His name is Erasmus and he is fourteen years old. That is all he knows, and that only because the strict woman in the square-rimmed glasses told him, with an irritated huff directed at someone not him. Otherwise, he remembers nothing. Nothing beyond waking in this castle with the woman who watches over him and children shouting in the corridors who make him so scared he hides under his bed until they're past.

Strictly that's not true. He remembers pain and horror and a monster with red eyes. He remembers screaming. He remembers fear. But he tries not to. If those things are all he has to remember then he doesn't want to remember anything – except that he does want to remember, wants to so badly that sometimes the longing wrenches a sob from his chest. But he never does. Never remembers anything. Certainly not why Professor McGonagall should look at him with sharp, unspoken sympathy.

So while he waits he hides in this room and when the fears and nightmares get too much he hides under the bed because it's almost safe there. Almost. There's too much magic here in the castle, too many spells, too much that makes him flinch with half-remembered pain and horror, but at least under the bed it's dark and quiet and free of magic. He's hiding there when the white-bearded man first comes, hiding because hiding is easier than dealing with a lack of memories and the overriding fear that dogs him so blackly that sometimes in the middle of the night he genuinely can't breathe.

Professor McGonagall gives up on trying to reassure him and stands with a whisper of robes; Erasmus, eyes firmly closed, listens to her firm stride head toward the door and then falter. "Albus!" the sharp woman scolds. Erasmus half-accepts her because she is biting without malice, briskly kind without hiding behind honeyed words. He doesn't people who try to be nice, like that mediwitch who saw him when he first arrived, because he wonders what they're hiding. "You shouldn't be out of bed yet."

"I am merely magic-less, Minerva, not ill. How is Erasmus?"

She snorts inelegantly. "Do not be a fool, Albus."

"I assure you, Minerva—"

"You send me a boy and a note – and don't think I appreciated that little trick you played on me – telling me his name and that one of your contacts found him in a Death Eater home, tortured and in need of care."

"The truth, my dear."

"Do not take me for a fool, Albus. I taught the boy, I lived with him. Do you truly think I wouldn't know him here and now? The disappearance, the timing – and your magical exhaustion. Did you think I wouldn't realise the truth?"

"I hoped you wouldn't," the man admits. "Feared, however, that you would. But knew you would protect him nevertheless."

"I could do nothing less, not for him. And I will keep his secrets willingly, knowing what they will do if they find him. But this castle is no place for him, Albus. It only hurts him."

A sigh. Erasmus curls in on himself and tries not to listen, tries to pretend she hasn't cut to the core of him and seen who he is. "Then I must find another place for him."

- 

Upstairs Mrs Granger is vacuuming, the sound distant but reassuring in its domesticity, in its normality. Downstairs in the sitting room Hermione and Harry share the couch to read. Not that Harry's doing a lot of reading. He would enjoy the adventures of the characters more if he hadn't had so many adventures of his own and besides he's tired after too many nights of nightmare-broken sleep. The words wobble on the page and threaten to become Voldemort's thin, spidery hands. He jolts as Hermione shifts on the couch, moving closer, nestling in under his arm and resting her book on his knee. The reassurance of her presence banishes Voldemort and he picks up her book, smoothing down the page. Then he starts to read it aloud. Hermione relaxes, her ear against his chest listening to him speak, and her hair brushing his chin. Harry reads on, taking comfort in the words, in Hermione's nearness, in the fact that none of this has anything to do with Voldemort. His own voice lulls him into a drifting sleep-walking state, and the hum of the vacuum cleaner sings him a lullaby.

Harry sleeps. And dreams.

Voldemort's red eyes, Voldemort's long fingers pointing a wand at Hermione. Voldemort dying. Pain and horror – and fear of the magic, even his own familiar magic, that can do that.

"Dementor!" he gasps, dragging himself out of sleep and into Hermione's arms. "Evil, evil, evil." He shudders, remembering. "I didn't mean to."

Hermione's hands are fierce, gripping into his shirt. "You're not," she tells him. "It's okay. It's not your fault."

"I did it."

"It's not your fault. Harry, it's not your fault."

He grips onto her, onto the familiar scent and touch of Hermione, with the desperation of a boy waiting for the world to fall apart around him. "I should take Hedwig and leave," he says, curling his fingers into her sleeve. "I know I should. But I can't. I'm not that strong. I'm just not."

"It doesn't matter," she tells him, her tears damp against his shirt. "If you leave I'll follow you."

He should leave. Go where she can't find him. But he just isn't that strong. He needs her too much.

- 

Erasmus doesn't like Dumbledore. He doesn't like the warm, knowing twinkle in the man's eyes or the serene confidence in his stance. He doesn't like people who are kind without aggravation. He doesn't like people who lie.

So when Dumbledore comes to visit Erasmus pulls his feet up onto his chair and hugs his knees to his chest, staring at the toes of his shoes and ignoring the man even as he piles an assortment of sweets onto the small table where Erasmus eats his meals. "I thought you might enjoy a little treat," Dumbledore says with grandfatherly kindness. "Though I would ask you not tell Professor McGonagall, I fear she would not approve."

Erasmus knows she wouldn't and he agrees with her because it's just a bribe, something to make him feel better. So he doesn't look at the sweets, he doesn't look at Dumbledore, he just studies his shoes and tries to pretend he's alone in the room.

Dumbledore doesn't appear to notice. "And how are you today, Erasmus?"

