Harry wakes up with a gasp. Then he lies back down in his bed and frowns up at the canopy. He and Leon are still working hard on Occlumency, but it doesn't always block the dreams from Voldemort. At least Harry is only getting a flash now and then of something disgusting Voldemort is doing, and he seems mostly helpless, stuck in his baby body without anyone to help him.

Harry gets up and wanders out of his bedroom. Then he grabs the Invisibility Cloak and goes down the stairs, out of the Tower altogether and onto the Hogwarts grounds. He wants to sit outside in the cold and watch the stars. Sometimes that sends him back to sleep.

He ends up going over to Hagrid's hut, because someone is sitting on a stump outside it, and that's so unusual that it intrigues Harry. It's all the more so when he can see the person is Leon, and when Leon turns his head and looks right at Harry despite the Cloak draped over his shoulders.

"Couldn't sleep?" Leon asks quietly.

Harry shakes his head and takes his place next to Leon. "Dreams from Voldemort. What about you?"

Leon smiles in a way that says he's not going to tell Harry everything, which always annoys Harry, but less from Leon than anyone else. "Dreams, yes. And I've had a thought which troubles me very much, but which I can't prove."

"What is it?"

Leon hesitates for long enough that Harry scowls at him. He thought Leon wasn't like those adults who thought he didn't have a right to know Sirius Black was his bloody godfather, but here he is, acting like them.

Leon finally sighs and says, "I wondered why Dumbledore seemed so disturbed by me. He still is, more than he was by the man playing Alastor Moody who tried to make you compete in the Tournament. And I keep thinking-Harry, I keep thinking that he had plans for you that I disrupted by being here."

"What kinds of plans?" Harry whispers. His throat is dry and it hurts, and he has to clear it and continue on before he can speak normally again. "What plans?"

"Plans about how to use you in the war." Leon turns around on the stump to face him. "There shouldn't be any reason that Dumbledore hasn't taken more of a stance against Voldemort or at least asked you about your dreams once I told him we were studying Occlumency. But it's as though he's content to wait. As though he knows something neither of us does or needs something that neither of us does."

Harry's throat is really dry now. "You think he needs me to do something?"

Leon nods. "And I need to find out. Or I need to do something that will make his plans irrelevant. I know I can do it. There's one move he wouldn't have any protection against. I've been hesitating because it would require your cooperation, and I'm not sure how you would feel about moving against your Headmaster."

"I want to be involved," Harry says instantly. "I always do, but most of the time, no one says I can be, they just don't do anything and then get upset when I get involved!"

Leon studies him, then nods. "All right. But it's also going to involve me telling you lots of secrets."

"I want to know them!"

"About me. About who I am."

Harry hesitates. Leon has been the best thing that ever happened to him. Does he want to disrupt that and maybe get some answers that he doesn't want?

But he trusts Leon because he's the best thing that ever happened to Harry. He sits up and nods. "I'm ready."

They're in the sitting room in front of the fire. Leon seems uncomfortable, but also committed to doing this, which is all Harry can ask for.

Harry watches intently as Leon reaches up and traces his wand over his forehead. The skin moves like it's peeling off, and then there's—a lightning bolt scar there.

Harry stares. It feels like he's pretty much incapable of doing anything else. Like all his strength has been stolen away.

Leon looks at him, and Harry stares into his face again. Now it seems impossible that he didn't recognize the eyes that are—his own. Of course, it helped that he never thought he would grow into anyone so powerful and brilliant.

"So you're—from another world?" Harry whispers.

"From the future," Leon corrects. "I lived through what you did, and I couldn't stand it. I spent so much time not acknowledging what happened to me that I did terrible things. I lost control of my magic. It burned a bunch of people alive. And that was the least of it." Leon lets out a slow, shuddering breath. "I came back to take care of you the way someone should have taken care of me."

"But I'm you."

Leon smiles at him. Harry can't imagine himself smiling that way, either. Well, maybe now he can, now that he's been with Leon for a little while. "I'm aware."

"It's mental." Harry starts to laugh and then stops, because he sounds mental when he does that. "But how did you do it? Why didn't the future just collapse? Why did you decide to come here instead of coming and rescuing me from the Dursleys?"

