Fractured Time

Summary: Continuation of Birth of a Nightmare Man chapter thirteen, where we left Rabastan and Draco wondering about Harry Potter's fate. But now time has become a strange thing, and their world is dying. How can they escape? Will they ever see Harry Potter again?

Pairing/s: None.

Warnings: Time-travelling and dimension-travelling, some violence and gore. People acting OOC.

Disclaimers: I don't own Harry Potter nor do I make any money on fanfiction.

NOTE: Do not re-upload on sites as goodreads or Wattpad, or any other site for that matter. I do not give permission to do so.

-o-

The end is here! It took a fair bit of time to get it completed, but I enjoyed the journey nonetheless. I hope you did too.

Fractured Time takes place around five years before The Nightmare Man's Journey.

-o-

Chapter Ten

The morning brought the yelling. Epic yelling. Harry brought the girls outside before Elise could even start, leaving Harrison at said woman's mercy. Elise was nearly vibrating, waiting for the slamming of the doors, before she turned to Harrison, eyes blazing.

There was a lot of pointing, and gesturing, and near-stomping. Harrison watched her, wide-eyed, and the few times he tried to speak, Elise looked so livid he closed his mouth again. For Rabastan, it was pretty entertaining to watch.

She brought up many good points too, due to him ending up hurt pretty much every time he played bait. A torn-off arm was apparently quite mild compared to other injuries he suffered. While being quite blunt, and more than a bit rude to Harrison, Elise was right in many aspects.

Harrison took it rather well, all things considered. Or at least that was what Rabastan assumed, until Harrison said:

"But it worked."

"It doesn't matter if it worked or not!" Elise exploded. "You always get in trouble when you play bait!"

"How else would we have sorted it then? Playing bait is a bit risky, yes, but usually the fastest method of solving the problem of finding someone."

"Your arm got chopped off!"

"Well, it would've grown out eventually, but you saved it! Look, here it is!" He flapped it in her general direction. "Besides, it's not that bad, it was just an arm."

Elise's fingers twitched, and so did her eyes. Rabastan realized this was going to take a while, so he decided to go and get breakfast. He could hear them yelling at each other the entire way down to the dining area, where Lucian was. As the voices rose even further, Lucian turned his eyes skyward and sighed.

"By that, I assume they do this every time something happens?" Rabastan wondered.

"Almost every time. Well, not before. We didn't yell at him before."

"Tongue?" Rabastan remembered vaguely from all of the conversations he had had with Harrison. "He removed them?"

"Only when we were really annoying."

"I'm guessing his version of annoying varied from day to day?"

"Yes. We didn't talk much back then."

Something crashed.

"Vase," Lucian identified. "Elise keeps putting them up everywhere, so master has something to destroy."

"How many has she bought?"

"I think she just keeps buying new ones every week," Lucian said. "Or possibly stealing them. I haven't asked where they came from."

Another vase crashed, this time it had to be against a wall or something. The yelling increased. Elise screaming about she didn't want to see him hurt, and he was a fucking idiot. Harrison yelling right back he didn't want to see them hurt, and he was a born idiot, so there was no cure there.

"He's just making things worse for himself," Rabastan said.

"Master has a talent for that, unfortunately."

"And you've had to deal with that for how many years?"

"I try not to think about it," Lucian admitted.

The yelling ended quite abruptly, apparently Elise no longer had any qualms about shutting Harrison up if she was irritated enough, and she came stomping down the stairs alone.

"Has master seen reason?" Lucian asked.

"Maybe," she replied.

"So why isn't he with you?" Rabastan wondered.

"Because I chained him to the bed," Elise said. "Just for a while."

Well, that was one way to keep Harrison at home.

-o-

Harry came back inside with Angel and Lucy; they had had breakfast outside with Ywgraine and Severus. Once Angel saw Elise, she said she wanted to see Harrison.

"He's in time-out," Elise said. "You can see him later."

