Reading Time: 103 Minutes

Title: Unheard Voices, Open Ears
Author: vamprav
Fandom: Harry Potter, The Untamed
Genre: Crossover, Established Relationship, Fantasy, Fusion, Pre-Relationship
Relationship(s): Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major Character Death. Discussions of: war and trauma
Author Note: MCD refers to Cedric Diggory’s death in canon and in the fic.
Word Count: 50,223
Summary: When the corpse of Cedric Diggory sits up in Hogwarts’s hospital wing and begins attacking people Dumbledore seeks out the only necromancer in the world he knows he can trust. Wei Wuxian was not prepared for the cluster fuck of a situation his fellow ICW member had so kindly dumped in his lap but he was even less prepared for a dementor attack while retrieving the erstwhile Harry Potter. Harry is just glad to be away from the Dursleys and with an adult that was finally listening to him for once even if his world view was shaken up in the process.
Artist: Westwind

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Prologue

“Kill the spare,” a voice hissed.

It was different, wrong, high pitched and almost childlike despite the fact that Cedric could tell that it was the voice of a grown man. There wasn’t much time to process the words though, not when-

“Avada Kedavra!”

Cedric blinked.

It was dark, darker than it had been moments before, the shadows around him bleeding into his mind. He swallowed or well, tried to swallow, it didn’t quite feel right when he did.

It was cold where he was, not the bitter cold of a Scottish winter that bit at every scrap of skin left uncovered but the cold that floated just out of reach. The cold of a day where the sun had been out but wasn’t anymore, one where you’d forgotten your sweater and the cold sank through you, settling into your bones like a second skeleton.

“Where am I?” Cedric asked.

He didn’t know how, he couldn’t open his mouth, he didn’t think he had a mouth actually, not anymore. The words hung in his head, the last words, the death words that had torn through him and something inside him ached, like it had been cut open, gutted.

“Where am I?” Cedric asked again.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re too young,” a voice murmured from somewhere to his right.

It was female and faint, it sounded shredded, like someone had dragged a knife through the words. It was recognizable, but barely, he hadn’t heard her voice before, didn’t know who she was but he could see her in his head, her voice carrying her image with it like the faintest of breezes.

She was aged, not old exactly but her face carried the scars and lines of a hard life, her eyes were a watery brown, like mud at the bottom of a puddle. Her hair had been blonde once but it was mostly gray now and tangled like it hadn’t been brushed or washed in a while.

But the most striking thing was the frayed look around her outline, the washed out splotches across her face. She looked like an old handkerchief with a hole beginning to wear its way into the center.

“Who are you?” Cedric asked.

“I don’t know,” the woman said. “I was someone once, I’m not anymore. Are you?”

“What?” Cedric breathed, except he didn’t because he couldn’t, not anymore, he’d never breathe again.

Cedric was dead.

Cedric was dead and he was trapped in the wand of the man who had killed him, the foreign magic pressing against him, trying to catch at the edges of his consciousness, to pull him to pieces in its wake belonged to someone.

“I’m sorry,” a different voice said.

And Cedric saw James Potter, a man whose face he’d seen at least once a month, once a week until he’d gone to Hogwarts. His father had a picture of the Potters on his desk; it had been taken at their wedding, one of the most published weddings of the century even if the guest list had been restricted.

Cedric wondered if Harry had ever seen that picture, Lily Potter looked like nothing less than the embodiment of Magic herself in elaborately embroidered wedding robes. James Potter had looked so in love, eyes wide with shocked pleasure at the knowledge that the woman next to him had bound herself to him in magical matrimony.

There was a roar around him, not a sound, not a sensation but a mixture of both and if he had hands Cedric would be clutching at his ears.

There was a surge of magic and then-

Cedric popped into existence next to Voldemort, Voldemort, the man that the Wizarding World still feared, even years after his defeat and death. Not so dead, clearly, since he was standing in the middle of the graveyard, face as pale as a corpse and eyes red in a bloody parody of a snake’s.

Everything was a bit of a blur after that, the sight of his murderer, the pull of the portkey as Harry desperately grabbed Cedric’s body and the cup at the same time. That had been overwhelming, the magic of a portkey almost too much to bear without the assistance of a mortal body.

He’d watched as Harry declared Voldemort to be alive, Cedric smiled then, smiled at the thought that his death hadn’t been for nothing, that he would be the proof that the Ministry needed. There might not be as much death this time around, there might not be families exterminated through hate if the Ministry got its act together.

Voldemort had brought himself back to life with all the dark theater that such a feat required, it hadn’t been subtle. His death would be avenged, there would be justice for both him and Harry.

Cedric began to fade then, keeping a bare thread of awareness on Harry as he drifted. It was easy, was the thing, the feeling of death creeping closer and closer, the only anchor keeping him in the living world being the fact that Harry wasn’t being treated, his injuries standing out starkling in Cedric’s ghostly sight.

The Cruciatus damage was the worst of it, he could see the miniscule cracks in Harry’s bones and the fine lines of torn muscle glowed in Cedric’s vision. Harry was shaking, trembling as he walked, trying to hide the fact that he was injured and succeeding to an extent.

That was a habit, Cedric had noticed it a few times during Quidditch, had written it off as every Quidditch player’s desire to keep playing until they were no longer physically able. That assumption suddenly seemed childishly naive to him, now that he had the space to see.

And then Cedric found out that their Defense professor had been a Death Eater for the entirety of their school year. It all devolved from there, death stretching and snapping like a flag in the wind.

He should have left once Harry was safe, or well as safe as Harry could ever be, and maybe that was what kept him there, following Harry in a half sleeping dreamlike state. Cedric wasn’t really a ghost, not with more than half his spirit already slipping beyond the veil.

Harry was hurt, Harry was scared and while Cedric felt tired, like he’d never had a good night’s sleep in his life, he could not leave the younger boy alone. It was instinct at that point, the desire to protect the younger boy, the innocent that had been thrust into a war that should have been long over before then.

Cedric blinked in surprise as Snape, a man who had never been nice though he was achingly, desperately kind in a way no one would be able to recognize if they weren’t looking for it, shoved his Dark Mark under Minister Fudge’s nose.

Cho had gone into a furious research binge one week, Cedric could remember it in a cloudy way, and the two of them had looked at the statistics.

Snape was the youngest Potions Master, ever, and he’d been recruited as a professor directly after the war, before that Mastery had a chance to become fully legal. He had, nonetheless, the least number of classroom accidents resulting in injury, and he had never lost a student to one of those accidents. He was the first half-blood Slytherin Head of House in at least a hundred and fifty years and Cedric could respect that.

And the Minister of Magic, the man meant to lead their society, the only man in the world that could declare Voldemort alive once more, who could declare them at war, like they clearly were, looked at the Dark Mark and denied its existence.

If Cedric had been alive he would have blinked, the slow, predatory blink of a snake, lazy and reptilian and cold.

Cedric was cold, so very cold, anger taking root in his bones in a way he had never felt before. It wasn’t warm, fiery, snapping like a campfire, instead it was frost creeping up the phantom feeling of a throat that wasn’t truly there anymore.

Minister Fudge had gotten rid of the evidence, or what he had thought was the evidence, and then when confronted with the evidence he hadn’t managed to damage, he had denied it. Minister Fudge was a coward and with foresight that barely extended past the next purse of galleons from his many… benefactors.

He was weak, he didn’t deserve the position he was in, a position gained by being the least threatening candidate possible and then settling in as the familiar option. Nothing had gone wrong during his tenure, well, nothing beyond Sirius Black’s escape but that couldn’t really be pinned on him.

Now could it?

Minister Fudge was comfortable where he was and didn’t want anything to change. Minister Fudge had a lot to lose if Voldemort was back, if the Death Eaters were going to return in force instead of just getting drunk and harassing a few hapless muggles.

Entire families had been wiped out during the first wizarding war, the population hadn’t recovered yet, Voldemort’s forces hadn’t needed to do much to have the country living in fear. Cedric had spent most of his childhood living in fear of a man he’d never seen, the illusion of his power pulling back by the barest inches until he was staring at a truth that was uncomfortable to know.

Britain’s magical population had lived in fear of a few dozen witches and wizards hyped up on power and magic they couldn’t control, that they’d been too high off of to notice. More families with a dark leaning had been killed than those with a light leaning and still Britain lived in fear of a man with no nose and an innate ability to converse with serpents.

A man they all thought was dead.

Cedric felt himself swell up in indignant fury, rage building him into something more alive than dead, snatching energy away from the void as it grew. It was a feedback loop, the more Cedric thought about what Minister Fudge wasn’t going to do the angrier he got, the angrier he got the more he thought about what Minister Fudge wasn’t going to do, and on and on and on.

There was nothing he could do about it, he wasn’t an old enough ghost to do anything unless he warped himself into a poltergeist, twisted himself around and around until all he was was a being of rage that knew nothing about why it was furious. Peeves had been worse centuries ago, when he’d first appeared, Cedric had read the accounts for a DADA essay during sixth year.

Cedric didn’t want that, he might be caught in a well of anger and pain and frustration but he didn’t want to do that. He might hurt Harry or Cho or one of the first years and that was unacceptable.

Cho.

They’d started dating two years ago, off and on, diverging at points but always coming back together again eventually. They’d stayed up late in the library once, studying for their OWLs and they’d gone off on a tangent.

Magical Britain was insular, so insular that Cedric hadn’t even known about some of the creatures she’d started telling him about. He’d told her that they didn’t exist and she’d looked at him, like he’d grown a second head, like she’d thought better of him and then she’d sagged.

“Of course, the Ministry doesn’t like giving us information about how other cultures use magic,” she’d said into her folded arms, dark hair splayed out around her like a midnight halo.

Cho told him about China, about her grandmother’s home land and how she’d left after she’d fallen in love with an English man. How they’d kept the name Cho even though she was marrying into his family instead of the other way around and then had been hyphenated when her mother had married in. And then she’d told about yin and yang, what he would have called dark and light, about resentful energy and walking corpses that were nothing like inferi and beasts that had been animals until they were twisted into something else.

Cedric shimmered on the edge of the world as time passed in trickling drips of hours. The land remembered, centuries and millennia of patterns and beliefs soaked into the soil, into the ambient magic of the country, into the concepts of the people who made up the national identity, and changed it.

Britain had never had anything like what China did when the restless dead began to stir but…

Britain had been an empire once, even if it had been forced to give up most of its lands decades ago. Britain had been an empire and part of China had been a part of that empire, Hong Kong was still a British territory.

Cedric drifted over to his body, it had been a few days but the body was still under a preservation charm, ensuring that it hadn’t changed a second past when Harry had taken them back to Hogwarts. It was strange, looking down at himself, or what was left of his presence in the physical world.

He knew, in an abstract way, that his parents weren’t ready to let him go but that didn’t seem to matter anymore. No, it didn’t really, all that mattered was that fact that he was dead and his death didn’t seem to matter.

Harry cared, Cho cared, his parents cared, those friends he had made in his time at school probably cared as well but while they mattered they weren’t the people who were going to be able to do anything about how he had died. And that, that made him angry, made want to bring attention to himself, rip apart all the pretty little paper lies that Fudge had to be telling in an attempt to save his career.

Cedric’s father had been getting progressively more nervous over the past few years, The International Wizarding Court’s attention was starting to pivot towards Britain. There had been a great deal to draw their attention in the past few years, especially concerning what little they had gleaned from what had been happening at Hogwarts.

This might be what pushed them over the edge, especially after the stink China had to be raising over the Chinese Fireball that had been requested for the Tournament. Cedric felt his fury spike, going sharp with pleasure as vengeance tripped its way over his nonexistent tongue.

Cedric bent down until what had been his mouth was level with his body’s ear, pushing anger into dead flesh until he was half inside and half outside of the body. It was strange, like a set of chains looped around him but only on his left side.

“Wake up,” he called, voice purring through the air like a smug kneazle.

The corpse’s eyes snapped open, blank and full of swirling dark motes of energy. Cedric could see himself in those depths, a wispy silver spector skimming across a black mirror.

Cedric tugged on the body, his body, it didn’t feel like it was his anymore, it moved like he was pulling strings on a marionette. The body sat up slowly, oh so slowly, the sheet falling down its body in a cascade of bleached cotton to reveal the dirty clothes he’d been murdered in.

A stunning spell was fired off and it hit the corpse square in the chest. Cedric saw it coming, didn’t even bother trying to dodge, he didn’t think himself good enough to even try to evade it. It did absolutely nothing to him or to the body, the magic impacting and splattering across the corpse’s chest before fading out.

Someone screamed in terror.

Well, at least everyone was aware of the situation now.

Chapter 1

Wei Wuxian was lying sprawled across the Jiingshi’s porch, reading through the research notes from the previous night when Albus Dumbledore popped into existence in the middle of the wild roses that took up most of the front garden plot. He only really noticed when he heard the old man sigh loudly and looked up to watch him attempt to extract himself from the thorns.

“Headmaster Dumbledore, did I miss a meeting? I could have sworn Lan Zhan said our next meeting was in September,” Wei Wuxian said.

Dumbledore reached down to extract a particularly tenacious branch from the green embroidered hem of his maroon robes. Wei Wuxian waited, taking in the man’s appearance and trying not to judge the man’s color choices. Dumbledore looked tired, like something had broken inside of his eyes.

His sleeves were tattered around the edges and there was a mysterious stain over his right hip. Silver hair looked like it could use a good brushing and there were twigs sticking out of his beard.

Wei Wuxian sat up, flicking his sleeve in a practiced move to keep it away from the ink stone that had been sitting next to his elbow. It had been just over fifteen years since he’d first met Albus Dumbledore and in all that time Wei Wuxian had never seen him in anything less than his best, even if his best was an eye blending set of robes that weren’t even tastefully patterned.

“Did something happen?” Wei Wuxian’s hand twitched to grab Chenqing from its place in his sleeve.

“Yes, I was wondering if I could talk with you and Cultivator Lan about a small matter I may need your assistance with,” Dumbledore said.

“Oh.” Wei Wuxian scrambled to pick up his papers. “Come in, I’ll make tea. Lan Zhan is helping A-Yuan with his Mastery project but they should be back within the hour.”

Dumbledore nodded and let Wei Wuxian gesture him into the house, not protesting a whit when he was herded toward the low table at the center of the room. Wei Wuxian dumped his notes on the opposite end of the table and went about making tea.

“And what did young Lan Sizhui finally settle on as a Mastery? I forgot to ask last time we were in Court, I do apologize for that,” Dumbledore asked.

“None needed.” Wei Wuxian waved off the apology.

That witch that they had been called to prosecute had done some incredibly nasty things to a variety of magical and non magical creatures in an attempt to obtain immortality the cheap and easy way. She’s even managed to move onto a handful of non magical human subjects before anyone noticed what was going on.

Quite a few members of the ICW had had to be excused to go puke up their lunch when the pensieve memories had been brought out. Wei Wuxian hadn’t but Wei Wuxian had also dealt with the Burial Mounds when they’d still been a mass of shrieking grief and abject agony, at least now they were mostly sane even if the land was still healing.

Wei Wuxian shook off the memory before turning around with the tea tray. “I made chamomile and mint, you look like you need it, and A-Yuan settled on Forge Craft after he did a stint with the Nie clan.”

