June 22
"Hey, mate, how was —"
"Don't fuckin' talk to me right now," Harry snarled. He threw his broom on the ground inside the doorway of Invisibility Way, much to Ron and Draco's befuddlement, and stormed directly to the library.
"Hey, Harry, how did —"
"Don't talk to me," Harry repeated to Theo, who was snuggled in the window seat of the library with Hermione. Harry stormed past them and knocked on Snape's office door once before trying to open it.
And found out that he couldn't.
"What the fuck?"
It was his unprecedented inability to storm in to Snape's office without being granted permission that cleared off some of his anger and instead allowed confusion to take over.
"Sev?" Harry knocked loudly, certain Snape was in there since it was where he had been all summer so far. "Hey, it's me!"
"Wait, please."
Harry irritably rapped his knuckles on the doorframe until Snape finally called for him to enter.
"You can't lock me out of our office," Harry said hatefully as he sat in the posh green chair he'd added by the small fireplace just for him to use.
Snape snorted from where he was pacing behind his desk. "Apologies Harry, but since you are meant to be at quidditch practice, I was attempting to keep your motley band of misfits from interrupting me."
"Well you don't have to worry about that anymore, do you? I'm not fuckin playing quidditch."
"What?" Snape stopped his pacing to stare incredulously at Harry. "Why? You have been so excited?"
Harry flung the parchment that had been presented to him this afternoon when he was in the middle of training with his team for the third time. "My 'contract has been terminated'," he scoffed as Snape grabbed the paper to read. "Apparently, Timmy's fuckin followers made a house call to the owner of the team last night. Now, suddenly, I'm 'a liability'."
Harry felt justified in his own anger to see Snape look absolutely devastated as his eyes flicked over the parchment for a brief instant before he blinked and his passive mask was firmly in place.
"Contact Amelia," he said. "Ask her if the DMLE can spare aurors to appease your teams fears. Surely they would allow you to play if you brought protection for them to your training sessions and matches?"
"Nah." Harry propped his feet up on the little side table next to his chair. "Fuck them. If they're too scared of Timmy to let me play, then I don't wanna play for them anymore, do I?"
It was a bit of a lie. Harry had wanted to play for the Arrows more than almost anything. But if one person being killed means they're too scared to have him on their team, then he didn't want them to win the World Cup anyway.
"Harry, you have to play," Snape said vehemently. He sat in the matching green chair to Harry's and stared him down with a weird look in his eyes. "You worked hard for this. You have always wanted to play professionally. Go back and talk to them. Or I can go, if you would like?"
Harry didn't even know Snape liked quidditch this much.
"It's fine." Harry waved his hand with forced nonchalance. "I'm gonna play for the Canons."
Snape let out a sigh of relief.
"When Timmy's dead."
"What? Why would you wait? Why not play now?"
Harry shrugged and picked at his nails. "Cause they'll probably just try and kill off the Canons owner next, yeah? I'm gonna write to their captain and see if I can play for them after I kill Timmy. Plus, I sent Viktor the announcement that I got recruited younger than he did, so I win, right?"
Snape's voice was soft, laced with pleading, "This was your dream Harry. I hate for you to give it up."
Harry gave him a small grin, it really was vindicating to know Snape cared about quidditch as much as he did.
"Oh I'm not giving it up," he said. "I'm just gonna kill Timmy first, aren't I? Then when he's dead I'll win the World Cup."
It was a pain in the arse, to push this off until after they dealt with Timmy, but Harry wasn't actually as disappointed as he originally was. He'd bested Viktor, which was a big part of wanting to play professionally so early, but also he had fourteen years between graduation and becoming Minister, he could win the World Cup at least a dozen times in that span.
And, the real reason Harry hadn't cursed anyone for kicking him off the team, was because they were going to be pissed when Harry joined the worst team in the league and made them look like idiots for doing this.
And that's just what he told them before he left Appleby.
