Chapter Text
"You really think it was meant to be?" Harry looked at Hermione, his expression resigned for a change instead of the constipated look he had on since the accident. Hermione stopped for a brief moment.
"Considering your lack of conservative fear of danger and you running at it at times if this didn't happen something else was bound to."
"Hermione, you really know how to support me through hardest of times." Harry snarked, his eyes fond. He tilted his head. "So, where do you think I messed up the most? Me refusing to let go or me pushing the guy off our multidimensional flight?"
"You want me to tell you mate? When you decided to become an auror. Or when you choose to take the bag filled with bread instead of cash!"
Hermione exhaled loudly and continued to rub the dish fervently, as if trying to forget the fact that she was stuck with two dumbasses in an alternate dimension with no money, no identification, no way to get back. Rub the problems away, whoosh whoosh. But at least the plate was cleaner than it had any right to be in a place this shabby. Hermione's magic instead of a witches. She did everything to the hundred percent. Harry blew into the miniature clock in his hand. The dust blew into the air and Ron coughed from the ground, sniffing at his nose. He hopped down the counter and looked at the people drinking in the far tables. The sun hadn't gone down yet for the pub to have a wide audience.
"At least acquiring jobs was easy."
"Yeah, as easy as a confundo." Ron picked up the bucket of water next to him and pulled himself off the ground. He placed the bucket on the counter. Hermione side eyed Ron him but decided to let it go.
"Harry, don't you have work to do mate?"
"Wow, are you really kicking me out?"
"No, just, won't your boss be mad that you're spending the day here? To be frank, I never seen you do any work, at all."
The pub Hermione and Ron worked in put the line at two workers apparently. Harry was denied even a proper interview and had to find another place to apply to, preferably close to the pub. Ha! Jokes on them he got to hang around the bar all day doing nothing and got paid a pretty penny. Suck that the manager who looked at Harry like he had a finger in the spreading of the plague. (Get that? He can even be a little historical at times. He was totally overqualified for this rundown place anyways, he was an auror for Merlin's sake. You can eat that job application form John Doe!) And because of this rather, according to Harry, lucky rejection of his overqualified skills he got a job just across the streets a few shops down in an antique shop that also doubled for a pawn shop. The owner was a rich old man that had hefty money and ran the shop to avoid any additional taxes for his collections. He needed someone to keep a front at the store during the day.
The owner hired Harry at the first step he took into the shop, a great acknowledgement of his skills if you asked him, and made sure to tell him to get any pawned possession without any objection and that he would come to the shop once a month to make a list of the items that were allowed to be sold, and of course to give him his salary.
If you asked Harry, the man was a hoarder at best and wouldn't take his stuff to be sold that well, evident in the list he gave him. Harry would know hoarders well, a begrudgingly collected information, Mrs Figgs from next door was one too. He would know because the Dursleys left him at her doorstep too many times to count and one week he had to stay at her house for four whole days. FOUR WHOLE DAYS.
It was the four most difficult days of his life.
Including the days he spent horcrux hunting.
Nobody would know the things he went through in that house, nobody should. He lived and relived horrors that wasn't to be spoken. After that week he had many dreams involving getting lost inside a vast room filled with various boxes, unidentified cat furs, cat toys and suffocation from said things.He knew from those four days that you never touch a hoarders things even if it cost you your life. So he had taken to leaving the shop unattended at times to repel most of the customers away and only got a few pawned things from a few desperate customers and only sold one (1) broken clock that didn't look like it had seen the daylight since the day it had been made. He saved that clock and would not take any comments otherwise. He felt it was pretty justified he spent this much time around his best friends considering the situation.
"Well... It is what it is. That reminds me, have you been able to look at the time turner Hermione?"
Hermione threw the rag she had been cleaning with to the sink and calmly placed the plate on the counter. She had to take a step back as she got in the state to transfuse all the information she managed to gather the past few days. Ron sighed as she begun and took the said offending object out of his trousers pocket, hanging it to Hermione.
