There are lots of things Erasmus doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand why he tried to kill himself, he doesn’t understand why Harry saved him. He doesn’t understand how he’s still alive. He doesn’t understand Harry. He really doesn’t understand Harry.

In the end he asks Hermione. There is no one who understands Harry so well as Hermione. “How did he know? I didn’t even know and I—” He cuts himself off. “But he was there right away.” Hands pulling him out of the water, thumping life back into him. Harry saved him from drowning but it doesn’t make any sense.

“Of course he knew,” she says, and her voice is a whisper he has to strain to hear with the kitchen table between them. “The house told him.”

He looks at her, but she doesn’t think she’s said anything strange, she just picks up Crookshanks and looks back at him across the table as if what she’s said is perfectly reasonable. And sitting here opposite her it’s almost hard to believe it isn’t. Nothing in this house is normal. He isn’t normal. Why should Harry be? Why should she be?

“Muggle witches used to say ‘blessings be upon this house’,” she explains into Crookshanks’s fur. “That’s what he’s done. His blessing, his magic, his protectiveness, his everything. It won’t let anyone be hurt here. And I don’t think anyone could do magic here except me and Harry. Maybe not ever again. He loves this house and he gave it life.”

Erasmus tries to fit this into his fractured world. “How can he do magic? He doesn’t have a wand.”

He’s seen Hermione’s wand with its dark stains in the wood that always make his heart jump into his mouth for a moment (or is it the wand itself that does that to him in the flash of unremembered memory of pain and fear and despair?). He’s never seen Harry with a wand.

“He has one.”

“I haven’t seen it.” He doesn’t mean to be accusing, he’s just lost and confused.

Hermione’s eyes are too old for her face. “No,” she says, “you wouldn’t have.”

-

Harry never got to play on climbing frames and other playground equipment as a kid because Dudley didn’t want him to have fun and quickly took over whatever Harry tried to play on. Besides, he never had any friends and friends are what make playing fun. Hermione never had many friends either, as an only child separated from her peers by her intelligence and love of learning.

So they’re both glad of the opportunity, even if it’s come a little late in life, to run around a playground with a friend, to play tag on the climbing frame and wriggle through the tunnels, swing on the monkey bars and pretend to be pirates defending their hideout.

Even Mr Granger joins in if he’s with them – and has proved particularly good at repelling imaginary invaders. Erasmus skulks around the edges of the playground scowling at them, kicking stones along and sneering at any particularly loud shouts. Harry rolls his eyes and ignores him. Doesn’t he understand the need to try to forget? Maybe not, since he’s trying so hard to remember.

The swings are Harry’s favourite, and he and Hermione challenge each other to see who can swing highest. It’s like flying, the one and only thing Harry misses from the magical world. He loves the whirl of the world around him, the sudden drop leaving his stomach behind, the attempts to touch the sky. He also enjoys jumping off the swing at the top of its swing but Hermione isn’t so fond of that idea.

Erasmus looks at them like they’re mad, even with pity as if they’re little kids who don’t understand how awful the world really is. But they do understand, of course they understand. That’s why they play so fiercely, to renounce that world and remake it into a better one. Even if it’s just for half an hour at a time, one playground at a time.

Harry is fighting for his life and his soul here. Maybe the danger isn’t as immediate as when Voldemort was holding a wand on him, but it’s just as real. And he is not going to lose.

-

All three children sleep at odd times of the day to compensate for sleepless nights. Erasmus finds that a little reassuring, proof that he’s not a complete freak, and the adults never mention it. So it’s not really surprising to Erasmus to feel his eyes leadening at three in the afternoon, and he doesn’t even try to fight the sensation, just lets his head sag back against the couch cushions and blinks sleepily at the afternoon cartoons on the telly. Between one blink and the next, time seems to jump in fits and starts until finally he blinks and his eyes don’t open again.

He’s not surprised to wake into darkness. He is surprised to wake on his bed, but then he figures they just probably wanted to get him out of their way, so it makes sense they would carry him upstairs. But it doesn’t make sense that they would then carefully tuck a blanket around him. Erasmus’s flickering memory-less memory suggests waking cold and stiff in a corner is much more likely. This is just strange.

