.

"Going to be LATE, going to be LATE, going to be LATE—"

Harry opened his eyes and lifted his head off his pillow blearily, to see a white rabbit in a vest running around the room on its hind legs. He blinked. The rabbit pulled a pocketwatch out of a vest pocket and resumed its chant as it hopped toward the door. Harry decided he must be dreaming and pulled the cover over his head.

A little while later, feeling much more awake, he untangled himself from the bed and shuffled through his normal afternoon routine. Since it was a weekend, he left his backpack behind by his homework desk and headed downstairs for breakfast. Jenkins and Savage were seated together at the bar when he came down.

"—Fantasies are classics, it's only muggleborns that understand it," Jenkins scoffed. "Will can tell you too, hey Will?"

Harry just looked at them both as he climbed onto the stool beside Savage.

Savage patted him on the back. "That's right, lad, best response when this one starts up. How've you been then?"

He ignored Jenkins' "You've only been out four days."

"That partner of yours talking yet?"

Harry looked at the counter in front of him and guessed "Eggs," a second before a plate of eggs and bacon appeared in front of him. He grinned "Thanks, Stagehand," then frowned at Savage. "Jonny can't talk."

"Well not yet, he's just a baby," Savage said, digging into his own meal. "Babies learn fast though, he'll be picking up our swear words before you know it."

Harry frowned slowly around his eggs as he thought about the idea of Jonny as a baby.

On Savage's other side, Jenkins leaned forward to catch Harry's gaze. "Ignore the big lummox, vampire infants aren't anything like human ones. Not that there's much documented on them to support claims either way."

"We don't need documents with our own junior crimefighters right here," Savage returned cheerfully. "Yours is a baby, Will-o, cause if you ever meet a grown one you'll tell the difference right off."

He ignored Jenkins' "You've never met a grown one."

"They don't grow, as such, like we do, seeing as they're shapeshifters, they just get better at it. Your buddy lives long enough, he'll likely not need half so much blood half as often, and pass as anything he wants so well nobody will tell unless he lets them know."

"Don't get into the stories of that vampire that could turn into mist, you'll just confuse the kid with tall tales," Jenkins broke in. "I've told you that's muggle—"

Savage scoffed. "Muggles don't know anything about vampires."

"No, you believe—"

Harry ate his breakfast and watched them argue quietly, wondering if any of what they said mattered enough to ask Jonny about. He wondered if either of them was aware of Jonny hiding somewhere behind the counter, but didn't mention it since Jonny still didn't really like attention. It wasn't like they seemed to be saying anything bad about his friend.

"—And that's why you two are going to be the best bloody team the department's had in centuries, with your buddy willing to help you out with human affairs," Savage enthused. "Better than metamorphmagi, if there's any truth to crossbreeding that's probably where—"

"For cripes' sake, Roq, think about what you fill his head with—you don't have to become an auror, Will, there are lots of—"

"But what else could be better, with shining role models like us?" Savage nudged Harry's arm and winked broadly.

Harry chewed and swallowed. "What's a meh… tha…?"

"Metamorphmagi are, basically, shapeshifting humans," Jenkins explained, leaning around Savage again with his elbows on the counter. "They can change their appearance without any particular spells or even a wand. They can't change their base structure, though—they'll always look human, just like different people when they want to."

"Like… if somebody cut all their hair off, and it was back the next day?"

"Nah, that sounds like wish magic, but good on you lad!" Savage ruffled his hair before Harry had time to duck. "Ha!—explains your handy mysterious-looking scar too, eh? Showed up after you figured out folks expected Harry Potter to have something like that?"

That sounded convenient, so Harry nodded. Savage looked pleased.

"Near impossible for a full-fledged trait like that to show up in a muggleborn, but sounds like you might have an affinity. Maybe your kids could get it someday if you find someone similar—try a Black, I heard they have an offshoot in Hogwarts that turned up a metamorph."

