Getting Harry Back

Chapter 15
Of Music, Giants and Finally Being Sixteen

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume, you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Walt Whitman
Song of Myself [1]
From Leaves of Grass, deathbed edition.

“Harry?”

Neville frowned, checking again. Then he took a deep breath and nodded.

“It is. I’m sure it’s from Harry.”

For three days, ever since that magical spark had touched him, his mum and, he figured out later, his dad, when Neville wasn’t working on getting through to his parents or sleeping, he’d been trying to understand that magical spark. “What was it? Where had it come from? What was it doing?” And most important: “Could I somehow use it to get through?”

Now he had a start, he had one answer -- it was from Harry.

Again, Neville found that spark, which he still felt inside him.

“It’s not just from Harry….” He kept exploring. “It is Harry, or a piece of Harry, or Harry’s magic or something like that.”

Neville checked these understandings. They were closer, but they didn’t quite fit. He knew that the spark definitely came from Harry, and that it was definitely Harry-magical. But he also knew that it was more than just Harry-magical.

Neville stayed with that knowing-feeling, but nothing came.

He looked over at his sleeping parents, the bright moonlight giving their faces a pale-blue sheen. He smiled and felt his heart and breath catch.

“It’s not only magical, it’s a miracle.”

Neville knew, he absolutely knew that in some way, the Harry-spark had…. “Awakened them?” Again, not quite it, but something like that. Even though his parents couldn’t hear or talk, even though they weren’t able to communicate in any clear way…. “In their eyes, I can see that they know me. Mum and Dad know me.”

And he could see – also in their eyes – that they were looking for a way to reach out to him, to their son. “Sometimes, they can reach out to me,” he thought. “A little, anyway. And I can see that they’re looking to me, me to find a way to reach out to them.”

It was the most unbelievable, the most magical and powerful thing that had ever happened to him. He could hardly take in that it was true, that it was real. For the first time in his life, Neville felt…. “Not just hope,” he thought, “but hope that I can do something, something really important. Somehow I can bring my parents back. Maybe not all the way, but….”

Inside him, Neville felt another magical surge. He’d felt many such surges since that Harry-spark came. He felt them bringing him new magic and making his magic stronger. He paused to let the new magic run its course, to merge and increase the power already there.

Then he frowned. “Gran doesn’t believe it, she can’t see it.” He paused. “Or she won’t.”

He’d had the biggest fight ever with her. “Well,” he admitted, “the only real fight I’ve ever had with her, the only time things weren't just one-sided, and that side Gran's. But I’m not leaving Mum and Dad, I’m not! There has to be a way I can get through to them, there must be a way.”

Yes, Neville knew, he knew that his parents were trying – he could see that. But even more, he knew they were depending on him.

“Mum and Dad are depending on me to help get them back. As far as they can.”

With that, Neville felt a determination, a commitment, a flood of pure will. He felt more strength, more magic than ever before. Everything in him that was shy, timid or uncertain was gone. All that remained in Neville was knowing he had something that he must do, “that only I can do. And I will. I will.”

He looked over at his mum, unconsciously putting his hand on his face where she’d touched him. He stayed motionless for several moments.

“Mum,” he whispered. “I’ll find a way. I promise.”

Neville’s heart and that Harry-spark within sealed that pledge with all the magic inside both of them, a magic that had been growing ever since that Harry-spark arrived, awakening hope and purpose.

“Maybe my magic isn’t just growing, but… getting freed?” He paused, then nodded. That felt more right. “Freed,” he said, as if to settle it.

And with his pledge, Neville felt more of his magic freed.

Neville’s heart sealed another pledge, too, not with words, but with feelings -- just as solemn as his mum-pledge. He could never repay Harry for what he'd done for Neville and his family; it was beyond price, beyond any possible repayment. Harry had given him the chance to awaken his parents. So if Harry ever needed anything, anything, Neville would see that Harry got it. And with this second pledge, even more of Neville’s magic was freed.

Though Harry didn’t know it, his family had just grown.

* * * * * * * * * *

I wander all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet…. Swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers;
Wandering and confused…. Lost to myself…. Ill-assorted…. Contradictory,
Pausing and gazing and bending and stopping.

Walt Whitman
The Sleepers [1]
From Leaves of Grass, first edition

“I can think and I can see, but I can’t hear or speak. And I can't deliberately move. I can only move automatically, without willing my movement. Nothing, not even my eyelids.”

