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Chapter Text

Remus isn’t there when they get off the Hogwarts Express. Harry feels numb, bumping between Ron and Hermione as they push their way through the crowd and out of the platform. Other, familiar adults from the Order are standing around the Durselys just outside the barrier, he notes with vague disinterest. His best friends tell him goodbye, the sound wavering towards his ears through water or maybe mud, which he cannot see but feels around him in a hovering cloud. 

Moody and the others don’t explain Remus’s absence, but they don’t have to. Sirius’ death is his fault, and there’s nothing to be done about it. He doesn’t blame Remus for not wanting to see him. 

“Have a good summer, lad,” Moody tells him as they walk past. Mrs. Weasley gives him a hug. Harry doesn’t look to see if the others—Tonks, Fred, George, and Mr. Weasley— have anything to greet him with. He just stares at Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia and his cousin Dudley, wondering if his life could possibly get any worse at this point. 

Quite impossible, Harry thinks, looking at Vernon’s sneer. 

They don’t ask Harry how his year was. Harry doesn’t ask them if they’ve got any fun summer plans. Instead, the little almost-family of four stands in the chilled interior of Kings Cross for a few long moments until Uncle Vernon gives a grunt of displeasure and glares down at his watch. They can all take a cue. 

Harry leads the way out into the sunlit afternoon, Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley scrambling to keep up with him. He stops once he reaches the edge of the stairs, shouldering the weight of his trunk and glancing at Aunt Petunia. 

“The car’s this way,” she mutters, taking off across the street towards the St. Judds parking. 

They’ve parked at the opposite end of the car park, which makes the walk hotter and slightly irritating. 

“Paid for bloody parking to bloody pick the useless boy up…” Uncle Vernon grumbles, rifling around in his pockets for the keys once they reach the car. 

Harry’s magic shudders anxiously, flaring up the way it always does when he’s in danger. The tickles along his shoulders, tingling down his spine in tiny spikes and pricks, are familiar by now. His magic has done this for as long as he can remember when he prepares to get into the Dursley’s car and return to Privet Drive for the summer. Hermione theorizes that his magic doesn’t like being cooped up, because he doesn’t like being cooped up. 

Harry rolls his shoulders and ignores the insistent fluttering. “There’s nothing there,” he whispers, wishing his magic would stop. Unfortunately, he isn’t as good at controlling it as most people, so despite his best efforts Harry’s rewarded with yet another cascade of prickles falling on his neck, like his hair standing up on end. His relatives don’t say anything about his mutterings as they finally start getting in the car, and he yanks the boot open himself, lifting his trunk to put it in. 

Uncle Vernon starts the car, the engine turning over easily. 

The world explodes, fire and blood and crispy, burning flesh, a smell that takes him back to being eleven, as Harry is thrown backward. 

His trunk is launched to the side, and Harry lands against another car, the Dursley’s melting license plate flying at his face. 

“Fuck!” Harry hisses, palming his wand and forcing his eyes to stay open. Everything hurts, and his ears are ringing, and there’s an oppressive weight on his mind like when he needs to take a nap. But he has to focus . 

There, three meters in front of him, the Dursley’s country car is reduced to a melting pile of metal rubble. In the rising smoke, a snake writhes and twists, emerging from the thin guise of a skull. The Dark Mark. 

Death Eaters. 

He scrambles to cast a charm, a spell, anything, grip slippery from sweat. He can’t even get up from the ground. 

“Stupefy! Stupefy! Expelliarmus!” Harry shouts, jabbing his wand at the black smoky figures around him. 

And then Moody is there, vanishing the smoke, and Tonks is throwing obliviates left and right like they’re going out of style. 

Fred and George are on his other side already, possibly having apparated to be next to him, and they’re throwing out some kind of powder that turns into a thick blackness, creating a wall around the mess, Harry and car included. They have to keep the muggles from seeing anything that can’t easily be explained away. 

“Out of the way!” Shouts Mrs. Weasley, in a voice louder than the loudest Howler Harry has ever heard. “The car’s exploded! Out of the way!” 

The muggles who hadn’t been obliviated scatter, vanishing away as the rest of the scene is surrounded by that wall of black. The ones who have are slumped on the ground, sleeping. He can’t focus on them, or really on anything. 

The Dursley’s are… dead. They have to be. There’s nothing left of the car. 

Mr. Weasley helps Harry stand from the front, Mrs. Weasley against his back, as they check him for injuries. 

“Anything?” Moody calls out sharply, eye whirling in its socket so quickly that Harry can hear it over the ringing in his ears. 

“Nothing. No sign of them,” Tonks calls back. She starts tossing out a series of warding spells, visible in pale blue and light yellow as he slowly blinks. 

“Are you alright, Harry?” Mr. Weasley asks, after doing three full body scans and seeing he has nothing more than a few more bruises. 

“What happened?” Moody barks, hobbling over. 

“I don’t really know,” Harry pants, scanning the scene for his runaway trunk. “I was just putting my trunk in the boot when the car exploded. I landed over here, saw the Dark Mark in the smoke above the car, and then you all were here.” 

“Right,” Tonks says, like his information wasn’t helpful. And she’s right. 

“Let’s get everyone out of here and back to headquarters for now,” Mr. Weasley says, reaching for calm. 

“Somebody contact Dumbledore,” Moody says sharply. He grabs Harry’s upper arm tightly, a little harsh, and then turns on his heel, pulling Harry with him. They didn’t even get an answer or confirmation from anyone at the station about what happened, and suddenly Harry is being compressed and stretched through a tube in the sky, and he can’t breathe-

They land, wobbling a little, on the front steps of Number 12, Harry gasping for breath and Moody already reaching for the handle to shove him inside, checking the street. If he didn’t know any better, Harry would think Padfoot was still on the other side. 

Moody goes to open the door, still holding Harry, but Harry starts to step back. “No wait, I don’t want to go in there yet.” Until he does, Padfoot is still in there. He can’t kill him twice. 

“Come on, lad-” 

But Harry’s magic flares in response to being forced to do something he doesn’t want, and Moody flinches a little at its force and then grumbles to himself. 

“Fine. Fine! We’ll take ye back, and ye can speak to the muggle coppers, and then we’ll come to headquarters, where it’s safe. Bloody softies, you kids.” 

Before Harry can respond, they’re standing back in the smoky, dazzling sunlight of the car park outside King’s Cross. Mrs. Weasley is checking over Ginny, Mr. Weasley has Ron, and Tonks is standing over Hermione who looks a few milliseconds away from shouting her head off about something. Could be anything. 

The twins have vanished, off to wherever they might be hiding. 

Moody shoves Harry between his best friends, pushing Ron back by the shoulder a bit so that they’re bracketing him in, and then limps off into the crowd. It’s only then that Harry realizes it’s loud in the car park, alarms going off left and right and muggles and wizards alike screaming and panicking and trying to escape. 

He loses himself in the mess for quite a while, just drifting. 

Hermione brings him out of it, touching a hand to his cheek. “The police are here to speak to you, Harry. Ron and I will come with.” 

He looks up, Ron taking one hand as he does so, and lays eyes on a short young police woman looking at him with some measure of pity. Harry doesn’t say anything, just blinks a few times and settles his gaze on Hermione. 

She’ll know what to do. 

And she does, taking her cue well and telling the officer that they’ll follow her. Harry’s hands are used to guide him forward through his stupor. He’s so, so tired. He just wants to lay down, really. 

And he wants his Godfather back. 

“Mr. Potter, can you confirm that information is correct?” A cold voice asks. 

Harry blinks and looks up from his lap. He, Ron, and Hermione are sitting on a little bench outside Kings Cross station, three officers in front of them. 

Hermione squeezes his hand. 

“The information about who I am?” Harry croaks, assuming that’s what she’s told them. 

“And about your previous guardians and residence.” 

“Yes,” he says mechanically, “Everything she said was correct.” He didn’t hear what she said, but anything Hermione may have gotten wrong is sure to be something they should keep secret. 

“Alright then. Thank you, Mr. Potter. For the sake of our social services records, we will need to contact your nearest living relatives. Do you have any idea of whose number that may be?” 

Ron squeezes his hand this time, prompting him to shake his head a few seconds after the question has been asked. “No.” 

“No?” The officer looks up from her clipboard. 

“I don’t have any living relatives,” He forces himself to say. “They’re all dead.” 

“Alright, then. In that case, only for our system, we’re required to do a DNA test. Please make use of this cotton swab and place a few hairs in this vial.” The officer on the right hands Hermione two plastic vials, one with a cotton piece inside. She grabs one of his hairs first, yanking it out with little fanfare. “Do you have a place you can stay for the next few days?” 

“Yes,” he says, all by himself. Hermione shoves the stick in his mouth before he can say anything else or give any more of an explanation. He tugs his head back at first, a reflexive flinch from her jabbing the back of his throat with a dry piece of plant , and she tuts at him. 

Harry grunts to make his displeasure known. “Nnn.” 

“Stop being a baby and let me get it.” 

“Mnn.” 

Ron ducks his head in, resting his forehead on Harry’s shoulder. He can feel Ron shaking with contained laughter. Rude. Warmth starts to flood back into his fingers, though. 

“Do you have a number on file for that residence?” The officer asks. 

“Yeah,” Ron pipes in, sitting up a bit. He gives the number for the phone Mr. Weasley purchased and hid last summer. 

Harry fades out again, drifting through time and space. It’s almost nice, to feel for just a few minutes like he doesn’t exist. Ron’s fingers, longer than Hermione’s, run through his hair a bit. Harry closes his eyes and tries to soak up the happy rays of the sun before this shit show really gets going. 

He doesn’t even want to know what Dumbledore is going to say about it. 

Chapter Text

Bruce checks his hair in the mirror, vapid smile plastered across his face, before getting out of the town car that brought him from the office. Brucie Wayne is headed to the Iceberg Lounge tonight to hang out and let loose. He can’t always be such a straightlace, though the Gotham Gazette has never said outright that they think he’s dumb as a box of rocks and still a goody two shoes. 

Coincidentally, another man is headed to the Iceberg Lounge on this fine evening: Batman, in plainclothes, mic'd up, with a camera attached to the top button of his shirt. There’s an earpiece in his left ear, covered slightly by his hair, which has been in need of a trim by Alfred’s standards since January. Bruce just hasn’t had time. 

It’s been three days since he got a tip— more like a plea— from an anxious civilian mother when he saved her from a minor teashop explosion. Normally, Batman is a little faster at following up on leads once he’s decided they’re worth the trouble. This lead, however, he almost ignored. Betty McCoy begged Batman to investigate the drug routes Penguin’s been running the past couple of weeks, which is an odd request for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that Penguin hasn’t changed his routes more by more than half a block in the past twenty years. There’s never been a reason to. 

But Betty was so insistent that her nephews, who live in Crime Alley, said something was up with the Penguin’s routes. He’d dismissed it at first, an anxious aunt and some children’s stories, mostly because he can’t bear to investigate Crime Alley much anymore. Batman still checked; some light research and a few probing questions and everything came back negative for a shift in Penguin’s routes, exactly as he’d expected.  Then, last night in the cave, he’d been filing the request under tips that he’d lightly investigated when a feeling washed over him. A gut instinct, perhaps, but something Batman knows as a sign to reconsider. 

It had occurred to him, in the middle of this filing, that if he was like Betty McCoy, powerless to do anything but beg nameless strangers for help, and it was one of his sons in danger…. Well, Bruce already has too many regrets. 

So, despite not expecting to acquire any new information, Brucie Wayne is out for a night on the town. Nightwing and Robin are off for the night, taking a brotherly bonding trip Dick thinks he doesn’t know about, and Alfred is enjoying a night in with no drama, aside from his preparations to pick Bruce up in about an hour. 

Oz hasn’t changed anything about the way he does business in years, Bruce thinks as he’s led inside. Unlike some people, Brucie doesn’t need a pass to enter the Iceberg. He doesn't even need to talk to the bouncer, because he’s got a facecard. 

"This way, Mr. Wayne," one of the hosts says once he's stepped into the main room. 

He’s led to a booth in the corner, close to the glass box of a second story office he knows Oz sits in when he’s watching over the club, but still far enough away that he’s got a good angle to see the windows. Luck to anyone else, but Bruce and Oz were friends once upon a time, and Oz knows he likes to sit with his back to two walls. He has since he was young. Brucie sighs, settling back into the booth with his vapid smile still tugging at his cheeks, and feels free to close his eyes, knowing that he doesn't have to order. 

A pretty woman covered from head to toe in blue glitter appears three minutes later, sliding a glowing green drink in a tall glass across the table.  "Enjoy your evening, Mr. Wayne," she tells him, managing to be just loud enough that a nearby group of men catch his name being thrown around.

Bruce hides a groan by pulling the drink the rest of the way over and smelling it, eyes closed again. The three men wander over from their standing table to say hello, sliding into his booth uninvited. Bruce blinks at them, recognizing them all to varying degrees without them triggering any true recollection.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he greets, giggling a little and actually taking a sip. Oz may be a lot of things, but he doesn't allow roofies in his club, and he enforces that rule with great prejudice. Bruce is safe drinking at the Iceberg. He can’t taste the alcohol in whatever they’ve given him, but Bruce can handle a few drinks before Brucie Wayne is less of a cover than he’s comfortable with. 

“Mr. Wayne!” The man closest to him, with a face he vaguely recognizes, claps him on the shoulder and leans in. “Mr. Wayne, we’ve been waiting to talk with you.” 

Because that's not ominous at all. 

“Have you?” He laughs good naturedly, oozing charm. Another young lady, this one in a green bodysuit, sidles up to the table. 

“Hey, boys. Can I get you anything?” Her voice is smooth and practiced and meant to be enticing. Bruce fiddles with his earpiece like he’s scratching his hair and giggles again. 

“We’ll take a round of whatever drink you gave Bruce here,” the man closest to her says, flicking a card in her direction. The girl catches it easily, returning the man’s sleazy grin. 

“Three more Ace Chemicals, coming right up.” She drifts away, appearing to somehow float above the ground; Bruce knows it’s actually just a trick of the lighting in the club and the dark, unglittered pair of high heels the dancers all wear. He can’t settle for not understanding anything. 

He settles into the back of his booth, staring down at his drink with a stupid smile and pretending to listen to Argyle, the man sitting next to him— a career politician for the state— as he jabbers on about environmentalist policies he’s been cutting funding to. 

Why Argyle thinks this is something Bruce Wayne wants to hear, he isn’t exactly sure, but it makes for great background noise as he tunes the radio-scanner in his pocket to listen to what’s going on up in the office. 

“Evening, Boss,” some lackey says, fourteen feet above his head. Bruce can’t see him up in the office, but he can see Oz standing and looking out over the lounge through the glass windows. He doesn’t recognize the voice of whoever it is, either, but that isn’t a problem. 

There’s a long moment of silence, during which Bruce tries to pass a few twenties to the girl who brings their round of glowing drinks in a flirtatious bout of refusal and insistence, and then a scratchy voice filters through his earpiece. “This new route is really starting to piss me off, Jones,” Penguin says, puffing his pipe. 

There’s some shuffling in the room, muffling a bit of his audio, and he tucks one hand into his pocket and twists the dial to change the focus of the spyware. “...what to tell ya, boss. We could try just ignoring the guy, but after what happened to Robert and Denny, I’m personally a little wary.” 

“Wary,” Penguin says, playing the word along his tongue like he’s never heard of it before. “You’re wary, are you?” 

Jones, the lackey, wisely keeps silent, because only a complete idiot wouldn’t realize they’d struck a nerve, and Oz doesn’t stand for hiring idiots. 

“Wary o’ this guy, or wary o’ me?” 

It takes less than a second for the message to sink into Jones’s skull. “You, boss. I’ll put the shipments through the alley again. Don’t know what I was thinking.” 

“You wasn’t,” Penguin grumbles, settling back in his chair, “But tha’s okay. I’m here to do it for ya.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Ya welcome. Now get out.” 

Jones scrambles to leave the room, muffling the mutters coming from Oz well enough that Bruce has no hope of making them out. He stares hard at Argyle’s face, pretending to listen to the rest of his list of ‘achievements’ that are definitely going to make him a target for Poison Ivy, and thinks over what he’s learned. 

Penguin is still reluctant to make any changes to his routes, as Bruce expected. But something out there in Crime Alley spooked his guys enough that they made a decision without consulting him, at the risk of their own lives. 

The only question now was: who or what scared the Penguin’s goons enough that they made a new route, avoiding Crime Alley territory for moving their drugs? It would have to be a threat worse than whatever death and retribution Oz could come up with, which leaves Bruce without any true answers. 

He’ll have to do some more investigating, that’s for sure. 

“And that, Brucie, is why,” the man next to Argyle says, loud enough it breaks into his thoughts, “We think you should fund our new city chapter.” 

He forces a laugh and takes the rest of his glowing drink like a shot. “Sorry, gentlemen. You know my board doesn’t let me make any real decisions, don’t you? Have a good night.” And Brucie slides out of the booth in time to trade places with the blue glitter girl from earlier, who makes affected cow eyes at him as he leaves. 

He falls into the car Alfred drove to pick him up without his tie, and with enough glitter on his face, neck, and hands that he’ll have to take three decontamination showers when he gets home. 

“How was your evening, Master Bruce?” 

Brucie reaches over to pull the car door shut, giggling a little at the group of people standing outside the club and waiting for their own rides. “Successful, Alfie. I’d say successful.” 

He pulls the door shut, facade slipping off into the night. Alfred sighs and pulls away.

Tim barely looks up from his tablet as Dick lands the plane in an alleyway near a shopping center. He closes the window he was texting Cassie on, the channel falling into an encrypted sleep mode when he doesn’t have it open, because he doesn’t need Dick up in his business. Dick would be… a very loud objector to his plans. Not that Cassie isn’t a loud objector, but Cassie and Dick have very different places in his plans, and Cassie’s objector status is her only status. 

Dick presses a few buttons, humming a tune to himself, and the plane shifts from batstealth mode to batsleep stealth mode so it remains invisible while parked. He notes the buttons absently, Bruce’s voice in his head walking him through each step of the landing routine. 

“You could have slept, you know,” Dick tells him, stretching as he stands up. Tim rubs one of his eyes because the left one is getting dry and checks his analogue watch. 

Two forty am Gotham time. He’s been up since his four hour nap the afternoon before, so it’s been approximately forty-one hours since he slept. And four hours does count as a full night of sleep, so he didn’t need to nap on the flight over— he’s got stuff to do— but he is due for an energy drink soon. 

“Eh,” Tim grunts in denial, turning his attention to proofreading his most recent case report. Just the night before, Robin finished a human trafficking case and submitted the collected evidence to the GCPD, but Bruce needs the report for filing purposes. 

Not that he reads them. 

Dick does not appreciate him rejecting what Dick considers to be standards for life, not that Dick sets a very good example. He grabs the tablet from Tim’s hands and tosses it onto one of the benches on their way out. “No work, remember? Brother bonding trip,” he trills. 

Tim glares at him halfheartedly, tugging one of the strings from his sweater into his mouth, and pulls another tablet out as Dick practically yanks him down the ramp and into the empty alley. 

“Really, Tim?” he groans when he sees the backup tablet. Dick reaches over to turn it off and Tim sighs, sliding it away into his pocket. He’ll have to finish his work later. 

They step out into the street, light shining down below. He pulls his hood up to shield his eyes and Dick knocks it right back off his head, playful now that Tim is pretending to engage. He still needs to investigate what put Dick in the mindset for this trip and keep it from happening again, but in theory that’s what Cassie should be trying to find out for him while they’re here. 

If she agrees when she reads the messages. 

“So, Timmy, baby bird, little Robin, are you ready for an evening-morning-whatever of fun in good ol’ London?” Dick chirps, chipper as always. He even gives a little skip. 

“So long as we don’t run into Constantine,” Tim grumbles, squinting down at his feet, “I’m up for anything.” 

“Great! Let’s go see the sights, then!” Dick ruffles his hair, using his grip on the top of Tim’s head to steer him into the street. 

The weighted feeling of exhaustion, from staying up all night last night editing old photos of Jason as Robin, folds over his shoulders like a blanket and forces his eyes closed. Normal people would simply return to their bed for a nap. 

Tim leans into Dick’s hair ruffle and blinks up at him, trying to ease the dryness in his eyes. “I need a coffee.” 

Dick gives him an amused frown, which Tim didn’t really know was possible before meeting him, and says, “Are you sure, buddy? It’s like three am for you. That’s nearly birdy bedtime.” 

Tim glares. He’s not four; he’s nearly fifteen and he’s been managing his own sleeping schedule since he was six at least. “Yes, Dick, I’m sure. It’ll keep me up until it’s time for me to go to bed and no later.” 

“Alright, if you’re sure.” 

Dick drapes an arm around him and tugs Tim up the street in search of a coffee shop. 

He’s so dedicated to being a good older brother that it makes Tim feel sour and rotten inside. He shouldn’t be here, soaking up all this love and care from Dick. It isn’t meant for him. It’s meant for Jason Todd. And Tim is here as a placeholder and an object for grieving. 

Until Dick is better and Bruce is better and Alfred is better, he’ll stick around, but the moment they seem okay again, he’s going to leave. 

This impromptu “brothers” trip is actually ruining step four of his twelve step plan to begin easing his presence back so the family gets used to not having a fake Jason around. The initial plan only had six steps, but Tim had to add some more after he stopped being able to brainstorm steps with his teammates when Bart laughed so hard that he vibrated through the wall and fell into the street. 

Dick drags him to the right, around a food truck selling a ton of bread, and they cross over a cobblestone bridge. 

If he’d had his way in life, he’d be here in London with his parents instead of stealing love from a dead kid. 

Jason was only fifteen when he died. Tim turns fifteen next month. 

“Here we go,” Dick says. Tim looks up to watch him gesture at a little coffee shop shoved into a wall. It doesn’t even have seats inside, just a three person line past the door and a counter with an espresso machine all in a narrow little rectangle of space. 

Where do they take their payments? Do they not have a cash register? Or maybe they’re only electronic. 

Some of his favorite takeout places downtown in Gotham are making that transition, and it’s kind of a pain, because Robin can’t exactly have money attached to an electronic account. It’s also probably not great for him to be carrying around cash, but Bruce didn’t say anything about that pocket on the belt when he approved Tim’s redesign last year, so it’s probably fine. 

“Tim?” 

He shakes his head. He really needs a coffee. Dick is looking down at him, concern in his eyes. 

“Sorry,” Tim mutters, blinking some more. 

“No need to be sorry, bud. I just asked what you wanted.” 

“Black.” 

Dick smiles down at him, clearly amused. Tim is not in the mood. He wants his coffee, and he kind of wants it now. 

“Black what?” 

“Coffee,” he grunts out, trying not to sound too much like Bruce. Dick is being annoying on purpose at this point, and Tim has spent the past few years really coming to understand Bruce’s occasional irritation with his son. 

He’s cooed at, like a little baby, the annoyance in his tone apparently coming off as cute. “Oh, come on, you can use your words, baby bird.” Dick bends over, snaking his too-long arms around Tim’s torso to hold him still as he starts tickling him in the street. 

“Ack!” He squawks, like a fucking bird. Tim squirms away, both hands pressing on Dick’s shoulders, and curses himself for being so small. Despite his best efforts, though, he giggles and his muscles start to go lax. “Dick!” He whines through his laughs. 

His brother just picks him up, feet dangling, and hugs him tight. 

“Tim–”

BOOM! 

The street shakes, citizens running left and right, ducking into shops. A wall of dust blows over them as Dick sets him down, and the two of them run into an alley and start taking stock of the situation with trained precision.  

They can’t quite see what’s going on through the clouds and the crowd. A young woman, hair falling out of its updo, runs over Tim, nearly knocking him to the ground. 

“Sorry!” She screeches, helping him up and passing him to Dick a little forcefully. “So sorry!” 

“It’s alright,” Dick says for him. Tim shakes his head, rattled from being manhandled, and his brother drags them into a side alley to get a better look at the situation. “Can you see anything?”

