Fic: Making Choices (part two) - Wincest - NC-17

[gestaltrose]

Life is the sum of all your choices ~Albert Camus
Late August 1995
Dean is 16 and a half
Harry has just turned 15
Sam is 13 just that May

Harry loved his new family. Sometimes he would think about the Dursleys and he would feel guilty that he didn’t miss them at all. They were his family after all, wasn’t he supposed to miss them? Sam and Dean, although Dean never talked about it, both missed their mom. But they had also grown up with stories of how kind and beautiful she was. All Harry had ever been told of his family was that his Mom was a bitch and a slut and his Dad was a drunk and that they had died in a car accident. Now that he knew about magic, sometimes he wondered if his parents had been magical, too. That would go a long way to explain why the Dursleys were such pricks to him. They always hated anything different and if they had known about the magic . . .

Now he had a dad and two brothers, not an aunt and uncle who hated him. Harry remembered that the Dursleys hadn’t wanted to bring him to the United States with them. Uncle Vernon had been pleased when he won the trip but they couldn’t find a sitter to watch him for the three weeks that they would be here, his uncle unhappily agreed to bring him along. Harry couldn’t even remember being excited about it, the whole trip had been hedged in by rules and Dudley that he hadn’t enjoyed it at all.

But then those scary fucking people with the wands, he now understood, had come and killed everyone. They had tried to kill him but somehow Dad had come in and saved him. His scar, the one that had bled when he had been attacked by the green light, was a curse scar, Nana said. It connected him to the person who had given it to him in the first place.

Last week Nana had made arraignments for Harry and Sam to buy their wands. They had been practicing up to that point with some spare wands that Nana had. Nana had spoken with Dad and they had an argument. Harry had tried not to overhear but they were so loud that he couldn’t help it.

“He is a Winchester. I will pay,” Dad said.

“Don’t be blind as well as stubborn, John. Harry has money and you will be paying enough for Sam. It was put away just for things like this. It is what his parents wanted.” Harry wasn’t sure how Nana knew he had been adopted but he listened careful when she spoke about his parents. Nana was trying for reasonable, Harry could tell.

“Yeah, well, what they wanted almost got him killed. What if they can trace it?”

“I know goblins. Trust me, they can’t trace it. I give you my word.”

Harry held his breath waiting for Dad to answer. “Fine,” he finally snapped out. “But I pay for Sam.”

“Of course,” Nana said.

So Nana, Harry and Sam had flooed to the closest Wizarding center. Harry wasn’t even sure where the hell Checkmate Alley was, just that it was in the United States. Everyone recognized Nana but nobody paid any attention to the two boys she was leading around. Both Harry and Sam had on matching stocking caps because it was cold and Nana said that Harry was recognizable by his scar. Sam asked if Harry was famous then and Nana said, yes, in a way.

She led them first to a bank. A branch of Gringotts bank in Great Britain, Nana had told them. She spoke with a small goblin and they had asked for verification. Harry had to follow the goblin to a room where he inspected Harry’s scar and then tested his blood. Nodding at the results, he had led Harry back out to Bishee. They called him Mr. Potter and he spoke up. He was a Winchester now, thank you. They changed the name on the account and gave him some weird money. Nana said it was Wizarding money and then she exchanged money that John had given her for the same coins.

They went on the oddest shopping trip he’d ever been on, getting caldrons and robes for doing potions in, then they paused outside the animal emporium. Nana said that often children got familiars but they were not required and she didn’t think that the Impala would be the best place to raise a cat or an owl. Harry stared for a moment but then Sam was urging him on. They stopped outside a broommaker’s shop and Nana told them they would just have to make do with the old things she had for now. Harry had to drag Sam away from the racing broom display.

Finally they got to the wandmaker’s shop and both Harry and Sam stepped in cautiously. The place was filled with power. An old man stepped out of the back of the shop. He muttered and mumbled before he pulled a box off of a shelf.

“Black Walnut, ten and half inches, with Unicorn hair for the core,” he said and handed it to Harry. To him it felt odd, he tried a spell and was nearly thrown across the room.

“Nope,” the guy said and then he handed it to Sam.

Harry saw what happened when the wand and the user matched up. Sam and the wand both glowed, his aura visible to Harry. It looked like a rainbow twisting upon itself. The man nodded and exchanged a look with Nana that Sam missed but Harry saw. He puttered around in the back bringing Harry another couple of wands to try. Finally he made a phone call. Harry listened and the exchange was very cryptic but he understood that the guy on the other end was sending over a wand.

