14

Chapter 14 - So Many Secrets

Harry woke shaking. Rolling out of bed, he ran to the bathroom, he turned on the sink and splashed cold water on his face as he if could wash the dreams away. But they hadn't just been dreams.

He remembered, he remembered.

He remembered Noami as if she had been real, because she had been real. He remembered Teddy, not as Remus's and Nymphadora's son, but his son, not godson.

He still remembered his other life, as clearly as the new one. But Andromeda's suicide was no longer an overlapping sorrow, it was its own, just as Naomi's loss was-

Merlin, help him, he held a hand to his chest, feeling as if his heart were being crushed.

He loved her. What he felt for Naomi was more than he ever felt for anyone else. Whatever he had felt for Hermione and Ginny was nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the love and life he had shared with Naomi Lupin.

Or rather, Naomi Peverell, because she had been his in the end.

And now she was gone.

"Daddy?" Teddy asked from the doorway. "Daddy, you alright?"

Harry looked up at his son and held out his arms.

Teddy ran to him, and Harry hugged him tight, "You and me, little man."

Teddy pulled on his hair, letting one of the curls bounce like a spring, "I love you, Daddy."

Harry's chest felt tight, like a hollow cavern housing a ball of pain and loss. He was as much Harry Peverell, as he was Harry Potter. He was more than he had been, and he bore all the scars to prove it.

"I love you too, Theodore Lupin Peverell," Harry said, and choose at that moment to stop questioning the magic. To stop questioning what was real and what wasn't. They were both. The here and now was real.

Oh, eventually he would find all the people responsible for doing this to them, but as to questioning who they were…

They were the Peverells. Harry and Teddy Peverell, and one day, Harry would avenge his wife's death, and Teddy would grow up knowing that his parents had loved him more than anything else in the world. Godson or son, Teddy was his.

"Are we going to Ireland with Narcissa today?" Teddy asked.

Harry blinked down at him. He had completely forgotten about his date, and, honestly, all he wanted to do was go back to bed, curl up in a ball and pretend not to exist. He wanted to think about Naomi now that he could finally remember her clearly, he wanted to mourn her.

But looking down at Teddy and his pleading eyes, Harry knew he had to go on living. Nothing he could do would bring her back.

"Yeah, that's the plan for today. I'm going to take a shower, are you alright to wait a half an hour before breakfast?"

Teddy nodded seriously, "I'll go feed Regina and give her pets."

Harry kissed him on the top of his head before releasing him.

Under the shower spray, Harry mulled over reality. He could only dimly remember the Peverells, his parents. They had looked the same as James and Lily Potter, had died the same… no, they hadn't died the same. They had been tortured and Harry had been put in a cupboard rather than his crib as he watched, waited to be saved.

He shuddered, he must have been the same age, because he could only remember Voldemort's laughter and his parents' screams. The words were beyond him. He shuddered again, witnessing that in a cupboard brought a whole new level of awful to the Durselys' cupboard under the stairs.

The Dursleys.

They were the same in both realities, if from different generations. Or not exactly the same, he had grown up not with Dudley, but with Vernon and Marge as his cousins. That Mrs. Dursley had somehow managed to be more awful than Aunt Petunia, more strict and crueller. Evil step-mother indeed.

Harry had gone to Stonewall High, and it had been horrid. He had never made a single friend, it seemed with or without his cousin, Boy Who Lived or no, Harry had always been destined to be the odd one out. But that trunk from his parents… he had snuck out often to practice in the park and stayed up late to read not his school books but to learn magic.

He had put Hermione's study habits to shame. And even with the lack of sleep, he had still done well in muggle school as well, a lack of friends gave a person a lot of time.

He remembered those long, empty, yet not unpleasant, years as a librarian. He remembered Naomi, who had changed everything.

His memories as the Boy Who Lived did not contradict those memories, it was like gaining a decade of study that in Hogwarts he had never put the time into. His memories of Naomi were by far the most alternating to how he saw himself.

The memories after Naomi's death mirrored, almost exactly those of his previous life after Andromeda's death. His job and issues at the daycare, the day to day struggles of being a single father, and their lives even corresponded to his dealings with Mrs. Adams.

The one major difference had been the fire. After being laid off from the daycare, Harry Peverell had drove home in the lil-bu-bug. The house he had bought with his inheritance from the Potters, or the house Naomi had bought with her money from being a store manager, had been engulfed in an inferno.