Dumbledore put down the sheet of paper he’d been skimming and picked up the cup that was offered to him. He inhaled the steam coming off the cup and visibly relaxed as the fumes hit his nose.

“I would have thought talismans, given your influence.” Dumbledore sipped at the tea, making a tiny approving noise. “This is lovely, Wei-laozu.”

“I’ll let Wen Ning know you said so, its one of his favorites,” Wei Wuxian said. “And while A-Yuan is good at talisman work he doesn’t have the passion for it that I do, Mo Xuanyu on the other hand… I’ve been trying to find that mage something orthodox he can follow.”

“Ah, young Master Mo, how is he?” Dumbledore asked.

Right, A-Yu had decided to change their pronouns last year and they hadn’t come up in the last conversation Wei Wuxian had had with Dumbledore. Which had been at the annual meeting rather than the trial.

“They decided on they/them pronouns. But they’re better now that they’re away from their mother’s family, I’m almost certain they’re neglecting their golden core on purpose at this point,” Wei Wuxian sighed. “So, the Triwizard Tournament, how badly did that go? Did it all end in fire like what’s his name said it would?”

“Yes,” Dumbledore sighed. “Were you informed about the Chinese Fireball?”

Wei Wuxian’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline, no, he had not heard about the Chinese Fireball, which meant that Meng Yao probably had no idea about that either or Qinghe would have thrown a fit so spectacular that it could have been seen from space. Nie Mingjue had put the man in charge of the dragons that lived on Nie land and in monitoring the ones that lived in preserves run by the Jin and Meng Yao was nothing if not thorough.

“No, I did not hear about the Chinese Fireball, the Jin let you have one of their dragons for your ridiculous ego fest?” Wei Wuxian asked.

Dumbledore sighed. “I am under the impression young master Meng was not informed about the acquisition. But yes, though I was not privy to the details.”

“If you managed to get them out of the country I doubt it, he’s…” Wei Wuxian wanted to say obsessive but he liked Meng Yao, even if the man’s priorities were deeply skewed. “Protective of his charges.”

“One more thing to bring up with the ICW when the inquiry is called.” Dumbledore carefully set down his teacup.

“Inquiry? How badly did your little tournament go if you’re actually going to push for an inquiry?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“It would be better if we waited for your husband, this is not a tale I want to tell twice,” Dumbledore said.

Wei Wuxian inclined his head and dug around in his piles of papers for where he’d left off in his read through. They weren’t in any particular order and he really needed to stop going on all night research binges, he wasn’t as young as he’d been and while he still looked like he was in his twenties his body was quick to remind him he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

They sat in silence for a while, sipping tea and reading over Wei Wuxian’s notes. Dumbledore didn’t know a lot about the theory behind the construction of the talismans, he was a western mage after all, more rooted in spells than rune work but he had a good grasp of alchemy and was intelligent enough to follow along with at least part of Wei Wuxian’s notes which was more than Jiang Cheng could manage most days.

They heard Lan Zhan and Sizhui coming up the path before they saw them through the open door. Wei Wuxian looked up and watched as the two of them approached, Lan Zhan had that tiny tilt at the corner of his mouth that said he was smug about something and Sizhui was beaming in a decidedly unLan like manner.

“Lan Zhan! A-Yuan!” Wei Wuxian waved at them in an energetic arch.

“A-Niang!” Sizhui sped up and if he hadn’t been in Cloud Recesses he’d probably have started running.

Dumbledore took a sip of tea to hide the smile that was stretching across his face. “I see that habit has carried through to adulthood.”

Wei Wuxian shot him a look before turning back to his son, opening his arms to pull the boy into a hug. “How’d it go, A-Yuan?”

“Great, A-Die helped me work out the last issue with my design,” A-Yuan said.

He pulled back and finally took notice of the British man sitting across from Wei Wuxian. His ears lit up with a pale red flush as he dropped into a bow that was a touch deeper than would have been appropriate given Sizhui’s rank.

“Apologies, Dumbledore-zhongzhu, I let my excitement get the better of me,” Sizhui said.

Dumbledore smiled. “It’s fine, Young Master Lan, I know the excitement of a breakthrough first hand. Dear Nickolas’s Penelope was quite cross with us when we spent all night in the alchemy lab eating nothing but chocolate.”

Wei Wuxian snorted and then smiled as Lan Zhan settled down behind him and wrapped his arms’ around Wei Wuxian’s waist. He tipped his head back and stole a tiny kiss from Lan Zhan’s lips.

“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan asked.

“Headmaster Dumbledore is here to ask for our help, hasn’t told me why, though, we were waiting for you,” Wei Wuxian murmured.

“Yes, well, when things go as spectacularly wrong as they did this year I would prefer to have all relevant parties present before explanations are forthcoming,” Dumbledore said. “It makes it less likely that someone will claim they did not hear certain things or that things will become mixed up in the retelling.”

Wei Wuxian wanted to bristle at the implications of the first statement but, well, Headmaster Dumbledore was more used to dealing with unruly Englishmen than with the two of them. Besides, Wei Wuxian knew exactly how confusing meetings could get, he had to deal with the various Sects on a regular basis and that was a headache and a half most of the time.

“And there is the distinct possibility that one of you will become incoherent with rage in the next few minutes.” Dumbledore poured himself another cup of tea.

“Why?” Lan Zhan asked.

He turned to Sizhui and gestured for him to retreat to his room, making Wei Wuxian pout, he had been enjoying the family cuddles, they hadn’t been getting enough time for that in recent months. Sizhui turned to bow to Dumbledore before shuffling off to his bedroom, probably to take a well deserved nap, he’d been up before dawn working on his project.

“Did Wei-laozu inform you of the tournament that our ministry decided to throw this past year?” Dumbledore asked.

Lan Zhan shifted, settling down into a prim and proper seated position a touch too close to Wei Wuxian for propriety’s sake. He hummed in acknowledgement before stealing his husband’s cup and sniffing the contents.

Wei Wuxian grinned at the look Lan Zhan sent him.

Lan Zhan hated the particular blend of tea, a result of the medications healers tended to hide in them, Wie Wuxian typically only kept similar blends for that purpose but Dumbledore had needed the relaxing effects it had and Wen Ning had sent it.

“Yes, Wei Ying didn’t inform me of the nature but I could guess,” Lan Zhan said.

Given the amount of cursing Wei Wuxian had done that evening he thought that most of Gusu knew about that Tournament.

“The Triwizard Tournament.” Dumbledore sighed and then shotgunned the tea in one long gulp.

Wei Wuxian’s jaw dropped open in amazement. Dumbledore had never been anything less than amicably polite every single time Wei Wuxian had met him, always in control, the epitome of what the Europeans called a Lord of Light was meant to be.

“I protested it but by the time I was made aware of what Minister Fudge had planned there was very little I could do,” Dumbledore said. “The Triwizard Tournament was discontinued when all three of the contestants died in the very first minute of the first task, it should have never been continued but the Minister needed a boost in morale after last year and he chose this route.”

Lan Zhan visibly stiffened, setting Wei Wuxian’s mug back on the table. “And you were forced to host it.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore sighed, reaching up to finger his beard. “I knew I shouldn’t have agreed but it would have meant my removal from the post of Headmaster if I didn’t and that was a risk I could not take.”

Wei wuxian’s eyebrow twitched in irritation. “And it immediately went horribly horribly wrong, like the ICW told him it would.”

“Not quite,” Dumbledore said. “The school year started well, there were some grumblings about the cancellation of Quittitch but Beaubatton and Durmstrang both arrived on time and with the appropriate amount of fanfare, I drew the Age Line and re-enforced it as best I could. I took precautions, Harry deserved one calm year where all he needed to worry about was his schooling.”

“Harry Potter?” Lan Zhan asked. “The same child that killed the basilisk in his second year.”

“I should have realized then that he needed more training.” Dumbledore’s hand tightened on his teacup. “But I am an old fool and thought that I could handle it on my own. It thought I could shelter him further, give him more of a childhood than those chosen by destiny typically receive.”

“His name came out of the goblet,” Wei Wuxian concluded, all the clues adding up to something ugly in his mind.

“Yes, and by then the only way to guarantee his magic’s safety would be to cancel the whole thing. We debated it in private after the announcement had been made but the Minister and Barty were having none of it,” Dumbledore said.

Wei Wuxian groaned and buried his head in his hands. He had been dreading that particular answer, Dumbledore was not a greedy man but he was also a man with power, limited power though and calling together a Wizenagomot meeting just to overturn the Minister’s decision, especially after the budget for the Tournament had already been spent would have been a political disaster.

Wei Wuxian hated politics with a passion but he knew enough about them, had to know enough about them, to get by. Dumbledore had to have considered it before he had been relegated to damage control, at least if he had wanted to keep his job as Headmaster of Hogwarts.

“That’s a disaster,” Wei Wuxian said.

“Made worse by the fact that Wizarding Britain’s libel laws are… murky,” Dumbledore said.

“That is not the only reason you are here,” Lan Zhan pointed out.

“No, the next thing that happened involved the dragons, nesting mothers, Barty insisted.” Dumbledore visibly grimaced behind his beard.

“Dumbledore.” Wei Wuxian paused as that knowledge settled in. “What happened to the Chinese Fireball you mentioned earlier?”

Lan Zhan’s eyebrows rose to meet his ribbon. He side eyed Wei Wuxian in a look that said they were going to have words for not starting with the dragon.

“The contestant-” oh, it was bad if he wasn’t saying the kid’s name “-who picked the Fireball blinded her and in her pain she crushed all her eggs.”

The teacup in Wei Wuxian’s grip shattered and he took a deep, calming breath. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been expecting something terrible but the Chinese Fireball was one of the few asiatic dragons that actually needed protection. There were two other species that had never evolved past basic predatory intelligence but one of those had been hunted to near extinction in Russia and the other lived in the underground caverns that Meng Yao guarded like he was a dragon himself.

“Advisor Meng is going to murder someone,” Lan Zhan said.

“There’s more,” Wei Wuxian said. “There has to be more, you would be begging for your head with the Nie if that was the only thing that drove you to my door. Who died?”

He’d meant it as a joke, a rather poor one but he had needed to draw attention away from the crushed dragon eggs in the room. Dumbledore’s face darkened and Wei Wuxian’s smile fell from his face.

“Headmaster, who died?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“There were two Hogwarts Champions, the person who put Harry’s name in the Goblet just inserted him as the member of a fourth, unnamed school, it was the only way he could ensure that his name came out of the Goblet,” Dumbledore explained. “Cedric Diggory was the one the Goblet chose for Hogwarts Champion, he and Harry both got to the cup at the end of the final task and they decided to take it at the same time.”

“And something went wrong,” Wei Wuxian said.

“The cup was a portkey,” Dumbledore said.

Lan Zhan made a confused little noise and Wei Wuxian was abruptly reminded that his husband had a somewhat limited idea of western magic. Wei Wuxian was the one that had been chosen to go to the ICW meetings and Lan Zhan was an important enough figure that he rarely, if ever left the Sects, let alone China proper.

“It’s like a transportation talisman,” Wei Wuxian explained. “Where did it take them?”

“A better question would be who did the cup take them to,” Dumbledore sighed, shoulders sagging to make him look far older. “The Dark Lord Voldemort used Harry in a ritual to resurrect himself, he didn’t need Cedric so he… got rid of the excess.”

Wei Wuxian hissed in sympathy but the Headmaster wasn’t done yet, there was a set to his jaw that made that perfectly obvious.

“And about an hour after the other students had left the school for the summer his corpse sat up and started terrorizing the hospital wing.” Dumbledore poured himself another cup of tea, hands shaking.

“You have a fierce corpse on your hands? How?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“That is what I have come to ask your help with.”

Chapter 2

It had taken less than half an hour for Wei Wuxian to collect all of the various talismans and materials he would need to deal with a fierce corpse. During that time Lan Zhan had notified everyone who needed to know they would be gone for a while and collected everything that Wei Wuxian had forgotten to pack, like clothes, medical supplies, and food.

Depending on how long they would be outside of the Gusu conclave they would need them. Wei Wuxian always forgot about that, he was used to being able to activate a transportation talismen to get home but that wasn’t possible outside of the pocket dimension that Gusu inhabited and the other connected dimensions that the other Sect’s inhabited.

Lan Zhan on the other hand had been outside of the interconnected pocket dimensions anywhere other than an ICW meeting. The ICW hall was the only magical place on the Earth with a connection to the Last Great Sects and getting into the ICW hall was… difficult if you hadn’t been called there for an official purpose.

Wei Wuxian was vaguely startled that Dumbledore had managed to get to Gusu as quickly as he had to but Dumbledore was the Supreme Mugwump and wielded one of the most powerful magical foci Wei Wuxian had ever seen.

“Are you sure you’ll be fine, A-Niang? A-Die?” Sizhui asked.

“It’ll be fine, A-Yuan!” Wei Wuxian pulled his son into a tight embrace. “It’s just a fierce corpse.”

He let go and passed the teen off to his husband. Wei Wuxian gathered up his pack and went to stand next to Dumbledore.

“Mm.” Lan Zhan gathered Sizhui up into his arms. “Will be back for your defense, make sure Lan Jingyi sleeps beforehand.”

“Lan Zhan, of course we’ll be back for his defense, it’s a week away!” Wei Wuxian was offended that his husband would imply they’d miss their precious A-Yuan’s defense of his Mastery.

Lan Zhan let go of their son and walked over to Dumbledore’s other side. “Might take a while, Wei Ying has never encountered a European Fierce Corpse before.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whined.

“I will have them back for your Mastery Defense, Young Master Lan, don’t worry,” Dumbledore reassured. “Now, if you gentlemen would please hold on, apparition can be disorienting for those not used to it.”

Headmaster Dumbledore had not been lying, he had not been lying in the least, he had been underselling the effects of apparition. Wei Wuxian was not happy about that fact since he spent a full minute vomiting into the bushes next to Hogwarts front gate. Lan Zhan hadn’t but he still looked vaguely green as he rubbed circles into Wei Wuxian’s back.

“I do apologize-” Headmaster Dumbledore started but broke off as Wei Wuxian waved the words off.

“Wei Ying gets…” Lan Zhan paused, searching for a word. “Motion sickness.”

Wei Wuxian whined in protest and received an affectionate eyeroll for his troubles..

“My husband is so cruel,” Wei Wuxian said.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan protested.

Wei Wuxian turned to wrap his arms around Lan Zhan’s waist. Lan Zhan huffed under his breath and reached down to pet his hair, running fingers through the thick mass of it.

“Headmaster!” A sharp, female voice called.

Wei Wuxian straightened and skipped to the side, ignoring the look of disappointment on Lan Zhan’s face as he tried to catch a glimpse of the woman on the other side of the gate. She was tall and thin with a face that had aged with the grace of an old warship with a handsome beauty.

There were a pair of spectacles perched on her nose and a tall pointed hat perched atop her graying tawny hair. Her robes were European cut but sensible in their construction and coloration.

If Wei Wuxian had been a decade or so older or her a decade younger he’d have had no qualms about blatantly flirting, some other time though. The Professor didn’t look like she’d been having a good time while Headmaster Dumbledore had gone to get help.