"I made a sacrifice," Leon says simply. "I sacrificed my own future. All of it. The horrible things I did. The good I achieved. The sacrifice of a future essentially unraveled the time before I traveled in time, and made it as if it had never been. And I came back here because this was the only point I could reach. The sacrifice only granted me so much. Not a whole lifetime to have you and raise you." He leans forwards with his elbows on his knees and smiles at Harry. It's a smile full of pain this time, and Harry looks away. Now he totally believes Leon is him. "I wish I could have. You're a great kid, Harry."

"I'm you. Don't you just feel like you're talking to a mirror?"

Leon shakes his head. "Not anymore. We're different enough at this point that I'm hopeful the future won't happen. And—" He sighs. "I'm going to make sure that Voldemort and Dumbledore can't use you the way they want to."

"How?" Harry is whispering. The world seems to be spinning a little, dancing around an axis he never knew existed.

"Do you know what a Horcrux is?" But then Leon snorts lightly. "Of course not. I didn't when I was you. A Horcrux is a container for a bit of soul. Dark wizards sometimes use them to maintain their immortality. As long as the soul is anchored to the object, they can't die. It takes a murder, and that's just the first of it."

Harry shivers. "That's what Voldemort used?"

Leon nods. "But Voldemort made seven of them, where nobody before him was stupid enough to make more than one. And one was accidental." He reaches out, and his fingers gently point at Harry's scar without touching it.

Harry tries to hyperventilate. Tries, because Leon is hugging him, his head bowed and his voice gentle. "I didn't react any better the first time I found out. It's all right. That's why I can help you, Harry. I can pull that Horcrux out of you and bind it to my scar. And now I know a different method to get rid of it than the first time."

"What did you do the first time?" Now a stranger's voice is coming out of Harry's mouth.

"I had to walk up and let Voldemort hit me with a Killing Curse."

Harry promptly hits Leon in the shoulder with a fist. "You're not doing that!"

"No, I'm not." Leon kisses his lightning bolt scar, and it's such a weird sensation, but Harry doesn't care if Leon is him, somehow. What really matters is that he's also the person who's taken the best care of Harry. "Like I said, I know a different way. We'll get this done, Harry. You're going to live. You're going to have a happier life."

"So are you, or what's the point?"

"Oh, Harry. I already do."

The ritual to remove the Horcrux from Harry's scar and bind it to Leon's—Harry can't really think of him as Harry Potter—happens on the stroke of midnight on the spring equinox. Leon tried to explain what was so special about that day, but Harry was too nervous to absorb much. He does know there's a lot of green involved.

The color of spring. The color of the Killing Curse and his eyes and Slytherin and too many bloody things to imagine.

Harry lies back on the grass, his arms and legs wrapped with green scarves. Leon stands in front of him, singing softly in Latin. Or, well, Harry supposes that he's chanting, but singing is really what it sounds like, soft and rhythmic and rising and falling.

Then, abruptly, the grass seems to heave. Harry catches his breath, but he isn't really standing or moving himself. In fact, he's not even in the middle of an earthquake, which is what he thought at first. Instead, he watches as a peak of skin rises up in front of him—is that his own forehead?—and then something black wrenches itself out of him.

It zooms towards Leon, who faces it and doesn't back away. His singing becomes more intense, though, and his wand bounds back and forth in front of him as though it's going to fly out of his hand any second. The black thing has to stop moving, and Leon nods and says something else in song that almost sounds as though he's speaking to the Horcrux.

Harry shudders. He doesn't mind Leon speaking to it so much, but what if it listens? Harry doesn't like thinking of it being able to listen.

Leon laughs, suddenly.

Harry feels as if the Horcrux freezes, and he wants to do much the same thing. Hearing Leon laugh—

He's never felt less like him. Leon might talk all he likes about Harry's innocence and how he came back to preserve it, and it sounds like Leon did horrible things in the future, but Harry wants to be the kind of person who laughs like that.

Maybe I still can be, is what he's thinking when the Horcrux zooms forwards and join with Leon's scar. Leon lets out a single, pained breath that falls quickly back into his normal rhythm of breathing. Harry glares at him, but Leon doesn't undo the charms that protect Harry from the Horcrux's influence and also keep him still for a moment. He seems to be grimacing and just barely resisting the urge to claw at his forehead.