"Oh sure, if he wants to shop for a wife by attribute, this young—"

The door swished open behind them. Harry glanced up and waved at Tavish, glad to see him since the conversation was beginning to sound slightly alarming. Then he straightened on his stool as Tavish headed directly to him.

"'Lo all. Will, can your partner handle this much light for a trip to the Ministry building?"

Harry glanced outside at the lingering sunshine. "With the popping travel?"

None of the others acted like they noticed Jonny's low hiss. Tavish nodded. "If he prefers Apparition. I've got an invisibility cloak on me to turn in."

Harry glanced at Jonny as the vampire appeared behind the bar in front of them, lips drawn back. Jenkins and Savage jumped a little. "Can he see the cloak?"

Tavish pulled it out of a pocket that looked much too small to have held it and handed it to Harry. Harry looked at it curiously as he passed it over the bar to Jonny.

"Oh hell," Jenkins sighed as the vampire disappeared. "That's all we need."

Harry grinned at Jonny's shorter higher-noted hiss. "That's good. Do we have to go now?"

"Go ahead and finish eating."

Harry finished quickly, rolling his eyes a little privately when Savage grabbed a straw and poked it randomly in the air where Jonny wasn't anymore. The emptied plate vanished. Harry repeated "Thanks, Stagehand," as he climbed down from his seat.

"What's going on?" he asked Tavish diffidently once they were outside, Tavish just ahead, Jonny roaming from and to his side testing the cloak.

"Something about the last mission, probably. Robards will tell you."

Harry stilled for a second. Tavish turned around, noticing, and Harry hurried to catch up. "Is Jonny in trouble?"

"What, for ripping that—man's arm half off? You didn't see the rest of that house, Will. It was justified defense, especially in that situation."

"You didn't let me see the rest," Harry murmured, slightly reassured by the adult's reaction.

Tavish put his hand on Harry's head for a second. "We didn't want to have to see it either."

Harry brushed his hair over the scar on his forehead when they got to the Ministry and stuck close behind Tavish, wishing he'd remembered his cap, but no one seemed to pay any attention to them, even on the auror floor, until they entered the night shift supervisor's office.

Tavish closed the door behind them and held out his hand. Harry took the cloak from a reluctant Jonny and gave it back to Tavish.

Behind the desk, Robards said, "Good to see you, Will, Jonny. Sit or stand as you like."

Jonny was already edging back and forth along the back wall. Harry took one of the seats in front of the desk and concentrated on keeping his hands and legs still. Tavish sat down beside him.

"Hi sir."

"Have you visited Miss Elspeth since the raid, Will?"

Harry nodded. "I told her about what happened. She said we didn't mess anything up, and she liked hearing more about me and Jonny. She said most people get upset about some things more than me, but most people haven't lived like I have, and feelings are always okay even if they're different from other people's but sometimes you shouldn't act on them or should try to ask somebody first."

"You didn't do anything wrong, Will, you and Jonny did many things right," Robards said. Harry relaxed further hearing it from him. "We were wrong to put you in that situation; our intelligence didn't begin to cover what Macnair was really hiding. That's the last time we'll allow you out of more open areas with a suspect for many, many years, if you choose to continue working with us."

Harry nodded obediently in the pause. Robards flipped some papers on his desk.

"The issue that's come up is Macnair's friends higher up in the Ministry won't allow us to quietly lock him away."

Jonny stilled by the wall, a long, low hiss reverberating.

"We will lock him away," Robards said, holding a hand up. Harry breathed again. "But his friends aren't likely to be satisfied with just a written testament from you like before, Will. You may have to be present at his trial."

Harry tried to inhale and exhale at the same time and couldn't figure out which one was right. "Is that bad?"