“Please, tell me that you found who you were looking for!” She called as she opened the gate.

Wei Wuxian cocked his head to one side, he hadn’t heard that particular assent before, it purred at the edge of his hearing, he liked it. He stepped through the gate and wards and onto the grounds, blinking through the feeling of foreign magic washing over his core.

“Minerva, allow me to introduce the Yilling Patriarch, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, called Hanguang-jun.” Dumbledore introduced. “Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Professor Minerva McGonagall.”

“Professor.” Wei Wuxian bowed in greeting, Lan Zhan copying him seconds later.

“Ah, yes, pleasure to meet you both,” Professor Mcgonagall said. “Please tell me you know what to do about young mister Diggory, we have him contained using the strongest spells we could on such short notice and we had to sedate his mother. She was… quite distraught.”

“We should be able to lay him to rest, hopefully we’ll be able to resolve the issue that caused this debacle and find out how one of your students managed to become a Fierce Corpse,” Wei Wuxian said.

They started heading up the path at a reasonable pace, if the corpse was contained they could take a little more time and they needed more information if they were going to do things the easy way.

“We understand he died violently,” Land Zhan said. “Which spell was used?”

“The Killing Curse, the Death Eaters used to throw it around like it was candy,” the Professor said.

Wei Wuxian winced in sympathy, no matter how the child managed to get out of that situation that would certainly be enough to piss a soul off.

Lan Zhan’s brows furrowed. “There are many killing curses.”

“They mean the Soul Stealer, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian explained.

Lan Zhan made a horrified noise in the back of his throat, speeding his steps as they got closer to the school. No mage liked the Soul Stealing Curse, it was the only curse on the planet that was an automatic foci destroying offense, for a variety of reasons but most notably because the focus absorbed the soul of the person it had been used to kill.

“How is he up and walking if he was hit by the Soul Stealer?” Wei Wuxian asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. “Young mister Potter’s wand is a brother to Voldemort’s own and during the duel which Harry had to endure to escape their wands connected and a Priori Incantatem was achieved. It apparently freed several souls, including those of Mister Potter’s parents.”

“That had to have been traumatizing,” Wei Wuxian said.

To his knowledge Mr. Potter’s parents had been dead for most of his life. Wei Wuxian really hoped that the kid had seen pictures of his parents before this whole cluster fuck and that this wouldn’t be the most prominent memory of their faces.

“Quite,” Professor McGonagall said.

They made their way through the castle;s main hall and down into the dungeons in relative silence. Lan Zhan had stopped a few times to take in the architecture, he had always been fascinated with old architecture and how it compared to the more modern buildings that the Jin and Wen had begun to favor, especially the old stone work westerners favored.

The dungeon was dark and cool, vaguely humid but there wasn’t a hint of moss or mold anywhere on the walls and the floor was firmly set. The doors set along the wall at various points along the wall were made of hardwood bound in iron, good for stopping weaker spells, at least the British had managed that tiny bit of common sense when it came to magically volatile adolescents.

They entered a large room that had probably been either a ritual room or a ballroom at some point, the two often had the same base construction. It was covered in dust for the most part and that was definitely a Fierce Corpse struggling against spell chains at the center of the floor.

There was a dark robed man braced on one side of the circle and a tiny man braced on the other, magic flowing from both of their wands to subdue the undead teenager. Wei Wuxian paused inside the door and cocked his head as he took in the corpse, it wasn’t quite moving… right.

Or well, not right, Fierce Corpses didn’t move correctly themselves but this one wasn’t quite moving like a normal Fierce Corpse would.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian called.

“Mm.” Lan Zhan skimmed past him and moved to kneel almost directly in front of the Fierce Corpse.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” The dark man snapped, voice tense with the strain of channeling so much magic.

Wei Wuxian could taste his magic, the swirling mix of dark and light that hadn’t seemed to settle into either. It was fascinating, not the reason they were here but if Wei Wuxian ever got the chance to talk to this man about why his nature was like that he’d do it in a heart beat.

“Severus, he’s one of the professionals I went to consult,” Dumbledore scolded.

Wei Wuxian tuned out the byplay, reaching down to pull Chenqing from the pocket in his sleeve, twirling the flute through his fingers as he considered the problem. The Fierce Corpse that had once been Cedric Diggory was moving like it was being puppeted, controlled by some outside force.

The Fierce Corpse seemed to register him then, him and Lan Zhan and it screamed. Its struggled becoming more violent and determined, losing the puppeted quality for a handful of moments.

“Oh thank Magic! Tell me they have any idea what to do about this!” The dark man – Severus apparently – snarled through gritted teeth.

“Maybe,” Lan Zhan said. “Wei Ying.”

“Doubting me already, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian teased.

He raised the dizi to his lips and began playing a soft, calming melody as he reached out with his own power. It only took a matter of seconds before he was frowning and lowering the dizi once more.

“Lan Zhan, this might be a you solution,” he said.

Lan Zhan made a huffing noise and backed up to sit slightly further away from the Fierce Corpse. He reached over his shoulder to retrieve his guqin. He unwrapped it slowly, checking the strings before playing a few notes.

“Do you know what’s wrong with him?” Professor McGonagall asked.

“Well, he is a Fierce Corpse but he shouldn’t be, the Soul Stealer doesn’t leave enough energy behind to fuel a Fierce Corpse, if the reason for his death was already known there would be no reason for an angry ghost either-” Wei Wuxian stopped.

There was a lemon sucking expression slowly spreading across the older woman’s face. “Ah.”

“That wasn’t a good sound,” Wei Wuxian said.

“Our Minister in all his wisdom has decided to ignore all the evidence and reason in order to hide the fact that Lord Voldemort has returned,” Professor McGonagall’s voice dripped with a river’s worth of sarcasm.

“That would do it.” Wei Wuxian reached into his sleeve and rummaged around for his talismans. “Lan Zhan, you make a connection yet?”

“Yes,” Lan Zhan’s face made it clear that the ghost involved in the issue wasn’t clear minded enough to send a message through the strings, not a coherent one anyhow.

Wei Wuxian found the talismen he was looking for and sent it sailing across the room to hit Cedric Diggory’s corpse in the forehead. It took a second to activate but when it did all the corpse’s limbs locked in place and while his muscles continued to flex he couldn’t move.

The two wizards who had been subduing the Fierce Corpse relaxed visibly, wand arms shaking as they lowered them. Wei Wuxian trotted forward to stand over Lan Zhan’s shoulder and look down at the strings being plucked.

“So, his death was in vain then, I mean Young Master Potter is still alive but his killer is currently running free with no one the wiser. The question now is how he did this,” Wei Wuxian said.

Or whoever was doing this. Because this was the kind of invitation you didn’t see every day.

“Puppeting?” Lan Zhan asked.

“There isn’t a European wizard with enough knowledge of necromancy to do that, well, maybe that family of them in Germany but they keep to themselves, there’s no motive for this.” Wei Wuxian tapped Chenqing against his lower lip. “It has to be a ghost doing this. Did you ask who it was?”

“Mm,” Lan Zhan acknowledged.

“You need them to be calm first?” Wei Wuxian asked. “You haven’t had a ghost give you this much trouble since the Sunshot Campaign.”

“It isn’t acting like a normal ghost,” Lan Zhan said.

“Well, that’s obvious, its trying to puppet a corpse, how the fuck did it know that was a possibility? How is that a possibility?” Wei Wuxian brought his dizi to his lips.

The phrase that came out of the instrument was a low mournful one, a tune Wei Wuxian didn’t often use, Lan Zhan was normally with him on Night Hunts and the few times he couldn’t come over the last few years had been simple affairs that the Juniors had made quick work of. He had kept practicing it but Communion wasn’t exactly a complicated refrain.

He could feel the ghost stilling, could feel where it had stopped jerking the Fierce Corpse around like a puppet on strings. The connection between them was fascinating, if they managed to calm the ghost down enough Wei Wuxian had half a mind to ask him how he did it.

Wei Wuxian pressed calm into the song, didn’t bother with warm feelings like he’d normally aim for, instead going for the cool, waiting feeling of a predator on a hunt. It was a dangerous emotion to press at but the ghost wasn’t in the right mindset to take anything else, what with the glacial anger Wei Wuxian could feel sitting at the heart of its being.

Lan Zhan joined in a few breaths later, fingers dancing over the guqin’s strings in a language Wei Wuxian had never quite managed to wrap his head around. There was an answering tune as the ghost refocused on the instrument.

“Cedric Diggory, he was furious that Minister Fudge decided to ignore his death,”

Lan Zhan paused. “He keeps asking if Harry is alright.”

“Harry is fine, he’s on his way back to his relatives,” Dumbledore broke in.

“Ask him how he knew about Fierce Corpses,” Wei Wuxian said, pausing in his song for a moment to take a deeper breath.

More string plucking.

“Cho Chang Hauling,” Lan Zhan said.

Wei Wuxian glanced at Dumbledore but it was Professor McGonagall who answered. “A Seventh year Ravenclaw, her grandmother fell in love with a British man during… well, during. They made friends back in first year and had become quite close over the years, it looked like it was warming up to be the romance of a century.”

“I take it the Minister is about to get a rude awakening?” Severus asked from where he had given up all pretense at dignity in favor of sitting on the floor.

“Indeed,” Lan Zhan said. “He was warned, last election.”

“I can not bring up charges against the Minister of my own country, as you all know.” Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled in amusement.

Lan Zhan’s mouth twitched and he strummed a few notes on the guqin before frowning again. He repeated the phrase and sat back on his heels at the response, the frown on his face deepening.

“Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“He agreed to a trial, however-” there was a tiny, embarrassed note from the guqin as he paused to consider his phrasing “-he is stuck.”

Wei Wuxian had to clutch Chenqing in a white knuckled grip as he bent over laughing, grabbing at his stomach as Cedric’s ghost plucked furiously at the guqin. He could see Lan Zhan out of the corner of his eye, blinking placidly at what was probably rampant cursing aimed in Wei Wuxian’s direction.

After a moment Wei Wuxian managed to compose himself, straightened, and laid his hand across the Fierce Corpse’s chest. He closed his eyes and reached into the place sitting just under the body’s heart, searching out the tangled knot of energies that had to be there.

It took a second to find and Wei Wuxian whistled, mildly impressed by the utter fucking chaos he could feel, death magic warping around half dead chi and the lingering magical signature that made up a magical being’s ghost. It was the kind of mess Uncle Quiren liked to dump on him in an attempt to keep him occupied and away from the more volatile texts until the next Night Hunt.

Wei Wuxian reached out with his own energy and combed metaphysical fingers through the impressively tangled energies. It was the work of a few minutes, the Fierce Corpse in front of him going loose and limp in its bonds as more and more power was drawn out of it.

When he was done Wei Wuxian took a step back and allowed the body to tumble to the ground in a heep of magically preserved flesh. There was a ghost standing in front of him now, solidifying under his palm as he reorganized energy into something resembling what a ghost normally looked like.

Cedric wavered when he finally stepped back but stayed floating in place after a moment. The ghost blinked, looking around the room at his teachers and the two foreigners who had been brought in.

“How long until the trial?” Cedric asked.

“Inquest,” Lan Zhan corrected, gathering up his instrument as he stood. “Wei Ying?”

“Opening court date will probably take a week to kick off given… everything.” Wei Wuxian rubbed at the back of his neck. “Headmaster, would Harry Potter be open to being questioned?”

“You may ask him,” Dumbledore said. “But I do not see why you couldn’t ask.”

“Great, I’ll get the court date set up first, yes Cedric?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“If you don’t mind, can I go see Harry?” Cedric lowered his hand from where he’d raised it.

“You can’t come with me to pick him up but you’ll see him at the trial,” Wei Wuxian chirped.

Chapter 3

Harry was hiding in the park again, it was one of the few places Duddley and his lot didn’t normally come here this early in the summer, and a new arcade had opened up in town so he didn’t expect them to show up any time soon. It was peaceful in the park, even with the occasional screaming toddler running past.

It was a sunny day, one of a handful that had popped up all at once in the span of a week so there were more families than usual but Harry didn’t really care all that much. He was lying in the small hill near the back of the park hoping that no one would recognize him and call the Dursley’s long enough for him to catch a nap.

Harry didn’t think he would be able to keep himself calm for long if Vernon started in on him over the nightmares. And oh what nightmares they were, they blended, mixing together elements of Cedric’s death, his mother’s screams, and that horrendously beautiful shade of green that he had always thought was a stop light before he’d found out how much his Aunt and Uncle were lying to him.

Harry really needed sleep, an hour long nap would make things infinitely better considering he had to have had barely a handful of hours a night actually sleeping. Maybe the sun would help him avoid the shadow hiding in his mind.

Someone sat next to him and Harry cracked open an eye to see who had decided to sit next to him. It was a man of asian descent, he was in his early to mid twenties with long black hair wound up into a loose half bun at the base of his skull.

He was wearing ripped jeans, sturdy boots with thick rubber soles, and a leather jacket. A red stone carved into a dragon dangled from one ear attached to a silver chain that perfectly matched the gray sheen of his eyes.

“Hey, having a sucky day?” The man asked, voice a high tenor flavored with a very faint accent.

“How can you tell?” Harry asked bitterly.

“I know the look,” the man joked. “I always end up sprawled on my back hill with the rabbits when my spell experiments go fucky.”

“Fucky isn’t a word.” As soon as the phrase was out of his mouth Harry had to stop himself from cringing, he may have picked up a few too many habits from Hermione.

The man next to him laughed, full throated and joyful in a way Harry hadn’t really heard outside of small children. Harry stared at him in confusion as he flopped back to lie in the grass next to him.

“Wait, you’re a wizard?” Harry asked.

“Cultivator, that’s the technical term,” the man corrected. “Though the ICW just uses mage as a catch all term for magic users, there are too many communities that use different naming conventions to keep straight otherwise. Though, they might end up having another vote in the next few years.”

“How do you know how to dress like a muggle?” Harry sat up to look down at the other wizard.

The wizard made a face, “I hate that word, I’ve no idea why you lot grabbed that particular word and just slapped it onto a whole group without questioning what it meant. But yes, I know how to dress like a mundane human, running around in robes gets you weird looks in most countries and they’re far easier to put on than my society’s traditional garb.”

“I didn’t think many wi- mages knew how to dress like a normal person,” Harry said. “And how did you find me? I didn’t think most of the wizarding world knew where I lived.”

“Well, most European ‘purebloods’ are idiots, they’ve never had to leave their conclave to deal with a magical creature in their life, obliviate happy bastards the lot of them,” the wizard said. “Now, about why I’m here, the ICW is starting an Inquest into your Ministry’s conduct over the last few years. Are you open to being a witness?”

Harry blinked down at him.

Someone was going to do something about what had happened during the Tournament or with the Basilisk or with Sirius’s whole lack of a trial. Harry’s breath shook as he considered that possibility, at the possibility that he wouldn’t have to stay with the Dursleys any longer.

“I don’t even know your name,” Harry said dumbly.

The wizard laughed and bounced to his feet before sweeping himself into an elaborate court bow that Harry had seen on tv once when he and Aunt Petunia had been left home by themselves. “Wei Wuxian, Yiling Patriarch and Gusu Lan’s representative to the ICW at your service. You can call me Mr. Wei, or Patriarch Wei, if you want to get all formal about it.”

