their own kind than they do in ours, and understandably, as wizards have often betrayed you. So facing a test that would be given goblin Curse-Breakers shows that we might someday aspire to those heights—”

“Or you think we could,” Harry added, seeing the sneers that were coming over the goblins’ faces. “Yes, it is an honor.” He half-bowed his head. “One that I hope we have shown we would be more than happy to accept.”

The goblins exchanged glances. They weren’t going to bring up the obvious hypothesis themselves, then: that the test had been meant to make Harry and Theo fail by setting up a curse that should have been beyond their abilities to break.

And, after all, hadn’t they got something that could be useful for them? A pair of wizards skilled in casting with each other’s magic, and capable of breaking a curse and finding an object that only a pair of goblins should have been able to find?

One by one, the goblins began to smile.

– – – –

“We did it.” Harry laughed in what he knew was a loopy way as they walked down the steps outside of Gringotts, not caring about anyone who might be looking at them from the street. For once, he could walk down the center of Diagon Alley without a care in the world. “We’re Gringotts Curse-Breakers!”

“It’s an honor.”

Theo’s voice was soft. Harry turned to face him. Theo didn’t sound as happy as Harry had thought he would.

“Are you all right?”

“Of course.” Theo looked down at his wand, and Harry wondered if the way they had cast had somehow made Theo feel like a less skillful wizard. He opened his mouth to reassure Theo that Harry didn’t see him as somehow lesser—

Then Theo looked up.

Harry’s stomach swooped and warmed at the look in his eyes. Theo stared at him as if he had come running from darkness and Harry was the first fire he had seen. Harry would have averted his eyes and looked elsewhere, because, honestly, the way Theo was staring at him was pretty private, but it was private for Harry, between them, it was—

It filled Harry with something he hadn’t thought about, because he had so entirely accepted that this part of his life was at an end when he had lost Ginny.

He managed to look down after a second, and nodded. Then he started walking back towards Knockturn, because he didn’t know what else to do.

Theo walked beside him.

Chapter Eight

It was obvious Harry had no idea what the magic they’d shared to earn their jobs with the goblins had meant to Theo.

Well, of course, he wouldn’t have, Theo thought, watching Harry out of the corner of his eye while Harry studied the first owl they’d received from the goblins. Apparently there was a cursed room in the Ministry of Magic that they would be investigating. Fairly far from the world-trotting journeys that Theo had been imagining, but then again, everyone had to start somewhere.

He doesn’t know because it’s like someone woke up one day and told you they could tame a dragon. It just doesn’t happen.

Theo had read a tiny bit of theory about what might happen if wizards could cast through each other, use each others’ bodies like wands. The theory had speculated that it would lead to widespread anarchy.

But he and Harry had cast through each other. Harry had lent his magic to Theo and borrowed Theo’s as if they were exactly the same, as if he didn’t see himself as better than anyone else.

And he wasn’t, of course. Except on the level of fame and magical power and kindness and…

Theo shook his head. Harry had said something that hinted Dumbledore had had him grow up in the Muggle world to keep his head from getting swollen. Theo hated the idea, but on the other hand, it did appear to have created someone who was free of all sorts of nonsense Theo would have expected him to believe if he had grown up in the magical world.

“Theo?”

Theo blinked and snapped back to the present. Harry was looking at him and appeared to have asked him a question. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“I asked when you wanted to go to the Ministry. The goblins don’t care when we go take care of it as long as it’s this week. So we could go Monday or Wednesday or—”

“Monday. Let’s get it done.” Theo stood up, his movements brisk, and moved over to start the omelet he had already decided he would make for dinner that night.

“Oh. Do you have a deadline with a potion or something?”

Theo leaned his head against the door of their icebox for a moment and considered what Harry would say if Theo told him, No, I want to cast magic with you again as soon as possible.

Perhaps best not to find out. Theo turned around and gave Harry a thin smile. “You could say that.”

“Okay,” Harry said, and gave Theo a gentle smile. “Then I’ll send the owl back and make the other arrangements with the goblins if you want? Since you’re making dinner and you have the deadline to worry about.”

“I’d appreciate that, thank you,” Theo said, and watched Harry’s back as he moved over to the small cabinet on the wall where they kept their quills and parchment.

No one else would have just—offered like that, and made it an exchange without strings attached. And Theo knew that if he had said he was too busy to make dinner, Harry would have accepted that, too.

It pleased Theo. It irritated him. Didn’t Harry realize how many people in the world could take advantage of something like that?

Apparently not. Theo sighed a little and opened the icebox to fetch the eggs.

– – – –

That idea that had been skirting around the edges of his mind ever since he and Harry had broken the curse in the goblin caverns pounced on Theo that night as he lay on his pallet, considering how they would probably be able to earn enough money to move out of Knockturn Alley soon.

It was never like this with Elizabeth.

Theo breathed out slowly. He’d done his best not to think about Elizabeth too much since he and Harry had done the ritual. He would otherwise go out of his mind with jealousy of himself, somewhere out there sharing Elizabeth’s life and seeing her sharp-edged smile and hearing her laughter when they made fun of Ministry figures who managed to land themselves in the Prophet.

He missed her. He would always love her.

But his life hadn’t ended, and the most important piece of it right now was asleep on the pallet beyond the curtain.

Theo rolled over a little, listening carefully for any change in Harry’s breathing. There was none. Theo lay still, then, his mind reaching back out to his sensations when Harry had cast through his body and let Theo cast through his.

It was wondrous.

Theo had never experienced the sensation of sheer magical power like that. He’d only felt it, like echoes, from the Dark Lord and his father. And neither of them had been a benevolent power, at all.

Harry’s magic had reached out to welcome him. Some of that was undoubtedly Harry’s affection for Theo and his determination to work with him as a partner. But some of it was just—

Harry had shone like the fucking sun, and he’d seemed utterly unaware of it.

Theo had no idea what the experience had been like for the goblins. Probably, if they had felt an echo of what Theo had, it wasn’t like they would have expressed it. They were rightfully distrustful of wizards and witches and wouldn’t want to talk about something that could have been a weakness.

Which meant that Harry’s power was all Theo’s. To hoard and share and possess…

Theo sighed. That was the way he would have felt in the past, certainly, and if Elizabeth had turned out to have that kind of magic. But he couldn’t just shut Harry up in a room and thrill in keeping his magic all to himself. Harry wasn’t that kind of person. He needed other people in his life. Evidence in point: his attempts to establish a connection with the oldest Weasley brother and Fleur Delacour, which Theo still thought was a bad idea, even if it had landed them their Curse-Breaking jobs.

But he thought it was a bad idea mostly because Harry could get hurt when he wasn’t welcomed into the family the way he had been once, when he was everyone else’s Harry Potter. Not because Theo thought the Weasleys were evil, or disdained them.

Theo wanted to do things for Harry. He wanted to avoid seeing him hurt. He wanted to spend time with him, cast magic with him, see his face light up with the ecstasy of power and laughter it had last week—

Theo squeezed his eyes shut.

He wanted to share Harry’s bed.

There. He had admitted it, and the admission hadn’t killed him.

Of course, that could be a very long way from what Harry wanted. Except for some rumor of him dating a few other girls at Hogwarts, Theo didn’t think Harry had ever even slept with anyone besides Ginny Weasley. Never looked at anyone else. Rita Skeeter herself had gone digging, and hadn’t even been able to invent credible rumors, which she surely would have if she could. That was formidable loyalty.

And that loyalty, at least, Theo would be more than willing to hoard, to possess, to keep for himself.

If Harry wanted to.

Theo fell asleep with so many ideas running through his head that it wasn’t a wonder he dreamt of dashing after Harry, who was laughing in front of him as he climbed a rockfall and skipped over a fallen tree and always, always kept out of reach.

– – – –

“Did it bother you that the goblins thought we might need married quarters?”

Theo had thought up subtle ways to approach the question. The problem was, when he’d used them, Harry was oblivious and had treated them like normal conversational gambits.

So bluntness it was.

Harry blinked at him as they rode the lift down towards the Department of Mysteries. They were the only ones in the lift, not that Theo would have asked the question otherwise. “No. I suppose to them, it was an understandable mistake.”

“I saw the way you blushed afterwards.”

“I mean, I was a little embarrassed. And I thought you would be, too.”

“Why?”

The lift clanged to a stop at the ninth floor, and Harry climbed out, flushing anew. “I, ah, well. I thought that you would be upset about someone thinking you could be into blokes. Or into someone other than your wife.”

“For my own sanity, I’ve had to let Elizabeth go. It would be useless to pine after her when I know that she has a good life with him, and it would only hurt me further, rather than allowing me to make a good life of my own.”

“What about the blokes part?”

“I’ve always found both attractive, Harry. I simply wondered about you. I would have thought you’d be much more upset.”

Harry looked back over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes a little. They were walking through corridors of black stone with shifting blue highlights in it that Theo thought would be incredibly easy to lose your way among, but Harry didn’t seem to bothered by it. “I’m bisexual.”

“You are?”

Harry shrugged at him.

“I’m—just surprised that I didn’t hear about this from an article of Skeeter’s or something, with how closely you were watched,” Theo murmured, lowering his voice. The time travel magic of the ritual would keep anyone from realizing what they were really talking about, but they were still near the places where someone else could overhear them.

“I never told anyone,” Harry said. “Why would I? It wasn’t important. I was married to Ginny, and I never intended to divorce her, so it didn’t matter.”

“Did you tell her?”

Harry paused with his hand on a door of walnut that looked like the one the goblins had described to them, still looking back over his shoulder at Theo. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.” And then he faced the door and rapped out the smart little rhythm the goblins had also told them to use.

Theo had to admire Harry’s almost Slytherin tactic as the door swung open. He’d made sure they couldn’t discuss that further at the moment.

But he had given Theo a lot to think about.

– – – –

“The goblins said that you were good at low-impact curse-breaking techniques.”

Theo looked around the cursed room with interest. Honestly, any chance to look at a room in the bowels of the Department of Mysteries was a good chance as far as he was concerned. This one was off what appeared to be some kind of study area, although with everything sensitive shrouded by spells that blurred the air and wouldn’t let outsiders catch a glimpse of it. Like that room, this one was paneled in dark wood and had a stone floor typical of rooms in the Ministry.

Otherwise, it was different. There were notches in the floor as if a table or other furniture had once been attached there and then hastily removed. Theo could hear distant shouts if he focused his ears. The curse was hovering in the air, manifesting as sound instead of sight, and a general hostility as if someone was standing behind Theo and peering right over his shoulder. He resisted the temptation to turn around.

“You require more instruction?” asked the hooded Unspeakable who had brought them here.

“What kind of curse do you think it is?” Harry asked conversationally. Theo pursed her lips. He wouldn’t have done that. He would have held his silence and asked as few questions as possible to appear more knowledgeable and therefore more valuable.

But the Unspeakable, if they did wear a doubtful expression, didn’t show it at all from under the hood. “Unknown. We were studying time in this room, and then someone brought in a new artifact. It seems to have been the collision of artifacts that created the curse.”

“I see.” Harry had already begun to prowl in a circle, staring at random spots on the walls. Theo nodded to the Unspeakable, who nodded back and retreated from the room, and came up just in time to catch Harry’s hand when he would have reached out and tapped on the walls.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do that,” Theo said, as gently as he could.

“Why not?” Harry blinked at him, his knuckles a centimeter or so from the wood.

“We don’t know how the curse is connected to the space, but we know that it hasn’t ventured outside it. That means that the walls could be impregnated with it.”

Harry nodded and allowed Theo to pull his arm back. Theo thought about keeping hold of it, but honestly, if he was going to get Harry possibly thinking of their partnership in other ways, he didn’t need those kinds of cheating little tricks. He let go.

And they were going to get to cast magic with and through each other again. Theo found himself anticipating that with a giddy smile on his face.

Harry drew his wand. “I’m going to cast a general detection charm. Be prepared to cast it at the same moment as me, okay?”