His stomach grumbles quietly and he wonders what time it is. He’s probably missed dinner, but if he sneaks down into the kitchen he can get himself some leftovers. No one here seems to notice if he nicks some food – or they just don’t care. Despite himself he’s starting to believe the latter. Ignoring the light switch as unnecessary, he pads softly down the stairs, blinking into the shadows. The sitting room door is open and the flickering lights of the telly flash in the darkness, reaching out into the hall while canned laughter rings out. He stops at the doorway, glowering into the room, at the family picture of two adults and two children (and two pets) watching TV, the atmosphere warm and cosy and shutting him out, leaving him in the dark.

Then Mrs Granger looks up and sees him before he can hide. She smiles. “Coming in? We’re watching Friends.”

Erasmus hesitates. Can he? Should he? Dare he?

Then he goes in and becomes a part of the warmth.

-

“A letter for Harry,” Mr Granger says with interest, coming back into the kitchen with the post.

Harry frowns; even at the Dursleys’ he didn’t get post and that was when people knew where he was. But the name on the letter reads ‘Harry Potter’, care of the Grangers, and he supposes someone’s just making an attempt to get to him through Hermione. Post owls won’t find him. The reporters in the Prophet nattered on about unplottable hiding places for a while, but it’s not true. There’s nothing unplottable about the Grangers’ home, it’s just that magic won’t find him here. But ordinary Muggle means have.

He opens the letter and starts to frown. His frown becomes a scowl as he reads further. “Just a reporter,” he says, and tears up the letter. He’s had enough of reporters, had enough of the wizarding world. They just want the sordid details, like Aunt Petunia replicated a hundred thousand times to form a whole community of nosy, gossiping busybodies. They don’t care about the truth, they don’t want the truth. They’d hate him if they knew the truth.

Hermione retrieves the pieces of paper and looks at him.

“I don’t want to!” he says heatedly.

She looks at him some more.

Harry sags in his seat and glares at the table. “I know, I know, it’s rude not to reply and if I don’t say anything they’ll just get worse and worse – or just make everything up. Like they don’t anyway. What do I care?”

“Just say thank you for the inquiry but you have nothing to say at this time,” Mr Granger suggests, opening his newspaper.

“Or you could give a statement,” Hermione says. Harry’s glare jumps up to fix on her. “Say Voldemort is definitely dead—” Harry winces. “—and you’re in no danger. Give them something.”

It’s reasonable, he knows it is. Like it or not he is a public figure. And much as he hates to acknowledge it, Voldemort’s demise really is of concern to people other than him and Hermione. But he doesn’t want to be reasonable. He wants to pretend none of them exist.

Hermione’s still looking at him.

Harry sighs and holds his hand out for the letter.

-

The Boy Who Lived. Erasmus picks up Hermione’s copy of the Daily Prophet; it’s the first time he’s touched a magical object since leaving Hogwarts and he does so with great gingerliness, spreading it out on the table as quickly as possible so that he can read it without having to hold it. And there, like he’d thought he’d seen, is Harry’s name. But why? Okay, he knows Harry defeated Voldemort (somehow – how?) and maybe that makes him famous. He supposes that’s reasonable. But what’s all this other stuff?

He looks up. Mr Granger is the only one still left at the breakfast table, reading his own newspaper. “Does this mean Harry?”

Mr Granger glances over and nods.

Erasmus stares at the newsprint. Harry, famous? Harry, who never goes for a walk without Hermione and screams in the night and, well, Harry? “What does it mean? The Boy Who Lived? Why do they talk about him like that?”

Mr Granger gives him a surprisingly hard stare, then relaxes. “I’ll get Harry to tell you.”

“Um, no, that’s okay.” Erasmus doesn’t want to disturb Harry. No way. His curiosity isn’t that great.

He thinks that’s the end of it, but in the evening Mr Granger drops a book into his lap, bookmarked. Erasmus opens it to see the marked chapter is headed “Harry Potter: the Boy Who Lived” and there’s a picture of what must be a younger Harry, not much older than eleven. In the photo his eyes aren’t full of pain, and though there’s a hint of a shadow there maybe it’s just because of the way the light’s falling. This isn’t the Harry he knows.

“I don’t know how much you know about Voldemort,” Mr Granger says. He knows enough that the casual, unconcerned way the man says the name is unnatural. “It might help to read the previous chapter first.”

Erasmus looks at the cover. Modern Magical History (2nd ed). Harry’s in a book like this? He doesn’t understand. On the front endplate is a neatly-inscribed name: Hermione Granger.

