Whose Universe Are We In?

15

A few days later, and Alan and Dan were in the cave. They had a swim first, followed by an extensive routine, a mixture of dance, martial arts and acrobatics that Dan did that made Alan’s mouth drop open in awe. He did his own yoga and stretches at the side of the pool, then they changed the room again as they took up their duelling positions intending to take up their training where it had left off before illness had felled them. They had been practicing shield-work. Shaking out their shoulders and adopting the stance, they began.

And failed miserably. Spells fired from either wand at the other simply turned groundwards and fizzled away in a shower of sparks. Having cast magics that didn’t show up as lights and those spells not working, Dan decided to try one they could see and this was the result. He was baffled. He spotted a lone cushion at the other side of the room, aimed his wand and said, “Incendio”, and the thing fair exploded in flames. Whoa.

They tried a variety of things against and to inanimate objects from levitation through transfiguration to outright destruction and their magic worked just fine, in fact Dan was aware of a slight difference in them both but was unable to voice it, he mumbled something to Alan who laughed as he stopped, his wand a mere hairsbreadth from between Dan’s eyes, “You mean our magic has....intensified in some way? It’s not necessarily stronger, it’s just more....refined, more....ingrained in us now, as if we actually know our spells well enough to actually use them instinctively rather than have to stop and think”. Dan looked up and nodded, “Yeah, all of that”.

He batted Alan’s wand away, “I don’t think we can hurt each other”, Dan suddenly blurted out. Alan frowned, “Magical weakness notwithstanding, I think we could and can hurt each other, though I have no wish to”. Dan was quite certain, “I think that’s why the spells failed. The rest of our magic is fine except when we aim it at each other. You know, we should re-try joined casting again. It’s not just for wusses you know”.

Dan wasn’t keen on the last posture for this, with their cheeks rather squashed together as they aimed, looking as if they were about to dance some comedic tango. He and Alan were both right-handed and he felt at his weakest casting left-handedly. Suddenly Alan whirled gracefully and caught Dan against his chest with his back, extended his right arm over Dan’s and covered Dan’s hand around his wand, his own fingertips just touching the wood, his other arm, he passed under Dan’s left and angled across Dan’s chest.

Dan murmured, smiled and closed his eyes as he melted into the touch, until Alan shook him, “Oi, less of that. This is the position to cast from. We can both touch one wand or touch both wands and I can see over your head and around your shoulder. I cover right, you left, and we can use these front arms to signal to each other which way to move. We need to practise this. Did Mr Potter, in that rather lurid journal of his, say anything about joined spell-casting?”

Truth to tell, Dan wasn’t a great reader, having had difficulties all through school. As an actor he’d learned his lines by reading them onto a tape and memorising what he said rather than what he read. He shook his head, “There’s something you should know, Alan. I know I said I had a learning disability? Well, reading is usually all messed up for me so I very rarely do it, so, no, I haven’t read the diary yet”.

Alan dipped his head to plant a kiss on Dan’s temple, “All right, it’s not a problem, but if you could finish scanning it, it’d help. I think we need to know what’s in that journal, and you’re the only one it’ll even open for. Now, let’s try a simple levitation charm to start with, shall we? Nothing too drastic”.

Dan loved how Alan, not exactly made light of his difficulties, but seemed to take them in his stride and by his very nature had made this whole.....Ordeal? Adventure? Whatever this was.....very enjoyable. Not letting himself drift too far along this mental avenue, Dan took a deep breath and braced himself, fitting himself to his partner as Alan curled around him and they aimed at a cushion, Alan’s hand covered Dan’s over Dan’s wand.

They fluffed the first couple of ‘takes’ trying to intone the spell together then Alan murmured, “On my count of three, One, two...” and they were in perfect sync as they uttered the Leviosa.

It was only the fact of the ceiling that stopped the ascension of the cushion to the heavens. They retracted the wand and let their hands fall to their sides. Alan kept his other arm about Dan and they both watched the cushion as it struggled to go through several feet of solid rock before Dan flicked finite incantatem and the thing dropped like a stone.

“Well, that worked”, said Dan after a long silence. He felt Alan’s huffed breath on his ear, “You can say that again. Shall we try something a little more....?”. Dan turned his head and kissed the corner of Alan’s mouth, “Yeah, but no Incendio’s. I think we’d bloody fry ourselves”. They both chuckled then spent a very productive afternoon joint casting, realising that with a bit of practice they could actually be quite formidable.

They tried a number of different spell classes from repelling to summoning, transfiguring (they decided to keep the new sofa that Alan made from a scruffy paperback book) and destroying (the aged duvet didn’t so much as merely burst, more eviscerated itself slowly until there were only a few loose threads left to show of it’s former existence).

They practiced improving the speed at which they came together to cast, an activity that had it’s own fun distractions but more often ended up with them butting heads or almost sending each other flying as they raced together. They stopped for tea and thought about it, sitting in the small kitchen.

“I think we can rush together but stop close to and sort of go into a hug then turn and do the thing”, Dan said thoughtfully as he lowered his mug. Alan grunted, “Bloody weird thing to do on a battlefield”. Dan laughed, “Of course, idiot, and if they don’t know what we can do then they won’t know what’s happening. We could take them by surprise a bit”.

Alan frowned, “Are you suggesting that we save our joint casting until the endgame?” Dan shrugged, “Dunno, but I’d like us to keep it in reserve, only draw it out when needed sort of thing. I mean, if it all goes tits-up, then use any and all our skills but even after this relatively tame session I’m knackered. How about you?”

The older man had to admit to a bone-deep weariness and scrubbed his hand across his face, “You may have a point there, Dan, magic is pretty bloody tiring”. Dan leaned over the small table and grasped Alan’s free hand, squeezing it gently, “Hey, we shouldn’t be hard on ourselves, we only just learned all this. We need to stay out of the way for the most part. The way these things are written is that the Death Eaters come storming Hogwarts and the Order and the DA are the main fighting forces. They only take Harry out of his mothballs to deliver the final ‘Avada’”, Dan shuddered but kept hold of the hand.

Alan returned the squeeze and smiled, “You really believe we’re in a work of fiction, don’t you? It occurs to me that this lady is writing us, she’s writing this as it happens, which means there’s a good chance that she, you did say that most of these writers are ‘shes’, is a member of this very school and could equally well have spied on us much as Snape and Potter did”.

Dan’s head came up as he digested this, “Thanks, Alan. Thanks for destroying my world view. About the only thing that’s keeping me sane in all this is the fact that this is a story and we’ll be all right in the end, ‘cos this is how they always play out but this is fucking real, isn’t it? And I, or we, could end up very dead, couldn’t we?”

This was delivered in such a sad, small voice that Alan couldn’t help getting up and coming to Dan’s side of the table and scooping him up in his arms, “It is a distinct possibility, Dan, that this isn’t fictional at all, after all, the witch that wrote the books may have been reviled by this community but she is still one of them, not a figment of someone’s imagination, and, likewise, it seems that the Internet communities have their adherents here at Hogwarts. Recall if you will young Lydia’s comment when she found you at your computer”.

Dan felt hopelessness wash over him, “Then why can’t we just walk out of here and bugger off to Outer Mongolia or somewhere?” Alan sank his nose into Dan’s hair and chuckled, “If we manage to avoid Voldemort and his cronies we probably can if we wish, although I wouldn’t put it past Dumbledore to have tracking charms all over us that we cannot detect. I suspect that he doesn’t want a second set of ‘golden boys’ buggering off into the sunset”. Even Dan had to snicker ruefully at this.