Frank Longbottom woke up in the moonlight. As always these past days whenever he was conscious, he reviewed his situation, looking for an opening.

“I can't signal. And I can't even think deeply, because if I go into a feeling....”

He shuddered at the pain memories. Since his awakening by that magical spark, Frank willed himself, with his enormous self-discipline, into mental clarity and into systematically trying every muscle in his body, all with Cruciatus-pain results.

“If my body responds naturally, instinctively, without thinking, I can go along. But I can’t direct anything.”

Frank figured that Bellatrix’s Cruciatus curse had become so embedded in his conscious mind that trying to use his mind to do anything deliberately, except at-a-distance thinking, re-activated the curse and its pain.

“And I think Alice is the same way.”

Frank had learned a few useful things. One of the most important was how to slowly bring his memory back, piece by piece. He’d learned not to consciously go to the feeling of knowing – that just led to pain. He’d learned to keep those feelings of knowing at the edge of his awareness, and then to make his mind blank and to wait. He found that when he waited like that, often something emerged – at least a part of what he was after. That’s how he’d recovered who he was and what had happened. And most important – no, most blessed – that’s how he’d recovered knowing Alice and Neville.

“My wife,” he thought passionately, “and my son.”

Recalling Neville had taken awhile. But knowing had come when, finally, he’d seen in Neville something of Alice.

“Many things, actually.” Without thinking, he smiled. “Many things.”

This had been his supreme pleasure, though like all feelings, he’d had to keep it at a distance. “No,” he thought, “not just a pleasure, an inspiration, a purpose.” His purpose, what helped Frank endure all the pains of trying, again and again, pain and pain and pain.

“Pain, yes,” he thought, “but more important is purpose. Purpose, a reason for the pain. I’m doing this for Alice and Neville.” Frank felt another piece hovering on the edge of his awareness, perched to come out of his at-a-distance feeling. Again, he let his mind go blank and waited.

“He’s the way out. Somehow, Neville is not just my son and my purpose; he’s the way out, too.” He felt another piece bubble up and into his mind. “Neville and that spark.”

That spark – it was the one feeling that Frank could consciously go to and be with, the one feeling not poisoned with pain. Somehow it was protected from or hadn’t been tainted by the pain. So this spark, this magical spark was fully available to him. Because of this, Frank had spent more time with that spark than with anything else.

“Except, of course, looking at Alice and Neville.”

He felt himself automatically, instinctively smile as his eyes automatically, instinctively looked at Neville who, Frank discovered to his delight, was looking at him. He could see the effect of his looking at his son. Frank could see in Neville not just a return smile, but…. Frank felt his smile deepen and his eyes go bright with pride. “I can see purpose and love in him. Yes, I can see my son’s love.”

With that, once again, Frank could feel his own love, his own tears, which brought tears in return from Neville.

“My son,” he thought, “and my son’s love.”

While Frank held his love-giving and love-gathering gaze, he went to that magical spark inside him. He knew that spark wasn’t Neville -- he could feel that. But he also knew that, in some way, it was connected to Neville, or shared by Neville, or something like that.

And so, as father and son were looking, crying and loving, Frank settled into that magical spark, their shared magical spark. And with their eye-sharing and their spark-sharing, Frank felt them move closer to an opening, to a way….

Nothing came, but Frank could feel that it was in there, the way out was in there, in that spark, and the way out was between them, between him and Neville, between him and his son, perhaps between his son and Alice.

“We’ll find a way, son,” he thought, “I swear, we’ll find a way.”

* * * * * * * * * *

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man ….

Walt Whitman
Song of Myself [16]
From Leaves of Grass, first edition

“Grandfather?”

“No way.” Harry could never say that. “Never.”

“But maybe,” he thought, “I could think it?”

Something inside giggled, and Harry felt his insides scrunch.

“Nope. Can’t even think it.” He shook his head. “Way too weird.”

When Harry re-HandBonded with the Headmaster, right after Hagrid had been welcomed, “Professor Dumbledore” didn’t fit Harry’s heart. Off and on, he puzzled over what did fit. When “Grandfather” came, it fit absolutely the bond that had been so vital to Harry for sixteen years, that had kept him alive for the first ten.

But.

Walking together through the Burrow’s gardens, enjoying the sun and the outdoors, the flowers and the rich smell of well-tilled earth and things growing, Harry looked up at the old man, who promptly gave him a disturbingly-aware smile. “He knows, and he knows I can’t say it or even think it.” Harry watched as the Headmaster’s eyes went from twinkling to a fountain of sparkles, all with a healthy dollop of impishness. Kindly, loving impishness, of course, but still impishness.

