For a long time Harry sat with Tim on his lap, letting his son’s warm boneless weight soothe him. Finally he tucked the limp child back into his bed, brushing the blond strands of hair from the closed eyes. Relaxed in sleep, Tim looked as innocent and sweet as any painted cherub, belying the broad streak of darkness that lay under the shy smile and blue eyes.

“Dad?” whispered Tim, startling Harry, who thought he was asleep.

“Yeah?”

The child reached out to take Harry’s hand and give it a squeeze. “Love you.” He sighed sleepily before his breathing deepened.

“Love you too, son.” His voice was a rough croak. He went downstairs, knowing sleep was a lost cause after this.

The kitchen was dark and cold this time of the morning. Kreacher poked up the fire when Harry made no move to do so.

“Leave it,” Harry said huskily when the house-elf made to light the lamps. He gestured vaguely toward the door. “Go to bed.”

In the firelight the elf’s eyes gleamed, “Perhaps Kreacher should wake Mistress Ginny?” he croaked dubiously, recognizing his master’s mood.

Harry shook his head; Ginny didn’t need to be sitting up, too.

“Perhaps Kreacher could get Master....”

“Kreacher.” His voice was sharp with exasperation. “Go. To. Bed.” The poor thing flinched. “Please,” Harry added more softly, feeling ashamed of raising his voice.

The elf didn’t move for a heartbeat, his head tilted to the side, as though looking for a way around the direct order. He nodded his head slowly, clearly unwilling to leave Harry alone, but clicked his fingers and, with a little crack, disappeared.

Letting out a long breath, Harry put the kettle on for some tea. The clock chimed four times as he sat down with his cup, feeling old and stiff and depressed.

He was half tempted to head up to his study to pour himself  a glass of firewhiskey but after witnessing that last memory in Tim’s mind, he knew the whole bottle wouldn’t suffice.

For the last four years, Smith’s death had taken a prominent place in Harry’s nightmares. Smith was the first man he’d ever killed--even in the War, Harry had managed to leave his own hands bloodless. Tonight was the first time the Auror had been able to think of Smith’s death without regret. Merlin knew that if he’d been able, he would have resurrected the bastard to kill him again.

Maybe he’d pay a visit to the Smith grave to spit on it. For now, he’d have to talk to Phoebe when she came--preferably without Ginny. This latest thing was far too likely to frighten her for no good reason.

This last nightmare of Tim’s was the strangest thing that Harry had experienced in a long time.  There were other presences when he touched the child’s mind. Once or twice, he’d felt something like it before, but previously the presences had all been vague and younger than Tim actually was.

Phoebe had said it was a symptom of the way Tim blocked things off. Harry could only think of it like a self-created Confoundus. Dudley had called it “dissociation.” With a grim little smile, he’d made the comment that he was familiar with the technique.

Harry shivered, thinking of some of the hints Dudley dropped about things that had gone on between Vernon and Dudley when Harry was either safely locked away or at school. Two years of once-a-month joint therapy with Dudley had made Harry grateful that he’d only ever had to contend with Vernon’s foul mouth and violent streak.

What Dudley spoke of was just a kind of blanking out, but he’d also described a way someone’s mind could block parts of itself off so that it seemed as though there were more than one identity in a body. When the events Tim had wanted to block off were too big, it was as if he just decided it hadn’t actually happened to him, but created someone who could bear whatever it was.  

Tonight, in Tim’s mind Harry had touched three distinct entities--yet they were all somehow Tim. One was the toddler who apparently remembered being nearly killed, another was the frighteningly cold eleven-year-old who was denying that any such thing had ever happened to him, and the third...the third was apparently attempting to keep body and soul together while retaining some semblance of sanity.

Sometimes, over the years, Harry had looked into those eyes and seen a disturbing flatness that he’d never really understood until this moment. A profound chill passed through him as he thought of the scene he’d just witnessed and the emotions emanating from his son--the cold touch of a type of hatred that should be out of place in a child’s mind. Hatred for Smith, who nearly killed him, and hatred for Mary, the mother who had seemed to abandon him.

It recalled the memory of a young, handsome Tom Riddle as he had sat on his bed in an orphanage the first time he ever met Dumbledore.

With icy clarity, Harry envisioned a grownup Tim bristling with malevolent power. The boy’s biological father had come from a long line of powerful wizards and Tim showed every sign of being at least as powerful as the greatest of them.

What was preventing Tim from making the choices that would set him on that path?

