Severus had long learnt to sit silently and look thoughtful while his Masters tried to predict one another.

Usually, this was a difficult thing. After all, he didn’t like or agree with either of them.

To be fair, Dumbledore was relatively harmless—at least when he was wandless and wasn’t behind the pulpit of the Wizengamot. He’d push hard to achieve his ends, but never at the expense of human life or dignity. He could care less about the Integration Issue—the merging of muggle and wizard society meant nothing to him except so far as it affected his students. He cared about Hogwarts. Keep his school supplied, protect his students, and he’d never leave.

A bit foolish, really. His disinterest in economy meant he ignored the rising taxation of wizarding products manufactured from imported Muggle goods and growing costs for Ministry safety examinations of spells placed on houses in muggle areas, for a few examples. The expense drove more wizards to buy wizarding products—which only siphoned more money into their investors, the old families. Dumbledore himself, an eighth generation wizard, might well profit by it—but the more likely candidates were the Malfoys and Lestranges.

But as a warrior, Dumbledore was to be feared. Although Voldemort had kept his head low for the past ten years, for God knew what reason—always on the run from Dumbledore—the few times they’d squared off in the past war, all the other wizards cleared off. Together, they’d demolished a whole suburb of London—though Dumbledore had thoughtfully sent ‘Flood Warnings’ to the Muggle inhabitants in advance that summer to clear them out. And as Generalissimus Maximus, he could usually match Voldemort wit for wit.

For that matter, so could Severus.

But he wasn’t a Great Wizard—only slightly above average power, really—so he tried to stay out of major conflicts and read what everyone was planning.

In this case, he was stumped as Dumbledore.

Dumbledore tinkered with a smoking silver instrument, watching as the fumes coalesced into a snake, writhing and undulating in the air.

"Al-Jarab’s Lamp," he mused, stroking his long white beard. "Burn a lock of hair, a bit of skin, anything you have of a person, really, and it’ll show their soul."

"Whose is that?" Severus watched in interest.

Dumbledore’s lips drew a thin white line. "Voldemort’s".

Severus blinked, and declined the pipe Dumbledore offered him, staring bemusedly at the serpent. "So?"

Dumbledore shrugged, twiddling his long, turned back thumbs, smoking a pipe at the corner of his mouth. "Voldemort should, by all rights, have a split soul. The murders he’s committed. The atrocities of the last war. His soul’s ragged at the edges, and more... thinned out, than it should be, certainly. But this..." he looked again. "It doesn’t make any sense."

"Souls regenerate," Severus pointed out, unnecessarily.

"Yes, but never to this extent. We had proof that Voldemort had at least one horcrux and was manufacturing others. A horcrux permanently damages the soul. Look—" he noted the smoke tearing away at the base of the lamp. "One horcrux. The old one. He’s otherwise healthy."

"Ten years in Hawaii with Bellatrix Lestrange could do that to a guy," Severus remarked wryly. "And giving up the dangerous ritual magic. And allowing his magical reserves to replenish for ten years."

"If I allowed my reserves to replenish for ten years, even after the injuries he sustained from Black and Pettigrew..." Albus paused. "It’s not inconceivable that his injuries forced him to be absent. And he’s secured his foothold in the Ministry—we have no sense of anyone’s loyalties anymore. Some of our younger generation joined up with the Wizarding Independence Party, some of theirs are on Order’s side. If he decided to move now, I don’t know who we could or couldn’t trust."

Severus shrugged. "He has all the clout he wants with Malfoy and Lestrange. He’s game to abduct Muggleborns and place them with pureblood families, but he’s actually been suppressing his radicals." He glanced out the window to see McGonagall below, congratulating Filch on his "squishy kitty" while cuddling Mrs. Norris. He shuddered. "Maybe he’ll be content to just have the WIP fight politically."

"Never," Dumbledore shook his head. "If it were simply Voldemort, I’d say maybe. But his principal backers are the old Dark families, and they still have the feudal mentality. Take what you want by force. Growing Integration threatens their entire lifestyle—their wealth, privilege, politics, culture. They’ve been steaming for a fight for generations."

Severus stared. And then inhaled Dumbledore’s sweet second-hand smoke. "They’re powerless. They can’t strangle the economy—despite their taxation, most of us know how to use Muggle Markets and aren’t afraid to do it. They can’t abduct Muggleborns—there’s too many first or second generation wizards now, and they’d raise hell." He shook his head. "Remember when Lily Potter set a demon on Black for asking her if she’d like to be adopted?"

Dumbledore fought a smile. Sort of. "Yes, I remember. But their loss of power is exactly why they’ll want to strike—now—before they lose strength completely. And at this point—" his pipe steamed, "Voldemort can either harness their strength for his own ends, or be crushed by it. Which brings us to the issue of Hadrian Potter."

Severus sat tight.

"He’s cast some form of claiming spell on him. I didn’t have the heart to tell James. And I suspect," Dumbledore blew a white bird across the room, "Hadrian’s our missing horcrux."