“What will that do?” Theo asked, even as he drew his wand. He’d never heard this was a spell that could be amplified by two people casting at once.

“Prove a theory,” Harry said. “One…two…”

They did cast at the same time, a feat Theo didn’t think would have been possible without their previous compatibility, but he didn’t have time to point it out. He was too busy staring in astonishment at their results.

The walls of the room glowed with sickly streaks of yellow and blue and charcoal color, and the shouts on the edge of hearing were suddenly audible, echoing through the room. Theo recognized most of them as sounds of shock and fear, but a few people were recognizably saying, “Get out of the way!” or “The crystal is—”

Theo flinched back as the sound of an apparently past smash rang through the air, accompanied by screams. Then the streaks of light faded, and the sounds went back to murmurs on the edge of his hearing.

Theo stared at Harry. “How did you know it would do that?”

“Once we found a place that was like this,” Harry said, looking grimly satisfied. “Sorry,” he added, when he caught Theo’s blank glance. “Ron and me, I mean, when we were Aurors. We were told that there was a ghost haunting it, but we couldn’t find one. Eventually we realized that the ghost was essentially past events trapped in the shop itself. Detection charms were amplified twice because everything in the place came from the collision of two different artifacts amplifying each other.”

“So it had nothing to do with us being able to cast magic in concert?”

“I think it still did,” Harry said, with a sideways glance. “It took Ron and me a lot more work to cast as smoothly together as you and I can.”

Theo smiled smugly in spite of himself and studied the walls again. “So we saw and heard what actually happened in here when they brought the artifacts in?”

“I think so. It would still be easier if they’d tell us more about it, but, well, Unspeakables.”

Theo nodded. “So what are we going to do?”

“Start running through some more detection charms and figure out what the streaks of light mean,” Harry said briskly. “The voices seem self-explanatory to me, but I’ve never seen that combination of colors before.”

Theo limbered up his wand arm and decided to wait about asking if they could cast to and through each other. If Harry thought this was more important, Theo could wait.

– – – –

“How many more detection charms do you know?”

“Not a whole hell of a lot.” Harry tossed sweaty hair back from his forehead and glared at the walls, which hadn’t shown anything other than more flickers of color since they’d cast at them the first time, and then only when Harry and Theo used simultaneous spells. “I suppose that you don’t, either?”

Theo hesitated.

Harry turned around and stared at him evenly, waiting.

Theo cleared his throat. “I know a few other detection charms,” he admitted. “But they’re largely considered Dark by most people.”

“Define most people.”

“Anyone who isn’t a Death Eater.”

“Why?”

“They use blood,” Theo said, “and it has to be blood from someone who was present at the time the curse happened, so it couldn’t be either of us. And, well, the Dark Lord invented them.” He cleared his throat again when Harry kept looking steadily at him. “I—well, you did ask what I knew.”

“Right,” Harry said decisively, and stood. Theo watched him walk across the room and fling the door on the far side open. From the footsteps, someone was hurrying towards him, and Theo got to his feet to see that it was, of course, a hooded Unspeakable. Theo snorted a little. He had the impression that this was a different Unspeakable than the one who had brought them here, but he didn’t actually know that.

“I need one of the people who was here when the curse activated,” Harry said. “Bring them here and tell them they’re going to have to bleed.”

Theo blinked at Harry’s back. He hadn’t expected Harry to want to use a spell invented by the Dark Lord at all, much less one that used blood. Well, maybe his or Theo’s, but taking it from a third party was usually a step too far for even the few non-Death Eaters Theo knew who had heard about the spell.

“I don’t particularly care what their names are,” Harry snapped, drawing Theo’s attention back to the conversation. “We don’t need to know that. We just need them to come here and give some of their blood to us.”

The Unspeakable murmured something Theo couldn’t hear, not with the loud pounding of his heart in his ears.

“Do you want your room back or not? We need blood to analyze the curse and break it.”

The Unspeakable retreated. Harry glared after them for a moment, then turned around, shaking his head.

“They seemed to think we came here to steal secrets from the Department of Mysteries,” he added, seeing Theo watching him. “Ridiculous. As if we cared about their names.”

Theo might have if he was in his old position and stood to make some good money or earn some good favors blackmailing people, but there were advantages to having people think his only connection to the Nott name was a dubious one. He nodded and held his peace.

A tall Unspeakable was ushered into the room a few minutes later. Theo ignored the unseen, resentful gaze on him as he said, “Extend your arm,” and drew his wand to aim in a simple spell that would cut the skin and collect the blood.

The Unspeakable did it huffily. Theo rolled his eyes. He didn’t think the reluctance necessarily came from squeamishness over blood magic, given some of the things Unspeakables got up to. They just didn’t want to give up anything, even something as simple as a few drops of blood.

The blood flowed from the cut and collected in the crystal vial that Theo had been holding ready. He studied it for a moment, watching the way it swirled and visually confirming that it didn’t have any potions or other substances in it that might taint the result. Then he turned to Harry and nodded.

“Thanks, you can leave,” Harry said, not even looking at the Unspeakable as he concentrated on the vial.

The Unspeakable shuffled out of the room muttering complaints under their breath. Theo didn’t care. He watched as Harry focused on the vial, his chest slowly rising and falling. His hand clenched for a moment as if he was imagining flinging the vial to the floor and getting the Unspeakable back into the room to donate more blood.

Then he spun to face the wall, and tossed the vial high.

Theo cried out in protest. He hadn’t even told Harry the incantation for the detection charm yet, and that meant they’d wasted the blood and would have to get the Unspeakable to provide more blood that—

Harry whirled and reached for him, and his magic enveloped Theo, tugging him into a deeper joining than any they’d achieved so far.

Theo drifted along, stunned, something in the bottom of his chest aching. This was what he’d been missing, what he would have asked for if he’d known how to ask for it in the first place. The warmth blossoming through him felt as though he had swallowed the blood himself, and they weren’t casting, they were simply drifting, connected, the magic dashing back and forth between them and teasing Theo with the sense of memories he could glimpse just out of the corner of his eye, of moving a body that wasn’t his own and having the limbs respond, of love felt towards more than one other person—

Tell me the incantation for the charm.

The moment Harry asked, in what Theo was quite sure were not words spoken aloud, the words flowered into his mind, and Harry nodded and smiled. He faced the wall and lifted his wand. Theo’s wand was moving at the same time. He wasn’t sure if he could have stopped it if he’d tried.

He and Harry cried out together, “Veritas in sanguinem!”

There was a long, falling sensation, and Theo felt as if he was losing this close bond he had with Harry and snatched at it furiously. It took what felt like a moment for Harry to turn and send reassurance down their bond, but must have been less, because when Theo opened his eyes, their spell hadn’t even struck the wall yet.

The spell hit.

There was an immediate flare of colors, the blue and yellow and charcoal Theo had seen before, but this time, the charcoal color spread out over the wall, subsuming the others and making them into a muddled stream of hues. Theo strained his eyes, and watched as the charcoal outlined flying shards of crystal or glass—crystal, from what the voices they had heard with the prior charms had said—and then the side of—

Those absolute idiots!

Theo couldn’t tell where the shout had come from, him or Harry, and it probably didn’t matter, not when Harry knew everything Theo knew thanks to their mental bond. It felt good to voice the outrage nonetheless. The Unspeakables had brought a crystal goblet that had probably been cursed to break and injure those who tried to hold it into the room and then combined it with a unicorn horn.

Idiots, Harry snarled in agreement with one or both of them. We need to deliver the person who brought the horn to this room, or the room won’t be cleansed. What am I saying—

It’s not a cleansing, Theo murmured. This isn’t a curse. It’s a unicorn’s spirit seeking justice.

You know they won’t be very amenable. They barely wanted to admit that something was wrong that they might have caused. That Unspeakable didn’t want to donate blood.

It doesn’t matter. We have to tell them, and point out that we can’t end the “curse” because it was their own actions in killing a unicorn and taking its horn that led to this.

Harry nodded. Their thoughts washed through them as they watched the charcoal light reach the end of the wall and then turn back, flowing like water contained in a bath. The goblins might not be very happy that we couldn’t…provide what the clients wanted.

Not when they hear about it—

Being the result of killing a unicorn. True. I don’t imagine they would—

Their thoughts dived through each other and intertwined, and Theo-Harry-Harry-Theo understood all that each of them knew about unicorns: Voldemort feeding on the blood of the one he had killed in the forest, Father’s warning about the curse that could arise if one used even ingredients from a slaughtered unicorn bought at second hand in a potion, Hagrid talking about a unicorn cursing someone else’s existence, memories of the portrait of Helen Nott who had borne a burn mark across her hand because she had woven a tapestry that showed a unicorn hunt—

Everything was shared, and, for a moment, everything was known.

– – – –

“None of my Unspeakables would have slaughtered a unicorn!” It was the Head Unspeakable themselves who had come in to shout at them.

“The curse can apply even if one of them bought a horn from a slaughtered unicorn second-hand,” Harry pointed out, in an absolutely even voice that, Theo couldn’t deceive himself, had more than a slight trace of Theo’s own drawl. “So you’ll need to ask which of them did that, if you really want to say that none of them would kill a unicorn.”

The Head Unspeakable fumed, glaring at them. Theo stayed quietly behind Harry. He kept his eyes on the floor, his hands working back and forth together hidden under the sleeves of his robe.

The moment when their connection had fallen apart and they’d stood blinking at each other, separate people again, separate minds, had been the worst one of Theo’s life. Worse than running from his own home because his father had tried to force the Dark Mark onto his arm, worse than leaving Elizabeth behind.

And that was something he and Harry would have to speak about.

The Head Unspeakable fumed some more, and then pointed a finger at the wall, which still had the murky glow that had spilled out from the detection charm and would be visible to everyone now. “What are you going to do about that?”

“It won’t go away until the one who bought the horn or killed the unicorn is brought here and apologizes,” Theo said, which was the truth. He also knew it was the truth that the unicorn’s spirit would probably lash out and kill the offender in that moment, but that wasn’t their problem.

Their problem. I did just think that, didn’t I?

When he glanced up, Theo knew that he would catch Harry’s eye. He did it, and then they both had to turn around to face the Unspeakable, who was trying to explain again how impossible it was that one of their people had done anything wrong.

Not the fucking point. Theo listened impatiently through the explanation, and let Harry explain how it would still lead to them getting paid and the goblins getting their cut, because the Unspeakables hadn’t been honest with them. His mind was buzzing, dancing on the far side of a calculation that felt more complicated than any Arithmantic one.

Because, sooner or later, he and Harry would leave and go home.

And then, they would need to talk about this.

Chapter Nine

What the hell was that?

Truth be told, Harry had been wondering some version of that question since he and Theo had cast together in the goblins’ cavern. But it hadn’t been as clear and intricate as what they had done in the Unspeakables’ room at the Ministry.

That had been speaking directly into each other’s minds. That had been…

Wondrous.

If Harry was ever asked to explain what the hell the thing between him and Theo was, maybe he could give that answer.

“Harry?”

Harry turned around as he heard the door shut behind Theo. He’d spent the day brewing at their shop, which was open now on any day when the goblins didn’t have a curse-breaking job for them. It was inconvenient, their customers complained, but they kept coming back, and so far, Theo hadn’t mentioned moving their shop to Diagon Alley, as Harry had thought he might once they became a little more respectable.

Theo sat down on the chair across from him and looked at Harry expectantly.

Harry cleared his throat. “The goblins agreed with us that the Unspeakables were at fault, and made them pay up. They transferred our share of the Galleons to the account today.”

“I knew they would.”

“So that’s not what you wanted to discuss?” Harry could taste something like mint in his mouth, could feel his heart pounding so fast in his ears that it sounded like one continuous hum.

“You know it’s not.” Theo’s voice was gentle, and he nodded to the chair on the opposite end of the table. “Sit down, Harry. We do need to talk about this, and I still promise that I won’t hurt you.”

Harry wanted to snap that Theo held a unique power to hurt him, now, given that their connection went deeper than the marriage link he’d had with Ginny. But he took a deep breath, pulled his chair out, and sat.