Angel frowned and turned to Lucy.

"Don't look at me, Uncle Harrison's more in time-out than we are," Lucy said.

Rabastan wasn't surprised he was. Draco, having arrived just after the yelling stopped, snorted at that.

"Can I make a potion if we can't see Uncle Harrison?" Lucy continued.

"Did Severus say that was okay?" Elise wondered.

"Yes, of course he did."

"How much did you nag at him?"

"Only a little bit," Lucy said. "Besides, he won't let me do Draught of Living Death no matter how much I complain."

"Why, of all potions, would you want to make that one?" Elise asked. "It's advanced level."

"It sounds interesting. Anyway, Severus says I won't get to do that one until I know potions. So he'll teach me something simpler this time."

"Keep Angel away from the fumes," was Elise's only warning before Severus came inside to bring the girls to the potions lab.

"Why are you even trying to save that robe?" Harry asked.

Elise was currently looking over Harrison's robe, now washed, and said:

"The cuts in the fabric aren't that severe. Master can wear it in the dungeons."

"Hasn't he got an apron or something down there?" Rabastan asked. "He tends to get messy."

"He doesn't have the patience for that, most of the time."

"Figures."

"So everyone's dead now?" Harry wondered as he sat down. "From that group?"

"Dead, and consumed," Elise confirmed. "I've let Voldemort know about it. He'll be relieved to not have to think about that anymore."

"He still got the rebels to think about," Harry said.

"He always has something to think about with his position, which is why master isn't big on politics."

"Because he doesn't like to think?" Rabastan wondered.

"… More or less," Elise admitted.

"Yeah, he was never a big thinker," Rabastan said. "Well, I'm less of a thinker, but he made some pretty impulsive decisions even as a kid."

He had heard some of it from Harrison himself, and other times, from Draco. Snape had never spoken about Harrison in the company of another Death Eater, and Rabastan understood why later. Out of all of the good guys, Snape was the worst of them, and yet he was probably the one who wanted Harrison to live the most. Not that he'd ever admit it. Rabastan would bet money on Snape denying it until he was blue in the face, if Rabastan ever encountered him in the afterlife.

Because he wasn't getting younger, and he knew he didn't want to live as long as Harrison. Rabastan felt he had lived through enough for a lifetime, and he did want to see his brother from his dimension.

"I never really asked for details about your world," Harry said to Rabastan and Draco now. "Why were they so fanatical about killing Harrison?"

"Insanity I imagine," Draco said.

"With an unhealthy dose of idiocy," Rabastan added. "I mean, England was emptying. People fled from the country, Muggle and magical alike. Only those who wished to hide, and those too stupid to run, stayed."

"We wished to hide," Draco said. "So we lived amongst the cracks. Until we got the idea of trying to find where Harrison had gone."

"I mean, that was pretty idiotic of us," Rabastan said. "Crazy even. Can't believe any of us managed to talk Narcissa into trying it."

"She was tired of running," Draco said.

"Or possibly dusty houses."

"That too."

"Your father wasn't much better, though."

"No mattress was ever good enough for him," Draco said.

It still hurt to talk about Lucius and Narcissa from their dimension. Maybe that was why Rabastan tended to avoid it. But Draco had a small smile on his face and perhaps… perhaps it was good in a way, to talk about them.

To bring them back to life in conversations. Let Draco remember them, the Lucius and Narcissa that raised him from infancy.

"I think I know Lucius better than Draco in this dimension," Harry confessed. "I mean, I do meet him every now and then, but Lucius is here more often. It doesn't sound like they were too different from each other. But a Malfoy is a Malfoy, aren't they?"

"It certainly sounds like something father would agree on," Draco said. "Living in a fractured world put a strain on us all, but they did their best to keep their spirits up."

"I wondered what would have happened if Harrison hadn't come to this dimension," Harry said.

