24

Chapter 24 - A Gamble

Hands, softer than he had been expecting, touched Harry's face, pulled back an eyelid, crept beneath his shirt, down to his chest, and felt his heart. He could feel the woman's fast breathing, her long hair tickled his face. He knew that she could feel the steady pounding of life against his ribs.

"Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?"

The whisper was barely audible; her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers.

"Yes," he breathed back.

He felt the hand on his chest contract; her nails pierced him. Then it was withdrawn. She had sat up.

"He is dead!" Narcissa Malfoy called to the watchers.

-The Deathly Hallows, JKR

Harry was pretty sure the nightmares Teddy were having, had everything to do with having two separate lives jumbling around his head. But they were growing less frequent and the ear aides that Teddy was now using had improved his moods tenfold.

Teddy was no longer as quiet or introverted as he had been.

True, he had a playdate with Nymphadora, Nym, almost every weekend. And to say Nym was loud was like calling a cannon blast quiet.

But nights like this, it was hard to feel that he had done everything right for his son.

"Daddy?" Teddy asked peeking his head out of the bathroom. Regina was weaving around his legs, purring like a motor, her way of begging for food. Well, the beginning of her begging, she usually gave them time enough to get out and brush their teeth before she started yowling. "Can I go into the Forbidden Forest today?"

"If Hagrid is going with, of course."

Teddy rolled his eyes, something he had learned from Nym, "Duh."

Duh, also being something he learned from his cousin.

Harry had to work to suppress a laugh and merely raised a brow at the tone.

Teddy grinned at him mischievously, ducking back into the bathroom to finish getting ready for the day.

It was Saturday and Hagrid had asked if he could take Teddy to train the young Thestrals.

Teddy would likely spend all day on the back of one of the older well-trained Thestrals as the younger ones tried either to goof off or prance around to impress their elders.

Harry used a charm to right his robes, before heading to the kitchen.

Narcissa wasn't out their room yet, but that was okay, she rarely slept in so Harry didn't go in to disturb her.

He shook Regina's food dish with refreshed cat kibble. Regina bolted out of the bathroom so fast she didn't have enough grab on the floor so she crashed into Harry's legs. He chuckled as she rubbed herself against his leg, shaking off her klutziness as if it had never happened.

Putting down the cat food, Regina went at as if she had never had food before in her life.

Teddy came bounding out of the bathroom, his cloak already on and his scarf haphazardly wrapped around his shoulders.

"Ready, Daddy!"

Harry put a finger to his lips, and knelt to fix his scarf.

"Is Momma Narcissa sleeping?" Teddy whispered.

"I think so," Harry whispered back.

A heavy knock came at the door.

Knowing who it was but checking the peephole anyway, Harry then opened the door for his old friend.

Hagrid grinned at them and opened his mouth to boom a greeting, but Teddy shushed him, "Shhhhh, Momma sleeping." Teddy took Hagrid's hand and led him away.

Hagrid's face was filled with light at this, waved goodbye to Harry.

Shaking his head, Harry shut the door and turned back into his apartment. Regina was on the table now, staring at him accusingly.

Harry narrowed his eyes on the feline, "What?"

She didn't blink.

Shrugging it off, Harry went to his and Narcissa's room and nearly jumped out of his skin when he found her waiting for him at his desk, rather than curled up asleep.

She looked beautiful as ever, hair tousled, her creme nightgown both covering and revealing, but there were shadows under her eyes.

Eyes the colour of dark storm clouds.

"Have you slept at all?" he asked.

"Atlantis," she answered.

He blinked, "What?"

She stood, her anger translating to ice and stiff back. It didn't matter that she was wearing a nightgown or that she was barefoot, she was nothing short of regal in that moment as she repeated slowly, "Atlantis."

"Atlantis?" he asked, "Narcissa, I don't kno-"

She dropped a fist down on his desk, "Don't play me for a fool, Peverell, you're looking for the Lost City of Atlantis."