“We’re fucked then”, Dan said with such an air of finality that made Alan smile, he wasn’t forty years older for nothing. He held his Dan tight and asked, “I know you haven’t read the journal yet, but is there anywhere else in the literature that you have scanned, anything about wizarding bonds?”

Surprised, Dan turned to his lover and nodded, “Yeah, as a matter of fact there is. There’s quite a bit on the subject”, he began enthusiastically then piped down when he continued, “I need to read the damned diary to see if it’s relevant?”, and Alan just nodded sheepishly.

Dan huffed out a breath and clung to Alan’s shirt a moment before letting go and gazing into Alan’s eyes, he said, “Why is the bonding stuff relevant?” Alan frowned slightly, his eyes de-focussing as he looked off over Dan’s shoulder, “I’m not sure but I believe something drove them to run other than just being pissed off at the situation, after all, they had lived with this for years, so why run and why now? I think some of the answers will be in that damned diary of Harry’s”.

Dan looked sceptical, “Why? What do you think is so important? What am I missing here?” Alan mused, his voice low, “I don’t know, I wish I did but what I do know is that there was a lot of expectation piled onto those two men and somehow they cracked under the weight of it. By all accounts this was to be Harry’s destiny and despite what my character...er....Snape thought of Harry, Harry was to fulfil it, this destiny thing, the prophecy. This we do know and this is still the expectation of people like Dumbledore and Lupin and the Order and so on”

Dan was confused, “I’m not sure what you’re driving at”, he said cautiously. Alan shook his head slightly as if to clear his mind, “I’m not sure either but I think something went wrong for them. Not the spell that crossed us all over, I think that was deliberate and that we were chosen for some reason but something happened before we were involved in any way, maybe that something was the reason that we were brought here, I don’t know, but I feel that something is eluding me, just beyond my visual field, like smoke that you see from the corner of your eye that evaporates when you turn your full attention upon it”.

Dan folded against the taller frame of his lover and was taken into long strong arms, “I think I sort of know what you mean. We’ve let ourselves be carried along without wondering at the why of it all being so consumed with the how”. For this he received a kiss on the top of his head. “Precisely. And now I think we need to know that ‘why’”.

****

Dan pulled Hermione, Luna and Ron to one side before the next meeting of the DA. “Look, Alan and I are ‘out’ to the Order and we need to bring Tom into the DA. I know he was Malfoy and much reviled by you all and I don’t blame you for the faces you are pulling, but this is Tom, not Draco, and he needs to be protected. He’s a muggle just like me, really, and he has magic but it is unschooled much as my own. Will you give him a chance? Alan and I have a place to practice now and Tom is learning hard with Remus. I know he has a Mark but he got it in fear for his life. People, this isn’t Draco Malfoy, this is a scared muggle who hasn’t a fucking clue”.

The three listened to Dan’s impassioned plea. Ron and Luna didn’t look too happy but Hermione at any rate leaned forward paying attention. She said, “You’re right, Dan. We need to involve him, make him feel that there are folk looking out for him”. She waved a hand at Ron’s protest, “But it’s Malfoy, ‘Mione” and snapped at the tall lad, “No it isn’t, you idiot. It’s Tom”. She turned to Dan, “You’ll have to say who you really are, though, to give Tom some credence”. Dan just nodded, relieved, “He’s been through all the Ministry checks and stuff, been dowsed by all and sundry. There isn’t an adult that knows him that thinks he’s really Draco Malfoy and, let’s face it, we need all hands on deck for this battle and a Malfoy, even if Tom isn’t, will be a rallying point for all the fence-sitters who can’t decide what side to take in this War”.

Luna agreed, “There are Slytherins who will join if Malfoy does”, she stated simply, and reluctantly, Ron came around to his friends’ way of thinking, “Yeah, I sort of see your point”, he said slowly, though his face still told another tale but he nodded, “Yeah, I agree with ‘Mione, you’ll have to come clean with us all, but don’t worry, Harry had blood-bonds with us all, just warrior bonds, you know, but we can’t rat him out or harm him or anyone he has at his side, so I think Malf-....erm.....Tom will sort of come under that protection anyway”, he finished lamely, but to Dan, it was music to his ears.

He hugged the two spontaneously, “Thanks, guys”, then hugged Luna too, for good measure. Her eyes widened, “Merlin! Harry was never the huggy sort”, she declared and they all laughed, the tension crumbling a little between them. Dan shrugged, grinning, “Well, I am”, he declared as he let Luna go and they all stood around awkwardly. Dan really didn’t miss being an adolescent in that moment as the others brushed their robes with their hands and looked ridiculously teenaged. He took control of the moment and said, “Okay, let’s go and confront the others”, to ease them from their discomfort. They all looked at him with varying degrees of ....what? pity? He didn’t care. He was just glad to have broken up the weirdness. He nodded once and they all returned the nod. With that they breathed deeply and paced outside the door to the Room of Requirement until it revealed itself and they went in.

Dan had never had to plead another’s case like this before and, after getting the DA to accept Tom, he was exhausted. In front of the DA he had had to run through his repertoire of spells and show everyone else his casting skills to their satisfaction. He had slumped down a wall as someone, Marietta, had remarked, “He’s nearly as good as Harry was”, to be hushed and reminded that Harry was no more and wasn’t coming back to them, and Dan was the best they were going to get. Sniffles greeted this last remark. These people all missed Harry Potter and Dan was sad at the thought that they would never see their friend again. It was with a heavy heart that he trudged back to the dungeons later.

Alan welcomed him back with open arms and felt a little guilty as Dan crumpled in his arms and wept, his body shuddering and shaking as Alan held him tight. They didn’t talk over Dan’s night. Alan simply took him to bed and continued to hold and love as Dan cried and felt wretched and unworthy to lead this fight that loomed before all of them until he eventually slept, held hard against his lover’s big barrel chest, sniffling his last tears into the black hair spackled over the white skin.

****

Dan was a small ball at the other side of the bed when Alan awoke the next day. He coaxed his lover gently against him and threaded a warm heavy arm around him. Dan slowly relaxed against his beloved and sighed and sniffled a bit still. Alan couldn’t resist his sleepy lover and laid small kisses along his shoulder, inhaling him as he went, he loved that early morning pre-shower smell. Dan tried to shrug away a little but Alan was having none of it.

“Come on, Dan”, he whispered, “I’m at least as scared as you are”. He heard Dan breathe out hard, “I know, and I’m supposed to lead people that have been doing magic for bloody years and impersonate a really famous and powerful wizard and kill the evil Dark Lord. I hate this. My life is shit!”.

Alan didn’t snigger, to his credit. He even wiped the small smile from his mouth before it nuzzled up Dan’s neck, “No it isn’t”, he murmured, “You have to do one really shit thing then the rest of it will be roses, if the slash writers are to be believed”.

This made Dan turn awkwardly until he could look his lover in the eye, “I thought you said that the writer was reactive, not proactive”. Alan smiled, “Recall if you will, the spanner in the works: if our authoress had been writing as it happened, then how come we had the copy in our hands regarding Tom’s bloody arrival at our chambers some time before the actual event, long before the Slytherin boys duffed him up?”

Dan’s eyes widened and he blinked, “Oh, fuck! Of course. If the writer is here in school, how come she knew of this hours earlier in order to write about it, unless she’s a Seer, of course, or even a Slytherin who heard them planning the duffing-up”. Alan mumbled, “Hadn’t thought of that as a matter of fact”. Dan appreciated the thought and support though and showed it by kissing Alan on the nose, then the jaw, then he was turning in Alan’s arms, threading one of his own around Alan’s neck and the next kiss was on his slightly open mouth, all tongue and sleepy passion.