Moments later the fireplace flared green and out popped a box.

“Let’s try this,” the old man said.

Harry picked up the wand hesitantly. It felt almost like coming home. The wand seemed more like an extension of his arm than something separate. He assumed from Sam’s gasp that the wand and he were glowing as Sam had. “Holly, eleven inches with phoenix feather for the core.”

Nana’s head whipped around and the old man nodded. “Yeah, odd isn’t it. Brother to the one that gave you that scar,” he said, pointing to Harry’s forehead. Harry looked at Nana and back at the old man.

“What . . .?”

“I’ll tell you when we get home,” she interrupted him.

He wanted to yell at her that he wanted to know now. However, he and Sam had both learned that yelling never got them anything, so he bit his tongue and waited.

When they got home Nana Bishee had showed him newspaper clippings from the UK and told him that they were about him and his family. His mom and dad, the ones he didn’t remember, James and Lily Potter.

She told him the story of Voldemort. That he used to be Tom Riddle. That he wanted power more than anything. A lot of the way he was, was due to him growing up in an orphanage. Harry wondered where Nana Bishee found out her information but everything else she had ever told him was true so he didn’t doubt her. Tom was used to struggling for everything; Harry could relate. When he had been with the Dursleys he had to struggle for a lot of things.

But Tom did things that Harry would never do. He sought power and when he couldn’t just get it, he took it. Nana said that there were parallels between Tom and Hitler. Harry knew about Hitler from his history classes at school. Apparently both had been very persuasive speakers and both had distracted the main group of supporters from their power grab by finding a common enemy. For Hitler it had been the Jews, and then, slowly, anyone else that was a threat to him. For Tom it had been Muggles and then Muggleborns.

Tom didn’t make it far enough to take over the ‘Magical World’, or even part of it. But he did have a strong following of people. His main group of supporters was called Death Eaters, which Harry thought was a strange name, but then Sam pointed out that Hitler had his SS. Tom thought that ‘blood purity’ was everything and he tried through terror tactics to scare the Muggleborns out of the Wizarding World.

Nana explained about Muggles, Muggleborns, Half-Bloods, and Pure Bloods and it sounded very stupid to Harry. Nana Bishee agreed. All prejudice was stupid and usually it ended up biting you in the ass. Teaching him about magic, Nana explained that it didn’t make him better than someone who couldn’t do it. Harry agreed, because Dean and his Dad didn’t have magic and they were the best.

Dean was their protector. Nana said that he had always been Sam’s but once Harry was a part of the family, then he became Harry’s, too. Listening to Nana teach Dean was always interesting. She taught him about how to avoid curses and what could be used to reflect them back at their caster. Iron neutralized most spells cast and if he broke the spellcaster’s wand or hands, then they were usually helpless. Most classically taught wizards couldn’t cast without a wand in their hand and it almost always had to be their wand as opposed to someone else’s.

Learning how to fight against wizards, Harry watched Dean closely. Dad had them sparring against each other all the time. But this was different. Dean picked it up quickly and then soon he was teaching Sam and Harry how to fight like that, too.

Harry was small for his age. Dad figured that he always would be because of the neglect he had suffered as a child. Sam at thirteen was taller than him already but Dad said that small and fast was just as good. Uncle Bobby had agreed and they’d proved to him it was true.

Over a month later Harry had a different problem and he wasn’t sure who to talk to about it. Nana Bishee was the one who figured out that something was wrong and talked to him about it.

“It’s okay, you know,” she spoke quietly to him. Sam and Dean were outside sparring and Harry and Nana were inside watching them out the window. They stood there beside one another for a while.

“What is?”

She gave Harry a look that said a lot of things. “That you like boys. Even that you like those boys.” She nodded out the window at Sam and Dean.

Harry’s head whipped around so fast his neck popped and for a moment he felt dizzy. “But . . . I . . .”

“You haven’t lied to me in all the time we’ve know each other. You gonna start now? I am neither blind nor an idiot; please don’t treat me as such.” Her mouth was a stern line across her face. She raised an eyebrow as she waited for him to answer.

He shut his mouth and looked back out just as Dean stripped out of his shirt. His breath caught in his throat and his stomach started churning. Feeling sick, he looked at the wood grain of the floorboards. “It’s wrong. I’m wrong.”