"While I haven't been able to pinpoint what she cast I have been able to figure out how the after effect came to be.-" She pointed them a spot near the time turners base. "-You see, this little dent in one of the circles caused the time turner to be vulnerable towards that spell in particular.-" Harry folded his sleeves and stepped near the sink continuing where she left. "-The incantation in the dented circle didn't work properly while the other ones made the time turner albeit work functionally. The spell she cast last, according to my theory, worked as a fulfilling incantation and replaced the nonfunctional parts creating- this!" She gestured at the air.
"So you are saying that if we can get the same spell, cast it on the time turner, we can get back to our time?"
Harry placed the plate on the counter. Hermione gave the plate a long lookover, he picked it up again without looking and continued rubbing it. She gave the time turner back to Ron and sighed.
"...That's the thing, I don't think the time turner spat us here with any reason it might have just sent us to closest dimension available or just ejected us at random. For us to travel between specific ones we need some sorts of an anchor and I don't think we have that. At least we can't have it 𝘯𝘰𝘸." Hermione rubbed at her temples. Her nails were broken, nail beds too damaged for just a few days.
"So we are just stuck here?" Ron's voice trembled in the end, gripping the bucket tight. Harry focused intensely on the plate as he rubbed it, his hands red, stinging from the soap.
"Well at least we don't have to run from a lunatic here, hell, we aren't even on the wanted list." Harry tried joking but it felt too forced. The silence feigned for a moment too long before Hermione spoke again, taking Harry and Ron by the arm.
"Hey, it's okay. We can begin new here. Begin with a new slate. At least we wouldn't be hoarded by people every step we take." She faced Ron fully. "We can live the modest life that we've wanted." Ron took her hand like an anchor as he teared up, trying not to cry. He looked at her in the eye.
"Without them?"
"Hey, hey... We did it before we can do it again." Hermione clasped his hand tighter as she wiped his tears, trying not to cry herself.
Hermione and Ron were trying to save money. To buy the house they wanted with their own little family, Hermione had said. Ron had saved up from being an auror for a few years while Hermione finished her NEWTs then she joined Ron and Harry in the ministry, choosing to be an unspeakable. They had been so close to their goal only for them to end up here of all places, with no way to go back. They only just lost Fred, how could he ever explain them this loss?
Harry felt a completely out of body experience, a creeping sense of dejavu, a realization. He took their future away from them, took them away from their families, the plans they had for the future. Again. This time with no hope of ever getting it back, with no hope that everything would go back to normal again. He took from them just like he did everytime. He dragged them with him. He of all things was their bad luck.
He dried his hands on his trousers, hands trembling. He slipped away as Hermione comforted a crying Ron not looking back once. Not wanting to see what he ruined, who he ruined.
The owner came in as he was leaving the bar and grimaced when he saw Harry. He nodded at him and pulled his sleeves down as he continued down the road to the small antique shop.
.
Harry saw a woman on the road, dressed in too colourful clothes for where she was. Must be in the wrong place, he thought, just like me. Her long skirt had oranges patterned over it, too bright like her hair. She seemed to be waiting down the road for something, someone her eyes searched. She reminded him of Ginny, but a youthful one, not weighted down by all that happened in the war, a carefree one but far from naive.
He left things with Ginny too premature, just when they were beginning. He got scared, too scared to try for something close to a relationship after their first kiss. He told himself after the reconstruction everything would get better, he would be a person again, he would breathe freely this time, would deal with what came next.
It didn't get better.
He thought people would see him differently, he fought alongside them after all.
They did see him differently, just not as one of them. They liked the thing he symbolized more when it most mattered. He couldn't move on, he felt like he had to constantly present just a version of himself rather than the full. He couldn't see Ginny again, too afraid of being reminded that he was different, that she would view him like she did years ago when they were both too little. He ran away with the weight of the life he lived. He ran away and she didn't wait. Their first kiss became their final and the weight of their relationship eased down. He became an auror after she joined the Holyhead Harpies. It freed him momentarily of his troubles, getting in on the action again, something he was used to, felt great.