"I am?" he asked, utterly bewildered, both by her mood and the topic. He had been trying to find a way to explain, a time to explain his past, pasts, without making himself sound like a whack job.

"Fuck you, Harry, I might not be in your power league, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid."

Causely, he stepped forward, "Of course you aren't, I've never thought that. Not ever."

"You're keeping things from me."

"I am."

A look of hurt passed over her face and it stabbed at him.

He reached out to her, touching her wrist lightly, but she jerked away, "I am not a little girl to be kept in the dark, if you are looking for something as old and as potentially dangerous as Atlantis, you should have told me."

"Narcissa, if we hadn't- alright, I can't say I would have told you sooner if we hadn't already been married, but I probably would have asked you to marry me before I told you about my past."

She raised a pale brow, "Told me you are courting death? Are you insane? Do you realize how many have wasted their lives away chasing fairytales? Why would you even bother, don't you have enough power? I've learned not to question the impossible with you, so I shall not question whether or not you discover it, but why Harry? What do you want out of Atlantis?"

"Narcissa, I don't know anything about Atlantis, that's not what I'm referring to. I-"

"Do not lie to me," she all but hissed at him.

She knelt to pick something off the ground and threw it on the table. He followed the track of Naomi's star, and where it landed.

His eyes went wide and he stepped closer to the desk to exam the scroll and the drawing. On a castle was the same star.

"That's Atlantis?" he asked, excitement and relief colouring his voice, finally a lead.

"Don't you dare play dumb with me."

"I'm not," he said, looking up to meet her gaze, "I haven't made it through all these books and scrolls yet. I picked them up from a seller that may or may not have been stealing tombs from the London Library."

He saw her resolve waver, and he waited.

Waited to see if she would give him a chance to speak or if she had already made her decisions.

"Why are you looking for Atlantis, Harry?"

"I wasn't," he touched the star, "I was looking for the origins of this symbol."

"Why?"

"Because this star was all that survived the fire. This the only thing I have Naomi's and I think she died for it."

"And what do you hope to find. If I tell you it is a symbol of Atlantis, that may be your first wife was looking for the origins of magic, is that enough for you?"

"No," he answered honestly.

"Then what would be enough? Where does this end?"

"Naomi was murdered for what she knew."

"Knowledge means nothing, it isn't what she knew that got her killed it was what she could have done with it. The Dark Arts," she sighed pulling her long hair back, "the darks is wild magic, but it is internal. It demands sacrifice, personal or otherwise. It comes at cost, it demands payment, and it roused by emotions. But you're messing with the Arcane, Harry, there are no rules, no guidelines, there will be no one to help you if something goes wrong. Naomi was killed because a dark lord feared, not what she knew, but what she could have become."

"And said Dark Lord has already tried to kill my son, you, and me. He succeeded in killing my parents and Naomi. Me knowing or not knowing makes no difference."

"Harry!" she exclaimed, "don't you see!? It can mean all the difference, you could set something into motion. You could change the course of history, destroy a future that should have been."

"Fuck the future!" he roared back, finally losing it. "Fuck Tom and Dumbledore both! The future? Do you have any idea how pathetic the future becomes? Granted, I've changed it already, there won't be a war, at least not because of Lord Voldemort. But our society is as broken as ever."

She looked taken aback, but rather than fear at his outburst, she looked intrigued, taking a step toward him. "What do you mean our society is broken?"

"Do you know Teddy has lycanthropy?"

She gaped at him.

"Hereditary, he hasn't shifted, not yet, but he could. It remains a possibility. I kept us as far from the Wizarding World as possible, because the 'future'," he made air quotes around the word, "our beautiful Merlin-damned future blamed the magical beasts and creatures for the discourse in Wizarding society. My son was seen as not a half-blood but a half-breed." He shook his head, "They rounded people up into cages, they starved dragons, they-" he broke off pulling the hair tie from his hair only to redo the ponytail. "Trust me, we aren't missing anything if we blow the course of history to Hell."

"You are talking about the future as if you're from it."