Nana hit Harry on the back of the head. “I beat that nonsense out of my own kids and I will beat it out of you. You are the way you are. That is not wrong.”

“But,” Harry tried to explain while reaching up to fix his glasses that Nana had knocked loose.

“They’re your family. Yes, sir, I know that. I also know John Winchester and how he raised those boys and how he’s been raising you.”

“He never,” Harry said, defending his dad. The man had never tried to do what Nana was suggesting he had. He had never touched them or even looked at them like he wanted to.

“I know that,” Nana said abruptly. “You think I would have let you stay, let them stay with him,” she pointed her chin out the window at Sam and Dean, “if he was?” Shaking her head, she spoke on. “You boys only have each other. Yeah, there might be an occasional fling or something but it is never going to be anything lasting because of what you fight. Even a witch or wizard would have problems with demons and poltergeists and those who don’t know anything . . . well, let me tell you, if you get them to believe it’s real, they will run.” Nana gave him a small smile that told him she was talking from experience.

“It will always come back to you boys. John has been pushing you all together, forcing you to rely only on each other. Well, it doesn’t surprise me that, if you leaned that way, that you are attracted to them. They are very handsome. Even I can see what Sam will grow into and Dean, well, he’s already a heart breaker.” Nana Bishee stopped and looked out at Sam and Dean.

“You know it’s mutual, right?” she asked him and he looked up in surprise. She nodded. “They don’t know that I know but they watch you and each other a lot; always looking away when the other looks at them. I laugh about you boys all the time,” Nana said. “I wouldn’t be saying anything if it wasn’t heading down the road to a tragedy of Greek proportions. You have the best chance of understanding what I am telling you.”

Harry started to defend his brothers.

“Oh, I know they would hear me if I talked to them but they would be too embarrassed and ashamed to admit what I was saying was true. You can. Tell me, why do you think incest is against the law?” Bishee didn’t mess around but got right into the dirty stuff that Harry had been avoiding thinking about.

She had asked him a question. All questions from Bishee were a lesson, so Harry thought about it for a while, all the time keeping an eye on Sam and Dean sparring in front of him. Trying not to think about Dean’s flat stomach or Sam’s newly developing line of hair that led from his belly button, lower. Watching as they tumbled and rolled on the ground, he gave up.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“How about this,” Nana said. “What happened last summer when the Banty rooster got in with my hens and how did I know that he’d been in there?” She gave him a small encouraging smile.

“Half the eggs didn’t hatch and some of what was born was deformed,” Harry said, remembering having to help Nana get rid of them

Nana nodded and Harry thought. “The Banty was closely related to the hens. The deformities were because of recessives that came out.” He had paid attention in biology, trying to get a handle on why some people had magic and some people didn’t. “The main reason it’s,” he just couldn’t say incest, “against the law is because of recessives.”

Bishee grinned at him like he was her best student ever. “Yes. Basically. It makes sense, for a species, to not want inbreeding because of recessives. So, our species has made a societal norm that incest is wrong.”

“Societal? So other societies think it’s okay?”

“All societies have rules against incest. How it is defined changes with the society. With some, your lineage is matrilineal and anyone from your father’s side of the family, even your father, is fair game but your mother’s brother would never even be considered. With others, it’s a matter of degree. Fathers and brothers are out but first cousins are okay. With others it has to do with what group you belong to. Let’s say you were born into the ‘sky’ group because your father was a ‘sky’. Anyone from another group would be available, even your sister, as long as she wasn’t ‘sky’. But all rules on incest come back to reproduction. Can you have a baby?”

Harry looked at her incredulously. “No.”

“Can they?” She nodded out the window at his brothers.

“No,” Harry said and Nana Bishee got up and walked into her kitchen, leaving Harry with his thoughts.

Harry was very quiet at dinner. Noticing, Sam and Dean obviously thought he was sad because Dad had missed his birthday a few days earlier. So they tried to cheer him up until Nana said Harry had some things to think about and they were supposed to leave him alone.

Dean slipped into his room later that night. Sitting up, Harry fumbled for the light and Dean laughed at him. Quietly reminding him of his Lumos spell, Dean was sitting on the end of Harry’s bed by the time Harry said the spell. Nana was teaching them how to do spells with wands and without. Harry flushed as he got a good look at Dean. Hoping that Dean would think he was embarrassed about the spell, he looked down. But not before the image of Dean, clad only in his pajama bottoms, was burned on his retina.