Harry is very glad, when Leon banishes the scarves and nods at Harry that he can move, that Harry gets to get up and hug his—himself. His friend. His father. His elder brother.

Harry doesn't know what exactly he would say that Leon is now. He's just glad that he's there.

Harry shifts cautiously in his chair. He doesn't actually know why Leon wanted to have this meeting with Dumbledore and Sirius. Leon has acted like he likes both of them but distrusts them at the same time—although it's mostly not distrust when he talks about Sirius. Instead, deep sadness fills his eyes.

Harry hasn't asked about that yet. Knowing Leon comes from the future, he's not actually sure he wants to hear what happened to Sirius then.

Leon has his hands quietly folded on his stomach. Sirius is bouncing his leg in his chair across the office, eyes bright with suspicion. Headmaster Dumbledore is smiling, but Harry thinks something's different about it. Maybe he's not as calm? Maybe he's trying to be mysterious like usual, but it isn't working right now, for some reason?

"Lemon drop?"

Leon shakes his head, although his eyes flicker in a way that makes Harry think Leon used to be familiar with that saying, too. "No, thank you, Headmaster. I asked for this meeting here because I wanted to discuss what I plan for Voldemort's Horcruxes."

Dumbledore's face pales so fast that Harry honestly thinks he might faint. Then Sirius yells, "What?"

"Horcruxes," Leon says. "That's how he maintains his immortality. There was one in Harry's scar until last week. I took it out and bound it to myself."

Harry has to bite his lip very hard so that he doesn't laugh. He loves Sirius and he likes the Headmaster, but it's really funny to see how surprised they are.

Sirius is gaping back and forth between Leon and the Headmaster, but then he shakes his head and says, "Did you know about this, Albus?"

"It is not something that should have been revealed." The Headmaster is looking steadily at Leon, who shrugs. Harry shrinks back in his chair as he feels a hot, hard knot appear in his stomach. That isn't the same as saying that no, he didn't know.

"So you were going to kill Harry to get rid of Voldemort? You were going to kill my godson?" Sirius sounds as if he has the same sort of hard, hot knot, but it's in the middle of his mouth and making him almost spit the words out.

"I was going to do what was necessary, Sirius."

"Which would have been sacrificing my godson!"

Harry looks over when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Leon is holding him with a gentle touch. He gives Harry a faint smile and then casts a charm. It floats like a red feather into the middle of the argument, and Harry can't see what good it's going to do. Both Sirius and the Headmaster are too upset right now to pay attention to anyone else.

Then the feather explodes into a pinwheeling firework, and makes a blue phoenix appear in a lovely outline in the air. Harry gasps. Fawkes chirps approvingly from his perch. Sirius sits back down in his chair with a sharp blink.

The Headmaster is the one who looks at Leon. "I've never seen a spell like that."

"I've learned a lot," Leon says, and smiles. "Now. We're getting away from the purpose of the conversation. What are we going to do now that we can't just follow whatever plan you might have had for the Horcrux in Harry, sir?"

"I suppose now I know how you know everything."

Leon laughs lightly, standing back from the charred circle in the grass where a kind of flame he calls Fiendfyre has eaten a locket they took from Sirius's house and a diadem from a special room in Hogwarts. Harry can't wait to go back and use that room for more things, but he's glad as hell that the Horcrux isn't in it anymore. That would have been uncomfortable. "It does explain things, right?'

"Are you going to let Dumbledore and Sirius help you?" Harry bounces beside Leon as they walk back towards Hogwarts from the clearing deep in the Forbidden Forest. He has no fears as long as Leon is right next to him.

"I don't know if I should," Leon says. "I know Sirius wants to, but he has a habit of charging in first and then agonizing about it later—but not enough." From the look in his eyes, Leon knows something specific he isn't going to tell Harry, again. Harry shrugs. He still trusts Leon.

"And in the original future when Dumbledore encountered one particular Horcrux, it tempted him to pick it up and use it," Leon continues.

Harry jerks to a stop. Leon puts a hand on his shoulder to gently push him along, reminding him without words that they are in the Forbidden Forest at night. But Harry still has to say something. "How can anyone be that stupid, though?" he asks in wonder.