Severus blinked. And then...

"Who would be fool enough to create a living Horcrux?"

"Think, Severus. Who wouldn’t be fool enough?" Dumbledore, agitated from his rest, stood up and paced before the window. "It makes perfect sense. I could kill an innocent, for the sake of ending this war—" he looked pained, "—but it’s the Boy-Who-Lived. The media knows all about it. And now that he’s returned, and it’s been trumpeted to all corners of the earth, any suspicious accidents will be thoroughly looked into by Voldemort’s wizards, who you can bet will ferret out the killer. If he dies, the whole world will seize upon whoever did it.

"I could do send someone to do it. Someone could act on their own initiative. I probably will attempt it, but you can bet that Voldemort won’t leave his Horcrux undefended. He’s likely being followed. And worst—" Dumbledore’s eyes blazed, "I can’t attempt it at Hogwarts. The Founders set charms to guard their descendents against anything in the castle, and while they’re too old to prevent injuries, they’ll prevent death. He’s Voldemort’s—set him in the castle, and it’ll read him as Slytherin’s Heir."

Severus was quiet, and then--"Why not injure him fatally and ship him out to St. Mungo’s. Have a healer finish the job?"

"It could work." Dumbledore paused. "And yet, I suspect we might have more barriers than even I can anticipate."

mmmmmmmmmm

Lily Potter pulled a casserole from the oven, as Elspeth giggled over her homework at the counter and Sirius blasted heavy metal from his room. The song: "Drink of Death".

Given the propensity of wizarding children to take after their namesakes, she knew they should have named him something different. Silencius, maybe.

If she caught him playing subversive, Neo-Nazi Death Eater rock one more time, that kid was grounded for life and spending some quality time cleaning after Abraxan horses with ‘Uncle’ Hagrid. That much dung had to subdue even Sirius Potter.

The door opened, and Lily stopped herself automatically, though Elspeth continued colouring. Since that fateful Samhain, they'd had one raid. Its consequence? Early labour. It was a wonder Elspeth survived at six months, though wizarding doctors could work miracles. Since then, she never ran for the door, always tensed a little, testing her charms.

It was James though, they informed her—James, and someone the wards recognized, though they weren’t as permeable to the newcomer as they’d be to the rest of the family.

She looked down the stairs to the foyer, and caught a first glimpse of her son.

Much like James, her eyes—though they had that certain shiftiness ‘Uncle’ Severus possessed—knobby joints, a lean famished look to him that contrasted sharply with the rest of her brood—oh, someone was going to be tall in the family, finally—a tiny snake curled at his neck, and a sacket of books in his hand.

He glanced up at her, and strangely, she reflexively didn’t run to him as James did. She ran her eyes over him, he did the same to her, and finally, he ascended the stairs.

"So." He said this matter of factly. "You’re my mother."

"Supper’s on the table," she announced, turning away.

He took this in stride and followed her to appropriate Sirius’ place at the table, when Elspeth froze.

"Who are you?" she glared at him.

Harry grinned cheekily. "Question for a question. Who are you?"

Elspeth shook her head. "You first."

"Hadrian James Potter. Your brother. Pleased to meetcha."

Elspeth would have responded to this overture by kicking the ‘imposter’ in the balls, except for the fact that he’d already earnt the trust of her parents, who couldn’t be relied upon to understand when she was acting in their defense. So, she said nothing, and kept colouring.

"What’s that?" Harry asked ignorantly.

Elspeth ignored him.

"Oh, fine," Harry responded, giving up.

"Sirius! We’re about to eat!"

A curly-headed boy with black hair and big brown eyes thumped down the stairs, dressed Muggle ghetto style—a look common enough in new punk bands— complete with jeans that sagged to his knees, a wife-beater and chainlink necklace. He slumped to the chair set up beside Harry, who’d already begun to munch, and said nothing.

"Sirius, this is your new brother."

"Yo."

"Hi," Harry managed in between mouthfuls.

"Harry, you’ll be getting the spare room," James began. "Lily will be tutoring you to make sure you’re ready for Hogwarts, and—"

Harry, as bored with these preliminaries as the readers assuredly are, continued to mow down his casserole and flick fire from his fingers under the table. The snake, dubbed Silver, slipped down his sleeve and onto the dinner table. Only James seemed perturbed, but he almost ignored it until Elspeth started hissing at it.

"Elspeth—"

"What?"

"We’ve been over this before. No parseltongue in public or while we’re eating."

"Oh, give her a break James," Lily chided him. "It’s one thing to be hissing curses in another language at your parents, it’s quite another to carry on a conversation." She turned from James who had begun to mumble something about his crazy grandfather to Harry. "Are you a Parselmouth?"

Harry swallowed. "Yeah." And kept on eating.

mmmmmmmmmm

The Order’s little secret.

The wife of First General James Potter—their golden leader, second only to the Wizards of Hogwarts—was a Dark Witch.