He met her gaze, "I am. My first name was Harry James Potter, son of Lily Evans and James Potter. Teddy, Theodore Lupin Peverell was originally Edward Remus Lupin, son of Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin. I went to school at Hogwarts in 1991 with your son Draco Malfoy. There were two wars between now and 1998, and I was the centre of all of it. By some trick of magic that I do not understand, Teddy and I were sent back in time to that night Bella found us on the streets."

Narcissa sat slowly back into his desk chair, "Everything you've ever told me is a li-"

"No!" he interceded, falling to his knees at her feet, he put a hand on the arm of the chair, careful not to touch her, "No, I haven't lie to you, but there is much I haven't said, haven't explained."

She laughed, the sound empty and expressing more pain than humour, "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"The only reason I haven't told you sooner is because the full story sounds insane and I still don't understand all of it, nor how any of it is possible."

"Try," she said drily.

"Where would you like me to start?"

"At the beginning."

"Which beginning?"

She gave him a frosty look, "You're a Potter, not a Peverell."

"I am a Peverell, Narcissa, I have two sets of memories. Genetically, Teddy has four parents."

She gave him a blank look, "Who do you consider yourself to be, Peverell or Potter?"

He shook his head, "I don't know anymore, Cissa, it was like I had a place holder in the past, and when I travelled back… it was like recovering from amnesia."

She frowned, "Our first date, when you had a nightmare of Naomi…"

"I remembered her. I suppose I'm more Potter than Peverell, because I took on Henry Peverell's memories while I always was Harry Potter."

"Then start with the Potters," she said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

His heart eased, she was giving him a chance. Maybe, just maybe, he could manage this without screwing it all up.

"Before I was born," he began.

"Surely you don't remember that far back?" she mocked, tone as icy as ever, but he knew she was teasing him.

He smiled, "No, I don't but it's relevant to the story."

"Your life is such a tale that starting point is your-"

"Do you want me to tell you or not?"

She smirked at him.

And smiling, he said, "There was a prophecy."

Her lips twitched, "Harry, if you are fucking with me I will cut you into a thousand little pieces, slowly, and with great precision."

"Quit sweet-talking me," he hushed her, placing a hand on her knee, and sitting back against the desk, still at her feet. "There was a prophecy. My parents were young, and they trusted the wrong people. It was a dark time, so they tell me, Voldemort and his followers were winning the war. This was theoretically good for purebloods, but in actuality, was only good for the one man. The prophecy seemed to the Dark Lord, as well as Albus Dumbledore, to indicate that I would become someone who could defeat the Dark Lord."

"So the Dark Lord decided to cut the weed at the root."

He nodded, "But it backfired, in a most literal sense." Pointing at his scar, he said, "Voldemort used the Killing Curse on my parents and I, but something my mother did, when he got to me the spell backfired. I went down in history as the only person to survive the Killing Curse, the Boy Who Lived. And that night the Dark Lord was defeated."

"Traumatizing," she said drily, "but you said there was a second war, also caused by Voldemort."

"He wasn't wholly defeated that night, his body was merely destroyed."

"That tends to kill most people."

"He made Horcruxes."

"Fool."

"Indeed, but it was a more than a hassle tracking them all down. There are many things I could tell you, but suffice it to say by my seventh year, we managed to defeat him, again."

"By we, do you mean Albus Dumbledore and his followers?"

"I was one of his followers, and Dumbledore convinced me to walk unharmed to my death before the Dark Lord. I survived the Killing Curse a second time, and in the process, the Horcrux Voldemort had unknowingly placed in my scare was destroyed."

"You were seventeen?" she asked.

"I was, and Teddy was my godson, Remus and Nymphadora died that same day. When the war ended my friends wanted me to return to school or pursue a career. I had a girlfriend at the time, but Teddy… I was an orphan, and my foster parents were horrid. I couldn't abandon him, it didn't matter that I was young, I knew I could help, and it felt good to be needed in some way, and not for my fame.

"Ted Tonks had also died in the war. So I moved in with Andromeda to help raise Teddy."

