Chapter Text
In my dark times I'll be going back to the street
Promising everything I do not mean
In my dark times, baby this is all I could be
Don't think my mother could love me for me
In my dark times
Light one up, let me bum a smoke
Still calming down, dripping throat
I got another man's blood on my clothes
But an endless fog’s the life I chose
The Weekend, Ed Sheeran
April, 2001
The night was beyond dark—clouds hid the moon and stars, creating an oppressive black world.
The further Harry walked from the light of Hogwarts castle, the less he could see, until his vision pinpointed a foot in front of his nose. He zipped his leather jacket, turning up the collar in anticipation of the rain about to fall. The clouds overhead were thick and heavy, ready to drown him.
It was close to three in the morning. Half an hour ago he’d been screamed awake by a howling Patronus courtesy of Fred Weasley. Barely understanding half the message, Harry had scrambled into denims and a tshirt, grabbing his wand on his way out the door. Draco had blindly thrown sparks from his wand—which soared straight through the smoky image of a blue-butted baboon, but it was the principle of the thing. Draco was quite sick of being shouted awake in the night because of Harry Potter’s incessant hero bullshit.
“Try not ter get yerself killed… again,” his husband had mumbled, watching Harry stumble towards the door with only one shoe on.
Harry laughed dryly. “Only because you asked, love.”
Then he was out in the cold darkness, walking to the edge of the castle grounds. From there he would Apparate to Diagon Alley, where the twins waited for him at their shop—waited for him with some problematic situation which only he, Harry Potter, Saviour of The Universe, could solve.
There were no lights on at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Streetlights cast a wavering light over the empty alley, fog clinging to the shadows.
Most of the debris from the war had been cleared away. A few shops had reopened, though most were still under construction. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes had boards over a few of the busted windows, and the sign hanging over the door was in need of fresh paint. But the exterior had been cleaned, and there was merchandise to be seen through the windows that had been replaced. It was only a matter of time before the twins reopened for business.
Disillusioned so no one would see him, Harry approached the rear door and knocked three times. The door opened under his hand with no one on the other side. He heard voices in the cellar and took the stairs, drawing his wand on instinct.
He blinked several times, struck dumb, struggling to process the sight before him.
“Ohhhhhh-kay,” Harry drawled, waving his wand to make himself visible to the three people in the cellar. “I love you both like brothers. You know that. Which is why I’m giving you five minutes to explain yourselves before I fetch the Aurors and have you locked up.”
Because Fred and George had a terrified-looking muggle woman tied to a chair, a gag in her mouth, her eyes bugging out in terror. The girl couldn’t have been more than twenty. She wore pajamas and no shoes, her long brown hair tied up in a haphazard bun at the top of her head. It looked as though Fred and George had literally kidnapped her while she slept. She gazed at him pleadingly, rocking in her chair as much as her bonds would allow.
“So, um…” Fred scratched the back of his neck, blushing. “I’ve had a bit of a cock-up.”
Harry raised a sardonic eyebrow. He flipped his palm, silently asking for an elaboration.
Fred was too embarrassed, his eyes fixed on the toes of his trainers. George spoke for him. “The night you stopped You-Know-Who, we went on somewhat of a bender. We were celebrating. Ended up at some pub doing shots. Fred met this lovely creature,” he pointed with his thumb to the woman currently tied to the chair. “Taylor. He got her number and they fooled around for a while.
“Then a week ago she calls, upset. Says she’s up the duff and it’s Fred’s.”
Fred interrupted, his voice shaking with anger. “She said she wasn’t keeping him—my son. She was gonna kill my kid, Harry. I had to do something.”
Harry pushed out the breath he’d been holding in his lungs. It whistled through his teeth in a long, not-quite-Parseltongue hiss. He unzipped his jacket, put a hand to his hip, and started thinking out loud.
“In Taylor’s world, she has the right to do that. To have an abortion. She doesn’t need your permission. Technically, she didn’t even have to tell you. That was a courtesy.”
“That’s beyond fucked up!” George interjected.
“I know,” Harry shrugged ruefully. “But it’s the law—their law, anyway.”