Yes, Muggleborns turned out Dark Witches, but far less regularly than the old families due to Ministry regulated education that nipped any use of Blood magic in the bud before they chanced to explore it. Illegal experimentation. Covens. Animal sacrifice. Necromancy. Thaumaturgy. Anything sketchy was safely out of bounds.

But of course, a few enterprising Muggleborns learnt anyways. Severus Snape and Lily Evans as a case in point.

Lily Evans was like Severus Snape, in between the safely defined systems and in many ways, outcast from them. The Ministry, despite its positive stance on the Integration Issue, would never accept someone with her skills. And the WIP would never accept someone with her bloodlines. Even the Order, while liking and respected her, treated her with a measure of caution.The only people who would accept her for herself were her husband, and Severus.

Because she and Severus were on their own side, really. And what her old friend would not tell the Order, he would tell her.

So, he found her at midnight, leaning on the fencepost at the corner of her little yard in Hogsmeade, the place they’d moved after Godric’s Hollow. Even Potter could figure there was some security to be had in numbers. But now, the main street was silent save for his footsteps, and the muted breathing of the witch.

She watched him come like a cat, one slim leg bent up against the post, the second taut below her Muggle jeans. The cloak concealed the paunch that had come to her belly and chest after three pregnancies, but the exposed face remained angular—its lines drawn more harshly from ten years tension. Her hair curled fire by the lamplight.

She didn’t move, not even when he took her hand, silent, still silent, and set his lips reverently to her chapped fingers, the scratched wedding band, the thin silver loop spun round her thumb.

He set down her hand with a reverence long since distracted to respect, and waited upon her.

She arched her shoulders, tilted her head, eyes languorous, dreamy. She knew how to display herself, after all, though such games had been forever beyond their intimate friendship. Perhaps, he wondered, with a sting of old jealousy, she’s cooling down from an evening with Potter. His envy faded with the tension easing from the woman’s shoulders, and she spoke.

"So," she half-smiled, voice arch, setting her fingertips to Severus’ clavicle. "What has Severus to say to me tonight?"

His face remained dispassionate. "The same thing I would say to you every night."

She laughed with a violence only subdued by the hour, and crushed him to her, crying, laughing, at his neck. His hands didn’t move from her shoulderblades—though they’d long memorized her heartbeat, the slight tug of muscles, the sound of breath and gurgle at her belly. She held him tightly, until he thought he must throw her away from him, and spoke, unexpectedly. "Are you encouraging me to start an affair?" she chuffed into his throat.

"I wasn’t aware encouragement was necessary."

She laughed, and released him. His face remained composed, though she must know she unsettled him. Or did she? He used to think her innocuous, this witch, of her effect on him—that her blase comments were girlish teasings, the bywords of some teenage argot he’d never been privy to. Since boyhood, since initiation into the Death Eaters, offers from their sluts and sly flirtations of their Mudblood mistresses, he’d wondered. Lily Potter offered no clues, only more questions.

He often wondered how as straight-forward a man as Potter was happily wed to the witch. He’d come by for dinner often after 1984, and not always at Lily’s sole request. Without Black and Pettigrew, and following Lupin’s incarceration on manslaughter charges the following year, Potter was a man adrift. He threw himself into his work. Severus had spent hours—useful hours, no less—strategizing with Potter, duelling, studying. Lily, content to parody an old-fashioned domesticity, had watched, cooking stew with Elspeth on her hip, content to smoke a cocky victor with a well-placed Stinging Hex when he wasn’t looking.

Really, she didn’t act this way with James. She was almost... mundane with him. Normal.

And somehow, Severus preferred her this way. Maybe she knew. She squeezed his hand, they interlocked arms, and the two swished their way along the street, casting a quick Muffliato against eavesdroppers.

"So," Lily demanded of him as they neared the outskirts of the village. "About my boy."

Severus groaned. "Your son."

"Of course, my son, your godson, my boy. A parselmouth, like Elspeth—though that’s a welcome and not unexpected surprise. But my wards almost rattled off when he came in, the way they strain when you enter the door. He’s marked in some way by Voldemort."

"First," Severus began, "let me express my sincere admiration that you can even detect Voldemort’s traces, as this seems beyond the powers of the Ministry and most of the Order—"

A snicker teased from her lips, low and throaty. "Ha! The Ministry refuses to use blood magic and most of the young riffraff of the Order don’t have time for delicate work—and are likewise squeamish with blood magic. I used the blood off the dagger James knifed him with in ’79. Most of it was taken as a sample to the DOM, but Dumbledore provided him with a couple drops to use in thaumaturgy, and James nicked me a small vial for a rainy day. The security system’s rigged in that ugly teapot Petunia gave me for my wedding."

Severus nodded, pleased. "I would be honoured if you’d allow me to look over your notes for those spells. I’ve been behind on my anthropomancy for the past few months."

"Raids?" she enquired, anxiously.

He shrugged, unwilling to divulge an answer. They slipped into a trail that went through a woodlot. "Back to Harry," she pressed.