Theo leaned forwards, his elbows on the table, eyes locked on Harry’s. Harry wanted to make some joke about how Theo’s father would probably get upset with him for his lack of manners, but the moment he met Theo’s gaze, their minds swirled into each other’s, and in seconds, Harry knew that Theo’s father had never commented on such a thing. He would simply stare until Theo took his elbows off the table.

I’m sorry, Harry murmured.

Don’t be. I knew what he was from the time I was very young, and I managed to live with it. And if I hadn’t, if I had been a different person, perhaps we wouldn’t have—

This was a word spoken by both of them at once, and then the connection whirled and blazed into being between them again. Harry gasped, a thick sound that came out of Theo’s throat, and the magic divided and cascaded through them in two burning streams. Harry’s hands were twitching with the desire to reach out and touch, but Theo did it first, sliding a hand across the table and clasping Harry’s.

The magic blasted through them and blew them away.

Later, Harry found it so hard to describe that he didn’t know what to say. There was the magic, pouring through them, joining them, showing them each other’s memories and emotions without judgment. Theo knew about Harry’s childhood and the cupboard and the hunger and the wrenching loneliness, something Harry had never even told Ron and Hermione, when he realized the Dursleys would never love him no matter what he did. Harry knew about Theo’s father, and the long cold evenings, and how fires couldn’t heat the rooms at Nott House no matter what, so Theo would fall asleep dreaming of his dead mother, his only memory of her warm touch.

There was before, and there was after.

Harry shuddered as he broke free, slumping against the side of the table, panting. Theo’s hand slid out of his, and Harry immediately wanted it back. But he knew the bond would flare to life between them again if that happened, and they did need to talk about it. With an effort, he focused his eyes on Theo’s, but on the bridge of his nose, as if Theo was a Legilimens and Harry was trying to avoid having him read his mind.

No point now.

It felt wrong to have the thought echo inside his head, alone, by itself, with no immediately answering thought.

Theo’s eyes were blown wide, and his hand twitched on the table as if his urge to reach out and reforge the connection was only a little less strong than Harry’s. Harry bit his lip and settled back in his chair.

“What is that?” he whispered.

“Something that I thought was only a story,” Theo said. “The connection between two wizards or witches that allows them to cast through each other, and…read each other’s thoughts, apparently, although the stories I’ve heard never mentioned that as a side-effect. It’s unique to us, for all I know. We’re each other’s Living Wands.”

“It’s so much more than that.”

“The name is less than glamourous, I grant you—”

“But we can connect our minds just by looking into each other’s eyes, Theo. How common is that?”

Theo paused, then canted his head. Harry watched him, thinking that he knew, that he remembered, exactly what Theo would have looked like doing that in school, and watching himself in the mirror to see if some of his expressions passed his father’s muster. “Not common. It might be if both members of the bond were Legilimens.”

“But neither of us is.” That was something Harry knew for sure now, after his sojourn in Theo’s mind.

Theo shook his head. “No. I actually don’t know why we connected like that. If it was similarity in our magic, we would have noticed that before the day in the goblin cavern, given how often we’ve been close to each other, casting spells.”

“Do you think it’s something the ritual forged?”

Theo sat still, and Harry watched the creases around his eyes and thought about what he was thinking about. “Perhaps something the ritual brought into being,” Theo said at last.

“I don’t get the distinction.”

“The ritual forging it would have meant that we have this connection because of the ritual,” Theo said patiently. Harry would have been irritated by the patience in his voice a month ago, but that was before—this. And before he knew how often Theo was sincerely patient with the world around him. “And like I said, I think we would have noticed it before now if that was the case. The time we spent together, the magic we cast next to each other…you probably would have improved at Potions…”

Harry rolled his eyes back. “Yes, yes, funny. But the ritual bringing it into being?”

“It means that it set up the circumstances for it to happen, and we played into it.”

“That makes it sound like we didn’t have a choice.”

“We did,” Theo said, and his fingers twitched again as if he wanted to reach out and clutch at Harry’s. Harry managed a weak smile, and Theo managed one back after a moment. “We could have lived separately after we came back. We didn’t have to stay together. Yes, we’re the only two who remember what really happened, who know what we came back to do, but so what? We could have left the country, or you could have applied to the Aurors again…”

Harry shook his head fiercely. “I couldn’t.”

“There’s no saying that you would have ended up working closely with anyone you knew.”

“Yes, but I didn’t want to leave you…oh.”

“Exactly. Oh.” Theo gave him one of those thin smiles that Harry was coming to like and understand, now that he knew they were often a cover for some deeper emotion, and that Theo often felt those emotions. “We stayed together, and we solved problems together, until we ran into that problem where we decided to act together by you lending me your magic.”

“So you think if we had drifted apart, we would never have had this?”

“No, we wouldn’t. Or if we had stayed dedicated to the memories of our wives.”

Harry swallowed. He did feel guilty about moving on from Ginny what seemed so fast, but on the other hand…

He had the memory of those dreadful months when their marriage was falling apart because of Al’s death, and sleeping apart from her, and the desperation to do something. And he had worked as hard as he could to tell himself that he would probably never become friends with her in this timeline, and even if he did, they would never be as close. How could they be? She had her husband.

He hadn’t known that he had succeeded so well, that his attempts to move on mentally and emotionally had worked.

“What about you and Elizabeth?” he asked quietly.

“She won me because she knew me,” Theo said quietly. “Knew and understood me, and loved me anyway. I thought there was no one else who would ever do that. Either they would fall for the surface I projected, the way most of the other Slytherins did, or they would know me and recoil. But now, there’s you.”

The words rang in the room like dropped Galleons. Harry lowered his eyes.

“We can continue working together,” Theo went on, his voice so gentle that Harry shivered. “Casting magic together. I think I’d have to insist on that, even if you were more upset about this than you’re acting you are.”

Harry swallowed air and looked up. “I’m not upset.”

Theo held his gaze until the rush of the connection began between them again, then looked away and nodded.

“And the other option that you’re hinting at?” Harry might understand Theo better than he ever had anyone else, but he still wanted him to say it.

“We become lovers.”

Harry choked on the air this time. That was much more honest than he’d expected Theo to be.

Theo leaned forwards, his face intent. “Think about it, Harry. I don’t want to be without that kind of connection, without sex, for the rest of my life. I was just resigned to it because I didn’t think I could ever find someone who saw through to my soul, and I’d honestly rather go without sex than sleep with someone who’s doing it for pleasure or money. But now we have each other, and holy Merlin, Harry, I want you. Can you imagine what it’s going to feel like if we’re touching each other’s minds when we come?”

Harry could feel his cock stirring as he sat there, and the stunned look on his face must have been answer enough. Theo’s smile stretched, pleased.

“I didn’t—I didn’t anticipate anything like this when we came back.”

“Neither did I. Like I said, this kind of connection isn’t even supposed to be possible outside of children’s stories.”

“But you want it anyway.”

Theo nodded slowly. “Now that I know it’s possible, I want it. And if you’re going to tell me that you don’t, well, I’ll just accuse you of lying, frankly.”

Harry sat back and wished that one of them had thought it worthwhile to spend some of their new Galleons on a bottle of Firewhisky. He could have used the burn in his throat to distract him from the burning of what felt like unshed tears in his eyes.

“Harry?”

“Let me—just give me some time to think about it, Theo,” Harry said hoarsely, and stood up, and swallowed, and made his way to the edge of the wards on the flat, and Apparated.

– – – –

It made sense, Harry told himself defensively, that he had ended up outside the Burrow. It was Sunday, the day that he and Ginny and the kids had been most likely to visit Molly and Arthur. And since it was the Christmas hols, Jamie would be home from Hogwarts.

And it made sense, he told himself, that the Burrow’s wards felt him and sparked, watching him with that intent, half-aware sentience that powerful wards had. He wasn’t the same as the replica created by the ritual. He wasn’t welcome here anymore because he wasn’t Harry Potter.

Harry closed his eyes and slumped against a tree over the hill from the Burrow, listening to the sounds of delighted laughter and chatter and forks clashing against plates that the wards didn’t prevent from reaching him. Okay, and that he might also have used spells on his hearing to enhance.

He needed…

He needed someone. He had thought that perhaps he could just exist by himself or with Theo for the rest of his life. He had told himself it would be disloyal to Ginny’s memory to take a lover. She might never know, she might be content with the replica of her husband who had taken Harry’s place—and why shouldn’t she be, when he was the same as Harry in every single way except for recent memories?—but Harry would know.

But now, he had a chance to have something deep, that would sustain him.

And he felt as though he should reject it. He should spend longer mourning Ginny and the kids, even though he knew that he would never have been able to be part of their lives again no matter what happened. He should be the kind of good and noble and brave person who would never have formed this connection with the son of a Death Eater, whether or not Theo had ever taken the Mark.

Maybe he should be.

But he wasn’t.

Theo wasn’t the only one who had changed in the months since they had created the other timeline.

Harry turned and walked away from the Burrow’s wards, which relaxed behind him. When he was distant enough that no one would hear the crack, he Apparated again.

– – – –

Sometime between when he left and when he came back, Theo had found Firewhisky, after all. Harry sighed and slung his cloak over the back of his chair, collapsing into it and sitting across from Theo, who eyed him a little warily.

“No fair having Firewhisky and not sharing it,” he said.

“If you think you need liquid courage to make your decision about the connection between us—”

“Hardly. I’ve made it. We’ve used it during our jobs, and it would be stupid to deny it now.”

Theo sagged back in his chair, his mouth falling open a little. Harry stared at him. “You thought I would reject it?”

“I thought you would think you should be loyal to your past even if I didn’t feel that way.” Theo rubbed his hand over his face. “Yeah, I thought there was at least the chance you were going to reject it.”

Harry allowed himself to really look at Theo. Of course, every line of Theo’s face was familiar to him after the months they’d spent in the flat together, and the way his clothes hung on his frame was something Harry knew as well as Theo’s disgusting tendency to put mustard on his eggs when he could get it. But he hadn’t really looked at how Theo’s dark hair curled over his forehead, or how long his limbs were, or how pointed his chin was, or how his eyes got a darker grey as he stared at Harry.

“Yeah?” Theo whispered.

“Yeah,” Harry said, and got up, and walked around the table.

Theo was already surging out of the chair to meet him halfway. Harry wrapped his arms around Theo’s shoulders and leaned in to kiss him, and the connection flared up between them again and stole his breath.

Theo fed his intense fear about where Harry had been going when he Apparated into the bond, and Harry shared his memories of the Burrow and how he knew that he couldn’t go back. They cared about the ones they loved living more than they cared about those loved ones remaining theirs, and the bond flowed between them like blood or a potion, thick and barely contained in its boundaries. They were together as they staggered back to the table and sat in one chair, half-collapsed into each other, half in each other’s laps, still kissing but also with their minds fused far more than their bodies could be.

Harry drew back at last and rested his chin on Theo’s shoulder. Theo gently stroked his hair and waited for him to speak.

“I—I need something more than just tumbling into bed together,” Harry whispered to him. “That’s just the way I’m built, I reckon. I need a few dates, at least, and thinking and talking about things aren’t just work or magic or how to make money.”

Theo laughed softly. “I’d never deny you that, Harry. I think we can manage.”

“Did you—did you go on dates in the past?”

“Not so much with Elizabeth. We had really intense conversations, and neither of us wanted to have them in public.” Theo stuck his fingers into Harry’s hair and pulled down, and Harry writhed, gasping. He hadn’t known that he loved having his hair pulled like that—or part of him had, but not consciously. Theo must have picked up on it through the bond. “And you, with Weasley?”

“During sixth year,” Harry admitted quietly. “After that—not so much.”

“Interesting. Why?”

Harry might have hesitated, but he knew Theo, now, from the bond, and he knew that Theo wouldn’t either hurt him or use the information against Ginny. “Don’t know, really,” he said, and shifted around until he was in a slightly more comfortable position on Theo’s lap. It was only during their intense connection that he could ignore bodily discomfort. “It was like—everyone expected us to get married, we knew we were going to get married, so we skipped right over some of the preliminary steps and settled into the life we were always going to have.”