“No,” he replies quickly. Tim leans out, trying to catch more than occasional glimpses of people running between clouds of dust around the corner. What is even going on? There’s a big shopping center a few blocks away, he remembers from his research, but it’s unclear whether this is an attack or a natural disaster or even an accident. 

Dick doesn’t have to tell him that they need more information now.

Tim pulls this tablet out and links it to the top of his watch, logging in with Robin’s access codes. Step one is to find security camera access to get them eyes on what’s going on. Dick leans in over his shoulder, half watching and half checking their surroundings.

“No masks, yet,” his brother mutters. 

Tim hums back, focusing on the video he’s pulled up. On the screen, columns of dark smoke are flying around in the air in front of the shopping center, almost as if they’re controlled by drones… 

One of the columns hits the ground in the center of the square and dissipates to reveal a person, dressed in a dark sheet of fabric and wearing a white mask shaped vaguely like a skull. 

Tim has never met a hero with a skull mask. 

“I don’t think they’re the good guys, Dick,” he mutters, tilting the tablet towards him. 

“Huh?” Dick leans over and Tim enlarges a screen shot of the mask. His eyes widen. “Yeah. I don’t think so either.” 

On the other side of the screen, a few more figures have appeared. They’ve all pulled little sticks out of their sleeves and are waving them around, sending flashes of light at people with some of their waves. 

Civilians are turned into wild animals left and right, umbrellas and trees and light poles taking to life and grabbing them. A few of the people just drop to the ground, screaming. 

A “What the hell?” slips right out of his mouth.

Warm hands on his shoulders nudge him down the alley toward their ship and squarely away from the action. “I think this is definitely outside of our abilities right this second, Tim.” 

“Especially because you snuck me out,” he quips back, placing one foot in front of the other without looking at where Dick is steering him. 

“It isn’t outside of Nightwing and Robin’s abilities, though,” Dick says with an audible smile.  

Tim watches as a few police officers try to shoot the creepy masked magicians. The one in the front waves their wand again and the bullets and the officers vanish. Holy magic, Batman. 

And with no visible spells or incantations or weaknesses… 

“It might be,” he breathes. 

A brave woman takes her purse and swings it at the head of one of the wizards. They duck, faster than he would have thought possible from someone not equipped with super speed. 

A moment later, there’s a series of pops like gunshots, loud enough that they sound right next to them, not just away in the square. 

Dick jumps to cover him, both hands around Tim’s head, and they huddle against the wall in an alcove. 

When Tim checks again, just a few moments later, a dozen more weird wizards have appeared in the little street and square. These ones are wearing red outfits like the black ones, and no masks. He takes some pictures of their faces. 

He’s never seen anything like this before, not even in a mission report, and he’d like to at least get it sent up the Justice League properly. 

The new red wizard people are engaged in combat with the original wizard freaks, slinging light and other invisible projectiles–spells, probably– back and forth. They’re winning, too. 

“Looks like local authorities have it well in hand.” He shows the screen to Dick and earns a ruffle of his hair. 

“Good work, Robin. Back to the plane.” 

Dick doesn’t pick him up to usher him back to the plane, but it’s a close thing. He doesn’t even mutter to himself as he pushes Tim into the copilot seat and starts the takeoff checklist, which is one telltale sign that Dick is feeling stressed. 

Tim uploads the screenshots he took to his main tablet with one hand while buckling himself in with the other.

“Focus on one task at a time, Tim,” Dick mumbles at him. “We’ve talked about this.” 

And indeed they have, he acknowledges, pulling a magnetic desktop out of one of the nearby cabinets and attaching it to the front console on his side. He props the main tablet up, leaving the smaller one on his watch, and buckles himself in with two hands. The process is much faster this way, admittedly, but it would also be faster if he’d had his coffee. 

If Tim had had his coffee, he wouldn’t have any issue multitasking. If Tim had had his coffee, he wouldn’t bother listening to Dick. 

But if Tim had had his coffee, he wouldn’t have a mystery to try to solve before they get home, when he’ll have to hand it over to the Justice League. 

“Is there any record of who those guys were, the skull people or the local authorities?” Dick asks as he steers the invisible plane upward.

Tim furrows his brows and pulls out another tablet from the side compartment, securing it to the portable desktop as well. “Let me check in a second.”

He starts back logging the video on the tablet connected to his watch while pulling up the JLA database. His login only allows him access to restricted information, right now, because Bruce thinks that keeping Tim from easily finding whatever he wants keeps Tim from knowing it. Tim logs in with Bruce’s username and password.

With the stroke of a key, the security videos begin to log automatically, uploading to his personal cloud with a simple prewritten function. Tim turns his full attention to sorting through the encoded Watchtower files.

Ten minutes later, he’s relatively sure there’s nothing there. Nothing about magic users on earth other than the ones he and Dick are already over-familiar with. Nothing about anyone on earth who wears robes. The only registered magician they know of in the British Isles is John Constantine, and Constantine may be weird, but he isn’t the dress-up-in-a-shitty-toga-and-skull-mask-and-explode-a-shopping-mall weird.

The only remaining conclusion Tim can come to is that there was a split in the multiverse barrier again, which he thought the Justice League fixed a couple of years ago with the Flash.

“There’s nothing there,” he tells Dick. “My best theory is that there’s a multiverse tear again.”

“I thought Barry fixed that?” He replies, switching on the autopilot to take them home and pulling out a tablet of his own. 

Tim thinks of Bart, thinks of Wally, and of how often the two Speedsters accidentally break things, recently fixed or not. “Who knows,” he replies, keeping those thoughts to himself. 

“I’m going to double check, once I finish writing this report.”

There’s no insult to Dick checking his work. He’s actually Robin, spent more years on the job and digging through the JLA servers. “Sounds good.” Tim chews on the string of his hoodie and blinks at the sleeping tablet screen. He really did need that coffee earlier, and now all of the adrenaline has worn off.

With a heavy sigh, Tim returns to the video footage he’s been able to gather surrounding the event. Dick gets up to wander around the cabin, pacing while he does his work, and he settles in for a long night of work trying to figure this out before he has to abandon the mystery forever. 

He’s halfway through backlogging the video footage onto his cloud when it disappears from all online databases. Including his personal cloud. 

“What the hell?” Tim blurts, staring down at the tablet in shock. 

“What? What happened?” Dick trips over himself rushing over to get to him, but Tim can’t even roll his eyes. He’s in shock. 

“It’s gone.” 

“What’s gone? What happened?” 

“The video footage. All of it’s completely gone.” He clicks through all the windows and pages he had open, then pulls up a secure screen and starts hacking back into the security cameras. 

“Uh, Tim? Are you sure?” 

There’s nothing there. There’s nothing anywhere. Even the screenshots are gone, from his personal camera roll. “Yeah,” he breathes, trying to wrap his mind around it. 

“You checked everywhere?” 

“Yeah. It’s literally gone.” 

“Let me see.” 

Dick takes the tablet, then pulls up his own, and checks on both of them. 

“Huh. You’re right.” 

“Of course I’m right.” Tim snatches the tablet back, digging deeper into the databases. There’s no sign of the IP address or other identification of the person who erased the video footage feed. The only sign someone was even there is that the footage is gone in the first place. 

Most hackers have preferred methods of removal or extraction. They’d leave signs. There’d be traces for Tim to track. 

Here there’s just… nothing. 

“That’s… really weird.”

“And definitely a task for the Justice League,” Tim says morosely. If he’s lucky, they’ll ping everything back to Oracle, and he’ll get to help. 

Tim isn’t usually very lucky. 

Maybe he needs to make better friends with Victor… then he’ll have more of a chance to work on mystery tech magic projects from the JLA. 

“Yeah,” Dick agrees with him, ruffling his hair. “I’ll send up my report as soon as we land.”

Well, that’s the end of that. 

And, cherry on top of a massive fucking pie Tim doesn’t get to eat, he now has to resecure his cloud. 

Chapter Text

When Harry next drifts out of the fog of exhaustion and grief and apathy, he’s sitting at the kitchen table in the basement of Number 12. 

Moody was wrong. Harry didn’t have to walk back in here. 

He didn’t have to think about it. 

Ron is drifting, hovering, behind him and next to him. He keeps fiddling with his wand and pacing and glaring at the shouting Order members across the room. Every few seconds, the front door slams above them and then a rush of new people comes in. 

This time, Harry watches as Emmeline Vance, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Hestia Jones storm in, nearly tripping down the stairs. 

“There’s another attack! Same time, over on the other side of the city.” 

“What?” 

“Yeah! It was a distraction for all of the Aurors guarding Kings Cross. Eight of them attacked a shopping center in broad daylight, doing magic for all the muggles to see.” 

“What kind of reckless….” 

“That’s really not great.” 

Harry tunes them back out, trying not to think of what a double attack means. Voldemort has more numbers, at least. 

Hermione is missing, he notices as he observes the kitchen with his ears turned off. Padfoot is missing. 

Even, Merlin, Dudley is missing. 

There’s a lot of people missing, it seems. Harry’s mouth feels dry and a little itchy, like it’s been stiff and sitting for a few hours. He can’t really feel his tongue. 

What is he supposed to do, now that the Dursley’s are gone? There’s no way the Weasleys  will get custody of him, or even that they’d want it. Could he just… go on the run until he’s seventeen? 

He could. He’s got enough money. 

Unless they freeze his accounts. 

“We’ve got this,” Ron murmurs, patting both hands on his shoulders. It breaks him out of his stupor, the silence ringing in his ears slipping beyond his grasp. Hermione is not missing like he'd thought when he couldn't find her. She sits down next to him, dropping two massive stacks of parchment on the table, and then starts pulling more out of her bag. Ron leans in a little. “Y’alright, mate?” 

Harry inhales a shaky breath. He isn’t sure what he is, but he isn’t alright. “Busy,” he mutters, trying to explain that his head is full. 

Ron gets it, because Ron gets him, letting out a low hum. “Yeah, I’ll try to get some people to clear out. Sorry we couldn’t be upstairs in the quiet.” 

He doesn't really remember why that is, but he also doesn't really remember how they got here. 

“S’alright,” he mutters again. Ron tugs the hood of Sirius’ hoodie up over Harry’s hair. It helps to muffle some of the sounds and senses. He feels almost like he’s floating.

Then Ron is gone, and some time later, amidst the noise and bustle of everyone arguing, Mrs. Weasley pushes a hot teacup into his hand. The warmth brings him back. 

Everyone is speaking at once. 

“Our priority needs to be tracking down whatever Death Eaters did this!” “-priority needs to be Harry’s safety–” “-don’t even understand why–”

“-can’t believe the muggles–” “I thought that all the big Death Eaters were away in Azkaban after the attack last week.” “-miracle they’re writing this off–” 

“So did we all.” “They’ve been having some trouble lately with exploding cars–”

“-honestly, it’s a miracle Harry’s alright, too–” “He must have a new set of forces, from somewhere–” “-that nobody else has been attacked–”

“Then we need to figure out their plan!” “-think they’ll go into hiding again?”

“-really can’t be sure–” “Especially before they come for Harry again!” “-nice to hope–”

“Or any of us, really.” “I need to floo—” “-seen the Prophet yet-”

“I’m not worried about them,” Moody says loudly, “Because they were stupid enough to attack ‘im in broad daylight, with us right near. Idiots, the lot of ‘em!” 

Moody's shouting does not make everyone quiet, it just makes them harder to understand. 

There are too many people in the kitchen.

Harry clutches the cup of steaming tea Mrs. Weasley handed him and concentrates on breathing. 

“Our biggest concern right now is preventing Harry’s magical guardianship from being transferred to any of the Death Eater families, especially with the corruption they’re working into the Ministry,” Kingsley is saying, his voice calm and grounding. 

Harry inhales some of the steam and holds his breath. 

The floo wooshes, signaling another someone’s entrance. 

He keeps holding his breath. 

The person speaks. “I want to remind everyone that Harry’s magical guardianship is not able to be contested on account of his magical emancipation.” It’s Dumbledore. 

Then Harry’s breath leaves him all at once. 

“I’m emancipated?” He croaks, lifting his head carefully. The room isn’t spinning like it was earlier. Mrs. Weasley fusses and pets his hair gently. The hood is down. He realizes she’s actually wiping blood out of the back of his hair with a warm cloth, dribbles of water reaching his neck, and notes his head wound distantly. His skin feels cold everywhere. 

Professor Dumbledore refolds his hands twice within the sleeves of his robes. “Yes, Harry.” It’s almost like he’s fidgeting. “Because you won the Twi-Wizard tournament, you are considered an adult in the eyes of magic.” 

“But what about the Trace, Professor?” Hermione asks, shuffling through her stack of parchments listing all possible anythings related to their current… issue. “The Ministry still caught Harry using the Patronus charm last summer, and the Trace can’t be cast on adults.” 

“The ministry discovered Harry had done magic because he performed it in front of a muggle, his cousin. They had alerts on Privet Drive itself, as well, for any use of magic outside of Number 4. Otherwise, if Harry had been, say, practicing levitation charms in his room, he would legally be allowed to do so.” 

His fingers tighten around the cup he’s holding as Hermione’s hand takes the place of Mrs. Weasley’s, brushing through his damp, clean hair. Hadn’t he and Dumbledore just had a conversation in his office earlier that week about Harry not being kept out of the loop anymore? The cup shakes, and so do all the other dishes in the room, rattling as his magic reacts to his anger.

“I’m truly sorry, Harry. There are… quite a few other things I see now it would have been prudent to mention during our conversation. I’d simply assumed I’d have more time, and in the interest of not overwhelming you elected to wait until you’d settled at home with your relatives.” 

The dishes stop rattling only because he’s pulled his magic in tight. Ron’s solid presence appears on his other side, his best friends bracketing him as he glares down at his blameless cup of tea.

“If the rest of you would please give us the room, I believe Harry and I have a few things to discuss.” 

Everyone, all the nameless probably-Order members, vacates the kitchen of his dead godfather’s childhood house. Ron and Hermione thankfully don’t budge, because he isn’t sure he’d be up to moving or talking to tell them to stay. 

Harry doesn’t look up at Dumbledore as the man sits down across from them at the long, magically extended table. 

“While the status of your magical guardianship is not an issue due to the emancipation, with the Dursley’s dead there is still the matter of your Muggle guardianship.” 

Hermione draws the stirring pattern for a calming potion patiently into the crown of his head. “What do you mean, Professor?” 

“Harry is only half emancipated, Ms. Granger. And he does have living muggle relatives.” 

His feet are numb and the icy cold is creeping steadily up his calves and knees. 

Ron’s fury crackles through his magic, bristling up against Harry like a cat. “You mean to tell us Harry had other options than staying with those–those–” 

“Mr. Weasley, please. We do not speak ill of the dead. And Harry did not have the option of going to live with this relative for a few reasons: first, he is American, and very famous, and when Harry was young he was missing and traveling the world for quite a few years. And secondly, Harry… would you look at me, please?” 

The ice has made it past his thighs. Harry forces a half breath and lifts his head to see Dumbledore’s eyes without his half-moon glasses. 

“Harry, your living relative is your biological father, Bruce Wayne. I didn’t…” 

Whatever else Dumbledore is telling him sounds like bubbles filtering under water. Harry is drowning somewhere in a cold lake, or maybe a bathtub like the one in the Prefects’ bathroom with jets blowing air at him. 

Ron’s warm hand rests on his shoulder, rubbing across Harry’s chest like it’s trying to restart his heart. It’s doing a moderate job. 

Hermione’s fingers find their way into the hair at the top of his neck, tugging gently with enough force that the little pricks pull him out of the water. He’s still numb, but he’s breathing. 

“... the blood magic only worked with Lily’s blood. Staying in America would have kept him out of my zone of protection and left him defenseless without the blood magic wards, especially because his father wouldn’t have even been there.” 

Dumbledore clearly has more to say—Harry recognizes his ‘just getting to the beginning of the really interesting and actually helpful bits of the lecture’ tone— but Ron cuts him off. “I think we’re done here, Professor. Hermione and I are going to take Harry upstairs to recover from this bombshell. We’ll see about rejoining you for the Order meeting this evening. If he’s up to it, maybe you can continue filling him in tomorrow.” 

His body is puppeted, joints used like stiff levers, to stand and then walk out of the kitchen. 

He doesn’t know where the warm teacup went, but Ron’s arm across his back is slowly thawing his lungs. 

Harry manages to look back and sees that frost has covered the floor in the kitchen and the chair he was sitting on, and exploded across most of the table in a starburst from the shattered teacup he’d been using.

Ron and Hermione sit him down on the couch in Padfoot’s room, as opposed to the family library they normally go to for plotting, Ron staying with him and Hermione bustling about. She tracks down candles the muggle way and lights about a million of them. Harry watches her; Padfoot's room is much cozier, and indeed less familiar, than the library, but it's less practical

Once satisfied with her massive array of fire hazards, Hermione starts organizing feathers (from Buckbeak, who has been... moved somewhere, supposedly) and papers and photographs into neat little stacks around the room. 

One, two, three, four, Harry counts the stacks. The crinkle of parchment is soothing. Ron’s arm around his shoulder is grounding, and he rubs his thumb back and forth in a tempo that keeps time with Hermione’s work. 

Harry breathes through it, slowly, and tries to come to terms with everything. It takes him several minutes. 

The Dursley’s are dead. The Death Eaters attacked them. Harry’s emancipated, magically. In the muggle world…. He croaks out, “I–I have a dad?” 

Hermione slows her fluttering, giving him a few glances, but otherwise keeps moving about. 

“‘Cording to Dumbledore, you do,” Ron murmurs softly. 

He repeats it, trying to get used to the idea. “I have a dad.” 

“Seems so.” 

“My dad is alive.” 

“Yeah, mate. Think he is.” Ron uses the arm around his shoulders to tug Harry in, leaning against his chest. Ron’s somehow both broader and taller than him, and it feels nice. 

They lapse back into silence, Hermione’s muttering under her breath the only real noise in the room, and Harry feels his magic finally begin to unclench from its tight and anxious coil. 

“What are we gonna do?” Harry whispers to nothing. 

Ron starts, though he doesn’t stop rubbing hot circles on Harry’s back, “So, Bruce Wayne…” 

Hermione huffs and rolls her eyes, tossing a smaller stack of papers over her shoulder with her wand. They zip into the fireplace, igniting with a pleasantly soft noise. 

Harry focuses on watching them burn. He’s just going to breathe with the flames until the papers are gone, and he isn’t going to do anything else. His friends will figure out what they know and what they need to find out. 

“What’s with the tone, Ronald?” 

“Well, you know everything. And Dumbledore said the man’s a famous muggle, so…?” 

“Honestly, Ronald. He’s an American muggle. And I don’t know everything.” 

If he looked, Harry knows he’d see the pink on her cheeks. 

“So you don’t know anything about him?” Ron is just a little too cheeky with his reply, Harry’s vision shaking a bit with his friends suppressed laughter, and it takes Hermione a long moment to get over herself and reply. 

“Fine, yes. I do know about him.” 

Ron and Harry both snort at that, and then Harry buries his face in Ron’s shoulder as Ron buries his in Harry’s neck. It does nothing to muffle their snickers. 

Hermione’s next stack of papers is launched at them, bumping Harry’s shoulder and then scattering all over the couch. 

“You don’t have to be an arse about it!” But she’s laughing too, and the three of them collapse into giggles in the privacy of this sanctum in his godfather’s room, and it’s healing. 

“So, Bruce Wayne?” Ron finally says again. 

The mood sours immediately, like air flowing all at once out of a balloon, but instead the joy has left them and their fireplace to live in the hallway instead. 

“Bruce Wayne,” Hermione sighs. Harry shifts to look at her, feeling strangely open but curious. “As far as I recall, he’s… well. His parents were murdered in front of him when he was eight, though I don’t remember what happened, and he’s the heir to the greatest company and fortune in America. 

“As a teen he was troubled, and again that’s just rumors from a throwaway news line, and then he vanished for a while in his early twenties, around the time you were born and we were all kids, and those rumors say he was travelling the world. And now apparently he’s less 'broody emo fuckboy'–”

“Hermione!” Ron shouts, like an offended Victorian lady. Harry isn’t sure why he bothers, because Ron has the worst mouth between them. 

“-and more 'rich himbo playboy', who donates significantly to charity but otherwise is kind of dumb.”

“He’s rich?” Harry croaks, feeling Ron stiffen against him. He doesn’t know what to do about the sore spot, but Ron rubs a hand down his arm, so he ignores it. 

“Oh yes, quite. Significantly more so than you, Harry, and you’re the heir to two lordships. And, though it’s what’s written all over the tabloids, I also don’t believe he’s truly a dumb himbo.” 

“No?” Ron prods Hermione to explain her thought, though the sentiment is tacit after this many years as friends.

“No. It’s all too calculated for my tastes. I once spent a week over the summer making a spreadsheet of each of the incidents he got into, and found that the ones taking place in public occurred with formulaic regularity.” 

“You spent a week writing formulas for Harry’s dad’s public fuck ups?” 

There’s an oblique silence in the room. 

“Well, I didn’t know he was Harry’s dad at the time, did I?” 

“Right. Well. Moving on from your stalkerish tendencies–” Ron’s in a right mood now, and Harry closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at that shark like grin he always gets when he’s allowed to full-send on solving and strategizing. His best friend will figure everything out. 

“Rude!”

“-what do we know about this place Harry’s supposed to move to? Gotham, in New York?” 

“New Jersey. And I don’t know anything about it except that Bruce Wayne lives there.” 

“You have formulas for–” 

“Oh my god, Ronald, I get that it was weird, okay!” 

“-uh huh. But, you didn’t look into the city at all?”

“No! The only reason I was looking into Bruce Wayne in the first place is because I was curious about the company’s technology. They came out with a new battery and interface system for their smartphones last year, and I wanted to see if I could try bringing one to Hogwarts.” 

“That makes more sense.” 

“Thank you.” 

They lapse into silence for a minute, each thinking. Harry tries to contemplate what it would be like to have a Dad, who maybe asked after him and tried to take care of him sometimes, and perhaps got mad if someone printed a bunch of slander about him in the paper. Maybe if he’d had this dad, Bruce Wayne, the trial last summer wouldn’t have happened at all. 

A giant stack of papers, the height of Harry’s arm, flies past him into the fire. 

“What are you burning, Hermione?” Harry asks from the couch. 

“Ron and I wrote out a bunch of methods for getting you out of that house this summer. They’re useless now.” 

Oh. That’s… actually really sweet of them. Harry turns his face a little into Ron’s shoulder and takes a shaky breath, trying to ignore the burning heat in his throat and behind his eyes. He stares at the fire and tries to convince himself that that’s why it feels like he’s melting. 

Ron, the best friend to ever grace the planet, notices and draws their attention away. “So, our options are: let Harry go to Gotham or keep him here.” 

“What do you think, Harry?” 

They let him sit and be quiet for a long time, staring into the flames and the burning papers Hermione compiled to help him. So much work they do on his behalf, and so often it goes to waste. And, of course, they’re bound to be torn up if that prophecy… if that prophecy is true. Does Harry really want to bring someone else into this? Could he really drag an innocent man, who before this has had an easy life without Harry and the destruction that follows him, into this giant mess? “I think… he’s an innocent man, and he doesn’t need to be caught up in all this.” 

“So,” Hermione says gently, “You want to try not to go?” 

His throat starts closing up. “Maybe… maybe after all this is over, I’d want to meet him. But not–.” 

“Okay. So that’s our goal, then.” Ron nods, centered in his strategy now that he has an outcome to aim for. 

“Keep Harry on British soil.” 

“The motherland for the win!” 

“Oh my god, Ron, I called it that one time–!”

Of course, Dumbledore sets their plans on fire, just like all of Hermione’s other plans and papers, the moment they go downstairs to ask him about possibly obliviating the muggles about Harry’s case so he can just stay in London.

“Harry will have to go to America. The Muggle authorities have begun to look for him, and there’s nothing we can do other than let him go.” 

Ron, arm still wrapped around Harry, shakes so hard that for a second Harry thinks he might explode from rage. “I’m not letting Harry go to America, alone! He’ll be defenseless!” 