“Ummm.” Harry fumbled for something subtle and nonchalant to say. “Nice job today.” Harry smiled, that was good.

“I’m worried about you,” Dean said. “What’s going on?”

Harry pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “Nothing.”

Dean snorted. Sometimes Dean lorded it over Sam and Harry about how he was the eldest, about how he was their protector, and sometimes both he and Sam wanted to kill Dean. Dean opened his mouth and Harry glared at him. Raising his hands, Dean started to get up, but then he stopped and Harry found himself on the receiving end of a glare. What had he done now?

“This isn’t about them, is it?”

“What?” Harry asked.

“About you thinking you’re worthless or weird.”

The Dursleys were about as far as you could get from where Harry’s thoughts had been, but he said, “I am weird.”

Dean reached over and grabbed Harry’s upper arms. Looking straight into Harry’s eyes, he said very slowly, “No you are not.”

Harry let go of his knees and slid his legs sideways. With Dean’s hands still on his upper arms, he leaned in and pressed his lips against Dean’s. It wasn’t the best kiss in history, nor the worst, but dry and mostly impersonal. Harry leaned back and looked into Dean’s eyes and then he looked down at the quilted coverlet that was on the bed.

“I am,” he whispered.

Dean sat there with his hands still wrapped around Harry’s arms. Harry could feel his fingers where they pressed into his skin. He didn’t pull away from Harry, he just sat there and Harry tried to decipher the look on his face. “Sorry,” Harry said and started to pull out of Dean’s grasp.

“I . . .” Dean gripped Harry a little tighter and pulled him closer. “God, help me. So am I,” Dean said and leaned in to kiss Harry. It was slow and he showed Harry how to move his lips and then he bit on Harry’s bottom one and Harry moaned. When his mouth opened, Dean claimed it. Dean claimed him. Tongues touched and twirled around each other. They kissed and kissed some more until Harry was lying on top of Dean with Dean’s arms wrapped around him.

“I wanna, I’m gonna,” Harry said, talking into Dean’s neck as he pushed his hard on against Dean’s, relieved to find out that Dean was just as turned on as he was. He didn’t want to just come in his underwear but he knew he wasn’t going to last long.

“It’s okay, just do it,” Dean said and latched on to Harry’s shoulder with his mouth. With a soft moan, Harry pushed against Dean a few more times before he felt his balls tighten and then he came with a gasp. Dean quickly followed, pushing up and coming, too. They lay there, Harry’s face buried in Dean’s neck and their come cooling between them.

Harry pushed up and looked down into Dean’s face, checking to make sure that they were okay. Dean smirked up at him.

“Well, magic boy, you got some way of cleaning us up?”

Thinking about it, Harry did a cleaning spell and a wave of warmth washed over him. Dean, too, if his expression was any hint. “How’s that?”

“Good,” Dean said. “I like magic sometimes.”

Harry crawled off of his brother. “Sometimes, so do I.” Dean got up and leaned over him, giving him another kiss before slipping back out of the room. Harry lay on his bed staring at the ceiling for a long time before murmuring, “Nox,” and plunging the room back into darkness.

A week later Harry was in town catching a movie, by himself, when he was approached by a tall blonde man. “Harry?” the man said in a familiar accent. “I’ve word of your godfather.”

Godfather? Harry was distracted enough that the man closed in on him and, grabbing a hold of his jacket, shoved something into Harry’s hands and said a word. Suddenly, Harry felt as if a hook was shoved into his stomach and he was pulled somewhere. Portkey, he thought. Nana had explained about Portkeys and Apparation but this was going on forever. He landed abruptly on some grass. That was all he could see with his face a few inches from the ground and he gave his stomach a moment to settle before he turned over settling his glasses on his face.

He looked up and found himself surrounded by a bunch of people in masks. Thinking quickly, like he’d been taught, he looked confused and spoke in the deepest southern drawl that he could. “What the hell?” He tried to distract his captors until he could figure out a way to get out of here.

“Lucius.” A small rodent looking man spoke to the blond who had shoved the Portkey into his hands. Wait, if he could just get his hands on that thing, it should take him back home. Covertly he looked around, trying to spot it. Just as Harry thought he found it, someone cast a body bind on him and he fell to the ground, immediately trying to do the counter spell.

