Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Cannot Save You Now	By : tigrelilje Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 15706 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter fandom nor do I make any money from writing this story.

Chapter List
- 19
- 20
- 21
Chapter 19
Detective Wiggins observed the unmoving picture hanging on the wall of the hallway. It was exactly the same as every other in the house he had seen so far; a blonde, bony, horse-faced woman standing next to an obese man with a puce face with an equally fat blonde child between them. He fought his natural reaction not to cringe. The previous residents of 4 Privet Drive certainly weren’t anything worth looking at, he decided.
But just like the picture he was studying, every other picture in the house showed the same thing. Either a family photo of the Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley Dursley or single shots of Dudley from newborn to mid teens. Nothing to suggest that there was another child in the house.
Wiggins frowned as he moved further into the house, wondering what he and his partner Detective Mugsby would uncover about Harry Potter’s childhood.
After the accusations printed in the Daily Prophet by Rita Skeeter in regards to Harry Potter’s life, the Ministry had been receiving a substantial number of Howlers, demanding that justice be brought to anyone who had wronged their Savior. The night of the Dursleys’ deaths, and subsequently Harry Potter’s disappearance, had been solely focused on investigating their deaths. This time the Department of Magical Child Services had been called in to search for signs of child abuse.
The most obvious thing that Wiggins had noticed so far was the complete absence of any sign that Harry Potter had ever lived in this house. If it weren’t for the fact that he knew the boy had been raised here, he would have assumed he was in the wrong house. The pictures around the house of a family of three were the first suspicious clue.
There was a chance that the Dursley’s had merely been upholding the Statute of Secrecy to a truly commendable level by erasing any sign that they had a wizard in the house who was absent most of the year. Wiggins thought it was the opposite, however; that they were hiding their shame of having a magical member of their household. Wiggins and his partner had questioned the Dursley’s neighbors about Harry Potter and many were more than happy to gossip about the scrawny, bespectacled child they always saw weeding the garden even on the hottest days of summer. Or being chased around and beat up by the neighborhood children, including his own cousin.
It was no secret that the child lived here, then.
Wiggins continued to thoroughly search the first floor of the small townhouse. He found nothing about Harry Potter until he finally saw the cupboard under the stairs as he made his way back to the front of the house. He opened it, not really expecting to find anything. Instead he found himself staring in shock for a moment, not really understanding what he was seeing.
The cupboard was not filled with umbrellas or boxes or anything that the detective would expect to see in the tiny storage area. He saw a tiny cot that a Muggle might use for camping with a thin blanket on it. Glancing around the cramped area, Wiggins saw a handful of broken action figures and a few drawings that had obviously been done by a child. Before he allowed himself to jump to the obvious conclusion, Detective Wiggins picked up the drawings to see if he could shed light on who they belonged to. Some were incomplete, but on the third one he saw a name painstakingly printed in the bottom right hand corner of the page.
Harry Potter.
A whoosh of air escaped him, as if all his fears had been confirmed, but Wiggins told himself he couldn’t draw any conclusions yet. Perhaps young Harry simply thought it was great fun to camp out under the stairs like he had his own secret fortress?
No matter what his objective mind was telling him, deep in his heart, Wiggins was sure this wasn’t the case.
He turned back to the cupboard with a new sense of purpose. He looked under the cot and tapped around on the walls and floor, looking for hidden compartments. There weren’t any but every once in a while he found a rusty brown spot or smudge. Hesitating, Wiggins pulled out his wand and cast a spell at one of the spots.
Blood.
It was blood. Wiggins found small comfort in the fact that there was very little of the substance, suggesting that whatever wound the blood had come from had not been grievous. Perhaps a split lip or minor cut. Perhaps just a result of one of the beatings Harry Potter had received from his cousin or one of the other neighborhood kids.
Wiggins clenched his hand in a fist before relaxing. Each bit of evidence he had found so far could have been brushed aside; if he had only found one of them. But all put together it was rather damning. He moved out of the cupboard and closed the door with a scowl. He walked over to the stairs to see how his partner was doing when the man himself appeared at the head of the stairs sporting a similar expression of anger on his face. It wasn’t a look Wiggins had seen very often on his partners face and it did not bode well.
“That bad huh?” Wiggins asked.
“I can’t believe no one noticed the night this family was killed!” Mugsby growled. “There’s- ugh!” Mugsby paused for a moment, breathing deeply in an attempt to regain his equilibrium, before continuing more calming and explaining what he had found. “There are four bedrooms upstairs. One is clearly the master bedroom for Mr. and Mrs. Dursley. Also a bedroom for Dudley Dursley and what appears to be a guest room. The last bedroom must have been Mr. Potter’s.” Wiggins lifted an eyebrow at the slight snarl that lifted his partner’s lip as he finished. Without prompting, Mugsby began speaking again.
