Permutations
OR
Harry Potter, Meet the Marvellous Marvels of the Marvel-Verse
By Rey

One Death Too Many
A Harry Potter and Captain America Crossover

Summary: Family was always the most precious treasure in Harry Potter's eyes, and one death in it was one death too many. So, as 1996 rolled in and his godfather was murdered before his eyes, and he heard neither rumours nor news from his friends, Harry Potter sought far and wide for any scraps and semblance of family that he might still have. And after he'd gotten them installed in this new life of his? Well, any omniscient-seeming leaders wishing to retrieve their weapons of war should be wary.

Warnings: moderate thoughts of death and suicide at first and towards the end, implied mild bashing of Dumbledore, the British wizarding folks and Fury, Lord! Harry Potter, leadership blues of a beaten-up teenager forced into a high station, different version of the Howling Commandos, Bucky-type confusing and semi-disturbing shots towards the end

Story Notes:
In Rey-verse, Charlus Potter and Dorea Black are James Potter's parents.
Also in Rey-Verse, especially for the purpose of this crossover, there are 9 members to the Howling Commandos and they've all survived to the point of this fic. Formally, they include Steve Rogers, but they exclude Peggy Carter, who was their somewhat limited liaison during their most active duty during WW II – on and off, depending on the severity of their missions, given the view on women in that era. The trading cards include her as well as Howard Stark and Colonel Phillips, though.
The info I got from Mr Google showed varied versions of canon of the Howling Commandoes… So, I chose to make one for myself, based on the amalgamation of those canons plus my own tweaks. I'm sorry if this offends any of you.

Special Shoutout: To Hikari100, for catching the misspelling of "Dorea" when this fic was first posted on AO3! (Turned out I'd been spelling that name wrong for years; so embarrassing. Damn screen reader; can't live without it, can't live with its homophonic pains either.)

1.

21st June 1996

The news from the telly downstairs was blaring about ordinary things. No strange sightings, no odd occurrences, no unexplained deaths and disappearances. The Daily Prophet was the same… with the added bonus of daily jabs and jibes at Harry Potter, the lunatic attention seeker, same as last year.

Still, those items were news. Harry's own friends didn't even have the courtesy of sending him as much news. Hermione had even refused to lend him her textbooks and notes for Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, claiming that she could teach him herself once they met.

He hadn't replied to that. After all, he needed the distraction now, not when they met, whenever it was. But now it left him with a conundrum: What should he do that would be both safe for him and also for others? Because, by anything and everything holy in the world, he wouldn't be the cause of yet another death, except maybe for Voldemort.

Or himself.

It would be so easy. He could just slip into the Department of Mysteries under his Invisibility Cloak, go to the Chamber of Death, step over the Veil…

He shook his head, and stared wanly at Hedwig, who was once more turning her back on him. "It's not my fault, you know, girl," he told her glumly, like dozens of times before. "You know Uncle Vernon would kill you if he knew you're out."

She still didn't react. She could very well be a statue.

Or dead.

`NO!` He shook his head more vigorously. `She still digests her food. She isn't dead.` He'd never thought a pile of fresh droppings could reassure him about life… but it did.

For now.

He clenched his hands, and gritted his teeth for good measure.

His bedroom – the smallest one in the house, and the shabbiest, especially this summer – didn't help his mood, at all. It felt stifling, constricting, confining.

He never forgot the bars Uncle Vernon had installed in the summer before his second year, that the man had installed again this year. He was still free to go in and out; but the sight of the seven sets of locks on his bedroom door, it never failed to remind him that this situation was a privilege. He could be locked in any time, once more, and let out just long enough to pen his empty reassurances to the Order.

Was it so surprising, then, that he felt a jaunt into the Veil would be some holiday?

His lips twisted up in the mockery of a smile that nobody could – would – see. He could imagine, very well, what Snape would say in the event of Harry Potter's death; or, for that matter, what the man would say if he found out about the dirty, untidy state of the Boy-Who-Lived's room.

To think, death was so easy to achieve… Somehow, he missed the peace the numbness near death had caused him at the end of his first and second years. Being potentially soulless like at the end of his third year and before his fifth year was the opposite, though, and so was death by the hand of Voldemort like what nearly happened at the end of his fourth year.

Huh. So many deaths. So many, so easy, so frequent happening at or around the so-called best school of magic in the world.

He smiled again, mirthless and listless.

Today was the sixth day that he was back with the Dursleys. How would he pass two more months with these thoughts circling round in his mind like birds of prey? He might just end things tomorrow to save himself more suffering.

If only it wouldn't make Voldemort positively gleeful…

He desperately needed an anchor to life, or a distraction, or a goal beyond just surviving, if he didn't want that high-pitched gleeful cackle to be the last thing that he knew before death.

But whom could he contact, now, who would respond to him as himself, instead of the Boy-Who-Lived or some such? Events in his first, second and fourth years had shown him that most of the students and teachers at Hogwarts had only been there for his supposed image.

He could try to contact Ron again, or even Ginny… But the last time he had contacted Ron, the other teen had confessed that he couldn't talk much, because his mum had forbidden him to do so. Harry supposed talking with Ginny would end up with the same result, if even more awkward, since he barely knew her.

Neville? Luna?

Possible… But how to contact them?

His eyes landed on Hedwig's tail, still turned on him, and he exhaled an explosive sigh. "Wish I could let you go, Hedwig. Maybe you can just go, next time Uncle Vernon let you out of there? Got to admit, I'd rather you be here. I'd feel lonely, otherwise… and how glad I am that you can't rat me and my fuzzy feelings to anyone!" He grinned, but the line of his lips soon fell flat again, as the addressed owl made no reaction. Huffing, he continued, "Need to send Nev and Luna a letter. I suppose I can wait till tomorrow, when Uncle Vernon let you go for that note to the Order… but really, Hed, it's already too much now. I'd rather not wait till tomorrow, if I really want to outlive Vold–… Well, riddle. I think I'll just call him that. It's his real name, after all, maybe safer too." He stroked her side through the cage bars.

But she didn't turn round, not even to nip harshly at his finger, for daring to touch her.

It had been like that, since the day before yesterday, after she'd been caged again when she's back from delivering the first note to the Order.

He couldn't fault her. Birds were never to be caged. He'd only ever meant Hedwig's cage as some kind of transport for her when needed, and a patch of home and comfort for her during the summers. The door was never supposed to be locked. – But she didn't understand that, maybe she couldn't, and it weighed all the heavier in his heart.

He waded against the dirty clothes and strewn magic books on the floor, pulled up his ricketty chair, and plopped himself into it, eliciting a loud protest from the worn wooden construct. He spent an inordinate amount of time just staring at the rolls of blank parchment piled haphazardly on the desk before him, his only effort to prepare for his summer assignments, that had never been followed up by the writing of the summer assignments themselves. Now the parchment would serve a different role; but now that he was about to begin, the thought of penning a letter to Neville and Luna felt as exhaustingly heavy as trying to work on the meaningless assignments for his sixth year.

What use would schooling be, when the magical community was on the brink of yet another war, when it could so easily spill into the non-magical world?

And now, what could Neville and Luna do for him, while they had their own lives to lead, while they were still counted as children, like his own self? Neville had taken Ancient Runes under his gran's insistance, so he could borrow the textbooks and notes for that subject from the other teen… Except, wouldn't it remind Neville that he'd failed yet again in his gran's eyes? When even the Boy-Who-Lived wanted to study the subject without being forced to do so?

And Luna… She must be away with her dad, studying something or another of those magical creatures that she was always talking about, exploring various parts of the world in their elusive-but-fun hunts…

`Worth considering,` a part of his mind whispered to him, as he took his specs off and laid his forehead on the semi-cool, rugged surface of the ricketty desk. In his mind's eye, images of various natural scenes from his primary-school books and the telly paraded like a litany of spellwork.

He didn't want to end up like Sirius, imprisoned in his own – hated – home after escaping from Azkaban, after tasting freedom – if on the run – for just a couple of months or three.

He didn't want death to be his only escape, his only way to achieve peace, like it had ended up being for sirius.

Dumbledore wouldn't approve… But Dumbledore had kept many, many things from him, with the prophecy being the latest and the most destructive.

And Dumbledore had been the one who'd placed him in this hell, the one who had kept him here despite his pleas, despite all reasons, despite all facts.

And Dumbledore did know what had been going on in this household. The old man had confessed so himself, in short, vague terms coached in nonchalant words that hurt all the more.

The least said about the Ministry of Magic, the better.

That went for the Order of the Phoenix, as well.

If he changed his look, changed his name, refrained from doing active magic, blended in with the Muggles…

Ah, he needed supplies; supplies and money and a disguise and a way to escape and a list of where he would like to go first, and maybe a fall-back place for when he's in a tight spot.

Dobby's presence here hadn't been detected, those four years ago…

"Dobby?"

A soft popping sound was the only announcement of his success. Just a split second after he had called…

He shifted round, to face the empty spot where he'd heard the popping sound. "Dobby? Did you… anticipate I was going to need you?"

"Yes, the Great Harry Potter, sir," came the answer from thin air, in a timid whisper that was nonetheless still high-pitched.

Blessed with a partner for conversation, Harry's smile this time was less bitter, more genuine. "You can show yourself, you know," he told the house-elf. "But please keep your voice down. I don't want my relatives or anybody else to know you're here." Then, frowning slightly, he added, "Can't you just call me Harry? I'm not great or anything, you know."

He launched himself at the small creature, who had just gone visible, before Dobby could more than utter a short cry, like that fateful day before his second year. "Ssh!" he hissed, with his hand glued to Dobby's lips. "What did I tell you about keeping your voice down?" Then, when the spindly little creature tried to wrench away, he exasperatedly added, "And no punishment, okay? It creates so much noise, and it serves nobody. I… Well, I don't like it, too."

He let go of Dobby, then, who looked down dejectedly with ears drooping.

"Yes, Master Harry, sir," the house-elf whispered in a tiny voice, as his tears plopped silently onto Harry's dirty laundry.

The teen could only sigh, to that. "Well, at least it's shorter, this time," he muttered, while making a place for him to sit on the floor facing the house-elf. "Now, Dobby, how are you? – No, don't. What did I tell you about attracting attention?"

The house-elf, who seemed about to bawl again, subsided with a loud sniffle. Wringing his bony hands together, he addressed the garment-strewn floor before him, "Dobby be fine enough, Master Harry. Much to do in the castle, though less than when students be there. Other house-elves still don't like Dobby much, because Dobby be paid and has clothes." He wrung his hands tighter, before confessing, "Dobby misses Master Harry, sir. He be so eager when Master Harry sir needed him. He waited for Master Harry's call and be here soon as he could."

Harry scratched at his hair, feeling awkward and touched. "Erm, Dobby? You could always just visit, you know. I think I told you that, no? As long as you're not seen by anyone but those that I consider safe, it's all right." He beamed at the house-elf, then reached out a hand to squeezed one tiny, bony shoulder. "Now, why don't you sit down? We can talk."

Dobby sniffled again, visibly restraining himself from crying out with probable exultation from being invited to sit on the floor, then unceremoniously plopped himself down where he'd stood. His ears flopped a little when he did that… Harry couldn't help giggle a little, and grinned when Dobby looked up at him.

Both the grin and the feeling of levity vanished instantly, though, when Dobby told him in response to his earlier remark, "P'fessor Dumbledore said not to visit Master Harry, sir, when he be with his Muggles. But Master Harry called for Dobby, and P'fessor Dumbledore don't never say about calling, so Dobby comes."

Dumbledore.

Dobby was his last ticket to sanity and life, and Dumbledore had nearly sent him beyond, with that inhibition.

Bitterness filled him, along with a growing sense of constriction, of helplessness. He balled his fists on his lap, but it didn't seem nearly enough.

What was the use of shunting him aside like this? Didn't he have a position in this war? People had always said so, and Riddle had affirmed it year by year with undeniable action. What was the reason for him to be cut out from everything and everyone? Dobby had done so before his second year, but it had only been in order to save him, as twisted as his attempts had turned out; and the house-elf had stopped when Harry had asked.

Dumbledore hadn't. Last year, it had all been the same.

What did Dumbledore want from him? Why did Dumbledore always do this?

Regardless, this just proved that Harry couldn't trust the old man, couldn't ask for anything from the old man, because Dumbledore did whatever he wanted to do, and listened to nobody.

But Dumbledore's eyes and eares were everywhere… The Daily Prophet had reported his return to his former positions two days ago…

Well, Harry could maybe cut out one of the pairs of eyes-and-ears from his employ…

"Dobby? Would you like to work for me?"

Damn Hermione's wishes for elfish wellfare. This was the only way Harry could get out of this place intact and unpursued. Besides, he could provide for Dobby and a few others with the money in his Gringotts account, so their wellfare would always be secured.

He was about to offer a pay raise, in fact, when Dobby burst into heavy but noiseless tears and—

"Whoa. Whoa. Buddy. I don't like people prostrating themselves at me," he murmured, as he caught Dobby before the elf could do just that to him. "Too much like Riddle, you know. – So, can I take it that you'd like to work for me? You can take a rest any time, you can have a Galleon a week, you can have good clothes all you want, you can take a holiday…"

`As long as you're my friend,` went unsaid. But even so, his shoulder was already bathed by Dobby's tears and snot.

And then, just so, warmth suffused him. It started from his chest and branched quickly to the farthest tips of his hairstrands, fingers and toes.

Dobby whispered something in his ear. Harry couldn't catch the words. And still, he felt an indelible affirmation deep in his being.

Dobby had received his offer, and not in the mundane sense of employer and employee.