"It's problematic." Robards folded his hands together and looked at Harry seriously. "Macnair was a Death Eater—with what we found in his house, there's no doubt of that conviction now. His friends will help keep his trial quiet, because they won't want it noticed if he's convicted, but they'll also try hard to get him off because it will look bad for them if they were friends with him then. So you'll likely be questioned about your and Jonny's parts in it—not that they'll be able to say either of you did anything wrong."

Harry waited to hear what the problem was then.

"There's a potion people sometimes take before they testify that only lets them tell the truth. Truthfully you're not Harry Potter. But it's very useful to us that people think you are. If you have to testify, word might spread of what we're doing."

Harry chewed on his lip. "Could I not take the potion?"

Robards sighed. "Normally, yes. But Harry Potter is an important name in our world. If you claim to be him, Macnair's friends will likely insist you take the potion first."

Harry chewed his lip more. After a moment Robards said, "The trial won't be for several weeks yet. We'll go through the procedures and what you do later, I just wanted to give you an idea what to expect. Do you have any questions, Will?"

"I think… no." Harry shook his head.

"Tavish will see you back then. Tavish, I'll expect that cloak signed in no later than when you've returned."

Tavish nodded in Robards' direction as they got up to leave. "Sure thing, boss."

Back in the pub, Harry sat quietly while Tavish filled in Savage and Jenkins on the upcoming trial and Harry's part in it. Jenkins listened, then squatted by Harry's side and said to him, "You know, Will… the adult dose of Veritaserum is unbeatable, but you're so small, you'll only get a third of that. Just think about it this way: when you're out with us, you are being Harry Potter. Just because it's not the name you were born with doesn't mean it's not yours some of the time."

Harry nodded, then slowly opened his mouth. "I am Harry Potter," he whispered. Nobody jumped or pointed at him or grabbed for him. Only Jenkins noticed and nodded back. "I am Harry Potter," Harry repeated, a little louder, and let out a huge, shaky breath. "I think I can say it."

But should he really—Harry Potter was just pretend now, and the aurors knew that, and the point of pretending was that nobody else knew that, so it should be okay to say who he was… but the times wizards had found Harry Potter before the aurors did stuck and churned in his gut. Those had been bad times, that made him so much gladder to be Will than just when he left the Dursleys…

"What if…" His voice gave out. He tried again, "Would that make more bad people… should I say I'm Harry but really Will—"

Cold suddenly clenched his chest. What if he couldn't say he was Will Jansen? Then everyone would know he wasn't pretending and whatever people wanted from Harry Potter they'd get—

"I wouldn't worry about second-guessing like that," Jenkins' voice broke through his increasing anxiety. "Robards is good at this sort of stuff, he wouldn't have made supervisor otherwise. You're already the best-protected kid in Great Britain, living with us. We'll look out for you, even while you're at school. And Robards—hell, maybe even Madame Bones—will probably have the trial transcript classified. So nobody will hear except whatever few people are in the room. And that'll be a very, very few—like Robards said, everyone who knows Macnair is going to dump him fast when it looks like he's headed to Azkaban. Robards will make sure enough of what we found leaks out beforehand that everyone will be sure he's sunk."

Jenkins smiled at Harry. Harry breathed, quietly, focused on Jonny's presence looming still and silent in a nearby corner, and let himself believe everything would be okay. It sounded scary, what was coming, but the aurors sounded like they would handle it and they'd been good about not putting Harry and Jonny in trouble. When they got out of Macnair's house a lot of the aurors had even said good on Jonny for what he'd done to the man, and they wished they could've done it instead.

.

"...As the witness is a minor, in protection of his rights I will now erect a privacy shield to prevent him hearing anyone's voice but mine until the antidote is given to him." The woman in front of Harry paused for second during which no one said anything, then waved her wand. The courtroom around them fuzzed behind a faint bluish mist.

"Tilt your chin up and stick out your tongue," she told him.

Harry obeyed. The night shift aurors had said the woman who was going to question him was very nice and they'd introduce him to her after the trial.