As they emerged, Alan said, “We need to get the latest instalments, I suppose?” Dan nodded and moved his head to allow the next kiss deeper still, “Yeah, in a bit”, and Alan snickered before claiming that lush mouth with his own.

****

“It’s so bloody accurate, there has to be something in here!”, Dan declared after the third pass around their apartments looking for magical spyware until Alan halted the search by drawing them both down upon the sofa. “Look, Dan, reading this again, she has the conversations pretty much verbatim, right enough, but not just in here. Now, unless this mere girl has found a way into Dumbledore’s study and the Great Hall to plant bugs then we have to rule out the spying theory as her representations of our actual conversations are, it has to be said, extremely accurate, nay, as you say, verbatim. Therefore, at this juncture, I can only deduce one thing.....You are right and we are being written. So, knowing that, what is the next teaser that the malevolent little baggage has thrown us?”

Dan pondered, “Well there is still the issue of her being a seer. I wonder if Dumbledore’d tell us if there was one in the school. Aren’t they supposed to be registered or something, like Animagi?” Alan slapped Dan’s bare arse gently, “I’ve no idea. Now, come on, the teaser?”, he rolled partway atop Dan’s back then rolled them again, back to chest as Dan pushed his glasses up his nose and straightened out the printed sheets and read the penultimate paragraph, “Fuck, she even has....oh, right, we know that but it’s still fucking creepy, okay?”

Alan sighed, “Yes, indeed it is unnerving, so, what happens now?” Dan squinted at the last two sentences on the creased paper, “Alan bit his way along Dan’s shoulder, murmuring his eternal love and devotion....”, Alan whacked his arse, “It does not, you charlatan, let me see”, and reaching over Dan’s shoulder he made a grab for the papers. Dan laughed and held them far in front of him and out of Alan’s reach.

Alan made to climb over his lover in another attempt when a voice from the lounge made them both freeze. Albus Dumbledore was calling them through their floo-fire. Alan made an impatient noise and climbed off the bed pulling his dressing gown around him, he was damned if he’d dress for the old man. Dan stayed in bed, let Alan deal with this, and he focussed once more on the final two lines.

Walking smartly and straight-backed into the room, he held the paper before him, not caring in the slightest that he was naked. Dumbledore was speaking in the fire and Dan mumbled, “...an attack on a muggle village, forty people killed and a young boy that looked like a younger Harry kidnapped, suspected dead after extensive torture”. Dumbledore gasped at Dan’s nakedness and closed his eyes but Alan gasped as Dan had been reading the very words Albus had been speaking. Creepy indeed.

Albus craned his head out of the fire a little, “Sorry, Dan, I didn’t catch what you were saying”. Dan smiled, “It’s all right, sir? I was just reading a little from my journal. Sorry, I didn’t see you there”, and with that he wandlessly Summoned his dressing gown to him and wrapped himself up. He didn’t miss the stunned look on the headmaster’s face and smiled, “I can only do that for the simplest of spells”, he blushed.

Albus whispered, “Boys, Harry and Severus never learned that and they did try. Oh, they tried all right but they only ever could do magic with a wand. That is quite extraordinary. Alan, are you capable of magic such as this? It is considered a rare and beautiful art”. Alan demurred, “I haven’t had the opportunity to try it as yet, sir”.

The old man just nodded then said, “My word, you two are pretty extraordinary in your own right and young Tom, too, is starting to prove himself a very capable wizard under Remus..”, Dan had to cough down a laugh at this, “and is brilliant at hexes and curses as well as dodging them: he is proving himself an able warrior indeed”.

Dan cut him off, “So, what’s happening with Voldemort and how come the muggle authorities aren’t all over this? A community like this, just wiped out, cannot go unnoticed, surely?” Albus looked at Dan and liked very much what he saw, young, but older than Harry, strong, so much more than Harry and more mature, much more mature.

“Indeed not, but the incident was put down to an explosion in a Calor gas works”, he regarded the pair of them in dressing gowns at this time of the day and smiled, “But his activities build as they have always done only each year the atrocities mount. Can we be ready this summer?”

Dan blew out a breath, “I’ve no idea. How ready do you have to be to fight with the magical equivalent of Satan? With a weapon that you aren’t that familiar with and a whole new language and set of rules to go with it. And, oh yes, you have to do it all in under four months. Come on, what do you think our chances are?”

Even through the green of the floo-flames, Dan could see the damnable man’s eyes twinkle, “Well, my boy, put like that, your chances seem rather bleak but I am somewhat more optimistic than that. I hate to say it but I rather think that you were chosen for a reason, way beyond that of mere looks and resemblance. I feel that your age, young Dan, is of some relevance, coming, as you are, close to your ‘ultimate majority’ at twenty one. I believe your birthdate falls a mere week before Harry’s does it not?”

Paling, Dan sank against Alan’s chest and was glad of the arms around him warming his sudden chill. He nodded dully, “What has that to do with anything?”, he all but pouted. Albus smiled, “He, that is, Voldemort, has a habit of attacking very close to the breaking up at the end of term and, yes, according to wizarding protocol, how old one is means a great deal. You have to remember that Voldemort will think that he joins in battle with a probably not-quite eighteen year old, a mere stripling, I may say, compared to your good self. You have more training in a wider variety of the fighting arts and enough magic to disarm him and fight him hand to hand if you have to. I admit to having witnessed your training sessions in the room of requirement and am starting to be of the opinion that Harry and Severus did this out of desperation and chose very wisely indeed”. To say that this floored Dan and Alan was understatement of the year. Gobsmacked didn’t even begin to cover it.

Dan really did to read more of that damned diary. And maybe look at more of those memories – so much easier than reading!

****

Instead, the next morning he did neither. Restless and awake, his lover still in deep and unarousable slumber, Dan admitted defeat over getting his lover to give him one of ‘those’ sleepy fucks and rolled out of bed slightly disappointed. He dressed quickly and quietly, kissed his beloved on the forehead and left the room, Alan’s breathing not changing one whit.

He grabbed his laptop, left a note on the coffee table and checked the time before exiting: it wouldn’t do to run into students in the hallways. It was before six and he grinned. Sometimes it was really difficult to suss out the time in a permanently dark dungeon! On quiet feet, he left their rooms with his laptop bag slung over his shoulder and made his way to the Astronomy tower.

In the blanketing silence that permeated the castle at this time of day, he was brought up short at the sound of voices and laughter coming at him from the general direction of the tower. He slunk into the shadows at the edges of the corridor and cursed himself for not bringing along the invisibility cloak. Whipping out his wand, he crept forward into the central area of the tower and looked up the steps, the sounds came from above him.

Cautiously, wand at the ready, he ascended, hugging the wall and thanking any and all deities that the steps were solid stone and he could creep up silently. He came to ‘his’ room to find it dark and silent. There was a burst of laughter. Above him. He frowned and stepped back onto the staircase, carefully ascending. He could see light now, carelessly spilling from the room above ‘his’.

Sneaking up to the ajar door he peeked in and had to stuff a hand in his mouth to stop himself from gasping aloud. Of course! The transference magic had to have gone up the entire tower which is why.....there were four darkened silhouetted heads all gazing at a laptop screen, the source of the bluish light alerting Dan to their presence.

He wracked his brain, trying to think of the office that might have resided up here during the productions and came up blank. Whatever they had been in his universe though, they had had electricity and a phone line and these canny youngsters had, like he had, discovered same and were making use of it. He peered at the small screen and smiled, they were watching movies on YouTube.

He heard a few comments murmured and recognised one of the voices: Lydia Morrison. The others were obviously a few trusted friends of hers. He heard one murmur, “Wow, this is loads better than wizarding pictures, the motions go on and tell the whole story, Lyd. Muggle stuff’s pretty cool”, and heard their hostess giggle, “Told you”. Another voice piped up, “So how come we’ve got this electricity thing then anyway?” Dan had to smile as he listened; another magically raised child confronting technology for the first time.