Snape rubbed his eyes, abruptly looking exhausted. Actually, he didn't look too great at all, period. His skin was pale and the stress lines around his eyes were pronounced in a way Harry didn't usually notice. Snape's shoulder length black hair was mussed up and lankier than usual, like he'd been running his fingers through it a lot. He also had his shirt sleeves pushed up, which Harry had never seen him do aside from when he's working on multiple potions at once, a sure sign of stress.
Which made since, because Snape's been locked up in their office since they arrived at Invisibility Way and claims he's been nonstop busy. He would show up for breakfast with Harry, then lock himself away all day while Harry was at Appleby and nobody would see him until he came to have breakfast with Harry the next morning.
Personally, Harry thought he was taking Barty's death pretty hard and didn't want to hang out with any of Harry's friends. Also, he thought maybe he was avoiding Mavis who kept bursting in to tears at the worst times.
Harry liked Mavis, but he was kind of avoiding him too. He hated when people cried, it made his skin itch and his stomach curl. But Hermione, who officially moved in with them this summer, has taken up his slack and has spent tons of time with Mavis so he 'didn't feel alone'.
"What if you can't?" Snape asked quietly, his eyes solemn when Harry quirked a brow at him. "What if you die before you get the opportunity?"
Harry laughed lightly as he plucked the parchment from Snape's slack hand. "You need to get out of your office more," he teased him. "I'm not dying. Who's gonna kill me? Timmy? Dumbledore? Pft," Harry scoffed, "they already tried, didn't they? C'mon, come eat lunch with us. You can watch me take the Canons to victory after we kill Timmy."
Snape's eyes flicked to a book he had open on his desk before he glanced back at Harry and sighed. "Is it somehow important to you if I show up to lunch?"
"It is," Harry said with mock-solemnity. "I'll probably never forgive you, but more importantly, could you forgive yourself?"
Harry was joking, so the flash of grief in Snape's eyes was so out of place that he thought maybe he imagined it.
"I will be there," Snape finally sighed. "Go change Harry, you stink."
"Will do." Harry jumped to his feet and gave Snape a sarcastic salute. He'd probably be more offended if Snape wasn't probably right, he'd been up since six doing workouts with his team before the the captain came and sent him home. "You should shower too," he told him on his way out the door, "I'm inviting Tonks."
Harry paused a few feet away from the office and turned and looked at the door curiously.
"What's wrong Harry?" Hermione asked from where she was still sitting with Theo.
"Nothing," Harry said, still examining the door curiously. "I just- just thought Snape would throw something at the door after I closed it."
Hermione and Theo laughed, but Harry wasn't actually joking. His resolve to make Snape cheer up before they had to go back to school in September strengthened.
If Harry could bring up Tonks and Snape didn't throw anything, then he was more depressed than Harry thought.
After he took a quick shower and put on more comfortable clothes (he binned his stupid Arrows training uniform), he wandered back down the stairs and idly thought about popping by Fred's store after lunch. They'd be officially opened on the first of July, so Fred's been there practically all day every day working on the store.
He still came here to sleep at night, leaving the flat above the shop for George and Angelina, but he always left at the crack of dawn to get back to it.
By the time Harry made it to the dining room, he'd almost convinced himself to go to the shop after he ate, until he saw Susan sitting alone at the table with mischief brewing in her eyes.
"Hey," Harry grinned and slid in his seat. "I thought you had physical therapy today?"
"I left early," she said simply. She stretched out her new prosthetic she was using, a slim arm of a bright gold material that magically fit her shoulder socket, and flexed her fingers. "I told Auntie that I don't think I really need to keep going. This one responds just like my other arm does. I'll probably keep it."
"Really?" Harry sent a brief look of longing at Susan's arm. He wasn't jealous, necessarily, but Susan had gotten the arm fit on his first day of quidditch practice and when he got home she was literally showing off the strength in it by punching holes in the trees for Ron and Neville's amusement. "I still say you should have gotten a—"
"If I hear gun arm one more time I'm going to lose my mind," Hermione sighed as she entered the dining room with Theo. "You are a wizard Harry, you don't need to equip Susan with a gun."