Wei Wuxian, but he was acting like his first name was his last name. Harry’s confused expression must have been beyond obvious because Mr. Wei just grinned at him.

“There are a few countries out there where family name comes first, my own included,” Mr. Wei explained.

Harry nodded and stood up, brushing off his oversized jeans in order to hide the faint blush painting his cheeks red. He knew he wasn’t the smartest person in his year and the Dursleys had not fostered him to be particularly inquisitive so there was no reason for him to know that, he still felt vaguely guilty about his ignorance either way.

“Hey, no,” Mr. Wei protested.

His hands fluttered like he wanted to touch Harry, comfort him but wasn’t letting himself. Harry blinked at the oddity of it, people touched him all the time, without thinking even. He didn’t mind it, hadn’t really thought about it in any depth since that first time in the Leaky Cauldron. It helped that there hadn’t really been an all out swarm of people since then, that people hadn’t overwhelmed him, pressing in on all sides until he could hardly breath but people had still kept touching him.

People always touched him the first time he met them, even if it was in passing, like they couldn’t help themselves, couldn’t keep themselves from reaching out to touch. He’d gotten used to it, had never really taken note of it unless it was something like Lockhart pulling him in for that stupid front page photo.

He hadn’t noticed how uncomfortable that actually made him until now, until someone wasn’t touching him when they very obviously wanted to. It was… weird but also kind of nice, not having someone touch him, having someone hold themselves back from touching him.

“It’s fine, I didn’t expect you to know that,” Mr. Wei babbled, there was no other word for the way his voice poured itself out of his mouth like water through a sieve. “Most Westerners don’t know that unless they take culture classes, muggle culture classes normally, and I didn’t exactly expect this neighborhood to be open to that kind of thing.”

Harry snorted at that comment because the fact that Mr. Wei was the only person in the park that wasn’t the same shade as printer paper was kind of hilarious in a darkly funny way. The older man brightened at his laugh and glanced around the park at some of the women giving him dirty looks, Harry recognized most of them, they were friends with Aunt Petunia and they all had a similar attitude to anything deemed too different.

“You can ask questions while we walk, if you want,” Mr. Wei offered.

Harry nodded warrilly and they set off, no one had told him he could ask questions before, most of his teachers in grade school had seemed annoyed with him if he did and at Hogwarts he had fallen back into old patterns. They were a street or so over before he could get his first question out but Mr. Wei didn’t seem all that bothered by the silence and had been humming quietly to himself.

“Why did they send you to pick me up and not Professor Dumbledore?” Harry asked.

He vaguely remembered that Dumbledore was supposed to be a part of the ICW along with all his other responsibilities. It was impressive that he could manage it all, Harry could barely manage that trouble that followed him around and most of the magical adults outside of Hogwarts’s teaching staff could barely manage to walk and breathe at the same time from what he’d been able to tell.

“Your headmaster is one of the witnesses being called at the Inquest and even if he wasn’t he is a major political figure in the British conclave. He would have been sent to talk to you under most circumstances but he voluntarily forfeited the right in favor of me.” Mr. Wei had pulled a flute from… somewhere and was twirling it through his fingers like Harry had seen some people do with coins.

“Why would he-” Harry hesitated.

Mr. Wei didn’t acknowledge the hesitation and just answered the question. “Short answer is politics, the complicated answer is that if he comes to retrieve you it makes it look like he might have coached you and people will be less likely to believe that you’re telling the truth. It’s stupid because the witness chairs in ICW court rooms are spelled for truthfulness and Headmaster Dumbledore isn’t the type to use control magic but it’s one of the things your ministry would try to bring up.”

“Try to bring up?” Harry asked.

Mr. Wei twirled his hand, as if to dismiss Minister Fudge’s entire existence. “No one would have believed him but the accusation would be enough that the court would be required to call in a healer to verify you hadn’t been tampered with and there would be paperwork, a lot of paperwork, and no one likes paperwork. It’s a stalling tactic, Harry, can I call you Harry? I forgot to ask.”

There was another pause as Harry registered the question, a question no one had ever asked before. He nodded because if Mr. Wei had started calling him Potter then he’d be too much like a teacher and Harry didn’t actually want that association to present itself, he’d never trusted his muggle teachers and there were very few Hogwarts Professors that had stepped over the low bar of trust his elementary teachers had never cleared.

“Okay, good.” Mr. Wei nodded. “Where was I? Oh, right, the pathetic attempt at a stalling tactic your minister would have pulled in an attempt to hide his own misdeeds.”

Harry snorted and then slapped his hand over his mouth in an attempt to stifle a laugh. Mr. Wei’s smile broadened as he practically danced out of the path of a stroller and the rather harried looking mother pushing it along.

“You see, Harry, men like your minister are used to letting other people make the decisions for them even if they tell themselves they aren’t because the bribes they accept mean they’re selling their services rather than let themselves be led around by the nose.” Mr. Wei made a face that expressed exactly what he thought of that. “They’re also used to a compliant populace that believes everything their government tells them. He’s never been brought up before a legal body that he couldn’t bribe or weedle his way into the good graces of. I’d also say he isn’t used to long term planning, which the whole Sirius Black fiasco proves beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

“The Sirius Black fiasco?” Harry asked.

“Oh yes, letting a pack of Soul Eaters roam the countryside without a-” Mr. Wei stopped, head snapping around to stare at the storm cloud slowly creeping its way across the sky. “Harry, we are about to have company.”

“What do you mean?” Harry blinked as his breath fogged in the air, it had been warm enough that they’d been dodging through patches of shade earlier.

He hadn’t even noticed the drop in temperature until now, he shivered as a breeze ghosted over his skin. Mr. Wei’s smile had dropped off his face, his expression grim and sharp with concentration as he scanned the street around them.

The suddenly very empty street around them. How had Harry missed the fact that there wasn’t anyone around anymore?

“Do you have your wand on you?” Mr. Wei asked.

“No, we aren’t allowed to use them over the summer,” Harry paused before admitting. “I didn’t think I’d need it.”

“Damn.” Mr. Wei gestured for Harry to put his back against the wall of the shop next to them. “Someone at your ministry really doesn’t want the truth getting out. If you wouldn’t mind watching my left side, I don’t expect we’re going to have any mages ambushing us but my eyesight is worse on that side. Old war injuries never seem to heal as well as the ones you get by being an idiot teenager.”

“Sure,” Harry said. “You don’t want my help?”

Mr. Wei glanced over his shoulder, expression vaguely horrified, before immediately turning back around to continue scanning the street. “No, Harry, I’m perfectly capable of dealing with two, no, three, damn someone really wanted you dead, Soul Eaters. And you don’t have your focus on you right now, you’d be a sitting duck, unless you know how to cast wandless spells?”

“No, I don’t,” Harry murmured past the shock.

Dementors in Little Hangleton? It was a Muggle, er, mundane neighborhood, the only wizard living here was Harry. Who would send Dementors after him? Why would they send Dementors after him?

It couldn’t have been what Mr. Wei thought it was, it couldn’t be someone in the ministry trying to shut him up… Could it?

Mr. Wei brought the black flute to his lips and blew a series of high pitched wavering notes. The shadows around Harry shifted, swirling around him before crawling along the sidewalk to bring up barriers around them.

Harry stared at them, taking in the slightly slanted design with watery eyes before his eyes snapped up. He didn’t know why his attention had been drawn up but he gasped as he caught sight of the first dementor.

The horrible creeping cold that they let off began to crawl over Harry’s skin and he shrunk in on himself, the movement involuntary as he tried to hide himself behind Mr. Wei.

“Above!” He called.

Mr. Wei didn’t pause in his playing but the melody of the song changed, deepening and dulling into a coaxing, rocking tune. The Dementor swayed above them, following the notes and Harry’s mouth dropped open as he watched before he remembered what a Dementor could do and he forced it shut again.

He tore his eyes away from the first dementor, scanning the area for more. He found them in under a second, they were creeping over the buildings on the other side of the street.

Mr. Wei stepped forward until he was standing on the curb and shifted so that all three dementors were in his line of sight. The melody changed again and Harry took a sharp breath in as a wave of warm magic washed over him.

The dementors rushed forward and Harry choked down a scream as the music cut off. Mr. Wei was grinning, wide and predatory as the flute vanished and he pulled a sword from thin air.

Harry watched in horror and amazement as Mr. Wei danced, because that was the only way to describe it, around the dementors, blade flashing through the air around him like a metal butterfly. In a matter of seconds there were nothing but a handful of fabric scraps and swirling mist where the dementors had once been.

“I think that you’re going to need to move out of the country for a bit, Harry,” Mr. Wei commented. “Because if this is how the ministry is trying to draw attention away from itself I don’t think you’re safe in this neighborhood anymore.”

Harry stared at the man who had just dispatched three dementors as easily as if he’d been taking an afternoon stroll. It took a moment for him to fully register what Mr. Wei had just said, he was still existing in a state of partial shock.

“Oh, um,” Harry finally managed. “That might be a good idea.”

Chapter 4

Harry was going to treasure the look Mr. Wei gave Aunt Petunia when she suggested he was there to sell her nephew drugs for the rest of his life. The answer that came out of his mouth was something Harry was saving for a rainy day, or his next encounter with Voldemort, whichever came first.

“Oh, does your son regularly bring home drug dealers? I wouldn’t put it past him.” Mr. Wei glanced around the cookie cutter neighborhood with a raised eyebrow, like the militaristic conformity was enough to drive anyone to an escape.

Aunt Petunia sputtered in outrage and Harry had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from laughing in her face. Mr. Wei just watched her with big, innocent eyes as she tried to come up with something scathing.

“Why are you here?” she finally snapped.

Mr. Wei smiled at her. “Harry here is being called as a witness for an Inquest before the ICW and to be housed with a representative until his schooling starts up again. Give us half an hour and we’ll be out of your hair.”

Aunt Petunia sniffed, straightening to her full height so she could look down her long nose at Mr. Wei, the man just smiled harder. They stood like that for a few moments, staring each other down, before Aunt Petunia seemed to realize they had been standing on the stoop in full view of the neighbors for a while.

She huffed and gestured them inside. “Fine but he better not be coming back here until next summer!”

“Oh, don’t worry, ma’am, I’m sure no one will protest his removal from the house,” Mr. Wei said. “Harry, do you need help packing?”

“If you wouldn’t mind?” Harry squeaked.

Anything to get the slightly terrifying man away from Aunt Petunia. He doubted they’d actually kill each other but they both looked like they were waiting for the other to abruptly drop dead.

They made their way upstairs and Mr. Wei stared at the locks on his door for a solid minute before following Harry into his room. The door stayed open but the cultivator slapped a piece of paper against the doorframe and the sound of Aunt Petunia’s grumbling cut off halfway through her usual rant about freaks.

“That will keep her from hearing our conversation,” Mr. Wei explained. “Tell me, do you honestly feel safe here?”

“The wards are supposed to keep the Death Eaters out.” Harry knelt to pry the floorboard of his hiding spot up.

“That wasn’t what I meant, Harry,” Mr. Wei sighed before going over to Hedwig. “Hello, pretty, I’m taking your human away for the summer, do you want to travel with us or would you prefer to fly?”

Hedwig hooted at him.

Harry pulled his photo album out of its hiding spot and paused, biting his lip. Could he tell Mr. Wei about the Dursleys? It had never done him any good before, his muggle teachers had never particularly cared about what went on at school, let alone what happened outside of it and the Weasleys hadn’t thought twice about the bars that had been on his window in second year.

But, Mr. Wei had asked.

No one had ever asked him if he felt safe at home before, Hermione had always seemed concerned when he mentioned certain things and suggested he talk to the professors but Ron had never really paid attention. He knew that someone should have been checking on him while he was younger but his Hogwarts letter had been addressed to The Cupboard Under the Stairs…

“My Hogwarts letter was addressed to ‘The Cupboard Under the Stairs’,” Harry blurted before he could think better of it.

Silence answered him and Harry peered up through his fringe at Mr. Wei. He’d gone still, deathly still and he was only half way turned toward Harry so Harry couldn’t really see his expression. What little he could see of it looked absolutely livid.

“Harry.” Mr. Wei’s voice was steady in a way it hadn’t been for the last hour. “You are never coming back to this house even if I have to convince Uncle Qiren to hide you in Gusu indefinitely.”

Harry stared at him for a long moment, half expecting him to laugh, to shrug off the dramatics as some sort of joke. He waited because the older man couldn’t be serious, no one had ever suggested he could live anywhere but Private Drive. He had asked to stay at Hogwarts or to stay with the Weasleys permanently and he’d been denied both of the times he had asked.

“You’re serious,” Harry breathed after long moments of silence.

“Deathly serious.” Mr Wei smiled.

It wasn’t a nice smile, it wasn’t even the fake one he’d used on Aunt Petunia earlier. It was cold and predatory, white teeth seeming to lengthen as Harry watched him but for some reason it didn’t scare him. That look wasn’t aimed at him and something deep in Harry’s bones was telling him that he was safe, that this strange man who hadn’t even tried to touch him, that had killed three dementors in a matter of seconds wouldn’t hurt him.

It took another long moment for Harry to process that information, for the fact that he was going to be leaving the Dursley’s permanently fully sunk in. He swallowed thickly, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and he went back to pulling his precious belongings out of their hiding spot.

“My school supplies are downstairs, in the cupboard,” Harry said. “The Dursleys don’t want me to have access to anything abnormal over the summer, they say it’s bad enough that I need to stay here.”

Last summer’s Floo disaster and the twin’s candies hadn’t exactly helped with that particular belief. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had had a chance to calm down during the school year but they’d still been livid when he’d returned and Duddley had been trying to overcompensate for the whole debacle by taking out all his frustration and fear turned anger out on Harry.

“I’ll go get them,” Mr. Wei offered.

He glided out of the room on silent feet, the way he moved had changed, turning slow and smooth. At that moment he looked like the big cats Harry had seen on nature documentaries the few times Aunt Petunia had forgotten to turn off the telly and he’d been able to discreetly switch channels.

Harry should probably feel guilty about setting the man loose on the Dursleys’ home but he couldn’t quite bring himself to feel it. The Dursleys had never been kind or courteous towards him so why should he bother diverting the force of nature that was Mr. Wei away from them. For a moment he wished that Mr. Wei would put some sort of curse on the place, not anything damaging, something small and petty, more nuisance than something meant to actually harm.

Harry shook that off and turned to start pulling clothes out of his closet. Mr. Wei came trotting back into the room with a satisfied smile on his face, dragging Harry’s trunk in behind him.

The packing went quickly after that, Mr. Wei chatting away about how Lan Yuan was going to love having someone around his age in the house since his friend had apparently left for an internship somewhere. Harry listened, trying to absorb as much information as he possibly could about the place where Mr. Wei lived.

It sounded like a nice place, if a bit strict from the way Mr. Wei whined about his uncle. Harry had been a bit skeptical when Mr. Wei had started talking about the man but it had quickly become apparent that Uncle Qiren was absolutely nothing like Uncle Vernon.

Harry was hesitantly optimistic by the time he got everything packed and Mr. Wei slapped another one of the papers onto the top. Harry watched in mild amazement as the trunk shrunk until it was the same size as the paper had been.