He heard the forced patience in Lydia’s voice as she explained, “Look, something weird happened to Harry Potter and Professor Snape outside at the base of this tower, likewise Draco Malfoy at the top. Now, when this weirdness happened something happened to this bit of Hogwarts and we ended up with phone lines and electricity that we have to keep secret. I only let you lot know ‘cos you’re my bezzie mates but I know Harry knows about it, that’s how I figured we had the Internet. I’m just piggy-backing his broadband account”. Dan bristled at this then smiled, clever girl!.

Another voice, “Yeah, way cool, Lyd. What’s your download speed? Only I’d like to see the movies if we can. You know which ones?” He heard Lydia laugh, “Hah, already got ‘em on my hard drive. Want to see one? You can’t be hexed by these, not now though, it’s pretty late and we’d better get back to the dorms”, she was evidently explaining to the magically brought up. There was a concensus of ‘Yeah’s’ and Dan turned away. He didn’t think he could stand to watch himself acting whilst actually being here in the magical world for real. The contrast was too damned weird.

Locking and charming the door to the room beneath the giggling girls, Dan set up his own computer and kicked the girls off his connection as if he was at the other end, that of the Internet provider. He logged on and heard the voices shortly afterwards near his door, “Well, I told you it might not last long. We’ll just have to find another way to hack in”, and the voices of the girls receded, Dan catching the last comments of the tech-savvy muggle-trained lass as it trailed away. He needed to sort out his firewall and his security shit. So, instead of logging on, he did just that, tightening up his security and password protecting his accessibility. Poor girls, they would be locked out next time. They’d jolly well have to get their own account!

This took longer than he anticipated and he ended up having to wait out the rush to breakfast of the students before he felt safe enough to venture back to the dungeons. Alan was up and tucking into breakfast when he arrived, “More story?”, a dark brow raised. Dan shook his head, “Nah, found out a bunch of Lydia’s mates were hacked into my broadband so stopped it forthwith and spent some time sorting out security but it seems we have phone access all the way up the tower. The girls were in the room above the one I use, they were watching YouTube”.

Alan’s next question knocked Dan for six, “Is there any way that you can monitor her traffic? After all, she, or one of her friends may be our writer”. Dan’s brows rose to match his lover’s, “Surely not, she’s only a second year and the sex scenes at any rate are way too sophisticated to have been written by one so young, surely?” Alan conceded, “All very well, but she may have been uploading information, not a story”.

This gave Dan pause for thought as he sat and helped himself to the remaining rashers and eggs. “I can look next time I log on. If she’s been properly piggy-backing then she leaves a trace for me. If she’s a half-decent hacker then I haven’t a hope of finding where she’s been”. Alan smiled, “As you say, she is a sweet, innocent second year. What can she know of such things?” Dan growled and Alan laughed pulling his lover close and kissing him on the temple.

Dan turned in Alan’s arms with a groan and kissed him properly then went back to his meal. He couldn’t help but smile at the man beside him and make eyes at him as he ate. Alan steepled his hands before his face and watched with narrowed eyes until eventually Dan blushed bright red, lowered his eyes and his eating utensils and merely sat, his hands in his lap.

Only when the boy was quiet in both voice and body did Alan move in, holding and kissing and making the lad writhe beneath his hands then pulled away from him to see the effect his kisses had had. Very nice indeed. Swollen lips, lascivious eyes, a slight smile, lolling in his chair until Alan stood, almost insensible with lust, his erection plainly apparent and held out a hand to his lover, “Come back to bed. I want you”. Dan was chewing his lower lip as he accepted Alan’s hand and was pulled away from the dining table and towards the bedroom, his own cock throbbing and hard for his lover.

They took their time getting there, kissing and caressing up against any and all surfaces that presented themselves. It was with a deep groan that Alan pushed Dan down to the bed, watched him bounce slightly then launched himself on top of him, wrapping him up and claiming him as his own,

He licked, he kissed, he felt slightly frenzied with lust but every move he made was echoed by his lover who writhed and thrust up and clung to him as they struggled from clothes the old-fashioned way and rubbed up and down each other’s newly naked bodies with abandon and guttural moans.

By some sort of mutual agreement, they stilled in the throes. Alan leaned slightly away from his lover whilst still holding him, just far enough away to look his fill upon the young man lying flushed and aroused beside him. Their breathing was the only sound to be heard for a while. They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled tremulously as chests heaved still from want of breath, then wider as Alan ran his fingertips down Dan’s cheek, “You truly are beautiful, my Danny”, the older man whispered, his voice caught between husky lust and pure awe.

Dan found himself melting at this last and chewed his lip, his own eyes softening from lust into something altogether gentler. He gently took hold of the hand exploring his face and closed his eyes as he dusted kisses over the knuckles and fingers, “I love you, my Alan. Now make love to me.....please”. Alan made a small noise in the back of his throat and descended slowly as Dan’s head tilted to the side and his lips parted once again......

They spent the remainder of the morning in bed.

Some time around two, they finally emerged again and were in the middle of lunch when a knocking sounded on their door. Alan answered in his dressing gown to see an agonised Tom and a worried werewolf on the threshold. Glancing up and down the corridor, he determined that there were no children about before yanking the two unceremoniously into the room and closing the door behind them.

Immediately, it was apparent that Tom was in some pain. He sat them both down and summoned a house-elf, ordering refreshments. Dan wandered out, gown-clad himself, rubbing at sleepy eyes and asking who had knocked. He pulled up short at seeing their guests and at the anguish on Tom’s face, “Shit, Tom. You’ve been Summoned again?”

The pale boy nodded, “It fucking hurts”. He was laid out on the sofa with his head in Remus’ lap, curled up tight and in evident pain. Dan stumbled over to the couch and crouched before his guests, tilting his head to better see into Tom’s agony-filled eyes. “That cuff thing doesn’t work?”, he asked softly.

Tom shook his head slightly, his hair mussing as he did, “Yeah, it works. If it didn’t, I’d be spewing up right about now with the pain, as it is, it hurts but it’s sort of handleable. He’s calling me. It’s very strong”, then the blond curled over again as a fresh wave hit him. Remus could do nothing but hold his lover tight and help him ride it out. Alan also looked deeply concerned, “I’ll see if I can find one of Severus’ famous pain potions, give me a moment”, and disappeared into the bedroom again.

He emerged a moment later clutching a dark blue phial, glad that Severus Snape had been consistent with his packaging and uncapped it, handing it to Remus, “Here, help him take it. I warn you, it tastes foul”. Remus almost laughed at this, “Alan, if I needed any further proof that you are most decidedly NOT Severus, then this would be it. He delighted in the disgustingness of his brews and revelled, I’m sure, in the winces and gaggings of his ‘patients’”, he took the bottle from Alan’s hand and lifted Tom’s head.

Tom did indeed gag at the taste but forbore to ask what was in the vile stuff still swallowing obediently before laying his head back in Remus’ lap, letting the foul brew get to work. After a few moments he could finally raise his head and sit up properly.

He was gasping lightly, sweaty and pale. He wiped his face with his arm and leaned against the back of the sofa, blowing out a long relieved breath, “Wow, that’s better”, he finally whispered, then turned in the arms holding him, sinking his face against Remus’ chest, “Thanks love”, his hosts heard him mumble.

Remus bent his head, “You should thank our hosts, after all it was one of Snape’s potions that you have running around your system”, but Tom couldn’t quite yet, still trembling from the memory of acute pain, so Remus did it for him as he faced Alan and Dan, still holding tight to his lover, stroking his hair as Tom calmed himself.