"He’s his father’s son," he responded without hesitation. "Resourceful, quick-witted and utterly lacking in respect for his own welfare or that of others."

She giggled at little at this—an odd response in a mature woman, for the Wizarding World, but for not the first time, Severus thanked the Muggles for their obsession with youth. With her vitality, Lily could be eternally seventeen—and forget the traditionally staid, solid matrons of the Potter clan.

"What else?"

"An adept with wandless magic, though like most children, he’s oriented to only one spell—the ever predictable incendio. Nearly burnt my hair off," he said, glancing accusingly at his companion.

"Severus, that was only one time. Surely you won’t hold it against me for—"

"Never." He gave a thin-lipped smile. "All the misdemeanors of my students make your childhood sin seem like sainthood."

"Then I’ll pray my adult offences black out that small failure."

"Woman, the Weasley children will outmatch anything you do, and if you don’t agree—"

"I’ve watched the children for Molly. Once." She said this quickly. "Consider yourself to have won the argument. So, why did Harry tick off the wards? I need all my energy for work, and I can’t very well haul him in for the Aural Medical Scanner if it’s something like the Mark."

"Similar, I think. It’s rooted in his scar, but you’ll be able to pass that off as residue from the curse Voldemort was supposed to have hit him with. In reality... you recall that Horcrux Professor Dumbledore was searching for."

"My God." She stopped mistride, setting her hand against the nearby bole of an elm to steady her, turning to him. "You don’t mean—"

"Worse. He used a medieval binding spell on him, an adoption spell—actually a precursor to the one they use for therapy on genetic diseases. The Bastard’s Spell."

Lily sucked in a breath, and he could see her running to conclusions. "Dumbledore plans to kill him."

"Of course. Voldemort expects it, and though he hopes your son will survive to become a Dark Wizard, at the very least, he’s prepared to use him as a tool for forging an expose on Dumbledore. I’ve been detailed by both Voldemort and Dumbledore to track his movements. Voldemort would prefer I protected him, but at the very least," his lip curled, "I’m to find and source any assassins, successful or otherwise. Dumbledore can’t attack an innocent boy openly—mentioning the horcruxes would start a world-wide panic that neither side wants--in any case, your repute and James’ would prevent the people from calling out for his blood."

"James," Lily’s eyes disfocused. "Is Harry at risk from him?"

Severus held out his hands. "You can only be the judge of that. James has been informed that there is a risk surrounding his son, that his son is tainted and possesses a Black Aura—one of the strongest Dumbledore has seen since Voldemort."

Lily looked down, pensive. "The Black Aura wouldn’t make a difference to James—not since Sirius had it, not since he found out about my magic and started turning a blind eye to it. The Bastard’s Spell wouldn’t make a difference either—the boy’s still his, and even if he wasn’t, he’s discussed adopting a war orphan from that conflict between the indigeonous Australian shamans and the urban wizards. The horcrux is another matter entirely. What happens when you insert an adult soul in a child?"

"Dumbledore believes the fragment to have been active—despite his odd former supposition that Voldemort was too injured after raiding Godric’s Hollow to recall the Horcrux or influence Harry."

Lily pursed her lips. "Yes. Injured. You know, that would explain the anonymous note I received five years back in Bellatrix’s handwriting, thanking me for those Love Potions I enhanced with Muggle aphrodiasiacs. Continue."

"I have little doubt that if he’d allow Harry to live and fulfill that sham prophecy if he thought that fragment was dormant, or if he believed Voldemort was unaware of having made a horcrux. Given that it was active, and Voldemort obviously knew what he was doing?" Severus spread his hands. "Voldemort’s rise to power was too unexpected. Dumbledore blames himself for not having seen past the lies. He considers Harry to be no better than a vessel for Voldemort, a kind of inferior copy. If I suggest otherwise, he’ll probably consider me to have been taken in by him, like so many wizards before. And I can’t simply do aural scans to prove the boy’s light. Even if I believed in auras determining a person’s character, which I decidedly do not, the boy’s aura should be almost a dead match for Voldemort’s in terms of magical potential."

Lily flowed down the path, her black slippers dew-damp and dusty from the trail. "You’ve told me what Dumbledore thinks. Tell me what you think. Is my boy just a horcrux?"

"I doubt it," Severus responded bluntly. "There’s no historical record for this, of course, but if the soul’s active after entering the recipient’s consciousness, I think there’s only danger for adult recipients. An adult would polarize himself into an original self and the new entity and suffer from disorders similar to MPD. But a child? An infant doesn’t have a strong sense of self. I doubt he, or an entity disoriented from fracture, could distinguish themselves apart as easily."

They’d gained the meadow, and sat down on their favourite rocks, Severus weaving a clover wreath with his long dextrous fingers, Lily picking at grass in agitation.

"So they simply bonded? What if they dissociate?"

