Hi! Sorry for the delay, real life's gotten crazy. I don't know when I'll be able to write and post the next chapter, but at least my exams won't last forever and in two weeks and a half I'm on holidays so I'll definitely be able to write then.

Hope you enjoy this! Cheers!

Chapter 3: Setting in Motion

It's probably not exactly responsible of him to leave Harry alone for the night, but there are things Hadrian needs to do, things that cannot wait for tomorrow. Besides, it's not like he's leaving his younger self unprotected: no one knows where Harry is, and even if they did they'd have to get past his wards. If they were good enough in the middle of war, they'll be good enough for this peaceful time too.

Knowing all this doesn't really stop him from feeling slightly guilty, nor from swearing solemnly to himself to be back as soon as possible, and before Harry wakes.

He considers casting a spell on the boy's door that will let him know when it is opened – he could use a spell to get a warning when Harry wakes, but that feels too much like an invasion of privacy – and eventually does it, swearing to himself he'll dispel it once he gets back.

He turns his clothes black after that, hoping to make himself less noticeable even without magic. Even now, after years spent in the magical world, he still prefers muggle fashion, though magical materials are often softer on the skin, so that, at least, won't be a problem.

Finally, Hadrian exits the tent silently, a shrunken pouch containing what's left of the money he had with him when he appeared in this time, as well as what little he's gather since then, in his pocket, wand tucked away in the holster tied to his wrist.

Of the birds he conjured earlier to amuse Harry, only one is left – if Hadrian's not mistaken, it's even the one the boy has grown so fond of. It is perched on one of the neighboring branches, eyes staring straight at the tent's entrance, and when Hadrian exits it, at his face.

He snorts, somewhat amused. He has no idea how or why the bird is still there when his companions have already returned to the ether they came from, but if it means Harry gets a protector as fierce as this one looks for a little while longer, Hadrian doesn't mind it. In fact, he welcomes it.

The bird just keeps staring, barely moving, and in the end Hadrian shrugs and twists on his heels, Apparating away with a loud crack.

He reappears in Surrey, wincing. No matter how many times he does it, Apparating doesn't really get any more comfortable. It's a shame it's the fastest and easiest way to travel undetected, because Hadrian would be glad to never have to use it ever again.

It takes him but a second to cast on himself enough Notice-Me-Nots and Muggle-repealing spells to make sure that anyone who would notice him wouldn't do so for long, and then he is striding toward the tall government building that is his aim.

As an Auror, he had been required to know how to mingle with muggles – how to disappear among them, if the need ever came. His upbringing had been somewhat of an advantage there, though not as much as it was for muggleborns who hadn't been raised by magic-fearing relatives like Harry had been, but eventually he had had to learn, same as everyone else, how to create a new identity.

This is what he's about to do now, though he's going to go a bit further than the usual quick job he's had to do a couple of times.

The thing about muggles, Hadrian thinks as he silently sneaks into the building, Alohomora opening the doors before him, is that it is terribly easy to infiltrate their government when you have magic.

There are exceptions, of course. The royal family, for example, knows full well about magic and there are wards and many failsafe to protect them as well as ensure no one, magical or otherwise, would be able to usurp them. The Prime Minister is aware of magic as well, and as such his office is protected.

But everywhere else? It's pretty much a free for all. Hadrian isn't sure if it's an actual oversight that no one thought to warn muggles about, if the muggles are allowing it as part of an agreement Hadrian isn't privy to, or if it's a deliberate loophole magicals left in the muggle's system. Knowing the magical world and the mentalities there, Hadrian wouldn't be surprised if it was a mix of the three.

Whatever it is though, right now it will work in Harry's favor. There is nothing protecting birth certificates from duplication spells, and though in a few years everything would be digitalized and this harder to access for a magical, right now everything is still on paper, and as such unprotected and easy to access and copy.

Well, for a wizard who knows what he's doing, that is.

After copying the forms, Hadrian fills them with the information he gave Petunia what feels like a century ago. More papers, more duplication spells, and soon enough Hadrian Evans has a whole life, one where he has custody of his nephew - at least on paper.