“Harry can do magic outside of Hogwarts, and the likelihood of the Death Eaters tracking him through muggle means to America is very slim. He’ll be safer there than at the Burrow, or even Grimmauld Place.”

“Why can’t we just erase all of the muggle authority’s memories of Harry? Then there wouldn’t be any muggle government people thinking anything about him.” 

“There’s simply too many people who have seen the record, and no way for us to track where the electronic copy has gone. And, with most of the ministry compromised, there’s no way to be sure we can ask the obliviators to do their job correctly.” 

“Then– but–” 

“Harry will just have to go live with these muggle relatives, in secret, and keep them from becoming involved with the war.” 

What does that even mean, ‘in secret’? Can’t he just not go at all? Harry’s stomach twists and he stares down at the table, feeling hollowed out and ready to sleep for the rest of time. Every plan they try, every option that sounds even somewhat appealing, is vetoed. It seems Fate has a plan for him that goes right along with the things Harry really fucking wants and completely ignores all the things that are best for his whole life and this stupid war working out. 

“He has to go in secret… from the Ministry?” 

Dumbledore sighs heavily. “More than that, I’m afraid. Harry, you’re more than just Harry Potter; you’re a symbol to the world, even to the other Order members. If they were to ever find out you weren’t truly the son of James Potter… the fight against Voldemort could crumble and collapse.” 

“Fuck you,” Hermione snaps, grabbing Harry’s arm and hauling him up. 

Dumbledore doesn’t say anything to that, just sighs again and pulls his glasses off his crooked nose. “I’ll make some arrangements with the Muggle authorities. We’ll try to get you out there at the end of the week.” 

“He’s not just some dog for you to ship wherever you want,” Ron snarls, stepping up against Harry’s back to help shove them all three out the door. The silencing ward Dumbledore placed around the kitchen snaps. 

Ron’s behavior is dismissed, though Harry isn’t sure whether or not to be thankful for that. Dumbledore turns to him instead, piercing Harry with that blistering gaze. “I understand that this information is shocking. I apologize. It was not my intention to withhold any information from you, merely to moderate the amount of information I gave you to your benefit. I realize now that I made a mistake.” Then, in a much louder tone, so that everyone in the hallway can hear clearly, he says, “Still, I implore you not to do anything rash, Harry. There are plenty of considerations with this information, and plenty of adults who will be happy to help you and, indeed, take care of this for you, so you don’t have to think about it.” 

And maybe, with that, Dumbledore is trying to give Harry a little wink and nudge that he supports him taking care of this on his own. But honestly, Harry’s tired of taking care of things on his own, and he’s tired of adults interfering, and it doesn’t really matter that he can’t quite put together what Dumbledore’s placid smile means this time anyway. Hermione is dragging Ron away from Dumbledore, bodily hauling him around both Harry and herself to start shoving him out of the room, and Ron takes great pleasure in snatching Harry by the arm as he slides past. 

At least this way, with them both steering him around, he can sink into the dumb and dead, emotionless depths of his mind that have been bubbling up inside him since he watched Sirius fall into the veil last week. 

Moody and Snape are in the hallway, muttering insults at each other and pretending not to listen in. They’re leaned up against one wall over the kitchen, hovering like bats. 

Harry doesn’t even look at them as he’s hauled past, Ron in front of him and Hermione pressed close behind. He’s so fucking tired. 

“Fuck him,” Ron snarls, his magic snapping around them protectively. “We’ll do this our way, by ourselves. We don’t need their help.” 

“Quiet Ron!” Hermione whisper shouts back. 

“They deserve to know what we think-” 

“Ron,” Harry sighs, because he wants to shout but he can’t muster the energy, “We’re just a couple of fifteen year olds. We can’t do anything against them if they know about it.” Hermione clutches his hand tightly, energy flickering briefly with fear, and Harry grabs Ron’s in return, linking them together. 

His best friend huffs but shuts up, only grumbling, “I’m sixteen, Haz, seriously,” as he drags Harry and Hermione up the stairs in a chain of hands.

The door to the library sizzles for a moment, spitting magic sparks at them in protest to his half-blood (muggleborn?) status, but Harry stands his ground and it clicks open. 

For Sirius, the door swung wide, reluctant but welcoming. The house is petulant with only a non-blood heir. Harry slips across the floor, barely lifting his feet, and sinks into the couch the way he sinks into the depths of apathetic cold, letting his friend’s words slither through the room in little calming echoes. 

“Okay, re-evaluation of options, then.” Hermione taps the rolling blackboard with her wand, and her dictation is scrawled in a series of columns. “Set facts: Harry is going to America. Requirements: MoM not learn where Harry has gone; ergo, muggle travel; Wayne not learn that Harry is magic, or about the war; Harry return before birthday.” 

“Before his birthday?” Ron asks from somewhere on Harry’s left. He's just glad he didn't have to explain to them both that he can't let his... dad be dragged into this war. 

She shrugs, and Harry frowns at the piece of toast in his hand. He doesn’t remember picking it up, and he isn’t sure where it came from. She answers Ron. “We could pick any day, really. I just figured that was a good day to aim for. Two months of time to work on getting him back, and a month once he’s back to smooth things over. We can keep him hidden from the rest of the Order for a month once we’re back, right?” 

Ron tilts his head. “Maybe? Maybe. We’d probably have to all go into hiding. Wherever we choose will obviously be secure, but traveling to see him and traveling back to Mum and them will be our weak point.”

They trail off for a second, and Harry forces himself to focus, squinting at the words on the blackboard. He’s a part of this team, and this is his mess. What else do they need to consider in deciding where to stay here? Options, maybe, for when Snape or Moody or someone else manages to track them? 

“We’ll want a flexible location, too,” Harry says, “Or a couple of options, so that we have a backup place in case they find us and try to send me back.”

“Good point, Haz. What about…” Hermione trails off, looking out the window at nothing. “I was saving this for later, just in case, so it isn’t very developed, but what about the tent? And a series of wards we could place around it?” 

“That way we could run to anywhere, and stay there, and no one would know.” 

“Brilliant,” he manages without much enthusiasm. This is awfully complicated, and Harry can’t understand why they’re pandering to even a little bit of Dumbledore’s plan for them. 

Hermione ignores his tone. “We’d have to figure out how to travel first, of course. Maybe Portkeys? And we’d have to make sure we’re all stocked up on food and things, too, but…” 

And he can’t take it anymore, because that all sounds like a lot more work than it’s worth. “Why not just run away now, then? Why send me off to America at all?” 

“The muggle authorities would think you’d somehow vanished,” Hermione says, her and Ron giving him twin looks of sadness. 

“And we should try to minimize another strange aspect of this case. It was honestly luck that the muggle authorities told the reporters the accident was just a faulty bit of the car.” 

He doesn't ask how they know what the reporters were told. He probably could have overheard that too, if he'd been paying attention. 

“Right.” He sighs heavily and leans back into the couch, nibbling a corner of toast. Everything feels… burnt. Crusted over. Overdone, with no return and no undoing. The toast is dry in his throat. 

“Anyway. Plan for getting Harry back here?” Hermione turns to the blackboard, their plan for August arranging itself in the corner and filling itself in whenever she has an errant and applicable thought. It’s fascinating to watch. She primes her wand over the clearer stretch, labeling it July. 

“What about a muggle emancipation? If this guy is as much of a playboy as he shows himself to be, or even honestly a fraction of it, he probably doesn’t want to be tied down by some fifteen year old kid.”

“That’s brilliant, Ronald. We’ll have to go down to the library to look into that.” 

There’s silence for a few moments and Harry returns his half eaten toast to its little china plate, decorated in snakes and bats and silvery glitter. 

“Anything else?” Hermione asks him. 

Ron answers, standing up from the couch and cracking his back. “Sounds like a good plan to me.” 

“Harry?” 

Right. What do even do now? They’ve planned, and back up planned, and fixed their plan and back up plan, and that’s all there is to it. 

It’s been nine hours or so, something like that, since the Dursley’s appeared to take him back to Number 4. Most summers, Harry would already be weeding the flower beds. 

Well, there’s an idea. “I’m going to go garden,” Harry sighs. That seems like the appropriate thing to do right now. 

“Garden? Where?” Ron asks, following him out of the library and down the stairs. 

Hermione is soundly booted out, in the middle of erasing their chalk board, when the door swings shut behind them. 

“Harry!” She grunts in displeasure. He sighs again and rubs his eyes under his glasses. “This bloody door. Let me in!” 

Ron snickers a little, keeping pace with him while Hermione fights with the house. 

“In the yard,” he answers Ron. “I’m going to go weed until all the weeds are gone, and then I’m going to see about planting some flowers. Maybe Kreacher will help me.” 

Kreacher, appearing next to him on the stairs, sniffs and flicks him with a dirty rag. “Kreacher be doing no such thing.” 

“Maybe Kreacher won’t help me, then. I’ll just have to ask your mum.” 

“Oh.” Ron keeps following him downstairs, and Harry feels his magic give a little twist. “Are you sure you want to garden? That sounds kind of… boring.” 

A little laugh bubbles up inside him, dying out before it passes his throat. Still, it lifts his spirits and he manages to throw a half smile at his best friend. “You don’t have to come.” 

“Oh, good. I mean. That sounds like something you really enjoy, so I wouldn’t want to do any of it for you. Deprive you of all that… enjoyment. I’ll just be… in the lounge.” He stops on the way down to the kitchen, stepping up to the living room door and giving Harry a bright smile. “With Ginny. Cleaning.” 

A loud pop, the kind only exploding snap cards make, sounds on the other side of the door. 

“Cleaning, yeah,” Harry smirks back at him. “Have fun scrubbing.” 

Ron rolls his eyes and presses the door open. Harry scurries down the rest of the stairs into the kitchen, hands in his pockets, and slips past the whispering Order members to the back garden.

Dick is halfway through his morning stretches in his apartment when Tim bursts in through the front door, ducking the half-dozen alarms and traps Dick has yet to disarm. 

“Dick!” He screeches, face pale and alarmed. He doesn’t seem to be bleeding, though, thankfully.

“Tim!” Dick shouts back. 

He lunges forward, slamming the door shut and working to disarm the pressure sensitive taser-mat before moving along to the audible alarms and the one that triggers the building’s sprinkler system. 

“You can’t just barge in here without warning!” 

Tim ignores him, shoving his tablet into Dick’s face without a care for the sensitive wires he’s undoing in the wall. “You need to see this.” 

‘GAS LINE EXPLODES AT LONDON SHOPPING CENTER YESTERDAY’ the headline for the Guardian reads. 

Whoa. 

He skims the first few lines of the article that follows: 

‘An untimely gas line explosion due to the erosion of an ‘o’ ring, according to authorities, at a South London shopping center yesterday morning led to the hospitalization of seventeen people, with hundreds of others sustaining mild injuries. The worst of the effects seems to be mild memory loss with no impediment on the formation of future memories. Doctor Fabian Ghazal, the lead physician on the case and a renowned neurologist, tells us it’s likely the memory loss is the result of an aerosol agent from the gas compounds. We are left wondering what other chemicals could be in our gas lines, and how safe they are for our families.’ 

Dick stops reading there, staring at Tim in shock. 

“A gas attack?” Dick clearly remembers there being people there, magicians or wizards of some sort. Normally Zatanna or someone else from the Justice League would be in charge of that kind of clean up. And it isn’t Justice League policy to wipe memories. 

Unless his memories of the people there are a result of this aerosol agent? 

“That’s what they’re saying. No one seems to have any recollection of the things we saw. There’s no record of it on the cameras, first, and then it’s dismissed as a gas attack, with all of these people having wild memory problems? It’s suspicious.” 

“We could have breathed in the gas, though. Does it make people remember other things?” 

“Nope.” 

Tim shoves the tablet under his nose again, this time presenting the preliminary doctors’ notes, signed by the physician from the article and a few others. 

He looks his little brother in the eye. “Tim, did you hack the hospital records to get these?” 

Tim just stares back at him, twitching a little. 

Dick sighs and reads the summary at the top. 

‘All patients present with acute memory loss for only the time period of yesterday afternoon. Memory loss period does not seem to coincide with inhalation of gas and is consistent to the minute between all patients. In total, six hundred and seventy-one people have lost their memory of yesterday morning, between nine am and ten forty-six am, which is an hour before the attacks up to twenty minutes after. 

‘Records are inconsistent with memory loss due to gas. There is no recollection or electronic record of the attack on the shopping center with which to check patient validity or arising memories.’

“Whoa.” 

Dick’s wrists go limp in his shock. 

“Whoa is right,” Tim says, nodding quickly. Dick wonders distantly how much coffee he’s had so far and if he’s had any sleep since they got back. “Someone is trying to gaslight—” 

The fire alarm goes off, and all of the sprinklers over head turn on. 

“Shit!” He’d let the wires touch. And now the sprinklers in his entire building were going off. Dick frantically pulls them apart and then yanks the paneling off the wall to find where he connected them to a switch to control the whole system. “Shit!” 

“Well, that isn’t great.” 

“Helpful, Tim,” he snaps, looking around for his phone. It’s in the other room. “Really helpful.” 

Dick grabs his brother’s tablet as a phone substitute and hooks it up to the system, opening up the web control feature and logging in with the building manager’s access codes. He doesn't know that Dick stole them from the sticky note he keeps inside of the top drawer of his desk, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. 

It takes him another forty seconds of drenching agony to get the system shut all the way off. 

“Ugh,” Dick huffs, leaning against the hole in his wall and looking sullenly around his drenched and ruined apartment. “Great. Just great.”    

“On the bright side…” Tim cuts in, his tone just as sullen as Dick’s attitude and not at all optimistic, “At least now you have an excuse for staying at the house and helping me hack into the Watchtower’s records?” 

“What the hell, Tim?” 

“Well, you were gonna have to drive me back to the house anyway, because I snuck out to get here. But, yeah.”

Nobody has ever bothered to tell Tim that he’s a little unhinged, and now Dick’s paying for it.

He sighs heavily. “Alright. Let me grab my keys.”

Chapter Text

Harry doesn’t feel like he can get out of bed the next morning. There’s a heavy weight on his chest, collapsing everything into the hole where Sirius was. 

It’s ridiculous! He didn’t even know his godfather that well, and it’s dumb to be so hung up about his d… the fact that he’s gone… 

Harry’s probably just upset because it’s his fault. That’s the only reason. He’s felt like this before too, about Cedric, and he arguably spent more time with Cedric than with Sirius, excluding last christmas hols.

Hermione slips into his and Ron’s room as the sun is lighting up the sky on the other side of the half closed curtains.

She wakes Ron up first, roughly shaking his shoulders, and Ron rolls off the bed with a grumble and a loud thump. Harry watches her walk through the dark to sit next to him on the bed, and closes his eyes when she pets his hair off his forehead.

Her slim fingers are cool on his scar.

“Is it too heavy today, Haz?” 

His throat is tight, and he doesn’t want her to see the tears falling hot from his eyes down his cheeks. One of the teardrops burns and then tickles his nose. Harry turns his face into the pillow and nods. 

Hermione is polite and understanding. “Don’t feel bad.” They were supposed to go to the library today, to email Bruce Wayne and do some more research. “Grief is a process,” she whispers, bending to be heard over the noise of Ron trying to get dressed, “and I’m proud of you for admitting that you’re having a rough day. Ron and I will go to the library still, but you can stay here and be a distraction for Mrs. Weasley, alright? I’ll go tell her that you’re feeling off, and that Ron and I are going to go to a muggle department store up the road to get you some things.” 

“Liar,” he grunts. She exhales half a laugh out of her nose and they’re both smiling for a blessed moment. 

“Maybe I am. We both know I’m better at it than you two, at least.” 

“Oi! I’m a great liar when I want to be!” 

Ron is, admittedly, a better liar than Hermione when the pressure is on. Between the two of them, Hermione makes the planned excuses and Ron does the improvisation. 

There’s a loud thud that sounds like Ron fell over into the dresser while putting his socks or shirt on. Harry’s been listening to that noise for the past five years. It never gets any quieter. 

Hermione snaps her head around, fingers oh so carefully not pulling at Harry’s hair. “You’re also a great, blundering oaf, and you’re going to wake the whole household!” She hisses over her shoulder at Ron, who lumbers up to lean against her back. 

“Alright there, mate?” Ron grins down at him, smile bright and warm as the sun. Harry can’t see the rest of his face, but he can feel that much. 

“Hn,” he grunts again, tucking his face back down. 

“S’pose that means yes, ‘Mione? Or do you think he needs to be tickled to wake up?” 

Harry does not want to be tickled by Ron, but that same warm feeling trickles through him at the idea. 

There’s a low thump, the sound that Ron’s chest makes when Hermione bats her hand firmly against it in reproach. “I think we’ll leave him here to distract your mum for us.”

“Mmmm. Wise strategist, this one, Haz,” Ron calls down, tugging Hermione off the bed and out of the room. “Be back soon, mate.” 

And then they’re gone, leaving him in the quiet alone, but their warmth stays with him.

The muggle library is confusing to say the least, for Ron. It isn’t his first time being in one, exactly, but it is the first time he’s had to actually do anything there.

He and Hermione visited this very muggle library three times last summer, while they were stuck in Grimmauld and under orders not to talk to Harry. The third time Ron almost shot a hex at Dumbledore from under the table, Hermione dragged him out under the guise of being her “backup for a jaunt” because she needed to distract him.

Muggles, Ron is learning, do not organize their books by subject like wizards do, but rather by an arbitrary system of numbers that converts each author’s last name into a random number that everyone is supposed to memorize. Last year, he remembers Hermione looking some authors up in a catalogue so she could find them, but otherwise muggles who want to read books come in here with the numbers already known, and then they follow the signs marked on the aisles to figure out where each of the number groups are located.

Because the numbers are not all in order, either.

Muggles are weird.

Regardless, he’ll figure the system out for Harry. He just needs a place to start.

“Think we should start by looking up Mr. Wayne?” Ron asks, following Hermione through some of the shelves. She seems to know where she wants to begin, at least, heading towards the back of the library like this.

Ron grabs a random book off a shelf, because it’s as good a place to begin as anything, and flips it open.

Hermione hums a little. “I do. I think we need to see what we can find out about what kind of person he is, what kind of work he does, if there are any… special people in his life.”

Right. He nods, half listening and half skimming the introduction to this book. It seems to be about personal finance. “Got it. Now, which book should I start with?” Hermione stops near the back wall and turns to look at him. There’s a long, low desk stretching around the outside edge of the library, and every few feet is a large muggle computer, which he doesn’t understand but also learned about last summer, along with the number system.

The personal finance book finds itself tucked on top of the books behind him, and the little thud tells Ron that it fell back behind them because he put it away without looking, instead giving Hermione his full attention. Hermione giggles a little bit, leaning over and turning on a large computer with a click of the power button.

“Google,” she answers.

He blinks at the screen lighting up in front of him and then nods, because whatever Hermione is doing on the computer means that Ron has to go find the books she needs. “Sounds good. Do you know where that is already or should I go find it?”

“Not a book, Ronald. The internet.” She rolls her eyes at him and pulls out the chair, gesturing for him to sit down.

“The internet,” he repeats, staring at her.

What’s an internet?

The door creaks as it’s cracked open, a sliver of light from the hallway falling across the darkened room. Harry used his magic to close the curtains, earlier. The sun was too much after the warmth of his friends faded. 

“Harry?” Mrs. Weasley calls from the doorway. “Can I come in, dear?” 

He opens his mouth to respond, but his throat seizes up around a sob. What despicable, stupid behavior. He’s fucking useless like this. Harry brings his knees up to his chest and hugs them tight. It makes some of the pressure against his ribcage ease. 

All he has to offer Mrs. Weasley is a halfhearted grunt. “Mh.” 

She comes smoothly into the room anyway, flicking her wand to light the sconces and open the heaviest layer of curtains. 

Harry almost wishes he had his glasses, and also the energy to turn his head from where it’s buried in his pillow, so he could get a read of her expression. Right now, she’s a vague blob of yellow and red and Weasley orange, hovering over him. 

“Hermione and Ron said you aren’t feeling the best. I came up to check on you.” She sits on the edge of his bed, looking out over the mess of clothes he and Ron made last night throwing things at each other for fun, and reaches a hand out behind her to rest it on his head. “Do you think you’re up to eating something? I can bring it up here, or you can come down to the kitchen, or you can take it somewhere else. Whatever works best for you, dear.” 

Her hand is cool, the wedding band on her finger the only warm spot, and it feels nice. Like a drink from the hose during a summer heat wave. 

Harry rubs the flannel of his pajama pants between his thumb and forefinger, trying to figure out if he’s up to eating anything. Usually, the answer to food is a resounding yes. Especially during the summer. 

Right now, Harry feels heavy and hollowed out and kind of unwilling to do anything but sit here and not cry. 

He swallows around his throat and shrugs. 

“That’s alright.” Mrs. Weasley doesn’t say anything for a few long moments. Harry listens to the sound of her breathing and tries to match it a little bit. Every time one of his breaths hitches, awfully loud in the empty room, he winces and holds his breath for a count of three. 

“You know, Harry,” She starts slowly, rubbing her fingers gently through his hair. “When my brothers died, it took me quite a while before I felt up to doing much of anything. Arthur actually took Bill and Charlie out of the house and brought them to his Mum’s. She watched them and took care of them for us, for quite a few months. I was pregnant with Percy at the time, too, and that was the only way he could convince me to eat anything at all.” 

Mrs. Weasley’s voice cracks, a little strained from her emotions. Harry feels his eyes well up, and he isn’t sure he could really explain what feelings exactly are causing that. 

“I was in denial for a long time. It was… it was bad, Harry. I couldn’t handle losing them. I’d hated my brothers for most of my life, for being caustic and rude and playing mean pranks on me. And then suddenly they were gone, and it felt as though I was gone too.” 

That rings true. His lungs seize up for a moment and his stomach burns. A part of Harry is missing now. 

“Arthur told me, years later, that he was considering checking me into Saint Mungos because I was making myself so ill.” 

The hairs on his back stand up. His magic prickles, like Crookshanks does when he’s taking a nap but the Weasley twins set a lit firework in front of his nose. Fear, Harry realizes. He’s afraid. Of having to be checked into the hospital, stuck there alone. 

Mrs. Weasley seems to sense this, turning towards him and wrapping one arm over his shoulders in a sort of hug. “Shh, we wouldn’t do that to you, dear. I’m here to take care of you while you process this. But, I wanted you to know that you aren’t the only one in this house to have ever experienced this. You aren’t alone in this, Harry.” 

He doesn’t know what he’s feeling now, so he just tugs on his knees. 

“I finally worked through my denial,” Mrs. Weasley keeps going, whispering now, “So that I could start healing. It was after I went through all of my brothers’ things. I was the only Prewett left, you see, so I had to clear everything out.” 

He tries to grunt out a response, but the only noise his throat makes is a pitiful half whine that whimpers out. 

“You don’t have to, of course, but you mind find… something, I suppose, by looking through some of Sirius’s stuff.” 

The idea of going into Sirius’ room and rooting around in his things, like rifling through a dead man’s pocket for change, makes him want to throw up. 

“Mn,” Harry protests, rolling over to hide completely in his pillow. 

“No, that’s alright. You don’t have to. I just thought I would suggest it. There’s lots of different ways to grieve and go through the process, Harry. Some people choose to wear clothing items or keep certain mementoes or keepsakes from those they loved after they pass, or they choose to conduct ceremonies of remembrance…” She keeps going, voice soothing and low. 

He stops listening. 

Some people choose to wear clothing items. 

There’s yet another odd feeling in his chest, but this one doesn’t make him want to cry. 

From his dad, Harry has the invisibility cloak– or, he has it from the man who would have sort of probably been his father. Whatever. It’s a different Harry’s problem, how he came to be. His parents’s story isn’t his to figure out, today. 

Wearing the invisibility cloak always makes him feel closer to his dad. What if he can find something from Sirius, and he can put it on, and then all the nasty feelings inside and the fucking elephant that likes to sit on his chest and the hot tears that burn lines in his face will go away? 