"I think it was meant to be," Rabastan replied. "Here, Dementors were created by Harrison. In our dimension, they came from nowhere, and shortly after he disappeared, they vanished into thin air. The cracks of time could lead to the same dimension. At least two led to this dimension, many led back to our own, just in a different time. So somehow they found him, their maker, before he was their maker."

"Time can be really fucked up sometimes," Draco concluded.

"I'm getting a headache," Harry confessed.

"Harrison would have smashed his head onto the table already," Rabastan said.

As one cue, Harrison could be heard yelling:

"Am I allowed out of bed yet?"

"No!" Elise screamed, then went back to muttering at Harrison's robes: "Honestly, he's just like a child sometimes…"

"I should go and save him from boredom," Rabastan said, getting up. "Who knows what he'll end up doing to himself."

"But he's chained up," Harry began.

"Has that stopped him before?"

"No," Elise answered for Harry. "If there's something master has mastered besides killing people, it's hurting himself because he's bored."

-o-

Rabastan sauntered into Harrison's room, and Harrison looked up.

"Thank god it's only you," Harrison said. "For a moment I thought I'd upset Elise again and she'd come up and start yelling…"

"What do you mean, again? She's still upset."

"Still?"

"Harrison, she yelled at you less than an hour ago!"

"Has it only been one hour?"

"Yes!"

"Oh god, kill me already."

"I mean, I could try but I don't think that would help in the long run."

"Right," Harrison said. "She'd keep me in bed for weeks. Yes, you're right, don't kill me."

But despite his complaining, Harrison looked entirely too comfortable being shackled to his own bed, which could only mean…

"Just how many times have you been so utterly stupid?" Rabastan wanted to know.

"I've lost count," Harrison replied. "Ask Elise, I bet she has a tally of it somewhere."

"How many times has she shackled you to the bed?"

"Dozens?" Harrison ventured. "Before I was captured by the Wizard's Council, she didn't quite dare to shackle me up. Nor really yell at me. She's yelled a lot at me these last five years."

"Maybe she's making up for lost time."

Harrison kicked his feet.

"This is boring," he said. "How am I supposed to entertain myself when I can't move my arms?"

"I think you're meant to reflect on your mistakes," Rabastan tried.

"Elise knows me better than to assume I ever reflect on my mistakes."

-o-

Apparently, Harrison being in time-out didn't stop the children from visiting in the end. Angel came first, bored with watching potion-making, and she decided to entertain Harrison by reading for him.

"No, that's the wrong bookshelf," Harrison told her when she moved to one bookshelf.

"How is it wrong?" Rabastan wondered, seated in one of the armchairs.

"I had to rearrange my books," Harrison said. "And add some. The right one, Angel, the 'little to no gore' bookshelf. That's it, good girl."

"What kind of books do you have?" Rabastan half-whispered at him while Angel was choosing between books.

"I don't like history books, they get too many things wrong," Harrison said. "I also don't like theory books, because that reminds me of Hermione and that makes me annoyed. Not really into potion books, I just like to wing it when I make potions… I actually have a lot of books that I don't really like."

"Are you a hoarder or something?"

"I do like to collect things," Harrison said. "I'm a collector! Of hopefully not boring things. What did you pick, you little devil?"

Angel held the book out proudly. Harrison squinted to read the title.

"Angel, dear… that might belong in the gore-bookshelf."

"Really?" she said, and opened it. "It's red. And sticky."

"Oh, that's blood. Yeah, it was put on the wrong bookshelf, hand it over to Rabastan and pick another one."

Angel dutifully did and the next one was a children's book, apparently. A brightly coloured one too. Rabastan had never seen a book like that.

"Muggle," Harrison explained. "Ywgraine and Joanne keep buying them. Some of them are really funny, actually."

Angel seated herself next to Harrison and began to read, and from the looks of it, completely unconcerned about the chains holding Harrison shackled to the bed. She had to be the calmest, most indifferent child Rabastan had ever met. At least when it came to weird and gory stuff.

