To Live is the Rarest Thing

Chapter 22

“Wait, wait,” Fred said in a hurried voice while he stared at the wand in Harry’s hand with wide, panicked eyes.

George raised both of his hands in a gesture of surrender while he, too, paled drastically. “We won’t tell anyone, we swear.”

Harry’s smile was full of melancholia. “I know,” Harry said in a soothing voice, still keeping his wand aimed at the twins. And he did know that Fred and George, once they’d given their word, wouldn’t betray him. But these were a bunch of thirteen-year-olds, with no Occlumency shields to speak of.

“We can help you,” Fred rattled on, voice taking on a decidedly desperate edge. “We’re clever and resourceful.”

“It would probably help you to keep yourself hidden if you have two accomplices in the student population,” George added, his wide eyes pleading.

Harry considered that for a few seconds. Truth was, though, that Harry had no need for a bunch of kids to help him in any sort of way. He and Tom had their future planned out and so far there had been no real obstacles in their paths. A few minor hiccups, but nothing they couldn’t handle by themselves. And if something big did happen that required more help, they could ask Sirius, Remus, Regulus and even Severus to come to their aid. Actual adult wizards, not a bunch of kids barely in their teens.

Harry’s silence must have offered the twins some reassurance because they slowly relaxed a little and gave Harry curious looks. “Was it a time-travel accident?” George guessed.

“You act far too much like an adult for it to just be an aging potion,” Fred mused.

“Sorry, chaps,” Harry said and immediately followed that up with two obliviates before the twins even knew what hit them. He altered their memories so they believed they never had the Marauder’s Map that day, and that they might have lost it on the Hogwarts Express. He also made it so they believed they were caught sneaking out after curfew by their new Potions professor.

“Ten points from Gryffindor for being out after curfew,” Harry said and with that he plucked the map out of Fred’s hands, stepped around the twins and resumed his walk back to their quarters, Izzy bounding after him. By the time Harry had the map tucked away in his pocket, the twins shook their heads and looked around in slight confusion before heading back inside the castle to make their way to Gryffindor Tower.

Harry didn’t enjoy obliviating his friends, but he would enjoy being discovered by people other than the twins even less, so he did what he had to do. And the twins would be fine in the long run. Over his many lives Harry had become incredibly pragmatic like that, even if some might think his methods problematic and heartless.

Tom was already in his pyjamas when Harry entered their quarters. “Look what I’ve got!” Harry pulled the map out of his pocket and waved it in Tom’s face.

“That was quick.” Tom snatched it out of his hands while Harry went to get changed himself.

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” Tom muttered as he tapped his wand against the map while he joined Harry in the bedroom. Izzy sniffed around the room a bit, still getting used to their new surroundings, but eventually she settled on her pillow in the corner of the room. “This is a very intricate piece of magic,” Tom said while he ran his wand over the map time and again as he studied the corridors that had appeared on the paper.