"Are you sure, Dobby? You loved your freedom so much," he whispered, as the house-elf began to fidget in his arms.

The pair released each other, but Dobby didn't move far. With all seriousness, the little creature then looked right into the teen's eyes, for once acting truly like they were equals, but even more vulnerable for that. "Master Harry going to take back the offers?" he asked, his voice tiny and wavering.

`Offers,` Harry mused, baffled and stunned and strangely elated. `Rest, pay, clothes, holiday…` "No, of course not. You could even ask Winky to join us, if she wants, if she hasn't gotten a family to be with, and I'll offer her the same. You deserve freedom, same like humans. We're all people."

Dobby popped out right away. But the radiant look he threw the teen before he vanished was answer enough.

2.

22nd June 1996

Yesterday had been quite an experience, Harry reflected, as he dutifully penned his regular note to the Order under Uncle Vernon's close scrutiny.

He couldn't help hugging his owl close before she took off through the open kitchen window, afterwards, before Uncle Vernon shooed him back to his room.

Yesterday, he'd told her not to return here, regardless of if he didn't manage to escape. – Well, actually, especially if he didn't manage to escape.

Yesterday, he'd finalise his sort-of plan, too, to be enacted at noon today, when people were too busy with lunch, snoozing, or other activities. Nightly escapades would be scrutinised, wherever he went, so a lunch rush would do. Besides, getting things done in the afternoon would give him a half day of time to do it all.

Because yesterday, rather inadvertently, he'd gained a bunch of family members.

Dobby had brought Winky, true, and she had readily sworn herself to him – no, to his family, this time, unlike what Dobby had done. He'd tasked them with gathering all that belonged to him or his family, then; because he couldn't – he wouldn't – return to this place, ever again, nor would he return to Grimauld Place if he could help it, but he did need to know about himself, about his past, about the past of his paternal and maternal families.

And they had, with Kreacher's reluctant help, which was in turn with Harry's reluctant blessing, still remembering that vile house-elf's betrayal all too vividly. But they didn't disappoint, not even Kreacher.

That evening, Harry hadn't only gained mountains of letters and gifts dating from the first time he'd supposedly defeated Voldemort, but he'd also gained various places to escape to, via boxs of permanent Porkeys, and there were people there, even in the ones owned by the Blacks, which were his according to Kreacher… who had – quite reluctantly and grudgingly – told him that Sirius had wanted him to inherit everything that the man had owned.

He had people.

He knew. He'd checked. – They'd checked, because he'd gone together with Dobby, Winky and Kreacher to those places, and he'd used the chance to let Hedwig fly about too.

Various residences, lands and islands, and there were people there, who'd remained faithful to his grandfather Charlus Potter despite the fact that the old man had been dead since before Harry had been born. – House-elves, humans, a few Veelas, two large packs of werewolves…

And Arcturus Black had held pretty similar loyalty from the people – house-elves and humans – keeping up the various Black properties, whose number rivalled decently with those of the Potters.

Today, he must go to Gringotts to arrange for everything that was necessary, that he'd blearily taken note of yesterday evening, just so that these people wouldn't suffer any longer, now and forever.

Just so that he could regain their trust, which had nearly eroded into nothing because of his absence.

They hadn't asked for luxuries. They hadn't asked to be let go. But they had indeed asked that he keep their livelihoods intact, while ensuring that they and their families were reasonably comfortable. And with how he hadn't even known that he'd inherited anything from Sirius, he couldn't trust that certain somebodies wouldn't get high-handed and one-sidedly sell those properties, therefore bulldozing over the protection these people had been enjoying.

It was a small cost, for him, even if now he was still feeling the odd light-headed but throbbing headache which had persisted since yesterday afternoon, after he'd sworn in Winky, then reaffirmed Kreacher's allegiance. He'd get this done, first of all, even if it'd mean he couldn't embark on his journey today… which, given how exhausted he's still feeling, he doubted he could, anyway.

He had people.

He had family.

Somehow, he wasn't surprise that, upon reentering his neatened-up room, Dobby was there, carrying a pair of house-elf babies under each spindly arm…

"Ah? Where did you find'em?" he slurred out, too groggy to feel anything, let alone to have an interest in elven babies.

But once he'd gulped down the Pepper-Up potion Dobby immediately floated to him…

"Whoa." He felt so, so, so dizzy; dizzy, but clear-headed again. And just so, his attention zoomed towards the two bundles of dirty rags still in Dobby's arms, from his new position – sprawled haphazardly on the floor. "Never knew there're elf babies," he blurted out. "Why do we never see'em? Where do elves live, anyway, in the castle? Did you find these ones in the castle? Can I hold'em? Why are they in rags?"

Come to think of it again… maybe Pepper-Up wasn't the brightest solution ever, when he suspected he'd been too drunk with convoluting magic, with all the magical binding to the house-elves and the loyalty oaths to the rest; and the Portkeys, oh the endless Portkeys!

He shook his head, and groaned.

Having one's mind clear but one's head throbbing was so, so weird, and unpleasant.

He tried again, after a few deep breaths. `One question at a time,` he reminded himself. Being at the end of a barrage wasn't pleasant, after all; he knew that well, from being Hermione's tagalong for so long.

"So, where did you find the babies?"

"In one of the estates given by non-families, Master Harry, sir. Dobby went to goblin-bank and ask for what Master Harry own. Here be the ledgers, sir. Self-updating. Dobby pays two Galleons for each, from Dobby's savings."

The said pile of tomes materialised in Harry's lap, just so, and the teen wouldn't ever confess of having squeaked in shock on their sudden presence and weight and portentousness.

Because, being given things by non-families would mean that he would have more family to care for, more places to saveguard, more things to do…

This, after he'd had nothing and nobody since he'd been a year old.

But if he didn't act now, didn't finish things now…

The house-elf babies looked so eerily silent and still, looking at him with each twin pools of clear blue eyes as bright as the sky in cloudless midsummer afternoon. Wrapped in rags that dwarfed them by far, they looked so pitiful and scarily fragile. The confusion, fear and need so blatant in their half-unfocused gazes made him shiver.

They seemed not so far away from death.

And if he didn't act now, there might be more house-elves in the same predicament, or maybe even others, that he left to die by sheer ignorance.

`All right, then. No escape today.`

3.

23rd June 1996

Every loose thing had been packed up. The smallest bedroom at Privet Drive Number Four had even been cleaned up, better than the years before it'd been the room of a living being. Harry could just go, far away from here, and never looked back.

But it somehow felt wrong.

What he wanted to do, though, it didn't seem like a tactical move. After all, the fewer people knew that he was no longer in residence, the better it was for his departure not to be noticed until it was far too late.

Well, but then again, his lack of tactical moves had seen him lose all his chess games against Ron. This wasn't all that different… minus the living part, and he could always improvise on the fly.

He padded down the stairs, followed invisibly by Dobby.

The Dursleys were having breakfast before their separate activities for the day, as he'd expected. He stood at the kitchen door, looking closely at them one by one.

Dudley looked up from his bacon and eggs, frowning at his cousin, but none of his parents did. As it had been the habit of the family since the Howler to aunt Petunia last year, Harry was invisible to them, though Dudley sometimes acknowledged his presence.

So, avoiding any bad last impression, the unwanted house-guest addressed just Dudley, quietly, "I'll be gone pretty soon, Dudley. It's your choice, if I'm to be gone from your lives altogether." Miserable days of Harry Hunting stacked themselves together before his mind's eye, but he tamped them down with prejudice. "Be safe. Leave this place. I don't want to see any of you hurt." Because, after all was said and done, they were still his family. "Hedwig would know, if you want to reach me. Just tie your letter on her foot. She'll be able to find me."

And then, while Dudley was still visibly processing his parting words, he reached a hand behind him, Dobby reached out, and pop they blinked out of the house.

The subsequent business at Gringotts was gruelling beyond belief and lasted to deep at night, but something in Harry felt lighter.

Well, his figurative money-purse, too… After all, he'd asked Dobby to buy him all sorts of books related to mind arts and healing, after he'd reimbursed the loyal house-elf for the self-updating ledgers. He would never fail again just because he couldn't keep Riddle out of his mind; besides, knowledge about healing was always good for his injury-prone self.

4.

24th June 1996

Harry gained a new, useful fascination.

He was bedridden by necessity today; he'd been hopping all round the globe and binding people to him and expending so much magic since three days ago, after all. But, even tied to his comfy bed in his comfy Washington DC townhouse by his own exhaustion and lethargy like this, he had something to attract his attention.

And, most importantly, someone to enjoy his new fascination with.

"…Technomancy began to be popular right alongside the advent of mundane technology in the United States. – Ha, yes, I know that; we learnt 'bout this at Salem in our first year. – umm, okay, where am I… At first, technomancy was done by simply enchanting mundane items or their components with magic as substitute for power, or by making magical items that mimic their mundane counterparts. However, as mundane technology grew in leaps and bounds, becoming more delicate and complicated, these options were no longer possible. Technomancers began to… – Huff. Ah, sir, Mister Harry, can't we just get on to the fun parts, please? This is soooo boring."

Mitchell Grady, eight years old, kicked his short legs back and forth, as he was seated on the edge of the bedside armchair that dwarfed his tiny figure. His eyes were still glued on the slim volume that he'd been reading out to Harry, An Introduction to Technomancy, but everything else down to his hunched posture said that he was moments away from just stopping and begging the young employer of his parents to let him choose a funner book to read.

Yet another book to read, that was; the fifth, thus far, in Harry's reckoning.

He grinned at the boy. "How 'bout you tell me? Would it be funner for you?" he teased. "If you can explain it well, we could go for an ice cream when I'm better."

It didn't take even seconds for Mitchell to take up his offer. Before a minute passed, both boys were already seated on Harry's bed, with Harry leaning and being surrounded by a mountain of fluffy pillows, and Mitchell elaborated about technomancy in detail with much gusto.

Magical items that could blend in perfectly with mundane ones. Magical tools that did not register as active magic when in use. Magical gifts that mundane people in the know could appreciate well. Magical breakthroughs that mundane items were yet to catch up with. Magical aids that could make learning so much faster, so much easier, so much funner – according to Mitchell's word. A perfect blend between mundane science and magic and a large touch of imagination plus creativity.

Harry was very much in love, and not in the romantic sense of the word.

It didn't help that, right now, with his limbs feeling so weak and useless, what he could do was to conjure up images of various items and the uses that he could get from them, and new items that he might be able to make for the specific uses that began to pop up in his mind, and what the effects might be if he used potions in tandem with runes and alchemy and mundane chemicals to coat a technomanced item…

"Dobby?"

"Yes, Master Harry, sir?" The house-elf, now clad in a miniature butler suit, popped into the spot beside the bed.

"Buy all available technomanced items, please. If Mitch's father isn't tinkering in the garage or doing something else, ask him to accompany you. Mitch here said he graduated from Salem, so he must know much about Technomancy."

Harry was usually quite frugal with money and hesitant with ordering people about, having nothing to do with either since he'd passed one and a half years old; he was even still garbed in his old clothes – hand-me-downs from Dudley – despite Mrs Grady's periodical coaxing for him to buy a new, more fitting wardrobe. But today, his excitement had breached the boundary… And, well, three intense, intensive days of having no choice but to order people for expedience's sake had left some mark. Besides, he couldn't very well stroll down the local wizarding corner for some splurging, right? He wasn't really hiding, here; it's too pleasant a life for a wizard on the run, in his opinion; but he supposed he had better seriously consider hiding if he wanted not to be tracked down.

And now… "Got good handwriting, Mitch? – Ah, in that case, please fetch yourself a blank book and let's think up some items to make."

He might've just cemented the boy's loyalty to him, judging from the sunshiny smile Mitchell was giving him… which he reciprocated, of course.

5.

1st July 1996

Caught up in playing, tinkering and making new tools and appliances using technomancy, Harry had let his guard down for the first time since the beginning of his summer this year. Wrapped in the care the trio of his Washington DC house's caretakers had been showering him with, his grief for Sirius' passing had begun to dulled into gentler sorrow, as well. And with how eerily alike Mitchell's look was to Cedric's… Well, treating the boy like the little version of cedric wasn't fair for both of them, nor was it healthy for him, or so he suspected, but it did work – somewhat – in dulling the edges of his guilt for Cedric's nonsensical death.

But just now, he realised that he wasn't living in a bubble, that he had actually fled his birthland, that he was technically still in the run.

Albus Dumbledore was standing on the middle of his living-room, with wand outstretched, facing off against Mitchell's petite firecracker mum.

"Expelliarmus," was the first word that Harry uttered, followed by, "Why are you here, Professor Dumbledore? You are upsetting Missus Grady," while his free hand easily caught the wand he'd just summoned.

"Harry." The old man managed to inject a lot of disappointment and plea into that one word. Efficient. But this was summer, and by now Harry had realised, mostly by observing how the Grady family had been functioning, that no headmaster was supposed to have so much say in a student's life while outside of school.

"How did you track me here, Headmaster? Is there some school matter that I must see about? But why didn't you send me a letter, then? This is private property, sir." He fought to keep his tone nutral, to keep his composure nonchalant. And still, his heart beat extra fast in his chest, pounding hard against his rib-cage. Both wands – his own and Dumbledore's that he'd just captured – rose to fend off possible attacks, in fact, when their eyes met, emerald green against electric blue.

Not a moment too soon, it turned out, as he immediately felt the touch of another's mind in his head. Unmistakable, after a year of mental torture with Snape, after the brief possession by Riddle.

"Protego!"

And just like Snape months ago, Dumbledore was slammed across the room by his shimmering shield.