He finds that the woman he claimed was his mother died six months ago, and while the thought is saddening, Hadrian can't help but be somewhat relieved that he at least won't have to fiddle with the woman's memories. Making her think she has a son would have been slightly too immoral for Hadrian's tastes, though he believes that for Harry, to protect this boy who deserves a better childhood than the one Hadrian himself got, he'd have done it.

Finally, when he judges his work sufficient, Hadrian moves on to the hardest part: erasing the traces of magic on the documents. After all, while a muggle would never be able to tell the difference between Hadrian's false paper trail and a real person's, a wizard might, especially if they had the same kind of training Hadrian himself had.

There are ways to track magic, as the Trace proves, and though those are hard to put in place, finding magic is not. Luckily, it is also very easy to defend against, even if that particular piece of knowledge is preciously guarded by the Ministry.

The trick of it is dissipate the remnants of energy that always linger after a spell is cast by reabsorbing them, either on something the caster is carrying or in the earth itself, without unraveling the spells you're trying to protect.

It took Hadrian a while to get it right at first, and the thought of the many, many times he and Ron and ribbed at each other over their failed attempts is enough to make him bite back a fond chuckle.

So now Hadrian puts that knowledge to the test once more, pulling at the ambient magic his spells have added to until it is back to normal levels, his faked paperwork now as real-looking to a magical as it is to a muggle.

He puts the papers in their proper places after that, and erases any trace of his presence there with the flurry of cleaning spells he's learned for this kind of occasions. Pulling back the residual magic from those spells is slightly harder, but not by much, though it does make his wand arm tingle from channeling it.

This is but his first stop, however. Being an Auror has taught him the ways to build a proper cover for an operation, and while he borrows form that, this is more than a simple cover. This is a life Hadrian's building there, and with Harry's happiness at stake, he can't make mistakes.

It is entirely possible all of this will amount to nothing, that these are just useless precautions. On the other hand, it is also entirely possible that someone will figure out that he took Harry and try to check him out.

It would be potentially catastrophic if whoever ended up running that background check found that Hadrian Evans hadn't existed before he took Harry Potter with him, which is why Hadrian has to cover all bases.

His second stop is the hospital the closest to where his supposed mother lived. It is easy to go back by twenty-five years in their paperwork and add another birth there. With it having happened so long ago, no one will ever think to question it, and it is doubtful anyone will remember one particular baby among the dozens of others born in the same period of time.

It plays a little with his own age – Hadrian is older than twenty-five, though he could easily look that age, what with magic slowing down his aging and his small build – but not so much that he feels uncomfortable doing it. In age, it makes him three years younger than Lily Evans, though he is now older than his mother ever got to be.

After the hospital, he Apparates to the school he would have attended as a child had he actually been living there. Only sparsely lit by moonlight and streetlights, the old building looks almost haunted, and though Hadrian has been to worse places, it still makes a shiver run down his spine.

The records he finds in the principal's office are scarce, and it is easy to add another student there too, his spells easily modifying the records to make him an average, mostly unmemorable student. It is doubtful that any staff who was there twenty to fifteen years ago is still there and remembers one child that all files will describe as 'unremarkable', but just in case Hadrian places a small curse on the cabinet's handle.

It is barely a curse – all it does is merely bury deep in the person's subconscious the idea that 'Hadrian Evans' did indeed attend this school. It will fade on its own in a few months, but hopefully by then enough people will have been affected that it won't matter.

The hard parts come next: his 'mother' has a whole neighborhood who could testify that there never was any 'Hadrian Evans'. Fabricating memories has never been Hadrian's forte – there too, Hermione was much more skilled than him – and them having to be aimed at so many people at once only makes it harder, but thankfully Hadrian has learned other ways to make this work.

Here too, a 'curse' is the easiest solution. It was in his second year as an Auror that Hadrian discovered how skilled he was with curses, or rather any kind of magic that affected more than a single individual at a time.

There's a beauty to the craft, he thinks, and though most of the times 'curses' are used for evil purposes, they are a wonderful medium for pranks, among so much else.

He is biting back on his laughter as he breaks into the post office and 'curses' that neighborhood's mail. Even if no one will get the irony, he will, and it is difficult not to laugh at it. The 'curse' will carry the memories Hadrian infuses in it, as well as lingering feelings of fondness for the boy who grew up there and moved out a few years before his mother died. They will know Hadrian, the boy who got his father's eyes and name, and not much else, and they will remember him.

