Title: Leon Potter
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None, gen
Content Notes: Angst, AU of GoF, time travel, violence, minor character death, present tense, Master of Death Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 3800
Summary: The moment that Harry's name comes out of the Goblet of Fire, a stranger appears—a Potter relative that Harry never knew he had. The stranger stands up for Harry, adopts him, and makes sure that no one can touch him. It's only later that Harry knows why.
Author's Notes: This is one of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics. It has two parts, and the second will be posted tomorrow.

Leon Potter

"I really didn't put my name in the Goblet, Headmaster. I really didn't."

"I wish you would all stop staring at him so suspiciously. The boy is right, you know."

Harry flinches before he can stop himself. The voice is strange, and adult, and he doesn't want anyone intruding right now. He turns around, wondering if this is a newspaper reporter or someone from Durmstrang come to make his life miserable.

But it's not. There's a man standing before him with a tangle of dark brown hair falling to his shoulders, and green eyes so weary that Harry thinks it's like looking into a mirror. They're not the exact same shade of green as his, though, Harry decides after a second. The man is older and colder and harder. He doesn't wear glasses. He has a wand in his hand that's strange-looking and has carvings on it. The man isn't aiming it at anybody, but he's holding the wand in a way that says he definitely could if he wanted to.

"Who are you?" Karkaroff demands.

"One of young Harry's relatives," the man says. He turns away from Karkaroff and Dumbledore and Madame Maxine and the other Champions like they don't exist, facing Harry. "All right there, Harry?"

"No," Harry says, because he's stuck on the words. "You can't be one of my relatives! I don't have any left except the Dursleys."

"I'm sorry," the man says, his voice low. "My name's Leon Potter. I couldn't come before because there were—well, huge barriers in the way. Ones I couldn't cross. But I'm here now." For some reason, he looks at his wand, and then he looks at Harry again.

"Who would you be?" Dumbledore asks. Harry looks at the Headmaster and his twinkling eyes, and thinks that Dumbledore is upset even though he's smiling. It's a strange feeling to have.

"Leon Potter. I thought I said." The man's voice is cooler.

"There is no Leon Potter." That's Professor Snape, his voice sliding in and making anxiety tangle up in Harry's stomach until it feels like he's going to vomit snowballs. "I know the Potter family tree. I helped Albus investigate it after the death of Lily and James Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived has no magical relatives left."

"Not true," the man says, glaring at Professor Snape. Harry has the weird feeling that the man respects the professor but doesn't like him all that much. "If you investigated the family tree, you must have noticed that there was a first cousin to Charlus and Fleamont Potter on there, yes? Elsie Potter?"

"She died without issue."

"No." Leon's smile is sad for a second. "She died without legally-acknowledged issue. She never told me who my father was, let alone anyone else."

Dumbledore looks at him for a second, and then frowns. "As interesting as this is, Mr. Potter, we are debating Harry Potter's entrance into the Triwizard Tournament right now, not who his relatives are."

"And it should be simple enough to prove that he didn't enter the Tournament." The man turns in place for a second, looking around the room as though he expects someone else to be there. "Where is Professor Moody?"

"Right here," the professor grunts as he stumps into the room. He freezes when he sees the man, though. Harry thinks it's the first time he's seen the professor's magical eye and his normal one pointed in the same direction. "Who are you?"

"I could ask the same of you," the man says, and his wand slashes up and at the stones of the wall and down to the side.

Professor Moody leans over and starts vomiting. Dumbledore and Snape both leap forwards, but they hit some kind of barrier that's sprung up from the floor. Harry is on the other side of the barrier with—Leon? Can he think of him that way? He stares at the man, and then the vomiting professor on the floor.

"Why did you want him to do that?" he whispers.

"Because Polyjuice Potion only remains effective for as long as it's actually in the body."

Harry feels like his eyes are still widening in realization when Moody's body starts twisting and warping. Suddenly he has two legs, and the wooden one is lying on the floor, and so is his magical eye. He leaps up, snarling. He's a crazy-looking man with tangled hair and staring blue eyes. Harry thinks he looks an awful lot like Mr. Crouch.

Leon Stuns him before he can say anything. Then he binds him in ropes, cleans up the vomit, and lowers the barrier so the other professors and Headmasters can get through.

"Bartemius Crouch, Junior," he says into the silence. "Using Polyjuice Potion to appear as Alastor Moody. He was the one who put Harry's name into the Goblet."

Harry swallows and says nothing, because he doesn't understand anything that's going on. It's Dumbledore who demands, "How did you know that?"