"Lily, Lily. Please, attempt to forget all the rubbish Occidental psychology, ruled by outdated philosophers and Muggle pharmaceutical companies, has taught you. Souls are not stable, predetermined entities, and they don’t get stuck to eachother like two billard balls hashed by an imcompetent pool shark. They’re continuously in flux, build on themselves as one thought responds to another, one motive competes with the next. The entity would have brought its own memories and will. So what? If it were stupid—and Voldemort is rarely stupid, though those rare times are a spectacle—it would have suppressed its host and taken over the body. A dormant fragment can fully dominate its receptacle, but a living one? Souls have great capacity for recharging themselves, but a fraction that size would be too unstable to recover without other resources."

Lily brushed back her hair obligingly as Severus crowned her with the clover wreath, and he flushed and glared, not at all menacingly, as she smiled primly and started weaving clover through his hair. It was a means for her to distract herself, he knew. He continued.

"It could go dormant, but the entity would continuously be pulling the host towards an active source in an instinctive attempt to regain enough sustenance to become active—which could also cause the host discomfort, possible mental disorders, and attract attention. Asides, if the source, Voldemort, was aware of the entity’s attempts to interact with it and rejoin—and if he didn’t want it—he could simply close himself off to it via occlumency."

"Which leaves...?" Lily left a braid hanging limp with white blossoms.

"What happens when you graft a raspberry onto a rose, or more appropriately—what happens when two dissolved compounds combine to crystallize? Depending on the molecular size of each crystal, their structures adapt to one another in any multitude of ways to form a new alloy. A rough analogy, but true. Dumbledore may know my views on the matter and disagree as he will, but he’s not another Voldemort by any means. The entity may or may not have given Harry Voldemort’s memories or predispositions. While Voldemort hoped to give him the latter, preventing such a fracture from being debilitating would have demanded such control that it’s impossible to predict exactly what skills the boy will have taken. A boost in power? Possibly, but more likely from the Bastard’s Spell. We’ll learn from how he acclimates himself to the Wizarding World in the years ahead, I suppose—but his future is largely unwritten." He regarded her levelly. "So. Will you allow him to live?"

Her eyes enveloped his, dilated as the midnight ringed above by treetops, and his long, sallow fingers quivered in his pockets. "Is that even a question?"

And Severus led her back, back to the white house with the wide deck, back to the screen door that snicked shut on her skinny hips and padded ribs. He watched her slip her cloak from her shoulders and saw her float up the stairs, and he knew she was going up to Sirius’ room to chew the kids out for staying up so late. He closed his eyes, and saw her breezing back downstairs to the master bedroom, where James slept soundly, hoarding the covers, assured that his wife was safe with Severus Snape, and wondered at the injustice of it all.

mmmmmmmmmm

In the first week, Harry learnt a couple things.

The Potter’s house rocked. He was expected to do a tenth of the chores forced on him at the Dursley’s, and he was allowed to use magic for them if he could manage it. Yet even though everyone else pitched in with chores, the house was always comfortably messy, a state that would have set Aunt Petunia at nerve’s end. Mom and Dad were rarely home and never seemed to care much about it. And even though they made a remarkable effort the first week to stay around for ‘family time’, they were always On-call for work. More than once, Sirius lobbed a lunch bag to the frantic First General as he raced out the door to apprehend violent demonstrators at the Ministry or disband a Dark Wizarding Gang. Lily was worse. Her talents stuck her with the intensive care patients, and she could go skidding off in the middle of the night to check up on a CF patient—or apparate to Order Headquarters to check on a case of poisoning with Alastor Moody from a vigilante raid.

Little supervision, lots of crazy things going on, easy-going parents. What more could a kid ask for?

Well, he had it. Sirius.

His brother was two years younger than him, but cool with anything. Ask the kid about music, and he’d sneak out with you one night to a nearby Muggle bar for some local rock. Never mind that the bouncer hauled them out by the ear to hand off to an indignant Lily Potter—who of course knew the moment they left from the wards, but was too busy at work to chase them down until then. Ask the kid about fireworks, he’d drag you to Zonko’s Joke Shop and be an admirable help in outwitting the anti-theft surveillance. Ask him about the black market, and he’d tell you straight—he had no clue—but a lot of stuff was confiscated from Knockturn Alley, and that, they promised each other, would be the first place they’d go soon as they could nick some Floo Powder.

And ask the kid to duel, and he’d be honest. He didn’t know any wandless magic, and he didn’t have a wand.

"C’mon," Harry nagged him. "They’ve got to have spare wands around here somewhere. Can’t you just nick Dad’s?"

"Freaking sick, dude! The old homie hasn’t got a wand, he hasn’t gotta ass at work," Sirius stressed. "No wand, and some dark wizard zaps him. Bye-bye, buds."

"Alright, so not Mom’s or Dad’s. You can’t be telling me that they don’t have spares though? Or like, whatever happened to your grandparent’s wands? It’s not as though they burn them at death or something?"

"It’s so like that, bro," Sirius told him in his nine-year-old attempt at gutter slang. "Kick the can and kiss the devil, they’ll bury you or burn you with your wand. There’s almost no market for second-hand wands. There’s a lot of mojo about the wand being part of your soul."