A touch of something either cold or wet hit his tongue. Harry automatically closed his mouth and swallowed. His head was floating—he almost reached up to feel if it was still there, but that was so much effort.

"What is your name?" a grownup's voice said. She sounded nicer than Aunt Petunia. And Aunt Petunia already knew his name.

"Which one?"

His chest moved a lot when he breathed. Uuuuuppp and doooowwnnn…

"What do you answer to?"

"Boy. Freak." His muscles were tight. "Harry. You—"

"Is your name Harry Potter?"

Wasn't it?

"Yes."

"Were you on Pickwick Street on the night of the eighth shortly after one o'clock?"

He wanted to say yes. Aunt Petunia never asked him things, just told and scolded.

"I think so."

"Why don't you know for certain?"

"I didn't look at a calendar."

"Did you meet the man identified here as Walden Macnair on Pickwick Street very late at night several weeks ago?"

"Yes."

The words went on, never loud, never mad. Harry thought he was being good when he answered. He might have napped a little in between words, they were so comfortable, but that must have been all right because nobody took them away or made him stop.

"Tilt your chin up and stick out your tongue."

Harry let the finger on his chin move his head and tap his lips open. Something cold or wet landed on his tongue. He snapped his mouth closed and blinked in surprise as he looked around. The courtroom stopped being blue.

"Did I finish?"

"Yes, you did. Go sit over there now until you're called again or court is adjourned."

Harry glanced around. There weren't many people in the room, but he didn't know most of them and Jonny was hiding nowhere near them. "Can I sit higher? I like being high."

"That's allowable."

Harry climbed up to the top row of seats and let out a little breath when he stayed alone and unattacked. Jonny lurked closer.

The woman called Tavish up to ask questions to him. Harry paid more attention than with the other people who'd gone since he understood more of what Tavish talked about.

Cloth rustled toward the end of Harry's bench. Jonny growled low on Harry's other side underneath the bench. Harry glanced up to see a very old-looking man in wizard robes, with a floppy hat and a white beard so long it was tucked into his belt, coming toward him. Harry hesitated. The stranger didn't look dangerous, and Jonny was right there.

The man sat down with a little space between them and looked down at the trial. Harry stared straight ahead and tried to look with the sides of his eyes anyway.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore," the man murmured. "I'm glad to meet you, my boy."

Harry was puzzled into glancing at him again. "I'm not anyone's boy."

The man sighed a little. Harry wondered if he should feel bad for making the old man look sad. "That term isn't always meant literally. Sometimes it marks affection."

That explained why his uncle only ever said it to Dudley, then. But why would the old man like Harry?

"You did very well on the witness stand. I believe you impressed several people with your maturity."

Harry looked ahead again and blinked. Jonny didn't want to attack, but Harry didn't understand why the old man was there.

Then he frowned and paid more attention to the talking below. Were they talking about him again? Why?

"It's an unusual situation you're in—a ward of the ministry, working for law enforcement."

Tavish was talking about Jonny. Harry squirmed, but there didn't seem to be a point in him trying to hide it since Tavish was having to explain.

"Are you happy, Harry?"

Harry looked back at the old man, a little thrown by the question. "I have a friend," he said slowly. "And… grownups care… I think that's happy."

The old man let out a long breath, so soft Harry almost couldn't hear it. "And you like it, working with the aurors? Living with them?"

Harry nodded. Except for occasional scary times like being in Macnair's house, he very much liked being with the aurors. It almost felt like having a family except without all the real parts that would have been bad because he wasn't anybody's family.

"I want to stay like this," he whispered. He knew more what that meant now than when he'd said it to Madame Bones.

"Well then." He wondered why the old man looked sad again. "I am glad you found a place better than where you came from, my boy, that can protect you. The friend you earned should become highly capable in that regard as it grows with you."

It sort of reassured Harry that in this magic world, despite how important Harry Potter sounded whenever the name came up, Jonny seemed to be even more special.