“And the rebuilding of Hogwarts and the aftermath of the war didn’t get in the way?”

“Well, I mean, of course we had to do them—”

“But you were devoting so much time and energy to them that you didn’t have enough left to go on dates?”

Harry opened his mouth, then slowly closed it. He wouldn’t have framed it that way, but perhaps Theo was on to something, at that.

He thought back, as clearly as he could with nineteen years’ worth of memories in the way, to those days immediately after the war. He’d been so busy, he wondered that he’d found time to breathe or eat. Funerals to attend, Hogwarts to rebuild, friends to reassure, trials to testify at, walks to take in the middle of Diagon Alley so that people could see the Boy-Who-Lived was still alive, George to sit with, Molly to comfort, Hermione to support when she went to Australia in search of her parents, Ginny to cuddle now and then when she wanted to talk about Fred, his NEWTS to prepare for…

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, that was it.”

Theo smoothed a hand up the middle of his back. “I don’t mind waiting,” he said, and laughed a little when Harry pulled back to raise an eyebrow at Theo’s swollen groin, which he could easily feel pushing against his. “No, I mean it. I never had that kind of dating relationship, either, and it would be nice to know that this isn’t going to just fizzle and burn out between us. To have one way in which we’re ordinary, we time travelers.”

Harry smiled and stroked a hand down the back of Theo’s neck, partially to watch the way his eyelashes fluttered. “That’s more like it,” he murmured.

“Good.” Theo smiled at him.

“Think we can make the dating thing work?”

“Now that we have money? Sure.”

Harry laughed in delight at the reminder of how practical Theo was, and then leaned in and let himself be caught up in the waves of pleasure that resounded through both of them as they kissed.

They could do this. The unshakeable confidence that was the two of them in mental contact said so.

Chapter Ten

“You really never came here?” Theo asked curiously as he held the door of the Wolf’s Tooth for Harry.

“A restaurant on the border of Knockturn Alley and Diagon Alley, mostly known for Dark wizards? Ginny wanted to go once, but I said no. The Ministry’s darling Auror couldn’t be seen there.” Harry shot a glance around the restaurant, and Theo enjoyed the way his eyes lit up. “Plus, there were people I knew who said they only accepted purebloods.”

“As if anyone knows by sight,” Theo muttered, and Harry was the one to watch him in delight. Theo turned with a smile to meet the woman, most likely the proprietor, who was striding rapidly towards them.

“Names?”

Theo smiled lazily. “Theodore Nott.”

As usual, the magic of the ritual worked so that it was the last name the person listening to him reacted to, not the first or any similarity Theo might have to his alternate self. The owner’s eyes widened, and she scrutinized him closely. Theo stood and smiled at her through it. She had silver hair and large dark eyes and went always and only by the name of Olive, although Theo had it on excellent evidence that she was related to the Selwyns.

“This way,” Olive murmured at last, with only a slight, curious glance at Harry, as she escorted them through the tables to one in the back.

Theo looked around with pleasure as they walked through the heart of the Wolf’s Tooth. The tables were sheltered under shimmering curtains of silver light almost the color of Olive’s hair, which flickered and changed the appearance of the people sitting under them to the eyes of those outside. Most of the transformations were into wolves, or into creatures that had wolf-like characteristics. Theo snorted to himself. This was the closest most purebloods would come to werewolves, and even then, this was more than slightly scandalous.

The table he and Harry sat at was on the far side of the room, near a large window that looked out into an imaginary landscape of meadows lit by the silver light of a full moon. Harry sat down when Theo pulled out his chair for him and looked around with one eyebrow lifted. “Fancy.”

“We can go somewhere else if you don’t like it,” Theo said, but he was confident he would have known if Harry hadn’t.

“No, I love it,” Harry said, staring around, his eyes lingering on the curtains of light. Theo followed his gaze and smiled when he saw Harry was staring at the decorations at the top of each curtain, the things that the light emanated from. They were decorations of leaping wolves in mid-flight.

“And yet they hate werewolves,” Harry muttered.

“I never claimed that purebloods were logically consistent.”

“You’re speaking like you’re not one of them.”

Theo shrugged and swirled the glass of wine that had appeared on the table. That was another feature of the Wolf’s Tooth; supposedly magic made its best guess about everyone who came through the doors, and supplied the tables with the wine that would suit the guests. Theo already knew that he liked this particular wine, but he wondered what Harry would think. There were no memories in Harry’s head of preferring one particular vintage over another, which Theo knew must mean that he almost never drank it.

“I’ll always be who I was raised to be in sone ways. You saw that when we spoke with Creevey. But—”

“Gentlemen.”

Theo turned and smiled at the server who had interrupted them. Unlike most other formal magical restaurants, where magic would take care of everything as it took care of the wines here, there were human servers at the Wolf’s Tooth.

Or, at least, a value of human. This woman was clad in one of the same illusions that dominated the tables, inclining her head and flashing enormous teeth. Grey fur encircled her head and crept down her back like a horse’s mane.

Harry blinked and then sat up straight. “You’re going to tell us what we can order?”

Theo could tell that Harry was gripping his wand despite what seemed to be his immunity to the illusion, and kicked him lightly under the table. Harry let it go and looked sheepish as he did his best to smile at the woman.

“Yes.” The woman gestured with hands that had the appearance of paws—shifting back and forth, so that one moment they were more hand-like and the next they had claws and blood splatters on the fur—and the dishes the restaurant served appeared, written in delicate crystal calligraphy in midair. Theo appreciated, as he knew he was meant to, the contrast of the brilliant writing with the bestial nature of the paws.

“Ah. Hmm.” Harry was working hard to keep his eyes from staying on the woman’s disguised face as he scanned the menu. Theo decided that he would have to reward Harry for his compliance later, and smiled at the thought of the rewards that came to mind. “I think I’ll have—the Slaughtered Lamb?”

“It’s just lamb,” Theo said, and Harry rolled his eyes at him.

“Yeah, I got that, Theo.”

Theo didn’t think he actually had until he received the reassurance, but it didn’t matter. Harry was relaxing back against the chair, which meant his magic wouldn’t level the restaurant.

“And for you, sir?”

“The Wild Boar’s Heart.” It was only regular pork, but arranged in such a fashion that it looked as if it had been torn apart by a great beast.

“Of course, sir.” The woman closed her hands again, and the menu vanished. “Do enjoy your meal.” She glanced at Harry and licked gleaming teeth with a red tongue that was large enough it, too, had to be part of the illusion. Then she turned and disappeared in the direction of the kitchens, a wolf’s tail appearing to shimmer through her robes.

Harry shook his head. “And the people who work here don’t object to it?”

“They know what they’re getting into.”

“Okay.” Harry exhaled again and looked around the Wolf’s Tooth. Then he turned and faced Theo. “And this is your idea of a romantic evening out.”

Theo smiled at him over his wineglass. “You’re enjoying it.”

“Yes, but…”

Harry’s voice trailed off. Theo leaned forwards. “You don’t think you should,” he said softly. “You don’t think you should have a meal when you’re so full of adrenaline. Or maybe you’re worried about what will happen if you’re on the edge of taking your wand out to fire a curse at any sound? Maybe you think that this is exploitative of real werewolves…”

“It is.”

“It has good food. And I know that you enjoy adrenaline and being on the edge of battle, Harry.”

“It doesn’t mean I enjoy the way the pureblood world treats werewolves.”

“No. And I’m not planning to bring you here again.” Theo leaned back in his own seat and sighed with pleasure as he tried his wine. “Come on, try that vintage you have there.” It smelled like a white too sweet for Theo’s tastes, but he was curious to know whether the magic of the Wolf’s Tooth had managed to find Harry a wine he would enjoy.

Harry picked up the glass, sipped, then paused and sipped again. “It’s good.”

“We’ll get the name from the servers before we leave.”

“Why did you bring me here, if you think that it exploits werewolves?”

“I want you to understand where I’m coming from, as more than just memories in the bond. Have you noticed that even though we retain the knowledge we got from each other’s memories outside the bond, once we step back, we start to lose the vital sense of them? I understand perfectly what you think of werewolves when we’re actually in mind-to-mind contact, but outside that, my own perspective starts to reassert itself again.”

“The perspective that says werewolves are worthless.”

“The perspective that’s so afraid of them that I’m more on edge than you are.”

Harry paused then, and eyed Theo. Then he looked around the room. “Even though you know none of this is real.”

“Yes.” Theo leaned a little back in his chair. “For years and years, all I ever heard of werewolves was in childhood stories. When I got closer to Hogwarts age, my father started telling me more realistic facts about them, but they were still intended to terrify. Do you know what it does to a pureblood, Harry, someone who’s been raised to consider himself the pinnacle of magic, to know that a single bite could make him into a ravening beast come the full moon?”

“Not all werewolves are like that.” Harry’s eyes were hard and unforgiving. “Fenrir Greyback might have been, but—”

Theo nodded. “I know. But Wolfsbane is a far more recent invention than the werewolf curse itself—”

“Are you saying that it is a curse? Not a disease?”

“That’s the theory my father subscribed to. I don’t know that I do, myself, mostly because in the stories he told me, it being a curse rather than a disease was a reason to flinch back from a werewolf the way you would from someone with a Wasting Curse. Nothing to do, no reason to think they could recover, just retreat.”

“Except for places like this.”

Theo inclined his head. “Understand, Harry, I didn’t believe most of the shit my father wanted me to by the time he was done teaching me. I saw the contradictions and the gaps. But I also didn’t have much reason to challenge him, not until it reached the time when he wanted me to take the Dark Mark. I didn’t believe exactly as my father did about werewolves, Muggleborns, Squibs, goblins, all of them. But it didn’t matter to me, do you understand? I could ignore it, because it wasn’t my life.”

“Yeah, I understand.” Harry’s eyes were hooded. “I met an awful lot of people like that during my years in the Ministry.”

“Who didn’t want to give funding to the Aurors because the problems the Aurors were working on weren’t their problems?”

“Yes.” Harry started at Theo, tilting his head back and forth as if to look at him from literal new angles, or through his wineglass. “You think that I—what, I’ll walk away from what’s between us if I don’t understand you?”

“I don’t want any of it to come as a nasty surprise,” Theo said softly. “No matter what’s between us, I know that your wife was closer to you magically and morally.”

Harry hesitated.

“Harry?”

“Morally. Not magically.”

Theo’s eyes widened. This was something he had picked up no trace of from the bond, other than some fleeting memories of Harry using borderline Dark spells in his Auror work. “What does that mean?”

Harry fiddled with his wineglass, then started as the werewolf-disguised server brought the plates floating to their table. He blinked at his lamb chops and then at Theo’s extremely bloody and raw pork. “Merlin.”

“Yeah, it’s a specialty of the restaurant,” Theo agreed, and nodded absently to the woman as she told them to enjoy their meals. “Now, I want to know more about what you mean of Weasley not being closer to you magically.”

“You were the first one who told me about cloaks and the like, but I’ve always known that my magic is more powerful than the average wizard or witch’s.” Harry’s face was uncomfortable; Theo kept his unreadable. Yeah, Harry was more powerful in the same way that the ocean was a bit bigger than a lake. “There were times that it—built up, like steam under pressure. I had to cast spells to relive it, or it would come out in random flashes of thunder and lightning during the night. Not the most comfortable for someone trying to sleep next to me.”

Theo leaned forwards a little. “And Dark spells are the most powerful.”

“Not always Dark spells, but combat ones. Ginny thought I only used them in the course of my job.” Harry let out a shaky breath. Theo was understanding, now, that he must have suppressed these memories so thoroughly they hadn’t even appeared in the bond. “I didn’t. I would go off on my own, regularly, and create a target or pick one—like a pile of rubbish—and hit it with everything I had.”

“What usually happened?” Theo whispered.