"That’s stupid. It’s just a tool, like a gun or something. So, the only old wands are six feet under. Right." Harry disappeared from Sirius’ room, and Sirius, with a brother’s uncanny intuition, could tell where this was going.

"Far out! Hold on, Harry—" Sirius banged into Harry’s room, his own knapsack already atop his back. "You aren’t going to—"

"Damn right I am!" Harry grinned, and Sirius felt himself grinning back by way of response.

"We’ll have to watch out for wards," Sirius warned unnecessarily, throwing some useful implements into his knapsack—mostly potions he’d cobbled together, or some that had come as useful birthday presents from Uncle Severus. Harry, who was only marginally taller than his brother, laughed recklessly at the chunkier boy. "Wards? Sure. Is there that much of a problem with graverobbers?"

Sirius was almost too interested to bother with his ghetto talk. "Right on, homie. Wizards can bury all sorts of arcane objects with them that you wouldn’t want a Death Eater getting a hold of."

"Magic lamps? Rings that make you disappear? Wands?"

"Sure," Sirius began, "my Dad actually caught a few recent escapees from the local jail once who were without wands and tried to scoop some from the cemetary—"

"Harry!" a beligerant Elspeth shrieked, hauling herself upstairs. "You’re not leaving anywhere."

"It’s alright, Elspeth," Harry smiled indulgently, while running through several expletives in his mind. "We’re not leaving anywhere."

The little girl with the cute brown curls narrowed her sweet little eyes in suspicion, a look not dissimilar to her Uncle Severus’. "No Jedi Mind tricks," she demanded. "Mommy said you aren’t going anywhere."

"Aww, Elspeth," Sirius groaned. They didn’t need to be caught again! Harry had lived at Swinetrail for all of four weeks, and already the two of them were grounded from television, movie outings and assigned kitchen duty for the remainder of Harry’s stay—a punishment Lily was initially hesitant to assign, given the nausea experienced by the whole family the last time Sirius did the cooking. With Harry in the house though, he’d swear Mom was almost delighted at their disobedience.

Heck, he’d break the rules 24/7 if it meant he’d never have to eat another tuna casserole.

But they were already on kitchen duty, and the next privilege to be rescinded was his CD set. And no one was touching his death metal!

"C’mon, kid. We’ll bring you back some Honeyduke’s candy," Harry wheedled. Elspeth considered this for a moment, and then shook her head.

"I want to come with you."

Shit. "Elspeth, it could be dangerous, and you can’t run away as quickly as we can."

"Running away wouldn’t matter if I had a wand. Then I could protect myself!" She looked at them stubbornly. "I won’t tell Mom or go with you if you bring me back a wand."

They glanced at each other helplessly.

"So..." Harry started. "A wand it is. Just, you can’t tell Mom about it after you get it, and you can only use it if you’re sure they’re not in the house, and if I’m around, okay?"

"Why just when you’re around?"

"So you don’t fry yourself, kid! Ever see those pics of magic gone wrong in that freaky ‘Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not’ book? Scary. Do you really want to look like that hag with her face half-melted off?"

Strangely enough, it took his sister half a moment to consider this, and then she shook her head. "Okay. Pinky-swear me that you’ll bring me back a wand."

Harry smiled a little, failing to see Sirius’ horrified expression behind his back as he pinky-swore his little sister, and swung his knapsack on. "Right-o, we’re off. Els, hand me Silver, will you? Sirius—"

Later, his brother mouthed.

Harry shrugged, and only when they were out the door did Sirius explain.

"You pinky-swore."

"So? Muggles do it all the time!"

"Muggles are, heck, muggles!"

"What’s the difference?" Harry asked, walking along to the graveyard. "It’s not as though she’ll bite my pinky off or do anything if we can’t get the wands for some reason."

"Harry, that’s EXACTLY what she’ll do."

Harry laughed, and then turned to meet Sirius’ grim expression. "You’re kidding me, right?" he pressed, as they turned onto the lane past the Shrieking Shack.

"Not a wit. It’s no urban myth or anything. Swearing’s serious among wizards. Backlash on breaking an oath depends on the kids who make it, but seriously—I’ve seen some kids lose their fingers for weeks after a pinky-swear, and you can damn well bet that Mom won’t turn a blind eye to that!"

Harry snorted, breaking off a half-ripe apple from a tree on the pathway, and biting into it—only to spit it out. "Eww, gross."

"They aren’t ripe until September around here. Haven’t you ever been in the country?"

"Naw. Give me a city sidewalk anyday. But really, it’s Elspeth we’re talking about. How much magical backlash could she give?"

Sirius shuddered.

"Your cute little Elspeth is the most freaking sadistic little witch in the beat. That kid, Tommy Hewitt down the road? Yeah. He crossed his heart and hoped to die after promising her a Valentine’s day card—didn’t add ‘stick a thousand needles in my eye," at least—and you know what happened, doncha? Unconscious for three days when he forgot. The muggle girls at her school? She clapped a "Peter, peter, pumpkin-eater on one." The next time the girl cheated, she turned orange and they had to get the Department for Reversal of Accidental Magic in. The kid’s a demon!"