At the beginning of their HandBonding day, Harry was a little cautious about touching Dumbledore, even though the BondRope kept them so close that touching was inevitable. But Dumbledore seemed to accept it; he even enjoyed it. Each time they touched, the old wizard looked down with a smile that soaked in their touch as much Harry did.

“Maybe,” Harry thought, “being the greatest Wizard in the world, it’s like me and my scar. People treat you different. Maybe he’s as tired of that as I am. Maybe he likes being treated just like a person, just like….” He swallowed and forced himself to think it: “Grandfather.”

Again, something inside giggled.

The day flowed, the old wizard and the young sharing their special time and their special bond. Toward day’s end, as they sat together on the back porch, Harry asked, “Sir?”

Dumbledore smiled. “Yes, Harry.”

“You said that you had some wizard recordings of my first parents?”

“Quite a few. Would you like to hear some?”

“Oh yes, sir, very much.”

Harry noticed that, while having a family healed a lot, he still ached to know more about, to feel closer to his first mum and dad. That hadn’t changed. “They’re still my mum and dad, too,” he thought.

Dumbledore raised his wand. “Apperecium violin and piano.” The instruments appeared, joining them on the broad, covered porch.

Harry looked up at the Headmaster, questioning.

“Wizard recordings, Harry, reside in the instruments played, and can be transferred from instrument to instrument. Your father’s violin and your mother’s piano were, of course, lost in the destruction of your first home. But since they and I played together often, I had transferred their playing to instruments I owned, so I could play, or just listen, when we weren’t together." Dumbledore looked off inside of himself, reliving good memories. "They were exquisitely musical.”

He brought his eyes and mind back to Harry. “You enjoyed the Bach I played earlier on the cello?”

Harry nodded.

“Would you like to hear Bach that your parents played?”

“Please.”

Again the Headmaster raised his wand: “Sono violin, Bach solo violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor.”

His first dad played alone. Great strength, great power and passion, great and wild and manful magic surged from his father. “A musical patronus,” Harry thought. Indeed, he could feel the silvery Prongs emerge from the unstoppable onslaught of melody, now unhurried and stately, now striking out in controlled fury. His father’s music embraced Harry in a way that was breathtaking.

“The next piece, Harry,” Dumbledore smiled, “is also by Bach, one that your parents most-loved playing together. It was from another piece he wrote for unaccompanied violin[1]. Your mother and father took great pleasure sharing this music – first one playing, then the other, then both together – bonding each time in new ways. They played it, in fact, at their wedding, right before their vows. They always said that this was their true vow of love, their always-fresh commitment to each other.”

Piano and violin, Harry’s first mum and dad, shared with Harry, through harmony and melody and genius, their beautiful, passionate love for each other, the love that created him, the love that saved him. In deeper and wordless ways, Harry understood that love -- its power, its magic. And he hoped with all his heart that some day he, too, would have such a partner, such a love. A soulmate.

At the music’s end, Dumbledore looked at Harry with an expression Harry couldn’t read. “Would you mind if I played a piece with your mother and father?” he asked. “Even if that meant untying the BondRope?”

“Please do, sir.”

“Thank you. Accio cello.” Dumbledore loosed himself from the BondRope, picked up the cello, and waved his wand. A chair appeared between violin and piano. He went over and sat a moment, and to Harry’s surprise, his lips quivered. He firmed his chin and said, “Sono piano and violin, Brahms Double Concerto, 2nd movement.”

After a few simple piano notes, violin and cello – his father and grandfather – played together the most haunting and heart-breaking melody that Harry had ever heard. Soon the piano – his mother – began her part in their coming-together. Back and forth, first violin, then cello, then piano -- that gorgeous melody and its just-as-gorgeous harmonies. Harry felt his mother and father and grandfather, through their playing, through the music reaching out and holding him. He let himself go fully into their loving, and he found the music somehow familiar. It was calling him home, home to Godric’s Hollow.

When the music stopped, Harry noticed tears on Dumbledore’s face, along with a smile. He also noticed, in the silence, that his first parents and his grandfather kept playing, though now in their hearts, just as Harry kept hearing in his heart.