"Harry," Narcissa said in warning.

"Andromeda committed suicide a few months after that."

Narcissa closed her eyes, and Harry put his hands on her arms, she fell toward him. He stood, scooping her up in his arms and turning to sit in the chair with her in his lap. She curled into him.

"Where was I?"

"Lucius went to jail, you stayed with your son, he was in bad shape after the war."

"I wasn't there for my sisters," it wasn't a question.

"Bella became a Death Eater, and she spent nearly fourteen years in Azkaban, she didn't survive the second war, but arguably, she hadn't survived the first, not intact."

"Blacks stay together."

"Regulus became a Death Eater too, he died going against Voldemort. Bella murdered Sirius and Nymphadora."

"Andromeda?"

"Neither you nor Andromeda actively fought in the war, though you did spare my life at the end. Voldemort could have won, had you not decided that your son's future would be better if I lived. I owe you for that, and even though we were on opposing sides, I respected you more than almost anyone else I know."

"Because I helped you?"

"Plenty of people have helped me over the years, Narcissa, plenty of people have died helping me. But you gambled everything on a chance, knowing that your husband might be damned for it, knowing that you might be damned for it, knowing that I very well might have failed, but you took that gamble, on the off chance that your son might lead a better life."

"Did he?"

"He had lycanthropy."

"So it didn't matter what I did."

"It might have mattered a great deal to your possible grandchildren."

"We failed."

"We all failed."

"You were a child, you shouldn't have been fighting in a damned war."

"That war was fought on Hogwarts's soil."

"What is it like being back here?"

"Hogwarts was my first home."

"That's not an answer."

"It hurts, I would like to move out sooner rather than later. But I enjoy teaching. I like being able… I like having a chance to speak to the people who threw away their lives for nothing. They deserved better."

She trailed a hand up his chest, resting her hand over his pounding heart, "I love you."

He kissed her forehead, "I love you too."

"How did you get to the past?"

"I moved to the muggle world, the fame and the prejudices… it didn't exactly quiet down after the war. But one day Teddy and I went to London. At Gringotts, the goblins brought us down to the Ignotus Peverell's vault. Whether or not I am a Peverell, I am certainly a descendant."

The grey of her eyes warmed to a grey-blue, "What was in the vault?" Her curiosity was ill-disguised.

"Dust."

"Just dust?"

"Mounds and mounds of pixie dust."

"You're joking."

"Nope."

"What happened?"

"Teddy sneezed."

"You time travelled on a child's sneeze?" she sounded incredulous.

"It gets better, the goblins gave us our new names, a loan, and kicked us out."

"A loan? The goblins do not give out loans, not lightly."

"Don't worry, I paid them back, in full."

She narrowed her gaze, "You wouldn't happen to have anything to do with a certain dragon?"

Harry smiled at her, "His name is Simon, and it was technically the second time I freed him."

"Harry!"

"They wouldn't let me open a vault, they left me with nothing. I had money, Narcissa. And I grew up poor, I will not let my son go hungry and I resent having to go to the Lupins for charity and to Albus Fucking Dumbledore for advance pay."

She shook her head, "How… And I need to speak with the goblins, but how..." she frowned, "Did they know about the pixie dust?"

"Oh they knew, or at least they knew something. Ignotus Peverell left me a note, a note to his descendant."

"What did it say?"

"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. Around you sits a donation from my friends, friends so magical their dust has the power to undo the laws of time as well as those of reality. I am afraid there will be no way back, but I hope that will be more a blessing than a burden.

"Do better than those who came before you.

Signed by: Ignotus Peverell"

"Asshole," Narcissa said with feeling.

"Right?"

"Non-humans… that implies more than pixies and goblins."

"The centaurs are in on it too."

"Of course they are, Harry, what did you fall into?"