"It's obvious if one studies prison records and if one knows Alastor Moody enough to know what he really behaves like. He's one of your friends, Professor Dumbledore. Surely you should know that this imposter's behavior was dangerously unlike a man you had hired to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

Dumbledore says nothing, but bends over the body. Snape is standing there with wide eyes, and he nods when Karkaroff hisses a question at him. Then he strides over and pulls back the fallen man's left sleeve. Harry recoils when he sees the same Dark Mark that was above the Quidditch World Cup on his arm.

"What's going on?" Harry whispers.

"That man is really Mr. Crouch's son," Leon murmurs back. "A convicted Death Eater. He supposedly died in prison, but in reality, Mr. Crouch sneaked his wife in and left her there to die in her son's place. Barty Crouch has been free ever since."

Harry still has no end of questions, but Dumbledore straightens up and announces, "Yes, in fact, Mr. Potter the Elder is quite correct. This is Barty Crouch, Jr. I remember him from the trial that I oversaw."

"We still have no proof that he was the one who put the little boy's name in the Goblet," Fleur says in her French accent.

"I can provide you that proof," Leon offers. "Either with a memory or with Veritaserum, if you have some on hand." He looks at Snape, who narrows his eyes and then nods once.

"It would be illegal to dose him with Veritaserum without his consent," Dumbledore says, but he looks shaken.

"Then hand him over to the Aurors," suggests Leon. He actually sounds bored, although Harry doesn't know how. "But in the meantime, I'm sure that Mr. Crouch has Mr. Moody imprisoned somewhere, as Polyjuice is not effective with dead hair. You'll want to search his quarters and find him."

"Of—of course." Dumbledore stares hard at both of them for a second.

"Does this mean I don't have to compete in the Tournament?" Harry asks.

"Yes, yes, it does." Dumbledore still acts as though someone's hit him over the head with a hammer, but Harry can sort of understand. His own head is whirling dizzily. "If you will remain within Hogwarts, Mr. Potter? I will want to speak with you."

"Of course." Leon reaches out and catches Harry's arm. "I'll be with Harry. I have the feeling he'd like to ask me some questions."

Harry feels a little less dizzy at that. Someone who came in and rescued him and then was going to let him ask questions?

Leon is already his favorite relative ever.

"Here. You look as if you haven't had anything to eat in years."

Harry flushes a little—it isn't his fault that he still looks skinny two months after he left the Dursleys—but he accepts the cake and cup of tea that Leon holds out to him. A house-elf Harry never saw before popped in and left it a few moments ago. Leon is eating his own cake, but in a distracted way, frowning at the wall.

"Leon?"

When Leon glances at him, Harry thinks that he's going to scold him for using his first name, but all he does is smile a little. "Yes?" Then he pauses as if thinking about something and waves his wand to lock the door of the little room they're in. Harry doesn't think it used to be a classroom since it has a fireplace, but he has no idea what it was. It's small and only has a table and two chairs.

"How are we related? I mean, are you my cousin?"

"Yes, I am, Harry. My mother, Elsie, was first cousin to your father's father. That makes me a second cousin to your father, James, and a second cousin once removed to you."

Harry stuffs his mouth full of cake so he doesn't say something stupid, but his heart is bursting with hope. That ought to mean, it has to mean, that he can live with Leon, too. He knows that he won't have the blood protection Dumbledore told him about on their house because Leon is his father's relative and not his mother's, but at the moment, he doesn't care.

"Can—do you think I can live with you?" he finally blurts, when some time has gone by in silence and Leon just spends it drinking his tea instead of eating or talking.

Leon blinks. "Oh, of course. That's not in doubt. A magical relative always has first claim over any Muggle relatives that a wizard has. And of course it depends on the will of the child. I would wager that you're glad to be away from those relatives of yours."

Harry might have bristled if his voice was pitying, but it just sounds so completely understanding that Harry finds himself saying, "They're horrible. They hate me. No one else seems to think they're that bad except the Weasleys, but—they are. Did you have to go through something like that yourself, sir?"

Leon gives him a wistful smile. "Sort of, yes. Your father's parents were very old when they had him. Likewise, my mother was old when she had me. Sometimes I think that she must have used some potions or very dark magic indeed, perhaps magic she was ashamed of. But she wanted a child. She died of old age when I was seven, and I was then taken into the Muggle world because my mother had no siblings and her cousins didn't want to acknowledge me."

Harry feels as though someone has filled the underside of his skin with scalding water. "I'm surprised you want to adopt me, then. I mean, if my father was one of the cousins who didn't want to acknowledge you."