Looking up at the rat man, the blonde, Lucius, spoke quietly. “Your information was correct. The mutt did your job for you. Potter was easy enough to find after following that thing. Poor Potter,” Lucius looked back down at him, “he almost met his godfather. It’s really too bad, considering he escaped from Azkaban just to try and save him. Well, that, and kill you.” Lucius looked at the man like he actually was a rodent.

Stepping closer Lucius lifted his hair off his forehead. As Harry’s scar was revealed, there was an audible sigh that went around the circle of people. “Potter,” the man spat.

“No,” Harry said, still stalling and trying to get loose. “I’m a Winchester, and you people don’t know who you are fucking with. My dad . . .” Harry started to get angry but he was interrupted.

“Your father is dead. Just as you will soon be. But first . . .” He levitated Harry up and the rat man was messing with a cauldron. “Pettigrew, get on with it.” Lucius gestured with his wand and Harry’s arm fell free. The rat man took a silver knife and sliced his arm open, fairly deep. Blood ran down his arm and dripped off of his fingers into the cauldron.

For a moment Harry was dumbfounded. His father was dead? They had killed John? Then his brain caught up with him. Potter, they said Potter. He knew that James and Lily were dead. Nana had told him. They didn’t know about John or Dean or Sam.

“Blood of an enemy,” the rat man said and Harry thought to himself that he hadn’t been anyone’s enemy but he sure the hell was now.

Everyone stepped back as the cauldron began to bubble and out of it the rat man, Pettigrew (Harry was trying to remember names) pulled an ugly, deformed thing, like a sickly baby that grew at an amazing rate. Almost like a piece of origami unfolding, the thing grew into a bald, ill-looking man with red eyes.

“Harry Potter.” The man didn’t seem to be discomforted by his ‘spawning’.

“For the last fucking time, I am a Winchester and all of you are in trouble. And you,” he looked at the bald creature, “are dead.” Still in the body bind, he worked at getting free.

“Pet?” the man spoke to someone behind him. Feeling a pressure on his legs that slowly moved up his body, he desperately wanted to be free so he could see what it was. It was talking as it moved. Harry could hear it.

“It’s scared, and angry,” the voice said as it moved into sight. Nana had told him that he was an íaxassee speaker, or snake speaker, when he had told her of hearing voices outside in the grass. She had proved it to him by bringing him a small garter snake and he had ended up chatting with it at length while Sam and Dean sat and stared at him. When they explained that he had been hissing at the snake, Harry had trouble believing his brothers but they had insisted and Nana had backed them up. Harry told them it sounded just like English to him and they had given him their best ‘whatever’ look.

However, this snake was huge. He could feel its weight all over his body and he wondered if he was going to be constricted to death. Or maybe bitten, as he got a good look at its teeth. “It smells like Potter,” the thing hissed in his face. “It smells like magic and sex, too.”

The bald man was watching him closely. Harry flushed a little when the snake said he smelled like sex and the bald man smirked at him. “You understand Nagini; you are Potter.” Harry shook his head and coughed to cover his hand getting free. They hadn’t bound it down so tight after they had cut him.

“I don’t understand anything,” Harry said.

“It’s lying,” the snake said and Harry wanted nothing more than to kill the stupid thing. “It’s excited.”

“You should consider joining me, Harry. We are similar, you and I.” The bald man moved in front of him and looked him in the eyes. Nana had told them of people who could read your mind and how to stop them. Harry felt his mind being invaded so he imagined the grossest things he could. Maggots on a buffalo calf that they had found still walking but blind. Nana Bishee had made Dean kill it, saying that sometimes killing is a mercy for everyone. Harry had puked chunks of his dinner after he watched Dean slit the calf’s throat.

He could feel the man’s frustration as he couldn’t get any further. “Crucio,” the man said and Harry was overwhelmed by the most excruciating pain. It felt as if his muscles were going to peel off of his bones or snap them like twigs as they bunched under his skin. The man stopped the spell and tried again to get past Harry’s defenses.

Harry could feel his resistance weakening and the man got past them after another round of torture by that curse. Dad, Dean, Sam, demons, ghosts, and Nana Bishee; after he saw her, he retreated out of Harry’s mind and Harry held his hand out to where he thought the Portkey was. “Accio,” he called out and felt something slap into his hand. Just as the man yelled, he was pulled sideways with the hook-in-the-stomach feeling again.