Finally, Dumbledore looked up at Harry, tears and smile still joined. “When your parents and I played together, we always ended with this piece. So this is the last piece I played with them before….” Lips again quivered, chin again firmed. “For that last year, you were always there, too, crawling or toddling between us, stopping to look at our playing and our faces with that special intensity of the very young.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes, savoring the memory, then he reopened them. Harry felt within himself his own vague but precious memory.

“We were convinced that this was your favorite piece. Whenever we began it, even if you had dozed off or had gone into another room, you would return to sit right between James and me, looking from one to the other. At the end, you always gave us such giggling laughter. We would then pick you up, all three of us together, and you would scramble from one set of arms to another.” He laughed. “Always ending up completely entangled in my beard.”

“I don’t think,” he said, “that anyone has touched my beard from that last time until today.” He sparkled. “My beard, Harry, has missed you. For what, indeed, is the point of a beard with no one to touch it.”

“This piece is by another Muggle musical magician, Johannes Brahms. He had had a falling out with a friend, a violinist of great renown. Brahms wrote this piece as a reconciliation and, I believe, a memorial to their special bond of friendship.” Again, his eyes showed the beginnings of tears. “The most eloquent, the most beautiful testament of love between friends ever written.”

The young wizard went over, stood beside the old wizard, and put a hand on his shoulder. Dumbledore was, for some time, going inward. Then he looked up.

“Thank you, Harry.”

Harry’s brow knitted. “Sir?”

The Headmaster smiled. “Yes, I know. Once more, I’m being obscure.” He sighed. “This is the first time since Lily and James were murdered that I have played with them, and also the first time that I have played this great music.”

He went away again, somewhere deep inside. From there he spoke, “Too much pain, I fear. But that then left me separated from their love and from this music’s love, and so caused even more pain. An empty silence in my soul.”

Dumbledore put down his cello and looked at Harry. “Playing for you – no, it was much more: sharing our love though music with you again, this gave me the purpose, perhaps even the courage that I needed.” He paused, then said softly, “And the healing.”

Harry saw, in the old wizard’s eyes, great sadness. “Harry, when I remember you as that happy, abundantly-loved baby, and then I think of what has happened to you – Voldemort and those Dursleys….” He took a sharp inbreath. “Oh, Harry….”

He pulled the young wizard down to him, holding him deep and long. Harry didn’t feel pitied, he felt that his hurt, his life was recognized, honored, joined. And Harry felt loved, too, and treasured, just as he now loved and treasured.

When they drew apart, Harry looked at the tall white-haired man and said, simply,

“I love you, Grandfather.”

Then his eyes widened as he realized that he had just called—

“I love you, too, Harry,” Dumbledore interrupted Harry’s thoughts.

Then he added, “Grandson.”

Harry saw the warmest and most at-peace smile he’d ever seen on that well-known face. And with that smile and with the music, Harry felt his magic grow – no, expand into new and beautiful and gentle and powerful worlds, magical worlds which were now his, not to control, but to live in and draw from. New magical words of beauty, family and love.

The old man retied their BondRope. The two smiled at each other.

In the late afternoon sun, grandson sat down next to grandfather, both letting the now-silent, but finally still-playing music resonate on the sounding board of their hearts.

* * * * * * * * * *

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the freshkilled game,
Soundly falling asleep on the gathered leaves, my dog and gun by my side.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him….

Walt Whitman Song of Myself [10, 12]
From Leaves of Grass, first edition

The next day, HandBonding with Hagrid, Harry couldn’t fit their togetherness, their bond into any words. “He’s not like my godfather or my uncle or my grandfather.” Harry shrugged.

“I guess he’s my Hagrid.”

And so he was. Harry decided that everyone should have a Hagrid, that no family was complete without one. Which felt true -- very, very true. Certainly Harry’s family wasn’t complete without his Hagrid.

At the beginning, Hagrid was absolute: “Now I don’ want you treatin’ me no different, mind? I see anythin’ else, I swear I’ll cuff yeh before I let it pass.” Harry then found himself lifted up off the ground and into a hug that stretched the length of England and Scotland. After he put Harry down, Hagrid blushed and smiled, “Well, maybe a wee bit different. But no more.”

Harry and Hagrid stood under an ancient oak, its shiny leaves clinging to gnarled branches spread out from a hollowed-out trunk. The tree hovered over them in age-old protectiveness, admitting only dappled sunlight, and not much of that, onto the two below and onto the lush green-green grass.

Hagrid soaked in Harry with his eyes. As with Dumbledore, he looked happier than Harry could ever remember him. “I can’t tell yeh what it means ter me, and of course ter Professor Dumbledore, ter see yeh so happy and havin’ a family of yer own. It’s what we always wanted fer yeh.”

