Work Text:
Harry Potter had always had a healthy aesthetic appreciation for a good set of teeth. It was the second thing he’d noticed about Cho, after her skill as a Seeker. Her teeth were small and neat and shiny and she obviously took great care of them, which was something Harry really liked in a person, romantic interest or not. It was why he and Hermione had become friends so quickly – the moment he’d heard that her parents were dentists, he’d known, deep inside himself, that they were meant to be friends, and by the time he went home for the summer after first year he knew more about dentistry than he ever could have hoped. Ron had good teeth, too, although he could be lazy about taking care of them. Harry had taken to standing over him in the bathroom until he’d brushed for a full two minutes morning and night, and now, after five years at Hogwarts, it was habit for both of them.
His interest in teeth had admittedly, got him into trouble once or twice. Much as he detested the man, the elegant shape of Snape’s canines was horribly appealing and this had led to a couple of very awkward moments during their quickly abandoned occlumency lessons last year, and once, exhausted and in pain after hours of writing lines in his own blood, he’d paused in front of Umbridge while stumbling from her office and blurted out, “What’s your flossing routine?” That had earned him an extra three nights of detention, since Umbridge had assumed he’d been making fun of her, and he never had found out about her flossing routine.
But he could set against that the long hours he’d spent alone in his room at the Dursleys with the book of photographs Hagrid had given him, tracing over his parents’ smiles with a fond fingertip, admiring his father’s two rows of perfectly even teeth, and feeling a little pang of longing at the way his mother’s two front teeth overlapped slightly. At Grimmauld Place last summer, Remus had once picked up Harry’s toothpaste and smiled rather mistily, telling Harry that his mum had used the same brand. It was a tiny, unexpected link between them that Harry held onto with all his might as the precious thing it was.
Today was the morning of Harry’s sixteenth birthday, and he’d slept in late, despite the cheerful noisiness of the Burrow. He’d been here for a few weeks now, long enough to get used to the constant noise and activity, the fact that there was nowhere you could be alone – even after a couple of minutes in the bathroom there’d be someone banging on the door yelling at you to hurry up.
It was brilliant.
Harry sat up slowly, reaching for his glasses and then snatching his hand back as a knot in his back twinged unpleasantly. He reached again, more carefully, and put his glasses on, then swung his legs out of bed. God, what was up with his back? There was a deep, dull ache in his shoulder blades that wouldn’t go away no matter how much he stretched. At last he gave it up, supposing it must be some kind of new teenage growing pain, and trotted down a couple of flights of stairs to the bathroom, which was, by some miracle, free.
He showered more slowly than usual. The pain seemed to be spreading, and was definitely growing more intense, and by the time he was dressed again, it was burning right across his upper back, He’d looked in the mirror and everything looked the same as usual, but he kept on biting his lip to try to distract from the greater pain that seemed to be forcing its way up from the very marrow of his bones. He should probably tell Molly about it, ask for help, but she was so busy at the moment, and so upset about the awful things that kept happening, so full of fear for the people she loved. He didn’t want to give her any extra problems.
He wished Sirius was still around. Sirius wouldn’t care how much trouble Harry gave; he’d just want to help. His stomach churned as the memory flashed in his mind again. Sirius fighting. Sirius laughing. Sirius falling, falling, falling, disappearing behind the veil. It was Harry’s fault that Sirius was dead; perhaps this pain was his punishment.
The door opened and Ron put his head in. “Mum asked me to say that lunch is nearly ready. You coming down?”
“Yeah.” Harry forced a smile onto his face, and suppressed a wince as his back burned again.
“You all right?” Ron said, looking slightly concerned.
“Yeah, just slept funny on my shoulder, I think.”
“Get Mum to have a look at it after lunch, she’s probably got something that’ll fix it.”
“Yeah,” Harry said yet again, and hoped Ron would have forgotten by the time lunch was over.
As it turned out, Harry himself had almost forgotten about the pain by the end of lunch. First there had been the birthday greetings, then the little stack of birthday cards beside his plate, and everyone was promising to give him his presents once they’d eaten when there was a loud knock at the door and, after an awkward exchange of security questions, Hagrid was ducking his head to enter the house.
“Happy birthday, Harry!” he roared, opening his arms wide.