From the long-dead past, Dumbledore’s words echoed around Harry’s brain, “You are, in short, protected by your ability to love.”

For all that Tim’s magic could lash out violently, it had never harmed anyone. Even his mother’s drug dealer boyfriend had been merely transfigured rather than killed.

Tim had once said that the Dark Man had done that. The details of the story left no doubt in Harry’s mind that the boy’s magic had prevented some variety of molestation.

Phoebe had assured both Ginny and Harry that, whatever else was going on, the Dark Man meant Tim no harm. She said that he was in fact quite concerned about the boy’s welfare. She told them that she needed to do some research before she could give them definitive answers on what the Dark Man actually was.

Tonight Harry had come as close as he’d ever had to meeting this Dark Man.There was nothing shadowy or vague about him in this last encounter. He’d felt the entity flinch back and completely Occlude as he’d pulled Tim from the dream. It was a very different type of Occlumency than what Harry used--and yet it was typical of his adopted son. The emotions were blanked and hidden behind a wall of rationality.  Rationality that was far too adult for Harry’s taste, and full Occlusion in an eleven-year-old? That was almost unheard of.

He mused on what Phoebe and Dudley had told him. About how these others were still somehow Tim rather than “haints,” as Phoebe would call them. Truthfully, what he’d felt before the Dark Man had retreated was indeed just like Tim. No one could ever say that Tim wore his heart on his sleeve; he was hard to read at the best of times. Harry remembered how the small child had calmly sat with Smith, pasting on a false smile and awaiting his chance to escape the man. Tim had all the makings of a good spy.

The hair on the back of Harry’s neck went up with that thought.

Well, he reminded himself, trying to calm down, full Occlusion in an eleven-year-old was only as unheard of as a corporeal Patronus in a thirteen-year-old.

Unbidden, the night he’d met Sirius in third year floated to mind. Thirty minutes had been enough to convince him to trust a stranger enough to agree to move in with him. Hell, Harry was trusting enough of Sirius to almost completely disregard Snape’s version of events even before Pettigrew had been revealed.

Tim was much wiser that way--he didn’t instantly bond with the first adult to take an interest.

It was a testament to Tim’s resilience that he was still able to trust anyone at all. Or else it was a testament to the quality of the Dark Man’s protection.

Tim’s dream...it had been a confusing mix of wish-fulfillment and actual memory. It was difficult to sort out the second-hand impressions.

An empty glass jar floated through the air in answer to Harry’s summons. He lifted his wand to his forehead, concentrating. The memory of what he had witnessed came out of his mind in a long silver strand that he dropped into the open jar, carefully screwing on the lid when he was done.

The tea in Harry’s cup had cooled to lukewarm. He was in the act of pouring more from the pot when the fire flared green. The pot went flying as Harry jumped to his feet, pulling his wand and crying, “Expelliarmus!” before the intruder had even fully materialized.

James tumbled out of the Floo, his wand skittering across the floor. Off balance for only a second, the young man scrambled to his feet, holding his hands palm-out in front of him. “Merlin’s beard! S’only me, Dad!” he cried.

Harry dropped his wand, staring stupidly at his oldest son.

James leaned down to grab his own wand, then he glared at Harry. “Not welcome here anymore, am I?” he said sourly, “Don’t worry, I’ll clear off. Right after I talk to Mum. I want to see Tim, too. I promised him.”

Fighting with James was not something Harry could handle right now. “Don’t be daft.” He sighed irritably, picked the teapot up off the floor and sat back down, putting it back on the table. “You startled me.” He glanced at the clock. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to come through at five in the morning.”

James glared at his father. “Well, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be sitting here at five in the morning,” he snapped.

Harry closed his eyes. “James. Please. I can’t do this right now.” His voice cracked and he ran his hand through his graying hair. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes before perching them back on his nose. He looked back up at James. “Just sit down, or something.”

Taken aback by his tone, the young man peered more closely at his father.  After a second, he impatiently flicked his wand to light the overhead lamp, apparently feeling that the firelight wasn’t sufficient. “You look like hell,” he announced.

Another time, Harry would have replied sarcastically at his son’s lack of tact, but not this morning. “Slept badly,” he said quietly.

“Obviously.” The young man’s voice became softer, more solicitous. “Work?” James knew that this was often the cause of Harry’s insomnia.

“No. Your brother.”

To Harry’s surprise, James nodded, looking worried. “Kreacher said Tim was having a bad night.”

“What?” the older wizard asked sharply. “When?”