"I don't know, I like the idea of us all having them," Susan said with a small smile. "Just imagine it, Harry... BAM! We shoot Dumbledore right between his damn twinkling eyes."
Harry smiled wistfully at the image, it was a good idea honestly. "If they vote him back as headmaster, then I say we do it," he said while Ron and Draco came in the room with simultaneous exasperated sighs.
Having a whole safe house full of his friends and gang members coming and going had actually been the best idea Snape's ever had. Harry didn't care what Draco said, plotting schemes in the comfort of his own dining room without worrying about being overheard was brill.
"You should have shot him the night of the battle," Theo scowled. "I'm this close—" Theo held his index finger nearly right up against his thumb, "— to doing it myself."
Apparently if the headmaster tries to kill your brother, it can change your view on guns.
And murder.
Which Harry and Susan privately found hilarious how quickly Theo and Hermione changed their view on murder once they heard everyone share their tales of torture, attempted murder, and the other struggles everyone had the night of the battle in Hogsmeade.
The night of Barty's funeral, when the inner gang finally had a chance to sit down together and all actually share their versions of the battle, the rest of them had been horrified and furious to hear Trent describe hiding behind a trash bin while Dumbledore tried to kill Timmy and Harry in one go.
"Maybe if someone," Trent had glared pointedly at Fred, "hadn't taken my wand, I would have been able to stop him."
Harry hadn't laughed at him, but it was a close call. Picturing little Trent with his big eyes and gap-toothed smile killing Dumbledore was hysterical. It was even more hysterical when Trent had made the front page of the paper for saving a little girl, who apparently was the granddaughter of the owner of Honeydukes, and was given a 'lifetime of free sweets' as repayment.
It was no 'no questions asked favor', like Harry usually requests when he saves someone's life, but Trent was happy so Harry was happy. He'd teach him eventually that favors were worth a hell of a lot more than chocolate.
"We are not killing him, yet," Susan stressed to Theo. "We've got more important things to plan anyway."
"What's that?" Ron asked curiously.
"Yes, what could you possibly find more important than the death of Albus Dumbledore?" Draco said with a sarcastic drawl.
"Harry's first match," Susan said pompously. She smiled at Harry brightly until she caught his disgruntled expression and deflated a bit. "Aren't you excited? It's against the Harpies, and I don't care what George says about Angelina, you can beat them with your eyes closed."
Harry shrugged and kicked at the legs of the table while his friends watched him curiously. "I'm not fuckin playing," he admitted in a bitter grumble. "They found the owner of the team dead under the dark mark last night and decided I'm a liability, didn't they? They think they were targeted specifically because of me."
Harry's scowl lightened as his friends immediately went on individual and heated rants about the injustice of it.
"You had a contract!" Hermione howled. "There has to be a clause that can't just have them kick you off!"
"Call a barrister!" Draco said, nodding in agreement with Hermione. "You should sue them at a minimum."
"I told you the Arrows sucked," Ron said with a dark look. "Just proof they're a bunch of tossers. You can do better."
Susan was surprisingly quiet. Well. Maybe it wasn't all that surprising. She'd been a little more quiet, a little more thoughtful, since she got out of St Mungo's.
"Tell me the captains name and I'll go make them reconsider," she said as she flexed her golden fingers threateningly.
She wasn't any less vicious though, thank goodness.
"Nah." Harry grinned and relaxed back in his chair. "I'm just gonna kill Timmy this year then play for the Canons next year. Imagine their faces when—"
"When you take the worst team and beat them," Susan cut in with a sharp smile. "Brill, Harry."
"Who's the worst team?"
Harry looked up and grinned to see that Tonks arrived. "The Canons," he told her, "not for long though. Just until I kill Timmy."
And since that didn't make any sense, Harry sighed and explained his plan to her while Cissa and Mavis joined them.
Then he had to start at the beginning for Cissa because she too joined halfway through the explanation.
"Positively abominable!" she cried indignantly. "Perhaps if you would go liberate Lucius, he could assist you in taking this captain to court and get your position back."