It is exhausting work. It isn't the first such 'curse' Hadrian has cast (that had been an accident to be entirely honest, that had occurred on a mission in the muggle world, and when he had told his friends about it, Hermione had been fascinated by the phenomenon and had insisted Hadrian test this new skill, while Ron had egged her on, much to Hadrian's annoyance), but it is the first time he aims it as such a wide area.

It would have been easier, and cost him less energy, to 'curse' a single object that would have been passed around, or a place these people would have gone to. But at least with the mail, he's sure to get everyone quickly, and it will be less noticeable, with less risk of backfiring on him.

It won't change any of the lives of this city's inhabitants, but it will greatly help Hadrian.

The last stop, at least for now, is the hardest.

Hadrian has hated cemeteries since Hermione and he visited Godric's Hollows' back during the Horcrux Hunt, and though he has never missed an anniversary since he found out where his parents were buried, visiting their tomb has always made him feel… uneasy.

This feeling, that cemeteries are too peaceful, carries over in other cemeteries too, and this one is no exception.

It takes him far longer than he'd have liked to find his goal – he eventually has to resort to using a 'Point Me' spell, cursing himself quietly for not thinking of it earlier – but once he does, the stone slab is somehow unmistakable.

He burns the name there in his mind – Selene Smith, it reads, followed by dates closer together than Hadrian had expected. It is difficult to think of this stranger as his mother, but Hadrian endeavors to do so anyway. Everything he's been told about Lily Potter née Evans lets him think that his mother wouldn't mind this – would understand and perhaps even approve of her son adopting someone else as his mother, if it meant protecting someone precious to them.

Still, it's hard not to feel like he's betraying the woman who died for him.

"I'm sorry," he whispers to the tomb, and he's not sure to which mother he's apologizing. The one he's essentially replacing, or the one whose life he just spent half the night rewriting?

He stands there, silent and unmoving for a while, unsure of what to say, or if even he should say more. The wind ruffles his hair, warm and soft, and if Hadrian closes his eyes it almost sounds approving.

Well, he has witnessed weirder things.

"Thank you," he finally say, once again unsure which woman he's addressing. Perhaps both, perhaps either. "I'll take care of Harry, I swear," he tells the ghost of Lily Evans. "I won't sully your name," he promises the bones of Selene Smith.

When he leaves, her tombstone sports two new words, the engraving curved and stylish.

It reads Beloved Mother.

With one last twist on his heels, Hadrian Apparates back to the place he calls home for now. The forest is barely starting to wake up as he slips inside the tent, and his last thought after he unravels the spell he cast on Harry's door is to hope that the boy will take this chance to oversleep.

.x.

Harry wakes up slowly, sleep having dug its hook deep into his mind. He yawns as his eyes flutter open and his limbs stretch underneath the covers, and that, even more than the silence that's been bugging him since he first started to wake up, is what truly tells him that this wasn't a dream.

Yesterday really happened – he has family that isn't the Dursleys, family that wants him and came for him, and his family has magic. He, Harry Potter, has magic too.

The thoughts make his lips stretch into a smile, and it is such a nice contrast with the way he usually woke up at the Dursleys, dragged away from sleep by Aunt Petunia's high-pitched voice as she rasped her knuckles on the door to his cupboard, that he has to bury his face into his pillow to feel like he has some control over the emotions he feels.

Slowly, the happiness abates a little. It doesn't leave, no entirely, but it does fade enough for Harry to start doubting himself. Hadrian doesn't truly know him, after all – what if the older man changes his mind, decides that Harry is a freak after all?

What if Hadrian decides that he doesn't want Harry after all, and brings him back to the Dursleys? They'd kill him, he thinks, if he came back after they thought they had gotten rid of him, and at that thought Harry shivers and draws his knees to his chest, hugging them tightly.

He doesn't know for how long he stays like this, but eventually his stomach grumbles and his limbs start itching at him to move, so Harry does. His room looks different in the morning light, somehow. It looks realer than it had yesterday. As he slips down from the bed, shivering as he leaves the warmth of the covers, he realizes that it truly does look like his room, like it belongs to him, and he, in return, belongs there.