"It was a unique circumstance that may not repeat itself. It still makes me uneasy about asking Dumbledore to help us, though. But if you think we should, I'll listen to you."

Harry's chest swells. Leon listens and talks to him, the way he always wanted to be listened and talked to. Of course, Leon has kind of an unfair advantage because he lived through everything Harry did and knows exactly how much it hurts to be left out and not listened to.

But Harry doesn't care. The fact that Leon is here and listening to him is a lot more important than anything else.

"No," Harry says, after thinking about it for a bit. "I don't think that would be a good idea. Maybe the same thing would happen again. And maybe Dumbledore would think that he knew better and try to persuade me to help him with whatever plan he wanted me to help him with in the first place." He pauses, not sure that last sentence made sense, but Leon is smiling and nodding.

"Yes, that was the way I thought of it, too." He reaches out and gently squeezes Harry's shoulder. "I'm glad that, although of course my life has changed me a lot, we can still be so much the same."

Harry beams up at him.

"You got all angry at Dumbledore picking up the Horcrux and putting it on," Harry says, scowling, furious, rubbing healing potion into Leon's swollen hand. "And then you did the same thing, didn't you?"

"Honestly, no." Leon watches his own hand, which is propped up on the table in his quarters, with a kind of clinical interest that reminds Harry of Madam Pomfrey. He doesn't want to think about that, though, so he shivers and doesn't. "But there was one defense near the door that I wasn't expecting."

"What was that?"

"A snake."

Harry's hands stop for a second, and then he goes on rubbing the potion in. "Can you talk to snakes?"

"Yes." Leon eyes him. "It was a power that remained even after the Horcrux was gone. But I would prefer that you not repeat that to anyone, please."

"You can count on me," Harry says, and thinks again how different Leon is from most adults around him, that he trusts Harry with things. Well, so does Sirius, but then he has those strange silences around things like who his mum's best friends were. "But why did your hand swell up if the snake was hiding on the ground?"

"It was hiding higher up," Leon says, and shakes his head with a grimace. "Nailed to the door, in fact."

"The door? But I thought Voldemort liked snakes."

Leon shrugs, his shoulders moving up and down in a way that makes Harry envious for a second. He's small and skinny still, and although Leon assures him that he will, it's hard to believe that he'll grow as strong as Leon someday. "I think maybe one of his Gaunt ancestors left it there, to tell you the truth. But it bit me when I opened the door and brought my hand too close to its skeleton."

Harry decides that he doesn't really want to ask any more about that. He has enough to do with smearing healing potions into Leon's hand right now.

And beyond things like this, surprisingly, he has a pretty much normal life. He does homework, and he talks to Sirius, and he spends time with Ron and Hermione (though sometimes he has to just pretend not to hear their questions about Leon).

"You said that you were going to come and give a lecture to our Defense class," he says finally, sitting back and admiring the way that the red swelling in Leon's hand is shrinking. Potions are a lot more useful than Snape ever made him think, but then again, Leon is a lot better teacher than Snape, too.

"I did, didn't I?"

"Could you do it tomorrow?"

Leon lifts his eyebrows. "Is there something special about tomorrow?"

"Only that the latest Auror from the Ministry is a really boring lecturer." Harry squirms a little when Leon's eyes pin him to his seat. "Um, and also, he said that we might have a practice exam. I want something other than an exam."

Leon laughs. "You realize that even if he agrees to let me speak, it will only put off the exam for a few days?"

"But that's a few days when I don't have to study!" Harry says, and then catches Leon's eye again. "I mean, days I could be using to study?"

As Leon's warm laughter surrounds him, Harry has to admit that he's glad that Leon came back in time, even though it means (and Harry is guilty for thinking this) that he suffered in his future.

"I just want to know who you are, that's all."

Harry frowns in displeasure as he walks around the corner towards Leon's door and finds that Hermione is standing in front of it with her hands on her hips. Harry understands why Hermione wants to know more about Leon, he really does. If he didn't already know the answer, the mystery would be driving him crazy.

But the thing is, he's also allowed to have secrets. Hermione kept the secret of the Time-Turner from him last year, and Harry doesn't think she would really have shared it with him if she hadn't been forced to. He should be allowed to have secrets she doesn't pry into, too. That's just the way it works.