He reached out to pick it up and slide it into his back pocket opposite his wand. It was light, lighter than it should have been even with the feather light charm he’d paid to be added to it during the summer before his third year.

“When you want that at its normal size just take the talisman off.” Mr. Wei held out his arm, another piece of paper clutched in his opposite hand. “Now, ask your owl if she wants to come with us or if she’ll take directions to Gusu and let you travel alone. She wasn’t entirely clear when I asked her.”

Hedwig looked affronted by the mere thought and perched grumpilly on Harry’s shoulder when he took Mr. Wei’s arm. Mr. Wei chuckled when the irritated owl reached out to yank on his hair before activating the talisman in his hand.

*****

Wei Wuxian was very close to just saying fuck it and advocating of the old law that said beheading anyone who had been in any position of power in the British Ministry of Magic was a perfectly reasonable punishment. It was an irrational feeling, he knew that if he went full Yiling Laozu on an entire government he’d be immediately killed. He was the first sane Patriarch that the cultivation world had had in a while and that came with responsibilities, no matter how minor they were.

Harry’s living conditions had been… poor to say the least, the aura of the house had been horrendous, as if every other member of the household had wanted him dead. That wasn’t even touching the wards, which had, at one point, been robust enough that they wouldn’t have let Wei Wuxian through in any shape or form but were now twisted up into something that welcomed him with open, vengeful arms.

Wei Wuxian hadn’t layed an enchantment on the house when he left, no matter how desperately he wanted to do so, no matter how much the house wanted him to do so, he hadn’t needed to. The house might have belonged to Harry’s relatives but the wards had been made by magic so old it creaked and they had been designed to protect Harry, with Harry gone the Dursleys would quickly find themselves swamped with little inconveniences that would make their life irritating enough to drive them insane.

Really, everyone was very lucky that Lan Zhan had been right there when the transportation talismen had deposited the two of them in the center of the ICW’s entrance hall. Lan Zhan had always been the one most able to rein him in, other than Jaing Yanli but she was married to the peacock and had a child on the way, again. Wei Ying was willing to admit that those two things were slightly more important than having her talk him down from whatever edge he was currently dancing across.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian called before crashing into his husband’s chest.

Lan Zhan hummed, resting his cheek on top of the shorter man’s head. “Wei Ying, is this Harry Potter?”

Wei Wuxian nodded, arms tightening around Lan Zhan’s waist, calming down as the feeling of his husband began to sink in. Hugging Lan Zhan was always a delight, Lan zhan didn’t let most people touch him except for his family and, occasionally, when he was teaching beginner classes in cultivation, smaller children.

“Um,” Harry sounded nervous. “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Lan.”

“Good to meet you too,” Lan Zhan rumbled. “Did Wei Ying drag you into trouble?”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian whined. “Do you not trust me?”

He pulled out of Lan Zhan’s hug and turned to look at a slightly sheepish Harry. The boy was shifting from foot to foot, very carefully not staring at the way Lan Zhan had Wei Wuxian tucked under one arm. Wei Wuxian couldn’t really blame him for that, he’d seen how prim and plasticity perfect that neighborhood had been. Mundane humans had never been all that accepting of homosexual relations, it was one of the most common sticking points for mundane born mages when they first started to explore magical society.

Lan Zhan hummed again. “Trust Wei Ying, do not trust Wei Ying to stay out of trouble.”

Wei Wuxian huffed. “Lan Zhan, meet Harry Potter. Harry, meet Lan Wangji, my husband and the light of my life.”

Lan Zhan’s ears flushed a dusky red, he’d never gotten used to compliments, especially when they came from Wei Wuxian. It was adorable, one of the few things that could break through the mask of the perfect Lan heir that had been part of Lan Zhan’s defenses since he was small.

Harry waved, jerky and nervous as he looked at the two of them with open innocence. Wei Ying can practically feel Lan Zhan melt at the look of confusion in those big green eyes.

“Hello, Mr. Lan,” Harry says. “Are you here because of the Inquiry?”

Lan Zhan nodded, solemn like he always was and gestured for the two to follow him. Or, well, for Harry to follow them, given that Wei Wuxian was stuck to his side like a barnacle. He wasn’t protesting, even though they were about to appear in court which meant he knew something was wrong and Wei Ying appreciated the fact that he wasn’t bringing it up.

“Your minister is being difficult,” Lan Zhan said. “Stalling for time, Mrs. Diggory is in a state of hysterics, and the Under Secretary is acting…”

Wei Wuxian glanced up to take in the look on Lan Zhan’s face. The expression wasn’t a particularly familiar one but he knew it all the same, it was the same pursed mouth judgemental disgust that had graced Lan Zhan’s face every single time anyone had mentioned the Wen brothers.

The Wen brothers were dead and Wei Ying had thought that the expression had died with them, apparently not. He wondered what the British Under Secretary had done to earn the look currently gracing Lan Zhan’s face.

“Why would Cedric’s mum be distraught?” Harry asked.

“Young Master Diggory was called as a witness since his death was the catalyst for this whole… situation.” Wei Wuxian waved his hand around to illustrate his point. “He was planning on coming with me to come get you but then his mother saw him.”

Harry stumbled and Wei Wuxian almost reached out before the boy steadied himself. Wei Wuxian blinked at him, taking in wide emerald eyes before mentally backtracking to find what could have made Harry trip over his own feet and cringed in guilty realization.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan sighed and gave him an exasperated look.

“What? I forgot he didn’t know about that part,” Wei Ying huffed.

“Cedric is here?” Harry asked. “He’s- he’s-”

Wei Ying turned a bit, so that Harry could see his face more easily. “His ghost is, there was an incident when he figured out that no one was going to admit the truth about what happened when he died. It wasn’t pretty and Lan Zhan and I are going to spend the summer trying to figure out how he did it. He won’t be staying long, just until the Inquest is over, said he didn’t want to get all twisted up like he’d seen some ghosts get.”

Harry swallowed, he looked devastated and vaguely guilty. Wei Ying was going to have to talk to him about that, or get him into some sort of counseling. There was very little Harry could have done differently when they’d come out the other end of that portkey but it looked like Harry was blaming himself for it anyway.

“He wanted to make sure you were alright, he wasn’t coherent enough to check on you before you left for the summer and you were subjected to a pain curse from what he’s told us. Did you get treatment for that?” Wei Ying asked because he wouldn’t put withholding medical care past the imbecile currently holding the Minister’s seat in Britain.

“Madame Pomfrey took care of me when I came back from… from the graveyard,” Harry said.

Madame Pomphrey, the Medi Witch that was used to taking care of adolescent idiocy.

Wei Ying was tempted to say something, from what Headmaster Dumbledore had said and the various pieces of information he’d been able to put together from the Medi Witch’s employment file Madame Pomfrey was an excellent Medi Witch. She had not, however, been able to take the master exam that was required to become a certified Healer.

Granted Hogwarts didn’t exactly need a full time Healer, it was a school after all, a magical school but just a school. The more… damaging kinds of magic were unlikely to ever be cast within those walls and potion accidents involving concoctions below what most of Europe classified as NEWT level didn’t often require intense medical intervention.

The fact still stood that Harry should have gone to a qualified Healer after the whole Tournament fiasco. Wei Ying was going to ask Dumbledore about that and magic help the man if Wei Ying didn’t like the answers.

Chapter 5

Harry couldn’t keep himself from staring at Mr. Wei and Mr. Lan, it was… surreal, seeing the two of them together. Not because it was two men so deeply in love that it radiated off their skin, Harry had encountered enough same sex couples to realize what Uncle Vernon had said on the subject was wrong, like most of what came out of his uncle’s mouth, but because Mr. Lan was wearing robes.

Mr. Wei was wearing a leather jacket and jeans, he looked like a mug- mundane, if Harry didn’t know any different he would think that Mr. Wei was a mundane. Mr. Lan on the other hand was dressed in blindingly white robes edged in dark blue with a lighter blue cloud pattern painted across the fabric. The cut was strange, something that Harry had never seen before, but Harry had been around the richer purebloods at Hogwarts enough to recognize a piece of clothing more expensive than the Dursleys’ house.

It was an interesting dichotomy, one that Harry had never seen from the outside before; most of the muggleborn students wore robes when they were in the wizarding world. It also drew Harry’s attention to the fact that he wasn’t wearing robes either.

“Mr. Wei.” Harry sped up a bit so that he was walking to the right and slightly behind the two men.

Mr. Wei smiled over his shoulder. “Yes, Harry?”

“Is anyone going to say anything about me wearing,” Harry glanced down at his, mostly oversized, clothes. “Mug- mundane clothing.”

“If they do, I will deal with them,” Mr. Lan rumbled.

Harry blinked up at the man’s face, he couldn’t see an expression there, or well he could, but it was so slight that he couldn’t recognize what it was. There was a spike of fear digging into Harry’s spine, he didn’t like not being able to read people’s expressions, body language was hard enough to read and he relied on expressions to tell him if the person in front of him was a threat.

But that didn’t really matter did it? It didn’t matter that Harry couldn’t read his expression. It didn’t matter, Mr. Lan didn’t have any say in Harry’s life or his safety and even if he did Mr. Wei was clearly attached to him and Harry didn’t think Mr. Wei would like anyone capable of hurting children.

“A pack of Soul Eaters showed up to try to eat you, the fact that you’re wearing mundane clothing isn’t going to make anyone bat an eye,” Mr. Wei reassured.

“Wei Ying?” Mr. Lan said.

“I’m fine, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying waved his hand flipantly. “They were weak, hadn’t eaten in a while, they were easy to deal with.”

Harry had a moment where he realized that whatever Mr. Wei dealt with on a regular basis had to be completely and utterly terrifying. Dementors ate fucking souls, that had to be the worst thing that could ever happen to someone and they had to be one of the worst things about the magical world… other than some of the people who lived in it.

He abruptly wondered if Mr. Wei would be able to win a duel against Voldemort, which was strange because Harry had never thought that anyone else would be willing to go up against Voldemort before.

Other than Dumbeldore and Dumbledore had been… absent every single time Harry had encountered the man who wanted to murder him. That was probably something he would have to think about later but it stuck in his mind.

Could Mr. Wei deal with Voldemort? Could he kill him before Harry had to face the snake faced bastard again? Could an adult actually be trusted to deal with the issue?

Mr. Lan just hummed in acknowledgement but Harry could see his eyes roaming over Mr. Wei to check for injuries. Harry tried to hide his smile, he’d been on the receiving end of similar looks from Hermione and his friends on the Quidditch team a time or two.

“The Minister was stalling,” Mr. Lan said.

Mr. Wei’s face darkened as they approached a set of double doors, they were stained a rich dark brown with brass wrapping the planks together. There were runes carved into the metal, or at least, Harry thought they were runes, they didn’t look like any of the runes Hermione had shown him while they were doing homework or like the inked piece of paper in his back pocket.

Harry jumped when the doors swung open without even a touch to the wood and then froze when he caught sight of the room inside. It was big, nearly half the size of the great hall at Hogwarts with a vaulted ceiling.

It was built like a giant bowl with rows and rows of full benches leading all the way down to the center. It was all done in old stone, worn but still looking solid despite its age.

There was a long judge’s bench set up at the bottom of the room with three middle aged witches and an ancient looking wizard sitting behind it. They had all looked up when the door had opened and a hush had fallen over the room but all but the dark skinned woman had gone back to reading through whatever paper’s they had in front of them.

“Are you alright, Harry?” Mr. Wei asked.

Harry swallowed, eyes flicking to the sheer amount of people sitting in the benches. He’d never been around this many people before, there were only about three hundred students at Hogwarts at any given time and the Quidditch Cup last year hadn’t counted given that they’d been in the top box, not among the crowd. There were at least a thousand people here, a thousand other magic users who would know exactly who Harry was in a matter of minutes.

The dark skinned woman stood and walked around the judge’s bench. She came up the stairs two at a time before stopping in front of the three of them.

“Wei-laozu, Lan-gongzi, Mr. Potter.” She nodded to them in turn. “I’m Judge Arabella Spellsinger.”

Harry waved at her nervously, appreciating the fact that she hadn’t tried to shake his hand. Mr. Wei grinned in welcome, leaning more firmly into Mr. Lan’s side and Mr. Lan just nodded at him.

“Mr. Potter, my colleagues have asked me to verify a few facts before we proceed, may I?” She asked.

Harry nodded warrilly and the woman waved her hand. The rings on her fingers – there were at least a dozen of them, each with a different gem set into their bands – flashed and a wall of shimmering rainbow magic appeared around the four of them in a dome.

“You were raised by your mother’s mundane sister and her family, correct?” Judge Spellsinger asked.

“Yes,” Harry said.

“How old were you when you first performed accidental magic, to the best of your knowledge?” She asked.

“Five years old, I turned my teacher’s hair blue,” Harry said.

Mr. Wei snorted in amusement, Judge Spellsinger just sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked like she hadn’t gotten enough sleep in the last few days, like she was bone tired but she knew that she wasn’t going to be able to go to bed until the issue at hand was fixed.

“And did your ministry’s child services department ever come to check on you after that incident?” She sounded like she already knew the answer to that question but was still holding out hope.

“What child services department?” Harry blinked big green eyes up at her.

Judge Spellsinger stared at him for a moment and then turned away, cursing under her breath. Mr. Wei’s eyes went wide before he sighed and his head thumped onto Mr. Lan’s shoulder.

“How old were you when you found out about your magic?” Judge Spellsinger turned back to ask him.

Her voice was strained, like she was dreading the answer that was about to come out of his mouth. Harry supposed that she probably had a good idea if they’d already gone digging through Ministry records, considering what he’d heard from the muggleborns in Gryffindor.

“Eleven,” Harry said.

Mr. Wei gave a tiny horrified noise. “Accidental magic is a constant occurrence until you’re old enough for a focus. How did your relatives explain it?”

There was a beat of silence.

Harry didn’t need to tell them that the Dursleys hadn’t bothered trying to explain what was happening to him, he just looked up at them as the realization crawled across their faces.

Judge Spellsinger took a deep breath. “Alright, we do not actually have time to assign you a magical guardian, if we want the preliminary trial to end before breakfast time tomorrow we need to start now. Wei-laozu, if you will come present the reasons you are calling this Inquest up in the first place, please. Lan-gongzi, you know where the witness seats are, correct?”

“Yes, Judge Spellsinger.” Mr. Lan inclined his head.

Mr. Wei turned to plant a loud, smacking kiss on Mr. Lan’s cheek before skipping down the stairs to stand in the center of the open space in front of the judges’ bench. Judge Spellsinger rolled her eyes and took down the magical barrier with a flick of her wrist before following him down.

Harry turned to look up at Mr. Lan, the tall man nodded and gestured for him to follow, one of his hands tucking itself into the small of his back. Harry licked his lips and carefully followed him down the steps, skin prickling with the number of eyes that he could feel on him.

“Not you,” Mr. Lan said.

Harry nearly jumped and looked up at him. The man sent a bland look at the spectators before gesturing Harry into a row of seats just behind the front row.

“What?” Harry asked as he scrambled into his seat.