Silence is Erasmus's only answer.

"I trust you are fully recovered now."

He hunches his shoulders closer, trying to fit himself into a smaller space.

"Professor McGonagall tells me—"

"Who am I?" he interrupts sharply.

"That is what we mean to determine. It was my thought to enrol you here in Hogwarts while we investigate."

"You know who I am!"

"I am sorry to say, Erasmus, that there is no mention of anyone matching your description in the Ministry records and so—"

It's just lies, all lies. Erasmus isn't stupid, no matter how much Dumbledore wants him to be. The man offers help, offers smooth words and facile promises, but there's nothing truthful in him. When Erasmus demands truths the man just slips away, hiding behind riddles and lies.

He wants to go home. He wants to know who he is. He just wants to go far away from this place with the hurting magic and lies. Anywhere would be better than this place.

- 

"Harry, you have a visitor." Mrs Granger stands in the doorway of his room, half pleased for him, half disapproving. He abandons the futile struggle for an afternoon nap and stands up, almost relieved but knowing that whatever is to come will be hard on him. Mrs Granger hugs him and he rests his head on her shoulder for a moment of surrender. Then he pulls away and looks up at her. "I know it's hard," she says softly. "But if it could help..."

He wants to point out that nothing can help but he knows that's not what she needs to hear from him. She hears it anyway, and he thinks his own mum would have looked like that, hurt and sorrowed and aching for him. "You don't have to, Harry. I can tell him to go away."

There are two things that make him not agree. One is that knowledge that she would do it, that she would act like she was his mum, that there is an adult willing to do that for him without having known his parents or his fame, just willing to do that for him. The other is habit. He has always been strong for the wizarding world and he doesn't know how to stop.

Sirius is pacing around the sitting room, lank hair swinging into his face with the force of his uneasy movements. He looks healthier than Harry remembers seeing him, but that's not saying much. Harry's soft-footed entrance goes unnoticed until he turns around, and then a bright smile of relief brightens his face and brings an almost manic look to his eyes. "Harry!" He comes leaping forward, but Harry flinches back from the nearness of his magic, from him. The light goes out of his face and he stops, bringing his arms close to his body, unthreatening, stiff. "How are you, Harry?"

"Fine."

They stare at each other, nothing to say. Harry remembers being so delighted to have a godfather, to have someone who belonged to him, but that was a long time ago, another lifetime. Sirius's shoulders sag and he sinks into the nearest chair. "I'm sorry, Harry. I just want to help." He looks up, gaunt face fringed by dark hair, with more resemblance to the walking dead than that laughing man Harry's seen in his parents' photos. "What can I do to make you trust me?"

Harry stands stiff and awkward, knowing Sirius has accurately put his finger on the problem, wanting to make it not true and make his godfather feel better but knowing that he can't. "You weren't there when I needed you—" not there when Pettigrew took my blood, not there when Voldemort returned to horror-movie life "—and I know it's not rational or reasonable, but I can't help how I feel. You weren't there."

A deep sigh gusts out of Sirius's down-turned mouth. "Do you trust anyone, Harry?" he asks hopelessly.

"I trust Hermione and I trust Snape." And he hopes Snape is okay, where ever he is.

He stands there in the doorway, feeling about a million years old and looking at his godfather who looks about sixteen and utterly bereft. "I'm sorry," he says, and feels the inadequacy of it rattle through his bones. "I'm sorry."

- 

Harry wishes they would just leave him alone. But he sits calmly opposite Dumbledore with Hermione sitting right next to him and he doesn't scream and he doesn't run away, he just sits there clutching Hermione's hand and lets the silence play itself out.

Dumbledore sighs. "What can I do to make you trust me, Harry?"

"Trust isn't made, it's earned." It's only a whisper, but they all hear it.

"Miss Granger is, as always, correct," Dumbledore admits.

"What have you ever done to deserve my trust?" Harry asks tiredly. He just wants it all to go away, he wants to leave behind the nightmares and the confusion and the memories. Hermione's hand is warm in his and that's all he needs, that warmth. The rest of the world can go away.

"What have I done to earn your distrust?"

The list is so long Harry doesn't even bother to say it. Leaving him at the Dursleys. Never telling him the truth about Voldemort. Never discovering fake-Moody or Quirrell. Not explaining what Sirius had to do with him. All the half truths and omissions and "you are too young"s. "You treated me as a child and expected me to act as an adult. You can't have it both ways."

Dumbledore looks at him. Just looks, no twinkle in his eyes, only quiet resignation and a humbled realisation. The silence stretches around them, almost tangible, waiting to snap. Then: "No," he says very softly. "I can't."

He stands and walks to the window, where he stares out at the grey winter garden. Harry leans into Hermione's side, and she rests her head against his. Silence stalks them all with sharp, angry claws; outside in the street a car door slams and somewhere in the neighbourhood a dog lifts its voice in angry barking, but in here is a bubble of bitter no-sound.

Then Dumbledore turns and Harry opens his eyes at the rustle of fabric to find the wizard staring at him. "I'm sorry, Harry," he says, and in a flicker of robes he is gone.

The door clicks behind him, and as if it is a signal, tears prick at Harry's eyes. Hermione tugs him into a hug and Harry lets the tears fall. He's always strong for the others, he has to be because he's the hero. But here with Hermione he is allowed to be weak.

It's not over, not really.

It'll never be over.