This time, though, he added a Petrificus Totalus and an Incarsarus for good measure, before hurriedly levitating the intruder out of his home, the home he'd used to feel so safe in. A quick flick through the Wardbook and a hasty amendment to the permission list ensued.

Charlus Potter might have harboured some feeling of fondness or camaraderie towards Albus Dumbledore. Harry Potter had used to feel much respect and awe towards the old man, for that matter. But it had all been in the past.

And then, back in the living-room, surrounded by the Gradies and his five constant house-elves, he broke down, feeling so vulnerable and dirty.

Dumbledore had ripped away the feeling of safety and intimacy he'd begun to develop in this house, with this little family that were much more than just his employees, with Dobby and Winky and the twin babies Skip and Scoop and even with Kreacher that were more than just his house-elves. He'd begun to understand the "sanctity of home" concept he'd found in one of the etiquette books in the Black library, only when it had been violated so casually by one of the top leaders of the magical world.

No, the top leader, maybe, given all the titles and positions that wrinkled codger had been holding since long before the inauspicious-despite-the-prophecy birth of one Harry Potter. School leader, legislative leader, world executive leader, most possibly world judicative leader at that, too.

Harry had forgotten some of his primary-school lessons, but not all. He'd learnt about the positions people held in society, and the various systems of government that were there in the world.

Legislative, judicative, executive powers in one person. – Dumbledore was a king. A king from old times, with absolute power and thorough purview on the lives of his subjects.

Now, how to fight against such entity? How to evade any encounter while defending his home and people, for that matter? Because yes, he knew, fighting would just make things worse, would just give the King reason and motivation to pursue him, to capture him, to do whatever to him, and take both his home and his people as spoils of war or punishment. Fighting would be just the last resort, the last defence; it should be so.

Evade… Defend…

He needed Wards.

He needed shields.

He needed detection spells.

He needed excellent, thorough protection.

He needed escape hatches and tunnels.

He needed safehouses.

Above all, he needed information.

His Technomancy-for-fun books were set aside, once he'd recovered a little from the intrusion and following shake-up. The same happened to his technomanced items, bought and made.

He was a lord to his people. He had to be the Lord for them, however reluctant he was, however unfair it all felt, with him still so young and yet to taste what the world could give.

The last week had been a holiday, on par with the weeks surrounding the Quidditch World Cup match before his fourth year. It had ended just as disastrously, just like this one; but maybe, by now, Harry ought to have known that things were often too good to be true, to last, to stay. Hadn't the Dursleys and Hogwarts taught him that lesson all these years?

And still, a part of him raged against this injustice, this robbed chance to find his own path, to find himself, not to be just the wizarding world's poster boy for goodness or their one-man frontline fighter to combat Riddle.

Well, it could rage all it wanted, he knew. There was nothing he could do to tame it, to appease it. And now, he got things to do.

6.

2nd July 1996

"Mister Harry? Sir?"

"Hmm?"

"Mom said you should sleep. Those books aren't going anywhere."

"Every second counts, Mitch. I'm sorry I can't make cool items with you again. Not for now, at least."

"No no, Mister Harry, it's quite all right. Was just telling you what Mom said. But really, Mister Harry, writing up runes and all when you're half asleep can make you make lots of mistakes, y'know. Happened to me, too. Was upset for days for that, 'cause I got lowest grade at school. N'Mom just said, 'Told you so'…"

Snorting, Harry looked up from the thick, boring tome he was perusing; or rather, one that he was trying to peruse, since he'd been staring at the same paragraph without understanding what he was seeing for some time, now. His eyes burnt with exhaustion and swam with lethargy, his brain likewise, but he couldn't just stop. People like Mitchell and his parents depended so much on him. He couldn't let what had happened… hours ago, right?… happen again – ever again – to any of his people, to any of his lands, to his home.

"I must try, at least, Mitch. Dumbledore could've done worse to me and to you. He could've gone to the other places and done Merlin-knows-what, too. At least he didn't…" The old man hadn't, he knew that, because he'd spent the hours after the intrusion checking all the properties under his name and warning the people living in them to be wary and careful of such unauthorised entrance, especially from Dumbledore.

The boy frowned. "What did he do to you? You were mad before you threw that cool shield at him."

Harry snorted again, but not out of amusement this time. "You know Legilimency, Mitch?"

"No," came the puzzled, interested answer.

Harry sighed, and looked right into the boy's bright, earnest grey eyes. "People can read and take your thoughts," he told his wide-eyed audience, quietly, with all seriousness. "People who can do it usually get into your mind by looking into your eyes."

"Oh," was the answer, then, "Y'lookin' at my mind now, Mister Harry?"

A bitter smile found its way on his lips. "No," he said, "And I can't. I tried to learn how to block people away from doing that, though. It's called Occlumency."

"Can ya teach me, Mister Harry?" Mitchell blurted out; fast, excited, eager.

Harry's head throbbed in memory of his own 'lessons' with Snape. He winced and shook his head, looking away from the boy's disappointed gaze. "No," he said lowly, his voice rough, "I can't."

He was saved from more pestering when Mitchell's mother came in, with two mugs of what smelled like hot cocoa in hand. "Hello, Harry," she greeted, then, "Scoot over, Mitch. Do you want a bedtime story or not?"

And with a delighted whoop, Harry was yanked towards the bed, away from his cluttered desk.

For a scrawny little boy, Mitchell was surprisingly strong. Although, accidental magic could also be playing into the mix, since it didn't take much time or effort at all, it seemed, for both boys to be tucked into the same bed, without anything done by Harry to that effect, leaving Mrs Grady blinking at the door.

"Mitch," she drawled admonishingly, "that's Mister Harry's bed! I meant in your own bed, silly boy, not in Mister Harry's. I'll come to your room after this."

It tickled Harry, somehow, and before he knew it, he was caught in a gale of laughter.

"Sorry, Missus Grady," he sputtered, when he caught sight of the woman's half-offended, half-amused look. "Guess s'not funny. Just… Just…" He snorted, then broke into snickers.

Shaking his head, he tucked a grinning Mitchell under one arm and shrugged a shoulder, grinning himself. "Guess it's Mitch's reward for dragging me to bed, eh? I don't mind if he slept with me tonight, if you don't either, Ma'am."

Judging from the smile Mrs Grady was giving him, alongside one of the mugs of hot cocoa, he was thoroughly forgiven, and Mitchell could stay. So, with an unbelievably lighter heart and his hot cocoa in hand, he wiggled a little bit to find a comfier spot among the pillows that he got to share with his little friend tonight, and tucked the blanket snugger round himself and the said bedfellow.

"Story, Mom," the said bedfellow piped up, right after both boys had taken their first sips of the delicious concoction. "Captain America!" And, on his mother's raised eyebrows, he added hastily, "Please…"

Harry looked up from pondering the surface of his hot cocoa. "Captain America?" he repeated, baffled but interested.

"He's a hero from the Second World War!" Mitchell answered, before his mother could say anything. "He's huge and strong and cool and he went to war against bad guys with his friends. Oh c'moooon, tell us Mom!"

Harry had to steady the boy's mug, before the latter's hot cocoa could spill, with how energetically Mitchell was jiggling his hand. "Careful, Mitch," he smiled. "I'd rather not sleep under a blanket that's been spilt on by hot chocolate."

"Oopsie," was the response, alongside a sheepish grin. "Sorry, Mister Harry! – Come on, Mooom."

"Finish your chocolate first," was the stipulation, after Mrs Grady had been barraged by twin interested gazes for several moments. "I'll tell you a little bit, after that. – No, Mitch, you know, stories like that aren't good for bedtime. You got nightmares after I told you everything before bed. Don't you remember that?"

And so they did, and she fulfilled her promise… And before he knew it, Harry was lulled into the previously elusive dreamland, carried on the tide of a story that spoke of a mother's love and dedication, of a tight friendship between brothers by choice, of familial support even between those not tied by blood, of perseverance, of doing what was right and defending the weaker despite everything, of standing by one's opinion but unafraid to admit to mistakes…

A light kiss on his temple sent him tipping beyond, and he welcomed it thoroughly.

7.

3rd July 1996

"Here, Mister Harry. It's what Mom talked about last night. See? This is Captain America, and here's his best friend, Bucky."

Mitchell had gone briefly out of Harry's bedroom this morning, only to reappear soon bearing… these cards.

Harry, who'd stationed himself on his desk once more, now truly ready to tackle the books about warding, automatically looked down at the deck of cards thrust into his line of vision. "Trading cards?" he guessed dubiously. "The Howling Commandos?" he read. He shuffled through the glossy, vividly coloured pieces; something that, to his knowledge, hadn't been achieved in non-magical world in the forties, not especially for just trading cards. "It's… – Whoa! The pictures move! But you said this is Captain America… Wasn't he a Muggle?"

"Muggle?" Mitchell repeated, baffled, as he wormed his way under Harry's arm to share a look at the cards. "Y'mean nomag, Mister Harry?"

"Nomag?" It was Harry's turn to be puzzled. "Well, what I meant is non-magical people, anyway. They're called Muggles,, where I am – no, where I was."

"Oh," was the distracted, noncommittal response. The boy then gave a light poke to the picture of an auburn-haired woman, who glared peevishly back at him, inciting a bout of uncontrollable giggles in his part.

"Margaret 'Peggy' Carter," Harry read thoughtfully. "Who's she?"

"Howling Commando," Mitchell returned unhelpfully, then added, "But some of my nomag friends said she's Captain America's girl, or something like that." He frowned, confused. "What do they mean, Mister Harry? She's too old to be the Captain's girl! Mom's waaaay older than I am, point."

Harry just let out a chuckle to that, held Mitchell closer to his side, and flipped to the card labelled "Steven 'Steve' Rogers – Captain America" for closer scrutiny.

"Are they all dead?" he mused, staring right into the curious blue eyes of the Captain. "I thought they're just characters in a story. T'is hard, Collin – my friend – said, when trying to paint something that hasn't been alive in the first place, so these people must've been alive at some point."

Mitchell shook his head, his hair rustling against Harry's shoulder as his head rocked from side to side. "Nope," he chirped. "Most of'em are very-very-very-very old, though."

"Well, Cap's dead, n'Bucky too, sad, but the others aren't," he amended after a few seconds of thought. "Mom left that part utta the story 'cause I cried and had nightmares when she told me that for bedtime a looong time ago. She never agrees to read me that part even now, silly Mom," he huffed.

Then, abruptly, he perked up again. "Y'know, Mister Harry, your granpa's in this collection! Your granma, too," he chirped, speaking a mile a minute in his eagerness. "Sad I can't show my nomag friends this set, 'cause there'll be too many questions, Dad said, but I can show you this. Your gramps left few sets here, said they could be funny, n'could be used to tease v'ryone." He snatched the cards right out of Harry's loose hold, flipped through them with practised ease and swiftness, then showed the older boy two of the cards. "See? Charlus 'Cha-Cha' Potter, n'this one's Dorea 'Oli' Black. See, Mister Harry? Y'look like Cha-Cha Potter, 'specially if y'r eyes're milk-chocolatish! N'funny, too, no? Cha-Cha…" He trailed off into relished giggles, which made Harry grin despite his contrary state of mind.

Contrary, because this was the first time he beheld his own paternal grandparents, and he didn't know how to find photos of his maternal set. He'd been too busy to search for photos, when he'd been property-hopping this fortnight, and the bustle itself had also prevented him from searching through the various odds and ends his trio of house-elves had dug out for him.

Ironic, bitterly so, that he had to find the history of his supposedly illustrious ancestors from the mouth of a little child, who was basically his employee, and from a pack of trading cards, as well.

Charlus Potter, despite his ridiculous nickname and bird-nest black hair, was a dignified, lordly man, even garbed in flowy dark-blue Muggle attire that somewhat resembled robes like in the picture. His light-hazel eyes shone with wariness, seeming to pierce into the beholder's soul. His tiny smile was genuine, though, Harry could see, and the teen couldn't help smiling back at the printed ghost. "Hello, Grandfather," he mouthed, sighing.

Dorea Black, meanwhile, looked very much like a particularly tall sprite, grinning out of her picture much like Sirius had used to do, which sent a double pang of nostalgia and loss into Harry's heart. Her stormy-grey eyes, framed by wavy, lustrous black hair that hung lazily down her face, like Sirius' in his pre-Azkaban photos, were lively and even somewhat mischievous, but also sharp and intelligent. She was garbed similarly to Charlus, except in dark red, but there was also a necklace of… was it braided hair? From various sources, too, judging from the different colouring of each lock… that hung tight round her neck, above the line of the collar.

"Hello, Grandmother," Harry mouthed, this time, as Mitchell wormed and wiggled his way into the teen's lap, still clutching the remaining cards.

The smile was now larger, deeper, more amused than sad, partly helped by how cheerful and playful Dorea was looking in the picture. – James Potter must have gotten his mischievousness from his mother, while Harry himself was more akin to Charlus.

It was… nice, very nice, to know.

"Thanks for showing me these, Mitch," the teen murmured, ruffling the younger one's hair with two fingers. "Do you know why they showed up with the Commandos? The others were Muggles, right? I thought the wizard-folks and the Muggles didn't mingle this tightly, even during the war."

"Nah," came the answer, in a surprisingly thoughtful manner, after a lengthy pause at that. "Dunno. Nobody ever said. Can't ask the nomags too, 'cause they don't know, right?" He shrugged, then continued in a sadder tone, "Never knew my own granpa and granma. They died with Mister Charlus and Miss Dorea long time ago, in England. But they must've known. Mom's their kid. She said Mister Charlus bought this house and got my folks to care for it for himself and Miss Dorea and the other Commandos. But till now I haven't seen any of'em. Mom's still in contact with'em, though. Wanna ask Mom?"