"Okay?" he guessed.

The old man might have sighed a little again, then stood up. His hand rested on top of Harry's head briefly. Harry breathed out hard so he didn't stiffen since Jonny still wasn't attacking.

"I wish you well, Harry."

Harry waited until the old man was out of the row and several rows down before he leaned down to share baffled looks with Jonny. That was the first time anyone that thought he was Harry Potter didn't seem to want something from him.

Maybe he just wasn't as desperate as the bad wizards. Maybe he'd be back later.

"Maybe we should sit with the aurors next time," Harry whispered.

Jonny hissed back.

.

"—I didn't know grownups get presents—" Harry wasn't sure whether to be shocked or thrilled that a tree had appeared overnight and some of what was under it was supposed to be for him.

Savage laughed. "Nah, grownups get drinks and throw gags at each other is all. You don't need to worry about that, Will, these saps are just trying to remember their childhoods by giving you things they liked. It's all okay. You don't even have to like any of it, most of 'em have terrible taste."

Lysah pulled out her wand and started hexing Savage, while someone yelled there better not be any spells except confetti near the tree, and someone else urged Harry to go ahead and grab something and see what it was.

Harry picked up a big brightly wrapped box and held it, then abruptly shoved it toward Jonny behind the tree. He pushed the next one to Tavish and the next to the person behind him. "There's too many, just tell me what they are!"

"Hey, hey, dibs on distribution! Lookit Alph, shiiiiny, what'll you give me… and one for you… put your arms up, catch!... one for you..."

Surrounded by the grownups' chatter, none of which required his input, Harry's breathlessness gradually steadied and even turned into occasional huffs of laughter. He took the box Greddie passed to him amidst the ones to everybody else. Wrapping paper tossed every which way kept crumpling into balls and getting fired around the room. Harry carefully peeled off the tape and unfolded the paper from the package in his lap. He touched the cloth inside, then stroked it absently while he mouthed his way through the thin loopy handwriting on the card.

This should come in great use to you, young Harry. I apologize for not sending it sooner, but could not resist the sentiment of contributing to what I hope is a very happy Christmas for you.

"Who's that from, Will?"

He squinted at the signature, which was even loopier than the rest of the note. "Somebody swirly."

He surrendered the card to the first outstretched hand in favor of examining whatever he'd been given. A dark blue cloak—he already had a cloak, and Jonny did too, but Finn said some cloaks were made for cold, and some for rain, and some for warm rain, and some for really really cold… was this a light one or a heavy one?

Shouts went up when he pulled it on.

"Invisible! Merlin's ducks, who gave Will an invisibility—"

Someone else crowed, "Dumbledore! My god, Will, you're the best, you convinced Albus Dumbledore—"

"Great!" Harry pulled off the cloak and held it out to Jonny. Jonny snatched it and disappeared in one motion.

"Ah hell, you realize what you just did, Will?" Jenkins complained. "Now there's going to be 'it wasn't me' responsible for toe-treading, and spilling drinks, and goosing—" He paused. "Actually—"

"Goose this, berk!" One of the women shot a hex at him. Someone yelled about confetti again.

Tavish squatted beside Harry, grinning, with the card that came with the cloak in hand. He gave it back to Harry. "Albus Dumbledore's a big man, you know. If he's decided you're Harry Potter, you're set. I won't be surprised if you get Harry's Hogwarts letter now."

Harry glanced down at the card. "Does that mean I'll have to use it—?"

"We can work that out later—you're Willem Jansen legally, no matter what people think is your birth name; there's no reason you can't stay Will even at Hogwarts. The 'secret' might come out there at some point, Macnair's friends have kids that'll be around your age…"

Harry giggled a little, unpracticed, at the way Tavish wiggled his eyebrows when he said 'secret,' then sobered. "What if I don't want to go to Hogwarts?"