Suddenly, Harry is filled with burning need. 

He has to look. 

He has to look right now, today, right this very minute. 

It’s easy to sit up, reaching for his glasses. Harry barely registers Mrs. Weasley stopping her list and pulling back as he gets out of bed and marches around to find some clothes he feels like putting on. 

“Harry?” 

“I’m going to do that right now,” Harry replies, grabbing a pair of sweatpants that probably belong to Ron but maybe belong to Hermione. He sniffs them, and they smell fine, so he pulls them on. 

“Er, going to do what, dear?” She sounds terribly confused, fidgeting on the side of his bed in a way that shuffles the blanket and sheets around. 

What is she confused about? He turns to Mrs. Weasley and squints. His eyesight is really blurry from all the excess water. What an annoyance.

“Go through some of Padfoot’s things,” Harry says blankly. He thought that was what they’d been talking about. Maybe he missed something. 

He can’t find it in himself to feel bad about that, right now. 

Mrs. Weasley doesn’t say anything, and he can’t detect any huge change in her facial expression. Right. Whatever. He’ll deal with that once he puts on a sweater. 

There’s a bright orange Chudley Cannon’s jumper hooked on the bedpost of Ron’s bed. Harry pulls it off, because it’s the first jumper he’s located, and gives it a sniff too. It’s been worn once or twice, but it doesn’t smell too much. He tugs it over his head and subsequently drops his glasses on the floor, right off his face. 

“Bloody hell,” Harry mutters, bending down to find them. “I’m a right mess.” 

“Would you like some food, then?” Mrs. Weasley asks, still sounding unsure. 

His glasses are sitting, lopsided and lenses downwards, on one of Ron’s smelly, dirty socks. Fucking fantastic. Harry picks them up and shoves them back on his face a little aggressively. Who cares what he looks like. He wipes his eyes a bit in the process, which helps him to feel a smidge better. 

Mrs. Weasley is making a terribly pleading expression, begging him to allow her to do something for him. 

Harry can relate to feeling pretty fucking useless, even though he doesn’t really want help with anything right now. 

“Er, yeah. Sure.” He sniffs a little as he replies, trying to clear his nose discretely. 

“Wonderful!” She chirps, standing up suddenly. “I’ll bring it to you then, dearie. You go have fun, and be safe, and then let me see what you find in an hour or two, at breakfast, alright?” 

And then she vanishes from the room with a pat on his cheek. 

Harry stares after her, feeling a little dazed and foggy. Right. He takes a stock of what he’s wearing, and realizes he still needs a few more things. 

“Socks,” Harry mutters, staring down at his bare toes. 

Grimmauld Place gets cold and drafty, sometimes. 

His muscles groan and protest as he hunts around for socks, halfheartedly throwing clothes into separate piles of shirts and pants as he goes. It’s going to be a long day, he can already tell.

“Oh.” Ron stares at the pretty face on the screen, a young man with dark hair and bright blue eyes and a charming smile. It’s not the first article he’s read about Grayson, but it is the first article he’s read that mentions the word ‘ward.’ This… might be problematic? Depending on how it’s brought up to Harry. His best friend is liable to blow a gasket if they do any of this wrong, though. “Hey, Hermione?” He calls. 

Not that they can blame Harry for his hair trigger temper, with the way they’ve all been treated recently. Even his Mum and Dad were skeptical when he told them not to say anything to the Dursley’s about Sirius’ death, and then they went and ignored him, and potentially screwed up Harry’s whole summer. 

“Yeah?” Hermione calls back, emerging from the depths of her search with her hair frizzy and her eyes frazzled. 

“Might want to come look at this, when you have a sec,” he explains, leaning backward over his chair to crack his back.

“Alright, give me just a minute.” 

“Right.” 

Ron closes his eyes and tries not to dwell on the betrayed feeling sinking in his chest. 

There’s really nothing he can do to convince his parents, or any of the adults in their lives, that Harry isn’t safe at the Dursley house. Of course, that isn’t much of a problem now, since Harry can’t be returned to their company, but still. The lack of trust, and the fact that they even ignored his suggestion to speak to Harry’s despicable relatives doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the older generation. They put Harry in danger, true danger, because they couldn’t listen to Ron. 

For not the first time, nor the last, he starts to wonder: What if Hermione, Harry, and Ron have to take the war into their own hands? 

“What did you want to show me?” Hermione chirps, right in his ear. He startles, turning to look, and finds her perched on the arm of his chair and leaning into his space. 

“Right.” He shakes his head a bit to reorient. They’re researching Bruce Wayne for Harry, and Ron found articles about Harry’s… brother. “It’s about Bruce Wayne.” He clicks over a tab to start with. “I think… he already has a son,” Ron breathes, turning the computer to let Hermione see the article about Dick Grayson becoming Bruce Wayne’s ward. “It’s dated to a few years ago, but here’s a more recent article about this Grayson bloke.”

He pulls up another one, this one showing a handsome twenty-something boy accompanying Bruce to a gala. “I think their relationship has been pretty rocky, because he’s in and out of Wayne’s life, but…”

“There’s more, too,” Hermione says, selecting the search bar and very quickly pulling up a picture of ‘Tim Drake.’ “He’s technically Mr. Wayne’s neighbor, but so far I’ve been able to gather that he’s pretty close with Dick Grayson.”

Another possible family member. Ron sighs a little to himself and shakes his head. “Can never do anything the easy way, can he?” 

Hermione snorts and turns back to her own computer. “He wouldn’t be Harry if he did.”

Alfred has nothing to say when they arrive in the garage, other than to ask if either of them needs breakfast. 

“Nope, thanks though, Alfred,” Dick calls back, dragging Tim along with him by the arm he’s flung over his brother’s shoulder. 

“If you’re both sure,” Alfred says smoothly from the doorway to the kitchen. He’s got a disapproving tone and, Dick doesn’t need to turn around to see, a matching judgmental eyebrow. 

“I’ll get some coffee downstairs,” Tim shouts from the door into the office. 

Though he can’t hear it, Dick feels Alfred’s sigh. 

They’re down through the clock entrance in barely a second, working in tandem to open the doors and access the cave. 

Dick plops himself in the Batcomputer chair immediately, pulling up a report template to fill in. A draft in the cave has him shivering as the batcomputer loads— Bruce has eighty-four different windows open right now— and he glances around for a sweatshirt. 

There’s nothing for him to wear in sight. 

Tim comes wandering back over from where they’ve apparently reinstalled the coffee maker, removed during his second or third year as Robin because Alfred was sick of Bruce never coming upstairs. The coffee cup Tim’s drinking is steaming and full, and he probably shouldn’t have it but Dick isn’t Tim’s parent. 

“So, where should we start?” Tim asks, leaning against the back of the chair with one arm. 

The report template populates on the far right screen, with Batman’s signature at the bottom since Dick didn’t bother to sign out from the Batman account. He starts typing up a very brief summary of the situation. 

“I don’t think we need to say too much. Bruce doesn’t usually give a lot of detail, does he? While I work on this, do you want to check in with Barbara and see if she can find any evidence we missed?” 

A loud slurp sounds in his ear and then Tim pushes off the back of the chair, causing Dick to swivel a little. “There isn’t anything. I’ll ask, though.” 

Tim pulls a stool out from under the desk with his foot and takes control of the left two screens in the set, using ‘Robin’s’ keyboard to log in properly and send a message to Babs. 

Dick works through an approximation of what happened yesterday morning and manages to sit still for a full seventeen minutes, according to his watch. Tim scrolls on his phone and then opens a chatbox on the computer to text… Kon, Dick sees. He takes another slurp of his coffee and then shoves an old mug, half full, to Bruce's side of the desk without looking. Dick doesn't want to know how old it is. 

He watches Tim wait for word from Babs for the last five of those seventeen grueling minutes before he can’t stand it any longer. His bones are itchy. 

“Here,” he tells his baby brother, standing up and trying to pop his own back. “Read that over while I do a handstand.” 

“Alright. Sure.” Tim relocates to the cushioned chair, wiggling back and taking another slurp of his coffee. 

Dick steps back twice, enough space he can do a walkover without having to move, and flips up with a sigh. 

The blood flows back into his brain and he fights a yawn. 

“I’ll read it out loud?” 

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead, baby bird.” 

Tim reads. 

“Attack of magical origin took place in London on the morning of May 25th outside South London Shopping Center, from ten to ten twenty-four am local time. 

“Nightwing and Robin reported to the BatPlane immediately following assessment of the magical skills of the attackers. Robin attempted to log all video evidence acquired from local cameras to the BatCloud. All video evidence vanished twelve minutes after takeoff. 

“Really, Dick? Nobody is going to believe Batman said ‘The BatCloud.’” 

He snorts, wobbling a little, and takes a few steps to turn around so he can see Tim’s face. 

“It doesn’t matter how believable it is. Anyone in the know will know it was me.” 

Tim rolls his eyes and turns back to the desk. Dick leans over, putting his weight on one hand and balancing like a star. 

“Video and photographic evidence unable to be recovered. 

“Descriptions logged in Article 1. 

“Local magical law enforcement or adjacent forces arrived on scene shortly after the attack began. Nightwing and Robin vacated the area. 

“Later reports indicate no one who was or remained present at the scene has any recollection of the specific details of the attack. Scientists calculate the missing time to be from approximately nine am to ten forty-five am local time, with margins around the attack period. There is no explanation for the memory gaps. 

“Research indicates Nightwing and Robin as the only remaining witnesses. 

“Missing time correlates with missing records. 

“Request for JLA investigation of two groups.” 

“Sounds good to me,” Tim says, leaning over to move the file into a message for the Watchtower. 

Dick lets him write it up and then asks, “Want to go play video games?” 

“Really?” Tim whips around in time with the batcomputer’s ‘sent’ alert, making it a sound effect for his spin. He grins up at his wide-eyed little brother and flips back over to ruffle his hair. 

“Yeah. I haven’t been home in a while. I figured we could spend some more time together, since we got cut off yesterday.” 

“Oh. Yeah. I guess.” Tim seems suddenly enthusiastic, but Dick ignores it. He let Jason grouch and whine and chose to take him at face value instead of acknowledging the loneliness he saw in him, and he refuses to build a relationship with Tim on a foundation of the same regrets.

Sirius’s room is a right mess, despite all the work Hermione put in to organizing it the night before. 

Harry has to shove the door open with his shoulder, because the couch moved itself– or Grimmauld moved it; either is a possibility– to lean up against the frame. Inside the room, there’s still little mountains of feathers strewn about everything and everywhere. They’re even piled up on the ceiling fan, which is pretty clearly just a muggle fixture spelled to the ceiling and not truly a working, wired, wizarding fan. 

If he could turn it on, Harry wonders, would the feathers fly everywhere in a storm, like his letters coming into the house for his first year? 

He steps over a few remaining stacks of Hermione’s papers and a funny looking lump of feathers that may be full of hippogriff shit to make his way over to the closet. 

Padfoot kept all his shirts and jackets hanging in a giant armoire next to the bathroom, and he kept the three pairs of trousers he had in drawers full of old socks, pants, and muggle posters in his dresser. 

Harry skips the dresser, since he already knows what’s in it, and pulls both doors open on the armoire. 

Most of the clothes are ratty band t-shirts or sweater vests Harry’s pretty sure he’s seen Remus wearing. He flicks through a few of them, startling a pixie that spits at him. 

“Sorry,” Harry mutters, wiping the saliva off his cheek and moving on. Quite a few of the shirts have been harvested, by the pixie or by something else, to serve as some sort of nest. 

The others, with the exception of Remus’s misplaced jumpers, Harry pulls off and chucks on the bed to sort through later. 

Unfortunately, because he never left the house, the most interesting things in Padfoot’s wardrobe seem to be his odd collection of house coats and overcoats. 

Harry holds up a flaming red and pink one covered in sequins and frowns down at it. What an odd idea. 

He sticks it back on the rack and keeps flicking. None of the clothes are very interesting. 

Nothing is very interesting, honestly. Harry’s just kind of tired and ready to go back to bed. Maybe this was a bad idea. 

He flips through the last few coats, one of them with a collar that comes alive and tries to nip at his fingers, and finds a half-hidden coat just as he’s going to turn away. There, hanging in the very back of the closet, is a sleek black leather jacket. 

Harry pulls it out, heartbeat thudding in his chest. This reminds him of Padfoot alright. He tosses the hanger onto the bed, shrugging the jacket on over his shoulders. 

The jacket is too big for him, which isn’t a surprise. Though in recent years Sirius and Harry have been similar sized, the few pictures Harry saw of him in his teens and twenties suggest he was much bulkier than Harry when he bought this. 

That’s likely the result of receiving regular meals as a child. Say what one may about Walburga Black, but Sirius and Regulus never look anything less than perfect in the pictures and portraits Harry has managed to find, always well behaved and smiling and proud. 

He zips the jacket up to his throat despite the fit, appreciating the smooth interior lining. Whatever the fabric is, it’s got charms wound through it that tickle his arms. Must not be muggle made then. 

Maybe it’s dragon leather? 

Harry inspects the arms of the jacket, looking for anything that says ‘this was from a dragon.’  He’s got no idea what a sign would even be. 

The hanger, lying on the dusty bedcover, catches his eye. A little bag hanging from the center of the hanger was filled, likely by his Godfather, with little pins declaring different allegiances. 

Harry opens it and dumps them onto the bedspread. ‘Be Gay, Do Crime,’ the first one says, rainbow lettering popping against a pink background. 

What the hell?

Padfoot was gay? 

He shuffles through the rest of the pile, flipping all the pins over and lining them up as best he can. There’s a little green cactus on one that says ‘Don’t be a prick,’ and a black and red striped one that says ‘Menace to society.’’ There’s sixty pins or more, shoved into this tiny bag. 

He fingers one that flashes gold, like it’s winking at him. In tiny lettering that he squints to read, this one says ‘Support the arts. Sleep with a musician.’  Harry snorts, tucking that one in his pocket just for laughs. 

The general consensus of the pins is, as far as he can tell, to be gay and fuck authority and society. He shoves the rest of them into the bag and then into one pocket, keeping them with the jacket the way Padfoot clearly intended. 

Even if he doesn’t wear the jacket now, it’ll remind him of Padfoot just to have with him. He’ll pack it in his trunk for the time being, along with the shirts, and make a decision later. 

The more Ron looks, the more he doesn’t want Harry going to Gotham. The place is a disaster, and not for any reasons that will really endanger Harry, but certainly in ways that will draw him right into the center of more danger than necessary for what’s supposed to be a safe, chill summer.

“This place doesn’t look any more safe than Hogwarts is, ‘Mione,” he calls over his shoulder, staring in horror at a picture of Jason Todd’s funeral service.

He shows her a series of articles about the Joker, about Jason Todd dying, about all of the other rogues in the gallery, about Harvey Dent’s origin story, and so on. 

“Meaning?”

“Just look at this. They have killer clowns that go around mutilating people and blowing things up,” he pulls up a picture of ‘The Joker,’ Gotham’s resident top villain, “And a bunch of other people with questionable levels of powers that also cause chaos and murder and mayhem on a fairly regular basis. They call them ‘Rogues’,” he explains, giving her a look, “And almost every year on Halloween, they hatch some great plot that gets a bunch of people killed and injured.”

Hermione looks a little like she swallowed a lemon, looking at the picture he pulled up of the Rogues in Gotham.

He doubles down, switching to a page that shows the shitshow that was Gotham’s most recent Halloween, complete with ‘Fear Gas Smoke’ and ‘Firework Fires’ and the new ice statue in one of the parks. Ron raises an eyebrow at Hermione and gestures, perhaps a little violently, at the spread. “Does Harry really need this kind of stuff near him?”

But she disagrees with him, distaste turning mild as she half glares and half pouts. “It isn’t like Harry’s going to be there for Halloween. And besides, it’s only two months. He’ll be fine.”

“Fine. Right. I suppose Harry’s always fine.” Ron swivels his chair back to the screen, scrolling down as he looks at the disasters of other recent Holidays.

She huffs and rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Ron. Seriously, when has Harry ever gotten into trouble during the summer?”

“The—”

“Disregarding last year’s dementor incident, as both an outlier and because it couldn’t happen in Gotham.”

“When he blew up his Aunt? When Dobby went to his house and stole all his mail? When Uncle Vernon tried to beat him for watching the news?”

“Again, none of which can happen in Gotham.”

“No, but lots of other things could!”

“Like what.”

“He could be dropped into a vat of radioactive ooze, Hermione!”

“Really?”

“Yes! It happens more often than you’d think, in Gotham, but apparently they keep about a million vats and pits and lakes of it lying around.”

“You’d think they’d have done something about this horrible problem,” Hermione deadpans.

“Okay,” Ron scowls, swivelling back around to point a finger in her face. “Just because you want Harry to go—”

Hermione sighs and interrupts him. “Ron. Seriously. Did you forget the first thing I told you?”

He… doesn’t recall it, exactly. “Errr….”

“Internet safety 101,” she rolls her eyes at him yet again, “Is don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. It’s not all true, Ron. We’re just trying to get an idea.”

“Right. Okay. But still, even if all these crazy Rogues aren’t going to be a problem for Harry, there’s something else…” Ron selects the last page in his… whatever the boxes are called, and pulls up the page about Jason Todd.

Hermione leans forward, reading in silence.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He couldn’t keep Jason alive… what if Harry…”

“Harry is going to be fine.”

“Maybe not.”

“Perhaps not. But,” Hermione shows him a picture of Bruce Wayne with Dick Grayson, and then with Jason Todd, and then with Tim Drake, and then also Barbara Gordon, who he half takes in, “I think that Harry’s dad might be a good chance for him to have a real family for once.” 

“He has a real family,” Ron pouts, thinking of himself.

“I mean his own family, Ronald. Not just us, and not just your family as extended relatives, but actual people who care about him for him, and not because he’s an extension of us.” 

“Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” 

“That we’re codependent?” 

He sticks his tongue out at her, but then turns back to look at the photos. There’s an interview transcript, too.

“How did the second boy die?” 

“A trip overseas, according to the tabloids.” 

Both of them look at how sweet Bruce Wayne’s face is, looking down at any of his kids. 

“Harry isn’t going to like this.” 

“So we don’t tell him.” 

“What, send him off with emancipation papers and no plan to actually get him emancipated?” 

“I’ll write it in the email.” 

“Email?”

Dear Mr. Wayne, 

I am Hermione Granger, and I am emailing with a request for assistance with a peculiar set of circumstances. I apologize for using your company email, but we have limited time and I was unable to locate another method of contact for you. 

My friend, Harry, recently discovered he is your son. Yesterday morning London time, Harry’s relatives, his maternal aunt and family, who have had longtime custody of Harry, were killed in a car accident. We anticipate you will receive a letter from social services shortly with more details, and believe that emergency custody of Harry will be transferred to you in America, as his closest and only living relative.  

Harry and I attend boarding school together in Scotland, and due to some politics within our community, he has been unsafe as of late. I understand that this is a rather unconventional way of meeting your son, but we ask that you meet him at the airport in New York in three days, on May 28th, and take good care of him until our school term starts on September 1. I know this is a rather large request, but from me to you (Harry doesn’t know about this, and I’d appreciate you not telling him), Harry really needs someone to be there for him, and I think this is a great opportunity for him to have a real family. 

I’m sure that social services will give you some advice for dealing with a fifteen year old whose relatives were murdered in front of him, and want to give you some context that they cannot: Harry’s relatives were unkind to him, and they did not have a great relationship with him despite raising him for fourteen years. He’s not upset they’re gone, but he is upset about the move to America. His godfather, who was wrongfully imprisoned for most of Harry’s childhood, was also killed in front of him in an accident late last week, and I believe he has given up all hope of a familial relationship, though he would never say it out loud. Treat him with great care, please. 

Due to the way our community functions, Harry and I will be able to check this email once between now and his landing across the pond, the night before his flight leaves, and will try to answer any questions you send us at that time. 

I hope you take kindly to my friend. 

Sincerely, 

Hermione Granger

Bruce stares at the email in his inbox for twenty seconds before compartmentalizing the fact that he just… possibly has a biological son, in favor of removing all traces of the email so he can keep this son safe. 

It isn’t completely unusual for someone to show up claiming to be or have a biological child of his. He’s done this ten or fifteen times at least, over the years, and protocol is always the same. Compartmentalize, erase, investigate, forget. 

Bruce tries to ignore the way that this feels different, the way that the timeline matches up, the way that this kid isn’t an infant or a recent hookup begging for money, but the concerned friend of a fifteen year old. He’s practiced at this kind of compartmentalization. 

The email is scrubbed from his history, and he opens a BatPad to trace it and track down all the facts. 

Hermione Granger is the daughter of two dentists in England, and she has solid records up until age eleven, when her schooling apparently drops off the face of the earth. Whatever this school is that she supposedly attends with Harry, it doesn’t exist anywhere he can find it, so far. 

He searches for Harrys in England, trying to find the one possibly related to him without a last name or a location or any true information. He knows the boy's name is Harry, that he’s fifteen, and that he goes to school with Hermione Granger in Scotland. 

And that his relatives just died. 

Bruce switches to searching for accidents in England recently and almost immediately finds what he’s looking for. 

“Husband, Wife, And Son Killed In Automobile Fire; Ward and Nephew Abandoned At Kings Cross Station,” The Guardian article is titled. 

“Authorities are unsure as to what caused the accident and we are unable to learn more due to the ongoing investigation. Long time ward and nephew Harry was reportedly being retrieved from the station by his relatives when the accident took place, and has been unavailable for comment.”  

The rest of the article outlines briefly how the family lived a very normal life, how their neighbors have only polite things to say about them, and then it moves on to an analysis of recent automobile accidents, attempting to place this one cleanly among the others. 

From just looking at the picture of the melted car in the train station parking lot, Bruce can tell that this isn’t like the other spontaneous ignitions of electric vehicles that have been happening, but that isn’t what he’s looking for. 

He tracks the movements of the reporter who wrote the article, Harvey Leroy, to find that he visited a little street in Surrey the previous evening for about four hours. What a wonder cell phone satellite information is. And if Bruce isn’t supposed to have it… well, Wayne Enterprises does disclose that they may make use of any records and information collected for internal investigations as they please. 

He loves his lawyers. 

It’s easy from there to track down the names of Harry’s relatives—Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley— and he follows the trail to find an obituary for Harry Potter’s original parents along with a scant smattering of school records and a few doctor visits. 

Other than that, Harry Potter doesn’t seem to exist. Not so much as a birth certificate. 

“Laura?” he calls through the open door to his office. His assistant, a pretty brunette who pretends he doesn’t know her cousin works for Vicki Vale, steps in a moment later with a bright smile. 

“Yes, Mr. Wayne?” 

He slips his laptop and the BatPad back into his work bag and grabs his half-finished coffee as he stands. “Cancel my meetings for the rest of the day. I’m going home early.” 

“Oh–” She tries to stop him, smile gone, as he passes her in the doorway. “But, Mr. Wayne, there’s the interview, and you have your meeting with the region presidents to discuss the budget for distribution this next year! They’ve all flown in—” 

She chases him to the elevator, and then joins him when he checks his watch and takes the stairs instead. 

“Cancel my meetings for tomorrow, too. And don’t add anything for the next week–the next two weeks. I might be busy.” 

Laura is not very graceful as she follows him down the floors and floors of stairs, falling behind by a flight and a half from her heels. “Mr. Wayne– You can’t– The presidents are all leaving this afternoon!” 

“It’s my company, Laura,” he calls back, jumping through the door on the ground floor and pushing through a small crowd in the lobby. 

Vicki Vale is there, and he doesn’t manage to avoid her as he makes for the door to the underground parking garage. She shoves a microphone recorder in his face, vivid purple nails glinting sharp around it. 

“Mr. Wayne, any commentary on the budget planning for next year?” Her voice is pitched, and the other reporters and camera crews crowd close around them, further blocking his way to the door. “Wayne Enterprises has been doing a surprisingly small amount of charity recently, and we in Gotham are curious about any changing sentiments in our favorite Founder’s company!” 