He could remember a time in aunt Petunia's garden. It was before the noon, the weeds he had been plucking were never ending, the only trouble he had was his aunts garden and if his aunt would like the lily seeds he planted next to the petunias. Yes, Dudley still bothered him then, hitting him sometimes when he didn't do what was told but it wasn't that bad at the time. He could still remember the springs sun shining down on him, not too hot with the occasional cold breeze. He felt too at peace then, looking back. He got ignored, he still slept in a cupboard but he didn't have anyone labeling him, at least outside the Dursleys.
He sometimes still misses his aunt. Maybe she saw him as her burden but she made him feel as ordinary as he was. Clipping the grass in his aunts garden in a normal, ordinary saturday with no weight on his mind. He saw her after the war a few times, it was a few times too short on his mind. They met in a cafe not too far from London. She looked relieved to see him, at least it's what he thinks. He didn't want an explanation and she hadn't offered one, they talked about mundane things. He wanted to shake her, to demand what he did wrong to deserve that childhood, that cupboard but everytime he saw her it was as if he was the one who got shaked and lost all the words. It had been a few months since he last saw her. He wondered if she would even notice or would she just assume he moved on, moved on to build a life for himself.
He passed by the orange skirted woman and entered the shop. He flipped the sign back to open before he saw a man with red sunglasses sitting on his seat over the counter, flipping through pages of what appeared to be a document. He flipped the sign back to closed again as he took in. The man had a handsome face to go along with what Harry assumed was a slender build. His brown hair was slicked back and he wore a navy suit. He looked to be in his early thirties. His woes seemed to fade away to the background as the uncertainty took over.
"Hi?"
The man looked at him as he noticed him. Harry moved near the counter as the man stood up.
"Oh, you must be the clerk. Sorry, let me tidy up." He stacked the few documents laying around on the counter and placed them in his briefcase.
"And you are..?" He could hear Hermione from somewhere afar, chasting him for not locking the door of the store as he went out. As always Hermione was right.
The man offered his hand as he introduced himself. "Scott McAllen, I'm the owner's son."
He had a great smile, accented by his long cheekbones. His long fingers highlighted even more with Harry's red, stinging ones.
"Harry, and I must say, you look too handsome for that last name Mr McAllen." Oh wait, shit. This was the mid 60's, he wouldn't be mad over a man complimenting him, right?
Thankfully, McAllen laughed as he got in front of the counter, closer to Harry.
"It's my second surname, please call me Scott." The man looked like stepped out of a vogue magazine. Okay, Harry might have been too blinded by his attractiveness but that's what attractive people do to you! It was't fair. Or maybe a Renaissance painting might be a more accurate claim, Harry thought. He couldn't see his eyes but Harry didn't think the guy looked like his father at all, the owner of the shop was bald for Merlin's sake. He gestured at the cushioned antique chairs, them being antique is really important to Harry because that shade of green could only be remedied by the promise of the old and the expensive woodwork that surrounds it, there simply isn't any other way. They sat facing each other and Scott put the briefcase on the ground, fixing his front jacket.
"You must have a reason for coming here, right..?" He spoke in too much blanks for a conversation and he didn't like it, were pretty people really his demise? He felt as if he was having a sunstroke from all that shine coming from those disgustingly good taken care of white teeth.
"I'm also his lawyer, my father's that is, I was organizing a few properties on paper and wanted to have a list of the storage here, if you have it?"
"Yeah, I do, in fact-" He took out the list he found with sweat and blood the first day from the inside drawer of the counter, leaning over. "-I found it when I was cleaning the shelves." A major understatement. "It dates a few years back. I can do a relist but I think the inventory is the same. Sort of."
"I don't think that will be necessary at all." McAllen said, reading over the list and checking the counters and display cases for a few items listed.
He blurted out. "To be honest I think I saw my soul leaving my body when I saw a bloke sitting behind the counter. Thought I managed to get my arse sued in a week."
Scott laughed "Past list of offenses?" He leaned over his legs.