"You don't have to. Yeah, it might be easier to avoid Death Eaters' kids, but you'd be letting them make you miss out on a lot. Director Bones has a kid around your age, and so do some of the aurors—and you can trust Dumbledore will look out for you. But you have plenty of time to think about it."

How Jonny would like a boarding school concerned Harry more than Dumbledore did, but the old man did still leave him uneasy. "Do you think he really thinks I am Harry Potter?"

Tavish looked thoughtful. "Honestly, if Dumbledore's willing to call you Harry, then I think he's going to go along with us that you're the best Harry Potter we've got. It's a tough sell to fool him, and he has enough authority to find your records with your real name on them if he looks. I think you can count on him not to give you a hard time."

"Then he won't take me away?"

Harry hadn't rested easy on the lie-that-really-wasn't since the trial, especially when he kept hearing about Dumbledore sounding like a Very Important Person. Harry really wanted to stay Will.

Tavish squeezed him in a one-armed hug. "Like hell. You're all ours, Mascot—and he gave you a sodding invisibility cloak, I think that's indirect approval of your life choices." He grinned down, then looked stern. "Although really. If your partner takes an interest in pranking into his head now—"

Harry glanced around to where Jenkins was still getting randomly hexed by different people. Jonny was already moving around the room a little now that he was really unseen instead of just unnoticed while he was still. "Then… it was somebody else?"

Tavish laughed. "You know what? It was Savage. Definitely."

Harry grinned a little back. He set the empty box and wrapping paper aside and looked under the tree. Greddie had moved off distributing presents to people who hadn't clustered around, but there were still boxes left… some of them might be for Harry. Presents for Harry.

He took a deep breath, grabbed a box, and passed it to Tavish.

Tavish glanced down at it. "This one's for you."

"You open it." Harry picked up another box with his name on it.

"Okay. If it's a model broom, I want to you know I'm claiming first course with it. And if it's a model broom from Jenkins, I'll show you how to set the slope extra steep on the one I got you so you can beat his sending them down the stairs. When you get really good you can launch them over people's heads."

Harry opened his box and lifted out what looked like a tangle of strings. He considered asking what it was.

"How does this work?"

"Ah, let me show you…"

By the end of the night, Jonny had tried eggnog instead of just blood and glided around a lot draped in fairy lights on top of the invisibility cloak which he kept not turning on until he was right in front of a person who wasn't paying attention. Harry had more things than he'd ever imagined in his life or could possibly fit in his backpack and had given over half of them to Stagehand, who, despite Finn's warning that house elves usually didn't play much, proved willing and very good at model broom races. Most of the grownups had either gone somewhere else or fallen asleep when Harry crept upstairs and flopped onto his bed.

Stagehand lit his candle in the middle of a blink. Harry smiled as he rolled onto his side and curled up around his pillow.

He wondered if his aunt and uncle and cousin had enjoyed Christmas more without him. They always said they would. Harry had never thought to imagine Christmas without them.

Jonny crept into the room with a clink of discarded fairy lights and pulled the closet door open, grumbling softly to himself. Harry wondered if he even planned to sleep in the new invisibility cloak.

He pulled the cover over his head and closed his eyes. He didn't really care about Christmas—or understand it, much—but he was glad he'd been brave enough, and scared enough, to run away from his old home. Compared to Privet Drive, he was pretty sure he must have told Dumbledore the truth. This was happy.

.

.

.

A/N: Thus ends the tale of Harry and Jonny. I believe the original inspiration for this fic was a few stories here involving the idea of 'Harry finds an injured Animagus while at Privet Drive'... and then evolved from there. I wound up with several aims when I was working on this story: to show an abused child without showing the abuse (and to show different specific instances than I've seen in other fics); to show the longterm effects of that kind of treatment; and to write it a little bit melancholy, a little bit fairy tale. I ended up satisfied enough to call it done and post it, but I'd be glad to know what you think. Hope you enjoyed the read.