Harry smiled and felt tears forming. “Hagrid, I can’t tell you what I feel about everything you’ve--”

“No, none of tha’ now.” Hagrid looked gruff, but Harry knew better, and Hagrid saw that Harry knew better. So he smiled. “Let’s jus’ let it be as yeh can’ tell me.”

“B’sides,” he went on, “it’s me ‘n Professor Dumbledore what’s been inside wi’ yeh all the years. So yeh don’ have to say, ‘cause we know already and in the bes’ way.”

“About my family,” Harry said, “Hagrid, you’re always part of it. Always.” Harry’s eyes held the half-Giant until Hagrid nodded. “Always,” Harry repeated softly.

From then on, they fit as easy as Harry with his dad.

Through the BondRope, Harry let himself go into the powerful Ancient Magic at the core of Hagrid. He felt, smelled, tasted deeply into Hagrid’s Scots earth, into the wildness of all things close to that earth. He heard more clearly what had always been at a distance – the playing of bagpipes, loving and sad and determined, their sounds echoing in the mountains and hills, through forests, over lochs and far out onto the sea.

With a shock, Harry discovered that the Ancient Magic of Scots Giant was not only in Hagrid and between them, in their bond. It was also within himself and between himself and others.

“I can feel, in me, not just Hagrid’s Giant magic, I’m… Giant-ish,” he realized. “And because of that, I….” Harry was stunned. “I can Giant-bond, too. Hagrid gave me his magic to Giant-bond.”

Intense, radiating, outreaching Magic. Hagrid’s Giant-half – and Harry’s Giant-ish – this was a new world of Magic, opening, offering, giving to Harry. And more: that Giant world, by joining with Harry’s rich wizard and Muggle worlds, became….

Harry shook his head. As he’d found again and again, there were no good words. All Harry knew was that when the Magic of his wizard joined the Ancient Magics of his Muggle and his Giant, he found himself… fuller of Magic, closer to and more in touch with Magic – the Magic of Earth, the Magic of Everything. Not in a taking or a grabbing way, nor even a wand-using way. Harry could feel that he was given so much more Magic to be, to belong to, to….

Then it came: Because of his family – wizard and Muggle and Giant – Harry was given so much more Magic to be loved by and to love with.

Harry was overwhelmed. “Hagrid?” He didn’t know how to say it. “I’m… part Giant,” was all he could get out.

“Aye. That’s what Professor Dumbledore says, too.” Hagrid’s face clouded. “Harry, I didn’ mean ter, it jus’ happened as I tried ter help yeh, when I loved yeh. I didn’t mean ter cause no trouble fer yeh. Professor Dumbledore says ter me, ‘Hagrid,’ he says, ’yeh give me even more power.’”

Hagrid blushed and looked down. “I think he’s jus’ being kind.” Hagrid looked anxiously at the young wizard. “But Harry, he never said that it hurt him none.”

“Hagrid. You never hurt me in any way. I don’t think you could.” Harry paused, searching for words. “Being part Giant – it’s more than power or magic.” Harry looked fully into Hagrid’s eyes, and he spoke reverently, “It’s an honor.”

Hagrid’s eyes smiled, but they still kept some fear and hurt, maybe even some of the shame he’d been taught, painfully taught. “Harry, not every wizard’d be feelin’ that way abou’ part Giant being such an honor an’ all.”

“That’s ‘cause they don’t know, Hagrid.” Harry was both certain and gentle. “Thanks to you, I do; I know, and I know for sure. Like you know from being inside me. In the best way.”

Hagrid’s Harry smiled up at Harry’s Hagrid, he smiled with his own full and true share of the gift, the honor of Giant-love.

* * * * * * * * * *

That night, Harry talked with the Headmaster. Dumbledore agreed, and the next morning he announced:

“Harry’s bonding fortnight, in recognition of how many important people need to bond with him, has been extended. His first ‘week’ will include not a half-day, but a whole day with each sibling. I have, of course, arranged everything.”

As they all knew, what Dumbledore arranged was well and truly arranged.

“The week with the community will be preserved,” he said, “and will start only after, let me see now, four adults and eight siblings have been HandBonded.”

The Headmaster beamed.

Harry and his family beamed back.

* * * * * * * * * *

I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful curious breathing laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them…. to touch any one…. to rest my arm ever so lightly over
his or her neck for a moment…. what is this then?
I do not ask for any more delight…. I swim in it as a sea….