“Don’t shout at Kreacher,” the younger man cautioned, as though sincerely worried about it.  “I told him to come find me if Tim was having a bad time the other day when I was here.” He filled the empty kettle and set it back on the fire. “I didn’t want Tim to think I was avoiding him,” he finished pensively, sitting down across from his father.

“Oh.”

The two men’s eyes met; James’ face was set into an unwontedly serious expression. “Kreacher said that Phoebe’s been to see him?” he went on tentatively. “What happened? Kreacher said that she told him that she wanted me or Uncle Ron or someone here, if you had to go somewhere. Does she think it’s Dark Magic?”

“She’s not sure. She thinks it’s probably not Dark Magic per se, ” Harry told him quietly, “but maybe some magic that’s a bit on the shadowy side.” Phoebe had wanted an Auror in the house with the child at all times. It actually hadn’t occurred to Harry that James was a fully qualified Auror now. “You...wouldn’t mind?”

“Don’t  be stupid,” he said a little peevishly. His voice dropped as though fearing someone overhearing. “Kreacher said that the Dark Man came back, too.”

Harry nodded. “He told you about him?”

“Well, he used to talk about him a lot,” James said softly. “Especially when you were still laid up, that first summer.”

That was news. “What did he say about him?” asked Harry cautiously, not wanting to alienate this unexpected source.

James thought for a moment before he answered just as carefully, “He said...he said that the Dark Man told him things. There was this one time...This was right after you went back into St. Mungo’s with pneumonia...remember?”

Harry nodded. That had been what he’d gotten from a short walk in the summer rain--it was what had convinced him that being on loan to the Haitian Aurors would be a good thing.

Shifting uncomfortably on his chair, James continued in a low voice, “We were...er...sort of worried about you. Gran kept saying you were fine...but honestly...Al and Lily were scared to death.” Harry read between the lines to understand that his eldest son had also been frightened.

“So, TIm...he was the calmest of the lot of us...it was a bit weird. I reckoned it was because he didn’t understand what was going on; you know, I just figured he didn’t really get what pneumonia was.” He stopped, shook his head. “Well, I was wrong about that--I got up this one night and he was down here talking to someone. I thought he was talking to Kreacher first, but then there was nobody here. He was eating all the chocolate biscuits.” The young man smiled a little. “I sat down with him because I thought he might be a bit lonely with you and Mum gone. I remember I told him that you were going to be fine...He sort of rolled his eyes. I think he thought I was being a bit of a prat—I guess I didn’t really get what he’d already been through.”

Harry could imagine then-sixteen-year-old James trying to deliver a pep talk like that to little Tim. Probably on the arrogant side. Probably including lots of assurance of James’ superior knowledge of the situation.

Tim had a tone of voice that never failed to put a stop to that sort of thing, a blunted assertion of facts that put a stop to most well-meaning but condescending reassurances.

James looked down at the table and Harry held his breath to avoid interrupting his train of thought. When one questioned witnesses, silence was one of the most useful tools. After a long moment, he looked up. “He asked me if I’d ever seen anyone die.”  Harry was startled by the shadows in his normally light-hearted son’s eyes. “I told him I hadn’t. He told me about when his Nana died. He said she died of pneumonia. And then he told me about the day you killed Smith. He said the Dark Man had been right about everything so far.”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry sharply, alarmed by the idea that the boy could be spouting prophecies. Perhaps the Smith family had some Seer blood.

Shrugging a little helplessly, James said, “Just that Tim knew you’d be fine. He said that the Dark Man had been there when his Nana died. He’d been there when Smith kidnapped him and that’s why he knew he had to call Kreacher. And the Dark Man said you’d be fine, so you would be. He was totally all right with the whole thing.”

“But you weren’t?” Harry caught an odd inflection in the young man’s voice. Again, his years of questioning witnesses came in handy.

James stared at Harry again, this time seeming to weigh his answer. “Dad. That was the second time you almost died that year. Of course we weren’t ‘all right’ .”

Harry made a little scoffing sound, “Oh, it wasn’t...”

“That bad?” James snapped. “No, of course not. Aunt Hermione didn’t come to collect us from school so we could be with family while we waited to hear if you lived or died. Uncle Ron didn’t wear a hole in the living room carpet because Healer Patil had thrown him out to get some sleep. Gran and Grandad didn’t spend three days with hourly owls coming in from Mum about your condition,” he finished angrily.

“I...I didn’t know...” Harry stammered after a moment.