"I have no idea. One day I'm Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived, Teddy's godfather. But then Teddy started referring to Naomi instead of Nymphadora as 'mommy' and there was this picture of us together, and then I started to remember. And now? Now, I couldn't tell you who is more real. Naomi was real to me, Teddy is my son, I am a widower, I never went to Hogwarts, I taught myself magic from an old trunk left behind by deceased parents. The man that was Harry Potter's uncle was Harry Peverell's foster cousin. I became a librarian. Those years are real."

"What happened to your parents, not Lily and James Potter but-"

"Mr. and Mrs. Peverell? And no, I have no idea what their first names were, and this is where it gets weird."

"I'm sorry, this is where it gets weird? My love, you jumped off the deep end a while back."

He kissed the tip of her nose, because he could, because she hadn't run screaming, or cursed him into cinders.

"Mr. and Mrs. Peverell looked exactly like Lily and James in their twenties, and Lily and James, that 'attack' they underwent a few months ago, they remember Voldemort killing them."

Her eyes widened, "They remembered the future?"

"No, they remembered the Peverells who must have existed before either of them were born. And I can't find any record of Mr. or Mrs. Peverells before their recorded deaths."

"Excuse me?"

"Their bodies were found, Cissa, that's it. They were real, the Dursleys, my foster family, remember me, Lyall remembers Naomi as do her teachers. They were all real people. But the Peverells? Voldemort knew of them, because he went out of his way to murder them while I hid in a cupboard. Unlike Harry Potter, Voldemort was after them, not their child. And the only other two people who have any connection to the Peverells, aside from Voldemort and myself, are young Lily Evans and James Potter, and only from that nightmare. A nightmare where the remember hiding their son and being tortured to death."

"And Dumbledore?"

"They are on the Hogwarts' list, but nobody remembers them coming to school, no one has ever met them. There are no letters, no photographs, no nothing. Just their listed deaths, and a trunk that went up in flames with the house that burned down after I returned from Gringotts."

She blinked at him, "That doesn't make any sense. And how did the fire start? That was well after Naomi's death, correct?"

"Correct, and no, none of it does really. The fire is one of a million threads I can't tie. How can I be two people? How can Teddy? Ted Tonks did his chart, he is biologically my son and he is also Remus Lupin's son. It goes on, he is simultaneously related."

"Ignotus said that the dust could alter reality. Harry, if this is non-human magic… the possibilities are almost endless. Wizard magic is held in the highest esteem. But we went to war with the goblins, we kept the other races from having wands."

"I know."

"And you're looking for Atlantis?"

"Apparently?" He sighed, "Narcissa, I don't really know what I'm doing."

"You have the power to kill Voldemort."

He snorted, "Yes, I do. But I don't want him dead."

"You are crazy."

"Most probably. But I want revenge. I want to bring him down to his knees. Whatever Naomi was into he didn't want to happen. So I am going to make happen."

"And the consequences?"

"I have suffered the consequences all my life for both the things I did and for the things I didn't do."

"And if you are just being used by a higher power?" she asked gently.

He brought his hand up to her cheek, "Do you mean by fate, Ignotus Peverell, or the non-humans?"

"Any of them."

He brought his face down to hers, "They led me to you, Narcissa."

She cupped his face in her hands.

The feel of her skin...

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply as she whispered against his lips, "I should hex you for that sap."

"Have I told you how soft your skin is?"

"Am I beautiful when I'm older?"

His eyes flashed open and he smiled down into her lovely face, "You are beautiful, and you always will be."

He kissed her deeply and rejoiced when she kissed him back.

When they parted he asked, "So, do you prefer, Mrs. Peverell or Mrs. Potter?"

"Mrs. Peverell, I am not calling little Jamie my father-in-law, I don't care what the charts say."

He lifted her in his arms as he stood, "I'm not exactly calling him dad either."

"The note said there's no way for you to get back."

"I don't want to go back to that half-life. Especially now that I have you."

"If you hadn't intervened in Bella's life, I would have married Lucius."

"As I said, fuck the future." He laid her down on their bed, "Did you sleep at all last night?"

"No," she said, "but I don't need sleep right now, husband."

She pulled him down on top of her.

He went gladly.