Harry turned green.

"Oh. Well," he said brightly, despite his sudden discomfort. "We’d better get the kid a wand then." He paused. "Anything else about Els I should know?"

Sirius shrugged. "Nursery rhymes are deadly poison. Dad’s banned her from reading them. Since then, she’s been perusing the Latin-English dictionary since Mom won’t let her in a real spellbook until she’s nine."

"Alright. Run for the hills if you hear Humpty-Dumpty."

"We were falling off fences for a week after that."

Harry shuddered. Some talented sister.

They arrived at a graveyard pleasantly overgrown with brambles and pine, and Harry began to read over the headstones while Sirius dug through his sackel.

"You didn’t bring anything but a garden spade? The graves have to be at least six feet deep! I hope you know some kind of spell."

"No, actually, though that’d be useful. I figured we’d just break into the sexton’s closet," Harry indicated the tiny kirk at the centre of the yard. Sirius retrieved the lockpicks from the bag and vials of grease, and set to opening up the church while Harry looked for a likely grave. Though Sirius was nowhere near as skilled as Harry with locks, the lock on the church was old and rusty, and it took little effort to slip it open. A quick Alohomora with Harry’s wand—which had been generously shared between the two of them thus far—and the kirk was open.

Sirius dragged out the shovels to where his brother stood decided at a couple of graves, and then gawped a little at what he had chosen.

"Here lies Charles Elgin Potter and Philomela Potter, nee Black. 1864—1901, 1864—1943. Geesh. And I thought all our relatives were in Godric’s Hollow. Philomela Potter was a war hero."

"Well," Harry responded practically, "she won’t be needing her wand now, anyhow, and I bet you that the grave isn’t warded against family. Hand me that shovel, will ya?"

Years later, Sirius Potter would reflect that it made no sense how easily two eleven-year-old boys dug up coffins buried supposedly six feet under. It was about three feet of hard digging between the two of them before they hit the first, and less to reach the second.

Harry nodded at the large maple overgrowing the tombstones. "The roots on this thing must have pushed the coffins up. Odd though, wood’s not even rotted."

"Preservation charms," Sirius announced glibly, trying to ignore the crawling sensation at the pit of his stomach. Let’s hurry up and open these things."

"Right-o," Harry said, all bravado as he received his wand back from Sirius, and stowed it in his jeans. "So, muggle methods first—" he fumbled with the ancient leather buckles that had dried taut, and cracked one in his effort. "Aha! So one’s undone, now for the other—"

A sudden hiss from Silver at his wrist was his only warning. He withdrew his hand a scant second before spikes slashed out from the edges. Sirius swallowed.

"Umm hmm." Harry murmured, trying to keep his cool in front of his kid brother. "So, let’s go for the more traditional approach. Alohomora."

The coffin remained stubborned shut. Harry sighed.

"Get the tongs out from that shed, will you? And the pruning shears, if there is any?"

Sirius complied, running quickly as he could and completely disregarding Lily’s oft-emphasized warning that you DID NOT run with sharp objects.

"Here you go."

Harry opened the rusty shears and cut through the second and third buckles, wiping away a bead of sweat as he finished. "Not so bad. Now for the crowbar?"

"Check."

Harry took the proffered object, jammed it between lid and coffin, and started to apply pressure. A sensation like burning hit his hand, and he dropped the crowbar in shock. It fell sideways.

Sirius touched it before Harry could say otherwise.

It was cool.

"It’s an illusion," Sirius offered. Harry looked back at him with all the grim bravery of an eleven-year-old punk, and Sirius decided being tough and stupid was the in-thing. He set the crow-bar back in himself, and yanked.

"Oww, oww—oww," he moaned, clutching his hand as the lid popped off. The palm, of course, was unburnt.

"Ugh. You’ve got some guts, kid."

"Thanks." A little breathless, Sirius beamed at the approval nonetheless.

"So, what have we here..." they glanced in at the desiccated remains of what had no doubt once been a woman in a fancy velvet dress.

"Gross," they decided unanimously.

"There’s the wand."

"No way I’m touching that thing," Sirius told him.

"No need. Wingardium Leviosa."

The wand remained stuck.

"Alright, so maybe we need something else. Tongs?"

Sirius handed them off, and took up the crowbar to open Charles’ coffin, which lacked any buckles. He’d only set the point into the coffin when he heard Harry.

"Help! Quick!"

His eyes bulged. The skeleton had Harry’s hand locked in it’s own and was altogether violently dragging it towards its bared teeth, which ground in its mouth.