To see about contacting the Howling Commandos, who had shared a part of their lives with Charlus Potter and Dorea Black? – Harry's lips twitched up an amused smile, despite the melancholy. This time, he would be the one who dragged Little Mitch to do what he wanted.

8.

4th July 1996

05:20 AM

It was an idiotic decision, maybe; on par with going down the trapdoor to face a scarily competent thief when one was a tiny eleven-year-old armed with first-year spells; on par with going down the drain to face a sixty-feet-long snake who could kill with its gaze. But again, like in those instances, Harry felt that his action was utterly necessary; for his sense of familial duty and his desire to connect with his long-deceased family members, perhaps, if not for his life and those of others. Charlus and Dorea had periodically searched for the bodies of Steven Rogers and James Barnes before their deaths, and he was just continuing their efforts.

Twistedly, it felt freeing, too, to feel a little selfish for once, to do things for himself instead of for himself and others. After all, all thinkable what-if and just-in-case measures had been taken prior to the execution of this idiotic decision, so he needn't worry.

Not that he didn't worry, right now, and cursing that idiotic decision with all the spare energy that he could muster.

The Arctic was freezing.

Stupidly, he'd thought that layers of warming wards and spells alongside warm insulated clothes could suffice. Stupidly, he hadn't listened to Margaret "Peggy" Carter – who'd insisted he call her "Aunt Peggy" – when she'd told him not to underestimate the chill of earth's polar ends. And even more stupidly, he hadn't brought enough tools and warm sustenance for survival, neither had he calculated the spread of land and water and ice-plates he'd need to cover.

This way, it was more likely that he'd be joining Steven Rogers in the latter's ice-watery tomb, rather than Steven Rogers joining him in the warmth of life. And he hadn't tried to search for James Barnes, at that…

"Point Me, Steven Rogers body," he mumbled, when he'd managed to extricate himself from the latest patch of thin ice he'd fallen into.

However, like the countless times before, his holly-and-phoenix-feather wand, laid on his gloved, slightly shaky palm, refused to point anywhere.

Well, he'd only been searching for an hour, hadn't he? There's still much time before he'd have to call this off for the day, since daylight in Arctic summers spanned nearly twenty-four hours. He could be back tomorrow or the day after tomorrow with an improved plan. He still had to find better wards and enchantments and spells and potions to keep himself and his people and his land safe, too, he shouldn't forget that.

It was a cold comfort, pun intended.

So, he trudged on, thankful that his ice-gear had been equipped with strong, permanent drying and warming rune arrays.

He was less thankful that he'd forgotten to add an anti-slip array to his ice-boots in addition to those two.

He was so tired of slipping and sliding like a buffoon like this.

He was so tired of…

…Falling into yet another icy trap, again.

`Oh, Merlin!`

07:30 AM

Harry barely managed to extricate himself from his latest would-be ice-watery tomb; the seventh time, this time round, and there'd been a killer whale involved. He refused to be animal food!

His magical reserves felt fairly low, too, now, right alongside his physical stamina, and his cash of food and – drinkable – Water. He couldn't go on for much longer, and he had only gone on for three hours, thus far. Pathetic.

Huffing, he – at long last – switched his trusty wand with the one he'd conviscated from the intruder to his Washington DC home, whom he refused to name. "Point Me, Steve," he croaked out, with the wand barely held up flat on his trembling hand, now speaking just the most necessary parts of the spell.

But miraculously, the wand moved, and not because his hand was shuddering so much.

It pointed to his left. And when he asked the wand for true north, it only shifted a little.

`Huh. North. Nobody ever searched that place yet, right? What did Aunt Peggy say…? Erhh, I can't even remember that. This is not good.`

Still, despite his trepedation about the on-coming lethargy, he forged on. In his own estimation, he still had half an hour – or maybe one – in this not-so-thought-out expedition, before he'd have to quit for the day – or maybe just the morning. Fearing yet another sudden fall into the unforgiving, man-eating-monster-invested sea below, he diligently searched for – and evaded – thin patches of ice using his original wand in his right hand, while his left kept tabs on his direction.

He was getting proficient in silent spell-casting, in this way, by sheer circumstance.

He no longer had the energy to even mumble out the two spells.

The gusts of freezing wind occasionally whistled in his ears, past the three layers of garments and enchantments that kept his head protected. His sliding-and-slipping heavy steps rustled and crunched beneath him. Those sounds were all that he had from outside; they kept his loud breathing and louder – if somehow slower – heartbeats company. His sight was now unreliable; not that it had been, before, in this flat, icy wasteland.

He felt confined. He felt small. But he felt free, somehow.

He felt terribly cold, though, colder even than before. It wasn't good… right?

07:42 AM

For the longest moment, Harry could only blink dumbly, repeatedly.

Rough icy surface stung his face through all the layers of his head protection.

He could see nothing but ice crystals in front of his prescription goggles.

He felt the sky wide open on his back.

The tip of his nose throbbed, as if from collision with a wall. His face hurt, too, from where the goggles dug into flesh.

He could smell nothing. But then again, he hadn't been able to smell anything since hours ago, nor was there anything to smell in this forsaken plane of abandoned ice.

`Huh.`

He blinked again, slower than before.

`Uh?`

A gust of wind blew past, skimming his back a little harshly.

Vertically.

`Huh? How…?`

He shifted his hand, and felt slippery ice patches under them. He could even hear the outmost layer of leather gloving his hands squeak on those patches.

He was… on the ground? But why? What had happened? This wasn't good… right?

He couldn't think.

He felt clammy, and even colder than before. In short, he felt highly uncomfortable.

He hated this discomfort.

It was one thing, to feel such discomfort when surrounded by people, however far away they were in relation to his position. It was a different matter entirely, somehow, now he found out, to feel this close to torturous death when nobody was known to be around. What had gone on in the Chamber of Secrets at the end of his second year had been… different; Riddle had been there, Ginny too, so he hadn't been alone, however twisted that reasoning sounded like even to himself.

No, he wasn't about to give up here, not now either. He must've been close; close enough for Dumbledore's wand – no, now it's his – to shift…

…And yank down?…

Had it been the reason why he had toppled over? Or had someone been round here, just long enough to slam him onto the ice, and now vanished again into the whistling wind?

Well, regardless, he couldn't just stay here for even a minute longer. He'd need to get home, at least, and recuperate before his next try. And for the Portkey to work without getting him more hurt, he must be able to keep his body more or less vertical, from what he'd managed to read in that not-so-boring book about Portkey-making two days ago.

08:00 AM

Harry had never encountered this version of how a Point Me spell could show the seeker his prize. His wand had stayed horizontal when it had pointed him to the Portkeyed Triwizard Cup at the end of his fourth year, after all, as Hermione's book had described.

Now it stood perpendicular to the ground on his palm, unsupported, with its business end digging into the leather.

But then again, Aunt Peggy had indeed said that Steven Rogers had intended to crash that plane into the water, no? Talk about literal suicide runs…

His nearly frozen lips twitched up a wan smile as, after quaffing a double dose of Pepper-Up potion, he began to methodically cut into the patch of ice before him, as carefully as he could, so as not to plunge himself into the water below, and literally join Steven Rogers in the latter's ice-watery death.

He wondered if, after losing Ron or Hermione, he would have done the same.

He wasn't – couldn't be – surprised that he somehow doubted he would have, by now.

Neither Ron nor Hermione had sent him a letter, although he had never modified the mail wards in any of his properties, and he had even set up a mailing box at Diagon Alley's post office for his subscription to the Daily Prophet and just such letters from across the pond, which would then be delivered at the end of each day to a specialised box that he always brought everywhere.

He just felt numb, and darkly amused at his own stupid hope.

Of course, he would be alone. He'd been left alone all his life, after all. It's not like it would – or could – change so quickly, or at all, after a lifetime of conditioning.

But Steven Rogers had never been alone, even in his last moments. He would make sure the man wouldn't be alone, now, even in death. He would find James Barnes and lay them side by side in one proper grave, together forever.

09:40 AM

A few books had theorised that working spells through water was far harder than through open air or even stone, especially if it was seawater. And in places like this, seawater was the norm, instead of the exception.

Still, Harry persevered. He'd gulped down two more double doses of Pepper-Up; maybe more than what Madame Pomfrey would ever advise, but then again she would've freaked out knowing what he'd been doing.

The squarish hole he'd been making had now reached the size of his old bedroom at Privet Drive Number Four. He was now aloft on his broom, swaying from side to side in his mighty effort to sit up straight and keep his balance, while his original wand was directing the ball of light he'd managed to project into the water, and his 'acquired' wand, now grasped tightly in his free hand, pointed at the exact spot where Steven Rogers was.

It turned out, despite all the work he had done to make this bloody hole in the ice, his pinpointing spell had been distorted by the bloody seawater, after all.

Because his projected Lumos, which had several times nearly been swallowed by a few – or maybe just one – penguins of all things, was now glinting off of some metal, peeking out of a chunk of ice overhead instead of underneath the water. The metal was more than three quarters submerged in the water, true, but he still could have just cut out the chunk of ice right above that plane!

Still, he began to work again, after drifting over to the indicated spot, dismissing his magically and mentally taxing Lumos, and stowing his broom back in the mokeskin pouch he'd been given by Aunt Peggy yesterday, the one that contained all the tools Charlus and Dorea had used in their own expeditions. He was so close, now. He had to finish it all before he could go home; because, despite all his tenacity and desire to close one chapter in his grandparents' lives that had been left open in their deaths, he doubted he would have the will to return to this icy, dangerous, lonely wasteland ever again.

10:50 AM

Using a Portkey to a place a quarter down the globe when one was drunk with three double doses of Pepper-Up was really, really unpleasant.

Shifting instantly from the icy chill of the North Pole to the heat of summer in Washington DC was even more torturous.

A loud, solid "Clack!" and a softer "Thwump! Click!" heralded the sudden presence of the Portkey's two passengers in the thankfully empty living-room. The Portkey, a tiny replica of Captain America's shield, clattered onto the marble floor as Harry's hand, the only thing that kept it glued to the side of the giant ice chunk he'd just transported here, let go of it, and the totally exhausted, totally wretched teen fell sprawled on the floor beside his prize.

It all felt eerily similar to what had happened to him and Cedric in that disastrous third task of the Triwizard Tournament. He'd used a Portkey, then; he'd been transported away with an older male; he'd been spat out at the other end weak and useless; he'd felt like he'd been run and danced over by a herd of hipogrifs…

But he hadn't been garbed in ice-gear, then, nor had he ended up on something as nice… or as hard… as a patch of marble floor.

And neither had Peter Pettygrew arrived with the monster baby Riddle had been, nor had the said baby monster spoken the words that had been haunting Harry's nightmares ever since:

"Kill the spare."

The teen shuddered, gagged into the layers of his face covering, felt his heart thump fast.

It was all in vain. He still couldn't move. He couldn't even throw up properly, has he hadn't eaten for hours, and the energy from what he'd managed to put in his stomach in that damn icy wasteland had all been converted to magic.

Magic he had expended thoroughly to track down and unearth the damn ice chunk that he couldn't even see now, with him face down on the floor like this, arms and legs uselessly thrown out, vulnerable.

His breathing grew louder, harsher, until it felt like he was choking on his own breaths.

He felt confined. The ice-gear that had protected him from the harshest of the Arctic weather now weighed him down and heated him a bunch of degrees up. He wished he hadn't sent his employees and house-elves away before this, so that he could ask for their help.

But if he hadn't done so, and they had come running in here when the graveyard at Little Hangleton was haunting him… Would it have been better than suffering this all alone?

He didn't know, didn't want to know, but nonetheless suspected that the answer was "No."

And with that, as the black spots that had been gathering on his peripheral vision converged on the middle, he let himself succumb into the no-doubt nightmare-packed land of unconsciousness.

9.

5th July 1996

11:02 AM

Harry woke up wet, sweaty, terribly hot, weak as a kitten, and horribly disorientated.

He managed to shift himself into all fours, though, and hadn't it been a relief that his black-out session had been nightmare-free!

But still, he was wet, sweaty, terribly hot, weak as a kitten, and horribly disorientated. And didn't he mention he was wet? How could he be wet? His gear had all been charmed to be dry even when underwater!

Then again, it was charmed to be dry if the surroundings were cold… right?

And he was boiling hot.

He glared at the puddle of water beneath him, which had quickly filled in the spot previously occupied by his soaked self. His nose and mouth were crowded by the scent and taste of stale seawater – "Blech!" – and his vision was obscured by tiny droplets of condensation. To make it worse, it felt like he was going to have a goggle-shaped imprint for the rest of the day, his head still pounded at his skull mercilessly, and he felt itchy all over in addition to being wet.

He huffed. Hadn't his enforced nap been enough? From a quick look to his – thankfully waterproof – wristwatch, he found out that it was still round eleven, and the light filtering in through the drapes showed him that it was still morning.

Maybe he had only passed out for a few minutes, so his body demanded more?

He huffed again, and painstakingly shifted into a crouch, with his legs kept wide apart to hopefully keep his balance. Just as sluggishly, he then began to peel off his gear, layer by layer, item by item, starting from the most urgent: his goggles and muzzle-like mouth-and-nose protection, which had always made him feel hemmed in, right from the moment he had donned them, in what seemed like ages ago.

When he was successfully down to his innermost layer and boots without falling down or too much fumbling, though, he froze up.