He finds his way back to the living-room/kitchen he and Hadrian were last night easily. The tent looks even more magical now that Harry has had a chance to grow a little used to it, and he truly hopes he won't ever lose that feeling.

Once he gets there though, he stops. He doesn't really know what he should do – Hadrian didn't really tell him what they'd be doing today, nor did he give him any rules about what Harry could and couldn't do, and though Harry would usually refer himself to the rules the Dursleys gave him, Hadrian doesn't seem to like those much. Besides, he already broke them by allowing Harry to eat at the table with him until he wasn't hungry anymore, and he gave him a room of his own.

This would be so much easier if Hadrian was awake, he thinks mournfully, but it's not like he can do anything about it. Well, he could, but he won't. Even Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, for all that they adored their little Duddykins, hated being woken up by their son when they had the opportunity to stay in bed.

Besides, Harry doesn't really have a way to tell time. For all he knows, it might be really early. Aunt Petunia liked to make him wake earlier than anyone else so that he could prepare breakfast before they came down the stairs after all, and sometimes (rarely, but still), Harry was awake even before she knocked on his door.

This does give him an idea though – one that would even solve both his hunger and the problem he has with not knowing what to do.

After all, surely Hadrian won't get too mad if Harry makes breakfast for him too?

With this goal in mind, Harry advances toward the kitchen, eyes roaming over the shelves to find what to do and, more importantly, how to do it. Hadrian had used magic to make their dinner, but Harry can't very well do that now, can he, so he will have to make do with what he knows.

It shouldn't be too difficult – everything looks pretty much the same as in Aunt Petunia's kitchen, after all.

.x.

Hadrian doesn't really know what causes him to awaken so suddenly, heart pounding in his chest. It's usually the reaction he has to nightmares, but even as he casts his mind back to the quickly escaping shreds of dreams that lingers in his mind still, he finds no trace of the terror and pain he's learned to associate with his darker dreams.

As he waits for his heart to calm, he listens for anything that might have caused his alarm. A quick Tempus shows him that it is well into the morning – and with that he realizes what must have woken him up.

Running a hand through his hair, Hadrian gets up. He definitely didn't get enough sleep, but it was well worth it, and besides, it's nothing a dose of Pepper-Up can't solve, even though the taste is still terrible.

Despite knowing that Harry can't be in any real danger, Hadrian hurries toward the kitchen area of the tent, cursing himself in his head. It's where he'd be after all, and he should definitely have expected something like this.

He gets there just in time to see Harry, balancing on an unstable pile of chairs, overreach. Sparing a fraction of a second to thank the instincts that woke him up, Hadrian casts a spell to slow Harry's fall and immediately after that, another to cushion the ground.

"Are you alright?" He manages to croak out once Harry's feet are back on solid ground.

For a moment, the boy doesn't reply, just shakes, and Hadrian's mind starts running through disaster scenarios, each more terrible than the one before it.

Finally, Harry mumbles something too quietly for Hadrian to hear, and his heart constricts painfully even as he breathes out in relief.

Good news is, Harry doesn't appear to be injured, but bad news is that, judging from the way he's slowly inching away from Hadrian, he's afraid of being punished.

(Merlin, he is so lucky to know Harry so well – with any other child, Hadrian thinks he would screw up even more than he already had. Somehow, even teaching at Hogwarts or babysitting his friends' kids didn't prepare him for this)

"I'm not angry, you know," Hadrian states matter-of-factly as he steps around Harry to rummage through the cupboards the boy had been trying to reach. "I'm just glad you haven't been hurt."

He lets Harry read the truth on his face, and ruffles the boy's hair when he finally smile, trembling thing as it might be.

"Now why don't you go sit at the table while I fix us some breakfast?"

Harry seems to hesitate for a moment, but in the end he nods and goes to the table, sitting at the exact same spot he had yesterday. Keeping an eye on him, Hadrian loses himself in his cooking for a few moments, until finally everything is ready.

Harry waits for Hadrian to pile up food on his plate, but once Hadrian does that, rolling his eyes a little and gesturing at the boy to start eating, he digs in happily and devours everything on his plate.

Neither of them speaks until the food is gone, but the silence is companionable anyway.