Harry rolled his eyes at her not so subtle reminder. "We aren't rushing off to Azkaban and blowing his cover until we decide on it at the meeting on the fifth."
Harry knew the dementors were terrible, but to lose his only spy on Timmy? That would be a loss. And since he still has the fuckin scar on his arm from where he had to go fight a basilisk because of Lucius, then he figured he could deal with the dementors a little longer.
Cissa opened her mouth, probably to argue her case, again, but luckily Snape finally joined them. He sent a quick and annoyed glance at the packed table before sighing in defeat and taking his usual chair across from Harry.
"If I had known that becoming your guardian meant dealing with a household of guests, I would have left you to Amelia," he said.
Harry smirked across the table at him confidently, "No you wouldn't have."
"No," Snape said with a fond look in his dark eyes, "I wouldn't have."
After lunch, Harry spent a bit of time talking in his room with Susan, Hermione, and Theo. Ron and Draco quietly snuck off to Moon Lodge, as if Harry didn't know they were going flying. He figured they didn't invite him because they thought he'd be weird about it, but as long as they were practicing for the upcoming school year, he didn't really care.
"I still say it's ridiculous to blame you for what Timmy did," Theo said while they sprawled across the room Harry was sharing with Theo, Hermione, and Fred. "You really should sue them for terminating your contract."
"Or get revenge anyway," Susan said thoughtfully. Her head was on Harry's lap and she was absently petting Stevie as he crowded the two of them looking for attention.
"I already have my revenge planned," Harry said. "It's subtle, isn't it? Even Snape can't complain about it."
"Not about the Arrows," Susan waved her gold hand airily. "Against Timmy. I doubt it was a coincidence that they happened to target the owner of the team that announced you joining them in May."
"I think it's pretty clear that it wasn't a coincidence," Hermione said. "Harry, ask Stevie how much venom can be removed from him before his system is too depleted to create more?"
Harry shook his head at her, but did as she asked. Since she wasn't making Theo throw a fit about Stevie being in their room this summer, he figured it was a small task to occasionally translate questions for her.
"How much of your venom can be removed before you can't make more?" he hissed at him.
Stevie's tongue flicked out in an obviously unhappy gesture, "Try to find out and I will kill you first."
Harry flicked his own tongue out at his snake and narrowed his eyes at him. "Oh yeah? Like you were supposed to kill Timmy's followers and his snake at the battle? And what did you end up doing?"
"Eating a tasty rabbit," Stevie said in a smug tone. "I hope you have many more battles for your life, Speaker. That was the greatest rabbit I have ever consumed."
Harry gave Stevie his best disappointed look before tilting his head back to address Hermione where she was seated on her and Theo's bed. "He said if we try and find out that he'll kill us and he wants me to get in another battle so he can find tasty rabbits."
"If you don't want to tell me you don't have to," Hermione sniffed. "No reason to make up answers."
Harry shrugged carelessly, it wasn't his fault if she didn't believe him.
"Back to me," Susan said, snapping her fingers. "You can't let Timmy think he's won some sort of battle by getting you kicked off the Arrows. You have to strike back, show him if he fucks with you that you'll fuck with him back."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Theo asked scathingly. "We are already planning on killing him."
"We need to do something more immediate," Susan said slowly, a grin making its way across her face. "Something that shows him that we aren't just laying around waiting for him to attack us."
'We'. 'Us.'
Susan really was the greatest friend Harry could have ever asked for.
When he thinks back to the day he met her, when she was just a posh red-headed girl in a library lecturing him on breaking the law, then thinks of where they are now, it sometimes seems too good to be true.
Theo might be the brother that Harry always secretly wanted, but Susan was his 'platonic soulmate' (as Fred dubbed her one night when he came home and saw Susan was snuggled in his and Harry's bed. He'd looked a little annoyed, but then grinned and said he was glad that Susan was Harry's 'platonic soulmate' or else he'd be jealous. Harry thought he kind of looked a bit jealous either way, but since Susan had a terrible session with Lupin that day, he wasn't going to kick her out of his bed on Fred's behalf).