“Thanks, Hagrid!” Harry beamed and hurried round the table to hug him.
“I brought your present,” Hagrid said, handing him a gaudily wrapped parcel. “But, er, don’t open it yet. It’s to do with… well, I’m not just here to congratulate you. There’s something you need to know, Harry.”
Harry stared at him, worried. “Is… is someone else dead?” he asked anxiously, stomach roiling again.
“No, no, no,” Hagrid said. “Nothing like that. Sorry, Harry, I didn’t mean to worry you. No, it’s…” He looked around the kitchen, where various Weasleys were finishing their lunch or starting to clear up, but all, it was clear, listening intently. “Maybe there’s somewhere private we can go.”
“Oh!” Molly said, blushing slightly and trying to pretend that she hadn’t been as curious as the rest. “Yes, of course. Go on into the sitting room, there’s nobody in there at the moment. Just check the cat isn’t sleeping under a cushion before you sit down, Hagrid.”
Hagrid grinned sheepishly and led Harry through to the sitting room, closing the door behind them. He lifted the cushion from an armchair to check behind it, then sat down. Harry sat on the sofa and waited.
Hagrid cleared his throat. “It’s been five years, Harry,” he began, rather ominously, in Harry’s opinion. His shoulders gave another twinge and he suppressed a wince. They were definitely getting worse, almost as though something was trying to force its way through bone and muscle and skin. It had been normal when he’d looked in the mirror, he reminded himself. Of course, that had been over an hour ago. A lot could happen in an hour. “Five years to the day,” Hagrid continued, “Since I found you on that island and told you you were a wizard. And now you’re sixteen, and, in the eyes of many… well, many peoples, an adult.”
“I thought wixen came of age at seventeen,” Harry said, puzzled.
“Ah, yes,” Hagrid said. “They do, they do. But many other, er, magical, well, folks… well, here’s the thing, Harry. You’re not just a wizard.”
Harry frowned. “What else would I be? I mean, I already know I’m a half blood, is that what you mean? But muggles don’t come of age until eighteen, so…”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” Hagrid said. He took a deep breath and said, “You’re a tooth fairy, Harry.”
There was a long, long, moment of silence.
“What?” Harry said.
“A tooth fairy,” Hagrid repeated, looking relieved to have finally got the words out. “And tooth fairies come of age at sixteen. That’s also the age where they come into their, er, magical inheritance.”
“Inheritance? What does that even mean?” Harry said, rather faintly.
“Well, many magical creatures don’t develop their more, er, unique traits until they come of age. Have you noticed any… changes?”
Another bolt of pain burned across Harry’s back, and he couldn’t stop himself from gasping with it. “My… my shoulders, Hagrid,” he said. “They really really hurt. They have been ever since I woke up. I thought I’d just slept funny or it was growing pains or something.”
“Ahhh,” Hagrid said knowingly. “Well, I suppose they are growing pains, of a sort.”
Harry gave him a very suspicious look. “What do you mean? What’s growing, Hagrid?”
But before Hagrid could answer, the burning in his shoulders grew to a white hot searing blast. Harry cried out, curling forward and trying to reach around himself at the same time, but Hagrid grabbed his hands.
“No, wait!” he said. “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
“What’s coming?” Harry gasped. “Oh – fuck! Fuck!”
His back was being ripped apart, bone and muscle shifting and spasming and skin tearing. Harry cried out again, the pain almost unbearable. He must be dying, he must be…
And then the pain was gone, and he was curled over on himself, tears running down his cheeks, Hagrid still holding his hands, but not looking at Harry – or not at his face. Instead, he was looking a little past Harry, over his shoulder, and his mouth was open, his eyes wide. And there was a strange, unfamiliar… something. Heart thundering with terrified anticipation, Harry turned his head slowly and looked over his shoulder, and for a moment he could have sworn that his heart actually stopped in his chest.
Wings.
Not big, cool wings, like bats or dragons or something, and not big feathery ones like angels or birds, either. No, these were smallish, stretching to just above his head, silvery, gauzy things that he could almost see through. They were quivering slightly, as though about to start flapping in earnest, and they glittered and sparkled in the sun that shone in through the sitting room window.
“Er, Hagrid,” Harry said. “Whyyyy do I have wings?” His voice rose. “Why do I have wings, Hagrid?! Make them go away!”