Sirius used a four-letter word Harry had taught him within a day of his residence at Swinetrail, and grabbed the hammer. With remarkable presence of mind for a nine-year-old, he bashed in the skull’s teeth first, before dodging its other hand and breaking the wrist. Harry reeled backwards, the hand still clamped into his wrist and digging into it now, and Sirius imagined the bones spearing his brother’s arm—

He tugged at them, but they held firm and pinched ever more firmly, until the yellowed ivory of each fingerbone was tipped in blood—

Abruptly, the hand fell loose, and Harry laughed, a little more from nerves than triumph this time. His other hand opened to reveal Philomela’s wand. He proferred it to his brother, who accepted it, trying to stop his hands from shaking as he did so.

"See? What’d I tell you? Nothing to it! There’s failsafes to make sure family don’t get injured. Probably works like Mom’s wards." He shucked off his shirt, and Sirius envied his cool scars almost as much as his sang froid. Wrapping it as a makeshift bandage about his arm, he grabbed the crowbar with the other hand. "Now for Elspeth’s wand."

Silver, who had become dislodged during the struggle with the hand, coiled about Sirius’ foot, and even though Sirius didn’t speak parseltongue, he had the strange intuition something was wrong. He scooped up the snake, and though Silver generally didn’t like him, the tiny serpent coiled tight to his wrist.

"Harry?"

"What?" Harry hissed, pumping open the coffin and trying to ignore the jarring vibrations shuddering up the crowbar’s length as he did so.

"I think we’ve got company," he whispered.

The yard had gone silent except for the popping up of the lid, the odd hiss as Harry, already bleeding, opened Charles’ coffin effortlessly. Sirius moved the snake to his neck before bending over to shove Philomela back to her last resting place. Silver clenched tight suddenly, and he ducked out of reflex, the high whistling of a spell streaked over his head and tore into the foliage.

"F***, down!" he yelled, dodging the next spell and jumping behind the tree.

"Not without the bloody wand," Harry argued, grabbing it—with the hand that wasn’t currently bleeding. Charle’s bony wrist caught hold of Harry, and squeezed.

"Frick—" Harry jumped backwards into the grave, a brilliant red spell crashing overhead and splintering the bole of a tree. "Rinse and repeat," he gritted his teeth, unwrapping the bandage to rub some blood against the bone. It loosened abruptly, and he raised the wand.

"Can you get your butt out of there?" demanded Sirius, throwing a quick incendio in the general direction of their attacker—which did nothing but set the dry summer foliage afire.

"F*** no. Too loose—give me a boost?"

"Hell—" Sirius saw a piece of the scenery moving, and automatically blasted incendio. A flash of red fabric tore apart from the trees before dissolving again into the background, and on sudden genius, he grabbed one of Philomela’s hands and, before it could grasp him, lobbed it at the attacker.

"Eat this, a**hole!" he cheered, picking up another, chucking it at the man. The hands tore at the guy’s invisibility cloak, raking open its camoflage to expose red robes. He flailed, his spell-casting erratic as Sirius pulled Harry out of the hole, almost slipping into it himself.

"Run," Sirius urged, as Harry stopped, an odd smile on his face as he saw the man tumbling, the hands grasping for his throat.

"And risk an opportunity like this?" He pointed Charles Potter’s wand. "Expelliarmus! Incendio"

The man’s wand came shooting obediently in their direction, and he began writhing and rolling to put out the flames. Sirius plucked it mid-air and wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Alright. Points for the overkill. Can we go?"

"No so fast—" Harry began, and then was interrupted by Silver’s hissing. "Change of plans. Run!"

They beat it the forest, Sirius so careless that his foot almost caught in the giant sundew, and didn’t quit running until they reached the laneway. Once there, they tried to look nonchalant and blend in with the rest of the street—normally not a simple task as they were the only people NOT running in the direction of the graveyard. Harry, using his shirt like a cheap muff, might have gotten a lot of strange looks. But under normal circumstances, everyone had the time to notice these anomalies. Today, they didn’t.

They snuck in the back door, locked themselves in the washroom, and used every antiseptic on hand and a few of Sirius’ homebrews to treat Harry’s wounds. The latter had the unpleasant aftereffect of making Harry throw up all over the washroom. Wisely, Sirius left this on the floor, fetched his long-sleeved flannel pajamas, and told his brother to go to bed for the evening. But before Harry shut the door, he had Sirius summon up Els to the bedside.

"This," he pronounced solemnly, "is for you." He gave her the wand, and she started jumping for joy, bouncing on the bed and giving him a big squishy hug, which prompted him to vomit again—this time, thankfully in the wastebasket.

"Now remember what I told you," he reminded her as sternly as one can with a mouth full of toothpaste and the aftertaste of vomit. "Only when Mom and Dad aren’t home. And only when I’m around."

"Sure..." she answered absent-mindedly, swishing the eleven inches of willow and unicorn’s tail absent-mindedly.

"Or I’ll bite off your pinky," Harry told her, fixing her eyes grimly.

She froze a little, and looked down, all too conveniently, in the direction of the wastebasket. There was blood there.

"Yes Harry," she squeaked, and skittered from the washroom.

Harry sighed. And after reminding Sirius to burn the trash, he went back to bed.