It wasn't a natural fire, by the time he got there, there was nothing to be saved. He hadn't stopped the lil-bu-bug, he hadn't wanted Teddy to understand what had happened.

Harry had launched into an epic fairytale story about dragons, eliciting laughter from his son. Laughing all the way to London, Teddy had been excited to go to the magical bank. Harry had been greeted there with another unpleasant surprise. After Naomi had died, he had moved everything, their bank accounts and savings, the deed and insurance plans, as well as their birth certificates and passports to Gringotts.

Harry turned off the water.

The goblins had 'lost' it all, saying that Harry had neglected to fill out the proper paperwork. He had demanded to see his vault. The goblins had laughed at him, but they had brought him and Teddy to his vaults.

None of his belongings or funds had been in that vault, just that magical dust, and then Teddy had sneezed, and suddenly, he had another man's memories.

Harry James Potter's memories, a brother soul from a different world, a different time.

Shaking his head, Harry dried off and got dressed.

He really did not want to go on a date today. He wanted to know what the hell was going on. He wanted to avenge his parents, his wife, figure out what the goblins were up to and why he had two parallel memories. But most of all, he wanted to know why Voldemort had been after them in this timeline.

Presumably, it wasn't because of a damned prophecy this time. Voldemort had been after the Peverells and hadn't killed them but tortured them for information. But for what information, his one-year-old mind had been unable to retain.

And Naomi.

Both Lyall and I have made terrible mistakes, Harry.

What the fuck had she meant?

What had sent the Dark Lord after her personally? Her, and yet, not her brother, Lyall?

He needed to know.

He came out into his rooms and found that Teddy, had indeed, fed the cat.

Chuckling despite himself, he waved his hand, sending the entire bag worth's of cat food back into its container.

Regina turned on him, her amber eyes narrowing, and she let out a rather insulted, "Meow."

Harry smiled at the cat, as he walked toward them. Teddy was talking to Regina in a conspiratorial whisper. Harry bent down and hand his son a cup, "Just one scoop, Teddy."

Smiling, Teddy took the cup and filled it and poured it into the cat's dish.

Regina gave Harry a look, then looked at the dish, twitched her tail, then looked back up at him, and twitched her tail. She said again, "Meow."

Harry smirked at the feline, before saying, "Come on, Teddy, let's get you dressed."

Minerva noticed something was wrong with Rell the moment he walked up to the head tables.

There were dark circles under his eyes and a hardness to his face she had never seen before. As he took a seat at the table she felt his magic.

It wasn't invasive or harmful, but it was like descending into a different elevation.

"Rell, is anything wrong?" she asked, looking at Teddy who seemed perfectly fine. The child was humming and his hair was bright pink.

"Good morning, Minerva," he greeted, "No, nothing is wrong."

The way he said it made it sound like he meant everything was wrong but there was nothing he could do about it.

When he sat down, he drank only pumpkin juice, but didn't touch a shred of food even as Teddy ate heartily.

Lily sat down for breakfast, and her gaze was immediately drawn to the head table. Something was off about Professor Rell. And she noticed that Narcissa Black was absent from her usual seat. She wondered if it had something to do with Professor Rell.

All the girls had bets going as to who Professor Rell would hook up with either in the school or in the wider wizarding world.

He was just too handsome, too all around amazing not to be picked up by someone. And his son was so cute, that was only a plus. Nearly every girl had a crush on him. Well, Lily didn't, but she was aware of him.

As he and his son departed the hall, she hoped they were alright.

Harry felt bad about not being happy to see Narcissa, she was unquestionably lovely.

His guilt increased when he saw her nervous smile when she greeted them. He did his best to swallow the mood he was in.

As Hermione had told him many a time, it did no good to spread his temper to people who didn't deserve it.

But even smiling, even seeing his son light up and sprint across the greens, and even watching the wind blow through her sunbeam hair Harry couldn't bring himself to speak much.

Narcissa didn't poke, but he could tell she was growing agitated by his none committal responses.

Kicking himself, he asked, "Do you think they have a list of all the creatures here today?"

The Magical Creature Convention had commandeered a golf course, Harry could only pity the grounds grew that would have to fix the greens tomorrow.

Narcissa looked around, then took his hand leading him toward a stand with a wizard in a jade pointed hat was passing out pamphlets.

Harry took three, one for himself, one for Teddy's future studies, and one for Hagrid.

"Do you think Hagrid would have liked to come?" Narcissa asked as if reading his thoughts.

He nodded, "But I'm glad he isn't, who knows what he would have tried to bring back."