"You know who I am. Leon Potter. And I'm sure Harry has shared the degree of relation we have with you."

Leon's voice is soft and fond. Harry realizes abruptly that he must have known Hermione, maybe even had the exact same friendship that Harry and his Hermione have. That's so bloody weird to think about.

"But there's more than that. You're going to tell me."

Harry blinks, a little horrified. He's never heard Hermione talk to a professor like that. Well, technically he supposes Leon isn't a professor, but he has lectured them and taught a few spells to some of the students who wanted to learn. Hermione is bossing Leon around like—

Like he's Harry.

Harry starts to speak up, because he's horrified and thinks she might have figured out the truth, but Leon calmly meets his eye and shakes his head the barest amount, so small that Hermione doesn't even look over her shoulder. Then he smiles at Hermione, but there's something firm and unyielding behind that smile. Harry's glad to see it.

"Miss Granger. Your curiosity does you credit. But there are things that an adult doesn't have to share with the people he doesn't want to share them with."

Harry breathes out slowly. That's something that he hasn't thought about before, a definition of adulthood, but the more he thinks about it, the more he likes it. He should be allowed to be an adult and have secrets, too, instead of having to tell everything to his friends or to Dumbledore at the end of the year.

And now he and Leon have a secret together.

"But I want to know!" And Hermione stomps her foot, something Harry hasn't seen her do since first year.

Leon straightens up at that. "Miss Granger, just because you want to know doesn't mean you get to. And this means of asking is rude. I was told by all your professors, and by Harry, that you were a polite young woman. I am surprised and disappointed to find you disproving what they told me."

Harry sighs behind his hand. Leon is so calm. That's the thing that Harry really wants to imitate, and doesn't think he'll be able to.

Hermione's eyes widen. Harry thinks for a moment she's going to burst into tears, but she only turns red. "Sorry, Mr. Potter," she mutters. "But I really want to know."

"Maybe someday I'll tell you. But demanding the truth from me isn't a good way to get it."

Hermione stays for a minute or so after that, but then leaves, and Harry ducks back around the corner so she doesn't see him. She would be humiliated if she knew that he'd witnessed that confrontation.

Harry steps out after that, and the first thing he asks, even though he'd intended to ask if Leon got the Horcrux in Gringotts, is, "You're not really going to tell her, are you?"

Leon shakes his head, a weary smile on his lips. "No. It would be overstepping certain boundaries I would rather keep in place, separating the past and the future. And—honestly, she doesn't need to know, Harry."

Harry relaxes. He wants this to remain between him and Leon so badly. He just doesn't get a lot of what he wants. But with Leon around, he's getting more of it.

"The thing you went to get?" he asks then, and grins when Leon holds up a melted, slagged thing that might once have been a golden cup.

"How did you get it?" he adds, because Leon had been the most worried about this Horcrux. He said the goblins wouldn't let it go unless they had something to trade for it.

"I shared the secret of how I traveled in time," Leon says, but he only says it once they're inside his quarters with the door shut firmly behind them. "That was what they wanted. The minute they saw me, they knew that I wasn't from this time."

Harry blinks. "But you said that you had to burn all the possibilities that you could have had. So—would they be able to use it?"

"Not without great sacrifice." Leon has a wicked grin, and once again, Harry can only imagine that someday he'll be that awesome. "But that's not really my problem, is it? I kept the bargain."

Harry laughs, imagining the expression on the goblins' faces.

Leon's expression becomes serious then, and Harry sits up, seeing what he looks like and thinking something bad is about to happen. But all Leon does is reach out and ruffle his hair, and continue looking serious.

"I keep the bargains I make," Leon repeats softly. "That includes the one to take care of you. I want you to remember that, no matter what happens. I'm going to have to do some things that are dangerous to get rid of the Horcrux I transferred to me and the one that Voldemort put into his snake. But I promise, I will come back to you."

"His snake? Yuck."

Leon laughs then. "Yes, well, Voldemort isn't known for his commitment to standards of good conduct embraced by other people." His amusement slips away then, and his eyes fix themselves intently on Harry. "Are you listening to me? Are you going to believe me when I say that I'll come back?"

Harry takes a deep breath. He's known what destroying these Horcruxes was leading up to, a battle with Voldemort, and he's also known that he won't be fighting that battle.