All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric [4]
From Leaves of Grass, first edition

Each HandBonding was different and special and Magical. “I suppose,” Harry thought, “’cause each person is special to me, but a different special.” He frowned. “And a different Magical. Or maybe together, we’re a different Magical.”

Harry was still puzzling out his family and their magic.

Through the BondRope, Harry not exactly learned, but better understood, was better attuned to each of his new siblings. “Could it be,” he wondered, “just the time we have to talk and do and be together?” But he decided that there was no “just” about it, that the BondRope added its something. Each bonding, too, added its something, a something that left Harry forever changed and more magical.

Harry loved his long talks with his much-older brothers, Bill and Charlie, about their work and even -- Harry could hardly believe it -- their romantic lives! “That’s what older brothers are for, Harry.” Charlie winked. “How you learn.” Harry knew at once that Bill and Charlie were extra-good at being big brothers. “But of course,” he thought, “they’ve had a lot of practice.”

Bill talked about struggling to get on with his career, to fit in at the Bank while still being Bill and not fitting in all the way. He talked about how he figured out what he wanted to do and how he tried it, even before he got out of school. Harry hadn’t known that wizards got summer jobs. Harry asked many questions, and so did Bill, which helped Harry get clearer that he really did want to be an Auror. Bill encouraged him to talk with other Order members, especially those who were Aurors.

“But I don’t expect,” Bill added soberly, “that you’re going to need a summer job to learn about being an Auror. Harry, you already have as much as experience as some newer Aurors.” Bill looked sad. “I reckon you’ll have more soon. I reckon we all will.”

They talked about the war and their thoughts and worries. That helped. Harry didn’t feel so wimpy about having worries, and the war didn’t feel so alone and just him.

Bill talked about girls, too. Harry was surprised that Bill’s first experiences were just as bad, just as confusing as his. Even his more recent relationship with Fleur hadn’t gone anywhere. “She was certainly beautiful,” Bill said, “and bright and interesting, but… We could both feel….” He shrugged. “There was just no magic, at least not between us. Sometimes that happens.”

Charlie was a lot different to Bill, more like the twins, and he was as absorbed in his dragonwork as they were in their jokeshop. To Harry, Charlie felt -- no more than felt -- Charlie’s bond to Harry, like his bond to Hagrid, had something wild and untamed about it. Almost, though Harry could hardly believe it, dragonish? As with Hagrid, Harry could feel that dragonish come through the BondRope and become a part of him; Harry felt himself become part dragonish.

Though fun-loving like the twins, Charlie could talk seriously, too, and he shared with Harry his life’s plans. “I’m returning to England in another month or so, and while I’ll keep working with dragons, I want to be closer to my family. I really want that.” Charlie paused and smiled. “Because I’m ready to settle down.”

This led to Harry’s first big sibling surprise: Charlie was gay.

They talked a lot about how Charlie figured it out, and how helpful and accepting their parents were. But still, for many years he’d felt troubled and scared. Charlie had met a young man in Romania, Antonin, and he was bringing him back to England. Antonin – Charlie called him his partner – was just as interested in dragons and magical creatures as Charlie. “But it’s more than that, Harry. We fit – how we are, deep inside. The more we know each other, the more we’re around each other, the more we both know that we’re just meant to be together. And of course….” Charlie blushed, an extravagant Weasley-blush. “We’re in love.”

Harry looked forward to meeting Antonin. “He’s your family, Charlie, so he’s mine, too.”

Harry could see-feel relief in Charlie’s face and heart, and he felt sad. He knew a lot about being scared as to whether he was accepted, whether he really belonged. He felt deeper into his brother and found, as he expected, a wound.

“Charlie.” Harry fixed him with serious eyes. “You’re my brother. I love you. Anyone you love, I love them, too. I promise.”

Charlie gave Harry a dragon-fierce hug.

And Harry promised himself that Charlie would always and absolutely know, with Harry, that he belonged, that he was Harry’s Charlie.

After HandBonding with his two oldest brothers, Harry finally began to feel sixteen for the first time. Not just sixteen, though, but sixteen-in-a-family, which was new and really good and brought its own magic. But he still worried about those times when he all-of-a-sudden felt younger. He wrestled with his worry, but it didn’t help. Then like a light, it came: “I can talk to Mum. I’ve got a mum now, and that’s what mums are for.”