And a platonic soulmate seemed to always be on the same wavelength as Harry, which was especially perfect for plotting.
"What are you thinking?" Harry asked with his own grin taking over his face.
"Wellll..." Susan sat up slowly, an effort to not startle Stevie, and turned to Hermione and tried to blink innocently. "What do you know about muggle explosives?"
Harry went ahead and silently locked the door and warded it against eavesdroppers. If Susan was asking about explosives, this was officially an illegal and private discussion between the four of them.
Hermione argued. Susan countered her arguments. Hermione tried to get Theo to back her up. Harry backed up Susan. And after a couple of hours, Susan's newest operation was planned.
And then Harry had to go find Cissa to let her know about it.
'To be polite'.
Harry sighed, wishing Theo didn't have to be quite so logical in his insistence that Harry inform Cissa first, before he knocked firmly on Barty'sCissa's bedroom door.
He'd been pissed, at first, when she asked politely and gently asked him if she could use the bedroom Harry had painted and decorated for Barty to use at Invisibility Way. He'd nearly hexed her for the fuckin audacity, but instead he stormed outside and threw curses at the trees until he felt calmer.
It made sense.
Cissa was an adult. She deserved privacy as much as Snape did and Barty had. If Barty hadn't been on the original list of roommates in the house, Harry probably would have given her the private room from the start.
Plus, since Trent was going to stay with them every now and again, he needed an extra bed he hadn't originally planned for.
So he went back inside and told her she could have it.
Now he waited outside the door for her to answer.
When she did, Harry was caught off guard by her expression of peace. How could someone seem so peaceful when Harry wasn't?
"Harry, darling, how can I help you?" She smiled at him and eyed his sloppy clothes carefully. "Perhaps you came to ask if I would go shopping with you? Because I would absolutely love to. There's a boutique in France that I believe suits your unique aesthetic perfectly."
"No," Harry laughed. This was probably the tenth time in just the week that summer has started that Cissa has asked to take him shopping for clothes. It was no wonder Draco pouted and growled when he stained his clothes in potions or herbology, Cissa was mad about appearances. "I came to remind you that you told me once that I'm your favorite cousin and Draco owes me a favor so I'm cashing in on both of those things today."
"Oh?" Cissa raised a thin blonde brow curiously, though her smile was still firmly in place. "And how will you be 'cashing in on those things'?"
Harry smirked and twirled his wand carelessly through his fingers. "I'm blowing up Malfoy Manor."
Because if Harry couldn't have quidditch right now, then Timmy couldn't have a posh and comfortable headquarters either.
***
Hello,
I received a letter from your team back in March offering me a position on your quidditch team as seeker. I had denied the position at the time as I had quite a bit going on (for more details please see the Daily Prophet article from May outlining my battle against the newly returned Lord Voldemort and his followers).
After further consideration, I would like to ask that you still allow me a place on your team once I complete my current mission to defeat Lord Voldemort (again). I believe that this would be mutually beneficial to both of us: Harry Potter joining your team would boost your fanbase, which of course will increase ticket sales for matches, and in return I would take your team to victory in our matches.
If this sounds acceptable to you, then I await your response.
Thank you,
Harry J Potter
Mr Potter, We at the Chudley Canons eagerly await the moment that you fulfill your mission to end You-Know-Who's reign of terror so that you can join our team. Enclosed you will find season tickets to our upcoming matches this year, we hope to see you there. Harry didn't care how jealous it made anyone, when Sevvie brought him the letter from the Canons confirming that they would hold a position for him, he'd hugged Hermione tightly and swung her in a circle right in front of Theo and Fred.
"Your letter worked!" he cried triumphantly. "The Canons said I can join as soon as I kill Timmy!"
Everyone, except Snape when Harry found him in their office to tell him about it, was happy for him.
And Harry went ahead and gave Ron the season tickets. Until he joined the team, the Canons still sucked and he didn't much fancy going and watching them lose.