Except that, in a weird way, he will be, and the prophecy Leon told him about will be fulfilled after all. Just more than once by the same person.

"Yeah."

And then Leon hugs him, hard and fierce, and Harry hugs him back and repeats the guilty words in his head.

He's so glad Leon came back in time.

In the end, the papers carry at least three different versions of the story.

There's the one where Leon faces down You-Know-Who in a decaying house and destroys him with some kind of clever spell that the papers refuse to name, because "it might make too much of an impression on the young and foolish." That's code, Harry suspects, for the fact that they had no idea what spell Leon used. You-Know-Who's body supposedly dissolved in a flash of green light.

Then there's the one where there was an epic battle in a graveyard where supposedly Tom Marvolo Riddle's father was buried. That story is the one that reveals Voldemort's Muggle background for the first time, and Harry listens hard for the screams of denial to erupt from the Slytherin common room. To his disappointment, he doesn't hear any.

Malfoy is rather pale and shaken-looking for days after that revelation, though, which Harry will take.

And then there's the story that claims Leon used Fiendfyre to kill both the snake and You-Know-Who. That one is the most confused, because it also says something about how the fire really wasn't Fiendfyre—mostly because no one wants to arrest the defeater of Voldemort for using Dark Arts, Harry thinks—and how Leon supposedly used it on himself, too. But then, Leon is letting bits and pieces of the real story out one at a time, so that people won't get the idea it was Horcruxes.

"You think someone would really imitate him?" Harry asks, as he visits Leon in the hospital wing where he's recovering from magical exhaustion.

Leon shrugs. He has a cold wet cloth on his forehead to soothe the headache that came about, Harry knows, from the removal of the Horcrux, although Madam Pomfrey just thinks it's some magical condition that it's dangerous to use potions on. "I know at least one person who tried to make Horcruxes."

"Where you came from?"

Leon nods to him with a warning glint in his eyes. He doesn't have to worry, though. Harry is only ever going to refer to it like that when other people could overhear them. "Yes. Luckily, she didn't succeed, but she definitely didn't intend to just make one."

Harry sighs and sits down next to him. It feels a little anticlimactic, sometimes, that he just let Leon handle everything, and he knows that it drives Dumbledore and Hermione mental that they don't know everything.

But he's glad it worked out this way. Leon handled things, and Harry got to just be an ordinary student (apart from the fact that he lay awake all of one night hoping against hope that Leon would come back). He didn't have to be in the Tournament. He didn't have to fight the Horcruxes, or worry about somehow getting rid of the one in himself. He even appreciated the fact that he took exams like a normal student yesterday.

"What happens now?" he asks.

"What do you mean?" Leon shifts the cold cloth on his forehead, and grimaces. "Can you cast a Cooling Charm on this one? I'm not supposed to do any magic right now."

Harry snickers as he takes out his holly wand and casts the charm. "And you're actually going to listen to Madam Pomfrey?"

"Why not? I have a chance at living now, and in a better world."

Harry swallows as some of his fears come rushing back. "Well, that's what I meant."

"Still need a little more than that, Harry."

"I mean—you came here to help me and keep me out of the Tournament, and then you fought Voldemort. Are you—do you still want to take care of me? Since everything you came here for is done—"

Leon sits up, which he's not supposed to do, and throws his free arm around Harry. "Of course, Harry. Of course, kid. Sorry for making you think that I'd ever give up on that."

Harry clings back hard, feeling tears stab at his eyes. "It's not anything you did. Anything you said. It's just—stupid. After the Dursleys, it's hard to believe that anyone would want me permanently."

"It's not stupid. I felt something like that myself." Leon's hands are so tight that Harry gasps for a second, but he pulls gently back. "We can do whatever you want. You can spend the summer with me, or visiting Sirius, or finding a different house for us, or playing Quidditch. You're free."

Harry stares into Leon's eyes. He doesn't care if someone is listening right now, he has to say this. "So are you."

He gets a secret smile that thrills him with how strong it is. But Leon says only, "I know," and his hands give the other message.

I love you.

Harry has been waiting so long to hear it from an adult, and he doesn't care that it was his older self who traveled in time. Leon has given him everything he ever wanted. This is their peace, and they're going to enjoy the hell out of it.

The End.