He reads the book. He’s not much wiser, really, but at least he understands a few things. He doesn’t understand Harry and he doesn’t know what happened to Voldemort either time he died, but at least he knows where Harry fits in. All he has to do now is convince himself to believe it.

-

“No! Leave them alone!”

Erasmus jolts awake at the shout, striking out at his blankets to ward off a non-existent attack.

“Leave them alone!”

He jumps, and realises it is Harry shouting into the shadows.

“Hermione! Hermione! Professor! No, don’t! Leave him alone! Leave him alone!” There is such fear and anguish in his voice. Magic flares up in reaction to his fear, the hairs on Erasmus’s arms prickling as the power of it fills the room. Calling Hermione, he thinks, for she is there so quickly he could almost think she’d been waiting outside the door. Which is foolish. Probably.

It doesn’t matter, she’s here now and holding onto Harry, reassuring him, calming him down. Letting Erasmus off. Leaving him to wonder just what happened in that time that neither Harry nor Hermione ever speak of.

“Snape?” Harry whispers.

“He’s okay, Harry. He’s safe. Dumbledore said so.”

“Dumbledore.” It is strange to hear Erasmus’s own loathing echoed in Harry’s voice. He turns over to look into the shadows to where Harry and Hermione sit, a single shadow in the dark.

“I know,” Hermione says. “But he promised.”

“He has to be safe. He has to be.”

“He is, Harry, you know he is.”

“I couldn’t help him.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“They wouldn’t listen.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I just want him to be safe.”

“He is.” Hermione rocks him back and forth like a child. “He is, Harry. Professor Snape is safe.”

Erasmus turns away and pulls the covers over his head. Who is Snape, that Harry should care so much about him?

-

 “Have you been taught how to duel, Harry?” Voldemort was laughing at him, that much Harry knew. Duelling etiquette didn’t matter, all that mattered was somehow surviving this. “First we bow. Bow, Harry.”

A force tried to bend Harry’s back, like a giant hand pressing down on his spine. “No,” Harry said through gritted teeth.

Voldemort gave him a look of feigned surprise. “No? Do you care so little for your friends, Harry?” He pointed his wand at Hermione. “Cruc—”

“No! I’ll do it!” He bowed deeply, trying to look at Voldemort sideways. “See, I’m bowing,” he pleaded. Leave her alone, leave her alone.

“So you are.” The smile curling Voldemort’s thin, bloodless lips was unpleasant in the extreme. “But I think you need a lesson in humility, Harry. I want more than a bow. I want you at my feet. Crucio!”

Pain, pain, pain... Harry had thought he was something of an expert on pain but the Cruciatus was, as he now knew too well, worse than he could ever have imagined. Worse than basilisk venom boiling through his body, worse than anything. Not that Harry was comparing at that moment, he was too busy screaming in agony.

When the pain let up he lay gasping on the ground. Somehow one hand still clutched his wand, but not through intent. Movement was simply not an option and so he didn’t try.

“Get up, Harry.” He didn’t move. “Get up!”

Angry magic hurled him to his feet and Harry stumbled, trying to stay upright as the Death Eaters laughed.

Voldemort’s smile was more like a snarl. “And this is the boy they thought had defeated me.” He gave a bark of harsh, unamused laughter. The Death Eaters went abruptly silent, too scared of his anger to dare even rustle their robes. Harry stood there, wobbling, clutching desperately at his wand, staring at Voldemort and wishing he knew what to do. This seemed to anger the man-creature. Harry saw it coming but couldn’t dodge in time. “Crucio!”

Oh Merlin, the agony, the pain. Harry screamed. He screamed and he screamed until the world was full of the sound of his voice and pain was just the same as screaming and he wasn’t sure if he was feeling the scream and hearing the pain or the other way around because they were so much the same. The screaming didn’t stop when the pain did, though. Dimly he was aware that that was Hermione’s voice. He knew he should move, should look for her, but he had no energy left for something so vast as moving or even groaning.

“Severus! See if he’s dead.”

Someone bent over him, impersonal in white mask and black robes. Whoever it was dropped something onto him. A ball like the one Moody had thrown at him.

“There’s a portkey ward,” muttered a familiar voice as hands roughly tugged at his hair, lifting his head. “But if you get beyond it say ‘Sanctuary’ and you’ll return to Hogwarts.” Harry stared up into black eyes behind the white mask. Then his head was dropped and the man stood. “He still lives, my Lord,” said Professor Snape.