He'd just heard a clattering sound from the direction of the kitchen, and he was now hearing soft cursing from the same direction.

…Followed by…

`Is that Mitch's voice? But why's he here? Is he here with his mum?`

He rose to his feet, praying madly all the while that he wasn't going to topple right over. With his two wands in both glove-free hands, he turned round on the spot—

–And froze up for the second time.

The literal ice-cube coffin he had transported with himself to his Washington DC home, it no longer looked much like a coffin, albeit a giant one. Much of it had thawed out.

He should have been drowned in the water the missing chunks had generated, but he was only soaked.

Who had taken care of him? Why hadn't whoever-that-was gotten him out of his ice-gear and put him to bed?

He vanished the huge puddle of water round him and the melting chunk of ice with a listless wave of his original wand. Then, with a last look at the jagged hunk of ice and the body trapped inside, he padded in his rubber-soled, thigh-high boots towards the kitchen.

12:05 PM

Harry watched the slowly melting ice in his living-room from a nearby couch. He had taken a hot bath; he had changed gratefully into light summer clothes; he had even eaten a light lunch. And still, he felt wretched.

It had turned out that he had passed out for twenty-four hours, instead of the few minutes that he had thought.

It had also turned out that the Gradies and his house-elves had gone against his instructions, by returning home yesterday in late afternoon, when he hadn't told them it was safe to come home yet.

But if they hadn't gone home, he would have surely drowned in one inch of water, and the puddle of icemelt would have spread to all over the house.

But, if so, why hadn't they put him to bed?

Why had they gone against his wishes? Was the worth of his instructions so low, to them? Even the house-elves had disobeyed him.

And in turn, wanting them to obey him made him feel dirty. He didn't want to become like Draco Malfoy. He didn't want to end up like Tom Riddle.

But was it so hard, to go with his wishes for once, for their own safety? Skip and Scoop couldn't even walk yet, let alone defend themselves in case he'd brought home something more unpleasant or unexpected than an iced-over Captain America!

He felt terribly conflicted, horribly upset, and he couldn't even articulate the cause to himself. He wanted to confront his people about what they had and hadn't done, yet he had hesitated.

How if they'd leave him, then?

He'd grown close – too close, maybe – to the Gradies. And although a house-elf would usually prefer to die rather than given clothes, he had also enjoyed his relaxed, open, respectful relationship with his trio and their twin charges too much to let it grow cold and distant.

He let loose a sigh, curled up tighter into a ball, and hugged a cushion close for added measure. A thought passed through his mind, as his eyes were once more drawn towards the melting chunk of ice set on the middle of the living-room metres away from him: What would Steven Rogers do, in a case like this? He wished he could speak to the dead, to ask for the Captain's opinion and advice. Having led the DA hadn't prepared him for something like this. Besides, the few arguments breaking up in that group had more often than not been handled by Hermione…

He missed her, so much, and yet he was quite upset with her for not contacting him. She had always stuck with him since their first year, minus the incident with the Firebolt. But even in their altercation about the broom, she had gone behind his back because she had feared for his safety.

How could total silence mean his safety, though? It meant the opposite and she knew it!

Or she had known, anyway, before whatever change of mind she had undergone this summer.

Had her parents forbidden her from contacting everyone from the magical world? Had they pulled her from Hogwarts? Were they all in a holiday and she couldn't send a letter by any means? Had they been upset only with him, because he had nearly gotten their daughter killed in their ill-advised, ill-prepared, ill-informed Ministry raid?

That last one reminded him of Kreacher's treachery, which had helped send him into danger, which had helped send Sirius through the Veil.

Something caught between a yell and a whine and a sob tore out of his mouth, as he chucked the cushion across the room with all his might.

It smacked right on Mr Grady's face, who had just appeared at the door connecting the living-room to the front parlour.

He had just hit an adult on the face.

Their eyes met.

Harry ran.

It was an instinct for him, cultivated through his years living with Aunt Petunia and – especially – Uncle Vernon. If he ran fast and hid well, no pain would visit him, nor any other punishment if he was lucky, which translated to: if the offended adult had deigned to set aside his hubris, in favour of added chores.

But he had forgotten that this adult had magic.

His bare feet slid away from under him as he reached the front lawn, and his body flew backwards without his say-so. A pair of burly arms quickly enclosed him when his back hit a broad chest, and he was too shocked to react instantly, before the chance was lost and he was securely trapped by a cage of corded muscles.

He hadn't been aware that he was crying and sobbing, not until a large, callused thumb swiped gently beneath his left eye. But even after he was made aware of his shameful reaction, he couldn't stop, not for lack of trying. His head being tucked into the crook of the muscled neck of his captor just made it worse.

How would he be ever able to look Mr Grady in the eyes after this? How would he be able to salvage their work relationship, let alone the camaraderie they'd established by working in the house's garage and technomancy workshop?

"Relax, Harry," was rumbled into his ear, as a strong hand cupped his cheek gently.

It just made his wretchedness doubly worse.

02:30 PM

Harry had never thought, even in his wildest imagination, that working on an easy something with his hands could help loosen his tongue and relax his emotions. But it did work.

He'd been tinkering with a spare mundane wristwatch for a couple of hours already, now, one that he wanted to harden against wild magical discharges while being imbued with added magical features, his on-and-off project since he'd first known about technomancy. And, at the same time, he at last talked with Mr Grady about the things that he had been keeping buried deep since his awakening late this morning, in a much calmer tone and state of mind, with eyes red but no longer overflowing.

"Why did you and the others come back, Mister Grady?" he addressed the half-mutilated watch in his hand.

He could feel Mr Grady's eyes on him. There was no need to look up and across to the other end of the workshop's large bench where they were seated. He… also… didn't want to see what the man's expression might be. He didn't want their relationship to be hurt even more, if—

"We were worried about you, Harry," came the soft answer, after a brief pause, in a tone that awakened something in his mind, something fierce and thirsting and primal and yet gentle, gently aching, deep in his heart.

The tinkered wristwatched clacked softly on the benchtop, hastily freed from the trembling hand.

"Mister Potter – your grandfather – always returned exhausted after his expeditions. Missus Potter – your grandmother – was worse, though I wouldn't ever dare to say that to her face," the man continued, in a reminiscent tone that nonetheless carried large traces of that earlier tinge of something, when the silence lengthened into the edges of discomfort. "This place has always been stocked up with medicines and medical aids because of that. We were always on standby to care for them. A mage who's good with both magical and mundane medical things was also on standby when those two were growing older and more tired. They insisted to keep searching, so we didn't have any other choice but to ask for her help. Thankfully she's discrete."

"But I sent you away," Harry mumbled, face buried in his hands. "I… Well, they're my grandparents, but we're different, aren't we? – I just want you to be safe. Is that too much to ask?" He'd meant the words to be firm, authoritative even; but what had just come out was instead an unsure, plaintive utterance of an anxious child.

Pathetic.

He raised his face and shifted, straightening his spine and shoulders, bracing himself to look into Mr Grady's eyes and repeat what he'd meant to say, in a more mature manner, if maybe still far from any semblance of lordliness. But before he could even turn to properly look at the man, the said man murmured, in the same gentle, unnamable tone as before, "Have you never thought that we also want you safe?"

Their eyes met, emerald green against midnight blue, and Harry swallowed hard, his heart pounding.

"But you let me go, alone, to the North Pole," he rasped, hating how tiny his voice came out, hating how vulnerable he sounded, hating how vulnerable he felt.

The solemn look in the man's eyes fractured slightly into fondness, and maybe also a smidgen of regret. "Mayva knew your grandparents far longer than I did, but I knew them enough, after we're married," he told the teen, who looked at him as if spell-bound. "They were caring, make no mistake, and they're pretty lovey-dovey to each other, too." He gave the wide-eyed audience a tiny, crooked smile, then continued, placing emphasis in his words and in his gaze, "But they were independent individuals, too. Your granma always considered herself Dorea Black, and your granpa went swimmingly with it. They got strong self-images, but they mixed well with each other too. They extended the courtesy to us, their people." He exhaled, then pinned Harry with his most serious look yet. "Understand this, Harry, nobody is perfect. They knew it, we knew it, and we worked around it. They wanted to have their icy expeditions alone, fine; we're their people, after all; but they also accepted that we're worried and did steps to alleviate that worry. We waited at home with the healer and the medical things and concoctions, and they agreed to let us watch out for and fuss on them when they returned home."

Harry looked away, feeling ashamed and chastised and thoughtful and indignant and longing all in one. He said nothing. He couldn't say anything. So, feeling like a wretched coward, he retreated from the figurative battlefield, by stumbling away back to the house proper.

He was drawn in to the living-room, again.

He watched the melting chunk of ice from the floor quite nearby, now, while absently spelling away icemelts from the no-longer-so-pristine marble floor. The body of Steven Rogers, laid inside on a bit of metal flooring from the downed-and-drowned aeroplane, with the reputedly famous shield right beside him, was slightly obscured from view by all the grooves, dips, nolls and haphazard concaved sections the natural process created. The man looked to be sleeping peacefully, despite his tatters of a weird uniform. The ice had preserved him well.

Too well, maybe. Harry couldn't – didn't want to – imagine how would Charlus Potter and Dorea Black have felt, if they had been the one confronted with this moment, this body, in all its haunting peace, with the horrible speculations that could have been derived from it. For that matter, he would like to spare Aunt Peggy and the rest of her cohorts from the Howling Commando unit from this view and his strong theories about how steven Rogers had come to his death.

Because he hadn't found Steven Rogers on the section of the submerged aircraft that had made up the cockpit, as according to Aunt Peggy's assumption and belief, based on her last bit of communication with the man. It might have been a good thing from a technical point of view, and also from a sentimental point of view for Aunt Peggy's sake, because the cockpit had been caved in from the impact with the water and the rock formation jutting upward from the seabed, which could have mangled the body beyond belief – probably even beyond salvation. Although, then again, if the man had been found in the cockpit as he had been supposed to be, Harry wouldn't have spent the precious reserves of his magic and Pepper-Up potions for the fruitless effort of digging in there.

No, he hadn't found the man there. The man had been nearly at the opposite end of the wrecked, drowned, iced aircraft, laid on the floor almost neatly as if having found the metal floor a comfy bedding. And the metal door that should have sealed that cargo hold up hadn't been there not because it had been torn off. Harry wasn't much acquainted with Muggle technology yet, but he wasn't as stupid as Snape – or Hermione, for that matter – would claim him to be, when presented with tangible clues, and he knew that the metal door had been retracted into the plane's hull before the said plane had nosedived into the icy water.

Steven Rogers must have had the chance to leap through that door when he'd been close enough to the water; then he could have swum to safety, not so far away, with the famous – or infamous, as the case might be – Supersoldier Serum Aunt Peggy had told Harry about, sworn the teen to secrecy about. But he hadn't taken that chance.

Steven Rogers had never even thought to save himself.

And Harry understood why.

He doubted others would understand, or would have understood. They'd come from a loving family, a big family, or a big and loving family, or… well, simply didn't care, in the case of strangers that only knew about the overblown reputation of Captain America.

Harry understood, because, according to Aunt Peggy, James Barnes had been Steven Rogers' only living family, and James Barnes had fallen off a speeding train above a deep ravine before his eyes with him watching helplessly just a few months before the plane had crashed into the Arctic.

Harry understood. He had tried to follow Sirius, after all, when his godfather had been sent through the Vail. And since then, including the day he had decided to leave the Dursleys forever, he'd been oh so tempted to sneak into the Department of Mysteries to do just that, regardless of the war, regardless of his friends, regardless of his life.

People and ideals were abstract concepts, intangible. Friends were tangible, warming. But family… Family was… different. And without family, by blood or choice, the world – no, life – was so much colder, so much more alien, so much more distant, unbearable, beyond the call of duty or sensibility.

Steven Rogers hadn't been a coward. The man had simply been a human, bowed to the breaking point under grief.

Maybe, after all, it had been a mercy that his grandparents hadn't been the ones to have found the body. Maybe Aunt Peggy needn't know about the gritty details, too.

Maybe, he needed to speed up the melting process, then call for the healer Mr Grady had talked about. Sitting here all day looking at a dead half of a sibling pair thawing out just for proper burial mustn't be healthy for his mental health, which was already dubious in the first place. Neglecting his physical health wouldn't do his new, huge family any good, either, and… well, Mr Grady was right, after all, however grudgingly his teenage, inexperienced mind would acknowledge that. His people had the obligation to obey, but also the right to refuse; they weren't slaves; had never been, and would never be, if he had any say in the matter.

And he had a lot of say in the matter. He was their lord, their employer, their protector, by birthright and by choice. Safe people were happy people, but respected people were loyal people, and he needed their loyalty, because he needed them to be his family. His grandparents had taught him that, by second-hand account, and he would treasure this in the years to come, he had no doubt about it.

Well, on that topic… He would get the reason why he hadn't woken up in his comfy bed this morning from the Gradies.

Only after the thawing and the burial and his own on-the-spot appointment with the healer, though.

Trust had to begin somewhere, and he trusted that the Gradies had a perfectly good reason why he'd ended up still in his ice-gear, face down beside Steven Rogers' ice cube of a coffin, when he'd returned from dreamland this morning.

He anticipated more anecdotes about his grandparents in relation to that one peculiar decision of these great servants and even better people. He hoped it would be able to soothe his mind and heart, after the future no-doubt-quite-mentally-taxing burial of one Steven Grant Rogers – American soldier, Captain America, one-ninth member of the Howling Commando unit, and, most of all, half of the pair of brothers that he'd yet to reunite.

10.