Leon shakes his head. "It wasn't your father's fault, Harry. He was just my age. I don't blame him. And things were different in those days about what relatives were wise to claim. I—well, I haven't entirely forgiven Fleamont Potter, but he died when James was young, too. I like to think that James might have reached out to me if he knew I existed. But it wouldn't have been wise for me to make myself known to him."

"Why not?"

"I was a spy, Harry. During the war. The first war with Voldemort, I mean."

Harry stares at him with his mouth open. How brilliant is that? His cousin was a spy! And someone who isn't afraid to say Voldemort's name, too!

"Is that why you knew all those things you told Professor Dumbledore? About Moody, I mean?"

Leon nods. "There were Death Eaters who knew of my mother's, um, indiscretion and approached me because they thought I must be bitter, living as an outcast in the Muggle world. I attended a wizarding school in the States, you see, but then I came back to Britain. I pretended to agree with the Death Eaters, but in reality, I was spying for Dumbledore's side."

"Why didn't he know you, then?"

"I always disguised myself when I gave them information, or pretended it had come from somewhere else. It suited my sense of drama at the time. I was also very young then, only twenty. And I knew that James was fighting with Dumbledore. I thought I might—I might prove to him that I was someone worth knowing, if we both survived the war and I could tell him that I was the one who had sometimes alerted them to the Death Eaters' attacks."

Leon looks wistful again. Harry swallows the last of his cake. "I'm sorry that you never got to know my father."

"It's all right. I'm going to get to know you, aren't I?" Leon smiles at him. "And I've spent the last few years traveling and hearing rumors of Voldemort's survival. That was how I knew it was time to come back to Britain again. I want to take care of you, Harry. But I'll also be doing some fighting."

"That's okay. That's brilliant. Are you going to be a spy again?"

For some reason, that seems to amuse Leon. "Of a sort. Have you finished your tea yet? We should probably go tell your friends and professors the truth before they rip this school apart looking for you."

Hermione and Ron are both concerned for him, and Harry has to admit that he's going to be careful around Leon. He's not going to tell him that much about what he's gone through in the past years, of course, and he's not going to spill Ron and Hermione's secrets ever. After all, if Professor Moody was really someone using Polyjuice, Leon could be anyone.

But the thing is, the thing that Harry doesn't plan to tell Ron and Hermione, is that Leon seems to know it all already. Once he refers casually to the basilisk that Harry killed in second year. Once he says that he knows Snape hates Harry, and it's unfair, but Harry should do his best to be respectful in class anyway.

"It's one way to learn things," Leon says, and then he smiles at Harry, and Harry thinks he looks really familiar. Maybe he saw a family member in the Mirror of Erised with a face like that. "Besides, being polite to him is going to infuriate Professor Snape until he can't speak."

Leon is staying in the castle, partially because no one can keep him out, Harry thinks in amazement. Dumbledore told him he had to leave. Leon agreed, and then he appeared from a side corridor one morning and winked at Harry and walked away. He did tell Harry that he's trying to get Sirius cleared and also adopt Harry at the same time.

Harry has a conversation with Sirius in a cave up in the hills when Sirius insists on coming back to Britain, and it's sort of unpleasant. Sirius doesn't believe that Leon is who he says he is. He insists that Elsie Potter hated everyone and would never have had a kid.

"But he's nice and he's smart and he's funny," Harry argues back. "And if he was working for Voldemort or something, he could have grabbed me any time and taken me straight there." He rubs his forehead. He keeps having dreams about Pettigrew and Voldemort. Leon looked concerned when Harry told him, and said that he'll get Harry books on Occlumency, which is a way of defending your mind against things like that.

"He said he worked for Voldemort, though! Does he have the Dark Mark?"

Harry shakes his head. "No. I asked him to show me his left arm the second week. There's nothing there."

Sirius growls a little to himself and gets up and paces back and forth. "I just worry, pup. Someone pops out of nowhere the moment that someone else enters you in the Tournament? It's a little too convenient for me not to worry."

"But there was a plot to get me into the Tournament!" Harry knows that because the Ministry questioned Barty Crouch, Jr., who was happy to rant about his loyalty to Voldemort, and there was a report in the papers about it. "Why didn't Leon just go along with that if he wanted to capture me and take me to Voldemort?"

"I don't know. Honestly, I don't." Sirius turns around and grips his shoulders, staring earnestly into Harry's eyes. "But be careful, all right? Because maybe Leon is going to try and get you to trust him, and then someday he'll turn on you when you don't expect it."

"I'll be careful," Harry promises, but he doesn't intend to stop sending letters to Leon, or visiting the bedroom in the base of Gryffindor Tower that Leon has taken over for himself.