Harry licked his lips clean of the mint sauce that it seemed the Wolf’s Tooth served with their lamb, and looked Theo in the eye. “Vaporization.”

I will not take him across the table, I will not take him across the table…

From the way Harry’s eyes widened, some glimpse of what Theo was thinking must be showing in his eyes. Harry looked down at his meal and flushed, and ate several diligent bites before Theo managed to speak again.

“You didn’t tell her? Would she have been upset even if the spells weren’t Dark?”

“I—don’t know.” Harry sighed. “Maybe she wouldn’t have been upset. But I just didn’t tell her about it, and then things went on and kept happening and I didn’t tell her, and that was the routine for so long that it would have felt weird to tell her.”

Theo nodded. He had shared almost everything about himself with Elizabeth, but he and she had had a different relationship than Harry and Weasley had had. And all those relationships, good and bad and Dark and simple, were over, and he and Harry were sitting here now, in a world that all of them had a different perspective on than anyone else.

Harry tilted his head. “So, what about the Dark Mark was so different from the rest of your father’s beliefs that it made you run?”

Theo sighed and sat back. “The thought of never being able to choose again what I did, of having to obey someone else, of having to care about Muggleborns instead of being indifferent to them…I ran.”

“How did you get away?”

“My father thought that my not resisting him was the same as being obedient to him. He told me the good news one night, and I ordered an elf to help me pack and Flooed to Draco’s house.”

“Wow. He’s a better friend than I thought.”

Theo nodded a little. He and Draco had had their differences, mostly because Draco was willing to hide Theo but insisted that being Marked himself was a source of pride. And he also tended to brag now that he had never been afraid and had taken the Mark of his own free will, “facts” that Theo knew were bollocks. “Elizabeth isn’t a blood purist, either. But she doesn’t care much about house-elf rights and werewolf rights and the other things I assume you do.”

Harry hesitated for so long a time that Theo finished his meal. But he didn’t push Harry as he sipped gently at his wine. Harry ought to be allowed to choose what to say. After the amount of time Theo had spent in his head, Theo was sure that it wouldn’t be anything too distressing, anyway.

“I believe in them,” Harry said. “I always told myself I should support Hermione more.”

“I thought you did?”

“I appeared at her speeches sometimes and told anyone who asked that I supported house-elf rights, of course. But there was always so much paperwork to do, and other things, after I became Head Auror. I didn’t have the level of indifference that you did towards other people, but I promised lots of things and lived up to almost none of them.”

Theo smiled a little. “And now?”

“What do you mean, now?”

“Are you going to start showing your approval of her campaign in the time we’re in?”

Harry blew air out his pursed lips. “I’m planning to make some donations. Not speak up unless she asks me to, though. I don’t have the kind of fame that would make my contribution valued or demanded, anymore.”

Theo tilted his wineglass towards him. “And I reckon that a larger part of you is happy about that than not.”

Harry smiled with all his teeth. “That would be a yes.”

– – – –

“Join me?”

Theo extended the invitation knowing that Harry would most likely say no. Beds had replaced the pallets, now that they had the means to buy them, but they still lived in the small flat, and they still hung a curtain between them. It was comforting, during the nights when Theo woke gasping, to know that Harry slept a short distance away.

But moving things to the bed now would probably rush things too much. From the way he lingered by his own bed, Harry thought as much.

“Tomorrow? Or—maybe the night after?”

Theo smiled a little. They were both wizards in their thirty-sixth year of life, and there was no war, now, to likely shorten the time they had left. Bar the odd accident on the job or in the middle of Diagon Alley like the one that had briefly killed Elizabeth and Harry’s loved ones, they would have years, decades, to dance around each other, if they must. And Theo had meant what he said about being willing to wait for great sex.

He did hope that Harry wouldn’t keep him waiting too long, of course.

“However long you need, Harry.”

Harry gave him a small smile and vanished into the bathroom to take care of his teeth, which he always did with the exact same sequence of charms.

Theo lay back on the bed with his arms folded beneath the pillow, waiting his turn in the bathroom and whistling tunelessly. He rolled over a little when Harry opened the door, already on the verge of sleep and thinking about using a Tooth-Cleaning Charm to just take care of t tonight so he wouldn’t have to get out of bed—

Then he sat bolt upright.

“Harry?”

Harry was lingering in the bathroom, his face bright red, and a towel wrapped around his hips.

“I didn’t realize you’d taken a shower,” Theo said, his eyes locked on Harry’s chest. His ears distantly registered what he was saying as inane. Harry hadn’t taken a shower. Theo would have heard the water running.

“I haven’t.”

Harry took a deep breath and walked towards him. Theo reached out and gently ran his fingers over the scars on Harry’s chest, watching as his partner’s eyes fluttered closed and he turned towards Theo with a groan. Harry’s memories had shown him what it was like to live in that body, to fight and move and hold someone close in it, but not what Harry’s skin would actually feel like to touch.

“I wanted—for you to see what it felt like. To see what it felt like. Ah.”

Theo licked his lips, hungry for the sight of more skin. He almost reached out and tugged Harry’s towel loose.

But no, they had said they would wait. And Theo knew that if he started something now, he would not want to wait, and his impatience might dent Harry’s confidence in this, and that would not do.

“I’m all right,” Theo murmured, pulling back and letting his hand drop to his side. “Thank you for showing me.”

Harry half-bowed his head and then walked towards his own bed, letting the curtain swish shut. Theo touched his aching cock, thought about the wank he would have in the bathroom, and stood to make his way over. He hoped he didn’t sound like he was walking with the limp he almost certainly was.

– – – –

Theo’s eyes shot open, and he lay still in the moonlight, listening, his mind searching.

The room was quiet around him except for the sound of Harry’s breathing. If Theo lay still long enough and concentrated on the connection between them long enough, he thought he’d probably be able to hear Harry’s heartbeat, too.

But something had woken him. Theo let his eyes travel slowly back and forth without moving.

There was no one in the flat, he was sure, after a few minutes of looking and listening. The wards would have clanged loudly enough that Harry would be awake, too, if that was the case. And there were no noises from the street below except the usual gruff, growling sounds of traffic bustling along and now and then the noise of a scuffle. Nighttime in Knockturn.

Theo rolled over finally. The sensation of something that had happened in the distance was still thumping through his blood. He thought that perhaps it was some side-effect of the ritual, come home at long last. Or of their bond?

“Theo?”

Theo relaxed a little, knowing he wasn’t the only one awake in the darkness. “Harry?” he called back softly.

“Yeah.” Harry was staggering to his feet, by the sound. Theo was only a little disappointed, when he ripped the curtain aside, to see that Harry was wearing sleeping robes of the silken kind they had only recently become able to afford. “You felt it, too?”

“Yes. I have no idea what it is.”

Harry closed his eyes and cocked his head, turning slowly as if a Direction Spell was guiding him towards the northeastern wall of the flat. Theo remained still, watching him. Harry was probably only able to feel something because of his incredibly powerful magic, and Theo didn’t want to make it harder for him to concentrate.

Harry’s eyes abruptly snapped open, and he gave a hiss that Theo was more than half sure was in Parseltongue. “It’s our replicas.”

“What?”

“I think it is—it has to be.” Harry hastily reached out for the robes he wore when curse-breaking, which he had left draped over his usual chair at the kitchen table. Theo rolled to his feet and reached for his own robes. “There’s nothing else that would make such a commotion in the magic—audible only to us, you don’t hear anyone else running around like they noticed it—”

“And they would,” Theo had to agree. Knockturn Alley wasn’t the kind of place where powerful magical workings passed unnoticed. “Come on, then. My house or yours first?”

“I have—he has children.”

Theo wasn’t immune to the agonized plea shining in Harry’s eyes. He never would be again. “All right. Yours first.”

Chapter Eleven

Harry closed his eyes and called up his intimate knowledge—well, it had once been intimate knowledge—of the wards that surrounded the house that his replica shared with Ginny. This wouldn’t work if the wards had been changed in the last few months, but Harry couldn’t think why they would have been. Harry had based his wards on familial blood in the sure and certain knowledge that no one magical still existed who had a family connection with the Potters.

It ought to work. It ought to still identify Harry as a Potter, because the blood in his veins was the same, for all that his magic was different.

He extended his arm, and the wards snapped out, a silvery snake-shaped blur in the air, and grabbed onto it.

“Snakes?” Theo murmured next to him. His breath blew into the air, but it didn’t matter, not with the mobile Privacy Charms they were wrapped in.

“It was a last line of defense,” Harry said absently as he watched the ward twist back and forth, locked onto him but not yet alerting anyone in the house of the problem. It seemed uncertain what to make of him. “Just like there aren’t—weren’t—any magical Potters left, there weren’t any Parselmouths that I knew of.”

Theo looked as if he might question it, but then shut his mouth and waited. Harry concentrated fiercely on the wards, projecting his desire to help the Potters and soothe whatever problem had popped up.

Later, he thought it was that last thought which had done it. The ward retracted into the ones hovering around the house with a springing sound. Harry took a deep breath and ushered Theo through. Theo kept his hand on his wand and his eyes darting back and forth.

Once they were inside the wards, Harry could hear the shouting. He began to run. Theo followed right behind him, footsteps crunching in the snow before he cast a Silencing Charm on both their feet.

They were perhaps a meter from the house when Theo’s hand clamped down on his arm. Harry stopped, hard, and didn’t swing around to snap at Theo even though he wanted to. He had heard the content of the shouts as surely as Theo had.

They weren’t screams of agony. They were shouts of rage, and they had words in them.

“When were you going to tell me, Harry? Just tell me that! Did you intend to keep it a secret forever? What did you think would happen then? What would you do when I found out?”

Harry blinked, hard. Had his replica turned into a completely different person somehow and cheated on Ginny? But that seemed close to impossible, not when he would have copied Harry’s personality and desires and dreams and goals, and he had never wanted to walk away from Ginny.

“I’ve done it for years.” His replica’s voice was cold and quiet, and Harry found it disorienting to listen to his voice speaking words he hadn’t come up with himself. “It’s never corrupted me. It’s never been a problem. Don’t you find it preferable to me half-exploding the house—”

“You could have half-exploded the children!”

“This helps me keep control! It ensures that I’ll never hurt them!”

“Using Dark Arts makes you more likely to hurt them!”

Harry felt his eyes widen. Theo’s hand fell on his shoulder and gripped, and Harry reached back and gripped it in return. He could feel the temptation to fall into their connection, the first time he’d ever felt it so strongly without magic or eye contact.

He swallowed and held the temptation at bay. He needed to be sure that he was hearing every nuance of this conversation.

“I want you to stop using Dark Arts now. Give me a promise that you won’t. And then an oath that we can bind with Ron and Hermione when we see them next.”

“You want a fucking Unbreakable Vow?”

“Yes, Harry! How many times do I have to tell you this? You lied to me about it and sneaked around for years. I can’t trust you unless I know that you’re never going to do it again!”

“Then how am I supposed to bleed off my magic?”

“Play Quidditch like a normal person!”

Harry felt the swell of enraged magic traveling towards him and Theo. He turned and flung his arms around Theo, ducking his head against his chest, and raised his own magic around them in a flexible, silent shield. Theo layered his own power over it, and they fell to the ground and rolled and bounced in the snow nearly to the wards, but didn’t actually die or get injured.

“Are you all right?” Theo murmured into his ear as they got back to their feet.

“Yeah. Come on.” Harry hauled on Theo’s arm, and they moved back towards the house. It didn’t escape Harry’s notice that Theo hadn’t removed his magic from the shield around them. It rippled and flowered with their movements, so it wouldn’t slow them down, but Theo’s discontent with going back to the house pulsed in every breath both of them took.

Harry squeezed his shoulder. “If there’s another blast like that, we’ll leave,” he whispered. “But I don’t think there will be.”

“Why did he get so upset about that?”

“Because my relatives liked to call themselves normal people. And—as I’m sure you know, they didn’t treat me well.”