Bruce heaves a short sigh when she refuses to let him past and pastes on her least favorite smile. “Ms. Vale. I’m a very busy man, and if you’d please excuse me, I have places to be.” 

Vale jumps on it, like she’s prone to do, and where that sharp attention sometimes makes him proud it here serves as an irritant. “Is that a confirmation on the changing sentiment of W.E., then?”

Bruce grits his teeth and forces his smile to hold. “No, Ms. Vale. And you should know by now,” he grabs her wrist and switches their positions so his back is to the crash bar on the employee access garage door, “that I have nothing to do with the way my company spends its money. I just occasionally point at things and sign the earnings away.” 

Bruce passes his coffee mug to one of the other reporters when they open their mouth, giving a short, “Hold this for me?” Then he slips his employee badge— rarely used, because his personal passcode is usually faster; it’s honestly just luck he has it in his pocket today— against the access sensor and falls back through the door. “Good day, everyone.” 

Then he shoves it closed before the horde of reporters can force their entry.

Alfred gives him a weird look about being home in the middle of the day when he barges past him dusting in the entryway, and he spots Dick playing video games with Tim in one of the living rooms on his way to the study. It’s rare to see them both in the manor, despite his attempts. Tim usually stays at Drake Manor unless Bruce directly invites him, and Dick’s busy with work in Bludhaven. 

And he and his eldest still have their fights, occasionally, because he can’t seem to figure out how to support his son without smothering him. 

Alfred tells him he’ll figure it out some day, but Alfred also threatens to ground him if he misbehaves while on bedrest, and Bruce is thirty-four, so he isn’t sure how much he believes that. 

The cave is filled with resplendent cool air, the distant rush of water and squeak of small bats relaxing his shoulders instantly. It’s pleasant to be down in the dark calm where he is alone and completely in control. 

The batcomputer boots up quickly with a satisfying whir, the fans in the background adding to his favorite symphony. The only thing missing is the quiet sounds of his sons wrestling on the mats behind him. 

He pulls up the camera and audio of them playing video games and clips it to the bottom corner of his screen, volume low. The bickering fixes all his remaining problems. 

Bruce starts a program doing facial analysis on the few young school pictures he has of Harry Potter, then decides to open one for Hermione Granger too, before turning to the task of getting access to every camera in Britain that he can. 

Most of them aren’t difficult, though there’s quite a few that are on private servers, closed loop so he can’t access them right away. 

He sets the facial recognition program to search for matches and moves it to another screen, then dives into a deeper search on Harry Potter. 

There’s a strange number of deleted police reports, decreasing over the years, that mention Harry and his relatives that died the day before. He opens one and grabs his mug to settle in to reading. 

His coffee is cold—which makes sense because he’d finished half of it in his office this morning—when he takes a sip of it and has a nasty skin that gets stuck on his choanae that makes him cough. He should have finished it in the car instead of waiting. 

But he gave his coffee to one of the reporters to shut them up, so he couldn’t have finished it in the car. 

Bruce leans over his mug and lets the cold coffee still in his mouth dribble out, trying not to gag. He coughs twice, contemplating sticking his finger in his mouth to get some of the coffee skin off the back of his throat, and squints at the mug he’s holding. Is it from last night? This morning? Yesterday? 

He smacks his mouth a few times and then hacks another cough to spit more old coffee back into the mug. 

It’s a really great thing everyone else is upstairs, because his reputation might never recover from how undignified this all is. He’ll have to delete the camera footage from the cave servers, too. 

Bruce swallows once and then opens his mouth, sticking a finger back to try and scratch at the edge of the coffee skin still stuck there. He brushes the wrong spot and almost triggers his gag reflex, taking a deep breath to avoid it—

“How dignified, Master Bruce,” Alfred says from right behind him. Bruce twitches in surprise and stabs himself in the pharynx, and then gags into the mystery mug of coffee again. 

“Alfred,” he tries to say, spluttering. Whatever it sounds like he said to him, Alfred raises an eyebrow. 

“Indeed,” he says coolly. “Master Bruce, kindly remove your fingers from your mouth and explain to me why you’ve vanished from your job during budget week?” 

He takes his fingers out of his mouth and tries to wipe the coffee skin on the inside of the mug. His mouth still feels gross, and he avoids Alfred’s searching gaze by counting the keys on his keyboard. 

There’s 62 of them. He’s known since he bought it. 

He’s Batman. He can give his butler a situation report. “I received an email, and I need to research the background of the senders to see if the claim has any validity.” 

The batcomputer pings and his working screen floods with images of a skinny boy, at a variety of ages, with dark hair and blue-green eyes and a frown not unlike Bruce’s. 

Alfred’s fingers clench the back of his chair as they both turn to look. 

In most of the pictures, the boy is wearing too-large clothes and dark bags under his eyes. Sometimes, especially in the pictures that show him as older, his eyes are red and rimmed instead. In most of them, he has a small and spindly pair of circular glasses, wrapped with tape. 

Batman needs a blood test to be sure, but Bruce Wayne does not. From Alfred’s gasp, Bruce can guess that he doesn’t either. He looks just like Bruce did when he was a kid. 

“How old is he?” 

“Fifteen, according to his friend.” 

He doesn’t look fifteen in any of them. 

Bruce enlarges a picture of an older Harry wearing a large t-shirt in the sun. The time-date information is written along the top in white stamped letters, and the batcomputer brings up its auto logs for all other available information. 

The picture is from July 9th of the previous year, and it was 89 Fahrenheit in the little town where the grocery store footage comes from. Harry has purple bruising on his arm. Fat fingertips dug into his bicep hard enough to bruise, and the only reason Bruce can tell in the picture is because Harry has his hand raised to push his hair back off his forehead, letting the oversized sleeve flop back. 

“I see,” Alfred breathes, the leather of the chair creaking under his hands. 

Bruce licks his lips, mouth dry. “His friend said his relatives died yesterday. And that they didn’t treat him very well.” 

“Perhaps you should let me read this email.” 

Bruce sends it to one of the BatPads, and clicks through more of the pictures as Alfred walks over to get it from the charging station. 

“She also said,” he calls to Alfred, “that social services would likely be reaching out to us soon, and that we could pick him up at the airport on the 28th.” 

“I’ll prep the car, and a room.” 

“He might not be mine.” 

Alfred doesn’t dignify him with an answer. 

Bruce can’t stop looking for more signs of abuse. This child, his child, a biological kid, was once a baby. He grew up apart from Bruce, and he has a whole life that doesn’t involve having a Dad, but does involve some relatives who hurt him until they died in a freak accident. 

Batman starts a folder with all of the pictures and includes the words from Hermione Granger as further testimony, because he doesn’t know what else to do as Bruce. 

“What are you going to tell Master Dick and Master Tim?” 

Bruce sighs, closing his eyes and pursing his lips. “I’ll wait until social services contacts me, to be sure. And then once I know Harry is really coming to live with us, I’ll sit them down and explain it.” 

“If you think that’s wise,” Alfred says primly, giving a little sniff. 

“Don’t give me that, Alfred. There’s no point telling them now when it might not be true.” 

“On the contrary, Master Bruce, I think more warning is always appreciated.” 

“Tomorrow, then. I’ll tell them after breakfast.” 

“And why not tonight?" 

Bruce swallows, looking down at his hands and feeling the ache in his jaw that means he’s going to start crying soon. “I have to tell Jason first.” 

“Ah. I see.”

Chapter Text

Walking up the front steps to Number 12, she opens her bag and shuffles the papers around to count them all again. The late morning air is calm in the aftermath of the storm that blew through while they were in the library, the sun now resolutely avoiding any clouds in the early summer sky. 

“You’ve got the emancipation printouts,” Hermione checks with Ron unnecessarily, though he nods politely to ease her anxiety, “And I’ve got the news printouts we aren’t showing him. And you’ll distract him with those while I plant these in the bottom of his trunk, for him to find once he arrives in his father’s house.” 

They’ve talked through the plan enough times that Hermione can’t really be bothered by Ron’s clear lack of attention. A drop of water, from the brief rain this morning, drops off the eave and lands in her eyebrow. She rubs it away and waits for him to confirm… something. “Ready, Ron?” 

Ron frowns, still standing in the front yard and glaring into the distance. “If his father accepts him,” he grumbles, crossing his arms. 

She sighs, trying not to roll his eyes. The level of faith Ron had in the goodness of Harry’s father positively tanked after he learned of Bruce Wayne’s contemptuous relationships with his first ward, and then plummeted straight through the depths of the Mariana Trench when he learned that Wayne Son Number Two died on Bruce Wayne’s watch. 

“I’m sure Bruce Wayne will be a perfectly acceptable father,” Hermione says calmly, trying to diffuse his temper. Teenage boys, honestly, are some of the most volatile creatures she’s ever met. Sixteen seems to make them especially temperamental, and Hermione is ready to give up coddling either of her best friends.  

Ron, rather predictably, does not take this response well. “Perfectly fucking acceptable?!” He stomps up the steps to the front stoop, turning red under his freckles. “How hard have we worked to keep Harry, death attraction and danger magnet extraordinaire, alive over the past five fucking years, huh? And he couldn’t even keep one normal, perfectly muggle, very unlikely to die fifteen year old from, what was it again, “passing away under mysterious circumstances off the coast of Africa”?! What the fuck is that? Is that supposed to inspire my confidence in his ability to be a good father to my friend?” 

She purses her lips, leaning against the door frame. Ron is very passionate. Normally, she thinks it’s admirable. Today, it is absolutely admirable– there’s nothing she finds more admirable than Ron’s care for their best friend– but it’s also a pain in her arse, because they need Harry to feel good about going on this trip and building a family, and Ron’s current attitude is going to sink that ship more quickly and surely than the Titanic. 

She clicks her tongue and turns to look at the dead tree in the park across the street. “I’m sure the amount of danger Harry will find himself in over in America will be exponentially less than it is here.” 

Ron scoffs, and she keeps going. 

“For one, there are no killer Dark Lords over in New Jersey-” 

“Yeah, touch wood.” 

“But for two,” she raises her voice over him, looking back and narrowing her eyes, “we need him to feel confident nothing is going to happen, so that nothing happens.” 

The mood in the air, tension Ron’s been holding back since reading those articles in the library, slips into something other that she can’t pinpoint. Ron tilts his head back, leaning against the opposite doorpost, and looks down at her with the barest hint of a teasing grin. “Thought you didn’t believe in divination.” 

With the way the sun glints in his hair, he looks… she swallows a little and forces herself to admit it. He looks attractive, like that. 

His smirk deepens, just a little quirk of his lips.  

Hermione scowls. Bloody hell. “I don’t,” she snaps quickly and too late, “But I do believe that Harry’s magic manifests a certain level of mystery and intrigue for him.” 

“That’s the same thing.” 

“Is not.” She steps forward, up on her toes. He’s still taller than she is, grinning down at her. 

“It definitely is,” Ron says softly, leaning forward. A breeze ruffles his hair, blowing toward her. Hermione holds her breath. He raises an eyebrow, still smirking at her. “Admit you want me to help convince Harry for divination reasons, and I’ll do it.” 

“Absolutely not!” She splutters. Ron looks entirely too pleased with himself, like Crookshanks after he’s caught a fat mouse, and she needs to erase that stupidly smug grin off of his face. Her first instinct is to punch him. Her second instinct is to make a bet. “Fine,” Hermione says, raising her chin further and leaning in, “Let’s bet on it, then. If Harry doesn’t get into any trouble, of the usual sort, while in Gotham, then I’ll admit some aspects of divination possibly work. If he does, then you have to admit that they’re bogus.” 

Ron bends down even further, because he’s just that much taller than her, and his blue eyes sparkle in the light. “Why are we even convincing him, then, if we’re both going to acknowledge that it’s for divination purposes?” 

Sometimes, Ronald Weasley is too damn smart for his own good. 

Hermione pastes on a smirk she doesn’t feel, because her stomach is full of goddamned butterflies, and shoots back, “Perhaps I want five galleons off of you, when I win.” 

His eyebrows shoot up, but his eyes flicker down on her face. “Or perhaps you want to do a bit of charity, give me five galleons…” 

His voice filters into her ears as though it’s through honey. He’s looking at her lips, she realizes, and her mouth dries out. She swallows. Ron trails off. And when he stops talking, her own eyes flick down to his lips, and both of them sway a little forward on their toes. 

Their magic is swelling on the doorstep. She should really reign that back in. 

“Hermione…” Ron murmurs, stepping the last step up to stand right in front of her. She can’t move, just stares at him, at his bright blue eyes and his beautiful–

The front door next to them is yanked open. “Aha!” 

Hermione stumbles back, heel catching the edge of the step so she nearly falls into the dead rosebush next to the steps. 

“Oh, fucking fuck,” Someone says. 

Ginny’s arm from the doorway reaches out to grab her, and she misses what happens to Ron in the kerfuffle, hair swinging into her face and heartbeat racing so fast she can feel it down to her toes. Hermione gasps a little, trying to breathe, as Ginny tugs her through the doorway, Ron following close behind. 

“I told you two,” Ginny crows triumphantly. What? Hermione smooths her hair out of her face and looks at Ron, trying to remember what Ginny told them. His sister keeps going, though, before she can make any sort of face. “They were not kissing on the stoop!” 

Oh. Oh, dear. Oh dear. 

She feels very hot and very cold all at once, limp fingers trying to clutch at the strap of her bag while she counts her heartbeat and waits until she can’t hear it. Hermione very deliberately does not look at Ron. 

Fred and George sulk out from the first drawing room, the door today placed between a set of sconces in the hallway to the kitchen, with exaggerated pouts as they each hand Ginny a galleon. “Fine.” 

Hermione can feel her face finally start to heat up as she takes everything in. The twins provide commentary as they hang off of their sister, who is practically glowing as she pockets her two galleons. 

“Not sure you should get these for interrupting them, personally-” 

“-But who are we to argue with you?” 

“You made a bet?” Hermione squeaks out. 

All four of the redheads give her a side eye, and then exchange a look. 

“Hermione…?” Ron tries, stepping forward. 

He’s concerned. Right. If he’s concerned, then this was no big deal, and she made it all up in her head. She shakes her head, straightening up and taking a breath. Right. This is no big deal. 

“Nothing, nevermind. Let’s go upstairs. You have to distract Harry so I can hide these in his trunk.” 

Ron observes her for a long moment, during which she feels a bead of sweat gather in her armpit and trickle down the inside of her arm. Hermione works very hard to ignore the way it tickles. 

“Alright,” he says finally, turning to lead the way up the stairs.

The door to their room is open, low voices filtering out. Ron swings in on the door jamb with a grin, watching as his best friend tells his mum a story with all the excitement he’s used to seeing in Harry’s posture. 

They’re sitting around a pile of old t-shirts he doesn’t recognize, a plate of sandwiches forgotten atop the dresser by the door. 

“Hey, Harry,” he says. 

Harry looks up, spotting him and Hermione standing there, and he lights up– well, he looks not-sad, which is more than he’s looked in ages, but a more accurate description would be that his shoulders drop from his ears and he quirks his lips into a half grin. “Ron. Hermione,” Harry greets. Ron observes his best friend’s magic is calm for once, settled around him instead of spiking up at every mental stimulus. 

“Haz,” he smiles back, tapping the bag with the files Harry needs against the wall. 

Mum stands up from the floor, limbs stiff— and how long has it been since he’s seen her sit on the floor, really? She’s getting older, he realizes— and pats Harry’s shoulder. “You three have fun, dearie. I’m going to get started on lunch.” 

Harry waves a hand, already turning back to one of the shirts as Mum leaves. 

“Where are you siblings?” She whispers at him as she passes. They didn’t follow him and Hermione up the stairs, so he’s got no idea. 

Ron shrugs, watching Harry instead of looking at her. It isn’t his job to keep them from blowing stuff up. Mum sighs, pets the side of his head once, and vanishes down the dark stairs. 

“You cleaned,” Hermione remarks as they step further into the room. 

“Hmm?” Harry hums without looking up. Ron admittedly also has no idea what she’s talking about. The room looks the same as it did this morning. 

She rolls her eyes. “Honestly, both of you. Look, Ron. Harry sorted all the clothes between what articles they are.” She gestures to the pile of clothes by the one window, now mostly composed of jumpers, and then the small collection of trousers and shorts in a lump half under Harry’s bed on the left of the room, and the socks stacked on top of the one chair in the room, though that’s never used for much anyway. 

“Oh yeah.” He can see that, now that Hermione’s pointed it out. “Neat, Harry.” 

Half their clothes are still clinging to bedposts and dangling out of trunks or draped on the dresser, but clearly an effort was made. 

It’s more than Ron’s managed in the past day, that’s for sure. 

“Eh,” Harry grunts back, anxiety clearly returning to him. His magic stirring up a bit is the biggest tell, but Ron can even see the apprehension in the way Harry tilts his head. Ron knows that their return heralds news more than company; news Harry doesn’t want. 

He sits down where his Mum was sitting, tossing his bag carelessly on the floor, and watches Harry worry at a little hole in the hem of the purple shirt he’s picked up. 

“Do you mind if I put your clothes back in your trunk, Harry?” Hermione asks, picking her way over and smoothly pulling the stack of papers, including the letter from the two of them, out of her tote bag. 

“Go ahead,” Harry mutters back, thankfully not turning to see Hermione’s sleight of hand. 

His stomach turns a little at the idea of hiding that information from Harry. Bruce Wayne isn’t the best father, Ron’s decided, and Harry should probably be making these decisions for himself. He turns his attention to Harry’s pile of shirts to distract himself from Hermione’s obnoxious reorganizing. 

Ron leans forward and picks up one of the shirts, turning it around so he can see the front. The shirt is soft under his fingers, if decorated with a logo he doesn’t recognize. “Ackdck. Ackdck?” He frowns, turning it back around to Harry. 

Harry glances up through his fringe, eyes catching a glow for a moment, and smirks a little. “AC/DC. It’s a muggle band.” 

“Huh.” Ron turns the shirt back around to reread the logo. Harry’s magic nudges his in a tease, and Ron only keeps his twitch at bay thanks to years of practice. 

He’d always been taught not to mix magic, that it’s polite to keep one’s magic curled up tight, reigned in, and that it’s intimate to allow someone to sense yours, let alone touch it. 

But he, Harry, and Hermione have always been a little bit odd, and no way was eleven year old Ron going to tell his best friend that he was breaking a wizarding social rule, especially when it makes Harry so happy to sense where he is and how he’s feeling. 

It isn’t like Harry’s ever been comfortable to do it with anyone else, either. He’ll break that bridge when he comes to it, or whatever Hermione’s always saying. 

“They’re Padfoot’s,” Harry offers, folding the purple shirt in half and draping it over a stack of other ones. 

Ah. “That’s cool,” Ron says, folding the AC/DC one he’s holding and handing it to Harry to sort. It goes in a different pile. 

“Do you want all of those to go with you, Harry?” Hermione asks. Her voice echoes, and they both look over to find her half dangling in the depths of Harry’s extended trunk. 

Ron rolls his eyes and grabs another shirt, making himself busy. 

“Go with me?” 

“To America,” she says, tactless. 

Bloody hell, woman. And she’s the one worried he won’t be able to follow a plan? 

Harry whips his head around to stare at Ron, eyes wide. Ron extends his magic in a firm brush over Harry’s to calm him down before he has what Hermione calls a ‘panic attack.’ 

“We booked you a ticket while at the library,” he murmurs, “For a muggle airplane. And we printed off the emancipation papers and everything. It’s in this file, if you want to read it.” He nudges his bag over to Harry with one foot. “You’ve got three days, though.” 

“Three days,” Harry breathes, still pale. There’s tears shimmering in his eyes. 

Ron feels tears start to bubble up in his own. “Three days. But you’ll be back in no time, yeah? So there’s no need to stress about it.” 

“Harry?” Hermione calls, still waiting for an answer. She hasn’t heard them talking. 

“Uh, yeah.” His voice breaks and Ron holds his gaze to keep him steady. “We can go ahead and pack them all.” 

“Sounds good.” She waves her wand in a half-loop over her shoulder, creeping back out of the trunk while summoning all the clothes and then directing them inside. 

Ron leans against the nearby foot of his bed, sighing a little. Harry watches the folder with his emancipation papers and flight information like it’s going to turn into a snake and bite him. Hermione conducts all of Harry’s clothes to fold themselves nicely and stack themselves away in his trunk. 

The door to their room slams open, bouncing off the wall. All three of them startle, turning to find Ginny in the doorway, hair frizzy and a manic look on her face. 

Kreacher appears with a crack. “Filthy mudblood be mistreating Mistress’s house–” 

“Oh, fuck off, Kreacher. You three. You have something to answer for.” She storms in, pointing at Hermione first, then Harry, then Ron. He wracks his brain for what they could possibly have done now. “You told me nothing more was going on–” 

“GINNY?!” Mum calls from all the way downstairs. For once in his life, the sonorous sound of his mother is a blessing, because it means he’s saved from Ginny. 

His sister has other plans, though. “Ugh.” She rolls her eyes and stomps back over to the doorway. Harry and Hermione both look at him, Hermione with alarm and Harry with confusion. Ron can only shrug. He hasn’t got a clue why she’s yelling at them. 

“JUST A MINUTE, MUM!” Ginny turns back around, hair flying in a curtain that flashes blood red in the sunlight, and glares. Ron’s honestly a little scared she might shoot a bat bogey hex at him, the trace be damned. “You’ve been keeping real secrets, I know you have, and I want in on it. Otherwise, I’ll tell Fred and George, and then I’ll tell Mum–” 

“GINEVRA!” 

“Oh, bloody hell. I SAID JUST A MINUTE!” 

“Stop yelling in Mistress’s house,” Kreacher grouches. Then he touches Ginny’s wrist and pops away, taking Ginny with him. 

Ron blinks at the place where his sister was. She’s probably just in the kitchen. 

“Right,” Hermione mutters, smoothing her hair out of her face. “We should maybe move to the library for the rest of this conversation.” She drops the lid of Harry’s trunk and flicks her wand, summoning Ron’s bag with their second set of important papers. 

“Library’s got good doors,” Harry agrees, standing and then turning to help Ron.

“So,” Hermione whispers as Harry reaches for the knob to the library door, “We’re sure we aren’t telling anyone else anything?” 

Hedwig flies around the corner into the tiny, disguised hallway, lighting on Harry’s shoulder and then helping herself through the opened door. 

Ron shrugs behind her, close enough that she can feel it, and then Harry’s reaching back to pull her in by the arm. 

“Tell them, don’t tell them,” Harry says, though she hadn’t thought he could hear her, pushing the door shut behind Ron, “I don’t really care. Walk me through this plan?” He grabs the bag from Ron, pulling out the folder and wandering in the direction of the sole armchair by their blackboard, where Hedwig is already perched and preening on the backrest. 

Hermione really doesn’t want to explain the emancipation plan right now, because she doesn’t want to get into ways she needs to convince Harry it’s better to not be emancipated. “Sure, in a minute. What did you spend your morning doing?” 

Ron flops on the couch, sprawling like a hooligan. Harry gives her a little glare. She avoids his gaze, studying the shelves behind him for anything interesting, not that she can read the handwritten titles at this distance. 

“Sleeping, and then digging around in a dead man’s closet to salvage clothes that remind me of him. Explain this to me.” 

He shakes the folder, turning it so she can see the emancipation forms at the top of the little stack. 

Hermione sighs and steps forward, unfolding her arms. “The emancipation is simple. You just need your dad to sign these forms,” she points to the ones on top, “And then book yourself a ticket back here, probably online but maybe at the airport itself. You’ll file the papers at the social worker’s office when you land back in London, and then we’ll all be free.” 

“Nice and easy,” Harry mutters, flipping through the pages. “That’s sure to go smoothly, isn’t it?” 

She ignores the sarcasm, pointedly not looking at Ron and pushing any superstitious thoughts out of her head. “Any other questions we need to cover right now?” 

“I don’t think so. I imagine I’ll just have to figure out the airport and such as I go, won’t I?” 

‘Airport,’ Ron mouths, shaking his head. 