Hagrid winced sympathetically. “I can’t, Harry, I’m sorry. You’re a tooth fairy, and you’re coming into your magical creature inheritance today. This was always going to happen, but Dumbledore only told me last night, or I would’ve told you before. I swear, Harry, I would have told you.”
Harry laughed a bit hysterically. “My magical creature inheritance? Inheritance? Who… who did I inherit this from? Was my mum a… a…”
“Not Lily,” Hagrid said.
Harry rubbed his hands over his face. This was too much. This was… way too much. He tried to think of something to say, some question to ask, but his mind was still a foggy blur of shock and remembered pain and… and… fucking hell.
“So, my dad?” he began.
The door opened a crack, and Molly put her head in. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just, you shouted?” Her eyes fell on Harry and his new wings and she gave a little shriek, then clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Has something happened?” Arthur said, pushing the door open wider behind. “Merlin!”
“What’s up? Is Harry okay?” That was Ron, pushing his way between his parents and into the room, Hermione on his heels. He, too, gave a shriek when he saw Harry’s wings, and Hermione’s mouth fell open.
“Harry!” she breathed. “You… you’ve got wings! Ho… how? Why? How? What?!”
“Yeah,” Ron said. “What she said.”
Harry gulped. “Apparently I’m a…” He looked at Hagrid for help.
“He’s a tooth fairy,” Hagrid said.
Ron, Hermione, Molly, Arthur, and all the other Weasleys, who had now gathered in the doorway, gaped at him in shocked silence. It might have been the quietest they’d been in the weeks since Harry’d arrived at the Burrow.
Then Hermione said, “Wait, tooth fairies exist?”
Ron rolled his eyes. “’Course they do,” he said. “Honestly, Hermione, why wouldn’t they?”
“Why would they is the question, I would have thought,” she said tartly, and Harry couldn’t help but agree. “I mean, creatures that break into children’s rooms at night and take their teeth in exchange for money? Why would anyone assume those exist?”
“Right,” Ron said. “Because wizards and witches can exist, and they use cauldrons and ride on broomsticks and there are centaurs and unicorns and dragons and leprechauns and veela, but tooth fairies couldn’t possibly exist, that’s just too weird.”
“Okay, at this point you’re abusing sarcasm,” Hermione said. “Remember when you laughed at me for half an hour because I asked if Santa was real? How am I supposed to know which weird stories and traditions are real and which ones aren’t?”
“She’s got a point,” Harry muttered. “You actually fell off your bed laughing that time I asked about angels.”
Ron rolled his eyes. “Whatever. The point is that you’re a tooth fairy, mate! Ooh, do you know who your mate is?”
“My what now?” Harry said, eyeing him warily.
“Your mate. All magical creatures have mates, didn’t you know? It’s a… a magical creature thing.”
Hermione frowned. “Centaurs don’t, they’re mostly polyamorous, aren’t they? Or do they have multiple mates? And what about…”
“Fine, fine, most magical creatures have mates, then!” Ron said.
“Tooth fairies do,” Hagrid said. “I hadn’t got round to telling him that part yet.”
“Oh my god.” Harry buried his face in his hands. “What is happening to me? A mate?! Like, another tooth fairy, or can it be anyone?”
“It can be anyone,” Hagrid said. “You’ll know when you touch them, or touch them next if you already know them; there’ll be some kind of sign. It’s different for everyone. When your dad touched Lily for the first time after coming into his inheritance, they both glowed golden.”
“So my dad was the tooth fairy?” Harry said, wonderingly.
“And a thumping good ‘un, too,” Hagrid said. “You’ll be one of the best, Harry, you mark my words.”
“He doesn’t have wings in any of the pictures of him, though,” Harry said.
“Ah, you’ll learn to control them quickly enough,” Hagrid said, patting his hand reassuringly. “Especially once you get the other powers.”
“Other…?” Harry gazed at him pleadingly. “Oh, god, Hagrid, just tell me, please. What else is going to happen? And do I have to start, like, taking people’s teeth? How does that even work?”
“No, no, it’s all right, you won’t have to start doing that until after Hogwarts, and you can have a normal life. You’ll just feel this, well, pull, when there’s a tooth for you to collect. You go and do it, and you give them something in exchange, that’s very important, the exchange. Keeps the whole thing fair, you see. And that’s all there is to it. Bob’s your uncle.”