"Daddy!" Teddy yanked on his arm, "Look it's a manticore!"

"How does he even know what a manticore is?" Narcissa asked as they followed Teddy from display to display. Many of the creatures on display weren't here to be sold, nor like a circus, were they here for people's entertainment. Creatures like the manticore were here to raise awareness, and Teddy stopped to question each and every witch or wizard who was giving out information about their creatures.

It gave Harry an excuse to not talk much without being overly offensive.

His mind was still spinning with everything he had 'learned' though learned wasn't the right word. More like realized. And the mysteries and sorrows aside, it was fascinating to compare his two lives.

Harry Peverell had been raised with Vernon and Marge. He finally felt as if he understood his obese uncle and acholic pseudo-aunt. The Dursleys were one truly warped family.

But try as he might to focus on something else, anything else, his mind kept coming back to the feel of Naomi's cooling body in his arms.

To the moon and back again. Her last words to him.

He had no words to explain the pain he felt for her passing, no word strong enough for the growing rage in his heart.

He didn't want to simply kill Voldemort.

He wanted to destroy him. He wanted the bastard to suffer.

Narcissa was growing more disheartened by the minute.

Here she was, thinking they had such great chemistry together. And now they were on a date together and he hardly seemed to see her.

He barely spoke to her.

She couldn't think of what she had done wrong, and it wasn't until Teddy started peppering his father with excited questions about the dragons on the grounds that she realized that whatever was up with Rell, had nothing to do with her at all.

"Daddy?" Teddy whined, pulling on his father's hand with his whole body.

Rell looked up as if he were coming out of deep waters, his voice was a bit rough when he asked, "What is it, Teddy?"

"Dragons."

Rell blinked down at him, then looked over at the dragons. He turned a real smile on her then, and she caught her breath, seeing the spark of mischief in the wizard's emerald eyes.

He held out his hand to her which she had released some time ago, "Interested in meeting some scaly friends?"

She couldn't tell if he was making fun of her or not, but he had been so off today that she didn't question it. Taking his hand, she allowed herself to relish the feel of his calloused hands.

A Peruvian Vipertooth and Common Welsh Green were passing back and forth in their cages.

"Greetings, dragons," Harry hissed at them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Narcissa roll her eyes.

Teddy waited with bated breath, he nearly vibrated with anticipation.

Both the dragons halted their pacing, turning their heads around to look at Harry with large slited gem coloured eyes.

"Speaker," they said together. Like with Simon, Harry noticed that each dragon had a discernable accent.

"My name is Harry, this is my son, Teddy, and this is Narcissa Black," he said, their names transformed into something sibilant and foreign. Sure, they could have understand the English, but the more he used this speech the more comfortable it was to use it completely.

"I am Strider," the Peruvian Vipertooth said.

And the Common Welsh Green said, "I am Melvin."

Had Harry been feeling better, he would have laughed out loud, but keeping his cool, he said to Teddy in all seriousness, "Their names are Strider and Melvin, they are pleased to meet you."

"No," Strider corrected politely, "we would be pleased to eat you."

Harry conveyed the message, "Or eat you."

Teddy giggled like a mad man, then started having Harry translate questions of where the dragons were from, if they had families, and how many people they had eaten.

Narcissa watched it all with an amused smiled, but her eyes were cold, distant.

Harry had been too aloof, their date had fallen rather short of what it could have been, and it was his fault.

The dragons for their part were happy to speak to a wizard, and though they answered Teddy's questions, they also described to Harry in great detail how they would like to roast and eat him. Piece by charred piece.

Harry thought it amusing, after the mother Horntail and the Basilisk, not much phased him with reptiles.

Narcissa was growing quite bored with their game, though Rell seemed to grow ever more amused with himself.

Men.

His hissing at the dragons was raising the hair on her arms, or maybe that was the hungry way the dragons eyed them, their mouths slightly parted.

Finally, Harry said his sibilant goodbyes to the beasts, and convinced Teddy to move on.

Teddy dragged them over next to the serpents. Serpents that were for sale and the shopkeepers allowed him to hold.

Rell began to hiss at them too, and when the snakes looked at him, flicking their tongues at him, Narcissa put two and two together.

"You're a Parselmouth?" she asked far too sharply, far too loudly.

Every witch and wizard in hearing vicinity whipped their heads around to stare at them.

She saw her mistake in the tightening of his lips, but when he spoke he wasn't upset with her.

"Of course, did you think I spending the better part of an hour making random noises at hungry human-eating dragons?"