“Yep,” she confirms. “Your dad should, in theory, send a reply email soon confirming he’ll be at the airport to pick you up. Other than checking the email at the library the day after tomorrow, everything is taken care of.” 

“Everything is taken care of,” Harry sighs, closing the folder and looking down at the front of it. 

He needs a distraction before he gets back in his head too much. They’ve got things to do before his departure in a few days and Hermione doesn’t have time for things like brooding and wallowing. 

“Now that that’s taken care of,” She says, trying to be chipper as she turns to the chalk board and pulls it to a better angle for Harry and Ron to see, “We can start planning what we’ll do when you get back in seven weeks.” 

The list is actually things that she and Ron will be doing and prepping all summer while Harry’s gone, but he doesn’t need to know that. 

“Like what? How we’re going on the run?” 

“Sort of,” Ron says, sitting up a bit and then flopping back down in a different direction. He steals Harry’s attention easily enough, and garners more genuine interest. “Why don’t we call it a list of things that we need to do before school, instead.” 

She huffs. “What’s the name got to do with anything?” 

“Maybe it’ll be easier to come up with things that need to be done, rather than things we’ll start working on later,” Ron says, a little pointedly. It flies right over Harry’s head. 

“Fine,” Hermione grouches, waving her wand and changing the title she’d prepared yesterday. ‘Summer To-Do’s’ it says now. 

“Get Harry muggle american money,” Ron starts without prompting. A sensible first item, since it needs to happen before he leaves. Hermione nods, flicking her wrist. 

Other things… well, the first thing they’ll need to do when Harry gets back to England is leave somewhere, and the most advanced but accessible form of that is…. “And learn to make portkeys,” she adds. 

“For travel,” Ron fills in out loud. “Won’t that be a little counterintuitive, though? We have to register all portkeys with the Ministry.” 

Hermione raises an eyebrow, turning to look at Ron. Her attention is momentarily caught by the little zing of the snitch that Harry’s pulled from somewhere, playing a game of catch and release around his seat. She shakes her head and focuses back on Ron’s concerns with legality, trying not to roll her eyes. “Only if we get caught using them,” she points out. “And the only people who are going to know about the portkeys are in this room right now.” 

He frowns a bit, but before Ron can really say anything, Harry speaks up. 

“Learn to apparate,” he says. 

They both turn to look at him. The sconces flicker, as though the flames are also unsure. 

“What?” Harry asks, a little defensively. “We can’t keep relying on other people to be there for us when we need them. I’m sick,” he throws the practice snitch, the poor thing knocking against the nearby bookshelf with the force of the throw, before it bounds up and zips away into a corner, “Of hoping things will turn out when plans go to shit. I want a solid backup plan.” Her best friend crosses his arms and glares at them both like he has to justify wanting to have backup plans. 

Hermione stares at him, wondering what else in this life Harry will be driven to learning before his time for his personal safety. 

Ron says, “You want to make our own luck.” 

“Yeah, that,” he points to Ron, giving Hermione a beseeching look. “I want to make our own luck.” 

Luck… skill… is there really a difference, she thinks, when it all revolves around them growing up too soon? 

But then Hermione thinks about teaching herself the obliviation charm at the end of last school year, between the third task and the train ride, and how she won’t have to go home to her parents at all this summer. 

“We’ll make our own luck, Haz,” she tells him softly, writing apparating on the list without really seeing it through the tears in her eyes. “We’ve always been good at that, haven’t we?”

One day, Jason could excuse. Two days might be a stretch, but he didn’t say anything after dinner last night when she just walked into his guest room while leaving him to clean up the dishes. 

Three days, though, and he’s had enough. She’s not even fucking doing anything, either, just taking a fucking vacation in his apartment– safehouse, really, but who cares– on his fucking couch— it’s… her couch, honestly, because he bought it with her money– for three fucking days. 

He’s seriously had enough. 

“Seriously, Talia?” He calls from the kitchen to her continual post in the living room as he starts making lunch. “Can you just get on with whatever you came here for and get out?” 

“Jason,” she says smoothly in that tone that grates on his nerves, the one that means she’s about to tell him to have patience, bleh bleh bleh.

He cuts her off, turning with a glare. “I’m trying to build an empire and I can’t do that if you’re hanging out here all the time.” 

Talia sighs, resting her chin on her folded arms on the back of the couch and giving him a look. “I want to survey Gotham.” 

“For what?” He rolls his eyes, yanking a pan out of the cabinet with a little too much force. The clang aggravates his ears and he sees a wave of green, which he forces down with a rough exhale. Rule Number One is Do not lose your shit in the fucking kitchen. “Fuckin vacation homes?” 

“For safety,” she says blithely, like that isn’t the dumbest thing he’s ever heard come out of her mouth, and once he watched her try to tell Damian that differential equations and limits are opposites. 

He shakes his head, to acknowledge the idiocy of her statement and to dislodge some of his anger. It helps. “Gotham isn’t safe.” And she knows it, too, which means she knows that he’s actually trying to get her to explain what the fuck she thinks she’s actually doing here. 

Talia al Ghul, queen of subtext and half truths and whatever the fuck else one would like to add to that list, fucking hums, a long and drawn out, “Hmmmm.” It sounds more like another sigh than anything. She’s aggravating him on purpose, but knowing that doesn’t change the way his nose twitches as he fights a sneer. 

Jason rolls his eyes and ignores her, focusing on cutting up an onion. He ends up giving it less care than it deserves, but he’s reaching the end of his rope. He doesn’t have time for this. He’s got three operations to scout this afternoon and evening and a few small meetings with some possible informants he’s building relationships with in the earlier hours of the morning, and none of that is going to happen if he has to babysit and entertain the assassin princess lounging around his fucking apartment. 

Talia needs to learn to pick up a damn book and stop bothering people with her fucking schemes sometime. 

Minutes later, after he’s halfway through roasting the chicken he’s using for lunch, Talia finally asks him the question he knows she’s been sitting on for three damn days. “What information do you have on the Gotham Rogues?” 

“Meaning?” Jason sighs, barely willing to be helpful here. He’s hungry, he’s tired, and he’d like some damn space to do his job. 

“Any information is useful.” And she manages to keep an even fucking tone there. It’s the best joke he’s heard from her in years. It makes the anger bubble back up, though this tastes more like frustration and indignation. Three days she’s been up in his space because she wants information on the Rogues? 

She’s got eight direct lines of communication to B- the Bat, and those are just the ones he knows about. She’s got an angle here, some aspect of the tangled web of his relationship with his former father that she wants to put her sticky, spidering fingerprints all over, and he’s totally in the dark about what it might be. 

He takes a deep breath, pulling the chicken out of the pan and setting it on a plate, and gives not snapping at her his best effort. “Really, Talia? Can’t you just hack the Batcomputer or ask him directly? Why’s it gotta go through me?” He turns the stove off absentmindedly.

Jason glares down at his chicken, because instead of sounding angry he sounds like a whiny little kid. Talia doesn’t comment. 

“Because I’m curious about your opinion, not his. I already know who Batman would keep alive despite their danger to others.” Yeah, fucking all of them. “I’m interested in your opinion.” 

His opinion. He looks up at the wall, tracing a few of the cracks in the grease stained backsplash. “My opinion on… which of the Rogues deserves to die?” 

“Indeed.” 

He doesn’t even need to think. “Him,” he says shortly, almost offended Talia needs to ask. 

“Of course,” she soothes, and Jason turns around to stare at her. “But what of the rest?” 

“The rest?” 

He’s never really considered before that some of the Rogues deserve to die more than others, but at first thought… Ivy isn’t really on the same level as someone like Crane, as far as irredeemable actions. 

“In all the villains Batman has fought and attempted to save, which are the most likely to pose a deadly threat to a child in his care? And which could be left behind for… educational purposes?” 

Jason swallows and blinks at her, and then turns around to cut the chicken up for lunch. He is not paid enough for– actually, he isn’t paid at all, but that isn’t the point. Jason does not want to know what Talia is up to, but he’s happy to provide her information so long as he’s kept out of it. 

“I don’t want anything to do with this next scheme of yours, Talia.” 

“I’ll leave you out of it as much as you can be left out of things involving Batman and Gotham,” she offers, voice sweet. Jason snorts, dropping the chicken in the bowl with the onions and lettuce, and shakes his head. 

What a fucking joke. 

“Fine. But I’m not talking analysis until I’m done with lunch.”

After their planning session, they move back to Ron and Harry’s room and set up to work on some homework. 

Hermione’s got a good essay outline for their charms work all finished before they’re interrupted, and Harry and Ron have managed to wrangle a pretty good drawn impression of a hippogriff on the back of Harry’s draft, which consists only of his name and is the only thing either of them have to show for their work time. 

There’s a knock on the door and Mr. Weasley lets himself in. He’s still wearing his coat, likely having just arrived at the house. 

“Afternoon kids. Hello, Harry. Listen, there’s a muggle auror on the phone back at the Burrow,” he points over his shoulder, twisting the brim of his hat in the other hand, “Asking for you. We’ve got to move quickly so they don’t get suspicious.” 

Harry jumps up off the bed, Ron and Hermione following him, and they run down the stairs to the floo in the kitchen. Despite not being needed, technically, to take the phone call with him, there’s no doubt between the three of them that Ron and Hermione would be coming with him. 

Snape is in the kitchen, grumpily nursing a cup of tea while he waits for someone, but Harry ignores him as he practically trips into the fireplace. 

Hermione steps up beside him and Ron grabs the floo powder off the mantle. 

“Now, children,” Mr. Weasley says from the doorway, panting from following them, “You really shouldn’t be travelling all together like that–” 

A cloud envelopes them first, power fluffing up. Harry holds his breath. 

“The Burrow,” Ron says, and they’re whisked away in a flash of light, Mr. Weasley’s words lost on them. 

For the first time he can recall, Harry doesn’t land on his arse outside the floo, Hermione and Ron both keeping him upright despite his dizziness as they drag him to the phone.

Normally, Harry knows, it’s kept hidden in the stairwell— there’s a funny metal locker lodged diagonally in the wall, the product of some haphazard construction— where Mrs. Weasley doesn’t look, but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley have moved it to the kitchen table today. 

Mrs. Weasley is standing there, flour covering her apron as she makes small talk with the person on the other end of the phone. When she sees them, she frowns and covers the receiver with her hand. 

“We should not have one of these things in the house, Ronald, and you know it. I can’t believe you gave this number to the muggle Aurors–” 

Harry grabs the phone out of her hand, leaving Ron to deal with his mum, and pulls it up to his ear. No one is speaking on the line. 

“Hello? This is Harry Potter speaking.” 

Hermione leans up against his back, one arm draped over his shoulder. He grabs her wrist to hold her up. 

A polite voice comes through. “Hello, Harry. It’s good to hear from you. I’m Dan Rather with the British Child Care Safety Department. May I ask, do you have someone with you?” 

Dan is loud enough that Harry can pull the receiver away from his ear and hold it so Hermione can hear too. 

“My friend is here with me, yeah.” 

“That’s excellent, Harry. Now, I have to tell you some rather… large news. This might be a bit upsetting, or it might be something you’re very happy about. I want you to know that any response is appropriate, and that we’ll do our best to work together and find the best solution for you in this situation, alright?” 

What in Merlin’s name could that even mean? Hermione puts her other hand on his shoulder, fingertips brushing his hair, and Ron reappears at his other side, having managed to get Mrs. Weasley to give them a bit of privacy. 

“Alright,” Harry says slowly, nervous. 

“Harry, I was told you informed the officers on scene yesterday that you had no living relatives, but our DNA system pulled up a match. You do have a living relative. His name is Bruce Wayne, and he’s actually your father, according to our tests. He lives in America, in a state called New Jersey, and we think it would be best if we placed you there with him.” 

It’s really happening, he thinks, swaying a bit on his feet. Hermione steps off him and Ron’s arm wraps around his waist to hold him up. She takes the phone in hand, fingers over his. 

“I thought placements were designed to bring stability to foster children,” Hermione says into the receiver, “Not uproot them from their community and move them across the ocean from everything they’ve ever known.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Dan replies in that same even tone, apparently unbothered with answering Hermione’s questions. “And we at the Child Care Safety Department want what’s best for Harry. I understand that, according to our records, Harry has attended boarding school for the past few years? There’s no reason that cannot continue. However, familial placements are preferred over family friends when possible and healthy, and Bruce Wayne is an excellent candidate for taking care of his own son. In addition, with the recent traumatic events, our protocol is providing children with a safe space to grieve, away from any triggers.”

It’s ministry interference in his life all over again. 

“Bullshit,” Ron mutters into Harry’s hair. Despite himself and the situation, he finds himself snorting at his best friend, leaning into his chest. 

Dan doesn’t seem to hear Ron, which is probably a good thing. “Harry, I’d like to schedule a meeting with us to discuss this transition and what I can do to support you. I’ll be calling Mr. Wayne shortly to confirm this placement with him. We’d like to have you moved by the end of the month, if possible.” 

“No,” Harry says shortly. “I don’t want a meeting.” 

“This is standard procedure, Harry. There are a lot of things that can be done to support you at this time, including flights and lawyers and—” 

“Mr. Rather,” Hermione interrupts, “Harry said he doesn’t wish to meet with you, so he will not be meeting with you. You should know that we were made aware of Harry’s parentage following the incident yesterday and have everything well in hand, including preparations for contacting Mr Wayne. We’ve purchased a ticket for Harry to leave for Gotham from the Heathrow airport on the 28th of May at 8 am, landing in New York at noon. We will make contact with Mr. Wayne to coordinate pick up.” 

She passes the receiver to Ron, who is closer to the phone. 

“Miss, you must understand–” 

“Have a good day, Mr. Rather,” Ron cuts him off, dropping the phone back in the cradle with a satisfying click. 

Harry watches the phone for a moment, not really expecting anything in particular to happen but taking a moment to appreciate the nothing happening. Hermione’s fingers tap along his shoulder. He sighs. 

“Where did your mum go?” He asks Ron without looking up. 

Ron hums, the sound echoing into Harry’s own chest, and jerks his chin at the nearby kitchen window. Harry looks up through the flowered curtains to see Mrs. Weasley outside in the garden, furiously chucking gnomes over the hedge. Each time she turns to find her next victim, the nearly violet shade of her face becomes slightly more red. 

“I kicked her out,” Ron says casually, giving Harry some more of his weight. It’s grounding. Harry leans, allowing his hip to rest on the side of the counter, and the three of them bob over in one movement. “Said you’d heard enough fighting for your whole life and that you didn’t need to hear more of it right now, but really I just wanted to keep her from noticing Hermione’s silencing charm.” 

Hermione snorts, leaning forward to tuck her nose into the back of his neck. “Oh, Ronald.” 

Right. He’d forgotten that they were trying to keep his… dad a secret. 

“We should probably get back before Dad comes through the floo, though.” 

“Yeah,” Harry manages, looking back at the phone. “Good idea.” 

They don’t say anything to Mrs. Weasley as they leave.

Mr. Weasley and Snape are having a grown up discussion— meaning, a discussion using only facial expressions— from opposite ends of the long dining table when they breach the floo. 

Ron charges forward immediately, holding Harry by the upper arm to escort him out of the room as quickly as possible. Hermione steps up to march between Harry and the two adults, acting as a shield. 

“Ah, children, really you must stop flooing altogether—” 

“Not right now, Dad,” Ron snaps, hauling Harry up the steps and out of the basement. 

“What are you three up to?” Snape calls after them, immediately suspicious despite the fact that most of the trouble they get into isn’t their fault. The door swings shut behind Hermione and none of them bother turning to answer him. 

They make their way through the darkened halls of Grimmauld in silence. There’s no one else about, though a few whispers creeping under the door from the drawing room on the first floor indicate some kind of guests. Walburga and the other portraits all seem to be taking a nap, snoring behind velvet curtains as the three of them make their way to the library without conference. 

Kreacher is… polishing the door handle when they approach, a large nightcap falling down over his head and masking some of his glare. Harry doesn’t bother offering a smile, but they wait a moment for the elf to finish his work. 

“Half-breed master is no good for Mistress’s house,” Kreacher hisses, snapping the polishing rag at Harry. 

He jumps back a bit, nearly stepping on Hermione’s toes in the process, and she shoves him at Ron. His best friend grabs both his biceps to steady him and Harry huffs at Kreacher. 

“I haven’t the slightest idea how to be better for a house, Kreacher. Now, would you please move? We’d like to get into the library before someone comes to find us.” 

“Mistress’s house craves blood,” Kreacher grumbles, but he steps aside and doesn’t pull out some kind of ritual knife to stab Harry with, so Harry grabs the doorknob and presses his magic against the wards. 

They peel back a moment later, sizzling yet again. Kreacher rolls his eyes and pops away as they slip inside.

“Bloody rude house elf, isn’t he?” Ron complains at a normal volume, jumping on one of the couches and stretching out. Hermione shoots a stinging hex at him. 

“Ouch!” 

“There’s no need to be rude, Ronald,” she sniffs at him. 

Harry shakes his head and closes the door, watching as Hermione puts her hair up in a bun and walks over to the chalkboard. Ron finds a box of Burtie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans he left behind some time recently, digging it out between the couch cushion and the armrest, and he sniffs it before popping a few in his mouth. 

Hermione starts reorganizing their plans on the chalkboard. Harry sits down next to Ron on the couch and holds his hand out for a handful. Ron pours a bunch without looking, both of them watching her work. 

He picks through the handful, trying to find some that might not be atrocious. This one that’s lime green might be lime flavoured, but the last time he had a green Bertie Bott’s he discovered that vomit can come in citrus varieties, so guessing might not make a difference. 

“That went well, all things considered,” Hermione says aloud, still turned away. Harry shrugs, tilts his head back, dropping most of the handful in his mouth at once, and eyes her. She’s got her hands on her hips as she reviews the board, tapping a few items here and there that don’t match up with their new piece of information: that Harry has a nosy as fuck muggle social worker they need to avoid. 

One of the beans in his mouth shoots a liquid shot of blueberry pie across his tongue, closely followed by a vinegar bean. Harry screws up his face, nose burning and eyes watering, and tries not to cough. 

“I think we should keep the emancipation as a back up plan,” Hermione declares. 

He fails, coughing a few times and trying to swallow in the middle of the cough without further chewing the rotten fish bean he just discovered. “What do you mean?” He squeaks out. She whips around to look at him and Ron smoothly slips the box where she can’t see it, under the edge of a decorative throw pillow. 

“Just…,” Hermione eyes him, clearly wondering what he’s eating, but it doesn’t deter her from her mission, “Harry, you deserve a chance at having a family. A happy life where you’re just Harry. And maybe, just maybe, this could be that opportunity.” 

He coughs again, swallowing the last of the chunk of nasty bean goo, and wonders not for the last time why he thought eating any of them was a good idea. Then he rewinds through what she suggested: playing pretend happy family with his surprise dad and taking advantage of a man who doesn’t deserve all the fucked up stuff that comes along with knowing Harry Potter. 

His eyes are still watering when he asks, a little incredulous, “So you think I should lie to them?” 

“You’d be living a lie anyway, mate,” Ron says, a little bitterly. 

“Honestly, Harry,” Hermione says quickly to cut off that argument, “Would it really be so bad? To indulge in having a family for just a little while? In having a father who truly cares about you?” 

He sighs heavily. “Hermione–” 

“No, really. Think about it for a second.” 

He huffs, crossing his arms and leaning back. His mouth still tastes gross, and that’s practically all he can think about. 

The most recent practice snitch is next to the chalkboard after Hermione had to confiscate it earlier because Hedwig kept trying to eat it during their meeting. She tosses it to him, probably because she knows he isn’t thinking. 

Harry lets the warmth of them knowing what comforts him push out the claustrophobic feeling of trying to let his Dad get to know him. He tosses the snitch up. 

There’s no way it would go well. 

The snitch circles around his head and he grabs it without looking, feeling the wings pulse in time to his heartbeat. 

He tries to imagine what having a Dad would be like. Stifling, for sure: parents are nosy and like to ask questions and be controlling. Harry certainly wouldn’t be allowed to do things like practice flying at his muggle father’s house, and he’d probably have to have all his homework done by the end of June. 

And don’t parents make their kids eat with them and tell them about their day? He can’t imagine doing anything interesting enough to tell anybody, even if they cared to ask. 

But then… the fantasy of it is all a bit mystifying. He could really, actually have a Dad. A Dad who would love him unconditionally, and teach him how to shave, and give him advice about things, and want to hear about stupid shit that doesn’t actually matter, like whether or not Harry had a good day. 

For a moment, Harry considers that there would be so much he couldn’t say, like telling his Dad about Quidditch, or about his classwork, but… it would only be for a few months. And he has to go to America anyway, there’s no way to get out of it. 

He might as well make the most of the trip, right? 

“Actually…,” Harry says slowly, really thinking about it, “I think I could. Keep magic a secret, and just get to know my Dad for a month or two before asking for the emancipation.” 

“Do you think you would enjoy it?” Ron asks, sneaking another bean. 

“Yeah. And, I mean, what are the chances he gets super attached?”

Ron chews on the inside of his cheek and then grabs another bean, just for something to do with his excess energy. Harry’s actually considering trying to really bond with his Dad. Like, actually considering it. 

And they’re going to fuck it all up by keeping this secret from him about his siblings. 

“Do you think you would enjoy it?” He asks Harry, probing as his friend gets lost in thought. 

“Yeah? And, I mean,” Harry snorts a little, shaking his head, “what are the chances he gets super attached?” 

Harry huffs another laugh, like that’s an inside joke, like they should all agree with him that Harry isn’t a likeable person. 

But… those are high chances, Ron thinks, looking at Hermione. She looks right back, lips thinned, and Ron can almost hear their hearts beat heavily and in sync over the zing of the snitch falling into Harry’s hand again. 

Really fucking high. But if they say that to Harry, he won’t go. He’d rather spare the world pain than enjoy something for himself for once in his life. Ron forces a laugh, a few seconds too late. “Right.” 

Harry was off thinking, drifting into space, so he doesn’t notice the stiff way both he and Hermione chuckle at Harry’s poor estimation. 

No matter how difficult it is, though, he and Hermione are going to give Harry Potter’s story a happy ending.

Alfred Pennyworth is, in total and sum, proud of the boy he’s raised. Bruce is overall successful, mostly emotionally stable, has a variety of hobbies that deal with his eccentricities and leave him feeling fulfilled and fulfilling the family legacy, and he’s even managed to have a few children over the years. 

One more child than they ever thought, to be sure, but another child nonetheless. 

He pulls the one tablespoon cookie scoop out of the drawer and starts in on the chocolate chip cookie dough. 

There are still many things to be done before his newest grandson arrives in the house, such as confirming the placement with a social worker, informing the other children, and cleaning most of the less-used rooms in preparation for wandering, but Alfred has a feeling that the cookies are the best way he can spend his time right now. 

Another child. He sighs a little. 

And Harry seems… fragile, at least from the pictures Alfred saw and the email from his friend. 

Bruce would do DNA testing, would do background checks and investigations, would question and research and compile until he felt he’d come to an adequate and rounded understanding of the support his new son needed. Alfred would simply invite the boy to sit in the kitchen with him. 

Some things, he’s learned, are best taken in through simple observation. 

Dick appears over his left shoulder, startling him a bit, having snuck into the kitchen. “Ooh, cookies!” His oldest grandchild goes to grab one of the dough balls and Alfred pushes his hand away gently, a reflex that covers his surprise. 

“I’ll thank you kindly not to eat all the dessert before it’s finished,” he admonishes. 

Contrary to the belief of the family, Alfred is not actually all knowing and capable of recognizing when someone is sneaking up on him, especially not as the children have grown older. Bruce he will probably always be aware of, but the other children? Absolutely not. 

Alfred does happen to be well versed in ‘playing it cool,’ however, and thus is very capable of not acting startled and instead reacting quickly when Dick appears and tries to help himself to the middle of a meal. 

“Aw, come on, Alf, don’t be like that. Tim and I have been hard at work all day, we need a pick me up.” 

“You’ve been hard at play all day, Master Dick,” he quips back, scooping another cookie onto the sheet, “And these cookies are for the family to enjoy after dinner.” 

