“You should talk to Mizz Carter,” Harry says. “She can help.”

“I don’t need a shrink!” Sirius snaps defensively, hunching his shoulders, narrowing his eyes. Warding off the world, as if the Grangers’ sitting room is full of enemies and not just Harry.

It’s a pride that Harry understands: don’t let them know you’re weak, don’t give anything away, because if they know you’re weak they’ll strike. The Dursleys did that. Voldemort did that. Dumbledore does that. The wizarding world does that. But Harry has learnt now that there are more important things than holding onto some tattered shred of pride, no matter how well it’s served you in the past. That sometimes, with some people, it’s okay to admit you’re not strong. It is a hard lesson, but he’s learnt it. He doesn’t know how to teach it, though.

“You need help, Sirius.”

“I don’t need help! Especially not from some Muggle woman!”

Harry looks at him, staying very very still. Then he stands up and walks away.

“No, no, Harry, I’m sorry.” Sirius chases after him but doesn’t dare to touch him. “I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry. Harry, don’t go.”

Harry stops in the doorway and looks back at him. Sirius’s eyes are pleading, desperate. Azkaban has taken its toll, put shadows in his face, written wildness in his eyes, so that it’s hard to believe he’s younger than Mrs Granger. Sirius believes his sanity is intact; Harry’s not so sure.

“You need help, Sirius.”

Sirius can’t hold his gaze. “Maybe,” he admits to the carpet, very quietly.

Harry nods, and goes back to his seat.

Silence, while Sirius regathers his pride and his courage. “I’m...I’m glad you’re going back to Hogwarts,” Sirius says. “Your dad – he would have wanted that.”

Harry shrugs. “I wouldn’t know.” He doesn’t mean anything by it, but it hurts Sirius anyway, and he feels guilty for that.

For a moment he wishes... He wishes a lot of things. But wishing doesn’t change anything.

Harry sticks his hands in his pockets and looks at his toes. Then he looks up at Sirius. “I’m not my dad,” he says. “I’m not ever going to be. I can only be Harry, and sometimes I’m still just figuring out who that is. But...” He bites his lip, and knows he picked the habit up from Hermione. “Whoever Harry is, I think he’d like you around. Maybe... Maybe you could come visit over the holidays?”

Sirius smiles, gaunt and hopeful, shadows lifting from him so that Harry can almost see the young man who laughed at his parents’ wedding. “I’d like that, Harry.”

-

Hogwarts castle looms above them like the towering fortress of Azkaban. Like a prison whose gates will soon close on him, trapping him forever. Erasmus shudders into the carriage seat. The other two are not smiling, even as they stare up at the looming castle.

“I used to call that place home,” Harry says. He looks away.

Those are the only words spoken for the rest of the ride. Even when they enter the castle through the imposing main doors, they don’t speak. Hogwarts is too bright with magic, pressing down on them from all sides, terrible bright magic that surrounds them, suffocating them, burying them under the threat of terrible, terrible pain—

Hermione’s hand closes around his, and Erasmus gasps in shock as the panic lifts off him and suddenly he can breathe again. “Hogwarts means no harm,” she tells him, her eyes intent and fixed on his, and he clutches at her hand like a lifeline and focuses on her eyes, on seeing nothing but Hermione and Hermione’s familiar, reassuring magic.

“Listen,” Harry says, and his voice is full of wonder.

Erasmus closes his eyes and listens. And he realises what Harry and Hermione have realised, that in some dim way Hogwarts is like the Granger’s house, that someone a long time ago loved this place as Harry loves the Granger’s house and managed a faint echo of Harry’s achievement. The castle is not alive, but in some quiet way it is looking after them.

Erasmus heaves a long, long sigh. He might almost survive this place after all.

-

Dumbledore comes into the hall, smiling in welcome, and the three of them instinctively close ranks, stopping very still, elbows touching, staring at him. Erasmus feels the shudder that runs through Harry despite the way the other boy’s head stays high and his gaze stays firm. He straightens himself, offering his own slim strength in reassurance, and catches Harry’s flicker of a grateful look towards him. Then Dumbledore approaches. Where the three of them are small and insignificant in the magnificent entrance hall, Dumbledore acts like the centre of the world, seeming to fill even that huge space with his presence.

“I trust your journey was comfortable,” he says in kindly greeting.

“Do you welcome every student individually to Hogwarts?” Harry demands.

“You know, Harry, that you are not ‘every student’.”

“I want to be. Just... Just leave us alone, okay?”

“Harry—”

“Look, we’re here, and we’ll stay. But...”

but we don’t trust you, we don’t want you, we don’t need you

Dumbledore seems to shrink into himself. “I never meant to hurt you,” he says quietly, and his eyes won’t meet theirs.

“We know,” Harry says. “But you managed it anyway.”

-

They turn by unspoken consent for their commonroom. It is like the longest trip in the history of long journeys. So many halls, so many corridors, so many portraits... So many people.

He remembers this place – but only as Erasmus. He doesn’t remember it as Severus. With a quiet shudder he keeps close to Harry and Hermione and they flank him protectively, defending him from curious eyes, shielding him from whispers, and he tries to focus on them and nothing else. People stop to look; their steps speed up.

“Professor!” Hermione gasps, the three of them stopping hastily before they can run into Professor McGonagall.