“The door had at least a dozen locks on the outside, as if something was kept locked in the room. The room itself was almost bare, no decorations or anything to suggest someone really lived there, other than the tiny bed and a few other items that only a wizarding child would have, such as a few magic textbooks, quills and parchment. There was a lot of blood on the floor, from the night of the Dursley’s murder. Only a very small amount of it was from the Muggles, though. The majority of it was Potter’s.”
Mugsby took a deep breath, “Wiggins, it was enough blood that there’s no way Potter could have survived without immediate medical attention. I cast a spell around the room and revealed a lot of residue that would suggest blood that had been cleaned up in the past.”
Wiggins growled lowly, “Fucking unbelievable.” Mugsby looked at him in surprise for his outburst. “The Wizarding World is going to have a fit when they hear that their Savior grew up abused and probably spent the last moments of his life suffering greatly.”
“You think he’s dead, Wiggins?” Mugsby asked quietly. Wiggins felt that must have been a rhetorical question. After all, Harry Potter had been “missing” for months.
***
Harry was absentmindedly pushing his food around on his plate, not really paying attention to the random patterns he was creating, his eyes slightly unfocused while he stared across the Great Hall.
He and Draco had returned to Hogwarts the day before without any problems. He felt Snape’s gaze on him every time they were in a room together but Harry just ignored him. He hated the small part of himself that urged him to give everyone a second chance, so he definitely wasn’t going to give his father an easy time of it. He knew the man was truly regretful, but did that erase sixteen years of abandonment and five years of biased and loathsome treatment? Harry didn’t think so. If Snape really wanted his forgiveness, he was really going to have to earn it, just like he had earned Harry’s hatred.
A slight brush against his thigh brought him out of his thoughts and to his surroundings. He only spared a quick glance toward Draco on his left before focusing on his plate. They weren’t openly acknowledging their relationship at school. While part of Harry wanted to show everyone that Draco was his and his alone, he knew he needed to keep him from unwanted attention.
“Where’s Dumbledore?” Draco whispered, barely moving his lips. Harry’s acute hearing had no trouble picking his voice out of the cacophony of the Great Hall. He swept his gaze over the Head Table before returning it to his plate. Dumbledore was conspicuously absent though Harry couldn’t think of any reason why. He shook his head slightly to let Draco know he had heard but did not have an answer.
He caught Hermione’s eye from across the Hall and nodded slightly to her when she raised an eyebrow at him and tilted her head to the side slightly where Neville was sitting. He waited a few more minutes before standing and leaving the Great Hall with a slight brush of his fingers against the back of Draco’s neck in farewell. He smirked slightly at the shiver he felt under his fingers as he made his way outside to await Hermione and Neville.
He had settled himself outside on the front steps of the school when he heard raised voices coming from inside. He immediately recognized Ron’s voice and let out an irritated growl before he could stop himself. He pushed off from the wall he had been leaning against and stalked back inside, not at all in the mood to deal with Weasley yet oddly looking forward to the possibility of a fight at the same time. It seemed he was feeling more stress than he realized if he was spoiling for a fight. He would need to go out into the forest soon. He felt his ire only increase as he tuned into Ron’s words.
“…took you for a whore!” Ron spat forcefully. “First that slimy snake Zabini and now Longbottom! And who knows what is going on with Renard. Just slithering from bed to bed hoping for favors to increase your social status or something? Is that why you left me?!”
While Hermione spluttered incoherently, clearing so angry she could barely speak, Ron sneered at her before smirking viciously, such a strange expression on the redhead’s face that it took Harry aback for a moment, and saying, “Harry would be disgusted by you, for all your supposed loyalty to him, now you’re-”
Whatever Ron had been about to say was interrupted as he was suddenly on the ground, clutching a bleeding and clearly broken nose, howling pitifully. Harry blinked, the red haze of anger that had started to cloud his vision a moment ago suddenly gone as he saw Neville standing in front of Hermione with his fist raised and panting heavily, red faced and furious.
“How dare you?!” Neville yelled. A crowd was slowly starting to form, being drawn by the noise. “Don’t you dare use Harry like that!”
“What the hell?!” Ron moaned in pain and anger, “Are you a traitor now too Longbottom? Gonna betray Gryffindor?”
“Shut up,” Neville said quietly, almost dangerously, and Harry silently cheered him for showing the courage that earned him a place in Gryffindor. “This has nothing to do with stupid house rivalries and jealousy. We are in a war you moron! Get you head out of your ass and figure out what’s really important!”