Slightly embarrassed, he waited until an evening when he was HandBonded with his mum and they were alone. Molly was knitting together Harry’s and Ron’s new wizard baby-blankets; she decided not to do this with magic, but to knit them in the old Muggle way. “That feels right,” she said to Harry, “like it’s bringing in more of your first mum and her Muggle magic.” Mum had magicked the BondRope to make Muggle-knitting, a two-handed process, easier, though from time to time, Harry had to hold his hands up or around or hold the yarns she wove into magical patterns. He liked this, as he felt it brought more of himself into the blankets, too, along with his two mums and Ron.

The rest of the family was outside playing on broomsticks. That was one thing Harry missed. With the BondRope, flying was out. Harry liked it, though, that his family wasn’t so worried about him. They could leave him for a while, now, without the lookout that they posted over him the first few days after the snake, just in case one family member around wasn’t enough.

“Uh, Mum?” Harry blushed.

She saw this and gently smiled, sending him some [Reassuring]. “Yes, Harry?”

“The past couple weeks, I haven’t always been feeling, well… sixteen? It’s like I’ve been younger, sometimes a lot younger.” Harry looked carefully at his mum. “I know that sounds weird, and it feels weird, too. You know what I mean?”

Her smile broadened. “Yes, Harry, I’ve seen that in you, and felt it, too, especially when we’re HandBonded.” She looked thoughtful. “Even some when we weren’t. And yes, I know about that, too.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “You do?”

Molly chuckled, then saddened. “Harry, my parents, my family, they didn’t do well with loving, or at least with loving me. I had to grow up on my own.” She sighed. “When Arthur and I first got together, we spent a lot of time around his family, and his parents became the mum and dad I never had.”

She looked at Harry. “I so wish you’d had a chance to know them. They were wonderful, and they would have loved you wonderfully. All I know about love, especially loving children, I learned from them. I guess maybe, through me, they are loving you.” Harry saw a few almost-tears. “They died, as did my parents and yours, during the earlier war.”

Molly squeezed Harry’s hand, and they were quiet for a while.

“When I was first around Arthur’s parents,” she continued, “I often found myself all sorts of younger ages – one moment ten, another four or five. And it bothered me, too. But now.…”

She paused to find words.

“I think, Harry, that’s what happens when you miss out on parents, or anything important while you’re growing up. When you get finally them… I don’t know how else to say it -- the child inside comes out.” She chuckled. “I guess it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

She turned serious. “All children, Harry, all children have that right. And they never lose that right, no matter how old they get. Never.”

Again, she smiled. “I got my happy childhood.”

In her eye, a now fully-formed tear came down her cheek. “It means so much to me that I’m finally able to give a happy childhood to the last of my children.”

For a long time, Harry and Mum looked at each other and just smiled together, in their faces and their hearts.

* * * * * * * * * *

I think I could turn and live awhile with the animals….

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins….
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

They bring me tokens of myself.

Walt Whitman
Song of Myself [32]
From Leaves of Grass, first edition

Nestled as always in her mate’s heart, deep within her mate's body, the yellow eyes watched her mate’s memory again, that memory of their new cub.

Their cub. The she-wolf accepted that unquestioningly. Once she felt her mate bond, he became their cub, and she put his smell-memory in her heart, keeping it along with the smell-memories of all their other cubs. Their full-moon cubs.

These full-moon cubs lived for one night only, the night of the full moon. And they lived only through her mate, only through transforming his body. Her mate never knew that these transformations were their cubs, that they were part her, part him. He knew nothing of their cubs; he knew nothing of her. He only knew that, with each full moon, his body transformed. He never felt their cub-life within those transformations; he never knew that the transformations were giving himself, giving his body over to their cubs. He knew only himself and a "not-him", a disease that he called “werewolf”.

But this new cub was different. Long-lived, he was of her mate’s kind. Nearly full-grown, too, when her mate finally accepted him. She’d seen the cub many times, and she’d felt her mate’s strong attraction. She’d wondered why he hadn’t fully accepted him. Over and over, he’d come close, but then he’d always pulled back.

He’d pulled back with such a strange mixture of feelings. Her mate’s feelings often smelled odd to her, beyond her understanding. Clearly he wanted to accept the cub. That she smelled and understood. But what of his pulling back? She could only guess that there was something wrong with the cub, though he smelled and appeared sound to her, at least as sound as others of her mate’s kind. And she could hear the cub’s heart crying out for a pack, and she knew her mate heard this, too. In her mate’s heart, she smelled his wanting-to-accept.