She nods to them. “Miss Granger, Mr Potter, it is good to see you well.” Her eyes settle on Erasmus and her lips soften out of their stern line. “Erasmus. I am glad to have you here again, no matter your form.”

It is acceptance. Pure, unadulterated acceptance for him, whoever he might be and whatever he might be. For a fleeting moment Erasmus looks up into her eyes and thinks he might just be able to do this.

-

They walk up the stairs. So many steps. Harry feels like they’re walking up to their doom. Walking to the gallows. Then someone appears at the top of the stairs, starts to go down, and sees them. Freezes. Stops dead still and stares. Ron.

He winces when Harry looks at him, cringes under Hermione’s steady gaze, doesn’t look at Erasmus. “Uh, sorry, I—” He stops, stuck there at the top of the stairs, caught between longing and a desire to escape, his eyes fixed on Harry in despairing, hoping confusion.

“I don’t hate you, Ron,” Harry says into the fraught silence.

They look at each other. He doesn’t want to wonder what Ron sees when he looks at him, so Harry focuses on what he sees. The freckles, the family red hair. The innocence still in his eyes. The shame and worry and hope and fear. And he remembers friendship that might not have been unwavering but was still real and wanted and longed for. He knows that even if there are some gulfs that may never again be crossed, Ron is important to him.

“I forgive you,” Harry says.

They walk on and leave Ron staring after them.

-

“Potter!”

Erasmus winces at the angry, imperative voice; all three spin, wands in hand. Harry is the first to relax and lower his hand; reluctantly, Erasmus follows his lead. “Malfoy,” Harry says blandly.

“My father’s in jail!” Malfoy spits, stalking up to them.

“I know,” Harry says quietly.

“It’s all your fault!” There is hatred in the boy but aching pain too. Erasmus recognises it too well. He tenses, not knowing what he will do if the boy attacks but knowing he will do something. This time he is not hiding and not running. Not if Harry is in danger.

Probably not even Malfoy knows what he would have done if left to his own devices, but Professor McGonagall appears at the top of the stairs and even in his hatred the boy isn’t stupid enough to bring her wrath down on his head.

“I didn’t put your dad in jail,” Harry says quietly. “I didn’t make him make the choices he did.” Malfoy sneers. “But,” Harry continues, unruffled, “I’m sorry he’s in jail, Malfoy.”

He is completely sincere and even Malfoy reads that. The boy gapes stupidly at him. “I wish it hadn’t turned out that way,” Harry adds and then Professor McGonagall is upon them, looking stern and saying “I hope there is no problem here?” in a voice that says that if there does happen to be a problem she is quite able to solve it by giving them an even bigger one to worry about.

“No problem, Professor,” Harry says, and the look in his eyes would be innocent if not for the fact that Harry is never going to look innocent again. He walks away and Erasmus and Hermione follow.

“You don’t mean it, do you?” Erasmus asks. “That you’re sorry about Mr Malfoy?” He has enough grip on current events to know Lucius Malfoy is no loss to society.

Harry looks at him – and for an absurd moment Erasmus wishes he’d seen Harry just once with innocence in his eyes. “I’m not sorry Mr Malfoy’s in jail,” he says, and there is a flintiness in him that should be frightening, “though I wish it wasn’t Azkaban. But I am sorry that Malfoy’s dad’s in prison.”

Erasmus understands the distinction, he just doesn’t understand why.

“What if it was Mr Granger?” Harry asks. “Mr Granger who was in prison. Maybe you understand why he has to be there, or maybe it makes no sense because he was just doing what you were brought up to believe in. But he’s in prison and it doesn’t matter why because all you know is you miss him and you want him back because he’s important to you and he was always good to you.” Hermione slides her hand into Harry’s and her eyes sheen with tears that will never be shed. “That is why I’m sorry Malfoy’s dad’s been locked up.”

Erasmus doesn’t want to think about Mr Granger in prison – but he understands. And maybe is even a little bit sorry for Malfoy. Loathes him, but pities him too.

-

The students in the commonroom stare at them blatantly, at Erasmus as much as Harry and Hermione, and the three of them hastily cross the room. And stop at the bottom of the stairs. “I’d better put my things away,” is all Hermione says, but Erasmus sees the look she exchanges with Harry and knows the two of them never realised just how much of a distance Hogwarts will put between them.

Harry swallows. “Yeah,” he says quietly.

Hermione goes up the stairs alone. Harry stands there a moment and watches her go, then he looks at Erasmus. “Come on.”

She’ll be okay, Erasmus wants to say. You’ll see her every other hour of the day if you want. Or maybe he just wants to say Let’s go home. But all he says is “Okay,” and follows Harry up the stairs.

It’s a dorm room. It has beds (too many beds, and Erasmus panics a moment, wondering how he can possibly survive all those people) and walls and windows. There isn’t a lot more to say, unless you want to mention the curtains. It’s just a room. And it feels cold, cold and lonely even with Harry right beside him, to stand in a room without the warm, almost unnoticeable presence of a friendly house watching over his shoulder. He wants to go home.

Hermione silently joins them after a couple of minutes just as Erasmus is carefully putting Mr Granger’s parting gift on his bedside table: a photo of the five of them, two adults, three children. The closest thing he has to a family. The closest thing he’s ever had to a family.

No one says anything as she helps them hang up their robes, all three taking time over the task, anything to delay the inevitable moment when they have to go back down those stairs and face the world. Face what they have done.

-