“No. Of course you didn’t,” James said wearily, “Poor Tim. The first time you were in St. Mungo's, he cried all day when Mum brought him home. He kept going on about how it was his fault if you died. Nothing we said could change his mind. And he was convinced until you woke up that you were going to die. I had to keep getting him out of the closet. He wouldn’t even come out for Lily. And then when the Smiths said they wanted him, he stopped talking to everyone. He was so frightened, he kept breaking the mirrors with his magic. Gran said it showed how much the Snape Potion helped him. Without it he’d’ve blown the whole house up.  But, I guess once everything got settled he was just plain too exhausted to worry. By the time you got pneumonia he’d been so worried about you the whole time, he’d come out the other side, you know?”

Harry nodded. That summer was a bit of a blur really. The only things he remembered clearly were the day they had gotten the final adoption approved and a terrible fight he’d had with James just before they left for Port au Prince.

“Anyway, we used to talk a lot while I was teaching him to ride a broom.”

The screaming of the kettle interrupted them. Harry got up and made the tea. “About what?” It was easier to talk to James when they weren’t sitting face to face, so Harry started pulling the makings for breakfast out of the cupboards. He’d never gotten the knack of making Kreacher’s Scottish pancake things, so he stuck to eggs and bacon.

“Well, we talked about you a lot. He told me about how you killed Smith over and over. I asked Mum about it and she said that he needed to talk about it so I should just let him.”

Tim never spoke about that with Harry. “What did he say about that?” bracing himself for things he didn’t necessarily want to hear, but that might be important.

James sighed, “Well...he just kept telling the story, you know? He kept saying he thought you weren’t going to come get him, but the Dark Man said you would. And then he said the Dark Man reminded him that he could call Kreacher.”

“Did he say why he didn’t think I was going to come get him?” asked Harry evenly.

“He just reckoned the social workers sent him back to live with his dad. He said he knew kids it had happened to.” James paused, “You know. I never really thought much about Dark Wizards till then?” His voice had turned contemplative. “I mean, I knew the stories about you and the War, but it never seemed real. Tim though...his stories gave me nightmares.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really. Well, I should say it gave me a nightmare. It’s always the same. I had it a few times a week that summer. Still get it sometimes. I always wake up in a cold sweat.”

“So, what is it?”

James hesitated. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“‘Course I won’t,” Harry asserted, “I get plenty of bad dreams myself, you know.”  He was careful to keep his back to the boy...the young man, rather, he reminded himself.

“Yeah, well I suppose you’ve got reasons,” James muttered in that voice he had when he wasn’t sure what he was saying was particularly wise. He took a deep breath and went on, “Well, it starts out pretty okay. I’m always a lot older and I’m looking after a baby. Lily’s there usually, but sometimes it’s Mum. And all of a sudden I just know something awful’s going to happen. I tell Lily to take the baby...Sometimes you’re there too, but I have the idea that there’s something wrong with you...like you’re hurt or something and can’t help. And then someone comes in the door. Well, they blast it in and there’s smoke everywhere. I can never see who it is, just that they’re not quite human, you know?”

Harry flipped the eggs and chanced a glance behind him. James was agitatedly tapping his wand against the table, his attention inward. “I realize my wand’s all the way in the next room. And all I can think is that one of my friends sold me out and I’m going to die. I keep telling Lily to Disapparate, but someone’s put up wards, so she can’t.” He stopped.

The hair on the back of Harry’s neck was standing up. “Is that all?” he asked.

“The last thing in the dream is this flash of bright green light and it kills me,” James finished. His voice sounded hollow.

The breakfast was done. Harry served it up on two plates and brought them to the table. They ate silently for a few minutes, before James spoke again. “Do we have any Seer blood? I mean on your side? Mum says she doesn’t.”

Harry shook his head slowly, thinking it was funny that he was just wondering that very thing about Tim. “Why?”

“I...the dream always seems so real. I suppose I keep being afraid it’s like a vision.” He wrapped his arms around himself, as if he was cold. He looked away.

“I doubt it,” replied Harry in a soft voice. “When was the last time you had it?”

The young Auror gave a quiet snort, his eyes still averted. “Last night. Except this time Tim was there. He was older, like my age, but I knew it was him. He got in between me and the whatever it was. He was killed instead of me. I woke up in a panic, and then Kreacher was there. I was glad, too, because otherwise I probably would have set off all the house wards, checking to make sure he was all right. Kreacher said I’d be able to get in by Floo.”