Lucy barged in an hour later, a potion in her hand and a wide grin on her face.

"Elise said you could test it for me!" she greeted Harrison with.

"Is it poison?" Harrison asked.

"No."

"Shame. Give it here then."

He didn't even ask what it did. Angel moved aside for Lucy, who jumped on the bed and tipped the vial so Harrison could drink it. Considering it was only a first-year potion, if Severus held true to his word, then Rabastan supposed the effects couldn't be awful.

Harrison smacked his lips afterwards.

"Nasty taste," he commented. "What is it supposed to do?"

"Aren't you supposed to ask that before you drink it?" Lucy said.

"Lucy, I drink things like Basilisk venom without it killing me."

"You're so weird, Uncle Harrison. Anyway, it's Cure for Boils."

"But I don't have any boils," Harrison said.

"Should I have given you a few?" Lucy tried. "There's still half of it left."

"How about you don't?" Lucian's voice came from the doorway.

He had stuck his head in, looking at Lucy.

"It's the cure; he'll have them for like seconds!" Lucy protested.

"No boils," Lucian said.

"Don't be so grumpy," Harrison said.

"Yeah, don't be so grumpy," Lucy added.

"Boils," Angel agreed.

"No boils."

"Oh well, I tried," Harrison told Lucy. "Did Severus say it was correct?"

"Yes."

"Then I suppose it must be. Still nasty."

"All potions are more or less nasty," Rabastan said.

"Am I allowed out of this bed yet?" Harrison wanted to know.

"Have you reflected, master?"

"No."

"That was the whole point," Lucian said, moving into the room.

"I don't reflect on things," Harrison said. "I'm an idiot that's immortal, immortal idiots don't reflect."

"… I give up."

Lucian released him from the chains. Rabastan thought for a bit, and then said:

"It's like rewarding bad behaviour of a naughty child."

Lucian and Harrison both turned to look at him. Lucy, still holding her potion, said:

"Actually, that's kind of true. Uncle Harrison is in time-out a lot, but he's never really punished."

"I am the oldest person in this house," Harrison said.

"Yeah, and sometimes you're the silliest," Lucy replied.

"I mean, you're not wrong but… naughty child, Rabastan? Me? What have I ever done to you?"

"I can whip up a list if you want."

"No, don't! I don't want to be reminded of past mistakes. Or the time when I was a good person."

The word 'good' made him shudder.

"So weird," Lucy whispered to Rabastan.

"So very weird," Lucian agreed.

"Read for us," Angel demanded of Harrison, having retrieved another book.

It was a weird life. But Rabastan wouldn't trade it for the world.

-o-

A conversation came back to Rabastan when it was nearing October. The manor was quiet, everyone busy with their own thing. Draco was with Severus, spending a day in the potions lab. The servants were spread throughout the manor. Elise was fixing a crack in the ballroom ceiling, Fred and George helping her out since they were the cause of the crack.

Lucian was experimenting with a new recipe, hoping it wouldn't be too exotic for Harrison; when it was, he usually refused to eat. Christian was helping, mostly by keeping a watch over the meat in the oven.

Rabastan however, wasn't looking for any of them. Instead he searched for Harrison, finally finding him in a small sitting room. Angel was sleeping in his lap, her head resting against his shoulder. He himself was reading, and didn't even look up.

So Rabastan made himself on the armchair next to Harrison's, and said:

"Do you remember the conversation we had about having kids?"

Harrison looked up with a frown.

"The what?"

"Conversations, about kids."

"We haven't had one," Harrison said.

"We did. Back then."

"Did we?"

Oh yeah, Harrison had a hard time remembering everything from back when he was Harry Potter. Rabastan thought back.

"You had just killed that Longbottom boy and… what was her name? Lovegood?"

"Neville and Luna," Harrison said absently. "They weren't happy about it."

"I imagine they weren't."