With that, Neville grabbed Hermione’s arm and steered her toward the front doors, with Harry following behind before any of the teacher’s could show up. He followed the two Gryffindors until they came to an isolated part of the courtyard and Neville abruptly stopped and turned around to look at Harry.
“Renard,” he greeted, “Hermione said that you wanted to talk to me. What do you want?”
It seemed Neville’s anger from moments ago was still fueling the courage he rarely showed. Harry smiled slightly, happy to see his old friend looking so strong and confident, even if it was only temporary.
“Longbottom,” Harry greeted back, “I did want to speak with you though I wonder where I should start. This is not the most secure of locations for the discussion I would like to have.”
“What could you possibly have to say to me?” Neville asked, nerves already starting to show as his anger slowly left him.
“Quite a lot,” Harry murmured. He sighed before continuing, “I’m sorry Neville, “the other boy looked confused as he stared at Harry, “You have been put into a difficult position because Potter is… missing.”
“Wh-what are you talking about?” Neville asked nervously. Harry quickly flicked his wand, erecting the strongest privacy spells he knew.
“I know Dumbledore is trying to have you fill the place as the new Chosen One,” Harry said quietly, “And don’t bother denying it, I know what I’m talking about. But I would like to try to relieve some, if not all, of the burden you are carrying.”
“You can’t,” Neville said, clearly trying to put up a brave front. Harry smiled softly at the boy, taking the shy Gryffindor by surprise.
“I think I can,” Harry said, “You don’t need to take Harry’s place and defeat Voldemort. Harry will do it himself. He may be missing but he is not lost.”
“What?” Neville gasped. “What are you talking about? Harry’s dead. What are you trying to pull?!” Neville said, suddenly angry.
“Calm down, Neville,” Harry said soothingly. “I need you to keep an open mind before writing me off, alright? I am Henry Renard, but only a few months ago I was known as Harry Potter. Before you try to hex me or hit me, ask me a question only Harry would know and I will tell you some of the story that has led me to this point.”
Neville just stared at Harry for a few moments with his mouth slightly open as if he absolutely could not process anything that was just said to him. Harry raised an eyebrow as he waited for the other boy to speak. Finally, Neville seemed to shake himself and cast Harry a suspicious look while he seemed to think over what to ask.
“Fine,” Neville said, “Last year over the Christmas holidays, where did you accidentally run into me and why was I there?”
“I saw you at St. Mungos where you were visiting your parents,” Harry said quietly.
“What did my mother give me?” Neville asked in a stronger voice than Harry expected with a determined look on his face.
“She gave you a gum wrapper,” Harry answered. There was a moment of silence as Neville stared at Harry, his eyes taking in his features with a slight frown.
“Why don’t you look like Harry? A glamour?” Neville finally asked.
“No,” Harry said slowly. “This isn’t an easy explanation. I died and was turned into a vampire this summer. Apparently my mother and James Potter cast strong spells on me as a baby, including blood glamours, to hide my real appearance. When I died, they all broke and left me looking like this. Uh, that’s the short version,” he finished lamely while Neville gaped at him.
“So anyway,” Harry cleared his throat and Neville snapped his mouth shut. “We can talk more after class while you think over what I said but I just wanted to relieve the unnecessary stress you are dealing with. And Neville,” Harry said, deadly serious, “no one can know I am alive. No one.”
At Neville’s crestfallen look, Harry took a chance and asked, “Are you worried about Legilimency?” When Neville nodded, Harry said, “Don’t worry, I can prevent that from being a problem.”
Neville sagged with relief and Harry smiled slightly at his loyal friend. He looked to Hermione, who had left Harry to speak on his own, and said, “After class, bring him to our room so I can speak with him before Dumbledore does. Who knows where that old man is and what he’s up to?”
“Of course, Harry,” Hermione grabbed Neville’s arm and started to pull him back toward the castle, “we’ll see you after class.”
***
At lunch, the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were surprised when a special edition of the Daily Prophet was delivered. The paper rarely ever put out special reports, instead preferring to wait until the next day’s edition.
Many gasps were heard around the hall and whispers broke out immediately. The initial spike of many different emotions took Harry by surprise and he had to reign in his empathy so he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the maelstrom of feelings. He had honestly almost forgotten about his talent, he had grown so accustomed to it now that he was constantly around people.
“Well this answers my question from before,” Draco said next to him. When Harry raised an eyebrow at him in confusion, Draco handed him his copy of the paper that had just been delivered.
Albus Dumbledore questioned on neglect and abuse of the Boy-Who-Live
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Cannot Save You Now