“But what do I do with the teeth afterwards? Do I give them my own money? Who needs all those teeth anyway?”
Hagrid shrugged. “I don’t have all the answers,” he said. “Tooth fairyin’s a great mystery to me, Harry. But Dumbledore says you’ll know, when the time comes. Things will work out, you’ll see.”
Harry sighed. There didn’t seem to be a lot else he could do – but Dumbledore had better be planning to tell him a lot more when he got back to Hogwarts.
“As for your other powers,” Hagrid went on. “You’ll have an extra sensitivity to the state of people’s teeth in general, o’ course.”
“Of course,” Harry muttered, pretending that news hadn’t actually made him feel a little better. He liked teeth. Teeth were nice and normal and they behaved well if you treated them well. If you had a good set of teeth, you could do pretty much anything.
“And your powers of stealth will increase noticeably,” Hagrid said.
“Stealth?” Harry frowned. “Why?”
“So’s you don’t wake the kids up when you go creeping into their rooms, I expect,” Hagrid said, shrugging.
Harry sighed. “Why not?” he said. “Will I also always know where the nearest ladder is, so that I can get in?”
“Dumbledore didn’t mention…”
“I expect that’s what the wings are for, Harry,” Hermione pointed out sensibly.
“Oh,” he said. “Right. Of course.”
“The only other thing Dumbledore mentioned was that something might happen to your wand,” Hagrid said. “He didn’t say what, but he did that sort of chuckle thing he does, so…”
With a deep sense of foreboding, Harry drew his wand out of his pocket. He’d put it in tip down, as he always did, and for a moment nothing seemed different. Then the tip emerged, and… Harry groaned, and there were several stifled giggles from various Weasleys. Even Hermione put her hand over her mouth to cover her smile. His wand, his sensible, steady, reliable, perfect, beloved wand was now adorned with a large glittery star on the end.
This was a nightmare, it was the only explanation. Harry was still asleep, he hadn’t yet woken up on his sixteenth birthday, he was just having a very long, very detailed nightmare that kept getting weirder and weirder. He yanked at the star, but although it looked as though it was made of nothing but cardboard and glitter, it didn’t shift or bend, and no matter how hard he tore at it, it wouldn’t come off his wand. Hermione, taking pity on him, tried a severing charm and a couple of other spells, but they had no more effect than Harry’s yanking. At last he had to give up and accept the fact that he’d just have to do all his magic after this with a wand that looked like it had come from the pound shop.
“Sorry, Harry,” Hermione said, sitting down beside him. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it. Um, What’s that that came out of your pocket with your wand?”
He’d been so horrified by the sight of his wand that he had barely registered the thing, but now he picked it up, a smallish, whitish… oh, no. No. No, no, no, no, no. This wasn’t happening. Hermione was biting her lips very hard, valiantly keeping the smile off them. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the others to see how they were reacting, but some irresistable instinct was drawing his hands towards his head, and yep, he was now absolutely, one hundred percent, wearing a little hat shaped like a tooth.
“How is this my life?” Harry moaned, putting his hands over his face again.
“Ah, don’t fret, Harry, it’s not as bad as you think,” Hagrid said, getting up and patting him on the back so hard that Harry nearly fell off the sofa. “I have to be getting back to Hogwarts, there’s some sort of hoof rot going around the thestrals and I need to put ointment on ‘em all before the moon rises. Happy birthday, Harry!”
Harry summoned up a smile for Hagrid. It wasn’t his fault he’d walked into the Burrow and completely upended Harry’s life, after all. “Thanks,” he said hollowly. “Hope it goes well with the thestrals.”
“Would…” Molly began after Hagrid had departed, scattering Weasleys left and right. “Would you like some time in private, dear, to, well, think about all of this? Come to terms with it?”
“That’d be great, actually,” Harry said gratefully. “It’s all a bit… much. Um, you two can stay, though,” he added, when Ron turned and Hermione got up to go. “If you want to, that is.”
“Of course,” Hermione said quickly, and Ron nodded, coming over to sit at Harry’s other side. Molly, bless her, chivvied the rest of her offspring out of the room and closed the door behind them, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione in peace.