"We talked about children after that?"

"Yeah. You said you probably didn't like kids much."

Harrison thought about it for a bit.

"It was true back then," he said at last. "And for a long time after that."

"What changed, then? Because you've got one drooling all over your shoulder right now."

"What, drool?" Harrison put away the book and wiped Angel's chin clean. "Children are leaky."

"In some aspects, sure. So what changed?"

"I… don't know. I never meant to take Angel with me, and Lucy was a survivor from a village I destroyed. I took her because they wanted to save her from me. After that, I supposed it just turned into me having two kids around and not killing them."

Harrison glanced down. Angel was still drooling.

"Even when they drool on my shoulder," he added.

"You're surprisingly good with them," Rabastan said.

"Am I?" Harrison replied. "I've been told I indulge and spoil them."

"You give them what they need."

"That's the weird part. But… listen, I don't know what I need. I've never really known it. By having them around though, I've calmed down a bit. Them, and Harry."

"He's still a child in your eyes?"

"Everyone under a certain age to me are children," Harrison said.

"You mean I'm still a child?" Rabastan asked.

"Yes."

"Fuck you, my knees ache in the morning."

"Fuck you back, my knees don't ache in the morning."

"That's it, isn't it? You're gonna look exactly like this when you finally drop dead, aren't you? Not a single wrinkle to be seen."

"Wrinkles are so not me."

Rabastan had a few wrinkles. He would only get more. Maybe it would make Harrison upset, but Harrison was old. He had lived such a long life without Rabastan, that he probably would survive Rabastan's death.

"… You do know I'm gonna die eventually?" Rabastan said.

Harrison shifted on Angel again, hugging her to his chest a bit.

"Yes," he finally said. "You don't want to live forever."

"Have you been reading my mind?"

"A little bit, maybe. Draco, too. He doesn't want to live forever."

"In the end, all he really had was his parents, and me. He lost them. Wherever they ended up, they will die too. So it's in death he will meet them the next time."

"I forced Elise and Lucian into sharing my fate," Harrison said. "Some of the other servants too. Christian didn't choose it. So I've learnt not to force people, mostly. I didn't force the founders. At times, I wish I had, but no one knows what immortality will do to a person."

"You feared they would turn out to be like you?"

"I suppose I did," Harrison confessed. "It'll hurt, seeing you die. But I'll survive it. Probably. Most likely."

"That doesn't sound very sure," Rabastan said.

"I'll live. I've done it before."

He would have no other choice. But he picked himself up after George's death, if only for revenge. He ended up in another dimension, all alone, and survived that. Not with all of his mind intact, but he was better these days. Elise and Lucian said so.

"Do you think you'll pick up anymore kids?" Rabastan asked.

"I bloody hope not. Angel's wailing when she was little was exhausting. I dread the teenage years."

"Didn't you get a little practice in with Harry?"

"He wasn't your average, brooding teenager," Harrison said. "He wasn't even as bad as I was… I think. I do think I was an angsty teenager. Was I?"

"You better ask Draco that, I didn't care for brooding boys-who-lived back then."

"Ugh, that title is awful."

"Don't all boys live?"

Angel's question made them both look down at her. She wiped her mouth and chin, and stared at Rabastan.

"Harrison was a special boy," Rabastan said. "He survived a very bad spell."

"Killing curse," Harrison supplied. "The green, lighty thingy."

"That one," Angel said.

"She's seen one?" Rabastan said.

"… Might have demonstrated it," Harrison said. At Rabastan's look, he continued, "At a chicken! I'm not a complete monster."

"You kinda are, though. Showing a killing curse to a child is something a monster would do."

"She was curious!"

"We had chicken for dinner," Angel supplied. "Dead chicken. It was yummy."

"See, she learnt how we got chickens. Or rather, that they used to be alive before they ended up in her stomach."

"… Please tell me your servants are handling most of the children's education."