"You know, you could have come to wake me up," Hadrian finally says, at the same time as Harry blurts out a, "I'm sorry! I won't do it again!", before he bites his lips when he realizes he interrupted Hadrian.

"Well, go on," Hadrian says kindly.

"I'm sorry," Harry repeats, though his tone is calmer this time. He's avoiding Hadrian's eyes and playing with his cutlery nervously, but he doesn't sound nearly as afraid as Hadrian might have expected him to be.

"And what are you sorry for?"

"For getting into the kitchen without your permission? I won't do it again, I swear, it's just that I was…" Harry trails off, cheeks reddening, but Hadrian's mind completes the sentence for him.

Hungry, it says, and the word leaves a sour taste in his mouth. "I'm not angry," he repeats, because clearly Harry needs to be reassured about that. "I wish you had woken me up, or waited – the kitchen is a dangerous place for a seven year-old, but I understand that you were hungry."

"But I did stuff in the kitchen all the time at the Dursleys'," Harry say incredulously.

Hadrian grits his teeth, eyes flashing angrily. "And we all know that the Dursleys are a paragon of virtue when it comes to child's safety," he spits between his teeth, before he manages to swallow back his anger.

Thankfully, Harry ignores his anger, chuckling in that almost-giggle of his he does whenever Hadrian criticizes his previous guardians in front of him.

"I was fine," he still protests, but Hadrian can see it is half-hearted at best.

"Well, for my peace of heart if nothing else, I'd appreciate it if you made sure I was there to supervise if you decide to cook again, alright?"

Harry nods quickly. "Yes, I promise."

Hadrian chuckles. "Alright. And again, never hesitate to find me, or wake me up if you have a problem. I'd rather lose a little sleep than find out that you've hurt yourself."

Harry blinks rapidly, trying to chase away the stinging in his eyes. "I will," he replies, hoping his voice doesn't sound as choked up as he feels.

Hadrian just smiles back kindly, before stretching his arms behind his back, making his back pop a little. "Well, now that this is done, I think your wardrobe is due for an upgrading…" He winks, and Harry flushes, looking down at his clothes. "It won't be a bother," Hadrian swears, familiar enough with his younger self's thought process to stop any such protest in its tracks.

"I guess it'll be fine, then," Harry replies hesitantly.

Hadrian nods determinedly. "Then you go brush your teeth, shower, and I'll bring you a change of clothes so we can go." He plans on shrinking some more of his clothes, but doesn't mention it. Whether Harry knows this or not changes nothing, in the end, so it doesn't really matter.

Harry nods, and as he hurries toward the bathroom, Hadrian clears the table. He too needs a shower, but that can wait until Harry is done.

He isn't looking forward to the shopping. He's grown used to having to do it over the years, but he's never learned to truly enjoy it. With any luck, Harry will be different there.

.x.

It takes them a lot longer than he had thought to get enough clothes for Harry, and it depletes a good portion of the money he had left too. He will worry about this later though – for now he's just happy that Harry's happy and that the boy seems to be enjoying himself, chattering at Hadrian as they walk back to the tent, their bags of purchase carefully shrunk in Hadrian's pockets.

It only makes him realize everything he still has to deal with: moving them out of the tent and into a real house, getting a job or at least a way of income, getting Harry re-enrolled in school…

He has time though. This is the summer holidays still, so school isn't in session, and with a Confundus or two, he's pretty sure he can get Harry enrolled anywhere pretty much anywhen.

It is thinking about school, about how his own schooldays before Hogwarts were the closest thing to a torture he'd been able to visualize back then and finally about how lonely Harry will undoubtedly eventually get with only Hadrian for company, that an idea comes to his mind.

Harry needs a friend – well, friends, though one would be a good beginning – and while Hadrian can't make those choices for Harry, he can certainly give him a push in the right direction.

It shouldn't even take much: Harry has a kind heart, and Hadrian is willing to bet anything that if he sees Hermione in trouble, as Hadrian knows she will eventually be (she's not bullied the way Harry and Hadrian were, he knows, but her time at school before Hogwarts also wasn't as happy as it could have been – as it should have been, because Hermione too deserves the best the world can offer), Harry will intervene.

Now to find out where the Grangers live…