“Not staring at you, they’re staring at me, Lan don’t leave Gusu often.” Mr. Lan folded himself into his own chair with a grace that Harry had only seen out of the veela blooded students of Beauxbaton.

Mr. Lan was clearly a man of few words, a sharp contrast to Mr. Wei who looked like he’d vibrate out of his skin when he wasn’t actively talking. Harry puzzled over that for a moment before checking the crowd and did find that, with a few very British exceptions, everyone was staring at Mr. Lan rather than at Harry.

He relaxed and Mr. Lan’s lip twitched, the movement there and then gone so fast that Harry thought he was imagining things. He didn’t really have time to process that fact before the sharp crack of wood on wood was heard throughout the room.

Harry turned to look at the Judges as one of the other women stood. She was tall and paler than Harry with a blue undertone to her skin and long white blond hair. She was wearing pale green robes similar to the styles he saw in Diagonally and there was a thick gold choker studded with diamonds wrapped around her neck.

“I, Judge Anabelle Le Fey, call to order this meeting of the International Confederation of Wizards. Beside me are Judges Spellsinger and Tanaka and the role of Supreme Mugwump is being filled in by Sect Leader Jin Zixuan considering the conflict of interest that Headmaster Dumbledore’s presence would cause in these proceedings.” The woman’s voice was smooth and dangerous.

Harry shivered in something like fear as predatory blue eyes flashed around the room and red lips drew back to reveal perfect pearly white teeth. He had a feeling that if anyone objected to this woman’s decisions then they would be dealt with quickly and with great prejudice.

“This marks the beginning of the trial to determine if the requested Inquest into the dealings of the British Ministry of Magic and all auxiliaries therein is truly necessary, as requested by Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge. Judge Tanaka, are you ready to begin?” Judge Le Fey asked.

“Quite, Judge Le Fey,” the last Judge said.

She was a woman of Asian descent, wearing robes closer in style to Mr. Lan’s rather than Judge Le Fey. Her hair was done up in a complicated style with a glittering variety of hair jewelry shining under the spell lights floating around the room.

Judge Le Fey sat and Judge Tanaka cleared her throat, shuffling her papers absently for a moment. She stood, flicking the stack out in front of her so that they floated in front of her, right hand curled into a strange formation against her breast bone.

“The Court calls Wei Wuxian, known as the Yiling-Laozu, former head disciple of the Jiang Sect, to present the reasons he has called for this Inquest,” Judge Tanaka said.

Mr. Wei stepped into the middle of the room and there was a brief flash as his boots came to rest on a symbol carved into the floor. Judge Tanaka nodded in approval and the air in the room lost a level of its tension as the carvings began to glow a dull silver.

“Let the record show that Wei-Laozu has activated the Truth Array so kindly set in stone by our first assembly,” Judge Tanaka said.

Harry must have made a sound of confusion because Mr. Lan spoke, just loud enough for him to hear. “Less potent than a truth spell, runes will glow red if Wei Ying speaks falsely.”

Harry hummed and tried not to find it weird that Mr. Lan was actually giving him information without couching it behind an unhelpful riddle. Most people acted like he should already know things or that he didn’t need to know them in the first place.

‘Don’t ask questions’ had been such a steady refrain during his time at the Dursleys that some of that mindset had carried over. After the first few times he’d spoken up in class, where asking questions got him an exasperated look from a teacher, he’d just stopped asking, it was easier on everyone that way.

“On the evening of the 30th of June Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts apparated into my husband’s rose bushes,” Mr. Wei began.

Harry had to hide a snort of laughter in his fist though the rest of the assembled mages weren’t so discreet about their humor at his Headmaster’s expense. The image of Dumbledore in all his berobed glory trying to detangle his hem from a patch of thorns was an incredibly humorous image.

“Once Dumbledore-zhonzhu disentangled himself from the bushes I invited him in for tea and, once my husband had arrived, we were informed of an incident that had taken place following the event known as the Triwizard Tournament,” Mr. Wei said.

“Let the record show that the event known as the Triwizard Tournament is a traditional competition held between Beauxbaton Private Academy, Durmstrang’s Institute of Magic, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had been banned until June of last year when the British Minister of Magic campaigned for its renewal, which he was granted,” Judge Tanaka did not sound happy about that fact.

“Several things were imparted to me over the course of that conversation, the most pertinent of those facts being that a student had died over the course of the Tournament,” Mr. Wei didn’t acknowledge the interruption beyond giving the Judge time to speak. “Cedric Digorry had been struck with the Soul Stealing curse and his body had been kept in the Infirmary under preservation charm until such time as it could be properly laid to rest. Unfortunately, on the eve of the 30th, after the remainder of Hogwarts students had left via the train Cedric Digory’s body stood up and began to wreak havoc through the school.”

There was a long stretch of disbelieving silence and Harry’s jaw dropped. He had never heard of a corpse getting up and walking about before, at least not all by themselves, Inferi were one thing but those took weeks and a lot of shady magic to make and he thought that the Hogwarts staff might have noticed if someone was trying to turn Cedric into an Inferi.

But Mr. Wei hadn’t been lying; the runes ringing the area in which he stood were still glowing a dull silver, not a hint of red in sight.

“Wei-laozu, do you mean to tell me that someone rose Mr. Digory’s corpse in order to cause trouble?” Judge Tanaka asked.

“No, I mean to say that Mr. Diggory’s death was not justly investigated and upon realizing this fact he decided possessing his own deceased body was preferable to becoming a poltergeist,” Mr. Wei replied. “Which gave it the appearance of a Fierce Corpse.”

“And so Headmaster Dumbledore called in an expert, I take it this was why you have gathered us here today.” That wasn’t a question and Judge Tanaka opened her mouth to continue.

Minister Fudge blustered to his feet. “Preposterous! The boy’s death was obviously an accident! Harry Potter is lying!”

Harry sunk down into his chair, trying to hide from the chill that had suddenly permeated the air. Judge Tanaka’s eyes narrowed and she stood from her seat, sparks crackling around her finger tips.

“Minister Cornelius Fudge,” she spat through gritted teeth. “You were warned what would happen if suspicion of corruption was brought before me one more time. This court was lenient seven years ago due to the fact that your nation was still recovering from the after effects of your blood war, as we were with China’s Great Sects and with Germany in the aftermath of Hitler and Grindelwald. And for your information this accusation does not come from Potter-kun.”

Minister Fudge sputtered, attempting to get words out past his outrage but they didn’t come. Harry watched in amazement as Judge Tanaka’s eyes hardened even further and the Minister shrunk back from her like roses before a storm.

“These accusations come from the young man you wronged so completely that he chose to puppeteer his own corpse to get justice, Cedric Diggory.” Judge Tanaka pointed at the ghost hovering by his mother’s side. “The dead do not lie Minister Fudge, they are not capable of it. I have half a mind to clear the Inquest now so that I may investigate your Ministry’s misconduct fully and damn procedure but the precedent set would doom some fool soul in our future and I have responsibility to this Court. Now sit down and shut. Up.”

And to Harry’s surprise Minister Fudge did just that.

Chapter 6

The rest of the trial didn’t take long, once there was evidence that Cedric’s death hadn’t been investigated there was no real question as to whether or not there was going to be a full blown investigation. Add in the fact that the British Ministry had essentially stolen a Chinese Fireball and its clutch and then gotten said clutch killed through incompetence and the trial ended sooner than anyone had expected.

Harry had been called to speak briefly and the Judges hadn’t asked all that many questions once he had related what had happened in the graveyard. All of them had been mildly impressed by his actions and visibly horrified by the situation Harry had found himself in.

To be honest, Wei Wuxian was horrified and he’d known the basics of what had gone down in that cemetery. He wasn’t impressed though, he didn’t know how he felt about the things that had happened to Harry, it felt too much like what had occurred during the Sunshot Campaign for his taste.

Granted he, Jiang Cheng, and the rest of their generation had at least been of age when they had been forced into their wartime rolls but not by much. There had been the same failing of the older generation then too, Jiang Fungmian’s core crushed, Lan Qiren too old to fight, Jin Guanshan hold up in his pleasure palace trying to fuck his way out of reality, and Wen Rouhan, the man they were all fighting against as he tried to take over their world.

Wei Wuxian didn’t blame either Lan Qiren or Jiang Fungmain for their lack of role in the war, not anymore but this… The actions of the British Ministry of magic was making his skin itch like bugs were crawling over his flesh.

Wei Wuxian collected Harry and Lan Zhan on the way out, flagging Dumbledore down as they left. The man looked tired, like the excitement of the last few days had stripped whatever energy was left in his bones. Wei Wuxian wanted to sympathize but he couldn’t.

They settled in a side chamber, specifically the one that had access to Gusu and the rest of the Sects. The conversation Wei Wuxian wanted to have wasn’t going to take long and after it was over he wanted to go home and hug A-Yuan.

Wei Wuxian was taking the opportunity to get a closer look at the scar that was emblazoned across the teenager’s forehead. He could tell it was some kind of spell mark and the fact that it had been left by a curse was pretty obvious after a few moments of careful examination but other than that…

“Cultivator Lan, I believe that you will be selected for the investigation that is being launched, you have experience in such areas,” Headmaster Dumbledore started.

“Mm, likely,” Lan Zhan said. “They cannot involve Wei Ying, I am next best at communication with the dead.”

“They’re going to ask you to bring more ghosts back?” Harry asked.

Wei Wuxian poked at the scar, careful to keep his own energies out of Harry’s, a difficult task considering how close to the child’s upper dantian it was. Though it would have been difficult even if it hadn’t been close to the center of mass, European mages had never learned to keep their energies bundled up into cores and instead spread their magic out equally across their body.

“No, none but Wei Ying can bring souls back from beyond the veil but death echoes, those I can do,” Lan Zhan explained.

“Lan Zhan, don’t flatter,” Wei Wuxian teased absently, he almost had the whole of the thing in Harry’s scar. “Everything has a cost and I can’t force a soul to come back, you have to ask or you end up with nothing but a handful of blood and a dead cat for your troubles.”

“Dead cat!” Harry sounded vaguely disturbed.

“Didn’t kill it, I cursed the idiots that did, it was a first test subject,” Wei Wuxian trailed off as he finally managed to pin down the nasty bit of black magic under his fingertips.

The room rang silent for a handful of heartbeats.

When Wei Wuxian next spoke his voice felt like it wasn’t his own, ice coating every word as it slid off his tongue like rain off tiled roofs. “Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, you left a… a…”

It took Wei Wuxian a moment to remember the European word for what he was looking at. The rage building in his belly wasn’t helping his ability to speak conversational English, let alone remember of the name of obscure, forbidden, and incredibly stupid forms of black magic that had been left to fester inside of a child.

“Horcrux-” Lan Zhan let out a tiny, furious noise at the name “-in this child’s head for who knows how long!”

Dumbledore’s shoulders slumped and Wei Wuxian watched the man age decades in front of him. His hand shook as he raised it to cradle the side of his head, Wei Wuxian just kept glaring at him.

“I suspected,” Dumbledore admitted. “I didn’t know.”

“What’s a horcrux?” Harry asked. “And why is it in my scar?”

Wei Wuxian looked down into emerald eyes, they were clear and intelligent. In fact they looked more like jewels than irises but that was a trait many wizarding families shared. There was knowledge in those eyes, a kind of dread that Wei Wuxian was all too familiar with, the sense that what you were about to hear would make you regret its utterance.

There was suspicion in it, like Harry was putting pieces together, like he wasn’t enjoying the picture they were making. Shijie had had the same look when she had finally confronted him about Chenqing and the Stygian Tiger Amulet and the fact that he hadn’t drawn Suibian since the beginning of the war.

“Dumbledore,” Wei Wuxian said.

Dumbledore sighed. “Harry, I… I hadn’t to tell you this, I felt you were too young to be aware of the lengths which Voldemort was willing to sink to. I didn’t even know that he had made one until your second year. I had thought that he had just left a… an imprint on your magic considering the nature of the curse cast and the fact that you are a parselmouth.”

“Parselmouth,” Lan Zhan interrupted, face actually shifting into a display of shock. “You are a Dragon Friend?”

Wei Wuxian blinked once, carefully processing the words. It had been a long time since one capable of speaking to the dragons was born outside of the Nie Sect so he hadn’t met many, though Meng Yao was one and Nie Huisang another.

Two in one generation, born so close together was considered a blessing, even if Nie Huisang didn’t show a lick of interest in anything besides painting fans, gossip, and conning people out of all of their earnings over games of strategy.

“That…” Wei Wuxian paused. “That should have been disclosed to the Council Dumbledore, if someone had found out that he was a Dragon Friend before he entered your Sect they would have been within their rights to steal him. If I wasn’t here someone would have tried, today, I know there were at least five Japanese, ten Indian, and an American Dragon Friend in that audience, probably more that I didn’t recognize, you idiot. How were you planning to have him trained?!”

“I did not know if the talent was natural or if Voldemort’s interference had somehow left him with the ability,” Dumbledore said.

Wei Wuxian switched to the Gusu dialect and started cursing, loudly, and at length. He respected Dumbledore, the man was powerful and had the allegiance of both a Phoenix and a powerful focus that he’d won in combat but sometimes Wei Wuxian really wanted to strangle the man.

“Dragon Friends are born, the blessing cannot be… inherited,” Lan Zhan carefully explained. “It is in the blood, their vocal cords are different, they have venom glands, it is not a condition that can be passed on.”

“I’m poisonous!” Harry yelped.

“Venomous,” Wei Ying corrected. “Poisonous is you bite it and you die, venomous is it bites you and you die. Not that most Dragon Friends have venom potent enough to kill someone, it honestly depends on the snakes that have bitten you before your majority, most snakes aren’t willing to do that without some convincing, and those that are tend to be baby grass snakes and the like.”

There was a long stretch of silence as Harry visibly debated saying something.

“I’m guessing Basilisk,” Harry said, very slowly. “Isn’t on the list of snakes that normally bite parsel- Dragon Friends. Is it?”

“Basi-” Wei Wuxian had to take a moment as the implications of Harry’s second year hit him full force. “Please tell me it wasn’t a female.”

“Uh,” Harry looked up at him with a pleading face.

“Males have blue markings down their sides, oh and a ruff of feathers around the back of their heads,” Wei Wuxian offered.

Harry’s answering grimace was enough of an answer to that particular question.

“Well, I know what the first thing we’re doing when Lan Zhan starts the investigation is,” Wei Wuxian said.

A female basilisk under a school full of children, brilliant, that wouldn’t have ended in terrible, terrible death the first time a teacher raised their voice at a student or anything. Though, considering the thing had been attacking students, Wei Wuxian was almost certain she had been insane, he could only hope that, if there was a nest, the eggs hadn’t hatched yet or there would be another three or so months on the investigation that they didn’t need.

“You did report the basilisk to the ministry right?” Wei Wuxian asked.

“Yes, they declined to confirm the death of the creature after I refused to disclose the name of the student that had been possessed by Tom Riddle’s… Horcrux,” Dumbledore said.

“He made more than one!” Wei Wuxian shrieked.

Soul Tethers, or Horcruxes, as the European mages called them, were some of the darkest, nastiest bits of magic anyone could perform. Making one was beyond the pale and likely to get you immediately removed from the planet at the end of someone else’s wand.