Yet before that night, less than a half-moon ago, she’d also smelled, in her mate’s heart, a not-right. A not-right she accepted, but never understood. Still watching that memory through her mate’s mind, she sniffed her mate’s heart. All traces of that not-right smell were gone. There was now only a strong bond, stronger than any she’d ever smelled in him.

The she-wolf’s ears and tail drooped. She knew that her mate wasn’t aware of her, that he never even suspected her. This was her greatest sorrow, this and knowing that none of her cubs would fully live except that one night, and except by causing her mate such excruciating pain.

Again, all her mate knew, all he would ever know is that something took him over at the full moon, something he felt as horrible. Again the she-wolf’s ears and tail drooped. This, too, was a great sorrow for her – that everything her mate felt about their cubs he felt as a curse. More, almost all of his kind shunned him for it. She knew that it had sometimes made him packless, a lone wolf, hating himself, wanting to hide and wishing for death.

In every way she could, the she-wolf had tried hard to help her mate. She gave him her ears to hear through, her eyes to see through, her nose to smell through. And most especially, she gave to his heart, her own she-wolf’s fierce pack-bonding. If her mate ever chose a mate of his kind, if he ever had a cub of his kind, then like the she-wolf, he would completely, inseparably bond, he would pack-bond.

And now he had a cub of his own kind. More! Finally, at last, they had a cub that they both knew, that they shared. The she-wolf reveled in this, their shared cub, even though he came with so much sadness and such a desperate need for protection, even though he was almost full-grown.

She growled as she mind-saw, through her mate’s memory, their cub after he’d been attacked and almost killed. Every time her mate thought of that memory, she felt his bond with their cub grow fiercer. She didn’t understand why her mate hadn’t tracked down those who had attacked their cub and killed them. Through her mate’s mind, she saw them, and she remembered their sight and smell from that meeting in the place with all the smoke and metal, with all those of her mate’s kind crowded together.

Why? Why hadn’t he killed them? Were she able, she would. She could smell where they lived, and she knew her mate smelled it, too. And she smelled his wanting-to-kill, along with the wanting-to-kill smell of the others who gathered with her mate after they found their cub near death. Why hadn’t they killed them?

Her mate’s kind were so hard to understand. Even when thoughts and smells were clearest, they made no sense.

She was relieved when, that first night after they found him beaten, they didn’t leave him, even though her mate hadn’t yet fully accepted him as their cub. Leaving the second night was hard on both of them, very hard. Fortunately, she smelled fierce protection in that adult male they left with there, the one her mate called, “Arthur”. Even then, it was still painful leaving their cub in the den of those who'd beaten him.

She wondered whether that “Arthur” male belonged to her mate’s pack. Perhaps he was the beta male, and his mate -- the one her mate called, “Molly” -- was the beta female. They had a male cub, too, she could smell that. This male cub seemed about the same age as their new cub, and he was red-furred like his parents. And she could smell, too, that this red-furred cub felt fiercely protective of their cub, that he accepted him as his littermate.

She shook herself. Human packs were so confusing, so unclear and disorganized.

Just the day before, when their cub cried out from danger, her mate had gone to him. But then her mate stopped outside the beta-pair’s den. He stopped and he just smelled and waited until the danger-smell was gone. Why? Why?

Not understanding, the she-wolf allowed her thoughts to move on. As they often did, they moved on to that strange and wonderful cub-spark. The cub-spark came from their new cub; she smelled that right away when it suddenly appeared a quarter-moon ago. It had heightened their sense of their cub, both in her and in her mate. That was how they knew to come, how they heard his cry and knew he was in danger.

But most surprising, most wonderful, that cub-spark had awakened all his brother full-moon cubs, their spirits. Now rather than nestled in her heart, just as she was nestled in the heart of her mate, they joined her in the heart of her mate. And more, there was a link between the heart of her mate and the heart of their new cub, a link through which she and her cubs could travel. The she-wolf, of course, had explored that link thoroughly before allowing any of their cubs to go, and she had imprinted his smell, their new cub’s smell on their other cubs, the full-moon cubs, and on any full-moon cubs-to-be. All this so their cubs would know not to attack their littermate.

Freeing their cub-spirits and linking to their new cub’s heart -- this had been by far the most joy the she-wolf had ever felt.

With that joy, which she now felt surging in her heart, the she-wolf tipped her head back and gave a bass howl, soon joined by the soprano howls of their cubs, all of which tapered off into happy and playful yips.