6th July 1996

09:10 AM

Some ruddiness had crept onto that strong-lined countenance. The equally strong lungs and heart had gained – or rather, regained – normal regularity and depth. The eyes moved in their sockets, although the eyelids didn't open even a smidgen. Some parts of those huge, powerful-looking hands had even moved at times throughout the night.

Harry should have rejoiced.

He would have, if he were normal. And by now, he had been forced, by his own self no less, to acknowledge that he was not normal.

Instead, he mourned. `Poor sod. You got your moment; now you've lost it.`

Because steven Grant Rogers, after all, was not dead, as he had thought, as he had believed.

As he had hoped.

A part of him – one that conformed to the society's beliefs on how to act and what to think – felt wretched that he wished this miracle hadn't happened, and it had been gnawing at him constantly since yesterday afternoon, when Ms Sirton – the healer Mr Grady had talked about – had been called to perform a doctor's home visit for Harry. She'd been called; she'd come promptly; she'd taken a rather thorough look at Harry's health and energy level, stopping him from thawing Mr Rogers the rest of the way given her sheer worried insistance; she'd prescribed him a lengthy therapy period for his magic, physical condition and health through rigid schedule of potions and exercises; and then, she, a shamelessly professed fan of Captain America, had begged Harry to be permitted to examine the body, which Mrs Grady had thawed the rest of the way on his absence.

He'd given her permission, with the stipulations that she not touch the Captain unless strictly necessary, that she take no sample – however small or inconsequential – from the Captain's body or ice-watery vicinity, and that she explain to Harry each and every step that she do in the examination.

She'd eagerly complied. He'd eagerly listened to the impromptu practical lesson on diagnostic spells for post-mortum forensic purposes she'd indulgently taught him as she'd worked.

Then she'd arrived to the last, most important part, which she'd confessed long afterwards that she'd thought the least important for a clearly dead body: the spell to determine whether someone was actually dead.

She'd in fact passed out for a long, long minute, crumpling to the damp marble floor and nearly hitting her head on the unforgiving stone if not for Harry's quick reflexes, when the spell that had blanketed Mr Rogers turned out from the initial white to the red of life, instead of the blue of death.

Everything had been chaotic since then, until barely hours ago. The five conscious occupants of the house had by now theorised that, with how long Harry and the Gradies had left the chunk of ice be to melt on its own, with how there'd been no monitoring on the temperature of the said chunk whatsoever, and with how hot the summer had been this past week, the internal temperature of the makeshift coffin's inner side had shifted up accordingly, despite no visible melting round that part. It might be that, given the raise of the temperature, Mr Rogers' body had thought it safe to come out of the very, very deep hibernation, little by little.

It had been more a miracle than the man's status of being alive, really, that the man hadn't drowned in the process of thawing him out, for the second time, this time permanently.

It was the only point in this whole mess that Harry was whole-heartedly grateful for. The man didn't need a second torture, when the first must have just been a split second ago in his point of view.

…When there would be another – perhaps a greater – torture once he woke up, only to find out his best friend and brother was still dead, only to find out he had been half a century removed out of time, while his friends had aged accordingly.

Harry didn't envy him, at all. Being in the man's position could be his new greatest fear. Darkly, he wondered how a Bogard would interpret this fear of his, and how a Dementor would incite that fear in him…

He looked out of his large window, situated just above his writing desk, overlooking the patch of garden he'd populated with lilies and attended to religiously everyday except for yesterday. – But then again, yesterday had been an exception to so many things.

He wanted to distract himself, but nothing could catch his attention beyond a few minutes, if even that, and the only topic or object or person that was left to ruminate about or attend to was the one that he'd sought to distract himself from in the first place. If only Mitchell had been allowed in this room while Mr Rogers was inside, insensate and weak…

Huh, no; bad idea. That boy's parents had been wise to keep him entertained elsewhere. Mitchell had been over the moon – to state the understatement – that his hero had after all been alive and here. And an ecstatic Mitchel was a bouncy-and-squealy Mitchell, much like the infamous – at least in Gryffindor House – Collin and Dennis Creevey.

Perhaps, Harry himself should go out, seek out the boy or attend to his precious patch of the garden… or wheedle Mrs Grady for at least a temporary pass to play round in her patch of the garden, for that matter.

Then his sight returned to the large, unmoving body laid out in his bed paces away, and the urge to go out of his bedroom vanished as if it had never been there.

Rince, lather, repeat. – This had been going on practically since yesterday afternoon, when the Captain had legitimately needed close monitoring, with all the medical aids arrayed round him, with him laid deathly pale in the selfsame bed and grimacing from time to time as if in deep pain.

09:42 AM

The fingers moved again, and so did the eyes underneath their palid lids, known only because of the movement-detection spell cocooning the owner of the said body parts. Soon after, the quiet breathing, audible only because Harry had cast a temporary sound-enhancing ward round the bed, sped up. The teen steeled himself for the encounter, although, even now, he still had no idea what to say to the Captain. "Sorry, you're alive"? "Sorry, your best friend is still dead"? "Sorry, your other friends are now an elderly granny and a handful of wrinkled gramps"? Or, "Sorry, your esteemed host is a bumbling fifteen-year-old with no idea of what to do or say"?

Still, he shifted on his rolling, revolving chair, facing the bed with his two wands ready beside him on the desk. He wouldn't leave the man alone when the latter woke up; however, the last memory that the Captain held, that of war and struggle and apparent death, might work against this bit of kindness the teen would like to extend.

Still, he sat, and waited.

And waited…

And waited…

And the eyes under those blond fringes blinked open, pale blue and bleary and weary and very much disorientated.

Harry fought not to hold his breath or exhale it too sharply. Ms Sirton had suggested that the teen let the Captain gain his bearings on his own pace and cognisance, without being attracted unduly and/or prematurely to outside stimuli. He only understood the general gist of that concept, but he tried to adhere to it best as he could.

The blue eyes roamed the ceiling sluggishly, maybe noting the pastel-coloured Celtic patterns that someone – most probably Charlus Potter – had decorated it before Harry's sort-of tenancy in this place had begun, or maybe puzzling over the soft shadows the indirect hit of the morning light was creating there. The gaze they held brightened gradually, ever so slowly, but the disorientation lingered.

And then, as the large, muscled body shifted a little under the light blanket, turning to the side opposite the wall, facing Harry dead-on…

Those blue eyes sharpened with some sort of recognition, then shame, then regret, then grief.

Harry bet the man knew now that he was still alive, unlike what he'd hoped. – A spent chance, indeed. The teen knew it well. Following Sirius into the Veil had seemed a perfectly good move at that time, after all, but it had become slightly harder to execute the longer and the farther he'd been removed from that accursed thing. He doubted that, now that Mr Rogers was alive, the man would have an easy time trying to get close up with death again; for pride and an inate will to live that was no longer blocked by a major event, if for nothing else, even if death was still highly preferable.

"I'm sorry," the teen managed, croaking softly, looking into those blue, grief-stricken eyes, before he fled the room.

10:20 AM

"Umm, I'm sorry, again, for what I did, all of it, Mister Rogers, sir. Umm, I hope, well, I hope you're feeling better now, at least a little bit, not that I'd blame you if you didn't. I mean, I know the feeling, though not the literal time-out-of-mind thing, so, erm…"

Harry fidgeted on his former spot in his rolling chair. Opposite him, on the bed, Mr Rogers was seated cross-legged, leaning against the wall the bed was pushed against. The man's eyes were red and swollen, but at least he wasn't weeping and sobbing anymore, and he'd accepted the glass of water Harry had pushed into his hand on the teen's return with more grace than expected.

Before the said teen could open his mouth to embarrass himself further, just to fill in the awkward silence, the man thankfully responded, although it couldn't be said that Harry didn't regret the topic.

"How do you know. You seem so young. Are you Charlie's nephew? You look like one. But why are you dressed like that? Charlie and Oli seemed to be well-to-do people."

Harry looked down, at his hands, which were unconsciously clenched round fistfuls of his much-overlarge trousers. The reminder about his long-dead grandparents stung, fiercer even than the memory of Sirius' stupid death and his own urge to follow his godfather seconds after.

"I had a godfather." His mouth opened without his say-so, then his breath hitched, clogged up. "I had. He… in front of me." He looked up, his eyes burning – maybe with madness, maybe with grief, maybe with anger, maybe with bittersweet fondness, maybe with shame. "He… laughed. He laughed, even as he… fell. I… I tried, to follow him." His breath rattled in his lungs, in his throat, in his nose, and yet he pushed forward, noting the same burn in Mr Rogers' eyes locked on his. "It was… weeks ago. I really want to go there, even now. I want to… follow him. But I can't."

And suddenly, he was surrounded by warmth; warmth and a trace of the crisp, stinging, odd scent of the iced-over seawater that had become rather familiar by now. Whether Mr Rogers had sought him out, or he had sought the man out, he didn't care. He couldn't care, for now, as everything tumbled out of his mouth, as if festering poison spewed out of his guts.

Here was a piece of his bloodline, however distant and unconnected. Here was a piece of his grandparents, a person whom they'd used to cherish, whom they'd used to keep company with, who could maybe tell him about so many things about them. Here was a piece of the past that had failed to be touched by time, that had lost all other pieces needed to make it whole. And at the same time, he felt so ashamed of not feeling sorry enough to have left the man in the ice, if he'd gotten his hands on an intact and functioning Time Turner. He was selfish, so selfish at this point, at this decision, and yet he couldn't bring himself to do anything about it.

Something whispered past his trembling lips, then, murmuring past his dry throat and drier mouth; something just for himself and the man who knew him well.

"I won't go. Don't go."

11.

10th July 1996

"Aw c'mooooon, Mister Harryyyyy…"

"Mitch!"

"Aw Mom, Mister Harry's always in his room everyday since Captain America came. I love Captain America, yes I do – sorry, sir, Mister Steve – but I wanna ride my bike with Mister Harry too. Just reading books everyday is boring, Mom. – Why are you always doing that, anyway, Mister Harry?"

"Mitch! Be polite to Mister Harry and Mister Steve, would you? You rode your bike with Mister Steve yesterday, anyway, and with me the day before yesterday, and you did it with your dad three days ago. That not enough?"

"Well, that's different, Mom, obviously. No Mister Harry, for one."

"Don't take that tone with me, young man."

The little boy just huffed to his mother's admonishment, and, with grey eyes shimmering with held-back tears, stomped onwards with his little bicycle towed behind him by one hand, further into the spacious kitchen area. His trajectory was clear: Harry and Mr Rogers – no, Steve – who were seated silently at the kitchen table, bemused by the heated exchange between mother and son.

However, Steve stood and snagged the said little boy into his arms, minus the push-bike, before he could reach Harry, who was seated closer to the back door, where he had come in from. Harry tuned out the gentle chastisement the Captain dolled out on the boy next, and instead busied himself righting up the fallen push-bike, leaning it against the kitchen table. It gave him the chance to reflect that, yes, Mitchell the Captain America fanboy did choose him, for this apparently special hobby, and to try to conceal his pleasure on that notion.

In the end, still, what made him able to kill off the stupid grin threatening to appear on his face wasn't the deep breaths he took in his exaggerated motions of caring for the abandoned push-bike, but the fact that he couldn't ride a bicycle, at all.

How would he save his poor face before Little Mitch, if he couldn't do what a less-than-four-foot someone not so long yet out of toddlerhood could do?

He wasn't quick enough to fabricate an excuse to avoid this particular horror, unfortunately. He had just gotten up to retreat to his bedroom – a tactical retreat, to be sure, if anyone asked – when Mitchell spotted him about to leave and begged, with a most heart-breaking watery puppy-dog look, "Please, Mister Harry? Just a few rounds on the yard? I'll help with taking notes and all after that, promise!"

Judging from how Steve looked contemplatively at him, with a raised eyebrow no less, Harry had failed to keep his mortification secret.

But well, this wasn't a life-or-death thing, right? Not a shatteringly huge bomb of any kind, either. Just… a very, very, very, very embarrassing thing…

"Merlin," the teen muttered, looking away from both males standing by the opposite end of the kitchen table, while trying with all his might not to respond to Mrs Grady's curious eyes boring into him from the sideline. He held the posture for one second, two, three, four…

"I can't ride a bike of any kind, all right?" he burst out at last, with his cheeks feeling as hot as the afternoon sun outside. He peeked at Mitchell through his eyelashes, then, and the heat on his face went up several degrees as he found out how the boy looked so shocked, shocked and incredulous, with mouth gaping wide and eyes goggling like a goldfish.

Strangely enough, his face practically felt like it was burning when, next, Steve offered so matter-of-factly, "Well, then, good time to learn, won't you agree, Harry? But," and here he hefted Mitchell, who was still draped in his arms, "this young man won't come for this time around, okay?" He gave the boy a stern look, and waited till Mitchell looked down meekly before continuing, "Talking nicely to people, especially to your parents, is always a good manner to have, you know right, Mitch? So you best think about that while you help your mom with dinner prep, here. I'm just going to borrow your dad's bike for your Mister Harry. Who knows, if you behave well, you might get to ride with us some time."

Steve sounded… like Mr Weasley, somehow; stern but affable. To think that the man was after all only twenty-two years old, discounting the time he'd spent in the ice. – And hadn't that been a horrible conversation between him and Harry, when the teen had confessed about the time passing and the updates on his friends…

Harry shook the thought off of his head, ducked the said head for good measure, and muttered a "Thank you, Steve" before he practically flew out of the kitchen, forgetting the apple he'd been about to eat when Mitchell had towed the boy's beloved push-bike in via the back door.