-o-

The first Christmas in their new dimension, and Rabastan had gotten used to Fred and George wrecking havoc in the mornings. Christmas, it appeared, was not spared from their noisy personalities, and thus Rabastan was woken up to the sounds of fireworks.

Inside the house.

Elise's yelling started moments later. Rabastan dragged a pillow over his head; it was too early for this shit.

He was allowed one more hour of peace, before the noises got too much. Lucy and Angel raced past his door at least five times during that hour, doing their best to wake Harrison up, banging on his door and yelling through it when he wouldn't open said door. Rabastan growled before getting up, just giving himself enough time to change into the robes next to his bed before stalking over to Harrison's door. He didn't even knock; he just kicked it open and discovered Harrison holding a pillow over his head as well.

"Oh no," Rabastan said. "If I have to get up, you have to get up. Children, door's open!"

Twin shrieks of delight, and Harrison popped his head up in alarm. Too late; Lucy threw Angel up in the air, and she landed with deadly accuracy right on Harrison's back. He went down with a painful grunt, holding a hand up even as Angel dug her sharp, little elbows into his side. Lucy howled and jumped up on the bed. Angel rolled away and Lucy pounced on Harrison.

"Rabastan, please, for the love of god, kill me!" Harrison begged.

"Wallow in your misery, old man," Rabastan said.

The children pounded him with questions while Rabastan went into Harrison's wardrobe and picked out his clothes. No plain, black robes today; no, today Rabastan wanted to see Harrison all dressed up.

He chose a black robe with slashes of dark green, some jewels sewn in to make the robe sparkle in the right light. Beneath that, black slacks and a green shirt with a black vest.

"Alright, you two, get off him," Rabastan said as he came back out. "You aren't even dressed."

"Do we have to get dressed?" Lucy said.

"If I have to dress up, you have to," Harrison hissed at her.

"Uncle Harrison, you've got loads of pretty clothes, why do you hate them?"

"They're constricting," Harrison said.

"You're wearing them, and that's final," Rabastan said.

"You aren't wearing fancy robes!"

"I don't intend to wear this," Rabastan said. "This was just so I could wake you up."

Harrison finally rolled out of bed, literally, and landed with a thump on the floor. He sat up.

"Was there fireworks earlier?" he wondered.

"Fred and George set them off," Lucy told him. "Elise wasn't happy; they broke one of her garlands."

"Hers?" Rabastan said. "She has special ones?"

"Yes," Harrison said as he got up. "Bone ones. Made out of her relatives."

"… Pardon me?"

"Yeah, I don't really get it either."

The children were sent to get ready, and Harrison was thrown into the bath, while Rabastan went to get ready for real. He wasn't sure what to expect from today. Was it easier to not expect anything, and roll with whatever happened? Fireworks indoors on Christmas seemed like a good indication that traditional things were not common.

First they had breakfast. Harrison ate sitting on top of the table like the crazy man he was. Lucy said:

"When do we get to open our presents?"

"No clue," Harrison said. "Maybe there aren't any."

"Uncle Harrison!" both she and Angel cried.

"Must you tease them so, master?" Elise wondered.

"It's funny," he defended himself with. "And it's not like they haven't been down and gotten their grubby hands on every gift that's under that stupid tree."

"We have not," Lucy protested.

"Oh, you haven't?"

"No, we haven't!"

"I smell lies," Harrison said and flicked a piece of toast at her.

Lucy, to her credit, caught it in her mouth and chewed on it angrily, glaring at Harrison.

"When do we get to open our presents?" she asked Elise, like she probably should have done from the start.

"Once you've eaten up," Elise replied. "All of it, with no complaints."

Angel, who had been looking at some greens with distaste, pinched her nose shut and ate it, mouth turned downwards. But she didn't complain. There were a few pieces she glared at, and Rabastan saw Lucian push his plate closer to hers. She unloaded what appeared to be her least favourites, and ate the rest with gusto.