Taylor screamed behind the gag in her mouth.
“Well our law,” Fred blustered, “says a father has equal rights to his child; half-and-half, bastard, or otherwise.” He pointed at Taylor’s stomach, where they hadn’t placed any ropes out of concern for the fetus.
Worried, Harry noted that the twins demonstrated more concern for the unborn baby’s welfare than Taylor’s. But then again, people always got a little nuts where their kids were concerned. That much was universal. Their fears didn’t excuse their gross mistreatment of this poor woman; but the heightened emotion of the situation would make it that much harder for Harry to de-escalate things. Like dismantling a live bomb, it might be better to detonate in a safe location than to risk cutting the wrong wire and doing even greater harm on site. Harry decided that listening to the twins and gathering more information would do more good than a lecture on bodily autonomy and muggle’s rights.
“I’m protecting my son,” Fred insisted fiercely.
“Son? You know it’s a boy?”
George nodded. “We did the spell.”
So much for speaking in code, Harry thought. Another muggle’s memory to be modified. Another crazy day in the life of Harry Potter.
“Well…” Harry said out loud, running a hand through his hair, rolling his eyes, resigned. He was going to help Fred and George, even if it was insane. The Weasleys were his family as much as Draco or Hermione. He would do anything for them… including this. “Shite.” Harry chewed his lip briefly. “We’re gonna Obliviate her, right?”
Frightened, Taylor’s gaze darted between the three of them. Harry watched as hope drained from her face beneath the gag. It was now obvious to her that Harry was on the twins’ side and not hers. Her shoulders sagged as she began to sob.
Fred shook his head. “You’re the only one who can do this Harry.”
Skeptical, Harry’s face hardened. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “Do what?”
“The Imperius Curse.”
Harry looked away. This was hardly the glorious, pastoral future he’d looked forward to after defeating Tom Riddle. His life was only just getting back to normal: he had NEWTs in a few weeks, and already the Aurors were working hard to recruit him. The last thing he needed was more Dark Arts in his life, more proverbial skeletons in his closet.
“Please Harry,” Fred begged him, stepping forward, pressing his hands to his gut. “I couldn’t ask this of anyone else. I thought you would… understand. About family.” He looked back at Taylor, real sorrow in the lines of his face, real pain at what he was asking his mate to do. “I won’t let her kill my baby. I’ll get a flat outside the alley, in London, and we’ll live together as boyfriend and girlfriend until the baby’s born. Then we can let her go.”
“And Obliviate the hell out of her,” George muttered under his breath.
“That too,” Fred agreed.
Behind them, Taylor cried.
“I want my son,” Fred said. “He’s as much hers as he is mine. I want my son, Harry. Please help me save him.”
Harry took his glasses off, pressing the hard points of his wrists against his eye sockets until little blue and purple stars chased each other across the blackness.
Saving people was in his blood. Fred and George knew that. They knew he’d killed people in the tunnels under Hogwarts, knew he felt a debt for the lives he’d taken. They knew how he felt about his family: his mother had died for him, and he in turn had died trying to save Draco. They had his back to a wall; penned in by his own nature, his own penchant for saving people and preserving innocent life, especially the lives of those he considered his family.
“Our mutual mates from Durmstrang say you’re the best when it comes to Unforgiveables,” Fred admitted. “I might’ve asked one of them but… this ought to stay in the family.”
There it was again. Family.
Fred gulped. “I trust you with both their lives.”
Harry’s guts shook. As much as he didn’t want to do this—to put an innocent muggle woman under a powerful enchantment and sustain it for the next nine months, forcing her to carry a child she didn’t want inside her body—his friends gave him no other choice. If he refused, they would find someone else to do it. Probably Dmitry or Yuri. Harry wouldn’t let the burden fall to them; Dima with memories of his murdered mother, and Yuri whose fiancée was still missing, presumed dead.
Harry would be the one to do this. There was no other way around it; at least, none that he could see in the moment.
Harry put his glasses back on and drew his wand. Dangerously he pointed with it, going between Fred and George, making himself frightfully clear.
“I love you guys. You’re my family. Never forget that. But after this, you’re all out of favors.”