Landing on the sidewalk outside the movie theater, Dean, Sam and Nana were there and Harry didn’t even wonder why. They all helped him up and as he tried to babble they shushed him and got him into Nana’s old truck. Getting back to her place, Nana called in the medicine man who helped the tribe. While they waited, she questioned Harry.

He described what happened with the blond man called Lucius, the rat face man called Pettigrew and cutting his arm. Dean had already bandaged up his arm where it had been sliced open. Harry just stared at the white cotton and described what had happened next. Nana took a deep breath in as he spoke of the thing in the cauldron that turned into a man. His head started to ache, throbbing where his curse scar was.

Hanging his head in shame, he spoke of being cursed and how the bald man had gotten past his defenses. Nana Bishee patted his hand and did a quick scan of him. “You’re in pain,” she said. Nodding as the pain behind his eyes was growing exponentially, Harry quickly told them about getting free and getting the Portkey so he could come back. Nana nodded and patted him again.

Luke Johnson, the medicine man, showed up and Nana Bishee told Luke what had happened to Harry and about the curses. He pulled some herbs out of a pouch on his belt. Telling Sam to boil some water, he mixed them in a cup. Harry wondered what it was supposed to do for him because after it was brewed it smelled like the inside of his P.E. locker at school. Dirty socks and stale sweat. It tasted worse than it smelled, if that was possible. Harry pulled a face as he took a drink.

“Drink it all,” Nana said. “You need something to help your muscles heal after being cursed, it might help with the head, too.” Luke gave Nana a wave as he headed out the door after making sure that she knew what Harry was supposed to do.

Harry nodded and took another drink. Sam watched him the whole time. Rubbing his back occasionally, Dean asked, “Head better?”

Harry nodded again.

“You did a good job,” Nana said.

Harry shook his head and Dean smacked him on the shoulder. “You’re back and alive. Nana said she wasn’t sure that would happen. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“Were you scared?” Sam asked.

“Terrified,” Harry said to him and Sam nodded. “But, I knew I would get out. Either that or Dad and Dean and you would come for me.”

“Dean was working with Nana trying to pinpoint where you had gone when you came back,” Sam told him. “Dad’s on his way here. He was with Pastor Jim.”

Harry asked Nana if she knew who the bald man was and she nodded. “It’s Tom. Albus was afraid he had found a way to preserve his soul. He was just uncertain how. This is very disturbing news. I think I must get a hold of Albus and let him know what happened.”

“Tom as in Tom Riddle?” Dean asked. Nana nodded absentmindedly as she gathered some things together.

“I hate Portkeying but it is the fastest way,” she murmured to herself. “The man will never believe a letter.” Nana looked around at the boys sitting all bunched together on the couch, Harry in the middle. “I should be back no later than tomorrow. If I’m not back by the time your dad gets here, leave with him. Dean,” she looked at him with a firm gaze, “protect them,” she commanded and Dean nodded. Harry could feel some magic flowing around him and his brothers, settling on Dean.

Nana nodded and, grabbing a pair of the worst matched socks he had ever seen, she said, “Hogwarts,” and disappeared.

It was only after she left that Harry remembered about the ‘mutt’ that had led the Death Eaters to him. His godfather, they had said. Turning to Dean, he quickly told him about what the others had said. It had sounded as if the Death Eaters hadn’t wanted him to meet his godfather. He was still uncertain why they kept calling him a mutt.

There was a scratching on the door. Dean shared a look with Harry and Sam. Motioning them to get down and be quiet, Dean went to the door and looked out. He said the words that would bring up the wards on the house by anyone, Muggle or magical. “You are not invited here. You are not welcome.” Harry could hear whining and whimpering.

“You cannot enter if you mean to harm anyone inside,” Dean said and opened the door. A large black dog with matted fur and a horrible smell slunk into the house. Its tail wagged when it spotted Harry.

Dean spoke to the dog. “Nana will kill you if you break anything.” Harry watched, amazed as the dog changed into a ragged looking man. He was just as filthy as a human as he had been as a dog.

“Harry?”

Harry nodded reluctantly, and he felt Sam move closer to him. Glancing at Dean, he saw they were all in position to attack or defend, but some tone, some longing in the man’s voice told him that they weren’t in danger.

“Who are you? How do you know Harry? What do you want?” Dean snapped out the questions in staccato.

The man didn’t seem to have a problem answering to a teenager. “Sirius Black. I knew him when he was a baby. He was my Godchild. I was friends with his parents. I heard he was alive, when all this time I thought he was dead.” The man sighed. “Then someone said they had seen him in the States, so I came here to find him.”