It was then that he saw their state of deshabille and mumbled more ‘sorrys’ to be waved off by the men in whose accommodations he found himself. Dan smiled nervously and said, “Look, Remus, this comes first, I guess. Don’t be embarrassed. If you like, I’ll get dressed”. Remus grinned, “No, don’t. Like this I can imagine that Severus and Harry have found real happiness with each other, forgive my romantic old soul. And you two look really happy to be with each other”.

Alan smiled slowly, “Yes, we are”, he glanced at Tom, now dozing with a smile on his face, head lolling against the back of the sofa, “What of yourselves, Remus? Are you happy with him? Do you love him? I fear you will have to be his strength before this is all over”.

Dan glanced up into his lover’s face and loved him all the more for this but stayed silent. He looked over at the distressed werewolf as he gathered his lover into his arms and held him in sleep, “Yes”, was his simple reply, “I would do anything for this man. I’m so glad he isn’t Malfoy, in fact, he’s as far from Malfoy as one could hope to get. He’s kind and funny and so loving, he’s so not a product of the famous Malfoy school of upbringing. He’s bright and beautiful and has been telling me tales from his acting life. He was even in another version of ‘The King and I’, can you believe that?”

Both of them knew Tom’s acting past and smiled. Dan answered, “Yeah, I knew he’d been in that. He acted with Jodie Foster, one of the great actresses of our age”. Remus squealed softly, “I know!”, he interrupted, “I always was a huge fan of hers. I loved her Clarice Starling in ‘Silence of the Lambs’, and this man has actually acted with her. I’m in awe”.

Alan raised a Snapely brow, “You have followed non-magical films?”, he enquired drolly. Remus Lupin quirked one side of his mouth, “Abso-bloody-lutely mate. I was always enamoured of muggle cinema. I think it was all the moving pictures, lasted longer than wizarding photographs and told the whole story. I used to sneak out all the time as a lad to go to the movies, still do, now and again”, he smiled fondly, his eyes full of memories.

Dan couldn’t resist asking, “Okay, so which were your favourites and did you ever, you know, try to get in to see ours?” Remus grinned openly, “’Course I did!”, he exclaimed, “How could I resist? Harry Potter and the this – Harry Potter and the that, yes, of course I did but was never able to actually enter the cinema where they were showing, or maybe I got into the building itself in those large multi-screen complexes but not actually into the movie, I always had to choose a different film. I did try, though, several times in fact”.

The werewolf smiled distantly and sank his lips into his lover’s hair. “I love the cinema”, he whispered. “It was such an escape from the life of a young werewolf brought up partly in the muggle world, you cannot imagine. Not all muggle technology is bad. I would watch all sorts, even if it was crap. Yeah, I still slip out glamoured when I’m in London. I’m a huge fan of Johnny Depp’s, by the way. I have to admit, too, that although I haven’t seen many of your films, Dan, but I’ve seen plenty with you, Alan, in them”.

Alan rolled his eyes, “Oh, please, spare me from my acting past”, and Remus laughed, a rich full, uninhibited sound that made Tom murmur in his sleep and press even closer. Remus noticed and adjusted his hold around his lover automatically, rubbing his face in Tom’s hair with his eyes closed for a moment. Dan couldn’t help but grin, Remus was a real fan-boy.

The atmosphere between the four was nicely relaxed. Tom slept on, held against his lover while Alan held Dan against himself and the three of them talked of movies loved and hated, bad actors and good, roles that taxed or didn’t and the end of the Harry Potter tale according to the witch that had written them. This had Remus howling, literally, with laughter that woke Tom up, struggling to sit with his lover’s help that Remus supplied, almost automatically then turned Tom to him and kissed him all the way awake.

Dan whispered to the man that held him close, “I’ve never seen Tom like this, not with anyone”. Alan smirked, “He’s a natural bottom and he’s met his match. I bet Remus Lupin is a dominant top and that’s what miladdo has needed all this time, someone to take him in hand”.

Dan agreed and kissed his own lover before he laughed. They got lost for a moment and came back to find two pairs of eyes watching them hungrily. Dan flicked a last look at Alan and Alan understood. They parted and re-constituted into their separate parts once more, looking a tad sheepish and Dan giggled nervously.

Tom blinked and grinned at them, “You two look so damned hot. Are you sure you don’t ‘share’?” Alan glowered at the boy. The impudence of the whelp! Share, indeed! He puffed out his chest and summoned up his best Snape sneer, “I do not share, young Tom. Not even slightly”, and was rewarded by Dan leaning harder into him. With a proprietorial smile, he tightened his arms around his lover and recalled the blatant come-on, all that time ago in the trailer, that the blond had given him. The arrogance of the boy! No, he was welcome to the werewolf, although Alan had no doubt that eventually the boy would break his older lover’s heart one day.

More tea was summoned and they all enjoyed a thoroughly relaxed afternoon together, talking of this and that, munching cake and drinking tea. It was only when Dan glanced at the fireplace that he noticed the small flashing green light at the edge of the coals. He nudged Alan. “Is that the sign for a missed call?”, he waved his teacup at the fireplace.

Remus turned and looked, “Yes it is, someone has tried to call you. Looks like the headmaster’s signature or my eyes deceive me”. Dan and Alan exchanged a look, whose turn was it this time? Remus smirked, “You have your Floo closed?” Alan nodded, “Absolutely. We can’t have all and sundry dropping in any time. We might be...er....busy”. At this Remus howled laughing, “Well, I have to say, you have old Dumbledore wrapped around your fingers. He’d never allow that from normal members of staff”.

Dan replied, a touch of coldness in his voice, “He has to keep us sweet, Remus. We are the only real hope he has of winning this fucking war. He has to indulge us and we are neither student nor faculty. In truth, I think he hasn’t a fucking clue what to do with us, magic or not”. Tom snickered nervously, “Come on, Dan, cut them a break”.

Dan rounded on him and Tom reared away slightly. The younger man hissed, “It’s true, Tom. This war rests on us three, maybe us four, maybe six with Ron and Hermione, maybe fifty with the DA and maybe seventy five with the Order. This isn’t self-aggrandisement, this is war, Tom and somehow we have to win it. There are no breaks and I will not be ‘cutting’ any, okay?”

Alan restrained Dan from lunging at the blond and whispered, “Perhaps you need to return that call, love”, and Dan calmed instantly at his words, closed his eyes for a moment then replied, “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe I should do this in the bedroom”. Alan leaned in and kissed his temple, “No. Remember, Dan that the bedroom Floo we turned off permanently”. Dan swore and slipped to the floor, knee-walking over to the hearth.

He activated the Floo wandlessly with a wave of his hand. Sure enough it had been Dumbledore calling them. The message was only a few minutes old. Dan scooped out a handful of Floo powder that they kept in a jar on the floor for calls, threw it onto the flames, waited until they’d turned green then stuck his head in requesting the headmaster’s office.

He saw the office as if through thick smoked glass. The man’s damned floo was closed. The office, what he could see of it, looked empty. He thought he could hear a faint knocking and strained his ears to hear but was suddenly aware of being pulled backwards by strong hands on his waist.

He sat up spluttering and spitting out ash to hear the knocking was much louder and to see Remus opening the door. Albus Dumbledore rushed in, “Well, boys, there are Death Eaters here at Hogwarts. I rather think that they have come for you, young Tom”. Tom nodded, “They’ve been Summoning me for a while”. Albus’ eyes glittered but he reined himself in, “My boy, I should have been informed immediately although none of us was to know his plans”, he had the audacity to look at Dan over the tops of his glasses. Dan tamped down his ire, it wasn’t his bloody fault that he couldn’t feel Voldemort in his head as Harry had done.