Theo’s hand was on his shoulder again. Harry tilted his head to let his cheek rest against Theo’s knuckles, and cast a spell that would let them hear what Ginny and his replica were saying without approaching any closer.

“—sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“But you did.”

Ginny’s voice was flat and dry. Harry leaned closer to Theo, feeling as if he was going to be sick. He had heard her sound like that only after Al’s death in the original timeline.

“Ginny—”

“You could have hurt me. You weren’t holding back. This is what happens when you cast Dark Arts, Harry.” Ginny’s voice was low and exhausted. “It corrupts your magic. It makes it more volatile. What would have happened if one of the kids was in the room?”

“Nothing! I never would have hurt them!”

“That’s what I thought about you hurting me until today, too, when you almost did.”

The replica made a choking sound. Harry bowed his head. He couldn’t even say that Ginny was wrong about the Dark Arts making his magic more volatile—not exactly. It was possible that he might have injured someone if he’d hadn’t been letting out his magic regularly in practice, and he didn’t know how much his replica had been practicing in the months since their separation.

“Please, Ginny—”

“Are you going to take the Vow?”

“No. Stop being ridiculous. But I’ll make a promise to stop practicing Dark Arts, and not use those spells even—even in the course of my Auror work from now on. I promise.”

Theo’s hand pressed Harry’s shoulder for a moment. Harry glanced back at him. Theo mouthed, He wouldn’t keep it.

Harry nodded. If nothing else, not practicing those kinds of battle spells would mean that the replica’s magic started flaring up more and more often, and he could hurt Ginny or one of the children with a flow of undirected power like the one he’d just produced.

“I can’t trust you, Harry.”

Ginny’s voice was so weary that tears started to Harry’s eyes. He didn’t know what was coming next, but later, he thought he should have guessed, the same way he could so easily picture Ginny turning away with her arms wrapped around herself and her head bowed.

“I want a divorce.”

This time, Theo’s hand spasmed on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry thought it might have been the only thing that kept him from pulling away and running into the house to plead the replica’s case. Theo drew him close, holding him safe and sheltered.

Away from the life that he wasn’t part of anymore. Maybe he would have stayed married to Ginny if he had, well, stayed married to her. Or maybe not. Like his replica, he’d been lying to Ginny about how often he’d been using those spells, and what kind they were.

“Please, Ginny, you don’t mean that—”

Harry winced. That was the last kind of thing that you said to Ginny when her temper was high. Even Theo flinched against him. From sharing Harry’s memories, he probably knew the same thing.

“I do mean that. I want a divorce, Harry Potter. I can’t trust you anymore. You lied to me. You’ve been using Dark Arts for Merlin knows how long. You nearly threw me against the wall just now! You nearly burst through the wall!”

Harry could also picture what was happening now with his replica, as clearly as if he had cast a spell that would allow him to see through the house. His replica would be drawing away with his own arms enfolding himself, his eyes and face turning cold.

“If that’s the way you feel.”

“It’s what happened.”

“Then I need you to work with me on what to tell Al and Lily. Unless you think it’s a good idea to tell a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old everything about why they won’t have two parents anymore.”

Harry closed his eyes and shook his head. Then he squeezed Theo’s shoulder and turned him around so that he was facing the wards again.

Theo walked beside him as they made it out of the wards. When they were outside again, and Harry had checked to make sure there were no holes left behind them where they’d come through, Theo wrapped his arms around Harry and Apparated them away.

– – – –

Nott House was a hulking, silvery shape through distant trees when they appeared beyond the gates. Harry glanced at Theo. He could understand why Theo hadn’t brought them closer—the Nott wards were probably more paranoid than the Potter ones—but he didn’t know why they were hesitating now.

Theo swallowed. “I don’t know exactly what’s wrong,” he admitted. “And I don’t know if I can get through the wards the way you got through yours.”

Harry thought for a moment as they stood there with their hands on each other’s shoulders. “Do you want me to cause a distraction?” he asked finally. “Lure him out beyond the wards, so that you can attach eavesdropping spells to him and we can hear and see what’s going on once he goes back inside?”

Theo blinked, hard, at him. “You think that would work?”

“Are your wards so paranoid that they’d prevent all those spells?”

“His wards,” Theo corrected absently, but he was clearly thinking. “No…no, I think you’re right that that would work. If I fasten them to his skin and not his clothing. It’s not something I ever put in any precautions against, because I didn’t have enemies after the war who were strong enough to break through the wards.”

Harry nodded. “All right. What would make the best distraction? A flare of Dark magic against the wards? A specific spell?” His mind was still on the flare of power that he’d felt from his own replica and which had almost injured Ginny, but he shoved it away as fiercely as he could. They were here to check on Theo’s replica, and Harry didn’t know him the way he knew Theo.

“Dark magic ought to do it. As powerful as you can make it, but formless, so that he doesn’t think someone is trying to break through his wards.”

Theo’s eyes were enormous and dark grey when Harry turned to study them. Harry nodded slowly. This was about proving something for both of them, he thought. Theo was showing he trusted Harry, this Harry, to use Dark magic and not hurt him.

And Harry was proving he could do that.

He closed his eyes and dragged on his magic, pulling it to the surface the way he would have when he was preparing to cast battle spells. He thought of Fenrir Greyback, and he thought of some of the Auror cases he’d worked, and he thought of the way he might have tried to curse the Unspeakables if they had refused to let him and Theo leave, and he threw the magic out to saturate the air around them with a half-muffled shout.

Theo’s fingers curled into his shoulder as one of the wards began to sing, a high, shrill, muffled alarm. Harry stepped back to stand alongside Theo in the copse of trees not far from Nott House’s gates. Harry could hear a distant call, but not what it was saying.

Finally, Theo’s replica came hurrying out of the wards, glancing around. He had his wand drawn, and he looked so much like Theo that Harry’s heart ached. But he moved with a crouching kind of caution that Harry had never seen in Theo. This wasn’t the man who had been bold enough to use a half-understood ritual to travel back in time and try to save his wife.

Harry would be best-served not to look for his Theo in the replica.

Theo was moving his wand next to Harry, casting the spells wordlessly. The replica, meanwhile, turned in a slow circle on his heel, staring around. He finally shook his head and went back inside the wards.

Harry glanced at Theo. Theo nodded and picked up a small pebble from the ground, which he cast yet another spell on. It glowed and turned a smoky, silvery-blue, reminding Harry of some of the crystal balls in Trelawney’s classroom, and then glittered and shone entirely as a mirror, reflecting what Harry presumed was the inside of Nott House.

Watching the tapestries and the polished stone walls passing from the replica’s perspective, Harry found it odd, again, that Theo could have been willing to settle for a little flat in Knockturn Alley. But he had been inside Theo’s heart and mind, and knew it was the truth. So he simply leaned over the mirror and watched as the replica walked into a sitting room where a woman who must be Elizabeth Nott glanced up.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing that I could sense.” The replica sat down next to Elizabeth and smiled at her, reaching for her hand. Harry leaned back a little until his shoulder touched Theo’s, and Theo touched him, but said nothing. “I suppose it might have been someone who Apparated in drunk and Apparated out again once they realized our wards were too strong for them to get through.”

Elizabeth laughed softly. “I hope we read about a Splinching in the papers tomorrow morning, then.”

The replica smiled, or at least the charms attached to his hands showed a corner of that on his face, but he seemed distracted. Harry wasn’t entirely surprised when he stood up again a few minutes later and left the sitting room, walking down corridors that seemed to lead deeper and deeper into the house.

Theo stiffened next to Harry. Harry leaned towards him again, but Theo didn’t relax. “What’s he doing?” he hissed. “That’s the way to the dungeons.”

“You didn’t go there?” Harry asked, watching as the walls in their stone mirror became older and rougher. “Or you didn’t go there often?”

“Not at all. My Potions brewing lab was on the ground floor. And there aren’t guest bedrooms or elf quarters or anything like that that he would have a reason to inspect…” Theo trailed off as the charms, and the surface of the stone, briefly showed a rough wall, and then a hidden door that Harry hadn’t seen a trace of until the replica’s hand opened it.

They stepped, or seemed to step, into a room that made Harry catch his breath. Theo cast him a swift glance. “You’ve seen something like this before?”

Harry stared at the crystal block of light shimmering in the air, which contained an egg that was hatching into a bright green snake, which diminished and turned into an egg again, and then hatched again, over and over. “You could say that.”

“Well, where was it?”

“In the Time Chamber in the Department of Mysteries.”

Theo swore.

They watched as the replica walked across the room and halted to glare at a table spread with delicate silver and glass instruments. Harry didn’t recognize most of them, but he didn’t think it mattered much. He did recognize the crystal hourglass in the middle of the table that had golden sand spilling from a cracked bulb, and the chain that dangled from the top bulb.

“Were you interested in Time-Turners?” he asked Theo softly as they watched the replica pick up what looked like a small crystal hammer and tap on the chain hanging from the instrument. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find it. A second later, he cursed bitterly himself and flung the hammer into a corner of the room.

“It was a theoretical interest of mine only,” Theo said under his breath. “One that I never pursued because brewing kept me busy enough. And when I wanted to travel back in time myself, I turned to rituals, as you know.”

Harry nodded, watching as the replica fetched another instrument and bent down to tap it against the crack in the bottom bulb. “And what did you want to invent the Time-Turner to do?”

“I—I thought of going back to prevent my father from returning to the Dark Lord when he rose,” Theo whispered. “I wondered what would happen if he hadn’t returned to active Death Eater service and I hadn’t had to run.”

Harry squeezed Theo’s hand once and pulled his back. He couldn’t say everything that he felt at the moment, including that he was glad Theo hadn’t succeeded at inventing his Time-Turner, without taking too much of their attention from the replica.

The instrument the replica was holding got flung at the wall, too. “Useless,” the replica said under his breath, and apparently turned to throw himself into a chair at the table where the Time-Turner was standing, from the perspective the shifting charms adopted. Harry thought he saw the replica folding his arms, too.

“Do you think Elizabeth knows about this?” Harry asked, when a few minutes had gone by and the perspective hadn’t shifted.

“No. And that worries me.”

“Because you told her everything?”

Theo nodded, his eyes still fastened on the image in the surface of the stone. “If he’s started concealing secrets from her, it can only mean he thinks she’d disapprove. And she didn’t disapprove of the notion that I wanted to prevent my father from returning to the Dark Lord, although she didn’t believe I’d be able to accomplish it. So he wanted to use this Time-Turner to do something else.”

Harry frowned, but the replica stood up then, grabbed the Time-Turner, and hurled it at the wall, too. It broke apart into large sprays of golden metal and golden sand, which hung in the air for a moment, flickering. Harry tensed. He wondered if they were about to see Theo’s replica travel in time, and whether that would mean the undoing of the world they were living in now.

But the sand dissipated without anything happening. Theo’s replica hissed and kicked at it, and then the surface of the stone went dark as the light in the dungeon room disappeared. Theo gasped and staggered a little. Harry reached out to steady him.

“The eavesdropping charms were having to work against the wards inside the house,” Theo murmured. “And they reached their limit.”

“So what do you think we sensed? The moment when the Time-Turner burst and whatever he was going to do didn’t work?”

“That, or the moment when Weasley found out about your replica using Dark magic.” Theo was standing straight again, his eyes hooded. He tossed the stone to the ground. “Or maybe both at once. There could be a magical connection between our replicas because of the ritual that they don’t know about themselves.”

“Do you think we should—intervene?”

Theo stared at him for a second, then held out his arm. “Let’s go home and talk about that.”

In the end, Harry was more than glad to let Theo Apparate them. His mind was still whirling with what he’d seen, and his skin with what he’d felt from that burst of magic inside his house—no, the replica’s house. The Potters’ house.

The house that was never going to be his again.

– – – –

When they were back in their kitchen, with cups of tea on the table in front of them, Theo finally asked, “Do you want to go back to her?”

Harry blinked and looked up at him. Theo’s hands were so tight around the cup that the sides were straining under his touch. Harry hadn’t anticipated that, and caught up in his thoughts of what was going on magically with their replicas and the damage they might be doing to their families, he hadn’t noticed.