“Set off the house wards?” Harry asked in confusion. “Don’t be stupid, we wouldn’t change the wards.”

Every so often, Harry noticed that James looked like Ron. This was one of those times as his skin flushed with anger. “You said you would.”

Dimly, Harry recalled that somewhere in the shouting match at St. Mungo’s James had ranted something about wishing Harry wasn’t his father. Harry had yelled back that perhaps they should change the house wards and he’d wash his hands of him.

Harry put his hands over his face, upset. That hadn’t been a shining example of parenting on his part, but it was hard to remember to be a good father when the child in question was a good six inches taller than he. “James,” he said through his hands, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He put his arms down to look up at his son. “I can’t imagine I’d do something like that. Ever. Anyway, do you think your mother would let me do that?  I just...Merlin...I was just so frightened. When we got the owl from St. Mungo’s...”

“I was fine. It was just a scratch on the head. You know those bleed like mad.”

“That’s not the point,” Harry snapped, then took a deep breath. It wouldn’t do them any good to get into a shouting match again. “Look,” he said quietly, “it would kill me if anything happened to one of you.”

“Dad. I know you never wanted me to be an Auror,” James said quietly. “I know you don’t think I’m good enough or serious enough about my training or whatever,  but Roz says...”

That had never occurred to Harry. Could it be that James thought Harry’s nerves were because of a lack of confidence in his abilities? He jumped in to set him straight.  “No...no that’s not it at all. James, Roz says...well, everyone says you’re fantastic at...well...everything.”

“But you wouldn’t know, would you?” sneered James. Harry never, ever came to watch James duel.

“No. I’m sorry. I can’t bear it,” Harry confessed quietly. “It’s too close. I guess I just...” He stopped, closed his eyes, opened them again. “By the time I was your age, I’d lost so many people. It was years before I could watch your mum play Quidditch with the Harpies. It’s not that I don’t think you’re any good. I just...the only way I can cope with it is not think about it too much, you know? Why do you think I told Roz I didn’t want you in my department?”

James looked away and mumbled, “I reckoned you thought I wasn’t good enough.”

Harry stared at his son, astonished. “How could you think that? I just...I’d be shit as a supervisor for you, even peripherally.” He gave a nervous little bark of a laugh. “You’d never get out of the office. Do you remember when you were little and your mum and Uncle Ron taught you to swim?”

“Yeah, you used to say you didn’t swim well enough to teach someone else.”

Looking at his hands, that he had been unconsciously twisting together, Harry folded them. “I couldn’t watch because I’d be so overprotective I’d be downright hazardous.” The younger man made a scoffing noise. “ I’m serious, James. If something happened to you...” He stopped, took a deep breath.  “But that’s no way to live your life, is it? So, I don’t watch you train and I make sure you’re assigned to another department for the same reason.”

“Oh.” James looked surprised.

Harry realized that this was the longest and deepest conversation they’d had since James had been fourteen. “Do you remember stealing my broom?” It seemed like they’d stopped talking to each other about anything other than Quidditch after that.

James nodded warily.

“I lost it because I was scared. I still have nightmares about it. I still wake up at night because I think there’s an owl at the window from St. Mungo’s.” His voice was suddenly quite thick. He found himself wiping his eyes under his glasses. “And then one comes the other night. And you’re all blood and all I could think was that...” His voice cracked. He closed his eyes, getting a hold of himself.

“Dad?” James said softly.

“Yeah?” Harry said, still not opening his eyes.

Strong arms wrapped themselves around his neck as James gave him an awkward hug. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He sat back down and poured them both some tea, probably a little embarrassed by his outburst.

“If you didn’t change  the wards,” James said, after a few minutes of sitting together, drinking tea, “Why did Kreacher tell me to use the Floo?”

Harry smiled a little. “Because he’s tired of us fighting, apparently. He knew I was here. I told him to go to bed. I guess he took a detour first.”

James smiled, too.

Light footsteps on the stairs announced Tim’s presence. He came down wearing his dressing gown and slippers. When he saw James, his whole face lit up. “James!” he said excitedly, “are you back to stay?”

Harry looked at James, hopefully.

“Yeah,” James said, as Tim slid in beside him.

There were soft noises from upstairs that indicated the rest of the house was awake, too. Getting up to make more breakfast, Harry smiled to himself. Soon Lily was at the table yawning and Al was asking Kreacher if he could make some coffee.  Ginny came over to give Harry a hug from behind as he cooked. For five minutes, Harry was content to bask in the blessed normality of an early morning with his family.