People still made them, stupid, self centered people with more pride than sense and more magic than brains. Or the very desperate but the desperate didn’t tend to be very good at the kind of planning a ritual of that nature required.

Making more than one, that was just Stupid. Splitting your soul split your magic and there was no way to get it back once you gave it up. Granted it also made the mage in question ten times harder to kill and Wei Wuxian had read accounts of mages thinking they had killed the problem only to have it rear back up again a decade or so later but it wasn’t worth the power drain, not by any stretch of the imagination.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said. “As evidenced by young Mister Potter’s experience.”

Wei Wuxian closed his eyes, took a deep breath in through his nose, and carefully untangled his qi from the shard of power embedded in Harry’s scar. As much as he wanted to tear the thing out with his teeth and shred it into teeny tiny pieces, he couldn’t.

Removing a Horcrux from a living person was a complicated process and not something one did in the middle of a random meeting room unless it was a matter of life and death. Fortunately most people didn’t put shards of themselves in other people because most people who decided that horcruxes were the answer didn’t have anyone they trusted enough to entrust part of their soul to.

Given that Harry had been a toddler when his family was attacked there was no way that Tom Riddle had done this on purpose. Which meant that his magic and his sense of self had been unstable enough that he’d gone to pieces when his body had been killed.

Lovely, that was another problem for future Wei Wuxian to worry about.

“I’m not going to like what a Horcrux is, am I?” Harry asked.

“No, you aren’t,” Wei Wuxian confirmed. “Dumbledore.”

“A Horcrux is a piece of someone’s soul,” Dumbledore explained.

There was a long, horrified silence where Harry’s face twisted into a variety of comically disgusted expressions. He looked up at Wei Wuxian and then over at Lan Zhan, as if seeking someone to tell him that Dumbeldore was lying, that he’d made a mistake of some kind.

“There’s a piece of Voldemort’s soul in my head?” Harry sounded like he was going to throw up.

“Not quite how I’d phrase it but close enough,” Wei Wuxian said.

“How are you so calm about this?!” Harry sputtered.

“Because I know how to get it out of your head,” Wei Wuxian told him. “It’s going to take a bit of preparation but it’s going to happen, don’t you worry.”

Harry stares up at him with big green eyes, hope a bright, burning flame behind them. Wei Wuxian could feel his heart melting, helped by the fact that the teen had only just hit his first real growth spurt and his magic hadn’t gotten around to correcting the damage his childhood had done to the kid. Harry looked like he was twelve, not like a fourteen, nearly fifteen year old teenager, the kitchen aunties were going to shove so much food onto his plate when they got back to Cloud Recesses.

Harry was coming back to Cloud Recesses with them, Wei Wuxian was going to suggest it before but considering the fact that there was a horcrux involved he was going to have to be involved.

Wei Wuxian turned to look at Dumbledore, the man looked tired, like all his years of life were weighing heavy on his shoulders and Wei Wuxian refused to feel pity for him, not right now.

Later, later, he might be able to muster up the emotional energy to admit that the man was flawed enough that he’d wrapped himself around an ideal until he hadn’t been able to tell right from wrong but had never intended for that to happen.

Wei Wuxian had never had very little patience for those who put ideals above people, it never led to anything good as far as he was concerned. Dumbledore was old enough that he should have realized that by now, should have realized how soul crushing it was to fight for something that would never be grateful for his efforts, how ideals could twist and writhe until ends became so much greater than the means that would lead to them.

And sometimes that was true, sometimes you needed to do something nasty, to get your hands dirty in order to protect something precious but this… Leaving a soul tether, even a suspected one in the body of a boy who had no knowledge of its presence, who had not agreed to bear the weight of the consequences of the decision was never an acceptable means no matter the ends.

“I,” Wei Wuxian started, biting back fury, chaining anger behind his teeth. “Am taking Harry to the Cloud Recesses and you cannot stop me, Dumbledore. If you try I will drag you back into that chamber and inform everyone of exactly what you allowed to happen to a Dragon Friend and let them deal with you.”

“I wouldn’t have dreamt of refusing, he will be safer with the Cultivation Sects than he ever would be anywhere in England,” Dumbeldore hesitated for a moment. “His godfather-”

“Will be welcome to stay with him the moment he hands himself over to the Court for questioning and proves himself innocent of the crimes he was accused of,” Wei Wuxian said, taking note of the way Harry brightened at that prospect. “It should be simple enough given he never got a trial.”

Dumbledore nodded and looked like he was going to say something else but ultimately remained silent. Wei Wuxian took that as their cue and started herding Harry towards the space where they could activate the transportation talisman.

Chapter 7

The transportation talisman that Mr. Wei had used was, by far, the gentlest method of magical travel Harry had ever experienced. He’d been too distracted by nerves to really register it the first time around but it was true.

He wasn’t nauseous and he didn’t feel like he’d just been squeezed through a tube that was just a touch too small for him to actually fit. Other than flying, this might be his new favorite method of travel, a fact that Mr. Wei giggled over when Harry said so out loud.

They were in a living room or at least Harry assumed it was a living room, it had cushions on the floor and a low table with a tea set in the middle of everything, he could see an older kitchen through one doorway and the other door clearly led to the outside. There was a corridor that probably led to guest rooms opposite them and there was a variety of cushions arrayed around the floor and two desks shoved into a corner by a window.

“A-Yuan! We’re back!” Mr. Wei called down the corridor.

A young man poked his head out of a doorway and smiled, bright and cheerful enough that Harry was a bit startled. He was pretty, a few years older than Harry but pretty nonetheless in a way that Harry had only thought girls could manage.

He looked like Mr. Lan for the most part, the eyes were even the same molten gold shade but that bright smile was all Mr. Wei. His hair was long and pulled up into a messy bun that sent wisps of hair everywhere and Harry vaguely wondered if it was soft. It made him look… Harry’s face flushed and the beat up pair of tennis shoes that were probably a size too small at this point were suddenly the most interesting thing in the entire room.

“A-Niang! A-Die!” The young man called and his voice was like music.

Harry stared harder at the black scuff mark on one of his toes, trying desperately to fight down the blush slowly rising in his cheeks. This was not the time or the place for him to start noticing how attractive Mr. Lan’s son was.

“You’re back already? I thought the trial would take longer,” the older teen sounded mildly shocked.

“Stole a dragon, let her clutch die,” Mr. Lan said, as if that was all the explanation that was needed.

Harry glanced up in time to catch the other teen’s wince. He was standing in the hallway now, wearing an oversized shirt that gaped at the collar and long sleeves that swallowed his hands and a pair of baggy sweatpants. It was, objectively, not attractive in the least, Harry had no doubt that if he was wearing that particular outfit he would be tripping over the fabric pooling around his feet.

It shouldn’t have been attractive on the boy wearing it now but it was and Harry had made his way into hell at some point in the last five minutes. He lived here now, he would have to deal with this unfairly attractive teenager every single day for the rest of the summer.

Harry was starting to reconsider all of his life choices.

“A-Yuan, this is Harry Potter, he’ll be staying with us for the rest of the summer, he’s a witness in the Inquest and has a rather nasty bit of Black Magic attached to him that I will be removing,” Mr. Wei introduced, completely oblivious to his guest’s utter panic. “Harry, this is our son, Lan Yuan, courtesy name Sizhui, he’s just earned his first mastery and will be staying here until your school starts because he’s allowed a bit of a break before launching into a full time practice.”

That last sentence was pointed and aimed at Lan Sizhui. The older boy just stared calmly at his father, face a study of careful neutrality that nonetheless gave off an air of judgment.

“Don’t throw stones, A-Niang,” Lan Sizhui said. “Your house is made of glass.”

Mr. Wei gasped, dramatically, hand coming up to his chest in mock scandal. He slumped to one side in a parody of a faint, Mr. Lan dutifully catching him without a second thought or any change in body language besides the fact that he’d stuck his arm out, face still completely bland.

“Oh, how my own blood betrays me!” Mr. Wei exclaimed.

“I’m adopted,” Lan Sizhui told Harry, voice edging into true amusement.

Harry licked his lips and nodded, eyes opened wide enough to hurt. He didn’t know what to do with this situation or this place, he’d known what to do at the Dursleys, at Hogwarts, even at the Burrow he’d known what people had expected, what they’d wanted from him. But here, here in this small, homey house with this family of mages he hadn’t met before today he didn’t know what they wanted.

“My son, my precious little radish, piercing my very heart!” Mr. Wei exclaimed. “Accusing his mother of such hypocrisy!”

Mother?

That had to be an inside joke that Harry was missing. Either that or the translation charm that Mr. Lan had cast on him was messing up somehow but Harry doubted that. Mr. Lan didn’t seem like someone to make mistakes.

“A-Niang,” Lan Sizhui whined. “That isn’t the point. Let’s get our guest situated before you scare him off.”

Mr. Wei squawked like a crow that had had its tail feathers yanked and scrambled out of his boyfriends? husbands? partners? arms. Harry watched him straighten himself, hands smoothing down his leather jacket, failing to put it in any semblance of order, then he glanced at Mr. Lan who looked like a single hair had never dared to fall out of place.

“Sorry, about that,” Mr. Wei apologized. “Let’s get you settled in.”

Harry dutifully followed Mr. Wei down the hall to a bedroom that was bare of most everything except a window, a bed, a desk, and a painting on the wall. Harry blinked at it, at the landscape because that’s what it had to be but it wasn’t like any landscape he’d ever seen before.

It was a black mountain side with a tall, winding tree sitting on the lower slope, its leaves glowing like fresh cut rubies. The sky was gray, a swirling mass of storm clouds that looked alive somehow, like the picture of an indrawn breath.

There was a pile of stones on the upper slope and Harry knew, deep inside that that was a grave. The figure standing over it was wearing black robes edged in red, one impossibly pale hand resting on the topmost stone in a sign of morning.

“Oh, I forgot that I left that in here,” Mr. Wei said. “I can take it if you want I know its-”

“No,” the word was out before Harry could catch it behind his teeth.

Mr. Wei blinked at him, expression confused and Harry was suddenly glad that he was so easy to read because Harry wouldn’t have been able to relax into his own opinion if he wasn’t able to read the older man. It was hard, admitting he liked something so dark, something that was so clearly steeped in the beauty that came from someone trying to grieve in quiet dignity.

“I-” Harry paused, staring into eyes that were curious and free of judgment. “I like it.”

Mr. Wei looked at him for a long moment and Harry nearly sank in on himself before he caught sight of the tiny smile that was starting to play across the older man’s face. He nodded and stepped back and back further until he was standing in the doorway, the toes of his boots just on the other side of the threshold.

“I’ll let you get settled, dinner should be ready in an hour,” Mr. Wei said.

Then he left, he left Harry standing in the room he’d been given with a pocket full of all his things and a painting that felt right, deep in his bones.

*****

Harry woke up screaming at the top of his lungs, like he had almost every single night since the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Green light chasing him out of his dreams, the color more viscous than any of Aunt Marge’s dogs would ever be.

It was different this time, when he fought his way out of the dream.

He wasn’t in his room for one, or well, Dudley’s second bedroom, it had never truly been his room. The only room that had ever been his had been the cupboard under the stairs.

It was a different room though, an unfamiliar room that was only passingly familiar. There was a voice too, one that sounded far away, like it was speaking through smoke but was probably right next to him.

“-is Harry Potter. You’re in the Jingshi in the Cloud Recesses of Gusu. It’s past midnight at this point, but I’m not holding that against you. Your name is Harry Potter, you’re in the Jingshi, it’s past midnight. Cedric is here, he’s not alive but he’s here,” and suddenly he could recognize the voice.

It was Mr. Wei, Mr. Wei was speaking in a calm collected voice, repeating the same phrases over and over again. The words drilled into his mind, piercing the panic and lancing through the fog of fear like a blade.

Harry gasped, cutting off his scream as he gulped air into his lungs, trying to calm down, trying to claw his way back to sanity. He was safe, he wasn’t in the graveyard, he wasn’t even in Europe for fuck sake, he wasn’t anywhere that Voldemort could get to him.

But that thought wasn’t helping and he had no idea why it wasn’t, wasn’t making him come back as much as the calm sentences falling from Mr. Wei’s lips like a river. So he concentrated on the words, on the voice, the calm, soothing voice that was so unfamiliar and yet not.

He choked and coughed on the terror curled around his throat, eyes still screwed shut as he tried to stop himself from hyperventilating. He didn’t want to pass out, refused to pass out, it would just start the whole horrible cycle all over again.

“Open your eyes,” another voice, a younger voice, said.

It was tremulous and wavering, speaking like it was being distorted through an office fan. He recognized it though, had heard it on the Quidditch pitch enough times, calling out directions during joint practices and from the other side of the pitch during games and, finally, during that stupid hedge maze.

Harry couldn’t stop himself and Cedric was smiling down at him, slow and sad, sorrow swimming in his eyes. He wasn’t solid, wasn’t corporeal in the slightest, he honestly looked a bit like a watercolor painting that had been left to dry in a window, translucent and vaguely damp.

But it was still Cedric and Harry had to choke back a sob as his breathing finally settled into some semblance of a pattern. Cedric was dead, Cedric was a ghost that had agreed to move on after the Inquest was over.

Cedric was here, floating over him and looking all concerned over the fact that Harry had woken up screaming like he had every night since the graveyard. It was a contradiction, one Harry didn’t really have time to process but it was enough to make him calm down.

“Mr. Wei,” Harry called out, interrupting the umteenth repetition of his monologue.

Mr. Wei paused. “Oh, good, that worked. Do you want tea? I want tea. I think tea would help in this situation.”

Harry blinked and Cedric grinned down at him, slowly floating to the side until he looked like he was standing over the bed rather than floating over Harry. Mr. Wei sounded further away than he’d thought he’d be.

Harry sat up, slowly, arms shaking with adrenaline as panic drained out of his system. And then he stared at the grown man kneeling in the door to his room in what was probably a sleeping robe.

He wasn’t in the room. His knees were very close to the threshold but he wasn’t in the room.

Mr. Wei wasn’t in the room, hadn’t stepped a foot over the threshold even though Cedric was floating next to Harry’s bed.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed out past the shock. “Yeah, I think tea would help.”

Which was how he found himself sitting cross legged at a low table while Mr. Wei puttered around the kitchen making tea. Cedric was sitting next to him, or well, the ghost equivalent of it, perfectly content to stay silent and watch Mr. Wei.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mr. Wei asked as he shuffled the teapot and several cups onto a tray. “You don’t have to but I think it would help. It always helps me when I talk to Lan Zhan about my nightmares.”

“You get nightmares?” It was probably a stupid question, everyone got nightmares.

Mr. Wei nodded as he set the tray down and knelt across from Harry. “Oh, yeah, even if I wasn’t one of the generals during the Sunshot Campaign I got my golden core ripped out and my body tossed into a realm of chaotic dark magic by the assholes that did it. That kind of thing leaves scars and not all of them are visible to the naked eye.”

Harry’s hand almost rose to touch his forehead, to touch the scar that had been the center of his public existence for longer than he’d known about the magical world. The scar that contained a tiny shard of Voldemort’s demented, twisted, shriveled fucking soul.

“The Sunshot Campaign?” Harry asked, trying to distract himself.