“But I am the family!” Dick protests, backing up and hopping onto the other counter. Alfred makes a mental note to wipe it down again for germs from Dick’s clothes before he cooks on it. “And it’s after dinner.” 

“It’s eleven in the morning,” he rebuts, long suffering. 

“Yesterday’s dinner.” 

Alfred doesn’t acknowledge the antics, instead transferring the full pan of cookies to the freezer and setting a twenty minute timer. 

“Come on, Alfie, please?” 

He flicks a glance at Richard’s abysmal ‘puppy eyes’ which somehow convince Bruce to fold to his every request despite his age. “You know those don’t work on me.” 

“Ugh.” Dick flops over on the counter like a dead man, limbs wriggling this way and that as he tries to get comfortable. “This sucks.” 

Alfred continues to prepare the next sheet of cookies. 

“Ugh,” Dick says again, with a little more feeling. Alfred recalls a few distinct memories of times when Bruce did the same thing around the same age, usually when Alfred had to hide essential parts of the suits or case information in various places around the house just to enforce some semblance of rest on the boy. 

“I told you it wouldn’t work!” Tim shouts from down the hall. Dick grunts again. “Alfred is impenetrable! You’d never get cookies off of him directly!” His voice comes closer, accompanied by the sound of his skateboard’s wheels on the Manor floor, which they’ve talked about extensively. 

He can’t be too mad at Tim for choosing to disobey this rule, though; the child simply refuses to stick around long enough for Alfred to convince him properly that they care about him. 

“You’ve got no sense of whimsy!” Dick calls back. 

Alfred sighs. Yes, another child indeed.

Lunch, of course, begins to derail their carefully constructed plans. One day, Hermione thinks wistfully as she watches Harry swirl his potatoes around his plate, the three of them will stop planning things for Fate to mess up. 

Unfortunately, she’s anxious and Ron is a strategist and Harry is scrambling for anything to grab onto that makes any kind of sense, so today is not that day. 

She sighs, leaning into Harry’s arm with hers as she listens to the ‘real adults’ chatter. The whole talk of the Order is the big news about ICW movements in the past twenty hours. 

It’s a little funny that they’ve already transitioned from the Death Eater attacks yesterday, but Ginny told her last night that she overheard a conversation confirming nobody died, so there’s that at least. 

“I can’t believe this is really what they think is the best course of action!” A man she doesn’t recognize says at the other end of the table. She should probably learn all their names, at some point. “I mean, just because we had two “attacks” in one day, if we’re counting the thing on Potter as an attack, doesn’t mean–” 

Tonks, sitting two seats down from the man, shoots up and shouts, “They tried to blow the boy to bits, Anderson!” Her hair turns bright red, and then her features start to twist into something out of a nightmare. “Of course it was a fucking attack!” 

Hermione blinks slowly, leaning her head over onto Harry’s shoulder. The three of them are exhausted. This is ridiculous. 

“Hold on,” Professor Lupin says across from her, “What’s going on?” 

Moody next to him takes a swig of his flask, eye swirling at a sickening pace. “The second attack yesterday, at the shoppin’ center. Aurors think they missed a few obliviations. ICW is sending a representative to… work things out with the British Ministry.” 

“What?” Fred squawks, dropping the cornish hen he was dancing on George’s head. 

“Here,” Mr. Weasley says, pulling out a copy of the ‘Prophet. “I’ve got the article. I’ll read it out loud to catch everyone up.” 

Harry turns his head over hers, lowering his voice. “It’s like a bedtime story,” he snarks, stabbing a bite of potato. “Don’t fall asleep on me, though. I need you to translate this all for me.” 

Hermione rolls her eyes, grabbing a roll from her plate and shoving it into his mouth. Harry leans away with a laugh, though he’s finally chewing something. She closes her eyes and settles back onto his shoulder to listen to Mr. Weasley read the news. 

“It says: 

“Second Exposure-Attack Yesterday Leads ICW to Interfere With Disaster Relief Preparation Teams.” 

“And the article goes on to explain, 

“After two attacks by Death Eaters yesterday afternoon, one on our own Harry Potter and the other, more successfully, on a Muggle shopping center in south London, sources from the Ministry have disclosed that the obliviation task forces are uncertain of their ability to do their jobs. 

“After the mass-chaos in the second Exposure-Attack, so named for their goals to expose wizarding kind to the muggles and tear our government and society from its foundation, it was difficult for the Ministry to confidently guarantee they managed to obliviate every muggle presence. This confidence is only likely to diminish as these attacks continue. 

“In response, the International Confederation of Wizards has sent a few representatives of their Disaster Relief Preparation Teams to assist the British Ministry of Magic and our strong community in a plan of action if there is a mass exposure incident.” 

Here, Mr. Weasley pauses as shudders go around the room. Hermione blinks her eyes open and scans the faces she can see from her vantage point. It seems as though all the witches and wizards are taking a moment of silence at the mere notion of a mass exposure incident. 

Cold fingers trail down her spine at the thought of another Witch Hunt. 

Exposure is a true omen of an era of death. 

“Ahem, 

"The representatives include Warren Meuster, who readers will recognize for his famous muggle magician work, creating doubt within the muggle communities about acts of magic they may see due to negligence, and Grace Antiquia, a witch famous in Egypt for creating Extended Secrecy Wards that kept their recent civil war from affecting the Muggle population. The current plans of action, according to Mr. Meuster, include a variety of feasible and desirable possibilities, with a range of predicted desirability. He has asked us at the Daily Prophet to poll the public responses to help advise the Ministry in their favored course of action.” 

“Yeah,” Anderson from earlier interrupts heatedly, “Because one of their courses of action is to fucking obliviate all of us, to remove our knowledge of the rest of the wizarding world!” 

Hermione blinks her eyes open, looking at Professor Lupin across from her. He’s giving Harry a sad look. 

Would that approach even work, though? She tries to think through everything she knows of British politics, or even American ones, or French ones; would any muggle government truly believe that a small, entirely secret magical society was only hiding in the British Isles? 

It’s… possible. Unlikely, but possible. 

She tunes back into the conversation, tilting her head a little to look at the other end of the table. 

“-on top of the current communication lockdown!” 

“Which is utterly bogus! I haven’t been able to talk to my relatives in Algeria since yesterday, and they’re so old they don’t even read the international news every day!” 

A communication lockdown? She scrunches her nose up. What utter insanity. 

“The communication lockdown is just a precaution,” Kingsley interrupts, calm voice cutting through the panicked and irate chatter, “Until we can better determine a course of action. The Ministry doesn’t want to panic other countries–”

“What, so they’re just threatening us!” 

“And not letting us explain anything to our families?” Ron asks, on the other side of Harry. His voice is shaky. Hermione suddenly recalls that two of Ron’s brothers, Bill and Charlie, live internationally. 

“Now, now,” Mr. Weasley interrupts, “The national memory spell is a worst case scenario. This article goes on to explain, because it’s at the end of the list, how Meuster and his team are considering it as a back up option. They didn’t even want the Prophet reporting on this, it says later. Now, may I continue?” He doesn’t wait for everyone to reply, just keeps on talking. 

“The number one suggested solution, on the side of the British Ministry, is for other countries to loan out their task forces to assist with the increased demand for obliviations recently. We at the Daily Prophet will note here that Mr. Meuster has requested we not share the entirety of the list because he fears it will spark outrage in the public and create a danger for society. But we also note here that any steps that cripple the British Wizarding society are not true solutions to these issues. 

“Other solutions follow: 

• Additional preventative measures such as a special response task force 

• General obliviation training for specific members of the public

• Early outreach to coordinate with specific muggle leaders and representatives in the event of an exposure

• Muggle misinformation to assist in disbelief  

• Defensive plans to prepare the wizarding world for an attack of muggle military origin

• Lockdown of British wizarding society behind a few select locations with extended strength secrecy wards, followed by a ten year period of disappearance from greater society 

• Mass obliviation of the British Wizarding population to conceal knowledge of other populations and restrict the danger to a smaller area

“Please provide commentary to Wizengamot Member Orpheus Spring’s office via owl by Saturday at noon. 

“A public hearing will be held with space for more commentary following the deadline.

“Of course,’ 

“-and I want to take a moment to say that I am not in support of these hooligans and their choices,” Mr. Weasley interrupts himself to declare, 

“Early public opinion polls and feedback are resounding in the people’s suggestion for the best solution. Each and every ballot and poll room was filled with just one question: Where is Harry Potter?

“We at the Daily Prophet agree with our readers: Where is our savior and hero? Surely, he can put a stop to these evil forces threatening to expose us, saving our world? The only true question that remains for us is: How is he going to do it? 

“And then it says to return for tomorrow’s issue with the reporter’s predictions and analysis of Harry’s abilities.” 

“Really fucking helpful of them,” Ron snaps angrily. “Let’s just hand a cheat sheet to the enemy, why don’t we?” 

“Ron–” Mr. Weasley tries to calm his son.

“And in the mean time,” Ron stands up, his chair scraping loudly on the kitchen floor, “Maybe let’s also send him a letter, telling him when Harry is going to Diagon for school supplies, so he can be sure to kill him in Flourish and Blotts.” 

“Ronald Weasley!” Mrs. Weasley rebukes, likewise standing up. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he keeps going, “Is that not to your tastes? Perhaps we can just leave him with his muggle relatives-” oh, shit, oh, shit, “So they can beat him to death-” oh, shit, shit, shit, fucking shit, he’s gone and done it now, and Harry has stopped breathing, but she can’t bring herself to say anything, “And save Voldemort all the fucking work, huh? Since that’s what you lot were going to do this summer anyway, until they went and got themselves blown up!” 

Hermione stands up, grabbing Harry’s arm to pull him out of his seat. 

“Come on, Harry, let’s go upstairs,” she tells him, pushing him past Ron’s seat. 

“Go to your room!” Mrs. Weasley shouts at Ron. 

Hermione leans over and grabs his arm too, hauling him out of the tight space. She catches sight of the other Weasley children’s faces, the glares they’re leveling at their mother and father. 

“I was already going to my room!” 

“Ugh,” Hermione mutters to herself, rolling her eyes and giving Ron’s arm a good yank. What utter bullshit. 

What utter, fucking bullshit. 

He’s really gone and done it now, hasn’t he? 

Harry looks resigned when she takes in his face, guiding him in front of her through the door to the kitchen. Ron is opening his mouth yet again when Hermione turns around to look. 

“Stop talking,” she hisses at him, shaking his arm a bit. He rounds on her, face flushed red in that way it does when he gets offended at Malfoy’s childish comments, or when someone comments on his family. She looks at him flatly. “Really, Ron?” 

He huffs like an animal and lets her pull him the rest of the way out of the room. 

The three of them even out into a line, walking in silence towards the steps. 

Harry blows out a breath, sighing in that way he does when he’s looking Fate in the eyes and preparing himself for her cracked up ideas. 

“Well, that certainly couldn’t have gone worse, could it?” He quips, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

Hermione and Ron both snort at that, tucking their chins low to hide grins as they start up the stairs.  

“I dunno, mate,” Ron says back quietly, “I was really gearing up to reveal all our stupid secrets.” 

“Oh yeah? Like your third nipple you don’t want Fred and George knowing about?” Harry says back. 

Oh, god. Hermione pinches the bridge of her nose. Children. They’re children. 

Ron reaches an arm around her to shove Harry’s shoulder, knocking him into the wall. 

“More like all the times we almost died because we always have to save ourselves.” 

Hermione shoves Ron off of her, knocking him into the other wall and down a step. “Don’t shove people on the stairs, Ronald.” 

A sudden shout from Mrs. Weasley, as only she can, echoes up all the way from down in the kitchen, “THIS IS NOT A TOPIC FOR CHILDREN TO DISCUSS! TO BED, ALL OF YOU!” 

The three of them share a glance, Ron opening his mouth to give a comment, and then all of them are startled by Ginny’s equally as loud shout. “FUCK YOU, MUM! YOU CAN’T GIVE US A WAR AND THEN TELL US NOT TO FIGHT IN IT!” 

“Whoa,” Harry breathes, looking at two of them, speechless. Before any of them can say anything, Mrs. Weasley and her daughter keep going. 

“YOUNG LADY-!”

“I’M DONE!” 

And then the kitchen door swings open and slams shut with a ferocity that knocks a few of the sleeping paintings off the walls next to them, much to the subjects’ displeasure. 

Hermione flicks her wand absentmindedly, returning most of them to their places on the wall. She and Ron step to one side of the stairwell, Harry leaning up against the other, as they wait for Ginny. 

“What was that?” Harry mouths at the two of them. Hermione shrugs and looks at Ron. 

He gives them a grim look and mouths back, slowly, “Ginny and Mum have been fighting since last summer. Mum’s a little… strict for Ginny’s… tastes.” 

Ah. That makes sense to her. Harry raises his eyebrows, still a little unsure. 

Ginny stomps loudly up the stairwell, finally waking Walburga. 

“HALF-BREEDS–” 

“FUCK YOU TOO, WALBURGA BLACK!” Ginny lets out an unholy screech. Hermione peers over the edge of the railing to see her send a blast of pure magic at the portrait, which sticks the curtains shut thoroughly. 

She turns back around to face the boys in time to catch Harry mouthing to Ron, “Are you sure it’s just with your Mum?” 

Ron screws his face up like he’s constipated, which she finally understands to be his confused face, after years of attributing his poor study habits to his voracious appetite. 

“What are you three doing, standing here?” Ginny demands from right behind her. Hermione startles, whipping around again and falling into Ron. Ginny is seething, her hair practically glowing with the magic she’s burning off in the moment. 

Fuck. 

What are they doing, standing here? 

She opens her mouth to blurt something out, but Ron pinches her. She turns her head to glare at him, but he isn’t even looking at her. 

Harry says smoothly, “Waiting for you to come join us, so we could debrief.” He leans against the wall of the stairwell, hands tucked casually in his pockets, voice and face perfectly neutral. 

“Hmf,” Ginny scoffs, looking away. “Finally decided to tell me something, huh?” She deflates a little, though, managing some deeper breaths. 

“Are you alright?” Harry asks her. 

Ginny rolls her eyes. Great. Just great, Harry, yes, let’s keep poking the temperamental teenage girl. 

“Fucking fantastic, thanks for asking.” 

“Just thought I’d let you know we’re all rooting for you, Potter,” Harry says back with a playful grin. 

What? Is he referencing something? Hermione looks to Ron, but he’s got his face all screwed up again. Clearly, they’re both missing something. 

Harry must be referencing something that Ginny knows about, though, because she finally relaxes for real, letting out a little laugh. 

“Sure, Potter, use my own words against me.” 

“I would never,” he says seriously, lips twitching. 

Ginny snorts and opens her mouth to say something else, her rage having left her remarkably quickly, but she’s interrupted. 

“THAT’S IT!” Mrs. Weasley shouts yet again. “OUT, BOTH OF YOU!” 

Hermione just closes her eyes and leans into Ron. That’ll be the twins, no doubt, who oh so wisely continued Ginny’s line of questioning thinking they were immune to their mother because they’re of age. 

Sure enough, the kitchen door slams open and two large and heavy objects thud to the ground as it’s slammed shut again. 

“Ugh,” One of the twins groans. Otherwise, they don’t move, even for the long few seconds the four of them wait on the stairs. 

“Fred? George?” Ron calls down, not moving an inch to look at them. “Are you coming up to debrief with us, or should we get a move on without you?” 

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll be there.”

“You nag more than our mother, Ronnikins.” 

Harry rolls his eyes at Ron and the two of them turn to head up the stairs. Ginny shoots her a look, asking if there’s something more she’s missing. Hermione can only shrug and follow them. 

The library door is especially grumpy about opening this time, and Harry has to hold it open, feet sliding across the floor, while she and Ginny and Ron scurry past him. 

“Hurry up, you too, or the door’ll be shut,” Harry hisses down the stairs. 

“Coming, coming-” George says, tripping up the last step. 

“-Mum,” Fred finishes, pushing his brother through the hall and inside. 

Ron goes to sit down on the couch, but it slides away from him petulantly. The door slams shut the moment Fred and George are inside, and the two bookshelves nearest Hermione rattle in protest. 

“This house, I swear,” Harry mutters, throwing a glare at the quickly dimming sconces. They flare back to life, casting a flash of warmth over her back. 

Fred and George try to sit on the more obstinate couch, the floral one that barely lets Harry near it, and it slides all the way back to fit between two rows of shelves. The twins shrug and sit on the floor. 

Ginny snorts, leaning against the shelf nearest the blackboard with her arms crossed. “This place sure doesn’t like you, Harry.” 

“It likes me fine,” he grouches, “It just doesn’t like any of my friends. Kreacher?” 

Kreacher pops into the room, waving a… muggle feather duster? “Bad Master’s Half-Breed Not-Son calls for Kreacher?” 

He’s apparently in a particularly awful mood tonight, which Hermione is certain has nothing at all to do with the abnormally large group of people down in the kitchen. 

“Yes, I did, thank you,” Harry says quickly, not at all offended. “I was just wondering if you could clarify what you said earlier, about the House wanting blood? Would that make it less… grumpy?” 

Kreacher stares at Harry, dumfounded or upset or something, Hermione can’t tell. Ron tries to sit on the lone armchair in their section of the library and it slides away petulantly. 

“Master be willing to give blood to the house?” 

Give blood?! 

The Weasley’s all also turn to stare at Kreacher, astonished. 

Harry doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with that idea though, because he puts his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I mean… how much? Whose blood? What’s it for?” 

“A few drops,” Kreacher explains, sounds almost pleasant, “from the family blood each year keeps the house connected to its occupants. Without this blood connection, the house dies.” 

Huh. That’s… not as bad as she was expecting. Ron must agree, because he goes back to trying to sit on the obstinate chair. Hermione avoids looking at Ginny and the twins. 

“Oh. That’s…,” Harry trails off, clearly thinking the same thing as her. “Where do I put it then?” 

“Master be asking… where he be putting the blood?” 

“Yeah. Does it matter if I just do it right here?” 

Ron steps up next to the armchair and it doesn’t move. He pauses next to it for a few seconds. 

“Closer to the wardstone is best.” 

“Wardstone?” 

Kreacher glares, then sighs and shakes his head. “Master…. Foolish masters….” He snaps his fingers and a coffee table appears in the middle of the rug. On it, a large stack of books wobbles a bit. Hermione leans forward, trying to read the titles, but she can’t see the spines and the first book is plain blue leather. “New Master be reading these, and then Kreacher be explaining.” Then he turns to walk out, waving the feather duster around. “Idiots, putting Master in charge and not explaining the Household. And Kreacher wonders why…” 

The library door opens for him with no issues, and then slams shut again, radiating a strong angry energy not unlike Ginny a few minutes ago on the stairs. 

“Ooookay,” Ginny says, “So, that happened. Are we going to… is anyone going to explain?” 

“Nope,” Ron says, jumping on the armchair, which does not dump him on the floor. “Yes!” He pumps an arm in triumph and then settles down. “I knew you liked me.” 

George, sitting on the floor, scoots closer to the coffee table. “You know these three, Gin. They learned their explanation abilities from Dumbledore, which means they won’t tell us shit.” 

“I tell you guys stuff all the time,” Harry argues, grabbing the top book from the stack. Hermione walks over to stand next to him so she can read. There’s no title on the spine of the book either. 

“Shouldn’t you guys check those over for curses first?” George objects. 

“Eh,” Harry waves a hand, opening to the table of contents. 

Fred is still on his point about Harry’s lack of explanations. “You do not tell us stuff all the time. You barely tell us anything at all, actually. We just happened to get used to not asking questions and figuring things out along the way.” 

“I still think you should maybe have checked those,” George adds. 

Hermione skims the table of contents. 

General Household Keeping

House and Household UpKeeping

Maintenance for Townhouse Model 104

“Yeah Harry,” Ginny says, “Like with the Ministry last week? Neville, Lu, and I didn’t really get much of an explanation. You said “Sirius is being attacked, we have to go to the Ministry,” and that was kind of it. Like, how did you know that?” 

“We talked about that though, Ginny. The visions,” Harry says offhandedly, though he doesn’t seem to be reading the table of contents. 

Hermione waits for him to finish so they can flip the page. Why do old books have to have such giant letters? 

“What?!” Ginny screeches. “You mean to tell me that we ran off to the Ministry to rescue an escaped convict because you were possessed by Tom Riddle?!” 

“No. I went to the Ministry to rescue my Godfather from Voldemort after I had a vision. You five just decided to tag along, despite my best efforts.” 

Harry still does not turn the page. Hermione reaches over to do it for him. 

“Oh, please,” Fred scoffs, leaning back on the carpet and getting comfortable. “Like you haven’t been dragging Ron and Hermione along on your adventures for years.” 

“He hasn’t,” she and Ron say at the same time. 

“Not for lack of their trying,” Harry grumbles. 

George waves his wand and pulls one of the books out from the bottom of the stack, looking up at Harry. “Wait, really? They haven’t gone with you?” 

Harry looks down at him, making a face. 

“Oh, my god,” Hermione mutters to herself, finally just flipping to the next page of the table of contents. 

Details of the Blood Ward Connection and Modern Legality

Continued Education

Maps and Models

And then she has to stop reading, because Harry throws a bunch of gasoline on the fire of a conversation he has going. 

“Of course not. First year, Ron got stuck after the giant murderous chess set because he sacrificed himself and he was knocked out, and then Hermione had to go back because we didn’t have enough potion for us both to go through the flame wall, and then–” 

Fred interrupts first, the other two Weasleys gaping for a moment. “Hold up, hold up–” 

“What the fuck?!” 

“Giant chess set?” George screeches, “Walls of flame? What the bloody hell have you three been up to?!” 

“I don’t know that I’d really call the chess set murderous, Harry,” Ron drawls, pulling a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans out of the couch next to him, which seems not to mind proximity but definitely minds Ginny going to sit on it. 

“You really didn’t know?” Harry asks the three of them, voice quiet. 

“Know that you were actually off risking your lives every year? No, Harry!” 

He looks at her, and then at Ron. Hermione could have sworn that everyone in the school was told, at least about the incident with the Philosopher’s stone, so she shrugs. Didn’t Harry say Dumbledore told him that it had been spread around? 

And then the stuff with the Basilisk and the Chamber… honestly, Hermione wasn’t even there but she knows all the details. 

Which reminds her that she should check if there’s any research in this Black Family Library that might tell her something about Harry’s blood composition… 

“Right. Well. We thought you all were told. Maybe not about, like, the time turner or the sword fight I had with the basilisk, but Dumbledore told me you all knew about the stuff with the Philosopher’s Stone, and I’m pretty sure most of the castle found out about the basics of the stuff that happened in the Chamber.” 

Honestly, it’s probably some kind of magical miracle that Harry’s just been walking around with Basilisk venom and Phoenix tears in his blood for years… 

But it’s probably better to focus on the Household book Kreacher gave Harry, for now. Maybe it can tell her how to access the library on her own. 

“Harry?” She murmurs, tugging the book a bit. He isn’t paying attention. 

“Back up. I have so many questions,” Fred says. “A time turner? Where did you three get a time turner? What did you use it for?” 

“Really, Frederick, you’re concerned about the fucking time turner?” Ginny snaps. “Not at all about the sword fight Potter had with a fucking basilisk?!” 

“Personally,” George adds, “I think we should go back to talking about the Philosopher’s stone, because time turners are kept in the Department of Mysteries, which you three,” he points to her, Ron, and Harry, “Obviously have no trouble breaking into, and I don’t know what was supposed to be in Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets if not a basilisk, but I’m curious how you got your hands on the answer to immortality.” 

“Well…” Ron trails off, mouth full of beans. “It’s a long story.” 

“It isn’t like we’re doing anything useful, remember? We’re just a bunch of kids.” 

“Yeah, tell the story, Ronniekins.” 

“Fine. But just first year. And Harry’s helping.” 

Hermione rolls her eyes a little at their antics and just grabs the book from Harry, sitting down to read. 

It’s going to be a long afternoon.