Harrison had been given a much smaller portion, but he still needed more time than the children to finish it. Finally he put the plate down on the table, and then rolled off said table. He pulled the children up from their chairs, and said:

"How about everyone except for Angel and Lucy gets their presents?"

"No!" Angel said.

"No, we ate our food. Put us down! Uncle Harrison!"

"Are you sure you want to open gifts?"

"This is punishment for us jumping on your bed, isn't it?!"

"Not on my bed, you beast, on me. On my poor, old back!"

Lucy started kicking, but while Harrison didn't look particularly strong, he seemed to have a grip of iron. He just laughed at their struggles.

They were eventually let go, and the gifts were handed out to the right people. Piles of gifts gathered around them; with so many people living there, it was no wonder that the amount to each one was rather big. Even so, the children received much more.

Harry, Draco, and the twins were included there, because somehow they counted as children. Draco, in addition, had several packages from this dimension's Lucius and Narcissa.

Rabastan had never seen so much wrapping paper. The servants seemed content with waiting until all gifts were unwrapped before cleaning up and it wasn't so bad. It was just wrapping paper. Rabastan had seen what kind of messes they had had to clean up sometimes.

It was no wonder there were so few carpets in the manor, with the amount of blood and gore Harrison kept pulling in.

Speaking of Harrison, he seemed more intent of watching everyone opening their gifts than opening his own. Rabastan knew he hadn't received many during his youth, but surely he was used to it nowadays?

Angel got a stuffed, green dragon that was half her size, and she immediately ran up to Harrison, declaring him her favourite gift giver.

"I thought the pencils and book would be enough!" Ywgraine moaned.

"Don't even try," Joanne said, patting her arm. "Master is always Angel's favourite."

"You are smug," Rabastan informed Harrison. "You are smug because a five-year old says you're the best gift giver?"

"It's a victory I don't mind having."

"You're crazy."

"You know that already."

Rabastan smiled. He did know that. He settled back in his chair, just fine with watching the others now that his gifts were opened; mostly practical things like robes and a new pair of boots. Another orb that Rabastan supposed had a soothing aura, or something similar; he wouldn't say no to it, due to still waking up every now and then from dreams of his old life.

But right now, he didn't need it. Right now, he was perfectly fine within the chaos that was the Nightmare Lord's life. The room was warm and inviting, there was laughter everywhere, murmurs of voices and Draco was smiling. Harrison was smiling as Lucy showed off her new potions materials, blabbering about the next potion she wanted to try. Angel climbed into Harrison's lap and clung around his neck, and instead of stiffening, he softly patted her back.

Yeah… all was good this day. No fractured time to be seen, or ever to be seen again, because while Harrison was crazy, he surely wasn't that crazy that he wanted to attempt it again.

-o-

The next day, Rabastan was woken up by Dementors breathing down on him because some things never changed.

"Harrison, you fucking idiot!"

Harrison's delighted laughter at the door had Rabastan grinning.

Not that it stopped him from chasing Harrison all over the manor. Couldn't let the old man think he was allowed to do whatever he wanted with them.

Even the children joined in on the hunt, and Rabastan let the twins (because yes, they were children even to Rabastan, ugh, he was getting old) tackle Harrison. Once he was down, Lucy and Angel jumped on him. Harry hesitated for a few moments before shrugging and joining them. Draco stood by Rabastan's side, helpfully telling them how to pin Harrison down.

"This is good," Draco said. "It's good, isn't it?"

Lucius and Narcissa from their dimension were lost to them. At least until they died and could reunite with them in the afterlife. Rabastan hoped that would happen.

But for now, and for the rest of their lives, they had their friend, and the life he had created in this dimension. A crazy life for sure, but one Rabastan didn't mind living.

"Yeah, it's good," he replied.

All was good.

The end

We have finally reached the end! Thank you all for being patient with my writer's block, and I'll see you when I see you.

Tiro