Dumbledore addressed them all again, “Of course I have sent for the aurors. They were a small raiding party of three and myself, Minerva, Filius and Rubeus rounded them up and restrained them for now until they arrive. They were relative nobodies, lackeys simply sent to fetch you but I fear that their master is feeling audacious, daring. I fear he will launch his major offensive soon, I think, Dan, that he will disregard any symbolic appearance on or before your birthday and will strike sooner. I think that the apparent loss of two of his favourites is causing him to be rash and certainly angry”.

There was silence for a while as this sunk in then Dumbledore seemed to falter. Instantly he was flanked by Alan and Remus and helped into a chair, he suddenly seemed every one of his long and many years old as he slumped down and rested his head in his hands. Remus busied himself pouring cold tea and casting heating charms over it then handed it to his boss. They all noticed the fine trembling in his hands as he took the cup.

Eventually Dan spoke in a low voice, “Then we’d better be ready for his coming, hadn’t we?” The silence stretched, broken by the rustle of Alan’s robes as he took Dan into his arms and Dan’s small moan of relief at being held thus. Alan seemed so calm but Dan could feel his lover’s heart hammering his cheek.

Alan was the next to speak, very softly so the others all had to strain to hear, “Dan, when you prepared for ‘Harry’, how did you do it? What was your method?” Dan shifted his head a little and stared off into the room with unfocussed eyes as he replied, “It was the ‘walk through the door’ method. I open the door in my mind and step through; on the one side I’m ‘Dan’ and once across the threshold, I’m Harry. It’s what I did whenever I walked out onto the soundstage. Why?”

Dan could feel Alan’s huff of laughter against his ear, “Well, my love, I had a much tougher time slipping into Snape-mode, I must say”. Dan shrugged, “Well, I did live, breathe and sleep Harry Potter for over half my life you know, whereas you did many things during the filming of these movies. I had a few projects here and there but for the most part, since ten, I’ve ‘been’ Harry Potter for most of each year. Is any of this important? Why do you ask?”

Albus interjected at this point, “Alan has a point, Dan. In this conflict you will have to ‘play’ Harry, I’ve no doubt, in order that your troops will rally behind you, even though they all know who you are, but I think that on the day, you will have to convince the opposition that you are indeed Mr Potter”. Dan sighed, “I thought it would come to this but none of you have seen the way I play him and the hexes on the cinemas mean that even Remus here has not managed to see how like, or otherwise, I am to the real Harry”.

Albus grinned then, albeit faintly, “Then we simply must find a way to view at least one of these films. With that knowledge, Remus and I can school you to the real Harry’s ways”. Alan looked slightly down at the man in his arms. Dan looked up. A look passed between them and they both nodded slightly then turned to the slumped headmaster.

“I know someone who has all of the films and they are right here in this school”, Dan said, to shocked faces all around. It was time to reveal one of their secrets. “There’s a girl, a Ravenclaw second former, she has a laptop, sorry, computer, with the films on her hard drive. They have been downloaded from the Internet and the hex doesn’t work that way. There are several people here in the castle who have seen them, I believe”.

This made Dumbledore’s eyes widen and his brows shoot hairline-wards, “Internet? Computers? In this school? But we do not even have electricity”, the old man spluttered. Dan took a deep breath, “Er, well, that’s not quite right”, he started, then eased out of Alan’s arms, “It’s probably better if we show you but we’ll need this kid’s computer....”. He was interrupted by a red-faced Dumbledore, “I’ll order a house-elf to bring her to us...”, but Dan interrupted right back. “No. I want to get her computer before she has a chance to erase files then we need to trek over to the Astronomy tower to look at the films”.

Albus saw the sense in this and muttered, “All right, Dan, maybe you can persuade her to give up this....machine. May I ask who this child is?” Dan shook his head, “Not for now, she hasn’t done anything wrong, she’s just a muggle-raised kid sharing the discovery with a few close friends and baffling a few magically raised kids with muggle technology but there’s been a change to the castle since Alan and I came here, it happened during the transference. It’s better if I show you rather than trying to explain”.

Clapping his hands together to hide his confusion, Albus stood unsteadily and said, “Well, there’s no time like the present, I say. The second year Ravens will be in the tender care of Professor Sprout at the moment. What say we cut along to the greenhouses and take this child from her class? Alan, you could be the one perhaps? A teacher’s word carries a little weight with a colleague, would you not say?”

Remus grinned at the discomfiture on Alan’s face and rescued him, “No, Albus, I’ll go. ‘Severus’ will scare the poor mite out of her socks, she’ll probably drop the machine or something if he does it”. Alan smiled at him gratefully and Dumbledore conceded the point.

****

The sun was warm outside and Dan felt ridiculously over-dressed in full uniform and robes, albeit summer-weight ones. He was boiling and would have preferred just shorts, let the sun at his skin a bit; he felt a bit pale after having lived in the dungeons the last four months. He relished any excuse to be out of doors and trotted amiably towards the greenhouse behind Remus wherein Professor Sprout taught her class.

The rotund professor wasn’t at all happy about the two appearing in the middle of her lesson, Harry ruddy Potter or not but she couldn’t really deny her colleague, particularly as he leaned forward and whispered, “We think she may be unwittingly communicating with the enemy”, and Sprout reared away, her eyes round. She leaned back towards this professor who she actually liked even if he was a werewolf and whispered, “No!”, then pinched her lips tight, “I think she’s got one o’ them phone things that all the muggle kids have. Bloody distraction. Albus ought to ban ‘em”, and she called the girl out of her class.

Lydia said brightly as the three walked towards her dorm, “I would have just gone and got it, Harry. There was no need for all this”, she waved her hand at her prefect and DADA teacher. Dan grabbed her shoulder and stilled her, bending to her ear. He whispered, “I need to see the films again. We think there were clues planted without us knowing. I know you have them on your hard drive and I didn’t want you to erase them”.

The girl shrugged, “No probs, but only those files, okay?” Dan nodded and wondered just what else she had on there and determined to find out at the first opportunity. He kept the chat light during the rest of the walk, asking her important stuff like her favourite colour and if she had pets, grinning at the silly names she had given her guinea pig and her dog then turned the talk to her family and let her ramble on until they reached the base of the tower. “Only Professor Lupin can come in as he’s a teacher”, she stated. Dan leaned over to him, “Take the thing from her hands as soon as she touches it, files are erased with the touch of a button. Be aware and be careful”.

She handed over her laptop backpack sullenly quite unable to do anything as her teacher had followed her into her dormitory. She pinched her lips tight and said, “Films are in my ‘Downloads’ file, okay and all of them are quite clearly labelled”. Remus took hold of the bag, let his shoulders sag a little in relief then said, “The headmaster doesn’t know it’s you whose laptop this is and he’s curious to see who plays him in the films”. Lydia’s gaze was dark, “It was the first one, not the second one. He’s the spitting image of the first one...erm, actor who played him and the story is all wrong. I know the witch that wrote them has made millions of quid though”, the child sighed, then relinquished the bag, “Look after it, sir, it is precious to me”. Remus nodded and left the room, clutching the heavy bag to his chest.

He handed it straight to Dan who said, “A lumos please, if you will, Remus”, and Remus obeyed bending his head to peer into the bag as Dan riffled through the contents. Dan seemed satisfied and closed up the bag. Remus was highly puzzled. There had been wires and a thing with a plug on it in that bag. He had plainly seen them. What in seven hells was going on here?