Mr. Wei poured the tea and sat back on his heels, watching Harry with a critical eye. There was a light pressure on his shoulder and Harry looked up as Cedric slings a ghostly arm across his shoulders.

“There are five major sects, Jiang, Jin, Nie, Lan, and Wen,” Mr. Wei ticks the names off on his fingers. “About two decades ago, right around the same time Britain’s little dust up reached critical mass, Wen Rouhan decided that he was going to take over the other four sects and subjugate them because he was the most powerful of the Sect Leaders and sometimes greedy, arrogant men know no bounds.”

Harry nodded when the older man paused to confirm he was listening. That made some sense at least, he knew how shit some people could be and his own government wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of morality.

“I was still the head disciple of the Jiang at the time and the fact that there were multiple magical wars kicking off at the same time meant the ICW couldn’t really interfere in any of them until the wars went international, they just didn’t have the manpower to interfere in both at once,” Mr. Wei explained. “We won, of course, the Wen lost, A-Yuan is a Wen by blood actually, he’s Wen Rouhan’s grandson but his cousin is currently in charge of the Sect and he doesn’t want the sun throne to begin with. But, just because we won… it doesn’t mean that we didn’t lose.”

There was pain in Mr. Wei’s silver eyes, a kind of hurt that Harry couldn’t quite wrap his mind around. He swallowed and took a sip of his tea, turning his gaze to stare down at his hands, trying not to think about what that pain would look like on his face.

He wasn’t even fifteen yet, wasn’t done with his schooling, not by a long shot and yet, and yet Voldemort was back, had a body, followers to command. He wasn’t naïve, he knew that things weren’t going to end peacefully, knew that more people were going to die before this was all over.

“I-” Harry took another sip of tea, trying to combat the sudden dryness of his mouth. “I know it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I know I’m not ready. I’m, I’m too young for this and I don’t have-”

He broke off and stared at Mr. Wei whose eyes were kind and smile was small. It was different here, in the early hours of the morning, the only light that of the moon streaming through the window.

“It’s good that you know you’re not ready. No one ever is, Harry,” Mr. Wei said. “But you can prepare, you can train, you can try to survive. Because, in the end, that’s all war is, trying to survive when someone is trying very hard to kill you.”

Harry nods and drinks the rest of his tea, trying very hard not to think about that definition because if Mr. Wei was right then Harry had been at war since he was less than two years old.

Chapter 8

The next morning, when he woke up was… better, Harry decided after a long moment, staring down into his now empty bowl of rice. He’d never had rice for breakfast, hadn’t particularly liked rice before today because Aunt Petunia was skeptical of the grain and as such the only rice he’d had was at school. The elementary school he’d been forced to go to, that the Dursleys were forced to send him to, had served it and Harry knew that that school didn’t know how to cook half the food they served.

It was nice, eating rice made by someone who actually knew how to cook it, vaguely floral tasting but nice. It’s also far lighter on his stomach than a full English breakfast would have been which was probably a good thing, he always got vaguely nauseous for the first month back at school or at the Weasleys’ while his stomach got used to eating full meals again.

“Where’s Mr. Wei?” Harry asked as he finished off the last of his tea.

“A-Niang will be up in a few hours,” Lan Sizhui said. “He normally sleeps in late.”

There was a pause as Mr. Lan carefully stood up and began clearing away the dishes. Harry set down his bowl and the pair of chopsticks Lan Sizhui had shown him how to use. He’d blushed through the whole ordeal, ideally wondering if he could just set himself on fire and if that would be less warm than his cheeks had been.

“Do you prefer small meals throughout the day or the typical three large ones?” Lan Sizhui asked.

Harry blinked at him, managing to actually look at the other boy without blushing, quite a feat considering the pristine white robes and perfectly done hair. He looked like a miniature version of his father and like some sort of, of fae creature at the same time and Harry literally could not deal.

He could deal even less than he had the previous day when Lan Sizhui had been in lounging clothes.

“What?” Harry finally managed.

Lan Sizhui’s head tilted. “We have a few juniors who can’t eat enough at the communal meals to fill themselves up without making them drowsy enough to take a nap mid lesson so the kitchens are used to making smaller meals throughout the day. We don’t normally get deliveries out here because A-Niang can’t stand the kitchen’s food but we can organize something until we get supplies for small meals.”

He says it like he isn’t flipping Harry’s entire world view on its head, like meals don’t need to be constrained to the tightly enforced schedule that school and the Dursleys had taught him. Like, he didn’t have to make himself sick just to get enough food into his system because he knew magic burned more calories even when you didn’t use it and eating at Hogwarts had always made him feel like a bit of a stuffed turkey.

“That’s, that’s allowed?” Harry’s voice came out soft and muffled.

Mr. Lan was a study in complete disinterest where he was washing the dishes in the sink. That helps, Harry didn’t know why but having an adult there but not at all interested in his emotional crisis was comforting.

“It is allowed.” The smile on Lan Sizhui’s face was definitely amused in the ‘aw, tiny confused kitten’ way that Harry had always found demeaning but somehow wasn’t right now. “It is even encouraged when coming off of a long stint of inedia.”

“Inedia?” Harry asked.

“Using magic to fuel your body, I wouldn’t advise trying it at our age,” Lan Sizhui said. “A lot of young cultivators have misjudged themselves and ended up in the infirmary.”

Harry hadn’t known there was a word for that, for the thing his magic did automatically now. He’d never voiced it, never voiced the fact that he didn’t get hungry like everyone else did, that it took time in the castle, weeks, sometimes months before he stopped having to remind himself that food wasn’t an option he could turn down.

He wondered if it was something these people could do automatically too or if they had to consciously force their magic into the shape of things. He definitely knew that he shouldn’t be able to do it this young, that it was unhealthy, that if anyone ever found out they’d be horrified.

But…

But the two Lans in front of him didn’t seem to be all that concerned with that, not for anything more than making sure that he got enough to eat. Mr. Lan continued to be completely disinterested in the conversation as he dried the dishes he had just washed. Lan Sizhui was watching him, not an ounce of judgment in those mesmerizing golden eyes.

“Can we try the smaller meals?” Harry asked. “I don’t… I don’t know which would be better.”

Lan Sizhui nodded and carefully got up and Harry couldn’t help staring at the way the silk of his robes moved around him, flowing like the tides of the Black Lake. Harry was actually a little envious of the clothes, he’d certainly never worn anything that fine or beautiful in his life, not even during the stupid Yule Ball.

Most of the time Harry didn’t mind the fact that he’d never splurged on expensive clothing, he didn’t need it and god forbid he look like Malfoy or act like him. But sometimes, sometimes something caught his eyes, an emerald pendant, an elegantly crafted bracelet made of platinum or silver, Lan Sizhui’s robes and the longing punched him full in the gut.

“Do you want a tour today or would tomorrow be better?” Lan Sizhui asked and Harry started.

He’d lost himself in his own head for a bit but neither of the Lan’s seemed to notice. Harry was starting to suspect it was an act, one perfected to the point where he almost couldn’t see the edges of the acting.

That should make him nervous, it had every other time he’d encountered it. For some reason it didn’t, not this time. This time it just seemed normal, like they weren’t trying to hide, didn’t care enough too and this was just how they were.

It felt like they actually didn’t care one way or the other, that they were fine with him deciding on either answer. Harry wasn’t used to that, to there not being a right answer, a right answer he didn’t know half the time.

Harry hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Tomorrow, I want to settle in a bit before…”

He stopped, not knowing what to say next, but Lan Sizhui just nodded, not seeming to be bothered by the fact that Harry wasn’t giving him the whole explanation. Then the older boy said his goodbyes, hugged his father, and was gone in a whirl of brilliantly white robes.

Harry watched him go, slightly shell shocked until the last scrap of bright silk disappeared down the path, around a corner in the road that led to a more densely packed set of buildings. The door was open, letting in a bit of a breeze, enough to stir the hair at the back of his neck gently.

“Jingyi is back from apprenticeship for three days, they are meeting up with their friends today,” Mr. Lan explained, like Harry just staring after his son was a normal occurrence. “It will be quiet until Wei Ying wakes.”

Harry nodded to himself, picking at the edge of the mug of tea he’d been handed to go with his breakfast. “I think I’m going to get started on my summer homework, actually. Are you going to be gone as well?”

Mr. Lan nodded, putting the last of the dishes away with brisk efficiency. “Will be back by lunch, have to talk with Uncle about class schedules.”

“You’re a teacher?” Harry blinked in surprise.

Mr. Lan nodded. “Music, beginner sword forms, supervising Night Hunts.”

“Night hunts?” Harry asked.

Mr. Lan frowned, not at Harry, more just vaguely into space and to himself. “Wei Ying would have a better explanation.”

There was a brief pause as Mr. Lan seemed to collect himself. Harry didn’t dare speak, still slightly unsettled by how hard it was to read him, by the fact that he wouldn’t know if Mr. Lan was angry unless the man decided to do something about it.

“Europe has few creatures that terrorize the people, most of them have been removed, Asia is… different,” Mr. Lan started. “The way magic works is different, we retreated from the world long ago but… that does not mean people deserve to be eaten because we let a restless spirit run amuck.”

Harry blinked, absently wondering how exactly magic could be different depending on where you lived, it was magic. Magic was magic, it wasn’t supposed to be different, it just was, but… but it clearly was, Mr. Wei didn’t carry a wand, he’d used a sword and a flute to channel his magic during the dementor attack and Mr. Lan had a sword too.

He nodded anyway and Mr. Lan relaxed a hair before leaving on his own. Harry sat at the table for a bit, drinking his way through the tea that he’d been given and thinking about what he was going to do while he was here.

After a while he put his empty cup in the sink and went to retrieve his summer homework from his no longer shrunken trunk. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about turning in an incomplete essay or two this year, he had all the time in the world to finish without being interrupted.

*****

Harry had received one small meal consisting of dried fruit and nuts and was halfway through reading the chapters he needed to for his charms essay before Mr. Wei was stumbling his way out of his bedroom, hair pulled up into a messy tail and shirtless.

There were scars, a lot of scars, all over his body and when he turned Harry had to bite back a gasp. His back was a webwork of raised scar tissue, some of it barely noticeable, some of it large knots of pink tissue.

Harry blinked big green eyes as he watched Mr. Wei shuffled his way into the kitchen, grabbed an apple out of a fruit bowl, and shrugged on a sleeping robe. The man didn’t seem to realize that anyone else was there as he consumed the piece of fruit in five large bites and proceeded to drink what seemed like an entire pot of tea.

Harry carefully moved his quill away from the parchment he’d been taking notes on so it didn’t drip ink anywhere and watched the man stumble around the kitchen. He really did look like he’d just rolled out of bed, his sleep pants were covered in wrinkles, his robe was hanging off one shoulder and the belt was rucked up until the torso portion flopped over it like a wilted flower.

Mr. Wei pulled a bowl of rice out from under a cloth and Harry’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline at the bright red color. Rice wasn’t supposed to be red, he was certain of that but Mr. Wei was eating the bowl with appreciative little sounds.

Then he turned to smile at Harry. “Good morning!”

Oh, so he had known that Harry was there, he was just like some of the Ravenclaws who couldn’t function without tea or coffee. Harry nodded and ducked his head back down to read over the passage he’d just finished, still trying to wrap his mind around the concept of ‘universal language implications’.

Harry had never been all that good at theory, he made up for it in actual wand work, which confused Hermione to no end. From what she’d told him he shouldn’t be able to do that, not be able to understand the theory and still end up with a functional spell in the end.

“Summer homework?” Mr. Wei asked.

Harry nodded, giving up and closing his book. Mr. Wei flopped down on the other side of the table, limbs sprawling out around him in a lazy, liquid way that made him look like his bones were melting.

Mr. Wei hadn’t brought up their late night yet, though Harry wondered if his late start was related. Mr. Lan and Lan Sizhui hadn’t acted like it was anything out of the ordinary but they hadn’t seemed to think that anything Harry did was out of the ordinary.

“You look confused,” Mr Wei stated.

Harry hesitated for a moment and nodded. “We’re supposed to write an essay on the way spells are universal across languages but have different properties depending on whether or not you know what the words actually mean.”

Mr. Wei made a face. “I keep forgetting that Europe’s still using verbal casting.”

Harry blinked. “You don’t? At all?”

Mr. Wei shook his head. “Most mages don’t, directing energy is harder but simpler, more precise in a way. You don’t have to worry about what’s coming out of your mouth and if you’re pronouncing it right. Of course verbal spellcasting can be trained into an instinct but it’s clunky and most non-Europeans consider it lazy. But Europe’s been using verbal spell craft for so long that it’s hard to change it, the land would make it hard to deviate now it’s gotten used to the verbal casting.”

Harry stared at him, that was actually a lot of information to be handed all at once. He’d seen people cast wordlessly the day before but he’d just assumed that that was just training and it was, it was the fact that they’d never been trained to use words in the first place.

And then there was the mention of the land, like it was alive, like it could actually make decisions on what kind of magic the people who lived on it could use. He’d heard the ‘nature is alive’ speech from Professor Sprout a time or two, she started every year with it but he hadn’t actually thought she was being literal.

“You could do an essay on that, if you wanted,” Mr. Wei suggested. “About the limitations of language, if you’re having a hard time putting the theory of universal understanding into words.”

It took Harry a handful of seconds to catch the joke buried in those words and then he snorted, bringing a hand up to try to hide his laugh. Mr. Wei just beamed at him and reached out to drag a stack of books and papers out of a corner where they’d been haphazardly stashed.

“Do you have any trouble with your practical work?” Mr. Wei asked.

“No,” Harry sighed. “I can do the spells just fine if I know what they’re supposed to do.”

“Huh, you might do better with directed magic rather than verbal, or at least magic that requires emotion to use,” Mr. Wei mused, riffling through his notes. “We could probably teach you some basic musical cultivation while you’re here. If you want.”

Harry frowned to himself. “I do know how to cast a patronus if that counts.”

Mr. Wei paused in his movement and blinked at Harry like he didn’t quite believe what he had just heard. Harry shifted nervously, waiting for the man to call him a liar, to laugh at him for trying to pull the wool over his eyes but no Mr. Wei was just frowning in consideration.

“That’s the happy memory to summon a protector spell, isn’t it?” He smiled when Harry nodded. “Then yes, you should be very good at emotions based casting and that’s rare in Europe, so many of those idiots think they should strip all the feeling out of magic, all the wonder and just… render it down to a set of variables.”

Harry was making a face, it must have been a rather impressive one too because it made Mr. Wei chuckle at him. He knew that Hermione thought like that most of the time and it worked for her, at least until she’d gotten her mind around a spell but he’d never been able to do that.

“Not to your taste?” Mr. Wei laughed. “I can sympathize, I could never sit still through the Lan lectures, drove Uncle Qiren crazy until he figured out that I did better with self study and open discussion.”

“Lan Lectures?” Harry asked.

Mr. Wei grinned at him and immediately launched into an incredibly entertaining tale involving a series of guest lectures the Lan taught every couple of years. Which was where Mr. Wei had met Mr. Lan, completely misread a lot of signals, and proceeded to have a bunch of shenanigans that put some of Harry’s own to shame.

He didn’t stop laughing for a good while.

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