He did show up on the front yard, still, just minutes afterwards, and resigned himself to at least an hour of torture; because, even after just 5 days of acquaintanceship, he and Steve had been well on the way to friendship, and he knew very well how relentless the man was.

The teen had never – would never have, despite the reality – expected that Steve would run beside him, however, and yet the man did. The famous character that'd used to exist just in the trading cards now so effortlessly and joyfully loped along beside the borrowed push-bike, which was on its way traversing the expanse of lawn surrounding the house. He matched Harry's uncertain, unsteady paddling pace quite easily, with one large hand curled reassuringly round the left side of the bike's handlebar to keep it upright, and an encouraging smile ready for each and every time the terrified teen stole a glance at him. His presence was always there, protective but not stifling, and it was intoxicating.

Harry was sure, in fact, that he sported quite a loopy grin on his face, when he suddenly realised he'd been paddling the push-bike on his own for at least a few yards already, with Steve strolling a few feet behind this contraption.

Well, no matter. He'd been called mad and attention-seeking for a year and something-something months already, anyway. This precious experience was a fair trade-off, in his opinion.

Especially when, as the bike wobbled dangerously from the unconscious jolt caused by his sudden realisation, Steve was abruptly loping beside him again, ready to catch him should he fall, but not immediately reaching out to do just that – trusting him to have enough confidence and skill to solve the problem himself.

12.

25th July 1996

10:20 AM

It was… frustrating, to try to evade and escape a traumatised, hypervigilent, clingy supersoldier, who additionally possessed a strict eye for detail and bone-deep caring tendencies, when one needed to do something else against some medical regiment one was supposed to be under. All of Harry's attempts to sneak out to search for James Barnes this last fortnight had been killed with stern, whole-hearted prejudice by the said supersoldier. Sometimes, those plans hadn't even seen the light of day before they got strangled, by either a stern-and-disappointed glare or a restraining tre-trunk of an arm or both.

Today, though, he had managed to escape, yes he had! He'd visited Aunt Peggy and told her about Steve and ushered her speedily to his haunt for this last month plus plus, then he'd at last snuck away, after bribing Mitchell with a whole box of Chocolate Frogs.

And now here he was, standing on the peak of a snow-capped mountain in his ice-gear, armed with additional equipment, provisions, random tools, a powerful and redesigned and easy-to-use Portkey he'd made himself…

And still, he felt that something was missing.

Not to mention, this environment was all too similar to the Arctic wastelands he'd abandoned just about twenty days ago, to which he'd vowed never to return.

And the ice-gear was so constraining, so stifling…

He huffed out a breath, scowling when the said breath just circled round behind his muzzle-like mouth-and-nose mask in a warm puff, before it returned into his body as he inhaled the next drag of thin, bitingly chilly mountainous air. Stifling, indeed.

Well, the quicker he started searching, the better. At least, this place wasn't flat, he could use his broom to traverse these steep cliffs and slopes and ledges and ravines and valleys, and it was actually warm – warmer than the Arctic, for sure – under his ice-gear.

So he looked round, his eyes flickering here and there behind his goggles, squinting at a few features of the snowy, jagged landscape behind his omnioculars at times.

He'd gotten his Galleons' worth from this thing, oh he had, especially when he had modified this very, very useful tool. And the best thing was, he hadn't had to put more disguise on it to make it look like its Muggle counterpart.

And he was rambling again…

Well, mountain on the left, mountain on the right, mountain ahead, mountain behind, mountain underneath his feet… and there, slightly to the northeast, mountain looking down at him.

He was wrong. This was as depressing as the Arctic had been, despite the lack of flat lands, and this place gave him the same clues as that one had, which was nothing. There was nothing and nobody to see round here, not even animals, and certainly not the train tracks he'd been searching for.

It had been so hard and so painful, to extract any kind of information about James Barnes' death from Steve, and yet he'd done it, slowly but surely during their first handfuls of talk sessions which had begun from right after Steve had firstly awoken. And, for all the grief and guilt – for different reasons – that both males had suffered in the process of gathering those titbits, now he was about to discard them, just because he felt so hemmed in from all sides, again.

What a coward. Little Mitch would be so proud; Steve too; Mum… Dad…

But there was really nobody wherever he looked! No animals, either, and no sign of civilisation or former civilisation… or something that wasn't just white – white and black and drab brown and so clinically cold it hurt, stabbing right into his barely-recovered psyche, even when his body was protected and equipped better than before.

Harry James Potter couldn't stand isolation.

He dreaded what those known and unknown people who called him enemy would do with the knowledge of this new-found weakness…

And on that thought, Dumbledore's former wand suddenly found its way into his slightly shaking hand, without him aware that he'd drawn it.

Well, using the wand, like in his previous expedition, would give him more accuracy than Steve's garbled, choppy, mismatched explanations and remarks… right? It would – perhaps, maybe, probably, hopefully – allow him to come home sooner, too, and therefore dodge Steve's ire…

Ah, damn.

11:01 AM

"Point Me, HYDRA train tracks."

No result.

"Point Me, train tracks."

`Oops. Wrong command.` – The wand spun to northwest, then south, then west, then northwest again, till the spell was cut out.

"Point Me, James Barnes."

Strangely enough, the wand had a similar glitche: now facing northeast, northwest, northeast again…

"Point Me, James Buchanan Barnes."

`Huh…` – Still the same result. `Are they two of them?`

"Point Me, Bucky Barnes."

Still the same… `Is the wand getting some sort of malfunction? At a time like this?!`

"Point Me, the place where James Barnes died."

`Quite fortunate, that Steve isn't here.` – But, quite oddly, the wand fell inert on the Invisibility-Cloak-draped hand holding it up. – `Huh?` – His heart clenched. Could Steve be somehow wrong, after this long?

And, if Steve could be – was – wrong, could it be – would it be – that Sirius could be… maybe…

`NO! Not here. Not now. Not ever.` – He clenched his teeth, gripped the wand tight with one hand and the handle of his broom with the other, squeezed his eyes close, then gritted out alongside a strangled exhale of breath, "Point Me, the place where James Barnes fell off the train."

And the wand that had pointed him to Steve now pointed unerringly to and down the northeast, to maybe somewhere round the best of that huge mountain looking down on him, as if the finger of some mighty god during the judgement of mortals.

He shook his head. Fancy thoughts, when his mind was already scrambled so badly.

His chest felt tight; his throat felt strangled; and still, on he flew, to look with his own eyes the site that had haunted Steven Rogers so.

The body of James Buchanan Barnes might or might not be there.

01:32 PM

James Barnes was everywhere.

On a few shrubs and rocks going down the cliff-side of this particular river valley, on a few trees that looked to have been growing a little crooked for years, on the bony undergrowth surrounding where Harry was now hovering, inside the sedately flowing stream choked off somewhat by plants and boulders and stones…

But there was no body, no bones, no gear, no sign that suggested any human had been here all those decades ago – nothing that hadn't been so easily erased or displaced by nature.

And still, James Barnes was everywhere. The Point Me didn't – couldn't – lie.

The man must have suffered, on his way down from the train, out of Steve's field of sight, and left something round here.

A mercy – for the Captain, that was – that Steve hadn't seen such horror. And Harry intended to extend that mercy till the time he himself died; this secret was going to the grave with him.

If he found James Barnes, if that man was somehow not a vegetable or a braindead long-term patient in some hospital, if that man wanted to tell Steve or give him permission to tell Steve, then – only then – he would consider disclosing this.

But for now…

"Point Me, James Buchanan Barnes."

…He was going to take a gander at the other location: northwest. Maybe he would find Steve's Bucky there, maybe not, but he couldn't bear staying here any second more.

He couldn't get rid of the pained, anguished screams of a man and the phantom thuds the body had made, which had begun to envelope him as he had begun to unknowingly track down the grisly path with his second wand. And the ghostly torture didn't stop even after he had stowed that wand back into its holster, replacing it with his own holly-and-phoenix-feather.

13.

28th July 1996

"No, no, I'm all right, Mister Grady. – Please give my regard to Missus Grady and Mitch and Steve? – Sorry, no, can't tell, still. But I promise it won't be dangerous for you by implication; I'm careful. – I promise, I promise, I'll be careful. – No need to send me anything. I'm all right. I'm… well… erm… undercover, so to say, so please don't blow my cover, sir. – I promise, didn't I? I'll be good. – Erm, must go now, sorry – bye!"

It had been three days; and in those three days, this call through the communication mirror was a staple in the mornings, noons and evenings. It was worrying that, thus far, neither Mrs Grady nor Steve were willing to answer the call, although Mitchell's eager pleas had oftentimes squawked for a chance to do so in the background. But, well, Harry had enough worries here and now for himself, so he didn't need any more.

This was going to come back to bite him. All of this.

And still, he went on.

The beacon point for James Buchanan Barnes seemed to like playing tag with him so much – too much – quite unfortunately. By now, Harry had snuck into and traversed through a few countries already, not in a straight line at that. He'd gone northeast, then north, then south…

By now, he was well acquainted with his ice-gear, and his Invisibility Cloak, and the Point Me spell, and his Firebolt.

He had gotten acquainted with so many more in this prolonged excursion, but he would rather not think about those, ever.

29th July 1996

Quietly, quietly, oh so quietly, Harry gazed into the hotel room, in which a person named James Buchanan Barnes had just murdered three powerful-looking people, in seemingly no time at all, and no effort at that. Hanging tightly to the handle of his broom just outside the window, concealed underneath his Cloak and a Disillusionment charm, he tried not to breathe, tried not to stir at all. If he could have stopped his heartbeats for a moment, he would – oh he would. But ironically, his heart was now thumping wildly – in his chest, in his throat, in his ears, in his hands, throbbing throughout his body.

The man is moving to the door, silent and cold as a ghost.

And then, as Harry's gaze intensified on him, ready to do… something, his head whipped round…

Straight to the direction of the invisible peeper.

So much for invisibility.

The rifle – that had just killed three people – went up, fast.

Harry's muscles unlocked in a jerk.

The window shattered from a precise shot.

Harry dove down and away. – Invisibility was a moot point, if shards of the window clung to the Cloak.

And then, the Gryffindor that he was, he went back up again, with a Protego ready on his lips and the tip of his stronger wand.

Their eyes met, through the craggy hole on the glass pane: green on deep blue–

–Deep blank blue, as if lifeless, soulless, like Barty Crouch Junior at the end of his fourth year–

–Like someone under–

–The rifle re-aimed–

–"Imperio!"

The bullet flew wide. There's a strange crawling but euphoric sensation in his chest, but Harry couldn't care less about it right now.

The man was James Buchanan Barnes, yes, or he was supposed to be the person under that name, as seen on his Captain America trading card. But right now this man was a husk of a person, so empty that Harry would have called him soulless if he hadn't tried to murder his peeper twice.

Soulless people couldn't move, let alone try to murder other people.

Harry couldn't – wouldn't – take the man home in this state, and not because of safety reasons, not at first, not the first thing that came to his mind.

No, he couldn't, because Steve would've been so devastated seeing this… shell.

The flat, lifeless gaze of the man didn't change under the Imperius curse, and Harry's hair stood on end seeing it.

He couldn't imagine how the man's best friend would've reacted to it.

But for now…

"Come here, James. Bring all of your belongings. We have to go."

It felt so weird, calling the man James, as if Harry was calling his own father. But "Bucky" was a more intimate name that he felt the man would appreciate giving him permission to use when the man's not so lifeless anymore.

It felt so freaky, in addition to that, when he witnessed with his own goggling eyes, as the man packed up… things, with lightning speed, and they were all weapons, as far as he could see.

Still, he kept the curse alive by sheer will, even as he stowed the wand back into the holster that Mr Grady had purchased for him the day after he'd acquired it from Dumbledore, and tried with all his might to focus only on the here-and-now.

He had no illusion that he would ever win against the man in a physical and semi-physical fight. He had no doubt, too, that people were going to check up here, pretty soon.

After all, the rifle shots might have been silenced by some means, but the window breaking had been loud.

"I don't want us to be traced by anybody," the teen mused aloud, fretting,

Forgetting that he had a live connection to the man, whom he refused to call his puppet.

But a puppet the man was, an intelligent and efficient and effective one at that, he couldn't deny it. – The comment was swiftly responded, by just as swiftly plucking a few small things out of various places on the man's person, which were then crushed by… was that a metal arm?!

Harry gaped.

He gaped some more when, in the same competent, matter-of-fact manner the man had been operating thus far, the metal arm was pried open with a tiny tool, and something was plucked out from somewhere inside of it.

"I don't want you to get hurt!" the teen squawked, dismayed and a little nauseous.

The man froze.

Harry froze, too.

Their eyes met again.

But ironically, this time, despite the Imperio moving in tandem with whatever had controlled the man beforehand, there was a spark of something that hadn't been there even a second ago, that had made the man less lifeless, if more intense than ever.

Harry gulped, but held the stare with all the earnestness and honesty that he possessed, and nodded to reinforced the point, regardless of the fact that he hadn't meant to say it out loud.

Yet another spark lit up in those deep blue eyes, like the beginning of the campfire in that long-time-ago Quidditch Cup chaos. And like in that long-ago time, Harry dearly hoped the spark would hold.

He smiled, as confidently and gently and sincerely as he could manage. "We have little time," he said, ruefully. "Can you be quick about it? Without hurting yourself?"

The man replied with a curt something, spoken in what might be Russian, delivered in a flat, hollow voice that would suit a robot's better. But Harry chose to remember about those slightly livened eyes instead.

It was better for his sanity.