She blushed, "I thought it was for Teddy's benefit."

He bent to kiss her cheek. "It was," he said kindly.

She felt her flush deepen. Damn him, he had been an ass all morning, and yet he could so easily unbalance her.

The shop keepers became quickly enamoured of Rell. He ended up having to tell all the shop keepers about how the snakes felt about their living conditions -and breeding conditions. He ended up being so helpful that one Rell showed a liking to a beautiful black and white California Kingsnake, the storekeeper gifted it to him.

Rell still paid for an enclosure and food, but he got a good deal on it. "I suppose I needed a familiar," he told Narcissa.

She just nodded, she didn't know what to do with him, one moment he was brooding and sombre, the next he was the flirtatious family man she had the hots for. She could hardly keep up, and she no longer knew if she wanted to.

She was still trying to wrap her head around him being a Peverell as well as being related to Salazar Slytherin. Well, he wasn't necessarily related to the Slytherin line, but it is doubtless what everyone would believe. She couldn't help thinking what other secrets he was hiding.

When he suggested they return to Hogwarts for lunch she hadn't argued.

She couldn't classify this date as a resounding failure, but neither could she pretend it was a success.

In the way of Hogwarts and the larger wizarding world in general, everyone knew by dinnertime that Professor Peverell was a Parselmouth.

"He would have been a Slytherin," James said, disgusted at their table.

Sirius shrugged, "Yeah, but he wasn't."

Remus was staring up at his uncle, frowning, something was off about him today.

Other Gryffindors were having similar reactions to the news, and even some of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had a strain of wariness running through them. Though their houses weren't as prone to dislike Slytherins on principal, few would argue that speaking Parseltongue was a Dark Art.

And he was supposed to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

The Slytherins, were not as quick to believe the rumours, and when everyone had settled into their meals, Montague stood up from the Slytherin table and called out to the head table, "Professor Peverell?"

The handsome professor turned to look at the standing Slytherin student and asked, "Yes, Mr. Montague?"

Whispers burst across the hall, and the boy asked, "Are you really a Parselmouth?"

The room fell silent.

"Yes," the professor said without hesitation.

One of the other Slytherins exclaimed, "Ha! He's one of us!"

And the room burst into sound.

Professor Rell for his part rolled his eyes and returned to the conversation he was having with Professor Flitwick.

Among those most disturbed by this revelation, was none other than Albus Dumbledore.

The week that passed, Harry settled into himself, both Harry Potter and Harry Peverell, two lives, one person, one soul. Teddy, well Teddy was Teddy. And since he was so young, too young to remember Nymphadora and Remus as parents, Harry decided to keep with the stories of Naomi. He would tell Teddy the full truth once Harry himself had a better explanation, or when or rather if Teddy somehow ended up with duel memories as well.

As Harry figured it, Remus was still Teddy's family, and Teddy would also go to school at the same time as Nymphadora. It wasn't as if he were keeping his son from the other half of himself.

And also, it simply felt right to tell Teddy about Naomi. Neither Harry nor Naomi Peverell had ever willingly left Teddy.

It was in the telling his son about how he came to be named Teddy, that Teddy decided on a name for Harry's familiar, Roosevelt. Though as the little serpent was a girl, they ended up calling the Kingsnake Rosie.

She approved of this name, and she was very pleased to belong to a human who could 'understand' her, read, take orders.

At the end of the week, Horace Slughorn invited Harry over for a drink in his private study. Harry, instead, invited Horace over to his apartment so Teddy could sleep as they chatted.

The man seemed as eager to 'collect' Harry as he had been when Harry was the Boy Who Lived.

"A Parselmouth, my boy, do you have any idea how rare that is?"

Harry nodded. He almost regretted that bit of information getting out, and its resulting drama. But the unforeseen benefit was that the Slytherin students had started to soften up around him, taking his instructions more seriously. Predictably, the Gryffindors, excluding Lily, Sirius, and Remus seemed to feel the opposite.

Harry was less perturbed by this, after all, he had almost been sorted into Slytherin once upon a time, and perhaps he was Slytherin enough to see the advantages an honorary 'Slytherin' status gave him. As most of Voldemort's followers were from Slytherin house, and as most of his followers were still in school, Harry was suddenly presented with the perfect opportunity to truly shift the tide away from the Dark Lord.

It was a dangerous game Harry had begun to entertain, he would have to be careful, ever so careful, to keep Teddy out of harm's way.