Dean snorted. “We haven’t hid him. If someone wanted to contact him, they could have.”

Sirius nodded. “But I’m an escaped prisoner. I recently found out that Peter didn’t die in the explosion that was blamed on me. I knew then it had been him that had betrayed Harry’s parents and that he was in danger. I escaped and did a point me spell. It kept pointing west, so west I came. When I was here, an owl from Dumbledore found me and it said that he was dead. I knew it was a lie so I kept looking.”

“And you led those other guys straight to Harry,” Dean snapped.

Sirius looked ashamed and embarrassed.

“Why were you in prison?” Sam asked.

“I went to jail for killing Harry’s parents.” He put his hands up quickly as both Sam and Harry raised their wands at him. “But I didn’t, I swear. It was Pettigrew. He was their secret keeper, and he betrayed them and me.”

Harry nudged Sam and Sam reluctantly lowered his wand. “Can’t I just bind him?” Sam asked.

“He can turn into a dog and get out of your binds,” Harry said. To the man he suggested a hot shower and a cup of coffee.

“Shower’s great and coffee’s fine, but tea would be better. I don’t suppose any of you know how to make a good cuppa?” There was a longing in his voice that had even Dean laughing. “You wouldn’t happen to have a change of clothes?” Sirius looked hopeful and Dean nodded receiving a grin in thanks. Getting some of Dad’s clothes, Dean handed them and a towel to the man, showing him where the shower was.

A half an hour later a very different man sat across the table from them sipping tea and making faces. “Better than coffee I suppose,” he said and took another drink.

“You want to explain what is going on?” Dean asked, not quite threatening the man.

“It’s a long story,” Sirius said. Dean, Sam, and Harry all settled in their seats.

“We’ve got until Nana comes back,” Harry said.

“I guess I’ll start before Harry was born . . .” Sirius went on to describe the Marauders, and talked about Remus Lupin’s problem and how they all became Animagi to help him. He told them about wolfsbane and how it affected his friend.

“So you allow a werewolf to roam free?” Dean asked. Harry and Sam both looked at him. Dean knew about werewolves?

Sirius shook his head. “No, that’s why we became Animagi . . . he kept hurting himself on the wolfsbane but he was just a wolf, not a werewolf. As long as we were with him, and not in human form, he would be calm.”

Dean nodded and urged the man to continue.

Describing Lily and how James fell hard for her had Sirius laughing and Harry was enthralled. Here was a man who had known his parents, loved them. Sirius talked about Voldemort’s rise and how terrified everyone was. The Order of the Phoenix was described in detail, and Sirius waxed poetic about Dumbledore and Hogwarts.

“What about your family?” Dean asked, because Sirius had avoided mentioning his family.

“Ah, the noble and most ancient house of Black.” Sirius’ voice was so sharp it could have given someone a close shave. Holding out his hand, he bent down fingers one by one as he spoke of his family. “Bellatrix, my cousin the bitch. Regulus, my little brother killed by those he tried to serve. Narcissa, my cousin married to Malfoy. Andy, Andromeda, Narcissa’s and Bellatrix’s youngest sister and about as far from them personality-wise as possible; she’s dead too. My parents are dead, thank heavens. That leaves me as head of the family.”

He smiled at Harry. “And your godfather.”

“Sounds like a wonderful family,” Dean said sarcastically.

“So you see why you have to come back,” Sirius said and Dean snorted as Sam moved closer to Harry.

“We see no such thing. We’ll wait here for Nana or Dad and let them deal with you, unless you’d like to leave?” Dean suggested and took a seat at the table.

“Hell no. I’m not leaving without Harry.”

Dean slid his knife out of his leg sheath and, getting a whetstone, he slowly sharpened the edge. No one said anything for a long time. Harry heard Dad’s car pulling up outside. There was a door slam and then another one as he came in the house.

“Sam, Dean, Harry?” John Winchester called out.

“In here, Dad, with a guest,” Dean said.

Harry heard a gun cock in the other room and then Dad stepped into view. Sirius smiled a little smile and nodded at John. “Good boys you’ve got here.”

“I know,” John said and looked around. Harry saw him taking in everything, how they were sitting, how relaxed they were, or not, in the case of Dean. “You’re hurt.” John, of course, had noticed the bandage on Harry’s arm. Harry held it out for Dad to inspect. “You bandage this, Dean? Good work, except this corner could have been held down better. Like this.” John rewrapped the bandage, giving the end a little tuck before letting Harry’s arm go.