He reached out, catching Theo’s hand and eyes at the same moment. Their connection warmed and shone to life between them.

I care about her—I care about them—I already put them behind me—nothing can change—

Theo grabbed him hard, and their minds blended and surged into each other’s, and Harry felt Theo’s relief at how much Harry wanted to stay with him, how little he wanted to go back to Ginny, how sorry he felt for his children but how he knew that he couldn’t help them when he was essentially just a stranger to them. And Harry bathed in the same thing as regarded Elizabeth: Theo’s concern that his replica was hiding secrets from her was there, but Theo couldn’t go up and ask her if she was all right, because that would involve secrets he would have no way of explaining how he knew.

Theo swallowed and let go of Harry’s eyes and hands at last. Harry leaned back and shook his head.

“That proves that we’re different people, really,” Harry said softly. “I didn’t think Ginny and I would have ever got divorced.”

“But you were still hiding secrets from her about the spells you practiced. And you said that your marriage was falling apart after your son died.”

Harry nodded absently. “I suppose we might have ended up getting divorced, after that. Our marriage was one of the things I thought we were saving when we went back in time. But—all we could do was give our replicas the chance. What they choose to do with it is their own problem.”

“I’d hope that he’d have the sense not to invent a Time-Turner,” Theo muttered. “Use a ritual like anybody else.”

Harry laughed despite himself, and Theo looked at him with a faint smile. Harry sobered quickly enough, mind racing ahead to what would happen in a few years, the things that his replica wouldn’t share now, or wouldn’t share the same way Harry had once pictured doing. He supposed it was always possible that Ginny would decide against a divorce, but how could their relationship be the same?

“I hope that he gets to see Al off to Hogwarts and there isn’t some kind of tense stand-off between him and Ginny,” Harry muttered. “And Lily, the same thing. Al asked me once if I thought he would be Sorted into Slytherin, and I said that it didn’t matter where he went. I hope my replica remembers to tell him that.”

“Why did he ask you that?”

“He’d heard Ron say something about Slytherins, and I think he saw some of the same traits in himself. I just told him that I could have gone there, and I don’t think I turned into a bad person. A more complicated one than I used to think I was, but not bad.”

“You could have gone there?”

Harry blinked and stared at Theo. “Yes. Didn’t you see that in my memories?”

“Most of the ones we’ve shared have focused on more recent happenings than those of twenty-four years ago,” Theo muttered. He held out his left hand, a silent question, and Harry reached out and caught it, this time concentrating on his memory of what the Sorting Hat had said to him.

The memories rushed and whirled through his head, and Harry listened along with Theo to the Sorting, to his own dislike at seeing Draco Sorted—which made Theo dig a little deeper, and see the confrontation between Harry and Draco on the train—his relief at being with Ron, and how he hadn’t even chosen Gryffindors, but had chosen against Slytherin.

Theo’s thoughts slipped alongside his, and Harry wasn’t sure which one of them said, That would have been different, to have Harry Potter there. Or even in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.

Harry nodded, and blinked as the rush came to a halt and their thoughts separated again. He sighed and leaned his head on his hands for a second, tiredness dropping onto him. “I think we wouldn’t have been able to travel back and save our families then, though,” he said with a yawn. “Or we wouldn’t have had this connection. Everything that’s happened to us has gone into making us who we are. And I like who I am.”

“The man who wouldn’t have divorced Ginny Potter?”

Harry looked up and straight into Theo’s eyes. “The man who’s bonded to Theo Nott.”

Theo didn’t seem to know how to answer, but his eyes shone for a second before he dropped them, and told Harry all he needed to know. He leaned forwards and tipped Theo’s face up for a gentle kiss, before he turned and walked to his bed, on his side of the room.

Maybe not mine alone for much longer.

Chapter Twelve

“You do want to test it?”

Harry’s voice was gentle, and full of understanding, and Theo shivered. That was the kind of tone that he wouldn’t have heard from anyone else before he went back in time. He would have received understanding from Elizabeth, of course, but it wouldn’t have been gentle.

His life had changed. And he wanted to make sure—for Harry as much as for himself—that it wouldn’t change back.

“Yes. I think we have to.”

Harry didn’t question that. He just reached out and offered his hand to Theo, and Theo Apparated them to the outside of the wards around Nott House. They stood where they were for a moment, listening. Theo didn’t think anyone would have been able to hear the crack of Apparition from inside the house, but his replica had already done a few things that Theo would never have done. Now was not the time to guess that he might have upgraded the wards.

Nothing happened, and Theo nodded. “All right. I’m going to try and go in to meet him, to tell him that Time-Turner is a really bad idea, no matter what he was intending to use it for.”

“And you want me to stay here?”

Theo nodded. Harry raised his hands and stepped back, leaving Theo alone on the cobbled path that ran towards the gates and the gardens.

The minute Theo tried to take a step forwards, he slammed into something invisible and sticky. He started and took a step back. Whatever it was let him go at once. Theo angled to the side, stepping off the path, but the same stickiness grabbed him. He turned around and began to walk down the path in the opposite direction, thinking that he would approach Nott House from the back.

Between one step and another, the air that had been perfectly normal turned into an enormous spiderweb.

Theo stepped back, or tried, but nothing changed until he thought, deliberately, about giving up the plan to inform his replica. Then he could move freely, and he turned around and looked at Harry with a pounding heart he hoped he’d concealed. That had reminded him too much of some of the spells his father had liked to cast.

From the sharp look in Harry’s eyes, he hadn’t hidden it that well. Theo swallowed and told himself to stop thinking that he had to hide things from Harry. He shook his head when Harry asked quietly, “You don’t think he added new wards?”

“No. There wouldn’t be a point in extending them this far from the house, and the feeling left as soon as I thought about not approaching him.”

“So we can only help in indirect ways.”

“What do you mean?”

“By trying to make the world a better place. The kind of place where your replica doesn’t feel as much need to use a Time-Turner. The kind of place where my replica’s children can grow up at peace and happy even if their parents get divorced.”

Theo blinked and studied Harry carefully. He was giving Theo that kind of earnest look he was so good at, which made Theo believe that mountains might move themselves.

“But we don’t know what he was trying to achieve with the Time-Turner, exactly. Or exactly what kind of people your children will be like in the future.”

“So? We can still try.”

“By breaking curses? Running a business in Knockturn Alley?”

“I don’t see any reason those things can’t add to the good in the world. If we try.”

Harry’s head was lifted, and his eyes shone in that stubborn way that meant someone would have to kill him to get him to change his mind. And then, it probably wouldn’t stick, Theo thought, remembering how Harry had already come back from the dead once.

Theo nodded. And, well, it wasn’t entirely a relief to find out that he probably couldn’t help his replica or change the course of his life except by indirect means—

But it was more of one than not.

The only way left is forwards.

– – – –

“Hey, Nott! Nott!”

Theo turned around warily, one hand resting near his wand. More than one person in Diagon Alley had started at the sound of that name and given him an unfriendly look. For all that his identity as a half-blood with a Muggleborn mother and an unfortunate last name was gaining currency, it was still a Death Eater’s last name.

Theo blinked when he realized the person behind him was Dennis Creevey. He pulled up, breathing harshly, and bestowed a smile on Theo so sunny that Theo smiled back before he knew what he was doing, even before he could remind himself that no matter whom Creevey saw when looking at him, it wouldn’t be his replica.

“I wanted to invite you to dinner,” Creevey said, which was—

“What?” Theo asked, startled.

“You and your partner both, of course,” Creevey said hastily, as if he thought Theo would think he was prejudiced. “My girlfriend Estelle is Muggleborn, too. We don’t care about blokes dating blokes.”

“I—well, if you want us to come over, of course I can talk to Harry,” Theo said, watching closely out of habit. Not a flicker of recognition crossed Creevey’s face at Harry’s name. “But I just wondered why. It’s not like you owe us anything for curing you.”

Creevey gave him a look of disbelief so long and deep that Theo would have found it insulting if he hadn’t got used to being a different person than he used to be. “Are you kidding?” Creevey asked, brushing a raindrop off his face. “I owe you my career and my chance to make a difference in the world. I reckoned you didn’t want to have a big fuss made of it, so I didn’t say anything, but then someone told me about the new Curse-Breakers at Gringotts, and I knew it had to be you. I wanted the chance to say thank you.”

Theo blinked, and blinked again. He forced back the impulse to refuse the invitation just because. That was exactly the kind of thing that wouldn’t get him anywhere. And then he began to smile.

“I’ll need to talk to Harry about it,” he repeated. “But I think he’d like to. Any particular evening work better for you than others?”

“Thursday. Six-o’clock?”

Theo nodded. Then he waved to Creevey as he went bustling away, mainly because Creevey was waving to him.

Him. Theo Nott. Who once never would have been able to have a conversation like this—not just because Creevey was Muggleborn, but because he’d had to consider invitations and interactions so carefully after the war in case someone was going to get angry at him for the Dark Mark he didn’t have.

Or just because you were the man your father raised you to be. Because you were paranoid and turned down invitations that were probably sincere because you were afraid.

Being with Harry would never make him a Gryffindor. But it seemed to have made him less afraid.

Theo kept that revelation tucked away in his mind like a sparkling jewel as he went to the shops for the dinner they would make that night.

– – – –

“I’m glad the Curse-Breaking job is working out so well for you.”

Harry smiled at Bill, and for a moment, the friendly smile he got back was layered over with the kinds of commiserating ones they had exchanged when their children got too loud at Weasley family gatherings. But he pushed the comparison out of his mind. He wouldn’t drive himself mad longing for what he couldn’t have. “Thanks for your recommendation that we apply. I would never have—”

“Well, I am thinking of going into it, so I want to meet him!”

An electric shock raced down Harry’s back at that voice, and he turned around slowly. He and Bill were in a small alley next to Quality Quidditch Supplies; Harry had made himself walk this way because he didn’t want to let paranoia rule his life, and had met Bill by coincidence. But he knew that voice, better than he knew Bill’s.

Teddy came hurrying towards him, his hair bright electric blue and his eyes fastened on Harry. Not the way he had once fastened them, when he wanted gifts or just wanted to spend time with his godfather.

Harry caught his breath and looked over Teddy’s shoulder at a frowning Victoire, and Fleur, who looked as if she was finishing off a sigh. “Uh, hello?” he asked, trying to look as if he didn’t know them, as if he hadn’t read Teddy bedtime stories for years, as if he hadn’t charmed Victoire’s hair purple for her when she lamented not being a Metamorphmagus herself.

He couldn’t have what he had lost, and he knew it, now.

“You’re a Curse-Breaker, right?” Teddy’s hair cycled to a brilliant orange-red, his “intently focused” color.

“Yes,” Harry said slowly.

“And you run some kind of business in Knockturn Alley where you teach people to duel, right?”

“I already told you that,” Victoire snapped, and folded her arms.

“You got some of the details wrong! He won’t!”

“Yeah, I run the dueling portion of it,” Harry said, hiding a smile. “Theo, my partner, runs the potions-brewing side.”

Teddy flicked his fingers, clearly dismissing the potions-brewing side as unimportant. “That’s what I want to do,” he said intently. “I thought about aiming for the Aurors, but they have all these rules. I want to know how to protect people from curses and break them and teach them to defend themselves.”

“You could become the Defense professor at Hogwarts and do that,” Fleur said in what sounded like an ancient, exasperated voice.

Harry knew he was showing his surprise—Teddy had always talked about becoming an Auror—but he also thought there were plenty of reasons that could excuse it. “You—why are you interested in those things? It can take a long time to develop the necessary skills. And I’m only as good as I am at curse-breaking because of the bond I have with my partner.”

“Well, maybe I can find someone like that to bond with,” Teddy said, and Victoire blushed even though he wasn’t looking at her. “But the really important thing is that I want to protect people and be honest with people about what I’m doing.”

Harry hoped that his momentary freezing didn’t seem too obvious. “Uh, what?”