It would be safer to lure Voldemort out and execute him, then hunt down the Horcruxes. But death wasn't enough. Sure, it was the thing Voldemort feared most.

But Harry would be all too pleased to teach him a new fear.

Naomi had been afraid of the dark, Harry would ensure that Voldemort learned to fear his own shadow.

"You seem very far away this week," Horace said, then waved a placating hand, "forgive me if I'm being too bold. I'm just an old man."

Harry huffed a laugh, old man his butt. "Just thinking of my wife."

"Ah, yes!" Horace said merrily, "Naomi Lupin, she was one of my favourites, wonderful girl. Ravenclaw, through and through, I've never met anyone with quite the thirst for knowledge as her. We used, that is the staff, used to call her the Girl of Many Questions, or simply the Girl of Questions."

Harry couldn't help but smile at that, Teddy took after his mother in that way.

"I had such hopes for her, her future, but then the attack… I suppose lycanthropy is as great a burden as any."

Harry frowned, "She wasn't a werewolf. Greyback hurt her, he didn't transform her."

Surprise flashed across the man's round face, "Oh, but then, I'm sorry, my boy, it is just, she was dear to me, as she was to many of the staff here. Do you know why she lived in the muggle world? She was quite the skilled witch."

Harry shook his head, "No, but I would like to. I would very much like to know why Tom Riddle made of me a widower."

Horace paled, and took a swig from his drink. "Riddle? No, no that can't be right, Tom was-"

"Tom is a dark lord," Harry said, having no pity for the fool who had given Riddle the key to creating Horcruxes.

More soberly, Horace said, "He is a Parselmouth as well, you know."

"I know," Harry said.

Horace looked up to meet Harry's gaze. "You're a young man," he said with an unexpected intensity. "Handsome as well as powerful."

Harry raised a brow at this, beginning to worry the potions professor was about to make a come on to him.

"It matters," Horace said.

"What matters?" Harry asked, bewildered.

Horace waved a thick hand down at himself, "They aren't impressed with me, not these latest generations. And my students, Slytherins, purebloods, half-bloods, are coming up on hard times. The old money is drying up and good breeding isn't the same thing as talent or even hard work."

"And my looks 'matter' to that why?" Harry asked.

Horace said gravely, "Because they have no one to look up to. A lot of the muggleborns and half-bloods from other houses come from… hmm, let's say, comparatively stable homes. Upper class or no, Slytherins tend to be outcasts, students who've known hardships early. Good remodels… they don't have a lot of that. But you… you have an opportunity. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"

Harry sipped his drink before he said, "Yes, I understand, and I mean to help my students, all of my students."

Horace sighed, rubbing his temples, "I fear…"

"War?" Harry asked softly.

The potions professor nodded. "I'm sorry, by the way, for your loss. Naomi was an incredible girl."

Harry looked into his fireplace and asked, "What kind of questions did she ask?"

"Oh, all sorts," Horace laughed, his cheer returning, "And never a redundant question at that, she was sharp as a whip. Asking questions that even I had to research. Minerva and Filius would have debates over the types of questions she asked. We all took bets she would have become a magical theorist. Perhaps get a job at the Department of Mysteries, but she was a bit too wild, too free spirited to work for the government."

"Were their types of questions she would ask most often?"

"Magical Creatures," Horace said without hesitation, "She was obsessed with them. Mind you, not like Newt Scamander is. She wasn't a creature whisperer. I don't think she even had a familiar. But of the secrets and cultures of Magical Creatures, the ones with languages and magicks of their own, that's what really got her mind turning." He sighed regretfully, "Yet another reason the government would have been a poor placement for her."

Harry mulled that over, and his gut told him that the secrets Naomi had died for were of that nature.

After all, hadn't been goblins, centaurs, and unnamed others who had brought him together through space and time?

If you have been brought to this vault, you and your heir, the non-humans of our world have decided they would like to see some change. That's what Ignotus Peverell's note had said.

Harry sipped his drink, and somewhere in all this mystery, Voldemort was connected. Killing and torturing, to suppress information, to gain it. Was it such a stretch that Voldemort was somehow connected to the fates of the 'non-humans' of this world?

Harry thought it wasn't, thought that perhaps Dumbledore's obsession with Horcruxes was misplaced. Voldemort's wars had done far more damage to their world, to communities, human and non-human alike than pertained to the monster's immortality.

Secrets, so many, many secrets.

Whatever Naomi knew, he needed to learn, and whatever it was, he would be sure to make it the ruin of Tom Damned Riddle.