“Who’s he?” John flicked his thumb at Sirius.

Harry was pretty sure that if Dad knew that Sirius had been the cause of him getting kidnapped, he would get to see his very first evisceration. “Apparently my godfather,” Harry said.

“Wards up?” John asked. Dean nodded, looking insulted. “None of that, boy. I’m just making sure you didn’t forget anything. And he came in afterwards?” Dean nodded again.

“He was just telling Harry that he would have to come back with him,” Sam spoke up and Harry wanted to hug him.

“Why on earth would he want to do that?” John asked.

“The Death Eaters are trying to bring Voldemort back, the Wizarding world is in chaos because he’s missing,” Sirius motioned to Harry, “and they all think he’s dead.”

“And we care about this, why?” John asked, just as there was a pop in the living room. Sirius had his wand out and so did Sam and Harry. John cocked his shotgun and Nana’s voice rang out from the other side of the kitchen door.

“John Winchester, if you so much as think about pulling that trigger I’ll make sure all of the shot goes right straight back at you.”

Dad un-cocked the gun and set it behind the door. Holding it open for Nana, he even put up with getting smacked with one of the socks she was carrying as she came through. Stopping, she looked at Sirius and said something in Crow, Harry thought, and Sirius was bound to the chair. “Sirius Black.” Nana Bishee spit the name out like it was poison on her tongue.

“Nana,” Harry tried to intervene. He had managed to keep Dad from killing Sirius, but now it seemed he had to stop Nana. “He’s my godfather.”

“I know,” Nana said coldly. “That makes the betrayal that much worse.”

“No, it was Pettigrew,” Harry said and Nana’s gaze fell on him. “I saw him, a rat-like man. Tom called him Pettigrew.”

Nana sat down in a chair across from Sirius. “You mentioned him before but I thought you must be mistaken. Pettigrew was dead . . .” Nana said and then it was like a light bulb went off. “He cut off his own finger.”

Sirius nodded, as there wasn’t much more he could do. “He spent the next fifteen years as a rat. He was a companion to the Weasley children. I saw him on the front page of the Prophet a month or so ago and I knew what had happened.”

Harry had a bad feeling where this was going and he tried to get Sirius to shut up. But of course he didn’t. Harry put his head in his hands.

“I found out that Harry was missing and presumed dead. I didn’t believe it and did a point me and here I am.”

“Impossible,” Nana said. “John, leave the gun.” She didn’t even turn around to see if Dad had stepped away from the gun that he had just taken a step towards. “There is no way a point me should have worked with . . . did you do Harry Potter or just Harry?” She looked at Sirius through narrowed eyes.

“Harry,” Sirius said. “I knew him when he was a baby. I loved him, and I just used that.”

Nana nodded absentmindedly. “Let me think,” she said and Harry, Sam, and Dean settled back, like they had been taught. “Tom’s back. They found Harry. You found Harry.” Nana’s eyes narrowed at Sirius. “You led them here.”

“I didn’t know,” Sirius said and Harry felt the hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck raise up. There was danger here. Sam grabbed his hand and it was like lightning had struck him. All of a sudden he was full of power and so was Sam. They were feeding off each other. Harry started to panic and pull out of Sam’s grasp but Sam held on tighter and then Dean was there. Murmuring to the both of them, talking quietly about grounding and letting go. Then, as suddenly as it came, the power left him and Sam. Harry collapsed on the floor, dragging Sam down with him.

Harry came around with a cool cloth on his forehead and Sam’s hand still grasped in his. They were side by side in Harry’s bed, Harry’s glasses were beside him on the table. He could hear Dad, Nana and Sirius talking, not arguing, in another part of the house. After taking stock of himself, Harry looked around and saw Dean sitting at the foot of the bed, his hands wrapped around one of his and one of Sam’s ankles. Looking over at Sam, Harry saw his eyes were open, too. They stared at one another for a long time, then Sam brought his fingers up and brushed them across Harry’s scar.

Noticing that they were awake, Dean crawled up onto the bed behind Harry. He wrapped his arms around him and slid his fingers between Sam’s. Sam moved closer and almost before Harry knew it they were entwined with each other so much that an outside observer couldn’t have said where one boy ended and the next began. Harry relaxed into his brothers’ warm embrace and fell asleep.
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