Dan grinned and brandished the bag a little as they re-entered their quarters, he was pretty certain that the girl hadn’t been able to alter anything, her surliness and insistence on only viewing particular files spoke volumes too. Dan was pleased that he had this machine at last. The films weren’t the only thing he’d view tonight.

They had an hour to wait before the students would leave the dining hall and head for their common rooms so Albus summoned a house-elf and ordered them all dinner. They kept the conversation light and inconsequential as they ate but there was an undercurrent of anticipation running through them all.

Tom cried off the trip, asking for more pain potion and a blanket. Voldemort had been ruthless with his Summonings all day and poor Tom still hurt. His eyes soon rolled backwards into his head a few moments after ingesting the potion and he slept peacefully on the sofa. Dan summoned him a pillow and blankets, slipped the man’s shoes off and covered him up. Tom’d sleep for a while.

It was an odd enough party of four that made their way to the astronomy tower. At one point, Albus whispered, “I have felt strange energy in this part of the castle. No doubt you know it’s nature, yes?” Dan grinned, “Yeah”, was his sole reply and silence fell as they walked along, sconces lighting on corridors and blinking out as they passed.

The soon arrived at the bottom of the spiral stair. Dan sprinted up, calling over his shoulder, “We’d better use our room but we may have to use the girl’s which is another floor up” and disappeared into the door he unwarded to allow the others in.

He set up Lydia’s laptop quickly and revealed the electric point as well as the phone point. Albus was amazed and shocked, “You brought this with you?”, he asked, his voice faint, far from it’s usual strength. Alan shrugged, “It rather seems that way. We think the spell extended outwards a little, the next room up in this tower also seems to have these facilities. When Dan discovered them, we signed up to a phone line and a broadband account to receive the Internet”.

Baffled, Albus admitted, “I hear this term bandied about all over the school. Does it bear any relation to the terms, ‘being online’ and ‘blogging’?” Dan smiled, “Indeed it does and you are about to see something of this. Do not be afraid or anything, it’s just moving pictures, but they move for a bit longer than magical ones”. Dumbledore did one of those ‘looks’ over the tops of his glasses, “I am well aware of the movies generally, dear boy, even if the last thing I ever saw was ‘Creature From The Black Lagoon’ in 3-D in a small cinema in Hulme, Manchester, many years ago. I recall we had to wear these rather odd spectacles. I loved every moment. Now, please proceed”.

Dan laced first Lydia’s machine together, then set up his own beside it. He was going to copy as much of her hard drive as he could. He was convinced she was at least a link in all of this and he was determined to find it. At the bottom of the rucksack, he dug out a pair of elegant little computer speakers and sighed. Lydia’s little set-up was way more sophisticated than his. She had the latest Sony while he’d settled for a lowly Fujitsu. When he booted hers up, it roared along and he deeply regretted his stinginess at the point of purchase.

He tuned out the conversation behind him that chiefly involved Alan trying to tell them about computers and the Internet and concentrated on his task. As he heard the sickly start-up tune he was immediately faced with a dialogue box demanding a password as soon as he’d selected her ‘documents’ file-box. He recalled the drilling he had given her earlier and typed in the dog’s name and was kicked out. The guinea pig’s name let him in, however, and he was faced with reams and reams of stuff. It seemed as if this girl was a serious collector of slash. He pressed ‘Ctrl-A’, copied the lot and set it to downloading to his own machine before he set off in search of her ‘downloads’ file.

The films were easy enough to find. There were many more than just the ‘Potter’ films here, this child was quite the cinephile and had many of the very latest movies in her hard drive. Grinning, Dan selected several and pasted them to his own hard drive before asking Dumbledore, “Okay, how far back do you want to go? You know, with the movies? I warn you, each one is in excess of two hours long, so to watch them all will be a Herculean task”.

Dumbledore seemed dazed, “Just show me, Harry. I’m sorry. Dan”. He slid over his mistake gracefully, but Dan knew the old man was rattled. Dan scrolled down the list. Most of them were DVD rips and therefore probably pretty good quality. He said, “I’ll show you a collection of scenes, certainly from the early ones, then I’ll play the whole of the last one, or at least bigger chunks of it. I don’t like to watch myself acting and you just need to tell me how accurate I am, you know, portraying Harry”.

The old man nodded as did Remus before Dan selected ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ and pressed ‘play’.

It did not take long before the old man threw his hands in the air and requested Dan to stop the film. “I think a certain witch and wizard need to be here to see this and I know that the witch, at least, has tried several times to see these. I suggest, chaps, that if you have a fresh supply of pepper-up potion about the place, then this might be a good time to break it out. Remus, If, once again, you would be kind enough to seek out the two seniors?”, Albus raised a brow and the werewolf nodded, rising and leaving quickly on his mission.

Alan also rose reluctantly until Dan kissed him and stayed him, “I’ll go. I know where it is. The green bottles, yeah, on the right hand side of the emergency cabinet?” Alan reached up, pulled his eager boy down to him and kissed him. “The very same”, he muttered against Dan’s mouth. “Which scenes do we show them from the first film?” Dan shrugged, “Hagrid’s scene in the Leaky with me finding out I’m a wizard: our first scene in my first potions lesson: the three-headed dog and the tests we are set, even though there’s more in the books than there is in the films, then the final showdown with Voldemort/Quirrell in that room with the mirror of Erised. Yeah, that should do it.....cut the film down to less than an hour”, he kissed his lover and murmured, “Back in a minute”, and shot off in search of potions.

Dan arrived back at the tower room just as Harry’s bemused friends did, Hermione, particularly seemed quite put out to be dragged away from her studies at such a critical time. Dan grinned at her, “Look, if you don’t bloody know it by now then you’re not going to. Come on, I need lessons in how your friend behaved but first, I need you to see me play him on screen”.

It was Ron who cottoned on first, “You mean we can see the films? The ones that hex us if we try and see them?” Dan smiled, “Got it in one. Come on, guys, I need help here”. Hermione let out a breath, “All right, so what are you watching them on?” Dan told her as he ushered them into the room, catching Remus’ eye over Hermione’s bushy head and tipping him a small wink.

“Oh. Laptops”, she drawled. “I hope you’ve got plenty of batt.....bloody hell”, she left Ron’s side and circled around the edge of the room, completely ignoring even the headmaster and took up the trailing wire, following it to the wall and saw the adapter plugged in with another leading from a phone ‘in’ line. “You’re online, too? Since when? Oh wow. May I bring mine in here and at least charge up some of my batteries please? It costs mum and dad a small fortune keeping me in power, bless them”.

Dan had to smile, a muggleborn. “So”, he said, “You’ll have downloaded the films then and seen them before? I thought you said you hadn’t”. Hermione reddened, “It’s sort of not done to talk about it, all right? We all know they’re tripe. Sorry, chaps, but they are, honestly, and, come on, it’s a bit naff to be seen reading kids’ books anyway at our age. We are adults now, but, yes, I did let curiosity get the better of me over the Easter holidays and one or two others have seen them, but it’s all on the quiet, there’s not that much interest, to be honest, but I did want to know what they’d done with me”.

Dan grinned at this and saw Remus, Albus and Ron into thick comfy chairs. Albus craned forwards, “Young Dan, is it not possible to make this screen larger, it’s a bit small?” Dan huffed out a breath, “A), it’s not my laptop, and B), I’d never try and do enlarging spells on electronic gear. Sorry, pull your chair a little closer”. Dumbledore flourished his wand and made the muggleborns in particular, gasp, as the screen grew to a forty-two inch widescreen without any loss of picture quality. “There we go”, the old man grinned and sat back in his chair. Ron snickered as Dan fanned himself with relief.