"Kind of, not yet, at least. I hope not ever. Do you want anything to drink?"
"Oh I don't want to be a bother. You wouldn't mind if I hang around a few? I kind of expected to write the list myself and have around 20 minutes until an appointment."
Harry made his way into the back of the shop and transfigured two mismatched cups, courtesy of his missing wand that was all he could do for a while. "Wow a whole twenty minutes for all of this?" He gestured to the mess around him as he poured some tea that he brewed hours ago, just before he made his way to the pub after opening.
"I can be quite efficient. No offense, I was prepared to boil you just a few minutes ago for the missing list." His voice had a tilt to it as if he was smirking. Harry floated the teapot back to it's place as he made his way back to the storefront. He placed the cups on the coffeetable like table that he called a creative effort and Scott looked surprised. At least that's what he thought with the glasses blocking his face and all.
"You have a teapot back there?" He took the teacup as he examined the intricate patterns around it, two hedgehogs chasing each other around cloud of smoke. "The queen's way, and way cheaper than coffee." Way cheaper in a way only tea in Britain in the 60's could be. All the coffee he had tried since coming here was a disappointment to say the least. The taste rivaled the dementor's kiss his 'father' saved him from. It sucked his soul out and left a bitter taste inside his mouth, leaving most to be desired.
"You are American, aren't you? The accent gave it away."
"Honolulu, Hawaii. Couldn't quite adapt to the accent when I was a child." He smiled into the teacup. He continued. "You aren't from around here either, you have that air around you."
He debated what to give this stranger he met approximately 8 minutes ago and allowed himself to tell him everything about himself from A to Z in an alphabetical order with highlights and a help section. The guy drank the cheap tea he served him and didn't comment on it's crappy taste, he decided that it was enough to dump all his lifestory without a filter whatsoever and felt it was a great decision. They never thought him stranger danger as a kid, you can't blame him for his tact or his predisposition to spill all his guts out for any passerby, literally. But of course he couldn't just just dump all the magic parts on a muggle, if they even existed here.
"Yeah, I imagine so. I came here a week ago, not voluntarily but I like it here enough, reminds me of my childhood." Especially the trapped in dark part of it. "I like the trinkets, they really speak out to the soul." He looked at the bloodied Winston Churchill painting on the corner in particular and tried not to grimace, failing when he tasted the spoiled remains of the tea leaves. He tried to cover the painting with a blanket when he first came here but no blanket could cover that big of a monstrosity. Every time he transfigured one it would be gone in the morning after. After the third attempt he got convinced it was a cursed object and stopped trying after the fourth day. He now ignores it to the best of his abilities but sometimes he feels as if the painting is calling him to the front shores. He heard a voice yesterday morning muttering 'We shall fight on the beaches' and decided to promptly ignore it, continuing to eat his bread between bread on the ground at the back of the shop. He didn't know if it was his highly imaginative mind or the proof that indeed magic exists here too. They sat in silence for a few moments before Scott downed his tea.
"I understand you, I really do. I got adopted and had to relocate." He sighed and put the teacup on the small table in front of him. "It hits you the hardest after the first few months, not belonging." Oh, that actually explains a lot. Scott took his briefcase and stood up, Harry stood up with him.
"Don't isolate yourself, yeah? Don't be a stranger." Harry smiled along with Scott in a nod. Scott looked at the big grandfather clock near the stuffed mountain lion, his glasses obscuring even the sides of his eyes. The glasses looking like a bugs eye if not for it's vibrant colour. "I better go, would you mind entertaining me once in a while?" He offered his hand again and Harry took it.
"If you wouldn't mind me annoying you." Harry smiled. Scott laughed but didn't let go of his hand, examining it's red tinge. Harry decided to spare him the question. "I think I have an allergy to soaps around here." Harry let go of his hand and Scott headed for the entrance of the shop.
"That's quite unfortunate." Scott made a sympathetic face. "'Till next time, Harry. It was nice meeting you." Harry waved a farewell and Scott continued down the road.
Harry flipped the sign to open.
He was left alone with his mind, once again.