"I'm so glad I don't have to compete in the Tournament," Harry says, and he's shaking as he collapses into the little chair in Leon's quarters that has become his.

"That's one reason I'm glad I could interfere when I did." Leon's face is serious as he hands Harry a warming mug of tea, the one he always makes when Harry comes here. "You wouldn't want to face dragons at fourteen years old."

"I don't want to face dragons ever."

Leon smiles at him. "Sensible, Harry. I know some of your professors think you're longing to jump straight into danger, but you never wanted to, did you?"

"No, I only did that because my professors were stupid," Harry says, and finds himself telling Leon all about the time he and Ron tried to persuade Lockhart to come with them to investigate the basilisk. He stops short before he can say that Ron's wand was the one that made Lockhart forget everything. But Leon just laughs.

"Yes, I faced something similar when I was young." Leon hesitates and spends a moment playing with the edge of his teacup. "How much progress are you making in Occlumency?" Weirdly, Harry has the sense that it's not what Leon really wants to talk about.

"Some. I don't have the dreams as often now. But my scar still hurts."

Leon nods. "We can work on that over the—holidays." Then he speaks all in a rush. "But one thing you'll need to decide, Harry, is whether you want to live with Sirius or me."

"You said I was going to live with you."

"And I did mean that, Harry. I do mean it. But it should be your decision. And Sirius is going to have his name cleared by Christmas. I don't blame you if you would prefer to live with him. You know him better than you know me."

"Not really," Harry says honestly, and Leon blinks at him. "I've spent a lot more time with you than him. I mean, that's not his fault, he has to be on the run, but I've only seen him a few times. I spend hours with you every week. I want to stay with you. But Sirius can visit, right?"

Leon's face relaxes into a smile. "Of course. And I have a large garden where a dog would be welcome."

Harry has never told him about Sirius's Animagus form, either, but Leon has already referred to his dad's, so Harry supposes it's not a surprise that he knows Sirius's, too. He does wonder, as Leon refills his teacup and goes on to talk about more ordinary things, how Leon always knows.

Harry stares at the front page of the paper on Christmas Day. Leon really did it. Sirius does have his name cleared by Christmas.

PETER PETTIGREW THE POTTER TRAITOR!

The paper goes on to talk about how "unknown do-gooders" found Peter Pettigrew and brought him to the Aurors. By the time that the Aurors began to question Peter, he'd already been dosed to the gills on Veritaserum. He confessed all of his crimes in a slow, monotone voice that sounds as if it drove the Aurors mental. There was some confusion about whether they could admit testimony under Veritaserum when they didn't know if Pettigrew had agreed to take it, but on the other hand, someone had argued, they didn't know he hadn't agreed.

So Peter is in Azkaban now, and Sirius is free. The newspaper gushes about the details of the Ministry's official apology and how they're transferring a bunch of Galleons to Sirius's vault as atonement, effective immediately.

Harry falls back in his chair and stares across the table at Leon, who's patiently picking fruit out of his porridge. He's explained to Harry that his house-elves always put it in there because they think he should have something other than plain porridge and toast for breakfast, and they cry when Leon asks them to stop, so Leon is resigned to clearing his breakfast every morning.

"Happy Christmas, Harry," Leon says, when he notices Harry's stare.

Harry puts the paper aside. "How did you find him? There must be so many places for a rat to hide!"

Leon nods absently and pushes his fringe out of his eyes. There's a faded scar there, where Leon told Harry someone once tried to slice off the top of his skull to take out his brains for a necromancy ritual. "There are. But there are some tracking spells you can use if you don't mind sacrificing a bit of blood. I don't. It's illegal in the Ministry, though, and they might not have believed they had to search for a dead man, anyway."

Harry looks at the paper again and feels his heartbeat pick up. Sirius is really free. Because of Leon, who Sirius still doesn't like or trust.

But then again, there's no reason to think that Leon did this for Sirius. He did it for Harry. Because he knows Harry loves Sirius and worries about him and would love if he was a free man, too.

Harry puts the paper carefully aside and then goes over and flings his arms around Leon. Leon makes a resigned noise as his bowl of porridge tips over, but he puts his arms around Harry and hugs him back.

"Happy Christmas," Leon repeats into his hair.

The books Leon got Harry on Occlumency and hexes, and the nice warm winter cloak in Gryffindor colors, are fun gifts, too, but Harry has his real gift already, and you can't put it in under a tree. His real two gifts, since Leon also found and renovated one of the old Potter houses that his dad used to live in (and maybe bought it from whoever owned it until this year, Leon doesn't say).

Leon is the most brilliant thing that's ever happened to Harry, and he doesn't care what anybody says.