There was silence for almost a full two minutes after their departure.
“How are you feeling, Harry?” Hermione said at last.
Harry pulled at the hat, which, to his great relief, slid off his head easily, and stuffed it back into his pocket. “Really weird,” he said. “But also… I dunno. I’ve always liked teeth, that’s how you and I first made friends, Hermione, remember?”
She smiled. “Yeah. I thought it was really cool that you were so into them.”
Ron smiled crookedly. “Whereas we made friends despite your weird teeth thing,” he said. “It does kind of make sense for you, though, Harry.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I… I suppose it does. I just… you know, I just wish Dad had been around, and Mum, to tell me all about it. Maybe that way I’d have grown up knowing I was going to get fucking wings one day, and why I liked teeth so much, and… and… the whole mate thing? That’s so weird! What if it’s someone awful, like, I don’t know, Malfoy or someone?”
“I don’t think it would end up being someone you hated,” Hermione said. “I mean, your parents loved each other, didn’t they?”
“Not always,” Harry said gloomily. “From Snape’s memory I saw that time, remember, it seemed like she hated him for a long time. What if… what if she only loved him because of a spell?”
Hermione shook her head. “No. I don’t believe that. Maybe Lily didn’t always like James, but people change, Harry.”
“Yeah, I mean, that was Snape’s memory, and he hated your dad,” Ron said robustly. “Of course he’d think your mum hated him too, but why would he know?”
“Exactly. He was hardly an impartial observer,” Hermione said. “And that was just one incident, Harry. Just one memory. Even if it was all completely true, it can’t have been the whole story. And look, if your mate did turn out to be Malfoy, well, maybe that would just be a sign that even someone like Malfoy can change and be a good person.”
“Anyway, it won’t be him,” Ron said. “It’ll be someone you like, for sure.”
Harry nodded, still only half believing it. There was another long pause.
“Would you like a hug, Harry?” Hermione said gently.
He hesitated, and then nodded.
He did not expect that, when Hermione and Ron leaned in at the same time to wrap their arms around him, a warm golden light would bubble up around the three of them, growing and growing until it surrounded them, so bright that Harry could barely see his friends’ faces, wide eyed and astonished on either wide of him, their arms still holding him tightly.
“Oh my god,” Hermione whispered, as the golden light flared, sparkled, and finally began to fade. “Was that…?”
“We’re your mates, Harry!” Ron croaked.
“Oh my god,” Hermione said again. “We’re… we’re your…”
“My mates are… are you guys?” Harry said. The glow was gone now, leaving just the three of them, huddled together on the sofa, clinging to each other. He gave a shaky laugh. “Okay, well, if I’d known that I wouldn’t have been so worried about it.”
Hermione burst into tears and flung her arms around him again, reaching out to include Ron in her embrace. “Oh my god, I’m so glad!” she cried. “I thought it was going to be someone else, you know, someone better, and I was so damn jealous!”
“Yeah, me too,” Ron said. He sounded like he was trying very hard not to cry too. “Jesus, mate, I thought we were going to lose you to some prat like Malfoy.”
He leaned forward to kiss Harry’s forehead, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, did the same to Hermione’s. She gave him a tremulous smile.
“We’re definitely better mates than he would have been,” she said.
“God, yeah,” Harry said, shuddering at the thought. “I… shit. You don’t even know what a relief this is. There’s literally nobody who could have been better. Nobody. I… I love you both, you know that, right?”
“And we love you, too,” Hermione said.
“Forever,” Ron said.
They stayed there for a long time, just holding each other. In fact, it was nearly half an hour later when Molly knocked on the door and put her head in to say that Remus and the others had arrived to celebrate Harry’s birthday, and did he want to come out so that the proceedings could begin. Harry looked up and smiled, feeling calm for the first time since Hagrid had walked in through the door.
“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll be out in a minute.” He sat up and looked at Hermione and Ron, and they smiled back at him.
“All right?” Hermione said.
“All right,” he said. “Although there is something I should have told Hagrid before he left.”
“What’s that?” Ron said.
Harry smiled a little. “He’s got a cavity starting on one of his back molars. Ought to get it looked at before it gets out of hand.”
They both laughed, and after a moment Harry joined in. He’d always liked teeth, and that was just the way it should be.