Albus then ordered drinks and refreshments to be brought by a trusty house-elf while Dan set up both the copying, getting easily through her encryptions with the knowledge he’d obtained earlier, then set up the first film and led them through edited highlights. Dumbledore remarked upon his likeness to his character.

During the second film, Dan left out all of the quidditch but kept in the spiders and during the third, he showed more of it, largely because Remus insisted on seeing all his ‘bits’ and Hermione wanted to see herself punch ‘Malfoy’ a few times. “Ha, she gives a better right hook than I ever did. It wasn’t much above a slap, really”.

Albus leaned into the screen, “So between films two and three’s where I died, eh?”, he murmured, Alan barely heard it but did, “Yes”, he said, somewhat acidly, “Richard was very dear to us all”. Albus turned and inclined his head, “I apologise. I think he made a marvellous job of ‘me’, if you must know”, he tipped his head at the screen, “Not too keen on his replacement though”.

Remus, who had been pretty quiet on the comments, said, “Siri looked nothing like that dog when he transfigured, he was more like a sort of black Alsatian but much smoother coated. Hmmm, totally different”, he mused then grinned, “And Tom is much.....prettier than the real Malfoy. Draco was....pointier....sharper at the edges but the overall likeness was there. Malfoy wasn’t as tall, either. Not quite”.

Dan chewed this over, “Well, we didn’t exactly know you and after all, acting is more about interpretation of the written word than it is literally transcribing it. All we had to go on was the written script and the books”. Albus asked, “Dan, dear boy, do you have the last three of your films, the last in the series?”

Taking a deep breath, he nodded, “Well, not the last one; guess I’ll never see that one unless I download it myself, we never got to the Premiere. I haven’t really kept up with the chaos that us.....disappearing must have wrought”. Albus patted his arm, “Don’t worry, child, you’ve been busy with other things, although I’d be fascinated to see how her story ends”. Dan nodded, he’d have it downloading tonight.

By the end of film four, they were all flagging, so Dan declared they should call it a night and make a date for the following week. He asked the others to think of their impressions of his acting ‘Harry’ and the real man if it wasn’t too hard to do then he finished, “After all, it’s me out there in front of a madman fulfilling a prophecy that I as a person have nothing to do with. I’m sorry for your losses and any that happen in the future of this war but if we want to stay alive then I need to ‘be’ Harry out on that battlefield”, and there wasn’t a one of them as could argue with that.

Dan stayed behind to tidy up and sort out the mess. He checked his latest downloads, checked his copying, laid an industrial strength protection and concealment charm over the lot, humming away happily, and then locked and warded the door.

Remus had gone on ahead with the headmaster, Ron and Alan, but Hermione waited for Dan to leave and accompanied him as far as the dungeon steps. She was thoughtful as they started their journey then said, “Harry could be a bit of a git sometimes. He liked to pull pranks and practical jokes and usually either a Slytherin or a younger kid was the target of it. Sometimes it wasn’t very nice”. Dan shrugged, “Sounds like his old man. Didn’t James and his crew bully Snape as a kid?”

The girl nodded then stared off in front of her. “Yeah, but he could be really nice, too, in a sort of jokey big brother way. He was pretty sporty too, but of course you know that. She did get quite a lot of it right, you know, the writer? There is a prophecy. There is a Voldemort”, she shrugged, “You know, all that”.

Glancing at her, Dan took in the defeated slump of her shoulders, “Look, we all know I’m not Harry, but if I have to, I can draw the bastard off on the day and can probably give him a nasty scratch on his shin or something then run like fuck while you lot all stab him from behind or something”. She giggled at this, “You’re a lot nicer than Harry, really you are. I sort of hate myself for thinking that, though, as if I’m betraying him or something, but he really was all those noble and good things too, even though he did charge in without thinking”.

“You’re not betraying him, Hermione, you were a good mate and good mates always see the shit stuff in their friends ‘cos that’s where it’s safest letting it out. Tell me, was the whole living-in-a-cupboard thing true or was that the invention of the writer?”

Hermione stopped then and rounded on him, glancing this way and that to check the corridor was clear then leaned in and hissed, “Remember, Dan, you were making children’s films, from children’s books. Of course it was worse. Far worse. That lad was starved and beaten and, I’m pretty sure Ron knows more than I do, but I’m fairly sure there was sexual abuse too. A lot of people pitied him, even more admired him. Several loathed him; saw his rash ways as carelessness and stupidity but very few indeed loved him. Now, the main difference between the books and reality is the affair he was having for quite a chunk of his sixth and seventh years with our late-lamented Professor Snape”.

Dan smiled, “Yeah, his journal goes into, er, some depth on the matter. I thought, straight away, when we first viewed their quarters, that this was a long term relationship”. The girl just narrowed her eyes at him until she blurted, “I thought the Professor’s quarters had been cleaned out prior to you taking up residence except for his books?” Whoops.

“Oh, there were some things lying around”, Dan said airily and could see that as ‘not-Harry’, she didn’t dare question him in the same way she’d have done her friend. She gave him another calculating look but changed the subject. “He thought I didn’t know, about him and the professor, I mean, and I didn’t, not really but Harry wasn’t really able to hide stuff like that from me. You don’t care so you can. I know nothing about you, really, except that you played my best friend in some films. We are going to war soon and I don’t even know the extent of your power. Yes, you look like Harry but you’ll only ever play him”.

Dan shrugged and smiled, “I could never do the quidditch, dear, I hate heights. Did you know Alan can’t make some potions either?” Hermione frowned, “Just some?” Dan grinned, “The ones with live beasties in, he can’t cope with those – last time he tried he ended up throwing up. Alan’s definitely not Snape”. Hermione burst into laughter then covered her mouth with embarassment, “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. Alan is a real sweetie and he doesn’t really look that much like Snape, he’s loads better-looking and he’s got kind eyes”.

This made Dan peer closely at her for a moment but she didn’t appear to have a crush, just stating a fact, then he nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, he has”, and they shared a grin in the light from the sconces as they strolled. They separated with a shy goodnight and Dan had a lot to think about on the way to the dungeons.

Remus and Tom had gone by the time he stepped through the door and he found Alan in the kitchenette making cocoa. He said nothing just went over to his lover and threaded his arms around him from behind, laying his head between Alan’s shoulder blades, breathing into the back of his sweater. Alan kept on stirring but tipped his head back until it impacted gently with Dan’s then rubbed gently from side to side.

The hissing of the milk coming to the boil made them separate and Alan made the drinks. They took them to bed and sat, leaning side by side against the headboard talking quietly about the impressions of the others. “I think I have to be brattier or something. It seems Harry was a bit of a pain, played lots of tricks and pulled stunts, though they can all bugger off if they think I’m risking my neck on stupid things not connected with this war”.

Alan smiled at Dan and leaned down to kiss his shoulder, “Please don’t go all bratty on me. I don’t think I could stand it, and in return, I’ll promise not to be nasty and mean to you or your friends”. Dan turned to kiss the top of Alan’s head and sniggered, “Hermione thinks you’re, and I quote, ‘a real sweetie’. I bet she never said that about Snape”.

Lifting his head, Alan’s brows rose, he smiled, “Really? I’m not some big bad ogre?” Dan shook his head then kissed his lover’s nose, “Silly sod”, he murmured affectionately, “We’ll have to act our socks off come the day but, for all the horrific job we’ve somehow taken on, it’s still us at the end of the day. You are not an ogre, not even a little bit. Now, give me your cup then come here and kiss me”. Alan obeyed with a warm smile, “Bossy little bugger, aren’t you?”, then kissed Dan senseless once the mugs were safe.

Tired and tasting of chocolate, neither slept for a while.