He watched as the man picked out some other thing from inside the metal arm, before closing the panels back up and continuing with the packing. He watched as the man strode towards the window afterwards with neither hesitation nor hostility against his invisible self; and to think that the man had tried to murder him, twice…

He could have easily been drunk on this kind of power, this kind of safety.

It frightened him, even more than looking at that flat countenance and listening to that deadened voice.

30th July 1996

If James Barnes was going to murder him now, Harry would be able to do nothing to avoid that, let alone fight back.

He felt so exhausted – physically, mentally, magically. They'd ridden the broom for hours yesterday, straight across the sea and the lower part of America, to the highest liveable point on the Bolivian part of the andes Mountains. He'd set up his bivouac there, layered with as many protection and concealment wards that he knew and could think of. With the man still Imperioed, he'd progressed to interrogating the older male about everything that he could think of, all recorded by a Dicta quill on a bottomless journal spelled for utter privacy for the man's later perusal.

He'd felt so nauseated by all the gory details that James Barnes had monotonously revealed to him in that macabre interview. He would still feel so, he believed, if he allowed himself to remember those details beyond the utterly necessary parts.

So he didn't.

There'd been so much else that had scored the same feeling in him afterwards, anyway.

His having to order the man to do everything, for one. The man's fright when faced with the shower hose, for two, especially when he'd curiously asked why.

"Curiosity kills the cat," indeed.

The answer had killed his morbid curiosity flat out.

The man was so… efficient, and effective, in killing people and things.

It's a marvel, really, that the said man hadn't yet killed Harry, or tried to kill him, now that the Imperius curse had been lifted up for hours already, now that Harry could do nothing but to sprawl bonelessly on the floor of their little wizarding tent, having just tripped on his own feet.

And now that the man must have gained at least a few of his memories back, too, from the elicit mind potions Harry had begged the Gradies to send him yesterday evening, claiming he'd been trying to save a mind-wiped friend. – He'd pay for that, oh he would, judging from how severe and severely pissed off they'd looked on the mirror on that request, even Mitch.

But maybe, if the man remembered that torture of a conversation, which Harry hadn't sought to conceal in whatever way from him, which had basically told him that the teen hadn't meant harm to him, had meant to help him in fact…

What a far-fetched idea.

It was his last thought, before his world dissolved into silent darkness.

But then, he woke up again.

In his own bunkbed, the bottom of the pair.

Still in most of his ice-gear from yesterday, which he hadn't changed before he'd lost consciousness.

And the man – James Barnes – was seated on the lone stool by the bed, regarding him intently.

Their eyes met again, now bleary green on feverish deep blue.

14.

31st July 1996

Nobody in the Washington DC home knew Harry's birthday. He didn't mind it, though. The atmosphere was festive and celebratory enough, for him, if still emotionally charged.

He'd brought James – no, Bucky, now – back home early this morning, to the sight of Steve ready to hunt for him, with a couple of search parties consisting of the Howling Commando Unit in one and the adult Gradies plus Healer Sirton in the other ready to go.

Needless to say, it had been a shock for all involved, and a fright for Bucky, who would have either fought for his life or bolted away had Harry not hit him with a quick Petrificus Totalus.

Hours later, now, they were all gathered for an impromptu reunion lunch on the floor of the living-room, with Bucky sandwiched between Steve and Harry, closest to the door for Bucky's peace of mind. Cheerful conversations flowed all round them, and Harry revelled in the warmth.

The warmth, Mitch parked in his lap, and Bucky's flesh arm thrown over his shoulder, that was.

1st August 1996

There was no birthday present waiting for Harry, when he retrieved his mail from his PO box in Washington DC's wizzarding post office.

Instead, there was just a long, lecturingly angry letter from Hermione, with a curt birthday wish tagged at the bottom, as a post script.

Harry Incendioed the letter after reading it, returned home, called for and cuddled Hedwig in his arms, and locked himself in his bedroom, with strong wards on his door,

Until Steve went in via the window, got him to undo the wards, and hustled him to the kitchen for the dinner he'd been about to miss.

"Bucky's been asking after you, you know," the man explained as Harry tried time and time again to return to his room, before they arrived at the dreaded destination. "You saved him. You're the first kind person he saw and interacted with, even before he got some of his memories back. You didn't have to, but you did, same like when you got me out of the ice, and he – we value that greatly."

He got the teen in a headlock, and it somehow felt more than just a restraining move.

But then again, a restraining move wasn't meant to cuddle the restrainee, was it?

Bucky padded into the hallway before Harry could muster up enough will to extricate himself from Steve's bearhug. The man, still a shadow of himself, and certainly wouldn't ever be his old self again, said nothing as he pushed the other man and the teen to a direction which was clearly not the kitchen.

They ended up in the garage, with the cluttered evidence of past, present and future technomancy projects strewn all over all available space. Harry was sat down on a crate against the wall, with both men seated on a bench in front of him, blocking his escape, then Steve began again.

"I… noticed you going somewhere specific everyday. Sorry for intruding, but… well, I asked the Gradies where you went, and they said you usually go to the post office for the magical folks just in case you got mail from people outside of your various homes." He took a deep breath, glanced at Bucky sitting placidly beside him, then returned his gaze to Harry with his brand of earnestness mixed with firmness that dared everyone to contradict his sincerity. "You never went back with any sort of mail or package, though, and the Gradies said you never did, or had any expandable space that they knew of anywhere in your clothes. There's only a newspaper each day, always, and I figured you could've just received a local subscription if you wanted to, so it mustn't be what you were hoping for." His gaze turned a little softer with apology. "Bucky still doesn't want to speak much – can't, I guess," he glanced again at his friend, who was now also focused on Harry with unnerving intensity, "but he's always been perceptive – far more perceptive than I am… and he noticed what happened this morning. I don't know what's the deal with him frantically flipping through the books and whatnots in your library all day, but he came out of it with this letter," he brandished the folded parchment sealed with a blob of wax, "and wanted me to give it to you. Now here we all are, though." He threw a wry look at his friend, who gave him an unimpressed – if still mostly blank – stare.

Harry fidgeted on his makeshift seat. "A letter?" he squeaked, rattled. Apprehension and defensiveness began to loom at the back of his mind. "You don't have to give me a letter! I mean," he cleared his throat, "erh, you're here, obviously, and you can just write something on a clipboard for me to see and that's all, till you think you're ready to speak again."

It was his turn to get Bucky's brand of unimpressed stare, apparently, which just made him more apprehensive and defensive.

The feelings heightened as Steve passed the small letter over to him, and didn't dissipate even when he found that the letter was written in Russian.

They didn't, because the letter was so familiar. The ink was colour-changing, the parchment's edges looked and felt ragged – as if a friend was writing to a friend – and the strokes were made by a quill, shaky but readable and made him long for something he hadn't received for months.

"It's in another language. I can't read it," he croaked, after a few moments of deep, wet breaths. His eyes prickled uncomfortably, so he refused to look up to the two men waiting with anticipation before him.

"Maybe it's in Russian?" Steve offered. "Bucky's been talking in Russian to me and the others, verbally or in writing. I can translate the letter for you, if you want, or you can do a Russian-to-English translation spell like the Gradies do."

Harry doubted he would have the presence of mind to learn a new spell, with the weight of this letter always haunting him, so he shook his head and returned the letter to Steve. "Thanks anyway, for the letter, Bucky," he stuttered softly meanwhile, looking fixedly at the tips of his trainers.

There was no reply, but the teen indeed didn't expect for one. What the man had done, it was more than enough already, more than–

No, he wasn't going to think about them, he wasn't.

But then, Steve began to speak…

"Dear Harry,
Thank you for everything you did for me, especially the kind and clever orders you gave me in that hotel room, and the long flying ride we took over the ocean. I remember I always loved the sea. The ride helped me feel calm.
Steve is better at drawing most things than I am, but I'm always the best at drawing seascape. On the back of this letter is my rendering of what we might look to others, when we passed over the Atlantic. I thought of doing it after I read that small article at the back of your newspaper this morning. (It was a vicious little article, for sure, but it did give me the information I needed.) I'm sorry it isn't much, especially compared to what you have done for me, but please receive it kindly along with my best wishes for your belated birthday.
Best regards,
Bucky."

…And the dam broke, with interest.

15.

3rd October 1996

"He is Captain America, kid. He has duties to his country." The man with the patch over one eye – Nicholas Fury, Aunt Peggy said – declared.

As if Harry didn't know, as if Harry had never heard of such a tone, such words, such expectations. – "You're the boy who lived. Of course you can defeat you-know-who," people always said.

And in any case, Steven Rogers had never been Captain America first, to him. The man had begun as a relic of his grandparents' lives, a mission he'd wished to complete for the peace of dead relatives. And then the man had transformed in his regard, from just Steven Rogers to a warm, gentle, affectionate somebody – that boyish grin, the smile that lit up that fair face like sunrise – to a lonely little boy trapped inside the shell of a scrawny teenager—

–And the steady pace never faltered, never led in front or followed behind, always there, as the starving little boy reached into reality, with nervous feet pushing quakingly at the small, slim plastic-covered surfaces that pushed down, up, down, up, down, up—

–No, Captain America wasn't all that Steven Rogers was. It was just a pathetically small portion of sunrise anthropomorphised. Captain America meant the downed-and-drowned plane, the lone figure killed in victory and defeat by a single thing that sought to define him—

–Cold cold cold cold so coooold—

A chunk of ice, with a not-dead man inside, trapped for decades, now asked – no, demanded – to do it all over again.

"No." A soft rasp, nearly inaudible, but filled with raw magic, fed by raw emotions like kindling to a hungry bonfire.

And, like kindling to that fire, the teen's voice got stronger by each word spoken. "He is Steven Grant Rogers. He is a person. He is not merely Captain America. He decides what he wishes for his body and mind and soul for himself. His duty was finished when he brought that aeroplane down decades ago."

The man with the eyepatch looked taken aback; maybe curious? Unnerved? Irritated? Relieved? – Harry couldn't care – wouldn't care, because then the man continued in a more forceful tone, his stern and solid confidence back, "And what would you say about the Winter Soldier? He has been HYDRA's property."

Longer than Captain America had been frozen like a packaged meal went unspoken, but sharply heard.

All too sharply heard.

Property. – What an ugly word.

"He was." Harry could do stern, himself. "He will never be again." A vow, a magical vow, for—

–Those deep blue eyes, blown wide open but unseeing, but there was light in it – light light light light – spark of life, of awareness, of will, however tenuous, and there was raw relief in it, mixed with longing, with agony, with animalistic rage, a sentient being finally unfettered, after so long–

–"He has a name, you know, Mister Eyepatch. James Buchanan Barnes. He used to like to be called Bucky. Now he is James and Bucky. I am James too, you know that?" – `We're similar, so similar. A sentient being, unfettered at last, doing anything, everything to keep being free. No more cage. I am a weapon, maybe, but a weapon for myself, controlled by my own will. No prophecy, no orders, no binds.`

The one-eyed man's mouth thinned. A little bit like McGonagall. – But righteous Professor McGonagall had never listened to warnings and pleas by students. This man—

–"Mister Potter, please step aside. I need to speak to Captain America, and my people will handle the Winter Soldier from here on out. No need to worry."–

–Wouldn't, as well, apparently, and now he's trying to push past the guardian, the home's provider, owner and warden of the sanctuary, the last defence, right into a territory that everyone – be they magical or mundane – should always respect.

Violation.

The one-eyed man's body flew out of the front door, like Dumbledore's had.

A metallic soft click resounded round the doorway.

Harry looked up, into the second man's eyes, the man who had stood silent behind Mister Eyepatch: Phillip Coulson, Aunt Peggy had said–

–Torn, regretful, bittersweet, unsettled–

–The spark of a small boy reached from deep inside, livening up those tired brown eyes, but the man was too stubborn – or maybe too afraid – to let it go, to let it be free–

–Harry gave him a sad, sad smile. "Come back again, Mister Coulson, if you wish to see Steven Rogers and James Barnes." – `Not Captain America, not the Winter Soldier.`

The handgun lowered from its aim at the teen's heart. "I always believe in heros." A soft whisper escaped the dry lips, finished with the touch of a faint smile so reminiscent of the boy in the man, of the emotions churning in those brown eyes.

Harry's smile was wistful, now. "And sometimes, you would be surprised… when, after all, you find you believe in yourself, in that case–"

–Those deep blue eyes, shining with warm regard like gentle summer sunset; those bright blue eyes, exploding in raw joy like sunrise bursting through a mundane morning sky. – All, because a pair of fumbling, inexperienced, ignorant teenage hands had hauled them from the ice–

"–I am a nobody, too, Mister Coulson." – But when he sat on those broad, strong shoulders, when a pair of mismatched arms shielded him from autumn's leaves blown at him by a brisk breeze, strangely, he felt like a hero.

And for one shining second, the small boy in those jaded brown eyes broke free.

Harry smiled. A small boy met a small boy, in one shining second.

It was enough, for now.

Yes, even a scrawny teen – or a little boy – could be a hero, and not the type of hero that gallantly defended the masses from evil at that.

That type was boring, unreal to boot.

Saving a soul or three was real; real and good. Because one death too early was one death too many.

Author's Note: Sorry if I put less emphasis on Bucky than on Steve in this fic, folks. Problem is, Bucky refused to say anything or involve himself in interactions, while Harry was mostly too distracted with things to coax him out of his shell; and here, Harry also got Steve to interact with Bucky in the background… I might do a Harry and Bucky piece for this series, later on, to make up for it. But this year I'm NaNo-ing, so I'd rather focus on my NaNo project and think about other things after November ends. Tell me what you think, though?