Desta is the last of them to leave the building below, and she’s sharp enough to turn around and spot him loitering on the roof and watching them. She offers a single nod before marching off into an alley he can’t see down to grab her motorcycle and take off. She’ll go back to her apartment, ignore the collapsing roof, and do something sweet but cost-inefficient like bake a cake for her downstairs neighbors or something equally as dumb. 

He’s been watching her for nearly a week. 

Jason sighs, smoke billowing out in front of him. The sensation leaves him feeling a little hollow, honestly, the nicotine unable to do anything for his system as a result of the Pit swimming around in his veins, but filling his lungs with smoke is the one thing he finds he can do just like before without having trouble with flashbacks. 

For fucks sake, Jason has to be careful about going out in the rain sometimes, because the smell of fucking mud is triggering. 

But his next home project, after he finishes up these couple of meetings, is to alter the installed ventilation system of his helmet so he doesn’t have to smell anything. 

Another one of the men he met with today rides past the front of the building, driving his slightly beat up sedan. Jason recognizes it from where it’s usually parked outside of the nearest library, where Carl Kasper volunteers in his soon to be limited free time. 

He does his background checks, and he doesn’t work with assholes who hurt kids. Carl is a very sweet but slightly troubled ex army member who lost custody of his two kids in a recent divorce and moved to Gotham to engage in the community of his roots. 

Building a group of trusted people, teaching them the rules and how to enforce them, is taking longer than he wants. But Jason doesn’t want to be a short term bandaid on a broken system. 

If he didn’t care about building something to last, he’d probably march over to the nearest community center, get a list of foster homes, and do welfare checks himself, executing the people hurting kids and teaching them to fear him. 

But that doesn’t actually do anything to keep any of the kids in Gotham safe. It just makes him a temporary bogeyman, and these kids don’t need an angel of vengeance. That’s been tried already.

If Jason really wants to make a difference, make this city truly safer for the kids of Gotham, he can’t do the shit that Batman’s doing. He has to build a perpetual motion machine that operates like a new system within the old one, so that once he’s gone, once he’s had his piece with the Bat… the kids need to be safe, with or without Jason or anyone else there to protect them.

He can’t be a vigilante about it. 

A young child a few blocks over screeches. “You asshole! Let me go! It’s my money-” 

Jason squeezes his eyes shut, dropping his cigarette down into the street and grabbing his head in both hands. 

He can’t be a vigilante about it. 

“Fuck you,” the kid shouts, because kids in Crime Alley know not to scream for help, because nobody is coming. 

Once, Jason forgot that rule. He thought Batman was coming. 

And he won’t be around forever, so he can’t teach these kids to forget the rule either. That’ll get them killed. 

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel guilty about the kids getting hurt in the meantime. 

“Shuddup,” another voice growls, just down on the street. Jason opens his eyes. 

“I said fuck you,” that same kid snaps, being dragged down the street by a typical asshole with a mean grip on the kids upper arm. They’re nine or ten, a little skinny but nothing too bad, and they’ve got a look on their face that Jason can see and recognize even from all the way up on the roof: they’re thinking about biting the perp to make a break for it. 

He doesn’t even really think about it before he’s pulling his gun out of the holster and shooting, barely ten yards away, the bastard’s knee out. He goes down with a shout and a curse. 

The kid yelps too, jumping and sprinting the rest of the way down the block before they even gather the facts of the whole situation. 

They stop right below his feet, panting and looking around, and finally settle on looking up. Smartie. 

“I won’t always be around,” Jason calls down to the kid when they spot him. 

They nod and give him a halfhearted salute. “Wouldn’t dream of it, skunk boy!” And then they’re off, running down the alley Desta took earlier. 

Skunk boy? He shakes his head, ignoring it. Kids sometimes, honestly. 

“What the fuck?!” The asshole who tried to grab a kid off the street pushes himself to standing. He looks around but doesn’t see anyone, and he doesn’t think to look up. Clearly, he was never a homeless kid in the alley. 

“Don’t touch the kids in my alley,” Jason whispers, wishing he could shout it from the rooftops. 

He watches as the asshole pulls out his phone and places a call Jason can’t hear but could probably tune into if he wanted to. 

Forty seconds later, a car pulls up, passenger door opening, and the man crawls inside. 

They speed off, probably to get medical attention somewhere. 

Jason hopes the man gets an infection and dies painfully. He rubs his eyes, slouching forward to prop his elbow on his knee and his chin on a fist. 

This alley deserves more than Jason alone can give it, no matter how much he wishes he could change it all for the better with a snap of his fingers. 

The wind ruffles his hair, a white lock from his bangs falling low in his eyes. He needs to cut it— hold the fuck up. Jason sits up straight on the edge of the roof and grabs his hair, trying and failing to pull his bangs down so he can see them. He growls in frustration, using both hands to pull his hair as straight as possible. 

The fucking white hair strip is back. 

“What. The fuck?!” 

He dyed it black again this morning! 

Scratch everything. The next thing on his fucking to do list is figuring out how to magically dye magical hair. 

No wonder that little shit called him a skunk boy. That’s probably the most defining feature they could see! 

And, of course, Talia left shortly after lunch, so he’s completely on his own with his magical fucking hair.

The afternoon is warm and a little sunny for once, early spring air offering a light and barely cool breeze as Bruce steps out the car. 

The family plot is technically on the Manor grounds, but it’s ten or so miles away from the Manor, managed by a privately employed company, and has spaces for other old families of Gotham. 

Jason’s grave is the most recent addition to the family plot. Bruce buried his son in the spot that was supposed to be his own. 

He stands at the end, looking over his baby’s resting place, and reminds himself that Alfred removed the bench from the end of the plot for a reason. 

Jason’s headstone doesn’t have the family name on it, despite his place in the family’s graveyard, and Bruce still regrets that, but he and Jason never discussed whether he would want his full, adopted name on his tombstone, because Bruce never thought he’d have to go shopping for Jason’s fucking tombstone. 

He shouldn’t have had to. He should’ve been better—

Bruce crouches in the grass at the end, looking down at where his son lies. 

“Hi, baby,” he croaks, throat tight. “I love you. It’s a beautiful day out today. There’s lots of sun.” He sits down in the grass, even though he knows that means he won’t get up until after sundown, and wipes the first set of tears off his face. “I’m sorry you aren’t here to enjoy it,” Bruce tells Jason. “You would have dragged me out for ice cream, and I would have bought you that sundae you like, the one that hurts your stomach. I miss you. I miss you so much, sweetheart.” 

A bird– a robin– calls from the woods nearby. Bruce closes his eyes and tries to take a breath. All he manages is to clench some more grass between his fingers. 

If only Jason were here, instead of down there. 

“I’ve got–” he tries to say, but it comes out squeaky and weak and choked. He measures his breathing for a moment and tries again. “I’ve got something I wanted to tell you. I’m sorry I can’t hold your hand for this.” The grass between his fingers comes up out of the ground. “Apparently, you have another brother. His name is Harry, and he grew up in England. He’s my son. His friend emailed me, faster than social services could reach out. She’s worried about him. I think you would like her; she doesn’t seem to have a lot of trust in the system. Harry’s coming to live with me, soon. At least for the summer. 

“I’m… I’ve got to be honest, Jaylad, I’m a little worried about telling Dick and Tim. Dick didn’t take me bringing you in so well, and with how fragile everything is with Tim and how he doesn’t seem to want me to be his Dad, I’m nervous he’ll take this as me overstepping to include him in the family. 

“I know you, at least, would have taken it well. I bet you would have loved being an older brother. And you would have done it so well. You’d have read Harry all your favorite stories, and taught him how to do all sorts of things, and the two of you would have been best friends. He’s barely a year younger than you, you know?”

Jason doesn’t say anything, because Bruce took away his ability to talk, and breathe, and think. 

Sitting here and telling him is a useless exercise. Bruce should go back to the Manor and tell his sons who are alive right now, who need him, because he can’t miss out on being there for them by hanging around the grave of the son he wasn’t there for earlier. 

Instead, he whispers, “I miss you.” And he doesn’t get up from the grave until sundown.

He drives back to the house in the late evening. The radio is on in the car, playing a song Bruce doesn’t recognize and isn’t really listening to at all. Dick and Tim are probably gone by now, since it’s so late. They don’t often stay for dinner, though he’s been trying to convince Tim to move all the way into the Manor for weeks now. 

When he steps into the dining room, though, prepared for a long and quiet evening trying to ignore his feelings in favor of some much needed productivity on the ‘new son’ front, Bruce finds two of his four sons waiting for him. 

There’s a bowl of peas already on the table, which Dick is teaching Tim to catch in his mouth by launching them at his brother with a model trebuchet, mostly made of a spoon and a rubber band. 

“Dick, Tim,” he greets, trying to pull on a mask of enthusiasm. 

“Hey, B,” Dick grins at him. A pea is shot at Bruce’s face, and he doesn’t care to do anything but close his eyes, letting it bounce onto the table. 

On a normal day, this kind of teasing engagement would be more than welcome. It’s been too long since Dick played a game with him, and Bruce used to compete with his sons for catching flying bites between Alfred’s glares. He hasn’t done that since Jason, and tonight is decidedly not the night to start. 

“I’m surprised to see you here,” he tells his eldest, pasting on a plastic smile. Dick frowns at him, clearly upset, which was not what Bruce intended when he started the conversation. 

Before he can figure out where he went wrong, Alfred steps out of the kitchen with a platter of lasagna and the three of them watch him in silence as he sets it down. Bruce takes to serving his sons and then himself some dinner. 

“Thank you, Alfred,” he murmurs. 

“Yeah, thanks Alfie.” 

“Thanks Alfred.” 

Tim holds his plate up for his portion of dinner, but he’s pulled out a tablet from somewhere and started scrolling through something, likely some kind of Robin work. 

Bruce needs to engage both his sons in conversation so he can gauge their moods before telling them about Harry. 

“I’m glad you came over for dinner tonight, Tim,” Bruce tries. And it’s true: he and Alfred have been discussing ways to offer the boy more support, with his mother recently passed and his father in a coma, and their current best plan is to get him to move into the Manor altogether. 

Tim is… reluctant for reasons he won’t share with Bruce, and also hyper independent. There’s nothing he needs, nothing Bruce can truly provide for him except company and emotional support, and Tim has that in spades from Dick and his Young Justice team and even at school. 

“I like Alfred’s lasagna,” Tim says quietly, barely looking up from the notes he’s scrolling through on the Batpad. He’s the only one of Bruce’s kids to manage to bring cave work upstairs without a lecture from Alfred, and Bruce couldn’t say if that’s because Alfred knows it’s a lost cause (Convincing Tim of nearly anything is difficult, when he doesn’t agree) or because he doesn’t want to scare him off. Tim could easily work in his own Manor, over his own quiet dinner, and do whatever he likes. 

Tim doesn’t have anything else to say, but Bruce is really trying here to engage him in a conversation and help him realize he can turn to Bruce for concerns in his everyday life, even outside of Robin (Especially outside of Robin). “How’s school been?” 

“It ended last week,” he says absentmindedly, shoveling a mouthful of cheese onto his fork. 

Bruce blinks. He had no idea Tim’s school ended. Obviously, he isn’t paying enough attention to his son. He’ll have to revisit the file he has on him. And check up on those custody papers, because someone needs to be taking care of the boy, and just being Tim’s current foster parent is not enough to convince Bruce’s son that he’s a part of the family. 

Tim keeps going, oblivious to Bruce’s crisis. “I’m doing summer school though, don’t worry. Gotta keep up with my parent’s expectations somehow.” His son rolls his eyes, the comment made with ignorance for the indisposed status of both of his parents, who currently cannot care about his academics. 

It does, however, explain why Bruce could have sworn Tim was still going to school every day. Usually when Tim doesn’t have morning obligations, he stays out longer in the city, with or without permission from Batman. 

“You didn’t go to school today, though?” Dick says. “You showed up at my apartment and broke in before I could go to work.” 

“It’s memorial day,” Tim answers absentmindedly. “Summer school holiday.” 

“Are you enjoying summer school?” Bruce asks, instead of bringing up that he doesn’t care if Tim, who he knows hates school, attempts to work ahead another grade. 

“Mm,” Tim mumbles, leaning forward and squinting at something on his tablet. Bruce sighs, and Dick sighs at the same time. 

He opens his mouth to ask his eldest son how work is going, but he’s interrupted. 

He honestly should have expected it, because of the way his life works. Of course planning to tell Dick and Tim about Harry after dinner meant they were told by someone else. The surprise, the careful way he’d planned to reveal the information, the environment and the questions and the little speech he’d written earlier, are all useless. 

It’s his personal phone, the one he uses for official Bruce Wayne Serious Business, and maybe he should have thought twice about leaving it, set to ring, on the table. Because no one calls this number. Everyone who has it doesn’t have reason to, because they think he’s a himbo. 

The moment that it rings, Dick has snatched it up from next to Bruce’s plate of dinner, apparently eager for a distraction. 

“Dick—“ he starts, because it could only be one person calling, and he hasn’t said anything yet. 

But his oldest son has already answered it and put the call on speaker. 

“Bruce Wayne’s personal assistant speaking. Who is this?” Dick says, voice a thankfully believable falsetto. Tim sets his tablet down to watch. 

“This is Angela with Child Protective Services. I have a collect call for Mr Wayne from Britain regarding placement of his son, Harry Potter. Could you put him through please, so I can let the British services through?” 

Utter silence from both Tim and Dick. Bruce closes his face off of all expression and tugs the phone gently from Dick’s fingers before he can drop it along with his jaw. 

“I’m here, Angela,” he says smoothly, keeping a close eye on their expressions. He doesn’t turn off the speaker. 

“Thank you, Mr Wayne. Before I let you through, I want you to know that I will be your personal contact for the American side of anything you need during this time, especially pertaining to custody. I’ve sent a record of my contact information to your email.” Then, there’s a long beep, and the silence on the line that signals an empty room. 

“Hello, is this Bruce Wayne?” A British voice comes through the phone. Tim’s fork clatters to the floor. Alfred appears in the doorway to the kitchen, drying a wine glass with a towel. 

Bruce avoids eye contact with all of them, tucking his chin a little bit and crossing one of his arms. “Speaking.” 

“Good evening, Mr Wayne. I’m Dan Rather with the British Child Care Safety Department and I’m taking care of your son's case today.” 

“I wasn’t aware,” Bruce lies, “that I had a son in Britain.” 

“Oh, er. You weren’t?”

“Both,” he makes himself say, because he doesn’t want to bring Jason into this, “Of my sons are sitting across from me at the dinner table at the moment.” 

Tim flinches in a way that doesn’t make sense, but Bruce doesn’t have time to even really note it to ask about later. 

Dan Rather keeps talking. “I’m terribly sorry then. I must therefore inform you, Mr Wayne, that you have a biological son, aged fifteen, whose previous guardians passed away rather tragically yesterday afternoon. Harry, Harry Potter, needs someone to take care of him, and you are his biological father. We’d like to place him with you, if you’re amenable. And I understand this is rather sudden, but we’d like to have him there on American soil by the end of the week if at all possible.” 

Bruce blinks. “Don’t you need to ensure I’m a proper guardian?” 

“For a few reasons, not really. You’re his biological father— we had him blood tested after the accident— and you already have a few wards, so you’re clear in the system. We’d want you to take a thirty minute training course online about caring for grieving teens, but that’s about it.” 

“Alright,” he says, because he isn’t sure what else to say. “I’ll look forward to that, and to receiving Harry.” 

“That’s excellent, Mr. Wayne. And before I let you go, there’s one more thing.” Dan hesitates, stuttering a bit. “There’s a-uh, well. There’s a bit of a situation over here. Harry and his friends are rather determined to deal with this custody transfer themselves, and I was informed on the phone earlier today that they plan to contact you directly rather than work with social services.” 

“I see,” Bruce says, because he already received an email from Harry’s friends, but also because he’s not entirely sure why Dan is telling him this. “You just… wanted to let me know that the British Social Services intends to allow my son to conduct his own move to America?” 

“We- well,” and to Dan’s credit, he sounds both nervous and apologetic here, “we don’t really have any way of contacting Harry. We don’t know where he’s staying or who he is currently staying with. All the information I received was a phone number to a line that’s no longer in service. I spoke to Harry and two of his friends on the phone earlier, as I said, and then after they hung up on me, the line was removed. Our best hope is that the children follow through on contacting you, otherwise we don’t even have any method of getting Harry through customs. I don’t believe he has most of his documentation.” 

All of which is very, very strange. Most importantly, however, Bruce focuses on the fact that Dan and the British Social Services have lost his son. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rather. Are you saying that you’ve lost my son?” 

“That would be rather difficult to say fer certain, Mr. Wayne,” Dan says drily, “Seeing as we never really had him in the first place.” What? “According to the officers on scene, they were lucky to get a statement from Harry at all. He’d already been removed from the site by the time they arrived, and his escorts had to be called to bring the boy back so he could talk to them. Otherwise, our officers say they wouldn’t have contacted anyone other than Harry’s two friends.” 

How… disturbing. Bruce has so, so many questions and so many concerns. Why did Harry need escorts? Who is trying to hide him? Who are they hiding him from? Are his friends involved in keeping Harry from the rest of the world, somehow? Hermione Granger’s email seems to imply that she wants Harry happy and safe, but maybe she emailed Bruce before he could get the call about Harry’s existence so she could start manipulating him into being on their side, whoever their side is. 

“Honestly, Mr. Wayne, it’s a bit of a miracle I got to speak to Harry at all.” 

“But you did speak to him?” Bruce asks. 

“On the phone, yes. He refused a meeting with me, or any representative from my office, and his friends backed him up.” 

“You spoke to someone on the phone who claimed to be my son, and you have no other method of contact, and the method of contact you used to speak with the person claiming to be my son was immediately removed from the record.” 

“I- yes, Mr. Wayne. I’m aware of how everything looks. Please believe me when I say that we are doing our best to reach Harry, and that at this time there is no reason to believe his friend was lying when she said they would contact you and send Harry to America later this week.” 

“I see.” 

“It’s likely, Mr. Wayne, that Harry and his friends are very insular. I’ve heard a few suggestions, though no definitive proof, that his previous guardians did not treat him well. That idea, coupled with the way that the children I’ve spoken with do not seem to get along well with the adults in their lives… it’s much more likely that the three of them are very protective of each other, and have trouble trusting adults. I wish there was more that I could do.” 

“Yes. Thank you, Mr. Rather. Please forward any additional information to me regarding Harry’s transfer of guardianship.” 

“Yes, of course, Mr. Wayne. But- Harry’s paperwork–” 

“I’ll get it taken care of,” Bruce cuts him off, and then he hangs up and turns off his phone. 

There’s a ringing silence in the dining room for a moment, broken by Alfred turning on his heel and marching back into the kitchen. Bruce sighs, feeling the burn in his eyes that means he’s about to start crying. It’s been a very long day. He rubs his temples and sniffs. 

Harry has trust issues. Not surprising. He also has what sounds like two very resourceful friends, and a network of strange adults who work to protect Harry but possibly do not work in his best interest. 

For god’s sake, Bruce doesn’t even know where his son is right now, because he was ‘removed’ from the scene of the accident before social services could take care of things. He hadn’t thought, earlier, to look into where Harry is staying now because he’d been in too much of a shock. 

Now, Bruce has to go downstairs and try to determine where Harry’s been taken and by whom. 

Dick lets out a long, low whistle in a clear attempt to play all of this off with humor. “So… are we telling him?” 

Bruce rests his head on the table for a moment. “Are we telling him what, Dick?” 

His two present sons exchange a glance over the table, one so heavy that Bruce can feel it without even looking. There’s the faint sound of Tim tapping away on his tablet again, and Alfred washing something in the kitchen underneath that. 

“Well, obviously,” Dick stands and steps up next to Bruce’s chair, leaning over his back by propping an elbow between Bruce’s shoulder blades, “You’re going to take him in. But are we telling him about Batman?”

Bruce just sighs again. Telling Harry about Batman, when he has moderately well established trust issues and he hasn’t even met Bruce yet? When he has a negative family history and a godfather who passed away last week?! He gathers himself, sitting up a bit, and tells Tim and Dick, “There’s something else you two should know.” 

“What is it?” Tim asks, speaking for the first time since Dick picked up the phone. 

Bruce rubs his eyes and stands, Dick letting him up with some effort, and turns to walk to the cave. “Let me pull up the email I got this morning about Harry-“ 

“You knew?!” Dick explodes before Bruce is even past the doorway. He stops, not bothering to turn around. “You’ve known for- for how long? Never mind, don’t answer that. You’ve known about Harry this whole time, and you never fucking said anything?! Bruce!!!” 

“I did not know,” he says, keeping his temper. ”I found out this morning, when I read Miss Granger’s email. It’s why I came home: I had to validate everything.” 

This does not appease Dick. “Okay, but why not bring it up as soon as you figured everything out? Why did we have to wait for you to get a phone call to be told?” Instead of sounding angry now, Dick sounds hurt. 

He turns around, reaching for his son. “Dick-“ 

“No, Bruce,” he steps bac, holding up a hand. “You- I- ugh.” Dick wipes at his eyes. “You couldn’t have said something before dinner?” His voice cracks, and he moves on before Bruce can say anything. “Why does it always have to happen this way?” 

“I had to tell Jason first.” Bruce says, because he isn’t sure what else to say. Maybe they’re a cursed family- maybe Bruce is cursed- and that’s why he can never truly have a family. 

He should look into that actually. It’s been a while since he checked the family over for curses… 

“Oh,” Dick croaks, and Bruce blinks. He’s been distracted, and has no idea what his son is responding to. He backtracks. Oh. Jason. Dick is not as upset, now that he realizes Bruce had to tell Jason. 

“You went to the plot?” Tim pipes up, coming around the table to stand between the two of them. 

“Yes,” Bruce tells his son, reaching out and brushing a hand through Tim’s hair. “That’s where I spent the afternoon.” 

“You should have brought someone with you,” Tim says, going back to his tablet and ducking away a little from Bruce’s hand. 

Dick huffs and passes both of them to walk up the hall to the study. 

“Jason and I needed some time, kiddo,” he tells Tim, guiding him to follow his brother. 

Dick’s already opening the clock when they step into the study. 

“Is this the email you got from Harry’s friend?” Tim turns his tablet around to reveal that he apparently has access to the batcomputer servers from his tablet, and that he pulled up the secure file Bruce started on Harry. He blinks a few times, exhausted from all of the revelations tonight. 

“Yes. Why don’t you and Dick read it?” 

The two of them sit on the chairs in front of Bruce’s desk, and he steps over to sit behind the desk and watch them. 

Neither of them says a single word. 

Finally, finally, Tim speaks up. “So… his recently murdered relatives might not actually have been the best family?” 

“That’s right, Tim,” Bruce offers him a smile. “So we’ll just have to do better for Harry.” 

“Yeah, because our family is so great,” Dick snipes, rolling his eyes. For once, he’s sitting upright and straight forward in a chair. 

Bruce doesn’t have anything to say to that, and Tim clearly doesn’t either. After a few moments of silence, Dick apparently decides he has had enough. 

“Well,” Dick says, standing up and patting his thighs in a goodbye signal he got from Clark. “I’m going to head back to my apartment and get my stuff cleaned up before Harry gets here, since I’m anticipating I won’t have much time to do that after.”

He follows Dick into the hallway. 

“Son,” Bruce calls. Dick turns around, holding the front door halfway between the two of them. “Just… do we need to talk about this, at all?” 

Dick’s face is a little stony. “You didn’t see the need to ask me about Jason, and I’ve learned from my mistakes then. Whatever I feel about Harry not having you in his life up until this point, I’m going to be there for him. And besides, it isn’t like Tim really asked either of us before he joined the family, so, yeah. It’s whatever.”

Bruce isn’t really sure what to say to that, and Dick takes his silence as the end of the conversation and starts walking out. He calls after him, because he doesn’t know how else to really tell Dick that he loves him and he’s sorry and all the other things he’s feeling, “Travel safe, please.”

“Always do,” Dick snaps, slamming the door shut.