“I want to be honest about what I’m doing,” Teddy repeated, and his hair changed to black. “Unlike some people I know who decided that if they wanted to cast Dark Arts spells they would just lie and hope nobody found out—”

“Teddy,” Bill hissed, and gave Harry an apologetic look. “Sorry, Harry. We’ve had a—bit of conflict within the family, and Teddy’s still upset about it.”

“It’s no trouble,” Harry said, while he wondered one more time what kind of path would lie open in front of the replica now. Harry had tried sending an owl to his, just because he’d wanted to see if that was a possible way to warn him without going directly through the protective enchantment the air around Nott House had turned into when Theo tried it. The owl had hooted and sat on the table without moving. The Patronus Harry had tried next had stood there and looked at him in confusion. Apparently he was “Harry Potter” to the Patronus, and it didn’t know why he was trying to send a message to himself.

Harry shook himself out of the daze when he saw Teddy squinting at him. He didn’t want to look as if he was reluctant to teach him because of some family drama about which this Harry absolutely didn’t know. He put on a friendly smile and shrugged a little. “You should know that I can’t be entirely honest, either. Some parts of the Curse-Breaking business are confidential. It’s in the contract I signed with the goblins.”

“But you could tell me about the kinds of things you have to keep confidential?”

“Of course. And I’m sure Bill could, too.”

Teddy nodded, but sharply. Harry recalled that Teddy’d been having some conflicts with Bill over what kinds of dates he wanted to take Victoire on, and hid his wince. Well, at least that was another reason Teddy had sought out someone else who was a Curse-Breaker.

“That’s good enough. I want to learn. I want to do what I want to do without being dishonest and without obeying too many rules and without following the same path that he did—”

“Teddy.”

Teddy folded his arms and scowled at the pavement. Harry wondered if he could get away with patting him awkwardly on the shoulder, and decided they weren’t close enough (that Teddy knew of) to chance it. He cleared his throat and said, “I’d be happy to teach you, but I’m afraid that I’ll need to talk to my partner first.”

“Bring him by our house,” Bill said.

Harry felt his breath catch in his throat. He tried to look less shocked and more surprised. “You’d invite both of us?”

“Of course. Why not?”

Bill was looking at him as if he really was surprised, so Harry ducked his head and settled on a half-truth. “Theo’s last name is Nott. A lot of people don’t—well, they don’t react well to that information.”

“Dennis Creevey told me about what you did for him,” said Bill firmly. “I don’t care if he’s related to a Death Eater. I know he’s not prejudiced against Muggleborns, and that’s the only way I would refuse to have him in my house. Yes, bring him to dinner. Perhaps we could do Wednesday next week?”

Harry nodded, dazed. Bill beamed at him, clapped him on the shoulder, and asked a few more questions about time and what Theo liked to eat. And then they walked away, with Teddy still muttering to himself about honest people and how he wanted to be one of them, and Victoire giving him a light smack on the back of the head.

Harry stood there and thought, Two dinner invitations in one week. I never thought we would be able to connect as well with other people as that.

He knew Theo would be more cautious about this one than the one from Dennis. Harry had never been that close to Dennis, while he’d sought out contact with Bill and Fleur even before they’d settled fully into their new lives. And Theo knew Teddy had been his godson.

But since Harry wouldn’t be able to tell Teddy or Bill or Fleur or anyone else who he really was, he wouldn’t be able to have that kind of relationship with them anyway.

He would have a new one. And that was what counted.

– – – –

Theo listened carefully as Harry explained the encounter with the Weasley couple and Teddy Lupin, and nodded. “All right,” he said.

Harry paused with a forkful of chicken above his plate. “That’s all? I thought you’d want to hold back more before we actually had dinner together.”

“I don’t see a reason to.” Theo ate his own chicken with careful manners that he had long since accepted Harry would never imitate. The memories he got from Harry had included the number of times he’d been locked in his cupboard without food by his horrendous Muggle relatives, and Theo would have already taken revenge if not for the fact that the Muggles would have no idea who he or Harry were. “You’re aware that you can’t become the boy’s godfather. You know that you’re not Ron Weasley’s dear friend or the uncle to Bill Weasley’s children. But there’s no reason to try and cut them out of your life completely. We probably owe Bill Weasley for telling us about the Gringotts job, anyway.”

“It could also be that you’ll like them,” Harry pointed out in some exasperation.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”

“But you’re talking in terms of obligations and debts, not—I don’t know, friendship.”

“I told you, Harry. It’s very rare that I find someone who can see to the heart of me. I was willing to bend time and spend the rest of my life without Elizabeth to save her. And I’ll happily accompany you to the homes of as many Weasleys as you like. But that’s because you’re important to me, not because I’m expecting them to be.”

Harry swallowed, eyes cast down for a second. Then he looked up and caught Theo’s gaze as he rarely did when they were in eating a meal, and drew Theo into the middle of that whirling connection that neither of them could ever have enough of.

Theo gasped aloud at the feelings dancing around him. Harry was blue-gold-fascinated-grateful-happy-in love.

Yes, I am, Harry said, and then their minds bled into each other’s and Theo could feel his own memories storming through them, his own emotions curling as their magic blended. And you are, or as good as. When you said that about me, I knew.

Theo had been wondering when he would be able to speak the words, if he would ever be able to speak the words. And now he knew it didn’t matter. They had something better than speaking.

And something better to look forward to than just more dinner. Theo stood up and came around the table with his arms reaching for Harry.

Harry surged up to meet him halfway there.

– – – –

Harry kissed Theo and felt their connected minds twine further and further up the invisible chain that bound them.

Chains? That’s how you think of it?

That’s not only how I think of it.

Theo smiled, physically or only in their minds Harry had no idea and it didn’t matter, and raised his hand. Their joined magic flowed through it, and Harry’s robes undid themselves and dropped in a neat pile on the floor. Theo didn’t need to ask him whether he wanted that. He could feel very well how much Harry wanted it.

And Harry knew from Theo’s mind exactly what he liked, so he reached out and undid the buttons on Theo’s robes slowly, while Theo half-shut his eyes and stood there, shivering every time Harry’s fingers brushed his skin.

“Your bed or mine?” Harry asked, aloud, to feel the vibration of the words in his throat, and to feel the way Theo’s response stormed through his mind.

Mine. Mineminemine.

Harry laughed aloud. Someone’s possessive, he said, as he dragged Theo backwards and fell backwards onto the bed and then spread his legs, because part of him knew very well how wild that would drive Theo.

“You said it.”

Harry shivered, glad that Theo had also chosen to speak aloud. If Theo had a thing for fucking Harry in his bed, then Harry had a thing for the way Theo spoke when he was aroused. He kicked his legs a little further open, used their joined magic to push his socks off his feet and his pants down his legs, and waited.

Theo stared at him, eyes brilliant and wide and unblinking, and then reached out to trace a trembling hand down Harry’s abdomen. Harry closed his eyes and arched up. The lack of eye contact made no difference to the way their minds were joined, or the mingled tide of double pleasure that poured through him when Theo’s hand gripped his cock.

Theo’s shock at feeling his pleasure fed back into him, and Harry looped his own delight at Theo’s shock back into that, and Theo trembled and pulled a bit back from their connection, shifting his weight and hissing.

“If we don’t distance ourselves from each other a little,” he whispered when Harry opened his eyes, “then I’m never going to get inside you.”

Harry laughed and reached for their magic, coating his fingers with lubricant that simply materialized out of thin air. Theo stared at him, the connection between them blurring with gold and grey and blue and too many other colors to understand.

The one thing that mattered was that Theo was really, really turned on.

Harry reached down for his own arse, and kept his eyes on Theo’s, and smiled when Theo swallowed, the click of his throat loud in the (physical) silence.

– – – –

I didn’t know he would do that. I didn’t know he could do that.

Theo supposed, dimly, in the part of his mind that wasn’t caught up in the whirlwind, there was no reason Harry couldn’t do that. They had more than enough magic joined between them, and Harry wanted to be fucked, and Theo wanted to fuck him, and—

Harry made a lazy gesture with one hand, and Theo’s cock glistened and turned warm. Theo gritted his teeth. I’ll come in a minute if you keep doing that.

A minute? I would have said thirty seconds was more likely. No, ten.

Theo rolled on top of Harry with a snarl. Harry laughed at him and slid his own fingers into himself again, hissing and letting his eyes fall shut. Theo let his eyes roam over Harry for the moments when Harry was preoccupied, seeing the scars flitting across his skin and knowing at the same time how he’d got them, seeing his cock straining against his stomach and knowing the mostly hidden self-consciousness Harry felt.

No one but Ginny’s ever seen it like this—will you—

I like it, Theo told him, and got some revenge by stroking Harry again. Harry’s eyes nearly crossed before he got himself under control and Summoned a pillow with another wandless gesture.

Theo helped ease it under Harry’s arse, and took the opportunity, while he was down there, to bow his head and quickly suck Harry into his mouth. Harry bucked and made an urgent noise, and Theo regretfully pulled back after only a quick taste of salt and heat and pleasure that rang through his head like he was standing within a giant bell.

Harry squirmed a little, and then stilled. Theo leaned back to look into his eyes again. The emotions and the colors in his head, in the bond between them, were unnaturally still once more.

Are you all right? Theo asked softly.

I want to—I just—I haven’t done it like this before—you know more than I do—

And you know and feel what I do, Theo said, and pushed his wonder and his desire and his delight to the surface of his mind. It’s all right, Harry. We’ll wait as long as you need to, if you want to wait—

No. Harry flared his own desire back at Theo, his near desperation to share this with him, and hauled him closer with what might have been hands or magic. I just—as long as you don’t compare me with anybody—

Theo leaned over and kissed him, and felt Harry relax slowly beneath him. I won’t compare you to anyone. This moment is for you, I promise.

For us, you mean, Harry said, and then arched his back and reached down to guide Theo into him, hissing a little under his breath as he slid in.

Theo was sure that their magic had also acted to relax Harry, because other than stopping with his eyes closed and giving those meaningless hisses under his breath a few times, he didn’t give any sign of discomfort. When Theo was fully settled inside him—trembling from the heat and the doubled sensations of penetrating and being penetrated, of being inside and around—Harry looked up at him with shining eyes and whispered, “Move.”

Theo closed his eyes, bent down to kiss him, and moved.

It was incredible. Ripples ran through Theo until he nearly felt as if he didn’t have a body anymore, dissolved as it was into fire and light. Harry clutched at his arms with hands that Theo knew would leave bruises, and his were the arms being pressed and the hands doing the pressing, and the voice hissing and the voice crying out, and the discovery of this pleasure with Harry for the first time and the discovery of this pleasure with Theo for the first time. Theo shuddered and dissolved into the heat, the hurricane, the brightness within him like a sunrise.

He didn’t know for sure when he came, but he felt the moment when Harry did, gasping wide-eyed and surprised, and Theo was there, too, they were there, and whether or not he came before or after, what mattered as they slowly parted from each other again was that both of them were sated, and weariness was already dragging Harry away.

Theo snorted softly into his hair. “You’re this tired after sex?”

Amazing sex, said Harry’s voice in his ear like an echo, and then, yeah, he was gone, and Theo was alone in his head again.

Theo closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, and then rolled over, holding Harry, and dragged him a little up the bed so he could reach his wand. Carefully, he spelled them clean and then parted from Harry as much as he could bear to, curling up with his head on Harry’s shoulder and his arms still draped around him.

He knew he would travel through time again for Harry if he had to. But he hoped he wouldn’t have toe, that they could always enjoy being near each other, and part of each other, and together.

– – – –

Harry opened his eyes. From the soft blue darkness outside the window, he thought it was near dawn.

Theo was draped across him, clinging fiercely, a weight so heavy and warm that Harry found himself closing his eyes again while tears stung them.

Theo was here. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t something he would wake up from.

They were both here.

Harry reached back so that he could feel Theo’s shoulder and neck, and lay watching the sun slowly rise in the world they had created together.

The End.

---